The first half of a conversation between conspiracy theorist Jay Dyer and scholar Richard Spence (the second half is behind a paywall and as usual, I aint payin´). The discussion centers on Aleister Crowley, the somewhat notorious British occultist. Spence believes there is good evidence that Crowley really did work for British intelligence in the United States during World War I. His main target was German intelligence, rather than the Irish-American community. He apparently presented himself as an Irish nationalist to the unsuspecting Germans. Spence suspects that Crowley continued to be an "asset" after the war, as well.
A more speculative proposal that comes up in the discussion is that Kim Philby was a "triple agent", who was really working for the British even as he "betrayed" the UK and defected to the Soviet side. Conversely, Spence believes that anti-Soviet spy Sidney Reilly (one of the supposed inspirations for James Bond) actually *did* work for the Communists! In general, Spence paints a very unflattering picture of the intelligence community. Most spies don´t really care about their fatherland, and are mostly taking care of their own personal interests. Crowley was different, but perhaps for the wrong reasons. He was loyal to Britain according to the principle "Right or wrong, my country".
So Swedenborg was a French agent, Blavatsky may have been a Russian agent, Crowley was a British agent, Roerich was an (involuntary) double agent...
Spence doesn´t think its strange that an occultist is a secret agent. There are three kinds of people who are of considerable interest to intelligence agencies: missionaries, explorers and reporters. They meet a lot of people in far away lands, and have seemingly legitimate reasons for actually being there. An occultist can pose as the two former. Occultists presumably have the additional benefit of not being taken absolutely seriously. The perfect spy! I assume that at least some occultists have a long experience of dissimulation and secrecy (Swedenborg was also interested in ciphers and mnemonics).
Could be of some interest.
This goes well with my pet-theory that ONA was created mostly as a way to get people(often unknowingly) to do assasinations etc for intelligence agencies.
ReplyDeletePerhaps other orders were becoming to dominated by normies to be suitable for such stuff.
But now that ONA seems to be dominated by pedos mostly focusing on extorting vulnerable kids, perhaps ONA have also lost its purpose as a tool for intelligence agencies.
Seems to be a delicate balance when recruiting hardcore people via occult orders. You dont want people afraid of getting their hands dirty. They are just useless. But you dont want total degenerates either. They are worse than useless and will sooner or later ruin whatever project they are part off.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the demimonde!
ReplyDeleteHugge,
ReplyDeleteSame with agents in general, I think. You may want an adventurous type who isn´t too "moral"...but exactly that kind of guy can defect to the enemy!