The Devil is Red
Socialist Satanism in the Nineteenth Century
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9206232 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Per Faxneld (0000-0001-9264-0395, Department of the History of ReligionsStockholm University10691 StockholmSweden, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue | 5-6 |
| Pages | 528-558 |
| Publication date | 2013-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Numen (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0029-5973 • E-ISSN: 1568-5276 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/15685276-12341294 |
| OpenAlex | W2044350760 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 12 |
During the nineteenth century, socialists all over the Western world employed Satan as a symbol of the workers’ emancipation from capitalist tyranny and the toppling of the Christian Church, which they perceived as a protector of this oppressive system. Starting with the English Romantics at the end of the eighteenth century, European radicals developed a discourse of symbolic Satanism, which was put to use by major names in socialism like Godwin, Proudhon, and Bakunin. This shock tactic became especially widespread in turn-of-the-century Sweden, and accordingly the article focuses on the many examples of explicit socialist Satanism in that country. They are contextualized by showing the parallels to, among other things, use of Lucifer as a positive symbol in the realm of alternative spirituality, specifically the Theosophical Society. A number of reasons for why Satan gained such popularity among socialists are suggested, and the sometimes blurry line separating the rhetoric of symbolic Satanism from actual religious writing is scrutinized
Aesthetics · Art · Communism · Emancipation · History of religions · Literature · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Realm · Rhetoric · Socialism · Sociology · Symbol (formal) · The Symbolic · Theology · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Law · Mormonism, Religion, and History · Philosophy · Religious studies · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices
The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Vol. 1
Romantic Satanism
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican Socialism
Contemporary Religious Satanism
The Strange Case of Ben Kadosh
The Sex Radicals
An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
Blavatsky the Satanist
Baudelaire, Proudhon, and ‘Le Reniement De Saint Pierre’
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |