Thule-Gesellschaft (Thule Society)

The Thule-Gesellschaft (Thule Society) was founded August 17, 1918, by Rudolf von Sebottendorff. He had been schooled in occultism, Islamic mysticism, alchemy, Rosicrucianism and much else, in Turkey, where he had also been initiated into Freemasonry. Its original name was Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum ([[Study Group for German Antiquity]]), but it soon started to disseminate anti-republican and anti-Semitic propaganda. A movement to promote Thulian ideas among industrial workers and to offset Marxism, was formed in August 1918 - the Workers' Political Circle with Thulist Karl Harrer as chairman.

From this came the German Workers' Party in 1919.

A year later this became the NSDAP under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. It had members from the top echelons of the party, including Rudolf Hess and Alfred Rosenberg, though not Adolf Hitler. Serbottendorff stated,

"Thule members were the people to whom Hitler first turned and who first allied themselves with Hitler." The swastika flag adopted by the NSDAP was the brain-child of another Thulist, Dr Krohn. Its press organ was the Münchener Beobachter (Munich Observer) which later became the Völkischer Beobachter (People's Observer). The Thule Society is known to be closely connected to the Germanenorden secret society.

The Germanenorden was a secret society in Germany early in the 20th century. Formed by several prominent German occultists in 1912, the order, whose symbol was a swastika, had a hierarchical fraternal structure similar to freemasonry. It taught to its initiates nationalist ideologies of nordic race superiority, antisemitism as well as occult, almost magical philosophies.

Some say that the Deutsche [[Arbeiter-Partei] (later the Nazi Party) when under the leadership of Adolf Hitler was a political front, and indeed the organization reflected many ideologies of the party, including the swastika symbol. The Thule Society, another secret society with similar ideologies and symbols was also closely linked to this.

With the victory of the Nazi Party, the occult tradition was carried on in the Third Reich mainly by the SS, who Reichsfuhrer, Himmler, was an avid student of the occult. An SS occult research department, the Ahnernerbe (Ancestral Heritage) was established in 1935 with SS Colonel Wolfram von Sievers at its head. Occult research took SS researchers as far afield as Tibet. Sievers had the Tantrik prayer, the Bardo Thodol, read over his body after his execution at Nuremberg. National Socialism and the Third Reich represented a major attempt by high esoteric Adepts to re-establish a Culture based on the Laws of Nature, against the entrenched forces of anti-Life. Nothing that ambitious had been tried since the founding of the American Republic by Masonic adepts.

The Thule Society inner circle beliefs

Thule was a legendary island in the far north, similar to Atlantis, supposedly the center of a lost, high-level civilization. But not all secrets of that civilization had been completely wiped out. Those that remained were being guarded by ancient, highly intelligent beings (similar to the "Masters" of Theosophy or the White Brotherhood).

The truly initiated could establish contact with these beings by means of magic-mystical rituals. The "Masters" or "Ancients" allegedly would be able to endow the initiated with supernatural strength and energy. With the help of these energies the goal of the initiated was to create a race of Supermen of "Aryan" stock who would exterminate all "inferior" races.

On April 6, 1919, in Bavaria, left wing socialists and anarchists proclaimed the Bavarian Soviet Republic. The brains of the revolution were a group of writers who had little idea of administration. Life in Munich grew chaotic. The counter-revolutionary forces, the whites, composed of various groups of decommissioned

soldiers known as "Frei Corps", equipped and financed by the mysterious Thule Society, defeated the Bavarian Soviet within a matter of weeks. Many other decommissioned soldiers waited out the turbulence in barracks, Adolph Hitler among them. After the Bavarian Republic had been defeated by the Whites, in May, Hitler's superiors put him to work in the post revolution investigating commission.

His indictments injected ruthless efficiency into the kangaroo courts as he fingered hundreds of noncommissioned officers and enlisted men who had sympathized with the communist and anarchists. He was subsequently sent to attend special anticommunist training courses and seminars at the University which were financed by the Reichswehr administration and by private donors from the Thule Society.

This led to an assignment in the intelligence division of the postwar German army, to infiltrate groups that could organize the working classes while the communists were weak. On a September evening, 1919, Hitler turned up in the Sternecker Beer Hall where members and friends of the budding German Workers Party had gathered. He quietly listened to the presentation by engineer Gottfried Feder, a Thule Society member, who talked about jewish control over lending capital. When one of the other group members called for Bavaria to break away from the rest of Germany, Hitler sprang into action.

The astonished audience stood by while his highly aggressive remarks and compelling oratory swept through the room. After Hitler had finished his harangue, party chairman and founder, Anton Drexler, immediately asked him to a meeting of the party's steering committee held a few days later. He was asked to join the

committee as its seventh member, responsible for advertising and propaganda. Back in 1912, several German occultists with radical anti-semitic inclinations decided to form a "magic" lodge, which they named the Order of Teutons. the main founders were Theodor Fritsch, a publisher of an anti-semitic journal; Philipp Stauff, pupil of the racist Guido Von List, and Hermann Pohl, the order's chancellor.

(Pohl would drop out three years later to found his own bizarre lodge, the Walvater Teutonic Order of the Holy Grail.)

The Order of Teutons was organized along the lines of the Free Masons or the Rosicrucians, having differing degrees of initiation, only persons who could fully document that they were of pure "aryan" ancestry were allowed to join. In 1915, Pohl was joined by Rudolf Blauer, who held a Turkish passport and practiced sufi meditation. He also dabbled in astrology and was an admirer of Lanz Von Liebenfels and Guido Von List, both pathologically anti-semitic. Blauer went by the name of Rudolf Freiherr Von Seboottendorf. He was very wealthy, although

the origin of his fortune is unknown. He became the Grand Master of the Bavarian Order and he founded the Thule Society, with Pohl's approval, in 1918. After the Bavarian communist revolution of 1918, the Thule Society became a center of the counterrevolutionary subculture. An espionage network and arms caches were organized. The Thule Club rooms became a nest of resistance to the revolution and the Munich Soviet Republic. Journalist Karl Harrer was given the job of founding a political "worker circle". He realized that the workers would reject any program that was presented to them by a member of the conservative "privileged" class. Harrer knew that the mechanic Anton Drexler, who was working for the railroads, was a well-known anti-semite, chauvinist and proletarian. With Drexler as nominal chairman, Harrer founded the German Workers Party in January 1919

The German Workers Party was only one of many associations founded and controlled by the Thule Society. The Thule was the Mother to the German Socialist Party, led by Julius Streicher, and the right-wing radical Oberland Free Corps. It published the Munich observer, which later became the National Observer.

Hitler became the most prominent personality in the party. He caused Harrer to drop out, and he pushed Drexler, the nominal chairman, to the sidelines. He filled key positions with his own friends from the Thule Society and the Army. During the summer of 1920, upon his suggestion, the party was renamed the National Socialist German Worker Party (NASDAP). The new name was intended to equally attract nationalists and proletarians.

To go along with the new name his mass movement also required a flag with a powerful symbol. Among many designs under consideration, Hitler picked the one suggested by Thule member Dr. Krohn: a red cloth with a white circle in the middle containing a black swastika.

Hitler wanted to turn the German Workers Party into a mass-conscious fighting party, but Harrer and Drexler were hesitant, due in part to their woeful financial situation. The Thule Society was not yet supplying very much money and no one seemed to know how to build up a mass party. Hitler arranged two public meetings

in obscure beer halls, and he drafted leaflets and posters, but there was no real breakthrough. All of this changed dramatically at the end of the 1919 when Hitler met Dietrich Eckart.

Most biographers have underestimated the influence that Eckart exerted on Hitler. He was the wealthy publisher and editor-in-chief of an anti-semitic journal which he called In Plain German. Eckart was also a committed occultist and a master of magic. As an initiate, Eckart belonged to the inner circle of the Thule Society as well as other esoteric orders.

There can be no doubt that Eckart - who had been alerted to Hitler by other Thulists - trained Hitler in techniques of self confidence, self projection, persuasive oratory, body language and discursive sophistry. With these tools, in a short period of time he was able to move the obscure workers party from the club and beer hall atmosphere to a mass movement. The emotion charged lay speaker became an expert orator, capable of mesmerizing a vast audience.

One should not underestimate occultism's influence on Hitler. His subsequent rejection of Free Masons and esoteric movements, of Theosophy, of Anthrosophy, does not necessarily mean otherwise. Occult circles have long been known as covers for espionage and influence peddling. Hitler's spy apparatus under Canaris

and Heydrich were well aware of these conduits, particularly from the direction of Britain which had within its MI5 intelligence agency a department known as the Occult Bureau.

That these potential sources of trouble were purged from Nazi life should not be taken to mean that Hitler and the Nazi secret societies were not influenced by mystical and occult writers such as,

Madame Blavatsky

Houston Stewart Chamberlain

Guido Von List

Lanz Von Liebenfels

Rudolf Steiner

George Gurdjieff

Karl Haushofer

Theodor Fritsch

Although Hitler later denounced and ridiculed many of them, he did dedicate his book Mein Kampf to his teacher Dietrich Eckart. A frequent visitor to Landsberg Prison where Hitler was writing Mein Kampf with the help of Rudolf Hess, was General Karl Haushofer, a university professor and director of the Munich Institute of Geopolitics. Haushofer, Hitler, and Hess had long conversations together. Hess also kept records of these conversations. Hitler's

demands for German "Living Space" in the east at the expense of the Slavic nations were based on the geopolitical theories of the learned professor. Haushofer was also inclined toward the esoteric. as military attaché in Japan, he had studied Zen-Buddhism. He had also gone through initiations at the hands of Tibetan Lamas. He became Hitler's second "esoteric mentor", replacing Dietrich Eckart. In Berlin, Haushofer had founded the Luminous Lodge or the Vril Society.

The lodge's objective was to explore the origins of the Aryan race and to perform exercises in concentration to awaken the forces of "Vril". Haushofer was a student of the Russian magician and metaphysician Gregor Ivanovich Gurdyev (George Gurdjieff).

Both Gurdjeiff[ and Haushofer maintained that they had contacts with secret Tibetan Lodges that possessed the secret of the "Superman". The lodge included Hitler, Alfred Rosenberg, Himmler, Goring, and Hitler's subsequent personal physician Dr. Morell. It is also known that Aleister Crowley and Gurdjieff sought contact with Hitler.

Hitler's unusual powers of suggestion become more understandable if one keeps in mind that he had access to the "secret" psychological techniques of the esoteric lodges. Haushofer taught him the techniques of Gurdjieff which, in turn, were based on the teachings of the Sufis and the Tibetan Lamas - and familiarized him with the Zen teaching of the Japanese Society of the Green Dragon.

In the latter half of the previous century, intriguing hints about Tibetan secret teachings had been carried to the west by Helena Blavatsky, who claimed initiation at the hands of the Holy Lamas themselves.

Blavatsky taught that her Hidden Masters and Secret Chiefs had their earthly residence in the Himalayan region. As soon as the Nazi movement had sufficient funds, it began to organize a number of expeditions to Tibet and these succeeded one another practically without interruption until 1943. One of the most tangible expressions of Nazi interest in Tibet was the party's adoption of its deepest and most mystical of symbols - the swastika.

The swastika is one of mankind's oldest symbols, and apart from the cross and the circle, probably the most widely distributed. It is shown on pottery fragments from Greece dating back to the eighth century BC. It was used in ancient Egypt, India and China. The Navaho indians of North America have a traditional swastika

pattern. Arab-Islamic sorcerers used it. In more recent times, it was incorporated in the flags of certain baltic states. The idea for the use of the swastika by the Nazis came from a dentist named Dr. Friedrich Krohn who was a member of the secret Germanen order.

Krohn produced the design for the actual form in which the Nazis came to use the symbol, that is reversed, spinning in an anti-clockwise direction. As a solar symbol, the swastika is properly thought of as spinning, and the Buddhists have always believed the symbol attracted luck.

The Sanskrit word svastika means good fortune and well being.

According to Cabbalistic lore and occult theory, chaotic force can be evoked by reversing the symbol.

And so the symbol appeared as the flag of Nazi Germany and the insignia of the Nazi party, an indication for those who had eyes to see, as to the occult nature of the Third Reich.

The Thule Society (German: Thule-Gesellschaft), originally the Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum 'Study Group for Germanic Antiquity', was a German occultist and Völkisch group in Munich, notable chiefly as the organization that sponsored the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, which was later transformed by Adolf Hitler into the Nazi Party. Hitler, however, was never a member of the Thule Society.

Origins

The Thule Society was founded August 17, 1918 by Rudolf von Sebottendorff, a German occultist, as the Munich branch of the Germanenorden, a secret society a.k.a. the "Order of Teutons" (1912). Von Sebottendorff later claimed that he originally intended the Thule Society to be a vehicle for promoting his own occultist theories, but that the Germanenorden pressed him to emphasize political, nationalist and anti-Semitic themes. Since this claim was made while the Nazis were in power and von Sebottendorff had little to gain by denying anti-Semitism, it may well be true.

Beliefs

A primary focus of Thule-Gesellschaft was a claim concerning the origins of the Aryan race. "Thule" was a land located by Greco-Roman geographers in the furthest north. The society was named after "Ultima Thule" — (Latin: most distant North) mentioned by the Roman poet Virgil in his epic poem Aeneid, which was the far northern segment of Thule and is generally understood to mean Scandinavia. Said by Nazi mystics to be the capital of ancient Hyperborea, they placed Ultima Thule in the extreme north near Greenland or Iceland.

The Thulists believed in the hollow earth theory. The Thule Society counted among its goals the desire to prove that the Aryan race came from a lost continent, perhaps Atlantis.

The Thule-Gesellschaft maintained close contacts with followers of Theosophy and the followers of Helena Blavatsky, a famous Occultist during the second part of the 19th century.

Anthroposophical themes were common too, as the motto Der Weg ist in Dir - 'The Way is present in You', expresses. Self-realization and the supreme position of the human person were essential to the Thulists.

Activities

The Thule Society attracted about 250 followers in Munich and about 1,500 in greater Bavaria. Its meetings were often held in the still existent Munich luxury hotel Vier Jahreszeiten ("The Four Seasons").

The followers of the Thule Society were, by von Sebottendorff's own admission, little interested in his occultist theories. They were more interested in racism and combating Jews and Communists. They are also said to have planned to kidnap the Socialist prime minister Kurt Eisner. After the establishment of the Munich

Soviet Republic, they were accused of trying to infiltrate its government and of having attempted a coup on April 30, 1919. During this attempt, the Soviet government took several members of the Thule Society hostage, and later executed them.

Münchener Beobachter newspaper

The Thule Society bought a local weekly newspaper, the Münchener Beobachter (Munich Observer), and changed its name to Münchener Beobachter und Sportblatt (loosely, Munich Observer and Sport Report) in an attempt to improve its circulation. The Münchener Beobachter later became the Völkischer Beobachter (People's Observer), the main Nazi newspaper. It was edited by Karl Harrer.

Deutsche Arbeiterpartei

In 1919, the Thule Society's Anton Drexler, who had developed links between the Society and various extreme right workers' organizations in Munich, together with Karl Harrer established the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP), or German Workers Party. Adolf Hitler joined this party in 1919. By April 1, 1920, the DAP had been

reconstituted as the National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), or National Socialist German Workers Party (generally known as the "Nazi Party").

Von Sebottendorff had by then left the Thule Society, and never joined the DAP or the Nazi party. Many other members of the Thule Society and/or DAP were later prominent in Nazi Germany, including

Dietrich Eckart

Gottfried Feder

Hans Frank

Karl Harrer

Rudolf Hess

Alfred Rosenberg

Julius Streicher

Dietrich Eckart, who coached Hitler on his public speaking skills, had Mein Kampf dedicated to him. While it has been claimed that Adolf Hitler was a member (The Occult and the Third Reich, Jean Michel Angebert, 1974. p. 9), there is no evidence for this claim; on the contrary, the evidence is that he never attended a meeting, as attested to by Johannes Hering's diary of Society meetings (Johannes Hering, "Beiträge zur Geschichte der Thule-Gesellschaft", typescript dated 21 June 1939, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, NS26/865, cit. in Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism, 1992 p.201.)

It is quite clear that Hitler himself had little interest in, and made little time for, "esoteric" matters. Other members were,

Karl Fiehler

[Wilhelm Frick]]

Michel Frank

Heinrich Jost

Wolfgang Pongratz

Wilhelm Laforce

Johann Ott

Hans Riemann

Max Seselmann

Hans-Arnold Stadler

Two well-known aristocrats in the group were Countess Hella von Westarp, a young woman who functioned as secretary, and Prince Gustav von Thurn und Taxis (both of these were among hostages abducted and executed by the Communist government in Munich in 1919).

Dissolution

After Hitler came to power, the Thule Society was one of many organizations suppressed. When von Sebottendorff returned to Germany and published a book about the Thule Society, Bevor Hitler kam, he was arrested and the book prohibited.

Nonetheless, it has been argued that some Thule members and their ideas were incorporated into the Third Reich. {The Occult and the Third Reich, Jean Michel Angeburt, Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. 1974, p. 9} Some of the Thule Society's teachings were expressed in the books of Alfred Rosenberg. Also, many of the occult ideas found favour with Heinrich Himmler who, like Hitler, had a great interest in mysticism.

=Thule Society revived

A revived Thule Society is rumored to have met during the time of the Wagner festival in Bayreuth in 1966. Among the participants was an American exchange student, Gene A. Statler, a distant relative of Gauleiter Hans-Arnold Stadler. Statler's account of that meeting is contained in unpublished diaries which later became the property of magazine editor Raymond Palmer.

Conspiracy Theories

Like the Ahnenerbe section of the SS, and due to its occult background, the Thule Society has become the center of many conspiracy theories concerning Nazi Germany. Such theories include the creation of spacecraft and secret weapons. Because the group helped Hitler with his speaking skills, some have even suggested

that the society somehow granted him magic powers that contributed to his later success. It is also claimed that Thule-Gesellschaft possessed a psychic named Maria Orsic, who convinced them that the Aryan race did not originate on the Earth, but came from Aldebaran in Taurus — some sixty-five light years away.

It is further suggested that Vril, Thule-Gesellschaft, and DHvSS (Men of the Black Stone) all joined together at some point (perhaps 1919). DHvSS is said to have worshipped a German mountain goddess "Isias" as well as the Schwarzer Stein (Black Stone).

In past programs, we have stated that the New World Order could not have been realized had it not been for the intense activities of various secret societies throughout the world. We have mentioned one world-wide secret society, the Brotherhood Of Death Society, whose symbol is the skull with two crossed bones. The German Brotherhood of Death Society is the Thule Society.

Adolph Hitler joined this society in 1919, becoming an adept under the leadership of Dietrich Eckhart. Later, the Thule Society selected Hitler to be their leader of the New World Order, as Eckhart revealed on his deathbed, saying, "Follow Hitler; he will dance, but it is I who have called the tune. I have initiated him into the Secret Doctrine, opened his centers in vision, and given him the means to communicate with the powers."

(Trevor Ravenscroft, The Spear Of Destiny, p. 91).

In August, 1990, President George Bush announced that the world had now entered into a New World Order. Shockingly President Bush is an adept in an American Brotherhood of...

the Yale Skull and Bones Society. As we stated earlier, Bush's New World Order is virtually identical with Hitler's; the key connecting point is the common membership in their respective Brotherhood ..

(Behold A Pale Horse, p. 81; Introduction To The Order, p.7). We will study this connection in depth today. Let us begin with a quick overview of the Thule Society, beginning with a study of its practices and relevant history.

They were Satanists who practiced Black Magic -- this means that they were. "solely concerned with raising their consciousness by means of rituals to awareness of evil and nonhuman intelligences in the universe; and with achieving means of communication with these intelligences." (Ravenscroft, p. 161).

Concentrate on that seemingly innocent word, rituals. Christians equate a ritual to a church service, thereby not understanding its occultic meaning. The New Age Dictionary defines ritual as a "ceremony to restore balance with nature...and bring back lost harmony and sacredness."

Remember we are dealing with the Satanic world, where good is called evil and evil good. The sacred-ness mentioned here is a Satanic sacredness. Rituals literally are proscribed activities designed to allow demonic power to flow through the participants. These activities are proscribed chants, formula wordings, and carefully planned actions. As we noted last week, the effect is devastatingly powerful, as demonic force pours through the participants, delivering a counterfeit spiritual experience which literally transforms their lives. Never skip over the word ritual, as it is a word of Satanic power.

Thule members practiced a form of Sexual Magic derived from a lodge of which Aleister Crowley was a member. Crowley was recognized as the foremost worshipper of Satan in the 19th Century. "The origin of this...medieval magic...can be traced to a Freemason, Robert Little, who founded the Societas Rosicruciana in 1865... (Ravenscroft, Spear of Destiny, p. 164-5).

While the actual sexual perversions which were practiced are too offensive to share, the results are not. Author Revenscroft stated that "indulgence in the most sadistic rituals awakened penetrating vision into the workings of Evil Intelligences and bestowed phenomenal magical powers." (Ibid. p. 167). This is the Thule Society.

Ravenscroft records its effect upon Hitler, "...sexual perversion took a central place in [[[Hitler's]]] life... a monstrous sexual perversion was the very core of his whole existence, the source of his mediumistic and clairvoyant powers, and the motivation behind every act through which he reaped a sadistic vengeance on humanity." (Ibid., p. 171).

Eckart's final act was to initiate Hitler into, "a monstrous sadistic magic ritual... after which he was sexually impotent. Hitler's impotency had a deep psychological foundation. He knew sexual fulfillment through the extremes of sadism and masochism..."(Ravenscroft, p. 155, 173). This impotency delivered a final devastating blow to Hitler's psychological foundation, finally making him into the sadistic murderer that history knows.

Thule society believed in "communication with a hierarchy of Supermen -- The Secret Chiefs of the Third Order". (Ibid) The quality which make these beings supermen was occultic spirituality. Further, they believed in Madame Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, which teaches that certain superman had survived the destruction of

Atlantis with their higher levels of consciousness intact. These supermen were Aryans.

These two beliefs combined into one through the Thule Society and Hitler, culminating into the Nazi Death Camps. (Ibid, p. 166). When one group of people incorporate into their spiritual belief structure that they are inherently superior to another group of people, it is inevitable that genocide will be attempted as soon as possible.

The Thule Society regularly held occultic seances, during which time they communicated with demons who were either masquerading as a dead person or who were just appearing as their guiding spirits. Dietrich Eckart, Alfred Rosenberg, and Adolph Hitler invoked the Anti-Christ into manifestation at the mediumistic seances of the Thule Group in Munich. (Ravenscroft, Spear of Destiny, p. 168)

Eckert believed he had been told by his guiding spirit he would have the privilege of training the coming Great One, the Anti-Christ. From the beginning of their association, Eckert believed Hitler was Anti-Christ. Therefore, Eckert spared no occultic knowledge, ritual, or perversion in his attempt to fully equip Hitler for the

role. Once the training was completed, Hitler believed he was, "born anew with that super-personal strength and resolution he would need to fulfill the mandate ... ordained for him." (p. Ravenscroft, p. 93-4)

Hitler literally equated this with the Christian claim to be born again.

Now, let us look at the Skull and Bones rituals and beliefs. Little is firmly known about Skull and Bones, because their secrecy since they were established in 1833 is as complete as any society in the world. However, they possess all the requirements of a true secret society.

They were formed in secret and all their activities are carried out secretly.

Membership is by invitation only. Potential members are carefully screened as to suitability before they are invited to join. The first night of the new member, who is called an initiate, is critically important. The initiate swears total obedience and loyalty to the secret society. This pledge is bound by serious oaths, some of whom would be deadly if actually carried out. The first night is also critically important as it bounds the initiate to the society

by means of ritual, oaths, and confessions. The Skull and Bones also incorporates sexual activities into their practices. "The death of the initiate will be as frightful as the use of human skeletons and ritual psychology can make it..." (Esquire Magazine, "The Last Secrets of Skull and Bones", Ron Rosenbaum, p. 89).

Sexual perversion is part of ritual psychology. Ron Rosenbaum, author of the Esquire Magazine article, stated that on initiation night, called tap night, "...if one could climb to the tower of Weir Hall, the odd castle that overlooks the Bones courtyard, one could hear strange cries and moans coming from the bowels of the tomb as the 15 newly tapped members were put through what sounded like a harrowing ordeal..." (Esquire, September, 1976, p. 86).

Further, [[[initiates]]] "lay naked in coffins and tell their deepest and darkest sexual secrets as part of their initiation." (Esquire, p. 85).

These experiences in the coffins incorporated sexual pain and resulted in being born-again, into the Order, as we mentioned above. (Cooper, p.95) Powerful force charges through the participants of these ceremonies, transforming their lives dramatically. This type ritual is classic Satanism. Anton LaVey states, in his book

The Satanic Rituals: Companion To The Satanic Bible, (p. 57) "The ceremony of rebirth takes place in a large coffin... This is similar to the coffin symbolism that...is found in most lodge rituals."

Make no mistake about it: Any organization which utilizes this coffin ritual to simulate rebirth is practicing Satanism, including Skull and Bones.

The Skull and Bones believes that on the night of initiation, the initiate, "dies to the world and be born again into the Order..." (Esquire Magazine, September, 1977, p. 89).

Remember Hitler's belief that he had been born anew after his ritualistic initiation and training? This term is a common one in occultism. During the 1988 Presidential Campaign, a TV reporter asked Vice-President Bush if he were a Christian. Bush initially stammered, but then said, "if you mean born again, then, yes, I am a Christian".

As born-again Christians carry out the ritual of water baptism by immersion to demonstrate that they have died to the old way of life and have been reborn into a new life, the occultists have their ritual to demonstrate the same life transformation. Rosenbaum continues his expose' of the born-again experience,

"then it's into the coffin and off on a symbolic journey through the underworld to rebirth, which takes place in room number 322. There, the Order clothes the newborn knight in its own special garments, implying that, henceforth, he will tailor himself to the Order's mission." (Ibid., p. 89, 148).

This ritual description is as occultic as any I have read, and truly reveals the Skull and Bones as occultic. One of the most sobering facets of this counterfeit born again initiation ritual is that the initiate swears to an allegiance to the Secret Order that transcends any allegiance later in life.

Author Bill Cooper captures this disturbing fact most succinctly, "...Members of the Order (Skull and Bones) take an oath that absolves them from any allegiance to any nation or king or government or constitution, and that includes the negating of any subsequent oath which they may be required to take. They swear allegiance only to the Order and its goal of a New World

Order...according to the oath Bush took when he was initiated into Skull and Bones, his oath of office as President of the United States means nothing." (Cooper, Behold A Pale Horse, p. 81-82).

Since the oath as President occurred after the Oath to Skull and Bones, it is not worth the paper on which it is printed. That kind of hold is powerful. Indeed, as Ron Rosenbaum began the research necessary to write his article for Esquire, he was warned about the power of Skull and Bones. "The power of Bones is incredible. They have their hands on every lever of power in the country."

The only thing which is important to the Skull and Bones is their goal of a New World Order. In conjunction with this understanding, remember one other Secret Society belief, i.e., the ends justify the means.

As Rosenbaum continued his research, he found definite links between Bones and the Bavarian Illuminists. The Bavarian Illuminists were part of the original Masters of the Illuminati. First, Rosenbaum discovered documents which detailed the origins of Bones back to Germany.

These documents stated, "Bones is a chapter of a corps of a German University..." The document described at length its relationship with this German Secret Society (the Thule Society) which lead to the founding of the Skull and Bones in 1832.

Secondly, Rosenbaum discovered that, "above the arched walls above the vault of the (Bones) sacred room, #322", is a painting of skulls surrounded by Masonic symbols. Above this painting is the slogan, in German, which means,

"Who is the fool, who the wise man, beggar, or king? Whether poor or rich, all's the same in death." This means that only the works which one does in this life is what matters; in death, all men share the same fate. This statement is very consistent with the teachings of Secret Societies, showing their Works-oriented philosophy. Thirdly, Rosenbaum discovered a,

"haunting photograph of the altar room at one of the Masonic lodges at Nuremberg that is closely associated with Illuminism. Haunting because at the altar room's center, approached through an aisle of hanging human skeletons, is a coffin surmounted by...a skull and crossed bones that look exactly like the particular arrangement of jawbones and thighbones in the official Bones emblem. {Finally}, the skull and crossbones was the official crest of another key Illuminist lodge..." (Esquire, p.88).

It is shocking also when we realize that German Nazi death camp guards wore this emblem of Skull and Bones on the shoulders of their uniforms. Without doubt, we have established Skull and Bones to be a Brotherhood of Death Society, which is itself tied into the Masters of the Illuminati. It is no wonder that Bush has been proclaiming the New World Order

RESULTS

We have studied the common philosophical and religious links between the German Thule Society and Skull and Bones. We now need to study the historical results of the attempt of the Thule Society to establish a New World Order. After the Thule Society selected Adolph Hitler to be their leader of the New World Order, they faced the problem of practical implementation of this goal.

They realized that their plans for world domination required control of military power of Germany; however, the military is controlled by those holding political power, and Germany was a democracy. Therefore, the Thule Society created the Nazi Party.

The Guiding Spirits of the Thule Society became the Guiding Spirits of the Nazi Party. In only 10 tumultuous years, Hitler gained high political office, from which he catapulted himself into the position of absolute dictator in 1933. In 1938, Hitler began the Final Solution of the Jewish problem by initiating the Holocaust.

In 1939, Hitler initiated World War II, which lasted until Mid-1945. As I read the results, remember James' words, "Then the evil desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully matured, brings forth death." By 1945, the occultic sin conceived by the Thule Society had come to full completion. These are the results:

(Source is The Webster Family Encyclopedia, Volume 19, 1984, p. 492-3) Enormous armies were mobilized around the world.

Russia 12,500,000 men

America 12,400,000 men

Germany 10,000,000 men

Japan 6,000,000 men

France 5,000,000 men

Britain 4,700,000 men

Italy 4,000,000 men

China 3,800,000 men

Canada 1,100,000 men


====Total World-Wide Mobilization: 59,500,000 men====


====The death toll was almost incomprehensible====


1. Russia 10,000,000 soldiers - 10,000,000 civilians

2. Germany 3,000,000 soldiers - 500,000 civilians

3. Japan 2,000,000 soldiers - 500,000 civilians

4. Italy 330,000 soldiers - 80,000 civilian

5. Britain 350,000 soldiers - 60,000 civilian

6. France 200,000 soldiers - 200,000 civilian

7. China 1,300,000 soldiers - (no estimate on civilian deaths)

8. Poland 600,000 soldiers - 5,000,000 civilians

9. America 390,000 soldiers (negligible civilian deaths)

Total human lives killed was: 18,200,000 soldiers and 16,300,000 civilians for 34,000,000 total deaths. When you add 18,000,000 deaths from Hitler's Death Camps, you realize that over 54 million people lost their lives as the final result of the occultic practices and goals of the New World Order of that German Brotherhood of Death Society, the Thule Society. The 6,000,000 Jewish deaths from Hitler's Final Solution

represented two-thirds of the total world-wide Jewish population. Hitler came close to winning WWII, but God's timing was not yet come. However, some of the after-effects of WWII served to set the stage for the current drive toward the New World Order.

Alice Bailey states in her book, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, that the world must be united regionally before it can be united into one. Stalin repeated this concept shortly before his death in 1953. World War II certainly provided the impetus for this type reorganization. The World was reorganized militarily into NATO

in Europe, the Warsaw Pact in Eastern Europe, and SEATO in Asia. Economic regionalization also occurred along approximately the same lines. Repeated cultural, economic, and religious regionalizations have been created since WWII. The infant One-World Government was created as the United Nations, in 1948. A similar effort was orchestrated after WWI as the League of Nations, but was defeated. One of the first actions of the United Nations was to create the nation of Israel, thus fulfilling God's prophecies to return her back to her Promised Land in the Last Days.

Tremendous technological progress was achieved under the impetus of war. The atomic bomb was created, as were the jet engine, the rocket, and modern telecommunications. New Age author, Allen Neuharth, in his book, Nearly One World, states that these inventions have brought the world to the threshold of a One-World Government, Economy, and Religion, i.e., the New World Order.

This brief review of the after-effects of WWII clearly shows much was achieved that set the stage for the current New World Order. Let us now review some of the goals which Secret Societies today have for the New World Order. Keep in mind that the Skull and Bones is the driving force and is the "first among equals"

among all other Secret Societies and all other open organizations which are committed to this new order. One World Government -- the only answer to man's problems.

One World Economy

One World Religion -- Man's evil actions historically are ascribed to his divisions into many different religions. Therefore, much emphasis is being laid on the re-uniting into one religion. The current Ecumenical Movement is leading the charge toward this all-important goal. In a seminar held in Boston in August, 1991, the

current New England Director of the Theosophical Society stated that, at the proper moment in world history the Roman Catholic Pope would travel to Jerusalem to address a world-wide religious conference. In his speech, he would declare all the world's religions to be united into One.

Thus, Alice Bailey's Plan, stated almost 50 years ago, would be realized, i.e., that the Great One would reinstate the Ancient Mysteries Religion as the New World Order Religion.

"These Mysteries, when restored, will unify all faiths." (Externalisation of the Hierarchy, p. 573, written in 1946).

One of the most basic plans after the New World Order is established is to reduce the world's population from its present 6 billion to 2 billion ... (Constance Cumbey, Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow). Thus, birth control and abortion were early identified as necessary to begin reducing population. Our current emphasis on

man's devastating effects upon the earth and upon Global Warming and pollution are designed to convince people that only united, drastic action from the United Nations can save this planet from collapse.

How can this drastic reduction be achieved within this short time frame? The basic answer is war. Bailey, in her book, The Externalization of the Hierarchy, p. 548, states that the atomic bomb will be turned over to the One-World Government and will be used against any nation who refuses to go along with the New World Order.

Bill Cooper, in Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars from his book, Behold A Pale Horse, quotes a document from the Bilderberg Secret Society, which is an offshoot of Skull and Bones.

"Since most of the general public will not exercise [economic] restraint...[we must] take control of the world by the use of economic silent weapons in a form of quiet warfare and reduce [the dangerous levels of consumption] of the world to a safe level by a process of benevolent slavery and genocide." (p. 49).

How could anyone ever think of slavery and genocide as being benevolent? This was the precise thinking of Hitler as he was planning his New World Order. He was going to rid the world of all the undesirables by benevolent warfare. We reviewed the horrible results in the beginning of the pro-gram; however, these figures

pale in comparison with the deaths of 4 billion people. At this point, you may protest that the drive to the New World Order is being achieved peacefully. This is true, and when it is fully achieved will fulfill Biblical prophecy which states 1 Thessalonians 5:3

For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. Further, these plans, if carried out, will also fulfill Biblical prophecy in Revelation 6:4 And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.

Thus, we see that the New World Order goals of the Secret Societies, chief of which is Skull and Bones, when completed, would fulfill many Biblical Prophecies.

The Vril Society

We have now reached the point in our survey of Nazi involvement with the occult where we must depart from what is historically verifiable and enter an altogether more obscure and murky realm, a place that Pauwels and Bergier call the 'Absolute Elsewhere'. (1)

Serious historians (at least, those who deign to comment on the subject at all) regard the material we shall be examining for the rest of this book with contempt - and, it must be said, not without good reason. Much of what follows may well strike the reader as bizarre and absurd in equal measure; and yet, as we shall see,

amongst the notions we are about to address (products, apparently, of fevered imaginations) will be found unsettling hints of a thread running through the collective mind of humanity in the late twentieth century - ominous, dangerous and, by the majority, unseen. As we shall see, the 'twilight zone between fact and fiction' can produce significant shifts in our collective awareness of the world, our place in it and the unstated intentions of those who rule us. The world view of those who subscribe to the idea of genuine Nazi occult power includes a number of outrageous conspiracy

theories that revolve around the claim that many leading Nazis (including, according to some, Hitler himself) escaped from the ruins of Berlin and continue with their plans for world domination from some hidden headquarters.

At first sight, these theories can surely have little to do with known reality. And yet, the idea that the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) could have smuggled many personnel from Nazi intelligence and the German secret weapons program into the United States in the post-war years might likewise seem outlandish -

until we remember that this, too, is a documented historical fact. Project PAPERCLIP proves that some senior elements of the Third Reich did indeed survive in this way, their lives bought with scientific and military knowledge that the American government desperately wanted. So, for the rest of this book, we shall concentrate on the elements of Nazi occultism that find no home in orthodox history but that nevertheless stretch their pernicious tentacles through modern popular and fringe culture and refuse to vanish in the glare of the light of reason.

The Vril Society, our departure point into the Absolute Elsewhere, might seem to have been better placed in the first chapter, were it not that there is so little evidence for its influence over the activities of the Third Reich. In spite of this, it has come to occupy a central position in the dubious study of Nazi occult power and so demands a chapter of its own.

But what was the strangely named Vril Society?

The first hint of the Vril Society's existence was discovered in a scene that would not have been out of place in one of Dennis Wheatley's occult thrillers.

On 25 April 1945, so the story goes, a group of battle-weary Russian soldiers were making their cautious way through the shattered remnants of Berlin, mopping up the isolated pockets of German resistance that remained in the heart of the Third Reich. The soldiers moved carefully from one wrecked building to another, in

a state of constant readiness against the threat of ambush. In a ground-floor room of one blasted building, the soldiers made a surprising discovery. Lying in a circle on the floor were the bodies of six men, with a seventh corpse in the centre. All were dressed in German military uniforms, and the dead man in the centre of the group was wearing a pair of bright green gloves. The

Russians' assumption that the bodies were those of soldiers was quickly dispelled when they realized that the dead men were all Orientals. One of the Russians, who was from Mongolia, identified the men as Tibetans. It was also evident to the Russian soldiers that the men had not died in battle but seemed to have committed suicide.

Over the following week, hundreds more Tibetans were discovered in Berlin: some of them had clearly died in battle, while others had committed ritual suicide, like the ones discovered by the Russian unit. (2) What were Tibetans doing in Nazi Germany towards the end of the Second World War?

The answer to this question may be found in a curious novel entitled The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), first Baron Lytton. A prolific and very successful writer (his output included novels, plays, essays and poetry) Bulwer-Lytton was considered in his lifetime to be one of the greatest writers in the English language.

Unfortunately, his reputation for vanity, ostentation and eccentricity attracted a good deal of hostility from the press and this has damaged his subsequent literary reputation to a disproportionate extent, with the result that today his books are extremely hard to find and his work is seldom - if at all - taught in universities in the English-speaking world. (3)

Throughout his career, Bulwer-Lytton wrote on many themes, including romance, politics, history, social satire, melodrama and the occult. It is perhaps unsurprising, therefore, that he should have turned to the subject of Utopian science fiction with The Coming Race, published in 1871. In this novel, the narrator, a traveler

and adventurer of independent means, explores a mine in an unnamed location and discovers a vast subterranean world, inhabited by a superior race of humans called the Vril-ya.

Once tenants of the Earth's outer surface, the Vril-ya were forced to retreat underground by a natural catastrophe similar to the biblical Flood many thousands of years ago. Their technology is far in advance of anything to be found in the world of ordinary humanity, and is based on the application of a force known as 'vril'.

Befriended by a young female Vril-ya named Zee, the narrator asks about the nature of the vril force. Therewith Zee began to enter into an explanation of which I understood very little, for there is no word in any language I know which is an exact synonym for vril. I should call it electricity, except that it comprehends in its manifold branches other forces of nature, to which, in our scientific nomenclature, differing names are assigned, such as magnetism, galvanism, &c.

These people consider that in vril they have arrived at the unity in natural energetic agencies, which has been conjectured by many philosophers above ground, and which Faraday thus intimates under the more cautious term of correlation: 'I have long held an opinion,' says that illustrious experimentalist, 'almost amounting to a conviction, in common, I believe, with many other lovers of natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the forces of matter are made manifest have one common origin; or, in other words, are so directly related and

mutually dependent, that they are convertible, as it were, into one another, and possess equivalents of power in their action.' (4) According to Zee, all Vril-ya are trained in the application of vril, which can be used to control the physical world, including the minds and bodies of others, as well as to enhance the telepathic and telekinetic potentials of the human mind. The vril force is most often applied through the use of a device known as the Vril Staff which, like the vril force itself, requires many years to master.

(The narrator is not allowed to hold one, 'for fear of some terrible accident occasioned by my ignorance of its use'.)

The Vril Staff, 'is hollow, and has in the handle several stops, keys, or springs by which its force can be altered, modified, or directed - so that by one process it destroys, by another it heals - by one it can rend the rock, by another disperse the vapor - by one it affects bodies, by another it can exercise a certain influence over minds'. (5)

During his protracted stay in the subterranean realm, the narrator learns of the system of government by which the Vril-ya live. They are ruled by a single supreme magistrate who abdicates the position at the first sign of advancing age.

Although their society is entirely free of crime or strife of any kind, they consider strength and force to be among the finest virtues, and the triumph of the strong over the weak to be in perfect accordance with Nature. Democracy and free institutions are, to them, merely the crude experiments of an immature culture.

The government of the tribe of Vril-ya ... was apparently very complicated, really very simple. It was based upon a principle recognized in theory, though little carried out in practice, above ground - viz., that the object of all systems of philosophical thought tends to the attainment of unity, or the ascent through all

intervening labyrinths to the simplicity of a single first cause or principle.

Thus in politics, even republican writers have agreed that a benevolent autocracy would insure the best administration, if there were any guarantees for its continuance, or against its gradual abuse of the powers accorded to it. There was ... in this society nothing to induce any of its members to covet the cares of office. No honors, no insignia of higher rank were assigned to it. The supreme magistrate was not distinguished from the rest by superior habitation or revenue.

On the other hand, the duties awarded to him were marvelously light and easy, requiring no preponderant degree of energy or intelligence. (6) After a number of adventures in the subterranean world - and a great many conversations with its denizens - the narrator comes to the following conclusion regarding the ultimate origins of the fantastic Vril-ya race:

[T]his people - though originally not only of our human race, but, as seems to me clear by the roots of their language, descended from the same ancestors as the great Aryan family, from which in varied streams has flowed the dominant civilization of the world; and having, according to their myths and their history, passed

through phases of society familiar to ourselves, - had yet now developed into a distinct species with which it was impossible that any community in the upper world could amalgamate: And that if they ever emerged from these nether recesses into the light of day, they would, according to their own traditional persuasions of

their ultimate destiny, destroy and replace our existent varieties of man. (7) Although greatly impressed with the knowledge and accomplishments of the Vril-ya, the narrator is nevertheless terrified by their power and the ease with which they wield it, implying at one point that, should he have angered them at any time, they would have had no compunction in turning their Vril Staffs on him and reducing him to cinders.

This uneasiness, coupled with his natural desire to return to the upper world and the life with which he is familiar, prompts the narrator to begin seeking a means of escape from the subterranean world of the Vril-ya. Aid comes in the unlikely form of Zee, who has fallen in love with him and has attempted to persuade him

to stay, but who nevertheless understands that an unrequited love cannot result in happiness for either of them. It is she who leads him back to the mine shaft through which he first entered the realm of the Vrilya. Upon his return home, the narrator begins to ponder the wonders he has beheld far below the surface of the Earth, and once again hints at the possible dreadful fate awaiting a blissfully unaware humanity at the hands of the 'Coming Race'.

In the final chapter, we read: [T]he more I think of a people calmly developing, in regions excluded from our sight and deemed uninhabitable by our sages, powers surpassing our most disciplined modes offeree, and virtues to which our life, social and political, becomes antagonistic in proportion as our civilization advances, - the more devoutly I pray

that ages may yet elapse before there emerge into sunlight our inevitable destroyers. (8) It is an assumption of many occultists that The Coming Race is fact disguised as fiction: that Bulwer-Lytton based his engaging novel on a genuine body of esoteric knowledge. He was greatly interested in the Rosicrucians, the powerful occult society which arose in the sixteenth century and which claimed to possess ancient

wisdom, discovered in a secret underground chamber, regarding the ultimate secrets of the Universe.

There is some evidence that Bulwer-Lytton believed in the possibility of a subterranean world, for he wrote to his friend Hargrave Jennings in 1854: 'So Rosenkreuz [the founder of the Rosicrucians] found his wisdom in a secret chamber. So will we all. There is much to be learned from the substrata of our planet.' (9)

Some writers, including Alec Maclellan, author of the fascinating book The Lost World of Agharti (1996), have suggested that The Coming Race revealed too much of the subterranean world, and was as a result suppressed in the years following Bulwer-Lytton's death in 1873. Indeed, he describes the book as 'one of the hardest to find of all books of mysticism', (10) and informs us of his own search for a copy, which for some years met with no success.

While doubtless an intriguing piece of stage-setting on Maclellan's part, the rarity of the book can surely be accounted for by the unjust waning of Bulwer-Lytton's posthumous literary reputation (mentioned earlier). The present author searched for some months for a copy of The Coming Race, before finding an extremely affordable paperback edition in a high-street bookshop.

What is the connection between Bulwer-Lytton's strange novel and Nazi Germany? If there really was a large colony of Tibetan monks in Berlin in the 1940s, what were they doing there? It seems that the connection was none other than the Bavarian Karl Haushofer (1869-1946) whose theories of Geopolitics gave rise to the concept of Lebensraum (living space), which Hitler maintained would be necessary to the continued dominance of the superior Aryan race and which he intended to take, primarily, from the Soviet Union.

Haushofer, along with Dietrich Eckart (1868-1923) - an anti-Semitic journalist and playwright who influenced Hitler's racial attitudes and introduced him to influential social circles after the First World War - is frequently described by believers in genuine Nazi occult power as a practicing black magician, and the 'Master

Magician of the Nazi Party'. (11)

Haushofer excelled at Munich University, where he began to develop his lifelong interest in the Far East. After leaving university, he entered the German army, where his great intelligence ensured a rapid rise through the ranks. His knowledge of the Far East earned him a posting as military attaché in Japan.

The idea that Haushofer was an occult adept, with secret knowledge of powerful trans-human entities, was first suggested by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier in their fascinating but historically unreliable book The Morning of the Magicians (which served as the model for a number of subsequent treatments of Nazi occultism in the 1960s and early 1970s).

According to Pauwels and Bergier:

[[[Haushofer]]] believed that the German people originated in Central Asia, and that it was the Indo-Germanic race which guaranteed the permanence, nobility and greatness of the world. While in Japan, Haushofer is said to have been initiated into one of the most important secret Buddhist societies and to have sworn, if he

failed in his 'mission', to commit suicide in accordance with the time-honored ceremonial. (12) Haushofer was also apparently a firm believer in the legend of Thule, the lost Aryan homeland in the far north, which had once been the centre of an advanced civilization possessed of magical powers.

Connecting this legend with the Thule Society, Pauwels and Bergier have this to say: Beings intermediate between Man and other intelligent beings from Beyond would place at the disposal of the [[[Wikipedia:Thule Society|Thule Society]]] Initiates a reservoir of forces which could be drawn on to enable Germany to dominate the world again and be the cradle of the coming race of Supermen which would result from the mutations of the human species.

One day her legions would set out to annihilate everything that had stood in the way of the spiritual destiny of the Earth, and their leaders would be men who knew everything, deriving their strength from the very fountain-head of energy and guided by the Great Ones of the Ancient World ... It would seem that it was under the influence of Karl Haushofer that [the Thule Society] took on its true character of a society of Initiates in communion with the Invisible, and became the magic centre of the Nazi movement. (13)

Serious historians such as Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke take issue with the claims of Pauwels and Bergier and the later writers who reiterated them. Goodrick-Clarke, who has perhaps conducted more research into primary German sources than any other writer in this curious field, states that the claims regarding the secret guiding power of the Thule Society are 'entirely fallacious.

The Thule Society was dissolved in 1925 when support had dwindled.'He goes on to assure us that 'there is no evidence at all to link Haushofer to the group.' (14)

Nevertheless, Haushofer's alleged skill in the Black Arts has become an important link in the Nazi occult chain as described by writers on such fringe subjects.After the end of the First World War, Haushofer returned to Munich, where he gained a doctorate from the university. He divided his time between teaching and writing and founded the Geopolitical Review in which he published his ideas on Lebensraum, which could 'both justify territorial conquest by evoking the colonizing

of Slav lands by Teutonic knights in the Middle Ages and, emotively, conjure up notions of uniting in the Reich what came to be described as Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) scattered throughout eastern Europe'. (15) While incarcerated in the fortress of Landsberg am Lech following the failure of the Munich Putsch in 1924, Adolf Hitler read and was influenced by Haushofer's books on geopolitics (he had already been introduced to Haushofer by the professor's student assistant, Rudolf Hess). There is no doubt that Hitler occupied his

time in Landsberg judiciously, reading widely in several fields, though not for the sake of education so much as to confirm and clarify his own preconceptions. (He later said that Landsberg was his 'university paid for by the state'). (16) According to Pauwels and Bergier and other fringe writers, Haushofer visited Hitler every day in Landsberg, where he explained his geopolitical theories and described his travels through India in the early years of the century.

While in India, he had heard stories of a powerful civilization living beneath the Himalayas: Thirty or forty centuries ago in the region of Gobi there was a highly developed civilization. As the result of a catastrophe, possibly of an atomic nature, Gobi was transformed into a desert, and the survivors emigrated, some going to the extreme North of Europe, and others towards the Caucasus. The Scandinavian godThor is supposed to have been one of the heroes of this migration.

... Haushofer proclaimed the necessity of 'a return to the sources' of the human race - in other words, that it was necessary to conquer the whole of Eastern Europe, Turkestan, Pamir, Gobi and Thibet. These countries constituted, in his opinion, the central core, and whoever had control of them controlled the whole world. (17)

After the cataclysm that destroyed the Gobi civilization, the survivors migrated to a vast cavern system beneath the Himalayas where they split into two groups, one of which followed the path of spirituality, enlightenment and meditation while the other followed the path of violence and materialistic power. The first of these centers was called Agartha, the other Shambhala. (These names have many different spellings: for Agartha, I use the simplest; for Shambhala, the spelling favored by Orientalists.)

We shall return for a closer look to the realms of Agartha and Shambhala in the next chapter. According to Alec Maclellan, among the many books Hitler read while languishing in Landsberg was Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race, which, Haushofer informed him, was an essentially correct description of the race of Supermen living far beneath the surface of the Earth and corroborated much of what the professor had himself learned while travelling in Asia.

Bulwer-Lytton's novel apparently galvanized Hitler's imagination, and he, 'began to yearn for the day when he might establish for himself the actuality of the secret civilization beneath the snows of Tibet ...' (18) In the following year, 1925, the Vril Society (also known as the Luminous Lodge) was formed by a group of Berlin Rosicrucians including Karl Haushofer.

As Joscelyn Godwin informs us, there is only one primary source of information on the Vril Society: Willy Ley, a German rocket engineer who fled to the United States in 1933 and followed a successful career writing popular science books. In 1947, Ley published an article entitled 'Pseudoscience in Naziland'.

Following a description of Ariosophy, Ley writes:

The next group was literally founded upon a novel. That group which I think called itself Wahrheitsgesellschaft -Society for Truth - and which was more or less localized in Berlin, devoted its spare time looking for Vril. Yes, their convictions were founded upon BulwerLytton's 'The Coming Race'. They knew that the book was

fiction, Bulwer-Lytton had used that device in order to be able to tell the truth about this 'power'. The subterranean humanity was nonsense, Vril was not.

Possibly it had enabled the British, who kept it as a State secret, to amass their colonial empire. Surely the Romans had had it, inclosed [sic] in small metal balls, which guarded their homes and were referred to as lares. For reasons which I failed to penetrate, the secret of Vril could be found by contemplating the structure

of an apple, sliced in halves. No, I am not joking, that is what I was told with great solemnity and secrecy. Such a group actually existed, they even got out the first issue of a magazine which was to proclaim their credo. (19) Although they apparently interviewed Ley, Pauwels and Bergier could learn nothing more from him about this mysterious society; however, they later discovered that the group actually called itself the Vril Society, and that Karl Haushofer was intimately connected with it. (Joscelyn Godwin kindly reminds us of the unreliability

of the splendid Pauwels and Bergier: although they cite Jack Fishman's The Seven Men of Spandau with regard to Haushofer's connection to the Vril Society, Fishman actually makes no such reference.) (20)

Pauwels and Bergier go on to inform us that, having failed in his mission, Haushofer committed suicide on 14 March 1946, in accordance with his pledge to his masters in the secret Japanese society into which he had been initiated. Once again, the truth is somewhat different: Haushofer did not commit ham kin but died from arsenic poisoning on 10 March.

In addition, Ley's reference to 'contemplating the structure of an apple, sliced in halves' (thus revealing the five-pointed star at its centre) echoes Rudolf Steiner's suggestion in Knowledge of Higher Worlds and Its Attainment. Indeed, as Godwin reminds us, (21) the Theosophists were themselves interested in the concept of

the vril force, which bears some resemblance to Reichenbach's Odic force, and to the Astral Light, also known as the Akashic Records: a subtle form of energy said to surround the Earth, in which is preserved a record of every thought and action that has ever occurred. In spite of the sober research of writers like Goodrick-Clarke and Godwin, the idea of an immensely sinister and powerful Vril Society secretly controlling the Third Reich has lost nothing of its ability to fascinate. Many still maintain that Haushofer introduced Hitler to the leader of the group of Tibetan high lamas living in

Berlin, a man known only as 'The Man with the Green Gloves', and that this man knew the locations of the hidden entrances to the subterranean realms of Agartha and Shambhala. (22) These rumors doubtless gave rise to the famous legends about Hitler's obsessive search for the entrances to the inner world.

According to Maclellan:

'The first expeditions were dispatched purely under the auspices of the Luminous Lodge, beginning in 1926, but later, after coming to power, Hitler took a more direct interest, overseeing the organization of the searches himself.' (23) Maclellan also states that Hitler believed unequivocally that 'certain representatives of the underground super-race were already abroad in the world', (24) citing Hermann Rauschning's famous book Hitler Speaks - A Senes of Political Conversations with Adolf Hitler on his Real Aims (1939). The conversations recorded by Rauschning have served as source material for many writers on the Third Reich, including serious ones.

Proponents of genuine Nazi occult power have repeatedly pointed to the mystical elements in Hitler's conversations as relayed by Rauschning, who says that he repeatedly had the feeling that Hitler was a medium, possessed of supernatural powers. It seems that on one occasion, Hitler actually met one of the subterranean Supermen.

Rauschning claims that Hitler confided to him:

The new man is among us. He is here! Now are you satisfied? I will tell you a secret. I have seen the vision of the new man - fearless and formidable. I shrank from him.' (25)

To his credit, Maclellan states that this was more than likely a deranged fantasy on Hitler's part. However, Rauschning's very description should be treated with extreme caution: it should be noted that, in spite of the widespread interest it stimulated, Hitler Speaks has not stood the test of time as an accurate historical document.

In fact, Ian Kershaw, one of the foremost authorities on Hitler and the author of Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris (1998), does not cite Rauschning's book anywhere in his monumental study, and states that it is 'a work now regarded to have so little authenticity that it is best to disregard it altogether'. (26) As the story goes, Hitler ordered a number of expeditions into German, Swiss and Italian mines to search for the entrances to the cavern cities of the Supermen. He is even said to have ordered research to be conducted into the life of Bulwer-Lytton, in an effort to determine whether the author himself had visited the realm

of the Vril-ya. While serious writers ignore these rumors, there is an interesting event on record that Maclellan quotes in his The Lost World of Agharti and that illustrates the frustrating nature of the 'twilight zone between fact and fiction' in which we find ourselves when discussing Nazi occultism. Maclellan cites the testimony of one Antonin Horak, an expert speleologist and member of the Slovak Uprising, who accidentally discovered a strange tunnel in Czechoslovakia in October 1944.

Dr Horak kept quiet about the discovery until 1965, when he published an account in the National Speleological Society News. In his article, Dr Horak stated that he and two other Resistance fighters found the tunnel near the villages of Plavince and Lubocna (he is quite specific about the location: 49.2 degrees north, 20.7

degrees east). Having just survived a skirmish with the Germans, the three men (one of whom was badly injured) asked a local peasant for help.

He led them to an underground grotto where they could hide and rest.

The peasant told the Resistance men that the cave contained pits, pockets of poison gas, and was also haunted, and warned them against venturing too far inside. This they had no intention of doing, such was their weariness. They attended to the wounds of their comrade and fell asleep. The following day, Horak's curiosity got the better of him and, while he waited for the injured man to recover enough strength to travel again, he decided to do a little exploring inside the cave.

Presently, he came to a section that was completely different from the rest of the cave. 'Lighting some torches, I saw that I was in a spacious, curved, black shaft formed by cliff-like walls. The floor in the incline was a solid lime pavement.' (27)

The tunnel stretched interminably into the distance. Dr Horak decided to take a sample of the wall, but was unable to make any impression with his pickaxe. He took his pistol and fired at the wall (surely an unwise thing to do, given the risk of a ricochet and with German soldiers possibly still in the vicinity).

'The bullet slammed into the substance of the walls with a deafening, fiery impact,' he wrote. 'Sparks flashed, there was a roaring sound, but not so much as a splinter fell from the substance. Only a small welt appeared, about the length of half my finger, which gave off a pungent smell.' Dr Horak then returned to his comrades and told them about the apparently man-made tunnel. 'I sat there by the fire speculating. How far did it reach into the rocks? I wondered. Who, or what, put it into the mountain? Was it man-made? And was it at last proof of the truth in legends - like Plato's - of long-lost civilizations with magic technologies which our rationale cannot grasp or believe?' (28)

No one else, apparently, has explored this tunnel since Dr Horak in 1944. The peasants who lived in the region obviously knew of its existence, but kept well away.

In addition to the stories of Nazi mine expeditions in Central and Eastern Europe during the Second World War, occult writers have frequently made reference to the Nazi Tibet Expeditions, allegedly an attempt to locate and make contact with a group of high lamas with access to fantastic power. Once again, Pauwels and

Bergier have plenty to say on this subject, which is in itself enough to give pause to the cautious. The American researcher Peter Levenda experienced a similar skepticism with regard to the supposed Nazi-Tibet connection, until he began to search for references in the microfilmed records in the Captured German Documents Section of the National Archives in Washington, DC. He discovered a wealth of material, running to many hundreds of pages, dealing with the work of Dr Ernst Schafer of the Ahnenerbe.

These documents included Dr Schafer's personal notebooks, his correspondence, clippings from several German newspapers, and his SS file, which describes an expedition to East and Central Tibet from 1934-1936, and the official SS-Tibet Expedition of 1938-1939 under his leadership. (29) As Levenda demonstrates, the expedition was not so much concerned with contacting Tibetan representatives of the subterranean super-race as with cataloguing the flora and fauna of the region (an activity of little military value to the Third Reich, which accounts for the difficulty Schafer occasionally had in securing funding

for his trips). Born in Cologne on 14 March 1910 into a wealthy industrialist family, Ernst Schafer attended school in Heidelberg and Gottingen, and embarked on his first expedition to Tibet in 1930 under the auspices of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia when he was only twenty years old. The following year, he joined the American Brooke Dolan expedition to Siberia, China and Tibet. He became a member of the SS in mid 1933, finally reaching the rank of Sturmbannfuhrer in 1942.

In addition to being an SS officer, Schafer was also a respected scientist who published papers in various journals, such as the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. As Levenda wryly notes, Schafer was 'a man of many parts: one part SS officer and one part scholar, one part explorer and one part scientist: a Nazi Indiana Jones'. (30)

Schafer was also deeply interested in the religious and cultural practices of the Tibetans, including their sexuality. (Indeed, the members of the 1938-1939 expedition displayed a somewhat prurient fascination with intimate practices: the film-maker Ernst Krause, for instance, took great care to record his observation of a fifteen-year-old Lanchung girl masturbating on a bridge beam.) (31) When not cataloguing flora and fauna (and spying on teenage girls), the members of the expedition managed to conduct other research, which included an exhaustive study of the physical attributes of the Tibetan people. Schafer noted height and weight, the shape of hands and feet, the color and shape of eyes, and even took plaster casts of Tibetans' faces.

On 21 July 1939, Der Neue Tag published the following article:

SACRED TIBETAN SCRIPTURE ACQUIRED BY THE DR SCHAFER-EXPEDITION ON NINE ANIMAL LOADS ACROSS THE HIGH-COUNTRY

(SPECIAL) FRANKFURT

20 JULY

The Tibet Expedition of Dr Ernst Schafer, which during its expedition through Tibet stayed a long time in Lhasa and in the capital of the Panchen Lama, Shigatse, is presently on its return trip to Germany. Since the monsoons began unusually early, the return march of the expedition was hastened in order to secure the

shipment of the precious collections. The expedition has singularly valuable scientific research results to inventory. In addition to outstanding accomplishments in the areas of geophysical and earth-magnetic research they succeeded in obtaining an extra-rich ethnological collection including, along with cult objects, many articles and tools of daily life. With the help of the regent of Lhasa it was Dr Schafer who also succeeded in obtaining the Kangschur, the extensive, 108-volume sacred script of the Tibetans, which required nine animal loads to transport. Also especially extensive are the zoological and botanical collections that the expedition has already shipped, in part, to Germany, the remainder of which they will bring themselves. The zoological collection includes the total bird-fauna of the research area.

Dr Schafer was also able, for the first time, to bag a Schapi, a hitherto unknown wild goat. About 50 live animals are on the way to Germany, while numerous other live animals are still with the expedition. An extensive herbarium of all existing plants is also on its way. Furthermore, valuable geographical and earth-historical accomplishments were made.

Difficulties encountered due to political tensions with the English authorities were eliminated due to personal contact between Dr Schafer and members of the British authorities in Shangtse, so that the unimpeded return of the expedition out of Tibet with its valuable collections was guaranteed. (32) Levenda informs us that he was unable to discover the fate of the Kangschur, the 'core document' of Tibetan Buddhism, although he suspects that it was taken to Vienna.

With regard to the expedition itself, while it must be conceded that it had very little to do with the occult or magical ambitions of the Third Reich, it is possible that the 'earth-magnetic' and 'geophysical' experiments had a firm foundation in a very shaky theory.

Levenda suggests that the Tibet Expedition of 1938-1939 attempted to prove the pseudo-scientific World Ice Theory of Hans Horbiger. This bizarre theory will be discussed in detail in Chapter Seven. But for now, let us return to the concept embodied in the rumors about the Vril Society, with its alleged attempts to contact (and enlist the aid of) a mysterious group of vastly powerful Eastern adepts.

To examine the origins of this idea, we must ourselves embark on a journey to Tibet, known in some quarters as 'the Phantom Kingdom'.

The historian may be rational, but history is not. - Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier

'I'm a skeptic.' 'No, you're only incredulous, a doubter, and that's different.' -Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum