demon sometimes say true things which are not apparent to the senses of
478 The Literal Meaning ofGenesis
The question ofdivination
13, 27. Some people indeed would have it that the human soul has a certain power of divination in itself; but if that is the case, why can it not always make use of it, since it would always like to? Or is it that it does not always get help to enable it to do so? So when it does get help, this can scarcely come from nobody, can it, or from this body? Thus it remains that it gets help from a spirit. Next the question is, what kind of help? Is it that something is done in the body to loosen the soul from it, so to say, and thus to let its attention scout around until it comes to where it can see in itself significant likenesses that were already there but were not being seen, just as we also have many things in the memory which we are not always looking at? Or are such likenesses produced there which were not there before, or are they in some spirit to which the soul can break out, and see them there on emerging from the body?
But ifthey were already in the soul as properly belonging to it, why does it not consequently also understand them? Sometimes, after all, most times indeed, it does not understand. Or is it that just as its spirit has had help to see these like nesses in itself, so the mind also cannot understand the things the spirit contains unless it is given help? Or is the case, perhaps, not that bodily hindrances are removed, or their grip as it were loosened, so that the soul is thrust out by its own impetus at the things that are to be seen, but that it is taken directly up to these things itself, whether they are to be perceived by spiritual vision or also to be comprehended by the intellectual kind? Or finally, does it sometimes see these things in itself, sometimes through the interaction of another spirit? Whichever of these it is, there should be no hasty assertion of it.
About one point nonetheless there should be no doubt, that the bodily images which are perceived by the spirit are not always signs of other things, whether in people who are awake or asleep or delirious. lt would be most surprising however, if there could be a case of ecstasy in which such likenesses of bodily things did not signify anything.
28. lt is not in the least surprising, on the other hand, if those who have a demon sometimes say true things which are not apparent to the senses of bystanders. This must certainly happen by heaven knows what hidden mingling of spirits, so that it is as if there is just one spirit of sufferer and tormentor. But when it is a good spirit taking or snatching up a human spirit to see these things, there cannot be any doubt whatsoever that these images are signs ofother things, of things which it is profitable to know about; this after all is a gift of God's. Discernment is certainly extremely difficult when the evil spirit acts is it were in a quieter manner, and without any harassment of the body says what it can through the human spirit it has taken over, or when it even says things that are