Theology and Religious Studies

From the publisher's website:

This complete history of witchcraft from Ancient Greece to the present day charts the rise and development of witchcraft and the modern witchcraft religion of Wicca. Today witchcraft is on everyone's lips, on television, film and in literature, but few know, or are even able to guess at, its shadowy history. This in-depth investigation discovers how the ideas we have about witchcraft took shape thousands of years ago in the myths and religions of the ancient world. It looks at why these ideas were expressed so violently during the era of the witch trials. Finally, it reveals how witchcraft has been transformed into one of the most radical and fastest growing religions of our age - a religion of equality and compassion that still has the power to unsettle even the bravest amongst us. With new analyses, fresh insights and previously unpublished material drawn from the author's doctoral research into the mysticism, magic and social meaning of Wicca, this is the first book to bring witchcraft fully out of the shadows.


Book Details

Format: Hardback, 272 pages
Size: 216 x 138 x 28 mm
Illustrations: 54 b&w illus
Publication date: 29 Oct 2004
ISBN-13: 9780709075677

From the publisher's website:

Five hundred years ago the legend was born of a man who sold his soul to the Devil for power, wealth and women. It is a legend that has inspired genius and still inspires high art and popular culture alike. Around the world there are hundreds of nightly performances of Goethe's Faust, as well as actual attempts at soul-selling on eBay. Faustus has rightly been described as an 'icon of modern culture.' But in 500 years no one has written his biography - until now. Faustus is the real story behind the legend. It is the story of a sixteenth-century scandal, of a man who claimed mastery of the forbidden magical arts and dared to rival the miracles attributed to Jesus. He evoked uproar and was accused of heinous crimes. But Faustus was not a charlatan; nor was he in league with the Devil. To find the real Faustus is to find the true history of his age, and Leo Ruickbe expertly takes the reader on a tour of war-torn Italy, Reformation Wittenberg and the magnificence of Charles V's court. The life of the legend becomes as real as any living person.

"Dr Ruickbie has re-evaluated and contextualised the sources of the Faust tradition from a position of authority.  The result is a work of meticulous scholarship that can be read as a gripping page-turner."
Professor Osman Durrani, University of Kent, author of 'Faust: Icon of Modern Culture'

"In looking at Faustus from the magial perspective, Dr Ruickbie himself takes on the sorcerer's mantle as he summons up a nebulour shade from the distant past, giving it new life and making compelling reading."
Alan Richardson, author of 'Priestess: The Life and Magic of Dion Fortune

"During the Renaissance and Reformation, in a period of major historical changes, a delicate and complicated line separated the historical Faustus from the legendary one.  Investigating the lures and dangers of astrology, magic, and devil pacts, Leo Ruickbie succeeds in reconstructing the events that reflect the birth and progress of the Faustian myth, and the man behind it."
Professor Frank Baron, University of Kansas, author of 'Doctor Faustus: From History to Legend'

ISBN: 9780750950909
Publication Date: 01/04/2009
Binding: Hardback

It is an age of spiritual hunger, economic collapse, war and prophecies of doom. Europe is locked in a battle against militant Islam. The market is in freefall, collapsing under the weight of financiers’ promises, who like alchemists attempted to distil fortunes out of dross. Strange new cults are springing up like mushrooms out of the dung heap of fear. Star-gazers and diviners warn of the end of the world. The old securities tumble before mysterious forces beyond our control. In such times ordinary people turn to desperate measures.

Sound like 2009? Perhaps it does, but the year I have in mind is 1509, or thereabouts. Many of the conditions were the same, all of the human concerns were identical. It was out of this climate that there emerged one of the greatest magical figures of all time and one of the most enduring legends.

It all began when an abbot with a dubious reputation wrote to his friend, the astrologer to the powerful Prince-Elector of Heidelberg, warning him about a certain ‘Magister Georgius Sabellicus, Faustus Junior, fount of necromancy, astrologer, second magus, cheiromancer, agromancer, pyromancer, second in the art of water’. The abbot was no friend to Faustus and used every jibe and insult available to him, thus at the very moment Faustus appeared in recorded history he was given the worst sort of reputation and, as with the dog with the bad name, hung ever after.

This thesis attempts to solve a problem within current explanations of modern Witchcraft and, more broadly, neo-Paganism. Witchcraft has been described as an example of re-enchantment, but re-enchantment itself is either inadequately explained or used in an unscientific and sociologically unsatisfactory manner. This thesis undertakes the formulation of an explicit theory of re-enchantment and directly tests it on a sample drawn from the neo-Pagan community. This thesis asks what is re-enchantment and can Witchcraft be seen as an example of it? The wider social significance of Witchcraft is located within the context of Weberian disenchantment and can be seen as contributing to our understanding of the social forces at work in late modernity.

This paper examines current levels of belief in the Western personification of evil, known as the Devil. Areas covered include Catholicism, Wicca, Satanism, as well as the views of the general public. Also includes an account of a Black Mass recently celebrated in London.

[Beliefs and practices concerning the idea of the external soul in folklore and magic]

The Horcrux is a gruesome mystery at the heart of the later Harry Potter books. In 'How To Make A Horcrux' we will go where Magick Moste Eville fears to tread and reveal the secrets of spirit capture and containment.

In folklore, folk cutsom and magic there is a long tradition of what is known as the 'external soul', whereby the spirit/soul can be removed from the physical body for protection or harm. This article explores that tradition from Koschei the Deathless to Haitian Zombie Bottles.


Please note that for contractual reasons I can only upload a sample page from the article.

The history of the Devil from his beginnings in Judaic mythology to his further role in Christian theology.

Excerpt

The priest approaches the bed, a smile on his face. His words are kindly as he addresses the girl bound to the bed frame.
‘Hello, Regan. I’m a friend of your mother’s. I’d like to help you.’
The girl looks at him. ‘Why not loosen the straps then?’
‘I’m afraid you might hurt yourself, Regan.’
‘I’m not Regan.’
‘I see. Well then, let’s introduce ourselves. I’m Damien Karras.’
‘I’m the Devil. Now kindly undo these straps!’

It is an unforgettable encounter in a film that would  be regarded as the scariest of all time (AMC/Harris Interactive poll, 2006). As one of the taglines to The Exorcist put it ‘Somewhere between science and superstition, there is another world. The world of darkness.’ And millions of us have gone there – at least director William Friedkin’s version of it.

From the publisher's website:

The perfect introduction to the world of all things eerie, inexplicable and otherworldly. From Most Haunted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, from Underworld to Twilight, from Doom to Resident Evil, The Brief Guide to the Supernatural goes in search of the unearthly with unexpected results; combining history, science, psychology and myth he explores the allure of the paranormal - why so many people still believe in ghosts and angels - as well as the many ways people have tried to contact and record the impossible.

Paperback
320 pp
Published 16th Feb 2012
ISBN: 9781849016759

Comments from some readers you may be familiar with:

It’s not just the truth that’s out there – to quote an iconic TV series – the paranormal is, too. It really is. In your town. In your street. Maybe in your own home. The weird and inexplicable happens to ordinary people somewhere in the world every single day. Before you go in search of it, though, you will need a guide. How lucky for you that you have this excellent one in your hands.
– Richard Holland, Editor UncannyUK.com, former editor of Paranormal Magazine and author of Haunted Wales

From Borley to Baal, and everything in between, Leo Ruickbie’s latest work is a ghoulish glossary of facts, figures and fictions. A Brief Guide to the Supernatural is the perfect introduction to the world of all things eerie, inexplicable and otherworldly, whether you seek spirits, demons or angelic audience, this book gives an entertaining and informative overview equally suited to the experienced or amateur spook spotter.
– Jason Dexter Karl, co-presenter of Most Haunted, author of 21st Century Ghosts and founder of Ghost Research Foundation International

Very well written. Exciting, enjoyable and thought-provoking. Packed with interesting and intriguing ideas.
– Rev. Lionel Fanthorpe, President of the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena and author of over 250 books

It is a pleasure to read such a well-researched and documented guide to the major fields of interest in the paranormal, covering how we have experienced different phenomena and entity contacts, and how we have attempted to understand and explain them. Dr Leo Ruickbie has created a work of tremendous value to readers and researchers alike.
– Rosemary Ellen Guiley, author of The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits

A first-class piece of work!
– Nick Redfern, author of The Real Men in Black

Harry Potter was banned. Harry Potter was burnt. Why was the religious reaction to JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series so strong? Why did it seem like we were again about to relive the witch hunts of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?

Intended as an innocent and educative tale for children (and adults), Harry Potter clearly became a battleground for certain expressions of religiosity that re-ignited pre-established antagonisms towards paganism and magic. Rowling’s liberal messages of racial equality and the necessity of fighting tyranny, were supplanted by a focus on magic, a magic that was the root of all evil. What is shocking is how much force this backlash could assume in our supposedly globalised, multicultural world.

Nor is it simply a question of Christianity’s reaction to Harry Potter. Perceptions of the multimedia series have become a nexus of competing conflicts ranging from Islam to atheism to Wicca. Then we have a shift in some religious reactions that seemed to bear out the old adage that ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’. Harry Potter was being co-opted and resold as a Christian message. How could that come about and is it sustainable? Is this assimilation, by its distortion of the original material, yet another form of persecution?

Is it the case that in the conflict between certain elements of current religiosity and Harry Potter that ‘either must die at the hand of the other’?

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Publisher's page at http://www.wingedlionpress.com/hp_and_sociology.html
Ordering info: http://www.amazon.com/The-Sociology-Harry-Potter-Enchanting/dp/1936294184

In the eighteenth century medical investigations of alleged vampires were conducted by military surgeons serving in the Habsburg army in Serbia. Their reports seemed to confirm the existence of the vampire to the general astonishment of Europe. This article examines the context and impact of these reports before proposing an explanation for these remarkable findings.

In 1725 Frombald, the Imperial Provisor of the Gradisker District of the Holy Roman Empire, received a  deputation of villagers from ‘Kisolova’, thought to be modern Kisiljevo in what is now the Republic of Serbia. The villagers were in a state of great alarm. One of their neighbours, a man by the name of Peter Plogojoviz, had died ten weeks ago and buried according to local custom. However, Peter had come back.

According to his wife, he had knocked on the door and demanded his opanki, the traditional peasant footwear of the region. After she fled the village, other people started saying that they had seen Peter, too. But not just seen him. They said Peter visited them in the night and lay upon them with such force that they felt the life being squeezed out of them. In 24 hours they were dead. Within the space of eight days, nine people had died from Peter’s nightly visits. The villagers knew exactly what he was: one of the ‘Vampyri’. To make sure, they wanted to exhume the body and look for the tell-tale signs and they wanted the Imperial Provisor and a priest to be present.

On 26 January 1732 a report was submitted by Johann Flückinger, regimental surgeon of Baron Fürstenbusch’s Infantry Regiment, to Army Headquarters Belgrade. Earlier in the month, he and several other officers had investigated a series of suspicious deaths in the village of ‘Medwedia’ in Serbia. The accused was a local ‘Heyduck’ named ‘Arnod Paole’ or ‘Arnond Parle’. The problem for the investigators was that five years earlier Paole had broken his neck in a fall from a haycart before allegedly committing the crimes. The body was exhumed and found to be in the vampiric condition.

Science’s war on what it called ‘superstition’ called a curious ceasefire in the 18th century when contemporary medicine met village folklore and found in its favour. Here what appeared to be the past and the future met on the same ground and came to the same conclusions. What should history and more especially the history of science, make of this collaboration?

This paper explored the development of the Faustian Pact, looking at how the Renaissance magician Faustus came to be condemned as having made a pact with the Devil, and how this condemnation itself came to be a pattern for magical practice.

The 'witch' branding of children in the UK, particularly London, is on the increase. This paper seeks to understand the motivations and dynamics of this new form of witchcraft persecution.

From the Editorial:

In ‘Child Witches’: From Imaginary Cannibalism to Ritual Abuse, sociologist of witchcraft Leo Ruickibe takes an in-depth look at certain contemporary
African witch beliefs in the UK, with a particular emphasis on the kind of ritual abuse exemplified by the death of Kristy Bamu in 2010.