With research sourced by the world's greatest libraries, Robbins has compiled a rational, balanced history of 300 years of horror concentrated primarily in Western Europe. Spanning from the 15th century through the 18th century, the witch-hunt frenzy marks a period of suppressed rational thought; never before have so many been so wrong. To better understand this phenomenon, Robbins examines how the meaning of "witch" has evolved and exposes the true nature of witchcraft—a topic widely discussed in popular culture, though remarkably misunderstood. First published in 1959, Robbins' encyclopedia remains the most authoritative and comprehensive body of information about witchcraft and demonology ever compiled in a single volume. Lavishly acclaimed in academic and popular reviews, this full-scale compendium of fact, history, and legend covers about every phase of this fascinating subject from its origins in the medieval times to its last eruptions in the 18th century. Accompanying the text are 250 illustrations from rare books, contemporary prints, and old manuscripts, many of which have been published here for the first time.

A collection of Sir Walter Scott’s letters to his son-in-law, publisher J. G. Lockhart, divulging his extensive knowledge on the subject of paranormal events, including substantial notes on demonology and witchcraft. This volume features ten letters from the famous Scottish historian Sir Walter Scott, addressed to his publisher and son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart. First published in 1830, this collection demonstrates Scott’s thorough knowledge on demonology and witchcraft via his informal, conversational tone, making the book an accessible guide for beginners in paranormal study. The contents include: - Origin of the General Opinions Respecting Demonology Among Mankind - The Belief In the Immortality of the Soul Is the Main Inducement to Credit Its Occasional Re-Appearance - The Philosophical Objections to the Apparition of an Abstract Spirit Little Understood by the Vulgar and Ignorant

Witchcraft and magic are topics of enduring interest for many reasons. The main one lies in their extraordinary interdisciplinarity: anthropologists, folklorists, historians, and more have contributed to build a body of work of extreme variety and consistence. Of course, this also means that the subjects themselves are not easy to assess. In a very general way, we can define witchcraft as a supernatural means to cause harm, death, or misfortune, while magic also belongs to the field of supernatural, or at least esoteric knowledge, but can be used to less dangerous effects (e.g., divination and astrology). In Western civilization, however, the witch hunt has set a very peculiar perspective in which diabolical witchcraft, the invention of the Sabbat, the persecution of many thousands of (mostly) female and (sometimes) male presumed witches gave way to a phenomenon that is fundamentally different from traditional witchcraft. This Special Issue of Religions dedicated to Witchcraft, Demonology, and Magic features nine articles that deal with four different regions of Europe (England, Germany, Hungary, and Italy) between Late Medieval and Modern times in different contexts and social milieus. Far from pretending to offer a complete picture, they focus on some topics that are central to the research in those fields and fit well in the current “cumulative concept of Western witchcraft” that rules out all mono-causality theories, investigating a plurality of causes.

The curious world of witches, satanists, and magicians is described in this account of the black arts and those who believed in them from the ancients to the present

Using south-western England as a focus for considering the continued place of witchcraft and demonology in provincial culture in the period between the English and French revolutions, Barry shows how witch-beliefs were intricately woven into the fabric of daily life, even at a time when they arguably ceased to be of interest to the educated.

This book provides a selection of studies on witchcraft and demonology by those involved in an interdisciplinary research group begun in Hungary thirty years ago. They examine urban and rural witchcraft conflicts from early modern times to the present, from a region hitherto rarely taken into consideration in witchcraft research. Special attention is given to healers, midwives, and cunning folk, including archaic sorcerer figures such as the táltos; whose ambivalent role is analysed in social, legal, medical and religious contexts. This volume examines how waves of persecution emerged and declined, and how witchcraft was decriminalised. Fascinating case-studies on vindictive witch-hunters, quarrelling neighbours, rivalling midwives, cunning shepherds, weather magician impostors, and exorcist Franciscan friars provide a colourful picture of Hungarian and Transylvanian folk beliefs and mythologies, as well as insights into historical and contemporary issues.