Case of spirit possession that is considered unusual by parapsychologists because it was for the victim’s benefit and not harm. It is also thought to be one of the best cases on record of apparent spirit possession as reincarnation.
Mary Roff was a young girl of 18 who lived in Watseka, Illinois, in the nineteenth century. For many years she had suffered fits of depression and self harm. In July 1864, after cutting herself with a knife, she fainted and woke up with psychic powers that included clairvoyance. This state of heightened reality continued for five days and then Roff died.
Mary Lurancy Vennum, a neighbour but stranger to the Roffs, was three-months old when Roff died. Thirteen years later, in 1877, she appeared to go mad. She experienced visions of angels and spirits of the dead and her physician, Dr E W Stevens, diagnosed spirit attachment/obsession when Vennum revealed under hypnosis that she felt controlled by evil spirits.
Stevens suggested that one of the spirits might be able to help Vennum control the others and she answered that Mary Roff was willing to do this. On 1 February 1878, the spirit of Roff took possession of Vennum and for the next four months took over Vennum’s life for the purposes of healing her. Vennum moved to the Roff home and generally lived as Roff had done 13 years before. She also demonstrated clairvoyant powers and had out-of-body experiences. On 21 May, Roff ’s spirit told her family that Vennum was coming back and said goodbye, before Vennum fell into a trance. After a few minutes she became Vennum again and was completely healed, mentally and physically, after supposedly having been protected from evil spirits by Roff ’s inhabitation.
In 1882 Vennum married a farmer and moved to Rawlings County, Kansas. Over the years Roff ’s spirit continued to watch over her, taking control from time to time by causing Vennum to go into a trance; during childbirth, for example, she protected her from pain. Vennum did mention that Roff gave her information clairvoyantly but she never developed her mediumship due to her family’s disapproval. She died in the late 1940s.