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Eva Pocs' study of Hungarian witch trials, shows that these trials were rather more transparent than those in the West, allowing more of the folkloric background to be discerned behind the ecclesiastical presuppositions.
The folklore of most interest to Magonia readers will be that of night time journeys or abduction of the bewitched to the sabbat. Those who claimed to have been abducted might claim symptoms of being beaten, ridden or otherwise abused by their tormentors. In some cases they even produced physical evidence, for example marks on the face might be interpreted as the marks made by the bit and harness when they were ridden. The similarities with modern abduction narratives are obvious.
Pocs sees these experiences, and those of being caught up in the nocturnal ride of the fairies/dead as part of a shamanic or quasi-shamanic ecstatic tradition. If this is true it is further argument for the central role of hypnogogic hallucinations in the generation of shamanic belief systems
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