WITCHCRAFT IN EUROPEAN HISTORIOGRAPHY
                                                         = the history of historical writing

I. 18th C. ENLIGHTENMENT as progressive intellectual & cultural movement
     1) high estimate of powers of human reason to understand
        world through growth of scientific knowledge: RATIONALISM
     2) OPTIMISM about progress based on science & technology
     3) attitude of rationalist ANTI-CLERICALISM
        includes critique of religion as "superstition," cause of persecution. 

 Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, 1764       (French)
      defines witch trials as "legal murders committed by the fanaticism,
      stupidity and superstition" of organized Christian religion:

      "We, miserable Frenchmen, who now as enlightened philosophes boast of
     having recovered some small part of our senses, in what a horrid sink of stupid
      barbarism were we then immersed.... France resounded with the cries of poor imbecile
     creatures whom the judges, after making them believe they had danced around a cauldron,
     tortured and put to death without pity, in horrible torments.  Catholics and Protestants
     alike were infected with this absurd and frightful superstition." 

Henry Charles Lea, The History of the Inquisition , 1887 (American)
            19th century rationalist historian of witchcraft: argues that w/c
            never existed at all, was only the invention of medieval church;

II. 19th C ROMANTICISM (rejection of Enlightenment cult of reason)
       Themes: rejection of present progress for interest in past;
               concern with emotion, passions as more basic than reason;
               turn to the primitive, exoticism, folklore (Grimm Brothers)
       French Revolution 1789: sense of popular participation in history

      Jules Michelet, La sorcière (The Sorcerer)   1862
               first post-Enlightenment work on witchcraft
               invents term "Black Mass" to portrays witches' gathering (the Sabbath)    
                            as inversion of official Catholic Mass;
               describes secret meetings of oppressed peasants; high priestess is young
               female serf: "with a face like Medea, a beauty born of suffering, a deep tragic,
               feverish gaze, with a torrent of black untamable hair falling like waves of serpents.
                 Perhaps, on her head, a crown of ivy cut from tombs, like violets of early death."

III. WITCHCRAFT AS FERTILITY CULT: early 20th century English scholars

  Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough, 1890-1915 (12 volumes)
      all world religions interpreted as fertility cults;
      sees worship of "the spirit of vegetation" underlying religion;
      evolution of thought from magic, to religion, to science (last stage)
      "Frazer launched a cult of fertility cults in English speaking world,"
            Norman Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons,

 Margaret Murray: follower of Frazer, trained as archeologist, Egyptologist
   Chief writings:   The Witch Cult in Western Europe, 1921
                    The God of the Witches , l933 

  Themes:  pre-Christian "cult of Diana" or Janus as "horned god"
            w/c as fertility religion organized in COVENS,
            hold weekly meetings called SABBATHS

   See definitive critique of Murray by Norman Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons,
      Chapter 8, "The Society of Witches that Never Was"

20th Century Witch Revival Movements:  
       
Charles Leland, Aradia, l899
Gerald Gardner (1884-1964) author of Witchcraft Today, 1954
 Aleister Crowley, leader of occult revival in England
WICCA-- self defined as "pagan religion"; modern "witch revival"