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"This compelling book traces the history of magic, witchcraft, and superstitious practices such as popular spells or charms from antiquity to the present day. Focusing especially on Europe in the medieval and early modern eras, Michael Bailey also explores the ancient Near East, classical Greece and Rome, and the spread of magical systems?particularly modern witchcraft or Wicca?from Europe to the United States. He examines how magic and superstition have been defined in various historical eras and how these constructions have changed over time. He considers the ways in which specific categories of magic have been condemned, and how those identified as magicians or witches have been persecuted and prosecuted in various societies. Although conceptions of magic have changed over time, the author shows how magic has almost always served as a boundary marker separating socially acceptable actions from illicit ones, and more generally the known and understood from the unknown and occult"--Publisher website (August 2007).

Magic --- Superstition --- Magie --- Superstitions --- History. --- Histoire --- Folk beliefs --- Traditions --- Magick --- Necromancy --- Sorcery --- Spells --- History --- Folklore --- Religion --- Occultism

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Superstitions are commonplace in the modern world. Mostly, however, they evoke innocuous images of people reading their horoscopes or avoiding black cats. Certain religious practices might also come to mind-praying to St. Christopher or lighting candles for the dead. Benign as they might seem today, such practices were not always perceived that way. In medieval Europe superstitions were considered serious offenses, violations of essential precepts of Christian doctrine or immutable natural laws. But how and why did this come to be? In Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies, Michael D. Bailey explores the thorny concept of superstition as it was understood and debated in the Middle Ages.Bailey begins by tracing Christian thinking about superstition from the patristic period through the early and high Middle Ages. He then turns to the later Middle Ages, a period that witnessed an outpouring of writings devoted to superstition-tracts and treatises with titles such as De superstitionibus and Contra vitia superstitionum. Most were written by theologians and other academics based in Europe's universities and courts, men who were increasingly anxious about the proliferation of suspect beliefs and practices, from elite ritual magic to common healing charms, from astrological divination to the observance of signs and omens. As Bailey shows, however, authorities were far more sophisticated in their reasoning than one might suspect, using accusations of superstition in a calculated way to control the boundaries of legitimate religion and acceptable science. This in turn would lay the conceptual groundwork for future discussions of religion, science, and magic in the early modern world. Indeed, by revealing the extent to which early modern thinkers took up old questions about the operation of natural properties and forces using the vocabulary of science rather than of belief, Bailey exposes the powerful but in many ways false dichotomy between the "superstitious" Middle Ages and "rational" European modernity.

Civilization, Medieval. --- Superstition --- Civilization, Medieval --- Medieval civilization --- Middle Ages --- Civilization --- Chivalry --- Renaissance --- Folk beliefs --- Traditions --- Folklore --- Religion --- Religious aspects --- Catholic Church --- History. --- History --- Religious aspects&delete& --- Catholic Church&delete& --- Superstitions --- Civilisation médiévale --- Histoire --- Aspect religieux --- Eglise catholique --- Superstition - Europe - History. --- Superstition - Religious aspects - Catholic Church - History.

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The second edition of Historical Dictionary of Witchcraft covers the history of the Witchcraft from 1750 B.C.E. though the modern day. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on witch hunts, witchcraft trials, and related practices around the world. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the history of witchcraft.

Witchcraft --- Occultism --- Black art (Witchcraft) --- Sorcery --- Wicca --- Art, Black (Magic) --- Arts, Black (Magic) --- Black art (Magic) --- Black arts (Magic) --- Occult, The --- Occult sciences --- Supernatural --- New Age movement --- Parapsychology --- History

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