Encounters With Witchcraft

Author : Norman N. Miller
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438443595
Total Pages : 243 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Encounters with Witchcraft written by Norman N. Miller and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-04-26 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encounters with Witchcraft is a personal story of a young man's fascination with African witchcraft discovered first in a trek across East Africa and the Congo. The story unfolds over four decades during the author's long residence in and many trips to Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. As a field researcher he learns from villagers what it is like to live with witches, and how witches are seen through African eyes. His teachers are healers, cult leaders, witch-hunters and self-proclaimed "witches" as well as policemen, politicians and judges. A key figure is Mohammadi Lupanda, a frail village woman whose only child has died years before. In her dreams, however, she believes the little girl is not dead, but only lost in the fields. Mohammadi is discovered wandering at night, wailing and calling out for the child. Her neighbors are terror-stricken and she is quickly brought to a village trial and banished as a witch. The author is able to watch and listen to the proceedings and later investigate the deeper story. He discovers mysteries about Mohammadi that are only solved when he returns to the village three decades later. Today, witch-hunting and witchcraft-related crimes are found in more than seventy developing countries. Epidemics of violence against alleged witches, mainly women, but including elders of both genders, and even children is on the increase in some parts of the world. Witchcraft beliefs may lie behind vigilante murders, political assassinations, revenge killings and commercial murders for human body parts. Through African voices the author addresses key questions. Do witchcraft powers exist? Why does witchcraft persist? What are its historic roots? Why is witchcraft-based violence so often found within families? Does witchcraft serve as a hidden legal and political system, a mafia-like under-government? The author holds up a mirror for us to think about religious beliefs in our own experience that rely heavily on myth and superstition.

Author : Alison Games
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1442203595
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Witchcraft in Early North America written by Alison Games and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2010-10-16 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Witchcraft in Early North America investigates European, African, and Indian witchcraft beliefs and their expression in colonial America. Alison Games's engaging book takes us beyond the infamous outbreak at Salem, Massachusetts, to look at how witchcraft was a central feature of colonial societies in North America. Her substantial and lively introduction orients readers to the subject and to the rich selection of documents that follows. The documents begin with first encounters between European missionaries and Native Americans in New France and New Mexico, and they conclude with witch hunts among Native Americans in the years of the early American republic. The documents—some of which have never been published previously—include excerpts from trials in Virginia, New Mexico, and Massachusetts; accounts of outbreaks in Salem, Abiquiu (New Mexico), and among the Delaware Indians; descriptions of possession; legal codes; and allegations of poisoning by slaves. The documents raise issues central to legal, cultural, social, religious, and gender history. This fascinating topic and the book’s broad geographic and chronological coverage make this book ideally suited for readers interested in new approaches to colonial history and the history of witchcraft.

Author : Hans Holzer
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.95/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Witches written by Hans Holzer and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Hans Holzer
Publisher : Black Dog & Leventhal
ISBN 13 : 0316393290
Total Pages : 672 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Witches written by Hans Holzer and published by Black Dog & Leventhal. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of witchcraft plus deeply personal accounts of a famed researcher/expert's interviews with leading practitioners, Witches is an essential compendium from the late Professor Hans Holzer. Professor Hans Holzer draws on his own first-hand research from the 1960s and 1970s in Witches, a companion to his bestselling Ghosts. Including many photographs from the author's collection, this entertaining and eye-opening volume explores the myriad forms and factions of witchcraft, taking readers inside the covens and cults where the ancient rituals are practiced. Experience the secrets of the craft, learn spells and incantations, and read interviews and personal testimony from the foremost practitioners. Holzer not only provides the reader with the history of witchcraft, he documents the lives and practices of actual witches pursuing the world's oldest religion. Hundreds of photographs from the author's own collection illuminate the subject and bring the rituals and rites of "the Craft" to life.

Author : Anna Gilbert
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 1466873558
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Hint of Witchcraft written by Anna Gilbert and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2014-06-10 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Strange things have been brewing in the village of Ashlaw in 1923: the once-prosperous drapers' shop has gone bankrupt and three separate families' lives have each, it seems, been hexed. In a bigger town such news might happen every day, but in tiny, remote Ashlaw, even one of these curses can set the whole village off-kilter. So what could be responsible for the stir? Margot, a local, precocious schoolgirl, has been trying to figure this out, especially since hers was one of the three ill-fated families. She comes to a strange conclusion--each of these curses somehow involves one Linden Grey, the most intriguing woman Margot has ever met. She determines to understand, once and for all, Linden's identity and her preternatural, even deadly, powers. But in her search, is Margot willing to hand over her childish innocence? With eerie suspense and clever turns of plot, Anna Gilbert bewitches believers and non-believers alike in A Hint of Witchcraft, a chronicle of a village's encounter with the other-worldly.

Author : Harry B. Wright
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781494064853
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Witness to Witchcraft written by Harry B. Wright and published by . This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a new release of the original 1957 edition.

Author : David D. Hall
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822382202
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.01/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England written by David D. Hall and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2005-02-04 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This superb documentary collection illuminates the history of witchcraft and witch-hunting in seventeenth-century New England. The cases examined begin in 1638, extend to the Salem outbreak in 1692, and document for the first time the extensive Stamford-Fairfield, Connecticut, witch-hunt of 1692–1693. Here one encounters witch-hunts through the eyes of those who participated in them: the accusers, the victims, the judges. The original texts tell in vivid detail a multi-dimensional story that conveys not only the process of witch-hunting but also the complexity of culture and society in early America. The documents capture deep-rooted attitudes and expectations and reveal the tensions, anger, envy, and misfortune that underlay communal life and family relationships within New England’s small towns and villages. Primary sources include court depositions as well as excerpts from the diaries and letters of contemporaries. They cover trials for witchcraft, reports of diabolical possessions, suits of defamation, and reports of preternatural events. Each section is preceded by headnotes that describe the case and its background and refer the reader to important secondary interpretations. In his incisive introduction, David D. Hall addresses a wide range of important issues: witchcraft lore, antagonistic social relationships, the vulnerability of women, religious ideologies, popular and learned understandings of witchcraft and the devil, and the role of the legal system. This volume is an extraordinarily significant resource for the study of gender, village politics, religion, and popular culture in seventeenth-century New England.

Author : Mensah Adinkrah
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 1782385614
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Witchcraft, Witches, and Violence in Ghana written by Mensah Adinkrah and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2015-08-01 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Witchcraft violence is a feature of many contemporary African societies. In Ghana, belief in witchcraft and the malignant activities of putative witches is prevalent. Purported witches are blamed for all manner of adversities including inexplicable illnesses and untimely deaths. As in other historical periods and other societies, in contemporary Ghana, alleged witches are typically female, elderly, poor, and marginalized. Childhood socialization in homes and schools, exposure to mass media, and other institutional mechanisms ensure that witchcraft beliefs are transmitted across generations and entrenched over time. This book provides a detailed account of Ghanaian witchcraft beliefs and practices and their role in fueling violent attacks on alleged witches by aggrieved individuals and vigilante groups.

Author : Norman N. Miller
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 1438443579
Total Pages : 243 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Encounters with Witchcraft written by Norman N. Miller and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2012-01-30 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A renowned authority on East Africa examines the effects of witchcraft beliefs on African culture, politics, and family life.

Author : Kateryna Dysa
Publisher : Central European University Press
ISBN 13 : 615505312X
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.22/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ukrainian Witchcraft Trials written by Kateryna Dysa and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ukrainian Witchcraft Trials is an analysis of early modern witchcraft trials and legal procedures in Ukrainian lands, along with an examination of quantitative data drawn from the different trials. Kateryna Dysa first describes the ideological background of the tribunals based on works written by priests and theologians that reflect attitudes towards the devil and witches. The main focus of her work, however, is the process leading to witchcraft accusations. From the stories of participants of the trials she shows what led people to enunciate first suspicions then accusations of witchcraft. Finally, she presents a microhistory from one Volhynian village, comparing attitudes towards two "female crimes" in the Ukrainian courts. The study is based on archival research together with previously published witch trials transcripts. Dysa approaches the trials as indications of belief and practice, attempting to understand the actors involved rather than dismiss or condemn them. She takes care to situate Ukrainian witchcraft and its accompanying trials in a broader European context, with comparisons to some African cases as well.