China Insight September-October 2007

The Powers of Darkness or Some Observations on Demonology

edited by Tony Lambert, Director for China Research, OMF International

Recently I came across this little 20-page booklet and believe it is worth reprinting in China Insight as it is now quite rare. Mildred Cable had nearly 20 years of experience in China as a missionary when she penned it, and it is still relevant today. This may seem hard to believe when visiting China’s modern, mega-cities, but I have often had the experience of meeting Christians in rural and even urban settings who relate similar experiences. Demon possession is still not uncommon in areas where idolatry is rampant (and that accounts for much of the country and the population). I have omitted some material and very slightly edited the language for the modern reader.

THE POWERS OF DARKNESS

By A. Mildred Cable (Missionary in China), London: Morgan & Scott/ CIM,1920

The Chinese, though perhaps the most materialistic of easterners, is no exception to his neighbors in the large place which the occult takes in his outlook. For him, the physical world is peopled with spirits, good and evil, capable of exercising the most far-reaching influences on the fortunes of men. These spiritual beings are bound up in the forces of nature and combine to constitute that geomantic system known as fengshui (wind and water) by reference to which matters of human life are decided.

For the Chinese, the hillside ravine and mountain gorge are peopled with presences best described as fairies, though not resembling the Western lighthearted beings. To him they have the appearance of aged, venerable beings, short, with white beards.

In China, spiritual beings may be grouped into three classes. Gui [gway] is the term used most by the common people to indicate those most feared by all and who receive from every family some measure of propitiatory sacrifice. The Song dynasty “Precious Regulations” state: “Every living being—man or animal, gnat or midge, worm or insect- are all called gui after death."

Apart from these are the shen [shehn] which have been defined—not, as the gui, spirits of the dead—but as emanations of nature clothed with personality. They possess varying degrees of intelligence and power. Their interest is not only in the affairs of men but also in the secret springs of human action. They reside in man as well as among men and witness to his good or evil works before the tribunal of heaven.

Other spiritual beings are the xian [shee-ahn] or fairies, who by their ascetic practices have attained to a life higher than that of humanity. It will endure through many centuries, and they are free to live in the pleasant places of the earth with considerable license to enjoy good things, yet free from the material claims which govern human life.

It is in the important events of life—birth, marriage and death—that the interference of the spirits is strongest, and such occasions are used by a sorcerer as a means of extorting money. A class of sorcerers has come into being called mohan [mo-hahn] and shengpo [shung-poh] whose work it is to be spokesmen for the gods. With deliberate intent and elaborate ritual they develop the mediumistic gift and learn how to attain conditions of frenzy and trance during which their body is controlled by a spiritualistic force. They also serve as a resting place for the homeless, unclean spirits. At tremendous physical cost—for they are never long-lived—they accumulate great wealth, exorbitant sums being demanded to free a family or village of a tormenting gui.

A woman I know whose boy had apparently died of typhoid fever was told his spirit had been enticed away by a mountain god. She took the boy’s coat and walked to the temple where she burned incense and begged with heart-rending cries that his spirit might be restored to her. She waited until she felt her request answered, and with a movement as though to enfold the little wandering ghost, clasped the coat in her arms and swiftly returned home, laying it on the lifeless body. The child revived, and is alive to this day.

Often, after supplication to the gods, the clothes of the patient are carefully weighed. A procession is formed in which one of the sorcerers holds a mirror directed backwards; others, wearing scarlet aprons, carry brooms and with mystic movements sweep widely on either side to gather up the wandering soul. Meanwhile firecrackers are let off to the weird sound of falsetto lilting. After a long journey, they return and reweigh the clothes of the dead man to see if the weight of the spirit has been added.

In a case which came under my personal observation, the spirit of a young woman from a village at some distance from where I was staying, who had recently died in childbirth, was said to have returned. Illness became so prevalent that necromancers were called in and a medium employed. The spirit made known its demands, and by promising the sacrifices ordained, the family passed under a bondage from which none dared free himself by omitting the rites. Night after night at the medium’s command, a table was placed at the crossroads on which were laid fantastic foods for the departed spirit. Gold and silver paper money was burned, crackers were fired and earthen bowls full of grain were placed by the road.

It is pathetic to talk to a young woman who is gentle and friendly and will listen respectfully to the gospel, and to see her a few hours later torn by the efforts of the demon to express itself, or dressed in scarlet with a snakeskin thrown around her, holding a trident, and leading a group of people to a lonely mountain. When urged to give up these evil practices, she became agitated and declared her utter inability to free herself. Once having subjected her will, she ceases to be a free agent and nothing but the deliverance of Christ can release such as her.

I saw her while under spirit control. Before a table elaborately decorated on which incense burned, she threw herself into extraordinary contortions, quivering and shaking, her finger and thumb forming a circle while the little finger vibrated continuously. She uttered a perpetual chant in the peculiar spirit voice, the minor strains of which I find impossible to describe.

The fact that men and women who open themselves to demoniacal influences become possessed is beyond dispute. In many cases possession follows a fit of uncontrolled temper, or the taking of a vow on the occasion of illness in the home when service was promised to a particular god, or, again with the neglect to remove idols from a Christian home.

In other cases, a spirit may take temporary possession of a human body to express some important communication, and after delivering it, leave the person unconscious of what had taken place. I knew the eldest daughter in a family who was married into a home where she received ill-treatment from her mother-in-law. She was systematically overworked and underfed. A month after she gave birth to a son, her mother-in-law gave her some hot bread; the girl detected an unusual flavor and threw some to the dog, but before many hours had passed both were dead.

A few days later her brothers were working in the fields and her cousin, aged 22, suddenly exhibited symptoms of distress, trembling and weeping violently, and saying: “I am Lotus Bud; I was cruelly done to death. Why is there no redress?” After an hour the attack passed, leaving the young man exhausted and unconscious of what had taken place.

The first woman patient in the Hwochow Opium Refuge became interested in the gospel and destroyed her idols, but she reserved the beautifully carved shrines which she placed in her son’s room. Her daughter-in-law, who occupied this room, desired to become a Christian and gave us a warm welcome whenever we could go to the house. About six months later we were fetched by special messenger to see this girl who was said to be demon-possessed. The girl was chanting the weird minor chant of the possessed, the voice, as in every case I have seen, clearly distinguishing it from madness. She refused to wear clothes or eat and by her violence terrorized the community. Upon our entering with a Chinese woman evangelist, she ceased her chanting and slowly pointed at us. As we knelt to pray she trembled and said, “The room is full of gui [demons].” We tried to calm her and get her to join us in repeating the sentence, “Lord Jesus, save me.” After much effort she succeeded in pronouncing the words, and when she had done so we commanded the demon to leave her, whereupon her body trembled and she sneezed some 50 or 60 times, then suddenly came to herself, asked for her clothes and some food, and seemingly perfectly well, resumed her work. She insisted that the demons were using the idol shrines for a refuge, so her parents now willingly handed them over to the Christians present and joined with them in their destruction. From this time onwards she was perfectly well, a normal, healthy young woman.

Another woman I knew after her recovery from illness yielded herself to the lord of hell [Yanwang] for a certain period during which time she was under a vow to wear black garments, to perform certain rites and to chant instead of speaking. She told me she knew all I could tell her of the Lord of heaven and of the death on the cross of his son, but that she served the lord of hell and his servant she remained.

The yielding of personality to the possession of a spirit no doubt seriously weakens the will power.
{TO BE CONTINUED}

Copyright 2007 by OMF International