In this intelligent and well-written book, Brian P. Levack turns his attention from the witches whom he studied so perceptively in The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (3rd ed. [London: Routledge, 2006]) to the explosion in the number of demonic possession and exorcisms among Christians in the same context. Rather than the comprehensive examination of western Christianity that the title implies, this book focuses on Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as one of three major eras of demonic possession and considers alongside it the other two, the early church and the last fifty years. With refreshing candor and clarity, Levack explains the inadequacy of the rationalizations that secular historians frequently offer for this phenomenon: the demoniacs are pretending, or they are suffering from mental and/or physical illness. Instead, he argues persuasively that demoniacs, their exorcists, and the other key players are engaged, consciously or not, in cultural performances, enacting scripts that encode their community's values, anxieties, and religious beliefs. This perspective accounts for the differences between Roman Catholic and Protestant possessions; stresses the importance of media, in creating the expectations for and experiences of demonic indwelling, both in the early modern period and today; and highlights the propagandistic nature of many exorcisms. A prodigious amount of research went into this encyclopedic yet readable work.