Keitt (history, U. of Alabama) explores how the Inquisition in 17th-century Spain accused prisoners of feigning divinely inspired vision, supernatural raptures, and miraculous revelations. Inquisition trial records; inquisitorial correspondence; confessors' manuals; and treatises on demonology, politics, magic, and superstitions provide the evidence as he focuses on three Inquisition cases that highlight especially pertinent issues and four others that introduce a cast of supporting characters. He characterizes these seven defendants, whose trials took place between 1627 and 1641, as members of a loosely knit group of local visionaries that frequented the most prominent religious institutions in the city, engaged in various alliances and rivalries, and in some cases even shared the same confessor. The study began as his 1998 Ph.D. dissertation in history for the University of California-Berkeley. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)