Devils, Demons, and Witchcraft: 244 Illustrations for Artists and Craftspeople

This book is not meant to be an introduction to Wicca or a history of witchcraft and demonology. It's intended purpose is simply to provide an illustrated reference work primarily for historians, teachers, artists, craftsman, and authors working in the area of witchcraft and demonology. That being said, the book is divided into twelve chapters, each dealing with various aspects of witchcraft, death, demons, and the occult and providing a plentiful cornucopia of illustrations, woodcuts, copperplates, and artwork representative of the subject at hand. The works of Durer, Dore, and others appear together with illustrations from such famous demonological works such as Colin De Plancy's "Dictionnarie Infernal" and Francesco Maria Guazzo's "Compendium Maleficarum" as well as countless others from ancient to modern times. This is a first class illustrated reference book and will be useful to any number of those interested in the history of illustration of the Dark Arts.

Not only does this book not say anything particully bad about Wicca or witchcraft, the first sentence of the chapter of Witches and Warlocks explicitly states: "The true practicing witches of the late Middle Ages,Renaissance and later periods were most likely stubborn adherents of pre-Christian pagan religious beliefs in which the deity or deities partook of animal forms." The reviewer who stated that it's books like these that promote religious intolerance against neopaganism obviously just took one look at the title without ever even opening the book. The pictures provide us with a great insight into the mentality of the Christian church throughout history. The favorite works are the ones depicting the four horsemen of the appocolypse. Anyone who is interested paganism, demonology, Christian history or religion in general should pick this book up. It delongs on the shelf of every neopagan for the same reason as Malleus Malificarum and Compendium Malificarum.

I will go along with the two people below me and say that to say this book is an asset to anti-paganism is a generic complaint, and is a real destraction from what this book is about, artwork. Amoung my huge collection of books concerning European paganism and shamanism, I have several that deal with demonology. And this is one of the best that I have. The fact that this is primarily a picture book is actually a testament to Wicca, because it shows us how demonology and Satanism are mostly products of what happens when the imagination runs loose.

A wonderfull book of woodcuts on a facinating subject, with short and to-the-point commentary. Unlike one of the reveiwers, I have found nothing in the book that spreads falsehoods or encorages hatred of the Wiccan religion.