The etiology of the Wimbum people in the Western Grassfields of Cameroon is described through an examination of the way in which the meanings of key concepts, used to interpret and explain illness and other forms of misfortune, are continually being produced and reproduced in the praxis of everyday communication. During the course of numerous dialogues, witchcraft, a highly ambivalent force, gradually emerges as the prime mover. As destructive cannibals or respectable elders the witches are the ultimate cause of all significant illness, misfortune and death, and as diviners they are also the ultimate judges who apportion moral responsibility. Even the ancestors and the traditional gods turn out to be fronts behind which the witches hide their activities.The study is on three levels: a medical anthropological exploration of explanations of illness and misfortune; a detailed ethnography of traditional African cosmology and witchcraft; and an examination of recent theoretical issues in anthropology such as the nature of ethnographic fieldwork and the possibility of dialogical or postmodern ethnography.

The feast is a meeting place between family and friends, between humans and gods. This decadent collection of enchanting dishes is an indispensable companion to kitchen witchcraft, revealing the storied history and seductive art of magical cooking. With witch, herbalist and chef Melissa Jayne Madara as your guide, explore five facets of the occult through food: traditional recipes, the wheel of the zodiac, devotional meals to the planets, seasonal feasts to celebrate solstices and equinoxes, and practical spellwork. Recreate a pagan feast of lamb roasted with milk and honey, with cheesecake baked in fig leaves for dessert. Celebrate a Gemini birthday with herbed fondue, followed by lemongrass pavlova. Align with the poetic pleasures of Venus with edible flower dumplings, or commune with Saturn over blackberry pulled pork sandwiches. Enjoy the vibrancy of the spring equinox with herb and allium quiche with a potato crust, radish salad with cherry blossom vinaigrette and jasmine tea shortbread. Share an evening of storytelling over mugwort and catnip divination tea, or embody an otherworldly spirit with ritual bread masks. Packed with ancient knowledge, practical advice and witchcraft expertise, this book will help you develop your craft through culinary creativity. Gather, share, and rediscover the most fundamental of human rituals: the divine indulgence of the senses and the soul.

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.

Wonder and Skepticism in the Middle Ages explores the response by medieval society to tales of marvels and the supernatural, which ranged from firm belief to outright rejection, and asks why the believers believed, and why the skeptical disbelieved. Despite living in a world whose structures more often than not supported belief, there were still a great many who disbelieved, most notably scholastic philosophers who began a polemical programme against belief in marvels. Keagan Brewer reevaluates the Middle Ages' reputation as an era of credulity by considering the evidence for incidences of marvels, miracles and the supernatural and demonstrating the reasons people did and did not believe in such things. Using an array of contemporary sources, he shows that medieval responders sought evidence in the commonality of a report, similarity of one event to another, theological explanations and from people with status to show that those who believed in marvels and miracles did so only because the wonders had passed evidentiary testing. In particular, he examines both emotional and rational reactions to wondrous phenomena, and why some were readily accepted and others rejected. This book is an important contribution to the history of emotions and belief in the Middle Ages.

Bringing together leading historians, anthropologists, and religionists, this volume examines the unbridled passions of witchcraft from the Middle Ages to the present. Witchcraft is an intensely emotional crime, rooted in the belief that envy and spite can cause illness or even death. Witch-trials in turn are emotionally driven by the grief of alleged victims and by the fears of magistrates and demonologists. With examples ranging from Russia to New England, Germany to Cameroon, chapters cover the representation of emotional witches in demonology and art; the gendering of witchcraft as female envy or male rage; witchcraft as a form of bullying and witchcraft accusation as a form of therapy; love magic and demon-lovers; and the affective memorialization of the "Burning Times" among contemporary Pagan feminists. Wide-ranging and methodologically diverse, the book is appropriate for scholars of witchcraft, gender, and emotions; for graduate or undergraduate courses, and for the interested general reader.

If you think ghosts are only responsible for hauntings, think again. The Demonologist reveals the grave religious process behind supernatural events and how it can happen to you. Used as a text in seminaries and classrooms, this is one book you can't put down.

For over five decades Ed and Lorraine Warren have been known as the world's most renowned paranormal investigators. Lorraine is a gifted clairvoyant, while Ed is the only non-ordained demonologist recognized by the Catholic Church. Together they have investigated thousands of hauntings in their career.

Unabridged. 9 CDs.

Feeling Exclusion: Religious Conflict, Exile and Emotions in Early Modern Europe investigates the emotional experience of exclusion at the heart of the religious life of persecuted and exiled individuals and communities in early modern Europe. Between the late fifteenth and early eighteenth centuries an unprecedented number of people in Europe were forced to flee their native lands and live in a state of physical or internal exile as a result of religious conflict and upheaval. Drawing on new insights from history of emotions methodologies, Feeling Exclusion explores the complex relationships between communities in exile, the homelands from which they fled or were exiled, and those from whom they sought physical or psychological assistance. It examines the various coping strategies religious refugees developed to deal with their marginalization and exclusion, and investigates the strategies deployed in various media to generate feelings of exclusion through models of social difference, that questioned the loyalty, values, and trust of "others". Accessibly written, divided into three thematic parts, and enhanced by a variety of illustrations, Feeling Exclusion is perfect for students and researchers of early modern emotions and religion.

The world’s leading psychiatric authority on demonic possession delves into the hidden world of exorcisms and his own transformation from cynic to believer over the course of his twenty-five-year career. Successful New York psychiatrist Richard Gallagher was skeptical yet intrigued when a hard-nosed, no-nonsense Catholic priest asked him to examine a woman for a possible exorcism. Meeting her, Gallagher was astonished. The woman’s behavior defied logic. In an instant, she could pinpoint a person’s secret weaknesses. She knew how individuals she’d never known had died, including Gallagher’s own mother, who passed away after a lengthy battle with ovarian cancer. She spoke fluently in multiple languages, including Latin—but only when she was in a trance. This was not psychosis, Gallagher concluded. It was, in his scientific estimation, what could only be describe as paranormal ability. The woman wasn’t mentally disturbed—she was possessed. This remarkable case was the first of many that Gallagher would encounter. Sought after today by leaders of all faiths—ministers, priests, rabbis and imams, Gallagher has spent a quarter-century studying demonic activity and exorcisms throughout history and has witnessed more cases than any other psychiatrist in the world today. In this eerie and enthralling book, Gallagher chronicles his most famous cases for the first time, including: A professional who claimed her spiritualist mother had “assigned” her a spirit who “turned on her.” A petite woman—”90 pounds soaking wet”—who threw a 200-pound Lutheran deacon across the room to the horror of onlookers in a church hall; And “Julia,” the so-called Satanic queen and self-described witch, who exhibited “the most harrowing” case, a “once-in-a-century” possession. Going beyond horror movies and novels, Demonic Foes takes you deep into this hidden world, sharing in full details of these true-life tales of demonic possession.

This title includes a 2 DVD set. Christopher S Hyatt, Ph.D., Adv. M.ED. was trained in psycho-physiology and clinical psychology. As a research scientist he has published numerous peer-reviewed articles in professional journals and was a Research Fellow at the University of Toronto and the University of Southern California. He fled the world of academia and state sponsored psychology to become an explorer of the human mind ...creating such devices as the "Radical Undoing Series". He is now a world-famous author of a wide variety of books, CDs, and DVDs on post-modern psychology, sex, tantra, kundalini and mysticism ...and an advocate of brain exploration.

Perfect for Hallowe'en: haunting accounts of real-life exorcisms through the centuries, from ancient Egypt and the biblical Middle East to colonial America and twentieth-century South Africa Levitation. Feats of superhuman strength. Speaking in tongues. A hateful, glowing stare. The signs of spirit possession have been documented for thousands of years and across religions and cultures, even into our own time. Unsettling and chilling, The Penguin Book of Exorcisms brings together the most astonishing accounts: Saint Anthony set upon by demons in the form of a lion, a bull and a panther, who are no match for his devotion and prayer; the Prophet Muhammad casting an enemy of God out of a young boy; fox spirits in medieval China and Japan; a headless bear assaulting a woman in sixteenth-century England; the possession of an entire convent of Ursuline nuns in a French town; a Zulu woman who daily floated to a height of five feet; the exorcism in Earling, Iowa, in 1928 that inspired the film The Exorcist; a Filipina girl 'bitten by devils'; and a rare example of a priest's letter requesting permission of a bishop to perform an exorcism - after witnessing a boy walk backwards up a wall. . .

Die Geheimnisse der oberen und der unteren Welt (The Secrets of the Upper and the Lower World) is a substantial new collection of essays on magic in Islamic cultural history. Both comprehensive and innovative in its approach, this book offers fresh insights into an important yet still understudied area of Islamic intellectual history. The seventeen chapters deal with key aspects of Islamic magic, including its historical developments, geographical variants, and modern-day practices. The general introduction identifies and problematizes numerous sub-topics and key practitioners/theoreticians in the Arabo-Islamic context. This, along with terminological and bibliographical appendices, makes the volume an unparalleled reference work for both specialists and a broader readership. Contributors: Ursula Bsees, Johann Christoph Burgel, Susanne Enderwitz, Hans Daiber; Sebastian Gunther, Mahmoud Haggag, Maher Jarrar, Anke Joisten-Pruschke, Fabian Kas, Ulrich Marzolph, Christian Mauder, Tobias Nunlist, Khanna Omarkhali, Eva Orthmann, Bernd-Christian Otto, Dorothee Pielow, Lutz Richter-Bernburg, Johanna Schott & Johannes Thomann.

Imagining the Witch explores emotions, gender, and selfhood through the lens of witch-trials in early modern Germany. Witch-trials were clearly a gendered phenomenon, but witchcraft was not a uniquely female crime. While women constituted approximately three quarters of those tried for witchcraft in the Holy Roman Empire, a significant minority were men. Witchcraft was also a crime of unbridled passion: it centred on the notion that one person's emotions could have tangible and deadly physical consequences. Yet it is also true that not all suspicions of witchcraft led to a formal accusation, and not all witch-trials led to the stake. Indeed, just over half the total number put on trial for witchcraft in early modern Europe were executed. In order to understand how early modern people imagined the witch, we must first begin to understand how people understood themselves and each other; this can help us to understand how the witch could be a member of the community, living alongside their accusers, yet inspire such visceral fear. Through an examination of case studies of witch-trials that took place in the early modern Lutheran duchy of Wurttemberg in southwestern Germany, Laura Kounine examines how the community, church, and the agents of the law sought to identify the witch, and the ways in which ordinary men and women fought for their lives in an attempt to avoid the stake. The study further explores the visual and intellectual imagination of witchcraft in this period in order to piece together why witchcraft could be aligned with such strong female stereotypes on the one hand, but also be imagined as a crime that could be committed by any human, whether young or old, male or female. By moving beyond stereotypes of the witch, Imagining the Witch argues that understandings of what constituted witchcraft and the 'witch' appear far more contested and unstable than has previously been suggested. It also suggests new ways of thinking about early modern selfhood which moves beyond teleological arguments about the development of the 'modern' self. Indeed, it is the trial process itself that created the conditions for a diverse range of people to reflect on, and give meaning, to emotions, gender, and the self in early modern Lutheran Germany.

Rediscovering Renaissance Witchcraft is an exploration of witchcraft in the literature of Britain and America from the 16th and 17th centuries through to the present day. As well as the themes of history and literature (politics and war, genre and intertextuality), the book considers issues of national identity, gender and sexuality, race and empire, and more. The complex fascination with witchcraft through the ages is investigated, and the importance of witches in the real world and in fiction is analysed. The book begins with a chapter dedicated to the stories and records of witchcraft in the Renaissance and up until the English Civil War, such as the North Berwick witches and the work of the 'Witch Finder Generall' Matthew Hopkins. The significance of these accounts in shaping future literature is then presented through the examination of extracts from key texts, such as Shakespeare's Macbeth and Middleton's The Witch, among others. In the second half of the book, the focus shifts to a consideration of the Romantic rediscovery of Renaissance witchcraft in the eighteenth century, and its further reinvention and continued presence throughout the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including the establishment of witchcraft studies as a subject in its own right, the impact of the First World War and end of the British Empire on witchcraft fiction, the legacy of the North Berwick, Hopkins and Salem witch trials, and the position of witchcraft in culture, including filmic and televisual culture, today. Equipped with an extensive list of primary and secondary sources, Rediscovering Renaissance Witchcraft is essential reading for all students of witchcraft in modern British and American culture and early modern history and literature.

No one thinks much about the Devil anymore. In fact, words like witchcraft and black magic have a strangely medieval ring to our ears. Many people even think of Satan as somehow comic -- and therefore harmless. Yet amidst the tragedy and corruption of our own century, it is ironic that many people doubt whether an active, evil force really exists. But Satan is not dead, says author Hal Lindsey; he has simply adopted a more modern style. Spiritualism, astrology, "new age" religion -- all of these and more are signs of the creeping influence of the Father of Lies in our time. In this book, Hal Lindsey, well-known speaker and author of the best-selling Late Great Planet Earth, outlines a battle plan for overcoming this very real and insidious enemy. The times may change, but the conflict is as old as the Garden of Eden. Whatever happened to old What's-his-name?

This book is an analysis of witchcraft and witch hunting as they appeared in southwestern Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Starting from a short analysis of some basic problems in the interpretation of European witchcraft, it proceeds to a study of the shifting denominational views regarding witches and the growth of Catholic orthodoxy. That theoretical vantage yields insight into the patterns in time, space, and confession that characterized all witch hunts in the German Southwest. There follows a narrative analysis of the largest witch hunts and the general crisis of confidence they produced. Analysis is complemented by a summary of what is known about the people accused of witchcraft, as well as an examination of the popular suspicion directed toward old women at the start of most panics and the breakdown of this stereotype as the panics progressed.

The Malleus Maleficarum, first published in 1486-7, is the standard medieval text on witchcraft and it remained in print throughout the early modern period. Its descriptions of the evil acts of witches and the ways to exterminate them continue to contribute to our knowledge of early modern law, religion and society. Mackay's highly acclaimed translation, based on his extensive research and detailed analysis of the Latin text, is the only complete English version available, and the most reliable. Now available in a single volume, this key text is at last accessible to students and scholars of medieval history and literature. With detailed explanatory notes and a guide to further reading, this volume offers a unique insight into the fifteenth-century mind and its sense of sin, punishment and retribution.

From Macbeth to The Wizard of Oz, from the hysteria of witch trials to emblems of 20th-century female empowerment, no matter how she is portrayed, the witch is an enduring source of fear and fascination. In this study, Diane Purkiss investigates the diverse interpretations and meanings attributed to the figure of the witch, encompassing a wide range of cultural norms which include Canonical literature, such as Shelley and Yeats, visual arts, fairy tales, folklore and real-life witch stories. Also considered are pornography and sado-masochism, film, from the classic Swedish Haxan to The Witches of Eastwick, and the stage, including Shakespeare and Jonson.

Katharine Briggs enjoys an unchallenged reputation in the world of folklore studies. The theme of this volume, the witch figure as a malevolent intermediary in folk belief, was chosen to reflect that aspect of Briggs's scholarship exemplified in her study of witchcraft, Pale Hecate's Team. The contributors draw on the disciplines of archaeology, comparative religion, sociology and literature and include: Carmen Blacker, H.R. Ellis Davidson, Margaret Dean-Smith, L.V. Grinsell, Christina Hole, Venetia Newall, Geoffrey Parrinder, Anne Ross, Jacqueline Simpson, Beatrice White, John Widdowson. Originally published in 1973.

This volume presents students and scholars with a comprehensive overview of the fascinating world of the occult. It explores the history of Western occultism, from ancient and medieval sources via the Renaissance, right up to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and contemporary occultism. Written by a distinguished team of contributors, the essays consider key figures, beliefs and practices as well as popular culture.

This work includes the complete unabridged version with variants of "The Nine Great Keys", a vital early 17th century manuscript detailing the invocation of the Archangels and nine Orders of Angels. The full practical techniques of summoning the Archangels, details of the hierarchies of spiritual beings, and how the full Enochian system fits in with the Angelic and Demonic hierarchies are all covered, as well as the theology and philosophy associated with Angelic magic, giving the context that these magical practitioners were working with. It includes the evocation of the Four Demon Princes and their role within the traditional system of magic. The book deals clearly with the full continuum of spiritual creatures from Archangels through Angels to Demon Princes (Fallen Angels), to Olympic Spirits and Elementals. This is presented in practical detail, with much rare manuscript material being made available in print for the first time.

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.

Examining the intersection of occult spirituality, text, and gender, this book provides a compelling analysis of the occult revival in literature from the 1880s through the course of the twentieth century. Bestselling novels such as The Da Vinci Code play with magic and the fascination of hidden knowledge, while occult and esoteric subjects have become very visible in literature during the twentieth century. This study analyses literature by women occultists such as Alice Bailey, Dion Fortune, and Starhawk, and revisits texts with occult motifs by canonical authors such as Sylvia Townsend Warner, Leonora Carrington, and Angela Carter. This material, which has never been analysed in a literary context, covers influential movements such as Theosophy, Spiritualism, Golden Dawn, Wicca, and Goddess spirituality. Wallraven engages with the question of how literature functions as the medium for creating occult worlds and powerful identities, particularly the female Lucifer, witch, priestess, and Goddess. Based on the concept of ancient wisdom, the occult in literature also incorporates topical discourses of the twentieth century, including psychoanalysis, feminism, pacifism, and ecology. Hence, as an ever-evolving discursive universe, it presents alternatives to religious truth claims that often lead to various forms of fundamentalism that we encounter today. This book offers a ground-breaking approach to interpreting the forms and functions of occult texts for scholars and students of literary and cultural studies, religious studies, sociology, and gender studies.