When the Convents Screamed: 17th-Century Demonic Possessions
Welcome, my dark souls!
In this haunting chapter of Unholy December, we uncover the chilling possession outbreaks that swept through convents in France, Spain, and Italy during the 17th century. From violent public exorcisms to quiet nocturnal terrors, these cases reveal how fear, faith, and control shaped the lives of cloistered women across Europe.
Drawing from diaries, trial records, and centuries of historical analysis, this episode exposes the obscure boundary between mysticism, trauma, and the supernatural. A deep, unsettling journey into the archives where some of history's darkest whispers have been waiting.
*Listener Discretion is Advised*
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Sources & References:
Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudun (1952).
Michel de Certeau, The Possession at Loudun (1970).
Nancy Caciola, Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages (2003).
Edward Peters, The Magician, the Witch, and the Law (1978).
John D. Lyons, The Phantom of Chance: From Fortune to Randomness in Seventeenth-Century French Literature (2019).
Moshe Sluhovsky, Believe Not Every Spirit: Possession, Mysticism, and Discernment in Early Modern Catholicism (2007).
Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (1976).
Moshe Sluhovsky, “The Devil in the Convent,” American Historical Review 107, no. 5 (2002).
Francine Masiello (ed. and trans.), The Diary of Santa Veronica Giuliani (selections).
Michel Carmona, Urbain Grandier (2000).
H. C. Lea, Materials Toward a History of Witchcraft (1939).
Brian P. Levack, The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West (2013).
Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (1997).
Jodi Bilinkoff, Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450–1750 (2005).
Various 17th-century exorcism transcripts and ecclesiastical reports referenced in secondary scholarship above.
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