Witchcraft and Black Magic

by Montague Summers

Book Overview

What is witchcraft? Who was the first witch? How does one become a practitioner of the "black arts?" These and many other questions are fully answered in this fascinating, expertly written historical overview of witchcraft and black magic. The work of noted English historian, essayist, critic, and biographer Montague Summers (1880 - 1948), one of the world's foremost authorities on the occult, the book draws on a wealth of diverse sources -- from...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486411257
• ISBN13: 9780486411255
• Release Date: March 2012
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

a great book

While I'll freely admit that this book is very likely to offend witches and pagans, it is one of the most interesting books I've ever read and the vocabulary is great. Summers incorporates a lot of historical, literary, and contemporary (for him) information into this work on the occult, so it's worth reading even to those that aren't particularly interested in witchcraft. It's very pleasant to read.

A must have book for the Christian's library -

This is an interesting book to add to any Christian's book collection. Filled with valid anecdotal stories of witchcraft and Satanisim primarily from the 16th and 17th centuries. In this book he captures various resources long lost or forgotten. As a purist, I find the author partial to Roman Christianity but thankfully he is without overbearing. Although written in 1945, the book is a cumbersome read with heavy usage of antiquated words. He tends to add the phrase, "at any rate" far too often and the book's structure is loose and disorganized. However, as a wordsmith, some passages are absolutely stunning in their elegance. This aside, it is a valuable portrait of a more sensible time when Satanism and witchcraft faced some very earthly opposition and its exposure was far more prevalent. He illustrates these vipers proclivity to killing, poisoning and corrupting -- So, when one reads the contents of a typical food label or hears about all the missing children annually or looks at a grotesque movie/album cover, I can't but help think that such forces are at work today too, bringing this subject forward to us now. Mr. Summers is short to suggest the proper spiritual tools to be employed to combat such nefarious orchestrations, but does a good job of calling out the unacceptable deviant behavior. I also enjoy his delicate undercurrent of tracing all this rebellious spiritualism to the Jewish Cabala. However, for all its fascinating revelation, the author fails to mention that he himself is promoting the Freemason checkerboard subterfuge of black and white, with the truth somewhere over there in the corner with nary a light cast upon it. Read your bible folks :-)

great book

This book explains everything about black magic and witchcraft. It is one of the most interisting book ive ever read