Witchcraft - Peter Hough

Witchcraft is hot news: TV debates, questions in the House, screaming headlines in the tabloids. The reason? — the link with child abuse. Is the connection real, or a fiction dreamed up by the sensation-hungry media? Remember the Salem witch trials, says Peter Hough; remember the injustices of witch-finding in the Middle Ages. Looking back, we can see how much the accusers looked for and believed only what seemed to prove their case. Are we now too close to these modern accusations of ritual abuse and other witchcraft practices to be able to see them clearly?

Are they truly as shocking as popular journalism paints them? Hough delves deep into the hearts of wiccans, social workers, modern Christian witch-finders, and satanists to bring us closer to a proper understanding of what is going on.

The result is a startling — at times frightening - glimpse into the words, thoughts and worlds of both those who practise and those who oppose modern witchcraft. Peter Hough is a member of the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena, and has written for British and American magazines as well as a number of books. He lectures widely on this and related topics.