In 1567, two young demoniacs in Brakel, Germany, started grunting like snuffling pigs. While hearing Mass in an Italian village, demoniacs shrieked like animals, contorting their bodies and pulling up their skirts. Elena Crusichi, known as La Draga, claimed in 1571 that the devil had eaten her guts and destroyed her legs and throat. The same year, a girl from Louvain coughed up 24 pounds of liquid in a single day. A Franciscan at Querétaro in Mexico pulled a large toad out of the mouth of a demoniac by the leg and threw it on her bed. In 1662, during the exorcism of a group of Ursuline nuns at Auxonne, some of the demoniacs managed to bend backwards so far that they could lick the floor. In Tuscany, demons were said to have slapped the saintly nun, Veronica Giuliani, while she trie
26 October 2013, The Tablet
The Devil Within: possession and exorcism in the Christian West
Society’s demons
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