In other eras of a more puritanical nature, intoxication has been stigmatized as a sign of human weakness, of immorality, or as a sin.
Ellens says, "When Christianity came to power in the empire of Constantine, it proceeded almost to viciously repress all non-Christians and all Christians who did not line up with official Orthodox ideology, policy, and practice".
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Even although, in his Treatise on Toleration (1763), the famous French liberal philosopher Voltaire expressed a distaste for religious fanaticism, he was at the same time convinced that religion could be a useful tool to keep the masses under control.
It is a historical narrative of supposed demonic possession, religious fanaticism, sexual repression, and mass hysteria which occurred in 17th century France surrounding unexplained events that took place in the small town of Loudun; particularly on Roman Catholic priest Urbain Grandier and an entire convent of Ursuline nuns, who allegedly became possessed by demons after Grandier made a pact with Satan.
The film was highly controversial in its time, because of its treatment of religious fanaticism and charismatic congregations.
The Scottish novel, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) by James Hogg, a dark study of criminal psychology and religious fanaticism, is essentially structured in all respects as a local history publication of the kind fashionable in Scotland in Hogg's lifetime.