White Magic, Black Magic in the European Renaissance

White Magic, Black Magic in the European Renaissance PDF Author: Paola Zambelli
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004160981
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
The ideas of philosophers (Ficino, Pico, Della Porta, Bruno) on magic interfered with popular alternative and witchcraft rites. This book focuses on "wandering scholastics" (Trithemius, Agrippa, Paracelsus, Bruno) and will be a stimulating read for all those interested in Renaissance mentality.

White Magic, Black Magic in the European Renaissance

White Magic, Black Magic in the European Renaissance PDF Author: Paola Zambelli
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004160981
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293

Get Book

Book Description
The ideas of philosophers (Ficino, Pico, Della Porta, Bruno) on magic interfered with popular alternative and witchcraft rites. This book focuses on "wandering scholastics" (Trithemius, Agrippa, Paracelsus, Bruno) and will be a stimulating read for all those interested in Renaissance mentality.

Witchcraft and Magic in 16th and 17th-Century Europe

Witchcraft and Magic in 16th and 17th-Century Europe PDF Author: Geoffrey Scarre
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9780333399330
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
In his study of witchcraft and magic in 16th and 17th century Europe, Geoffrey Scarre provides an examination of the theoretical and intellectual rationales which made prosecution for the crime acceptable to the continent's judiciaries.

Black Magic

Black Magic PDF Author: Yvonne P. Chireau
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520249887
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
"Chireau has written a marvelous text on an important dimension of African American religious culture. Expanding beyond the usual focus of scholarship on Christianity, she describes and analyzes the world of magical-medical-religious practice, challenging hallowed distinctions among "religion" and "magic." Anyone interested in African American religion will need to reckon seriously with Chireau's text on conjure."—Albert J. Raboteau, Princeton University "Deprived of their own traditions and defined as chattel, enslaved Africans formed a new orientation in America. Conjuring—operating alongside of and within both the remnants of African culture and the acquired traditions of North America—served as a theoretical and practical mode of deciphering and divining within this, enabling them to create an alternate meaning of life in the New World. Chireau's is the first full-scale treatment of this important dimension of African American culture and religion. A wonderful book!"—Charles H. Long, Professor of History of Religions University of California, Santa Barbara and author of Significations: Signs, Symbols and Images in the Interpretation of Religion

The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West

The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West PDF Author: David J. Collins, S. J.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316239497
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1240

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Book Description
This book presents twenty chapters by experts in their fields, providing a thorough and interdisciplinary overview of the theory and practice of magic in the West. Its chronological scope extends from the Ancient Near East to twenty-first-century North America; its objects of analysis range from Persian curse tablets to US neo-paganism. For comparative purposes, the volume includes chapters on developments in the Jewish and Muslim worlds, evaluated not simply for what they contributed at various points to European notions of magic, but also as models of alternative development in ancient Mediterranean legacy. Similarly, the volume highlights the transformative and challenging encounters of Europeans with non-Europeans, regarding the practice of magic in both early modern colonization and more recent decolonization.

A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult

A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult PDF Author: DK
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 074403342X
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 898

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Book Description
Discover the beguiling history of witchcraft, magic, and superstition through the centuries in this stunningly illustrated title. A History of Magic, Witchcraft and the Occult charts the extraordinary narrative of one of the most interesting and often controversial subjects in the world, covering everything from ancient animal worship and shamanism, through alchemy and divination to modern Wicca and the resurgence of the occult in 21st-century literature, cinema, and television. Providing readers with a comprehensive account of everything from Japanese folklore and Indian witchcraft to the differences between black and white magic, and dispelling myths such as those surrounding the voodoo doll and Ouija, the book explores the common human fascination with spells, superstition, and the supernatural. This riveting read on witchcraft further includes: - Engaging text and lavish illustrations with over 500 full-color images that bring the subject to life. - Special features on aspects of magic, such as oracle bones of ancient China, the Knights Templar, and magic at the movies, and “plants and potions”, such as mandrake and belladonna examine topics in great detail. - Quick-fact panels explore magic origins, key figures, key deities, uses in spells, structures of religions, and more. The perfect introduction to magic and the occult, it explores forms of divination from astrology and palmistry to the Tarot and runestones and offers key insights into the ways in which magic has interacted with religion. The most comprehensive illustrated history of witchcraft available, A History of Magic, Witchcraft and the Occult will enthral and fascinate anyone interested in spiritualism and the occult.

Classical Culture and Witchcraft in Medieval and Renaissance Italy

Classical Culture and Witchcraft in Medieval and Renaissance Italy PDF Author: Marina Montesano
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319920782
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This book explores the relationships between ancient witchcraft and its modern incarnation, and by doing so fills an important gap in the historiography. It is often noted that stories of witchcraft circulated in Greek and Latin classical texts, and that treatises dealing with witch-beliefs referenced them. Still, the role of humanistic culture and classical revival in the developing of the witch-hunts has not yet been fully researched. Marina Montesano examines Greek and Latin literature, revealing how particular features of ancient striges were carried into the Late Middle Ages, through the Renaissance and into the fifteenth century, when early Italian trials recall the myth of the strix common in ancient Latin sources and in popular memory. The final chapter also serves as a conclusion, to show how in Renaissance Italy and beyond, classical accounts of witchcraft ceased to be just stories, as they had formerly been, and were instead used to attest to the reality of witches’ powers.

Making Magic in Elizabethan England

Making Magic in Elizabethan England PDF Author: Frank Klaassen
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271085177
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
This volume presents editions of two fascinating anonymous and untitled manuscripts of magic produced in Elizabethan England: the Antiphoner Notebook and the Boxgrove Manual. Frank Klaassen uses these texts, which he argues are representative of the overwhelming majority of magical practitioners, to explain how magic changed during this period and why these developments were crucial to the formation of modern magic. The Boxgrove Manual is a work of learned ritual magic that synthesizes material from Henry Cornelius Agrippa, the Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, Heptameron, and various medieval conjuring works. The Antiphoner Notebook concerns the common magic of treasure hunting, healing, and protection, blending medieval conjuring and charm literature with materials drawn from Reginald Scot’s famous anti-magic work, Discoverie of Witchcraft. Klaassen painstakingly traces how the scribes who created these two manuscripts adapted and transformed their original sources. In so doing, he demonstrates the varied and subtle ways in which the Renaissance, the Reformation, new currents in science, the birth of printing, and vernacularization changed the practice of magic. Illuminating the processes by which two sixteenth-century English scribes went about making a book of magic, this volume provides insight into the wider intellectual culture surrounding the practice of magic in the early modern period.

Trafficking with Demons

Trafficking with Demons PDF Author: Martha Rampton
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501735314
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
Trafficking with Demons explores how magic was perceived, practiced, and prohibited in western Europe during the first millennium CE. Through the overlapping frameworks of religion, ritual, and gender, Martha Rampton connects early Christian reckonings with pagan magic to later doctrines and dogmas. Challenging established views on the role of women in ritual magic during this period, Rampton provides a new narrative of the ways in which magic was embedded within the foundational assumptions of western European society, informing how people understood the cosmos, divinity, and their own Christian faith. As Rampton shows, throughout the first Christian millennium, magic was thought to play a natural role within the functioning of the universe and existed within a rational cosmos hierarchically arranged according to a "great chain of being." Trafficking with the "demons of the lower air" was the essense of magic. Interactions with those demons occurred both in highly formalistic, ritual settings and on a routine and casual basis. Rampton tracks the competition between pagan magic and Christian belief from the first century CE, when it was fiercest, through the early Middle Ages, as atavistic forms of magic mutated and found sanctuary in the daily habits of the converted peoples and new paganisms entered Europe with their own forms of magic. By the year 1000, she concludes, many forms of magic had been tamed and were, by the reckoning of the elite, essentially ineffective, as were the women who practiced it and the rituals that attended it.

Magic and Superstition in Europe

Magic and Superstition in Europe PDF Author: Michael David Bailey
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742533875
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
The only comprehensive, single-volume survey of magic available, this compelling book traces the history of magic and superstition in Europe from antiquity to the present. Focusing mainly on the medieval and early modern era, Michael Bailey also explores the ancient Near East, classical Greece and Rome, and the spread of magical systems_particularly modern witchcraft or Wicca_from Europe to the United States. He explains how magic was understood, constructed, and frequently condemned and how magical beliefs and practices have changed over time yet also remain vital even today.

Cursed Britain

Cursed Britain PDF Author: Thomas Waters
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300249454
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
The definitive history of how witchcraft and black magic have survived, through the modern era and into the present dayCursed Britain unveils the enduring power of witchcraft, curses and black magic in modern times. Few topics are so secretive or controversial. Yet, whether in the 1800s or the early 2000s, when disasters struck or personal misfortunes mounted, many Britons found themselves believing in things they had previously dismissed – dark supernatural forces.Historian Thomas Waters here explores the lives of cursed or bewitched people, along with the witches and witch-busters who helped and harmed them. Waters takes us on a fascinating journey from Scottish islands to the folklore-rich West Country, from the immense territories of the British Empire to metropolitan London. We learn why magic caters to deep-seated human needs but see how it can also be abused, and discover how witchcraft survives by evolving and changing. Along the way, we examine an array of remarkable beliefs and rituals, from traditional folk magic to diverse spiritualities originating in Africa and Asia.This is a tale of cynical quacks and sincere magical healers, depressed people and furious vigilantes, innocent victims and rogues who claimed to possess evil abilities. Their spellbinding stories raise important questions about the state’s role in regulating radical spiritualities, the fragility of secularism and the true nature of magic.