Lucid dreaming is often presented as a modern discovery, but traditions across the world have explored conscious dreaming for centuries. In this episode, I examine what neuroscience has actually shown about lucid dreams, how Tibetan dream yoga reframes the practice, and why magical and contemplative traditions may have understood aspects of the dreaming mind long before the sleep laboratory could measure them.

We will look at lucid REM sleep, dream induction methods, dream yoga, magical dream work, and the important limits of reducing these practices to brain activity alone.

CONNECT & SUPPORT💖

MY COURSES 👩🏻‍🎓 https://drangelapuca.com/courses

WEBSITE 🔗 https://www.drangelapuca.com/

BOOK A TUTORING OR A LECTURE 📖https://drangelapuca.com/services

SUBSTACK ✉️ https://substack.com/@drangelapuca

BECOME MY PATRON! 🎩 https://www.patreon.com/angelapuca

SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI ☕️https://ko-fi.com/drangelapuca

ONE-OFF DONATIONS 💰 https://paypal.me/angelasymposium

JOIN MEMBERSHIPS 👥 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPSbip_LX2AxbGeAQfLp-Ig/join

MY PODCAST 🎙 https://open.spotify.com/show/2TKoWTGe6OKRokHN2zUIxM?si=dd9f50a734b14f86

MY MERCH 👕 https://drangelapuca.creator-spring.com/

FOLLOW ME👣

- YouTube (@drangelapuca)🌟

- SUBSTACK 💌 https://substack.com/@drangelapuca

- Instagram (@drangelapuca) 📸

- TikTok (@drangelapuca) 🎵

- Twitter (@angelapuca11) 🐦

- Facebook (Dr Angela Puca) 👥

RECOMMENDED READINGS 📖

REFERENCES 📚

(Check the related slide on screen)

MY SET-UP 🛠️

- Canon 90D camera 📸 https://amzn.to/3yQclh0

- Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 📷 https://amzn.to/3JjU1BS

- Teleprompter 🗒️ https://amzn.to/3linWCB

- Shure SM7B Microphone 🎙️ https://amzn.to/3Jm5IYK

- Microphone stand 🎤 https://amzn.to/3FueJOn

- Lights 💡 https://amzn.to/3Zdk8k1

- DJI Wireless microphones 📡 https://amzn.to/3NWAVVQ

⚠️ Copyright of Dr Angela Puca, in all of its parts ⚠️

Music by Erose MusicBand. Check them out!

What is an Esbat, and is it really an ancient full moon ritual?

In this video, I trace the surprising history of the word Esbat, from its Old French meaning of “frolic” or “amusement” to its modern role in Wicca and contemporary Pagan witchcraft. I explore how Margaret Murray, Gerald Gardner, and Doreen Valiente helped transform a borrowed word into one of the best-known terms in the modern witchcraft ritual calendar.

Was the Esbat an ancient Pagan tradition, or a modern invention? The answer is more interesting than either option. I separate historical evidence from modern myth while recognising the real religious value of living practice.

This video is for anyone interested in Wicca, Paganism, full moon rituals, witchcraft history, and how modern magical traditions are created.

CONNECT & SUPPORT💖

MY COURSES 👩🏻‍🎓 https://drangelapuca.com/courses

WEBSITE 🔗 https://www.drangelapuca.com/

BOOK A TUTORING OR A LECTURE 📖https://drangelapuca.com/services

SUBSTACK ✉️ https://substack.com/@drangelapuca

BECOME MY PATRON! 🎩 https://www.patreon.com/angelapuca

SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI ☕️https://ko-fi.com/drangelapuca

ONE-OFF DONATIONS 💰 https://paypal.me/angelasymposium

JOIN MEMBERSHIPS 👥 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPSbip_LX2AxbGeAQfLp-Ig/join

MY PODCAST 🎙 https://open.spotify.com/show/2TKoWTGe6OKRokHN2zUIxM?si=dd9f50a734b14f86

MY MERCH 👕 https://drangelapuca.creator-spring.com/

FOLLOW ME👣

- YouTube (@drangelapuca)🌟

- SUBSTACK 💌 https://substack.com/@drangelapuca

- Instagram (@drangelapuca) 📸

- TikTok (@drangelapuca) 🎵

- Twitter (@angelapuca11) 🐦

- Facebook (Dr Angela Puca) 👥

RECOMMENDED READINGS 📖

REFERENCES 📚

(Check the related slide on screen)

MY SET-UP 🛠️

- Canon 90D camera 📸 https://amzn.to/3yQclh0

- Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 📷 https://amzn.to/3JjU1BS

- Teleprompter 🗒️ https://amzn.to/3linWCB

- Shure SM7B Microphone 🎙️ https://amzn.to/3Jm5IYK

- Microphone stand 🎤 https://amzn.to/3FueJOn

- Lights 💡 https://amzn.to/3Zdk8k1

- DJI Wireless microphones 📡 https://amzn.to/3NWAVVQ

00:00 Esbat: Origins, Meaning, and Modern Pagan Practice

01:22 What Is an Esbat in Wicca? Full Moon Rituals Explained

02:29 The Old French Etymology of Esbat: Frolic, Play, and Amusement

03:37 Pierre de Lancre and the First Witchcraft Use of Esbat

04:40 Margaret Murray Invents the Esbat as a Witch-Cult Institution

06:39 Why Scholars Rejected Margaret Murray’s Witch-Cult Theory

08:07 Gerald Gardner, Wicca, and the Survival of Murray’s Vocabulary

08:38 Doreen Valiente and the Full-Moon Esbat in Modern Wicca

09:18 How Esbat Became Standard Pagan and Wiccan Vocabulary

10:17 Word-History vs Ritual-History: The Esbat as Invented Tradition

10:57 Modern Does Not Mean Fake: Esbat, Authenticity, and Lived Practice

11:59 Benandanti, Táltos, and Real Nocturnal Folk Traditions

13:11 The Real Meaning of Esbat: History, Myth, and Pagan Truth-Telling

13:52 Support Dr Angela Puca’s Project

⚠️ Copyright of Dr Angela Puca, in all of its parts ⚠️

Music by Erose MusicBand. Check them out!

What if everything you think you know about the Witches' Sabbath is wrong?

The broomsticks, the Devil, the midnight orgies on remote mountaintops: this image has haunted the Western imagination for nearly six hundred years. But where did it actually come from? Was it an inquisitorial fantasy imposed from above? A distortion of real folk traditions of spirit-flight and nocturnal procession? A recycled conspiracy theory older than Christianity itself? Or something stranger than any of those?

In this video I trace the Sabbath from its origins in a handful of Alpine witch trials in the 1430s, through the great demonological texts of the early modern period, to its reinvention by romantics, feminists, and modern practitioners who know the image was constructed and use it anyway. I cover the Cohn vs Ginzburg debate that still organises the field, the Friulian benandanti who fought witches in their sleep, the antisemitic roots of the word "sabbath" itself, Margaret Murray's influential and almost entirely wrong witch-cult hypothesis, and why the Wheel of the Year is a twentieth-century invention. I also look at where the term "esbat" actually comes from (spoiler: not where you think), the connection between the Sabbath and the Wild Hunt, and what contemporary Italian folk practitioners make of all this today.

This is serious historiography made accessible, not dumbed down. If you want the real story behind one of the most persistent and misunderstood images in Western culture, this is it.

CONNECT & SUPPORT💖

MY COURSES 👩🏻‍🎓 https://drangelapuca.com/courses

WEBSITE 🔗 https://www.drangelapuca.com/

BOOK A TUTORING OR A LECTURE 📖https://drangelapuca.com/services

SUBSTACK ✉️ https://substack.com/@drangelapuca

BECOME MY PATRON! 🎩 https://www.patreon.com/angelapuca

SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI ☕️https://ko-fi.com/drangelapuca

ONE-OFF DONATIONS 💰 https://paypal.me/angelasymposium

JOIN MEMBERSHIPS 👥 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPSbip_LX2AxbGeAQfLp-Ig/join

MY PODCAST 🎙 https://open.spotify.com/show/2TKoWTGe6OKRokHN2zUIxM?si=dd9f50a734b14f86

MY MERCH 👕 https://drangelapuca.creator-spring.com/

FOLLOW ME👣

- YouTube (@drangelapuca)🌟

- SUBSTACK 💌 https://substack.com/@drangelapuca

- Instagram (@drangelapuca) 📸

- TikTok (@drangelapuca) 🎵

- Twitter (@angelapuca11) 🐦

- Facebook (Dr Angela Puca) 👥

RECOMMENDED READINGS 📖

REFERENCES 📚

(Check the related slide on screen)

MY SET-UP 🛠️

- Canon 90D camera 📸 https://amzn.to/3yQclh0

- Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 📷 https://amzn.to/3JjU1BS

- Teleprompter 🗒️ https://amzn.to/3linWCB

- Shure SM7B Microphone 🎙️ https://amzn.to/3Jm5IYK

- Microphone stand 🎤 https://amzn.to/3FueJOn

- Lights 💡 https://amzn.to/3Zdk8k1

- DJI Wireless microphones 📡 https://amzn.to/3NWAVVQ

00:00 Introduction: The Witches’ Sabbath Explained

01:41 What Is the Witches’ Sabbath?

04:61 The Alpine Origins of the Witches’ Sabbath

09:01 Demonology, the Malleus, and the Stakes of Witchcraft

15:01 Cohn vs Ginzburg: Who Created the Witches’ Sabbath?

22:36 Folk Traditions, Night Travel, and Regional Witch Beliefs

25:26 From Michelet to Murray: How Modern Witchcraft Reused the Sabbath

30:50 The Witches’ Sabbath Today: Politics, Film, and Online Witchcraft

30:06 Flying Ointments: What the Evidence Really Shows

38:49 Reading the Witches’ Sabbath as a Palimpsest

41:33 Celebrate your Sabbaths in Angela’s vibrant Inner Symposium

⚠️ Copyright of Dr Angela Puca, in all of its parts ⚠️

Music by Erose MusicBand. Check them out!