From the Notebooks
Black magic increased during the late middle ages, and not just in the imaginative zeal of inquisitors. "There is ample evidence that witch beliefs and practices did exist and that [the social pressures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries] worked to increase the actual level of witch activity." The brutal witch trials started in these years, and the records indicate that there were actual witches (or at least women who tried to be witches). These centuries also suffered the rise of the Luciferans–proto-witches in Bohemia and Austria who openly worshipped the Devil, engaged in ritualistic sexual orgies, and believed they flew long distances at night magically (a foretaste of the witch's broomstick).
