What a waste of time this book is. Murray's premise is based on the records of confessions of "witches" during torture and trial. The whole book consists of these false bits of pseudo-information. It's like someone defining the truth of the Spanish Inquisition on what the victims said during "confession." I've seen this book referred to again and again, during years of research. I can't believe this book has been given any credibility by so many authors. One can't write seriously about witchcraft, and use this terrible information, extracted under duress by the Church. Murray actually postulates that the consistency of the practices described in the confessions is evidence of a widespread witch religion. Yes, it is evidence, but evidence pertaining to the consistant beliefs of the Papal Bull of Innocent VIII against witchcraft. Instead, please read the series of six volumes edited by Bengt Ankarloo, called "Witchcraft and Magic in Europe." Or even the fun books by Doreen Valiente and Dan & Pauline Campanelli. Try works on shamanism by Wade Davis and/or Richard Evans Schultes. You don't need to waste your time with this outdated garbage.

I give this two stars only because it's historically important as a Wiccan/Neopagan foundation document. I don't know how anyone ever took Murray's "theory" seriously because it's so incoherent. Having read this book twice, I'm still not sure exactly what she meant to prove; her "thesis" only becomes clear when filtered through other authors. Murray seems to have assumed that if she kept lobbing enough "witch trial evidence" at readers (especially if such documents were in foreign languages), they'd believe her through sheer exhuastion. Judging by this tome, Murray would not pass a college level elementary logic course today. She would certainly never have been admitted to a basic cultural anthropology class.