Secret Armies and the Origins of the Cercle Complex Part I

Regular readers of this blog are no doubt aware of my interest in a curious organization known variously as Le Cercle, the Pinay Group, Pinay Circle/Cercle and a host of other titles. The organization was founded in 1952 by longtime German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, onetime German Defense Minister Franz Josef-Strauss, French Prime Minister Antoine Pinay (for whom the organization was sometimes named after) and the mysterious Frenchman known as Jean Violet. It grew out of the United Europe movement and would become one of the two principal networks working towards this goal, along with the infamous Bilderberg group.

But while there was overlap between Bilderberg and Le Cercle in the early years, there were fundamental differences between these groups that led to a rift by the 1970s. Bilderberg was chiefly comprised of international bankers and other captains of industry and has long been dominated by the Anglo-American Establishment. Le Cercle, by contrast, was largely dominated by elites from Continental Europe until the 1980s, many of whom were drawn from the ranks of the Vatican and the old aristocracy. Catholicism was as much a part of Le Cercle's vision of a United Europe in the early days as was capitalism.

What's more, unlike Bilderberg, Le Cercle was not simply a policy coordination body, but also a full blown private intelligence network. As I've noted before here, here and here, Le Cercle appears to have played a crucial role in what is commonly referred to as Operation Gladio as well as various sex rings across Europe used to blackmail regional elites. As such, it has long enjoyed close ties with various Western intelligence services, especially those in the US and UK.

Recent research I've been conducting has indicated that this relationship may have stretched back to the origins of Gladio and that Le Cercle itself may have grown out of this network as a coordination body. This is the general thesis of this series.

Before moving along, a few words about Gladio: For one, Gladio is only the name of the Italian component of a network that stretched across Western Europe during the Cold War. Gladio and related components were meant to serve as stay-behind-armies in Western Europe in the event of a Soviet invasion, effectively waging an intense guerrilla war against the Reds. Or at least that was the official reasoning anyway. In actuality, these stay-behind or secret armies were more often than not used to terrorize Western nations to ensure their submission to NATO and the United States on the whole. The terrorism related to Italy's "Years of Lead" and Belgium's "Bloody Eighties" can largely be traced back to the stay-behind networks in these nations, as I noted before here and here.

And it would appear that Le Cercle loomed over all these networks, and may have from the very beginning. But before getting to the origins of Le Cercle let us first consider the history of these secret armies. Essentially, two World War II-era organizations appear to have served as the basis for these secret armies and were incorporated wholesale into Gladio at the onset of the Cold War. As such, a few words should be said about the WWII-era functions of these organizations.

Special Operations Executive 

The first of these organizations up for consideration is the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a British intelligence network created at the onset of World War II. SOE had its origins in Section D of MI6 and several other operations being carried out by the Foreign and War Offices. When Churchill came to power in 1940, all of these operations were coordinated under the SOE, which came to be housed in the Ministry of Economic Warfare.

SOE is probably most well known in these United States for the role it played in creating the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor to the CIA. The SOE worked closely with the British Security Coordination (BSC) in New York City prior to US entry into the Second World War. Along with the BSC and MI6, it maintained a branch office in Rockefeller Center beginning in 1940. Sir William Stephenson, head of the BSC and a close friend of OSS Director William "Wild Bill" Donovan, coordinated the operations of the SOE and MI6 in the States. He helped Donovan set up the OSS, which was largely modeled upon the SOE.

the famed Rockefeller Center

The SOE in turn maintained a massive training compound in Canada that was used initially to train OSS agents being deployed to Europe.

"... Camp X. Located on the north shore of Lake Ontario, between the Canadian towns of Oshawa and Whitby, the camp was the first paramilitary training school in North America. Established in December 1941, just one day before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the 270-acre site was operated by Britain's ultra-secret Special Operations Executive. SOE had been formed as a branch of MI-6 in July 1940, after Winston Churchill instructed his military advisers to counter Nazi blitzkrieg victories and 'set Europe ablaze.' SOE's first order of business was to recruit and train hundreds of secret agents, who would be responsible for advancing sabotage, subversion, and organized resistance against Axis occupied areas. Camp X, also called Project J and STS-103, offered its carefully selected students a full curriculum in the techniques of guerrilla warfare, covert action, and assassination...

"Training at Camp X was extremely rigorous. Recruits were routinely roused well before dawn to perform several hours of strenuous physical exercise before they were allowed a Spartan morning meal consisting of little more than a glass of milk and a hard roll. Then it was on to a full day of classes with instructions in subjects like 'Close Combat,' 'Small and Concealed Weapons,' and 'Silent Killing.' The camp featured a number of extremely difficult 'infiltration courses,' one of which featured a large swamp dubbed 'Lake Oshawa' by SOE instructors; for more substantial water exercises, the frigid waters of Lake Ontario were only twenty minutes away. Camp X's training ethos were simple; it revolved around the mantra, 'Kill or be killed.' Several times a week, trainees would participate in group jiu jitsu training, led by their chief instructor, British Major William Ewart Fairbairn, during which words were chanted, in cadence with martial movements, for hours on end. Said one former student years later, 'It turned our values upside down and we wondered about making a world fit for terrorists.' "

(A Terrible Mistake, H.P. Albarelli, pgs. 393-394) 

Camp X

These fears would prove to be most well founded, as we shall see.

During the Second World War, the SOE built up a massive and highly effective network that the great Daniele Ganser referred to as "a carbon of operation Gladio born in the midst of the Second World War" (NATO's Secret Armies, pg. 41). Ganser went on to note:

"Special Operations Executive employed many of the staff of Section D and eventually became a major organisation in its own right with over 13,000 men and women in its ranks, operating on a global scale and in close cooperation with the MI6. Although SOE also carried out missions in Far East Asia, mounted from India and Australia, Western Europe was its main theatre of operation where it focused on establishing of national secret armies. SOE promoted sabotage and subversion in enemy-occupied territory and established nucleus of trained men who could assist resistance groups in the re-conquest of the countries concerned. 'SOE was for five years the main instrument of British action in the internal politics of Europe,' the British Cabinet Office report noted, 'it was an extremely powerful instrument' for it could serve a multitude of tasks and thus 'While SOE was at work no European politician could be under the illusion that the British were uninterested or dead.' "

 (NATO's Secret Armies, Daniele Ganser, pg. 41)

the emblem of the SOE

Curiously, SOE veterans would serve as the backbone of Cercle members from the UK when the British began to take a keen interest in the organization during the 1970s. Lord Julian Amery, a future Cercle chairman and president, noted before here, cut his teeth with the SOE in Albania during WWII. By the 1980s he had been joined Le Cercle by his former SOE comrade-in-arms Neil "Billy" McLean.

Another future Cercle chairman, Sir Peter Tennant, was also an SOE veteran, having been recruited by Sir Charles Hambro, the eventual director of the SOE. Another Hambro associate who would sign up with Le Cercle was Harry Sporburg, a deputy chief of SOE under Hambro's predecessor, Colin Gubbins. Later, he would go on to work for the banking house long controlled by the Hambro family.

Sporborg's association with Le Cercle is especially ominous. Sporborg has been described as the individual who first conceived of Gladio, though I have been unable to confirm this. I have been able to confirm, however, that he helped establish an especially controversial British charity typically known as Sue Ryder. The Sue Ryder who served as the namesake of this charity was herself a veteran of the SOE during the Second World War. It would later be revealed that Jimmy Savile abused at least one dying child at a Sue Ryder children's hospice in Leeds. Its possible there were more victims at this institute, but no one is alive now to tell tales. But moving along.

Another British Cercle chairman and future president, Brian Crozier, never worked with the SOE, but received ample aid from such veterans over the years. His Institute for the Study of Conflict (ISC), a major Cercle propaganda outfit by the early 1970s, received its initial funding from SOE veteran Sir Peter Wilkinson. Another SOE veteran, Stephen Hastings, was deeply involved in Shield, a private intelligence network Crozier established in the UK in the 1970s to help elect Thatcher. Sporborg and Tennant were also involved with Shield, which was a domestic version of the global intelligence network Crozier established with the assistance of Le Cercle known as the 6I. Hastings was also a member of the Monday Club and a longtime political alley of Amery. He is known to have attended Cercle meetings during the late 1970s but it is unknown if he was a full blown member.

Clearly, SOE veterans were a key source of support for the Cercle complex by the 1970s and eventually they would dominate the organization by the 1980s. This curious relationship has been little remarked upon, but given the role the SOE had in establishing Gladio, it is hardly surprising. For all of this information I'm deeply indebted to David Teacher's groundbreaking and long suppressed Rogue Agents, which can be found here on the great Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics (ISGP). ISGP's own Cercle page is also a great resource.

Reich Main Security Office

But while the SOE connection to Gladio has received some attention over the years, the influence of another WWII-era intelligence agency has been even less remarked upon. This is not entirely surprising as the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) was the chief intelligence and security service for the SS. Of course the role Reinhard Gehlen, who at one point was the German General Staff's chief intelligence officer for the Fremde Heere Ost (FHO, Foreign Armies East) and the founder of the BND, played in German and Eastern European stay-behind networks is fairly well known at this point. But Gehlen was an agent of the Wehrmacht, the German military. Gehlen was not an SS man and while known for rather brutal interrogation methods, was not a fanatical Nazi. In point of fact, Gehlen comes off as rather restrained in comparison to the legions of the psychopaths in the RSHA, many of whom would serve as the backbone of Gehlen's secret armies.

Gehlen

But before getting to that, a bit more should be said about the RSHA. Created in 1939, it quickly grew into one of the most Byzantine institutions in Nazi Germany (no small accomplishment, that). The man often credited with its creation was General Reinhard Heydrich, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust. Heydrich headed the organization from its creation in 1939 until 1942, when he was assassinated --by the SOE.

During his time overseeing the RSHA, Heydrich incorporated many of the most brutal components of the Nazi Party into the organization. The RSHA was divided into seven Amters or sections. Amt IV and Amt V included the dreaded Gestapo and the Kriminalpolizei (which was somewhat akin to Nazi Germany's FBI). Amt IV also oversaw many aspects of the Holocaust.

Amt III was comprised of the domestic wing of the SD, the SS's own private intelligence service and the chief rival of the Abwehr during the Second World War. For our purposes here, however, we are most concerned with Amt VI and Amt VII. Amt VI featured the foreign component of the SD, which became one of the most powerful intelligence services of WWII era by war's end.

"... Amt VI ('Department Six') of the SS RSHA, Nazi Germany's main security headquarters. This SS section had been a combined foreign intelligence, sabotage, and propaganda agency and was, in effect, the CIA of Nazi Germany. By war's end SS RSHA Amt VI had consolidated not only the foreign sections of the Nazi's police intelligence apparatus but military intelligence (Abwehr), Gehlen's own FHO, and much of the Nazi Party's internal foreign espionage network as well. Amt VI was an extraordinary rich collection of trained agents, intelligence files, saboteurs, and propagandist. Both Gehlen and the United States drew many of their most valuable recruits from this department after the war. Its hoard of files on the USSR and Eastern Europe, in particular, was without equal anywhere."

(Blowback, Christopher Simpson, pg. 46)

Of especial interest was Amt VI-S. Created in 1943, Amt VI-S would emerge as the special operations forces of Nazi Germany. At the time this unit was conceived of as a counter to the British SOE  and Special Air Services (SAS) and the American OSS. Tapped to head the unit was the infamous Otto "Scarface" Skorzeny, allegedly Hitler's favorite commando. Virtually everyone who met Skorzeny agreed that he was very inch of soldier. Standing at 6'4 and weighing around 220 pounds of mostly muscle, the Austrian was as fine an example of Hitler's notion of Aryan superiority as any.

The Hunting Group

Skorzeny, prior to the war, had trained as an engineer and generally comes off as more intelligent than he is often given credit for. Certainly the intense training he subjected his charges too would test both their physical and mental limits.

"... Skorzeny's unit would eventually be known as SS-Jagdverband or 'Hunting Group.' Skorzeny recruited personnel throughout the Reich'ss various military units. He wanted to acquire only those of the highest caliber and as such received special permission to recruit from all the services, not just the Waffen SS. Eventually, his commando group included army, navy, and air force personnel, which resulted in Skorzeny becoming the preeminent special forces commander of the Third Reich.

"Besides having a foreign language requirement, the recruits had to demonstrate basic skills and knowledge of firearms, grenades, artillery, and the ability to operate automobiles, motorcycles, watercraft, and locomotives. They also had to be expert swimmers and able to parachute from aircraft. Many were capable of speaking foreign languages such as English, French, Italian, Russian, and Persian. An intense commando training regimen was instituted. Some individuals were selected for special agent training. All of Skorzeny's training was tough and included covert operation skills required for stay-behind missions in enemy territory."

(The Skorzeny Papers, Ralph P. Ganis, pg. 38)

As the war began to turn against Nazi Germany in the wake of the disastrous Battle of Stalingrad, Skorzeny became increasingly involved in training stay-behind units. Some of the earliest and most infamous were Eastern units, largely comprised of Ukrainians, that were used to harass the Red Army as the Germans retreated from the Ukraine. These units were drawn from the ranks of the infamous Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which in turn grew out of the equally infamous Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-Bandera (OUN-B). There had been an early OUN, but with approval of the Nazis, the more radical OUN-B emerged out of this group. While its relationship with the Nazi regime would be ambiguous at best throughout the war, the OUN-B was still the chief Ukrainian Quisling group and a vigorous participant in the Holocaust.

the emblem of the OUN-B

When the war turned against the Nazis in the East, the UPA was founded by the OUN-B to assist the German withdraw. Skorzeny trained many of these units, which would prove to be highly effective.

"... accelerated German recruitment of Ukrainians from police groups into the Waffen SS, and by increased cooperation with the underground OUN/UPA leadership and a secret program that the SS-designated Operation Sonnenblume (Sunflower). According to U.S. interrogations of SS RSHA Amt VI clandestine operations chief Otto Skorzeny and his adjutant Karl Radl, Amt VI organized Sonnenblume in 1944 to coordinate German and OUN efforts during the Nazis' retreat from Russia.

"Thousands of tons of arms, ammunition, and other war materiel abandoned by the Nazis were consigned to underground OUN-led troops, Skorzeny told the Americans. The deal proved to be an astute investment for the Germans. The OUN/UPA succeeded in tying down some 200,000 Red Army troops and killing more than 7,000 Soviet officers during the Wehrmacht's disordered flight across Europe during 1944 and 1945."

(Blowback, Christopher Simpson, pgs. 162-163)

Curiously, many of the OUN-B members would go on to play a crucial rule in establishing the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN). The ABN in turn would play a key role in creating the World Anti-Communist League (WACL, noted before here), one of the key components of the post-war Fascist International. Both the ABN and especially the WACL would establish a close working relationship with Le Cercle. But back to the matter at hand.

Skorzeny also had some involvement in the legendary Werwolf project, though not to the extent that is generally claimed. SS General Hans-Adolf Prutzmann was the actual head of the project, with Skorzeny's "Hunting Group" provided some training and support to the Werwolf units.

For those of you unaware, the Werwolf project was begun in 1944 as the war was winding down. Originally the Werwolf participants were conceived as additional commando units that could be used to conduct sabotage and assassinations behind enemy lines. Towards the end of the war, Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels made brazen claims that the Werwolf units would be used as a stay-behind force to wage a guerrilla war against the Occupation, a claim that Allies initially took very seriously.

However, it is now widely agreed that these claims were pure propaganda. There does not appear to have been a serious plan to wage a guerrilla war against the Allies and in fact the Werwolf units were largely poorly trained and equipped. Their chief value to the Nazi regime was principally for psychological warfare purposes.

Skorzeny was involved in other, much more highly effective stay-behind operations, however. One of the most notorious was the so-called "Peter Group" of Denmark, which was created to counter the SOE-backed resistance in that particular Nordic country. The group as commanded by Otto Schwerdt, one Skorzeny's top men in the SD.

Another, even more curious group Skorzeny was involved in was known as the "Organisation Technique" (OT). This group was also established in 1944, shortly after France was liberated by the Allies. The OT was intended as a stay-behind network that would conduct sabotage and assassination operations against the Allies in France.

"... the OT was created by Joseph Darnand, the former head of the Vichy Milice (French fascist paramilitary), consisting of 150-200 volunteers to be trained as agents and sent back in France to fight the Allied forces. 

"Command of the OT was given to Jean Degans, a former member of the Cagoule and former director of the Vichy police. OT liaison with the Germans came from Skorzenys Jagdverband, and Jean Fillliol, a former Cagoule who exercised 'day-to-day' control of the group. Several OT sabotage and secret service camps were established in Germany with training and operational planning coming directly from Skorzeny's special forces."

(The Skorzeny Papers, Ralph P. Ganis, pg. 60) 

OT creator Joseph Darnand, like seemingly every other major member of the group, had also been a member of the dreaded Cagoule in the years leading up to the war. La Cagoule, which was addressed before here and here, was a secret society and paramilitary organization active in France during 1936 and 1937. During those years the group stockpiled an enormous amount of arms and engaged in several assassinations and bombings, with an eye towards plunging France into a civil war. From there the Cagoule, along with their extensive supporters in the military, would establish a fascist dictatorship in France along the lines of those in Italy and Spain.

Needless to say, things didn't quite work out that way. The organization was largely neutralized by French police in 1937, with most key members in prison by the end of that year. But with the outbreak of the war in 1939, many Cagoulards were released to defend the homeland. After the French defeat most Cagoulards signed up with the Vichy regime, were they gained some degree of influence. Others went to De Gaulle's Resistance movement. Towards the end of the war, they became a crucial back channel between the US and the Nazi regime.

The above-mentioned Jean Violet, a founder of Le Cercle, had been a member of the Cagoule prior to the war. Violet is generally regarded as the chief force behind the creation of Le Cercle and the dominant personality behind the group until his departure in the late 1970s.

Amt VII

And finally we come to Amt VII, easily the most mysterious section of the RHSA. When most (scholarly) researchers consider occultism in the SS, they look to the Ahnenerbe, that curious "think tank" that dabbled in so much esoteric research both prior to and during the Second World War. And while the Ahnenerbe was without a doubt the chief agency within the SS for researching occultic topics, Amt VII would quietly delve into the same waters with equal vigor. Officially Amt VII was the "Written Records" section of the RSHA, essentially its library. But this was a library that specialized in especially arcane research.

"... AMT VII of the RSHA, the 'Ideological Research' Division that handled occultism, Freemasonry, and cults. From 1941-1945, this division have been under the leadership of Dr. Franz Alfred Six, a scholarly SS-Brigadefuhrer who earlier became prominent as a leader of the Vorkmmando Moskau: a death squad that roamed occupied Russia, murdering hundreds of civilians, dissidents, and Jews in 1941. Six joined the SD in April of 1935 when he was only twenty-six years old; in 1939 he became head of AMT II of the RSHA. A year later, Heydrich named him his future representative in Great Britain after the hypothetically successful Nazi invasion of the British Isles. In other words, Dr. Six would have been largely responsible for program of 'ethnic cleansing' in England had the Nazis managed to invade and occupy the country. 

".... It is said that Himmler created the bizarre occult research division of the RSHA –AMT VII – specifically for Six, so pleased as he was by Six's enthusiasm for hunting down the enemies of the Reich in Russia during the summer of 1941 at Smolensk."

(Unholy Alliance, Peter Levenda, pg. 237)

Six had actually left Amt VII in 1943 and was replaced by Paul Dittel, another SD man. Throughout its brief existence, appears to have maintained a close relationship with the SD, especially Amt VI. Six had been a member of Amt VI, as had Werner Goettsch, another Amt VII man that shall be addressed in a moment. This has led to some confusion among researchers, with some claiming that Amt VII was a part of the SD. Technically they were separate departments, with the SD consisting of Amt III and Amt VI in the RSHA. Still, there was clearly close collaboration and various members of VI would later work with Amt VII.

Back to one of those members, the above-mentioned Werner Goettsch. Goettsch was a close friend of fellow SD agent Otto von Bolschwing, who enjoyed a longstanding working relationship with the CIA in the post-war years. Goettsch was also close to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who became head of the RHSA in the wake of Heydrich's assassination. Kaltenbrunner was an old fencing partner of Otto Skorzeny from their academy days. It was Kaltenbrunner who recommended Skorzeny to lead the SS's commando units.

Kaltenbrunner

During his time with Amt VI, Goettsch played a key role in establishing SD intelligence networks in the Balkans. Then, in 1943, he was transfer to Amt VII for curious reasons. A report by the Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) noted:

"while deep in this reading which changed his feelings towards Nazi ideology, GOETTSCH was appointed liaison officer between Amt VI and the Propaganda Ministry. Because of continued illness and a changed ideological point of view, GOETTSCH asked KALTENBRUNNER to transfer him to Amt VII. Later he sought the acquaintance of Dr DOPPLER, a Freemason in VIENNA, who later advised him concerning the evacuation of Amt VII'S library."

(Dreamer of the Day, Kevin Coogan, pg. 322) 

The reading that changed Goettsch's point of view involved works on political theory, history and mysticism. Nor was Goettsch the only SD man who would use Amt VII to research the occult at the end of the war.

The infamous Italian philosopher and occultist Julius Evola had enjoyed a longstanding association with the SD that likely went back to at least 1939 despite Evola's ideology being denounced by Volkish elements in the SS. Evola was close to members of the Romanian Iron Guard, which Werner Goettsch's friend Otto von Bolschwing had also worked with while detailed to the SD. Evola's early work with the SD may have derived from his connection to the Guard as well. Former members of the Iron Guard would later help establish the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, as was noted before here.

Evola was officially involved with the RSHA by the end of the war, but what exactly he was doing is shrouded in mystery.

"...  Historian Richard Drake says that while he was in Vienna, 'Evola performed vital liaison services for the SS as Nazi Germany sought to recruit a European army for the defense of the Continent against the Soviet Union and the United States.' According to his own account, Evola spent his time living incognito while doing 'intellectual' research. But what kind of research? 

"While Evola was in Vienna, the SD supplied him with a series of arcane texts plundered from private libraries and rare book collections. The SD bureau the provided him with these documents was Amt VII, an obscure branch that served as an RSHA research library. With this precious archive, Evola closely studied masonic rituals and translated certain 'esoteric texts' for a book called Historie Secrete des Societes Secretes.  It never appeared because Evola claimed that all his documents were lost during the Russian bombardment."

(Dreamer of the Day, Kevin Coogan, pgs. 319-320)

Julius Evola

But is it possible Evola was doing both --working on a book on occultism while helping set up a stay-behind army? And were these to projects totally unrelated? The great Kevin Coogan proposes that Evola was involved in setting up a kind of secret society that could sustain the SS in the wake of the Third Reich's defeat.

As outlandish as it may sound, there can be little doubt that Evola played some as yet unknown role in the Gladio-inspired Years of Lead in Italy, as was noted before here. And there can be even less doubt that Evola had an enormous influence on Italian neo-fascist terrorists in thep ost-war years.

"The use of violence in Italian neo-fascism escalated with numerous bomb attacks and massacres, beginning with the Piazza Fontana explosion in Milan in April 1969. Adriano Romauldi, a leading young neo-fascist, identified Evola in 1971 as the intellectual hero of militant right-wing youth in Italy 'because the teaching of Evola is also a philosophy of total war.' By 1975, the far-right underground adopted a leftist strategy in mounting attacks against the state itself (murders of officials, robberies in ministries). The trend towards violence continued, so that by the late 1970s a cult of action replaced ideology itself, elevating the idea of combat to an existential duty. Neo-fascist terrorist such as Franco Freda and Mario Tuti frequently reprinted and cited Evola's two most militant tracts, Metafisica della guerra (1935) and Dottrina ariana (1940), in praise of 'heroic,' 'exemplary' action without an instrumental purpose.... Groups such as Movimento Revoluzionario Popolare, Terza, and Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari subsequently unleashed a surge of black terrorism in Italy until the majority of militants had been captured or killed and a handful fled abroad."

(Black Sun, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, pgs. 67-68)

Could this also help explain why so many Amt VI men like Six and Goettsch would end with Amt VII as the war was going into a critical stage studying the occult. Wouldn't their services have been put to better use in other fields? Or was there was some truth to Coogan's notion of a Black Order?

During his time with the RSHA at war's end, Evola was detailed to Vienna. Otto Skorzeny, a man also deeply involved in SS stay-behind networks, was also active in Vienna at times during this period as well. Did their work overlap and were their postwar efforts part of the Black Order Evola conceived of in the final days of the Third Reich?

As well shall see, there were certainly a few post war connections to either man. And with that I shall sign off for now. Until next time dear reader, stay tuned.

Le Cercle: Clerical Fascism and the Pedophocracy Part II

Welcome to the second installment in my examination of the mysterious body known as Le Cercle (sometimes referred to as as the Pinay Group for Pinay Cercle/Circle). The origins of the group, which are a bit murky, date to the early 1950s when it emerged from various Pan-European and conservative Catholic interests that were taking shape in the wake of the Second World War. Described as little more than a forum to bring together various right wing organizations by apologists, Le Cercle has none the less played a role in various deep events across the several continents.

As was noted in the first installment, Le Cercle was deeply connected to various intelligence agencies in Western Europe as well as the United States and it had access to some of the most powerful elites of the Cold War era. David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezenski all had dealings with Le Cercle for a time. That being said, it would be a gross mistake to dismiss the organization as little more than extension of the Bilderberg Group, as many have (as was noted in part one, there was a fair degree of overlap between early Bilderberg and Le Cercle membership).

In point of fact, Le Cercle seems to have been under the domination of Catholic cults and orders of knighthood such as Opus Dei and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta for much of its existence. While these groups shared some of the objectives of the Bilderbergers, such as a United Europe, they ultimately seemed to have been pursing a kind of new Holy Roman Empire.

Pinay

At some point more will be said on the differences of these competing faction. For the time being I would like to begin examining the backgrounds of two of the chief figures behind the Cercle in its early days. The first was the famed French statesman and Bilderberger co-founder Antoine Pinay, one of the most connected individuals in the French state during the post-WWII years and the sometimes namesake of the Cercle.

Pinay entered politics in 1929 when he was elected mayor of Saint-Chamond, Loire. By 1940 he had worked his way up to the Senate. Pinay was initially given the post of Conseil National during the onset of the Vichy regime, but he resigned within a few months. He remained in France as mayor of Saint-Chamond, Loire throughout the Occupation. Whether or not he was a collaborator with the Nazis has been a topic of some debate.

It was not, however, until after the War that Pinay's career really took off:

"One of the most prominent members of the new Bilderberg Group was the French politician Antoine Pinay who served as Minister of Public Works, Transport and Tourism from July 1950 to March 1952 before becoming President of the Council (Prime Minister) and Minister of Finance until January 1953. In December 1953, Pinay stood unsuccessfully as the candidate for the Centre National des Indépendants et Paysans (CNIP) in the eighth round of voting of the last presidential elections of the Fourth Republic; the thirteenth round would finally see the victory of René Coty, also of the CNIP. Pinay would later serve under President Coty as Minister for Foreign Affairs from February 1955 until February 1956, and Minister of Finance again under Prime Minister and then President Charles de Gaulle from June 1958 to January 1960 when he introduced the new French franc (13). Apart from his distinguished career in public office, Antoine Pinay had other less obvious attributes – and not just within the select club of Bilderbergers. In 1952-53, at the same time as the Bilderberg Group was being set up, French Prime Minister Pinay and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer created the Cercle Pinay as a confidential forum for Franco-German policy coordination via personal contacts between Pinay, Adenauer and other Christian Democrat Heads of State."

(Rogue Agents, David Teacher, pg. 20)

Pinay

Pinay would remain extensively involved with the group that bore his name from its foundation up until the 1970s, frequently serving as the group's chairman during this period. He would still remain active in the group up till the 1980s, at which point his health had deteriorated to the point he was no longer able to be a participant. Pinay died in 1994 seventeen days shy of his 103rd birthday.

Sniffer Planes of the Alchemists

While Pinay may have been the front man for much of Cercle's early years, the man generally credited with turning it into a major international player is the mysterious Frenchman known as Jean Violet. Violet is generally depicted as a rather buffoonish figure in the few mainstream accounts profiling the man. This is in no small part due to his involvement in a bizarre scandal involving "sniffer airplanes" that rocked France (and, to lesser extent, Italy and Spain) in the 1970s.

"The story of the sniffer airplane begins in 1965 when a Belgian count (Comte Allain de Villegas) and an Italian TV repairman-turned-self-proclaimed nuclear physicist (Aldo Bonassoli). Both 'scientists' had a passionate belief in alchemy and UFOs, and they established a Geneva-based company to finance 'scientific discoveries.' The first project was to develop desalination technology, which made Geneva natural place for their headquarters...

"The failure of the desalination scheme led logically to the next one. If they could not get the salt out of water, the next best thing was to find new sources of fresh water through a device that could 'sniff' underground reservoirs. It was at this point that their paths crossed that of Jean Violet...

"Violet's Vatican connections gave the inventors the financial backing they required to proceed with their experiments. The first stop was Spain, where Opus Dei supporters in the Franco government assured official aid for the project. Financial backing also came from another Vatican-linked source."

(Hot Money, R.T. Naylor, pgs. 258-259)

Comte de Villegas (top) and Bonassoli (bottom)

That would be the Italian businessman Carlo Pesenti, at the time one of the wealthiest individuals in Italy. As was noted in part one, Pesenti was also a key figure in the Cercle during the early years, possibly even serving as chairman for a time in the 1960s and early 1970s. In his Memoirs, David Rockefeller referred to Le Cercle as the Pesenti Group after the Italian concrete magnet.

At the time of his involvement with the sniffer plane (i.e. the 1970s), Pesenti was engaged in a protracted battle with the Mafia-linked financier Michele Sindona, a member of Propaganda Due. Sindona had hopes of taking over Pesenti's empire. Pesenti emerged victorious, but not without taking a beating. Ironically, his business empire would receive much needed funding later in the decade from Banco Ambrosiano, headed by another Mafia-linked P2 member known as Robero Calvi. Pesenti became the largest minority shareholder of Banco Ambrosiano. Both Sindona and Calvi would play a key role in the Vatican banking scandal, as noted before here, here and here. But back to the sniffer plane:

"Alas for inventors and investors alike, no water was found but that dampened the enthusiasm only of Carlo Pesenti, who by then was more concerned with the water in his stock than the lack of it in his cement. For the others the failure simply whetted their appetites for further discoveries. In the tradition of the medieval alchemists, the team of inventors set out to convert a base material, namely water into black gold. The supposition was that if the sniffer device could not smell water, perhaps it could smell oil.

"The international situation was certainly favorable. Synchronizing the launching of the new scheme was the oil-price revolution of 1973, the syndicate attracted other associates. Among them was the government of South Africa, whom Jean Violet and friends regarded as a bulwark of Western Christian civilization. South Africa needed oil self-sufficiency as insurance against the embargo orchestrated by the heathen hordes into whose hands the world's energy lifeline had fallen. However, early experiments with the server device failed, and the South Africans lost interest. No matter, for Jean Violet had even more distinguished and generous patrons to take their place.

"For the government of France in general, and the French state oil company ELF-Aquitaine in particular, the project held out many attractions --if it worked. ELF-Aquitaine could secure sources of crude oil of the sort lost after the Algerian Revolution, making it a major world supplier, and the invention would put it at the forefront of world petroleum technology. France itself would be relieved of the dollar drain of paying for imported oil if sources could be found either domestically or in France's African tributaries. Furthermore, incumbent president Valery Giscard d'Estaing was close to Violet's political and Opus Dei circles. Violet was also well connected with French intelligence, which in turn had influence with ELF-Aquitaine.

"With the president himself giving the clearance for ELF-Aquitaine to ignore normal government accounting procedures and exchange controls, it pumped hundreds of millions of Swiss francs into the project. Under the supervision of the investors' financial agent, UBS chief Philippe de Weck, the funds earmarked for payments to various Italian 'creditors' were allegedly funneled via a Zürich company called Ultrafin, owned by Milan's Banco Ambrosiano.

"Interestingly, Philippe de Weck was one of four Catholic experts that the Vatican later called on to report on the IOR's involvement with the Calvi catastrophe, and to devise reasons why the Vatican should not share the resulting costs. That task he undertook with distinction; but when the French government asked him to explain his sniffer airplane financial maneuvers that made so much French taxpayer money disappear, he declined – good Swiss banker that he was – to violate client confidentiality.

"The sniffer enterprise was a complete fiasco – a fact that may have had some influence on the 1981 crash of the Opus Dei-influenced Banco Occidental in Spain. French President Giscard d'Estaing managed a cover-up, in which his successor, Francois Mitterrand, cooperated. But late in 1983 a tax-department clerk, investigating the route by which 800 million French francs had left the country (340 million without a trace), and inadvertently blew their cover. By then, however, the French government had more important things on its mind."

(Hot Money, R.T. Naylor, pgs, 259-260)

Valery Giscard d'Estaing, another French politician closely linked to Cercle

The Opus Dei-linked Banco Occidential also had ties to Calvi's Banco Ambrosiano and was ultimately dragged into the Vatican banking scandal. As I noted before here, there is a school of thought that the money being drained out of these various Catholic-centric financial institutions via back door methods was to fund some of the Vatican's intrigues in both the Polish Solidarity movement as well in Central America. These were certainly projects, especially in regards to the Latin American death squads the most reactionary elements of the Vatican frequently found themselves aligned with, that needed to be kept from the public at large. The murky netherworld of shadow financing could accomplish so much more while providing the Vatican with political cover.

Jean Violet: International Man of Mystery

The sniffer plane scandal may then have been another front to raise money (in this case, primarily from the government of France) superficially for this curious invention but in actuality was meant to funnel money (after a generous skim by the major players) to such causes the Vatican had become obsessed with under Pope John Paul II (whose rise to power had been greatly aided by Opus Dei, as noted before here). Considering Jean Violet's extensive intelligence background and high-ranking contacts within the Vatican, such a possibility seems all the more plausible. As to that background and those contacts, consider:

"It was in 1951 that Antoine Pinay first met Violet, a Parisian lawyer close to the CNPF, the French employers' federation. Pinay sought out Violet for legal advice about war reparations payments for a Geneva-based firm whose German factory had been seized during the war. Pinay was evidently satisfied with Violet's work as he recommended the lawyer to Pierre Boursicot, head of the French secret service, the Service de Documentation Extérieure et Contre-Espionnage (SDECE). Violet helped the SDECE where he could; as he has said: "Aware of the fact that I could be of some use to my country thanks to my professional situation on the international chessboard, I chose to fight for France within the ranks of the SDECE" (14).

"After the arrival of General Grossin as head of the SDECE in 1957, Violet was taken on as an agent and given missions of increasing political importance. Violet would rise to become perhaps the SDECE's most valued 'Honourable Correspondent' with the title of Special Advocate to the service. One indication of Violet’s significance as a veteran covert operator is the fact that throughout his fifteen years of service with the SDECE, his case officer was the head of the service - first Grossin from 1957 to 1962, then Jacquier from 1962 to 1966, and then finally Guibaud until 1970. Reporting directly to General Grossin, "Violet was masterminding a Service Spécial to promote the General's [de Gaulle's] objectives in defence and foreign policy" (15), a rather ironic fact bearing in mind that Brian Crozier, Violet's future associate in the Cercle, was monitoring de Gaulle’s defence and foreign initiatives with some suspicion from the other side of the Channel.

"An early associate of Violet's in his work for the SDECE was former Chaplain to the French Far East Expeditionary Force in Indochina Reverend Father Yves- Marc Dubois, 'foreign policy spokesman' for the Dominican order and an unofficial member of the Pontifical Delegation to the UN, who was believed by the SDECE to be the head of the Vatican secret service. Violet and Dubois were active in the United Nations from the mid-1950s on when Violet was attached to the French delegation headed by Pinay, at that time Minister of Foreign Affairs. Violet's tasks at the UN included ensuring the Lebanon did not break off relations with France after its involvement in the 1956 Suez fiasco and winning over Latin American republics to block UN condemnation of France's Algerian policy in 1959. Violet's lobbying in the UN would also pave the way for de Gaulle's tour of Latin America in 1964. Another major focus for Violet and Dubois' activities for the SDECE was Eastern Europe: they received half a million francs a month from General Grossin to run the "Church of Silence", Catholic networks behind the Iron Curtain. These activities focused on the countries in what was sometimes referred to as the "Catholic Curtain": Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania (16)*.

(Rogue Agents, David Teacher, pgs. 20-21)

possibly Jean Violet

Violet's association with the Reverend Father Dubois, of whom more will be said in a moment, would later get the Frenchman into trouble with the SDECE. In 1970 he was drummed out due to suspicious as to where his true loyalties lay.

"... Violet was made a Chevalier de Legion d'Honneur by General de Gaulle. He claimed to British author Godfrey Hodgson that he was in charge of covert political operations for SDECE until he retired as an active spy in 1970. According to Count Alexandre de Marcenches, the chief lifeguard from 1970 to 1981, Violet was 'given the heave' because he cost the French government more than any other spy on SDECE's long list of secret agents. De Marenches further claimed that Violet have been a triple agent working in addition for the Vatican and the West German BND. Other sources said that he was in fact fired because he knew too much about the sexual follies of one of France's leading ladies..."

(Their Kingdom Come, Robert Hutchison, pg. 156)

The possibility that Violet was acting as a triple agent is quite plausible. In Rogue Agents, David Teacher notes that Violet was widely credited in foreign policy circles for playing a key role in Franco-German rapprochement in the post-WWII years. It is quite possible that while being engaged in these endeavors Violet developed contacts with the BND (West Germany's primary intelligence agency) and the agency's notorious spymaster Reinhard Gehlen. Gehlen had been in charge of all military intelligence in the Eastern Front for Nazi Germany. Reputedly, he narrowly avoided being charged with war crimes due to the extensive files he had on the Soviet Union. Thus, Gehlen became a key figure for US intelligence during the Cold War despite the fact his intelligence often proved to be inaccurate and his network (often referred to as the Gehlen Org) was riddled with both hardened Nazi war criminals and Soviet double agents.

Teacher reports that at least one German investigator linked Violet to Gehlen:

"In the secret intelligence reports he wrote on the Cercle Pinay in 1979-80, Hans Langemann, the top Bavarian civil servant in charge of security matters, reported that General Jacquier, head of SDECE from 1962 to 1966, had been giving Violet DM 72,000 a year and that Violet had been getting the same sum from the BND's General Gehlen."

(Rogue Agents, David Teacher, pg. 59)

Gehlen

This researcher has not been able to directly link Gehlen and his network to Le Cerlce, but both organizations certainly appear to have traveled in many of the same circles. What's more Gehlen, like many of the upper echelon of L Cercle (as noted in part one) had ties to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

That Violet was outed from the SDECE by Count Alexandre de Marenches is most curious as well. De Marenches was also a member of Le Cerlce in addition to being a Knight of Malta. Despite the fact these two men shared some of the same associates, Violet and de Marenches have long been portrayed as antagonists of one another. Brian Crozier, who collaborated with both men, sheds some light on their relationship (or lack therefor of) to one another:

"Inevitably, he had made enemies. One of them was a close friend of the Comte de Marenches who, on being appointed Director-General of the SDECE in 1970, closed down Violet's office without notice. The two men –Marenches and Violet – never met."

(Free Agent, Brian Crozier, pg. 191)

Crozier goes on to claim that Violet had green-lighted a 1980 meeting between himself and De Marenches, who claimed he had never met up to that point. Of course, Crozier also claims that de Marenches was not involved in Le Cercle during the years he was active with the organization (allegedly from 1971 to 1985). This does not seem especially plausible as Le Cercle appears to have established ties with the notorious Safari Club (of which de Marenches was a co-founder of) during this period. But more on that later.

de Marenches

What's more, the sniffer plane scandal was ongoing after Violet was dropped from the SDECE by de Marenches. To believe this you have to believe that de Marenches had already came to the conclusion that Violet was nothing more than a swindler by this point and yet he would allow his fellow Frenchman to entangle the state-owned oil company, ELF-Aquitaine, in a highly dubious investment promoted by Violet that would ultimately cost the French government millions of francs. Given the close ties that oil and intelligence frequently have to one another, it seems inexplicable that de Marenches would have allowed Violet to cheat the French government in this fashion if he truly considered Violet to be a fraud. It is more likely that Violet was engaged in an intelligence operation that de Marenches and the SDECE wanted to distance themselves from if it blew up. Such tactics would ensure everyone had "plausible deniability." And on that note, let us return to Violet's other major intelligence contact.

Not only then was Violet well connected with the SDECE, but he was also engaged with Reverend Father Yves-Marc Dubois in running Catholic networks in the Eastern Bloc. Violet then would have been well positioned to provide covert funding to Solidarity through these channels.  And the Reverend Father Dubois certainly would have had the connections to pull off such an operation. Here's a bit more on Dubois and his network:

"In his journeys, Violet came to know Father Yves-Marc Dubois, a French Dominican who was in charge of international relations for his Order. But Dubois represented more than the foreign-policy interests of the black friars of Faubourg Saint Honore. He was described as a 'member of the Vatican's intelligence network, if not its head.' He popped up from time to time as an unofficial member of the Holy See's delegation to the United Nations. When in Paris, he stayed in the Dominican chapter house at 222 rue Faubourg Saint Honore, in the Eighth Arrondissement, within walking distance of Jean Violet's apartment at 46 rue de Provence, in the Ninth Arrondissement.

"Dubois introduced Violet to his 'Swiss correspondent', Father Henri Marmier, the 'official' of the diocese of Fribourg and editor-in-chief of APIC, the Catholic International Press Agency based in Fribourg. Father Marmier and a Polish Dominican, Father Joseph-Marie Bochenski, founded under the auspices of the University of Fribourg the Institute of Sovietology. The Institute's extracurricular activities included the running of a clandestine network the provided aid to Catholic groups behind the Iron Curtain, particularly Poland. The Institute was in part funded by what officials in Fribourg enthusiastically called 'the American grant'. According to the register's office at the University of Fribourg, Opus Dei sent several its members to the Institute."

(Their Kingdom Come, Robert Hutchison, pgs. 155-156) 

the old Paris-based Dominican headquarters Dubois used to operate out of

So yes, the alleged break Violet had with the SDECE and de Marenches should be taken with a heaping dose of salt. It seems most likely that Violet's chief patrons, the SDECE and the Vatican, wanted it to appear as though Violet was a kind of rogue who was ultimately fleeced by a pair of charlatans. Violet was by all accounts a highly intelligent man. It is far more plausible he was involved in deep intrigues rather than being hoodwinked by a "sniffer airplane."

And that brings us to Violet's pre-World War II activities. There are indications that Violet had been involved with intrigues involving secret societies as far back as the 1930s.

"Violet's political formation came in the 1930s in le Comite' secret pour l'action (CSAR). A far-right political cult modeled on a Freemasonic movement, complete with Masonic-style rites and rituals (although committed to ridding France of left-wing subversion the bona fide Freemasons allegedly represented), CSAR was a sort of French predecessor of Licio Gelli's P-2. It was intensely secretive in all but it's admiration of Franco and Mussolini, and after the war some of its members were accused of being Nazi collaborators. In the 1950s, with his own record pronounced clean, Violet became a close collaborator of French intelligence, and an active supporter of Opus Dei..."

(Hot Money, R.T. Naylor, pg. 258)

Synarchy and Martinism

What then is this secret organization, often referred to as "La Cagoule," that Naylor describes as a "far-right political cult modeled on a Freemasonic movement"? Here's a bit of background on the Cagoule from famed historian William L. Shirer:

"... The second was called CSAR (Comite Secret d'Action Revolutionnaire) and was popularly known as 'La Cagoule' and its members as 'Le Cagoulards,' 'the hooded ones.' This last was deliberately terrorist, resorting to murder and dynamiting, and its aim was to overthrow the Republic and set up an authoritarian regime on the model of the fascist state of Mussolini, who furnished some of its arms and most of it secret funds and in whose behalf it murdered two leading anti-Fascist Italian exiles. Its leader was a former naval engineer named Eugene Deloncle and the head of its military section was General Duseigneur, a retired Air Force officer. Marshal Franchet d'Esperey would become one of the main links between the two secret groups and help raise funds for them. Marshal Petain would be kept informed of their work through Loustaunau-Lacau. The two marshals could hardly have been ignorant of the fact that though professing to be anti-Communist both secret organizations, specially the Cagoule, were also antirepublican."

(The Collapse of the Third Republic, William L. Shirer, pgs. 227-228) 

Here's a few more details on the order's antirepublican activities:

"The Cagoule had a military organization and recruited heavily from other secret societies on the French right-wing. Arms from Germany, Italy, and Spain provided the wherewithal for the planned seizure of power. An attempt to fake left-wing bombings of industrial employers' associations in Paris in September 1937, though, brought the attention of the authorities down on the would-be revolutionaries. The Cagoule's leader, Eugene Deloncle, was arrested the following month, and the organization's arms dumps surfaced shortly thereafter. Stripped of their weapons and publicly humiliated, the Cagoule sank into insignificance, though many of its members collaborated with the Nazis in the Vichy regime after the French defeat in 1940."

(The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Hidden History, John Michael Greer, pg. 135) 

the aftermath of one of La Cagoule's terror attacks

On the one hand then La Cagoule was another fascist militia like the ones that had terrorized multiple Western European nations during the Cold War era (such Italian organizations were noted before here while their Belgium counterparts were addressed here; both these Italian and Belgium groups had ties to Le Cerlce, as we shall see). It is especially interesting that La Cagoule would try pinning a series of bombings on left wing organizations. This was the modus operandi on many fascist groups that became involved in the US/NATO stay-behind networks often referred to as Operation Gladio (noted before here and here). Like those organizations, La Cagoule sought to destabilize a democratic government and replace it with a fascist regime. But there was also a fundamentally occult nature to La Cagoule.

"French for hood. Popular name of the Organisation Secrete de l'Action Revolutionnaire Nationale (Secret Organization of National Revolutionary Action), a French right-wing secret society founded in 1935 to oppose the Third Republic and prepare the way for a fascist takeover. Some of its members borrowed the Ku Klux Klan's custom of wearing hoods to conceal their identity, thus their popular name, and the Klan's activities in America seem to have been a source of inspiration for the Cagoule's leaders. Much of the Cagoule's ideology, however, came from synarchy, a right-wing political ideology popular among French secret societies in the early 20th century..."

(The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Hidden History, John Michael Greer, pg. 135)

The concept of synarchy first appeared during the late nineteenth century in the writings Joseph Alexandre Saint-Yves. Saint-Yves seems to have been deeply influenced by the works of Antoine Fabre d'Olivet, one of the most prominent occultists during the French Revolutionary era. Forty yeas after d'Olivet's death, Saint-Yves allegedly acquired some of d'Olivet's unpublished writings from one of his former students shortly after Saint-Yves had been decommissioned from the French army.

Fabre d'Olivet

These writings would greatly influence Saint-Yves, who had the resources to bring arcane concepts to a wider audience. He married  Countess Marie de Riznitch-Keller, allegedly a Russian aristocrat who was apparently friendly with Empress Eugénie de Montijo. Saint-Yves was also a friend of the Earl of Lytton, the Viceroy of India, and through him had a channel to Queen Victoria herself. Interestingly, the Earl of Lytton was the son of famed novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton who wrote The Coming Race. This work, which first introduced the concept of "Vril forces," and several of Lytton's other works seem to have influenced Saint-Yves.

Saint-Yves would prove to be an enormously influential occultist. He is largely the man responsible for introducing the concept of Agartha (allegedly an underground city in the Hollow Earth where Ascended Masters reside) to the Western world. He would also play a key role in linking the Great Sphinx with the lost continent of Atlantis (which is frequently linked to Agartha as a kind of adversary). His influence of Theosophy and Rudolf Steiner is also noteworthy.

As for his concept of synarchy, here's a general breakdown:

"Whereas Fabre d'Olivet used world history to demonstrate the workings of his three principles, Providence, Destiny, and Will, Saint-Yves used it to support his ideal political system that he called Synarchy – the opposite of Anarchy. Later uses of the term, and indeed Saint-Yves' own writings, make Synarchy a complicated and controversial matter, connected with conspiracy theory, accusations of fascism, globalization, and so on. In its simplest form, it represents government through the equilibrium of three separate powers, respectively controlling the Economy, Legislation (including the military), and Culture (including religion and education). It is international in scale and run by an esoterically minded elite. In a way, Synarchy reaffirms the ideally cooperative but separate roles of the three 'twice-born' castes of Hinduism: merchants (vaishyas), warriors and princes (kshatriyas), priests and teachers (brahmins)...

 "Saint-Yves would boast: 'I have drowned the eclecticism of Fabre d'Olivet in my universalist and rational Christianity.' The curious thing is that such a strong-minded and self-important figure should have accepted Fabre d'Olivet's version of prehistory wholesale, with every semblance of belief in it. This is what Saint-Yves did in the early chapters of Mission des Juifs, often quoting Histoire philosphique verbatim and in general paraphrasing it, without indicating his source. We meet again the four colored races, dominating the world in turns; the Celts and the exile of Ram the Druid; his conquests and Universal Empire in India, which, following Saint-Yves' agenda, becomes the first Synarchic government; the origin of the zodiac; the 3,500 years peace until 3200 BCE, when the Schism of Irshou established the worship of the female principle; the coming of Krishna, Fo-Hi, and the Egyptian mysteries; the invasions of the Assyrians and the exodus of Abraham from their territory. With this last episode, Saint-Yves diverges from Fabre d'Olivet to pursue his restitution of Synarchy by Moses, its renovation by Jesus Christ, and its fortunes and historical periods."

(Atlantis and the Cycles of Time, Joscelyn Godwin, pgs. 44)

Saint-Yves

In other words, then, Saint-Yves envisioned a universal empire controlled by an initiated elite. Saint-Yves, like many thinkers along these lines, seems to have been greatly influenced by the ancient caste system of India. It is important to note, however, the Saint-Yves very much considered himself to be a Christian mystic first and foremost.

Much of Saint-Yves' ideology was transferred to the general masses via one of his greatest admirers, the legendary French occultist and physician Gerard Encausse, often referred to simply as Papus. Papus, while little known in the English speaking world, was one of the most influential and well connected occultists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He rubbed elbows with occult superstars like Aleister Crowley and Theodor Reuss while participating in many of the major esoteric organizations of his day, including the Theosophical Society, the OTO and the Golden Dawn. He even reputedly had contacts with Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra. As such, Papus remains one of the most influential occultists on Continental Europe to this day.

One of Papus' most enduring legacies was his revival of the Martinist Order. Martinism has its roots with two eighteenth century occultists, Martinez de Pasqually and the legendary Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin. Martinism was essentially a system of ceremonial magic rooted in Freemasonry. Saint-Martin later broke with Pasqually and embraced the Christian mysticism of Jakob Bohme. He would later on devise his own ceremonial magic that incorporated this philosophical shift. By the time of the French Revolution, however, these systems had largely gone out of existence. It was not until the late nineteenth century that the revival began.

"... Saint-Martin's turn came in 1884, when one of the most important members of the French occult community, Papus... launched a revived Martinist Order. The new organization had only secondhand links to Saint-Martin's original Rite of Martinism, and borrowed its degree ceremonies from other sources –Cagliostro's Egyptian Rite, while the Beneficent Chevaliers of the Holy City, a degree created by Saint-Martin's fellow student Jean-Baptiste Willermoz, provided another – but it became the fount from which essentially all later Martinist orders descend..."

(The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Hidden History, John Michael Greer, pg. 383)

Saint-Martin

It was likely through the Martinist Order that Saint-Yves' concept of synarchy spread through Parisian occult circles and later onto the populace at large. To the outsider, the Martinist Order may appear to be a conventional Masonic lodge, which could explain why Hot Money author R.T. Naylor referred to La Cagoule as "a far-right political cult modeled on a Freemasonic movement." Both Saint-Yves and Papus would have surely taken objection to this description, however. As noted above, Saint-Yves seems to have largely considered himself to be a Christian mystic. Papus apparently entertained similar notions. This excellent biography of the physician notes:

"Papus never became a regular (Grand Orient) Freemason. He opposed Masonry as being atheistic, in contrast to the Esoteric Christianity of the Gnostic Church, the K.O.R.C. and the Martinist Order. Despite this, he organized what was announced as an "International Masonic Conference" in Paris on June 24, 1908, and at this conference he received a patent from Theodor Reuss to establish a "Supreme Grand Council General of the Unified Rites of Antient and Primitive Masonry for the Grand Orient of France and its Dependencies at Paris." It was probably on the same occasion that Reuss conferred upon Papus the X° of O.T.O. for France, and Papus in turn assisted Reuss in the formation of the O.T.O. Gnostic Catholic Church as a child of l'Église Gnostique de France. When John Yarker died in 1913, Papus was elected as his successor to the office of Grand Hierophant (international head) of the Antient and Primitive Rites of Memphis and Mizraim."

Papus

The Rite of Memphis and Mizraim is the above-mentioned Egyptian Rite that Papus incorporated into the Martinist Order. This was also considered to be an irregular Masonic rite. On the whole then it would not be inaccurate to state that Papus rejected mainline Freemasonry and only embraced those strands that he deemed to be consistent with "esoteric Christianity."

I am spending so much time delving into this topic because the presence of synarchy and Martinism has already be noted concerning another group linked to Le Cercle that I chronicled: Propaganda Due (P2). Licio Gelli is alleged to have been a member of a Martinist Order (as noted before here) and several of the neo-fascist militias linked to P2 featured followers of the philosopher and occultist Julius Evola. Evola's system has been widely linked to Traditionalism, a movement closely related to Perennialism. Papus played a role in fostering the more arcane strains of these ideologies.

"The occult group that Guenon joined in 1906, and from which he derived his 'Vedanta-Perennialism,' was the Martinist Order. It had been established in about 1890 by Gerard Encausse (famous as Papus), a central figure in the early development of Traditionalism. Encausse was a physician and the son of an alternative medical practitioner who had invented the 'Encausse generator,' a patent machine for passing medicines through the skin by means of hot water; it had never enjoyed the success that its inventor had hoped for. Encausse became a qualified physician (unlike his father) but continued the family interest in alternative therapies such as homeopathy and mesmerism. In 1887, while studying at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, Encausse joined Isis, the Paris lodge of the Theosophical Society, one important source of the Martinist Order's Perennialism, and so of Traditionalist Perennialism."

(Against the Modern World, Mark Sedgwick, pg. 40)

Guenon

The above-mentioned Guenon is Rene Guenon, the French philosopher who is easily the most influential figure in Traditionalism. Guenon was an initiate of the Martinist Order and would later correspond with Evola for several years. Evola then was surely exposed to Martinist and synarchist concepts in some form or another, though his own occult system is very unique. Still, Evola's perception of the Hindu caste system (which he believed was the most sacred model for social order) certainly echoed certain aspects of Saint-Yves' synarchy.

But I have digressed enough. The possibility that Martinism and synarchy were underlining influences behind some of the more bizarre aspects of the Le Cercle network will be explored more fully in a future installment. In the next installment, however, I would to begin addressing some of the more noteworthy groups that comprised this network. Stay tuned.