It soon became noticeable that she, who had previously had a very lovable and gentle disposition, was gradually changing, so that not only in temperament, but in facial expression, she was growing like her late husband.
Next a curious thing ensued.
Her husband had died of an inflammatory spinal lesion which caused no pain at the site of the trouble, but intense pain in the nerves that issued from the spine at that point, so that the pain was referred to a particular distribution in the hands and arms, more upon one side than the other.
This lady developed a severe neuritis that exactly corresponded in its distribution to her late husband’s symptoms.
Another illustrative case is that of Miss E., whose fiancé was killed during the War.
She says in a letter written to the person whom she consulted with regard to her problem: “I was able to rise above the loss and separation at the time, but six months later I suffered nervous breakdown, from this time I have been troubled with weak nerves.
For the last two months I have been having very extraordinary experiences which are causing me much perplexity and rendering me unfit for work.
It is a night experience and has not once occurred during the day.
After I have composed myself for sleep I find that gradually my body is losing all sensation; it feels as if I was being slowly frozen stiff.
(I don’t know how else to describe it.) At this stage I can sometimes rouse myself and overcome it, but I cannot always do this.
My efforts to rouse myself are in vain, and although fully conscious I feel unable to move or call.
Usually after this I sink into some kind of sleep.
I have all kinds of experiences.
Sometimes I visit strange places and talk with people I don’t know.
Sometimes my experiences are beautiful beyond description; sometimes I am threatened with danger of drowning or falling, but in these cases I always rise in the air and travel for miles, it seems to me.
Sometimes I feel that I am just floating in the air.
How long the dream lasts I cannot tell.
When I wakeup, however, I have great difficulty in moving for some time; but gradually I regain the power to move about, and after a lot of stinging sensation in the limbs I get up, usually feeling very tired and unrefreshed, but sometimes I feel none the worse for the strange experience.
But it is under mining my health and happiness, and it cannot be good.” In conversation she amplified the statements in her letter, and said that during the experiences described, someone, she thought it was her fiancé, was trying to prevent her from getting back into her body again after these nocturnal expeditions.
The case was entirely cleared up in one week by means of telepathic treatment.
The notes on the manner in which the work was done are of considerable interest.
“The treatment was given to the entity that was causing the trouble, not merely to the patient, and it was the release of the obsessor from his plane of work and helping him Heavenward that gave freedom to his victim.” In the other type of haunting, that in which it is the place which is the focus of manifestation, not a special person, we must distinguish between the earth-bound entity which remains attached to a particular spot, and the thought-atmosphere which is left behind after violent emotions have been experienced there.
Let us consider first the question of thought-atmosphere, of which I can give a very illuminating example.
A friend of mine who was a student at a school of dramatic art consulted me concerning an attack of stage fright she had had, which left her rather nervous as to its recurrence.
She was an experienced student, in fact a pupil teacher, and she was having some extra tuition from the head of the school.
Going for her lesson one afternoon, she found that her teacher had just finished taking the junior students for their end-of-the-term examination in elocution.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The physical manifestation of the husband's spinal lesion symptoms in the widow's hands suggests a correspondence between the spiritual state of the dead and the physical body of the living.
The doctrine and practice by which the etheric or astral double separates from the physical body, at will or involuntarily, to act, travel, or encounter other entities on a plane subtler than the physical — remaining tethered to the body by a silver cord, and capable of returning physical injury (bruises, exhaustion) sustained while thus projected. Distinct from linga_sharira (the static doctrine that a subtle form persists as a template) in describing its active operative use, and from shamanic_journey (a trance-journey framed within a shamanic ritual complex, undertaken to return with knowledge, songs, or a recovered soul) in being a Western-esoteric technical practice with its own physiology of cord-attachment and reciprocal wounding.
Miss E.'s experience of leaving her body, traveling to strange places while conscious, and the difficulty returning matches the description of astral or etheric projection.
A ritual intended to drive out an unwanted possessing or afflicting spirit from a person or place, restoring it to its unafflicted state. Distinct from spirit_conjuration (the operator summons and binds a spirit that was not already present, rather than expelling one) and from possession (the affliction this ritual answers, not the ritual itself).
The 'telepathic treatment' given to the entity to release it from its plane and free the victim functions as a form of exorcism or spiritual liberation.
The interference of a discarnate human soul, or the lingering condition of a particular place, with the living — Dion Fortune's distinction between a soul in distress that clings out of ignorance and ties itself to a person or locality, versus deliberate malice. Distinct from animism (indwelling nature-spirits inherent to a place by nature, not a specific dead individual's soul) and from psychopomp_journey and ancestor_veneration (guiding the dead onward, or the living's ongoing ritual obligation to the honoured dead) in naming the pathological case: a soul that has NOT been guided onward and instead interferes, whether with a person or a place.
The passage explicitly defines and illustrates two types of haunting: personal obsession by a discarnate soul and place-based manifestation via thought-atmosphere.
The doctrine that human volition, cultivated by discipline and emancipated from passion and servitude, is the primary instrument of magical operation — will confirmed by persistent acts acquires causal power over self, others, and nature; distinct from faith and from mere desire.
The successful treatment via telepathic will directed at the entity demonstrates the causal power of trained volition in occult practice.
The state of a person being controlled or inhabited by an external spirit or entity — the entity as subject acting through the person's body, rather than merely troubling them from without. Distinct from haunting (a discarnate soul or place-bound presence that interferes without necessarily entering and controlling a living body) and from spirit_conjuration (an operator deliberately commanding a spirit's appearance, the reverse relation — here the spirit is uninvited and in control, not summoned and subordinated).
The text describes a widow changing temperament and physical symptoms to match her dead husband, implying an entity inhabiting or influencing the living body.