ABSTRACT

The phenomenon of diabolic possession, the mere possibility of which materialists and modernists in recent years have for the most part stoutly denied, has, nevertheless, been believed by all peoples and at all periods of the earth’s history. In truth he who accepts the spiritual world is bound to realize all about him the age-long struggle for empery of discarnate evil ceaselessly contending with a thousand cunning sleights and a myriad vizardings against the eternal unconquerable powers of good. Nature herself bears witness to the contest; disease and death, cruelty and pain, ugliness and sin, are all evidences of the mighty warfare, and it would be surprising indeed if some were not wounded in the fray—for we cannot stand apart, each man, S. Ignatius says, must fight under one of the two standards—if some even did not fall.