Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for the Netflix series, The Midnight Club.

Ever since the release of The Haunting of Hill House in 2018, writer and director Mike Flanagan has established himself as a household name for fans of both horror and psychological dramas. Through haunted houses and vampire-ridden islands alike, he conducts deep explorations of topics such as family, love, faith, and, of course, how humans deal with their own mortality. In his newest Netflix series, The Midnight Club, Flanagan and co-creator Leah Fong delve into the unfairness of premature death and the nature of storytelling.

Based on the book of the same title by Christopher Pike, the series follows a group of terminally ill teenagers living at a hospice facility that hides a lot of secrets. Our protagonist is Ilonka (Iman Benson), a high school overachiever whose dreams of attending Stanford University have to be put permanently on hold when she is diagnosed with metastatic thyroid cancer. Heartbroken, Ilonka decides to spend her last days at Brightcliffe Hospice, where she meets the titular Midnight Club: a group of kids that get together at night to share stories and, perhaps one day, receive a signal that there is an afterlife.

But Ilonka isn’t attracted to Brightcliffe just for its comfortable accommodations and its top-notch medical staff. The real name that drew her attention to the home was not Dr. Stanton’s (Heather Lagenkamp), but Julia Jayne’s (Larsen Thompson). Back in 1968, Julia disappeared from Brightcliffe for an entire week and came back completely healed from her own thyroid cancer. What doctors interpreted to a simple, albeit unexpected remission was attributed by Ilonka to a higher power, something living in the hospice’s grounds — something that was worshiped by a group that lived at Brightcliffe long before any sick child: the Paragon Cult.

The Paragon is a key element to the plot of The Midnight Club. But what exactly is it? And do its deities really hold the power to save the lives of sick teens?

The History of the Paragon

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Image via Netflix 

As Ilonka learned in her extensive research about the manor, Brightcliffe was built in 1901 by logging industrialist Stanley Oscar Freelon and his wife, Vera. The house was bought by Dr. Georgina Stanton in 1966 and turned into a living care facility for teenagers. But a lot happened in Brightcliffe in the time before it was acquired by Stanton and after the deaths of the Freelons. During the Great Depression, the mansion was a halfway house. After that, it became the home of a religious group. Or, as Ilonka describes it, Brightcliffe used to be a cult compound.

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Back in the '40s, a woman named Regina Ballard (Katie Parker) moved into the house alongside a group of followers and her daughter, a young girl known only as Athena, though that was probably not her real name. According to Athena’s journal, which Ilonka found at the Brightcliffe library, Regina lost her husband and son to pneumonia and polio, respectively, somewhere between the '20s and the early '30s. Her period of grief was followed by one of research and action, and, in 1931, she began a new age health movement called the Paragon.

Initially, the Paragon was nothing but a group of people interested in naturopathic alternatives to science-based medicine, which Regina’s followers felt had failed them. With time, however, it became something else entirely. Due to Regina’s obsession with the ancient Greek goddesses, the small new age movement slowly turned into a cult of the five daughters of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine. Regina began calling herself Aceso after the goddess of the healing process, and attributed to a handful of chosen members of her cult the personas of Aceso’s four sisters: Panacea, goddess of universal health; Iaso, goddess of recuperation; Hygieia, goddess of health and hygiene; and Aglaea, goddess of beauty. Through worship of the Five Sisters, Aceso believed herself capable not only of healing sickness, but also of achieving immortality - hence the cult’s symbol, an hourglass that can be turned over multiple times.

But the word worship has many meanings, and Aceso’s way of paying tribute to the goddesses made some of her followers uncomfortable, namely her 16-year-old daughter. When Aceso finally crossed the line into blood sacrifice territory, Athena gathered the other children and fled the compound. She alerted the police, who found nearly all the Paragon’s adult members dead in Brightcliffe’s secret basement. The sole survivor was, of course, Aceso. It looked like she had poisoned her followers in a ritual that she hoped would finally catch the goddesses’ attention. Aceso claimed the deaths were all accidental, that there was a mix-up in the herbs she used for the ritual, but Athena didn’t believe her. According to the girl, her mother had sacrificed the rest of the Paragon on purpose in exchange for an extended life. In the end, Aceso was institutionalized for decades, and, as is usually the case with cult mass murders/suicides, the Brightcliffe tragedy was the end of the Paragon. Or was it?

Did the Paragon Heal Julia Jayne?

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Image via Netflix

Julia Jayne wasn’t just any former resident of Brightcliffe Hospice: she was the founder of the Midnight Club. Much like Ilonka, she suffered from thyroid cancer and loved doing a bit of research. This combination led her to uncover a supernatural cure for her affliction. In the show’s final episode, we learn that Julia also came across Athena’s journal at the library. By pretending to be a hospice care nurse, she was able to locate Aceso living a normal life not that far from Brightcliffe.

When Julia first disappeared, she was actually paying a visit to Aceso. She convinced the so-called reformed cult leader to teach her the way of the Five Goddesses and perform a ritual that would cure her sickness. Aceso agreed and even devised a plan so that Julia could return to Brightcliffe without being asked too many questions: she would reappear in the woods, wearing a dirty nightgown and claiming to have found something in the property that brought her back to health, though she couldn't tell exactly what.

Julia did, indeed, return to Brightcliffe completely cured. But was it magic or simply nature and its mysteries? It’s hard to say, because though she did go on to have a long life, when she came back to the Brightcliffe area as Shasta (Samantha Sloyan), her health was declining once more.

What About Ilonka and the Midnight Club?

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Image via Netflix

So maybe the ritual did work for Julia Jayne, but can it work for anyone else? Well, it sure didn’t work for Anya (Ruth Codd). When Ilonka finally convinced the other members of the Midnight Club to give the Paragon ritual a try, they failed to cure Anya of her bone cancer. However, the ritual they performed did not involve blood sacrifices, just the burning of personal objects and a few droplets of blood. It is implied that it wasn’t the real deal, and yet Shasta credits it with curing another Brightcliffe resident, the very Christian, Five Goddesses-denier Sandra (Annarah Cymone).

Later, Shasta convinces Ilonka to give the ritual another try, now with her help. She brings four other members of her naturopathic community into Brightcliffe and begins performing the ritual in the same basement Regina Ballard used to conduct her ceremonies. What Ilonka didn’t know was that Shasta wasn’t trying to help her, but looking for a way to cure her own disease for a second time. Thankfully, Dr. Stanton interrupts the ritual before Ilonka drinks the poison that Shasta had prepared for her and in time to save the four other women that had been asked to participate. Therefore, who knows? Maybe the ritual could’ve worked for Ilonka or Anya if the kids had done it right, blood and all, but perhaps it's best to just accept the inevitability of death.

Is the Paragon Gone for Good?

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Image via Netflix 

Despite the fact that she never calls her commune by this name, Shasta did manage to bring back a version of the Paragon. She and some members of her naturopath community even have the same hourglass tattoo Aceso and her followers used to have. Still, this comeback was pretty short-lived, and considering the damning testimonies of Ilonka and Dr. Stanton, as well as her declining health, it is unlikely that Shasta will ever be able to restart the cult.

Then there is Dr. Stanton herself. In the final scene of The Midnight Club Episode 10, we see her in her bedroom, sitting in front of a mirror. She removes her wig, revealing a bald head — indicative that she, like most of her patients, has a form of cancer. Then, the camera pans to the back of her neck, giving us a good look at an hourglass tattoo. Despite claiming she knew next to nothing about the Paragon until Ilonka came along, Dr. Stanton was clearly a member of the cult. Considering her age, her attachment to Brightcliffe, and her dislike for Julia Jayne and Regina Ballard, it is very likely that she is none other than Athena. Could she bring the Paragon back in the future to cure herself? Well, judging from her past — her escape from the compound and the death of her son — that sounds very unlikely. Dr. Stanton also tossed Athena’s journey in the fire, stopping any future Brightcliffe resident from going after Aceso and the Five Goddesses ever again. At least for the time being, there seems to be no blood ritual that can bring the Paragon back from the dead.

All episodes of The Midnight Club are available to stream on Netflix.