Download or read book Cursed Britain written by Thomas Waters and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-07 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of how witchcraft and black magic have survived, through the modern era and into the present dayCursed Britain unveils the enduring power of witchcraft, curses and black magic in modern times. Few topics are so secretive or controversial. Yet, whether in the 1800s or the early 2000s, when disasters struck or personal misfortunes mounted, many Britons found themselves believing in things they had previously dismissed – dark supernatural forces.Historian Thomas Waters here explores the lives of cursed or bewitched people, along with the witches and witch-busters who helped and harmed them. Waters takes us on a fascinating journey from Scottish islands to the folklore-rich West Country, from the immense territories of the British Empire to metropolitan London. We learn why magic caters to deep-seated human needs but see how it can also be abused, and discover how witchcraft survives by evolving and changing. Along the way, we examine an array of remarkable beliefs and rituals, from traditional folk magic to diverse spiritualities originating in Africa and Asia.This is a tale of cynical quacks and sincere magical healers, depressed people and furious vigilantes, innocent victims and rogues who claimed to possess evil abilities. Their spellbinding stories raise important questions about the state’s role in regulating radical spiritualities, the fragility of secularism and the true nature of magic.
Download or read book A History of Magic Witchcraft and the Occult written by DK and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 898 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the beguiling history of witchcraft, magic, and superstition through the centuries in this stunningly illustrated title. A History of Magic, Witchcraft and the Occult charts the extraordinary narrative of one of the most interesting and often controversial subjects in the world, covering everything from ancient animal worship and shamanism, through alchemy and divination to modern Wicca and the resurgence of the occult in 21st-century literature, cinema, and television. Providing readers with a comprehensive account of everything from Japanese folklore and Indian witchcraft to the differences between black and white magic, and dispelling myths such as those surrounding the voodoo doll and Ouija, the book explores the common human fascination with spells, superstition, and the supernatural. This riveting read on witchcraft further includes: - Engaging text and lavish illustrations with over 500 full-color images that bring the subject to life. - Special features on aspects of magic, such as oracle bones of ancient China, the Knights Templar, and magic at the movies, and “plants and potions”, such as mandrake and belladonna examine topics in great detail. - Quick-fact panels explore magic origins, key figures, key deities, uses in spells, structures of religions, and more. The perfect introduction to magic and the occult, it explores forms of divination from astrology and palmistry to the Tarot and runestones and offers key insights into the ways in which magic has interacted with religion. The most comprehensive illustrated history of witchcraft available, A History of Magic, Witchcraft and the Occult will enthral and fascinate anyone interested in spiritualism and the occult.
Download or read book Accused written by Willow Winsham and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2016-09-19 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true stories of eleven notorious women, across five centuries, who were feared, victimized, and condemned for witchcraft in the British Isles. Beginning with the late Middle Ages—from Ireland to Hampshire—hundreds of women were accused of spellcasting, wicked seduction, murder, and consorting with the devil. Most were fated for the gallows or the stake. What did it mean for these prisoners to stand accused? What were they really guilty of? And by whom were they persecuted? Drawing on a wealth of primary sources including trial documents, church and census records, and the original sensationalist pamphlets describing the crimes, historian Willow Winsham finds the startling answers to these questions. In the process, she resurrects the lives, deaths, and mysteries of eleven women subjected to history’s most notable witch trials. From Irish “sorceress” Alice Kyteler who, in 1324 was the first accused witch on record, to Scottish psychic Helen Duncan who, in 1944, was the last woman imprisoned under Britain’s Witchcraft Act of 1735. Dames, servant girls, aggrieved neighbors, suspect widows, cat ladies, prostitutes, mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters. Accused brings all these victims, and the eras in which they lived and died, back to life in “an incredibly well researched . . . stunning and admirable piece of work, highly recommended” (Terry Tyler, author of the Project Renova series).
Download or read book The Mummy s Curse written by Roger Luckhurst and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-25 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A quirky history that offers a new way of understanding the myth of the mummy's curse. Roger Luckhurst provides a startling path through the cultural history of Victorian England and its colonial possessions.
Download or read book Harry Potter and the Cursed Child written by J. K. Rowling and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and a father, Harry Potter struggles with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs while his youngest son, Albus, finds the weight of the family legacy difficult to bear.
Download or read book The King s Curse written by Philippa Gregory and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Married to loyal Lancaster supporter Sir Richard Pole to minimize her claim to the throne of Henry VII, Margaret becomes an advisor to newlyweds Prince Arthur and Katherine of Aragon before witnessing the rapid ascent of Henry VIII.
Download or read book Silent As the Trees written by Gemma Gary and published by . This book was released on 2020-02-08 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explore the old witchcraft, magical traditions, and folklore nurtured amidst the ancient lands of South West England. Gemma Gary presents Devonshire's witches and magical folk as well as spirit vision, cure charms, protections and magical defense, and more. Silent as the Trees also includes a black book of Devonshire Magic with an extensive collection of genuine spells, charms, and rites.
Download or read book The Finance Curse written by Nicholas Shaxson and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “artfully presented [and] engaging” look at the insidious effects of financialization on our lives and politics by the author of Treasure Islands (The Boston Globe). How didthe banking sector grow from a supporter of business to the biggest business in the world? Financial journalist Nicholas Shaxson takes us on a terrifying journey through the world economy, exposing tax havens, monopolists, megabanks, private equity firms, Eurobond traders, lobbyists, and a menagerie of scoundrels quietly financializing our entire society, hurting both business and individuals. Shaxson shows how we got here, telling the story of how finance re-engineered the global economic order in the last half-century, with the aim not of creating wealth but extracting it from the underlying economy. Under the twin gospels of “national competitiveness” and “shareholder value,” megabanks and financialized corporations have provoked a race to the bottom between states to provide the most subsidized environment for big business, encouraged a brain drain into finance, fostered instability and inequality, and turned a blind eye to the spoils of organized crime. From Ireland to Iowa, he shows the insidious effects of financialization on our politics and on communities who were promised paradise but got poverty wages instead. We need a strong financial system—but when it grows too big it becomes a monster. The Finance Curse is the explosive story of how finance got a stranglehold on society, and reveals how we might release ourselves from its grasp. Revised with new chapters “[Discusses] corrupt financiers in London and New York City, geographically obscure tax havens, the bizarre realm of wealth managers in South Dakota, a ravaged newspaper in New Jersey, and a shattered farm economy in Iowa . . . A vivid demonstration of how corruption and greed have become the main organizing principles in the finance industry.” —Kirkus Reviews
Download or read book Finest Hour written by Tim Clayton and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2002-02-12 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book recreates the tensions and uncertainties of the events of 1940.
Download or read book Cursed written by Thomas Wheeler and published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Look out for the original series starring Katherine Langford coming soon to Netflix! The Lady of the Lake is the true hero in this cinematic twist on the tale of King Arthur created by Thomas Wheeler and legendary artist, producer, and director Frank Miller (300, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City). Featuring 8 full-color and 30 black-and-white pieces of original artwork by Frank Miller. Whosoever wields the Sword of Power shall be the one true King. But what if the Sword has chosen a Queen? Nimue grew up an outcast. Her connection to dark magic made her something to be feared in her Druid village, and that made her desperate to leave… That is, until her entire village is slaughtered by Red Paladins, and Nimue’s fate is forever altered. Charged by her dying mother to reunite an ancient sword with a legendary sorcerer, Nimue is now her people’s only hope. Her mission leaves little room for revenge, but the growing power within her can think of little else. Nimue teams up with a charming mercenary named Arthur and refugee Fey Folk from across England. She wields a sword meant for the one true king, battling paladins and the armies of a corrupt king. She struggles to unite her people, avenge her family, and discover the truth about her destiny. But perhaps the one thing that can change Destiny itself is found at the edge of a blade.
Download or read book Unofficial Britain written by Gareth E. Rees and published by Elliott & Thompson. This book was released on 2021-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a Britain that exists outside of the official histories and guidebooks - places that lie on the margins, left behind. This is a land of industrial estates and electricity pylons, of motorways and ring roads, of hospitals and housing estates, of roundabouts and flyovers. Places where modern life speeds past but where people and stories nevertheless collect: ghost sightings, first kisses, experiments with drugs, refuges for the homeless, hangouts for the outcasts. Struck by the power of such stories and experiences, Gareth E. Rees set out to explore these mundane and neglected spaces, which can be as powerfully influential in our lives, and imaginations, as any picture postcard tourist destination. This is Unofficial Britain, a personal journey along the edges of a landscape brimming with mystery, folklore and myth.
Download or read book Deeds of the Disturber written by Elizabeth Peters and published by C & R Crime. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Join our plucky Victorian Egyptologist, together with her devastatingly handsome and brilliant husband Radcliffe, in another exciting escapade Swapping the stifling heat and dust of Egypt for the cooler climes of London, adventuress Amelia Peabody finds herself plunged into an escapade set in the dignified surroundings of the British Museum, and as ever, she is aided and abetted by her irascible husband Emerson and precocious son Ramses. First of all a night watchman is found dead in the Mummy Room of the museum, a look of horror frozen on his face and very soon panic spreads through the capital while the gutter press ask the question 'Can Fear Kill?'. And before Amelia can respond with an appropriate answer, a pair of dissolute aristocrats with a shady past appear in her life together with supernatural curses, a lady of dubious reputation with a link to Emerson's bachelor past and a homicidal maniac disguised as an ancient Sem priest - but they are only the very tip of this most singular mystery. And as Amelia closes in on the murderer, Emerson and Ramses must try to keep her from adding herself to the list of victims...
Download or read book The Buried Giant written by Kazuo Ishiguro and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-03-03 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of Never Let Me Go and the Booker Prize–winning novel The Remains of the Day comes a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory. In post-Arthurian Britain, the wars that once raged between the Saxons and the Britons have finally ceased. Axl and Beatrice, an elderly British couple, set off to visit their son, whom they haven't seen in years. And, because a strange mist has caused mass amnesia throughout the land, they can scarcely remember anything about him. As they are joined on their journey by a Saxon warrior, his orphan charge, and an illustrious knight, Axl and Beatrice slowly begin to remember the dark and troubled past they all share. By turns savage, suspenseful, and intensely moving, The Buried Giant is a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory.
Download or read book Cursed Victory A History of Israel and the Occupied Territories 1967 to the Present written by Ahron Bregman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative and impassioned history of the aftermath of the Six Day War—by a former Israeli soldier—and a cogent argument for an end to the occupation. In a move that would forever alter the map of the Middle East, Israel captured the West Bank, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula in 1967's brief but pivotal Six Day War. Cursed Victory is the first complete history of the war's troubled aftermath—a military occupation of the Palestinian territories that is now well into its fifth decade. Drawing on unprecedented access to high-level sources, top-secret memos and never-before-published letters, the book provides a gripping and unvarnished chronicle of how what Israel promised would be an 'enlightened occupation' quickly turned sour, and the anguished diplomatic attempts to bring it to an end. Bregman sheds fresh light on critical moments in the peace process, taking us behind the scenes as decisions about the fate of the territories were made, and more often, as crucial opportunities to resolve the conflict were missed. As the narrative moves from Jerusalem to New York, Oslo to Beirut, and from the late 1960s to the present day, Cursed Victory provides vivid portraits of the key players in this unfolding drama, including Moshe Dayan, King Hussein of Jordan, Bill Clinton, and Yasser Arafat. Yet Bregman always reminds us how diplomatic and back-room negotiations affected the daily lives of millions of Arabs, and how the Palestinian resistance, especially during the first and second intifadas, and now in recent tragic developments, have shaped the political arena. As Bregman concludes, the occupation has become a dark stain on Israel's history. Cursed Victory is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the origins of the ongoing conflict in the region.
Download or read book The Decline of Magic written by Michael Hunter and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new history that overturns the received wisdom that science displaced magic in Enlightenment Britain--named a Best Book of 2020 by the Financial Times In early modern Britain, belief in prophecies, omens, ghosts, apparitions and fairies was commonplace. Among both educated and ordinary people the absolute existence of a spiritual world was taken for granted. Yet in the eighteenth century such certainties were swept away. Credit for this great change is usually given to science - and in particular to the scientists of the Royal Society. But is this justified? Michael Hunter argues that those pioneering the change in attitude were not scientists but freethinkers. While some scientists defended the reality of supernatural phenomena, these sceptical humanists drew on ancient authors to mount a critique both of orthodox religion and, by extension, of magic and other forms of superstition. Even if the religious heterodoxy of such men tarnished their reputation and postponed the general acceptance of anti-magical views, slowly change did come about. When it did, this owed less to the testing of magic than to the growth of confidence in a stable world in which magic no longer had a place.
Download or read book Religion and the Decline of Magic written by Keith Thomas and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2003-01-30 with total page 931 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Witchcraft, astrology, divination and every kind of popular magic flourished in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from the belief that a blessed amulet could prevent the assaults of the Devil to the use of the same charms to recover stolen goods. At the same time the Protestant Reformation attempted to take the magic out of religion, and scientists were developing new explanations of the universe. Keith Thomas's classic analysis of beliefs held on every level of English society begins with the collapse of the medieval Church and ends with the changing intellectual atmosphere around 1700, when science and rationalism began to challenge the older systems of belief.
Download or read book Wakenhyrst written by Michelle Paver and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-04-04 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Times Best Book of 2019. 'Paver is one of Britain's modern greats. This sinister, gothic chiller shows why' BIG ISSUE, Books of the Year 2019. "Something has been let loose..." In Edwardian Suffolk, a manor house stands alone in a lost corner of the Fens: a glinting wilderness of water whose whispering reeds guard ancient secrets. Maud is a lonely child growing up without a mother, ruled by her repressive father. When he finds a painted medieval devil in a graveyard, unhallowed forces are awakened. Maud's battle has begun. She must survive a world haunted by witchcraft, the age-old legends of her beloved fen – and the even more nightmarish demons of her father's past. Spanning five centuries, Wakenhyrst is a darkly gothic thriller about murderous obsession and one girl's longing to fly free by the bestselling author of Dark Matter and Thin Air. Wakenhyrst is an outstanding new piece of story-telling, a tale of mystery and imagination laced with terror. It is a masterwork in the modern gothic tradition that ranges from Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker to Neil Gaiman and Sarah Perry.
