Bavaria, the Thule Society, the SOSJ and the Making of a Revolutionary Faith Part V

Welcome to the fifth installment in my examination of the notorious Thule Society, the World War I-era German secret society long linked to the Nazi Party and more recently a pop culture staple. Due to the latter, I dedicated much of part one to dispelling some of the common misconceptions concerning Thule (especially in relation the Vril Society and like associations).

Part two briefly considered the ideological origins of Thule, addressing personalities and organizations that helped shape such things. With the third installment I outlined the background of Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorff, the founder of Thule, which featured ample time spent in the Near East immersed in occult studies. With part four I finally began to examine Thule in earnest, mainly focusing on the beliefs, structure and early days of the Society.

a bust of von Sebottendorff

In this installment I must digress for a time before addressing Thule's most active, militant, and influential period. To fully appreciate this period one must also understand the Freecorp movement that sprang up in Germany during the wake of World War I. And to put the Freecorps in perspective, I must also briefly address the state of affairs in Germany at the conclusion of the Great War.

To say that the nation was devastated would be an understatement. The physical destruction and psychological shock the defeat brought to Germany was profound. This, combined with the specter of the Russian Revolution, spurred German workers and soldiers to start their own revolution. Despite much fear mongering over the prospect of Germany going red both before and after the German Revolution, said event never posed a serious threat of establishing communism in Germany and thus the revolution is now widely forgotten.

"That the revolution failed to take hold... is one reason for its obscurity. Also, the turmoil of late 1918 and early 1919 might better be called the German Revolutions. They were a series of localized uprisings, owing to the federal constitution of Germany and the mixed causes of the upheavals. It was not a centrally directed effort of the sort mythologized by the Russian Bolsheviks with their seizure of the Winter Palace, despite the best efforts of German Communists and Spartacists to run the movement. In its earliest phase the German Revolution was a 'spontaneous, popular upheaval in which exasperation, war-weariness and genuine revolutionary enthusiasm all played a part.'

"Although workers carrying red flags massed outside the Reichstag as early as October 26, 1918, the German Revolution began with the mutiny at Kiel of the High Seas Fleet on October 28 and ended with the crushing of the Bavarian Soviet Socialist Republic on May Day 1919 by paramilitaries, including units raised by the Thule Society.

"The German Revolution shared several common characteristics across its man local manifestations. It began with mutinous sailors, soldiers, and workers informally and hastily elected their own soviets or councils in imitation of the Russian model. At first these soviets were generally Independent Socialists in orientation, although they may have included individuals who could be termed 'nonpartisan.' In many areas the soviets enjoyed the reluctant but active participation of the majority Social Democrats, 'who were not prepared to abandon their traditional belief in parliamentary democracy,' and although they regarded the revolution as a deviation, 'sought to contain it and control it.' In the revolution's later stages, including Bavaria by April 1919, the soviets were often dominated by Communist hard-liners. Some soviets actually ran cities and districts for short periods; more often they coexisted uncomfortably alongside Germany's traditional governing institutions as they tried to find their compass after the empire played out its abrupt final act. The government ministries were usually dominated by Social Democrats, whose Reichstag delegate Philipp Scheidemann reluctantly proclaimed on November 9, with as much informality and haste as a mutinous sailor, the German Republic. He did so only to forestall Liebknecht from gaining the advantage should a power vacuum open up with the kaiser's abdication and flight to neutral Netherlands (which finally occurred November 10). Like the Labour Party in Great Britain, the Social Democrats would have been pleased to pursue a gradual program of democratization and socialization under the orderly auspices of a constitutional monarchy.

"From the day the largely unwanted republic was born, the Social Democrats found themselves keeping odd company to prevent it from being smothered by the far left, bent on erecting a dictatorship of the proletariat. Germany's first Reich president, the Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert, received a surprise phone call from imperial headquarters at Spa on November 9. It was Gen. Wilhelm Groener, offering a deal on behalf of the army to support the Social Democrats in their fight against Bolshevism in exchange for the new government's promise to preserve the integrity of the officers corps.

"However, this was not the end of the Social Democrats' need for military muscle. Most of the army's rank and file had little stomach for further service after the November 11 Armistice with the Allies. Many units simply evaporated upon reaching their home depots. Filing the vacuum left by the old imperial army in the troubled months to come were paramilitary units called Freikorps, often led by recently discharged officers and filled in part with soldiers who continued to savor combat or who feared the triumph of Bolshevism..."

(Hammer of the Gods, David Luhrssen, pgs. 92-93)

a scene from the German Revolution

Luhrssen's depiction of the men who comprised the Freecorps is a bit simplistic. In general, rank and file soldiers from urban working class backgrounds were not especially attracted to the Freecorps. Instead, their ranks were often dominated by rural and middle class populations. The initial vision for this new breed of soldier came from General Ludwig Maercker, whose Volunteer Rifleman's Corps was among the most effective and best organized of the Freecorps.

"After the defeats of November, and the recent humiliating dissolution following the Marstall fiasco, who were these men... who had risen, seemingly like phantoms, from the ruins of chaos and disaster? Maercker was a Prussian of the old school who had spent most of the war on the Eastern Front, ending up as the relatively lowly commander of the 214th Infantry Division. But unlike most of his fellow officers, he had grasped at an early stage that the miseries of defeat offered the opportunity for a wholly new type of soldiering: 'A vast militia of bourgeoisie and peasants, grouped around the flag for the re-establishment of order.' The implied message was that this coalition of the middle-class and the rural worker would be set against the industrial working classes of the city, with their dangerous notions of democracy and socialism. As his own division began to melt away, Maercker seized the chance of preserving its loyalist kernel as the basis of a new corps of volunteers able to carry out the twin tasks of combating the Bolshevik enemy at home and defending Germany's crumbling borders from the rapacious grasp of the foreigner."

(A Brief History of the Birth of the Nazis, Nigel Jones, pgs. 50-51)

General Maercker

Many of the individuals from middle class backgrounds who signed up with the Freecorps were students just young enough to have missed combat in WWI, but who had become enthralled with heavily romanticized depictions of trench warfare promoted by the likes of Ernst Junger and so forth. More than a few of these students had also been involved with the Volkisch movement during the war as well, meaning that at least some of them would have been exposed to Ariosophy even before they joined the Frecorps (the Volkisch movement and its esoteric cousin Ariosophy are were much of the occult ideology of Thule derived, as noted in part two).

The bulk of the Freecorps officers were drawn from the ranks of the original Storm Troopers, WWI era infantry who were something of precursor to modern day special forces. These heavily armed units were often used as shock troops to break Allied ranks, clearing the way for conventional forces. Because of this they were afforded special status within the German Imperial Army, which included the best rations, new uniforms, state-of-the-art weapons such as flame throwers, etc. As a result, these forces were far more loyal than the regular army and provided an idea backbone for the Freecorps.

WWI-era Storm Trops

Most historians have generally downplayed the occult undertones of the Freecorps movement, dismissing the ties certain Bavarian Freecorps had to the Thule Society as an isolated incident. In point of fact, many Freecorps openly displayed traces of a more esoteric agenda. An obvious example of this are the symbols adopted by various Freecorps as their insignia. According to Robert G.L. Waite in his classic Vanguard of Nazism: The Free Corps Movement in Postwar Germany 1918-1923, the most popular insignia adopted by the Freecorps was the totenkopf (death's head). Originally the totenkopf had been displayed by the aristocratic Prussian cavalry during the eighteenth century. During World War I the totenkopf was adopted by the Storm Troops as their official insignia. From there it likely spread to the Freecorps as former Storm Troops were enlisted as officers.

Conspiracy culture has spilled much ink over the years concerning the significance of the death's head (which is also the symbol of the notorious Yale secret society commonly referred to as Skull and Bones as well as the SS itself), so I will not address it here. Whether there was some type of occult association meant by the use of the totenkopf by the Freecorps is highly debatable. I am on a bit firmer footing in this regard when it comes to another symbol adopted by the Freecorps: the swastika. Many researchers have attributed the use of the swastika by the Freecorps to Ariosophy's occult underground.

"Most authorities say that Hitler first picked up the idea of using the swastika from the Ehrhardt Brigade in 1920... But two organizations that were Hitler's immediate predecessors in spreading the doctrine of Aryan supremacy, the Thule Society and the S-u-T, had popularized its use as a racist symbol in 1919. And before them, the racist Reichshammer Bundes had used it as its 'battle sign' as early as 1912... The Nazis did not like to be reminded that they had precursors. The memoirs of the founders of both the S-u-T and the Thule Gesellschaft... were placed in the closed archives of the NSDAP and stamped with the 'V' sign. Ehrhardt himself says that in January 1920 his men began to bear the swastika for the first time and comments, 'I cannot determine how this happened...'"

(Vanguard of Nazism, Robert G.L. Waite, pg. 207, n. 90)

S-u-T refers to Deutschvolkischer Schultz-und-Trutzbund, a far right wing organization linked to both the Freecorps movement and Ariosophy. S-u-T, Thule and the Reichshammerbund all had ties to the Germanenorden, the secret society that Thule derived from. These ties were all addressed in part two of this series.

While the Freecorp known as the Ehrhardt Brigade is generally considered the first such unit to display the swastika, some researchers have suggested that the Freecorp may have adopted it after serving with several Bavarian Freecorps affiliated with Thule during the Battle of Munich. But I've found nothing to confirm that these Thule-backed Freecorps actually used the swastika as an emblem at this point (though Thule itself certainly did). In some accounts I've read, the swastika was said to have first been employed by Freecorps participating in the notorious Baltic Campaign, which slightly predated the Battle of Munich. This is a highly intriguing possibility for reasons that will be explored in a future installment.

The occult nature of the Freecorps movement became more pronounced after the disastrous Kapp Putsch, the most well known attempt by the Freecorps to overthrow the Weimer Republic. It failed and the government made a half-hearted attempt to suppress the movement. This drove many of the Freecorps into secretive organizations.

"We can divide the rightist and racist groupings broadly into the open, legal, or semi-legal, such as the Organisation Escherich (Orgesch), the Organisation Kanzler (Orka), the Stahlhelm (Steel Helmet), and the Jungdeutscher (Jungdo); and the secret, illegal, underground or outright terrorist, like the Thule Society, the Deutscher Trutz and Schultz Bund (The German Offensive and Defensive League), and the Ehrhardt and Rossbach Freikorps with their myriad offshoots and successor organisations. An added complication is that some of the illegal groups which were banned by the Berlin government government were tolerated and even openly encouraged by the Bavarian authorities --particularly the Police. The open organisations tended to be marginally more moderate in their aims and methods than the terrorist groups..."

(A Brief History of the Birth of the Nazis, Nigel Jones, pg. 206)

First let us consider some of these "overworld" organizations. More than a few of them have striking similarities to the modern day militia movement and other such paramilitary right wing groups.

"Free Corps commanders, wanting to keep the nucleus of their Corps intact, covered up their activity by organizing business concerns the operation of which required large groups of strong young men --trucking companies, bicycle renting agencies, road gangs, private detective bureaus, and traveling circuses. But the most popular subterfuge was to disguise their men as members of larger labor camps. Here the Free Corps reverted to the experience of their youth in the Wandervogel and the labor camps it had established. More important, they set the precedent for the future: the so-called Arbeitskommando of the Black Reichsehr period and the Arbeitsdienst of the National Socialists were both patterned directly on the Free Corps labor camps...

"During the early twenties, similar Arbeitslager or Arbeitsgemeinschaften were established in various places throughout the Reich. They were most prevalent in eastern Germany, especially in Pomerania and Brandenburg, where they were sponsored by the Pomeranian Landbund and located on the estates belonging to its conservative members. Here they formed the type of half-military, half-agricultural communities that General von der Goltz had hoped to establish in the Baltic.

"Peter von Heydebreck, for example, took his Wehrwolfe to Count Bruhl's estate and established his headquarters in an old castle. His men interspersed their work in the fields with military drill and maneuvers. At night they sat about the great fire in the hall of the castle and discussed ways and means of overthrowing the Republic..."

(Vanguard of Nazism, Robert G.L. Waite, pgs. 189-191)

a Freecorp "labor camp"

These Freecorps "labor camps" are especially reminiscent of latter day Christian Identity compounds such as Elohim City and the one established by the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSA). Elohim City was meant as a self sustaining architectural community that latter incorporated paramilitary training for some of its members. The CSA compound, which heavily incorporated paramilitary training into its activities, initially tried to sustain itself by logging cedar trees. Later on it became involved in the arms trade by manufacturing firearms. In general, the arms trade has proved to be a lucrative source of income for various far right wing American paramilitary groups over the years. I briefly outlined the Minutemen organization's involvement in such things before here. This is just one example.

Many of these Freecorps organizations would also take to raising funds via the arms trade as well.

"Actually, there was nothing particularly mysterious about the sources of their financial support. We have already seen that the Landbund sponsored them. Heavy industry also made generous contributions. Then, too, there was considerable profit in stealing and selling contraband arms. The government itself had inadvertently provided the Freebooters with this source of revenue. In order to meet the demands of the Allied Commission of Control, the Republic passed a law which dissolved the Free Corps and provided that 'compensation will be made for the surrender of all arms which had been legitimately acquired.' Since the officials did not tend to investigate the legitimacy of the acquisitions, the Free Corps were able to steal arms from the government and surrender them for a profit. Arms were also sold to the enemies of the Republic. Rossbach's biographer, for example, describes what he considers a 'somewhat humorous but nevertheless effective means' of raising money. Rossbach would sell German machine guns to the Poles, then a section of his Storm Troops would 'liberate' the arms and resell them to other Polish groups. The process was then repeated. 'They did a booming business.'"

(Vanguard of Nazism, Robert G.L. Waite, pg. 195)

General Gerhard Rossbach, one of the most notorious Freecorp commanders who was also accused of "debauching" his youthful charges a time or two; his most famous conquest was a young Ernst Rohm

In general the men of the Freecorps had a reverence for their firearms that bordered on mystical, not unlike the modern day patriot and militia movements. Underworld organizations involved in assassinations, of which much more will be said in a moment, committed the bulk of these offenses not against political opponents but Freecorps members who betrayed firearm caches.

"Since the great many, perhaps a majority, of all the judgments of the Femgericht were rendered against people who disclosed, or threatened to disclose, the existence of illegal arms, it is worth noting the reason for hiding and guarding arms so sedulously. It was not so much that the arms themselves had any real military value --most of them were in a bad state of disrepair. It was rather for a psychological reason. Arms are a symbol of power and, lacking power themselves, the men of the post-Free Corps groups clung all the more tenaciously to that symbol. The men expressed the idea differently. To them, weapons were 'sacred things,' or, more commonly, 'honor.' Thus Heinz ends his discussion of a typical Feme murder by writing a paragraph which contains the single sentence, 'Arms are honor.' And again: 'Arms are an indispensable condition of national honor... Colonial people are disarmed and therefore dishonorable.' The National Socialists used the same terminology. In the official secret handbook of the NSDAP, the side arms of the political leaders are not called automatics, they are invariably referred to as 'Ehrenwaffe.'

"The Feme was often directed against former comrades of post-Free Corps organizations. The very multiplicity of Bunds and secret societies led to competition, quarreling, and death. Since each society tried to grow at the expense of others, there were constant brawls over recruits and periodic purges of traitors who had deserted and disclosed the secrets and the arms depots to their new formations. Competition and conflict was intensified by the fact that many of the Freebooters were homosexuals and hence prone to jealousy and 'lover's quarrels...'

(ibid, pgs. 222-223)

I daresay the psychological function firearms served for the Freecorps is probably not unlike the dynamic between the modern patriot movement and their firearms as well. As for the rampant homosexuality amongst the men of the Freecorps (as well as the numerous hints of pedophilia), this is a topic that is unfortunately beyond the scope of this series. I felt it was worth mentioning here as it shows, if nothing else, that there was certainly a tolerance for ideas and lifestyles outside the mainstream within the Freecorps so long as the individual in question possessed the mythical "Freebooter spirit." But moving along.

While many of these "overworld" Freecorps organizations displayed traces of Volkisch influence there is little evidence of Ariosophy or other occult strands among such organizations. The same can not be said, however, for the underground organizations, which is hardly surprising. While the "overworld" Freecorps groups were largely designed to keep together the rank-and-file soldiers until they were again needed, the underground organizations were mostly comprised of Freecorp officers engaged in assassinations and other acts of terrorism. Thus, they were a much smaller, secretive and far more exclusive groups than their public counterparts. As such, they provided a more fertile ground for the esoteric aspects of the Volkisch movement.

As noted above, both Thule and another prominent organization linked to this militant network, the S-u-T, had direct ties to the occult secret society known as the Germanenorden. Then there was the Organization Council (O.C.), a network created by officers of the Ehrhardt Brigade, and later renamed the Viking Bund. The O.C. would certainly display more than a few traces of esoteric Volkisch tendencies, most notably in its attempt to recreate the Medieval Vehmic (sometimes spelled as "Feme" rather "Vehm") courts. Of them Wikipedia states:

"The sessions were often held in secret, whence the names of 'secret court' (German: heimliches Gericht), 'silent court' (German: Stillgericht), etc. Attendance of secret sessions was forbidden to the uninitiated, on pain of death, which led to the designation forbidden courts' (German: verbotene Gerichte). A chairman (German: Stuhlherr) presided over the court, and lay judges (German: Freischöffen) passed judgment.^[2] The court also constituted a Holy Order.^[6]

"Any free man 'of pure bred German stock'^[6] and of good character could become a judge. The new candidate was given secret information and identification symbols. The 'knowing one' (German: Wissende) had to keep his knowledge secret, even from his closest family (;vor Weib und Kind, vor Sand und Wind'). Lay judges had to give formal warnings to known troublemakers, issue warrants, and take part in executions.

"The organization of the Fehme was elaborate. The centre of each jurisdiction was referred to as a 'free seat' (German: Freistuhl), and its head or chairman (German: Stuhlherr) was often a secular or spiritual prince, sometimes a civic community, the archbishop of Cologne being supreme over all (German: Oberststuhlherren). The actual president of the court was the 'free count' (German: Freigraf, chosen for life by the Stuhlherr from among the Freischöffen, who formed the great body of the initiated. Of these the lowest rank were the Fronboten or Freifronen, charged with the maintenance of order in the courts and the duty of carrying out the commands of the Freigraf. The immense development of the Fehme is explained by the privileges of the Freischöffen; for they were subject to no jurisdiction but those of the Westphalian courts: whether as accused or accuser they had access to the secret sessions, and they shared in the discussions of the general chapter as to the policy of the society. At their initiation these swore to support the Fehme with all their powers, to guard its secrets, and to bring before its tribunal anything within its competence that they might discover. They were then initiated into the secret signs by which members recognized each other, and were presented with a rope and with a knife on which were engraved the mystic letters S.S.G.G., supposed to mean Stein, Strick, Gras, grün(stone, rope, grass, green).^[2]

"The Freistuhl was the place of session, and was usually a hillock, or some other well-known and accessible spot. The Freigraf and the Schöffen (judges) occupied the bench, before which a table, with a sword and rope upon it, was placed. The court was held by day and, unless the session was declared secret, all freemen, whether initiated or not, were admitted. The accusation was in the old German form; but only a Freischöffe could act as accuser. If the offence came under the competence of the court, meaning it was punishable by death, a summons to the accused was issued under the seal of the Freigraf. This was not usually served on him personally, but was nailed to his door, or to some convenient place where he was certain to pass. Six weeks and three days' grace were allowed, according to the old Saxon law, and the summons was thrice repeated. If the accused appeared, the accuser stated the case, and the investigation proceeded by the examination of witnesses as in an ordinary court of law. The judgment was put into execution on the spot if that was possible.^[2]"

a depiction of a Medieval Vehm court

Whether or not the modern incarnation of the Vehmic court had the same occultic trappings is difficult to discern, but it certainly matched if not exceeded the original's brutality.

"The original Femgericht (or Vehmgericht), readers of historical romances will recall, had been established in medieval Germany as a kind of vigilante society which dispensed crude but effective justice at a time when there was no efficient judicial system. During the period of their dissolution, the Freebooters revived the idea of the Feme and in its name meted out their 'folkish justice' to all those people they loosely classified as traitors. The chief resemblance between the medieval Femgericht and its twentieth century namesake was this: the only sentence handed down by the 'court' was death.

"While the Feme was used by virtually all the post-Free Corps organizations, it is chiefly associated with Captain Hermann Ehrhardt's mysterious 'O.C.' --the Organization Consul, of which Ehrhardt was the 'Consul' --for it was the former commander of the Second Marine Brigade who organized the Feme into a system dispensing death. In the days following the Kapp Putsch. Ehrhardt and a group of his most trusted lieutenants fled to Bavaria and established themselves as agricultural laborers on the great estates in the vicinity of Munich. Here, in the spring of 1921, the O.C. was formed. Pohner, the chief of the Bavarian police, was the chief patron of the organization. In addition to channeling police funds into Ehrhardt's coffers, he supplied false passports to members who had committed murders (that is, those who had 'carried out the stern justice of the Femgericht'). Such people, understandably, found it advisable to leave the country for a few weeks."

(Vanguard of Nazism, Robert G.L. Waite, pgs. 212-213)

This researcher has found nothing to conclusively prove that the O.C. and its Vehm revival had an inner occult doctrine. But Ehrhardt and his officers had certainly rubbed shoulders with the Thulists a time or two. As noted above, the Ehrhardt Brigade had participated in the Battle of Munich with several Freecorps linked to Thule. Later Ehrhardt and several of his officers had fled to Bavaria after the failed Kapp Putsch and established themselves near Munich, again putting him around the same circles as the Thulists.

As was noted in part four, Thule also had an interest in ancient German legal traditions and likely would have studied the Vehmic courts at length. And finally, individuals linked to Thule's parent organization, the Germanenorden, were used as assassins of the O.C. in at least one prominent incident, as noted in part two. All of this would seem to indicate that there was overlap between Thule and Ehrhardt's people, at the very least. That Thule's esoteric doctrines influenced Ehrhardt and the O.C. is hardly beyond the realm of possibility.

Captain Hermann Ehrhardt

At this point its interesting to note the similarities between the Freecorps' revival of the Vehmic courts and an organization founded by "former" military intelligence officer, Posse Comitatus founder and Sovereign Order of Saint John (SOSJ) affiliate (as noted before here) Colonel William Potter Gale known as the Committee of the States. Gale had an enormous influence on the modern day patriot movement, with his loose Posse Comitatus network and ideology being the chief influence behind the modern militia and sovereign citizen movements. Like the men of the Freecorps, Gale had an interest in the Medieval legal codes of his ancestors, namely the British common law.

In Gale's ideology, America's historic common law system had been usurped by Admiralty law, which some conspiracy theorists have described as a modern successor to the Roman civil law (of which Thulists believed had replaced German's historic Aryan legal codes, as noted in part four). Gale envisioned the Committee of the States at a citizen's council designed to reclaim common law rights and remove government officials who did not recognize this legal code.

"Though Gale denied he played a prominent role in the Committee of the States, he invented it and inspired its members to plot violence. Gale inaugurated the Committee on September 6, 1982, with a sermon from the pulpit of the Ministry of Christ Church, explaining how and why patriots should take control of the federal government. Like his original Posse manifesto, The cornerstone of Gale's plan was an 'indictment' charging that Congress had 'unlawfully' delegated power to the Federal Reserve; 'treasonously' appropriated money 'towards the support of alien and foreign governments'; and unconstitutionally ordered American troops into battle on behalf of the 'International Jewish Banking Conspiracy.' After detailing these and other transgressions, Gale presented his solution:

"'[Members of Congress] are employees on the public payroll... therefore they are subject to dismissal and removal from offices and replacement by a Committee of the States as provided for in Article Five of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union... This removal from office and replacement by a Committee of the States is hereby recommended and authorized!'

"The reasoning was sophomoric, but Gale's belligerent charisma and his pretended rank of full colonel in the U.S. Army made his assertions appear credible --at least to those Patriots who wanted to believe anything he said. Gale correctly assumed that the government would take notice of the committee's threats and he instructed his followers to form a citizen's posse in every county. 'Anybody who tries to interfere with the lawful operations of the Committee of the States should be faced by that armed posse and be declared outlaws and be apprehended upon sight.' Later versions of this advise instructed that the death penalty be imposed. Like the Posse Comitatus he announced in 1971, Gale manufactured the Committee of the States using equal parts vigilantism, historical misinterpretation, and outright fiction --all papered over by meaningless legalistic gloss."

(The Terrorist Next Door, Daniel Levitas, pg. 286)

William Potter Gale

And the same to could be said of the Vehmic courts of the Freecorps, though they were by all accounts far more effective at administering their sentences. These modern Vehmic courts were credited with some 354 murders between the years 1919 and 1922. By contrast, Gale's Committee of the States never really got off the ground. Mainstream researchers chalk this up to Gale's ineptness. On the flip side of the coin, Gale's health also began to deteriorate rapidly shortly after he founded the Committee and he shed his mortal coil by early 1988. This may well have effected his (and others?) plans for the Committee. But I digress.

Before wrapping up, I would like to point out a post-World War II manifestation of a Freecorp. This paramilitary organization, based upon its post-WWI predecessors, also displayed trappings of an occult nature. The Freecorp was closely linked to the Socialist Reich Party (SRP), an openly neo-Nazi political party founded in 1949 and banned by West German authorities (with ample prodding from the Allies) by 1952.

"... Freikorps Deutschland (FD). The FD was formed at a secret meeting in Hamburg on 17 August 1951 by the Bruderschaft, the SRP, an SS fraternal association, and other like-minded groups. Recruits went through a heavily ritualistic initiation ceremony as well as a tough physical course that included forced marches with 50-pound packs. The FD had one or two thousand members divided into Freischaren (volunteer companies) of 113 members each. Its public leaders were two ex-SS men, Hermann Lamp and Colonel Eberhard Hawranke, and a naval officer named Heinz Naumann. Behind them stood the former Vienna Gauleiter A.E. Frauenfeld, his friend and Naumann Circle-member Gustav Adolf Scheel, and Beck-Broichsitter. All swore allegiance to imprisoned Grand Admiral Karl Donitz as legal head of Germany."

(Dreamer of the Day, Kevin Coogan, pg. 401)

the banner of the Socialist Reich Party

The Freikorps Deutschland also plotted to destabilize the German state just as its predecessors had during the interwar years, but it was banned by authorities before it could get off the ground. Unfortunately I have not been able to determine what this "heavily ritualistic initiation ceremony" may have consisted of, or whether it was linked to the earlier Freecorps. But this post-WWII Freecorp does show that in Germany by this time such organizations had become associated with the trappings of an occultic secret society. While these ritualistic trappings may have simply been adopted from the SS, the seemingly extensive ties the Germanenorden lodges, especially its Bavarian one, had to the Freecorps certainly make for the possibility that some of them employed equally ritualistic ceremonies, among other things.

And it is here that I shall wrap things up for now. In the next installment we shall continue with the saga of the Thule Society and the order's involvement in the Battle of Munich. Stay tuned.

Miami Zombies, Florida Vampires, and Snuff Films

Recluse was hard at work this past week taking in several concerts, most notably the 2012 Scion Rock Fest, for an upcoming piece on heavy metal to delve to deeply into the bizarre instance cannibalism reported in Miami on the 26 of May. While I was in the field the superb and prolific Loren Coleman has already published three excellent pieces, which can be read here, here, and here, on the international rash of cannibalism that has exploded since the Miami incident, popularly referred to as the Miami Zombie attack, came to national attention. Now that I've had the time to sit down and I digest (har har) the whole bloody affair I suppose I'll throw in my two cents. 

We'll start things off by briefly examining the religious and mythological significance of cannibalism throughout the ages. Of cannibalism, the legendary anthropologist James George Frazer states:

"Strange as it may seem to us, one motive which induces a savage warrior to eat the flesh or drink the blood of the foe whom he has slain appears to be a wish to form an indissoluble covenant of friendship and brotherhood with his victim. For it is a widespread belief among savages that by transfusing a little of their blood into each other's bodies two men become kinsmen and allies; the same blood now circulating in the veins of both, neither can injure the other without at the same time injuring himself; the two have therefore given each other the strongest bond, the best possible hostages, for their good behaviour. Acting on this theory, the primitive warrior seeks to convert his slain for into the firmest of friends by imbibing the dead man's blood or swallowing his flesh."
(The Golden Bough, pg. 518)

Legendary mythologist Joseph Campbell goes further than Frazer and breaks the act of cannibalism down to its Archetypal core:

"We all know the fairy tale of the witch who lives in a candy house that would be nice to eat. Indeed, we have seen already what a scare she gave to a child who conjured her up in play. She is kind to children and invites them into her tasty house only because she wants to eat them. She is a cannibal. (And for some six hundred thousand years of human experience cannibals, it should be born in mind --and even cannibal mothers --were grim and gruesome, ever-present realities.) Cannibal ogresses appear in the folklore of peoples, high and low, throughout the world; and on the mythological level the archetype is even more magnified into a universal symbol in such cannibal-mother goddesses as the Hindu Kali, the 'Black One,' who is personified of 'all-consuming Time'; or in the medieval European figure of the consumer of the wicked dead, the female mouth and belly of Hel."
(The Masks of God Volume I, pg. 68) 

this cannibalistic fairy tale is popularly known in the West as the tale of Hansel and Gretel

With this in mind we shall now examine several incidents of cannibalism being reportedly internationally this past week. Coleman, who is a big proponent of the copycat effect, theorized that the partial trigger for late May's rash of cannibalism was the re-emergence of Vince Li, a Canadian citizen who, on June 30, 2008, stabbed, beheaded, and cannibalized a human named Tim McLean on the back of a Greyhound bus. On May 22, 2012, CBC News ran this story, centering around Li's mental instability, that brought this grizzly incident back to public light.

There was, however, another recent incident of cannibalism that occurred a good month before Li once again made Canadian headlines. This incident came from Brazil and featured heavy cult overtones. To the best of my knowledge is was first reported on April 13, 2012. Raw Story reports:

"Brazilian police announced Friday that they had arrested a man and two women on suspicion of having murdered and cannibalized at least two women in what was described as a purification ritual. 

"The three defendants formed a sect called 'Cartel' that seeks to purify the world and reduce the population, police spokesman Democrito Honorato from the northeastern Brazilian town of Guaranhuns told AFP. 

"The three defendants, Jorge and Elizabeth Pires da Silveira, both 51, and Bruna da Silva, 25, intended to kill three women per year, police said... 

"Two bodies were found in the garden of the house occupied by the three defendants, which police believe were those of two women who disappeared recently: Alexandra Falcao, 20, and Gisele da Silva, 30. Both had been seen in the vicinity... 

"A five-year-old girl found with the trio is believed to be the daughter of the victim, police said. She was placed under the protection of a juvenile judge to find her a new family."

two of the Brazilian cannibal suspects

May 27 witnessed the first reports of a Chinese cannibal who has apparently been active for some time. The Washington Post notes:

"Authorities have arrested a man in southwestern China accused of killing 11 people and dismembering, burning and burying their bodies to destroy the evidence. 

"The Ministry of Public Security said in a statement Sunday that 56-year-old Zhang Yongming was arrested by police in Yunnan province on murder charges.  

"It said Zhang is suspected of attacking male victims who were walking alone on a quiet road near his home in Jinning county. 

"The case is believed to be related to media reports this past week that at least eight young people had gone missing in the county. 

"The reports sparked a public outcry because they cited relatives of the missing as saying that police ignored their pleas for help and prevented them from contacting the media."

Homo sapien, it's what's for dinner

On May 29, 2012, the hands and head of a Maryland man were discovered. This was just the beginning. The Global Post has the run down:

"A Baltimore college student, Alexander Kinyua, has confessed to killing his housemate and eating parts of his brain and heart. 

"Kinyua, 21, has been charged with first-degree murder for the death of 37-year-old Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie, the Associated Press reported. He is being held without bail.
"Both men had been enrolled at Morgan State University and lived together with Kinyua's family in the suburb of Joppatowne, CBS Baltimore said. 

"According to charging documents posted by the Baltimore Sun, Agyei-Kodie had been missing for four days when, on Tuesday, Alexander Kinyua's brother Jarrod discovered two tins hidden under a blanket in the basement. They contained a human head and hands. 

"Alexander Kinyua told his brother that the remains were animal. After going to fetch their father, Jarrod returned to find the body parts gone and Alexander cleaning out the tins. 

"The family called police, who found the head and hands stashed in the house. Kinyua told them where to find the rest of the body: in a dumpster outside a nearby church.
"He has admitted to killing Agyei-Kodie 'by cutting him up with a knife,' the charge sheet says, and further told detectives that he had eaten his victim's heart and portions of his brain. 

"Kinyua's confession was 'matter-of-fact,' a police spokeswoman told the Sun, and did not shed any light on his motive."

One of the most curious instances of recent cannibalism comes from Canada, once again. It involves the bisexual porn actor Luka Magnotta, who was just recently arrested on June 4, 2012, in Germany. He stands accused of murdering, dismembering, and eating parts of a Chinese man. MSNBC reports:

"Luka Rocco Magnotta is suspected of murdering the man in Montreal, making a video of the attack and sending the victim's dismembered body parts in the mail - including posting a foot to the headquarters of the country's Conservative Party. 

"Magnotta is wanted by authorities in Canada for first-degree murder and other charges. Interpol has put Magnotta on the equivalent of its most-wanted list, The Associated Press reported Sunday. 

"Police believe Magnotta, 29, fled to France on May 26. Police identified the victim as Chinese university student Jun Lin, 33."

Luka Magnolla

There are a lot of curious aspects of this case, most notably Magnotta's relationship with Karla Homolka. For those of you unaware, Homolka, along with husband Paul Bernardo, was convicted of raping and murdering three girls, including Homolka's own sister, Tammy, in the early 1990s. All of these incidents were videotaped, not unlike Magnotta's killing (and yet snuff films are still widely described as an 'urban legend'). Years before Magnotta gained his current notoriety, there were internet rumors that he had been dating Karla Homolka upon her (inexplicable) release from prison. Canadian authorities have been quick to decry these speculations, naturally. The Inquisitr notes:

"Karla Homolka's link to accused murderer Luka Rocco Magnotta is false, according to Canadian Police, who state there is no evidence that the two ever dated. 

"Canadian Police stated, according to Macleans that: 

"'Montreal police backtracked Thursday on claims they made that Magnotta had dated Karla Homolka, one of Canada's most notorious sex killers. Police officials clarified that they were aware of them any rumors posted on the Internet, but had no proof to substantiate those stories. In 2007, Magnotta came forward to news media to deny that he had dated her, although many at the time suggested he was the one who started the rumors to gain attention...' 

"The link between Homolka and Magnotta was first brought to light in 2007, when internet rumors began saying that Magnotta, a struggling porn actor, was dating Homolka, an accused serial killer, who struck a plea deal with prosecutors that allowed her serve 12 years, instead of her original sentence of life in prison...  

"...Magnotta approached news media in September 2007, following claims from numerous internet gossip sites that they were romantically linked. He stated, according to The Montreal Gazette, that: 

" 'My whole career (as a model and adult film star) are going downhill... Nobody wants to talk to me --I don't have anybody, basically. Whoever's doing this, please stop, you're doing a lot of harm.' 

"He reported that he had been receiving death threats from people following the accusations, but that he had never met Homolka. Writer Amanda Krum with Web Pro News disagrees with Magnotta's assertion, writing that: 

" 'Although Magnotta has denied any involvement with the convicted killer, it certainly seems a strange coincidence that two people who have been linked in the past would share a dark love of perverse sexual pleasure tied in with murder and dismemberment.' 

"While it is unlikely that Luka Rocco Magnotta and Karla Homolka actually dated (considering that they were only in Montreal at the same time for a few months), the link between the murders, and how the two dismembered the bodies, is hard to dispute."

the husband and wife serial killer duo of Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo

Indeed. What's more, this is not the first time the serial killer duo of Homolka and Paul Bernardo has been linked to a recent serial murderer. In fact, one of VISUP's very first (and not especially good)  posts examined the curious connection between Bernardo and Col. Russell Williams, who was accused of two murders in February 2010. Prior to becoming a serial rapist and murdered, Williams had been the commanding officer of the mysterious Camp Mirage, a Dubai-based installation rumored to be involved in sabotage, assassinations, and other black opts. It was suddenly shut down in October and November 2010, some eight months after Williams' arrest.

Russell Williams

Before his military days Williams attended the University of Toronto, where he allegedly befriended a young Paul Bernardo. City News Toronto reports:

"Days after the shocking arrest of the former commanding officer at CFB Trenton yet another dark revelation about the accused murdered has come to light.  

"A report suggests Col. Russ Williams and Paul Bernardo were friends in university.
"The Toronto Sun revealed the two men attended the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus at the same time in the mid-1980s, that they both studied economics and graduated together.  

"The report suggested the pair 'partied together' and that the joint forces probing the recent murder of Jessica Lloyd and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau are honing in on that alleged friendship. 

"Currently, there is no criminal link between Williams and Bernardo."

I doubt much effort was put into establishing a link between Bernardo and Williams back in 2010 and probably even less of an effort will be made linking Homolka and Magnotta in 2012. For if such a link exists, it begs the question: Why do other serial killers keep popping up around Homolka and Bernardo? And why do all of these killers (Homolka, Bernardo, Williams, and now Magnotta) display an obsession with photographing and/or videotaping their victims?

There has been a persistent rumor for years of an underground black market of snuff films available to the wealthy and powerful. Some conspiracy researchers have even linked some of the nation's most notorious serial killers to this black market.

"Serial killers Henry Lucas and Otis Toole, professed members of a satanic cult that dealt in drugs and snuff, have each described their trips carrying Anglo children kidnapped in America to a ranch in Mexico. A map drawn by Lucas placed the ranch close to Matamoros, in the same vicinity where Adolfo Constanzo's cultists sacrificed fifteen victims in 1988 and 1989... 

"In 1970, Charles Manson, Bobby Beausoleil, and other members of the Manson 'family' freely admitted that films were made of various cult activities around southern California. During the 'family' member trials, loops of Manson porn were selling for a quarter of a million dollars in New York and associate Vern Plumlee has also described films of Mansonites 'dancing with knives' and 'pretending to cut each other up.' Another informant, speaking to author Ed Sanders, professed personal knowledge of Manson films depicting both animal and human sacrifice. One reel portrayed the slaughter of a dog, he said, while another featured a cat blown apart with powerful 'M80' firecrackers. The final reel depicts a nude, decapitated woman lying on a beach while black-robed, hooded figures circle the corpse, 'throwing blood all over it.' 

"A decade later, in 1981, convicted 'Son of Sam' gunman David Berkowitz told prison confidants that at least one 'Sam' attack --the shooting of Robert Violante and Stacy Moskowitz --was recorded on videotape for the private collection of a Satanist 'Mr. Big,' later identified as millionaire Roy Radin. In October 1981, Berkowitz predicted the Halloween murder of photographer and suspected drug dealer Ronald Sisman, allegedly committed because Sisman planned to trade the Moskowitz tape for leniency on a pending cocaine charge. The tape has not been found, and Radin was himself assassinated before he could be questioned by police... 

"Following the June 1985 suicide of serial killer Leonard Lake, police found pits filled with human remains at his rural home in northern California. Also found were videocassettes depicting the humiliation, torture, rape, and death of several female victims --that is, 'snuff' tapes by definition. Unproven rumors suggest that Lake may have financed his paramilitary arsenal by selling copies of the tapes. However that may be, Lake's ex-wife recalls his enduring fascination with witchcraft, and neighbors in San Francisco report Lake describing himself as a member of a 'death cult.'"
(Raising Hell, Michael Newton, pgs. 343-345)

This makes Homolka, Bernardo, Williams, and Magnotta's photo and video habits all the more curious.  But enough speculation on Magnotta and company for now. It's time to get to the main event: namely, the Miami 'zombie.' For those of you living under a rock, here's the lowdown (via Raw Story) on the Miami cannibal thing:

"A man whose face was chewed off in a gruesome daylight attack was in a stable condition in hospital on Wednesday. 

"According to anonymous sources at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital, Ronald Poppo, 65, is expected to live despite losing about 80% of his face, including his nose and left eye, in the attack by 31-year-old Rudy Eugene. 

"Eugene, from Miami Beach, was shot dead by a police officer called to the downtown causeway on Saturday after reports of a fight and of a naked man ripping strips of flesh from another person’s face. 

"Homicide detectives were continuing to try to piece together the circumstances of the bizarre incident on Wednesday as photographs said to be of the homeless victim at the scene and later in the emergency room appeared online. 

"In one picture, apparently taken in the hospital, all that is left of the man’s face is a beard and his right eye, with the rest of his features blurred into a bloody red pulp. The photograph’s source cannot be confirmed but the injuries shown match those described by police and eyewitnesses on Tuesday... 

"One theory is that Eugene, a divorcee with a history of mental problems and arrests for possession of marijuana, might have taken a mind-altering drug nicknamed “bath salts”, a popular LSD alternative said to give users superhuman strength and a sense of invincibility but which can trigger aggression, extreme paranoia and hallucinations."

Eugene and Poppo after the attack

Regular readers of this blog will know that Recluse has a keen interest in all things having to do with hallucinogens, so I was immediately intrigued by this substance known as 'bath salts' (there is still much debate as to whether or not the suspect even consumed this substance). Upon investigating these drugs further, I was quite disappointed. The Huffington Post reports:

"The dangerous drug, which is banned in many states, but so far has no specific federal ban (though there is a ban on the three main chemicals used to make the drug), is available on the street and also at many tobacco and drug paraphernalia shops under names like White China, Lady Bubbles, Dynamite, Vanilla Sky, Ivory Wave and Cloud 9. 

"Bath salts, the drug's benign name, belies its actual makeup -- a toxic cocktail of the stimulants Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), mephedrone, and pyrovalerone. The Drug Enforcement Agency groups bath salts with mescaline and ephedrine, while dealers market the drug as a replacement for cocaine or a synthetic form of the hallucinogen LSD, according to CNN.

"The drug can cause severe agitation, rapid heart rate, high blood pressure, paranoia and symptoms of psychosis, including hallucinations and delusions. The drug can also lead to overheating of the body, which is why so many users remove their clothing."

The Cloud 9 substance that Recluse has seen in several local smoke shops is actually marketed as a marijuana substitute. I'm guessing many of the other after mentioned brands are probably sold in such establishments as substitutes for magic mushrooms, ecstasy, LSD, etc. While I've heard of deaths being associated with these drugs, most people usually consider their effects weak compared to many of the after mentioned substances. What's more, I'm very skeptical of claims of superhuman strength and such being endowed upon the user.

There are of course other theories out there as to why Mr. Eugene felt the need to eat the bulk of Mr. Poppo's face. Some have chalked this incident up to a lack of a social safety net. Mr. Eugene's girlfriend even suspected that he may have been under some kind of voodoo curse. But the thing is, there was another attack in Florida not long ago that bore striking similarities to Mr. Eugene's, including mythological labels being applied to the perpetrator. This incident occurred in September 2011. While Mr. Eugene became the Miami Zombie, our next subject was dubbed the 'Florida Vampire.' MSNBC reports:

"A self-proclaimed vampire attacked an elderly wheelchair-bound man outside a Florida Hooters Restaurant just before midnight on Thursday, leaving him bloodied and in need of stitches, police said.
  
"Milton Ellis, 69, had fallen asleep on the porch of the deserted Hooters in St. Petersburg when he woke up to find Josephine Rebecca Smith, 22, on top of him, he told police. 

"Smith told Ellis she was a vampire and then proceeded to bite him, tearing off chunks of his face and a part of his lip, St. Petersburg police spokesman Mike Puetz said, according to The St. Petersburg Times... 

"Blood dripping from bite marks on his neck and face, Ellis managed to scramble back into his motorized wheelchair and reach a nearby Shell gas station, where he called police. 

"Police found Smith on the blood-stained Hooters porch, half-naked. She was covered in Ellis' blood and said she didn't remember anything about the attack, according to Tampa Bay's Fox 13 News. She wasn't injured and hadn't been assaulted, police said... 

"The two had met earlier in the night. Ellis, who had no place to sleep Thursday night, said Smith, of Pensacola, had been dropped off at the Shell station by relatives earlier that evening. Because it was raining out, he suggested Smith take refuge with him under the Hooters overhang, according to The St. Petersburg Times. 

"Ellis offered to keep Smith company until someone came to pick her up, but he eventually fell asleep, reported The Times.

"Smith was fully dressed when Ellis last saw her, he told authorities, even though they had found her half-naked. 

"Ellis has been arrested before too. He has been cited for multiple offensives in Penellas County, including panhandling, trespassing, and disorderly intoxication, The Times reported."

Rebecca Smith, the 'Florida vampire'

Obviously there are more similarities between the Miami Zombie and the Florida Vampire than the state in which they lived. Both Eugene and Smith reportedly bit at the faces of their victims, though Smith apparently was only interested in drinking her victim's blood (despite taking a few chunks out of his face). Both targeted elderly, homeless people. And most strangely, both apparently disrobed to some extent before assaulting their victims.

And it is here that I shall wrap things up. So, what then are we to make of the rash of cannibalism across the world? The striking similarities between the attacks of Mr. Eugene and Miss Smith indicate some kind of overlap, at least on a subconscious level. The Florida Vampire was big news here for a while, and it may have planted a seed in the mind of Mr. Eugene. Reports of cannibalism in Brazil and China seem to have only added fuel to the fire, leading to the rash cannibalism we witnessed this past week.

And then there's Luka Magnotta, and the subtle indications he brings that there is something bigger at play here than even zeitgeist. For now we find ourselves stumbling upon other serial killers and rumblings of snuff films, which leads to some of conspiracy culture's most disturbing theories. Just this morning, as I was getting ready to publish this piece, I stumbled upon yet another possible piece of the Magnotta affair: Two separate packages, one containing a human foot, the other a human hand, we sent to a pair of Vancouver schools on June 5. There is already much speculation that Magnotta is behind this incident. To recap: Magnotta killed, dismembered and possibly ate a Chinese man, published a video (snuff film) of this grizzly event online, and then proceeded to mail body part's of said Chinese man to various institutions. There's something happening here, and what it is ain't exactly clear, as the old song goes.

As noted at the beginning of this piece, cannibalism and the drinking of blood were some of the most ancient rituals of humanity. Long after these deeds were driven underground, they still persisted in the popular conscious as fairy tales and myths of vampires and the undead. The vampire myths seem to have been a means of romanticizing humanity's dark past while the popular version of the zombie (as opposed to the vodou notion) has reduced the act of cannibalism to one of pure instinct, void of deeper meaning.

And yet we are witnessing the power of such an act, and the subconscious meaning that speaks to all us, first hand right now. Whether this is intentional on the part of the Cryptocracy or simply another manifestation of the re-emergence of ancient traditions, is impossible to say. All we are left with, then, is a striking sense of coming change.