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Witchcraft and magical beliefs have captivated historians and artists for millennia, and stimulated an extraordinary amount of research among scholars in a wide range of disciplines. This new collection, from the editor of the highly acclaimed 1992 set, Articles on Witchcraft, Magic, and Demonology , extends the earlier volumes by bringing together the most important articles of the past twenty years and covering the profound changes in scholarly perspective over the past two decades. Featuring thematically organized papers from a broad spectrum of publications, the volumes in this set encompass the key issues and approaches to witchcraft research in fields such as gender studies, anthropology, sociology, literature, history, psychology, and law. This new collection provides students and researchers with an invaluable resource, comprising the most important and influential discussions on this topic. A useful introductory essay written by the editor precedes each volume.
List of contents
Introduction, Witchcraft and Catholic Theology, The Holy and the Unholy: Sainthood, Witchcraft, and Magic in Late Medieval Europe, The Specific Rationality of Medieval Magic, The Devil' s Hoodwink: Seeingand Believingin the World of Sixteenth Century Witchcraft, Bernardino of Siena, Popular Preacher and Witch-Hunter: A 1426 Witch Trial in Rome, Institors of Innsbruck: Heinrich Institoris, the SummisDesiderantes, and the Brixen Witch Trial of 1485, Protestant Demonology: Sin, Superstition, and Society {c.1520-c.1630), Martin Luther on Witchcraft: a True Reformer?, The Devil as Doctor: Witchcraft, Wodrow, and the Wider World, The Devil's Encounter with America, Witches, Sinners, and the Underside of Covenant Theology, Visions of evil: Popular Culture, Puritanism and the Massachusetts Witchcraft Crisis of 1692, Magic and the Theology of the Body: Exorcism in Sixteenth-Century Augsburg, A Woman and the Devil: Possessionand Exorcism in Sixteenth-Century France, The Devils of Queretaro: Scepticism and Credulity in Late Seventeenth Century Mexico, Balthasar Bekker and the Decline of the Witch-Craze: The Old Demonology and the New Philosophy, 'Man is a Devil to Himself': David Joris and the Rise of a Sceptical Tradition towards the Devil in the Early Modern Netherlands, Witchcraft and Tolerance: The Dutch case, Saints or Sorcerers: Quakerism, Demonology, and the Decline of Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century England, Acknowledgments
About the author
Brian P. Levack is John Green Regents Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. A former Guggenheim Fellow, his other writings on witchcraft include Articleson Witchcraft, Magic, and Demonology (1992), TheWitch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (1995), and Witchcraftand Magic in Europe: The Eighteenth and NineteenthCenturies (1999). Dr. Levack is also a specialist in the history of early modern England and Scotland, and has written several books on the subject.
Summary
Gathering together the vast literature on witchcraft related issues published in the last decade, this six-volume set provides a cross-disciplinary and comprehensive overview of the occult and its implications.
