De Praestigiis Daemonum, & Incantationibus Ac Veneficiis Libri Sex, Postrema Editione Sexta Aucti & Recogniti. Accessit Liber Apologeticus, Et Pseudomonarchia Daemonum. Cum Rerum Ac Verborum Copioso Indice. [With] De Lamiis Liber: Item De Commentis Ieiuniis. Cum Rerum Ac Verborum Copioso Indice. Weyer, Johann.

Sixth and final edition, containing the last authorial revisions and additions before Weyer's death, of his landmark treatise against witchcraft persecution, paired with the second edition of its abridgement, aimed at a popular audience. This copy has an excellent provenance, from the renowned collection of science and medicine of Haskell F. Norman. De praestigiis daemonum ("On the tricks of demons") was first published by Oporinus in 1563 and subsequently revised and expanded by the author several times until 1583. Liber Apologeticus, containing Weyer's letters, and Pseudo-Monarchia, an appendix listing names and powers of 68 different demons, were first added in the 1577 edition. This last edition, in six books and 934 pages, is almost double the size of the first, which had five books and 479 pages. The treatise is considered a "landmark in the emergence of full-scale doubt" (Clark, p. 198) concerning witchcraft, and argues that witchcraft cases are the result of psychological illness rather than demonic possession. "Weyer approached the subject of witchcraft from four different viewpoints: theological, philosophical, medical and legal. The book contains more than sixty reports of cases of alleged witchcraft or of unusual mental phenomena observed directly by Weyer, related personally to him in oral or written form, or known to him in various ways. Contrary to the received opinion of his day, which held that witchcraft was evidence of demonic possessions, Weyer believed the basic cause of witchcraft to be disturbance of imagination, that faculty traditionally regarded as the interface between bodily and mental functions. He described most of those accused of witchcraft as poor, gullible old women who had fallen into this reckless credulity because of 'their being circumvented by fraud, constrained by force, compelled by fear, induced by error, and deceived by ignorance.' Weyer brought a serene, rational approach to the investigation of each case, establishing and confirming the facts, providing a firsthand assessment of the situation through description of the person's appearance, behaviour, speech, ideation, and emotional traits, and following these with the formulation of a concrete and sensible plan of treatment, often based on what we would now describe as psychological principles. He was a great precursor of modern psychiatry" (Grolier). Weyer's treatise was included in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1570 and criticised by several leading European intellectuals. Among them was the prominent French demonologist Jean Bodin, who ridiculed Weyer's legal arguments and described him as a demonic magician in his On the Demonomania of Sorcerers (1580). This edition contains Weyer's response to Bodin's attacks. De Lamiis, first printed in 1577, is a condensed version of De praestigiis daemonum, focusing on female witches ("lamiae"). "One of the ways Weyer distinguishes so-called lamiae from male practitioners of demonic magic is through literacy: the ignorant and deluded but harmless old women commonly called lamiae do not use bookish knowledge. In contrast, male magicians obtain their forbidden knowledge of demons through written sources" (Krause, p. 62). Provenance: a) From the library of Reverend William John Woodcock (d. 1851), curate of the District of Saint Agnes of Widford, Bahamas, with an inscription on the front pastedown noting that he left this book in trust for the Melton Museum Library (Leicestershire) and "died in the West Indies". Bookplate of the Melton Literary Institution on the front cover. b) From the library of Haskell F. Norman (1915-1996), psychoanalyst and bibliophile, with his bookplate on the front pastedown. This copy was lot 860 in Haskell's sale at Christie's NY in 1998. 1) Durling 4736; Garrison-Morton online 4916 (first ed.); Grolier, Medicine 20 (first ed.); Norman 2213; VD16 W 2668. 2) VD16 W 2653. Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons, 1997; Virginia Krause, Witchcraft, Demonology, and Confes