Diabolical Surrealism: Black Cats, Lucifer and Orgies

Do you think you know what "shocking" is? Before you answer, take a look at these photos taken on December 12, 1972 during the Surrealist Ball at the Chateau de Ferre estate. The organizer of the Ball was a representative of one of the richest French families of that time, Marie-Helene de Rothschild.

From numerous photos, people in very extravagant costumes look at us. According to the stories of Alexis von Rosenberg, the photographer who shot this "creative bacchanal", in fact, the ball was a gathering of "initiates" or Illuminati, and this event could not be called anything other than a Ball at Satan's.

"The guests had to go through a kind of labyrinth of Hell made of black ribbons, they looked like cobwebs. The guests were greeted by a "random cat" - a man in the guise of a black cat - he brought them to a salon upholstered with mystical tapestries," von Rosenberg recalled– "Then they were escorted by a young man with a hat on a platter and Marie-Helene herself with an artificial deer head crying tears from diamonds."

Of course, not everyone received a sign of the highest approval from Parisian high society in the form of an invitation to the ball. The guests were representatives of the beau monde of that time: from bankers to artists (one of the organizers, by the way, was Salvador Dali). In accordance with the theme, Marie-Helene prepared personalized invitations made in the style of the Belgian surrealist artist Magritte Rene.

Guests in their surreal images were greeted by servants and footmen dressed in black cat costumes.

According to Alexis, the ball consisted of satanic rituals, and the party ended with a mass orgy, "at which no one looked at what gender the partner was."