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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in sabbat
Murray Revisited, or Throwing Out the Baby with the Broth Water

Yeah, yeah, I've read the books, I've heard the arguments, I know all about flawed methodology and bogus historiography. Who takes Murray seriously these days, anyway?

An important element is missing here. People believed Murray's theories for years because they're convincing. They have the ring of likeliness to them.

OK, here we are, medieval peasants. Life is hard. We work our butts off sun-up to sun-down nearly every day, and in a good year we raise enough to get us through to the next harvest. Often enough, we don't, and then we starve. Even in good years, the seigneur and the priest have automatic authority over pretty much every aspect of our lives.

We grew up hearing fireside stories, half-remembered, about the Old Ways and the Guy with the Horns. Yeah, I know Father Guillemet says he's bad, but the priest doesn't know everything, anyone can see that. He's a priest, what does he know about real life?

What is more likely than that on the old days you'd go off to the bonfire in the woods, get drunk, dance and screw your neighbor's wife (or husband) in the bushes? Pleasure is rare enough in life, and you have to take it when you can get it. And part of the fun is poking fun at Authority, especially Authority—like the church—about which you really can't help but feel a certain amount of ambivalence. Mix bits and pieces of decayed paganism with the only rituals that you know—those of the church—and voilà: spontaneous folk-diabolism.

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  • Francesca De Grandis
    Francesca De Grandis says #
    Amen!
  • Sylvie Kaos
    Sylvie Kaos says #
    My sentiments exactly!

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Meet-Up at the Toad Corral

Here in the Midwestern US, 2015 is a sabbatic year. At the beginning of harvest, the tribe of Witches will once again foregather in immemorial Grand Sabbat.

But while the adults are busy kissing the Devil's ass (makes the herds fertile), having promiscuous sex (makes the crops grow), and eating ragoût de bébé non baptisé (tastes great), what about the kids? Once they've been presented to the Devil but before they're old enough to join in the fun, what to do? Kids and rituals: the perennial problem.

When in doubt, consult ancestral precedent. The Basque witches came up with a neat solution.

As I'm sure I don't need to tell you, after the Devil f**ks the bejesus out of you and nips your shoulder, to seal the deal he gives you your very own toad to be your intimate familiar. You suckle it (blood's OK if you don't happen to be lactating at the time) and sew little outfits for it, and in return it helps out with all your spells.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Osculum Infame

Warning: Contains material some readers may find offensive.

You've heard the stories. Do you know what those wacky-ass witches do at their sabbats? They actually kiss the Devil's hairy bung-hole: the Kiss in tergo, as the chroniclers coyly put it.

Ah, yes: the osculum infame, “the notorious kiss,” as it's known. You might think that this is one of the parts of medieval witchery that didn't quite make it to the modern witchcraft revival, but I think that you'd be wrong on that count. Twelve'll get you thirteen that the good old Kiss from Behind is ancestral to the Book of Shadows' Fivefold Kiss. Breathes there a Wiccan who would admit it, though? 

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Perimede
    Perimede says #
    Well, I've certainly been colder than the North slope of one. Can't wait.
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Perimede, I'm going to be quoting you on that one: thanks. Wait till you see the one on "witches' tits"!
  • Perimede
    Perimede says #
    (lol) Opening your blog in the morning is like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates. Ya' never know what you're going to get. But i

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

Holidays are not my thing.  If you come to my house, you won’t see cute fall leaves (unless they are on the ground) or other holiday decorations.  It has never been my thing.  It seems like a lot of effort for little meaning or return. 

Halloween has a lot of mischief, candy, horror movies, and bad images for witches.  Even as a child I didn’t like this holiday.  As an adult and a Pagan, I’ve found other ways to honor the season. 

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Grand Sabbat: Naming

The Horned One holds the baby in his arms.

He sits on the altar, cross-legged, shining in the firelight, each tine of his branching antlers tipped with its own delicate bud of flame. He holds the child to his chest, as if suckling him. Not everyone is privileged to drink from the breast of the witches' god. It is a promise, the ancient gesture of adoption.

He rises to his feet, towering—his horns reach up to heaven—and holds the infant out to the assembled people.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
The Old Worship

The morning after our first Grand Sabbat, a friend approached, a little hesitantly.

“That was you in the horns and the paint up on the altar last night?”

I pause, then smile and nod.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
The Flame Between the Horns

In Old Craft iconography, the Old Master is sometimes depicted as a horned (or antlered) skull with a flame between its horns. He is thus the Flammifer, the líht-bera, the Lucifer.

The image takes its origin from Continental trials; French witches frequently deposed that the Devil appeared at the sabbat in the form of a He-Goat with a candle burning between his horns. This is how Jeanne Bosdeau saw him at the Puy de Dôme in 1594. The witches would then light their own tapers or torches (as we still do) from the god's fire: the Lord of the Sabbat giving illumination to his people.

The witch-fire is the power of life that burns in each of us. It is said to be threefold: the fire in the head, the fire in the heart, and the fire in the loins.

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