Pastor Johann Gottfried Schupart (1677-1729) was one of the leading German Lutherans of his day, becoming Professor of Theology and eventually Rector at Giesing University. However, the part of his career that has earned him a place in this blog deals with his lengthy battles with a supernatural force that he naturally described as “the devil,” but what we today would call an unusually violent and persistent poltergeist.
As we are now dealing with the subject of the fallen angels, and at the same time enquiring, "An Diabolus possit gere in corpus?"—I will tell what has happened to me—and I call the thrice-blessed Creator to witness that it is true—and I am prepared, upon demand, to substantiate it, not only with my own oath, but with the evidence of more than a hundred witnesses. I know well, it is true, that many old wives’ fables are mingled among the relations of ghostly happenings; but I earnestly assert, that in all my days I have never been superstitious, and have thought lightly of such things; but, though I kept no journal of the matter, I will relate what I remember. For six years I fought with the devil, and was never sure for one quarter of an hour that he would not wring my neck.
The beginning was so :—
I was lying asleep in bed in my cabinet, and my wife, who had a fever, was in the opposite bed, when, about one or two in the morning, some one or something came to the door, and gave it a blow hard enough to drive it into pieces. I sprang out of bed; but, though I had not been sound asleep, but only dozing, and though my wife was also much startled, I supposed that we had both dreamt it, and lay down again. And yet I had, none the less, my own thoughts about the matter, for a brother of mine, who was ill at the time, afterwards died. But I said to myself, “It’s only a dream!” and settled down again in bed. Then the door was struck again, just as hard as before, and I saw clearly that it was no dream; but I put it out of my mind.
Next evening, when the maid put the light on the table, the spirit struck it so that it fell a good distance off upon the floor, but continued standing and kept alight, which caused me much thought. And from that time forward these things went on. Stones, weighing six, eight, nine, ten pounds, were thrown at my head, as violently as if shot from a bow; they whistled through the air, and struck out the whole window—glass, lead and all. I was not touched by them, but I had to get new windows put in nearly every day. Often I did not take off my clothes for four weeks at a stretch. I was struck in the face, stuck with pins, bitten, so that men saw the marks of both rows of teeth; the two great teeth were there, and were as pointed and sharp as pins. After I had been at confession, I had always the greatest annoyances, and had, generally, after returning home, to pick up all my books, that had been thrown from the shelf and mixed up together. When I wanted to sleep, I had to lay one cheek on the pillow, and cover the other side with another pillow, to protect me from slaps in the face; even then I was pinched and even struck.
At last I used to set my back to the wall at night and read, and thus I read through Syen's Histoire de l’Eglise, four thick quartos. Once the house was set on fire, in seeming, as it were, and then I begged the Prince for a guard, urging that not only I, but other poor loyal subjects were endangered; and I said I wished to pick out honest and pious men, according to my own judgment; and this was granted me. And these guards saw how It beat me, and they got some boxes on the ear themselves, though they hit about them in the room with their swords.
In the presence of twelve persons, It struck my wife so hard on the cheeks that the sound was heard five rooms away. In another house, to which she had retired, I having gone out, she received, in the presence of three persons, more than fifty slaps on the face, till she said, "I might as well bear the blows in my own house as in another’s." But although the strokes resounded so terribly, they did not hurt as much as one would have supposed from the sound of them.
As things were so bad, I procured leave to include myself in the public prayers in the Church, and begged my hearers not to be scandalized, or to adopt sinful opinions, even if God should allow Satan to kill me, and I should be found lying dead in this place or in that. When I had evening prayers according to custom—for my congregation attended diligently—and the whole room was full of people who saw and heard all, I was, during the prayers, pricked, bitten, struck and pinched, till my wife and I had to cover our legs with the clothes of those sitting by us. Cords were thrown around my neck and my wife’s, so that, had we not been quick in pulling them off, we should have unquestionably been strangled. Of all my books, the Talmud had the most to suffer. The book of Church regulations was torn, also the prayer-books and hymn-books. It tore Hedinpro’s Testament and threw it at my feet. It tore the Gospel of St. John, and quod maxime notandum , when I was expounding the Epistle to the Romans in the course of my exordia, and had come to viii. 17 and 18. It tore the leaf on which the text was—the leaf began with those verses—out of the book, so that, when I came into the pulpit, I had not got the text; but the leaf, torn into little pieces, was strewn on the bed of my wife, then lying sick at home. Nothing was done to the Bible, save that the Fourth Chapter of the Prophet Isaiah was once splashed with ink.
Once when I was lying in bed, the carving-fork was flung at me, but only the handle struck me; the knife came immediately after the fork, but did me no damage. Another time this great knife was thrown at me again; I heard it come whistling like an arrow, and started; it hurt me, but did no material harm. Once I was sitting in my room in my shirt, and a very sharp little knife was hurled at my side; my wife heard it whiz by, and cried, “You’re surely hurt?” I looked, and there stuck the knife, but no harm had been done. And just as I was saying to my wife, that I clearly saw in this the Divine protection, a stone of a pound’s weight flew past my head, and smashed the window.
When I got into bed, I often lay down on pins, so that they bent, but they did not injure me. My pupils lodging in my house frequently found dirt and stones in their bags. The chairs were thrown about the room. I could see nothing, but one might mark something corporeal was at work, for once when I was going to church, my wig could not be found, and I could not have preached if, after sending to different persons, a certain Cammer-Rath had not lent me his. Now when I came into the pulpit with somebody else’s wig on, everybody at once supposed that some new misfortune had happened, and so, just after sermon, I was summoned to the Count, to dine with him. So I wanted to put on my new coat, but one of the sleeves was gone; I sent for my old one, but that too had only one sleeve. Meanwhile there was an uproar in the house, made by the cats and dogs, and the turtle doves that I kept in the sitting-room; it was as if they were all mad.
On the Monday, I said to my wife that I must have a coat in any case, and wanted to take the sleeve from the old coat and have it put into the new one; but when I took the coat, the sleeve was gone too, and there was I with two coats, which had only one sleeve between them. So I sent to the shop, for stuff to have a new suit made. Meanwhile, my wife went to the store-room, to see whether she had any cloth for lining left, and knelt down before a drawer. Then there fell something on her head, as heavily as if it had been a hundredweight, so that she began to cry out in a lamentable way; I rushed in, and there was my wife on her knees, with my stolen wig on her head. At this I fell into a state of excitement, and conjured the spirit, in a solemn manner, to bring me back the things it had taken—for all the hymn books were gone too. Just then I was called away to exhort a criminal, and told my wife that she should not stay in the house all alone, for the evil spirit would have to bring back the things, and it would not be well to let him do any more mischief. I had not been gone long—my wife was in the garden—when a terrible din began in my sitting-room, all the cats and dogs, the doves too, crying aloud, and tearing about. My wife rushed in, and saw a black bird, like a daw, fluttering about among our animals; she took heart, and resolved to kill it, but, as all the knives had had to be locked up, she had nothing to do it with; but she seized the spit, and thrust at the black bird. In that moment he vanished, my wife could not see whither; but blood lay in the spot where he had been, as I myself saw when I came home. The whole affair came into the courts, and my things were replaced, except the glasses, etc., that had been broken.
Once when I was summoned to court, I wanted first to eat a little sausage and salad. I ate only a small portion, and my wife took some also. In all my life I have never been so sick as this salad made me. My wife was also ill. The cat died, and the dog suffered after eating of it. Whether the devil had put in poison, and wanted to make away with me, I cannot now say, for some negligence or other circumstance may have been the cause; at any rate, this is what happened to me.
Whenever I had a sword, I was safe from front attacks, for then It only threw things from behind me; but if I laid the sword aside, I received blows again. When I was asleep, I was safe so long as two of the watchers held their swords over my face, but if they took them away, or ceased to brandish them, my torment began again. I used the Magic Balsam from the Prince’s Apothecary in Stuttgart, but it did no good.
Once when my wife's cheeks were all swollen, a surgeon sent me a book against magic. In this book I found a recipe, and had it made up at the apothecary’s. It was a fumigating powder. I laid it on the coals, and held my wife’s head over it by force, for she said she could not endure the pain the smoke caused her. I fetched a vessel, and drew from her mouth first a long black horsehair, and then much thread and other stuff, the full of half the vessel; the pains were then somewhat better, but as my wife still felt something, I held her head over the smoke again, and drew out such another horsehair; there was nothing more.
Once I was sitting and writing, when It took a bottle of brandy, and smashed it over me and my paper, so that I was quite "anointed” with the liquor. All this time I stayed in my house, and would not go for all the devil could do, though the authorities offered me another lodging. One day wanted to smoke, but my pipe and tobacco were gone. I managed to find them; the pipe had been filled. I was going to smoke, but noticing that the pipe was heavy, I cleaned it out, and found it full of dirt, with a little tobacco on the top. Curiously enough, It harmed no one in my house but my wife and myself, except a man who said, as he was keeping watch, and an uproar was going on upstairs, "If this wasn't a clergyman’s house, I should swear," and then, as in the heat of the moment he emitted a curse, a key hit him on the nose with a distinct sound.
Only once was I hurt by a knife, in the lower part of my leg; and I had an old sword lying in a press; this It took and threw at my wife, slightly injuring her foot; when she took the blade and wanted to shut it up again, It tore it out of her hand, and threw it maxima cum vehementia into the press, so that it stuck there. Then I took it into my hand, Saying, “Herr Teufel, if you have power, take it out of my hand," but nothing happened, so I shut the sword up again. It often took my jug of wine away, and brought it back; I drank it and suffered no harm. The rest I cannot now remember. But some time I will put it all down, and have a discussion upon it. I would not have missed the experience for three thousand reichsthaler, for it taught me the power of prayer; but I would not go through it again for that sum, either. You must not think that this went on continually for six years, for it would have been impossible to bear it; but from time to time it ceased, for eight days to a fortnight, now and then for four weeks, and once for a quarter of a year; after that it would be more violent. After my wife had hurt the bird with the spit, we had peace for a long time.
This is all. I call God the Almighty and Omniscient to witness that these things occurred as stated. How or in what manner it was done I do not know. In all my days I saw nothing, but heard and felt enough; and so I leave the matter to every man’s mature consideration.
