Witchcraft In Illinois A Cultural History

For the first time in print, Michael Kleen presents the full story of the Prairie State's dalliance with the dark arts. Although Illinois saw no dramatic witch trials, witchcraft has been a part of Illinois history and culture from French exploration to the present day. On the Illinois frontier, pioneers pressed silver dimes into musket balls to ward off witches, while farmers dutifully erected fence posts according to phases of the moon. In 1904, the quiet town of Quincy was shocked to learn of Bessie Bement's suicide, after the young woman sought help from a witch doctor to break a hex. In turn-of-the-century Chicago, Lauron William de Laurence's occult publishing house churned out manuals for performing bizarre rituals intended to attract love and exact revenge.

Most studies of witchcraft and magic have been concerned with the era of the witch trials, a period that officially came to an end in Britain with the passing of the Witchcraft Act of 1736. But the majority of people continued to fear witches and put their faith in magic. Owen Davies here traces the history of witchcraft and magic from 1736 to 1951, when the passing of the Fraudulent Mediums Act finally erased the concept of witchcraft from the statute books. This original study examines the extent to which witchcraft, magic and fortune-telling continued to influence the thoughts and actions of the people of England and Wales in a period when the forces of "progress" are often thought to have vanquished such beliefs.

Legends live just outside your door! The sixth and final edition of Tales of Coles County, Illinois combines the original Tales of Coles County, the Legends and Lore of Coles County, and a new third section on the Hidden History of Coles County with updated pictures, additional legends, and new stories. First published in 2004, Tales of Coles County, Illinois takes an entertaining look at local history through vivid historical fiction. When four students from Eastern Illinois University are stranded during a violent storm, they seek shelter with an elderly couple who give them more than they bargain for. After one night, the four will never look at Coles County the same way. With each story, they learn more about the place they've come to call home. The Second Battle of the Ambraw, the Charleston Riot of 1864, the Coles County Poor Farm, events surrounding the Airtight Bridge Murder, and the Blair Hall Fire of 2004, all are told. In the Legends and Lore of Coles County, Michael Kleen reveals over a dozen hidden stories from the from the area’s past and present, including ghost stories, folk tales, and other legends and lore. When did a poltergeist terrorize one rural family in Pleasant Grove Township? What is the real story behind the “Mad Gasser of Mattoon”? Why do they call one stretch of road "Dead Man's Curve"? The answers to these questions and more can be found in this definitive volume. In part three, Hidden History, Michael Kleen examines events some believe are better left unremembered. What is the history of Coles County’s ghost towns? What were some of its most infamous murders? What happened in the Tornado of 1917? Never-before published information about Mattoon's battle with Prohibition and even a local chapter of the KKK is inside.

Witchcraft has profoundly shaped the western imagination, and endures in the forms of modern-day Wicca and paganism. 'Embracing the Darkness' is an enthralling account of this fascinating aspect of the western cultural experience. A belief in the supernatural, and in black magic, has been central to western cultural life for 3000 years. From the Salem witch trials and the macabre novels of Dennis Wheatley, to the seductive sorceresses of Warner Brother's Charmed, and Derek Jarman's punk film 'Jubilee', witchcraft has profoundly shaped the western imagination. In this fascinating study, John Callow brings the twilight world of the witch, mage and necromancer vividly to life.

This “magisterial account” explores the fear of witchcraft across the globe from the ancient world to the notorious witch trials of early modern Europe (The Guardian, UK). The witch came to prominence—and often a painful death—in early modern Europe, yet her origins are much more geographically diverse and historically deep. In The Witch, historian Ronald Hutton sets the European witch trials in the widest and deepest possible perspective and traces the major historiographical developments of witchcraft. Hutton, a renowned expert on ancient, medieval, and modern paganism and witchcraft beliefs, combines Anglo-American and continental scholarly approaches to examine attitudes on witchcraft and the treatment of suspected witches across the world, including in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Australia, and the Americas, and from ancient pagan times to current interpretations. His fresh anthropological and ethnographical approach focuses on cultural inheritance and change while considering shamanism, folk religion, the range of witch trials, and how the fear of witchcraft might be eradicated. “[A] panoptic, penetrating book.”—Malcolm Gaskill, London Review of Books

A fascinating examination of how Americans think about and write about witches, from the 'real' witches tried and sometimes executed in early New England to modern re-imaginings of witches as pagan priestesses, comic-strip heroines and feminist icons. The first half of the book is a thorough re-reading of the original documents describing witchcraft prosecutions from 1640-1700 and a re-thinking of these sources as far less coherent and trustworthy than most historians have considered them to be. The second half of the book examines how these historical narratives have transformed into myths of witchcraft still current in American society, writing and visual culture. The discussion includes references to everything from Increase Mather and Edgar Allan Poe to Joss Whedon (the writer/director of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which includes a Wiccan character) and The Blair Witch Project.

A fascinating, vivid global history of witch trials across Europe, Africa, and the Americas, told through thirteen distinct trials that illuminate the pattern of demonization and conspiratorial thinking that has profoundly shaped human history. Witchcraft is a dramatic journey through thirteen witch trials across history, some famous—like the Salem witch trials—and some lesser-known: on Vardø island, Norway, in the 1620s, where an indigenous Sami woman was accused of murder; in France in 1731, during the country’s last witch trial, where a young woman was pitted against her confessor and cult leader; in Pennsylvania in 1929 where a magical healer was labelled a “witch”; in Lesotho in 1948, where British colonial authorities executed local leaders. Exploring how witchcraft became feared, decriminalized, reimagined, and eventually reframed as gendered persecution, Witchcraft takes on the intersections between gender and power, indigenous spirituality and colonial rule, and political conspiracy and individual resistance. Offering a vivid, compelling, and dramatic story, unspooling through centuries, about the men and women who were accused—some of whom survived their trials, and some who did not—Witchcraft empowers the people who were and are victimized and marginalized, giving a voice to those who were silenced by history.

The Dark Wind provides a survey of witches around the world, their prehistoric origin and how society has viewed them throughout history. Folklorist Gary R. Varner explores the use of magic, spells and curses among indigenous groups as well as state approved religions such as those observed in ancient Rome and Greece, and how even contemporary Christianity uses many of the same "magic" combinations. Also examined is the current "witch craze" in several countries where thousands are being killed as witches, the underlying reasons for this tragedy and the history of anti-witchcraft laws. The Dark Wind is a book for everyone interested in anthropology, archaeology, ancient history, religion and the occult. Illustrated with contemporary woodcuts and drawings. The author is a member of the American Folklore Society and the Foundation for Mythological Studies.