Élie Merlat and the French Prophets: Demonology and discernment from a Resilience perspective

DEL OLMO ISMAEL

PHILOSOPHY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

MDPI

Lugar: Basilea; Año: 2024

0048-3931

This article studies Elie Merlat’s Le moyen de discerner les esprits (1689), a refutation of the divine nature of the prophecies uttered by the petit prophètes, a popular charismatic movement which erupted in France following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685). The article deals with Merlat’s arguments against these prophets, constructed from the perspective of resilience theory. We study how Merlat fashions himself as an institutional resilience “expert” in open opposition to the charismatic authority of the prophets, and how his use of cessationism, discernment of spirits, and demonic possession as interconnected resilience resources discredits the divine nature of the prophecies.