Author’s Note
137 Words
Author’s NoteIn the second half of the nineteenth century in France there was an upsurge of Black Magic.
This was practised mostly by the intelligentsia who formed Satanical cults that celebrated the Black Mass, attempted to conjure up spirits, studied the prolongation of life and other occult sciences.
In Britain it was mostly confined to the countryside, where witches and witchcraft had flourished since the beginning of time. In Eastern England the fear of witchcraft was always intense and the Devil was reputed to be very active in Essex, where wizards were plentiful.
Nothing, however, superseded the fantastic orgies of the Hell Fire caves, where in the eighteenth century Sir Francis Dashwood celebrated Black Mass more grandly than anyone had done before or since. The caves are still open to the public at High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire.
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