Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

S
Sabbat
A persistent item of medieval folklore was that
diabolical witches gathered together at sabbats in
the middle of the night for nefarious purposes.
These gatherings were originally referred to as
“synagogues.” Both terms reflect an association
between Jews and the Devil in the minds of
contemporaneous Christians. Although the
witches’ sabbat was not originally the same as a
Black Mass, these two infernal meetings were
viewed similarly and eventually became interchangeable.
The imaginary sabbats of this traditional folklore
should not be confused with the very real
sabbats of modern, neopagan witches. The neopagan
movement accepted the idea, popularized by
the British scholar Margaret Murray, that the
Inquisition was persecuting the remnants of the
ancient, pre-Christian religions of Europe under
the guise of rooting out witches. On the basis of
Murray’s hypothesis, neopagans adopted many of
the terms utilized by the witch-hunts—such as
sabbat—and applied them to their own religious
movement. Beyond the designation sabbat,
however, there are very few parallels between
medieval folklore about the witches’ sabbat and
the contemporary neopagan gathering by the
same name.
The churchmen of the Middle Ages believed
that witches, who were almost invariably women,
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slipped out of their homes at night and gathered
at prearranged spots in forests, mountains, caves,
or some other remote area, often by flying, to
celebrate sabbats. The meetings were sometimes
portrayed as taking place only a few times a year
and sometimes as often as every week. The basic
structure of the sabbat is reflected in the confession
of an elderly woman who asserted that she
had been attending such meetings since the age of
sixteen: “Women came riding on sticks. The
demon presided, in the form of a cat, whom they
all adored. He taught them all manner of crimes
and gave them an ointment, with which she had
killed more than 100 men and infants; also a
powder with which to raise tempests. They
feasted on all sorts of dainties and then coupled,
demons serving the women who had no men.
Finally they flew away on their sticks” (cited in
Lea 1957, 177). There were numerous variations
on this scenario. Satan himself is usually thought
of as presiding over the assembly seated on a
throne. In addition to adopting the form of the
cat, he could also show up as a goat, crow, toad, or
even as a human being. Participants divested
themselves of their clothing and kissed the Devil
on his posterior. The core of the meeting often
involved the sacrifice of a human being. Babies
were usually cooked and eaten. New witches
signed a pact, renounced Christianity, trampled
on a cross, and were marked by Satan’s claw.