Presupposing a basic incompatibility between science and superstition, many authors have focused on the irrationality of the demonological conceptions associated with the European witchhunts. However, during the periods of the Renaissance and the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, supernatural forces were seen as a legitimate aspect of natural science by even the most advanced and most famous scientists (i.e., Copernicus, Kepler, Boyle, and Newton). In addition, some of the reports and investigations of presumed demonological activity were produced by men of science and met the standards of the “new philosophy.” It is concluded that it is possible to distinguish demonology from the science of that period only with the benefit of hindsight and the adoption of “Whig” criteria.