A New History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics & Pagans

Excellent informative book on the history of witchcraft - well designed and organized.As a writer and researcher, this is a superb research resource.

excellent

Good condition

Lovely book!

I'm so glad that I bought this book. It disspells all the myths surrounding witch-craft. Anyone interested in the subject will find the book a gem. It spans from the begining of sorcery and witch-craft, right up to the modern day. If you think that Witches spend evenings indulging in orgies and cursing people, think again. It shows the injustice done to Witches throughout the centuries, and where the image of 'Devil-Worshipers' stems from. Many people still have that image of Witches today. Mention that you're a Wiccan, or Pagan and you can see them mentally picturing the sign of the cross at you. The book aptly explains the true Pagan way. I highly recomend this book to anyone with an interest in Witch-craft.

Thank you.

This book is a very, very good introduction to withcraft - and by withcraft I don't mean the Neopagan religion of Wicca - it is about witchcraft, or sorcery, from its simple origins as an aspect of fear and protection in less developed societies, using African magic as an example. It then goes on to explore how magic was viewed in pagan Europe, from the Greek Circe and Medea to the Norse seidr. Following this it examines the witch hunt of the early modern period - and comes to the conclusion, like most modern scholarly books, that Margaret Murray's hypothesis was wrong, and that there never was a pagan witch cult that the Church was actively persecuting. Finally it examines both modern Neopagan witchcraft (namely Wicca, it doesn't really mention Feri or Stregheria), and the sources that led to its evolution.This book is wonderfully illustrated throughout, with many hard to find images within. A really good introduction to SERIOUS historical studying of both witchcraft worldwide and of Neopagan witchcraft religions in general.

At first i found this book quite heavy going and hard to get into, however by the third chapter if found it quite interesting there are 175 pages and most of them have illustrations [94] to be presise. The tells of the horror and cruety of the witch craze which lasted for centuries. what i feel the arthur misses is why these innocent people were tortured and killed in the name of witchcraft [they were accussed of things like killing and eating infants and changing into animals and spoiling crops what the arthur calls dioabolical witchcraft, even though there is no evedence of this]. The witchcraft craze went on for centuries and the book tells of really sad and tragic case in this country and orthers. What this misses [i feel anyway is the reason why the witch caze happend in the first place he says that it was probaly to do with the fact that the poor people who suffing so much needed some to blame for their babies dieing [often the accussed were midwives] and thier crops failing and whatever else awful happend to them from what i can gather from other accounts it was probaly more politcal like encouge the poor to have some thing to fight amougst themselves about, and also the idear that wemen were becoming to powerful and it was a way of represing them thes points seemed to be missed in the book . To honest i think you be beter of paying a little more money and buying a book like the encyclopedia of witches and witchcrart by Rosemary Ellen Guilley.