Compendium Maleficarum: The Montague Summers Edition (Dover Occult) - Softcover

Guazzo, Francesco Maria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 048625738X ISBN 13: 9780486257389

Publisher: Dover Publications Inc, 2003

Synopsis

This extraordinary document, considered one of the most important manuals ever compiled on witchcraft, offers striking insight into the early 17th century mind and society`s attempts to cope with the evils it saw manifested in sorcery. A collection of writings by the Ambrosian monk Francesco Maria Guazzo, the Compendium comprehensively and penetratingly describes the entire practice and profession of witchcraft. First published in 1608, the commentaries came at an appropriate time. Contemporary accounts noted that witchcraft and sorcery had "spread in all directions," leaving "no country, town, village, or district, no class of society" free from the practice. This probing work, by a distinguished writer and scholar who perceived the devil as an evil force seeking to destroy men`s bodies and souls, was an attempt to help man live piously and devoutly, thus guarding against such seductions and manipulations. reproduced from a rare limited edition published in 1929 and supplemented with may erudite editorial notes by Reverend Montague Summers, the Compendium Maleficarum includes profoundly serious discussions of witches` pacts with the devil, finely detailed descriptions of witches` powers, poisons and crimes ; sleep-inducing spells and methods for removing them, apparitions of demons and specters, diseases caused by demons, and other topics. Also examined in detail are witches` alleged powers to transport themselves from place to place, create living things, make beasts talk and the dead reappear; witches` use of religion to heal the sick, laws observed by witches to cause and cure illness, differences between demoniacs and the bewitched, and other subjects from the realm of the supernatural. Here is an encyclopedic tract of incalculable worth to the historian and student of the occult and anyone intrigued by necromantic lore, sabbats, sorceries and trafficking with demons.

About this title

Product Description

Extraordinary document (1608) on witchcraft and demonology offers striking insight into early 17th century mind. Serious discussions of witches’ powers, poisons, crimes, more. Rare limited edition.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dover Publications Inc
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 048625738X
• ISBN 13: 9780486257389
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 206