The Al Cisneros Mysteries Part II





Q: "But anyway, my question is when you listen to a lot of new bands of that variety who are emulating your style of singing, how does it feel?"

 

A: "I don’t really listen to stoner metal. There are so many kinds that it’s just really boring. So I don’t even know if I’d get to the vocal part. [laughs] I’d rather listen to Sabbath. There aren’t very many metal albums since Vol. 4 that are vital. There are some, but not many."

 

Q: "What’s on your list of influences, aside from Vol. 4?"

 

A: "Hmm. At this point, The Bhagavad Gita and The Upanishads. Those are far heavier. They affect the heart in the way that Sabbath did when me and Matt met. That’s a thousand times heavier. That’s it."

-- Oregon Music News interview with Al Cisneros

Welcome to the second installment in my examination of bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros, he of the stoner metal legends Sleep as well more esoteric leaning projects such as Om and Shrinebuilders. During the first installment I primarily focused on Cisneros' background as well as his work with Sleep, a band whose rich imagination enabled a mythos far more substantive outfits could scarcely match.

While no doubt many scoffed at the spiritual musings of Cisneros and fellow Sleep mates guitarist Matt Pike and drummer Chris Hakius expressed during their initial reefer-riddled, Black Sabbath-worshipping run (Sleep disbanded in 1998), few would question Cisneros' (as well Hakius') sincerity after he unleashed Om on the world in 2003. During the five, nearly six year, period that separated Sleep from Om, Cisneros seems to have done much soul searching. In an interview with The Quietus questioning him about his absence from music, he enigmatically noted:

"Yeah, and that’s essential – I think it’s essential for people to take time out if they need it. I mean, we started our first band when we were like 13/14; recorded, started playing shows – so by the time Sleep was breaking up we hadn’t even lived the other side of life. And obviously in metal culture specifically, it is all self destruction. That’s all you see around you and that’s all you participate in. It’s pretty much a siphon. So, yeah, I’m thankful that I did that. Or else who knows, there probably wouldn’t have been an OM, there wouldn’t have been this conversation, or today. I’m just happy to be here now. And I’m glad I did it.

"This is a good time to explain something actually. When Sleep started, when we started playing music, the big difference between then and now is that I thought that the music was its own primary light and I realised by taking that break after all those things had happened with the band breaking up, going through all that time without music, now I see music as a reflection of the primary life, which is your path, and that’s the primary light, the path is the primary light and music reflects that – when we first started playing I thought that the music was its own light but that’s not a sustainable thing, there has to be a source for it and I had to learn that."

Cisneros

What this "light" led Cisneros to is easily one of the most novel heavy metal outfits to emerge in years. The first thing about Om that immediately stands out was its initial composition: a duo comprised of Cisneros and his former Sleep compatriot, drummer Chris Hakius. The band featured no guitar for many years and has only recently begun to incorporate some six string sparingly with the addition of multi-instrumentalist Robert Lowe.

Of course the notion of a metal band without a guitar player is still quite novel in 2015 and largely unheard of in 2003. As might be expected, the sound Cisneros and Hakius pursued had an alien quality to it. Cisneros of course brought the lumbering low end he deployed in Sleep with him, but to his playing he added extensive use of Middle Eastern scales. Combined with the chant like singing Cisneros devised and Hakius' busy and always exotic drumming, the sound Om unleashed sounded like the soundtrack playing amongst the ruins of an alien civilization on a distant planet.

Cisneros and Hakius circa 2007 shortly before the latter retired from music

The closet comparison this researcher can come up with are occasional moments on Pink Floyd's Saucerful of Secrets album (especially "Let There Be More Light"). But Floyd were certainly never this heavy and rarely as mystical. The structures of Om's early work alone were based upon those of Tibetan and Byzantine chants. And of course this mystical component is made evident right off the bat with the group's name, which is deeply significant in Hindu traditions as well as more esoteric schools. Let us start with the Hindu concept of Om (typically spelled as "Aum" in older texts):

"The symbol most highly charged with Hindu tradition is the monosyllable, Om. It is the primeval and inaudible sound, the creation sound from which manifestation evolves, and is hence the image of the Word. It is imperishable and inexhaustible (akshara), the very essence of the Vedas and hence of Indian traditional knowledge. It is the symbol of Ganesha and corresponds to the swastika, emblem of the cyclical evolution of manifestation expanding from its immovable primeval centre.

"The sound 'Om' may be broken down into three elements – A, U and M (AUM) – controlling an inexhaustible list of threefold divisions: the three Vedas (Rig, Yajur and Sama); the three states of being (wakefulness, jagaritsa-sthana, corresponding to Vaishvanara; dream, svapna-sthana, corresponding to Taijasa; deep sleep, sushupta-sthana, corresponding to Prajna); three periods of time (dawn, noonday and dusk); three worlds (Bhu, Earth; Svar, Heaven; Bhuvas, atmosphere) and hence the three states of manifestation (gross, shapeless and subtle); three elements (Agni, Fire; Aditya, Sun; Vayu, Wind); three modalities or guna  (rajas, expansive; sattva, cohesive or ascendant; tamas, destructive or descendent ); three gods (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva); three powers (action, knowledge and will)... There is, furthermore, a fourth aspect of the monosyllable: its sound as a whole is  indeterminate when analyzed independently of three elements which comprise it. It corresponds to the undifferentiated state of Oneness and therefore to a spiritual actualization of the highest importance, the mantra of mantras. The Upanishads tell us that it is the bow, the self being the arrow and Brahma the target. In addition Guenon has noted the correspondence between the monosyllable and the three elements of Vishnu's conch, the shell which holds the seed from which will spring the cycle to come."

(Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Chevalier & Alain Gheerbrant, pg. 717)

As for the most esoteric, Crowley offered an interesting take on Om:

"The word AUM is the sacred Hindu mantra which is the supreme hieroglyph of Truth, a compendium of the Sacred Knowledge. Many volumes have been written with regard to it; but, for our present purpose, it will be necessary only to explain how it came to serve for the representation of the principal philosophical tenets of the rishis.

"Firstly, it represents a complete course of sound. It is pronounced by forcing the breath from the back of the throat with the mouth wide open, through the buccal cavity with the lips so shaped as to modify the sound from A to O (or U), to the closed lips, when it becomes M. Symbolically, this announces the course of nature as proceeding from free and formless creation through controlled and formed preservation to the silence of destruction. The three sounds are harmonized into one; and thus the word represents the Hindu Trinity of Brahma, Visnu, and Siva, and the operation in the Universe of their triune energy. It is thus the formula of a manvantara, or a period of manifested existence, which alternates with a pralaya, during which creation is latent.

"Analyzed Qabalistically the word is found to possess similar properties. A is the negative, and also the unity which concentrates it into a positive form. A is the Holy Spirit who begets God in the flesh upon the Virgin, according to the formula familiar to students of The Golden Bough. A is also the 'Babe in the Egg' thus produced. The quality of A is thus bisexual. It is the original being – Zeus Arrhenothelus, Bauchus Diphues, or Baphomet.

"A or V is the manifested son himself. Its number is 6. It refers, therefore, to the dual nature of the logos as divine and human; the interlacing of the upright and averse triangles in the Hexagram. It is the first number of the Sun, whose last number is 666, 'the number of a man.'

"The letter M exhibits the termination of this process. It is 'The Hanged Man' of the Tarot; the formation of the individual from the absolute is close by his death.

"We see accordingly how AUM is, in either system, the expression of a dogma which implies catastrophe in Nature. It is cognate with the formula of the Slain God. The 'resurrection' and 'ascension' are not implied in it. They are later inventions without basis in necessity; they may be described indeed as Freudian phantasms conjured up by the fear of facing reality. To the Hindu, indeed, they are still less respectable. In his view, existence is essentially objectionable; and his principal concern is to invoke Siva to destroy the illusion whose thrall is the  curse of the manvantara."

(Book 4, Aleister Crowley, pgs. 170-171)

Certainly any number of these themes are present in Om's catalog. Its also interesting to note that Aum has also been associated with the swan. As was noted in the first installment of this series, Cisneros' last name references swans. And indeed swans are mentioned quite frequently in Om's early lyrics. "On the Mountain at Dawn," the opening track on Om's debut album Variations on a Theme. makes striking use of the phrase "Ascends the swan toward sun in breath drawn life deliverance" while their sophomore outing, Conference of the Birds, references swans in both of its two extended tracks. Swans also appear on the cover of that album. But moving along.

As may be expected, Om's albums draw extensively on Hindu scriptures as well as Mystery, Sufi and especially Gnostic schools. John the Baptist has appeared in striking depictions on the group's prior three albums. The greater Christopher Knowles did a fine job of breaking down John's heavy significance in Gnosticism before here. But it is the lyrics that are most noteworthy.

In an interview with the Oregon Music News Cisneros claimed that Variations on a Theme could be the name of Om's entire canon and it is not especially hard to see why: practically every song could be described as a ode to initiation. This made evident from the get go by the above-mentioned "On the Mountain at Dawn," the first song off of the band's debut.

Ear splitting feedback opens the track for a few seconds before a lumbering, fuzzed out bass line emerges. Drums join in and then follow references to the Black Sun right off the bat. This topic has been addressed in greater depth before here but clearly Cisneros is using the image of the Black Sun in its alchemical context as a metaphor for unworked primal matter. Shortly thereafter he encourages his listeners to "look out to onto red bled sun the hierophant is seeding." A hierophant is an interpreter of sacred mysteries and arcane principles in general and specifically was the title of the chief priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries. And of course there are those swan references as well as name droppings of anchorites (a title for a kind of religious hermit deriving from Ancient Greece).

The second track, "Kapila's Theme," is named after the Vedic sage and continues the theme of transcending and rebirth advanced in the album opener. The final track, "Annapurna," takes its name from a sacred mountain range in Nepal and seems to mark a triumphant completion of initiation. Cisneros proclaims "Lazarus advance the flight to freedom." As Christopher Knowles noted before here, Lazarus is viewed in some arcane traditions as a stand in for Osiris, one the premier death-and-rebirth gods and who was a key figure in the Egyptian Mysteries.

Lazarus being risen from the dead

Om's sophomore outing, The Conference of the Birds, derived its name an extended poem by the Persian Sufi Farid ud-Din Attar. Being unfamiliar with this work, this researcher can not weigh in on the extent it may have influenced the themes present in the album. Regardless, it opens with the monster groove of "At Giza",  possibly the closet Om have come to emulating Sleep. The song title itself is of course a reference to the Great Pyramid while allusions to ziggurats, obelisks and even "Lebanon reeds" are made at different parts of the track. All of these things have been associated with sites of initiation. With "Flight of the Eagle", the album's second and final track, Cisneros once again urges transcendence over matter, and seemingly advocates a return of consciousness to the stars.

note the use of swans on the cover of Conference of the Birds

The group's third album, Pilgrimage, was the last to feature original drummer Chris Hakius and the first to feature an image of John the Baptist on the cover. At the time, this was easily the group's most ambitious and diverse work. As the reader may have guessed, the tracks on Variations on a Theme and The Conference of the Birds were all quite long, frequently clocking in around the fifteen minute mark. By contrast, Pilgrimage stretches out to four tracks with one of them ("Pilgrimage (Reprise)") even clocking in at under five minutes. Another, "Unitive Knowledge of the Godhead", is just under six while the more epic length songs, "Pilgrimage" and "Bhima's Theme" clock in at roughly ten and eleven and half minutes respectively.

As with the prior albums, this one is essentially a kind of loose concept album concerning the process of initiation. The album follows the figure of the "Pilgrim", who is undergoing this process. The title track and opener chronicles the onset of this journey. It marked a bit of a departure for Om, with Cisneros largely forgoing distortion on his bass and instead crafting a spacey atmosphere over which Hakius' tribal drumming and the chant-like singing set the stage for the mystical journey ahead.

Cisneros finds the distortion pedal  on the next track, "Unitive  Knowledge of the Godhead", as the journey becomes more difficult. Here Lazarus is again referenced and indeed his rising from the dead is an apt metaphor for the goal of most initiates. The transition from the title track to "... Godhead" is quite jarring, but only a warm up for the full on assault of "Bhima's Theme." The track derives its name from a mythical figure that appears in the Mahabharata. This extended jam is a reminder of both how heavy Om can be as well as the horrors of initiation. With this track Cisneros sticks to largely minimalistic lyrics over the bludgeoning groove but again invokes Lazarus in a refrain. It has a midsection that briefly returns to mellow space bass of the title track in which Cisneros reprises the song's three verses before the distortion again returns.

Bhima, an apt figure for the audio assault bearing his name

The final track, "Pilgrimage (Reprise)", is a return to the title track and its spacey atmosphere. Here the Pilgrim emerges triumphant from initiation, Cisneros proclaiming "Reacher of state of non-return; the stream attained in non-duality." And so concludes Hakius' final outing with Om.
With the next album, 2009's God is Good, Cisneros was joined by Grails drummer Emil Amos. While it may be sacrilege to say so, Amos was is in some ways an even better foil to Cisneros than Hakius. Certainly Amos would expand the range of percussion used by Om, bringing a host of exotic instruments.

Amos

The album also continued in the same ambitious vein as Pilgrimage. For the first time instruments other than bass, drums and vocals were used on an Om album, with a tambura, flute and cello being used to good effect. It also marked the first appearance of multi-instrumentalist Robert Lowe, who would later join the group. Lowe played the tambura as well as contributing vocals.

Lowe

Lowe is put to good effect on the opening track, "Thebes." The song, which takes its name from the legendary cities in Greece and Egypt. The Egyptian Thebes was located near the Valley of the Kings and featured the Karnak Temple Complex which was one of the main shrines for the god Amun. Amun would later be fused with the sun god Ra and became Amun-Ra, the chief god of the later Egyptian pantheon. There was also a temple to Amun in Greece's Thebes as well. Greek Thebes was also associates with Orpheus, Dionysus and Hercules, all figures who appear in the Greek Mysteries.

Amun

After the mystical opening, "Thebes" lurches into a distorted bass groove that echoes the group's early work. It is also a longer track, clocking in at just under twenty minutes. Featuring more references to Lebanon and "Damascus road traveler", the track more than lives up to Om's epic takes on transcendence.

The second track, "Mediation is the Practice of Dying", returns to the spacey atmosphere of "Pilgrimage", but this time with added flute. This track features the group's first direct reference to John the Baptist as well as shot outs to the figures of  Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego as well Melchizedek. The latter figure appeared prominently in several Gnostic texts, some of whom likened him to Jesus Christ. The title to this track is also interesting in that certain schools of occult philosophy such as those of Crowley and the Baron Julius Evola hold that the mastering of meditation (or "silence") is the first step in attaining immortality, or mastery over death. But moving along.

Melchizedek blessing Abraham; Melchizedek appears again in Om's lyrics

The final two tracks, "Cremation Ghat I" and "Cremation Ghat II", are the first full on instrumentals the group included on a full length album. The tracks employ more exotic instruments for a striking atmosphere. The titles are of course an allusion to the Indian practice of shmashana, which frequently takes place in river ghats.

The group's fifth and most recent album, Advaitic Songs, is easily the group's most ambitious to date. Flutes, cellos and Robert Lowe's tambura appear once again along with pianos, violins, table and even some guitar. The opening track, "Addis", puts listeners on notice as to just how far the group has come. Of it The Queitus remarks:

"'Addis', the opening track of Advaitic Songs, features a female vocalist singing in Hindi, yet the track's title evokes (intentionally or not), the capital of Ethiopia, land of Coptic Christianity and frequent reference point for Rastafarianism. The track in itself is beguiling and beautiful, the woman's gorgeous voice supported by tablas, strings and Cisneros and Amos' intricate rhythmic interplay. Whatever the intentions, 'Addis' aptly mirrors the album title and cover's focus on theological philosophy, both Eastern (Advaita) and Western (Christian). Given how many Anglo-American musicians have seemed ridiculous when looking to exotic India or their Judeo-Christian roots for inspiration, you get the feeling that Om know their shit."

Indeed. The second track, "State of Non-Return", is easily the most classically Om track on the album. Driven by a massively distorted bass groove, the track none the less still displays blatant growth via the use of strings. "Gethsemane" refers to the garden in which Jesus and his disciples spent their last night together. The tack references concepts such as Prana and devekut as well as Eziekel's vision of the Wheel. Track four, "Sinai", is a reference to a peninsula in Egypt near the Red Sea that has been the site of much conflict in the nation's history. With lines mentioning Melchizedek and "Lebanon priests ascending", this track lyrically echoes God is Good. The closing track, "Haqq Al-Yaqin", derives its name from a Sufi concept, continues in the same initiatory vein.

And it is here I shall wrap things up for now. Hopefully the reader has found something intriguing in Om, easily one of the metaphysically inclined groups to come along in a long time. With their deeply esoteric lyrical musings and always innovative sound, Al Cisneros has embarked upon a bold journey testing the spiritual potential of rock music. While some listeners believe Om long ago became lost in the ambers, the open minded listener will find much to marvel at in their canon.

For now, until next time dear reader.

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

Welcome to the third installment in my examination of the notorious Thule Society, a secret society with occult trappings that was founded in Germany toward the end of the First World War I. The legacy of Thule is a mixed bag, with mainstream historians largely dismissing it as insignificant while conspiracy theorists have long cited the Society as being the smoking gun for the occult roots of Nazism. As with many things, the truth is far more complex than either of these two positions.

Thus, with the first installment in this series I tried to chronicle some of the common misconceptions surrounding Thule, especially in regards to popular conspiracy culture staples such as the Vril Society and the Lance of Longinus. In part two I began to breakdown some of the ideologies, groups and individuals that laid the ground work for the emergence of Thule, most notably the Germanenorden. The Germanenorden was itself a secret society with rituals derived largely from the Volkisch movement, Ariosophy and Freemasonry. It was from a breakaway group of Germanenorden lodges that Thule emerged from.

But before I begin addressing Thule in earnest I must give some background details concerning one specific individual: Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorff, the founder of the Thule Society, for it is impossible to fully appreciate the significance of Thule without some understanding of the man who founded it.

Von Sebottendorff was not born into nobility and in fact came from somewhat modest origins. His name had originally been Adam Alfred Rudolf Glauer ad he was born to a locomotive engineer in Hoyerswerda towards the tail end of 1875. The day of von Sebottendorff's birth, November 9, is most curious. This date has gained something of an ominous reputation in German culture and for good reason. Consider:

• on 11/9/1848 liberal leader Robert Blum was executed, an event seen by many as playing a key role in the failure of the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states (apparently von Sebottendorff's paternal grandfather was killed during the street fighting in Berlin during the Revolution, but I have been able to determine when or under what circumstances). 
• 11/9/1918 would mark the end of monarchy in the German state and the beginning of the doomed Weimer Republic; this date also marked the beginning of the reactionary counterrevolution that would ultimately lead to the rise of the Nazi party. Von Sebottendorff reportedly gave a rousing speech to Thule on his forty-third birthday that helped spur the counterrevolution in Bavaria, as we shall see.
• 11/9/1923 witnessed the conclusion of Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch, an event that would become heavily mythologized by the Nazi party in latter years and would even produce the so-called Blutfahne (blood flag), a lone Nazi flag that became a kind of holy relic to the party.
• the night of 11/9/1938 witnessed the beginning of the Kristallnacht (also known as "crystal night" or "the night of broken glass") in which Jewish property and synagogues were burned and destroyed and which led to the arrest and incarceration of over 30,000 Jews in concentration camps
• and finally, 11/9/1989 witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event that led to the reunification of Germany.

Benito Mussolini founded the Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF), the fascist political party that would go on to rule Italy from 1922 till 1943, on November 9, 1921 as well. Thus, this day is quite significant in the history of fascism in general. And here we have Von Sebottendorff's birthday falling on the so-called "11/9 days" to boot. While this is likely a mere coincidence, it surely is an ominous one considering the influence von Sebottendorff would have on Germany's destiny. But moving along.

The first twenty-five years of Von Sebottendorff's life are rather unremarkable. While born to common origins, von Sebottendorff's father was able to bequeath his son a modest inheritance upon his death in 1893. Von Sebottendorff studied engineering for a time, but his adventurer's spirit eventually got the best of him. By 1898 von Sebottendorff had departed Germany and had begun to see the world while working as a sailor. But it was not until 1900, when von Sebottendorff arrived in the Near East, that the future baron's interest in occult doctrines began to take root.

"... in June 1900, Glauer journeyed to Egypt, armed with a letter of introduction to a wealthy, influential pasha given him Coolgardie by a Parsee, a follower of Zoroaster. Perhaps it was at this crossroads where the young adventurer turned towards a lifelong exploration of hidden doctrines. Glauer disembark at Alexandria in July 1900 after a sea voyage via Colombo, Aden, and the Suez Canal and traveled straightway to Cairo. There he met the secretary of Hussein Pasha, a Turkish landowner who was summering near Constantinople. By Sebottendorff's account, a telegram from Hussein Pasha summoned him to Turkey. Glauer met the pasha at his mansion on the Bosporus, two hours' journey from the old imperial capital in a narrow-hulled caique. Possibly the Hussein of Sebottendorff's account was actually Abraham Pasha, a landowner near Beikos. A more prosaic version from the pen of a colleague, however, places him in Egypt from 1897 to 1900, working for the Egyptian government as a technician. While it is almost certainly incorrect that Glauer was in Egypt before 1900, those dates may reflect the truth of a slightly longer, less whirlwind stay in Egypt than Sebottendorff allowed in his writings. While in Egypt, Glauer visited the Mevlevi, an ecstatic Sufi order, and Cheops, where an Egyptian companion called Ibrahim informed him of the great pyramid's numerological significance. Sebottendorff would remain fascinated by the mystical Islam of the Sufis, whose practices derived from shamanism and Eastern Christianity as well as Koranic sources, and later claimed initiation into one of their orders.

"Glauer enjoyed the friendly concern of the pasha after his arrival in Turkey and was offered a position as surveyor of his estate in the vilayet of Hudawengiar (Khudarinddighair). Glauer apparently learn Turkish at this time, studying Arabic calligraphy under the imam of the mosque at Beikos. By 1901 he was employed on the pasha's Anatolian estates near Bandirma and Bursa, on the slopes of Uluda, known to the ancients as Mount Olympus...

"Glauer's interest in the occult increased during long conversations on the inner life with the pasha, who was devoted to Sufism. He was also befriended by Kabbalist an alchemist called Termudi, a descendant of Sephardic Jews who had emigrated in the sixteenth century to Salonica, a crossroads city where Eastern Orthodox Christians and Sunni Muslims mingled with Jews and Sufis. A banker and traitor in silk as well as an occultist, Termudi initiated Glauer into a Freemason lodge in Bursa, and eventually bequeathed him a library of texts on alchemy, Kabbalism, Rosicrucianism, and Sufism. Glauer's fascination with Sufism was sharpened by the discovery of a note by the pasha in one of Termudi's books, describing alchemical exercises practiced by the Bektashi, the Sufi order to which Sebottendorff would claim initiation. The Parsee from Coolgardie and the Turk and the Jew from Bursa were links in an occult network stretching across the globe, crossing lines of ethnicity and the outer forms of religion. The image Sebottendorff presented in his autobiographical writings as an adventurer traveling in those circles is at odds with the militant racism and anti-Semitism he expounded in the Thule Society.

"In later years Sebottendorff would explain that the magical exercises of 'Oriental freemasonry' contain the secrets of the Rosicrucians and the alchemists, and preserve those esoteric teachings that modern Freemasonry had forgotten. According to him, the ancient Freemasons were concerned with ennobling individuals in the hope of eventually reforming society, while modern Freemasonry is concerned with reforming society in the hope of ennobling its members.

"Termudi's lodge was probably affiliated with the Rite of Memphis, which had spread into many lands after its foundation in Paris in 1838. Freemasonry was often considered a liberalizing, even subversive force, the engine of political reform. This was true in the Ottoman Empire, where 'masonry led a harassed existence.' The Rite of Memphis, however, was an anomaly in Freemasonry because supreme power was invested in its grandmaster, giving it an autocratic character. The Memphis order was steeped in Kabbalism and Rosicrucianism, the latter esoteric doctrine providing Sebottendorff with a link to those German Masons who could be termed right wing and would survive the persecution of the Masonry under the Nazis."

(Hammer of the Gods, David Luhrssen, pgs. 46-48)

The Rite of Memphis, which by the early twentieth century had merged with the similarly Egyptian-themed Misraim rite to form the Rite of Memphis-Misraim in irregular masonic lodges, has faced much speculation from conspiracy theorists over the years. These arcane rites originated from the legendary Enlightenment-era occultist known popularly as Cagliostro who pioneered an "Egyptian" from of Freemasonry in the late eighteenth century.

"Cagliostro had established the system of 'Egyptian' Freemasonry (the mother lodge was set up in Lyons in 1782), which consisted of both male and female lodges, the latter being headed by his wife Serafina. Levi described this as an attempt 'to resuscitate the mysterious worship of Isis.'

"The fruits of Cagliostro's researches into the occult societies of Europe were a body of knowledge known as the Arcana Arcanorum (Secret of Secrets), or A. A. He took this term from the original Rosicrucianism of the seventeenth century, but his corpus consisted of descriptions of magical practices that especially stressed 'internal alchemy...'

"It was under Cagliostro's authority that the Rite of Misraim (Hebrew for 'Egyptians') was created in Venice in 1788. Around 1810 the three Bedarride brothers brought the system to France, where it was incorporated into the Rectified Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.

"The Rite of Misraim was the direct antecedent of the Rite of Memphis – which had... been founded by Jacques-Etienne Marconis de Negre... (The two systems unified as the rite of Memphis-Misraim in 1899 under the Grand Mastership of Papus, who remained at the helm until his death in 1918.) The Rite of Memphis was also closely associated with a secret society called the Philadelphians that have been founded by the Marquis de Chefdebien in 1780 – another offshoot of von Hund's Strict Templar Observance, although it was specifically formed to acquire occult knowledge. Marconis de Negre stressed the close ties with the Philadelphians and named one of the grades of his movement 'The Philadelphes.'

"Neither rite – of Memphis or Misraim – was in itself particularly influential. But taken together, as Memphis-Misraim, they were a power to be reckoned with, and their influence spread like title wades through the occult underground of Europe. Among their members were such dark stars as the British occultist Aleister Crowley and mystic luminaries like Rudolf Steiner. And there was also Karl Kellner, who was eventually, with Theodore Reuss, to found the Order of the Templars of the Orient, better known simply as the OTO.

"This organization was – and is – explicitly about sex magic. And although it is widely thought to represent the Westernizing of Tantrism, it was also very much the logical development of secrets taught in Memphis-Misrim – which themselves derived from the knowledge acquired by Cagliostro from the alchemical Rosicrucian groups of Germany and the Strict Templar Observance lodges...

"Another offspring of the Memphis/Misraim movement took shape in England in the late nineteenth century. This was the hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, whose members included Bram Stoker the theater manager most famous for being the author of Dracula; Aleister Crowley, the Irish poet, patriot and mystic, W. B. Yeats, and sociable Constance Wilde, wife of the doomed Oscar. Founded in 1888 by Mcgregor Mathers and W. Wynn Westcott, it's direct line of descent went back to the Gold and Rosy Cross, the Strict Templar Observance order from Germany... as did many of its actual grade names and rituals. The Golden Dawn also used rites taken from Memphis/Misraim..."

(The Templar Revelations, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, pgs. 177)

There has long been speculation by conspiracy theorists as to whether there were any ties between Crowley and/or the OTO to the Thule Society. As far as this researcher has been able to discern there does not seem to have been any direct links. But according to David Luhrssen in Hammer of the Gods Franz Hartmann, a Bavarian born member of the Theosophical Society, may provide an indirect link to the OTO and Ariosophy.

Hartmann was a co-founder of German Theosophy in 1884 and helped spread Blavatsky's system through out the nation vigorously. At some point he became acquainted with Guido von List (effectively Ariosophy's founder who, along with the List Society, was discussed briefly in part two of this series) and joined the List Society in 1908 upon its founding. Hartmann, according to Luhrssen, was also an associate of the above-mentioned Theodor Reuss. In some accounts Hartmann is even said to have co-founded the OTO as early as 1902. But beyond Hartmann this researcher is unaware of any other links between the OTO and Ariosophy, and none concerning the Thule Society.

Hartmann

It is interesting to note, however, that OTO co-founder Reuss was reputedly working as a German agent during WWI (per Luhrssen) while Crowley was writing German propaganda for the American based The Fatherland and The International during 1910s. These publications were in turn founded by George Sylvester Viereck, a German-American who claimed to be a relation of Kaiser Wilhelm I. Viereck was famously convicted of being a German agent in 1941, but this researcher has not been able to definitively confirm whether or not Viereck was working in this capacity during WWI (though this seems highly probable). Crowley himself of course claimed to have been an agent of British intelligence, and compelling evidence has emerged to confirm such assertion over the years. Thus, it seems likely Crowley would have been trying to infiltrate the ranks of Reuss and Viereck for other masters.

Crowley

But returning to von Sebottendorff. The future baron was also apparently quite taken with Rosicrucianism, as where many other leading Ariosophists. This is hardly unsurprising as the movement largely seems to have originated in Germany (the seventeenth century Germanic Rosicrucrucian groups have long been reputed to have engaged in some type of sex magic, as noted above).

"The origins of the Rosicrucians (or 'Great White Brotherhood,' as devotees called it) is obscure, enlightened neither by its own claims of an ancient pedigree in Pharaonic Egypt nor the best efforts of recent scholarship. Secret societies, if they are truly covert and have reason to fear repression, did not always leave paper trails. Occult lodges calling themselves Rosicrucian surfaced in the seventeenth century with the anonymous publication in Germany of manifestos calling for the reformation of the entire world. Cited as the movements father was the legendary German knight Christian Rosenkreutz, said to be a traveler in the East during the sixteenth century. Tales of Rosenkreutz may well have lit the imagination of Glauer, a traveler in the East during the twentieth century. Organized in Masonic fashion with an initiatory, hierarchical structure around the belief that human potential remainded a largely untapped reservoir, the Rosicrucians began to dabble in clandestine politics as early as the seventeenth century, when initiates backed plots to restore the Stuarts to the British throne. Especially in Germany, Rosicrucianism became 'right-wing, aristocratic and restorationist.' By the 1780s Prussian king Frederick Wilhelm III was himself a member of the Berlin Lodge. Rosicrucians became an influence on the occult underground that emerged in Europe. By the close of the nineteenth century, inspiring secretive organization such as the Order of the Golden Dawn, and esteemed cultural figure such as Swedish writer August Strindberg, a correspondent of Ariosophist Jorg Lanz. Zanoni, a widely read novel by English author and occultist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, was steeped in Rosicrucianism.

"Like the Theosophists who sensed the dawning of another epoch, the Rosicrucians believe that history was giving way to a new age in which the original planetary harmony would be restored. Little wonder that Guido von List was eager to paint Ariosophy in Rosicrucian colors, claiming that their lodges had preserved knowledge of pre-Christian, Germanic Europe..."

(Hammer of the Gods, David Luhrssen, pgs. 48-49)

a depiction of Christian Rosenkreutz, the mythological founder of Rosicrucianism

Von Sebottendorff returned to Germany and spent six years there. This time he was briefly married for two years, but sought a divorce in Berlin during 1907. The future baron was also accused of forgery and swindling during this time. By 1908 he had returned to Turkey for a second sojourn that lasted until 1913. It was during this time that von Sebottendorff acquired said last name and his title of nobility.

Glauer's rebirth as Baron von Sebottendorff officially began in 1911. It was during this year that von Sebottendorff claimed that he was naturalized as a Turkish citizen and subsequently adopted by an expatriate Baron Heinrich von Sebottendorff under Turkish law. As this act was not recognized by German law, von Sebottendorff had the adoption repeated by another von Sebottendorff, Siegmund, in Wiesbaden in 1914. Eventually Siegmund's widow also repeated the adoption for good measure.

Von Sebottendorff also claimed to have been naturalized and adopted by an American member of the noble family in Constantinople in 1908 as well, but this claim is more sketchy. Regardless, the Sebottendorff family would vigorously endorse Rudolf's claim and his title of nobility was ultimately acknowledged by German authorities.

Rudolf von Sebottendorff

Before leaving this topic, its interesting to note that the Sebottendorff clan originated during the Middle Ages along the Baltic coast where the family were lords of several villages there. A family member was knighted by Emperor Otto II during the tenth century, establishing the clan's claim to nobility. They continued to reside in the Baltic until the late twelfth century when they began to migrate to Silesia. Given the significance the Baltic will have by the end of this series, I find the Sebottendorff family's origins in the Baltic most curious if almost surely a mere coincidence. But moving along.

For much of von Sebottendorff's early life the adventurer comes off as a rather cosmopolitan figure, a kind of cross between the legendary Baron Munchhausen and T.E. Lawrence. By all accounts the man enjoyed close relations with both Jews and Turks alike during his sojourns in the Near East and on the whole there is little evidence of the flagrant racist tendencies that would come to dominate von Sebottendorff's thinking during his time with the Germanenorden and Thule in latter years. Von Sebottendorff's dramatic shift in attitude has long puzzled serious scholars. One compelling possibility for this ideological shift is the potential association von Sebottendorff had with the Young Turks movement during his second extended stay in the nation before the outbreak of World War I.

"Sebottendorff implied that his return to Turkey was motivated by the economic opportunities created by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), the loose-knit group that became the leading force in the even more loosely knit revolutionary movement known as the Young Turks. The conspiratorial CUP seized power in a bloodless revolution in 1908 and forced Sultan Abdulhamid II to appoint its members to key positions in government. Ostensibly CUP pursued a policy of Westernization and economic development. Unable, however, to find work with the German-financed Anatolian Railroad Company or the many other construction projects underway in Turkey, Sebottendorff accepted a teaching post in a Jewish community on the slopes of Alemdag near Scutari (Uskuedar), the town on the Asiatic shore of the Bosporus where Florence Nightingale had treated British wounded during the Crimean War.

"Interestingly, the lodge he had been admitted to by the Jewish occultist Termudi was, before the Young Turks seized power, the secret Bursa cadre of CUP. Even before the formation of CUP, Turkish Freemasons had been involved in murky conspiracies against the Sublime Porte. That Masons became active with the Young Turks was in step with their centuries-old tradition of dissidence. Jewish Freemasons, especially prominent members of the Salonica community, joined CUP, 'making their lodges available for secret meetings and for the storage of secret correspondence and records.' Ironically, given Sebottendorff's future associations, Ottoman opponents of CUP and Allied propagandists during World War I maintained that the committee was little more than a front for a cabal of Salonican Jews.

"There were several tendencies at work among the Turkish nationalists in whose circles Sebottendorff traveled. The regime founded after World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire by Kemal Ataturk, who had been a relatively pragmatic member of CUP, represented a more moderate vision of Turkish nationalism. Based on his pursuits upon returning to Germany, one can speculate that Sebottendorff may have been infected by the more radical strains that went by the names of Pan-Turkism and Pan-Turanism, the latter referring to a projected nation-state of all Turkic peoples to be called Turan, whose boundaries would stretch north from the Tibetan plateau to the Arctic Ocean and east from Asia Minor to the Pacific Ocean to encompass the Caucasian and Central Asian Turkic domains of the Russian Empire and China...

"Analogous with the search for pre-Christian values by their volkisch counterparts in German-speaking Europe, and contradicting the Western, positivist materialism of many CUP intellectuals, the Pan-Turkists and Pan-Turanians were fascinated with traces of pre-Islamic shamanism found among rural Turks. 'The Turkish peasant of Anatolia, previously the object of contempt by the elite, began to be romanticized as the embodiment of national values.' As with the volkisch movement, Pan-Turkism and Pan-Turanism originated in the obscure researches of mainly European scholars, notably Mustafa Celaleddin Pasha, a Polish exile whose Les Turcs Anciens et Modernes (1869) emphasized the ethnic unity of all Turkic peoples and their contributions to civilization, and French historian David Leon Cahun, whose Introduction to the History of Asia (1896) linked the Turks to such pre-Islamic conquerors as Genghis Khan, who became a hero to some radical Turkish nationalist. Such beliefs 'spread rapidly among the intellectual classes of the empire, particularly in Istanbul and Salonica,' the milieu inhabited by Sebottendorff during his second Turkish sojourn. Certain factions of the Young Turks showed 'a remarkable affinity with "proto fascist" currents in Europe.' Unlike the Westernizers represented by Ataturk's circle, the militant Pan-Turanians often despised Western values; interestingly, their favorite European authors were Nietzsche and Gobineau. The contradictory and incomplete evidence shows that some Pan-Tuanians were fascinated by biological, Social Darwinist theories of race and nationality, while others assumed that nationality is culturally constructed and could be imposed or encouraged by assimilation, the strategy favored by Ataturk and his successors in the present struggle between Turkey and its Kurdish rebels.

"Historian Arnold Toynbee, in a report written for British naval intelligence in 1917, noted the 'anti-Islamic tendencies' in the Pan-Turanian movement, including the employment as a symbol of CUP's youth movement of the Grey Wolf (the mythical beast who led the ancient Turks on their westward migration), and a Turkish army order directing troops to include the Grey Wolf in their prayers. Toynbee quotes from a circular produced by Turkish Hearth, a Pan-Turkist group that exists even today despite periods of suppression by the Turkish Republic. The brochure condemns the 'monstrous figment of the imagination, which is known as the community of Islam, and which has for long past stood in the way of present progress generally, and of the realization of the principles of Turanian unity in particular.' The language closely parallels Ariosophical attacks on Christianity, which they despised as an alien intrusion, an impediment to the recovery of Aryan culture and values.

"The Grey Wolf was appropriated as a symbol under Ataturk, who tolerated and repressed the Pan-Turanian movement according to his own shifting political calculations. The Pan-Turanians and their symbols represented the birth of the fascist tendency in modern Turkish politics. An extreme right-wing terrorist gang, accused of enjoying links with organized crime and factions of the Turkish security forces, continues to call itself the Grey Wolves.

"Sebottendorff alludes only casually in his writings to the Young Turks. But his membership in a Young Turk front organization, and his return to the Ottoman Empire once they seized power, opens an intriguing avenue of speculation. Parallels between volkisch Pan-Germanism and the most radical Pan-Turanism advocated by elements of CUP are striking. Some authors have gone so far as to suspect links between the Young Turks and Nazism."

(Hammer of the Gods, David Luhrssen, pgs. 50-53)

the Young Turks' leadership circa 1907

Before wrapping things up, a point should be made about the Grey Wolves. This far right terror network would go on to play a key role in Turkey's Gladio network in the post-World War II years.

Operation Gladio is far to complex a topic to address at length here but in brief: It began during the early years of the Cold War and was in theory supposed to serve as a stay-behind network of guerrilla fighters in the event Western Europe was overrun and occupied by the Soviet Union. In actuality Gladio was a vast international terror and assassination network that recruited heavily from Nazi and fascist supporters in the post-war years and would go on to include branches in virtually every U.S. client-state (though Operation Gladio is generally thought to have only included Europe and Turkey, it was actually an international network directed by a private organization known as the World Anti-Communist League [which this blog has addressed at length before], but more on that later) the world over. Frequently these paramilitary-style terror networks were controlled by a series of bizarre secret societies. Easily the most famous of these organizations was the notorious Italian Propaganda Due (P2) masonic lodge. The equally notorious Opus Dei as well as the rarely addressed Sovereign Military Order of Malta have also been frequently linked to this network.

the emblem of the Italian "stay-behind" network

The origins of the Grey Wolves paramilitary organization are hazy, but some researchers believe they date back to the final days of the Ottoman Empire, the time period in which Sebottendorff's second Turkish sojourn unfolded. By the 1950s they seem to have become a tool of Gladio.

"The Grey Wolves, far from being a youth organization, were a brutal network of trained and armed men ready to use violence to further the cause of Pan-Turkism. 'The creed of the Grey Wolves' an article in Bozkurt, the official magazine of the organization, specified the ideology and the strategy of the movement in the following way: 'Who are we? We are the members of the Grey Wolf (Bozkurtcu). What is our ideology? The Turkism of the Grey Wolf (Bozkurt). What is the creed of the Bozkurtcu? They believe that the Turkish race and the Turkish nation are superior. What is the source of this superiority? The Turkish blood.' With roots going back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the division of the Turks into several countries the article stressed the Pan-Turkish struggle: 'Are the Bozkurtcu Pan Turks? Yes! It is the holy aim of the Bozkurt Turks to see that the Turkish state grows to become a nation of 65 millions. What justification do you have for this? The Bozkurtcu have a long time ago declared their principles on this issue. You do not receive right, you get it yourself.' In order to attain its aims the Grey Wolves specifically trained to use violence: 'War? Yes, war, if necessary. War is a great and holy principle of nature. We are the sons of warriors. The Bozkurtcu believe that war, militarism and heroism should receive the highest possible esteem and praise.'

"It was this national fascist movement which the CIA exploited and supported while running it secret army in Turkey. After the discovery of NATO's secret stay-behind armies across Western Europe in 1990, it was revealed in Turkey that CIA liaison officer Turks had recruited heavily among the Grey Wolves to staff the secret stay-behind army, which in Turkey operated under the name Counter-Guerrilla. Yet due to the broad public support which the Grey Wolves enjoyed, and due to their known brutality even in the 1990s, few in Turkey and beyond had the courage to address the issue in frank terms. Among those who spoke out was General Talat Turhan. In 1960 Turhan together with other officers had taken part in the coup d'etat, four years later he was dismissed from the Turkish army in the rank of General. After the coup of 1971, the military tried to do away with him and the Counter-Guerrilla tortured him as he kept to be most outspoken about the darkest secrets of the Turkish security system. Already then he declared: 'This is the secret unit of the NATO countries,' but within the Cold War context of the 1970s nobody was eager to listen."

(NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, Daniele Ganser, pgs. 228-229)

the flag of the Turkish MHP political party that is frequently used by the Grey Wolves

In this context von Sebottendorff's activities during World War II become rather eyebrow-raising. After falling afoul of the Nazi regime in the early 1930s and being imprisoned von Sebottendorff reportedly became a spy for Germany during World War II.

"... Although the circumstances remain unclear, the Nazis apparently released Sebottendorff, who returned to his beloved Turkey. Germany's intelligence chief in Istanbul from the middle of World War II, Herbert Rittlinger, claimed that the aging Ariosophist, by then a man of seventy, was one of his operatives, an inheritance from his predecessor's list of spies. In Rittlinger's memory, Sebottendorff was a kindly, penurious gentlemen, and amiable companion ('I did not find his humorous bonhomie unsympathetic'), who spoke more of Tibet and Rosicrucianism then Nazi Germany, but not a good spy. 'As an agent, he was a zero.' Unfamiliar with Sebottendorff's past, Rittlinger later wondered whether highly placed friends arranged his release from imprisonment. He was also concerned that Sebottendorff may also have been working for the Allies, committing years after the war, 'Our counterintelligence man thought it was certain, but could never prove it, and I myself thought it was quite possible...'"

(Hammer of the Gods, David Luhrssen, pgs. 199-200)

a bust of von Sebottendorff

Reportedly Sebottendorff committed suicide on May 9, 1945 by throwing himself in the Bosporus, but this has never been conclusively proven. And neither has Sebottendorff's ties to the Young Turks, and certainly not the Grey Wolves, for that matter. And yet here we have a man with extensive ties to Turkish nationalists possibly operating as an Allied spy in Turkey during the final years of World War II, a little over a decade before the Grey Wolves seem to have become a key cog in the Gladio network (though contact between the Allies and the Grey Wolves may have begun much earlier). These circumstances are certainly curious, to say the least.

And with that I shall wrap things up for now. Keep Gladio in mind dear readers as the similarities between the organizations used in this network and the Freecorps are quite striking, as we shall see. In the next installment I shall began to addressing the Freecorps as well as finally getting around to the Thule Society. Stay tuned.

William Dudley Pelley, International Fascism and the Sirius Tradition IV

And so we arrive at the fourth installment of my examination of the life and times of Silver Shirt fuehrer William Dudley Pelley. Over the course of the first two installments I mainly considered the founding of the Silver Shirts (part one) and Pelley's broader ties to the fascist underground, both before and after World War II (part two). In the third installment I began to focus in on the metaphysical aspects of Pelley's life.

As was noted there, these aspects were quite extensive. While Pelley is generally viewed as a marginal figure in metaphysical circles in this day and age he was something of a celebrity in said circles in the late 1920s and early 1930s, with ties to a host of esoteric groups across the country. What's more, Pelley remained active in metaphysical and occult currents from at least the time he experienced his famed "seven minutes in eternity" in 1928 until the time of his death in 1965. Indeed, a considerable portion of Pelley's life was dedicated to metaphysical and occult pursuits, much more than the decade he spent as an activist for fascism (a state of affairs partly necessitated by the terms of Pelley's parole in the early 1950s, which prohibited him from such activism).

Pelley

Up to this point I've mainly focused on the aspects of Pelley's metaphysical system that were largely lifted from Theosophy, Spiritualism, Rosicrucianism, Pyramidism, and so forth. Now I would like to delve into the truly original aspects of Pelley's system. With that in mind, let us consider where Pelley's theology stood in the early 1930s.

"Pelley's writings and lectures from this period were represented a formidable, albeit flawed, theology. He read widely in metaphysics, and his Liberation Doctrine possesses a clear spiritualist undergirding. Upon this foundation Pelley added layers of Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, pyramidism, Jainism, and harmonialism, all topped with a peculiar Christocentric millenarianism. Claiming all his writings were dictated to him clairaudiently by 'Masters,' Pelley declared that his religious system reconciled creationism with evolution, free will with predestination, and Christ with eastern teachings.

"Pelley posited three significant forces in the universe. First and foremost was the Universal Spirit, 'from which all things proceed and which is of all things the substance.' Second was the Spirit of the Group, responsible for animating all the lower forms of creation. Finally, there was man, consisting of mind, body, and soul. The 'Divine Mind' created every soul twenty-eight million years ago. Pelley noted that 'there is now in each human soul a separate and distinct development of Universal Spirit which has a body for expression and which is yet able to be aware of its kinship with Divine Essence, [so that] there must be an instrument for this awareness, and this instrument is Mind.'

"Pelley's system included the Christian God, but only as one god among many. While he (and to Pelley God was always 'he') may meet in counsel with other gods, God was a very old spirit living on a distant planet who was responsible for our solar system. While souls were not directly accountable to him, the Great Avatar (Jesus) visited God for instruction. Pelley noted that there was 'no God in the sense in which the mortal theologian uses the term... [because] to name and personify Infinite Spirit would be to limit It.'

"Pelley's theology was also Christocentric. He noted that Christ was spirit 'made manifest for the moment.' His status as 'Pure Spirit' was significant, as 'Spirit is the one Law and Force and Harmony that is Love.' Pelley staunchly maintained that he was a Christian (and the Jesus dictated messages directly to him), but that his beliefs must be separated from the 'man-made dogma' termed religion that men 'ignorant of these great psychical fundamentals' had developed since Christ death. Like the sixteenth-century cleric Thomas Muntzer before him, Pelley had little use for the 'Bible thieves' who, for their own ends, buried the truth that Christ was 'the greatest psychic who ever trod the earth' and who corrupted his teachings. Although the New Testament had been corrupted for materialistic ends, Pelley considered it far superior to the Old Testament. He noted that the Old Testament 'is the record of the lives and works of the Negative Introvert Element in the human race, the effeminate manifestation of human nature in the social state, the New Testament is the record of the lives and works of the Positive Extrovert Element, the masculine exposition of aggressive and constructive spiritual accomplishment.' Pelley believed it was his responsibility to instruct humanity in an accurate understanding of this 'Positive Extrovert Element.' Once the truth was disclosed, the true orthodoxy of Pelley's version of Christianity would be revealed.

"According to Pelley, in the beginning there was only Holy Spirit (or Consciousness). The solar system was made 'for purposes of Love by Vibration.' This Love was an attempt by Holy Spirit to comprehend its own limitless existence. Matter, then, was a corruption Pure Spirit intended only as a learning tool. Ultimately, all matter (including those fragments of spirit known as souls) would revert to pure Spirit. There were numerous universes, each with its own gods and conscious life forms. These systems all followed a similar evolutionary pattern, however. Initially, life on each planet was vegetable (assisted by Over-Spirit, or the region's god). Then lower animals developed with the assistance Group Spirit. Planets eventually evolved human forms, and, ultimately, purely spiritual beings.

"Pelley believed human life on earth had developed in a particularly unusual manner. One group of souls in another planetary system, Sirius, migrated to earth thirty to fifty million years ago. The 'star guests' incarnated in certain animal forms. Initially they incarnated in a creature form with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle (the Sphinx is a tribute to this form). In lion form procreation was by thought. The 'guests,' however, switched to an ape-like body, causing the difference between human and primate 'species.' This shift to ape form led matter to become primates' 'fetish and shibboleth,' and they lost control over 'thought-generation.' They then 'gradually became the races of man as society now recognizes them.' Believing his system reconciled creationism with evolution, Pelley posited that the Genesis 'daughters of men' were apes, and the 'Sons of God' were 'star guests.' Hence, man was 'half-monkey and half-angel,' and the missing link not been discovered because it was spiritual, not biological.

"Pelley argued that this type of creation also explained religion on Earth. The mysteries and apparent falsehoods of Christian scripture made sense once one understood that extraterrestrial material was both involved and forgotten. He noted that man built his incomplete faith in gods out of his longing for the 'spiritual home from which so many long eons before he had started out on this cosmic journey.' Pelley also persisted that, following an erroneous, established form of Christianity – Roman Catholicism, for example – indicated a very young soul.

"This evolutionary system also explained the different types of people on Earth. According to Pelley there were three castes of mortal life on this planet. At the bottom of the spectrum were the beast-progeny of the ape-mothers. Above them were the reincarnated spirits from the original Sirian migration. And, finally, there was the Goodly Company, the 144,000 souls who followed the Great Avatar here to promote his teachings and put humanity on the path of righteousness."

(William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult, Scott Beekman, pgs. 70-72)

So, to recap dear reader: Pelley's theology had trappings of Christian Gnosticism, but also incorporated a bizarre extraterrestrial angle that posited that humanity had evolved from spiritual beings from Sirius, the Dog Star, who had migrated here millions of years ago. But there was more: these "Star Guests" from Sirius also had access to different planes, or dimensions, of existence (of which more will be said in a moment). Further, he claimed to have received this information from "Hidden Masters" he was in contact with, frequently via automatic writing.

And he devised this theology as early as 1932, possibly even sooner.

As I'm sure many of my regular readers are well aware, the Dog Star Sirius plays a crucial role in a host of esoteric traditions the world over, but most notably in Ancient Egypt and amongst the Dogon tribe of West Africa. What's more, extraterrestrials from Sirius have become a staple in one of the most compelling ancient astronaut theories that has emerged in recent decades. Further, it is important to note that the significance of Sirius was not widely until the 1970s with the publication of books such as Robert K.G. Temple's The Sirius Mystery, Kenneth Grant's The Magical Revival and Robert Anton Wilson's The Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secrets of the Illuminati. Prior to this point the significance of Sirius had been overlooked by many occultists and was likely only known by the most adept mages such as Crowley. Grant indicates that the Great Beast became aware of the significance of Sirius early in the twentieth century.

"Crowley identified the heart of the Thelemic current with one particular Star. In Occult Tradition, this is 'the Sun behind the Sun,' the Hidden God, the vast star Sirius, Sothis, which opened the zodiacal year of 365 days as well as the Great Year of approximately 26,000 years.

"According to Herodotus (Bk. II, 58), the Egyptians celebrated the annual return of the Star, or God, with obscene rights characterized by bestial copulation. Thus, the Dog-Star. Crowley knew that no right of antiquity was without a magical purpose. He performed exhaustive experiments with this formula (see The Diaries of Aleister Crowley) and found it more effective, in many ways, then the formula of normal sexual magick which Theodor Reuss, following Kellner, had incorporated in the O.T.O. (Kellner had received initiation at the hands of Oriental Adepts versed in Tantric ritual).

"The Hidden God, Set (represented astronomically by Sirius, the Dog-Star) typified the peculiar formula of the Eleventh Degree of the O.T.O., which could be applied to the male or the female. It is in this sense that we must understand the symbol of the Phoenix, the title which Crowley assumed in secret conclave with Frater Achad in 1915 in connection with the Sovereign Sanctuary of the Order. 

"The Phoenix or Ibis is the bird of Cyclic Return and an apt symbol of the God who administers to and by himself, his own clyster. He is thus the Double-Wanded one in a physical as well as in a mystical sense. 

"Dion Fortune notes that Venus is ultimately transcended in Sirius; and the only physical explanation of this phenomenon is as explained above. That Fortune was acquainted with this formula is evident from her references to the later Graeco-Roman degradation of it.

"In The Book of Law appears a reference to the Egyptian god Hrumachis or Hor-Makhu. The name means Horus of the Star and Hrumachis is described by Aiwaz as being beyond the present Aeon, as Sirius is beyond the Sun, for this can be interpreted in terms other than those involving the sequential flow of time. It is probable that in this concept Crowley saw an adumbration of the Hidden God, who will not therefore eventually 'assume my thrown and place,' as is written in The Book of Law, but who is already throned, has been, and will be, forever. 

"This resumes the Formula of the Phoenix, already described in Chapter 1. The Star of Horus is also the Star of Babalon – the seven-rayed star of the planet Saturn (or Set), which rules Aquarius, the eleventh house of the zodiac. Aquarius is the constellation through which the influence of Horus (the Sun) reaches man during the present Aeon. Saturn, therefore, is the power behind Venus, as Sirius is the power behind the Sun. These two great stars (Set and Horus) are therefore symbolically identical, and in this way also is being is Venus transcended in Sirius, in a celestial sense."

(The Magical Revival, Kenneth Grant, pgs. 50-52)   

Crowley

And here was Pelley hailing "Star Guests" from Sirius decades before it became a staple of ancient astronaut theories. Both Venus and the Age of Aquarius will also appear in this saga, as shall be examined in a moment. I have been unable to determine whether or not Crowley and Pelley were aware of one another, but I find it curious certain elements appear prominently in either man's system despite quite a different philosophy underpinning either. Of course, both men claimed to be in contact with a "higher" intelligence for their revelations, though one suspects the message was quite a bit more jumbled in Pelley's case. But I digress.

For the time being, let us consider where Pelley's system stood after he was paroled from prison in the early 1950s and began incorporating elements of post-WWII Ufology into his system. Pelley would dub this new theology (which was virtually unchanged from his "Liberation Doctrine" of the 1930s) "Soulcraft." Pelley jumped into this new field relatively early in the game.

"... After the war, he started an occult group, Soulcraft, and published a racist magazine called Valor. He also wrote the book Star Guests in 1950, a compilation of automatic writing reminiscent of the Seth Material."

(Dimensions, Jacques Vallee, pg. 250)

Pelley's biographer, Scott Beekman, gives many more details about Soulcraft and its use of the UFO phenomenon:

"Pelley posited that the fundamental force in the universe is Divine Thought (also referred to as Holy Spirit, Universal Spirit, Over-Spirit, and the Godhead), which is 'self-functioning, and out of it in its non-physical state comes all Matter and all Substance and all Protoplasm, being the author and creator of these in the atomic and material sense.' All creation arises out of Divine Thought, which fractures into Spirit Particle to create souls. These souls are found on various planets across the universe, and also in several nonmaterial planes of existence.

"The various planes of existence are at the heart of Soulcraft doctrine. Pelley taught that all souls go through earthly incarnations, usually one every five hundred years or so, to increase their spiritual awareness. During discorporate periods, the souls (or Spirit Particle) inhabit purely spiritual planes. There are six or seven of these planes 'Beyond the Veil' (here Pelley waffled a bit) that correspond to a soul's level of spiritual development. Each soul, then, undertakes a Platonic development that eventually leads to assignment as the deity over a distant planet.

"Pelley posited that earthly existence was solely for the educational purpose of 'developing the individual consciousness to complete [the] realization of itself and of its source.' After souls reach the Fourth Plane (the 'idealized earthplane' or 'Summerland'), they realize their deficiencies and reincarnate in order to improve their spiritual development and obtained the requisite amount of knowledge to progress to the Fifth Plane (the 'Plane of Radiance'). After a soul achieves Fifth Plane status, earthly reincarnation is strictly optional. A few highly developed souls, however, willingly choose to return to material existence to serve as mentors for humanity.

"These earthly mentors are, according to Pelley, the 144,000 members of the biblical 'Goodly Company.' They return to earth periodically, following the lead of Jesus Christ (the 'Great Avatar'), from the Sixth Plane (the 'octave of amalgamation with one's spiritual affinity') to direct human affairs along a proper spiritual path. Most humans need this spiritual assistance because they are unwitting victims of spiritual ignorance owing to the peculiar nature of human creation.

"Pelley taught that humanity developed on this planet sometime between thirty and fifty million years ago is the result of 'Star Guests' material forms arriving on earth and mating with primate life-forms. These 'beast-progeny' became humans. While they are part of the constant oscillation between the Earth-Plane and the Thought-Planes, humans need assistance from the mentors because they are prone to irrational behavior, thanks to the 'dormant racial and sodomic heritage' within the physical body.

"Pelley argued that the different races reflected different planetary origins for the original 'Star Guests.' He claimed that the progenitors of the white race came from Sirius, but he never explained from which planetary system the ancestors of other races arrived. Race proved to be a problematic topic in the Soulcraft system. Pelley staunchly maintained that Whites formed the top of the racial pyramid, but he found it difficult to explain why the souls of people of color had not evolved to the point where they also reincarnated as Whites. At times he claimed that those incarnated in yellow-skin bodies forsook spiritual development to focus on wholly material pursuits, but Pelley frequently contradicted this position by noting that the yellow race was second only to the white in the racial hierarchy...

"Whereas most of the Soulcraft doctrine simply an expansion of Liberation teaching, Pelley did add several new elements to his system. Pelley not only began making increasingly outlandish claims concerning his extrasensory communications, but also introduced discussions of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) into his metaphysical system. His decision to involve UFOs in Soulcraft partly derived from difficulties he faced in utilizing his traditional prophetic backing – pyramidism. The Great Pyramid time line reached a critical prophetic date of August 20, 1953. On that date the pyramid time line reached the south wall of the King's Chamber. Most pyramidists, seeing this as an indication of cataclysmic events for humanity, predicted a momentous event for that year. Pelley, for example, had earlier posited this date would be the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Faced with the eternal problem of explaining a failed prophecy, Pelley latched upon the novel explanation that the arrival of UFOs represented the fulfillment of pyramid predictions for 1953, and that the occupants of the spacecraft would provide humanity with new knowledge and help usher in the Aquarian age.

"Pwlley attributed enormous power and intelligence to the 'spacemen' but, characteristically, had trouble deciding exactly what they were doing on Earth. He claimed they were mentors for humanity, but that Earth residents might scare them away with our warlike tendencies (exemplified most distressingly, in Pelley's unique perspective, by the violence of motion picture westerns). Pelley also posited that the 'saucer men... constitute the advance guard of the Christ Cohorts, prefacing the Second Coming,' yet these 'semi-angelic people' were not permitted to 'alter earth destiny.' Pelley also speculated that the saucers may serve as vehicles to 'lift the Christ people off earth to leave the planet to the purely materialistic souls.' Despite his confusion over the role of the space beings in human affairs, Pelley steadfastly maintained that 'no other happening that has occurred in the world within historic time matches it in importance.'

"Just as he did with metaphysical materials, Pelley read widely in the burgeoning field of ufology. Kenneth Arnold's 1947 sightings and the reported Roswell, New Mexico, crash during the same year sparked a wave of public excitement, government investigations, and hastily published saucer accounts; the UFO mania crested in the early 1950s with publications by Donald Keyhoe, Gerald Heard and Frank Scully and the legendary Washington, D.C., sighting of 1952. Pelley demonstrated familiarity with all the leading ufology works of the period and frequently cited them in his publications. Apparently desperate to prove the validity of his 'Star Guests' theory, Pelley accepted all the UFO sighting accounts he encountered and refused to retract his support even after specific works (such as Scully's Behind the Flying Saucers) were demonstrated to be hoaxers."

(William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult, Scott Beekman, pgs. 151-154) 

Clearly Pelley's system, flawed as it may have been, had incorporated currents that many occultists would only begin to become aware of several years down the road and had featured several of these elements for decades.

Now comes the point at which some interesting lines of speculation become possible, most notably the possibility of whether or not some element of the American national security apparatus became interested in Pelley's work around this time. After all, said apparatus would invest a considerable degree of time and money in all things high strangeness related beginning in the 1950s via both Overworld projects such as Grudge and Blue Book and far more nefarious and hidden programs such as Artichoke and MK-Ultra (which had far stranger and more incredible objectives than merely mind control ,as we shall see in the next installment).

This researcher believes that at least three groups, all of them possibly related, within the national security apparatus did indeed develop a keen interest in Pelley's work. The existence of one of these groups is still highly controversial while the other two are a matter of public record.

The first of these groups that I would like to briefly consider is what I refer to as the Sovereign Order of Saint John (SOSJ)-American Orthodox Catholic Church (AOCC) network. This network was always briefly touched upon in the second and third installments of this series, but in brief: the SOSJ was a self-styled military order that claimed descent from the Medieval Knights Hospitallers via the Russian line of succession. The SOSJ seems to have been active as early as the 1930s when it was possibly in contact with a close Pelley associate as well as Nazi Germany. It was not until the 1960s, however, that the SOSJ reached the peak of its power. During this era it featured numerous "former" high ranking military officers (several of whom with a background in military intelligence) and even a few CIA assets amongst its members.

During this time the SOSJ also seems to have had relations with the AOCC, a fringe Orthodox denomination that was officially founded in 1964. This group also had ties to the US intelligence community as well as some type of involvement in the JFK assassination (as did the SOSJ). Beyond this, the AOCC played a role in two key events within metaphysical circles: the "discovery" of the Necronomicon (the Simon version, that is) in the 1970s and the incorporation of the notorious Process Church of the Final Judgment a decade earlier.

I do not wish to address the occult aspects of the SOSJ or the AOCC and their possible adoption of Pelley's ideology in this series as such topics will be significant in a future series I will hopefully begin some time later this year. The curious are advised to consider the prior articles I wrote on the SOSJ (which can be found here, here and here) and the AOCC (which can be found here) and start putting the puzzle pieces together for themselves for the time being.

But moving along. The next group I would like to consider is the one whose existence is still highly debatable. According to the great Nick Redfern, this network refers to itself as the Collins Elite. It came into being during the early 1950s when a group of individuals largely comprised of military intelligence officers became concerned over the implications of various bits of high weirdness that exploded across both the American and international landscapes in the wake of World War II, most notably the great wave of UFO sightings that unfolded in 1947.

the book in which Redfern initially revealed the Collins Elite

Both the Kenneth Arnold sighting as well Roswell were of special interest to this group (and most Ufologists, for that matter), but so to were the works of occultists Aleister Crowley and Jack Parsons. The Collins Elite became concerned that the magical workings of these two mages, especially Parsons' "Babalon Working" of 1946, were somehow related to the UFO phenomenon, a prospect Parsons himself was more than happy to promote. What's more, the military had picked up indications during their investigation of Parsons that he may well have had some type of contact with both Arnold as well as someone in Roswell around the time of the famous incidents either was involved in.

"... since Parsons still possessed a security clearance at that time, engaging him in a debate on matters of a somewhat sensitive nature was not seen as being problematic, providing he towed the proverbial line. And, when confronted and pressed for answers, a somewhat uncomfortable Parsons conceded that there probably was a connection, that the UFO wave of 1947 probably was linked with his door-opening actions, and that it was not down to chance that he knew Arnold, or that he had a tangential link to the town of Roswell. Of course, whether this was merely a case of Parsons carefully massaging his own ego, or the absolute truth, was a matter of some debate among officials. 

"... As a result... a small project – 'probably just two or three [people]' – was established at Wright-Patterson that made subtle and secret approaches to experts within the fields of demonology, ancient religions, and occult practices who could hopefully provide some answers with respect to what it was the Parsons might have set in motion, wittingly or not, and which the military was now struggling to comprehend."

(Final Events, Nick Redfern, pgs. 36-37)

Parsons

According to one of Redfern's informants, a "Richard Duke", it was these initial inquiries that led to the founding of the Collins Elite, a kind of private group that functioned within the US national security apparatus.

"... the Collins Elite was formed, a truly historic event that is unsurprisingly forever etched in the memory of Richard Duke. 'What happened,' Duke recalled, 'was that we got a pleasant invite. Fifteen or sixteen of us [were] flown to the Pentagon and where an offer was made; which was probably no more than about a week after Parsons got killed, maybe a bit longer, but not much. The Air Force was having problems with the UFO project [Blue Book], and a lot of these reports were [similar to] ghost [reports]: they couldn't catch them, fading away, vanishing from radar, but not attacking us. So, they kind of puzzled the Air Force on how to handle it, which is why, eventually, they gave up on it. The UFOs didn't act like an aggressor – not a military aggressor, anyways, and just came and went, they thought.

"'We were asked – this was people like me, a couple of G-2 [Army Intelligence] boys, two fellows from Naval Intelligence, several of the Air Force fellows in on the early Parsons thing at Wright, and a few more – if we would look at running an op to continue where the old Parsons project stopped. We were ready for it because of the interest that had come with watching [Parsons] – but a bit amazed the Pentagon was ready to fund what was, really, a study on if the disks had devil beginnings.

"'And this is exactly why it was all kept so secret in the beginning. Everyone – particularly the Pentagon boys – knew the hammer was going to come down on all this if Congress found out good U.S. dollars were being used to pay for [a study of] demonology and flying saucers. Maybe a little more mundane than you might want to hear. But that really was the first reason for the secrecy with us. Not a big conspiracy about what we were doing, but a lot of anger and probably a hell of a lot of ridicule that would come tumbling out if anyone else found out.

"We all got an offer to relocate, with our families, to the D.C. area. The funding, we were told, was going to start coming through in a few months, after everyone was settled in D.C. The money and resources wasn't [sic] going to come exactly to us, but onto us through the [CIA's] Directorate of Plans [which was created a few months later, on August 1, 1952] to keep it all out of everyone's eyes – Congress. This wasn't really the Directorate's area at all though. It was more along the approach of flowing the money through them to us, a group no one would think to look at to find us.'"

(ibid, pgs. 39-41)

Thus, the project the Collins Elite was founded to perform was effectively one created by the Pentagon, but which was hidden within the CIA's Directorate of Plans. The Directorate in turn had its origins in the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), a department that was originally separate from the CIA and became a kind of CIA-within-the-CIA after the two were merged. The OPC was dominated by former OSS (the predecessor organization to the CIA) officers, many of them with close ties to the Allen Dulles. The OPC/Directorate (now known as the National Clandestine Service) features the legendary Special Activities Division (SAD, hardy-fucking-har), effectively the military arm of the CIA.

While this department is mainly known for its use of U.S. special forces (and now drones), it has employed a whole host of mercenaries and "freedom fighters" for decades. This private army was both highly expensive to maintain as well as a frequent political liability, thus a whole host of off-the-books funding was established for such purposes. According the great Peter Dale Scott, this nefarious network was originally forged under the auspices of the National Security Council (NSC).

"Within a year the NSC was authorizing covert operations overseas through CIA. In fact, these operations were being implemented by an even more secret group within CIA, the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). The CIA at least had been publicly empowered by the 1947 National Security Act, even though it contained a 'loophole' through which CIA launched covert operations in a way Congress had 'not intended.' In June 1948 the National Security Council secretly launched OPC, without any congressional authorization at all.

"The decision to create OPC was 'based on what was seen as a CIA success in Italy,' the election of a Christian Democratic government in April despite widespread fears of a Communist electoral victory...

"... OPC set in motion at least three projects that acquired a life, culture, and momentum of their own. These projects – collectively, and much later, long after the demise of OPC itself – contributed to the catastrophe of 9/11.

"The first project was an arrangement for the creation and support of right-wing 'stay-behind' groups in Europe to combat the risk of Communist take over. This arrangement in Italy, known later as Operation Gladio, led in turn to a shadow system of parallel intelligence agencies, shielded from the overview of Italy's public and more centrist government. These CIA-linked agencies developed a strategy of tension in which a series of lethal terrorist bombings, falsely presented as left-wing, were used to drive Italy further to the right... 

"In addition to this stay-behind project, OPC began a psychological warfare campaign to go beyond the State Department's official policy of containing Communism, by mobilizing public opinion and covert resources for the destabilization of eastern Europe. OPC's third project, which eventually had global consequences affecting both Afghanistan and al Qaeda, was to combat Communism by using asset supported by illegal drug trafficking."

(The Road to 9/11, Peter Dale Scott, pgs. 13-14)

The Sovereign Order of Saint John-American Orthodox Catholic Church network had extensive ties to the above-mentioned "stay-behind" networks that comprised Operation Gladio. And here, in the cesspool created by OPC, we find the Collins Elite as well. Drugs and arm trafficking as well as black market gold have been frequently used over the years and would have provided ample funding for the projects the Collins Elite wished to pursue. I point this out because whistleblower Catherine Austin Fitts has been compellingly alleging for years that drug money was/is being used to research technology derived from extraterrestrials.

But I digress. For more details on the Collins Elite and their objectives, check out Christopher Knowles' interview with Redfern.

Let us now turn to how the Collins Elite possibly relates to Pelley. Shortly after the establishment of the Collins Elite the group became convinced that altered states of consciousness were crucial to understanding the UFO phenomenon.

"When the terrifying realization hit home the Jack Parsons was actually onto something very big and incredibly ominous, one of the first things that struck those who held the distinction of becoming the first incarnation of the Collins Elite, Richard Duke explained to me, was that many of the Crowley and Parsons experiences occurred while the men were in altered states of mind. As a result, a tentative conclusion – albeit a not wholly understood or fully appreciated conclusion – was reached by Duke and his colleagues to the effect that successfully assessing the world of the UFO intelligences, and understanding both their true point of origin and their actual intent, was perhaps far more likely to be achieved by opening the mind to radically new experiences and twilight realms than by vigilantly scanning the skies via radar and fighter-planes. 

"Duke told me that attempts were made to determine how, and under what specific circumstances, the human mind could be taught to skillfully penetrate the veils of secrecy and stealth under which the UFO intelligences were apparently operating. If blasting flying saucers out of the sky was not going to work as a viable option, they reasoned with a fair degree of logic and common sense, then perhaps invading their space and territory remotely, perhaps even via astral-form, might provide the much-sought-after answers. Thus began a deep and lengthy study of how such actions might very well be successfully achieved.

"This weird saga encompassed government agents, official secrets, and revolutionary powers of the mind, and had its origins in the early 1950s with the controversial UFO contactees George Van Tassel, George Adamski, and George Hunt Williamson – all of whom, said Duke, the Collins Elite came to believe were being visited by occult entities rather than by extraterrestrials."

(Final Event, Nick Redfern, pgs. 48-49)

And it is here that we return to William Dudley Pelley, for at least one, and probably two, of the above mentioned UFO contactees the Collins Elite became interested in had close ties to Pelley. In the next installment of this series we shall consider these individuals in further depth and the likelihood that Pelley had an enormous influence on their perception of their experiences. From there we shall consider the possibility that the Collins Elite were also interested in Pelley himself, as well as such a possibility existing amongst another group with ties to the US national security apparatus. Stay tuned.