Bulls, Bats, and The Prince of Darkness.

HEINRICH KRAMER (ALIAS Institoris ) and Jacob Sprenger, Malleus Maleficarum, translated by Rev. Montague Summers (J. Rodker, 1928; often reprinted in paperback by Dover Publications)—The book that didn't begin, but insitutionalized the witch-hunt in 1486-87, by the two inquisitors who convinced the Pope to issue a bull "recognizing" and condemning a vast conspiracy by Satan's minions and authorizing the searching out and destruction of witches.

ALAN C. KORS AND EDWARD Peters, editors, Witchcraft inEurope, 1100-1700: A Documentary Study (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972)—A wonderful collection of primary texts about witch-hunting.

BARBARA ROSEN, Witchcraft inEngland, 1558-1618 (University of Massachusetts Press, 1991)— A collection of primary texts demonstrating' how English witch-hunting differed from that on the continent. You'll learn why Halloween witches have cats and bats as "familiars." And you'll learn a lot about the banality of evil, for although the English like to think their witch-hunt was kinder and gentler than those in Scotland and on the Continent, the reality is that it just had to be more creative, substituting psychological pressure for the torture that English law forbade.

BRIAN P. LEVACK, The Witch-Hunt inEarly Modern Europe (Longman, 1987)-A useful summary of the modern consensus (and controversies) on what the witch-hunt was about. It contains some canards, however (as such texts inevitably do), e.g., that John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said that the Bible proves that witches exist, in fact, Wesley said that if you don't believe in witches, you can't believe the Bible's veracity.

ROSSELL HOPE ROBBINS, TheEncyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology (Crown Publishers, 1959)—A valuable book based largely on Cornell University's witchcraft collection (the nation's largest) and containing numerous original illustrations.

NORMAN COHN, Europe'sInner Demons: An EnquiryInspired by the Great Witch-Hunt (Basic Books, 1975)—Explores the analogies (and even connections) between the hunting of witches and the oppression of other groups in medieval and early modern Europe.

KAREN ARMSTRONG, AHistory of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism,Christianity, and Islam (Knopf, 1993)—A fascinating account of how successive civilizations, culminating in these three religions, have thought about the ultimate reality.

JEFFREY BURTON Russell, The Prince ofDarkness: ;Radical Eviland the Power of Good inHistory (Cornell University Press, 1988)—This book shows that Satan has evolved over the millennia about as much as God has.

Walter Stephens