Benito Jeronimo Feijoo
Father Feijoo was a debunker of myths. He had great interest in natural science and many of his essays touch on topics related to this subject and to the many myths about creatures and lands that abounded at that time. One example of how far his naturalistic bent went can be found in a story told by Julio A. Feijoo, one of his descendents, born in Cuba in 1910. Father Feijoo believed that demonic possession was a psychological phenomenon. Once he was called upon to perform an exorcism, and in order to demonstrate that this phenomenon was more due to suggestibility than anything else, in performing a spurious exorcism on the "possessed" subject, he read from Bocaccio's famous bawdy work the Decameron. Upon hearing the Latin lines, the "possessed" individual settled down and declared himself to be free of demonic influence.