Research source

Reginald Scot published his 'Discoverie of Witchcraft, proving that common opinions of witches contracting with…

Date of account: Published 1865
Source: The Superstitions of Witchcraft
Reference: The Superstitions of Witchcraft · selected passage 106
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Reginald Scot published his 'Discoverie of Witchcraft, proving that common opinions of witches contracting with devils, spirits, or their familiars, and their power to kill, torment, and consume the bodies of men, women, and children, or other creatures, by disease, or otherwise, their flying in the air, &c., to be but…

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

Three years after this affair, Dr. Reginald Scot published his 'Discoverie of Witchcraft, proving that common opinions of witches contracting with devils, spirits, or their familiars, and their power to kill, torment, and consume the bodies of men, women, and children, or other creatures, by disease, or otherwise, their flying in the air, &c., to be but imaginary, erroneous conceptions and novelties: wherein also the lewd, unchristian, practices of witchmongers upon aged, melancholy, ignorant, and superstitious people, in extorting confessions by inhuman terrors and tortures, is notably detected.'[99]

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

A modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.

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