However, the Cult of Mordiggian suffered a major setback in 1940 at the hands of what can only be described as "talented amateur investigators and vigilantes." They lost their temple and gate to the Dreamlands, destroying literally four decades of hard work. (See Pagan Publishing's The Realm of Shadows for details.) Rebuilding was impossible as too many of the cult's most experienced and forward thinking members had been slain. The Cult of Mordiggian would take decades to reorganize.
The DeMontes shared the Cult of Mordiggian's vision that a more permissive world might mean they would no longer have to hide like grubs under a rock. Therefore the Clan sought to support and promote whatever was forbidden by society, starting
with the victimless vices that are so often very profitable. Since arriving in New Orleans they have had their hands in alcohol, illegal drugs, prostitution, pornography, and gambling. They also promoted things seen by the culture of the time as decadent and a threat to public order, such as civil rights, women's rights, desegregation, and an end to Jim Crow. In later decades the DeMontes gave financial support to groups that supported the rights of homosexuals, the legalization of marijuana, the lowering of the age of consent, and the preservation of the separation of church and state. It should give most modern, enlightened Investigators a sick turn to realize that many of the greatest leaps forward in human rights have been supported by the ghoul cults as a means to their end of creating a human culture so debased and morally relativistic, that public and open consumption of human flesh would not been seen a crime against nature. With the Cult of Mordiggian in chaos after the disaster of 1940, it was up to the DeMontes alone to continue that work during the second half of the 20th century.
The DeMontes are unsure which direction to push in order to reach their goal of a society that would permit cannibalizing its dead, but because of their financial interest in pornography, the DeMontes were quick to see the value of the Internet as a way to promote and circulate ideas. Starting in the late 1990s they decided to focus on promoting the most extreme and deviant forms of Internet pornography in which the public showed an interest. This support came in a number of forms, but it was primarily financial and indirect. The DeMontes do not own the websites that provide this material to the public. Instead the DeMontes use blind trusts to make anonymous contributions to First Amendment proponents focused on the Internet, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The DeMotes established other trusts to fund legal assistance for anyone being prosecuted for the production, dissemination and possession of any kind of sexually explicit material. The only limit is that they don't get involved in cases concerning child pornography or forced prostitution. The DeMontes realize that the fastest way to push a boundary is to define where it isn't going to be. After all, the society the ghouls want is one where the dead are consumed, not one where people are killed in order to become food. Their ideal situation would technically be a victimless crime, presuming one discounts the psychological effect this would have on the deceased's grieving family. The DeMontes believe that by defending "victimless" pornography produced by consenting adults, they will be able to push the boundaries of what an adult can consent to. They also donate to organizations that advocate doctor assisted suicide, or advocate the decriminalization of suicide.
Of course, it is one of the great truths about porn on the Internet that no matter what one's sexual fetish is, no matter how weird or unlikely it may seem, one thing is certain: someone else has already put up a website dedicated to it. So it came as a surprise to the DeMontes when they learned that the Internet was populated by message boards, websites and mailing lists dedicated to the promotion of cannibalism, or more specifically, to the promotion of the fetish of sexualized cannibal play. While sex games involving basting brushes and olive oil may seem to be a waste of the clan's time, the DeMonte matriarch, Antoinette DeMonte, was fascinated by this strange expression of human sexuality. That interest rose to the level of obsession in 2001, when the news broke about Armin Meiwes of Germany.
Over the centuries there have been perhaps hundreds of cases of cannibalism linked with savage murderers and serial killers. Killers like Albert Fish, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Issei Sagawa all engaged in cannibalism as part of their murderous obsessions, but it wasn't until the Armin Meiwes case that the paradigm shifted dramatically. Where other murderous cannibals stalked their victims, Armin Meiwes advertised for his. He used the Internet to find someone with an unhealthy obsession with sexualized cannibalism in order to get them to volunteer to be killed, cooked and eaten. Meiwes was apparently extremely frank about his intentions and many people answered his ad, only to back out when Meiwes made it clear that he was not discussing a fantasy, but that he intended to consummate his plans by consuming the flesh of his volunteer. Astonishingly a man named Bernd Jurgen Brandes came forward and volunteered to be killed and eaten, which he was.
What was significant for the DeMontes was that Meiwes attempted to defend his murder and cannibalism on the grounds that he had never hidden his intentions and his victim offered himself up out of free will. While this tactic failed Meiwes dismally, resulting in his earlier conviction for manslaughter to be overturned and a retrial and conviction for murder, the DeMontes' took heart.
After all, Clarence Darrow may have lost the Scopes Monkey Trial, but it was the beginning of the end for state-mandated creationist education. Who knows? Perhaps this was the beginning of a movement toward consensual cannibalism.
This idea of 'consensual cannibalism' has long struck a chord with Antoinette DeMonte. After hiring a discreet law firm, she was able to determine that many countries, like Germany in the Meiwes case, did not have laws outlawing cannibalism.
