Rhodes, H. T. F. "The Satanic Mass" [Citadel Press, 1955] First Edition, Demonology

RHODES, H. T. F.. The Satanic Mass: A Sociological and Criminological Study

New York: Citadel Press, 1955. First American edition. 8.5" x 5.75", 232pp illustrated with 4 half-tone and 2 line illustrations. Original blue cloth, titled in black on spine, in dust jacket. Light rubbing to extremities; jacket with several small chips at the spine ends and edges, but bright and complete overall. Near Fine in Very Good dust jacket. Scarce.

A scholarly examination of the history and mythology surrounding the so-called Black Mass, tracing its evolution from medieval accusations of heresy through the notorious seventeenth-century Affair of the Poisons and the alleged rites associated with Catherine Deshayes ("La Voisin"), to nineteenth- and twentieth-century occult revivals. Rhodes, a criminologist and historian of crime, separates documented events from legend while drawing upon court records, ecclesiastical sources, and contemporary accounts to produce one of the earliest English-language studies devoted exclusively to the subject. Illustrated throughout with historical reproductions, the work remains an important reference in the literature of Western occultism, demonology, and the history of witchcraft.