Witchcraft
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“Witches – so that’s the 17th century?” It is a natural assumption; after all, the trials and persecutions of that period are large in popular consciousness when it comes to witchcraft. Today’s delve into the library, however, highlights the timeless nature of the witch. We visit the quiet Warwickshire village of Lower Quinton, where the…
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Witches. One of the most persecuted, least understood groups of people on the planet. Blending ideas of occult magic with Wiccan and pagan traditions, practitioners of witchcraft have been labelled everything from demonic to jesters. For most of their history, witches were treated with savagery and contempt; they were frequently run from towns during ‘witch…
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In August 1964, a very strange yet fascinating document was secretly prepared for senior personnel in the U.S. Army and the Pentagon. Its title was Witchcraft, Sorcery, Magic, and Other Psychological Phenomena and Their Implications on Military and Paramilitary Operations in the Congo. It was a document written by James Price and Paul Juredini, both…
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A CAMPAIGN has been launched to clear the name of the last three witches hanged in England – who met their fate in Devon.The infamous trio, knows as the ‘Bideford Witches’, were put to death in 1682 for supposedly dabbling in the occult.Temperance Lloyd, Susannah Edwards and Mary Trembles became the last three people hanged…
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A Quebec man who advertised his services as a “clairvoyant medium” is in trouble for not delivering on his prophecies after being charged for falsely claiming to practise witchcraft and sorcery.Yacouba Fofana, who worked under the name Professor Alfoseny, was arrested in April and charged with fraud for allegedly swindling people, according to the QMI…
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I have lately begun killing people. Not here in the United States, of course, but in Cornwall, England.And in fiction. Which is a round-about way of saying that I am pleased to announce that the first book in my new British “Davies & West Mystery Series,” Harm None, is now available in both print and…
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A widespread belief in witchcraft is hampering efforts to halt the Ebola virus from spreading, a British doctor has claimed. Benjamin Black, who is volunteering with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Sierra Leone, told the Telegraph that some people in west Africa are not seeking medical treatment because they blame sorcerers for the recent…
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August the 1st is Lammastide, a traditional Summer Harvest Festival dating back to pre-Anglo Saxon times. Lammas, also known by its Celtic name Lughnasadh, is one of the key dates along with Walpurgis Night, All Hallow’s Eve, and the Feast of Corpus Christi closely associated with the Renaissance idea of the Witches’ Sabbath. On these…
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We are back in the seventeenth century and your neighbours are really getting on your nerves, money is tight and, frankly, you want to let down your hair and deny God and the mother Church. How do you get involved with early modern Satanists and impress at the Sabbat? Well, luckily for you someone was…
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Saudi Arabia’s coastguards men stumbled across a jar at the bottom of the Gulf waters believed to be containing witchcraft items, which were later destroyed by police anti-sorcery experts, a newspaper in the Gulf Kingdom reported on Thursday. read more ‘Magic jar’ retrieved by Saudi coastguards from the seabed – Emirates 24/7.
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More than 300 years ago, a series of strange events struck old Princess Anne County, Va. farmers.Cotton plants withered. Cows’ milk dried up. Husbands’ eyes wandered from their wives.Who was to blame? According to the local women, Grace Sherwood.The farmer’s wife knew a little too much about herbs, was a little too pretty and wore…
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TOURISTS stop and admire the beautiful flowers that are on display beside the small fountain of Edinburgh Castle’s esplanade.In full bloom the flowers look ordinary, but take a closer look and you will see there is nothing fragrant about their commemoration.The cast iron wall fountain marks the site where more than 300 people were burned…
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Salvator Rosa 1615–1673 was fiercely committed to his independence and originality and obsessed with promoting his reputation as a great painter of history, philosophy, and morality. Painted in Florence at the Medici court, Rosa’s four Scenes of Witchcraft c. 1645–49 reflect the Florentine traditions of satire, burlesque, and the macabre as well as a contemporary…
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Bridget Bishop was suspected for engaging in all sorts of ‘scandalous’ behavior. read more Throwback Thursday: The First Salem ‘Witch’ Is Executed | Boston Magazine.
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Most people believe that the persecution of “witches” reached its height in the early 1690s with the trials in Salem, Mass., but it is a grim paradox of 21st-century life that violence against people accused of sorcery is very much still with us. Far from fading away, thanks to digital interconnectedness and economic development, witch…
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You may naturally associate the world of the occult – ghosts, vampires witches, doppelgangers and the sort – with ink-black wintry nights and leafless gnarled branches silhouetted against the waning skull of the moon, but some of the strangest and spookiest incidents I have researched have taken place in broad daylight at the height of…
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A blue plaque is being unveiled in Dorset at the former home of Gerald Brosseau Gardner. He is regarded by many as the “father of modern witchcraft”, but who was he and what was his legacy?Southridge, a comfortable 1920s house in Highcliffe, was bought by Gardner and his wife, Dorothea, in 1938 when they moved…
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Much of children’s literature creates fantastical scenarios in which the young protagonists can endure all sorts of danger that reality would never permit. It is the nature of fiction to allow us to do whatever we cannot, and when you’re a child—a point when your suspension of disbelief is at an all-time high—taking advantage of…
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Ever since Vallee and Keel put pen to paper in the 1970s, it’s been an axiom among proponents of the psychosocial hypothesis that the UFO phenomenon is merely the modern variant of a range of paranormal encounters and visitations by supernatural others. Despite their technological trappings, modern UFO sightings are merely the scientistic expression of…
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In an island with such a unique and rich past, it is unsurprising that the country’s leaders occasionally turn to history in times of need.Over the last week, they have been dissecting our relationship with religion. The topic has always fired the nation up, as we wrestle to reconcile the strong and vibrant strands of…
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How do I know if, c. 1750, old Mother Shipley down the road is a witch. Obviously the dying chickens, my children’s illnesses, the unpleasant cackling, the noises in the night are all clues… But we are in the eighteenth-century so how do we introduce science into this? read more: Weighing Witches – Beachcombing’s Bizarre…
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‘Walpurgis Night was when, according to the belief of millions of people, the devil was abroad – when the graves were opened and the dead come forth and walked. When all evil things of earth and air and water held revel.’ read more: Walpurgisnacht.
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A Nigerian ‘witch-hunter’ who claims any child who cries is a ‘servant of Satan’ could be banned from the UK following calls to Home Secretary Theresa May that she is a risk to youngsters.Campaigners are urging for Helen Ukpabio, known as ‘Lady Apostle’, to be deported and banned from returning to the UK on the…
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THE landlords of a Merseyside pub which was almost destroyed by a fire believe a mysterious curse is to blame.THE landlords of a Merseyside pub which was almost destroyed by a fire believe a mysterious curse is to blame. via Witch curse blamed for Wirral Magazine pub fire – Liverpool Echo.
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The Salem witch trials occurred in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft—the Devil’s magic—and 20 were executed. Eventually, the colony admitted the trials were a mistake and compensated the families of those convicted. Since then, the story of the trials has become synonymous with paranoia and…