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Post by dem on Sept 22, 2023 12:12:55 GMT
Elliott O'Donnell - Strange Cults and Secret Societies of Modern London (Philip Allan, 1934) The Thirteen Society and Cult and the Hell Fire Club,
The Grey Sisters
The Black Brothers
Chinese Secret Societies and Black Magic
Black Magic (Continued)
The Mafia, Camorra and Carbonari Societies
Leopard and Panther People
The Cult of the Horrible
Tree Cults
Get Rid of the Old Cult and The Suicide Society
The Cult of Cruelty
The "S" Society
The Rosicrucians and Thugs,
The Ghost Circle, and Duckdom and Devildom
The Gorgons and Mummy Worshippers
The Goats and Sophienism "Before the fire at Madame Tussaud's Exhibition in March 1925, there were a number of pictures representing people undergoing various forms of Oriental torture. I do not know if they were destroyed in the fire, but I certainly hope they were, for some of them, in my opinion, were far too horrible. They could only appeal to people who delight in cruelty. One day I saw a woman looking at them. I shall never forget the expression in her eyes. It reminded me of the expression I have seen in the eyes of a leopard, and a domestic cat, when they have caught their victim and are revelling in the anticipation of killing. The woman was beautiful. Her glossy black hair was parted down the middle and waved over the ears. She had slightly slanting eyebrows — it was before the era of the Garbo craze; green eyes, round, like those of a cat, and a scarlet mouth, with glittering white, even teeth. I looked to see what she found so fascinating. It was a picture of a Turkish official cutting the eyes out of a male prisoner with a knife. The man was bound to a chair, and only too obviously undergoing excruciating pain. There was neither pity nor disgust in the eyes of the lady. They just revelled in the spectacle. From that picture she passed on to one depicting an unfaithful wife being strangled by two Turkish officials; but that did not interest her so much as a picture — I think the most horrible I have ever seen — of a man being boiled to death in a caldron over a slow fire. This, one could plainly see, delighted her. You could not mistake the thrills reflected in her face. I left her gloating there. A few days later, I went to the exhibition again, to make a study of Kate Webster, whose life I was writing (Kate was a past-mistress in the art of killing by inches) and saw the same woman gazing ecstatically at the boiling man in the caldron. Her green eyes showed, more than ever, the cruel gleefulness of the great cat of the jungle, when about to kill; whilst her long and curved blood-red finger-nails reminded me painfully of the talons of a beast of prey. She so fascinated me that I inquired of an official if she often came there, and was told that she did come very often, and that she was particularly interested in the pictures of people being tortured ....." Vampires in Brixton and Chelsea; Selwynism in Kensington; Mrs. Gerald's Thrill Circle and the cat-flaying Cruel Boys of Red Lion Square; The ghastly Grey Sisters - harbingers of doom riding the bus to Charing Cross; Mummy-worshippers in somebody's back garden in Upper Norwood; The Freak Cult Club, amputee and hideous deformity fetishists of Bloomsbury and St. John's Wood; Leopard and Panther people prowling Blackheath; Jack the Ripper fans and Martin Dumollard groupies. East End Thuggee of Wapping Stair .... What the bally hell is the modern world coming to? A library loan (thank you, staff at the Watney Street, Bethnal Green and Whitechapel idea stores). Not quite a Creeps book, although it advertises the series on the back page. Peter Haining included lengthy extracts from chapers V and XV in The Dracula Scrapbook (1976), and The Mummy: Stories of the Living Corpse, 1988, respectively, so I had some inkling of what was in store, but even so ...
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Post by dem on Sept 29, 2023 15:55:40 GMT
"We live in an age of twisted minds, minds that can only appreciate the fantastic and dreadful. For example, painted eyebrows, black and blood-red finger-nails, tiny hats at ridiculous angles on all kinds of ridiculous heads, and plus fours, which, I think, would have justified our cavemen grandparents in a slaughter of all who have the audacity to wear them. But noses like that! They aren't on sale yet."
Get Rid of the Old Cult and the Suicide Society: "old bones are best in the grave." As the name suggests, the former campaign for over-fifties to be either "entirely segregated" or preferably "put to sleep" because they're miserable, bigoted bastards in the main and besides, "when you reach fifty you ought not to want to live." The author warns that some of these young hotheads are prepared to take the law into their own hands — according to somebody who knows somebody, one young member of the cult recently pushed an elderly gent from a moving bus! Her only regret was that the victim survived! Hard not to feel sympathy with their cause.
The Gorgons and Mummy Worshippers: The former are an exclusively female group of anti-prohibitist vegetarians aged between 18 and 39 years who share an unqualified preference for their own sex. O'Donnell's source confides they meet upriver somewhere in the vicinity of Richmond and Maidenhead to worship a statuesque High Priestess in Medusa get up. The Mummy Worshippers we encountered in Mr. Haining's book.
Tree Cults: As with humans, each tree has its unique personality, and not necessarily pleasant. Devotees know to differentiate between good and bad. They should not be confused with Rowan molesters. "The silver birch and mountain ash have an irresistible attraction for some tree lovers. I have known people so infatuated with trees of these species that they have caressed them, even in the presence of amused and amazed onlookers. During a sojourn in Montparnasse, I was told of a man who became so passionate in his demonstrations to a silver birch in the public gardens of Montsouris, that he was forbidden to go there. And cases like this are not unknown in London. I believe that in several of the London parks and commons, more especially the Green Park, ardent love has been made to certain of the trees, till interference on the part of spectators or the park officials has stopped it."
The Cult of the Horrible: "A pretty young actress, living in St. John's Wood, told me men with a limb or two missing, or some deformity, were all the rage among her girl friends. Good-looking, whole young men were deemed insipid, soft; they could give no thrills, at least, not the kind of thrills that are now, apparently, in fashion. What she and her friends liked most were jarring thrills. Thrills, she explained, that contain an element of repulsion and the horrible" I short, cocktail parties and dance nights with amputees and cruelly disfigured folk of either sex; Jack the Ripper costume balls; outings to the Chamber of Horrors to smooch Burke and Hare and the Dumollards, but otherwise bemoan its lack of weirdness. "If it were only arranged differently and there were some really horrible-looking murderers."
Of necessity, the author relies almost exclusively upon friend-of-a-friend stories provided him by tramps and commuters, though it could be argued the absence of solid evidence works in his favour (you're not much of a Secret Society if every Tom, Dick and Harry knew your business).
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Post by humgoo on Sept 30, 2023 9:19:44 GMT
"During a sojourn in Montparnasse, I was told of a man who became so passionate in his demonstrations to a silver birch in the public gardens of Montsouris, that he was forbidden to go there. And cases like this are not unknown in London. I believe that in several of the London parks and commons, more especially the Green Park, ardent love has been made to certain of the trees, till interference on the part of spectators or the park officials has stopped it." Not sure what I'm reading. Some illustrations will help! |
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Post by dem on Oct 1, 2023 13:46:53 GMT
The Ghost Circle, and Duckdom and Devildom: "I could tell of many another weird happening experienced by members of the Ghost Circle with whom I am in touch, and to whom I am indebted for some of the most weird and interesting stories of psychic phenomena that I have ever heard. The Ghost Circle is, in fact, unique in its line. There is nothing I know of, either in London or the provinces, to compare with it. Unlike the majority of societies and organisations for the investigation of psychic phenomena, it is not a money-making concern. There is no entrance fee, no subscription; it is just a queer man's hobby." The Ghost Circle. Students of spontaneous phenomena, hand-picked by the founder to investigate the Capital's several haunted houses, churchyard, crossroads, etc. Partial to spell-casting, and the occasional 'come-as-your-favourite-notorious-phantom' fancy dress parties. Dislike professional mediums and journalists. O'Donnell follows his account of their activities with those of Duckdom and Devildom, a dual cult presided over by a woman with extraordinarily beautiful hands and feet who the author believes may be of foreign extraction. Those lucky enough to receive an invitation meet at a house in Kensington, one half of which, Duckdom, is a shrine to feminine beauty, the other, Devildom, a chamber of horrors. Duckdom is, of course, reserved exclusively for beautiful women. The men are confined to Devildom as a foretaste of Hell. Chinese Secret Societies and Black Magic: Meandering, confusing chapter (to me, at least), referencing cockerel-sacrificing Chinese laundrymen, the Four Feathers Cult, innocuous nudist groups, global Devil-Worshipping cults, bodies disposed of in the Thames and a woman's severed leg discarded on Wimbledon Common. The Black Brothers: New York based Black Magic cult with long reach. Specialise in mesmerism and the projection of horrible disembodied shadows to throttle and otherwise intimidate those who fall foul of them. Lead by Gilbert de Costava, a Portuguese aristocrat and sometime artist, jealously protective of a beautiful sister you roger at huge personal risk. The Cult of Cruelty: Mrs Gerard's Kensington-based Thrill Circle, connoisseurs of torture porn, blood sports, and all manner of human cruelty; "It is the ambition of all the ladies of the circle to see a man garrotted." O'Donnell is keen to stress that, despite this shared mania for witnessing cruel deeds, the cult are otherwise kind, considerate and sympathetic human beings, infinitely preferable to the vile Cruel Boys of Bloomsbury and similar pet-torturing gangs. The second half of this chapter is particularly heavy-going for animal lovers. The Grey Ladies: All-round uncanny Sisters of Ill-Omen. Should one of these Typhoid Mary's favour you with a smile, then you or one dear to you is marked for imminent death. Dream-invading is another speciality; there is even a suggestion that some of the cult abduct to order for Woking-based White Slave Traders. Whether any of this is fact, 'fact', or fantasy is of zero concern to me. I count The Grey Sisters among the authors finest supernatural horror stories.
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Post by humgoo on Oct 3, 2023 13:20:07 GMT
Thanks a lot for the PDFs! Fascinating stuff. Mr. O'Donnell's books of this period seem very interesting, and he must have had great fun writing them:
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Post by dem on Oct 3, 2023 13:54:47 GMT
So glad you enjoyed! Spent a few hours last night transcribing the parental advisory 'Tree Cults' chapter, so please find attached. On a visit to the Fantasy Centre c. mid-late 'nineties, Ted Ball, bless him, told me Peter Haining had been in earlier, buying up whatever O'Donnell books they had, so I guess eventually the great man would've got around to an anthology, or possibly one of his terrific scrapbooks. Either would surely have been must-have. Attachments:IX. TREE CULTS.pdf (78.14 KB)
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Post by helrunar on Oct 3, 2023 18:00:10 GMT
I look forward to this one. Tree cults are a fascinating topic. In an early monograph from the 1890s if I recall aright, Sir Arthur Evans explored links between tree cults and phallic mystery cults. There was also a date palm cult associated with the ancient Sumerian Goddess Inanna which carried over into later Goddess cults that descended from this.
Hel.
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Post by humgoo on Oct 5, 2023 6:48:11 GMT
Spent a few hours last night transcribing the parental advisory 'Tree Cults' chapter, so please find attached. Thanks again for that! Particularly liked the part he interviews a tramp. Peter Haining must have loved this book, given that his very first book is about cults. |
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Post by dem on Oct 5, 2023 9:07:27 GMT
Spent a few hours last night transcribing the parental advisory 'Tree Cults' chapter, so please find attached. Thanks again for that! Particularly liked the part he interviews a tramp. Peter Haining must have loved this book, given that his very first book is about cults. O'Donnell was forever interviewing ladies and gentlemen of the road, tramps, rough sleepers and co - they were his go-to people for local ghost lore. Given his familiarity with the work, I'm a little surprised Haining didn't include an edit of The Cult of the Horrible in The Freak Show. |
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Post by dem on Oct 8, 2023 10:19:20 GMT
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