Time: 5:30 pm EST
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‘Satanism’ is one of those terms we all think we understand, but which becomes more elusive under close inspection. Often dismissed as a distasteful medieval absurdity, it doggedly continues to haunt us in the 21st Century – from online QAnon conspiracy theories, and hit Netflix shows, to Supreme Court abortion cases in the news.
One of the main reasons for Satanism’s tenacious hold over our collective imaginations is that it’s all about sin. And, to the Judeo-Christian psyche, sin equals sex. Using the reproductive urge as a control system may just have been one of the Church’s biggest gambles. For, by making sex sinful, one make sinfulness look sexy. So it is that there has always been a large overlap between Satanism and the sexual underworld.
Our guide to these infernal realms tonight will be English author Gavin Baddeley, who will take us from orgiastic Sabbats of the witch-cult, via the high society Enlightenment swingers of the Hellfire Clubs, to fashionable fin de siècle devil fetishists. He’ll conclude by showing us how the adult industry and diabolism have continued to crossbreed in the modern era, and suggesting what we might learn about our world—and ourselves—from this enduring affair between the unholy and erotic.
Gavin Baddeley is an English author specialising in all things dark and devilish. He was made an honorary Priest in the Church of Satan, by San Francisco’s Black Pope Anton LaVey, while researching his first book, Lucifer Rising. Since then, Gavin’s penned nine more acclaimed non-fiction books – from Vlad the Impaler: Son of the Devil, Hero of the People, to The Gospel of Filth – and written for countless newspapers and magazines on his areas of expertise. He’s also in demand as a TV interviewee and a public speaker. Satanism remains his chief interest, and Gavin is currently preparing a new book on the topic.
Image: The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Félicien Rops, 1878