Madness, epilepsy, catalepsy, hysteria, in fact all nervous maladies are at present little understood by science, and among rude nations, where there is no science, are not understood at all, and are regarded with superstitious terror. The violence of the patient, the fancies that possess him, his incoherent cries, the distortion of his body, the alteration in his features, all seem to point out that he has fallen under the domination of a foreign power, and such a person is said to be _possessed_. His actions, his words, are no longer his own, but those of the spirit that occupies his body. There was not of old, nor is there still among savages, any sharp distinction between good spirits and bad. All spirits are those of the dead. It is only by those who have advanced to a higher stage that these are classified as angels or devils. In Baron Wrangel’s “North Polar Travels,” already quoted, is another significant passage which illustrates this point. He says that in Northern Siberia an epidemic disease called the Mirak appears, which, according to the universal belief of the people, proceeds from the ghost of a dead sorceress entering into and tormenting the patient. But Wrangel says, “The Mirak appears to me to be only an extreme form of hysteria; the persons attacked are chiefly women.” Our word _mania_ traces back to the period when the madman was supposed to be possessed by the _manes_, the spirit of some dead man; but such an idea was already abandoned by the classic Roman, who gave the word to us. As already said, it was inevitable that Schamanism should co-exist along with an organised religion, for only one portion of a people would have made sufficient progress to be able to receive a dogmatic faith and accept a formulated worship. There would always remain a substratum of ignorance and unintelligence which would have recourse to diviners and dealers with familiar spirits, that is to Schamans or medicine-men. And now we can understand the true position of the Witch of Endor. The faith of the Jewish people had taken shape; it had its monotheistic creed, its altars, and its priesthood, but the religious development of the people was not on a level with the scheme of Mosaism. The law was formal, unspiritual--that is to say, unsensational--to those to whom the only religion that was acceptable was one of vague spiritualism and ecstatic hallucination. Saul himself was one of these. As long as all went well with him he adhered to the authorised religion, but the moment he was in real distress and alarm he had recourse to the baser, proscribed system, level with his own low spiritual perceptions.