THE SCENE: Gerald of Wales, in recounting this tale of a woman possessed by an evil spirit, reveals one of the “rules” of demonic possession: Any sin that has been atoned for cannot be used against you.
THE TEXT: It is worth recording that in Poitou in our own time there was a woman possessed of a devil, which devil used to speak through her mouth, arguing and disputing most cleverly and astutely with intelligent and well-informed people. He would upbraid these men with things which they had done in secret and did not wish to hear. If one of the Gospels or the relics of the saints were place on the possessed woman’s mouth, the devil would take refuge lower down her throat; and if they were then moved there, he would crawl down into her stomach. It was quite clear what parts of her body he was hiding in from the swellings and the convulsive movements there. And when the relics were place on her lower parts, he would immediately climb up again.
When they brought the holy sacrament and administered it to this possessed woman, the devil answered: “You silly fools, what you are doing is of no use at all. You are giving her food for the souls, not for the body. My power is over her body, not over her soul.” When those whose inner secrets he had revealed came back from making confession and doing penance, he stopped reproaching them. “What I have known, I have known,” he would say. To others he would issue this threat: “I am silent now; and what I know, I know not.” From this it appears that after confession and penance these devils either forget the sins of mortal men, or else they no longer reveal them to their disgrace and shame.
– Journey Through Wales, Gerald of Wales, 12th Century AD
