Demons!

THE DEVILS (1971) Ken Russell's horrifying film of the possession and resultant exorcism of the Loudun Nuns (based upon the book THE DEVILS OF LOUDON by Aldous Huxley) scourged the eyes of audiences in the 1970s with its harsh brutal and sickening depiction of blasphemous torture hideous pain possession and wild orgiastic rites to fallen spirits. Now here is the classic full account of this bizarre startling and tragic chapter in the history of possession and exorcism the annals of primitive witch hysteria: the exorcism of the Loudun Nuns and the subsequent trial and hideous execution by burning of Father Urbain Grandier (claimed by some to have entered into a pact with Satan to torment and afflict the sisters of the afflicted Ursuline order). Was Urbain Grandier an emissary of Satan? Or was he simply a man caught up in the crosshairs of his vindictive enemies and powerful forces those willing to send a man to his death for purely political reasons? What of the hunchbacked Sister Jeanne? Was she really the focus of a black demonic incubus? Or was she simply a disturbed repressed woman one whose life of piety self-abnegation penance and sacrifice lead her to the brink of madness? To read this chilling account is to step back through a doorway in time gaining an insight into the hysteria of the witchcraft hysteria of the old world and what it might tell us about our own contemporary society. Published by Zem Books