By Susan Phelps, The Lost Book Project
During a recent visit to the Salem Witch Museum, I found myself drawn to a curious little volume displayed in the Witches: Evolving Perceptions exhibit—Les Secrets Merveilleux de la Magie Naturelle du Petit Albert. It was compact, unassuming, and yet brimming with the kind of lore that once terrified entire communities. With instructions for magical talismans, potions, and charms to cure fevers or detect infidelity, the book perfectly captured a time when natural remedies, superstition, and folk magic blurred into something dangerous.
Looking at it, I couldn’t help but think of the many other books—older, often darker—that laid the groundwork for the kind of hysteria that gripped Salem in 1692. Long before a single accusation was made in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the stage had been set by European texts that codified fear into theology and bound suspicion into law.
In this article, we explore three of the most influential books on witchcraft: The Malleus Maleficarum, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, and Daemonologie. Though not French grimoires like Petit Albert, they represent the formal, institutional side of the same fear—documents that helped shape legal systems, religious beliefs, and ultimately, the tragic events that unfolded in Salem.
The Malleus Maleficarum: The Hammer of Witches
Translated as The Hammer of Witches, The Malleus Maleficarum is arguably the most infamous book ever written on the subject of witchcraft. First published in 1487 by Dominican inquisitor Heinrich Kramer, the book was a deeply misogynistic, theologically rigorous, and fear-laden manual designed to root out and punish witches. Though not a 17th-century book in origin, it remained widely read and republished well into the 1600s—directly influencing witch hunts across Europe and the early American colonies.
The Malleus is split into three sections: the first argues that witches exist (despite opposition from more skeptical clergy), the second outlines their supposed powers and practices, and the third lays out procedures for prosecuting them. What sets the Malleus apart is its blend of theology and legalism—it presents witchcraft as both a heresy and a criminal conspiracy, deserving the full wrath of the Church and secular courts alike.
Importantly, it also links witchcraft directly to women. Kramer argues that women are more prone to witchcraft due to their “weaker faith” and “insatiable carnal lust,” a notion that would prove tragically influential in later witch hunts, including those in Salem.
Though some Church officials initially dismissed the Malleus for its extremism, it became one of the most popular books on demonology ever printed, reissued dozens of times by the early 17th century. Its procedural guidance and paranoia helped sow the seeds for the later legal frameworks used during the Salem witch trials.
The Discoverie of Witchcraft: A Voice of Dissent
If The Malleus Maleficarum was a match thrown into dry tinder, The Discoverie of Witchcraft was the cold water that few were ready to accept. Published in 1584 by Englishman Reginald Scot, this landmark text was one of the first books to challenge the validity of witch hunts and the existence of witchcraft itself.
Scot, a Protestant and a skeptic, was deeply disturbed by the persecution of supposed witches—particularly poor, elderly, and mentally ill women. His book argues that belief in witchcraft is a form of religious and social delusion, and that so-called witches were often victims of superstition, ignorance, or malice.
Rather than denying the existence of the Devil, Scot attacks the idea that human beings can engage in contracts with him. He goes so far as to accuse the Roman Catholic Church of inventing and perpetuating witchcraft hysteria for political and doctrinal purposes. Unsurprisingly, the Church condemned the book, and King James I (who would later write Daemonologie) ordered all copies of The Discoverie to be burned after Scot’s death.
But despite efforts to suppress it, Scot’s work endured. His voice was lonely, but not lost. In time, it became a key reference for Enlightenment thinkers and helped lay the groundwork for the eventual decline of witch trials in England and New England.
It’s worth noting that The Discoverie of Witchcraft also includes one of the earliest known English-language descriptions of sleight-of-hand magic tricks—a curiosity that would inspire later magicians, and confuse many early readers who mistook its documentation for endorsement.
Daemonologie: Witch-Hunting with Royal Backing
In 1597, King James VI of Scotland (later James I of England) published Daemonologie, a dialogue-style treatise on witchcraft, demons, necromancy, and possession. Unlike Scot’s skeptical tone, James’s book was fervent in its belief that witches posed a real and dangerous threat to both church and state.
Written partly in response to The Discoverie of Witchcraft, Daemonologie was a royal rebuttal to skepticism. James had personal experience with witch trials, notably the North Berwick witch trials of 1590, in which more than seventy people were accused of attempting to kill him via sorcery. These trials and his belief in diabolical conspiracy formed the ideological backbone of Daemonologie.
The book presents a conversation between two characters—Philomathes (the “lover of learning”) and Epistemon (the “man of knowledge”)—to explore theological and moral arguments supporting witch prosecution. The text blends scriptural references with folkloric detail, legitimizing witch-hunting as a necessary measure of spiritual and political defense.
What makes Daemonologie so significant is not merely its content, but its influence. King James was no ordinary author—his beliefs carried the force of monarchy. His endorsement of witch-hunting gave renewed credibility to witchcraft prosecutions throughout the British Isles and colonial America. Daemonologie was even cited in courtrooms as a justification for pursuing witchcraft charges.
When James commissioned the 1611 King James Bible, his views continued to permeate Protestant theology, especially in the Puritan colonies of New England. The Puritan settlers who would later take part in the Salem witch trials were steeped in a religious culture that accepted demonology not just as metaphor, but as spiritual fact.
A Legacy That Crossed the Ocean
Though The Malleus Maleficarum, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, and Daemonologie were all written in Europe, their impact crossed the Atlantic with early English settlers. By the time of the Salem witch trials in 1692, the theological underpinnings and judicial frameworks drawn from these texts were already entrenched in colonial life.
The people of Salem lived in a world where belief in witches was not only common but supported by precedent. Women could be accused on the basis of dreams, fits, or livestock deaths. Children testified against their neighbors. Ministers preached on the dangers of Satan’s army among them. And though none of the three books were officially cited during the Salem trials, their fingerprints were everywhere—in the fears, assumptions, and courtroom procedures of the time.
What happened in Salem was not an isolated phenomenon—it was the American echo of a European panic, filtered through the lens of religious zeal, political uncertainty, and personal vendettas. And those echoes began with books.
Echoes Across the Centuries
The witch trials of Salem did not emerge in isolation. They were the result of centuries of fear, suspicion, and dogma—often inked by men with power and conviction. Books like The Malleus Maleficarum, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, and Daemonologie were not mere academic texts; they were instruments. Instruments that inflamed, challenged, or legitimized the persecution of those seen as “other.”
These writings didn’t just influence law—they shaped culture. They laid the groundwork for how communities responded to crisis, difference, and dissent. And while the panic of 1692 has long passed, the themes embedded in these books—fear of the unknown, the tension between reason and belief, and the danger of unchecked authority—remain startlingly relevant.
They show how fear, when codified, can justify cruelty. They show how rhetoric, when written with authority, can spread like wildfire. And they show how books—whether condemning or defending—have the power to shape entire eras.
At the Salem Witch Museum, these legacies are given voice through thoughtful storytelling and historical inquiry. But the deeper story—the one behind the trials—begins with pages, not just people. And understanding those pages is essential to truly understanding Salem.
Walking through the Witchcraft Victims’ Memorial at the Salem Witch Museum, these ideas take on an unbearable human weight. A granite Bible box rests beside an open book, bordered by large iron shackles and the engraved names of those who died—each a life lost to belief turned rigid, to words turned weapon. The Bible’s presence is no accident; it reflects the deep religious authority under which the Salem trials unfolded. The same scripture used for comfort and guidance was also, at times, used to condemn.
For those seeking to explore the origins of these ideas further, The Lost Book Project’s Witchcraft Collection offers access to many of these foundational works, faithfully reproduced for modern readers. They serve not to spread superstition, but to educate, to preserve, and to remind us: ideas—once written—can echo long after the ink has dried.
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