Dennis Wheatley - To The Devil A Daughter

`Why are there never any prosecutions, then?'

`Because the Satanists who run these circles are too clever. They recruit their disciples from among the people who attend quite respectable spiritualist and theosophical societies, many of whom can easily be intrigued by a promise of revealing to them the real secrets of the occult at some small private gathering. The obtaining of power is, of course, the lure, and they start them off with Yoga exercises; then prescribe a special diet for them, including a course of pills which are actually aphrodisiacs to increase their sexual appetite. After that there is usually not much difficulty in involving them with some more advanced Satanist of the opposite sex. For them that starts as just a rather intriguing affair, but it is the thin end of the wedge. Their instructor promises the revelation of higher mysteries if they will consent to being hypnotized, and they nearly always do. Once they have been fully dominated they no longer have a mind of their own and become willing subjects for every kind of abomination. A few of the stronger minded ones survive to achieve the rank of real Satanists themselves, but most of them are used only for obscenities and soon degenerate into physical and moral wrecks. Many of them end up as suicides, and those who are rescued by their friends always prove useless from the police point of view. Either they have not gone far enough to be able to give evidence of any actually criminal activities, or, if they have, they have been hypnotized into a state in which their minds are blank about the Satanists they have been mixed up with and the places where the rituals in which they participated took place. That is why there are never any prosecutions.'

`It sounds a ghastly business,' John said, pushing his plate away; `but I don't quite see where Conky Bill comes into it. From Fabian's article and what you say, it seems that the Satanists' only interest is to get hold of young people upon whom to practice their perversions at their orgies. Beastly as that may be, it is a form of private fun and has no connection with subversive activities against the State.'

`You are quite wrong about that, Johnny. The people who direct these circles really are the henchmen of the Devil. The sexual excesses that take place under their auspices are only a means to an end a focus for concentrating evil forces which they can use for the furtherance of their own wicked designs. You must have read at some time that in the old days the Devil was often referred to as the Lord of Misrule. The object of these high up Satanists is to deliver the world up to him, and the only way they can do that is to cause the breakdown of good rule so that misrule may take its place. With that as their goal they do everything they can to foment wars, class hatred, strikes and famine; and to foster perversions, moral laxity and the taking of drugs. There is even reason to believe that they have been behind many of the political assassinations that have robbed the world of good rulers and honest statesmen, and naturally Communism has now become their most potent weapon. So you can see that breaking up these Black Magic circles, wherever they can be found, is very much in C.B.'s province.'

`Oh come, Mumsie! I agree that they may exert their influence for political evil, but by suggesting that they are working to a plan and have supernatural backing, aren't you letting your imagination run away with you a bit? After all, no one really believes in the Devil any more.'

`My dear, he was part of the original creation, and no amount of popular education can destroy that. It is simply that in modern times he has gone underground, and judging by the amount of havoc and mystery there has been in the world during the present century he must be very pleased with the success of his latest stratagem. It was his own apparent abolition, resulting from the decay of religion, that gave him his big chance, and he is using it with a greater skill than he has ever displayed before in his attempts to ensnare mankind.'

`You honestly believe that?'

`I do. Now that more than half the people in the world have become godless, they have also become rudderless. Once they have put away from themselves the idea of a hereafter they think only of their own selfish ends of the moment. That leaves them an easy prey to unscrupulous politicians. Before they know where they are, they find themselves robbed of all personal freedom; their family life, which is their last tie with their better instincts, is broken up, and their children are taken from them, to be educated into robots lacking all individuality. That is what nearly happened in Nazi Germany and what has happened in Russia; and if that is not the state of things that Satan would like to see everywhere, tell me what is?'

John did not reply. Instead, after a moment's thought he asked, `Have you any idea where Christina fits into all this? I

'No. I have heard that now and then one of those Paris finishing places is discovered to be no better than a high class brothel. When girls who are just becoming women are cooped up together they corrupt one another very easily, you know; and in the type of place that caters for those whose parents want to be rid of them for two or three years at a stretch, an unscrupulous principal with a clever man behind her might get away with a vice racket of that kind for quite a long time without being found out. As sexual promiscuity is the first step towards greater evils, if Christina was at such a place she may have got herself involved in something there. But somehow I don't think so. She does not give me the impression of a girl who has gone very far down the slope of her own free will. I am more inclined to think that she is the victim of a spell, and has been bewitched.'

`If we can get hold of C. B., do you think he will be able to free her from the ... er ... sort of trouble you have in mind?'

`I don't know, Johnny. We can only hope so. All I do know is that in the course of his job he must have picked up a lot about the principles on which Satanists work, and he is the only person I know who may be able to advise us what to do. Even if he is busy I feel sure he will come if he possibly can, as, quite apart from any wish to help the girl, there is the de Grasse angle, and that should prove an additional justification for him to leave his office.'

Three quarters of an hour later Molly succeeded in getting Lieutenant Colonel William Verney on the telephone. They then talked for a few minutes in the curious jargon that such people had used in the war, even when their conversations were protected from listeners in by a scrambler. It consisted of short phrases, interspersed with apparently irrelevant allusions to mutual friends, places, books and past happenings, which could mean little to any third person, but rang bells in the minds of both. She proved right in her belief that he would respond to her appeal; and it was agreed that, unless he telegraphed her that he had been unable to get a seat on the plane, she should meet him at Nice airport on the following day.

In consequence, in spite of the concern she was feeling about Christina, Molly went to bed in a happy frame of mind; while the girl fell into a heavy slumber as a result of the draught she had been given. But John lay long awake, turning over and over all that his mother had said about Satanism, veering between belief and disbelief, and quite unable to decide whether it was only her vivid imagination that caused her to credit the Devil with being active in the modern world, or if in sober truth the unfortunate Christina was, during certain hours, possessed by some evil force that had been conjured up from the traditional Pit, said to be inhabited by Satan's legions.

At length he dropped off, but only to become the victim of a nightmare, in which he was chained to a rock and an angel and a devil were fighting over him. Both of them had Christina's face, and while that of the angel glowed with beauty, that of the devil was rendered peculiarly horrifying by the fact that luminous smoke was curling up from its flared nostrils.