In recent years, the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Zionism has taken on renewed importance and competing definitions of antisemitism have emerged. What is antisemitism?
The detail of the demon in Sir Joshua Reynolds’ painting The Death of Cardinal Beaufort was revealed after extensive cleaning.
Petworth House / National Trust
The Enlightenment saw science and rational thought replace the religious superstitions of the previous century, and demons became metaphors for the human struggle between good and evil.
Jane Levy in a scene from Evil Dead, based on a fictional Sumerian book that summons evil.
Sony Tristar/AAP
Some of popular culture’s most famous ghosts and demons have roots in ancient Mesopotamia. What did ancient humans believe about the supernatural? And what stories did they tell?
Taissa Farmiga as Sister Irene.
Warner Bros/Bruno Calvo
The Nun II brings a refreshingly feminist gloss to well-worn tropes within exorcism fiction, shattering assumptions about who should be the victim and who should be the rescuer.
The Nightmare by John Henry Fuselli, 1781.
Wikepedia
A raft of horror films remind us of the grip troubled sleep once had on our imaginations.
Many of the protestors who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 are said to believe evil forces were at work in Donald Trump’s removal from office.
Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA
A teenage domestic servant showed signs of possession, and a miller was accused of witchcraft. Considering records of these events helps clarify what we can and cannot know about the past.
Stella Immanuel, who made headlines recently regarding a false coronavirus cure claim, has many beliefs related to how demons are a threat to humans. An expert explains their long religious history.
Matfre Ermengaud’s ‘Temptation by Lechery’ from a 14th-century manuscript.
The British Library
Stories featuring demons and sex date back to early Judaism and Christianity. They inspired the witch craze and continue to be believed by many conservative Christians in America.
Woodcut, circa 1400. A witch, a demon and a warlock fly toward a peasant woman.
Hulton Archive /Handout via Getty Images
The idea of organized satanic witchcraft was invented in 15th-century Europe by church and state authorities, who at first had a hard time convincing regular folks it was real.
A painting showing Saint Francis Borgia, a 16th century saint,, performing an exorcism.
Francisco Goya
Forty-five years ago, ‘The Exorcist’ terrified viewers with its portrayal of a practice that goes back several centuries and continues today in Christianity.
While many American Catholics believe demons and exorcism to be part of a distant past, an expert explains how beliefs that sexual desires could be part of demonic temptation still persist.
Detail from Saint Michael and the Demon, a neogothical stained glass window from Saint-Martin de Florac Church.
Vassil/Wikimedia Commons
The Vatican is training priests to recognise and deal with the demonically possessed. This re-emergence of the Devil in popular Western culture is part of a new engagement with an enchanted world.
Associate Professor, Department of Historical Studies and Institute for the Study of University Pedagogy, University of Toronto Mississauga, University of Toronto