Devil Within

Product Description

In the sixteenth & 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 & others
- exorcists were summoned to expel the evil spirits from victims' bodies. This compelling book focuses on possession & exorcism in the Reformation period but also reaches back to the fifteenth century & forward to our own times. Entire convents of nuns in French & Spanish towns 30 boys in an Amsterdam orphange a small group of young girls in Salem Massachusetts
- these are among the instances of demon possession in the United States & throughout Europe that Brian Lavack closely examines taking into account the diverse interpretations of generations of theologians biblical scholars pastors physicians anthropologists psychiatrists & historians. Challenging the commonly held belief that possession signals physical or mental illness the author argues that demoniacs & exorcists
- consciously or not
- are following scripts encoded in their various religious cultures & their performances can only be understood in those contexts.