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Best secret history of witches
1. A Secret History of Witches: A Novel
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2. Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1100 (Secret History of the Witches)
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In this compelling exploration of language, archaeology, and early medieval literature, Max Dashu illuminates hidden cultural heritages. She shows that the old ethnic names for "witch" signify 'wisewoman, ' 'prophetess, ' 'diviner, ' 'chanter, ' 'herbalist, ' and 'healer.' She fleshes out the oracular ceremonies of the Norse vlur ("staff-women"), their incantations and "sitting-out" on the land seeking vision. Archaeological finds of their ritual staffs show that many symbolize the distaff, a spinner's wand that connects with wider European themes of goddesses, fates, witches, and female power. They include Berthe Pdauque, also known as the "Swan-footed Queen," whose spinning began at the proverbial beginning of time. Veneration of the Fates persisted under many titles, as the Norns, sudice, fatas and fes, Wyrd or the Three Weird Sisters.
Witches and Pagans looks at women's sacraments in early medieval Europe, a subject that has been buried deep for centuries. Women set out offering tables for the Three Sisters or the "good women," chanted over herbs, and healed children by passing them through 'elf-bores.' Spinning and weaving were ceremonial acts with divinatory or protective power, as bishops' scoldings reveal. Churchmen also railed against the Women Who Go by Night with Diana or Holda or Herodias, in shamanic flight on spirit animals. This was the foundational witch-legend that demonologists seized upon in later centuries. But witch persecution was already underway, as a chapter on the sexual politics of early medieval witch burnings documents.
A thousand years ago, an Old English scribe condemned people who "bring their offerings to earth-fast stone and also to trees and to wellsprings, swa wiccan taecad--as the witches teach." This indicates that people still regarded witches as spiritual teachers, and that they performed ceremonies of reverence to Earth. Many aspects of ethnic spiritual culture survived the state conversions to Christianity: ancestor veneration, crystal balls, amulets--and witches' wands. Artists depicted Mother Earth giving her breast to serpents, animals, and children. Stories of ancestral women--the Cailleach and the Scandinavian dsir --were handed down over countless generations.
Gathering together forgotten strands from heathen European heritages, Witches and Pagans reweaves the ripped webs of women's culture.
3. The Rules of Magic: A Novel (The Practical Magic Series)
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An instant New York Times bestseller and Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick from beloved author Alice Hoffmanthe spellbinding prequel to Practical Magic.Find your magic.
For the Owens family, love is a curse that began in 1620, when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for loving the wrong man.
Hundreds of years later, in New York City at the cusp of the sixties, when the whole world is about to change, Susanna Owens knows that her three children are dangerously unique. Difficult Franny, with skin as pale as milk and blood red hair, shy and beautiful Jet, who can read other peoples thoughts, and charismatic Vincent, who began looking for trouble on the day he could walk.
From the start Susanna sets down rules for her children: No walking in the moonlight, no red shoes, no wearing black, no cats, no crows, no candles, no books about magic. And most importantly, never, ever, fall in love. But when her children visit their Aunt Isabelle, in the small Massachusetts town where the Owens family has been blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong, they uncover family secrets and begin to understand the truth of who they are. Yet, the children cannot escape love even if they try, just as they cannot escape the pains of the human heart. The two beautiful sisters will grow up to be the memorable aunts in Practical Magic, while Vincent, their beloved brother, will leave an unexpected legacy.
Alice Hoffman delivers fairy-tale promise with real-life struggle (The New York Times Book Review) in a story how the only remedy for being human is to be true to yourself. Thrilling and exquisite, real and fantastical, The Rules of Magic is irresistiblethe kind of book you race through, then pause at the last forty pages, savoring your final moments with the characters (USA TODAY, 4/4 stars).
4. The Witches' Ointment: The Secret History of Psychedelic Magic
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Park Street PressDescription
An exploration of the historical origins of the witches ointment and medieval hallucinogenic drug practices based on the earliest sourcesDetails how early modern theologians demonized psychedelic folk magic into witches ointments
Shares dozens of psychoactive formulas and recipes gleaned from rare manuscripts from university collections all over the world as well as the practices and magical incantations necessary for their preparation
Examines the practices of medieval witches like Matteuccia di Francisco, who used hallucinogenic drugs in her love potions and herbal preparations
In the medieval period preparations with hallucinogenic herbs were part of the practice of veneficium, or poison magic. This collection of magical arts used poisons, herbs, and rituals to bewitch, heal, prophesy, infect, and murder. In the form of psyche-magical ointments, poison magic could trigger powerful hallucinations and surrealistic dreams that enabled direct experience of the Divine. Smeared on the skin, these entheogenic ointments were said to enable witches to commune with various local goddesses, bastardized by the Church as trips to the Sabbat--clandestine meetings with Satan to learn magic and participate in demonic orgies.
Examining trial records and the pharmacopoeia of witches, alchemists, folk healers, and heretics of the 15th century, Thomas Hatsis details how a range of ideas from folk drugs to ecclesiastical fears over medicine women merged to form the classical witch stereotype and what history has called the witches ointment. He shares dozens of psychoactive formulas and recipes gleaned from rare manuscripts from university collections from all over the world as well as the practices and magical incantations necessary for their preparation. He explores the connections between witches ointments and spells for shape shifting, spirit travel, and bewitching magic. He examines the practices of some Renaissance magicians, who inhaled powerful drugs to communicate with spirits, and of Italian folk-witches, such as Matteuccia di Francisco, who used hallucinogenic drugs in her love potions and herbal preparations, and Finicella, who used drug ointments to imagine herself transformed into a cat.
Exploring the untold history of the witches ointment and medieval hallucinogen use, Hatsis reveals how the Church transformed folk drug practices, specifically entheogenic ones, into satanic experiences.
5. Casino Infernale (Secret Histories)
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My name is Drood, Eddie Drood, aka Shaman Bond. For generations my family has protected you ordinary mortals against things that lurk in the darkness, just out of sight, but not at all out of mind.Unfortunately, Ive had a falling-out with my near and dear (some of whom were trying to kill me), so my true love and powerful witch, Molly Metcalf, and I are now in the employ of the Department of the Uncanny. Weve been given an Extremely Important Assignment: Attend Casino Infernale, an annual event held by the Shadow Bank, financiers of all global supernatural crime. Our mission: Rig the game and bring down the Shadow Bank.
But at Casino Infernale, the stakes are high indeedwinner takes all, and losers give up their souls....
6. Witchcraft a Secret History
