A Dark Muse: A History of the Occult

by Gary Lachman

  By this time Villiers had become obsessed with the melange of Catholicism, Hegelianism and the occult that would constitute his literary and philosophical world. He read Balzac's mystical novels, was a sometime disciple of Eliphas Levi, and his friendship with Baudelaire introduced him to notions of Satanism and the hermetic theme of correspondences. Hegel, however, may seem an odd bedfellow for these mystic influences, until we recall that one of the most powerful, if little known inspirations for Hegel's dialectic were the writings of Jacob Boehme. But more than any specific idea - and the breadth of Villiers' reading often exceeded his grasp - what Villiers drew from these sources was a general spirit of profound idealism, a rejection of bourgeois materialism, of progress, science and common sense: even of physical embodiment. As his translator Robert Martin Adams remarks, Villiers could "walk down a public thoroughfare like a man from another planet."" He was a creature from "another sphere," an angel fallen to earth. "Go beyond," was the family motto, and Villiers took this to heart. As he wrote in Axel, he lived "out of politeness"; it was only his good manners and aristocratic upbringing that forced him to remain in this realm at all.

  A look at Villiers' life suggests that such noblese oblige provided him with the most tenuous of footings. By the 1870s, the financial support of his aunt was exhausted, and Villiers embarked on a journey to the underworld unprecedented, even by the standards of Baudelaire or Nerval. For the next twenty years he was generally cold for lack of clothes, hungry for lack of food, and sleepless for lack of a room. He salvaged what he could from rubbish bins, and begged for second hand rags. He took whatever demeaning jobs he could find, but only as a last resort. For sixty francs a month he was a sparring partner at a gym, basically getting knocked around to earn his pittance. He worked with a snake oil merchant, posing as a cripple until swallowing the quack remedy. One winter he slept at a construction site, waking one morning to the watchman's boot grinding in his face. It is said that he wrote his occult science fiction novel Tomorrow's Eve (which features Thomas Edison as a kind of Rosicrucian inventor of an artificial woman) on the bare floor of a squalid room; whatever furniture he had went to the pawnshop. His frequent disappearances were a sign that things had got even worse than this. The aristocrat in him refused to allow others to see his most pitiful degradations. After his death from cancer and general neglect in 1889, when his friend Mallarme was asked about Villiers' life, he replied: "His life - I search for anything that corresponds to that expression: truly and in the ordinary sense, did he live?"

  It wasn't until 1883, with the publication of Contes cruels, that Villiers began to receive anything like the recognition he deserved. He had been writing for more than twenty years, but his noble soul refused to have anything to do with ambition and success, unless it was the ambition of genius and the success of great art. Unlike others, he would not, or perhaps could not, adapt himself to the requirements of a market. Like Poe, whose own bizarre stories were one of Villiers' models, perfection and beauty were his standards. The contrast between his goals and the milieu of their expression could not be greater: most of Villiers' `cruel tales' were written on dirty scraps of paper stained with the wine or absinthe of the cafes he inhabited. The tales were Villiers' first public success, and they consolidated his reputation as a high priest of Symbolism, too late, however, to do him much good. Throughout the collection, Villiers attacked the reigning scientific positivism and bourgeois obsession with progress, declaring his belief in an assortment of magical ideas: reincarnation, spiritualism, precognition. As.his biographer A.W. Raitt remarks, Villiers was "fascinated by the intervention in human affairs of mysterious, otherworldly forces, the existence of which in his work is a constant challenge to the assumptions of materialism ..."4"

  Notes

  I J.L. Talmon Romanticism and Revolt (London: Thames and Hudson, 196 7) p. 145.

  2 See Colin Wilson The Craft of the Novel (London: Gollanz, 1975).

  3 Letter from Abbot Johannes Trithemius to Johann Virdung, quoted in Hans Christoph Binswanger Money and Magic: A Critique of the Modern Economy in the Light of Goethe's Faust (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) pp. 1-2. The Abbot had other alchemical acquaintances, being the teacher of Paracelsus and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa.

  4 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Autobiography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974) p. 3, translated by John Oxenford.

  5 Ronald D. Gray Goethe the Alchemist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952) For anyone interested in tracing the influence of occult ideas on Goethe's writing, Gray's book is the obvious and indispensable start. Gray argues that Goethe's early fascination with alchemy and magic remained a core influence on his entire body of work, and his book is a meticulous examination of the occult roots of Goethe's interest in and studies of mineralogy, botany, anatomy, meteorology, as well as his literary pursuits.

  6 Ibid. p. 371.

  7 One thinks of Wagner's Tristan, Mahler's adagio from the Fifth Symphony, and the opening sequence of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder.

  8 Arthur Versluis, Introduction to Novalis: Pollen and Fragments (Grand Rapids: Phanes Press, 1989) p. 9.

  9 John Neubauer, Novalis (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980) p. 15.

  10 See the excellent introduction to Hoffmann's The Life and Opinions of The Tomcat Murr (London: Penguin Books, 1999).

  11 Hoffmann's tale can be seen as an essay in Blake's idea of `single vision'. In different ways, both the philistines and the insane suffer a form of this; it is only the magician and poet who can perceive reality's dual aspect.

  12 A good argument has been made for Hoffmann's green snakes to have their source in his own hypnagogic experiences. See Jurij Moskvitin An Essay on the Origin of Thought (1973). This, of course, does not rule out any alchemical associations, as it is arguable that the alchemists themselves made use of hypnagogia. See Jung's writings on `active imagination'.

  13 For an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Poe's death, see Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998) by John Walsh.

  14 Daniel Hoffman Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1972) p. 206.

  15 Edgar Allan Poe in The Unknown Poe (San Francisco: City Lights, 1980) p. 42.

  16 For a fascinating survey of Poe's alchemical tales, see Randall A. Clack's "Strange Alchemy of Brain: Poe and Alchemy" in A Companion to Poe Studies, Eric W. Carlson ed., (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996) pp. 367-387.

  17 See Harold Beaver's introduction to The Science Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976).

  18 For what it's worth, a similar material spirituality was espoused by the enigmatic Armenian teacher G.I. Gurdjieff who argued that everything, including ideas, was material. See P.D. Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous (1949) for a detailed account of Gurdjieff's teaching.

  19 Stefan Zweig Balzac (London: Cassell, 1947) p. 163.

  20 Robert Darnton Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass. 1968) p. 128.

  21 Gerard de Nerval: Selected Writings, translated and with an Introduction and Notes by Richard Sieburth, (London: Penguin Books, 1999) p. x.

  22 It is interesting to note that the term Bohemian, meaning an unconventional way of life, derives from 16th century Bohemia, whose capital Prague, under the rule of Rudolph II, was a haven for alchemists, magicians, astrologers and Rosicrucians, attracting, among others, such figures as the polymath John Dee and his disreputable associate, Edward Kelly. See Francis Yates' The Rosicrucian Enlightenment.

  23 Ibid. p. xv.

  24 Ibid. P. xx.

  25 C.G. Jung Memories, Dreams, Reflections (London: Flamingo, 1983) pp. 201, 214.

  26 Rene Daumal Powers of the Word (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1994).

  27 A good English introduction to Nerval's hermeticism is Gerard de Nerval The Mystic's Dilemma by Bettina L. Knapp (Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1980).

&nbs
p; 28 Ibid. p.105.

  29 Sieburt p. xxii.

  30 Norman Glass, Introduction to his translation of Journey to the Orient (London: Peter Owen, 1972) p. 18.

  31 He is also, incidentally, responsible for the phrase "The pen is mightier than the sword."

  32 For Bulwer-Lytton's link to the Nazis and the occult, see Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier classic The Morning of the Magicians (1963). Later scholars, most notably Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (The Occult Roots of Nazism (1985) ), have exploded Pauwels' and Bergier's contentions, but they still make for good reading.

  33 E.G.E. Bulwer-Lytton The Coming Race (Alan Sutton Publishing: Phoenix Mill, 1995) pp. 8, 10.

  34 Joscelyn Godwin The Theosophical Enlightenment (Albany: State University Press of New York, 1994) p. 195.

  35 It is possible that this weird script is the model for Blavatsky's Senzar, the prehistoric language of The Book of Dzyan.

  36 Joanna Richardson, Introduction to Baudelaire Selected Poems (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1975) p. 12.

  37 Another source of the philosophy of suffering was Baudelaire's friend Eliphas Levi, or rather Alphonse Louis Constant (he hadn't yet changed his name). Baudelaire and Constant met on several occasions and worked together on at least one project, a scandalous book entitled Les Mysteres Galans des Theatres de Paris, a sort of mid-19th century equivalent of Hollywood Babylon. He and Constant were also briefly members of Blanqui's political organization, the Societe Repub- licaine Central. In 1845, a decade before becoming a magician, Constant published a book entitled Le Livre des Larmes, an essay on the value of suffering as a moral force which we can assume Baudelaire was aware of. Curiously, Constant had also written and published a poem entitled Correspondances in the following year.

  38 Nicolas Berdyaev The Meaning of the Creative Act (New York: Collier Books, 1962) p. 223.

  39 Robert Martin Adams Introduction to Tomorrow's Eve, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1982) p. x.

  40 A.W. Raitt Introduction to Cruel Tales, Villiers de 1'Isle-Adam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985) translated by Robert Baldick, p. x.

  Satanic Occultism

  Although in the popular mind it's seen as synonymous with occultism, Satanism proper is actually only , small branch of the occult, one that sprang out of the main trunk in relatively recent times; the ancient hermetic writings, for example, the central body of alchemical and esoteric knowledge, have no concept of a Devil nor make any mention of an evil principle. By definition Satanism and a Satanist require the existence of Satan, and although there are references to Satan in the Old Testament, most notably in the Book of job, it wasn't until Christianity had established itself in late antiquity that the idea of a being dedicated to evil, whose task it was to lead human beings to perdition, became a fixture of western consciousness.

  There were earlier embodiments of a dark principle. Ahriman, in Zoroastrianism the enemy of Ahura Mazda, is a kind of prototype Devil, and in the 20th century, the esotericist Rudolf Steiner was to call one of the "supersensible" beings who impede human spiritual evolution by that name. But Ahriman is more of a cosmic or ontological principle, the `yin' to Ahura Mazda's `yang', than what we would consider a prince of darkness. In the early years of Christianity the Gnostics, whose teachings would be incorporated with the hermetic writings to form the basic foundation of occult ideas, spoke of a "demiurge," a kind of blind, idiot god who created the earth and rules over it. Hence the need to escape from material reality. For the Gnostics, as for William Blake, this demiurge was associated with the Jehovah of the Bible (Blake calls him Nobodaddy). This gave rise to a tradition of `reversal' in which some biblical villains, like the Serpent, Cain, and Simon Magus, are seen as Gnostic heroes, a tradition that Blake himself participated in, as well as more recent writers like the novelist Hermann Hesse, whose Demian is full of Gnostic re-readings of biblical tales.

  As mentioned, Satan is a central character in the Book of Job, but there he is not depicted as the embodiment of all that is evil. He is, rather, a kind of prosecuting attorney, sent by God to test his people. Satan in Hebrew means "adversary," and in the Book of Job, Satan has God's mandate to try the belief of his followers. Devil in the New Testament comes from diabolos, Greek for "slanderer" or "accuser". By Christian times, Satan's position has changed; he no longer ferrets out the weak of faith and has become something more like the Devil we know. Perhaps his most spectacular appearance is during Jesus' forty days in the desert, where he tempts Christ by offering him dominion over the world, or tries to trick him into proving his divinity by using his magical powers.

  In Christian mythology the story of the Devil's origin is that he was one of God's angels, Lucifer (light-bearer), who, through pride, fell from heaven and took up residence in hell. After the Second Coming, he will be released once again for a brief time, only to be bound once more by Christ and thrown into darkness for another millennia. Satan has, of course, other names: Beelzebub, "Lord of the Flies", for example, a title given him because of the buzzing sound made by his demons. But Lucifer is the most enduring and it is the one that embodies the satanic aspect that has got the most literary mileage. It was Milton's Paradise Lost, which featured a Satan who would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven, that gave rise to our notions of satanic hubris and `Luciferic pride'.' It is this element in the satanic character that would attract many devotees during the Romantic period.

  Satanism proper got its start in the 17th century, although Catholic apologists would argue that earlier heretical sects like the Gnostics, Manichees, Bogomils, Albigensians and Cathars were in league with the Devil. The tales of depravity and demonic worship associated with these groups must, however, be taken with several grains of salt, as it is clear the Church fathers writing about them were less than unbiased. The beliefs of the Cathars and Albigensians, ruthlessly exterminated by the Church, had less to do with satanic worship than with refusing to acknowledge the papal throne as the sole arbiter of spiritual truth. The first thing a conquering religion does is make devils of the gods it has replaced, and in the case of the Cathars and other radical Christian sects, this is exactly what the Catholic Church did. Bogomil means "God lover" and Cathar means "pure;" what was demonic about these groups is that they practised a dualistic Christianity based more on actual Gospel teaching than the power oriented ideology of the Church.

  According to the occult historian Francis King, Satanism as we know it has its roots in the belief in the magical efficacy of the Catholic Mass.' The doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the sacramental offerings was widespread by 700 AD; this led to the belief that any priest, whatever his character, simply by virtue of his being a priest, could, through the ritual of the Mass, transform the communion bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. That this is a variation on magical spells and incantations is clear: the Mass itself, through its magical words, and the priest, through his initiation, had power, and it was only a matter of time before it was abused. Priests of weak virtue were quite prepared to perform Masses for various purposes in return for material gifts. The `Black Mass', a mainstay of satanic occultism, was originally another name for a Requiem Mass, given in aid of the souls in Purgatory. By the 7th century, the Council of Toledo had to ban their use as a magical means of murder. Masses could be said for other purposes as well, and it was not long before a kind of underground magical literature grew up around the practice. One such text was the Grimoire of Hono- rius, a handbook of magical rituals, which included among its occult preparations the saying of Mass. The Protestant Revolution, born of Luther's grievances against ecclesiastical abuse, was basically a rejection of the Church's position as an hierarchical initiatory society, possessing a magical, and frequently profitable, intimacy with God.

  From employing the Mass for magical purposes to petitioning and worshipping the Devil himself marks the transition from spiritual abuse to actual Satanism. The first documented and most well known case of this took place in Pa
ris in the late 1670s. There were, of course, earlier incidences of what we would call satanic evil: one thinks of Vlad the Impaler and Marshal Gilles de Rais, whose exploits will form a central part of perhaps the most well known satanic novel, J.K. Huysmans' Ld Bas. But although both of these characters embodied a demonic sadism, and were what we would undoubtedly consider evil, in the late 17th century, all the elements of satanic worship came together in a powerful and influential mixture.

  In her book The Affair of the Poisons, Frances Mossiker tells the bizarre story of a satanic ring responsible for murder, infanticide, weird sex and the attempted assassination of Louis XIV. In 1678, Nicolas de la Reynie, Police Commissioner of Paris, uncovered the existence of a widespread satanic cult, centred around a fortune-teller named Catherine Deshayes, also known as La Voisin, whose circle included several priests and whose most notable devotee was Madame de Montespan, mistress of Louis XIV. La Voisin admitted to concocting noxious potions for wives eager to be rid of their husbands, as well as to being the most industrious abortionist of her time: Francis King reports that the ashes of some 2,000 infants were found buried in her garden. But this was not the extent of her enormity. In order to remain in the king's favour and to spoil the hopes of any rival, Madame de Montespan engaged La Voisin and her accomplice, the Abbe Guibourg, known to have murdered dozens of children, to perform Black Masses. These were not merely Requiems used for evil purposes, but full blown satanic affairs which included child sacrifice, a naked woman as an altar, and offerings to demons like Asmodeus and Ashtaroth. The child's entrails and blood would be secretly mixed into Louis' dinner that evening. Masses like these had been performed for several years, the first taking place in 1673, but eventually Louis lost interest in his satanic concubine and, one would hope, his diet. Love turned to hate, and Madame de Montespan plotted the king's death. The plot failed, and when La Reynie made his swoop, some 360 people were arrested.