Modern Magic

A woman lies beside her husband all night, yet a court declares that a phantom took her place at the witches’ sabbath. In Modern Magic, the strangest marvel may be how readily the judges believe it.

Writing in the nineteenth century, M. Schele de Vere looks back across centuries of witch trials, from Europe’s courts to New England, where fear turned suspicion into torture and execution. He traces the clash between belief in demons and the rare voices that called such visions delusions, asking how the learned and powerful could mistake cruelty for justice. Witchcraft, he suggests, is not only a tale of hidden powers, but a test of our judgment—and of the line between miracle and superstition. When even proof could be dismissed as the Devil’s trick, what could anyone trust?

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