![]() ![]() If these belief systems were vital and coherent, as well as immensely useful, why did they actually dissipate or disappear? Thomas, we are reminded, devoted only 40-odd of his 700-plus pages to the explanation of magic’s ‘decline’ in England, an explanation which, in its broad-brush appeal to changing intellectual and technological environments, Hunter finds ‘disappointingly inconclusive’. Yet in doing so, Hunter suggests, he produced a problem he had not initially anticipated. ![]() Thomas’ achievement was convincingly to explain the social functions and internal logic of such ‘irrational’ beliefs. Religion and the Decline of Magic was a sweeping survey and a frequently brilliant analysis of forms and patterns of mentality that had previously attracted little attention from ‘reputable’ academic historians: witchcraft, ghost and fairy beliefs, demonic possession, astrology, magical healing, omens and prophecy. ![]() ![]() In 1971 – and it is to be hoped that someone is already thinking about ways to mark the almost-imminent 50th anniversary of its publication – Sir Keith Thomas produced one of the 20th century’s most influential books of early modern cultural history. Most of the intended readers of Michael Hunter’s provocative and enjoyably readable new study will instantly recognise the allusion in its title. ![]()
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