Editing Hellfire Club (section)

==Hellfire Clubs in contemporary life==

===Phoenix Society===
In 1781, Dashwood's nephew Joseph Alderson (an undergraduate at [[Brasenose College, Oxford]]) founded the Phoenix Society (later known as the Phoenix Common Room), but it was only in 1786 that the small gathering of friends asserted themselves as a recognised institution.<ref>See also ''A Century of the Phoenix Common Room, Brasenose College, Oxford, 1786–1886,'' records edited by F. Madan, Oxford, 1888.</ref> The Phoenix was established in honour of Sir Francis, who died in 1781, as a symbolic rising from the ashes of Dashwood's earlier institution. To this day, the dining society abides by many of its predecessor's tenets. Its motto {{lang|la|uno avulso non deficit alter}} 'when one is torn away another succeeds' is from the sixth book of [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]'' and refers to the practice of establishing the continuity of the society through a process of constant renewal of its graduate and undergraduate members, but also refers to the alchemical [[Kabbalah|kabbalistic]] process that a life snatched via sacrifice is a life given back via a spirit at the command of its master. The Phoenix Common Room's continuous history was reported in 1954 as a matter of note to the college.<ref>'Brasenose College', ''A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 3: The University of Oxford'' (1954), pp. 207–219. [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=63882 British-history.ac.uk]</ref>