This major work offers a new interpretation of the witchcraft beliefs of European intellectuals between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, showing how these beliefs fitted rationally with other beliefs of the period and how far the nature of rationality is dependent on its historical context.

This collection of essays approaches the role of demons and the devil in ancient and medieval Christianity from a variety of scholarly perspectives: historical, philosophical, and theological as well as philological, liturgical, and theoretical. In the opening article Gerd Theissen presents a wide-ranging overview of the role of the devil, spanning the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and patristic literature. The contributions that follow address texts on the devil, demons, and evil, and are drawn from ancient philosophy, the New Testament, early Christian apologetics, hagiography, and history. Covering primarily the patristic period, the volume also contains articles on medieval sources. The introduction discusses the different angles of approach found in the articles in an effort to shed fresh light on this familiar but also uniquely troubling theme.

The book begins by developing a spatial methodology to analyse secular and post-secular religious relations. The spatial approach is then applied to a particular case, that of the left hand. Our understanding of this sinister but intimate 'other' draws on a wide range of ideas, from different religious traditions to alternative paths to salvation and self-realisation ...

The perception of demons in late antiquity was determined by the cultural and religious contexts. Therefore the authors of this volume take into consideration a wide variety of texts stemming from different religious milieus ranging from spells, apocalypses, martyrdom literature to hagiography and focus specifically on the literary aspects of the transformation of the demonic in this period of transition.

This reader, composed of original essays by leading authors, expands the category of the Atlantic chronologically, spatially, and methodologically. It firmly places the Atlantic within global history and the coverage expands into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The essays present events that formed the nations and cultures of the Atlantic region and show their global roots and how they intertwine with non-Atlantic communities of the world.

Most people come home with a window sticker, a shot glass, or a bottle opener cleverly disguised as a key chain from their summer vacations, but not AJ. She drunkenly stumbled into a sacred Native American Indian ritual and accidentally inherited an ancient hunter spirit. Now AJ, Norm (the hunter spirit), and Danny, NormÕs rightful heir, wander the country fighting demons that escape from Hell to enjoy this worldÕs lavish all-you-can-eat soul buffet. A national park in Mississippi is the next stop on their traveling shit show because someone or something (spoiler alert: itÕs totally a demon) is killing residents of a nearby small town. But demons arenÕt the only thing AJ and Danny have to contend with this go around. Throw in a self-righteous, holier-than-thou reverend, his dick-for-brains son, a not-so-sure-what-side-of-the-law-sheÕs-on sheriff and a super-sexy, do-jiggly-things-to-your-naughty-bits park ranger and well, AJ just might find herself in a battle that sheÕs not prepared for ... love.

Grounded in medical, juridical, and philosophical texts of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France, this innovative study tells the story of how the idea of woman contributed to the emergence of modern science. Rebecca Wilkin focuses on the contradictory representations of women from roughly the middle of the sixteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth, and depicts this period as one filled with epistemological anxiety and experimentation. She shows how skeptics, including Montaigne, Marie de Gournay, and Agrippa von Nettesheim, subverted gender hierarchies and/or blurred gender difference as a means of questioning the human capacity to find truth; while "positivists" who strove to establish new standards of truth, for example Johann Weyer, Jean Bodin, and Guillaume du Vair, excluded women from the search for truth. The book constitutes a reevaluation of the legacy of Cartesianism for women, as Wilkin argues that Descartes' opening of the search for truth "even to women" was part of his appropriation of skeptical arguments. This book challenges scholars to revise deeply held notions regarding the place of women in the early modern search for truth, their role in the development of rational thought, and the way in which intellectuals of the period dealt with the emergence of an influential female public.