Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 286-297).

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The purpose of this thesis is to consider the connections between witchcraft prosecutions and other social phenomena. A single county and a limited period of time have been chosen so that a study in depth can be made. W.Notestein's History of Witchcraft in England 1558-1718 (Washington, 1911) had already surveyed English witchcraft beliefs at a general level and the various works by C.L. Ewen, particularly his Witch Hunting and Witch Trials (1929), had shown that there was still a consid- erable amount of legal material relating to the prosecution of witches in the archives. Ewen's abstracts from Assize indictments suggested that Essex would be a suitable county for intensive study since it produced an over- whelming proportion of his witchcraft cases. The first part of the thesis is therefore an extension of the work of Ewen and Notestein. It discusses the various sources which may be used to analyse witchcraft beliefs. The cases which result from the investigation of these sources are presented in an appendix of prosecutions.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's personal family history, his boyhood in the Salem area of New England, and his reading of works about New England's Puritan era influenced his choice of witch and Devil lore as fictional material. The witchcraft trials in Salem were evidence (in Hawthorne's interpretation) of the errors of judgment and popular belief which are ever-present in the human race. He considered the witch and Devil doctrine of the seventeenth century to be indicative of the superstition, fear, and hatred which governs the lives of men even in later centuries. From the excesses of the witch-hunt period of New England history Hawthorne felt moral lessons could be derived.

A combination of aging and poverty is becoming dominant in African society today, at a time when African countries are expected to be recovering from poverty, and are projected to house the economic growth of the next century. The emergence of aging in African context and the aging of the world population will expose the weakness of the current mechanisms used for older people around the world. As economies grow around the world, the distribution gap between the affluent and the poor widens, and the constant struggles for wealth, power, and social status, amidst scarce resources, continue to be sustained. To remain in charge of economic resources, the powerful few devise means to disenfranchise the weak, and witchcraft accusation is one of such tools used in Northern Ghana today. A new wave of witchcraft accusation has caught the attention of many in Northern Ghana. These victims with certain socioeconomic characteristics appear helpless and without defense against such accusations. As a result, they suffer untold hardships and are often compelled to leave their homes and to reside in camps reserved for witches. This study was undertaken to identify those sociodemographic characteristics, which are commonly shared by witchcraft accusation victims. These sociodemographic characteristics can be used to predict those who are most likely to be discriminated against using accusations of witchcraft in Northern Ghana. As age places more strain on existing systems and as more people survive into old age with inadequate healthcare, more accusations may be predicted to occur against the elderly, unless enough government intervention is used to address the present redistribution of income in third world countries.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2005. / Title from title screen. Reiner Smolinski, committee chair; John A. Burrison, Thomas L. McHaney, committee members. Electronic text ( 818 p. : ill., facsims.). Description based on contents viewed Apr. 20, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 796-818).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America, 1915. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 125-132.

This thesis shows the evolution of educated belief in witchcraft in England from 1650, at the end of the last decade of largescale prosecution, to 1735/6, when the Jacobean witchcraft legislation was repealed. It looks at this belief as a body of ideas more or less susceptible to serious use, rather than as the property of a social group, something measurable in statistical terms. There are three overlapping areas: 1. The early chapters show how witchcraft theory had an ideological import in the years 1650-1670. For Sir Robert Filmer, witchcraft prosecution was tainted by its association with puritan politics and theology. Hobbes viewed the metaphysical underpinnings of the theory with disdain, but felt it necessary to preserve witchcraft as crime within his system. For Meric Casaubon, witchcraft theory was an ideal embodiment of the restoration of traditional belief, and a boundary condition of a religiously defined community. The third chapter shows how witchcraft belief could colour mutual perceptions of Anglo- Scottish relations. 2. Having been a useful symbol of a broadly-based, religious, but non-factional society for the Harleyite Daniel Defoe in the crisis of 1710-11, witchcraft was coopted into the party struggle during the notorious Wenham case. Subsequently, witchcraft theory was a dangerous subject for a regime which, as Walpole's did, sought to disentangle the religious and secular threads which the witchcraft issue bound together. 3. Witchcraft, factionalized, became for Defoe a satirical symbol of party rule. Elsewhere it emerged, verbally and visually, whenever ferment about Church-State relations bubbled once more to the surface. These issues are examined in chapters on the last great witchcraft debate, images of witchcraft, and on repeal of English, Scottish, and Irish witchcraft legislation. The central conclusions are chronological and causal. Witchcraft theory continued to count well into the eighteenth century; and its demise had very specific political and ideological occasions.

Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 47-49).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. [570]-592).