"Quite an interesting book . . . " —Religious Studies Review

"It is by far superior to anything else on demons we have seen in the past few years." —The American Rationalist

" . . . Goodman is to be commended for a stimulating and wide-reaching treatment of a compelling and much-debated subject." —Journal of Folklore Research

Rich in detail derived from the author's fieldwork and the anthropological literature, this work paints a picture of possession as one of the usually positive and most widespread of human religious experiences. It also details the ritual of exorcism, which is applied when things go wrong.