Puritan exorcism was the use of exorcism by Puritan ministers in late 16th- and early 17th-century England, and later in colonial New England. While the demonology of the Puritans was broadly consistent with Early Modern Protestant views on Satan and demons, their particular methods of addressing alleged demonic possession—emphasizing collective prayer, fasting, and scriptural invocation while rejecting Catholic sacramentals such as holy water, relics, and formal priestly rites—were distinctive. The term Protestant dispossession is also used to describe this practice, highlighting its differences from Catholic exorcism.
Theological Background
Cessationism
The dominant theological framework within Puritanism was cessationism—the belief that extraordinary spiritual gifts (including prophecy, healing, tongues, and the authority to perform exorcisms) ceased after the apostolic age, once the New Testament canon was completed and the early church was established. This view, rooted in Reformed theology and articulated by figures such as John Calvin, held that miraculous signs served primarily to authenticate the Gospel in its initial propagation and were no longer necessary.
Leading Puritan theologians such as William Perkins (1558–1602) and John Owen (1616–1683) were prominent advocates of cessationism. Perkins, in A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft (1608), wrote that "the ordinary power of working [miracles] is ceased: for it was only given to the apostles in the primitive Church, as a means to confirm the doctrine of the Gospel to unbelievers." Owen similarly declared that "that dispensation of the Spirit is long since ceased," referring to the extraordinary infusion of gifts like miracles and tongues.
This cessationist doctrine created a theological tension: if miracles had ceased, how could Puritan ministers legitimately cast out demons? Some Puritans resolved this by arguing that dispossession was not a miraculous act of commanding demons (as in the apostolic age) but rather a non-miraculous appeal to God through prayer and fasting, which God might providentially answer. Others, such as Perkins himself, opposed the practice of exorcism altogether while accepting the underlying theories about witchcraft and demonic activity.
Alternative Views
A minority of Puritan thinkers adopted more flexible positions. Richard Baxter (1615–1691), a prominent nonconformist minister, argued in The Certainty of the Worlds of Spirits (1691) that demonic activity continued in the post-apostolic world under God's sovereign permission. He distinguished between the cessation of apostolic miracles and the persistence of providential divine actions, allowing for communal prayer as a biblically sanctioned response to possession without invoking ceased gifts. Richard Gilpin (1625–1700), in Daemonologia Sacra (1677), similarly affirmed Satan's enduring power to tempt and possess while subordinating it entirely to God's providential control.
Practices and Methods
Fasting and Prayer
The central method of Puritan exorcism was communal fasting and prayer, drawn from Mark 9:29, where Jesus states that certain demons can only be expelled "by nothing, but by prayer and fasting." This was interpreted as an ordinary provision from God rather than a miraculous gift. Procedures typically involved:
- Organized days of solemn fasting proclaimed by local churches or ministers
- Gathering of the afflicted individual, family, clergy, and community members
- Extended sessions of preaching, scriptural reading, and collective prayer
- Restraining the possessed if necessary
- Fervent, extemporaneous supplications to God for mercy and deliverance
Fasting became a defining feature of Puritan exorcism. Early Elizabethan cases, such as John Foxe's exorcism of Robert Briggs, did not involve fasting, but by the 1570s it had become a sine qua non of the Puritan approach. The exorcism in Norwich by Bishop John Parkhurst in 1574 may have introduced the fast day in this context.
Distinction from Catholic Exorcism
Catholic exorcism, as formalized in the Rituale Romanum of 1614, involved an elaborate ritual administered by an ordained priest with episcopal authorization. It included holy water, relics of saints, the sign of the cross, direct commands to demons in the name of Christ, litanies, and the exhibition of the Eucharist. The priest acted as a mediator empowered by the Church's hierarchy.
Puritans rejected these practices as superstitious and "popish." They argued that such rites fostered a false sense of control over the demonic and deviated from scriptural purity. In place of sacramentals and hierarchical authority, Puritans relied on the simplicity of prayer and fasting, treating possession as a providential trial resolvable only through faith and scriptural obedience.
Notable Cases and Practitioners
John Darrell
The most prominent Puritan exorcist was John Darrell (c. 1562–1607), a Puritan preacher from Mansfield educated at Cambridge. Darrell conducted several high-profile exorcisms in the English Midlands during the 1580s and 1590s:
- Katherine Wright (Derby, 1586): Darrell's first known exorcism, involving a 17-year-old girl.
- Thomas Darling (Burton-upon-Trent, 1596): A 13-year-old boy who exhibited vomiting, delusions, and fits attributed to demonic torment. The case was publicized in the pamphlet A True Report of the Strange Torments of Thomas Darling (1597).
- William Sommers (Nottingham, 1597): A 20-year-old servant whose case was marked by blasphemy, claims of superhuman strength, and self-harm. Over 150 people, including ministers, gathered for fasting and prayer, culminating in a reported expulsion of the spirit.
Darrell's methods integrated consultation with physicians to rule out natural causes such as melancholy or epilepsy. He defended his practices in works such as An Apologie or Defence of the Possession of William Sommers (1599), arguing they aligned with Reformed orthodoxy and served to "confute atheism and popery without superstition."
Controversy and Trial
Darrell's activities sparked intense controversy. In 1598 he was tried in Nottingham, and in 1599 he was convicted before the High Commission at Lambeth Palace under Archbishop John Whitgift and Bishop Richard Bancroft. Samuel Harsnett, in A Discovery of the Fraudulent Practices of John Darrell (1599), accused Darrell of coaching victims like Sommers to counterfeit symptoms, blending medical skepticism with cessationist theology.
Darrell was deprived of his ministry and imprisoned. The scandal prompted the Church of England to enact Canon 72 of 1604, which prohibited unlicensed exorcisms and unauthorized prayer meetings, effectively curbing public Puritan exorcism practices.
Mary Glover (1602)
In 1602, the case of Mary Glover, a 14-year-old London girl, further exemplified Puritan involvement in dispossession. Mary suffered fits, speech impediments, and visions after an apprenticeship, which Puritan ministers including John Swan attributed to witchcraft and demonic assault. Her dispossession on December 16, 1602, through prayer and fasting, was framed as a kind of martyrdom echoing her grandfather's execution under Queen Mary. The Puritan ministers involved were imprisoned.
New England Cases
As Puritans migrated to New England in the 1630s, beliefs in possession followed. Notable cases include:
- Ann Cole (Hartford, Connecticut, 1662): Exhibited convulsions, profane outbursts, and spectral visions accusing neighbors of bewitchment. Local ministers conducted days of fasting and prayer. The episode triggered the Hartford witchcraft hysteria, implicating eight individuals, three or four of whom were executed.
- Elizabeth Knapp (Groton, Massachusetts, 1671): A 16-year-old servant under Reverend Samuel Willard who displayed shrieking, animalistic behaviors, and temptations from the Devil. Willard and visiting ministers conducted examinations and prayers. The possession resolved by January 1672 through sustained pastoral care.
- Goodwin Children (Boston, 1688): Four children of John Goodwin exhibited fits, blasphemies, and what were interpreted as supernatural torments. Cotton Mather documented the case in Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions (1689), describing how dedicated days of fasting and prayer resulted in the gradual deliverance of the children.
The Salem Witch Trials (1692)
The Salem Witch Trials represented a critical juncture where beliefs in demonic possession intertwined with witchcraft accusations on a mass scale. The outbreak began in January 1692 when a group of young girls in Salem Village exhibited bizarre fits, screaming, and claims of being tormented by spectral figures. Local ministers interpreted these symptoms as signs of satanic possession.
Unlike earlier cases, the Salem episode escalated rapidly, with over 200 people accused. The trials admitted spectral evidence—visions of accused witches' spirits harming victims—as testimony. Crucially, the Puritan response to the alleged possessions was pursued through secular legal proceedings (examinations, trials, and executions) rather than exorcistic rites, which were deemed too akin to Catholic practices. By September 1692, Governor William Phips halted the court. Twenty individuals—mostly women—were executed by hanging, with others dying in jail.
The aftermath discredited sensational claims of possession and witchcraft, leading Puritan clergy to adopt greater caution. Increase Mather's Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits (1692) critiqued the trials' evidentiary standards and reinforced prayer as the primary antidote to demonic influence.
Legacy
The Puritan approach to exorcism significantly shaped Protestant demonology by emphasizing demonic temptation as a consequence of sin within a framework of divine sovereignty. Richard Baxter's The Certainty of the Worlds of Spirits (1691) influenced nonconformist traditions such as Baptists and Presbyterians. The emphasis on spiritual warfare through Scripture informed later revivalist figures such as Jonathan Edwards, whose A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (1737) described conversions as battles against sin and temptation echoing Puritan resistance to demonic deception.
Modern scholarship has reframed historical cases of Puritan possession not as literal demonic incursions but as manifestations of psychological distress within a rigid theological framework. Scholars such as Chadwick Hansen (Witchcraft at Salem, 1969) and John Demos (Entertaining Satan, 1982) have analyzed possessions through psychological and sociological lenses. Carol F. Karlsen (The Devil in the Shape of a Woman, 1987) has highlighted gender dynamics, noting that possessions disproportionately affected women and that exorcistic interventions served to reinforce patriarchal authority.
The Puritan legacy persists in contemporary evangelical deliverance ministries, which draw parallels to Puritan fasting and prayer-based approaches, adapting them to address spiritual oppression without formal exorcism rites.
