The Occult in Early Modern Europe: A Documentary History, edited and translated by P.G.Maxwell-Stuart, Macmillan Press (US., St. Martin’s Press), 1999, £14.99, hardback, pp. 241

Maxwell-Stuart’s collection of readings is taken mainly from the sixteenth century and includes key statements on various aspects of what would now be classed as ‘occult’ practices. Of the four sections one is on astrology but the other sections on ‘a world of signs and spirits’, magic and alchemy also contain much of relevance. Maxwell-Stuart writes that ‘there were so many writers on the occult sciences that one could have chosen a completely different set of authors and an equally representative selection of documents from their work. What follows, therefore, should be regarded as a very small sample taken from only a few of the available authors - an indication of how far-reaching and how popular the occult sciences were as subjects for research and speculation’ (p.3).