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'The Devils of Loudun', by Aldous Huxley ‘The Devils of Loudun’ is a historical account of religious fanaticism and sexual hysteria in seventeenth century France, and an investigation into the circumstances that led to the torture and execution of a lo ....

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.... at all surprising that Huxley chose to write about this particular episode in French history, as many of the events described exemplify themes that dominated his polemical novels and celebrated essays: present is the issue of man’s ‘ongoing obsession’ with self-transcendence which was so pertinent in the excellent, infamous ‘Doors of perception’; the dilemma that recurs throughout his fiction, that of the cloistered and suppressed mind dealing with passionate human emotion, is here in extremis. On a functional level, ‘The Devils of Loudun’ seeks to oppose humankind’s tendency towards hypocrisy, malic ....