Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

28 Black Mass
Holy Bible, and audible expectorations on the
cross! If a baby can be slaughtered during the
ritual, so much the better; for as everyone
knows, this is the favorite sport of the
Satanist! (99)
As with other components of infernal mythology,
the belief in the real existence of Black Masses
was widespread in the Middle Ages. LaVey, the
founder of modern Satanism, drew on a few
elements of this literary Satanism (e.g., black
candles and the use of a naked woman for his
altar) to construct his own version of the Black
Mass. However, unlike the imaginary Black Masses
of the Middle Ages, LaVey was more concerned
with using the Black Mass for psychodrama than
for magic. He also noted that if the purpose of the
original was to shock one’s contemporaries by
blaspheming what was holy, then a true modern
Black Mass “would consist of the blaspheming of
such ‘sacred’ topics as Eastern mysticism, psychiatry,
the psychedelic movement, ultra-liberalism,
etc.” (101).
An illustration of the Black Mass from Huysmans’ novel,
La-Bas (Fortean Picture Library)
The notion of the Black Mass seems to have
arisen out of the belief in the mystical (“magical”)
efficacy of the Mass, and out of the ends to which
certain unprincipled priests put this power.
Within Catholicism and certain other liturgical
denominations, the Mass is a ritualized miracle of
substantiation in which the bread and wine
become the body and blood of Jesus. This rite,
based on the biblical account of the Last Supper,
transforms ordinary, profane ingredients into
Divine artifacts. The occult nature of the Mass was
so evident that Catholics themselves used it for
magical purposes. For example, the Gelasian
Sacramentary, which contains sixth-century
documents, includes Masses for such mundane
goals as healing sick people and cattle, bringing
rain, invoking good weather, protecting individuals
about to take a trip, and even obtaining children.
Saying the Mass over fishing boats, farming
implements, and livestock to make them more
fruitful was common in the Medieval period and
continues to this very day. The church teaching
that Masses are effective even when the priests
performing them are not in a state of grace only
serves to underline the point that the rite has a
magical efficacy of its own.
One of the early records of the power of the
Mass being turned against other human beings
comes from the Council of Toledo, which in 694
banished certain priests and a client who had paid
them to perform a Mass for the dead in which a
living rather than a deceased person was named.
The client apparently believed that pronouncing
the words “Give him eternal rest. O Lord”
(Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine) would effectively
deliver a mortal blow. The same tactic was
tried again and again in later centuries. As a
variant on this approach, in the thirteenth century
certain priests performed a Mass over a wax image
of the intended victim, incorporating a curse
against him in the rite.
Paulus Grillandus, a witchcraft judge writing
in the early sixteenth century, opined that it was
probably not heretical to perform the Mass for the
purpose of discovering whether or not a particular
person was in love with another. He further
stated that it was also acceptable to use the Mass
for the purpose of kindling love in someone