Customer Reviews

Witchcraft and Black Magic

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This is yet another treatise on the history of witchcraft and the occult by the ubiquitous early 20th century occult writer Montague Summers. This work, originally published in 1946, just two years before Summers' death, deals with more of the same material Summers covers better in his earlier work "History of Witchcraft and Demonology". Here he further covers witchcraft and occult lore and superstition, the history of witchcraft from anicent to early modern times, including the period of the witchcraze. He vividly includes such scadalous and lurid topics as diabolic pacts with Satan, invocation and copulation with demons, necromancy, and all the attendant myths and legends passed down through history corncerning these subjects. As an occult or witchcraft history, while quite interesting, this is really ground covered before by Summers and others. Summers himself was a eccentric but devoted occult historian who wrote many books on this and related subjects such as vampires, werewolves, and edited and translated several important early demonology and witchcraft texts such as the "Malleus Maleficarum", "Compendium Maleficarum", "The Discovery of Witchcraft", and others. His credulity and fanaticism calls his scholarship into question and his translations of many works are considered suspect. Despite these shortcomings, Summers was, to say the least, an interesting and prolific author.

Granted this book was published in 1946 I believe. Anyway it is not the most up to date treatise ever on the subject, which is what I had to bear in mind as I read it.
The preface and first chapter tie witchcraft to Satanism in a very no holds barred manner, brooking no debate. Even though I am not a practising witch or wiccan I found that offensive until I reminded myself on Summer's background and the age of text.

This is a history of witchcraft and Black magic and is interesting in that even though some chapter headings confused me as it took awhile for Summers to broach the various headings subjects. In other words it seemed like chapters were not neccessarily about descriptive paragraph headings.

This is an interesting history and Summers is quite extensive in his subject matter covered my other critique would be the absence of Aleister Crowley's absence from these pages.

Still an interesting and somewhat educational read.

This book is more concern with the history and folklore of witchcraft. So if you are looking for a "How-To" book on witchcraft you're bound to be disappointed. The book is written in a very formal, dry manner. It is too 'academic' and 'heavy' for an inspirational or even a casual read. Not recommended for the uninitiated or beginner. On the plus side, this book is factually accurate.

This is an interesting book to add to any Christian's book collection. Filled with valid anecdotal stories of witchcraft and Satanisim primarily from the 16th and 17th centuries.

In this book he captures various resources long lost or forgotten. As a purist, I find the author partial to Roman Christianity but thankfully he is without overbearing.

Although written in 1945, the book is a cumbersome read with heavy usage of antiquated words. He tends to add the phrase, "at any rate" far too often and the book's structure is loose and disorganized. However, as a wordsmith, some passages are absolutely stunning in their elegance.

This aside, it is a valuable portrait of a more sensible time when Satanism and witchcraft faced some very earthly opposition and its exposure was far more prevalent. He illustrates these vipers proclivity to killing, poisoning and corrupting -- So, when one reads the contents of a typical food label or hears about all the missing children annually or looks at a grotesque movie/album cover, I can't but help think that such forces are at work today too, bringing this subject forward to us now.

Mr. Summers is short to suggest the proper spiritual tools to be employed to combat such nefarious orchestrations, but does a good job of calling out the unacceptable deviant behavior. I also enjoy his delicate undercurrent of tracing all this rebellious spiritualism to the Jewish Cabala.

However, for all its fascinating revelation, the author fails to mention that he himself is promoting the Freemason checkerboard subterfuge of black and white, with the truth somewhere over there in the corner with nary a light cast upon it.

Read your bible folks :-)

Like his "History of Witchcraft and Demonology" Summers got it wrong. He consistenly attempts to tie witchcraft and devil worship to eachother. Most of this text is completely assinine, bearing such resentment and fear of the occult as to make the biased opinions seem obvious. Summers, as a catholic priest, wrote many books on the occult, from the view point of the church. His books on witchcraft are offensive to any practicing witch, and are dangerous in the hands of those who are still looking for a reason to hate witchcraft. In fact, his books are responsible for much of the hatred and misinformtion about witchcraft.

If you're looking for works on either witchcraft or black magic, there are much better resources available.

This book explains everything about black magic and witchcraft. It is one of the most interisting book ive ever read