15. The Sabbath Of The Sorcererse

The most simple, in our opinion, connects it with the Jewish Sabbath, for it is certain that the Jews, most faithful depositaries of the secrets of the Kabalah, were almost invariably the great masters in Magic during the Middle Ages. The Sabbath was therefore the Sunday of Kabalists, the day of their religious festivals, or rather the night of their regular assembly. This feast, surrounded with mysteries, had vulgar fright for its safeguard and escaped persecution by terror. As to the diabolical Sabbath of necromancers, it was a counterfeit of that of the Magi, an assembly of malefactors who exploited idiots and fools. There horrible rites were practised and abominable potions compounded; there sorcerers and sorceresses laid their plans and compared notes for the common support of their reputation in prophecy and divination. At that period diviners were in general demand and followed a lucrative profession, while exercising a real power. Such institutions neither had nor could possess any regular rites; everything depended on the caprice of the chiefs and the vertigo of the assembly. The reports of some who had been present served as a type for all nightmares of hallucination, and from this chaos of impossible realities and demoniac dreams have issued the revolting and foolish histories of the Sabbath which figure in magical processes and in the books of such writers as Sprenger, Delancre, Delrio and Bodin. The Rites of the Gnostic Sabbath were imported into Germany by an association which took the name of Mopses. It replaced the kabalistic goat by the Hermetic dog, and the candidates, male or female - for the order initiated women -were brought in with eyes bandaged. The same infernal noise was made about them which surrounded the name of Sabbath with so many inexplicable rumours; they were asked whether they were afraid of the devil, and were required abruptly to choose between kissing the posterior of the Grand Master and that of a small silk-covered figure of a dog, which was substituted for the old grand idol of the Goat of Mendes. The sign of recognition was a ridiculous grimace, which recalls the phantasmagoria of the ancient Sabbath and the masks of its myrmidons. For the rest, their doctrine is summed up in the cultus of love and licence. The association came into existence when the Roman Church was persecuting Freemasonry. The Mopses pretended to recruit only among Catholics, and for the penal pledge at reception they substituted a solemn engagement upon honour to reveal no secrets of the order. It was more effectual than any oath and silenced religious objections. The name of the Templar Baphomet, which should be spelt kabalistically backwards, is composed of three abbreviations: Tem. ohp. AB., Templi omnium hominum pacts abbas, “the father of the temple of peace of all men”. According to some, the Baphomet was a monstrous head, but according to others, a demon in the form of a goat. a sculptured coffer was disinterred recently in the ruins of an old Commandery of the Temple, and antiquaries observed upon it a baphometic figure, corresponding by its attributes to the goat of Mendes and the androgyne of Khunrath. It was a bearded figure with a female body, holding the sun in one hand and the moon in the other, attached to chains. Now, this virile head is a beautiful allegory which attributes to thought alone the initiative and creative principle. Here the head represents spirit and the body matter. The orbs enchained to the human form, and directed by that Nature of which intelligence is the head, are also magnificently allegorical. The sign all the same was discovered to be obscene and diabolical by the learned men who examined it.