Down There: A History of Satanism

Joris-Karl Huysmans, “J.K.” for the friends, had been a naturalist writer and then wrote the “bible” of decadence (”A rebours”/”Against Nature”). If you want to read all about his early years, take a look here: Joris-Karl Huysmans and the Essence of Decadence. Now, at the age of 42, J.K. was at a turning point in his life and his career. In 1890 he wrote to the young Dutch novelist Arie Prins that he was looking for “a demoniac sodomite priest” who performed the black mass. J.K. needed him for a new book. He had to insinuate himself into the word of the occultists for what would become “Là-bas” (translated as “Down There” in 1924, and “The Damned”).

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While visiting museums in Germany for a piece on German art he never published, in the museum of Kassel J.K. was struck by Matthias Grünewald’s “Crucifixion”. The painting depicted in naturalistic detail the ugly face of death, with the oozing wounds and the brutally torn body of Christ upon the Cross. Precisely through this realistic depiction of suffering a miraculous spirituality was made manifest; the very excessiveness of the pain of Jesus Christ was some kind of a transfiguration without halos or other symbols. J.K. had his first glimpse of what he would call “supranaturalism” or “spiritualistic naturalism”. It was possible, through the techniques of documentation and naturalistic detail, to go beyond the material and show the human soul.

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At the same time, Huysmans’ life also was a confrontation with gruesome reality: his mistress Anna Meunier was suffering from a painful illness, his friend Jules-Amedée Barbey d’Aurevilly was dying of old age and another friend, Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, was slowly expiring of stomach cancer. J.K. set about to document the manifestations of the Spirit in the real world. “Là-bas” started as a study of the model for Bluebeard: the noble and pious Gilles de Rais who fought with Joan of Arc and then, in his castle at Tiffauges, became a kidnapper, torturer and slaughterer of children. But the novel soon turned into the story of the research Huysmans did in order to write it. Autobiography and fiction had merged before, now it was J.K.’s stand-in Durtal who tried to understand the horrible deeds of Gilles de Rais. In order to achieve this, he – as Huysmans – studied the occult, the black arts and the Black Mass.