# Boktips
Author: Bappho

Har hittat en bok som ser väldigt intressant ut som kommer ut nästa år. Kommer definitivt hamna i min bokhylla.

Visions of Isobel Gowdie: Magic, Shamanism and Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Scotland av Emma Wilby

Boköversikt
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The confessions of Isobel Gowdie are widely recognised as the most extraordinary on record in Britain. Their descriptive power and vivid imagery have attracted considerable interest on both academic and popular levels. Among historians, the confessions are celebrated for providing a unique insight into the way fairy beliefs and witch beliefs interacted in the early modern mind; more controversially, they are also cited as evidence for the existence of Shamanistic visionary traditions, of pre-Christian origin, in Scotland in this period. On a popular level the confessions of Isobel Gowdie have, above any other British witch-trial records, influenced the formation of the ritual traditions of Wicca. The author's discovery of the original trial records (currently being authenticated by the National Archives of Scotland), deemed lost for nearly 200 years, provides a starting point for an interdisciplinary look at the confessions and the woman behind them. Using historical, psychological, comparative religious and anthropological perspectives this book sets out to separate the voice of Isobel Gowdie from that of her interrogators, and to determine the experiences and beliefs which may have generated her confessions. The book explores: How far did those accused of witchcraft self-consciously practice harmful magic? Did they really believe themselves to have made a Pact with an envisioned Devil? Did they ever participate in ecstatic cult rituals? The author argues that close analysis of Isobel's testimony supports the view that in seventeenth-century Britain popular spirituality was shaped by a deep interaction between Christian teachings and shamanistic visionary traditions, of pre-Christian origin. These findings confirm the value of witchcraft confessions as unique windows into the complexities of the early modern religious imagination.

## Comment 1
Author: korpsyster

Den verkar väldigt intressant så jag tar och skriver upp den på min önskelista :) Tack!

En undran, känner igen författarnamnet har hon skrivit något annat och isåfall har du läst något av henne?

## Comment 2
Author: Bappho

Cunning Folk And Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions In Early Modern British Witchcraft And Magic.

Jag har gjort en tråd om den boken här förut på HiF och jag tror jag länkade till books.google där den gick att läsa förut.

## Comment 3
Author: korpsyster

Det är nog därför jag känner igen den :) Då ska jag leta rätt på den.