"Devils of Loudon" by Aldous Huxley is a complicated book, and written on a highly intellectual level. It probably has to be read several times to understand. Some notion and appreciation of Aldous Huxley's view on spirituality and religion also enrich the reading experience. It is not a book for everyone, and a frequent complaint is that there are too many digressions from the riveting plot to Huxley's philosophical asides. If one is willing to put in the time and effort this is truly a "great book."  The prose style is insidious and elegant. Reading DOL from beginning to end is the equivalent , in terms of processed knowledge, of earning an MA in French 17th-century history.  This is not just a book about a demonic possession, it is also a statement of philosophy, politics, propaganda, psychological theory, and a critique of the habit of religious persecution into varied non-secular domains..

The plot and descriptions, as well as Aldous Huxley's inevitable meanderings, flow effortlessly. The story is of the life and death of Father Urbain Grandier, a Jesuit in 17th-century Loudon, France who was persecuted and prosecuted for witchcraft after a perfunctory trial. The novel is partly in the form of non-fiction novel and The plot transpires against the panoramic of France of the time and the personalities, locally and nationally, that existed then. Grandier was convicted of witchcraft after a perfunctory trial juried by personal enemies and then tortured and burned alive. He refused to confess to witchcraft, though that would have eased his pain somewhat. Huxley describes how the politics of France extant, Grandier's own troublesome personality, the jealousies of the less able, and the peculiar ambitiousness of a prioress of a local convent led to his fiery end. The witch hunters were a very dogmatic group--once they had it in for Grandier,  once their anger had reached a certain level, they took every opportunity to subvert justice and manufacture a case against him. Unfortunately, Grandier, with his high-handed ways, seducing everyone in sight, was part of the problem, constantly piquing their anger. An excellent paragraph is Grandier's awareness, at one point during his trial, that reason and logic were no longer of avail, that the jurors had decided what they had agreed, that their intransigence could never be swayed by mere reason. It is a beautiful description of the futile feeling people experience when they understand they are about to be destroyed by a merciless force larger and more powerful than themselves.

 

What set this book apart from others on the same topic was that Huxley combined Grandier's story with that of Jacques Surin. Surin was the primary exorcist. He was a brilliant writer,  but a severe obsessive compulsive but with periodic breakdowns. He developed a close relationship with the nun, Soeur Jeanne, who had accused Grandier of being her incubi. Surin would be diagnosed and treated effectively today with medication. In any case, Soeur Jeanne, his "exorcisee", had claimed possession by Grandier after unsuccessfully recruiting Grandier to be the convent's confessor. She felt scorned and in today's terminology, a drama queen, and her hysterical symptoms became the rage of France, with tourists coming to see the signs of her possession. As events proceeded, this thwarted but powerful woman was one of a cavalcade of accusers that led to the guilty verdict against Grandier.

 

Readers can be grateful for Huxley's ability to longitudinally describe people's lives. He describes  Grandier as a self-defeating narcissist who starts out as a handsome and able youngster, just a bit of time ahead of another French protege, Rene Descartes. . Much was predicted for this young man, and once in the French town of Loudon, Grandier took advantage of his charisma to seduce various local females, including the teenage daughter of his best friend the public prosecutor, not a wise idea and sociopathic even by the standards of the day. This was one of many ways Grandier seemed to go out of his way to court trouble. He outraged the powerful and influential with his priapic ways, scandals, and genius for creating feuds.

Moreover, he was growing rich, a further irritation to his rivals. The enemies accumulated, including  Lebaudemont, the staunchest enemy, the prosecutor whose teenage daughter Grandier he seduced and made pregnant. Grandier did not confess, even to alleviate torture, which included crushing his legs to a pulp of shattered bone and marrow. Most of his contemporaries did not believe he was a witch, but grievances had developed, along with political expedience, that his innocence was not of concern.

 

Historically, Loudon was a uniquely combustible spot for this persecution to arrive because of its location, the politics of the day, and the machinations of Cardinal Richelieu. Grandier, as he proceeded to enrage the males in his hometown, had also given affront to the all-powerful Richelieu. The book, if read from beginning to end, will likely offer a comprehensive understanding of 17th-century French and ecclesiastical politics. Also provides a glimpse into Huxley's developing spiritual beliefs. And also provides an exceptional case study of major depression with psychotic features accompanied by obsessive-compulsive disorder, per the description of Jacques Surin. Damon LaBarbera, PhD

Best quote from book

In the briefly liberal nineteenth century [learned men] found it difficult not merely to forgive, but even to understand the savagery with which sorcerers had once been treated. Too hard on the past, they were at the same time too complacent about their present and far too optimistic in regard to the future - to us! They were rationalists who fondly imagined that the decay of traditional religion would put an end to such deviltries as the persecution of heretics, the torture and burning of witches.

But looking back and up, from our vantage point on the descending road of modern history, we now see that all the evils of religion can flourish without any belief in the supernatural, that convinced materialists are ready to worship their own jerry-built creations as though they were the Absolute, and that self-styled humanists will persecute their adversaries with all the zeal of Inquisitors exterminating the devotees of a personal and transcendent Satan. Such behavior-patterns antedate and outlive the beliefs which, at any given moment, seem to motivate them. Few people now believe in the Devil; but very many enjoy behaving as their ancestors behaved when the Fiend was a reality as unquestionable as his Opposite Number. In order to justify their behavior, they turn their theories into dogmas, their bylaws into First Principles, their political bosses into Gods, and all those who disagree with them into incarnate devils. This idolatrous transformation of the relative into the Absolute and the all to human into the Divine, makes it possible for them to indulge their ugliest passions with a clear conscience and in the certainty that they are working for the Highest Good. And when the current beliefs come, in their turn, to look silly, a new set will be invented, so that the immemorial madness may continue to wear its customary mask of legality, idealism and true religion."