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THE DEMONISM OF THE
AGES
Boston
Medical Library
The Fenway
8
THE DEMONISM of the AGES,
SPIRIT OBSESSIONS so Common
IN SPIRITISM, ORIENTAL and
OCCIDENTAL OCCULTISM
By J. M. PEEBLES, M. D., A. M.
FOURTH EDITION
AUTHOR OF
The Seers of the Ages
What Is Spiritualism, and Who Are These Spiritualists?
Three Journeys Around the World
Immortality, and the Employment of Spirits
The Christ Question Settled
Death Defeated, or the Secret of Keeping Young
Reincarnation Discussed
Spiritualism vs. Materialism
Vaccination a Curse
Did Jesus Christ Exist? Etc., etc., etc.
PUBLISHED BY
THE PEEBLES MEDICAL INSTITUTE
BATTLE CREEK, MICH.
Retail and Mail Orders to
pbisbi.es publishing CO.
5719 Fayette St.
9 I^s Anjfcies, 7 Cal,
Copyright, 1904, by Dr. J. M. Peebles
INTRODUCTION.
A
General Statement with Inquiries and Warnings.
I. Spirits, not necessarily gods or devils, are simply
human beings released from their mortal bodies.
II. The event termed death neither spiritually ex-
alts nor degrades a human being.
III. Spirits, conscious entities, to maintain their
identities, must have taken with them consciousness,
memory, disposition and tendencies.
IV. There are as many kinds, classes and castes of
spirits in the spirit world, which lies over and all about
us, as there are kinds and conditions of mortals on earth.
m
V. Hypnotism this life, and hypnotic trance from
tlie spirit spheres, being intimately allied, there are
many phenomena connected with somnambulism and
temporary loss of identity, clearly pointing to obsession
as the only rational explanation. Many of the obsessed
are utterly ignorant of the causes of their strange im-
pressions and unaccountable doings.
VI. Persons that liked authority, position and the
power to domineer over others in this life carry their
monarchical traits into the invisible beyond, and nat-
urally, for a time at least, become controlling, if not
obsessing spirits.
VII. Sensitive individuals with negative tempera-
ments coming within the radius of this class of spirits,
become psychically influenced, and later obsessed with-
out understanding the causes of their strange, restless,
nervous conditions.
Ill
Introduction.
VIII. Earth-bound spirits are as naturally chained
or held within the limits of the earth's atmosphere as
lead is held to the surface of the earth by the fixed law
of gravity.
IX. Different moral grades of spiritual beings can
by their wills so impinge upon the auras of mortals and
so hypnotically project their thoughts and their sug-
gestions into the minds of those yet clothed in mortality,
as to not only influence, not only co-ordinate the mental-
ity, but to obsess them, and so in a measure sensuously
re-live their lives on this earthly, fleshly plane.
X. Selfish, ignorant spirits thrust into spirit life by
accident, or natural causes, soon seek their affinitizing
associates over there, which, in regard to space, is log-
ically here. They return to their old haunts; hence
haunted houses. They also follow and if possible co-
mingle their psychic emanations with certain mortals,
and cling to them as fungus and moss to trees, thus
vampire-like, absorbing their vitality. This is one of
the worst forms of obsession.
XI. Hunters and vivisectionists, who torture ani-
mals, shoot innocent birds, attend prize fights, engage
in maddened dueling, and rush fiercely into battle aflame
with malice, to perish on the crimson warfields of slaugh-
ter, constitute many of the obsessional forces that blight
humanity. These unredeemed personalities often incite
mortals to the commission of crimes where no motive
on this side of the great divide is discernible. Mrs.
McKnight's case is an illustration. There was no ap-
preciable malice—no motive for the killing of her hus-
band, her sister and the children. She said she was
—
sorry, but she could not help it a clear case of ob-
session.
IV
Introduction.
XII. Where, and who are the exorcists of these
times competent to cast out demons as did the incarnate
Christ of old, and so restore to health and harmony the
afflicted? It is evident that the demon-infested cannot
cast out demons.
XIII. Is it, or is it not, true that the demons of
these demon-controlled mediums, being of necessity near
the earth, near matter and material things, teach ma-
terialistic doctrines, rudest Darwinism, spontaneous
generation, and the non-immortality of some human
beings?
XIV. Are obsessions relievable? If so, by what
methods,— Chinese, the Hindu or the Christian? Who
have the power to bid these oppressed prisoners go free%
Who are the wise, heaven-commissioned ones to trans-
fer low, deceptive spirits into better conditioned fields
with better facilities for moral growth?
XV. Can these ignorant, malicious or evil-disposed
demon-spirits, often lying, pompous and pretentious,
that benumb individuality, obsess, and if possible pos-
sess, be reached? Can their soul sympathies be touched
by the fires of inspiration? Can their depraved natures
be transformed, and so be prepared to ultimately enter
into the higher Christ-spheres of the many-mansioned
house of the Father?
All of these psychological questions, hypnofe^m,
trance, witchcraft, monomania, motiveless crimes, ob-
sessions by demoniac spirits, are discussed in this vol-
ume, solving the illustrious Blackstone's queries, found
in the sixtieth article of the fourth book of ''Blackstone's
Commentaries." These were his words, ''A sixth spe-
cies of offense against God and religion, of which our
ancient books are full, is a crime of which one knows not
Introduction.
what account to give. I mean the offense of witchcraft,
enchantment and sorcery. To deny the possibility, nay,
actual existence, of witchcraft and sorcery and demons,
is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God
in various passages of both the Old and New Testament,
and the thing is itself a truth, to which every nation in
the world hath borne testimony."
If a man lives hereafter,— and he does,— he is nec-
essarily himself, and consciously knows himself. Indi-
viduality, God-implanted, is in its inmost, indestructible,
and so identity defies the icy touch of death.
''Habits must necessarily cling to man," writes the
eminent author, Dr. George A. Fuller, in his ''Wisdom
of the Ages" (pages 197, 198) "after the body physical
has been thrown aside. No miracle occurs to transform
a mortal in a moment's time from a demon to a saint.
If his home has been in the realm of the carnal appetites
and passions, death will not lift him out of that realm,
for it can destroy only that through which these appetites
and passions were gratified. Such spirits attach them-
selves as parasites to susceptible subjects, and through
these usurped bodies seek to gratify their unhallowed
desires. Inasmuch as there are malignant spirits en-
cased in physical bodies, there are also malignant spirits
denuded of physical habiliments, who disturb the equi-
librium of everyday life, break down health and harass
these physical bodies by sowing in them the seeds of dis-
ease. Much of the insanity of the world has been caused
by unhappy suggestions and melancholy thoughts that
emanate from these evil spirits that still hug the lower
strata of physical life. Many times the holy sanctuary
of life is not only invaded but also desecrated by these
spirits. The rightful owner of the house, for the time
being, is deposed and sometimes fairly driven away.
VI
Description:1904. Let old philosophies and follies, truths and errors meet, let old and modern necromancies, sorceries, magic white and black, theories good, bad and indifferent, come forth from their secret lurking places in the crypts of half-forgotten lore, let them come forth and stand front to front with t
