Reddit reviews The Visions of Isobel Gowdie: Magic, Witchcraft and Dark Shamanism in Seventeenth-Century Scotland

Can't recommend these enough:

Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812217519/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_seDXDb5367ERH

Cunning-Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic https://www.amazon.com/dp/1845190793/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_nfDXDbZWXFQX8

The Visions of Isobel Gowdie: Magic, Witchcraft and Dark Shamanism in Seventeenth-Century Scotland https://www.amazon.com/dp/1845191803/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_NfDXDbBKC83F0

Emma Wilby also wrote The Visions of Isobel Gowdie: Magic, Witchcraft and Dark Shamanism in Seventeenth-Century Scotland which is highly regarded in and out of magickal circles. But good luck getting your hands on a copy that costs less than an arm and a leg.

>“In this bold and imaginative book, Emma Wilby attempts to understand Isobel by taking us deeply into her culture and spiritual worldview. . . . With meticulous attention to detail, she reconstructs Isobel’s life as a poor, illiterate farmwife: her cultural horizons within the fermtoun, or small agro-pastoral community where she lived; her spiritual worldview, which combined Christianity with many aspects of folklore rooted in earlier cosmologies; and the likely sequence of events that led to her arrest and imprisonment. Wilby gives equally careful attention to the personalities and agendas of the men who questioned her, showing how a unique combination of personal, religious, and political ideologies came together in the small interrogation room, culminating in her remarkable performance. . . . No other author to date has come up with such a cohesive interpretation of Isobel’s confessions. In the end, this book does what good research should: provide us with provocative, original interpretations and raise questions for further exploration. Wilby’s book will be of great interest to folklorists, anthropologists, historians of witchcraft, and of course modern Pagan Witches.” —Sabina Magliocco, California State University, Journal of Folklore Research

Have you read The Visions of Isobel Gowdie: Magic, Witchcraft and Dark Shamanism in Seventeenth-Century Scotlandby Emma Wilby? Wow oh wow!! If you haven't, you really should, if you can find a copy.

Before I post my resources, I'd like to dive into what the Devil is to the early modern country dwelling folk who practiced cinningcraft/witchcraft and the animistic undertones that still pervaded their worldview until the late 19th Century or so.

The Devil often was less of the theological figure, and more of a folk figure that could refer to any number of local spirits or beliefs, often taking the place of pagan gods and fairy lords. Isobel Gowdie, regarded as genuine witchcraft, was a sixteenth century witch that professed some genuine Devil worship, although in her case the Devil was a king of fairys, in addition to the female fairy queen figure.

This further influenced the modern contemporary forms of witchcraft (Whereas Gerard Gardner made it a point to distance his horned god from the Devil, while other forms like the Clan of Tubal Cain did not), and modern regional practices.

The Visions of Isobel Gowdie

Devils Dozen; Thirteen Craft Rites of the Old One

Masks of Misrule

The Devils Plantation

The History of the Devil

The Fairy Tradition in Britain

The Man in Black

The Devil did me no Harm

The Devil and His Dame in Traditional Witchcraft

The Devil in Witchcraft

Now, I practice Traditional (In this case, witchcraft inspired by folklore, ballads, fairy faith and Folklore, in a truly operative and sorcerous manner, truly pagan and highly blasphemous) witchcraft, and exist as a Fairy Faith animist. The Devil reigns as a pagan god in my craft, the very spirit of air and motion, of the world, whose essence is infused with us in the form of a breath soul, our intellect and ego, whose body is the wind itself. He can be Lucifer, Cernunnos, Odin, Azael, Pwcca, Bucca, Janicot, among other names. He is the primary focus of my "one-man cultus" when it comes to the cosmology. Because of this, I find it important to know how he has appeared in the history of witchcraft.