Recently added articles from Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft:

The age of magicians: periodization in the history of European magic.(Report)

Jun 22, 2008; Bailey, Michael D. ... John Maynard Keynes once described Sir Isaac Newton, perhaps the greatest figure of the scientific revolution, as being "not the first of the age of reason" but "the last of the magicians." (1) Keynes was commenting, among other things, on Newton's fascination with alchemy and the ...

Shaping superstition in late medieval England.(Report)

Jun 22, 2008; Kamerick, Kathleen ... Superstition occupied an ambiguous place in late medieval England. While elsewhere in fifteenth-century Europe the clergy increasingly reviled superstitions in everyday practices as the fearful portal allowing the devil's entry into human affairs, this certainty faltered in England. (1) ...

False, lying Spirits and Angels of Light ambiguous mediation in Dr Rudd's seventeenth-century treatise on angel magic.(Report)

Jun 22, 2008; Asprem, Egil ... INTRODUCTION "His only (but great and dreadful) error [was], that he mistook false lying Spirits for Angels of Light, the Divel of Hell ... for the God of Heaven." With these words the seventeenth-century scholar Meric Casaubon (1599-1671) introduced and condemned the famous ...

Jonathan Barry and Owen Davies, eds. Witchcraft Historiography.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Bailey, Michael D. ... JONATHAN BARRY and OWEN DAVIES, eds. Witchcraft Historiography. Houndmills, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Pp. x + 248. This important collection should be of interest to almost all readers of this journal. There have been countless book-length studies, and no few general ...

Sarah Ferber. Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern France.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Mollenauer, Lynn Wood ... SARAH FERBER. Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern France. London and New York: Routledge, 2004. Pp. ix + 227. Sarah Ferber's incisive, well-written, and exhaustively researched monograph is a fascinating addition to the field of early modern history. It appears at a ...

Richard Godbeer. Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Bailey, Michael D. ... RICHARD GODBEER. Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. xiv + 177. Historians of witchcraft and of early America know the long shadow cast by the Salem witch hunt of 1692. They also know what distortions and ...

James L. Halverson, ed. Contesting Christendom: Readings in Medieval Religion and Culture.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Field, Sean L. ... JAMES L. HALVERSON, ed. Contesting Christendom: Readings in Medieval Religion and Culture. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008. Pp. vii + 246. This welcome volume takes classic and recent scholarship on medieval religious culture and presents it in bite-sized portions that ...

Margaret Mills Harper. Wisdom of Two: The Spiritual and Literary Collaboration of George and W. B. Yeats.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Olson, Jamie L. ... MARGARET MILLS HARPER. Wisdom of Two: The Spiritual and Literary Collaboration of George and W. B. Yeats. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. xii + 382. In a certain sense, Harper's study of the Yeatses' automatic writing sessions and their role in shaping the Irish ...

Maijastina Kahlos. Debate and Dialogue: Christian and Pagan Cultures c.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Macmullen, Ramsay ... MAIJASTINA KAHLOS. Debate and Dialogue: Christian and Pagan Cultures c. 360-430. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate Press, 2007. Pp. x + 213. The defense of Christian beliefs by the early church champions more often took the offensive; it is quite misleadingly called "Apology." But the ...

Gabor Klaniczay and Eva Pocs, eds., in collaboration with Eszter Csonka-Takacs. Christian Demonology and Popular Mythology, Demons, Spirits, and Witches 2.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Bailey, Michael D. ... GABOR KLANICZAY AND EVA POCS, eds., in collaboration with Eszter Csonka-Takacs. Christian Demonology and Popular Mythology, Demons, Spirits, and Witches 2. Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2006. Pp. viii + 284. This is the second volume in a planned ...

Alexander Rodlach. Witches, Westerners, and HIV: AIDS and Cultures of Blame in Africa.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Luongo, Katherine ... ALEXANDER RODLACH. Witches, Westerners, and HIV: AIDS and Cultures of Blame in Africa. Walnut Creek, Calif.: Left Coast Press, 2006. Pp. ix + 247. Alexander Rodlach provides a substantive analysis of processes of meaning-making surrounding the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Zimbabwe ....

Emilie Savage-Smith, ed. Magic and Divination in Early Islam, The Formation of the Classical Islamic World 42.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Irwin, Robert ... EMILIE SAVAGE-SMITH, ed. Magic and Divination in Early Islam, The Formation of the Classical Islamic World 42. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2004. Pp. lii + 394. The Frankfurt-school philosopher Theodor Adorno memorably described occultism as "the metaphysics of dopes." Study of the ...

Gyorgy E. Szonyi. John Dee's Occultism: Magical Exaltation Through Powerful Signs.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Clark, Stuart ... GYORGY E. SZONYI. John Dee's Occultism: Magical Exaltation Through Powerful Signs. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. Pp. xviii + 362. John Dee's passion for knowledge and technology led him through what seems like the entire gamut of Renaissance wisdom from ...

Merry E. Wiesner, ed. Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Bailey, Michael D. ... MERRY E. WIESNER, ed. Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. Pp. xxii + 202. This book, a volume in Houghton Mifflin's Problems in European Civilization series, brings together selections from recent scholarship on early modern European ...

Emma Wilby, Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Gibson, Marion ... EMMA WILBY, Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic. Brighton, U.K., and Portland, Ore.: Sussex Academic Press, 2005. Pp. xvi + 317. Emma Wilby's Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits is a bold, yet careful ...