The “occult world,” or occulture, is a term that has developed a very wide meaning in modern academic discourse. The full panoply of occult thinking is enormous. While always mindful of the broader definition of the subject, this essay is largely limited to what the author believes would be an acceptable vernacular definition of the occult as essentially referring to black magic, and most especially to the satanic. This has been a subject with enormous resonance for American history and culture. The argument in this chapter is that Satan has played, and continues to play, a central – and on occasion a decisive – role in American cultural and political life. He is a figure deeply in the American grain, a vivid and personal presence in the lives of many millions of Americans, given powerful and recurring embodiment in American popular culture, in particular. But he is also a presence centrally informing some of the classic works of American literature.

Decadents’ responses to modern science and technology were complex and conflicted. Their concerns with subjectivity, decay and superstition seem unscientific. Authors like Wilde and Huysmans presented art as an escape from the natural universe. However, new scientific models, notably Darwinian evolution, also offered Decadent writers new ways of conceptualizing humanity’s place in the world. Algernon Swinburne, Blind, Pater and Wilde’s visions of life were energized in different ways by evolutionism. They reshaped evolution for their philosophical purposes, downplaying its randomness and implying that the universe developed teleologically. Such attachment to teleology reflected progress, individual freedom and transcendence. In this way, their thinking was often more redolent of Spencer than Darwin. Conversely, as Wells realized, the lens of Darwinism could frame intellect and culture as doomed maladaptations. Hence, Decadents embraced ‘degeneration’ as the price of subtlety and originality. The Decadent fiction of Machen and Shiel was also characterized by ambivalence about science as their plots mixed scientific speculations and gadgetry with occult beliefs and supernaturalism.