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.

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.

This was originally a two volume set which is now bound as one.

Here is presented an investigation of the nature of the earliest extant records of the supposed communication with angels and spirits of John Dee (1527-1608) with the assistance of his two mediums or 'scryers', Barnabas Saul and Edward Kelly. Volume 2 of this work is a transcription of the records in Dee's hand contained in Sloane MS 3188, which has been transcribed only once before, by Elias Ashmole in 1672. Volume 1 is an introduction and thorough commentary to the text which is primarily explaining its many obscurities. The author describes the physical state of the manuscript and its history then continues with a biography of Dee and his scryers and some background to Renaissance occult philosophy. Further chapters address the arguments that the manuscript represents a conscious fraud or a cryptographical exercise and describe the magical system and instruments evolved during the communications or 'Actions'. The last, fascinating chapter examines Dee's motives for believing so strongly in the truth of the Actions and suggests that a principal motive was the conviction, not held by Dee alone, that a new age was about to dawn upon earth.

In this major reevaluation of Isaac Newton's intellectual life, Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs shows how his pioneering work in mathematics, physics, and cosmology was intertwined with his study of alchemy. Professor Dobbs argues that to Newton those several intellectual pursuits were all ways of approaching Truth, and that Newton's primary goal was not the study of nature for its own sake but rather an attempt to establish a unified system that would have included both natural and divine principles. She also argues that Newton's methodology was much broader than modern scholars have previously supposed, and she traces the evolution of his thought on the intertwined problems of the microcosmic "vegetable spirit" of alchemy and the "cause" of the cosmic principle of gravitation.

This comprehensive book outlines the life and works of an important revolutionary intellectual of the 16th Century. This book follows Bruno s life and the development of his thought in the order in which he declared it. Giordano Bruno was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. He was burned at the stake after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy but his modern scientific thought and cosmology became very influential. His writings on science also showed interest in magic and alchemy and those are outlined in this book alongside what he is most remembered for - his place in the history of the relationship between science and faith.

In this volume, Lawrence Schiffman and Michael Swartz assemble a collection of Jewish incantation texts which were copied in the Middle Ages and preserved in the Cairo Genizah. Many of these texts, now held in Cambridge University Library, are published here for the first time. All the texts are translated and supplemented by detailed philological and historical commentary, tracing the praxis and beliefs of the Jewish magical tradition of Late Antiquity. Their relation to Jewish legal and mystical teachings is also explored. 'A major contribution to this area of inquiry. Fourteen incantation texts are made accessible here. They are framed with all the desired apparatus: clear facsimiles, transcriptions, translations, commentary, substantial bibliography and three indexes. The lengthy introduction, in particular, is valuable, providing a mise au point for future study of Genizah magical texts.' s teven m. wasserstorm, ajs review Lawrence H. Schiffman is the Ethel and Irvin A. Edelman Professor in Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, USA. He is a member of the Enoch seminar and of the Advisory Board of The Journal Henoch. Michael D.Swartz is Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Ohio State University, USA.

This comprehensive annotated bibliography, first published in 1990, guides the user helpfully through where to find information on various elements on alchemy when researching. Divided into categories to aid finding the right area of interest, this book forms a unique reference tool.

Attain wealth, prosperity, and abundance with The Witches' Wealth Spell Book Add a little bit of magic to your daily life with this pocket-sized guide for spell casters of all levels. With spells and incantations for wealth, success, prosperity, and more, this charming collection is perfect for anyone with a penchant for the magical.

Russian Tales of Demonic Possession: Translations of Savva Grudtsyn and Solomonia is a translation from the Russian of two stories of demonic possession, of innocence lost and regained. The original versions of both tales date back to the seventeenth century, but the feats of suffering and triumph described in them are timeless. Aleksei Remizov, one of Russia's premiere modernists, recognized the relevance of the late-medieval material for his own mid-twentieth-century readers and rewrote both tales, publishing them in 1951 under the title The Demoniacs. The volume offers a new translation of the original Tale of Savva Grudtsyn as well as first-ever translations of The Tale of The Demoniac Solomonia and Remizov's Demoniacs. Russian Tales of Demonic Possession opens with an introduction that interprets and contextualizes both the late-medieval and the twentieth-century tales. By providing new critical interpretations of all four tales as well as a short discussion of the history of demons in Russia, this introduction makes an eerily exotic world accessible to today's English-speaking audiences. Savva Grudtsyn and Solomonia, the protagonists of the two tales, are young people poised on the threshold of adulthood. When demons suddenly appear to confront and overmaster them, each of them teeters on the brink of despair in a world filled with chaos and temptation. The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn and The Tale of the Demoniac Solomonia propel us forcibly into the realm of good and evil and pose hard questions: Why does evil afflict us? How does it manifest itself? How can it be overcome? Aleksey Remizov's modernist re-castings of the two stories offer compelling evidence that these same questions are very much with us today and are still in need of answers.

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.

In his own inimitable style, Ramsey Dukes takes us through the advantages and dangers of hobnobbing with Demons. However for him Demons are very much our own creations; life 's problems and challenges personified and given form. We can either be their slaves or strike bargains and get back into the driving seat. With his characteristic wit and wisdom, Uncle Ramsey takes us on a rollercoaster ride through our own subconscious in a sustained effort for us to accept and negotiate with life 's challenges.Highlights include: Summoning Demons, how to personalize a problem Of Pacts or how to bargain with your psychic baggage The Sacrifice or Jam today Banishing your Demons for a positive life Going beyond the personal; Cultural Demons

" . . . Kapferer's introduction is an intellectual tour de force, perhaps the most important rethinking of the problems of rationality that underlie the study of witchcraft and sorcery since Evans-Pritchard." . American Anthropologist " . . . teems with interesting theoretical insights, and all the chapters are particularly strong in delineating local meanings within the framework of broader processes." . African Studies Review ." . . shows that the discourses on 'occult economies' are multiple . . . The presented essays are an excellent illustration of their variety of forms and constitute a valuable contribution to their understanding." . Anthropos This book seeks a reconsideration of the phenomenon of sorcery and related categories. The contributors to the volume explore the different perspectives on human sociality and social and political constitution that practices typically understood as sorcery, magic and ritual reveal. In doing so the authors are concerned to break away from the dictates of a western externalist rationalist understanding of these phenomena without falling into the trap of mysticism. The articles address a diversity of ethnographic contexts in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Americas. Bruce Kapferer is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen, Adjunct Professor at James Cook University and Honorary Professor at University College London."

The oldest roots of the European concepts of witchcraft and magic lie in the Hebrew and other cultures of the ancient Near East and in the Celtic, Nordic and Germanic Societies of the North and West. The authors of this volume survey three crucial aspects of this earliest phase of development. These are the role of magical incantations and rituals against witchcraft in Mesopotamia in the last three millennia BC, the attitudes to witchcraft and magic in the Old Testament and in later Jewish tradition, and the beliefs and legends associated with trolldomor (witchcraft) in pre-Christian Scandanavia.

A beautifully illustrated guide from a Celtic Wiccan High Priestess to celebrating the Wiccan way, from Halloween to handfastings, as well as everyday rituals to enhance all areas of your life. The Wiccan calendar is marked by significant festivals, called sabbats. The most famous is Halloween, also known as Samhain, but you will be familiar with others, too, such as the Summer and Winter Solstices. Wiccans celebrate these sabbats with rituals, crafts, and food and drink, and in this book, Silja reveals how you can bring some of that magic into your life, even if working as a solitary witch. She also details other special days throughout the year, such as August 23, the Roman festival of Vulcanalia, which is celebrated with bonfires. Discover, too, how Wiccans celebrate personal rites of passage, such as the naming of a baby and a couple committing to each other in a Wiccan wedding, known as a handfasting. Finally, Silja explains how to write your own daily, weekly, or monthly rituals to bring you peace and happiness. Lavishly illustrated throughout, this is your essential guide to all your Wiccan celebrations.

What, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was 'superstition'? Where might it be found, and how might it be countered? How was the term used, and how effective a weapon was it in the assault on traditional religion?. The ease with which accusations of 'superstition' slipped into the language of Reformation debate has ensured that one of the most fought over terms in the history of early modern popular culture, especially religious culture, is also one of the most difficult to define. Offers a novel approach to the issue, based upon national and regional studies, and examinations of attitudes to prophets, ghosts, saints and demonology, alongside an analysis of Catholic responses to the Reformation and the apparent presence of 'superstition' in the reformed churches. Challenges the assumptions that Catholic piety was innately superstitious, while Protestantism was rational, and suggests that the early modern concept of 'superstition' needs more careful treatment by historians. Demands that the terminology and presuppositions of historical discourse on the Reformation be altered to remove lingering sectarian polemic. -- .

This book is the first major study of England's biggest and best-known witch trial which took place in 1612, when ten witches were arraigned and hung in the village of Pendle in Lancashire. The book has equal appeal across the disciplines of both History and English Literature/Renaissance Studies, with essays by the leading experts in both fields. Includes helpful summaries to explain the key points of each essay. Brings the subject up-to-date with a study of modern Wicca and paganism, including present-day Lancashire witches. Quite simply, this is the most comprehensive study of any English witch trial. -- .

Proposing a new theoretical framework, this book explores Shamanism's links with violence from a global perspective. Contributors, renowned anthropologists and authorities in the field, draw on their research in Mongolia, China, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, India, Siberia, America, Papua New Guinea, Taiwan to investigate how indigenous shamanic cultures dealt, and are still dealing with, varying degrees of internal and external violence. During ceremonies shamans act like hunters and warriors, dealing with many states related to violence, such as collective and individual suffering, attack, conflict and antagonism. Indigenous religious complexes are often called to respond to direct and indirect competition with more established cultural and religious traditions which undermine the sociocultural structure, the sense of identity and the state of well-being of many indigenous groups. This book explores a more sensitive vision of shamanism, closer to the emic views of many indigenous groups.

The study of the ideas and practices associated with occultism is a rapidly growing branch of contemporary scholarship. However, most research has focused on English and French speaking areas and has not addressed the wider spread and significance of occultism. Occultism in a Global Perspective presents a broad international overview. Essays range across the German magical order of the Fraternitas Saturni, esoteric Satanism in Denmark, sexual magic in Colombia and the reception of occultism in modern Turkey, India and the former Yugoslavia. As any other form of cultural practice, the occult is not isolated from its social, discursive, religious, and political environment. By studying occultism in its global context, the book offers insights into the reciprocal relationships that colour and shape regional occultism.

Three divinatory calendars from highland Guatemala -- examples of a Mayan literary tradition that includes the Popul Vuh, Annals of the Cakchiquels, and the Titles of the Lords of Totonicapan -- dating to 1685, 1722, and 1855, are transcribed in K'iche or Kaqchikel side-by-side with English translations. Calendars such as these continue to be the basis for prognostication, determining everything from the time for planting and harvest to foreshadowing illness and death. Good, bad, and mixed fates can all be found in these examples of the solar calendar and the 260-day divinatory calendar. The use of such calendars is mentioned in historical and ethnographic works, but very few examples are known to exist. Each of the three calendars transcribed and translated by John M Weeks, Frauke Sachse, and Christian M Prager -- and housed at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology -- is unique in structure and content. Moreover, except for an unpublished study of the 1722 calendar by Rudolf Schuller and Oliver La Farge (1934), these little-known works appear to have escaped the attention of most scholars. Introductory essays contextualise each document in time and space, and a series of appendixes present previously unpublished calendrical notes assembled in the early twentieth century. Providing considerable information on the divinatory use of calendars in colonial highland Maya society previously unavailable without a visit to the University of Pennsylvania's archives, Maya Daykeeping is an invaluable primary resource for Maya scholars.

A fresh examination of one of the most contentious issues in runic scholarship - magical or not? The runic alphabet, in use for well over a thousand years, was employed by various Germanic groups in a variety of ways, including, inevitably, for superstitious and magical rites. Formulaic runic words were inscribed onto small items that could be carried for good luck; runic charms were carved on metal or wooden amulets to ensure peace or prosperity. There are invocations and allusions to pagan and Christian gods and heroes, to spirits of disease, and even to potential lovers. Few such texts are completely unique to Germanic society, and in fact, most of the runic amulets considered in this book show wide-ranging parallels from a variety of European cultures. The question ofwhether runes were magical or not has divided scholarship in the area. Early criticism embraced fantastic notions of runic magic - leading not just to a healthy scepticism, but in some cases to a complete denial of any magical element whatsoever in the runic inscriptions. This book seeks to re-evaulate the whole question of runic sorcery, attested to not only in the medieval Norse literature dealing with runes but primarily in the fascinating magical texts of the runic inscriptions themselves. Dr MINDY MCLEOD teaches in the Department of Linguistics, Deakin University, Melbourne; Dr BERNARD MEES teaches in the Department of History at the University of Melbourne.

Magic has been an important term in Western history and continues to be an essential topic in the modern academic study of religion, anthropology, sociology, and cultural history. 'Defining Magic' is the first volume to assemble key texts that aim at determining the nature of magic, establish its boundaries and key features, and explain its working. The reader brings together seminal writings from antiquity to today. The texts have been selected on the strength of their success in defining magic as a category, their impact on future scholarship, and their originality. The writings are divided into chronological sections and each essay is separately introduced for student readers. Together, these texts - from Philosophy, Theology, Religious Studies, and Anthropology - reveal the breadth of critical approaches and responses to defining what is magic. CONTRIBUTORS: Aquinas, Augustine, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Dennis Diderot, Emile Durkheim, Edward Evans-Pritchard, James Frazer, Susan Greenwood, Robin Horton, Edmund Leach, Gerardus van der Leeuw, Christopher Lehrich, Bronislaw Malinowski, Marcel Mauss, Agrippa von Nettesheim, Plato, Pliny, Plotin, Isidore of Sevilla, Jesper Sorensen, Kimberley Stratton, Randall Styers, Edward Tylor

Are we either good or bad, and do we really know the difference? Why do we want what we cannot have, and even to be what we're not? Can we desire others without wanting to possess them? Can we open to others and not risk possession ourselves? And where, in these cases, do we draw the line? Ewan Fernie argues that the demonic tradition in literature offers a key to our most agonised and intimate experiences. The Demonic ranges across the breadth of Western culture, engaging with writers as central and various as Luther, Shakespeare, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Melville and Mann. A powerful foreword by Jonathan Dollimore brings out its implications as an intellectual and stylistic breakthrough into new ways of writing criticism. Fernie unfolds an intense and personal vision, not just of Western modernity, but of identity, morality and sex. As much as it's concerned with the great works, this is a book about life.

It is often said that the devil has all the best tunes. He also has as many names as he has guises. Lucifer, Mephistopheles, Beelzebub (in Christian thought), Ha-Satan or the Adversary (in Jewish scripture) and Iblis or Shaitan (in Islamic tradition) has throughout the ages and across civilizations been a compelling and charismatic presence. For two thousand years the supposed reign of God has been challenged by the fiery malice of his opponent, as contending forces of good and evil have between them weighed human souls in the balance. In this rich and multi-textured biography, Philip C Almond explores the figure of the devil from the first centuries of the Christian era through the rise of classical demonology and witchcraft persecutions to the modern post-Enlightenment 'decline' of Hell. The author shows that the Prince of Darkness, in all his incarnations, remains an irresistible subject in history, religion, art, literature and culture.

Witchcraft has proven an important, if difficult, historical subject to investigate and interpret over the last four decades or so. Modern historical research into witchcraft began as an attempt to tease out the worldview of ordinary people in 16th- and 17th-century England, but it quickly expanded to encompass the history of witchcraft in most cultures and societies that have existed with scholarly studies now extending back to the time of earliest law code that punished sorcery, the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (1792-1750 B.C.E.), and forward to the last witchcraft cases in England, those of Helen Duncan and Jane Yorke, tried in 1944. There has also been a significant amount of interest in the development of the modern religion of witchcraft, or Wicca, as various forms of neo-paganism continue to attract adherents. The second edition of Historical Dictionary of Witchcraft covers the history of the Witchcraft from 1750 B.C.E. though the modern day. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on witch hunts, witchcraft trials, and related practices around the world. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the history of witchcraft.