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Method concerns not only what happens in the field, where living rituals are enacted, but also what happens before and after entering the field. Consequently, reading critically, writing intelligibly, and presenting research in compelling ways are central to ritual studies method.

This chapter presents the book’s framework as: (1) a new form of cultural history (animistic history of demons in the city or ecclesiastical authority); and (2) historiographical critique (why have demonologies of late antique cities been neglected in scholarship?). To that end, I present the thesis, my methodology (intertwining material analyses—i.e., archaeology—and literary analyses), and theoretical approaches (anthropology, ritual theory). I discuss the wider, historiographical background (Gibbon’s narrative of fall and decline replaced by late antiquity’s dynamic of continuity and transformation), which shaped my alternative view of the relationship between a perceived historical progression and imagined enchanted environment (Robert Orsi's abundant history, animistic history)—a relationship animated through ritual practice. Finally, I present the centrality of diabolization in my thesis. Ecclesiastical leadership in cities employed demonological discourse and exorcistic practice—that is, diabolization—to a maintain congregations and Christianize the city. Diabolization is comprised of two parts: first, a rhetorical/discursive amplification of the demonic, the intensification of the demonic threat, drawing it closer and closing the distance that demonization creates; second, a ritual strategy aimed toward defeating or managing the demonic. This ritual process redefined the topographical urban map, shifted the urban worldview and concepts of embodied charismatic power.

The introduction deals with the variety of rituals in South Asia, the term homo ritualis, and the definition of “ritual” in comparison with various Sanskrit equivalents, It is argued that that ritual is a distinctive way of acting, which, like theater play, can be distinguished from other forms of action; that there is a characteristic structure of Hindu rituals based on the Brahmanic-Sanscritic sacrifice as a model; and that this structure is often shown in practice by the identificatory habitus to be one of the characterizing and unique features of Hinduism. It also gives an overview on different theories of ritual in the context of colonial and postcolonial studies and introduces into the ethno-indological methodology.