In Possessed by the Right Hand, the first comprehensive legal history of slavery in Islam ever offered to readers, Bernard K. Freamon, an African-American Muslim law professor, provides a penetrating analysis of the problems of slavery and slave-trading in Islamic history. After examining the issues from pre-Islamic times through to the nineteenth century, Professor Freamon considers the impact of Western abolitionism, arguing that such efforts have been a failure, with the notion of abolition becoming nothing more than a cruel illusion. He closes this ground-breaking account with an examination of the slaving ideologies and actions of ISIS and Boko Haram, asserting that Muslims now have an important and urgent responsibility to achieve true abolition under the aegis of Islamic law. See Bernard Freamon live at Rutgers Law School (October 8, 2019). Listen to Possessed by the Right Hand: An Interview with Prof. Bernard Freamon from Network ReOrient on Anchor

Possessed by the Virgin is an ethnographic account of three Roman Catholic women in Tamil Nadu, south India who claim to be possessed by Mary, the mother of Jesus. The author follows the lives of these women over many years, investigating questions about gender, social power, agency, and authenticity.

The Self Possessed is a multifaceted, diachronic study reconsidering the very nature of religion in South Asia, the culmination of years of intensive research. Frederick M. Smith proposes that positive oracular or ecstatic possession is the most common form of spiritual expression in India, and that it has been linguistically distinguished from negative, disease-producing possession for thousands of years. In South Asia possession has always been broader and more diverse than in the West, where it has been almost entirely characterized as "demonic." At best, spirit possession has been regarded as a medically treatable psychological ailment and at worst, as a condition that requires exorcism or punishment. In South (and East) Asia, ecstatic or oracular possession has been widely practiced throughout history, occupying a position of respect in early and recent Hinduism and in certain forms of Buddhism. Smith analyzes Indic literature from all ages-the earliest Vedic texts; the Mahabharata; Buddhist, Jain, Yogic, Ayurvedic, and Tantric texts; Hindu devotional literature; Sanskrit drama and narrative literature; and more than a hundred ethnographies. He identifies several forms of possession, including festival, initiatory, oracular, and devotional, and demonstrates their multivocality within a wide range of sects and religious identities. Possession is common among both men and women and is practiced by members of all social and caste strata. Smith theorizes on notions of embodiment, disembodiment, selfhood, personal identity, and other key issues through the prism of possession, redefining the relationship between Sanskritic and vernacular culture and between elite and popular religion. Smith's study is also comparative, introducing considerable material from Tibet, classical China, modern America, and elsewhere. Brilliant and persuasive, The Self Possessed provides careful new translations of rare material and is the most comprehensive study in any language on this subject.

Silent cinema and contemporaneous literature explored themes of mesmerism, possession, and the ominous agency of corporate bodies that subsumed individual identities. At the same time, critics accused film itself of exerting a hypnotic influence over spellbound audiences. Stefan Andriopoulos shows that all this anxiety over being governed by an outside force was no marginal oddity, but rather a pervasive concern in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Tracing this preoccupation through the period’s films—as well as its legal, medical, and literary texts—Andriopoulos pays particular attention to the terrifying notion of murder committed against one’s will. He returns us to a time when medical researchers described the hypnotized subject as a medium who could be compelled to carry out violent crimes, and when films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler famously portrayed the hypnotist’s seemingly unlimited power on the movie screen. Juxtaposing these medicolegal and cinematic scenarios with modernist fiction, Andriopoulos also develops an innovative reading of Kafka’s novels, which center on the merging of human and corporate bodies. Blending theoretical sophistication with scrupulous archival research and insightful film analysis, Possessed adds a new dimension to our understanding of today’s anxieties about the onslaught of visual media and the expanding reach of vast corporations that seem to absorb our own identities.

“Woe is me poet or possessed…” — Muhammad Could it be that one of the most influential men in history have been manipulated by satanic powers? It's time to unveil the many unsavory truths about the founder of Islam, Muhammad, pulled straight from Islamic sources. One of these truths is that by all indications the prophet of Islam was demon possessed or at the very least severely demonically influenced. Muhammad's supposed prophetic career began with an encounter with a spirit entity in the cave of Hira. We read in Islamic literature that the alleged angel, Gabriel, manhandled and abused him, which left him terrorized, suicidal, and in a state of madness. This alone should raise red flags. We also read that Muhammad was put under a black magic spell, uttered the words of Satan in the infamous so-called “Satanic Verses” event, and had a demonic spirit guide or familiar spirit. Again, this is all coming from the Muslim texts! Moreover, Muhammad, including many of his contemporaries, believed he was demon possessed. Indeed, he experienced many strange physical manifestations such as twitching, foaming at the mouth, convulsing, roaring, or snorting like a camel that was falsely believed to be “divine inspirations” from the supposed angel Gabriel and/or Allah. We give an uncensored and uncompromised look at Muhammad and the religion he founded, Islam. What is read in Islamic texts is embarrassing, appalling, and downright disturbing. Much of such information that even educated Muslims are unaware of. And nothing is held back when Muhammad's deplorable morality is scrutinized. Would God, who is righteous and holy, work behind a person who sanctioned many atrocious acts and practices such as child marriage, wife beating, assassinations, torture, and sex slavery? Was Muhammad a perfect example for mankind, as many Muslims believe, when he was a racist, sexist, rapist, and religious tyrant? What is also covered is his controversial consummation of marriage to a 9-year-old girl named Aisha when he was past the age of 50 years old. What spirit was moving behind Muhammad to practice what many would consider to be gross crimes against humanity? This e-Book has a wealth of evidence that Muhammad was indeed demon possessed and thus be considered a false prophet of God. We thoroughly examine the idea of him being demonically influenced using over 500 direct quotations (all hyperlinked directly to the source) from the most authoritative Islamic sources (the Quran, authentic hadiths, tafsirs, sira literature, etc.). The idea Muhammad was demonized is not the conclusion of a mere layman in the field of demonology, but someone who has had many years of experience involved in deliverance ministry (i.e., expelling demons out of people by the power and authority of Jesus). What would be the purpose of Satan using Muhammad to found the religion of Islam? One reason is to blind peoples' minds from believing the Gospel, that Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God who died on the cross for the sins of the world, and was resurrected. Without the belief in the Gospel, there is no salvation. This e-book is targeted at all truth-seekers and is a great resource for those involved in Christian apologetics and polemics.