WITCHCRAFT AND THE WESTERN IMAGINATION

Validating the imagination questionnaire

The purpose of the present study was to validate the Liang, Su, Chang and Lin imagination questionnaire. The research method, correlation and statistical population of this study were all secondary school students in Ahvaz. 300 students (150 boys and 150 girls) were selected by multistage random sampling method. The Liang, Su, Chang and Lin imagination questionnaire were used to measure imagina...

“An Imperialism of the Imagination”: Muslim Characters and Western Authors in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

This paper specifically discusses the cultural attitudes that made writing fully realized Muslim characters problematic for Western authors during the 19th and 20th centuries and also how, through their writing, certain authors perpetuated these attitudes. The discussed authors and works include William Beckford's Vathek, Lord Byron's poem “The Giaour,” multiple short stories from the periodica...

Getting Shot of Elves: Healing, Witchcraft and Fairies in the Scottish Witchcraft Trials

This paper re-examines the evidence of the Scottish witchcraft trials for beliefs associated by scholars with “elf-shot.” Some supposed evidence for elf-shot is dismissed, but other material illuminates the interplay between illness, healing and fairy-lore in early modern Scotland, and the relationship of these beliefs to witchcraft itself.

The physician and witchcraft in restoration England.

THE YEAR of 1660 witnessed important political and scientific developments in England. The restoration of the monarchy and the Church of England occurred with the return of Charles II after the dissolution of the Commonwealth and the Puritan influence. The Royal Society, after informal meetings for nearly fifteen years, was established as a scientific organization in 1660 and received its Royal...

Witchcraft and Magic in Ireland