WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.919 So if you're joining us today, we are diving 00:00:01.919 --> 00:00:05.780 into a figure who honestly feels like he was 00:00:05.780 --> 00:00:08.619 invented by a screenwriter who just who couldn't 00:00:08.619 --> 00:00:10.439 quite figure out what genre they were writing. 00:00:10.519 --> 00:00:12.839 Right. If you look at the source material we've 00:00:12.839 --> 00:00:14.660 got for this deep dive we're pulling from his 00:00:14.660 --> 00:00:17.800 Wikipedia entry today, we are looking at a man 00:00:17.800 --> 00:00:21.620 who was all at the same time a highly respectable 00:00:21.620 --> 00:00:27.260 Mayfair wine merchant. the world's leading fictional 00:00:27.260 --> 00:00:30.379 authority on Satanism and a high level strategic 00:00:30.379 --> 00:00:32.899 deceiver for the British government during World 00:00:32.899 --> 00:00:35.320 War Two. Exactly. It's just a completely jarring 00:00:35.320 --> 00:00:37.439 combination of careers. It really is. I mean, 00:00:37.460 --> 00:00:39.299 usually you've got people who are either firmly 00:00:39.299 --> 00:00:41.460 grounded in the, you know, the commercial business 00:00:41.460 --> 00:00:44.140 world or they're off in the ether writing about 00:00:44.140 --> 00:00:46.960 the occult. But Dennis Wheatley managed to be 00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:49.460 both. And then he somehow applied those exact 00:00:49.460 --> 00:00:52.100 same skills to help win the Second World War. 00:00:52.340 --> 00:00:54.100 And just to be clear for you listening, we aren't 00:00:54.100 --> 00:00:56.500 talking about some. obscure fringe author here. 00:00:56.600 --> 00:00:59.299 The entry shows that in the 1960s, Wheatley was 00:00:59.299 --> 00:01:01.219 selling a million books a year. Yeah, a million 00:01:01.219 --> 00:01:03.119 a year. He was literally known as the prince 00:01:03.119 --> 00:01:06.180 of thriller writers. If you walked into any British 00:01:06.180 --> 00:01:10.040 bookshop in, say, 1965, he would have occupied 00:01:10.040 --> 00:01:12.140 entire shelves. But today, if you bring him up, 00:01:12.239 --> 00:01:15.689 the name mostly draws a blank. Or or maybe people 00:01:15.689 --> 00:01:17.769 vaguely remember a classic Hammer horror movie. 00:01:17.930 --> 00:01:20.469 Which is exactly why we're doing this deep dive. 00:01:20.590 --> 00:01:23.689 Our mission today is to connect all these bizarre 00:01:23.689 --> 00:01:27.290 dots. We want to unpack how the very specific 00:01:27.290 --> 00:01:31.230 skills of a luxury wine merchant, you know, cultivating 00:01:31.230 --> 00:01:34.150 taste, understanding narrative, selling an experience, 00:01:34.390 --> 00:01:37.409 how that translated into writing massive hits 00:01:37.409 --> 00:01:39.629 about black magic. Right. And then even more 00:01:39.629 --> 00:01:41.849 wildly, how that translated into convincing the 00:01:41.849 --> 00:01:43.840 Nazi high command that the D -Day. landings were 00:01:43.840 --> 00:01:45.760 going to happen in the completely wrong place. 00:01:45.959 --> 00:01:47.640 This is fascinating. So let's start with that 00:01:47.640 --> 00:01:49.920 early foundation, the wine merchant aspect, because 00:01:49.920 --> 00:01:51.659 he wasn't just a writer who happened to like 00:01:51.659 --> 00:01:54.319 a good vintage. He was born into the trade. He 00:01:54.319 --> 00:01:57.980 was born in 1897 in Brixton Hill. The family 00:01:57.980 --> 00:02:00.439 business was Wheatley and Son, which was a very 00:02:00.439 --> 00:02:03.019 well -regarded wine business in Mayfair. So right 00:02:03.019 --> 00:02:05.359 from the start, he's being roomed for this life 00:02:05.359 --> 00:02:07.980 of upper crust commerce. But if you look at his 00:02:07.980 --> 00:02:10.400 early life, there are these little quirks that 00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:12.659 show he wasn't really cut out to just quietly 00:02:12.659 --> 00:02:15.599 balance ledgers. Yeah, my favorite detail from 00:02:15.599 --> 00:02:18.539 his early life has to be his time at Dulwich 00:02:18.539 --> 00:02:21.659 College. Oh, the expulsion. Yes, he was expelled. 00:02:21.740 --> 00:02:24.020 And it wasn't for failing grades. or, I don't 00:02:24.020 --> 00:02:26.020 know, getting into a fistfight. The Wikipedia 00:02:26.020 --> 00:02:28.479 page notes he was expelled for allegedly forming 00:02:28.479 --> 00:02:31.219 a secret society. It's almost too perfect, isn't 00:02:31.219 --> 00:02:34.340 it? It really is. It completely foreshadows everything 00:02:34.340 --> 00:02:36.680 he would become. I mean, most schoolboys are 00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:39.080 worried about exams or sports, and Wheatley is 00:02:39.080 --> 00:02:41.259 already organizing clandestine groups in the 00:02:41.259 --> 00:02:44.379 shadows. He clearly had this innate drive to 00:02:44.379 --> 00:02:47.159 organize people and deal in secrets. But then 00:02:47.159 --> 00:02:50.370 that, you know, that boyhood play acting. runs 00:02:50.370 --> 00:02:54.129 headfirst into a very grim reality because he 00:02:54.129 --> 00:02:56.250 was part of that specific generation that went 00:02:56.250 --> 00:02:58.669 straight from school into the trenches of World 00:02:58.669 --> 00:03:02.009 War I. He actually moved to HMS Worcester as 00:03:02.009 --> 00:03:04.990 a merchant Navy cadet first, but then he's commissioned 00:03:04.990 --> 00:03:07.610 into the Royal Field Artillery. Right. And we 00:03:07.610 --> 00:03:09.669 really need to pause on his World War I service 00:03:09.669 --> 00:03:12.750 because it heavily contextualizes his worldview 00:03:12.750 --> 00:03:15.289 and his later writing. He didn't just serve in 00:03:15.289 --> 00:03:18.639 a quiet sector. He was in the thick of it. Passchendaele. 00:03:18.740 --> 00:03:20.419 Yeah, Passchendaele. He was actually gassed in 00:03:20.419 --> 00:03:22.860 a chlorine attack there and eventually invalided 00:03:22.860 --> 00:03:25.240 out of the war. And that experience, that sheer 00:03:25.240 --> 00:03:28.180 mechanical brutality of the trenches. It seems 00:03:28.180 --> 00:03:29.900 like something that fundamentally shaped him. 00:03:30.020 --> 00:03:32.280 Absolutely. When you read his thrillers later 00:03:32.280 --> 00:03:35.580 on, even the really wild supernatural ones, the 00:03:35.580 --> 00:03:39.039 violence always has this very specific, unromantic, 00:03:39.039 --> 00:03:41.919 heavy feel to it. He knew exactly what a battlefield 00:03:41.919 --> 00:03:44.139 actually looked and smelled like. It wasn't abstract 00:03:44.139 --> 00:03:46.979 for him. No, not at all. But he survives. He 00:03:46.979 --> 00:03:49.199 makes it back to London, and he takes over the 00:03:49.199 --> 00:03:51.599 family wine business. Yeah, Wheatley and Son. 00:03:51.900 --> 00:03:54.620 And for about a decade, he's basically living 00:03:54.620 --> 00:03:57.800 the life of a man about town. He's selling vintage 00:03:57.800 --> 00:04:00.500 port and champagne to aristocrats, learning the 00:04:00.500 --> 00:04:02.699 social codes of the British elite. Because where 00:04:02.699 --> 00:04:04.699 he's gathering all the raw material for his future 00:04:04.699 --> 00:04:07.229 characters, right? Like... The Duke de Richelieu. 00:04:07.330 --> 00:04:10.810 Exactly. The Duke de Richelieu is his most famous 00:04:10.810 --> 00:04:14.229 protagonist, and he is essentially this idealized 00:04:14.229 --> 00:04:17.009 version of the Mayfair world Wheatley was operating 00:04:17.009 --> 00:04:20.410 in. Cultured, wealthy, always knowing the exact 00:04:20.410 --> 00:04:23.610 right vintage for every occasion. But of course, 00:04:23.629 --> 00:04:26.110 that party comes to an abrupt end. The Great 00:04:26.110 --> 00:04:28.410 Depression. The Great Depression. It absolutely 00:04:28.410 --> 00:04:31.529 killed the luxury wine trade. Nobody is buying 00:04:31.529 --> 00:04:33.629 expensive champagne when the economy collapses. 00:04:33.930 --> 00:04:36.540 So by 1931, he's f***ed. forced to sell the firm 00:04:36.540 --> 00:04:38.720 so picture this he's in his mid -30s yeah the 00:04:38.720 --> 00:04:40.399 family legacy he was supposed to inherit and 00:04:40.399 --> 00:04:43.339 run is gone and he's completely broke and he 00:04:43.339 --> 00:04:45.449 turns to writing Not because he had some deep 00:04:45.449 --> 00:04:48.250 artistic calling, but literally out of pure financial 00:04:48.250 --> 00:04:51.329 necessity. It was a total pivot born of desperation. 00:04:51.790 --> 00:04:55.029 But it worked. His very first published book, 00:04:55.230 --> 00:04:58.870 The Forbidden Territory in 1933, was an immediate 00:04:58.870 --> 00:05:02.189 massive hit. It was reprinted seven times in 00:05:02.189 --> 00:05:04.329 its first seven weeks. That's incredible. He 00:05:04.329 --> 00:05:06.649 quickly realized he had a real knack for pacing 00:05:06.649 --> 00:05:09.500 and plotting. But the true shift. The one that 00:05:09.500 --> 00:05:11.759 completely defined his career and what he's remembered 00:05:11.759 --> 00:05:14.199 for happened the next year when he decided he 00:05:14.199 --> 00:05:16.100 was going to write a thriller about the occult. 00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:18.620 Right. The black magic phase. Now, prior to this, 00:05:18.639 --> 00:05:21.180 if you think about occult fiction, it was mostly 00:05:21.180 --> 00:05:25.310 what? Ghost stories. M .R. James. Subtle, creepy 00:05:25.310 --> 00:05:27.529 hauntings in old manners. Wheatley did something 00:05:27.529 --> 00:05:30.009 completely different. He did. He treated black 00:05:30.009 --> 00:05:32.310 magic almost like a technical subject within 00:05:32.310 --> 00:05:34.829 a fast -paced action thriller. In his books, 00:05:34.949 --> 00:05:37.250 magic has specific rules. It has procedures. 00:05:37.550 --> 00:05:39.410 And to get that right, he didn't just sit in 00:05:39.410 --> 00:05:42.029 a room and use his imagination. He actually did 00:05:42.029 --> 00:05:44.750 incredibly deep research. And this is where his 00:05:44.750 --> 00:05:47.209 social network comes into play again. His friend, 00:05:47.310 --> 00:05:49.189 the journalist Tom Dreiberg, actually introduces 00:05:49.189 --> 00:05:51.569 him into the real London occult underground. 00:05:52.279 --> 00:05:54.620 Which, believe it or not, was a very active scene 00:05:54.620 --> 00:05:57.519 in the 1930s. Wheatley gets introduced to people 00:05:57.519 --> 00:06:00.019 like Raul Ahmed, who had written a book called 00:06:00.019 --> 00:06:02.920 The Black Art. He meets the Reverend Montague 00:06:02.920 --> 00:06:05.959 Summers, who was this eccentric clergyman who 00:06:05.959 --> 00:06:08.620 firmly believed that witches were a literal present 00:06:08.620 --> 00:06:11.279 danger in modern society. And of course, the 00:06:11.279 --> 00:06:13.839 big one, he meets Elister Crowley. The Elister 00:06:13.839 --> 00:06:16.319 Crowley connection is just... wild to me. You 00:06:16.319 --> 00:06:19.240 have Dennis Wheatley, this deeply conservative 00:06:19.240 --> 00:06:23.060 king and country Mayfair wine merchant, sitting 00:06:23.060 --> 00:06:25.720 down to have lunch with the man the tabloids 00:06:25.720 --> 00:06:28.939 called the Great Beast 666. It's a great image, 00:06:29.060 --> 00:06:31.139 though by all accounts, the source material notes 00:06:31.139 --> 00:06:33.060 that Wheatley found Crowley to be a bit of a 00:06:33.060 --> 00:06:35.720 sad, diminished figure by that point. Aging, 00:06:35.720 --> 00:06:37.920 always hustling for money, Wheatley actually 00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:40.319 ended up paying for the lunch. But he mined Crowley 00:06:40.319 --> 00:06:42.660 for information. He wanted the rituals, the proper 00:06:42.660 --> 00:06:46.040 terminology. He was after very... But the irony 00:06:46.040 --> 00:06:47.680 here, and I think this is so important to point 00:06:47.680 --> 00:06:49.699 out, is that he never actually practiced any 00:06:49.699 --> 00:06:52.300 of it himself, did he? Never once. And that is 00:06:52.300 --> 00:06:54.730 a crucial distinction. Wheatley was a believer, 00:06:54.850 --> 00:06:57.250 yes, but very much in the traditional Christian 00:06:57.250 --> 00:07:00.529 sense. To him, these occult forces were absolutely 00:07:00.529 --> 00:07:03.529 real and they were purely evil. Right. He explicitly 00:07:03.529 --> 00:07:06.209 stated he would never engage in a ritual because 00:07:06.209 --> 00:07:08.230 he was terrified of opening a door he wouldn't 00:07:08.230 --> 00:07:11.110 be able to close. So his books are essentially 00:07:11.110 --> 00:07:13.889 these grand morality plays. It's the right -hand 00:07:13.889 --> 00:07:16.370 path battling the left -hand path. It's such 00:07:16.370 --> 00:07:19.209 a fascinating contradiction that he became the 00:07:19.209 --> 00:07:21.290 ultimate fictional authority on a subject he 00:07:21.290 --> 00:07:24.910 morally completely detested. The Wikipedia page 00:07:24.910 --> 00:07:27.829 notes that his 1934 book The Devil Rides Out 00:07:27.829 --> 00:07:30.750 was hailed by James Hilton as the best thing 00:07:30.750 --> 00:07:33.459 of its kind since Dracula. It cemented his reputation 00:07:33.459 --> 00:07:35.680 forever. He created whole series. You had the 00:07:35.680 --> 00:07:38.060 Duke de Richelieu for the occult stuff. But he 00:07:38.060 --> 00:07:40.839 also mixed genres. He had Gregory Sallis for 00:07:40.839 --> 00:07:44.300 WWII espionage and Roger Brooke for historical 00:07:44.300 --> 00:07:46.579 thrillers set during the French Revolution. OK, 00:07:46.639 --> 00:07:48.720 so he's building this massive literary empire 00:07:48.720 --> 00:07:51.100 in the 1930s. But then the real world starts 00:07:51.100 --> 00:07:53.220 sliding toward World War II. And this is where 00:07:53.220 --> 00:07:56.120 the story pivots from bestselling author to high 00:07:56.120 --> 00:07:58.759 level spy. Easily the most surprising chapter 00:07:58.759 --> 00:08:01.639 of his entire life. When the war breaks out, 00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:03.420 he isn't sent back to an artillery regiment. 00:08:03.959 --> 00:08:06.139 He actually gets recruited into something called 00:08:06.139 --> 00:08:09.279 the London Controlling Section, or the LCS. Even 00:08:09.279 --> 00:08:11.180 the name sounds like something straight out of 00:08:11.180 --> 00:08:13.939 a thriller. The London Controlling Section. What 00:08:13.939 --> 00:08:17.379 did they actually do? Their entire job was strategic 00:08:17.379 --> 00:08:21.329 deception. Not tactical deception like camouflaging 00:08:21.329 --> 00:08:23.990 a specific tank or hiding a bunker. They did 00:08:23.990 --> 00:08:26.189 strategic deception. They had to convince the 00:08:26.189 --> 00:08:28.389 German high command to move entire armies and 00:08:28.389 --> 00:08:30.910 divisions to the wrong countries. And Wheatley 00:08:30.910 --> 00:08:32.789 was brought in because the war office realized 00:08:32.789 --> 00:08:35.750 something very clever. What was that? Well, military 00:08:35.750 --> 00:08:38.309 men think in terms of logistics and supply lines. 00:08:38.629 --> 00:08:41.009 But if you want to fool Hitler, you need someone 00:08:41.009 --> 00:08:43.279 who thinks in terms of plot. Oh that makes so 00:08:43.279 --> 00:08:45.820 much sense. A general looks at a map of Europe 00:08:45.820 --> 00:08:48.279 and sees trip movements. A novelist looks at 00:08:48.279 --> 00:08:51.340 that same map and sees a narrative. Exactly. 00:08:51.960 --> 00:08:54.460 Early in the war, Wheatley actually wrote a massive 00:08:54.460 --> 00:08:58.179 paper called Total War. He basically just brainstormed 00:08:58.179 --> 00:09:00.740 every terrible, devious thing he would do to 00:09:00.740 --> 00:09:03.220 Britain if he were the Nazis. And it genuinely 00:09:03.220 --> 00:09:05.519 terrified the British leadership because he had 00:09:05.519 --> 00:09:08.700 such a vivid imagination for disaster. So they 00:09:08.700 --> 00:09:11.159 commissioned him as a wing commander in the RAF 00:09:11.159 --> 00:09:14.059 Volunteer Reserve and put him to work inventing 00:09:14.059 --> 00:09:17.440 lies. And big lies, too. The Wikipedia entry 00:09:17.440 --> 00:09:19.519 details his involvement in the deception plans 00:09:19.519 --> 00:09:22.299 for the Normandy invasions. Yes, the D -Day deceptions. 00:09:22.639 --> 00:09:25.120 The overarching goal was to convince the Germans 00:09:25.120 --> 00:09:27.100 that the Allied invasion was coming anywhere 00:09:27.100 --> 00:09:30.139 but Normandy, usually Pas -de -Calais or even 00:09:30.139 --> 00:09:32.860 up in Norway. So he's helping script this massive... 00:09:33.159 --> 00:09:35.820 Fake reality, fake radio traffic, feeding rumors 00:09:35.820 --> 00:09:38.159 to double agents, creating entirely fictional 00:09:38.159 --> 00:09:40.620 armies up in Scotland. It's literally storytelling 00:09:40.620 --> 00:09:43.159 on a global scale. He was writing a fiction and 00:09:43.159 --> 00:09:45.419 his audience was the German intelligence services. 00:09:45.700 --> 00:09:48.289 And he took it. incredibly seriously. He was 00:09:48.289 --> 00:09:50.809 awarded the U .S. Bronze Star for his role, actually. 00:09:50.970 --> 00:09:53.330 He understood that a well -placed, believable 00:09:53.330 --> 00:09:55.649 lie could do more strategic damage than a bombing 00:09:55.649 --> 00:09:58.389 raid. It connects so perfectly back to his writing, 00:09:58.470 --> 00:10:00.769 because he was already experimenting with how 00:10:00.769 --> 00:10:03.490 to make fiction look and feel like reality long 00:10:03.490 --> 00:10:05.950 before the war started. We have to talk about 00:10:05.950 --> 00:10:08.909 the crime dossiers he created in the 1930s. For 00:10:08.909 --> 00:10:11.049 anyone listening who loves true crime or interactive 00:10:11.049 --> 00:10:13.789 games, this is going to blow your mind. Oh, the 00:10:13.789 --> 00:10:16.379 crime dossier were totally revolutionary. he 00:10:16.379 --> 00:10:19.019 was decades ahead of his time with these. He 00:10:19.019 --> 00:10:21.360 teamed up with his friend J .G. Lynx, and in 00:10:21.360 --> 00:10:24.779 1936, they created Murder Off Miami. I want to 00:10:24.779 --> 00:10:26.820 describe the physical object for you listening, 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:28.659 because it wasn't just a book you put on a shelf. 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:31.200 No, not at all. It was an actual file folder 00:10:31.200 --> 00:10:33.580 tied with a ribbon. It looked exactly like a 00:10:33.580 --> 00:10:36.379 real police case file. When you opened it, there 00:10:36.379 --> 00:10:38.980 wasn't a traditional narrative. It was full of 00:10:38.980 --> 00:10:41.639 police reports, fake telegrams, handwritten letters, 00:10:41.840 --> 00:10:44.500 crime scene photos. And the real genius was the 00:10:44.500 --> 00:10:46.889 physical evidence. The source material says they 00:10:46.889 --> 00:10:50.529 included actual strands of human hair, matchsticks, 00:10:50.809 --> 00:10:53.870 bloodstained fabric, little pills sealed in tiny 00:10:53.870 --> 00:10:55.929 glassing envelopes. The logistics of manufacturing 00:10:55.929 --> 00:10:58.389 that must have been an absolute nightmare. Apparently 00:10:58.389 --> 00:11:01.129 it was. They had assembly lines of workers literally 00:11:01.129 --> 00:11:04.370 gluing pieces of hair and matchsticks into thousands 00:11:04.370 --> 00:11:07.049 of folders. But the effect was total immersion. 00:11:07.490 --> 00:11:09.669 You, the reader, became the detective. You had 00:11:09.669 --> 00:11:12.649 to physically sift through the clues to solve 00:11:12.649 --> 00:11:15.139 the murder. and the solution was sealed in a 00:11:15.139 --> 00:11:16.759 separate section at the very back that you had 00:11:16.759 --> 00:11:18.899 to tear open once you figured it out. Which sounds 00:11:18.899 --> 00:11:21.259 exactly like those modern Hunt a Killer subscription 00:11:21.259 --> 00:11:25.279 boxes or escape room board games. He just loved 00:11:25.279 --> 00:11:27.779 systems and games. He even designed strategic 00:11:27.779 --> 00:11:31.139 board games like Invasion in 1938 and Blockade 00:11:31.139 --> 00:11:34.139 in 1939. He viewed human conflict, whether it 00:11:34.139 --> 00:11:36.600 was a drawing room murder or a global war, as 00:11:36.600 --> 00:11:39.179 a complex puzzle with distinct rules and mechanics. 00:11:39.639 --> 00:11:42.120 So we have this man who is an absolute master 00:11:42.120 --> 00:11:44.779 of simulation. He simulates crimes for his readers. 00:11:44.879 --> 00:11:47.139 He simulates allied invasions for the war office. 00:11:47.850 --> 00:11:50.309 Did that blurring of lines between fact and fiction 00:11:50.309 --> 00:11:53.289 bleed into his writing after the war? Significantly. 00:11:53.309 --> 00:11:56.350 When he returns to writing post -war, he starts 00:11:56.350 --> 00:11:58.690 heavily incorporating his real -world intelligence 00:11:58.690 --> 00:12:02.750 experience. His spy character, Gregory Sallis, 00:12:02.789 --> 00:12:06.210 starts operating in a world that feels uncomfortably 00:12:06.210 --> 00:12:08.909 close to the truth. And Sallis, by the way, is 00:12:08.909 --> 00:12:11.590 widely cited as a direct inspiration for Ian 00:12:11.590 --> 00:12:14.259 Fleming's James Bond. Right. I saw that in the 00:12:14.259 --> 00:12:17.000 notes. Yeah. Fleming knew Wheatley, the dining, 00:12:17.120 --> 00:12:19.559 the drinking, the ruthless agent with a license 00:12:19.559 --> 00:12:21.320 to do what needs to be done. That's very much 00:12:21.320 --> 00:12:23.879 the Gregory Salas blueprint. But Wheatley also 00:12:23.879 --> 00:12:26.179 started having his fictional characters interact 00:12:26.179 --> 00:12:28.679 directly with real historical figures. Yeah. 00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:31.059 The entry mentions that Salas doesn't just fight 00:12:31.059 --> 00:12:33.259 faceless henchmen. He literally sits down and 00:12:33.259 --> 00:12:35.299 has dinner with Herman Goering. He does in a 00:12:35.299 --> 00:12:37.799 book called They Use Dirk Forces. And this is 00:12:37.799 --> 00:12:39.840 where we actually get a very revealing look into 00:12:39.840 --> 00:12:42.659 Wheatley's own political psyche, because he. 00:12:42.759 --> 00:12:45.120 He portrays Goebel with a surprising amount of 00:12:45.120 --> 00:12:47.779 sympathy. Really? Yeah. He frames Goebel almost 00:12:47.779 --> 00:12:51.419 as this honorable enemy, an aristocrat who went 00:12:51.419 --> 00:12:53.820 down the wrong path, but who still had some twisted 00:12:53.820 --> 00:12:56.039 sense of honor. And he does this specifically 00:12:56.039 --> 00:12:58.379 to contrast him with Joseph Goebel. How does 00:12:58.379 --> 00:13:01.200 he portray Goebel? Much worse. Wheatley describes 00:13:01.200 --> 00:13:03.960 Goebel as the extreme left of the Nazi party. 00:13:04.220 --> 00:13:07.500 He heavily emphasizes the socialist part of national 00:13:07.500 --> 00:13:10.799 socialism because to Wheatley, Goebel's represented 00:13:10.799 --> 00:13:13.159 the destruction of the old. world order, the 00:13:13.159 --> 00:13:15.519 tearing down of the class system and the aristocracy, 00:13:15.620 --> 00:13:17.820 which Wheatley viewed as being just as dangerous 00:13:17.820 --> 00:13:20.580 as communism. And this seems to be the real key 00:13:20.580 --> 00:13:22.399 to understanding the latter half of his life. 00:13:22.940 --> 00:13:25.500 He wasn't just a fun thriller writer. The Wikipedia 00:13:25.500 --> 00:13:28.320 entry makes it clear he was a staunch, deep -seated 00:13:28.320 --> 00:13:31.179 reactionary. He was a man out of time. He fiercely 00:13:31.179 --> 00:13:33.740 supported the monarchy, the British Empire, the 00:13:33.740 --> 00:13:36.159 rigid class structure of the Edwardian era he 00:13:36.159 --> 00:13:38.779 grew up in. And as he moved into the post -war 00:13:38.779 --> 00:13:42.419 1950s and 60s, he watched that world rapidly 00:13:42.419 --> 00:13:44.980 evaporating. Which brings us to perhaps the most 00:13:44.980 --> 00:13:46.759 intense thing we found in the source material. 00:13:47.480 --> 00:13:50.610 The letter to posterity. This part of the story 00:13:50.610 --> 00:13:53.129 honestly stopped me in my tracks. It is a remarkable 00:13:53.129 --> 00:13:56.190 and frankly chilling historical document. In 00:13:56.190 --> 00:13:58.830 the winter of 1947, Wheatley sat down at his 00:13:58.830 --> 00:14:01.309 country estate. The war against fascism was won, 00:14:01.429 --> 00:14:04.149 but in his eyes, the peace was being lost. The 00:14:04.149 --> 00:14:06.210 post -war labor government was in power. Exactly. 00:14:06.529 --> 00:14:09.289 They were bringing in socialist reforms, nationalizing 00:14:09.289 --> 00:14:11.769 industries. The empire was beginning to break 00:14:11.769 --> 00:14:15.470 apart. So he writes this long, sprawling letter, 00:14:15.669 --> 00:14:19.409 seals it inside a waterproof urn, and buries 00:14:19.409 --> 00:14:22.059 it secretly in his garden. He literally intended 00:14:22.059 --> 00:14:24.720 it to be a time capsule for a future civilization. 00:14:24.779 --> 00:14:27.879 Because he genuinely assumed his current civilization 00:14:27.879 --> 00:14:30.720 was doomed. The letter wasn't actually discovered 00:14:30.720 --> 00:14:33.320 until 1969 when the house was being demolished. 00:14:33.419 --> 00:14:35.820 And when they finally opened it, the Wikipedia 00:14:35.820 --> 00:14:39.299 entry outlines that they found basically a manifesto 00:14:39.299 --> 00:14:42.000 of pure upper class anxiety. So what exactly 00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:44.600 did the letter say? We want to report this impartially, 00:14:44.639 --> 00:14:46.700 just looking at what the source material tells 00:14:46.700 --> 00:14:49.110 us about his mindset. Well, he predicted that 00:14:49.110 --> 00:14:51.450 socialist reforms were going to completely bankrupt 00:14:51.450 --> 00:14:54.230 Britain. He predicted the eventual abolition 00:14:54.230 --> 00:14:57.570 of the monarchy. He complained very bitterly 00:14:57.570 --> 00:14:59.870 about what he saw as the pampering of the working 00:14:59.870 --> 00:15:02.409 class. He actually writes, and this is a direct 00:15:02.409 --> 00:15:04.870 quote from the entry, it is not a practical proposition 00:15:04.870 --> 00:15:07.049 that the few should be expected to devote their 00:15:07.049 --> 00:15:09.690 lives exclusively to making things easy for the 00:15:09.690 --> 00:15:13.129 majority. Which is a very stark, unapologetic 00:15:13.129 --> 00:15:16.409 defense of extreme elitism. But the letter goes 00:15:16.409 --> 00:15:18.309 much further than just political complaining. 00:15:18.450 --> 00:15:21.250 He actually gives instructions. Right. He treats 00:15:21.250 --> 00:15:23.389 the letter almost like a covert briefing paper 00:15:23.389 --> 00:15:26.009 for a future underground resistance movement. 00:15:26.169 --> 00:15:28.889 He advises future generations on exactly how 00:15:28.889 --> 00:15:32.110 to deal with what he calls socialist tyranny. 00:15:32.690 --> 00:15:35.759 And he does not mince his words at all. The entry 00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:38.039 notes he explicitly advises active resistance, 00:15:38.440 --> 00:15:41.179 which he says must include the, quote, ambushing 00:15:41.179 --> 00:15:44.120 and killing of unjust tyrannous officials. It's 00:15:44.120 --> 00:15:45.960 just shocking to read that coming from one of 00:15:45.960 --> 00:15:49.039 the most beloved bestselling authors of the era, 00:15:49.179 --> 00:15:52.299 he is literally advocating for political assassination 00:15:52.299 --> 00:15:54.919 in a buried time capsule. You really have to 00:15:54.919 --> 00:15:57.539 view it through the lens of his WWII experience 00:15:57.539 --> 00:16:00.100 in the London controlling section. He had just 00:16:00.100 --> 00:16:02.659 spent years actively planning sabotage, resistance, 00:16:02.899 --> 00:16:05.799 and total deception against the Nazis. In his 00:16:05.799 --> 00:16:07.600 mind, the ideological threat from the political 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:09.639 left in Britain was functionally identical to 00:16:09.639 --> 00:16:11.240 the threat from the Nazis. He was just applying 00:16:11.240 --> 00:16:13.980 the ruthless logic of total war to domestic British 00:16:13.980 --> 00:16:16.620 politics. It paints a picture of a man who was 00:16:16.620 --> 00:16:19.840 operating with deep, almost apocalyptic paranoia. 00:16:20.080 --> 00:16:22.659 while simultaneously hosting fabulous dinner 00:16:22.659 --> 00:16:25.179 parties and selling millions of books. It's that 00:16:25.179 --> 00:16:27.600 jarring dichotomy again. On the surface, he's 00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:30.960 the jovial, successful, wealthy author. Underneath, 00:16:30.980 --> 00:16:34.059 he is seething with this existential fear. And 00:16:34.059 --> 00:16:36.919 honestly... I think that tension is exactly what 00:16:36.919 --> 00:16:39.759 made his books so incredibly successful. How 00:16:39.759 --> 00:16:42.320 do you mean? Because when he wrote about a grand 00:16:42.320 --> 00:16:45.500 conspiracy to overthrow the world or a satanic 00:16:45.500 --> 00:16:47.519 plot to destroy all of Western civilization, 00:16:47.879 --> 00:16:50.559 he wasn't faking the emotional intensity of it. 00:16:50.659 --> 00:16:53.659 He truly felt it. He took all of his genuine 00:16:53.659 --> 00:16:56.279 political anxiety and poured it directly into 00:16:56.279 --> 00:16:58.899 his supernatural thrillers. The Satanists in 00:16:58.899 --> 00:17:01.179 his novels were very often just fictional proxies 00:17:01.179 --> 00:17:03.080 for the political forces he despised in real 00:17:03.080 --> 00:17:05.410 life. So the fear was... real, even if the magic 00:17:05.410 --> 00:17:08.769 wasn't. But despite this really intense backward 00:17:08.769 --> 00:17:11.049 -looking worldview, he remained incredibly popular 00:17:11.049 --> 00:17:13.829 for decades. Eventually, though, the star did 00:17:13.829 --> 00:17:17.750 fade. It did. By the 1970s, his writing style 00:17:17.750 --> 00:17:20.410 was starting to feel very dated. The whole glory 00:17:20.410 --> 00:17:23.250 of the empire value system simply didn't resonate 00:17:23.250 --> 00:17:26.700 with the younger post -60s generation. And then, 00:17:26.819 --> 00:17:30.240 after he died in 1977, his estate ran into some 00:17:30.240 --> 00:17:33.079 very complicated copyright issues. Which effectively 00:17:33.079 --> 00:17:35.220 kept his books out of print for a long time. 00:17:35.359 --> 00:17:37.980 Yeah, for decades. It wasn't until Bloomsbury 00:17:37.980 --> 00:17:40.420 Reader picked up his catalog in 2013 that the 00:17:40.420 --> 00:17:42.859 books became widely available again. But even 00:17:42.859 --> 00:17:44.599 if people aren't rushing out to read The Devil 00:17:44.599 --> 00:17:46.940 Rides Out today, his fingerprints are still all 00:17:46.940 --> 00:17:49.160 over our pop culture. We already mentioned the 00:17:49.160 --> 00:17:51.519 James Bond connection. And the horror genre owes 00:17:51.519 --> 00:17:55.009 him a huge debt. The 1968 Hammer horror film 00:17:55.009 --> 00:17:57.029 adaptation of The Double Rides Out starring Christopher 00:17:57.029 --> 00:18:00.569 Lee is an absolute cult classic. Wheatley basically 00:18:00.569 --> 00:18:02.789 established the entire trope of the sophisticated 00:18:02.789 --> 00:18:05.069 upper class occultist. You know, if you're watching 00:18:05.069 --> 00:18:07.509 a modern movie and a character is wearing a bespoke 00:18:07.509 --> 00:18:09.849 tuxedo while casually fighting a demon, that 00:18:09.849 --> 00:18:12.269 is a direct Dennis Wheatley legacy. It's such 00:18:12.269 --> 00:18:16.750 a strange, sprawling legacy. A Mayfair wine merchant. 00:18:17.069 --> 00:18:19.309 who basically taught the world how to imagine 00:18:19.309 --> 00:18:21.789 the impossible, whether he was detailing a black 00:18:21.789 --> 00:18:24.369 magic ritual, designing a crime file with real 00:18:24.369 --> 00:18:27.150 human hair or inventing a fake army in Scotland 00:18:27.150 --> 00:18:29.589 to fool the Nazis. He fundamentally understood 00:18:29.589 --> 00:18:31.930 the architecture of belief. I think that's the 00:18:31.930 --> 00:18:34.849 common thread through his whole crazy life. Whether 00:18:34.849 --> 00:18:37.029 he was selling an expensive bottle of wine, selling 00:18:37.029 --> 00:18:39.430 a pulp novel or selling a massive lie to the 00:18:39.430 --> 00:18:41.930 German military, he knew exactly how to construct 00:18:41.930 --> 00:18:44.470 a narrative that human beings desperately wanted 00:18:44.470 --> 00:18:47.190 to buy into. And as we wrap up this deep dive, 00:18:47.369 --> 00:18:50.269 that feels incredibly relevant right now. You 00:18:50.269 --> 00:18:52.269 know, we talk so much today about being in an 00:18:52.269 --> 00:18:56.049 age of information warfare, of deep fakes, of 00:18:56.049 --> 00:18:58.450 competing realities. But Dennis Wheatley was 00:18:58.450 --> 00:19:00.690 doing all of this with typewriters, cardboard 00:19:00.690 --> 00:19:03.329 tanks, and sheer nerve 80 years ago. He was a 00:19:03.329 --> 00:19:05.549 pioneer of it. Which leaves us with a pretty 00:19:05.549 --> 00:19:08.369 provocative thought to chew on. Today, we spend 00:19:08.369 --> 00:19:10.690 so much time worrying about artificial intelligence 00:19:10.690 --> 00:19:14.150 generating fake news or algorithms manipulating 00:19:14.150 --> 00:19:17.549 our reality. But Wheatley's life proves that 00:19:17.549 --> 00:19:20.269 human imagination, armed with just a typewriter 00:19:20.269 --> 00:19:22.750 and a deep understanding of human psychology, 00:19:23.029 --> 00:19:26.329 can fabricate a reality convincing enough to 00:19:26.329 --> 00:19:28.769 fool an entire empire. That's a great point. 00:19:28.930 --> 00:19:31.089 It makes you wonder if we are too focused on 00:19:31.089 --> 00:19:33.829 the technology of deception when the real vulnerability 00:19:33.829 --> 00:19:36.890 has always just been our basic human desire to 00:19:36.890 --> 00:19:39.450 believe a compelling story. The human mind is 00:19:39.450 --> 00:19:41.650 still the most easily hacked system out there. 00:19:41.809 --> 00:19:44.029 Exactly. Well, thank you for taking this deep 00:19:44.029 --> 00:19:46.230 dive with us today. It has been a genuinely wild 00:19:46.230 --> 00:19:48.250 ride through the archives. It's been my pleasure. 00:19:48.410 --> 00:19:51.869 And to you listening, keep digging. Because as 00:19:51.869 --> 00:19:55.289 Dennis Wheatley proved, there is always, always 00:19:55.289 --> 00:19:56.890 more beneath the surface.