10 Infamous Occultists With Terrifyingly Creepy Obsessions

4. La Voisin - Infant Sacrifice

By the age of nine, Catherine Monvoisin or "La Voisin," learned people would readily pay for her gift of fortune telling. When she first started reading palms she told clients that their wishes would come true if it was the will of God, but quickly realized customers were more satisfied when they felt in control of their destiny. Catherine had a strong knowledge of potions. When a client calling on her services wanted someone in their life dead, La Voisin would supply the poison. Eventually, her act of turning ordinary people into amateur assassins also fizzled so Catherine became, in a word, darker. She began performing black masses to call upon the power of Satan to help her patrons. To summon the devil La Voisin used infant sacrifice; draining the blood of babies over the rituals guest of honor, who lay naked on an altar. Her list of customers included many nobles connecting all the way up to the royal house of France. In the end her crimes were exposed and the disgusted public called for her execution. She was burned at the stake. Many of her accomplices were also arrested by the King, who placed them in jail without trial where they were never heard from again. After La Voisin's conviction, a search of her home revealed a secret furnace filled with human ash and a mass grave full of small bodies in her garden.