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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Luijk, Ruben van, author.
Title: Children of lucifer : the origins of modern religious satanism / Ruben van Luijk.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015044388| ISBN 978–0–19–027510–5 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 978–0–19–027512–9 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Satanism—History.
Classification: LCC BF1548 .L85 2016 | DDC 133.4/2209—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015044388
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Sheridan, USA
Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Practical Indications for the Reader xiii
Introduction: Mostly for Academic Readers 1
Defining Satanism 2
Available Literature 7
Hypothesis, Framework, and Methodology of This Study 12
1. The Christian Invention of Satanism 16
A Short Biography of the Devil 16
Constructing Worshippers of Satan 22
Exorcising the Devil’s Fifth Column 31
The Satanist Conspiracy of Witchcraft 35
Black Magic and the Black Mass 40
The Affair of the Poisons 45
Satanists before the Modern Age? 56
Intermezzo 1 The Eighteenth Century: Death of Satan?
2. The Romantic Rehabilitation of Satan 69
The Satanic School of Poetry 69
God, Satan, and Revolution 76
Poetry, Myth, and Man’s Ultimate Grounds of Being 87
Satan’s New Myths: Blake and Shelley 91
Satan’s New Myths: Byron and Hugo 99
How Satanist Were the Romantic Satanists? 108
3. Satan in Nineteenth-Century Counterculture 113
Sex, Science, and Liberty 114
Satan the Anarchist 116
(Re)constructing Historical Satanism 121
Satan in Nineteenth-Century Occultism 126
Children of Lucifer 147
Intermezzo 2 Charles Baudelaire: Litanies to Satan
4. Huysmans and Consorts 164
“Down There” 164
Huysmans Discovers Satanism 168
Péladan, Guaita, and Papus 171
Joseph Boullan 175
The Remarkable Case of Chaplain Van Haecke and Canon Docre 185
Intermediary Conclusions 188
Competing Concepts of Satanism 194
Aftermath 200
5. Unmasking the Synagogue of Satan 207
The Unveiling of Freemasonry 208
Taxil before Palladism 216
Excursus: Taxil’s Sources 220
The Rise and Fall of Palladism 223
The Great Masonic Conspiracy 231
How Freemasons Became Satanists 239
6. Unmasking the Synagogue of Satan: Continued and Concluded 242
Fighting Democracy by Democratic Means 244
Hidden Temples, Secret Grottos, and International Men of Mystery 249
A Few Words on Satan in Freemasonry, and on Neo-Palladism 263
The Jewish Question 270
By Way of Conclusion 278
Intermezzo 3 Nineteenth-Century Religious Satanism: Fact or Fiction?
7. Paths into the Twentieth Century 294
The Church of Satan 295
Precursors and Inspirations 299
Aleister Crowley, or the Great Beast 666 306
The Other Tradition: Attribution 314
The Heritage of Romantic Satanism 321
The Paradox of Antireligious Religion 328
Reviving “Black” Magic 336
8. Tribulations of the Early Church 344
Satan and Set; LaVey and Aquino 344
The Satanism Scare, or, The Virulence of Old Legends 356
Nazism, the Western Revolution, and Genuine Satanist Conspiracies 364
LaVey’s Last Years 377
Intermezzo 4 Adolescent Satanism, Metal Satanism, Cyber-Satanism
Conclusion 386
Attribution 388
Rehabilitation 391
Appropriation 395
Application 402
Notes 409
Bibliography 567
Index 607
Acknowledgments
My first debt of gratitude is to Daniela Müller, who adopted and promoted the project of this study at an early date, when I was still a rather ragged and only recently graduated student, finding me an institutional home on more than one occasion. She is the real Doktorvater of this study, and I hope this publication justifies her unflinching trust. Next I would like to mention Theo Salemink, my copromoter, whose untiring enthusiasm and inexhaustible suggestions for new literature and new venues of investigation stimulated me immensely; in addition, his wizardry in circumnavigating certain practical hindrances proved essential in launching my research. Wouter Hanegraaff supported and supervised this project at an early stage: his acute criticism of my earliest chapters was of great value to me. When academic bureaucracy prevented him from continuing this role, he was replaced by Gerard Rouwhorst, who spared me many a headache by his unfailing references to literature on more theoretical issues.
Although an unlikely place for this research, the Faculty of Catholic Theology of Tilburg University at Utrecht provided me with a hospitable institutional bedding for pursuing my dark studies during the first five years of this project. When the harsh spirit of modern efficiency also engulfed this last oasis of academic respite, the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies of the Radbouduniversity at Nijmegen kindly opened its doors for me, thanks to generous financial support by the now-defunct interfaculty focus group for Culture, Religion, and Memory.
Finally I thank my inspiring colleagues in the Noster Werkgroep Nieuwe Spiritualiteit, especially Johanneke Berghuijs; the helpful personnel of all libraries, archives, and other institutions I consulted, in particular Rens Steenhard of the Vredespaleis at The Hague and Brigitte Hegelauer of Mission Eine Welt; Ab de Jong, Marcel Poorthuis, Hans de Waardt, Iris Gareis, Peter Paul Schnierer, Per Faxneld, Syds Wiersma, Michael Siefener, Annemarie
Acknowledgments
Bos, Burton H. Wolfe, and Olivier van Praag, for the help and information they gave me; Dr. Christina Pumplun, for reading Faust with me; Cyril Kuttiyanikkal and Lut Callaert, for being roommates; the two anonymous reviewers, for their comments that allowed me to add some final retouches; Céline Giron et Mortimer Malaisé, pour leur hospitalité et amitié; and my parents, for their understanding, even when they couldn’t always understand.
Practical Indications for the Reader
All translations from other languages in this publication are mine, unless otherwise noted in the notes. Unless otherwise noted, any emphasis within quoted texts is from the original.
Initial capitals within cited texts have been changed as the flow of my text demanded. For brevity’s sake, gods and other (im)personal entities of mixed, neutral, or unknown sex are referred to as “he” or “him.” No theological or ideological statement is implied.
As is by now common usage in scholarly literature, I capitalize Satanism, in accordance with the English-language convention for denoting religions (compare Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, etc.). Except in specific cases, however, I have avoided the epithet “Satanic” for matters regarding Satanism (e.g., “Satanist philosophy”) because it literally signifies something belonging to or sharing traits with Satan and is commonly understood as “diabolically evil.”
The bibliography contains all the relevant publications I have consulted. Periodicals are listed separately, but primary and secondary sources have been compiled within one alphabetical list for quick consultation by inquiring readers. Archival sources and websites are listed in the notes only.
To ensure the readability of the text and because of the lack of a real status qæstionis regarding many aspects of the history of Satanism, I chose, in most cases, to allocate discussions of specialized scholarly literature to the notes. Specialist readers should consult these, as they contain much additional information. Endnotes toward the beginning of a chapter or section list or discuss the most relevant literature regarding that particular topic.
Children of Lucifer
What yesterday was still religion is no longer such today; and what to-day is atheism, tomorrow will be religion.
Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, trans. George Eliot
Introduction
(Mostly for academic readers)
i
Walking through the university library one day, my eye fell on a pulp paperback entitled The World’s Weirdest Cults. I immediately surmised that Satanism would be among the religions featured in the book. Indeed, seven of the sixteen chapters in the little book turned out to be centered on Satanist “cults” of one kind or another.1 My hunch in this respect was not based on some eerie premonition. Authors of pulp paperbacks are by no means exceptional in considering Satanism among “the world’s weirdest cults.” To this day, the word “Satanism” conjures images of the bizarre, the sinister, the lurid, the monstrous, the perverse, and the downright evil. This attitude is reflected in much of the literature, both academic and nonacademic, that deals with the subject or happens to refer to it in passing and also in the reactions of many people, both academic and nonacademic, to whom I mentioned the subject I was working on.
Such associations naturally make Satanism an excellent tool for blackening other people’s reputations. Throughout history, persons and groups alleged to practice Satanism of some kind or another make up a long list, which includes the Essenes, 2 the Gnostics,3 the Hindus,4 the Jews and the Cathars,5 the Templars, 6 the Goliards,7 several medieval and early modern Roman Catholic popes, 8 adherents of tribal religions,9 the Protestants and the Anabaptists,10 John Milton,11 François Henri de Montmorency-Bouteville, Maréchal de Luxembourg,12 Madame de Montespan,13 the Illuminati,14 the Presbyterians,15 Robespierre, Marat, and Danton,16 the Mormons,17 the Rosicrucians,18 magnetists and spiritists,19 Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi, 20 Otto von Bismarck, 21 Giacomo Leopardi, 22 Charles Baudelaire, 23 Grigori Rasputin, 24 the Chinese Tongs, 25 Karl Marx, 26 Friedrich Nietzsche, 27 the San Francisco Vigilantes, 28 Pope Pius IX and Pope Leo XIII, 29 Cardinal Mariano Rampolla,30 Aleister Crowley,31 J. R. R. Tolkien,32 Robert Johnson,33 Adolf Hitler,34 the SS,35 Julius Evola,36 supporters of the New Age Movement,37 the Wiener Aktionstheater,38 the Beatles,39 the Manson Family,40 Communists,41 McDonalds,42 Procter & Gamble,43 Walt Disney,44 Cardinal Ratzinger,45 and all American presidents since George Bush Sr.46
Defining Satanism
This enumeration is by no means exhaustive, as even a cursory reading of this book will show. If anything, it highlights the need for a proper demarcation of the subject. This means establishing at least a working definition of Satanism. Despite the spontaneous images that the term conjures in the minds of most people, this is not so straightforward an endeavor as it may seem. From the outset, an almost Babylonian confusion of tongues has surrounded the terminology around Satanism. The word and its derivation “Satanist” appeared for the first time in French and English in the sixteenth century during the European Wars of Religion.47 In publications from this period, Roman Catholic authors directed it against Protestant Christians, and vice versa, while both applied the epithet to Anabaptists. Their polemical use of the term did not necessarily mean that they thought their religious counterparts were self-consciously and secretly worshipping the devil—although mutual abuse might occasionally spill over into such allegations, particularly with regard to the Anabaptists—but rather that Roman Catholic veneration for “graven images” or Protestant adherence to “heresy” implied being a fellow traveler on Satan’s bandwagon. In the early nineteenth century, the terms “Satanist” and “Satanism” acquired even broader meanings and came to designate a person or thing with a “Satanic character,” a person or thing inherently evil or wicked. When Prosper Merimée (of Carmen fame) wrote in an 1842 letter to an anonymous female friend that she was making “quite rapid progress in Satanism,” he did not mean to say that she held regular rituals for the fallen angel but that she was growing increasingly “ironic, sarcastic, and even diabolic.”48 Only toward the end of the nineteenth century did the word “Satanism” come to hold the significance that it still has, for historians of religion, B-film directors, and the general public alike, namely, as the intentional and explicit worship of Satan.49 This is not to say that the concepts and practices embodied in this word did not exist prior to that time.
In this book, I use the term “Satanism” only in its third, most recent significance. As a provisional hypothesis to guide us through the mire of historical material, I define Satanism as the intentional, religiously motivated veneration of Satan. At first glance, this may seem a fairly straightforward definition that even those who are not experts may instinctively agree with. Looking more closely into the matter, however, it will soon become apparent that things are not so simple. Therefore, some prefatory clarifications.
In using the phrase “intentional veneration,” I hope to make clear that I speak of Satanism only in the case of a (allegedly) purposely religious choice. Thus, I do not enter into interpretations of historical phenomena as “Satanism” from a theological or philosophical viewpoint— such as “National Socialism was Satanism because it was an instrument of the devil in spreading evil.”50 This kind of analysis presumes an ability to discern the “real” place of things in the cosmic order (or disorder) and their hidden or invisible identity behind the “mask” of historic facts. A strong tendency toward such “theological” definitions or identifications of Satanism is especially apparent in the large body of nonacademic or pseudo academic literature on the subject originating from Christian subculture(s), but it is also discernible in the rare historical accounts that Satanists themselves have given of their religion. In contrast with this, this study is about the origins and history of (assumed) intentional Satanisms; in other words, it is about Satanism as a deliberate religious option clearly demarcated by (assumed) acts or utterances.
I do not concern myself, as may be deduced from the foregoing, with suppositions about the interference of supernatural actors in this history. Whether Satan and his company have an ontologically tangible presence, and, if so, in what way and through what intermediaries he chooses to operate, is beyond my range of expertise. The answers to these and comparable questions ultimately depend on personal religious (or nonreligious) inclination and cannot be decided through simple historical inquiry—although I do not presume that my own attitudes on this matter will be impossible to detect in the pages that follow.
When I talk about “religiously motivated” veneration, I mean that this veneration must have a religious character. Otherwise this would be a book about not the history of a religious movement but the history of a mythological symbol with religious origins (although both subjects are inevitably and intricately intertwined, as we will see). Elucidating, however, what it is exactly that we mean by the word “religious” is no easy task. As of yet scholars have not agreed upon a proper definition of religion.51 One of the first attempts was by the nineteenth-century historian of religion E. B. Tylor, who defined religion as “belief in supernatural beings.”52 This restriction of the religious domain to “the supernatural” has now been discarded by many scholars. First, “the supernatural” is a term that itself is not easy to define, and the implication would be to reduce religion to a kind of reversed communicating vessel with modern Western science (which, incidentally, is exactly what Tylor proposed).53 Moreover, a number of religions do not fit easily within this definition (e.g., some tribal religions, pantheism, Taoism). Many modern religious movements in particular embrace forms of religiosity that do not entail “belief in supernatural beings,” properly speaking—the various manifestations of “self-religion” especially come to mind.54
Other schools of religious studies have sought to define religion by stressing social or ritual parameters. The consequences of this choice become clear when we study the definition of Satanism used by Massimo Introvigne, a leading expert on the history of esoteric movements. In Wouter Hanegraaff’s Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, Introvigne defines Satanism as “the adoration, in an organized and ritual form, of the figure known in the Bible as the devil or Satan.”55 In his monograph Enquête sur le satanisme, the same definition can be found in a greater profusion of words: “From a historical or sociological point of view, Satanism can be defined as the adoration or veneration, by groups organized as a movement, through repeated practices of a cultic or liturgical character, of the personage that is called Satan or devil in the Bible.”56 Both variants make clear his evident adherence to notions that declare the social and the ritual to be essential components of religion. I, on the contrary, do not consider either of these components as formal preconditions essential for the demarcation of religion or Satanism. Rites and rituals, whether real or imagined, certainly play an important role in the history of Satanism. But what makes a Satanist a Satanist, whether real or imagined, is not his performance of certain ritual actions, but his relation to Satan. In the same way, more generally speaking, it is not the social or ritual act in itself that makes religion religious, but the implied significance of this act. Bowing before a king is not religion (except, of course, when this king is considered divine); bowing before a god or the image of the clan’s totem is. Nor can I agree with those scholars who deem the social dimension an essential part of religion. An individual alone in his room who is praying, conducting a ritual, or giving expression to his convictions about the universe in words or art is, in my opinion, essentially still practicing
religion. Especially at present, with the ever-growing fragmenting and individualization of the Western religious landscape, it seems of crucial importance to maintain the fact that it is still religion that we encounter here.57
For the purposes of this book, therefore, I opt for a broader definition of religion. To this end, I adopt the concise formula of Robert Bellah, who defined religion as “a set of symbolic forms and acts which relate man to the ultimate conditions of his existence.”58 I tacitly assume, by the way, that Bellah really meant to write “a set of symbolic forms and acts which relate man to what he perceives to be the ultimate conditions of his existence.” Furthermore, as will become evident later in this study, I adopt a broad interpretation of Bellah’s “symbolic forms and acts” (broader, possibly, than Bellah may have intended).
Shrewd readers may observe that this interpretation places the essence of the religious— that which makes a religion religion—in the suppositions it explicitly or implicitly presents regarding “man’s ultimate grounds of existence”; in other words, regarding a “general order of existence,” to borrow Clifford Geertz’s celebrated phrase.59 This is indeed my conviction. It must be made clear that this does not imply that religion is identical to individual belief. Although it might be hard to imagine how a religion could come into being with none of its original participants believing its suppositions, a religion that presents suppositions with none of its adherents individually believing them is perfectly feasible. Individual belief, that is to say, is just one possible locus of the religious—a locus, moreover, that can only be studied through its expression in external forms and acts. Neither, it should be added, does this centrality of significance imply that the study of religion must be confined to explicit doctrinal statements or the evolution of theological discourses, as more traditional “histories of the church” were wont to do. Ritual, traditional custom, law, liturgy, and art (may) all belong to the symbolic forms and acts by which man relates himself to what he thinks to be the ultimate grounds of his existence and gives expression to suppositions about a general order of existence.
In applying this definition, I may label some groups as religious who would not consider themselves thus, or who would even categorically deny this classification. If I do so, this is partly because I believe that their rejection of the religious label is ideologically conditioned by the specific history of modern Western civilization, and it is the task of the historian of religion to attempt to supersede such time-limited conceptions regarding his domain of investigation. This is not to diminish the significance of the religious- critical attitude that explicit or implicit self-categorizations like these express. As a matter of fact, the historical genesis of this attitude, which began roughly three centuries ago in the West, will prove to be an essential part of the story of this book. Even our current use of the word “religion” may be intimately linked with this historical process, as it presupposes a notion that the religious can be separated from other domains of human society or human existence, an idea that seems to be relatively modern. 60
Concerning the last point: the fact that our concept of religion as a separate category may have been gestated by the particular historical evolution of the West does not invalidate the use of the term, in my opinion. The particular experience of Western civilization may well have led to genuinely valuable insights—indeed, our trust in the validity of the academic and scientific endeavor implicitly depends on this conviction. It is important to realize, however, that people in different places and in different times did not necessarily and do
not necessarily share this relatively sharp categorization. Nor does it mean that we should accept without scrutiny current popular conceptions regarding religion, and what it is and is not, as the last word in matters of definition and demarcation. 61
I am aware that Bellah’s definition leaves us with certain methodological and ontological problems of its own. 62 Our purpose for the moment, however, is not to find an indisputable, watertight definition for religion, but to find a useful tool to separate genuine Satanism from the host of other phenomena that have been associated with it in prior literature or popular and theological lore. And even with a broad definition of religion such as this, I can disclose beforehand, the history of (what-may-or-may-not-be) Satanism presents us with cases that create a formidable challenge to any attempt at categorization. It might not be coincidental that such cases often also give rise to the most tantalizing questions and insights regarding the nature of religion, Western civilization, and human nature in general.
Let’s return to our provisional definition. In Enquête sur le satanisme, it might be noted, Introvigne speaks of Satanism as “adoration or veneration” of Satan. For my own definition, I prefer the latter designation (intentional, religiously motivated veneration of Satan). Many practitioners of modern or even older forms of Satanism certainly would not describe their relation to Satan in terms of “adoration” or “worship.” And especially with regard to nontheistic religious practices, these words do indeed seem inapt. I therefore opt for the “milder” alternative of “veneration.”
This is a minor issue; I note it only in passing. Of greater importance is the ambiguous interpretation that the word “Satan” may represent. In its simplest form, I take it to refer to any mythological being designated by the biblical name of “Satan” or meant to make intentional reference to him. For the purposes of this study, I also include under this heading those biblical entities that were identified or closely associated with Satan in the early Christian tradition, such as Lucifer, Beelzebuth, Leviathan, and the Serpent. Thus, any intentional, religious veneration of these mythological personages after they were integrated into the Christian hierarchy of evil is considered Satanism by me. This does not mean, of course, that the choice of (for example) Lucifer as an object of veneration, rather than Satan, is arbitrary. Often it is highly significant, and wherever appropriate, I aim to indicate these significances in the chapters that follow.
What I categorically do not propose, however, is to extend the mythological complex encapsulated under the heading of Satan to deities or mythological entities from other religious systems because of their presumed typological associations with the JudeoChristian Satan (e.g., as alleged representatives of evil, of the chthonic, of sexuality or vitality, or merely because of their non- Christianity or their fierce looks), as often occurs in both Christian and Satanist traditions. Thus, a worshipper of Shiva is not a Satanist, even though he may be considered as such by some Christians, and even though some Satanists might include Shiva within their particular pantheon or pandemonium. Neither, and this is an even more fundamental point, does Satan equate with evil. Satan as a mythological figure has been given different shapes and different meanings in the various traditions in which he appears; he is, and was, not always a representative of evil. He only assumes this role in a localized, predominantly Christian tradition that started shortly before the beginning of the Common Era and has subsequently not remained unchallenged. 63
A final, related difficulty in defining Satanism is the question of how much “Satan” we need before we can speak of Satanism. Some religious groups or individuals that manifest a veneration for Satan also venerate other, nonconnected mythological entities—most often, surprisingly enough, stemming from the Judeo-Christian heritage, such as Jehovah, Christ, or the Virgin Mary, but sometimes originating from a wide variety of other religious sources, such as Set, Loki, Kali, Marduk, or other non- Christian deities. 64 There is, clearly, no objective criterion for establishing when “Satanism” is most appropriate in these circumstances, or when some other term might do better. In general, one should be extremely careful in applying religious labels—any religious labels, but that of Satanism in particular. As a rule of thumb, therefore, I only use the term “Satanism” when the veneration of Satan (or the biblical entities associated with him) has a clear dominance. In other cases, when veneration for the fallen angel is merely one aspect among others or a subordinate facet in a wider religious system, it seems better to speak of religions that display elements of Satanism . In all these cases, it must be emphasized, I use the term “Satanism” merely as a historical or sociological nomer, without any ethical or theological value judgment implied.
Recently, two scholars of twentieth-century Satanism have suggested a different approach to the question of its definition. In a series of articles, Kennet Granholm has argued that, because of its pejorative connotations, the term “Satanism” should be reserved as “a valid denominator for groups and philosophies which appropriate the figure of Satan and attribute significance to it, and that identify as Satanists.”65 I wholeheartedly agree (although not necessarily with his definition, on which more later). When I discuss groups or individuals in this volume that Granholm would identify (and rightly so) as non-Satanist or post-Satanist, I do so because I think they are of historic relevance to the development of Satanism, not because I want to imply they belong to this category.
I will not follow in this study Granholm’s further suggestion to adopt the denominator “Left-Hand Path” as a more promising analytical term. First, that is because the subject of this study is Satanism, not Left-Hand Path spirituality. As a historical occurrence, Satanism is both a current religious variety that can be placed within a wider gamut of Left-Hand Path religion and a broader phenomenon that has also manifested itself outside the LeftHand Path milieu. In other words, not all Satanisms have been left-handed. In addition, I do not concur with his assertion that Satanism “is not a particular useful analytical category.”66 To the contrary, as a historian, I found it very useful to detect hidden trails in the history of religion and of ideas, and to connect these with broader developments outside the domain of esotericism. I hope this assertion will be borne out by the present volume.
A very different approach has been proposed by Jesper Aagaard Petersen, which he most crisply formulated in his introduction to the 2009 Ashgate volume Contemporary Satanism. First, in analogy with Colin Campbell’s category of “cultic milieu,” Petersen propounds to isolate a “Satanic milieu” as a broad subcultural field engaging in “satanic discourse.” Satanism sensu stricto, that is, in an organized, religious form, forms part of this “fuzzy” movement that produces reinterpretations of and identifications with Satan and Satanism. 67 After reading the present history of (proto)Satanisms, one can easily see the potential usefulness of such an approach. Time and again, we see more or less articulated expressions of (proto)Satanism emerge from a broader bedding of dissident subculture: that of practitioners of demonic magic in the seventeenth century; that of radical, Romantic,
and/or Decadent intellectuals in the “long” nineteenth century; and that of members of (occult) counterculture in the twentieth century.
We should take care, however, to reify this concept of milieu, as Petersen immediately hastens to point out himself. Satan and the Satanic often consist of no more than an aside for the actors in these mostly incoherent and inconsistent subcultures; it is only when their expressions on this subject are isolated by historical research and reassembled into narrative that a significant pattern emerges. For this study, I felt more at ease with the concept of “tradition,” in the loose sense that Per Faxneld also adopts: as a chain of utterances, mostly textual in our case, that is picked up, elaborated, and extended over time. 68
Apart from his idea of a “Satanic milieu,” Petersen also formulates “a minimum definition of the satanic discourse of organized Satanism within the satanic milieu,” mentioning four common traits: “self-religion, antinomianism, the use of certain ‘S’-words and a formulated ideological genealogy, often in some relation to Anton Szandor LaVey.”69 As the last point immediately leads one to suspect, this definition is mainly useful for present-day, (post)LaVeyan Satanism. And even there, exceptions are bound to occur. If we descend into earlier history, most of these traits lose their validity. What remains is “the use of certain ‘S’words,” as Petersen puts it. In the same article, he elaborates that these must be employed “as positive terms,” and he furthermore emphasizes “a certain emic self-designation … to differentiate between prejudice and modern Satanism proper.” Although I can understand his motives here, I have grave objections against the emic element that both he and Granholm incorporate in their definitions. Precisely because of the negative connotations surrounding the term “Satanism” (not to mention the sometimes very real consequences for life and limb that this label can entail), it is not to be taken for granted that those venerating Satan will stand up and declare themselves as such. (The Middle East yezidi may be a case in point.) Furthermore, as with the term “religion” we discussed earlier, I would like to maintain the prerogative of the academic scholar to categorize the world according to his own insights.
Available Literature
The difficulties of definition and the bridal gown of associations that goes with the term “Satanism” give the task of writing its history much of its special charm, yet they make it a particularly challenging undertaking as well. Another challenging factor is the exceedingly ragged state of serious research on the subject. The historian is confronted with the double-edged problem that certain aspects pertaining to the history of Satanism (early modern witchcraft, the Satanism Scare, some of the Romantic Satanists) have engendered bookshelves or even libraries of scholarly literature, while other aspects (early modern pacts with the devil, 1960s “Swinger Satanism”) have been virtually or totally neglected. Thus, the historian is either wading through an enormous sea of literature or desperately looking for information in obscure or popular publications. Moreover, where there is an abundance of literature, mostly only a small part of this is concerned with the questions that interest a historian of Satanism, and this mostly in a cursory manner. There is a profusion of critical research into the life and work of figures such as Byron, Blake, and Huysmans, for instance, but matters concerning their attitudes toward Satan and Satanism are often treated in passing or receive a mere mention. For many aspects of the history of Satanism, there exists
no real status quæstionis in the academic sense of the word, or only the most rudimentary scholarly discussion.
In a way, this applies to the history of Satanism in its totality as well. There is a small bookshelf of works that deal exclusively with this subject. Most of these, however, either are sensational pulp books of the type I described in the opening paragraph or are written from within a religious perspective and/or living tradition of polemic use of the Satanism trope. The latter include alarmist treatises from fundamentalist Christian (and increasingly also Islamic) provenance, as well as the occasional historiographical efforts from within the Satanist community itself, which often display considerably more wit and less paranoia but a similar lack of academic rigor.70 In general, I used these publications not as references but as sources (that is to say, as sources for the existence of certain beliefs and ideas about Satanism).
If we put these clearly unscholarly publications aside, it becomes conspicuous how few academic or academically inclined authors have in fact attempted to give a historical overview of Satanism. The attempt has been made, however, and delving into the academic libraries of the Western world, we can find about half a dozen titles that fit the bill, particularly if our conception of “serious historical literature” is not too narrow. As an academic treatment is traditionally opened by an “overview of the available literature,” I discuss these works one by one below.
Gerhard Zacharias’s book Satanskult und Schwarze Messe: Die Nachtseite des Christentums. Eine Beitrag zur Phänomenologie der Religion might be an appropriate starting point.71 Originally published in 1964, and reprinted four times since, this monograph breathes much of the attitudes of its time of conception. Zacharias (a former Roman Catholic priest turned Greek Orthodox pastor and Jungian therapist) describes Satanism as the nondualistic “night-side of Christianity,” an outlet for the “Dionysian energies” repressed by the Christian religion. This allows him to connect a great deal of phenomena with Satanism that unaware readers might think unconnected with it, such as the abovementioned Aktionstheater of the Vienna avant-garde of the 1960s, with which Zacharias was personally acquainted.72 The result is rather chaotic. And to add to this chaos, his book does not in fact purport to be a history of Satanism at all, but rather a “phenomenological” treatment of the subject. This means that clearly fabricated allegations of devil worship are indiscriminately mixed with reports of actual instances of the practice of Satanism, because both, according to the author, have equal “religion-phenomenological and psychological” reality. This probably is an incorrect understanding of the nature of phenomenology: of course, mere accusations of Satanism and actually practiced forms both have a certain presence in reality, but they are not real in the same way. At any rate, it proves an unworkable starting point, even for Zacharias himself, it seems, given the many historical statements he nevertheless strews across the pages of his book. As a coherent history of Satanism, thus, Satanskult und Schwarze Messe disappoints. The most important reason one might have for consulting the book is the wealth of original source materials it presents, in both their original languages and German translations.
Much the same applies to Karl H. Frick’s three-volume Satan und Die Satanisten: Ideengeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Herkunft der komplexen Gestalt “Luzifer/Satan/ Teufel,” ihrer weiblichen Entsprechungen und ihrer Anhängerschaft. 73 Like Zacharias’s book,
this work displays erudition of an impressive but sadly incoherent kind. Most conspicuously, Frick seems to have fallen for the popular misconception that equates orgies and sex rites with Satanism. In the first volume, which deals with all kinds of devil and devil-like figures in antique and premodern religion, we are confronted with deliciously irrelevant diversions about subjects like sacred orgies, anthropophagy, ritual defloration, and “sacred sodomy.” 74 The second volume is about Satanists before 1900, while the last volume covers twentieth-century Satanism. Here again, however, Frick’s lack of a clear delimitation of his subject matter plays tricks on him, inducing him to include groups in his history that have no place for Satan in their theology or philosophy at all, like the Christian Agapemonites in the nineteenth century, or the Left-radical Rote Armee Fraktion and the existentialist philosophers in the twentieth century.75
The German-language region seems to be particularly rich in historical treatments of Satanism. A third work that has its provenance here is Josef Dvorak’s Satanismus: Schwarze Rituale, Teufelswahn und Exorzismus. Geschichte und Gegenwart. First published in 1989, this books stands out because it’s the only one in this list written by a self-proclaimed Satanist. Dvorak was an Austrian seminary student who became a Left-wing therapist in the Vienna of the 1960s, where he cofounded the (“Satanist”) Aktionstheater. After he encountered Satan during an LSD trip, he became a “Satanologist” (as he likes to call himself), gaining notoriety when the Crowleyanite rituals he conducted were broadcast on Austrian television.76 His book, unfortunately, betrays the fact that it has been written by an occultist rather than by a professional historian. A lot of psychoanalysis, number magic, references to Hitler, and personal reminiscences meet the eager reader proceeding through its pages. In the end, Satanismus is best regarded as an interesting roller-coaster ride through Dvorak’s own bookshelves: highly readable, certainly, but overly improvistu and insufficiently annotated.
At the moment, the best German-language introduction to the subject of Satanism is without doubt Satanismus: Mythos und Wirklichkeit by Joachim Schmidt. It provides a clear-headed, balanced, and to-the-point account of the history of Satanism. The most important objection that can be raised against Schmidt’s book is that it is indeed an introduction, and with a mere 231 pages and a total of 115 endnotes it is not sufficient for the specialist or for the reader with more than a general interest. Another objection might be that while the varieties of Satanism that Schmidt distinguishes certainly are lucidly described, his descriptions are not connected in a historical account that provides deeper or original insights. More unfortunate is the fact that he succeeds in doing something for which academic writers are often, and often justly, derided: turning a gloriously wild and fascinating subject into something that is basically a bit dreary.
Given that they were the cradle both of today’s living tradition of religious Satanism and of the most recent wave of Satanism anxieties to date, the almost total lack of full-blown academic treatment of the history of Satanism from Anglophonic regions is striking. Apart from a few articles of note, I personally am aware of just two exceptions.77 The first, from 1970, Arthur Lyons’s The Second Coming: Satanism in America , I hesitate to include in this survey.78 It was reissued in an updated version under the title Satan Wants You in 1988, with a revised text to account for the Satanism Scare that had recently swept the United States.79 This revision did not notably affect the part of the book concerned with Satanism’s pre-1966
history, which features scholarship that was already outdated in 1970 (with an uncritical implementation of Margaret Murray’s thesis regarding European witchcraft as the most flagrant example). The almost nonexistent annotation suggests that this book was never meant for a specialist readership at all. Nevertheless, it is still frequently quoted in scholarly literature, predominantly with regard to the emergence of 1960s California Satanism. Even here, however, the book should be used with caution. Much of its information was derived directly from Anton LaVey, with whom Lyons was personally acquainted, and the author’s all-too-evident sympathy for the self-styled Black Pope has invited just criticism. 80
A much better English-language history is provided by Lure of the Sinister: The Unnatural History of Satanism, by the English freelance writer Gareth J. Medway, published in 2001 by New York University Press. 81 This is, it must be said, a bit of an oddball work. Despite its pulpy title, it is well researched and decently annotated. Despite being well researched and decently annotated, it is a rollicking read: Medway’s is one of the few serious titles on the subject that actually manages to be very funny at times. What, again, is lacking, is a coherent historical vision on the emergence of Satanism. Medway’s amusing style makes one almost forget that his book is in fact largely a collection of anecdotes. In addition, the main thrust of the book seems to be in debunking myths of Satanism. Actually practiced Satanism is treated in a series of often unconnected asides, sometimes of a brevity verging on rashness (for instance, when Medway classes Baudelaire the first modern Satanist without really elaborating on his statement). 82 This emphasis is understandable: Medway clearly wrote the book in reaction to the Satanism Scare of the 1980s and 1990s, which takes up most of the book. Medway’s own (freely admitted) background as “a Pagan and a priest of Themis in the Fellowship of Isis” might have been another factor in determining this emphasis. It seems best, therefore, to read Lure of the Sinister for what it is: primarily a book aimed at dispelling some of the tenacious myths that surrounded Satanism in the 1990s, less a work about what it actually was and how it came to be.
Without a doubt the best overview of the history of Satanism currently available is Introvigne’s Enquête sur le satanisme: Satanistes et antisatanistes du XVIIe siècle à nos jours, which originally appeared in 1994 in Italian under the title Indagine sul satanismo. 83 Introvigne, who has an academic background in philosophy and law, is a noted specialist in the field of new religious movements and a cofounder of CESNUR, a research institute in Turin dedicated to the study of new varieties of religion. His Enquête sur le satanisme may be considered the pioneering study of the field, densely packed with information about practically every individual and every group historically connected with the subject. He neatly avoids wandering into endless irrelevancies by adopting a sharp definition of Satanism (which I amply discussed above). In addition to this, he manages to give a coherent narrative of the seemingly chaotic history of the subject. To this purpose, he proposes to approach the history of Satanism as the constant ebb and flood of Satanism, on the one hand, and anti-Satanism, on the other hand. Briefly summarized: every time Satanism surfaces in the West, this engenders a reaction in larger society. This anti-Satanism, however, tends to succumb to exaggerations; and in the wake of its ensuing discredit, new Satanist movements arise. 84 Using this model, Introvigne is able to draw a creative connection between the many appearances of Satanism as a mythical and polemic construct, and the historical instances of actually practiced veneration for the fallen angel.
I would like, first, to eulogize Introvigne’s tremendously rich book, without which I could not have written this study, or at least would have faced an immensely more daunting task. The fact that I will disagree with Introvigne’s findings and conclusions on more than one occasion does not mean that I do not appreciate his work. Rather, it is because Introvigne can be considered the sole conversation partner in this venture, the only earlier author to propose an elaborate and coherent reconstruction of the historical genesis of contemporary religious Satanism. On this level, the scholarly discussion in this book virtually amounts to a dialogue with Enquête sur le satanisme. When I differ in opinion with Introvigne about specific facts or episodes in the history of Satanism, I have indicated so in the text or the accompanying notes. Here, I would like to single out some more general differences in approach between his study and mine which are best made explicit beforehand.
First, Introvigne uses a very specific definition of Satanism, and he begins his history with the first actual instance he knows to fit this definition: the Affaire de Poisons at the end of the seventeenth century. Thus, the long history of Christian mythmaking about Satanism that preceded the seventeenth century does not receive any substantial treatment in his account. (In the same way, the Romantic Satanists are completely ignored, probably because Introvigne does not consider them religious Satanists—a conclusion I share, but for different reasons.) These choices automatically give his story a certain direction and inclination. Reading Introvigne, one gets the impression that it was the emergence of actual Satanism that initiated the flux of Satanism/anti-Satanism, while, in reality, the stereotype of the Satanist— even if he or she was not called by that name—had been present long before. In my view, this way of presenting Satanism creates a certain imbalance vis-à-vis the historical facts.
Second, Introvigne’s pendulum discussion of Satanism/anti-Satanism itself is in itself a weak point. It remains vague how a waning credibility of anti-Satanism would induce people to become Satanists. If I understand Introvigne correctly, he says that Satanism has actually always been present throughout modern history—somewhere hidden in the underground of occultism, where it was born and is continually reborn as “an extreme version of the tendencies and contradictions” present in society at large. 85 The periodical waning of anti-Satanist sentiments merely allows this underground Satanism to take center stage again and recruit new disciples, thereby provoking a new wave of anti-Satanism. 86 This idea seems overly schematic to me, and Introvigne’s eagerness to distinguish historical periods of Satanism and anti-Satanism sometimes induces him to see Satanists where there are no clear historical indications of their presence. In this study, I would like to propose a more subtle interplay between anti-Satanism and Satanism, which are both involved in the creation and transmission of a certain tradition about Satanism. And I would like to introduce a third partner in this exchange, namely, fiction, or the imaginative arts—in our case, predominantly literature. 87 In this respect, among others, the Romantic Satanists clearly have their appropriate place.
Of course, these matters partly reflect the inevitable consequences of a choice of approach: one cannot write about every possible aspect of a subject. A different approach might thus provide additional insights. This also applies to a third remark I wish to make. Introvigne labels religious Satanism as a typically modern phenomenon, even calling it the Jungian shadow of modernity. 88 Nowhere, however, does he go into detail regarding what
exactly the relation between Satanism and the emergence of modern society might be. Even more fundamentally, the historical reasons for Satanists having become Satanists remain rather obscure in Enquête sur le satanisme. Certainly, the particular historical context of each new Satanist movement is described, but one does not really come to understand their motives through the pages of Introvigne’s book. They mostly remain historical occurrences, not fellow human beings who make choices that we can understand people can make in their given historical circumstances. Again, this could partly be a mere matter of methodological or stylistic choice. But I suspect that Introvigne’s personal inclinations may have played a role as well. 89 Although he never steps outside the pale of academic integrity in Enquête sur le satanisme, reading this book leaves one with the impression that his sympathies lie elsewhere.
As mentioned above, there exists a relatively extensive literature on the Satanism Scare of the closing decades of the previous millennium, and sometimes these publications contain a few pages or a chapter on the wider historical background and/or on currently practiced forms of actual Satanism. I have not included these in my overview here. The same applies to books and articles that concentrate on the current practice of religious Satanism. Recent works of preponderantly young scholars have given this field of research an important impetus toward maturity: their publications will be noted in the last chapter. It would mean gross injustice, however, to conclude this introduction without mentioning the work of the Swedish historian of religion Per Faxneld. In 2006, he published a history of Satanism before Anton LaVey, which I was unfortunately unable to consult because it is published in Swedish only.90 In addition, he conducted doctoral research into the history of Satanism during roughly the same period as I did, concentrating especially on gender aspects. During our contacts, it turned out we had been following each other as shadows, often probing into the same areas and mostly reaching more or less similar conclusions. It must be underlined here that we both formulated these conclusions in complete independence, although we subsequently benefited from our mutual insights. Apart from this, I have profited especially from his pioneering research on more marginal figures in the history of Satanism, such as Ben Kadosh and Stanislaw Przybyszewski, which I refer to in intermezzo 3. Faxneld’s monumental dissertation, Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth- Century Culture , was published in 2014, just in the nick of time for me to incorporate some of its findings into my study. Because it does not purport to be a general history of Satanism, I will not discuss it here. But I heartily recommend it as a companion volume to the present publication, for anyone who is interested in the sometimes surprisingly prominent role played by Satan in nineteenth- century cultural discourse or who has a craving for yet more deliciously obscure byways from the Satanic history of the West.
Hypothesis, Framework, and Methodology of This Study
While it is essential to remember, as we have seen, that veneration for Satan does not necessarily equal veneration of evil, it is, of course, precisely the traditional Christian role of Satan as the chief mythical representative of malevolence that makes the existence of a
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the entire family would be infinitely better off if a red flag should be hoisted out of the second-story window, and the old place knocked down to the highest bidder. He would then invest the proceeds in the purchase of some town lots in one of the larger cities up the State. They would then have a home of their own, more in keeping with the aspirations of his wife, who really had married him to escape her present poverty, and the welfare of his stepdaughter, whose sole ambition was to perfect herself in music, she being the possessor of a wonderful soprano voice.
In this new venture six houses were to be built; one they would live in, rent and cost free, the income from the other five supporting them all.
Then had come a hasty packing up and rather sudden departure for Norfolk, the houses being partly built, and none of them rented or sold, Mr. Ford having abandoned life insurance and given his attention to a new dredging machine for use in the Dismal Swamp Canal. And then a third exodus to a small village near New York, where the promoter of a brilliant and entirely new adaptation of laundry machinery, never before imagined, and the formation of which was known among the favored few as The United Family Laundry Association, Limited, engrossed the distinguished engineer Mr. Ebner Ford’s sole attention.
It was from this near-by village the fourth move had been made, the van and supplementary cart having absorbed the contents of a small house, situated on the outskirts of the town, that deluded individual having exchanged a year’s rent for a delicately engraved sheet of paper, certifying that he was the proud possessor of ten shares of the company’s preferred.
That these several shiftings, migrations, and re-handlings had had their effect on the family belongings could be seen by even the most cursory examination of the several articles littering the sidewalk. Even the old family sideboard—and every Southern family has an old-fashioned sideboard—lacked a brass door-handle or escutcheon here and there, and similar defects could be found in Mrs. Ford’s high-poster, once the property of her dead mother, two of the carved
feet being gone by reason of a collision in an extra-hazardous journey.
It was because of the knowledge gained in these experiences, as well as a fervent desire to get the whole matter over as quickly as possible, that the young girl had taken charge of the “picking-out” department, so that each article might reach her mother in regular order, and in discrete corners as much as what was left of the old mahogany was saved.
She was again on the sidewalk, dragging out a rocker, ordering a crate here, and a bundle of fire-tongs there, when the gentleman from Connecticut must have got in her way, for she broke in in an authoritative tone of voice, much to Moses’ astonishment, with:
“No, Mr. Ford, stop right where you are. Mamma doesn’t want any more small things until she gets the big ones arranged, and don’t you send them in!”
“My dear Sue, you will have to take them as they come.”
“No, I’m not going to take them as they come. I’m going to take them as I want them. You’ve got plenty of room here, and you’ve got plenty of men to help. That wardrobe comes next.”
“Well, but can’t you take these here cushions?”
“Yes, send in the cushions, but that’s the last, until I tell you what next.”
The distinguished engineer raised his hands, opening his fingers in a deprecatory way, expressive of his firm belief that she would live to see the day when she would keenly regret her interference, and in subdued, almost apologetic, tones called Moses.
“Here, Moses—your name is Moses, ain’t it?”
The darky nodded.
“Well, be good enough to carry this here bundle of cushions to Mrs. Ford. And be careful, Moses.”
Moses, without a word in reply, swung the bundle to his shoulder, mounted the few steps and deposited the pillows at Mrs. Ford’s feet,
and resumed his place on the sidewalk. He was making up his mind as to the character and personality of the new tenants, and nothing had so far escaped him. The old janitor’s likes and dislikes had a very important bearing on the status occupied by the various tenants.
Furthermore, his diagnosis was invariably correct. Thus far, two things had impressed him. That the young lady should have addressed her stepfather as if he had been a mere acquaintance, and that that master of the house should have prefaced his order to him with a “be good enough.” Nobody had ever, so far as he could remember, addressed him in any such way. His former master’s customary formula, generally with a laugh, was: “Here, Moses, you infernal scoundrel.” His later employers had been contented with Moses, Mose, or Mr. Harris (the latter he despised). The new young gentlemen had begun with Moses, and had then passed on to “You ebony gargoyle,” or “Bulrushes,” “Pottifer’s Kid.” But the order came direct as if they meant it, and was always carried out by him in the same kind of spirit. “Be good enough, eh,” he kept saying to himself, “’spec’ he ain’t ’customed to nuffin’.”
The young lady seemed to be cast in a different mould.
“That’s too heavy for you, Uncle,” she had said in a low, soft voice, the more surprising to him when he remembered the tones in addressing her stepfather He was struggling under the weight of one end of the dining-room table at the time. “Come here, one of you men, and help him. Put it down, Uncle. You’ll break your poor old back, first thing you know.”
“Thank you, young mistiss. ’Tis little mite heavy,” he had answered humbly, as the leg he was carrying sagged to the sidewalk, adding as he watched her disappear again into the house: “Befo’ God, she’s one of my own people, dat she is. I ain’t been called Uncle by nobody, since I went back home dat Christmas time.”
The van was empty now, and the supplementary cart, carrying the odds and ends, a rusty, well-burnt-out stove, two pieces of pipe, a big mirror with a gilt frame, a set of wooden shelves, two wash-tubs,
and on top, a dainty work-table with spindle legs, was being backed to the sidewalk.
Some article must have been forgotten or broken or scraped, for the language of the man from Clapham Four Corners had lost its soft edge, his outburst ending with:
“See here, you lunkhead, don’t you handle that work-table as if it was a ton of coal. Don’t you see you’ve broken the glass!”
The young girl had just emerged from the door.
“Oh, what a pity!” she cried. “I loved it so. No, please don’t touch it again. I’ll lift it down myself.”
She had mounted a chair now which stood by the tail of the cart and, against the protest of the group, was carefully disentangling the precious legs from the chaos of pipes, tubs, and stove-fittings.
“Oh, you darling little table! Nobody ever thought about you. It’s all my fault. No, go away all of you. You shan’t one of you touch it. I’ll lift it down myself. Oh, the drawer has caught in that stove door! Uncle, won’t you just push it back so I can——”
“Permit me to help this—” came a voice from behind. Before she could catch her breath, an arm reached forth, lifted the precious table clear of the entangling mass and, without waiting for protest or thanks, carried it into the house at the feet of the astonished mother. Then with a remark, “That he was glad to be of service,” Mr. Joseph Grimsby, occupant of the third floor, backed out and rejoined the astonished girl.
“A lovely bit of Chippendale, is it not, Miss Ford? It is Miss Ford, isn’t it? Yes, our old colored janitor told me you were expected to-day. I and my chum live up-stairs. But please don’t worry about the glass. That is quite easily replaced. I must apologize for my intrusion, but when I saw what a beauty it was, and heard you say how you loved it, I had to help. There is nothing like Chippendale, and it’s getting rarer every day.”
“Oh, but you were very kind. It was my grandmother’s and I have always used it since I was a girl. Thank you very much.”
Joe was about to say: “That—” but checked himself in time—“if she would permit the digression, she was still a girl, and a very pretty one.” In fact, he had not seen any one quite as pretty for a very long period of time. He had thought so when he stood in the doorway, watching her efforts to save the table from further destruction. He had only a view of her back, but he had noticed in that brief glance the trim, rounded figure, curve of her neck, and the way her tight woollen sweater clung to her small waist and hips. He had caught, too, a pair of very small and well-shod feet.
When she turned in surprise and looked him square in the eyes, in one of those comprehensive, searching glances, and his own lenses had registered her fresh color, small ears, and dainty, enchanting mouth and teeth, the whole surrounded by a wealth of light, golden hair, escaping from the thraldom of a tam-o’-shanter hat, part of her working clothes, he would have taken an oath on a pile of Bibles as high as a church steeple that she was altogether the most radiantly attractive young woman he had ever met in the whole course of his natural existence.
This was not at all unusual. It was Joe’s way with every fresh girl he met. Such hyperbole was only a safety-valve, giving vent to his enthusiastic appreciation. He had had similar outbursts over two or three since he had left Paris. He had not only looked a similar declaration into the eyes of the inamorata who had begun her letter with “Dearest,” and ended it with an initial—the letter he had cremated and tucked away in the burial-plot of his forgetfulness—but he had told her so in so many plain words, and had told her a lot of other things besides, which the young beauty had believed.
The scribe who knew them both will tell you that Sue Preston, despite Joe’s panegyrics, was just a trim, tidy, well-built, rosy, and thoroughly wholesome girl, no prettier than half a dozen other Southern girls brought up in her own town, which she had left when the gentleman from Connecticut had married her mother. That her independence of speech and bearing, as well as her kindness, came from the fact that she was obliged to earn her own living with her voice, singing at private houses and teaching music. The life, which, while it had not dulled her enthusiasm or love for things worth the
having, had taught her a knowledge of the world far beyond her years. This could have been detected in the short talk she had had with Moses, after Joe, having reached the limit of his intrusion, had lifted his hat in respectful admiration and taken himself off to his office, where he spent what was left of the morning pouring into Atwater’s ears a wholly inflated account of the charms of the new arrival, and how plans must be laid at once to get on the friendliest terms possible with the occupants of the first floor.
“You ask me, young mistiss, who is dat gentleman?” Moses had rejoined in answer to her question, her eyes fixed on Joe’s graceful, manly figure as he swung down the street.
“Dat’s Mr. Grimsby, and dere ain’t nobody moved into dis house since I been here, and dat’s eleven years next June, any better. Fust time I see him, I says to Matilda: ‘Matilda, don’t he look like Marse Robin when he was his age? He’s got just de air of him.’ Don’t care for nobody dat ain’t quality. Ain’t you from the South, young mistiss?” Moses never forgot his slave days when he was talking to his own people.
“Yes, Moses, I’m from North Carolina.”
“And de mistiss, too?”
“Yes; mother, too.”
“But dat—dat—” the darky hesitated, “dat gentleman dat—dat married yo’ ma. He ain’t one our people, is he?”
The girl laughed, a crisp, sparkling laugh, as if she really enjoyed answering his questions.
“No, he’s a Yankee.”
“Gor a’mighty, I knowed it. ’Scuse me, young mistiss, for askin’, but we got to get along together, and I’m goin’ to do evertin’ I can to please you.”
Joe had turned the corner by this time, and her eyes again sought the old darky’s.
“What does he do, this Mr. Grimsby?”
“I don’t know, young mistiss; I think he builds houses. What dey call a architect.”
“And how long has he been here?”
“’Bout two weeks, goin’ on three now.”
A curious expression now crossed her face.
“And is he always as polite as that to everybody he meets for the first time?”
It was Moses’ turn to chuckle now. “I ain’t never seen him with nobody, fur dere ain’t nobody ’round fit fur him to bow and scrape fur till you come, and you ain’t seen de last of him, young mistiss, unless I miss my guess.” And with a prolonged chuckle, Moses seized a chair, backed away with it to the house, and returned again to his duties on the sidewalk.
That the new tenant interested him enormously could be seen as the old negro stood watching his self-imposed supervision. He had been accustomed to all sorts of people since he had held his position, especially the kind that constantly moved in and out of the first floor. There had been inebriates who had been laid up for days at a time, broken-down bank clerks looking for another situation, with only money enough for the first month in advance, ending in final collapse and exit, with most of their furniture in pawn. There had been a mysterious widow, a rather flabby person, whose son was a reporter, and who came in at all hours of the night. And there had been a distinguished lawyer, who moved in for the summer and was going when the heating apparatus broke down on the first cold day.
But the gentleman from Connecticut represented a type which Moses had never seen before. His dress showed it, with a full suit of black, his white collar showing above his overcoat. His speech was another indication. Where most men used verbal ammunition at the rate of so many spoken words a minute, Ford’s delivery was as rapid and continuous as the outpouring of a Gatling gun.
“How many times must I tell you to be careful, men? How often must I go on insistin’ that you should not bump things on the sidewalk? This here furniture is made to sit on, not to be smashed into kindlin’
wood. Easy there, now, on that bureau! Pull out the drawers. Quick, now! One at a time. And now let go of that other end. It’s extraordinary how sensible men like you should go on ignorin’ the simplest rules of safety. Sue, my dear, tell your dear mother that I am doin’ the best I can. But that if everything is brought to a piecemeal, it’s only what’s to be expected. Out of the way, Moses, give them men plenty of room. There, that’s more like it!”
That the two broad-backed porters in linen jumpers had for years passed everything from a piano-stool to a folding-bed from the top of the highest tenement in New York, without so much as a scrape of paint from the side walls, and that nothing that Ford had said or done made the slightest impression on them, was entirely clear to Moses as he listened to their harangue.
He had seen a busy clown at the circus picking up and dropping at a critical moment the ends of the carpet spread out on the sawdust, a remembrance which pumped up another chuckle in the old darky’s interior.
When the sidewalk was cleared, the van and the supplementary cart emptied, and the entire belongings of the Ford family securely housed, and the door of the apartment discreetly closed, so that the passers up and down the staircase might not become familiar with the various imperfections of the household gods, when I say what Moses called the biggest circus he had ever seen for many a day was over, that guardian of the house moved into the rear basement to talk it all over with Matilda.
The old woman—and she was very nearly as old as Moses, sixtyfive if she was a day—was busy ironing, her head tied up in a big red bandanna, her shrewd eyes peering out of a pair of big-bowed spectacles.
“Well, is you through?” her eyes on her work, not on her husband.
“Yes; through!”
“Well, what you think of him?”
Moses had dropped into a chair now and begun to untie his big green baize apron, his morning work being over.
“I ain’t got no think, Matilda. He can talk de legs off a iron pot. Dat’s one of my thinks. Ain’t never heard nuffin’ like it. Jes’ like one of dese patent-medicine fellers with a stand on de street corner.”
“Well, is dat all?” She had dropped her iron now and with her hands on her hips was looking at him curiously.
“Dat’s all. Unless I’m much mistuk, dat’s all dere is to him. Jes’ wind. De madam is sumfin’ better. She looks as if she might have been quality afo’ she struck him. But young mistiss is de real thing. How she can put up wid him is mo’ ’an I can understand.”
CHAPTER III
All the way to his office, Joe was planning for a better acquaintance with the girl on the first floor. He had had but a glimpse of the mother, but even that brief insight had convinced him that she was a woman of refinement, and must be handled with due regard for the conventionalities of life.
The father he had not seen, his eyes having been fastened on the trim figure of the girl in the close-fitting knitted jacket and tam-o’shanter hat. He had heard more or less conversation in a high key, and had become aware of a strident voice soaring above the roar of the street, but he was too much occupied with the new arrival to give the incident further thought.
When Joe burst in, Atwater was in his shirt-sleeves, poring over a big drawing, showing the ground-plan of a large office building for which the firm were competing.
“By Jove, Sam, we’re in luck! Perfect stunner! Knocks cold anything you ever saw! Regular Hebe. Come here and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Sam moved aside his T-square and followed his partner into a small room, lighted by a punched-out skylight, which answered for their private office.
“Now, go on, Joe, and hurry up. What are you driving at? The Long Island woman has given us her cottage, hasn’t she? I thought that sketch of yours would fix her.”
“Long Island woman be hanged, Sam. This is something brand-new. Early colonial. Martha Washington when she was a girl. Beauties of the republican court not in it! Prettiest little figure, and a pair of eyes that would drive you crazy. And——”
Sam reached forward and grabbed Joe’s arm.
“What the devil are you talking about, Joe?”
“Miss Ford.”
“What Miss Ford?”
“The girl on the first floor.”
“Where?”
“Right below us, you lunatic! She got tangled up with the best bit of Chippendale I’ve seen for years, and I helped her out. Glass all smashed. Nearly broke her heart. Oh, you’ve got to see her, Sam, before you——”
Sam held both hands to his head, expressive of the fear that his precise and conservative mind was giving way.
“Joe, if it wasn’t but ten o’clock in the morning, and I didn’t know that you were plumb sober when I left you at breakfast an hour ago, I’d think you were boiling drunk. Now, pull yourself together, and give it to me straight. What are you raving about? Is it an order for a bungalow, or some girl who tramped up our stairs to sell you a ‘Trow’s Directory’?”
Joe threw up his arms and let out a laugh that made the two draftsmen in the next room raise their heads.
“None of ’em, you woodenhead. Listen, Sam, and I’ll put a fresh curl in your hair. When I reached the sidewalk this morning, the whole place—hall, steps, and curb—were cluttered up with furniture! Everything from a flat-iron to a folding-bed was all over the lot. That new family—the one Moses was telling us about last night—were moving in. Mounted on a chair—just a plain kitchen chair, mind you —stood a girl—oh, a daisy girl!—holding on to a dressing-table, its legs tied up in a stove. And, Sam——”
“Her legs tangled up in—what are you talking about, Joe?”
“Not hers, you idiot! The Chippendale’s.”
“Well, then, what’s the girl got to do with it?”
“Don’t I tell you she owned the table? She was all broken up. Called her ‘darling.’ Was just bursting into tears when I made a dive, grabbed the eighteenth-century relic by one corner, lifted it over
everybody’s head, carried it inside, and laid it at the feet of a rather demoralized woman—no doubt her mother—her head tied up in a green veil. Hence, ‘Thanks,’ grateful looks, and ‘Oh, so kind of you, sir’—that sort of thing. Returned to the girl, apologized, more ‘Oh, thank yous,’ and retired in good order. A perfect stunner, I tell you, Sam! I knew we’d strike it rich when you picked out that old rookery. We’ll begin to live now. She’s right below. Go down any time she sends for us. I’ve been thinking it over, and the first thing to do is to have a tea. Got to be hospitable, you know. We’ve just moved in, and they’ve just moved in. We’ve been there the longest, and, therefore, we make the advances. That would be the decent thing to do if there wasn’t any girl. Don’t you think so?”
Sam’s mind had begun to wander. He had listened to a dozen just such outbursts in the past six months.
Joe rattled on:
“Of course, we must invite the mother and father. They won’t come. He won’t, anyway. Mother might, so as to find out who we were and how we lived, and after that it will be easy-going with the daughter. I’ll send for Higgins and his sister, and you get Matty Sands and her mother, and—”
Sam began moving toward the door.
“Better cut the tea out, Joe,” he said curtly.
“But you haven’t seen the girl; if you had, you’d——”
“No, I haven’t seen the girl, and I don’t want to see the girl. Bad enough to give up a day’s work. We’ve got a lot to do, you know A tea smashes the whole afternoon. Make it at night.”
“Too expensive. Must have something to eat, and maybe something to drink. Moses and his wife could work the hot-water-andsandwiches racket, all right, but a supper, no—can’t see it—break us.”
“Well, make it a musicale, and send for Paul Lambing and his violin. I’ll do the piano. Maybe your girl can sing.”
“No; she can’t sing.”
“How do you know she can’t sing?”
“Because she don’t look like a girl who can sing. I can tell every time.”
“Well what does she look like?”
“She’s a perfect stunner, I tell you.”
“Yes, you’ve said that three times already. Now give us the details. Elevation, openings, cornice, roof line, and——”
Again Joe roared, this time with his head thrown back, his white teeth glistening. “That’s just like you, Sam, you never had a soul above bricks and mortar, and you never——”
“Well, I don’t go out of my head over every petticoat I come across.” He was inside the drafting-room now, and was holding the door open between them. “And, another thing, Joe, take my advice and stop where you are. The girl no doubt’s all right, and the mother may be all right, but the father is a queer one. Looks like a cross between a tract distributer and a lightning-rod man. Go slow, Joe,” and he shut the door between them.
By the end of the week the Fords had settled down in their new quarters, so far as outside activities were concerned. But what was going on inside the unlucky suite of rooms, no one but Matilda knew. Moses had volunteered the remark, that when a carpet was full of holes “it didn’t make no diff’unce which side you laid down.” But whether this mutilation was discovered in one of Fords’ Axminsters or in his own floor coverings, Joe did not catch, nor did he press the inquiry
His impatience, however, to get inside the sacred precinct was not cooled, and he was still at fever heat. Nor had the proposed entertainment been abandoned, Joe forcing the topic whenever the opportunity offered, Sam invariably side-tracking it whenever it was possible. To-night, however, Joe was going to have it out, and Sam, being entirely comfortable, was prepared to listen. Neither of them had engagements which would take them from their rooms, and so Joe had donned his brown velvet jacket, and Atwater had slipped his thin body into what Joe called his “High Church” pajamas, an
embroidered moiré-antique dressing-gown, cut after the pattern of a priest’s robe, which a devoted aunt had made for him with her own hands, and which, to quote Joe, “should always be worn with smoked glasses as safeguards against certain dangerous forms of ophthalmia.”
Joe, finding another mail heaped up on his pad—there was always a mail for Joe—had seated himself at his desk, his legs stretched out like a ten-inch gun, his shapely feet in thin-soled, patent-leather shoes, resting on one corner of the colonial. Sam occupied the sofa, the slim curve of his girth almost parallel to the straight line of the Hidalgo’s favorite lounge.
Several schemes looking to a further and more lasting acquaintance had been discussed and rejected. One was to leave their own door ajar, be in wait until Fords’ was opened, and then in the most unexpected manner meet some one of the family on the stairs, Joe’s affability to do the rest.
Another was to waylay Ford as he entered from the street, engage him in conversation, and keep it up until he had reached his door, when Joe would be invited in and asked to make himself at home. This last was Atwater’s. Indeed, both of these “vulgar absurdities” (Joe’s view-point) were Atwater’s.
“Well, then,” retorted Sam, “go down like a man—now. It isn’t too late. It’s only nine o’clock. Ring the bell or pound on his door, and present your card. That’s the way you would do anywhere up-town. Try it here. Chuck that box of matches this way, Joe, my pipe’s out.”
Joe chucked, stretched his shapely legs another inch, and resumed:
“No, won’t do. Might all be out. All up with us then. Lightning-rod man would wait a week, watch until he saw us go out, tiptoe up-stairs and slip his card under the door. I couldn’t call again without upsetting everything. They’d think I was trying to ‘butt in.’ Better way would be to write the mother a note.”
“What kind of a note? Here, catch this box.”
“That’s the devil of it, Sam, I don’t exactly know. I’m thinking it over.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what to say, and I’m not thinking it over Say you’re dead stuck on her daughter, and want to see more of her. That you’re going to get up a musicale which you can’t afford, and that you—oh, drop it, Joe, she’ll be asking us both to tea before the week is out, and before a month the whole family will be borrowing everything we own, and we’ll have to move out to get rid of them. I got a crack at the mother a day or two ago. You didn’t see her this morning because you had gone up on ahead, but a boy rang her bell as I passed. One of these short, old family portraits kind of woman. Round and dry as a bunch of lavender Girl might be well enough, but my advice is to cut it all out. Get a new line. We’ve got a lot of work to do. I’ve carried the ground-plan as far as I can go, and you’ve got to pitch into the details.”
Joe had dropped his feet to the floor, had squared himself at his desk, and was half through a note. Sam had finished his outburst. His partner’s advice on matters connected with their profession Joe always respected; to listen to his views on social affairs was so much wasted time.
The note finished, Joe shifted his seat and faced his partner, the letter in his hand.
“Now, shut up, you hod-carrier, and pay attention. This is what I call a corker! And you needn’t try to alter a line, because it’s going just as it is.
“D M . F :
“Would you think me presuming if I asked you to relieve the loneliness of the two young men who occupy the third floor over your head? Mr. Atwater and I have invited a few friends to come to our rooms on Friday of this week at nine o’clock to listen to some good music, and we would be most grateful if you and Mr. Ford and your daughter would join the company,
“Yours sincerely, “J G .”
“How’s that?”
Atwater settled himself deeper into the sofa, gathered the ends of the flaming robe closer about his thin body, and jammed a pillow under his head; but no word escaped him.
“Well, I’m waiting,” insisted Joe; “what do you think of it?”
“That you’ll get the mother, who’ll come to spy out the land; that the lightning-rod man will stay away, and that the girl, if she’s got any sense, and I think she has from what you’ve told me, will wait for the old lady’s report, and that that will end it. These people have come here to get away from everybody. That girl, no doubt, is all they’ve got, and they don’t want distinguished young architects mousing around. Save your money, Joe.”
“That letter’s going, Sam, just as I’ve written it. It’s the letter of a gentleman. Never will offend any lady, and she looks like one. Wait till I seal it. It ought to go at once—now—this very night. You get out of that Biblical bedquilt and get into your coat, slip down and leave it at the door. That will give me another chance in case this thing slips up. Could then make a suggestion about having the glass repaired. Never thought of that until this minute.”
“I wouldn’t get off this sofa, Joe, for all the girls in New York. Put a stamp on it, and I’ll mail it in the morning. There’s no hurry. We’re going to be here all winter.”
“Mail it, you half-breed! Mail a letter, and you in the same house!”
“Well, send it down by Moses.”
“Well, that’s more like it! Touch that bell—will you?—you’re nearest.”
Sam reached out and pressed a button within a foot of his head. Joe slipped the note into an envelope, sealed it with violet wax, waited until the little puddle was big enough to engulf the Grimsby crest engraved on his seal-ring, and was about to repeat the summons, when there came a knock at the door.
“Come in.”
The darky entered, his back crooked like a folding jack-knife.
“I knowed dat was yo’ ring, Mr. Joe, before it got done tinglin’.” A new —or rather an added joy—had crept again into the old slave’s heart —the joy of serving a white man whom he respected, and who was kind to him.
“You’re wrong, Gargoyles, that was Mr. Atwater’s ring!”
“Well, den you gib his touch.” And again Moses’ back was bent double.
“Wrong again, Moses. That the bell rang at all is entirely owing to the fact that the button was within reach of the distinguished architect’s hand. Had it been six inches farther down the wall, I should have been obliged to tingle it myself.”
“Yas, sah.”
“The distinguished architect, Moses, suffers from an acute form of inertia, Moses, owing to the fact that he was born tired.”
“Yas, sah.”
“And furthermore, Moses, he has so little knowledge of the ordinary civilities of life, that but for your kindly help he would have intrusted this delicately addressed missive, illumined with the Grimsby crest, to a cast-iron box decorating a street corner.”
“Yas, sah.”
Any further comment would have been presumptuous. None of this conversation, as he well knew, having been addressed to himself.
“And now, stop genuflecting, you chunk of darkness, and listen. Step down-stairs, rap gently and discreetly at the closed portal of the Ford family and pass in this letter.”
“Yes, sah, and den what?” He was included now.
“Nothing what, unless the young lady should open the door, when you will ask her if there is any answer. If she says there is, and gives it to you, you will bring it up here on the dead run.”
“And s’pose dat de—dat de—well, dat de gemman himself opens it?”
“What, the letter?”
“No, sah; de do’.”
“Hand him the letter all the same, say there is no answer; none of any kind, and to prove it, amble down into your own coal-hole.”
Moses reached for the missive, laid it across the creases of his wrinkled palm, and with a remark, “dat his old marse, Marse Robin, had one of dem little seals hangin’ to his watch-fob,” closed the door behind him.
With the departure of the darky a waiting calm fell upon the room. Joe resumed his task at his desk, and Sam continued to flatten out the several parts of his body until each inch of his lower length had found a resting-place.
“Everybody out, or Moses would have come up again,” remarked Joe, glancing at the clock, “been gone five minutes now.”
“Holding a council of war. Mother in tears, and the girl in a rage. At the present moment the lightning-rod man is looking for a club. My advice to you is to get out of that velvet jacket, or it will be mussed up before he gets through with you.”
Five minutes more. No Moses. No irate protector of the family No news of any kind.
Nor was any further information available the following morning when Moses brought in their breakfast. “Didn’t nobody open de do’ but de hired girl, so I left it,” was his report. Moses’ mental distinction between a hired girl and a servant was convincingly apparent in the tones of his voice.
Nor was there any word sent to the office, nor had any message reached their room when Joe arrived home to dress for dinner. The nearest approach to a possible communication had been when he caught sight of Miss Sue’s back as she tripped out of the front door, just before he reached the sidewalk. But she was gone before he could have overtaken her, had he so wished, the unanswered note having now set up an insurmountable barrier between them.
Positive information reached him on his return home that night. He had occupied a front seat at Wallack’s, Mrs. Southgate having given
a débutante a chance to be seen. Sam had kept awake and was waiting for him.
“Well, it’s come, Joe,” he shouted, before the absentee had closed the door behind him.
“What’s come?”
“The letter. She slipped it under the door after you left, and I came mighty near stepping on it when I came in half an hour ago. Looks like a railroad time-table, or a set of specifications.”
“The devil you did! What does she say? Is she coming?”
“How do I know? Haven’t opened it. It’s addressed to you.”
Joe caught up the letter, dropped into a chair and tore apart the envelope. Inside was the missive and a printed enclosure.
Sam edged nearer, awaiting the verdict, his eyes reading Joe’s face as he scanned the lines.
Joe read on to the end, and passed the open sheet to Atwater without a word. It bore the image and superscription of “The United Family Laundry Association, Limited,” and was signed by the vicepresident and treasurer.
“Read it, Sam, and go out in the hall and swear. G-r-i-m-e-s-b-y, eh? Don’t even know how to spell my name. Here, hand it back, and listen.
“J G , E ,
“Dear Sir: My wife can’t come. Neither can her daughter. But I will show up at nine o’clock. I enclose one of our circulars. Look it over. The last sale of our stock was at par.
“Yours, etc., “E F , “Vice-President and Treasurer.”
“Her daughter!” exploded Joe. “What does that mean?”
Sam staggered to the sofa, and fell along its length in a paroxysm of laughter.
“Magnificent! Superb! He’ll show up, will he? Of course he’ll show up —all of him. Oh, what a lark!”
Joe made a pianissimo beat with his outstretched hand in the hope of reducing Sam’s volume of protest, and scanned the letter once again.
“Just my luck!” he muttered. “Always some vulgarian of a father or crank mother gets in the way. No, we won’t have any party. I’m going to call it off. Tell him I’ve just got a telegram. Sent for from out of town. Professional business—that sort of thing. A man who will write a letter like that in answer to one addressed to his wife would be an intolerable nuisance. Couldn’t get rid of him with a dynamite bomb. I’ll fix him, and I’ll do it now,” and he squared himself at his desk.
“You’ll do nothing of the kind, Joe,” returned Sam.
“Now, the girls are not coming, we’ll have the party, nuisance or no nuisance. He’ll be more fun than a half-starved Harlem goat munching a tin sign. We’ll cut out Matty Higgins and the other girls, and make it a stag. Just you leave it to me. I’ll take care of him, and if there’s anything in him, I’ll get it out. If he can’t sing, he’ll dance. If he won’t do either, I’ll stand him on his head.”
That Sam should be willing, even enthusiastic, over the admission of any one member of the Ford family was a point gained in Joe’s mind. Whether, when he had once gained admission to the family circle, he could stand the surroundings, he would decide upon later. Mrs. Ford was evidently a woman of breeding and refinement; her daughter was—well, there was no use discussing that with Sam. Sam never went out of his way to be polite to any woman, young or old. As to Ford, Senior, there must be a good side to him or he could not be where he was. There was no question that he was unaccustomed to the usages of good society; his note showed that. So were a lot of other men he knew who were engrossed in their business. Yes, he would have the party, and the next week he would give a tea, whether Sam was willing or not, and Miss Ford would pour it, or
