The Social Scientific Study of Exorcism in Christianity

This book presents an academic analysis of exorcism in Christianity. It not only explores the crisis and drama of a single individual in a fight against demonic possession but also looks at the broader implications for the society in which the possessed lives. In recognition of this, coverage includes case studies from various geographical areas in Europe, North and South America, and Oceania.

The contributors explore the growing significance of the rite of exorcism, both in its more structured format within traditional Christian religions as well as in the less controlled and structured forms in the rites of deliverance within Neopentecostal movements. They examine theories on the interaction between religion, magic, and science to present new and groundbreaking data on exorcism.

The fight against demonic possession underlines the way in which changes within the religious field, such as the rediscovery of typical practices of popular religiosity, challenge the expectations of the theory of secularization. This book argues that if possession is a threat to the individual and to the equilibrium of the social order, the ritual of exorcism is able to re-establish a balance and an order through the power of the exorcist. This does not happen in a social vacuum but in a consumer culture where religious groups market themselves against other faiths. This book appeals to researchers in the field.

Auteur

Giuseppe Giordan is Professor of Sociology of Religion at the University of Padova (Italy). He is author, co-author, editor and co-editor of twenty books and journal special issues in the sociology of religion. He is Co-Editor of the Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion (Brill), and elected member of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion. He is Director of the International joint PhD programme in Human rights, society and multi-level governance based at the University of Padova. He served as General Secretary of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion from 2009 to 2013.

Adam Possamai is Professor in Sociology at Western Sydney University (WSU). He is the past President of the International Sociological Association's Committee 22 on the Sociology of Religion and is the Deputy Dean of the School of Social Sciences. His latest books are The Sociology of Exorcism in Late Modernity (with Giuseppe Giordan, Palgrave McMillan, 2018), The I-zation of Society, Religion, and Neoliberal Post-Secularism (Palgrave McMillan, 2018), Religions, Nations and Transnationalism in Multiple Modernities (edited with Patrick Michel and Bryan Turner, Palgrave McMillan, 2017), and the novel L'histoire extraordinaire de Baudelaire (Rivière Blanche, 2017).

Contenu
Chapter 1. Introduction
Part I
Case Studies in Early Modernity

Chapter 2
The Secret History of the Earling Exorcism.

Chapter 3
Demoniac possession and religious scientific debate in nineteenth-century France

Chapter 4
A Brazilian exorcist at the beginning of the 20th century: the supernatural as an empowerment strategy

Part II
Case Studies in Late Modernity

Chapter 5
The Devil returns. Practices of catholic Exorcism in Argentina

Chapter 6
Diagnosing the Devil. A Case Study on a Protocol between an Exorcist and a Psychiatrist in Italy

Chapter 7
Shaping the Past, Envisioning the Future. Exorcism and the Demon of Memory

Chapter 8
Doing Battle with the Forces of Darkness in a Secularized Society

Chapter 9
Exorcism, Deliverance, and the Embodied Presence in the Church of England

Chapter 10
Spiritual Flows and Obstructions: Local Deliverance in the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God

Chapter 11
Mental health of the Exorcist: an ethnographic case study in Tampa Bay

Chapter 12
Exorcism, medias and the Romanian orthodoxy: chasing the Devil, coping with uncertainty

Chapter 13
Ruqyah and Islamic Treatment Centers in Indonesia

Conclusion