“The Girl Power of Christ Compels You!”

Abstract Exorcism is a man’s job. Christian churches legislate on who can carry out an exorcism, and independent charismatic healers tend overwhelmingly to be men. Yet there are exceptions. Ancient Syriac hagiography includes accounts of female saints who can cast out and repel demons, and the early 2010s saw the rise of the so-called “teenage exorcists” in the USA , Brynne Larson and Tess and Savannah Scherkenback. In this article we examine the ancient stories of holy women casting out demons and the media reports and Brynne Larson’s book on the ministry she and her friends carried out. We find that while female exorcists challenge the boundaries of gender in religious identity, they nonetheless reflect a form of idealized femininity in a man’s world.