Chapters 3 to 5 - Communication with Spirits during the Post-Apostolic Period and in Modern Times

- 24 - Another evening she had hung her skirt on the door of her room for the night. Her sister, who slept in the same bed with her, knew precisely what was in the pocket of the skirt and also that Gottliebin had not gotten up out of the bed. Gottliebin, however, saw a figure walk up to her skirt, take a little metal money box (of the sort that farmers have) and a few other things out of the pocket and come over to her. The following morning, she retched and vomited up coins and the little metal box. Finally, as these events seemed to multiply endlessly, I gathered all my inner strength in prayer and begged God, as He was the power that had created everything out of nothing, to convert these objects back into nothing, so that the power of the Devil could be nullified. I fought in this manner for several days, and the Lord, who had said, ‘Everything that you ask in My name, that will I give you,’ kept his word. I was successful.” But also, this presumed end was followed yet again by horrible symptoms of illness in Gottliebin, which seemed to be purposely aimed at her death. Once, when she had wounded herself in an unbelievably terrible way, the wounds were miraculously healed. Suddenly, however, they burst open again, and a friend of hers came to Blumhardt in great consternation, saying that Gottliebin could die any minute. Blumhardt writes: “I threw myself onto my knees in my room and spoke out boldly. This time – so strong had I become – I refused to grant the Devil the satisfaction of going there personally, but rather had Gottliebin’s friend tell her that she should get up and come to me. She would be able to do it in her faith. It didn’t take long before she came walking up the stairs. No one can know the feeling, however, that came over me then.” The end of the story is told by Blumhardt in the following words: “Every single thing that had happened heretofore now seemed to come on at once. The most unfortunate part of it was that in these days the sinister effects extended to the patient’s half-blind brother and to her sister Katharina, with the result that I was forced to fight for all three of them at the same time, it being quite evident to me meanwhile that their cases were closely interrelated. I cannot go into each individual occurrence in detail, as the things that happened were too varied to remember. These were days that I hoped to never see again, for matters had reached a point at which I had to risk everything, so to speak, as in a case of ‘conquer or die.’ As great as my exertions, however, were my feelings of Divine protection. The brother was the first to be freed, and so completely, that he was able to help effectively in what followed. This time it was not Gottliebin who bore the brunt of the action (after a few further battles, she also appeared to be quite free of the demons), but her sister Katharina, who had never experienced the slightest such phenomena in the past, but who now became so raving that she could be restrained only with the greatest difficulty.. She threatened to tear me into a thousand pieces, and I could not dare to approach her. She constantly attempted to tear her body open, as she expressed it, with her own hands, or lurked slyly about as though waiting for a chance to commit some terrible deed upon the persons holding her. All the while she jabbered and screeched so outrageously, that it seemed as though a thousand malicious tongues were wagging in her at once. The most remarkable part of it was that she remained fully conscious, and one could speak to her, yet even when she was severely reproved for her conduct, she said she could not talk and act any differently. She also asked that she be held securely, to prevent her from doing any actual harm. Later on, she had a clear recollection of everything, even of her attempts to commit murder in its most horrible form, and this depressed her so greatly that I had to devote several days especially to her, until, in answer to my fervent and earnest prayers, her distressing experiences gradually disappeared from her memory. Nevertheless, the demon could still clearly be heard within her and it claimed to be, not the spirit of a deceased human being, but one of the prominent angels of Satan and the head of all sorcery. This demon claimed that if it were sent into the abyss, sorcery would be so severely wounded that it would gradually bleed to death.

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