WITCHCRAFT

the exercise or invocation of alleged supernatural powers to control people or events, practices typically involving sorcery or magic. Although defined differently in disparate historical and cultural contexts, witchcraft has often been seen, especially in the West, as the work of crones who meet secretly at night, indulge in cannibalism and orgiastic rites with the Devil, and perform black magic. Witchcraft thus defined exists more in the imagination of contemporaries than in any objective reality. Yet this stereotype has a long history and has constituted for many cultures a viable explanation of evil in the world. The intensity of these beliefs is best represented by the European witch-hunts of the 14th to 18th century, but witchcraft and its associated ideas are never far from the surface of popular consciousness andsustained by folk talesfind explicit focus from time to time in popular television and films and in fiction. Jeffrey Burton Russell Ioan M. Lewis Jeffrey Burton Russell the human exercise of alleged supernatural powers for antisocial, evil purposes (so-called black magic). A female held to have such powers may be called a witch or sorceress, the male counterpart being named wizard, sorcerer, or warlock. Belief in witchcraft survives in modern technologically developed cultures and remains a potent factor in most nonliterate societies. In ancient Greece witchcraft is mentioned as early as Homer. The best known sorceress in classical times was the legendary Medea. The Roman poet Horace left an elaborate description in Satires of the proceedings of two witches in the Esquiline cemetery. The Bible contains a number of references to witchcraft, a notable example being the so-called Witch of Endor consulted by King Saul (I Sam. 28). The early Church Fathers generally held that any so-called witchcraft was a delusion and a deception and that the name of Jesus used by a believing Christian could turn aside attempted witchcraft. This attitude was accompanied by strong disapproval of the practice, as shown in church canons. Clergy were urged to preach that claims of witchcraft were false, for God alone is powerful, and that there is a sharp distinction between factual evidence and fantasy or dreams. In the following centuries, however, belief in witchcraft spread, perhaps encouraged by the very sermons preached against it, which put ideas into the heads of simple people who had previously never heard of such possibilities. The connection with Satan was emphasized with the rise of the dualist heresy, which ascribed real power to the devil as an equal opponent of God. Once witchcraft was believed to involve demonic possession, heresy, and the rejection of God, it came within the scope of the Inquisition. From the late Middle Ages to the early 18th century, vehement opposition to the witch cult was demonstrated throughout Europe in public trials and executions, conducted on the basis of the biblical injunction You shall not permit a sorceress to live (Ex. 22:18). Many of those who denounced these measures, pointing to psychological factors at the root of alleged evidence, were themselves burned at the stake. Victims of the witchcraft trials have been variously estimated to number from the hundreds of thousands to the millions. Belief in witchcraft was taken to colonial America by English settlers. In 1692, after a prolonged witch trial at Salem, Mass., as a result of accusations by a group of teen-age girls, more than 30 persons were convicted of witchcraft, some after torture. Scattered claims of witchcraft continued to be heard from Europe and the Americas into the 20th century. Belief in witchcraft is almost universal in nonliterate societies. Among some peoples individuals will openly avow that they are witches and make public threats; more frequently, personal knowledge of the techniques is denied, and witchcraft is the subject only of hushed gossip. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the worldwide phenomenon was the subject of extensive anthropological investigation. Additional reading General works Good introductions are Edward Peters, The Magician, the Witch, and the Law (1978, reissued 1992); Diane Purkiss, The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth-Century Representations (1996); Christina Larner (ed.), Witchcraft and Religion: The Politics of Popular Belief (1984); I.M. Lewis, Religion in Context: Cults and Charisma, 2nd ed. (1996); and Mary Douglas (ed.) Witchcraft Confessions & Accusations (1970). Jeffrey Burton Russell, Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World (1986, reissued 1992), is an especially valuable study of the relationship between witchcraft beliefs and the Devil. Witchcraft in Africa Lucy Mair, Witchcraft (1969), is a useful general introduction with emphasis on African examples. Witchcraft and cannibalism are discussed in W. Arens, The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology & Anthropophagy (1979); and Peggy Reeves Sanday, Divine Hunger: Cannibalism as a Cultural System (1986). E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande (1937, reprinted 1977), also published in an abridged ed. with the same title (1976, reprinted 1980), is the key anthropological analysis on which all other subsequent work is based. On witchcraft confessions in Africa, Peter Geschiere and Cyprian Fisiy, Domesticating Personal Violence: Witchcraft, Courts and Confessions in Cameroon, Africa, 64(3):323341 (1994); R.W. Wyllie, Introspective Witchcraft among the Effutu of Southern Ghana, Man, 8(1):7479 (March 1973), is an important study. The relationship of witchcraft and modern politics in Africa is examined in Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff (eds.), Modernity and its Malcontents (1993). Witchcraft in Europe and the Americas Robin Briggs, Witches & Neighbors: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft (1996, reissued 1998), is perhaps the best book on the subject; and Alan C. Kors and Edward Peters (eds.), Witchcraft in Europe, 11001700: A Documentary History (1972, reprinted 1995), is an important collection of primary sources on European witchcraft beliefs. Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), is an influential analysis of the decline of witchcraft in Europe. Important studies of the origins of witchcraft in the Middle Ages are Richard Kieckhefer, European Witch Trials: Their Foundations in Popular and Learned Culture, 13001500 (1976), and Magic in the Middle Ages (1989, reissued 2000); and Jeffrey Burton Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (1972, reissued 1984), and Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages (1984, reissued 1988). Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen (eds.), Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries (1990, reissued 1993; originally published in Swedish, 1987); Ian Bostridge, Witchcraft and Its Transformations, c. 1650c. 1750 (1997); and Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (1997, reissued 1999), are good introductions to early modern European witchcraft.There are numerous studies of witchcraft in the various European nations and New World. Among the best are Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (1974, reissued 1997); Elaine G. Breslaw, Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies (1996); Fernando Cervantes, The Devil in the New World: The Impact of Diabolism in New Spain (1994); Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra and Willem Frijhoff (eds.), Witchcraft in the Netherlands: From the Fourteenth to the Twentieth Century (1991; originally published in Dutch, 1987); Richard Godbeer, The Devil's Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England (1992, reprinted 1994); Alan Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England: A Regional and Comparative Study, 2nd ed. (1999); Ruth Martin, Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice, 15501650 (1989); E. William Monter, Witchcraft in France and Switzerland: The Borderlands during the Reformation (1976); and Jonathan L. Pearl, The Crime of Crimes: Demonology and Politics in France, 15601620 (1999). Witch-hunts Wolfgang Behringer, Witchcraft Persecutions in Bavaria: Popular Magic, Religious Zealotry, and Reason of State in Early Modern Europe (1997; originally published in German, 1987); Christina Larner, Enemies of God: The Witch-Hunt in Scotland (1981, reissued 1983); Brian P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, 2nd ed. (1995); and H.C. Erik Midelfort, Witch Hunting in Southwestern Germany, 15621684: The Social and Intellectual Foundations (1972), examine the persecutions of the early modern period. On the related topic of inquisitions, Edward Peters, Inquisition (1988), provides excellent insights. Contemporary witchcraft Aidan A. Kelly, A History of Modern Witchcraft, 19391964 (1991); and T.M. Luhrmann, Persuasions of the Witch's Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England (1989, reissued 1994), provide thoughtful discussions of contemporary witchcraft. Jeffrey Burton Russell Ioan M. Lewis