isis unveiled: chapter x (outside the walls…)

“Psellus introduces a whole catechism of demonology, which he gives in the following terms, as far as we remember:

“You want to know”, asked the conjurer, “whether the bodies of the spirits can be hurt by sword or any other weapon? Yes, they can. Any hard substance striking them can make them sensible to pain; and though their bodies be made neither of solid nor firm substance, they feel it the same, for in beings endowed with sensibility it is not their nerves only which possess the faculty of feeling, but likewise also the spirit which resides in them…the body of a spirit can be sensible in its whole, as well as in each one of its parts.

Without the help of any physical organism the spirit sees, hears, and if you touch him feels your touch. If you divide him in two, he will feel the pain as would any living man, for he is matter still, though so refined as to be generally invisible to our eye…

One thing, however, distinguishes him from the living man, viz.: that when a man’s limbs are once divided, their parts cannot be reunited very easily. But, cut a demon in two, and you will see him immediately join himself together. As water or air closes in behind a solid body passing through it, and no trace is left, so does the body of a demon condense itself again, when the penetrative weapon is withdrawn from the wound.

But every rent made in it causes him pain nevertheless. That is why daimons dread the point of a sword or any sharp weapon. Let those who want to see them flee try the experiment.””

H. P. Blavatsky