Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern England: Contemporary Texts and their Cultural Contexts

Description

This is the first book exclusively devoted to demonic possession and exorcism in early modern England. It offers, for the first time, modernised versions of the most significant early modern texts on nine cases of demonic possession from the period 1570 to 1650, the key period in English history for demonic possession. The nine stories were all written by eye-witnesses or were derived from eye-witness reports. They involve matters of life and death, sin and sanctity, guilt and innocence, of crimes which could not be committed and punishments which could not be deserved. The nine critical introductions which accompany the stories address the different strategic intentions of those who wrote them. The modernised texts and critical Introductions are placed within the context of a wide-ranging general Introduction to demonic possession in England across the period 1550 to 1700.

Philip C. Almond is Professor of Studies in Religion at The University of Queensland. He is the author of a number of books including Adam and Eve in Seventeenth-Century Thought (Cambridge, 1999), Heaven and Hell in Enlightenment England (Cambridge, 1994), Heretic and Hero: Muhammad and the Victorians (1989), and The British Discovery of Buddhism (Cambridge, 1988).