The whole theory of spirit possession or demon possession is linked with this idea. In the “possessed” state the victim is unconscious of deeds done and words said. The blame is the blame of the demon. In nine cases out of ten frenzy or hysteria accompanies nominal possession. There are gifts of strange tongues usually said to be Eastern or Indian, and the possessed pour out streams of gibberish in which a few dominant words or phrases bearing a slight resemblance to some known tongue may be distinguished. Clairvoyance, the gift of prophecy, and other psychic qualities appear at the time of the seizure. Often there is marked anæsthesia and insensitiveness to pain. Hot objects may be handled with impunity, electric shocks are not felt. These cases are not genuine cases of possession in its worst sense when they begin, but very frequently the victim is urged by fools to develop these wonderful powers and the Darker Powers accept the invitation and step in. The occultist and the scientist agree about very few things, but both agree that possession and surrender to possession are the first steps to moral and physical disaster. The transferable or infectious quality of possession is not so widely known as it should be, but with the increase of Spiritualism its effects will in a year or so become capable of perception by even the most unenlightened. A girl of my acquaintance, the daughter of wealthy and respectable Midland parents, became interested in psychic matters. Her faith was greater than her powers of discernment and she was, like all too many Spiritualists, of neurotic and hysterical temperament. Her first actual essays were with automatic writing; then as she was an art student she tried painting under spirit control. Some slight success attended her efforts and she became interested in Egyptian mythology because her spirit paintings were Egyptian in character. I did not see her frequently, but met her about a year after she had taken up her Egyptian studies. She stated that in her was reincarnated the soul of an Egyptian priest. This invading entity dominated her entire mind and mode of life. Before, she had been a healthy, normal girl although inclined to be neurotic, but once given over to this obsession she found that owing to the psychic change of sex all men were repugnant to her. She was possessed by a male mind in a female body, and with this extraordinary inversion of normal feelings was obliged to break off her engagement. The remainder of her life was short but tragic. Her automatic writings (which were destroyed after her unhappy death at her own hands) showed the ascendancy of the possessing demon as it grew over her. Interspersed with these records were the tragic outpourings of her soul, her self-analysis of her psychic disaster. There were things there terrible to read.