Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death Part 36

After an agitated sleep, Achille woke up with the conviction that he was possessed with a devil. And in fact his mouth now uttered blasphemies, his limbs were contorted, and he repeatedly made unsuccessful efforts at suicide. Ultimately he was taken to the Salpetriere, and placed under Professor Janet, who recognised at once the cla.s.sic signs of possession.

The poor man kept protesting against the odious outrages on religion, which he attributed to a devil inside him, moving his tongue against his will. "Achille could say, like a celebrated victim of possession, Pere Surin, 'It is as though I had two souls; one of which has been dispossessed of its body and the use of its organs, and is frantic at the sight of the other soul which has crept in.'"

It was by no means easy to get either at Achille or at his possessing devil. Attempts to hypnotise him failed, and any remonstrance was met with insult. But the wily psychologist was accustomed to such difficulties, and had resort to a plan too insidious for a common devil to suspect. He gently moved the hand of Achille in such a way as to suggest the act of writing, and having thus succeeded in starting automatic script, he got the devil thus to answer questions quietly put while the raving was going on as usual. "I will not believe in your power," said Professor Janet to the malignant intruder, "unless you give me a proof." "What proof?" "Raise the poor man's left arm without his knowing it." This was done--to the astonishment of poor Achille--and a series of suggestions followed, all of which the demon triumphantly and unsuspectingly carried out, to show his power. Then came the suggestion to which Professor Janet had been leading up. It was like getting the djinn into the bottle. "You cannot put Achille soundly to sleep in that arm-chair!" "Yes, I can!" No sooner said than done, and no sooner done than Achille was delivered from his tormentor--from his own tormenting self.

For there in that hypnotic sleep he was gently led on to tell all his story; and such stories, when told to a skilled and kindly auditor, are apt to come to an end in the very act of being told.

Achille had been living in a day-dream; it was a day-dream which had swollen to these nightmare proportions, and had, as it were, ousted his rational being; and in the deeper self-knowledge which the somnambulic state brings with it the dream and the interpretation thereof became present to his bewildered mind.

The fact was that on that fateful journey when Achille's troubles began he had committed an act of unfaithfulness to his wife. A gloomy anxiety to conceal this action prompted him to an increasing taciturnity, and morbid fancies as to his health grew on him until at last his day-dream led him to imagine himself as actually dead. "His two days' lethargy was but an episode, a chapter in the long dream."

What then was the natural next stage of the dream's development? "He dreamt that, now that he was dead indeed, the devil rose from the abyss and came to take him. The poor man, as in his somnambulic state he retraced the series of his dreams, remembered the precise instant when this lamentable event took place. It was about 11 A.M.: a dog barked in the court at the moment, incommoded, no doubt, by the smell of brimstone; flames filled the room; numbers of little fiends scourged the unhappy man, or drove nails into his eyes, and through the wounds in his body Satan entered in to take possession of head and heart."

From this point the pseudo-possession may be said to have begun. The fixed idea developed itself into sensory and motor automatisms--visions of devils, uncontrollable utterances, automatic script--ascribed by the automatist to the possessing devil within.

And now came the moment when the veracity, the utility, of this new type of psychological a.n.a.lysis was to be submitted to yet another test. From the point of view of the ordinary physician Achille's condition was almost hopeless. Physical treatment had failed, and death from exhaustion and misery seemed near at hand. Nor could any appeal have been effective which did not go to the hidden root of the evil, which did not lighten the load of morbid remorse from which the whole series of troubles had developed. Fortunately for Achille, he was in the hands of an unsurpa.s.sed minister to minds thus diseased. Professor Janet adopted his usual tactics--what he terms the _dissociation_ and the gradual _subst.i.tution_ of ideas. The incidents of the miserable memory were modified, were explained away, were slowly dissolved from the brooding brain, and the hallucinatory image of the offended wife was presented to the sufferer at what novelists call the psychological moment, with pardon in her eyes. "Such stuff as dreams are made of!"--but even by such means was Achille restored to physical and moral health; he leads now the life of normal man; he no longer "walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain."

II. C. I give here the case of Dr. Azam's often quoted patient, Felida X.[216] In this case the somnambulic life finally became the normal life; as the "second state," which appeared at first only in short, dreamlike accesses, gradually replaced the "first state," which finally recurred but for a few hours at long intervals. But the point on which I wish to dwell is this: that Felida's second state was altogether _superior_ to the first--physically superior, since the nervous pains which had troubled her from childhood disappeared: and mentally superior, inasmuch as her morose, self-centred disposition was exchanged for a cheerful activity which enabled her to attend to her children and her shop much more effectively than when she was in the "etat bete," as she called what was once the only personality that she knew. In this case, then, which at the time Dr. Azam wrote--1887--was of nearly thirty years' standing, the spontaneous readjustment of nervous activities--the second state, no memory of which remained in the first state--resulted in an improvement profounder than could have been antic.i.p.ated from any moral or medical treatment that we know. The case shows us how often the word "normal" means nothing more than "what happens to exist." For Felida's _normal_ state was in fact her _morbid_ state: and the new condition, which seemed at first a mere hysterical abnormality, brought her at last to a life of bodily and mental sanity which made her fully the equal of average women of her cla.s.s.

A very complete account of the case, reproducing in full almost the whole of Dr. Azam's report, is given in Dr. A. Binet's _Alterations de la Personnalite_ (pp. 6-20), and I briefly summarise this here:--

Felida was born at Bordeaux, in 1843, of healthy parents. Towards the age of thirteen years she began to exhibit symptoms of hysteria. When about fourteen and a half she used suddenly to feel a pain in her forehead, and then to fall into a profound sleep for some ten minutes, after which she woke spontaneously in her secondary condition. This lasted an hour or two; then the sleep came on again, and she awoke in her normal state. The change at first occurred every five or six days. As the hysterical symptoms increased, Dr. Azam was called in to attend her in 1858.

His report of that time states that in the primary state she appears very intelligent and fairly well educated; of a melancholy disposition, talking little, very industrious; constantly thinking of her maladies and suffering acute pains in various parts of the body, especially the head--the _clou hysterique_ being very marked; all her actions, ideas, and words perfectly rational. Almost every day what she calls her _crise_ comes on spontaneously--often while she is sitting at her needlework--preceded by a brief interval of the profound sleep, from which no external stimulus can rouse her.

On waking into the secondary state, she appears like an entirely different person, smiling and gay; she continues her work cheerfully or walks about briskly, no longer feeling all the pains she has just before been complaining of. She looks after her ordinary domestic duties, goes out, walks about the town, and pays calls; behaves in every way like an ordinary healthy girl.

In this condition she remembers perfectly all that has happened on previous occasions when she was in the same state, and also all the events of her normal life; whereas during her normal life she forgets absolutely the occurrences of the secondary state. She declares constantly that whatever state she is in at the moment is the normal one--her _raison_--while the other one is always her _crise_.

The change of character in the secondary state is strongly marked; she becomes gay and vivacious--almost noisy; instead of being indifferent to everything, her sensibilities--both imaginative and emotional--become excessive. All her faculties appear more developed and more complete. The condition, in fact, is much superior to her ordinary one, as shown by the disappearance of her physical pains, and especially by the state of her memory.

She married early, and her _crises_ became more frequent, though there were occasionally long intervals when they never came at all.

But the secondary state, which in 1858 and 1859 only occupied about a tenth part of her life, gradually encroached more and more on the primary state, till the latter began to appear only at intervals and for a brief s.p.a.ce of time.

In 1875 Dr. Azam, having for long lost sight of her, found her a mother of a family, keeping a shop. Now and then, but more and more rarely, occurred what she called her _crises_--really relapses into her _primary_ condition. These were excessively inconvenient, since she forgot in them all the events of what was now her ordinary life, all the arrangements of her business, etc.; for instance, in going to a funeral, she had a _crise_, and consequently found it impossible to remember who the deceased person was. She had a great dread of these occurrences, though, by long practice, she had become very skilful at concealing them from every one but her husband; and the transition periods in pa.s.sing from one state to another, during which she was completely unconscious, were now so short as to escape general notice. A peculiar feeling of pressure in the head warned her that the _crise_ was coming, and she would then, for fear of making mistakes in her business, hastily write down whatever facts she most needed to keep in mind.

While the primary state lasted, she relapsed into the extreme melancholy and depression that characterised her early life, these being, in fact, now aggravated by her troublesome amnesia. She also lost her affection for her husband and children, and suffered from many hysterical pains and other symptoms which were much less acute in the secondary state. By 1887, however, the primary state only occurred every month or two, lasting only for a few hours at a time.

APPENDICES

TO

CHAPTER IV

IV. A. From _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 389; related by Mr.

Herbert J. Lewis, 19 Park Place, Cardiff.

In September 1880, I lost the landing order of a large steamer containing a cargo of iron ore, which had arrived in the port of Cardiff. She had to commence discharging at six o'clock the next morning. I received the landing order at four o'clock in the afternoon, and when I arrived at the office at six I found that I had lost it. During all the evening I was doing my utmost to find the officials of the Custom House to get a permit, as the loss was of the greatest importance, preventing the ship from discharging. I came home in a great degree of trouble about the matter, as I feared that I should lose my situation in consequence.

That night I dreamed that I saw the lost landing order lying in a crack in the wall under a desk in the Long Room of the Custom House.

At five the next morning I went down to the Custom House and got the keeper to get up and open it. I went to the spot of which I had dreamed, and found the paper in the very place. The ship was not ready to discharge at her proper time, and I went on board at seven and delivered the landing order, saving her from all delay.

HERBERT J. LEWIS.

I can certify to the truth of the above statement.

THOMAS LEWIS

(Herbert Lewis's father),

H. WALLIS.

_July 14th, 1884_.

[Mr. E. J. Newell, of the George and Abbotsford Hotel, Melrose, adds the following corroborative note:--]

_August 14th, 1884._

I made some inquiries about Mr. Herbert Lewis's dream before I left Cardiff. He had been searching throughout the room in which the order was found. His theory as to how the order got in the place in which it was found, is that it was probably put there by some one (perhaps with malicious intent), as he does not see how it could have fallen so.

The fact that Mr. H. Lewis is exceedingly short-sighted adds to the probability of the thing which you suggest, that the dream was simply an unconscious act of memory in sleep. On the other hand he does not believe it was there when he searched.

E. J. NEWELL.

Can there have been a momentary unnoticed spasm of the ciliary muscle, with the result of extending the range of vision? It may suffice here to quote--that my suggestion may not seem too fantastic--a few lines from a personal observation of a somnambule by Dr. Dufay.[217]

"It is eight o'clock: several workwomen are busy around a table, on which a lamp is placed. Mdlle. R. L. directs and shares in the work, chatting cheerfully meantime. Suddenly a noise is heard; it is her head which has fallen sharply on the edge of the table. This is the beginning of the access. She picks herself up in a few seconds, pulls off her spectacles with disgust, and continues the work which she had begun;--having no further need of the concave gla.s.ses which a p.r.o.nounced myopia renders needful to her in ordinary life;--and even placing herself so that her work is less exposed to the light of the lamp."

Similarly, and yet differently, Miss Goodrich-Freer has had an experience where the t.i.tle of a book quite unknown to her, which she had vainly endeavoured to read where it lay at some distance from her, presented itself in the crystal. In such a case we can hardly suppose any such spasmodic alteration in ocular conditions as may perhaps occur in trance.

IV. B. This case was recorded by Professor W. Romaine Newbold of the University of Pennsylvania, in a paper ent.i.tled "Subconscious Reasoning," in the _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. xii. pp. 11-20.

I give the following extracts:--

For [these] cases I am indebted to another friend and colleague, Dr. Herman V. Hilprecht, Professor of a.s.syrian in the University of Pennsylvania. Both occurred in his own experience, and I write the account of the first from notes made by me upon his narrative.

During the winter, 1882-1883, he was working with Professor Friedrich Delitzsch, and was preparing to publish, as his dissertation, a text, transliteration, and translation of a stone of Nebuchadnezzar I. with notes. He accepted at that time the explanation given by Professor Delitzsch of the name Nebuchadnezzar--"_Nabu-kudurru-usur_," "Nebo protect my mason's pad, or mortar board," _i.e._, "my work as a builder." One night, after working late, he went to bed about two o'clock in the morning. After a somewhat restless sleep, he awoke with his mind full of the thought that the name should be translated "Nebo protect my boundary." He had a dim consciousness of having been working at his table in a dream, but could never recall the details of the process by which he arrived at this conclusion. Reflecting upon it when awake, however, he at once saw that _kudurru_, "boundary," could be derived from the verb _kadaru_, to enclose.

Shortly afterwards he published this translation in his dissertation, and it has since been universally adopted.

I quote this experience, in itself of a familiar type, on account of its interest when viewed in connection with the more curious dream next to be related. I was told of the latter shortly after it happened, and here translate an account written in German by Professor Hilprecht, August 8th, 1893, before the more complete confirmation was received.

"One Sat.u.r.day evening, about the middle of March, 1893, I had been wearying myself, as I had done so often in the weeks preceding, in the vain attempt to decipher two small fragments of agate which were supposed to belong to the finger-rings of some Babylonian. The labour was much increased by the fact that the fragments presented remnants only of characters and lines, that dozens of similar small fragments had been found in the ruins of the temple of Bel at Nippur with which nothing could be done, that in this case furthermore I had never had the originals before me, but only a hasty sketch made by one of the members of the expedition sent by the University of Pennsylvania to Babylonia. I could not say more than that the fragments, taking into consideration the place in which they were found and the peculiar characteristics of the cuneiform characters preserved upon them, sprang from the Ca.s.site period of Babylonian history (_circa_ 1700-1140 B.C.); moreover, as the first character of the third line of the first fragment seemed to be KU, I ascribed this fragment, with an interrogation point, to King Kurigalzu, while I placed the other fragment, as uncla.s.sifiable, with other Ca.s.site fragments upon a page of my book where I published the uncla.s.sifiable fragments. The proofs already lay before me, but I was far from satisfied. The whole problem pa.s.sed yet again through my mind that March evening before I placed my mark of approval under the last correction in the book. Even then I had come to no conclusion. About midnight, weary and exhausted, I went to bed and was soon in deep sleep. Then I dreamed the following remarkable dream. A tall, thin priest of the old pre-Christian Nippur, about forty years of age and clad in a simple abba, led me to the treasure chamber of the temple, on its south-east side. He went with me into a small, low-ceiled room without windows, in which there was a large wooden chest, while sc.r.a.ps of agate and lapis-lazuli lay scattered on the floor. Here he addressed me as follows: 'The two fragments which you have published separately upon pages 22 and 26, belong together, are not finger-rings, and their history is as follows. King Kurigalzu (_circa_ 1300 B.C.) once sent to the temple of Bel, among other articles of agate and lapis lazuli, an inscribed votive cylinder of agate. Then we priests suddenly received the command to make for the statue of the G.o.d Ninib a pair of earrings of agate. We were in great dismay, since there was no agate as raw material at hand. In order to execute the command there was nothing for us to do but cut the votive cylinder into three parts, thus making three rings, each of which contained a portion of the original inscription. The first two rings served as earrings for the statue of the G.o.d; the two fragments which have given you so much trouble are portions of them. If you will put the two together you will have confirmation of my words. But the third ring you have not yet found in the course of your excavations, and you never will find it.' With this, the priest disappeared. I awoke at once and immediately told my wife the dream that I might not forget it. Next morning--Sunday--I examined the fragments once more in the light of these disclosures, and to my astonishment found all the details of the dream precisely verified in so far as the means of verification were in my hands.

The original inscription on the votive cylinder read: 'To the G.o.d Ninib, son of Bel, his lord, has Kurigalzu, pontifex of Bel, presented this.'