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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Alternative belief systems > Occult studies > Witchcraft
Make your sabbat celebrations more meaningful and enjoyable with
this exceptional book full of unique rituals designed to perfectly
fit your needs, whether you re a solitary practitioner or part of a
group. Jason Mankey provides three all-new rituals for every sabbat
one for solitaries, one for covens, and one for large gatherings.
Each ritual is flexible enough for you to pick and choose the
components that best suit your intentions. Explore the history and
traditions of all eight sabbats and discover why and how rituals
became such an important part of Witchcraft. Learn the ins and outs
of ritual practice, including guidance on planning, decorating,
presenting, and adapting. Witch s Wheel of the Year is incredibly
versatile for any Witch looking to enhance their craft and their
connection to the sacred sabbats.
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. .
'A wonderful book by a fabulous author, very highly recommended.'
Louise DouglasA tale as old as time. A spirit that has never
rested.Present day As a love affair comes to an end, and with it
her dreams for her future, artist Selena needs a retreat. The
picture-postcard Sloe Cottage in the Somerset village of Ashcombe
promises to be the perfect place to forget her problems, and Selena
settles into her new home as spring arrives. But it isn't long
before Selena hears the past whispering to her. Sloe Cottage is
keeping secrets which refuse to stay hidden. 1682 Grace Cotter
longs for nothing more than a husband and family of her own.
Content enough with her work on the farm, looking after her father,
and learning the secrets of her grandmother Bett's healing hands,
nevertheless Grace still hopes for love. But these are dangerous
times for dreamers, and rumours and gossip can be deadly. One
mis-move and Grace's fate looks set... Separated by three hundred
years, two women are drawn together by a home bathed in blood and
magic. Grace Cotter's spirit needs to rest, and only Selena can
help her now. USA Today bestselling author Judy Leigh writing as
Elena Collins, brings you this unforgettable, heart-breaking,
gripping timeslip novel set in a world when women were hung as
witches, and fates could be sealed by a wrong word. Perfect for
fans of Barbara Erskine, Diana Gabaldon and Louise Douglas. Praise
for Elena Collins: 'A profoundly moving, beautifully written and
emotional story that skilfully combines two time frames into one
unputdownable book. I was completely immersed in Grace's story from
the beginning: despite it taking place 400 years ago. The modern
day storyline was also delightful with some wonderful characters.
In short a wonderful book by a fabulous author, very highly
recommended.' Louise Douglas
This volume provides a valuable introduction to the key concepts of
witchcraft and demonology through a detailed study of one of the
best known and most notorious episodes of Scottish history, the
North Berwick witch hunt, in which King James was involved as
alleged victim, interrogator, judge and demonologist. It provides
hitherto unpublished and inaccessible material from the legal
documentation of the trials in a way that makes the material fully
comprehensible, as well as full texts of the pamphlet News from
Scotland and James' Demonology, all in a readable, modernised,
scholarly form. Full introductory sections and supporting notes
provide information about the contexts needed to understand the
texts: court politics, social history and culture, religious
changes, law and the workings of the court, and the history of
witchcraft prosecutions in Scotland before 1590. The book also
brings to bear on this material current scholarship on the history
of European witchcraft.
This sourcebook provides the first systematic overview of
witchcraft laws and trials in Russia and Ukraine from medieval
times to the late nineteenth century. Witchcraft in Russia and
Ukraine, 1000-1900 weaves scholarly commentary with
never-before-published primary source materials translated from
Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian. These sources include the earliest
references to witchcraft and sorcery, secular and religious laws
regarding witchcraft and possession, full trial transcripts, and a
wealth of magical spells. The documents present a rich panorama of
daily life and reveal the extraordinary power of magical words.
Editors Valerie A. Kivelson and Christine D. Worobec present new
analyses of the workings and evolution of legal systems, the
interplay and tensions between church and state, and the prosaic
concerns of the women and men involved in witchcraft proceedings.
The extended documentary commentaries also explore the shifting
boundaries and fraught political relations between Russia and
Ukraine.
From 1563 to 1736 Scotland put thousands of women to death for
witchcraft. Their supposed crimes have much to tell us about
attitudes to women in the past, and in the present day. This book
introduces sixteen women who lost their lives or lived in the long
shadow of the persecutions. 'Witches' who, like MARGARET AITKEN,
confessed, implicated others, even aided the hunters before they
were burned. Nonconforming women like MARY MACLEOD, who saw their
reputations tarnished when they did not bend to society's
expectations. Creatures of the imagination, like Robert Burns's
NANNY, who embody deep-seated associations between womanhood and
the occult. Weaving fiction with the facts where these are known,
We Are All Witches invites the reader to explore the forces at work
in one of the darkest episodes of Scotland's history and consider
their echoes in the present day.
Witchcraft's legacy is full of myth, magick and ancient archetypes.
In the 21st century, these may feel more distant than ever, but in
uncertain times, harnessing the energy of the maiden, the mother,
and the crone are more empowering than ever. A guide to all things
magick, Bewitched snakes through the types of witches, deities,
astrological influences, and how to harness the powers within.
Simmering with spells and beautiful illustration, this book is a
visual guide through the world of witchcraft. Accessible and
lavish, this book is the perfect artefact for any altar (with
guidance on how to build one).
Stories of witchcraft and demonic possession from early modern
England through the last official trials in colonial New England
Those possessed by the devil in early modern England usually
exhibited a common set of symptoms: fits, vomiting, visions,
contortions, speaking in tongues, and an antipathy to prayer.
However, it was a matter of interpretation, and sometimes public
opinion, if these symptoms were visited upon the victim, or if they
came from within. Both early modern England and colonial New
England had cases that blurred the line between witchcraft and
demonic possession, most famously, the Salem witch trials. While
historians acknowledge some similarities in witch trials between
the two regions, such as the fact that an overwhelming majority of
witches were women, the histories of these cases primarily focus on
local contexts and specifics. In so doing, they overlook the ways
in which manhood factored into possession and witchcraft cases.
Vexed with Devils is a cultural history of witchcraft-possession
phenomena that centers on the role of men and patriarchal power.
Erika Gasser reveals that witchcraft trials had as much to do with
who had power in the community, to impose judgement or to subvert
order, as they did with religious belief. She argues that the
gendered dynamics of possession and witchcraft demonstrated that
contested meanings of manhood played a critical role in the
struggle to maintain authority. While all men were not capable of
accessing power in the same ways, many of the people involved-those
who acted as if they were possessed, men accused of being witches,
and men who wrote possession propaganda-invoked manhood as they
struggled to advocate for themselves during these perilous times.
Gasser ultimately concludes that the decline of possession and
witchcraft cases was not merely a product of change over time, but
rather an indication of the ways in which patriarchal power endured
throughout and beyond the colonial period. Vexed with Devils
reexamines an unnerving time and offers a surprising new
perspective on our own, using stories and voices which emerge from
the records in ways that continue to fascinate and unsettle us.
"Witchcraft Dialogues" analyzes the complex manner in which human
beings construct, experience, and think about the "occult." It
brings together anthropologists, philosophers, and sociologists,
from diverse social and cultural backgrounds, to engage the
metaphysical properties of "witchcraft" and "sorcery" and to
explore their manifestations in people's lived experiences.
While many Africanist scholars shun the analysis of "witchcraft" as
an appropriate domain of investigation, the experiences, thoughts,
activities, and powers that "witchcraft" encompasses have become
increasingly the source of interest and debate. Concepts of
witchcraft and the phenomena to which they are applied express
something fundamental to the human condition and have their
equation in the logic of other human practices such as racism and
its various crafts. Thus, the focus on "witchcraft" is not just a
concern with the occult, but a manifestation of the convergence of
interest in mediating and transcending disciplinary domains.
The contributors to this volume embrace the challenge of exploring
"witchcraft" as a mode of experiencing and explaining human
circumstances as well as confronting the limitations of their own
intellectual traditions and paradigms. The range of their
explorations takes us in new directions, making use not only of
their academic training but also of their personal experiences, to
reframe the conceptual terrain of the "occult" and the
epistemological orientations of their various academic fields of
inquiry.
Just as surely as Haiti is "possessed" by the gods and spirits of
vaudun (voodoo), the island "possessed" Katherine Dunham when she
first went there in 1936 to study dance and ritual. In this book,
Dunham reveals how her anthropological research, her work in dance,
and her fascination for the people and cults of Haiti worked their
spell, catapulting her into experiences that she was often lucky to
survive. Here Dunham tells how the island came to be possessed by
the demons of voodoo and other cults imported from various parts of
Africa, as well as by the deep class divisions, particularly
between blacks and mulattos, and the political hatred still very
much in evidence today. Full of the flare and suspense of immersion
in a strange and enchanting culture, Island Possessed is also a
pioneering work in the anthropology of dance and a fascinating
document on Haitian politics and voodoo.
Walkern, 1712. England has been free from witch-hunts for decades
until Jane Wenham is blamed for a tragic death and charged with
witchcraft. A terrifying ordeal begins, as the village is torn
between those who want to save Jane's life and those who claim they
want to save her soul. Inspired by events in a Hertfordshire
village, the play explores sex and society's hunger to find and
create witches. Rebecca Lenkiewicz's Jane Wenham: The Witch of
Walkern premiered at Watford Palace Theatre before going on UK tour
in September 2015, in an Out of Joint, Watford Palace Theatre and
Arcola Theatre co-production, in association with Eastern Angles.
Vast like the subcontinent itself and teeming with outrageous and
exotic characters, "Net of Magic" is an enthralling voyage through
the netherworld of Indian magic. Lee Siegel, scholar and magician,
uncovers the age-old practices of magic in sacred rites and rituals
and unveils the contemporary world of Indian magic of street and
stage entertainers.
Siegel's journeys take him from ancient Sanskrit texts to the slums
of New Delhi to find remnants of a remarkable magical tradition. In
the squalid settlement of Shadipur, he is initiated into a band of
Muslim street conjurers and performs as their shill while they
tutor him in their con and craft. Siegel also becomes acquainted
with Hindu theatrical magicians, who claim descent from court
illusionists and now dress as maharajahs to perform a repertoire of
tricks full of poignant kitsch and glitz.
Masterfully using a panoply of narrative sleights to recreate the
magical world of India, Net of Magic intersperses travelogue,
history, ethnography, and fiction. Siegel's vivid, often comic tale
is crowded with shills and stooges, tourists and pickpockets, snake
charmers and fakirs. Among the cast of characters are Naseeb, a
poor Muslim street magician who guides Siegel into the closed
circle of itinerant performers; the Industrial Magician, paid by a
bank, who convinces his audience to buy traveler's checks by making
twenty-rupee notes disappear; the Government Magician, who does a
trick with condoms to encourage family planning; P. C. Sorcar, Jr.,
the most celebrated Indian stage magician; and the fictive
Professor M. T. Bannerji, the world's greatest magician, who
assumes various guises over a millennium of Indian history and
finally arrives in the conjuring capital of the world--Las Vegas.
Like Indra's net--the web of illusion in which Indian performers
ensnare their audience--"Net of Magic" captures the reader in a
seductive portrayal of a world where deception is celebrated and
lies are transformed into compelling and universal truths.
'Romance, mystery, and a family curse - The Ladies of the Secret
Circus has it all' Popsugar From the author of A Witch in Time
comes a magical story spanning from Jazz Age Paris to modern-day
America of family secrets, sacrifice, and lost love set against the
backdrop of a mysterious circus. Perfect for fans of The Night
Circus and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. The surest way to get
a ticket to Le Cirque Secret is to wish for it . . . Paris, 1925:
To enter the Secret Circus is to enter a world of wonder - a world
where women weave illusions, carousels take you back in time, and
trapeze artists float across the sky. Bound to her family's circus,
it's the only world Cecile Cabot knows until she meets a
charismatic young painter and embarks on a passionate affair that
could cost her everything. Virginia, 2004: Lara Barnes is on top of
the world, but when her fiance disappears on their wedding day
every plan she has for the future comes crashing down. Desperate,
Lara's search for answers unexpectedly lead to her
great-grandmother's journals. Swept into a story of a dark circus
and ill-fated love, secrets about Lara's family history come to
light and reveal a curse that has been claiming payment from the
women in her family for generations. A curse that might be tied to
her fiance's mysterious fate . . . Why readers love The Ladies of
the Secret Circus . . . 'A spellbinding historical fantasy . . .
Fans of Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus will love this
page-turning story of dark magic, star-crossed love, and familial
sacrifice' Publishers Weekly (starred review) 'At times decadent
and macabre, The Ladies of the Secret Circus is a mesmerizing tale
of love, treachery, and depraved magic percolating through four
generations of Cabot women' Luanne G. Smith, author of The Vine
Witch 'Ambitious and teeming with magic, Sayers creates a
fascinating mix of art, The Belle Epoque, and more than a little
murder' Erika Swyler, author of The Book of Speculation 'The Ladies
of the Secret Circus is a dazzling tale, laced with sinister magic,
blood and beauty, love and loss. This is a book that will haunt you
long after the last page is turned' Alyssa Palombo, author of The
Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel 'Spellbinding. The Ladies Of The
Secret Circus is a dazzling, high-wire feat of storytelling'
Catherine Taylor, author of Beyond the Moon 'The Ladies of the
Secret Circus is a book to get lost in' BookPage
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