Classic Accusors: The Possessed - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Title: Classic Accusors: The Possessed


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Classic Accusors The Possessed

• I. Possession
• As a witchcraft phenomenon
• As a proof of Churchs power
• II. The case of Urbain Grandier

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• Women of the Renaissance, Margaret King
• A History of their Own, Bonnie Anderson Judith
  Zissner

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Possession witchcraft

• Judge Boguet recorded accusations by demoniacs as
  daily occurrence
• Clergyman George Gifford wrote of Essex (1590)
• daily it is seene that the devil is driven out
  of some possessed, that where he did vex and
  torment men in their bodies, and in their cattle,
  they have remedie against him.

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• According to witness of exorcism in England,
  1612
• exorcists have many favourers in the world.
• New England, 1692-3, 48 cases of possession were
  diagnosed

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Diagnosis

• Sir Thomas Browne, 17thc doctor, wrote
• the devil doth really possess some men the
  spirit of melancholy others the spirit of
  delusion others.
• 16thc English physician wrote possession is
  another kinde of madnesse. And they which be in
  this madnesse be ever possessed of the devyl, and
  be develyshe persons.

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Church diagnosis

• The clergy had to know symptoms that
• distinguish a possessed person from other
  individuals who suffer from melancholia or any
  other illness.

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Possession as sign of the times

• 1605, Preacher Heinrich Riess argued that
  possessions were
• signs of the speedy advent of the Last Day and
  the Day of Judgment.
• 1584, Jesuit priest George Scherer saw increased
  possessions as sign of Revelations 1212 the
  devils great wrath in the last days.
• Tobias Seiler, in his Demonomania,wrote that
  the world is down to its last dregs.

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Witches possession

• Sanson Birette, demonologist, 1618
• since we are moving towards the waning of the
  world, so we experience more monstrous and
  strange things which the subtle and
  incomprehensible artifice of devils have brought
  upon people, either by their own efforts, or by
  the intervention of demonic witches.

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Unnamed 11thc theologian

• the torment of possession is the greatest man
  can suffer the cause is invisible the most
  dangerous, for it leads to irreparable ruin of
  soul and body

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Biblical sources

• Luke 101 Then he called his twelve disciples
  together and gave them power and authority over
  all devils.
• Mark 1417 In my name shall they cast out
  devils

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Boguet, witch hunter in Burgundy (1602)

• Everyday in our town, we continually meet with
  large numbers of possessed persons who, for the
  most part, impute their possession to certain
  vaudois or sorcerers.

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Characteristic Symptoms

• fits and convulsions, spontaneoubnms excitement,
  agitation and trembling, changes in appearance,
  speaking in tongues, clairvoyance, uncanny
  strength, revulsion to holy objects (inability to
  recite Lords prayer, or horror of holy relics)

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Modern-day exorcism
Leading exorcist Father Jeremy Davies, 65, from
the Westminster Diocese, believes the Church's
increased vigilance in the past 10 years had also
contributed to the number of exorcisms being
performed. He told the Catholic Herald
newspaper "The incidence of the demonic on the
whole is rising. At the centre of this is man's
ever growing pride and attempted self-reliance."
Spiritual or medical? Today's priests are
being encouraged to work more closely with the
medical profession to distinguish between cases
of mental illness and demonic influence. Father
Davies, a former doctor and a co-founder of the
200-strong International Association of
Exorcists, warned there was a tendency in the
West to mistake the spiritual for the
psychological. In Britain, each Catholic diocese
has an exorcist, but they are forbidden to speak
publicly about the ritual and are rarely
identified. (BBC news April 27, 2000)

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Urbain Grandier(1590 - 1634)
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Urbain Grandier
Loudun, France executed 1630s
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• The evidence