There has long existed among the Germanic Pennsylvania Dutch people a belief in white and dark magic. The art of white magic in the Dutch Country is referred to by old-timers as Braucherei in their unique Dialect, otherwise known as Powwowing. Hexerei, of course, is the art of black magic. Powers used to heal in the art of Braucherei are derived from God (the Holy Trinity), but the powers employed in Hexerei are derived from the Devil, in the simplest of explanation. Therefore, one who engages in the latter has bartered or "sold his soul to the Devil," and destined for Hell! For nearly three centuries, the Pennsylvania Dutch have not hesitated to use Braucherei in the healing of their sick and afflicted, and regionally, the culture has canonized early 19th Century faith healer, Mountain Mary (of the Oley Hills), as a Saint for her powers of healing. Furthermore, contemporary of hers, John Georg Hohman, has published numerous early 19th Century books on the matter still in use today. Both their form of faith healing has many counterparts in our civilization, however, the subset of Hexerei, witchcraft, or black magic was always considered of utmost evil here in the region; and only desperate people, and those with devious intentions, have resorted to its equally powerful and secret powers.

This book represents the first systematic study of the role of the Devil in English witchcraft pamphlets for the entire period of state-sanctioned witchcraft prosecutions (1563-1735). It provides a rereading of English witchcraft, one which moves away from an older historiography which underplays the role of the Devil in English witchcraft and instead highlights the crucial role that the Devil, often in the form of a familiar spirit, took in English witchcraft belief. One of the key ways in which this book explores the role of the Devil is through emotions. Stories of witches were made up of a complex web of emotionally implicated accusers, victims, witnesses, and supposed perpetrators. They reveal a range of emotional experiences that do not just stem from malefic witchcraft but also, and primarily, from a witch's links with the Devil. This book, then, has two main objectives. First, to suggest that English witchcraft pamphlets challenge our understanding of English witchcraft as a predominantly non-diabolical crime, and second, to highlight how witchcraft narratives emphasized emotions as the primary motivation for witchcraft acts and accusations.

America Bewitched is the first major history of witchcraft in America - from the Salem witch trials of 1692 to the present day. The infamous Salem trials are etched into the consciousness of modern America, the human toll a reminder of the dangers of intolerance and persecution. The refrain 'Remember Salem!' was invoked frequently over the ensuing centuries. As time passed, the trials became a milepost measuring the distance America had progressed from its colonial past, its victims now the righteous and their persecutors the shamed. Yet the story of witchcraft did not end as the American Enlightenment dawned - a new, long, and chilling chapter was about to begin. Witchcraft after Salem was not just a story of fire-side tales, legends, and superstitions: it continued to be a matter of life and death, souring the American dream for many. We know of more people killed as witches between 1692 and the 1950s than were executed before it. Witches were part of the story of the decimation of the Native Americans, the experience of slavery and emancipation, and the immigrant experience; they were embedded in the religious and social history of the country. Yet the history of American witchcraft between the eighteenth and the twentieth century also tells a less traumatic story, one that shows how different cultures interacted and shaped each other's languages and beliefs. This is therefore much more than the tale of one persecuted community: it opens a fascinating window on the fears, prejudices, hopes, and dreams of the American people as their country rose from colony to superpower.

Unlock Supernatural Power"This is definitely a fun read and shows small ways you can try and change your life for the better." Nerdy Girl Express #1 Best Seller in Crystals Practice Practical Magic. Did you know that wearing an amulet of green jade during an interview will help you get the job? Have you heard that an amethyst ring can help break bad habits and even encourage sobriety? Anyone looking for love can place two pink quartz crystals in the bedroom; you'll not be alone for long! These are just a few of the hundreds of secrets shared in The Magic of Crystals and Gems. Semi-precious stones and gems have long been known for their magic as well as their beauty. In this book of charms, readers learn everything there is to know about the powers of crystals from birthstone magic to gem divination to jewelry spells. This is a fun, entertaining, and enlightening book that will appeal to everyone who's ever worn a birthstone, kissed the ring of a lover for luck, or bought a crystal for good energy. Learn Amazing Things About Crystals. The Magic of Crystals and Gems is a treasure chest filled with the ancient wisdom of crystals. It is also a handy how-to filled with little-known lore along with the myth, meanings and specific magical qualities of hundreds of crystals, both common and very rare, including many meteorites. Author Cerridwen Greenleaf shares secrets to how and why crystal balls work, scrying with obsidian, crystal astrology, divination, healing, psychism and connections between the stars in the sky and gems of the earth. This one-of-a-kind work on the power of crystals belongs on the bookshelf of everyone interested in the magical gifts of Mother Nature. Learn: Which crystals are right for you How to unlock the mystery of sacred stones Ways to improve your life with changes as simple as putting new crystals in your room If you like The Crystal Bible or Crystals for Healing, you'll love The Magic of Crystals and Gems

This volume draws on a range of ethnographic and historical material to provide insight into witchcraft in sub-Saharan Africa. The chapters explore a variety of cultural contexts, with contributions focusing on Cameroon, Central African Republic, Ghana, Mali, Ethiopia and Eritrean diaspora. The book considers the concept of witchcraft itself, the interrelations with religion and medicine, and the theoretical frameworks employed to explain the nature of modern African witchcraft representations.

Stephen A. Mitchell here offers the fullest examination available of witchcraft in late medieval Scandinavia. He focuses on those people believed to be able-and who in some instances thought themselves able-to manipulate the world around them through magical practices, and on the responses to these beliefs in the legal, literary, and popular cultures of the Nordic Middle Ages. His sources range from the Icelandic sagas to cultural monuments much less familiar to the nonspecialist, including legal cases, church art, law codes, ecclesiastical records, and runic spells. Mitchell's starting point is the year 1100, by which time Christianity was well established in elite circles throughout Scandinavia, even as some pre-Christian practices and beliefs persisted in various forms. The book's endpoint coincides with the coming of the Reformation and the onset of the early modern Scandinavian witch hunts. The terrain covered is complex, home to the Germanic Scandinavians as well as their non-Indo-European neighbors, the Sami and Finns, and it encompasses such diverse areas as the important trade cities of Copenhagen, Bergen, and Stockholm, with their large foreign populations; the rural hinterlands; and the insular outposts of Iceland and Greenland. By examining witches, wizards, and seeresses in literature, lore, and law, as well as surviving charm magic directed toward love, prophecy, health, and weather, Mitchell provides a portrait of both the practitioners of medieval Nordic magic and its performance. With an understanding of mythology as a living system of cultural signs (not just ancient sacred narratives), this study also focuses on such powerful evolving myths as those of "the milk-stealing witch," the diabolical pact, and the witches' journey to Blakulla. Court cases involving witchcraft, charm magic, and apostasy demonstrate that witchcraft ideologies played a key role in conceptualizing gender and were themselves an important means of exercising social control.

Complete and unabridged, here is the unparalleled landmark of occult philosophy and lost history that reshaped the modern spiritual mindset and continues to fascinate readers today. There is perhaps no greater enigma in modern Western literature than THE SECRET DOCTRINE. The controversial Russian noblewomen Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky told the world that the book restored humanity's lost history and destiny. Its insights, she said, had been gleaned from long-secret books of wisdom and her tutelage under mahatmas, or great souls: adepts from the East who exposed the seeker to their esoteric teaching. To read THE SECRET DOCTRINE is to enter a mysterious world of ancient cosmology and spiritual-scientific insights, which tell of humanity's unthinkably ancient past and its burgeoning evolution into a new, more refined existence. For the first time, Blavatsky's encyclopaedia arcana is available in a reset and redesigned single-volume edition, complete and unabridged. Its truths and challenges are available to the intrepid reader, who may find yet-unknown insights within its pages.

This richly illustrated history provides a readable and fresh approach to the extensive and complex story of witchcraft and magic. Telling the story from the dawn of writing in the ancient world to the globally successful Harry Potter films, the authors explore a wide range of magical beliefs and practices, the rise of the witch trials, and the depiction of the Devil-worshipping witch. The book also focuses on the more recent history of witchcraft and magic, from the Enlightenment to the present, exploring the rise of modern magic, the anthropology of magic around the globe, and finally the cinematic portrayal of witches and magicians, from The Wizard of Oz to Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Alchemy is best known as the age-old science of turning base metal into gold. But it is much more: essentially, it is a path of self-knowledge, unique in the Western tradition, with vital relevance for the modern world. The symbols of Alchemy lie deep in the collective unconscious, in the world of dreams and imagery: the practices of alchemy are rooted in an understanding of the oneness of spirit and matter through which we celebrate our sexuality and spirituality. Jay Ramsay takes us step by step through the stages of the alche-mical process using a wide range of original exercises to create a memorable journey that challenges, inspitres and transforms us at every stage. We too can be kings and queens: we too, once we leave our dross behind, are gold. It's full of fi ne things... --Ted Hughes, Poet Laureate 1984-1998, playwright and author. So much good work... --Robert Bly, award winning poet, essayist, activist and author. Jay Ramsay has written a luminous and wise guide to the mysteries of soul, and to the images and texts of alchemy, which explores these mysteries... --Anne Baring, philosopher, visionary and author of several books including: The Dream of the Cosmos: a Quest for the Soul and The Myth of the Goddess. Ramsay is among those who have been working most assiduously to share this archetypal language of the soul... --Lindsay Clarke, review in Caduceus. The clearest account of the alchemical process I've read... --Peter Redgrove, poet, novelist and playwright. Extremely wonderful and important... --Robert Sardello, author and co-founder of The School of Spiritual Psychology.

Film is a kind of magic, a world of shadows and light, where anything is possible and the dead come back to life. Film can persuade us to believe in anything and special effects can work miracles. It is therefore the perfect medium for expressing occult phenomena, and since the beginnings of cinema history, film has done just that. Movie Magick explores the way in which films have been inspired by Alesiter Crowley's famous definition of "Magick" as "the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will." This naturally encompasses classic occult movies, such as Hammer's adaptations of Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out, but also ventures further afield into the cultural background of the modern occult revival, exploring the way in which occult movies have responded to the esthetics of fin de siecle decadence, the symbolist writings of Villiers de l'Isle Adam, Wagnerian music drama, the Faust legend, the pseudo-science of Theosophy, the occult psychedelia of the 1960s, occult conspiracy theories and some of the more arcane aspects of animation. The result is a cinematic grimoire, which will appeal to both sorcerers and apprentices of movie magick.

The present volume arose from a colloquium on magic and divination intended to apply the study of the history of the classical tradition to the specific area of magic. Magic is interpreted in a very broad sense, and the book includes discussions of Neoplatonic theurgy, Hermetic astrological talismans, the occult activities of oracles and witches, demon-possession, popular beliefs and party tricks. While several articles look at magic in the Graeco-Roman tradition, others deal with practices in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Byzantium and Russia. The emphasis is on showing transmission through time, and across cultural and linguistic borders, and the continuing importance of classical or ancient authorities among writers of more recent periods. The editions of several previously unpublished Latin texts are included.

As our newsfeeds become more and more glutted by stories of harassment and assault, it's no surprise women are turning to every power in their arsenal to fight back--even the magical ones. As Lindy West put it in her New York Times op-ed, "Yes, this is a witch hunt. I'm a witch, and I'm hunting you." Hexing the Patriarchy: Magical Resistance from A to Z is a book for women for women who want to join the resistance. Upbeat and inviting, without making light of anyone's oppression or spirituality, it offers fed-up women a primer of enchantment in the form of 26 spells for undermining modern-day oppression, all gathered from authentic witches from various magical traditions. Readers will learn how to . . . make salt scrubs to "wash away patriarchal bullshit" place spells on misogynist leadershipmix potions to boost their strength against harassment . . . and more. Individually and cumulatively, the spells are designed to topple the patriarchy with a dangerous, they-never-saw-it-coming power.

In The Archaeology of Magic, C. Riley Auge explores how early American colonists used magic to protect themselves from harm in their unfamiliar and challenging new world. Analyzing evidence from the different domestic spheres of women and men within Puritan society, Auge provides a trailblazing archaeological study of magical practice and its relationship to gender in the Anglo-American culture of colonial New England. Investigating homestead sites dating from 1620 to 1725 in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine, Auge explains how to recognize objects and architectural details that colonists intended as defenses and boundaries against evil supernatural forces. She supports this archaeological work by examining references to magic in letters, diaries, sermons, medical texts, and documentation of court proceedings including the Salem witch trials. She also draws on folklore from the era to reveal that colonists simultaneously practiced magic and maintained their Puritan convictions. Auge exposes the fears and anxieties that motivated individuals to try to manipulate the supernatural realm, and she identifies gendered patterns in the ways they employed magic. She argues that it is essential for archaeologists to incorporate historical records and oral traditions in order to accurately interpret the worldviews and material culture of people who lived in the past. Published in cooperation with the Society for Historical Archaeology

Extracted from Volumes 1, 8, and 18. Includes Jung's Foreword to Phenomenes Occultes (1939), "On the Psychology and Pathology of So-called Occult Phenomena," "The Psychological Foundations of Belief in Spirits," "The Soul and Death," "Psychology and Spiritualism," "On Spooks: Heresy or Truth?" and Foreword to Jaffe: Apparitions and Precognition."