A DISCOVERY OF THE IMPOSTURES OF WITCHES AND ASTROLOGERS
Book Details + Condition: Troy Books (London). First Edition thus, 2015. Softcover measuring 7" x 4.25". 144 pages with 4 pages of B&W photo plates. With kind permission of the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, this edition is transcribed from an original copy held in the Museum’s research archive. Includes a foreword by writer, researcher and assistant curator at the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic; Joyce Froome. John Brinley's original work was published in 1680, and serves as an important example and contemporary account of the establishment’s ideas, beliefs and debate surrounding the practices of witchcraft, magic and divination that lay behind the approved persecution of witches and other practitioners. Revealed is an acceptance of the existence of witches, the reality of the Devil and the position of magic as deeply integral to everyday life, alongside a denial of the powers possessed by witches and the abilities claimed by magical practitioners such as the Cunning Folk. Belief in them is asserted to be the product of superstition, and the efficacy of their operations is attributed to the delusions and trickery of the Devil or the deceptions of the charlatan. In like new condition, with firm binding and a clean interior.
