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Author: Marion Gibson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 0415979781
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
"Witchcraft Myths in American Culture is the only account of witchcraft in America that mixes the study of popular culture with the reading of traditional historical texts on the subject. From the Salem witch trials to modern day Wicca; from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to the Harry Potter phenomenon and beyond, Gibson's engaging and accessible approach provides new energy and perspective on classical and contemporary witchcraft history, portrayal, and mythos. This fresh viewpoint coupled with a careful examination of the meaning of witchcraft to the evolution of women's rights and empowerment, makes this book essential in understanding the role witchcraft has played in American social and cultural history.".
Author: Marion Gibson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 0415979781
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Get Book Here
Book Description
"Witchcraft Myths in American Culture is the only account of witchcraft in America that mixes the study of popular culture with the reading of traditional historical texts on the subject. From the Salem witch trials to modern day Wicca; from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to the Harry Potter phenomenon and beyond, Gibson's engaging and accessible approach provides new energy and perspective on classical and contemporary witchcraft history, portrayal, and mythos. This fresh viewpoint coupled with a careful examination of the meaning of witchcraft to the evolution of women's rights and empowerment, makes this book essential in understanding the role witchcraft has played in American social and cultural history.".
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: 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: Alex Mar
Publisher: Sarah Crichton Books
ISBN: 0374709114
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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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: Marion Gibson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135862834
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
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.
Author: Frances Timbers
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526731827
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 339
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Book Description
The author of Magic and Masculinity explores the history and development of magic and witchcraft in Western society. Broomsticks, cauldrons, familiars, and spells—magic and witchcraft conjure a vivid picture in our modern-day imagination. While much of our understanding is rooted in superstition and myth, the history of magic and witchcraft offers a window into the past. It illuminates the lives of ordinary people in the past and elucidates the fascinating pop culture of the premodern world. Blowing away folkloric cobwebs, this enlightening new history dispels many misconceptions surrounding witchcraft and magic that we still hold today. From Ancient Greece and Rome to the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Era, historian Frances Timbers details the impact of Christianity and popular culture in the construction of the figure of the “witch.” The development of demonology and ceremonial magic is combined with the West’s troubled past with magic and witchcraft to chart the birth of modern Wiccan and Neopagan movements in England and North America. Witchcraft is a metaphor for oppression in an age in which persecution is an everyday occurrence somewhere in the world. Fanaticism, intolerance, prejudice, authoritarianism, and religious and political ideologies are never attractive. Beware the witch hunter!
Author: Carson O. Hudson Jr.
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 146714424X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 144
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Book Description
"While the witchcraft mania that swept through Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 was significant, fascination with it has tended to overshadow the historical records of other persecutions throughout early America. Colonial Virginians shared a common belief in the supernatural with their northern neighbors. The 1626 case of Joan Wright, the first woman to be accused of witchcraft in British North America, began Virginia's own witch craze. Utilizing surviving records, local historian Carson Hudson narrates these fascinating stories." --Back cover.
Author: Bernard Rosenthal
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521558204
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
Salem Story engages the story of the Salem witch trials by contrasting an analysis of the surviving primary documentation with the way events of 1692 have been mythologised by our culture. Resisting the temptation to explain the Salem witch trials in the context of an inclusive theoretical framework, the book examines a variety of individual motives that converged to precipitate the witch-hunt. Of the many assumptions about the Salem witch trials, the most persistent is that they were instigated by a circle of hysterical girls. Through an analysis of what actually happened - by perusal of the primary materials with the 'close reading' approach of a literary critic - a different picture emerges, one where 'hysteria' inappropriately describes the logical, rational strategies of accusation and confession followed by the accusers, males and females alike.
Author: Raymond Buckland
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
ISBN: 0875420508
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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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
Author: Dane Anthony Morrison
Publisher: Northeastern University Press
ISBN: 1555538509
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369
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Book Description
How is a sense of place created, imagined, and reinterpreted over time? That is the intriguing question addressed in this comprehensive look at the 400-year history of Salem, Massachusetts, and the experiences of fourteen generations of people who lived in a place mythologized in the public imagination by the horrific witch trials and executions of 1692 and 1693. But from its settlement in 1626 to the present, Salem was, and is, much more than this. In this volume, contributors from a variety of fields examine Salem's multiple urban identities: frontier outpost of European civilization, cosmopolitan seaport, gateway to the Far East, refuge for religious diversity, center for education, and of course, "Witch City" tourist attraction.
