Psychiatry knows striking cases of splitting of consciousness, when two or more personalities live in one person. They have been known for a very long time, but science cannot clearly answer a very old question: what is it?
So, 14-year-old American Lurance sat motionless on a chair, staring at one point with wide eyes, the pupils of which seemed huge. Her mother fiddled with the girl and repeated in despair: “What's the matter with you? What's the matter? - but she did not react and looked like a mannequin.
The psychiatrist professor called to his house stated: "Catalepsy".
The woman could not understand why her smart and obedient girl had changed so much lately. It suddenly turns to stone, then suddenly falls into hysterics; her memory lapses began, her mood changed dramatically. The professor suggested hypnosis. Mother agreed: Just give me back the old Lurens …"
The session lasted quite a long time. Finally, the professor said that two restless souls had settled in Lurens. One belongs to an old witch woman, the other to a suicidal young man.
- What am I to do, Mr. Jones? the shocked woman asked.
- I spoke about this with your daughter. She, being in a hypnotic trance, asked my permission for an angel named Marie Rose to enter her body for a while.
- Are you allowed? Who is this Marie Rose?
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- Yes, I did. I see no other way out. And I know Marie Rose. This is a former patient of mine. She lived near you. Unfortunately, she died. At the age of 18. Lurance was then a year and 4 months old. The doctor sighed sadly:
- I'm sorry Marie Rose. She was a beautiful girl, in all respects really like an angel …
- Are you sure. What did Lurance say specifically about her?
- Yes. She gave the address and asked to quickly deliver her to this house.
- So now Lurance will imagine himself as this Marie Rose, and we will forever lose our girl?
“Patience, Mrs. Vennum,” the professor reassured her. “I hope your daughter's health will return …
They were completely different in appearance, but Lurance's facial expressions, voice, and manners changed so much that the parents of Marie Rose, with whom, with their consent, the doctor settled the patient for a while, recognized their late daughter in the teenager.
The girl found her bearings in the house, showed amazing awareness of the events that had taken place in the family before, knew the habits and tastes of her parents. She was affectionate and cheerful. She remembered where she hid some of the treasured things, and was happy to find them. This all inspired some fear. Mrs. Vennum, following the advice of the psychiatrist, did not disturb her daughter, who now mistook her for a stranger. She only prayed and kept repeating: "When?"
And the deadline came 40 days after Lurance moved to the house of Marie Rose. Once the girl felt faint, lost consciousness, and when she woke up, she looked around in surprise: "Where am I?"
She had absolutely no recollection of what had happened to her and felt as if she had fallen asleep in her bed last night. She never learned anything about her strange transformations. She became cheerful and healthy again. And she never had any mental disorders again.
We only have a common body
How do you explain what happened to Lurance Vennum? Moreover, this case is far from the only one of its kind. Such phenomena have long occupied the imagination of people and have been studied by physicians for centuries. The conclusions are mixed. Most likely, the splitting of human consciousness has a number of reasons. The Bible also says how Christ drove out demons from a sick person and put them into pigs.
Interesting cases about the habitation of "evil spirits" in people can be found in the publications of the writer A. Gorbovsky, who collected a lot of facts. So, he tells about a certain servant named Dunya, who once lived in the Tauride district. According to eyewitnesses, terrible attacks happened to her. Dunya fell, writhed in convulsions, her eyes and mouth were closed. But at the same time, she spoke in an intrauterine male voice. “Spirit” informed through Dunya that he was a Mordvin Svirid Stepanovich. I was walking with a friend on a pilgrimage. Tired, very languid with thirst, unable to quench it. He got angry at the whole world and hanged himself. But then, supposedly, some benefactor instilled him in Dunya.
Another possessed, sickly young man Nikolushka Kandalintsev, under the influence of the magnetizer, Prince Dolgorukov, turned into a strong, rude guy, in whose speech a German accent was felt. In the same way as Svirid Stepanovich about Dun, he spoke about Nikolushka in the third person. Both "spirits" knew what was happening now in some distant places, and made prophetic predictions. And without error …
27-year-old American Eva, who under hypnosis revealed three active and one neutral personality, sent a box with spiders, worms, toads in a parcel to her address. These creatures could not stand one of her personalities.
- Why did you do that? - asked the doctor-hypnotist during the session. - After all, you are one and the same!
“No,” Eve replied. - The body is so common! The book by Corbet Thigpen and Harvey Cleckley, Three Faces of Eve (1957), became a bestseller. A film was made on its basis. (In fact, Eve's name was Christina Sizemore, who later wrote a book herself called I Am Eve.)
Another work "Sybil" (by F. Schreiber) also illuminates the true history. Psychoanalyst Cornelia Wilbert discovered 16 hidden personalities in her patient. Sybil is the pseudonym Shirley Ardell Mason (died in 1988 at the age of 75).
Some researchers claim that "wandering spirits" invade bodies weakened by illness or stress in order to prolong their earthly existence. The people say: "The demon has possessed." The demoniacs present a terrible picture during seizures: at the graves of the saints, at the sacred relics, they fight in wild hysterics, scream in an inhuman voice, shout curses, writhe, bark. Sometimes even a few strong men will not hold a fragile woman. The demoniac will sweep away everything in her path.
“Examining the patient, in the area of her abdomen, I discovered 'something' with a very strange aura. It was a seal without a temperature characteristic, causing a very peculiar sensation. I associate it with the concept of viscosity, but this seal has strictly limited boundaries. Then I happened to find such seals both in the heart and in the head of a person. This is an excerpt from a collection of earthly secrets. A specialist in exorcism (casting out demons), A. Shpolyansky, talks about his work:
The process of "expulsion" takes place in three stages. The first is to induce a seizure in the patient, the second is to try to find out the name of the "entity", and the third is to exile itself. Several times invisible "spirits" managed to escape from the healer. At the same time, he received tangible injuries. To prevent the "entities" from harming people, the exorcist, with the help of prayers and spells, drives them into stones, which he then throws into the river.
He states: "Possession of a demon is, of course, a rare phenomenon." So, out of 800 patients examined by him, only 7 were "populated"!
Invisible neighbor
At the end of the 20th century, the well-bred and highly educated girl Alma lived in Germany. When she turned 18, her parents began to notice that instead of a melancholic sickly young lady, they saw a lively, cheerful teenager. "New" Alma completely forgets philosophy, mathematics, rereads already read books, as if seeing them for the first time. She is passionate about theater and music, although she has not shown the slightest attention to them before. In this second state, the girl is not sick. But as soon as she becomes herself for a while, a series of ailments returns.
Some time after these changes, Alma began to notice the surprised looks of those around her, an unexpected rearrangement in the room: the furniture was not right, books and other things were not there. And somehow the girl found a note written in an unfamiliar handwriting: “Dear, look for a velvet box with pearls in the bottom drawer. I hid my new novel under a satin pillow on a canapé. I wish you not to get sick. Then there was an illegible signature. Alma inquired from the family, from whom this message. But they were embarrassedly silent or saying something unintelligible. And yet she learned the truth. Both Almas became friends and began to correspond.
But their contemporary, a police officer, hated his invisible neighbor, even tried to kill, which meant suicide. The change in his mind came after he received severe blows to the head. The man began to call himself "we". Having finished dinner, he did not leave the table, explaining that the “other” had not yet satisfied his hunger.
He lost his mind and died. Autopsy revealed that his cerebral hemispheres were very different in size.
Molly Fancher from Brooklyn has been called "the psychological miracle of the 19th century." As a child, she experienced several mental shocks. At the age of 15, she fell from a horse, hit her head on a stone, lost a lot of blood, broke her ribs. The next year, when she was riding a horse-drawn tram, Molly's skirt caught on the carriage, and he dragged the girl over the cobblestones for a whole block. For the remaining 35 years of her life, Fancher was bedridden.
Less than a year has passed since the incident with the horse tram, the girl lost her sight and hearing. Then, for a short time, her ability to hear and speak returned. Molly didn't touch food for seven weeks. But she survived. Later she became interested in modeling wax figures, wrote letters. And suddenly the old Molly seemed to die. She began to show herself as 5 different personalities. Some of them feuded, others corresponded. Each had its own name. Among them were a 7-year-old girl, a charming girl, and a witty energetic creature named Ruby.
Once, scientists, conducting experiments on cats and monkeys, dissected the corpus callosum of the brain, which connects the two hemispheres. The psyche of animals is split.
It is possible that personality splitting occurs precisely when, due to illness or injury, both hemispheres of the brain are unable to work interconnected or one of them is temporarily inactive.
Thus, for example, three personalities can be formed. One - when both hemispheres work, the second - with only the left working, the third - only with the right working hemisphere.
The great scientist Louis Pasteur suffered a serious illness at the age of 40. And, as it turned out after his death, he made all his discoveries only with the active left hemisphere of the brain. As it turned out, the right had not functioned for a long time. Damage or latent disease of the frontal lobes also leads to changes in the psyche.
Of course, a split, multiple split personality is a huge tragedy for a person. A 17th century French physician observed such a patient. He was a patriot of France, fought against the Germans, but once tore off his shoulder straps and went over to the side of the enemy. He woke up in prison after a deep faint and could not believe what had happened to him.
The unfortunate mother was French, the father was a Prussian. Perhaps some echoes of a child's time affected the psyche.
If a person is sick, weak, constantly feels melancholy and fear, pangs of conscience, suffers from grievous childhood memories, then restless "spirits" like Svirid Stepanovich are probably easier to penetrate into his body. At the same time, of course, there are changes in the work of the cerebral hemispheres.
House of "spirit" - body
And yet, where do these "entities" live? Perhaps they invisibly surround a person, making themselves felt with strange, but noticeable actions for us.
Here is a genuine case. At the beginning of the 20th century, Maria Nikolaevna Bekkel came from the provinces to Moscow and entered the house of the famous merchants Olovyashnikovs as a housekeeper. She first needed to rent inexpensive housing for a short time. A quiet old lady offered a small room. Maria Nikolaevna liked the accommodation. Bed, bedside table, two chairs, clean linens. Windows overlook the courtyard …
But when she, taking the little bag, walked through the arch to the entrance of the old house, a short elderly woman caught up with her and whispered: “Don't go there. Not a good place.
- Are people bad?
- The place is bad. Better look for something else …
The girl was surprised. What does "not a good place" mean? And where to look at night? And the room seemed right to her. She was tired, so she drank tea and lay down. Dozed off, and suddenly someone began to pull the blanket off her. Maria Nikolaevna lit the lamp. Nobody. But she did not have a chance to fall asleep that night: the invisible man grabbed the blanket, pulled the pillow from under his head and rocked the bed. The guest sat on a chair until dawn, barely waiting for morning. She left this strange dwelling forever without saying anything to the hostess.
Such incidents are not uncommon. It can be assumed that in this way "restless spirits" are looking for a haven, trying to attract attention to themselves.
The house of the "spirit" is the body. In this house, prayer and a pure heart can put a "key-lock" for uninvited guests.
You may or may not believe it, but it is clear that there is a close connection between the physical, mental and spiritual health of a person. Okay, so be it. But how to interpret the facts from which all psychiatrists panic?
But the case is already known when 166 individuals lived in one consciousness! And in Australia, an absolute record was recorded - more than 220 "spirits" …
Source: “Interesting newspaper. Magic and mysticism №8 2012