Woodcut entitled: \"A priest healing a possessed woman\" which appeared on page 1272 in Histoire prodigieuses et memorables, extraictes de plusieurs fameux aureurs, (Prodigious and Memorable History, Extracted from Several Famous Authors) circa 1598. Interior of a church, near the altar: an hysterical woman is held by two men before a priest who drives out the demon possessing her by offering a chalice of wine and the Eucharist to her. Exorcism is the practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or an area they are believed to have possessed. Depending on the spiritual beliefs of the exorcist, this may be done by causing the entity to swear an oath, performing an elaborate ritual, or simply by commanding it to depart in the name of a higher power. The practice is ancient and part of the belief system of many cultures and religions.