Today, I am going to perform my first public Satanic Mass. 

(We are trying to move away from calling it a “Black Mass,” since there’s really no call to continue equating “blackness” with things that are considered “evil” or “bad,” and that’s true even though we aren’t evil. However, I may use the term “Black Mass” a few times in this writing, because that’s how this particular ritual has been referred to historically.)

The Satanic Mass, like the Satanic Baptism or the Witch’s Sabbat, is a funny thing. It’s a fabled ritual that may never have actually been practiced (until very recently). Ideas of what the Devil’s Mass involved are confused and sensational. The most (potentially) reliable account comes to us in the novel La-Bas, by Joris-Karl Huysmans. Supposedly Huysmans attended a real “Black Mass” in Paris, upon which the scene in his novel was based. Anton LaVey based his version of the Mass partly upon Huysman’s account, and even quotes from the scene at length. (You can find LaVey’s version in The Satanic Rituals.)

I, too, drew heavily on La-Bas in scripting my Mass. I admit I also leaned on the band Coven’s track “Satanic Mass,” which was supposedly quite well researched. I suspect my mass will evolve and become refined over time, and will draw in additional sources as I find them.

What are the essential ingredients of a Satanic Mass, and what do they mean? Well, I can only give my opinion, based on my limited understanding. Here it is:

The high point and heart of a Catholic Mass is the consecration of the Eucharist, and the holy communion. Thus, the heart of the mass of blasphemy is the sacrilegious consecration and destruction of the host. My friend calls it “reverse Goetia”– the celebrant’s goal is to compel transubstantiation against Christ’s will in order to make an attack against him and his authority.

Let that sink in for a minute. That is extremely radical and extremely blasphemous. It’s a magical attempt at a physical attack on God.

So it stands to reason that not every Satanic ceremony or religious service is a “Black Mass.” If we were only “reverse Christians,” then it might be, but of course we are more than that. We love Satan more than we hate God, and most of the time we are focused on what we stand for, more than what we stand against. 

However, there is a vital place in Satanism for this type of ceremony. LaVey called it a “psychodrama,” and that is one function of the Mass– an exercise in radical apostasy, a ferocious banishing of the influence of Christ.

The Mass is also an opportunity to magically manifest one’s own desires. This probably evolved out of the “low masses” performed for personal gain:

Within the Church, the rite of the Mass was not completely fixed, and there were places at the end of the Offertory for the Secret prayers, when the priest could insert private prayers for various personal needs. These practices became especially prevalent in France (see Pre-Tridentine Mass). As these types of personal prayers within the Mass spread, the institution of the Low Mass became quite common, where priests would perform various Masses for the needs of their parishioner as The Mass is considered the highest form of prayer. In the 12th and 13th centuries there was a great surplus of clerics and monks who might be inclined to perform these Masses, as younger sons were often sent off to religious universities, and after their studies, needed to find a livelihood.

-Wikipedia

(This also explains part of how France became the epicenter of suspected Satanism.)

The idea of the low mass, I suppose, was that the sacred power of the Eucharist could be used towards, essentially, thaumaturgy– magic geared towards personal gain. The concept of the Satanic Mass as a vehicle for thaumaturgic magic is similar, except that the magical charge is derived from the force of the blasphemy rather than the power of the sacraments.

But wait! The mass has another defining component. Not only is it an assault on the authority of Christ, and an opportunity for magical working– it is also a sexually charged ritual.

The presence of a nude living altar has long been a defining characteristic of the Devil’s Mass. This element probably influenced Aleister Crowley when he was formulating the Gnostic Mass, which involves a nude priestess sitting on the altar for most of the ritual. (There is an important difference between the Gnostic Mass and the Satanic Mass, of course– in the Gnostic Mass, the priestess sits ON the altar, in the Satanic Mass, the naked individual IS the altar.)

This can lead to, if you’ll pardon the pun, an “altared” state. The altar becomes both more and less than human– an idol, a religious object. I have yet to serve as an altar myself, but I’ve been told it’s a deeply meditative state. In the documentary “Satanis: The Devil’s Mass,” a number of women who routinely serve as altars for LaVey speak about how much they value the experience.

(I think it’s stupid and sexist to exclusively use women as altars. So far, I’ve only used a male altar (although he is trans and has a body which he knows reads as female). In the Church, I hope that many different types of people will serve, consensually and enthusiastically, as both altars and celebrants.)

The nude altar has frequently been mistaken for a human sacrifice. For a vivid example of this phenomena, see the scene in the excellent show “Strange Angel” where Jack Parsons thinks that the High Priestess of a Gnostic Mass is about to be sacrificed. Film and television are mostly to blame for this phenomenon. The visual of a (typically) beautiful, naked woman lying on a slab with a black-robed priest standing over here, armed with a ritual dagger, definitely reads a certain way. Most people seeing that imagery would assume at the altar is about to be raped, slaughtered, or both.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The nude altar is a consenting individual having a profound mystic experience, who is the focus of all the power in the room, and who should in fact be considered clergy, just as much as the celebrant.

I am as sex-positive as they come– queer, trans, kinky, polyamorous and a long time member of the alternative sexual milieu in the Bay Area. And yet, as the date of the Mass approached, I found myself filled with doubt, fear, and sexual shame. I felt small, dirty, pathetic, creepy.

I spoke with my partner, who is also my altar for Masses, and with some other members of the Church. They reassured me, telling me that I am not a creep, that there is nothing wrong with sexual elements in a religious ceremony that involves only consenting adults. Eventually, one of my friends pointed out to me that it was, in fact, Christian programming that was making me feel so terrible about myself.

As soon as my friend said that, I realized how badly I needed the Mass. I thought I was past needing that psychodrama, that taboo-breaking ritual. I wasn’t. Maybe I will never be past it.

So I have chosen to inaugurate my church with a Satanic Mass of high blasphemy. I choose to do this because I want to banish Christ from our presence, because I want to use it as a thaumaturgic opportunity to bring the Church success, and as a great big “fuck you” to sexual shame and original sin. Over the nude body of my beautiful beloved partner, I will confront the false messiah with these words:

Thou whom, in my capacity of Priest, I force, whether thou wilt or no, to descend into this host: Jesus, artisan of hoaxes, bandit of homages, robber of affections—hear me!

Since the day when thou didst issue from the complaisant bowels of a false virgin, thou hast failed all thy engagements, belied all thy promises. Centuries have wept awaiting thee, fugitive god, mute god. Thou wast to redeem man and thou hast not. Thou wast to appear in thy glory, and thou sleepest.

Imposter! Thou hast forgotten the poverty thou didst preach, enamored vassal of Banks! Thou hast seen the weak crushed beneath the press of profit; thou hast heard the death rattle of the timid, paralyzed by famine, of children disemboweled for a bit of bread!

O lasting foulness of Bethlehem, confess thy crimes! We would drive deeper the nails into thy hands, press down the crown of thorns upon thy brow, and bring blood from the dry wounds of thy sides. And this we can and will do by violating the quietude of thy body, profaner of the ample vices, abstractor of stupid purities, cursed Nazarene, impotent king!

Behold, great Satan, the flesh of him who would purge the Earth of pleasure, and who, in the name of Christian justice, has caused the death of millions. O Infernal Majesty, condemn him to the Pit. Send crashing down the gates of Heaven. Let us be avenged!

And thou, pretender: vanish into nothingness! Thou wert never, nor shalt thou ever be.