page_title: Black Mass
hierarchical_section_title: Black Mass
caption_attribution_description: Catherine Monvoisin and the priest Étienne Guibourg perform "Black Masses" for the mistress of King Louis XIV of France, Madame de Montespan (lying on the altar).
context_page_description: A Black Mass is a ceremony typically celebrated by various satanic groups. It has existed for centuries in different forms and is directly based on a Catholic Mass.
  However, a Black Mass takes the Catholic Mass and inverts it, intentionally mocking the Catholic celebration. Participants often use a consecrated Eucharistic host and desecrate it, using it in obscene ways. This is one of the reasons why tabernacles in Catholic churches have locks and why some parishes have an usher stand next to a communion line. Both policies aim at protecting the Eucharist from being used in a Black Mass.
  In the 19th century the Black Mass became popularized in French literature, in books such as Satanism and Witchcraft, by Jules Michelet, and Là-bas, by Joris-Karl Huysmans.
  Modern revivals began with H. T. F. Rhodes' book, The Satanic Mass published in London in 1954, and there is now a range of modern versions of the Black Mass performed by various groups.
context_section_description: A Black Mass is a ceremony typically celebrated by various satanic groups. It has existed for centuries in different forms and is directly based on a Catholic Mass.
  However, a Black Mass takes the Catholic Mass and inverts it, intentionally mocking the Catholic celebration. Participants often use a consecrated Eucharistic host and desecrate it, using it in obscene ways. This is one of the reasons why tabernacles in Catholic churches have locks and why some parishes have an usher stand next to a communion line. Both policies aim at protecting the Eucharist from being used in a Black Mass.
  In the 19th century the Black Mass became popularized in French literature, in books such as Satanism and Witchcraft, by Jules Michelet, and Là-bas, by Joris-Karl Huysmans.
  Modern revivals began with H. T. F. Rhodes' book, The Satanic Mass published in London in 1954, and there is now a range of modern versions of the Black Mass performed by various groups.
caption: The Guibourg Mass by Henry de Malvost, in the book Le Satanisme et la magie by Jules Bois, Paris, 1903.
exif: {}