Reginald Scot (1538?-1599)
1584
Scot’s The discoverie of witchcraft, first published in 1584, was the author’s affirmation that witchcraft did not exist. It was essentially an English language adaptation of Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum [The False Kingdom of Demons] (written as an appendix to De praestigiis daemonum). In his book, Scot ascribed contemporary phobias about the evils of witches and witchcraft to Malleus Maleficarum, of which he was highly critical.
Scot attempted to prove that belief in witchcraft and magic was irrational, and that manifestations of such were willful attempts to deceive, or illusions as a result of mental illness. He goes farther than Weyer by declaring that spirits were not corporeal and therefore could not affect the material world. He supports this idea by arguing that the Devil was not a real entity, but was rather the potential for evil that exists within all human beings. He also presents a social explanation for accusations of witchcraft—that witches were merely old women going from house to house begging, thus inciting fear and anger in their neighbors. Part of the book attempts to expose how supposedly miraculous feats of magic were accomplished, and as such it is sometimes referred as the first textbook on conjuring. It includes a number of illustrations of some of the tools and spells used for creating these so-called feats of magic.
Although Scot attributed the manifestations of witchcraft to deception and mental illness, he does define witchcraft, in part, as a pact between a woman and a devil.