Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Pagan
Women in Religion
The Devil and Mary MacLane

The Devil and Mary MacLane

Last updated on: February 18, 2024 at 11:06 am by John Beckett

0 Comments

The Devil and Mary MacLane 2024-02-18T11:06:33-06:00 John Beckett

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This post was inspired by two books: one fiction, one non-fiction. The first is about a 19 year old woman who – in 1901, in Montana – wrote about her love for her “anemone lady” and her longing for the Devil. If you guessed that was the fiction, you made a reasonable guess. And a wrong one.

Our first book is I Await The Devil’s Coming by Mary MacLane. Her original title was too much for 1901 – it was published as The Story of Mary MacLane. It’s the diary (though she rejected that term, calling it instead a “Portrayal”) of a young woman who was frustrated by the limitations of living in a small Western town, and by the limitations of being a woman in a male-dominated era.

The book is out of copyright and is available for free on Project Gutenberg. The physical book is in print and available for purchase from the usual outlets. I encourage you to read at least a few pages of it. Her writing is quite good. I’m a man born 80 years after her, living 120 years after her book was published, but what she has to say is relatable to me, and I imagine to many of us who are dissatisfied with a world that panders to mundane preferences and prejudices and leaves us out in the cold.

Here’s the opening entry:

I of womankind and of nineteen years, will now begin to set down as full and frank a Portrayal as I am able of myself, Mary MacLane, for whom the world contains not a parallel.

I am convinced of this, for I am odd.

I am distinctly original innately and in development.

I have in me a quite unusual intensity of life.

I can feel.

I have a marvelous capacity for misery and for happiness.

I am broad-minded.

I am a genius.

I am a philosopher of my own good peripatetic school.

I care neither for right nor for wrong—my conscience is nil.

My brain is a conglomeration of aggressive versatility.

I have reached a truly wonderful state of miserable morbid unhappiness.

I know myself, oh, very well.

I have attained an egotism that is rare indeed.

I have gone into the deep shadows.

All this constitutes oddity. I find, therefore, that I am quite, quite odd.

And an excerpt from the second entry:

I wish to acquire that beautiful, benign, gentle, satisfying thing—Fame. I want it—oh, I want it! I wish to leave all my obscurity, my misery—my weary unhappiness—behind me forever.

I am deadly, deadly tired of my unhappiness.

I wish this Portrayal to be published and launched into that deep salt sea—the world. There are some there surely who will understand it and me.

Can I be that thing which I am—can I be possessed of a peculiar rare genius, and yet drag out my life in obscurity in this uncouth, warped, Montana town?

It must be impossible! If I thought the world contained nothing more than that for me—oh, what should I do? Would I make an end of my dreary little life now? I fear I would. I am a philosopher—and a coward. And it were infinitely better to die now in the high-beating pulses of youth than to drag on, year after year, year after year, and find oneself at last a stagnant old woman, spiritless, hopeless, with a declining body, a declining mind,—and nothing to look back upon except the visions of things that might have been—and the weariness.

I see the picture. I see it plainly. Oh, kind Devil, deliver me from it!

Her “Portrayal” was published the next year, in 1902. It sold over 100,000 copies and brought Mary MacLane the fame – and the exit from Montana – she so desired. As you might imagine, it was particularly popular with young women.

Her second book My Friend Annabel Lee (inspired by the Edgar Allan Poe poem “Annabel Lee”) was published the following year. Sales were good, but nowhere near as good as her first book. Her third and final book I, Mary MacLane: A Diary of Human Days was published in 1917, also with lower sales. The Wikipedia page on Mary MacLane suggests that it was “overshadowed by America’s recent entry into World War I” and that’s at least partially true. But in her introduction to the 2013 edition of I Await the Devil’s Coming, book critic Jessa Crispin said that what was new and shocking in 1902 was simply more commonplace by 1917 – the world caught up to Mary MacLane.

Mary MacLane died alone in her Chicago apartment in 1929. She was 48.

Plain Bad Heroines

The second book that inspired this post is Plain Bad Heroines, a 2020 novel by Emily M. Danforth.

In 1902, two students at a private girls’ school in New England find The Story of Mary MacLane and fall in love with it – and with each other. But then they’re mysteriously killed by a swarm of yellow jackets, which leads to more deaths and the eventual closure of the school. In the present, a young writer researches their story and writes a best selling book about it, which is turned into a movie – a movie whose production is haunted.

The title Plain Bad Heroines comes from Mary MacLane. In her Portrayal she complained about unrelatable characters in “girl-books” and then said “I wish some one would write a book about a plain, bad heroine so that I might feel in real sympathy with her.”

I’m not going to review Plain Bad Heroines. If you want a full review, Goodreads has 5000 of them. I will say that while the ending seemed rather rushed (which is odd in a book that runs over 600 pages), the story had me so engrossed I lost all track of time while I was reading it. If I do a Top Novels I Read This Year feature again in 2024, it has a very good chance of making the list.

What’s important here is that Emily Danforth was inspired by Mary MacLane and so she included Mary and her book in her own novel. And because of that, I learned about a fascinating woman and decided to write about her.

And now you know about Mary MacLane and I Await The Devil’s Coming.

Good writing enriches us all.

The Devil in Montana

In the United States, the further west you go, the less religious people are.

It’s always been this way. New England was settled by Puritans and later by Catholics. The South has always been solidly Protestant and remains so to this day. But the West was too busy and too isolated to get very deep into organized religion. There are exceptions – most notably Mormon Utah – but this is generally true. And at the same time, the whole country was – and still is, to a large extent – culturally Christian. It is odd to hear someone speak kindly of the Devil.

Mary MacLane grew up knowing the Devil and his stories, but she did not grow up to fear him. She wrote:

I am ready and waiting to give all that I have to the Devil in exchange for Happiness. I have been tortured so long with the dull, dull misery of Nothingness—all my nineteen years. I want to be happy—oh, I want to be happy!

The Devil has not yet come. But I know that he usually comes, and I wait him eagerly.

I am fortunate that I am not one of those who are burdened with an innate sense of virtue and honor which must come always before Happiness. They are but few who find their Happiness in their Virtue. The rest of them must be content to see it walk away. But with me Virtue and Honor are nothing.

I long unspeakably for Happiness.

And so I await the Devil’s coming.

The world created by the followers of the Christian God was unsatisfying to Mary MacLane – something else I and many of you have in common with her. She had a good classical education, and she mentioned Aphrodite briefly in I Await The Devil’s Coming. She knew of other Gods. But her devotion was to the Devil. Witches understand why, even if most of us make other choices.

From people who persist in calling my good body “mere vile clay”; from idiots who appear to know all about me and enjoin me not to bathe my eyes in hot water since it hurts their own; from fools who tell me what I “want” to do: Kind Devil, deliver me.

Mary MacLane in 2024

What would Mary MacLane think of our world today? A world that has many more opportunities for women, but also a world that is trying to reverse the progress of the 20th century.

And, as Jessa Crispin said in her introduction, the world caught up to Mary MacLane. Lucifer has his own TV show and witches have gone mainstream. It’s easy to think that if Mary MacLane was 19 years old in 2024, she’d be just another edgy girl with a YouTube channel.

It’s easy to think that, until you read her book. She was a good writer, and good writers are always in short supply. More than that, her depth of feeling and her longing for a more meaningful life are relevant in any era. Maybe she would have a YouTube channel or a TikTok. Maybe she’d be a novelist, or a journalist, or a performance artist. Probably she’d be a witch. Whatever she was, she’d be relevant.

Because talent plus passion plus determination is a recipe for success in any century.

Did Mary MacLane make a deal with the Devil?

Let me begin this section by clearly stating that Faustian contracts simply don’t exist. Your soul is the essence of who and what you are and it can’t be bought or sold.

But there is a long tradition of people making deals with various supernatural persons: with Gods, with not-quite-divine spirits, with the Fair Folk (don’t make deals with the Fair Folk!). Beyond that, there’s the old warning to be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

Mary MacLane wrote:

Kind Devil, if you are not to fetch me Happiness, then slip off from your great steel key-ring a bright little key to the door of the glittering, gleaming bad things, and give it me, and show me the way, and wish me joy.

I would like to live about seven years of judicious Badness, and then Death, if you will. Nineteen years of damnable Nothingness, seven years of judicious Badness—and then Death. A noble ambition!

I Await The Devil’s Coming brought Mary MacLane well more than seven years of fame, and more than a little wealth. She never connected with her “anemone lady” but she had numerous lovers, both women and men. She died at 48, but she lives on through her books, which are in print once again.

Perhaps the Devil really was kind.

For Further Reading

Mary MacLane Wikipedia article.

To Be Mary MacLane by Penelope Rosemont, The Paris Review.

Mary MacLane by Julie Buck, Women Film Pioneers Project.

Me, Me, Me, Me: Butte’s Bohemian, Mary MacLane Montana Women’s History.

Women in Religion

Previous Post

February 11, 2024

The New Asatru Temple and the Challenges to Authenticity

Next Post

February 21, 2024 5 Ways to Deepen Your Paganism

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"A great post! Point 3 has always held interest for me, as it makes a ..."

FCVan

Why Halloween Is So Popular – ..."

"Absolutely marvelous John!"

Panmankey

The Pillar of the Boatmen: the ..."

"Glad you got to see it. Hail Cernunnos!"

MadGastronomer

The Pillar of the Boatmen: the ..."

"Concern about the attitude of Islam toward Pagans is not limited to the Trump Administration. ..."

Maureen Richmond

The Fear of Witchcraft

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Books Community CUUPS Druidry Foundations and Context Gods and Goddesses Magic Myth Nature Ritual Spiritual Practice Theology Travel Uncategorized Videos

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does "Bethel" (where Jacob dreamed) mean?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Mountain of Light Field of Vision House of God God's Blessing