Talk:Witches' Sabbath

Recommend "Malleus View" Instead of "Witches' Sabbath"
Though I am a fan of both Lea and Hansen, I would recommend against the use of this phrase for historical scholarship due to the following reasons:

1)there is no consistently recurring phrase that corresponds to this one. What is found instead are simply nouns in the plural or any common phrase to denote a gathering. Even the word "coven" is merely a contraction that derives from convent/convention, as does the Puritan "covenant." (From a history-of-magic standpoint, the most interesting term might be "tripudium" which seems to have Greek roots.) Consistently ascribing a particular phrase makes it seem like more of a "thing" than it ever was. Same with terms for "witch" -- no consistency, and there are at least 8 commonly used synonyms. It may sound smart to use "maleficium" but there's no consistency to the use of that term either or much attention to whether magic was harmful or not-- the power source was defined as the devil. The paranoia and witch-phobia thrived in vagueness, open-endedness, and confusion. The view of each contemporaneous writer can be unique and heterodox and must be carefully analyzed.

2)It is an unnecessary coopting a word important to Jewish and Christian traditions. There might be an anti-semitic aspect, I don't know.

3)The term "Malleus view" (per H. Kramer's work from 1486) seems to a phrase that works better at saying nearly the same thing as that intended by Lea and Hansen. "Malleus vs. Episcopi" is a binary I find helpful (per Canon Episcopi, 906).Lewismr (talk) 19:03, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Sacred Mysteries
Witches Sabbaths were initiations of initiates into the Sacred Mysteries cults, the cults of Diana and Herodius. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.91.185.169 (talk) 17:50, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Sabbath
I believe this needs a very visible disambiguation-pointer-link-thingy that redirects the viewer to a Sabbath (Disambiguation) page. It has been remarked that Sabbath is indeed in the Bible as well, and thus the article (which REALLY needs to cite it's sources by the way) could be considered quite confusing. --24.107.9.33 (talk) 03:41, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Other Talk
"It is true that Satanism was and is practised..." That sentence must be removed. Satanism wasn't practiced when the witch-hunts occurred. Giving porridge to fairies, magic or such isn't Satanism. Satanism is a 20th century and later movement. -Hapsiainen 18:53, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

...and is actually a (anti)-Christian sect characterized by reversal of traditional Christian beliefs and practices, more made up by paranoid Christians than by current practitioners.
 * Don't feel like signing your comment? Satanism is Hedonism of either Realtistic or Materialistic approach. --24.107.9.33 (talk) 03:41, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Church of Satan are what you both are discussing. But they're not the only Satanists- see Theistic Satanism.  No doubt a few people have worshipped Satan over the years- there's no limit to what people choose to worship and it's unlikely they only thought of worshipping Satan this century.  The most likely historical example was at the court of King Louis- see Poison affair.

"Also involved in the scandal was Eustache Dauger de Cavoye, the eldest living son of a prominent noble family. De Cavoye was disinherited from by his family when, in an act of utter debauchery he choose to celebrate Good Friday with a black mass. Upon being disinherited he opened a lucrative trade in "inheritance powders" and aphrodisiacs."

So you see he was into sorcery- inheritance powders and so on, so it is perhaps true that he did a black mass. Of course in most cases of historical Satanism/witchcraft, we have no way of proving how much was made up and how much true.  Merkin's   mum  14:06, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

A bot

Yes, and speaking of proving, it's ridiculous for us to include the claim that "these allogations [sic] have been proved to be untrue" on the basis of the fact that "Margaret Murray, as well as many other witches of the craft, have witnessed countless Withches' [sic] Sabbaths." What 20th-century participants in a revivalist/reconstructionist movement have witnessed or not witnessed (and I find it very easy to believe that they haven't witnessed the eating of babies or anything like that) has little bearing on the factuality of 16th- and 17th- century reports. Can we delete that paragraph?

65.213.77.129 (talk) 15:17, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Deleted. Fuzzypeg★ 23:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Witchcraft is not about worshiping the devil.
You all people are crazy. Us witches do not worship the devil. I worship God, I have been saved, and babtised. I do not follow the devil. Christians have a sabbath. If you would actually read the bible you will see that God says that you should obey the sabbath. So if Christians have a sabbath and so do witches, does that mean that Christians worship the devil too? Think about it.

Lol, true... --Stikman 09:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

AH! But the Sabbaths described here are defined by those who think so; consequently, the article is not claiming that witches worship Satan, it is claiming that witches have been -called- Satan-worshipers by the opponents of the Witch-Sabbath. If you'd like to clarify the article a bit, then we can all talk here first, to work out the details.--24.107.9.33 (talk) 03:46, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not even claiming that- it's saying that some people have been accused of taking part in the witches sabbath, and called/accused of being witches. They most likely usually weren't.  It says nothing about people today who self-identify as witches.  Merkin's    mum  14:06, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Binsfeld

 * Commentarius de Maleficius (1622), by Peter Binsfeld...

This is not good Latin: it should be Commentarius de Malefico (or perhaps -a or -is). However, I didn't want to change the text without checking to see what the actual title of the book was first (maybe the error was deliberate or something). So I checked Worldcat, which is usually an excellent resource for these questions, but I didn't find this book. Binsfeld DID write a Commentarius in titulum iuris canonici De simonia (which is not about witchcraft), and a Tractatus de confessionibus maleficorum et sagarum (which is not called "Commentarius"). Am I missing something? --Iustinus 10:56, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Expansion
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. If you think that it's advisable to expand the article, I see several ways how this can be done. Most importantly, I believe that a mention about ergotism (“St. Anthony's Fire”) would be quite relevant here. It is likely that the ergotism epidemic contributed to the formation of the mediaeval beliefs about Sabbats, and I think that it wouldn't be too hard to find references for this in literature in order to provide a source. Next, it would be nice to write explanations for some Sabbatic customs, such as flying on broomsticks and black goats (Transvection (flying)), “kissing the Devil's arse”, etc. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be out of place to do something like mentioning Black Sabbath in “Depictions of witches' sabbaths in various art forms” or mentioning the metal band Mercyful Fate has a song called “Come to the Sabbath”. It can be worthwhile to mention the modern Wiccan understanding of Sabbatic celebration[. P.S. Then again, I suppose that the reference at the top of the article is sufficient]. I added a short description of the etymology of “sabbat”, but it's rather poorly written, so perhaps I or somebody else should rewrite it. Love is the law, love under will. Mortimer Lanin (talk) 02:19, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * For the depictions in various art forms, also compare Walpurgis Night in popular culture. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:43, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Sabbathkeeping as a Christian practice
Recently in this article was posted a section entitled as this one. What I'm worrying about is whether it's a confusion of the legendary Witches' Sabbath with the biblical Sabbath. A notice at the top of the page probably wouldn't hurt (along the lines of “For the Judeo-Christian Sabbath, see Biblical Sabbath”). 62.221.41.242 (talk) 21:33, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

13th, 14th or 15th century?
Under the heading "The Sabbat in History", the second paragraph starts with this: "In the 13th century the accusation of participation in a Sabbat was considered very serious. Helping to publicize belief in and the threat of the Witches' Sabbath was the extensive preaching of the popular Franciscan reformer, Saint Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444), whose widely circulating sermons contain various references to the sabbath as it was then conceived and hence represent valuable early sources into the history of this phenomenon.[3] "

My understanding is that the 1st century went from the year 1 to the year 100 so the 13th century would go from the year 1201 to the year 1300. If we are actually referring to this period then we should make it clear we are jumping forward in time to talk about St. Bernardino who was born in the late 14th century and probably did not begin preaching until the 15th century. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.189.45.103 (talk) 21:52, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Witchcraft and the Illuminati
The 2014-04-05 revision is unsourced, non-neutral-POV, and (I daresay) a paranoid rant about the Illuminati. Hence I am removing it. --75.15.118.150 (talk) 09:15, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

A French connection - 50K burning
The statement (somewhat in passing) that 50,000 witches were burned. is unsourced and IMO dubious. The Inquisition burned heretics, including witches but certainly not limited to them. Different methods of execution were used in different countries at different periods, e.g. Salem -- hanging, Scotland -- strangling then burning the cadaver. Levack (see article Witch-hunt) and others estimate 40-100,000 deaths, a rather wide range. Either the 50,000 needs to be qualified and sourced, or removed altogether--it doesn't really add to the explication of Witches' Sabbath. --D Anthony Patriarche (talk) 02:49, 27 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Ok, "dubious" seems a bit strong considering 50k is at the low end of the range you provide (40k-100k) but since your main question has to do with forms of execution, I'll change that line in the article and keep it vague to avoid complicating things (e.g. in many cases a confession could get you mercifully hung to death before your body (or your "cadaver" if you prefer) was burned, see George Lincoln Burr, or see Heinrich Kramer's recommendations to burn the bodies "to ashes"). The reason I put the 50k number in at that particular place is because I was discussing the witch-phobic publications that employ the term "sabbath" near the time period of the peak of the fatalities around 1600. (I'll source both these and the 80% women too.) You are right: 92 years later, and across the Atlantic ocean, everyone at Salem was hung, or pressed to death, but not burned, as the mid-century "Harvard men" never grew tired of reminding us. Lewismr (talk) 20:05, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Sabbath used by Bernardino of Siena or Peter Binsfeld?
I've not yet looked closely into the work of either Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444) or Peter Binsfeld to see if they actually use the terms that are the main focus of this page. If anyone can help there, it would be appreciated. Lewismr (talk) 00:53, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

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