Witches and Demons PDF Download

Author: Jean La Fontaine
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1785330861
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
Devil worship, black magic, and witchcraft have long captivated anthropologists as well as the general public. In this volume, Jean La Fontaine explores the intersection of expert and lay understandings of evil and the cultural forms that evil assumes. The chapters touch on public scares about devil-worship, misconceptions about human sacrifice and the use of body parts in healing practices, and mistaken accusations of children practicing witchcraft. Together, these cases demonstrate that comparison is a powerful method of cultural understanding, but warns of the dangers and mistaken conclusions that untrained ideas about other ways of life can lead to.

Author: Ernst and Johanna Lehner
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 048613251X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
244 representations, symbols, and manuscript pages of devils and death from Ancient Egypt to 1913. Fascinating graphics depict demons, witches, and warlocks, more. Works by Dürer, Cranach, Holbein, Rembrandt, others.

Author: Walter Stephens
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226772622
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Book Description
On September 20, 1587, Walpurga Hausmännin of Dillingen in southern Germany was burned at the stake as a witch. Although she had confessed to committing a long list of maleficia (deeds of harmful magic), including killing forty—one infants and two mothers in labor, her evil career allegedly began with just one heinous act—sex with a demon. Fornication with demons was a major theme of her trial record, which detailed an almost continuous orgy of sexual excess with her diabolical paramour Federlin "in many divers places, . . . even in the street by night." As Walter Stephens demonstrates in Demon Lovers, it was not Hausmännin or other so-called witches who were obsessive about sex with demons—instead, a number of devout Christians, including trained theologians, displayed an uncanny preoccupation with the topic during the centuries of the "witch craze." Why? To find out, Stephens conducts a detailed investigation of the first and most influential treatises on witchcraft (written between 1430 and 1530), including the infamous Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches). Far from being credulous fools or mindless misogynists, early writers on witchcraft emerge in Stephens's account as rational but reluctant skeptics, trying desperately to resolve contradictions in Christian thought on God, spirits, and sacraments that had bedeviled theologians for centuries. Proof of the physical existence of demons—for instance, through evidence of their intercourse with mortal witches—would provide strong evidence for the reality of the supernatural, the truth of the Bible, and the existence of God. Early modern witchcraft theory reflected a crisis of belief—a crisis that continues to be expressed today in popular debates over angels, Satanic ritual child abuse, and alien abduction.

Author: Stuart Clark
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780198208082
Category : Demonology
Languages : en
Pages : 850

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Book Description
This major work offers a new interpretation of the witchcraft beliefs of European intellectuals between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, showing how these beliefs fitted rationally with other beliefs of the period and how far the nature of rationality is dependent on its historical context.

Author: Jan Machielsen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135133364X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Witches, ghosts, fairies. Premodern Europe was filled with strange creatures, with the devil lurking behind them all. But were his powers real? Did his powers have limits? Or were tales of the demonic all one grand illusion? Physicians, lawyers, and theologians at different times and places answered these questions differently and disagreed bitterly. The demonic took many forms in medieval and early modern Europe. By examining individual authors from across the continent, this book reveals the many purposes to which the devil could be put, both during the late medieval fight against heresy and during the age of Reformations. It explores what it was like to live with demons, and how careers and identities were constructed out of battles against them – or against those who granted them too much power. Together, contributors chart the history of the devil from his emergence during the 1300s as a threatening figure – who made pacts with human allies and appeared bodily – through to the comprehensive but controversial demonologies of the turn of the seventeenth century, when European witch-hunting entered its deadliest phase. This book is essential reading for all students and researchers of the history of the supernatural in medieval and early modern Europe.

Author: Julian Goodare
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000080803
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 395

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Book Description
Demonology – the intellectual study of demons and their powers – contributed to the prosecution of thousands of witches. But how exactly did intellectual ideas relate to prosecutions? Recent scholarship has shown that some of the demonologists’ concerns remained at an abstract intellectual level, while some of the judges’ concerns reflected popular culture. This book brings demonology and witch-hunting back together, while placing both topics in their specific regional cultures. The book’s chapters, each written by a leading scholar, cover most regions of Europe, from Scandinavia and Britain through to Germany, France and Switzerland, and Italy and Spain. By focusing on various intellectual levels of demonology, from sophisticated demonological thought to the development of specific demonological ideas and ideas within the witch trial environment, the book offers a thorough examination of the relationship between demonology and witch-hunting. Demonology and Witch-Hunting in Early Modern Europe is essential reading for all students and researchers of the history of demonology, witch-hunting and early modern Europe.

Author: J S Malcom
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
One chance. That's all I'll have. Along with a choice I can't possibly make. In just a few weeks, I've gone from living in a psychiatric hospital, to learning I have magic, to joining a secret society of witches. I've also had to come to terms with both what I am and where I came from. Half demon, half witch, born in the demon real-a magical mutation created for sacrificial purposes. It's so nice knowing that the woman who raised me only did so because she was planning to spill my blood on her sacrificial altar. So, yeah. No wonder I went crazy. Since joining the ranks of the Shadow Order, I've made friends and enemies. I also fell in love with a kind and sexy guy named Kai. Now, that love has been stolen from me by the same monsters that want to steal my magic. With the clock ticking down on what's left of Kai's life, I need to come up with a solution fast. So far, I've got nothing. Meanwhile, werewolves and vampires are turning up dead, seemingly at the hands of witches. Not surprisingly, those other tribes are calling out for blood. Like that's not enough, witches are being exposed and threatened by a new group calling themselves the Hunters. And what do they want, exactly? Just the eradication of our kind entirely. Then there's the deal I make with a Fae goddess, which at first looks like it might provide me with what I need to defeat my enemies. Instead, it leaves me facing an impossible choice. I'll have to either leave Kai to his fate or doom everyone else. Crossroads Witch is a fast-paced, unpredictable new urban fantasy series that readers are calling "amazing," "with strong female leads," and "full of excitement!" If you like snarky kickass heroines, fast-paced action, magic, witchcraft and romance, then grab it today!

Author: Eve Langlais
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781499198805
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
Burning alive is nothing compared to the heat of his touch. Roasted at the stake as a witch while her lover watches, Ysabel sells her soul to the devil in return for revenge. A fair trade until her ex-boyfriend escapes the bowels of Hell and she's forced to team up with a demon to fetch the jerk back. Remy's seen a lot of things during his tenure in Lucifer's guard, but nothing can prepare him for the witch with the acerbic tongue - and voluptuous figure. Her mouth says 'Screw you,' but her body screams 'Take me.' What's a poor demon to do when his heart makes things even more complicated by goading him to make her his...

Author: Don Handelman
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781845450519
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Historically, canonic studies of ritual have discussed and explained ritual organization, action, and transformation primarily as representations of broader cultural and social orders. In the present, as in the past, less attention is given to the power of ritual to organize and effect transformation through its own dynamics. Breaking with convention, the contributors to this volume were asked to discuss ritual first and foremost in relation to itself, in its own right, and only then in relation to its socio-cultural context. The results attest to the variable capacities of rites to effect transformation through themselves, and to the study of phenomena in their own right as a fertile approach to comprehending ritual dynamics.

Author: Rossell Hope Robbins
Publisher: Echo Point Books & Media, LLC
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 1113

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Book Description
With research sourced by the world's greatest libraries, Robbins has compiled a rational, balanced history of 300 years of horror concentrated primarily in Western Europe. Spanning from the 15th century through the 18th century, the witch-hunt frenzy marks a period of suppressed rational thought; never before have so many been so wrong. To better understand this phenomenon, Robbins examines how the meaning of "witch" has evolved and exposes the true nature of witchcraft—a topic widely discussed in popular culture, though remarkably misunderstood. First published in 1959, Robbins' encyclopedia remains the most authoritative and comprehensive body of information about witchcraft and demonology ever compiled in a single volume. Lavishly acclaimed in academic and popular reviews, this full-scale compendium of fact, history, and legend covers about every phase of this fascinating subject from its origins in the medieval times to its last eruptions in the 18th century. Accompanying the text are 250 illustrations from rare books, contemporary prints, and old manuscripts, many of which have been published here for the first time.