The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West

The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West

Author
Brian Levack
Publisher
Yale University Press
Language
English
Year
2013
ISBN
9780300195385
File Type
pdf
File Size
11.3 MiB

A fascinating, wide-ranging survey of the history of demon possession and exorcism through the ages.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the era of the Reformation, thousands of Europeans were thought to be possessed by demons. In response to their horrifying symptoms—violent convulsions, displays of preternatural strength, vomiting of foreign objects, displaying contempt for sacred objects, and others—exorcists were summoned to expel the evil spirits from victims' bodies. This compelling book focuses on possession and exorcism in the Reformation period, but also reaches back to the fifteenth century and forward to our own times.

Entire convents of nuns in French, Italian, and Spanish towns, thirty boys in an Amsterdam orphanage, a small group of young girls in Salem, Massachusetts—these are among the instances of demon possession in the United States and throughout Europe that Brian Levack closely examines, taking into account the diverse interpretations of generations of theologians, biblical scholars, pastors, physicians, anthropologists, psychiatrists, and historians. Challenging the commonly held belief that possession signals physical or mental illness, the author argues that demoniacs and exorcists—consciously or not—are following their various religious cultures, and their performances can only be understood in those contexts.

"Riveting [and] readable... must-reading for students of history, psychology and religion." — Publishers Weekly

"Levak, a distinguished historian of early modern witchcraft, now sets exorcism in a long historical perspective, providing the most comprehensive and scholarly overview of the theme yet published." —Peter Marshall, Times Literary Supplement

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