Joseph P. Laycock Bücher

What is Satanism? The word has functioned as a powerful indictment of one's rivals, an expression of rebellion against authority, and sometimes to describe the deliberate worship of dark, supernatural forces. This Element provides a concise overview of Satanism from its origins in early modern Europe through the present. It covers such topics as legends of the black mass, hell-fire clubs, the Romantic Satanism of Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, and nineteenth-century occultists who expressed reverence for Satan. It describes modern Satanic religions including the Church of Satan, The Temple of Set, The Order of Nine Angles, The Satanic Temple, and others. It also addresses contemporary Satanic Panic from the 1980s through QAnon. This Element should prove useful to anyone seeking to learn more about this complicated and frequently misunderstood tradition.

The Exorcist Effect examines the relationship between horror films and religious culture, focusing on the period from 1968 to the present. Films like Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), and The Omen (1976) claimed to be based on actual events, religious traditions, and Biblical texts. These films inspired subsequent beliefs and experiences, which became the basis for yet more horror films. This book draws on archival research to shed new light on such figures as Ed and Lorraine Warren and Malachi Martin, who inserted themselves into this cycle. It also incorporates interviews with horror authors, film writers, and paranormal investigators.

This book is a concise and engaging introduction to the field of New Religious Movements (NRMs). This book is essential reading for students and scholars of religion who are approaching the study of NRMs for the first time as well as those interested in deepening their understanding.

Levitation. Feats of superhuman strength. Speaking in tongues. A hateful, glowing stare. The signs of spirit possession have been documented for thousands of years and across religions and cultures, even into our own time. Unsettling and chilling, The Penguin Book of Exorcisms brings together the most astonishing accounts: Saint Anthony set upon by demons in the form of a lion, a bull, and a panther, who are no match for his devotion and prayer; the Prophet Muhammad casting an enemy of God out of a young boy; fox spirits in medieval China and Japan; a headless bear assaulting a woman in sixteenth-century England; the possession of an entire convent of Ursuline nuns in a French town; a Zulu woman who daily floated to a height of five feet; the exorcism in Earling, Iowa in 1928 that inspired the film The Exorcist; a Filipina girl 'bitten by devils'; and a rare example of a priest's letter requesting permission of a bishop to perform an exorcism - after witnessing a boy walk backwards up a wall...