Back to 'Spooky Church History' with @DrFrancisYoung... This morning I was introducing my research into English Catholic attitudes to the supernatural, the subject of my PhD and first book - but this was just the start of my explorations of the macabre side of church history...
One thing I realised during my research was that no-one had written a book in English that was focussed on the practice of exorcism - plenty on the phenomenon of possession, but the nuts and bolts of exorcism were largely unexplored...
Exorcism is a curious business, because while it has the outward appearance of just another of the Church's rites, it also shares many characteristics with magic. In a sense, exorcism is 'the Church's official magic'
I realised I needed to write a history of exorcism, so I did so in 2016, focussing on the Roman Catholic Church and covering the period c.300 to the present day palgrave.com/gp/book/978331…
The book's focus is the liturgical, procedural and canonical dimensions of exorcism, rather than the charismatic and affective dimensions of the practice. In 2018 it was translated into Italian thanks to the efforts of Prof. Andrea Nicolotti carocci.it/index.php?opti…
In 2018 my follow-up book appeared on the history of Anglican exorcism - whose focus and methodology were essentially the same, except with a different Christian tradition as the subject matter bloomsbury.com/us/a-history-o…
One of my favourite discoveries while researching exorcism was a manual of exorcism published in the early 17th century that provided the discerning exorcist with seasonally suitable rites of exorcism for festivals and seasons throughout the year...
These included a suitably festive rite if a priest was confronted with a demoniac at Christmas, for example. This may seem funny to us, but it's a reminder of how normal and workaday a practice exorcism was until the 18th century. It was an everyday practice
Another favourite discovery was one I made in Lambeth Palace Library: correspondence of the Archbishop of Canterbury's adviser on all matters pertaining to exorcism, witchcraft and black magic in the 1950s...
Anyway, that's all on exorcism for tonight - tomorrow, on to the darkest magic of all: magic that's designed to kill
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