Join writers Alan Walker and David Barret as they explore the strange underworld of the capital's covert cults.
Doors: 7pm
Tickets: £10 [£8 concessions]
Throughout London’s history there have been secret societies: some criminal, some political, some religious, some social. Of all these, Freemasonry with its supposed links to the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians or the mediaeval stonemasons is the best known - but why did it become organised in London 300 years ago?
DAVID BARRET examines the myths and the real history behind the United Grand Lodge of England and other capital cults including the Hell Fire Club and The Order of the Golden Dawn.
In 1934 Elliott O'Donnell, the world-famed prince of ghost hunters, published a book on the Strange Cults and Secret Societies of Modern London in which he describes many covert organisations such as the Black Brothers, the Tree cults, the Suicide Society and the Cult of Cruelty.
Reverend Alan Walker revisits O’Donnell’s classic book in the light of modern thinking about religious cults, moral panics and enthusiasm for the esoteric. Is O’Donnell’s work fiction masquerading as fact, or should it be read more critically as a picture of contemporary fears and social experiments?
David Barret is the author of The New Believers, A Brief History of Secret Societies, A Brief Guide to Secret Religions and The Fragmentation of a Sect, and edited the SF alternative history anthology Tales from the Vatican Vaults. He regularly contributes to Fortean Times magazine, amongst others.
Alan Walker teaches (about) Religion at Florida State University. He is a member of the governing body of INFORM, an independent educational charity providing information about minority religions and sects. He was for many years an Anglican priest and has written a few books, none of which are about cults.