CASTING OUT DEVILS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 312, 26 September 1908, Page 18

CASTING OUT DEVILS.

_ Remarkable scenes at.Andambar, a village in tho southern Mahr'atta country, which ho calls the "Indian.Lourdes/'.are described by Mr. Byramji Hormusii, in. the "Annals- of Psychical Science." Crowds of people,.assemble there every Thursday, bringing relatives who _ are" suffering from epilepsy, ' hysteria, periodical madness, and other mala- ■ dies. At 8 o'clock the great bell of tho temple, swung on two iron poles, begins to peal. As the bell begins to toll,' possessed men and wdnien rush to the poles, and, catching them with both hands, "twist their legs through their arms over their heads,, and so hang perhaps for'a, quarter of an hour-at a time."- In another direction the onlooker v may see a woiran going round the shrino, turning somersault after somersault the whole way round. One sufferer was a man subject ,to fits of periodic madness.' At'th'o first sound of the b'ell he sprang up in fury, and rushed towards the shrine, the unclean spirit within him shouting, "You wish mo to corno! I will not come out!" Within, a' few steps of the image of the god he stopped, and fell slowly backward, with. his feet doubled under hira. There ho lay, holding - the great toe of either foot with his hands, in the recognised attitude of ponance. In that position the devil departed from him. In another case the evil spirit was beaten out of a young Brahmin widow with the broom used for sweeping away the water which had been poured over the image of the god.. . ..