p. 199 | Spirits of Devils

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 6, 1871

Spirits of Devils.

Dr. Gridley describes how spirits treated an old man of sixty years, in Southampton, Mass:—

“They forbade his eating to the very point of starvation. He was a perfect skeleton; they compelled him to walk day and night, with intermissions, to be sure, as their avowed object was to torment him as much and as long as possible. They swore by everything sacred and profane, that they would knock his d—d brains out, always accompanying their threat with blows on the forehead or temples, like that of a mallet in the hands of a powerful man; with this difference, however, the latter would have made him unconscious, while in full consciousness he now endured the indescribable agony of those heavy and oft-repeated blows; they declared they would skin him alive; that he must go to New York and be dissected by inches, all of which he fully believed. They declared they would bore holes into his brain, when he instantly felt the action suited to the word, as though a dozen augers were being turned at once into his very skull; this done, they would fill his brain with bugs and worms to eat it out, when their gnawing would instantly commence. . . . These spirits would pinch and pound him, twitch him up and throw him down, yell and blaspheme, and use the most obscene language that mortal can conceive; they would declare that they were Christ in one breath and devils in the next; they would tie him head to foot for a long time together, in a most excruciating posture; declare they would wring his d—d neck off, because he doubted them or refused obedience.”—Astounding Facts from the Spirit World, pp. 253–4.