Beliefs in witchcraft and sorcery are one way of explaining the inexplicable, controlling the uncontrollable, and accounting for the problem of evil. By attributing unmerited misfortune or unwonted success to the illicit use of occult powers and...

Witch-hunting, the search for the agent(s) responsible for individual and communal afflictions, is a corollary of beliefs in witchcraft and sorcery. In individual witchseeking the cause of a particular affliction is sought from specialists such as...

A witch-hunt is a search for witches or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic, mass hysteria and mob lynching, but in historical instances also legally sanctioned and involving official witchcraft trials. The classical period of...