Demons Seeking Identity? The Psychic Life of New Testament Exorcisms

Abstract An important but largely unrecognized feature of well-known New Testament exorcistic pericopes is the eagerness with which demons and spirits engage their respective exorcists. Why might narratives like Mark 1:21–26 and 5:1–13, or Acts 16:16–18, depict spirits as intensely keen to engage—and even to provoke—exorcists like Jesus and Paul? By reading these stories through Judith Butler’s nuancing of Louis Althusser’s interpellation theory, I argue that the demons seek and gain recognition of their identity through their interaction with Jesus. At the same time, I contend that ancient exorcism stories themselves (in concert with the work of Saba Mahmood) helpfully nuance Butler’s application of interpellation. In so doing, I illustrate a way of reading these pericopes in a manner that moves beyond simplistic, binary accounts (e.g., Jesus vs. Legion) to reveal the much more complex processes of identity and agency, negotiation and collaboration woven throughout the narrative action. Such interspecies collaboration, moreover, underscores the overlooked relevance of these texts for contemporary posthumanist philosophies, in how the motives, goals, and choices of humans and nonhumans—made in light of one another—dominate the action of these exorcism stories.