I'm reading the Malleus Malificarum

It's a laugh a minute, as you can imagine. It's also not short. I'm not far in, and Sprenger and Kramer are still laying out their lengthy arguments about whether it's heretical not to believe in witchcraft. It's fascinating to visit a world just pre-science, where the truth is dictated by a combination of reason and what is in accordance with Scripture and the Church - a logical but completely self-referential system.

However, it's not all dry references to Saint Augustine. I'm up to the juicy bit about whether incubi and succubi can beget children. They can, by a sort artificial insemination; but the authors assure us that anything other than procreative sex is too filthy for even a demon to consider. Also: "there are some things in nature which have certain hidden powers, the reason for which man does not know; such, for example, is the lodestone, which attracts steel and many other such things". Or, to put it another way: "Fuckin' magnets! How do they work?!"