Reviews for Sorcery in Germany in the 15th Century

The average rating for Sorcery in Germany in the 15th Century based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-04-13 00:00:00 Ashley Stockdale Really this book just takes all the fun out of Mysticism. Academia has finally decided to stop snubbing an undercurrent of Western Civilization. At first I was excited about what that would mean, but now I am thinking it could ruin it. Academia, though it has its obvious purposes, still heavily steeped in its delusional objectivism can take any subject and absolutely sterilize it, nuetering it of all the awe and wonder. That is what this book does, it takes an otherwise fascinating subject and just turns it into a laundry list of whose who of western mystics and their books. It is a lot like reading a long bibliography full of dates and citations with little substance. Frankly I was impressed with how well this author turned an otherwise intriguing subject into something so dull.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-08-26 00:00:00 Richard Necklen It covers a lot of ground - all the major occult, esoteric and mystical conditions in European and American history. And it has an interesting thesis - that esotericism and mysticism are simply two related paths towards gnosis; the 'via positivia' and the 'via negativa.' But what it has in breadth is lacks in depth. It doesn't fully explain any of the movements or thinkers, and often lacks even the most basic description. Many of the chapters are little more than a bibliography and don't actually mention what the movement was or what the thinkers thought. You learn the names and dates of Rosicrucians, but you never find out what a Rosicrucian is.