The Witches' Sabbath: What Actually Happened (And What Was Invented)

The Witches' Sabbath: What Actually Happened (And What Was Invented)

From ANGELA'S SYMPOSIUM 📖 Academic Study on Witchcraft, Paganism, esotericism, magick and the Occult by Dr Angela Puca

May 17, 2026 · 44 min

About this episode

This episode explores the historical origins and misconceptions surrounding the Witches' Sabbath, tracing its evolution through various cultural lenses.

What if everything you think you know about the Witches' Sabbath is wrong? The broomsticks, the Devil, the midnight orgies on remote mountaintops: this image has haunted the Western imagination for nearly six hundred years. But where did it actually come from? Was it an inquisitorial fantasy imposed from above? A distortion of real folk traditions of spirit-flight and nocturnal procession? A recycled conspiracy theory older than Christianity itself? Or something stranger than any of those? In this video I trace the Sabbath from its origins in a handful of Alpine witch trials in the 1430s, through the great demonological texts of the early modern period, to its reinvention by romantics, feminists, and modern practitioners who know the image was constructed and use it anyway. I cover the Cohn vs Ginzburg debate that still organises the field, the Friulian benandanti who fought witches in their sleep, the antisemitic roots of the word "sabbath" itself, Margaret Murray's influential and almost entirely wrong witch-cult hypothesis, and why the Wheel of the Year is a twentieth-century invention. I also look at where the term "esbat" actually comes from (spoiler: not…

People in this episode

Host: Dr Angela Puca

Topics covered

  • Witches' Sabbath
  • witch trials
  • demonology
  • folk traditions
  • historical analysis
  • esotericism
  • modern paganism

Keywords

  • Witches' Sabbath
  • witch trials
  • demonological texts
  • folk traditions
  • esbat
  • Wild Hunt
  • Margaret Murray
  • Cohn vs Ginzburg
  • Wheel of the Year

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Wheel of the Year

Places: Alpine, Friuli, Italy

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