The spirit-rapper; an autobiography
to the crimes committed by the demon that possesses him. He then becomes
a partaker of their guilt. Wherever it is clear that he has not
internally resisted, that he has not struggled against the demon, and
protested against his iniquity, the law should punish him for the crimes
as severely as if there had been no possession at all. The error of
modern jurisprudence is that, not recognizing the fact of possession, it
punishes alike both classes, or it lets off both under the plea of
insanity. In the latter case justice becomes too lax, and the greater
the criminal, the more enormous his crime, the less likely is he to be
punished; in the former case justice is too severe, and persons really
innocent, and meritorious even, are condemned as the basest of
criminals. The law in the middle ages, or before the wonderful progress
of intelligence and humanity in modern times, distinguished between the
two classes, and knew how to acquit the innocent and to punish the
guilty. Now the tendency is either to acquit or to condemn both
indiscriminately.”
Dr. Corning and Mr. Merton, after this, revived their former discussion
of the question of insanity; but as nothing was really added on either
side to what had been previously said, I do not think it necessary to
record their conversation. For myself, it seemed to me that the question
between the theory which explains the phenomena by insanity, and that
which explains them by Satanic invasion, is of immense practical
importance. When the old doctrine was rejected, the law became
excessively severe, and humanity was shocked. Philosophers and
philanthropists sought to mitigate it by asserting the doctrine of
necessity, of materialism, of the inherent goodness of the soul, and by
ascribing all misdeeds to external influences, to the action of nature,
society, government, &c. In other words, they sought to mitigate the law
by denying all moral turpitude.
But latterly the older doctrine of spiritualism, as opposed to
materialism, and of freedom as opposed to necessity, has revived, and
the old severity of the law must return, unless some new way can be
discovered of escaping it. This new way is the plea of insanity. The
tendency now is to make insanity a plea for every crime of some little
magnitude. Our lunatic hospitals are crowded; new ones are constructed,
and no inconsiderable portion of our population are likely to become
their inmates. Physicians, carried away by their false science and
mistaken humanity, discard all the old criteria of lunacy, and the
courts, following them, will soon find that all persons brought before
them for trial are insane and irresponsible. The guilty will go unwhipt
of justice, because no guilt will be recognized. If the phenomena in
question are to be explained by insanity, I do not see what crime it
will not cover.
The subject deserves serious consideration. For my part, I cannot
recognize insanity where the person evidently retains his intellectual
powers underanged or unimpaired, where he retains the faculty of
reasoning and judging correctly, however he may be driven by foreign
influences to this or that crime. When he tells me that he was obliged
by _something_ to do this or that, and that when he did it, it seemed to
him that it was not he, but some power impelling him, I raise no
question of insanity, but simply, as Merton suggests we should, the
question of internal resistance, and measure him by the greater or less
energy and persistence of that internal resistance.
CHAPTER XXIV.
LEFT IN THE LURCH.
Though I remained an invalid, there were times when I revived, and
almost flattered myself that I might yet, in spite of the
prognostications of my physician, recover. I was still comparatively
young, and I did not precisely like the thought of dying. The simple
pain of dying did not affright me; nor had I much reluctance to leave
the world, where there was little that had any charm for me. But I could
not help sending now and then uneasy glances beyond the tomb. There
might be a spirit-world beyond, and death might not after all extinguish
the life of the soul. I might, perhaps, live in that unknown world,
retain my personal identity, and distinct consciousness and memory. I
might, too, at least I could not say it was impossible, be punished
there for my sins in this world, and be condemned to have for my
companions those very devils whose acquaintance I had so assiduously
cultivated here. That might not be pleasant. Indeed, I began to have
many painful reflections, and to ask myself if I had not been all my
life making a fool of myself. I had been promised great things, but what
had I obtained?
“Your experience, my dear friend,” said Mr. Merton, “I doubt not, proves
the truth of the old saying, the devil always, sooner or later, leaves
his followers in the lurch. You remember, probably, I called the morning
after my introduction to you, to give you and Priscilla a warning as to
what awaited you. You were then too elated, too full of hope, to listen
to any thing I could say; at least, so it seemed to me at the time.”
“Yet you were mistaken. The few words you said interested me much, and I
wished at the time to hear more.”
“Alas! it is one of the miseries of the world, that the wicked are much
more active for mischief, than the virtuous are for good. Would to God
that the followers of Christ had a tithe of the industry and energy of
the followers of Satan. If I had been more earnest, more ready to
sacrifice my own ease and my own pride, perhaps——. But that is idle. You
will, I presume, readily concede now that you were then laboring under a
delusion, and indulged hopes which have not been realized?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“So it is. Satan never keeps his promises.”
“I wish you to explain,” said Jack, who that moment entered the room,—“I
wish you to explain how it is, if Satan is as powerful, and does as many
marvellous things as you pretend, that they who give themselves up soul
and body to him, always fail at last. Your mighty sorcerers and
magicians always find their master failing them when it comes to the
pinch. Ninety-nine times the devil enables the sorcerer to open the
prison doors, to become invisible to the sight or impervious to the
sword of his enemies, to overwhelm them, or to escape them by flying
away through the keyhole; but the hundredth time fails him, and leaves
him to be captured, to confess his crimes, and to be burnt alive.
According to all accounts, your witches are the most miserable old hags
one ever meets—wretched old crones, living in the most abject poverty,
and hardly able to procure the food necessary to keep soul and body
together. The devil never comes when wanted, never makes his appearance
before competent and credible witnesses. He performs his wonders in the
dark; and when one would really prove the fact of his presence, he is
away, and nobody can get a glimpse of him.”
“And what else,” replied Mr. Merton, “should be expected of the devil?
And yet I would not treat your objection lightly, for it is one which
has at times raised doubts in my own mind, and it makes me rather
sceptical as to most of the tales of witchcraft, ghosts, and hobgoblins
I hear or read of. But you should bear in mind that the devils are
capricious as well as malicious, or rather, their malice itself is full
of caprice. The devil, in all his invasions, seeks only to get himself
worshipped, and to ruin souls. When he has made a soul his slave, made
sure of its destruction in hell, his end is answered. He is a liar from
the beginning, and the father of lies. He is the inveterate enemy of
truth, and if he sometimes tells it, it is because compelled by a higher
power; or if now and then, of his own accord, it is only because it
serves his purpose of deception better than falsehood. If he sometimes
keeps his promises, and seems to do the best he can for his slaves, it
is for the same reason. Then, again, he is not omnipotent, he is not the
supreme Lord; and however powerful he may be, there is One mightier than
he, who can thwart him when he pleases. He can, as I often say, go only
the length of his chain. It may comport with the purposes of God to
suffer him to do many marvellous deeds, but never to suffer him to do
them so uniformly or in such a manner that his victims shall not be able
to detect the impostor, and know, if they will, that it is a foul and
lying spirit they follow. Satan’s delight is in deceiving, and he
delights as much in deceiving those already his slaves, as those he
would make such; and God so orders it, that his deceptions shall be
discoverable by all not wilfully blind.
“The devil is called the prince of this world, but he is not its
absolute lord. He can even here do only what he is, for the purposes of
love or justice, permitted to do. It may turn out, then, that he is
forbidden to come to the assistance of his servants in the nick of time,
even when he himself is disposed to do so. He may raise the storm, but
there is One asleep in the bark, who can at any instant awake, and say
to the winds and the waves, Peace, be still. It is not fitting that
Satan should be able to keep his promises in the great majority of cases
to the last, for that would leave too little chance of detecting his
delusions, and would confirm his worship. His failures prove his malice,
and also that his power is not his own, therefore that he is not God.
They serve, too, as punishments to his dupes, for it is fitting that
they who, through evil inclination and undue love of the world or of
pleasure, trust to him, should ultimately fail in the very goods
promised.
“The principles of God’s providence are always and everywhere the same,
and there is a close analogy between the natural and the supernatural.
God has given to the universe its law. He has placed before man a real,
substantial, and desirable good; but he has made this good attainable
only in one way, by obedience to his law, which is not an arbitrary law,
but a law founded in his own eternal reason, in his own infinite,
eternal, and immutable justice. He who attempts to attain his good, his
beatitude, by any other means, invariably and inevitably fails. It is as
our Lord said,—‘I am the door;’ and ‘he that entereth not by the door,
but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber.’ Whoever
seeks entrance into the fold of happiness by another than the
God-appointed way, whatever that way may be, is predoomed to
disappointment. All experience proves it. The departure by the ancient
Gentiles from the patriarchal or primitive religion, led to the
confusion of their understandings, and to the adoption and practice of
the grossest and most abominable superstitions—the extreme of moral or
spiritual misery. The man who seeks happiness, even in this life, from
acquiring or possessing riches and honor, always fails, even when he
apparently succeeds. The most miserable of men are they who make
pleasure their sole pursuit. The reason is, that beatitude is not
promised to those pursuits, lies not on their plane, and is not
attainable by following them. He who attempts to attain it in any of
those ways is no wiser than those philosophers of Laputa who sought to
extract sunbeams from cucumbers. It is only in accordance with the same
principle, that they who seek worldly felicity, by consorting with
devils, should in like manner be disappointed.”
“All that is very wise, and would do very well for a sermon,” said Jack.
“It may, for aught I know, be very true. I have no knowledge on the
subject, and no acquaintance with the devil or his angels. But I wish
you would tell me how it happens that the witnesses to these marvellous