Voices from the Pagan Census provides insight into the expanding but largely unstudied religious movement of Neo-Paganism in the United States. The authors present the findings of ""The Pagan Census"", which was created and distributed by Berger and Andras Corban Arthen of the Earthspirit Community. Analysing the most comprehensive and largest-scale survey of the Neo-Pagans to date, the authors offer a portrait of this emerging religious community, including an examination of Neo-Pagan political activism, educational achievements, family life, worship methods, experiences with the paranormal and beliefs about such issues as life after death. A collection of religious groups whose practices evolved from Great Britain's Wicca movement of the 1940s, Neo-Paganism spread to the US in the 1960s. While the number of people who identify themselves with the religion has continued to rise, quantitative study of Neo-Paganism has been difficult given the movement's lack of centralized leadership and doctrine and its development into scattered, independent groups and individuals. Endorsed by all major Neo-Pagan leaders, the results of this census provide in-depth information about the group.

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 It provides hitherto unpublished and inaccessible material from the legal documentation of the trials in a way that makes the material fully comprehensible, as well as full texts of the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.

A landmark contribution to women's history that sheds new light on the Salem witch trials and one of its most crucial participants, Tituba of The Crucible In this important book, Elaine Breslaw claims to have rediscovered Tituba, the elusive, mysterious, and often mythologized Indian woman accused of witchcraft in Salem in 1692 and immortalized in Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Reconstructing the life of the slave woman at the center of the notorious Salem witch trials, the book follows Tituba from her likely origins in South America to Barbados, forcefully dispelling the commonly-held belief that Tituba was African. The uniquely multicultural nature of life on a seventeenth-century Barbadan sugar plantation—defined by a mixture of English, American Indian, and African ways and folklore—indelibly shaped the young Tituba's world and the mental images she brought with her to Massachusetts. Breslaw divides Tituba’s story into two parts. The first focuses on Tituba's roots in Barbados, the second on her life in the New World. The author emphasizes the inextricably linked worlds of the Caribbean and the North American colonies, illustrating how the Puritan worldview was influenced by its perception of possessed Indians. Breslaw argues that Tituba’s confession to practicing witchcraft clearly reveals her savvy and determined efforts to protect herself by actively manipulating Puritan fears. This confession, perceived as evidence of a diabolical conspiracy, was the central agent in the cataclysmic series of events that saw 19 people executed and over 150 imprisoned, including a young girl of 5. A landmark contribution to women's history and early American history, Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem sheds new light on one of the most painful episodes in American history, through the eyes of its most crucial participant.

For all their pride in seeing this world clearly, the thinkers and artists of the English Renaissance were also fascinated by magic and the occult. The three greatest playwrights of the period devoted major plays (The Tempest, Doctor Faustus, The Alchemist) to magic, Francis Bacon often referred to it, and it was ever-present in the visual arts. In "Renaissance Magic and the Return of the Golden Age" John S. Mebane reevaluates the significance of occult philosophy in Renaissance thought and literature, constructing the most detailed historical context for his subject yet attempted.

This is the first book to consider the general course and significance of the European witch craze of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries since H.R. Trevor-Roper's classic and pioneering study appeared some fifteen years ago. Drawing upon the advances in historical and social-science scholarship of the past decade and a half, Joseph Klaits integrates the recent appreciations of witchcraft in regional studies, the history of popular culture, anthropology, sociology, and psychology to better illuminate the place of witch hunting in the context of social, political, economic and religious change.

"In all, Klaits has done a good job. Avoiding the scandalous and sensational, he has maintained throughout, with sensitivity and economy, an awareness of the uniqueness of the theories and persecutions that have fascinated scholars now for two decades and are unlikely to lose their appeal in the foreseeable future." American Historical Review

"This is a commendable synthesis whose time has come.... fascinating... " The Sixteenth Century Journal

..". comprehensive and clearly written... An excellent book... " Choice

"Impeccable research and interpretation stand behind this scholarly but not stultifying account... " Booklist

"A good, solid, general treatment... " Erik Midelfort

"Servants of Satan is a well written, easy to read book, and the bibliography is a good source of secondary materials for further reading." Journal of American Folklore"

Dictionary of Witchcraft is a must-have resource for anyone interested in witchcraft, pagan religions, and the occult. This historical dictionary was the first reference work to seriously document superstitions, manifestations, magic, and superstitions. The author s interest was to compile a vast amount of matter that would interest, entertain and instruct others. This dictionary was consulted by some of the greatest Romantic writers, notably by Hugo. Collin de Plancy followed the tradition of many previous demonologists of cataloguing demons by name and title of nobility, as it happened with grimoires like Pseudomonarchia Daemonum and The Lesser Key of Solomon among others. It is considered a major work documenting beings, characters, books, deeds, and causes which pertain to the manifestations and magic of trafficking with Hell; divinations, occult sciences, grimoires, marvels, errors, prejudices, traditions, folktales, the various superstitions, and generally all manner of marvelous, surprising, mysterious, and supernatural beliefs. This edition was translated and introduced by occultist Wade Baskin. Collin de Plancy (1794 1881) was a French occultist, demonologist, author, and translator. His best-known work, Dictionary of Witchcraft (Dictionnaire Infernal), was published in 1818 but didn t receive wide acclaim until 1863 when a set of 69 illustrations by Louis Breton were added. Later in life, de Plancy converted to Catholicism and focused his studies on Catholic histories and mysticisms.

Magic and witchcraft have been important components of almost every human culture throughout history, and continue to be so in the present day, both globally and in the West. These topics have attracted an enormous amount of scholarship, but publications are often scattered, and scholars working in one area rarely address research produced in others. These volumes bring together important representative publications spanning antiquity to the present day, and setting Western developments in a global context. Significant attention has been given to the major witch hunts of early modern Europe, because scholarship on early modern witchcraft has often driven the field. But other periods and regions are not neglected. Important theoretical issues are also addressed, such as the conceptual relationship between magic, science, and religion, and the role of gender in the perception (and persecution) of magical practices in many parts of the world.

This work about witchcraft, sorcery, black magic, neuromancy, damnation, satanism and every kind of magic and occult is written by the undisputed scholar in the field and is a work of unprecedented authority, of interest to all who are connected with the subject.