Practical Demonology

Clare Rees’s Practical Demonology is a chilling YA novel set in a world overrun by plague and demons—and a group of teens doing anything they can to survive. There have always been castles in the valley, and the people have always been under threat. They’ve always needed those thick walls, the protection of that enclosing stone. Non feels like she needs it more than most, because her mother was infected by the demons that live in the woods. As the doctor’s daughter, Non had planned a career in medicine—partly to please her father, but also because it would keep her inside the protective walls of the citadel. When plague strikes the citadel, all the teenagers are evacuated to the ruined Cirtop Castle. While there, she’s given the opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to study the demons that she’s always feared. But will she be brave enough to take it? In the footsteps of Jelly, Rees’s brilliant and original debut novel, comes a new story of survival and community—and just a little bit of literal guts. “This fantasy with a side of horror offers an original take on demons, a faux medieval setting, and an anxious protagonist whose perceptive, amusing voice carries the narrative with aplomb . . . A clever and atmospheric read.”—Kirkus Reviews

Shows from theology, the Bible and counseling experiences that Christians can be affected by demonic activity. Equips believers to fight spiritual battles--and win.

Demonology – the intellectual study of demons and their powers – contributed to the prosecution of thousands of witches. But how exactly did intellectual ideas relate to prosecutions? Recent scholarship has shown that some of the demonologists’ concerns remained at an abstract intellectual level, while some of the judges’ concerns reflected popular culture. This book brings demonology and witch-hunting back together, while placing both topics in their specific regional cultures. The book’s chapters, each written by a leading scholar, cover most regions of Europe, from Scandinavia and Britain through to Germany, France and Switzerland, and Italy and Spain. By focusing on various intellectual levels of demonology, from sophisticated demonological thought to the development of specific demonological ideas and ideas within the witch trial environment, the book offers a thorough examination of the relationship between demonology and witch-hunting. Demonology and Witch-Hunting in Early Modern Europe is essential reading for all students and researchers of the history of demonology, witch-hunting and early modern Europe.

Exorcism is more widespread in contemporary England than perhaps at any other time in history. The Anglican Church is by no means the main provider of this ritual, which predominantly takes place in independent churches. However, every one of the Church of England dioceses in the country now designates at least one member of its clergy to advise on casting out demons. Such `deliverance ministry' is in theory made available to all those parishioners who desire it. Yet, as Francis Young reveals, present-day exorcism in Anglicanism is an unlikely historical anomaly. It sprang into existence in the 1970s within a church that earlier on had spent whole centuries condemning the expulsion of evil spirits as either Catholic superstition or evangelical excess. This book for the first time tells the full story of the Anglican Church's approach to demonology and the exorcist's ritual since the Reformation in the sixteenth century. The author explains how and why how such a remarkable transformation in the Church's attitude to the rite of exorcism took place, while also setting his subject against the canvas of the wider history of ideas.

Situated at the crossroads of history and literary studies, this book examines confession's place at the heart of French demonology. Drawing on evidence from published treatises, the writings of skeptics such as Montaigne, and the documents from a witchcraft trial, Virginia Krause shows how demonologists erected their science of demons on the confessed experiences of would-be witches.

Physics World Book of the Year A Financial Times, Sunday Times, and Telegraph Best Science Book of the Year What is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question, for life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling that no human engineer can match it. Huge advances in molecular biology over the past few decades have served only to deepen the mystery. In this penetrating and wide-ranging book, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name; it is a domain where biology, computing, logic, chemistry, quantum physics, and nanotechnology intersect. At the heart of these diverse fields, Davies explains, is the concept of information: a quantity which has the power to unify biology with physics, transform technology and medicine, and force us to fundamentally reconsider what it means to be alive—even illuminating the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe. From life’s murky origins to the microscopic engines that run the cells of our bodies, The Demon in the Machine journeys across an astounding landscape of cutting-edge science. Weaving together cancer and consciousness, two-headed worms and bird navigation, Davies reveals how biological organisms garner and process information to conjure order out of chaos, opening a window onto the secret of life itself.

A new explanation of the beginnings of Jewish angelology and demonology, drawing on non-canonical writings and Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls.