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Article: Believe Not Every Spirit: Possession, Mysticism, & Discernment in Early Modern Catholicism.(Book review)
- Article from:
- The Historian
- Article date:
- September 22, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Believe Not Every Spirit: Possession, Mysticism, & Discernment in Early Modern Catholicism. By Moshe Sluhovsky. (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Pp. 374. $45.00.)
This book is an impressive work of historical scholarship and analysis. The subject matter is the interconnection between demonic possession, mysticism, and discernment of spirits in early modern Catholicism [c. 1500-1650].
Moshe Sluhovsky divides the book into four parts. The first part explores the general subject of "possession and exorcism" and traces the movement from lay exorcists and folk religion in the Catholic Middle Ages to the clerical centralization that ...