Download the fantastic book titled Discerning Spirits written by Nancy Mandeville Caciola, available in its entirety in both PDF and EPUB formats for online reading. This page includes a concise summary, a preview of the book cover, and detailed information about "Discerning Spirits", which was released on 25 September 2015. We suggest perusing the summary before initiating your download. This book is a top selection for enthusiasts of the History genre.
Summary of Discerning Spirits by Nancy Mandeville Caciola PDF
Trance states, prophesying, convulsions, fasting, and other physical manifestations were often regarded as signs that a person was seized by spirits. In a book that sets out the prehistory of the early modern European witch craze, Nancy Caciola shows how medieval people decided whom to venerate as a saint infused with the spirit of God and whom to avoid as a demoniac possessed of an unclean spirit. This process of discrimination, known as the discernment of spirits, was central to the religious culture of Western Europe between 1200 and 1500.Since the outward manifestations of benign and malign possession were indistinguishable, a highly ambiguous set of bodily features and behaviors were carefully scrutinized by observers. Attempts to make decisions about individuals who exhibited supernatural powers were complicated by the fact that the most intense exemplars of lay spirituality were women, and the "fragile sex" was deemed especially vulnerable to the snares of the devil. Assessments of women's spirit possessions often oscillated between divine and demonic interpretations. Ultimately, although a few late medieval women visionaries achieved the prestige of canonization, many more were accused of possession by demons.Caciola analyzes a broad array of sources from saints' lives to medical treatises, exorcists' manuals to miracle accounts, to find that observers came to rely on the discernment of bodies rather than seeking to distinguish between divine and demonic possession in purely spiritual terms.
Detail About Discerning Spirits PDF
- Author : Nancy Mandeville Caciola
- Publisher : Cornell University Press
- Genre : History
- Total Pages : 514 pages
- ISBN : 1501702173
- Release Date : 25 September 2015
- PDF File Size : 16,7 Mb
- Language : English
- Rating : 4/5 from 21 reviews
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