This book is a difficult read considering the old English; otherwise it is entertaining and educational.

This is a good book. This is the oldest book known to contain methods of producing magical effects. It's not a book about witchcraft as much as a book exposing the methods used to cause an accusation of witchcraft to be made. It was written in the 16th century, so take that into account when reading it. There are other places to read this book online, but it's much easier to read a real book than an e-book. Dover has put the book into an easier to read format as well.

Praise be to Dover Publications, the company that publishes cheap but durable and attractive paperback editions of a lot of really obscure and out-of-the way stuff, usually in the original typeface, so that you get the experience of reading a real 16th-century artifact).

Okay, Reginald Scot's "Discoverie of Witchcraft."

First of all, the hokey occultism-mongers and flaky New Age wiccans will be disappointed if they get this book, so be warned. It isn't a grimoire or a how-to on witchcraft. Rather, it is a skeptic's (Reginald Scot was roughly contemporary with Montaigne and Shakespeare) look at an issue which got just about everybody riled up during those days. I suppose "witchcraft" in the 15th and 16th centuries was a subject like "terrorism" in the 2Oth and 21st, and taking anything other than the hardline approach to witchery was about as subversive as reading the works of Noam Chomsky after 11 September 2001.

As skepticism gradually took firm hold in the intellectual culture of Renaissance and post-Renaissance Europe, a wider variety of opinions on witchcraft became common coin. Prior to that time, the only opinion you were allowed to have on the subject was that of the Roman Catholic Church. Which was, witches exist, they are agents of the devil, and must be burned. Scot says something like this: "Well, MAYBE there is something to the whole witchcraft thing, but it's doubtful, based on the reading I've done. Let's clear away all the smoke and mystery surrounding the subject and take a hard look at it." He then proceeds to roll up his sleeves and do a case-by-case analysis.

Reginald Scot, of course, is not a major figure in European (or even English) intellectual history. But with this book he helped pave the way for the breakdown of the Church's iron-fisted authority over the life of the mind.

For a look at the mentality of the Church, read two other books preceding Scot's by about 50 to 100 years, the "Compendium Maleficarum" (a catalogue of demons and devils--it is amazing to think that people fervently believed in these things) and the "Malleus Maleficarum" (the "Hammer of Witches") which outlines the the official dogma on what makes a witch and what should be done with them. Both are also available from Dover.