
The True Story vs. Myth of Witchcraft
Salem Trials, Demonology, Folklore, and the History of Belief, Persecution, and the OccultBy Bram Stoker, Charles Mackay, William Godwin, Walter Scott, Charles Wentworth Upham, Jules Michelet, John Ashton, Howard Williams, Increase Mather, Cotton Mather, Allen Putnam, George Moir, Frederick George Lee, James Thacher, M. V. B. Perley, Wilhelm Meinhold, John M. Taylor, E. Lynn Linton, William P. Upham, W. H. Davenport Adams, M. Schele de Vere, John G. Campbell, John Maxwell Wood, Samuel Roberts WellsLength262h 23m
About this audiobook
The True Story vs. Myth of Witchcraft assembles a capacious archive of witchcraft writing, setting legal testimony, religious polemic, antiquarian inquiry, historical narrative, folklore, and skeptical interpretation in productive tension. Ranging from Puritan accounts of diabolic threat to later efforts to explain accusation through social fear, credulity, and custom, the volume illuminates the unstable boundary between recorded event and inherited legend. Its most compelling juxtapositions reveal how trials, confessions, popular tales, and learned commentary continually remake one another. The contributors span several centuries and intellectual climates: early New England divines, Enlightenment and Romantic historians, Victorian folklorists, medical and psychological commentators, and writers attentive to local tradition. Collectively, their work traces the movement from providential readings of witchcraft toward historical criticism, comparative folklore, and secular analyses of belief. British, Continental European, and American perspectives broaden the collection beyond any single episode, while also exposing the cultural assumptions that shaped both persecution and its subsequent narration. This volume is especially rewarding for students of history, religion, folklore, legal culture, and Gothic literature. By placing incompatible explanations side by side, it invites readers to assess evidence, rhetoric, and historical memory rather than accept a settled account. The anthology offers an unusually rich opportunity to study witchcraft as accusation, belief system, literary motif, and enduring myth.
Audiobook details
GenreSpirituality and Religion, Literary Classics
Length262 hrs 23 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateNov 27, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1The Mythology and History of Witchcraft
26Chapter II.
2The True Story vs. Myth of Witchcraft
27Chapter III.
3Introduction
28Chapter IV.
4The Superstitions of Witchcraft by Howard Williams
29Chapter V.
5Preface
30Chapter VI.
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6PART I. EARLIER FAITH
31Chapter VII.
7Chapter I.
32Chapter VIII.
8PART II. MEDIÆVAL FAITH
33Chapter IX.
9Chapter I.
34Chapter X.
10Chapter II.
35Chapter XI.
11Chapter III.
36Chapter XII.
12PART III. MODERN FAITH
37Chapter XIII.
13Chapter I.
38Chapter XIV.
14Chapter II.
39Chapter XV.
15Chapter III.
40Chapter XVI.
16Chapter IV.
41Chapter XVII.
17Chapter V.
42Chapter XVIII.
18Chapter VI.
43Chapter XIX.
19Chapter VII.
44Chapter XX.
20Chapter VIII.
45Chapter XXI.
21Chapter IX.
46Chapter XXII.
22Chapter X.
47Chapter XXIII.
23The Devil in Britain and America by John Ashton
48Chapter XXIV.
24Preface
49Witchcraft in Europe
25Chapter I.
50History of Magic and Witchcraft