Servants Of Satan

How the persecution of witches reflected the darker side of the central social, political, and cultural developments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 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, C. Julian Bishko Professor Emeritus of History and Religious Studies, University of Virginia “A well written, easy to read book, and the bibliography is a good source of secondary materials for further reading.” —Journal of American Folklore

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

Traces the history of witchcraft from ancient to present times concentrating on various rituals, practices, and the trials of accused witches.

This book offers a systematic study of the trials for superstition in the Spanish Inquisition's two tribunals in Valencia and Barcelona in the period 1478-1700. The contrasts between the two highlight significant differences in culture and mythology.

Since the end of the Cold War, liberal capitalism has spread worldwide without any significant ideological rivalry, characterized by the frenetic search for an ever-increasing return on capital and constantly-increasing profits, a generalized un-concern for the moral values of liberalism, and for social inequalities and human misery.The book, Servants of the Devil: The Facilitators of the Criminal and Terrorist Networks, shows that this evolution has been possible, thanks to legitimate actors equipped with the legal, financial, technical, and influential means to facilitate the legitimization of criminals and the justification of such a criminal economy — the 'Servants of the Devil' acting as the 'legitimate' facilitators of the criminal and terrorist economies.The book aims to alert security authorities, government officials, business, professional and financial leaders, and the media that criminal and terrorist networks have thoroughly penetrated the political, economic, and social structures of the contemporary world, and they could not operate without the extensive and willing cooperation of these facilitators.Recommendations are made in this book to alter the targets of law-enforcement forces and the justice system, by putting more emphasis on the facilitators by naming, shaming, and prosecuting them to seriously disable the criminals and terrorists. The legal structure needs to be altered, detailing procedures to be used by critical institutions, as well as the intelligence and analytic techniques to be developed to stay ahead of the criminals' own constantly altered techniques.The book provides a detailed account of the problem and how it is corrupting the Western society, enhancing the need for a new economic paradigm that displays a real and actual economic understanding of the world and of any individual country's economic activity, and shifting the ways of economic analysis to bring out the actual strength and role of criminal and terrorist activities in local, regional, and international governance from the shadows.

Attitudes towards the devil among Christians vary between two extremes. Some ignore the devil totally, and try to act as if he is not real. Others are afraid of him and give him far more attention than he deserves. Between those two extremes there is a scriptural balance.Devil is a created being, a rebellious angel, who was cast out of God's heaven. He rules over a spiritual kingdom of evil, rebellious angels, together with lesser evil spirits, who are called "demons".The name Devil means "adversary" or "opposer". He is the unchanging, implacable enemy of God Himself and of the people and the purposes of God. His aim is to bring the whole human race under his control. His primary tactic is deception, of which he is a master. In Revelation 12:9 he is described as: the great dragon .. . that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world.The devil already exercises dominion over the great majority of mankind - all those who are in an attitude of rebellion against God. In Ephesians 2:2 he is described as "the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience". Most of these have no clear picture of their real condition. They are simply driven to and fro by forces which they do not understand and cannot control.There are those among them, however, who have deliberately opened themselves up to the devil, even though they may not be aware of his true identity. In pursuit of power and material gain, they systematically cultivate the exercise of the supernatural forces Satan has released to them. Such servants of the devil are recognised in almost all cultures and have been given a variety of different titles: witch doctor, medicine man, mchawi, shaman, tohanga, wizard, witch, priest or priestess of Satan, and so on. In almost all tribal cultures throughout the world there is a special name for this kind of person.

"[Evenson's] scary fictional treatment of church hypocrisy has the feeling of a reasoned attack on blind religious obedience."—Publishers Weekly Provost Eldon Fochs may be a sexual criminal. His therapist isn't sure, and his church is determined to protect its reputation. Father of Lies is Brian Evenson's fable of power, paranoia, and the dangers of blind obedience, and a terrifying vision of how far institutions will go to protect themselves against the innocents who may be their victims.

This book sets out a method for identifying the opponents in view in Paul's letters, and then applies it to the relevant writings of the Pauline corpus. The method limits the use of parallels or prior constructions as a basis for identification, dealing with each letter on an individual basis and taking full acount of the historical and social context. Sumney concludes that the Pauline letters address different kinds of opposition in different places, including two distinct anti-Paul movements. Here is a fundamental study for research into a basic problem of the Pauline correspondence.