The Satanic Mass that the Harvard Cultural Studies Club planned on organizing has been in the news recently, with a lot of discussion and a minor outcry, decrying the event as offensive, abhorrent, disgusting, a mockery of the sacred, and ultimately as hate speech disguised in the cloak of learning. As I’m tired of reading through comment box warfare, I’d like to further the discussion a bit with my own perspective.
Which Satan?
It seems to me that Satanism is a single name for many quite different but related things, so it’s hard to speak about it in general terms and have it be universally applicable. Even with those branches that have something resembling a canon, it doesn’t seem to always be adhered to strictly. There is a theistic and an atheistic branch.
To the atheistic branch, Satan is a symbol and an ideal. It is also not the same Satan as the one in Christian literature, as atheists don’t believe in any religion, including Christianity. This is more of a set of life principles than a pronouncement of belief. In this situation Satan represents ideas like freethought, individualism, rational self-interest. Not much of this is abhorrent or offensive. These people seem to be the majority of Satanists today, under a few different groups.
Then there are the theistic ones. For most of these guys too, their definition of Satan is not tied to its (his?) portrayal in Christian literature. A few say that theirs is the same Satan, but that Satan was falsely accused, betrayed and banished by God. In either case Satan is not evil incarnate, unlike what some of the vocal opponents of the Harvard Mass seem to think. Heresy, sure. But then one can say that about most non-Christian-conforming ideas. And sometimes even other Christians, like the Protestants, were accused of the same.
As far as I know, even to the theists, the black-mass Christian-mockery devil-ritual group are labelled as wannabes, and jokingly called "reverse Christians" because their beliefs in Satan is based on its (his?) portrayal in Christian literature. And it is this group who is really committing the arguably insulting heresy of Christianity.
The others are reactionary towards Christianity maybe in their syncretic choice of idol (and who else to react against but one of the largest religions ever?), but ultimately have nothing to do with the Christian Satan. It’s a different thing.
On the Black Mass
The origins of the Black Mass are murky, but seem to be rooted mainly in the Middle Ages, starting as church satire. Probably the most famous practicians of this early form of satire were the Goliards, who wrote the Carmina Burana! The Goliards were a group of clergy who were increasingly discontent with alleged abuses in the Church, and decided to express this with satire and parody. They had a Feast of The Ass where they brought a costumed Donkey in the church and engaged in festivities. There were other forms of this mocking of Christianity, such as drinker’s masses and gamblers’ masses. But about the Black Mass specifically, there seems to be evidence that it stems from the later Christian tradition of witch hunting. Two famous tomes on the subject, the "Malleus Maleficarum" and the "Compendium Maleficarum" mention masses subverted for evil purposes. (Of course, we now know that most of the material in these books are completely invented and preposterous.) From there, it takes off and makes its way into literature, until finally in the 1900s religious freedom blooms, and the first "out" satanists start forming their own churches and religions, and derive their own rituals.
Apparently, a recent revival of Satanphobia came by during the Satanic Ritual Abuse scare, which was mostly baseless moral panic. I won’t go into the details here, but it’s a very interesting read if you’d like to know fear and ignorance can devolve into mass hysteria.
Given how closely satanic abuse was studied because of the scare, it’s interesting that people can only point to a handful of examples of self-described satanists causing harm, a feat no major religion can claim (and I’m being liberal here, including those who are mentally ill and those who are merely posing and do not actually believe in some form of Satanism). Let us pause here for a moment to recall recent unsavory learnings regarding the Archdiocese of Boston, and then regarding the Catholic Church in general, not to mention hundreds of years of history.
Satyr, from Dante’s "La Vita Nuova"
Another point is that it is doubtful that most of the attendees are Satanists! There are an estimated 50000 Satanists in the US, which makes for around 1 in 10000 people. Besides, it’s the Cultural Studies Club, and it’s a reenactment. Civil war reenactment is not the civil war, renaissance fairs are not the renaissance, when the Boston Opera House shows Faust, no real deal with the Devil takes place.
Continuing on, here’s a list of what I bet won’t happen at this event: Human or animal sacrifice, bloodletting, abuse. I also really doubt that there will be any "death to Christians" type speech, even as part of the reenactment. Here is a group of people who agreed to not use a consecrated host as part of the ceremony.
After a bit of digging, I’ve found that they’re recreating a ritual in a novel called "Là-bas", which is a fictional account:
"Although a work of fiction, Huysmans’ description of the Black Mass remained influential simply because no other book went into as much detail. However, the actual text which Huysmans’ satanic "priest" recites is nothing more than a long diatribe in French, praising Satan as the god of reason and the opponent of Christianity. In this way, it resembles the French poetry of Charles Baudelaire (in particular Les Litanies de Satan), more than it resembles an inversion of the Roman Catholic Mass." — Wikipedia, "Black Mass"
Make no mistake, it’s not just a diatribe. But it’s not a "real" ritual. To me, it’s not a stretch to consider this event a theatrical depiction. Although Judgding by the response of the Church to The Da Vinci Code, even clear works of fiction are not allowed to insult.
Magical Circle, Seals and Characters, “Astrology” (1806)
I find it patronizing when the Archdiocese suggests that a theatrical depiction is "dangerously close" to destructive works of evil, and weak when Father Landry brings up the conjuration of the spirit of Hitler in what I hope is conscious hyperbole.
Another thing I find curious is that of all the denominations of nearby Christian churches, only officials from the Catholic Church seemed to object. I don’t know enough about the different ideological stances of the different denominations to consider that more deeply.
On Mockery
This brings us to the charges of Mockery. I think what keeps being missed is that Mockery need not imply hate speech. An example: Colbert mocks Republicans all the time, as I’m sure the Republicans mock back. It’s a form of parody, like when Tina Fey did her Sarah Palin impression. Sure, there is friction, but political parody and mockery is an ancient tradition. If conflict escalates, it’s rarely because of a caricature. How can a peaceful mocking relationship exist among dogged rivals of deeply held political beliefs, while religious mockery is somehow unacceptable and seems to claim lives on a regular basis?
In my humble opinion, most other religions are a mockery of Christianity as much as Christianity is a mockery of them. It’s easy to observe the utter incompatibility in ideals, maxims, beliefs. At the very least most other religions are blasphemy to Christianity. Sometimes, for example, religions will explicitly pronounce all other religions, including Christianity, false! Is this not an affront and insult? And yet most modern Christians are somehow not visibly offended by other religions and their rituals on a daily basis. Does the Archdiocese, for example, object to daily Buddhist meditation or Muslim prayer? Has there ever been a stink raised about either being offensive?
If it ever was, it would be when these religions were not well established, small in number, unknown and obscure. And therein lies my contempt.
Putting aside the rationale for the public brouhaha, I think the sole reason the Archdiocese is able to object to any ritual without people calling them intolerant is that the target is a small and historically demonized group. Who would defend the Satanists?
Skeleton with Skull, “Fabrica …” (1543)
If merely practicing a ritual is offensive (reminding again that it’s very unlikely that any abuse or hate speech will happen at this specific event, and that it’s merely a reenactment), then they could at least be consistent and object to all other rituals.
Aside from a Shaker exhibition, I read that the club is also planning a Shinto tea ceremony and a Buddhist meditation. I’m eager to see if there will be any reactions to those.