ABSTRACT
It is a daunting task that this collection of essays has set itself: to write, if only partially, the history of demons in relation to health, a subject necessarily involving aspects of theology, medicine, natural science more widely, magic, and witchcraft. Cutting-edge neuro-imaging technology was primed to reveal the brain activity associated with the exorcism. The possessed person described the main symptom of his condition: an irresistible urge to push the foot on the accelerator pedal to the floor when driving and thus go much too quickly. The exorcist passed his hands over the victim’s head and, if recall correctly, the driver professed himself cured of his demonic speeding. Comparative history requires a certain amount of lumping if it is to be more than a catalogue of cultural particularities. There are ethnographic reports aplenty of the demeanour and behaviour of those possessed by a spirit, or of spirit mediums such as shamans.
