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
      2) optimistic 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 were alike 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 in Germany)
               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 (peasants bound to the land) "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 (2001), p. 152

 Margaret Murray: follower of Frazer, trained as archeologist, Egyptologist
   Chief writings:   The Witch Cult in Western Europe, 1921
    Themes:  pre-Christian "cult of Diana" or Janus as "horned god"
            w/c as fertility religion organized in COVENS, hold weekly meetings called SABBATHS
 
20th Century Witch Revival Movements:  
       
English Occult movement:
            Charles Leland, Aradia: The Gospel of the Witches, 1899
                      uses Italian "sorceress" as informant on spells, charms
            Aleister Crowley, leader of occult revival in England
            Gerald Gardner (1884-1964) author of Witchcraft Today, 1954
                      founder of WICCA-- modern "witch revival"-- self defined as "pagan religion"

20th C. Modern analogs to "witch hunting"
1) political search for "enemies within" --
           Stalin's purge trials 1934-39; McCarthyism 1950's US
2) day care sex abuse cases U.S. 1980's --