Observations placeholder
Professor Alexander Erskine - A Hypnotist’s Case Book – Possessed
Identifier
029254
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
A Hypnotist’s Case Book – Professor Alexander Erskine
A man brought his wife to me to cure of a nervous disorder. She sat down in the chair, and I was about to tell her how easy it was to go to sleep, when suddenly her whole demeanour changed.
Instead of going off to sleep peacefully, she stiffened herself in the chair, spluttering and spitting and waving her arms, and jabbering in a (to me) unintelligible manner.
Nor could I quieten her.
I sat still for a few minutes, hoping that the paroxysm would pass, for in the whole of my experience I had never met such a case. The control, certainly, was not mine, for I had given her no suggestion.
I turned to her husband. "'What is this?" I asked.
"I am helpless. Can you do anything?"
He just smiled. "She'll be all right in a minute or two," he said.
"Yes, but what is this devil possessing her? Can't you help me cast it out ?"
That scared him a little. "Hush, hush !" he whispered. "It's no devil. Perhaps we should have told you. We're spiritualists. Her control is a Japanese. He always uses her like this."
"Devil or not," I rejoined, "it's obvious he doesn't like me. Help me cast him out."
Therewith, getting up from his chair, he crossed over to his wife, and, making several weird passes before her face and shaking his fist over her head, said roughly, "Go away ! Go away ! Go away !"
Apparently his admonitions had the desired effect, for his wife became quieter, and gradually she recovered her composure.
A day or so later I had a letter from them asking me if I would see them again in order that I might put his wife to sleep and cure her of her nervousness. - But I refused. It may have been that the spirit was hostile to me; it may have been for some other cause. I do not pretend to know.
The spiritualists themselves cannot account for the events in this instance. I have discussed the matter with many, but all are equally at a loss. And there, until research has thrown light on matters now dark, the question must be now left. One cannot tamper with the unknown.