The Satanic Black Mass is also known as: Black Mass, Messe Noir, Mass of Heresy, Mass of the Dead, Mass of Death, Mass of the Nazarene, and the Devil’s Mass, it has evolved over 1200 years.

The Mass of the Dead, considered by some the precursor to the Black Mass, differs from modern versions. Performed by a Christian priest with a female server—after prior copulation—it took place in a disused church with a black triangular host. The ritual evolved further with ties to the medieval witches’ sabbath, introducing a horned figure and orgiastic elements derived from ancient Roman and Greek cults.

Satanism as the organized worship of what the Bible identifies as Satan or the Devil, by groups which are organized as religious or magical movements, historians agree that Satanism is not a very ancient phenomenon. Rumors of Devil worship surfaced during witchcraft trials in Europe in the late Middle Ages and in America in the late seventeenth century, but there was no suggestion that organized and hierarchical Satanic cults existed. The first Satanic cult which possibly existed was operated by Catherine La Voisin at the Court of the French monarch Louis XIV.

Published by the 19th century historian François Ravaisson-Mollien, make a persuasive case for the celebration of “Black Masses” (the term was coined by La Voisin herself) at the Court of Louis XIV. “Black Masses” were described as rituals mocking the Roman Catholic Mass, in which Catholic hosts were desecrated through sex rituals and children were occasionally sacrificed to the Devil in order to obtain power and love for the wealthy customers of La Voisin.

An occult subculture flourished in Paris and Lyon, including both non Satanic and Satanic occult societies (some of them operated by defrocked Catholic priests). Journalist Jules Bois (1868-1943) and novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907) explored this underworld, and Huysmans published in 1891 a famous novel on Satanism, Là-bas, which included one of the most famous literary descriptions of a Black Mass.

Satanic Bay Area, Black Mass, 2018 edition