The Book of Ra by Mr Oberon

Thanks to Learn Religions

Title: The Book of Ra

Author: possibly Mr Oberon (not his real name)

Publisher: Not known 

Source book: Spinsters in Jeopardy by Ngaio Marsh (Inspector Alleyn #17)

Spinsters in Jeopardy is very much the silliest and least readable of Ngaio Marsh’s Inspector Alleyn stories. Mr Oberon leads an improbable religious sect, The Children of the Sun, which leans heavily on ancient Egyptian mysticism. The sect is based in a chateau called Le Chèvre d’Argent, in the South of France and is linked with drug abuse, drug dealing, and large scale drug manufacturing. There don’t appear to be very many members of this sect, but all of them have money. There is the suggestion of forced sex. There is murder. And there are goats.

Apparently the text of the The Book of Ra which Mr Oberon reads from to emphasise his mystic powers, was never made public but was stored away in the archives of Scotland Yard where it “occupies a place of infamy rivalling that of the Book of Horus and the Swami Viva Ananda (you can read about this fraudulent medium on Wikipedia under Ann O’Delia Diss Debar if you fancy) There are duplicates at the Sûreté”. Well, wasn’t that nice of Scotland Yard to let the French police have details of a crime committed in France?

Presumably we are intended to think that The Book of Ra contains a selection of pseudo mystical poetry, probably with sexual overtones, and a lot of fake ancient Egyptian mumbo jumbo. 

Thanks to the University of Roehampton