SYNOPSIS
The possession of Mary Glover is emblematic of early modern hysteria, as it meets with Christian demonology. 'A Briefe Report’ features the totemic Lion of Juda, the tribes of David, Abraham, Issac and Jacob, David's heroic defeat of Goliath, the battle between Satan and Christ, the discomfiture of adders, serpents and the dragon, the mysteries of the canticles, taboo fasting and the physical manifestation and management of demonic behaviour. This essay will compare Mary Glover's case with the early modern scepticism of Dr Meric Causabon, D. D and the totemic/taboo and archetypal structures of obsessional thought of Jung and Freud. As a result, this essay aspires to supply an "architectonic" of the early modern mind, in regard to the witch-hunting phenomenon of early modern Europe , 1450-1750...
I must confess to an element of surprise when I discovered the conceptual links between psychoanalysis and demonic possession. Without exaggeration, psychoanalysis - as exemplified by Freud and Jung - may provide one of the most extraordinary paths into the hysterical unconscious (possessed by the Devil and haunted by visions). In this article, I intend to show the 'phenomenal' parallels between Freud's clinical analysis and Jung's depth psychology with respect to a case of early modern possession; and redoubtable 'affinities' between the analytic scepticism of Professor Freud and 'mythopoeic' imagination of C G Jung, in comparison with the treatise of a fifteenth-century Doctor of Divinity, Meric Causaubon. In this (otherwise) short paper, I shall compare selections from Freud's 'Totem and Taboo’l and 'Some General Characteristics' of obsessive neurotics from his 'Notes Upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis (‘The Rat Man’)2, with 'A True and Briefe Report,3 of the possession of Mary Glover. Further into my inquiry, I will compare these extractions with chapters from 'Man and his Symbols’4 by C.G. Jung and with the early modern text, 'A Discourse Concerning the Nature of Enthusiasme' by Dr Meric Casaubon5. Finally, I will attempt to provide a psychoanalytic explanation for the service of exorcism, translated from the original 'Rituale Romanum’6 of Pope Paul V in 1614. Here, Jung's collection of dream 'motifs' should prove invaluable.
As John Kerr claims, neither Jung nor Freud was new to the phenomenon and 'treatment' of demonic possession7. Freud, for instance, based his most lurid case-history on Dr Schreber, a provincial German magistrate who believed against his 'better', rational judgment, that he was transformed into a woman and thereby controlled by the tencacles (or 'confabulated rays') of God8. In his prolific dream-theory Jung contended that nightmares (particularly those- involving supernatural animals, horses or 'incubi' and 'succubi') revived dormant sexual or emotional conflicts9. In addition, Jung summarised the 'hallucinations' and graphic dreams of his most disturbed patients in several compendia. In one paper, Jung relates how an analysand dismissed the visions of Moses and animal fantasies of Ezekiel as schizoid 'voices', only to suffer from such visions himself 10. Jung also examined the psychical symbolism of the 'hellish demons' which persecuted St Anthony11 (just as Christ was tempted) and the case of a psychiatrist, whose ten-year old daughter had a sketchbook of bizarre 'delusions' 12.
In his two intriguing manuscripts, 'Totem and Taboo' (1913) and 'Notes Upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis (the Rat Man)' (1909), Professor Freud fashioned his criticism of the animist system's 'Omnipotence of Thought', and described the theoretical 'characteristics' of the obsessive-compulsive - or 'demonic' mind. In 'Totem and Taboo', Freud depicted, in exquisite detail, the instinct and ritual of animist magic13. In primitive societies - for instance, among the native tribes of Polynesia, Aboriginal Australia and Malaya - Freud held that human beings, as a rule, mistook an 'ideal' connection (mental association) for a 'real' connection (physical cause and effect) whenever they pondered the phenomena of Nature. In Freud's opinion, this primitive culture gave rise to the uncanny solemnity of magic ritual, and, among early societies at least, explained magic's astonishing efficacy.
Freud's examples of this thesis of 'contagious' magic were manifold. Thus, men assumed that they shared the qualities of their 'totem animal' (ie. strength and agility) and they would not eat it for fear of 'eating' themselves; the dead were buried across river to prevent their revenant, 'murderous ghosts' from tormenting the living; warriors stabbed waxen effigies in order to 'inflict' wounds on their enemies; the sprinkling of water through a sieve was presumed to 'make it' rain and performing sexual intercourse in a rice field encouraged the rice to 'seed,14. Most importantly, Freud argued, persons, plants and animals could be possessed by demons and spirits, and themselves were possessed of a freely-acting spirit. On this pretext, Freud concluded that,‘Animism is, in its narrow sense, the doctrine of souls, and,in its wider sense, the doctrine of spiritual beings in general’15.
Freud’s ‘General Characteristics of Obsessional Neurosis' enunciates the first principles, the primum mobilia, of neurotic thought. According to Freud, the patient uses obsessive ritual as ‘protective formulae’ against their delirium16. What we might term their ‘supersitions’ are, under Freud's observance, the ‘misapprehension’ or psychical ‘withdrawal of affect’ of cause and effect (and its necessary relation) by the patient's Unconscious Mind. In sum, Freud asserts - by psychoanalysis - that a possessed person’s thoughts are explicable: that is to say, comprehensible as constellations of their wishes and unconscious impulses, finally their pre-conscious mental associations. Moreover, obsessive patients are plagued by psychical 'doubt' and by the seeming 'omnipotence' of their evil wishes: wishes directed variously against spouse, family, even strangers. Freud argues that possessed and 'hysterical' patients are torn between contrary 'convictions'. This entails a 'split' between the patient's rational, conscious mind and their wish-fulfilling unconscious. Freud believes that possessed persons experience their repression of unconscious urges in their psychosomatic or peculiar, fantastic symptoms. As such, Freud claims that fear of 'demons' would give vent to 'unconscious fantasies', which must be discharged through psychoanalysis or the auto-suggestion ('auto-erotism') of ritual. Freud further maintains that patients delay their treatment by way of 'substitutive' acts. By such temporisation, they cling to their fantasies and 'distortions' of the obsessive impulse. As a consequence of this 'inhibition' and 'reaction-formation', thinking replaces action in the patient's psyche. The patient is unwell, yet the patient becomes comfortable with this ideation17.
'A True and Briefe' report of Mary Glover's possession suits the psychoanalytic paradigm of obsessive ritual, and Freud's theory of compulsive-neurotic thought. In an eye-witness testimony, we are told that Mary Glover's exorcism began with an elaborate rite of 'expiation'. In an act of 'purification', ten to twelve people gathered at her home in Themstreet to supplicate themselves before God, that He might grant 'comforte in his good time' to his 'handmaiden', Mary18. Moreover, the psychoanalytic 'undertone' of Mary Glover's exorcism is strong. In point of fact, the author of the pamphlet reiterated that the 'measure' of these rituals sacred and Mary Glover's deliverance was 'secondary' to the congregation's intention of securing God's glory19. Given the exorcism was performed for God's glory, the author asseverated that the procedure of exorcism had to follow 'in what manner measure it pleased him (Sic)’20.
Freud encapsulates this disposition ideally, in the following passage from 'Totem and Taboo'. The polarity between 'faith' doubt can serve as a template for Mary Glover's exorcism.
'As time goes on, the psychological accent shifts from the motives for the magical act on to the measures by which it is carried out - that is, on to the act itself. (It would perhaps be more correct to say that it is only these measures that reveal to the subject the excessive valuation which he attaches to his psychical acts). It thus comes to appear as though it is the magical act itself which, owing to its similarity with the desired result, alone determines the occurrence of that result. There is no opportunity at the stage of animistic thinking, for showing any objective evidence of the true state of affairs. But a possibility of doing so does arrive at a later time, when, though all of these procedures are still being carried out, the psychical phenomenon of doubt has begun to emerge as an expression of a tendency repression. At that point, men will be ready to admit that conjuring up spirits has no result unless it is accompanied faith, and that the magical power of prayer fails if there is no piety at work behind it. Cf. The King in Hamlet (III . 3):
'My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go’21.
Animated, thus, by the 'affective' symbols of totem and taboo - which signified to her the 'extrordinarie' presence of God - Glover struggled violently with the possessive force of Satan22. In his remarkable apologia for the priests who ministered, the author assures his readers that Mary Glover's spiritual battle had, in curious symmetry, all the markings of a 'physical' ordeal. We remark, therefore, that the young woman was paralysed completely on her left side; that she became blind, dumb and deaf; that had a distorted and gruesome visage; that she expectorated at priests and helpers; that she cried 'almost' or 'once more' whenever she felt the power of the Devil either increase or subside; that she had, previous to her exorcism, experienced fits at almost identical hours; that she could not consistently digest food; that she scowled and that she spoke in a bellowing, malevolent voice23.
In the light of its colourful 'symbolism', it repays to adopt Jung's method of dream-interpretation with regard to demonic possession24. A leader of the famous Zurich Europe , Jung ascertained a disassociation between our 'rational' world of conscious thought and the unconscious world of instinct. The 'psychic undertones' of demonic possession, Jung claimed, voiced our most personal needs. Through the 'subliminal' or visual logic of our' psyche, the Unconscious gave 'pictorial expression' to Man's primeval conflicts: the collective unconscious, or 'archetypes', of life and death, good and evi125:
In order to isolate the probable symptoms of 'hysteria' from actual demonic possession, Casaubon distinguishes between 'naturall' and 'supernaturall' enthusiasm26. As opposed to the capricious theatrics of 'natural' enthusiasm (in which hermits went into comas by slowing their breathing and women spoke in contrived dialects or unintelligible tongues), Casaubon's treatise maintained that supernatural enthusiasm was a 'concurrent' union of the Divine and Human will. Noting the disposition for impression and reception' of creative ideas among extraordinary and prophetic minds - in other words, the Poet or Prophet's "afflatus" - and the amazing 'natural unsensible emanations' between Man and his environment, Casaubon extolled the gifts of God revealed through human agency and the power of nature herself. In Casaubon's mind nature was the handmaiden of God and his spiritual, intellectual kingdom. On the basis of this natural 'wonder', Casaubon was ready to accept the existence of a deeper, unconscious Self; and of a sub-stratum, though he did not state such, to human experience. In allowing for Divine visitation through the 'miracles' of nature and human cognition, Casaubon links both the scientific empiricism of Freud and Jung's belief in 'mystical participation'.
Although published in 1656, the treatise of Meric Casaubon, D. D maintains a vital link with the twentieth century, by dint of Jung's 'philosophic' impressions regarding demonic inspiration. Reflecting articulately Jung's quasi-rationalist and spiritualist modes of thought, Casaubon quotes a plethora of medical tracts and authors, as well as learned classicists, (including Aristotle's 'Physic', Plato's 'Menon' and Hippocrates etc) in his analysis of possession. While Doctor Casaubon impugns Giraldus of Wales for his comments in the 'Itinerarium' concerning the power of magicians and 'merlins', Causabon also refers to Origen, Eusebius and the Patricians in admitting the possibility of possession among Christian peoples27. In this thorough treatise, despite his sometimes caustic commentary, Casaubon betrays a fascination with 'demonic' obsession: reporting the reported 'ecstasies' of the Trojan soothsayers, the magnificent dreams of Alexander the Great, the spiritual trances of Hermotimus Clazomenius, the 'divinity' of the ancient poet, Lucan and the 'enthusiastick divinations' and Christian revelations collated by Raphael Thorius of London during the Plague, 1603. The majority of alleged possessions, Casaubon attributes to the 'sympathy' and 'antipathy' of man's imagination and almost all female demonianism, to 'Woman's resolute obstinacy in point of suffering'. In this respect, Casaubon reflects the studied incredulity of Jung and science with respect to actual possession of the body by demons. In other respects, nonetheless, Casaubon is every bit as abstract as Jung, and every whit as curious. Indeed Casaubon quotes:
'I believe there is no part of the world, where any creatures be, that can be called God's creature's, from which God's providence, not generally only, but even particular, upon some extraordinary occasions, is excluded: But neverthelesse, as better understood, so much more to be seen, where God is worshipped as he (sic) ought to be. Farre be it therefore from me to doubt, much more to deny, but that some things in that kind among Christians may happen extraordinarily: though I am very confident, that as among Heathens, so among Christians, the matter is often mistaken, through grosse ignorance or superstition’28.
Casaubon was very curious, and also highly uncertain of the 'ecstas melancholica' or 'hysterica passione' of young women and possessed girls. Earlier in his treatise, Causabon had audaciously interpreted the episode concerning the man named legion in the New Testament as describing merely a syncope, or advanced faint. Asserting that there was undoubtedly imposture in certain of their gestures, Causaubon was nevertheless at a loss to describe the reasons behind the young women's more bizarre behaviour. Apart from the milder instance of fainting, this comprised speaking j foreign languages, sonambulism, exceptional volume in speech or physical strength and the putative divinity, or demonianism, of their condition. As a conservative worthy of the Church of England, Casaubon was, perforce, obliged to defend the bishopric and halls of learning from the 'pestilence' of heresy. In Casaubon's estimation, this included the 'Anabapticall' conspiracy, 'plague-rumour', oriental divination and remnants of Chaldean astrology (which he distinguished from astronomy), and any undermining of reason by false 'faith'. While Casaubon thus ascribed supernaturalism mostly to human perversity, he was ambivalent about the finer aetiology of hysteria, and possession29.
Jung's understanding of the exorcist 'myth' could provide a frE critical response to the medieval Christian 'Rituale Romanum’30 Once again, Jung holds that the power of exorcism emerges from 'hero myth' and its hero 'makers'. According to Jung and the Zurich
The rite of exorcism is contained in the celebrated Rituale Romanum of 1614 33. The author must make several cautionary points here. The Roman Rite, as it is translated, would not 'strictly' apply to Mary Glover's vexation, since she was a Protestant. Though her denomination is not identified in the eyewitness account, it is evident that Mary Glover belonged to the Church of England, given that the congregation wer, the Bishop's ecclesiastical permission or ordinance their exorcism of Satan. To complicate matters, hO1 Glover was clearly ministered to by recusant pries' controverted the divine authority of the established Church. These were the conventicleers targeted by Dr Causaubon. In the second place, the Rite is not a ‘sacrament' of the Catholic Church: one infers from the report into Mary Glover's possession, priests exercise ample discretion in the 'measures' of exorcism. The priest, however, must be of good character, have been delegated by his Ordinary to perform the rite, have first confessed his sins and said the 'Holy Sacrifice' of Mass.
The appalling appearance of Satan in the Rite and of Christ, the Holy Virgin, the Saints and the Devil in its text is echoed in Jung's writing. Along with the noxious, mephitic asp, adder, dragon and basilisk of the Rite's imagery, Jung signalled the 'nefarious' trends of our 'shadow' selves. Jung was convinced that the 'Ego' and the 'Shadow' _were antagonistic, and yet intimately joined, in the mar 'Thought' and 'Feeling'. Comparable to the Devil and Christ – the Son of Man - mankind exists in a state of change; of reciprocity. According to Jung, this conflagration of the 'Psyche’ (Soul) was engendered in a 'Battle
In Mary Glover's case, the 'animus' predictably sur Devil, who is an analogue for death, despair or des Jungian analysis, death often appears in women's dreams as a skeleton, a perfidious lover, a male witch or magic necromancer or an evil, preternatural king like Hades (who made Persephone 'Queen of the Damned'). Moreover, the negative animus, identically to Satan in the Rite, plays the role of 'robber and murderer'.
Ironically, however, the animus, whenever his warnings or prophesies are heeded, disburdens the Woman of her deepest 'convictions', in the process perfecting her 'self': this process is mirrored in the Rituale Romanum and Mary Glover's exorcism. In Jungian depth psychology, the Self is the 'nucleus', or deepest recess, of the Psyche. As in Mary Glover's exation, the Self motif is 'recurrently' referred to by Christian iconography, and is represented by Jungians as being 'built of stone'. In the Rite, for example, the Lord is designated as the 'Fortified Tower
In conclusion, leading Jungian, M L von Franz denotes, in general, the infernal 'figure' of the Devil or witch, confronted by the patient in possession and early modern thought34. Franz states that the shadow figure, in Jungian discourse, is the 'malefic' personification of a person's unconscious. In Jungian dream-motif, the patient has a positive ('benevolent') and a negative ('malefic') soul-image. The benevolent deity tends to appear, it must be stressed, whenever the patient's personality is 'differentiated' on the path to wisdom. Franz states that the Devil or witch is Humankind's 'deadly demon', or black symbol. The inverted 'shadow personality' of the Devil and the witch embody a threat to the emergence of Self, expressed in our masculinity/feminity, which threat is characterised by impotency, depression, and spiteful 'anima moods'. Axiomatic to our collective unconscious - our 'active imagination' - the shadow figure has posed historically as the 'poison damsel' , the Lorelei of Teutonic lore, the Queen of Night in Assyrian worship, Hecate or Hecuba, the Greek Sirens and Maenads, the genii or jin of Arabian legend, the evil father or stepmother and the 'Femme Fatale'. Franz admonishes that 'a bearable solution to such a drama can be found only if the anima is recognized as an inner power'. And, I hope, my adventure into psychoanalysis and early modern possession has accomplished this laborious task.
BIBILIOGRAPHY
PRIMARY SOURCES
A Treatise Concerning Enthusiasme as it is an Effect of Nature; But is Mistaken by Many for Either Divine Inspiration, or Diabolicall Possession; Reel 27, n 201, London, Printed by Roger Daniel, 1656.
A True and Briefe Report, of the Grievous Vexation by Satan, of Mary Glover Performed by Those Whose Names are Set Down on the Next Page; Reel 89, n 945, [by John Swan, Student in Divinity, London ?, SN, 1603.
Rituale Romanum, Editio Typica, 25 January 1952 .
SECONDARY SOURCES
Freud, Sigmund, Case Histories II: "Ra t Man", Schreber, "Wolf Man", Female Homosexuality, Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Great Britain, 1979.
Freud, Sigmund, Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, New York
Jung, Carl G (Ed), Man and His Symbols, Arkana , Spain
MISCELLANEOUS
Frazer, James George, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, Macmillan Papermac, London
Gay, Peter, Freud: A Life for our Time, J M Dent & Sons Ltd, London
Kerr, John, A Most Dangerous Method: the Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein, Alfred A Knopf Inc, New York
Robbins, Rossell Hope, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft & Demonology, Crown Publishers, New York
Strickland, Bonnie (Ed), The Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, Second Edition, Gale Group, USA
Treasury of World Masterpieces, Edgar Allen Poe: Complete and Unabridged, Octopus Books, Great Britain
1 Freud, Sigmund, Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, New York
2 Freud, Sigmund, Case Histories II: "Rat Man", Schreber, "Wolf Man", Female Homosexuality, Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading , Great Britain
3 A True and Briefe Report, of the Grievous Vexation by Satan, of Mary Glover ofThemstreet in London
Deliverauncefrom the Same, by the Power of the Lord Jesus, Blessinge his Own Ordinance of Prayer and Fastinge
4 Jung, Carl G (Ed), Man and His Symbols, Arkana , Spain
5 A Treatise Concerning Enthusiasme as it is an Effect of Nature; But is Mistaken by Many for Either Divine Inspiration, or Diabolicall Possession; Reel 27, n 201, London, Printed by Roger Daniel, 1656.
6 Rituale Romanum, Editio Typica, 25 January 1952 .
7 Kerr, John, A Most Dangerous Method: the Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina
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8 Op cit, n 2, pp 131-220.
9 Jung, Carl G (Ed), Man and His Symbols, Arkana , Spain
10 Extracted, Ibid, p 45.
II Ibid, pp 48-49.
12 Ibid, pp 69-75.
13 Freud, Sigmund, Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, New York
14 Ibid, pp 69-80, pp 100-10 1.
16 Freud, Sigmund, Case Histories II: "Rat Man", Schreber, "Wolf Man", Homosexuality, Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Great Britain, 1979,
pp 104-105 et passim.
17 Ibid, pp 101-128.
Female
18 A True and Briefe Report, of the Grievous Vexation by Satan, of Mary Glover Performed by Those Whose Names are Set Down on the Next Page; Reel 89, n 945, [by John Swan, Student in Divinity, London 7, SN, 1603, pp 4-6, also p
19 A True and Briefe Report, of the Grievous Vexation by Satan, of Mary Glover Performed by Those Whose Set Down on the Next Page; Reel 89, n 945, [by John Swan, Student in Divinity, London ?, SN, 1603, pp 11
20 Ibid, P 5.
21 21 Freud, Sigmund, Totem and Taboo: Some Poin ts of Agreemen t between tl Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, New Y, 1950, pp 105-6.
22 Op Cit, n 19, P 13, pp 14-63 passim.
23 Ibid.
24 Jung, Carl G (Ed), Man and His Symbols, Arkana , Spain
25 Ibid, pp 67-82.
26 A Treatise Concerning Enthusiasme as it is an Effect of Nature; But is Mistaken by Many for Either Divine Inspiration, or Diabolicall Possession; Reel 27, n 201, London, Printed bv Roaer Daniel. lG_G. nn lll-l? p_ n___im
27 Ibid, pp 136-45. 281hirl n 1il
29 Ibid, pp 131-163 passim.
30 lung, Carl G (Ed), Man and His Symbols, Arkana , Spain
31 Ibid, pp 104-58.
32 Rituale Romanum, Editio Typica, 25 January 1952 .
33 Ibid
34 Ibid, pp 158-230.
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