Thread by @EcclesHistSoc

So, how did I get interested in #spookychurchhistory? My first article to touch on supernatural beliefs was an exploration of Catholic exorcism in post-Reformation England, largely inspired by the work of @odavies9 cambridge.org/core/journals/…

Possession and exorcism are, of course, only one aspect of the Church's engagement with the supernatural, and my subsequent PhD research focussed on English Catholic attitudes to ghosts, miracles, superstition, witchcraft and exorcism (published in 2013) routledge.com/English-Cathol…

While there had been a lot of exploration of the ways in which non-Catholics linked Catholics belief with 'superstition' in anti-Catholic discourse, no-one had previously focussed on what *Catholics themselves* thought about the supernatural

One of the most interesting sources I came across was a treatise on witchcraft written by the Benedictine monk Gregory Greenwood, probably just after the decriminalisation of witchcraft in Britain in 1735. Greenwood was a Catholic missionary priest in Warwickshire

By the late 1730s virtually no educated person in Britain was willing to explore witchcraft as a real phenomenon, but Greenwood was fascinated by it - and especially by the osculum infame, the rite of witches kissing the devil's anus at their Sabbaths

Greenwood drew heavily on the work of a 16th-century demonologist, Sebastien Michaelis, to create a series of 'retreats' reflecting on the subject of witchcraft

It's unclear whether Greenwood ever actually delivered these 'retreats' in 18th-century Warwickshire, but they would certainly have been regarded as having an unusual subject...