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

Philip C. Almond

korr 2004 · Cambridge University Press

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This book is exclusively devoted to demonic possession and exorcism in early modern England. It offers modernized 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 eyewitnesses or were derived from eyewitness 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 modernized 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.

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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).