|
|
Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Alternative belief systems > Occult studies
Enter the world of the occultist: where the spirits of the dead
dwell amongst us, where the politics of ecstasy are played out, and
where magick spills into every aspect of life. It's all right here;
sex, drugs, witchcraft and gardening. From academic papers, through
to first person accounts of high-octaine rituals. In Magick Works
you will find cutting edge essays from the path of Pleasure,
Freedom and Power. In this seminal collection Julian Vayne
explores: * The Tantric use of Ketamine. * Social Justice, Green
Politics and Druidry. * English Witchcraft and Macumba * The
Magickal use of Space. * Cognitive Liberty and the Occult. *
Psychogeography & Chaos Magick. * Tai Chi and Apocalyptic
Paranoia. * Self-identity, Extropianism and the Abyss. * Parenthood
as Spiritual Practice. * Aleister Crowley as Shaman ...and much
more!
Lizzie Baty, the Brampton Witch (1729-1817), lived close to the
village of Brampton in Cumbria and was said to be a 'canny auld
body'. A wise woman, she achieved great notoriety in her day.
Numerous tales and anecdotes have been handed down over the years
relating to Lizzie's 'second-sight', witchcraft and the strange
powers that she appeared to possess. They tell of spells, curses
and prophecies with Lizzie turning into a hare, her knack of
finding lost objects, forecasting marriages as well as strange
happenings at her funeral. This book serves to collect together
these varying accounts and attempts to establish which are fact and
which might be fiction. Whatever conclusion the reader may reach,
the Brampton Witch stories, whether real or imagined, are part of
Brampton's heritage and deserve to be preserved.
In this major new book, Wolfgang Behringer surveys the phenomenon
of witchcraft past and present. Drawing on the latest historical
and anthropological findings, Behringer sheds new light on the
history of European witchcraft, while demonstrating that
witch-hunts are not simply part of the European past. Although
witch-hunts have long since been outlawed in Europe, other
societies have struggled with the idea that witchcraft does not
exist. As Behringer shows, witch-hunts continue to pose a major
problem in Africa and among tribal people in America, Asia and
Australia. The belief that certain people are able to cause harm by
supernatural powers endures throughout the world today.
Wolfgang Behringer explores the idea of witchcraft as an
anthropological phenomenon with a historical dimension, aiming to
outline and to understand the meaning of large-scale witchcraft
persecutions in early modern Europe and in present-day Africa. He
deals systematically with the belief in witchcraft and the
persecution of witches, as well as with the process of outlawing
witch-hunts. He examines the impact of anti-witch-hunt legislation
in Europe, and discusses the problems caused in societies where
European law was imposed in colonial times. In conclusion, the
relationship between witches old and new is assessed.
This book will make essential reading for all those interested
in the history and anthropology of witchcraft and magic.
These 840+ magical tables are the most complete set of tabular
correspondences covering magic, astrology, divination, Tarot, I
Ching, Kabbalah, gematria, angels, demons, Graeco-Egyptian magic,
pagan pantheons, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Taoist and
mystical correspondences ever printed. It is over five times larger
and more wide ranging than Crowleys Liber 777. New columns include
the spirits from Fausts Hoellenzwang and Trithemius Steganographia.
Types of magic and their Greek identification headwords; the
meanings of a wide range of nomina magica; planetary incenses; and
the secret names for ingredients, all from the Greek magical
papyri. Also the names of the gods of the hours and the months
which must be used for successful evocation. The source of the data
in these tables ranges over 2000 years, from the Graeco-Egyptian
papyri, Byzantine Solomonike, unpublished manuscript mediaeval
grimoires and Kabbalistic works, Peter de Abano, Abbott Trithemius,
Albertus Magnus, Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Dr John Dee, Dr Thomas
Rudd, Tycho Brahe, MacGregor Mathers (and the editors of Mathers
work, Aleister Crowley and Israel Regardie), to the mage of
classical geometric shapes, modern theories of prime numbers and
atomic weights. The sources include many key grimoires such the
Sworn Book, Liber Juratus, the Lemegeton (Goetia, Theurgia-Goetia,
Almadel, Pauline Art), Abramelin, and in the 20th century the
grimoire of Franz Bardon. All this material has been grouped and
presented in a consistent and logical way covering the whole
Western Mystery tradition and some relevant parts of the Eastern
tradition. This is the final update of this volume.
Discover the strange world of the undead and the proof that
creatures of the night exist when you read Vampires by
Konstantinos. The facts about vampires are stranger than anything
you may have read, heard, or imagined before. In Vampires you'll
learn the truth about the undead. It rips away the myth and exposes
the habits and lifestyles of these beings. Vampires reveals the
occult truths about these creatures including actual first-person
encounters with vampires of all types--the ancient undead of
folklore, contemporary mortal blood drinkers, and the most
dangerous creatures of all: psychic vampires who intentionally
drain the life force from their victims. - Learn about the four
types of vampires - Read about vampire legends from around the
world - Discover vampires from history, including: - Arnold Paole
of Serbia - Peter Plogojowitz and the Count de Cabreras of Hungary
- The vampire of Croglin Grange, Cumberland, England - Countess
Elizabeth Bathory, responsible for up to 650 deaths - Gilles de
Rais - Fritz Haarman, of Germany, from ninety years ago - John
Haigh of Yorkshire, England, from just before WWII - And of course,
the real Vlad Dracula - Present-day blood drinkers - How to protect
yourself from vampires Included are letters from contemporary
vampires. You will be shocked and surprised as you discover what
these people are really like. Besides learning about the psychic
vampire that unintentionally drains you of your energy as well as
the intentional psychic vampire, you'll learn rituals for
protection and methods to avoid falling into their clutches.
Vampires finally reveals the truth about the undead. You will be
fascinated when you discover who they were and what they are now,
and you'll be grateful when you learn how to protect yourself from
them. This is not a book of fantasy and imagination, but of
science, history, and spirituality.
Recent years have seen a significant shift in the study of new
religious movements. In Satanism studies, interest has moved to
anthropological and historical work on groups and inviduals.
Self-declared Satanism, especially as a religion with cultural
production and consumption, history, and organization, has largely
been neglected by academia. This volume, focused on modern Satanism
as a practiced religion of life-style, attempts to reverse that
trend with 12 cutting-edge essays from the emerging field of
Satanism studies. Topics covered range from early literary
Satanists like Blake and Shelley, to the Californian Church of
Satan of the 1960s, to the radical developments that have taken
place in the Satanic milieu in recent decades. The contributors
analyze such phenomena as conversion to Satanism, connections
between Satanism and political violence, 19th-century decadent
Satanism, transgression, conspiracy theory, and the construction of
Satanic scripture. A wide array of methods are employed to shed
light on the Devil's disciples: statistical surveys,
anthropological field studies, philological examination of The
Satanic Bible, contextual analysis of literary texts, careful
scrutiny of obscure historical records, and close readings of key
Satanic writings. The book will be an invaluable resource for
everyone interested in Satanism as a philosophical or religious
position of alterity rather than as an imagined other.
The essays in this Handbook, written by leading scholars working in
the rapidly developing field of witchcraft studies, explore the
historical literature regarding witch beliefs and witch trials in
Europe and colonial America between the early fifteenth and early
eighteenth centuries. During these years witches were thought to be
evil people who used magical power to inflict physical harm or
misfortune on their neighbours. Witches were also believed to have
made pacts with the devil and sometimes to have worshipped him at
nocturnal assemblies known as sabbaths. These beliefs provided the
basis for defining witchcraft as a secular and ecclesiastical crime
and prosecuting tens of thousands of women and men for this
offence. The trials resulted in as many as fifty thousand
executions. These essays study the rise and fall of witchcraft
prosecutions in the various kingdoms and territories of Europe and
in English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies in the Americas. They
also relate these prosecutions to the Catholic and Protestant
reformations, the introduction of new forms of criminal procedure,
medical and scientific thought, the process of state-building,
profound social and economic change, early modern patterns of
gender relations, and the wave of demonic possessions that occurred
in Europe at the same time. The essays survey the current state of
knowledge in the field, explore the academic controversies that
have arisen regarding witch beliefs and witch trials, propose new
ways of studying the subject, and identify areas for future
research.
|
|