Marianne Martindale (also known as Catherine Tyrell, Mari de Colwyn, Mary Scarlett and Mary Guillermin [1] ) is an English writer and columnist. As Miss Martindale, she was a prominent public face of Aristasia, an all-female subculture inspired by the Traditionalist School and early twentieth-century culture. [2]
From 1982 to 1992 Martindale was one of the leaders of the Silver Sisterhood, a Goddess-worshiping new religious movement described as a cult, [1] based in Burtonport, County Donegal in Ireland. The group is known for creating early text adventure video games such as Bugsy [3] and Jack the Ripper, [3] the first game to be given an '18' rating. [3] [4] [5]
Martindale co-founded the Wildfire Club publishing house and edited a collection of stories titled Disciplined Ladies. [2] She received national attention in the British press in the 1990s for her advocacy of corporal punishment. [2] Martindale believed in corporal discipline as spiritual and purifying. [6] Due to the use of caning among the Silver Sisterhood and its prominence in the group's later years, the group was described as fetishistic in nature. [7]
Martindale always maintained that, as an Aristasian, she was neutral on matters of "Tellurian" (Earth) politics. Martindale claimed to be a royalist and imperialist, but with loyalty only to the Aristasian monarchy and empire. Despite this, she regularly wrote letters to John Tyndall, a neo-Nazi activist and the founder of the British National Party. [2] Additionally, antisemitic and far-right publications were found in St Bride's, the residence of the Silver Sisterhood, after they left in 1992. [8]
Martindale was convicted of assault in 1993 for the caning of a young woman at St Bride's. [1] In 1999 she married English film director John Guillermin. Martindale was featured in a 2022 BBC Radio Ulster podcast about St. Brides, in which she describes herself as working currently as a marriage therapist in California and having adopted an adult son and two of his friends. [9]