author

John Webster

1611–1682

A 17th-century English cleric and physician, he wrote boldly about witchcraft, astrology, metals, and medicine. His books mix sharp skepticism with a deep curiosity about the hidden workings of nature.

1 Audiobook

The displaying of supposed witchcraft : Wherein is affirmed that there are many sorts of deceivers and impostors, and divers persons under a passive delusion of melancholy and fancy. But that there is a corporeal league made betwixt the devil and the witch, or that he sucks on the witches body, has carnal copulation, or that witches are turned into cats, dogs, raise tempests, or the like, is utterly denied and disproved. Wherein also is handled, the existence of angels and spirits, the truth of apparitions, the nature of astral and sydereal spirits, the force of charms, and philters; with other abstruse matters

The displaying of supposed witchcraft : Wherein is affirmed that there are many sorts of deceivers and impostors, and divers persons under a passive delusion of melancholy and fancy. But that there is a corporeal league made betwixt the devil and the witch, or that he sucks on the witches body, has carnal copulation, or that witches are turned into cats, dogs, raise tempests, or the like, is utterly denied and disproved. Wherein also is handled, the existence of angels and spirits, the truth of apparitions, the nature of astral and sydereal spirits, the force of charms, and philters; with other abstruse matters

by John Webster

About the author

John Webster (1611–1682) was an English cleric, physician, chemist, and controversial writer, also known by the Latinized name Johannes Hyphastes. Sources describe him as a schoolmaster and polemicist, and note his strong interest in astrology, natural philosophy, and the occult as well as his skepticism about many popular claims of witchcraft.

He is especially remembered for The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft (1677), a substantial work arguing against many dramatic beliefs about witches and demonic activity. Another major book, Metallographia (1671), shows his fascination with metals, alchemy, and early scientific inquiry.

Very little about his life is widely known in simple, reliable detail, but the surviving record makes him stand out as a restless and independent 17th-century thinker—someone writing at the meeting point of religion, medicine, and early science.