Exeter is Considered Sacred to Practitioners of Shadow Path Diabolism
While Shadow Path Diabolism was founded by Brother Nero (an American), we consider Shadow Path Diabolism to be a British tradition of Satanism. The spiritual current upon which Shadow Path Diabolism was founded has its roots in Exeter, England.
It is for this reason that it comes as no surprise to the members of Devil’s Mark Ministries that Satanism is on the rise in Exeter.
It is our position that the veil between the worlds is thinner in Exeter, and the presence of the Demonic Gods is strong for those serious about calling out to them.
Many people reading this may scoff at the idea that the Devil is present in Exeter. But before you dismiss the idea so quickly, consider this: there are legends about the Devil being present in Devon going back centuries. The acknowledgment of the Devil’s presence is not limited to practitioners of Shadow Path Diabolism. Christians, cunning men, and witches all have acknowledged the power of the supernatural forces present in Devon for years.
History of Witchcraft and Devil Worship in Exeter
Here is an article from the Winter 2020 edition of the Shadow Path Journal detailing some of the witchcraft hysteria that was toehold of some of the residents of Exeter during the seventeenth century.
At first glance, Exeter is largely indistinguishable from any other small English city. However, upon spending some time there, a keen observer may notice a few clues about the area’s unique and morbid past. A well-hidden mural on Musgrave Row depicting scenes from Exeter’s history includes the images of three women in black robes and pointed hats huddled around a cauldron. Further up the street at Rougemont Castle, the site of the Devon county court from around 1607, a plaque hangs on the wall of the old gatehouse. The inscription lists four names: Temperance Lloyd, Susannah Edwards, Mary Trembles (died 1682), and Alice Molland (died 1685), the last known people to be executed for witchcraft in England.
The belief in witches and witchcraft that was common among the people of 16th and 17th century Exeter can be traced back several centuries, as the first case of alleged witchcraft was recorded in 1302. However, the first mentions of witchcraft in the courts at Exeter do not appear until 1558, when one Thomas Weare, while apparently facing charges related to gambling, was also accused by the jurors of being a “charmer” and “witchcraft user.” The first confirmed execution of an accused witch, not just in Exeter but in the whole South West of England, involved a woman named Thomasine Short, who was convicted in 1581 of murdering the family of Richard Hewe through “diabolic art.” Over the next century, many others are recorded to have met the same fate through the Exeter assizes, up to and including the so-called Bideford witches: Temperance Lloyd, Susannah Edwards, and Mary Trembles.
One of the biggest questions that might stick in the minds of anyone, practicing witches or not, who reads the accounts of these trials is also the hardest to answer: was there ever any merit to any of the charges brought against these victims? Unfortunately, any recorded claims of magic use, no matter how well corroborated by multiple witnesses, are impossible to verify. While it is certainly conceivable that some of those who were sentenced to hang for witchcraft actually practiced it, it is also equally possible that most of the accused were branded witches for other reasons.
The vast majority of those tried and executed were women and men who were poor, widowed, or socially unacceptable in some way. Thomasine Short, for instance, had a reputation for being a “scold”—one who used obscene or confrontational language in public—and had several encounters with the courts before the quarrel with Richard Hewe that led to her downfall. The perspective most commonly accepted by historians is that the majority of the allegations against the victims of witch trials were largely made up to disguise other prejudices and quarrels. However, some accounts might be more ambiguous if one were to suspend disbelief.
The accusations against those tried as witches range from somewhat credible to utterly bizarre. In the case of Thomasine Short, there doesn’t seem to have been much provocation behind her being brought to trial besides saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Records suggest that she threatened Hewe’s family before their deaths; whether she truly carried out that threat in any capacity is anyone’s guess. However, her words, in conjunction with the untimely death of his family, clearly spooked Hewe enough to accuse her of witchcraft.
Another case worth further inspection involved a woman named Margaret Nightingale in 1661. She had apparently been present when her neighbor William Knowsley’s daughter Maria suffered the first of a recurring series of fits. Knowsley, upon seeking advice about his daughter’s condition, was told that someone had “bewitched” Maria, and he drew his own conclusions based on Nightingale’s presence during the first and several subsequent fits (he was convinced that his daughter experienced these fits consistently upon sight of Margaret Nightingale).
The charges against the Bideford witches were far stranger and seem to involve a lot more fantasy than fact. Witchcraft during the time of witch trials was considered indistinguishable from Devil worship. Those who testified against Temperance Lloyd, Susannah Edwards, and Mary Trembles accused them of meeting shadowy men and goblins in the streets at night and alleged to witnessing a number of quite perverse interactions between the women and these beings. It seems highly unlikely, to say the least, that any of these women had dalliances with the Devil while on their way to buy bread, and most of the charges against them are easy to dismiss as some very creative fiction concocted by the supposed witnesses to make their testimonies more believable (or, perhaps, simply more interesting).
Even the somewhat less fanciful accusations against the Bideford witches seem like little more than hearsay. Temperance Lloyd was accused of using witchcraft to torment a woman called Grace Thomas. According to Grace’s sister, upon hearing Grace complain of pains in her knee, she allegedly found nine pinpricks at the site of the pain. Temperance apparently confessed to pricking a piece of leather nine times, but this testimony was later disregarded as unsatisfactory during the trial.
The other two women, Mary Trembles and Susannah Edwards, had even less hard evidence against them. Mary Trembles happened to be passing by the house of Grace Barnes one morning when Barnes was suffering a seizure. Mary Trembles and her companion Susannah Edwards had, on a previous day, been begging for food together and had been turned down by Grace Barnes. This was, in the eyes of their accusers, sufficient motive to have bewitched Grace Barnes, and what followed during their trials amounted to little but a number of completely unverifiable first-hand claims of signs of witchcraft (such as the fact that Susannah Edwards was nervously fidgeting with her hands during her questioning, as anyone might do in such a situation). Somehow, this mixed bag of circumstantial evidence was enough for the courts to order the women’s executions.
It seems unlikely that most of the evidence given was truly indicative of witchcraft. The three women confessed to the charges against them, but given the outlandish nature of many of the claims, it is more believable that they did so out of fear of torture. Interestingly, the one assertion that Temperance Lloyd flatly refused to confess to was the use of “image magic”—for instance, sticking pins in dolls or photographs to inflict pain on a victim. Grace Thomas and Grace Barnes both complained of pricking and stabbing pains in their extremities, yet Temperance maintained that she was not responsible. Why in particular, she refused to admit to this when she was perfectly willing to admit to speaking with the Devil is an intriguing mystery. Unfortunately, as with many other testimonies during witch trials, there is virtually no way to tell whether there was ever any merit to this claim.
While there are witness accounts here and there which might have some shred of credibility to them, most of the evidence that was used to convict the Bideford witches—and, indeed, most victims of witch trials throughout the Western world—seems likely to have been made up out of whole cloth. As with the Satanic Panic in the 80s, many (if not most) of those accused of being involved in sinister activities were simply people who didn’t quite fit in with the social standards of the time. However, this is not to say that there isn’t a long and storied history of witchcraft in the UK that was never brought to light during the witch trials. Certainly, places like Exeter attract many practicing witches today, due at least in part to the history of witches and alleged witches who lived and died there. Ironically, it seems that the witch hunters of Exeter’s past are responsible today for more real witches living in Exeter than they ever managed to destroy.
As for those who were convicted and executed? Only they would be able to tell us for certain whether they really met the Devil while walking the streets of Exeter in the dead of night.
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