The carnal god

by John R. (John Rawson) Speer

"The carnal god by John R. Speer and Carlisle Schnitzer" is a weird‑fiction pulp horror novelette written in the late 1930s. The story centers on an occult cult in London led by a mesmerizing countess who serves an alien deity, and on the struggle to save a young woman marked for sacrificial rites. A disfigured scientist, Pierre Soret, warns Dr. Carl Fielding that his fiancée Ruth has been ensnared by the Countess Moonard’s cult of Moonere, which draws unearthly power from Sudre, a moon of a distant planet. Pierre reveals the temple’s star-glass that focuses deadly rays and an idol that becomes animate during rites. Using telepathy, a scrying “bowl,” and a counter‑ray, Pierre battles the cult from his hidden laboratory while Inspector Chadwick briefly falls under the countess’s spell. As the sacrificial night peaks, Pierre—dying under Sudre’s rays—guides Carl to the temple with a silver disk that reflects a fatal beam, melting the golden idol and driving the countess to destruction in her own fire. The temple collapses, the enthralled women are freed and age to their true years, and Ruth is saved. Pierre perishes, his voice fading after one last aid from beyond, and Carl and Ruth return to ordinary life.