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

72 Diabolus in Musica
(his italics), “are, at least from our present point of
view and as of this date, incredibly and abysmally
stupid . . . Might it not be that at least some
OINTS are so far ahead of our present status that
they have completely lost control of themselves
and just plain given up thinking . . . That they are
for the most part overcivilized and quite mad is, in
my opinion, an open-ended question but quite
probable” (Sanderson, 1973, 214–216).
By the mid-1970s the Devil’s/Bermuda triangle
fad had run its course. It was the subject of some
devastating debunking, most effectively in Larry
Kusche’s The Bermuda Triangle Mystery—Solved,
originally published in 1975, which documented
the prosaic causes of the allegedly enigmatic
vanishings. An extensive investigation by the Navy
determined, for example, that the Avengers had
gotten lost and crashed into the ocean east of
Florida because of pilot error and severe weather;
the rescue craft had exploded, apparently because
of a gas leak. Kusche charged that the triangle
researchers had spent more time rewriting each
other’s books than in doing the original research
that would have laid the “mystery” to rest. “The
Legend of the Bermuda Triangle,” he wrote, “is a
manufactured mystery. It began because of careless
research and was elaborated upon and perpetuated
by writers who either purposely or unknowingly
made use of misconceptions, faulty reasoning,
and sensationalism. It was repeated so many
times that it began to take on the aura of truth”
(Kusche, 1986, 277).
—Jerome Clark
See also Demons; UFOs
For Further Reading:
Begg, Paul. Into Thin Air: People Who Disappear.
North Pomfret, VT: David and Charles, 1979.
Berlitz, Charles, with J. Manson Valentine. The
Bermuda Triangle. Garden City, NY: Doubleday
and Company, 1974.
Eckert, Allan W. “The Mystery of the Lost Patrol.”
American Legion Magazine (April 1962): 12–13,
39–41.
Edwards, Frank. Stranger Than Science. New York:
Lyle Stuart, 1959.
Gaddis, Vincent H. Invisible Horizons: True
Mysteries of the Sea. Philadelphia, PA: Chilton
Books, 1965.
Keyhoe, Donald E.. The Flying Saucer Conspiracy.
New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1955.
Kusche, Larry. The Bermuda Triangle Mystery—
Solved. Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1986.
———. The Disappearance of Flight 19. New York:
Harper and Row, 1980.
Sand, George X. “Sea Mystery at Our Back Door.”
Fate 5, no. 7 (October 1952): 11–17.
Sanderson, Ivan T. Invisible Residents: a Disquisition
upon Certain Matters Maritime, and the
Possibility of Intelligent Life under the Waters of
This Earth. New York: Avon Books, 1973.
Spencer, John Wallace. Limbo of the Lost. Westfield,
MA: Phillips, 1969.
Winer, Richard. The Devil’s Triangle. New York:
Bantam Books, 1974.
Diabolus in Musica
Diabolus in musica is Latin, literally meaning “devil
in music,” and is a medieval expression for the
tritone (diminished fifth or augmented fourth). It
splits the octave in half (in this case, F and C sharp).
The tritone strikes the listener as being discordant
and somewhat out of tune. The church came to
regard this interval as Satanic, asserting that it
summoned the Devil—hence the nickname, diabolus
in musica. Its use was actually banned from the
time of the development of Guido of Arezzo’s hexachordal
system in the eleventh century until the end
of the Renaissance. Musicians who were found
using the tritone could be tortured and burned at
the stake by the Inquisition.
Diabolus in Musica is also the title of a 1998
album by the heavy metal (death metal) group
Slayer. The tritone is used throughout this album.
Additionally, it might be noted that the group
Black Sabbath also uses this interval in their song
“Black Sabbath.”
Finally, Diabolus in Musica was the title of a
piano concert given to mark the first anniversary
of the death of Anton LaVey. It was one of the first
public events ever held by the Church of Satan.
Listed by the New York Times, it was a wellattended
event held at a New York City art gallery.
See also Heavy Metal Music
For Further Reading:
Baddeley, Gavin. Lucifer Rising: Sin, Devil Worship
and Rock’n’Roll. London: Plexus, 1999.
Sadie, Stanley, ed. New Grove Dictionary of Music
and Musicians. Washington, DC: Grove’s
Dictionaries of Music, 1980.