Introduction

Summary

This book is about magic and people. Magic, in one form or another, is a constant in all societies across the world and throughout time. The place it inhabits in society, and how those who practise it are treated, are the variables; the fact of its presence is rarely a novelty. Despite this, the study of magic has largely been quartered separately from other lines of historical inquiry, as a strange outlier to the mainstream of political, social, economic, or archival discourse. This is an inaccurate and unhelpful interpretation of a fundamental part of human lived experience.