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    Witches and Witchcraft
    Witches and Witchcraft
    Witches and Witchcraft
    Ebook96 pages50 minutes

    Witches and Witchcraft

    By David Nash

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    Witchcraft haunts the Western imagination to this day, from Central Europe to Britain to North America. This book explores the development of witchcraft and of the belief in it (stressing the difference between the two), the sixteenthand seventeenth-century obsession that spawned witch-hunting, the eventual decline of witchcraft, and the phenomenon's fascinating 'afterlife' that has involved the Nazis' fixation and modern treatments including Arthur Miller's acclaimed The Crucible. Fully illustrated with historical documents and colour photographs, and expertly written by Professor David Nash, this book is the perfect introduction to a subject that is compelling, disturbing and a little-understood cultural touchstone.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateJul 10, 2014
    ISBN9780747815341
    Witches and Witchcraft
    Author

    David Nash

    David Nash is Professor of History at Oxford Brookes University, UK.

    Read more from David Nash

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      Witches and Witchcraft - David Nash

      INTRODUCTION AND PRE-HISTORY

      THE SUBJECT of witchcraft and witches endlessly intrigues every succeeding generation. As each age becomes more psychologically and technically sophisticated our interest in the reality and sometimes alien nature of witchcraft remains remarkably undiminished. It is tempting to view this interest as a hangover from the past and romanticism about a more primitive form of existence when mankind was somehow closer to nature.

      As such, this apparently remote episode often fascinates because it involves beliefs and behaviour patterns that seem very obviously different to those of our modern and considered world. So why do we persist in wanting to study and understand what happened to these people (believers, witches and victims) and why? While it often seems a distant self-contained period of history that exerts a quirky hold over the imagination, strangely it is also familiar because some of its elements have important resonances with modern experience. The hunting and punishment of witches was very often a form of scapegoating – individuals blamed for the misfortunes of other individuals or of whole communities. We have our modern counterparts in the outbreaks of hatred towards bankers, foreigners and sex criminals and what they are believed to have done. We are also encouraged to understand such feelings through our creation of stereotypes of evil, ranging from Freddie Kruger to serial killers like Fred West or Ted Bundy. It could also be said that a taste for the supernatural has become considerably more in fashion since the 1990s than it had been for some time previously. The gothic ‘dark’ style is in vogue with heavy metal music witnessing something of a renaissance, while children’s literature is full of references to magic, from the writings of Philip Pullman to the ultimately popular expression of this in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.

      Some social commentators also suggest Western society is experiencing a process of ‘re-enchantment’ – a distrust of wholly rational explanations of the world and universe which has reawakened interest in more ‘magical’ outlooks. This leaves rational explanations of the world to become only one potential choice amongst many where they once claimed to rule. After all, the proportion of Americans who believe the lunar landing in 1969 was hoaxed in a warehouse rather than believe it really happened continues to grow. Evidence that our environment is turning against us – as it did during the period of the early modern witch-hunt – is all around. We are increasingly more attuned to environmental catastrophe and the marginal nature of existence in the Third World and areas that could flood as a result of global warming. Likewise, some economic and social prophets talk of the world being ‘one bad harvest away from chaos’ and the collapse of financial markets has re-introduced the First World spectacularly to a reality of uncertainty, risk and irrationality. Just as numerous economic, social and cultural strains in the early modern period made people believe in irrational powers, so today, our faith in the benevolence of science is now weakened. There is distrust around issues in cloning, the fear of the consequence of genetically modified food – life again seems full of the ‘drip, drip, drip’ of risk, mundane and serious dangers.

      ‘The Witch’ by Albrecht Dürer, depicting a witch riding backwards on a goat, accompanied by four putti (winged male children), c. 1500.

      Witches casting a spell to bring rain. Woodcut from Ulrich Molitor’s De Laniis et phitonicis mulieribus, Constance, 1489.

      However, the phenomenon of witchcraft is more correctly seen as an issue not so much of spells and past irrational modes of behaviour, but of the exercise of power. This particular factor can be seen everywhere in witchcraft’s past and in its present. Theologians in the early modern period (c. 1400–1700) believed power had been dispensed to the Devil and those who sought to follow him. These same theologians also believed that they had a solemn duty to

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