The Trial of the Cock Lane Ghost: Criminal Law, Religious Orthodoxy and Social Values in Enlightenment London

This article examines why systemic prejudice against Methodism within the Church of England resulted in a criminal prosecution and conviction in relation to promoting beliefs in ghosts in one instance, and yet did not generate an action in respect of an unsanctioned exorcism shortly afterwards in the same location. It also asks whether any of the causative factors behind the differential treatment might have relevance to societal and legal responses to claims about supernatural phenomena in the XXI century.