Magic and Witchcraft

Magic and witchcraft have been important components of almost every human culture throughout history, and continue to be so in the present day, both globally and in the West. These topics have attracted an enormous amount of scholarship, but publications are often scattered, and scholars working in one area rarely address research produced in others. These volumes bring together important representative publications spanning antiquity to the present day, and setting Western developments in a global context. Significant attention has been given to the major witch hunts of early modern Europe, because scholarship on early modern witchcraft has often driven the field. But other periods and regions are not neglected. Important theoretical issues are also addressed, such as the conceptual relationship between magic, science, and religion, and the role of gender in the perception (and persecution) of magical practices in many parts of the world.

Volume I: Western Antiquity to Early Modern Witch Hunts

Part I: Foundations of Magic, Witchcraft, and Demonology in the Ancient West

1. Matthew W. Dickie, ‘The Formation and Nature of the Greek Concept of Magic’, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World (Routledge, 2001), pp. 18–46, 324–9.

2. Derek Collins, ‘Magic in Greek and Roman Law’, Magic in the Ancient Greek World (Blackwell, 2008), pp. 132–65, 185–90.

3. David Frankfurter, ‘Dynamics of Ritual Expertise in Antiquity and Beyond: Towards a New Taxonomy of "Magicians"’, in Paul Mirecki and Marvin Meyer (eds.), Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World (Brill, 2002), pp. 159–78.

4. Kyle A. Fraser, ‘The Contested Boundaries of "Magic" and "Religion" in Late Pagan Monotheism’, Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, 2009, 4, 2, 131–51.

Part 2: Christian Magic, Demonology, and Witchcraft in Medieval Europe

5. Fritz Graf, ‘Augustine and Magic’, in Jan N. Bremmer and Jan R. Veenstra (eds.), The Metamorphosis of Magic from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period (Peeters, 2002), pp. 87–103.

6.Richard Kieckhefer, ‘The Specific Rationality of Medieval Magic’, American Historical Review, 1994, 99, 3, 813–36.

7. Isabel Iribarren, ‘From Black Magic to Heresy: A Doctrinal Leap in the Pontificate of John XXII’, Church History, 2007, 76, 1, 32–60.

8. Richard Kieckhefer, ‘Mythologies of Witchcraft in the Fifteenth Century’, Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, 2006, 1, 1, 79–108.

Part 3: Witchcraft and Witch Hunts in Early Modern Europe

9. Wolfgang Behringer, ‘Weather, Hunger and Fear: Origins of the European Witch Hunts in Climate, Society and Mentality’, German History, 1995, 13, 1, 1–27.

10. Brian P. Levack, ‘State-Building and Witch Hunting in Early Modern Europe’, in Jonathan Barry, Marianne Hester, and Gareth Roberts (eds.), Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe: Studies in Culture and Belief (Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 96–115.

11. John Tedeschi, ‘Inquisitorial Law and the Witch’, in Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen (eds.), Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries (Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 83–118.

12. Lyndal Roper, ‘Witchcraft and the Western Imagination’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 2006, 16, 117–41.

13. Charles Zika, ‘Fashioning a New Visual Language for Witchcraft’, The Appearance of Witchcraft: Print and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Europe (Routledge, 2007), pp. 10–35.

14. H. C. Erik Midelfort, ‘Patters of Witch Hunting in the German Southwest’, Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany 1562–1684: The Social and Intellectual Foundations (Stanford University Press, 1972), pp. 67–84.

Volume II: The Early Modern and Modern Eras

Part 4: Enchantment and Disenchantment in the Early Modern Era

15. Brian Copenhaver, ‘Scholastic Philosophy and Renaissance Magic in the De vita of Marsilio Ficino’, Renaissance Quarterly, 1984, 37, 4, 523–54.

16. Richard Kieckhefer, ‘Did Magic Have a Renaissance? An Historiographic Question Revisited’, in Charles Burnett and W. F. Ryan (eds.), Magic and the Classical Tradition (Warburg Institute, 2006), pp. 199–212.

17. R. W. Scribner, ‘The Reformation, Popular Magic and the "Disenchantment of the World"’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 1993, 23, 3, 475–94.

18. Alexandra Walsham, ‘The Reformation and "the Disenchantment of the World"’, Historical Journal, 2008, 51, 2, 497–528.

19. Michael D. Bailey, ‘The Disenchantment of Magic: Spells, Charms, and Superstition in Early European Witchcraft Literature’, American Historical Review, 2006, 111, 2, 383–404.

Part 5: Magic and Occultism in the Modern West

20. Owen Davies, ‘Occult Practitioners’, Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 1736–1951 (Manchester University Press, 1999), pp. 214–70, 323–7.

21. Karl Bell, ‘Magic, Modernity, and the Middle Classes’, The Magical Imagination: Magic and Modernity in Urban England 1780–1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 117–56.

22. Michael Saler, ‘Modernity and Enchantment: A Historiographic Review’, American Historical Review, 2006, 111, 3, 692–716.

Part 6: Neopaganism and Modern Witchcraft

23. Helen Berger, ‘Witchcraft and Neopaganism’, in Helen Berger (ed.), Witchcraft and Magic: Contemporary North America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), pp. 28–54, 170.

24. Marion Gibson, ‘"We Will Not Fly Silently Into the Night": Wicca and American Witchcraft’, Witchcraft Myths in American Culture (Routledge, 2007), pp. 141–82, 247–57.

25. Diane Purkiss, ‘At Play in the Fields of the Past: Modern Witches’, The Witch in History: Early-Modern and Twentieth-Century Representations (Routledge, 1996), pp. 30–58.

26. Jo Pearson, ‘Writing Witchcraft: The Historian’s History, the Practitioner’s Past’, in Jonathan Barry and Owen Davies (eds.), Witchcraft Historiography (Palgrave, 2007), pp. 225–41.

Volume III: Global Contexts

Part 7: Witchcraft in Early North America

27. Richard Godbeer, ‘Magical Experiments: Divining, Healing, and Destroying in Seventeenth-Century New England’, The Devil’s Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England (Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 24–54.

28. David Harley, ‘Explaining Salem: Calvinist Psychology and the Diagnosis of Possession’, American Historical Review, 1996, 101, 2, 307–30.

29. Matthew Dennis, ‘Patriarchy and the Witch-Hunting of Handsome Lake’, Seneca Possessed: Indians, Witchcraft, and Power in the Early American Republic (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), pp. 81–114, 249–63.

30. Irene Silverblatt, ‘The Inca’s Witches: Gender and the Cultural Work of Colonization in Seventeenth-Century Peru’, in Robert St. George (ed.), Possible Pasts: Becoming Colonial in Early America (Cornell University Press, 2000), pp. 109–30.

31. Stephan Palmié, ‘From Enchantment by Science to Socialist Sorcery: The Cuban Republic and Its Savage Slot’, in Luis Nicolau Parés and Roger Sansi (eds.), Sorcery in the Black Atlantic (University of Chicago Press, 2011), pp. 121–44.

32. Raquel Romberg, ‘The Moral Economy of Brujería under the Modern Colony: A Pirated Modernity?’, in Diane Paton and Maarit Forde (eds.), Obeah and Other Powers: The Politics of Caribbean Religion and Healing (Duke University Press, 2012), pp. 288–315.

Part 9: Magic and Witchcraft in Sub-Saharan Africa

33. Peter Geschiere, ‘Introduction: Witchcraft as Political Discourse’, The Modernity of Witchcraft: Politics and the Occult in Post-Colonial Africa, trans. Peter Geschiere and Janet Roitman (University of Virginia Press, 1997), pp. 1–25, 225–34.

34. Todd Sanders, ‘Reconsidering Witchcraft: Postcolonial Africa and Analytic (Un)Certainties’, American Anthropologist, 2003, 105, 2, 338–52.

35. Adam Ashforth, ‘On Believing, and Not Believing, in Witchcraft’, Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa (University of Chicago Press, 2005), pp. 111–30.

Part 10: Magic and Witchcraft in Asia

36. Philip A. Kuhn, ‘The Roots of Sorcery Fear’, Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (Harvard University Press, 1990), pp. 94–118, 248–52.

37. Margaret J. Wiener ‘Hidden Forces: Colonialism and the Politics of Magic in the Netherlands Indies’, in Birgit Meyer and Peter Pels (eds.), Magic and Modernity: Interfaces of Revelation and Concealment (Stanford University Press, 2003), pp. 129–58, 314–20.

38. Gyan Prakash, ‘Between Science and Superstition: Religion and the Modern Subject of the Nation in Colonial India’, in Birgit Meyer and Peter Pels (eds.), Magic and Modernity: Interfaces of Revelation and Concealment (Stanford University Press, 2003), pp. 39–59, 310.

39. James Frazer, ‘Magic and Religion’, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Macmillan, 1922), pp. 56–69.

40. Émile Durkheim, ‘Definition of Religious Phenomena and of Religion’, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, trans. Karen E. Fields (Free Press, 1995), pp. 21–44.

41. Bronislaw Malinowski, ‘The Art of Magic and the Power of Faith’, Magic, Science and Religion, and Other Essays (Free Press, 1948), pp. 69–92.

42. Randall Styers, ‘Introduction’, Making Magic: Religion, Magic, and Science in the Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 3–24, 227–31.

43. Jesper Sørensen, ‘Ritual Purpose and the Relation Between Magic, Culture and Religion’, A Cognitive Theory of Magic (Altamira Press, 2007), 171–91.

44. Eugene Subbotsky, ‘Magical Reality’, Magic and the Mind: Mechanisms, Functions, and Development of Magical Thinking and Behavior (Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 3–17, 176.

45. Elspeth Whitney, ‘The Witch "She"/the Historian "He": Gender and the Historiography of the European Witch Hunts’, Journal of Women’s History, 1995, 7, 3, 77–101.

46. David Harley, ‘Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife-Witch’, Social History of Medicine, 1990, 3, 1, 1–26.

47. Stuart Clark, ‘Women and Witchcraft’, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 106–33.

48. Lyndal Roper, ‘Oedipus and the Devil’, Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality, and Religion in Early Modern Europe (Routledge, 1994), pp. 226–48.

49. Elizabeth Reis, ‘The Devil, the Body, and the Feminine Soul’, Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England (Cornell University Press, 1997), pp. 93–120.

50. Alison Rowlands, ‘Not the "Usual Suspects"? Male Witches, Witchcraft, and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe’, in Alison Rowlands (ed.), Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe (Palgrave, 2009), pp. 1–30.

Part 13: Witchcraft and Shamanism

51. Mircea Eliade, ‘Some Observations on European Witchcraft’, History of Religions, 1975, 14, 3, 149–72.

52. Carlo Ginzburg, ‘Deciphering the Sabbath’, in Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen (eds.), Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries (Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 121–37.

53. Gustav Henningsen, ‘"The Ladies from Outside": An Archaic Pattern of the Witches’ Sabbath’, in Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen (eds.), Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries (Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 191–215.

54. Ronald Hutton, Gábor Klaniczay, William Monter, Rune Blix Hagen, and Fumiaki Nakanishi, ‘Forum Section: Shamanism, Witchcraft, and Magic’, Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, 2006, 1, 2, 207–41.