"Positivist historiography defined the belief in witches as a mass psychosis that happened to mix Christian ideas and relics of ancient paganism. The premises rested on the one hand on fear-laden ideas about the Devil, who really existed for Christian culture, and on the other on fantasies such as the magical capacity for malefiction, the possibility of harm with the help of demons, flying, animal metamorphoses and sexual intercourse with demons in the famous Sabbath."