POSSESSION. — In the earlier period of his career man did not realize, as we do, the ditt'erence
between him.self and the animals, plants, and objects around him. He thought, and in the lower culture still thinks, of these as in many respects like himself. When, therefore, through dreanjs and other exjierienccs, he realized that his body was iuhabitcu and animated by a s]>irit, he also thought that the falling rock, the running river, the waving tree, the sun moving through the sky, were each inhabited by a spirit or spirits like that within himself ; everj' thing and every affair were animated by their own partit'ular s])irit. This ani- mistic belief was, and is still, held Ijy the men of the lower culture, by the jirinutive Semites and Aryans and the races siJiinging from them, by the modern Chinese, and even by educated Europeans today. *
Some spirits, like vampires, were corporeal, but the majority, if not all, were free to move about, and able, nay anxious, to enter into some relation- ship with man. As a person's ordinary speech and action sprang from the action of his own spirit (minor differences arising because each had his own individual spirit), so extraordinary conduct of any kind was due to the impact of a spirit other than his own. The man was not himself, he was out of his mind, and consequently another was in.t
The contact of a spirit and a person might be at the instance of the person, through his eating laurel leaves, inhaling fumes or incense, drinking blood or an intoxicant, drumming, dancing, steady gazing.t It might, again, be on the initiative of the spirit. The contact might be either obse.ssion, in which the spirit acts from without, or embodi- ment, in which it actually enters into the person. § Such expressions, in regard, e.g., to the Holy Spirit, as ' come upon,' 'was upon,' 'fell upon,' 'poured out on,' ' baptized with,' pointing in the direction of obsession, others, as 'tilled with,' 'God gave them,' ' they received the Holy Spirit,' pointing in the direction of embodiment, indicate that the spirit took the initiative.il
The conception of spirits underwent development along two distinct, though not quite independent, lines. Certain spirits, coming to be recognized as stronger than others, gradually attained a higher dignity, a more elaborate ritual, and a wider sway. They got names and became deities. Further, some of these becoming more important than others, came to be the chief deities of tribes and nations, and then, like Zeus, the head of a pan- theon. A strong belief in such a deity in some cases almost attained to, and in the case of Jaliweh actually reached, monotheism, or at least what Hogarth calls 'super-Monotheism.' IT In some re- ligions, as Zarathustrianism and the cults of Meso- potamia, the inferior spirits were grouped into grades as angels, archangels, principalities, and powers, at whose head there sometimes stood a supreme spirit as the Satan. Again, as primitive man, believing that all things which occurred to, or within, him arose from the action of a spirit — generally a minor spirit — distinguished between things pleasant, beneficial, or according to his standard, good, and the reverse, he came to dis- tinguish between spirits benevolent and beneficent,
• See, e.g.,G. H. Toy, Introduction to the History of Religions, Boston, 1!)13, p. 293; G. T. Bettanv, Primitiue Reliqiom, London, 1891, pp. 107, 122, 133 ; .1. H. kin», The Supernatural, 2 vols., do., 1892, i. 177, 199 ; JE iv. 616 (' E. Johanan knew of 300 kinds of shedim living near the town of Shihin ') ; J. L. Nevius, Demon PoSi^ession and Allied Themes, London, 1897, p. 6; R. Howton, Divine Healing and Denton Possession, do., 1905, p. 1 ; the writings of E. Swedeiiborg ; J. Duncan, Col- loquia Peripatetica^, Edinburgh, 1871, pp. S9, 40; DCG i. 4381".
t EBrn xxii. 176. t lb. xxii. 174.
§ fl£l/?iv. 2215.
II Lk P5 22.5, Ac 10« 1115 1045 1116, Lk 141, Ac 2* 4'! 158 192.
If C. H, Toy, Introd. to the Hist, of Religions, p. 293 ; EBr^i viii. 7 ; D. G. Hogarth, ThA Ancient East, London, 1914, p. 23.
^•ossl•:ssIO^^
POSSESSION
249
and otliera malevolent and miilelicent.* When one is so fortunate as to be able to ]in'aict future events (Ac 21"), or to indicate the will of God (13- 15-* 1(5"), then clearly one is lilled with the Holy Spirit. This, riylitly called 'inspiration,' is not found in the lower culture, except occasionally, wlien it is due to the spirits of the dead, though it has been nuvintained that the deliverances of the classic oracles were f^iven by a divine bein^.t On the other hand, a person who becomes hot and burnini;, is twisted or tortured, slowly pines away as if being eaten up, is thrown helpless on the ground, into water or lire, writhing and jerking, exhibits the strength of a giant or the fury of a wild beast, strips ort' his clothes, raves in a voice not his own — such a one seems to be, and was by the men of the lower culture believed to be, possessed by a malelicent spirit. J This belief acted in two ways. When the seizures were intermittent the suHerer believed that at the period of seizure he became possessed by a malevolent spirit, and even gave it a name. Again, a person who imagined that a harmful spirit had entered into him acted in the waj' possessed people were conceived inevit- ably to act, and this became in its turn a proof positive of such possession.§ The entry of such a hurtful spirit is of course involuntary.||