Heinrich Kramer was a fervent convert to the belief in a global satanic conspiracy. A Dominican friar by day, witch-hunter by night, In 1485 he went on a hunting expedition in the Austrian Tyrol. Mentally unhinged, his accusations of satanic witchcraft were coloured by rabid misogyny and odd sexual fixations.
The local church authorities were sceptical. His outlandish claims alarmed the authorities. Together, they put a stop to his nutty hobby. Which only made Heinrich angry. Fuelled by paranoia and hatred, he wrote a book called 𝑴𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒖𝒔 𝑴𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒖𝒎 - 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑯𝒂𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒔. A kind of 'Witch Killing For Dummies', the book was a smash hit. (It went down well with Daily Mail readers of the time.) In fact, it was one of the biggest bestsellers of early modern Europe.
The book went through eight editions by 1500, another five by 1520.
Heinrich Kramer's fame spread. In 1500, he was appointed papal representative and made inquisitor of Bohemia and Moravia.
By the time the witch hunts reached their ghastly crescendo in the early seventeenth century, (During the 1620s In Bamburg, Germany, 900 innocent men, women and children were brutally executed. In Wurzburg, 10% of the population were tortured and killed.) over 50,000 innocent people had been accused of witchcraft. Many died from the techniques and strategies outlined by Heinrich Kramer in Malleus Maleficarum - The Hammer of the Witches.
Be careful which books you read. And in the age of AI, Remember more information doesn't always lead you to truth.
