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Author: Alison Games
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 9781442203594
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
Witchcraft in Early North America investigates European, African, and Indian witchcraft beliefs and their expression in colonial America. Alison Games's engaging book takes us beyond the infamous outbreak at Salem, Massachusetts, to look at how witchcraft was a central feature of colonial societies in North America. Her substantial and lively introduction orients readers to the subject and to the rich selection of documents that follows. The documents—some of which have never been published previously—include excerpts from trials in Virginia, New Mexico, and Massachusetts; accounts of outbreaks in Salem, Abiquiu (New Mexico), and among the Delaware Indians. This fascinating topic and the book's broad geographic and chronological coverage make this book ideally suited for readers interested in new approaches to colonial history and the history of witchcraft.
Author: Alison Games
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 9781442203594
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
Witchcraft in Early North America investigates European, African, and Indian witchcraft beliefs and their expression in colonial America. Alison Games's engaging book takes us beyond the infamous outbreak at Salem, Massachusetts, to look at how witchcraft was a central feature of colonial societies in North America. Her substantial and lively introduction orients readers to the subject and to the rich selection of documents that follows. The documents—some of which have never been published previously—include excerpts from trials in Virginia, New Mexico, and Massachusetts; accounts of outbreaks in Salem, Abiquiu (New Mexico), and among the Delaware Indians. This fascinating topic and the book's broad geographic and chronological coverage make this book ideally suited for readers interested in new approaches to colonial history and the history of witchcraft.
Author: Alex Mar
Publisher: Sarah Crichton Books
ISBN: 0374709114
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
"Witches are gathering." When most people hear the word "witches," they think of horror films and Halloween, but to the nearly one million Americans who practice Paganism today, witchcraft is a nature-worshipping, polytheistic, and very real religion. So Alex Mar discovers when she sets out to film a documentary and finds herself drawn deep into the world of present-day magic. Witches of America follows Mar on her immersive five-year trip into the occult, charting modern Paganism from its roots in 1950s England to its current American mecca in the San Francisco Bay Area; from a gathering of more than a thousand witches in the Illinois woods to the New Orleans branch of one of the world's most influential magical societies. Along the way she takes part in dozens of rituals and becomes involved with a wild array of characters: a government employee who founds a California priesthood dedicated to a Celtic goddess of war; American disciples of Aleister Crowley, whose elaborate ceremonies turn the Catholic mass on its head; second-wave feminist Wiccans who practice a radical separatist witchcraft; a growing "mystery cult" whose initiates trace their rites back to a blind shaman in rural Oregon. This sprawling magical community compels Mar to confront what she believes is possible-or hopes might be. With keen intelligence and wit, Mar illuminates the world of witchcraft while grappling in fresh and unexpected ways with the question underlying every faith: Why do we choose to believe in anything at all? Whether evangelical Christian, Pagan priestess, or atheist, each of us craves a system of meaning to give structure to our lives. Sometimes we just find it in unexpected places.
Author: Charles River Editors
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781092509060
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 74
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Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes contemporary accounts of trials *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "Since man cannot live without miracles, he will provide himself with miracles of his own making. He will believe in witchcraft and sorcery, even though he may otherwise be a heretic, an atheist, and a rebel." - - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov When people hear the word "witchcraft," certain images come to mind. American history buffs will immediately think of Salem, where hysteria in the 17th century led to notorious trials that continue to be the source of several historical studies, with scholars analyzing things from every direction. Was it a religious fervor? Was it a land grab? Was there fungus in the grain? Over 400 years later, there are still fundamental questions regarding the complete breakdown of moral order that pinned friend against friend and neighbor against neighbor. As Salem proved, there has long been a natural curiosity about witchcraft. Some of the best-selling children's books and adult novels have been about witchcraft, such as The Witch of Blackbird Pond. One of Roald Dahl's most famous works was The Witches, and Harry Potter became a global phenomenon. As adults, fans of Anne Rice, Neil Gaiman, and Alice Hoffman will find books about witches among their reading list, and there are countless movies and television shows devoted to the topic. All cultures and belief systems have ideas and definitions of what makes a witch, and this ultimately comes down to the human mind's natural need to break things into opposites. For all good, there must be evil, and for those who started to settle North America in the 17th century and beyond, witchcraft became the perfect explanation for what they couldn't understand or control. Settling a new land - whether by choice or not - came with its own set of complications and ills. Life was hard in an unsettled area, especially when Europeans and Native Americans clashed in the New World, and when the European settlers started importing African slaves, that introduced new ideas about what constituted good and evil. As a result, while most studies of witchcraft in the United States tend to focus on Salem, that hardly does the subject matter justice, because understanding Native American and African concepts about witchcraft are just as important to American history as European ideas. Witchcraft in the United States: The History of Witches, Practices, and Persecution in America examines how various cultures perceived witchcraft and the impact it had in the United States and the colonial period. Along with pictures and a bibliography, you will learn about the history of witchcraft in America like never before.
Author: Susan Fair
Publisher: Skyhorse
ISBN: 1510703810
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
The history of American witches is way weirder than you ever imagined. From bewitched pigs hell-bent on revenge to gruesome twentieth-century murders, American Witches reveals strange incidents of witchcraft that have long been swept under the rug as bizarre sidenotes to history. On a tour through history that’s both whimsical and startling, we’ll encounter seventeenth-century children flying around inside their New England home “like geese.” We’ll meet a father-son team of pious Puritans who embarked on a mission that involved undressing ladies and overseeing hangings. And on the eve of the Civil War, we’ll accompany a reporter as he dons a dress and goes searching for witches in New York City’s most dangerous neighborhoods. Entertainingly readable and rich in amazing details often left out of today’s texts, American Witches casts a flickering torchlight into the dark corners of American history.
Author: Owen Davies
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199578710
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316
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Book Description
The first major history of witchcraft in America - from the Salem witch trials of 1692 to the present day.
Author: Elizabeth Reis
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780842025775
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
Spellbound: Women and Witchcraft in America is a collection of twelve articles that revisit crucial events in the history of witchcraft and spiritual feminism in this country. Beginning with the "witches" of colonial America, Spellbound extends its focus through the nineteenth century to explore women's involvement with alternative spiritualities, and culminates with examinations of the contemporary feminist neopagan and Goddess movements. A valuable source for those interested in women's history, women's studies, and religious history, Spellbound is also a crucial addition to the bookshelf of anyone tracing the evolution of spiritualism in America.
Author: Brian P. Levack
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191648833
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 646
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Book Description
The essays in this Handbook, written by leading scholars working in the rapidly developing field of witchcraft studies, explore the historical literature regarding witch beliefs and witch trials in Europe and colonial America between the early fifteenth and early eighteenth centuries. During these years witches were thought to be evil people who used magical power to inflict physical harm or misfortune on their neighbours. Witches were also believed to have made pacts with the devil and sometimes to have worshipped him at nocturnal assemblies known as sabbaths. These beliefs provided the basis for defining witchcraft as a secular and ecclesiastical crime and prosecuting tens of thousands of women and men for this offence. The trials resulted in as many as fifty thousand executions. These essays study the rise and fall of witchcraft prosecutions in the various kingdoms and territories of Europe and in English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies in the Americas. They also relate these prosecutions to the Catholic and Protestant reformations, the introduction of new forms of criminal procedure, medical and scientific thought, the process of state-building, profound social and economic change, early modern patterns of gender relations, and the wave of demonic possessions that occurred in Europe at the same time. The essays survey the current state of knowledge in the field, explore the academic controversies that have arisen regarding witch beliefs and witch trials, propose new ways of studying the subject, and identify areas for future research.
Author: Emerson W. Baker
Publisher: Pivotal Moments in American Hi
ISBN: 019989034X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 415
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Book Description
Presents an historical analysis of the Salem witch trials, examining the factors that may have led to the mass hysteria, including a possible occurrence of ergot poisoning, a frontier war in Maine, and local political rivalries.
Author: Heather Greene
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
ISBN: 0738768804
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
Follow the Witch Through Decades of American Entertainment Deviant mistress of the dark arts. Goddess worshipper dancing in the moonlight. Crystal-wielding bookworm with a black hat and broom. We recognize the witch because no industry has been quite so influential in shaping our vision of her as Hollywood. This comprehensive book delves into the fascinating history of witchcraft and witches in American film and television. From Joan the Woman and The Wizard of Oz to Carrie and Charmed, author and film scholar Heather Greene explores how these movies and TV shows helped influence the public image of the witch and profoundly affected how women negotiate their power in a patriarchal society. Greene presents more than two hundred examples spanning silent reels to present-day blockbusters. As you travel through each decade, you'll discover compelling insights into the intersection of entertainment, critical theory, gender studies, and spirituality.
Author: Nigel Cawthorne
Publisher: Arcturus Publishing
ISBN: 1838579508
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
When bigotry and power-mania take control, disaster always follows for subjugated persons - even when the power is wielded by the Church. Witchcraft was viewed as devil-worship. Between 1450 and 1750, one hundred thousand people were accused, subject to the most bestial tortures and usually executed. Witches examines the wildfire-spread of witch hunting across Europe and America, revealing the disturbing and brutal realities of these witch hunts and their roots in misogyny and religious persecution. It includes: • Letters and trial testimonies from those charged with witchcraft, as well as some from self-proclaimed witches • Biographic detail of key witch hunters, such as Matthew Hopkins (the so-called Witchfinder General) who was responsible for hundreds of executions • Accounts of famous witch trials, from Chelmsford to Salam Nigel Cawthorne doesn't shy away from the violent details of this persecution, exploring the events as they transpired, the contexts that triggered them and tracing it back to its source. Please note: This title contains descriptions of a violent and sexual nature and is not intended for younger readers. Discretion is advised.
