Cornelius Agrippa actively defended accused witches in court by using complex theological and mystical loopholes

A closer look

Imagine hiring an actual wizard as your defense attorney. In the 1500s, when paranoia about witchcraft was reaching a fever pitch, the occultist Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa stepped into a French court to defend an elderly peasant woman accused of being a witch. The inquisitor claimed the woman was guilty because her mother was a witch. Agrippa, flexing his massive intellect, used obscure theological arguments and Catholic canon law to successfully prove that baptism breaks all generational curses, legally destroying the prosecutor's case. He won, saved her life, and immediately had to flee the city because the inquisitor tried to kill him.