POSSESSION, in Scots law. See LAW, Part III. No exii. 11, &c.
Demoniacal Possession. (See DEMON and DEMONIACS.) In the third volume of the Manchester Transactions, there is a paper on popular illusions or medical demonology by Dr Ferriar. He informs us in a note, that, on the 13th of June 1788, George Lukins of Yatton in Somersetshire was exorcised in the temple church at Bristol, and delivered from the possession of seven devils by the efforts of seven clergymen. An account of his deliverance was published in several of the public papers, authenticated by the Reverend Mr Easterbrook, vicar of the temple church in Bristol.—Dr Ferriar gives us the following particulars, extracted from this account, which we shall here insert.
"Lukins was first attacked by a kind of epileptic fit, when he was going about acting Christmas plays, or mummeries: this he ascribed to a blow given by an invisible hand. He was afterwards seized by fits; during which he declared, with a roaring voice, that he was the devil, and sung different songs in a variety of keys. The fits always began and ended with a strong agitation.
Possession agitation of the right hand. He frequently uttered dreadfully execrations during the fits. The whole duration of his disorder was eighteen years.
Post. "At length, viz. in June 1788, he declared that he was possessed by seven devils, and could only be freed by the prayers (in faith) of seven clergymen. Accordingly the requisite force was summoned, and the patient sung, swore, laughed, and barked, and treated the company with a ludicrous parody on the Te Deum. These astonishing symptoms resisted both hymns and prayers, till a small, faint, voice admonished the ministers to adjure. The spirits, after some murmuring, yielded to the adjuration, and the happy patient returned thanks for his wonderful cure. It is remarkable, that during this solemn mockery, the fiend swore 'by his infernal den,' that he would not quit his patient; an oath, I believe, nowhere to be found but in the Pilgrim's Progress, from which Lukins probably got it.
"Very soon after the first relation of this story was published, a person, well acquainted with Lukins, took the trouble of deceiving the public with regard to his pretended disorder, in a plain, sensible narrative of his conduct. He asserts, that Lukins's first seizure was nothing else than a fit of drunkenness; that he always foretold his fits, and remained sensible during their continuance; that he frequently saw Lukins in his fits, 'in every one of which, except in singing, he performed not more than most active young people can easily do,' that he was detected in an imposture with respect to the clenching of his hands; that after money had been collected for him, he got very suddenly well; that he never had any fits while he was at St George's Hospital in London; nor when visitors were excluded from his lodgings, by desire of the author of the Narrative; and that he was particularly careful never to hurt himself by his exertions during the paroxysm.
"Is it for the credit of this philosophical age, that so bungling an imposture should deceive seven clergymen into a public act of exorcism? This would not have passed even on the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum; for they required signs of supernatural agency, such as the suspension of the possessed in the air, without any visible support, or the use of different languages, unknown to the demoniac in his natural state."