"The remarkable Veronica Varlow seizes life with both hands and bends it to her will. Learn from her." -Neil Gaiman In Bohemian Magick, Veronica Varlow, the last daughter in a line of Bohemian witches, weaves together witchcraft knowledge and ancient secret spells with an exotic rock-and-roll magick style that has earned her a devoted following worldwide. This beguiling grimoire-style guide is filled with potent, never-before-revealed spells, hand-written rituals, magick ephemera, hand-drawn sigils, potions, charms, and rhyming incantations that will call your power back to you and electrify your life! With more than 150 illustrations-drawings, photography, and vintage art-and text written in her own hand, this sumptuous companion is brimming with spells for everlasting confidence, radiant self-love, healing, manifesting your dreams, and love with a desired partner. Veronica calls upon the ancient and hidden Czech-Romani magic passed down to from her grandmother Helen's lineage and infuses it with her own signature sorcery to help you awaken and amplify your truest self. Each spell that you cast, each potion that you brew, and each chant you speak into the universe will rouse the most powerful part of your being! In Part I, The School of Spectaculus, Veronica reveals, step by step, her personally crafted steps to spellcasting with power. She shares her secrets regarding writing and preparing for spells, calling on ancestors to give your spells oomph, and writing your own badass spells. She also provides information on when to cast spells and other basics that you need to know to perform the mind-blowing rituals she introduces in Part II. In Part II, Initiations, she introduces you to the hidden magick of Bohemia. She leads you on five initiations, each focused on specific themes including self-love, sizzling confidence, healing, juicy mojo, and love. Each initiation begins with an experiential journey of discovery, a story in which you are the protagonist, whether following a trail of candles through a dark wood to a river filled with tiny message-filled paper boats or venturing into a tarot parlor on a hot, sultry night to meet a Witch who has come back from the Afterlife to help you find true love. And, of course, each initiation includes spells with a rock and roll vibe, such as: Hello, I Love You: Use mirror magick to boost your confidence and magnetism. Return to Sender: Create a magick candle and burn it upside down to protect you and send bad vibes back to where they came from. Search and Destroy: Literally pulverize the false stories you tell yourself by writing them on china plates and smash those poisonous words to bits with a hammer! Bohemian Rhapsody: A secret knot-tying spell to do with a partner to increase passion and intimacy For each badass bewitching enchantment, Veronica explains its importance, the purpose of practice, and the necessary tools and preparation you'll need to cast it correctly. With Bohemian Magick, you'll discover your adventurous side and your own unique magick. Get ready to rise up, call your power back to you, realize your purpose, and make your life story truly legendary!

Reveals changing perceptions of ghosts at different social levels from the Reformation through to the twentieth century in Britain and America. This five-volume set focuses on the key published debates that emerged in each century, and illustrates the range of literary formats that reported or discussed ghosts.

An insider's guide for beginner mystics, How to Study Magic is your ultimate introduction to the main areas of magic-from witchcraft to grimoires-what it means to practice them, and, most of all, how to get started.Have you ever wanted to dive into the world of magic, but weren't sure where to begin? You're not alone! Knowing where to start can be mystifying, but it doesn't have to be. In How to Study Magic, author, educator, and seasoned witch Sarah Lyons guides you through an introductory course of study, and an enchanted entry point to the wide world of magical paths.Drawing on Sarah's own experience practicing and teaching magic for more than a decade, this interactive exploration takes novice witches through basic tools they can use in their studies-from divination and meditation to cleansing and protection-before diving into the history, lore, and modern incarnations of a wide range of magical practices. With chapters on Witchcraft, Chaos Magic, Spellbooks and Grimoires, Gods and Goddesses, and more, this dynamic guide gives readers an insider's perspective on how to craft their own, personalized practice. Each chapter also contains interactive activities, journal prompts, and suggestions for further reading, allowing baby witches to chart their own paths and explore their own power. For anyone who knows they want to study magic, but has no idea where to begin, How to Study Magic is the answer you've been waiting for.

Finalist, 2021 Bram Stoker Awards (Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction) The first collection of essays to address Satan's ubiquitous and popular appearances in film Lucifer and cinema have been intertwined since the origins of the medium. As humankind's greatest antagonist and the incarnation of pure evil, the cinematic devil embodies our own culturally specific anxieties and desires, reflecting moviegoers' collective conceptions of good and evil, right and wrong, sin and salvation. Giving the Devil His Due is the first book of its kind to examine the history and significance of Satan onscreen. This collection explores how the devil is not just one monster among many, nor is he the "prince of darkness" merely because he has repeatedly flickered across cinema screens in darkened rooms since the origins of the medium. Satan is instead a force active in our lives. Films featuring the devil, therefore, are not just flights of fancy but narratives, sometimes reinforcing, sometimes calling into question, a familiar belief system. From the inception of motion pictures in the 1890s and continuing into the twenty-first century, these essays examine what cinematic representations tell us about the art of filmmaking, the desires of the film-going public, what the cultural moments of the films reflect, and the reciprocal influence they exert. Loosely organized chronologically by film, though some chapters address more than one film, this collection studies such classic movies as Faust, Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, Angel Heart, The Witch, and The Last Temptation of Christ, as well as the appearance of the Devil in Disney animation. Guiding the contributions to this volume is the overarching idea that cinematic representations of Satan reflect not only the hypnotic powers of cinema to explore and depict the fantastic but also shifting social anxieties and desires that concern human morality and our place in the universe. Contributors: Simon Bacon, Katherine A. Fowkes, Regina Hansen, David Hauka, Russ Hunter, Barry C. Knowlton, Eloise R. Knowlton, Murray Leeder, Catherine O'Brien, R. Barton Palmer, Carl H. Sederholm, David Sterritt, J. P. Telotte, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock

This book discusses two moral panics that appeared in the media in late apartheid South Africa: the Satanism scare and the so-called epidemic of white family murder. The analysis of these symptoms of social and political change reveals important truths about whiteness, gender, violence, history, nationalism and injustice in South Africa and beyond.

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.

Personifications of evil in the form of demons, devils, spirits, vampires, and other malign entities can be found across the popular cultural spectrum. One only has to peruse the shelves of music and bookstores or view the content of some of the most successful films and television series to discover evidence for the phenomenal popular fascination with the demonic other. However, rather surprisingly, this is not an area in which much research has been done. The aim of this volume is to examine the demonic foil within popular culture. Moreover, it will bring together an international team of some of most important and creative scholars in the areas of Biblical Studies, Religious Studies, and Christian Theology currently exploring the religious significance of popular culture.

Witch, Slut, Feminist: these contested identities are informing millennial women as they counter a tortuous history of misogyny with empowerment. This innovative primer highlights sexual liberation as it traces the lineage of "witch feminism" through art, film, music, fashion, literature, technology, religion, pop culture, and politics. Juxtaposing scholarly research on the demonization of women and female sexuality that has continued since the witch hunts of the early modern era with pop occulture analyses and interviews with activists, artists, scholars, and practitioners of witchcraft, this book addresses and illuminates contemporary conversations about reproductive rights, sexual pleasure, queer identity, pornography, sex work, and more. Author Kristen J. Sollee elucidates the ways in which women have been persecuted for their perceived connection with witchcraft, and how they have fought back, harnessing the legacy of the witch for revolutionary means. Kristen J. Sollee is an instructor at The New School and founding editrix of Slutist, an award-winning sex positive feminist website.

This third, concluding volume of the series publishes 14 studies and the transcription of a round-table discussion on Carlo Ginzburg's Ecstasies. The themes of the previous two volumes, "Communicating with the Spirits," and "Christian Demonology and Popular Mythology," are further expanded here both as regards their interdisciplinary approach and the wide range of regional comparisons. While the emphasis of the second volume was on current popular belief and folklore as seen in the context of the historical sources on demonology, this volume approaches its subject from the point of view of historical anthropology. The greatest recent advances of witchcraft research occurred recently in two fields: (1) deciphering the variety of myths and the complexity of historical processes which lead to the formation of the witches' Sabbath, (2) the micro-historical analysis of the social, religious, legal and cultural milieu where witchcraft accusations and persecutions developed. These two themes are completed by some further insights into the folklore of the concerned regions which still carries the traces of the traumatic historical memories of witchcraft persecutions.

"I never killed Raoul Loveday with a magical spell". Aleister Crowley, otherwise known as the Beast 666, shared membership of the Golden Dawn with W B Yeats, and publishers with D H Lawrence. Now in a beyond-the-grave autobiography, he recounts his own vocation, his practice of sex magic, and his bruising encounters with his contemporaries. The great magus, whose own world-conquering creed The Book of the Law was written in Cairo in 1904, was according to him, no murderer, but a prophet and practitioner of all kinds of sexual freedom and new magical systems.

From the shelves of mainstream bookstores and the pages of teen magazines, to popular films and television series, contemporary culture at the turn of the twenty-first century has been fascinated with teenage identity and the presence of magic and the occult. Alongside this profusion of products and representations, a global network of teenage Witches has emerged on the margins of adult neopagan Witchcraft communities, identifying themselves through various spiritual practices, consumption patterns and lifestyle choices. The New Generation Witches is the first published anthology to investigate the recent rise of the teenage Witchcraft phenomenon in both Britain and North America. Scholars from Theology, Cultural Studies, Sociology, History and Media Studies, along with neopagan commentators outside of the academy, come together to investigate the experiences of thousands of adolescents constructing an enabling, magical identity through a distinctive practice of Witchcraft. The contributors discuss key areas of interest, inspiration and development within the teen Witch communities from the mid 1990s onward, including teenage Witches' magical practices and beliefs, gender politics, the formation and identification of communities, forums and modes of expression, media representation and new media outlets. Demonstrating the diversification and expansion of neopaganism in the twenty-first century, this anthology makes an exciting contribution to the field of Neopagan Studies and contemporary youth cultures.

THERE IS POWER IN SILENCE East Anglia, 1645. Martha Hallybread, a midwife, healer and servant, has lived peacefully for more than four decades in her beloved Cleftwater. Everyone in the village knows Martha, but no one has ever heard her speak. One bright morning, Martha becomes a silent witness to a witch hunt, led by sinister new arrival Silas Makepeace. As a trusted member of the community, she is enlisted to search the bodies of the accused women for evidence. But whilst she wants to help her friends, she also harbours a dark secret that could cost her own freedom. In desperation, Martha revives a wax witching doll that she inherited from her mother, in the hope that it will bring protection. But the doll's true powers are unknowable, the tide is turning, and time is running out . . . A spellbinding and intoxicating novel inspired by true events, The Witching Tide is a magnificent debut from a writer to watch. 'A beautiful, haunting and utterly transporting novel that takes the reader back to a terrifyingly real witching England' NAOMI WOOD 'I absolutely devoured The Witching Tide. To read this book is to step inside time . . . a powerful, riveting read, each sentence pristine and haunting' ELIZABETH MACNEAL

Pandemonium: An Illustrated History of Demonology presents for this first time Satan's family tree, providing a history and analysis of his fellow fallen angels from Asmodeus to Ziminiar. Throughout there will be short entries on individual demons, but Pandemonium will be more than just a visual encyclopedia. It will also focus on the influence of figures like Beelzebub, Azazel, Lilith, and Moloch on Western religion, literature, and art. Ranging from the earliest scriptural references to demons in the New Testament through the Enlightenment and Romantic eras when our devils took on a subtler form, Pandemonium functions as a compendium of Lucifer's subjects from Dante's The Divine Comedy to John Milton's Paradise Lost, and all points in between. Containing rarely seen illustrations of very old treatises on demonology as well as more well-known works by the great masters of Western painting, this book will celebrate the art of hell like never before!

Everywhere, the witches are rising. Are you ready to answer the call and embrace your own inner witch? In this book, Indigenous seer, healer, and spirit communicator Juliet Diaz guides you on a journey to connect with the Magick within you. She explains how to cast off what doesn't serve you, unleash your authentic self, and become an embodiment of your truth. You'll also learn the skills and techniques you need to build your own Magickal craft. Within these enchanted pages you'll discover how to: - Connect with the power of your inner witch - Create spells, potions, and rituals for love, protection, healing, manifestation and more - Amplify your energy by working with a Book of Shadows - Create an altar and decorate it according to the seasons - Work with the Moon and the Seasons of the Witch - Connect with your ancestors to receive their wisdom Filled with Magick, inspiration, and love, Witchery is your guide and companion on a sacred journey to true self-empowerment.

Invite joy and healing into your life using your own magic with this self-help guide from the author of Witchcraft Therapy, Mandi Em. Witchcraft is a practice where everyone can self-soothe and find their alignment again through performance, play, following impulses, and inviting joy into their lives. Beyond spell jars and candle magic, there's a whole world of uncommon ways to inject some childlike wonder and play therapy into your daily practice. Now you can pursue joy, healing, and fun, with this guide to finding happiness through magic, filled with straight-talk self-care advice backed up by magical spells, rituals, recipes, meditations, and more! Happy Witch is an uncommon spell book full of witchy self-care spells and rituals that think outside the box of what a witch's practice usually looks like. From kinetic cloud dough play for moving through your emotions to using dance as a form of manifestation, Happy Witch brings out your inner child to help you undertake your healing through magic. Woven through with BS-free empowering messages, suggestions, and encouragement on how to build your intuitive practice that you love, this self-help guide is your perfect companion for magical healing.

Focuses on the problem of communication with the other world: the phenomenon of spirit possession and its changing historical interpretations, the imaginary schemes elaborated for giving accounts of the journeys to the other world, for communicating with the dead, and finally the historical archetypes of this kind of religious manifestation-trance prophecy, divination, and shamanism. Recognized historians and ethnologists analyze the relationship, coexistence and conflicts of popular belief systems, Judeo-Christian mythology and demonology in medieval and modern Europe. The essays address links between rites and beliefs, folklore and literature; the legacy of various pre-Christian mythologies; the syncretic forms of ancient, medieval and modern belief- and rite-systems; "pure" examples from religious-ethnological research outside Europe to elucidate European problems.

From 1563 to 1736 Scotland put thousands of women to death for witchcraft. Their supposed crimes have much to tell us about attitudes to women in the past, and in the present day. This book introduces sixteen women who lost their lives or lived in the long shadow of the persecutions. 'Witches' who, like MARGARET AITKEN, confessed, implicated others, even aided the hunters before they were burned. Nonconforming women like MARY MACLEOD, who saw their reputations tarnished when they did not bend to society's expectations. Creatures of the imagination, like Robert Burns's NANNY, who embody deep-seated associations between womanhood and the occult. Weaving fiction with the facts where these are known, We Are All Witches invites the reader to explore the forces at work in one of the darkest episodes of Scotland's history and consider their echoes in the present day.

The Goetia is the most famous grimoire after the Key of Solomon. The owner of this handbook of sorcery was Dr. Thomas Rudd, the most important scholar-magician of the early seventeenth century, and a magical successor to Dr. John Dee.

The Goetia of Dr. Rudd explains how the 72 angels of the Shemhamphorash are used to evoke and safely bind demons--material that has not been made available in any previous edition. This rare volume contains a transcription of a hitherto unpublished manuscript of the Lemegeton and includes illustrations drawn from rare manuscripts held in the British Library.

Magic and divination in early Islam encompassed a wide range of practices, including belief in jinn, warding off the evil eye, the production of amulets and other magical equipment, conjuring, wonder-working, dream interpretation, predicting the weather, casting lots, astrology, and physiognomy. The ten studies here are concerned with the pre-Islamic antecedents of such practices, and with the theory of magic in healing, the nature and use of amulets and their decipherment, the arts of astrometeorology and geomancy, the refutation of astrology, and the role of the astrologer in society. Some of the studies are highly illustrated, some long out of print, some revised or composed for this volume, and one translated into English for the first time. These fundamental investigations, together with the introductory bibliographic essay, are intended as a guide to the concepts, terminology, and basic scholarly literature of an important, but often overlooked, aspect of classical Islamic culture.

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.

This chronological collection charts the change in attitudes to witchcraft during the period 1560-1736, which culminates in the educated debate on the reality of witchcraft and the gradual decline in belief in witches and associated phenomena.