Nothing perhaps pushes this idea more than exorcism. Levack notes that exorcisms have not gone away: there's a real surge in the number of exorcisms in the late 20th and early 21st century. Levack points out that exorcisms tend to surge during times of social change and unrest--a similar time would be the surge of exorcisms that occurred during the Reformation.
There are celebrity exorcists! One claims to have to exorcised 70,000 people.
Levack appeared on Tom Ashcroft's NPR's On Point. It's very much worth a listen.
The major thesis centers around how demoniacal behavior is embedded within the culture--that is, even where there are obvious cases of mental or neurological illnesses attributed to demonic possession, many of those manifest according to lines where symptoms are culturally transgressive.
The other interesting point: 70 to 80 percent of demoniacs are women
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PS by Martin Krieger. See the work of Moshe Sluhovsky re women....
Believe Not Every Spirit: Possession, Mysticism, & Discernment in Early Modern Catholicism [Hardcover] and his earlier work
Moshe Sluhovsky
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