Per Faxneld

Satanic Feminism
Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman
in Nineteenth-Century
Culture

Molin &  Sorgenfrei

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 Contents

Acknowledgements, 11

chapte r i

Introduction, 15
From misogyny to subversion: Satanic feminism, 16 – Purpose, demarcations
and material, 17 – Relevance of the study, 19 – Methodological and theore­
tical points of departure, 21 – Protest exegesis, counter-readings and counter-
discourses as objects of study, 28 – Myth and counter-myth, 31 – Counter-
reading as a strategy in present-day scholarship, 38 – Some remarks on spell-
ing, translations and terminology, 43 – Outline of the Study, 52

chapte r i i

Woman and the Devil: Some Recurring Motifs, 53

God’s hangman: A concise history of Satan, 53 – Apostles of darkness: An even
more concise history of Satanism, 58 – Genesis 3: Foundation text of Christian
Misogyny?, 61 – Of serpents and gateways: Gnostics, Church Fathers and re-
formers, 65 – ‘Superior; for inferior who is free’: Eve in Milton’s Paradise Lost , 70
– The Devil is a woman: Representations of Satan as female, 75 – Breasts and
beard: Baphomet, hermaphrodite icon of transcending duality, 82 – ‘Her fatal
embrace’: The demoness Lilith in Jewish mysticism and folklore, 86 – ‘Ever
since the days of Eden’: Lilith among the gentiles, 90 – ‘Protomartyr of fe-
male independence’: Lilith becomes a feminist icon, 95 – Kissing the Devil’s
posterior: Folklore, witchcraft trials and the Malleus Maleficarum , 100 – Demon
lovers: From the lustful Watcher angels to incubi and Romantic heroes, 106 –
Concluding words, 111

chapte r i i i

Romantic and Socialist Satanism, 113

‘A being of considerable virtue’: Making a revolutionary hero of Milton’s
Satan, 114 – ‘Pride and audacious impiety’: Shelley’s insurrectionist celebration
of Satan, 120 – ‘Can man be free if woman be a slave?’: Shelley’s Satanic femi-
nism, 123 – ‘Energy is eternal delight’: Blake’s energising Satan, and an anti-
Satanist backlash, 129 – ‘A Satanist manifesto for Romantic readers’: The
autonomous mind, 132 – ‘The archangel of legitimate rebellion’: The Satan of

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 Romantics and anarchists in France, 137 – ‘Dynamite and dagger and
reign of terror’: Satanic Social Democracy in Sweden, 144 – ‘Satan on the side
of freedom’: Rebel angels, anarcho-feminism and Henry M. Tichenor, 151 – Con-
cluding words, 157

chapte r iv

Theosophical Luciferianism and Feminist Celebrations of Eve, 161

‘A Buddhist pantheist, if anything at all’: The enigmatic Madame Blavatsky, 162 –
‘Without distinction of race, sex, caste, or color’: Theosophical counter-dis-
course, 164 – ‘The Father of Spiritual mankind’: Satan in Blavatsky’s two major
works, 169 – ‘For the intellectual independence of humanity’: Astral light and
the prince of anarchy, 172 – ‘An assertion of free-will and independent thought’:
Debating the Devil in Lucifer , 176 – Blavatsky’s Satan and diabolical socialism, art
and Romanticism, 178 – ‘The real meaning of those particular chapters’: Blavat-
sky’s feminist counter-reading?, 180 – H. P. Blavatsky, Satanic feminist?, 185 –
‘The pleasant paths of progress’: Feminists making a heroine of Eve, 188 – The
Woman’s Bible, a Theosophical project?, 191 – ‘Exonerate the snake, emancipate
the woman’: Counter-reading as a liberatory tactic, 193 – ‘Please do not speak
on the Bible question’: The wages of confrontational tactics, 197 – Concluding
words, 202

chapte r v

Satan as the Emancipator of Woman in Gothic Literature, 205

The monstrous, female and barbaric Gothic genre, 206 – Fallen world, falling
mankind: Defining the Gothic, 209 – Satan and transgressive demonic females
in Gothic literature, 212 – Free love and Satanic sophistries: Cazotte’s Le Diable
amoureux , 214 – Textual polyphony and the reception of Le Diable amoureux , 219 –
The wicked spell-casting mother: Vathek , 223 – ‘A wild imperious majesty’: Fe-
male empowerment by black magic in The Monk , 227 – ‘A wild, ardent, and irre-
pressible spirit’: Zofloya , 234 – Ambiguous initiation: Melmoth the Wanderer , 240
– Improper females and Satanic vampires, 244 – Life-denying Christianity in
Gautier’s “La Morte amoureuse”, 246 – A demonic lesbian threat to Christian
patriarchy: Le Fanu’s “Carmilla”, 249 – Stoker’s Dracula: A radical feminist
novel or an attack on feminism?, 252 – Wicked witches, Lucy the Luciferian
freethinker and Mina the proper woman, 255 – Misogynist demonisation and
its scholarly counter-readings, 259 – ‘Blissful freedom’: The werewolf woman,
of Aino Kallas’  Sudenmorsian , 263 – ‘Women are more desirous of becoming
werewolves’: Lycanthropic intertexts, 267 – ‘She was one with the Forest Dae-
mon’: Kallas and the new British feminism, 270 – Concluding words, 275

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 chapte r vi

Witches as Rebels Against Patriarchy, 277

‘Reason, Right, and Nature’: Jules Michelet’s heroic Satanist witches, 279 – ‘The
redemption of Eve’: Feminist tendencies in Michelet’s vision of witches, 285 –
Hysterical witches and medical conceptions of woman as mysterious and
demonic, 291 – ‘The shrieking sisterhood’: Feminists as hysterical witches, 294
– ‘A sacrifice and a prayer more holy’: Matilda Joslyn Gage’s feminist witch
cult, 299 – ‘Call for me the fiends from hell’: Charles Leland’s Bible of witch-
craft, 307 – ‘Woman as the fully equal, which means the superior sex’: Femi-
nism in Aradia , 313 – ‘You witch woman!’: George Egerton’s metaphorical New
Woman witches, 316 – ‘Patroness of the great fight for freedom’: Oliver Madox
Hueffer’s rebel witches, 320 – Circe, Medea, Vivien, Sidonia and the others:
Male artists’ depictions of witches, 323 – ‘Power over men, power – power!’:
Witches in the works of female artists, 331 – Hexentanz: The Expressionist-
feminist dance of Mary Wigman, 336 – The silver screen sorceress: The witch
in early cinema, 341 – Concluding words, 345

chapte r vi i

Subversive Satanic Women in Decadent Literature and Art, 349

‘I took it up as a war cry’: The trajectory of Decadence from attribution to iden-
tification, 351 – Subversive or conservative? The ambiguous counter-discourse
of Decadence, 355 – Delineating Decadence, 359 – ‘A class of poetry to the
devil’? Decadence and religion, 363 – Decadent misogyny, androgyny and de-
monic women, 374 – ‘If you cannot be a good, faithful wife, then be a devil!’:
Lilith, whips and demonic dames, 380 – ‘The shrine where a sin is a prayer’:
Sacralising the eternal demonic feminine, 387 – ‘The true father of the infernal
church’: The art of Félicien Rops, 393 – Apples and phalluses: Some examples
of the demonic feminine in Rops’ œuvre, 395 – Woman as ‘the absolute slave
of the Devil’: Contemporary appraisals of Rops, 402 – ‘Ad majorem diaboli glo-
riam’?: Rops’ own intentions with the pictures, 404 – Là-bas:  A “documentary”
novel and its misogynist theological inspiration, 407 – The flower of evil called
Hyacinthe, and other hysterical Satanist women, 412 – Satanism as (sexual)
neurosis and anti-capitalism, 416 – Fact or fiction? The real-life inspiration for
Mme Chantelouve, 419 – ‘His heroine, that’s me!’: Wanting to be the emanci-
pated Mme Chantelouve, 422 – A Satanist superman with a heart as weak as
wax: Stanisław Przybyszewski, 426 – Przybyszewski’s witches, the feminisation
of Satan and “good evil”, 430 – Evil women then and now: Przybyszewski’s
modern witches, 432 – Concluding words, 436

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 chapte r vi i i

Lucifer and the Lesbians: Sapphic Satanism, 439

Hecate, nuns and diabolical pornography: Lesbianism as a (Satanic) cult, 439
– Evil flowers and sinister Sapphos, 444 – A sodomite interlude: Male homo-
sexuals and Satanism, 449 – Anti-feminism, pathologisation and ‘the priest-
esses of the new cult’, 452 – A downward spiral of sin: The tale of Sophor
d’Hermelinge, 455 – The wickedest man in Paris, critical reception and the
real-life Méphistophéla, 458 – Hell, homosexuality and Satanic pride: Repudi-
ating Magalo’s deathbed sermon, 462 – ‘Exquisite and wonderful Demoness’:
A lesbian Black Mass, 465 – ‘All books are bad’: Sanctimony or Satanic subver-
sion?, 468 – ‘The evolution of a mystic’: Renée Vivien, Sapphic Satanist, 473 –
‘An acolyte drunk on sacred fragrances’: Vivien’s obsession with religion, 478
– ‘The mystery of the night’: Satan as the creator of woman and Sappho’s
inspirer, 482 – ‘The dark breath of Lilith is within us’: Vivien’s use of the “first
woman”, 489 – ‘Her feminine power at dusk pervades’: Vivien’s Witches, 495
– The book that ‘opened undreamed of gardens’: Vivien’s reading of  Méphis-
tophéla , 496 – ‘A depraved genre and a sickly psychology’: The reception of
Vivien’s texts, 498 – A failed feminist? Gynocentric Satanism and the para-
doxes of Decadence, 500 – Bats, Beelzebub and cocaine: The lesbian poetry of
Marie Madeleine, 508 – Concluding words, 512

chapte r ix

Becoming the Demon Woman: Rebellious Role-play, 515

A goddess of Decadence and a feminist priestess? Sarah Bernhardt’s identity
games, 516 – Decadent connections, the bat hat and Bernhardt’s witchy home, 519
– ‘A kind of devil-sphinx’: Atheism and Sarah’s Satanic self-portrait, 524 – Lu-
isa Casati’s off-stage performance of demonic femininity, 530 – Luisa Casati as
a demonic muse, Satan the serpent and the transmutation of the self , 531 – The
Marchesa’s occult parties, esoteric rituals and magical home, 535 – Myth, mask,
moral mutiny and Luisa Casati’s life in (diabolic) quotation, 539 – Theda Bara’s
career of silent film evil and its publicity stunts, 544 – Women, vengeance and
femme fatale feminism à la Bara, 549 – Devilish jewellery as a democratisation
of demonic feminine personae, 555 – The serpent slithers from the tree to the
jewel box, 558 – Concluding words, 565

chapte r x

Mary MacLane’s Autobiographic Satanic Feminism, 569

‘A popular scandal’: The rise and slow decline of an outrageous author, 570 –
‘All that talk about the devil’: Criticism, popular culture and parodies, 574
– ‘Who says the Devil is not your friend? ’: The Story of Mary MacLane , 579 –
‘Bewildering demoniac winds’: Unholy lesbian desires, 583 – ‘That deformed

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 monstrosity – a virtuous woman’: Diabolical cultural criticism, 587 – ‘Com-
pletely, madly in love with the Devil’: The demon lover motif, 591 – ‘He is
incarnate at times’: Re-interpreting Satan as a mortal man, 594 – ‘I, too, was a
Theosophist’: Situating MacLane in a pre-existing Satanic discourse, 597 – ‘A
lover of everything that is evil’: Satanic genius, wickedness and publicity, 602 –
‘Decidedly cold’: Insanity, hysteria and unwomanly evil, 606 – ‘I didn’t realize
that it was all in a book’: MacLane societies, suicide and crime, 609 – ‘Scratch a
match boy-wise’: MacLane as a (Satanic) feminist, 612 – Concluding words, 614

chapte r xi

Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Liberating Devil, 617

‘An alarming lady’: The life and career of Sylvia Townsend Warner, 617 – ‘Un-
godly hallowedness’: The secret longing of Laura Willowes, 620 – ‘A life of
one’s own’: The liberation, autonomy and free will of a witch, 624 – ‘A kind of
black knight’: Satan, the liberator of woman, 627 – A ‘tingle from head to foot’:
Laura’s lesbian desires and the inversion of the Gothic, 630 – ‘Out of her grasp’:
Satan, the queer and effeminate god of nature, 635 – Feminism and the Devil:
Warner as the epitome of a Satanic feminist tradition, 638 – ‘I wish I were in
her coven’: Lunch with Margaret Murray and ‘witchy glamour’, 642 – ‘Miss
Warner must clearly be a witch herself ’: The reception of  Lolly Willowes , 646 –
Concluding words, 654

chapte r xi i

Conclusions, 657
A cursory chronological exposé of Satanic feminism, 1772–1932, 657

Bibliography, 685
1: Primary Sources, 685 – 1a: Books and pamphlets, 685 – 1b: Articles in
periodicals, 691 – 1c: Films, 694 – 1d: Unpublished primary sources, 694 –
2: Secondary sources, 694