Witchcraft And Magic In Europe Volume 3

Covers the rise of "white magic" & Christian persecution of sorcery.

Topics include modern pagan witchcraft, Satanism, and the continued existence of traditional witchcraft.

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>

Between the age of St. Augustine and the sixteenth century reformations magic continued to be both a matter of popular practice and of learned inquiry. This volume deals with its use in such contexts as healing and divination and as an aspect of the knowledge of nature's occult virtues and secrets.>

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

Between the age of St. Augustine and the sixteenth century reformations magic continued to be both a matter of popular practice and of learned inquiry. This volume deals with its use in such contexts as healing and divination and as an aspect of the knowledge of nature's occult virtues and secrets.

The fifteenth to eighteenth centuries was a period of witchcraft prosecutions throughout Europe and modern scholars have now devoted a huge amount of research to these episodes. This volume will attempt to bring this work together by summarising the history of the trials in a new way - according to the types of legal systems involved. Other topics covered will be the continued practical use made of magic, the elaboration of demonological theories about witchcraft and magic, and the further development of scientific interests in natural magic through the 'Neoplatonic' and 'Hermetic' period.Amongst the topics included here are Superstition and Belief in high and popular culture, the place of Medicine, Witchcraft survivals in art and literature, and the survival of Persecution.>