The Meaning of Witchcraft

The Meaning of Witchcraft PDF Author: Gerald B. Gardner
Publisher: Weiser Books
ISBN: 160925189X
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Thought to be the father of modern witchcraft, Gerald Gardner published The Meaning of Witchcraft in 1959, not long after laws punishing witches were repealed. It was the first sympathetic book written from the point of view of a practicing witch. The Meaning of Witchcraft is an invaluable source book for witches today. Chapters include: Witch's Memories and Beliefs, The Stone Age Origins of Witchcraft, Druidism and the Aryan Celts, Magic Thinking, Curious Beliefs about Witches, Signs and Symbols, The Black Mass, Some Allegations Examined. The Meaning of Witchcraft is a record of witches' roots-and a tribute to a founding pioneer with the courage to set that record straight.

The Meaning of Witchcraft

The Meaning of Witchcraft PDF Author: Gerald B. Gardner
Publisher: Weiser Books
ISBN: 160925189X
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book

Book Description
Thought to be the father of modern witchcraft, Gerald Gardner published The Meaning of Witchcraft in 1959, not long after laws punishing witches were repealed. It was the first sympathetic book written from the point of view of a practicing witch. The Meaning of Witchcraft is an invaluable source book for witches today. Chapters include: Witch's Memories and Beliefs, The Stone Age Origins of Witchcraft, Druidism and the Aryan Celts, Magic Thinking, Curious Beliefs about Witches, Signs and Symbols, The Black Mass, Some Allegations Examined. The Meaning of Witchcraft is a record of witches' roots-and a tribute to a founding pioneer with the courage to set that record straight.

The Meaning of Witchcraft

The Meaning of Witchcraft PDF Author: Gerald B. Gardner
Publisher: Weiser Books
ISBN: 1633412784
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
"Those of us who use the word witch with all of the pride and fortification that it offers us do so thanks to Gardner’s lucid, liberating vision.”—Pam Grossman, author of Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power Often called the father of modern witchcraft, Gerald Gardner’s life and works were ground-breaking in opening the door for the modern revival of Wicca and neo-paganism. The Meaning of Witchcraft (originally published in 1959) was the first sympathetic book written from the point of view of a practicing witch. “The foundation of magical beliefs,” Gardner wrote, “of which witchcraft is a form, is that unseen Powers exist, and that by performing the right sort of ritual, these Powers can be contacted and either forced or persuaded to assist one in some way. People believed this in the Stone Age, and they believe it, consciously or not, today. It is now well known that most superstition is, in fact, broken-down ritual. The meaning of witchcraft is to be found not in strange religious theories about God and Satan but in the deepest levels of the human mind, the collective unconscious, and the earliest developments of human society.” The Meaning of Witchcraft is an enduring and invaluable source book for witches today. This Weiser Classics edition includes a new foreword by Pam Grossman, author of Waking the Witch. In it, Grossman revisits the historical role and mixed legacy that Gardner has played in the revival of witchcraft and magic in modern times.

Witchcraft Today

Witchcraft Today PDF Author: Gerald Brosseau Gardner
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
The Meaning of Witchcraft is a non-fiction book written by Gerald Gardner. Gardner, known to many in the modern sense as the "Father of Wicca", based the book around his experiences with the religion of Wicca and the New Forest Coven. He claimed he was allowed to tell more than ever before and cast light on the rituals and beliefs of witches. The book's main message was that neither the practices of witches nor their intents were harmful. The book tells the history of witchcraft in Europe. The author traces back to pre-Christian times, studies the rituals and beliefs of templars, and states that the belief in fairies in ancient, medieval, and early modern Europe was connected with a secretive pygmy race that lived alongside other communities. The preface to this book was Margaret Murray, who stated that witchcraft took its root in the pre-Christian religions and had nothing to do with spell-casting and other evil practices. Instead, Murray proposes to view witchcraft as "the sincere expression of that feeling towards God which is expressed, perhaps more decorously though not more sincerely, by modern Christianity in church services."

Moral Power

Moral Power PDF Author: Koen Stroeken
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781845457358
Category : Social ecology
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Neither power nor morality but both. Moral power is what Sukuma farmers in Tanzania in times of crisis attribute to an unknown figure they call their witch. A universal process is involved, as much bodily as social, which obstructs the patient's recovery. Healers turn the table on the witch through rituals showing that the community and the ancestral spirits side with the victim. In contrast to biomedicine, their magic and divination introduce moral values that assess the state of the system and that remove the obstacles to what is taken as key: self-healing. The implied 'sensory shifts' and therapeutic effectiveness have largely eluded the literature on witchcraft. This book shows how to comprehend culture other than through the prism of identity politics. It offers a framework to comprehend the rise of witch killings and human sacrifice, just as ritual initiation disappears.

Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft

Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft PDF Author: Raymond Buckland
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
ISBN: 0875420508
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
"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

Languages of Witchcraft

Languages of Witchcraft PDF Author: Stuart Clark
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 033398529X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Different conceptions of the world and of reality have made witchcraft possible in some societies and impossible in others. How did the people of early modern Europe experience it and what was its place in their culture? The new essays in this collection illustrate the latest trends in witchcraft research and in cultural history in general. After three decades in which the social analysis of witchcraft accusations has dominated the subject, they turn instead to its significance and meaning as a cultural phenomenon - to the 'languages' of witchcraft, rather than its causes. As a result, witchcraft seems less startling than it once was, yet more revealing of the world in which it occurred.

Witchcraft

Witchcraft PDF Author: Craig Hawkins
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 1441236708
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
This introduction to contemporary witchcraft and neopaganism shows you what witches themselves say they believe, what the Bible says about witchcraft, and philosophical holes in the worldview of witches.

The Modern Witchcraft Book of Tarot

The Modern Witchcraft Book of Tarot PDF Author: Skye Alexander
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1507202636
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Unlock the secrets of the cards! For hundreds of years, the tarot has been an essential tool used in witchcraft--from divining the future to aiding in spellcasting. As tools to aid a witch's natural clairvoyance, the tarot and witchcraft are entwined, with the cards and the craft sharing many symbols and roots in the elements. Learn how to interpret and connect with the cards. From reading spreads to using your deck during spellcasting, you will soon grasp the full power of the tarot.

Witchcraft: A Very Short Introduction

Witchcraft: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Malcolm Gaskill
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019923695X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
Examines the history and origins of witchcraft, from pre-history to the present day, considering why it still features so heavily in our culture

The God of the Witches

The God of the Witches PDF Author: Margaret Alice Murray
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780195012705
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
This celebrated study of witchcraft in Europe traces the worship of the pre-Christian and prehistoric Horned God from paleolithic times to the medieval period. Murray, the first to turn a scholarly eye on the mysteries of witchcraft, enables us to see its existence in the Middle Ages not as an isolated and terrifying phenomenon, but as the survival of a religion nearly as old as humankind itself, whose devotees held passionately to a view of life threatened by an alien creed. The findings she sets forth, once thought of as provocative and implausible, are now regarded as irrefutable by folklorists and scholars in related fields. Exploring the rites and ceremonies associated with witchcraft, Murray establishes the concept of the "dying god"--the priest-king who was ritually killed to ensure the country and its people a continuity of fertility and strength. In this light, she considers such figures as Thomas a Becket, Joan of Arc, and Gilles de Rais as spiritual leaders whose deaths were ritually imposed. Truly a classic work of anthropology, and written in a clear, accessible style that anyone can enjoy, The God of the Witches forces us to reevaluate our thoughts about an ancient and vital religion.