Beyond the witch trials provides an important collection of essays on the nature of witchcraft and magic in European society during the Enlightenment. The book is innovative not only because it pushes forward the study of witchcraft into the eighteenth century, but because it provides the reader with a challenging variety of different approaches and sources of information. The essays, which cov…
Origin of the general Opinions respecting Demonology among Mankind — The Belief in the Immortality of the Soul is the main Inducement to credit its occasional re-appearance — The Philosophical Objections to the Apparition of an Abstract Spirit little understood by the Vulgar and Ignorant — The situations of excited Passion incident to Humanity, which teach Men to wish or apprehend Superna…