The Devil Rides Out: Wickedly funny and painfully honest stories from Paul O’Grady

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This is very much built up as a last-minute resort, and we are warned that the consequences could be dire. (A classic case of ‘Whatever You Do, Don’t Do This!’ Or, to put it another way, ‘Don’t cross the streams!’) This appealing idealogy also lends itself to being used by the Satanists, who of course argue that our ideas are all misconceived. Mocata seductively says that magic is neither good nor evil. It is “only the science of causing change to occur by means of will”. Iconic’ is a much-overused word (not least by me). The online Cambridge English Dictionary defines it as ‘very famous or popular, especially being considered to represent particular opinions or a particular time’, and chooses the following as its three illustrative examples: John Lennon achieving iconic status after his death, the gunfight as the iconic image of the Wild West and the characters, dialogue and music of the film Casablanca.

Wheatley’s Sabbat of saturnalian depravity appears onscreen as little more than a rave, its participants remaining clothed at all times and doing little more than eating and drinking. (Although, admittedly, some of them are drinking the blood of a sacrificial goat – and animal which, funnily enough, does not appear in the novel.) It must be truly important for Simon to miss the reunion dinner with the duke and Rex. And the duke is even more worried as Rex discovers. Since their friend is too important to them both, the men repair to Simon’s new house where they discover the depths to which he has sunk. Simon Aron, a stoop-shouldered Jewish man with a very sudden interest in astronomy and gardening, is about to be baptized “Abraham”. Rex Van Wyn is a wealthy young man who enjoys sports of all kinds. His father is a banker and runs The Chesapeake Banking and Trust Corporation. Richard Eaton has married the Princess Marie Lou, and they have a daughter, Fleur. They sold off the lesser stones of the Shulimoff treasure to provide the princess with an independent income. They currently reside at Cardinals Folly in the country. Jim is a gardener; Malin is their butler; and, they have a nurse for Fleur. The iconic scene in the pentacle is very similar in both the film and the book. (Although instead of the film’s giant spider, they are menaced by a kind of demonic white slug – Mocata, perhaps?!) When the Angel of Death is summoned, de Richleau saves them by pronouncing ‘the last two lines of the dread Sussamma Ritual’.This is a very religious book, but more along the lines of Light versus Dark, Good versus Evil, and the Powers of Good. What I enjoyed most about this book is that it hasn’t fallen into the trap that most lazy celebrity autobiographies do; it is not ghost-written. You can hear Paul O’Grady saying every single word you’re reading; not only has he got a very distinctive speaking voice and turn of phrase, but also a totally distinguishable writing style. This book isn’t about settling old scores (a certain Mrs Osbourne springs to mind here) or boring us to death with mind-numbing details. Paul writes about this period of his life as he sees it; sometimes it’s funny, sometimes moving, always honest. Despite its gripping pace, action and delightfully descriptive representations of devil worship and cult rituals, many of Wheatley’s values and attitudes have not aged well. Modern readers are advised to read with caution – or better still, read ‘Doctor Who and the Dæmons’ by Barry Letts instead! Duc: One of Wheatley’s finest, you know, he really captured our essence and understands the occult like few others. Saruman: And this is rightly considered a part of the horror genre, and we should also consider a comparison to Arthur Machen’s excellent treatise The Great God Pan.

Anyway, sort of despite all that and sort of because of it, I had a lot of fun with this. The first half at least. It's not a long book, but it's twice as long as it needs to be. I haven't seen it, but I suspect the Hammer film adaptation may be the best way to sample it. That has Christopher Lee as the Duke and that guy who played Blofeld as the villain. Which, to be honest, is exactly how I imagined them both from the book anyway. And it's only an hour and a half. TANITH: It’s what he’ll do. Oh god, it’s what he’ll do. Rex continues to believe that he can keep Tanith safe from Mocata. Silly boy!every adept knows that it started because one of the most terrible Satanists who ever lived found one of the secret gateways through which to release the four horsemen. The Devil Rides Out, Chapter XX, The Four Horsemen If we take the book’s explanation that, during their dream journey, they were ‘living in what the moderns call the fourth dimension – divorced from time,’ then we can assume that everything that takes place between de Richleau’s incantation in the face of the Angel of Death and him waking up again within the chalk circle as having happened on the astral plane, then the words of the Sussamma Ritual serve almost as cosmic book ends to their out-of-body experiences, brought about by the ritual itself. Christopher Lee in The Devil Rides Out 1968 Racism