The Allies and the Occult
The Best Kept Secret of World War Two
William H. Kennedy
January 2, 2012
The epoch battle between good and evil known as the Second World War was fought on many fronts. Most historians of this global conflict have noted that occultism played a huge part in the politics and war ideology of the Third Reich. Fascist Italy's use of esotericists and clairvoyants has been covered by a variety of scholars. Academic researchers have also chronicled the mystical nature of the Shinto religion of Japan which heralded the Emperor as a living Sun God and offered its devotees a mythological pantheon of spirits, demons and arcane forces. Few, however, have addressed the hard fact that the leaders of the Allied Forces, both political and military, were just as heavily influenced by paranormal considerations as the Axis Powers. It is the overriding concern of this examination to focus on the secretive, frequent and sometimes shocking use of psychics and divination practices by the Allies to wage a clandestine supernatural war against the enemies of freedom and democracy.
Part One: The Prime Minister's Mediums
Prime Minister Winston Churchill is heralded as the stoic leader of the free world during the dark age of WW2. Desparate times oftentimes leads to desparate actions and this adage is envinced in Churchill's obsessive use of seers, mediums, astrologers and diviners of all kinds. Churchill had an early interest in esoteric practices having been a 33 degree Freemason (which involves mystic rites) and joined a neo-Druid pagan sect in the UK as a young man. The first seer Churchill used was actually himself as he firmly believed he was clairvoyant after successfully escaping capture during the Boar War by innate psychic means. His rapid rise into the world of Realpolitik did nothing to deter his interest in the arcane. As Hilter's bombs pummeled London Churchill began consulting occult experts and mind readers to determine the course of the war. As with all of the Allied leaders we will examine, he kept this a closely guarded secret for the rest of his life.
(Churchill's official occult advisers, Archbishop Cosmo Lang, Lord Dowding, Spy Chief Maxwell Knight and Propagandist Dennis Wheatley)
When most people think of mediums they immediately conjure up images of questionable crystal balls, tacky neon signs advertising "psychic readings" and silly astrological charts. Winston Churchill's official occult advisers were as far from this world of trickery and con artists as one can get. Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Lang was an expert on supernatural matters who ordered a major academic study of the spiritualist revival of the late 19th and early 20th century. Before the war Lang had written a secret report for the British cabinet on King Edward VIII's (later the Duke of Windsor) use of psychics, astrologers and crank mystical medical practices. Lang consulted on Hitler's use of esoteria at 10 Downing Street as soon as war broke out.
The most unlikely advocate of pretenatural powers was none other than Air Marshal Lord Hugh Dowding, head of the RAF who lead the British Flying Corps to victory in the Battle of Britain for air supremacy. Herman Goering was awestruck at his counterpart's ability to intercept his Luftwaffe planes and his uncanny ability to predict Axis bombing strategy. Quite shockingly, Dowding belonged to a spiritualist church and regularly consulted with channelers and other diviners including Joseph Benjamin and Leslie Flint to determine military strategy during the darkest days of the blitzkrieg. The Air Marshall reported their metaphysical findings directly to Churchill. Dowding strongly advised the war leader to secretly seek the counsel of other worldly beings via the use of mediums. Lord Dowding was forced out when his spiritualist beliefs were exposed and exploited by his military rivals. After securing the skies for the Allies he was sent to the USA as an adviser. Upon retiring in 1942 he immediately wrote a book about necromancy entitled Many Mansions (1943). In the 1950s Joe Benjamin billed himself in newspaper adds as "Winston's Favorite Psychic" to demonstrate his help during the conflict.
The head of Great Britain's secret service (MI5) counter intelligence section was the former British Fascist Party member and homosexual Maxwell Knight a student of Satanist Aleister Crowley and an ardent ritual magician. Part of his duties was to consult with Churchill on esoteric matters. One of his MI5 secret agents was none other than Ian Flemming who went on to write the cold war spy novels featuring a character he concocted named James Bond (007). The character "M" featured in the Bond novels and films was partly based on Knight. Flemming directly consulted with Aleister Crowley during WW2 as Crowley had been a British secret agent for England during the Great War. When Rudolf Hess fled to the UK in England in 1939 in a stolen fighter plane to make peace with the Allies, Flemming suggested that Crowley should be employed to question the German leader on occult matters but his plan was rejected. Churchill considered the former vice Furher to be of little use and had him tossed in prison.
Churchill's most direct occult adviser was former pro-Hitler RAF officer Dennis Wheatley who worked as Great Britain's chief propaganda theorist and primary combat strategist during the war. He was elevated to this exalted position because the high command ascertained that "Wheatley thought like a Nazi". He was also an esoteric initiate and hugely popular horror fiction writer before the great conflict (only Agatha Christie outsold him). King George VI stated that Wheatley was his favorite author. In planning strategy for Allied victory the famed novelist developed the notion of "Total War" -- the contention that all resources (intellectual, spiritual and military) should be employed for victory. This involved the use of Black Propaganda -- the clandestine use of information and misinformation to undermine the enemy's morale and this included sexual, political, religious and even occult manipulation. (White Propaganda is the clandestine use of information and misinformation to motivate supporters to work hard for your cause. Gray Proganda is the use of information and misinformation to cause conflict between two or more competing parties).
Wheatley had an entire division under him called the London Control Group and generally bypassed its official governing committee. In 1941 he wrote a horror novel entitled Strange Conflict which depicted the Nazis as being in league with voodoo priests and using astral projection to spy on enemies. According to historian Peter Levenda, Wheatley and his MI5 cohorts used an unnamed psychic codenamed "Anne" to "mind travel" from London to Germany and spy on Hitler! He was practicing the very mystical techniques he was accusing the Fascist of employing. Wheatley was a regular in Churchill's war rooms and suggested various forms of arcane propaganda including air dropping forged astrological leaflets and occult magazines over enemy territory which predicted that Germany would loose the war -- an idea he borrowed from his friend and adviser Crowley.
(Some of Churchill's unofficial psychic advisers, Louis De Wohl , Dr Alexander Cannon and Helen Duncan)
With war raging all around him Churchill took the time to consult some of more famous and even notorious psychics of Great Britain. This clandestine group was dubbed The Black Team. Astrologer and popular religious novelist Louis De Wohl worked for MI5 and helped produce demoralizing esoteric materials to drop on the Germans. De Wohl also produced horror scopes for popular newspapers predicting Hitler's demise. He did this in conjunction with occult historian Ellic Howe and the provocative master of Black Propganda Sefton Delmer. De Wohl also sought to determine exactly what advice Hitler's astrologers were giving to the leadership of the Third Reich concerning the war effort and this information was passed unto Churchill by Knight. He reached the rank of captain and after the war returned to his profession of mass market fiction writing.
The psychiatrist Dr. Alexander Cannon combined psychotherapy with hypnosis and mystical practices and set up a lucrative practice on the famed Harley Street in London. His patients included the upper crust of British society including King Edward VIII. He also socialized with King George VI and other aristocrats. Cannon had an encyclopedic knowledge of metaphysical practices and came to the attention of Prime Minister Chamberlin as early as 1935. When war broke out he was recruited for the Black Team but soon things went sour when MI5 suspected he was a Nazi double agent. Forced to move to the Isle of Man, Cannon's phone was tapped and he was constantly harassed by the secret service. His home was raided and some of his inventions confiscated including a primitive lie detector device. Near the war's end he was left alone and continued to practice his mystical form of medicine until his death.
The Scottish medium Helen Duncan was a popular guest speaker at spiritualist churches and paranormal bookstores and clubs during the 1930s. A new book entitled Churchill's Witch by Financial Times journalist Michael Colmer asserts that the Prime Minister secretly employed Duncan for strategic advice. Duncan's primary means of income came by working in a bleach factory to support her large family of eight children. Although she received small fees at various public speaking venues she never charged the families of serviceman for information about their living and passed away relatives during the war. She informed family members when their relatives were killed in action or if they were safe. Trouble came for her in November 1941 at a gathering when she accurately announced the sinking of the SS Barham before the British government made it public.
In a bizarre series of events in 1944 Duncan was charged under the Witchcraft Act of 1731 and in a mock trial was sentenced to nine months in prison. Churchill was furious at her conviction and wrote a harsh letter to Home Secretary Herbert Morrison complaining of waste of resources on such litigation. Duncan was released and later died in 1956 a few days after the police raided her home during a senace and threatened to return her to prison. Much like the Nazis the Allies turned on many of the psychics they recruited as the war winded down.
As soon as war was declared popular occult magazines began making predictions that their side would definitely win. The US Astrology Guide quickly cast horoscopes for both British and Axis leaders. In Germany the hugely successful Der Zenit astrology pulp magazine likewise made predictions about the outcome of battles and the war in general. Louis De Wohl forged an edition of Der Zenit forecasting an early death for Hitler and Mussolini. The American forces in the Pacific used Black Propaganda in the form of fliers with images of Shinto demons & dire predictions for the Japanese people.
Part Two: The Presidents and Premonitions
On December 7, 1942 the armed forces of the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and decimated the United States pacific navel fleet. On December 11 Hitler declared war on the United States and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt found himself embroiled in a global two front conflict which he had been desperately trying to avoid. The vast industrial resources at his command were quickly mobilized to confront the attacking enemies. FDR understood that weapons and military strategy were not enough to overtake the international forces of Fascism. The President had to wage a Black Propaganda battle against the Axis Powers and a White Propaganda campaign to encourage the American people to fully devote themselves to the war effort.
Part of this strategy involved soliciting the help of the most powerful propaganda machine in the world -- the Hollywood movie industry. Run primarily by Jews the studios were more than happy to help in the defeat of the Axis Powers. To bring this into action, the government, under FDR, set up two major institutions. First, the Office of War Information regulated what information about the war was released. Second, the Bureau of Motion Pictures was an agency that directly worked with Hollywood, setting up guidelines such as “Will this picture help win the war?” that helped decide which movies could be most beneficial to the American side. To achieve this, movies released during this time showed grim images, anti-Japanese propaganda, and took the viewer into the depths of the sacrifices that American and Allied soldiers were making. Films such as Hitler's Madmen, Guadalcanal Diary, Objective Burma and The White Cliffs of Dover were movies used to instill images in the public mind that would inspire the viewer’s support that the government hoped would bring victory. Even after the war was over, films continued to show a very skewed view of the war, glorifying the efforts of the US soldiers to show that their sacrifice was worth it.
The use of White Propaganda documentaries with heavily occult themes were also used by FDR to rally the American people. MGM produced a series of 7 short documentaries which featured the French seer Nostradamus who had been dead for over 400 years. They were clearly copying Joesph Goebels use of the famed prophet. In many ways the Americans were far more primed for esoteric indoctrination than the Axis powers with horror films like Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy earning huge box office profits in the 1930s. The series of Nostrdamus shorts were hugely popular and interpreted the famous psychic's poetic predictions (called quartains) to chronicle the rise and fall of Hitler and Mussolini and the eventual triumph of the Allies. The first of these films to mention the conflict in Europe More About Nostrdamus (1941) was even nominated for an Oscar for best short film. These propaganda pieces were so effective that they were still being made during the cold war to presaged the fall of communism the last being produced as late as 1955.
Chronicle of MGM Nostrdamus Propaganda Films
Carey Wilson
In the mid 1930s a
leading American publisher decided to re-issue Oracles of Nostradamus, written in 1891 by Charles A. Ward, because
of an increasing number of European publications about the French seer.
A summary of Ward's book, published in a pocket-edition, fell
into the hands of Carey Wilson the producer of the popular MGM Miniatures (short films).
The website Internet Movie Database contains information about more
than twenty movies about Nostradamus, the first one produced in 1930.
On this website, information can be found about short movies about
Nostradamus in which Wilson was involved, the first in 1938 and the
last in 1955. In 1938, Wilson wanted to offer his compatriots, who
suffered from the economic depression, amusement by presenting
something very unusual. During World War II, he produced four more movies.
Most of them contained material which was connected with World War II.
Wilson was involved in the production of seven short movies about Nostradamus.
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Nostradamus is the first film in a series of short films by MGM about Nostradamus. It contains predictions about European monarchs, the American Revolution in 1776 and the French Revolution in 1789. It also contains a prediction about an event which will happen in Paris in 1999. will happen in Paris in 1999. |
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More about
Nostradamus begins with a short biography of
Nostradamus and striking predictions, such as the prediction to a young
priest that later, he would become Pope Sixtus V. Then, the actuality
is discussed. Nostradamus has predicted. A number of quatrains are
linked to events which lead to World War II. Another number of
quatrains are linked to events which happened during World War II. |
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Nostradamus
and the Queen (1942) |
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Further
prophecies of Nostradamus (1942) |
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In this movie,
quatrains are discussed which are linked to the French Revolution and
the death of Louis XVI. Also, quatrains are discussed which are linked
to a coming period of peace in the world which will last for a long
time. |
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Nostradamus
- an historical mystery (1938)
Nostradamus IV (1944)
Let's ask Nostradamus - as told by
Carey Wilson (1953)
(Vice President Henry R. Wallace (aka Galahad) & his Guru Nicholas Roerich)
Vice President Henry A. Wallace is the most underrated politico of the 20th century. Born into a wealthy family he ran a farming magazine before becoming a legislator. Having developed a hybrid seed formula he saved millions of people from famine and starvation. A staunch New Dealer, Wallace was recruited by Roosevelt to be Secretary of Agriculture in 1933 during the Dark Days of the Dust Bowl. Many public programs bare his mark; government funded school lunch programs, free produce for the poor (later called the food stamp program and WIC) and subsidies for agrarian workers. Wallace was a beloved leader and seen as a champion of the poor so much so that FDR tapped him to be his running mate for his third term when the aging VP Gardner decided to retire. However, some disturbing facts about him were to emerge and dampen his reputation.
During the 1940 presidential election, a series of letters that Vice Presidential candidate Henry Wallace had written in the 1930s to his occult master Nicholas Roerich were uncovered by the Republicans. Wallace addressed Roerich as "Dear Guru" and signed all of the letters as "G" for Galahad, the mystical name Roerich had assigned him during an arcane initiation ceremony. FDR's new running mate was a 32 degree Freemason and had a life long interest in mystical teachings. In the letters Wallace assured Roerich that he awaited "the breaking of the New Day" when the people of "Northern Shambhalla" -- a Buddhist term roughly equivalent to the kingdom of heaven -- would create an era of peace and plenty. When asked about the letters, Wallace lied and claimed they were forgeries. Wallace had actually been a devoted supporter of Roerich and his esoteric ministry from the mid 1920s. In 1935 with the nod from Roosevelt, then Agricultural Secretary Wallace had lobbied Congress to support Roerich's Banner and Pact of Peace which was signed in Washington, D.C. by delegates from 22 Latin American countries. Roerich and his son George were sent to Central Asia by Wallace for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to search for drought-resistant grasses to prevent another Dust Bowl. But later, in his memoirs, Wallace tried to conceal his close association with Roerich.
When the Republicans threatened to reveal his "eccentric" religious beliefs to the public, the Democrats countered by vowing to release information about GOP candidate Wendell Willkie's extramarital affair with the writer Irita Van Doren. The Republicans subsequently agreed not to publicize the "Guru" letters and the Democrats won the Oval Office for a third term. When war broke out Roosevelt put Wallace in charge of government allocations and he immediately came into constant conflict with high ranking officials. The unstable Wallace was causing more problems than he was solving having stated the US was no better than the Nazis for tolerating the Detroit race riots which had erupted in 1943. Wallace wrote a popular book called Century of the Common Man (1943) in which he depicted himself as the leader of a post war world-wide socialist utopia which won him the wrath of Churchill and the suspicion that he was planning on declaring himself a dictator.
As the 1945 elections were approaching the Democratic leadership became fed up with the flaky Wallace and nominated a little known senator from Missouri named Harry S. Truman to be FDR's running mate. Roosevelt placated Wallace by making him Commerce Secretary but Truman fired him in 1946 for making pro communist statements. Wallace ran for President in the 1948 elections for the Progressive Party. In a strange alliance he was endorsed by both the Communist Party of America and the first homosexual rights group called the Mattachine Society. In the winter of 1947, however, independent columnist Westbrook Pegler published extracts from the "Guru" letters and promoted them thereafter as evidence that Wallace was not fit to hold the Oval Office. H. R. Machin dubbed Wallace "The Swamy" and accused him of being a KGB agent effectively ending his political career.
(Crystal Ball Reader Jeane Dixon)
In 1944 the ailing Roosevelt read a newspaper
account of a local D.C. psychic named Jeane
Dixon who was making
accurate readings for serviceman. Remarkably, the wartime
President
was impressed with her and took the time out of his busy schedule to
set up as secret meeting with the seer. Much like Churchhill he
actively sought the advice of a clairvoyant. The commander
and chief asked
her about his health and the soothsayer predicted that FDR would be
dead within six months. This grim news did not deter the chief
executive from scheduling another clandestine visit with Dixon in
January of 1945. This time the prophetess told him that he only
had
only a very short time to live. FDR then asked her about the post
war
world and she claimed that Russia would become an enemy, China would
fall to communism and that racial unrest would haunt the Untied States
until 1980. There was no official record of Dixon ever visiting
the White House which caused many skeptics to cast doubt on this
account
but FDR's son Eliot later confirmed that the seer did in fact visit his
father. In
early April of 1945 Dixon was invited to a charity event at the
Selgrave Club in D.C. and Vice President Truman was also in attendance.
In good humor, Truman
asked Jeane Dixon – “You are a great devotee of God.
Can you predict my future?” Jeane Dixon with a smile said
– “Very shortly you will become President .”
and
he agreed – “There is no other option but to
accept that spiritual powers are more potent and capable than material
powers.”
Truman did become President when the beloved
leader FDR died a
few days later on April
12, 1945.
(Jeane Dixon, Truman and Kenny Kingston)
When Harry S. Truman
was sworn in as the 33rd
President of the United States he faced huge problems. The war
raged on and even after the Germans surrendered he chose to use the
atom
bomb on the Japanese primarily to intimidate the Soviets. After
Hirohito
surrendered Truman
faced massive labor strikes at home. He never sought the Oval
Office and was insecure in the new role. However, as time rolled
on and the 1948 elections came up he had a giant change of heart.
He
found he liked the position and wanted to finish many of the New Deal
programs which the war and the recovery years had sidelined.
According to Gallup Polls Truman was hugely unpopular and the
republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey would win by a massive landslide
of votes. Only three public figures contradicted these
scientifically based statistics. One was President Truman,
another was psychic Kenny Kingston and the
other was seer Jeane Dixon who all precognised an incumbient victory.
The belief that Dewey would win was so strong that the polling services stopped taking surveys two weeks before the election and the Democratic Party refused to fund Truman's famous whistle stop railway campaign. The conductor of the Chief Executive's train stopped in the middle of nowhere until he got paid and this forced Truman literially to pass his hat amongst his staff and reporters to get the funds needed to get the train rolling again. On the night of the election the head of the Secret Service traveled to New York to be with Governor Dewey because he was convinced that Truman had already lost. After the polls closed several newspapers went to press with headlines reading Dewey Defeats Truman. The next morning the President awoke to find that he had enough electoral college votes to retain office and won by over 1 million popular votes! Truman, Kingston and Dixon were the only one's right!
Truman's interest in the occult can be traced to his life long obsession with Freemasonry. As mentioned this esoteric order has rituals and ceremonies which possess clear and distinct arcane elements including symbolically raising members from the dead. Unknown to most Americans Truman performed a Masonic ritual at both of his inaugurations -- he kissed the Bible after being sworn in and this sent a semi coded message to his mystical fellow travelers. The President's daughter Margret Truman asserted that her father strongly believed that the White House was haunted and that ghosts regularly visited the Commander and Chief. Truman also met with medium and seer Kenny Kingston on one more occasion while holding the Oval Office.
(Ike Liked Psychics)
(Dixon with Nixon and Reagan)
The belief that Dewey would win was so strong that the polling services stopped taking surveys two weeks before the election and the Democratic Party refused to fund Truman's famous whistle stop railway campaign. The conductor of the Chief Executive's train stopped in the middle of nowhere until he got paid and this forced Truman literially to pass his hat amongst his staff and reporters to get the funds needed to get the train rolling again. On the night of the election the head of the Secret Service traveled to New York to be with Governor Dewey because he was convinced that Truman had already lost. After the polls closed several newspapers went to press with headlines reading Dewey Defeats Truman. The next morning the President awoke to find that he had enough electoral college votes to retain office and won by over 1 million popular votes! Truman, Kingston and Dixon were the only one's right!
Truman's interest in the occult can be traced to his life long obsession with Freemasonry. As mentioned this esoteric order has rituals and ceremonies which possess clear and distinct arcane elements including symbolically raising members from the dead. Unknown to most Americans Truman performed a Masonic ritual at both of his inaugurations -- he kissed the Bible after being sworn in and this sent a semi coded message to his mystical fellow travelers. The President's daughter Margret Truman asserted that her father strongly believed that the White House was haunted and that ghosts regularly visited the Commander and Chief. Truman also met with medium and seer Kenny Kingston on one more occasion while holding the Oval Office.
(Ike Liked Psychics)
In 1953 nationally
syndicated gossip columnist Andrew
Pearson claimed that psychic Jeane Dixon was a regular guest at the
White House and
advised the President and first lady on matters of national security.
This rumor turned out to be true as Mami
Eisenhower befriended the seer in 1943 in Washington when her
husband acted as
Supreme Allied Commander in London. Surprisingly, the news that
the Eisenhowers
were using a crystal ball gazer as an adviser
actually went over quite well with Pierson's 60 million readers
and this gave Dixon her first big national audience. Ike's use of
a psychic has been written out of the history books and even the PBS
documentary on him did not even mention it. The Eisenhowers were
later to use the services of Kenny Kingston
-- billed as the "Psychic
to the Stars" -- for mystical readings and advice.
(Dixon with Nixon and Reagan)
Some future Presidents who served during WW2 were later to use psychics. Amazingly Richard Nixon also was advised by Jeane Dixon and used his secretary to act as a buffer. Even more shocking is that Nixon invited Dixon to the Oval Office on September 19, 1972 from 3:27 to 3:42 PM and it is noted that the famed seer had visited the Commander and Chief in official White House records! Ronald Reagan was also a client of Dixon's and regularly advised the President until she was replaced by Astrologer Joan Quigley.
(JFK was an expert Palm Reader)
Unknown to most historians is that President John F. Kennedy was an expert palm reader and would oftentimes entertain visitors by examining their hands and offering predictions about their future. In this History Channel film Lost Kennedy Home Movies (scroll ahead to 79 minutes) JFK can be seen reading the palm of a close friend.
Part Three: Stalin's Soothsayer
As the Second World War was
approaching Wolf
Messing -- a polish Jew and professional psychic --
fled to the safe haven of Soviet Russia.
Hitler's non-fondness of Polish
Jews who happened to be capable of extra-sensory perception and mystic
arts was not really a secret. However, Stalin was just as wary
as
Hitler in regards to people with special powers, leaving Messing in a
quandary as to how he should earn a living.
Messing took his act to various Moscow nightclubs and his accurate
predictions brought him to the attention of KGB.
Messing was arrested by the secret police on several occasions. While waiting in a police cell after his last bust, he was told that he was soon to expect a visitor with immense authority. This was no exaggeration. The visitor was Joseph Stalin himself. Stalin began to question Messing about his life in Poland and the situation there. A few days later, after being released, the KGB again rounded Messing up, informing him that Stalin had a few special tests in mind, to determine the true extent of his abilities.
The first test required Messing to rob a bank by purely psychic means. He was to walk into an official state bank and ask an official to hand over 100,000 roubles while presenting a blank piece of paper at the same time. Somehow the seer was able to pull off this heist.
After successfully completing this test Messing often found himself in Stalin's presence. Messing spoke of his foreboding that Hitler was planning to invade the USSR. He claimed that he had a vision of the war coming to Russia in the June of 1941. So did Messing's abilities include those of a prophet as well as mind reading? Or did he merely gather some information of the top of some German military official's minds? Either way, on June 22 of that year Hitler's armies invaded the USSR.
Throughout the war Messing's ability was used by Stalin to raise public spirits. At one point Messing was summoned to the Kremlin by Stalin, who was curious if he himself could be made a fool of by Messing. He was to display his powers by exiting the building without a pass, while Stalin's private secretary was to follow 10 steps behind him. Several minutes later, after having gone into his deepest trans yet, Messing found himself outside the gates, looking up at the window of Stalin's study.
This stunt promoted Messing to the position of Stalin's personal seer. He was forever being invited to Stalin's private apartments in the Kremlin. For what ever reason however, Stalin did not seem to heed Messing's advice regarding the war.
In the 1950s Stalin ordered Messing to undergo extensive testing at the hands of Soviet scientists. They decided that electrical impulses in Messing's brain were acting as radar signals. These signals would bounce off of similar strong thought patterns from his targets' minds, allowing him an insight into their thoughts. Messing himself was not too curious about the workings of his gift.
He would spend the next 20 year touring the USSR, performing in small villages. Along the way he also gained a reputation as a faith healer. In 1972 he tragically died from a heart attack. He had gained such a high status in the USSR that he was giving a hero's burial.
Even if Wolf Messing was merely a skilled trickster, he still lived a remarkable life. Being able to fool the likes of Joseph Stalin is no easy task. Often the stakes for him were not merely his reputation, but instead his very life.
Messing was arrested by the secret police on several occasions. While waiting in a police cell after his last bust, he was told that he was soon to expect a visitor with immense authority. This was no exaggeration. The visitor was Joseph Stalin himself. Stalin began to question Messing about his life in Poland and the situation there. A few days later, after being released, the KGB again rounded Messing up, informing him that Stalin had a few special tests in mind, to determine the true extent of his abilities.
The first test required Messing to rob a bank by purely psychic means. He was to walk into an official state bank and ask an official to hand over 100,000 roubles while presenting a blank piece of paper at the same time. Somehow the seer was able to pull off this heist.
After successfully completing this test Messing often found himself in Stalin's presence. Messing spoke of his foreboding that Hitler was planning to invade the USSR. He claimed that he had a vision of the war coming to Russia in the June of 1941. So did Messing's abilities include those of a prophet as well as mind reading? Or did he merely gather some information of the top of some German military official's minds? Either way, on June 22 of that year Hitler's armies invaded the USSR.
Throughout the war Messing's ability was used by Stalin to raise public spirits. At one point Messing was summoned to the Kremlin by Stalin, who was curious if he himself could be made a fool of by Messing. He was to display his powers by exiting the building without a pass, while Stalin's private secretary was to follow 10 steps behind him. Several minutes later, after having gone into his deepest trans yet, Messing found himself outside the gates, looking up at the window of Stalin's study.
This stunt promoted Messing to the position of Stalin's personal seer. He was forever being invited to Stalin's private apartments in the Kremlin. For what ever reason however, Stalin did not seem to heed Messing's advice regarding the war.
In the 1950s Stalin ordered Messing to undergo extensive testing at the hands of Soviet scientists. They decided that electrical impulses in Messing's brain were acting as radar signals. These signals would bounce off of similar strong thought patterns from his targets' minds, allowing him an insight into their thoughts. Messing himself was not too curious about the workings of his gift.
He would spend the next 20 year touring the USSR, performing in small villages. Along the way he also gained a reputation as a faith healer. In 1972 he tragically died from a heart attack. He had gained such a high status in the USSR that he was giving a hero's burial.
Even if Wolf Messing was merely a skilled trickster, he still lived a remarkable life. Being able to fool the likes of Joseph Stalin is no easy task. Often the stakes for him were not merely his reputation, but instead his very life.
Part Three: McKensie's Mystics
The Prime Minister of
Canada during the war was 33rd degree Freemason Mackenzie King.
Privately, he was highly eccentric with his preference for
communing with spirits, including those of Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Wilfrid Laurier,
his dead mother, and several of his Irish
Terrier dogs, all named Pat except for one named Bob. He also
claimed to commune with the spirit of the late President Roosevelt. He
sought personal reassurance from the spirit world, rather than seeking
political advice. Indeed, after his death, one of his mediums said that
she had not realized that he was a politician. King asked whether his
party would win the 1935 election, one of the few times politics came
up during his seances. His occult
interests were kept secret during his years in office, and only became
publicized later. Historians have seen in his occult activities a
penchant for forging unities from antitheses, thus having latent
political import. In 1953 Time stated that he owned —
and used — both an Ouija board
and a crystal ball.
When visiting London, England, to attend the Imperial Conference in 1926, he met with Sir Oliver Lodge and recorded Lodge’s comments on the ordering of human lives by spirit beings, and the need for faith on the part both of mediums and sitters.
In 1931 King visited Detroit to attend a séance held by the American medium Henrietta (Etta) Wriedt (1859-1942). The following year, King was invited to the Brockville home of Mrs. Fulford, the widow of a Canadian senator, where he experienced the direct voice mediumship of Mrs Wriedt, who would become his favourite medium. Throughout the rest of this decade King travelled frequently to Detroit to attend additional séances, and upon occasion Mrs Wriedt visited Ottawa.
In 1933 he met medical doctor Thomas Glendinning Hamilton at his Winnipeg residence where they discussed the Hamiltons’ psychical research experiments; the next year he pursued new contacts in England. Among other individuals he spoke with Lady Aberdeen, whose husband had been Governor-General of Canada from 1893-98. She told King that she had received evidence through automatic writing of the continued existence of her recently deceased husband; and King revealed to her in turn that he had contacted Lord Aberdeen himself through table rappings. Spending time in England again in 1936, after a trip to the League of Nations in Geneva, he visited the London Spiritualist Alliance.
Following a séance in 1933 attended by Dominion Archivist Sir Arthur George Doughty (1860-1936), King and his close friend Joan Patteson (1869-1960) took up the practice of table-rapping at their residences in Ottawa. They claimed to receive frequent messages from King’s mother, his brother Max, and former Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier (1841-1919).
In the 1940s King continued to consult mediums in England, among them Lillian Bailey (1895-1971) and Hester (Travers-Smith) Dowden (1868-1949). In 1945 the London Spiritualist Alliance arranged sittings for him with Mrs. Dowden, who practiced automatic writing, and Gladys Osborne Leonard (1882-1968).
Two years later the organization put him in contact with additional mediums including a Mrs. Sharplin and Miss Geraldine Cummins (1890-1969). During his final visit to London in 1948, once again he met with Mrs. Leonard and Miss Cummins.
In addition to his regular attempts to obtain spirit communication, King had been interested in other aspects of the occult since at least 1918, including interpretation of dreams, numerology, the meaning of coincidences and the reading of tea leaves.
During his lifetime, King’s spiritualist beliefs were known only to his close friends and immediate colleagues. For the most part he wanted his pursuits to remain private and stayed away from association with organized groups. The professional mediums he consulted guarded his privacy closely.
Not long after King’s death on 22 July 1950 at “Kingsmere,” his country estate in Quebec, his beliefs became known when the Psychic News published a letter telling of the late Prime Minister’s interest in Spiritualism. The story was picked up by Maclean’s Magazine in December 1951, then by Canadian newspapers. Attention focussed often on the extent to which he might have relied upon messages from the spirit realm to direct his decisions.
In her Unseen Adventures (1951), Geraldine Cummins describes sittings that she held for a British Commonwealth statesman, who was most assuredly Mr. King. In their initial meeting, his identity had been concealed from her. Cummins was impressed by her visitor’s “realistic and critical analysis of evidence presented by other psychic experiments. He was far too intelligent to be credulous, and his observations on the subject were to me very instructive.” Two years later, following a second sitting that warned about potential troubles in Asia, the statesman had said that “he made it a rule to ignore advice thus given: he trusted solely to his own and his advisers’ judgment.”
King’s voluminous personal papers were acquired by Library and Archives Canada. Unfortunately, in 1977, his literary executors made the decision to burn the notebooks in which mediums had apparently recorded their impressions in response to questions King had asked.
The remaining records about his Spiritualist activities were closed and only opened to researchers in 2001, a full 50 years after his death.
When visiting London, England, to attend the Imperial Conference in 1926, he met with Sir Oliver Lodge and recorded Lodge’s comments on the ordering of human lives by spirit beings, and the need for faith on the part both of mediums and sitters.
In 1931 King visited Detroit to attend a séance held by the American medium Henrietta (Etta) Wriedt (1859-1942). The following year, King was invited to the Brockville home of Mrs. Fulford, the widow of a Canadian senator, where he experienced the direct voice mediumship of Mrs Wriedt, who would become his favourite medium. Throughout the rest of this decade King travelled frequently to Detroit to attend additional séances, and upon occasion Mrs Wriedt visited Ottawa.
In 1933 he met medical doctor Thomas Glendinning Hamilton at his Winnipeg residence where they discussed the Hamiltons’ psychical research experiments; the next year he pursued new contacts in England. Among other individuals he spoke with Lady Aberdeen, whose husband had been Governor-General of Canada from 1893-98. She told King that she had received evidence through automatic writing of the continued existence of her recently deceased husband; and King revealed to her in turn that he had contacted Lord Aberdeen himself through table rappings. Spending time in England again in 1936, after a trip to the League of Nations in Geneva, he visited the London Spiritualist Alliance.
Following a séance in 1933 attended by Dominion Archivist Sir Arthur George Doughty (1860-1936), King and his close friend Joan Patteson (1869-1960) took up the practice of table-rapping at their residences in Ottawa. They claimed to receive frequent messages from King’s mother, his brother Max, and former Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier (1841-1919).
In the 1940s King continued to consult mediums in England, among them Lillian Bailey (1895-1971) and Hester (Travers-Smith) Dowden (1868-1949). In 1945 the London Spiritualist Alliance arranged sittings for him with Mrs. Dowden, who practiced automatic writing, and Gladys Osborne Leonard (1882-1968).
Two years later the organization put him in contact with additional mediums including a Mrs. Sharplin and Miss Geraldine Cummins (1890-1969). During his final visit to London in 1948, once again he met with Mrs. Leonard and Miss Cummins.
In addition to his regular attempts to obtain spirit communication, King had been interested in other aspects of the occult since at least 1918, including interpretation of dreams, numerology, the meaning of coincidences and the reading of tea leaves.
During his lifetime, King’s spiritualist beliefs were known only to his close friends and immediate colleagues. For the most part he wanted his pursuits to remain private and stayed away from association with organized groups. The professional mediums he consulted guarded his privacy closely.
Not long after King’s death on 22 July 1950 at “Kingsmere,” his country estate in Quebec, his beliefs became known when the Psychic News published a letter telling of the late Prime Minister’s interest in Spiritualism. The story was picked up by Maclean’s Magazine in December 1951, then by Canadian newspapers. Attention focussed often on the extent to which he might have relied upon messages from the spirit realm to direct his decisions.
In her Unseen Adventures (1951), Geraldine Cummins describes sittings that she held for a British Commonwealth statesman, who was most assuredly Mr. King. In their initial meeting, his identity had been concealed from her. Cummins was impressed by her visitor’s “realistic and critical analysis of evidence presented by other psychic experiments. He was far too intelligent to be credulous, and his observations on the subject were to me very instructive.” Two years later, following a second sitting that warned about potential troubles in Asia, the statesman had said that “he made it a rule to ignore advice thus given: he trusted solely to his own and his advisers’ judgment.”
King’s voluminous personal papers were acquired by Library and Archives Canada. Unfortunately, in 1977, his literary executors made the decision to burn the notebooks in which mediums had apparently recorded their impressions in response to questions King had asked.
The remaining records about his Spiritualist activities were closed and only opened to researchers in 2001, a full 50 years after his death.
Part Six: Patton's Past & Predictions
The famous general, George Patton, believed he had led numerous lives in the past, most of them as warriors. What most people don’t know is how Patton relied on a close adviser who the General believed had psychic powers. Patton never revealed the name of his confidant but once relayed this story:
“It was the
evening before a particularly critical
encounter with the enemy, and I wasn’t sure if the strategy I had
laid out to my men earlier in the day was the right strategy.
Normally, I don’t second-guess myself, but somehow in my gut I
felt something wasn’t right. In fact, something was
terribly wrong, and I didn’t want my loyal soldiers going into
battle with an inferior plan.
“I asked an aide to bring me my ‘secret weapon’ whom I would call upon from time to time to give me his ‘sense’ of whether or not my tactics were to pan out OK. I admit I smiled a bit when I explained my second thoughts on ‘my’ own decision as he had always accused me of demeaning everyone else’s decision-making ability.
“But my men’s lives were at stake and I was destined to go to hell if I didn’t do everything possible to minimize their losses.” To the surprise of the officers who reported to him the next morning, Patton did change his battle plan moments before the conflict began. Subsequently, the enemy was taken by surprise, outmaneuvered and eventually overwhelmed by Patton’s tanks.
Patton explained that he believed in forces that “we could neither see, nor explain, nor understand. But nevertheless they are present. And should we not heed their wisdom and powers, we will be doomed to fail.”