|
Books > Religion & Spirituality > Alternative belief systems > Occult studies
Witchcraft violence is a feature of many contemporary African
societies. In Ghana, belief in witchcraft and the malignant
activities of putative witches is prevalent. Purported witches are
blamed for all manner of adversities including inexplicable
illnesses and untimely deaths. As in other historical periods and
other societies, in contemporary Ghana, alleged witches are
typically female, elderly, poor, and marginalized. Childhood
socialization in homes and schools, exposure to mass media, and
other institutional mechanisms ensure that witchcraft beliefs are
transmitted across generations and entrenched over time. This book
provides a detailed account of Ghanaian witchcraft beliefs and
practices and their role in fueling violent attacks on alleged
witches by aggrieved individuals and vigilante groups.
For over a decade the cult of La Santa Muerte has grown rapidly in
Mexico and the United States. Thousands of people--ranging from
drug runners and mothers to cabdrivers, soldiers, police, and
prison inmates--invoke the protection of La Santa Muerte. Devotees
seek her protection through practicing popular vows, attending
public rosaries and masses at street altars, and constructing and
maintaining home altars. This book examines La Santa Muerte's role
in people's daily lives and explores how popular religious
practices of worship and devotion developed around a figure often
associated with illicit activities. She represents life with the
possibility of respite but without ultimate redemption, and she
speaks to the complexities of lives lived at the fringes of
violence, insecurity, impunity, and economic hardship. The essays
collected here move beyond the visually arresting sight of La Santa
Muerte as a tattoo or figurine, suggesting that she represents a
major movement in Mexico.
The Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought is an
authoritative new reference and interpretive volume detailing the
origins, development, and influence of one of the richest aspects
of Russian cultural and intellectual life - its religious ideas.
After setting the historical background and context, the Handbook
follows the leading figures and movements in modern Russian
religious thought through a period of immense historical upheavals,
including seventy years of officially atheist communist rule and
the growth of an exiled diaspora with, e.g., its journal The Way.
Therefore the shape of Russian religious thought cannot be
separated from long-running debates with nihilism and atheism.
Important thinkers such as Losev and Bakhtin had to guard their
words in an environment of religious persecution, whilst some views
were shaped by prison experiences. Before the Soviet period,
Russian national identity was closely linked with religion -
linkages which again are being forged in the new Russia. Relevant
in this connection are complex relationships with Judaism. In
addition to religious thinkers such as Philaret, Chaadaev,
Khomiakov, Kireevsky, Soloviev, Florensky, Bulgakov, Berdyaev,
Shestov, Frank, Karsavin, and Alexander Men, the Handbook also
looks at the role of religion in aesthetics, music, poetry, art,
film, and the novelists Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Ideas,
institutions, and movements discussed include the Church academies,
Slavophilism and Westernism, theosis, the name-glorifying
(imiaslavie) controversy, the God-seekers and God-builders, Russian
religious idealism and liberalism, and the Neopatristic school.
Occultism is considered, as is the role of tradition and the
influence of Russian religious thought in the West.
The title of this book refers to the classic time and place for
magic, witchcraft, and divination in Russia. The Bathhouse at
Midnight, by one of the world's foremost experts on the subject,
surveys all forms of magic, both learned and popular, in Russia
from the fifth to the eighteenth century. While no book on the
subject could be exhaustive, The Bathhouse at Midnight does
describe and assess all the literary sources of magic, witchcraft,
astrology, alchemy, and divination from Kiev Rus and Imperial
Russia, and to some extent Ukraine and Belorussia. Where possible,
Ryan identifies the sources of the texts (usually Greek, Arabic, or
West European) and makes parallels to other cultures, ranging from
classical antiquity to Finnic. He finds that Russia shares most of
its magic and divination with the rest of Europe.
Subjects covered include the Evil Eye, the Number of the Beast,
omens, dreams, talismans and amulets, plants, gemstones, and other
materials thought to possess magic properties. The first chapter
gives a historical overview, and the final chapter summarizes the
political, religious, and legal aspects of the history of magic in
Russia. The author also provides translations of some key
texts.
The Bathhouse at Midnight will be invaluable for
anyone--student, teacher, or general reader--with an interest in
Russia, magic, or the occult. It is unique in its field and is set
to become the definitive study of Russian magic.
This ground-breaking biography of Bishop Francis Hutchinson
(1669-1739) provides a detailed and rare portrait of an early
eighteenth century Irish bishop and witchcraft theorist. Drawing
upon a wealth of printed primary source material, the book aims to
increase our understanding of the eighteenth-century established
clergy, both in England and Ireland. It illustrates how one of the
main sceptical texts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
the Historical essay concerning witchcraft (1718), was constructed
and how it fitted into the wider intellectual and literary context
of the time, examining Hutchinson's views on contemporary debates
concerning modern prophecy and miracles, demonic and Satanic
intervention, the nature of Angels and hell, and astrology. This
book will be of particular interest to academics and students of
history of witchcraft, and the religious, political and social
history of Britain and Ireland in the late seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries. -- .
From its inaugural Black Plaque in honour of Witchfinder General
director Michael Reeves, this unique collection follows a veridical
trajectory to the frontiers of belief. Reeves' film becomes a
conspiratorial cauldron drawing in a host of tragic players in the
end game of the Sixties. The Cornwall of Du Maurier's The Birds is
ploughed to reveal the hidden psychic codes of our Blitz spirit. In
a powerfully relevant occult rendering of a bruised Island, the
myth of Churchill is dissected and re-animalised. New maps of hell
are drawn by colliding the forensic vision of JG Ballard and
Lovecraftian magic. Actors, witches and psychopaths maraud across a
nightmare terrain of murderous henges and abandoned military bases;
conflating creative research into a surreal documentary, history as
hallucination. Geography becomes an alchemical alembic, a vale of
soul-making distilled by the lysergic psychobiology of Stanislav
Grof, the alcoholic lyricism of Malcolm Lowry, and the convulsive
travelogues of the Marquis de Sade. If history is revealed as
paranoid ritual, how do we escape its time traps to wild new
imaginative geographies? The English Heretic collection is a darkly
comical, urgently lyrical, mental escape hatch from the hells of
our own making.
A collection of more than fifty stories about witches from around
the world. There are tales of banshees, crones and beauties in
disguise from China, Siberia, the Caribbean, Armenia, Portugal and
Australia. The characters featured include Italy's Witch Bea-Witch,
Lilith, Kali, and Twitti Glyn Hec. Alluring women, enchantresses,
wise old ladies and bewitching women: they are all here and ready
to haunt, entice, possess, transform, challenge - and sometimes
even to help.
In this major new book, Wolfgang Behringer surveys the phenomenon
of witchcraft past and present. Drawing on the latest historical
and anthropological findings, Behringer sheds new light on the
history of European witchcraft, while demonstrating that
witch-hunts are not simply part of the European past. Although
witch-hunts have long since been outlawed in Europe, other
societies have struggled with the idea that witchcraft does not
exist. As Behringer shows, witch-hunts continue to pose a major
problem in Africa and among tribal people in America, Asia and
Australia. The belief that certain people are able to cause harm by
supernatural powers endures throughout the world today.
Wolfgang Behringer explores the idea of witchcraft as an
anthropological phenomenon with a historical dimension, aiming to
outline and to understand the meaning of large-scale witchcraft
persecutions in early modern Europe and in present-day Africa. He
deals systematically with the belief in witchcraft and the
persecution of witches, as well as with the process of outlawing
witch-hunts. He examines the impact of anti-witch-hunt legislation
in Europe, and discusses the problems caused in societies where
European law was imposed in colonial times. In conclusion, the
relationship between witches old and new is assessed.
This book will make essential reading for all those interested
in the history and anthropology of witchcraft and magic.
September 1613. In Belvoir Castle, the heir of one of England's
great noble families falls suddenly and dangerously ill. His body
is 'tormented' with violent convulsions. Within a few short weeks
he will suffer an excruciating death. Soon the whole family will be
stricken with the same terrifying symptoms. The second son, the
last male of the line, will not survive. It is said witches are to
blame. And so the Earl of Rutland's sons will not be the last to
die. Witches traces the dramatic events which unfolded at one of
England's oldest and most spectacular castles four hundred years
ago. The case is among those which constitute the European witch
craze of the 15th-18th centuries, when suspected witches were
burned, hanged, or tortured by the thousand. Like those other
cases, it is a tale of superstition, the darkest limits of the
human imagination and, ultimately, injustice - a reminder of how
paranoia and hysteria can create an environment in which
nonconformism spells death. But as Tracy Borman reveals here, it is
not quite typical. The most powerful and Machiavellian figure of
the Jacobean court had a vested interest in events at Belvoir.He
would mastermind a conspiracy that has remained hidden for
centuries.
The Malleus Maleficarum is a seminal treatise regarding witchcraft
and demons, presented here complete with an authoritative
translation to modern English by Montague Summers. At the time this
book was published in 1487, the Christian church had considered
witchcraft a dangerous affront to the faith for many centuries.
Executions of suspected witches were intermittent, and various
explanations of behaviors deemed suspect were thought to be caused
by possession, either by the devil or demon such as an incubus or
succubus. Kramer wrote this book after he had tried and failed to
have a woman executed for witchcraft. Unhappy at the verdict of the
court, he authored the Malleus Maleficarum as a manual for other
witch seekers to refer to. For centuries the text was used by
Christians as a reference source on matters of demonology, although
it was not used directly by the Inquisition who became notorious
for their tortures and murders.
Selected by "Choice" magazine as an Outstanding Academic Book
for 2001The highly-acclaimed first edition of this book chronicled
the rise and fall of witchcraft in Europe between the twelfth and
the end of the seventeenth centuries. Now greatly expanded, the
classic anthology of contemporary texts reexamines the phenomenon
of witchcraft, taking into account the remarkable scholarship since
the book's publication almost thirty years ago.Spanning the period
from 400 to 1700, the second edition of "Witchcraft in Europe"
assembles nearly twice as many primary documents as the first, many
newly translated, along with new illustrations that trace the
development of witch-beliefs from late Mediterranean antiquity
through the Enlightenment. Trial records, inquisitors' reports,
eyewitness statements, and witches' confessions, along with
striking contemporary illustrations depicting the career of the
Devil and his works, testify to the hundreds of years of terror
that enslaved an entire continent.Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther,
Thomas Hobbes, and other thinkers are quoted at length in order to
determine the intellectual, perceptual, and legal processes by
which "folklore" was transformed into systematic demonology and
persecution. Together with explanatory notes, introductory
essays--which have been revised to reflect current research--and a
new bibliography, the documents gathered in "Witchcraft in Europe"
vividly illumine the dark side of the European mind.
Most of the women and men who practiced magic in Tudor England were
not hanged or burned as witches, despite being active members of
their communities. These everyday magicians responded to common
human problems such as the vagaries of money, love, property, and
influence, and they were essential to the smooth functioning of
English society. This illuminating book tells their stories through
the legal texts in which they are named and the magic books that
record their practices. In legal terms, their magic fell into the
category of sin or petty crime, the sort that appeared in the lower
courts and most often in church courts. Despite their relatively
lowly status, scripts for the sorts of magic they practiced were
recorded in contemporary manuscripts. Juxtaposing and
contextualizing the legal and magic manuscript records creates an
unusually rich field to explore the social aspects of magic
practice. Expertly constructed for both classroom use and
independent study, this book presents in modern English the legal
documents and magic texts relevant to ordinary forms of magic
practiced in Tudor England. These are accompanied by scholarly
introductions with original perspectives on the subjects. Topics
covered include: the London cunning man Robert Allen; magic to
identify thieves; love magic; magic for hunting, fishing and
gambling, and magic for healing and protection.
Suppose you could ask God the most puzzling questions about existence--questions about love and faith, life and death, good and evil. Supose God provided clear, understandable answers. It happened to Neale Donald Walsch. It can happen to you. You are about to have a conversation. Walsch's fascinating three-year conversation with God about every aspect of life and living began in 1992, Walsch says, when he was struggling financially and his health and relationships were suffering. Out of frustration, he composed an angry, passionate letter to God demanding to know why his life was in such turmoil. To his amazement, when he was finished, he was moved to continue writing as God answered back. The book that grew from that first experience addresses the real life issues we all face at work, at home, and out in the world, as well as the larger questions of the nature of God and his relationship to man. How does Walsch know that God was actually talking to him? "The book contains concepts and information beyond anything I've ever thought of," says Walsch. "But more importantly, I've found out through other readers that there are hundreds of people that have had this same experience. This book has allowed them to speak out." Walsch claims that God speaks to everyone all the time, that we're just not listening. "Have you ever been struck by a song lyric or the cover story of a magazine you suddenly pass on a newsstand that seems to answer a question you've had? Have you ever met someone for the first time and had that person mention something out of the blue that's been on your mind? Have you ever gone to church and thought the minister must have read your mail, because he seems to be talking directly to you? We often write things off to coincidence that we should give God credit for."
What is a grimoire? The word has a familiar ring to many people,
particularly as a consequence of such popular television dramas as
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed. But few people are sure
exactly what it means. Put simply, grimoires are books of spells
that were first recorded in the Ancient Middle East and which have
developed and spread across much of the Western Hemisphere and
beyond over the ensuing millennia. At their most benign, they
contain charms and remedies for natural and supernatural ailments
and advice on contacting spirits to help find treasures and protect
from evil. But at their most sinister they provide instructions on
how to manipulate people for corrupt purposes and, worst of all, to
call up and make a pact with the Devil. Both types have proven
remarkably resilient and adaptable and retain much of their
relevance and fascination to this day. But the grimoire represents
much more than just magic. To understand the history of grimoires
is to understand the spread of Christianity, the development of
early science, the cultural influence of the print revolution, the
growth of literacy, the impact of colonialism, and the expansion of
western cultures across the oceans. As this book richly
demonstrates, the history of grimoires illuminates many of the most
important developments in European history over the last two
thousand years.
|
|