The Devils Of Loudun
NEW––BroDart Dust Jacket Cover
Author: Aldous Huxley
Barnes & Noble Edition 1996
©1952 Aldous Huxley
Barnes & Noble, Inc
CAB Comment––
I will admit Aldous Huxley’s “The Devils Of Loudun” is a challenging book to read at times––challenging because of the historical depth and philosophical scope––but it is very well worth the effort. This book is also a disturbingly current piece of literature in regard to the present-day mania of political witch-hunts that mimic McCarthyism (of the 1940’s and 1950’s) and have manifested with Trump Derangement Syndrome, ubiquitous and endless accusations of racism, radical special-interest obsessions, and the demonization of anyone who doesn’t think exactly along party partisan lines (whatever they may be). And worse still, those self-righteous and specious grifters in authority who proclaim they will save everyone from themselves and the planet from destruction by the most evil carbon lifeforms ever to thrive: the humans.
Reading “The Devils Of Loudun” will shine a spotlight on just how powerful the media and political aristocracy can be in manipulating, conforming, and solidifying public perspective into a false social-construct––i.e., creating a herd-mentality that sees “devils” everywhere, where there are none at all––until the self-serving virtuous have pointed enough fingers at “the other guy”, until the innocent are permanently damaged and maybe…maybe…maybe actually tortured and burned at the stake. A witch at long last! A witch for doing next to nothing wrong but committing the sin of arrogance and pissing off the wrong people. “The Devils Of Loudun” is considered by many to be a contemporary masterpiece of history, and I have to agree that it is. But again, this book hits the modern-world’s political insanity and inanity bullseye dead-on. “Left to themselves such devils as remained soon took their leave. If there had been no exorcists, it would never have begun.”––‘The Devils Of Loudun’, Aldous Huxley
“The Devils Of Loudun”––Kirkus Reviews:
“An exhaustive exhumation of the phenomenon of possession which occurred in a convent at Loudun during the 17th century which permits a speculative inquiry not only into the nature of psychological hysteria and hallucination, but also- and more widely- into the meaning of spiritual attitudes and beliefs. And against the superstition and sensuality and worldly conduct of this age, a story unfolds which is not only sharp in drama but in contrasts of character in the three who were involved; Urbain Grandier, a parson, but also a wit and a lecher of considerable charm whose seduction of a virgin, who was to bear his child, brought on a scandal and a trial which did not terminate his career; Surin, also a parson, but a zealot and a neurotic; and Soeur Jeanne, who became a Prioress at the Convent of Loudun whose hallucinations were blamed on the fascinating, abominable Grandier. And since the Prioress and her nuns continued in their state of hysteria and chronic sexual excitement, and since Surin failed in his attempt to exorcise the demoniac sisters, Grandier was arrested and brought to trial again, was brutally tortured and died protesting his innocence, only to be outlived by the furious dementia which continued at Loudun until the remorseful death of its Prioress.....A study of frenzied, cataleptic seizures and manifestations which developed to a point of spectacle in its day, here interpreted with psychological acuity, with a sense of irony and paradox, and with the respect of an intellectual for spiritual concerns.”
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