The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West, by Brian P. Levack

In this book, Brian Levack seeks to provide both a comprehensive synthesis and a detailed set of possible explanations for demonic possession as a phenomenon of the Western Christian tradition. Levack’s work is primarily focused on the early modern period, when the number of reported possession and exorcism cases spiked, on account of their relationship to beliefs in witchcraft and the early modern witch trials. The book considers well-established themes such as the relationship between demonic possession and certain physical or mental illnesses, the ‘performance of the possessed’, the relationship between perceptions of possession and religious radicalism, and the reactions of representatives of the Protestant mainstream to these moments of religious charisma. For the student potentially new to these ‘strange’ yet wonderfully intriguing aspects of the early modern worldview and mentality, this book is a highly useful overview of the topic, drawing all such themes into one place, with useful references to further works of interest. Also useful, to students and, potentially, researchers, is the way in which Levack casts the stories of demonic possession in the long view, looking at biblical precedents and Christ’s expulsion of demons as detailed in the New Testament, the history of Christian demonology, and following these ideas through Western European history to the period of ‘Enlightenment’. The final chapter in the book, ‘Possession: Past and Present’, explores the remaining legacy of beliefs in possession and exorcism in contemporary Europe, the United States, Latin America and Africa, as well as in media and film.