Why read Europe's Inner Demons?

Book cover of Europe's Inner Demons: The Demonization of Christians in Medieval Christendom

Book description

This is a history of the irrational need to imagine witches and an investigation of how those fantasies made the persecutions of the Middle Ages possible.

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Why read it?

1 author picked Europe's Inner Demons as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Melusine Draco

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I normally avoid books on historical witchcraft since they are normally written by biased academics who have never set foot in a magic Circle. This title is recognised as one of the most influential historical studies of European witchcraft beliefs; it began as an enquiry into the origins of the great European witch-hunt. It ended as something wider. It argues that the stereotype of the witch, as it existed in many parts of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is made up of elements of diverse origins, and that some of these derived from a specific fantasy which…

From Melusine's list on real old-fashioned witchcraft.