Bizarre clubs have long provided a secret stage where the world’s most influential figures let loose, experiment, and sometimes cause a stir. From literary hash‑smoking circles to decadent drinking fraternities, these hidden societies reveal a side of history that most people never see.
Why Bizarre Clubs Capture Our Imagination
Because they combine fame, excess, and a dash of mystery, these exclusive groups let the powerful play by their own rules—often with spectacular results. Below, we count down ten of the most out‑of‑the‑ordinary gatherings ever recorded.
10 Club Des Hachichins
Club des Hachichins, literally “Hashish Club,” sprang to life in early‑19th‑century Paris after Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign introduced the drug to Europe. Dr. Jacques‑Joseph Moreau founded the club to study hashish’s effects on the nation’s brightest minds. The roster read like a literary hall of fame: Alexandre Dumas, Charles Baudelaire, Victor Hugo and other mid‑1800s Parisian authors.
From 1844 to 1849 the members met at the Pimodan House, dressing in Arab costume and sipping strong coffee laced with hashish. They claimed the drug offered an “intellectual intoxication” superior to the “ignoble heavy drunkenness” of alcohol. Baudelaire chronicled his experiences, praising hashish as a convenient companion to opium while warning that it could eventually drain imagination. By 1849 the club had fulfilled its scientific purpose, and Moreau published a treatise on hashish before the group dissolved.
9 The Hollywood Vampires
The Hollywood Vampires were a notorious pack of rock‑star revelers led by Alice Cooper. Core members included Who drummer Keith Moon, Monkees’ Mickey Dolenz, singer Harry Nielsson and occasional visits from John Lennon. Their haunt was the Rainbow Bar and Grill in West Hollywood, where a plaque still proclaims the venue as their lair.
The name sprang from their ability to stay up all night and crash at sunrise. Moon’s penchant for flamboyant costumes—once even masquerading as the Queen—added to the chaos. Heavy drinking and a free‑for‑all approach to drugs led to tragic outcomes: Jimi Hendrix died of an overdose in 1970, Jim Morrison followed in 1971, both at 27. The club finally faded after Moon’s death in 1978, but Cooper says the loss spurred his own journey to sobriety.
8 Cresthill
During the 1970s the Comedy Store in West Hollywood nurtured a generation of comic legends—Richard Pryor, Robin Williams, David Letterman and Jay Leno among them. Above the club sat Cresthill, a house purchased in 1974 by owner Mitzi Shore as a private hangout for the comedians.
Argus Hamilton became the first resident in 1979, setting a precedent of wild parties fueled by cocaine, alcohol and big‑time comedy salaries. Pryor and Williams were known to indulge together, while the pressure of fame drove Hamilton’s own career into the ground. Cresthill saw the overdose death of John Belushi in 1982 and, by the 1990s, the space mainly attracted nostalgia‑seeking comics like Jim Carrey before quietly closing its doors.
7 Bullingdon Club
The Bullingdon Club is Oxford’s most exclusive—and infamous—society, historically limited to England’s wealthiest young men. Modern observers recognize it from Prime Minister David Cameron’s membership and a scandal involving a pig’s head. Its uniform, unchanged since 1850, features blue tie, coat, brass buttons, buff waistcoat and trousers.
Originally a cricket club founded in 1780, the Bullingdon Club evolved into a gathering for privileged men who threw extravagant parties; a single dinner in 1868 cost £56, equivalent to about £8,000 today. In 1977 member Bartholomew Smith caused a serious car crash while drunk behind the wheel of a Maserati, receiving only a driving ban and fine. Even Winston Churchill criticized the club in 1909, noting the double standards enjoyed by its elite members.
6 Piers Gravestone Society
The Piers Gravestone Society, founded in 1977 by Valentine Guinness, was an even tighter circle of twelve undergraduates—many of whom, like David Cameron, later entered Britain’s power corridors. Named after the alleged male lover of King Edward II, the club proclaimed a defiant “we’ll have a good time” attitude amid national turmoil.
Its annual ball required each member to invite twenty guests, preferably women, and the events became legendary for cross‑dressing, speed‑laced jelly, and a rule‑free atmosphere. A 1995 journalist reported raunchy drag costumes and bondage gear, while broadcaster Julia Hartley‑Brewer described the gatherings as “big, fairly wild parties” with ample drink, rich guests, and a focus on indulgence.
5 The Merry Pranksters
In 1963, novelist Ken Kesey launched the Merry Pranksters with a single mission: spread the gospel of LSD. Fresh off the success of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey gathered a cadre of Beat icons—Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, Tom Wolfe and Jack Kerouac—to embark on a cross‑country trip aboard a brightly painted 1939 Harvester school bus they christened “Further.”
Armed with jars of LSD‑laced orange juice, Cassady—often high on amphetamines—piloted the bus from California to the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. Carolyn Garcia, future wife of Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia, recalled that the Pranksters “knew they were starting the ’60s.” Their exploits were immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool‑Aid Acid Test. After a few years of police pressure, Kesey fled to Mexico in 1966, ending the group’s most active phase.
4 The Sublime Society Of Beefsteaks
Founded in 1735 by Henry Rich, the Sublime Society of Beefsteaks was a dining club for London’s elite. Membership was capped at 24, and even future king George IV had to wait his turn. Notable members included radical MP John Wilkes and artist William Hogarth.
The club’s original home was the Covent Garden Theatre, which burned down in 1808. Subsequent venues included the Bedford Coffee House, the Old Lyceum Theatre (which also burned), and finally the Lyceum Tavern on the Strand. Members feasted on massive beefsteaks, port wine and whiskey while singing and reveling. Wilkes once wrote to friends that after dinner he imagined them “visiting the whore‑houses of Covent Garden.” The society still meets today at Boisdale in London.
3 Hellfire Club
The most infamous of England’s secret societies, the Hellfire Club was founded in 1746 by Sir Francis Dashwood as the Order of the Knights of St. Francis. In 1750 Dashwood leased the crumbling 13th‑century Medmenham Abbey, emblazoning the doorway with the motto “Fay ce que voudras” (“do what thou wilt”).
Initially limited to twelve members, the club quickly attracted luminaries such as American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, painter William Hogarth and MP John Wilkes. Calling themselves the Monks of Medmenham, they mocked religion, gambled, drank, and kept mistresses nearby. Their mock religious rites were held in the nearby Hellfire Caves until the club’s closure in 1766. The caves remain a tourist attraction, preserving the club’s notorious reputation.
2 The Beggar’s Benison
Defying Scotland’s strict Presbyterian norms, the Beggar’s Benison was a 18th‑century society devoted entirely to sexual indulgence. Named after the promiscuous James V of Scotland, the club gathered aristocrats and intellectuals in Anstruther, Fife.
Activities ranged from reading erotic works like Byron’s Don Juan and the notorious Fanny Hill to heavy drinking, nude women (view‑only), erotic illustrations, lectures on sex, and collective masturbation. Their trophies included a wig fashioned from the pubic hair of Charles II’s mistresses; when stolen, Prince Regent George IV supplied a replacement made from his own conquests. The Benison championed masturbation as healthy—a radical stance for the era. The club peaked in 1822 when George IV was crowned, but dissolved in 1836 as Victorian prudishness took hold.
1 The Cannibal Club
In 1863 the Ethnological Society of London split over whether humans were inherently monogamous or polygamous. Richard Francis Burton—renowned explorer, polyglot and notorious bon vivant—alongside Dr. James Hunt, founded the secretive Cannibal Club as an offshoot of the Anthropological Society.
Meeting in the back room of Bertolini’s Restaurant, members smoked cigars, drank, and debated topics that shocked Victorian respectability: polygamy, bestiality, phallic worship, female circumcision, ritual murder, fetishes and even cannibalism. Burton encouraged the exchange of pornography and stories of whipping sex workers. Poet Algernon Charles Swineburne penned a blasphemous oath for the group, while reformer Charles Bradlaugh—later elected to Parliament—also joined. After Hunt’s death in 1869 and Burton’s departure on diplomatic missions, the club dissolved, its members later joining the Royal Anthropological Institute. Burton was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1886 despite his scandalous reputation.