Blackwell Reference Online

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[ xxiv ] The worship of Satan or other central figures from Christian demonology. Satanism, essentially a reaction against Christianity, has historically been a rare occurrence. From the late middle ages witches were accused of devil-worship ( see W itchcraft ), but there is almost no reliable evidence that it took place. The distinctive rite of Satanism is supposedly the ‘black mass’ – a blasphemous parody of the M ass , celebrated by an unfrocked priest, with black candles and inverted crucifix, involving defilement of the consecrated host (E ucharist ), sexual indulgence and sometimes animal or even human sacrifice. But no description of it exists from before the later 19th century. Medieval heretics ( see H eresy ) were accused of perverting the mass, and in 17th-century France distorted versions were occasionally celebrated for magical purposes, but Satanism was not involved. Modern Satanism dates from the 19th-century ‘O ccult revival’, which included a synthetic ‘revival’ of Satanism in imitation of practices attributed in previous centuries to witches and sorcerers. Satanism continues to lead a fitful existence among those who find excitement in doing things they believe to be wicked, and is sustained partly by popular fiction and cinema and partly by occasional ecclesiastical denunciations, which have always tended to stimulate interest in it. [25] ... log in or subscribe to read full text