WITCHCRAFT - DEMONS The witches offering to the Devil a white book, in exchange for the black devil book. This symbolizes their wish that their names be struck from the Book of Life, and be inscribed in the Book of Death, kept by the Devil. Hand-coloured print from Francesco Maria Guazzo, Compendium Maleficarum, 1608. This was the most learned and precise of mediaeval witchcraft manuals, and in some respects (because it paid homage to the superstitions of the worst kind) one of the most horrible.