Religion played a role in the story of Saito science and produce science, being a vital ingredient in magical thought by contributing to such thinking it also helped foster the early development of natural science. The Tree was the first book to describe an entire Witchcraft system/tradition with some sort of depth, and unlike Sheba’s Book of Shadows, it broke no oaths while doing so. I often think of The Tree as a book for solitaries, but as Aidan Kelly points out in the comments below, it does contain a full compliment of the usual ritual roles one finds in a coven. Still, if you were a solitary, this was probably the place to start in the 1970’s.

Part of Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell’s Witchcraft Collection contains over 3,000 titles documenting the history of the Inquisition and the persecution of witchcraft, primarily in Europe. em algumas partes, ele é melhor do que o Grimório das Bruxas: o Grimório é mais extenso e mais completo, mas o foco dele é no Ocidente (muito euro-centrado), enquanto esse aqui tem uma linguagem mais simples e nem por isso peca nas referências e na pesquisa (proporcionalmente fala mais sobre a bruxaria em outras partes do mundo, mas é eurocentrico igual). In later centuries, constant attempts to defeat heresy brought to light a number of figures who were difficult to reconcile with Christianity. Such figures were typically created without reference to witchcraft at all, but led to the creation of the figure of the heretic witch. Many modern-day witches still perform witchcraft, but there’s seldom anything sinister about it. Their spells and incantations are often derived from their Book of Shadows, a 20th-century collection of wisdom and witchcraft, and can be compared to the act of prayer in other religions. A modern-day witchcraft potion is more likely to be an herbal remedy for the flu instead of a hex to harm someone. It’s in the 1970’s when the cauldron really starts bubbling. It’s the age of the first “how to” books, and truly marks the start of our current golden age in Witchcraft publishing. For the first time there are rituals being published, and books that begin to creep outside the Wiccan-style circle.Otherwise, I enjoyed the text on the witch-craze. I was not aware of the part heretics played in the making of a witch. Very good stuff. Graves does a few different things in his book that were destined to make it a classic. The first is his summary of the Maiden-Mother-Crone figure, one goddess in three. There’s also the Oak King/Holly King idea found in The White Goddess, which takes the ideas of Frazer and makes them even more poetic. He also spends a lot of time on “Celtic” ideas, forever linking Witchcraft with the Celts in the minds of many. Between the years 1500 and 1660, up to 80,000 suspected witches were put to death in Europe. Around 80 percent of them were women thought to be in cahoots with the Devil and filled with lust. Germany had the highest witchcraft execution rate, while Ireland had the lowest. Wicca for Beginners: A Guide to Wiccan Beliefs, Rituals, Magic, and Witchcraft by Lisa Chamberlain (2014) This might be the most “unknown” book on my list, but it probably shouldn’t be. Glass’s book is what Gardner probably wished his books were like, readable. Glass’s history of Witchcraft is not particularly good, but as a snapshot in time it’s a fun look into what people were thinking in 1965. Also of historical value is Glass’s use of the word “Wicca” with two c’s (Gardner spelled it with one “c”) and as the name of the Craft of the Wise, religious Witchcraft.

One such figure was peculiar to the western Alps. She was the female embodiment of winter, a female figure often called Bertha or Perchta or Befuna. She punished social disobedience and rewarded ‘goodness’. She was always portrayed as an old hag, because she represented cold and winter. It did not take long for intellectuals to note her resemblance to the witches with whom they were familiar from classical literature. First, it is brutally Eurocentric. Almost all discussion of non-Western magic is restricted to the opening chapter on ancient magic, with a few asides on the Aztecs, Voodoo, and European reactions to magical traditions the "discovered." I know enough about East Asian religion to feel that this seriously neglects the ongoing development of ritual and folk magic in China, Korea, and Japan in favor of focusing heavily on European witch trials and hermetic traditions. I find those things interesting too, but there is much more to the world of magic. Let’s suppose that an eager JP has put together a significant number of depositions – complaints in writing from your fellow villagers – and has also interrogated you, and got a confession from you. The next stage is that all this evidence is put to a jury, who decide whether to take it to trial or not.

Search/Browse Digitized Witchcraft Books in English

The publication of “Malleus Maleficarum”—written by two well-respected German Dominicans in 1486—likely spurred witch mania to go viral. The book, usually translated as “The Hammer of Witches,” was essentially a guide on how to identify, hunt and interrogate witches.

The heavy focus on presenting facts and information without a cohesive storytelling approach made it challenging for me to engage with the content. I found myself craving a more immersive and engaging reading experience, which this book failed to provide.Cats are the most commonly reported which is familiar, there was even a mid evil legend that the devil himself had created them by accident. Apesar de conhecer de maneira isolada parte dos fatos que eles apresentam, vê-los lado a lado no livro abriu muito meus olhos. Nunca tinha me tocado que, por exemplo, a feitiçaria tem um conjunto de práticas muito similar entre culturas e sociedades extremamente distintas. Observar os movimentos neopaganistas em uma linha do tempo também ajudou a esclarecer algumas dúvidas (por que eu odeio tanto o gardner? por que eu amo tanto a z. budapest?)

I’m aware that there’s an earlier edition of this book, but the 1989 version is the one most of us are familiar with, and it was in every major bookstore throughout the 1990’s. Not only that, it was sometimes in the Feminism section and not the New Age or Witchcraft section at Barnes and Noble. Wow! This was the first easily available book articulating women-only Witchcraft, which makes it highly influential. (I often find myself in disagreement with Budapest-and that’s putting it mildly, especially when it comes to issues concerning trans-women.)Há muito menos tempo do que gostaríamos, o conhecimento das artes divinatórias, curas, manejo do parto e uso das ervas eram consideradas parte de um conjunto de práticas e características imperdoáveis das mulheres: a bruxaria. Most people think that witches are a Christian invention. But the idea of the witch who flies in the night and draws power from dark cosmic forces to work her ill will on others pre-dates Christianity, probably by many centuries. Like all DK books this has gorgeous illustrations and tries to cover a broad range of topics. As an introductory work, it is perfectly fine. But I have a number of problems with it as anything other than a rudimentary starting point.