< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu
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SLEEP AND ITS COUNTERFEITS.

605

The devil, enemy of Sister Claire, appeared at the command of her ordinary exorcist, Father Elizée, and rendered her supple and ductile like a sheet of lead. The exorcist bent her body in various directions—forward, backward, laterally—so that she almost touched the ground with her head. The demon kept her in the posture in which she had been placed until she was moved again, during which time she only slightly breathed through the nose and was insensible, for the father pierced a fold of her skin with a pin without drawing blood or producing pain. We also read of others who were "remarkable for their pliability. In their sleep they could be manipulated like a sheet of lead, and preserved the postures imparted to them until moved again." Elsewhere a nun possessed by the demon Cismond lay on the ground in a strange trance; her arms and legs could be twisted about as if made of wool; nothing could be extracted from her; the devil keeping her in this condition so as to prevent her confession.

Though, as already mentioned, the Latin races appear to offer a much more favorable field for the spread of nervous epidemics, we read that England has not always been free from such manifestations:

"During Wesley's sermons at Bristol," says Dr. John Chapman, in his work "On Christian Revivals, their History and Natural History," "many used to fall as if struck to the heart by the word of God. Men and women by the score were lying on the ground, insensible like dead bodies." Singular nervous accidents were likewise frequent among the American fanatics known as Shakers or Jumpers, as well as among the Irish revivalists of Ballymena.

As late as 1861, at the village of Morzine, a secluded commune in the Alps of Savoy, there occurred a curious epidemic of hysteria with all the characters of "demoniacal possession." The population of these regions is extremely neurotic and superstitious. In a short time nearly all the female population, excited by the exorcismal practices of the clergy, fell a prey to the disease, and the scenes recalled the worst days of Loudun. But at the beginning, when young girls were chiefly affected, phenomena of ecstasy, catalepsy, and somnambulism prevailed. The Government had finally to interfere, and the temporary dispersion and seclusion of the patients speedily restored their mental equilibrium, and the locality has since resumed its habitual tranquillity.

As an instance of trances of a more contemplative tendency, I shall give a short account of Louisa Lateau, of whose attacks Dr. Lefebvre has given a good description:

She used to pass into that condition without any warning. Suddenly, during a conversation, or at her sewing-machine, she would become as if transfixed, the eyes turned upward to the light. "Her expression is then one of deep attention or of distant contemplation. Her physiognomy, like her attitude, often changes, and depicts feelings of joy or of sadness. Sometimes terror is expressed, or she turns slowly, as if watching the progress of an imaginary procession. Sometimes she stands, resting on the tips of her toes, with her hands outstretched, as if to fly away. Her lips move, the eyes brighten, and her face is illuminated by an ideal beauty. The stigmata in her forehead and hands bleed.
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