Includes bibliographical references and index.

pt. I. Witchcraft and magic in the ancient world. 1. The Witch of Endor -- 2. A sorcery trial in the second century CE -- 3. Curse tablets against Roman charioteers -- 4. Apuleius: the power of witches -- 5. Horace: Canidia as a witch figure -- 6. Love magic in antiquity -- 7. St. Augustine: demonic power in early Christianity -- pt. II. The medieval foundations of witch-hunting. 8. Canon law and witchcraft -- 9. St. Thomas Aquinas: scholasticism and magic -- 10. The trial of Dame Alice Kyteler, 1324 -- 11. Nicolas Eymeric: magic and heresy, 1376 -- 12. The University of Paris: a condemnation of magic, 1398 -- 13. Johannes Nider: an early description of the witches' sabbath, 1435 -- 4. Heinrich Kramer: malleus maleficarum, 1486 -- pt. III. Witch beliefs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 15. Lambert Daneau: Protestantism and witchcraft, 1575 -- 16. Henri Boguet: the threat of witchcraft, 1602 -- 17. Nicolas Remy: the devil's mark and flight to the sabbath, 1595 -- 18. Martín Del Rio: the maleficia of witches, 1600 -- 19. William Perkins: good and bad witches, 1608 -- 20. Francesco Maria Guazzo: the pact with the devil, 1608 -- 21. Pierre de Lancre: dancing and sex at the sabbath, 1612 -- 22. Cotton Mather: the apocalypse and witchcraft, 1692 -- 23. James Hutchinson: children, the covenant, and witchcraft, 1697 -- pt. IV. The trial and punishment of witches. 24. Innocent VIII: papal inquisitors and witchcraft, 1484 -- 25. Heinrich Kramer: the torture of accused witches, 1486 -- 26. Jean Bodin: witchcraft as an excepted crime, 1580 -- 27. Henri Boguet: the conduct of a witchcraft judge, 1602 -- 28. King James VI: the swimming and pricking of witches, 1597 -- 29. Friedrich Spee: a condemnation of torture, 1631 -- 30. Sir Robert Filmer: the discovery of witches, 1652 -- 31. Sir George Mackenzie: judicial caution in the trial of witches, 1678 -- 32. King Louis XIV of France: the decriminalization of French witchcraft, 1682 -- 33. Christian Thomasius: the prohibition of torture, 1705 -- 34. The repeal of the English and Scottish witchcraft statutes, 1736.

pt. V. Witchcraft trials in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 35. The confession of Niclas Fiedler at Trier, 1591 -- 36. The trial of Françatte Camont in Lorraine, 1598 -- 37. The confessions of witches in Guernsey, 1617 -- 38. The trial and confession of Elizabeth Sawyer, 1621 -- 39. The confessions of Johannes Junius at Bamberg, 1628 -- 40. The witch-hunt at Eichstätt, 1637 -- 41. The trial of Janet Barker and Margaret Lauder at Edinburgh, 1643 -- 42. A Russian witch-trial at Lukh, 1657 -- 43. The Salem witchcraft trials, 1692 -- pt. VI. Demonic possession and witchcraft. 44. Johann Weyer: the possession of the nuns at Wertet, 1550 -- 45. Henri Boguet: the possession of Loyse Maillat, 1598 -- 46. The possession of Marthe Brossier, 1599 -- 47. Edward Jorden: demonic possession and disease, 1603 -- 48. The possessions at Loudun, 1634 -- 49. Cotton Mather: the possession of the Goodwin children, 1688 -- 50. The possession of Christian Shaw, 1697 -- pt. VII. The sceptical tradition. 51. Johannes Weyer: witches as melancholics, 1563 -- 52. Reginald Scot: the unreality of witchcraft, 1584 -- 53. Alonso de Salazar Frias: the unreliability of confessions, 1612 -- 54. Thomas Hobbes: the nature of demons, 1651 -- 55. Baruch Spinoza: the non-existence of the Devil, 1661, 1675 -- 56. John Webster: witchcraft and the occult, 1677 -- 57. Balthasar Bekker: the disenchantment of the world, 1695 -- pt. VIII. Dramatic representations of witchcraft. 58. Seneca: the witch in classical drama -- 59. Fernando de Rojas: the witch figure in Renaissance drama, 1499 -- 60. Thomas Middleton: the witch in English drama, 1613 -- 61. Hans Wiers-Jenssen: a Norwegian witchcraft drama, 1917.