Question Five of Chapter Three of the Third Decade
Whether the spirit of a damned human being can enter the body of another human being
It is asked whether the spirit of a damned human being can enter the body of another human being.
To this it is answered simply in the negative.
First, because if this had been conceded to them, they would surely lie in wait for embryos in their mothers’ wombs in order to unite themselves constitutively to them, so as to possess at least sensual consolations and delights.
Second, because it belongs to rational souls to inform bodies and to perfect them with a certain natural delight, not to vex them.
Third, because by the law and order of nature souls do not depart from the places assigned to them in their passage. For the soul is “a spirit going and not returning,” as in Psalm 77.
But those who hold otherwise must be accused—indeed, condemned in this matter together with Pythagoras, who abstained from all animals, believing that the souls of human beings were in some of them, as was said above in the First Decade.
These things are from Henry of Assia upon Genesis.
But take note that the author does not on this account deny that, with God permitting, they may appear and delude people, also disturbing the living.