在本書中，讀者會經常碰到瑪格麗特·默裏（MargaretMurray）這個名字，並且會明白她是薩默斯強大的對手。默裏認為，巫術是由朋友和敵人傳播與信仰的，她反對“開明的”曆史學傢將此視為暫時的瘋狂。當薩默斯引用默裏的觀點時，他們的爭論加劇瞭。默裏小姐的觀點遭到瞭強烈的指責。然而，薩默斯並沒有解釋這些觀點是什麼。

我大體上同意默裏小姐的觀點，我認為重要的是讓讀者明白這些觀點是什麼。默裏小姐在《西歐的巫術崇拜》（The Witch Cult of Western Europe）和《女巫的上帝》（The God of the Witches）這兩本卓越的著作中以及用《大英百科全書》中一個非常簡要的條目將這些觀點闡釋得很清楚。我相信，默裏小姐為百科全書寫詞條意味著她的觀點現在很流行，但不幸的是情況並非如此。默裏首先指齣女巫來自智者。女巫的知識通常是預言，“當以正統宗教的某位神祗的名義進行，這就是預言；當以某位異教神祗的名義進行，這就是巫術”。Devit這個詞是一個指小詞綴，其來自詞根div，從這個詞根我們還可以得到divine這個詞，而devil僅僅指“小神”。“眾所周知的事實是，當一個新的宗教在一個國傢建立時，舊宗教的神祗就變成瞭新宗教的惡魔。在研究中世紀女巫的記錄時，我們處理的正是異教的殘餘，這一異教至少在英格蘭一直存在到18世紀，即自基督教引入後持續瞭1200年。古代信仰的實踐可以在當今的法國看到；在意大利，盡管基督教會不斷努力，舊宗教仍然擁有很多追隨者。”

如果不存偏見地進行描寫，那麼歐洲女巫的異教信仰對於《金枝》（The Golden Bough）或其他人類學作品的讀者來說是相當熟悉的，其核心是化身為人或動物的神，在集會或巫魔會上穿著黑衣或僞裝成各種動物形象齣現在崇拜者麵前。默裏小姐讓我們想起其與希臘人的神聖婚姻或羅馬人的農神狂歡是何等相似，而薩默斯所描寫的性狂歡則完全不同。使用咒語、藥物等方法對付敵人無疑屬於前文字時代，但是沒有任何客觀的比較宗教學學者會斷言女巫比她們基督教的後繼者犯下瞭更可怕的罪行。

對於有興趣的讀者來說，他們非常容易獲得默裏小姐那些大量的引人人勝的材料。關鍵是，默裏小姐使我們確信，在巫術的名義下流傳下來的是一種被基督教戰勝的宗教，它的術語及對其儀式的描寫都是由勝利者來書寫的。

基督教徵服者將被打敗的宗教的核心歸納為與撒旦簽訂契約。如赫伯特·瑟斯頓（Herbert Thurston）在《天主教百科全書》關於巫術的詞條中告訴我們的，“不僅在黑暗時代的傳統信仰中，而且在宗教改革之後的信仰中，女巫都與撒旦簽訂契約”。與撒旦簽訂契約似乎是基督教時代的創造。《舊約》中盡管要求處死女巫，但並沒有提到契約。

薩默斯避免處理如下問題，即為什麼針對巫術的主要鬥爭齣現在13世紀中葉之後——當時宗教裁判所被建立起來。1484年，教皇英諾森八世的訓諭掀起瞭大規模的鬥爭。從16世紀直至18世紀，消滅女巫的活動一直殘酷地進行著。學者們所估計的被處死女巫的數量存在很大差異，從三萬到幾百萬不等。根據記錄不可能知道數字，但顯然有大量的人被處死。關於鬥爭為什麼結束，答案很明顯：一方麵，基督教取得瞭完全的勝利；另一方麵，理性主義精神齣現並否認瞭巫術的魔法效力。但是，為什麼針對巫術的鬥爭在15世紀開始擴大和加劇？薩默斯迴避瞭這個問題。

Augustus Montague Summers (10 April 1880 – 10 August 1948) was an English author and clergyman. He is known primarily for his scholarly work on the English drama of the 17th century, as well as for his idiosyncratic studies on witchcraft, vampires, and werewolves, in all of which he professed to believe. He was responsible for the first English translation, published in 1928, of the 15th-century witch hunter's manual, the Malleus Maleficarum.Summers' career as an ostensibly Catholic clergyman was highly unusual. Although he wrote works of hagiography on Catherine of Siena and Anthony Maria Zaccaria, his primary religious interest was in the subject of the occult. While Aleister Crowley, with whom he was acquainted, adopted the persona of a modern-day witch, Summers played the part of the learned Catholic witch-hunter. In the introduction to his book on The History of Witchcraft and Demonology (1926) he writes:

In the following pages I have endeavoured to show the witch as she really was – an evil liver: a social pest and parasite: the devotee of a loathly and obscene creed: an adept at poisoning, blackmail, and other creeping crimes: a member of a powerful secret organisation inimical to Church and State: a blasphemer in word and deed, swaying the villagers by terror and superstition: a charlatan and a quack sometimes: a bawd: an abortionist: the dark counsellor of lewd court ladies and adulterous gallants: a minister to vice and inconceivable corruption, battening upon the filth and foulest passions of the age.

In 1928, he published the first English translation of Heinrich Kramer's Malleus Maleficarum ("The Hammer of Witches"), a 15th-century Latin manual on the hunting of witches. In his introduction, Summers insists that the reality of witchcraft is an essential part of Catholic doctrine and declares the Malleus an admirable and correct account of witchcraft and of the methods necessary to combat it. In fact, however, the Catholic authorities of the 15th century had condemned the Malleus on both ethical and legal grounds.[4] Other Catholic scholars contemporary with Summers were also highly critical of the Malleus. For instance, the Rev. Herbert Thurston's article on "Witchcraft" for the Catholic Encyclopaedia of 1912, refers to the publication of the Malleus as a "disastrous episode."[5]

Montague Summers then turned to vampires, producing The Vampire: His Kith and Kin (1928) and The Vampire in Europe (1929), and later to werewolves with The Werewolf (1933). Summers' work on the occult is notorious for his unusual and old-fashioned writing style, his display of erudition, and his purported belief in the reality of the subjects he treats.