Pt. X, Time Traveling With R.E. Prindle: G.W.M. Reynolds, TheNecromancer
December 12, 2019
Part X, Time Traveling With R.E. Prindle
A Review
Geo. W.M. Reynolds’ The Necromancer
by
R.E. Prindle
Reynolds’ writing system was such that he could write each installment of the Mysteries of the Court of London in seven hours leaving the rest of the week open. Thus he had a seven hour work week leaving time to do a myriad other things including writing other books. He says his mind was bursting with ideas. He had a powerful compartmentalized mind so that he could keep two or three novels going at the same time so that in the year of 1851 he wrote his installments for the Court of London and The Seamstress, Pope Joan, Kenneth and the Necromancer, the last two extending into 1852. We are going to examine here his very fine novel, The Necromancer, or perhaps one might rename it the Magician.
If as seems evident that every novelist is writing his own life whether consciously or unconsciously, it is also true that the novelist reflects his own time. Ostensibly the Necromancer takes place in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries but I think we can abstract a story about what was happening currently in his day. This will require much background work.
As is uppermost in every twenty-first century White mind the question of is the author in any way anti-Semitic, non, Feminist, a racist, and as it is expressed a Homophobe. We are going to explain the Necromancer as an explanation of Semitism in the England of Reynolds and ignore the other bete noirs. You have been forewarned.
Whether you consider Semites, that is Jews, as a religion, a nation, a people or whatever they are an economic, political and social force working solely for Jewish interests to the exclusion of all others. Jews consider themselves a nation and a people. The period from 1814 through the nineteenth century saw the rise of the Jewish people as the pre-eminent people of Great Britain. The rise was especially prominent from 1815 to 1860, the period most important of Reynolds novelist life.
It is not possible that he didn’t note the situation and if he didn’t mention it directly, which he doesn’t, then there must be a reason. Why would he have to resort to a parable such as The Necromancer? The answer was that even at that time there were penalties to writing ethnographical studies such as Reynolds’ that did not show Jews to critical advantage.
If one found it necessary to include Jewish characters they must be portrayed in the most benevolent light. Reynolds does mention Jewish characters but in a peculiar way. He lauds them as long suffering, unfairly victimized as a people but then he invariably displays them as what are called anti-Semitic stereotypes. Thus the pawn broker in Wagner, the Wehr Wolf.
He is depicted as a totally inoffensive person, obsequious to the extreme as a persecuted member of the bedeviled people. After these laudatory comments Reynolds then pictures a character bearing all the so-called Semitic tropes. He changes the stones on the pawned diamonds to paste, which Reynolds justifies by his peoples ages long persecution, as well as other criminal acts. It would seem that Reynolds knew the score.
The odd thing, since Jewish activity was at a height is that Reynolds makes no reference to Jewish economic or banking activities. Let us do a brief survey of where matters stood at the time. In 1815 Nathan Rothschild seized control of English currency and the Bank of England.
To explain:
A famous European and Jewish canard is that of father Mayer Amschel Rothschild and his five arrows, that is, his five sons. They were dispatched to European capitals to form a powerful network covering the continent and England. Nathan Rothschild was sent to Manchester to engage in the booming textile industry. Nathan was no businessman and could not succeed in textiles. He therefore turned to crime becoming a smuggler which would turn out to fortuitously make his fortune.
In 1806 Napoleon was conquering the German States, moving in on the Margrave of Hesse-Cassel. The Margrave was fabulously wealthy. He wanted to conceal his wealth from Napoleon who was more than eager to appropriate it. The Margrave then employed his Court Jew, Mayer Amschel Rothshild, to conceal it. Mayer sent a substantial portion of it to Nathan who by this time was floundering around as a banker. The money immediately established Nathan as a financial force. At that time the British were engaging Napoleon in the Iberian Peninsular War. Wellington the British general in the Peninsula needed cash desperately but the usually inventive English didn’t know of a secure way to get the money to him. Nathan was then used to transport the money. Using his, by this time, well developed smuggling skills in conjunction with his brother arrow, James, in Paris, they delivered the mail.
This was known to the French authorities as Fouche, the very clever Minister of Police, was aware of exactly how it had been done. The method is well demonstrated in the German Movie, The Rothschilds. So Nathan and his fellow Jews scored a bundle on that caper.
Nathan’s most outstanding feat that brought England to its knees was his capture of the currency after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. He spread the rumor that Napoleon had won Waterloo causing a stupendous sell off that drove prices far down. While others sold Nathan bought. Then his special couriers raced to London to carry news of the English, or allied, victory. Prices bounced back but by then using the fabulous wealth of the Margrave of Hesse Nathan owned huge amounts of securities that he sold at magnificent profit thus securing the base of the Rothschild dynasty, still going strong eight generations on.
To report this astonishing feat in history tends to mitigate the reaction of the Brits when they learned how they had been diddled out of the ruling of their country for Rothschild had pulled an astonishing cheat. Reynolds who was very well informed across the board must have known this but was constrained from portraying it for fear of Jewish retaliation which even was formidable.
We are now moving to the 1840s and Nathan who had passed was succeeded by Lionel Rothschild as the scion of the family. A most formidable and dangerous antagonist.
At this time young Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) was attempting to establish himself as a literary wizard before entering politics. He had already written many novels when in 1844 he wrote Coningsby, Sybil in 1845 and Tancred in 1847. In Coningsby he laid bare the Jewish influence in European affairs when he wrote that the world was actually governed by different people behind the scenes than the public imagined. Thus he led the reading public to believe that the apparent rulers were mere operatives of others, that is, the Jews.
These three political novels made more of a stir than his earlier romances had so that it seems reasonable that Disraeli, Coningsby at least, had been read by Reynolds by 1851. In Coningsby Disreali lauds his Jewish mastermind as the most astounding human being since Adam. The character was based on the real life Right Honourable Lionel Freiherr Rothschild. (1808-1879) Named Sidonia in the novel.
Lionel, Lion-el means Lion of the Lord or God, what we might say, Defender of the Faith in Christian terms.
The Jews since Nathan had owned the State of England but they as a different religion from the Anglicans suffered political and religious disabilities. It was Lionel’s mission to remove them in which mission he was successful.
In 1847 he was the first Jew to be elected to Parliament. This was success but it would also have absorbed Lionel as just another member. He wanted more. He in essence did not want to be absorbed as an English member of the House of Commons but as an autonomous Jew. To be sworn in he had to take an oath of Christian formulation. This he refused to do wishing to be sworn in as a Jew.
In order to accommodate him this would have required a changing of the rules with long term consequences. Accordingly Lord Russell introduced a Jewish Disabilities Act to change the rules. In 1849 when the Act failed the German-Jewish Baron Lionel Rothschild resigned his seat. But still determined he won a bye election to keep his campaign going. Returning he still refused to swear on the New Testament demanding the Jewish or Old Testament. The oath still required him to say: ‘Upon the true faith of a Christian.’ He refused to do so on the grounds that Christianity was not the true faith, Judaism was. Once again he was compelled to resign his seat.
In 1852 he tried to bull his way through but once again was denied. Finally in 1858 Lionel Rothschild forced through the oath changes. Refusing to be bareheaded as required by English custom he demanded to wear his yarmulke or skull cap and instead of saying ‘on the true faith of a Christian’ he was allowed to say ‘so help me Jehovah.’
Thus he became the first Jewish member of the House of Commons but the first Jew in the House rather than an English member of the Jewish faith. Thus in this long battle to be seated Lionel changed the nature of the country into a country of Englishmen and nearly autonomous Jews. Already in control of English currency the Jews would now aspire to political power while moving freely through society ostensibly equal but actually superior having all English rights as well as autonomous Jewish rights that were denied the English.
Thus Disraeli’s astonishing Sidonia/Lionel cleared the way for Disraeli to serve in the Commons but also to become the Prime Minister; the intermediary between the English people and their Sovereign.
These activities were not carried on in a vacuum or beneath the observance of interested parties of which Reynolds was one. While he was only observing the struggle up to 1851-52 when he wrote the Necromancer the writing was on the wall. No doubt Reynolds had read Disraeli’s Coningsby and had watched Lionel Rothschild’s maneuvering. Being a novelist it was easy for him to shadow forth the denouement that occurred in 1858.
My reading of the Necromancer reflects Reynolds’ version of what was happening. Thus his protagonist Lionel Danvers is Lionel Rothschild. As an historical novelist he then creates a fictional history of the Danvers/Rothschild story. He combines the five arrows into one. As was commonly thought at the time the Jews were Satanic thus Danvers had sold his soul to Satan for a period of a hundred fifty years so and with the due date imminent it was necessary for Danvers to honor his commitment to Satan to redeem his soul.
Danvers existed under several names and guises as he was able to shape shift to any age at any time. Thus at various periods he was the middle aged Walter, a mature Lionel Danvers and a boyish Reginald or Conrad.
Even though he had sold his soul to the devil, Satan had given him an escape clause in that if he could find six virgins who would do anything for him, even die, he would take those six souls in exchange for Danvers’. For some reason I always read Danvers in the French form of D’enfer. Thus Danvers becomes The Lion Of the Lord of Hell. Whether correct or not it certainly fits.
Now, Lionel Danvers to use that name of his existence, had all the wealth of Europe at his command. While ostensibly an English Lord he spent all his time on the continent where he had the greatest concentrations of wealth in addition to his very large holdings in England. For him money had no other meaning than to buy power in whatever form it took by any means necessary.
In his Walter incarnation, his first, as the clearest example, Walter shows up in Genoa where he befriends the scion of the Landini trading family. He then bestows, not as a loan but for safe keeping interest free, an incredible fortune that Landini can use without any restrictions for his own benefit on the condition that whenever Danvers appears the Landinis are to return his money in full on demand or they become his slaves.
Naturally the Landinis being astute traders enjoy enormous success for several generations. Even though Danvers has never returned they still maintain his fortune. Each successor has been made aware of his obligation so that not only the trust is available ready to honor at any time but also interest. However suddenly the worst fortune descends on them and all their deals begin to sour, whole argosies are lost at sea. Danvers chooses this moment to return and demand his money. The demand can’t be honored.
But, the Landinis have a beautiful virgin daughter, Bianca. Danvers courts her, wins her heart and they set a date to be married. In the meantime, as debtors to Danvers, the Landinis have become his slaves. They are ordered to go to London and start a jewelry house, which they do.
Before leaving the marriage is arranged between Walter and Bianca. Before the marriage Danvers carries Bianca off to no one knows where. They both just vanish. Bianca becomes the first of the virgins sacrificed to Satan by Danvers. But, of course, the details that can be revealed here are mysteries to the reader.
Bianca had been abducted to Danvers ruined castle on the Isle of Wight. In the secret chamber where Danvers murders the women a score card is on the wall in fiery letters, thus Bianca becomes virgin soul #1, five more to go.
As the story opens Lionel Danvers is sacrificing his fifth, Clara Manners.
One of the deepest mysteries in this astonishingly deep book is the problem of Musidora Sinclair who Lionel has selected as his sixth victim. He seems to have had a singular attachment to the girl. Musidora had been a charming girl but at the age of seventeen she became of a very icy temperament unmoved by anyone or anything. As it turns out Lionel had attempted to lead her to his secret chamber, she lived on the Isle of Wight, but she got cold feet on the way to the chamber and fled. This event turned her heart cold. Now, after having despatched Clara Manners he decides to try again to make Musidora his final victim.
I take Musidora to mean Golden Song or music. Whether right or wrong, she is.
Lionel now has a problem because Musidora won’t allow him near her. Fortunately Lionel has a plan B. He will impersonate King Henry VIII, during whose reign the story takes place at this point, and wed her. Unfortunately her beauty overwhelms him and he impregnates her (another mystery) thus destroying her virginity. Even Lionel Danvers was not so stupid that he didn’t know that it was impossible to diddle Satan.
For Reynolds the story of the impersonation of Henry III is the central point of the story. Between Nathan and Lionel Rothschild a shadow government had been forming in England. While Queen Victoria was the apparent ruler at this time the actual rulers were, as Disraeli had written, other than the seeming rulers. Lionel lived till 1879 when he died at the age of seventy.
Granting that Disraeli was accurate then whatever power the shadow rulers had at the time, their power has gone on increasing to the present day when Evelyn Rothschild wields the power behind the throne. Prior to the Communist Revolution of 1917 Rasputin was deemed the power behind the Russian throne. He was also thought to be conspiring with the Germans. As it happened Rasputin had a Jewish secretary and we must suppose that the secretary had ties to other Jewish revolutionaries so that he was able to pass information to them much as Dreyfus had done in France in the 1890s.
In all probability the German agents Rasputin was thought to be conspiring with was actually being done by his Jewish secretary. The secretary would have been very intimate with Rasputin and would have had strong control over what information Rasputin received while having access to all or most of Rasputin’s info and plans. Thus Through Rasputin the Jews would have been able to influence the Czarina and through the Czarina the Czar.
In the US during the same period, the Wall Street speculator Bernard Baruch would become the actual co-president of Woodrow Wilson free to issue commands on his own authority subject only to correction by Wilson himself and he and Wilson were of like minds. So, at the crucial time of the Revolution both Russia and the US were subject to Jewish discipline.
Be that as it may, is it any coincidence that Lionel Danvers and Lionel Rothschild bore the same Christian name? I think not. Reynolds is trying to tell us something. So Lionel Danvers having circulated rumors that he was dead or on the continent set about to realize his lust on the body of Musidora Sinclair while posing as Henry VIII.
It will be remembered that at this time Henry was seeking a divorce from his Spanish wife Catherine, but it had not yet been achieved. Danvers has to fool Musidora into believing he, impersonating Henry, had succeeded in obtaining that divorce. First Danvers has to lure Musidora from her retreat on the Isle of Wight. He has a relative couple of Musidora living in the royal city of Greenwich invite Musidora to come for and extended visit to their castle. Then he finds a probable excuse for Henry to be a guest of the Earl and Countess Grantham, Musidora’s relatives.
There is some hint that Danvers magically transformed himself into a duplicate form of Henry. I don’t think that was necessary. At this point in history but few people would have seen Henry. So, all that Danvers would have had to have done is bought some clothes royalty would have worn and developed the persona. Of course Musidora knew Danvers well as a young girl and ought to have been able to identify his voice. But, this is Reynolds’ story and the disguise was complete although their was some uncertainty accepting face values.
Nevertheless Henry/Danvers showered Musidora with expensive gifts including a set of very expensive diamonds. It will be remembered that the Landinis from Genoa had been running a jewelry shop in London for about a hundred years.
Eventually, with continued prodding from the Granthams, who were completely fooled, Danvers/Henry break Musidora down and she agrees to marry the faux monarch. However suspicions remain and the strictest safeguards are taken. Musidora demands to see the papal bull nullifying Henry’s marriage to Catherine which matter was not resolved at the time.
Danvers has one forged. As three papal seals are needed Danvers obtains authentic seals.
As a political operative he has suborned numerous members of Henry’s household putting them on the payroll and so has one obtain seals from an authentic papal communication. The officiating priest is fooled and really has no choice but to marry Musidora and Danvers/Henry. Danvers cannot allow Musidora to circulate or talk about her marriage so he swears her to secrecy about the whole affair.
Nevertheless Henry learns of the fraud and swears his informers to secrecy because he doesn’t want the public to know that a shadow King Henry is loose in the kingdom. Reynolds here is describing the actual political condition in England that a second monarch is running the kingdom by secretive measures. This answers to Disraeli’s claim that others than the seeming rulers are directing affairs.
In fact Disraeli himself will become Prime Minister and facetiously and destructively make Victoria the Empress of India. Disraeli was ostensibly a Christian having changed from Judaism to Anglican at the age of thirteen. Thirteen is when a Jewish lad takes his Bar Mitzvah becoming a young man with a man’s prerogatives. It is very likely the change to Anglicanism was deceitfully made with political motives in mind. Disraeli became a Jew disguised as a Christian.
While there may be some objectors to my analysis one should note that Sir Piers Dunhaven the father of the second female victim had once had an extensive property in Cumberland but he had lost most of his property to usury. As Christians were forbidden usury it follows that Jews using their monopoly in usury had stripped Sir Piers of his property. There are subtle hints such as this to Lionel Danvers nationality.
What we have here then is an allegory of the subjection of England by the Jews according to Reynolds. On that level this is the shadow meaning of the novel.
On another level this is a near perfect Gothic novel. One is reminded of The Mysteries of Udolpho by Mrs. Radcliffe. As he was an old admirer of Mrs. Radcliffe I’m sure that Reynolds had Udolpho in mind as he wrote this. The story is also first class mystery and would beat out Willkie Collins for longest mystery story. And, Reynolds keeps the mystery going to the very end. Who could have guessed that Marian Bradley, Danvers last possible chance to beat the devil was his and Musidora’s daughter? Didn’t see that one coming did we?
The story is plotted out perfectly. When we are shown the glowing signboard with the illuminated names and the blank spaces we have to wonder. That was the first mystery and the finest first mystery explained. This list of victims also gave Reynolds his opportunity to tell six tales and he loves to tell those tales.
Then there is the mystery of Danvers and where he gets his inexhaustible supply of money. His fortunes, not just a fortune but fortunes, come from over all Europe and England. An historical question often asked is how do Jews when expropriated and expelled out of one locality show up in a new one and immediately, as it seems, regain their wealth. The solution to that one is easy—usury. Aware that they may be expelled on short notice they kept jewels and portable wealth sewn into garments so that they could leave on amoment’s notice to resurface as wealthy elsewhere.
The Catholic Church and its opinion on money making money, that is usury, which is the objection to loaning on interest, penalized its own adherents and enfranchised the Jews who it politically disenfranchised. Interest in those days wasn’t six or seven percent either. Usury laws only came into existence much later. In those days interest was as much as fifty percent compounded daily or more so you can see how the money lenders, Jews, cornered the money supply wherever they were. The Danvers unlimited, renewed wealth must have come from usury, that is, legalized theft.
And Danvers applied his wealth artfully. The ruse of entrusting money to someone to be reclaimed whenever on no notice is a sure way to entrap the party. Reynolds was no dummy when it came to understanding ruses and ploys. He studied hard. The ploy that the Marquis of Leveson used to entrap Venetia Trelawney was classic.
The Marquis wanted sex from Venetia that she didn’t want to give. Not unlike Danvers, Leveson had unlimited funds that he didn’t mind losing so long as he obtained his desire. So he presented Venetia with a magnificent string of pearls. He told her he would redeem one or all at a time at a thousand pounds each on demand and with the last pearl she was his. Venetia then accepted what she thought was a guarantee that she would never be in want and never have to succumb.
However the wily Marquis set a series of matters in motion to compel Venetia to redeem the pearls. Borrowing from Eugene Sue’s Wandering Jew he has accomplices debauch the formerly steady husband of Venetia so that he turns to dissipation and gambling thus having to be bailed out frequently. Venetia soon has to bed the Marquis. The mysteries are usually tragic stories if you compassionate with the characters.
In this novel, while none of the characters has the memorability of the Resurrection Man from Mysteries of London, the whole ensemble of characters all work well together to create a memorable story.
The Necromancer is one of series of Satanic novels that Reynolds wrote from 1847 to 52. The first being Wagner the Wehr Wolf, 1846-47, Faust in 1847, The Bronze Statue in 1849-50 and then the Necromancer in 1851-52. Each is a beat the devil attempt on the part of the protagonist. Satan is a tough customer and none succeed.
The end of Danvers is a classic much exploited in novels and movies. Lionel (Walter, Reginald and Conrad) has lived for a hundred fifty years. When his attempt on the sixth maiden fails and Satan comes to receive his due, Danvers shrivels from a handsome young man into a withered old man bursts into flames and disappears.
I don’t know whether Reynolds was the first to use this dodge or not, but it becomes a classic dodge thereafter.
The estimable critic Dick Collins considers the Necromancer to be his favorite Reynolds. While I have now read twenty-five volumes of Reynolds I can’t place the volume ahead of the massive novels of The Mysteries of London, The Mysteries of the Court of London, nor, for that matter, The Mysteries of Old London. The last has a special place in my esteem; yet, as I have said, The Necromancer as a super-natural Gothic novel I think it may be near perfection. I’m sure that Mrs. Radcliffe would have been pleased with George’s effort.
Par XI of Time Travels With R.E Prindle follows.
Pt. IX Time Traveling With R.E. Prindle
November 24, 2019
Pt. IX: Time Traveling With R.E. Prindle
by
R.E. Prindle
George W.M. Reynolds
Now that in parts six, seven and eight we have an adequate time line of Reynolds’ career we can get down into the substance of his major works, Mysteries of London and Mysteries of the Court of London. For those not aware of the extent of his corpus, it is immense with about all of it written concurrently with his two major novels.
For instance, in the four years from 1844 to 1848 when the four series of Mysteries of London were written, George also wrote Faust: A Romance of the Secret Tribunals in 1847; Wagner, the Wehrwolf in 1846-47; The Mysteries of Old London: Days of Hogarth in 1847-48 and The Coral Island or, The Hereditary Curse in 1848 as he ended Mysteries of London and began Mysteries of the Court at the same time. All of these are significant works are of some length.
Also, in 1846, he began to publish his magazine, The Reynolds Miscellany which he edited. While I have not received the copies yet, Gyan Publishers of India offers ten volumes of the Miscellany in five volumes of about eight hundred pages each. I will browse them when they arrive.
Altogether this seems to be a heavy writing load, an impossible load. Yet when one examines Reynolds’ working methods and his careful time management it may have been easily done by him given his large mind. Certainly the load from 1844 to 1848 was, for him, light. He was responsible for turning in eight double column pages, minus illustrations a week.
George IV In Full Regalia
As his mind could apparently be rigidly compartmentalized; as he is said to have written very fast, then his actual work period turning out eight thousand words could be easily done in, say, six hours. He had to keep his whole story in mind for each sequent but, as I imagine, as he turned in an installment his mind, or part of it, immediately began plotting out the next installment so that when his next deadline approached he had the eight thousand words ready and could just spill them out. So, his whole work week by which he sustained his whole extensive family was only six hours long.
The rest of the seven days could be devoted to family matters, exploring the metropolis and reading. George read and studied. His Greek mythology was correct and extensive, and he drops classical references regularly. Oddly he makes few Biblical references. He very obviously was familiar with the British, French and German literature of the day. He was definitely literate in English and French and probably could read German. He takes his inspiration from where he can get it. Could there be any coincidence that the William Harrison Ainsworth depiction of the Gypsy camp in Rookwood is reflected in Reynolds’ passages of Gypsy camps in Mysteries of London? I think not.
As I am discovering, not many people are aware of W.H. Ainsworth. He seems to be virtually unknown, but then, so does Reynolds. Ainsworth was a very successful and influential author of the day turning out perhaps more books than Reynolds while being a major influence on Reynolds. Very good books, too, well worth reading.
While I had read Ainsworth’s name being frequently mentioned I had never read him until just recently. I was fortunate to pick up various sets of novelists of this period at an online auction for next to nothing. Ainsworth was one of the sets. While the books were nearly free, about a dollar each, the shipping from Topeka Kansas was horrendous. So, while I have some reading of the period, I can now immerse myself.
By the way, I have been familiar with the French writers for some time and more recently the German authors while an ardent admirer of ETA Hoffman for a couple decades. While it is clear that George read French with ease, it seems probable that he could wade through German texts also. So, what he did with a full week’s time is of interest.
Obviously, one thing, was how to become his own publisher. In 1846 only two years into Mysteries of London he obviously understood enough about publishing to launch his successful Miscellany at which time he began his ancillary novels to fill its pages. The first issue began with his Wagner, the Wehr Wolf. Undoubtedly the other three novels also appeared in its pages. I will find out soon.
Now, the two major works are immense. I have now read each twice. The first time I caught the most exciting highlights. The second time I penetrated the depth but the stories are so long and diverse a third and fourth reading would be necessary to organize all the characters and incidents. Actually both works are several novels in one. The stories are braided in such a way that that one story branches out replaced by another related story then rejoining further downstream. Each story could be abstracted and edited into a complete novel with certain characters interchangeably distributed throughout. Thus the story in the first series of Mysteries of the Court of Tim Meagles and Lady Diana Lade is completed and finished with Tim and Diana eased out of the rest of the novel.
The Beau w/Cravat
The question in that instance is who was Tim Meagles in real life. I believe he was none other than the Beau himself, Beau Brummell. As Mysteries of the Court is a story of the Regency of George VI and as the Beau had the same relationship with the Prince as Meagles, the two must be related as no other than the Beau had so close a relationship with the Regent.
As my authority for the history of Beau Brummell I use the biography of Capt. Jesse, titled Beau Brummell. The Capt. Published in 1844 and he is speaking first hand while having had an acquaintance with Beau in his exile in France. My edition is from a set called Beaux and Belles of England published probably in the 1890s by the Grolier Society of London, a veritable treasure trove of biographies of the era.
The Beau, a Dandy and Beau, is an example of a social species with a long history in England and indeed probably going back in the annals of time to the transformation of the human species from the anthropoids. It is certain that there were cavemen who wore their pelts better than others and perhaps bathed more regularly. The advent of Mr. Gillette being well in the future. The Beau himself was fastidious, apparently unlike his contemporaries as his fastidiousness is mentioned as exceptional. Make your own judgment.
Brummel who was named George as apparently were half the male members of England at the time, was the son of a wealthy merchant thus inheriting thirty thousand pounds on his father’s death or however long it took to get out chancery. Beau, surveying the social scene determined that the only society worth having was that of the aristocrats. Having money but no title he did not qualify for their company so the Beau became the Beau, the trendsetter of male fashion and thus gained acceptability.
He also developed into a master snob and as such rose to prominence or, at least, notoriety. His notoriety attracted the attention of the Prince, that is, George IV, later the Regent and then the King in his own right. There is a remarkable resemblance between the two. I post pictures. From these it appears that the two might almost have had the same father. At any rate, Prince and Beau become bonded, much like Meagles and the Prince. Remember that George IV in his own persona is the main character in the story. The Prince then resided in his mansion, Carlton House, on Pall Mall. Let me interject that there is an excellent survey of the Capital titled London by Charles Knight in six lengthy volumes, Cambridge University Press, containing wonderful historical essays on most of the locations mentioned by George- that is, Reynolds. The six volumes were originally issued in parts ending in 1844, One can sharpen one’s understanding.
But, George- that is Brummel- was terribly irked by his inferior position to George- that is the Prince and so he became demeaning and superior, ridiculing George IV in conversations with others so that the Prince, George, became infuriated and broke off relations with George, the Beau. The crowning touch came when he and a fellow ran into the Prince while walking. The Prince studiously ignored the Beau addressing only his friend causing Brummell to caustically remark: Who’s your fat friend? Well, come now. Completely in disfavor now the Beau deteriorated and as a relatively young man was forced into exile in Calais, France. This previous history is all that concerns us in his characterization in Tim Meagle.
Meagles’ story was written a while after Dumas’ very famous The Three Musketeers was published. The Three Musketeers is a fabulous myth. A wonderful creation of the equally fabulous Alexander Dumas. In Meagles and his companion Lady Diana Lade it appears that Reynolds is trying to create a myth to equal the Musketeers and female character, Milady. Indeed, there are such similarities that Reynolds may have considered himself a rival to the great Frenchman.
Read what Andre Maurois has to say in his biography of the three Dumas titled The Titans of 1957, pp. 182-83:
Never in the whole course of French literature has there been anything comparable to Dumas’s output between the years 1845 and 1855. Novels from eight to ten volumes showered down without a break on the newspapers and bookshops. The whole history of France was passed in review. The Three Musketeers was followed by Twenty Years After and that by Vicomte de Bragelone, another trilogy- Chicot the Jester (La Reine Margot), La dame de Monsoreau and The Forty-Five Guardsmen.
Simultaneously with these, Dumas was busy narrating the decline and fall of the French monarchy—The Diamond Necklace…Le Chevalier de Maison Rouge, Memoires of a Physician…Ange Pitou and La Comtesse de Charny. From early on he had planned to annex the whole of history to his romantic domain. “There is no end to what I want to do,” he said. ‘I long for the impossible. How am I to achieve what I have in mind? By working as no one has ever worked before, by pruning life of all its details; by doing without sleep…’ This programme accounts for the five or six hundred volumes which so astonish the reader…. No one has read all Dumas.
Compare Reynolds and his output from 1844 to 1859. He too wished to write the history of all Europe. When Maurois mentions the five or six hundred volumes he means, I imagine, parts. Thus if Reynolds is broken into parts he can account for three or four hundred volumes. The eight or ten volumes of Mysteries of the Court of London can be broken down to eight or ten complete novels all interrelated. Truly the period from about 1840 to 1880 is the height of British and European literature.
Reynolds changes the character of Meagles from Brummell’s own. The Beau according to Capt. Jesse was quite effeminate. Indeed, he never married and apparently had no female lovers. Meagles and Lady Lade seem to have had a platonic relationship until her husband died. They extorted a Marquisate from George III and then as the Beau had disappeared from England they disappear from The Mysteries of the Court.
Indeed, the Beau must have been trying to inveigle his friend, George IV, into making him a Marquis or ennoblement of some kind. Had Brummel been ennobled then he would have been entitled to associate with the aristocracy instead of being a hanger on.
Lady Lade throughout her and Meagles’ episodes dresses in men’s clothing so that she and Meagles appear as two men to the unobservant. As her name Diana indicates she represents the virgin huntress Artemis in Greek mythology or Diana in the Latin; the female archetype of the Piscean Age in Northern Europe. Reynolds repeatedly refers to her as the Huntress and other attributes of Diana, Tim must therefore be meant to be the male archetype of Pisces in Reynolds’ mind, not as the Redeemer but perhaps as the Trickster.
Just as the Beau longs for a title so does Tim. While the Beau retreated ungratified Tim and Lady Diana Lade obtain their Marquisate by criminal or blackmail means. Without going into details here, Tim and Diana have knowledge that would compromise the reputation of the Georgian House. Using this knowledge then they criminally extort their Marquisate from George III.
To some extent then, Mysteries of the Court is a roman a clef. How many of the other novels in the Mysteries of the Court collection may reference actual histories remains to be addressed.
The main theme is a condemnation of the Regent, George IV. Reynolds detests him as well as the whole aristocracy to the maximum. But, how much of that detestation is sheer envy. How much of himself did Reynolds put into Meagles/Brummell? Reynolds himself has the appearance of a Dandy or Beau and Ainsworth definitely was one. He is so vehement one has to wonder about his accuracy. Is this a fictional history of reality or mere raving. It is apparently reasonably accurate. Capt. Jesse who wrote of Beau Brummell while a stalwart member of his class condemns George IV for, as he puts it, teaching the aristocracy to live beyond their incomes, squandering their great wealth frivolously while living the lives of Libertines.
Reynolds then has the spirit of the times correct and while he may perhaps exaggerate he is not false. He himself believes he is writing fictionalized history; that is, fleshing out the fact with probable detailing.
Thus, in what might be termed the fifth and sixth series of the extended Mysteries of London and the Court, although these two series are not related to the first four, the fifth series concerns itself with the years around 1795 leading to the marriage of George IV with the Princess Caroline. The key point being his previous secret marriage to Mrs. Fitzherbert.
Reynolds does not tackle his main theme directly but embeds it in a series of stories, or novellas, or novels, peripheral to it while creating a sociological portrait of the times making George’s character confirmed by external events.
Mrs. Fitzherbert had ruled Carlton House and the Prince, as George then was, before the Regency, and enjoyed great privileges. The crisis came when George’s father, demanded that George marry the German Princess Caroline of Hanover, Germany who was something of a rustic. That meant he had to put away Mrs. Fitzherbert whom he found compatible and take up with Caroline who he detested.
He tolerated her long enough to create an heir, the Princess Charlotte and then made Caroline’s life miserable so that she exiled herself to the Continent. In Reynolds’ story, sixth series, she is living in Switzerland twenty years later. As this is 1815 Napoleon has just returned from his exile on Elba to Paris.
Reynolds is a clear writer and as his title indicates he is essentially writing a mystery he reveals clues only as necessary. The sixth series, then, titled Venetia Trelawney tells of Mrs. Fitzherbert’s attempt to regain her position at court through a surrogate, Venetia.
We are not permitted to know this until at the conclusion of the series of book five. Apart from all the subsidiary stories the main burden of the sixth series is George IV’s machinations to injure his wife, Caroline. He attempts to portray her as dissolute and morally corrupt for consorting with her equerry, Bergami. he was a fine figure of a man.
To achieve this goal the Prince, now Regent, goes to great lengths in a more or less improbable scheme. A Mrs. Owen has four lovely daughters who, following the Prince’s instructions, she is turning into courtesans and mistresses of duplicity. The youngest, Mary, refuses the training but the other three go to Geneva to be ladies in waiting for Caroline. There by subterfuge they make it appear that Caroline and Bergami are having an affair. Needless to say the scheme is baffled through the agency of Mrs. Fitzherbert.
That’s the general plan but of course much excitement is created by circumambient subplots that are braided into the main story. Many interesting characters are created. Larry Sampson, the Bow Street detective and his adversary the Hangman, Daniel Coffin. Coffin comes close to being as interesting as the Resurrection Man of the first two series of the Mysteries of London. Doctor Death of the third and fourth series doesn’t come close to the above two as a villain. Coffin is more related to the eighteenth century criminal master mind Johnathan Wild or Conan Doyle’s fictional Moriarty.
Of the six series the third and fourth are the weakest although having brilliant moments and a very good temptress, Laura Lorne. That will be dealt with separately. Having discussed the main story of The Mysteries Of London is the first eight parts of Time Travels there is no need to do so here.
When George closed off the second series of The Mysteries of the Court he said that he was through with George IV but that his head was bursting with ideas for a new series. Now a mystery ensues.
My edition of Mysteries of the Court was published by the Francis F. Burton Ethnographical Society in Boston and an Oxford Society in England in twenty volumes c. 1900 under the general title The Works of George W.M. Reynolds. By works is meant twenty volumes of The Mysteries of the Court of London, that’s all. Thus, the set is divided into four units of five volumes. The first five deal with the coming marriage to Caroline, the second five to Venetia Trelawney and the plot against Caroline. Then a third set issued under Reynolds’ name with his picture on the title page under the title, Lady Saxondale’s Crimes, while the fourth division of five volumes is called The Fortunes of the Ashtons. Thus, if the last two divisions are authentic the total work would be ten thousand pages. However there is no mention of the latter two series by any Reynolds scholar. Neither the Oxford Society nor the Burton Ethnographical Society give any indication of the provenance of the latter two series.
Richard F. Burton is the famous Victorian explorer, most notably in the search for the source of the Nile, and being the first European to penetrate into Mecca. He translated the entire Arabian Nights in seventeen volumes. So he became among the first ethnographers. The Oxford Society was also an ethnographical society. Little can be found on either on the internet.
Burton established his Society in 1843 splitting off from a predecessor. One wonders if Reynolds, ever curious, associated himself with the Burton Society and perhaps its predecessor. His Mysteries of the Court of London may be construed as an ethnographical study. I certainly read it as such. Possibly the Oxford and Burton Societies found the Mysteries of the Court so suitable that they commissioned writers to write the two additional series.
It might be possible that Reynolds commissioned the two series but there appears to be no earlier record of them at this tim, indeed, no record but their publication in the Works of George W.M. Reynolds. There is a story worth investigating in the American publishing house, T.B. Peterson. They were responsible for the publication of several novels written by their stable of authors under Reynold’s name. There is information on T.B. Peterson on the internet.
The firm was located in Philadelphia. They had a huge catalog what literature is in the Penny Dreadful style including a large selection of titles from writers like W.H. Ainsworth, Bulwer Lytton and, of course George W.M. Reynolds. They published a two volume edition under the title of The Mysteries of the Court of London. I have no idea whether it included the whole of the two series or a condensed version. They published twenty, perhaps more titles written by their authors under Reynolds’ name, including Ciprina or, The Secrets of the Picture Gallery.
This volume has actually been issued by the British Library as an authentic Reynolds. Possibly T.B. Peterson is unknown to them. Lord Saxondale, who was apparently a little less criminal than his wife Lady Saxondale, Count Christobal, and Lucrizia Mirano, Edgar Montrose or, the Mysterious Penitent, the Ruined Gangster. Peterson really liked The Necromancer while that title was also published by a New York firm.
Anent the Necromancer. I am of the opinion that this book was also not written by Reynolds, or possibly with a collaborator, even though it was published in his Miscellany in 1851. The style isn’t his, the vocabulary isn’t his while in my reading I had the feeling that the book was written by a woman. The detailing just seemed feminine. I think it probable that Reynolds was following in the footsteps of his model Alexander Dumas. Dumas collaborated with Auguste Maquet and others although the books were always issued as Dumas alone.
Perhaps in this case, Peterson called the Necromancer, the Mysteries of the Court of Henry VIII, Reynolds roughed out the story while employing someone else to do the actual writing. At any rate, I do not believe he was the writer or perhaps the sole writer.
Needless to say, Reynolds received no economic benefit because the US did not honor English copyright laws. Nor could Reynolds do anything about the counterfeits written under his name.
So, then, the question is from whence came the final two series and at what date were they written? And perhaps, why? Certainly they were commissioned. Having never read them I am unqualified to speculate but, perhaps, someone might know and be willing to share their knowledge?
Reynolds began the two works in 1844 and so far as we know finished them in 1856. Eighteen fifty-six was three short years before Darwin changed the world by issuing The Origin of Species and making evolution a household word.
By 1856 when the last word of the Mysteries was written Reynolds was already living in the Brave New England whether he knew it or not, and I suspect that he did know. Being wide awake was a new term at the time but I suspect that Reynolds was wide awake. The very face of England was changing as well as tunnels under the Thames. The tunnel probably cost several times what a bridge would have cost and have been more useful.
While writing mysteries of the Court Reynolds turned out twenty other volumes many of great length. Perhaps in the mode of Dumas he was making the maximum use of his time working long and sleeping little. Or, perhaps, as he was accused by Dickens, of employing other writers. Reynolds denies it.
Around him a new crop of novelists were rising, each having become aware of different times and formed by different social conditions. I suspect that although Reynolds remained a best seller throughout the century he became a little old fashioned. Certainly his newspaper kept his name alive and before the public. His politics would always have been ‘avant garde’ although by the turn of the century most of the Chartist demands had been met. The triumph of the Revolution still lay ahead a few years.
Part X a review of The Necromancer follows.
A Review: Atlantida by Pierre Benoit
April 1, 2017
La Maison de la Derniere Cartouche
A Contribution To The ERB
Library Project
A Review: Atlantida
By Pierre Benoit
Review by R.E. Prindle
Pierre Benoit’s excellent novel Atlantida: The Queen Of Atlantis was first published in 1919. Written in French it was translated in 1920 so it is possible that Burroughs read it. There is a possible reference to the book in Tarzan the Invincible, I’ll get to that later. Benoit himself was accused of ‘plagiarizing’ H. Rider Haggard but he defended himself by saying he neither read nor spoke English while Haggard was not translated into French as of 1919.
It matters little as Benoit, Haggard and Burroughs all knew their Greek mythical heritage and all seem to be addressing the male-female conflict from the same intellectual approach derived from that mythology. And they all placed their stories in Africa, a burning question of the day.
The heroine of Benoit’s novel, Antinea, is an irresistible woman along the lines of Haggards She and Homer’s Circe, and Burroughs’ La. All three women rule over lost lands. Antinea lures Aryan men to her to her palace carved from a mountain of the Ahaggar range.
The Ahaggar range, Ahagger is Taureg, the Arabic is Hoggar, is located almost in the middle of the Sahara at what is now the Southern extremity of Algeria. Its highest peak is nearly 10,000 feet in elevation, the whole massif of a half million square kilometers being at the same elavation as Denver, a mile high. Boiling summers and freezing winters and fair moisture.
Antinea having lured the men entrances them and when they no longer amuse her she embalms them alive in a unique metal called Orichalch. Thus, they are preserved forever as they were in life. An advance on all other methods. The question is why does she do this?
The answer is explained by Benoit’s character Mesge:
“Now you know,” he repeated. “You know, but you do not understand.”
Then, very slowly, he said:
“You are as they have been the prisoners of Antinea. And vengeance is due Antinea.”
“Vengeance?” said Morhange…For what, I beg to ask? What have the lieutenant and I done to Atlantis? How have we incurred her hatred?”
It is an old quarrel, a very old quarrel.” The Professor replied gravely. “A quarrel which long antedates you, M. Morhange.”
“Explain yourself, I beg of you, Professor.”
“You are a Man. She is a Woman…the whole matter lies there.”
“Really, sir, I do not see…we do not see.”
“You are going to understand. Have you really forgotten to what an extent the beautiful queens of antiquity had just cause to complain of strangers whom fortune brought to their borders? The poet, Victor Hugo, pictured their detestable acts well enough in his colonial poem called la Fille d’ Otaiti. Wherever we look we see similar examples of fraud and ingratitude. These gentlemen made free use of the beauty and the riches of the lady. Then, one fine morning, they disappeared. She was indeed lucky if her lover, having observed the position carefully did not return with ships and troops of occupation….Think of the cavalier fashion in which Ulysses treated Calypso, Diomedes Callirrhoe. What should I say of Theseus and Ariadne? Jason treated Medea with inconceivable lightness…”
And so on. Thus on page 114 of 229 Benoit explains the nature of his story. Bear in mind that of Circe and Ulysses in which Circe enslaves all the men who approach her and turns them into swine by lust while Ulysses with a pocket full of mole to defend himself resists her charms, maintains his manhood, rescues his sailors and sails away. So, while there are great similarities between Benoit’s, Haggard’s and Burrough’s stories they could easily derive from the same sources; variations on a theme. Of course, Burrough’s La is derived from Haggard’s She. But La is closer to Antinea in method than She. La’s job in Opar is to sacrifice men on the bloody altar. La is also from Atlantis. And all three share the glorious tradition of being too beautiful to resist.
Benoit himself the son of a French diplomat grew up in Tunisia and Algeria where he became acquainted with the desert and its legends. Thus, his story is an authentic addition to the great stories of the African explorers and the fictions of Haggard, Burroughs, Edgar Wallace, Mrs. Hull, P.C. Wren and others.
Benoit charmingly writes his story as current history rather than fiction without any framing story. He includes the Emperor Louis Napoleon and others as well as showing himself familiar with the latest Parisian designers and bon ton retail establishments. He mentions a painting titled La Maison Des Derniers Cartouches which can be found on internet and with which I have headed the review. Translated it means The House of the Last Bullet. I’m sure all his Parisian references are real but they have slipped through the crack of time had have not found a place on the internet.
In this case there is a Captain Avis who is believed to have murdered his fellow, Capt. Morhange and hence is in bad odor. This is the mystery that holds the story together. We learn later how Morhange died. Avit is transferred to a desert post, indeed demanded the transfer, managed by Lieutenant Ferrieres who is about to embark on a mission passing the Ahaggar massif.
Ahaggar Plateau
At the post Saint Avis tells Ferrieres of his strange adventure in the Ahaggar Mountains with Capt. Morhange during which Morhange perishes. The African scenery is different than any of the authors mentioned and the setting is quite spectacular.
Morhange and Avit are caught in a freak storm on the slopes of the Ahaggar, and apparently these are not uncommon on the massif, where they rescued a Taureg from drowning who happens to be the procurer of European men for Antinea. The two soldiers are procured and delivered to the Atlantian Queen.
Somewhat very similar to scenes from Haggard’s She they are conducted to a great room or hall where fifty some embalmed former lovers stand in niches. The truth descends on our sexual warriors.
Morhange who, being the more handsome and impressive of the two, finds favor with the Queen of Atlantis also, not unlike Ulysses and Circe, is proof to her blandishments and beauty. What he had is his pocket isn’t mentioned. His refusal eventually enrages Antinea. Without going into details, Antinea hypnotizes Avit into taking her large silver hammer with which she bangs her gong and giving Morhange such a good bash it cracks the man’s skull to pieces. Thus she solves her problem of being rejected by Morhange.
A digression here. Benoit here shows off is knowledge. Amazingly I was able to get it. In Paris at the time there was a theatre called The Grand Guignol. It was a place of horrors, a sadists delight, at which all kinds of gruesome murders, mutilations and disfigurations were enacted. Apparently the scenes were so realistic that the faint hearted actually fainted and a doctor was kept on the premises to deal with these frequent occurrences. Now, a guignol is something like a puppets booth. Benoit has Avit climb into a guignol in Antinea’s boudoir where he watches the horror of Morhange being dismissed after which Antinea calls his down, hypnotizes him, hands him the silver hammer, directs him to Morhange’s room and watches as Avit cracks his friend’s skull. The horror, the horror. So Benoit demonstrates he is au courant with Paris’ entertainments.
Avit then turns to thoughts of escape. Here Benoit displays a certain genius in moving his story along.
Antinea had a slave girl named Tanit Zerga who became enamored of Avit and also wishes to escape to return to her people. She organizes the escape attempt. As it turns out she is a princess also, of the Trarzan Moors on the North side of the Senegal River. Bear in mind that everything mentioned in the story is real except the story itself. The Trarzan Moors exist to this day and of course the Senegal is one of the great rivers of Africa. The history is within the realm of fact. Only the story and its leading characters are fiction. Benoit does not spare the reader his knowledge. The man has been around.
The pair are assisted by the procurer rescued by Avit in the storm. He is quite willing to help because he tells Avit he will be back, no one who has ever known Antinea can escape her charms. All the victims in the hall had died of love.
Here’s a Burroughs connection indicating he may have read the book. Tanit Zerga resembles Nao, the fourteen year old girl who rescues Wayne Colt in Tarzan the Invincible only to be discarded coldly as were the heroines mentioned. It would be pushing it too far to claim Burroughs did read the book but he often got his scenes and incidents from other authors so I’m about three fourths convinced.
At any rate Tanit Zerga dies in the desert carrying on Benoit’s theme of women making sacrifices for ungrateful men.
The story then returns to the Foreign Legion camp of Ferrieres as he and Saint Avit are to make a trip across the desert passing the Ahaggar massif. As prophesied, to know Antinea is to love her forever, and her lovers all died from love, so he intends to return to the Ahaggar’s and his certain death. Whether Ferrieres will accompany him is left open.
The book was a slow starter but one is gradually swept along almost as a participant as the storm increases. A very exciting conclusion. Benoit’s is a very worthy book for Bibliophiles. If it wasn’t in Burroughs’ library it must have been through neglect or loss. Highly recommended.
Pierre Benoit 1932
Vol. I, Clip 3: The Vampyres Of New York
December 28, 2015
Book I, Clip 3
The Vampyres Of New York
A Novel
by
R.E. Prindle
If you haven’t experienced that kind of mental agony you don’t know. I tossed and turned all afternoon and into the night. My brain was racked but not with pain. It was like all the connections had come loose and I had no control of my mental processes. There was no way to concentrate, to organize my thoughts to possibly think or be rational. It was like three fevers without temperature racking around in my brain.
I was exhausted and then possibly at one in the morning I heard a knocking. I sat up in bed wondering who in the world it could be. Then I heard Gaines again: Hello, I’m back. Let’s talk.
Well, Gaines! Of course I knew what was happening then. I was at that level of experience and conditioning between the birth process and more conscious experience. I had already cleared out the most compelling of my childhood fixations at forty-two when I integrated my personality. That freed me from compulsions and inhibitions but I gradually learned that there was another layer of control or influence yet beyond my reach. Gaines had now shown up so it was possible to free myself from that psychological layer. Small comfort at eighty but then few if any become so clear. Freud and Jung certainly never attained it. I flattered myself that I could be unique. The first of the New Men. Don’t smile, it was a pleasant thought.
This wasn’t the first incident of interior dialogue my mind had spoken to itself. I heard what they call voices back in my early teens. Of course like St. Augustine I had been convinced that one could talk to God. Unlike Augustine I wasn’t crazy enough to persist when God couldn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know when I asked.
And then back then I heard voices telling me to do inappropriate things like Kill your mother and Chuckles but I shut them up; I wasn’t to going to jail for any reason. And now, here was Gaines a more or less rational entity who would try to convince me to do evil I was certain. As in primeval days I was attached to the God Principle while Gaines was representing the Satanic Principle.
He seemed to be lodged in the right hemisphere just behind and above that ear. This puzzled me somewhat as I would have thought he would have been part of my Animus or Ego that being the male side of the brain; instead he was on my female side.
Then I realized that when Gaines had taken up a primal position in my consciousness I was sitting on the back steps of the Orphanage. When my mother had put me in the Orphanage and had walked away she had created this space in my mind, this psychological layer. Gaines and his evil comic books was therefore associated with my mother. Oh yes, my mother. Sometimes I wish I had heeded those early voices and offed both her and Chuckles. Chuckles, that mean assed bastard, was her second husband. They married when I was ten and I then came out of the Orphanage.
Well, you know, as I always told myself, you have to play the hand you’re dealt. I think I can say without comment that I played that lousy hand well. Here I was in New York City, the capital of the world, in a thirty million dollar apartment. Gaines wasn’t going to be a problem, after all, he was me and I was him. I had the upper hand with the God Principle on my side while Gaines might as well have been Abe Goldbladder of the Satanic Principle. I will discuss that more in my presentation to the New Serapion Brethren.
I was inside my skull with Gaines but my mind had cleared up, I might as well get started.
‘So, Gaines, what brings you here?’ A silly question because I already knew the answer. Still, in order to extinguish him I had to play along. However I did think it necessary to call in my old psycho-analyst Dr. Anton Polarion as an assist.
Who is Dr. Anton? I’m embarrassed to say this because then you might think I really am crazy. But that’s alright, I may be.
Dr. Anton Polarion came around several years ago when I was deep in my psychological studies. I was working a number of fields of study and I needed someone to handle the psychology for me when I was working another field. It was then I thought up Dr. Anton giving him the responsibility for memorizing and developing psychology.
I know it sounds kind of crazy but it’s not. Dr. Anton was and is a memory aide. If you read up on the art of memory you will learn that in Greek and Roman times people constructed memory palaces of many rooms extensively furnished and then assigned memories to various rooms and objects in order to more conveniently record them, prodigious feats of memory are recorded. Oh alright, but I wasn’t going to wander around a Memory Palace trying to find various rooms and objects with their assigned memories so I just handed the job to an imagined Dr. Anton rather than a Memory Palace. You can understand that can’t you? Seems reasonable enough to me but you never know what other people will think. Anyway Dr. Anton knows whereof he speaks. So when it comes to hearing voices it was now two to one against Gaines and I had another Ace or two up my sleeve.
I was loaded for bear and I was sure I could kick Gaines’ ass. Still, I had to hear Gaines out.
‘So Gaines, as I said, what brings you here?’
‘I’ve got some good advice for you,’ said Gaines.
‘Knowing who you are Gaines I doubt it could be good.’
‘Oh ho, you think you know who I am do you? Who am I?’
‘This will take some time Gaines but you’ve got as much as I do. I’ve been waiting for you for a long time. Your showing up here, now, puts things in place. I’m going to call in Dr. Anton for support. You know who he is don’t you Gaines?’
‘Of course, of course. I know as well as you know me. Hello Anton, welcome to the conversation.’
Anton: Hello Gaines. Well, let’s get started.
Partly: The key here is the Orphanage and me sitting on the back step reading Tales From The Crypt. That was one sado-masochistic piece Gaines with a certain portrayal of women. Strangely that portrayal was reminiscent of my mother. It is between you and my mother that this psychology revolves around.
Anton: Yes, your mother transferred her hatred of your father to you after she had put him away and tried to destroy any happiness for you. It is no coincidence that after she had your father committed to the asylum she committed you to the Orphanage. Of course, she had ‘good reasons’ for doing so but they weren’t the real reasons. When you turned eighteen she thought she had you again, enlisting you in the Navy and having you shipped off somewhere where she would never have to see you to remind her of her crime against your father. Thus the association of your mother, sado-masochism and Gaines.
Gaines also provides your connection to the Jews although that application came later in life. The content of Gaines’ comics, the sado-masochism, is part of the Jewish Weltanschauung that Freud expressed so well and it is that that Judaicized you, making the Jewish culture part of your own. It is that part, this Satanic consciousness that drags your spirit down causing your chronic low depression. We’ll try to shake it here but it may now be integral to your mentality.
Leaving Gaines for a moment the pre-Gaines component was your mother’s extreme selfishness. Of course your mother was three months gone when she married your father. This didn’t create so much guilt as anger. She held your father responsible preventing her from doing whatever she thought she would be doing later. You were born in 1938 in the depths of the Great Depression.
Jobs were not easy to come by and although your father was a good provider, that is you had a roof over your head and a shack to live in, even so your father ran out of jobs so he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps and went to work planting forests. He was a good man; he sent most of his money to your mother. She unfortunately as you would learn was not a good woman.
It is difficult at this point to retrieve her motivation but she got laid in the back of a Chevrolet in the parking lot of a grocery store as you know well, Perry. She became pregnant with the little bastard palmed off to you as your brother. A child of sin he has always remained so. A point came where the pregnancy could no longer be concealed.
Needless to say the realization made your father angry. In an attempt to learn the culprit he began to punch her out. In the way of women she was stout refusing to give up his name. Your father said things like ‘I am out working CCC to provide for you and you’re out, words that were unintelligible to you. Do you remember that Partly?
Partly: Yes I do.
Anton: Less than two and half and you remember! What a memory Perry. The bastard was born, your father left and you saw him only once more several months later. Do you know what happened to him?
Me: No. Never saw him again after that last time.
Dr. Anton: Your mother had him committed to the insane asylum and he lived there all his life and died there.
Gaines: Wait a minute, wait a minute. You can’t know anything he doesn’t Anton. Where’s this coming from?
Dr. Anton: Just as you have been suppressed until now Gaines so has the knowledge I’m now revealing. It came in bits and pieces and I have put it all together. Partly is just now realizing it.
Where was I? Yes, committing him was a sadistic act on the part of a guilty woman. But it didn’t stop there Partly. To assuage her guilt while indulging her sadism she had removed her husband but you, a reminder of her crime, remained. She transferred her affection to her bastard and set out to torture and frustrate you. You remember the nightmares you had in high school where your mother was constantly betraying you? That was a subconscious recognition of what you wouldn’t allow yourself to acknowledge but still you knew.
The Orphanage was just four blocks from your grandparents house where you were living. She had to know the effect it would have on your mentality, you certainly did, but just as she had put her husband away in an asylum she put his memory away in another institution, the Orphanage.
Do you remember this Partly?
Me: Sure Anton, I remember but not as clearly and well organized as you do.
Dr. Anton: You’d be a better man for learning it although at eighty who gives a shit. You’ll take it to your grave soon enough.
Me: That’s alright Anton, I’ll die, as you say, a better man.
Anton: So your mother dropped you off and you were led away just like in prison or the asylum but with slightly better conditions. And thus you began to become who you used to be before your personality integration that introduced this current phase of your life at forty-two.
You became quite independent in that harrowing situation of the Orphanage. Fate left that copy of Tales From The Crypt lying on that little porch and a pain equal to your being abandoned seared your soul again striking through your subconscious to the structural level here. You were no longer a free man but controlled from, for lack of a better term, your subconscious. I don’t know how you made it through but here you are.
Your mother’s remarriage to the maniac Chuckles who was a match for your mother’s sadism nearly destroyed you during those eight long years until graduation. Enough of that for now. Let’s deal with Gaines here.
Me: Can we get rid of him?
Gaines: Hell no!
Dr. Anton: He is unfortunately part of the warp and woof of your personality but I’m pretty certain we can modify it and reduce his Satanic level considerably.
Gaines: Over my dead body.
Dr. Anton: Preferably Gaines, that is what we’re shooting for.
With that I collapsed back into my pillow exhausted but calmer with less of a feverish feeling. I was breathing somewhat heavily. I knew that this was a significant psychological event that had not yet achieved resolution and I was afraid to lose the thread. After about an hour Dr. Polarion returned. Anton was not an alter ego as Gaines but functioned more as a guardian angel, a good spirit so I welcomed him.
‘We’ve got to handle Gaines Partly.’
‘Yes. What is your suggestion Anton?’
‘This. It seems that Gaines is functioning as a node for a constellation of similar events. The two obvious strands of the constellation are he, that is your Jewish experience, and your mother. The first step must be to disentangle your mother and put her into her own constellation to be dealt with later. You already have a decent handle on her.
That leaves Gaines and your Jewish experience which is a distinct constellation which when knowledgeable about it you’ve done a lot a preparatory groundwork but certain resolutions are still necessary. That constellation has to be distended into its planetary elements so that each can be identified and dispensed with.
In addition there may be other elements concealed within or behind the constellation of which we have yet no knowledge. Time will tell.
And then there is what Gaines wants you to do which is why he’s made his appearance now. We’ll have to listen and go from there. You and I do understand that what he wants is going to be ridiculous and dangerous.
Me: OK Anton, your analysis is good and I do have a good idea what Gaines wants; I’ve also got my arguments ready and can direct him. But, God, this is painful.
Anton: Yes Partly, self-realization can be trying and I’m sure you’re in agony. You remember Hubert Selby the fellow who wrote his novel Last Exit To Brooklyn?
Me: Oh sure, Anton. Very interesting story. He was probing his mind to write his story. That once when he came up against a particularly painful remembrance it shattered him so that he had to take to his bed for a week writhing in agony. I can’t afford the time for that now. I have things to do and fields to plow.
Anton: You may have more than you think Partly. Get some rest and I’ll get Gaines back here in an hour or so. Control your feelings.
With images of Jekyll and Hyde in my fitful dreams was the titanic struggle of the Shadow with evil and the images of Superman and Clark Kent. Good must triumph over evil although it might not be as clear cut a victory as one might hope.
Just before dawn Dr. Polarion returned and shortly thereafter I heard Gaines’ Hello, I’m here.
Me: Alright Gaines. I’m ready.
Anton had already disentangled my mother from the constellational complex so he and I were dealing with just the Gaines/Jewish constellation. In that obscured constellation other traumas wouldn’t be clear at this time.
‘What’s up Gaines?’ Anton asked quietly with an implied menace that he wasn’t going to listen to nonsense.
Gaines: Why so hostile Doctor Polarion.
Anton: We know what you’re up to Gaines. I have to tell you that we know who you are and where you’ve come from so your Satanic power is negated.
Gaines: Oh, aren’t we clever. What is my pedigree Dr. Polarion?
Anton: Simply this: You infected Partly’s mind on that stoop of the Orphanage with your sado-masochistic claptrap. Partly only semi-consciously took in the sado-masochistic sexuality without knowledge of sex, he had to repress your Satanic influence and with some few exceptions he did. As he knew nothing of Jews and your own Jewishness that puzzling aspect of your Satanity was filed away for future reference. In the meantime following Jewish propaganda he was conditioned to revere Jews and did so.
Then in winter of nineteen fifty-eight in a fit of sado-masochistic lunacy the Jews pre-empted all TV channels at the same time on Saturday prime time and broadcast the most incredible pornographic sado-masochistic program imaginable. An hour of graphic snuff films depicting naked dead bodies being pushed about by bulldozers. The sexual implications were horrendous. While secretly fascinated Partly was resentful of the Jews for pushing this atrocity on him. Without articulating it to himself he was fatally disgusted. Also without noticing it he associated the ‘entertainment’ with you Gaines.
Gaines: I’m disgusting?
Anton: Eminently. Now, there comes an incident that was let slip by almost without recognition. Partly’s wife, now deceased, came from a Jewish background on her mother’s side; the father was nominally Catholic. The mother wanted a Jewish wedding while fearing that Partly would object. The venue was unimportant to Partly, in fact, with his Jewish conditioning he got a little thrill from it.
However to the Jews the notion that a Jewish girl would marry a, what they considered Christian boy, was anathema to them. Her parents approached all the synagogues in the East Bay but there was only one Rabbi in the East Bay that would consent to marry the couple. This was brought about by the intervention of his wife’s mother’s sister whose family was a prominent supporter of the synagogue. Even so the rabbi insisted on an interview with Partly.
As I say, Gaines, Partly had no religious scruples to marrying into a religious family, not quite true, he would never have married Catholic, and thought to be amiable with the rabbi. Both Partly and his wife were above religion despising them as relics from a primitive age. While Partly tried to be amiable the rabbi didn’t. Partly talked to the rabbi man to man while the rabbi as all rabbis do exalted his position believing as a Talmudic scholar that that worthless information placed him not only above Partly or his fellow Jews but all humanity and most of the angels. Resenting Partly’s familiarity he insulted Partly grievously as not worthy of a Jewish girl while being a Christian dog or words to that effect. At that point his respect for the Jews, intense conditioning or no, vanished.
This event was constellated with you Gaines and the TV atrocity to negate any positive feeling he had for the Jews. A couple decades of propaganda was wiped out in an instant. Partly’s future unpleasant relations with Jews will appear subsequently.
So that’s who you are Gaines. Satan on a stick.
Gaines: Yeah, well Dr. Polarion I know where Partly lives. I know he has suffered insults, injuries and indignities from many quarters including the ones you mentioned and I know this: He wants revenge. Who do you go to when you want revenge? Satan, baby, Satan. And here I am.
Anton: True, Partly?
Me: No. It’s true I have a lot of resentments but they’re from assholes and assholes can’t help being assholes; if they could they wouldn’t be assholes so one has to ignore them. It’s their cross to bear and I enjoy watching them be assholes. If Gaines thinks he’s going to lure me into criminal activity he’s not here.
Gaines: Kiss my ass Partly. Social unrest is developing rapidly, exponentially day to day. There are hundreds of racial and religious, what the authorities are pleased to call murders rather than the acts of war they are happening every week.
I know Partly that you were trained by your experiences to be a serial killer. You know it. I don’t know how you’ve resisted up to this time but now is the time to indulge those resentments. Not only are the cops overburdened trying to deal with all the killing and raping going on but they’re afraid to leave the station. Whole cities are no go zones for them. They’ll never identify you, never track you down. Come on buddy, let your inner Mr. Hyde see some light. Now’s the time for your revenge.
Me: I think you’re right about the time being the right time Gaines but remember that Vengeance is mine saith the Lord. I’ve learned that it is true.
Gaines: Vengeance is mine saith the Lord? Listen to this guy. Are you putting me on Partly?
Me: Certainly not Gaines, certainly not. Remember you were kicked out of heaven for the religious offence of chutzpah. God stuck his boot up your ass and down you came. You always tempt men to their destruction by exploiting their own weaknesses. If I were to act in revenge I would surely be caught. Even at eighty I don’t want to be thought of as a criminal.
Gaines: No, you don’t want to be thought of as a criminal. Here’s a tip for you Partly…
Anton: I…
Gaines: You stay out of this Anton, this is between Partly and me.
As above, so below, right Partly? God’s will is supposed to prevail on earth as in heaven, right?
Me: I’m not religious but the Bible does say so. What’s your point?
Gaines: As a lawbreaker I was kicked out of heaven, right. If so, then it is God’s will that I be persecuted on earth also, isn’t it?
Me: Well, you have to believe the Bible.
Gaines: No, you don’t. Freud replaced the Bible but as a Jew he follows the Bible’s rhetoric. Freud and I are one and not only am I part of your mind but Freud is too. That’s one of my attributes that Anton the so-called psychologist forgot to mention. So, if it is God’s will that it is to be on earth as it is in heaven then it is permissible to punish Satanic practices as he punished me isn’t it? As a God fearing person it is imperative that you do so.
Well, there was a thought. The Jews consider themselves God’s viceroys on Earth and that they are doing God’s will by forcing his, or theirs really on the rest of mankind, punishing those who resist, that is anti-Semites. It was a tough argument to counter while Gaines had cleverly appealed to my suppressed desires. Anton was no help at this point.
Me: To punish is vengeance Gaines and as I say Vengeance is the Lord’s. Therefore I cannot punish Gaines, however there is the question of justice, lawbreakers should not be allowed the fruit of their crimes with impunity.
As we know God has no temporal means to effect his will on earth so he must use intermediaries as his chosen vessels hence the Jews claim to be that vessel. However if God spoke to the Jews then he can speak to me. Thus if like Saint Augustine I were to hear his voice enjoining me to administer His justice on earth as he does in heaven, that is kicking Satan off the earth then I could obey his will and be judge, jury and executioner here on earth as the Jews consider themselves. Well, Gaines, that is a thought I will have to give consideration.
Gaines: Yes it is. Further…
Anton: Hold, hold it, stop Gaines. Be gone. Hold up Partly, we have to think about this. Later Gaines, later. Go.
And with a sly wink at me Gaines wandered away. He would be back, of course. But he had given me something to think about. I knew I was going to think about it too and as Gaines knew I would rationalize his suggestion into reality but only in a ‘legal’ manner.
Anton just looked at me and shook his head. He knew what was coming. So did I but neither of us could as yet admit it.
-IV-
Once again I lay back exhausted. Still I had to get to work. In an agitated state of mind I reviewed the correcting of my piece for the New Serapion Brethren that I was titling The Vampyres Of New York. I had put some preliminary thoughts up on the internet so I was searching Vampyres Of New York when I was startled to find that there was an actual group called The Vampyres Of New York that claimed to be a worldwide organization. Its spokesman was some guy calling himself Father Sebastian. He was a young guy who would have been further ahead claiming to be Brother Sebastian; in another thirty years he might pass for a father.
Anything associating itself with vampirism had to be Satanic while the guy was absolutely touting himself as a religion. The crude Satanism of the nineteen sixties was obviously morphing into an attempt at a universal religion. This was a far cry from the historian Arnold Toynbee’s cry for a new universal religion to replace Christianity. Gaines was obviously right about the Satanism in Freud being a part of me but apparently the drive was to make Freudianism the basis of a new religion. Thus as Christianity as a Jewish based religion had represented the Godly Principle so Freud as a Jewish based religion would represent the Satanic Principle.
This was a revelation to me that while new I would have to try to work into my essay. I had to think about it a little so while I was thinking I tinkered around working out disguises. Having seen street activity for a couple weeks now I was uneasy walking around in my own skin; I didn’t want to become that well known.
So, as I thought I tried out mustaches, wigs, glasses, different outfits, so I could walk the streets so as not to become obvious. But, time was passing and I was driven back to my writing desk. I wanted to avoid Gaines as long as possible so I put in some long sessions hoping I would be so tired when I went to sleep that that bastard Gaines wouldn’t be called up. I was successful for the week left before going to Farquhar’s.
I was a day ahead of the deadline so I went out to get a couple two or three bottles of wine to take along. Wanted to show I was a regular guy. I am a regular guy but usually not that regular. Boy, NYC is an alkie’s paradise. What a fabulous selection of spirits. I don’t drink much but in my earlier days I could do a limited justice to the bottle. In those days I favored brandy. Really good stuff if you’re going to drink. Oh lord, if I had known then what New York showed my now I might have been the man who never returned.
I wasn’t after liquor though I wanted wine so I asked for and got bottles of Ramey’s Claret. Ramey is a good Napa Valley vintner while his claret is moderately priced and more than good enough, excellent in fact. The vintage was 2014 that particularly dry year and of small berries. Excellent, I thought it should go over. I’d had it before and it really is a great vintage.
For dress I wore a 1960 vintage sport coat I bought at a second hand store. Nothing was ready at James Carter and I had tried Lord and Taylor and other stores but none was showing other than those idiotic short jackets cut small and I thought I looked a heck of a lot better. Charles Tyrwhitt shirt, one of their higher priced dark blue and white mini stripes, black in a low light. So what’s a boy to do? Ralph Lauren had turned ludicrous after he left.
Ragnar drove me and my bottles of wine up to fifty-second street off Madison to Farquhar’s condo, very good, twelfth floor. As I entered the building an explosion went off maybe three blocks away in some direction I couldn’t determine. Somebody was acting up, hard to tell who. It was beginning to happen fairly regularly. Cops weren’t catching anybody. So many people and organizations were claiming credit for these things it must have been a nightmare investigating these things using only electronics.
As these things were getting more frequent they didn’t even make the headlines in New York while except for certain sites on the internet the rest of the country was totally ignorant of them. The permanent Obama administration was still trying to explain them away as the work of domestic terrorists, actually by now the terrorists were domestic although not so-called White Supremacists. If by Global terrorists it was only just that we should be bombed as was said and that brought the thought of Gaines back as Lessing was rattling the locks on the other side of the door.
Once that ritual was completed I was admitted into a small foyer with a second door and a number of locks which were only locked at night or when Lessing was away. The door was now open for which I was grateful.
Through the second door one entered directly into a large living room, perhaps eight hundred square feet cutting straight through the apartment to the floor to ceiling windows that looked into the windows across the street unfortunately.
The room was comfortably decorated with expensive furniture but not the costliest. The usual New York abstracts, tasteful, were on the wall facing lovely floor to ceiling bookshelves admirably stocked. Books do furnish a room, don’t they?
I was the last to arrive. Seated, looking at me with expectant bemused expressions were Max Savings, Mark Giusty and Baron Cammell the other members of the New Serapion Brethren. Lessing was apparently a bachelor or, as I was to find, a widower.
As I could see I was the oldest of the four. Lessing was seventy-two but still in his prime. How well I remember being fourteen and finding the age of seventy incomprehensible as young people still do. While even people in their thirties and forties expect people of seventy or eighty to be decrepit. Most of us aren’t. Certainly Lessing and I were in full vigor. Diet helps, three or four years earlier I had been compelled to give up my sugar diet, and I mean I love sugar, and that and an improved diet recharged me considerably.
Lessing was more robust than I being taller, probably six-two and bigger boned. He was filled out but not fat or even heavy looking, his face like mine was unlined while he had a full head of white hair as did I although mine was removable and his wasn’t. He showed a little surprise as I was nearly bald at our two previous encounters.
Lessing introduced me to Max Savings who was small, perhaps five-six, and slight. Max was the youngest at sixty-two. He was dressed like an undertaker, had a slightly weasely face with a pointed nose. He had a sharp intelligence.
Marc Giusty was Italian standing a half inch or so below me, seventy years old, still athletic looking, spent a couple hours a day in the gym as I was to learn, lean and long headed in the Italian manner, thin mustache and good features.
Last to be introduced was Baron Cammell. Baron was his first name and not a title. He would prove to be the most difficult member of the group for me.
By the time I was finished with the introductions Max had a bottle of claret open and the glasses filled. Well, you know, two fingers. One sips, this was a cultured group no full water glasses at one gulp. We accepted our glasses and looking at each other took a sip.
Lessing: Oh, very nice.
Marc: Yes. Haven’t seen the label before.
Baron: (Sniffing slightly.) Yes, quite distinctive.
Max: (Smiling.) Enough said.
Me: Yes, well, Ramey apprenticed for many years in France before setting up in Napa. I like Bordeaux style blend and claret hits the spot for me after reading all those old English novels where claret and wine were synonymous. I like this one. So, we’re all ETA Hoffmann admirers, um?
Lessing: Yes, we are that. By way of curiosity Perry, how did you come to Hoffmann.
Me: Oh, you want my origin story as the comic books say? OK Lessing, I’ve got one. I’ll do this in the best comic book style. It was a dark and stormy day back in the middle of the last century when a thirty-six year man shoulders hunched against the cold and rain looked into a shop window. Perceiving it was a book store he being a bibliophile pushed the door open. A blast of warm air hit him as heads turned to look at the stranger. The man glanced casually about at the few inside, mostly help, with no particular object in mind. His attention was caught by a slip cased set of two. Always a sucker for so-called special editions he picked it up to examine it. ‘Hmm…’ he mused to himself, ‘Selected Writings Of Hoffmann? Hoffmann who?’ Extracted, Vol. I read from the title page, E.T.A. Hoffmann The Tales. The man had heard of ETA Hoffmann spoken of most highly and of course he knew of Offenbach’s opera Tales Of Hoffmann. Twelve dollars and fifty cents. OK.
Tucking the parcel under his arm under his coat and lowering his head against the blast he proceeded down the street. I was that man.
Me: There you go Lessing and an identical copy can be found on your bookshelf right over there.
Ha, ha, ha came as a chorus from the four men: Nicely done, Perry, nicely done.
‘The lad shows promise, doesn’t he?’ said Lessing.
Max Savings: This could prove interesting.
Me: And since then then I’ve added a dozen volumes filling out, I think, what’s available in English except for that magnificent nineteenth century volume you have on your shelf.’
Lessing: That one. I’m quite proud of that find. I tramped London looking for that one. But you have never reviewed Hoffmann on your site Perry, how come?
Me. I don’t feel adequately prepared Lessing. I have added a number of Romantic writers to my library in the last four years, Kleist, Tieck and like that but nothing in the way of critical reviews so I don’t think I’m prepared to speak authoritatively. And I still have to read Goethe, the key Romantic. If you’ve read my stuff you probably are aware that I speak without concern of contradiction. I can’t do that with Hoffmann yet. So, if I may ask, give me a thumbnail of yourselves.
Lessing: I’m host so I might as well go first. The salient point is that I spent my career practicing law, mainly real estate and financial issues. That is an area where much of the money sticks to the lawyer and I am in a comfortable situation as you can see having made my share or more of the money stick to me. Although remunerative I found the law and its cases fairly loathsome so as soon as I felt financially independent I left all that behind and turned my attention to what I loved much as you have Perry. Much more rewarding.
Max Savings: I’m not quite so financially independent as Lessing and still at my desk at Chase. I certainly am not so accomplished literarily as you and Lessing but I squeeze in time in an effort to keep up.
Marc Giusty: I was a university prof all my working life, loved it at Columbia uptown here. History was my subject. Unfortunately I was just a yeoman and not a star. I wrote a few papers for academic publications and a couple slim volumes that disappeared down the memory hole but allowed me to keep my position. By the way, this is a nice wine.
Me: Glad I chose to your taste. And you Baron.
Baron: I’m somewhat of a polymath, expert in several fields. I’m working on a unified field theory to arrange the liberal arts in a chronology with commentary. That’s all you need know of me.
Me: Quite so, quite so. Now that we’ve been introduced and had a little wine what say I begin my presentation? I’m anxious for your opinion and hope to please.
Lessing: That sounds right. What is the title of your presentation Perry?
Me: I call it The Vampyres Of New York.
I noticed a little uneasiness in the Brethren at the title. Lessing spoke:
Is this a vampire story, Perry? I thought the understanding was that we present historical essays.
Me: Exactly Lessing. But lesser known aspects, other sides so to speak and that is what mine is. Don’t let the title throw you. By the way as you’re not looking at the paper I spell vampire v-a-m-p-y-r-e. I chose the spelling to indicate a difference from a Dracula type blood vampire. My essay will concern what is known as psychic vampires. When I was searching Vampyres Of New York on the internet to see if my first couple of posts had registered yet I was surprised to find that there is actually an organization called The Vampyres Of New York, spelled with a Y.
I was further astonished that it claims to be worldwide although the claim seems a little dubious. At any rate the possible leader is a guy calling himself Father Sebastian who divides his time between New York and Paris.
As you know since the first Disney version of Star Wars a recent religion has sprung up based on the concept of the Force and whatever. It seems probable that the Vampyre organization is a type of Satanic religion too. This brings to mind that after the challenge to the Jewish religion in the West after the Scientific Revolution following the Enlightenment the Western Jewish religion under the Scientific challenge dissolved into a number of splinter religions seeking a center. The center of course came from the East and was called Zionism so that Judaism with some atavism and Zion are one.
Christianity has taken longer to find a new center but under the influence of nineteenth and twentieth century Satanism we may be seeing a jelling into some form of a universal Satanic religion. It is something to bear in mind. So my historical investigation is concerned with the Jewish and Christian religious disintegration of the previous two centuries under some sort of vampiric influence. Is that alright? It won’t offend any sensibilities?
Lessing: If it is historical we have no objections.
Me: Alright. I’m pretty sure this will be a different approach to what you’re used to so I have a prologue explaining the difference between a Dracula type Vampirism and psychic Vampyrism which will concern us. This is longish but not hugely long so fill your glasses and sit back. It is written out so feel free to interrupt at any time for explanations or comments, discussions or whatever.
OK? I begin: The Vampyres Of New York.
Clip 4 following contains the text of Vampyres Of New York.
I, Dynamo 