Sorceress

<p><em>Sorceress</em> (the English translation of <em>La Sorcière</em>) by Jules Michelet is still one of the most vivid dark and confronting studies on witchcraft ever produced. Long before Murray it positions the medieval witch within a diminishing ancient culture of nature worship and the ruthless efforts of Christianity with its radical hostility towards nature and life to overwrite it.</p><p>Michelet's was an authority on the history of the Middle Ages and his insistence that history should concentrate on "<em>the people and not only its leaders or its institutions</em>" placed him ahead of his time as a godfather of micro-history. Starting in the 13<sup>th</sup> century the book moves on towards belladonna the Sabbath and pacts with Satan into the hells of the Burning Times - social contexts church intrigues and mass hysteria always included. Via Basque witches the Black Masses and demoniacal possessions we enter the satanic decadence of 17<sup>th</sup> century France and finally the end of the witch burning era in 18<sup>th</sup> century with the trial of Charlotte Cadière.</p><p>Though a solid work of history the reader is not presented with a bone dry exposition of facts and theories but with something that tastes like a bloody mary. Michelet wrote juicy and from the perspective (or policy) of a socially engaged activist. He tried to trigger a maximum of emotional connection with the themes he wrote about. <em>Sorceress</em> is therefore one of those rare books on which the dust will never really settle… Read more about Jules Michelet in in the Post Scriptum of <em>Sorceress. </em>Preview on vamzzz.com</p>