Ideas across traditions · consciousness · Renaissance & Early Modern Europe
possession
Works in 10 traditions beyond Renaissance & Early Modern Europe attest this concept, on 281 cited pages. Translators have rendered it as “besessenheit”; a link through a rendering is marked as such, because another translator chose differently.
Also under: spirit possession · “besessenheit”
Analogues, judged
A different word, in another tradition, that a reviewer judged to name a neighbouring idea. These are not attestations of possession; each carries the reviewer’s confidence and reason.
- exorcism Medieval Latin80%glossed 'the ritual of driving out demons' — the remedy for possession, not possession
In other traditions
Ordered by the earliest work in each tradition that attests the concept. Within a tradition, works run from earliest to latest by conventional composition date.
Greek
- 375 BCEPlato, Republic IX (the lawless desires in sleep) and Timaeus on the liversame word
Hellenistic & Late Antique
- 250 BCEPseudo-Aristotle, Problemata (XXX.1 on melancholy and genius)same word
- 108 CEEpictetus, Discourses and Enchiridion (prohairesis, the use of impressions), with Simplicius' commentarysame word
- 530 CESimplicius, Commentary on Epictetus's Enchiridionsame word
- 535 CESimplicius, Commentary on the Enchiridionsame word
Hebrew & Jewish
Roman
Indian
- 100 CEKundakunda, Samayasārasame word
- 200 CEKundakunda, Samayasāra & Niyamasārasame word
- 350 CEPatañjali, Yoga Sūtra (with Vyāsa bhāṣya)same word
Buddhist
- 380 CEVasubandhu, Abhidharmakośa with Bhāṣyasame word
- 400 CEVasubandhu, Abhidharmakośa (chs. 6 & 8: path and attainments)same word
Syriac & Armenian
- 550 CEDavid the Invincible, Definitions of Philosophysame word
Arabic
- 632 CEQurʾān (nafs, rūḥ, qalb; sleep as death; Joseph’s dreams)same word
- 1027Avicenna, Kitāb al-Nafs (Shifāʾ VI; Latin De anima / Sextus naturalium) and the floating mansame word
Modern European
- 1788Eckartshausen, Sittenlehren für alle Menschensame word
- 1807Hegel, Phänomenologie des Geistes (with Enzyklopädie, subjektiver Geist)same word
- 1885Du Prel, Die Philosophie der Mystiksame word and a translator’s rendering
- 1903Myers, Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Deathsame word
- Possessionmplied is not always suitable. The word *polypsychism* is sometimes used to express the psychical aspect of polyzoism. *Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, Vol. I, 1903, p. 22 · flagged as a term by the translator
- Possessions serious warning given, I may pursue my task of describing that most interesting of supernormal phenomena which we termHuman Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, Vol. II, 1903, p. 235 · flagged as a term by the translator
- 1903Frederic Myers, Human Personality (on dreams, hypnagogia, veridical dreams)same word
- Possessionmplied is not always suitable. The word *polypsychism* is sometimes used to express the psychical aspect of polyzoism. *Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, Vol. I, 1903, p. 22 · flagged as a term by the translator
- Possessions serious warning given, I may pursue my task of describing that most interesting of supernormal phenomena which we termHuman Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, Vol. II, 1903, p. 235 · flagged as a term by the translator
Theosophical & Modern Esoteric
- 1885Carl du Prel, Die Philosophie der Mystik (dream and the transcendental subject)same word and a translator’s rendering
- 1908Besant, An Introduction to Yogasame word
At home in Renaissance & Early Modern Europe
- 1486Giovanni Pico, Oratio, Conclusiones and Opera (De hominis dignitate)same word
- 1533Agrippa, De occulta philosophia III (on dreams and prophecy)same word and a translator’s rendering
- 1556Georg Lauterbeck, Regentenbuchsame word
- 1733Andrew Baxter, An Enquiry into the Nature of the Human Soulsame word
- 1750Gerhard Tersteegen, Weg der Wahrheit / Auserlesene Lebensbeschreibungen heiliger Seelensame word
Evidence gate. A work is listed only where a translator marked the word as a term with a gloss, or kept the original word beside the English, on at least one page of a held edition. Vocabulary lists and keywords alone do not count: in a Greek vocabulary list ἡσυχία is the ordinary word for quiet. Up to 3 pages are shown per work, preferring those with a gloss. The vocabulary was built 2026-09-11; the graph on 2026-09-13.