Possession, Puritanism and Print

Marion Gibson examines the Elizabethan controversy surrounding John Darrell, a Puritan preacher accused in 1598 of conducting fraudulent exorcisms. The case sits within a wider study of reported demonic possession, religious authority and the printed arguments that shaped public understanding of such events. William Sommers’s alleged possession receives particular attention, alongside the interventions of Samuel Harsnett and other writers.

The book traces how pamphlets transformed local disputes into national controversies, allowing competing accounts of exorcism, deceit and spiritual power to circulate. Gibson also relates these arguments to wider tensions among Puritans, the Church of England, women, young people and common people, presenting possession narratives as sites of religious and social conflict in late 16th-century England.