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Possession or Insanity?: Two Views from the Victorian Lunatic Asylum

This article examines a controversy, between two English asylum chaplains of the 1850s, about the nature of demonic possession in the New Testament. I trace both chaplains' views to German theological debates on the subject from the late eighteenth century, and show how these discussions chimed with new theories about 'moral insanity' being developed by contemporary psychiatrists in England and France. Finally, I argue that the compromise between rationalist and supernaturalist explanations of possession, developed by German theologians, was used by the two chaplains to justify their contentious place in the modern asylum.