Witches' Sabbath
Title | Witches' Sabbath PDF eBook |
Author | Maurice Sachs |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 0 |
Release | 2020-03-25 |
Genre | Catholic converts |
ISBN | 9781943679126 |
Literary Nonfiction. LGBTQIA Studies. Autobiography. Translated from the French by Richard Howard. Witches' Sabbath is the remarkable autobiographical chronicle of French author Maurice Sachs (1906-1945). To Sachs, the work was "a statement of account, a moral memo. Or should I say immoral?" He recounts how, as a young man, he befriended Jean Cocteau and Coco Chanel, both of whom he stole from, as he stole from many others in his life (Sachs would later propose writing a book entitled Confessions of a Thief). He tells of when, in 1925, he converted to Catholicism and entered a seminary, only to be expelled because of his homosexuality. He tells of when he drifted through America, of when he nearly drank himself to death, of his many failed love affairs. In addition to being a compelling, honest portrait of a unique character, Witches' Sabbath is also notable for its engagement with literature. Every period of Sachs' life is marked by his dialogue with living and dead authors; Charles Baudelaire, Marcel Proust, Stendhal, all are featured. Thanks to his lifelong obsession with literature, Sachs developed a style all his own: peppered with keen, acerbic portraits of his contemporaries, sometimes picaresque, introspective and often full of irony.
Origins of the Witches’ Sabbath
Title | Origins of the Witches’ Sabbath PDF eBook |
Author | Michael D. Bailey |
Publisher | Penn State Press |
Total Pages | 136 |
Release | 2021-02-04 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0271089512 |
While the perception of magic as harmful is age-old, the notion of witches gathering together in large numbers, overtly worshiping demons, and receiving instruction in how to work harmful magic as part of a conspiratorial plot against Christian society was an innovation of the early fifteenth century. The sources collected in this book reveal this concept in its formative stages. The idea that witches were members of organized heretical sects or part of a vast diabolical conspiracy crystalized most clearly in a handful of texts written in the 1430s and clustered geographically around the arc of the western Alps. Michael D. Bailey presents accessible English translations of the five oldest surviving texts describing the witches’ sabbath and of two witch trials from the period. These sources, some of which were previously unavailable in English or available only in incomplete or out-of-date translations, show how perceptions of witchcraft shifted from a general belief in harmful magic practiced by individuals to a conspiratorial and organized threat that led to the witch hunts that shook northern Europe and went on to influence conceptions of diabolical witchcraft for centuries to come. Origins of the Witches’ Sabbath makes freshly available a profoundly important group of texts that are key to understanding the cultural context of this dark chapter in Europe’s history. It will be especially valuable to those studying the history of witchcraft, medieval and early modern legal history, religion and theology, magic, and esotericism.
Ecstasies
Title | Ecstasies PDF eBook |
Author | Carlo Ginzburg |
Publisher | Penguin Mass Market |
Total Pages | 339 |
Release | 1991 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 9780140158588 |
Weaving early accounts of witchcraft-trial records, ecclesiastical tracts, folklore, and popular iconography-into new and startling patterns, Carlo Ginzburg presents in Ecstasies compelling evidence of a hidden shamanistic culture that flourished across Europe and in England for thousands of years.
Sabbats
Title | Sabbats PDF eBook |
Author | Edain McCoy |
Publisher | Llewellyn Worldwide |
Total Pages | 374 |
Release | 2002-09-08 |
Genre | Body, Mind & Spirit |
ISBN | 9781567186635 |
Mark the passing of time and honor each season with sacred ritual and seasonal craftwork, ancient stories and traditional treats. Create a colorful mask for Samhain, make a honey cake for Imbolg, fashion a chaplet of flowers at Bealtaine, bake a Brigid's blackberry pie for Lughnasadh, even accompany your sabbat festivities with music from eight traditional musical scores--it's easy with Sabbats as your guide. Learn how to combine old customs with new expressions of your beliefs and your chosen tradition. Deepen your connection to the turning of the wheel as you celebrate the eight sacred seasons of the Witches' year.
Witch Craze
Title | Witch Craze PDF eBook |
Author | Lyndal Roper |
Publisher | Yale University Press |
Total Pages | 376 |
Release | 2006-01-01 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 9780300119831 |
A powerful account of witches, crones, and the societies that make them From the gruesome ogress in Hansel and Gretel to the hags at the sabbath in Faust, the witch has been a powerful figure of the Western imagination. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries thousands of women confessed to being witches--of making pacts with the Devil, causing babies to sicken, and killing animals and crops--and were put to death. This book is a gripping account of the pursuit, interrogation, torture, and burning of witches during this period and beyond. Drawing on hundreds of original trial transcripts and other rare sources in four areas of Southern Germany, where most of the witches were executed, Lyndal Roper paints a vivid picture of their lives, families, and tribulations. She also explores the psychology of witch-hunting, explaining why it was mostly older women that were the victims of witch crazes, why they confessed to crimes, and how the depiction of witches in art and literature has influenced the characterization of elderly women in our own culture.
On the Inconstancy of Witches
Title | On the Inconstancy of Witches PDF eBook |
Author | Pierre de Lancre |
Publisher | Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS) |
Total Pages | 648 |
Release | 2006 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN |
Eight Sabbats for Witches, and Rites for Birth, Marriage, and Death
Title | Eight Sabbats for Witches, and Rites for Birth, Marriage, and Death PDF eBook |
Author | Janet Farrar |
Publisher | Phoenix Pub |
Total Pages | 192 |
Release | 1981 |
Genre | Body, Mind & Spirit |
ISBN | 9780919345263 |
Dramatic rituals for the seasonal ceremonies and festivals linked with the waxing and waning of the natural year.