Maus de Rolley, T; (2016) A world within: The devil, delusions and early modern cognition. In: Mac Carthy, I and Sellevold, K and Smith, O, (eds.) Cognitive confusions: Dreams, delusions and illusions in early modern culture. (pp. 71-88). Legenda: Oxford, UK.

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Abstract

Demonology significantly advanced the idea that the world might not be what it appears to be, and that the senses – and especially vision – were uncertain and unreliable. This chapter focuses on two of the most influential demonologists in early modern Europe – Heinrich Kramer and Johann Weyer – and explore some of the different ways in which they conceived of the mind, the mechanisms of internal illusions, and the role played by the devil in the making of such delusions. It examines, in particular, how these demonological discussions were underpinned by a fundamental analogy between the mind and the physical world – the ‘world within’ and the ‘world without’. Like us, demonologists relied heavily on metaphorical language, and particularly on spatial metaphors, to conceptualise the mind and its malfunctions. The mind was conceived of as a physical space, and cognition as a spatial and dynamic process, dependent on the journeys undertook by the entities inhabiting this inner territory.

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