ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the medicinal aspects of exorcism in the early modern period by connecting to the research on the cultural history of exorcism in order to outline the historical context to what is probably the most important element. The eighteenth century, the period in the focus of our investigations, brought to Western Europe the end of earlier “waves of possession” and of the resulting grand-scale use of exorcism, a period of “détente” lasting to the present day. The family of one Antonius Matarics were almost getting ready to bury Julia, sister-in-law of the head of the household, because the friar sent in the place of Father Bartholomaeus, and the Sunday Illyrian preacher Father Nicolaus did prove successful. The seventeenth-century vicar of Santena who believes “that the majority of all creatures are oppressed by the demons, and that out of ten thousand, more than nine thousand are so afflicted.”.
