The Devil Within
WARNING
You are viewing an older version of the Yalebooks website. Please visit out new website with more updated information and a better user experience: https://www.yalebooks.com
Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West
Brian P. Levack
View Inside
Format: ClothPrice: $40.00
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.
‘Brian Levack surveys the whole history of demonic possession and exorcism in the West from classical antiquity onwards, ranging widely in several languages. He avoids sceptical efforts to say what demonic possession "really" was (fraud? mental illness? epilepsy? patriarchal bullying? priestcraft?) and differentiates for the first time the forms of possession characteristically found among Catholics and the Reformed. This is a most valuable contribution and by far the broadest and most interesting comparative study of demonic possession that I have ever read.’ – H.C. Erik Midelfort, author of A History of Madness in Sixteenth-Century Germany
'Brian Levack has pulled off another feat of synthesis and calm evaluation. As in his book on the witch-hunts, he has examined a vast array of material, written with absolute clarity and fairness, and guided us safely through one of the most treacherous topics of early modern history. The overall argument - that demonic possession was rooted in religious culture, rather than being a mere pretence or illness - restores a powerful sense of agency to those affected and gives meaning to their bizarre behaviour. It also makes this book an invaluable guide to religious communities during times of division, conflict, and stress. Ranging as it does over time, across Europe, and among the confessions, one could not wish for a more comprehensive or more measured treatment of a perennially fascinating and revealing topic.' - Stuart Clark, author of Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe
“Brian P. 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...Underpinned by deep and empathetic learning, and an enviable knowledge of the sources, Levack’s cultural “script” theory of possession and exorcism is an attractive one.”—Peter Marshall, Times Literary Supplement
Publication Date: April 23, 2013
16 pp b/w illus.
