In
this way the belief in demoniacal possession (distinguished, as such,
from madness and epilepsy) has its nucleus, some contend, in the
phenomena of alternating personalities in certain patients. Their
characters, ideas, habits, and even voices change, and the most
obvious solution of the problem, in the past, was to suppose that a
new alien personality--a "devil"--had entered into the sufferer.
Again, the phenomena occurring in "haunted houses" (whether caused, or
not, by imposture or hallucination, or both) were easily magnified
into such legends as that of Grettir and Glam, and into the
monstrosities of the witch trials. Once more the simple hallucination
of a dead person's appearance in his house demanded an explanation.
This was easily given by evolving a legend that he was a spirit,
escaped from purgatory or the grave, to fulfil a definite purpose.
The rarity of such purposeful ghosts in an age like ours, so rich in
ghost stories, must have a cause. That cause is, probably, a
dwindling of the myth-making faculty.
Any one who takes these matters seriously, as facts in human nature,
must have discovered the difficulty of getting evidence at first hand.
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