Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (Johann Weyer)

The Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, 'false monarchy of demons', is a catalogue of sixty-nine demons with their ranks, appearances, powers, legions and the hours for calling them, printed in 1577 by the Rhineland physician Johann Weyer as an appendix to the fifth edition of his De praestigiis daemonum. Weyer, a pupil of Agrippa, was a critic of witch persecution who argued that many accused witches were deluded and melancholic women rather than conscious allies of the devil. He printed the catalogue, taken from a manuscript he called Liber officiorum spirituum, to expose what he saw as the absurdity and impiety of necromancers, and he deliberately omitted the conjurations so that it could not be used. The list runs from Baël to Stolas and overlaps closely with the seventy-two spirits of the Goetia; the Goetia's compiler evidently drew on the same tradition, and possibly on Weyer and Reginald Scot directly. Scot's English translation in The Discoverie of Witchcraft of 1584, probably by Abraham Fleming, made the catalogue available to English readers. Joseph Peterson's edition presents Weyer's Latin with Scot's English, noting errors in the translation and comparing the names and descriptions with the Goetia and other manuscripts. The text is important for showing that the spirit catalogue predates the Lemegeton and for illustrating the paradox that sceptics publishing magic in order to refute it helped preserve and spread it.

What it contains

• Catalogue of sixty-nine demons from Baël to Stolas
• Ranks, appearances and legions of each demon
• Powers and services attributed to each
• Hours for calling the spirits
• Weyer's critical framing and deliberate omissions
• Scot's English translation with editorial notes