The story of the beliefs and practices called 'magic' starts in ancient Iran, Greece, and Rome, before entering its crucial Christian phase in the Middle Ages. Centering on the Renaissance and Marsilio Ficino - whose work on magic was the most influential account written in premodern times - this groundbreaking book treats magic as a classical tradition with foundations that were distinctly philosophical. Besides Ficino, the premodern story of magic also features Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, Aquinas, Agrippa, Pomponazzi, Porta, Bruno, Campanella, Descartes, Boyle, Leibniz, and Newton, to name only a few of the prominent thinkers discussed in this book. Because pictures play a key role in the story of magic, this book is richly illustrated.

Originally published in 1970, this book explores the role of concepts of disease in the social life of the Safwa of Tanzania, particularly through beliefs concerning witchcraft and sorcery. Examining Safwa ideas about the cuasation of disease and death and the use of aetiological terms in actual cases, it demonstrates a parallel between these ideas and terms, on the one hand and the Safwa system of social categories on the other. A descrption of the Safwa environment, way of life and social system is followed by an account of the concepts of death and disease and of their causes as revealed in ancestor rites, divination and autopsy. An analysis of case histories demonstrates that the cause assigned to a particular instance of illness or death depends upon the status relationship between discputing parties who are associated with the patient. The way in which the parallel between aetiological and social categoeis helps to control the outcome of disputes is also examined.

Witches, ghosts, fairies. Premodern Europe was filled with strange creatures, with the devil lurking behind them all. But were his powers real? Did his powers have limits? Or were tales of the demonic all one grand illusion? Physicians, lawyers, and theologians at different times and places answered these questions differently and disagreed bitterly. The demonic took many forms in medieval and early modern Europe. By examining individual authors from across the continent, this book reveals the many purposes to which the devil could be put, both during the late medieval fight against heresy and during the age of Reformations. It explores what it was like to live with demons, and how careers and identities were constructed out of battles against them - or against those who granted them too much power. Together, contributors chart the history of the devil from his emergence during the 1300s as a threatening figure - who made pacts with human allies and appeared bodily - through to the comprehensive but controversial demonologies of the turn of the seventeenth century, when European witch-hunting entered its deadliest phase. This book is essential reading for all students and researchers of the history of the supernatural in medieval and early modern Europe.

Witches, ghosts, fairies. Premodern Europe was filled with strange creatures, with the devil lurking behind them all. But were his powers real? Did his powers have limits? Or were tales of the demonic all one grand illusion? Physicians, lawyers, and theologians at different times and places answered these questions differently and disagreed bitterly. The demonic took many forms in medieval and early modern Europe. By examining individual authors from across the continent, this book reveals the many purposes to which the devil could be put, both during the late medieval fight against heresy and during the age of Reformations. It explores what it was like to live with demons, and how careers and identities were constructed out of battles against them - or against those who granted them too much power. Together, contributors chart the history of the devil from his emergence during the 1300s as a threatening figure - who made pacts with human allies and appeared bodily - through to the comprehensive but controversial demonologies of the turn of the seventeenth century, when European witch-hunting entered its deadliest phase. This book is essential reading for all students and researchers of the history of the supernatural in medieval and early modern Europe.

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.

The Witchcraft Reader offers a wide range of historical perspectives on the subject of witchcraft in a single, accessible volume, exploring the enduring hold that it has on human imagination. The witch trials of the late Middle Ages and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have inspired a huge and expanding scholarly literature, as well as an outpouring of popular representations. This fully revised and enlarged third edition brings together many of the best and most important works in the field. It explores the origins of witchcraft prosecutions in learned and popular culture, fears of an imaginary witch cult, the role of religious division and ideas about the Devil, the gendering of suspects, the making of confessions and the decline of witch beliefs. An expanded final section explores the various "revivals" and images of witchcraft that continue to flourish in contemporary Western culture. Equipped with an extensive introduction that foregrounds significant debates and themes in the study of witchcraft, providing the extracts with a critical context, The Witchcraft Reader is essential reading for anyone with an interest in this fascinating subject.

A lavishly illustrated celebration of green witchcraft—romance, mythology, and folklore that are sure to enchant your inner witch!   In these trying times, couldn’t we all use more magic in our lives? Equal parts practical guide and beautiful keepsake, The Green Witch’s Guide to Magical Plants & Flowers shows you how to bring more love and contentment into your life using elements of nature. In this little grimoire, Chris Young and Susan Ottaviano, 2 Green Witches, unlock the secrets hiding in your garden, transforming everyday flowers, fruits, and plants into bath salts, herbal infusions, soaps, sachets, tinctures, and more.   Enchanting all-natural recipes illuminate pathways to love, health, peace, prosperity, and harmony. Learn how a rose petal bath can stoke your sense of desire, how meadowsweet flowers on your nightstand can restore peace between two lovers, and how facial oil made from tulip petals can protect you from heartbreak.   Celebrate green witchcraft and the magical properties of the natural world with The Green Witch’s Guide to Magical Plants & Flowers.

The book explores the issues of exorcism and demonic possession and its meaning on this new twentieth century. The author presents leading experts in the field of mental health, sociologists and theology which face off the classic battle royale of science versus religion and good versus evil. Framed within the most famous and widely documented exorcism case in the history of Christianity, the 1949 exorcism of a thirteen year old boy in Mt. Ranier, MD on which William Peter Blatty based his celebrated novel and later film The Exorcist, the most frightening horror film to come out of Hollywood, the author explores the controversial subject in the light of science. "Is demonic possession, like sin, one of the dead metaphors supposedly killed off by scientific spirit of the 21st century?" "Is our quest for the existence of such phenomena reflected in the human need to live in a world where evil embodies the image of Satan-the fallen angel who inhabits the inner circle of Dante's inferno?" "Is the Antichrist a living and viable force at work in our lives, awaiting his next opportunity to exert his influence as he attempts to drag the world into a state of chaos?". The author presents documents on the Mount Rainier Exorcism never before unveiled that had remained hidden in the archives of the prestigious Rhine Research Foundation, former Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory since 1949. For the first , he uncovers the mystery of the Mount Rainier Exorcism, via a rigorous scientific methodology ,and presents interviews with actual witnesses of the case and photographs of the actual sites where the mysterious events took place never before released. The author may finally settle down the mystery surrounding the Mount Rainier case and The Exorcist.

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.

By the spring of 1645, civil war had exacted a terrible toll upon England. Disease was rife, apocalyptic omens appeared in the skies, and idolators detected in every shire. In a remote corner of Essex, two obscure gentlemen began interrogating women suspected of witchcraft, triggering the most brutal witch-hunt in English history. Witchfinders is a spellbinding study of how Matthew Hopkins, 'the Witchfinder General', and John Stearne extended their campaign across East Anglia, driven by godly zeal. Exploiting the anxiety and lawlessness of the times, and cheered on by ordinary folk, they extracted confessions of satanic pacts resulting in scores of executions.

Magic, which is probably as old as humanity, is a way of achieving goals through supernatural means, either benevolent (white magic) or harmful (black magic). Magic has been used in Britain since at least the Iron Age (800 BC- AD 43) - amulets made from human bone have been found on Iron Age sites in southern England. Britain was part of the Roman Empire from AD 43 to 410, and it is then we see the first written magic, in the form of curse tablets. A good deal of magic involves steps to prevent the restless dead from returning to haunt the living, and this may lie behind the decapitated and prone (face down) burials of Roman Britain. The Anglo-Saxons who settled in England in the 5th and 6th century were strong believers in magic: they used ritual curses in Anglo-Saxon documents, they wrote spells and charms, and some of the women buried in pagan cemeteries were likely practitioners of magic (wicca, or witches). The Anglo-Saxons became Christians in the 7th century, and the new "magicians" were the saints, who with the help of God, were able to perform miracles. In 1066, William of Normandy became king of England, and for a time there was a resurgence of belief in magic. The medieval church was able to keep the fear of magic under control, but after the Reformation in the mid 16th century, this fear returned, with numerous witchcraft trials in the late 16th and 17th centuries.

"The Secret Life of a Satanist" steps behind the curtain with the founder and High Priest of the Church of Satan.

What is contemporary Satanism, and why would one start a church dedicated to the Dark One? It wasn't a rebellion against an oppressive religious upbringing; it was Anton Szandor LaVey's disgust with most of humanity. Drawing from Jack London, H.L. Mencken, Friedrich Nietzsche, Marquis de Sade, George Bernard Shaw, John Milton, Benjamin Franklin, and a host of reprobates, with a large dose of alchemy and black magic, LaVey formulated a philosophy that deeply resonated with him.

LaVey did not worship Satan; he paid homage to the rebellious spirit of innovation, defiance, and self-reliance that the archetype embodied. His background as a musician, circus lion trainer, hypnotist, and police photographer is covered here. The author, who later became his paramour and mother to his only son, was allowed extraordinary access to documents concerning his life, testimonies from people who had known him for years, and, most importantly, anecdotes and fond memories from a man living out of his time.

After the original publication of this biography in 1990, LaVey and Blanche Barton fought through the Satanic Panic together, and guided the Church for another seven years. This revised edition adds a dozen new and never-before-seen images.

Now you can find love faster than ever with this complete guide to magical matchmaking! The Witch's Book of Love has all the spells and solutions to help you on your quest for love-and shows you how to make your relationship grow and prosper into the love you've always dreamed of! The Witch's Book of Love has all you need to know about attracting the perfect partner with everything from spells and palmistry to astrology and numerology. Check your compatibility and seal your new relationship with charms and other magical mojo so you can make your love last a lifetime.

In Freud's Early Psychoanalysis, Witch Trials and the Inquisitorial Method: The Harsh Therapy, author Kathleen Duffy asks why Freud compared his 'hysterical' patients to the accused women in the witch trials, and his 'psychoanalytical' treatment to the inquisitorial method of their judges. He wrote in 1897 to Wilhelm Fliess: 'I ... understand the harsh therapy of the witches' judges'. This book proves that Freud's view of his method as inquisitorial was both serious and accurate. In this multidisciplinary and in-depth examination, Duffy demonstrates that Freud carefully studied the witch trial literature to develop the supposed parallels between his patients and the witches and between his own psychoanalytic method and the judges' inquisitorial extraction of 'confessions', by torture if necessary. She examines in meticulous detail both the witch trial literature that Freud studied and his own case studies, papers, letters and other writings. She shows that the various stages of his developing early psychoanalytic method, from the 'Katharina' case of 1893, through the so-called seduction theory of 1896 and its retraction, to the 'Dora' case of 1900, were indeed in many respects inquisitorial and invalidated his patients' experience. This book demonstrates with devastating effect the destructive consequences of Freud's nineteenth-century inquisitorial practice. This raises the question about the extent to which his mature practice and psychoanalysis and psychotherapy today, despite great achievements, remain at times inquisitorial and consequently untrustworthy. This book will therefore be invaluable not only to academics, practitioners and students of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, literature, history and cultural studies, but also to those seeking professional psychoanalytic or psychotherapeutic help.

Magic: The Basics is a concise and engaging introduction to magic in world history and contemporary societies. Presenting magic as a global phenomenon which has manifested in all human cultures, this book takes a thematic approach which explores the historical, social, and cultural aspects of magic.

Key features include:

attempts to define magic either in universal or more particular terms, and to contrast it with other broad and potentially fluid categories such as religion and science;

an examination of different forms of magical practice and the purposes for which magic has been used;

debates about magic’s effectiveness, its reality, and its morality;

an exploration of magic’s association with certain social factors, such as gender, ethnicity and education, among others.

Offering a global perspective of magic from antiquity through to the modern era and including a glossary of key terms, suggestions for further reading and case studies throughout, Magic: The Basics is essential reading for anyone seeking to learn more about the academic study of magic.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: A Magical World

Chapter 1: The Meanings of Magic

Chapter 2: Magical Acts

Chapter 3: Magic Contested and Condemned

Chapter 4: Magical Identities

Chapter 5: The Reality of Magic

Chapter 6: Magic in the Modern World

Glossary

Further Reading

'The fables of witchcraft have taken so fast hold and deepe root in the heart of man, that few or none can indure with patience the hand and correction of God.' Reginald Scot, whose words these are, published his remarkable book The Discoverie of Witchcraft in 1584. England's first major work of demonology, witchcraft and the occult, the book was unashamedly sceptical. It is said that so outraged was King James VI of Scotland by the disbelieving nature of Scot's work that, on James' accession to the English throne in 1603, he ordered every copy to be destroyed. Yet for all the anger directed at Scot, and his scorn for Stuart orthodoxy about wiches, the paradox was that his detailed account of sorcery helped strengthen the hold of European demonologies in England while also inspiring the distinctively English tradition of secular magic and conjuring. Scot's influence was considerable. Shakespeare drew on The Discoverie of Witchcraft for his depiction of the witches in Macbeth. So too did fellow-playwright Thomas Middleton in his tragi-comedy The Witch. Recognising Scot's central importance in the history of ideas, Philip Almond places his subject in the febrile context of his age, examines the chief themes of his work and shows why his writings became a sourcebook for aspiring magicians and conjurors for several hundred years. England's First Demonologist makes a notable contribution to a fascinating but unjustly neglected topic in the study of Early Modern England and European intellectual history.

In contradistinction to the many monographs and edited volumes devoted to historical, cultural, or theological treatments of demonology, this collection features newly written papers by philosophers and other scholars engaged specifically in philosophical argument, debate, and dialogue involving ideas and topics in demonology. The contributors to the volume approach the subject from the perspective of the broadest areas of Western philosophy, namely metaphysics, epistemology, logic, and moral philosophy. The collection also features a plurality of religious, cultural, and theological views on the nature of demons from both Eastern and Western thought, in addition to views that may diverge from these traditional roots. Philosophical Approaches to Demonology will be of interest to philosophers of religion, theologians, and scholars working in philosophical theology and demonology, as well as historians, cultural anthropologists, and sociologists interested more broadly in the concept of demons.

Arthur Edward Waite (1857 1942), mystic and historian, was an influential figure in the occult revival of the nineteenth century. Brought up a devout Catholic, he became increasingly involved in spiritualism in his late teens following the death of his sister. Choosing not to enter the priesthood, he pursued instead his interests in occult philosophy. A translator and editor of several alchemical texts in the 1890s, Waite also wrote several histories of magic in his later years. First published in 1902, the present work establishes Kabbalah's significant influence on nineteenth-century occultism. The book chronicles the history of Kabbalist practice from its ancient Hebrew origins to its effect on other branches of the occult, including Rosicrucianism, freemasonry, hermeticism and tarot. Waite also connects noted occultists to Kabbalah, including Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus and Eliphas Levi.

Born Alphonse Louis Constant, French magician Eliphas Levi (1810-75) wrote prolifically on the occult sciences. His hugely popular Dogme et rituel de la haute magie, published in French in 1854, was translated into English by Arthur Edward Waite (1857-1942) in 1896. In the present work, Waite condenses Levi's two volumes into one. The first part outlines Levi's theory of the doctrine of transcendent magic and discusses a wide range of magical phenomena, including bewitchment, Kabbalah and alchemy. The second part focuses on the practical aspects of ritual and ceremony in Western occult philosophy. Waite, a mystic and occult historian, edited several alchemical and magical texts for publication in the wake of the mid-nineteenth century occult revival. His translation is accompanied by a preface outlining Levi's colourful career. The original two-volume French edition is also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.

Born Alphonse Louis Constant, French magician Eliphas Levi (1810-75) wrote prolifically on the occult sciences. His Histoire de la magie was first published in 1860. In it, Levi recounts the history of the occult in Western thought, encompassing its biblical, Zoroastrian and ancient Greek origins, various magical practices of the medieval and early modern periods - including hermeticism, alchemy and necromancy - and the role of magic in the French Revolution. The last section of the book describes nineteenth-century magical practices and includes details of Levi's own occult experiences. Prepared by Arthur Edward Waite (1857-1942), this English translation was first published in 1913. An editor and translator of numerous magical texts, Waite includes here a preface comprising an eloquent defense of Levi and intellectual magic. The original French edition is also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.

Strange Histories is an exploration of some of the most extraordinary beliefs that existed in the late Middle Ages through to the end of the seventeenth century. Presenting serious accounts of the appearance of angels and demons, sea monsters and dragons within European and North American history, this book moves away from "present-centred thinking" and instead places such events firmly within their social and cultural context. By doing so, it offers a new way of understanding the world in which dragons and witches were fact rather than fiction, and presents these riveting phenomena as part of an entirely rational thought process for the time in which they existed. This new edition has been fully updated in light of recent research. It contains a new guide to further reading as well as a selection of pictures that bring its themes to life. From ghosts to witches, to pigs on trial for murder, the book uses a range of different case studies to provide fascinating insights into the world-view of a vanished age. It is essential reading for all students of early modern history. .

In the middle of the fourteenth century, the Franciscan friar John of Rupescissa sent a dramatic warning to his followers: the last days were coming; the apocalypse was near. Deemed insane by the Christian church, Rupescissa had spent more than a decade confined to prisons--in one case wrapped in chains and locked under a staircase--yet ill treatment could not silence the friar's apocalyptic message. Religious figures who preached the end times were hardly rare in the late Middle Ages, but Rupescissa's teachings were unique. He claimed that knowledge of the natural world, and alchemy in particular, could act as a defense against the plagues and wars of the last days. His melding of apocalyptic prophecy and quasi-scientific inquiry gave rise to a new genre of alchemical writing and a novel cosmology of heaven and earth. Most important, the friar's research represented a remarkable convergence between science and religion. In order to understand scientific knowledge today, Leah DeVun asks that we revisit Rupescissa's life and the critical events of his age--the Black Death, the Hundred Years' War, the Avignon Papacy--through his eyes. Rupescissa treated alchemy as medicine (his work was the conceptual forerunner of pharmacology) and represented the emerging technologies and views that sought to combat famine, plague, religious persecution, and war. The advances he pioneered, along with the exciting strides made by his contemporaries, shed critical light on later developments in medicine, pharmacology, and chemistry.

This is the final book written by the seventeenth-century occultist and alchemist, Thomas Vaughan (1621 66). Originally published under Vaughan's penname, Eugenius Philalethes, in 1655, the work found a new audience in the Rosicrucian circles of the nineteenth century, when William Wynn Westcott, Supreme Magus of the Society, republished the volume in 1896 with a commentary by an associate, S. S. D. D. 'I have read many Alchemical Treatises', its annotator comments, 'but never one of less use to the practical Alchemist than this.' For its later readers, however, the value of the text lay in its insights into the history of hermetic thought rather than its alchemical advice. An important work of occultist philosophy in both its seventeenth- and nineteenth-century contexts, it purports to reveal nothing less than the origin of all life. The paragraph-by-paragraph commentary in turn demonstrates the history of its reception and interpretation.