The Dark Legacy of Martín del Río and the Meticulous Blueprint for Europe's Witch Hunts
On February 9, 1782, an arrest warrant was issued against a housemaid named Anna Göldi in a Swiss newspaper. She was accused of poisoning her employer using supernatural powers. Under brutal torture, Anna Göldi was forced to confess that she had made a pact with the Devil, who had appeared to her in the form of a black dog. Although she later retracted her confession, she was subjected to a deeply humiliating trial process and was ultimately beheaded.
Even though the law at that time did not explicitly prescribe the death penalty for magic alone, the entire judicial process was deeply rooted in superstition. While the winds of the so-called Enlightenment were sweeping across Europe, such an act of barbarism at that very time stunned legal experts throughout the continent. This was not justice; rather, it was a direct judicial murder. Anna Göldi was one of the last women on European soil to be executed under the stigma of being a witch.
Just a quarter of a century before Anna Göldi’s death, in 1755, the final edition of a massive book was published in Germany. The book was titled Investigations Into Magic, authored by Martín del Río. Whenever the history of witch-hunting is discussed, almost everyone mentions the infamous book named Malleus Maleficarum.
However, the Malleus Maleficarum was actually nothing more than a highly disjointed rant of fanatical madness. Even the Church at the time was displeased with many aspects of the book. Its author, Heinrich Kramer, was considered mentally deranged by many. But Martin Delrio was a completely different kind of person. His book was the most massive and intellectually sophisticated work among all witch-hunting manuals.
Delrio was no ordinary fanatic.
He was born into a highly wealthy and powerful political family in Spain. From childhood, he possessed an extraordinary talent. At a very young age, he achieved remarkable success at every level of his education. From ancient Roman literature and complex Biblical interpretations to jurisprudence and theology, he held profound scholarship in every field. He could fluently speak and write in at least nine languages, including Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Aramaic. The pages of his books were filled with thousands of references, demonstrating the vast scope of his knowledge. Through a cruel irony of fate, when his family suffered a downfall, he joined the Jesuits. Later, after observing a trial involving witchcraft in 1597, he became deeply interested in the supernatural. From that interest was born his immortal yet terrifying creation, Investigations Into Magic.
This book was no ordinary storybook or collection of superstitions. It was a massive, six-volume academic treatise. Delrio classified magic in an extraordinarily systematic manner. He demonstrated that magic could broadly be divided into three types. First, Natural Magic, which operates by utilizing the secret powers of nature. Second, Artificial Magic, which is essentially a combination of human intelligence and craftsmanship. And third, the most dangerous of all, Demonic Magic, or satanic witchcraft. According to Delrio, whenever a person attempts to achieve something by violating the laws of nature, they unknowingly enter into a pact with the Devil. This pact could be either written or oral. However, once this agreement is made, that individual directly declares rebellion against God.
His book contains psychological analyses of the Devil’s powers that genuinely astonished me. He did not believe that the Devil is omnipotent or that he can break the laws of nature at will. In his view, the Devil is the greatest deceiver in history. Since the Devil has existed on Earth far longer than humans, he can anticipate natural changes and patterns well in advance. He might fly high into the air and observe an approaching storm from afar. He then instructs a witch to recite a specific spell on a specific day. The witch believes that the storm was brought forth by their spell, but in reality, it is merely a perfect illusion created by the Devil. The Devil can influence the human mind in such a way that a person loses the ability to distinguish between reality and imagination.
Regarding buried treasure, Delrio presented an extraordinarily sharp argument as well. For ages, people worshipped the Devil in the hope of uncovering buried treasure through magic. According to Delrio, the Devil never actually gives that treasure to humans, because he is hoarding those riches for the future arrival of the Antichrist. He might reveal the location of a treasure to a witch, but when they finally grasp it, they find it has turned into mere dust or garbage. In other words, the person who makes a pact with the Devil ends up cheated on both ends. They lose their soul, yet they never obtain the desired wealth either. It is nothing short of ultimate deception by the Devil. Delrio brilliantly analyzed human greed, showing how people pave the way for their own ruin when searching for shortcuts.
His book also harshly criticized alchemy—the art of turning cheap metals into gold. He clearly stated that alchemy was a form of fraud. He made a brilliant point that remains equally applicable to our society today: he argued that if alchemy must be practiced at all, it should only be done by the upper class of society. If the poor or the middle class chase after this pursuit, their greed and desperation will easily drive them into the Devil's trap. When people look for shortcuts out of sheer need, they are capable of making any reckless decision. Delrio understood this psychological vulnerability exceptionally well; he knew that it is extreme human greed that ultimately pushes a person toward blind faith.
In the third volume of his book, Delrio discussed harmful magic, or maleficium, in great detail. He demonstrated how ordinary people turned to magic out of their everyday minor jealousies and malice. Witches were said to ruin crops, kill livestock, and even destroy people's normal physical capabilities with the Devil's help. Daily life in the society of that time was already incredibly difficult and uncertain; a minor illness or natural disaster could push a person into extreme poverty. When someone exploited this helplessness to try to harm a neighbor through supernatural means, society viewed it as a grave crime. Some witches allegedly used the hands of dead men to make themselves invisible during thefts—a phenomenon known in history as the "Hand of Glory." Others launched attacks on ordinary people using magical weapons. He included painstaking investigations and analyses of all these bizarre and terrifying accusations in his book.
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This book also contained a massive chapter on the role of confessors, or Church priests. Under the Church rules of that time, if someone confessed their sins during a confession, the priest was forbidden from revealing those words to anyone. However, when witches came to confess their sins, it created an enormous dilemma for priests. Delrio developed exceptionally subtle guidelines to navigate this complex situation. He explicitly stated that if a witch harmed someone using a magical doll or an accursed talisman, the priest should not resort to counter-magic. A victim might come to a priest sick from the effects of magic, hoping for a counter-magical amulet. But Delrio strictly instructed priests never to fall into this trap. In his view, superstition cannot be cured with superstition; rather, doing so only increases the Devil's power. A priest's duty was to turn the victim back toward prayer and compel the witch to destroy their magical artifacts.
Delrio’s analysis of prophecy and divination was equally profound. He believed that the sole right to know the future belongs to God alone. The Devil can never predict the future with certainty, for if the Devil knew the future, human free will would cease to exist. The Devil is actually extraordinarily clever; utilizing his vast experience, he analyzes situations and offers vague, ambiguous statements. When people listen to those words, they extract meaning from them based on their own fears and hopes. Delrio made a brilliant observation: when people grow desperate to hear prophecies, they actually reveal their inner fears and uncertainties far more than the future itself. Because humans do not know what lies ahead, they suffer from a constant sense of profound insecurity. And by exploiting this insecurity, fake fortune-tellers have been deceiving people for generations.
Delrio reserved the largest section of his book for legal procedures. He created a meticulous blueprint on how to identify a witch, how to interrogate them, and how to bring them to trial. He directly rejected many common superstitions of that era. For instance, he declared the horrific practice of testing witches by ducking them in water to be entirely irrational and unacceptable. In his view, attempting to force a miraculous sign from God in this manner was supreme insolence and a sin. He wanted the judicial process to be entirely logical and evidence-based. Yet, ironically, it was this overly systematic legal framework that ultimately became the greatest danger of all.
When a misconception is wrapped in an extraordinarily flawless legal and logical package, the results are catastrophic. That is precisely what happened in the case of Delrio’s book. Its influence on famous witch trials, such as the Salem Witch Trials, was immense. Yet, interestingly enough, many clever lawyers used the strict legal rules contained within this very book to save numerous accused individuals from death. How a single book could function simultaneously as an executioner and a protector is truly a fascinating phenomenon.
Delrio also posited a political and religious reason behind the rise of witches in the society of that time. He believed that the prevalent superstitions and blind faiths of society were the root cause of this ruin, destroying people’s true faith.
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While analyzing this entire matter, I found myself searching for answers to many internal questions. We may live in a modern era today, but have the structural vulnerabilities within the human mind changed even in the slightest? Just as people in Delrio’s era turned to magic in search of buried treasure, people today similarly believe in unrealistic shortcuts, hoping to gain everything overnight. Just as people back then were desperate to know the future, people today place their trust in false assurances in much the same way. The mediums may have changed, but human psychology remains unchanged. We still fear uncertainty today, and to escape that fear, we remain ready to take refuge in any form of blind faith. Delrio’s book brings us face-to-face with this ultimate truth.
Whenever we blindly rush into anything, we lose our greatest strength: our reason. Despite being an extraordinarily talented individual, Delrio devoted his entire intellect to proving something that had no real foundation. He institutionalized a misconception, which subsequently led to horrific consequences. There is a profound lesson for us to learn from this. If you lack accurate information and if the foundation of your thought is steeped in superstition, all your intellect can become a source of danger. Even today in our society, there are many so-called intellectuals who spread superstitions under the guise of eloquent reasoning. We must remain deeply vigilant regarding this matter.
I believe today’s long and deep analysis will encourage you to think in a new way as well. We consume countless pieces of information every day, but how many of us actually verify the truth behind them? I would request you not to judge anything merely from the outside. Delve deep into it and try to understand the psychology behind it. Have you ever in your own life chased after an unrealistic solution that ultimately turned out to be a mirage? I leave this question with you today. In this struggle to break free from the web of superstitions and blind faiths that surround us, your thoughts will help me discover new perspectives as well. I hope that you will always move forward guided by reason and logic.
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