The religious supernatural recognizes – zed a self torn between transcendent forces that fought for its possession. The Devil and his minions, the Demons, engaged in a struggle for the soul with the angels and guardian spirits. When the religious supernatural expresses the search for salvation in terms of conflict and terror it anticipates the universe of Fantastic anxiety. A particular interest in this cluster of images is the material drawn from Cornell’s extensive Witchcraft collection. Most of these engravings are taken from books printed in the 1800’s and early 1900’s about witchcraft and the occult. The image below is a witch riding a wolf, originally woodblock.
From: Book Maurice Garçon. La Vie Execrable de Guillemette Babin, Sorciere. Paris : H. Piazza, 1926. Page 28.
