“Misery, poverty, unemployment. You know — everything is dreadful! But these problems aren’t caused by things out there. They’re caused by spirits.”

So says Bishop Formigioni. He has come far, flying from São Paulo to minister a service of four thousand followers at a Pentecostal church in North London. His ecstatic sermon rises from didactic preaching to hands-on healing. Then he brings the congregation to a climax.

Silence, he tells them. Someone begins to wail, and the crowd soon becomes a writhing sea of bodies. The “possessed” have begun to “manifest.” Slickly uniformed church assistants pace the aisles and deliver people from evil spirits, laying hands on their heads and wrestling their bodies to the floor.