Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles
available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. George Lukins,
also known as the Yatton doemoniac, was an individual famous for his
alleged demonic possession and the subsequent exorcism that occurred
when he was aged forty-four; his case occasioned great controversy in
England. The Rev. Joseph Easterbrook, the Anglican vicar of Temple
Church, was summoned on Saturday, 31 May 1778, by Mrs. Sarah Barber, a
woman who was travelling in the village of Mendip, Yatton, in the county
of Somerset. The woman told the pastor that she came across a man by the
name of George Lukins, a tailor and common carrier by profession, who
had a strange malady "in which he sang and screamed in various sounds,
some of which did not resemble a human voice; and declared, doctors
could do him no service." Mrs. Barber, who formerly resided in Yatton,
attested to the clergyman that Lukins had an extraordinary good
character and attended services of worship, where he received the Church
sacraments. However, for the past eighteen years, he had been subject to
atypical fits, which Lukins believed resulted from a supernatural slap
which knocked him down while he was acting in a Christmas pageant.
