The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft, and Wicca

 Uncover the magic and truth behind this compelling topic In more than 480 entries, “The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft, and Wicca, Third Edition” is an exciting update to one of the landmark references on the subject – by paranormal expert Rosemary Ellen Guiley. This new edition provides unparalleled coverage of witchcraft practices around the world – spanning different time periods and societies – including entries on magic, shamanism, the occult, and wizardry.

 

What really happened in the witchcraft persecutions of sixteenth and seventeenth century England? Reading Witchcraft examines the stories told by and about witches and their victims through the trial records, early news books and personal accounts left by people caught up in a deadly and mysterious historical puzzle. Looking closely at these "first-hand" accounts, Marion Gibson shows that their representations of witchcraft are far from simple: they changed over time and according to the source and context of each story.

This important and highly original book explores the application of economics to the subject of hate via such diverse topics as war, terrorism, road rage, witchcraft mania, marriage and divorce, and bullying and harassment.

The "woodcutters"of the title derive from an example of a problem of apparent irrationality in Wittgenstein's (1956 ed.). Witchcraft enters the picture from anthropological studies interpreting beliefs about witchcraft as formally inconsistent. What Risjord (philosophy, Emory U.) is getting at is that to understand what he calls the "explanatory coherence" principle underlying social science, "it might be wise to look at cases where it [i.e. interpretation] breaks down." In examining the relationship between evidence and methodology, he discusses interpretative change, explanatory criteria of adequacy, norms, the problem of meaning, and the relationship between the social and natural sciences.

A fascinating examination of how Americans think about and write about witches, from the 'real' witches tried and sometimes executed in early New England to modern re-imaginings of witches as pagan priestesses, comic-strip heroines and feminist icons.
The first half of the book is a thorough re-reading of the original documents describing witchcraft prosecutions from 1640-1700 and a re-thinking of these sources as far less coherent and trustworthy than most historians have considered them to be...