The Encyclopedia Of Demons And Demonology

satanism 225
There is no reliable evidence of satanic activity in the
18th century. In England, the HELL-FIRE CLUB, a society
founded by Sir Francis Dashwood (1708–81), often described
as satanic, was little more than a club for young
men to indulge in drinking, sexual play with women
called “nuns,” and outrageous behavior. The club, or the
“Medmenham Monks,” as they called themselves, met
regularly between 1750 and 1762 in Dashwood’s home,
Medmenham Abbey. They were said to conduct Black
Masses, but it is doubtful that these were serious satanic
activities. Similar groups were the Brimstone Boys and
Blue Blazers of Ireland.
One of the most famous satanists of the 19th century
was Abbé Boullan of France, who became the head of an
offshoot of the Church of Carmel and allegedly practiced
black magic and infant sacrifice. The Church of Carmel
was formed by Eugene Vintras, the foreman of a cardboard
box factory in Tilly-sur-Seule. In 1839, Vintras said
he received a letter from the archangel Michael, followed
by visions of the archangel, the Holy Ghost, St. Joseph,
and the Virgin Mary. He was informed that he was the
reincarnated prophet Elijah, and he was to found a new
religious order and proclaim the coming of the age of the
Holy Ghost. The true king of France, he was told, was a
man named Charles Naundorf.
Vintras went about the countryside preaching this
news and acquiring followers, including priests. Masses
were celebrated that included visions of empty chalices
filled with blood and bloodstains on the Eucharist.
By 1848, the Church of Carmel, as the movement was
known, was condemned by the pope. In 1851, Vintras
was accused by a former disciple of conducting Black
Masses in the nude, homosexuality, and masturbating
while praying at the altar.
Shortly before his death in 1875, Vintras befriended
Boullan, who formed a splinter group of the Church of
Carmel upon Vintras’ death. He ran the group for 18
years, until his death, outwardly maintaining pious practices,
but secretly conducting satanic rituals.
Boullan seems to have been obsessed with satanism
and evil since age 29, when he took a nun named Adèle
Chevalier as his mistress. Chevalier left her convent,
bore two bastard children, and founded with Boullan
the Society for the Reparation of Souls. Boullan specialized
in exorcising DEMONs by unconventional means,
such as feeding possessed victims a mixture of human
excrement and the Eucharist. He also performed Black
Masses. On January 8, 1860, he and Chevalier reportedly
conducted a Black Mass in which they sacrificed one of
their children.
By the time Boullan met Vintras, Boullan was claiming
to be the reincarnated St. John the Baptist. He taught his
followers sexual techniques and said the original sin of
Adam and Eve could be redeemed by sex with incubi and
succubi. He and his followers also were said to copulate
with the spirits of the dead, including Anthony the Great.
Boullan’s group was infiltrated by two Rosicrucians,
Oswald Wirth and Stanislas de Guaita, who wrote an
exposé, The Temple of Satan. Supposedly Boullan and
de Guaita engaged in magical warfare. Boullan and his
friend, the novelist J. K. Huysmans, claimed to be attacked
by demons. When Boullan collapsed and died of
a heart attack on January 3, 1893, Huysmans believed it
due to an evil spell from de Guaita and said so in print. De
Guaita challenged him to a duel, but Huysmans declined
and apologized.
In his novel, Là-bas (Down There), Huysmans included
a Black Mass, which he said was based on his observations
of one conducted by a satanic group in Paris, operating
in the late 19th century. He said the mass was recited
backward, the crucifix was upside down, the Eucharist
was defiled, and the rites ended in a sexual orgy.
By the early 20th century, ALEISTER CROWLEY was
thought to be involved in satanism. Although he called
himself “the Beast”; used Life, Love, and Light to describe
Satan; and once baptized and crucified a toad as JESUS, he
was not a satanist, but a magician and occultist.
Modern Satanism
The largest movement of modern satanism began in the
1960s, in the United States, led by Anton Szandor LaVey,
a shrewd, intelligent man with a charismatic persona
and an imposing appearance. In 1966, LaVey founded the
Church of Satan in San Francisco, the activities of which
became the object of great media attention.
Born April 11, 1930, in Chicago, LaVey claimed an ancestry
of Alsatian, Georgian, and Romanian blood, including
a Gypsy grandmother from Transylvania. As a child,
he studied music and became interested in the occult. He
learned to play the piano at 10, and, at 15, became an oboist
for the San Francisco Ballet Symphony Orchestra. He
dropped out of high school in his junior year and joined
the Clyde Beatty Circus as a cage boy. He had a gift for
working with the big cats and became assistant trainer. It
was in the circus, working with lions, he later said, that
he learned about inner power and magic. On the side, he
investigated haunted houses. At 18, he left the circus and
joined a carnival, as a magician’s assistant and a calliope
player. In 1948, he met Marilyn Monroe and played as her
accompanist.
He married his first wife, Carole, in 1951; they had
one daughter, Karla. He studied criminology at City
College in San Francisco and spent three years as a
crime photographer with the San Francisco Police Department.
Disgusted with the violence he saw, he quit
and returned to playing the organ in nightclubs and
theaters. He began holding classes on occult subjects.
From these classes evolved a Magic Circle, which met to
perform rituals LaVey had devised or discovered from
historical sources on the Knights Templar, Hell-Fire
Club, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister
Crowley. LaVey apparently enjoyed the theatrics of
the rituals; he dressed in a scarlet-lined cape and kept