“It is argued that a firm belief in witches is not a Catholic doctrine,” begins Heinrich Kramer in the Malleus Maleficarum, or The Witch Hammer. This defensive crouch reflects the fact that his contemporaries were hardly 100% sold on his vision of witchcraft in the world. (I say Kramer, although the book is attributed to two men, as scholars generally seem to agree that his was the driving creative force). Kramer's is the hand behind “[this]…