Contents:
Preface 1. Introduction 2. Approaches to witchcraft 3. Feminists and witches 4. Feminists and the Goddess 5. Researching witches: Becoming enchanted 6. Feminist witchcraft in New Zealand: Origins and development 7. The attraction of witchcraft 8. The attraction of the Goddess: Witches' worldview 9. What witches do 10. Ritual as artefact 11. How magic works 12. Re-membering the witch and the Goddess References

Contents:
Preface 1. Introduction 2. Approaches to witchcraft 3. Feminists and witches 4. Feminists and the Goddess 5. Researching witches: Becoming enchanted 6. Feminist witchcraft in New Zealand: Origins and development 7. The attraction of witchcraft 8. The attraction of the Goddess: Witches' worldview 9. What witches do 10. Ritual as artefact 11. How magic works 12. Re-membering the witch and the Goddess References

Accepting relentless impermanence as the ground of human experience, Words from the Soul derives a spiritual psychology from the mystery and poignancy of time-passage itself. Drawing from Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Foucault, Dostoyevsky, Buddhism, kundalini yoga, and twenty-five years of clinical/mediation experience, the author's epigrammatic insights into our struggles with mortality, gratitude, apology, and forgiveness make this book relevant to psychotherapy and conflict resolution in a wade range of professional settings.

In his exploration of the furthest-reaches of human development, Stuart Sovatsky reveals the deepest potentials of the ensouled body, transforming our views of language, sexuality, ecstatic spiritualities, and of the human life cycle.

The beliefs and practices surrounding the meanings and symbols of the spirit world in Vietnam are explored in detail in this innovative study on popular religion in the country. The author shows an abiding interest in the 'subconscious life' at a grassroots level alongside rational formations of cosmological understanding which effect politics and economics on a national scale.
By bringing together oral histories, reports and fiction writing alongside more conventional documented sources, this book reveals an area of history which has been largely neglected.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203489071

Magic is a universal phenomenon. Everywhere we look people perform ritual actions in which desirable qualities are transferred by means of physical contact and objects or persons are manipulated by things of their likeness. In this book Sorensen embraces a cognitive perspective in order to investigate this long-established but controversial topic. Following a critique of the traditional approaches to magic, and basing his claims on classical ethnographic cases, the author explains magic's universality by examining a number of recurrent cognitive processes underlying its different manifestations. He focuses on how power is infused into the ritual practice; how representations of contagion and similarity can be used to connect otherwise distinct objects in order to manipulate one by the other; and how the performance of ritual prompts representations of magical actions as effective. Bringing these features together, the author proposes a cognitive theory of how people can represent magical rituals as purposeful actions and how ritual actions are integrated into more complex representations of events. This explanation, in turn, yields new insights into the constitutive role of magic in the formation of institutionalised religious ritual.

Based on fieldwork in the north Indian state of Rajasthan, this book focuses on supernatural affliction - illness and misfortune ascribed to demonic spirits or ghosts and to other mystical agents, such as sorcerers and witches. The study augments and extends the existing scholarship on a range of issues, including inter alia beliefs about spirit possession, sorcery, witchcraft and the evil eye. The themes of ritual practice, especially exorcism or healing ceremonies, Hindu priests and curers, popular Hinduism and pilgrimage are discussed, and the anthropology of South Asia is explored with an emphasis on medical anthropology and Indian ethnomedicine. At a theoretical level, the book sharply contrasts with much of the literature on spirit possession or on supernatural affliction and its treatment, as the author's phenomenological orientation involves movement away from psychological or psychiatric paradigms as well as from other forms of Western rationalism that have tended to dominate scholarly work. The book thus offers fresh insights, both in terms of understanding supernatural malaise and its treatment, and in terms of the application of the approach the author engages.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203222539

Parting company with the trend in recent scholarship to treat the subject in abstract, highly theoretical terms, Magic in Ancient Greece and Rome proposes that the magic-working of antiquity was in reality a highly pragmatic business, with very clearly formulated aims - often of an exceedingly malignant kind. In seven chapters, each addressed to an important arm of Greco-Roman magic, the volume discusses the history of the rediscovery and publication of the so-called Greek Magical Papyri, a key source for our understanding of ancient magic; the startling violence of ancient erotic spells and the use of these by women as well as men; the alteration in the landscape of defixio (curse tablet) studies by major new finds and the confirmation these provide that the frequently lethal intent of such tablets must not be downplayed; the use of herbs in magic, considered from numerous perspectives but with an especial focus on the bizarre-seeming rituals and protocols attendant upon their collection; the employment of animals in magic, the factors determining the choice of animal, the uses to which they were put, and the procuring and storage of animal parts, conceivably in a sorcerer's workshop; the witch as a literary construct, the clear homologies between the magical procedures of fictional witches and those documented for real spells, the gendering of the witch-figure and the reductive presentation of sorceresses as old, risible and ineffectual; the issue of whether ancient magicians practised human sacrifice and the illuminating parallels between such accusations and late 20th century accounts of child-murder in the context of perverted Satanic rituals. By challenging a number of orthodoxies and opening up some underexamined aspects of the subject, this wide-ranging study stakes out important new territory in the field of magical studies.

The Routledge History of Witchcraft is a comprehensive and interdisciplinary study of the belief in witches from antiquity to the present day, providing both an introduction to the subject of witchcraft and an overview of the on-going debates. This extensive collection covers the entire breadth of the history of witchcraft, from the witches of Ancient Greece and medieval demonology through to the victims of the witch hunts, and onwards to children's books, horror films, and modern pagans. Drawing on the knowledge and expertise of an international team of authors, the book examines differing concepts of witchcraft that still exist in society and explains their historical, literary, religious, and anthropological origin and development, including the reflections and adaptions of this belief in art and popular culture. The volume is divided into four chronological parts, beginning with Antiquity and the Middle Ages in Part One, Early Modern witch hunts in Part Two, modern concepts of witchcraft in Part Three, and ending with an examination of witchcraft and the arts in Part Four. Each chapter offers a glimpse of a different version of the witch, introducing the reader to the diversity of witches that have existed in different contexts throughout history. Exploring a wealth of texts and case studies and offering a broad geographical scope for examining this fascinating subject, The Routledge History of Witchcraft is essential reading for students and academics interested in the history of witchcraft.

Enlivened with 102 photographs and 50 figures and maps, "Shamans, Witches, and Maya Priests" explores the "old ways" that still prevail in the Q'anjob'al, Akatek, and Chuj communities of the remote northwestern Cuchumatan Mountains. Krystyna Deuss provides vivid descriptions and images of the traditional rites and rituals she witnessed during fifteen years of fieldwork. These sacred moments include blood sacrifices for the good of the community and private shamanic rituals--as well as black magic. Deuss also includes a selection of the prayers she recorded.

Gathering together the vast literature on witchcraft related issues published in the last decade, this six-volume set focuses on issues such as gender, government and law, the culture of religion and the occult. Using approaches from several disciplines, including anthropology and sociology, this source provides a sweeping overview of the occult.

Gathering together the vast literature on witchcraft related issues published in the last decade, this six-volume set focuses on issues such as gender, government and law, the culture of religion and the occult. Using approaches from several disciplines, including anthropology and sociology, this source provides a sweeping overview of the occult.

Gathering together the vast literature on witchcraft related issues published in the last decade, this six-volume set focuses on issues such as gender, government and law, the culture of religion and the occult. Using approaches from several disciplines, including anthropology and sociology, this source provides a sweeping overview of the occult.

Contents:
Barstow, Anne Llewellyn. 'On Studying Witchcraft as Women's History. A Historiography of the European Witch Persecutions.' Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 4 (1988).

Purkiss, Diane. 'Women's Stories of Witchcraft in Early Modern England: the House, the Body, the Child.' Gender and History 7 (1995).

Jackson Louise. 'Witches, Wives and Mothers: Witchcraft Persecutions and Women's Confessions in Seventeenth-Century England.' Women's History Review 4 (1995).

Maluf, Sônia Weidner. 'Witches and Witchcraft: A Study About Representations of Female Power on Santa Catarina Island.' International Sociology 7 (1992).

Roper, Lyndal. 'Stealing Manhood: Capitalism and Magic in Early Modern Germany.' Gender and History 3 (1991).

Roper, Lyndal. 'Witchcraft and Fantasy in Early Modern Germany.' History Workshop 32 (1991).

Briggs, Robin. 'Women as Victims? Witches, Judges and the Community.' French History 5 (1991).

Clark, Stuart. 'The 'Gendering' of Witchcraft in French Demonology: Misogyny or Polarity?' French Studies 5 (1991).

Holmes, Clive. 'Women: Witnesses and Witches.' Past and Present 140 (1993).

Whitney, Elspeth. 'The Witch 'She' / The Historian 'He': Gender and the Historiography of the European Witch-Hunts.' Journal of Women's History 7 (1995).

Ross, Eric B. 'Syphilis, Misogyny, and Witchcraft in 16th-century Europe.' Current Anthropology 36 (1995).

Horsley, Ritta and Richard. 'On the Trail of the Witches: Wise Women, Midwives and the European Witch-Hunts.' Women in Germany Yearbook 3 (1986).

Gaskill, Malcolm. 'The Devil in the Shape of a Man: Witchcraft, Conflict and Belief in Jacobean England.' Historical Reseach 71 (1998).

Behar, Ruth. 'Sexual Witchcraft, Colonialism, and Women's Powers: Views from the Mexican Inquisition.' In Asunción Lavrin ed., Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America (Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press: 1989).

Zika, Charles. 'Fears of Flying: Representations of Witchcraft and Sexuality in Early Sixteenth-Century Germany.' Australian Journal of Art 8 (1989-90).

Scully, Sally. 'Marriage or a Career? Witchcraft as an Alternative in Seventeenth-Century Venice.' Journal of Social History 28 (1995).

Accati, Louisa. 'The Spirit of Fornication: Virtue of the Soul and Virtue of the Body in Friuli, 1600-1800.' In Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero, eds., Sex and Gender in Historical Perspective (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990).

Dresen-Coenders, Lène. 'Witches as Devils' Concubines: On the Origin of Fear of Witches and Protection against Witches.' In Lène Dresen-Coenders and Petty Bange, eds., Saints and She-Devils: Images of Women in the 15th and 16th Centuries (London, UK: Rubicon Press, 1987).

Sharpe, J.A. 'Witchcraft and Women in Seventeenth-Century England: Some Northern Evidence.' Continuity and Change 6 (1991).

Kamensky, Jane. 'Words, Witches and Women Trouble: Witchcraft, Disorderly Speech, and Gender Boundaries in Puritan New England.' Essex Institute Historical Collections 128 (1992).

Kivelson, Valerie A. 'Through the Prism of Witchcraft: Gender and Social Change in Seventeenth-Century Muscovy.' In B.E. Evans, B.A. Egnel, and C.D. Worobec, eds., Russia's Women: Accommodation, Resistance, Transformation (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991).

Griffin, Wendy. 'The Embodied Goddess: Feminist Witchcraft and Female Divinity.' Sociology and Religion 56 (1995).

Contents:
Megged, Amos. 'Magic, Popular Medicine and Gender in Seventeenth-Century Mexico: The Case of Isobel de Montoya.' Social History 19 (1994)

Klaniczay, Gábor. 'Shamanistic Elements in Central European Witchcraft.' In Mihály Hoppál, ed., Shamanism in Eurasia (G öttingen, Germany: 1984).

de Blécourt, Willem. 'Witch Doctors, Soothsayers and Priests on Cunning Folk in European Historiography and Tradition.' Social History 19 (1994).

O'Neil, Mary. 'Magical Healing, Love Magic and the Inquisition in Late Sixteenth-Century Modena.' In Stephen Haliczar, ed., Inquisition and Society in Early Modern Europe (Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble, 1987).

Davies, Owen. 'Healing Charms in Use in England and Wales, 1700-1950.' Folklore 107 (1996).

Sebald, Hans. 'Shaman, Healer, Witch. Camparing Shamanism with Franconian Folk Magic.' Ethnologica Europaea 14 (1984).

Alver, Bente Gullveig and Torunn Selberg. 'Folk Medicine as Part of a Larger Concept Complex.' Scandinavian Yearbook of Folklore 43 (1987).

Cassar, P. 'Healing by Sorcery in 17th and 18th Century Malta.' St. Lukes Hospital Gaz. (Guardamangia) 11 (1976).

Gentilcore, David. 'The Church, the Devil and the Healing Activities of Living Saints in the Kingdon of Naples After the Council of Trent.' In Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham, eds., Medicine and the Reformation (London, UK: Routledge, 1993).

Fox, Sylvia. 'Witch or Wise-Woman? Women as Healers Throughout the Ages.' Jaarboek Liturgie Onderzoek 8 (1992).

Cave, Alfred A. 'Indian Shamens and English Witches in Seventeenth-Century New England.' Essex Institute Historical Collections 128 (1992).

Hicks, David. 'On Syphilis and Witchcraft.' Current Anthropology 36 (1985).

Waardt, Hans de, 'From Cunning Man to Natural Healer.' In J.M.W. Binneveld and Rudolf Decker, eds., Curing and Insuring. Essays on Illness in Past Times: The Netherlands, Belgium, England and Italy, 16th-20th Centuries (Hilversum, the Netherlands: Verloren, 1992).

Harley, David. 'Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife Witch.' Social History of Medicine 3 (1990).

Rubinger, Catherine. 'Witch or Saint: Absolutes in the French 18th Century Novel.' Atlantis 11 (1986).

'Magical Interpretations, Material Realities brings together many of today's best scholars of contemporary Africa. The theme of "witchcraft" has long been associated with exoticizing portraits of a "traditional" Africa, but this volume takes the question of occult as a point of entry into the moral politics of some very modern African realities.' - James Ferguson, University of California, USA

'These essays bear eloquent testimony to the ongoing presence and power of the occult imaginary, and of the intimate connection between global capitalism and local cosmology, in postcolonial Africa. A major contribution to scholarship that aims to rework the divide between modernity and tradition.' - Charles Piot, Duke University, USA

This volume sets out recent thinking on witchcraft in Africa, paying particular attention to variations in meanings and practices. It examines the way different people in different contexts are making sense of what 'witchcraft' is and what it might mean.
For example: the State in Cameroon; Pentecostalism in Malawi; the university system in Nigeria and the IMF in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Tanzania. The editors provide a timely overview and reconsideration of longstanding anthropological debate about 'African witchcraft, while simultaneously raising broader concerns about the theories of the western social sciences.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203398254

This is the first major study of the most famous Reclaiming witch community, founded in 1979 in San Francisco, written by an author who herself participated in a coven for ten years. Jone Salomonsen describes and examines the communal and ritual practices of Reclaiming, asking how these promote personal growth and cultural-religious change.

'Magical Interpretations, Material Realities brings together many of today's best scholars of contemporary Africa. The theme of "witchcraft" has long been associated with exoticizing portraits of a "traditional" Africa, but this volume takes the question of occult as a point of entry into the moral politics of some very modern African realities.' - James Ferguson, University of California, USA

'These essays bear eloquent testimony to the ongoing presence and power of the occult imaginary, and of the intimate connection between global capitalism and local cosmology, in postcolonial Africa. A major contribution to scholarship that aims to rework the divide between modernity and tradition.' - Charles Piot, Duke University, USA

This volume sets out recent thinking on witchcraft in Africa, paying particular attention to variations in meanings and practices. It examines the way different people in different contexts are making sense of what 'witchcraft' is and what it might mean.
Using recent ethnographic materials from across the continent, the volume explores how witchcraft articulates with particular modern settings for example: the State in Cameroon; Pentecostalism in Malawi; the university system in Nigeria and the IMF in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Tanzania. The editors provide a timely overview and reconsideration of long-standing anthropological debates about 'African witchcraft', while simultaneously raising broader concerns about the theories of the western social sciences.

Using in-depth examples of 'magical' practice such as exorcisms, love rites, alchemy and the transformation of humans into divine beings, this lively volume demonstrates that the word 'magic' was used widely in late antique texts as part of polemics against enemies and sometimes merely as a term for other people's rituals. Professor Janowitz shows that 'magical' activities were integral to late antique religious practice, and that they must be understood from the perspective of those who employed them.

This study is the first to assemble the evidence for the existence of sorcerors in the ancient world; it also addresses the question of their identity and social origins. The resulting investigation takes us to the underside of Greek and Roman society, into a world of wandering holy men and women, conjurors and wonder-workers, and into the lives of prostitutes, procuresses, charioteers and theatrical performers.
This fascinating reconstruction of the careers of witches and sorcerors allows us to see into previously inaccessible areas of Greco-Roman life. Compelling for both its detail and clarity, and with an extraordinarily revealing breadth of evidence employed, it will be an essential resource for anyone studying ancient magic.

Using in-depth examples of 'magical' practice such as exorcisms, love rites, alchemy and the transformation of humans into divine beings, this lively volume demonstrates that the word 'magic' was used widely in late antique texts as part of polemics against enemies and sometimes merely as a term for other people's rituals. Professor Janowitz shows that 'magical' activities were integral to late antique religious practice, and that they must be understood from the perspective of those who employed them.

First written by Marcel Mauss and Henri Humbert in 1902, A General Theory of Magic gained a wide new readership when republished by Mauss in 1950. As a study of magic in 'primitive' societies and its survival today in our thoughts and social actions, it represents what Claude Lévi-Strauss called, in an introduction to that edition, the astonishing modernity of the mind of one of the century's greatest thinkers. The book offers a fascinating snapshot of magic throughout various cultures as well as deep sociological and religious insights still very much relevant today. At a period when art, magic and science appear to be crossing paths once again, A General Theory of Magic presents itself as a classic for our times.

This remarkable work contains the original texts with translations and descriptions of a series of Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Hebrew, Christian, Gnostic, and Muslim amulets and magical devices and figures. Man through the ages has widely held the importance of being able to hold the evil eye at bay.

Spirituality and the Occult argues against the widely held view that occult spiritualities are marginal to Western culture. Showing that the esoteric tradition is unfairly neglected in Western culture and that much of what we take to be 'modern' derives at least in part from this tradition, it casts a fresh, intriguing and persuasive perspective on intellectual and cultural history in the West. Brian Gibbons identifies the influence and continued presence of esoteric mystical movements in disciplines such as:
* medicine
* science
* philosophy
* Freudian and Jungian psychology
* radical political movements
* imaginative literature.

Discover and harness the magic of cannabis and get wicked high, in this first-of-its-kind guide to weed in witchcraft. Cannabis and magic are woven together throughout history, and there has never been a better time to embrace your inner weed witch. In this comprehensive guide and spellbook, practicing witch and cannabis writer Sophie Saint Thomas explores the beautiful relationship between the two, offering everything you need to use marijuana in all its forms to awaken your inner magic, enhance your practice, care for your body and soul, and reach your highest self. Weed Witch explores the foundations of witchcraft and a complete cannabis rundown so everyone from beginners to experts on both subjects can blend them safely for optimal harmony. In these pages, you'll learn to use weed to magnify and augment your relationship with astrology, tarot, crystals, moon magic, and much more. The book also contains an exhaustive compendium of stoned spells for love and sex, money and work, protection and healing, and of course, fun.