If you browse through the catalog of the American publisher Dover, specializing in the publication of out-of-print editions and strange books, you will come across the reissue of some unique texts on witches, vampires, and werewolves.
These extensively documented studies on monsters are authored by a peculiar individual who could also be described as a wolf in sheep's clothing: Montague Summers.
Born in England, he took vows to become an Anglican clergyman but was accused of pedophilia, leading him to resign and convert to Catholicism.
Although he could be mistaken for a Catholic priest, the Church never recognized him as one. It turns out that Summers was ordained a priest in 1909 by Bishop Ulric Vernon Herford, who had been expelled from the Church more than 40 years earlier for not adhering to Roman doctrine.
So Summers dressed as a priest and called himself Reverend, but apparently, he was not one. Meanwhile, he dedicated most of his life to studying and writing about witches and the occult.
It is said that he had dealings with Aleister Crowley (also known as The Great Beast) and that there was mutual admiration between them.
Montague, of dubious sexuality, is accused of having participated in diabolical rites, and one of the reasons for his fame is precisely that he was the author of the first English translation of the Malleus Maleficarum, the misogynistic manual on witchcraft that became a handbook for inquisitors during a 300-year-long witch hunt that resulted in countless deaths, especially of women, during the Middle Ages.
Although some circles still admire Summers' "enormous erudition," it should be noted that his books only serve to reinforce belief in superstitions that have given rise to more ignorance and suffering than any good or progressive ideas over the centuries.
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