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Originally published in 1584, considered the seminal work on magic. Scot's volume became an exhaustive encyclopedia of contemporary beliefs about witchcraft, spirits, alchemy, magic, and legerdemain, as well as attracting widespread attention to his scepticism on witchcraft, Scot believed that the prosecution of those accused of witchcraft was irrational and not Christian, and he held the Roman Church responsible.
Most interesting is Book XV in which Scot gives examples of magic experiments from elizabethan England in order to ridicule magicians by showing their similarity to Catholic exorcisms. It would end up used by magicians as sourcebook as copies from this section can be found later in Grimoire of Arthur Gauntlet and even 200 years later in the works of Ebenezer Sibly.