The Encyclopedia Of Demons And Demonology

42 Church of Satan
Hecate is a powerful goddess with chthonic associations,
who became the patron of magic and WITCHCRAFT.
Hecate has three aspects: goddess of fertility and plenty,
goddess of the Moon, and queen of the night, ghosts, and
shades.
Hecate possesses infernal power, roaming the earth
at night with the WILD HUNT, a pack of red-eyed hellhounds
and a retinue of dead souls. She is visible only
to dogs, and if dogs howl in the night, it means Hecate is
about. She is the cause of nightmares and insanity and is
so terrifying that many ancients referred to her only as
“The Nameless One.” She is the goddess of the dark of the
Moon, the destroyer of life, but also the restorer of life. In
one myth, she turns into a bear or boar and kills her own
son, then revives him to life. In her dark aspect, she wears
a necklace made of testicles; her hair is made of writhing
snakes, which, as do the snakes of Medusa, petrify those
who gaze upon them.
Hecate is the goddess of all CROSSROADS, gazing in
three directions at the same time. In ancient times, sorcerers
gathered at crossroads to pay homage to her and such
infernal servants as the Empusa, a hobgoblin; the Cercopsis,
a poltergeist; and the Mormo, a GHOUL. Three-headed
statues of her were set up at many road intersections, and
secret rites were performed under a full Moon to appease
her. Statues of Hecate carrying torches or swords also were
erected in front of homes to keep evil spirits at bay.
Many of the heavenly deities of Mount Olympus have
chthonic aspects, such as Zeus and Hermes, but are not
feared as much as the underworld deities. Hermes, the
swift-footed messenger god, escorts the souls of the dead
to the underworld, and souls ready to be reborn back to
the land of the living. Demeter also has chthonic aspects,
because of her relationship with Persephone.
Church of Satan
See SATANISM.
Cimeries FALLEN ANGEL and 66th of the 72 SPIRITS OF
SOLOMON. Cimeries rules 20 LEGIONs of DEMONs as a marquis
in HELL. He also rules spirits in Africa. He appears
as a valiant soldier riding a black horse. He teaches grammar,
logic, and rhetoric. He finds lost objects and buried
treasures.
Colas, Antide (d. 1599) Woman accused of WITCHCRAFT
and having sex with SATAN. Arrested and tried at Dole,
France, Antide Colas was examined by a surgeon, Nicolas
Milliere, who found a hole below her navel. Colas confessed
that the DEVIL, whom she called Lizabet, had intercourse
with her through this hole. She also said that when
the Devil lay down beside her, if she did not do as he asked,
he made her twitch and tremble, and he pricked her left
side. Colas was executed by burning in Dole in 1599.
Cole, Ann A woman involved in a POSSESSION case in
Hartford, Connecticut, that astonished her townspeople
and led to the execution of an accused witch. Ann Cole
suddenly seemed to acquire preternatural knowledge of
the malicious activities of the accused witch, who was a
stranger to her. Increase Mather described Cole as “a
person of real piety and integrity” in his account in An
Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences (1684).
In 1662, Cole was living in the house of her father—
described as “a godly man”—when she began having bizarre
fits, “wherein her Tongue was improved by a Daemon
to express things which she herself knew nothing
of,” Mather wrote. Sometimes the discourses went on
for hours. Cole named persons and described how they
intended to carry out “mischievous designs” against her
and others, by afflicting bodies and spoiling names.
At times, Cole lapsed into gibberish. Then she began
speaking English with a precise Dutch accent, describing
how a woman who lived beside a Dutch family had been
afflicted by a strange pinching of her arms at night.
One of the persons named by Cole was a “lewd and
ignorant” woman named Rebecca Greensmith, who was
in jail on suspicion of WITCHCRAFT. Greensmith had denied
the charges against her but, when confronted by a
written account of Cole’s discourses, was astonished and
confessed everything. Greensmith said the DEVIL had
first appeared to her in the form of a deer or fawn, skipping
about her so that she would not be afraid, gaining
her confidence. She had sex with the Devil on numerous
occasions and had often accompanied him to SABBATs. She
denied entering into a satanic PACT but said that the Devil
had told her that they would attend a merry sabbat at
Christmastime, during which she would sign a pact with
him. Greensmith also said that witches had met at a place
not far from her house, and that some of them arrived in
the shapes of animals and crows.
The confession was sufficient to convict Greensmith,
and she was executed, probably by hanging. Her husband
was also put to death, even though he said he was not
guilty of any wrongdoing. The court apparently thought
that since he was the woman’s husband, he could not help
but be involved in her evil activities.
A man and a woman also named by Cole were given
the swimming test of being bound and thrown into water,
a common test of a witch’s innocence or guilt. They
neither floated nor sank but bobbed like buoys, half in
and half out of the water. A witness protested that anyone
with his or her hands bound to the feet would not sink
(and therefore be guilty) and underwent the test himself.
He was lowered gently into the water, not thrown
in, as were the accused, and promptly sank, proving his
innocence.
It is not known how many others named by Cole were
tried and executed for witchcraft; some fled Hartford and
were never seen again. Ann Cole eventually recovered
and had no more fits. She resumed her life as “a serious
Christian.” It is possible that her fits were a manifestation
of latent psychic ability, a clairvoyance. It was a psychic