Gábor Klaniczay

Éva Pócs

This third, concluding volume of the series publishes 14 studies and the transcription of a round-table discussion on Carlo Ginzburg's Ecstasies. The themes of the previous two volumes, Communicating with the Spirits, and Christian Demonology and Popular Mythology, are further expanded here both as regards their interdisciplinary approach and the wide range of regional comparisons. While the emphasis of the second volume was on current popular belief and folklore as seen in the context of the historical sources on demonology, this volume approaches its subject from the point of view of historical anthropology. The greatest recent advances of witchcraft research occurred recently in two fields: (1) deciphering the variety of myths and the complexity of historical processes which lead to the formation of the witches' Sabbath, (2) the micro-historical analysis of the social, religious, legal and cultural milieu where witchcraft accusations and persecutions developed. These two themes are completed by some further insights into the folklore of the concerned regions which still carries the traces of the traumatic historical memories of witchcraft persecutions.

Witchcraft Mythologies and Persecutions

This book provides a nuanced picture of the notions of body and soul held by the peoples of Europe through the soul concepts associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition and other religions and denominations; and the alternative traditions preserved alongside Christianity in folklore collections, linguistic and literary records. The studies also emphasize the connections between these notions and beliefs related to death and the dead, as well as questions of communication between the human world and the spirit world. The essays here focus on the roles notions of the soul and the spirit world play in the everyday life, religion and mentality of various communities; their folklore and literary representations, as well as the narrative metaphors, motifs, topoi and genres of ideas about the soul and about supernatural communication, along with questions of the relationship between narratives and religious notions. This book will appeal to researchers and students of religion, mythology, folklore and the anthropology of religion, as well as general readers interested in the humanities.

Body, Soul, Spirits and Supernatural Communication

Éva Pócs, one of the most highly respected scholars of historical anthropology, has undertaken extensive research on the history of folk beliefs connected with communication and the supernatural sphere. In this book, she examines the relics of European shamanism in early modern sources, and the techniques and belief-systems of mediators found in the records of witchcraft trials from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. The book explores the various communication systems known to early modern Hungarians, describes the role of these systems in everyday village life, and shows how they were connected to contemporary European systems, as well as new types of mediators and systems which function right up to the twentieth century. Representing a major contribution to the most up-to-date international research, Eva Pócs draws on significant East European material and literature not previously co-ordinated with that from the West.

A Perspective on Witches and Seers in the Early Modern Age

Between the Living and the Dead

Hungarian táltos and his European parallels

William Francis Ryan

James Kapaló

n medieval and early modern Europe, the use of charms was a living practice in all strata of society. The essays in this latest CEU Press publication explore the rich textual tradition of archives, monasteries, and literary sources. The author also discusses texts amassed in folklore archives and ones that are still accessible through field work in many rural areas of Europe.

Studies on Charms and Charming in Europe

The Power of Words

Focuses on the problem of communication with the other world: the phenomenon of spirit possession and its changing historical interpretations, the imaginary schemes elaborated for giving accounts of the journeys to the other world, for communicating with the dead, and finally the historical archetypes of this kind of religious manifestation—trance prophecy, divination, and shamanism.Recognized historians and ethnologists analyze the relationship, coexistence and conflicts of popular belief systems, Judeo-Christian mythology and demonology in medieval and modern Europe. The essays address links between rites and beliefs, folklore and literature; the legacy of various pre-Christian mythologies; the syncretic forms of ancient, medieval and modern belief- and rite-systems; "pure" examples from religious-ethnological research outside Europe to elucidate European problems.

Communicating with the Spirits

This book provides a selection of studies on witchcraft and demonology by those involved in an interdisciplinary research group begun in Hungary thirty years ago. They examine urban and rural witchcraft conflicts from early modern times to the present, from a region hitherto rarely taken into consideration in witchcraft research. Special attention is given to healers, midwives, and cunning folk, including archaic sorcerer figures such as the táltos; whose ambivalent role is analysed in social, legal, medical and religious contexts. This volume examines how waves of persecution emerged and declined, and how witchcraft was decriminalised. Fascinating case-studies on vindictive witch-hunters, quarrelling neighbours, rivalling midwives, cunning shepherds, weather magician impostors, and exorcist Franciscan friars provide a colourful picture of Hungarian and Transylvanian folk beliefs and mythologies, as well as insights into historical and contemporary issues.

Éva Pócs

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