Exorcism and Enlightenment: Johann Joseph Gassner and the Demons of Eighteenth-Century Germany. By H. C. Erik Midelfort. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 2005. Pp. xiii+219. Cloth $35.00. ISBN 0-300-10669-6.

摘要

This book is centered around the short-lived career of Johann Joseph Gassner asrnan exorcist. Gassner enjoyed brief fame and generated a massive polemicalrndebate starting in 1774 because he “healed” thousands of people by castingrnout demons that caused “unnatural” ailments. Gassner was just as quickly, byrnearly 1776, again relegated to obscurity after his exorcisms attracted negativernattention from the highest levels. Midelfort’s aim is not to chronicle therndetails of Gassner’s brief notoriety as an exorcist, but rather to explore variousrnaspects of late eighteenth-century German culture, society, and politicsrnthrough Gassner’s case. In five chapters Midelfort explains how the relativelyrnobscure and heretofore virtually unknown case of Gassner tells us a great dealrnabout eighteenth-century demonology, imperial politics, medicine, biblicalrnstudies, and the Enlightenment.