This introduction establishes the theoretical framework for a critical reassessment of Norbert Elias’s The Civilizing Process through an examination of early modern witchcraft prosecutions. Whilst acknowledging Elias’s seminal contribution to historical sociology, this study emphasises the centrality of religion to medieval and early modern society, and the differential impact of civilizing processes upon women as distinct from men. Drawing upon the historical evidence found in witchcraft pamphlets in England and Scotland, this book proposes that Elias’s two pillars of state formation, the monopolisation of violence and taxation, require supplementation through a third pillar: religious decentralisation. Crucially, this book argues that the civilizing process, as articulated by Elias, was a process of masculine transformation, given that women already embodied largely non-violent modes of social interaction. The adoption of ostensibly “feminine” non-violent diplomatic strategies by men necessitated a corresponding devaluation of women as social actors, manifested most acutely in the phenomenon of witchcraft prosecutions. By positioning the witch as the archetypal outsider figure, this analysis demonstrates how the intersection of gender, religion, and state formation generated novel forms of social control that were symptomatic of society’s engagement with increasing figurational interconnectedness.