Vril-ya Club

The Vril-ya Club was a London, England-based arcane society based around study and exploration of esoteric concepts, including vril and od, being based on Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race.

Selected Publications

• Lovell, Arthur, ed. (190?), Transactions of the Vril-Ya Club (London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co.) (1) 
• Lovell, Arthur, ed. (1904), "Reichenbach's Researches: a Lecture", Transactions of the Vril-Ya Club (London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co.) (2), http://iapsop.com/archive/materials/vril-ya_transactions/vril-ya_club_transactions_n2.pdf 

Press Coverage

• "KOOM-PUSH.", Punch 125: 304, 28 Oct. 1903 
  

  [Vide Lord LYTTON's Coming Race, Ch. XII.]

  A "VRIL-YA CLUB" was inaugurated on October 14 by Mr. ARTHUR LOVELL at the Modern Gallery, to "study organic force in all its aspects," and to "generate more vril than has hitherto been apparent." Incidentally there will be dramatic representations to illustrate the stage of individual and racial development, and for those who desire to penetrate more deeply into occult science facilities will be afforded for theoretical and practical instruction.

  We view the prospect with alarm, especially as the period of "Glek-Nas," our "universal strife-rot," appears to be setting in for the average "Tish," or Man-in-the-Crowd. If the favoured "Ana" and "Gy-ei" (male and female Modern-Galleryites) elect to form a corner in "vril" — a commodity which has not been greatly in evidence lately, especially at the War Office and in the Cabinet — where will Mr. Punch and the rest of us come in? We shall have a select number of SUNNY JIMS and COSMIC JANES among us, leaping gaily over the conventions that bind less forceful mortals. We shall find them "passively resisting" the ordinary law-abiding citizen's attempt to protect his life and property, and forming a gigantic Vril Trust with the proceeds. This will be most disconcerting and un-Lovelly. We cannot contemplate with equianimity the notion of being vrilled — no, thrilled — into applauding dramatic representations which we most decidedly ought to "boo," and which the Censor will have been constrained, against his better judgment, to pass. All the actor-managers and leading ladies will become members of the Club and put on "vrils," as they have never done before, and we shall be coerced into imitating the Tur (or president of the Club) as the Vrillain of a Vrilo-farce at Drury Lane.

  No, we must guy the Gy-ei, and nip the new organisation in the bud. Besides, we have to keep all our sanity and independent of thought for the Fiscal Ques——

• "Chromatic Morals.", Punch 127: 397, 7 Dec. 1904 
  

  [Sciences Notes by Professor Job Lott.]

  Dr. STENSON HOOKER has been lecturing last Wednesday on his character rays theory at the Vril-ya Club. For instance, it appears that a deep blue halo plays around writers, clergymen and good politicians, while slaty blue or light brown emanations invest the ordinary person, and a dark green aura indicated some little defect — such as failing to return a £5 note — on the mental or physical plane.

  This throws a new light on a hitherto abstruse law of nature, and we can now realise why certain colours as so called and what individuals correspond to them. If some public speakers are — shall we say, Madder than others, is there no a tint to that effect? Again, though we shudder at having to admit it, we have known some fair taradiddlers who must, to the discerning eye, have worn a nimbus of Sapphira Blue. There have even been occasions — tell it not in Mayfair! — when, after riding in a crowded bus, or spending an assiduous afternoon in the Library of the British Museum, one has felt a very pronounced Puce oneself. We will not range further round the palette, though Cadmium and Mars Yellow and Mummy suggest possibilities, except to inquire if the ingenious lecturer's audience saw any Hooker's Green in his eye?

• Bashford, E. F. (27 May 1911), "Cancer, Credulity, and Quackery", British Medical Journal: 1228-1229 
  

  "A lay worker in therapeutics" suggests "colour vibrations." Mr. Arthur Lovell, President of the "Vril-ya Club," and having a large following in the cult of "Vril," appears to believe in the efficacy of "magnetic and mesmeric passes" and "nerve energy." "The term 'Vril,' therefore, naturally signifies the height of domination attained by cultivation of man's latent power." Members of the Vril-ya Club have got a creed. They are exhorted as follows:

  Do you not see how it would serve to have such a Body and Soul, that when you enter a crowd, an atmosphere of desire and command enters with you, and every one is impressed with your personality? Go, Dear Friend, if need be, give up all else to inure yourself to Pluck, Reality, Self-esteem, Definiteness, Elevatedness.

  The transactions of the club are more illuminating than Mr. Lovell's frequent letters to the newspapers on the "Ars Vivendi" principles. Here are some quotations:

  Magic, Sorcery, the Black Art, Witchcraft, Mesmerism, Electro-Biology, Animal Magnetism, etc., are all edifices erected on the fundamental principle — that the human organism is a powerful radio-active body, emitting rays which can be felt of about one-third of mankind. The curative property of this radio-activity has been demonstrated over and over again in a manner which leaves no doubt in the mind of the impartial investigator that this is the scientific method of curing disease. Dr. Ashburner wrote in 1851, in the preface to his translation of Reichenbach's Researches, it has conquered malignant cancer. It has removed enormous growths known as polypus as I can testify. I know that it has chased away large ovarian tumours and dropsies that defied all medical skill, etc. . . . When the nature of nerve energy as a force akin to Electricity is understood, the explanation is very simple. An exalted state of feeling or belief acts upon the nerve energy in the organism by raising the Potential and increasing the Density. . . . The rise of the Potential in Nerve Energy is the Scientific explanation of the wonderful cures wrought through Faith-healing in all lands and ages. The Vril-ya Club will thoroughly explain, as the manifestation of "Vril," all cures that have been and will be performed.

  No wonder Mr. Lovell is "much interested in the question of cancer research," and convinced that, "in dealing with this method the chief difficulty has always been to secure sufficiently powerful operators," and therefore that Mr. Lovell "inured himself to pluck, reality, self-esteem, definiteness, elevatedness," before he vouchsafed to offer to cure cancer. Thus even the latest ideas due to advances in physical science are demonstrated to be perverted by credulity and quackery for the deliberate exploitation of human suffering.