Witches' Sabbath (The Great He-Goat) during the Logroño Inquisition, was an appalling regression to liberals such as Goya. As court painter Goya was a part of the established order; surviving evidence indicates he was acquiesced to the wishes of his patrons. Yet numerous paintings and etchings have emerged since, suggesting he had convictions favouring liberalism, enlightenment, and reason. He seems to have kept such beliefs private, only expressing them in his private art; his more sensitive works were not published at the time, probably for fear of reprisal or persecution. In "Witches' Sabbath" Goya mocks and ridicules the superstition, fear and irrationality of the ignorant
Witches' Sabbath and Amanita muscaria by name, and confining himself to but a single paragraph on the 'flying ointment' on page 303 of 'Ecstasies...' : In the Sabbath the judges more and more frequently saw the accounts of real, physical events. For a long time the only dissenting voices were those of the people who, referring back to the "Canon episcopi", saw witches and sorcerers as the victims of demonic illusion. In the sixteenth century scientists like Cardano or Della Porta formulated a different opinion : animal metamorphoses, flights, apparitions of the devil were the effect of malnutrition or the use of