The Discovery of Witchcraft. Reginald Scot

The Discovery of Witchcraft is an exposé of the early modern witchcraft. Originally published in 1584, the book was written against the belief in witches, to show that witchcraft did not exist. Part of its content exposed how feats of magic were done, and the book is often deemed the first textbook on conjuring. Moreover, the book contains a small section which describes how the charlatans were able to fool the public and why the prosecutions of the accused were unwarranted for and un-Christian. The author also provocatively held the Roman church responsible to the prosecutions. The book became highly popular as an exhaustive encyclopaedia of contemporary beliefs about witchcraft, spirits, alchemy, magic, and legerdemain. William Shakespeare also drew from his study of Scot's book hints for his picture of the witches in Macbeth, and Thomas Middleton in his play of The Witch likewise was indebted to this source.