Comments on: Book Review: Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons

By: Steve Fleming

Steve Fleming — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:01:09 +0000

J., on Catholicism, I think a lot survives and that popular religiosity changes slowly, but it’s a complicated issue. And I’m sure your right about medieval baptism.

Jonathan, interesting. I’m sure SC would point out that demon belief is still around though.

Ben, where’s the paper coming out. I’ll definitely need to read it. I’d really recomend Clark not only for the topic but also for how to do great intellectual history. His newest book Vanitie of the Eyes, is another great example.

Where are you in your research SC, it reminds me that I need to send you a story.

By: SC Taysom

SC Taysom — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:00:21 +0000

Nice review, I remember reading this book in graduate school some year ago and it helped to spark my ongoing research on Mormon demonology and diabology. A perceptive take on a very good book.

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:22:15 +0000

Thanks for this, Steve. I dredged through Jonathan Israel’s Radical Enlightenment last semester, which covers the period immediately after Clark’s scope, and I was amazed at how belief in demons was at the center of many of the debates of the 18th century. It seems that whenever there was a major intellectual paradigm shift introduced, some perspective of demons/demonology came under question and/or was revised. This is most likely due to an apt point you single out:

In some ways the topic is much bigger than witchcraft since demons were central to how early modern people saw the world operating generally.

Demonology/angelology is hardly an isolated topic, but it often touches on and is representative of a culture’s larger worldview; I have an article coming out next month that argues that engaging how early Mormons understood angels/demons is an especially fruitful lens through which to chart Mormonism’s developing theology.

By: Jonathan Green

Jonathan Green — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:41:36 +0000

Thanks for the review. I haven’t read Clark’s book and my research has dealt with witchcraft only at its extreme margins. At first glance I don’t agree with Clark in every detail you mention, but that may be because I’m looking only at a few particular cases rather than at the big picture.

I would guess that the best parallel in current popular LDS belief to early modern belief in demons, and where you find a similar collision and tense co-existence of natural scientific and older or folkloric ideas, can be found in ideas concerning blood and descent. Both demons and lineage are ways to explain cause and effect within a particular model of how the world works (and just because we use different words today doesn’t mean that we never make use of the same habits of thought). I don’t know if the gap between popular and elite discourse is any wider or narrower.

By: J. Stapley

J. Stapley — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:13:18 +0000

In this context, does popular trend toward Catholic? Its been a while since I looked at this, but it seems like the the preparation of baptismal waters along with baptism itself (with other popular sacraments and rituals) had had an excorcistic valence for a very long time.

By: Steve Fleming

Steve Fleming — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:56:21 +0000

The elites complained that the common people thought the devil was too powerful; popular medieval practices revolved around exorcism of people and things. John Bossy argues that baptism was essentially exorcism. Basically the common people saw themselves as under attack from demons and thus wanted ways to combat them. The elites wanted the common people to understand the providential purpose in their trials and bear them like Job. Anyway, I see the popular worldview persisting, though perhaps combining with the elite view also.

By: J. Stapley

J. Stapley — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:15:15 +0000

Thanks for the write-up Steve. In some ways, I think, popular Mormon thought trends toward that medieval scientism you describe. Except that not only are demonic actors using natural means, but so is God. Furthermore, there is a long standing tendency to extrapolate analogically because of the believed existential continuity between human and God.