Whatever has happened in more
recent years, what Huxley expected has certainly not happened.
There has been a revolt against Christian morality, and where there
has not been a return of Christian mysticism, it has been a return of
the mysticism without the Christianity. Mysticism itself has returned,
with all its moons and twilights, its talismans and spells.
Mysticism itself has returned, and brought with it seven devils
worse than itself.
But the scientific coincidence is even more strict and close.
It affects not only the general question of miracles,
but the particular question of possession. This is the very
last element in the Christian story that would ever have been
selected by the enlightened Christian apologist. Gladstone would
defend it, but he would not go out of his way to dwell on it.
It is an excellent working model of what I mean by finding
an unexpected support, and finding it in an unexpected quarter.
It is not theological but psychological study that has brought us
back into this dark underworld of the soul, where even identity
seems to dissolve or divide, and men are not even themselves.
I do not say that psychologists admit the discovery of demoniacs;
and if they did they would doubtless call them something else,
such as demono-maniacs.
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