The Encyclopedia Of Demons And Demonology

S
sabbat A wild party of witches, heretics, DEMONs, and
the DEVIL in a remote location. The participants supposedly
indulge in obscene behavior, orgies, gluttony, blasphemy,
worship of the Devil, and the cannibalism of
roasted infants. Use of the term sabbat or sabbath to
describe these rites may derive from the Hebrew term
sabbath, or synagogue.
During the witch hysteria of the Inquisition, lurid
confessions were tortured out of accused witches and
were recorded by zealous demonologists. However, no
historical evidence exists that such rites ever really took
place. Rather, they were probably degraded, contorted
descriptions of pagan seasonal festivals, as well as the
Inquisition’s stance that heretics practiced obscene
rites.
The idea of demonic revelry was well in place in
Christianity long before the Inquisition, however, in the
increasing demonization of pagan deities, and in folklore
such as the WILD HUNT. For example, the 10th-century
Benedictine abbot Regino of Prum wrote in his De ecclesiasticis
disciplinis:
This too must by no means be passed over that certain
utterly abandoned women, turning aside to follow
Satan, being seduced by the illusions and phantasmical
shows of demons firmly believe and openly profess that
in the dead of night they ride upon certain beasts along
with the pagan goddess Diana and a countless horde of
women, and that in those silent hours they fly over vast
tracts of country and obey her as their mistress, while on
certain other nights they are summoned to do her homage
and pay her service.
The first appearance of a sabbat in trials of the Inquisition
occurred in Toulouse in 1335. Anne Marie de Georgel
and Catherine Delort confessed to a having a PACT with
the Devil for about 20 years to serve him in life and after
death. On Friday nights, they attended sabbats held in
various locations. Georgel said that the Devil appeared
in the form of a goat and had sex with her and taught her
how to use poisonous plants. Delort said that she, too,
copulated with the goat. The witches ate newborn infants
stolen from their nurses during the night and drank vile
brews.
The term sabbat (also sabbath) for these meetings was
not used with consistency until about the mid-15th century,
but after the Toulouse trials, descriptions of the rites
were always similar. The sabbat played a more prominent
role in Europe during the witch hunts than it did in England,
where there is no record of a witch sabbat prior to
1620, except for an innocuous feast that was termed a
“sabbat” in the Lancashire witch trials of 1612.
Sabbats sometimes took place during the day, but
most usually occurred at night in remote locations, such
as mountains, caves, and deep forest areas. The favored
beginning time was midnight, after a dance. The bestknown
gathering place for sabbats, according to demonologists,
was the Brocken in the Harz Mountains of
Germany, where the greatest activity took place on Walpurgisnacht
(Beltane), April 30. Witches testified at their
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