Witches: Investigating an Ancient Religion

by Thomas Charles Lethbridge

Investigating an Ancient T.C. Investigating an Ancient Routledge and Kegan FIRST First Edition, First Printing. Published by Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962. Octavo. Hardcover. Book is very good with very slight spine lean. No dust jacket. An excellent copy of this vintage study on the religion of witches and witchcraft. 100% positive feedback. 30 day money back guarantee. NEXT DAY SHIPPING! Excellent customer service. Please email with any questions. All books packed carefully and ship with free delivery confirmation/tracking. All books come with free bookmarks. Ships from Sag Harbor, New York.Seller 306116 Philosophy & Psychology We Buy Books! Collections - Libraries - Estates - Individual Titles. Message us if you have books to sell!

Genres: Witchcraft, Nonfiction, Historical

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Thomas Charles Lethbridge (23 March 1901 – 30 September 1971), better known as T. C. Lethbridge, was an English archaeologist, parapsychologist, and explorer. A specialist in Anglo-Saxon archaeology, he served as honorary Keeper of Anglo-Saxon Antiquities at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology from 1923 to 1957, and over the course of his lifetime wrote twenty-four books on various subjects, becoming particularly well known for his advocacy of dowsing.

Source: Wikipedia

Reviews

[Anastasiia Shafran · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I learned, among other things - gods have a hell lot of different names, based on their origin and the flow of centuries. Which makes sense, of course, but also makes the study of old religions extremely confusing (especially for relative laymen like me). Next: A plot twist - Lucifer (also known as Lugh) is archangel Michael (in disguise). Why? Christianity.
What's difficult? The language is. I am pretty sure I missed a bunch of interesting facts and misunderstood a lot because of the scholarly tone of the book (yes, Anastasia, that's because it is a scholarly book!). Nevertheless, it is an interesting take on the topic of old religions, although based on speculations, theories and limited cues that survived until today.
The sad thing, however, is that the author concludes that when people learned about the true nature of the Moon and the Sun, the magic as it used to be could not be believed in anymore - both Sun and Moon move around the way they do anyway, right? And that's why people turned to the God of Underworld because it couldn't be proven he doesn't exist. If that is the conclusion the author comes to, it's quite strange, considering how many witches continued to worship the Goddess and the God throughout ages. But as said, the language of the book intertwines everything so tightly that I can't say I understand the borders of the ideas anymore. Even though the book ends with such conclusion, it could have been just another idea drawn from the available sources through guessing.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this book is interesting from a religious history point of view, and thoroughly researched at that, there was a definite through line of the Christian and male viewpoint. Pretty much everything Lethbridge covered was brought back to the Christian belief system and he couldn't seem to accept that there isn't necessarily a male deity within witchcraft traditions (there were whole paragraphs about how as there is a female deity there must be a male one, nope, nope there must not). The links between the ancient gods of Roman and Greek tradition are linked backwards to those from witchcraft and forwards to those of the modern day, primarily Christian and Jewish, which was insightful to show how one religion just co-opts the beliefs of another (christmas trees anyone). But this was overshadowed by the feeling that Lethbridge had an agenda in making these connections, particularly with the end view that once people know the science behind things their beliefs disappear and they turn to the god of the underworld as the sole (male) deity from ancient times that has not been disproven by science, personally I don't believe this to be the case given my own scientific training and ongoing belief 'system'.

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed learning about T C Lethbridge through his book. He has regained a following, but too many errors make it hard to believe what he suggests. See more at: Sects and Violence in the Ancient World.