An Inventory of FearThe Witch: A History of Fear from Ancient Times to the Present, RonaldHutton, Yale University Press, 2017 (ISBN 978‐0‐3002‐2904‐2), xv + 360 pp., hb $30The Oxford Illustrated History of Witchcraft and Magic, OwenDavies (ed.), Oxford University Press, 2017 (ISBN 978‐0‐19‐960844‐7), xiv + 314 pp., hb £25

Abstract

AbstractA study of two recent contributions to the scholarship on witchcraft and magic uncovers an uncomfortable dilemma. On the one hand, authors argue that magical practices should now be interpreted on their own premises; on the other hand, attempts to take seriously the experience of magic are bracketed and ‘disbelief’ in magic is encouraged. I argue that such disbelief affirms, ironically, the polarization between religion and magic which is the object of critique and arises from an unexamined fear, directed principally at religion and Christianity. When left unexamined, this fear of religion takes the place of the historically attested religious maligning of magic studied by contemporary scholars, and, it is proposed, results in discourses of violence that repeat, unwittingly, the very stereotypes which modern accounts of witchcraft and magic set out to eradicate.