Catholic Dictionary

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I found, for example, that Catholicism, along with many tribal and/or primitive religions (indigenous American peoples, native African cultures are two examples) had very specific rites of exorcism, which is defined in __A CATHOLIC DICTIONARY__ as "the driving out of evil spirits in cases of demonical possession." There is a detailed description of the rite of exorcism, including specific prayers and sections of the Bible to be read in the presence of the possessed, the order in which they should be read, and the training and qualifications of an exorcist.

In other cultures, what we, for want of a more precise term, often call witch doctors, or more accurately shamans, perform their own prescribed rites to drive off, or to ward off, evil spirits. While the details of the rituals are different, they too are prescribed and their intent is similar.

The 5,000+ entries cover a great amount of ground, ranging from categories with which most of us are familiar, to some very obscure, but often interesting ones. An example of the latter follows.

KING'S EVIL: The Kings of France and England have been granted the power to cure scrofula (the main symptom of which is a swelling of the neck glands), by touching the afflicted. The last kings to perform this act of touching are said to be Henry IX of England and Charles X of France. (For more details, see the subject dictionary.)

For me, this dictionary has proved useful both for finding very specific information and for randomly picking a page or two and learning something old that is new to me.