You’re disconnected from a bigger more inclusive pattern which didn’t begin with the Bloomsbury Group, Cambridge Apostles, Fabians...there’s been many prior which gets passed down by some. The Royal Garter was but one example, just as the Nobel was but one example...the bestowing of titles, mansions, cash, land, was also a part of the prize-giving or graft. Granted I went through the centuries fast but this is a post and not a book.
RE: sp. errors...sorry, write fast due to time restraints..
The Secret Society of Dilettanti 1734 - Prince Charles is an hononory member - benefactor Dashwood - see link above.
“Ribald and profane, the Society nurtured a lively curiosity for ancient erotica, piqued by the sensational finds of sexually explicit art in Herculaneum and Pompeii. They made a subversive contribution to the interpretation of ancient mythology and religion with A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, which drew from reports of a phallic cult in southern Italy. Designed both to inform and to titillate, this daring treatise argued that all art is rooted in religion, and all religion in sexuality. The exhibition Grecian Taste and Roman Spirit includes what scandalized critics termed “obscene” artifacts, installed in an intimate, dimly lit gallery evoking the “museo segreto,” or a cabinet of erotic curiosities”. ...
http://www.artknowledgenews.com/Society_of_Dilettanti.html
I wish there was more time in the day. I believe when you start digging you’ll find a common thread throughout. Take care.
Some people try to make the Order of the Garter into a "pagan/witchcraft" thing. Yes, I know that version of it's origin. But since that's a bit tinfoily, you truly can't just throw that out there and just leave lie.
Well I do know about Dashwood and his "HELLFIRE CLUB". Benjamin Franklin was an auxillary member.
What you failed to do with the Pre-Raphaelites ( misspelling is one thing, a total corruption of a name/term is something quite different and yes, late hours plus hast often culminates in a somewhat messed up post; I've done it to myself, here and there )was to really tie it into your position. OTOH, you managed to leave out some things which should have been in there.........such a s Mary Woolstonecraft and her circle. She was a proponent of "FREE LOVE" and her husband William Godwin was one of the earlier "founders" of the anarchist movement. Their daughter, Mary Woolstonecraft Godwin, later Shelley, used some of her mother's ideas about the "perfection of man", in her novel; "FRANKENSTEIN".
What is sorely missing from your treatise, is the fact that all of these people and things were at the outer fringe of the fringe; unaccepted by the vast majority of the populace,most of whom didn't even know about such things and who were not in the least influenced by them.
Then, there is the simple fact that such things as spiritualism, which allowed Blavatsky,for instance, to come to the fore, is grounded in what happens after major wars and has, for millenia.It's even in the Bible ( see THE WITCH OF ENDOR, for reference )! When people are killed, their relatives yearn to reach out to them/their spirits/souls. This was especially true during/right after the Civil War, WWI and yes, WW II and Nam. These eras also saw great sudden interest in the occult and mysticism. And through Blavatsky, buts especially Besant, and then the Beatles, of all people, a surge in interest of all things "mysterious" from India.
You simply can NOT tie all of these things together, in a neat little package, and say that it's an unbroken line of "evil" taking over.............or some such tinfoil. Sure there are some connections, but once you start down the slippery path, as you sort of did, you get someone piping up, erroneously, about the Mason, or even the Bohemian Grove.