THE HISTORY OF EXORCISM

By: Guillermo Santamaria

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Amazon Description (≈185 words)

Exorcism isn’t just a horror-movie ritual. It’s a stubborn human practice that keeps resurfacing wherever people interpret suffering as an invasion—spiritual, moral, psychological, or bodily. This book follows exorcism’s long history across the ancient world and into the modern age, without turning it into either a circus or a sneer.

You’ll travel from Mesopotamia’s professional ritual healers and the Maqlû (“Burning”) anti-witchcraft rites, into the Greco-Roman marketplace of healing where adjurations and “magical” handbooks coexist with medicine’s growing non-demonic explanations. You’ll trace Jewish developments from biblical “raw materials” into Second Temple demonology and Solomon traditions (including Josephus’ famous Eleazar account), and then into Egypt’s heka-powered healing—Horus cippi, the Metternich Stela, and protection rites that treat venom and illness as hostile intruders.

From there the story moves through early Christianity, the rise of baptismal exorcisms and clerical oversight, the post-Trent Roman Ritual, and today’s global landscape: Catholic revision, Pentecostal/charismatic “deliverance,” and Islamic ruqyah. The final chapters tackle the hard questions—success rates, fakery, and discernment—plus a Scripture index on malevolent spirits and demons.

A clear, wide-ranging history of exorcism from the ancient Near East to the present—Mesopotamian rites, Greco-Roman adjurations, Jewish and Egyptian traditions, early Christian practice and office, the Roman Ritual, and modern deliverance and ruqyah. It also addresses what readers most want to know: how “success” is measured, how fakery happens, and why discernment matters, with a Scripture index on demons and malevolent spirits.