July 23, 2025 • 38 mins
In the shadowy valleys of the Western Alps during the 1430s, a terrifying new narrative emerged that would reshape European understanding of witchcraft forever. What began as isolated tales of individual maleficium transformed into something far more sinister—organized gatherings where witches supposedly flew through the night to renounce Christ, feast on children, and pledge allegiance to Satan himself.
Journey with us into the dark imagination of medieval Europe as we explore the birth of the witches' sabbath. These weren't just stories—they were detailed testimonies that religious authorities believed revealed an existential threat to Christendom itself. From the inlands of Switzerland to the remote mountaintops of France, discover how ancient fears and folklore about nighttime spirits coalesced into a conspiracy theory so powerful it would color centuries of witch hunts.
But the sabbath's influence didn't end in medieval Europe. Follow its dark legacy across the Atlantic to the Salem witch trials, where Puritan New England became gripped by visions of devilish sacraments in village pastures. How did these European fantasies of organized devil worship take root in American soil, and what does their evolution tell us about the fears that drive societies to see enemies lurking in their midst?
Buy the book: Origins of the Witches Sabbath by Michael D. Bailey
Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The story I am about to tell youwas first told in the year 1436
in Brianson, France. That's where Claude Philoson
wrote a treatise that today is just known by the 1st sentence
which says so that the errors ofmagicians and witches might be
made evident to ignorant people.That's the that's the 1436 name
(00:26):
of this. It's not my name for it.
And well, the story begins a group of witches traveling on a
Thursday night with a troop of devils.
They go out, usually Thursdays, sometimes Saturdays, and they
(00:46):
kill children. And then they boil the children
and they eat the children. EW, right.
So once they've had their fill of babies, they travel to a
remote place where they have what's known as a synagogue of
(01:10):
witches. The witches tell the devil about
all their acts of witchcraft. They brag about themselves and
basically give a progress reporton what they've been up to since
the last synagogue of witches. Some of the witches travel on
Staffs coated with baby fat and powder and devil pee.
(01:32):
Others travel on beasts or brooms.
But when they get to this remoteplace for the synagogue and they
see the devil, they kiss the devil and then they have sex
with each other and other demons.
I have a question other. Demons.
Where did Claude come up with his account?
(01:54):
So Claude Thaloson was the chiefmagistrate in Brianson, which is
in southeast part of France, in the historic province of
Dauphine, which isn't a provinceanymore since the king took it
back later in the 15th century. But anyways, Claude Thaloson, he
(02:18):
spent 10 years trying over 100 witches in his career and
decided that he was going to write down his observations
because he didn't want ignorant people falling into the same
traps, making the same errors asthese magicians and witches.
And this is just me thinking, but probably this guy being the
(02:42):
chief magistrate, you know, he probably thought that just about
everybody was ignorant, so he probably didn't really mean it
as an insult the way we would think it today.
But one thing that motivated Claude Fellowsen for writing
this was that he believed that witches had not just violated,
(03:04):
you know, religious laws and standards.
They'd committed treason againstthe French monarchs.
So they were a threat against both the church and the state.
And as his position as a royal magistrate appointed by the
king, he really felt a sense of duty to France.
(03:26):
So I think that's probably why he wrote it.
But he also seems to have been, well, he didn't shy away from
writing about the more lurid parts of the testimony.
So maybe he was genuinely fascinated by it or, you know,
it's had an interesting curiosity, we shall say.
(03:49):
Well, before we dig into the juicy part of the story, let's
welcome everybody. Yes, thank you so much for
joining us for this episode of The Thing About Witch Hunts.
As you've noticed, we're talkingabout meetings of witches today.
Or is there commonly known todaythe witch's Sabbath?
(04:13):
He's Josh and I'm Sarah. Thanks, Sarah, I forgot who I am
today. The witches recruit people who
are motivated by vengeance or lust.
They use those as recruitment tools.
And then, like the first rule ofFight Club, you don't talk about
(04:34):
what happens at the synagogue. Back to the witches gathered
near Brianson, which is in the Alps in southeast France.
Very beautiful, mountainous, gorgeous area.
But. There's all these witches and
there's this devil. And according to you, Claude
(04:58):
Fellowsen, these witches, this is not a beautiful thing that's
happening here. And one reason it's not
beautiful is because, well, theyplace a vessel in the center of
a circle. The devil who's leading the
meeting comes up and peas in that vessel.
(05:19):
Then the witches showing their obedience and don't do anything
for this devil. They drink from the vessel,
place it back in the circle, flip it over and renounce
Christ. So definitely something Claude
would have been concerned about.And then he tattles that they
(05:41):
then turn their posteriors and naked ass to heaven as an insult
to God. They moon God, and then they
make a cross in the soil. They spit on it three times and
then they trample it under theirfeet.
They make an obscene gesture three times to God and toward
(06:02):
the rising sun. Gerald Livia's gesturing is done
with They kiss the devil on the mouth, and they give over their
body and soul to the devil. These gatherings were all about
their submission to the devil and turning their back on God,
(06:22):
and so there's been a pact with the devil.
There's a pact with the devil and they quite literally turn
their backs on God or the backsides.
Now, after they've given themselves body and soul to the
devil, they give them something else, one of their own children.
(06:44):
Usually they're first born of the sacrifice.
They kill the baby right there, bury it, dig it back up and make
powders from it. It almost sounds like a vampire
story. Yeah, and Claude tells us that
(07:04):
the devil appears however the witch wants to see him.
So if the witch wants to see a hunky beefcake, that's the way
the devil comes. If the witch wants to see a
fuzzy animal, he'll come as a little teddy bear.
He'll just come however they want to see him because it puts
them at ease and it's easier to get them to submit.
(07:29):
Now, I know we're going to touchon this in a little bit when we
talk about the gatherings in Salem of the alleged witches.
But does Claude talk about the devil giving them fine things?
Is he luring them with luxury? Yeah, he's luring them with the
offer to have wanton and gratuitous sex.
That's one of the things. He's luring them to have
(07:52):
vengeance upon their enemies. So that, according to Claude,
these are the two big things that are promoting people.
It's lust and vengeance. They want to have revenge on
anybody who's wrong them and they just, they want to get
jiggy with it. And I just want to remind our
(08:14):
audience that when you're referring to Claude, you're not
referring to Claude AI. This was a little bit before AI
back in the good old days, according to some that don't
like that new technology. But obviously they're talking
about witch trials, so not so great in life.
And Clot Lawson also tells us that the witches make an annual
(08:39):
tribute payment to the devil, which is usually a sacrifice of
another child if they have one. And they do this on the
anniversary of when they first pledged allegiance to him.
Clots describes the devil as having a body like glass that
does not block the rays of the sun.
(08:59):
Is that before or after he takesthe form of the creature that
the witch would prefer? That's so fascinating, I don't
know. It is so fascinating.
It's once like I picture it happening at the same time that
he is more or less. He's like translucent.
Like you can see through him a little bit, but not all the way.
(09:23):
Sunlight comes through him, but you can still see his figure.
He's an ephemeral being. One interesting thing that these
witches do that Claude Thalosin talks about is they kind of go
on field trips from the synagogue.
The devil takes them out to other people's houses, people's
(09:46):
houses that have fine things, good wine, you know, good food.
They go to these places, he opens up the doors for them, the
troop goes in, they eat and drink whatever they find in the
house that they like, and then they perform all kinds of wicked
things that Claude doesn't really describe.
(10:07):
So then the witches and a bunch of demons get together and have
a dance party to some musical instrument that also isn't, it's
not described the musical instrument, just that there is a
musical instrument that they danced to.
So while this is going on, the chief devil of the whole region,
(10:32):
however, the devils have carved up the world and they have
their, you know, diocese or province or whatever they call
these regions. The chief devil is there, he
sits on a throne and the witchescome up and pay him reverence,
and they give their reports of their wicked deeds like they did
(10:52):
at the synagogue with that devil.
So they're not reporting on eachother.
They're reporting with pride what they've what they.
Did exactly. They're like, hey, I tripped
this boy the other day or hey, Ipoisoned this pot of Stew.
It's like we did all this. Allegedly by Claude.
(11:16):
This is according to Claude. According to Claude the Lozen,
who had 10 years of experience working on this, he says his
experience would have been from about 1426 to 1436.
And unfortunately, not all of the records of these witch
trials survive. These witches, they make
(11:37):
poisonous powders. They get poisons from
apothecaries, probably rat poison in that kind of thing,
Pesticides and herbicides. They mix that together with more
urine from a devil and other poisons that they get from
(11:57):
animals and plants. When they apply these poisons to
their enemies, they themselves become invisible, so the enemy
doesn't see them applying the poison.
This enemy of theirs, their target, they get sick right away
and either they linger and die, or they just die instantly.
(12:22):
Well that sounds like 100% of deaths.
You are correct, you definitely aren't wrong.
Everybody either lingers sick orthey just die right away.
But sometimes these afflictions would appear as ulcers.
Another concoction that they make is intended to make women
(12:44):
infertile and also to drive people insane.
And they use a long Thistle moredevil P.
They're really obsessed with this and what they call the Cox
egg. As you will know, Roosters don't
lay eggs. But these were small, yokeless
(13:04):
eggs that sometimes were laid and people didn't understand
what they were. So they just call them Cox eggs
and they use these in a concoction to make women
infertile because they were really obsessed with not being
fruitful and multiplying. All the descriptions of the bee
(13:27):
shaviour, the sacrilege of thesealleged witches.
This perceptions been going on for hundreds of years before the
affliction of the sandwich. Trials also describe a Sabbath.
So now that we've told you a story of a Sabbath, let's talk
about the history of how the Sabbath theory came about.
(13:50):
OK, back in the medieval period,maleficium existed.
Bad magic, harmful magic existedin people's minds, but they
didn't associate it with group activities like a Sabbath.
That didn't exist in the medieval period.
There didn't believe that witches were an organized sect
(14:12):
or that they were part of a diabolical conspiracy that yes,
witchcraft might be bad, but it wasn't involving the devil or
demons, so it wasn't that bad. Anyways, along come the 1430s
and we're here in the Western Alps, so southeastern France,
(14:37):
western Switzerland, northwestern Italy, and witch
trials are happening within the Inquisitions.
So hundreds of people are being brought in for trial in these
areas in the early 15th century,and people start to write about
(14:59):
what's happening at these witchcraft trials and what the
witches supposed witches are confessing under great torture.
So think about that when you're hearing these accounts.
The witches were highly under duress, in a lot of pain and
just saying whatever they thought that the people wanted
(15:21):
to hear. And as we know from the Salem
witch trials, the judges like toask leading questions and
probably steered people down some of these roads.
And then after that, just word of mouth about what was said
spread around, and people knew what to confess to.
(15:46):
We want to talk just briefly about these writings in the
1430s. There are five major writings
that talk about Sabbaths, and one thing that's interesting is
that none of them use the word Sabbath.
They use the word synagogue, like in our story or assembly.
(16:08):
So Sabbath doesn't actually comeup until the 17th century.
By the way, the first account that happens is written in 1429
or 1430 by a man named Hans Pruned.
And it tell us about a series ofwitch trials in Valet Canton,
(16:30):
which is now in southwestern Switzerland but hadn't joined
the Swiss Confederation yet at that point in time.
And when he wrote this, witchcraft trials have been
going on for about a year and a half.
They started in 1428 and more than 100 people were executed
(16:50):
for witchcraft according to HansFreund.
He even in towards the end that number grows to more than 200.
So like we said, the records aren't very thorough what's
survived to today's. So an estimate of 100 or more
people is probably right. And these witch trials went on
(17:15):
until at least 1436. So even after Hans had written
this, but you know, we talked before about the whole church
and state thing and how Claude Fellowsen thought witches had
committed treason against the king of France.
Well, Hans Freund thought that the witches given a little bit
(17:39):
more time, without these trials happening, they would have been
able to raise up a king from among their number.
That's how numerous and powerfulthey were.
It's so hard to decide which writing title is my favorite
because every time we dig into history, I'm so fascinated by
(18:00):
the titles. But this one's pretty good.
So 1/3 writing from the 1430s. Those who are proven to write on
a broom or staff, that's pretty good.
It was anonymous. It was called a Roy's
Gazariorium, Errors of a Gazarie, and it is presumed to
have been written by a church recorder and likely connected to
(18:23):
a series of witch trials in the Valdosta in northwest Italy,
possibly written by Franciscan inquisitor Passe Cigaran.
Among the other juicy and salacious details that we get
about the Sabbath in this account is this bizarre twist.
(18:46):
OK, so these witches, when they go to their synagogue or
assembly, they find a redheaded Catholic.
So a non witch, true believer inthe Catholic faith, redheaded.
So they take this poor redheadedCatholic, they bind him to a
(19:07):
bench, surround him with poisonous animals like snakes
and toads and lizards that they think are poisonous.
And they have all these poisonous animals bite the
victim repeatedly until the victim dies a very painful
death. Then they hang the body by its
(19:30):
feet. They place a glass under the
mouth to catch the poison dripping out of the mouth along
with any impurities coming out of the body with the poison.
Then they take this poison and impurities, they mix it up with
(19:51):
the fat of those who hanged on gibbets very specifically, and
innards of children and also poisonous animals.
And so they've got this part, you know, red headed Catholic,
ungent, that kills any person instantly on contact.
(20:14):
I'm speechless. I was just thinking how you
couldn't come up with AI mean it's anonymous but I'm like with
panic about satanic rituals and behaviors that are happening in
modern times or in recent centuries.
This is 1437 and these stories were circulating.
(20:39):
Yeah, it's so the creativity, the imagination to come up with
something like that. Very particular, very
particular. Another influential work to come
out in the 1430s was for Macarius or the Anthill, written
by Johannes Nieder, starting in either 1436 or 1437 and
(21:04):
completed in 1438. Unfortunately for Nieder, that's
the year that he died also, so he didn't get to witness the
effects of his writing. And Formicarius features an
account by a man named Peter of Byrne about witch trials that
happened in Byrne in Switzerland.
(21:27):
And this is the western part of Switzerland, so it's fits with
our western arc here if we're thinking about Switzerland,
France and Italy on the side of the house.
And one thing that's notable about Meter is he was the first
clerical writer, not just in this little niche genre about
(21:52):
witchcraft, but in any genre. He was the first to explicitly
state that women were more likely to become witches than
men were. Now in his account, he does talk
about male witches and female witches, but he says that women
are more prone to be seduced into witchcraft.
(22:14):
For more on The Formicarius and Johannes Nieder and Peter Byrne,
check out our devil episodes that we recently did with
Richard Raiswell. He talks some link about this
work here and what it meant for the definition of witch and
(22:35):
witchcraft. In the last writing that we're
going to talk about from this era, the Vaudry of Lyon.
It is anonymous, likely written by a Dominican inquisitor.
The Vaudry of Lyon describes which activity around the city
of Lyon in southeast France, andit Pete's a very disturbing
(22:57):
image of a monstrous devil, and I'm going to paint that for you
right now. The devil cunningly deceiving
these wretched people always presents himself to them visibly
in a horrible form, as they themselves confess, sometimes in
the form of a very repulsive manthat is black, completely
covered with hair and bristles with thorns, and also having a
(23:20):
monstrous drawn out in twisted shape.
He has bulging eyes, larger thanany animal known to us, flashing
and emitting flame and constantly rolling about, A big
and crooked nose, exposed ears set high up, emitting and
sending forth fire, a gaping mouth twisted upward on both
(23:40):
sides and extending all the way to his ears.
That sounds like Pogo the cloud.I was thinking about the Joker
with Jack Nicholson. A tongue striking far out, A
chin monstrously stretched and bent back terribly to the other
side of his throat. A neck long beyond measure so
(24:01):
that it juts out horribly, or too short, so that looks like
his head is drawing directly to his shoulders.
A chest, belly, and other such parts inconceivably deformed.
Finally, all along his arms and hands, as well as his legs and
feet, hooks and long spines stick out, and the digits of his
hands and feet bear terrible claws in the matter of Griffins
(24:25):
or bears or lions. Sometimes, in fact, the demon is
accustomed to appear to them in the form and likeness of some
beast, but always unclean, foul,and extremely vile, such as a
goat, fox, large dog, ram, wolf,cat, badger, bull, bear, monkey,
or something else of this sort, as these perverted people
(24:47):
confess. Wow, that's some description of
the devil. I have so many questions, but
like, how is fire coming out of the eyes and ears?
It's very like, I mean, this guy, if you saw this in the
middle of the night, oh man, just collapse on the spot.
(25:12):
If you want to read more on thishistory, read Michael D Bailey's
Origins of the Witch's Sabbath. Excellent book, highly recommend
it. It's got excerpts from these
writings so you can see the accounts first hand for
yourself. And that's available in our
bookshop. Yes.
Bookshop.org/shop slash and witch hunts.
(25:38):
Yay. So talk briefly about the
impacts of these accounts and also a little bit about what
they're based upon. These accounts cause both
secular and religious authorities to fear this
organized sect of witches. As we talked about before, both
(26:00):
the church and the state were vulnerable now to this powerful
group that could undermine theirauthority or outright depose
them. The witches posed an existential
threat now to Christendom beforethis diabolical pack and this
coming together in these gatherings there wasn't a fear
(26:21):
that witches could bring down the church in the state because
which is usually acted alone. And these gatherings you can
tell based on the original name for them synagogue.
They are based on anti Jewish stereotypes from the Middle Ages
(26:42):
and they're also based on imagined gatherings of heretics.
Now we'll regale you with tales of witches Sabbath from New
England, from the Salem witch trials.
In fact, in the Salem witch trials, the first six weeks or
(27:03):
so from the accusation of Tiba Sir Good at Sarah Osborne, those
first six weeks or so go by and the witches are mostly working
individually or in very small groups.
But come April 11th, that changes because during the
(27:25):
examination of Sarah Klois and Elizabeth Proctor, Abigail
Williams is questioned about a meeting that she was known to
have observed. So this one, the April 11th
hearing, is the one that Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth
(27:46):
presides over, and Samuel Sewellis here.
And Deputy Governor Danforth, hedoesn't become a part of the
Salem court, but Samuel Sewell does.
So you also have here, of course, John Hathorne and
Jonathan Corwin as magistrates. So it's not clear who asks this
(28:10):
question, but the question is asked by one of these judges,
peoples, Judge peoples. One of these judicial types asks
this question. It might have been Hathorne
because he asked all the questions in the other
preliminary examinations, he goes, Abigail Williams, did you
(28:33):
see a company at Mr. Paris's house?
Eat and drink. And she says, yes, Sir, that was
their sacrament. How many were there?
About 40. And goody Klois and goody good
were there. Deacons, What was it?
They said it was our blood and they had it twice that day.
(28:54):
So here we are with the first Sabbath.
It's not referred to as a Sabbath.
It's referred to as a company eating and drinking, and it's at
Samuel Paris's pasture, and it'sinvolving 40 witches, including
deacons, seraclois and seracood.And we get this detail, which
(29:21):
only comes up this one time, that the witches used the blood
of the afflicted in their concoctions that they consumed
at these meetings or assemblies or companies.
Next person to talk about the witches gatherings in Salem is
Abigail Hobbs. And she's a confessed witch.
(29:45):
And she's Sarah's favorite. She is, I just, she has no shame
in her friendship with the deviland sorry, she shocks.
I mean, we're shocked by the Salem story, but she was in the
story telling the shocking stuffto her community.
(30:06):
So I just, you know, think that's so great.
Except for that, except for thather accusations, of course, were
hurting innocent people. That is not great.
No. And she really stuck to her
accusations, and even though sheknew what was happening to them
and what happened to herself, she actually ends up getting
(30:31):
condemned to die after she's convicted.
Even though she was a confessor.She does get condemned to die,
but she gets a last minute reprieve from the governor.
Let's hear her story. So Abigail Hobbs, she talks very
briefly about this witch meetingthat she was at in Paris's
(30:52):
pasture. That's how we know it was the
pasture at his house where they had this meeting.
And she talks about them having red bread and red wine.
So yes, red bread just like that.
They would break red bread. Presumably it's red because of
blood, but they don't specify. The red wine does later get
(31:17):
specified is blood wine. So then three days after Abigail
tells the story, her stepmother,Deliverance Hobbs tells a story.
On April 23rd, she's being examined in the Salem prison by
the judges and she talks about awitch meeting that happened just
(31:37):
the day before April 22nd, whichsomehow she must have travelled
to from the prison because she was already under arrest.
As we mentioned, Chichiba had mentioned that there were 9
witches in the area that included Sarah Good and Sarah
Osborne, but she didn't know theother seven well.
(31:59):
Deliverance Hobbes finds another7 plus the original Sarah Good
and Sarah Osborne. So she finds a total of nine
people at this witch meeting. She recognizes our John Proctor,
Elizabeth Proctor, Rebecca Nurse, Giles Corey, Martha
Corey, Bridget Bishop, Sarah Osborne, Sarah Good, and Sarah
(32:23):
Wildes. SO3 Sarahs, Sarah, A lot of
Sarahs just got to say. They're always in trouble.
And another thing that these nine people have in common is
they all died when they shouldn't have.
In 1692 they were either hanged or Giles Corey was pressed to
(32:49):
death with stones and Sarah Osborne died in jail.
So none of them made it through this unscathed, but they had all
already been accused at the timethat Deliverance is mentioning
them. He, of course, says the
ringleader is the minister, George Burroughs, who'd been
(33:12):
accused. He also ends up executed.
Yeah, so everybody. She names parishes.
And so George Burrows was the preacher there.
He pressed the witches to bewitch everybody in the
village, but to do it gradually.Then he gave the red bread and
(33:37):
red wine to Sarah Wildes, who distributed it while he presided
over the version of witch communion, whatever the witches
would have called. There's also a detail here that
George Burrows sits at a table in the Samuel Paris's pasture,
(33:59):
and next to him is a mysterious man in a long crowned white hat.
And the man in the long crowned white hat is filling tankards
with this blood wine. Goody Wilds was the one who gave
notice of the meeting deliverance.
Hobbes claimed in her confessionthat she refused to eat or drink
(34:22):
this blood, bread and wine, and then she was harassed by the
other witches who all did consume themselves.
A mysterious detail emerges in this testimony.
Abigail Williams, Afflicted girl, comes out and talks to
somebody, but Deliverance Hobbesis blinded at just that moment,
(34:48):
and she doesn't know who she talks to.
Sarah Wiles, who had distributedthe bread and wine, also
pressured Deliverance Hobbes to sign the Devil's Book in
exchange for some clothing. It's obvious the Salem gathering
of alleged witches was just as detailed as a century old tales.
(35:10):
A lot of these details in the Salem accounts were borrowed
from these earlier accounts that, you know, kept being
repeated over the centuries. The same stories of which is
Sabbath's were repeated in Europe, and word of that got
over to New England. And here it comes out in these
(35:33):
stories when they're being pressed to confess.
A final thing that I'll mention is that as these stories went
along, as more and more people were being accused, the number
of witches at these meetings grew and grew and grew.
So you had Abigail Williams with40, then you had 100 people when
(35:55):
Mary Lacey Junior told the story, and you had 200 people
soon after that, and 300 people.And people were coming in from
Connecticut for these meetings. And again, it's always described
as a meeting, a company in assembly, not a Sabbath.
That's a term that we apply to it because that's what we
(36:19):
understand is the witch's Sabbath.
So the Sabbath became such an important part of the stories of
witches, the lore. It was what was expected to be
told in court and during questioning, and it became a big
(36:42):
piece of the evidence against these witches was them going to
the Sabbath? Because that set up the
connection to Satan, to making the witchcraft diabolical, and
to the Satanic pact and to this grand satanic conspiracy to
(37:03):
destroy Christendom. And we see that very clearly
expressed in the writings of Cotton Mather about the Salem
witch trials when he talks aboutthe devil.
And this is also in some of the records themselves.
They talk about the devil and the witches wanting to destroy
(37:23):
Christ's church and set up the devil's Kingdom in its place,
and this crucial link to this overwhelming existential threat
to society, to religion, to politics.
This overriding apocalyptic threat was just so scary that
(37:51):
this is what led to the excessesof the witch hunts.
Everybody was so afraid that there was this massive
conspiracy out there. At least the elites were afraid
of this terror, petrified. And that's why they kept saying,
you, rich, you've been at these meetings.
Tell us who else was there. We want you to name names.
(38:15):
And then we go after those people and they name names and
we go after those people. And you see how this quickly
spiraled out of control.
The story I am about to tell youwas first told in the year 1436
in Brianson, France. That's where Claude Philoson
wrote a treatise that today is just known by the 1st sentence
which says so that the errors ofmagicians and witches might be
made evident to ignorant people.That's the that's the 1436 name
(00:26):
of this. It's not my name for it.
And well, the story begins a group of witches traveling on a
Thursday night with a troop of devils.
They go out, usually Thursdays, sometimes Saturdays, and they
(00:46):
kill children. And then they boil the children
and they eat the children. EW, right.
So once they've had their fill of babies, they travel to a
remote place where they have what's known as a synagogue of
(01:10):
witches. The witches tell the devil about
all their acts of witchcraft. They brag about themselves and
basically give a progress reporton what they've been up to since
the last synagogue of witches. Some of the witches travel on
Staffs coated with baby fat and powder and devil pee.
(01:32):
Others travel on beasts or brooms.
But when they get to this remoteplace for the synagogue and they
see the devil, they kiss the devil and then they have sex
with each other and other demons.
I have a question other. Demons.
Where did Claude come up with his account?
(01:54):
So Claude Thaloson was the chiefmagistrate in Brianson, which is
in southeast part of France, in the historic province of
Dauphine, which isn't a provinceanymore since the king took it
back later in the 15th century. But anyways, Claude Thaloson, he
(02:18):
spent 10 years trying over 100 witches in his career and
decided that he was going to write down his observations
because he didn't want ignorant people falling into the same
traps, making the same errors asthese magicians and witches.
And this is just me thinking, but probably this guy being the
(02:42):
chief magistrate, you know, he probably thought that just about
everybody was ignorant, so he probably didn't really mean it
as an insult the way we would think it today.
But one thing that motivated Claude Fellowsen for writing
this was that he believed that witches had not just violated,
(03:04):
you know, religious laws and standards.
They'd committed treason againstthe French monarchs.
So they were a threat against both the church and the state.
And as his position as a royal magistrate appointed by the
king, he really felt a sense of duty to France.
(03:26):
So I think that's probably why he wrote it.
But he also seems to have been, well, he didn't shy away from
writing about the more lurid parts of the testimony.
So maybe he was genuinely fascinated by it or, you know,
it's had an interesting curiosity, we shall say.
(03:49):
Well, before we dig into the juicy part of the story, let's
welcome everybody. Yes, thank you so much for
joining us for this episode of The Thing About Witch Hunts.
As you've noticed, we're talkingabout meetings of witches today.
Or is there commonly known todaythe witch's Sabbath?
(04:13):
He's Josh and I'm Sarah. Thanks, Sarah, I forgot who I am
today. The witches recruit people who
are motivated by vengeance or lust.
They use those as recruitment tools.
And then, like the first rule ofFight Club, you don't talk about
(04:34):
what happens at the synagogue. Back to the witches gathered
near Brianson, which is in the Alps in southeast France.
Very beautiful, mountainous, gorgeous area.
But. There's all these witches and
there's this devil. And according to you, Claude
(04:58):
Fellowsen, these witches, this is not a beautiful thing that's
happening here. And one reason it's not
beautiful is because, well, theyplace a vessel in the center of
a circle. The devil who's leading the
meeting comes up and peas in that vessel.
(05:19):
Then the witches showing their obedience and don't do anything
for this devil. They drink from the vessel,
place it back in the circle, flip it over and renounce
Christ. So definitely something Claude
would have been concerned about.And then he tattles that they
(05:41):
then turn their posteriors and naked ass to heaven as an insult
to God. They moon God, and then they
make a cross in the soil. They spit on it three times and
then they trample it under theirfeet.
They make an obscene gesture three times to God and toward
(06:02):
the rising sun. Gerald Livia's gesturing is done
with They kiss the devil on the mouth, and they give over their
body and soul to the devil. These gatherings were all about
their submission to the devil and turning their back on God,
(06:22):
and so there's been a pact with the devil.
There's a pact with the devil and they quite literally turn
their backs on God or the backsides.
Now, after they've given themselves body and soul to the
devil, they give them something else, one of their own children.
(06:44):
Usually they're first born of the sacrifice.
They kill the baby right there, bury it, dig it back up and make
powders from it. It almost sounds like a vampire
story. Yeah, and Claude tells us that
(07:04):
the devil appears however the witch wants to see him.
So if the witch wants to see a hunky beefcake, that's the way
the devil comes. If the witch wants to see a
fuzzy animal, he'll come as a little teddy bear.
He'll just come however they want to see him because it puts
them at ease and it's easier to get them to submit.
(07:29):
Now, I know we're going to touchon this in a little bit when we
talk about the gatherings in Salem of the alleged witches.
But does Claude talk about the devil giving them fine things?
Is he luring them with luxury? Yeah, he's luring them with the
offer to have wanton and gratuitous sex.
That's one of the things. He's luring them to have
(07:52):
vengeance upon their enemies. So that, according to Claude,
these are the two big things that are promoting people.
It's lust and vengeance. They want to have revenge on
anybody who's wrong them and they just, they want to get
jiggy with it. And I just want to remind our
(08:14):
audience that when you're referring to Claude, you're not
referring to Claude AI. This was a little bit before AI
back in the good old days, according to some that don't
like that new technology. But obviously they're talking
about witch trials, so not so great in life.
And Clot Lawson also tells us that the witches make an annual
(08:39):
tribute payment to the devil, which is usually a sacrifice of
another child if they have one. And they do this on the
anniversary of when they first pledged allegiance to him.
Clots describes the devil as having a body like glass that
does not block the rays of the sun.
(08:59):
Is that before or after he takesthe form of the creature that
the witch would prefer? That's so fascinating, I don't
know. It is so fascinating.
It's once like I picture it happening at the same time that
he is more or less. He's like translucent.
Like you can see through him a little bit, but not all the way.
(09:23):
Sunlight comes through him, but you can still see his figure.
He's an ephemeral being. One interesting thing that these
witches do that Claude Thalosin talks about is they kind of go
on field trips from the synagogue.
The devil takes them out to other people's houses, people's
(09:46):
houses that have fine things, good wine, you know, good food.
They go to these places, he opens up the doors for them, the
troop goes in, they eat and drink whatever they find in the
house that they like, and then they perform all kinds of wicked
things that Claude doesn't really describe.
(10:07):
So then the witches and a bunch of demons get together and have
a dance party to some musical instrument that also isn't, it's
not described the musical instrument, just that there is a
musical instrument that they danced to.
So while this is going on, the chief devil of the whole region,
(10:32):
however, the devils have carved up the world and they have
their, you know, diocese or province or whatever they call
these regions. The chief devil is there, he
sits on a throne and the witchescome up and pay him reverence,
and they give their reports of their wicked deeds like they did
(10:52):
at the synagogue with that devil.
So they're not reporting on eachother.
They're reporting with pride what they've what they.
Did exactly. They're like, hey, I tripped
this boy the other day or hey, Ipoisoned this pot of Stew.
It's like we did all this. Allegedly by Claude.
(11:16):
This is according to Claude. According to Claude the Lozen,
who had 10 years of experience working on this, he says his
experience would have been from about 1426 to 1436.
And unfortunately, not all of the records of these witch
trials survive. These witches, they make
(11:37):
poisonous powders. They get poisons from
apothecaries, probably rat poison in that kind of thing,
Pesticides and herbicides. They mix that together with more
urine from a devil and other poisons that they get from
(11:57):
animals and plants. When they apply these poisons to
their enemies, they themselves become invisible, so the enemy
doesn't see them applying the poison.
This enemy of theirs, their target, they get sick right away
and either they linger and die, or they just die instantly.
(12:22):
Well that sounds like 100% of deaths.
You are correct, you definitely aren't wrong.
Everybody either lingers sick orthey just die right away.
But sometimes these afflictions would appear as ulcers.
Another concoction that they make is intended to make women
(12:44):
infertile and also to drive people insane.
And they use a long Thistle moredevil P.
They're really obsessed with this and what they call the Cox
egg. As you will know, Roosters don't
lay eggs. But these were small, yokeless
(13:04):
eggs that sometimes were laid and people didn't understand
what they were. So they just call them Cox eggs
and they use these in a concoction to make women
infertile because they were really obsessed with not being
fruitful and multiplying. All the descriptions of the bee
(13:27):
shaviour, the sacrilege of thesealleged witches.
This perceptions been going on for hundreds of years before the
affliction of the sandwich. Trials also describe a Sabbath.
So now that we've told you a story of a Sabbath, let's talk
about the history of how the Sabbath theory came about.
(13:50):
OK, back in the medieval period,maleficium existed.
Bad magic, harmful magic existedin people's minds, but they
didn't associate it with group activities like a Sabbath.
That didn't exist in the medieval period.
There didn't believe that witches were an organized sect
(14:12):
or that they were part of a diabolical conspiracy that yes,
witchcraft might be bad, but it wasn't involving the devil or
demons, so it wasn't that bad. Anyways, along come the 1430s
and we're here in the Western Alps, so southeastern France,
(14:37):
western Switzerland, northwestern Italy, and witch
trials are happening within the Inquisitions.
So hundreds of people are being brought in for trial in these
areas in the early 15th century,and people start to write about
(14:59):
what's happening at these witchcraft trials and what the
witches supposed witches are confessing under great torture.
So think about that when you're hearing these accounts.
The witches were highly under duress, in a lot of pain and
just saying whatever they thought that the people wanted
(15:21):
to hear. And as we know from the Salem
witch trials, the judges like toask leading questions and
probably steered people down some of these roads.
And then after that, just word of mouth about what was said
spread around, and people knew what to confess to.
(15:46):
We want to talk just briefly about these writings in the
1430s. There are five major writings
that talk about Sabbaths, and one thing that's interesting is
that none of them use the word Sabbath.
They use the word synagogue, like in our story or assembly.
(16:08):
So Sabbath doesn't actually comeup until the 17th century.
By the way, the first account that happens is written in 1429
or 1430 by a man named Hans Pruned.
And it tell us about a series ofwitch trials in Valet Canton,
(16:30):
which is now in southwestern Switzerland but hadn't joined
the Swiss Confederation yet at that point in time.
And when he wrote this, witchcraft trials have been
going on for about a year and a half.
They started in 1428 and more than 100 people were executed
(16:50):
for witchcraft according to HansFreund.
He even in towards the end that number grows to more than 200.
So like we said, the records aren't very thorough what's
survived to today's. So an estimate of 100 or more
people is probably right. And these witch trials went on
(17:15):
until at least 1436. So even after Hans had written
this, but you know, we talked before about the whole church
and state thing and how Claude Fellowsen thought witches had
committed treason against the king of France.
Well, Hans Freund thought that the witches given a little bit
(17:39):
more time, without these trials happening, they would have been
able to raise up a king from among their number.
That's how numerous and powerfulthey were.
It's so hard to decide which writing title is my favorite
because every time we dig into history, I'm so fascinated by
(18:00):
the titles. But this one's pretty good.
So 1/3 writing from the 1430s. Those who are proven to write on
a broom or staff, that's pretty good.
It was anonymous. It was called a Roy's
Gazariorium, Errors of a Gazarie, and it is presumed to
have been written by a church recorder and likely connected to
(18:23):
a series of witch trials in the Valdosta in northwest Italy,
possibly written by Franciscan inquisitor Passe Cigaran.
Among the other juicy and salacious details that we get
about the Sabbath in this account is this bizarre twist.
(18:46):
OK, so these witches, when they go to their synagogue or
assembly, they find a redheaded Catholic.
So a non witch, true believer inthe Catholic faith, redheaded.
So they take this poor redheadedCatholic, they bind him to a
(19:07):
bench, surround him with poisonous animals like snakes
and toads and lizards that they think are poisonous.
And they have all these poisonous animals bite the
victim repeatedly until the victim dies a very painful
death. Then they hang the body by its
(19:30):
feet. They place a glass under the
mouth to catch the poison dripping out of the mouth along
with any impurities coming out of the body with the poison.
Then they take this poison and impurities, they mix it up with
(19:51):
the fat of those who hanged on gibbets very specifically, and
innards of children and also poisonous animals.
And so they've got this part, you know, red headed Catholic,
ungent, that kills any person instantly on contact.
(20:14):
I'm speechless. I was just thinking how you
couldn't come up with AI mean it's anonymous but I'm like with
panic about satanic rituals and behaviors that are happening in
modern times or in recent centuries.
This is 1437 and these stories were circulating.
(20:39):
Yeah, it's so the creativity, the imagination to come up with
something like that. Very particular, very
particular. Another influential work to come
out in the 1430s was for Macarius or the Anthill, written
by Johannes Nieder, starting in either 1436 or 1437 and
(21:04):
completed in 1438. Unfortunately for Nieder, that's
the year that he died also, so he didn't get to witness the
effects of his writing. And Formicarius features an
account by a man named Peter of Byrne about witch trials that
happened in Byrne in Switzerland.
(21:27):
And this is the western part of Switzerland, so it's fits with
our western arc here if we're thinking about Switzerland,
France and Italy on the side of the house.
And one thing that's notable about Meter is he was the first
clerical writer, not just in this little niche genre about
(21:52):
witchcraft, but in any genre. He was the first to explicitly
state that women were more likely to become witches than
men were. Now in his account, he does talk
about male witches and female witches, but he says that women
are more prone to be seduced into witchcraft.
(22:14):
For more on The Formicarius and Johannes Nieder and Peter Byrne,
check out our devil episodes that we recently did with
Richard Raiswell. He talks some link about this
work here and what it meant for the definition of witch and
(22:35):
witchcraft. In the last writing that we're
going to talk about from this era, the Vaudry of Lyon.
It is anonymous, likely written by a Dominican inquisitor.
The Vaudry of Lyon describes which activity around the city
of Lyon in southeast France, andit Pete's a very disturbing
(22:57):
image of a monstrous devil, and I'm going to paint that for you
right now. The devil cunningly deceiving
these wretched people always presents himself to them visibly
in a horrible form, as they themselves confess, sometimes in
the form of a very repulsive manthat is black, completely
covered with hair and bristles with thorns, and also having a
(23:20):
monstrous drawn out in twisted shape.
He has bulging eyes, larger thanany animal known to us, flashing
and emitting flame and constantly rolling about, A big
and crooked nose, exposed ears set high up, emitting and
sending forth fire, a gaping mouth twisted upward on both
(23:40):
sides and extending all the way to his ears.
That sounds like Pogo the cloud.I was thinking about the Joker
with Jack Nicholson. A tongue striking far out, A
chin monstrously stretched and bent back terribly to the other
side of his throat. A neck long beyond measure so
(24:01):
that it juts out horribly, or too short, so that looks like
his head is drawing directly to his shoulders.
A chest, belly, and other such parts inconceivably deformed.
Finally, all along his arms and hands, as well as his legs and
feet, hooks and long spines stick out, and the digits of his
hands and feet bear terrible claws in the matter of Griffins
(24:25):
or bears or lions. Sometimes, in fact, the demon is
accustomed to appear to them in the form and likeness of some
beast, but always unclean, foul,and extremely vile, such as a
goat, fox, large dog, ram, wolf,cat, badger, bull, bear, monkey,
or something else of this sort, as these perverted people
(24:47):
confess. Wow, that's some description of
the devil. I have so many questions, but
like, how is fire coming out of the eyes and ears?
It's very like, I mean, this guy, if you saw this in the
middle of the night, oh man, just collapse on the spot.
(25:12):
If you want to read more on thishistory, read Michael D Bailey's
Origins of the Witch's Sabbath. Excellent book, highly recommend
it. It's got excerpts from these
writings so you can see the accounts first hand for
yourself. And that's available in our
bookshop. Yes.
Bookshop.org/shop slash and witch hunts.
(25:38):
Yay. So talk briefly about the
impacts of these accounts and also a little bit about what
they're based upon. These accounts cause both
secular and religious authorities to fear this
organized sect of witches. As we talked about before, both
(26:00):
the church and the state were vulnerable now to this powerful
group that could undermine theirauthority or outright depose
them. The witches posed an existential
threat now to Christendom beforethis diabolical pack and this
coming together in these gatherings there wasn't a fear
(26:21):
that witches could bring down the church in the state because
which is usually acted alone. And these gatherings you can
tell based on the original name for them synagogue.
They are based on anti Jewish stereotypes from the Middle Ages
(26:42):
and they're also based on imagined gatherings of heretics.
Now we'll regale you with tales of witches Sabbath from New
England, from the Salem witch trials.
In fact, in the Salem witch trials, the first six weeks or
(27:03):
so from the accusation of Tiba Sir Good at Sarah Osborne, those
first six weeks or so go by and the witches are mostly working
individually or in very small groups.
But come April 11th, that changes because during the
(27:25):
examination of Sarah Klois and Elizabeth Proctor, Abigail
Williams is questioned about a meeting that she was known to
have observed. So this one, the April 11th
hearing, is the one that Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth
(27:46):
presides over, and Samuel Sewellis here.
And Deputy Governor Danforth, hedoesn't become a part of the
Salem court, but Samuel Sewell does.
So you also have here, of course, John Hathorne and
Jonathan Corwin as magistrates. So it's not clear who asks this
(28:10):
question, but the question is asked by one of these judges,
peoples, Judge peoples. One of these judicial types asks
this question. It might have been Hathorne
because he asked all the questions in the other
preliminary examinations, he goes, Abigail Williams, did you
(28:33):
see a company at Mr. Paris's house?
Eat and drink. And she says, yes, Sir, that was
their sacrament. How many were there?
About 40. And goody Klois and goody good
were there. Deacons, What was it?
They said it was our blood and they had it twice that day.
(28:54):
So here we are with the first Sabbath.
It's not referred to as a Sabbath.
It's referred to as a company eating and drinking, and it's at
Samuel Paris's pasture, and it'sinvolving 40 witches, including
deacons, seraclois and seracood.And we get this detail, which
(29:21):
only comes up this one time, that the witches used the blood
of the afflicted in their concoctions that they consumed
at these meetings or assemblies or companies.
Next person to talk about the witches gatherings in Salem is
Abigail Hobbs. And she's a confessed witch.
(29:45):
And she's Sarah's favorite. She is, I just, she has no shame
in her friendship with the deviland sorry, she shocks.
I mean, we're shocked by the Salem story, but she was in the
story telling the shocking stuffto her community.
(30:06):
So I just, you know, think that's so great.
Except for that, except for thather accusations, of course, were
hurting innocent people. That is not great.
No. And she really stuck to her
accusations, and even though sheknew what was happening to them
and what happened to herself, she actually ends up getting
(30:31):
condemned to die after she's convicted.
Even though she was a confessor.She does get condemned to die,
but she gets a last minute reprieve from the governor.
Let's hear her story. So Abigail Hobbs, she talks very
briefly about this witch meetingthat she was at in Paris's
(30:52):
pasture. That's how we know it was the
pasture at his house where they had this meeting.
And she talks about them having red bread and red wine.
So yes, red bread just like that.
They would break red bread. Presumably it's red because of
blood, but they don't specify. The red wine does later get
(31:17):
specified is blood wine. So then three days after Abigail
tells the story, her stepmother,Deliverance Hobbs tells a story.
On April 23rd, she's being examined in the Salem prison by
the judges and she talks about awitch meeting that happened just
(31:37):
the day before April 22nd, whichsomehow she must have travelled
to from the prison because she was already under arrest.
As we mentioned, Chichiba had mentioned that there were 9
witches in the area that included Sarah Good and Sarah
Osborne, but she didn't know theother seven well.
(31:59):
Deliverance Hobbes finds another7 plus the original Sarah Good
and Sarah Osborne. So she finds a total of nine
people at this witch meeting. She recognizes our John Proctor,
Elizabeth Proctor, Rebecca Nurse, Giles Corey, Martha
Corey, Bridget Bishop, Sarah Osborne, Sarah Good, and Sarah
(32:23):
Wildes. SO3 Sarahs, Sarah, A lot of
Sarahs just got to say. They're always in trouble.
And another thing that these nine people have in common is
they all died when they shouldn't have.
In 1692 they were either hanged or Giles Corey was pressed to
(32:49):
death with stones and Sarah Osborne died in jail.
So none of them made it through this unscathed, but they had all
already been accused at the timethat Deliverance is mentioning
them. He, of course, says the
ringleader is the minister, George Burroughs, who'd been
(33:12):
accused. He also ends up executed.
Yeah, so everybody. She names parishes.
And so George Burrows was the preacher there.
He pressed the witches to bewitch everybody in the
village, but to do it gradually.Then he gave the red bread and
(33:37):
red wine to Sarah Wildes, who distributed it while he presided
over the version of witch communion, whatever the witches
would have called. There's also a detail here that
George Burrows sits at a table in the Samuel Paris's pasture,
(33:59):
and next to him is a mysterious man in a long crowned white hat.
And the man in the long crowned white hat is filling tankards
with this blood wine. Goody Wilds was the one who gave
notice of the meeting deliverance.
Hobbes claimed in her confessionthat she refused to eat or drink
(34:22):
this blood, bread and wine, and then she was harassed by the
other witches who all did consume themselves.
A mysterious detail emerges in this testimony.
Abigail Williams, Afflicted girl, comes out and talks to
somebody, but Deliverance Hobbesis blinded at just that moment,
(34:48):
and she doesn't know who she talks to.
Sarah Wiles, who had distributedthe bread and wine, also
pressured Deliverance Hobbes to sign the Devil's Book in
exchange for some clothing. It's obvious the Salem gathering
of alleged witches was just as detailed as a century old tales.
(35:10):
A lot of these details in the Salem accounts were borrowed
from these earlier accounts that, you know, kept being
repeated over the centuries. The same stories of which is
Sabbath's were repeated in Europe, and word of that got
over to New England. And here it comes out in these
(35:33):
stories when they're being pressed to confess.
A final thing that I'll mention is that as these stories went
along, as more and more people were being accused, the number
of witches at these meetings grew and grew and grew.
So you had Abigail Williams with40, then you had 100 people when
(35:55):
Mary Lacey Junior told the story, and you had 200 people
soon after that, and 300 people.And people were coming in from
Connecticut for these meetings. And again, it's always described
as a meeting, a company in assembly, not a Sabbath.
That's a term that we apply to it because that's what we
(36:19):
understand is the witch's Sabbath.
So the Sabbath became such an important part of the stories of
witches, the lore. It was what was expected to be
told in court and during questioning, and it became a big
(36:42):
piece of the evidence against these witches was them going to
the Sabbath? Because that set up the
connection to Satan, to making the witchcraft diabolical, and
to the Satanic pact and to this grand satanic conspiracy to
(37:03):
destroy Christendom. And we see that very clearly
expressed in the writings of Cotton Mather about the Salem
witch trials when he talks aboutthe devil.
And this is also in some of the records themselves.
They talk about the devil and the witches wanting to destroy
(37:23):
Christ's church and set up the devil's Kingdom in its place,
and this crucial link to this overwhelming existential threat
to society, to religion, to politics.
This overriding apocalyptic threat was just so scary that
(37:51):
this is what led to the excessesof the witch hunts.
Everybody was so afraid that there was this massive
conspiracy out there. At least the elites were afraid
of this terror, petrified. And that's why they kept saying,
you, rich, you've been at these meetings.
Tell us who else was there. We want you to name names.
(38:15):
And then we go after those people and they name names and
we go after those people. And you see how this quickly
spiraled out of control.
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