The Realities of Witchcraft and Popular Magic in Early Modern Europe Culture, Cognition and Everyday Life

by Bever, Edward; Davies, Owen; Barry, Jonathan; de Blecourt, Willem

• ISBN13: 9781403997814
• ISBN10: 1403997810
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-07-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This book explores the elements of reality in early modern witchcraft and popular magic through a combination of detailed archival research and broad-ranging interdisciplinary analyses. The book complements and challenges existing scholarship, offering unique insights into this murky aspect of early modern history.

Author Biography

EDWARD BEVER received his Ph.D. in History from Princeton University in 1983. He was a software developer specializing in historical simulations before taking his present position as Professor of History at SUNY Old Westbury in 1997. He has published a book on African history and a number of articles on witchcraft and magic in Early Modern Europe.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. ix
List of Tables	p. x
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction	p. xiv
The Reality of Maleficium	p. 1
The Varieties of Maleficium	p. 5
Poison and assault	p. 8
Occult injury and psychosocial factors in disease	p. 11
Ill will and interpersonal communications	p. 20
Harm to animals	p. 37
Conclusion	p. 39
Maleficium and Society	p. 40
Maleficium and intracommunal conflict	p. 40
Gender, age, and interpersonal power	p. 47
Hard times and hard hearts	p. 60
The Realities of Diabolism	p. 65
The Devil in the Duchy of Wurttemberg	p. 67
Origin and diffusion of the diabolic stereotype	p. 67
The Devil made me do it	p. 73
Dealing with the Devil	p. 79
Witch Dances and Witch Salves	p. 93
Rumors of witch dances	p. 97
Dreams of dances	p. 106
Dances and trances	p. 118
Scopolamine dreams	p. 129
Sorcery, Satanism, and Shamanism	p. 151
The realities of sorcery in early modern Europe	p. 154
Sorcery and satanism	p. 168
Witchcraft and shamanism	p. 185
Conclusion	p. 212
The Realities of Beneficent Magic	p. 215
Divination and Prophesy	p. 219
The varieties of divinatory activity	p. 219
Divination and guilt	p. 221
Locating hidden things	p. 230
Fortune-telling and prognostication	p. 250
Prophesy	p. 258
Conclusion	p. 269
Beneficent Manipulative Magic	p. 271
Magical healing	p. 273
The varieties of healing practices	p. 274
The efficacy of magical healing	p. 287
Magical countermeasures	p. 303
Magical enhancements	p. 312
Supernatural powers and anomalous events	p. 318
Conclusion	p. 334
Repression and Reality	p. 337
Magic and Society	p. 339
Practitioners of beneficent magic	p. 339
The mechanisms of repression	p. 349
The judicial system	p. 350
The church	p. 356
Local communities	p. 362
Individual psychophysiology	p. 372
Repression and the marginalization of magic	p. 378
The roots and rise of judicial repression	p. 381
The prosecutions falter	p. 389
Second surge and the decline of witchcraft	p. 399
Enlightenment and repression	p. 415
Conclusion	p. 429
Conclusion	p. 433
Appendix	p. 441
Notes	p. 444
Bibliography	p. 504
Index	p. 558
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