An esbat is a coven meeting or ritual at a time other than one of the festivals within Wicca and other Wiccan-influenced forms of contemporary Paganism.
Esbats can span a wide range of purposes from coven business meetings and initiation ceremonies to social gatherings, times of merriment, and opportunities to commune with the divine. Janet and Stewart Farrar describe esbats as an opportunity for a "love feast, healing work, psychic training and all."
Esbats are typically held once per month on or near the night of a full moon or new moon.
Esbats are a time set aside for formal worship and have been described as similar to Sundays for Christians or Friday nights for Jewish people. They can be solitary affairs but tend to be conducted in groups. Sources vary on whether these rituals are open to the public or only to initiated members. It was a borrowing by 20th century anthropologist Margaret Murray's use of French witch trial sources on supposed Witches' Sabbaths in her attempts to "reconstruct" a Witch Cult in Western Europe.
Observance
An esbat is commonly understood to be a ritual observance on the night of a full moon. However, the late high priestess Doreen Valiente distinguished between "full moon Esbat[s]" and other esbatic occasions.
The term esbat in this sense was described by Margaret Murray.
Esbats vary greatly and can be simple or elaborate. Rituals use symbolism to enhance the properties of a particular moon, of which there are 13 per solar year. New moon esbats may be used to worship a dark or maiden goddess, to banish something unwanted, or to end a phase in life. Because esbats typically occur when the moon is at its highest point, covens may choose for new moon esbats to take place in the mid-afternoon.