ease must have offered still more convincing
evidence. Among uncivilised people we know that this is so. To quote
again from the indispensable Tylor:--

"The possessed man ... rationally finds a spiritual cause for his
sufferings.... Especially when the mysterious unseen power throws him
helpless on the ground, jerks and writhes him in convulsions, makes him
leap upon the bystanders with a giant's strength and a wild beast's
ferocity, impels him with distorted face and frantic gesture, and voice
not his own nor seemingly even human, to pour forth wild incoherent
raving, or with thought and eloquence beyond his sober faculties to
command, to counsel, to foretell--such a one seems to those who watch
him, and even to himself, to have become the mere instrument of a spirit
which has seized him or entered into him, a possessing demon in whose
personality the patient believes so implicitly that he often imagines a
personal name for it, which it can declare when it speaks in its own
voice and character through his organs of speech."[41]

It was this conception of insanity, universally current in the
uncivilised world, that was revived with fearful intensity in the early
Christian Church, and which certainly served its purpose in intensifying
the genuine belief in supernaturalism. Jesus had given His followers
power to expel demons "In My name," and this power of exorcism was one
upon which the early Christians specially prided themselves. It is with
unconscious sarcasm that Dean Trench puts the question, If one of the
disciples "were to enter a madhouse now, how many of the sufferers there
he might recognise as 'possessed'?"[42] One may safely say that he would
regard all as under the dominion of evil spirits. No other cause of
insanity appears to have been recognised, and the Church devised the
most elaborate formulae for casting out demons. The assumed demoniac was
prayed over, incensed, and evil-smelling drugs burned under his nose. A
set form of objurgation then followed:--

"Thou lustful and stupid one.... Thou lean sow, famine-stricken and most
impure.... Thou wrinkled beast, of all beasts the most beastly.... Thou
bestial and foolish drunkard.... Thou sooty spirit from Tartarus.... I
cast thee down, O Tartarean boor, into the infernal kitchen....
Loathsome cobbler ... filthy sow ... envious crocodile.... Malodorous
drudge ... swollen toad ... lousy swineherd," etc. etc.[43]

Then followed the exorcism proper:--

"B