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Knowing Demons, Knowing Spirits in the Early Modern Period

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  • © 2018

Overview

Editors:
  1. Michelle D. Brock

    1. Washington and Lee University, Lexington, USA

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  2. Richard Raiswell

    1. University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, Canada

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  3. David R. Winter

    1. Brandon University, Brandon, Canada

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  • Explores the theory and practice of knowing demons and spirits, including angels and fairies, in the early modern era
  • Investigates the discursive and experiential frameworks which allowed people to recognize and understand preternatural beings
  • Asseses the cultural, geographical and chronological contexts of the evolution of understandings of spirits and demons

Part of the book series: Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic (PHSWM)

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Table of contents (12 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
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  2. Introduction

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
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    2. Theory and Practice in Early Modern Epistemologies of the Preternatural

      • Michelle D. Brock, David R. Winter
      Pages 3-19

  5. Afterword

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 291-291
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    2. The Science of Knowing Spirits: Rationality and the Invisible World

      • Nancy Mandeville Caciola
      Pages 293-301

  6. Back Matter

    Pages 303-317
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Keywords

About this book

This book explores the manifold ways of knowing—and knowing about— preternatural beings such as demons, angels, fairies, and other spirits that inhabited and were believed to act in early modern European worlds. Its contributors examine how people across the social spectrum assayed the various types of spiritual entities that they believed dwelled invisibly but meaningfully in the spaces just beyond (and occasionally within) the limits of human perception. Collectively, the volume demonstrates that an awareness and understanding of the nature and capabilities of spirits—whether benevolent or malevolent—was fundamental to the knowledge-making practices that characterize the years between ca. 1500 and 1750.  This is, therefore, a book about how epistemological and experiential knowledge of spirits persisted and evolved in concert with the wider intellectual changes of the early modern period, such as the Protestant Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Washington and Lee University, Lexington, USA

    Michelle D. Brock

  • University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, Canada

    Richard Raiswell

  • Brandon University, Brandon, Canada

    David R. Winter

About the editors

Michelle D. Brock is Associate Professor of History at Washington and Lee University, USA.

 
Richard Raiswell is Associate Professor of History at the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada.


David R. Winter is Associate Professor of History at Brandon University, Canada.



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