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The Order of the White Peacock were a 19th and 20th century secret devil-worshiping cult based in the mountains of the Sung Plateau. The Order's symbol was that of a white peacock - in parody of the Peacock Angel in the Yezidi religion.
Starting in the 1890s, the Order began propagating itself through fiction, becoming less of an actual cult and more of an archetype: that of the stylish oriental villain. The Order reached the general Western public through characters such as Fu Manchu and Ming the Merciless. By the 1930s, in part due to some manipulation by Faction Hollywood, most symbols of evil in American film were derived from totems of the Order. By the time of the Cold War, the actual Order was nearly non-existent; but it meta-physically survived through American fear of communist China. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
Behind the scenes
Early drafts of The Brakespeare Voyage had the Order of the White Peacock having a major role. [1]