This is a major, groundbreaking study by a leading scholar of continental witchcraft studies, now made available to an English-speaking audience for the first time. The author has compiled a thorough overview of all known prosecutions for witchcraft in the period 1300-1800, and shows conclusively that witch hunting was not a constant or uniform phenomenon: three-quarters of all known executions for witchcraft were concentrated in the years 1586-1630. The book also investigates the social and political implications of witchcraft, and the complex religious debates between believers and skeptics.

Ranging from the pre-Christian era to Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton at the end of the seventeenth century, this Reader covers a broad range of alchemical authors and works. Organized chronologically, it includes around thirty selections in authoritative but lightly-modernized versions. The selections will provide the reader with a basic introduction to the field and its interdisciplinary links with science and medicine, philosophy, religion, and literature and the arts.

Magic, witches, and demons have drawn interest and fear throughout human history. In this comprehensive primary source reader, Martha Rampton traces the history of our fascination with magic and witchcraft from the first through to the seventeenth century. In over 80 readings presented chronologically, Rampton demonstrates how understandings of and reactions toward magic changed and developed over time, and how these ideas were influenced by various factors such as religion, science, and law. The wide-ranging texts emphasize social history and include early Merovingian law codes, the Picatrix, Lombard's Sentences, The Golden Legend, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. By presenting a full spectrum of source types including hagiography, law codes, literature, and handbooks, this collection provides readers with a broad view of how magic was understood through the medieval and early modern eras. Rampton's introduction to the volume is a passionate appeal to students to use tolerance, imagination, and empathy when travelling back in time. The introductions to individual readings are deliberately minimal, providing just enough context so that students can hear medieval voices for themselves.

A landmark contribution to women's history that sheds new light on the Salem witch trials and one of its most crucial participants, Tituba of The Crucible In this important book, Elaine Breslaw claims to have rediscovered Tituba, the elusive, mysterious, and often mythologized Indian woman accused of witchcraft in Salem in 1692 and immortalized in Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Reconstructing the life of the slave woman at the center of the notorious Salem witch trials, the book follows Tituba from her likely origins in South America to Barbados, forcefully dispelling the commonly-held belief that Tituba was African. The uniquely multicultural nature of life on a seventeenth-century Barbadan sugar plantation—defined by a mixture of English, American Indian, and African ways and folklore—indelibly shaped the young Tituba's world and the mental images she brought with her to Massachusetts. Breslaw divides Tituba’s story into two parts. The first focuses on Tituba's roots in Barbados, the second on her life in the New World. The author emphasizes the inextricably linked worlds of the Caribbean and the North American colonies, illustrating how the Puritan worldview was influenced by its perception of possessed Indians. Breslaw argues that Tituba’s confession to practicing witchcraft clearly reveals her savvy and determined efforts to protect herself by actively manipulating Puritan fears. This confession, perceived as evidence of a diabolical conspiracy, was the central agent in the cataclysmic series of events that saw 19 people executed and over 150 imprisoned, including a young girl of 5. A landmark contribution to women's history and early American history, Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem sheds new light on one of the most painful episodes in American history, through the eyes of its most crucial participant.

2014 Reprint of 1946 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Intriguing, thoroughly researched volume provides expert historical view of demonology and the occult, drawing information from the Bible, literary classics, personal memoirs, correspondence, and court records. Scholarly, yet highly readable study defines witchcraft, then proceeds to examine ceremonial practices, the casting of spells and conjuring, celebration of the Black Mass, and much more. A masterfully written work for anyone interested in supernatural phenomena, this book has been hailed by critic H. L. Mencken as "learned, honest, and amusing." Summers made a lifelong study of this terrible yet important subject, the black and baleful shadow in our midst. He analyzes the historical traditions and present politics of this cult society, describing in detail its workings, its aims, its frantic proselytism, and its ends.

In this major re-evaluation of Isaac Newton's intellectual life, Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs shows how his pioneering work in mathematics, physics, and cosmology was intertwined with his study of alchemy. Directing attention to the religious ambience of the alchemical enterprise of early modern Europe, Dobbs argues that Newton understood alchemy - and the divine activity in micromatter to which it spoke - to be a much needed corrective to the overly mechanized system of Descartes. The same religious basis underlay the rest of his work. To Newton it seemed possible to obtain partial truths from many different approaches to knowledge, be it textual work aimed at the interpretation of prophecy, the study of ancient theology and philosophy, creative mathematics, or experiments with prisms, pendulums, vegetating minerals, light, or electricity. Newton's work was a constant attempt to bring these partial truths together, with the larger goal of restoring true natural philosophy and true religion.

The early Christian Fathers such as Jude respected 'The Book of Enoch', as did the Essenes of Qumran. However, by the fourth century AD the text was considered heretical and all extant copies were destroyed. It was not until the 18th century that a surviving Ethiopic version was found, and its ideas and beliefs could once again be made known to the world. 'The Book of Enoch' tells of the enigmatic Watchers, fallen angels who breed with human females and give rise to the race of Nephilim, evil giants who wreak havoc on earth, and are destroyed by The Flood. Following sections describe Visions, of a messiah-like Son of God, of the Astronomical/Spiritual make-up of the Universe, and of the apocalyptic Final Judgment to be visited upon evil-doers. The R H Charles translation remains the standard English version of the text and is presented here in its entirety.

2013 Reprint of 1906 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Three Volumes bound into one. Volume contents are: Vol. 1. Prolegomena. -- Vol. 2. Sermons. -- Vol. 3. Excerpts and fragments This work exemplifies all that is best in Mead's dedicated, scholarly, but eminently readable studies of the spiritual roots of Christian Gnosticism and, more generally, of personal religion in the Greco-Roman world. His work encompassed much more than this; Mead was equally at home with Sanskrit texts, Patristic literature, Buddhist thought, and the problems of contemporary philosophy and psychical research. He devoted his intellectual energy to the complex interplay of Gnosticism, Hellenism, Judaism, and Christianity. This three volume set presents his insights into the formation of the Gnostic world-view and establishes him as an outstanding translator of these Hermetic books, and as the first modern scholar of Gnostic tradition.

Imagination is our inner vision, our human skill to see different realities. It can take us to the throne of God, it can connect us to the stream of infinity and allow us to see the universe for what it really is. Controlled use of the imagination is fundamental to magical practice, and this comprehensive study by an experienced practitioner provides the keys to understanding and using these powerful inner techniques. Based on Nick Farrell's previous book Magical Pathworking, this greatly revised and expanded edition includes new chapters which further develop the techniques of pathworking for magical and spiritual purposes. It covers group work, divination, visiting other inner world dimensions and working towards what Farrell calls objective pathworking. "Even if you think you know all about visualisation, pathworking and the magical key of imagination - even if you teach the subjects - this book will astound you. Nick Farrell explores magical imagination with depth and discernment, revealing principles and methods that will enrich and transform your magical and spiritual practice. Quite simply, this book is the best of its kind and extends the magical use of imagination to new heights and insights. It is an essential book for all magicians, Pagans and anyone who works with the inner realms." - Peregrin Wildoak, author of By Names and Images.

Opulent jeweled objects ranked among the most highly valued works of art in the European Middle Ages. At the same time, precious stones prompted sophisticated reflections on the power of nature and the experience of mineralized beings. Beyond a visual regime that put a premium on brilliant materiality, how can we account for the ubiquity of gems in medieval thought? In The Mineral and the Visual, art historian Brigitte Buettner examines the social roles, cultural meanings, and active agency of precious stones in secular medieval art. Exploring the layered roles played by gems in aesthetic, ideological, intellectual, and economic practices, Buettner focuses on three significant categories of art: the jeweled crown, the pictorialized lapidary, and the illustrated travel account. The global gem trade brought coveted jewels from the Indies to goldsmiths' workshops in Paris, fashionable bodies in London, and the crowns of kings across Europe, and Buettner shows that Europe's literal and metaphorical enrichment was predicated on the importation of gems and ideas from Byzantium, the Islamic world, Persia, and India. Original, transhistorical, and cross-disciplinary, The Mineral and the Visual engages important methodological questions about the work of culture in its material dimension. It will be especially useful to scholars and students interested in medieval art history, material culture, and medieval history.

"Confessions" is my first person account of how I was physically occupied by demons after I received a spirit claiming to be "Jesus" and of the spiritual warfare that followed as I struggled to survive. I include actual excerpts from the daily journal I kept during the first five months of the battle. I also devote a chapter to the biblical evidence that a Christian can have demons, that is, be demonized. Other chapters on the means I used to survive and thrive will be helpful to those who have become occupied or even possessed by demons. And those in Christian ministry will find this book helpful in ministering to those afflicted by demons. In addition, I include an appendix on how to avoid the hazard of demonization or occupation by demons, a phenomenon likely to increase given the re-Paganization of Western Europe and America. This section includes the spiritual counterfeits such as apparitions of dead relatives that demons use to deceive and enter the spiritually unwary.

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalitites, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." (Ephesians 6:12-13 KJV) This text is second in a two-volume set that takes a hard look into the kingdom of light... and the kingdom of darkness. It is the author's hope that these studies will greatly enrich your understanding of the place of angels and demons in God's world. These volumes take a strictly, non-anecdotal approach to the subject matter, adhering strictly to only principles and experiences that come directly from God's Word. Every attempt has been made to avoid the "sensationalistic" approach to the unseen world of spiritual activity. The lessons are designed to enhance your confidence in God, and to ensure your participation in the victory that Jesus has provided His saints.

Immediately following Britain's declaration of war in 1939, Dion Fortune began a series of regular letters to members of her magical order, the Fraternity of the Inner Light, who were unable to hold meetings due to wartime travel restrictions. With enemy planes rumbling overhead, she organised a series of visualisations to formulate "seed ideas in the group mind of the race," archetypal visions to invoke angelic protection and uphold British morale under fire. "The war has to be fought and won on the physical plane," she wrote, "before physical manifestation can be given to the archetypal ideals. What was sown will grow and bear seed." As the war developed, this was consolidated with further work for the renewal of national and international accord. For the first time the Fraternity's doors were opened to anyone who wanted to join in and learn the previously secret methods of esoteric mind-working. With unswerving optimism she guided her fraternity through the dark days of the London Blitz, continuing her weekly letters even when the bombs came through her own roof. Introduction and commentary by Gareth Knight.

This collection of essays brings together both established figures and new researchers to offer fresh perspectives on the ever-controversial subject of the history of witchcraft. Using Keith Thomas's Religion and the Decline of Magic as a starting point, the contributors explore the changes of the last 25 years in the understanding of early modern witchcraft, and suggest new approaches, especially concerning the cultural dimensions of the subject. The study suggests that witchcraft cases must be understood as power struggles over gender and ideology, as well as social relationships, with a crucial role played by alternative representations. It recalls that witchcraft was always a contested idea, never fully established in early modern culture but much harder to dislodge than has usually been assumed. The essays are European in scope, with examples from Germany, France and the Spanish expansion into the New World, as well as a strong core of English material.

John Van Auken combines the collection of Egyptian past lives found in the Cayce readings with Egyptian legends that appear in papyruses, on temple walls, and in pyramid texts for a complete picture that reveals the full story of priestesses, healers, female pharaohs, and gods among humans. This book includes more than 80 illustrations with Cayce's insights into the pyramids, ancient flight, the Hall of Records, the Great Initiate, and the seven stages of soul growth.

The Satanic Bible 2012 by Rev. Caesar 999 is the newest version available for only $9.00. This is a lower priced edition especially for those who have less money to spend The Satanic Bible 2012 contains a more simplified version, re-edited with a new outline, etc. This book contains the basic doctrines of the only true form of Spiritual Satanism which is called Spiritual Satanism 999.

This volume is a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed print publication, covering all areas of magic, witchcraft, paganism and all geographical regions and all historical periods.

The Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought is an authoritative new reference and interpretive volume detailing the origins, development, and influence of one of the richest aspects of Russian cultural and intellectual life - its religious ideas. After setting the historical background and context, the Handbook follows the leading figures and movements in modern Russian religious thought through a period of immense historical upheavals, including seventy years of officially atheist communist rule and the growth of an exiled diaspora with, e.g., its journal The Way. Therefore the shape of Russian religious thought cannot be separated from long-running debates with nihilism and atheism. Important thinkers such as Losev and Bakhtin had to guard their words in an environment of religious persecution, whilst some views were shaped by prison experiences. Before the Soviet period, Russian national identity was closely linked with religion - linkages which again are being forged in the new Russia. Relevant in this connection are complex relationships with Judaism. In addition to religious thinkers such as Philaret, Chaadaev, Khomiakov, Kireevsky, Soloviev, Florensky, Bulgakov, Berdyaev, Shestov, Frank, Karsavin, and Alexander Men, the Handbook also looks at the role of religion in aesthetics, music, poetry, art, film, and the novelists Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Ideas, institutions, and movements discussed include the Church academies, Slavophilism and Westernism, theosis, the name-glorifying (imiaslavie) controversy, the God-seekers and God-builders, Russian religious idealism and liberalism, and the Neopatristic school. Occultism is considered, as is the role of tradition and the influence of Russian religious thought in the West.

Aleister Crowley's appeal on the level of popular culture has been well catered for by a number of biographies that have appeared in recent years, but the more intellectual side to him, which is equally fascinating, has not received so much serious treatment. Crowley, a Modern Master is neither an account of his life, nor a straightforward presentation of his teaching, but an attempt to place him clearly in the context of modern ideas as well as a number of older traditions.

'Liber-Luciferi' is a fire and force, black magic recitation of Satanic power. 'Liber-Luciferi' translates to mean, 'Book-Lucifer' and rightfully so, it contains a varied collection of Satanic rituals and philosophies that are lacking in most occult grimiers. It is the single most significant Satanic volume in the genre. 'Liber - Luciferi' compels and supersedes all previous occultnik compendiums before it. This work escapes the commonplace to cause upheaval in the known universe.