num_pages: 256
description: 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 RomeThe Eighteenth and Nineteenth CenturiesBiblical and Pagan SocietiesThe Middle AgesThe Period of the Witch Trials
language: English
title: Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Vol. 6: The Twentieth Century
publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press