Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/241

Rh all his trouble" through the diligent prayers of Dr. Templar, with the happy result that both he and his wife and "some others who were too much byassed with the Principles of the Quakers "acquired" a perfect dislike of that way."

Demon possession is at the present time common in China, and a number of curious cases have been collected and published recently by a missionary who has had forty years’ experience among the Chinese. Most of his narratives are in the third person, but one is given in the patient's own words. His name was Kwo, and he is described as a "hardy mountaineer, thirty-eight years of age, bright and entertaining, with nothing in his appearance which could be regarded as unhealthy or abnormal." His account is as follows:

"Near the close of year before last (1877) I bought a number of pictures, including one of Wang Mu-niang, the wife of Yuhwang [the chief divinity of China]. For the goddess Wang Muniang I selected the most honorable position in the house; the others I pasted on the walls here and there as ornaments. On the second day of the first month I proposed worshiping the goddess, but my wife objected. The next night a spirit came, apparently in a dream, and said to me: ‘I am Wang Mu-niang of Yuin-men san [the name of a neighboring mountain]. I have taken up my abode in your house.’ It said this repeatedly. I had awakened, and was conscious of the presence of the spirit. I knew it was a shie-kwei (evil spirit), and as such I resisted it, and cursed it, saying, ‘I will have nothing to do with you.’ This my wife heard, and begged to know what it meant, and I told her. After this all was quiet and I was not disturbed for some days. About a week afterward a feeling of uneasiness and restlessness came over me which I could not control. At night I went to bed as usual, but grew more and more restless. At last, seized by an irresistible impulse, I arose from my bed and went straight to a gambler's den in Kao kia, where I lost at once sixteen thousand cash [sixteen dollars, a large sum for a peasant Chinaman]. I started for home and lost my way. But when it grew light I got back to my house. At that time I was conscious of what I was doing and saying, but I did things mechanically, and soon forgot what I had said." In this condition he remained for some days, the prey of irresistible impulses, which soon took a homicidal turn, and culminated in maniacal outbursts, alternating with epileptiform attacks. He was chained in bed, and for five or six days raved wildly. "My friends were in great distress. They proposed giving me more medicine, but the demon, speaking through me, replied, ‘Any amount of