Editor’s Note by H.P.B. on an article titled “The Witchcraft and Demonology of Pictavia”
[Note: the following comment by H.P.B. follows an article which gives a long description of phenomena, an apparent possession of a man by some “devil”.]
Editor’s Note. [H.P.B.]—For the explanation of the above, several theories may be offered. (1) The Rev. gentleman was “off his head’’ or “crazy” as the Antiquarian Repository puts it. (2) Hallucination brought on by nervous sur-excitement. (3) Pranks of “Spirits,” in which no one but the “superstitious” and the “credulous” believe, leaving the first two theories arise. We will notice but the last by putting once more the question to the Spiritualists. If the facts recorded in the above narrative are due to “Spirits” of disembodied human beings, then the Christians are right and they are devils. Yet “Spirits” no bigger than rats with wings, and grinning with rage, look strangely like the “elementals,” those non-human, non-intellectual beings, that people the elements and are so well described by the Kabalists.