Real Witches. Real Lives. Real Magic. Real History.
Take a magical tour through the lives and times of 359 of the most important sorcerers and witches throughout history.
For millennia there’s been a fascination and a fear of people possibly wielding magical powers and a stigma surrounding practitioners of ancient rituals and practices. Yet, in the last 70 years, witchcraft, as well as Wicca, have gone from taboo beliefs pursued by a handful of eccentrics and misfits to major global, spiritual movements. Meet the troublemakers and rebels who pushed for change in The Witches Almanac: Sorcerers, Witches, and Magic from Ancient Rome to the Digital Age.
Covering real, suspected, and self-proclaimed witches, their persecution, conjurings, magic, and the history of some of the most consequential witches, sorcerers, wizards, and mavericks, this rich resource looks at dozens of history-making events and the lives and times of 360 of the most important witches, sorcerers, and wizards of all time, including …
- Circe, Medea, Hermes Trismegistus, the Chaldean Magi, and other ancient Roman and classical Greek witches
- Merlin, Morgana le Fey, Nimue, the 10 Queens of Avalon, and sorcery and witchcraft in the Arthurian legends
- San Cipriano, the obscure 4th century bishop whose influence today still plays an important role in folk magic and Hoodoo practices
- Baba Yaga, Joan of Arc, Gilles de Rais, Alice Kyteller, Lord Soulis, Michael Scott, the Golem of Prague, and medieval witchcraft
- King Henry VI, Anne Boleyn, King Henry VIII, Catherine de Medici, John Dee, Queen Elizabeth, and witchcraft in the British royal court
- Isobel Gowdie, illusive Scottish witch whose voluntary confessions provided the template for traditional witchcraft beliefs
- Isaac Newton, Friar Roger Bacon, Nicholas Flamel, Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, Robert Boyle, and other alchemists
- The Burning Times of the late 16th to early 18th centuries
- The Berwick witch trial
- The Salem witch trial
- Aleister Crowley, W. B. Yeats, MacGregor Mathers, Eliphas Levi, the Golden Dawn, Thelema and ritual magic, and the rise of esoteric movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries
- Jack Parsons, described as the “Jet-Propelled Antichrist” whose life of sex, rockets, and magic ended prematurely in a mysterious explosion
- Gerald Gardner, Old Dorothy Clutterbuck, Alex Sanders, Robert Cochrane, Raymond Buckland, Lady Sheba, Marjorie Cameron, and others in the modern Wicca and witchcraft movement
- And many others!
You’ll get a deeper understanding of the obscure history of witches with this enchanting and bewitching tome! The Witches Almanac brings you their rich histories and extraordinary lives!
