Discussion on Black Magic and Satanism

Do you regard black magic as being purely fictitious, or is there some truth in it?

Some truth? One hundred percent true.

There is nothing fictitious about black magic in any way whatever.

It is a fact. It is a fact, uh, which has existed for several

thousand years. I mean, when we talk about black magic, we

are talking about

Satanism, necromancy, alchemy, witchcraft, the worship of, of Satan,

um, the worship of dark forces, whether it's voodoo, juju,

whether it's something

practiced in the Western world or the Eastern world, uh, whether it's,

uh,

easily defined or not easily defined, the order of the left-hand path, the, the

following of this, the following of that.

It is basically the worship of the force of evil as embodied

by Satan, Lucifer, the princes of darkness and their

legions, and so on, in a very simple sense.

Of course, it goes much more deeply than that. It

is a fact.

It is a desperately dangerous fact.

It does exist. It exists around us today.

Satanic ceremonies will be happening in Britain tonight,

very definitely. Ask any priest, ask any member of the

forces of law and order, and they will tell you

that Satanism as such,

it's there, and it has been for thousands of years.

Man has worshiped the devil longer than he has worshiped, um, perhaps an

established religious figure. Do you think you're in any danger in

mimicking it in

front of a camera? No. That's an interesting question because,

uh, I must admit

that it did enter our minds when we were performing some of these ceremonies.

You see, I am playing, as I told you, a priest.

The various ceremonies that are carried out by the priest, in

this case myself, and the members of his group or coven,

are blasphemous ceremonies, totally blasphemous, and totally profane.

They have to be. That is to say, they

must be profane and blasphemous to be effective.

This is part of the ritual and part of the belief of these people,

that in order to

make any kind of ceremony totally effective, it must

be the exact diametrical opposite of the real ceremony.

That is to say, if you make the sign of the cross,

you would do it like that,

upside down. If you are going to carry out a Satanic

ceremony, whether it's a baptism or a particular group of people doing

something

like trying to raise an elemental or trying to create a, the, the,

the perfect

situation for an evil spirit or trying to produce evil vibrations

and so on, they

plug in, so to speak, the force of evil, like plugging in on a switchboard or

telephone. Um, in order for this to be effective,

it must be carried out, as I've

already said, by a consecrated person, i.e.

a priest, and it must also be carried out on

consecrated ground.

Now, in this film, I, as a priest, am carrying out these

ceremonies like baptism

in the name of the dark lord in a real church.

Now,

obviously, I'm an actor, at least I hope people think I am,

and

I am therefore an actor playing a part.

So are the other people in front of the camera who are taking part in the ceremony

with me. We are all acting.

I asked the parents of the baby, the real baby, that I baptized in

this real church in a blasphemous way, if they objected,

if it worried them. It's a five-week-old baby,

and the parents, who are very

young, said, "No, it doesn't worry us. We are Catholics.

Our child will be baptized by a Catholic priest.

We will tell him about this, but it doesn't worry us."

And the father gave the most

sensible reason for this. He said, "It's only a film." And

if you can think of it

in that way, fine.

I have a rather vivid imagination, and some of the people who

were working with me

in this sequence were also, um,

discussing this, and we felt a little uneasy.

You know, you are saying terrible things, and you are saying it on

consecrated ground. But then the other side of you takes over,

the logical side,

and says, "Look, we're only actors doing this, you know.

We're not doing it for real."

We were sort of looking at the roof to see if, uh, there was any sign of it falling

in on top of us, but nothing happened.

I think we were far more worried about dropping the baby, to be quite honest.

Uh, while we're on that subject, it might be interesting to, to say, uh,

amusing,

uh, to mention that, um, the baby certainly got its own back

on me. When it came to the actual baptism of the

child, I

have already told you that the parents didn't object because I

was making the sign

of the cross on the child's forehead in supposedly blood, upside

down, and, and baptizing the child into the service

of the dark lord.

And, uh, the child, uh, obviously was getting a bit bored and a bit cold

and, uh,

didn't like being taken away from his parents and held in my arms

and then held in

somebody else's arms. And, uh, he was making a lot of noise.

And I started to speak very quietly, and there was complete and total silence,

which impressed everybody, and I, myself, uh, thought, "Well, you know, he's

listening." He was staring at me with rigid concentration,

and I suddenly realized why there was this total silence and this rigid

concentration. The child was retaliating in the way in

which it knew best,

all over me- ... and all over

the lady who was holding the child.

Well, all I can say is it speaks volumes for our self-control

that none of us broke

out because, of course, it was extremely funny.

Why has there been a resurgence of interest in the subject?

I honestly don't know. I've been asked this question all over the

world.

I've talked to people who are serious professional students of the

occult.

I've talked to a man who wrote a whole book about the occult in America called

The

Occult Explosion.

I think it's a form of escapism.

It's the fact that in this day and age, we do live in

a somewhat disagreeable world in many respects, and I don't have to even

talk about it. Everybody knows this as a fact,

and people are constantly seeking for a way out,

whether it's to gratify their own desires or whether it's to, um,

find a way out of their own loneliness

or whether it is looking for power

or physical indulgence or whatever you like to call it.

I think it's

always this question of people looking for a road

out, an exit, an escape. Some form of safety valve

which will help them blow off steam.

They don't realize how dangerous it is to get involved in this respect,

because

inevitably they start at a lower level, and then they get absolutely under the

control of the bosses, because the bosses exist.

They have the same ranks in the Church of Evil as they have in the

good church. They do. They have ranks in the hierarchy of the

priesthood, just as you have bishops and deacons and archbishops and cardinals

and so on. You have various ranks and grades, like

Magister Templi, the Master of the Temple, Ipsissimus, the sort of number one

top man. And this is not just occult,

um,

occult, uh, writing for the sake of writing.

This is a fact, and people really believe in this.

As a matter of fact, there is a church in Los Angeles called The

Church of Satan,

which is run by a man called Anton Sandor LaVey,

who has written two books. I'm not sure that he intended to be taken

too seriously,

otherwise, obviously, if it was,

uh, true and complete Satanism, it wouldn't be admitted.

But he sent me a copy of two of his books, uh, because he'd seen a

picture I'd done with Sammy Davis Jr.

in which I'd played the Devil, a very sort of modern, up-to-date Devil,

Lucifer.

The thing was called Poor Devil, film called Poor Devil. It

was very amusing.

It was a comedy. And he sent me a copy of one of these

books,

uh, which was headed, um,

Regi Satanas, which means, uh, Satan is King, more or

less. And he wrote underneath, "To Christopher Lee,

a fine actor and a perfect Devil,"

Anton Sandor LaVey. Well, I took that as a compliment.

I don't think that's intended to be taken too seriously.

That is all out in the open, but the real thing is something

which I wouldn't be

prepared to discuss. I have never attended a ceremony of this

kind.

I would not even begin to discuss what actually takes place during a Black Mass,

because it is so appallingly blasphemous and so repulsive and

so unbelievably foul.

Not just a question of hundreds of years of ritual, but what actually happens, what

people actually do, and what is done to the host and what

is done to the cup and

so on, something I wouldn't be prepared to

discuss in public.

Enough people have written about it. Juris Karl Heismann's wrote about it.

Can we- Dennis Wheatley has, too, of course.

How did you come to play the part of Scaramanga in the James Bond film, The Man

with the Golden Gun?

Can I just, before we get into that, just make a point that, uh, by the w-

by the

way, that what I've been discussing and what I've been telling you about all

these,

um, terrible things, it does not come from inside knowledge by

any manner or

means. I don't, as I said, have a private line of any kind

which feeds

me this sort of information. I know no more about it than anybody else

who can read

about it in a book.