This book looks at explanations of the black arts as they existed during early medieval centuries in Western Europe. It objectively examines the historical development of magic and witchcraft and emphasizes the reality of these black arts. Stressing the historiographical significance of the modern literature of the occult, this book provides a solid display of the leading role of rationalism in modern literature. The author employs studies in anthropology and examinations of writings of medieval encyclopedists, code of pagan law, and the Church Fathers from the fourth to the eighth centuries. By remaining objective and employing such historiographical and theological details to his work, Duke creates a high quality and unique study which supports refutations of rationalist historians who see middle-age witchcraft as a delusion. His book will appeal to students and scholars of medieval history, as well as anyone interested in the black arts. Contents: Abbreviations; Acknowledgments; MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT OF CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY; Introduction; The Modern Literature of Witchcraft; The Roman and Christian Background; The Western Fathers and Magic and Witchcraft A.D. 300-450; St. Augustine on Magic and Miracles; Magic, Miracles and the Ecclesiastical Witchcraft; Heirs of the Latin Fathers; Conclusions; Bibliography; Index.

The 1980s saw the emergence of New Age and neo-paganism as major new religious movements. In the first book-length study of these movements, Michael York describes their rituals and beliefs and examines the similarities, differences and relationships between them. He profiles particular groups, including the Church Universal Triumphant, Nordic pagans, and the Covenant of Unitarian Pagans, and questions the adequacy of existing sociological categories for describing these largely amorphous phenomena.

While W.B. Yeats' occultism has long been acknowledged, Surette is the first to show that Ezra Pound's early intimacy with Yeats was based largely on a shared interest in the occult, and that Pound's The Cantos is a deeply occult work. Surette argues that Pound's editing of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land was not motivated primarily by stylistic concerns, as has generally been contended by the New Critics, but by thematic considerations. In fact, it was precisely because Eliot knew Pound to be well informed about the occult that he asked for Pound's assistance with The Waste Land.

The evil eye-the power to inflict illness, damage to property, or even death simply by gazing at or praising someone-is among the most pervasive and powerful folk beliefs in the Indo-European and Semitic world. It is also one of the oldest, judging from its appearance in the Bible and in Sumerian texts five thousand years old. Remnants of the superstition persist today when we drink toasts, tip waiters, and bless sneezers. To avert the evil eye, Muslim women wear veils, baseball players avoid mentioning a no-hitter in progress, and traditional Jews say their business or health is "not bad" (rather than "good"). Though by no means universal, the evil eye continues to be a major factor in the behavior of millions of people living in the Mediterranean and Arab countries, as well as among immigrants to the Americas. This widespread superstition has attracted the attention of many scholars, and the twenty-one essays gathered in this book represent research from diverse perspectives: anthropology, classics, folklore studies, ophthalmology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, sociology, and religious studies. Some essays are fascinating reports of beliefs about the evil eye, from India and Iran to Scotland and Slovak-American communities; others analyze the origin, function, and cultural significance of this folk belief from ancient times to the present day. Editor Alan Dundes concludes the volume by proffering a comprehensive theoretical explanation of the evil eye. Anyone who has ever knocked on wood to ward off misfortune will enjoy this generous sampling of evil eye scholarship, and may never see the world through the same eyes again.

An extensive look at the cartography and folklore of the afterlife worlds as seen by our ancestors * Examines how ancient European cultures viewed the beyond, including the Blessed Isles of early Greek and Celtic faith, the Hebrew Sheol, Hades from Homer's Odyssey, Hel and Valhalla of the Norse, and the Aralu of Babylon * Shows how medieval accounts of journeys into the Other World represent the first recorded near-death experiences * Connects medieval afterlife beliefs and NDE narratives with shamanism, looking in particular at psychopomps, power animals, the double, the fetch, and what people bring back from their journeys to the spirit realms Charting the evolution of afterlife beliefs in both pagan and medieval Christian times, Claude Lecouteux offers an extensive look at the cartography and folklore of the afterlife worlds as seen by our ancestors. Exploring the locations and topographies of the various forms taken by Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, he examines how ancient European cultures viewed the beyond, including the Blessed Isles of early Greek and Celtic faith, the Hebrew Sheol, the pale world of Hades from Homer's Odyssey, Hel and Valhalla of the Norse, and the Aralu of Babylon, the land where nothing can be seen. The author also explores beliefs in Other Worlds, lands different from our own that are not the afterlife but places where time flows differently and which are inhabited by fantastic or supernatural beings such as fairies or dwarfs. Sharing medieval tales of journeys into the beyond, Lecouteux shows how these accounts represent the first recorded near-death experiences (NDEs) and examines how they compare with modern NDE narratives as well as the work of NDE researchers like Raymond Moody. In addition, he also explores tales of out-of-body experiences, dream journeys, and travels made by a double or fetch and connects these narratives with shamanism, looking in particular at psychopomps, power animals, and what people bring back from their journeys to the spirit realms. Analyzing the afterlife beliefs of the Middle Ages as a whole, Lecouteux concludes with a collection of medieval afterlife-related traditions, such as placing polished stones in the coffin so the departed soul can find its way back to friends and family at those times of the year when the veil between the worlds grows thin.

This two-volume text reviews spirit possession throughout history, analyzes case studies from a cognitive neuroscience perspective, and examines rites for exorcism. From the beginning of civilization to the present day, and across all major religions and cultures, there have been documented cases of people seemingly overtaken by an unseen entity. The invading force-whether good or bad-appears to replace the possessor's soul with the spirit's own persona, resulting in mystifying symptoms such as levitation or other supernatural feats, speaking in tongues, and even horrific and inexplicably accelerated physical distortion and deterioration. This is a two-volume chronological history and examination of spirit possession that addresses its phenomenological, psychological, and neurobiological aspects, and its effects on societies. Volume one reviews spirit possession from the upper Paleolithic era to modern times, while Volume two focuses on case studies and rites of exorcism. Provides a comprehensive bibliography of materials that gathers historical, anthropological, and archaeological sources, as well as comparative religionist and neurologic literature Contains indexes that reference key religious events, rituals, and personalities, and cross-reference key characteristics of case studies

The shadow side of Sax Rohmer is revealed in this long- unobtainable volume. Widely known as the author of the popular Fu Manchu books, he was also a dedicated scholar of the occult and an adept in the mystic arts. Written for the layman, his only non-fiction work is this guide to the realm of magic in its many forms, beginning with the birth of sorcery in ancient Egypt. The Moslem djinns, the sibylls, the philosophy of the Magi, modes of divination, and magic of the Brahmins are all examined, as are the manifestations of sorcery in Europe including witchcraft at the French royal court and the infamous witch trials of Scotland. The stories of key figures such as Apollonius of Tyana, Nostradamus, Dr John Dee, and Cagliostro are recounted in detail, and there is a comprehensive index from alchemy to zodiac. Rohmer aims to bridge the gulf that has opened as a result of modernity between revealed religion and the ancient truths that need to be sought anew. There is no better general introduction to magic, sorcery, and the paranormal.

The occult sciences have attracted followers and fascinated observers since the middle ages. Beyond Enlightenment examines the social, political, and metaphysical doctrines of Martinism, a French occultist movement and offshoot of Freemasonry that flourished from the late eighteenth century to the dawn of the twentieth century. The French Revolution and the disorder that followed it convinced Martinists that modern society was on the wrong path. For guidance they looked back not to the corrupt Old Regime but rather to a lost golden age of mankind that existed only in their imagination. The Martinists were closely engaged in the political events of their times, and rightly or wrongly, they earned a reputation for secret intrigue and ubiquitous hidden influence. David Allen Harvey focuses on the Martinists themselves, recreating their own social and political views. He traces the birth of Martinism during the Enlightenment, its revival in the fin de siecle, and the late nineteenth-century formation of a distinctly Martinist project-the synarchy-aimed at the social and political renewal of France and the greater world. The Martinist doctrines formed a unique synthesis of Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment thought. Harvey maintains that Martinists were a peaceful, esoteric society that rejected both secular materialism and dogmatic Catholicism, seeking to reveal the hand of Providence in history, discover divinely inspired laws of social and political organizations, and enact the kingdom of heaven on earth. Seeking to explore and analyze the "irrational" side of the "Age of Reason," Beyond Enlightenment is a welcome addition to recent studies of esoteric movements. Historians of culture, religion, and politics in post-Revolutionary France, as well as historians of esotericism and alternative religions will be interested in this engaging and revealing study.

Exploratory sex magic. Experimentation with mind-altering drugs. Astral travel. Alchemy. Alex Owen's new book, The Place of Enchantment, situates these seemingly anachronistic practices squarely alongside revolutionary understandings of rationality in a compelling demonstration of how a newly psychologized magic operated in conjunction with the developing patterns of modern life. By the end of the nineteenth century, Victorians sought rational explanations for the world in which they lived. The radical ideas of Charles Darwin had shaken traditional religious beliefs. Sigmund Freud was developing his innovative models of the conscious and unconscious mind. And anthropologist James George Frazer was subjecting magic, myth, and ritual to systematic inquiry. Why, then, in this quintessentially modern moment, did late-Victorian and Edwardian men and women become absorbed by metaphysical quests, heterodox spiritual encounters, and occult experimentation? In answering this question for the first time, The Place of Enchantment breaks new ground in its consideration of occultism in British culture prior to World War I. Rescuing occultism from its status as an "irrational indulgence" and placing it at the center of British intellectual life, Owen argues that an involvement with the occult was a leitmotif of an intellectual avant-garde. She details such fascinating examples of occult practice as the sex magic of Aleister Crowley, the pharmacological experimentation of W. B. Yeats, and complex forms of astral clairvoyance as taught in secret and hierarchical magical societies like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Through a remarkable blend of theoretical discussion and intellectual history, Owen has produced a work that is far more than a social history of occultism. Her conclusions bear directly on understandings of modernity and force us to rethink the place of the irrational in modern culture.

John Beloff is one of our foremost authorities in parapsychology. He is credited with an instrumental role in the acceptance of parapsychology into academia. On April 21 and 22, 2000, a two-day international conference was held by the Koestler Parapsychology Unit of the Psychology Department at the University of Edinburgh to celebrate Beloff's eightieth birthday. Most of the essays in this work were presented at this conference honoring John Beloff. All of the contributors have published a number of articles in mainstream philosophy and their essays promote Beloff's greatest interest--a philosophical interaction with parapsychology. The book is divided into three sections and each section has three papers. The papers in the first section, "Parapsychology, Philosophy and the Mind," explore "the mind-brain problem," parapsychology and the principle of closure, and a cross-cultural perspective on dualism and the self. The second section, "Parapsychology, Self and Survival," looks at parapsychological phenomena and the sense of self, chrysalid therapy, and the problem of super psi. The third section, "Parapsychology, Religion and Spirituality," features papers that discuss parapsychology and how it relates to Hume's view of miracles, to religion, and to the origin of the Copernican hypothesis.

The field encompassed by 'Religion, the Occult, and the Paranormal' is both fascinating and frustrating. The fascination stems from the contested nature of the content, and the multi-disciplinary nature of the existing scholarly literature. The frustration stems chiefly from the misunderstood and much-maligned nature of the content, and the way in which specific elements are taken out of context, or treated in a frivolous manner as is often the case with tabloid journalism. This new collection from Routledge addresses these and other urgent questions by bringing together the best foundational and cutting-edge scholarship on religion, the occult, and the paranormal.

This book presents twenty chapters by experts in their fields, providing a thorough and interdisciplinary overview of the theory and practice of magic in the West. Its chronological scope extends from the Ancient Near East to twenty-first-century North America; its objects of analysis range from Persian curse tablets to US neo-paganism. For comparative purposes, the volume includes chapters on developments in the Jewish and Muslim worlds, evaluated not simply for what they contributed at various points to European notions of magic, but also as models of alternative development in ancient Mediterranean legacy. Similarly, the volume highlights the transformative and challenging encounters of Europeans with non-Europeans, regarding the practice of magic in both early modern colonization and more recent decolonization.