"[4] Writing in the journal Pomegranate, Ronald Hutton wrote that the book: "is in my opinion the finest reconstruction of the thought-world of somebody accused in an early modern witch trial yet made, making sense of elements that most people would find wholly fantastic.

Here she argues against the assumption by academic writers that the sensational accounts of the Black Mass and orgies at the witches’ sabbath were largely reflections of witchcraft propaganda and stereotypes imposed by inquisitors.

[6] Chapters cover the way that knowledge of domestic medicine, New World cannibalism and community Catholic ritual were used to create the dramatic accounts of talking toad familiars, cannibalistic feasts and the Black Mass.

Even the accounts of Basque witch cult structure and rites, the most detailed in Europe, are linked by Wilby to suspects’ membership of religious confraternities and craft guilds before they were arrested.

Through these analyses, Invoking the Akelarre continues Wilby’s efforts to restore agency to the women who were accused of Devil worship in Europe’s witch trials.