Witchcraft and Magic in Europe

The roots of European witchcraft and magic lie in Hebrew and other ancient Near Eastern cultures and in the Celtic, Nordic, and Germanic traditions of the Continent. For two millennia, European folklore and ritual have been imbued with the belief in the supernatural, yielding a rich trove of histories and images. A series that combines traditional approaches of political, legal, and social historians with critical syntheses of cultural anthropology, historical psychology, and gender studies, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe provides a modern, scholarly survey of the supernatural beliefs of Europeans from ancient times to the present day. Each of the six volumes in the series contains the work of distinguished scholars chosen for their expertise in a particular era or region. Witchcraft today continues to play a role in European societies and imaginations. This concluding volume includes a major new history of the origins and development of English "Wicca" and an account of the circumstances in which the term 'Satanist' has been used to label individuals or groups. The widespread prevalence of such phenomena proves the contemporary reality of beliefs in witchcraft and its threats. Other volumes in the series Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Biblical and Pagan Societies The Middle Ages The Period of the Witch Trials