Witchcraft Discovered

"This complete self-study course in modern Wicca is a treasured classic - an essential and trusted guide that belongs in every witch's library."---Back cover

*Now a major Sky original production* THE NUMBER ONE INTERNATIONAL AND SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER. A Discovery of Witches is the first in the must-have, must-read ALL SOULS trilogy. It begins with absence and desire. It begins with blood and fear. It begins with a discovery of witches. Fall under the spell of Diana and Matthew in the stunning first volume of the No.1 internationally bestselling ALL SOULS trilogy. A world of witches, daemons and vampires. A manuscript which holds the secrets of their past and the key to their future. Diana and Matthew - the forbidden love at the heart of it. When historian Diana Bishop opens an alchemical manuscript in the Bodleian Library, it's an unwelcome intrusion of magic into her carefully ordered life. Though Diana is a witch of impeccable lineage, the violent death of her parents while she was still a child convinced her that human fear is more potent than any witchcraft. Now Diana has unwittingly exposed herself to a world she's kept at bay for years; one of powerful witches, creative, destructive daemons and long-lived vampires. Sensing the significance of Diana's discovery, the creatures gather in Oxford, among them the enigmatic Matthew Clairmont, a vampire genticist. Diana is inexplicably drawn to Matthew and, in a shadowy world of half-truths and old enmities, ties herself to him without fully understanding the ancient line they are crossing. As they begin to unlock the secrets of the manuscript and their feelings for each other deepen, so the fragile balance of peace unravels... Five reasons to read A Discovery of Witches and the All Souls Trilogy 'Rich, thrilling ... A captivating and romantic ripping yarn' E L James 'Intelligent and off-the-wall ... irrestistible to Twilight fans' Sunday Times 'I could lose myself in here and never want to come out ... Utterly enchanting on every level' Manda Scott 'Exciting amounts of spells, kisses and battles, and is recounted with enchanting, page-turning panache' Marie Claire 'A bubbling cauldron of illicit desire ... an assured saga that blends romance with fantasy' Daily Mail

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Discovery of Witches" by Matthew Hopkins. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Scholarly reprint of the writings of the Witchfinder General and his accomplice.

Between 1645-7, John Stearne led the most significant outbreak of witch-hunting in England. As accusations of witchcraft spread across East Anglia, Stearne and Matthew Hopkins were enlisted by villagers to identify and eradicate witches. After the trials finally subsided in 1648, Stearne wrote his only publication, A confirmation and discovery of witchcraft, but it had a limited readership. Consequently, Stearne and his work fell into obscurity until the 1800s, and were greatly overshadowed by Hopkins and his text. This book is the first study which analyses Stearne’s publication and contextualises his ideas within early modern intellectual cultures of religion, demonology, gender, science, and print in order to better understand the witch-finder’s beliefs and motives. The book argues that Stearne was a key player in the trials, that he was not a mainstream ‘puritan’, and that his witch-finding availed from contemporary science. It traces A confirmation’s reception history from 1648 to modern day and argues that the lack of research focusing on Stearne has resulted in misrepresentations of the witch-finder in the historiography of witchcraft. This book redresses the imbalance and seeks to provide an alternative reading of the East Anglian witch-hunt and of England’s premier witch-hunter, John Stearne.

Now is the Time to Do Witchcraft, Not Just Read About It Packed with hands-on exercises, inspiring journal prompts, and confidence-boosting activities, this book helps build your magical foundation and eases any concerns you have about getting started in witchcraft. Whether you live in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere, Josephine Winter provides easy ways to celebrate not only your spiritual practice, but the seasons as well. This comprehensive, accessible book introduces you to: Sabbats • Elements • Witchy Tools • Divination • Plant Magic • Rituals • Spellcasting • Deities and Spirit • Planetary Magic • Meditation • Altar Work • Talismans • Magic Circles • Hearth Magic Witchcraft Discovered encourages you to examine what it means to be a modern practitioner (witchcraft of the head), work with magical energy (witchcraft of the hands), and dance to your own drumbeat as you work (witchcraft of the heart). Josephine teaches you about witchcraft's history, traditions, and terminology, shares some kitchen witch recipes, and offers additional resources at every turn.

They sacrifice their owne children to the divell before baptisme, holding them up in the aire unto him, and then thrust a needle into their braines … They use incestuous adulterie with spirits … They eate the flesh and drinke the bloud of men and children openlie … They kill mens cattell … They bewitch mens corne … They ride and flie in the aire, bring stormes, make tempests … They use venerie with a divell called Incubus and have children by them, which become the best witches … In 1584, when there were few who would even defend witches against these charges, Reginald Scot went one step further. He actually set out to prove that witches did not and could not exist! King James later found Scot's opinion so heretical that he ordered all copies of his book to be burned. But so rich and full of data on the charges against witches, on witch trials and on the actual practice of the black arts was Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft that it remained a much-used source throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is still one of the few primary sources for the study of witchcraft today. At the heart of Scot's book are stories and charges pulled from the writers of the Inquisition about the supposed nature of witches. Scot believed that the utter absurdity of the facts would be enough to stop belief in witchcraft forever. But he also goes on to give opinions of medical authorities, interviews with those convicted of witchcraft, and details about the two-faced practices of those in charge of the inquisitions to show even further why the charges of witchcraft were simply not true. In later chapters Scot details the other side of the question through a study of the black arts that are not purely imaginary. He discusses poisoners, jugglers, conjurers, charmers, soothsayers, figure-casters, dreamers, alchemists, and astrologers and, in turn, sets down the actual practices of each group and shows how the acts depend not upon the devil but upon either trickery or skill. In the process, many of the magician's secrets and much other folk and professional lore of the time is made available to the reader of today. Shortly after the Spanish Inquisition, directly in the wake of Sprenger and Kramer's Malleus Maleficarum, during the great upsurge of witch trials in Britain, Scot was a direct witness to the witchmonger in one of witch-hunting's bloodiest eras. Whatever your interest in witchcraft — either historical, psychological, or sympathetic — Scot, in his disproof, tells you much more about the subject than the many, many contemporary writers on the other side of the question.