Witches and shamans

In: New left review: NLR, Heft 200

Abstract

Author recounts how he became interested in apparently marginal fields of research and anomalous cases, both of which help to stimulate a 'euphoria of ignorance', the intellectual excitement of discovering a lack which can be filled. During research into the phenomenon of late mediaeval European witchcraft, chance discoveries led to complex and challenging conclusions involving the cultural universals of human behaviour. (Original abstract-amended)