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kinds were so great that they on the whole even excused their worst abuses. For by upholding Authority in
the nobility the Church maintained its own.
The result of it all was a vast development of rebels, outcasts, and all the discontented, who adopted
witchcraft or sorcery for a religion, and wizards as their priests. They had secret meetings in desert places,
among old ruins accursed by priests as the haunt of evil spirits or ancient heathen gods, or in the mountains.
To this day the dweller in Italy may often find secluded spots environed by ancient chestnut forests, rocks,
and walls, which suggest fit places for the Sabbat, and are sometimes still believed by tradition to be such.
And I also believe that in this Gospel of the Witches we have a trustworthy outline at least of the doctrine and
rites observed at these meetings. They adored forbidden deities and practised forbidden deeds, inspired as
much by rebellion against Society as by their own passions.
There is, however, in the Evangel of the Witches an effort made to distinguish between the naturally wicked
or corrupt and those who are outcasts or oppressed, as appears from the passage:-
"Yet like Cain's daughter (offspring) thou shalt never be,
Nor like the race who have become at last
Wicked and infamous from suffering,
As are the Jews and wandering Zingari,
Who are all thieves: like them ye shall not be."
Comments on the Foregoing Texts 51
ARADIA, or the Gospel of the Witches
The supper of the Witches, the cakes of meal, salt, and honey, in the form of crescent moons, are known to
every classical scholar. The moon or horn-shaped cakes are still common. I have eaten of them this very day,
and though they are known all over the world, I believe they owe their fashion to tradition.
In the conjuration of the meal there is a very curious tradition introduced to the effect that the spige or
glittering grains of wheat from which spikes shoot like sun-rays, owe their brilliant like ness to a
resemblance to the fire-fly, "who comes to give them light." We have, I doubt not, in this a classic tradition,
but I cannot verify it. Here upon the Vangelo cites a common nursery-rhyme, which may also be found in a
nursery-tale, yet which, like others, is derived from witch-lore, by which the lucciola is put under a glass
and conjured to give by its light certain answers.
The conjuration of the meal or bread, as being literally our body as contributing to form it, and deeply sacred
because it had lain in the earth, where dark and wondrous secrets bide, seems to cast a new light on the
Christian sacrament. It is a type of resurrection from the earth, and was therefore used at the Mysteries and
Holy Supper, and the grain had pertained to chthonic secrets, or to what had been under the earth in darkness.
Thus even earth-worms are invoked in modern witchcraft as familiar with dark mysteries, and the shepherd's
pipe to win the Orphic power must be buried three days in the earth. And so all was, and is, in sorcery a kind
of wild poetry based on symbols, all blending into one another, light and darkness, fire-flies and grain, life
and death.
Very strange indeed, but very strictly according to ancient magic as described by classic authorities, is the
threatening Diana, in case she will not grant a prayer. This recurs continually in the witch-exorcisms or
spells. The magus, or witch, worships the spirit, but claims to have the right, drawn from a higher power, to
compel even the Queen of Earth, Heaven, and Hell to grant the request. "Give me what I ask, and thou shalt
have honour and offerings; refuse, and I will vex thee by insult." So Canidia and her kind boasted that they
could compel the gods to appear. This is all classic. No one ever heard of a Satanic witch in voking or
threatening the Trinity, or Christ or even the angels or saints. In fact, they cannot even compel the devil or his
imps to obey-they work entirely by his good-will as slaves. But in the old Italian lore the sorcerer or witch is
all or nothing, and aims at limitless will or power.
Of the ancient belief in the virtues of a perforated stone I need not speak. But it is to be remarked that in the
invocation the witch goes forth in the earliest morning to seek for verbena or vervain. The ancient Persian
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