Introduction

The Introduction familiarises readers with the figure of Joseph Glanvill, Rector of the Abbey at Bath, Chaplain in Ordinary to King Charles II and Fellow of the Royal Society of London. It establishes his belief in the existence of witchcraft and the significance that he placed on his investigations into the supernatural. This, in turn, establishes the background to the further analysis of his Letter of Witchcraft, published under several titles including A Blow at Modern Sadducism (1668) and Saducismus triumphatus (1681). This Introduction provides a broad contextualization of the work in Restoration England and contemporary debates about religious conformity (and non-conformity), atheism, Sadducism and their relationship to the rise of experimental philosophy and science. It also outlines the interdisciplinary approach taken in this work and the importance of looking at a broad range of Glanvill’s key texts. This foreshadows the ability of this book to appreciate Glanvill’s work as a coherent and cohesive corpus, enhancing our understanding of the interactions between theology, philosophy and demonology in seventeenth-century England and Germany.