Tuesday, May 12, 2026 · 天火 · tianmu.org
Witchcraft and Demonology
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Texts
A Perfect Discovery of WitchesThomas Ady's radical 1661 argument that witch-hunting has no Biblical basis — a systematic demolition of spectral evidence, swimming tests, and imp-marks.A Tryal of Witches at Bury St. EdmondsThe transcript of the 1664 witch trial of Rose Cullender and Amy Duny before Sir Matthew Hale at Bury St. Edmonds, Suffolk, with C. Clark's 1838 appendix on the history of English witchcraft persecution.Ars Notoria — The Notory Art of SolomonRobert Turner's 1657 English translation of the Ars Notoria, the medieval Solomonic system for obtaining divine knowledge of the Liberal Arts through sacred orations, lunar timing, and angelic revelation.LithoboliaRichard Chamberlain's eyewitness journal of a three-month poltergeist haunting at Great Island, New Hampshire, 1682 — one of the earliest supernatural narratives from colonial America.Miscellanies Upon Various SubjectsJohn Aubrey's compendium of the supernatural, the prophetic, and the marvellous in seventeenth-century England — dreams, apparitions, omens, fatalities, knockings, crystal visions, magick, ecstacy, second sight, and the corps-candles of Wales.PandaemoniumRichard Bovet's 1684 collection of supernatural encounters from the English West Country — the Fairy-Boy of Leith, the Demon of Spraiton, apparitions, fairies, and witchcraft, presented as evidence against theological skepticism.Remarkable ProvidencesIncrease Mather's 1684 compendium of supernatural events, sea deliverances, demonic possessions, apparitions, and remarkable providences in colonial New England.Saducismus TriumphatusThe most important English text on witchcraft and apparitions, containing the famous Drummer of Tedworth poltergeist case, philosophical arguments for the reality of spirits, and twenty-eight witch trial accounts from seventeenth-century England.Satans Invisible World DiscoveredA 1685 collection of Scottish supernatural narratives — witch trials, ghost stories, poltergeist accounts, and demonic encounters — compiled by the Glasgow professor of philosophy, proving against the atheists of his age that the invisible world is real.The Discovery of WitchesMatthew Hopkins' 1647 pamphlet defending his witch-finding methods in East Anglia during the English Civil War — the Witchfinder General's own account of swimming tests, body searches, sleep deprivation, and the confession process that sent hundreds to the gallows.The Kingdom of DarknessNathaniel Crouch's 1688 compendium of nearly eighty accounts of demons, specters, witches, apparitions, poltergeists, and diabolical possessions — from New England haunted houses to English witch trials to European pacts with the Devil — published under the pseudonym R.B. at the Bell in the Poultrey near Cheapside.The Mowing-DevilAn anonymous broadside pamphlet from 1678 recounting how the Devil mowed a Hertfordshire farmer's oats in perfect circles — the earliest known account of what would later be called a crop circle.The Wonderfull Discoverie of the Witchcrafts of Margaret and Phillip FlowerA 1619 pamphlet recounting the trial and execution of the Flower family for practising witchcraft against the children of the Earl of Rutland.The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of LancasterThe official record of the 1612 Pendle witch trials — the most detailed witch trial document in English history. Edited by James Crossley for the Chetham Society (1845).The Wonders of the Invisible WorldThe primary documents of the 1692 Salem witch trials — Cotton Mather's defence of the proceedings and Increase Mather's counter-argument on spectral evidence.