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Rating: 
Summary: Witch Cult Was U.F.O Cargo Cult
Review: Margaret Murray has unwittingly documented the same phenomena as that of U.F.O. researcher Jacques Valle, only showing it existed centuries earlier. "Faerie bolts" were thought to be flicked into their victims by being launched between a fairy's thumb and middle finger. This parallels tiny arrowhead-shaped implants extracted from U.F.O. abductees today. "Cattle blasting" unnerved the populace and inflamed the witch hunts, just as cattle mutilations disturb ranchers today. The incubus and succubus were sexual predators, just as today there are reports of sexual predation. One medieval informant described the sexual member as icy cold. Then, the U.F.O. cargo cult danced around "faerie circles." Radiation-deformed vegetation around today's U.F.O. landing sites are generally circular. Flying ointment recipes, using toxic plants extracted in baby fat, recreate the abductee experience of flying and are suggestive of changelings. Just as Jacques Valle notes in "Messengers of Deception," the U.F.O. contactees' negative experiences of the diminutive grays is seen through many cultural filters. It fits the Judeo-Christian construct of Fallen Angels; and the Native Americans' construct of the Trickster; and the Irish belief about the little people; that nothing good comes out of the experience in spite of the grand promises. That this cult sought to stay outside Christianity supports the stats of Churck Missler, i.e., that no baptized Christian can be abducted without accepting the invitation of the U.F.O. beings, that is, they cannot be taken without the permission of a person who has been consecrated to the Creator.
Rating: 
Summary: Must reading for scholars studying witchcraft
Review: Margaret Murray's Witch Cult is classic research into the witch trials of the middle ages and their connection to pre-christian pagan religion. Although some of her conclusions are not controversial the historical research remains must reading for those studying the history of witch trials or modern Wicca. The style is typical of early 20th century English scholarly. There are obscure passages that beg research into the source material, and in fact Ms. Murray might have been better to do more research into sources herself. Nevertheless it is said by some that Gerald Gardner used the Witch Cult descriptions as a pattern for some of his first neo-pagan Wicca ritual outlines. Its good that it has been reprinted, and ought to be in every Wiccan's library.
Rating:
Summary: Must reading for scholars studying witchcraft
Review: Margaret Murray's Witch Cult is classic research into the witch trials of the middle ages and their connection to pre-christian pagan religion. Although some of her conclusions are not controversial the historical research remains must reading for those studying the history of witch trials or modern Wicca. The style is typical of early 20th century English scholarly. There are obscure passages that beg research into the source material, and in fact Ms. Murray might have been better to do more research into sources herself. Nevertheless it is said by some that Gerald Gardner used the Witch Cult descriptions as a pattern for some of his first neo-pagan Wicca ritual outlines. Its good that it has been reprinted, and ought to be in every Wiccan's library.
Rating: 
Summary: Laborious
Review: This book is of interest mainly because HP Lovecraft put it on the bookshelves of occult scholars in his stories (alongside the "Necronomicon," Frazer's "Golden Bough," and the "Unausprechlichen Kulten" of Von Juntz.) Readers will realize early on that this book was an inspiration to Lovecraft. Undoubtedly this is where he got the idea for the international Cthulhu cult in "Call of Cthulhu," and he probably turned to it often as a reference to give an air of authenticity to witchcraft rituals and 17th-century pastiches in his stories.
However, even to the obsessive fan hellbent on tracking down HPL's sources, this book has limited appeal. Unlike the "Golden Bough," "Witch Cult" does not have a strong thesis and doesn't seem to have any purpose beyond presenting fragments of court records from witch trials and grouping them together in chapters based on their thematic content. Many of Ms. Murray's sources are French, and she presents them in French, without any translation. You get the feeling that you just missed something potentially interesting, in some spots probably someting salacious or naughty, unless you can read French. I can't, so I wound up frustrated a lot.
The rest of Ms. Murray's sources are in "English," but they were written in the glorious days of the 1600s, before standardized spelling, and apparently before grammar had been invented. One example that pops into my mind: "quohome" as a way to spell "whom." If you have trouble reading the King James Bible, if Shakespeare leaves you shrugging your shoulders in pure bafflement, then avoid this book like the plague. You won't comprehend 50 percent of it.
For some reason Ms. Murray could not paraphrase, translate, or modernize her source material like Sir Frazer did; she presents it always "as is" in the original language and leaves the reader to puzzle out the meaning. Thankfully she assails us with numerous examples for each point. If one piece of evidence will do, then 25 pieces all saying the same thing, will do even better! So after you've slogged through all of them, you kinda can get the gist.
Much of the information presented here (the part of it that can be deciphered, anyway) is really quite fascinating despite Murray's attempt to make it bland and boring, and if you have a serious interest in the subject of Witchcraft and its history, this book is worth having. All of the information in it can be found elsewhere, but not all in one place.
I'm also taking away a star for the physical presentation of this particular volume from Kessinger Publishing. It looks like it was made on the cheap, at Kinko's. The cover is generic, and the pages are obviously scanned from an old edition and printed on sheets that are too big for it, leaving the text floating awkwardly on the page, and making the book too big, floppy, and ungainly. Plus it was too expensive. Dover can print this kind of thing (and even cut the pages to the right size) and sell it for about half the price. Why are Kessinger editions so costly?
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