"Worlds of Fear and Wonders": Malcom Gaskill in conversation with Owen Davies

Why has the supernatural remained such a persistent part of human experience? Drawing on Malcolm Gaskill’s new book, Worlds of Fear and Wonder: Living with the Supernatural, Past and Present, Gaskill and Owen Davies explore the emotional worlds of witchcraft, ghosts, miracles, magic and spiritualism. Together, they ask what happens when we take supernatural beliefs seriously, not simply as mistaken ideas, but as feelings and experiences that shaped how people understood their world. What might these haunted histories reveal about the fears, passions and enchantments that continue to shape our own?

Malcom Gaskill is Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, and an expert in witchcraft trials, the history of mentalities and emotions, and spiritualism and psychical research. His last book Worlds of Fear and Wonder: Living with the Supernatural, Past and Present is forthcoming at Harvard University Press.

Owen Davies is Professor of Social History at the University of Hertfordshire. His research focuses on the belief in witchcraft, magic, ghosts, and popular medicine from the ancient world to the modern era.

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