DEVIL DICTIONARY
obsessed
p.p. Vexed by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine and
other critics. Obsession was once more common than it is now.
Arasthus tells of a peasant who was occupied by a different devil for
every day in the week, and on Sundays by two. They were frequently
seen, always walking in his shadow, when he had one, but were finally
driven away by the village notary, a holy man; but they took the
peasant with them, for he vanished utterly. A devil thrown out of a
woman by the Archbishop of Rheims ran through the trees, pursued by a
hundred persons, until the open country was reached, where by a leap
higher than a church spire he escaped into a bird. A chaplain in
Cromwell's army exorcised a soldier's obsessing devil by throwing the
soldier into the water, when the devil came to the surface. The
soldier, unfortunately, did not.
THESAURUS
obsessed
absorbed, absorbed in, affected, agonized, bedeviled, beset, besotted, bewitched, buried in, caught up in, contemplating, contemplative, devoted, devoted to, devoured by, dogged, dominated, engaged, engrossed, engrossed in, fixated, ghost-haunted, ghost-ridden, gripped, hag-ridden, harassed, haunted, held, hipped, hung-up, imbued with, immersed in, impressed, impressed with, infatuated, intent, intent on, involved, lost in, meditating, meditative, mindful, monomaniac, monomaniacal, monopolized, moved, nagged,
obsessed by, occupied, overcome, penetrated with, plagued, possessed, preoccupied, prepossessed, queer, racked, rankled, remembering, seized with, single-minded, specter-haunted, spirit-haunted, spooked, spooky, stricken, studious, studying, submerged in, swept up, taken up with, torn, tortured, totally absorbed, touched, troubled, unable to forget, witch-charmed, witch-held, witch-struck, witched, wracked, wrapped in, wrapped up in