Observations placeholder
Split personality after shell shock
Identifier
005017
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
I don't think this is possession, although I have added it as a concept so that you can compare. I think it is a classic case of split personality, that the Higher spirit has created a new personality capable of taking the trauma the war was causing and that this personality has taken over. Interesting to compare with Sybil.
A description of the experience
This is from later letters when the author of the diary was a good deal older
London Monday
…. Have just come across a most tragic thing as a result of this war. Yesterday D- (a mutual friend) rang up in great distress and asked me to pop along and see H- (her husband). Since he got back from the front he has completely changed towards her and the children, and treats them all as if they were strangers. Apart from that, the whole man seems to have changed his character and everything. When I looked at him (psychically) I found to my horror that it isn't H- at all; another ego [Personality] is occupying his body - got in when he was shell-shocked. H- was always a rather negative sort of fellow, as you know, and now this is what has happened. The whole thing is so distressing, I didn’t know what to tell the poor girl. A nice affair to have a husband who isn’t your husband, but a stranger in all but his body. Of course possession is nothing new to me, but in a case like this it's terribly tragic, and at first I couldn't make up my mind whether to tell her the truth or not, I tried to contact the E.B. for advice, but didn’t succeed.