Editing Joseph Glanvill (section)

===The supernatural===
[[image:endor.jpg|right|thumb|250px|The [[Witch of Endor]]: from the [[Book frontispiece|frontispiece]] to Glanvill's ''[[Sadducismus Triumphatus|Saducismus Triumphatus]]'']]

He is known also for ''[[Saducismus Triumphatus]]'' (1681), an enlargement of his ''[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eebo;idno=A70179.0001.001 Blow at Modern Sadducism]'' (1668), which was published after Glanvill's death by Henry More. The work decried scepticism about the existence and supernatural power of [[witchcraft]] and contained a collection of seventeenth-century folklore about witches, including one of the earliest descriptions of a [[witch bottle]]. Joseph made known the existence of witchcraft.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Witch hunts in Europe and America : an encyclopedia|author=Burns, William E.|date=2003|publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=0313321426|oclc=907016393}}</ref> It developed as a compendium (with multiple authorship) from ''Philosophical Considerations Touching the Being of Witches and Witchcraft'' (1666), addressed to [[Robert Hunt (MP)|Robert Hunt]], a [[Justice of the Peace]] active from the 1650s against witches in Somerset (where Glanvill had his living at Frome); the 1668 version ''A Blow at Modern Sadducism'' promoted the view that the judicial procedures such as Hunt's court offered should be taken as adequate tests of evidence, because to argue otherwise was to undermine society at its legal roots.<ref>Stuart Clark, ''Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe'' (1999), p. 176.</ref> His biographer [[Ferris Greenslet]] attributed Glanvill's interest in the topic to a house party in February 1665 at [[Ragley Hall]], home of [[Lady Anne Conway]], where other guests were More, [[Francis van Helmont]], and [[Valentine Greatrakes]].<ref>[[Ferris Greenslet]], ''Joseph Glanvill: A Study in English Thought and Letters of the Seventeenth Century'' (1900), p. 66.</ref> In the matter of the [[Drummer of Tedworth]], a report of [[poltergeist]]-type activity from 1662 to 1663, More and Glanvill had in fact already corresponded about it in 1663.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/250/1/Hunter4.pdf |title=Hunter, Michael (2005) New light on the Drummer of Tedworth: conflicting narratives of witchcraft in Restoration England. Historical Research 78 (201) |pages=311–353 |issn=0950-3471 |website=Eprints.bbk.ac.uk |access-date=2016-03-03}}</ref>

''Saducismus Triumphatus'' deeply influenced [[Cotton Mather]]'s ''[[Wonders of the Invisible World]]'' (1693), written to justify the [[Salem witch trials]] in the following year. It was also taken as a target when [[Francis Hutchinson]] set down ''An Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft'' (1718); both books made much of reports from Sweden, and included by Glanvill as editor, which had experienced a [[moral panic]] about witchcraft after 1668.<ref>E. William Monter, ''Scandinavian Witchcraft in Perspective'', pp. 432–3, in Bengt Ankarloo and Guctav Henningsen, ''Early Modern Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries'' (1990).</ref>

[[Jonathan Israel]] writes:

{{quote|In England men such as [[Robert Boyle|Boyle]], Henry More, [[Ralph Cudworth]] and Joseph Glanvill battled to stabilize belief in the existence and operations of apparitions and spirits as part of a wider drive to uphold religion, authority and tradition.<ref>[[Jonathan Israel]], ''The Radical Englightenment'' (2001), p. 376.</ref>}}

These and others ([[Richard Baxter]], [[Meric Casaubon]], [[George Sinclair (demonologist)|George Sinclair]]) believed that the tide of scepticism on witchcraft, setting in strongly by about 1670, could be turned back by research and sifting of the evidence.<ref>[[Keith Thomas (historian)|Keith Thomas]], ''Religion and the Decline of Magic'' (1973), p. 690 and p. 693.</ref> Like More, Glanvill believed that the existence of spirits was well documented in the Bible, and that the denial of spirits and demons was the first step towards [[atheism]]. Atheism led to rebellion and social chaos and therefore had to be overcome by science and the activities of the learned. Israel cites a letter from More to Glanvill, from 1678 and included in ''Saducismus Triumphatus'', in which he says that followers of [[Thomas Hobbes]] and [[Baruch Spinoza]] use scepticism about "spirits and angels" to undermine belief in the Scripture mentioning them.

''Saducismus Triumphatus'' was also translated into German in 1701.<ref>Joseph Glanvill, ''[http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/dms/load/img/?PID=PPN672970414 Saducismus Triumphatus, Oder Vollkommener und klarer Beweiß Von Hexen und Gespenstern Oder Geister-Erscheinungen]'' (Hamburg: Liebernickel, 1701).</ref> The German edition was used extensively by Peter Goldschmidt in his similar work ''Verworffener Hexen- und Zauberer-Advocat'' (1705).<ref>''[http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?PPN672967847 Verworffener Hexen- und Zauberer-Advocat]''</ref> This work brought the ''Saducismus Triumphatus'' to the attention of [[Christian Thomasius]], a philosopher, legal professor and sceptic in [[Halle (Saale)|Halle]]. Over the next 21 years, Thomasius published translations of works by English sceptics: [[John Webster (minister)|John Webster]] and [[Francis Hutchinson]], as well as [[John Beaumont (geologist)|John Beaumont]]'s ''An Historical, Physiological and Theological Treatise of Spirits'', all of which were accompanied by vitriolic prefaces attacking Glanvill, Goldschmidt and their belief in witchcraft.<ref>Julie Davies (2016) "German receptions of the works of Joseph Glanvill: philosophical transmissions from England to Germany in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century", ''Intellectual History Review'', 26:1, 81-90, [[doi:10.1080/17496977.2015.1032120]]
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