Philip Almond is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Queensland, and is currently Deputy Director of the Centre for the History of European Discourses. He has published extensively on the history of religion in Early Modern England, including recent works such as The Devil: A New Biography (London & Ithaca, N.Y: I.B.Tauris and Cornell University Press, 2014), The Lancashire Witches: Persecution, Politics and Murder in Early Modern England (London: I.B.Tauris, 2013), England’s First Demonologist: Reginald Scott and ‘The Discoverie of Witchcraft’ (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011), and Heaven and Hell in Enlightenment England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, paperback edition, 2008).
He is also the author of the most comprehensive guide to the thought of Rudolf Otto (Rudolf Otto: An Introduction to his Philosophical Theolgy [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984]), as well as The British Discovery of Buddhism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), an important work which anticipates Tomoko Masuzawa's fuller treatment in The Invention of World Religions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
Emeritus Professor Philip Almond discusses his work on witchcraft and demonic possession in early modern England, including issues such as the "familiar cultural script" that was usually played out, the strategic interests of those making accusations, and the broader context of post-Reformation turmoil in which confessional claims to truth took on new urgency.
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