Isaac Bashevis Singer (Nobel Prize): Believed in “demons,” “ghosts,” probably due to “made behavior” and memory gaps from alternate personalities

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991), Polish-American who wrote in Yiddish, emigrated to New York City in 1935. Became known to English readers when his story, “Gimpel the Fool,” was translated by Saul Bellow in 1953. Later won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1978) and two U.S. National Book Awards. Film adaptations of his works include “The Magician of Lublin” (1979) and “Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy” (1983). Published 18 novels, 14 children’s books, memoirs, and essays. —Wikipedia

Since many of Singer’s stories include the supernatural, many interviewers have asked him if he really believed in it. His answers reflected two, mutually contradictory, opinions. First, he honestly did believe in it, had believed in it since childhood, and continued to be afraid of demons, etc., as an adult. But he also saw it as a subjective phenomenon of the personality.

For example, asked about the “great deal of demonology in your writing” and whether it is a literary tool or a real belief, Singer replies, “It’s both. It’s a tool and also a belief.” At the same time, he believes that Satan is not an objective reality, but an aspect of “human nature. We are born satans…sometimes I mention demons just instead of saying ‘a bad man’…[But, he then reiterates his belief that it is probably objective reality], there may be powers—there may be demons. How do we know that they don’t exist?” (1, pp. 191-192).

In short, Singer both believed and disbelieved in “demons.” Is it possible for “demons” to honestly seem objectively true to a sane person, but actually be subjective? Yes, if the “demons” were alternate personalities, which would make them seem like they were independent, objectively existing beings, but were only subjective aspects of the person’s mind.

In the following two passages, Singer tells two amusing anecdotes (truth is often spoke in jest) about seemingly supernatural forces in his life, one in his writing process and another involving the mysterious misplacement of his citizenship papers.

“I have a Yiddish typewriter [he actually did, since he had always written everything in Yiddish, later to be translated for publication] which is very capricious and highly critical,” he says, partly whimsical, mostly serious. “If this typewriter doesn’t like a story, it refuses to work. I don’t go to a man to correct it since I know if I get a good idea the machine will make peace with me again. I don’t believe my own words saying this, but I’ve had the experience so many times that I’m really astonished. But the typewriter is 42 years old. It should have some literary experience, it should have a mind of its own” (1, p. 148).

“Singer takes his ghosts seriously. He has often said that they inhabit his apartment and hide things from him—manuscripts, books, glasses, even his checkbook. ‘But they give everything back. Once I thought they stole my citizenship papers and I was mad at them. I thought about an exorcist. Then after a year and a half, I found them' ” (1, p. 166).

Like many people, Singer didn’t believe in alternate personalities. He believed in ghosts and demons.

It is more likely that an alternate personality stopped his typing when it didn’t approve of the story, and that a demonically mischievous alternate personality sometimes hid things in places that his host personality was unlikely to look. 

The first case is an example of made behavior (aka made actions), which is when an alternate personality controls the host personality’s behavior by pulling strings from behind the scenes. In the second case, an alternate personality had taken over, hid things, and left the host personality with memory gaps for those periods of time. Or, you can believe in ghosts and demons.

1. Grace Farrell (Editor). Isaac Bashevis Singer: Conversations. Jackson and London, University Press of Mississippi, 1992.