The exorcists’ manuals
Flagellum Daemonum, Fustis Daemonum, Thesaurus exorcismorum
- Known today as
- The handbooks of the exorcist’s art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, above all those of the Franciscan Girolamo Menghi.
- Kind
- Sacramental, in 1 older authority
- Earliest authority here
- The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1907–1914)
Revised October 1, 2026: An authority added from a text read in full. Version 1, first published September 28, 2026.
The exorcists’ manuals: what was it used for?
Carried and read at the rite: prayers, adjurations, blessings of herbs and objects, and the signs by which to tell the possessed from the sick.
The exorcists’ manuals: what does modern science say?
The press’s Cudgel of Demons is the first English translation of the Fustis.
What Medicine Makes of It
- PossessionThe possessed of the manuals, and dissociative trance.
- Dancing Manias and the Convent OutbreaksStrasbourg 1518, Loudun 1634, and mass psychogenic illness.
- The Rite as TherapyWhy exorcism works when it works: persuasion, community, and the ending.
- Gassner and MesmerThe exorcist and the magnetiser, 1775: how exorcism became psychotherapy.
- The VoicesLocutions, the discernment of spirits, and hearing voices without illness.
- Speaking in TonguesThe possessed who spoke strange languages, and what the tongues are.
- The IncubusThe demon lover of the night, and the sleep that cannot move.
- The Falling SicknessEpilepsy, the demon that throws the child into the fire.
- The Noonday DemonAcedia of the desert monks, and depression.
- The OrdealThe hot iron, the swimming of witches, and the lie detector.
- The Child WitnessThe children of Salem and Mora, and the suggestibility of memory.
The exorcists’ manuals: what lore surrounds it?
Menghi’s Flagellum Daemonum (1576) and Fustis Daemonum (1584) were reprinted many times and gathered into the great compilation Thesaurus exorcismorum (Cologne, 1608).
The exorcists’ manuals: what did the older authorities say?
- The Catholic Encyclopedia
- The Catholic Encyclopedia summarises the Roman Ritual's instructions for the exorcist: “Possession is not lightly to be taken for granted. Each case is to be carefully examined and great caution to be used in distinguishing genuine possession from certain forms of disease.” The priest “should avoid in the a course of the rite everything that savours of superstition, and should leave the medical aspects of the case to qualified physicians,” “all idle and curious questioning of the demon should be avoided,” and when the rite is held in a house “witnesses (preferably members of the family) should be present: this is specially enjoined, as a measure of precaution, in case the subject is a woman.” In the early centuries, by Origen's account, “even the simplest and rudest of the faithful sometimes cast out demons, by a mere prayer or adjuration.”
Sources
- The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1907–1914), “Exorcist.” newadvent.org/cathen/05711a.htm Standard reference work
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026
- Passes
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- Each quotation from the older authorities checked word for word against the text, read in full
- Sources
- 1 cited: 1 standard reference work.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published September 28, 2026 · last revised October 1, 2026
- Chicago
“The exorcists’ manuals.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 1, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/exorcists-manuals.
- MLA
“The exorcists’ manuals.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 1 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/exorcists-manuals. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
The exorcists’ manuals. (2026, October 1). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/exorcists-manuals
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See Also
Also in The Catholic Encyclopedia
The eye bead in The Catholic Encyclopedia · Epiphany water in The Catholic Encyclopedia · The fig hand in The Catholic Encyclopedia · Epiphany chalk in The Catholic Encyclopedia · everything The Catholic Encyclopedia names →
Nearby in the alphabet
Eryngo · Eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis and relatives) · Ergot · Fairy ring champignon (A small tan mushroom that grows in rings on lawns and pasture) · Epsom salt (first boiled from the waters of a spring on Epsom Common in Surrey) · False morel (reddish-brown spring mushroom of conifer woods) · Epithymum (Cuscuta epithymum, a parasitic plant)
Historical description, not medical advice.