Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. TABLE OF CONTENTS v
3. List of Illustrations vii
4. Introduction 1
5. Part I Discernment of Spirits and Possession
6. Breath, Heart, Guts: The Body and Spirits in the Middle Ages 21
7. Non sunt nisi phantasiae et imaginationes: a Medieval Attempt at Explaining Demons 40
8. Discerning Spirits in Early Modern Europe 53
9. Mystics or Visionaries? Discernment of Spirits in the First Part of the Seventeenth Century in France 71
10. Possession Phenomena, Possession-systems. Some East-Central European Examples 84
11. Part II Contacts with the Other World
12. How Waldensians Became Witches: Heretics and Their Journey to the Other World 155
13. Hosting the Dead: Thanotopic Aspects of the Irish Sidhe 193
14. Visions of the Other World as Narrated in Contemporary Belief Legends from Resia 204
15. Part III Divination, Shamanism
16. Trance Prophets and Diviners in the Middle Ages 215
17. Shamanism in Medieval Scandinavian Literature 234
18. The King, the Cat, and the Chaplain. King Christian IV’s Encounter with the Sami Shamans of Northern Norway and Northern Russia in 1599 246
19. List of Contributors 264
20. Index 269