Essay Review: Two Perspectives on Possession. Possession and Exorcism by Hans Naegeli-Osjord, and The Devil Within by Brian P. Levack

Journal of Scientific Exploration 28 (3) (2014)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The phenomenon of possession has a long, complicated history and a dark, unsavory side. Nevertheless, it has persisted in one form or another until present times. The books under review afford two perspectives on demonic possession: psychiatric and historical. Both authors are informed in their respective fields. They are critical writers and agree on a basic factual underpinning of the controversial phenomena. The grounds for this concord lie in the recurrence of the phenomena and the cumulatively large number of recorded witnesses. Both are aware of the academic prejudice toward the alleged realities of possession. Historian Brian Levack is interested in the historical and performance dimension of the untoward effects, and plays down their ontological strangeness and implications. The Swiss psychiatrist Hans Naegeli is more concerned with these implications, for example, for psychiatry, noting the unhelpfulness of standard materialist outlooks. The books are mainly complementary and affirm the reality of some of the strangest phenomena in the history of psychophysical anomalies.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Against Scarecrows and Half-Baked Christians.Ismael del Olmo - 2018 - Hobbes Studies 31 (2):127-146.
Separating Exorcism from Superstition.Gerald D. Coleman - 2018 - The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 18 (4):595-602.
Augustine and Aquinas on Demonic Possession in advance.Seamus O'Neill - 2017 Online Firs - Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.
Possession, exorcism and psychoanalysis.N. Tosh - 2002 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 33 (4):583-596.
Concept possession.George Bealer - 1998 - Philosophical Issues 9:331-338.
In Defense of Criminal Possession.Gideon Yaffe - 2016 - Criminal Law and Philosophy 10 (3):441-471.
Real Estate: Foundations of the Ontology of Property.Barry Smith & Leo Zaibert - 2003 - In Heiner Stuckenschmidt, Erik Stubjkaer & Christoph Schlieder (eds.), The Ontology and Modelling of Real Estate Transactions. Ashgate. pp. 51-67.
Possession of concepts.John Campbell - 1985 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 85:149-170.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-06-16

Downloads
2 (#1,634,744)

6 months
1 (#1,040,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references