Ghosts and Witchcraft

A Discovery Concerning Ghosts:
with a rap at the "spirit-rappers", George Cruikshank, 1863.

Hours With the Ghosts: or, Nineteenth century witchcraft, Henry Ridgely Evans, 1897.

The Spirit Rappings, Mesmerism, Clairvoyance, Visions, Revelations, Startling Phenomena, and Infidelity of the Rapping Fraternity, Calmy Considered and Exposed, Rev. James Porter, A.M.

An Account of the Trial, Confession & Condemnation of Six Witches, at Maidstone, in the county of Kent, at the assizes held there July 1652, before Sir Peter Warburton, one of the justices of the common pleas to which is added the trial, examination and execution of three witches executed at Faversham, in the same county, September 1645, 1837.

Witch Stories, collected by E. Lynn Linton, 1861.

Malleus Maleficarum: in tres divisvs partes, in quibus concurrentia ad maleficia, maleficiorum effectus, remedia aduersus maleficia, et modus deniq; procedendi, ac puniendi maleficos abundè continetur, praecipuè autem omnibus inquisitoribus, & diuini verbi concionatoribus vtilis, ac necessarius, Henricus Institoris (Heinrich Krämer) and Jakob Sprenger, 1580.

Demonolatry, Nicolas Remy, translated by E. A. Ashwin, edited with introduction and notes by the Rev. Montague Summers, 1930.

HOURS WITH THE GHOSTS
or Nineteenth Century Witchcraft

Henry Ridgely Evans hopes to "sift the wheat from the chaff," in this 1891 book on the phenomena of spiritualism and theosophy. He takes a scientific and philosophic approach to understanding whether or not the soul really is immortal, a belief held by many since the dawn of civilization. Evans breaks down many of the now famous, or infamous, spiritual practices of the day, such as telepathy, slate-writing, spirit photography, etc. and discusses the validity of them. In his conclusion Evans posits that while most mediumistic phenomena are just cheap tricks to make money, there does exist a small number of truly unexplainable happenings that work to prove the existence of the human soul as a spiritual entity. 

AN ACCOUNT OF WITCH HUNTING
(From Maidstone and Faversham)

This short piece written in 1837 details the accounts of two trials, one in 1645 and the other in 1652. During these two trials nine women were sentenced to death and executed. Anne Ashby, Anne Martyn, Mary Brown, Mildred Wright, Anne Wilson, Mary Read, Joane Williford, Joan Cariden, and Jane Hott. Each woman was found to have significant evidence of their allegiance to the "Divell" including at the examination of Anne Ashby who, "In view of this Observation, fell into an extasie before the Bench, and swell'd into a monstrous and vast bigness, screeching and crying out very dolefully" (pg. 4). 

MALLEUS MALEFICARUM
By Henricus Institoris (Heinrich Krämer) and Jakob Sprenger, Francofvrti ad Moenvm, apud Nicolaum Bassaeum, 1580.

This is the best known (i.e., the most infamous) of the witch-hunt manuals. Written in Latin, the Malleus was first submitted to the University of Cologne on May 9th, 1487. The title is translated as "The Hammer of Witches". Written by James Sprenger and Henry Kramer (of which little is known), the Malleus remained in use for three hundred years. It had tremendous influence in the witch trials in England and on the continent. The Malleus was used as a judicial case-book for the detection and persecution of witches, specifying rules of evidence and the canonical procedures by which suspected witches were tortured and put to death. Thousands of people (primarily women) were judicially murdered as a result of the procedures described in this book, for no reason than a strange birthmark, living alone, mental illness, cultivation of medicinal herbs, or simply because they were falsely accused (often for financial gain by the accuser). The Malleus serves as a horrible warning about what happens when intolerance takes over a society.