The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-Hunting in the Western World

Having spent most of my life in Massachusetts, I have always been fascinated by witch trials (Salem) and the psychology behind the persecution of witches. This book doesn't address actual witchcraft but instead delves into that very psychology. The author's research is meticulous, his writing clear and easy to follow. The book isn't dragged out and I found no part of it in the least bit boring. I would suggest this book to anyone with an interest in the history and psychology behind witch hunts.

Easy-to-read survey by a scholar who has spent his career in deep research on the subject. He draws some parallels between ancient and modern witchhunting -- useful reminders that we are not so different from our ancestors in our fears and scape-goating. Excellent references for further reading.

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone seeking a broad introduction to or quick review of the topic of early modern witchcraft. The case studies are well crafted and interesting, but the survey chapters on the european witch hunt and Salem provide great overviews. The Salem overview also contains a very good distillation of the vast historical literature on the subject. Prof. Demos also provides good bibliographies to help readers find more detailed studies on specific topics.

Everyone knows about the witchcraft trials in Salem, Massachusetts. Few people know as much about them as John Demos, a professor of history who has written academic texts on the theme and about early American history. Demos explains that after writing _Entertaining Satan_ in 1982, he thought he had said his last about the history of witchcraft. "Yet the talk-show invitations kept coming each year at Halloween; there was still the occasional witchcraft conference to attend; there were even middle-of-the-night phone calls from people who thought themselves possessed by the Devil." So when he was invited to write a synthesis of the subject, he had reasons to take on the project, although he had been used to writing about specific cases from centuries ago, and doing so for an academic audience. _The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-Hunting in the Western World_ (Viking) is the result, and while it inevitably covers the witch scare in New England, the longer view has to do with the larger pattern of blaming and scapegoating. People have done this for centuries, and although we might congratulate ourselves for graduating from the magical, supernatural thinking that brought forth the Salem trials, we are still demonizing. Demos's chapters are a set of historic essays on important themes, and his broad outlook on the subject is well-reasoned and fascinating. Christianity developed a tolerance, even a complicity, to witch-magic. Sorcerers, usually women, might be despised or condemned, but they were also respected and consulted especially to work a bit of counter-magic against some curse large or small. Spells and charms were thought effective in battling against a mystifying world, and the church had similar remedies. Christians, for instance, used sacred relics to promote cures or they valued charms such as medallions made from paschal candles. By the end of the fourteenth century, the disarray from wars and plague, an increased emphasis on Satan as a foil to Christ, and inquisitorial investigations with the acceptance of torture to gain evidence all brought increased attention to witches. Demos devotes a chapter to the famous _Malleus Maleficarum_, first published in 1486, a guide to what witches do and how to catch them out. Pope Innocent VIII himself supported the book, which showed it was heresy not to believe in witches and their connection to the Devil, listed the leading forms of witchcraft and what witches did, and advised how to get evidence against them, including torturing them to get the truth. Demos summarizes the famous events at Salem, with a specific chapter on one of the chief participants, Cotton Mather. The Puritan minister was preoccupied with witches partly because they fitted into his vision of the imminent millennium and return of Christ, and he encouraged the Salem prosecutions. As society began to doubt the wisdom of the witch trials, so Mather lessened his emphasis on the scourge, but for him, to stop believ