It will be noted that the word "Devil" is invariably capitalized by the mediaeval writers, and to them he must have been a very real personage, and these curious beliefs terrible truths. Indeed, if true, what could be more terrible? Even so learned a man as Bacon, we are told--whose soul was promised to the devil, no matter "whether he died in or out of the church"--endeavoured to cheat the devil out of his due, and had his body buried in the _wall_ of the church--thus being neither in nor out of it--and so he hoped to cheat the devil of his due! With the coming of Reginald Scott there arose a certain scepticism throughout Europe, which was later echoed in America. Scott wrote a monumental work entitled _The Discoverie of Witchcraft_, in which he bitterly attacked the credulity of the people, and showed himself entirely incredulous of any of the alleged phenomena. Some years before, had he published such a book, it was likely that he would have been burned himself; but the times were probably ripe for just such a publication; there was already much unrest and uneasiness afoot, and his book appeared in the nick of time. Scott attempted to account for the phenomena of witchcraft on a rational basis, and showed himself completely sceptical of the reality of most of the manifestations. He even went so far as to attack many of the older "miracles," which apparently supported the newer, even taking the very bold course (in that day) of attacking some of the Biblical miracles. Thus we read: "The Pythoness (speaking of the Witch of Endor) being _ventriloqua_, that is, speaking as it were from the bottom of her belly, did cast herself into a trance, and so abused Saul in Samuel's name in her counterfeit hollow voice." Indeed, something was necessary to check the rank credulity of the times. If an old woman scolded a carter, and later on in the day his cart got stuck in the mud or overturned, it was positive evidence that he and his cart and horse had been "bewitched"! If an old woman kept a black cat or a pet toad, it was most assuredly her "familiar," and she was branded as a witch forthwith. If cows sickened and died, it was because a "spell" had been cast over them; and so on and so on. The superstitions of witchcraft were as innumerable as they were extraordinary. Are there any facts, amid all this superstition and ignorance, tending to show that genuine supernormal phenomena ever occurred at all? And if so, what are they?