Cult of the Great Eleven is a true account of one of the twentieth centuryâs weirdest and most mysterious cults. Human and animal sacrifices, vanishings, the preserved corpse of a teenage cult princess, angelic encounters, a woman cooked in an oven, a mother chained to her bed for two months, resurrection experiments, refrigeration warehouses for the dead, abductions, nocturnal rituals, orgies, a breathing universe, an esoteric tome known as The Great Sixth Seal, hints of Hecate worship, and a post-apocalyptic world ruled by eleven queens from a hill in HollywoodâŚ
The United States witnessed an explosion of cult activity in the 1920s that today is almost inconceivable. California, in particular, was a haven for an estimated 200,000 cultists, with over 400 active cults in southern California alone. These ranged from âlove cultsâ that conducted ritual orgies to âdevil worshippingâ cults that branded their members with hot irons and beheaded their enemies.
Among all these, the Simi Valley's âDivine Order of the Royal Arms of the Great Elevenâ was considered by many to be the most extraordinary. A death cult, the Great Eleven was founded by May Otis Blackburn, Portland, Oregonâs unheralded filmmaking pioneer, and Ruth Wieland, her luscious femme fatale daughter. The cult was so bizarre that accounts of its activities âelicited expressions of amazementâ from justices on the California Supreme Court in 1931, who admitted, âthey have never heard anything so weird.â
Not until the nephew of oil magnate J.B. Dabney admitted he had been a member of the cult would the world at large learn of the existence the âdivine order.â Not until detectives opened a trap door in the floor of a cult coupleâs Venice cottage would the world be exposed to its darkest secrets.