Bishops of the Styx

The Bishops of the Styx were a highly secretive, esoteric Satanic cult that rose on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States following the end of the Second World War. Their existence was practically unknown until the Federal Bureau of Investigation began to work on cases relating to explicitly ritualistic homicides in states such as New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, and most data collected by the Preternatural Investigation Branch label the bishops of the Styx as a "death cult" with its doctrine being composed of theistic Satanic reflections and rebuttals to the Abrahamic religions.

Materials and literature relating to the Bishops of the Styx show frequent mentions of man's basal desire to access the "Paradise" or "Eden lost"; the rituals codified within this literature converge on this principle, which is to access a realm beyond that to which God has influence upon and thus live separate from all divinity. The most infamous of these rituals was uncovered too late in time in 1989, known as the Descent to Paradise. This ritual was apparently used in the 1989 "Hell's Staircase" Incident by serial killer Archie Wood, a potential member of the cult, that had led to the deaths of both Archie and 13 women from around the Atkins County area.

As of 1999, the Bishops of the Styx are considered to be inactive, with the public fallout of the 1989 ritual murder-suicide most likely being an impetus for the organization's descent into total secrecy. However, the FBI still considers them to be a possible cult threat, as only two older members of the group were ever arrested; both having died in prison. The only other possible source, Wood himself, died during his own ritual and only left the last known piece of Stygian literature left.