The Hellfire Tradition--England

And older and undoubtedly more staid tome is The Clubs of Augustan London.

I've read The Hell-Fire Clubs : Sex, Satanism and Secret Societies but was vaguely disappointed, as it didn't have enough Satanism.

I just received a hell-fire book! Geoffrey Ashe is the author. Actually, Bob, I think it was a review of yours led me to it.

Mr Crowley.

#5 (Edited to correct myself) - Oh, right, I reviewed the Lord (mentioned at #4 above) as having an argument with the Ashe, but I haven't actually seen the Ashe myself

There is a biography (though not a very satisfying one, the only one - last I checked) on Sir Francis Dashwood, by Eric Towers (I think... too lazy to check). Also worth investigating is the entertaing John Wilkes, particularly his Essay on Woman.

It is interesting to think on the geneology of these societies: from the orgying Monks of Medmenham - a wealthy idler's version of the mystery cult - to the vapid monied pranksters of the Drones Club. Or for that matter, the transformation of the Bohemian Groves as a refuge for snotty aesthetes into a pleasure garden for robber barons and Republicans.

Dashwood and the Hellfire club also figure in A History of Orgies, but I found it a disappointing book.

#9

What, did they omit the Swiss cheese fondue orgies? That would be a deal breaker for me.

#8

Eastern heresy & mythic/mythological debauchery must've played a part, I think. In inspiration. Am curious to find textual support for this hypothesis.

You may be right... there were those Mithraic cenacles Mary Stewart included in her novels. Here's a fun link:

http://www.controverscial.com/Sir%20Francis%20Dashwood.htm

More on Dashwood:

http://www.blather.net/blather/1998/06/francis_dashwood_of_the_englis.html

http://www.strangebritain.co.uk/legends/westwyc.html

11
I wish I had a Golden Ball or two.

"…The magnificent gilt ball on the top of the steeple, which is hollowed and made so very convenient in the inside for the celebrations not of devotional, but of convivial rites…the best Globe Tavern I was ever in…I must own that I was afraid my descent from it would have been as precipitate as his Lordship’s was from a high station, which turned his head, too. I admire likewise the silence and secrecy which reigns in that great globe, undisturbed, by his jolly songs very unfit for the profane ears of the world below".

The mention of "convivial rites" (or "rights"?) put me in mind of this, from a slightly different hellfire tradition:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9218510103795616643#

A scamp and a scallawag!

As they mocked the Christian church, so too did they mock the Devil and Hell... Their meetings were a celebration of life and all its indulgences...

I'm down with that.

I just ran across a copy of Wilkes and Liberty. (Unfortunately, it's more a political history than it is a look inside the Hellfire Club.)

And Google Images has failed me: I would have assumed that Wilkes' 'baboon' prank would have had a contemporary engraving, but I'm not finding one. A bit too late for Hogarth? (And where the heck would he even have found a baboon in Georgian England?)

Now I'm thinking my next punk band should be called "Wilkes' Baboons"....

There is always Lord Rochester's Monkey:

In my Oxford college, there used to be the 'Elizabethane Society'. One day, an old alumnus came to find me and give me a book, one of the 'minutes' book of the society, on the proviso that I should not mention where this book came from under any circumstances. I gave the book to the archivist, who was either very happy to receive it, or very horrified by the content to the point of hiding it in the archives. I wonder what happened to it.

#16

Upload it to you gallery, Ben? You can't link it if it's only on your computer.

#17

What?! You didn't read it?

18. "Syphilis, it all started with a little kiiiiiiiss...".

I have such a headache.

18
Yes, I did. I don't know which one was the worst - fantasies induced by the abuse of substances, or the ramblings of self-centered geek wannabes...

P.s. Sorry, I was away in England for a few days, so couldn't reply earlier, sorry! :-)

I hope there was hell-raising!

I don't know about the end result, but they surely knew how to party! ;-)