Embracing the Darkness: A Cultural History of Witchcraft

by John Callow

Overview

As dusk fell on a misty evening in 1521, Martin Luther - hiding from his enemies at Wartburg Castle - found himself seemingly tormented by demons hurling walnuts at his bedroom window. In a fit of rage, the great reformer threw at the Devil the inkwell from which he was preparing his colossal translation of the Bible. A belief - like Luther's - in the supernatural, and in black magic, has been central to European cultural life for 3000 years. From the Salem witch trials to the macabre novels of Dennis Wheatley; from the sadistic persecution of eccentric village women to the seductive sorceresses of TV's Charmed; and from Derek Jarman's punk film Jubilee to Ken Russell's The Devils, John Callow brings the twilight world of the witch, mage and necromancer to vivid and fascinating life. He takes us into a shadowy landscape where, in an age before modern drugs, the onset of sudden illness was readily explained by malevolent spellcasting. And where dark, winding country lanes could terrify by night, as the hoot of an owl or shriek of a fox became the desolate cries of unseen spirits.Witchcraft has profoundly shaped the western imagination, and endures in the forms of modern-day Wicca and paganism.
Embracing the Darkness is an enthralling account of this fascinating aspect of the western cultural experience.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786722614
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	10/30/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

John Callow is a Research Fellow in History at Lancaster University and Director of the Marx Memorial Library in London. He is the author of The Making of King James II , of King in Exile: James II as Warrior, King and Saint , and - with Geoffrey Scarre - of Witchcraft and Magic in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Europe.
John Callow is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Suffolk, UK, who has written widely on early modern witchcraft, politics and popular culture. He is the author of The Making of King James II (2000) and Embracing the Darkness (2005, I.B. Tauris). He has appeared on the BBC Radio 4 documentary It Must be Witchcraft, and the series on the Salem Witches on the Discovery Channel.

Table of Contents

Introduction
The Figure of the Witch
Out of the Shadows
From Delusion to Demonic Pact
Patterns of Belief 1: The Hedge-witch, the Healer and the Cunning Man
Patterns of Belief 2: The Alchemist, the Necromancer and the Mage
The Witch Hunters
Women and Witchcraft
The Nightmare Given Form
'A Thing Grown Most Common': Crisis and Conformity
The Decline of Belief?
The Witch and the Children
The Witch as Muse
Old Magic in the New World
Conclusion: The Freedom to Dream
Bibliography
Index