A Supernatural War: Magic, Divination, and Faith during the First World War

by Owen Davies

Overview

A Supernatural War reveals the surprising stories of extraordinary people in a world caught up with the promise of occult powers.

It was a commonly expressed view during the First World War that the conflict had seen a major revival of 'superstitious' beliefs and practices.

Churches expressed concerns about the wearing of talismans and amulets, the international press paid considerable interest to the pronouncements of astrologers and prophets, and the authorities in several countries periodically clamped down on fortune tellers and mediums due to concerns over their effect on public morale. Out on the battlefields, soldiers of all nations sought to protect themselves through magical and religious rituals, and, on the home front, people sought out psychics and occult practitioners for news of the fate of their distant loved ones or communication with their spirits. Even away from concerns about the war, suspected witches continued to be abused and people continued to resort to magic and magical practitioners for personal protection, love, and success.

Uncovering and examining beliefs, practices, and contemporary opinions regarding the role of the supernatural in the war years, Owen Davies explores the broader issues regarding early twentieth-century society in the West, the psychology of the supernatural during wartime, and the extent to which the war cast a spotlight on the widespread continuation of popular belief in magic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198862659
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/05/2021
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	8.75(w) x 5.44(h) x 0.88(d)

About the Author

Owen Davies, Professor of History, University of Hertfordshire

Owen Davies is Professor of Social History at the University of Hertfordshire. He has published widely on the history of witchcraft, magic, ghosts, and popular medicine, including Grimoires: A History of Magic Books (2009), Paganism: A Very Short Introduction (2011), Magic: A Very Short Introduction (2012), and America Bewitched: The Story of Witchcraft after Salem (2013), and was the editor for The Oxford Illustrated History of Witchcraft and Magic (2017).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: A War Full of Wonder2. Prophetic Times3. Visions, Spirits, and Psychics4. Telling Fortunes, Telling Tales5. Battlefield Luck6. Trench Faith and ProtectionEpilogueNotesIndex

Editorial Reviews

10/29/2018
Davies (America Bewitched), a reader in social history at the University of Hertfordshire, shows how widespread and eclectic belief in the supernatural was during WWI. He has compiled an impressive catalogue of the numerous divination practices of the era, including palmistry, cartomancy, and astrology. Davies notes that Britain’s wartime populace consulted the “venerable” astrological almanacs such as Vox Stellarum to predict the outcome of the war. French newspapers printed fake prophecies to bolster hope that German troops advancing on Paris would be turned back. “Good news sold in wartime,” Davies writes, but the private discourse in fortune-tellers’ parlors was much less bullish and reflected a “perfect awareness of the horror of the trenches, the egregious loss of life, the trauma of gas attacks and shell shock.” Soldiers’ letters, memoirs, newspaper accounts, oral histories, and such relics as lucky postcards and the kreis glücksringe (lucky rings) that Austrian metalworkers created for soldiers going to the front provide compelling evidence that magical belief and mystical experience were prevalent during WWI. This is an unusual and detailed study of human nature and the supernatural. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"Owen Davies notes that great conflicts invariably generate an upsurge of belief in the mystical, visionary and occult. In A Supernatural War Davies surveys, in remarkable detail, the range of such beliefs, from cheap pamphlets prophesying the coming war to the legend of the medieval archers known as the Angels of Mons to the lucky charms worn by Italian soldiers."—Michael Dirda, Washington Post

"This is another wonderful book from the leading expert in the history of magic between 1740 and 1940. Readers will never look at the First World War in the same way again."—Ronald Hutton, author of The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft

"Davies has delved into the sources and emerged with an interesting conclusion: World War I did not increase public interest in the para-rational, as some historians have held, but only gave it a new and horrible context." — Shepherd Express

"Well-documented with deep investigation into newspapers and magazines of the period, accounts by military veterans and chroniclers, and primary sources in German and French, Davies' work provides readers with an array of fervent reactions to the onslaught of mass warfare." — Pop Matters

From the Publisher