I. 13) “Whether Witches are actually and bodily conveyed from place

to place to attend their Sabbats”; and lays down: “The opinion which many who follow Luther & Melancthon hold is that Witches only assist at these assemblies in their imagination, & that they are choused by some trick of the devil, in support of which argument the objectors assert that the Witches have very often been seen lying in one spot and not moving thence. Moreover, what is related in the life of S. Germain is not impertinent in this connexion, to wit, when certain women declared that they had been present at a banquet, & yet all the while they slumbered and slept, as several persons attested. That women of this kind are very often deceived in such a way is certain; but that they are always so deceived is by no means sure.... The alternative opinion, which personally I hold most strongly, is that sometimes at any rate Witches are actually conveyed from one place to another by the Devil, who under the bodily form of a goat or some other unclean & monstrous animal himself carries them, & that they are verily and indeed present at their foul midnight Sabbats. This opinion is that generally held by the authoritative Theologians and Master Jurisprudists of Italy and Spain, as also by the Catholic divines and legalists. The majority of writers, indeed, advance this view, for example, Torquemada in his commentary on Grilland, Remy, S. Peter Damian, Silvester of Abula, Tommaso de Vio Gaetani, Alfonso de Castro, Sisto da Siena, O.P., Père Crespet, Bartolomeo Spina in his glosses on Ponzinibio, Lorenzo Anania, and a vast number of others, whose names for brevity’s sake I here omit.”[61] This seems admirably to sum up the whole matter. In the encyclopædic treatise _De Strigibus_[62] by an earlier authority, Bernard of Como, the following remarkable passage occurs: “The aforesaid abominable wretches actually & awake & in full enjoyment of their normal senses attend these assemblies or rather orgies, and when they are to go to some spot hard by they proceed thither on foot, cheerily conversing as they walk. If, however, they are to meet in some distant place then are they conveyed by the Devil, yet by whatsoever means they proceed to the said place whether it be on foot or whether they are borne along by the Devil, it is most certain that their journey is real and actual, and not imaginary. Nor are they labouring under any delusion when they deny the Catholic Faith, worship and adore the Devil, tread upon the Cross of Christ, outrage the Most Blessed Sacrament, and give themselves up to filthy and unhallowed copulations, fornicating with the Devil himself who appears to them in a human form, being used by the men as a succubus, & carnally serving the woman as an incubus.”[63] The conclusion then is plain and proven. The witches do actually and individually attend the Sabbat, an orgy of blasphemy and obscenity. Whether they go thither on foot, or horseback, or by some other means is a detail, which in point of fact differs according to the several and infinitely varied circumstances. It is not denied that in some cases hallucination and self-deception played a large part, but such examples are comparatively speaking few in number, and these, moreover, were carefully investigated and most frequently recognized by the judges and divines. Thus in the _Malleus Maleficarum_ Sprenger relates that a woman, who had voluntarily surrendered herself to be examined as being a witch, confessed to the Dominican fathers that she nightly assisted at the Sabbat, and that neither bolts nor bars could prevent her from flying to the infernal revels. Accordingly she was shut fast under lock and key in a chamber whence it was impossible for her to escape, and all the while carefully watched by lynx-eyed officers through a secret soupirail. These reported that immediately the door was closed she threw herself on the bed where in a moment she was stretched out perfectly rigid in all her members. Select members of the tribunal, grave and acute doctors, entered the room. They shook her, gently at first, but presently with considerable roughness. She remained immobile and insensible. She was pinched and pulled sharply. At last a lighted candle was brought and placed near her naked foot until the flesh was actually scorched in the flame. She lay stockish and still, dumb and motionless as a stone. After a while her senses returned to her. She sat up and related in exact detail the happenings at the Sabbat she had attended, the place, the number of the company, the rites, what was spoken, all that was done, and then she complained of a hurt upon her foot. Next day the fathers explained to her all that had passed, how that she had never stirred from the spot, and that the pain arose from the taper which to ensure the experiment had been brought in contact with her flesh. They admonished her straightly but with paternal charity, and upon the humble confession of her error and a promise to guard against any such ill fantasies for the future, a suitable penance was prescribed and the woman dismissed. In the celebrated cases investigated by Henri Boguet, June, 1598, young George Gandillon confessed to having walked to the Sabbat at a deserted spot called Fontenelles, near the village of Nezar, and also to having ridden to the Sabbat. Moreover, in his indictment the following occurs: “George Gandillon, one Good Friday night, lay in his bed, rigid as a corpse, for the space of three hours, & then on a sudden came to himself. He has since been burned alive here with his father & his sister.”[64] Since Boguet, who is one of our chief authorities, discusses the Sabbat with most copious details in his _Discours des Sorciers_ it will not be impertinent to give here the headings and subdivisions of his learned and amply documented chapters.[65]