The Demon Club

by Scott Mariani

  ‘And Georgie was Georgie Shelton,’ Ben said.

  ‘Before she married that ass. We live very different lives, my sister Georgie and I, but we were both raised religiously. Though I’ll confess I got the bug worse than she did.’ Shelton pointed up at the giant cross on the wall. ‘You might say my religion is my life.’

  ‘The Church doesn’t pay that well. I take it you’re not a man of the cloth.’

  Shelton smiled. ‘Scarcely. Growing up, the only thing I was almost as zealous about as my faith in God was my passion for technology. In my early twenties I hooked up with a gang of other college nerds, and together the four of us designed and co-founded a well-known search engine app that you’ve probably used thousands of times yourselves. This was the dot-com boom, when fortunes that would otherwise have taken decades to amass were often made in a year or less, with minimal effort. When we sold out our stake in the company not long afterwards, I came away with an embarrassingly large amount of money.’

  He waved a portly arm around him. ‘As you can see, I’ve used my wealth to isolate myself from the world. I find it a very worrying place. All the more so, knowing what I do about the things that go on at the very highest levels of power. I’m talking about the Satanic influences that have been steadily worming their way ever more deeply into the establishment for the last several centuries and have never been stronger than they are today. Though so few of us in the modern secular world are aware of it and even fewer take it seriously, there is in fact no greater threat facing mankind. And if we do nothing to prevent its malignant influence, the time will soon come when its full horror is unleashed. Then it’ll be too late. “For then there will be great distress, unequalled from the beginning of the world until now, and never to be equalled again.”’

  ‘Matthew, Chapter Twenty-four,’ Ben said.

  ‘You know your Bible well, for a military man.’

  ‘Legacy of a misspent youth,’ Ben said. ‘I wasn’t always destined for the battlefield.’

  ‘And yet, to serve God’s will is to wage battle,’ Shelton said. ‘Against an enemy far more powerful and sinister than any mortal warrior.’

  ‘Every man has his wars to fight,’ Ben said. ‘What was it that called you to yours?’

  ‘How did I get into this? Because of what happened to Dave. Before that, my religious belief was just some abstract ideology. That was the moment I realised what we’re really up against.’

  ‘Dave?’

  Shelton sighed and paused for another gulp of beer. ‘Dave Dobbs was one of us, the Gang of Four who struck gold and got rich. He was a great pal of mine, but after we cashed in we all went our separate ways. Jimmy Padgitt stayed in the tech business and formed a new company. Alec Miller went off to lie in a hammock on some tropical island and drink rum. Me, I spent a couple of years travelling the world while trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Meanwhile Dave, he was the really ambitious one. He wanted to go out there and parlay his millions into billions, and the world of high financial trading was the way he saw he could do it. I didn’t see him again for four years. Then one day I got a call from him. He was in a terrible state, on the brink of total psychiatric breakdown and badly needing to talk to someone. I met with him in a cheap hotel room and was utterly shocked by his appearance. He was barely recognisable. And he told me a story that changed my life.’

  Ben and Wolf listened as Shelton retold it, in a voice heavy with sadness.

  ‘Not long after getting into the money business, Dave was approached by a hugely wealthy finance broker who dealt in currencies and assets, making trillions for giant corporations and creaming off unimaginable money for himself. He offered to take Dave on as an apprentice, show him the ropes, set him up, help him achieve his dream of unlimited riches. There were just two conditions. One, he wanted ten per cent of everything Dave made. Two, he advised Dave that if he couldn’t put his conscience in the freezer, he shouldn’t get involved.’

  ‘Put his conscience in the freezer.’

  ‘Those were his very words. It was a warning. A Faustian bargain, in effect. “Don’t get into this if you don’t want to pay the price.” But Dave was too hypnotised by the idea of all that money. Nothing could hold him back and so he jumped straight in. He was an eager pupil, and a very fast learner.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ Wolf asked.

  ‘For the first couple of years, he was living the dream. He became a straw man in the financial trading game, moving literal truckloads of cash around, circumventing banking regulations and exploiting tax loopholes that would allow his monster corporate clients to launder their money in all kinds of marginally legal ways and save nine, twelve, sixteen-figure sums of cash, in return for commissions that filled his pockets with all the wealth he’d ever dreamed of, and more. It was a ruthless, cutthroat environment, but he sucked it up and lived it to the max. He had everything, but it was never enough to satisfy him. By the time he began to realise what he’d truly got himself into, it was too late to save himself.’

  Shelton had finished his beer. He looked mournfully into the empty glass, as if he really needed more.

  ‘What Dave began to understand was that many of his new friends followed a religion that was somewhat … unconventional. Slowly, they revealed themselves to him. He couldn’t betray their confidence. They were all mixed up in semi-criminal enterprise, insider trading and shady financial deals, enough dirt to land them in jail for decades. That’s how they get their hooks into you, like the mafia. Once Dave had no way out, they pulled him in even deeper. He was introduced to some of the secret rulers of the world. Billionaire oligarchs. Corporate emperors, kingmakers and puppet-masters. The globalist elite. Men at the very pinnacle of international politics. He was invited to their Churches of Satan. He witnessed the ceremonies with the booze and the drugs and the orgies. He was initiated into their order. And then he was made to take part in sacrifices.’

  Shelton turned his mournful look up at Ben and Wolf. The depth of pain in his eyes told them that he was being utterly sincere.

  He said, ‘Child sacrifices.’

  Ben and Wolf said nothing. Silence hung heavy in the room as each man tried not to picture the things in his mind.

  ‘Dave couldn’t do it,’ Shelton said. ‘Something in him snapped. That’s when he came to me for help. But I couldn’t help him. He’d already lost his soul. When I left him that night, I was stunned and so sickened to the core by what he’d confessed to me that I couldn’t stop throwing up. I could smell the taint of their evil on him, like foul cigarette smoke sticking to your clothes after a party. But more than that, I had a terrible feeling that I would never see my friend again. I was right. Two days later he was found in the same cheap hotel room. He’d been hung upside down, skinned alive and decapitated.’

  ‘Subtle,’ Wolf said.

  ‘The crime was attributed to some drugged-up lunatic who already had two more murders on his record,’ Shelton said. ‘But the message to me was clear. Dave had been punished for his betrayal. He couldn’t meet the terms of his bargain with Satan, and he suffered the penalty. That was what made me understand the real truth about the forces of Good and Evil. It set me on a path that I’ll never turn away from, not until all these monsters are eradicated.

  ‘You see, I now believe that this is my calling in life, and that in some horrible sense poor Dave was God’s messenger, sent to open my eyes to reality. I withdrew to this lonely, quiet spot, built my new home and tore into my quest to research and discover everything I could about the Luciferian cabals that have infected our world like a disease and seduced and inveigled their way to the highest levels of power. And then, I found out about the Pandemonium Club.’

  Chapter 45

  Shelton said, ‘On the face of it, the Pandemonium Club is simply a social establishment that continues a long tradition within the culture of Britain and elsewhere. It doesn’t openly advertise its existence – you won’t find it on the internet – but nor d
oes it try to conceal it entirely. To understand the nature of these mysterious societies, it’s worth knowing something about their historical background. Have either of you heard of the Hellfire Club?’

  ‘A hellfire missile, yes,’ Wolf said. ‘Never a club.’

  ‘It dates back to the early eighteenth century,’ Shelton explained. ‘In actual fact there never was a single “Hellfire Club”, because it’s a generic name given to a particular sort of exclusive gentlemen’s club that emerged around 1718. Membership of these groups was offered to upper-class rakes and libertines who wished to take part in activities that would have been socially regarded as immoral. Their meetings were a way for wayward young gentlemen, as well as the not-so-young, to let their hair down and give vent to their wilder side. Drinking, doing drugs, cavorting with harlots, all the usual dissolute pursuits. At least, that was the idea in principle.’

  ‘But I’m guessing they were something more than that,’ Ben said.

  ‘And you’d be right. The first well-known so-called Hellfire Club was the one founded by Lord Philip Wharton, the 1st Duke of Wharton, an esteemed politician who also had a reputation for being a rake, a drunkard and a rioter. It’s unclear who its members were exactly, but we can imagine they were all well-connected individuals. In their ceremonies they dressed as characters from the Bible, and satirised and mocked the Christian religion in honour of the club’s patron, supposedly the Devil himself.’

  ‘No shit,’ Wolf said.

  Shelton went on dryly, ‘We don’t know whether Satan attended in person or was merely there in spirit. But we do know, or can suspect, that certain dark practices went on. Which were sufficiently concerning that the club was disbanded in 1721 on the order of King George I, who on hearing the rumours of its activities introduced a special bill outlawing “horrid impieties”. That should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t. A few years later, in the 1740s, they were at it again. The most famous of the historical Hellfire Clubs was formed when a nobleman called Sir Francis Dashwood started holding clandestine group meetings in London. He called his secret society The Order of the Knights of St Francis, and it quickly began attracting eager members from high circles. They’re believed to have included the notable English jurist Robert Vansittart, the Member of Parliament Thomas Potter, and John Montagu, who was a British statesman and the 4th Earl of Sandwich.’

  Wolf scowled. ‘Typical. What is it with these scumbag politicians?’

  ‘In 1751 Dashwood moved to Medmenham Abbey in Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and started holding his meetings there. From then on the cult, because that’s what it really was, became officially known as the Order of Knights of St Francis of Wycombe. He had the house remodelled in Gothic style and excavated a network of tunnels beneath it. It was in those tunnels that the Hellfire Club met twice a month. Members wore occult ceremonial garb and addressed one another as “Brother”. We know little about what really happened down there, but rumours circulated of wild orgies involving prostitutes dressed as nuns, pagan worship, Black Masses and Satanic ritual. Its core founding members were known as the Unholy Twelve and included not only Dashwood himself but John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, Leader of the House of Lords and Secretary of State, who was elected Prime Minister in 1762. He was also an alleged Satanist. As may have been John Wilkes, another British MP, outlaw, Radical and Hellfire member.’

  ‘England had a Satanist Prime Minister?’ Wolf said. Even Ben was a little surprised.

  ‘He didn’t last long, if it’s any consolation,’ replied Shelton. ‘Now, whether or not these rumours of Devil worshipping were true, the Hellfire Club was the precedent for more, and worse, things to come. Dashwood’s motto was “Fais ce que tu voudras”, translated “Do what thou wilt”. He had the words inscribed in stained glass above a doorway in Medmenham Abbey. It was the same libertarian slogan that would later be taken up by a key player in our story: the man who called himself “The Great Beast 666”, Aleister Crowley.’

  ‘I know the name,’ Ben said.

  ‘Most people are probably familiar with the popular accounts of the man. He was born in Leamington Spa in 1875 and was an occultist, black magician, hypnotist, libertine, sado-masochist, drug addict, some say practising Satanist, widely infamous during and after his lifetime as “the wickedest man who ever lived”. But the deeper, darker truth about him is little known. For example, not many are aware of the extent of Crowley’s involvement at the heart of the political establishment, and all kinds of covert skulduggery he got up to over the years as a secret servant of the crown. As a British spy and triple agent pretending to collude with Germany, it’s likely that he was the instigator behind the sinking of the Cunard passenger liner Lusitania in May 1915 that caused the death of nearly twelve hundred civilians, as a deliberate and cynical means to turn the tide of world opinion against Germany and help to bring America into the First World War.’

  ‘Sounds like he must have made some useful connections,’ Ben said.

  ‘That’s an understatement. And he made them through his membership of secret societies and occult orders, which were proliferating at that time, as they still are today. Crowley was deeply enmeshed with all of them. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The Ordo Templi Orientis, of which he became the British Grand Master in 1912. The Great White Brotherhood, and many more. The sheer number can seem bewildering, but in fact they were all simply different manifestations of the same dark religion that harks all the way back to the Egyptian and Babylonian mystery schools. On his travels through the world of the occult Crowley developed contacts with some of the most powerful figures in British society.’

  ‘Like who?’ Wolf asked, becoming fascinated with Shelton’s account.

  ‘Well, for instance, he was a regular attendee of black magic ceremonies at Tredegar House, the haunted stately home of Evan Morgan, the 2nd Viscount Tredegar, also known as the “Black Monk” and praised by Crowley as the “adept of adepts”. As well as being a practising occultist Morgan was also a spy, just as deeply embroiled in political intrigue as Crowley. Morgan’s network of notable friends included Lloyd George, Queen Mary and prominent thinkers and authors like G.K. Chesterton and Aldous Huxley. In an unpublished diary of Crowley’s, he claimed to have introduced Huxley to mescaline. We can only speculate what other kinds of activities went on at Tredegar House, especially within the confines of Morgan’s special “magick room”. Another house guest whom Morgan entertained at Tredegar House was Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s future deputy Führer, who also took a strong interest in the occult.’

  ‘Might’ve known the Nazis would come into this,’ Wolf said.

  Shelton went on, ‘The admiration between Morgan and Crowley was mutual. The two had first met in Paris in the 1920s, and after discovering their shared interest in the black arts Crowley invited the younger man to become inducted into an occult secret society that he had founded himself, the Ancient Order of Thoth.’

  Ben felt a prickle up and down his spine. ‘Thoth, the Egyptian bird-headed God.’

  ‘Whose statue I saw those sickos making their sacrifice to,’ Wolf added.

  Shelton’s eyes opened wide. ‘So it’s true. You actually witnessed a human sacrifice taking place?’

  ‘You think I’d be involved in any of this crap if I hadn’t?’ Wolf replied.

  ‘I have to see this.’ Shelton grabbed the silver phone and turned it on.

  ‘Won’t do you any good,’ Ben said. ‘Not without the password, which you don’t get until we’re done talking. Are you saying there’s a connection between this Order of Thoth and the Pandemonium Club?’

  Shelton put the phone down with a sigh, biting back his impatience to see the video footage. He replied, ‘Correct.’

  And suddenly Ben and Wolf were a big step closer to their target.

  Chapter 46

  Shelton explained. ‘Aleister Crowley took his inspiration from the same eighteenth-century source he borrowed his motto “Do as thou wilt” from, Francis Dashwood. Jus
t as the Hellfire Club was the outward façade of Dashwood’s occult Knights of St Francis, Crowley devised the idea of the Pandemonium Club as the front for his much more shadowy Order of Thoth. Its beginnings date back to early 1907, when Crowley and his mentor, the British chemist and black magician George Cecil Jones, decided to set up a new occult order to act as a successor to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, from which Crowley had been expelled for being too flamboyant and risqué in his behaviour. The headquarters of his new order were a stately home and large wooded estate in the south of England, donated for that purpose by a rich disciple whom Crowley had been instructing in the black arts. Its exact whereabouts have always remained something of a mystery, strictly off-limits to the uninitiated.’

  Ben and Wolf exchanged glances. If Shelton didn’t know about Karswell Hall near Guildford, they’d soon be filling in that gap in his education. For the moment, they let him go on talking. This was getting interesting.

  Shelton continued: ‘Within the grounds of the house Crowley was said to have built a shrine to Thoth, whom he considered the most important of the occult deities, god of magic and learning, astrology and all mystical wisdom. As a Satanic cult the aim of the Pandemonium Club and the secret order at its core was not only to practise black magic and invoke dark spirits, but to gain political and social influence and promote the interests of its initiates.’

  ‘What’s with the name?’ Wolf asked.

  ‘I was coming to that,’ Shelton replied. ‘The name “Pandemonium” itself has a double meaning that hints at its dual identity. The common use of the word, signifying tumult and chaos, gives the impression that its wealthy and powerful men-only membership are being provided the chance to kick back, go a little crazy and make a lot of noise. Which it makes no secret of doing, as far as that goes. The club reveals just enough about its existence to deflect accusations of obscurantism and conspiracy. But there’s another, more obscure meaning to the word “Pandemonium”.’