never pretend that they are the spirits of their depart-
ed friends. They get themselves in a certain state and
seek to be possessed by these spirits. I have seen them
in certain conditions invite the spirits to come and to
inhabit them. Their eyes become frenzied, their fea-
tures distorted, and they pour out speeches which are
supposed to be the utterances of the spirits.”
An old issue of Youth’s Day Spring contains a
letter from a missionary describing the condition of the
Africans on the Gaboon river at the approach of death.
He says,-
” The room was filled with women who were
weeping in the most piteous manner, and calling on
the spirits of their fathers and others who were dead,
and upon all spirits in whom they believed, Ologo,
Njembi, Abambo, and Miwii, to save the man from
death.”
A Wesleyan missionary, Mr. White, says,-
“There is a class of people in New Wand called
Eruku, or priests; these men pretend to have inter-
course with departed spirits. “
No part of humanity has been exempted from the
attacks of these demons, and their Muence is always
baneful. India is full of it. So generally accepted at
one time was the belief in demon-possession, that the
Roman Catholic Church, through her priests, regularly
practiced “exorcism,” or casting out of demons.
The very earliest recorded spirit manifestation was
in Eden, when Satan, desiring to tempt mother Eve,
used or “obsessed” the serpent. Mother Eve claimed
that she was deceived by the serpent’s misrepresenta-
tions.
God allowed the claim as true, and sentenced
the serpent, which there became the symbolic repre-
sentative of Satan. As the father of lies he there took
possession of a serpent to deceive Eve and lead her to