This book is an outcome of an international interdisciplinary conference held on 25th – 27th October 2004 in the Congress centre of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in the picturesque Smolenice castle. The conference focused on the broader context of popular and learned magic in general, aimed to examine the full range of magical conceptions, beliefs and practices of the past and its relation to medieval and early modern science, medicine and religion. Still, the objective was broad and inclusive, rather than narrow and exclusive and it did not aim to offer one essential definition of magic.