The Encyclopedia Of Demons And Demonology

sabbat 217
trials that hundreds of them would gather at these sabbats.
They wore masks to protect their identities.
The frequency of sabbats varied with testimonies
at witch trials. Witches were said to participate in them
frequently, once to several times a week. In the AIX-EN-
PROVENCE POSSESSIONS trials of 1614, Maria de Sains said
they took place daily, with special sabbats of blasphemy
and the BLACK MASS on Wednesdays and Fridays. Other
reports were tied to pagan observances, such as the previously
mentioned Walpurgisnacht and Lammas Day (August
1), Midsummer (June 22), and Samhain (October 31).
To travel to a sabbat, witches left their homes by rising
up through the chimney and flying through the air, sometimes
on the backs of demons that had metamorphosed
into animals or astride broomsticks, poles, reeds, or farm
tools. The witches themselves sometimes shape shifted
into animals and were accompanied by their FAMILIARs.
They left behind them demons in their forms in their beds
to fool their spouses. When asked by inquisitors how they
could get their bodies through narrow chimneys, some
witches said the Devil removed all obstacles so that they
had enough room. As payment for their transport, witches
said, they were defiled by the demons in animal form.
Sometimes witches said they walked to sabbats, usually
to a wooded area outside their village.
The Devil usually appeared in the shape of a goat,
ugly and smelly, though at times he was said to arrive as a
toad, crow, or black cat. He presided over the sabbat while
sitting on a throne. The Devil turned into a foul-smelling
goat, and the witches took off their clothes and paid homage
to him by falling to their knees and kissing his anus.
Witches were forced to confess their latest crimes of
evil. If they had committed none since the previous sabbat,
they were beaten by demons.
Unbaptized infants were offered up as sacrifices. New
witches were initiated by signing the Devil’s BLACK BOOK
in BLOOD, renouncing Christianity, taking an oath, and
trampling upon the cross. The Devil marked his initiates
Witches gather around the Devil at a nocturnal sabbat, as depicted in the film Haxan (1922). (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)