Popular culture & American exorcisms
• Superstitious Folly
Kevin Christopher in The Skeptical Inquirer reviews Michael Cuneo's American Exorcism: Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty.
Although his opening chapters focus mostly on exorcism as a Roman Catholic ritual, Cuneo is quick to disabuse readers of the common assumption that the task of expelling demons is limited to priests. His later chapters closely examine the history and current practice of Middle-America exorcism—the deliverance ministries of Baptist, Charismatic, and Pentecostal churches and deliverance groups. Cuneo is also careful to make sure the reader understands that although Protestant deliverance ministry and the resurgent Catholic rite of exorcism are essentially grass-roots practices, the renewed popular belief can be credited almost entirely to Hollywood.