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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.satanism,alt.politics.satanism,talk.religion.misc
From: boboroshi@satanservice.org (SOD of the CoE)
Subject: Re: Hoax-Fire Satanism Truly De-Factos (Ashe?? Legendizer?)
Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 04:37:27 GMT

50020630 VII om

discussing Geoffrey Ashe's book on hell-fire clubs, apparently
previously titled "Do What You Will".

>>[I] just got "The Hell-Fire Clubs: A History of Anti-Morality"
>>and I'm looking through it for historical usage of the term
>>'Satanists'.  

ix@io.com (Lupo LeBoucher):
>This is a rerelease; it was published as "Do what you will" in 1974 and 
>hasn't been much revised since then.

oh yah, I remember that. well, I'm just getting to it in its
new form. thanks for the info. do you have information on those 
who called themselves Satanists prior to LaVey? (not Luciferans 
or something). 

maybe Sutin's new Crowley biography ("Do What you Will...") beat 
him out in popularity points or something, so he wanted to more
clearly emphasize the history of hell-fire clubs than some kind
of slice across Thelema's Shadow.

>I won't speculate on Ashe's take on the CoS or whatever other group, 

any reason why not?

>but the history of the Irish and English hellfire clubs was most 
>amusing. It's too bad there isn't more information available on 
>such. This consulting group does have a little additional 
>information on their website:
>http://www.blather.net/search/ice2-for.cgi?KEYWORDS=hellfire&SearchButton.x=0&SearchButton.y=0

thanks for the reference.  here it is in full from

	http://www.blather.net/bookstore/ashe_hellfire.html


     Geoffrey Ashe 

	Originally published in 1974, *The Hell-Fire Clubs - 
	A History of Anti-Morality* is Geoffrey Ashe's valuable 
	study of the Knights of St. Francis a.k.a. the Monks of 
	Medmenham - erroneously referred to these days as *The* 
	Hell-Fire Club. This infamous mid-eighteenth century 
	organisation of Sir Francis Dashwood, Lord Sandwich and
	John Wilkes amongst others was, ironically, the most 
	tasteful, contrived and the least violent of all the 
	groups of rich wastrels -- the original Hell-Fires, or 
	Mohocks - who roamed the streets of London and Dublin, 
	literally raising hell. 

	As Ashe says of the Irish Protestant gentry of the 
	time: 'the Irish Hell-Fire groups are harder to sort 
	out... they tended to be more frankly wicked, and 
	sometimes more overtly harmful. Their members flirted 
	with crime, and with an ill-informed kind of black magic 
	and devil-worship.' In London, George I issued an edict
	suppressing the Hell-Fire clubs - it's worth noting that 
	at this time, Dashwood was only 21, and was off on his 
	grand (and somewhat bizarre) tour of Europe. Ashe traces 
	the beginnings of the first British Hell-Fire club to the 
	doings of Philip, Duke of Wharton, around 1720. His doings 
	are too incredible to discuss here, but he was, unwittingly, 
	the first to *oppose* the humdrum politics established by 
	Sir Robert Walpole, setting a precedent for further 
	eccentric political behaviour. 

	Rather than over-indulging in the usual eccentric 
	apocrypha which surrounds the antics of Sir Francis 
	Dashwood, Lord Sandwich, John Wilkes and their circle, 
	Ashe digs deeper - far deeper...finding the root birth 
	of anti-morality in the works of Rabelais, who, in his
	*Gargantua*, describes the Abbey of Thélème, a fictional 
	utopian society for the well-heeled and well-endowed - 
	a place with only one clause: *fay ce que vouldras* - 
	Do What You Will. From here, Ashe draws an almost 
	continuous line through history - through the 
	questionable 'magickal' polygamy of Dee and Kelley, 
	through the beginning of the novel as an accepted 
	literature, the famous works of erotica - Fanny Hill, 
	amongst others, the eccentric and violent rakes of the 
	early 18th century, the Medmenham group of Dashwood, 
	the libertine cruelty of the Marquis de Sade, the birth
	of Gothic literature, oddly enough through the fiction 
	of Horace Walpoke, son of Robert, and the antics of Byron, 
	right into the 20th century, with Aleister Crowley, 
	Anton Lavey and the Manson Family deservedly name-dropped. 

	Ashe never seems to fall the trap of fetishising his 
	topic - his approach is clear, entertaining, but never 
	merely sober. An absolute classic. 

[(c) 2002 Dave Walsh (every page on Blather seems to be)]
 
and here's an Amazon review of the book:

Editorial Reviews

	Book Description

	THE HELL-FIRE CLUBS are legendary. They evoke images of 
	aristocratic rakes outraging respectability ate very turn, 
	cutting a swath through the village maidens and celebrating 
	Black Masses. All of this is true as far as it goes, but it
	is not the whole truth. Geoffrey Ashe has assembles the most 
	complete and accurate account of the Clubs and of their 
	antecedents and descendants. At the centre is his account of 
	the principal brotherhood known by the Hell-Fire name, Sir 
	Francis Dashwoods notorious Monks of Medmenham, with their 
	strange rituals and initiation rites, library of erotica and 
	nun companions recruited from the brothels of London. From 
	this maverick group flow such notable literary libertines as 
	Horace Walpole and Lord Byron. 

	Pre-dating Medmenham are the great figures of Rabelais, the 
	sixteenth century French satirist, and the Elizabethan 
	astrologer and mathematician John Dee, who both expounded 
	philosophies based on the notion of do what you will or
	anything goes. Ashe traces the influence of libertarian 
	philosophies on the world of the Enlightenment, showing how 
	they met the need for a secular morality at a time when 
	Christianity faced the onslaught of rationalism and 
	empiricism. He follows the libertarian tradition through 
	the Marquis de Sade and into the twentieth century, with 
	discussions of Aleister Crowley, Charles Manson and 
	Timothy Leary. 

	Brilliantly readable and delving below the scandals to 
	reveal the social and political impact of doing our own 
	thing, which has roots far deeper than the post-war 
	permissive society, The Hell-Fire Clubs will appeal to 
	all those curious about the shock-tactics of moral outrage. 


	About the Author

	Geoffrey Ashe is best known for his many books on 
	King Arthur, including King Arthurs Avalon; From Caesar 
	to Arthur; The Quest for Arthurs Britain and Camelot and 
	the Vision of Albion and his secretaryship of the Camelot 
	Research Committee. He has been a professional writer for 
	over thirty years, and has published biographies, novels 
	and travel books. He lives in Glastonbury. 

from http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0750924020/ref=ase_blather/104-3144470-7435115
	
and from the same page:

	An Excellent History, September 6, 2000 
	Reviewer: solipsis (see more about me) from Portland, OR USA 

	This was an excellent history of the Hell-Fire Club 
	Phenomenon in 18th Century England, as it tries very 
	successfully, I think, to Contextualize the Clubs and 
	their Members, within the various Political and Cultural 
	developments of that Age.. It has some marvelous imagery 
	and details, which bring smiles on about every other page. 
	Take for instance an iced Cake that resembles a building
	which is then knocked down with miniature cannonballs by 
	young ladies.. this was just some ancillary detail in the 
	book about a symbolic event at a Hanoverian Prince's party.. 
	A Lot of this book made me think of Peter Greenaway's very 
	hard to find _Baby of Macon_.. As for a lack of "Moral 
	Guidance".. Happily, Its really a "history", not some 
	half-baked diatribe, or confected subjective "grotesque", 
	like the author of the above reveiw wouldve wanted.. EEch!.. 
	Very interesting and fun book.. and not at all some 
	metaphysical curiosisty.. This is a small tightly 
	researched little gem, at an affordable price.. And a good
	introduction to the more interesting underbelly of UK 
	history.. I am now looking for a copy of _Strange Wycombe_ 
	next! Enjoy!!! Oh, But one detraction.. It couldve used 
	some nice color plates, like of the portraits of the 
	Club-members, and pictures of like Edmund Curll, and the 
	various places and people of the book.. Other than that... 
	Great Stuff..


and from the amazon.uk site:

Reviews

	Synopsis 

	The Hell-Fire Clubs conjure up images of aristocratic 
	rakes outraging respectability at every turn, cutting a 
	swath through the village maidens and celebrating Black
	Masses. While all this is true, it is not the whole 
	story. The author of this volume has assembled an 
	account of the Clubs and of their antecedents and 
	descendants. At the centre of the book is the principal 
	brotherhood, known by the Hell-Fire name - Sir Francis 
	Dashwood's notorious Monks of Medmenham, with their 
	strange rituals and initiation rites, library of erotica 
	and nun companions recruited from the brothels of London. 
	From this maverick group flow such notable literary 
	libertines as Horace Walpole and Lord Byron. Pre-dating 
	Medmenham are the figures of Rabelais and John Dee, both 
	expounding philosophies of "do what you will" or 
	"anything goes". Geoffrey Ashe traces the influence of 

	libertarian philosphies on the world of the Enlightenment, 
	showing how they met the need for a secular morality at 
	a time when Christianity faced the onslaught of 
	rationalism and empiricism. He follows the libertarian 
	tradition through de Sade and into the 20th century, with 
	discussions of Aleister Crowley, Charles Manson and 
	Timothy Leary, delving below the scandals to reveal the 
	social and political impact of "doing your own thing" 
	which has roots far deeper than the post-war permissive 
	society. 

is this the "bad side" of what's called 'Thelema' being showcased 
here in this and previous reviews as well as Ashe's book?

it fares better as a book on Thelema or quasi-Thelemic cults than
it does on a history of Satanism, as I'd call them. ;>

blessed beast!

boboroshi@satanservice.org: Satanic Outreach Director
Church of Euthanasia: http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/
TOKUS WEBLINKS: http://dmoz.org/Bookmarks/B/boboroshi
Ninth Scholar's Library (Satanism Archive): http://www.satanservice.org/