Blog

The Witches’ Sabbath Today

Posted on 26/09/25 in Literature, Politics

While reading Jan Philipp Reemtsma’s interesting book Trust and Violence, published in English translation by Princeton University Press in 2012, I came across his description of a little-known 19^th century novella by Ludwig Tieck, The Witches’ Sabbath. In the week that the appalling President Fart caused former FBI Director James Comey to be indicted on unconvincing charges, the latest step in the establishment of his gangster state, Tieck’s story, from 1832, of a bishop’s trashing of an enlightened society seems right up to the minute.

Here is Reemtsma’s précis, as translated by Dominic Bonfiglio, on pp.188-189.

“… the dean is wrong about ‘the terrible darkness’ being a thing of the past, and the diminutive bishop he pokes fun at will be the very one who initiates a new witch hunt in Arras. The bishop succeeds not because the people of Arras really believe in witches or are susceptible to collective hysteria. What Tieck presents is a chilling set of accidental circumstances – intrigue, jealousy, political maneuvering – which result in no one standing up to a man who has clearly gone mad. But the fact that people burn at the stake on the market square represents more than a failure to act. It also requires someone to set in motion the disaster that in retrospect will seem authorless. Someone like the bishop: a person who, with a mere glance, purports to discern conspiracy, sex with the devil, black magic, and other forms of transgressions behind the façade of normality. Tieck’s masterful grasp of psychology shows us there is nothing mysterious about such people and the violence they unleash, even if their victims have no clue.”

I’d like to read the book, but a little bit of research suggests that it remains untranslated. Perhaps an opportunity for an enterprising publisher?