An Historical Physiological And Theological Treatise Of Spirits Apparitions Witchcrafts And Other Magical Practices With A Refutation Of Dr Bekker S World Bewitch D Etc

The end of the eighteenth century saw the end of the witch trials everywhere. This volume charts the processes and reasons for the decriminalisation of witchcraft but also challenges the widespread assumption that Europe has been 'disenchanted'. For the first time surveys are given of the social role of witchcraft in European communities down to the end of the nineteenth century and of the continued importance of witchcraft and magic as topics of debate among intellectuals and other writers

Topics include the decline of the witchcraft trials and the role of witchcraft and magic in enlightenment, romantic, and liberal thought.

This book is a resource to enable scholars and students in Yeats studies to explore the materials in his library, which, together with his unpublished papers and manuscripts, forms part of the writer’s archive in the National Library. Generally, this first volume describes the evidence that he and his wife, George, left in books by other authors, including extensive indications of close reading and thinking on a surprising range of subjects. This book could not have been written without the generous participation of the Yeats family over many years. Their legacy, now entrusted to the National Library, is robust and endless in potential. This book is about individual cases but also the building of an oeuvre. In short, this book enriches our understanding of Yeats’s accomplishment as a writer in over fifty years of creative effort and nearly seventy-four years of abundant life.