We must approach this great work, admirable in spite of its trifling blemishes, with open minds and grave intent; if we duly consider the world of confusion, of Bolshevism, of anarchy and licentiousness all around today, it should be any easy task for us to picture the difficulties, the hideous dangers with which Henry Kramer and James Sprenger were called to combat and to cope; we must be prepared to discount certain plain faults, certain awkwardnesses, certain roughnesses and even severities; and then we shall be in a position to dispassionately and calmly to pronounce opinion upon the value and merit of this famous work.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Those who cannot learn from, must repeat history,
By
This review is from: Malleus Maleficarum (Paperback)
As a lawyer, I was surprised just how modern this book was in terms of both its reasoning and its procedure.
While clearly today the inquisition is a matter of history the beliefs that made up the inquisition remain. People still have and act on superstitious beliefs. Likewise the procedures outlined in this book are not at such a variance with modern legal procedure respecting the selection of judges, decorum in the court, general reasoning procedures to be used in arriving at conclusions and reliance on precedent for making future decisions. While it's admittedly unsettling to see just how easily law courts can be co opted by the inquisition (or more recently by the Nazis or the Stalinists), it's reassuring to know that as a litigator I have both the ability and the sworn duty to use law not to abet but to combat ignorance.
9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
absolute evil,
By
This review is from: Malleus Maleficarum (Paperback)
It is quite weird giving a high mark to a book as famous and as evil as this book is and yet this book is definitely a "must" for any civilized person to read, or at least browse and consider-- at least once during their lifetime. Hence the high mark. If you haven't read it you haven't a complete western education. It's the pits of our (western) mind. At one level the book reads a little like any current pompous sociological dissertation and is surprisingly modern in this respect even although written hundreds of years ago. Essentially, it describes how a "good Christian" detects the carrier of a threat to ones population's souls (the witches) and then how to deal with these threats. The murderous, but bare-faced lunacy of this book is breath-taking. The summary of its contents, like the 1928 summary that accompanies this Amazon page for the book makes one realize that real ropy, medieval madness was still quite strong in the early 20th century Western Christian. One thing that does surprise me is that I appear to be the first reviewer. Are there so few other Amazon browsers that can "bother" to be outraged by it?
More coolly, the historically minded will find this book a pathway into the mind of the educated and sincere christian in the late 15th century. The book is famous enough to be worth its own entry in the Wikipedia and those interested in the history of morality and ethics should certainly read it. For example, those interested in the history of the battering that science has received and still receives from the Churches should notice how the book takes care to ban artificial insemination as witch-craft. Check me, but I think they ban this technology more than once. Until I read it I was not aware that artificial insemination existed over 500 years ago!
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
WHETHER the belief that there are such beings as witches is so essential a part of the Catholic faith that obstinately to maintain the opposite opinion manifestly savours of heresy. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
abjure all heresy, lawful exorcisms, expressed pact, incubus devil, tenth method, simple heresy, canonical purgation, open pact, impenitent heretic, temporal injuries, apostasy from the faith, light suspicion, abjure the heresy, open invocation, irrefragable truth, other human acts, venereal act, legitimate witnesses, abjure the faith, dominabitur astris, other honest men, sixth method, legitimate production, canonical institutions, certain witch Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Holy Water, Ciuitate Dei, Holy Church, Holy Gospels, Holy Scripture, Our Lady, Henry of Segusio, John Damascene, Divine Majesty, Body of Christ, Almighty God, City of God, Church of God, Holy Faith, Lord's Prayer, Blessed Albert, Blessed Virgin, Holy Trinity, Inquisitorial Court, John Chrysostom, Lord's Body, Court of Rome, God Himself, Holy Ghost, William of Paris New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!
WHETHER the belief that there are such beings as witches is so essential a part of the Catholic faith that obstinately to maintain the opposite opinion manifestly savours of heresy. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
abjure all heresy, lawful exorcisms, expressed pact, incubus devil, tenth method, simple heresy, canonical purgation, open pact, impenitent heretic, temporal injuries, apostasy from the faith, light suspicion, abjure the heresy, open invocation, irrefragable truth, other human acts, venereal act, legitimate witnesses, abjure the faith, dominabitur astris, other honest men, sixth method, legitimate production, canonical institutions, certain witch Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Holy Water, Ciuitate Dei, Holy Church, Holy Gospels, Holy Scripture, Our Lady, Henry of Segusio, John Damascene, Divine Majesty, Body of Christ, Almighty God, City of God, Church of God, Holy Faith, Lord's Prayer, Blessed Albert, Blessed Virgin, Holy Trinity, Inquisitorial Court, John Chrysostom, Lord's Body, Court of Rome, God Himself, Holy Ghost, William of Paris New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 15
books:
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100
books
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- Malleus Maleficarum by Montague Summers in Front Matter (1), Front Matter (2), and Front Matter (3)
- The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius on page 120
- Compendium Maleficarum: The Montague Summers Edition (Dover Occult) by Francesco Maria Guazzo on page 144
- On The Soul by Aristotle on page 17
- David and Goliath Pb (Bible Stories) by Selina Hastings on page 234
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- Medieval Psychology: (Contributions in Psychology) by Simon Kemp on 6 pages
- The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth by Monica Sjoo on 5 pages
- Shaman of Oberstdorf: Chonrad Stoeckhlin and the Phantoms of the Night (Studies in Early Modern German History) by Wolfgang Behringer on 5 pages
- Magic, Mystery, and Science: The Occult in Western Civilization by Danny Ethus Burton on 5 pages
- Europa in Grande Sertão: Veredas Grande Sertão: Veredas in Europa (Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft 85) by Stefan Kutzenberger on 4 pages
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