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C. S. Lewis. During his early period Machen was fascinated by the aestheticism of evil. In his
The White People, he propounds a Crowleyesque doctrine redolent of Huysmans and fin-de-
siècle Paris:
“Sorcery and sanctity,” said Ambrose, “these are the only realities. Each is an
ecstasy, a withdrawal from the common life...
“I think you are falling into the very general error of confining the spiritual world to
the supremely good but the supremely wicked necessarily have their portion in it...
“Great people of all kinds forsake the imperfect copies and go to the perfect originals.
I have no doubt but that many of the highest among the saints have never done a
“good action” (using the words in their ordinary sense). And on the other hand, there
have been those who have sounded the very depths of sin, who all their lives have
never done an “ill deed.” (Machen, 1973, p.79)
Machen‟s novels reflected his preoccupation with “directing man‟s supernatural dread towards
Pan, the satyrs, and other strange races and divinities who symbolized for him the Darwinian-
Freudian „beast in man‟” (Machen, 1973). His aestheticism of evil is, however, exceedingly
seductive to the confused adolescent who intensely experiences the conflict between the real
world of feelings and the idealized (and for that reason hypocritical) world of adult standards
and morality. For the adolescent, Machen‟s antimodernist preoccupation is less important than
the sense of impotence that acutely informs a novella such as The White People. The
examination of this novel will illustrate these issues in a surprisingly direct fashion.
The primary story of The White People is contained in a diary written by a nameless
adolescent. Detailing her initiation into the occult and satanism, the diary‟s presentation is
framed by a fin-de-siècle discussion of the aestheticism of evil. Evil is presented as a force
coexistent and coequal with goodness, having its elite practitioners and adepts. The
discussion itself as presented above is apropos of the recent film, The Silence of the Lambs, in
which Dr. Hannibal Lecter is seen as less a monster than a fallen angel. The crabbed
antiquarian world in which the diary is read parallels the claustrophobic world into which the
protagonist enters. And the equal appropriateness granted good and evil, life and death,
reflects the frequent confusion in the mind of the protagonist and in the mind of the modern
adolescent.
The protagonist of The White People is hardly described. She is 16 years old, living with her
father in the “country.” Her mother died when she was eight. Her closest
friend/mentor/confidante is her nanny. The nanny, a member of the peasantry, repeatedly
refers to her grandmother‟s sayings or stories. Indeed, the protagonist‟s father dismisses the
protagonist‟s questions and interest in the occult as much on class grounds as on the grounds
of rationalism:
I once told my father one of her little tales, which was about a ghost, and asked him
if it was true, and he told me it was not true at all, and that only common, ignorant
people believed in such rubbish. He was very angry with nurse for telling me the
story, and scolded her, and after that I promised her I would never whisper a world
of what she had told me. (Machen, 1973, p. 98)
Her father‟s primary involvement is in trusts and estates, perhaps he is an attorney. The
adolescent female forms a bond with a female nurturing figure in opposition to a patriarchal
authority. The actual activity within The White People takes place in a remote and ominously
confined countryside.
The story conveys the importance of the private mythologies that all adolescents create in
order to cope with the mundane physical world in which they live. But in this novel of
alienation, the adolescent‟s initiation into the occult occurs in a hallucinatory experience in

Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1992, Page 37
which she watches her nanny‟s “transformation” into one of the “white people,” a woodland
demon. The diary details her increasing involvement in and preoccupation with a Druidic past
(see, for example, the recent film, The Wicker Man, depicting the survival of Druidic sacrifice).
In the novel‟s epilogue, the narrator informs us that the writer of the diary has committed
suicide in front of a curiously well-preserved statue of some ancient and nameless deity.
This novel presents a classic portrayal of the potentially suicidal adolescent. Her father is
detached and emotionally uninvolved. His primary concern is his business. He reproves her
interest in the occult as being beneath the social dignity of a genteel woman. He does not
recognize that her interest in the “beyond” reflects her inner emptiness, an emptiness that is
the product of her isolation and/or the loss of her mother. Moreover, he does not appreciate
that the populist character of occultism and of occult rituals could be very seductive to a
young woman who is otherwise unengaged in social activities.
Potential recruits involve themselves in occultism/satanism (as did the protagonist in The
White People) because of the opportunity it promises its adepts to understand and manipulate
the arcana of the physical world. To the depressed adolescent, the promise of empowerment
“to become a member of a gnostic elite” is extraordinarily seductive, particularly when the
alternative is severe depression. In this novel and in real life, it is not surprising that the
vulnerable adolescent chooses to identify with the witches/demonic elite who “control” powers
beyond the limited imagination of adults.
In The White People, the adolescent is ultimately able to reexperience the closeness which
she enjoyed with her mother, only now her mother is transformed and transmuted into an
immortal and mythic white princess. Her ultimate suicide represents her regression from the
world of adult sexuality toward a position of childlike dependence in which she is nurtured by
the “white person/goddess,” whom she has regained and hopes to revive. Thus, the girl‟s
suicide represents both the ultimate regression and an act of empowerment in which she is
transmuted into a “goddess.”
Suicide and Films of the Occult
The adolescent‟s suicide in The White People is presented as the outcome of adult
detachment, self-involvement, and smug adult rationalism. The events leading to the suicide
are rationalized as part of the adolescent‟s desire to possess a “gnosis,” which will grant her
the power to undo her isolation and restore her mother to her. These issues are presented
within a social context that views the “old gods” as part of an enduring but persecuted
society. Comparable issues have been raised in recent films. An examination of these films
can heighten our appreciation of the adolescent‟s pursuit of self-destructive practices as part
of a quest for empowerment.
Beetlejuice is a particularly cogent recent example. This “comedy” with its special effects and
witty commentary on the primary narcissism of its artistic “trendoids,” portrays a situation not
dissimilar to The White People. Lydia is a 16-year-old girl dressed entirely in black whose
preoccupation is taking pictures of her trendoid parents and their manic poseur interior
decorator, Otho. The girl‟s parents have recently purchased a charming Victorian house,
which they are determined to transform into a postmodern object. Characteristically, when
told by her parents that they will build a darkroom, Lydia remarks, “My whole life is a dark
room--one big dark room.”
Her stepmother, Delia, is a sculptor who creates ominous, organic shapes in bronze,
commenting that “this is my art and it‟s dangerous.” Lydia‟s father, Charles, appears to be
more accessible, but he too is manipulated by his wife‟s outbursts (“I‟ll go insane and I‟ll take
you with me”). His primary passion is his real-estate deals (Lydia archly suggests that her
father will never sell the house even if it were haunted because “father never walks away
from equity”).