Review Slides Final 2025: Witchcraft, the Occult, and Popular Culture

Flashcards summarizing the historical estimates and terminology of witch hunts, anthropological and psychological theories of witchcraft, the rise of 19th-century esoteric societies, the development of modern Wicca, and contemporary social panics related to occult themes.

Gottfried Christian Voigt

An 18th-century scholar whose inflated estimate of $9,000,000$ witch hunt executions, based on local records from Quedlinburg, is rejected by modern historians.

Maleficia

A term for harmful or black magic, understood in the early modern period as one of the two core components of witchcraft.

Diabolism

A phenomenon of witchcraft involving the worship of the Devil and a formal pact with Satan, the "adversary."

Sabbath/Sabbat

A collective nighttime ritual for worshipping Satan, characterized by behaviors that inverted social norms, such as nudity and the desecration of the cross.

Malleus Maleficarum

Known as the "Witches’ Hammer," this $1486$ text by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Springer connected diabolism to common fears about harmful magic.

Spectral Evidence

A controversial form of evidence used in Salem based on the accuser's claim to see the spirit or "specter" of the person they were accusing.

Witch Cake

A method used in Salem to identify a witch, based on the "Doctrine of Effluvia."

E.E. Evans-Pritchard

An anthropologist who argued in $1937$ that witchcraft was a rational way for the Azande people to explain unfortunate events.

Suwa’ye

The term for witchcraft among the Kuranko of Sierra Leone, which encompasses stereotypes of anti-social behavior and extraordinary powers like technology.

Mobility Theory

James L. Brain’s theory suggesting that societies with little mobility and high attachment to property are more likely to foster belief in witchcraft.

Occult

Derived from the Latin "occultus" (hidden); Marcello Truzzi argues the common denominator in its various definitions is "anomaly."

Esotericism

A category of knowledge involving secret teachings or a hidden internal logic often only accessible through personal mystical experience or elite group membership.

Rosicrucians

An early $17 ext{th}$-century secret fraternity in Germany claiming mythical origins with Christian Rosenkreuz and offering secret knowledge to reform humanity.

Theosophical Society

Founded in New York in $1875$ by Helena Blavatsky and others, focusing on "Ascended Masters" and the recovery of an original, ancient religion.

Spiritualism

A $19 ext{th}$-century movement focused on communicating with spirits, prominently involving the Fox Sisters and home-based séances led by female mediums.

Myth (Bruce Lincoln)

A narrative that possesses a truth claim, credibility, and authority for a social group, often helping to define that group's identity.

Gerald Brosseau Gardner

The founder of Gardnerian Wicca who claimed to have discovered a surviving witch coven in the New Forest and published "Witchcraft Today" in $1954$.

Margaret Murray

Author of "The Witch Cult in Western Europe" ($1921$), who proposed that accused witches were actually members of an organized, ancient pagan religion.

Doreen Valiente

An influential member of Gardner's Bricket Wood Coven who re-edited the Book of Shadows to remove elements taken from Aleister Crowley.

The Book of Shadows

The foundational text for Wiccan traditions like Gardnerian and Alexandrian Wicca, used to record rituals and core teachings.

Athame

A ritual blade or sword used within Wiccan practice specifically for casting the sacred circle.

Esbat

A small-scale Wiccan coven meeting typically held during the full moon for activities like initiations or healings.

Yule

A Lesser Sabbat held on the Winter Solstice (December $21/22$) commemorating the Goddess giving birth to the God.

Samhain

A Greater Sabbat on October $31 ext{st}$ celebrating the dead and the God's entry into the underworld; considered the biggest Sabbat in most covens.

Wiccan Rede

The central ethical guideline of Wicca: "And if it harm none, do what you will."

The Threefold Law of Return

A Wiccan belief that whatever energy a person puts out into the world, whether good or bad, will return to them three times over.

Houston Steward Chamberlain

A writer who promoted the concept of the "Aryan Jesus," arguing that Christ had no Jewish blood and that his mission was the negation of Judaism.

Satanic Panic

A social phenomenon starting in the $1960 ext{s}$ characterized by widespread fear of occult groups, influential in the backlash against Dungeons & Dragons and later in QAnon.

BADD (Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons)

An advocacy group founded by Patricia Pulling that campaigned against the fantasy game during the Satanic Panic of the $1980 ext{s}$.

Third-person Effect

In the context of media and witchcraft, the belief that pop-culture portrayals might influence "others" (such as "Blessed-Wanna-Be's") but not oneself.