A Guide to Grand-Jury Men
A Guide to Grand-Jury Men

Author: Richard Bernard

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2017-01-21

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 9781542697071

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

During the mid 16th century, England was plagued by an overwhelming number of deaths and strange sicknesses that affected both men and their cattle. Instances of the demonically possessed caused fear as sightings of spiritual apparitions affected local villages. People tried many methods to cure themselves, some by prayer, by treatments of superstitious rituals or with the help of good witches, healers, and divination. Accusations of witchcraft were increasingly common and a reformation of witch-trial procedure was underway. This volume was advisement on how Grand-Jury Men should conduct themselves in cases of witchcraft, along with details on their responsibilities and expected conduct in criminal witch-trials as they examined suspected witches and analyzed instances of bewitchment and maladies that surrounded them. It was first published in 1627 and was influenced by many works and witch-trials from antiquity. The work cites a variety of dissertations and provides a grand historical perspective on the subjects of poison, disease, murders and death believed to have been the cause of witch-craft in the minds of the most learned men of that era but also warns against the punishment of the innocent as many could negligently be falsely accused of witchcraft while explaining how one might know if a suspected witch is truly in league with the devil or just plain trickery. Outlined in this treatise are several topics on magic, witchcraft and demonology: The difference between real magic by use of demons and counterfeit magic or trickery; Medical evaluations of various diseases with methods on determining whether certain diseases could truly be caused by witchcraft; the signs of bewitchment versus the sufferings of natural disease; the power of Satan, the analysis of the witch's mark and how an individual may come to league with a demonic entity; the differences between bad and good witches; the methods a witch or demons is able to bewitch and curse others; the methods used by those who think themselves bewitched; discussion on the trials, persecution, conviction and punishment of bad witches. It also discusses demonology and the history of magic, necromancy and various forms of witchcraft.

Detestable and Wicked Arts
Detestable and Wicked Arts

Author: Paul B. Moyer

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2020-10-15

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 1501751069

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In Detestable and Wicked Arts, Paul B. Moyer places early New England's battle against black magic in a transatlantic perspective. Moyer provides an accessible and comprehensive examination of witch prosecutions in the Puritan colonies that discusses how their English inhabitants understood the crime of witchcraft, why some people ran a greater risk of being accused of occult misdeeds, and how gender intersected with witch-hunting. Focusing on witchcraft cases in New England between roughly 1640 and 1670, Detestable and Wicked Arts highlights ties between witch-hunting in the New and Old Worlds. Informed by studies on witchcraft in early modern Europe, Moyer presents a useful synthesis of scholarship on occult crime in New England and makes new and valuable contributions to the field.

Book Notes
Book Notes

Author: Sidney Smith Rider

Publisher:

Published: 1905

Total Pages: 654

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Consisting of literary gossip, criticisms of books and local historical matters connected with Rhode Island.

Thinking with Demons
Thinking with Demons

Author: Stuart Clark

Publisher:

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 850

ISBN-13: 9780198208082

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This major work offers a new interpretation of the witchcraft beliefs of European intellectuals between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, showing how these beliefs fitted rationally with other beliefs of the period and how far the nature of rationality is dependent on its historical context.

Spellbound
Spellbound

Author: Elizabeth Reis

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9780842025775

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Spellbound: Women and Witchcraft in America is a collection of twelve articles that revisit crucial events in the history of witchcraft and spiritual feminism in this country. Beginning with the "witches" of colonial America, Spellbound extends its focus through the nineteenth century to explore women's involvement with alternative spiritualities, and culminates with examinations of the contemporary feminist neopagan and Goddess movements. A valuable source for those interested in women's history, women's studies, and religious history, Spellbound is also a crucial addition to the bookshelf of anyone tracing the evolution of spiritualism in America.

Vexed with Devils
Vexed with Devils

Author: Erika Gasser

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2019-12-15

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 1479871133

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Stories of witchcraft and demonic possession from early modern England through the last official trials in colonial New England Those possessed by the devil in early modern England usually exhibited a common set of symptoms: fits, vomiting, visions, contortions, speaking in tongues, and an antipathy to prayer. However, it was a matter of interpretation, and sometimes public opinion, if these symptoms were visited upon the victim, or if they came from within. Both early modern England and colonial New England had cases that blurred the line between witchcraft and demonic possession, most famously, the Salem witch trials. While historians acknowledge some similarities in witch trials between the two regions, such as the fact that an overwhelming majority of witches were women, the histories of these cases primarily focus on local contexts and specifics. In so doing, they overlook the ways in which manhood factored into possession and witchcraft cases. Vexed with Devils is a cultural history of witchcraft-possession phenomena that centers on the role of men and patriarchal power. Erika Gasser reveals that witchcraft trials had as much to do with who had power in the community, to impose judgement or to subvert order, as they did with religious belief. She argues that the gendered dynamics of possession and witchcraft demonstrated that contested meanings of manhood played a critical role in the struggle to maintain authority. While all men were not capable of accessing power in the same ways, many of the people involved—those who acted as if they were possessed, men accused of being witches, and men who wrote possession propaganda—invoked manhood as they struggled to advocate for themselves during these perilous times. Gasser ultimately concludes that the decline of possession and witchcraft cases was not merely a product of change over time, but rather an indication of the ways in which patriarchal power endured throughout and beyond the colonial period. Vexed with Devils reexamines an unnerving time and offers a surprising new perspective on our own, using stories and voices which emerge from the records in ways that continue to fascinate and unsettle us.

Four Centuries of Witch Beliefs (RLE Witchcraft)
Four Centuries of Witch Beliefs (RLE Witchcraft)

Author: R. T. Davies

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2012-05-23

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 113673998X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Originally published in 1947, it is the essential purpose of this book to investigate attitudes of leading Elizabethan and Stuart statesmen, ask whether witchcraft was of any importance in seventeenth-century English history, or even influenced the Great Rebellion. The reader is placed in possession of the more pertinent passages from the arguments used to support or discredit belief in witchcraft.