The Satanist by Dennis Wheatley
"The Satanist" is a novel by Dennis Wheatley that intertwines themes of satanism and Cold War tensions, depicting a world on the brink of nuclear annihilation. The narrative follows Colonel C. B. Verney, who investigates the murder of an agent, Teddy Morden, believed to be linked to a satanic cult. As Verney delves deeper, he encounters Morden's widow, Mary, who, despite being warned, takes it upon herself to uncover the truth behind her husband's death by infiltrating the same occult circles he had explored. The plot thickens with the introduction of twin scientists, Otto and Lothar Kuhne, whose intertwined fates and psychic abilities complicate the story.
Amidst the backdrop of satanic rituals, romance, and espionage, Mary becomes embroiled in a dangerous game involving a Black Mass and a plot to launch a nuclear warhead against Moscow. The climax revolves around a desperate race against time to prevent global catastrophe, highlighting the themes of sacrifice and the battle between good and evil. Wheatley's work is notable for its blend of horror, thriller, and political commentary, making it a significant piece within his oeuvre and the genre. The novel invites readers to reflect on the moral implications of power, manipulation, and the human condition amidst chaos.
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Subject Terms
The Satanist
First published: 1960
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Fantasy—occult
Time of work: The 1960’s
Locale: England and Switzerland
The Plot
Dennis Wheatley’s tale of a satanic plot takes place within a Cold War framework: A nuclear warhead is used to menace the world with total destruction. This novel is one of several by this author that involve satanism and anticommunist sentiments, and it is perhaps his most successful effort in crossing genre boundaries.
As the novel opens, Colonel C. B. Verney, Special Branch (a character from Wheatley’s 1953 To the Devil— A Daughter), is studying a photograph of one of his agents, Teddy Morden, found in an alley with his throat slit. Verney identifies the murder as “the devil’s work,” because Morden was crucified upside down. Morden had been attempting to infiltrate labor unions and find communist agitators bent on destroying British industry. Verney decides that Morden’s investigations had led him into a ring of satanists. He asks one of his assistants, Barney Sullivan, to pick up Morden’s investigation.
Mary Morden, Teddy’s young and beautiful widow, contacts Verney to offer her services in an attempt to avenge her husband’s murder. Verney turns down her offer as too risky and too unorthodox, but she vows to go ahead. She disguises herself and starts to attend the same course of lectures and séances that Teddy had.
The third strand of the complicated plot concerns twins, Otto and Lothar Kuhne, who are both scientists. During World War II, Lothar worked for the Nazis on long-range rockets. Otto is employed on research into rocket fuel in England. Otto, loyal to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), feels himself being psychically persecuted by his Moscow-based twin. The twins are capable of “overseeing” each other’s activities over long distances, and if one is injured, the other also feels pain and shows the wound.
Barney Sullivan attends the same séances as Mary Morden, with whom he spent a night years before in Dublin, when she was a prostitute. He does not see through her disguise, but she recognizes him as the man who made her pregnant and walked out on her. Her initial enmity yields to tender feelings in the course of several dates, which she had encouraged in order to make him eventually suffer. Their budding romance is interrupted when an Indian, Mr. Ratnadatta, takes Mary to witness a Black Mass. Hoping that the cult will lead her to her husband’s killers, Mary tells him that she wants to be initiated. She has to perform various tasks toward this end, one of which is to pose naked with the leading candidate (a noncommunist) in an upcoming union election; the photos are used to dissuade him from running. She meets a black magician, a U.S. Air Force colonel named Henrik Washington, who helps her escape Ratnadatta’s clutches, but only so that he can ravish her himself. Mary, however, thoroughly enjoys her night with him at his Cambridgeshire country house, although her pleasure is strictly physical, and she continues to care for Barney.
Barney, through Ratnadatta, traces Mary to Washington’s house but is captured and doomed to be sacrificed at a Black Mass, at which Mary is to be subjected to a sexual orgy. Mary hurls a crucifix at the Black Ram, the high priest of the cult, and in the resultant psychic storm, Barney escapes, taking with him a tape Mary made of Washington admitting to Teddy’s murder.
The Black Ram is none other than Lothar Kuhne, who had recently outwitted Otto, Verney, and the police and had stolen secret rocket fuel. He gets Washington to steal a nuclear warhead and fly it, along with Mary and himself, to a mountaintop hideout in the Swiss Alps. There, he betrays Washington, kills him with a psychic manifestation, the Black Imp, and hypnotizes Mary into leaping from a clifftop. He is about to launch the warhead on Moscow, which, he expects, will retaliate on the West, starting a doomsday exchange that will leave the world in ruins fit for satanic anarchy.
Mary’s fall is broken by the cables of a funicular. She is rescued by Barney, who is one of a posse coming to halt Lothar’s plan. With the funicular destroyed by a bomb, the posse has no hope of reaching Lothar before the deadline for his rocket launch. Otto makes the supreme sacrifice and shoots himself, knowing that this will kill his twin.