The spirit-rapper; an autobiography
“But there are some difficulties, under the point of view of
jurisprudence, in the way of your doctrine of Satanic invasion,”
interposed Jack. “Suppose a man possessed by a devil kills another, or
commits some act which the law regards as a crime, is the man guilty,
and to be punished?”
“You are a lawyer,” replied Mr. Merton, “and nothing is more natural
than that you should ask that question. The difficulties you suggest,
however, are no greater on the supposition of Satanic invasion than on
any other theory. They are the same, whether we contend that the person
is subjected by Satan or by mesmerism, by a primitive or elemental force
of nature, or by what some manigraphs call madness without delirium, or
instinctive insanity. The question turns on the fact whether the man is
involuntarily and completely subjugated, or whether he retains the
exercise of his free will; or, in other words, whether the actions are
really his, or those of the power that oppresses or subjugates him. For
myself, I think our courts are beginning to adopt a very dangerous
doctrine with regard to insanity, and are admitting the plea of insanity
where it ought not to be entertained. In an Eastern city, not long
since, it was gravely contended by counsel, that a man must be held to
be insane and irresponsible, because his crimes were so aggravated.
Under this lies a dangerous principle, which, in its development, will
lead to the conclusion that all great criminals are insane and
irresponsible. But in regard to another class of cases, cases in which
there obviously is no inebriety, ill health, or delirium, and yet in
which the person seems to himself to be irresistibly urged by a foreign
power, against his will, to the commission of horrible acts, I think the
law, or the practice of the courts, is quite too severe. I take a case
cited to my hand by a respectable French writer, that of a father who
killed his young son. The father was an honest, temperate, and
industrious man, of a mild and affectionate disposition, and it is clear
that he loved his son with great tenderness.
“‘The night in which I did the deed,’ says the unhappy father, ‘I was so
agitated, that I trembled in my whole body.... I am unable to conceive
how I could commit a crime so atrocious. I was so agitated, so troubled
in my brain, and felt something within me so irresistible, that I was
_obliged_ to commit the deed. I was fasting. I was not sick; and I am
wholly unable to explain how it was possible for me to do it. Twice
before I had had the horrible inclination to kill my child. The first
time was last winter, about six weeks before Easter. I was at work
making a sledge, and my boy, as usual, was playing near me. In his
playfulness, he climbed upon my back, and clasped me round the neck. My
wife, thinking he would hinder me from working, called him away; but I
loved him so much, that I patiently endured all his frolicsome tricks. I
took him upon my knees to play with him, and in that very moment I
thought I heard a voice within me, saying, ‘You cannot help it. Your
child must die, and you must kill him.’ I was startled, seized with
fear, my heart palpitated, and I instantly set him down, rushed out of
the room, and went to the mill, where I stayed till nightfall, till my
evil thought passed away.
“‘The second time was one morning a few days before Easter. My wife was
busy with the affairs of the house, and I was lying on the bed, with my
child near me. He asked me for some bread, and I gave him a cake, which
he eat with great pleasure. At that moment, as I was watching him with
tender affection, I thought I heard again a voice within me, saying, in
a low tone, ‘You must kill him.’ I shuddered at myself, experienced
violent palpitations, and felt a heavy oppression within my breast. I
instantly jumped from the bed, and ran out of the house. I began saying
my prayers, went to the stable, and busied myself with various labors,
and did all in my power to drive away the evil thoughts that beset me. I
finally succeeded, but not till midday, in regaining the mastery of
myself, and in recovering my tranquillity. In neither of these cases was
I drunk, or had been for many weeks previous; nor was I at the third
access, when I took the life of my child.’[6]
-----
Footnote 6:
_Pneumatalogie des Esprits_, p. 186 _et seq._
-----
“Now here was a man who was not sick, who was not in liquor, who was not
delirious, who was evidently a mild and loving father, and who yet, in
consequence of an impression, killed his child, whom evidently he loved
with all a father’s fondness. This man the courts condemn as a horrid
murderer.”
“And why not?” said Jack. “It is evident his free will remained. Twice
he resisted the temptation, and regained the mastery of himself; and
nothing proves that he might not have done so the third time, if he had
done his best.”
“It is possible,” replied Mr. Merton, “and therefore I do not say the
man was absolutely innocent. But we see he did struggle against the evil
thought, and twice successfully; and he yielded even at last only from
an impression, all but irresistible at the moment, and therefore he
cannot be said to have had the full possession of his freedom. In
proportion as his power of external resistance was diminished by the
impression, or the mysterious influence that acted on him, was
diminished his responsibility. He who yields only to a powerful
temptation, is less guilty than he who does the same deed under only a
slight or feeble temptation. The courts should take cognizance of the
strength of the impression under which the man acts, and take into the
account the more or less resistance that was possible. If the man
succumbs only after a long and severe struggle, that should go to
mitigate his guilt.
“Dr. Cazeauvielh relates the case of a woman who attempted to kill her
infant sleeping in the cradle. ‘I am,’ said she to the doctor, ‘the most
miserable of beings. Never was anybody like me. The other day I
approached the cradle, and I looked upon my darling. Fearing I should do
him harm, I went away to the house of my neighbor. Then, in spite of
myself, I returned, for _something_ seemed to push me. I went near my
infant, and attempted to choke it with my hands, but my legs failed me,
and I became senseless.’ This woman, Dr. Cazeauvielh tells us, loved her
relations and her child, and her intellectual faculties were not
injured. It is true he regards her as insane; but how can there be
insanity, with the full possession of the intellectual faculties? She
struggled against the _something_ that pushed her, and had a horror of
the crime; the law ought, therefore, to treat her with indulgence, yet
it does not, because there really is here no delirium. In the middle
ages, which you regard as so barbarous and cruel, she would not have
been held responsible, because her act would have been explained as the
result of a foreign power, which for the time being overcame her
resistance, and pushed her to do that for which she had a natural
horror.
“Yet a difference should no doubt be made between cases like these,
where the unhappy person commits a deed for which he has a natural
horror, and against which he struggles, and those in which the criminal,
so to speak, has a natural relish for his crime, delights, and persists
in it. Take the case of Gilles Garnier, which occupied the attention of
all France in the reign of Louis the Thirteenth. ‘This man-wolf,’
(_loup-garou_,) says Bodin, ‘carried away a girl from ten to twelve
years of age, killed her with his hands and teeth, and eat the flesh
from her thighs and arms. Some time afterwards he strangled a boy ten
years old, and eat his flesh. Still later he killed another boy, from
twelve to thirteen, with the intention of eating him, but was
prevented.’ He was arrested, convicted, and burnt alive. There was here
no insanity; the horrid deeds were all avowed with the minutest
circumstances, the intention was express, and the crime was repeated and
persisted in. I cannot regard this monster as innocent, for I cannot
discover that he resisted or struggled against the diabolical impulse.
“Take the case of Leger, a recent case, related by Dr. Cazeauvielh, from
the monster’s own confessions. He lived in a cave, and had an unnatural
craving to feed on human flesh. One day he perceived a little girl, ran
to her, passed a handkerchief around her body, threw her upon his back,
plunged into the woods and hastened to his cave, where he killed and
buried her. Arrested three days after, he immediately told his name,
where he lived, and said that having received a blow on his head, he had
left his country and his family. In his prison he related how he had
lived in caverns in the rocks. ‘Wretch,’ said the physician to him,‘you
have eaten the heart of this little girl. Confess the truth.’ He then
answered in trembling, ‘Yes, I did so, but not all at once.’ After that
he sought no longer to conceal his crimes, and with great coolness and
indifference related a long series of horrible deeds which he had
committed. He revealed them, even to the minutest particulars; he
produced the proofs, and pointed out to the court the place of the
crime, and the manner in which it had been consummated. The judge had no
need to question him, for he himself disclosed all of his own accord. On
the trial, his features wore a mild and placid aspect. He seemed quite
unconcerned and insensible, except his face assumed an air of gayety and
satisfaction during the reading of the indictment. After about half an
hour’s deliberation, the court rejected the plea of insanity, and
declared him guilty of homicide, with premeditation and lying in wait.
He heard his sentence with the same placid indifference, and was
executed a few days after. This seems to me to prove that the middle
ages were not more severe than we are to-day.”
“But Leger,” said Dr. Corning, “was evidently a madman. Georget is right
in saying that he was a madman, because none but a madman would say that
he had been led to commit murder by a blind and _irresistible_ will.”
“That might do to say, if we were certain of the truth of the
materialistic doctrines taught at Paris some forty or fifty years ago,
but which are now generally rejected. Dr. Cazeauvielh, however, concedes
that persons of this description, without being deprived by their
madness of free will, are yet carried away, driven onward by an idea, by
something indefinable, which is precisely what theologians mean by
obsession. The court decided correctly, I think, in rejecting the plea
of insanity in the case of the monster Leger, and in condemning him to
death, though evidently under Satanic influence when he committed his
horrible and disgusting crimes—crimes which recall the Ghouls of the
Arabian Nights—because there was no struggle of the human person against
the invading spirit.
“Satan can by Divine permission enter our bodies, compel, as it were,
the human person to stand aside, and use our organs himself, and do
whatever he pleases with them; but he cannot annihilate the human
person, or take from the soul free will. Always is it in the power of
the possessed to resist, morally and effectually, the evil intentions of
the devil. The possessed retains his own consciousness, his own
intellectual and moral faculties unimpaired, and never confounds himself
with the spirit that possesses him. Always, then, does he retain the
power of internal protest and struggle. Wherever this power is
exercised, and there is clearly a struggle, there is no responsibility
attaching to him, whatever the crimes the body, through the possession
of the devil, is made to commit. But it may often happen that this power
to protest is not exercised, and the possessed yields his moral assent