The Cecil Mysteries and Other Crowley Musings

"History teaches: never trust a Cecil"

-British proverb

Making my second appearance on Auticulture this year with the great Jasun Horsley. This was an incredibly fun chat that covered a host of topics. A few subjects have become fairly common around these parts over the past few weeks --the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and the participants in the bizarre Las Vegas chapter, including Peter Levenda, Richard Doty, Colonel John Alexander, and Colonel Michael Aquino; To the Stars Academy; Kenneth Grant and the Typhonian tradition; the mysterious Sovereign Order of Saint John and Christian Identity "theology"; Jeffrey Epstein and neo-reaction.

However, about midway through we engaged in a discussion of Aleister Crowley and some of his more curious affiliates. I was quite pleased with this section as I felt this may provide a bit of a novel context to Crowley. I haven't written on Crowley much on this blog over the years in no small part because I didn't feel like I had much to add on the topic that many others haven't already said better. But after doing a little research on the Great Beast prior to this chat with fresh eyes, I began making some very curious connections, especially as it relates to the mysterious Cecil family.

As such, I thought I might try a bit of a multimedia approach to this interview. The podcast in question can be found here. And below, you will find more of a "classic" VISUP blog detailing much of the information discussed in the latter half of this interview, plus a few things I uncovered after the interview. It is highly recommended that the reader precedes below, as this is quite a fascinating topic.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do more on the topic of Charles Manson, having become a bit obsessed with the Crowley/Cecil connection leading up to the podcast. Hopefully, that's out of my system now after this chat with Jasun and hammering out this post. I'm about to embark on some new research on Manson in preparation for Jasun's upcoming appearance on The Farm with Frank Zero, Jeremy Knight, and myself. That should be happening in about two weeks and it will hopefully be every bit as epic as this chat was.

The Cecil Family

The Cecil family has been one of the most powerful and influential in British society for nearly five hundred years. The man who turned it into a generations spanning dynasty is William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley. Cecil was one of the most powerful figures within the court of Elizabeth I, serving twice as as her secretary of state, Lord Privy Seal, and Lord High Treasurer. What's more, while Francis Walsingham tends to get the credit as Elizabeth's spymaster (and the de facto founder of MI6), he ultimately worked for Cecil.. Upon Walsingham's death, Cecil firmly took over much of the Elizabethan spy networks. Naturally, Cecil also had an interest in the mystical. He bestowed patronage upon alchemy and corresponded with John Dee, among other things.

family patriarch William Cecil

The tradition of espionage was carried on by William's younger son from his second marriage, the hunchbacked Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury. Robert inherited his father's spy network, and became intelligence chief of King James I. There has been much suspicion over the years concerning the role he played in the Gunpowder Plot.

It is the descendants of Robert --the Salisbury line --that he remained a preeminent power in England for centuries. In The Anglo-American Establishment, the always controversial Carroll Quigley described the family's influence as "all-pervasive in British life since 1886" (pg. 15). Per Quigley, the family's continual influence was due to three factors: (a) a triple-front penetration of politics, journalism, and education; (b) the recruitment of men of ability and linking them to the Cecil family via marriage, titles, and positions of power; and (c) Cecils and their allies being in positions that are shielded as much as possible from the public gaze.

Some of the leading families that have intermarried with the Cecils include the Grosvenors (Dukes of Westminster), the Balfours, Palmers (the Earls of Selborne), and the Cavendishs (who hold multiple titles). These families, along with other associated allies, formed what Quigley dubbed the "Cecil Bloc," though it may be more apt to say these families comprised the historic aristocracy that has ruled England for centuries. The Grosvenors and especially the Cavendishs have wielded tremendous power for any number of years as well.

Throughout much of the twentieth century, the Cecils would be linked to various subversive political movements. Quigley describes the infamous Milner Group/Round Table movement as beginning as "a major fief" within the Cecil Bloc. These cabals/movements of course spawned the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), both longtime bugaboos of the conspiratorial right.

Quigley alleges that the Milner Group eventually took over the Cecil Bloc, though leaves this open to debate throughout The Anglo-American Establishment. He raises the possibility "that the split which appeared within the Conservative Party in England after 1923 followed roughly the lines between the Milner Group and the Cecil Bloc" (pg. 30). He later acknowledges that the Milner Group "was surely less powerful than the Cecil Bloc, even as late as 1929..." and that "when they disagreed, the views of the Milner Group did not usually prevail" (pg. 230). Quigley notes that the Milner Group's influence went into decline after 1938, giving them a fairly brief reign if they did in fact overcome the Cecil Bloc after 1929.

Fundamentally, the Cecil Bloc was conservative to its core while the Milner Group had a more progressive point of view (relatively speaking). Essentially, the Cecil Bloc wanted to preserve the Empire and its peculiar way of life. The Milner Group wanted to expand these things to the world at large. This led to fundamental differences on foreign policy, especially in regards to India (most notably in regards to self determination) and a United Europe. The Group vigorously supported the former and tentatively the later until after 1918. The Bloc was never very enthusiastic about either, and indeed the Cecils would later become staunch foes of the European Union, as we shall see.

Alfred Milner, the longtime head of the Round Table movement

What united the two factions was an unwavering belief in the glory of the British Empire and its preservation, even if they differed on the best means of achieving this. Given that the Cecil family still appears to be going strong while the political project of the Group has been completely co-opted by the America-centric CFR, another possibility should be considered: That the Cecils were using the Milner clique throughout the early twentieth century to appeal to idealistic types from the right sort of background. After the Group was discredited due to its policy of appeasement leading up to WWII, the Cecils cast it aside and reverted to their traditional political agenda: the British Empire.

Throughout the mid and latter half of the twentieth century, the Marquesses of Salisbury would embrace an increasingly far right political agenda bent of preserving the Empire and opposing the EU. They also found the time to help launch a particularly elitist form of Christianity that would be embraced by curious cults around the world in the second half of that century.

It all goes back to Frank Buchman one of the most powerful, and little acknowledged, evangelicals in the US and UK throughout much of the twentieth century. During the late 1920s, he set up the Oxford Group at the famed British college barring the Group's name. As World War II approached, the Group was rechristened the Moral Re-Armament movement (MRA). Through these organizations, Buchman was able to craft a very elitist and cultish approach to Christianity that would have a profound reach in the postwar years. Buchman called for "a new social order under the dictatorship of the Spirit of God." In practical terms, this meant courting powerful men in positions of influence. This would usher in a "God-controlled nation" that would bring an end to labor strife, then an overriding concern in the 1930s, among other things. Wealth would of course not be redistributed, but workers could take solace in the fact that the robber barons were no longer driven by greed, but God.

Frank Buchman

Among two of Buchman's favorite tools were what he dubbed "soul surgery" and house parties. Both were centered around confession. The former consisted of surrendering to God by cutting out sin one incision at a time. This frequently involved confession to Buchman and his confessors. Whether this was a path to God is debatable, but it certainly gave Buchman and company access to the darkest secrets of the elite they courted. Buchman's house parties operated on a similar basis:

"... The most successful events took place at one of the estates around the world that Buchman used as outreach stations. He had won the allegiance of a number of wealthy widows and heiresses and neglected wives of businessman, and they regularly showered him with riches, including their great homes, to which Buchman would invite select groups for a day in the country. There would be tennis and golf and some praying, and then the group would gather for the party. A fire would be built, the lights dimmed, and Buchman or a trained confessor might begin with some minor transgression, a traffic ticket, a youthful prank. Another Buchman veteran might than up the ante. 'Some lad might now turn evidence against a governess or an upstairs maid,' observed a New Yorker writer in 1932. And from there it was on to the weaknesses that afflict not just college boys but also the grand dames who flocked to Buchman and the big men they dragged in their wake, all stumbling over one another in elaborate description of their private perversions, how they had been blinded to their purpose in life by sexual desire, and how 'Guidance' had saved them. Around circle they went, spurring one another on."

(The Family, Jeff Sharlet, pg. 128)

According to veteran CIA officer Miles Copeland in his The Game Player, Buchman's movement was courted by the CIA in the postwar years for the type of access the house parties and such like offered. He notes that "the arrangement we made with Moral Rearmament that gave us useful secret channels right into the minds of leaders not only in Africa and Asia but also Europe" (pg. 177). Unsurprisingly, the MRA would serve as the foundation of elite, intelligence-aligned Christian cults such as the Unification Church and The Family. The Unification Church shall be dealt with below, while much more information on The Family can be found here.

Of course, the Cecils had already latched onto Buchman's movement well before the CIA was even created. The Fourth Marquess of Salisbury was a member of Buchman's Oxford Group by at least the late 1930s. Even as controversy would begin to engulf Buchman's group in the mid-1930s (due in no small part to his support of dictatorship and fascism), Lord Salisbury would continue to support Buchman, even arranging for a media blitz so as to give Buchman a platform to defend his movement.

James Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury

This was just the beginning of the involvement of the Salisburys in far right politics during the 20th century. As the great David Teacher notes in the long-suppressed Rogue Agents, the Fifth Marquess of Salisbury was the president of the far right Monday Club from its founding in 1961 until his death in 1972. The Monday Club was imperialistic to the hilt, forming in the wake of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's liberal drift in regards to the Empire. With the whiff of decolonization in the air, the Monday Club organized to continue white rule in Rhodesia and South Africa and the destruction of Nasser. Salisbury was ahead of the curve, having resigned in 1957 from Macmillan's cabinet and as leader of the House of Lords over the government's liberal drift.

Upon his death his son, the 6th Marquess of Salisbury, would take up the presidency of the Monday Club and hold it until 1981. During his tenure, the group took on an increasingly anti-EU and anti-immigration stance. Teacher also notes that, by the 1980s, this Salisbury had also become a participant in the highly secretive Le Cercle, which is part the far right's answer to Bilderberg and part a vast private intelligence network, deeply implicated in drug and arms trafficking, stay-behind armies, and VIP child sex networks. For more on the nefarious outfit, check here and here.

the 5th (top) and 6th (bottom) Marquesses of Salisbury

The 7th Marquess of Salisbury also had links to the Cercle complex via one of its many front groups, the Belgian-based Institut Européen pour la Paix et la Sécurité (IEPS, see Rogue Agents, pg. 221). Naturally, the current Lord Salisbury is a longstanding eurosceptic. He has been actively campaigning against the EU since at least the late 1990s and is a staunch supporter of Brexit.

The Round Table movement, Moral Re-Armament movement, the Monday Club, Le Cercle, Brexit --there should be no question that the Marquesses of Salisbury have continued to wield tremendous power and influence over the political life of the UK and beyond even as they've receded from the public gaze (which apparently has been a time honored strategy of the family, excluding the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury) since the early twentieth century. It was during the long reign of the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury as Prime Minister, allegedly during the apex of the family's power (per Quigley), that the Cecils interceded on behalf of Crowley.

the Cecils, Crowley, and the SPR

The Cecils may well have had a longstanding interest in mysticism. As was noted above, patriarch William Cecil was a patron of alchemy. It would appear that this interest became more pronounced during the late nineteenth century with the rise of the Salisbury line. In The Anglo-American Establishment, Quigley notes: "One of the enduring creations of the Cecil Bloc is the Society for Psychical Research, which holds a position in the history of the Cecil Bloc similar to that held by the Royal Institute of International Affairs in the Milner Group" (pgs. 31-32). 

The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was one of the first institutions that attempted to "scientifically" study psi and paranormal phenomenon. The legacy of the Milner Group then is centered around a political think tank, the Cecil Bloc an organization to investigate the paranormal. That says a lot about the world view of these two factions.

But how directly was the Cecil family itself involved with SPR? Quigley links it more to the Balfour family. Both Arthur Balfour, a future prime minister (and the man who issued the infamous Balfour Declaration), and his brother Gerald served as presidents of the SPR at various times. But in addition to being Balfours, the brothers Arthur and Gerald were also Cecils. Their mother was Lady Blanche Cecil, daughter of the 2nd Marquess of Salisbury and sister to Third, one of the UK's longest serving prime ministers. What's more, Quigley alleges that Arthur Balfour effectively took over the Cecil Bloc after the death of the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury. This likely would not have occurred had the Cecils doubted Balfour's dedication to their legacy. As such, the SPR clearly had support from portions of the Cecil family itself.

As for Crowley, the Great Beast had a curious relationship with both the Cecil family and the SPR. As to the former, it was no less than the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury who recommended Crowley to Cambridge. He made this recommendation when he was a sitting prime minister to boot.

Consider the implication of this for a moment dear reader. Lord Salisbury was not merely Britain's prime minister, he was also the head of the Cecil Bloc. If Quigley is to be believed (and that is always debatable), the Bloc was effectively the preeminent political power of the day. Combine this with the historic influence the Lords of Salisbury have wielded for centuries and one is left with the distinct possibility that Lord Salisbury was at the time the most powerful figure in the ENTIRE British Empire. This, dear readers, is the man who recommended Aleister Crowley to Cambridge University. Let that sink in for a moment if you will.

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury and one of the Britain's longest serving prime ministers

The question then becomes, how did Crowley manage such a feat? In The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, the Great Beast attributes the intervention of Lord Salisbury on his behalf to his aunt's involvement in the Primrose League. This was an organization geared towards spreading conservative principals on behalf of the Tories.

pins worn by members of the Primrose League

While Crowley's family was fairly well to do, much of their fortune was based upon the family brewery, Crowley's Alton Alehouses. While this business was quite profitable, it was also the type of industry that was still looked down upon by the traditional British aristocracy during this era. Even the Great Beast himself seemed somewhat embarrassed by the source of his family fortune. What then would a man like Lord Salisbury make of a brewer's second cousin? Likely he would have been perceived as petty bourgeoisie, at best.

But keep in mind that the Cecil family maintained its historic power by recruiting men of ability into its ranks. Crowley was already an accomplished mountain climbers by this point and undeniably brilliant. This may well have made someone take notice.

Another potential clue is provided by the career Crowley had hoped to use Cambridge as a stepping stone for: namely, in the diplomatic service. Incidentally, this type of work has often gone hand in glove with spy craft as well. Indeed, diplomatic cover is a time honored tradition among spooks. And that is why Crowley's involvement in the Society for Psychical Research at Cambridge is so curious. Consider one of the individuals he encountered in the SPR at Cambridge:

"Another man who enjoyed intrigue was the Hon. Francis Henry Everard Joseph Feilding (1867-1936). Finding Catholicism inadequate to cope with grief at his sister's death, Feilding joined the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in 1895. Established at Trinity in 1882, the SPR investigated scientifically 'psychical' phenomena: mediumship, telepathy, ghosts and life after death. Feilding, SPR secretary from 1903, was also an intelligence officer. If anyone recruited Crowley for secret service at Cambridge or elsewhere, or at a later date, Everard Feilding, Crowley's senior by eight years, must be a prime candidate.

"A 15-year-old midshipman in the Royal Navy during the Egyptian campaign of 1882, Feilding was admitted to Trinity in 1887. Called to the Bar in 1894, he served on the Committee of Naval Censors (Press Bureau) during the Great War, and afterward, with the rank of Lieutenant RNVR, in the Special Intelligence Department of Egypt. In a career move similar to that which launched the legend of Lawrence of Arabia, Feilding was lent to the Arab Bureau and the Foreign Office for political service in Syria. After the war, he received the OBE, as well as the Order of the Nile and Order of El Nahda for services in Egypt and the Hejaz. Feilding was Crowley's intelligence contact when, during the Great War, the Beast spied on the German propaganda machine in New York."

(Aleister Crowley: The Biography, Tobias Churton, pg. 33) 

Everard Feilding is the figure looming over the priest

Was Crowley then being groomed to be a spy? This is certainly a distinct possibility, especially in light of some of the activities the Beast got up to while attending Cambridge. During the New Year's Eve of 1896, Crowley found himself in the Swedish capital of Stockholm. There he alleged to have had one of his first significant mystical experiences and to have been initiated into an outfit known as the "Military Order of the Temple."

Some researchers such as Tobias Churton have suggested that Crowley had his first homosexual encounter in Stockholm as well. This is rather debatable, however. Crowley was a product of the British empire-building public school system that has a longstanding reputation for buggery and pederasty. The implications of the Stockholm experience are curious, however.

The Knights Templar, which the "Military Order of the Temple" is clearly a play upon, were accused of buggery. This particular "initiation" may be an allusion to that allegation. As homosexuality was still quite illegal and taboo in British society at the time, there is a possibility that this was an attempt to build a control file on Crowley for latter use.

Sweden was also the gateway to Russia, then considered the greatest threat to the British Empire. "Incidentally," Crowley would later turn up in Saint Petersburg several months later, in the summer of 1897. One could conclude then that things must have gone very well indeed in Stockholm.

Still, this does not quite explain the Cecil family's curious patronage of Crowley. One possible explanation entails the Great Beast "kissing" the right "ring" in public school. Crowley attended Eastbourne, which was founded by the above-mentioned Cavendish family. The Cavendishs themselves are quite a longtime powerhouse among the British aristocracy and of course intermarried with the Cecils. The ties between the Cavendish clan and Crowley's alma mater are close to the point that the school adopted the stag from the family's coat of arms for its emblem. The possibility that Crowley serviced someone sufficiently to extract favor from the chief of the Cecil Bloc can not be discounted.

Boney and the ABN

Another curious I figure I discussed with Jasun was the mysterious Major General J.F.C. "Boney" Fuller. Boney was both a brilliant military strategist and an early Crowley-ite. The two men had first encountered one another at some point during the first decade of the twentieth century. Fuller would soon become one of the Great Beast's most enthusiastic supporters. He penned The Star in The West: A Critical Essay Upon the Works of Aleister Crowley and became a co-founder of the A∴A∴, Crowley's magical order. Reportedly, their relationship began to sour towards the end of the decade due concerns by Fuller that Crowley's bisexuality may effect his military career (clearly, the control file was not working by this point, if ever).

"Boney" Fuller

Contact between the two men was scarce after 1911, but Fuller would continue to have an interest in the occult. During the 1930s, he also became enamored with fascism. He joined the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and became one the closet allies of founder Sir Oswald Mosley.

Prior to setting up the BUF, Mosley had been seen as a rising star within the Conservative Party. In 1920 he had married Lady Cynthia Curzon. Mosley was apparently quite taken with the women of the Curzon family as he later carried on an affair with Lady Cynthia's younger sister, Lady Alexandra Curzon, and their stepmother, Grace Curzon. Grace's husband and the father of Cynthia and Alexandra was Lord George Curzon. Per Quigley, Curzon's was not just Lord Salisbury's former private secretary, but his protege. Curzon would continue to be linked to the Cecil Bloc up until the time of his death in 1925. As such, Mosley effectively married into the Bloc.

Lord George Curzon

How closely the Curzons were to the Bloc after Lord Curzon's death is debatable. Both Mosley and Lady Cynthia had joined Labour in 1924, shortly before Lord Curzon shed his mortal coil. Given the longstanding association the Cecils have with the Conservative Party, it is difficult to discern how this move would have been perceived. Mosley of course later drifted to fascism, but said ideology appears to have enjoyed greater support among the Cecil Bloc's frenemies in the Milner Group. Further muddying the waters are the simultaneous affairs Lady Alexandra was carrying out in the years leading up to WWII with Mosley and Lord Halifax, a leading figure in the Milner Group by that time. 

Oswald Mosley

On the other hand, another leading figure in the British fascist movement was Philip Farrer, a British intelligence officer during WWI who had served as the 4th Marquess of Salisbury's private secretary during the late 1930s. Fuller himself regularly collaborated with Farrer. At a minimum then, the Cecils appear to have been keeping an eye on Mosley's actions. And it was into this maelstrom that Fuller boldly plunged. 

This would open doors for Fuller in the broader fascist movement. He would establish close ties with the German General Stuff during the 1930s, who were greatly influenced by his concepts concerning mechanized warfare. Fuller was the only foreigner present during Nazi Germany's first armored maneuvers in 1935 and was in attendance during Hitler's 50th birthday bash in 1939. 

Fuller had even more extensive ties to various fascist organizations and regimes, which did not lead to his detention at the outbreak of war.

"... Admitted to Oswald Mosley's inner circle, Fuller visited both Mussolini and Hitler. He was also a founding member of the pre-war Nordic League (known initially as the White Knights of Britain or the Hooded Men) which had been established by Nazi agents run by Alfred Rosenberg. Its activities, which were directed from Berlin, included providing an insider's view of the British elite. Fuller had also written intelligence reports on British organizations and individuals for Goebbels, the head of the Nazi propaganda department, and Heinrich Himmler, chief of the SS. It is said that Fuller would have been made ministry of defense if Mosley had come to power, and was regarded by the Nazis as a possible 'Quisling.' Despite the fact that MI5 had him under surveillance, when war came he and his Polish wife were not among the more than seven hundred BUF supporters detained under the 18b regulations. Even Mosley was puzzled by this omission. One possible reason, which would explain a great deal, was that Fuller was an MI6 agent and thus protected."

(MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Stephen Dorril, pgs. 441-442)

Indeed, it is the only really plausible explanation as to why the British authorities did not feel the need to intern a man who had celebrated Hitler's birthday with the Fuhrer on the eve of war. Throw in Fuller's close collaborator, Philip Farrer, and one is left with the distinct impression that these men were managing the British fascist movement on behalf of the intelligence services. Given the rampant support for fascism among the British aristocracy during the 1930s, the involvement of Fuller and Farrer may not have begun as an intelligence op, but as war with Germany became inevitable it likely became one.

It was during Fuller's time moonlighting for Nazi intelligence services that he encountered a most curious organization.

" 'Boney' Fuller... had been active among the Ukrainian nationalist before the war and among the Ukrainian communities in both Britain and Germany after the war. In the mid-thirties, around the same time as MI6 was recruiting the Banderites in the OUN, the Ukrainian émigré community in London have been penetrated by German Intelligence. This had been undertaken with the help Fuller to ensure Anglo-German 'understanding.' He thought that Hitler's greatest mistake during the war have been to treat the Ukrainians as subhuman, Untermenschen, thus ignoring the military potential of the nationalists. With the support of his good friend Richard Stokes, at the end of the war Fuller had helped assist one of the leading figures in the OUN-B, Jaroslav Stetsko, and maintained contacts with the Ukrainian nationalists and the DP camps throughout the forties. By 1950, Fuller was seventy-one, a wizened old man but still active, calling for a moral as well as a physical and economic campaign against the Bolsheviks and the Soviet Union."

(MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Stephen Dorril, pg. 442) 

OUN stands for Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. The OUN-B was an especially militant branch of the OUN centered around Stepan Bandera. This outfit was an on again, off again Quisling that eventually founded the infamous Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The UPA was eventually embraced by the Nazis and received training from famed commando Otto Skorzeny. This effectively transformed then into a stay-behind unit that was used to harass the Red Army as the Nazis retreated in what was known as Operation Sunflower. The OUN/UPA managed to tie down some 200,000 Soviet troops and kill over 7000 officers, per the great Christopher Simpson in his classic Blowback (pgs. 162-163).

The OUN/UPA was fanatically anti-Semitic, anti-Communist, and generally anti-Russian to the hilt. They are considered to be the inspiration behind the modern, neo-Nazi paramilitary outfit known as the Azov Battalion.

In the postwar years, the US an UK viewed the OUN-B/UPA as idea candidates to infiltrate behind Soviet lines so as to carry out sabotage operations. Back in the West, many former OUN-B/UPA members cultivated the far right. The leading figure among the Ukrainians was the above-mentioned Yaroslav Stetsko.

Stetsko

 He was the longtime head of the far right emigre outfit known as the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations  (ABN). As I've noted before here, the ABN had its origins in Nazi Germany, being comprised of many of the most militant Eastern European "Quisling" outfits. Many of its components were guilty of horrendous war crimes during WWII. Naturally, the US and UK felt that the ABN could serve as the backbone for efforts to pry Eastern Europe out of the Soviet bloc. These efforts largely failed, but the ABN would go on to wield enormous power in the West through a later organization it helped co-found known as the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). The WACL in turn had extensive ties to both Western and Eastern intelligence services, international drug traffickers and various terror networks. Much more information on the WACL can be found here.

For our purposes here, it is also interesting to note the frequency of cults and secret societies within the WACL. The Asian component had its origins in an outfit known as the Asian People's Anti-Communist League (APACL). The guiding forces behind the APACL were South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. The Japanese and Taiwanese components were deeply linked to the Yakuza and Green Gang, respectively. Both were organized crime syndicates and secret societies. As for South Korea, much of the support for the APACL (and later WACL) came from the Unification Church, the above-mentioned cult that grew out of Moral Re-Armament movement. The Unification Church also enjoyed longstanding ties to the KCIA, for years South Korea's principal intelligence service. More on these cretins can be found here.

The APACL was hardly the only component to feature secret societies and cults, however. One of the most powerful organizations within the Latin American section was a Mexican secret society known as Los Tecos ("the Owls"). The Tecos enjoyed close links with both Mexican security services and drug cartels. During the 1970s and 1980s, they helped raise the so-called White Brigades to destabilize the nation. More on the Tecos, which have at times been likened to a cult, can be found here.

Nor was the Ukrainian section of the ABN the only outfit to rub elbows with a noted occultist. The Romanian section was mainly comprised of veterans of the Iron Guard. During the WWII era, the Guard maintained links with Italian occultist and philosopher Julius Evola. Indeed, there has been some speculation that Evola was the Guard's liaison with Nazi intelligence. The Guardists would later have an influence on the structure of Los Tecos while other Evola-ites crop up among the Italian partners of the League. Much more information on this topic can be found here.

Evola

As such, it is hardly surprising to find a former Crowley acolyte rubbing shoulders with the OUN-B faction of the ABN. It is especially curious that Boney had ties to the OUN-B going back to the 1930s, around the same time Evola was working with the Iron Guard in Romania. When the ABN got going in 1943, the Ukrainian and Romanian sections may well have had some curious mystical discussions. In fairness though, it should also be noted that Yaroslav Stetsko also met with the Moral Re-Armament types at some point as well. But then again, if the Cecil family was lurking behind both Crowley and the MRA, this is not entirely surprising.

Boney, Evola-ites, the Tecos, the Unification Church, the Yakuza --the WACL certainly featured an incredible cast of occultists, secret societies, and cults in its midst. In addition to being the visible face of the Fascist International during the 1970s and 1980s, it may have housed a kind of Black Order within its inner circle as well. Certainly, its affiliates had many curious interests --just consider the New Age pursuits of the Unification Church, for instance.

And with that, I shall sign off for now dear readers. As always, I hope everyone enjoys the chat and has found this supplemental material to be compelling. Stay tuned until next time.