IN a former number* we laid before our readers, the theory of demoniac possession prevalent among the Hindoos, and pointed out the resemblance which its actual phenomena present to a class of symptoms, that, throughout Europe, in the present age, are regarded as manifestations of physical disease; as varieties of lunacy or mania; forms of epilepsy, hysteria, chorea; or anomalous consequences of nervous derangement, or functional irregularity. We next noticed the kindred, though in theory the antagonist, state of divine possession, known by the name of uvusuru, the season of divine visitation; or, still more popularly, by that of Waren, the living, moving, wind, pneuma, or afflatus of deity; and, finding in the practical exemplifications of the latter, that, though there exists some difference in the accompanying circumstances, and in the supposed causes, immediate or remote, and a very great difference in the moral medium through which the possessed and the spectators behold the occurrence, and the consequent language which they hold regarding it, the radical phenomena in the person, and the consciousness of the individual supposed to be divinely possessed— cases of clear imposture, or mere self-excitement, and self-delusion, excepted-present no essential difference, though often less intense in degree, and less painful in character, from those exhibited in demoniac possession; being still, apparently, identical or analogous with what we encounter in some of the varieties of phrenetic, convulsive, or nervous disease; a few of the higher and more rare examples, affording a parallel to what has been observed in cases of theomania and mesmeric exaltation, whatever the real nature of these conditions be; finding, moreover, that the same possessions are viewed by different classes, and by

the same classes, at different stages, in opposite lights: the demoniac, frequently brightening into the divineand the divine, detected by some Ithuriel touch, or, by the test of time alone, casting off the counterfeit garment of light, in which they had exacted homage, and standing forth confessed, angels of darkness-demoniac tabernacles; finding this essential identity of phenomena amidst two opposite modes of moral judgment, and these two moral judgments themselves often melting into each other, we ventured to propose a theory, which would explain the difficulty, and account for the confusion; and, ascending beyond the present dual form of possession to the unity of the original idea, suggested the mode in, and the causes from which, the first notion of possession by deity, at a time when all deity was synonymous with malignant, supernatural power, became, in man's onward progress, modified, and divided into the two opposing notions, of a possession, evil and demoniac, and a possession, benignant and divine.

That theory, it must be remembered, is intended to account philosophically for the existence, among pagan nations, of the notion of a dual possession, in connexion with certain physical and psychological phenomena; which duality in the notion, is obviously false for all Christians, at least, will deny the possibility of the alleged possession of the Hindoos by Devee or Shivu being, in truth, a genuine divine possession; and will, therefore, agree with us, that both possessions are intrinsically of the same radical character, whatever that character may be which duality, therefore, being false, not being dependent on, or proceeding from two really antagonist powers, and not being, on the other hand, attributable, at least in the antagonism of its character and

operations, to a single demoniac influence, for this were to array Satan against Satan-must be sought for in purely natural and philosophical causes in the history of the human mind in the appearance of certain natural phenomena and in the impression which, at certain periods of man's advancement, these latter present to the former, as evidence or indicia of the spiritual world. So far only, to afford some solution for this mysterious duality of possession among pagan nations, this curious distinction between the demoniac and the divine, among those to whom the true divine was unknown, and all whose worshipped Numina, if they had any spiritual existence at all, we must regard as alike demoniac; philosophical reasoning is admissible, nay, is absolutely necessary: and so far it does not in any way trench on the religious question, i. e., on the real nature of these possessions, now stripped of their false duality, and reduced to one category. But the religious question is not far off; nay, it was this which originated, and lent its main interest to the whole inquiry, and it must, eventually, be encountered. For in truth, it is, in the first place, difficult to witness, or be cognisant of the facts which occur in the possessions of the Hindoos, without being convinced, that the cases belong precisely to the same class as those of the demoniacs of the Gospel Hindoo associations merely superseding Jewish or Chaldean. Who, for example, hearing a man, subject to epileptic fits, declare that, as he was passing along an estuary, a jhupaté or devil-blast, entered him, and that this devil (who by the way, conformably to the theory of demons laid down in our former paper, was described as the spirit of a wicked Mussulman deceased) would often throw him into the fire, or drive him into the sea, to which "ipsissima verba" we can attest from our own knowledge- could fail to recall the demoniac mentioned in Matt. xvii. and Mark ix.: or, who could listen to one, subject to the supposed

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divine possession-also, an epilepticasserting, that he was possessed by seven divine powers at once, and proceeding to enumerate them, as Girja Baee, &c., ; all varieties, be it observed, of the ever-recurring Hecate Devee who could hear this, as we with our own ears have heard it, and not recall the demon whose name was "Legion," or fail to remember that passage in Mark xvi. 9-" Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.'

On the other hand, no person having any extended medical experience, or even a moderate acquaintance with medical works, can fail to recognise in the main features of these Hindoo possessions, as well as in those of the Gospels, the common symptoms of lunacy, epilepsy, and other forms of disease, above mentioned.

This resemblance, indeed, which is so strong as to have been recognised where the disease is witnessed, as in Europe, simply as disease, and without supernatural associations, or clothing of any sort, is doubly striking when beheld, as among the Hindoos, arrayed in a spiritual drapery, and language in many points so analogous to that which the Gospels shew us was prevalent among the Jews.*

The question will then arise, were the cases of demoniac possession recorded in the Gospel, simply cases of physical disease, such as now met with commonly among Christians-rightly, indeed, viewed as evidence of the power of Satan, not according to the Jewish popular notion; but in that profounder sense, in which he is pronounced a murderer from the beginning the author of death, who hath the power of death-rightly, therefore, selected to afford by their cure, triumphant evidence of the power and mission of Him, who came to destroy the works of the devil; and who, in every exertion of His divine and beneficent power, whether it were the cure of the paralytic, or the cleansing of the lepers, or the raising

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of the dead, or the restoring of God's defaced image on the heart of the repentant sinner, who bathed His feet with her tears, "rebuked the devil," and drave him out of his usurped possession, no less than in the restoration of the demoniacs?

Such is, indeed, the view which several commentators have taken; Dr. Clarke, Newcome, and Hammond, among the rest. Dr. Clarke, for example, noticing the man with the unclean spirit, whose name was Legion, thus speaks:

"In the account of the cure performed by our Saviour on a maniac, in the country of the Gadarenes, these tombs are particularly alluded to."

says,

Newcome, in allusion to the deaf and dumb spirit mentioned in Mark ix. "He was an epileptic at the lunar period ;" and Hammond observes, "The young man's disease was the falling sickness;" and that "we have here a clear description of epilepsy."

But further, if this be so, was the language which our Lord made use of on some of these occasions, merely a merciful condescension to the weakness of His hearers, both patients and spectators?-were such phrases as"Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him” (Mark ix. 25); or, again, the query to the demoniac, in the county of the Gadarenes, "What is thy name?" (Mark v. 9); and our Lord's granting of the request to enter into the swine, in the word "Go" (Matt. viii. 32) was this language, this apparent sanctioning of the ideas of possession, entertained by the demoniacs themselves, and by their friends, only such a wise and merciful indulgence towards, and falling in with the predominant ideas of the maniac, as was, if not from the very nature of the disease, necessary, at least the most direct and efficacious method, to obtain, without violence or pain to the sufferer, the command over his spirit, and to effect his cure; analogous to that humouring of the prevalent illusion, which the ablest and most humane managers of lunatics invariably employ at the present day?

And again, was that remarkable passage of our Lord's, which occurs in Matt. xii. 43:-" When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh

through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return unto my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation,”—was this passage, which cannot be accounted for on the foregoing principle, as it was addressed, not to a demoniac, but to our Lord's auditors, and which, at the first reading at least, seems so difficult to understand on any other hypothesis than that of the reality of demoniac possession in the popular sense, was this only an inculcation of a profound and universal moral truth in the manner most ready of apprehension to his hearers through the medium of ideas which were current among them, and which he made subservient to this purpose: these ideas themselves being, perhaps, the mythic or personalized form of a deep and mournful verity-the causality and influence of the fallen angel in all the sufferings of man? We find, indeed, that this passage has been viewed by Gilpin and Newcome, as referring, in the language current among the Jews, to the observations made upon relapsed maniacs, and drawing a parallel between their case and the condition of those who, morally healed and enlightened for a time, relapsed again into guilt and unbelief. Gilpin writes thus upon it:-"The Jews, too, as Grotius says, were of opinion, that dæmons delighted in desert and solitary places. This might be grounded on observation. Madmen were driven from society, and are spoken of in the New Testament as living among the tombs' --and they who laboured under the power of melancholy would naturally resort to unfrequented parts of the country. The best interpretation, I think, of this passage is, that the Jews, who were once the people of God, and had had the evil spirits, as it were, driven out of them by the law of Moses, had now become more impenitent and more hardened than the Gentiles themselves." Newcome, on the same passage, says: "Our Lord may be supposed to say, in verses 43, 44, 45, in terms adapted to the popular superstitions, that, as the discase of maniacs

often increased in violence after a temporary recovery, so the Jews would go on to higher degress of wickedness."

With regard to the difficulty in the language used by the possessed themselves, such as the giving to themselves of specific names the prayer for permission, if cast out, to go into the swine the prayer not to be tormented our readers will be surprised to learn that every one of these peculiarities is to be found in the Hindoo demoniac possessions, excepting, it must be admitted, the phrase "before the time," which has no parallel in Hindoo traditions or belief. The petitions not to be tormented, and to be allowed to go elsewhere if cast out, are commonly addressed by the possessed to the Bhuktus, or Hindoo exorcists, who, by virtue of a divine possession in themselves, expel the devils from others. The petition not to torment them, refers, in their case, to the threats made by the exorcist, who, in commanding the devil to go out, threatens, if he refuse, to torment him, to twist him, to burn him, &c., by his thaumaturgic power; and sometimes, in fulfilment of this threat, he throws a little powder or ashes upon him, with a stern and commanding air, and the possessed shrieks out, as if actually burnt and tortured. Now this forcible expulsion from the body of the possessed-this command exercised over the system against the will this, perhaps for the moment agonizing crisis, which may be necessary to restore him to his sane and healthy state-is what the Hindoo demoniac dreads. Is there not something of the same seen in the Gadarene demoniac, who, as described in Mark, v. 7, 8, cried with a loud voice, and said to our Lord-"I adjure thee, by God, that thou torment me not. FOR, he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit." This, then, this forcible, and perhaps painful, expulsion, was apparently the torment which he deprecated. Indeed, we are thoroughly convinced that there existed among the Jews, schools of exorcism, exactly corresponding with some of those now in India, exactly corresponding with those once existing in Egypt as temples of Kanobos, according to the hints which we find in Van Dale and Jablonski; the close resemblance of which temples of the Egyptian Kanobos to the Mhuts or shrines of the Hindoo exorcist-power Kanoba,

and of both to the mesmeric seances of modern Europe, we shall hereafter have occasion to point out. The existence of such exorcisers in Judea, under the name of Perierchomenoi, or circumambulators, including in their number sons of the chief-priest Sceva, is proved from the passage in the Acts, xix. 13, 14, to which we referred in our former paper: and it is probable that the exorcists mentioned in Mark, ix. 38, and Luke, ix. 49, were of the same class, though they now began to make use of the name of Jesus, deeming it more efficacious than those of Abraham, Isaac, Solomon, &c., which they had before employed. It is clear, too, from the question put by our Lord, "By whom do your children cast them out?" that these Jewish exorcists, who had no connexion with him, were, at least sometimes, successful in their attempts; and we know from Josephus (vide Antiqu. viii. 2, 5). that such a system of exorcism pre vailed among the Jews, even from the time of Solomon, to whom it is said to have been communicated by God for the general benefit of mankind. They employed, we are told, for this purpose, certain forms of incantation and exorcism, assisted and recommended by previous ceremonies. Josephus adds, that this method of expulsion, handed down from Solomon, was frequently practised with success in his own time, and relates a particular instance of such expulsion, exhibit ed in the presence of the Emperor Vespasian. Now, from the preliminary questions and forms which our Lord employed, in his healing of the demoniacs, it seems very probable that in this, as in the case of using clay and spittle to the blind and the deaf, he was pleased to employ some of the formula of these very schools-not indeed as efficient means of operationexcept in so far as these might happen to be really efficacious (however mythically disguised) for the management or cure of madness or diseasebut from that benevolent condescension to the weakness of his brethren, which characterized the whole of his divine mission.

With regard, in particular, to our Lord's asking the possessed his name, and receiving for answer "My name is legion," we must observe, that such question and reply form a part, and generally the commencement of the

process of exorcism, at almost every exorcist shrine in India. And it is a curious fact, that, if the possessed be a Mahomedan, he generally gives a Mahomedan demoniac name in reply; if a Hindoo, a Hindoo mythological name; and, as with us, black is the diabolical colour, and Moors and negroes are associated in our minds with magicians, and evil spirits; and magic is black; and the devil himself is supposed to dwell familiarly with his servants, in the shape of a black dog-so in the lower and more popular demonology of the Hindoos-a lesser mythology in itself we encounter one devil classed as the spirit of a deceased Moosoolman ; another as the spirit of a deceased "Firingee," or Portuguese Christian— the latter distinguished, when visible, by wearing a hat. The trials for witchcraft throughout Europe exhibit a somewhat similar peculiarity-the possessed give replies, harmonizing, in general, with Christian ideas on possession and demonology, but singularly varied by notions and traditions purely local. This fact, that each demoniac uses names to which he is accustomed from previous associations, leads us to suppose it probable that "LEGION" was a name well known to the popular Syrian demonology, applied, perhaps, to those who seemed, from the violence of their actions, possessed by many devils. The demoniac himself says, in Mark, v. 9, sysàv ivoμa pas, “Legion is name to me," not to us. And, v. 7"I adjure thee by God that thou torment ME not"— μn μs faoavions—and so, also, we read in Luke, viii. 28. In Matt. viii. 29, indeed, it is "to torment us," but here there are two demoniacs speaking, as stated in the verse immediately preceding. What is still more remarkable, our Lord himself, in v. 8, addresses the spirit in the singular number-"Come out of the man (thou) unclean spirit" [Eiads To πνεύμα το ἀκάθαρτον εκ του ανθρώπου]; and it is not until after the demoniac had said (Mark, v. 9) "My name is Legion [or Legion is name to me] for we are many," and after "he [the man] besought him much that he would not send them [the devils] away out of the country" (v. 10)-or, as it is expressed in v. 12" all the devils besought him, saving, send us into the swine; or, as Matthew relates it, viii. 31-" So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into

the herd of swine"-it is not until then that our Lord, humouring, must we not say it,the idea which possessed the maniac, uses the plural number, and says—“ Go (ye) vrayır."—Matt. viii. 32. As to any proof of a real plurality in the daimons, from the precipitate flight of the swine down the steep, we know that a single man, rushing on a sudden, and with violent action, towards a flock of sheep, will send them all running in terror in one direction; and this is the explanation which has, in fact, been adopted by more than one commentator, regarding the destruction of the swine.

The conclusion which we would draw from the foregoing observations is, that the name given by any of these parties is of no weight whatever as an argument, either pro or con, as regards the true character of these anomalous seizures and conditions; since we see, in different systems, the parties always follow the old and habitual associations of the respective countries, creeds, and popular beliefs, in which they were brought up. The Jewish demoniacthe Hindoo in Waren-the Christian witch-the modern mesmeric patientall speak in their second personality, according to what they have heard or read before. The names or accounts, therefore, which they give, cannot be held to be the true names or accounts of their several states. This position, however, though it will prevent us from receiving any demoniac utterance as decisive evidence of the reality of possession, leaves us in the same state of doubt as before, and will not warrant our drawing the conclusion that there are not such possessions; for the possession may be real, though the name and the account given of it be false. It is certainly, on the one hand, a strong presumption against any of these utterances proceeding from real devils, that they should all speak so differently in different times and places, and so exactly reflect back the associa tions of the party; but, on the other, if Satan have power to send his angels into men, and if he act upon a consis tent principle, it would consort with this principle to assume, chameleonlike, the particular shade of falsehood which may happen to prevail in each time and place, and give it strength; so that the spirit which would speak in the Greek Pythoness as Apollo, in the Mahomedan as Sultan Mahomed, in