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FMS Digest, v. 1, issues 1-5, February - July 1941
v.1:no.1: Page 8
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Page 8 F M Z DIGEST Some notes on Devil Worship By Robert W. Lowndes Condensed from THE ALCHEMIST January 1941 [Illustration] Illustration from THE ALCHEMIST Descriptions of the Black Mass have often featured in various weird tales, notably among the Jules de Grandin stories of Seabury Quinn. However none can compare, either in force or accuracy, to the descriptions contained in "Las Bas," the classic work of Joris Carl Huysmans. It is told from the viewpoint of one Durtal, who has been induced by his mistress to attend a gathering. They go by marriage and by foot to a secluded house...enter a chapel whose low ceiling is crossed by painted beams. The windows are heavily curtained; walls are cracked and filthy. He gropes his way along, trying to see in the half-darkness, through the veils of acrid smoke. The chapel is dimly lit... The alter [altar] is now visible; it is an ordinary Catholic Church alter [altar] on a tabernacle, above which stands a Christ. But this Christ is altered; the head has been raised...wrinkles worked into the face so that its expression is bestial. ...all kneel as the red priest enters, preceded by the two choir boys. He wears a scarlet bonnet ornamented with two protruding buffalo horns of red cloth...The chasuble has the shape of an ordinary chasuble, but is the color of dried blood, and, in the middle...is the figure of a black billy-goat presenting his horns. The priest...in a voice trembling with hate, spews forth blasphemies and maledictions and vituperations upon the figure of the altered Christ. Now the priest turns toward the congregation, blesses them in a gesture with his left hand. As if, on a signal, the women fall, writing, to the floor...Clothing and skirts are rent, hair torn...A girl near the wall is in a fit of convulsions...The priest chews up sacramental waters, spitting them out on the floor as the women grind them underfoot...The place becomes a madhouse of prostitutes and maniacs... In the introduction of the book, "La Bas," he declares that he has not told the worst, having withheld the really frightful portions of his accounts from publication. It will, however, serve, I trust to take the illusion of glamor away from the concepts of the Black Mass in the imagination of readers. For this thing is not weird, not imaginative and not even erotic. It is sheer degradation, the embracing of foulness, nauseating to contemplate. That the participants receive no pleasure from the frenzies goes without saying; it lies on the thin borderline of total insanity, a borderline which many worshippers soon cross permanently. It is interesting, I think, to note that worshippers of the Devil are not the rebels they consider themselves. By the very fury of their intricate system of repeated denials they confess their very real belief. The militant atheist is merely a believer turned inside out. Moreover, despite their professed adoration of evil, they cannot escape from concepts of justice and sin, which one logically devoted to the powers of darkness would not consider at all. One can only pity them when confronted with such.
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Page 8 F M Z DIGEST Some notes on Devil Worship By Robert W. Lowndes Condensed from THE ALCHEMIST January 1941 [Illustration] Illustration from THE ALCHEMIST Descriptions of the Black Mass have often featured in various weird tales, notably among the Jules de Grandin stories of Seabury Quinn. However none can compare, either in force or accuracy, to the descriptions contained in "Las Bas," the classic work of Joris Carl Huysmans. It is told from the viewpoint of one Durtal, who has been induced by his mistress to attend a gathering. They go by marriage and by foot to a secluded house...enter a chapel whose low ceiling is crossed by painted beams. The windows are heavily curtained; walls are cracked and filthy. He gropes his way along, trying to see in the half-darkness, through the veils of acrid smoke. The chapel is dimly lit... The alter [altar] is now visible; it is an ordinary Catholic Church alter [altar] on a tabernacle, above which stands a Christ. But this Christ is altered; the head has been raised...wrinkles worked into the face so that its expression is bestial. ...all kneel as the red priest enters, preceded by the two choir boys. He wears a scarlet bonnet ornamented with two protruding buffalo horns of red cloth...The chasuble has the shape of an ordinary chasuble, but is the color of dried blood, and, in the middle...is the figure of a black billy-goat presenting his horns. The priest...in a voice trembling with hate, spews forth blasphemies and maledictions and vituperations upon the figure of the altered Christ. Now the priest turns toward the congregation, blesses them in a gesture with his left hand. As if, on a signal, the women fall, writing, to the floor...Clothing and skirts are rent, hair torn...A girl near the wall is in a fit of convulsions...The priest chews up sacramental waters, spitting them out on the floor as the women grind them underfoot...The place becomes a madhouse of prostitutes and maniacs... In the introduction of the book, "La Bas," he declares that he has not told the worst, having withheld the really frightful portions of his accounts from publication. It will, however, serve, I trust to take the illusion of glamor away from the concepts of the Black Mass in the imagination of readers. For this thing is not weird, not imaginative and not even erotic. It is sheer degradation, the embracing of foulness, nauseating to contemplate. That the participants receive no pleasure from the frenzies goes without saying; it lies on the thin borderline of total insanity, a borderline which many worshippers soon cross permanently. It is interesting, I think, to note that worshippers of the Devil are not the rebels they consider themselves. By the very fury of their intricate system of repeated denials they confess their very real belief. The militant atheist is merely a believer turned inside out. Moreover, despite their professed adoration of evil, they cannot escape from concepts of justice and sin, which one logically devoted to the powers of darkness would not consider at all. One can only pity them when confronted with such.
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