booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

we have seen, in the Cainites the Euchites, and the Luciferians. These are not surmises, but actual facts of
history. Towards the end of the twelfth century Luciferianism spread eastwards through Styria, the Tyrol,
and Bohemia, even as far as Brandenburg; by the beginning of the thirteenth century it had invaded western
Germany, and in the fourteenth century reached its zenith in that country as also in Italy and France. The
cult had now reached a further stage in its development, and it was not the mere propitiation of Satanael as
the prince of this world practised by the Luciferians, but actual Satanism-the love of evil for the sake of evilwhich
formed the doctrine of the sect known in Italy as la vecchia religione or the " old religion." Sorcery
was adopted as a profession, and witches, not, as is popularly supposed, sporadic growths, were trained in
schools of magic to practise their art. These facts should be remembered when the Church is blamed for the
violence it displayed against witchcraft-it was not individuals, but a system which it set out to destroy.
The essence of Satanism is desecration. In the ceremonies for infernal evocation described by Eliphas
Lévi we read: " It is requisite to profane the ceremonies of the religion one belongs to and to trample its
holiest symbols under foot."(8) This practice found a climax in desecrating the Holy Sacrament. The consecrated
wafer was given as food to mice, toads, an pigs, or defiled in unspeakable ways. A revolting description
of the Black Mass may be found in Huysmans's book Lá-bas. It is unnecessary to transcribe the
loathsome details here. Suffice it, then, to show that this cult had a very real existence and if any further
doubt remains on the matter, the life of Gilles de Rais supplies documentary evidence of the visible results
of black magic in the Middle Ages.
Gilles de Rais was born at Machecoul in Brittany about the year 1404. The first period of his life was
glorious; the companion and guide of Jeanne d'Arc, he became Maréchal of France and distinguished himself
by many deeds of valour. But after dissipating his immense fortune, largely on Church ceremonies carried
out with the wildest extravagance, he was led to study alchemy, partly by curiosity and partly as a
means for restoring his shattered fortunes. Hearing that Germany and Italy were the countries where alchemy
flourished, he enlisted Italians in his service and was gradually drawn into the further region of magic.
According to Huysmans, Gilles de Rais had remained until this moment a Christian mystic under the
influence of Jeanne d'Arc, but after her death-possibly in despair-he offered himself to the powers of darkness.
Evokers of Satan now flocked to him from every side, amongst them Prelati, an Italian, by no means
the old and wrinkled sorcerer of tradition, but a young and attractive man of charming manners. For it was
from Italy that came the most skilful adepts in the art of alchemy, astrology, magic, and infernal evocation,
who spread themselves over Europe, particularly France. Under the influence of these initiators Gilles de
Rais signed a letter to the devil in a meadow near Machecoul asking him for " knowledge, power, and
riches," and offering in exchange anything that might be asked of him with the exception of his life or his
soul. But in spite of this appeal and of a pact signed with the blood of the writer, no Satanic apparitions
were forthcoming.
It was then that, becoming still more desperate, Gilles de Rais had recourse to the abominations for
which his name has remained infamous-still more frightful invocations, loathsome debaucheries, perverted
vice in every form, Sadic cruelties, horrible sacrifices, and, finally, holocausts of little boys and girls collected
by his agents in the surrounding country and put to death with the most inhuman tortures. During the
years 1432-40 literally hundreds of children disappeared. Many of the names of the unhappy little victims
were preserved in the records of the period. Gilles de Rais met with a well deserved end: in 1440 he was
hanged and burnt. So far he does not appear to have found a panegyrist to place him in the ranks of noble
martyrs.
It will, of course, be urged that the crimes here described were those of a criminal lunatic and not to be
attributed to any occult cause; the answer to this is that Gilles was not a isolated unit, but one of a group of
occultists who cannot all have been mad. Moreover, it was only after his invocation of the Evil One that he
developed these monstrous proclivities. So also his eighteenth-century replica, the Marquis de Sade, combined
with his abominations and impassioned hatred of the Christian religion.
What is the explanation of this craze for magic in Western Europe? Deschamps points to the Cabala, "
that science of demoniacal arts, of which the Jews were the initiators," and undoubtedly in any comprehensive
review of the question the influence of the Jewish Cabalists cannot be ignored. In Spain, Portugal,
Provence, and Italy the Jews by the fifteenth century had become a power; as early as 1450 they had penetrated
into the intellectual circles of Florence, and it was also in Italy that, a century later, the modern Cabalistic
school was inaugurated by Isaac Luria (1533-72), whose doctrines were organized into a practical system
by the Hasidim of Eastern Europe for the writing of amulets, the conjuration of devils, mystical jugglery
with numbers and letters, etc.(9) Italy in the fifteenth century was thus a centre from which Cabalistic influences
radiated, and it may be that the Italians who indoctrinated Gilles de Rais had drawn their inspiration
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
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