I'm pretty sure MICK said he was reading a history book when he wrote the lyrics. He took some ideas from history out of context and threw the thoughts together, so it's not occult driven but history covers some pretty sick shit.

I have to say that it's a rare day when I'm not sick of the studio version - thanks, yes, to overuse in movies.  That changes, though, when I'm at a Stones concert.

"Drums beatin' cold/English blood runs hot" is almost ironic comment on the distance between the opening songs of Beggars and Sticky Fingers: they'd moved on, while the world was still playing their old records with mouths agape.

The drug busts and the public disgust over Vietnam contributed to invoking the ultimate rebel figure, Lucifer, who in the song has grown quite Establishment and posh:

Keith: "There is a change between material on Satanic Majesties and Beggars Banquet. I'd grown sick to death of the whole Maharishi guru shit and the beads and bells. Who knows where these things come from, but I guess [the music] was a reaction to what we'd done in our time off and also that severe dose of reality. A spell in prison ... will certainly give you room for thought ... I was fucking pissed with being busted. So it was, 'Right we'll go and strip this thing down.' There's a lot of anger in the music from that period." (wiki)