Thus arose those horrible demonical scenes which occupied the attention of all Europe during the seventeenth century and seemed to point to the possession of all convents by devils. And not convents alone, for other hysterical women, without the walls, possessed of the same rage for notoriety, took up the character of demonic possessed and spread the vulgar superstition until it seems that every woman in Europe who was so unfortunate as to be in any way afflicted with tendencies to hysteria, neurosis, idiocy, or dementia of any character whatever, came to be regarded as in the power of a demon, which in turn was the slave of some magician. And thus, through the influence of an ignorant and unscrupulous priesthood, a powerful engine was placed at its disposal for the removal of enemies. Executions for sorcery continued until their very number and barbarity palled, and the wearied people were ready for their abolition, when the Reformation opened and with the accession of power, Protestantism, in this matter, at least, swayed the masses to reason once more.
Dr. Figuier, in his “Histoire du Merveilleux,” explains these demonical possessions as entirely due to hypnotism, and, ignoring the nymphomaniac theory, asserts that the exorcists themselves hypnotized the nuns for their own glory and for purposes of vengeance. One page 234 of volume I he says: “L’appareil deployé par les exorcistes, leurs adjurations, leurs gestes imposants et forcenés, tenaient lieu des manipulations que nos magnetiseurs emploient pour endormir leurs sujets. Operant sur des jeunes filles nerveuses, malades, melancoliques, les exorcistes produisaient chez elles une partie des phenomènes auxquels donné lieu le somnambulisme artificiel.”
The universal belief in evil spirits became a powerful engine for the advancement of the church. By its use all those who were inimical to the church could be put out of the way as comrades of devils, and, furthermore, the theory was advanced that only by the exorcisms of the church could man be protected from malevolent powers. Holy water, signs of the cross, repetitions of the name of Mary had full power to annul all the machinations of the demons, but only in the hands of the true believers was this efficacious. To preserve one from the dangers of demonic spite, absolute orthodoxy was essential, and thus a great premium was imposed upon strict adherence to the church. Thus was gross superstition a most powerful factor in the growth and spread of Christianity. According to Lecky: “There was scarcely a village or a church that had not, at some time, been the scene of supernatural interposition. The powers of light and the powers of darkness were regarded as visibly struggling for the mastery. Saintly miracles, supernatural cures, startling judgments, visions, prophecies, and prodigies of every order, attested the activity of the one, while witchcraft and magic, with all their attendant horrors, were the visible manifestations of the other.... Tens of thousands of victims perished by the most agonizing and protracted torments, without exciting the slightest compassion.... Nations that were separated by position, by interests, and by character, on this question were united.” And the germ of all this evil lay in the very foundation of Christianity—the faith held in supernatural agencies.
The belief in the supernatural agency in the temptation of Eve, the temptations of Jesus, the possibility of the miraculous conception, and the miracles of Christ, were but stepping-stones to faith in innumerable invisible but potent powers. One who can conscientiously believe in the supernatural as found between the covers of the Bible can, by but a slight stretch of the imagination, believe any preposterous tale that is woven about a supernatural agency. If one can believe a woman can conceive without contact with semen, one can believe some old woman can dry up his cow. If one can believe that Jesus actually raised Lazarus from the dead, one can believe that a man can kill him by sticking pins in a wax effigy. If one can believe that Elijah ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot, one can believe that Goody Jones rode a broomstick through the air. If one can believe that the Christ was actually tempted by the devil, one can believe in succubæ and incubi. It is all a matter of logical reasoning. As soon as a Christian’s intellectual powers develop to a point where he can find no place for the miraculous in the world about him, he begins to doubt that which was in the world before him; but, regarding theological tales, he either places them in another category or ignores them, unless faced with them, when he crawls and calls them “sacred mysteries.” That an old woman can sour his milk or kill his child by the evil eye he does not believe, for reason has taught him otherwise. And for the same reason he would not believe his daughter if she told him she was pregnant with a miraculous child. He did not believe Josephine Woodbury when she made a similar statement in Boston a few years ago. But he does believe it of Mary, because it is a “holy mystery,” and is in another category. He has inherited his faith from a long line of orthodox ancestors, and he has never stopped to consider it by the light of pure reason. It is fortunate for the dogma of the virgin birth that it took root when people believed such things, otherwise Mary would have been adorned with the scarlet letter.
JUDGING THE DEAD.
Like the Christian demi-god, the Egyptian deity Osiris is represented upon his judgment seat. His resurrection and ascension were celebrated in early spring, at about the time known in Christian countries as Easter.
VULCAN.
Feasts, fasts and elaborate ceremonials were important features of the most ancient worships, and it is not, therefore, strange to find somewhat modified adaptations of them in the Christian church. For, wherever Christianity wandered and found firmly implanted religious theories and customs, it immediately gave them new significations and accepted them, until finally the greater part of paganism was gathered from all parts of the civilized world and amalgamated into one strong theological organization. Finding in almost every nation a festival at the winter solstice, in commemoration of the accouchement of the celestial, virgin queen of heaven, and the birth of the sun-god, the Christian fathers decided to adopt the 25th of December as the natal day of their Christ.