Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was a German Renaissance polymath, physician, legal scholar, soldier, knight, theologian, and occult writer. Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy published in 1533 drew heavily upon Kabbalah, Hermeticism, and neo-Platonism. His book was widely influential among esotericists of the early modern period, and was condemned as heretical by the inquisitor of Cologne.

Johannes Wier was a Dutch physician who was among the first to publish a thorough treatise against the trials and persecution of people accused of witchcraft. His most influential work is De Praestigiis Daemonum et Incantationibus ac Venificiis.