Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath — Carlo Ginzburg

Author: Carlo Ginzburg
Publisher: Hutchinson Radius
Format: Hardcover with dust jacket
Edition: First English edition, 1990
ISBN: 0-09-174024-X

Condition: Very good second-hand hardcover condition with light shelf wear, minor rubbing and handling marks to the dust jacket, and light edge wear. Binding appears firm and pages are clean and readable. Please see photos for the exact copy available.

Ecstasies is a major work of witchcraft history, folklore, and religious scholarship by acclaimed historian Carlo Ginzburg.

In this influential study, Ginzburg investigates the origins and meanings of the witches’ Sabbath, tracing its roots through trial records, folk traditions, shamanic motifs, visionary journeys, animal transformations, ecstatic flight, and older layers of European myth. Rather than treating witchcraft only as persecution or fantasy, he explores the deeper symbolic and cultural patterns behind the idea of the Sabbath.

Dense, strange, and highly regarded, this is an important title for readers interested in witchcraft history, medieval and early modern Europe, folk religion, ecstatic traditions, heresy, persecution, and the hidden survivals of pre-Christian belief.

About the Author:

Carlo Ginzburg is an Italian historian best known for his work in microhistory, witchcraft studies, and popular belief. His books, including The Cheese and the Worms, The Night Battles, and Ecstasies, have had a major influence on the study of folklore, heresy, religion, and early modern European culture.