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Frodo: But he was destroyed. Sauron was destroyed.
Gandalf: No, Frodo. The spirit of Sauron endured. His life force is bound to the Ring and the Ring survived. Sauron has returned. His Orcs have multiplied. His fortress of Barad-Dur is rebuilt in the land of Mordor. Sauron needs only this Ring to cover all the lands with a second darkness. He is seeking it, seeking it, all his thought is bent on it. The Ring yearns to go home, to return to the hand of its Master. They are one, the Ring and the Dark Lord. Frodo, he must never find it.
A container or object which holds all or part of a person's soul (or life, or heart) outside of their body; this makes that person immortal and/or invulnerable. The only flaw is that the Soul Jar is now their Achilles Heel. Naturally, they make sure it is very well protected.
Typically, Soul Jars work in one of two ways:
- The person whose soul is jarred cannot be physically killed (or in some cases even injured) as long as the jar is intact. . This one has two sub-categories:
- Destroying the jar kills the entity whose soul was jarred. (See the Yura of the Hair example below)
- Destroying the jar makes it possible to kill the entity whose soul was jarred. (The Giant Who Had No Heart In His Body, and similar fairy tales.)
- The person can be physically killed while the jar is intact, but they simply come back with a fresh body. They can only be completely killed by first destroying the jar, then killing their current body. (Voldemort's horcruxes are of this type.)
A subtrope of Ghost In The Machine. If the owner's body is destroyed, the Soul Jar may become Sealed Evil In A Can. If the owner of the Soul Jar is evil, then there's a good chance the Soul Jar is an Artifact Of Doom. If the Soul Jar gives a special power but using it can be hazardous, it may also be an Amulet Of Dependency.
Compare Fighting A Shadow.
Examples
Anime
- Naraku, Big Bad in the series InuYasha, treats Inu Yasha as little more than an annoyance early in the series. However, as Inu Yasha gains power and becomes a real threat, Naraku — who is an amalgamation of hundreds of demons — splits off his heart in the form of an infant, which he hides away under the protection of another of his incarnations, making him effectively immortal. The Soul Jar actually decides to take advantage of this and tries to kill him with a super-powerful demon he made. This backfires, as Naraku reabsorbs him and his henchmen so he is no longer immortal, he'll just have to be satisfied with having a body made of diamond and harder-then-diamond plates.
- Likewise, Yura of the Hair, the first enemy that InuYasha and Kagome fight after their quest begins, has hidden her soul in a comb. None of the horrible wounds Inu Yasha inflicts on her are more than a mild inconvenience — until Kagome destroys the comb (which Yura inexpliccably led her to), at which point she dissolves.
- In 3x3 Eyes, a "Wu" is the formerly-human servant of a member of the mystical, three-eyed "tri-clops" Sanjiyan race. The Sanjiyan holds onto the Wu's soul, meaning that, as long as the Sanjiyan survives, the Wu will just regenerate from all damage. The main character Yakumo Fujii is a newly created Wu, bonded to the Sanjiyan Pai, and he learns just how immortal he is the hard way — many, many times. To the point where the series could be summarized as "Yakumo is coughing up blood AGAIN".
- Alphonse's armor in Fullmetal Alchemist. Also the armor of Barry the Chopper and the Slicer Bros. To some extent, the Philosopher's Stones which are revealed to contain the souls of humans.
- In Howls Moving Castle (the original book), two characters have made deals with fire demons wherein the fire demon gets the mortal's heart, letting the fire demon live, but shortening the mortal's life. This ties the two together (one dies, both die), so it's not as useful as a normal Soul Jar, but the heart does act as a Soul Jar, in that you destroy it, you destroy them.
- The requisite Wham for Code Geass R2 episode 20 reveals that one character had cheated death by turning another one into a living, breathing Soul Jar. The death cheater is Empress Marianne, her soul jar is Knight of Five Anya Earlstreim.
- Slayers Next has the Pledge Stone, a contract between a human and a Mazoku. As long as the Pledge Stone is intact the human is immortal.
- Try has a more literal interpretation of this trope; one episode revolves around Lina and Filia being stuck on a haunted ship created to torment a man named Jarvis, whose soul is trapped in an actual jar.
- Revolution and Evolution-R have Rezo the Red Priest return via a soul jar, as well as Naga the Serpent, whose soul has somehow been removed from her body by a malfunctioning soul jar and then given form in a suit of animate armour.
- One character Julian is a god's Soul Jar ( Poseidon) in Saint Seiya.
- In the OAV, it happens again. Same two characters.
- Similarly, and to everyone's dismay, a main character ( Shun) was used as a Soul Jar for a different god ( Hades) by Pandora since infancy.
- Yugi Mouto in Yu Gi Oh, is a living Soul Jar for the Pharoah's spirit.
- In the original manga the puzzle was the soul jar as in the dragon cards story where the antagonist takes the puzzle and yugi can only transform when he touches the puzzle before he faints.
- Evil Bakura specializes in producing Soul Jars in order to spread his power as needed, and is ultimately revealed to be a Soul Jar himself.
- In Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae, Yuzuki Mikage becomes Enma Ai's Soul Jar through Demonic Possession
Fairy Tales
Film
- In Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, the titular "Dead Man's Chest" holds the heart of Davy Jones. After being scorned by his love, Jones ripped his heart out and sealed it away, which apparently granted him his incredible powers and immortality.
- In the third film, it's revealed that putting your heart in the chest is actually a requirement for being captain of the Flying Dutchman. The captain certainly needs the immortality to be able to seek out and ferry the souls of the dead to the afterlife.
- Jones probably started the tradition-the real reason he tore out his heart and put it in the chest was that so he wouldn't have to feel anymore, because he was supposed to ferry the souls of the dead for ten years and then be released when he returned to his lover; when his lover wasn't there, dooming him to at least ten more years and possibly eternity until his own death, he was so heartbroken he did the heart thing. The immortality was probably an unforeseen side effect, although now any poor schlub who takes the job has to do it.
- Seems to be a mistake on the part of the scriptwriters. Apparently Jones wasn't jilted until after he took the job as the Flying Dutchmen, so the bit about him removing his heart just to ease the pain of his lover abandoning him wasn't really correct.
- And for a while it actually was in a jar.
- A jar of dirt to be exact.
- In the 1974 film The Phantom of the Paradise (which is a fusion pastiche of Dorian Gray, The Phantom of the Opera, Faust and several other stories), evil record producer/promoter Swan (played by Paul Williams) keeps a videotape of himself making a Deal With The Devil; his image on the tape ages, but he does not. The tape also represents the physical contract of that deal; both he and the titular Phantom (whom he tricks into making a deal of his own) are immortal while their contracts are intact.
- Although never confirmed, popular fan theory entertains the idea that Marcellus Wallace's soul is the entrancing contents of the suitcase in Pulp Fiction.
- Samuel L. Jackson states (paraphrased here) that it contained a bunch of lights and some heavy-ass batteries.
- This is pretty much the whole point of the film Cold Souls. Paul Giamatti (played by himself) stores his soul in a literal jar in order to play Uncle Vanya. Hilarity Ensues.
Literature
- In Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian Gray's wish for eternal youth is granted. His portrait, which has just been painted, starts to age instead. Has a twist, in that rather than being defeated by a 'hero' who discovers the source of his immortality, Dorian fends off all threats but is eventually destroyed by his own self-loathing.
- The twist was discarded for the oft-maligned movie version of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen; in the film, Dorian Gray is forbidden to ever look at the painting as part of his end of the deal... and of course, in the end it's used to kill him.
- In PC Hodgell's Chronicles Of The Kencyrath, some members of the not-quite-human Kencyr have the ability to hold onto another's soul for a time. The one without a soul is nearly immortal, but lacks a conscience and casts no shadow. The one carrying an extra soul casts two shadows.
- In Taran Wanderer, the second to last of Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles books, Taran fights a mage who put his life into the bone of his little finger, and put that in a box in a tree in the middle of nowhere. Taran just happened across it before he coincidentally happened across the mage.
- From Harry Potter, we have Voldemort's six Horcruxes, although these only hold one-seventh each of his soul (six horcruxes + one Voldemort). It seems that things began to go wrong when he accidentally made an eighth out of Harry.
- In the book and series Neverwhere, the Marquis de Carabas keeps "a piece of his life" in a box in case he is ever killed. He is.
- Subverted in that it's used as a punishment in the Wheel Of Time series. Moridin currently holds two of these from members of the Forsaken that really screwed up.
- Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series featured one villainous sorcerer who took his soul and hid it in an egg in a magical castle.
- Lifetimers in Discworld. In Soul Music, Albert carries his around with him while searching around in the world for the missing Death - a mistake, as he gets mugged and the hourglass shatters. Fortunately, Death manages to save thirty-eight seconds' worth of time and pour it into a bottle to prevent Albert from dying (again).
- And there's a reverse example in Hogfather, where the Hogfather's lifetimer shatters in response to Teatime's plan to stop children believing in him, thus "killing" him.
- Sauron's Ring in The Lord Of The Rings anyone?
- Though this is an interesting variation, as it wasn't actually created for this purpose- he was already effectively immortal, and created it as an Amplifier Artifact that would make his already formidable Mind Control powers strong enough to take over the other Rings (and through them, their wearers). That it made him invulnerable as well was jsut a happy side-effect.
- Morgoth did the same thing with the entire physical universe. Every last atom contains a miniscule fragment of his spirit. Hence why evil endures even though Morgoth was thrust out into the Outer Dark by the Valar: "the whole world is Morgoth's Ring".
- In the Apprentice Adept series, the harmonica Stile first summons to use for his magic turns out to be the one created by his doppelganger, Adept Blue. We find out later, it stores Blue's soul (Blue arranged to put his soul there after allowing Red's booby trapped amulet to strangle him). Later still, Adept Brown builds a flesh golem for Blue's soul to inhabit... which Stile ends up in at the end of Phaze/Photon-saving Xanatos Gambit (Don't worry, this is actually a good thing)
- In Barry Hughart's Chinese fantasy novel Bridge Of Birds, the Duke of Ch'in (a pastiche of the historical Qin Shihuangdi) is revealed to have had his heart removed by the wisest man in the world, who implies that he was the one who did the same to Koschei the Deathless.
- In The Riftwar Cycle, Leso Varen has one. In a moment of Lampshade Hanging, Pug remarks that it could be any object, not just a jar; it turns out to be a jar. In subsequent books, it is revealed that Varen has multiple Soul Jars in a number of locations across Midkemia and Kelewan.
- In John Barnes's One For The Morning Glory, they deduce that Waldo must have done this by the magical powers he gains from it; with the aid of the Riddling Beast, they track it down and destroy it.
- In Stephenie Meyer's The Host, the majority of humanity has been used as soul jars.
- In the "Boy Who Couldn't Die", an evil monster puts its own soul into a "jar" and becomes effectively immortal. The main character seeks to duplicate this.
- In Mistborn, the Lord Ruler's bracers hold his youth and vitality, making him into an immortal Implacable Man. These are an interesting example, though, as they must be in physical contact with him at all times for him to benefit from the stored energy. When Vin yanks them off during the final battle, the Lord Ruler instantly collapses and begins to age into a withered old man. He's dead in minutes.
- In Stationery Voyagers
 , "S-chips" (soul-containing, microchip-moduled cartridges) are a type of Soul Jar. Drisalian status of an S-chip's ghost prior to death determines whether or not phantomitics are possible, which determines which type of Librion body is appropriate. (Androidal Librion bodies for humans, Mechanical Pencil Librions for Stationeries.)
- Note: Most Whiteouts are acceptable in a Mechie body. Hyper-Mikloched ones, however, are better off merely sent into the stratosphere to explode.
- The Inheritance Cycle pulls this out near the end of the third book, where it's revealed that dragons can live forever if they cough up an internal gemstone for someone else to hold. Unfortunately those gemstones are a source of great magical power and a favorite collectable for bad guys to hoard.
Live Action TV
- Babylon Five had Soul Hunters, beings who sought to preserve knowledge and wisdom by capturing and maintaining the souls of the dying.
- In the TV show based on Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files series, a condemned wizard known as Bob is imprisoned in his own skull after performing magic to raise the dead. In the original books, he's an air spirit bound to a skull.
- In an episode of Angel, a vampire has his heart surgically removed so that Angel can't stake him. Unusually for this trope, he is eventually defeated not by locating and destroying his heart, but by waiting until the time limit was up.
- In Tin Man, Azkedellia attempts to pass of an artifact to DG as one of these, complete with their mother's voice calling out for DG. Subverted in that DG doesn't buy it for a second and smashes it to bits, using the resulting distraction to try and escape.
Mythology
- Older Than Dirt, with numerous examples from mythology, including:
- A Mi'kmaq Native American myth about a dispute between the god Glooskap and a giant who had hidden his soul in a pinecone, and hidden that on the top of an unclimbable mountain.
- The example given in literature, from Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, is taken from an Indian myth. This story (and others like it) arguably form the ur-examples of the concept of the Lich in popular culture (see the D&D examples and others, below)
Tabletop Games
- In Dungeons And Dragons, powerful spellcasters can undergo a dark ritual to become mighty undead, known as Liches; the process involves storing their soul in a small object called a phylactery. If their body is destroyed but the phylactery isn't, they eventually reanimate. Well illustrated in the D&D parody webcomic The Order Of The Stick, where the Big Bad, Xykon, is a pretty standard lich who does indeed regenerate from a phylactery—body part by body part over quite a few strips.
- Also, one of the 2nd Edition supplements for D&D included a spell named "Heart of Stone", which allowed spellcaster characters to duplicate the remove-and-hide-your-heart stunt for partial immortality. 3rd Edition includes the "Hide Life" spell, which has much the same effects, but is written to duplicate the Prydain variant.
- This can also be done in limited fashion as early as 1st Edition using the magic jar spell.
- And the Heart of Stone spell re-enacts what the Big Bad in The Curse Of Xanathon, an Expert D&D module, had done years earlier.
- A phylactery appears as a quest item in World Of Warcraft after the player kills the immensely powerful lich Kel'Thuzad. (The concept itself was previously used in Blizzard's earlier Diablo series in form of Soulstones — magical gems possessed by the titular villain, Diablo, and his brothers Mephisto and Baal.) It is stated that Kel'Thuzad can only truly die after the phylactery is destroyed, and the player is asked to bring it to an NPC with questionable intentions. Like any other item in the game, the phylactery can actually be destroyed by the player, but doing so simply fails the quest with no story-wise consequences.
- As of 1st Edition D&D', there is an "epic" monster known as a demilich — a lich that has created "soul gems" and reduced its body to a single part (usually a head or hand). These gems must be destroyed with the phylactery to destroy the demilich... but the demilich can use the gems to steal people's souls. Explained as a very old lich that had almost totally disintegrated over time. They kind of skipped where the soul-eating gems (embedded where teeth used to be) came from, though.
- They still exist, more or less unchanged as of v3.5, and it still isn't explained where the gems come from. Not sure about 4th Edition.
- 3.5 Ed says (in a fairly easy-to-miss place, admittedly) "Each demilich must make its own soul gems," although this begs the question- why do they have to make them? Being a flying undead head is cool enough without needing a bunch of soul-eating gemstones...
- Certain versions stated that at this point in it's "evolution", the Demilich that normal humans encounter is a Soul Jar; more or less, for the rest of the lich which is travelling through the astral plane. It's a Soul Jar that wakes up and kills you if you mess with it. The Soul Gems are fuel for the whole.
- Among Ravenloft darklords, Soul Jars are possessed not only by Azalin the lich, but also Stezen D'Polarno, whose soul is bound to a painting, and Hazlik, whose Soul Jar works like a Horcrux.
- They're not the only darklords who won't stay dead easily, mind: they're just ones who happen to use Jars to come back. In some cases, a Ravenloft domain is, itself, a Soul Jar for its darklord.
- GURPS 4th Edition has three variants of this: Soul Stones, which make the wizard immortal so long as the stone is intact; Soul Jars, which allow the wizard to move their consciousness to the jar if their body dies, and Soul Golem, which allows the wizard to put their soul into the body of a magical Humongous Mecha.
- Vampire: The Masquerade allows a character with five dots in Serpentis to remove and conceal their heart, becoming unstakeable. With eight dots and Clanbook Followers of Set, you can do this to someone else and hold their heart for ransom.
- In Legend Of The Five Rings, the Bloodspeaker Iuchiban achieved immortality by cutting out his own heart and hiding it away in a box, but is eventually defeated when Isawa Sezaru destroys the heart. Later, a servant of Big Bad Daigotsu was forced to undergo the same procedure. It is also implied that there exists a whole cult of foreign sorcerors who all go through the ritual.
- In Warhammer 40K the eldar race carry Soul Stones on their persons, to avoid their Souls being consumed by Slanessh, the Great Devourer upon their deaths. These Soul Stones are then transfered to the Infinity Circuit upon the death of the eldar carrying it where their soul is released. To help, among other things, guide the younger eldar, and power their craftworld. In times of great need these Souls can be called back from the Infinity Circuit and places into man-sized or huge constructs known as Wraith Guard and Wraith lords respectively. The construct bodies can be destroyed but as long as the Soul Stone is intact so is the soul.
- In Warmachine, the Cryx Empire is able to make Soul Cages. The Iron Liche, Asyphyxious actually cages his own soul, and replaces all but his Skull with a steam and magic powered body. As long as his Soul Cage is intact, he is not really dead.
Video Games
- Played perfectly straight in Might and Magic 7, 8, and 9, where necromancers and evil wizards actually need an item called a Soul Jar to contain their souls and transform into Liches.
- Notably, in 8 the Soul Jar is implied to be temporary. You put the soul back into the person after the transformation.
- In Diablo 2, the only way to ensure that the Prime Evils never return to the mortal world is to destroy their Soulstones. Of course, the only reason the Soulstones exist to begin with is because the Evils somehow convinced the world that using them would do this. Bad Evils!
- Or, if Izual is to be believed it's actually a gambit on the part of Good manipulating evil, not evil manipulating good. Possibly.
- In Paper Mario, the boss Tubba Blubba was made invincible by removing his heart and hiding it. Mario finds the heart and tries to destroy it, only to prompt Tubba to reunite with his heart... which costs him his invincibility, and allows Mario to (very easily) defeat him.
- The Warlock class from World Of Warcraft can create "Soul Stones" that store the target's soul, granting them an instantaneous resurrection should they be killed while the buff is in place.
- Don't forget that they can only be made if you have "Soul Shards," which is basically the extracted soul of an Enemy after it's death.
- Liches also sometimes have these, held in some hidden or well-guarded locations. Except for Kel'Thuzad, who carries his with him, possibly because it would be difficult to find a better guard for it than he himself. Or they could just give them all to Arthas, meaning that their enemies would have to win the whole war to kill any of his liches. But Arthas seems to have some strange compulsion to get all his servants killed.
- Subverted by Makai Kingdom: Badass Freaking Overlord Zetta is forced to use a book for an impromptu soul jar to save both himself and it when everything else in his Netherworld, including his original body, is destroyed. This essentially leaves him a sentient tome whose lack of arms, legs and a Netherworld is a significant step-down from his previous situation - and to make matters worse, he has no way of returning things to normal on his own.
- Played to some degree in The Elder Scrolls, where you can capture monster souls inside "Soul Gems" by casting Soul Trap and then killing the monster; you can then use them to enchant items, recharge them, or you can sell them for an insanely high price.
- In Morrowind, The Heart of Lorkhan acts as a Soul Jar for the Tribunal and Dagoth Ur. Destroying it renders them all mortal, as the heart is what gave them their divinity in the first place.
- In Daggerfall, the Underking's soul is bound to the Mantella, a soulgem used to control the giant golem Numidium. As long as it exists, so will the Underking. Subverted in that The Underking is looking for the Mantella to destroy it - he wants to die, and does not care about the giant golem everyone else seeks to awaken for their own purpose.
- One of the Dark Brotherhood targets in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a mage attempting to become an immortal lich. Part of the process involves putting his lifeforce into an hourglass which he has to keep on his person at all times until the transformation is complete, otherwise he dies. This gives the player an obvious method of killing him.
- The souls of Homunculi in Grim Grimoire are contained in flasks. Amoretta has an elf break hers to save Lillet from one of the Big Bads. Twice.
- One can fight many
liche lihc in Kingdom Of Loathing but you can only find one phylactery for a Mid Boss version. You could "kill" it without the item, but destroying the phylactery results in an instant kill.
- In the freeware platformer Hurrican, the Big Bad is reduced to a floating robot skull after the penultimate boss fight, which soon attaches itself to a giant killing machine for the real final battle. To win, you have to reveal his organic heart, kept behind a reinforced steel wall, and smash it.
- In Nippon Ichi Software's Soul Nomad And The World Eaters, ex-Big Bad Gig has his soul trapped in a sword, and is later trapped in the body of the Hero after the sword is given to him/her by Layna.
- Ebenezer Von Clutch's Black Heart Power Gem in Crash Tag Team Racing
- In the very first Ultima game, Mondain the Evil Wizard has done this with his Black Gem. When you finally fight him, you see him in the process of making it. You can continually "kill" him, but it won't count and he keeps getting back until you've done so after destroying the Gem.
- Simularly, in Ultima V, the Shadowlords who were born from the shards of that Gem cannot be permanently killed unless their individual shard is destroyed at the same time they're immersed in the Flame of the opposite Principle of Virtue.
- To some extent, In some LegendOfZelda games, you can capture a poe's soul in an empty bottle.
- The Pokemon Spiritomb is made up of 108 malevolent spirits bound to a stone.
- In System Shock 2 you face Psi Reavers - huge flying jellyfish who are a perfect blend of flesh and psi energy and as such will keep ressurecting until you destroy their brain which is hidden somewhere nearby in a secluded corner.
- In the finale of Deus Ex:Invisible War JC Denton is backed up by a Universal Constructar that will continiusly reassemble his body when you kill him.
- In Fall from Heaven the wizard Tebryn Arbandi created one out of Abashi the Black Dragon: the 3rd most powerful beig in existance. One of those is a god.
Web Comics
- Lich in 8-Bit Theater has the inspiration of hiding his soul within the Earth Orb — which can't be destroyed without ending the world.
- Looking For Group: Richard's gem
- Xykon in Order of the Stick
- It should also be noted that Xykon's phylactery is protected by so many spells he doesn't "even remember what half of them do".
- This is not at all unusual, since Xykon is The Ditz of Team Evil.
- Another notable thing: Xykon's soul isn't in the phylactery except when his undead body is destroyed. This is discovered in Start of Darkness, where Redcloack tries to ransom the lich by threatening to break it, and Xykon scoffs it off by saying he can make a new one to house his soul in any case.
- By the letter of the rules in D&D this is true. For a lich to be killed you must destroy both the phylactery and the body. There's no rule that a lich cannot make a new one if the first is destroyed.
- Cardinal in Finder's Keepers has his kept in a compass.
Web Original
- Kamimura does this to his former pupil Goku in the first chapter of Broken Saints, with the fragment of Goku resting in Kami's own mind. This is how he receives the message that starts him on his quest. Goku is in a coma until Kamimura's mind is cleansed in the Grand Finale.
- In the Hitherby Dragons story "Unclean Legacy", Francescu magically transfers all his life into one of his fingers, and then cut it off to keep it safe. When his brother Tomas snaps the finger he realises that a finger contains several bones
- In The Fable Of The Lamb Sebastien the Hero mentions that he can survive a shotgun blast because he keeps his heart in a box
Western Animation
- Transformers: Beast Machines has sparks (essentialy, robot souls) in jars. These were forcibly removed from their bodies.
- Exception: In Beast Wars, a piece of Rampage's mutant, immortal spark is removed and kept first in a squeezy-box torture device, then in the freakish Transmetal 2 clone of Dinobot. It is the part which remains in Rampage, however, that is his life, and when that is destroyed, the personality and memories of the first Dinobot are given to the clone.
- "Anastasia": Rasputin's soul is contained in a reliquary that can also shoot little green smoke demon things and can animate large stone horse statues.
Other
- Magic The Gathering has a card called Bottled Cloister that is, rather than a Soul Jar, more of a memory jar. The cards in your hand represent the spells at the forefront of your mind, and there are many cards that can be used to cause you to "forget" those spells, discarding the card(s) from your hand. The Bottled Cloister lets you protect those memories by storing them in a jar temporarily; however, this means that if the jar is destroyed, you lose those memories forever.
RealLife
- Albeit used in a different context, this troper met a self-professed "soul carrier" at a Charismatic meeting. Most rites of exorcism include a method for trapping the evil spirit so that it can be disposed of properly. The book in the "bell, book, and candle" of the old Catholic exorcism rite fulfilled this purpose. This fellow was a human container, able to carry such spirits without harm to himself or others. The escape of the spirit and subsequent possession during laying of hands partway through the meeting was one of the scarier events of this troper's life.
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