The Hell-Fire Club, Masonic Deism, Dashwood, Franklin, and the Black Mass

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 17:36:07 GMT

On moonlit nights during the reign of England's King George III,

immensely powerful members of His Majesty's Government, important

intellectuals, and influential artists could sometimes be seen

travelling up the Thames River by gondola to a ruined abbey near

West Wycombe. There, to the sonorous tolling of the deconsecrated

cloister's bell, they dressed in monkish robes and indulged in

every manner of depravity, culminating in a Black Mass celebrated

on the naked body of a debauched noblewoman and presided o ver by

that notorious rake Sir Francis Dashwood. Their diabolical

devotions concluded, the inner circle would adjourn to plot the

course of the British Empire.