Dennis Wheatley - The Satanist

Leaning forward across the little table he went on, 'I haf now judge you and believe you are ripe for advancement. But first answer me plees. Question one. After what I haf tell you ees it still your earnest wish to receive enlightenment?�

Mary could now smell again the sweetish bad-lobster odour of his breath, but she showed no sign of the queasy feeling it gave her, and she replied firmly, 'It certainly is.'

'Question two. Do you agree to giff your whole will to developing your mind to a state in weech power can be entrusted to you?'

'Yes,' she nodded. 'To be given occult power is my dearest wish.'

'Question three. To achieve that are you willing to surrender yourself absolutely to Our Lord Satan for the furtherance off His work - the bringing off happiness to those who follow Him?' Again she said, 'Yes.'

'Good, very good,' he purred, much to her relief sitting back and sparing her further distress from the ill-conditioned interior of his fat little paunch. 'I haf instinct about you. I was right. And now I give you pleasant surprise. Tonight ees Saturday. It ees on Saturdays that my Lodge holds its meetings. You will not be made initiate tonight. No; not yet. Not till you haf seen for yourself something off the ancient mysteries. After, perhaps you feel fear to go on. Then ees still time to withdraw. Such decision show only that, after all, you are not yet ready to accept full truth. No harm done. But if after you again affirm will to proceed at a future meeting I introduce you as neophyte.'

Suddenly he again sat forward, and the hard little brown eyes behind the pebble glasses bored into hers. 'One thing more. You will mention never to anyone what you haf seen. Should you do that we will know off it. The ear off Our Lord Satan misses nothing. You would do better to commit suicide than live to face His retribution.'

'I ... yes. I quite understand,' she said in a low voice. 'It is very good of you indeed to give me this opportunity of ... of advancing along the true Path. Whereabouts is the meeting being held?'

He stood up. 'Until you become initiate, that I must keep secret from you. But soon I am now hoping that you will be a Sister off the Ram. If so, you will haf had great good fortune that it ees my Lodge that you join. For this year it ees granted power greater than all others, because the Great Ram has come to us from distant land to act temporarily as our earthly Master.'

After the unspecified but terrible fate with which Ratnadatta had threatened her should she betray them, Mary had been seized with sudden panic. Already she had made up her mind that, even if she failed to secure any evidence that they were connected with Teddy's death, but found that they were actively engaged in evil practices, she would give chapter and verse about them to Colonel Verney. Yet the threat brought to her mind the powers they might possess. It seemed certain, at least, that among them would be clairvoyants of far greater abilities than the sort of semi-amateur she had seen crystal gazing the first time she had gone to a meeting at Mrs. Wardeel's; and, perhaps, true mediums. If they were capable of overlooking her and traced her to Colonel Verney that might really place her in danger of her life.

The thought of the Colonel brought back to her the warning he had given her about the seriousness of the risk she would be running if she attempted to penetrate the secrets of a Black Magic circle; and Barney, too, had shown acute concern at the idea of her doing so. Although she had refused to recognise it before, she knew that they were right, and that it was madness for her to pit her wits against a whole group of clever, unscrupulous people who, she was now persuaded, could call on evil occult forces to aid them. Swiftly she began to seek an excuse by which she could back out while there was still time.

But with equal suddenness to the panic which had seized her, a memory now flashed into her mind. It was of one of Teddy's worst nightmares. In all of them he had muttered and raved, mostly incoherently, about Satan and hell, and even such absurdities as being chased by a black imp, but sometimes he cried out short sentences aloud. Once, just before she had woken him, he had shouted, 'The Ram! The Great Ram! Smoke is coming from him! He must be the Devil!'

At the time, she had hardly registered the words, taking them for just one more of Teddy's nightmare fantasies. But now, following on what Ratnadatta had said only a few moments before, they came back to her. And they made sense. The Great Ram was a man; the Master of Ratnadatta's Lodge. Here was the proof of what she had previously only suspected. Ratnadatta was the Indian Teddy had mentioned in his ravings and had taken him to the place where she believed he had met his death.

Like a bugle call rallying the remnants of a decimated squadron of cavalry to charge again, the knowledge that she had really hit on the right track caused strength and determination to flow back into her. Now, whatever might happen to her she knew that she must go through with it.

CHAPTER VI THE SATANIC TEMPLE

Ten minutes later Mary was again in a taxi with the Indian. He had spoken to the driver in so low a voice that she had been unable to overhear it; so she knew only that they were going in a northerly direction. Then, when the taxi had carried them only a few hundred yards, he produced a clean white handkerchief from his pocket, folded it carefully on his fat knees, and turning to her said:

'I haf told you that the place off meeting must be kept secret from you until you become initiate. Plees now, I put bandage over your eyes.'

Relieved, at least, that as he leaned towards her she had an excuse for turning her head away from him, she submitted, holding the handkerchief in place while he tied its ends behind over her brown dyed hair.

After the taxi had taken a few turnings she lost all sense of direction, and the drive seemed to her to last a long time; but, during it, she was saved from becoming a prey to nervous speculation by Ratnadatta's carrying on what almost amounted to a monologue upon matters of such interest that it soon engaged her mind.

His theme was ancient religions and, although Mary's knowledge of them was decidedly sketchy, she had read sufficiently to appreciate that the views he expressed threw a new, even if distorted, light on many things.

He explained to her that, just as the early Christians had been forced to go underground to avoid persecution by the government in Rome, so, when Christianity had later gained a hold on other governments, the followers of the Old religion had had to seek safety from the laws enacted against them by going underground. He said that the word 'witchcraft' had originally been 'wisecraft', derived from 'craft-of-the-wise', and that the belief that witches and wizards were necessarily evil people was a most mistaken one. Some had been charlatans, but a high percentage of them had been people who had passed through many incarnations, were initiates who understood the great truths, and so enjoyed occult power. And it was the recognition that they wielded such powers, and fear of them by the ignorant Christian priests, which had led to their persecution.

He then talked to her of the heavenly bodies, the influence they exerted on human beings, and how those influences could be made use of to further the interests of initiates who had learned the secret of timing their acts to coincide with cosmic rays most favourable to their success. By such means, he said, money could be acquired without working for it, positions secured, and either fertility or sterility made certain. But, he added, such operations needed to be undertaken only by initiates who were temporarily isolated from the Brotherhood, as at the meetings of its Lodges each Master was invested with the power to give swift aid to followers of the Path in achieving all their reasonable desires - as she was about to see for herself that night.