A Compleat History Of Europe Or A View Of The Affairs Thereof Civil And Military From The Beginning Of The Treaty Of Nimeguen 1676 To The End Of The Year 1700 With Divers Original Papers Never Before Published Written By A Gentleman Who Kept An Exact Journal Of All Transactions For Above These Twenty Years And For The Years 1701 1710 With The Remarkables Of Each Year

Author : Brian Levack
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300195389
Total Pages : 519 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (1 download)

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Download or read book The Devil Within written by Brian Levack and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-22 with total page 519 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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