lost her soul as part o f the bargain. And, needless to
say, it was the Church, not the Devil, which took her life.
Once the neophyte made the decision for the
horned god, she went through a formal initiation, often
conducted at the sabbat. The ceremony was simple.
The initiate declared that she was joining the coven
of her own free will and swore devotion to the master
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o f the coven who represented the horned god. She was
then marked with some kind o f tattoo which was called
the witches’ mark. T h e inflicting o f the tattoo was painful, and the healing process was long. When healed, the scar was red or blue and indelible. One method particularly favored by the witch hunters when hunting was to take a suspected woman, shave her pubic and other
bodily hair (including head hair, eyebrows, etc. ) and,
upon finding any scar, find her guilty o f witchcraft.
Also, the existence o f any supernumerary nipple, common in all mammals, was proof o f guilt.
T he initiate was often given a new name, especially
if she had a Christian name like Mary or Faith. Children, when they reached puberty, were initiated into the coven — parents naturally wanted their children to
share the family religion. T he Inquisition was as ruthless with children as it was with adults. T here are stories o f children being whipped as their mothers
were being burned —prevention, it was called.
T he religious ceremony, which was the main content o f the sabbat, included dancing, eating, and fucking. T he worshipers paid homage to the horned
god by kissing his representative, the master o f the
coven, anywhere he indicated. T he kiss was generally
on the master’s ass —designed, some say, to provoke the
antisodomy Christians. That ritual kiss was possibly
placed on a mask which the costumed figure —masked,
horned, wearing animal skins, and probably an artificial
phallus —wore under his tail. T h e disguise conjures up
the ancient, two-faced Janus.
T he witches danced ring dances in a direction opposite to the path o f the sun, an ancient, symbolic
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rite. The Lutherans and Puritans forbade dancing because it evoked for them the spectacle of pagan worship.
After the dancing, the witches ate. Often they
brought their own food, rather in the tradition of picnic lunches, and sometimes the coven leader provided a real feast. The Christians alleged that the witches were
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,
