This is the Dover edition, and as such is as superior to the last 2 Montague Summers books as Spring is to Winter.
To summarize, contained herein a summary of human idiocy and suffering, that proves in every sense entirely the opposite of what it sets out to do. Guazzo is the front-man for every superstition and folly, salesman, as it were, for the Catholic church's own brand of superstition and proves against intent that witches and demons are creations of the church, straw men brought to life solely so that the church can defeat them and emerge victorious; that, while certainly examples exist they are so outnumbered by those clear and patent absurdities claimed by the church to threaten the spiritual well being of man that all of them must be without further ado or contemplation thrown onto the bonfire and dustbins of history. That every argument and outcome of the past 1000 years is justification enough to dismantle the church in the present, that with leadership it was at best a ship of fools, and now without any they are a ship of the damned.
Translated by Montague Summers, and I can see why, a great many of his own anecdotes and proofs are drawn from the same sources. It begins with the descriptions of stage tricks, common conjuring staples that every magician now knows at 8 years of age. But 400 or more years ago you risked your immortal soul and life performing them. And truly it's hilarious, you recognize them even from the descriptions, I know this trick, I know that trick, I know ... and yet, 4, 500 years ago to perform these staples of legerdemain frequently won you infamy and burning. One especially amusing conclusion reached by the author refers to "The power of sorcerers to throw off their limbs", which is such a delightful preamble that he manages to hold your attention while he debates how this is achieved...
His gullibility is unparalleled, and he takes every fable and fairy tale at face value, as undisputed fact, folk tales are given an added Catholic twist, the Church, in its own inventiveness, has throw away the most credible parts of the tale and wholeheartedly accepted the least credible parts, clearly literal interpretations in every sense, and once one wonder has been accepted it is used as the step to lay upon another wonder, even more fantastic, and through the acceptance of culminating wonders the stairway is built to heaven - or hell, your choice. There are warnings, countless, to avoid other paths that resemble the one true path you are surely on, the many ways you must be vigilant, the many temptations, traps, pitfalls and blunders that await the unwary, the unprepared, the unrepentant, Stories clearly written up as comedy or satire held up as certainties, proofs, incontrovertible evidence, the only way to describe it is to imagine reasoning in a hundred years with somebody that had stumbled across television and accepted every program as irrefutable fact.
"...if a candle made from an ass's semen and wax be lighted, all those present appear to have asses's heads..." - Now, really? as Guazzo is serious in relating this, but it takes no imagination whatsoever to see another intent behind the original authors writing of it.
There is again, like Montague Summers, a reference to a thousand more interesting authors and books, properly annotated and footnoted, and the breadth of Guazzo's reading and sources is vast. His understanding, not so much.
There is within related the death of Simon Magus, the story of a band of rogues going around impersonating Jesus Christ and his 12 disciples, the accounts of monsters, early cryptozoology and travelers tales, the children of bestial relations, the authors' "rational explanations" often far more preposterous than the bare facts, and it's easy to read into these fabulous "histories" and "true accounts" another version of events which far more reasonably - although substantially less drolly, explains the events with infinitely less consequence for all those concerned.
There are the abundant ways that wags and tricksters have played upon the credulous, from forging the signatures of the deceased or even the devil upon documents, other pranks where you laugh out loud with the perpetrators, then marvel that still, 5 centuries later, this has been written down and is still being passed for fact...some remind one of the "Bigfoot Letters" of Joan Ocean...high in inventiveness and inadvertent humor, to blame demons for someone filled with a wind so foul that it almost poisoned the occupants of the house is something I've always put down to fast food or a spicy curry, but I promise to have better excuses next time....
...Which recalled an old English teacher of mine who had once been in the Seminary and was expelled following a prank a few of his friends played on an overly credulous initiate, rocking a statue of the Virgin Mary, enough that it was reported and the Church set out to investigate...
In all of these inventions, however fantastic, it is easy to find the legs of the tale, they are obvious, manifest, and no supernatural agency needs be given the credit. But Guazzo is generous, and in these days verily you could not fire a crossbow into the sky without hitting a witch, so many examples are given...
Bad air, a fevered dream, the most elaborate fantasies had in the wee hours when most people are sleeping, all, in the end, were plenty enough evidence to throw oneself or one's neighbors onto the fire.
These were the dark ages, made dark largely by the Church sent to illuminate, and one can infer the existence of rational people only in the margins, Guazzo tells a cautionary tale of a vainglorious man who rejects the church and sets off to study philosophy and medicine, only to be led astray by a demon who naturally instructs him in the art of necromancy, because, after all, all the "sciences" are much the same and all will lead to damnation...
There are warning against careless acts with preposterous consequences, the man who inadvertently "wed" a statue of Venus who then came to him at night and demanded her conjugal privilege, (another attempt by the church to warn against, undermine, older mythologies and religions), There are recognizable accounts of exorcism that clearly informed William Blatty's "The Exorcist", as well the earliest written account of the "devil's advocate" - the devil going to court to plead for his client, the guilty and accused, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" - an early tale by Pancrates of a would be wizard who's not learned the household charms, sets a pestle to fetching water, but is unable to stop it, breaks it and then creates 2 pestles fetching water, an example of how quickly things can get beyond our control, a warning to any who would try and think for themselves, usurp order and be their own master. There are lists of diseases that are brought by demons - and imagine, in medieval lands without clean water or remedial hygiene, suffering the natural hosts of disease that mankind has suffered from times immemorial, and even overriding previous authors who put these down to natural causes, no, no, no, these things were clearly the work of witches and demons, and we see here the church taking a big step back to become the major driving engine of the dark ages.
There are copious examples of what would now be recognized as stage hypnosis, ascribed to witchcraft and demons, there is the dismissal and condemnation of rivals, Calvinists, the demons that are written as having flown to Martin Luther's funeral, the church's own propaganda machine well under way, there's the zeal within which our author Guazzo warns against the appetites of women, describes the burning of witches, and you can recognize a similar cast of mind to Summers indeed, perhaps never were an author and translator so aptly paired.
There are the preposterous accounts of the Churches good efforts in far away places like Peru and Japan to convert the heathens from their worship of demons to the Catholic faith, frequently laughable in how much their own accounts vary from the records of the people they were saving, from third party assessments, imagine, had Hitler lived and won the war the praise he would heap upon himself and his great works in the world and you have a fair idea of how the Church came to regard itself in the light of it's countless bonfires.
In the end you can't help but come to see the church as a means of material, political and spiritual control; As it's power increased so did it's arrogance and corruption, it's misogyny and fear of women, it's warning against trusting in any other than it's own officialdom and sanctity, the selling of it's own Papally approved charms, the waxen Agnus Dei as a preventative talisman against demons and witches, other sorceries, and all of it argues against the Church. That while the Church reigned learned and intelligent men bit their tongues, and while I don't accept that science has all the answers it is increasingly apparent the church has none.
The church is, fortunately, not as powerful as once it was, but we've simply reshuffled those powers and transferred them to large corporations, the ethics, guiding principles, are all much the same...
The medieval mind and worldview, as alien to us - or most of us, there do survive many pockets, as our own will be from our grandchildren in a hundred years hence, which is perhaps the thing to take away and consider ...
While this has been most interesting I'm going to put this topic behind me for a bit. Time for something a bit different...