Article Selections by T. Vijiaraghava Charlu | Notes by H.P.B.
[Note: for some background, see “[Note on “Stone-Throwing by ‘Spirits’”],” “[On “Stone-Showers”],” and “More Anecdotes of Hassan Khan Djinni.”]
I am able to add, from personal experience, some additional facts respecting the phenomena of possession—or, as the Western people call it—mediumship.
In the year 1872, at a place called Komal, in Mayavaram Taluq, Tanjore District, lived a young female named Meenatebe Ammal. Her age was about thirteen or fourteen years; she was married. One day, when on a visit to a relative at Negapatam, she was [doing her laundry at a water tank] . . . a Man—A mussalman, if I mistake not—coming there, was spattered with some of the water, and, with abusive language, ordered her to desist. She answered him in the same tone and kept on with her work. He . . . warned her that she should suffer from her obstinancy . . . The female, in the course of a day or so, returned to her native village, and almost immediately began to be terrified with a demon (Pisacha), or ugly-looking spirit . . . She described it as having a frightful head, covered with a wild shock of heair, and sitting sometimes on her neck, which it squeezed with its knees and crushed with its weight: but the form was visible to her only in the upper portion, the limbs being concealed with a large cloth.1 . . .
1. In this connection, let the reader refer to the records of the Salem Witchcraft tragedies in America in the year 1692. The resemblance between the experiences is most striking.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
. . . The poor creature, in her terror, would sometimes rush into the house and close every door and window, whereupon there would immediately come, rattling against the sides and roof of the building, a storm of bricks, stones, and pebbles. Sometimes we would be sitting near her to watch the phenomena, and stones, so heavy that one would have to use both hands to lift them, would suddenly drop near our feet. We were all in fear, lest they might strike and injure if not kill us, but no one was ever struck. The strangest fact was that we could not see the stone until it was within a couple of feet or so of the ground. It would then suddenly become visible to our eyes, and only then.2 . . .
2. A most interesting fact. We have here a practical testimony going to support the theory—long since put forth by us—that, in the transport of inert substances, the atoms are disintegrated, and suddenly reformed at the point of deposit.—Ed. [H.P.B.]