Europe's Inner Demons
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Europe's Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch-Hunt is a historical study of the beliefs regarding European witchcraft in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, with particular referenc
The first edition of Europe's Inner Demons, featuring an illustration from a 15th century French manuscript depicting Waldensians worshiping the Devil in the form of a he-goat.
Witch-cult hypothesis
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The witch-cult hypothesis is a discredited theory that the witch trials of the Early Modern period were an attempt to suppress a pagan religion that had survived the Christianization of Europe. Accord
Europe's Inner Demons
…any Devil-worshipping witches in Early Modern Europe, and that all of those persecuted for being so were innocent. In this he specifically rejects the Witch-cult hypothesis put forward by English scholar Margaret Murray, which argued that there really had been a witch-cult religion which had been pre-Christian in origin…
Francisco de Goya's Witches' Sabbath (1789), which depicts the Devil flanked by Satanic witches. The witch-cult hypothesis states that such stories are based upon a real-life pagan cult that revered a horned deity.
1899 cover of Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Bust of Murray held in the library of the UCL Institute of Archaeology.
The Devil on horseback. Nuremberg Chronicle (1493).