Maria was remembered for her sanctity, love of the poor, self-imposed sacrifices, and ecstasies so complete that she was seen levitating.
From her early years, he writes, she was favored by ecstasies and visions and became a noted mystic of her era.
Despite such criticism, Ginzburg would later return to the theories about a shamanistic substratum for his 1989 book Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath, and it would also be adopted by historians like Éva Pócs, Gabór Klaniczay, Claude Lecouteux and Emma Wilby.