Witchcraft: Did you mean...?

Religion and superstition went hand in hand in Colonial America, and one’s belief in the first confirmed the validity of the second. The colonists' worldview was completely informed by religion and so everything...

Hecate (Hekate) is a goddess of Greek mythology capable of both good and evil. She was associated with witchcraft, magic, the Moon, doorways, and creatures of the night like hell-hounds and ghosts. Hecate often carries a torch in her...

The Inquisition was the official institution of the medieval Catholic Church that established ecclesiastical judges to investigate and judge divergent opinions and practices that...

Obeah, Race and Racism: Caribbean Witchcraft in the English Imagination is a historical account of how the practices of Obeah by enslaved Africans came to be perceived, feared, recognised...

Circe (also spelt Kirké) is a powerful sorceress and goddess in Greek mythology with an exceptional talent for mixing drugs. She was the daughter of the sun-god Helios and the Oceanid Perseis. Circe’s...

Why do witch hunts happen? Ask a hundred people, get a hundred different answers - but perhaps, the feverish origin of persecution is not that nebulous after all. Or as far from us as we'd like to think... From Salem...

Religious practice in medieval Europe (c. 476-1500) was dominated and informed by the Catholic Church. The majority of the population was Christian, and "Christian" at this time meant "Catholic" as there was initially no other...

According to biblical tradition (and some say myth), David (c. 1035-970 BCE) was the second king in the ancient United Kingdom of Israel who helped establish the eternal throne of God. A former shepherd, David was renowned for his...

The Negative Confession (also known as The Declaration of Innocence) is a list of 42 sins which the soul of the deceased can honestly say it has never committed when it stands in judgment in the afterlife. The soul would...

Henry VIII of England ruled as king from 1509 to 1547. The second Tudor king after his father Henry VII of England (r. 1485-1509), Henry had inherited a kingdom which enjoyed both unity and sound finances. Famous for his six...