cannibals and that their dinner was an orgy of human
flesh, cooked and garnished as only the Devil knew how.
Actually, the supper common to all sabbats was a simple
meal of pedestrian food.
The whole notion of cannibalism and sacrifice has
been stubbornly, persistently, and purposely misunderstood. There is no evidence that any living child was killed to be eaten, or that any living child was sacrificed. There is evidence that sometimes dead infants were ritually eaten, or used in ritual. Cannibalism,
and its not so symbolic substitute, animal sacrifice, was
a vital part of the ritual of all early religions, including the Jewish one. The witches participated in this tradition rather modestly: they generally sacrificed a
goat or a hen. It was the Christians who developed and
extended the Old World system of sacrifice and cannibalism to almost surreal ends: Christ, the sacrificial lamb, who died an agonizing death on the cross to
ensure forgiveness of men’s sins and whose followers
symbolically, even today, eat of his flesh and drink of
his blood — what is the Eucharist if not fossilized cannibalism?
The final activity of the sabbat was a phallic orgy —
heathen, drug-abetted, communal sex. The sex of the
sabbat is distinguished by descriptions of pain. It was
said that intercourse was painful, that the phallus of the
Gynocide: The Witches
145
masked coven leader was cold and oversized, that no
woman ever conceived. It would seem that the horned
figure used an artificial phallus and could service all
the celebrants. T h e Old Religion, as opposed to the
Christian religion, celebrated sexuality, fertility, nature
and woman's place in it, and communal sex was a logical
and most sacral rite.
T h e worship o f animals is also indigenous to nature-
based religious systems. Early people existed among
animals, scarcely distinct from them. Through religious
ritual, people differentiated themselves from animals
and gave honor to them —they were food, sustenance.
There was a respect for the natural world — people were
hunter and hunted simultaneously. T heir perspective
was acute. T hey worshiped the spirit and power they
saw manifest in the carnivore world o f which they were
an integral part. When man began to be “civilized, ” to
separate himself out o f nature, to place himself over
and above woman (he became Mind, she became Carnality) and other animals, he began to seek power over nature, magical control. The witch cults still had a
strong sense o f people as part o f nature, and animals
maintained a prime place in both ritual and consciousness for the witches. The Christians, who had a profound and compulsive hatred for the natural world, thought
that the witches, through malice and a lust for power
(pure projection, no doubt), had mobilized nature/animals into a robotlike anti-Christian army. T h e witch hunters were convinced that toads, rats, dogs, cats,
mice, etc., took orders from witches, carried curses from
one farm to another, caused death, hysteria, and disease. They thought that nature was one massive, crawl
146
Woman Hating
ing conspiracy against them, and that the conspiracy
was organized and controlled by the wicked women.
They can in fact be credited with pioneering the politics
of total paranoia —they developed the classic model for
that particular pathology which has, as its logical consequence, genocide. Their methods of dealing with the witch menace were developed empirically— they had a
great respect for what worked. For instance, when they
suspected a woman of witchcraft, they would lock her
in an empty room for several days or weeks and if any
living creature, any insect or spider, entered that room,
that creature was identified as the woman's familiar,
and she was proved guilty of witchcraft. Naturally,
given the fact that bugs are everywhere, particularly
in the woodwork, this test of guilt always worked.
Cats were particularly associated with witches. That
association is based on the ancient totemic significance
of the cat:
It is well known that to the Egyptians cats were
sacred. They were regarded as incarnations of Isis
and there was also a cat deity.. . . Through Osiris
(Ra) they were associated with the sun; the rays of the
“solar cat, ” who was portrayed as killing the “serpent
of darkness” at each dawn, were believed to produce
fecundity in Nature, and thus cats were figures of
fertility.. . . Cats were also associated with Hathor,
a cow-headed goddess, and hence with crops and
rain.. . .
Still stronger, however, was the association of the
cat with the moon, and thus she was a virgin goddess —
a virgin-mother incarnation. In her character as moon-
goddess she was inviolate and self-renewing. . . the
circle she forms in a curled-up position [is seen as] the
symbol for eternity, an unending re-creation. 29
Gynocide: The Witches
147
T h e Christians not only converted the horned god into
Satan, but also the sacred cat into a demonic incarnation. T h e witches, in accepting familiars and particularly in their special feeling for cats, only participated in an
ancient tradition which had as its substance love and
respect for the natural world.
It was also believed that the witch could transform
herself into a cat or other animal. This notion, called
lycanthropy, is twofold:
. . . either the belief that a witch or devil-ridden person
temporarily assumes an animal form, to ravage or
destroy; or, that they create an animal “double” in
which, leaving the lifeless human body at home, he or
she can wander, terrorize, or batten on mankind. 30
T h e origins o f the belief in lycanthropy can be traced
to group rituals in which celebrants, costumed as animals, recreated animal movements, sounds, even hunting patterns. As group ritual, those celebrations would be prehistorical. The witches themselves, through the
use o f belladonna, aconite, and other drugs, felt that
they did become animals. * The effect o f the belief in
lycanthropy on the general population was electric: a
stray dog, a wild cat, a rat, a toad —all were witches,
agents o f Satan, bringing with them drought, disease,
death. Any animal in the environment was dangerous,
demonic. The legend o f the werewolf (popularized in
the Red Riding Hood fable) caused terror. At Labout,
*
For a contem porary account o f lycanthropy, I would suggest The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, by Carlos Castaneda (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968), pp. 170-84.