Page:The Power of the Spirit.djvu/73



68 demonologies can add little or nothing to our knowledge; but modern psychology and psychic research have already helped us a great deal. Whereas primitive races have peopled their world with horror, and have believed mostly in cruel gods and malevolent spirits, we are coming not only to believe in the complete love of God, but also, it may be, to disbelieve in the existence of wicked spirits, or of anything naughtier perhaps than a poltergeist. 'There may be often cause for perplexity', wrote Frederic Myers, 'but I have never seen cause for fear'; after persistent investigation, he, and many others, came to the conclusion that temporary control of the organism by a widely divergent fragment of the personality is the formula to which we can reduce probably the great majority of cases of supposed spirit-possession. But he at least thought, and an increasing number of cautious investigators think with him, that there may be, and are, some cases of possession by spirits, though only the spirits of those who once were men like ourselves. Evidence has indeed accumulated, sufficiently strong to convince many hard-headed and sceptical inquirers, of such departed spirits speaking through the medium of living persons. We are not in a position to dogmatize; and here we have only to note the existence of the phenomenon of possession, without trying to explain it.