The Pentacle Club is one of the world's oldest magic societies well known by amateur and professional magicians for its longevity and famous members.
The Pentacle Club was founded in 1919 by Professor W. W. Rouse Ball, J. H. Johnson, C. R. Cosens, F. J. W. Roughton, and W. I. Grantham.[1] The Club, consisting of members of the University of Cambridge, was a successor to The Mystics, a pre-World War II club that ran from 1909 to 1914. Rouse Ball, the first President of the club, gathered support from across the university for the first meeting of the club, where the members "saw demonstrations of rope and card tricks, thimble and billiard ball manipulations".[2] The initial subscription rate was half a crown a term.[3]
During the 1920s, the Pentacle Club became increasingly well known on a national level, thanks in part to a sequence of guest visits to Cambridge, including Douglas Dexter and Nevil Maskelyne, the latter inviting the Pentacle Club to undertake a joint performance with the Magic Circle in London.[4] During the Second World War, the club performed in aid of the Red Cross, with amateur magicians from the University of London, evacuated to Cambridge during the conflict, adding to the membership. In 1963 the club began to admit members from outside the university, leading to a slow change in the club's composition — over the last few decades the membership has been increasingly drawn from the Cambridge region, and less from undergraduates. The club retained its traditional links to the university, however, under the long presidency of Sir William Hawthorne, Master of Churchill College, Cambridge, well known for performing magic.[5]
In 2023, students at the University of Cambridge revived the original name and emblem for The Mystics, reimagined as a society for the academic study and discussion of supernatural magic and esotericism.[6]
| President Jeremy Bond | Secretary Hugh Newsam | Treasurer Chris Kostecki MMC |
| Committee Member Stacy Smith MMC | Committee Member Alex Joseph MMC | Committee Member John Davenport MIMC |
Presidents and their tenures:[7]
Current president (2018 – present): Jeremy "JezO" Bond MMC