The aim of this paper is to trace Thomas Hobbes’s arguments for the rejection of spiritual possession in Leviathan (1651). Several layers of Hobbes’s thought converge in this subject: his suggestion regarding the sovereign’s right to control religious doctrine; his mechanistic critique of incorporeal substances; his tirade against demonology and Pagan philosophy; his ideas about fear and the natural seeds of religion; his Biblical criticism. Hobbes’s reflections over the matter of spiritual possession allowed him to simultaneously attack institutionalized and charismatic supernatural experiences, rejecting on Biblical as well as philosophical grounds the possibility of demonic and divine possession. This assault on traditional pneumatology led him to new interpretations of the notions of spirit and immateriality, a core element in Leviathan ’s resignification of the interaction between nature and supernature. The paper will address Hobbes’s call for a civil exorcism―political, exegetical, and philosophical―against the spiritual powers that possess the Commonwealth.

中文翻译：

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反对稻草人和半生不熟的基督徒

本文的目的是追溯托马斯·霍布斯 (Thomas Hobbes) 在《利维坦 (Leviathan)》(1651) 中拒绝精神占有的论点。霍布斯的几个层次的思想集中在这个主题上：他关于主权者控制宗教教义的权利的建议；他对无形物质的机械批判；他对恶魔学和异教哲学的长篇大论；他对恐惧和宗教自然种子的看法；他的圣经批评。霍布斯对精神占有问题的反思使他能够同时攻击制度化和有魅力的超自然体验，从圣经和哲学的角度拒绝恶魔和神圣占有的可能性。这种对传统气动学的攻击使他对精神和非物质性的概念进行了新的解释，利维坦重新定义自然与超自然之间相互作用的核心元素。该论文将解决霍布斯呼吁对拥有英联邦的精神力量进行公民驱魔——政治的、解经的和哲学的——。