Loudin's Demon: the Case of the "Possession" of a French Priest

"Loudan's Demon" records a huge unjust, false and wrong case in European history. It happened in the middle of the seventeenth century AD after the end of the dark Middle Ages and before the outbreak of the French Revolution. At that time, the name of the rector of the small French town of Loudain was Urbain Grandier. This man was knowledgeable and handsome, but unfortunately he was also a lover and secretly owed many romantic debts. These scandals made him enemies of many people in Loudain, and his enemies were determined to exact revenge on him. Soon, a group of nuns in a local monastery were "possessed by devils" and claimed that it was all because Father Grandi signed a contract with the devil, causing a group of demons to come to the center and indulge in debauchery with them, so that they were possessed by unclean spirits. After trials by religious courts and secular courts, Grandier was found guilty. Not only was he physically tortured, but he was eventually burned to death. Aldous Huxley combed through the relevant written materials about this real event in the past 300 years, made serious and meticulous inferences, overturned the theory that the nuns were possessed by the devil, and pointed out many problems in France's politics, people's livelihood, and religion in the seventeenth century. Because when Huxley wrote this book, his tone was impartial and neutral, and his writing was strange. It was quite interesting to read, especially the lengthy records of the nuns' lewd behavior, the exorcism rituals of the exorcists, and the barbarism and ruthlessness of ordinary people.