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Devils in the Mind

Aldous Huxley was in certain respects a modern disenchanted intellectual, and he had no use for actual demons; but there are persons as serious and sane as he was who can state with authority that demons and demonic possession are real. Continue Reading »

The Cross and the Machine

We must have been fifteen or sixteen when we discovered the church visitor’s book. It was an old church, maybe medieval, and I would pass it with my school friends on our way to the town center. I’m not sure what possessed us to go in; it might have been my idea. I’ve always loved old . . . . Continue Reading »

Witch Ways

In 1768, John Wesley expressed concern about the decline of popular belief in witchcraft and the supernatural: “The English in general, and indeed most of the men of learning in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere old wives’ fables. I am sorry for it. . . . They . . . . Continue Reading »

Pagan Horror

Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reichby eric kurlanderyale, 448 pages, $35 That Hitler and his inner circle were mad is not a matter of controversy. The source and character of their madness, though, is subject to debate. Eric Kurlander wants us to understand Nazi ideology . . . . Continue Reading »

Cauldron of Resentment

The Witches: Salem, 1692by stacy schifflittle, brown and company, 496 pages, $32Of all the catchphrases Americans employ in times of political crisis, “witch hunt” is perhaps the most unsettling. It casts opponents as evil, not merely wrong. Richard Hofstadter famously labeled this tendency in . . . . Continue Reading »

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