The Black Mass of the Marquis de Sade
From Marquis de Sade: His Life and Work,
by Dr. Iwan Bloch, 1899
Translated from the German by James Bruce, 1931
The height of religious sexual mysticism was reached in the cult of the so-called "Satan’s Church." Satan here became the "Personification of the Physical Mysterium of Copulation" as a protest against the exclusive mastery of the "Metaphysical Mysticism of Idolization." The history of this remarkable sect has been written for all time by Stanislaw Przybyszewski in his The Cult of Satan's Church. Satan-Satyr, Satan-Pan, and Satan-Phallus was the ancient "God of instincts and corporeal passions, equally honored by the highest and lowest in spirit, the inexhaustible source of joy in life, enthusiasm and intoxication.
"He taught women the art of seduction, men to satisfy their feelings in their double sexual desires, he ran rim in color, discovered the flute and set the muscles in rhythmical movement, until the divine mania embraced the heart and the divine Phallus with its opulence sowed the fruitful womb."
That was the age of the pagan mysteries of motherhood. Then came the Judeo-Grecan Christianity and preached the supernatural, ascetic mysticism of fatherhood. The church tore man forcefully from nature. "She destroyed the unconscious selection of nature, which expressed itself externally in beauty, power and splendor; she protected everything that nature would uproot: din, ugliness, sickness, cripples and eunuchs." But nature did not allow itself to be rejected. And so the church had to give in and amalgamate the pagan creed with its own. "The bacchanalias at the feasts of Ceres Libera were celebrated with greater freedom than ever before on Lady-day, and until the thirteenth century the people celebrated. in common with the priests, lascivious and orgiastic festivals, the feast of the Ass, the feast of the Idiots. The remainder of the Phallus cult stole away to the church; the columns and pillars swarmed with obscene figures, a favorite theme for the reliefs in the church was Noah sleeping with his daughters." But the real cult of "Satan’s Church" was founded by the Manichees in southern France. "From here began the monstrous triumphal procession of Satan through all Europe." The secret societies of "Perfect Beings" formed everywhere, serving exclusively the most obscene sexual vices. "They insulted and stoned the priests, violated the holy objects with their obscene purposes and parodied the Catholic services in their rites." In spite of the persecution of the church the sect and its motto persevered: Nemo potest peccare ab umbilico et inferius; it found command support from "unsatisfied" priests. Sins slay sins! That was the great principle of their sexual orgies. The priest sanctifies all women who sin with him. The nuns are "consecrated," i.e. they become the mistresses of the priests. The black death in the fourteenth century, flagellation, dance-mania, famine, all heightened immeasurably the sexual hysteria. Now the sect of devil worshippers enjoyed their triumphs. Since then, in spite of persecution, they remained in the self-same position and further celebrate their public masses. Even in modern times they have appeared in various forms. The "Adamites" or "Nicolites," "Picards," who congregate nude and enjoy wives in common, were founded by John Ziska on an island in the Luschnitz River. They appeared again in 1848 in five villages as "Moroccanes." The name was chosen due to their expectation of the extirpation of all Catholics by an enemy coming from Morocco. Similarly the name "Oneida" or the older name of "Perfecti," later "Perfectionists" in New York State (since 1831). Even today the Satan cult is carried on in Paris, as is described by J. K. Huysmans, in Là Bas:
The sacrifice ceased. The priest descended the steps backward, knelt on the last one, and in a sharp, tripidant voice cried:
"Master of Slanders, Dispenser of the benefits of crime, Administrator of sumptuous sins and great vices, Satan, thee we adore, reasonable God, just God!
"Superadmirable legate of false trances, thou receivest our beseeching tears; thou savest the honor of families by aborting wombs irnpregnated in the forgetfulness of the good orgasm; thou dost suggest to the mother the hastening of untimely birth, and thine obstetrics spares the still-born children the anguish of maturity, the contamination of original sin.
"Mainstay of the despairing Poor, Cordial of the Vanquished, it is thou who endowst them with hypocrisy, ingratitude, and stiff-neckedness, that they may defend themselves against the children of God, the Rich.
"Suzerain of Resentment, Accountant of Humiliations, Treasurer of old Hatreds, thou alone dost fertilize the brain of man whom injustice has crashed; thou breathest into him the idea of meditated vengeance, sure misdeeds; thou incitest him to murder; thou givest him the abundant joy of accomplished reprisals and permittest him to taste the intoxicating draught of the tears of which he is the cause.
"Hope of Virility, Anguish of the Empty Womb, thou dost not demand the bootless offering of chaste lions, thou dost not sing the praises of Lenten follies; thou alone receivest the carnal supplications and petitions of poor and avaricious families. Thou determinest the mother to sell her daughter, to give her son; thou aidest sterile and reprobate loves; Guardian of strident Neuroses, Leaden Tower of Hysteria, bloody Vase of Rape!
"Master, thy faithful servants, on their knees, implore thee and supplicate thee to satisfy them when they wish the torture of all those who love them and aid them; they supplicate thee, to assure them the joy of delectable misdeeds unknown to justice, spells whose unknown origin baffles the reason of man; they ask, finally, glory, riches, power, of thee, King of the Disinherited, Son who art to overthrow the inexorable Father!"
Then Docre rose, and erect, with arms outstretched, vociferated in a ringing voice of hate:
"And thou, thou whom, in my quality of priest, I force, whether thou wilt or no, to descend into this host, to incarnate thyself in this bread, Jesus, Artisan of Hoaxes, Bandit of Homage, Robber of Affection, hear! Since the day when thou didst issue from the complaisant bowels of a Virgin, thou hast failed all thine engagements, belied all thy promises. Centuries have wept, awaiting thee, fugitive God, mute God! Thou wast to redeem man and thou host not, thou wast to appear in thy glory, and thou sleepest. Go, lie, say to the wretch who appeals to thee, 'Hope, be patient, suffer; the hospital of souls will receive thee; the angels will assist thee; Heaven opens to thee.' Imposter! thou knowest well that the angels, disgusted at thine inertness, abandon thee! Thou wast to be the Interpreter of our plaints, the Chamberlain of our tears; thou wast to convey them to the Father and thou hast not done so, for this intercession would disturb thine eternal sleep of happy satiety.
“Thou hast forgotten the poverty thou didst preach, enamoured vassal of Banksl Thou hast seen the weak crushed beneath the press of profit; thou hast heard the death rattle of the timid, paralyzed by famine, of women disembowelled for a bit of bread, and thou hast caused the Chancery of thy Simoniacs, thy commercial representatives, thy Popes, to answer by dilatory excuses and evasive promises, sacristy Shyster, huckster God!
"Master, whose inconceivable ferocity engenders life and inflicts it on the innocent whom thou darest damn—in the name of what original sin?—whom thou darest punish—by the virtue of what covenants?—we would have thee confess thine impudent cheats, thine inexpiable crimes! We would drive deeper the nails into thy hands, press down the crown of thorns upon thy brow, bring blood and water from the dry wounds of thy sides.
"And that we can and will do by violating the quietude of thy body, Profaner of ample vices, Abstractor of stupid purities, cursed Nazarene, do-nothing King, coward God!"
"Amen!" trilled the soprano voices of the choir boys.
Durtal listened in amazement to this torrent of blasphemies and insults. The foulness of the priest stupefied him. A silence succeeded the litany. The chapel was foggy with the smoke of the censers. The women, hitherto taciturn, flustered now, as, remounting the altar, the canon turned toward them and blessed them with his left hand in a sweeping gesture. And suddenly the choir boys tinkled the prayer bells.
It was a signal. The women fell to the carpet and writhed. One of them seemed to be worked by a spring. She threw herself prone and waved her legs in the air. Another, suddenly struck by a hideous strabism, clucked, then becoming tongue-tied stood with her mouth open, the tongue turned back, the tip cleaving to the palate. Another, inflated, livid, her pupils dilated, lolled her head back over her shoulders, then jerked it brusquely erect and belabored herself, tearing her breast with her nails. Another, sprawling on her back, undid her skirts, drew forth a rag, enormous, meteorized; then her face twisted into a horrible grimace, and her tongue, which she could not control, stuck out, bitten at the edges, harrowed by red teeth, from a bloody mouth.
Suddenly Durtal rose, and now he heard and saw Docre distinctly.
Docre contemplated the Christ surmounting the tabernacle, and with arms spread wide apart he spewed forth frightful insults, and, at the end of his forces, muttered the billingsgate of a drunken cabman. One of the choir boys knelt before him with his back toward the altar. A shudder ran around the priest's spine. In a solemn but jerky voice he said, "Hoc est enim corpus meum," then, instead of kneeling, after the consecration, before the precious Body, he faced the congregation, and appeared tumefied, haggard, dripping with sweat. He staggered between the two choir boys, who, raising the chasuble, displayed his naked belly. Docre made a few passes and the host sailed, tainted and wiled, over the steps.
Durtal felt himself shudder. A whirlwind of hysteria shook the room.
While the choir boys sprinkled holy water on the pontiff's nakedness, women rushed upon the Eucharist and, groveling in front of the altar, clawed from the bread humid particles and drank and ate divine ordure.
Another woman, curled up over a crucifix, emitted a rending laugh, then cried to Docre, "Father, father!" A crone tore her hair, leapt, whirled around and around as on a pivot and fell over beside a young girl who, huddled to the wall, was writhing in convulsions, frothing at the mouth, weeping, and spitting out frightful blasphemies. And Durtal, terrified, saw through the fog the red horns of Docre, who seated now, frothing with rage, was chewing up sacramental wafers, taking them out of his mouth, wiping himself with them, and distributing them to the women, who ground them underfoot, howling, or fell over each other struggling to get hold of them and violate them.
The place was simply a madhouse, a monstrous pandemonium of prostitutes and maniacs. Now, while the choir boys gave themselves to the men, and while the woman who owned the chapel, mounted the altar, caught hold of the phallus of the Christ with one hand and with the other held a chalice between "His" naked legs, a little girl, who hitherto had not budged, suddenly bent over forward and howled, howled like a dog. Overcome with disgust, nearly asphyxiated, Durtal wanted to flee. He looked for Hyacinthe. She was no longer at his side. He finally caught sight of her close to the canon, and, stepping over the writhing bodies on the floor, he went to her. With quivering nostrils she was inhaling the effluvia of the perfumes and of the couples.
"The sabbatic odor!" she said to him between clenched teeth, in a strangled voice.
The Marquis de Sade gave evidence in his novels of being a fanatic Satanist. Many black masses appeared in Justine and Juliette. A mass in a monastery was fully described in Justine (II, 239). A Maiden, as the Holy Virgin, with arms raised to heaven, was bound in a niche in the church. Later she was laid naked on a great table, candles were lit, a crucifix decorated her buttocks, and "they celebrated on her buttocks the most absurd mysteries of Christianity." Then a mass was read on the same place. As soon as there was a Host of God, she seized the monk Ambrose and held fast to his member, whereby the believers in the Host were derided with the maddest expressions.
Two black masses were read in the privates of two tribades, (Juliette III, 147), then the Host was placed in the dung, after which the main altar became the place of the wildest orgies.
Pope Pius VI, himself, read a black mass in St. Peter's church, the Host being placed in the anus of a young girl.
