REL 302: Witchcraft, Magic and Occult (Dr. Zwissler): Internet Resources

"An online, semi-popular journal of religious studies. Unique in both range and approach, Religion Compass publishes peer-reviewed surveys of the most important research and current thinking from across the entire discipline."

An online full-text journal of religion and public affairs. "Religion Dispatches is a daily online magazine dedicated to the analysis and understanding of religious forces in the world today,highlighting a diversity of progressive voices and aimed at broadening and advancing the public conversation."

Part of the "Famous American Trials" web collection. Includes many examples of primary materials, including eyewitness accounts and trial transcripts recorded during the Salem Witchcraft Trials.Though the website is a ".com," it is affiliated with the University of Missouri Kansas City.

Part of Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell's Witchcraft Collection contains over 3,000 titles documenting the history of the Inquisition and the persecution of witchcraft, primarily in Europe.

The University of Edinburgh presents this database, which contains all people known to have been accused of witchcraft in early modern Scotland—nearly 4,000 of them. There is information on where and when they were accused, how they were tried, what their fate was, and on a wide range of themes relating to social and cultural history. You can use the database to conduct all sorts of searches. For instance, you can find all known cases involving neighbourhood quarrels, or demonic possession, or fairies. You can find all the male or female witches. You can create graphs or maps showing how witchcraft cases were distributed; this is important because prosecutions tended to come in short bursts in particular localities.

The podcast discusses J. Maxwell Wood’s book on witchcraft and folklore in 17th and 18th century southwestern Scotland, exploring beliefs in witches, fairies, and ghosts. It highlights witch gatherings, protective practices, tragic witch trials, and the darker aspects of fairies stealing children, reflecting a deeply intertwined world of the supernatural and everyday life.

The Malleus Maleficarum (Latin for “The Hammer of Witches”, or “Hexenhammer” in German) is one of the most famous medieval treatises on witches. It was written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, and was first published in Germany in 1487. Its main purpose was to challenge all arguments against the existence of witchcraft and to instruct magistrates on how to identify, interrogate and convict witches.

"The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, the organization provides free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public."

HathiTrust Digital Library is a digital preservation repository and highly functional access platform. It provides long-term preservation and access services for public domain and in copyright content from a variety of sources, including Google, the Internet Archive, Microsoft, and in-house partner institution initiatives.

The Religious Institute is a multi-faith organization dedicated to advocating for sexual health, education, and justice in faith communities and society. More than 6,400 clergy, seminary presidents and deans, religious scholars and other religious leaders representing more than 70 faith traditions are part of the Religious Institute’s national network.

This is the official web site of the American Academy of Religion, a professional association of teachers and research scholars, dedicated to furthering knowledge of religion and religious institutions in all their forms and manifestations. Includes useful tools such as course syllabi, online articles, and various teaching resources.

This site is designed to advance research in matters of religion. It analyzes & highlights important content of religion-related web sites to speed research. Hyperlinks are provided not only to homepages but to major directories & documents within.