{"id":199,"date":"2023-10-08T21:48:26","date_gmt":"2023-10-08T21:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesynchromystic.com\/?p=199"},"modified":"2026-04-17T01:35:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T01:35:32","slug":"10-occultists-who-were-accused-spies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thesynchromystic.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/08\/10-occultists-who-were-accused-spies\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Occultists Who Were Accused SPIES"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ten Political \u2018Intriguers\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Occultists Who Were ACCUSED SPIES: Top 10 Esoteric Espionage Agents\" width=\"525\" height=\"295\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/egnfmTHO2-k?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption>See the companion video, above.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Introduction<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The occult is a shadowy world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Historically, it has involved actors in <em>sub<\/em>&#8211;<em>rosa<\/em> activities, prompted the adoption of pseudonyms, and \u2013 depending upon how unfavorably ruling powers would react to discovery \u2013 resulted in the creation of clandestine networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All this is made to order for <em>another<\/em> area that might, at first glance, appear to be totally unrelated to these mystical or sorcerous undercurrents: namely, the world of spy craft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, in fact, the two arenas may overlap surprisingly frequently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this video, we\u2019ll examine <em>some<\/em> of the junctures by looking primarily at ten (10) well-known occultists who have been accused of espionage.<a href=\"#_ftn1\">[1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, there is an almost unbelievably dramatic aspect to our entire saga. We will get to this in our final and climactic consideration of that much honored American Founding father who held a key to a kite string, for a Luciferian personal lightning strike. &nbsp;Of course, we\u2019re referring to the man so well portrayed on the $100 bill, and who needs no further introduction now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">10. Aleister Crowley<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We\u2019ll start things off \u2013 as we have done before \u2013 with the man who styled himself \u201cThe Great Beast, 666,\u201d Edward Alexander \u201cAleister\u201d Crowley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps no one has a higher profile in 20<sup>th<\/sup>-century occultism than he.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If the usual biographical sketches are credible, at one time or other, Crowley dabbled in nearly every \u201calternative\u201d form of religion, and joined every esoteric group, that existed. He had connexions to both English and French Freemasonry. He was initiated into the magical system of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He made a study of <em>Therav\u0101da<\/em> Buddhism and Tantra. He became the head of the <em>Ordo Templi Orientis<\/em> (O.T.O.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For more on some of these currents, see \u201c10 \u2018Sex-Magic\u2019 Cults.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When he was dissatisfied with the status quo, he either set about reforming pre\u00ebxisting institutions in his own image, or simply formed his own associations. For example, he started the A\u2234A\u2234 (usually said to abbreviate the Latin phrase <em>Argentium Astrum<\/em>, or \u201cSilver Star\u201d)<a href=\"#_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> \u2013 a magical society not to be confused with Alcoholics Anonymous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Crowley modified the high-grade masonic degrees of John Yarker. He rewrote the rituals for the Gnostic Church and the O.T.O.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Effectively, he established his own quasi-religion called <em>Thelema<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not to be confused with the London-based hedge fund, \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026Crowley\u2019s Thelema was based on precepts (such as \u201cDo what thou wilt\u201d) that were articulated by the Renaissance writer Fran\u00e7ois Rabelais.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">(For more on the particulars of some of this, see our previous \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nI1soGDyB-g\">Top 10 Occultists of All Time<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But these interests placed Crowley in numerous, out-of-the way places on the earth. And he associated with many strange people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These facts, together with Crowley\u2019s own (often exaggerated) bravado, led to allegations that Crowley was a spy.<a href=\"#_ftn3\">[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For example, for two years, Crowley worked as a columnist for German-born American political agitator and accused spy George Sylvester Viereck.<a href=\"#_ftn4\">[4]<\/a> In the lead up to both world wars, Viereck was outspokenly pro-German. He published two periodicals, <em>The Fatherland<\/em> and <em>The International<\/em>, for which Crowley both edited and wrote articles ostensibly championing Germany over against his native Britain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In his autobiography, <em>Confessions<\/em>, Crowley maintained that he had been doing \u201cundercover\u201d fact-finding for British Intelligence.<a href=\"#_ftn5\">[5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He also associated with Gerald Hamilton,<a href=\"#_ftn6\">[6]<\/a> a man who, for a brief interval, was reputedly as notoriously \u201cwicked\u201d as Crowley himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also like Crowley, Hamilton seemed prone to aggrandize himself; so biographical details are a bit sketchy. But Hamilton <em>appears<\/em> occasionally to have operated as an information broker or a police informant.<a href=\"#_ftn7\">[7]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to biographer Tobias Churton, Crowley met with Guy Burgess in 1942.<a href=\"#_ftn8\">[8]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Burgess was a principal member of the ring of British double agents known as the \u201cCambridge Five.\u201d Under the direction of Harold \u201cKim\u201d Philby, and from the era of World War II right through the early stages of the \u201cCold War,\u201d the five spies secretly assisted the Soviet Union \u2013 to which Burgess defected in 1951.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Crowley also had dealings \u2013 some of them potentially sexual in nature \u2013 with journalist and Parliamentarian Thomas \u201cTom\u201d Driberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Driberg may (or may not) himself have worked with the Soviet KGB or the British MI5.<a href=\"#_ftn9\">[9]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In any case, he wrote a biography of Burgess.<a href=\"#_ftn10\">[10]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Finally, Crowley was acquainted with, and influenced, German-born doctor and occultist Arnold Krumm-Heller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Krumm-Heller was the neo-gnostic founder of the South American-based Fraternitas Rosicruciana Antiqua \u2013 a blend of Martinism, Rosicrucianism, Spiritism, Thelema, and Theosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He was a personal physician to Francisco Madero, the 37<sup>th<\/sup> president of Mexico (until the latter\u2019s deposition and assassination in 1913).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And, of course, Krumm-Heller was an operative in both the German and Mexican secret services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Krumm-Heller appears to have reported to German diplomat and intelligence agent Felix Sommerfeld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The two may have been attempting to engineer a war between Mexico and the United States. To that end, Krumm-Heller and Sommerfeld possibly engineering the bloody attack on Columbus, New Mexico by Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa on March 9, 1916.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">9. Michael Sendivogius<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was still uncommon for non-nobility to be widely traveled. Exceptions included certain craftsmen (for example, stone masons) as well as self-styled adventurers and \u2026<em>occultists<\/em>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the other hand, you have noblemen who were also esotericists. An obvious case is that of Michael Sendivogius, \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026whom we covered in \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oYEyvrlL-44\">Top 10 Gold-Making Alchemists<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sendivogius shuttled amongst various European courts, including those of Emperors Rudolf II and Ferdinand II \u2026and Polish<a href=\"#_ftn11\">[11]<\/a> King Sigismund III, from the House of Vasa \u2013\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026for whom (allegedly) he was \u201ca double agent.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn12\">[12]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Among other things, Sendivogius seems somehow to have been mixed up<a href=\"#_ftn13\">[13]<\/a> in the Russian affair of the \u201cFalse Dmitry,\u201d during that country\u2019s so-called \u201cTime of Troubles.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn14\">[14]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The gist was that a succession of various imposters \u2013 referred to as \u201cPseudo Dmitries\u201d \u2013\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026claimed to have been the youngest son of Tsar Ivan the Terrible,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026who was apparently assassinated at the age of eight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first of these pretenders actually managed for a time to assume rulership of the country.<a href=\"#_ftn15\">[15]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Espionage-related shenanigans concerning royal succession would later afflict other countries, including England \u2013 as we will see further on. And other European nations would give rise to interesting espionage-occultism interrelations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">8. Emanuel Swedenborg<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And this brings us to Sweden, and to the late-17<sup>th<\/sup> to early 18<sup>th<\/sup>-century scientist turned philosopher-theologian, Emanuel Swedenborg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Initially, Swedenborg studied physical science and became a knowledgeable mineralogist. His mechanical inventions, including one enabling ships to be transported on land, brought him to the attention \u2013 and into the favor \u2013 of government officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Following a series of mystical experiences in the 1740s, Swedenborg devoted himself to spiritual pursuits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Essentially, he became convinced that he had a divine mission to reinterpret the Bible and Christianity, effectively being the conduit for a new gospel. But, he denied that he was acting on his own hook. Instead, Swedenborg claimed that he was merely delivering information obtained by \u201cvisiting\u201d heaven and hell and conversing with angels and with God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Swedenborg was preoccupied with the hermetic notion of \u201ccorrespondence\u201d between human beings and the cosmos \u2013 an idea we sketch in the video \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NTYL6TRoA4k\">10 Arcane Words<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Several of his doctrines arguably had a neo-gnostic complexion. Some of them revolve around marital \u2013 and even <em>sexual<\/em> \u2013 concepts, as discussed in \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lfASE-8bQjc\">Top 10 \u2018Sex-Magic\u2019 Cults<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For all that, the influence of his Protestant-Lutheran background was still evident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After his death, a few of his disciples \u2013 referred to as \u201cSwedenborgians\u201d \u2013 founded the Church of the New Jerusalem, or the \u201cNew Church.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Swedenborgianism, in one form or other, attracted notables such as John Chapman, better known as \u201cJohnny Appleseed\u201d; Swedish entomologist Leonard Gyllenhaal, progenitor of actors Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal; Henry James, Sr., father of important writers Henry and William James; and popular health commentator Mehmet Cengiz \u00d6z, who is, in 2022, a senatorial candidate in Pennsylvania and who\u2019s known professionally as \u201cDr. Oz\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn16\">[16]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, Swedenborg also inspired a group of French esoterics, called the Illumin\u00e9s of Avignon. This was an assembly of Freemasons, led by \u201cDom\u201d Antoine-Joseph Pernety and Count Thaddeus Grabianka, who introduced the so-called \u201cSwedenborg Rite\u201d into their masonic rituals.<a href=\"#_ftn17\">[17]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As to whether Swedenborg the man had himself been a member of \u201cthe Brotherhood,\u201d the matter is hotly disputed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In her book <em>Emanuel Swedenborg, Secret Agent on Earth and in Heaven<\/em>,<a href=\"#_ftn18\">[18]<\/a> author Marsha Keith Schuchard has argued not only that Swedenborg was a Freemason, but also that he was a Jacobite spy in the employ of the Swedish government, during the rise of parliamentarianism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to her, Swedenborg was valued, in part, because of his access to \u201csecret Masonic networks\u201d which functioned as confidential message-relaying systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Schuchard places Swedenborg, an inveterate traveler, at the epicenter of prominent British Prime Minister Robert Walpole\u2019s intelligence apparatus in Hanover, Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If true, this would place Swedenborg in a class of adventurers and businessmen, operating during the heyday of mercantilism, that also veered over into spy craft. This would include Swiss-English agent John Coustos and Prussian antiquarian Philipp von Stosch \u2013 both of whom were Freemasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It also includes the even more mysterious Count of St. Germain,<a href=\"#_ftn19\">[19]<\/a> who was suspected of participating in Jacobite machinations during the 1740s.<a href=\"#_ftn20\">[20]<\/a> He claimed to have been one of the last surviving members of the Hungarian royal House of R\u00e1k\u00f3czi.<a href=\"#_ftn21\">[21]<\/a> \u201c\u2026[T]here is some evidence that Saint-Germain had worked for \u2026[Frederick the Great] as a secret diplomat (i.e. a spy) in France\u2026\u201d.<a href=\"#_ftn22\">[22]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The so-called <em>Grand Constitutions of 1786<\/em>, one of the important documents in the formation of the Scottish Rite, name Frederick as the head of that order. Masonic orders play a recurring part in state intrigues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">7. Robert Moray<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Recall that, as part of the far-flung occult connexions he maintained, Aleister Crowley was a high-degree Freemason. This is suggestive \u2013 not to say instructive \u2013 not least because (as we have seen) several other historically important members of the \u201cCraft\u201d also spent time as spies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For example, consider the case of Sir Robert Moray. Moray was in on the ground floor of what is termed \u201cspeculative\u201d masonry \u2013 as opposed to the \u201coperative\u201d variety in which <em>bona fide<\/em> builders and stone workers would have engaged.<a href=\"#_ftn23\">[23]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although the official inception of the Grand of Lodge of England wouldn\u2019t occur until June 24, 1717,<a href=\"#_ftn24\">[24]<\/a> Moray is recognized as having been among the men \u201craised\u201d to masons as part of \u201c[t]he first recorded initiation in England\u201d circa 1641.<a href=\"#_ftn25\">[25]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prior to that, Moray was part of a secretive coterie of Scottish military and statesmen who had some connexion to France. In fact, Moray supposedly had close contact with the distinguished Duke Armand Jean du Plessis, better known as Cardinal Richelieu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Richelieu was a shrewd political operator and managed to attain high offices in both the Catholic Church and in the government of France, where he was King Louis XIII\u2019s chief minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Among his accomplishments was that he catapulted France above Spain as the most powerful nation in Continental Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He did this, in part, by negotiating tactical alliances with numerous Protestant countries (including the Dutch Republic, England, and Sweden) to oppose the Hapsburgs, who controlled both the Iberian Peninsula and the Holy Roman Empire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To advance this master plan, Richelieu maintained a network of spies \u2013 among whom was Robert Moray. And among Moray\u2019s tasks seems to have been that of ingratiating himself with a militant group of lowland Presbyterian Scots called the \u201cCovenanters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Making short shrift of portions of Scottish history, we may summarize the situation. The Covenanters opposed Kings James VI (i.e., James I of England), and his son Charles I \u2013 at least, insofar as these rulers followed the precedent set by Henry VIII \u2013 and assumed control of the church in Scotland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, even though the Covenanters resented monarchial intrusions into church governance and theology, they recoiled in horror when Charles I was deposed and executed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, the Covenanters extended an olive branch to Charles\u2019s son. \u201cMoray helped to persuade the Prince of Wales, the future Charles II, to visit Scotland for his coronation as King of Scots at Scone on 1 January 1651.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn26\">[26]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Charles II was reigning when a group of twelve men, including Robert Moray, met at Gresham College in 1660 and founded The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. Moray was apparently instrumental in procuring the royal charter from the king.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As discussed in a previous video, the Royal Society\u2019s initial membership included Sir Robert Boyle, the alchemist who helped launch the modern science of chemistry.<a href=\"#_ftn27\">[27]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1688, Boyle\u2019s advocacy helped persuade Parliament to overturn a law forbidding the practice of alchemy. This paved the road for the incorporation of the Bank of England just a few years later, in 1694.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, it\u2019s tempting to say that part of Sir Robert Moray\u2019s legacy was the London-based money-power apparatus that, to a certain degree, supplanted the British monarchy starting in the 17<sup>th<\/sup> century.<a href=\"#_ftn28\">[28]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, Sir Moray was not the only \u201cbrother mason\u201d to have entered into intelligence work. Another notable was the ponderously named individual (Charles-Genevi\u00e8ve-Louis-Auguste-Andr\u00e9-Timoth\u00e9e d\u2019\u00c9on de Beaumont) later known as the Chevalier D\u2019Eon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We had occasion to name d\u2019Eon in \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lfASE-8bQjc\">Top 10 \u2018Sex-Magic\u2019 Cults<\/a>\u201d owing to his alleged affiliation with English poet, and Emanuel-Swedenborg discipline William Blake.<a href=\"#_ftn29\">[29]<\/a> In that place, we noted the chevalier\u2019s reputation as a \u201ccross-dresser\u201d \u2013 an usual pastime for an 18th-century gentleman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It turns out, however, that this fact \u2013 irrespective of its possible sexual connotations and implications \u2013 figures in at least one persistent tale of international intrigue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to the story, recounted in the chevalier\u2019s memoirs, the French King Louis XV wished to open a secret channel of communication with Elizabeth Romanov, then the Empress of Russia.&nbsp; The trouble \u2013 according to d\u2019Eon \u2013 was that England was using its influence to prevent French emissaries (on pain of death) from entering Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In order to circumvent English security, the Chevalier d\u2019Eon claimed that he impersonated a woman and inveigled himself into \u201cservice as a maid of honour to the Empress.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">D\u2019Eon was closely aligned with the House de Broglie, which eventually produced famed quantum physicist Louis de Broglie, who postulated the particle-wave duality of subatomic parts like electrons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For example, he and Charles-Fran\u00e7ois de Broglie, also known as the Marquis de Ruffec, were both operatives in Louis XV\u2019s clandestine \u201cKing\u2019s Secret\u201d group.&nbsp; Among other things, the marquis worked with playwright and spy Pierre Beaumarchais, composer of The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Together de Broglie and Beaumarchais lobbied the French government in support of the American Revolution. In fact, the duo was instrumental in convincing Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, to intervene on behalf of the Americans to the point where he assumed command of his own troops in the Continental Army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">6. Nicholas Roerich<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nicholas Roerich was a late-19<sup>th<\/sup> to early 20<sup>th<\/sup>-century Russian painter and occultist. He achieved early public acclaim both for his Symbolist oil compositions as well as for stage-costume designs \u2013 for example, in Igor Stravinsky\u2019s 1913 <em>The Rite of Spring<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He and his wife, Helena, became students of Buddhism, Hinduism, mythology, and Theosophy \u2013 which, of course, owed its formulation in large measure to Russian esoteric H. P. Blavatsky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Similarly to Blavatsky, the Roerichs claimed to be in contact with Himalayan-based \u201cAscended Masters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These \u201cMahatmas\u201d prompted them to create their own, mystical system known as \u201cAgni Yoga.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eventually, the pair traveled to United States by way of Finland and Great Britain. In America, the Roerichs impressed Freemason and financier Louis L. Horch, who \u2013 in 1928 \u2013 paid for the construction of the Roerich Museum in New York City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Among those who frequented the museum, then called the \u201cMaster Building,\u201d was masonic philosopher Manly Palmer Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nicholas Roerich also became a spiritual advisor to politician Henry A. Wallace. At the time, Wallace served as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt\u2019s secretary of agriculture. But he would become FDR\u2019s third-term vice president. Had he not been edged out by Harry S. Truman during the 1944 election cycle, Wallace might have become president of the United States when F.D.R. died in office in 1945.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because of his contacts, history, and mobility, Roerich was commissioned by Wallace to search southeast Asia in search of drought-resistant grasses to offset the negative effects of the \u201cDust Bowl.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, what he may really have been doing was attempting to secure local support for an Asian union \u2013 possibly around Eastern-messianic expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Roerich is now counted among the ranks of that motley assortment of characters who took up the reigns of what has been called the \u201cGreat Game\u201d after the British Empire went into eclipse. The phrase the \u201cGreat Game\u201d \u2013 a 19<sup>th<\/sup>-century coinage \u2013 was popularized by Freemason and novelist Rudyard Kipling, especially in his 1901 classic, <em>Kim<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The degree to which masonry interconnected with political intrigue was vividly, if fancifully, showcased in Kipling\u2019s 1888 short story, <em>The Man Who Would Be King<\/em>, which was adapted for film in 1975 by John Huston and featured actors Michael Caine, Sean Connery, and Christopher Plummer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also termed the \u201cTournament of Shadows,\u201d the overarching power struggle between the British and Russian empires revolved around the geopolitical significance of portions of Asia, including Afghanistan, India, and Tibet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201c\u2026[T]o many theorists [this is the]\u2026heartland of the world, and [it is] riddled with symbolism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pursuant to his mythological interests, Roerich appears to have been on the hunt for legendary locations supposedly imbued with magical powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For one thing, beneath the surface of Tibet \u2013 quite literally \u2013 was said to lie the mythical subterranean city of Agartha, supposed home to the Lord of the World.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Or, again, the \u201chidden paradise called Shambala\u201d has long been rumored to be in the vicinity. Some claim that it is an \u201cundiscovered city\u201d somewhere in the Himalayas \u201cin northern Tibet.\u201d Others \u2013 including Roerich \u2013 seem to have searched for it in the Altai Mountains, in an area sometimes referred to as the \u201cRussian Tibet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Interestingly, F.D.R. wasn\u2019t the only world leader to fix his attentions on Tibet. Under Soviet \u201cChairman\u201d Vladimir Lenin,<a href=\"#_ftn30\">[30]<\/a> the cryptographer, spy, and Tantric Buddhist Gleb Ivanovich Bokii also attempted to locate Shambala.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Almost incredibly, one of the stated aims was to \u201cmerge\u201d the sex-magical oriented \u201cKalachakra-tantra and ideas of Communism\u201d.<a href=\"#_ftn31\">[31]<\/a> For more on Tantra, see \u201c10 \u2018Sex-Magic\u2019 Cults.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Until his summary execution during Joseph Stalin\u2019s \u201cGreat Purge,\u201d Bokii was active in the U.S.S.R.\u2019s numerous pre-KGB-era secret-police outfits, including the Cheka, NKVD, and OGPU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the next decade, then-German F\u00fchrer Adolf Hitler sent his own exploratory party to the Tibetan region under zoologist Ernst Sch\u00e4fer. The expedition was operated under the auspices of SS-Reichsf\u00fchrer Heinrich Himmler\u2019s Ahnenerbe,<a href=\"#_ftn32\">[32]<\/a> which basically investigated what might be termed \u201cesoteric genealogy.\u201d The explorers sought to establish that \u201c\u2026.Tibet \u2026[was] the cradle of the Aryan race\u2026\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also operating in the Indian subcontinent was the eccentric, French-born Greek and occultist Maximiani Julia Portas. Portas later converted to Hinduism and changed her name to Savitri Devi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Her Hindu sympathies stemmed from an interpretation of the history and etymology of the word \u201cAryan.\u201d Devi perceived a connexion between the ancient, Indo-Iranian people group of that name and the racial identification embraced by National Socialist Germany, by way of French ethnologist Arthur de Gobineau and British philosopher Houston Stewart Chamberlain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">5. J. G. Bennett<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another interesting figure in the vicinity was John Godolphin Bennett. \u201cJ. G.\u201d Bennett was apparently a linguistic savant who was connected, in some fashion, to British intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After mastering Turkish, he was stationed in Constantinople (Istanbul) toward the tail end of World War One.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps significantly, later American Central Intelligence chief Allen Dulles was also in the same vicinity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIn 1916 Dulles joined the U.S. Foreign Service. \u2026He was assigned to Constantinople (later Istanbul) from October 1920 to April 1922, and then went to Washington, D.C., to become the State Department\u2019s specialist on the Near East.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn33\">[33]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While in Turkey, Dulles was mixed up in the hoopla surrounding the so-called <em>Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion<\/em>. Specifically, he was among the first opinionators to label the document spurious.<a href=\"#_ftn34\">[34]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <em>Protocols<\/em> are a whole other story. One commonly repeated theory holds that they are the creation of one Mathieu Golovinski, a Russian writer in France who acted as an agent for Pyotr Rachkovsky, head of the Tsar\u2019s \u201csecret police,\u201d the Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order (abbreviated \u201cOkhrana\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Like Dulles\u2019s experience, Bennett\u2019s time in Turkey resulted in his own promotion under General Edmund Allenby. (Allenby had commanded Colonel Thomas Edward \u201cT. E.\u201d Lawrence, who became famous as \u201cLawrence of Arabia.\u201d) Bennett \u201c&#8230;was recruited to be the head of Military Intelligence \u2018B\u2019 Division, with responsibility for the entire Middle Eastern region.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn35\">[35]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Following the European war and the Bolshevik revolution, Bennett was assigned to surveil Russian \u00e9migr\u00e9s and expatriates. This put him in contact with occultist G. I. Gurdjieff, and Gurdjieff\u2019s principal disciple, P. D. Ouspensky. Apparently, the trio were introduced to one another through Prince Sabahaddin de Neuch\u00e2tel. Sabahaddin was simultaneously the scion of the House of Osman, the then-ruling Ottoman dynasty, as well as a supposed anti-dynasty agitator and proponent of democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As an aside, the \u201cOsman\u201d name is intriguing. One recalls the following tidbit related to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. \u201cA member of a prominent Saudi Arabian family with links to the Texas Bush clan, Osama (Usama) bin Laden was known to the CIA in the 1980s as Colonel Tim Osman, a successful leader of the Mujahiddeen.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn36\">[36]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nevertheless, these associations \u2013 and an alleged near-death, out-of-body experience \u2013 warmed Bennett up to all things esoteric. He ended up delving into Gurdjieff\u2019s Fourth Way, Rudolf Steiner\u2019s Anthroposophy, H. P. Blavatsky\u2019s Theosophy, and even becoming a missionary for Indonesian guru Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo, bringing the \u201cSubud\u201d movement to Britain.<a href=\"#_ftn37\">[37]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">4. Theodor Reuss<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Turning to police spies, we ought to mention Theodor Reuss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Along with Carl Kellner, Reuss was one of the initial founders of the Ordo temple Orientis, or O.T.O.<a href=\"#_ftn38\">[38]<\/a> We mentioned this organization in connexion with Aleister Crowley, who ratcheted its sex obsessions into the stratosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For some of the lurid details, see \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lfASE-8bQjc\">Top 10 \u2018Sex-Magic\u2019 Cults<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But beyond their common interest in <em>magia sexualis<\/em> and Tantra, Crowley and Reuss shared another thing in common: supposed ties to intelligence work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the case of Reuss, this amounted to alleged involvement with the Prussian secret police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As writer (and former Blondie drummer) Gary Lachman notes, this put Reuss in the orbit of anarchists and socialists. In fact, Reuss was expelled from \u201c\u2026the English Socialist League for spying on Karl Marx\u2019s daughter Eleanor for the Germans\u2026\u201d.<a href=\"#_ftn39\">[39]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bear in mind that the Prussian secret police are identified by contemporary writers as having been the motivating force behind the infamous \u2013 and previously mentioned \u2013 document known as the <em>Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Almost universally \u2013 and variously \u2013 denounced as a \u201cforgery\u201d or a \u201choax,\u201d the <em>Protocols<\/em> are part of a spate of nineteenth-century, socio-politically supercharged manuscripts with questionable provenances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Interlude 1: William Thetford<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We hope to be able to enumerate ten of the most salient of these in a future video. But, for the time being, we observe that the nexus of intelligence with quasi-religious texts isn\u2019t confined to previous centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Consider, as just a single example, the ponderous tome titled <em>A Course in Miracles<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After the works of Alice Bailey and Edgar Cayce, the writings of Marilyn Ferguson<a href=\"#_ftn40\">[40]<\/a> and James Redfield,<a href=\"#_ftn41\">[41]<\/a> and alongside other supposedly \u201cchanneled\u201d treatises,<a href=\"#_ftn42\">[42]<\/a> such as those of Judy Zebra \u201cJ. Z.\u201d Knight<a href=\"#_ftn43\">[43]<\/a> and Dorothy Jane Roberts,<a href=\"#_ftn44\">[44]<\/a> <em>A Course in Miracles<\/em> has been hugely influential for \u201cNew Agers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The \u201ccourse\u201d contains material supposedly \u201cchanneled\u201d by a psychologist named Helen Shucman<a href=\"#_ftn45\">[45]<\/a> from an entity elsewhere identified as \u201cJesus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, Shucman merely dictated the words of a perceived \u201cinner voice\u201d to at least one other collaborator. According to the story, this person was her colleague, William Newton Thetford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And this is where things take a strange turn. For, consulting Thetford\u2019s autobiographical sketch, as presented on <em>A Course in Miracles<\/em>\u2019s website, we find that he was trained by Carl Rogers at the University of Chicago. Rogers \u2013 widely regarded was a board member for the Central-Intelligence-Agency-connected Human Ecology Fund, which appears to have been an MK-Ultra cover operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a testimony to the interconnectivity of the tangled web of characters we\u2019ve been surveying, we note \u2013 in passing \u2013 that the Cornell University-based Human Ecology Fund was also the institutional base for Louis Jolyon West. Dr. West engaged in public shadow boxing with L. Ron Hubbard\u2019s Church of Scientology and was also consulted as a \u201cbrain-washing expert\u201d in the trial of Patricia Campbell Hearst. Better known as \u201cPatty Heart,\u201d she is the granddaughter of publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, and become notorious when she was arrested for numerous crimes \u2013 including bank robberies \u2013 committed in connexion with a strange, leftist terror organization called the \u201cSymbionese Liberation Army.\u201d Heart\u2019s defense claimed that she had been mind-controlled through rape and other forms of coercion. Dr. West successfully petitioned then-President Jimmy Carter for commutation of her prison sentence and she was later pardoned by Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Back to Thetford: the psychologist further disclosed that he himself was recruited into the C.I.A. during the 1950s. According to Thetford\u2019s account, as retold via an interview with \u201ctranspersonal\u201d psychotherapist Frances Vaughan, the C.I.A. was expanding a battery of personality assessments that had originally been conceived by Harvard University Professor Henry Murray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During World War II, Murray worked for William \u201cWild Bill\u201d Donovan\u2019s Office of Strategic Services, or the O.S.S. Murrary is infamous for conducting a series of barbaric human \u201cexperiments\u201d on Harvard students \u2013 including the now-infamous so-called \u201cUnabo(b)mer,\u201d Theodore \u201cTed\u201d Kaczynski.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During Murrary\u2019s \u201cresearch project,\u201d an untold number of individuals were given mind-altering drugs, including LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, as well as psilocybin.<a href=\"#_ftn46\">[46]<\/a> Others were \u2013 essentially \u2013 emotionally traumatized. It is entirely possible that a few hapless \u201cvolunteers\u201d were subjected to both pharmacological and psychological abuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As journalist Alexander Cockburn wrote in one <em>Los Angeles Times<\/em> article in 1999: \u201cWhat did Murray give Kaczynski? Did the experiment\u2019s long-term effects help tilt him into the Unabomber\u2019s homicidal rampages? The CIA\u2019s mind experiment program was vast. How many other human time bombs were thus primed? How many of them have exploded?\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn47\">[47]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to an article in Psychology Today, \u201cMurray \u2026supervised psychoactive drug experiments, including \u2026[those of psychedelic-drug advocate Timothy Leary].\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn48\">[48]<\/a> Leary once publicly stated that he had long \u201c\u2026been an admirer of Aleister Crowley\u201d and believed that he had \u201c\u2026carried on much of the work that he started over a hundred years ago\u2026\u201d.<a href=\"#_ftn49\">[49]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In any case, Murray\u2019s legacy was continued (in part) by John Gittinger, best known for developing a \u201cPersonality Assessment System\u201d that C.I.A. used for creating and exploiting psychological weaknesses in targets of espionage or in recruitment scenarios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thetford states: The P.A.S. \u201c\u2026was so accurate that I began working with \u2026[Gittinger] and others to further develop and refine it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a final point, recall Helen Shucman\u2019s claim to have heard a disembodied voice in her head. It is interesting to consider this alongside a further datum known as the \u201cmicrowave auditory effect,\u201d whereby \u201ccommunications are generated directly inside the human head without the need of any receiving electronic device.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was described in 1961 by biologist Allan H. Frey. At the time Frey published a paper on the phenomenon \u2013 now sometimes called the \u201cFrey Effect \u2013 he was employed by General Electric\u2019s Advanced Electronics Center at the MK-Ultra-connected Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.<a href=\"#_ftn50\">[50]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The power to induce the effect in controllable and predictable ways was supposedly harnessed by Joseph C. Sharp, a neuropsychiatrist working at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In other words, we have an ostensible C.I.A. operative named William N. Thetford who, by his own testimony, was a participant in MK-Ultra psychological experiments. He\u2019s working closely to \u201crecord,\u201d edit, and publicize what would \u2013 partially through the promotion of media gurus like Oprah Winfrey \u2013 become hugely influential text of New-Age spirituality. And this text was allegedly obtained through a process oddly reminiscent of the \u201cFrey Effect\u201d \u2013 a radar-induced sensation of \u201cinner communication\u201d that had just been identified prior to Helen Shucman\u2019s adventures in \u201cinner dictation.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn51\">[51]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The case is hardly the only curious interstice between \u201cintelligence\u201d and contemporary culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As mentioned before on this channel, consider (in this vein) a man who may have inspired the fictional, <em>Marvel Comics<\/em> character Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark, billionaire playboy and tech savant \u2026and the real-life identity for the superhero known as Iron Man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. Jack Parsons<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of course, I have in mind the American, California Institute of Technology-associated rocket scientist John Whiteside Parsons, better known as \u201cJack.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Given his possible inspirational r\u00f4le for the movie representation of Howard Stark, I\u2019m sure it\u2019s just an extraordinary coinkydink that his given name, at birth, was \u201cMarvel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He was also a principal member, and later head, of the so-called \u201cAgape Lodge,\u201d a United States branch of Aleister Crowley\u2019s Ordo Templi Orientis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By day, he made numerous discoveries pertinent to the manufacture of both liquid-fueled and solid-state aeronautical engines. Parsons was one of the founders of Caltech\u2019s Jet Propulsion Lab. One important series of test explosions was fired off on Halloween (no less) in 1936. The event, which was photographed for posterity, is known as the \u201cNativity\u201d and is annually recreated, <em>in memoriam<\/em>.<a href=\"#_ftn52\">[52]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many of Parsons\u2019 engineering projects were conducted under the directorship of Hungarian-born American mathematician and physicist Theodore von K\u00e1rm\u00e1n.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to an article published by Britain\u2019s august Royal Society \u2013 which we mentioned throughout \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oYEyvrlL-44\">Top 10 Gold-Making Alchemists<\/a>\u201d \u2013 \u201c\u2026the most famous of [von K\u00e1rm\u00e1n\u2019s] ancestors is Yehuda Loew ben Bezalel, the \u2018Exalted\u2019 Rabbi of Prague, a famous sixteenth-century scholar\u2026 who is \u2026credited by legend with the creation of the Golem of Prague\u2026\u201d.<a href=\"#_ftn53\">[53]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By night, Parsons accentuated these tantalizing biographical details by performing \u201csex-magickal\u201d (<em>sic<\/em>) rituals, some of which were aimed at summoning elemental spirits. The culmination of his efforts was the \u201cBablon Working,\u201d the stated goal of which was the incarnation of a quasi-demonic being on earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For more on this aspect of Parsons\u2019 life, see our video \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lfASE-8bQjc\">Top 10 \u2018Sex-Magic\u2019 Cults<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eventually, and perhaps inevitably, Parsons\u2019 path crossed with the Hughes Aircraft Company, originally founded by eccentric engineer and entrepreneur Howard Hughes. Parsons obtained a Hughes chemical-manufacturing contract. While under Hughes\u2019s employ, he was accused of document theft. This led to charges of corporate espionage and allegations that he was spying for the newly created nation of Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To complicate matters further, Parsons was \u2013 for a time \u2013 romantically involved with one Sara Northrup. Sara was the sister of Parsons\u2019 first wife, Helen Northrup. Sara eventually broke things off with Jack and eloped with then-fellow thelemite, and later Church of Scientology founder, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, better known as L. Ron Hubbard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As if the love triangles weren\u2019t bewildering enough, a tapestry of espionage intrigue was superimposed on the situation. Firstly, Hubbard denounced Sara as a Communist spy. Though, Hubbard\u2019s allegations have largely been dismissed \u2013 and appear to have been rejected by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents \u2013 as sour grapes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Secondly, Hubbard himself was connected to U.S. Naval Intelligence. He would later claim that his membership, along with Parsons and Northrup, in the Agape Lodge had merely been part of a covert sting operation geared toward eradicating \u201cblack-magic\u201d cults in California.<a href=\"#_ftn54\">[54]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although officially exonerated of wrongdoing himself, Parsons\u2019 reputation \u2013 and acquaintances \u2013 resulted in the permanent revocation of his all-important security clearances. He was compelled into ancillary fields (such as pyrotechnics) to continue exercising his peculiar skill sets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ultimately, Parsons lost his life conducting some (obviously perilous) experiment in his home. Explanations ranged from the pedestrian \u2013 such as hastiness due to the pressures of meeting shipment demand for an order of fireworks from a Hollywood movie studio \u2013 to the exotic \u2013 such as the speculation that Parsons was attempting to animate a Frankenstein-like creature called a homunculus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of course, there were also those who believed Parsons had been murdered. Hypotheses included that there was some anti-Zionist conspiracy motivated by Parsons\u2019 cooperation with Israel; that various industrial tycoons \u2013 including Hughes \u2013 might have been looking to rid themselves of their competition; or even that the Los Angeles Police Department may have sought vengeance for Parsons\u2019 r\u00f4le in the conviction of Captain Earle E. Kynette, who had been charged with conspiracy in an attempted car bombing directed against a former detective (Harry J. Raymond) who had blown the whistle on law-enforcement corruption.<a href=\"#_ftn55\">[55]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This subplot \u201cthickens,\u201d as it were, when one discovers that Captain Kynette didn\u2019t simply preside over beat cops. He was the head of the L.A.P.D.\u2019s \u201cintelligence unit.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn56\">[56]<\/a> He and his officers were themselves referred to in press clippings as \u201cpolice spies.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn57\">[57]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. John Dee<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">John Dee already had a reputation as a skilled astrologer, cartographer, and mathematician when he acquired a curious book that may have assisted \u2013 or even inspired \u2013 him in a more covert path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The book, titled <em>Steganographia<\/em>,<a href=\"#_ftn58\">[58]<\/a> had been written circa 1500 by the mysterious Benedictine monk Johannes Trithemius.<a href=\"#_ftn59\">[59]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The contents \u2013 and significance \u2013 of the book are still being debated (some 500 years later). But it\u2019s clear that it uses <em>ostensibly<\/em> <em>magical<\/em> emblems and formul\u00e6 to convey groundbreaking techniques in cryptography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In fact, the word \u201csteganography\u201d (albeit uncommon in conversation around the water cooler) has entered English, where it refers to \u201cthe practice of concealing messages or information within other nonsecret text or data.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn60\">[60]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And this appears to be precisely how John Dee applied the procedure. 17<sup>th<\/sup>-century English polymath Robert Hooke,<a href=\"#_ftn61\">[61]<\/a> writing at the turn of the 18<sup>th<\/sup> century, \u201csuggested, in the chapter <em>Of Dr. Dee\u2019s Book of Spirits<\/em>, that John Dee made use of Trithemian steganography to conceal his communication with Queen Elizabeth I.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn62\">[62]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this way, Dee \u2013 if I may be forgiven the expression \u2013 took a page out of the book of <em>yet another<\/em> Renaissance \u201cmagus\u201d who had been influenced by Trithemius, the German polymath Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. Like Dee, whom he inspired, Agrippa was fascinated by codes and by all things esoteric, on which he wrote the seminal <em>Three Books of Occult Philosophy<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And like his later, English counterpart (Dee), Agrippa also seems to have been connected to the world of espionage, and may have functioned as a \u201cdiplomatic spy\u201d for Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I.<a href=\"#_ftn63\">[63]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Likewise, Dee seems to have at one time operated as an \u201cintelligencer\u201d for the English Crown. Reportedly, when Sir Francis Walsingham was appointed chief spy Queen Elizabeth, the r\u00f4le for which he is principally remembered, \u201che found it necessary to consult with the only man in England who understood encryption ciphers and who (legend has it) had long since served as the queen\u2019s spy: John Dee.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn64\">[64]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is an \u201cidea of Dee as a roving James Bond of Tudor times\u201d which, though it is \u201cfar-fetched\u201d in certain respects \u2013 for example, Dee was certainly not regarded as a lady\u2019s man \u2013 nevertheless has a \u201cbasis\u201d in fact and history.<a href=\"#_ftn65\">[65]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For example, and remarkably, according to author Richard Deacon,<a href=\"#_ftn66\">[66]<\/a> \u201c\u2026twentieth-century author\u201d Ian Fleming \u201cunconsciously [borrowed] as a code name for his hero the very signature used by Bond\u2019s Elizabethan counterpart \u2013 007.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn67\">[67]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Though Deacon admits that, overall, \u201cdespite his signature of 007, \u2026[Dee] can better be compared to Admiral Sir Reginald Hall, Director of Naval Intelligence in World War I, than to James Bond.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn68\">[68]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cUnlike Bond, he was not directly involved in the maritime defence (<em>sic<\/em>) of the nation, but he was able to lend his technical and navigational know-how to sailors at the court of Elizabeth.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn69\">[69]<\/a> To extend the analogy to Fleming-inspired characters, \u201c[m]aybe he was a little more like Q than Bond\u2026\u201d.<a href=\"#_ftn70\">[70]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Interlude 2: Francis Bacon<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We might as well continue this Elizabethan saga by speaking of the courtier to whom, according to Masonic philosopher Manly Palmer Hall, John Dee might have passed his torch of occult knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Francis Bacon<a href=\"#_ftn71\">[71]<\/a> was a late-16<sup>th<\/sup> to early 17<sup>th<\/sup>-century English lawyer, philosopher, and politician. Intellectually, he was a trailblazing British empiricist. He articulated a method of reasoning that is still referred to a \u201cBaconian induction\u201d and was a forerunner of what evolved into the \u201cscientific method.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At his high point under King James I, Bacon became Lord High Chancellor. But his career as a member of court ended on a sour note. Bacon\u2019s longtime enemy, the famed jurist Sir Edward Coke, brought numerous \u201ccorruption\u201d charges \u2013 including accepting brides \u2013 against him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Beyond his duties as a statesman, and seemingly apart from his r\u00f4le in the development of experimental science, Bacon may also have been an esoteric adept. As noted, Freemasonic writer Manly Hall, possibly drawing upon a tradition that was transmitted to him via Max Heindel\u2019s<a href=\"#_ftn72\">[72]<\/a> Rosicrucian Fellowship, represents Bacon as the inheritor of an occult gnosis that was transmitted to him by John Dee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is a story for another time. But, what is interesting from the standpoint of the current topic, is that Lord Bacon\u2019s younger brother, Anthony, was undeniably a member of the Elizabethan-era spy network headed by the previously mentioned Sir Francis Walsingham.<a href=\"#_ftn73\">[73]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Bacon family was a powerful force in England at the time. And it raises the question of how much sharing of information \u2013 and vision \u2013 might have occurred between the brothers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this respect, the Bacon family bears some similarity to the Dulles family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In twentieth-century America, of course, Allen Welsh Dulles \u2013 having been instrumental in the wartime Office of Strategic Services and its successor, the Central Intelligence Agency \u2013 was indisputably one of the United States\u2019s highest-ranking spies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the same time, his older brother, John Foster Dulles, was an attorney and high-level political insider. He was the Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, worked closely with Republican party boss Thomas E. Dewey, and was a key player in the U.S.\u2019s early participation in the United Nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Dulles brothers coordinated in at least two covert actions, both considered by Masonic President Harry S. Truman but ultimately authorized and implemented by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first was Operation Ajax, by which the C.I.A. and Britain\u2019s MI6 \u2013 in 1953 \u2013 overthrew the democratically elected Iranian leader Mohammad Mosaddegh and installed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in his place. &nbsp;The second was Operation PBSuccess which, the following year, ousted democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo \u00c1rbenz and installed a military junta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Benjamin Franklin<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Speaking of coups and rebellions, and as we teased in our introduction, we would be remiss if we didn\u2019t say something about one of America\u2019s homegrown revolutionaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that brings us (at last) to number one. Benjamin Franklin, of course, was an 18<sup>th<\/sup>-century polymath who is most famous for his r\u00f4le in securing the United States as its own nation, independent of England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As one of the country\u2019s pre\u00ebminent statesmen, he was a cosigner for each of three, \u00fcber-important, formative documents: the <em>Declaration of Independence<\/em>, the <em>U.S Constitution<\/em>, and the <em>Treaty of Paris<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s worth mentioning that Franklin arguably displays numerous similarities to Francis Bacon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For example, along with his Italian contemporary, Galileo, Bacon is regarded as a father of modern experimental science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Similarly, having made contributions to the studies of electricity and oceanography, Benjamin Franklin was also at the forefront of investigation during his era. Several of his inventions, including bifocal lenses and the lightning rod, are still in use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moreover, according to Baconian legend, the man known variously as Lord Verulam and the Viscount St. Alban, figures in Rosicrucianism and the beginning of Freemasonry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Likewise, Franklin not only <em>became<\/em> a mason, but he was elevated to the position of <em>master<\/em> at lodges both in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as well as in Paris, France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There, in the \u201cLodge of the Nine Sisters\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn74\">[74]<\/a> \u2013 which (coincidentally or not) later became an important center for the bloody French Revolution<a href=\"#_ftn75\">[75]<\/a> \u2013 he was initiated by Court de Gebelin, fountainhead of Western-occult fascination with the Tarot deck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Franklin later personally initiated Fran\u00e7ois-Marie Arouet, better known as the satirist Voltaire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In truth, freemasonry may have just been the tip of the iceberg of Franklin\u2019s occult involvement. Though, a word of caution is in order. The word \u201coccult\u201d has a range of meanings.<a href=\"#_ftn76\">[76]<\/a> We discussed some of these in \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NTYL6TRoA4k\">10 Arcane Words<\/a>.\u201d For a more detailed survey, see that presentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, somewhere along the \u201coccult spectrum\u201d lies the Bavarian Illuminati, to which Franklin can be connected through pamphleteer Thomas Paine.<a href=\"#_ftn77\">[77]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Paine was on intimate terms with one Nicolas Bonneville (and, incidentally, with Bonneville\u2019s wife). Prior to the order\u2019s office dissolution in 1787, Bonneville had been converted to Illuminism by Adam Weishaupt\u2019s chief lieutenant, Christian Bode.<a href=\"#_ftn78\">[78]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the same time, allegedly, the seeming sober-minded politician and printer was himself a member of a quasi-Satanic group known colloquially as the \u201cHell-Fire Club.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Technically, the order to which Franklin is said to have belonged alternately called itself the \u201cBrotherhood\u201d or \u201cKnights of St. Francis of Wycombe\u201d and the \u201cMonks of Medmenham\u201d \u2013 both phrases intended as parodies of Christian (especially <em>Catholic<\/em>) religiosity. But the label \u201cHell-Fire Club\u201d is the one that has stuck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It turns out that there was a predecessor club by that exact name. This original incarnation goes back to a curious, 18<sup>th<\/sup>-century English duke and playboy named Philip Wharton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At various times, and somewhat like the later Frenchman who called himself \u201cL\u00e9o Taxil\u201d (for the details, see \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oYEyvrlL-44\">Top 10 Gold-Making Alchemists of All Time<\/a>\u201d), the paradoxical Wharton posed as both friend and enemy of Freemasonry. Supposedly, he once presided over the Premiere Grand Lodge of England as well as the Grande Loge de France.<a href=\"#_ftn79\">[79]<\/a> However, after his alleged expulsion, he founded an even <em>more<\/em> secret society. Wharton ran this supposedly \u201canti-Masonic\u201d organization \u2013 called the <em>Gormogons<\/em> \u2013 along with Andrew Michael Ramsay, a Scotsman known by the French title <em>Chevalier<\/em>, that is, \u201cKnight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a famous speech delivered in 1736, Ramsay connected Freemasonry to a group of Catholic crusaders. Later typically identified as the Knights Templar, the military order to which Ramsay referred was said to have passed its mysteries on to those men who founded masonry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This idea, called \u201cTemplarism,\u201d is detectable in esoteric degrees of \u201cappendant\u201d societies, such as the York Rite which offers a set of \u201cKnights Templar\u201d degrees. But even within the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite<a href=\"#_ftn80\">[80]<\/a> \u2013 which, in an apparent nod to our Scottish Chevalier, is sometimes designated by the French word <em>\u00c9cossais<\/em> \u2013 one finds shades of Templarism, for example in the so-called Knight Rose Croix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Politically, Ramsay was also a Jacobite. This group, whose name comes from the Latin <em>Jacobus<\/em>, lent its support to James II, the Catholic king of England who was deposed by Parliament during the \u201cGlorious Revolution\u201d and replaced by the Protestant William of Orange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There has long been speculation that certain Jacobites, like the Chevalier Ramsay \u2013 with the possible assistance of French Jesuits \u2013 attempted to rewrite various Freemasonic rituals. Their presumed intention was to introduce these reformulations back to England to increase public support for the ousted House of Stuart and possibly for Catholicism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At least, this line \u2013 that Freemasonry had been coopted by agents within the Vatican\u2019s militant Society of Jesus \u2013 was pushed by the likes of Bode, Bonneville, and Weishaupt. These men billed the Illuminati as the anti-dote. Its anti-authoritarianism was pro-revolution and equally opposed to kings <em>and<\/em> popes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Philip Wharton himself had Jacobite sympathies for much of his life. And Wharton was friends with James II\u2019s son, James Francis Edward Stuart, known variously as the \u201cOld Pretender\u201d or as the rightful <em>King James III<\/em> \u2013 depending on the side one favored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Late in his short life, Wharton seems to have abandoned the Jacobite cause and (like Emanuel Swedenborg) may have been a spy for English Prime Minister Robert Walpole. Walpole was a stalwart advocate for the Georgian Kings of the German House of Hanover, and he employed numerous covert agents, including the ostensible <em>anti<\/em>-Jacobite George Dodington, 1st Baron Melcombe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Supposedly, George Dodington <em>also<\/em> happened to be a member of Francis Dashwood\u2019s circle. When Dashwood rebooted Wharton\u2019s Hell-Fire Club, beginning at London\u2019s George and Vulture tavern, Dodington reportedly signed up, along with other influential persons \u2013 including Benjamin Franklin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is interesting for many reasons, not least of which is writer Richard Deacon\u2019s contention that the club served as a \u201ccover\u201d for \u201cBritish Intelligence\u201d and, in effect, became a \u201c\u2026centre of English espionage.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn81\">[81]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And Benjamin Franklin was right in the thick of things. In fact, according to one researcher, Franklin came to England in 1758 expressly \u201c\u2026to discuss the future of the American colonies with Dashwood.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn82\">[82]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Additionally, Franklin had close dealings in Paris with Edward Bancroft, who was later unmasked as a double agent. It is disputed whether Franklin knew of Bancroft\u2019s intrigues or not.<a href=\"#_ftn83\">[83]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As if that weren\u2019t enough, Franklin appears to have known and corresponded with the Chevalier d\u2019Eon, who we covered earlier. According to Deacon: \u201cThe Philadelphia philosopher and the chevalier became friendly in the 1770s when the French master spy was assigned to London and promptly joined the Hell-Fire Club.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All this doesn\u2019t <em>necessarily<\/em> mean that Franklin was a spy himself, that he had treasonous designs, or that he was working <em>for<\/em> the British. Tho, historian Cecil B. Currey raises this precise possibility in his 1972 study, <em>Code Number 72 \/ Ben Franklin: Patriot or Spy?<\/em><a href=\"#_ftn84\">[84]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Admittedly, Franklin was cunning. It could be that he was hedging his bets if the Colonists were defeated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alternatively, Franklin may have been conspiring <em>with<\/em> a group of supporters inside George III\u2019s own government. In this regard it\u2019s worth recalling that Freemasonry extended throughout Britain and its colonies. American lodges frequently obtained their \u201ccharters,\u201d or their authority to operate, from either the Grand Lodge of England.<a href=\"#_ftn85\">[85]<\/a> So, that there existed some transatlantic, supranational confederation is not outside the realm of possibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One does wonder, however, just what Franklin was doing cavorting with the \u201cHell-Fire\u201d group, if not simply using their meeting place as a convenient locale for hatching political schemes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It should be remembered that Franklin was something of a ladies\u2019 man. He himself, in his <em>Autobiography<\/em>, admitted his weakness for the opposite sex, writing that he was \u201c\u2026hurried \u2026frequently into intrigues with low women that fell in [his] way.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn86\">[86]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And his womanizing ways continued well beyond his youth. As one crude, 18<sup>th<\/sup>-century poem put it: \u201cFranklin, tho plagued with fumbling age \/ Needs nothing to excite him. \/ But is too ready to engage \/ When younger arms invite him.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn87\">[87]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The received, and sanitized, view of the club is that it was characterized by \u201critual comedy, &#8230;banqueting and drinking, &#8230;and &#8230;wenching &#8230;\u201d.<a href=\"#_ftn88\">[88]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Though, to read Daniel Mannix\u2019s account, \u201c\u2026the Black Mass was celebrated and a solemn sacrifice [was] made to the devil of the virginity of the young girls lured into the cave system\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn89\">[89]<\/a> \u2013 a reference to the chalk caves directly beneath St. Lawrence Church, in West Wycombe, Southeast England, where Dashwood hosted Hell-Fire revels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This darker complexion to the story might be dismissed as so much scandalmongering against the esteemed author of the <em>Poor Richard\u2019s Almanack<\/em> were it not for an odd discovery made in 1998 by workmen renovating Franklin\u2019s old digs at #36 Craven Street in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201c\u2026[O]ver 1200 pieces of [human] bone were retrieved\u2026 [f]rom a one metre wide, one metre deep pit\u2026\u201d.<a href=\"#_ftn90\">[90]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the builders who made the grisly discovery exclaimed: \u201cIt was like a horror movie\u201d!<a href=\"#_ftn91\">[91]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to the <em>London Times<\/em>: \u201cMost of the bones show signs of having been dissected, sawn or cut. One skull has been drilled with several holes.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn92\">[92]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the time, \u201cPaul Knapman, the Westminster coroner,\u201d said in an official statement: \u201cI cannot totally discount the possibility of a crime.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn93\">[93]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, this angle was never investigated. According to the Benjamin Franklin House website: Since it was \u201cdetermined that the bones were more than 100 years old \u2026an inquest was not required.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn94\">[94]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Instead, is casually asserted that the bones are the \u201cremnants of an anatomy school run from the House by William Hewson, son-in-law of Franklin\u2019s landlady, Margaret Stevenson.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn95\">[95]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even if this nonchalant reply is accepted at face value, one might worry that it glosses over several important points. For instance, there\u2019s the issue of just where the bodies were obtained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The further worry about why the remains of fellow human beings were so callously discarded is usually \u201canswered\u201d with the observation that the basement pit was \u201cprobably\u201d used \u201cto hide [the bones] because grave robbing was illegal.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn96\">[96]<\/a> But, this solves nothing \u2013 unless, that is, learning about a Founding Father\u2019s complicity in criminal grave robbery and evidence tampering is only worth an insouciant shrug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>That<\/em> Hewson lived at the house for two years is mentioned in the usual retelling. But <em>why<\/em> Franklin shared quarters with him is evidently a question that is not interesting enough to answer. Likewise, the obvious follow-up query \u2013 namely, why Franklin would permit his home to be converted into a makeshift \u201canatomy school\u201d \u2013 is apparently also of little to no consequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While one wrestles with these lacunae, commentators on the \u201cCraven Street Bones\u201d are busying themselves displaying an inexplicable omniscience in virtue of their (typically solemn) assurances that our American hero had <em>nothing to do<\/em> with the unsanctioned surgeries, themselves. Perish the thought!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Though, how Franklin\u2019s aloofness and innocence could be ascertained without an investigation is anyone\u2019s guess. Doubtless it is an inference from axioms such as that \u201che that would live in peace &amp; at ease, must not speak all he knows or judge all he sees.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn97\">[97]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nevertheless, on pain of being labeled gadflies, we must press this inquiry a bit further. After all, William Hewson was said to have been trained by anatomist William Hunter. In an article published in 2010 by the <em>Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine<\/em>, one may read a \u201c<em>prima facie<\/em> case\u201d that Hunter, along with accomplice William Smellie, \u201cwere responsible for a series of 18th-century \u2026murders of pregnant women, with a death total greater than the combined murders committed by the famous 19th-century murderers, Burke and Hare, and Jack the Ripper.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn98\">[98]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not only this, but \u2013 as mentioned in \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oYEyvrlL-44\">Top 10 Gold-Making Alchemists of All Time<\/a>\u201d \u2013 Freemasonic reference materials ritualize the word \u201cautopsy.\u201d This implies that, in a bizarre \u2013 and arguably twisted \u2013 way, some Masons (perhaps like Franklin) may view this procedure both medically and esoterically. But, <em>surely<\/em>, there\u2019s nothing to see, here!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Conclusion<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lest viewers conclude that these odd \u2013 and frankly alarming \u2013 connexions are relics of the past, we have only to ponder the career of New-World-Order booster George Herbert Walker Bush.<a href=\"#_ftn99\">[99]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bush had moved in upper-level political orbits since at least the early 1950s, when he worked to support the presidential campaign of Dwight D. Eisenhower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But he was introduced (in earnest) into federal positions by Richard M. Nixon, who appointed him the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and chair of the Republican National Committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Coincidentally or not, Bush\u2019s tenure corresponded to revelations about a sensational (and apparently bungled) burglary attempt \u2013 and ensuing coverup \u2013 at the RNC\u2019s counterpart Democratic National Committee\u2019s headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. The whole sordid business involved key personnel in Nixon\u2019s Whitehouse and resulted in the president\u2019s unprecedented resignation in 1974.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reportedly, Bush\u2019s profile was high enough throughout this period that he was considered for the vice presidency by Both Nixon and Gerald R. Ford.<a href=\"#_ftn100\">[100]<\/a> It\u2019s well known that Bush eventually <em>did<\/em> become V.P. under Ronald Reagan. And he nearly became president on March 30, 1981, when a would-be assassin\u2019s bullets crippled White House Press Secretary James Brady and nearly claimed Reagan\u2019s life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s less well known that the Bushes had ties to the family of accused shooter, John Hinckley Jr. According to a New York Times article, dated April Fool\u2019s Day, 1981: \u201cThe eldest Hinckley child, Scott, \u2026 is \u2026a friend of Neil Bush, the son of Vice President Bush.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn101\">[101]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Neil Bush and Scott Hinckley were such close friends that the two had planned to attend a dinner together \u201c\u2026at the young Bushes\u2019 home \u2026but,\u201d we\u2019re told, \u201cthe dinner was canceled after the shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The \u201celder\u201d Bush, who would in 1989 succeed Ronald Reagan and become the 41<sup>st<\/sup> president of the United States, had been tapped in 1976 by then-President Gerald Ford to assume headship of the Central Intelligence Agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You\u2019ll recall that Gerald Rudolph Ford \u2013 whose birth name had been \u201cLeslie Lynch King Jr.\u201d \u2013 had also been a member of the President\u2019s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, better known as the \u201cWarren Commission.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Interestingly, although Bush denied having had any intelligence experience prior to his becoming chief spook, a provocative memo from longtime Federal Bureau of Investigation Director, J. Edgar Hoover, suggests otherwise. \u201cHoover reported that, on the day after JFK\u2019s murder, the bureau had provided two individuals with briefings. One was \u2018Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency.\u2019 The other: \u2018Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency.\u2019\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn102\">[102]<\/a>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just a year prior to Bush\u2019s appointment as DCI, Ford was himself the target of two assassination attempts, just a few weeks apart. The first, on September 5, 1975, involved Manson-family member Lynette \u201cSqueaky\u201d Fromme and occurred in Sacramento, California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We mentioned Charles Manson in \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lfASE-8bQjc\">Top 10 \u2018Sex-Magic\u2019 Cults<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The second assassination attempt, September 22, 1975, took place in San Francisco in front of the St. Francis Hotel. This public attention on the name \u201cSaint Francis\u201d reminded synchromystic extraordinaire, James Shelby Downard, of the Hell-Fire Club which \u2013 as we discussed \u2013 jokingly called its members monks of \u201cSaint Francis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One Sara Jane Moore was arrested and served thirty-two years for the crime, until she was paroled in 2007 \u2013 during the presidency of George W. Bush. Moore, who was at one point an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had peculiar ties to William Randolph Hearst\u2019s organization \u201cPeople In Need\u201d and to the Patty Hearst case. According to Time Magazine, Moore made national headlines \u201cin the early 1950s by collapsing \u2026in front of the White House \u2026suffering from amnesia\u201d.<a href=\"#_ftn103\">[103]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s probably not worth looking into. Nor, I suppose, is it newsworthy that George Herbert Walker Bush had connexions to so many high-level political killings \u2013 or attempts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As stated, and following the bizarre pair of failed assassinations on Ford, Bush, \u201cSr.\u201d served as director of central intelligence. His assumption of that title came fast on the heels of previous DCI William Colby\u2019s surprisingly cooperative testimony during Congressional investigations into C.I.A. activities.<a href=\"#_ftn104\">[104]<\/a> &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Colby himself was found dead under suspicious circumstances in 1996. Oh! I almost forgot to mention the occult angle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Along with his son, and 43<sup>rd<\/sup> President, George Walker, as well as numerous other policy-making heavy hitters (like \u201cDubya\u2019s\u201d opponent in the 2004 presidential election, John Forbes Kerry), George Herbert Walker Bush was a member of the ultra-exclusive, and spookily named, secret society \u201cSkull and Bones\u201d operating at Yale University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They meet in a walled-off building affectionately referred to as the \u201cTomb.\u201d Supposedly, the Bonesmen have a collection of human skulls \u2013 including those previously resting on the shoulders of famous Apache elder Geronimo and of the previously mentioned Mexican revolutionary born Jos\u00e9 Doroteo Arango, but better known as \u201cPancho Villa.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But <em>that<\/em> establishment-recruitment mechanism, which masquerades as a college fraternity, will have to be the subject of future study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you found something of interest in this presentation, please \u201cLike\u201d the video. If you would care to see additional content, don\u2019t forget to \u201cSubscribe\u201d and turn on \u201cNotifications.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Copyright 2023; all rights reserved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> Some figures appear to have been accused as part of character-assassination campaigns. This is the current line taken, for example, on the late-19<sup>th<\/sup>-to-20<sup>th<\/sup>-c. Russian monk and mystic Grigori Efimovich Rasputin. He had a strange and multifarious reputation that included accusations of espionage, sexual deviancy, and an almost supernatural (though plainly not inexhaustible) ability resist death. However, these claims are now usually explained as having been defamatory attacks launched by Tsarist enemies during the tumultuous year 1917, which saw two successive revolutions. See, e.g., Albinko Hasic, \u201c5 Myths and Truths About Rasputin,\u201d <em>Time Magazine<\/em>, Dec. 29, 2016, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/4606775\/5-myths-rasputin\/\">https:\/\/time.com\/4606775\/5-myths-rasputin\/<\/a>&gt;. Be that as it may, Rasputin does seem to have been involved in political intrigues. Additionally, there are those who still advocate for there having been <em>some<\/em> connexion to intelligence. According to press reports, Rasputin may even have been killed by British agent Oswald Rayner. See Karyn Miller, \u201cBritish spy \u2018fired the shot that finished off Rasputin\u2019,\u201d <em>Telegraph<\/em> (U.K.), Sept. 19, 2004, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/education\/3344528\/British-spy-fired-the-shot-that-finished-off-Rasputin.html\">https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/education\/3344528\/British-spy-fired-the-shot-that-finished-off-Rasputin.html<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a> This is far from uncontroversial. <em>Wikipedia<\/em> (\u201cA\u2234A\u2234,\u201d Apr. 2, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/A%E2%88%B4A%E2%88%B4\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/A%E2%88%B4A%E2%88%B4<\/a>&gt;) provides a useful summary of the options. One possibility is that the phrase is actually Greek, rather than Latin. On this view, A\u2234A\u2234 stands for \u0386\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u0391\u03c1\u03b3\u03cc\u03bd (<em>Astron Argon<\/em> or <em>Aster Argos<\/em>), which still translate to \u201cSilver Star.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This proposal is credited to James Eshelman, who gives an explanation based upon Jewish numerology (the Gematria of Kabbalah).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A variant on this Kabbalistic theme has it that A\u2234A\u2234 is a reference to the semitic phrase <em>Arikh Anpin<\/em>, sometimes referred to as the \u201cMacroprosopus\u201d (as in the Christian Cabalist Christian Knorr von Rosenroth) or the \u201cLong Face.\u201d This is an obscure concept in the emanationist cosmology of Jewish mysticism, and derivative systems. For more insight into the basics of both \u2013 emanation <em>and<\/em> Kabbalah \u2013 see my video \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NTYL6TRoA4k\">10 Arcane Words<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A further option is that A\u2234A\u2234 represents the chimeric notion of a sublime, <em>Acanum Arcanorum<\/em>, that is, a \u201csecret of secrets.\u201d Indeed, Crowley appeared much taken with this sort of concept. Specifically, O.T.O. founders Carl Kellner and Theodor Reuss both professed to have discovered such an, ahem\u2026&nbsp; penetrating mystery in the complicated subject of \u201csex magic,\u201d to which I devoted an entire presentation. (See \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lfASE-8bQjc\">Top 10 &#8216;Sex-Magic&#8217; Cults<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alternatively, one sees the phrase \u201cAngel and Abyss\u201d crop up periodically. Crowley certainly placed heavy emphasis both on the notion of a \u201cHoly Guardian Angel\u201d as well as of the indispensable significance of \u201ccrossing the Abyss\u201d on one&#8217;s journey toward gnosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Wiki authors also state that 20th-c. American novelist Lyon Sprague de Camp floated \u201cAtlantean Adepts\u201d as a candidate in his 1980 book, <em>The Ragged Edge of Science<\/em> (Philadelphia: Owlswick Press).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To round things out, Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea asserted (in their <em>The Illuminatus! Trilogy<\/em>, New York: Dell, 1975) that A\u2234A\u2234 doesn&#8217;t represent anything. To hear them tell it, anyone who presumes to decode the name gives himself away as a pretender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a> Theosophical Society (co-)foundress, Helena Blavatsky, has also been suspected of being an intelligence agent. She was interviewed by the British-based Society for Psychical Research. At the end of 1885, its highly critical was report was circulated. In it, principal investigator Richard Hodgson (who was an associate of both William James and Henry Sidgwick) denounced her as a fraud and \u201c\u2026accused Blavatsky of being a spy for the Russian government\u2026\u201d, according to \u201cHelena Blavatsky,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, Aug. 31, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Helena_Blavatsky\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Helena_Blavatsky<\/a>&gt;; citing Bruce F. Campbell, <em>Ancient Wisdom Revived: A History of the Theosophical Movement<\/em>, Berkeley, Cal.: Univ. of Cal. Press, 1980, pp. 92\u201393; Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, <em>Helena Blavatsky<\/em>, Berkeley, Cal.: North Atlantic Books, 2004, p. 13; Gary Lachman, <em>Madame Blavatsky: The Mother of Modern Spirituality<\/em>, New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher; Penguin, 2012, pp. 228\u2013230 and 236\u2013237; and Peter Washington, <em>Madame Blavatsky\u2019s Baboon: Theosophy and the Emergence of the Western Guru<\/em>, London: Secker &amp; Warburg, 1993, pp. 82\u201383. On Hodgson\u2019s associations, see Nevill Drury, \u201cHodgson, Richard,\u201d <em>The Dictionary of the Esoteric<\/em>, Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 2004, p. 144. Hodgson\u2019s conclusions were questioned by Vernon Harrison. See Goodrick-Clark, <em>op. cit<\/em>., p. 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a> E.g., Crowley\u2019s main <em>Wikipedia<\/em> article \u2013 \u201cAleister Crowley\u201d \u2013 refers to Viereck as a \u201cGerman spy.\u201d At least, in the version available as of Sept. 24, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Aleister_Crowley\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Aleister_Crowley<\/a>&gt;. Though, Viereck\u2019s own article contains no such reference, and merely calls him a \u201cpro-German propagandist.\u201d See \u201cGeorge Sylvester Viereck,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, Aug. 8, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/George_Sylvester_Viereck\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/George_Sylvester_Viereck<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref5\">[5]<\/a> Gary Lachman, <em>Aleister Crowley: Magick, Rock and Roll, and the Wickedest Man in the World<\/em>, p. 196.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref6\">[6]<\/a> Supposedly born Gerald Souter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref7\">[7]<\/a> See Peter Parker, \u201cThe Long and Disgraceful Life of Britain\u2019s Pre-Eminent Bounder,\u201d book review, Tom Cullen, <em>The Man Who Was Norris<\/em>, <em>Spectator<\/em> (U.K.), Jul. 19, 2014, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spectator.co.uk\/article\/the-long-and-disgraceful-life-of-britain-s-pre-eminent-bounder\">https:\/\/www.spectator.co.uk\/article\/the-long-and-disgraceful-life-of-britain-s-pre-eminent-bounder<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref8\">[8]<\/a> Tobias Churton, <em>Aleister Crowley in England<\/em>, Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2021, p. 207.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref9\">[9]<\/a> \u201cTom Driberg,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, Oct. 13, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tom_Driberg\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tom_Driberg<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref10\">[10]<\/a> Tom Driberg, <em>Guy Burgess: A Portrait With Background<\/em>, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1956.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref11\">[11]<\/a> And later Finnish and Swedish ruler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref12\">[12]<\/a> <a>\u201cMicha\u0142 Sedziwoj,\u201d <\/a><em>Wikipedia<\/em>, Aug. 25, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/de.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Micha%C5%82_S%C4%99dziw%C3%B3j\">https:\/\/de.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Micha%C5%82_S%C4%99dziw%C3%B3j<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref13\">[13]<\/a> Micha\u0142 Sedziwoj,\u201d <em>loc. cit<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref14\">[14]<\/a> No fewer than three, and perhaps four. They were: False Dmitry I (fl. 1582-1606), False Dmitry II (fl. 1607-1610), and False Dmitry III (fl. 1611-1612). If there were a fourth (False Dmitry IV), he would have been active circa 1611-1612.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref15\">[15]<\/a> Of course, Ivan the Terrible, was married to Anastasia Romanovna, through whom proceeded the House of Romanov. This dynasty would end with the abdication, and eventual murder, of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia by the Bolsheviks. As an aside, Tsar Nicholas II bore an uncanny resemblance to his cousin, King George V of Britain, as can be seen from a famous 1913 photograph depicting the two side by side. See &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Tsar_Nicholas_II_%26_King_George_V.JPG\">https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Tsar_Nicholas_II_%26_King_George_V.JPG<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref16\">[16]<\/a> Mehmet Oz supposedly also is an adherent of Sufism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref17\">[17]<\/a> Elsewhere, it is referred to as the <em>Rite herm\u00e9tique<\/em> (\u201cHermetic Rite\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref18\">[18]<\/a> Marsha Keith Schuchard, <em>Emanuel Swedenborg, Secret Agent on Earth and in Heaven: Jacobites, Jews and Freemasons in Early Modern Sweden<\/em>, Leiden: Brill, 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref19\">[19]<\/a> Also written: Comte de Saint Germain. He is also said to have used a panoply of other titles, including: Comte Bellamarre, Marquis de Montferrat, Prince Ragoczy, Chevalier Schoening, Comte Soltikoff, Graf Tzarogy, and Chevalier \/ Count Weldon. See Isabella Cooper-Oakley, <em>The Comte De Saint Germain<\/em>, 2nd ed., London: Whitefriars Press, 1912, <em>passim<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref20\">[20]<\/a> See, Horace Walpole, \u201cThe Rebel Army Has Retreated From Derby\u2026,\u201d letter to Horace Mann, Dec. 9, 1745, <em>Letters of Horace Walpole<\/em>, vol. 1, Charles Duke Yonge, ed., London: T. Fisher Unwin; New York: G. P. Putnam\u2019s Sons, 1890; online by Ted Garvin and Linda Cantoni, eds., <em>Project Gutenberg<\/em>, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/12073\/12073.txt\">https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/12073\/12073.txt<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref21\">[21]<\/a> Or R\u00e1k\u00f3czy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref22\">[22]<\/a> Colin Wilson, <em>The Occult: A History<\/em>, New York: Random House, 1971, p. 360.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref23\">[23]<\/a> There is a rough \u2013 and perhaps prototypical \u2013 distinction between \u201cpractical\u201d and \u201cspeculative\u201d aspects of many occult disciplines, chief examples are alchemy and Jewish Kabbalah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref24\">[24]<\/a> This coincides with \u201cSt. John\u2019s Day,\u201d that is, the Nativity of John the Baptist. Whether deliberately or not, it\u2019s celebrated on what was apparently referred to as \u201cMidsummer Day\u201d in certain pagan contexts. \u201cSt. John\u2019s Day,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, Mar. 28, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/St._John%27s_Day\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/St._John%27s_Day<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref25\">[25]<\/a> See the article by that title: \u201cThe First Recorded Initiation in England,\u201d Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon, Dec. 1, 2010, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/freemasonry.bcy.ca\/texts\/moray_r.html\">https:\/\/freemasonry.bcy.ca\/texts\/moray_r.html<\/a>&gt;; a reproduction of, and citing, Dudley Wright, <em>The Builder<\/em>, 1921.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref26\">[26]<\/a> \u201cRobert Moray,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, May 13, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Robert_Moray\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Robert_Moray<\/a>&gt;. Before his restoration, Charles II was spied upon by agents of Oliver Cromwell. One such spy, Henry Manning (not to be confused with the 19<sup>th<\/sup>-c. Anglican-turned-Catholic Cardinal Henry Edward Manning), reported to spymaster John Thurloe before he was discovered and executed. See John P. Kenyon, <em>The Stuarts: A Study in English Kingship<\/em>, Glasgow: Fontana Collins, 1979 [London: B.T. Batsford, 1958], p. 103; archived on Google Books, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=vdA_AAAAYAAJ\">https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=vdA_AAAAYAAJ<\/a>&gt;. Relatedly, Cromwell was interfacing with Jewish spies \u2013 or \u201cintelligencers\u201d \u2013 such as Antonio Fernandez Carvajal (who may have been an agent of Manasseh ben Israel). See Joseph Jacobs, \u201cCarvajal, Antonio Fernandez,\u201d <em>Jewish Encyclopedia<\/em>, 1906, online, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jewishencyclopedia.com\/articles\/4089-carvajal-antonio-fernandez\">https:\/\/www.jewishencyclopedia.com\/articles\/4089-carvajal-antonio-fernandez<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref27\">[27]<\/a> Moray was also friends with alchemist Thomas Vaughan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref28\">[28]<\/a> Of course, William of Orange came from the Netherlands (the Dutch Republic). The predecessor of the Bank of England (and, for that matter, the bank of Sweden, est. 1668) was the Bank of Amsterdam (1609).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref29\">[29]<\/a> Portrait artist Richard Cosway also figured in the same Masonic-Swedenborgian circle. Among other subjects, Cosway painted George Augustus Frederick, then the Prince of Wales and the future King George IV. George Augustus Frederick\u2019s father, of course, was King George III, against whom the American Revolutionaries successfully revolted and for whom the Prince of Wales served as regent during George III\u2019s extended periods of mental incapacity. Cosway\u2019s wife, Maria, was also alleged involved with French \u201cIlluminism\u201d and is said to have had a romantic entanglement with American Thomas Jefferson when he was an ambassador to France. See, e.g., \u201cMaria Cosway,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, Sept 22, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Maria_Cosway\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Maria_Cosway<\/a>&gt; and \u201cRichard Cosway,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, Jul. 19, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Richard_Cosway\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Richard_Cosway<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref30\">[30]<\/a> Born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref31\">[31]<\/a> \u201cGleb Bokii,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, Sept. 27, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gleb_Bokii\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gleb_Bokii<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref32\">[32]<\/a> Literally, \u201cancestral heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref33\">[33]<\/a> Kirk H. Beetz, \u201cDulles, Allen Welsh,\u201d <em>Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Thematic Series: The 1960s<\/em>; online at Encyclopedia.com, May 17, 2018, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.encyclopedia.com\/people\/history\/us-history-biographies\/allen-welsh-dulles\">https:\/\/www.encyclopedia.com\/people\/history\/us-history-biographies\/allen-welsh-dulles<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref34\">[34]<\/a> \u201cAllen Dulles,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, Aug. 29, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Allen_Dulles\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Allen_Dulles<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref35\">[35]<\/a> \u201cJohn G. Bennett,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, Aug. 15, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_G._Bennett\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_G._Bennett<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref36\">[36]<\/a> Alison Broinowski, \u201cMany Happy Returns of al-Qaeda,\u201d Australian Institute of International Affairs (online), Aug. 11, 2018, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.internationalaffairs.org.au\/australianoutlook\/many-happy-returns-of-al-qaeda\/\">https:\/\/www.internationalaffairs.org.au\/australianoutlook\/many-happy-returns-of-al-qaeda\/<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref37\">[37]<\/a> See \u201cBennett,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, <em>loc. cit<\/em>. and \u201cSubud,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, Mar. 5, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Subud\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Subud<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref38\">[38]<\/a> Others associated with the group\u2019s earliest period include Franz Hartmann and Heinrich Klein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref39\">[39]<\/a> Gary Lachman, <em>Aleister Crowley: Magick, Rock and Roll, and the Wickedest Man in the World<\/em>, p. 175. As Lachman later observed, the comingling of occultism and sex (in a European context) had been prefigured by the curious Moravian Nicolas Zinzendorf and the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref40\">[40]<\/a> <em>The Aquarian Conspiracy<\/em> (Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, 1980).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref41\">[41]<\/a> <em>The Celestine Prophecy: An Adventure<\/em> (Hoover, Ala.: Satori: 1993).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref42\">[42]<\/a> Some people might include others in this category as well, e.g., Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Neale Donald Walsch, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref43\">[43]<\/a> Born Judith Darlene Hampton, she supposedly channels an entity known as \u201cRamtha.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref44\">[44]<\/a> She is responsible for a slew of material communicated to her by a being named \u201cSeth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref45\">[45]<\/a> Born Helen Dora Cohn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref46\">[46]<\/a> Suspiciously, Louis Jolyon West was also active at the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic in San Francisco, California during the height of the 1960s \u201chippie-countercultural revolution\u201d \u2013 at least, as it was depicted by mainstream media outlets like <em>Time-Life<\/em>. Military psychologist James Sanford Ketchum was also in attendance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref47\">[47]<\/a> Alexander Cockburn, \u201cWe\u2019re Reaping Tragic Legacy From Drugs,\u201d <em>L.A. Times<\/em>, Jul. 6, 1999, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/archives\/la-xpm-1999-jul-06-me-53482-story.html\">https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/archives\/la-xpm-1999-jul-06-me-53482-story.html<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref48\">[48]<\/a> Jonathan Moreno, \u201cHarvard\u2019s Experiment on the Unabomber, Class of &#8217;62: An odd footnote to Kaczynski&#8217;s class reunion,\u201d Matt Huston, reviewer, <em>Psychology Today<\/em>, May 25, 2012, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/impromptu-man\/201205\/harvards-experiment-the-unabomber-class-62\">https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/impromptu-man\/201205\/harvards-experiment-the-unabomber-class-62<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref49\">[49]<\/a> \u201cTimothy Leary: I carried on Aleister Crowley\u2019s work,\u201d interview excerpt, [PBS,] chellow2, YouTube, uploaded May 1, 2008, &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=2gY3dSqs68A\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=2gY3dSqs68A<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref50\">[50]<\/a> \u201cThe Work of Allan H. Frey,\u201d Cell Phone Task Force, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/cellphonetaskforce.org\/the-work-of-allan-h-frey\/\">https:\/\/cellphonetaskforce.org\/the-work-of-allan-h-frey\/<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref51\">[51]<\/a> Another participant in the creative process was a neo-gnostically inclined psychologist named Kenneth Wapnick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref52\">[52]<\/a> John Carter, <em>Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons<\/em>, Port Townsend, Wa.: Feral House, 2005, p. 15; online at &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=TIWoTlHT4xYC\">https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=TIWoTlHT4xYC<\/a>&gt;. Another character in the mix was Brooklyn, N.Y.-native Martin Summerfield (1916-1996). Perhaps apropos of nothing, the German intel chief Felix Sommerfeld \u2013 whose surname is merely \u201csummer field,\u201d <em>auf Deutsch<\/em> \u2013 has no recorded date of death on his <em>Wikipedia<\/em> page. The ultimate paragraph of the article on Sommerfeld reads: \u201cIn June 1918, Sommerfeld was interned in Fort Oglethorpe, GA as an enemy alien.[19] He was released in 1919. A few trips back and forth to Mexico have been recorded in the 1920s and 30s. However, the German agent disappeared in the 1930s, though he does show up in 1942 at age 63 residing at 117 West 17th Street in New York City,[20] after which his whereabouts remain unknown. \u2026[19] <em>The Washington Post<\/em>, June 21, 1918, \u201cHeld as Enemy Alien.\u201d [20] Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.\u201d All online at: \u201cFelix A. Sommerfeld,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, May 7, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Felix_A._Sommerfeld\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Felix_A._Sommerfeld<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref53\">[53]<\/a> Sydney Goldstein, \u201cBiographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society: Theodore Von K\u00e1rm\u00e1n, 1881-1963,\u201d Nov. 1, 1966, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1098\/rsbm.1966.0016\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1098\/rsbm.1966.0016<\/a>&gt; &amp; &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/royalsocietypublishing.org\/doi\/10.1098\/rsbm.1966.0016\">https:\/\/royalsocietypublishing.org\/doi\/10.1098\/rsbm.1966.0016<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref54\">[54]<\/a> \u201cHubbard broke up black magic in America \u2026L. Ron Hubbard was still an officer of the U.S. Navy, because he was well known as a writer and a philosopher and had friends amongst the physicists, he was sent in to handle the situation. He went to live at the house and investigated the black magic rites and the general situation and found them very bad\u2026 Hubbard\u2019s mission was successful far beyond anyone&#8217;s expectations. The house was torn down. Hubbard rescued a girl they were using. The black magic group was dispersed and destroyed and has never recovered.\u201d Source: \u201cL. Ron Hubbard,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, Oct. 3, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/L._Ron_Hubbard#cite_note-355\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/L._Ron_Hubbard#cite_note-355<\/a>&gt;; citing \u201cScientology: New Light on Crowley,\u201d <em>The Sunday Times<\/em> (U.K.), Dec. 28, 1969, n.p.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref55\">[55]<\/a> See, e.g., \u201cPolice Captain Earle E. Kynette sits in court after being charged with conspiracy to commit murder, Los Angeles, 1938,\u201d archived photograph, <em>Los Angeles Daily News<\/em>, February 1938; Univ. of Cal., Los Angeles, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/digital.library.ucla.edu\/catalog\/ark:\/21198\/zz0027z90w\">https:\/\/digital.library.ucla.edu\/catalog\/ark:\/21198\/zz0027z90w<\/a>&gt;. Two others implicated were Fred Browne (ultimately acquitted) and Roy J. Allen (eventually convicted along with Kynette). The name \u201cAllen\u201d is an interesting study in its own right. For example, Ethan Allen Hitchcock was a major general during the American Civil War. He was also interested in \u2013 and wrote on the topic of \u2013 alchemy. His mother, Lucy Caroline Hitchcock (n\u00e9e Allen), was the daughter of famed militiaman, Ethan Allen, founder of the Green Mountain Boys. The name \u201cEthan Allen\u201d recurs in the lore surrounding the \u201cZodiac\u201d killer(s), in that it is the name of the father of suspect Arthur Leigh Allen. According to the dossier on ZodiacKiller.com, \u201cEthan was a retired, highly decorated naval commander.\u201d \u201cThe Arthur Leigh Allen File,\u201d <em>Zodiac Killer<\/em>, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zodiackiller.com\/AllenFile.html\">https:\/\/www.zodiackiller.com\/AllenFile.html<\/a>&gt;. Leigh Allen himself had enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1957. Though, again according to the posted biographical data, the official record indicates that \u201c\u2026in 1958 he [Leigh] was less-than-honorably discharged from the Navy after two years of service.\u201d <em>Ibid<\/em>. Investigators in the Zodiac case pursued leads (specifically, the \u201cwing-walker\u201d shoe prints discovered at the Lake Berryessa crime scene where Cecelia Shepard was murdered, Sept. 27, 1969) suggesting that their killer (or killers) might have had a connexion to the military in general, or the navy in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref56\">[56]<\/a> \u201cPolice Captain Earle E. Kynette\u2026,\u201d <em>ibid<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref57\">[57]<\/a> Cf. &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/tessa.lapl.org\/cdm\/ref\/collection\/photos\/id\/16045\">https:\/\/tessa.lapl.org\/cdm\/ref\/collection\/photos\/id\/16045<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref58\">[58]<\/a> Around 1518, Trithemius wrote a companion volume, <em>Polygraphia<\/em>, expanding upon themes introduced in the seminal <em>Steganographia<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref59\">[59]<\/a> John Dee copied Trithemius\u2019s manuscript in his own hand circa 1591.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref60\">[60]<\/a> According to the Google definition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref61\">[61]<\/a> Hooke was an architect, biologist, geometrician, paleontologist, and member of the Royal Society. Some of his scientific apparatuses helped innovate inventions like microscopes and vacuum pumps. And he assisted and collaborated with the great chemist Sir Robert Boyle, about whom we spoke in the presentation \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oYEyvrlL-44\">Top 10 Gold-Making Alchemists of All Time<\/a>.\u201d The Frenchman Denis Papin also associated with Boyle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref62\">[62]<\/a> \u201cJohannes Trithemius,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, Jun. 6, 2022; citing Robert Hooke, <em>The Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke<\/em>, London: Richard Waller, 1705, p. 203. Hooke was inclined toward naturalistic explanations. For example, Hooke is credited with prefiguring later theories of biological and geological evolution and with opposing Biblical-literalist calculations for the age of the Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref63\">[63]<\/a> Donald Tyson, ed., ann., <em>Three Books of Occult Philosophy Written by Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim<\/em>, James Freake, transl., Llewellyn\u2019s Sourcebook Series, St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2004 [1993], p. xvi. &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=5YjXnoAaYowC&amp;pg=PR16\">https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=5YjXnoAaYowC&amp;pg=PR16<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref64\">[64]<\/a> Aaron Leitch, <em>The Essential Enochian Grimoire: An Introduction to Angel Magick from Dr. John Dee to the Golden Dawn<\/em>, Woodbury, Minn.: Llewellyn Publ., 2014, p. 35. Tho, the two would eventually have something of a falling out. Walsingham assigned agents to tail Dee, and his shady companion Edward Kelley, alias Edward Talbot. (The name is sometimes spelled \u201cKelly.\u201d) For his part, Dee was frequently able to evade his pursuers. <em>Ibid<\/em>., p. 36.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref65\">[65]<\/a> Richard Deacon, <em>John Dee: Scientist, Geographer, Astrologer, and Secret Agent to Elizabeth I<\/em>, London: Muller, 1968, p. 5, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=N--2AAAAIAAJ\">https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=N&#8211;2AAAAIAAJ<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref66\">[66]<\/a> Pseud. for Donald McCormick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref67\">[67]<\/a> Deacon, <em>loc. cit.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref68\">[68]<\/a> <em>Ibid<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref69\">[69]<\/a> \u201cThe Original 007?\u201d weblog post, Univ. of Cambridge, n.d., &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cam.ac.uk\/news\/the-original-007\">https:\/\/www.cam.ac.uk\/news\/the-original-007<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref70\">[70]<\/a> <em>Ibid<\/em>.; quoting history researcher Jenny Rampling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref71\">[71]<\/a> In \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lfASE-8bQjc\">Top 10 \u2018Sex-Magic\u2019 Cults<\/a>,\u201d I introduced the curious concept of \u201cNick\u201d-names. On that wavelength, it is interesting that our statesman\u2019s father\u2019s name was <em>Nicholas<\/em> Bacon. The elder Sir Bacon was Queen Elizabeth I\u2019s Lord Keeper of the Great Seal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref72\">[72]<\/a> Heindel was born Carl Louis von Grasshoff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref73\">[73]<\/a> Anthony Bacon was stationed in France until he became embroiled in a scandal stemming from allegations that he was a homosexual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref74\">[74]<\/a> <em>La Loge des Neuf S\u0153urs<\/em>, also referred to as the \u201cLodge of the Nine Muses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref75\">[75]<\/a> The lodge was, at one time or other, associated with people such as Jean Sylvain Bailly, Jean Pierre Brissot, Nicolas Chamfort, Marquis Nicolas de Condorcet, Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. Franklin was also friends with the likes of Count Mirabeau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref76\">[76]<\/a> Suffice it here to say that we may distinguish forms of \u201cmysticism\u201d from Enlightenment <em>rationalism<\/em>, the latter being \u201coccultic\u201d at least in virtue of its political and religious subversiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref77\">[77]<\/a> To trace some of the complex currents of this novel political radicalism, former Librarian of Congress James Billington follows the word \u201cPhiladelphia,\u201d meaning <em>brotherly love<\/em>. Manifestly, the city by that name was Ben Franklin\u2019s American base of operations and became the first capital following the Revolutionary War. According to Billington, \u201cPhiladelphia\u201d was also a code word. E.g., various orders sprang up with that label. One stream extended from the 16<sup>th<\/sup>-17<sup>th<\/sup>-c. German mystic Jakob B\u00f6hme, to English Hermeticist and minister John Pordage, whose \u201cBehmenists\u201d would create the \u201cPhiladelphian Society\u201d under Jane Leade. See \u201cPhiladelphians,\u201d <em>McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia<\/em>; archived online at: &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblicalcyclopedia.com\/P\/philadelphians.html\">https:\/\/www.biblicalcyclopedia.com\/P\/philadelphians.html<\/a>&gt;. The previously named Chevalier Ramsay was influenced by these Philadelphians prior to his conversion to Catholicism. See: Martin I. McGregor, \u201cA Biographical Sketch of Chevalier Andrew Michael Ramsay Including a Full Transcript of his Oration of 1737,\u201d <em>Pietre-Stone\u2019s Review of Freemasonry<\/em>, Feb. 18, 2008, &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.freemasons-freemasonry.com\/ramsay_biography_oration.html\">http:\/\/www.freemasons-freemasonry.com\/ramsay_biography_oration.html<\/a>&gt;. A second current likewise arose out of Germany, in connexion with (and possible opposition to) Baron Gotthelf von Hund\u2019s \u201cRite of Strict Observance.\u201d This strand surfaced in Narbonne as the \u201cPrimitive Rite of Philadelphians\u201d and led to the formation, in Paris, of the Lodge of the Nine Sisters. See James H. Billington, <em>Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith<\/em>, London: Routledge, 2017, pp. 108<em>f<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref78\">[78]<\/a> Johann Joachim Christian Bode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref79\">[79]<\/a> See&nbsp; \u201cPhilip Wharton, 1<sup>st<\/sup> Duke of Wharton,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, Aug. 20, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Philip_Wharton,_1st_Duke_of_Wharton\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Philip_Wharton,_1st_Duke_of_Wharton<\/a>&gt; and \u201cGrand Loge de France,\u201d <em>Wikipedia<\/em>, Sept. 1, 2022, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Grande_Loge_de_France\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Grande_Loge_de_France<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref80\">[80]<\/a> By the way, the then early Scottish Rite met (ca. 1733) in the City of London at the Devil Tavern. Was this locale the setting for the planning stages of use of the key Kabbalistic number \u201c13\u201d in the curious deployment of England\u2019s otherwise ill-fitting New World \u201cthirteen colonies\u201d? The political activism associated with the Devil Tavern goes back at least to the late 17<sup>th<\/sup>-c., when \u201c\u2026some 150 members of the House of Lords, including Sir Thomas Clarges, Heneage Finch \u2026, Sir Robert Sawyer, and Sir Christopher Musgrave, met at the Devil Tavern Club in the City of London\u2026 pp. 197, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=OWFnAAAAMAAJ\">https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=OWFnAAAAMAAJ<\/a>&gt;. Among other things, when Parliament passed the \u201cAct of Toleration\u201d in 1688-1689 (which was dutifully signed by William of Orange): \u201cThe Devil Tavern Club group was in accord, and William [III] gave his consent on May 24,\u201d <em>ibid<\/em>., p. 202. There\u2019s this also this tantalizing factoid: \u201cIn [the revolutionary year!] 1776 some young lawyers founded there a Pandemonium Club; and after that there is no further record of the \u2018Devil\u2019 till it was pulled down and annexed by the neighbouring bankers,\u201d Walter Thornbury, \u201cFleet Street: General Introduction,\u201d <em>Old and New London: A Narrative of Its History, Its People, and Its Places<\/em>, vol. 1, London: Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1878, pp. 32-53; online at&nbsp;<em>British History Online<\/em>, &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.british-history.ac.uk\/old-new-london\/vol1\/pp32-53\">http:\/\/www.british-history.ac.uk\/old-new-london\/vol1\/pp32-53<\/a>&gt;. It was evidently the meeting place of choice for numerous, powerful persons \u2013 not all whose actions are matters of public record. And there is a literary tie-in as well. \u201cAs well as [Ben] Jonson, members of the club are said to have included William Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and Dr. Samuel Johnson. Samuel Pepys is also said to have frequented the tavern,\u201d \u201cLost London \u2013 The Devil Tavern\u2026,\u201d <em>Exploring London<\/em>, Oct. 17, 2014, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/exploring-london.com\/2014\/10\/17\/lost-london-the-devil-tavern\/\">https:\/\/exploring-london.com\/2014\/10\/17\/lost-london-the-devil-tavern\/<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref81\">[81]<\/a> Deacon, <em>op. cit<\/em>., pp. 23 &amp; 108.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref82\">[82]<\/a> Christian J. Pinto, <em>Secret Mysteries of America\u2019s Beginnings, Volume 1: The New Atlantis<\/em>, dvd, N.p.: Antiquities Research Films, 2005; citing Michael Howard, <em>The Occult Conspiracy: Secret Societies, Their Influence and Power in World History<\/em>, Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 1989.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref83\">[83]<\/a> The Americans did have an acknowledged espionage apparatus as seen, for instance, in the Culper Spy Ring which was organized in reaction to intelligence failures (such as the capture and execution of Nathan Hale). Benjamin Tallmadge ran operations for George Washington. Agents included Robert Townsend and Abraham Woodhull \u2013 and, possibly Bancroft, Silas Deane, and James Rivington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref84\">[84]<\/a> Cecil B. Currey, <em>Code Number 72 \/ Ben Franklin: Patriot or Spy?<\/em> Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref85\">[85]<\/a> Or \u2026from the Grand Lodge of Scotland. Allegedly, several prominent American families \u2013 including the Standishes \u2013 had descended from Jacobites who decamped for the \u201cNew World\u201d after a series of unsuccessful revolts failed to restore the Stuarts to the throne in the Kingdom of Great Britain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref86\">[86]<\/a> Benjamin Franklin, <em>The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin<\/em>, reprint ed., Bedford, mass.: Applewood Books, n.d. [orig.: Chicago: Lakeside Press; R. R. Donnelley &amp; Sons, Co., 1903], p. 103, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=Y32wOLkDz1oC&amp;pg=pa103\">https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=Y32wOLkDz1oC&amp;pg=pa103<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref87\">[87]<\/a> Quoted by William Ecenbarger, \u201cBen Franklin\u2019s Dangerous Liaisons,\u201d <em>Chicago Tribune<\/em>, May 6, 1990, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/news\/ct-xpm-1990-05-06-9002070774-story.html\">https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/news\/ct-xpm-1990-05-06-9002070774-story.html<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref88\">[88]<\/a> Geoffrey Ashe, <em>The Hell-Fire Clubs: A History of Anti-Morality<\/em>, Towbridge, Wiltshire [U.K.]: Redwood Books, 2000 [orig.: London: W. H. Allen &amp; Co., 1974], p. 133, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/hellfireclubshis0000ashe\/page\/132\/mode\/2up\">https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/hellfireclubshis0000ashe\/page\/132\/mode\/2up<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref89\">[89]<\/a> Daniel P. Mannix, <em>The Hell-Fire Club<\/em>, New York: Ballantine, 1959, p. 107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref90\">[90]<\/a> N.a., \u201cCraven Street Bones,\u201d Benjamin Franklin House, n.d., &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/benjaminfranklinhouse.org\/the-house-benjamin-franklin\/craven-street-bones\/\">https:\/\/benjaminfranklinhouse.org\/the-house-benjamin-franklin\/craven-street-bones\/<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref91\">[91]<\/a> N.a., \u201cSkeletons in the Closet,\u201d <em>The Craven Street Gazette<\/em>, No. 2, Fall, 1998, p. 1, &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.benjaminfranklinhouse.org\/site\/sections\/news\/pdf\/Issue2.pdf\">http:\/\/www.benjaminfranklinhouse.org\/site\/sections\/news\/pdf\/Issue2.pdf<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref92\">[92]<\/a> Robin Young, \u201cRemains of Ten Bodies at Ben Franklin\u2019s Home,\u201d <em>The Times<\/em> (London), Feb. 11, 1998.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref93\">[93]<\/a> <em>Ibid<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref94\">[94]<\/a> \u201cCraven Street Bones,\u201d <em>loc. cit<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref95\">[95]<\/a> <em>Ibid<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref96\">[96]<\/a> Young, <em>loc. cit<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref97\">[97]<\/a> \u201cBenjamin Franklin\u2019s Famous Quotes,\u201d Franklin Inst., n.d., &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fi.edu\/benjamin-franklin\/famous-quotes\">https:\/\/www.fi.edu\/benjamin-franklin\/famous-quotes<\/a>&gt;; citing <em>Poor Richard\u2019s Almanack<\/em>, 1736.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref98\">[98]<\/a> Don C. Shelton, \u201cThe Emperor\u2019s New Clothes,\u201d <em>Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine<\/em>, Vol. 103, No., 2, Feb. 1, 2010, pp. 46-50, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2813782\/\">https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2813782\/<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref99\">[99]<\/a> Joseph S. Nye, Jr., \u201cWhat New World Order?\u201d <em>Foreign Affairs<\/em>, Spring 1992; online, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foreignaffairs.com\/united-states\/what-new-world-order\">https:\/\/www.foreignaffairs.com\/united-states\/what-new-world-order<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref100\">[100]<\/a> Real name: Leslie Lynch King Jr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref101\">[101]<\/a> Joseph B. Treaster, \u201cA Life That Started out With Much Promise Took Reclusive and Hostile Path,\u201d<em> New York Times<\/em>, Apr. 1, 1981, p. A19, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1981\/04\/01\/us\/a-life-that-started-out-with-much-promise-took-reclusive-and-hostile-path.html\">https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1981\/04\/01\/us\/a-life-that-started-out-with-much-promise-took-reclusive-and-hostile-path.html<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref102\">[102]<\/a> Russ Baker, \u201cPoppyLeaks, Part 1,\u201d <em>Who What Why<\/em>, Mov. 16, 2015, &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/whowhatwhy.org\/politics\/government-integrity\/poppyleaks-part-1\/\">https:\/\/whowhatwhy.org\/politics\/government-integrity\/poppyleaks-part-1\/<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref103\">[103]<\/a> \u201cMaking of a Misfit,\u201d <em>Time<\/em>, Oct. 6, 1975, &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/magazine\/article\/0%2C9171%2C913511%2C00.html\">http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/magazine\/article\/0%2C9171%2C913511%2C00.html<\/a>&gt;; archived at &lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20070930060025\/http:\/www.time.com\/time\/magazine\/article\/0,9171,913511,00.html\">https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20070930060025\/http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/magazine\/article\/0,9171,913511,00.html<\/a>&gt;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"#_ftnref104\">[104]<\/a> These were conducted in 1975-1976 by the Church and Pike Committees in the Senate and House, respectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ten Political \u2018Intriguers\u2019 Introduction The occult is a shadowy world. Historically, it has involved actors in sub&#8211;rosa activities, prompted the adoption of pseudonyms, and \u2013 depending upon how unfavorably ruling powers would react to discovery \u2013 resulted in the creation of clandestine networks. All this is made to order for another area that might, at &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thesynchromystic.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/08\/10-occultists-who-were-accused-spies\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;10 Occultists Who Were Accused SPIES&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[150,140,147,142,156,143,139,158,159,141,146,153,155,151,152,130,145,138,144,154,157,148,149],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-a-course-in-miracles","tag-aleister-crowley","tag-allen-dulles","tag-arnold-krumm-heller","tag-benjamin-franklin","tag-emanuel-swedenborg","tag-esoterics-who-were-spies","tag-francis-bacon","tag-george-herbert-walker-bush","tag-gerald-hamilton","tag-j-g-bennett","tag-jack-parsons","tag-john-dee","tag-l-ron-hubbard","tag-louis-jolyon-west","tag-michael-sendivogius","tag-nicholas-roerich","tag-occultist-spies","tag-robert-moray","tag-sara-northup","tag-sir-francis-walsingham","tag-theodor-reuss","tag-william-thetford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thesynchromystic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thesynchromystic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thesynchromystic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thesynchromystic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thesynchromystic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/thesynchromystic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208,"href":"http:\/\/thesynchromystic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions\/208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thesynchromystic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thesynchromystic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thesynchromystic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thesynchromystic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}