Witch sabbath

“ The power which the witch was supposed to possess of transporting herself from place to place, and which those self-deluded wretches themselves believed; and the orgies of the witch-sabbath, which were again and again deposed to, were hallucinations due to a form of insanity—for we may so call it—prevailing at the period, which was determined by the nature of the superstitious beliefs entertained. The real character of this superstition is well shown by an incident which is recorded by Jung-Stilling. ”

“ The Sabbath disappears, but why? Because it exists everywhere. It enters into the people’s habits, becomes the practice of their daily life. The Devil, the Witches, had long been reproached with loving death more than life, with hating and hindering the generative powers of nature. And now in the pious seventeenth century, when the Witch is fast dying out, a love of barrenness, and a fear of being fruitful, are found to be, in very truth, the one prevalent disease. ”

“ The Devil himself often went round and collected the congregation; and, not being in his 'grand arroy', he appeared as a man in ordinary dress. Instead of the religious service with the adoration of the god, the witches worked the spells and charms with which they bewitched or unbewitched their enemies and friends, or they exercised new methods which they learnt from their Master, or received instructions how to practise the arts of healing and secret poisoning, of causing and blasting fertility.
There are a few general accounts of the usual course of the Sabbath ritual. ”

“ Barthélemy Minguet of Brécy, a man of twenty-five, tried in 1616, described the ceremonies of the Sabbath; after the sermon the worshippers 'vont à l'offerte, tenant en leurs mains des chandelles de poix noire qui leur sont données par le Diable'. [575] In 1646 Elizabeth Weed of Great Catworth, Hunts, confessed that the Devil came to her at night, 'and being demanded what light was there, she answered, none but the light of the Spirit.' [576] In 1652 a French witch stated that at the Sabbath 'on dansait sans musique, aux chansons. ”

“ The light is particularly mentioned in many instances as being carried by the Devil, usually on his head; the witches often lit their torches and candles at this flame, though sometimes it seems that the Devil lit the torch and then presented it to the witch. To call the chief of the cult Lucifer was therefore peculiarly appropriate, especially at the Candlemas Sabbath. ”

“ In France and England the witches were supposed to ride uniformly upon broom-sticks; but in Italy and Spain, the devil himself, in the shape of a goat, used to transport them on his back, which lengthened or shortened according to the number of witches he was desirous of accommodating. No witch, when proceeding to the sabbath, could get out by a door or window were she to try ever so much. Their general mode of ingress was by the key-hole, and of egress by the chimney, up which they flew, broom and all, with the greatest ease. ”

“ Much stress has always been laid by the sceptical writers on the undoubted fact that in many cases the witch confused dreams with reality and believed that she had visited the Sabbath when credible witnesses could prove that she had slept in her bed all the time. ”

“ The theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were greatly exercised by the conclusive evidence which proved that people known to be devout and professing Christians had been present at the Sabbath, joined in the ceremonies, and worshipped the witches’ god. ”

“ The conception of a witch, as we now conceive it, that is to say of a woman who had entered into a deliberate compact with Satan, who was endowed with the power of working miracles whenever she pleased, and who was continually transported through the air to the Sabbath, where she paid her homage to the Evil One—first appeared. The panic created by the belief at first advanced slowly, but after a time with a fearfully accelerated rapidity. Thousands of victims were sometimes burnt alive in a few years. Every country in Europe was stricken with the wildest fever. ”

“ The Witch Sabbaths were a well-known institution in the Middle Ages, and it is reported that more than 25,000 persons were sometimes present at these weird gatherings. In view of the danger incurred, such popularity seems unaccountable enough to suggest that the narratives spring from sheer delusion. ”

“ Among the magic phenomena connected with witchcraft, none is more curious than the so-called witches' sabbath, the formal meeting of all who are in league [Pg 28] with Satan, for the purpose of swearing allegiance to him, to enjoy unholy delights, and to introduce neophytes. That no such meeting ever really took place, need hardly be stated. The so-called sabbaths were somnambulistic visions, appearing to poor deluded creatures while in a state of trance, which they had produced by narcotic ointments, vile decoctions, or even mere mental effort. ”

“ The Witches' Sabbath is the annual reunion of Satan and his worshippers on earth. The witches, mounted on goats and broomsticks, flock to desolate heaths and hills to hold high revel with their devil. ”

“ She was brought before the Devil, who asked her if she would be his faithful servant, and if she would renounce her previous religion, and dedicate herself to his service, taking him as her God. After the renunciation and vows, the Devil baptized her in his own great name, and among the Scotch witches gave her a new name by which she was known afterwards at the Sabbaths and other meetings. The ceremony concluded by giving the witch a mark or 'flesh-brand' on some part of the body. ”

“ Finally, the Devil, after having taken the form of a he-goat, is consumed by fire, and reduced to ashes, which the witches collect and hide, in order that they may assist them in their diabolical designs.
Of the English Sabbat we shall hear enough when we come to the various cases of witchcraft. Scot quotes Bodin, the great French exponent of witchcraft, ‘who saith, at these magical assemblies the witches never fail to danse, and in their danse they sing these words: Har, har, diuell, diuell, danse here, danse here, plaie here, plaie here, Sabbath, Sabbath. ”

“ Divested of the devil-worship now first introduced, such assemblages have formed part of the belief of all races. In Hindu superstition the witches, through the use of mystic spells, flew naked through the night to the places of meeting, where they danced, or to a cemetery, where they gorged themselves with human flesh or revived the dead to satiate their lust. The Hebrew witch flew to the Sabbat with her hair loosened, as when it was bound she was unable to exercise her full power. ”

“ The goodwife's churn no more refuses Its wonted culinary uses Until, with heated needle burned, The witch has to her place returned! Our witches are no longer old And wrinkled beldames, Satan-sold, But young and gay and laughing creatures, With the heart's sunshine on their features; Their sorcery—the light which dances Where the raised lid unveils its glances; Or that low-breathed and gentle tone, The music of Love's twilight hours, Soft, dream-like, as a fairy's moan Above her nightly closing flowers, Sweeter than that which sighed of yore Along the charmed Ausonian shore! ”

“ When the witch, in her demon-like form, overtakes the ministers of the Buddhist religion, the two spiritual forces represented by the actors then on the stage enter into the same kind of conflict as that which has already been described. The demon rages furiously; the priests pray fervently, and rub their rosaries with ever-increasing vigour; for the contest is over a human soul. But at the last the evil spirit is subdued, becomes penitent, and humbly begs their prayers that so she, too, may enter Paradise in peace. ”

“ The kingdoms of this world are not his to offer, but only its sins and follies, disappointment and death. But here the Devil is demanding that divine honours should be paid him. And this claim is perpetuated throughout the witch trials. The witches believed that their master, Satan, Lucifer, the fiend, the principle of evil, was God, and as such they worshipped him with latria, they adored him, they offered him homage, they addressed prayer to him, they sacrificed. ”

“ The same Devil, which then thus imitated what was in the church of the Old Testament, now among us, would imitate the affairs of the church in the New. The witches do say that they form themselves after the manner of Congregational Churches, and that they have baptism and a supper and officers among them, abominably resembling those of our Lord. What is their striking down with a fierce look? What is their making of the afflicted rise with a touch of their hand? What is their transportation through the air? What is their travelling in spirit, while their body is cast into a trance? ”

“ After prayer for divine guidance and an exhortation by a parson that the Bible taught that witches ought to be ferreted out, the high-brows would seek to determine who of the several bags of bone known to all of them presented the most loathsome appearance, and who should therefore be burned at the stake as the witch responsible for the catastrophe—as the necessary human sacrifice to appease the anger of the Unseen Powers. For even down to the twentieth century there survives in Christendom the pagan superstition of the necessity of a human sacrifice now and then. ”

“ Abigail Williams said 'that the Witches had a Sacrament that day at an house in the Village, and that they had Red Bread and Red Drink'. [598] With the evidence before him Mather seems justified in saying that the witches had 'their Diabolical Sacraments, imitating the Baptism and the Supper of our Lord'. [599]
8. Sacrifices [152]
There are four forms of sacrifice: (1) the blood sacrifice, which was performed by making an offering of the witch's own blood; (2) the sacrifice of an animal; (3) the sacrifice of a human being, usually a child; (4) the sacrifice of the god. ”

“ As the Church increased in power, many such practices—as, for example, the dancing of women round sacred trees and wells, with torches or candles in their hands, the common meal, the choral song and sacrifice—were roundly forbidden as witchcraft, the uprooting of which the Church at last felt capable of taking seriously in hand. This was indeed become a matter almost of life and death, for the Church found itself in many ways in acute competition with the witch, the one attaining by lawful means similar results to those achieved by the other through the assistance of Satan. ”

“ And yet, who were ever more influenced by a belief in signs, omens, spectres, and witches? We believe that, when the gospel, in its purity and simplicity, shall shed its divine light abroad, and pervade the hearts of men, superstition, in all its dark and hideous forms, will recede, and vanish from the world.
In concluding our remarks under this head, we would add that, in a dictionary before us, a witch is designated as a woman, and wizard as a man, that pretends to some power whereby he or she can foretell future events, cure diseases, call up or drive away spirits. ”

“ Let fifty psalms be sung each night, and fifty masses be said by day, to break the power of the demons. If you can thus keep my body for three nights safe, on the fourth day you may bury it—the Devil will have sought and not found.” The monks and the nuns did as they were desired; and, on the first night, though the demons kept up a loud howling and wailing outside the church, the priests conquered, and the old witch slept undisturbed. ”

“ In Great Britain the ceremonies for the reception of children are not given in any detail, though it was generally acknowledged that the witches dedicated their children to the Devil as soon as born; and from the evidence it appears that in many cases the witches had belonged to that religion all their lives. It was sometimes sufficient evidence against a woman that her mother had been a witch, [8] as it presupposed that she had been brought up as a worshipper of the Devil. ”

“ By the fifteenth century Satan, taking the place of the gods, assumed control of the evil creatures. Now that witches were the followers of the Devil, they wrote their names in his book, and were carried away by him for the revels by night. A new witch was pricked with a needle to initiate her into his company. At the party the Devil was adored with worship due to God alone. Dancing, a device of the pagans, and hence considered wholly wicked, was indulged in to unseemly lengths. ”

“ In northern countries the witches’ Sabbath never seems to assume any importance; in Germany, in the form of the Brocken assembly on May Eve, it is a prominent feature, and in England we may bring it into relation with the belief that at certain periods of the year demons and spirits are abroad and have special powers; in south Europe the idea of the Sabbath seems to owe much of its prominence to the association of witchcraft with heresy and the assemblies of the Waldenses and others. ”

“ Ministers who admit that witchcraft is a superstition will read the story of the Witch of Endor—will read it in a solemn, reverential voice—with a theological voice—and will have the impudence to say that they believe it.
It would be delightful to know that angels hover in the air; that they guard the innocent, protect the good; that they bend over the cradles and give health and happy dreams to pallid babes; that they fill dungeons with the light of their presence and give hope to the imprisoned ”

“ Just as we may thank the pagan persecutor that we now live in the Christian era, so the mediæval—and modern—witch owed much of her existence to the persevering efforts of the early Christian towards the suppression of witchcraft and the witch. It was natural—and indeed praiseworthy—that the prominent features of paganism should be relegated to the realms of darkness by the successors to the pagan empire—the god of one religion inevitably becomes the devil of its supplanter. ”