Lore of the Cat: The Devil ~ Pawprints and Purrs, Inc.

The Devil: Sabbats were held in the depth of the night and were presided over by the Devil in the form of a black cat or sometimes of a goat or black man. According to evidence obtained at witch trials, Satan took the form of a black cat on a thousand occasions, of a goat two hundred fifty times, and appeared only sixty times as a black man. One place where Sabbats were held was the Cats' Field (Prat des Gats) near Sabarat, where a dolmen was believed to be inhabited by a witch. Her name, Matebe, reminds one of matou, a tom cat. Descriptions of the Sabbat ceremonies are, although unsavory, quite fascinating. They consist of elements taken from Christian ritual and also from ancient white fertility rites - only everything in them is reversed.

When the host of witches and sorcerers had flown in, they started by paying homage to the enthroned Devil. They made offerings to him of unbaptized children, and they renewed their oaths of fidelity and obedience to him. Each in turn filed past him to kiss his posterior. Some witches claimed that he kept a second face under his tail. They would then celebrate Black Mass, lighting their black candles from the torch on the Devil's head and turning their backs to the altar. They all settled down to the Sabbat feast, which is said, would be served the flesh of hanged men, the hearts of unbaptized children and a variety of unclean animals.

Having eaten their fill, the witches would render accounts to the Devil of the evil they had done since the last assembly. They would receive instructions from him as to how they were expected to proceed. The most popular witches were those who had caused the greatest number of deaths, cast the most spells of illness on people and cattle, and spoiled the most fruit and grain. Those who behaved more humanely were hissed and derided by the others and were beaten and maltreated by the Devil.

Sometimes hail was ritually produced at the Sabbats with the intention of ruining the crops. Sorcerers would beat water with a wand, then throw into it a powder which the Devil gave them. This caused a cloud to rise up from the water which afterwards turned into hail.

It is interesting to note that the Languedoc form of the Christian St. Agatha's name was Santo Gato - St. Cat. She was closely associated with thunderstorms. On her feast day peasants rang church bells in all the villages to ward off hail which was believed was "made" then. When the saint wished to punish women who insulted her by working on her feast day, she chose to appear in the form of an angry cat. This seems to be a case in which black and white magic merge.

During the Sabbats novices made pacts with the Devil. When he baptized them they had to trample on the Cross. He gave them a Black Book in exchange for the Gospels. He marked them, sometimes leaving the imprint of his claw under their left eyelids. In return for their oaths, he promised to help and protect them and gave them familiars of their own.

In 1669, three hundred Swedish children - boys and girls aged between six and sixteen - were said to have been drawn to Sabbat meetings and enrolled in Satan's ranks. They confessed to receiving from the Devil a beast about the bigness and shape of a young cat. These animals were known as "carriers," and their duty was to steal butter, cheese, milk and bacon. They brought the food to the meetings in the children's behalf, as their offerings to the Devil.

Finally, the Devil would strip the new witches and wizards of their clothing. The whole company would reaffirm their allegiance by filing past the Devil to kiss his buttocks.

Then the music and dancing would begin. As the Devil played the flute, demons and witches would dance back to back, wildly circling him, stamping, singing and capering with indecent gestures. Sometimes the unbridled dancing took the form of "follow-the-leader," the devil leading them wherever he would. Finally, the festivities developed into a sexual orgy which lasted until the break of dawn. Incest ran rife, the witches all coupled with demons, for the Devil became an incubus to women and a succubus to men.

It was explained that the Devil seduced male and female witches because both were addicted to carnal pleasures. He bound them to his allegiance by such agreeable provocations. During witch trials, the women all denied finding intercourse with the Devil pleasurable. In the form of a black man, cat, dog, ram or goat, they found him repulsive; penetration was accompainied by pain as great as that of childbirth. They all agreed that his penis and semen were as cold as ice. Nevertheless, the Devil claimed that there is nothing which makes a woman more subject and loyal to a man than that he should abuse her body. He never ran out of semen since his supply was replenished when he took the form of a succubus.

It is said that, during the reign of Charles IX, there were 30,000 sorcerers and witches in Paris and 100,000 scattered throughout the rest of France. Sabbats were celebrated from the fifteenth to the end of the eighteenth centuries, and many wealthy and aristocratic people gathered to watch these throngs performing their rites.

The black cat had been worshipped as an incarnation of the Devil several centuries before the Sabbats became established. Whereas the Devil was first revealed to women in the form of a toad or a goose and not until much later as a cat, he appeared in feline form to male heretics as early as the thirteenth century.

Heretics have indeed been likened to black cats. A seventeenth century friar gave the warning to the faithful that the heretic can creep secretly where no man seeth him as doth also the cat who can make herself soft and secret.... He went on to explain that cats lick poisonous toads and then drink water which is drawn by humans; consequently, the cat will defile the body, the heretic defileth the soul. In accounts of noncturnal rites which were alleged to have been practiced by members of medieval secret societies, many references are to be found to the part played by a black tom cat.

One of the most famous of such secret societies was that of the Knights Templars. At the beginning of the twelfth century, nine French knights united and dedicated themselves to the protection of Christians who were making pilgrimages to the Holy Land and were being persecuted by Moslems. They became known as the Templars because their arms were kept in a building on the site of the old Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem. The numbers of these brethren rapidly increased. When they received the sanction of the Church, they took the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience common to all religious orders. Their reputation was very high indeed. They were loved and respected by all who came in contact with them. They took a prominent part in the Crusades. Over the next two hundred years, the influence of the Knights Templars spread throughout Europe.

But subsequently, something went wrong within this Order. In spite of its members' vows, it grew immensely rich and powerful and gradually became corrupt. The respect which the Templars had aroused was replaced in all strata of society by antagonism. The nobility regarded them with envy and fear, the clergy had many grievances against them, and the lower classes resented their tyranny and arrogance. The beginning of the fourteenth century brought their final downfall when they were confronted with open accusations by the Pope and Philip IV of France, of heresy, treachery and immorality. All French members of the Order were immediately arrested and imprisoned. Many were tried and burnt at the stake.

Rumors had been circulating for years that, although the Templars professed Christianity, the secret midnight meetings they held were often scenes of idolatry and blasphemous rites, and their rule of chastity had been used as a cover for homosexual orgies. During the trials of the Knights of Templars, confessions were extracted under torture of ceremonies that were very similar to those practised by witches at their Sabbats. They were accused of (and admitted to under duress of torture) trampling or spitting on the Cross and worshipping the Devil in the form of a black tom cat. It was described how the cat, which appeared among the participants, stood by an idol and was ritually kissed by them all under its tail. No one seemed to know where the animal came from or where it went when they adjourned, but it was generally assumed to have embodied the Devil.

Manicheans, the disciples of Mani, the Persian prophet, believed that the human race was of Satanic origin and that the powers of darkness were as strong as the powers of light. They felt it necessary to be continually placating the Devil, who seems to have had a predilection for feline form. (Cats glutted with prey are occasionally to be found depicted in churches on pillars and pulpits. Some antiquarians maintain that these were carved by medieval stone masons who were tainted with the Manichean heresy.)

Members of this sect would scuttle through dark streets, carrying lanterns, to the house where their secret meetings were held. Upon arrival, they chanted the names of various demons as an evocative liturgy until suddenly the Devil himself would appear in their midst in the form of a black tom cat. This was the signal for all lights to be extinguished and members to seize the women nearest them. When a child was born, as a result of these orgies, an assembly would be called eight days after its birth. A large fire would be lit and the infant passed ceremonially through the flames. Its ashes were collected and preserved, for it was claimed that anyone who tasted them would never abandon his heresies. It was also said that the ritual violation of a virgin had its place within Manichean rites.

The Luciferans were another similar heretical sect. They believed the Devil had been driven out of heaven unjustly and would be restored to his former glory one day. They were reputed to worship a black cat at their midnight assemblies, to sacrifice young children, and to use their blood for making eucharistic bread.

An eleventh century reform movement, the Waldensians, made themselves obnoxious to the ecclesiastical powers and met with terrible persecution. Members of this society confessed that the Devil appeared to them as a cat, and was ritually kissed sub cauda (beneath the tail) by the celebrants. When being attacked by royal troops, the Waldensians are said to have summoned the Devil to their aid. Repeatedly this enabled them to escape. The Paturini, a contemporary sect of the Waldensians, described how they sang hymns until dusk, when a black tom cat would be lowered among them. At this moment, lights were put out and devotion would soon give way to sexual license. At the orgies of a thirteenth century German sect known as the Stedingers, a statue of a large black cat was exhibited.

Since the Devil was expected to manifest himself as an animal, the cat was certainly an appropriate form for him to choose. For not only is the tom an exceedingly lustful creature, which will become impervious even to hunger in the vicinity of a female in heat, one can easily imagine that the glint of its eyes in the darkness and the sparks its fur emits on a frosty night could readily produce a sense of demonic power. The cat is considered by many occultists to be a highly magnetized animal. It is on just such forces that magicians draw, exploiting them for personal gain.

Most of the confessions of these dark practices involving cats were obtained, as in the cases of witch trials, as a result of racking and every other kind of torture. Whether the rites attributed to these particular medieval societies were in detail true or false will probably never be ascertained. The many rumors, accusations and confessions point to a popular belief that such things existed during these centuries.