SCRATCH A MAGUS, FIND A SPY
by Iona Miller, Cryptoporticus Productions
DARK OPS & DARK ARTS:
Tricksters, Mystics & Masters of Deception
Crowley, Blavatsky, Dee, Bacon, Nostradamus, St. Germain, Cagliostro,
Mata Hari, Gurdjieff, Roerich, Fortune, Hess, Leary
Beneath the broad tide of human history there flow the stealthy undercurrents of the secret societies, which frequently determine in the depths the changes that take place upon the surface. --A.E. Waite
The spies hide in every corner, but you can't touch them, you know. -- Coldplay
Psychic Battlefield
Spying is the act of obtaining information clandestinely. The term applies particularly to the covert act of collecting military, industrial, and political data about one nation for the benefit of another. In truth the majority of the information collected is not that ‘secret’ but often the interpretation of the synergism is. Espionage is defined as the practice of spying or the using of spies. The defensive side of intelligence activity, i.e., preventing another nation from gaining such information, is known as counterespionage. PSIop is a form of worldview warfare.
The world of ESPionage is all spooked up, in all ways that might apply. Many mages mixed dark ops with the dark arts long before CIA's "Weird Desk" and SRI and Ft. Meade remote viewers or Men Who Stare at Goats took the occult arts to new heights of diabolical application, including attempted psychic attacks and visualized heart attacks. There are indications MI5's Occult Bureau recruited from The Golden Dawn. James Bond creator Ian Fleming patterned Le Chiefre after Crowley. Many mages, known and unknown to history, presaged the clairvoyants of Operation Grill Flame by centuries. Paranormal ESPionage was an outgrowth of CIA's MK ULTRA mind control research. He who controls the paradigm controls the world.
Many are witting and unwitting participants in Worldview Warfare. Esoterics is at the root of it. Rather than strange bedfellows, occultism and espionage share common ground. The black art of espionage is about obtaining secret information and prophets, witches, psychics and astrologers have always claimed to be able to predict the future and know about things hidden from ordinary people. The Jesuits spied for their order and the Church everywhere they went. The magi are adept at shifting perception and looking at the top down Big Picture. Information acquisition and analysis remain the basis of trendspotting.
Imagination & Intelligence
It takes intelligence to be a magician, but a magician can also be an active agent of intelligence, figuratively and literally. The real question is, rather, how and why and who and what do these things serve? Restoring self and society is the essential wisdom of the Grail. But this quest can be coopted for narcissistic or pathological ends. The Secret Doctrine can introduce both positive and negative praeternatural forces, intrapsychically and in the world, at large.
Have secret societies and occult brotherhoods been active behind the scenes of world events for thousands of years? Do these guardians of secret wisdom shape the growth of human consciousness and influence the destiny of nations? Are hidden masters of occult knowledge empowering and infiltrating certain political, cultural, spiritual and economic movements, in fulfillment of an ancient plan?
Could it be that man's great upheavals, wars, and revolutions, as well as his pioneering discoveries in science, literature, philosophy and the arts, are the result of a "hidden hand'? Can we decode history and find the mysterious interface between politics and occultism, thereby uncovering the real movers and shakers in our modern world? Did Crowley essentially sink the Lusitania? Were there spies in Shambhala?
The German philosopher Oswald Spengler warned of a "mighty contest" between groups of men of "immense intellect" who the "simple citizen neither observes nor comprehends." Back in 1930 Ralph Shirley, the editor of the London Occult Review, Britain's leading journal of esoteric sciences, endorsed "the suspicion that the ranks of occultism are secretly working for disintegration and revolution. Positive proof in the shape of a group of occultists working with this objective in view recently came under the notice of the present writer."
Major-General Fuller, a former disciple of Aleister Crowley, who had links to British military intelligence, wrote about an insidious force using "Magic and Gold" striving "to gain world domination under an avenging Messiah as foretold by Talmud and Qabalah." Fuller's former chief Crowley worked as a secret agent for both Britain and Germany, although his British handlers noted his 'unreliability' warning he should only be used in espionage operations with the utmost care. During the First World War the German Foreign Office secretly requested the occultist Gustav Meyrink to write a novel blaming the Freemasons of France and Italy for the outbreak of war.
A legend was popular in Mongolia, China and Tibet, that a "White Tsar' would come from the North (from 'Northern Shambhala') and restore the now decadent traditions of true Buddhism. He reported to Tsar Nicholas II how "Buryats, Mongols and especially lamas" were always repeating that the time had come to extend the frontiers of the White Tsar in the east."
Badmaev had a close association with a highly placed Tibetan, the lama Agvan Dordzhiyev, the tutor and confidant of the 13th Dalai Lama. Dordzhiyev equated Russia with the coming Kingdom of Shambhala anticipated in the Kalachakra texts of Tibetan Buddhism. The lama opened the first Buddhist temple in Europe, in St. Petersburg, significantly dedicated to the Kalachakra teaching.
One of the Russian artists who worked on the St. Petersburg temple was Nicholas Roerich, who had been introduced to the legend of Shambhala and Eastern thought by lama Dordzhiyev. George Gurdjieff, another man of mystery who had a tremendous impact on Western esotericism, knew Prince Ukhtomsky, Badmaev, and lama Dordzhiyev. Was Gurdjieff, accused by the British of being a Russian spy in Central Asia, a pupil of the mysterious Tibetans?
Gurdjieff was the "Dordjieff" to whom the history books make passing reference, supposedly a Russian who influenced the Dalai Lama at the time of the Younghusband Expedition. Abdullah was a member of the British Intelligence assigned to spy on this "Dordjieff," and when Abdullah saw Gurdjieff in New York in 1924, he exclaimed, "That man is Dordjieff!" At any rate, when there were plans in 1922 for Gurdjieff to live in England, it was found that the Foreign Office was opposed, and it was conjectured that their file dated from the time of the trouble between the British government and Tibet. According to rumor, Gurdjieff counseled the Dalai Lama to evacuate Lhasa and let the British sit in an empty city until the heavy snow could close the passes of the Himalayas and cut off the Younghusband expedition. This was done, and the British hurried to make a treaty while their return route was still open.
Russia, geographically the largest country on earth, occupies a unique position in the study of human history furnishing us with a window into the world of secret societies, occult teachers, and subterranean political currents. Ideas and practices drawn from magic and the occult have always been a part of Russian life. In the sixteenth century Tsar Ivan IV consulted magicians and was aware of the occult significance of the precious stones set in his staff. His reign was the culmination of the dream of building a prophetic, religious civilization in the Eastern Christian tradition of Byzantium. Surrounded by secret orders of apocalyptical monks, Ivan saw himself as heir to the Israelite kings and attempted to transform Russian life in accord with his magical view of reality. Ivan was convinced the Russian nation had a special mission to accomplish, nothing short of the redemption of the world
Russian Madame Blavatsky believed the Catholic society of Jesuits had transferred their headquarters from the continent to England where they plotted to plunge man into passive ignorance and institute "Universal Despotism". The founder of the Theosophical Society, a woman of immense intellect and first hand experience of secret societies, warned:
Students of Occultism should know that while the Jesuits have by their devices contrived to make the world in general, and Englishmen in particular think there is no such thing as Magic and laugh at Black Magic, these astute and wily schemers themselves hold magnetic circles and form magnetic chains by the concentration of their collective WILL, and when they have any special object to effect or any particular and important person to influence.²
The French Revolution, one of Europe's most important political upheavals, was largely the work of Masonic lodges dedicated to the overturning of the monarchy and an end of the established Catholic religion. St. Germain's warnings to The Queen showed foreknowledge. In Proofs of a Conspiracy (179, John Robison showed that the political clubs and correspondence committees during the revolution, including the famous Jacobin Club, sprang from these Masonic lodges.
The influence on history of mysticism, the occult and secret societies is generally dismissed by Western academics. Mainstream historians choose to ignore this aspect because they believe it has no real significance to world politics. In fact it is only through acknowledging the role and influence of the "occult underground' that important world events can be fully understood and placed in their real historical perspective.
In 1586, Tsar Boris Godunov offered the huge salary of 2000 English pounds a year, with a house and all provisions free, to John Dee, the English magus and spy master, to enter his service. Dee's son Dr. Arthur Dee, who like his father was an alchemist and Rosicrucian, went to Moscow to work as a physician. Mikhail Romanov, the first Tsar of the Romanov dynasty, allegedly ascended the throne with the help of Dr. Arthur Dee and the British Secret Service. Before their rise to power the Romanovs were accused by their enemies of practising magic and possessing occult powers.
The legendary Count of Saint Germain, described as an alchemist, spy, industrialist, diplomat and Rosicrucian, became involved in several political intrigues in Russia and was, according Nicholas Roerich, "a member of the Himalayan brotherhood." In 1755 he traveled throughout Eurasia to study occult teachings, and may even have visited Tibet. It is said that while studying occultism in Central Asia the Count was introduced to the secret rites of Tantric sex magic which provided him with a technique to prolong his youth. He also engaged in spying operations against the notorious British India Company. Saint Germain founded two secret societies called the Asiatic Brethren and the Knights of Light. As early as 1780 he warned Marie Antoinette that the French throne was in danger from an international conspiracy of "Brothers of the Shadow'.
Founder of Ordo Templi Orientis, in 1885, in England, Theodore Reuss joined the Socialist League as an anarchist. He had been quite involved as a librarian and labor secretary. On May 7, 1886 he was expelled as a police spy in the pay of the Prussian Secret Police. This took place in a sectarian atmosphere, with tensions between anarcho-communistJosef Peukert and the BakuninistVictor Dave where such accusations were often made without substance. However, this accusation came from the Belgian Social Democrats, and was raised here by Henry Charles. Peukert and the Gruppe Autonomie published a rebuttal of these allegations which appeared in the Anarchist, which also accused Dave of being a spy. However, in February 1887 Reuss used the unwitting Peukert to track down Johann Neve in Belgium, who was then arrested by the German police. This was major coup for the police as Neve had been smuggling arms and propaganda into Germany. He died shortly after, in prison, perhaps murdered.
Karl Kellner contacted him and the two agreed to proceed with the establishment of the Oriental Templar Order by seeking authorizations to work the various rites of high-grade Masonry. The French occultist and physician Gérard Encausse (perhaps better known by his pen-name Papus) was one such contact. Although not a member of a regular Masonic order, he had founded two occult fraternities: the Martinist group, l'Ordre des Supérieurs Inconnus and the RosicrucianKabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix. In addition, he was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and a Bishop in a neo-Gnostic church, l'Église Gnostique de France. Encausse provided Reuss with a charter dated June 24, 1901 designating him Special Inspector for the Martinist order in Germany. He also assisted Reuss in the formation of the O.T.O. Gnostic Catholic Church by proclaiming the E.G.C. a "child" of l'Église Gnostique de France, which linked the E.G.C. to French neo-gnosticism.
A search of some secret material released (some still withheld) by the British Government relate to the Special Intelligence Service (SIS), a branch of MI5. These files have been classified by the IOL as Document reference:- IOR: L / P & J / 12 series. They have revealed a few relevant files.
These files are
Document reference:- IOR: L/P & J/12/244 Rabindranath Tagore at Bolpur School.
Correspondence concerning the purchase of a property for use as a school.
Document reference:- IOR: L/ P & J/ 12/358 Swami Yogananda; activities in the USA.
British diplomats report on Yogananda (a British citizen). There are probably files on Yogananda in the archive of the US government.
Document reference:- IOR: L/P&J/12/291(File 273/26) Nicholas K. Roerich proceedings.
This file dates from February 1926 to March 1934 and is 67 pages and contains telegrams, correspondence and reports relating to Roeriche's movements, his status and reputation as an artist, his relationship to Russia and discussion on whether or not he was a Russian agent. The file on Nicholas Roerich fits in with two other files on him, which are already in the IOL. These files are
Document reference:- IOR: L/P & S/ 10/ 1145 (File 1229/1925 part I)
or on microfilm Document reference:- IOR NEG 16537
Kashmir: The Roerich Expedition to Leh (Lhadak).
This file contains 566 pages, some single, some double sided pages of text and dates from April 1925 to September 1930 and deals with Roerichs movements from Leh, and covering the same themes as the above file. There is considerable doubt about Roerich's veracity because of his apparent reconciliation with Soviet Russia and his continued association with known communists, and he was suspected of being a front for them, but it could not be proved. His standing as an artist is also discussed.
Document reference:- IOR: L/P & S/ 10/ 1146 (File 1229/1925 part II)
or on microfilm Document reference:- IOR NEG 16538
Professor Nicholas Roerich. July 1930 to April 1935. 266 pages.
The file contains the same type of information as the two preceding files, but also contains a few pamphlets of the Roerich Museum dated 1930, and copies of correspondence from numerous supporters. One report states "The Roerichs are indefatigable if not very skillful wire pullers" (page 200) as he lobbied to acquire a visa that had been refused. There is also correspondence about a land purchase in India and about Roerichs 'Banner for Peace' movement. These three files represent a considerable record of Professor Roerich. There are probably more which have not yet been released. There are almost certainly files on Roerich in the archive of the US government.
Scientologist L. Ron Hubbard joined the US Navy during the summer of 1941, a few months before the United States entered the Second World War. He applied in March 1941 and was commissioned as a Lieutenant, Junior Grade on July 19, 1941,entering permanent active duty in November.He specifically volunteered for "Special Service (intelligence duties)", an assignation recorded on his commission papers. He spent only a brief time in this nominal role with the Office of Naval Intelligence. After four months working in public relations and at the US Hydrographic Office, he spent three weeks at the Third Naval District in New York training for the role of Intelligence Officer.Hubbard's training was curtailed by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and on December 18 he was sent to the Philippines via Australia. He was put ashore in Brisbane in January 1942 when his ship was re-routed.He was ordered back to the United States aboard the transport vessel USS Chaumont the following month at the instigation of the US Naval Attaché to Australia, who cabled Washington to complain:
By assuming unauthorized authority and attempting to perform duties for which he has no qualifications, Hubbard became the source of much trouble... This officer is not satisfactory for independent duty assignment. He is garrulous and tries to give impressions of his importance. He also seems to think he has unusual ability in most lines. These characteristics indicate that he will require close supervision for satisfactory performance of any intelligence duty.
The importance of espionage in military affairs has been recognized since the beginning of recorded history. The Egyptians had a well-developed secret service, and spying and subversion are mentioned in the ‘Iliad’ and in the ‘Bible’. The ancient Chinese treatise (c.500 B.C.) on the Art of War (see Sun Tzu) devotes much attention to deception and intelligence gathering, arguing that all war is based on deception. Whilst Sun Tzu was unknown to Niccolo Machiavelli many of his concepts found new vigour within Machiavelli’s writings. In the Middle Ages, political espionage became important.
Joan of Arc was betrayed by Bishop Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais, a spy in the pay of the English, and Sir Francis Walsingham developed an efficient political spy system for Elizabeth I. (See also Francis Walsingham’s acolytes Christopher Marlowe and Francis Bacon) With the growth of the modern national state, systematized espionage became a fundamental part of government in most countries. Joseph Fouché is credited with developing the first modern political espionage system, and Frederick II of Prussia is regarded as the founder of modern military espionage. During the American Revolution, Nathan Hale and Benedict Arnold achieved fame as spies, and there was considerable use of spies on both sides during the U.S. Civil War; though it was not until the Second World War that the USA convincingly took to espionage. (‘Pearl Harbour’ was the product of the spymasters failure to collect, analyse and then act.)
Secret Missions
Who is served by the Holy Grail of occult knowledge? What is the Grail, and who does it serve?The secret is in the power and the power is in The Secret.It is a meaningless metaphor without the experiential process of self-transformation to back it up.That’s why it can’t be told.It is the panacea, a personal path of recovery for “what ails thee.”The Grail is a metaphor for connection to the mystical Source of everything, the ever-renewing Fount of all manifestation.
All paths lead toward a personal journey of transformation and enlightenment, though not all journeys fulfill the total potential of creativity, compassion, engagement, and spirituality. On a classical “hero’s journey” like Parcival, when you find the Grail, and are called to its service, no knowledge remains hidden for long.Magick was the first transdisciplinarian occupation, drawing on all areas of knowledge.Before science divorced the occult arts it was called Natural Philosophy.
Trump Card
A Magus is a “worker of magic” which eludes rational definition.The Magus is both a symbol of enlightenment and deception (disinformation)-- just like the Tarot card, The Magician, is a card of duality: Wisdom and Folly.
"Now you see it; now you don't" is the forte of the illusionist, the juggler of realities, who is master of Orwellian double-think – holding the tension of the opposites.You alternate between faith and skepticism until you go beyond the ordinary boundaries of both - "slay each thought with its opposite." Myths present themselves as systems of antinomies, or opposites: heaven/hell, good/evil, life/death. The Magus lives at the Paradox.
Traditionally, the Magus is one who can demonstrate hands-on magic: healing, transformative rituals, metaphor therapy, alchemical transmutations, charging of talismans, spirit comm, etc. Magick works on the principle that man is a microcosm.
Arts Magian
A modern Magus is any person who completes the circuit between heaven and Earth, one who seeks to bring forth the divine 'gold' within her or himself.He or she is also a Mentor, an Initiator, divining and reading the signs and revealing deeper purpose and meaning in “the godgame.”
But that is how the outer world sees it. Every Magus has a foot in both worlds.Their inner life is mercurial, a complex psychic layer-cake of inner planes of transcendent experience where quantum leaps of consciousness are possible and messages are exchanged with the Great Unknown.
Metaphysician
Perception of what is real and what is not dims and vanishes in a whirlwind of synchronicities. Imagination is reality. Magicians understand the world we live in, or think we live in, is an illusion, a construct of our own perceptual apparatus and a malleable interpretation of our brains.
But the hyperdimensional gifts of the Spirit come at a price.The magician taps into, becomes one with, an essence that pop culture calls The Force.Photons and phonons are quantized modes of vibration. This subatomic vibration of Light and Sound is the enlivening force, which feeds creation and allegedly responds to focused intention.Information controls and patterns energy.
Hermetics is a Spiritual Technology
For masters of the Hermetic Arts, all magick is wrought through this impressionable ether – the Astral Light --a plenum of potential, using true properties of nature, it's laws, forces, and principles.Science now describes it as the scalar physics of subspace.The mage seeks to selectively establish an internal order out of this chaos, then externalize it, according to his vision.He is the soul guide who initiates the transformation process.
The Hermetica included works on magic, alchemy, astrology, healing, gnosis, theurgy, ritual and philosophy. Sympathetic magic contends that like substances sharing an essence can influence one another through resonance effects. Likewise the hypnotic and magnetic qualities of charismatic individuals can create rapport with others to influence them.
Magick Metaprograms
This power card also represents the fine line dividing white magic from black magic, toxic or malignant black ops. Sensory deprivation, loss of equilibrium, confusion techniques, social isolation, physiological stress, severe shock and ceremonial terror tactics were the forerunners of brainwashing techniques.
This is the realm of psychic attack and psychic self defense, of sorcerers stealthily vying with one another for power. Weaponized ESP can affect the body, mind and soul of one's opponent. But it can boomerang back on the sender 3-fold, according to the cautionary prescription.
Undercover
Power can be used in either a self-serving manner, or one in service to the All. In order for The Magus to achieve his aims, there must be constant awareness and self-examination, pressing on and exploring one’s boundaries, breaking through into the boundless realms.
This is also the Trump of discernment.The Magus can discriminate between various realities and fantasies, between various points of view, without buying into any belief system, literally.The sorcerer orchestrates and works within others’ belief systems.
By molding worldviews, a magician creates the perception, manipulates and defines the perceived reality, creates the structure for self-organizing transformation.He believes no metanarratives but orchestrates them for others.He is an opportunistic paradigm shifter, shapeshifter, chameleon, trickster.If you assume a role does that make it real?If not, fake it till you make it.Better to be an inspired lunatic than uninspired, or so Crowley’s arc implies.
Legacy
Another magnetic mercurial personality, Tim Leary, took notes on Crowley's cult of personality. Leary admitted Crowley inspired him and bootstrapped his book 'The Game of Life' (Part 4 of his Future-History Series) from the scientific-occult philosophy of Aleister Crowley and Tarot.He understood Crowley was on a similar path, only using different language. He called Crowley an 'Agent of Evolution.'
LSD rascal-guru Timothy Leary was a Crowley enthusiast. He said: “I’ve been an admirer of Aleister Crowley. I think that I’m carrying on much of the work that he started over a hundred years ago … He was in favor of finding yourself, and ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’ under love. It was a very powerful statement. I’m sorry he isn’t around now to appreciate the glories he started.” (Late Night America, Public Broadcasting Network, cited by Hells Bells, Reel to Real Ministries). Leary also had his own relationship with both the mystic arts and the CIA. One of his famous early books was called HIGH PRIEST. He was called "the Pope of Dope.". Both fearlessly explored the outer limits of human potential. Psychologists - essentially psychic engineers - exert both local and remote control on human minds and behavior. see http://espionagecentral.50megs.com
"These psychedelic substances cause hysterical psychoses in people who have not taken them..."- Timothy Leary
The spies hide in every corner, but you can't touch them, you know. -- Coldplay
Psychic Battlefield
Spying is the act of obtaining information clandestinely. The term applies particularly to the covert act of collecting military, industrial, and political data about one nation for the benefit of another. In truth the majority of the information collected is not that ‘secret’ but often the interpretation of the synergism is. Espionage is defined as the practice of spying or the using of spies. The defensive side of intelligence activity, i.e., preventing another nation from gaining such information, is known as counterespionage. PSIop is a form of worldview warfare.
The world of ESPionage is all spooked up, in all ways that might apply. Many mages mixed dark ops with the dark arts long before CIA's "Weird Desk" and SRI and Ft. Meade remote viewers or Men Who Stare at Goats took the occult arts to new heights of diabolical application, including attempted psychic attacks and visualized heart attacks. There are indications MI5's Occult Bureau recruited from The Golden Dawn. James Bond creator Ian Fleming patterned Le Chiefre after Crowley. Many mages, known and unknown to history, presaged the clairvoyants of Operation Grill Flame by centuries. Paranormal ESPionage was an outgrowth of CIA's MK ULTRA mind control research. He who controls the paradigm controls the world.
Many are witting and unwitting participants in Worldview Warfare. Esoterics is at the root of it. Rather than strange bedfellows, occultism and espionage share common ground. The black art of espionage is about obtaining secret information and prophets, witches, psychics and astrologers have always claimed to be able to predict the future and know about things hidden from ordinary people. The Jesuits spied for their order and the Church everywhere they went. The magi are adept at shifting perception and looking at the top down Big Picture. Information acquisition and analysis remain the basis of trendspotting.
Imagination & Intelligence
It takes intelligence to be a magician, but a magician can also be an active agent of intelligence, figuratively and literally. The real question is, rather, how and why and who and what do these things serve? Restoring self and society is the essential wisdom of the Grail. But this quest can be coopted for narcissistic or pathological ends. The Secret Doctrine can introduce both positive and negative praeternatural forces, intrapsychically and in the world, at large.
Have secret societies and occult brotherhoods been active behind the scenes of world events for thousands of years? Do these guardians of secret wisdom shape the growth of human consciousness and influence the destiny of nations? Are hidden masters of occult knowledge empowering and infiltrating certain political, cultural, spiritual and economic movements, in fulfillment of an ancient plan?
Could it be that man's great upheavals, wars, and revolutions, as well as his pioneering discoveries in science, literature, philosophy and the arts, are the result of a "hidden hand'? Can we decode history and find the mysterious interface between politics and occultism, thereby uncovering the real movers and shakers in our modern world? Did Crowley essentially sink the Lusitania? Were there spies in Shambhala?
The German philosopher Oswald Spengler warned of a "mighty contest" between groups of men of "immense intellect" who the "simple citizen neither observes nor comprehends." Back in 1930 Ralph Shirley, the editor of the London Occult Review, Britain's leading journal of esoteric sciences, endorsed "the suspicion that the ranks of occultism are secretly working for disintegration and revolution. Positive proof in the shape of a group of occultists working with this objective in view recently came under the notice of the present writer."
Major-General Fuller, a former disciple of Aleister Crowley, who had links to British military intelligence, wrote about an insidious force using "Magic and Gold" striving "to gain world domination under an avenging Messiah as foretold by Talmud and Qabalah." Fuller's former chief Crowley worked as a secret agent for both Britain and Germany, although his British handlers noted his 'unreliability' warning he should only be used in espionage operations with the utmost care. During the First World War the German Foreign Office secretly requested the occultist Gustav Meyrink to write a novel blaming the Freemasons of France and Italy for the outbreak of war.
A legend was popular in Mongolia, China and Tibet, that a "White Tsar' would come from the North (from 'Northern Shambhala') and restore the now decadent traditions of true Buddhism. He reported to Tsar Nicholas II how "Buryats, Mongols and especially lamas" were always repeating that the time had come to extend the frontiers of the White Tsar in the east."
Badmaev had a close association with a highly placed Tibetan, the lama Agvan Dordzhiyev, the tutor and confidant of the 13th Dalai Lama. Dordzhiyev equated Russia with the coming Kingdom of Shambhala anticipated in the Kalachakra texts of Tibetan Buddhism. The lama opened the first Buddhist temple in Europe, in St. Petersburg, significantly dedicated to the Kalachakra teaching.
One of the Russian artists who worked on the St. Petersburg temple was Nicholas Roerich, who had been introduced to the legend of Shambhala and Eastern thought by lama Dordzhiyev. George Gurdjieff, another man of mystery who had a tremendous impact on Western esotericism, knew Prince Ukhtomsky, Badmaev, and lama Dordzhiyev. Was Gurdjieff, accused by the British of being a Russian spy in Central Asia, a pupil of the mysterious Tibetans?
Gurdjieff was the "Dordjieff" to whom the history books make passing reference, supposedly a Russian who influenced the Dalai Lama at the time of the Younghusband Expedition. Abdullah was a member of the British Intelligence assigned to spy on this "Dordjieff," and when Abdullah saw Gurdjieff in New York in 1924, he exclaimed, "That man is Dordjieff!" At any rate, when there were plans in 1922 for Gurdjieff to live in England, it was found that the Foreign Office was opposed, and it was conjectured that their file dated from the time of the trouble between the British government and Tibet. According to rumor, Gurdjieff counseled the Dalai Lama to evacuate Lhasa and let the British sit in an empty city until the heavy snow could close the passes of the Himalayas and cut off the Younghusband expedition. This was done, and the British hurried to make a treaty while their return route was still open.
Russia, geographically the largest country on earth, occupies a unique position in the study of human history furnishing us with a window into the world of secret societies, occult teachers, and subterranean political currents. Ideas and practices drawn from magic and the occult have always been a part of Russian life. In the sixteenth century Tsar Ivan IV consulted magicians and was aware of the occult significance of the precious stones set in his staff. His reign was the culmination of the dream of building a prophetic, religious civilization in the Eastern Christian tradition of Byzantium. Surrounded by secret orders of apocalyptical monks, Ivan saw himself as heir to the Israelite kings and attempted to transform Russian life in accord with his magical view of reality. Ivan was convinced the Russian nation had a special mission to accomplish, nothing short of the redemption of the world
Russian Madame Blavatsky believed the Catholic society of Jesuits had transferred their headquarters from the continent to England where they plotted to plunge man into passive ignorance and institute "Universal Despotism". The founder of the Theosophical Society, a woman of immense intellect and first hand experience of secret societies, warned:
Students of Occultism should know that while the Jesuits have by their devices contrived to make the world in general, and Englishmen in particular think there is no such thing as Magic and laugh at Black Magic, these astute and wily schemers themselves hold magnetic circles and form magnetic chains by the concentration of their collective WILL, and when they have any special object to effect or any particular and important person to influence.²
The French Revolution, one of Europe's most important political upheavals, was largely the work of Masonic lodges dedicated to the overturning of the monarchy and an end of the established Catholic religion. St. Germain's warnings to The Queen showed foreknowledge. In Proofs of a Conspiracy (179, John Robison showed that the political clubs and correspondence committees during the revolution, including the famous Jacobin Club, sprang from these Masonic lodges.
The influence on history of mysticism, the occult and secret societies is generally dismissed by Western academics. Mainstream historians choose to ignore this aspect because they believe it has no real significance to world politics. In fact it is only through acknowledging the role and influence of the "occult underground' that important world events can be fully understood and placed in their real historical perspective.
In 1586, Tsar Boris Godunov offered the huge salary of 2000 English pounds a year, with a house and all provisions free, to John Dee, the English magus and spy master, to enter his service. Dee's son Dr. Arthur Dee, who like his father was an alchemist and Rosicrucian, went to Moscow to work as a physician. Mikhail Romanov, the first Tsar of the Romanov dynasty, allegedly ascended the throne with the help of Dr. Arthur Dee and the British Secret Service. Before their rise to power the Romanovs were accused by their enemies of practising magic and possessing occult powers.
The legendary Count of Saint Germain, described as an alchemist, spy, industrialist, diplomat and Rosicrucian, became involved in several political intrigues in Russia and was, according Nicholas Roerich, "a member of the Himalayan brotherhood." In 1755 he traveled throughout Eurasia to study occult teachings, and may even have visited Tibet. It is said that while studying occultism in Central Asia the Count was introduced to the secret rites of Tantric sex magic which provided him with a technique to prolong his youth. He also engaged in spying operations against the notorious British India Company. Saint Germain founded two secret societies called the Asiatic Brethren and the Knights of Light. As early as 1780 he warned Marie Antoinette that the French throne was in danger from an international conspiracy of "Brothers of the Shadow'.
Founder of Ordo Templi Orientis, in 1885, in England, Theodore Reuss joined the Socialist League as an anarchist. He had been quite involved as a librarian and labor secretary. On May 7, 1886 he was expelled as a police spy in the pay of the Prussian Secret Police. This took place in a sectarian atmosphere, with tensions between anarcho-communistJosef Peukert and the BakuninistVictor Dave where such accusations were often made without substance. However, this accusation came from the Belgian Social Democrats, and was raised here by Henry Charles. Peukert and the Gruppe Autonomie published a rebuttal of these allegations which appeared in the Anarchist, which also accused Dave of being a spy. However, in February 1887 Reuss used the unwitting Peukert to track down Johann Neve in Belgium, who was then arrested by the German police. This was major coup for the police as Neve had been smuggling arms and propaganda into Germany. He died shortly after, in prison, perhaps murdered.
Karl Kellner contacted him and the two agreed to proceed with the establishment of the Oriental Templar Order by seeking authorizations to work the various rites of high-grade Masonry. The French occultist and physician Gérard Encausse (perhaps better known by his pen-name Papus) was one such contact. Although not a member of a regular Masonic order, he had founded two occult fraternities: the Martinist group, l'Ordre des Supérieurs Inconnus and the RosicrucianKabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix. In addition, he was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and a Bishop in a neo-Gnostic church, l'Église Gnostique de France. Encausse provided Reuss with a charter dated June 24, 1901 designating him Special Inspector for the Martinist order in Germany. He also assisted Reuss in the formation of the O.T.O. Gnostic Catholic Church by proclaiming the E.G.C. a "child" of l'Église Gnostique de France, which linked the E.G.C. to French neo-gnosticism.
A search of some secret material released (some still withheld) by the British Government relate to the Special Intelligence Service (SIS), a branch of MI5. These files have been classified by the IOL as Document reference:- IOR: L / P & J / 12 series. They have revealed a few relevant files.
These files are
Document reference:- IOR: L/P & J/12/244 Rabindranath Tagore at Bolpur School.
Correspondence concerning the purchase of a property for use as a school.
Document reference:- IOR: L/ P & J/ 12/358 Swami Yogananda; activities in the USA.
British diplomats report on Yogananda (a British citizen). There are probably files on Yogananda in the archive of the US government.
Document reference:- IOR: L/P&J/12/291(File 273/26) Nicholas K. Roerich proceedings.
This file dates from February 1926 to March 1934 and is 67 pages and contains telegrams, correspondence and reports relating to Roeriche's movements, his status and reputation as an artist, his relationship to Russia and discussion on whether or not he was a Russian agent. The file on Nicholas Roerich fits in with two other files on him, which are already in the IOL. These files are
Document reference:- IOR: L/P & S/ 10/ 1145 (File 1229/1925 part I)
or on microfilm Document reference:- IOR NEG 16537
Kashmir: The Roerich Expedition to Leh (Lhadak).
This file contains 566 pages, some single, some double sided pages of text and dates from April 1925 to September 1930 and deals with Roerichs movements from Leh, and covering the same themes as the above file. There is considerable doubt about Roerich's veracity because of his apparent reconciliation with Soviet Russia and his continued association with known communists, and he was suspected of being a front for them, but it could not be proved. His standing as an artist is also discussed.
Document reference:- IOR: L/P & S/ 10/ 1146 (File 1229/1925 part II)
or on microfilm Document reference:- IOR NEG 16538
Professor Nicholas Roerich. July 1930 to April 1935. 266 pages.
The file contains the same type of information as the two preceding files, but also contains a few pamphlets of the Roerich Museum dated 1930, and copies of correspondence from numerous supporters. One report states "The Roerichs are indefatigable if not very skillful wire pullers" (page 200) as he lobbied to acquire a visa that had been refused. There is also correspondence about a land purchase in India and about Roerichs 'Banner for Peace' movement. These three files represent a considerable record of Professor Roerich. There are probably more which have not yet been released. There are almost certainly files on Roerich in the archive of the US government.
Scientologist L. Ron Hubbard joined the US Navy during the summer of 1941, a few months before the United States entered the Second World War. He applied in March 1941 and was commissioned as a Lieutenant, Junior Grade on July 19, 1941,entering permanent active duty in November.He specifically volunteered for "Special Service (intelligence duties)", an assignation recorded on his commission papers. He spent only a brief time in this nominal role with the Office of Naval Intelligence. After four months working in public relations and at the US Hydrographic Office, he spent three weeks at the Third Naval District in New York training for the role of Intelligence Officer.Hubbard's training was curtailed by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and on December 18 he was sent to the Philippines via Australia. He was put ashore in Brisbane in January 1942 when his ship was re-routed.He was ordered back to the United States aboard the transport vessel USS Chaumont the following month at the instigation of the US Naval Attaché to Australia, who cabled Washington to complain:
By assuming unauthorized authority and attempting to perform duties for which he has no qualifications, Hubbard became the source of much trouble... This officer is not satisfactory for independent duty assignment. He is garrulous and tries to give impressions of his importance. He also seems to think he has unusual ability in most lines. These characteristics indicate that he will require close supervision for satisfactory performance of any intelligence duty.
The importance of espionage in military affairs has been recognized since the beginning of recorded history. The Egyptians had a well-developed secret service, and spying and subversion are mentioned in the ‘Iliad’ and in the ‘Bible’. The ancient Chinese treatise (c.500 B.C.) on the Art of War (see Sun Tzu) devotes much attention to deception and intelligence gathering, arguing that all war is based on deception. Whilst Sun Tzu was unknown to Niccolo Machiavelli many of his concepts found new vigour within Machiavelli’s writings. In the Middle Ages, political espionage became important.
Joan of Arc was betrayed by Bishop Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais, a spy in the pay of the English, and Sir Francis Walsingham developed an efficient political spy system for Elizabeth I. (See also Francis Walsingham’s acolytes Christopher Marlowe and Francis Bacon) With the growth of the modern national state, systematized espionage became a fundamental part of government in most countries. Joseph Fouché is credited with developing the first modern political espionage system, and Frederick II of Prussia is regarded as the founder of modern military espionage. During the American Revolution, Nathan Hale and Benedict Arnold achieved fame as spies, and there was considerable use of spies on both sides during the U.S. Civil War; though it was not until the Second World War that the USA convincingly took to espionage. (‘Pearl Harbour’ was the product of the spymasters failure to collect, analyse and then act.)
Secret Missions
Who is served by the Holy Grail of occult knowledge? What is the Grail, and who does it serve?The secret is in the power and the power is in The Secret.It is a meaningless metaphor without the experiential process of self-transformation to back it up.That’s why it can’t be told.It is the panacea, a personal path of recovery for “what ails thee.”The Grail is a metaphor for connection to the mystical Source of everything, the ever-renewing Fount of all manifestation.
All paths lead toward a personal journey of transformation and enlightenment, though not all journeys fulfill the total potential of creativity, compassion, engagement, and spirituality. On a classical “hero’s journey” like Parcival, when you find the Grail, and are called to its service, no knowledge remains hidden for long.Magick was the first transdisciplinarian occupation, drawing on all areas of knowledge.Before science divorced the occult arts it was called Natural Philosophy.
Trump Card
A Magus is a “worker of magic” which eludes rational definition.The Magus is both a symbol of enlightenment and deception (disinformation)-- just like the Tarot card, The Magician, is a card of duality: Wisdom and Folly.
"Now you see it; now you don't" is the forte of the illusionist, the juggler of realities, who is master of Orwellian double-think – holding the tension of the opposites.You alternate between faith and skepticism until you go beyond the ordinary boundaries of both - "slay each thought with its opposite." Myths present themselves as systems of antinomies, or opposites: heaven/hell, good/evil, life/death. The Magus lives at the Paradox.
Traditionally, the Magus is one who can demonstrate hands-on magic: healing, transformative rituals, metaphor therapy, alchemical transmutations, charging of talismans, spirit comm, etc. Magick works on the principle that man is a microcosm.
Arts Magian
A modern Magus is any person who completes the circuit between heaven and Earth, one who seeks to bring forth the divine 'gold' within her or himself.He or she is also a Mentor, an Initiator, divining and reading the signs and revealing deeper purpose and meaning in “the godgame.”
But that is how the outer world sees it. Every Magus has a foot in both worlds.Their inner life is mercurial, a complex psychic layer-cake of inner planes of transcendent experience where quantum leaps of consciousness are possible and messages are exchanged with the Great Unknown.
Metaphysician
Perception of what is real and what is not dims and vanishes in a whirlwind of synchronicities. Imagination is reality. Magicians understand the world we live in, or think we live in, is an illusion, a construct of our own perceptual apparatus and a malleable interpretation of our brains.
But the hyperdimensional gifts of the Spirit come at a price.The magician taps into, becomes one with, an essence that pop culture calls The Force.Photons and phonons are quantized modes of vibration. This subatomic vibration of Light and Sound is the enlivening force, which feeds creation and allegedly responds to focused intention.Information controls and patterns energy.
Hermetics is a Spiritual Technology
For masters of the Hermetic Arts, all magick is wrought through this impressionable ether – the Astral Light --a plenum of potential, using true properties of nature, it's laws, forces, and principles.Science now describes it as the scalar physics of subspace.The mage seeks to selectively establish an internal order out of this chaos, then externalize it, according to his vision.He is the soul guide who initiates the transformation process.
The Hermetica included works on magic, alchemy, astrology, healing, gnosis, theurgy, ritual and philosophy. Sympathetic magic contends that like substances sharing an essence can influence one another through resonance effects. Likewise the hypnotic and magnetic qualities of charismatic individuals can create rapport with others to influence them.
Magick Metaprograms
This power card also represents the fine line dividing white magic from black magic, toxic or malignant black ops. Sensory deprivation, loss of equilibrium, confusion techniques, social isolation, physiological stress, severe shock and ceremonial terror tactics were the forerunners of brainwashing techniques.
This is the realm of psychic attack and psychic self defense, of sorcerers stealthily vying with one another for power. Weaponized ESP can affect the body, mind and soul of one's opponent. But it can boomerang back on the sender 3-fold, according to the cautionary prescription.
Undercover
Power can be used in either a self-serving manner, or one in service to the All. In order for The Magus to achieve his aims, there must be constant awareness and self-examination, pressing on and exploring one’s boundaries, breaking through into the boundless realms.
This is also the Trump of discernment.The Magus can discriminate between various realities and fantasies, between various points of view, without buying into any belief system, literally.The sorcerer orchestrates and works within others’ belief systems.
By molding worldviews, a magician creates the perception, manipulates and defines the perceived reality, creates the structure for self-organizing transformation.He believes no metanarratives but orchestrates them for others.He is an opportunistic paradigm shifter, shapeshifter, chameleon, trickster.If you assume a role does that make it real?If not, fake it till you make it.Better to be an inspired lunatic than uninspired, or so Crowley’s arc implies.
Legacy
Another magnetic mercurial personality, Tim Leary, took notes on Crowley's cult of personality. Leary admitted Crowley inspired him and bootstrapped his book 'The Game of Life' (Part 4 of his Future-History Series) from the scientific-occult philosophy of Aleister Crowley and Tarot.He understood Crowley was on a similar path, only using different language. He called Crowley an 'Agent of Evolution.'
LSD rascal-guru Timothy Leary was a Crowley enthusiast. He said: “I’ve been an admirer of Aleister Crowley. I think that I’m carrying on much of the work that he started over a hundred years ago … He was in favor of finding yourself, and ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’ under love. It was a very powerful statement. I’m sorry he isn’t around now to appreciate the glories he started.” (Late Night America, Public Broadcasting Network, cited by Hells Bells, Reel to Real Ministries). Leary also had his own relationship with both the mystic arts and the CIA. One of his famous early books was called HIGH PRIEST. He was called "the Pope of Dope.". Both fearlessly explored the outer limits of human potential. Psychologists - essentially psychic engineers - exert both local and remote control on human minds and behavior. see http://espionagecentral.50megs.com
"These psychedelic substances cause hysterical psychoses in people who have not taken them..."- Timothy Leary
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley Was A British Agent Encouraged Germany To Sink Lusitania Historian Reveals The Double Life Of 'The Great Beast 666' MOSCOW, Idaho Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), known as "the Great Beast 666," is most widely remembered as a practitioner of black magic and the father of modern occultism. His hideous reputation lives on, and has grown. In 2002, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) conducted a poll on the 100 most influential Britons of all time. Crowley came in at number 73.
Crowley has been the subject of several biographies, but none that investigate his alleged connection to British Intelligence. "That notion was dismissed by most biographers as idle boasting," said Richard Spence, professor and chair of the University of Idaho's Department of History. His recently published book, "Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult," reveals new facets of Crowley's life and raises new questions about his character. The book began as an article Spence wrote for the International Journal for Intelligence and Counter Intelligence in 2000. Following its publication, history buffs and occult aficionados from around the world began contacting Spence with tidbits of information and leads.
Referencing documents in British, American, French and Italian archives, Spence discovered that Crowley was connected to the sinking of the Lusitania, a British luxury liner that was torpedoed off of Ireland, killing 1,198 of the people aboard; the sinking turned public opinion in many countries against Germany in World War I. Crowley also helped thwart Irish and Indian nationalist conspiracies, connived with the Communist International and played a murky role in the 1941 flight of Rudolf Hess. It is difficult to discern where Crowley the man and Crowley the public persona overlap. Spence is intrigued by Crowley's use of the occult as cover and support for other activities. "He was such a disreputable and even evil character in the public mind that arguably no responsible intelligence official would think of employing him," said Spence. "But the very fact that he seemed such an improbable spy was perhaps the best recommendation for using him." Spence, whose dogged approach to historical research has earned him a reputation as "a frustrated detective," began his study by securing documents from the now defunct U.S. Army Military Intelligence Division. The file revealed an American investigation into Crowley's activities in 1918, which led to the discovery that he was an employee of the British government.
Later in his life, Crowley claimed that he came to the U.S. as a British undercover agent with a mission to infiltrate and undermine the German propaganda effort. "He did undermine that effort," said Spence. "His writing was an over-the-top parody of saber-rattling German militarism." He actively encouraged German aggressiveness, such as the attack on the Lusitania, with the ultimate aim of bringing America into the war. In doing so, "Crowley followed precisely the wishes of Admiral Hall, chief of British Naval Intelligence," said Spence. "Crowley was an adept amateur psychologist, had an uncanny ability to influence people and probably utilized hypnotic suggestion in his undercover work," Spence added. "The other thing he made good use of was drugs. In New York, he carried out very detailed studies on the effects of mescaline (peyote). He would invite various friends over for dinner, fix them curry and dose the food with mescaline. Then he observed and took notes on their behavior." Mescaline, Spence noted, was later used by intelligence agencies for experiments in behavior modification and mind control. Measuring the degree to which his occultism was a calculated cover "gets tricky," said Spence. "From my perspective, it ultimately isn't all that important whether he was sincere or a grand faker. He was certainly a person who could seem one thing while actually being something quite the opposite." Though extremely unconventional in his behavior, "when push came to shove, Crowley had a visceral loyalty to England," said Spence. "Because he did things that could not be publicly discussed, he could never really defend himself against these charges, though he did make attempts to redeem his reputation." Because of the inaccessibility of many key intelligence files, redeeming or simply clarifying Crowley's reputation has been a challenge for Spence. British government documents have been particularly difficult to access. "If I was looking for agricultural statistics I could just go in and get them," he said with a laugh. "But the more you have to hunt for something, the more satisfying it is when you get the answers. I like solving puzzles." Spence has appeared on the History Channel, and he has spoken at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. He also is the author of "Trust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly" and "Boris Savinkov: Renegade on the Left."
The actual magical ritual which Crowley attempted to perform at Boleskine had nothing to do with black masses or black magic. It is known as the ‘Abramelin Operation’, taken from ‘ The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage’, a famous grimoire (book of magical knowledge), dating back to at least the middle of the 15th century. Crowley seems to have become aware of the ritual from the 1897 translation of the book by occultist Samuel Liddel Mathers, one of the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which Crowley had joined in 1898, before falling out with most of its members, including Mathers, a few years later. The purpose of performing the lengthy and intense Abramelin ritual was for the magician to communicate with his ‘Holy Guardian Angel’ or Higher Self. Unfortunately for Crowley and those around him the Abramelin rites seem to have succeeded mainly in summoning ‘demons’ or ‘the Abramelin devils’ as Crowley calls them.
The Secret: To Dare, To Will, To Know, To Keep Silent
Intelligence is the key to understanding the world today. What spies have in common with magicians is an uncanny ability to connect the seemingly unconnected, to notice what goes on behind the scenes and to see through misdirection ~ it takes one to know one. Both have learned to synthesize and interprete data, how to pace and lead people (hypno-patsies) with rapport. The opening gambit of psychological warfare and mind control is flattery.
As trained observers, magicians and spies are adept at people-reading and keeping secrets; both are actors -- performers. Both are in secret societies that rely on craft and often use collaborators or confederates, and mentors. How much different is stealth and surveillance than a spell of invisibility? Each have their rules of engagement in the Great Work and the Great Game.
Clandestine Craft
Even some of the elements of tradecraft are the same. Both are cryptic, using encryptions and codes. Each has its own arcane language, symbols and rituals veiled from the profane. Remote Viewing or psychic spying is virtually identical with clairvoyance. Ceremonial psychodrama is played out in public, in personality cults and "ritual" murders.
Both use passwords and slogans for security. Cryptography is now ubiquitous. All domestic and foreign electronic communication is monitored by programs like Echelon. Spies and magicians both are cracking the Brain Code, the wetware of humanity.
Cryptocracy refers to a type of government where the real leaders are hidden. There may possibly be a fake government that appears to be in charge and this fake government might not know themselves that they are not in charge. It can also be used when referring to similar arrangements in organizations, orders, sects and cults.
Everywhere is Ground Zero
In military terms psychic operations are called psychotronics. Adversaries are rogue psi operatives, psiwarriors who battle like sorcerers. Psychic self defense employs thought disruption, shielding techniques, mind drain and energy manipulation. Psionics is scientific magic ~ magecraft, the product of extraordinary human potential. Precogs, like analysts, are attuned to the future.
Deep Cover
They understand viscerally that things are often not what they seem. Both are masters of disguise, the hidden environment, intelligence, espionage, and covert action. Both aim to 'tweak the timeline' with small perturbations that pump up to macroscopic results, setting up currents of intentional influence. They also tweak minds by controlling the environment. No one can resist what they cannot detect.
Both are Inside Outsiders, working at the fringes of the System. The "outsider" aesthetic is charged by a desire to break free from the contrivances of tradition. They look boldly outside the system and deep within themselves for inspiration that arises directly from Creative Source.
Both work sub rosa. This phrase comes from the Latin meaning 'under the rose' for confidentiality, black ops. It comes from the Masonic fraternal tradition. The rose is the emblem of Horus, God of Silence and Secrecy, Crowley's "Crowned & Conquering Child."
From the Abyss of primordial imagination, Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was born in Victorian England to a life of financial privilege and religious bigotry.He rebelled against his traditional upbringing, becoming a Masonic maverick. The iconoclast philosopher became a mountaineer, a bohemian, a writer of sensuous poetry and a practitioner of what he called Magick and detractors called "the black arts". Crowley was an uninhibited explorer of global spiritual traditions combining ritual with spiritual ecstasy. His winding path was a walk on the wild side, intersecting ceremonial magic, classical syncretism, Sufism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Kabbalah.He made a new age fusion religion of sex, drugs, poetry and music.
Was the magus also a spy, or Hitler’s Guru, his “wannabee,”programmer, or even doppelganger? Was he a British agent or did he collaborate with Nazis during WWII? Information is power, but so is disinformation. He definitely wrote propaganda, but like Parcival in the Grail Castle, we have to ask, “Who do these things serve?”
The occult is one of the keys to world events; reality is also defined by politics. It takes intelligence to be a magician, but a magician can also be an active agent of intelligence, figuratively and literally. The real question is, rather, how and why and who and what do these things serve? Restoring self and society is the essential wisdom of the Grail. But this quest can be coopted for narcissistic or pathological ends. The Secret Doctrine can introduce both positive and negative praeternatural forces.
Who is served by the Holy Grail of occult knowledge? What is the Grail, and who does it serve? The secret is in the power and the power is in The Secret. It is a meaningless metaphor without the experiential process of self-transformation to back it up. It is the panacea, a personal path of recovery for “what ails thee.” The Grail is a metaphor for connection to the mystical Source of everything, the ever-renewing Fountain of all manifestation.
All paths lead toward a personal journey of transformation and enlightenment, though not all journeys fulfill the total potential of creativity, compassion, engagement, and spirituality. On a classical “hero’s journey” like Parcival, when you find the Grail, and are called to its service, no knowledge remains hidden for long, for magick was the first transdisciplinarian occupation, drawing on all areas of knowledge. Before science divorced the occult arts it was called Natural Philosophy.
A Magus is a “worker of magic” which eludes rational definition. The Magus is both a symbol of enlightenment and deception (disinformation)-- just like the Tarot card, The Magician, is a card of duality: Wisdom and Folly."Now you see it; now you don't" is the forte of the illusionist, the juggler of realities, who is master of Orwellian double-think – holding the tension of the opposites. Myths present themselves as systems of antinomies, or opposites: heaven/hell, good/evil, life/death.
Flying saucer mythology took hold in a big way in the 1950s, wrapped in gaudy pulp covers and flashed on movie screens. Jack Parsons, the CalTech rocket pioneer and high priest of the OTO's Agape Lodge in Pasadena - and one of the first Americans to report a UFO sighting - was addicted to science fiction. He regularly attended meetings of the L.A. Fantasy and Science Fiction Society, where in 1945 the black adept (he took "the Oath of the Anti-Christ" in 1949) met Lt. Commander L. Ron Hubbard, who made "alien" visitations an integral part of a religious doctrine he called Scientology.
The OTO was founded between 1895 and 1900 by a pair of powerful Freemasons, Karl Kellner and Theodor Reuss. Politically, the order was right-wing in the extreme, proposing the creation of a pan-German world based on pagan spiritual beliefs. Kellner died in 1905, and Reuss, a former spy for the Prussian Secret Service, assumed the office of high caliph. While living in London, Reuss spied on German socialist expatriates. In 1912 he made the acquaintance of Aleister Crowley [pictured], and appointed him head of the OTO's British chapter. But The Beast's political loyalties have always been an open question.
While living in the States, he wrote pro-German diatribes for two fascist publications, The Fatherland and The Internationalist. After WW II, there were calls for his head. But Crowley offered that his pro-German stance was a ruse of MI6, the military intelligence division in the UK. In 1912 he had informed the secret service of his correspondence with Reuss, the German spy. Throughout the '20s and '30s, Crowley gathered intelligence on European Communists, the Nazi movement and Germany's occult lodges. Crowley died in 1944, willing the copyright for his books and unpublished manuscripts to the OTO, and leadership of the order to Karl Germer, otherwise known as Frater Saturnus X., formerly Crowley's Legate in the U.S. Germer was born in Germany, served in WW I and was reportedly tossed in the prison by the Nazis for his involvement in Freemasonry. (Crowley believed Germer to be a Nazi spy, but admitted him to the OTO anyway. Typical.)
He settled after the war in Dublin, California and died on October 25, 1962 "under horrifying circumstances," according to his wife in a letter to Marcelo Matta, an OTO official in Brazil. She informed him that Germer, on his death bed, had insisted that Matta succeed him as the Outer Head of the occult order. But the mantle was not passed on to Karl Germer's chosen successor because the CIA orchestrated a coup. But not as an OTO spokesman tells it: "Recently the United States government has legalized our opinion.... [McMurty's] leadership of the Ordo Templi Orientis rests on several rather clear letters of authorization from Crowley himself. They met while McMurty was a young First Lieutenant during World War II. He had been admitted to the OTO in 1941 [by] Jack Parsons."
In fact, the choice of McMurty was not entirely "clear." Matta's advocates insist the court decision was based on the perjured testimony of McMurty and attorneys with CIA paymasters. The cult's position on a successor is moot since, according to charters signed on March 22, 1946 and April 11, 1946, The Beast of the Apocalypse had left it to Germer to veto or amend his designation of a successor. As Matta saw it, no one had a legitimate claim to the title but he. Unfortunately, Herr Germer died during the period the CIA had chosen to move mind control experimentation from academic and military labs into the community. An inner circle of Heironymous scientists experimented on cult devotees, and sometimes collaborated in mass murder to silence the subjects (Jonestown, SLA, Solar Temple). It was a sweet arrangement. Occult societies are secretive and often highly irrational. They follow a leader. They exist on the edge of a society that ignores them because weird religious rhetoric is obnoxious.
A number of intelligence agents with occult interests already had their hooks into the OTO. One of them was Gerald Yorke, a veteran British intelligence agent working, an advocate of Matta argues, "with American intelligence in an attempt to absorb the OTO into the ideological warfare network of the political right." Before the horns of Thelemite succession were bestowed upon Grady McMurty, Yorke the prelate spy "misinterpreted" Germer's will and named Joseph Metzger, a ranking Thelemite (and the son of a former Swiss intelligence chief), to the office of high caliph. One order adept, Oskar Schlag, was an alleged "psychological warfare" specialist from Israel. Even McMurty (with his degree in political science) was a State Department bureaucrat the day Herr Germer died. The coup was sealed while Marcelo Matta, a writer for Brazilian television, fended off operatives of the CIA bent on destroying his sanity and leaving him financially crippled. It was a ritual that subjects of mind control conditioning would come to know well. Strangers approached his friends and filled their ears with lurid stories of debauchery. He was suddenly unable to find work. His mail was opened. Matta took a job teaching English, studied self-defense. "He had begun to doubt his sanity," the advocate says. "He constantly suspected people who approached him. He saw in himself all the clinical symptoms of paranoia."
The Wicked King Wicker : A letter from "Son of Sam" David Berkowitz to the New York Daily News. Herein, several allusions are made to pan-German pagant;Son of Sam" David Berkowitz to the New York Daily News. Herein, several allusions are made to pan-German pagan spiritual beliefs. The Wicked King Wicker alludes to the Druid Wicker man set aflame during the celebration of Samhain, the Celtic Lord of the Dead. The Wicker man was a hollow effigy filled with sacrificial victims and then set aflame. The "Son of Sam" alludes to Samhain.
After a few years of harassment and squabbling over the leadership of the OTO, Motta came to the realization that the McMurty junta and "the American 'intelligence' network behind them had a worry, and a pressing one; Motta's proposed 'New Manifesto' [did] not mention ... Grady at all. Since their purpose was to create an American 'intelligence' tool at the expense of a religious organization, it was necessary to either bring Motta to concede Grady further authority or to discredit Motta completely." They did what they wilt. In 1967 Germer's entire occult library and manuscripts were stolen from the home of his widow. Without the royalties these brought in, Mrs. Germer was destitute and literally starved to death. Matta was cast out of the OTO. Trouble brewed in the cult's cauldron. At least one Cotton Club killer passed through. The OTO's Solar Lodge in San Bernardino was founded by Maury McCauley, a mortician, on his own property. McCauley was married to Barbara Newman, a former model and the daughter of a retired Air Force colonel from Vandenberg. The group subscribed to a grim, apocalyptic view of the world precipitated by race wars, and the prophecy made a lasting impression on Charles Manson, who passed through the lodge.
In the L.A. underworld, the OTO spin-off was known for indulgence in sadomasochism, drug dealing, blood drinking, child molestation and murder. The Riverside OTO, like the Manson Family, used drugs, sex, psycho-drama and fear to tear down the mind of the initiate and rebuild it according to the desires of the cult's inner-circle.
On the East Coast, a series of murders created an atmosphere of fear in New York City. Before the world had ever heard of Son of Sam, an obscure Vietnam vet named David Berkowitz moved into an apartment on Pine Street, a rotting gantlet of hovels in Yonkers. Like much of the bloodshed for which he is known, Berkowitz did not make the decision to live on Pine Street. Key decisions in his life were made by the leaders of a religious group based in Westchester, a hybrid of OTO members and acolytes from the Process Church of the Final Judgment. Members of the cult mingled with others in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and had contact with similar groups across the country. The leader of the Westchester "family" was a real estate attorney with a practice in White Plains. He was active in local politics. Balding, lean with years, he directed Berkowitz and his "brothers" to kill in the name of an old cause. The group's meeting place was an abandoned church, a decrepit hulk on the grounds of the abandoned Warburg-Rothschild estate. The church, partially eaten by fire, was the group's "eastern Headquarters." Most of the pews had been removed from the church long ago. On one wall was hung a large silver pentagram, festooned with silver insets in the shape of Waffen SS lightning bolts. [alex constantine, 1996]
Crowley has been the subject of several biographies, but none that investigate his alleged connection to British Intelligence. "That notion was dismissed by most biographers as idle boasting," said Richard Spence, professor and chair of the University of Idaho's Department of History. His recently published book, "Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult," reveals new facets of Crowley's life and raises new questions about his character. The book began as an article Spence wrote for the International Journal for Intelligence and Counter Intelligence in 2000. Following its publication, history buffs and occult aficionados from around the world began contacting Spence with tidbits of information and leads.
Referencing documents in British, American, French and Italian archives, Spence discovered that Crowley was connected to the sinking of the Lusitania, a British luxury liner that was torpedoed off of Ireland, killing 1,198 of the people aboard; the sinking turned public opinion in many countries against Germany in World War I. Crowley also helped thwart Irish and Indian nationalist conspiracies, connived with the Communist International and played a murky role in the 1941 flight of Rudolf Hess. It is difficult to discern where Crowley the man and Crowley the public persona overlap. Spence is intrigued by Crowley's use of the occult as cover and support for other activities. "He was such a disreputable and even evil character in the public mind that arguably no responsible intelligence official would think of employing him," said Spence. "But the very fact that he seemed such an improbable spy was perhaps the best recommendation for using him." Spence, whose dogged approach to historical research has earned him a reputation as "a frustrated detective," began his study by securing documents from the now defunct U.S. Army Military Intelligence Division. The file revealed an American investigation into Crowley's activities in 1918, which led to the discovery that he was an employee of the British government.
Later in his life, Crowley claimed that he came to the U.S. as a British undercover agent with a mission to infiltrate and undermine the German propaganda effort. "He did undermine that effort," said Spence. "His writing was an over-the-top parody of saber-rattling German militarism." He actively encouraged German aggressiveness, such as the attack on the Lusitania, with the ultimate aim of bringing America into the war. In doing so, "Crowley followed precisely the wishes of Admiral Hall, chief of British Naval Intelligence," said Spence. "Crowley was an adept amateur psychologist, had an uncanny ability to influence people and probably utilized hypnotic suggestion in his undercover work," Spence added. "The other thing he made good use of was drugs. In New York, he carried out very detailed studies on the effects of mescaline (peyote). He would invite various friends over for dinner, fix them curry and dose the food with mescaline. Then he observed and took notes on their behavior." Mescaline, Spence noted, was later used by intelligence agencies for experiments in behavior modification and mind control. Measuring the degree to which his occultism was a calculated cover "gets tricky," said Spence. "From my perspective, it ultimately isn't all that important whether he was sincere or a grand faker. He was certainly a person who could seem one thing while actually being something quite the opposite." Though extremely unconventional in his behavior, "when push came to shove, Crowley had a visceral loyalty to England," said Spence. "Because he did things that could not be publicly discussed, he could never really defend himself against these charges, though he did make attempts to redeem his reputation." Because of the inaccessibility of many key intelligence files, redeeming or simply clarifying Crowley's reputation has been a challenge for Spence. British government documents have been particularly difficult to access. "If I was looking for agricultural statistics I could just go in and get them," he said with a laugh. "But the more you have to hunt for something, the more satisfying it is when you get the answers. I like solving puzzles." Spence has appeared on the History Channel, and he has spoken at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. He also is the author of "Trust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly" and "Boris Savinkov: Renegade on the Left."
The actual magical ritual which Crowley attempted to perform at Boleskine had nothing to do with black masses or black magic. It is known as the ‘Abramelin Operation’, taken from ‘ The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage’, a famous grimoire (book of magical knowledge), dating back to at least the middle of the 15th century. Crowley seems to have become aware of the ritual from the 1897 translation of the book by occultist Samuel Liddel Mathers, one of the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which Crowley had joined in 1898, before falling out with most of its members, including Mathers, a few years later. The purpose of performing the lengthy and intense Abramelin ritual was for the magician to communicate with his ‘Holy Guardian Angel’ or Higher Self. Unfortunately for Crowley and those around him the Abramelin rites seem to have succeeded mainly in summoning ‘demons’ or ‘the Abramelin devils’ as Crowley calls them.
The Secret: To Dare, To Will, To Know, To Keep Silent
Intelligence is the key to understanding the world today. What spies have in common with magicians is an uncanny ability to connect the seemingly unconnected, to notice what goes on behind the scenes and to see through misdirection ~ it takes one to know one. Both have learned to synthesize and interprete data, how to pace and lead people (hypno-patsies) with rapport. The opening gambit of psychological warfare and mind control is flattery.
As trained observers, magicians and spies are adept at people-reading and keeping secrets; both are actors -- performers. Both are in secret societies that rely on craft and often use collaborators or confederates, and mentors. How much different is stealth and surveillance than a spell of invisibility? Each have their rules of engagement in the Great Work and the Great Game.
Clandestine Craft
Even some of the elements of tradecraft are the same. Both are cryptic, using encryptions and codes. Each has its own arcane language, symbols and rituals veiled from the profane. Remote Viewing or psychic spying is virtually identical with clairvoyance. Ceremonial psychodrama is played out in public, in personality cults and "ritual" murders.
Both use passwords and slogans for security. Cryptography is now ubiquitous. All domestic and foreign electronic communication is monitored by programs like Echelon. Spies and magicians both are cracking the Brain Code, the wetware of humanity.
Cryptocracy refers to a type of government where the real leaders are hidden. There may possibly be a fake government that appears to be in charge and this fake government might not know themselves that they are not in charge. It can also be used when referring to similar arrangements in organizations, orders, sects and cults.
Everywhere is Ground Zero
In military terms psychic operations are called psychotronics. Adversaries are rogue psi operatives, psiwarriors who battle like sorcerers. Psychic self defense employs thought disruption, shielding techniques, mind drain and energy manipulation. Psionics is scientific magic ~ magecraft, the product of extraordinary human potential. Precogs, like analysts, are attuned to the future.
Deep Cover
They understand viscerally that things are often not what they seem. Both are masters of disguise, the hidden environment, intelligence, espionage, and covert action. Both aim to 'tweak the timeline' with small perturbations that pump up to macroscopic results, setting up currents of intentional influence. They also tweak minds by controlling the environment. No one can resist what they cannot detect.
Both are Inside Outsiders, working at the fringes of the System. The "outsider" aesthetic is charged by a desire to break free from the contrivances of tradition. They look boldly outside the system and deep within themselves for inspiration that arises directly from Creative Source.
Both work sub rosa. This phrase comes from the Latin meaning 'under the rose' for confidentiality, black ops. It comes from the Masonic fraternal tradition. The rose is the emblem of Horus, God of Silence and Secrecy, Crowley's "Crowned & Conquering Child."
From the Abyss of primordial imagination, Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was born in Victorian England to a life of financial privilege and religious bigotry.He rebelled against his traditional upbringing, becoming a Masonic maverick. The iconoclast philosopher became a mountaineer, a bohemian, a writer of sensuous poetry and a practitioner of what he called Magick and detractors called "the black arts". Crowley was an uninhibited explorer of global spiritual traditions combining ritual with spiritual ecstasy. His winding path was a walk on the wild side, intersecting ceremonial magic, classical syncretism, Sufism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Kabbalah.He made a new age fusion religion of sex, drugs, poetry and music.
Was the magus also a spy, or Hitler’s Guru, his “wannabee,”programmer, or even doppelganger? Was he a British agent or did he collaborate with Nazis during WWII? Information is power, but so is disinformation. He definitely wrote propaganda, but like Parcival in the Grail Castle, we have to ask, “Who do these things serve?”
The occult is one of the keys to world events; reality is also defined by politics. It takes intelligence to be a magician, but a magician can also be an active agent of intelligence, figuratively and literally. The real question is, rather, how and why and who and what do these things serve? Restoring self and society is the essential wisdom of the Grail. But this quest can be coopted for narcissistic or pathological ends. The Secret Doctrine can introduce both positive and negative praeternatural forces.
Who is served by the Holy Grail of occult knowledge? What is the Grail, and who does it serve? The secret is in the power and the power is in The Secret. It is a meaningless metaphor without the experiential process of self-transformation to back it up. It is the panacea, a personal path of recovery for “what ails thee.” The Grail is a metaphor for connection to the mystical Source of everything, the ever-renewing Fountain of all manifestation.
All paths lead toward a personal journey of transformation and enlightenment, though not all journeys fulfill the total potential of creativity, compassion, engagement, and spirituality. On a classical “hero’s journey” like Parcival, when you find the Grail, and are called to its service, no knowledge remains hidden for long, for magick was the first transdisciplinarian occupation, drawing on all areas of knowledge. Before science divorced the occult arts it was called Natural Philosophy.
A Magus is a “worker of magic” which eludes rational definition. The Magus is both a symbol of enlightenment and deception (disinformation)-- just like the Tarot card, The Magician, is a card of duality: Wisdom and Folly."Now you see it; now you don't" is the forte of the illusionist, the juggler of realities, who is master of Orwellian double-think – holding the tension of the opposites. Myths present themselves as systems of antinomies, or opposites: heaven/hell, good/evil, life/death.
Flying saucer mythology took hold in a big way in the 1950s, wrapped in gaudy pulp covers and flashed on movie screens. Jack Parsons, the CalTech rocket pioneer and high priest of the OTO's Agape Lodge in Pasadena - and one of the first Americans to report a UFO sighting - was addicted to science fiction. He regularly attended meetings of the L.A. Fantasy and Science Fiction Society, where in 1945 the black adept (he took "the Oath of the Anti-Christ" in 1949) met Lt. Commander L. Ron Hubbard, who made "alien" visitations an integral part of a religious doctrine he called Scientology.
The OTO was founded between 1895 and 1900 by a pair of powerful Freemasons, Karl Kellner and Theodor Reuss. Politically, the order was right-wing in the extreme, proposing the creation of a pan-German world based on pagan spiritual beliefs. Kellner died in 1905, and Reuss, a former spy for the Prussian Secret Service, assumed the office of high caliph. While living in London, Reuss spied on German socialist expatriates. In 1912 he made the acquaintance of Aleister Crowley [pictured], and appointed him head of the OTO's British chapter. But The Beast's political loyalties have always been an open question.
While living in the States, he wrote pro-German diatribes for two fascist publications, The Fatherland and The Internationalist. After WW II, there were calls for his head. But Crowley offered that his pro-German stance was a ruse of MI6, the military intelligence division in the UK. In 1912 he had informed the secret service of his correspondence with Reuss, the German spy. Throughout the '20s and '30s, Crowley gathered intelligence on European Communists, the Nazi movement and Germany's occult lodges. Crowley died in 1944, willing the copyright for his books and unpublished manuscripts to the OTO, and leadership of the order to Karl Germer, otherwise known as Frater Saturnus X., formerly Crowley's Legate in the U.S. Germer was born in Germany, served in WW I and was reportedly tossed in the prison by the Nazis for his involvement in Freemasonry. (Crowley believed Germer to be a Nazi spy, but admitted him to the OTO anyway. Typical.)
He settled after the war in Dublin, California and died on October 25, 1962 "under horrifying circumstances," according to his wife in a letter to Marcelo Matta, an OTO official in Brazil. She informed him that Germer, on his death bed, had insisted that Matta succeed him as the Outer Head of the occult order. But the mantle was not passed on to Karl Germer's chosen successor because the CIA orchestrated a coup. But not as an OTO spokesman tells it: "Recently the United States government has legalized our opinion.... [McMurty's] leadership of the Ordo Templi Orientis rests on several rather clear letters of authorization from Crowley himself. They met while McMurty was a young First Lieutenant during World War II. He had been admitted to the OTO in 1941 [by] Jack Parsons."
In fact, the choice of McMurty was not entirely "clear." Matta's advocates insist the court decision was based on the perjured testimony of McMurty and attorneys with CIA paymasters. The cult's position on a successor is moot since, according to charters signed on March 22, 1946 and April 11, 1946, The Beast of the Apocalypse had left it to Germer to veto or amend his designation of a successor. As Matta saw it, no one had a legitimate claim to the title but he. Unfortunately, Herr Germer died during the period the CIA had chosen to move mind control experimentation from academic and military labs into the community. An inner circle of Heironymous scientists experimented on cult devotees, and sometimes collaborated in mass murder to silence the subjects (Jonestown, SLA, Solar Temple). It was a sweet arrangement. Occult societies are secretive and often highly irrational. They follow a leader. They exist on the edge of a society that ignores them because weird religious rhetoric is obnoxious.
A number of intelligence agents with occult interests already had their hooks into the OTO. One of them was Gerald Yorke, a veteran British intelligence agent working, an advocate of Matta argues, "with American intelligence in an attempt to absorb the OTO into the ideological warfare network of the political right." Before the horns of Thelemite succession were bestowed upon Grady McMurty, Yorke the prelate spy "misinterpreted" Germer's will and named Joseph Metzger, a ranking Thelemite (and the son of a former Swiss intelligence chief), to the office of high caliph. One order adept, Oskar Schlag, was an alleged "psychological warfare" specialist from Israel. Even McMurty (with his degree in political science) was a State Department bureaucrat the day Herr Germer died. The coup was sealed while Marcelo Matta, a writer for Brazilian television, fended off operatives of the CIA bent on destroying his sanity and leaving him financially crippled. It was a ritual that subjects of mind control conditioning would come to know well. Strangers approached his friends and filled their ears with lurid stories of debauchery. He was suddenly unable to find work. His mail was opened. Matta took a job teaching English, studied self-defense. "He had begun to doubt his sanity," the advocate says. "He constantly suspected people who approached him. He saw in himself all the clinical symptoms of paranoia."
The Wicked King Wicker : A letter from "Son of Sam" David Berkowitz to the New York Daily News. Herein, several allusions are made to pan-German pagant;Son of Sam" David Berkowitz to the New York Daily News. Herein, several allusions are made to pan-German pagan spiritual beliefs. The Wicked King Wicker alludes to the Druid Wicker man set aflame during the celebration of Samhain, the Celtic Lord of the Dead. The Wicker man was a hollow effigy filled with sacrificial victims and then set aflame. The "Son of Sam" alludes to Samhain.
After a few years of harassment and squabbling over the leadership of the OTO, Motta came to the realization that the McMurty junta and "the American 'intelligence' network behind them had a worry, and a pressing one; Motta's proposed 'New Manifesto' [did] not mention ... Grady at all. Since their purpose was to create an American 'intelligence' tool at the expense of a religious organization, it was necessary to either bring Motta to concede Grady further authority or to discredit Motta completely." They did what they wilt. In 1967 Germer's entire occult library and manuscripts were stolen from the home of his widow. Without the royalties these brought in, Mrs. Germer was destitute and literally starved to death. Matta was cast out of the OTO. Trouble brewed in the cult's cauldron. At least one Cotton Club killer passed through. The OTO's Solar Lodge in San Bernardino was founded by Maury McCauley, a mortician, on his own property. McCauley was married to Barbara Newman, a former model and the daughter of a retired Air Force colonel from Vandenberg. The group subscribed to a grim, apocalyptic view of the world precipitated by race wars, and the prophecy made a lasting impression on Charles Manson, who passed through the lodge.
In the L.A. underworld, the OTO spin-off was known for indulgence in sadomasochism, drug dealing, blood drinking, child molestation and murder. The Riverside OTO, like the Manson Family, used drugs, sex, psycho-drama and fear to tear down the mind of the initiate and rebuild it according to the desires of the cult's inner-circle.
On the East Coast, a series of murders created an atmosphere of fear in New York City. Before the world had ever heard of Son of Sam, an obscure Vietnam vet named David Berkowitz moved into an apartment on Pine Street, a rotting gantlet of hovels in Yonkers. Like much of the bloodshed for which he is known, Berkowitz did not make the decision to live on Pine Street. Key decisions in his life were made by the leaders of a religious group based in Westchester, a hybrid of OTO members and acolytes from the Process Church of the Final Judgment. Members of the cult mingled with others in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and had contact with similar groups across the country. The leader of the Westchester "family" was a real estate attorney with a practice in White Plains. He was active in local politics. Balding, lean with years, he directed Berkowitz and his "brothers" to kill in the name of an old cause. The group's meeting place was an abandoned church, a decrepit hulk on the grounds of the abandoned Warburg-Rothschild estate. The church, partially eaten by fire, was the group's "eastern Headquarters." Most of the pews had been removed from the church long ago. On one wall was hung a large silver pentagram, festooned with silver insets in the shape of Waffen SS lightning bolts. [alex constantine, 1996]
Madame Blavatsky
Naturally, the English in India thought HPB a Russian spy. Okhrana the Tsar's secret service. Some people during her lifetime claimed Blavatsky was a tsarist spy,
All three were occultists, psychics and pilgrims who were influenced by Tibetan knowledge. They were also considered to be spies. Blavatsky and Gurdjieff were said to be Russian spies and Rasputin was thought to be a German spy.
A big difference would be their belief systems. Blavatsky called herself the Buddhist pilgrim, Gurdjieff developed his own esoterical thoughts (which have been labeled the “Fourth Way”) from his studies of ancient religions, and Rasputin was a Christian mystic, but did not have close ties with the Church.
Rasputin was the faith healer of the three, and also the shadiest character according to popular legend. He was a hypnotist who also used common sense techniques to help cure the ill. He was probably murdered because he became too powerful and threatening, and was seen as the beast.
Madame Blavatsky wanted to unite Central Asia, India, Mongolia, Tibet and China, in order -- with the involvement of Russia -- to create a grand Eurasian power able to oppose British ambitions. Traveling across India Blavatsky agitated against British rule and found herself accused by the colonial authorities of being a Russian spy. Prince Ukhtomsky saw support for Eurasia in the "readiness of the Indians to group themselves under the banner of the strange northern woman." He believed Madame Blavatsky had been forced to leave India by "the suspiciousness of the English."
As early as 1887 H.P. Blavatsky had become a topic of debate in "mystic Petersburg" and received the prestigious support of Ukhtomsky's friend the mysterious Tibetan Dr. Badmaev, soon to become notorious for the favour he received at the Russian imperial court and his relationship with Rasputin. Madame Blavatsky's sister insisted that the Russian Orthodox Metropolitan of Kiev had recognised the young Helena's psychic gift, and admonished her to use her powers with discretion, as he felt sure they were given her for some higher purpose.
Dr. Stephan A. Hoeller, a scholar of comparative religion and a Gnostic Bishop, reminds us that Blavatsky, was a true daughter of Mother Russia. Some feel that her life and character correspond strongly to the archetype of the traditional Russian wandering holy person, known as the staretz (literally 'old one'), Annie Besant denoting a wandering, non-clerical ascetic, or pilgrim, who travels about the countryside, exhorting people concerning spiritual matters, sometimes in a decidedly unorthodox manner.
After H.P. Blavatsky's death in London in 1891, the Theosophical Society came under the firm control of the English occultists Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater, a confirmed British imperialist. The Eurasian orientation given to early Theosophy by H.P. Blavatsky was compromised by the influence of British Masonry and Leadbeater's esoteric High Anglicanism. In the great struggle of the magicians the Eurasian impulse found new historical agents in the West, among them the celebrated French magus Papus.
In the Conclusion of his Report (313) even the unimaginative Hodgson wonders "what has induced Madame Blavatsky to live so many laborious days in such a fantastic work of imposture?" Obituary: The "Hodgson Report" on Madame Blavatsky -- 1885-1960 by Adlai E. Waterman, published in 1963, for a detailed refutation of the charges made against H. P. Blavatsky
It was impossible, he says, to see her as an egotist seeking notoriety, a religious maniac, or a mercenary adventuress. She never even claimed the rightful credit due for her books, but always said that nearly everything original in them was directly owed to her Masters for whom she was little more than amanuensis. The embarrassed and puzzled young man had to find some explanation, however farfetched, for this strange problem and, like the proverbial drowning man, he grasped at a straw, the discredited charge that H. P. Blavatsky was a Russian spy, and that her theosophical activities were nothing but a plausible make-believe to conceal political intrigue.
Hodgson jumped at this easy solution for he had nothing else to present to his employers, although he privately admitted to Colonel Olcott and Mr. Cooper-Oakley that it was absurd. Still he published in his Report that "her real object has been the furtherance of Russian interests . . . a supposition which appears best to cover the known incidents in her career." As even Hodgson could find nothing more credible to offer than the preposterous Russian spy yarn, it is no wonder that impartial critics have condemned his entire procedure. For some time the spy slander was widely circulated, and it is even now occasionally resorted to by some ignorant journalist who does not know that today the more intelligent of the carping critics of H. P. Blavatsky have abandoned it as absurd and indefensible.
The Committee of the Psychical Research Society made no proper effort to understand the background of the problem of H.P.B. They ignored the available firsthand evidence regarding her astonishing childhood and youth, so inextricably associated with psychic and occult phenomena and with her claim that she was helped by the Masters who were invisible to others and yet were not "spirits." They ignored her serious studies in Oriental philosophies and her strenuous efforts to revive Sanskrit learning, which were publicly and gratefully recognized by competent scholars.
They paid no attention to the fact that the Brahmans, jealous of their secret knowledge, recognized that she possessed many of their guarded teachings which include the laws governing the employment of occult powers. Nor did they consider certain striking teachings on scientific matters by her and her Masters and their chelas, which in all reason should have appealed to serious investigators who really wished to understand the problem before them. By disdainfully ignoring this line of inquiry the S.P.R. missed a great opportunity; for although certain scientific teachings of theosophy were unsuspected in 1885 many of them have since been discovered by scientific research, and others have become promising subjects of intensive investigation.
When Mme. Coulomb's charges that H. P. Blavatsky had fabricated certain letters from the Masters were made, very few such letters were available for consideration, but a large number have been published in late years, making it clear by internal evidence alone that she could not have written them. The difference of style as well as of handwriting between the letters of H.P.B. and her Masters is marked, although there is at times evidence that her mentality colored the phrasing, at least in cases where she was their direct instrument of transmission. Many of the Masters' letters and notes were never seen by her. They contained criticisms of her actions, or even instructions to various people about matters of which they, the Masters, wished her to remain ignorant. They passed through other channels, and in some cases the instructions were quite opposed to her own desires.
In regard to more recent charges in connection with the Masters' letters, C. Jinarajadasa has done good service in publishing his Did Madame Blavatsky Forge the Mahatma Letters? in which he gives photographic copies of letters from various Mahatmas, a study which shows the striking differences between them, and demonstrates the marked individuality of their characters. In presenting these facts, he gives unanswerable evidence that H.P.B. was in some cases thousands of miles away from the places where the letters were written, or received, or both, and that it was physically impossible for her to have written them.
Blavatsky, who was investigated by the Society for Psychical Research, claimed at various times to be receiving messages from hidden masters, prime among these were individuals known as Morya and Koot Hoomi. While the society found her claims to be fraudulent, others involved in the Theosophical movement maintained their legitimacy to varying degrees. Political intrigue played a central role in Blavatsky's hidden messengers. Blavatsky knew spiritual teachers who she incorporated into her myth of the hidden masters. Among the adepts are Prince Pavel Dolgorukii, Prince Aleksandr Golitsyn, Albert Rawson, Paolos Metamon, Agardi Metrovitch, Giuseppe Mazzini, Louis Maximilien Bimstein, Jamal ad-Din "al-Afghani", James Sanua, Lydia Pashkov, Ooton Liatto, Marie Countess of Caithness, Sir Richard Burton, Abdelkader, Raphael Borg, James Peebles, Charles Sotheran, and Mikhail Katkov.
Among the mahatmas are Swami Dayananda Sarasvati, Shyamaji Krishnavarma, Maharaja Ranbir Singh of Kashmir, Thakar Singh Sandhanwalia, Maharaja Holkar of Indore, Bhai Gurmukh Singh, Baba Khem Singh Bedi, Surendranath Banerjea, Dayal Singh Majithia, Sumangala Unnanse, Sarat Chandra Das, Ugyen Gyatso, Sengchen Tulku, and Swami Sankaracharya of Mysore. Many of these individuals had special political connections or were linked to the religious movement of Sikhism. This book shows how all were involved to some extent in the life of Madame Blavatsky and how she incorporated these individuals into her hidden master myth.
The Surveillance of HPB.
Background to the surveillance of HPB and Olcott on the ground in India. Surveillance was carried on in two ways, by direct surveillance and through social contacts. A. O. Hume's letter of January 1884 makes a number of observations about them, even though direct government surveillance had stopped in November of 1880. Reports must have been written and surveillance organised. These records may still survive in the records of the India National Archive. The surveillance was organised by a man Olcott correctly identified by the name of Major Henderson and the records bear out this assertion. I undertook to check the IOL archive about Henderson to see if I could find any references that might lead to finding these surveillance reports.
The earliest reference I found was in the Henderson papers, given to the library by his family (Document reference:- IOR: Mss EUR D1201/6). This was a personal note to Henderson from the Viceroy Lord Northbrooke in May 1873, reassuring Henderson about an unusual appointment that he had been given. This may have been because he was appointed in 1872 as an Under Secretary to the Government of India whilst still, unusually, retaining his service rank (He rose in rank to become a Major General on retirement). By 1880 it is clear that Henderson is the Superintendent of Operations for the suppression of Thug and Dacoity (Document reference:- IOR: Z/L/P&S/7/6 - Judicial Department 1880 and Judicial report No 1 - 1878). A Thugee was it seems, someone who would join up with a group of travellers and offer to do the cooking. They would then poison everyone and make off with all their goods. A Dacoit was a bandit or group of bandits.
Hendersons remit was much wider than this however, for in (Document reference:-) IOR: L/P&S/7/6- Vol.26 - part 6 - 1880 we can read an attached memo signed by him concerning 'intrigues' between 'Constantinople and Mohammedans (sic) in India'. By 1888 Henderson is making arrangements for the collection of secret and political information across the whole of the Indian Empire (Document reference:- IOR: R/1/19/80 and IOR/R/1/1/80). I was unable to locate any records of this department and these are the records that are probably retained in India and contain the surveillance records, though they may also be retained by the UK government in a separate secret archive of the security services. In the book 'Government Archives in South Asia' published by Cambridge University Press in 1969, it states that a large number, about 20 bundles, of records lie in the India National Archive.
All three were occultists, psychics and pilgrims who were influenced by Tibetan knowledge. They were also considered to be spies. Blavatsky and Gurdjieff were said to be Russian spies and Rasputin was thought to be a German spy.
A big difference would be their belief systems. Blavatsky called herself the Buddhist pilgrim, Gurdjieff developed his own esoterical thoughts (which have been labeled the “Fourth Way”) from his studies of ancient religions, and Rasputin was a Christian mystic, but did not have close ties with the Church.
Rasputin was the faith healer of the three, and also the shadiest character according to popular legend. He was a hypnotist who also used common sense techniques to help cure the ill. He was probably murdered because he became too powerful and threatening, and was seen as the beast.
Madame Blavatsky wanted to unite Central Asia, India, Mongolia, Tibet and China, in order -- with the involvement of Russia -- to create a grand Eurasian power able to oppose British ambitions. Traveling across India Blavatsky agitated against British rule and found herself accused by the colonial authorities of being a Russian spy. Prince Ukhtomsky saw support for Eurasia in the "readiness of the Indians to group themselves under the banner of the strange northern woman." He believed Madame Blavatsky had been forced to leave India by "the suspiciousness of the English."
As early as 1887 H.P. Blavatsky had become a topic of debate in "mystic Petersburg" and received the prestigious support of Ukhtomsky's friend the mysterious Tibetan Dr. Badmaev, soon to become notorious for the favour he received at the Russian imperial court and his relationship with Rasputin. Madame Blavatsky's sister insisted that the Russian Orthodox Metropolitan of Kiev had recognised the young Helena's psychic gift, and admonished her to use her powers with discretion, as he felt sure they were given her for some higher purpose.
Dr. Stephan A. Hoeller, a scholar of comparative religion and a Gnostic Bishop, reminds us that Blavatsky, was a true daughter of Mother Russia. Some feel that her life and character correspond strongly to the archetype of the traditional Russian wandering holy person, known as the staretz (literally 'old one'), Annie Besant denoting a wandering, non-clerical ascetic, or pilgrim, who travels about the countryside, exhorting people concerning spiritual matters, sometimes in a decidedly unorthodox manner.
After H.P. Blavatsky's death in London in 1891, the Theosophical Society came under the firm control of the English occultists Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater, a confirmed British imperialist. The Eurasian orientation given to early Theosophy by H.P. Blavatsky was compromised by the influence of British Masonry and Leadbeater's esoteric High Anglicanism. In the great struggle of the magicians the Eurasian impulse found new historical agents in the West, among them the celebrated French magus Papus.
In the Conclusion of his Report (313) even the unimaginative Hodgson wonders "what has induced Madame Blavatsky to live so many laborious days in such a fantastic work of imposture?" Obituary: The "Hodgson Report" on Madame Blavatsky -- 1885-1960 by Adlai E. Waterman, published in 1963, for a detailed refutation of the charges made against H. P. Blavatsky
It was impossible, he says, to see her as an egotist seeking notoriety, a religious maniac, or a mercenary adventuress. She never even claimed the rightful credit due for her books, but always said that nearly everything original in them was directly owed to her Masters for whom she was little more than amanuensis. The embarrassed and puzzled young man had to find some explanation, however farfetched, for this strange problem and, like the proverbial drowning man, he grasped at a straw, the discredited charge that H. P. Blavatsky was a Russian spy, and that her theosophical activities were nothing but a plausible make-believe to conceal political intrigue.
Hodgson jumped at this easy solution for he had nothing else to present to his employers, although he privately admitted to Colonel Olcott and Mr. Cooper-Oakley that it was absurd. Still he published in his Report that "her real object has been the furtherance of Russian interests . . . a supposition which appears best to cover the known incidents in her career." As even Hodgson could find nothing more credible to offer than the preposterous Russian spy yarn, it is no wonder that impartial critics have condemned his entire procedure. For some time the spy slander was widely circulated, and it is even now occasionally resorted to by some ignorant journalist who does not know that today the more intelligent of the carping critics of H. P. Blavatsky have abandoned it as absurd and indefensible.
The Committee of the Psychical Research Society made no proper effort to understand the background of the problem of H.P.B. They ignored the available firsthand evidence regarding her astonishing childhood and youth, so inextricably associated with psychic and occult phenomena and with her claim that she was helped by the Masters who were invisible to others and yet were not "spirits." They ignored her serious studies in Oriental philosophies and her strenuous efforts to revive Sanskrit learning, which were publicly and gratefully recognized by competent scholars.
They paid no attention to the fact that the Brahmans, jealous of their secret knowledge, recognized that she possessed many of their guarded teachings which include the laws governing the employment of occult powers. Nor did they consider certain striking teachings on scientific matters by her and her Masters and their chelas, which in all reason should have appealed to serious investigators who really wished to understand the problem before them. By disdainfully ignoring this line of inquiry the S.P.R. missed a great opportunity; for although certain scientific teachings of theosophy were unsuspected in 1885 many of them have since been discovered by scientific research, and others have become promising subjects of intensive investigation.
When Mme. Coulomb's charges that H. P. Blavatsky had fabricated certain letters from the Masters were made, very few such letters were available for consideration, but a large number have been published in late years, making it clear by internal evidence alone that she could not have written them. The difference of style as well as of handwriting between the letters of H.P.B. and her Masters is marked, although there is at times evidence that her mentality colored the phrasing, at least in cases where she was their direct instrument of transmission. Many of the Masters' letters and notes were never seen by her. They contained criticisms of her actions, or even instructions to various people about matters of which they, the Masters, wished her to remain ignorant. They passed through other channels, and in some cases the instructions were quite opposed to her own desires.
In regard to more recent charges in connection with the Masters' letters, C. Jinarajadasa has done good service in publishing his Did Madame Blavatsky Forge the Mahatma Letters? in which he gives photographic copies of letters from various Mahatmas, a study which shows the striking differences between them, and demonstrates the marked individuality of their characters. In presenting these facts, he gives unanswerable evidence that H.P.B. was in some cases thousands of miles away from the places where the letters were written, or received, or both, and that it was physically impossible for her to have written them.
Blavatsky, who was investigated by the Society for Psychical Research, claimed at various times to be receiving messages from hidden masters, prime among these were individuals known as Morya and Koot Hoomi. While the society found her claims to be fraudulent, others involved in the Theosophical movement maintained their legitimacy to varying degrees. Political intrigue played a central role in Blavatsky's hidden messengers. Blavatsky knew spiritual teachers who she incorporated into her myth of the hidden masters. Among the adepts are Prince Pavel Dolgorukii, Prince Aleksandr Golitsyn, Albert Rawson, Paolos Metamon, Agardi Metrovitch, Giuseppe Mazzini, Louis Maximilien Bimstein, Jamal ad-Din "al-Afghani", James Sanua, Lydia Pashkov, Ooton Liatto, Marie Countess of Caithness, Sir Richard Burton, Abdelkader, Raphael Borg, James Peebles, Charles Sotheran, and Mikhail Katkov.
Among the mahatmas are Swami Dayananda Sarasvati, Shyamaji Krishnavarma, Maharaja Ranbir Singh of Kashmir, Thakar Singh Sandhanwalia, Maharaja Holkar of Indore, Bhai Gurmukh Singh, Baba Khem Singh Bedi, Surendranath Banerjea, Dayal Singh Majithia, Sumangala Unnanse, Sarat Chandra Das, Ugyen Gyatso, Sengchen Tulku, and Swami Sankaracharya of Mysore. Many of these individuals had special political connections or were linked to the religious movement of Sikhism. This book shows how all were involved to some extent in the life of Madame Blavatsky and how she incorporated these individuals into her hidden master myth.
The Surveillance of HPB.
Background to the surveillance of HPB and Olcott on the ground in India. Surveillance was carried on in two ways, by direct surveillance and through social contacts. A. O. Hume's letter of January 1884 makes a number of observations about them, even though direct government surveillance had stopped in November of 1880. Reports must have been written and surveillance organised. These records may still survive in the records of the India National Archive. The surveillance was organised by a man Olcott correctly identified by the name of Major Henderson and the records bear out this assertion. I undertook to check the IOL archive about Henderson to see if I could find any references that might lead to finding these surveillance reports.
The earliest reference I found was in the Henderson papers, given to the library by his family (Document reference:- IOR: Mss EUR D1201/6). This was a personal note to Henderson from the Viceroy Lord Northbrooke in May 1873, reassuring Henderson about an unusual appointment that he had been given. This may have been because he was appointed in 1872 as an Under Secretary to the Government of India whilst still, unusually, retaining his service rank (He rose in rank to become a Major General on retirement). By 1880 it is clear that Henderson is the Superintendent of Operations for the suppression of Thug and Dacoity (Document reference:- IOR: Z/L/P&S/7/6 - Judicial Department 1880 and Judicial report No 1 - 1878). A Thugee was it seems, someone who would join up with a group of travellers and offer to do the cooking. They would then poison everyone and make off with all their goods. A Dacoit was a bandit or group of bandits.
Hendersons remit was much wider than this however, for in (Document reference:-) IOR: L/P&S/7/6- Vol.26 - part 6 - 1880 we can read an attached memo signed by him concerning 'intrigues' between 'Constantinople and Mohammedans (sic) in India'. By 1888 Henderson is making arrangements for the collection of secret and political information across the whole of the Indian Empire (Document reference:- IOR: R/1/19/80 and IOR/R/1/1/80). I was unable to locate any records of this department and these are the records that are probably retained in India and contain the surveillance records, though they may also be retained by the UK government in a separate secret archive of the security services. In the book 'Government Archives in South Asia' published by Cambridge University Press in 1969, it states that a large number, about 20 bundles, of records lie in the India National Archive.
Dr. John Dee - Architect of the British Empire
Since the time of Elizabeth I, British secret services have worked according to the principle of ‘the end justifies the means’. Money, bribery, blackmail – these are their recruitment methods...– Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), October 2007
It's no secret that when the Rosicrucians under John Dee infiltrated the English royal courts, the Venetians were among them. At one web site I found someone sharing why he thought that the poet, Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford, was acting under the pseudonym of "William Shakespeare," since politicians were not respected if they were poets of the theater. The author shared that the Oxford badge/crest used a shaking spear. Nicholas de Vere said that this Edward de Vere was close to John Dee, a "prominent member" of Dee's "School of Night," so that indeed the Rosicrucian rose-line cult included the Veres.
Nicholas went on to boast that the Veres never once, though they were continually stewards of the English kings, attempted to seize the throne. This is unbelievable, of course, unless the Veres insisted on never seizing the throne as a means to rule invisibly, moving the kings and other rulers as they saw fit, which is exactly what the Illuminati tends to do. Nicholas admitted as much when he said: "In any event the monarchical system in Britain is, to the greatest extent, impotent, and so if one wanted real political power, the last place one would find it would be on the throne of England. We have no need for thrones or crowns to remind us of who we are."
http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/mykingdom.html
Dr. John Dee, master astrologer and confidante of Queen Elizabeth I, claimed to be haunted by all the ghosts he'd conjured from the dead. When Elizabeth went into battle, she like to contact dead generals, like Beowulf and Charles Martel. She sent Dee to haunted graveyards with vile potions, seeking answers to her questions. In great demand among the royal families of Europe, Dee traveled with his apprentice and three hundred ghosts trailing behind. Some claimed they were actually visible to the gathered assembly during Dee's Royal Tour.
Necromancy is the act of conjuring the dead for divination. It dates back to Peria, Greece and Roman times. In the Middle Ages it was widely practiced by magicians, sorcerers and witches. It was condemned by the Catholic Church as "the agency of evil spirits" and in Elizabethan England was outlawed by the Witchcraft Act of 1604.
Necromancy is not to be confused with conjuring devils or demons for help. Necromancy is the seeking of the spirits of the dead. The spirits are sought because they, being without physical bodies, are no longer limited by the earthly plane. Therefore, it is thought these spirits have access to information of the past and future which is not available to the living. It has been used to help find sunken or buried treasure, and whether or not a person was murdered or died from other causes.
John Dee(1527-1608) was a fascinating genius, considered a magus, philosopher and alchemist who captured the attention of the royal courts and best minds throughout Europe. You were either intimidated by his ideas and reputation or you wished to be influenced by them. It has only been in the last century that we've had a more sober approach to Dee, thanks to such authors as Peter French, Francis Yates, Gerald Shuster and Richard Deacon who have rescued this "man of grand design" from obscurity and have realized how significant a thinker he was.
Dr. Dee's learning was far and wide, a brilliant mathematician, whose study ranged from geo-cartography and calculus which was vital in navigating the New World for explorers, to astrology, alchemy, the Cabala, cypher writing, religion, architecture, and science. In short, Dee's metaphysics were a 'red' cross of the Hermetic tradition with a strong dose of mathematics. His library at the riverside village of Mortlake was considered the finest private collection in Europe containing thousands of bound books and handwritten manuscripts devoted to philosophy, science and esoterica. In comparison the University of Cambridge at the time had a mere 451 total books and manuscripts in their possession.
Noel Fermor in the journal Baconiana wrote that, "The Earl of Leicester's father, the Duke of Northmberland, employed Dee as a tutor to his children so that they would have a sound scientific upbringing. Northumberland became a notable scientist with a strong leaning toward mathematics and magnetism. Anthony Wood in his Athenae Oxoniensis, wrote "that no one knew Robert Dudley better than Dee." So it was quite natural for Leicester to introduce Dee to Elizabeth as she was to become the new Queen and it wasn't long before Dee advanced to become the court astrologer.
(Leicester signed his letters to Elizabeth with two circles containing dots symbolising he was her "Eyes")
Elizabeth was very much interested in the occult. Dee was responsible for choosing the most auspicious date for Elizabeth's coronation which was on January 15th, 1559. The Queen was so impressed by Dee that she eventually travelled with her court to Mortlake, for the purpose of seeing his great library.
Dee has been defamed through the centuries as a necromancer, but it's the opinion of many writers that his angelic-cabalistic- alchemical work, his Philosophers Stone, the"Monad Hieroglyphica"(1564) may have been a cover for covert operations carried on in the name of her majesty. The 007 was the insignia number that Elizabeth was to use for private communiques between her Court and Dee.
Dee signed his letters with two circles symbolising his own two eyes and indicating that he was the secret eyes of the Queen.The two circles are guarded by what may be considered a square root sign or an elongated seven. For Dee, seven was a sacred cabbalistic and lucky number.(Richard Deacon)
When the Spanish Armada loomed over the English Channel it was Dee as the wise sage who suggested to hold the course and be still. He had correctly anticipated that devastating storms would destroy the mighty Spanish Fleet and that it would be best to keep the English ships at bay. Some have suggested that it was Dee himself who conjured up that storm. Whatever it was that allowed England to defeat the Armada, John Dee was having his finest patriotic moment. One can see why some commentators have Dee associated with being the inspiration for the protagonist Prospero (to hope for the future) from The Tempest. Francis Yates in her seminal exploration Majesty and Magic in Shakespeare's Last Plays, comments, "Dare one say that the German Rosicrucian movement reaches a peak of poetic expression in The Tempest, a Rosicrucian manifesto infused with the spirit of Dee, using theatrical parables for esoteric communication?"
Dee's wisdom of nature even extended into the field of architecture where Francis Yates in The Theatre of the World states that James Burbage consulted Dee on the design of the first theater. Later,"The Globe was created, says Yates, because in the Burbage tradition the design was to amplify naturally the voices of the plyers." This was accomplished by the geometrical resonance of the circled dome. Burbage relied on Dee's extensive architectural library for this construction.
Little has come down to us in terms of records of Francis Bacon and John Dee knowing each other but on the afternoon of August 11, 1582 there was an entry in Dee's journal that they met at Mortlake. Bacon was 21 years old at the time and was accompanied by a Mr. Phillipes, a top cryptographer in the employ of Sir Francis Walsingham who headed up the early days of England's secret service. They were there according to Ewen MacDuff, in an article, "After Some Time Be Past" in 'Baconiana', (Dec.1983)" to find out the truth about the ancient Hebrew art of the Gematria- one of the oldest cipher systems known, dating from 700 B.C. They were seeking to discuss this with Dee because he was not only one of the leading adepts of this field, but a regular practitioner in certain levels of Gematria." Also, David Kahn in The Codebreakers suggests that because of Dee's great interest in the 13th century alchemist Roger Bacon, that he may have introduced Bacon to the works of Roger Bacon,"which may help explain the similarities in their thought."
The Precarious Politics of Hermetic Tradition in the King James Reign
There is no doubt of John Dee's ubiquitous influence during the Elizabethan age. When James became King, Dee's ideas on magic were no longer appreciated. James unfavorable and fearful attitude toward the occult was the opposite of Elizabeth's. Bacon became well aware that it was necessary to be very careful while advancing his scientific ideas to James and that any trace of Dee's weird angelic-alchemical study could jeopardize his own projects from taking hold. Bacon's observation of the mis-treatment bestowed upon Dee by James served to reinforce that it was a different era and that the need to practice that Shakespeare maxim, "Discretion is the better part of valor" was imperative to anyone with a sweet disposition toward magic and mathematics or a secret society. Dee was even derided in the Ben Jonson play The Alchemist perhaps to placate James, yet another signal that this was an end of the liberal Elizabethan attitude toward Hermeticism. So it's not surprising that Bacon chose to hold back his Rosicrucian utopia The New Atlantis from publication until after his death as it portrayed a future world in which man could co-exist with his fellow man without the divine right of kings and the new tools that the magic of science would one day bring could also be in harmony with nature as well. But it was Dee's colonization dream many years before who referred to the new world as "Atlantis." He would have been proud to have read Bacon's New Atlantis and seen Bacon's sympathetic portrayal of him as the magician Prospero, of The Tempest.
Francis Yates in The Rosicrucian Enlightenment suggests that," in Bacon's writings there is nowhere to be found any mention of Dee or his famous Monas Hierglyphica. Yates makes a further point by saying that, "It is a well known objection to Bacon's claim to be an important figure in the history of science that he did not place sufficient emphasis on the all-important mathematical sciences in his programme for the advancement of learning, and that he ignored these sciences by his rejection of the Copernican theory and of William Gilbert's theory of the magnet. Bacon's avoidance of mathematics and Copernican theory might have been because he regarded mathematics as too closely associated with Dee and his 'conjuring' and Copernicus as to closely associated with Bruno and his extreme Egyptian and magical religion. This hypothesis is now worth recalling because it suggests a possible reason for a major difference between German Rosicrucianism and Baconianism. In the former Dee and his mathematics are not feared, but Bacon avoids them; in the former Bruno is an influence but is rejected by Bacon. In both cases Bacon may have been evading what seemed to him dangerous subjects in order to protect his projects from witch hunters, from the cry of 'sorcery' which as Naude' said, "could pursue a mathematician in the early 17th century."
It should be remembered that Bacon had a cautious and scientific approach to mathematics along with his great interest in cyphers.
Peter Dawkins in his book "Francis Bacon Herald of the New Age" would strongly disagree with Yates on Bacon's avoidance of mathematics. He writes, "nothing could be further from the truth: for number is a cypher and geometry a symbol for truth, and Francis Bacon was intensely interested in and a master of cipher and symbol, and of rhythm in language, using them repeatedly throughout all his works in various cryptic ways--for he saw mathematics as a vitally important occult or mystical science, and used it accordingly. Mathematics coupled with analogy and allegory, constitute a principal means to the discovery of what Bacon has enticingly hidden." Dawkins later emphasizes that, "Francis Bacon considered mathematics to be a branch of metaphysics, capable of giving insights into the highest 'Forms' or archetypes--the laws and intelligences of the universe. Consequently, like Dr. John Dee, his early tutor, he was fascinated by mathematical cypher in both its numeric and geometric forms, and with its magical use. Bacon gives both mathematics and analogy which he considers a science and calls "grammatical philosophy," a high place in his Great Instauration; which, when used together help to unlock the doors to that which Bacon has deliberately concealed-- including certain mysteries hidden in the Shakespeare plays. For instance, the two great books published in 1623 were the Shakespeare's Folio Comedies, Histories & Tragedies and Bacon's De Augmentis Scientiarum{the philosophical background and purpose of the Shakespeare plays} two masterpieces published together, since they are as twins, each being a key to unlock hidden treasures in the other-- two relating to the twin faculties of the mind--imagination and reason--and both drawing upon the third faculty, memory." It should be noted that the following year 1624 the cypher book, Cryptomenytices was published and Dawkins points to this as "providing the cipher keys to open the 'crypt' of Rosicrucian wisdom hidden in both the philosophical and the poetical works of art of this great Master."
Yates admits to being a Stratfordian and of course does not realize the extent of Bacon's wisdom in protecting himself from censorship. She says, "We begin to understand that The Tempest was a very bold manifesto, and that Shakespeare was braver than Bacon."
If Yates could only glimpse how ahead of the game Bacon was she could only burst out and laugh at herself for writing this. But she is not the first modern day Shakespeare critic to underestimate Francis Bacon's foresight to write under a mighty pen-name and steer his Secret Free-Masonry-Group at the same time. It's like asking was Twain braver than Clemens? The absurd logic of this could be solved if Stratfordians applied the Baconian method (inductive logic with trial and error) into the Shakespeare Authorship. Go one step further using this method of inquiry to cross reference a lost connection missing between the Rosicrucian literature of The Fama and the Confessio, The Chemical Marriage of Christian Rosenkrantz, The New Atlantis, The Tempest, with The King James Version of the Bible, The Advancement of Learning and Dee's Monad Hieroglyphic. Somewhere there lies a common thread, a code, meant for those who would cross reference all these words. Perhaps when the code is broken we will have the equivalent of Prospero's buried staff and recognize the impact of Dee and Bacon's relationship with their dedication to the enlightenment of all.
What Bacon learned from Dee outside of the importance of cyphers was not to have one's political and esoteric-artistic identity defined exclusively by the outside world. There was inner power for Bacon that no matter what happened to him he could still sacrifice his name, bury his staff like Prospero and wield a protective persona to express his artistic views for himself and his secret group of "Good Pens." This is responsible wisdom in action as a response to difficult political pressures. For Bacon due to the out of the ordinary set of circumstances surrounding his birth this pressure became a discipline for him (all his life) to maintain and remember that old saying, "keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Bacon knew from first hand experience when he said, as Shakespeare, "sweet are the uses of adversity."
Manly P. Hall had a book, Orders of Universal Reformation in which a woodcut from 1655 by Jacob Cats, shows an emblem of an ancient man bearing likeness to John Dee, passing the lamp of tradition over an open grave to a young man with an extravagantly large rose on his shoe buckle. In Bacon's sixth book of the Advancement of Learning he defines his method as, Traditionem Lampadis, the delivery of the lamp.
Mrs. Henry Pott writes in "Francis Bacon and His Secret Society,"The organization or method of transmission he (Bacon) established was such as to ensure that never again so long as the world endured, should the lamp of tradition, the light of truth, be darkened or extinguished."
In closing a comment from Noel Fermor from Baconiana 1981 "After all, in John Dee we have a man who had a profound influence on Renaissance thought and on the deep laid schemes of Francis Bacon for the betterment of mankind. Dee wrote, "Farewell, diligent reader; in reading these things, invocate the spirit of Eternal Light, speak little, meditate much and judge aright."
It's no secret that when the Rosicrucians under John Dee infiltrated the English royal courts, the Venetians were among them. At one web site I found someone sharing why he thought that the poet, Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford, was acting under the pseudonym of "William Shakespeare," since politicians were not respected if they were poets of the theater. The author shared that the Oxford badge/crest used a shaking spear. Nicholas de Vere said that this Edward de Vere was close to John Dee, a "prominent member" of Dee's "School of Night," so that indeed the Rosicrucian rose-line cult included the Veres.
Nicholas went on to boast that the Veres never once, though they were continually stewards of the English kings, attempted to seize the throne. This is unbelievable, of course, unless the Veres insisted on never seizing the throne as a means to rule invisibly, moving the kings and other rulers as they saw fit, which is exactly what the Illuminati tends to do. Nicholas admitted as much when he said: "In any event the monarchical system in Britain is, to the greatest extent, impotent, and so if one wanted real political power, the last place one would find it would be on the throne of England. We have no need for thrones or crowns to remind us of who we are."
http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/mykingdom.html
Dr. John Dee, master astrologer and confidante of Queen Elizabeth I, claimed to be haunted by all the ghosts he'd conjured from the dead. When Elizabeth went into battle, she like to contact dead generals, like Beowulf and Charles Martel. She sent Dee to haunted graveyards with vile potions, seeking answers to her questions. In great demand among the royal families of Europe, Dee traveled with his apprentice and three hundred ghosts trailing behind. Some claimed they were actually visible to the gathered assembly during Dee's Royal Tour.
Necromancy is the act of conjuring the dead for divination. It dates back to Peria, Greece and Roman times. In the Middle Ages it was widely practiced by magicians, sorcerers and witches. It was condemned by the Catholic Church as "the agency of evil spirits" and in Elizabethan England was outlawed by the Witchcraft Act of 1604.
Necromancy is not to be confused with conjuring devils or demons for help. Necromancy is the seeking of the spirits of the dead. The spirits are sought because they, being without physical bodies, are no longer limited by the earthly plane. Therefore, it is thought these spirits have access to information of the past and future which is not available to the living. It has been used to help find sunken or buried treasure, and whether or not a person was murdered or died from other causes.
John Dee(1527-1608) was a fascinating genius, considered a magus, philosopher and alchemist who captured the attention of the royal courts and best minds throughout Europe. You were either intimidated by his ideas and reputation or you wished to be influenced by them. It has only been in the last century that we've had a more sober approach to Dee, thanks to such authors as Peter French, Francis Yates, Gerald Shuster and Richard Deacon who have rescued this "man of grand design" from obscurity and have realized how significant a thinker he was.
Dr. Dee's learning was far and wide, a brilliant mathematician, whose study ranged from geo-cartography and calculus which was vital in navigating the New World for explorers, to astrology, alchemy, the Cabala, cypher writing, religion, architecture, and science. In short, Dee's metaphysics were a 'red' cross of the Hermetic tradition with a strong dose of mathematics. His library at the riverside village of Mortlake was considered the finest private collection in Europe containing thousands of bound books and handwritten manuscripts devoted to philosophy, science and esoterica. In comparison the University of Cambridge at the time had a mere 451 total books and manuscripts in their possession.
Noel Fermor in the journal Baconiana wrote that, "The Earl of Leicester's father, the Duke of Northmberland, employed Dee as a tutor to his children so that they would have a sound scientific upbringing. Northumberland became a notable scientist with a strong leaning toward mathematics and magnetism. Anthony Wood in his Athenae Oxoniensis, wrote "that no one knew Robert Dudley better than Dee." So it was quite natural for Leicester to introduce Dee to Elizabeth as she was to become the new Queen and it wasn't long before Dee advanced to become the court astrologer.
(Leicester signed his letters to Elizabeth with two circles containing dots symbolising he was her "Eyes")
Elizabeth was very much interested in the occult. Dee was responsible for choosing the most auspicious date for Elizabeth's coronation which was on January 15th, 1559. The Queen was so impressed by Dee that she eventually travelled with her court to Mortlake, for the purpose of seeing his great library.
Dee has been defamed through the centuries as a necromancer, but it's the opinion of many writers that his angelic-cabalistic- alchemical work, his Philosophers Stone, the"Monad Hieroglyphica"(1564) may have been a cover for covert operations carried on in the name of her majesty. The 007 was the insignia number that Elizabeth was to use for private communiques between her Court and Dee.
Dee signed his letters with two circles symbolising his own two eyes and indicating that he was the secret eyes of the Queen.The two circles are guarded by what may be considered a square root sign or an elongated seven. For Dee, seven was a sacred cabbalistic and lucky number.(Richard Deacon)
When the Spanish Armada loomed over the English Channel it was Dee as the wise sage who suggested to hold the course and be still. He had correctly anticipated that devastating storms would destroy the mighty Spanish Fleet and that it would be best to keep the English ships at bay. Some have suggested that it was Dee himself who conjured up that storm. Whatever it was that allowed England to defeat the Armada, John Dee was having his finest patriotic moment. One can see why some commentators have Dee associated with being the inspiration for the protagonist Prospero (to hope for the future) from The Tempest. Francis Yates in her seminal exploration Majesty and Magic in Shakespeare's Last Plays, comments, "Dare one say that the German Rosicrucian movement reaches a peak of poetic expression in The Tempest, a Rosicrucian manifesto infused with the spirit of Dee, using theatrical parables for esoteric communication?"
Dee's wisdom of nature even extended into the field of architecture where Francis Yates in The Theatre of the World states that James Burbage consulted Dee on the design of the first theater. Later,"The Globe was created, says Yates, because in the Burbage tradition the design was to amplify naturally the voices of the plyers." This was accomplished by the geometrical resonance of the circled dome. Burbage relied on Dee's extensive architectural library for this construction.
Little has come down to us in terms of records of Francis Bacon and John Dee knowing each other but on the afternoon of August 11, 1582 there was an entry in Dee's journal that they met at Mortlake. Bacon was 21 years old at the time and was accompanied by a Mr. Phillipes, a top cryptographer in the employ of Sir Francis Walsingham who headed up the early days of England's secret service. They were there according to Ewen MacDuff, in an article, "After Some Time Be Past" in 'Baconiana', (Dec.1983)" to find out the truth about the ancient Hebrew art of the Gematria- one of the oldest cipher systems known, dating from 700 B.C. They were seeking to discuss this with Dee because he was not only one of the leading adepts of this field, but a regular practitioner in certain levels of Gematria." Also, David Kahn in The Codebreakers suggests that because of Dee's great interest in the 13th century alchemist Roger Bacon, that he may have introduced Bacon to the works of Roger Bacon,"which may help explain the similarities in their thought."
The Precarious Politics of Hermetic Tradition in the King James Reign
There is no doubt of John Dee's ubiquitous influence during the Elizabethan age. When James became King, Dee's ideas on magic were no longer appreciated. James unfavorable and fearful attitude toward the occult was the opposite of Elizabeth's. Bacon became well aware that it was necessary to be very careful while advancing his scientific ideas to James and that any trace of Dee's weird angelic-alchemical study could jeopardize his own projects from taking hold. Bacon's observation of the mis-treatment bestowed upon Dee by James served to reinforce that it was a different era and that the need to practice that Shakespeare maxim, "Discretion is the better part of valor" was imperative to anyone with a sweet disposition toward magic and mathematics or a secret society. Dee was even derided in the Ben Jonson play The Alchemist perhaps to placate James, yet another signal that this was an end of the liberal Elizabethan attitude toward Hermeticism. So it's not surprising that Bacon chose to hold back his Rosicrucian utopia The New Atlantis from publication until after his death as it portrayed a future world in which man could co-exist with his fellow man without the divine right of kings and the new tools that the magic of science would one day bring could also be in harmony with nature as well. But it was Dee's colonization dream many years before who referred to the new world as "Atlantis." He would have been proud to have read Bacon's New Atlantis and seen Bacon's sympathetic portrayal of him as the magician Prospero, of The Tempest.
Francis Yates in The Rosicrucian Enlightenment suggests that," in Bacon's writings there is nowhere to be found any mention of Dee or his famous Monas Hierglyphica. Yates makes a further point by saying that, "It is a well known objection to Bacon's claim to be an important figure in the history of science that he did not place sufficient emphasis on the all-important mathematical sciences in his programme for the advancement of learning, and that he ignored these sciences by his rejection of the Copernican theory and of William Gilbert's theory of the magnet. Bacon's avoidance of mathematics and Copernican theory might have been because he regarded mathematics as too closely associated with Dee and his 'conjuring' and Copernicus as to closely associated with Bruno and his extreme Egyptian and magical religion. This hypothesis is now worth recalling because it suggests a possible reason for a major difference between German Rosicrucianism and Baconianism. In the former Dee and his mathematics are not feared, but Bacon avoids them; in the former Bruno is an influence but is rejected by Bacon. In both cases Bacon may have been evading what seemed to him dangerous subjects in order to protect his projects from witch hunters, from the cry of 'sorcery' which as Naude' said, "could pursue a mathematician in the early 17th century."
It should be remembered that Bacon had a cautious and scientific approach to mathematics along with his great interest in cyphers.
Peter Dawkins in his book "Francis Bacon Herald of the New Age" would strongly disagree with Yates on Bacon's avoidance of mathematics. He writes, "nothing could be further from the truth: for number is a cypher and geometry a symbol for truth, and Francis Bacon was intensely interested in and a master of cipher and symbol, and of rhythm in language, using them repeatedly throughout all his works in various cryptic ways--for he saw mathematics as a vitally important occult or mystical science, and used it accordingly. Mathematics coupled with analogy and allegory, constitute a principal means to the discovery of what Bacon has enticingly hidden." Dawkins later emphasizes that, "Francis Bacon considered mathematics to be a branch of metaphysics, capable of giving insights into the highest 'Forms' or archetypes--the laws and intelligences of the universe. Consequently, like Dr. John Dee, his early tutor, he was fascinated by mathematical cypher in both its numeric and geometric forms, and with its magical use. Bacon gives both mathematics and analogy which he considers a science and calls "grammatical philosophy," a high place in his Great Instauration; which, when used together help to unlock the doors to that which Bacon has deliberately concealed-- including certain mysteries hidden in the Shakespeare plays. For instance, the two great books published in 1623 were the Shakespeare's Folio Comedies, Histories & Tragedies and Bacon's De Augmentis Scientiarum{the philosophical background and purpose of the Shakespeare plays} two masterpieces published together, since they are as twins, each being a key to unlock hidden treasures in the other-- two relating to the twin faculties of the mind--imagination and reason--and both drawing upon the third faculty, memory." It should be noted that the following year 1624 the cypher book, Cryptomenytices was published and Dawkins points to this as "providing the cipher keys to open the 'crypt' of Rosicrucian wisdom hidden in both the philosophical and the poetical works of art of this great Master."
Yates admits to being a Stratfordian and of course does not realize the extent of Bacon's wisdom in protecting himself from censorship. She says, "We begin to understand that The Tempest was a very bold manifesto, and that Shakespeare was braver than Bacon."
If Yates could only glimpse how ahead of the game Bacon was she could only burst out and laugh at herself for writing this. But she is not the first modern day Shakespeare critic to underestimate Francis Bacon's foresight to write under a mighty pen-name and steer his Secret Free-Masonry-Group at the same time. It's like asking was Twain braver than Clemens? The absurd logic of this could be solved if Stratfordians applied the Baconian method (inductive logic with trial and error) into the Shakespeare Authorship. Go one step further using this method of inquiry to cross reference a lost connection missing between the Rosicrucian literature of The Fama and the Confessio, The Chemical Marriage of Christian Rosenkrantz, The New Atlantis, The Tempest, with The King James Version of the Bible, The Advancement of Learning and Dee's Monad Hieroglyphic. Somewhere there lies a common thread, a code, meant for those who would cross reference all these words. Perhaps when the code is broken we will have the equivalent of Prospero's buried staff and recognize the impact of Dee and Bacon's relationship with their dedication to the enlightenment of all.
What Bacon learned from Dee outside of the importance of cyphers was not to have one's political and esoteric-artistic identity defined exclusively by the outside world. There was inner power for Bacon that no matter what happened to him he could still sacrifice his name, bury his staff like Prospero and wield a protective persona to express his artistic views for himself and his secret group of "Good Pens." This is responsible wisdom in action as a response to difficult political pressures. For Bacon due to the out of the ordinary set of circumstances surrounding his birth this pressure became a discipline for him (all his life) to maintain and remember that old saying, "keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Bacon knew from first hand experience when he said, as Shakespeare, "sweet are the uses of adversity."
Manly P. Hall had a book, Orders of Universal Reformation in which a woodcut from 1655 by Jacob Cats, shows an emblem of an ancient man bearing likeness to John Dee, passing the lamp of tradition over an open grave to a young man with an extravagantly large rose on his shoe buckle. In Bacon's sixth book of the Advancement of Learning he defines his method as, Traditionem Lampadis, the delivery of the lamp.
Mrs. Henry Pott writes in "Francis Bacon and His Secret Society,"The organization or method of transmission he (Bacon) established was such as to ensure that never again so long as the world endured, should the lamp of tradition, the light of truth, be darkened or extinguished."
In closing a comment from Noel Fermor from Baconiana 1981 "After all, in John Dee we have a man who had a profound influence on Renaissance thought and on the deep laid schemes of Francis Bacon for the betterment of mankind. Dee wrote, "Farewell, diligent reader; in reading these things, invocate the spirit of Eternal Light, speak little, meditate much and judge aright."
Sir Francis Bacon - Architect of New Atlantis, a Utopian America
Protege of Dee and likely the secret son of Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Bacon was (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher, statesman, spy, freemason and essayist. It was also under the influence of Bacon and other esoteric magicians like John Dee and Sir Francis Walsingham, that the spy networks across Europe, now known as British Intelligence, were created. As British Secretary of State he ran a ring of spies, including assassin operatives. They certainly spied on priests and Jesuits. He headed the Rosicrucians. Author of The New Atlantis, utopian inspiration of American freedom. "Knowledge is power," wrote the English philosopher Sir Francis Bacon. That's the essence of what spying is all about, attaining information, and therefore, power over an adversary.
Francis Bacon created one of the more interesting substitution ciphers. He used two different type faces slightly differing in weight (boldness). He broke up his ciphertext into 5 character groups, each of which would represent one character in his plaintext. Depending on which characters of the group were bold, one could determine the plaintext character using the following table (* stands for a plain character and B for a bold character)
A=***** G=**BB* M=*BB** S=B**B* Y=BB***
B=****B H=**BBB N=*BB*B T=B**BB Z=BB**B
C=***B* I=*B*** O=*BBB* U=B*B**
D=***BB J=*B**B P=*BBBB V=B*B*B
E=**B** K=*B*B* Q=B**** W=B*BB*
F=**B*B L=*B*BB R=B***B X=B*BBB
Francis Bacon created one of the more interesting substitution ciphers. He used two different type faces slightly differing in weight (boldness). He broke up his ciphertext into 5 character groups, each of which would represent one character in his plaintext. Depending on which characters of the group were bold, one could determine the plaintext character using the following table (* stands for a plain character and B for a bold character)
A=***** G=**BB* M=*BB** S=B**B* Y=BB***
B=****B H=**BBB N=*BB*B T=B**BB Z=BB**B
C=***B* I=*B*** O=*BBB* U=B*B**
D=***BB J=*B**B P=*BBBB V=B*B*B
E=**B** K=*B*B* Q=B**** W=B*BB*
F=**B*B L=*B*BB R=B***B X=B*BBB
Nostradamus
Nostradamus may not have overtly spied, but like CIA remote viewers, he viewed the future in his prophetic trance and forecast events of great political and social import. In this sense he was a psychic spy, because his astrology was used by the rulers of the day. Doctors and pharmacies he branded as cheats and charlatans actively accused him of being a spy, associating with condemned secret societies, and himself being a charlatan. Perhaps he saw spies in his visions. Nostradamus may allege that Amelia Earhart and Noonan were on an espionage mission to spy on the Japanese.
St. Germain
Proficient in all manner of ciphers and codes, It is fairly certain that he was an accomplished spy, for he resided at many European courts, spoke and wrote various languages, including Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, English, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, and was even sent upon diplomatic missions by Louis XV. Horace Walpole mentioned him being in London about 1743 and being arrested as a Jacobite spy, but later being released. Good spies are never proven to be so.
He was accused by the British of being a Jacobite spy; accused by the French of being a British spy. Accused in the Hague of being a French spy. He was also likely a German spy. Who didn't this man spy on? He undoubtedly spied while in exotic countries such as Tunis and Egypt, as well. Why wouldn't he? He gave fresh meaning to the word 'intelligence.'
Casanova, in his memoirs, says that he was a spy. The first real evidence for the existence of Saint-Germain comes in a letter from 1743, where the English writer Horace Walpole (the author of The Castle of Otranto, the first gothic novel) mentions his presence in London and in the English court. Saint-Germain was soon expelled having been accused of being a spy for he Stewart pretenders to the English crown.
Saint-Germain went to France around 1748, becoming a favorite of Louis XV who employed him as a spy several times and exerted great influence over that monarch. He spied in Holland and Belgium, sometimes as a diplomat. That trick is still used. Around 1760 Saint-Germain was forced to leave France and returned to England where he met the Count Cagliostro and taught him the Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry.
In 1762 Saint-Germain was found in St. Petersburg, playing a very important part in the conspiracy to make Catherine the Great Queen of Russia. In the year 1760, the Comte de Saint Germain was discovered as a international spy by French authorities. He fled France for England, where he stayed for nearly two years in search of the LeMarchand box named Cage of Desire - "The Dream Weave Cube." LeMarchand scholars believe that this particular configuration was considered by the Comte to be the key that would unlock not only his own future, but the future of Czarist (Caesar's) Russia.
Immediately after aquiring the Cage of Desire from a collecter, the Comte de Saint Germain traveled to St. Petersburg. He played an important part in the revolution which placed Catherine the Great upon the throne of Russia. Catherine deposed her incompetent husband, Peter III, just six months into her rule. He was murdered less than two weeks later by the brother of her then current lover, Grigory Orlov.
After returning to Paris in 1770, he traveled through Germany, eventually residing in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. There he studied the "Secret Sciences" with the landgrave Charles of Hesse and was said to have died in 1784.He had essentially become persona non grata throughout much of Europe, because he was seen as a spy.
He was accused by the British of being a Jacobite spy; accused by the French of being a British spy. Accused in the Hague of being a French spy. He was also likely a German spy. Who didn't this man spy on? He undoubtedly spied while in exotic countries such as Tunis and Egypt, as well. Why wouldn't he? He gave fresh meaning to the word 'intelligence.'
Casanova, in his memoirs, says that he was a spy. The first real evidence for the existence of Saint-Germain comes in a letter from 1743, where the English writer Horace Walpole (the author of The Castle of Otranto, the first gothic novel) mentions his presence in London and in the English court. Saint-Germain was soon expelled having been accused of being a spy for he Stewart pretenders to the English crown.
Saint-Germain went to France around 1748, becoming a favorite of Louis XV who employed him as a spy several times and exerted great influence over that monarch. He spied in Holland and Belgium, sometimes as a diplomat. That trick is still used. Around 1760 Saint-Germain was forced to leave France and returned to England where he met the Count Cagliostro and taught him the Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry.
In 1762 Saint-Germain was found in St. Petersburg, playing a very important part in the conspiracy to make Catherine the Great Queen of Russia. In the year 1760, the Comte de Saint Germain was discovered as a international spy by French authorities. He fled France for England, where he stayed for nearly two years in search of the LeMarchand box named Cage of Desire - "The Dream Weave Cube." LeMarchand scholars believe that this particular configuration was considered by the Comte to be the key that would unlock not only his own future, but the future of Czarist (Caesar's) Russia.
Immediately after aquiring the Cage of Desire from a collecter, the Comte de Saint Germain traveled to St. Petersburg. He played an important part in the revolution which placed Catherine the Great upon the throne of Russia. Catherine deposed her incompetent husband, Peter III, just six months into her rule. He was murdered less than two weeks later by the brother of her then current lover, Grigory Orlov.
After returning to Paris in 1770, he traveled through Germany, eventually residing in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. There he studied the "Secret Sciences" with the landgrave Charles of Hesse and was said to have died in 1784.He had essentially become persona non grata throughout much of Europe, because he was seen as a spy.
Gurdjieff - Russian or British Spy?
There were and are many things said about Gurdjieff - that he was a master hypnotist, that he had other powers including being able to be in two places at once, that he was actually a spy, that he met and was an advisor tothe Dalai Lama. He worked for Lama Aghwan Dordjieff, a high functionary for the DL, but also a spy for Russia or playing Britain and Russia off against one another for Tibet. He also was spied on. Abdullah was a member of the British Intelligence assigned to spy on this "Dordjieff," and when. Abdullah saw Gurdjieff in New York in 1924, he exclaimed.
Hitler met him and regarded him as a "superman" and that Aleister Crowley was also impressed with him when they met. There are also some who have wanted to debunk Gurdjieff and his teachings and say he was a very clever conman and a charlatan with a huge ego and a lot of charisma. Whatever the truth, Gurdjieff remains a true man of mystery.
While freely recounting his many Central Asian adventures in his search for wisdom, Gurdjieff managed to draw a permanent veil of secrecy and ambiguity over all details of these intimate encounters with the dervish tradition. This of course is in line with the extreme reticence of the Sufi orders themselves. Young Gurdjieff may have been the spy Ushe Narzunoff, a player in the "Great Game"--the clandestine struggle between Imperial Russia and Britain for control of India. This claim has been neither proven nor widely dismissed.
The Yezidis of Kurdistan had an ancient infamous grimoire - the Picatrix, (Aim of the Sage; Goal of the Wise), a book of high and low magic. The Ghâyat al-Hakîm fi'l-sihr, or Picatrix, as it is known in the West, is an important Arabic magical text. It is perhaps the largest and most comprehensive of the grimoires, or handbooks of magic, a collection of Arabic texts widely used by mages during the Renaissance period.
James Webb, in his biography of Gurdjieff, The Harmonious Circle, makes a very strong case that Gurdjieff was a spy in the Imperial Russian secret service, an occupation that enabled him to travel as extensively as he did. Or did he spy for Britain? For quite some time there have been intimations that the ostensible Armenian mage was at one time an agent of the czarist intelligence service, this job allowing him the ability to travel across the globe in his search for secret knowledge, ancient wisdom, and Remarkable Men. Now in to the fray comes quite an interesting speculation. Story goes that Gurdjieff was not actually Russian at all. Rather, he was British and spent almost his entire life passing himself off as Eastern European. I found this speculation quite recently as a commentary on a recent book that contends, based on some circumstantial evidence, that Gurdjieff was Irish. Peter Roberts, the reviewer of said book, however, has his own revelations on the matter:
There has always been some mystery about the origins of Gurdjieff. When I read the above on the World wide Web I felt the time had come to reveal the results of my own researches. The reason I have not done so earlier was a fear that it would merely stimulate unnecessary and irrelevant controversy. As to Gurdjieff’s place of birth, Alexandropol, Allahabad or Ashby de la Zouche, what difference does it make? I do not claim to have proved anything, but nevertheless, the results of my researches open up some intriguing possibilities. I will tell the story as it unfolded itself to me, lest I give an impression of certainty and completeness that the results of my researches do not warrant.
Irish, no. But not Russian either. According to Roberts, he found evidence that Gurdjieff was…cockney. (Advanced apologies for the long quote here):
After spending a year at Mr.B.’s glorious gulag in the Cotswolds, I returned to India for a short time. While I was there I received permission, for reasons which it would be an unpardonable breach of confidence for me to reveal, to examine the archives of the Indian Secret Service for the years before 1922. I found a number of requests for information from a Captain J.G. Bennett [later one of Gurdjieff's more famous students] in Constantinople, and two memoranda from him. However, there is no mention of Gurdjieff, and no file on him. All this left me with the impression that something was being concealed, and for good and obvious reasons. At this point I felt as if I had run into a brick wall and was on the point of abandoning my search in the Indian archives, when I discussed my predicament with a senior archivist who had already been of immense help to me. He pointed out that if there were a file on Gurdjieff, it might be under a code name, and also told me that there were certain secret registers which provided the key to this system of code names, the very existence of which he was not supposed to divulge to me, in spite of my having been given special permission to examine files that were then, and are now inaccessible even to professional historians approved by the Government of India. Knowing that my presence in the archives had been approved at the very highest level and also out of a fatherly affection which he had conceived for me, he agreed to see what he could do to make it possible for me to examine these secret registers, provided that I revealed nothing until after his death. This I swore to do, and I have kept my word.
With the invaluable aid of my friend, I examined the register of Russian agents, and the files to which they guided me. I found no mention of a Gurdjieff, and no-one whose description corresponded to him. I was in despair, when my friend asked me why I thought the man I was looking for was a Russian agent. Why not look at the register of British agents? This I did, though in a hopeless mood. There I came across the name of Georgiades. Further search revealed a very thick file on this Georgiades, in which he was described at one point as: “Frederick Dottle”, a Londoner who for many years has been posing as a Russian subject of Anatolian Greek extraction.” [emphasis added]
Now, I don’t know that Roberts expects that anyone would believe his story over that of Larry O’Nolan, the author of the “Irish Gurdjieff” book, or take either story over the usually accepted Armenian/Russian Gurdjieff. I’d be silly to doubt the existence of secret files of agents for any so-called government’s intelligence services. I write conspiracy poetics, after all. Besides that, there’s ample evidence that proves the existence of secret documents. That being the case, though, I’m not necessarily going to believe Roberts based upon secret documents that no one else has ever claimed to see and that neither I nor Roberts have access to. I’m not saying I’m disbelieving Roberts, either. Just suspending judgement until I find out more.
But…suppose for the minute, Gurdjieff was actually Frederick Dottle, a man who had stowed away on a ship when he was young, ended up in Armenia and then was adopted by the man later known as Gurdjieff’s father. Suppose that Gurdjieff never completely erased that past and consequently, became an agent for Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Well, that puts an entirely new spin on the legendary, yet cipher-like meeting between the Remarkable Man Gurdjieff and the Remarkable Man…Aleister Crowley.
Looking at The Meeting of the Mages from a Whole New Angle
Here’s the famous account of the meeting between Gurdjieff and Crowley as written by C.S. Nott, a student of Gurdjieff’s who was present at the time. It can be found at this site, as well as in Nott’s book and in Colin Wilson‘s The Occult, among other places:
“One day in Paris I met an acquaintance from New York who spoke about the possibilities of publishing modern literature. As I showed some interest, he offered to introduce me to a friend of his who was thinking of going into publishing, and we arranged to meet the following day at the Select in Montparnasse. His friend arrived;it was Aleister Crowley. Drinks were ordered, for which of course I paid, and we began to talk. Crowley had magnetism, and the kind of charm which many charlatans have; he also had a dead weight that was somewhat impressive. His attitude was fatherly and benign, and a few years earlier I might have fallen for it. Now I saw and sensed that I could have nothing to do with him. He talked in general terms about publishing, and then drifted into his black-magic jargon.
“To make a success of anything,” he said, “including publishing, you must have a certain combination. Here you have a Master, here a Bear, there the Dragon- a triangle which will bring results…” and so on and so on. When he fell silent I said, “Yes, but one must have money. Am I right in supposing that you have the necessary capital?”. “I?” he asked, “No not a franc.” “Neither have I.” I said.
Knowing that I was at the Prieure he asked me if I would get him an invitation there. But I did not wish to be responsible for introducing such a man. However, to my surprise, he appeared there a few days later and was given tea in the salon. The children were there, and he said to one of the boys something about his son who he was teaching to be a devil. Gurdjieff got up and spoke to the boy, who thereupon took no further notice of Crowley. There was some talk between Crowley and Gurdjieff, who kept a sharp watch on him all the time. I got the strong impression of two magicians, the white and the black- the one strong, powerful, full of light; the other also powerful but heavy, dull and ignorant. Though “black”" was too strong a word for Crowley; he never understood the meaning of real black magic, yet hundreds of people came under his “spell”. He was clever. But as Gurdjieff says: “He is stupid who is clever.”
And then, there’s the account from the late James Webb’s book the Harmonious Circle, excerpted in an article at lumen.org:
… True to his Caucasian heritage, he dispensed hospitality in abundant qualities. To Aleister Crowley, for example … Gurdjieff showed all due consideration – until Crowley was about to leave.
“Mister, you go?” Gurdjieff inquired. Crowley assented. “You have been guest?” – a fact which the visitor could hardly deny. “Now you go, you are no longer guest?” Crowley – no doubt wondering whether his host had lost his grip on reality and was wandering in a semantic wilderness – humored his mood by indicating that he was on his way back to Paris. But Gurdjieff, having made the point that he was not violating the canons of hospitality, changed on the instant into the embodiment of righteous anger. “You filthy,” he stormed, “you dirty inside! Never again you set foot in my house!” . . . Whitefaced and shaking, the Great Beast crept back to Paris with his tail between his legs.
What if, Gurdjieff was keeping his eye so closely on Crowley for other than magickal reasons? One of the usual explanations is that Crowley, a frequently- relapsing addict to a variety of substances, including the sauce, had heard of Gurdjieff’s success in treating addiction and thus, went to get help banishing his chemical demons. Crowley being Crowley, it’s also suggested, and Nott seems to imply as much, may have also gone to Gurdjieff’s place to suss out the latter’s magickal capacities and challenge him to an occult dick-swinging contest.
Maybe.
Crowley himself was an asset of British intelligence at various times during his life. Perhaps he was already aware of Gurdjieff (and Gurdjieff of him) through these channels, instead of or in addition to those of the occult and mystical undergrounds. If Gurdjieff was a Brit and a spy for the Crown, perhaps Crowley suspected or had heard as much about him and came to check it out– or to blow Gurdjieff’s cover. And if not, perhaps Gurdjieff may have been watching Crowley with hawk-like diligence for fear that this unpredictable, Janus-faced magus might out him.
Lot of intriguing ifs. Who knows the fruitfulness of this line of speculation?
But it would all certainly make for a great novel…
Webb had high society background, and he had access to old files in the British intelligence agencies. He learned that the British authorities denied a visa to G when he wanted to live in the UK, because they had misgivings about his prior activities spying for the Imperial Russian government in British India and Tibet. My hunch is that Webb was right and that it was during his time as a Tsarist agent, that Gurdjieff learned what it was like to be treated as an object (spies are used and disposed of by thier bosses), he would have learned to live a secret life, and would have learned to identify and play on other peoples weaknesses so as to recruit them and milk them for information. My hunch is that Gurdjieff very much liked being a spy. And he may have had an incentive to use his charisma and his messy bundle of pseudo spiritual teachings as a way to create a society where he could function as the all powerful spymaster and move people around like chess pieces.
My guess is that people who are pre-formatted by certain kinds of early life experience find secrecy, tension and intrigue to be for them, a normal way to live. Some grow up in secret ridden families and then, as adults, gravitate into jobs, relationships and seekers groups that re-enact the intrigue and secrecy of thier childhood.
A charismatic hypnotist, carpet trader, Russian spy and mystic extraordinaire, George Gurdjieff was the son of a Greek-Armenian bard and was deeply impressed by his father’s songs concerning the great spiritual luminaries of a vanished past. The boy apparently began his search for the lost wisdom of the ancients at the early age of fifteen, and maintained it at huge cost to his health and material resources until he emerged, nearly thirty years later, a magus of mysterious yet undeniably charismatic authority. Possessed of enormous personal courage, during World War I Gurdjieff led a large posse of Russian followers across Eastern Europe to safety, through the raging battle lines of Bolsheviks and Cossacks in turn, eventually establishing a school in Fontainbleu, outside Paris, for the study and practice of methods of spiritual self-transformation. These methods, revolutionary in their day, are believed to have included the sacred dance and music exercises of the shamanistic Yesevi dervishes of Kurdistan, a community in which Gurdjieff seems to have received his initial training in Sufi techniques of “soul-making.”
The Yezidis, a secretive Kurdish religious sect from which the Sufi Bektashi order has sprung, live to this day in the foothills north of Mosul in Iraqi Kurdistan pursuing a cult of angels. According to the British baroness E.S. Drower, who in 1940 published a detailed paper on the sect, the chief Yezidi angel is Malek Taus, the Peacock Angel who has some likeness to Lucifer, the fallen angel of Christian fame. A black serpent is also held in special reverence in the Yezidi religion as a symbol of magical potency – no doubt ultimately a symbol of kundalini and the spinal system of energies elaborated in spiritual physiology. While paying lip service to the Muslim faith, the Yezidi have their own unique cosmogony, mythology and ritual practices, which have more commonality with the Magian or Gnostic belief-systems than with either Islam or Christianity. Ceaselessly persecuted and destroyed by Kurdish Muslims and Ottoman Turks as well as Islamic armies of both Iraq and Iran, the once powerful Yezidi tribes have been almost wiped out as heretics of the first order. Only isolated groups are now left. These include small pockets in Central Kurdistan, the Russian Caucasus and in satellite communities in Syria, Lebanon, Anatolia and Iran.
Sheikh Adi, a noted mystic of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, was a Median Magi, and although he is regarded as the founder of the Yezidi faith and an incarnation of the Peacock Angel, both the religion and the tribe are ascribed a far earlier date of origin. They are believed to be heirs to an ancient ancestral tradition going back to Noah. Adrian G. Gilbert comments:
It is my belief that they [the Yezidis] are descended from the ancient Chaldaeans. Their own tradition is that they migrated from the South, and they may well be the lost remnants of the Babylonian Magi who disappeared after the time of Alexander of Macedon.10
This is certainly in line with Gurdjieff’s belief that the roots of Sufism lie in a spiritual tradition of extreme antiquity such as is found in the Yezidi faith, and that it was probably centred in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Nevertheless, there is much evidence that Sufism continually developed beyond its initial form and amplified its teachings over the ages.
The late Hugh Schonfield, a noted Jewish scholar and author, says that by the third century CE Sufi schools were well established in the Middle East, particularly in Mosul, the heart of the old Assyrian kingdom, under the auspices of the Zoroastrian Magi. There the Sufis were joined by many Jewish refugees from Egypt fleeing Roman persecution. Among these were the Therapeutae, members of an Essene Order of contemplatives strongly imbued with a revolutionary New Covenant with God. The covenant involved a Judaic reformation that forbad militarism and animal sacrifice and embraced the principles of gender equality and an equitable distribution of wealth. The Therapeutae brought to the Sufi tradition not only these enlightened social ideals which were actually already enshrined in its own constitution, but much of the new Hermetic and Kabbalistic mysticism fermenting in Alexandria. Thus, says Schonfield, throughout Egypt and the Middle East
there were religious fusions and amalgamations, and the emergence of spiritual hybrids… Zoroastrianism and Mithraism lent their characteristics to Jewish Essene teaching, and found a Greek expression in the Hermetic and Christian Gnostic. The coverage of the Roman empire right round the Mediterranean carried the cults with it, and opened the way to new blendings.11
In this way Sufism was continually invigorated by new trends and in turn invigorated others. Then, when in the seventh century CE civilisation was in danger of total collapse through the ravages of global pestilence, war, earthquakes and the suppression of all Greek learning by Byzantine Christianity, the Sufi masters transferred their allegiance from Zoroastrianism to Islam, the latter offering the greater hope of rehabilitation for humanity. Thus the wisdom and science of Persia, with its great heritage of Greek learning, passed into the Muslim culture and was carried by Muslim sages into every quarter of the globe. The Dark Ages were halted and Islam, supported by the Sufis, brought about a brilliant revival of the Graeco-Roman arts and sciences.12
The conquest of Spain by the Muslim Moors meant Jews, Muslims and Christians were able to live there harmoniously until the fifteenth century, creating a culture of superb beauty and intelligence which lasted until the Jews and Muslims were banished to Byzantium, and which gave Sufism entrance into the rest of backward Europe. During the same centuries Crusaders such as the Templars encountered the rich Saracen culture in the Holy Land and secretly brought back the cream of Sufi thought to Europe to enrich Christian theological scholarship, art and sciences.
Himalayan Withdrawal
With the Mongol invasions, however, came difficult days for European civilisation as many sources of Sufi wisdom withdrew. The Sufi Masters of Wisdom known in Central Asia as the Khwajagan lineage withdrew at this time to the Trans-Himalayas, where their schools still persist. The Khwajagan were neither savants nor mystical ecstatics. They were practical men who assiduously practiced the breathing and mantric exercise of the zikr, fought their own weaknesses by means of trials based on humiliation and abasement, and during the Mongol depredations of the conquered western cities built new schools, hospitals and mosques. Some say these Masters, who may be synonymous with the Sarmouni, have continued to this day to head the Sufi hierarchy – which Bennett has called the Hidden Directorate – from its hidden Trans-Himalayan headquarters. Meanwhile, the Sufi orders left behind continued to strengthen their ties with other esoteric systems, such as the Magian secret societies in Persia and the Copts in Egypt, and to extend their formidable influence across the world into South-East Asia.
In the Sunda Islands they amalgamated successfully with the indigenous shamans, Hindu-Buddhists and Taoists and were instrumental in establishing in Java one of the most influential schools of Tibetan Kalachakra Tantra in the world. The result was a chain of hybrid secret societies around the globe whose roots were buried deep in a freedom-loving soil compounded of Sufism, Magian wisdom and the Solomonic and Hermetic wisdom of the Egyptian Essenes. It was these pan-religious amalgamations that produced over the centuries initiatic schools like the Templars, the Chartres masters, the Rosicrucians, the Illuminati, the Freemasons and the Theosophists, all dedicated to working for the religious and scientific dawning of a new age free from religious intolerance.
Throughout the long Sufi saga, the West had been unaware of intervention in its affairs, or indeed of the very existence of a powerful organisation in its midst that was monitoring the course of history and at the same time maintaining its own hierarchy, objectives and worldview independently of the visible political and religious structures of society. But the Sufi masters knew that this unconscious condition, mainly imposed on the people by repressive forces outside their control, must end, and that the time of awakening was drawing near.
Sufi Masters and Rosicrucianism
The two Rosicrucian manifestos pseudonymously published in Germany in the early years of the seventeenth century marked the first Sufi venture into the public domain and caused a sensation. The manifestos purported to advertise a mysterious order called the Fraternity of the Rosey Cross which had been founded, it was claimed, by one Christian Rosencreutz; and a third publication called The Alchemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz, written in high Dutch, came out soon after. The manifestos declared that Fr. Rosencreutz had obtained the inspiration for his brotherhood from Arabia, Fez (the home of Sufic alchemy since the eighth century) and Egypt, all centres of Sufi activity. And Rosicrucian tradition has it that Fr. Rosencreutz was initiated in Palestine by an Arabic sect. Observes Ernest Scott:
When it is realised that the Sufi teacher Suhrawardi of Aleppo had a teaching method called the Path of the Rose and that the Sufic word for a dervish exercise has the same consonantal root as the word for a rose, the Sufic origin of the Rosicrucians may be inferred with some confidence.13
As we now know, the series of Rosicrucian publications with their visionary and reforming talk of an invisible college, a “winged academy” dedicated to a commonwealth of man, created a furore in Europe. Some saw the publications as a hoax, others as a God-given sign of the millennium. As ever, the Sufis were not directly mentioned: but, sweeping like a rejuvenating wind through Protestant and Catholic lands alike, the movement stirred up by the mysterious manifestos became a potent though short-lived catalyst for change. It instigated a religious and intellectual uprising that sought reform in education, religion and science, promising a coming utopia in which the dignity and worth of every man and woman would be recognised.
Frances A. Yates, a foremost Renaissance scholar, believes this period in the seventeenth century can rightly be called the Rosicrucian Enlightenment and that out of its “great reservoir of spiritual and intellectual power, of moral and reforming vision”14 came the Royal Society and the age of scientific revolution.
Full of Christian mysticism yet also permeated with Hermetic-Kabbalistic angelology and alchemical religious philosophy, the Rosicrucian teachings proclaimed that this age of enlightenment, in which religion and science would no longer be antithetical, was at hand. Great advances were to be made and a reformation of the whole wide world would presage “a great influx of truth and light” into fallen society such as shone on Adam in paradise. For a time large factions of the Church espoused these ideas, and the Jesuits, themselves of occult and hermetic origin, took over much of the Rosicrucian symbolism and emblematics.
Yet in the event the whole programme was aborted by the fiercely reactionary response of the Spanish Inquisition and its political ally, the Hapsburg dynasty, which instigated the Thirty Years’ War, forcing thousands of religious dissidents to flee with the seeds of the new vision to the New World. The Sufi programme had to incubate in secret for several more centuries.
Hitler met him and regarded him as a "superman" and that Aleister Crowley was also impressed with him when they met. There are also some who have wanted to debunk Gurdjieff and his teachings and say he was a very clever conman and a charlatan with a huge ego and a lot of charisma. Whatever the truth, Gurdjieff remains a true man of mystery.
While freely recounting his many Central Asian adventures in his search for wisdom, Gurdjieff managed to draw a permanent veil of secrecy and ambiguity over all details of these intimate encounters with the dervish tradition. This of course is in line with the extreme reticence of the Sufi orders themselves. Young Gurdjieff may have been the spy Ushe Narzunoff, a player in the "Great Game"--the clandestine struggle between Imperial Russia and Britain for control of India. This claim has been neither proven nor widely dismissed.
The Yezidis of Kurdistan had an ancient infamous grimoire - the Picatrix, (Aim of the Sage; Goal of the Wise), a book of high and low magic. The Ghâyat al-Hakîm fi'l-sihr, or Picatrix, as it is known in the West, is an important Arabic magical text. It is perhaps the largest and most comprehensive of the grimoires, or handbooks of magic, a collection of Arabic texts widely used by mages during the Renaissance period.
James Webb, in his biography of Gurdjieff, The Harmonious Circle, makes a very strong case that Gurdjieff was a spy in the Imperial Russian secret service, an occupation that enabled him to travel as extensively as he did. Or did he spy for Britain? For quite some time there have been intimations that the ostensible Armenian mage was at one time an agent of the czarist intelligence service, this job allowing him the ability to travel across the globe in his search for secret knowledge, ancient wisdom, and Remarkable Men. Now in to the fray comes quite an interesting speculation. Story goes that Gurdjieff was not actually Russian at all. Rather, he was British and spent almost his entire life passing himself off as Eastern European. I found this speculation quite recently as a commentary on a recent book that contends, based on some circumstantial evidence, that Gurdjieff was Irish. Peter Roberts, the reviewer of said book, however, has his own revelations on the matter:
There has always been some mystery about the origins of Gurdjieff. When I read the above on the World wide Web I felt the time had come to reveal the results of my own researches. The reason I have not done so earlier was a fear that it would merely stimulate unnecessary and irrelevant controversy. As to Gurdjieff’s place of birth, Alexandropol, Allahabad or Ashby de la Zouche, what difference does it make? I do not claim to have proved anything, but nevertheless, the results of my researches open up some intriguing possibilities. I will tell the story as it unfolded itself to me, lest I give an impression of certainty and completeness that the results of my researches do not warrant.
Irish, no. But not Russian either. According to Roberts, he found evidence that Gurdjieff was…cockney. (Advanced apologies for the long quote here):
After spending a year at Mr.B.’s glorious gulag in the Cotswolds, I returned to India for a short time. While I was there I received permission, for reasons which it would be an unpardonable breach of confidence for me to reveal, to examine the archives of the Indian Secret Service for the years before 1922. I found a number of requests for information from a Captain J.G. Bennett [later one of Gurdjieff's more famous students] in Constantinople, and two memoranda from him. However, there is no mention of Gurdjieff, and no file on him. All this left me with the impression that something was being concealed, and for good and obvious reasons. At this point I felt as if I had run into a brick wall and was on the point of abandoning my search in the Indian archives, when I discussed my predicament with a senior archivist who had already been of immense help to me. He pointed out that if there were a file on Gurdjieff, it might be under a code name, and also told me that there were certain secret registers which provided the key to this system of code names, the very existence of which he was not supposed to divulge to me, in spite of my having been given special permission to examine files that were then, and are now inaccessible even to professional historians approved by the Government of India. Knowing that my presence in the archives had been approved at the very highest level and also out of a fatherly affection which he had conceived for me, he agreed to see what he could do to make it possible for me to examine these secret registers, provided that I revealed nothing until after his death. This I swore to do, and I have kept my word.
With the invaluable aid of my friend, I examined the register of Russian agents, and the files to which they guided me. I found no mention of a Gurdjieff, and no-one whose description corresponded to him. I was in despair, when my friend asked me why I thought the man I was looking for was a Russian agent. Why not look at the register of British agents? This I did, though in a hopeless mood. There I came across the name of Georgiades. Further search revealed a very thick file on this Georgiades, in which he was described at one point as: “Frederick Dottle”, a Londoner who for many years has been posing as a Russian subject of Anatolian Greek extraction.” [emphasis added]
Now, I don’t know that Roberts expects that anyone would believe his story over that of Larry O’Nolan, the author of the “Irish Gurdjieff” book, or take either story over the usually accepted Armenian/Russian Gurdjieff. I’d be silly to doubt the existence of secret files of agents for any so-called government’s intelligence services. I write conspiracy poetics, after all. Besides that, there’s ample evidence that proves the existence of secret documents. That being the case, though, I’m not necessarily going to believe Roberts based upon secret documents that no one else has ever claimed to see and that neither I nor Roberts have access to. I’m not saying I’m disbelieving Roberts, either. Just suspending judgement until I find out more.
But…suppose for the minute, Gurdjieff was actually Frederick Dottle, a man who had stowed away on a ship when he was young, ended up in Armenia and then was adopted by the man later known as Gurdjieff’s father. Suppose that Gurdjieff never completely erased that past and consequently, became an agent for Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Well, that puts an entirely new spin on the legendary, yet cipher-like meeting between the Remarkable Man Gurdjieff and the Remarkable Man…Aleister Crowley.
Looking at The Meeting of the Mages from a Whole New Angle
Here’s the famous account of the meeting between Gurdjieff and Crowley as written by C.S. Nott, a student of Gurdjieff’s who was present at the time. It can be found at this site, as well as in Nott’s book and in Colin Wilson‘s The Occult, among other places:
“One day in Paris I met an acquaintance from New York who spoke about the possibilities of publishing modern literature. As I showed some interest, he offered to introduce me to a friend of his who was thinking of going into publishing, and we arranged to meet the following day at the Select in Montparnasse. His friend arrived;it was Aleister Crowley. Drinks were ordered, for which of course I paid, and we began to talk. Crowley had magnetism, and the kind of charm which many charlatans have; he also had a dead weight that was somewhat impressive. His attitude was fatherly and benign, and a few years earlier I might have fallen for it. Now I saw and sensed that I could have nothing to do with him. He talked in general terms about publishing, and then drifted into his black-magic jargon.
“To make a success of anything,” he said, “including publishing, you must have a certain combination. Here you have a Master, here a Bear, there the Dragon- a triangle which will bring results…” and so on and so on. When he fell silent I said, “Yes, but one must have money. Am I right in supposing that you have the necessary capital?”. “I?” he asked, “No not a franc.” “Neither have I.” I said.
Knowing that I was at the Prieure he asked me if I would get him an invitation there. But I did not wish to be responsible for introducing such a man. However, to my surprise, he appeared there a few days later and was given tea in the salon. The children were there, and he said to one of the boys something about his son who he was teaching to be a devil. Gurdjieff got up and spoke to the boy, who thereupon took no further notice of Crowley. There was some talk between Crowley and Gurdjieff, who kept a sharp watch on him all the time. I got the strong impression of two magicians, the white and the black- the one strong, powerful, full of light; the other also powerful but heavy, dull and ignorant. Though “black”" was too strong a word for Crowley; he never understood the meaning of real black magic, yet hundreds of people came under his “spell”. He was clever. But as Gurdjieff says: “He is stupid who is clever.”
And then, there’s the account from the late James Webb’s book the Harmonious Circle, excerpted in an article at lumen.org:
… True to his Caucasian heritage, he dispensed hospitality in abundant qualities. To Aleister Crowley, for example … Gurdjieff showed all due consideration – until Crowley was about to leave.
“Mister, you go?” Gurdjieff inquired. Crowley assented. “You have been guest?” – a fact which the visitor could hardly deny. “Now you go, you are no longer guest?” Crowley – no doubt wondering whether his host had lost his grip on reality and was wandering in a semantic wilderness – humored his mood by indicating that he was on his way back to Paris. But Gurdjieff, having made the point that he was not violating the canons of hospitality, changed on the instant into the embodiment of righteous anger. “You filthy,” he stormed, “you dirty inside! Never again you set foot in my house!” . . . Whitefaced and shaking, the Great Beast crept back to Paris with his tail between his legs.
What if, Gurdjieff was keeping his eye so closely on Crowley for other than magickal reasons? One of the usual explanations is that Crowley, a frequently- relapsing addict to a variety of substances, including the sauce, had heard of Gurdjieff’s success in treating addiction and thus, went to get help banishing his chemical demons. Crowley being Crowley, it’s also suggested, and Nott seems to imply as much, may have also gone to Gurdjieff’s place to suss out the latter’s magickal capacities and challenge him to an occult dick-swinging contest.
Maybe.
Crowley himself was an asset of British intelligence at various times during his life. Perhaps he was already aware of Gurdjieff (and Gurdjieff of him) through these channels, instead of or in addition to those of the occult and mystical undergrounds. If Gurdjieff was a Brit and a spy for the Crown, perhaps Crowley suspected or had heard as much about him and came to check it out– or to blow Gurdjieff’s cover. And if not, perhaps Gurdjieff may have been watching Crowley with hawk-like diligence for fear that this unpredictable, Janus-faced magus might out him.
Lot of intriguing ifs. Who knows the fruitfulness of this line of speculation?
But it would all certainly make for a great novel…
Webb had high society background, and he had access to old files in the British intelligence agencies. He learned that the British authorities denied a visa to G when he wanted to live in the UK, because they had misgivings about his prior activities spying for the Imperial Russian government in British India and Tibet. My hunch is that Webb was right and that it was during his time as a Tsarist agent, that Gurdjieff learned what it was like to be treated as an object (spies are used and disposed of by thier bosses), he would have learned to live a secret life, and would have learned to identify and play on other peoples weaknesses so as to recruit them and milk them for information. My hunch is that Gurdjieff very much liked being a spy. And he may have had an incentive to use his charisma and his messy bundle of pseudo spiritual teachings as a way to create a society where he could function as the all powerful spymaster and move people around like chess pieces.
My guess is that people who are pre-formatted by certain kinds of early life experience find secrecy, tension and intrigue to be for them, a normal way to live. Some grow up in secret ridden families and then, as adults, gravitate into jobs, relationships and seekers groups that re-enact the intrigue and secrecy of thier childhood.
A charismatic hypnotist, carpet trader, Russian spy and mystic extraordinaire, George Gurdjieff was the son of a Greek-Armenian bard and was deeply impressed by his father’s songs concerning the great spiritual luminaries of a vanished past. The boy apparently began his search for the lost wisdom of the ancients at the early age of fifteen, and maintained it at huge cost to his health and material resources until he emerged, nearly thirty years later, a magus of mysterious yet undeniably charismatic authority. Possessed of enormous personal courage, during World War I Gurdjieff led a large posse of Russian followers across Eastern Europe to safety, through the raging battle lines of Bolsheviks and Cossacks in turn, eventually establishing a school in Fontainbleu, outside Paris, for the study and practice of methods of spiritual self-transformation. These methods, revolutionary in their day, are believed to have included the sacred dance and music exercises of the shamanistic Yesevi dervishes of Kurdistan, a community in which Gurdjieff seems to have received his initial training in Sufi techniques of “soul-making.”
The Yezidis, a secretive Kurdish religious sect from which the Sufi Bektashi order has sprung, live to this day in the foothills north of Mosul in Iraqi Kurdistan pursuing a cult of angels. According to the British baroness E.S. Drower, who in 1940 published a detailed paper on the sect, the chief Yezidi angel is Malek Taus, the Peacock Angel who has some likeness to Lucifer, the fallen angel of Christian fame. A black serpent is also held in special reverence in the Yezidi religion as a symbol of magical potency – no doubt ultimately a symbol of kundalini and the spinal system of energies elaborated in spiritual physiology. While paying lip service to the Muslim faith, the Yezidi have their own unique cosmogony, mythology and ritual practices, which have more commonality with the Magian or Gnostic belief-systems than with either Islam or Christianity. Ceaselessly persecuted and destroyed by Kurdish Muslims and Ottoman Turks as well as Islamic armies of both Iraq and Iran, the once powerful Yezidi tribes have been almost wiped out as heretics of the first order. Only isolated groups are now left. These include small pockets in Central Kurdistan, the Russian Caucasus and in satellite communities in Syria, Lebanon, Anatolia and Iran.
Sheikh Adi, a noted mystic of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, was a Median Magi, and although he is regarded as the founder of the Yezidi faith and an incarnation of the Peacock Angel, both the religion and the tribe are ascribed a far earlier date of origin. They are believed to be heirs to an ancient ancestral tradition going back to Noah. Adrian G. Gilbert comments:
It is my belief that they [the Yezidis] are descended from the ancient Chaldaeans. Their own tradition is that they migrated from the South, and they may well be the lost remnants of the Babylonian Magi who disappeared after the time of Alexander of Macedon.10
This is certainly in line with Gurdjieff’s belief that the roots of Sufism lie in a spiritual tradition of extreme antiquity such as is found in the Yezidi faith, and that it was probably centred in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Nevertheless, there is much evidence that Sufism continually developed beyond its initial form and amplified its teachings over the ages.
The late Hugh Schonfield, a noted Jewish scholar and author, says that by the third century CE Sufi schools were well established in the Middle East, particularly in Mosul, the heart of the old Assyrian kingdom, under the auspices of the Zoroastrian Magi. There the Sufis were joined by many Jewish refugees from Egypt fleeing Roman persecution. Among these were the Therapeutae, members of an Essene Order of contemplatives strongly imbued with a revolutionary New Covenant with God. The covenant involved a Judaic reformation that forbad militarism and animal sacrifice and embraced the principles of gender equality and an equitable distribution of wealth. The Therapeutae brought to the Sufi tradition not only these enlightened social ideals which were actually already enshrined in its own constitution, but much of the new Hermetic and Kabbalistic mysticism fermenting in Alexandria. Thus, says Schonfield, throughout Egypt and the Middle East
there were religious fusions and amalgamations, and the emergence of spiritual hybrids… Zoroastrianism and Mithraism lent their characteristics to Jewish Essene teaching, and found a Greek expression in the Hermetic and Christian Gnostic. The coverage of the Roman empire right round the Mediterranean carried the cults with it, and opened the way to new blendings.11
In this way Sufism was continually invigorated by new trends and in turn invigorated others. Then, when in the seventh century CE civilisation was in danger of total collapse through the ravages of global pestilence, war, earthquakes and the suppression of all Greek learning by Byzantine Christianity, the Sufi masters transferred their allegiance from Zoroastrianism to Islam, the latter offering the greater hope of rehabilitation for humanity. Thus the wisdom and science of Persia, with its great heritage of Greek learning, passed into the Muslim culture and was carried by Muslim sages into every quarter of the globe. The Dark Ages were halted and Islam, supported by the Sufis, brought about a brilliant revival of the Graeco-Roman arts and sciences.12
The conquest of Spain by the Muslim Moors meant Jews, Muslims and Christians were able to live there harmoniously until the fifteenth century, creating a culture of superb beauty and intelligence which lasted until the Jews and Muslims were banished to Byzantium, and which gave Sufism entrance into the rest of backward Europe. During the same centuries Crusaders such as the Templars encountered the rich Saracen culture in the Holy Land and secretly brought back the cream of Sufi thought to Europe to enrich Christian theological scholarship, art and sciences.
Himalayan Withdrawal
With the Mongol invasions, however, came difficult days for European civilisation as many sources of Sufi wisdom withdrew. The Sufi Masters of Wisdom known in Central Asia as the Khwajagan lineage withdrew at this time to the Trans-Himalayas, where their schools still persist. The Khwajagan were neither savants nor mystical ecstatics. They were practical men who assiduously practiced the breathing and mantric exercise of the zikr, fought their own weaknesses by means of trials based on humiliation and abasement, and during the Mongol depredations of the conquered western cities built new schools, hospitals and mosques. Some say these Masters, who may be synonymous with the Sarmouni, have continued to this day to head the Sufi hierarchy – which Bennett has called the Hidden Directorate – from its hidden Trans-Himalayan headquarters. Meanwhile, the Sufi orders left behind continued to strengthen their ties with other esoteric systems, such as the Magian secret societies in Persia and the Copts in Egypt, and to extend their formidable influence across the world into South-East Asia.
In the Sunda Islands they amalgamated successfully with the indigenous shamans, Hindu-Buddhists and Taoists and were instrumental in establishing in Java one of the most influential schools of Tibetan Kalachakra Tantra in the world. The result was a chain of hybrid secret societies around the globe whose roots were buried deep in a freedom-loving soil compounded of Sufism, Magian wisdom and the Solomonic and Hermetic wisdom of the Egyptian Essenes. It was these pan-religious amalgamations that produced over the centuries initiatic schools like the Templars, the Chartres masters, the Rosicrucians, the Illuminati, the Freemasons and the Theosophists, all dedicated to working for the religious and scientific dawning of a new age free from religious intolerance.
Throughout the long Sufi saga, the West had been unaware of intervention in its affairs, or indeed of the very existence of a powerful organisation in its midst that was monitoring the course of history and at the same time maintaining its own hierarchy, objectives and worldview independently of the visible political and religious structures of society. But the Sufi masters knew that this unconscious condition, mainly imposed on the people by repressive forces outside their control, must end, and that the time of awakening was drawing near.
Sufi Masters and Rosicrucianism
The two Rosicrucian manifestos pseudonymously published in Germany in the early years of the seventeenth century marked the first Sufi venture into the public domain and caused a sensation. The manifestos purported to advertise a mysterious order called the Fraternity of the Rosey Cross which had been founded, it was claimed, by one Christian Rosencreutz; and a third publication called The Alchemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz, written in high Dutch, came out soon after. The manifestos declared that Fr. Rosencreutz had obtained the inspiration for his brotherhood from Arabia, Fez (the home of Sufic alchemy since the eighth century) and Egypt, all centres of Sufi activity. And Rosicrucian tradition has it that Fr. Rosencreutz was initiated in Palestine by an Arabic sect. Observes Ernest Scott:
When it is realised that the Sufi teacher Suhrawardi of Aleppo had a teaching method called the Path of the Rose and that the Sufic word for a dervish exercise has the same consonantal root as the word for a rose, the Sufic origin of the Rosicrucians may be inferred with some confidence.13
As we now know, the series of Rosicrucian publications with their visionary and reforming talk of an invisible college, a “winged academy” dedicated to a commonwealth of man, created a furore in Europe. Some saw the publications as a hoax, others as a God-given sign of the millennium. As ever, the Sufis were not directly mentioned: but, sweeping like a rejuvenating wind through Protestant and Catholic lands alike, the movement stirred up by the mysterious manifestos became a potent though short-lived catalyst for change. It instigated a religious and intellectual uprising that sought reform in education, religion and science, promising a coming utopia in which the dignity and worth of every man and woman would be recognised.
Frances A. Yates, a foremost Renaissance scholar, believes this period in the seventeenth century can rightly be called the Rosicrucian Enlightenment and that out of its “great reservoir of spiritual and intellectual power, of moral and reforming vision”14 came the Royal Society and the age of scientific revolution.
Full of Christian mysticism yet also permeated with Hermetic-Kabbalistic angelology and alchemical religious philosophy, the Rosicrucian teachings proclaimed that this age of enlightenment, in which religion and science would no longer be antithetical, was at hand. Great advances were to be made and a reformation of the whole wide world would presage “a great influx of truth and light” into fallen society such as shone on Adam in paradise. For a time large factions of the Church espoused these ideas, and the Jesuits, themselves of occult and hermetic origin, took over much of the Rosicrucian symbolism and emblematics.
Yet in the event the whole programme was aborted by the fiercely reactionary response of the Spanish Inquisition and its political ally, the Hapsburg dynasty, which instigated the Thirty Years’ War, forcing thousands of religious dissidents to flee with the seeds of the new vision to the New World. The Sufi programme had to incubate in secret for several more centuries.
Timothy Leary
"I gave way to delight, as mystics have for centuries when they peeked through the curtains and discovered that this world- so manifestly real was actually a tiny stage set constructed by the mind. We discover abruptly that everything we accept as reality is just social fabrications. - Timothy Leary, 1966...
Copyright 1994 Osprey Productions/Grand Royal
Was Timothy Leary a CIA Agent?
Was JFK the "Manchurian Candidate"? Was the Sixties Revolution Really a Government Plot?
Tinker, Tailor, Stoner, Spy
by Mark Riebling
EXT. THE WHITE HOUSE - SUNSET Summer-bachelor Jack Kennedy stands on the Harry Truman balcony overlooking the rose-garden fountain, a soothing sight before him: prisms of lighted water shooting into darkness, the white spike of the Washington Monument, auto headlights flickering along Executive Avenue. He begins to feel a deep-seated goodness within, centered between his chest and throat. From the bedroom behind him, through white chiffon curtains in open french doors, float the chords of a Sinatra song -- "All I Need is the Girl." With strange clarity, JFK can suddenly make out every note....
Behind the curtains moves the shadow of a tall woman who is not his wife. She is deeply connected to CIA, and has just dispensed to the President of the United States a dose of LSD. In the next few hours she will be "brainwashing" him, and she will be doing so on the directions of a Harvard psychologist, Dr. Timothy Leary, whose colleagues are all taking CIA money, and who has himself designed a personality test used by CIA....
This, or something very much like this, actually happened. To understand how and why it happened requires cruising back a few years, digging through government documents, reading between the lines of Leary's autobiography, Flashbacks. It's a trip through the secret maze of the American pyschedelic underground, a journey that is its own destination, a mystery that must be solved by the reader's own detective work. What follows are the undisputed facts, the clues:
September 1942: The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), wartime precursor to CIA, begins searching for a drug that will force subjects of interrogation, such as captured Nazi U-boat crews, to reveal secrets. As project director Dr. Stanley Lovell will recall, the idea of a "truth drug" is "considered fantastic by the realists, unethical by the moralists, and downright ludicrous by the physicians." But according to OSS records, Lovell goes ahead and tests "mescaline, various barbiturates, scopolamine, benzedrine, cannabis indica (marijuana), etc." The best results are obtained with the marijuana: "A few minutes after administration, the subject gradually becomes relaxed, and experiences a sensation of well-being... thoughts flow with considerable freedom... conversation becomes animated and accelerated. Inhibitions fall away.... [the drug] makes manifest any strong characteristics of the individual.... Whatever the individual is trying to withhold will be forced to the top of his subconscious mind." To "administer" the pot without a subject's knowing it, OSS scientists dissolve marijuana leaves in acetone, then heat the result into a clear, odorless, viscous liquid -- tetrahydrocannabional acetate -- which can be "injected into any type of food, such as mashed potatoes, butter, salad dressing, or in such things as candy."
May 25, 1943: THC acetate is tested on an unknowing subject, Lower East Side mafioso August "Little Augie" Del Gaizo, who has been helping OSS smuggle agents into Nazi-held Sicily. Little Augie is considered an ideal subject because he has secrets he is "most anxious to conceal, the revelation of which might result in his imprisonment"; in fact, he prides himself on having never informed, and has even "been instrumental in killing some persons who have been informants." But after smoking two proffered cigarettes, laced with a total of .14 grams THC, Little Augie becomes "obviously 'high' and extremely garrulous" as he sits in the apartment of OSS officer George White, a former Treasury agent who had arrested him several times in the past. When White turns the subject to law enforcement, Little Augie "with no further encouragement" divulges the identities of city officials on the take; details of the criminal empire run by Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel; "and other information that subject would not give under ordinary circumstances. There is no question but that administration of the drug was responsible for loosening the subject's tongue." Henceforth, OSS refers to the THC acetate simply as "TD," a cryptonym for "Truth Drug."
1944: OSS uses "TD" in secret operations. Lovell reports that "Certain disclosures of the greatest value are in the possession of our military intelligence as a result of this treatment, which it is felt would otherwise not be known. Properly employed... it may be a national asset of incalculable importance." But OSS officials, fearing political backlash if use of the drug is revealed, shut the program down.
April-May 1945: Jack Kennedy, before entering politics, is working as a reporter for the Hearst newspaper chain. While covering the charter conference of the United Nations at San Francisco, he frequently sees an old flame from Choate, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and her husband, Cord Meyer, Jr., who is an assistant to the American delegation. A young Yale graduate and award-winning literary talent, Cord Meyer was badly wounded by a Japanese hand-grenade on Guam and has a glass eye; when he smokes cigarettes, the smoke slowly drifts up and into his open, nerveless, unblinking left eye, curling around the glass orb. The sight so disconcerts JFK that he finds himself rubbing his own left eye in a kind of sympathetic agony.
September 1946: Timothy Leary begins doctoral studies in psychology at Berkeley.
1947: Dr. Werner Stoll, a researcher at Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland, publishes the first scientific articles on LSD-25, an extract of rye mold, noting that it accelerates thinking and blunts suspicion in schizophrenics.
1947-48: As a graduate student in psychology, Leary attends the first two national conventions of the American Veterans Committee (AVC), a left-wing veterans group, as a California state delegation leader. At the second AVC convention, in Milwaukee, Leary meets Cord Meyer, who is then spearheading an anti-communist purge of the organization. Meyer lectures Leary about communism, and the importance of liberal resistance to it. Leary will later credit Meyer with "helping me understand my political-cultural role more clearly."
Late 1950: Cord Meyer joins CIA and begins working in its International Relations Division, of which he is soon put in charge. The express purpose of this division is to covertly finance, infiltrate, and encourage noncommunist liberal-left movements and institutions, such as labor unions, creative-academic societies, and student groups.
April 13, 1953: CIA launches Operation MK/ULTRA, a major drug and mind-control program. Although THC acetate is studied as an interrogation aid, CIA is more concerned about reports of communist brainwashing experiments on American POWs in Korea, and focuses on stronger, hallucinogenic drugs. "Aside from the offensive potential, the development of a comprehensive capability in this field... gives a thorough knowledge of the enemy's theoretical potential, thus enabling us to defend ourselves against a foe who might not be as restrained in the use of these techniques as we are." Some CIA employees, including perhaps Meyer, volunteer for experiments. Through a front organization called The Society For Human Ecology, CIA begins sponsoring $25 million in research into the effects of mind-altering drugs -- LSD, psilocybin and mescaline -- at Harvard University and at several cites in the San Francisco-Oakland area, including Stanford and Berkeley.
1954-59: Leary is director of clinical research and psychology at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Oakland. He devises a personality test, "The Leary," which is used by CIA to test prospective employees. He has also become a close friend to Frank Barron, a graduate school classmate who has ben working for CIA since at least 1953. Barron works at the Berkeley Institute for Personality Assessment and Research, which Leary will later acknowledge is "funded and staffed by OSS-CIA psychologists."
1960-61: Barron founds the Harvard Pyschedelic Drug Research Center. Leary follows Barron to Harvard and becomes a lecturer in psychology. After Barron administers to him some CIA-supplied psilocybin and LSD, Leary begins tripping regularly. He also studies the effects of psycheledics on others in controlled experiments. He later admits to knowing, at the time, that "some powerful people in Washington have sponsored all this drug research." In addition to Barron, Leary's associates and assistants during this period include former OSS chief pyschologist Harry Murray, who had montiored military experiments on Truth-Drug brainwashing and interrogation, and Martin Orne, a researcher receiving funds from CIA. Leary also consults British philosopher Aldous Huxley, author of the psychedelic manifesto, The Doors of Perception (from which Jim Morrision would later take name his band). Huxley, who is at Harvard on a visiting professorship, urges Leary to form a secret order of LSD-Illuminati, to launch and lead a psychedelic conspiracy to brainwash influential people for the purposes human betterment. "That's how everything of culture and beauty and philosophic freedom has been passed on," Huxley tells him. "Initiate artists, writers, poets, jazz musicians, elegant courtesans. And they'll educate the intelligent rich."
Spring 1962: Mary Meyer, recently divorced from her CIA husband, visits Leary at Harvard. She leans against the door post, hip tilted provocatively, studying him with green-blue eyes. Leary will later recall here as "amused, arrogant, aristocratic." She tells him she has a "friend who's a very important man, who wants to try LSD for himself." At the time, though Leary does not know this, Mary is having an affair with President Kennedy, which will include more than thirty visits to the White House (later confirmed by Presidential Secretary Kenneth O'Donnell). Mary tells Leary that the government is studying ways to "use drugs for warfare, for espionage, for brainwashing." She asks him to "teach us how to run [LSD] sessions, use drugs to do good." Leary agrees. He provides her with drug samples and "session" reports, and is in touch with her every few weeks, advising her on how to be a "brainwasher." She swears him to secrecy.
Late July, 1962: While the First Lady is away at the Kennedy summer home in Hyannisport, Mary calls on JFK at the White House. She records the visit in her diary, and later describes it to her close friend James Truitt of the Washington Post. She and the President of the United States smoke two joints of marijuana, reportedly prompting the leader of the free world to say, "This isn't at all like cocaine. I'll get you some of that." Once he is suitably "loosened up" -- Leary has emphasized the need to put subjects in a "benevolent state" before turning them on -- Mary dispenses to Jack a dose of LSD. As it starts to "kick in," he goes out and stands on Harry Truman's balcony overlooking the rose-garden fountain, a soothing sight before him....
Fall 1962: Leary meets Mary Meyer in a room at Boston's Ritz Hotel. She alludes to her "hush-hush love affair," and tells him that "top people in Washington are turning on." According to Leary's recounting, she also says: "Do you remember the American Veterans Committee, that liberal veterans group you belonged to after the war? The CIA started that." She explains to him that "CIA creates the radical journals and student organizations and runs them with deep-cover agents.... dissident organizations in academia are also controlled." When Leary asks her how she knows all this, she explains: "I knocked you with those facts to get your attention. It's a standard intelligence trick." She confides that CIA has not only been running left-wing groups as fronts, but has been sponsoring more psychedelic research than he will ever know. "You are doing exploratory work the CIA tried to do in the 1950s. So they're more than happy to have you do their research for them. Since drug research is of vital importance to the intelligence agencies of this country, you'll be allowed to go on with your experiments as long as you keep it quiet," she advises.
Spring 1963: Leary again meets Mary Meyer at the Ritz. She says that her love affair has been exposed, although no publicity has resulted. "I don't trust the phones or the mail," she warns. He is to make no contact with her until further notice.
May-June 1963: Mary warns Leary, who is conducting a psychedelic summer camp in Mexico, that their "sessions" are "in jeopardy" because he is attracting "too much publicity."
September 1963: Mary drives up to see Leary, now conducting experiments at a large private estate in Milbrook, New York. She gives him, for his experiments, a bottle of "the best LSD in the world," from the National Institute of Mental Health. She takes countersurveillance precautions, and says: "We had eight intelligent women turning on the most powerful men in Washington. And then we got found out.... I made a mistake in recruitment. A wife snitched on us... I've gotten mixed up in some dangerous matters."
December 1, 1963: Around this time Mary calls Leary, who had been "expecting a phone call from [her]... ever since the Kennedy assassination." According to Leary, she says: "They couldn't control him anymore. He was changing too fast. They've covered everything up.... I'm afraid. Be careful."
October 12, 1964: Mary Meyer is shot to death, execution-style, at 12:45 p.m., on a park towpath by the Georgetown Canal in Washington, D.C. Her body is identified by Ben Bradlee, Cord Meyer's brother-in-law, editor of the Washington Post. CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton confiscates and later burns the diary in which Mary has recorded her liaisons with JFK. A black laborer with a wife and five children, 26-year old Raymond Crump, Jr., is arrested on suspicion of murdering Mary in a robbery attempt, but she had not been carrying a purse, and there is no credible eyewitness testimony placing Crump at the site. On July 20, 1965, a jury deliberates only eleven hours before acquitting him. The murder weapon is never found; the crime is never solved.
1965-66: FBI agents openly surveil Leary's drug experimentation compound at Milbrook. Leary, intimidated, considers relocating to Mexico. For jurisdictional reasons, the Bureau turns the case over to former FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy, now a county prosecutor, who later says: "The word was that at Leary's lair the panties were dropping as fast as the acid." Liddy leads a raid by sheriffs in March 1966. Leary is charged with possession of illegal drugs, but the case is dropped on technicalities after the Supreme Court's Miranda decision in June. This series of events imprints on Leary a deep distrust of the FBI and of "cops" generally.
January-August 1967: Ramparts, a radical magazine, exposes CIA sponsorship of the National Student Association, a Cord Meyer project. Meyer's best friend, James Angleton, assigns CIA officer Richard Ober to begin a leak investigation into the Ramparts story. Ober's probe is soon expanded into a spy program on the countercultural and student-protests movements, code named CHAOS.
September 1967: Just as CHAOS is launched, Leary moves from the isolation of upstate New York, where he has been philosophically contemplating the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and becomes a gregarious, media-hounding fixture of the Southern California countercultural scene, telling young people to "Tune in, Turn On, Drop Out."
1968: While other New-Left leaders preach violent overthrow of the U.S. Government and creation of a Marxist dictatorship, Leary urges instead a nonviolent, drug-oriented "hippie capitalism," an artsy-craftsy, decentralized, libertarian sort of entrepeneurship that will also soon find its expression in the culture of the Grateful Dead. While Leary's position does constitute a rejection of the corporate world, it also embraces private property and the profit motive. Because of this, the Marxist Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) denounces Leary and his noncommunist followers for "limiting the revolution." The Progressive Labor Party (PLP), a Maoist "Old Left" group, goes so far as to claim that Leary is a CIA agent. But the PLP is accusing everyone it disgarees with of being CIA.
1969: Leary critics will eventually point with suspicion to his close connections during this time to an international LSD-smuggling cartel, the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, which is rumored to be a CIA front. The Brotherhood is controlled by Ronald Stark, whom an Italian High Court will later conclude has been a CIA agent since 1960, and the Brotherhood's funds are channeled through Castle Bank in the Bahamas, a known CIA "proprietary." For two years Leary lives at Brotherhood headquarters, located on a ranch in Laguna Beach. During this period, the Brotherhood corners the U.S. market on LSD and begins distributing only one variety of the drug, "Orange Sunshine." Stark says he plans to distribute the product to CIA-backed guerillas fighting Chinese occupation; he reportedly knows a high-placed Tibetan close to the Dalai Lama, and wants to provide enough LSD to dose all Chinese troops in Tibet. In the U.S., meanwhile, Stark provides enough Orange Sunshine to dose the hippie culture and radical left many times over. This is the "bad acid" on which Charles Manson's followers murder Sharon Tate, and on which Hell's Angels stab to death a black man during a concert by the Rolling Stones. The Summer of Love has been supplanted by a Season of Hate. Because of this, many countercultural insiders -- including William S. Burroughs, White Panther leader John Sinclair, and Merry Prankster Ken Kesey -- will eventually entertain the theory that Stark, Leary, and Orange Sunshine are all part of CIA plot to discredit and neutralize the radical left. According to former radicals Martin Lee and Bruce Shalin, widespread use of Orange Sunshine "contributed significantly to the demise of the New Left, for it heightened the metabolism of the body politic and accelerated all the changes going on... In its hyped-up condition, the New Left burned itself out."
Fall 1969: According to declassified government documents, CIA now has a CHAOS agent with "particularly good entree into the highest levels of the domestic radical community," who is providing "extremely personal data." It is decided to send this agent to infiltrate the overseas headquarters of the Black Panthers, but this will not be accomplished for many months. In the meantime, CIA will debrief him for purely domestic information about his associates, in part because he does not "wish to deal with the FBI." This description perfectly fits Leary. No one has better "entree" than Leary, who has recently been helicoptered in as the guest of honor at Woodstock. Few have more "personal" data on radical figures than the man who is personally turning them on. The overall pattern of Leary's career, his continual links to people who are linked to CIA, is certainly suggestive. So is the fact that, like CIA's "star agent," his willingness to mix with CIA-types does not extend to the FBI, which Leary has disliked since Liddy's raid on Milbrook.
1970: In February, Leary is convicted of marijuana possession and jailed at Lompoc, California. This seems clear evidence that he is not, after all, a CIA asset or government informant. Yet CIA has at times employed agents or infomrants who are later prosecuted for activities unrelated to their government work. For instance, Johnny Rosselli, and other Mafiosi hired by CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro in the early 1960s, are eventually taken down by the FBI, though over CIA protest. If then, Leary is working for CIA, this may complicate, but ultimately not preclude, his prosecution for other "crimes." In any case, Leary is not exactly chained to the wall in a dark cellar. Lompoc is a minimum-security, white-collar "joint," the plushest in the United States, and Leary is still able to get acid. His movements, moreoover, soon keep him in a position to provide valuable intelligence to the U.S. government. On September 12, he is "liberated" from Lompoc by members of the Weather Underground, an SDS offshoot named after Bob Dylan's lyric, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." The Weathermen have launched a Marxist guerilla struggle in the United States, and Leary pledges his solidarity in a a "POW Statement." It reads, in part: "Listen Americans! Your government is an instrument of totally lethal evil. Resist actively, sabotage, jam the computer... hijack planes, trash every lethal machine in the land.... To shoot a genocidal robot policeman in the defense of life is a sacred act.... Total war is upon us.... WARNING: I am armed and should be considered dangerous!" This especially provocative and hyperbolic communique has two main effects. It re-establishes Leary's bona fides in the radical underground, and it turns American opinion farther against the New Left.
October 1970: According to Angleton's deputy, Scott Miler, CIA is at this time trying quite hard to the answer the question: "What was Eldridge Cleaver doing in Algeria?" As it happens, Leary now flies to Algiers and joins up with Black Panther Party leader Eldridge Cleaver. Leary's travels, and the operation to spring him from jail, have been financed by Stark and the Brotherhood.
October 21, 1970: A CIA memo records that its prized CHAOS source -- Leary? -- is now overseas.
November 1970 - May 1971: Cleaver grows suspicious of Leary, searches Leary's apartment "for documents proving that we [Leary and his wife] were CIA operatives," and imprisons him in the Panthers' Algerian compound as "white slaves." On February 12, 1971, a CIA document reports that "Eldridge Cleaver and his Algiers contingent have apparently become disenchanted with the antics of Tim Leary.... Electing to call their action protective custody, Cleaver and company, on their own authority, have put Tim and Rosemary under house arrest." Since Leary's condition is not publicly known, this report can only have come from penetration of Cleaver's entourage. Unless CIA has recruited black militants -- a sociologically unlikely scenario -- the information has most probably come from electronic surveillance on the Panther compound, or from secret communications by Leary or his wife.
May 1971: Leary and his wife escape to Switzerland with the assistance, according to Leary, of an "Algerian bureaucrat named Ali," who "made no bones about his connection to the CIA." "Are you sure you can trust him?" Leary's wife asks him. "He's liberal CIA," Leary says, "and that's the best mafia you can deal with in the twentieth century." The escape operation is financed by the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, though checks drawn on CIA's Castle Bank.
June 18-19, 1972: G. Gordon Liddy, now working for Republicans' Campaign to Re-Elect the President (CREEP), oversees a break-in of the Democratic National Committe at Watergate. The burglars are caught and Liddy is arrested. The next day, top CIA officials meet secretly to discuss the burglary, in which Liddy has used some ex-CIA agents working for ex-CIA officer Howard Hunt at the White House. CIA director Richard Helms orders his deputies to carry out a "damage control" strategy, to deflect suspicion away from the Agency and toward the President's Men. This is exactly what is accomplished by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's key "intelligence community" source in the case, Deep Throat, who begins providing tips to Woodward this very day, a few hours after CIA's damage control meeting. The coincidence of timing suggests that Throat is someone who is at the CIA conference and who has close connections to the Post. Cord Meyer, now #2 man in CIA's Operations Directorate, is at the meeting, and is still close with his in-law Bradlee, the Post's editor. He also fits perfectly the many clues Woodward later drops as to Throat's identity, including chain smoking, a knowledge of literature (Meyer was an award-winning fiction writer before joining CIA) and a battle-scarred face (Meyer had a glass eye).
1973-78: After two years of "jet-setting" in Switzerland, Leary returns to the U.S. By his own account, this has occured through the machinations of CIA; Leary says they have "kidnapped" him. He is convicted on drug charges, and begins doing hard time at Folsom Prison. This seems clear evidence, again, that suspicions about his ultimate loyalties are merely left-wing paranoia. But after a few months out of public view, Leary comes into the open as a government informant. Under the code-name CHARLIE THRUSH, he turns State's evidence against the Weather Underground. Freed from prison, he is taken into custody for fear that radical revolutionaries have marked him for execution. His former colleagues in the movement form a group calling itself People Investigating Leary's Lies (PILL). Abbie Hoffmann declares that "Timothy Leary is a name worse than Benedict Arnold." Allen Ginsburg says that Leary is "like Zabbath Zvi, false Messiah, accepted by millions of Jews centuries ago."
1978-93: After his last offical contacts with security agencies, in 1978, Leary distances himself both from the government and the "movement" that no longer really exists. Out in the cold, he becomes a sophist in the true sense, a wise-man for rent or hire. Early in the Reagan years he "debates" G. Gordon Liddy, the Watergate burglar who once busted him at Milbrook, on a nationwide tour. Former sixties radicals disgustedly describe the event as "bogus," and say it is proof that Leary is "in with the fuzz." At the very least, Leary seems to the Left a lightweight, a one-man Madison Avenue scam, a functional part of the Establishment he once swore to subvert. He hangs out at Helena's, the trendy restaurant in which Jack Nicholson has an interest, and he occasionally philosophizes for a fee at Carlos and Charlie's, a local restaurant that also headlines Joan Rivers. He defends his New Style by saying, quite earnestly: "If Aristotle were alive today, he'd have a talk show." He also publishes Flashbacks: An Autobiography, recounting obliquely his dealings with Cord and Mary Meyer and his work as a government informant, touching only in passing on CIA's funding of LSD resarch. In 1992 appears, as himself, in Roadside Prophets, a film starring Adam Horovitz. In 1993, he appears in an ad for the Gap. (Cf. "The Great Gap Conspiracy," by Hugh Gallagher, in the previous issue of Grand Royal.) He designs computer software and hails the coming of the Information Superhighway. Though lacking family wealth, or any gainful employment since 1962, he has nevertheless managed to become a rich man. He lives in Benedict Canyon, only a doors away from the house where Manson's followers, and Orange Sunshine, did their worst. From his yard he can survey the whole City of Light, and he likes the symbolism of that.
April 14, 1994: Leary, aged 73, visits Gainesville, Florida, where I live. He has come to present a multi-media lecture demonstration of electronic mind expansion, "How To Operate Your Brain." Three thousand people sit down to see him. He wears white Adidas, black polyester pants, and a psychedelic vest with a '93 Lollapalooza Guest Pass stuck on it. In his warm-up remarks, he describes looking out the window of his plane on the way in, and comments that "the clouds in Gainseville have been constructed by George Lucas." He complains that it's hard to buy marijuana anymore, and says that pot causes short-term memory loss, but also "long-term memory gain." He says he will be trying to "brainwash" the audience, "not to resist or fight authority, but to engage it in a dialogue to force progressive change." The lights go down, and some electronic funk comes on. Leary serves as narrator-guide while colors and words flicker and flash on a screen. He quotes Socrates and Ralph Waldo Emerson. People should think for themselves and question authority. Also, "Divinity resides within." After the lights come on, Leary opens the gig up for questions -- but only after warning us, "You're not supposed to believe anything I say." People start queueing up for questions at two microphones, and I'm about fifth in line at one of them. I'm planning to ask him about his rumored connections to CIA. Most of the "questions" before mine are pretty uncool. A lot are from NORML activists: "If you wanna come over to my place afterward..." Then some crazy-eyed man says, "The state of Florida is shaped like a gun, and Gainesveille is the trigger -- look at a map. Anyway, I'm a schizophrenic and I think I'm Jesus Christ. So Dr. Leary, am I Jesus Christ?" He is serious. Leary dispenses with him by saying, "Just don't get yourself crucified." Finally it's my turn. I step up to the mike. Leary looks at me, looks at his watch. "Sorry, no more time for questions." A fist-faced steroidal security guard gets between me and the mike. Leary disappears behind the curtain. As fans mill about afterward, I hear there's some kind of VIP reception for Leary in a side-room, guarded by more fat-necks in blue blazers. I scam my way in: My girlfriend is a professor at the Univeristy, and she talks to some guy who talks to some guy. The side room is one of those harshly lit holding tanks, like where a record company's PR girl puts you when she doesn't know you're "with the band." People nibble nervously on peanut-butter cookies until Leary enters. There's an initial crush forward, but then everyone sort of hestitates, afraid to get too close to "the man," unsure what to say. He sits down at the far side of the room. What the hell, I go for mine -- I sit down right next to him. He inscribes to me a copy of Flashbacks. I notice that his hands are weird in the way old people's hands are, with these corroding purple spots. He seems tired and distracted, so I try the standard espionage trick: Knock him with some facts to get his attention. "You know, my stepmother used to work for Cord Meyer." Which is true; she was for some years a secretary at CIA. Leary's reaction is physical: He jerks, as if jolted by some alternating current for which he has no adapter. His eyes are bright with memory. "Cord Meyer was a pretty intense guy," he says, smiling. I ask a couple other questions, tacking around. Then I put it to Leary like this. "You say in your book that a lot of the LSD experiments at Harvard and Berkeley were, like, paid for by CIA. So I was wondering -- I mean, what were your connections with the Agency?" Suddenly he seems tight and defensive, finds the adapter and plugs it in. "They never gave me a dime," he says. I look into his eyes, the way you do when you try to tell if someone is lying. I don't see deception, exactly; only pain. He doesn't say anything to me after this, so I awkwardly say goodbye and leave. Driving home, in the dark, I feel some journalistic guilt for having bothered this good-hearted sage, whose views on life are mostly right. Maybe he has actually told me the truth. The pain in his eyes was probably injured innocence, the kind I'd feel if I'd done a great life's work and some punk kid asked me, at the end of it, if I'd been funded all along by the KGB. On the other hand, if he did collaborate with CIA, he'd hardly be at liberty to say so, would he? Might he not also feel just a bit guilty; thus the pain? And if the Agency never gave him any money, how did they get the rights to use the personality test that bears his name? I come to a red light. Flashing in my mind is a subliminal message from Leary's "brainwashing" session: "Think for yourself -- question authority." And then I remember his warning to us, before the question & answer period: "You're not supposed to believe anything I say."
Copyright 1994 Osprey Productions/Grand Royal
Was Timothy Leary a CIA Agent?
Was JFK the "Manchurian Candidate"? Was the Sixties Revolution Really a Government Plot?
Tinker, Tailor, Stoner, Spy
by Mark Riebling
EXT. THE WHITE HOUSE - SUNSET Summer-bachelor Jack Kennedy stands on the Harry Truman balcony overlooking the rose-garden fountain, a soothing sight before him: prisms of lighted water shooting into darkness, the white spike of the Washington Monument, auto headlights flickering along Executive Avenue. He begins to feel a deep-seated goodness within, centered between his chest and throat. From the bedroom behind him, through white chiffon curtains in open french doors, float the chords of a Sinatra song -- "All I Need is the Girl." With strange clarity, JFK can suddenly make out every note....
Behind the curtains moves the shadow of a tall woman who is not his wife. She is deeply connected to CIA, and has just dispensed to the President of the United States a dose of LSD. In the next few hours she will be "brainwashing" him, and she will be doing so on the directions of a Harvard psychologist, Dr. Timothy Leary, whose colleagues are all taking CIA money, and who has himself designed a personality test used by CIA....
This, or something very much like this, actually happened. To understand how and why it happened requires cruising back a few years, digging through government documents, reading between the lines of Leary's autobiography, Flashbacks. It's a trip through the secret maze of the American pyschedelic underground, a journey that is its own destination, a mystery that must be solved by the reader's own detective work. What follows are the undisputed facts, the clues:
September 1942: The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), wartime precursor to CIA, begins searching for a drug that will force subjects of interrogation, such as captured Nazi U-boat crews, to reveal secrets. As project director Dr. Stanley Lovell will recall, the idea of a "truth drug" is "considered fantastic by the realists, unethical by the moralists, and downright ludicrous by the physicians." But according to OSS records, Lovell goes ahead and tests "mescaline, various barbiturates, scopolamine, benzedrine, cannabis indica (marijuana), etc." The best results are obtained with the marijuana: "A few minutes after administration, the subject gradually becomes relaxed, and experiences a sensation of well-being... thoughts flow with considerable freedom... conversation becomes animated and accelerated. Inhibitions fall away.... [the drug] makes manifest any strong characteristics of the individual.... Whatever the individual is trying to withhold will be forced to the top of his subconscious mind." To "administer" the pot without a subject's knowing it, OSS scientists dissolve marijuana leaves in acetone, then heat the result into a clear, odorless, viscous liquid -- tetrahydrocannabional acetate -- which can be "injected into any type of food, such as mashed potatoes, butter, salad dressing, or in such things as candy."
May 25, 1943: THC acetate is tested on an unknowing subject, Lower East Side mafioso August "Little Augie" Del Gaizo, who has been helping OSS smuggle agents into Nazi-held Sicily. Little Augie is considered an ideal subject because he has secrets he is "most anxious to conceal, the revelation of which might result in his imprisonment"; in fact, he prides himself on having never informed, and has even "been instrumental in killing some persons who have been informants." But after smoking two proffered cigarettes, laced with a total of .14 grams THC, Little Augie becomes "obviously 'high' and extremely garrulous" as he sits in the apartment of OSS officer George White, a former Treasury agent who had arrested him several times in the past. When White turns the subject to law enforcement, Little Augie "with no further encouragement" divulges the identities of city officials on the take; details of the criminal empire run by Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel; "and other information that subject would not give under ordinary circumstances. There is no question but that administration of the drug was responsible for loosening the subject's tongue." Henceforth, OSS refers to the THC acetate simply as "TD," a cryptonym for "Truth Drug."
1944: OSS uses "TD" in secret operations. Lovell reports that "Certain disclosures of the greatest value are in the possession of our military intelligence as a result of this treatment, which it is felt would otherwise not be known. Properly employed... it may be a national asset of incalculable importance." But OSS officials, fearing political backlash if use of the drug is revealed, shut the program down.
April-May 1945: Jack Kennedy, before entering politics, is working as a reporter for the Hearst newspaper chain. While covering the charter conference of the United Nations at San Francisco, he frequently sees an old flame from Choate, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and her husband, Cord Meyer, Jr., who is an assistant to the American delegation. A young Yale graduate and award-winning literary talent, Cord Meyer was badly wounded by a Japanese hand-grenade on Guam and has a glass eye; when he smokes cigarettes, the smoke slowly drifts up and into his open, nerveless, unblinking left eye, curling around the glass orb. The sight so disconcerts JFK that he finds himself rubbing his own left eye in a kind of sympathetic agony.
September 1946: Timothy Leary begins doctoral studies in psychology at Berkeley.
1947: Dr. Werner Stoll, a researcher at Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland, publishes the first scientific articles on LSD-25, an extract of rye mold, noting that it accelerates thinking and blunts suspicion in schizophrenics.
1947-48: As a graduate student in psychology, Leary attends the first two national conventions of the American Veterans Committee (AVC), a left-wing veterans group, as a California state delegation leader. At the second AVC convention, in Milwaukee, Leary meets Cord Meyer, who is then spearheading an anti-communist purge of the organization. Meyer lectures Leary about communism, and the importance of liberal resistance to it. Leary will later credit Meyer with "helping me understand my political-cultural role more clearly."
Late 1950: Cord Meyer joins CIA and begins working in its International Relations Division, of which he is soon put in charge. The express purpose of this division is to covertly finance, infiltrate, and encourage noncommunist liberal-left movements and institutions, such as labor unions, creative-academic societies, and student groups.
April 13, 1953: CIA launches Operation MK/ULTRA, a major drug and mind-control program. Although THC acetate is studied as an interrogation aid, CIA is more concerned about reports of communist brainwashing experiments on American POWs in Korea, and focuses on stronger, hallucinogenic drugs. "Aside from the offensive potential, the development of a comprehensive capability in this field... gives a thorough knowledge of the enemy's theoretical potential, thus enabling us to defend ourselves against a foe who might not be as restrained in the use of these techniques as we are." Some CIA employees, including perhaps Meyer, volunteer for experiments. Through a front organization called The Society For Human Ecology, CIA begins sponsoring $25 million in research into the effects of mind-altering drugs -- LSD, psilocybin and mescaline -- at Harvard University and at several cites in the San Francisco-Oakland area, including Stanford and Berkeley.
1954-59: Leary is director of clinical research and psychology at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Oakland. He devises a personality test, "The Leary," which is used by CIA to test prospective employees. He has also become a close friend to Frank Barron, a graduate school classmate who has ben working for CIA since at least 1953. Barron works at the Berkeley Institute for Personality Assessment and Research, which Leary will later acknowledge is "funded and staffed by OSS-CIA psychologists."
1960-61: Barron founds the Harvard Pyschedelic Drug Research Center. Leary follows Barron to Harvard and becomes a lecturer in psychology. After Barron administers to him some CIA-supplied psilocybin and LSD, Leary begins tripping regularly. He also studies the effects of psycheledics on others in controlled experiments. He later admits to knowing, at the time, that "some powerful people in Washington have sponsored all this drug research." In addition to Barron, Leary's associates and assistants during this period include former OSS chief pyschologist Harry Murray, who had montiored military experiments on Truth-Drug brainwashing and interrogation, and Martin Orne, a researcher receiving funds from CIA. Leary also consults British philosopher Aldous Huxley, author of the psychedelic manifesto, The Doors of Perception (from which Jim Morrision would later take name his band). Huxley, who is at Harvard on a visiting professorship, urges Leary to form a secret order of LSD-Illuminati, to launch and lead a psychedelic conspiracy to brainwash influential people for the purposes human betterment. "That's how everything of culture and beauty and philosophic freedom has been passed on," Huxley tells him. "Initiate artists, writers, poets, jazz musicians, elegant courtesans. And they'll educate the intelligent rich."
Spring 1962: Mary Meyer, recently divorced from her CIA husband, visits Leary at Harvard. She leans against the door post, hip tilted provocatively, studying him with green-blue eyes. Leary will later recall here as "amused, arrogant, aristocratic." She tells him she has a "friend who's a very important man, who wants to try LSD for himself." At the time, though Leary does not know this, Mary is having an affair with President Kennedy, which will include more than thirty visits to the White House (later confirmed by Presidential Secretary Kenneth O'Donnell). Mary tells Leary that the government is studying ways to "use drugs for warfare, for espionage, for brainwashing." She asks him to "teach us how to run [LSD] sessions, use drugs to do good." Leary agrees. He provides her with drug samples and "session" reports, and is in touch with her every few weeks, advising her on how to be a "brainwasher." She swears him to secrecy.
Late July, 1962: While the First Lady is away at the Kennedy summer home in Hyannisport, Mary calls on JFK at the White House. She records the visit in her diary, and later describes it to her close friend James Truitt of the Washington Post. She and the President of the United States smoke two joints of marijuana, reportedly prompting the leader of the free world to say, "This isn't at all like cocaine. I'll get you some of that." Once he is suitably "loosened up" -- Leary has emphasized the need to put subjects in a "benevolent state" before turning them on -- Mary dispenses to Jack a dose of LSD. As it starts to "kick in," he goes out and stands on Harry Truman's balcony overlooking the rose-garden fountain, a soothing sight before him....
Fall 1962: Leary meets Mary Meyer in a room at Boston's Ritz Hotel. She alludes to her "hush-hush love affair," and tells him that "top people in Washington are turning on." According to Leary's recounting, she also says: "Do you remember the American Veterans Committee, that liberal veterans group you belonged to after the war? The CIA started that." She explains to him that "CIA creates the radical journals and student organizations and runs them with deep-cover agents.... dissident organizations in academia are also controlled." When Leary asks her how she knows all this, she explains: "I knocked you with those facts to get your attention. It's a standard intelligence trick." She confides that CIA has not only been running left-wing groups as fronts, but has been sponsoring more psychedelic research than he will ever know. "You are doing exploratory work the CIA tried to do in the 1950s. So they're more than happy to have you do their research for them. Since drug research is of vital importance to the intelligence agencies of this country, you'll be allowed to go on with your experiments as long as you keep it quiet," she advises.
Spring 1963: Leary again meets Mary Meyer at the Ritz. She says that her love affair has been exposed, although no publicity has resulted. "I don't trust the phones or the mail," she warns. He is to make no contact with her until further notice.
May-June 1963: Mary warns Leary, who is conducting a psychedelic summer camp in Mexico, that their "sessions" are "in jeopardy" because he is attracting "too much publicity."
September 1963: Mary drives up to see Leary, now conducting experiments at a large private estate in Milbrook, New York. She gives him, for his experiments, a bottle of "the best LSD in the world," from the National Institute of Mental Health. She takes countersurveillance precautions, and says: "We had eight intelligent women turning on the most powerful men in Washington. And then we got found out.... I made a mistake in recruitment. A wife snitched on us... I've gotten mixed up in some dangerous matters."
December 1, 1963: Around this time Mary calls Leary, who had been "expecting a phone call from [her]... ever since the Kennedy assassination." According to Leary, she says: "They couldn't control him anymore. He was changing too fast. They've covered everything up.... I'm afraid. Be careful."
October 12, 1964: Mary Meyer is shot to death, execution-style, at 12:45 p.m., on a park towpath by the Georgetown Canal in Washington, D.C. Her body is identified by Ben Bradlee, Cord Meyer's brother-in-law, editor of the Washington Post. CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton confiscates and later burns the diary in which Mary has recorded her liaisons with JFK. A black laborer with a wife and five children, 26-year old Raymond Crump, Jr., is arrested on suspicion of murdering Mary in a robbery attempt, but she had not been carrying a purse, and there is no credible eyewitness testimony placing Crump at the site. On July 20, 1965, a jury deliberates only eleven hours before acquitting him. The murder weapon is never found; the crime is never solved.
1965-66: FBI agents openly surveil Leary's drug experimentation compound at Milbrook. Leary, intimidated, considers relocating to Mexico. For jurisdictional reasons, the Bureau turns the case over to former FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy, now a county prosecutor, who later says: "The word was that at Leary's lair the panties were dropping as fast as the acid." Liddy leads a raid by sheriffs in March 1966. Leary is charged with possession of illegal drugs, but the case is dropped on technicalities after the Supreme Court's Miranda decision in June. This series of events imprints on Leary a deep distrust of the FBI and of "cops" generally.
January-August 1967: Ramparts, a radical magazine, exposes CIA sponsorship of the National Student Association, a Cord Meyer project. Meyer's best friend, James Angleton, assigns CIA officer Richard Ober to begin a leak investigation into the Ramparts story. Ober's probe is soon expanded into a spy program on the countercultural and student-protests movements, code named CHAOS.
September 1967: Just as CHAOS is launched, Leary moves from the isolation of upstate New York, where he has been philosophically contemplating the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and becomes a gregarious, media-hounding fixture of the Southern California countercultural scene, telling young people to "Tune in, Turn On, Drop Out."
1968: While other New-Left leaders preach violent overthrow of the U.S. Government and creation of a Marxist dictatorship, Leary urges instead a nonviolent, drug-oriented "hippie capitalism," an artsy-craftsy, decentralized, libertarian sort of entrepeneurship that will also soon find its expression in the culture of the Grateful Dead. While Leary's position does constitute a rejection of the corporate world, it also embraces private property and the profit motive. Because of this, the Marxist Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) denounces Leary and his noncommunist followers for "limiting the revolution." The Progressive Labor Party (PLP), a Maoist "Old Left" group, goes so far as to claim that Leary is a CIA agent. But the PLP is accusing everyone it disgarees with of being CIA.
1969: Leary critics will eventually point with suspicion to his close connections during this time to an international LSD-smuggling cartel, the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, which is rumored to be a CIA front. The Brotherhood is controlled by Ronald Stark, whom an Italian High Court will later conclude has been a CIA agent since 1960, and the Brotherhood's funds are channeled through Castle Bank in the Bahamas, a known CIA "proprietary." For two years Leary lives at Brotherhood headquarters, located on a ranch in Laguna Beach. During this period, the Brotherhood corners the U.S. market on LSD and begins distributing only one variety of the drug, "Orange Sunshine." Stark says he plans to distribute the product to CIA-backed guerillas fighting Chinese occupation; he reportedly knows a high-placed Tibetan close to the Dalai Lama, and wants to provide enough LSD to dose all Chinese troops in Tibet. In the U.S., meanwhile, Stark provides enough Orange Sunshine to dose the hippie culture and radical left many times over. This is the "bad acid" on which Charles Manson's followers murder Sharon Tate, and on which Hell's Angels stab to death a black man during a concert by the Rolling Stones. The Summer of Love has been supplanted by a Season of Hate. Because of this, many countercultural insiders -- including William S. Burroughs, White Panther leader John Sinclair, and Merry Prankster Ken Kesey -- will eventually entertain the theory that Stark, Leary, and Orange Sunshine are all part of CIA plot to discredit and neutralize the radical left. According to former radicals Martin Lee and Bruce Shalin, widespread use of Orange Sunshine "contributed significantly to the demise of the New Left, for it heightened the metabolism of the body politic and accelerated all the changes going on... In its hyped-up condition, the New Left burned itself out."
Fall 1969: According to declassified government documents, CIA now has a CHAOS agent with "particularly good entree into the highest levels of the domestic radical community," who is providing "extremely personal data." It is decided to send this agent to infiltrate the overseas headquarters of the Black Panthers, but this will not be accomplished for many months. In the meantime, CIA will debrief him for purely domestic information about his associates, in part because he does not "wish to deal with the FBI." This description perfectly fits Leary. No one has better "entree" than Leary, who has recently been helicoptered in as the guest of honor at Woodstock. Few have more "personal" data on radical figures than the man who is personally turning them on. The overall pattern of Leary's career, his continual links to people who are linked to CIA, is certainly suggestive. So is the fact that, like CIA's "star agent," his willingness to mix with CIA-types does not extend to the FBI, which Leary has disliked since Liddy's raid on Milbrook.
1970: In February, Leary is convicted of marijuana possession and jailed at Lompoc, California. This seems clear evidence that he is not, after all, a CIA asset or government informant. Yet CIA has at times employed agents or infomrants who are later prosecuted for activities unrelated to their government work. For instance, Johnny Rosselli, and other Mafiosi hired by CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro in the early 1960s, are eventually taken down by the FBI, though over CIA protest. If then, Leary is working for CIA, this may complicate, but ultimately not preclude, his prosecution for other "crimes." In any case, Leary is not exactly chained to the wall in a dark cellar. Lompoc is a minimum-security, white-collar "joint," the plushest in the United States, and Leary is still able to get acid. His movements, moreoover, soon keep him in a position to provide valuable intelligence to the U.S. government. On September 12, he is "liberated" from Lompoc by members of the Weather Underground, an SDS offshoot named after Bob Dylan's lyric, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." The Weathermen have launched a Marxist guerilla struggle in the United States, and Leary pledges his solidarity in a a "POW Statement." It reads, in part: "Listen Americans! Your government is an instrument of totally lethal evil. Resist actively, sabotage, jam the computer... hijack planes, trash every lethal machine in the land.... To shoot a genocidal robot policeman in the defense of life is a sacred act.... Total war is upon us.... WARNING: I am armed and should be considered dangerous!" This especially provocative and hyperbolic communique has two main effects. It re-establishes Leary's bona fides in the radical underground, and it turns American opinion farther against the New Left.
October 1970: According to Angleton's deputy, Scott Miler, CIA is at this time trying quite hard to the answer the question: "What was Eldridge Cleaver doing in Algeria?" As it happens, Leary now flies to Algiers and joins up with Black Panther Party leader Eldridge Cleaver. Leary's travels, and the operation to spring him from jail, have been financed by Stark and the Brotherhood.
October 21, 1970: A CIA memo records that its prized CHAOS source -- Leary? -- is now overseas.
November 1970 - May 1971: Cleaver grows suspicious of Leary, searches Leary's apartment "for documents proving that we [Leary and his wife] were CIA operatives," and imprisons him in the Panthers' Algerian compound as "white slaves." On February 12, 1971, a CIA document reports that "Eldridge Cleaver and his Algiers contingent have apparently become disenchanted with the antics of Tim Leary.... Electing to call their action protective custody, Cleaver and company, on their own authority, have put Tim and Rosemary under house arrest." Since Leary's condition is not publicly known, this report can only have come from penetration of Cleaver's entourage. Unless CIA has recruited black militants -- a sociologically unlikely scenario -- the information has most probably come from electronic surveillance on the Panther compound, or from secret communications by Leary or his wife.
May 1971: Leary and his wife escape to Switzerland with the assistance, according to Leary, of an "Algerian bureaucrat named Ali," who "made no bones about his connection to the CIA." "Are you sure you can trust him?" Leary's wife asks him. "He's liberal CIA," Leary says, "and that's the best mafia you can deal with in the twentieth century." The escape operation is financed by the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, though checks drawn on CIA's Castle Bank.
June 18-19, 1972: G. Gordon Liddy, now working for Republicans' Campaign to Re-Elect the President (CREEP), oversees a break-in of the Democratic National Committe at Watergate. The burglars are caught and Liddy is arrested. The next day, top CIA officials meet secretly to discuss the burglary, in which Liddy has used some ex-CIA agents working for ex-CIA officer Howard Hunt at the White House. CIA director Richard Helms orders his deputies to carry out a "damage control" strategy, to deflect suspicion away from the Agency and toward the President's Men. This is exactly what is accomplished by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's key "intelligence community" source in the case, Deep Throat, who begins providing tips to Woodward this very day, a few hours after CIA's damage control meeting. The coincidence of timing suggests that Throat is someone who is at the CIA conference and who has close connections to the Post. Cord Meyer, now #2 man in CIA's Operations Directorate, is at the meeting, and is still close with his in-law Bradlee, the Post's editor. He also fits perfectly the many clues Woodward later drops as to Throat's identity, including chain smoking, a knowledge of literature (Meyer was an award-winning fiction writer before joining CIA) and a battle-scarred face (Meyer had a glass eye).
1973-78: After two years of "jet-setting" in Switzerland, Leary returns to the U.S. By his own account, this has occured through the machinations of CIA; Leary says they have "kidnapped" him. He is convicted on drug charges, and begins doing hard time at Folsom Prison. This seems clear evidence, again, that suspicions about his ultimate loyalties are merely left-wing paranoia. But after a few months out of public view, Leary comes into the open as a government informant. Under the code-name CHARLIE THRUSH, he turns State's evidence against the Weather Underground. Freed from prison, he is taken into custody for fear that radical revolutionaries have marked him for execution. His former colleagues in the movement form a group calling itself People Investigating Leary's Lies (PILL). Abbie Hoffmann declares that "Timothy Leary is a name worse than Benedict Arnold." Allen Ginsburg says that Leary is "like Zabbath Zvi, false Messiah, accepted by millions of Jews centuries ago."
1978-93: After his last offical contacts with security agencies, in 1978, Leary distances himself both from the government and the "movement" that no longer really exists. Out in the cold, he becomes a sophist in the true sense, a wise-man for rent or hire. Early in the Reagan years he "debates" G. Gordon Liddy, the Watergate burglar who once busted him at Milbrook, on a nationwide tour. Former sixties radicals disgustedly describe the event as "bogus," and say it is proof that Leary is "in with the fuzz." At the very least, Leary seems to the Left a lightweight, a one-man Madison Avenue scam, a functional part of the Establishment he once swore to subvert. He hangs out at Helena's, the trendy restaurant in which Jack Nicholson has an interest, and he occasionally philosophizes for a fee at Carlos and Charlie's, a local restaurant that also headlines Joan Rivers. He defends his New Style by saying, quite earnestly: "If Aristotle were alive today, he'd have a talk show." He also publishes Flashbacks: An Autobiography, recounting obliquely his dealings with Cord and Mary Meyer and his work as a government informant, touching only in passing on CIA's funding of LSD resarch. In 1992 appears, as himself, in Roadside Prophets, a film starring Adam Horovitz. In 1993, he appears in an ad for the Gap. (Cf. "The Great Gap Conspiracy," by Hugh Gallagher, in the previous issue of Grand Royal.) He designs computer software and hails the coming of the Information Superhighway. Though lacking family wealth, or any gainful employment since 1962, he has nevertheless managed to become a rich man. He lives in Benedict Canyon, only a doors away from the house where Manson's followers, and Orange Sunshine, did their worst. From his yard he can survey the whole City of Light, and he likes the symbolism of that.
April 14, 1994: Leary, aged 73, visits Gainesville, Florida, where I live. He has come to present a multi-media lecture demonstration of electronic mind expansion, "How To Operate Your Brain." Three thousand people sit down to see him. He wears white Adidas, black polyester pants, and a psychedelic vest with a '93 Lollapalooza Guest Pass stuck on it. In his warm-up remarks, he describes looking out the window of his plane on the way in, and comments that "the clouds in Gainseville have been constructed by George Lucas." He complains that it's hard to buy marijuana anymore, and says that pot causes short-term memory loss, but also "long-term memory gain." He says he will be trying to "brainwash" the audience, "not to resist or fight authority, but to engage it in a dialogue to force progressive change." The lights go down, and some electronic funk comes on. Leary serves as narrator-guide while colors and words flicker and flash on a screen. He quotes Socrates and Ralph Waldo Emerson. People should think for themselves and question authority. Also, "Divinity resides within." After the lights come on, Leary opens the gig up for questions -- but only after warning us, "You're not supposed to believe anything I say." People start queueing up for questions at two microphones, and I'm about fifth in line at one of them. I'm planning to ask him about his rumored connections to CIA. Most of the "questions" before mine are pretty uncool. A lot are from NORML activists: "If you wanna come over to my place afterward..." Then some crazy-eyed man says, "The state of Florida is shaped like a gun, and Gainesveille is the trigger -- look at a map. Anyway, I'm a schizophrenic and I think I'm Jesus Christ. So Dr. Leary, am I Jesus Christ?" He is serious. Leary dispenses with him by saying, "Just don't get yourself crucified." Finally it's my turn. I step up to the mike. Leary looks at me, looks at his watch. "Sorry, no more time for questions." A fist-faced steroidal security guard gets between me and the mike. Leary disappears behind the curtain. As fans mill about afterward, I hear there's some kind of VIP reception for Leary in a side-room, guarded by more fat-necks in blue blazers. I scam my way in: My girlfriend is a professor at the Univeristy, and she talks to some guy who talks to some guy. The side room is one of those harshly lit holding tanks, like where a record company's PR girl puts you when she doesn't know you're "with the band." People nibble nervously on peanut-butter cookies until Leary enters. There's an initial crush forward, but then everyone sort of hestitates, afraid to get too close to "the man," unsure what to say. He sits down at the far side of the room. What the hell, I go for mine -- I sit down right next to him. He inscribes to me a copy of Flashbacks. I notice that his hands are weird in the way old people's hands are, with these corroding purple spots. He seems tired and distracted, so I try the standard espionage trick: Knock him with some facts to get his attention. "You know, my stepmother used to work for Cord Meyer." Which is true; she was for some years a secretary at CIA. Leary's reaction is physical: He jerks, as if jolted by some alternating current for which he has no adapter. His eyes are bright with memory. "Cord Meyer was a pretty intense guy," he says, smiling. I ask a couple other questions, tacking around. Then I put it to Leary like this. "You say in your book that a lot of the LSD experiments at Harvard and Berkeley were, like, paid for by CIA. So I was wondering -- I mean, what were your connections with the Agency?" Suddenly he seems tight and defensive, finds the adapter and plugs it in. "They never gave me a dime," he says. I look into his eyes, the way you do when you try to tell if someone is lying. I don't see deception, exactly; only pain. He doesn't say anything to me after this, so I awkwardly say goodbye and leave. Driving home, in the dark, I feel some journalistic guilt for having bothered this good-hearted sage, whose views on life are mostly right. Maybe he has actually told me the truth. The pain in his eyes was probably injured innocence, the kind I'd feel if I'd done a great life's work and some punk kid asked me, at the end of it, if I'd been funded all along by the KGB. On the other hand, if he did collaborate with CIA, he'd hardly be at liberty to say so, would he? Might he not also feel just a bit guilty; thus the pain? And if the Agency never gave him any money, how did they get the rights to use the personality test that bears his name? I come to a red light. Flashing in my mind is a subliminal message from Leary's "brainwashing" session: "Think for yourself -- question authority." And then I remember his warning to us, before the question & answer period: "You're not supposed to believe anything I say."
Cagliostro
Cagliostro accused of serving the Jesuits as their spy.
Mata Hari
The infamous Mata Hari was not a magus but created a sexual persona as a sacred temple-dancer, an occult art. In her psychodrama, the priestess, gasping for breath, sinks down at the feet of the god, while her servant girls, amidst thunderous bravos, cover her with a golden sheet. Other dancers who dared to perform unclad were routinely arrested and sent to jail. But somehow Mata Hari, the spiritual Brahmin princess, remained above the law. The real-life German World War I spy, was a Thief. If a thief does actively pursue a military career, its for a specific purpose, such as recognissance or espionage. Obviously, Thieves do well in special government agency work and make great secret operatives.
Sufi master and musician Hazrat Inayat Khan played Indian music to accompany dancers such as Mata Hari and Ruth St. Denis in both America and Europe. ERTE, born Romain de Tirtoff, was known as a painter, sculptor, lithographer and set designer. He designed costumes for the legendary dancer Anna Pavlova and the performer spy Mata Hari. Margaretha Zelle MacLeod was not the name of a sensuous, priestess of le Danse Oriental. After long and careful thought the perfect name came to her! Overnight she expunged the desperate and confused young Dutch woman with the powerful and alluring Mata Hari. Her new name a Malaysian term which translated as "Eye of the Day," (referring to the sun).
"Mata Hari, The Eye of the Day, the Glorious Sun, the sacred Bayadere who until now only the priests and the gods can claim to have seen in the nude, was tall and slim and supple like the unrolled serpent which is hypnotized by the snake charmer's flute. Her flexible body at times becomes one with the undulating flames, to stiffen suddenly in the middle of her contortions, like the flaming blade of the kriss. "Then, with a brutal gesture, Mata Hari rips off her jewels, tears her veils. She throws away the ornaments that cover her breasts. And, naked, her body seems to lengthen way up into theshadows! Her outstretched arms lift her on to the very tip of her toes; she staggers, beats the empty air with her arms, whips the imperturbable night with her long heavy hair . . . and falls to the ground."
As she confided to her friend, the artist Piet van der Hem, " I never could dance well. People came to see me because I was the first who dared to show myself naked to the public." The dramatic movements and gestures of her "sacred dance" were the products of her fruitful imagination. In fact, all things considered, Mata Hari was much more an imaginary being than she was a real woman. If August 1, 1914 had turned out different, this woman would've been just another exotic entertainer; and not remembered as a bad spy who nonetheless inspired the contemporary character of "the femme fatale." Her real name was Margaretha Geertrulda "Grietje" Zelle but she danced (and not that well) under the Oriental moniker of "Mata Hari."
When they arrested her in February 13, 1917, France was at a low point in the war. Morale was down - - and there was hunger for a scapegoat. Why was France loosing the war? Because the lust-filled and immoral Mata Hari was worming secrets from trusting French officers and passing those secrets on to her Hun lovers. The newspapers announced, "Mata Hari, A Spy!" and the war-crazed populous was ready to accept it as gospel. Her trial was biased, inaccurate, and flawed from the onset. Those who had originally invented the concept of Mata Hari the spy (as an excuse to act as paid voyeurs on the trail of a beautiful and fascinating woman) were now also forced to invent substantiating evidence (for example, Mata Hari's attendance at spy school) to protect themselves. The dirty little snowball had become an avalanche. The sensational trial sold countless newspapers and magazines as those who had once applauded her, now practically blamed her for the world war. Caught in a dark riptide of history, Margaretha Zelle, in reality guilty of nothing more than having an active imagination and the energy to make her wildest dreams come true, was condemned as an international spy and sentenced to death.
Nobody tried to defend her nobody wanted to risk a thing for her. These gentlemen who fell at her feet like rotten fruit, who revealed all the most secret documents to her eyes, who did not hesitate to ruin family and fatherland in order to possess her, these gentle men were afraid to try anything for her. And so they let a squad of common soldiers kill her like a rabid dog in a damp courtyard, by discharging red-hot lead into her divine body. Phew! A spy!
Eternal Returning – an assumption known already to antiquity about exact recurrences of all real including each of us through very big time intervals (The Cosmic Year). Thus, eternal life of any man (as well as any other creation) is possible not as a kind of other way of his being (reincarnations or any forms of beyond the grave existence), and only as Eternal Returning to the same life, to the same destiny. Necessary conditions of Eternal Returning are absolute determinism and limited number of possible states in the Eon. It means, that the concept of a continuity is incorrect and that our Universe-Eon is final and discrete, i.e. is limited both from above, and from below. The hypothesis of Eternal Returning is completely materialistic, incompatible with presence of the god interfering in our destinies and is opposed to any belief in independent existence of human souls. Besides this hypothesis of the Big Cycle allows to ask about its beginning and the end that, in particular, provokes the occurrence of materialistic eschatology. The belief in Eternal Returning of our temporal being learns us to not be afraid of the death and is the materialistic version of a general comforting belief in our Eternal Life. It deprives religious idea of a sin and punishment and therefore is deeply democratic. Here there is no justice, every sinner and just are equally necessary and therefore will return again inevitable. Materialistic Absolute is not the judge to its own creations and does not see distinction between worth and worthless, moral and immoral. «Shake off that dream of personality, and you will see that good and evil are identical in the Absolute» [see]. Idea of Eternal Returning is great idea, Nietzsche spoke about it only whisper not without reason. In 1917 on a verdict of the French military court it has been executed Mata Hari. Speak that before death she has smiled to soldiers aimming at her, has sent them an air kiss and has told: «Farewell, gentlmen! I am sorry to trouble you every time. Up to a new meeting in the future life». If it so, then she knew about Eternal Returning more any of us and therefore we can speak leaving this world not «farewell» but «good-bye, up to a next meeting in the new Eon». The death as final disappearance does not exist. Our death as well as our life is the temporary and repeated phenomenon.
Cheiro, the grandfather of palmistry had a wide following of famous European and American clients like Mark Twain, Sarah Bernhardt, Mata Hari, Oscar Wilde, Grover Cleveland, Thomas Edison, the Prince of Wales, General Kitchener, William Gladstone, and Joseph Chamberlain. He spent his final years in Hollywood, seeing as many as 20 clients a day and doing some screenwriting before his death in 1936".
Sufi master and musician Hazrat Inayat Khan played Indian music to accompany dancers such as Mata Hari and Ruth St. Denis in both America and Europe. ERTE, born Romain de Tirtoff, was known as a painter, sculptor, lithographer and set designer. He designed costumes for the legendary dancer Anna Pavlova and the performer spy Mata Hari. Margaretha Zelle MacLeod was not the name of a sensuous, priestess of le Danse Oriental. After long and careful thought the perfect name came to her! Overnight she expunged the desperate and confused young Dutch woman with the powerful and alluring Mata Hari. Her new name a Malaysian term which translated as "Eye of the Day," (referring to the sun).
"Mata Hari, The Eye of the Day, the Glorious Sun, the sacred Bayadere who until now only the priests and the gods can claim to have seen in the nude, was tall and slim and supple like the unrolled serpent which is hypnotized by the snake charmer's flute. Her flexible body at times becomes one with the undulating flames, to stiffen suddenly in the middle of her contortions, like the flaming blade of the kriss. "Then, with a brutal gesture, Mata Hari rips off her jewels, tears her veils. She throws away the ornaments that cover her breasts. And, naked, her body seems to lengthen way up into theshadows! Her outstretched arms lift her on to the very tip of her toes; she staggers, beats the empty air with her arms, whips the imperturbable night with her long heavy hair . . . and falls to the ground."
As she confided to her friend, the artist Piet van der Hem, " I never could dance well. People came to see me because I was the first who dared to show myself naked to the public." The dramatic movements and gestures of her "sacred dance" were the products of her fruitful imagination. In fact, all things considered, Mata Hari was much more an imaginary being than she was a real woman. If August 1, 1914 had turned out different, this woman would've been just another exotic entertainer; and not remembered as a bad spy who nonetheless inspired the contemporary character of "the femme fatale." Her real name was Margaretha Geertrulda "Grietje" Zelle but she danced (and not that well) under the Oriental moniker of "Mata Hari."
When they arrested her in February 13, 1917, France was at a low point in the war. Morale was down - - and there was hunger for a scapegoat. Why was France loosing the war? Because the lust-filled and immoral Mata Hari was worming secrets from trusting French officers and passing those secrets on to her Hun lovers. The newspapers announced, "Mata Hari, A Spy!" and the war-crazed populous was ready to accept it as gospel. Her trial was biased, inaccurate, and flawed from the onset. Those who had originally invented the concept of Mata Hari the spy (as an excuse to act as paid voyeurs on the trail of a beautiful and fascinating woman) were now also forced to invent substantiating evidence (for example, Mata Hari's attendance at spy school) to protect themselves. The dirty little snowball had become an avalanche. The sensational trial sold countless newspapers and magazines as those who had once applauded her, now practically blamed her for the world war. Caught in a dark riptide of history, Margaretha Zelle, in reality guilty of nothing more than having an active imagination and the energy to make her wildest dreams come true, was condemned as an international spy and sentenced to death.
Nobody tried to defend her nobody wanted to risk a thing for her. These gentlemen who fell at her feet like rotten fruit, who revealed all the most secret documents to her eyes, who did not hesitate to ruin family and fatherland in order to possess her, these gentle men were afraid to try anything for her. And so they let a squad of common soldiers kill her like a rabid dog in a damp courtyard, by discharging red-hot lead into her divine body. Phew! A spy!
Eternal Returning – an assumption known already to antiquity about exact recurrences of all real including each of us through very big time intervals (The Cosmic Year). Thus, eternal life of any man (as well as any other creation) is possible not as a kind of other way of his being (reincarnations or any forms of beyond the grave existence), and only as Eternal Returning to the same life, to the same destiny. Necessary conditions of Eternal Returning are absolute determinism and limited number of possible states in the Eon. It means, that the concept of a continuity is incorrect and that our Universe-Eon is final and discrete, i.e. is limited both from above, and from below. The hypothesis of Eternal Returning is completely materialistic, incompatible with presence of the god interfering in our destinies and is opposed to any belief in independent existence of human souls. Besides this hypothesis of the Big Cycle allows to ask about its beginning and the end that, in particular, provokes the occurrence of materialistic eschatology. The belief in Eternal Returning of our temporal being learns us to not be afraid of the death and is the materialistic version of a general comforting belief in our Eternal Life. It deprives religious idea of a sin and punishment and therefore is deeply democratic. Here there is no justice, every sinner and just are equally necessary and therefore will return again inevitable. Materialistic Absolute is not the judge to its own creations and does not see distinction between worth and worthless, moral and immoral. «Shake off that dream of personality, and you will see that good and evil are identical in the Absolute» [see]. Idea of Eternal Returning is great idea, Nietzsche spoke about it only whisper not without reason. In 1917 on a verdict of the French military court it has been executed Mata Hari. Speak that before death she has smiled to soldiers aimming at her, has sent them an air kiss and has told: «Farewell, gentlmen! I am sorry to trouble you every time. Up to a new meeting in the future life». If it so, then she knew about Eternal Returning more any of us and therefore we can speak leaving this world not «farewell» but «good-bye, up to a next meeting in the new Eon». The death as final disappearance does not exist. Our death as well as our life is the temporary and repeated phenomenon.
Cheiro, the grandfather of palmistry had a wide following of famous European and American clients like Mark Twain, Sarah Bernhardt, Mata Hari, Oscar Wilde, Grover Cleveland, Thomas Edison, the Prince of Wales, General Kitchener, William Gladstone, and Joseph Chamberlain. He spent his final years in Hollywood, seeing as many as 20 clients a day and doing some screenwriting before his death in 1936".
Nicholas Roerich
FDR sent Nicholas Roerich, a feisty Russian painter and guru who was either a prophet or a spy, to Mongolia in 1934 in search of what Christians think of as the Holy Grail! Roerich’s destination was the mystical kingdom of Shambhala , from whose center, Meru, great teachings and teachers had been sent to bring a higher state of consciousness to humanity. Letters written to him during the course of the expedition by FDR’s Secretary of Agriculture, Henry A. Wallace, the third note in this trio of wise men and a Roerich disciple, indicate this trio well knew the true Grail is more than a simple carpenter’s cup.
Wallace referred to the Grail as a Stone. Called the Stone from Heaven, the Grail connects with the Philosopher’s Stone, the alchemist’s stone of transformation that exists at the meeting point of the Divine and human . In actuality, the Grail has four aspects. It is a Stone/Sword/Rod/Cup of Destiny. Esoterically speaking, the Grail is an all-purpose spiritual technology for transmuting the four elements, earth, air, fire and water, which its four aspects symbolize. The recovery of the sacred Grail science could produce miracles, something America badly needed.
Roerich brought key knowledge to this mission. In the 1920s it is rumored that he went on a mission to find and return what was said to be part of the sacred ‘Chintamani Stone’, the stone of Shambhala, which was believed to be part of a magical meteorite from the constellation of Orion. Roerich said this ‘black stone’ appeared at vital moments in human history as an evolutionary force. It is claimed he returned this stone to the King’s Tower at the center of Shambhala, which to Roerich and others is a gateway to another dimension. It seems that FDR sent him back ‘through the gate’ of Shambhala in 1934 to recover this Stone once again.
The Roerichs traveled to the most remote and dangerous regions of India, China, Mongolia, the Gobi, Tibet and Siberia. We bear witness as the couple flees the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 Russia and as they arrive in New York City in the fall of 1920 where they later founded the first school that teaches all of the arts under one roof. There were trials and tribulations as the Roerichs trekked through the following years, which were marked by spy charges, political upheaval and even captivity. Though the courageous couple reached the border of Tibet by 1927 in their search of the sacred Buddhist site, Shambhala, which was to complete their mission of peace by establishing a true “heaven on Earth,” their journey was again met with conflict.
On March 6, 1925, the Roerich Expedition led by painter, occultist, alleged spy, Shambhalist, and all-around intriguer Nicholas Roerich left Darjeeling, India on what would be a three-year journey through Central Asia and Tibet, with stops in Kashmir in India, Xinjiang Province in China, the Russian Altai Mountains in Siberia, Ulaan Baatar and Amarbuyant Khiid in Mongolia, the Tibetan Plateau, and numerous places in between.
Russian philosopher, Nicholas Roerich claimed he was looking for inspiration for his paintings, and his son George, Harvard-educated and world-class Tibetan translator (see Blue Annals), was supposedly engaged in various ethnological and linguistical researches. From the three books churned out by Nicholas Roerich about the expedition it is pretty clear however that they were actually looking for Shambhala.
In the early 1930s Roerich was at the pinnacle of worldly fame as painter and poet, Asiatic explorer, archeologist and mystic philosopher. In 1934, Admirer Henry Wallace, then Secretary of Agriculture, sent Roerich and his son George, an Orientalist, to the Gobi Desert, to collect drought-resisting grasses for the U.S. dust bowl. As the serene man who was used to being called "Master" moved through Asia, disturbing echoes reached the U.S. In Manchukuo the Japanese thought he was a Russian agent. The Russians thought he was a Japanese spy. The Chinese thought he was a U.S. spy. The British had denied him a visa into troubled India in 1930, on the grounds that he was a Russian sympathizer.*
The plan to establish a New Russia in the Altai had apparently leaked out, and the Chinese suspected the Roerichs of spying for Japan, while the Japanese, who had imperial ambitions in Inner Mongolia, suspected the Roerichs of spying for Red Russia. Communist Russia equally suspected Nicholas and George of espionage for the White Russians, with whom the little family had close ties. The White Russians, traditionally Christian, were equally antagonized by the Roerichs’ support for Buddhism and Indian religion in general. Meanwhile Britain, still ruling India, became outraged at the Roerichs’ open support for Indian independence and suspected they were spying for the Indian nationalists, Jawaharlal Nehru and his young daughter Indira Ghandi. At last America, hugely embarrassed by its protégées’ growing reputation as international spies, severed all ties with them. “All connections of the Roerichs with the Department [of Agriculture] have been terminated,” Wallace announced, “and the Department has no intention of reemploying them.” By letter he forbad Nicholas and Helena ever to communicate with himself or the President again. Wherever the family turned, doors shut against them. They were never again to be permitted entrance to America.
Wallace referred to the Grail as a Stone. Called the Stone from Heaven, the Grail connects with the Philosopher’s Stone, the alchemist’s stone of transformation that exists at the meeting point of the Divine and human . In actuality, the Grail has four aspects. It is a Stone/Sword/Rod/Cup of Destiny. Esoterically speaking, the Grail is an all-purpose spiritual technology for transmuting the four elements, earth, air, fire and water, which its four aspects symbolize. The recovery of the sacred Grail science could produce miracles, something America badly needed.
Roerich brought key knowledge to this mission. In the 1920s it is rumored that he went on a mission to find and return what was said to be part of the sacred ‘Chintamani Stone’, the stone of Shambhala, which was believed to be part of a magical meteorite from the constellation of Orion. Roerich said this ‘black stone’ appeared at vital moments in human history as an evolutionary force. It is claimed he returned this stone to the King’s Tower at the center of Shambhala, which to Roerich and others is a gateway to another dimension. It seems that FDR sent him back ‘through the gate’ of Shambhala in 1934 to recover this Stone once again.
The Roerichs traveled to the most remote and dangerous regions of India, China, Mongolia, the Gobi, Tibet and Siberia. We bear witness as the couple flees the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 Russia and as they arrive in New York City in the fall of 1920 where they later founded the first school that teaches all of the arts under one roof. There were trials and tribulations as the Roerichs trekked through the following years, which were marked by spy charges, political upheaval and even captivity. Though the courageous couple reached the border of Tibet by 1927 in their search of the sacred Buddhist site, Shambhala, which was to complete their mission of peace by establishing a true “heaven on Earth,” their journey was again met with conflict.
On March 6, 1925, the Roerich Expedition led by painter, occultist, alleged spy, Shambhalist, and all-around intriguer Nicholas Roerich left Darjeeling, India on what would be a three-year journey through Central Asia and Tibet, with stops in Kashmir in India, Xinjiang Province in China, the Russian Altai Mountains in Siberia, Ulaan Baatar and Amarbuyant Khiid in Mongolia, the Tibetan Plateau, and numerous places in between.
Russian philosopher, Nicholas Roerich claimed he was looking for inspiration for his paintings, and his son George, Harvard-educated and world-class Tibetan translator (see Blue Annals), was supposedly engaged in various ethnological and linguistical researches. From the three books churned out by Nicholas Roerich about the expedition it is pretty clear however that they were actually looking for Shambhala.
In the early 1930s Roerich was at the pinnacle of worldly fame as painter and poet, Asiatic explorer, archeologist and mystic philosopher. In 1934, Admirer Henry Wallace, then Secretary of Agriculture, sent Roerich and his son George, an Orientalist, to the Gobi Desert, to collect drought-resisting grasses for the U.S. dust bowl. As the serene man who was used to being called "Master" moved through Asia, disturbing echoes reached the U.S. In Manchukuo the Japanese thought he was a Russian agent. The Russians thought he was a Japanese spy. The Chinese thought he was a U.S. spy. The British had denied him a visa into troubled India in 1930, on the grounds that he was a Russian sympathizer.*
The plan to establish a New Russia in the Altai had apparently leaked out, and the Chinese suspected the Roerichs of spying for Japan, while the Japanese, who had imperial ambitions in Inner Mongolia, suspected the Roerichs of spying for Red Russia. Communist Russia equally suspected Nicholas and George of espionage for the White Russians, with whom the little family had close ties. The White Russians, traditionally Christian, were equally antagonized by the Roerichs’ support for Buddhism and Indian religion in general. Meanwhile Britain, still ruling India, became outraged at the Roerichs’ open support for Indian independence and suspected they were spying for the Indian nationalists, Jawaharlal Nehru and his young daughter Indira Ghandi. At last America, hugely embarrassed by its protégées’ growing reputation as international spies, severed all ties with them. “All connections of the Roerichs with the Department [of Agriculture] have been terminated,” Wallace announced, “and the Department has no intention of reemploying them.” By letter he forbad Nicholas and Helena ever to communicate with himself or the President again. Wherever the family turned, doors shut against them. They were never again to be permitted entrance to America.
Dion Fortune
The Magical Battle of Britain - How England's occult army foiled Hitler's invasion plans
On the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, we ask whether magic played a part in the legendary victory. Did Dion Fortune's magical 'call-up' help defeat the Powers of Darkness, could a coven of witches have erected an invisible barrier against invasion, and was it really one of Aleister Crowley's rituals that brought Rudolph Hess to Britain?
Also in this issue we marvel at the flying cars of the Gods, investigate near-death experiences, gaze into the future with precognitive dreamers, fear for Japan's lost elders, and giggle at a hen that walks like a penguin.
On the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, we ask whether magic played a part in the legendary victory. Did Dion Fortune's magical 'call-up' help defeat the Powers of Darkness, could a coven of witches have erected an invisible barrier against invasion, and was it really one of Aleister Crowley's rituals that brought Rudolph Hess to Britain?
Also in this issue we marvel at the flying cars of the Gods, investigate near-death experiences, gaze into the future with precognitive dreamers, fear for Japan's lost elders, and giggle at a hen that walks like a penguin.
Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Hess & the British Occult Connection
During World War II British Intelligence invited many occultists into its ranks because it needed their specialist knowledge and skills. The assistant director of Naval Intelligence during the war was Lt. Commander Ian Fleming RN, best known later as a thriller writer and the creator of the famous fictional spy James Bond 007. Fleming was also interested in astrology and numerology and he was a friend of the notorious magician Aleister Crowley, who had worked for MI6 (the Secret Intelligence Service) during World War I and in the 1920s and 1930s spying on Germans with occult interests (see ‘The Magus Was A Spy’ by Dr Richard Spence in New Dawn No. 105, November-December 2007).
Ian Fleming conceived an audacious plan to lure a high-ranking member of the German government into defecting to Britain so as to provide a morale-boosting propaganda coup. This idea had been inspired by a novel written by Fleming’s brother, Peter, called Flying Visit (Jonathan Cape 1940). Peter Fleming was a journalist and also worked for both MI5 (the Security Service) and the propaganda section of the clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE). The novel imagined that Hitler’s plane crash-landed in England and he was captured. The Reichminister and deputy fuehrer himself, Rudolf Hess, was chosen as a suitable candidate for the actual plot. This was because he was a supporter of peace with Britain and was also under the influence of astrologers and occultists. It was believed this could be used against him.
Commander Fleming recreated The Link, a defunct Anglo-German friendship society of the 1930s that had a wealthy membership of Nazi sympathisers drawn from the British Establishment. Ironically, or perhaps coincidentally, The Link had been founded by Admiral Sir Barry Domville, an ex-director of the Naval Intelligence Department (NID), after he retired in 1930. Domville was arrested and interned in May 1940 because MI5 believed he was plotting a fascist coup d’etat supported by aristocratic peacemongers. The admiral was a friend of Major-General J.F.C. ‘Boney’ Fuller CBE, a famous military analyst who designed the tactics for the first tank battle in World War I. Fuller also invented the concept of blitzkrieg used so successfully in World War II by the German Panzers. Fuller was an open admirer of Hitler (he attended the fuehrer’s 50th birthday party in 1939), a leading member of Sir Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF), a friend of Ian Fleming and a leading disciple of Aleister Crowley. In the 1930s Fuller formed the extreme-right wing Nordic League (aka the White Knights of Britain), allegedly established by Nazi agents. However in the 1950s he was a member of a MI6 supported group of Russian émigrés engaged in anti-communist propaganda. It has been suggested that Fuller was not interned during the war with other leading fascists such as Mosley and Domville because he was a MI6 double-agent.
Ian Fleming’s idea was to persuade the German High Command in Berlin, and especially Rudolf Hess, that when war broke out The Link had not disbanded but had gone underground. It had allegedly regrouped and recruited even more prominent pro-Nazi members in the British Establishment including aristocrats and royalty. These were represented by the NID as influential people with the political muscle to overthrow prime minister Winston Churchill’s national wartime government, call a ceasefire and agree to a peace treaty with Germany. Under its terms Britain would keep control of its Empire and Germany would have free reign in occupied Europe. The Nazis also hoped that British troops would be sent to fight alongside the German Wehrmacht and the SS against the Soviet Union in a joint anti-communist crusade.
Hitler did not want to invade and occupy Britain. Instead he would have preferred to negotiate a treaty with a sympathetic new government in London. It has been suggested that the only reason the fuehrer abandoned Operation Sea Lion – the proposed invasion of Southern England – and instead invaded the Soviet Union was to force Churchill to accept peace terms. If the Red Army had been defeated Britain would truly have been standing alone, as Hitler did not believe the Americans had the political will to enter the war. Unfortunately he underestimated the ability and resolve of the Soviets to defend their motherland and also the clandestine support that the US was already offering Great Britain.
The NID plot to ensnare Rudolf Hess used bogus astrological predictions combined with political intelligence. Hess was persuaded that a Scottish aristocrat, the Duke of Hamilton, was willing to negotiate peace terms on behalf of the influential people at the top of British society who wanted to end the war. The duke had met Hess at the Berlin Olympics in 1936 and the deputy fuehrer for some reason thought he was a member of the surviving Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Ian Fleming commissioned an astrologer to produce a faked astrological forecast indicating that 10 May 1941 would be a propitious date for Rudolf Hess to fly to Scotland and meet secretly with the Duke of Hamilton and other members of the so-called British ‘peace party’. Hess’ occult advisors had also told him there would be an unusual planetary conjunction on 10 May. On that day six planets would be aligned in the zodiac sign of Taurus and conjoined to the full moon. At the same time Hitler’s chart showed ‘malefic’ astrological aspects. Hess saw himself in the role of a messianic hero saving Germany from possible future defeat by making peace with the British. All the (false) reports reaching the deputy fuehrer about the political situation in England and the astrological aspects convinced him that his mission would be a success.
Rudolf Hess flew to Scotland on 10 May 1941 in the firm belief that on landing he would be met by the Duke of Hamilton and the Duke of Kent and whisked off to London for a private audience with King George VI. He had been convinced by the misinformation fed to him by British Intelligence that these three men represented a genuine peace movement capable of removing the warmonger Churchill and agreeing to German terms. Hess had also previously met the Duke of Windsor when he had visited Berlin before the war. As a result Hess was persuaded that some members of the German-descended royal family were sympathetic to Nazism. Certainly the Duke of Saxo-Coburg, formerly Prince Charles Edward, a grandson of Queen Victoria and a close friend of the Duke of Windsor, had willingly embraced Nazism. In fact Hitler had appointed him as the head of the German branch of the Red Cross that was responsible for exterminating the mentally sick and physically disabled.
Unfortunately instead of meeting pro-Nazi aristocrats and royals when he landed, Hess was captured by a local farmer and a Home Guard unit. They handed him over to the police and he was transferred to London to be interrogated by MI5. Unfortunately the British government completely mishandled the capture of Hess. It has been suggested that Churchill believed the subterfuge by the NID and SIS suggesting leading members of the British Establishment might be pro-German may have been based on fact. For that reason the government did not capitalise on Hess’ ‘peace mission’. The German High Command had also disowned him and said that his flight had been unauthorised. They also suggested that Hess might be insane so his value for propaganda purposes was undermined and diminished.
Rudolf Hess’ apparent defection caused widespread panic in Berlin concerning the influence of occultism on the Nazi Party. The Gestapo immediately launched Operation Aktion Hess. On the direct orders of Hitler, they rounded up hundreds of occultists, psychics and astrologers, including Hess’s leading occult advisor Ernst Schulte-Strathaus. In June 1941 a decree was issued banning all public performances of clairvoyance, astrology, fortune-telling or telepathy. Anybody associated with Hess and his esoteric interests was thrown into concentration camps and occult secret societies were closed down. Because of staff shortages in the Gestapo, officers from the Naval Intelligence Service were drafted in to interrogate some of the arrested psychics. It has been claimed that they recruited some of them for secret operations using dowsing on maps with pendulums to hunt down British submarines.
It has also been claimed that Ian Fleming and the NID was involved in a plot to silence the Spiritualist medium Helen Duncan, the penultimate person to be charged under the old Witchcraft Act of 1736. She was arrested in 1944 after holding a séance during which allegedly the spirit of a dead sailor from the sinking of the HMS Bolham physically manifested. As the news of the loss had not been publicly released, and the Admiralty was keeping it secret for morale purposes, Duncan became a target for the security services. She and other psychics were regarded as a serious threat to national security and they became the object of a MI5/NID dirty tricks operation to silence leaks. This suggests that the Intelligence Services actually believed these mediums had genuine powers. Duncan’s arrest and subsequent trial, which in fact was condemned by Winston Churchill as a waste of public funds, was allegedly meant to deter other mediums. The War Office was paranoid that military secrets about the forthcoming D-Day landings in Normandy would be revealed at séances and become public knowledge or passed to the Germans.
During World War II British Intelligence invited many occultists into its ranks because it needed their specialist knowledge and skills. The assistant director of Naval Intelligence during the war was Lt. Commander Ian Fleming RN, best known later as a thriller writer and the creator of the famous fictional spy James Bond 007. Fleming was also interested in astrology and numerology and he was a friend of the notorious magician Aleister Crowley, who had worked for MI6 (the Secret Intelligence Service) during World War I and in the 1920s and 1930s spying on Germans with occult interests (see ‘The Magus Was A Spy’ by Dr Richard Spence in New Dawn No. 105, November-December 2007).
Ian Fleming conceived an audacious plan to lure a high-ranking member of the German government into defecting to Britain so as to provide a morale-boosting propaganda coup. This idea had been inspired by a novel written by Fleming’s brother, Peter, called Flying Visit (Jonathan Cape 1940). Peter Fleming was a journalist and also worked for both MI5 (the Security Service) and the propaganda section of the clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE). The novel imagined that Hitler’s plane crash-landed in England and he was captured. The Reichminister and deputy fuehrer himself, Rudolf Hess, was chosen as a suitable candidate for the actual plot. This was because he was a supporter of peace with Britain and was also under the influence of astrologers and occultists. It was believed this could be used against him.
Commander Fleming recreated The Link, a defunct Anglo-German friendship society of the 1930s that had a wealthy membership of Nazi sympathisers drawn from the British Establishment. Ironically, or perhaps coincidentally, The Link had been founded by Admiral Sir Barry Domville, an ex-director of the Naval Intelligence Department (NID), after he retired in 1930. Domville was arrested and interned in May 1940 because MI5 believed he was plotting a fascist coup d’etat supported by aristocratic peacemongers. The admiral was a friend of Major-General J.F.C. ‘Boney’ Fuller CBE, a famous military analyst who designed the tactics for the first tank battle in World War I. Fuller also invented the concept of blitzkrieg used so successfully in World War II by the German Panzers. Fuller was an open admirer of Hitler (he attended the fuehrer’s 50th birthday party in 1939), a leading member of Sir Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF), a friend of Ian Fleming and a leading disciple of Aleister Crowley. In the 1930s Fuller formed the extreme-right wing Nordic League (aka the White Knights of Britain), allegedly established by Nazi agents. However in the 1950s he was a member of a MI6 supported group of Russian émigrés engaged in anti-communist propaganda. It has been suggested that Fuller was not interned during the war with other leading fascists such as Mosley and Domville because he was a MI6 double-agent.
Ian Fleming’s idea was to persuade the German High Command in Berlin, and especially Rudolf Hess, that when war broke out The Link had not disbanded but had gone underground. It had allegedly regrouped and recruited even more prominent pro-Nazi members in the British Establishment including aristocrats and royalty. These were represented by the NID as influential people with the political muscle to overthrow prime minister Winston Churchill’s national wartime government, call a ceasefire and agree to a peace treaty with Germany. Under its terms Britain would keep control of its Empire and Germany would have free reign in occupied Europe. The Nazis also hoped that British troops would be sent to fight alongside the German Wehrmacht and the SS against the Soviet Union in a joint anti-communist crusade.
Hitler did not want to invade and occupy Britain. Instead he would have preferred to negotiate a treaty with a sympathetic new government in London. It has been suggested that the only reason the fuehrer abandoned Operation Sea Lion – the proposed invasion of Southern England – and instead invaded the Soviet Union was to force Churchill to accept peace terms. If the Red Army had been defeated Britain would truly have been standing alone, as Hitler did not believe the Americans had the political will to enter the war. Unfortunately he underestimated the ability and resolve of the Soviets to defend their motherland and also the clandestine support that the US was already offering Great Britain.
The NID plot to ensnare Rudolf Hess used bogus astrological predictions combined with political intelligence. Hess was persuaded that a Scottish aristocrat, the Duke of Hamilton, was willing to negotiate peace terms on behalf of the influential people at the top of British society who wanted to end the war. The duke had met Hess at the Berlin Olympics in 1936 and the deputy fuehrer for some reason thought he was a member of the surviving Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Ian Fleming commissioned an astrologer to produce a faked astrological forecast indicating that 10 May 1941 would be a propitious date for Rudolf Hess to fly to Scotland and meet secretly with the Duke of Hamilton and other members of the so-called British ‘peace party’. Hess’ occult advisors had also told him there would be an unusual planetary conjunction on 10 May. On that day six planets would be aligned in the zodiac sign of Taurus and conjoined to the full moon. At the same time Hitler’s chart showed ‘malefic’ astrological aspects. Hess saw himself in the role of a messianic hero saving Germany from possible future defeat by making peace with the British. All the (false) reports reaching the deputy fuehrer about the political situation in England and the astrological aspects convinced him that his mission would be a success.
Rudolf Hess flew to Scotland on 10 May 1941 in the firm belief that on landing he would be met by the Duke of Hamilton and the Duke of Kent and whisked off to London for a private audience with King George VI. He had been convinced by the misinformation fed to him by British Intelligence that these three men represented a genuine peace movement capable of removing the warmonger Churchill and agreeing to German terms. Hess had also previously met the Duke of Windsor when he had visited Berlin before the war. As a result Hess was persuaded that some members of the German-descended royal family were sympathetic to Nazism. Certainly the Duke of Saxo-Coburg, formerly Prince Charles Edward, a grandson of Queen Victoria and a close friend of the Duke of Windsor, had willingly embraced Nazism. In fact Hitler had appointed him as the head of the German branch of the Red Cross that was responsible for exterminating the mentally sick and physically disabled.
Unfortunately instead of meeting pro-Nazi aristocrats and royals when he landed, Hess was captured by a local farmer and a Home Guard unit. They handed him over to the police and he was transferred to London to be interrogated by MI5. Unfortunately the British government completely mishandled the capture of Hess. It has been suggested that Churchill believed the subterfuge by the NID and SIS suggesting leading members of the British Establishment might be pro-German may have been based on fact. For that reason the government did not capitalise on Hess’ ‘peace mission’. The German High Command had also disowned him and said that his flight had been unauthorised. They also suggested that Hess might be insane so his value for propaganda purposes was undermined and diminished.
Rudolf Hess’ apparent defection caused widespread panic in Berlin concerning the influence of occultism on the Nazi Party. The Gestapo immediately launched Operation Aktion Hess. On the direct orders of Hitler, they rounded up hundreds of occultists, psychics and astrologers, including Hess’s leading occult advisor Ernst Schulte-Strathaus. In June 1941 a decree was issued banning all public performances of clairvoyance, astrology, fortune-telling or telepathy. Anybody associated with Hess and his esoteric interests was thrown into concentration camps and occult secret societies were closed down. Because of staff shortages in the Gestapo, officers from the Naval Intelligence Service were drafted in to interrogate some of the arrested psychics. It has been claimed that they recruited some of them for secret operations using dowsing on maps with pendulums to hunt down British submarines.
It has also been claimed that Ian Fleming and the NID was involved in a plot to silence the Spiritualist medium Helen Duncan, the penultimate person to be charged under the old Witchcraft Act of 1736. She was arrested in 1944 after holding a séance during which allegedly the spirit of a dead sailor from the sinking of the HMS Bolham physically manifested. As the news of the loss had not been publicly released, and the Admiralty was keeping it secret for morale purposes, Duncan became a target for the security services. She and other psychics were regarded as a serious threat to national security and they became the object of a MI5/NID dirty tricks operation to silence leaks. This suggests that the Intelligence Services actually believed these mediums had genuine powers. Duncan’s arrest and subsequent trial, which in fact was condemned by Winston Churchill as a waste of public funds, was allegedly meant to deter other mediums. The War Office was paranoid that military secrets about the forthcoming D-Day landings in Normandy would be revealed at séances and become public knowledge or passed to the Germans.
