Rossell Hope Robbins massive 1959 work "Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology" has been reprinted many times but is currently out-of-print. It is indeed a fascinatingly horrible compenidum of information regarding witches, demons, devils, demonologists, inquisitors, judges, hysterias, torture, and murder. It has served for the past 40 odd years as one of the most read and referenced work on the history of witchcraft and demonology, especially by many popular witchcraft authors and historians who continue to use and cite the work today.

The trouble is that much of the scholarship contatined in this work is sadly outdated and lacks information on much of the recent work done in the field of witchcraft studies in the past 20 years. Also, Robbins' work suffers from the same problem that afflicted many other similar early witchcraft histories: bad translations and historical forgeries. It has been shown that many of the early translations of a number of Latin works on witchcraft (particularly those translated by the Rev. Montague Summers) are suspect. Also, several 19th century histories of the witchcraze and the Inquisition that have been used as source material by countless authors, including Robbins, have been proven to be forgeries, particularly the works relating the early 14th century Inquisitorial witch executions in France. Robbins' work has also been criticized by scholars for its lack of objectivity in its history. But this work still remains popular today and understandably so, as it contains many lurid and engaging articles on just about every aspect of the witch hunts from the 15th to the 18th century in Europe and North America. Despite many of its flaws, it is still a useful reference and for that reason it still gets 3 stars, plus I must admit, it maintains some of the mysterious aura surrounding the history of witches and demons that much recent scholarship has tried to dispel, and that makes it fascinating reading, if for the wrong reasons.

I first stumbled onto this book when I needed reference material for a paper on witchcraft. I've gone back to re-reference this book too many times to count! It has information on almost every aspect of witchcraft and demonology; terrific for the beginner interested in this subject. You can feel the hopelessness of the accused; I felt very thankful to be living in this day and age. Highly recommended!

A great text to get people more interest in this topic of occult research. Lots of aspects explained.