Letters on demonology and witchcraft by Sir Walter Scott - Digital Book In ill health following a stroke, Sir Walter Scott wrote Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft at the behest of his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart, who worked for a publishing firm. The book proved popular and Scott was paid six hundred pounds, which he desperately needed. (Despite his success as a novelist, Scott was almost ruined when the Ballantyne publishing firm, where he was a partner, went bankrupt in 1826.) Letters was written when educated society believed itself in enlightened times due to advances in modern science. Letters, however, revealed that all social classes still held beliefs in ghosts, witches, warlocks, fairies, elves, diabolism, the occult, and even werewolves. Sourcing from prior sixteenth- and seventeenth-century treatises on demonology along with contemporary accounts from England, Europe, and North America (Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi, for one), Scott's discourses on the psychological, religious, physical, and preternatural explanations for these beliefs are essential reading for acolytes of the dark and macabre; the letters dealing with witch hunts, trials (Letters Eight and Nine), and torture are morbuyly compelling. Scott was neither fully pro-rational modernity nor totally anti-superstitious past, as his skepticism of one of the "new" sciences (skullology, as he calls it) is made clear in a private letter to a friend. Thus, Letters is both a personal and intellectual examination of conflicting belief systems, when popular science began to challenge superstition in earnest.=====================================================================The books in digital formats in the EPUB, MOBI and pdf. All files are in the public domain..======================================================================================== Postage & Packaging Policy: Download link, sent to buyer within 24 hours. With this link, the buyer can download to your computer all the files that are on the DVD. There is no charge for this type of shipment. ==============================================================================Copyright Notice To eCRATER VeRo Team and Publishers Association. These e-books/magazines are in The Public Domain. All content complies with eCRATER rules and regulations. No trademarks, copyrights, or eCRATER rules have been violated in this listing. This product fully conforms to eCRATER compilation and international media policy and downloadable media policy; it is NOT an unauthorised copy of any other "copyrighted product" and as such does not constitute a Copyright Violation - Unauthorised Item. If there is a legitimate copyright holder that I have not located please contact me and I will remove the relevant e-books. To our Valued Customers Our main aim is to make this wonderful Public Domain Material available to you on CD's & DVD's: the small price you pay for these CD's are for Production, Administration, Post & Packaging. All of our MP3s and e-books comply with eCRATER rules and regulations. The item is in the public domain, the copyright has lapsed, we own resale rights to it, or we are the publishers and sole copyright holders. No trademarks, copyrights, or eCRATER rules have been violated in this listing. This product fully conforms with eCRATER compilation and international media policy and downloadable media policy.