The Path of the Devil is organized around three fundamental theories: witch hunts as functional sacrificial ceremonies, realistic conflict and strategic persecution, and scapegoat phenomena. All conjectures point to the role of epidemic disease, war, and climactic and economic hardships as considerable factors. However, such crises have to be differentiated: when war is measured as a quantitative characteristic it is found to inhibit witch hunts, while epidemic disease and economic hardship encourages them. The book integrates the sociologies of collective behavior, contentious conflict, and deviance with cross-disciplinary theory and research. The final chapters examine the Salem witch trials as "a perfect storm," and illustrate the general patterns found for early modern witch hunts and "modern witch hunts," which exhibit similarities that are found to be more than metaphorical.

"One of the intellectual appeals of witchcraft as a subject of study is that, unlike virtually all other behaviors designated as deviant, the actions alleged did not—could not—have occurred. In The Path of the Devil, Gary Jensen valiantly tackles issues that have bedeviled a virtual battalion of scholars who have sought for hundreds of years to explain the outbreak of witch persecutions and prosecutions in Europe and in the American colonies. The Path of the Devil is a very important contribution to witchcraft scholarship and represents a tribute not only to the author, but also to the discipline of sociology and it empirical methods." - Contemporary Sociology

"Jensen's account is highly readable and thought-provoking, and could prove a valuable addition to nonreligious courses as well, such as political sociology—or perhaps even classical theory, given the author's elaboration upon the meanings and applications of functionalism as applied to witch hunts." - Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, V. 47, No. 1

"Jensen provides a rich analytical account of witch hunts in the West and expertly manages to combine various interdisciplinary approaches to the study of witch hunts all in a single book....The use of both qualitative and quantitative research techniques makse it appealing in terms of its holistic approach to the topic, rendering it perhaps one of the most complete accounts of witch craze and colonial witch hunts in the United States." - Feminist Teacher

"Jensen's book is a necessary corrective for overly facile explanations of one of history's most puzzling episodes." - American Historical Review

"The Path of the Devil would be ideal for graduate seminars in deviance and control or collective behavior. . . . a masterful tour de force that contributes to core concerns of sociology and speaks to a variety of other disciplines as well. The Path of the Devil manages to be interesting, interdisciplinary in its reach, and uncompromisingly empirical all at the same time. It is an exemplar of sociology at its best." - American Journal of Sociology, September 2009