Malleus Maleficarum, or “The Witches’ Hammer.”8 It was required reading for the Inquisition judges. It begins with a conundrum to be solved: How can evil continue to exist in a world governed by an all-good, all-powerful God? One answer: God allows it as a test of men’s souls. Yield to its temptations, go to Hell; resist its temptations, and be invited into Heaven. However, God restricted the Devil’s direct influence over people because of his earlier corruption of Adam and Eve. The Devil’s solution was to have intermediaries do his evil bidding by using witches as his indirect link to people
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