Coven
The coven or sabbat is the generic way of calling the group or gathering of witches to perform rituals and spells, either as a pre-Christian or neo-pagan religious belief, or accepted in Christian writings as acts of invocation and worship of Lucifer. This term has its origin in the Basque word "akelarre" which means "meadow of the goat". It is also widely used in works of fiction and fantasy to define sorcerous clans or groups that come together to perform magical ceremonies and incantations, both benevolent and malefic.
Both the Espasa and Santillana dictionaries, as well as the Larousse encyclopedia, define the word simply as a congregation of witches and warlocks, while the Dictionary of the Spanish language only accepts the term as a nocturnal meeting of witches and warlocks presided over by Satan who generally appears in the form of a goat, a meaning coinciding with the diabolical veneration contributed from Christianity. Although thousands (?) of people were executed under the accusation of having participated in these Luciferian encounters, only the indictments have come down to us; no evidence has survived that these meetings actually took place. However, and to continue with the theory that insists on the veracity of this type of sabbats or covens, its heyday seems to have taken place between the end of the Middle Ages and the XVIII.
From the 19th century, many witches, mediums and priestesses used the word coven, to organize their meetings instead of a coven. The word coven was supposed to be a magic word that empowered meetings and protected its members. According to grimoires of the time, this word was given to witches by a magical being who communicated with Sarah Stewart Watson. These high magic texts and books would then pass into the hands of Gerald Gardner, who would found Wicca in the 20th century. It was followers of Gardner who used it again, bringing it out of oblivion to expose it as a keyword of modern Wicca.[citation required]
Etymology and history
The origin of the term sabbat to describe a gathering of witches is related to the old anti-Jewish prejudice. Since the Jewish religion sanctifies the Sabbath as a mandatory day of rest, some Christian rulers in the Middle Ages sought to associate the rest prescribed by the Jewish religion with satanic and witchcraft activity, pejoratively associating Judaism with demonic practices and accusing Jews of of being devil worshipers. For this reason, the sabbath was said to be celebrated on the night of Friday to Saturday, in keeping with the principle of the Jewish sabbath which begins with the appearance of the first star in the evening firmament on Friday.
For its part, aquelarre has an uncertain origin. It has normally been derived from the Basque word akelarre (from the Basque aker = "macho cabrío" and larre = "meadow") meaning "meadow of the goat" (since it was estimated that the Devil was present in the midst of witches in this form); It is the place where witches (sorginak in Basque) hold their meetings and rituals (although the word comes from Basque, it has been assimilated into Spanish, and by extension it refers to any meeting of witches and wizards).
It is interesting to note that Anna Armengol (Autonomous University of Barcelona) in her study of witchcraft indicates about the origin of the word that: "Regarding the origin of the word coven, the hypothesis of Mikel Azurmendi that it is not a Basque word, but a learned construction emanating from learned legal language, has recently been corroborated by Henningsen. He affirms that it is an erudite construction from the beginning of the 17th century. He even specifies the creation of said term, dating it between February 14, 1609, when the Court of Logroño receives a new group of prisoners from Zugarramurdi, and May 22 of the same year, when the word appears for the first time. It has been possible to detect as the probable "inventor" of the word, the inquisitor Juan del Valle Albarado".
Anthropologically, covens were reminiscent of pagan rites (see Bacchae, Neo-Druidism and Celtic worship) that were celebrated clandestinely as they were not admitted by the religious authorities of the time. The prohibition of these magical practices is already found in the Law of the XII Tables (Tabula VIII). In the time of Sulla, the Lex Cornelia de Sicariis et Veneficiis was promulgated, which insists on this prohibition.
It is common to use various substances to achieve ecstasy during the rite. Since doses cannot be accurately calibrated, it is very dangerous to administer them orally when a lethal amount is very close to the use dose. For this reason, some substances were applied in the form of ointment vaginally or rectally, which could have given rise to some legends about the sexual nature of witch meetings or the use of cauldrons to prepare some of the substances. The application of one of the substances on the vagina with a kind of dildo could give rise to the image that represents witches with a stick between their legs or a broom. On the other hand, many toads are poisonous by contact and their skin can be hallucinogenic; for this reason they are also part of the imagery linked to the world of witchcraft. Something similar happens with some poisonous mushrooms, such as the Amanita muscaria.
Stages of a satanic coven
The Spanish anthropologist Carmelo Lisón Tolosana uses the case of the Zugarramurdi Witches as an example to explain the stages of the coven, based on the account of the inquisitorial process published in Logroño at the beginning of 1611, a few months after the auto-da-fe was carried out in which six witches were burned alive.
According to what the inquisitors thought they found out, in Zugarramurdi the coven took place in the berroscoberro meadow that was a short distance from the village —in the Basque-Navarrese country the inquisitors who toured the area pointed out the existence of forty-six places where covens were supposedly held.
The summons
According to the inquisitorial report, attendance at the coven was mandatory for all witches and witches —according to it, a witch was whipped and mistreated for not having attended one of them—. In Zugarramurdi it was held three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays after nine at night. The toad that each witch and witch had and cared for —even feeding it with its own breast— was the one that warned them and then they smeared themselves with disgusting green-black water obtained from the toad —to get it, they whipped the toad with a rod and once it was well swollen, they pressed it with their foot against the ground until it vomited the stinking water that they carefully collected and kept. While they anointed themselves, they recited the formula " from now on I will be the same thing with you, I have to be a demon" and thanks to the ointment they could fly out of windows, holes or cracks that the demon opens. When traveling through the air, the witch usually carries the toad on the left side, although sometimes they walk following the toad.
In other areas, the most common mechanisms to summon the coven were a bell that only followers heard and a stinging in the so-called Devil's mark, which the witch hid and which the inquisitors used as evidence in witchcraft trials.
Homage to the devil
According to the account of the Zugarramurdi process, as soon as the witches arrived at the place of the coven, they worshiped the devil by kneeling before him and kissing his private parts. Then they mixed with each other and began to dance and dance. "But soon they begin their escapades to scare night passengers, shepherds, sailors, millers, friends and enemies, to break dishes in the kitchens and tiles in the houses, destroy grains, fruits and livestock, and also to cause deaths especially children". On the other hand, if any witch or witch missed the name of Jesus, the coven would vanish, for which reason he was severely punished at the next meeting.
In other areas, the homage to the devil is accompanied by offerings, although these are not always sinister, but may simply be objects resulting from a robbery or proof that an illegal act has been committed in the eyes of the law divine. The first to offer these vows are the most senior witches; the last ones are novice or newly initiated sorcerers. They are placed the mark that distinguishes a sorcerer in a hidden part of the body and from that moment they become full members of the brotherhood. As for the dance, in other areas the attendees abandon themselves to a dance that begins with organized movements; They can dance in a circle, joined by the shoulders, or forming the uroboros, the snake that bites its own tail. Little by little, the dance loses unity and turns into a frenetic succession of jerks.
The Black Mass and the Orgy
According to what the inquisitors in the Zugarramurdi case thought they had found out, on certain nights such as Three Kings Eve, Ascension Eve, Corpus Christi, All Saints Day, the Assumption of the Virgin or Saint John, the a special ritual, which consisted of two parts. In the first, witches and witches confessed to the devil and accused themselves of having entered a church, of having heard mass... and of the evils they could have done and had not caused. The second was the sacrilegious mass celebrated by the devil dressed in ugly and dirty black ornaments. During it, the same steps were followed as in the Christian mass. After the sermon in which the devil exhorted witches and witches to do evil, promising them paradise in return, the "parishioners" one by one they approached the demon and knelt before him kissing his left hand, breasts, genitals and anus (the so-called osculum infame).
According to the confessions of the supposed witches and sorcerers, when the moment of consecration arrived, the devil raised something similar to a shoe sole where his figure was and said This is my body and then a wooden chalice, black and ugly, while the sorcerers worshiped it on their knees. Then the witches and witches approached the "altar", which was covered with an old, ugly and tarnished black cloth, and ate and drank what the officiant had "consecrated". So far the black mass had been an exact replica of the Christian mass, but the ending was completely different. The devil copulated with the witches and sodomized the witches and then the orgy began, in which the devil participated again. "Witches and witches mix sexually and mate with each other in total promiscuity, without consideration of sex or degrees of kinship".
For some inquisitors, the ultimate reason for the sabbat was precisely the sexual intercourse with the Devil and that of the sorcerers among themselves. The more disgusting and offensive the sexual act, the more favorable it was in the eyes of Satan, they concluded.
The Banquet
According to the account published in 1611 about the Zugarramurdi process, during the coven the witches and witches celebrated a "banquet" in which they ate the corpses of recently deceased witches or victims of their evil acts, especially children, which they unearthed from the graves accompanied by the devil and his servants. "Right there and on the grave they take out their guts and dismember them; they cover the grave so that the desecration is not noticed and they set off on their way back to the coven with great joy and contentment, the parents taking the corpses of their children or the children taking those of their parents and brothers and the wives taking their husbands. There they tear them into pieces and divide them into three parts: one is roasted, another is cooked, and the third is left raw; Put everything on a table with dirty and black tablecloths, the closest relatives distribute the food, reserving the heart for the devil". Some of those questioned by the inquisitors also confessed that they kidnapped children and sucked their blood, while the devil told them: "Suck and swallow that, it is good for you".
The coven ends at dawn when the first bells of the church ring or with the crow of the rooster.
Places where covens were held
- Zugarramurdi (Navarra)
- Cernégula (Burgos)
- Playa de Coiro (Cangas de Morrazo, Pontevedra)
- Macizo de Anaga (Tenerife, Canary Islands)
- Cueva de Salamanca (Salamanca)
- Amboto (Alava and Vizcaya, Basque Country)
- Campo de las Varillas, (Castro-Urdiales, Cantabria)
- La Veiga'l Palu, Caboalles de Arriba (Laciana, León, Castilla y León)
- Balmaseda, (Vizcaya)
- Monastery of Hermo (Cangas del Narcea, Asturias)
- Petralanda (Vizcaya)
- Viladrau and Cervera in Catalonia
- Trasmoz y Gallocanta en Aragón
- Plain of Bruges and Alcantarilla in the Region of Murcia.
- Baraona (Soria)
Homologous places in South America
- Salamanca, where covenants are made with the demon and Bacchanals with evil spirits.
Coven
In Wicca the word COVEN is used instead of Coven, which has fallen into disuse. For Wiccan people there is more power and protection in this term because it is a magical term, given to high priestesses in the XIX century.
The Coven is normally made up of 13 members who gather to worship the mother goddess (sometimes conceptualized as Diana or the moon) and the horned god. In this meeting they pray, dance, read tarot cards or witch runes and celebrate the sacred land.
It was thanks to ancient manuscripts and grimoires, that Gerald Gardner's Wicca recovered the forgotten and protected words of 18th and 19th century witches. among them the powerful Coven and various symbols that Patricia Crowther would later call witch runes in one of her books.
Wiccans do not believe in the existence of the devil. The horned god is not a representation of the devil of the Christians, but a representation of the male elementals, the solar gods or the concept of "The passion, frenzy and debauchery of the flesh".
Wicca works with the energies of nature and the beings that abound in it, such as elementals, protective creatures of the forests, rivers or mountains. These beings can be beneficial or malefic depending on the way you act with them, so it is important to have extensive knowledge of Wicca before interacting with them.
Other sources
In The Pearl of Great Price, an extra-biblical text from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints quotes in a verse mentioning what appears to be a coven: Moses 5:51 "For from days of Cain there was a secret combination, and they did their works in the dark, and each one knew his brother". It was already mentioned in the same chapter that Cain kept a secret from Satan, something that can be understood that Cain knew secrets of black magic.
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