The following text, from 1934, claims to reveal a pagan society of man-hating women which was operating in an unidentified place located roughly to the west of London.

If the report were true, it would be describing one of the first organised, explicitly pagan groups in Britain – earlier than Gerald Gardner’s Wicca, although later than Aleister Crowley’s Thelema.

The report is probably false. It comes from Strange Cults And Secret Societies Of Modern London by Elliott O’Donnell, a writer who took an interest in occult and supernatural subjects. The book is of doubtful reliability and is best seen as a form of light entertainment. It was probably written for a male audience, as the account of the Gorgons is distinctly misogynistic.

The question perhaps arises of whether the account is an embellished version of things which really were happening in southern England in the 1930s. There are plausible elements to it. The pagan Gorgons practise nature-worship, like other pagans of the modern revival. The group is a closed initiatory society, on the model of real-life groups in the Golden Dawn tradition. It has a ‘High Priestess’, like a Wiccan coven. The members are vegetarians, a practice with a long history in esoteric religion.

There are innuendos of lesbianism in the account. O’Donnell was probably making this part up, but nevertheless it is the case that revived paganism has been associated with gay sexualities since at least the nineteenth century.

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Somewhere on the banks of the Thames, between Richmond and Maidenhead, the Gorgons, a secret society of women, who love open-air life and cocktails but have no liking for men, have their headquarters.

Their High Priestess, a very mysterious and elusive personage, is called Medusa. She has been described to me as of middle age, tall and of a masculine build and leonine appearance that is absolutely uncanny. Besides being the High Priestess of the Cult, she is secretary, chairman and president. Her will is law, the law of the Medes and Persians, for none of her followers ever dream of disputing it. She inspires them with awe and veneration, and they regard her with no little fear, yet they adore her. Two members of the Cult, upon hearing a novice say something uncomplimentary about Medusa, instantly seized her and threw her into the river. Fortunately there was no depth of water and she got to shore all right. She threatened to summons them for assault. They told Medusa, and Medusa interviewed the novice. After that there was no more talk of a summons.

Let me quote one other instance of the Gorgons’ vengeance for what they termed an insult offered to their chief. A bus conductor, after watching Medusa alight from his bus, made some jocular remark about her to his passengers. Unfortunately for him one of the Cult was in the bus, and having heard what he said, at once determined to get him dismissed from his job. To this end, a few days later, accompanied by another member of the Cult whom she had taken into confidence, she boarded the bus at its starting place, when there were no other passengers in it, and as soon as she had seated herself, she accused the conductor of incivility and rudeness. The astonished conductor’s emphatic denials and expostulations were, of course, of no avail. Backed up by her confederate she reported him to the management, and he was sacked.

Admission into the Society, apparently, is by no means easy. From what I gather those desirous of becoming Gorgons have to fulfil a number of conditions. They must be over eighteen years of age and under forty; be able to produce definite proof of their dislike of the male sex and unqualified preference for their own sex; be thoroughly healthy and perfectly sound, constitutionally and physically. Any such defects as short sight, deafness and varicose veins rule them out. They must be fond of dancing and all kinds of athletic exercises, riding on horseback excepted (the horse is deemed sacred by the Gorgons and must on no account be ridden or enslaved). Also they must be vegetarians, but not prohibitioners. Beautifying in any way, while at headquarters, except on special occasions, is forbidden and punishable by small fines, and even, if persisted in, expulsion.

The Gorgons believe only in Nature and Nature worship. Every night in the week they meet, either in or out of doors, and worship Nature, either in some animate or inanimate form. The nature objects they select for worship are usually either those that were venerated by the Ancients, or those that have been deified by the Cult’s High Priestess, Medusa; and they are invariably said by the Cult to be of the feminine gender. The sun, the moon, the stars, river, woods and pools, all are deified objects, and strange, indeed, are the tributes these Thameside worshippers pay them. I can, however, furnish my readers with a reliable account of some of the Gorgon ceremonies, since they were described to me by an ex-member of the Cult, who participated in them.

Miss Biggs, my informant, attended her first ceremony, at which homage would be paid to the Thames, soon after she had passed through her final stage of initiations. Her written summons to it was virtually a command.

‘To-night at nine. Riverside. W.D.O.’ The W.D.O. signified that a white dress and orange blossoms was to be worn for the occasion, and that a sacrifice of some kind would be offered to the object they were worshipping that night, as members of the Cult only wore that dress when a sacrifice to one of their numerous deities was demanded. The spot selected for the ceremony was a field, within a few yards of the river bank, and entirely private, as the Society rented it. There were several tents in it, the largest, a marquee, being the one where the preliminary proceedings were to be held. Medusa, the tall high priestess, her leonine head crowned for the occasion with a wreath of artificial orange blossoms, enters. She has a strong, masculine face, with very white teeth, but ears a trifle too large to be in exact proportion to the head, and set too far back and too low down. All this points to abnormality, to some rather unpleasant kink. If, in conjunction with such ears she had had obliquely set eyes, very thin and tight or very loose, flabby lips and a heavy jaw, she would have had a decidedly sinister face. As it was, the occasional curious metallic glitter in the very blue eyes, coupled with the size and setting of those ears, constituted a warning, Medusa was a woman born to domineer and scheme, a woman of uncertain temperament, not wholly reliable as a friend, and very much to be dreaded as a foe. This was Miss Biggs’ summing-up of her. Her white dress, like that of her followers, was sleeveless; she wore many and various massive gold bangles on her arms; her bare feet were encased in sandals, and her toe-nails, no less than her finger-nails, were covered with red varnish. This make-up was the only one permissible to members of the Cult, and every one of them, without exception, so Miss Biggs assured me, made the greatest possible use of it.

When all the members had arrived and were standing at attention, that is to say, bolt upright, with feet together and arms held stiff and straight by the side, fingers pointing downwards, Medusa delivered a brief address, telling her satellites what was about to take place, and what they were to do. First of all they were to stand by whilst a prospective member underwent the first stage of initiation.

This first stage, Miss Biggs explained, was a somewhat embarrassing and trying affair. The initiate, in order to prove her agility and strength, had to run so many yards in so many seconds, to jump no mean height, pull herself up several times on a horizontal bar, and wrestle with one of the most physically formidable members. But that was not all; in order to prove her willingness to submit to and obey Medusa in all things, she had to kneel before her, imprint a kiss upon both of her feet, and take from her three strokes, and pretty hard strokes too, inflicted by a stick cut from an ash tree. Then, after taking several rather dreadful-sounding oaths, she was escorted to the river bank and told by her escort, as they formed themselves into a screen around her, to put on the bathing-costume provided for her, on this occasion, by the Cult. She was then presented to Medusa, who took her by the right hand and led her to the edge of the water, which, as the evening was none too warm, looked unpleasantly cold. All the same, after she had repeated some formula, at a signal from Medusa, she had to dive into the river – entering the water in any other way was prohibited – and swim to the opposite shore and back again. This feat, successfully accomplished, she was graciously informed by Medusa that the first stage of her initiation was over.

The sacrifice followed, with more ceremonial. Every member had brought an offering either of food or wine, or some article of apparel, and when all these gifts had been placed in tubs, moored alongside the shore, the tubs were set on fire and pushed off, into midstream, to the accompaniment of the Cult song of triumph. I tried to get this song from Miss Biggs, but I did not succeed. She said there were secrets in it which she could not, on any account, divulge. When the flames from the burning tubs finally died out, the Cult assembled in the centre of the field and executed dances invented by one of its members, a Russian, who was a well-known professional dancer. “She was the loveliest woman I’ve ever seen,” Miss Biggs declared. Tall, lithe, and beautifully proportioned, with wonderful feet and hands, and hair the colour of fire flames, when they are lurid red.” That is all the information anent this Cult that I have been able to get.