Some Hindoo Dude In Arkansas

Dalia tried to help by taking me to this Hindoo Holy Dude who made me even more confused. He gave a long lecture about the dream state and the reality state. I asked him a stupid question: "If I had turkey for breakfast, pork for lunch and chicken for dinner, what do you think I will dream about tonight?" He gave me a shit-eating smile but did not answer.

One More Day Before It All Came Tumbling Down In Arkansas

My head was spinning after the talk with Kevin and Jason. I headed for the local Coffee Bean. If Nicole Kidman is to be believed, the local Coffee Bean is the place to be if you want to talk about problems that do not have any solutions. Problem was, I had no money to buy anything. So I took one of them paper cups, filled it with warm milk and sugar, took a seat at the corner and pretended to be reading a magazine. As luck would have it, a very tall blonde girl walked over and we started chatting. I realized that she wasn't really so tall after all. She's about my height. The only reason she looked so tall was because she was wearing 10-inch padded shoes. I noticed the pads were made from brown crocodile skins - probably the same type as her handbag. Her name was Ilsa.

Ilsa: None of this is real.

Me: What do you mean?

Ilsa: You don't fool me. We're all just figments of your imagination.

Me: If you were all merely figments of my imagination, don't you think I'll know it?

Ilsa: That's the problem. You don't! There you are, still sitting in that same chair that you did weeks ago when you began this silly fantasy about being lost in Arkansas.

Me: No, I'm not! I'm sitting here drinking this cup of warm milk and talking to you.

Ilsa: But that's the point. You're only imagining that you're talking to me. Just like you were imagining that you were screwing this gothic girl called Dalia, discussing pagan religion with this fictional guy called Kevin and receiving all sorts of weird notes from another fictional guy called Mike. You did all this in order to set up all sorts of misdirections for your readers - particularly some silly fake pltypuses with a voyeuristic tendency.

Me: No, no, NO! That cannot be. Are you telling me that the experiences of the past several weeks were all an illusion? That nothing was real?

Ilsa: Nothing IS real anyway. What's the difference?

Me: But what about that mysterious letter, the stack of photocopied magazine articles and the photograph? See, I have them in my coat pocket here...

[I reached into my coat pocket but I found nothing there. I could've sworn that they were in there. Did Kevin and Jason take them from me?]

Ilsa: You never had any of those things. And, if you're wondering, no - Kevin and Jason did not steal them from you. Besides, they never existed in the first place. They, like me, are all figments of your imagination.

Me: No. I get it now. You are another of those agents sent by THEM to confuse me. There are two parties involved now. One party obviously want me to know what I know so they sent me all sorts of clues. The other party is obviously trying to misguide me with all sorts of crazy smokescreens. You and all those suckers from SIN are in the same league. Liars lying to each other in order to keep us all in the dark. In order to maintain the status quo.

Ilsa: It looks like your mental condition is worse than we thought. You are in need of treatment.

Me: No. What I need is to get out of this stupid place and go home.

I got up from my seat, knocked down the cup of warm milk and dashed out of the place. I can't remember how I got back to Dalia's apartment but I know I did. Dalia was awake. She saw me, walked across the room and put her arms around me. I cried. What is going on with my life?

Clues On The Mysterious Letter (From The Arkansas Assholes)

In order to decipher the contents of the mysterious letter, I headed down to Moloch's Chapel once again. Thankfully, Kevin (not the same Khonshu Kevin) and Jason were standing at the spot where they stood every single day at this hour. I was told that Kevin and Jason were prophets. They had some weird "epiphany" thingy and started talking about all sorts of end-of-the-world shit.

Kevin took a look at the mysterious poem and sighed - "You falling for this video game shit?"

I didn't understand him - "What do you mean?"

"They used to send this shit out all the time. Lotsa folks got this in their e-mail?" - Jason explained.

"Who sent them out?" - I asked.

"Nobody knows. Best guess is some weird-shit video-game company. People believed that this poem was sent out to promote some dark, gothic video-game that was all the rage coupla years back..." - Kevin explained.

"But why was it sent to me along with all this shit on Nazi occultism and this weird photo?" - I asked again.

"Nobody knows. Best guess is someone is playing a trick on you. Anyway, if you look at the poem carefully, you'll note that every line there is an anagram for 'DARK DAYS ARE COMING'!!!" - Kevin's explanation doesn't give me much comfort.

"Let me see the poem again. I read it aloud: 'A grim, odd arcane sky - Any god, I mark sacred. A masked cry adoring - A dreamy, sick dragon.' Hey, you're right! It does say 'DARK DAYS ARE COMING'!!!" - I exclaimed.

"No it doesn't! It says 'DARK DEMONS CRY GAIA'!!! Everyone knows that!" - Jason interjected.

"Are we having this conversation again? 'DARK DEMONS CRY GAIA' doesn't make any sense at all. 'DARK DAYS ARE COMING' sounds all dark and prophetic. Besides, the numbers "2012" are clearly shown on the paper denoting the Mayan end of the age." - Kevin explained.

"Actually I still think that it says 'DARK DEMONS CRY GAIA' because of the Hebrew letters on the paper. בני האלהים is Hebrew for 'Sons of God', as in those sexual predators from Genesis 6 who impregnated those 'Daughters of Men' uber-babes? Doctor Aw used to teach that the offsprings were demons who were trapped on earth. So, earth = gaia, hence 'DARK DEMONS CRY GAIA'!" - Jason retorted, obviously pleased with himself.

"Not really. You see the whole thing is about the Illuminati. The Spanish words on the paper, 'de que manera estan involucrados los illuminati' translates as 'HOW DOES THIS INVOLVE THE ILLUMINATI', you see? And note the German line: 'Etwas über einen "Krieg der Finsternis"'. That translates as 'SOMETHING OVER A "WAR OF DARKNESS"' - that's another clue supporting the 'Dark Days' theory..." - Kevin explained.

I must've looked positively puzzled already. I took the paper back from the 'prophets', thanked them for their explanations and made my exit. Why would someone send me a piece of paper about dark demons or dark ages? Someone is trying to tell me something. It's got something to do with Nazi occultism, that's for sure. But what? Even more importantly, why am I involving myself in all this? Why am I even here in Arkansas? The sex with Dalia was great. The colourful folks I've met were great. But I still need to look for the cat to find a way home...

I'm Going Slightly Mad (In Arkansas)

Are they trying to tell you something
You're missing that one final screw

A Mysterious Letter In Dalia's Apartment

Upon arriving back at Dalia's apartment, she told me that a messenger came by earlier today and left a letter for me. That was strange. Nobody knew who I was - a penniless, homeless bum brought to Arkansas by a mysterious cat. Nobody knew me in this place. Not even my family back home knew that I was here. I opened the envelope and found an old parchment-like note together with a stack of papers that looked like photocopies from an old magazine. I shook the envelope and a tiny piece of picture fell out. The picture looked like this:

I had no idea what the picture was about. There was this guy at the bottom who was pointing to his right eye while talking to a woman. There were carriages drawn by dark horses, two mysterious guys standing under a tree and some tall spires in the background. I decided to leave the unravelling of this mystery to a later time.

As for the parchment-like page, there was some sort of verse written in, I don't know, blood or chocolate-syrup. You meet all sorts of weirdness in this day and age. The verse read: "A grim, odd arcane sky - Any god, I mark sacred. A masked cry adoring - A dreamy, sick dragon." Again, I had no idea what this was about so I turned to the stack of photocopies. They were apparently taken from a magazine on esoterica.

Paolo MATTEI
Germany the great, an esoteric dream (occult roots of Nationalsocialism)
from 30 Days, October 2004.

An interview with Giorgio Galli on the occult roots of Nazism, from which also arose the idea that the "living space" of the Third Reich should stretch to the Urals. An aspect little studied by historians, but which has re-emerged since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Professor Giorgio Galli does not feel competent to appraise the esoteric "from the inside", but he is an acknowledged scholar of it. His stance «is that», as he puts it, «of a historian and political scientist who believes that esoteric culture is more interwoven with the disciplines he practices than has been so far judged by historiography and political science».

It has been from that viewpoint that he has also studied the history of the Third Reich, publishing the result of his work in 1989 in a widely known book: "Hitler and magical Nazism. The esoteric components of the millennial Reich" (Rizzoli, Milan). The year 1989 is one for which Galli points out significant coincidences: the centenary of the birth of Hitler and the bicentenary of the French Revolution. «The year 1989», he explains in the preface to the second edition of his book, «was to enter history because of the revolution in the East: exactly a century after the birth of the Führer the wall of Berlin fell, premise of a Germany united again, the hegemonic power in Europe».

Fifteen years on from that year, after so many happenings, after the tragedy of 11 September 2001 that gave rise to the on-going wars, the history of violence and death in which Hitler and Nazism figured so largely continues to stir troubling questions and to stand as measure for the violence and death that rain down each day in the places round the world martyred by conflicts. And the possible occult, magical, esoteric substratum of that phenomenon stirs the interest of many. The television has often dealt with it and in the last year at least two books have had a certain success in Italy (Marco Dolcetta, "Esoteric Nazionalsocialism", Cooper Castelvecchi, Rome 2003; Mel Gordon, "Hitler's magus. Eric Jan Hanussen: a Jew at the Führer's court", Mondadori, Milan 2004).

We put some questions to Giorgio Galli (author of many essays some of which deal with the esoteric and politics such as "Politics and the magicians", Rizzoli, Milan 1995; "Politics and the esoteric on the threshold of 2000", Rizzoli, Milan 1992; "Notes on the New Age", Milan 2003, in which he analyses that cultural movement, making use also of papal documents).

In your essay "Magical Nazism" you point to an "esoteric bridge" between England and Germany, between theories and esoteric and occult societies present in the two countries in the 19th and the 20th centuries. A bridge that stretched to the founders of Nazism also. What was that so exactly?

GIORGIO GALLI: Between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth the esoteric tradition in both Germany and England gained new strength. An "esoteric bridge" between the two countries, the Rosicrucian one, goes back in fact to the 17th century, in the framework of an occult culture not extraneous to the Thirty Years War that devastated Germany. In the last decades of the 19th century relations between English and Germans esoteric groups took on new force, and close links were forged among influential people - on the basis of a "magical" conception of reality - that were passed on for a couple of generations following. There were also troubling elements in the reconstitution. One of these consisted of so-called "sexual magic", that is to say the attainment of "special" powers deriving from sexual practices: in 1888, the year after the foundation of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, London was shaken by a series of sexual crimes, those of Jack the Ripper. The mystery has never been solved. Some figures and some relations significantly mark this resurfacing of the esoteric culture in Europe, such as the meeting in London between the French occultist Eliphas Levi, biblical pseudonym of Alphonse-Louis Constant, a former seminarian who became a revolutionary in Paris in 1848, and Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who was to have a crucial role in the evolution of the Rosicrucian society into the hermetic Golden Dawn. After various excursions into political and occult activities, Levi was to write a book, "The coming race": in it he speaks of a form of energy, the "Vril" that is to give its name to a society, which, along with the work of the founder of the Institute of Geopolitics of Berlin, Karl Haushofer, was to furnish a fundamental contribution to the elaboration of Nazi ideology in relation to the idea of the Aryan race and of "living space", Lebensraum.

What was the cultural background and theories common to these groups?

GALLI: First of all a conception according to which the history we know is only one part of the history of mankind. Only some elites of initiates know "all" history. The ancient history of pure and incorrupt civilizations. This lore and knowledge, which one can gain through occult practices and rites, transmit particular power to the initiates who must also perform a political role so as to administer the future of a decadent mankind to which the gifts and the characteristics lost over time must be restored. The members of these societies believed, in short, that they were the depositories of an ancient primordial learning that often manifested itself in particular rites. An interesting fact is that some followers of esoteric groups performed roles in the secret services of their own countries. A key figure in this sense is the German Theodor Reuss, of the occult "Ordo templi orientis society", teacher of the Englishman Aleister Crowley. Crowley, also a master of the occult and agent of the British services at the same time, at the end of the nineteenth century joined the celebrated "Golden Dawn" - a derivation, as has been said, of the Rosicrucian Society - and then founded an English offshoot of the "Ordo templi orientis". The "Golden Dawn" was in its turn linked with German associations connected to the secret doctrine of the Russian Madame Elena Blavatsky - founder in New York, in 1875, of the "Theosophical Society" - and to the anthroposophy of Rudolph Steiner.

But the business of Hitler and Nazism occurred after those episodes...

GALLI: My hypothesis is that the "bridge", which, as I've explained, united English and German esoteric cultures, hermetic orders and secret services between the 19th and 20th centuries, continued to exist in the period immediately following, so that the intellectual baggage of Hitler and of part of the Nazi executive group came from this type of occult culture. I have gathered data that enables me even to say that this group, having reached power in the Third Reich, debated within that ambit on how to implement a strategy deriving from that culture, that is to say the resurgence of "Aryan wisdom". As I can also affirm that Hitler's decision to enter war in the conviction that England would not intervene can be understood in the light of the esoteric culture, of which leading circles in English politic life were also aware. The whole history of Nazism should, in my view, be read keeping this factor in mind as well.

How did Hitler come into contact with the esoteric? Who were his mentors?

GALLI: The starting point can be found in the magazine "Ostara", of which Hitler in his Vienna years was an avid reader. The publication - which takes its name from an ancient Germanic goddess of the spring and that hence denotes a connection with the Nordic tradition and with the old pagan deities antecedent to the spread of Christianity in Germany - was founded in 1905 by a former monk, Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels who, among other things, founded a place in Werfenstein, the "Castle of Order", where, probably, with financial support from business, began to advocate an organization founded on the theory of the superiority of the Aryan race. Another point of reference for the esoteric interests of the future Führer is Rudolf von Sebottendorff, a student of the Cabal, of alchemical and Rosicrucian works, of the occult practices of the dervishes, and promoter, in 1918 in Munich, of the "Thule Gesellschaft", an offshoot association of the "Germanorden", a society set up early in the second decade that was strongly marked by elements of anti-semitism and racism. Hitler, Rudolf Hess, Karl Haushofer and Hans Frank, the future governor general of Poland all gravitated round the "Thule". It was an association dominated by occult culture and the secret doctrines worked out in the preceding decades. "Thule" - the mythical Atlantis, country of the Hyperboreans - was thus the mould of the group of intellectuals at the origin of Nazism. Among other things, in 1933 Von Sebottendorff published a book, "Before Hitler came", in which, meaning to rekindle the debate about the esoteric origins of Nazism, he speaks of having been the Führer's teacher in the occult. But that group of intellectuals, by then in power, had for some time decided that it was better to keep hidden the esoteric and occult elements they believed in so as to give emphasis to political organization. And for that matter, in the year von Sebottendorff's book was published, Hitler was already Chancellor of the Reich. The book was thus withdrawn from the shops.
What are the basic features of the esoteric group Hitler centered on?

GALLI: I have to say beforehand that one of the difficulties working in this field is the fact that official, academic historiography doesn't much engage with these things. Work in the area of esoteric culture is sometimes left to minority scholars or even to very eccentric characters, who in any case often work on marginal affairs. The fact that official historiography doesn't do much in this direction makes it more difficult to find certified documentation. I'm convicted that if there were more interest, something would be found. But let me answer your question. I've mentioned very ancient civilization and legacies of knowledge - Atlantis is the most important reference - in short to a cultural element based on fantasy history, on fantasy geography, on fantasy cosmogony and on the hidden laws that are alleged to guide it. Hitler believed that the founding reasons of his political action lay in that distant past, in a magical wisdom to be retrieved and in which lay the tool for forging the luminous future. The group of Thule intellectuals who in the 'twenties decided the transformation of an occult sect into a mass political party, were convinced believers in these things. There were thus two dynamics at work: the profound conviction of the initiates who operated in these groups and, at the same time, a certain influence that they, for reasons amply gone into by the scholars, exerted in some historic moments on political movements. Hitler, Himmler, Hess, Rosenberg, Frank: they believed themselves the heirs to an ancient lore that would enable them to build a new civilization. It should be said that a renowned and "traditional" historian has identified and assessed some of these esoteric threads: I speak of George Mosse who in the "Cultural origins of the Third Reich" explicitly points to the esoterist Guido von List and his runic symbology as one of Hitler's points of reference. The initials of the SS, the militias that Himmler was to use to implement projects worked out in the occult milieu, come from the runes studied by von List.

Hitler often gets described as an ignorant man, a man without qualities. How did he manage to impose himself on the esoteric group he belonged to?

GALLI: There's a widespread tendency to describe him as an ignorant person and it's shared by the work of Joachim Fest, the Führer's biographer, who acted as consultant on the recent film on Hitler that has come out in Germany, Der Untergang (The fall). Fest has written an excellent biography of Hitler but he tends to present him as a barn-storming leader and as a man of skimpy reading, and that only of anti-semitic propaganda. That's not true. Hitler had read Nietzsche and Schopenauer. He stood out in the group of Rosenberg, Hess, Himmler, Frank because he possessed two qualities that have nothing to do with esoteric culture. He was a most effective speaker and a clever organizer. Maybe he learned the first quality from the magus Hanussen, that almost hypnotic way of communicating with his listeners. We know with certainty that Hitler took lessons in diction from Hanussen. But he learned something else from the magus. Hanussen had the gift of hypnotism and Mel Gordon's book reconstructs the matter fairly well. In "Mein Kampf" Hitler proposes, apart from an esoteric ideology, precise organizational programs as well. That give the idea they were worked out by a good politician. Himmler, the bureaucrat of extermination, had similar organizational talent, but was not at all a good communicator. And neither was Hess. Rosenberg is only very effective as a writer... Of this group bound up with esoteric culture nobody had, in short, the two specific gifts which Hitler possessed.

"Mein Kampf" indicates the goals Hitler set himself: the creation of a Eurasia with undefined eastern frontiers, world "co-dominion" with England...

GALLI: Yes, it's an esoteric strategy in which the occult and geopolitics are interwoven. It was Haushofer who worked out the theories relating to "living space". On the basis of mystical and spiritual considerations that identified the center of the world in the German nation, but also making reference to other theoreticians of geopolitics such as the Englishman Halford John Mackinder, who had identified the "heart of the earth" as being in eastern Europe and in European Russia, Haushofer was convinced that a huge area going from western Europe to the Urals was necessary for the rebuilding of the Aryan civilization. The living space - Lebensraum - of the new Aryan civilization. Germany was the foundation stone of a geopolitical arrangement as prelude to the creation of a new civilization and of a new man who would recover the ancient lost virtues. The Jews, who have an opposing hegemonic world dream, were to be set aside and then eliminated. Thus the Drang nach Osten arose out of a project of an esoteric nature.

But the leadership of the Third Reich included men who didn't share the same culture as Hitler and his allies...

GALLI: That's true, but even they were influenced by the occult: pragmatic Göring was interested in the theory of the "hollow earth", Goebbels was intrigued by Nostradamus... And in any case Goebbels and Göring shared Hitler's project precisely because they were overawed by his esoteric convictions.

Let's come to Hess's journey to Scotland in May 1941. That flight also took place under an esoteric sign...

GALLI: The project for co-dominion with England on the basis of Lebensraum as prelude to the construction of a new mankind never faded, not even after the start of the war, when it became evident that Great Britain's hoped-for neutrality hadn't come true. The "bridge" still existed. And for that matter the episode of the halting of the German tanks at Dunkerque in 1940 that allowed the French and English to get away can be read in that key: an attempt to come to an agreement with esoteric interlocutors living in England. On 10 May 1941 Hess flew to Scotland to try to persuade such people not to intervene at the moment of the invasion of the USSR. He probably wanted to meet the heirs of societies of the type of the Golden Dawn that had relations with the Royal family and with whom he could talk. It was however without doubt the Duke of Hamilton that Hess was looking for. He was a confidant of the king of England. He was pro-Nazi and had had contacts with Hess and the leaders of the Reich for some time. The decision to make the journey probably followed debate among the esoteric Nazi leaders, hence it's plausible that Hitler was aware of it. The operation was covered by massive disinformation. But Hess and the National Socialists were deluding themselves: the "bridge" was still there but by then it was too flimsy to allow for an agreement between Germany and England on the Drang nach Osten. In May 1941 even the English aristocracy was "resigned" to making war on Germany.

You explain in your book that Hitler was trying to come to an agreement with England right up to the end.

GALLI: Yes. After the defeat in Russia, instead of trying to block the Russian counterattack, Hitler moved his armoured divisions from the eastern to the western front. The tactic was always the same: «Constrain England to make peace by force», as he himself seems to have said. Right up to the end he believed that the esoteric "bridge" could be rebuilt.

How is it possible that the enormous power Hitler and his allies gained in Germany came out of esoteric experiences?

GALLI: I've always tried to avoid insisting the esoteric is the exclusive interpretative key for explaining certain facts. Certainly, as I've already said, it is an important and neglected aspect. But Hitler gained consensus for reasons that historiography has studied abundantly already and I don't question them: German humiliation after World War I, the frustrations consequent on defeat and the Treaty of Versailles, the economic crisis of 1929 that caused 6,000,000 jobless, the Weimar policies that were incapable of providing an effective answer to the problems. Those were the chief reasons that enabled Hitler to take power. Hitler dealt with unemployment even before rearmament by means of great public works, taking the advice of the financier and politician Hjalmar Schacht, who was a Keynesian. And in "Mein Kampf", for that matter, he presented a political program that had normal aspect, such as, in fact, the battle against unemployment.

August von Galen, bishop of Münster during the Nazi period, described by the New York Times as «the most obstinate opponent of the Nationalsocialist antichristian program», spoke of Nazism as «religious trickery»...

GALLI: In a certain way it is. And Pius XI also showed strong concern with the publication of "Mit Brennender Sorge". He spoke about neo-paganism. In reality one can speak of something more than neo-paganism. All the Nazionalsocialist ceremonies were patterned on a religious model: the lights, the Führer appearing like a magical apparition. They all had the quality of a magical liturgy.

It seems that even Churchill, the great opponent of the Führer's esoteric programs, didn't scorn the company of occultists...

GALLI: In my book "Politics and the magicians" I explain how even Churchill put trust in clairvoyants. Churchill was an absolute conservative and an absolute anti-communist. Don't lets forget that he wrote for Mussolini's newspaper "Popolo d'Italia". In his vision of the world only English-speaking peoples are up to democracy. For other peoples any form of regime is ok. For him the history of the West coincides with the history of the English-speaking people. So Hitler might have been able to please him, as he pleased various conservative sectors of English society. But, according to me, he had contacts with English esoteric societies that had provided him with a certain amount of information on the "contra-initiation of the Führer".

Meaning?

GALLI: In esoteric culture there is a fundamental difference between "initiation" and "contra-initiation". Initiation - that of the Masons, to make myself clear - is held to be positive. Contra-initiation instead is thought to have something diabolic about it: Churchill had found out that Hitler was a "contra-initiate". Churchill, then, knowing of the "esoteric-diabolic" background to Hitler's contra-initiation, was afraid that behind the negotiable objectives - a free hand in Europe and in the East for Germany and guarantee of the continuity of the British Empire - that were probably acceptable to him, there were non-negotiable objectives: the empire of evil. Hitler didn't want only an empire of a geopolitical sort. He wanted an empire over minds, based on a series of values that even the conservative anti-communist Churchill saw as negative and unwarrantable. It's a fact, however, that Hitler's prophecy of the end of the British Empire has in substance come true. Hitler prophesied that Churchill would destroy the English Empire and hand over the imperial sceptre to the United States.

One last question, Professor. René Girard said in a recent interview that «the Nazi contempt for Christian tenderness toward the victims has not gone out of history». The French professor also said he was afraid that «in future somebody will try to reformulate the principle in more politically correct fashion, maybe by draping it in Christianity». What do you say?

GALLI: Girard is a great scholar, thoroughly documented and rich in insights. I think that it is possible to conceive of a Nazism "draped in Christianity", not least because Nazism with its specific characteristics is unrepeatable. And I don't believe that the representative democracy can be put into crisis by authoritarian movements like those of the 'twenties and 'thirties. There is however the danger that in the western democracies the forms of democracy are kept up without the substance. Political parties won't be banned any longer, civil liberties will be guaranteed to a certain extent but, at the same time, there could be the danger that only the formulas of democracy remain and the substance disappears. There could be a non-democracy disguised as democracy. Likewise, Girard's insight is plausible: just as it's possible that an anti-democracy presents itself with apparently democratic features, so it's possible that an anti-Christianity that despises victims as did Nazism, can actually operate by draping itself in Christian forms. I wouldn't want to hazard myself in a field I don't know, but I know that there are - and are ever more widespread - publications that express tendencies that I think can be described as "apocalyptic fundamentalist". These tendencies might in some way prefigure a danger like the one Girard mentions. Some isolate features that came together in the spread of Nazism could reappear in that context.

The Problem With Mike: A Meeting In Arkansas

The problem with Mike was that once you allowed him to start talking, he wouldn't stop. I was just starting on my potato and carrot-juice when he launched into a long speech:

Rudolf Hess parachuted from his Messerschmitt fighter around 11 p.m. over Renfrewshire, Scotland, touching down at Floors farm near Eaglesham, south of Glasgow, about 10 miles or so from Hamilton’s estate in southern Lanarkshire. Breaking his ankle on impact, Hess was apprehended by David McLean, a local farmer armed with a pitchfork, who had seen the plane go down and took its only occupant by surprise while he was struggling to disengage his parachute harness. As if these events were not already incredible enough, I was later told in a hushed conversation over a pint at the local pub that the legend of Rudolf Hess’ mission was not the whole story. There was far more to the extraordinary affair, though the informant who revealed this to me was somewhat reluctant to go into details about the specific nature of Hess’ business with the Duke. As the rainy autumn afternoon wore on however my companion, a Mr. Paterson, seemed to gather his confidence. Having partaken of more than a wee dram of single-malt Scotch, he quietly told me that Hess had not come to the bargaining table empty-handed. It seems that the former deputy-Führer had brought with him what amounted to a national treasure in hopes of sweetening the deal. Listening intently as he spun his yarn, I learned that the supposed treasure was actually a book. “No ordinary book, mind you, but a very old book.” It was, as it turned out, a manuscript of ancient Gaelic mystical lore. “I only got a wee glance at it,” Paterson admitted, “but it was right queer, like a book of spells of some sort.” At first I gave little credit to what the old gentleman was saying; but as his story progressed, the details he revealed made the tale more and more convincing. Intrigued by his account, I began searching through old newspaper reports and on the internet for more information about the mysterious volume Hess had turned over to British officials; but nowhere in any of the articles that I came across was there the least mention of this supposedly ancient document. Ultimately I decided that I had simply been on the receiving end of what was most likely a cock-and-bull story; yet for some reason I couldn’t quite brush it off that easily. Several months later, having returned home to the states, my work had taken me on the road. While traveling I had stopped for lunch at a small diner near the town of Aliceville, Alabama. Sitting down in a booth near the window I opened my briefcase and began looking over copies of the material I had collected on the Hess affair while the waitress went to the back to bring me my meal. When she returned, I moved the papers to one side of the table making room for the tray. Curious about the photocopies I had been reading, the waitress looked at them for a moment and asked if I was researching the German P.O.W. camp that had been located in Aliceville during the Second World War. I told her no, that I was actually trying to figure out what had happened to a book Rudolf Hess had supposedly brought with him when he had flown to Scotland back in 1941. The waitress whose name was Mary smiled and said, “I was just a teenager then, but I remember hearing about that German flying over there now that you mention it.” Surprised, I asked her if she could remember anything about Hess having turned over a manuscript of some sort to the British. She replied, “No, I don’t know anything about that, but my sister Evelyn might be able tell you more than I can, she married one of those German fellows that was brought over here during the war.” I told the waitress that I would enjoy meeting her sister and talking with her, to which she cheerfully responded, “Well, you just come on back here around six o’clock and I’ll take you out to see her.” I thanked her, and after finishing my lunch, I told her that I would be back later to go and visit with her sister. When we arrived at Evelyn’s home that evening, Mary introduced me to her sister and told her the reason for my visit. The elderly lady looked at me for a moment and asked us to sit down. After exchanging pleasantries she showed me an old photograph of her husband that hung on her living room wall, told me that his name was Henry and that they had been married for 42 years until his death in 1991. “He was a German intelligence officer,” she said. “One of the finest men you could have ever met.” I asked her what he did after the war and was told that he was a school teacher. “He could speak about seven different languages,” she said, “he was a brilliant man.” When I asked her if she had ever heard anything about the book Rudolf Hess had turned over to the British, her expression changed a bit as she lowered her brows and said in a serious tone, “Young man, how did you come to know about that?” I related to her the story of how Mr. Paterson had told me about it during my recent trip to Scotland, and that I was quite intrigued over his tale and wanted to find out if there was any truth to it. “There is,” Evelyn said, “but I’m not so sure that it’s something that you ought to go digging up.” Not wishing to offend her, I said, “You’re probably right, I was just curious about it.” She smiled and said, “Some things are just better left alone.” I nodded and thanked her for telling me what she had, making my way back home after giving her one of my business cards and bidding the ladies goodnight. When I arrived home there was a message on my answering machine. It was Evelyn. “Mr. Akins, I’m going to be sending you something in the mail this week, keep an eye out for it.” Surprised to hear from her so soon after my visit, I waited anxiously the next few days to see what she was sending. The package finally arrived on Thursday afternoon. I opened the large yellow envelope and pulled out a stack of several dozen photocopies of a typewritten text in what appeared to be German. There was no note with it, only the Xerox copies. Unable to read German, I flipped through them disappointedly until I noticed the heading which read: “Abschrift vom Irischen Druidenbuch.” Druidenbuch??? Druid’s book? I puzzled over the title. Was this in some way related to the manuscript Hess had been carrying? Immediately I picked up the phone and called Evelyn back. “I have the papers that you sent me,” I told her, “but what exactly are they?” I asked. She told me that the copies she sent were of a text that her husband, along with a team of other researchers, had been given orders to translate from its original language into German. The copies came from a transcription of the manuscript which he kept in a personal journal that he was somehow able to retain throughout his capture and confinement, keeping it after his subsequent release. Evelyn said that even after their marriage her husband had continued to work on the text, staying up late into the night typing it out. He told her that the translation was of an ancient religious tract predating Christianity. In a later telephone conversation Evelyn revealed that her husband Henry was interested in being of assistance in efforts to negotiate Rudolf Hess’ release from prison following the parole of Albert Speer and Baldur von Schirach in 1966. I was stunned. What I held in my hands was apparently a copy of what must be one of the oldest and rarest works of European pagan religious literature ever discovered. But why all the secrecy I wondered? That same day I went out and bought a copy of a German-English dictionary and sat down trying to decipher what seemed like an insurmountable volume of foreign gibberish. Gradually though, the meaning of the words that lay before me became apparent, as I carefully cross-referenced each one individually and arranged the result into a coherent order. In the end, I could scarcely believe the enormous significance of the document which had fallen into my possession. It was almost like finding the Holy Grail. Aside from Henry’s translation of this ancient text, he also provided copious notes detailing how the book had passed from one owner to the next over the centuries. Attributed to the 8th century B.C. Irish king Ollamh Fodhla who (being the recipient of a vast dispensation of esoteric knowledge through a messenger of the ancient Celtic pagan deities) recorded the teachings that had been imparted to him in ogham text on a set of wooden tablets which he later instructed his son, Caibre, to inter alongside his body at the time of his death. These same ogham tablets were later supposedly discovered and translated in the 3rd century A.D. by the Druid Mogh Ruith as the Lebor Feasa Rùnda, a text which had been preserved in manuscript form, carefully transcribed along with other scriptures by monks of the early Christian Church in Ireland, as a treatise on the magical arts known as the Black Book of Loughcrew. This would seem to contradict the commonly held misconception that the Druids forbid their teachings to be committed to writing, a falsehood generally attributed to a statement made by Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars. In this Caesar relates that students of the Druidic schools were expected to commit to memory a great number verses in their course of training which lasted up to twenty years. Ancient Irish sources such as the Leabhar Buidhe Lecain, or ‘Yellow Book of Lecan,’ clearly state that prior to the Christian Era a vast amount of Druidic writings once existed, such as the 180 Druidic texts burned by St. Patrick during his career as a missionary to Ireland. Fortunately the later monks who followed in Patrick’s wake were not as fervently opposed to the indigenous culture and many sought to preserve the remnants of knowledge originating in the pagan past. Early on, the Book of Loughcrew was apparently among the texts brought to England by Hiberno-Scottish missionaries from Ireland when they re-established a monastery amid the ruins of Glastonbury abbey. By the first half of the 10th century A.D. the book had evidently come into the possession Dunstan, abbot of Glastonbury, who was later appointed Archbishop of Canterbury and was formally canonized as a saint in 1029 A.D; despite the fact that earlier in his career he had been expelled from the court of King Athelstan as a practitioner of sorcery and black magic. In the decades that followed the text of the Lebor Feasa Rùnda may have circulated among the Knights Templars who could have easily adapted its rituals under the guise of a pseudo-biblical attribution to conceal its pagan origin, perhaps inspiring medieval works on magic such as the Key of Solomon. Legends alluding to the Templars’ quest for relics such as the Holy Grail hint at parallels drawn from Celtic mythology in which sacred vessels possessing miraculous attributes feature prominently. Among the allegations brought against the Templars that led to the destruction of their order in the early 1300’s were accusations of their involvement with occult rites and the practice of magic; although rumors suggest that a surviving band of Templars, led by William Sinclair, escaped persecution by fleeing to Scotland. There, under the protection of the excommunicated King Robert the Bruce, their order is said to have continued in secrecy; supposedly leading to the formation of the fraternal order of Freemasons. By the 13th century A.D. the Black Book of Loughcrew had purportedly fallen into the hands of Michael Scott, a famed Scottish occultist whose reputation as a sorcerer had earned him the nickname of “the Wizard of the North.” Scott, who was born in 1175 A.D. had studied at Durham and Oxford before going abroad to further his education in Paris, where he studied theology and was eventually ordained as a priest. Pope Honorius III (said to be practioner of the dark arts and attributed as the author of more than one book on black magic) had written to Cardinal Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1224 for the purpose of obtaining an English benefice for Scott, but he declined that appointment choosing instead to travel to Bologna, Italy, and later to Toledo, Spain, in order to continue his studies. Following Scott’s death in 1232, the book containing the only surviving copy of the Lebor Feasa Rùnda was evidently acquired by the Franciscan Friar, Roger Bacon, whose scholarly interest in the occult accounts for the authorship of at least one Medieval textbook on magic, De Nigromancia, being attributed to him. With Bacon’s death in 1294 the Black Book of Loughcrew changed hands several times, allegedly finding its way into the possession of such noteworthy personages as Henry Cornelius Agrippa and Georg Sabel (alias Johannes Faustus) before ending up in the library of a practicing physician and Catholic priest named Sir Robert of Drayton in Somerset, England. Sir Robert apparently bequeathed the book to his former apprentice, John Walsh of Dorset, who was arrested in 1565 and examined the following year on charges of sorcery and witchcraft. The book was confiscated by the arresting constable, Robert Baber of Crewkerne, and eventually found its way into the possession of one John Husey of Blokley who later passed it on to a certain acquaintance of his by the name of Edward Talbot (alias Edward Kelly). From there the book fell into the hands of the famed Elizabethan magus, Dr. John Dee, who employed Kelly as a crystal-gazer and medium. Dee’s experiments with the occult seem to have been partly influenced by its teachings. It is unclear beyond this point as to what became of the book, as Dee and Kelly went abroad to Europe for several years seeking the patronage of continental nobility, but in 1589 Dee went back to England leaving Kelly behind. When Dee returned to his estate at Mortlake after an absence of six years he found that his considerable library had been ransacked and many of his rare books and instruments had been stolen. Kelly, who had taken up residence in the Bohemian town of Trebon, remained in Central Europe under the patronage of Count Vilem Rozmberk, who supported Kelly’s alchemical experiments. Achieving considerable notoriety, Kelly was even honored by Emperor Rudolph II, who granted him the title of “Baron of the Kingdom,” but Kelly’s rise to eminence was short-lived and he was arrested and imprisoned on more than one occasion due to his failed experiments in creating gold. Kelly died in 1597 at the age of forty-two, allegedly succumbing to injuries received while attempting to escape from a tower in which Rudolph held him prisoner. The manuscript containing the Lebor Feasa Rùnda eventually resurfaced for a brief time in the 18th century when it was said to have circulated as a literary curiosity among such notable personages as Giuseppe Balsamo (a.k.a. Count Alessandro di Cagliostro), Adam Weishaupt, founder of the Bavarian Illumanati, and Sir Francis Dashwood, a friend of Weishaupt’s and organizer of London’s infamous Hellfire Club. At some point in the late 19th century, the Black Book of Loughcrew passed between the hands of Austrian mystic Guido von List, and Carl Kneller, a wealthy German industrialist and Freemason who, together with Theodor Reuss, went on to found a secret society known as the Ordo Templi Orientis, or O.T.O., prior to his death in 1905. From that point the book came into the possession of Rudolf von Sebottendorff, a member of the List-inspired secret society known as the Germanenorden, who in collaboration with Walter Nauhaus, founded an occult study group called the Thule Gesellschaft. The disciples of this völkisch esoteric organization saw evidence for an Atlantean origin of the Aryan race in the lore contained within the Lebor Feasa Rùnda, specifically in the legends relating to the ancient gods of the pagan Celts having come from a mysterious island in the North Atlantic, bringing with them the four hallowed treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann. The fact that the Lebor Feasa Rùnda apparently corroborated with the Thule doctrine of Aryan racial origins led to Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler ordering its siezure by the S.S. following Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. Nazi ideology sought to equate the legendary Celtic treasures with long-lost relics of antiquity such as the Holy Grail, the Spear of Destiny and the Stone of Scone, all of which were ear- marked by Himmler for an official scavenger hunt carried out by the S.S. The ancient manuscript even inspired neo-pagan Nazi rituals such as the one in which a huge Celtic-style cauldron fashioned from 24 pounds of solid gold was cast into the Bavarian lake of Chiemsee as a votive offering during a ceremony performed to secure Nazi victory through propitiating the ancestral gods. The fabled Black Book of Loughcrew was inexplicably returned to Britain by Rudolf Hess under mysterious circumstances on May 10, 1941, eventually ending up in the hands of the Occult Division of Britain’s MI5 Intelligence Service. Hess, a long-time member of the Thule Gesellschaft, had flown to Scotland and parachuted from his plane ostensibly under the pretext of meeting the Duke of Hamilton with the intention of negotiating a secret peace treaty that would insure German dominance in Europe and a reinforcement of the British Empire among its commonwealth states. This escapade occurred not long after a covert military assignment code-named “Operation Mistletoe” is said to have been carried out in within the ranks of British Intelligence in 1940. This plot allegedly involved mysterious occult rituals taking place at Ashdown Forest in Sussex, England; purportedly attended by such notable figures as Ian Fleming and Aleister Crowley (who by 1923 had succeeded Theodor Reuss as head of the Ordo Templi Orientis). Interestingly, two German S.S. officers designated as “Kestral” and “Sea Eagle” were also supposedly present at these ceremonies. Whatever the case may be, the book that Rudolf Hess brought with him to Scotland has remained in the hands of the British government ever since. Hess was taken into custody shortly after his descent into Scotland and briefly detained at Maryhill Barracks in Glasgow before being transferred to Buchanan Castle near Drymen. From there he was sent by rail to England, at the insistance of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who rejected Hess’ peace negotiations and had him placed in the Tower of London from May 17 – 21, 1941; the last prisoner ever held there. Hess spent the next thirteen months under close guard at Mytchett Place, Camp Z, near Aldershot in Surrey, England; while there he reportedly attempted suicide by throwing himself off a balcony on June 15, 1941. On June 26, 1942 Hess was sent to Maindiff Court Hospital near Aberavenny, Wales, where he was confined for the remainder of the war. Among the individuals brought in to interrogate him was naval intelligence officer Ian Fleming who suggested that noted occultist Aleister Crowley be allowed to interview Hess regarding the more esoteric aspects of his mission. The higher ranking officials in charge of the case would not permit it however. Within a few days of Hess’ arrival in Scotland, Hitler’s Riech Minister, Joseph Gobbels, issued “an order against occultism, clairvoyancy, etc.” on May 15, 1941, writing in his diary, “This obscure rubbish will now be eliminated once and for all. The miracle men, Hess’ darlings, will now be put under lock and key. “ Interestingly, Winston Churchill, the main proponent for Britain continuing the war against Germany, was himself a member of more than one esoteric fraternity, having been initiated to the Freemasons in the degree of Entered Apprentice at London’s Studholme Lodge in 1901. He later advanced through the Fellow Craft degree to the rank of Master Mason in March 1902 at Rosemary Lodge. By August 1908 Churchill had been initiated in the Albion Lodge of the Ancient Order of Druids in a ceremony which took place at Blenheim Palace, his family estate. According to physicians assigned to evaluate his mental condition Hess reportedly stated that his flight came about as the result of having received spiritual messages from the gods revealing that he was the “chosen one” ordained to bring about a new era of world peace. Diagnosed as being mentally unstable, having a psychopathic personality, and suffering from hysterical amnesia, Hess was spared the death penalty in his post-war trial at Nuremburg, receiving a life sentence and confined at Spandau Prison. There he would remain for the next 41 years until his death in 1987 at the age of ninety-three, the prison’s sole inmate. The contents of the Black Book of Loughcrew were photographed by the S.S. in the years prior to its return and placed on microfilm which was later recovered by U.S. troops in the summer of 1945 following the fall of the Third Reich. This microfilm copy was turned over to the U.S. Office of Strategic Services and is currently in the possession of the Central Intelligence Agency. The materials confiscated from Hess by British military intelligence shortly after his arrival in Scotland in May 1941 were kept in a sealed file which was supposed to remain unopened until 2017, but when the seal was broken in 1991-92, it was found that the contents of the file had already been removed and were missing. Given the seemingly incredible history of this single volume of Celtic mystical literature, it is remarkable that it survived at all. The Lebor Feasa Rùnda, or “Book of Secret Knowledge,” may be counted among a very select group of religious documents which claim to have been divinely revealed to humanity through supernatural means. Never intended for general circulation, this rarely seen scripture is an exposition of the Druidic faith, long held in secret and never before published in its entirety, although fragments of its text have appeared in numerous other manuscripts over the centuries in varying degrees of similarity to the versions presented in this scripture. The history, legends, myths, religious doctrine, philosophical concepts, and magical teachings contained in this work represent the most comprehensive and authentic collection of ancient Celtic beliefs and practices known to date. At face value, the Lebor Feasa Rùnda, fulfills the same role in pagan Celtic spirituality as the Bible, the Torah, or the Koran do in the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic religions. Yet it is far more than just the sacred text of a people, for it offers a unique and in-depth look at the intricate and highly developed culture to which they belonged. To the historian it represents a fascinating chronicle of events which have parallels echoed in the historical accounts of many other societies the world over. To the occultist it will be recognized as a grimoire in the tradition of the medieval textbooks of magic that provided instruction on summoning and harnessing the powers of spiritual entities. Here the esoteric doctrines of the Druids are explained, and the creation myth of the Celts is revealed alongside details of their origins and accounts of their epic struggles in both the natural and supernatural worlds. That so much of the lore found in this volume continued to survive in other manuscripts, as well as unwritten accounts handed down as oral tradition over the centuries, says much for the tenacity and deeply rooted consciousness of the Celtic psyche. Having at long last finally completed my English translation of this major historical discovery, I am currently having it reviewed by a number of publishers in the hope of making it available to the public, hopefully in the near future.

I couldn't really follow everything that Mike told me. Some shit about some black book and the usual conspiracy web involving everyone and their grandmothers. La Tey told me some of this stuff several years back when we were discussing Celtic spirituality. Guess only Christians are stupid enough to swallow the official line of "academic historians" hook, line and sinker. That Churchill was in bed with the same fellows who were "inspiring" Hitler is really not that surprising once you did a little bit more digging. Mike and I parted as friends. Told him to stay in touch. He's getting me interested in all this Nazi stuff. After he left, I remembered that mysterious piece of paper that fell out of my "Hellboy Library Edition Volume One" book. Forgot to ask him about that. Well, there'll always be a next time...

Nazi Occult Investigation In Arkansas

Spent the night watching "Carolina Jones And The Broken Covenant" with Dalia. She told me that I'd love the film once I get into it. It turned out to be a porno-parody of the Indiana Jones franchise starring Ava Rose. Unlike other parodies of this sort, it actually adhered to the Indy-continuity rather tightly. There were more violent scenes than sex but it was a fun romp overall. After the movie, I fucked Dalia on a chair. She straddled me and screamed like a siren. Then I stood up and carried her over to the wall. She was in a frenzy. Of course, I didn't tell her that I was fantasizing about Olivia Munn. But then, I didn't think she'd be bothered about it anyway. She's not the jealous type. Especially not after a romp like the one we just had. She may actually have found it kind of kinky, in a weird sort of way. Anyway, she fell asleep after that and I sat by her side watching her contented breathing for a while. I liked the sight of her chest rising and falling in a fixed rhythm. Soon, I was having another hard-on. To distract myself, I decided to check out the "Hellboy Library Edition Volume One" book that I just purchased.

The moment I opened the book, a piece of paper written in long-hand fell out of it. It's something about Nazi Occultism. That's funny. The book was shrink-wrapped and I only just opened the wrapper. So it couldn't have been Mike who slipped the paper into my book. Who then could it be from? Have you ever had the feeling that someone is trying to tell you something but you had no idea who that someone was or what the something was all about? Well, that was just how I felt then. My post-coital brain was especially alert so I decided to read the contents of the paper (reproduced in full below):

Hellboy, Nazis, Occult & Weird Science

By Frank Schildiner

“Sarcasm? My sarcasm is the very LEAST of your worries, Sorcerer. You promised the Fuehrer a MIRACLE. Something which would reverse the course of this war and ensure victory of the Reich. Herr Hitler does not take kindly to failure” (SOD 7)

Among Hellboy's recurring menaces through his adventurous series are the comic world's favorite evil stooges, the followers of the infamous Nazi party of World War 2 Germany. The fantastic world of comic books seems to gravitate towards this past evil terror of mankind, with such colorful villains as the Red Skull, Baron Zemo and Captain Nazi, to name but a few. Their plots range from dealing drugs to America to weaken its power as a people (Captain America: Streets of Poison) to replacing the brain of a superhero with that of Adolph Hitler (Golden Age).

Mignola's Hellboy series takes a darker tone with the Nazi's evil, presenting a collection of evil individuals devoted to both science and occult means of ruling, or possibly destroying the world. Both areas of study, occult and science, are a much speculated area of study by scholars and wild conspiracy theorists to this day. The beliefs and theories often expounded upon are often as wildly improbable as those presented within the comics. Books have been published that state that the Nazis were seeking a magic spear that pierced the side of Jesus Christ, to a New Age conspiracy to create demi-gods to rule the world. This credibility factor was best stated by Lowell K. Dyson (Ph.D, Columbia, 1968) in his article, “The Nazis and the Occult”. Dyson stated:

“There is probably more mythology about the Nazis and the Occult that about Hitler's sex life or his later life in Argentina – or at the South Pole. In certain circles it is a cottage industry and a particular kind of writer repeats “facts” from earlier books which were repeated from “facts” in other books, which in turn may have come from such absolutely trustworthy sources as the National Inquirer” (NAO)

However the Nazi's presented in Mignola's Hellboy series appear to be somewhat different from the norm presented by even “credible” sources. Though theatrical, a more sinister and subtle evil appears to exist within many of the character, causing some readers to speculate as to the truth behind the Nazi occult and evil science presented in the Hellboy stories. Is there any truth to the legends of occult influences with the World War Two Nazi Party? And what form did their scientific experiments take that they would be later labeled “evil” by many in the world community? This article will endeavor to examine these questions as well as possible roots of the Nazi philosophy of genocide; all of which appear to be touched upon to some degree by the Hellboy comic book series.

Nazi Occult Roots

“I permitted myself to be joined with those puny minds the Reich had assembled for itself, believing the UNEQUALED in the world in the world... also utterly UNTARNISHED by the limitations of CONSCIENCE and MORALITY” (SOD Ch. 3, 16)

As previously stated, there are those who suggest or outright state that the basis of Nazi belief comes directly from the occult. While the roots are often wildly exaggerated by writers, a common occult theme is regularly cited and appears to be considered acceptable fact. Many agree the Nazi philosophy's forefather is probably the Austrian Pan-Germanic philosopher, Guido (von) List. List is described by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke is his scholarly work, The Occult Roots of Nazism as “the first popular writer to combine volkish ideology with occultism and theosophy” (ORN 33). Volkish ideology was a philosophy that invoked German nationalism and racism in reaction to the changing modern world (ORN 3). The occult belief of theosophy was created by Helen Petrovna Blavatsky that spoke of ancient powerful races that ruled the world before humanity and still acted as the “Secret Masters” behind the scenes (TO 333). Goodrick-Clarke writes:

“In his books and lectures List invited true Germans to behold the clear and discernible remains of a wonderful theocratic Ario-German state, wisely governed by priest-kings and gnostic initiates, in the archaeology, folklore, and landscape of his homeland” (ORN 33)

One of List's disciples, Lanz von Liebenfels, proved to be a definite early influence on a young Adolph Hitler in 1909. A writer of cheap List philosophy tracts that preached anti-Semitic beliefs combined with his mentor's mythological views, he claimed in 1951 that Hitler visited him in 1909. Goodrick-Clarke verifies Lanz's claims that he met a young Adolph Hitler, provided him with several tracts and two crowns for his return fee home (ORN 195).

Emerging from the occult philosophies of Guido List were several sources proved to have a profound affect on Adolph Hitler. One of the favorites mentioned in basic history texts are the Thule Society. In The Life and Death of Adolph Hitler by Robert Payne, the following is stated about the Thule society:

“[S]everal floors were given over to the Thule Society, ostensibly a literary club devoted to violent anti-Semitism and rule by an aristocratic elite. The name of the organization derives from Ultima Thule, the unknown northern land believed to be the original home of the German race” [LDA 125)

Nazi party leaders often cited as members of the Thule Society include Rudolph Hess, Alfred Rosenberg and most importantly Dietrich Eckard. Eckard, a friend and teacher of Hitler's was a journalist, poet and dramatist who blamed his lack of success on Jews and Marxists; a hatred he later espoused as the cause for Germany's defeat in World War One. In 1923 Eckhart and Hitler published a paper entitled “Bolshevisim from Moses to Lenin” in which they stressed “their opinion that the Jews have represented the occult power of revolutionary subversion throughout history and are responsible for deflecting humankind from its natural path” (HT). Dietrich Eckard's influence upon Hitler is best presented by Hitler himself in his infamous work, Mein Kampf. Hitler ended the book with the following:

“I wish at the end of the second volume to remind the supporters and champions of our doctrine of those eighteen heroes, to whom I have dedicated the first volume of my work, those heroes who sacrificed themselves for us all with the clearest consciousness. They must forever recall the wavering and weak to the fulfillment of his duty, a duty which they themselves in best faith carried to its final consequence. And among them I want to also count that man, one of the best, who devoted his life to the awakening of his, our people, in his and his thoughts and finally in his deeds: Dietrich Eckart” (MK)

After Eckart's death in 1923, the role of Nazi ideologist was assumed by one of his Thule Society pupils, Alfred Rosenberg. His book, The Myth of the Twentieth Century stated that race was “the decisive factor determining art, science, culture” and that “The Teutons represented the ‘master race’ of ‘Aryans’, whose task it was to subdue Europe.” (EH ??)

The Thule Society's most famous contribution to the Nazi party was the use of the swastika as its primary symbol. It was a representation of their neo-pagan beliefs (The Nazi Expedition, Robin Cross). The swastika, was an ancient Indian symbol of the sun as well as (according the Thule members), that of the Norse God Thor. However the Asian version of the symbol has the swastika facing the right, rather than the left as used by the Nazi party. According to reports, the creator of the symbol for the Nazi party, Dr. Freidrich Krohn, designed the symbol facing the right rather than the left, but Hitler insisted on the change. Some theories regarding this change have emerged, with some believing the change was either a conscious rejection of God or a Guido List theory that the swastika was a Scandinavian rune. None appear to be proven as of this time, though clearly the Thule Society's use of the symbol has changed it from an Asian sun symbol to one associated with death and evil. Therefore, it does appear that the occult beliefs represented in Mignola's Hellboy series, are not as outlandish as those by actual members and forefathers.

Project Ragnarok

“For more than twenty years I lived in isolation, preaching to those brave souls who dared approach me. Telling of the Ragna Rok, the new age of the serpent. Speaking as the Prophet of the apocalypse” (SOD Ch. 3, 15)

A recurring theme in the Hellboy universe is the end of the world, which according to Norse mythology is known as “Ragnarok” which roughly translates to mean “Doom of the Gods”. In Seeds of Destruction Rasputin reveals that the group he formed from the Nazis created a project named “Ragna Rok” and an engine of the same name meant to bring about the end of the world (SOD 16). Herman Van Klempt calls it “the passing of man” (SOD 26). According to Lindemans, Ragnarok “also called Gotterdammerung, means the end of the cosmos in Norse mythology. It will be preceded by Fimbulvetr, the winter of winters. Three such winters will follow each other with no summers in between. Conflicts and feuds will break out, even between families, and all morality will disappear. This is the beginning of the end” (R). In An Interview with Mike Mignola, the artist-author states:

“In some ways, that also describes the way the miniseries evolved because The Conqueror Worm started out to be a much-smaller-in-scale kind of story. Once I started doing it, I realized that I was dealing with the kind of characters who tend to grow loftier goals as they go. And eventually, I ended up going back to that whole Ragnarok thing – the end of the world/beginning of the world kind of nonsense that people expect from me now. So, from these humble beginnings, where these idiots are trying to do their bad Nazi stuff, everything snowballs into this giant thing about the end of the world, the creation of a new race of man and blah, blah, blah” (IMM)

Though Hitler's views on religion appear to fit his famous quote from a speech at Nuremberg in September, 1935, “Christianity succeeded for a time in uniting the old Teutonic tribes, but the Reformation destroyed this unity. Germany is now a united nation, National Socialism succeeded where Christianity failed” (IP 11). Though it would fit the more hysterical points-of-view of the Nazi to believe he based all of the Nazi religious beliefs on the Norse mythos, Adolph Hitler appeared to willing to use beliefs and systems from groups such as the Christians and Freemasons. In Mein Kampf Hitler seems to present a point-of-view of a practical of one who wishes a unifying religion based in both Christianity and “on the imagination through magic and the symbols of a cult… Don't you see that our party must be of this character?” (HAH xviii)

Heinrich Himmler placed a greater emphasis on Norse mythology, merging it with the “history” of King Arthur, the Holy Grail, the Knights Templar and even parts of the Jesuits (ORN 188). His grand visions, using Wewelsburg Castle as seat of his new SS order had grand plans that included the following:

“Photographs of models showing the project, due for completion in the 1960s, suggest that Himmler dreamed of creating an SS vatican on an enormous scale at the center of a millenarian Greater Germanic Reich. It also seems likely that this visionary city would have witnessed the celebration of ancient religion and traditions initially revealed by Weisthor in the 1930's.” (ORN 188)

There seems to be no evidence that Himmler included the Ragnarok myths in his mixed religion, though portions of the Norse mythos appear to have been merged with other philosophies he found fit his racist Aryan based beliefs. In merging these ideas with the world of Hellboy, Mike Mignola picked a perfect starting point for Rasputin to “preside over the fall of humanity” (SOD 5).

Nazi Weird Science and Hellboy

“...physicist Ernst Oeming… was probably THE scientist of the Third Reich, often referred as the ‘Nazi Einstein’... the Gestapo moved what was left of Oeming to Hunte Castle... along with astronomers, astrologers, and mystics from all over Europe” (CW 7-8)

In An Interview with Mike Mignola, the artist-author said “It's pretty well-known that there were rocket scientists working for the Nazis, and in fact, some of these guys went on to work for NASA. So they were building, you know, bombs – even flying bombs. Why couldn't they have been working on a space program? When you hear about the scientific experiments of the Nazis and their huge-scale plans in so many different areas, it doesn't seem like that much of a stretch to imagine that they were working on space crafts. I'm sure it came up in a meeting” (IMM).

Another running Nazi theme through the Hellboy comics is the unusual scientific devices used by these villains. Like the occult connection, many myths regarding Nazi science has emerged post World War Two, however the verified evidence is often more terrifying and unusual than the tales presented in comic books.

In Conqueror Worm Mike Mignola presents an unusual mix of characters, a scientist operating with occult scholars in a space experiment for the Reich. Though this appears somewhat odd to our current manner of thinking, an examination of Nazi documents as well as Nuremberg Trial Court Records demonstrates that Mignola's enjoyable stories barely scratched the surface of unusual pseudo-scientific practices of the Nazis. One of the best examples of this was the famous German rocketry programs forced delays because of the theosophical belief known as “World Ice”. The World Ice theory, a discredited and somewhat assuming belief that the building block of all planets are solid ice, were rumored to be a delaying factor in the Nazi rocket program; with the occultist followers of this theory holding that the rocket's fuel might pierce the Earth's crust and destroy the layer of ice beneath, presumably creating a global catastrophe.

The majority of the Nazi Party's unusual pseudo-science emerged from a body known as the “Ahnenerbe Society” (Ancestral Heritage Research and Teaching Society), a body created to research German “pre-history” as applied to the Aryan super race as well as scientific endeavors to further the war effort. The pre-history studies included digs in Iceland for evidence of the legendary island of Thule as well as a famous 1938 expedition to Tibet to search for descendants and information about the legendary Aryan of the Nazi occult beliefs (NE). The many departments of the Ahnenerbe Society, a group lead by Heinrich Himmler and later made a department of the SS under his control is described as the following:

“The society’s purpose was to establish support for Wirth’s ‘Germandom’ cult by studying aspects of of Germany’s spiritual and historical heritage. However from the beginning, the society delved into all sorts of esoteric subjects that did not have much scientific basis, such as research of ancient German letters of the alphabet and interpretation of German symbols like the SWASTIKA. Himmler took charge of Ahnenerbe in 1937. All kinds of new projects were initiated, including the listing of ‘Jewish scientists or scientists related to Jews by marriage’ and the confiscation of Jewish libraries It was quite hard to tell which projects were politically motivated, which were politically motivated, and which were downright ridiculous. In 1942 Ahnenerbe began sponsoring pseudo-scientific medical experiments that were performed of concentration camp victims.” (EH 102)

Based on all credible sources, such as the Weissenthal Foundation and the Nuremberg Trial transcripts, this portion of the Nazi scientific effort is rather similar to that of the Hellboy series. As shown in Seeds of Destruction and Conqueror Worm, a pseudo-science/occult combination such as Mignola's is quite similar to the existing body created by Himmler.

But the pseudo-science/occult studies were merely a part of a far more horrific body of work by the Nazi war machine. Once absorbed into the SS, many of the departments turned their attention to medical testing upon human subjects. The Ahnenerbe, operating as a military scientific research institute, conducted tests such as freezing temperature’s affect on the human body, high altitude experiments on human subjects, the affect of drinking processed sea-water on the human body and many other illegal and often murderous “medical” studies (Nuremberg, Vol.1, 269). Doctor's Rascher and Brandt conducted these experiments ostensibly for the war effort but also, the war tribunal determined, for the systematic genocide of the human subjects. Multiple memos were entered into evidence in the Nuremberg Trial such as the following:

“Enclosed is an interim report on the low-pressure experiment so far conducted in the concentration camp of Dachau...

“Only continuous experiments at altitudes higher than 10.5 km resulted in death. These experiments showed that breathing stopped after about 30 minutes, while in two cases the electrocardiographically charted action of the heart continued for another 20 minutes.

The third experiment of this type took such an extraordinary course that I called an SS physician of the camp as witness, since I had worked on these experiments all by myself. It was a continuous experiment without oxygen at a height of 12 km, conducted on a 37-year-old Jew in good general condition...” (Nuremberg Vol.1, 144-147)

Such memos, all used as evidence in the Nuremberg Military Tribunal Trials, demonstrate that while the Ahnenerbe was the legendary occult division of the SS, its other purpose was far more sinister. Human military experiments under the Ahnenerbe were subsequently judged crimes against humanity and the members of this organization were duly executed after their respective trials.

The Floating Head – Fact or Fiction?

“Professor Herman von Klempt...Himmler recruited us together into his 'Special Group'. He should have been one of us. He should have been part of the Ragnarok project, but Rasputin failed to recognize his genius” (WD 17-18)

Professor Herman von Klempt is unquestionably one of Mike Mignola's most inspired evil Nazi scientists, being a floating head in a jar that lives, talks and plans evil actions against the world. First introduced in the nameless short story that appeared in the Comic Buyer’s Guide, he later returned in Conqueror Worm with a desire to end the world. Though the concept has appeared before in films such as They Saved Hitler's Brain, Donovan's Brain and of course, The Brain that Wouldn't Die, Herman von Klempt appears to be more menacing in the Hellboy series than any villain save Rasputin himself.

Surprisingly, there was a Nazi doctor whose murderous habits in the name of science were quite similar to that of Herman von Klempt. The Nazi in question was Professor Doctor August Hirt, the co-inventor of the fluorescent microscope and head of the anatomy department of the University of Strasbourg (MMTR). But to this day Hirt is best known for collecting the skulls of Jewish prisoners murdered at Nazi concentration camps. Hirt, apparently a favorite of SS leader Heinrich Himmler, was given permission assemble a skeleton collection, specifically the heads of human beings (Nuremberg, Vol. 2, 517-518). In fact Hirt prepared a report that was later presented at the Nuremberg trials regarding the preparation and collection procedures of Jewish prisoner's skulls. The report read as follows:

“We have large collections of almost all races and peoples at our disposal. Of the Jewish race, however, only very few specimens of skulls are available, with the result that it is impossible to arrive at precise conclusions from examination. The war in the East now presents us with the opportunity to overcome this deficiency. By procuring the skulls of Jewish-Bolshevik commissars, who represent the repulsive, but characteristic, subhuman, we have the chance now to obtain scientific material.” (Nuremberg, Vol. 2, 518)

Additionally, August Hirt had a directive sent out to SS forces regarding the collecting and preserving of skulls for his collection. This gruesome memo appeared also as evidence in the trials of Ahnenerbe Reich Manager Wolfram Sievers as well as several doctors who participated in adding to Hirt's skull collection. The memo regards the dealing with the skulls in his collection should Strasbourg be endangered by the war:

“The corpses can be stripped of flesh, and thereby rendered unidentifiable. This, however, would mean that at least part of the whole work had been done for nothing and this unique collection would be lost to science, since it would be impossible to make plaster casts afterwards. The skeleton collection as such is inconspicuous. The flesh parts could be declared as having been left by the French at the time we took over the Anatomical Institute and would be turned over for cremating. Please advise me which of the following three proposals is to be carried out: 1) The collection as a whole to be preserved; 2) The collection to be dissolved in part; 3) The collection to be completely dissolved” (Nuremberg, Vol.2, 524).

One can infer from this memo that a good portion of August Hirt's skull collection were not merely bare bone, but actually heads in the flesh. Terrifying to consider, but also similar to Mike Mignola's Professor Herman von Klempt. There's no evidence that Mignola used Professor Doctor August Hirt as a model for his villainous von Klempt, but the similarity is remarkable to some degree.

The Magus of the SS

“...very popular with Himmler's Inner Circle--mystics, astrologers and pseudo-scientists working on Hitler's various doomsday projects...” (WD Ch. 1, 9)

While Mignola presents us with Gregori Rasputin as Himmler's prime sorcerer, an examination is needed to discover if anyone else occupied such a position in Nazi Germany. As previously established, the credulity factor regarding Nazi occult information is rather high, so all information must be taken with a skeptical view.

However one name does appear to occupy such a position within the SS, a former army officer and “rune expert” named Karl Maria Wiligut. Wiligut, a former Colonel in the Austrian army, claimed to be a clairvoyant as well as the last of a secret line of German kings who were the true characters in the Holy Bible; one in which Jesus Christ was actually an Aryan (ORN 179). In 1924, Wiligut was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital in Salzburg, diagnosed with schizophrenia, and remained hospitalized until 1927. Joining the SS in 1933, he became a favored advisor to Heinrich Himmler in a very short time.

The most dramatic link between the occult and top Nazi officials was without question Wiligut, who rose to prominence through the use of a claimed ancestral memory which he used to promote representation of an archaic Germany that was favourable to Himmler’s beliefs. He became “the favored mentor of Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler on mythological subjects and was given an official assignment for pre-historical research in the SS between 1933 and 1939.” (ORN 177). Wiligut’s mythological theory utilized elements of List’s beliefs as well as the philosophy of German pagan Theodor Czepl, leader of the Order of the New Templars. Claiming to be the heir to a race of Germanic kings who descended a race of mythological air and sea Gods. (ORN 181) Using the alias Karl Maria Weisthor as a means of hiding a period spent in a mental institution from 1924-1927, Himmler appointed him as head of a Department for Pre- and Early History within the Race and Settlement Main Office (Rasse-und Siedlungshauptamt) of the SS based in Munich.

Wiligut rose to the rank of Brigadier General in the SS by October 1934 and was influential the creation of pagan based rituals for members of the SS. His most lasting accomplishment was the commission by Himmler of the SS Death’s Head ring, known as the “Totenkopfring”. (ORN 187) The ring, which combines Nazi regalia with ancient runes interpreted by Wiligut aka Weisthor are described as, “symbols and rituals demonstrate Weisthor's contribution to the ceremonial and pseudo-religion of the SS” (ORN 187). Additionally Wiligut was part of Himmler's inner circle that urged the SS leader to make Wewelsburg Castle the center of his new order of the Teutonic Knights.

“When an SS officer fell in battle, his ring was returned to the SS and then displayed at a memorial in Wewelsburg Castle, a 17th-century fortress Himmler converted into a weird reproduction of King Arthur's court with a round table and seats for the SS leader and 12 of his trusted lieutenants” (CSIB)

Though Wiligut's influence is still visible to this day, he did not remain within the SS for long. By 1939 his history of mental illness became an embarrassment and he retired on the grounds of age and poor health. But to this day, Karl Maria Wiligut is renowned for being the highest ranking “magus” in Nazi Germany. It seems that Mike Mignola's use of Gregori Rasputin was not nearly as outlandish as most comic book plots for the Nazis.

Therefore, based on the presented evidence, it appears that the Nazis presented in the Hellboy series were clearly as unusual and terrifying as some of the real individuals that occupied Germany of the past. Though the occult links and weird science were not nearly as imaginative and enjoyable as Mignola's series, one can see a clear influence in place. From the occult roots that appeared to be more used to explain their actions, their use of religion and mythology, the men who helped shape it as well as their odd and terrifying pseudo-sciences, the Nazis were the perfect menaces for Hellboy.

WORKS CITED

* Cross, Robin. “The Nazi Expedition”. 2004. 17 January. 2005. [NE]
* de Cruet, R.H. Perez. “The Holocaust–Timebase 1920-24”. 1997. 17 January. 2005. [HT]
* Dyson, Lowell K. “The Nazis and The Occult”. n.d. 17 January. 2005. [NAO]
* Evrin-Gore, Sawna. “An Interview with Mike Mignola”. 2002. 17 January. 2005. [IMM]
* Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. The Occult Roots of Nazism. New York University Books. 1992. [ORN]
* Gunther, John. Inside Europe. New York. Harper Bros. 1936. [IP]
* Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf (Volume Two: The National Socialist Movement /
Chapter 15: The Right of Emergency Defense). 17 January. 2005. [MK]
* Lindemans, Micha F. “Ragnarok” 1997. 17 January. 2005. [R]
* Mignola, Mike. Hellboy: Seed of Destruction. Canada, Dark Horse Comics. 1997 [SOD]
* Mignola, Mike. Hellboy: Wake the Devil. Canada, Dark Horse Comics. 1997 [WD]
* Mignola, Mike. Hellboy: Conqueror Worm. Canada, Dark Horse Comics. 2002 [CW]
* Nuremberg Trial Transcripts, Online posting 8, http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/nuremberg.htm August 2004
* Payne, Robert. The Life and Death of Adolph Hitler. America, Praeger Publishers. 1973. [LDA]
* Rozett, Robert. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Facts on File. 2006. [EH]
* Ruffner, Kevin C. “SS Death's Head Ring”. Center for the Study of the Intelligence Bulletin, Issue 9, 1999. 17 January. 2005. [CSIB]
* Seidelman, William. “Medicine and Murder in the Third Reich”. 2005. 17 January. 2005. <> [MMTR]
* Suster, Gerald. Hitler and the Age of Horus, London, Sphere Books. 1981. [HAH]
* Wilson, Colin. The Occult. America, Duncan Baird Publishers. 2004. [TO]

I had no idea who the heck this Frank Schildiner guy was but I was entranced by what he wrote about. I read through the whole of the "Seed of Destruction" arc in the book and verified the facts presented by Schildiner. He was right about most of it. Will discuss my findings with Mike over breakfast the next day. Feel asleep and dreamed about Olivia Munn captured by evil Nazis, how I rescued her with only a can-opener and the delectable ways that she thanked me for saving her life. But that is a story for another day.....

In The Chapel Of Moloch: Another Arkansas First

Kevin was nowhere to be found after giving me that long explanation about sacrificing fake pltypuses. Did the fake pltypuses get to him as well? Did they leave their fake paw-prints all over his ugly mug to exorcise him of his genuine devotion to the "pagan" Egyptian deity? Maybe the fake pltypuses ripped out his "pagan" heart in order to silence him? We may never know.

Whatever it was, I didn't stay around to find out the answers. I was busy yesterday. There was this huge event two blocks away from Dalia's apartment. Moloch's Chapel (actually a local mall, if you believe the advertising) was having a forum on the history of a dark horse. Being an equestrian, I went for the event. Didn't have any money to pay the entrance fee but the guard was nice enough to let me get by before I bore him to death with my knowledge of horses. For some strange reasons unknown to me then, he was sniggering when he let me pass.

It turned out that it was a meeting with artists who worked for a company called "Dark Horse". Meaning, the event had nothing to do with horses. I was half expecting to see the "Equus" play so I was mildly disappointed. Now I know why the security guard was sniggering. Anyway, the event was well-attended by people who looked like extras from either "Napoleon Dynamite" or "Shaun of the Dead". The most interesting forum was about the beginnings of the "Legend" imprint. In the early 1990s, Image's in-your-face art and flashiness, along with the interminable "X-Men" mega-crossovers were ruling the four-colour industry. Dark Horse got together an army of *real* creators to start an imprint that would bring about a much-needed revival in the quality of what was flooding the market at that time. Everything is seen from a retrospective perspective today but I think we can say that the "Legend" imprint more or less succeeded in its mission: Frank Miller's "Sin City" and "300" (and other collaborations with Geof Darrow), John Byrne's "Next Men", Art Adam's "Monkeyman & O'Brien", "Paul Chadwick's "Concrete", Mike Allred's "Madman" and my favourite, Mike Mignola's "Hellboy" and "B.P.R.D."! Pltypus told me time and again that he picked up a book based on the quality of the art. Me? I'm a junkie. I pick up books based on a moronic fannish devotion to the soapy-continuity of the whole shebang. Yesterday, I decided to take up Pltypus' advice. I ran all the way back to the apartment, begged Dalia for twenty bucks, ran all the way back to Moloch's Chapel and picked up "Hellboy Library Edition Volume One". By the time I was back, Mike Mignola already left so the book was unsigned. But that's okay because the biggest pay-off that day was getting to see Olivia Munn in her "Slave-Girl Leia" outfit for the Star Wars forum (see pics below):

While I was ogling lovely Olivia, this silly nerd next to me (his name was Mike) kept trying to explain to me that "Seed of Destruction" was really an expose of the secret Nazi Occult Underground. I actually had no idea what he was talking about. Then he pointed at my "Hellboy Library Edition" book and told me that "Seed of Destruction" was the first story inside the book. Being terribly protective over my treasure tome, I refused to allow Mike to get his greasy fingers on it. "I believe you, ok? So, what about this secret Nazi thingamabob?" Stupid question. That was the opening that Mike was waiting for! He went on and on about how the Nazis were trying to contact beings from "the other side" and that there was this whole Aryan-Hindu connection to it all. I wasn't paying much attention to him. Olivia was leaning on Jabba (and at that moment, I wouldn't mind being Jabba the Hutt - besides, Pltypus teased me about looking like Jabba for years already anyway!)

Anyway, Mike rambled on and on. He was so taken up with the subject that he obviously didn't even notice that my attention was fully on lovely Slave-Girl Olivia. He then slapped me on my shoulder and produced a book by some guy called Ravenscroft or something. It was about the Spear of Destiny (or the Spear of Longinus, depending on who you talk to about it). I looked at the cover. It looked like another of those paperback conspiracy shit that people with half-a-brain read. Then he took out another volume by Colin Wilson. I told Mike, "My dear conspiracy-theorist brother, I really, really appreciate what you are telling me but can you leave me to my ogling for 15 minutes? I promise that you will have my full attention tomorrow morning. We'll meet on the rooftop of my apartment and discuss this whole Nazi thing as long as you want to, ok?" All this Nazi stuff. This was more La Tey's domain. He's been into it since picking up Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler many moons back. Me? I'll probably take some notes and share it with him the next time we meet up. Anyway, Mike took down my address (actually Dalia's apartment block number) and we agreed to meet up the next day. But that is a story for another day. I returned to ogling Olivia Munn and he went off to look at some Star Wars books. Spaced-out freak...