History of Witchery In Europe

During the medieval centuries, the average man believed in many things that today we think would be absurd. They believed that a deserted mistress
could use sorcery to take revenge on him if he married another, or if a scorned woman tied three knots during his wedding, he would become
impotent, just to name a couple. During this time many people would dabble in sorcery, including clergymen and many other educated individuals
because they were the only one's that could read the old magic books.

Then in the fourteenth century the view of witchcraft began to change and numerous incidents started to spring up where lynch mobs of people would
hunt down suspected witches, torture and killed them. Among the countries that would have this homicidal hatred for witches and the occult were
France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Scotland, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. The fear of the "witches" (pagans and other pre-
Christians) was started by the church in attempt to gain power over the people that it craved encompassing all aspects of peoples lives and beliefs.
Paganism was still apart of life because many simply refused to change their beliefs to the new religion Christianity, but they were not feared as they
soon would become. It was a problem for the church that the Pagans would not switch their religion because of the worship of other gods and
goddesses.

Assimilation of Paganism into the Church

Since the Pagans were the only other religion keeping the church from having ultimate power, and the church could not completely stop their
activities, the church tried to incorporate them into their calendar. This included a few different festivals including the Celtic festival of the dead,
Samhain (Halloween), but to draw attention away from this holiday, they created All Saint's Day the day after. Christmas Eve came from the Roman
holiday Saturnalis.

This assimilation of Pagan's into the Church failed which created further desperation for the church, so they declared all the pagan gods and
goddesses to be demons or devil worship. In attempt to make witches (pagans), horrible vial people that were against Christianity, the Christians
came up with anything completely obscene and inconceivable and said it was done by the witches. These activities varied from kissing a cat under
its tail to having intercourse with the devil to murdering babies and eating their flesh.

The worshiping of any of these devils would lead to death. To this point witchcraft was never associated with serving or worshiping the devil. The
quote from a Canon "Some wicked women, turning back to Satan and seduced by the illusions and phantoms of demons, believe and openly avow
that in the hours of night they ride upon certain beasts, together with Diana, goddess of the pagans, and a numberless multitude of other women"
shows the assimilation of pagans becoming evil in the eyes of the church."

At first the midnight rides through the night sky, and transformations into creatures were first thought to be illusions in peoples heads created by
Satan himself. Later theologians began to believe that these acts really did take place. Then the development of witchcraft's evil grew worse. People
started to view witches almost with harpy-like qualities where they would become a wraith at night leaving their husbands to sleep and they would
pass through locked doors and kill and eat humans by removing their hearts and replacing them with straw. They also believed that they could
transform themselves into succubus, a beautiful phantom that is unsatisfiable when it comes to sex, and they would rape men while they lay in bed.

Rites were then developed in which you could become a witch. There were several different ways, but a twelfth century cleric named Walter Map
described it as follows. They would meet at a known home where everything was locked tight, and then after a period of silent meditation, the Devil
himself would appear as a giant black cat that would descend on a rope from the ceiling. Then the group would recite evil chants, and kiss the cat in
obscene places namely its genitals, under the tail, and its filthy feet. This would be followed with an orgy. In other versions of these meetings the
devil might appear as a goat, toad, black man, or other devilish forms. The celebrants would then engage in sex with no discretion of sex, familial
relationship, or age. They would violate other commandments such as dancing and gluttony including feasting on limbs of children that they had
murdered. These rites would later become known as a sabbat, stemming from the Jewish Sabbath, which Christians at this time viewed Judaism
almost as evil as Paganism. Of course since the church was trying to isolate themselves from religions, and frighten people into Christianity,
anything immoral would be then called Pagan.

Eventually the church started saying that they included spitting on the cross, denouncing god and Christ, and pledging their devotion to Satan. To
further show the complete transformation of the Church turning Paganism into Satanism, they even said they had their own version of confession.
Instead of going to confession to be forgiven for your sins they had meeting where they would talk about their most recent evil achievements to brag
not to ask for forgiveness.

Witchery in Europe