Lynn Picknett - The Secret History of Lucifer - And the Meaning of the True Da Vinci Code

If an obvious witch's mark was neither found nor fabricated through the use of the retractable bodkin, there was still no likelihood of the accused escaping. When Bavarian witch-hunter Jorg Abriel failed to find the incriminating mark, he simply announced that the woman looked like a witch and then tortured her until she confessed.70

(The Devil's mark can be seen - and no doubt was by Summers and his like - as the satanic mockery of the stigmata, the marks of Jesus' crucifixion that have been witnessed to appear on the side, head, feet and hands of the Catholic devout, and are often associated with sainthood. For example, the Franciscan Capuchin monk Padre Pio of Pietrelcina [d. 1968, aged eighty-one], who was said to have bled from his miraculously wounded hands every day for fifty years and worked many miracles, was canonized by Pope John Paul II on 16 June 2002. However, the phenomenon of stigmata raises some interesting questions: as it is impossible to crucify a man by hammering nails through his palms, as depicted in most religious works of art - the skin would tear and he would fall to the ground - why do stigmatics usually bleed from their palms?)

However, to the Inquisition, the Devil's marks were proof of the greatest sin of all, visiting the Sabbat where they made a pact with the Devil himself. According to received wisdom about such matters, the individual members of a local coven would slip out at night - perhaps leaving their spouses asleep in the marital bed, all innocent of the enormity of their actions, a broom now lying in their place. One by one the witches sloped off to a remote or hidden place, a clearing deep in a forest or a cave (preferably one originally dedicated to a pagan goddess), where they met, feasted, drank and revelled on occasions that were not even saints' days. According to a contemporary French writer, `Mere clowning and japery are mixed up with circumstances of extremest horror; childishness and folly with loathsome abominations'." Here, too, they were supposed to encounter the terrifying figure of Satan himself, rearing up from the shadows in the guise of a great horned goat, usually with a giant phallus which was sometimes even admitted to be artificial, a dildo orfascinum. The new witch, no doubt in a pitiful state of fear and excitement, had to affirm his or her dedication to the Devil by kissing his backside, and/or perhaps signing the official pact with their blood. They might then receive the distinguishing satanic mark - although clearly some already had them, having borne them since birth - and the entertainment might then consist of orgiastic coupling before the bedraggled and exhausted coven slunk home and slid once again between the marital sheets. But the evil deed had been done, and their soul was literally no longer their own.

Sometimes, if the Sabbat - and even Summers is careful to state that it was `wholly unconnected with the Jewish festival' '12 although in the eyes of many medieval people it almost certainly was linked, as anti-Semitism was rife - was far away, the witches would ride on broomsticks. Summers admits the illusion of flying was frequently brought on by the use of hallucinogenic ointment, rubbed on the legs before sitting astride the broomstick. The witch may have gone nowhere except in her imagination, but that was good enough for her accusers. In others cases she was said to ride `upon certain beasts along with the pagan goddess Diana',73 which rather says it all.

The satanic pact (of which more later) was always, we are led to believe, a triumph of hope over experience - other witches' experience, that is. For the Devil might hold out any glittering promise, but it was as well to realize he is also `the Father of Lies' and will always fail even his most stalwart devotees - in the end, when it matters most.

In that, however, the Devil was not alone. Many of the accused witches were promised by the Inquisition that if they confessed they would be released with a fine. When they were condemned to the pyre they shrieked that they had been tricked. Once again there was not much to choose between the Church and Satan himself.

It is impossible to know how many of the accused were Luciferan challengers of the status quo or real Satanists: clearly some were merely `wise women' or `cunning men', local herbalists and casters of spells, while others were probably adherents to a form of the old goddess or fertility god religion: indeed, the descriptions of a typical Sabbat, as outlined above, seem to echo the ancients' celebrations of Diana or Pan. Perhaps some of the `Sabbats' were simply the equivalent of the modern swingers' party - merry-making, boozing and wife-swapping - or even more innocently, just a spot of dancing and feasting away from the prying eyes of the clergy, or so they hoped. Life was grim, short and brutish enough in those days, in any case, so why not let off steam deep in the forest at night?

However, common sense dictates that some of the accused were Satanists, were involved in casting spells to harm others, if for no better reason than that such people always exist, everywhere. Spite and superstition together will always produce 'witches', although not necessarily at an organized level. And ironically, as the witch craze deepened and spread, no doubt there was an exponential increase in the number of genuine Devil worshippers. After all, how could even Old Nick himself be any worse than the Inquisition? Who wouldn't be tempted to side with the opposition as the madness circled ever closer and you could almost feel the sparks of the great fires on your skin? Despite rumours to the contrary, Satan might, just might, prove a loyal master, rewarding the faithful with material support - and even the all-important magical release from jail, rack and pyre.

No one will ever know exactly how many of the recentlyestimated 100,000 accused were genuine witches and who was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time - although the records of individual cases make it horribly, pitifully clear that most were just victims. Their own confessions to even the most heinous and blatant Devil worship meant absolutely nothing.

One eyewitness, Weyer, wrote that the condemned `were slaughtered with the most refined tortures that tyrants could invent, beyond human endurance. And this cruelty is continued until the most innocent are forced to confess themselves guilty.'74 At Eichstatt in 1637 a woman who was arrested on charges of dealings with the Devil initially `laughed heartily', declaring she had rather die than admit to any such nonsense, and that she had lived a decent life with her husband and eight children for over twenty years. `Three weeks later she died under torture, confessing that she was in love with the devil, that she killed one of her children at his bidding, and that at least 45 of her neighbours were fellow Satanists' 75

Usually the poorer heretics were killed off first, while - as ever - the rich accused could usually buy their way out of trouble, as the following contemporary account of the persecution in France in 1459 makes clear:

In this year, in the town of Arras and country of Artois, arose, through a terrible and melancholy chance, an opinion called, I know not why, the Religion of Vaudoise. This sect consisted, it is said, of certain persons, both men and women, who, under cloud of night, by the power of the devil, repaired to some solitary spot, amid woods and deserts, where the devil appeared before them in human form - save that his visage is never perfectly visible to them - read to the assembly a book of his ordinances, informing them how he could be obeyed; distributed a very little money and a plentiful meal, which was concluded by a scene of general profligacy; after which each one of the party was conveyed home to her or his own habitation.