viT.] What is Inspiration ? 1 1 



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by Mr. Tylor in the second volume of his great work 

 on Primitive Culture. In the lower stages of culture, 

 the morbid phenomena of hysteria, epilepsy, and 

 mania, are explained by the hypothesis of a foreign 

 spirit, which is supposed to have taken temporary 

 possession of the body or earthly tabernacle of the 

 patient. In Christian cases of exorcism, this foreign 

 spirit was naturally supposed to be of diabolical 

 character ; but in the cruder theory of the bar- 

 barian no such uncanny suspicion is attached to 

 it. On the contrary, the possessed person is usually 

 regarded as an exceptionally valuable source of in- 

 formation concerning the supernatural world to which 

 the possessing spirit belongs. AUke in the medicine-^ 

 man of the American Indian, and in the Pythian 

 priestess of Delphi, may be seen the close theoretical 

 connection between disease-possession and oracle- 

 possession. The Zulu diviners ascribe their hysterical 

 symptoms to possession by " amatongo," or ancestral 

 spirits ; and the Siberian shamans select epileptic 

 children to be educated for the priesthood, which is 

 thus " apt to become hereditary along with the epi- 

 leptic tendencies it belongs to." In the primitive 

 theory, the diviner or prophet can give information 

 from the supernatural world because his own per- 

 sonality is for the time being supplanted by the 



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