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Spellbound » (1st Edition)

Book cover image of Spellbound by Elizabeth Reis

Authors: Elizabeth Reis, Diane L. Murphy
ISBN-13: 9780842025775, ISBN-10: 0842025774
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Sr Books
Date Published: January 1998
Edition: 1st Edition

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Author Biography: Elizabeth Reis

Book Synopsis

Spellbound: Women and Witchcraft in America is a collection of twelve articles that explore crucial events in the history of witch-hunting and its demonization of women in American and American women's own use of witchcraft as a source of identity and strength, as well as the complicated relationship between the two. Beginning with the accused 'witches' of colonial America, Spellbound extends its focus through the nineteenth century to explore women's involvement with alternative spiritualities, and culminates with examinations of the contemporary feminist neopagan and Goddess movements.

Midwest Book Review

Informative and engaging.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1The Economic Basis of Witchcraft1
2Female Speech and Other Demons: Witchcraft and Wordcraft in Early New England25
3Gender and the Meanings of Confession in Early New England53
4Dark Eve75
5"The Devil Will Roar in Me Anon": The Possession of Martha Roberson, Boston, 174199
6Seneca Possessed: Colonialism, Witchcraft, and Gender in the Time of Handsome Lake121
7Sojourner Truth's Religion in Her Moment of Pentecostalism and Witchcraft145
8"Hoodoo? God Do": African American Women and Contested Spirituality in the Spiritual Churches of New Orleans157
9Red Lilac of the Cayugas: Traditional Indian Laws and Culture Conflict in a Witchcraft Trial in Buffalo, New York, 1930183
10Witchcraft as Goddess Religion201
11Affinities and Appropriations in Feminist Spirituality221
12In Whose Image? Misogynist Trends in the Construction of Goddess and Woman247
Suggested Readings269
About the Contributors275

Subjects