Since William Penn presided over the state's only official witch trial in 1684, witchcraft and folk magic have been a part of the history of the Keystone State. English and German settlers brought their beliefs in magic with them from the Old World--sometimes with dangerous consequences. In 1802, an Allegheny County judge helped an accused witch escape an angry mob. Susan Mummey was not so fortunate. In 1934, she was shot and killed in her home by a young Schuylkill County man who was convinced that she had cursed him. In other regions of the state, views on folk magic were more complex. While hex doctors were feared in the Pennsylvania German tradition, powwowers were and are revered for their abilities to heal, lift curses and find lost objects. Folklorist Thomas White traces the history and lore of witchcraft and the occult that quietly live on in Pennsylvania even today.

Herbert Silberer's examinations of alchemy and the occult, and his attempts to correlate the two crafts to the pursuit of psychoanalysis, is published here complete with the original illustrations. First published in 1917, this text represents the extensive investigations Herbert Silberer undertook in order to map occurrences in the occult with the ascendant psychoanalytic disciplines present in the Vienna School of which he was part. This text is marked by its depth of research, with sources such as Hermes Trismegistus, Flamel, Lacinius, Michael Meier, Paracelsus, and Boehme quoted and drawn upon in service of Silberer's thesis. The support of alchemy as a spiritual movement, on the same level as the yoga traditions of the Indian subcontinent, is also notable. Together with the three original illustrations, this edition also contains the extensive bibliography and notes of Silberer.

Rudolf Steiner's superb thesis provides deep insight into spiritual science, and the history of mankind as viewed through the philosophy of the anthroposophy movement he founded. An Outline of Esoteric Science attempts to reconcile mankind's spiritual being with the scientific exactitude which had emerged among scholars in the 19th century. Steiner lays out the spiritual realms which are invisible to us, attempting to use a defined precision similar to that which had emerged in science. In the final section, this book refers to the spiritual development and contemplation necessary for individuals to see the spiritual realms and planes which comprise existence and the universe. The means by which individuals may train themselves introspectively to see are detailed by Steiner, whose theosophical philosophy was, by the time of this book's publication in 1909, well-developed.