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LIFESTYLES OF THE (NOT-SO) RICH AND (IN)FAMOUS

"Champagne wishes and caviar dreams?" Not hardly! If you think the occult is a shortcut to wealth, fame, and power...boy did you get a wrong number!

Here are some mini-biographies of over 100 occultists, most of whom are authors of popular books on the occult. Before you plunk down money for one of their books, see if you think they could "make it work" first. 

HERE THEY ARE! FROM MERLIN TO MANSON! FROM LAVEU TO LAVEY!

MERLIN   (Circa 500 A.D.) His legend inspired occultists of future generations for centuries, and still does today. Merlin was the legendary "wizard" who supposedly aided the equally legendary King Arthur. In reality, the two never actually met. Arthur was probably a Saxon Chieftain who lived a century after Merlin, and their legends were combined centuries later.  The earliest legends of Merlin are far removed from the romantic legends most people are familiar with. One of the earliest accounts of Merlin is preserved in a late 15th century manuscript. In that account,  Merlin is a naked, hairy madman (not a wizard) who declares he has been condemned for his sins to wander in the company of wild animals because he caused all the deaths in the battle fought "on the plain between Liddel and Carwannok." Toward the end of his life, Merlin was granted one last sacrament from a priest named Kentigern, and then later that day Merlin dies a horrible death at the hands of King Meldred's men. That’s a far cry from the long beards and pointy hats of later romantic legends!  

    Geoffrey of Monmouth  invented the Merlin legend in his Historia Regum Britanniae writtten in 1130 A.D. Geoffrey combined existing legends of a northen madman named Myrddin Wyllt (or Merlinus Caledonensis), with a bard named of Aurelius Ambrosius, who went mad after seeing the horrors of war and fled to live in the woods. Poor Merlin was probably suffering from what psychologists would now call “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”, rather than possessing magic powers.

    Later writers further embellished on Geoffrey's stories,  combining them with legends of King Arthur, and even making Merlin the child of an earthly mother and a demon father [The Encyclopedia of The Occult by Lewis Spence pg 274] giving him magical powers. But none of these stories are true, and the people who inspired the Merlin legend were actually a madman (or possibly even legends of two different madmen) who lived in the wilderness. Of course, this doesn't stop occult book publishers like Llewellyn Publications from shamelessly publishing books like The 21 Lessons of Merlin, which have no direct connections whatsoever to Myrddin Wyll or Aurelius Ambrosius, and are just simply made up out of thin air! Such books are fakes, and people who buy them are only fooling themselves while they make the people who sell such books a little richer.

The person known as Merlin did not have magical powers, he was just a madman who lived in the woods...probably a psychotic or perhaps even a schizophrenic.

JACQUES DEMOLAY (1244-1314) The last leader of an order of fighting monks known as the Knights Templar. There has been a mountain of myth that has grown up about the Templars by both admirers and detractors alike. The Templars were an order of monks that defended Jerusalem before being driven out by Saladin. The Templars seemed to have escaped practically unharmed, suggesting they had cut a deal with Saladin. Legends have grown over the years about the Templars, including  finding a treasure buried under the Temple in Jerusalem, finding the Ark of the Covenant only to bury it under a Church in Scotland for some reason, discovering some deep dark secret (such as Christ being married), and blackmailing the Roman Catholic Church with it are just a few of the myths. Supposedly the Freemasons have retained the mysterious secrets of the Templars, but more than likely this is just unfounded legends and fake rituals written over the centuries to inject some mystery into boring lives.
    What we do know about the Templars, is that they did have some wealth, but not the vast amounts writers today attribute to them.   The idea that the Templars were the equivalent to billionaires is ludicrous! The Templars became skillful and shrewd traders with their Arab neighbors, which is how they made their wealth. There’s really no mystery to it. 

   After the fall of Jerusalem, Jacques DeMolay and the Templars returned to France in disgrace. During this time the Roman Catholic Church had moved it’s headquarters to France, under a Pope who is known in history as the “Anti-Pope”.  Since Jerusalem had fallen into Muslim hands, and would remain so until the British Empire acquired it briefly after WWI, there was no real reason for the Templar Order to continue. King Philip wanted to merge the Templars with the Hospitalers, which would have put them under his control. Demolay, not wanting to cede his authority, balked at this idea and refused to do so. There were many rumors circulating around France the Templars had become heretics, and the charges may not have been completely unfounded.    Among the charges leveled against the Templars was that they engaged in homosexual acts. Historians have concluded that this charge was probably true, considering it sometimes happens when members of the same sex must live together for very extended periods of time ( cite ref, from R.H. Robbins). DeMolay confessed to engaging in homosexuality as well, but it is most unlikely that it was done as part of a “sex magic” ritual as modern day occult groups would have us believe.

    Before DeMolay was arrested on charges of heresy, his spies tipped him off, and he then immediately burned a large pile of documents. If this account is true, it shows he must have had something to hide...but one will ever know what exactly that might have been. Under torture, DeMolay confessed to heresy, and later publically admitted it. Later DeMolay  recanted his confession however, angering the King. Since people have been known to confess to anything under torture, it’s impossible to know which version of Demolay’s confession to believe.
    Among the things the Templars confessed to was worshiping something called “Baphomet”. But what Baphomet was is a mystery. Some said it was a black cat, others said it was a human skull with the number 314 painted on it.   Freemasons have a secret initiation (and blasphemous) ritual that takes place upon entrance into the 33rd degree in Scottish Rite, and the 10th degree of York Rite in which wine is drunk from a human skull,   and apparently this is inspired by the Templar legend of skull worship. What we know for certain is that Baphomet was not the goat head inside the pentagram with Hebrew letters on each point spelling out “Leviathan”. This was an invention of occult writers of the 19th century. You may also see a “crusaders cross” called Baphomet, but this too is wishful thinking.

    Scholars have discovered Baphomet is actually a linguistic corruption of “Mohammed”, and believe the  Templars had become clandestine Muslims. This theory would certainly explain a lot, including why the Templars escaped Saladin unscathed. Bedouin Muslims seem to have  tolerance for homosexual sex (although lesbians are killed on the spot), which possibly could be a  reason the Templars would want to have become Muslims, if accounts of their homosexuality are true.  Many of the Templars fled to Muslim controlled Spanish Cordova, which would suggest they were indeed Muslims, and perhaps that is the solution to the enigma. The great and mysterious secret of the Templars may have been that they shared the same religion as the 9-11 hijackers! It’s also possible they escaped to Cordova thinking that could blend in with the Muslims, having knowledge of their language and customs.   At any rate, DeMolay was not the possessor of some mysterious occult secret, and people belonging to modern day “Templar” orders (such as the O.T.O) have no direct connection to the original order at all.

ABRA-MELIN [ b? D? ] Supposedly an Egyptian mystic who instructed a certain Abraham The Jew in the ways of sorcery.  Abraham the Jew supposedly entertained the kings of Europe  with feats of magic, suggesting he was merely a stage magician. More than likely, Abra-Melin and Abraham the Jew were literary inventions, and there’s no real evidence to suggest either actually existed. The only known account appears in the book The Sacred Magic of Abramelin The Mage...a book claimed to have been translated directly from Hebrew, although scholars doubt this. The book supposedly dates from the 12th century, but appears to have been written in the 18th century by a Frenchman, judging from the handwriting style and grammatical errors. It’s a common trick among occultists to claim an occult book is centuries older than it actually is. In the book, Abraham supposedly travels the world and studies magic and meets a mysterious Egyptian mystic named Abra-Melin who gives him the ultimate secrets. The story of traveling around the world and into the Middle East to study the occult sounds similar to that of the  Christian Rozenkrutz legend, and must have been a popular theme among occult legends of the day.  The book’s system of magic isn’t Egyptian, and appears to be European Ceremonial magic.  The book claims to give the invocations for Satan, Lucifer, Belial, and Leviathan, and the whole thing is obviously black magic under a thin veil. Abra-Melin was a popular form of magic with Aleister Crowley, who died a penniless drug adict, and this alone should convince most people it doesn’t work!

HENREICH CORNIELIUS AGRIPPA VON NETTESHEIM (1486-1535) wrote Three Books of Occult Philosophy (and possibly a fourth book) which was the basis for other works like The Magus by Barrett and to some degree rituals recorded in Regardie's The Golden Dawn practiced by the now defunct order of the same name. Agrippa’s creaky book has been reprinted today and read by people thinking they can have magic powers. Aggrippa claimed he had all sorts of knowledge about summoning the spirits and how to compel them to do one’s bidding, including finding buried treasure. In fact that’s about the only reason people got into the occult in those days; to find buried treasure. The occult was the get rich quick scheme of ancient times (and still is even modern times among some ethnic groups).   Even though many occultists today get excited about Agrippa’s book, it’s really nothing more than a book of silly superstitions. Aggrippa mentions the things you might expect to read in such a book, such as the correct way to remove the tongue from a frog for magic spells...while the poor frog is still alive (pg. 69 of the Llewellyn edition)! The tooth of a mole is also to be taken out while the mole is still alive, poor thing, and allegedly cures toothache (only it doesn’t really work). Hopefully the mole gets in a few good bites to whoever’s dumb enough to try it. If you see an ox treading corn, that’s good luck, seeing a mouse means danger, and seeing a snake means an enemy is talking abut you. (Pg. 163) It’s hard to believe anyone nowadays would take such silly superstition seriously, and yet some still do! 

    While some might consider Agrippa a man of education, remember that he was educated keep in mind he was educated 500 years ago, and that the world has gotten much more advanced since then. I’ve heard superstitious people who basically had no education from Third World countries believe in similar things.  Agrippa was employed by the Emperor Maximilian I, but probably as a soldier and not as an astrologer as later writers have tried to claim.  His reputation as an occultist seemed to cause him to lose positions he was appointed to, rather than acting as an asset. Despite all this occult knowledge, he died in poverty at age 48 in 1532! Do you have any books by him on your shelf? Maybe the oversized paperback from Llewellyn? If he wrote all these books on the occult and couldn't make it work, what chance does anyone else have of doing so?

Agrippa was just a superstitious man who didn’t really have magical powers who died broke.

PARACELCUS (1493-1541) His real name was Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombast von Hohenheim. He would be an inspiration to many future occultists, such as Mesmer and Cagliostro. This man was said to be arrogant and conceited, and even his chosen name seems to bear this out. He chose the name "Paracelcus" to mean "even grater than Celsus", Celsus being a famous Pagan Roman physician and anti-Christian writer.  Paracelcus was an astrologer and alchemist, but considered himself a physician. Even though some occultists  tend to romanticize themselves as some sort of “scientists” and the occult a “science”.  Paracelcus himself denounced reason and once wrote, “Magic is wisdom. Reason is open folly”,  and this hardly what one expect from a scientist!  He spent most of his days wandering as a vagabond, getting jobs teaching at the universities and colleges of the day, and then being run off when the teachers and students had enough of his arrogance.

    Paracelcus managed to alienate anyone who met him and lost every friend he made due to his superior attitude. Paracelcus thought magnets were magic, as do most superstitious people, and thought he could cure patients with them, and also employed astrology. He published a book with illustrations resembling those used later on Tarot cards In 1536.  He never found the philosopher's stone to live forever, nor figured out how to change lead into gold and died broke at the age of 51.

Even though he was an inspiration for later occultists, he was simply, an arrogant fake.

MOTHER SHIPTON (1512?-1561?)a.k.a Ursula Southill (or Sowthiel, or Southiel). Actually, there were several women who were said to be the legendary "Mother Shipton". In 1686 a book was published called The Strange and Wonderful History of Mother Shipton, which included some of her "predictions". Before 1641, there seems to be no record of her. She may have simply been a literary invention, as some critics have asserted. Many almanacs published up to the 19th century used Mother Shipton's name freely, such as New Universal Dream-Book; or The Dreamer's Sure Guide to the Hidden Mysteries of Futurity By Mother Shipton (1838).One of her predictions was that the world would end in 1884. It didn't, as you may have noticed. The date was changed in later books to 1984. (The Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural by James Randi, pg 214-215) It didn't end then either, as you probably noticed again. Presumably, the date will be changed to 2084 in new editions. An example of a Mother Shipton “prediction” is this often misquoted one:    

                                                                                           Eighteen hundred and thirty-five
                                                                                           Which of us shall be alive?
                                                                                           Many a king shall end his reign
                                                                                           Many a knave his end shall gain.

Apparently Kingdoms were to end in 1835...and in fact none did. Later editions in the 1930's changed the date to 1935...which was still wrong! In the 1970's, the date was changed to 1985...and still failed to come to pass.  In the 70's many Wiccans promoted Mother Shipton, trying to pass her off as a Wiccan...she wasn't. Nor was she a prophetess.  Books still continue to be written today by modern authors, claiming they are actually written by Mother Shipton!

Mother Shipton; A false prophetess who may not have even actually existed!

JOHN DEE (1527-1608) John Dee  invented Enochian "Magick" and tried unsuccessfully to get the spirits to bring him money. Enochian magic would be picked up by later occultists, such as the Golden Dawn bunch, Aleister Crowley, Israel Regardie, and even Satanist Anton LaVey dabbled in it. Dee told Princess Elizabeth she would someday become the Queen, which was a prediction that was certainly possible, considering she was royalty, even though she was an unwilling guest of the Tower of London at the time. It’s unknown how many other nobles he might have also told a similar prediction about gaining the throne, figuring one of them would pay off. After Elizabeth gained the throne, he became the Queen’s advisor, even though Elizabeth is said not to have approved of his occultic methods.

    Dee made claims he made contact with “angels” that taught him the language spoken by Enoch to God, which he called “Enochian”. But the language Dee “discovered” is simply a corrupted form of Hebrew. The Enochian script is derived from Roman characters, oddly enough. It would have been easy enough for Dee to have simply invented such a language, and this is more plausible than thinking angels revealed  it to him. Since Dee was employed as a spy for England at one point, it may even be the so-called “magical” language is really just a spy’s cipher that Dee later tried to pass off as an “angelic language”.

   Even though followers of Enochian magic claim it is to be used for the highest of spiritual purposes, Dee himself was said to use it mostly to try to find buried treasure.  People who got involved in the occult often did it to find buried treasure as I’ve noted, and Dee was certainly no different.  One favorite spirit of Dee’s supposedly called itself “Amy”, and was said to resemble a child carrying a lantern. Dee hoped that this spirit would locate buried treasure for him, or obtain money for him somehow.  It didn’t work, of course.

    One day the spirit informed Dee and Kelly that the Enochian spirits that, rather than wanting to bring mankind enlightenment, they wanted to bring about the destruction of mankind!  Yet Dee still wanted Kelly to keep invoking the spirits. To this day, people who practice Enochian magick believe that someday, someone will come up with the right combination and unleash the Enochian demons that will bring about the apocalypse. Common sense would derive from this that the Enochian angels are actually demons who seek to harm mankind!

   Dee’s fortune did not last. He spent the final years of his life stripped of his honors and income and was forced to live incommunicado. He died in extreme poverty at the age of 81.   If the inventor of Enochian magic couldn't make it work for him, what chance does anyone else have?

EDWARD KELLEY (1555-1597) a.k.a Edward Talbot  He was an assistant to Dee during his Enochian experiments, which later occultists became so enamored over. Aleister Crowley even claimed he was the reincarnation of Kelley. Kelley had a shady past long before he met Dee. He had both is ears cut off as punishment for counterfeiting, which is why he always wore a hat to conceal the fact.   He conned several people into thinking he could change lead into gold...a common scam for alchemists of the time. He became Dee’s assistant and seemed to have played a con on Dee at least part of the time they were together. Kelley tricked Dee into wife swapping, claiming the spirits had insisted upon it.   Kelley got the better end of the swap, as Dee’s wife was 20 years younger than Kelley’s...so it’s not hard to see the real motive behind that  “Angelic revelation”. 

    Kelley warned Dee the “angels” they were talking to were really demons, and that angles had told him their goal was to destroy humanity!   Some of the things Kelly and Dee claimed the angels revealed to them seemed to echo Gnostic heresy of earlier times, so assuming Kelly’s alarm was for real, it was justified. For example, according to Kelly the “angels” told them Jesus wasn’t God and no prayers should be made to him, and there was no Holy Ghost.  The “angels”  told them the story of Adam and Eve was nonsense, and that there had always been the same number of human beings throughout time, neither more nor less, which is a scientific impossibility!

    Kelley eventually abandoned Dee's magical practices, in 1589 because he found a new pigeon, Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II, who employed him to make gold through alchemy. Eventually, when the Emperor realized Kelly was conning him, Kelly fled. Kelley/Talbot died at the age of 47 from an injury sustained while trying to escape from prison after being incarcerated for his old hobby of counterfeiting. Kelley tried to lower himself out of a third story window with a makeshift rope, but the rope wasn’t long enough. He tried to drop the rest of the way down to the ground, and only succeeded in breaking his leg. The wound led to his death several days later, which must have been excruciating. 

   If even Kelly thought the Enochian magic was Demonic and would destroy humanity, why is anyone stupid enough to try it??? Are you?   Kelley didn’t wind up rich or powerful, didn’t have magic powers, nor does anyone else who practices Enochian “magic”.

CHRISTIAN ROSENKRUTZ (invented in 1623 but allegedly b1378 d. 1484) Credited for creating the occult society known as  Rosicrucian Order. There have been dozens of groups calling themselves Rosicrucian throughout the centuries, and there are several in existence today. The most well known one today is probably the Ancient Mystical Order of the Rosy Cross based out of San Jose, California.  Christian Rozenkruts, supposedly changed lead into gold, discovered ever-burning lamps, lived for 106 years, had amazing powers...and in reality never actually even existed!!! Christian Rozenkrutz was a hoax that has gotten a lot of milage since its creation.

    The Rosicrucian order first came to the attention of the world in Paris in 1623, when anonymous leaflets were distributed around the city announcing the “invisible college” coinciding with a new book published by a bookseller titled Fama Fraternitatis which detailed the life of the previously-unknown Christian Rosenkrutz..The book claimed Rozenkrutz had traveled to Turkey, Moroco, and Egypt to study alchemy...a trip that would have been unlikely for a lone European Christian at that time in Muslim controlled lands. The book claimed Paracelcus had learned his secrets from the an earlier book by Rosenkrutz...but in reality Paraclesus had no powers, and the he never heard of Rosenkrutz since the hoax came about years after he died.  Paracelsus makes no mention of a Christian Rosenkrutz in any of his writings, which doesn’t came as a surprise. Fama Fraternis said the Rosicrucians were going to give millions of dollars worth of gold to rebuild the Roman Empire, since they could easily manufacture large quantities of gold and had no use for it. It’s not hard to see why people would be attracted to such an order...why, for strictly spiritual purposes of course!

     The whole Rosicrucian legend was started as a joke to make fun of occultists by a Lutheran minister named Valentin Andrea, who later admitted to the hoax.  Andrea’s family crest is a cross with four roses, which is where he got the idea for the rose & cross symbol of Rosicrucianism. Andrea was depressed over the devastation brought about by the 30 years war, and wrote a tract of political satire. In fact, most of the material for Fama Fraternis, is actually plagiarized from a book published in 1615 titled Reformation of The World, written by Trajano Boccalini. (The History of Magic and The Occult by Kurt Seligmann,  p.287). Historical scholars recognize Fama Fraternis as a book of political satire, but the problem with satire is that it often goes over the heads of the intended audience.

    Various Rosicrucian groups arose to meet the demands of the naive and greedy, hoping to find the secrets of changing lead into gold and having eternal youth.  Many were outright scams. In the years following the publication of Fama Fraternis, the Paris police recorded several incidents of such scams where people were willingly separated from their money in hopes of learning mystical Rosicrucian secrets.

    Some modern day occultists, in order to save face,  have begun to say Christian Rozenkrutz was merely symbolic, and not an actual person. Anyone who follows Rosicrucianism proves Andreas’ joke right...that occultists will believe anything! Nevertheless, many people even today belong to one of the various Rosicrucian orders...each one claiming to be the only true order and all the others fake. The truth is, they’re all fakes, since it’s all based on a hoax, and was never really intended to be taken seriously!

MICHAEL NOSTRADAMUS (1503-1566) Nostradamus is well known for writing “prophecies” in the form of four line poems called “quatrains”. Many legends have grown about Nostradamus which aren’t true, including his being a physician (there’s no record of it), his being Jewish (he only had one Jewish grandfather, and was in fact a second generation Roman Catholic) and discovering a cure for the plague from roses (it doesn’t actually work). Nostradmus made plenty of predications that haven’t panned out. He predicted a horrible fate for English Queen Elizabeth I in his almanacs, which never came to pass, and was probably written just to please the French nobility. A trick used by fortunetellers and psychics even today is to tell people what they want to hear. His reputation as an astrologer is exaggerated, and in fact, he could not actually cast horoscopes.

    Many of his so called “prophecies” were really political commentaries and critiques about the Roman Catholic Church, and not predictions of the future. Fans of Nostradamus who don’t know this read anything they want into the quatrains, transforming them into “prophecies”.  The antiquated form of the French language that Nostradamus’ quatrains are written in allow for a lot of wiggle room, too. Quatrain 51, supposedly a prediction about the fire of London of 1666, was actually a veiled protest against English Queen Mary’s persecution of English Protestants in 1555. This event happened in Nostradamus’ lifetime, and Quatrain 51 was first published in May 1555, a few months after the incident happened occurred. (The Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural by James Randi, pgs 160-164) Critics have noted that Nostradamus is good at predicting the past...and they may be right in more ways than one!

    It’s a little known fact that Nostradmus’s son also tried his hand at predictions as well after the death of his father. According to Ripely’s Believe It Or Not, unlike his famous dad, “Nostradamus Jr.” didn’t have the knack for cloaking his predictions in poems without a specific date of fulfilment [need ref from the Riplely’s Believe it Or Not book it came from. 2 opitions 1. Get Polk Count Library Card 2. Contact Ripley and order the book Try opition 2 first, then one].  Jr. was said to have botched every single prediction he ever made in fact, which is why he isn’t as widely known! Once he predicted a certain French town would burn down on a certain date. When it didn’t, determined to have one of his predictions come true, he tried to burn it down himself! An angry mob caught him in the act of arson, put out the fire in time before it spread, and even this prediction failed to materialize. When asked “Do you think we’re going to allow you to live after what you’ve done?” the defiant Nostradamus replied “Yes”! The mob then immediately killed him. Even this very last prediction of Junior’s was a failure!

    In the 20th Century, Nazi Propagandist Joseph Gobbels had booklets of Nostradamus’ “prophecies” printed up with interpretations that made the Nazis sound as though they would win WWII, and had them distributed all over Europe. Great Britain retaliated with it’s own Nostradamus predictions with the Allied Nations victorious, and distributed them over Europe as well. More than likely, neither set of fake predictions had any real impact on the war, one way or the other. 

    And while he may have used “occult” methods to get his visions,  Nostradamus actually wrote that outside of the Christian Church there was no salvation! There’s no real evidence Nostradamus was a Rosicrucian or magician. Letters of Nostradamus turned up in the Bibliotheque Nationale in France that indicate Nostradamus was a secretly a Lutheran. While some of his practices may have been wrong,  he actually seemed to have had faith in Christianity.

Michele Nostradamus: His legend doesn’t live up to reality, and he was secretly a Lutheran!  

NICHOLAS CULPEPPER (1616-1654) Studied astrology in his youth and later wrote a book about herbal quack cures that many occultists follow. English physicians denounced his books, not because Culpepper was taking their business away (because he didn’t), but because of his bizarre unscientific occult beliefs about herbs. For instance, he thought   a "strong infusion" of pomegranate could "cure ulcers in the mouth and throat and fasten the teeth(?)", because it corresponded to the astrological sign of mercury. Not only isn't this scientific, it doesn't work..

    Even though Culpepper is revered as a medical genius by today’s health nut crowd, he actually smoked and drank quite a bit. In fact, it’s been said his grandfather cut him out of his will allegedly because he was a lush. Some may question the common sense in using a book about medically untested folk medicine written in the 17th century in the first place, and for good reason. The FDA has on its website many herbs used in “herbalsim”(which is not the same as “homeopathic” medicine, but also is a quack science), from Vervain to Kava Kava, which can all have side effects and even be poisonous! Even with all his supposed medical knowledge, Culpepper died at the age of 41 from Tuberculosis, and partly due to a war wound he never completely recovered from, showing he didn’t really know anything but quack medicine or else he could have cured himself! "Physician heal thyself!" Since he couldn’t cure himself, believed in quack medical cures, and didn’t realize smoking and alcoholism were bad, why follow his teachings?

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1643-1727) He discovered the Law of Gravity. He theorized artificial satellites could be put into orbit around the Earth, and his laws of motion are still used by scientists today. Newton’s genius is considered to be on the same level as Albert Einstein’s. A lesser known fact about Newton is that he wasted 20 years of his life studying alchemy and the occult. He treated the endeavor practically  as a full time job, concentrating on little else in his life. One day he finally  realized it was all nonsense, and that he wasted TWO DECADES of his life trying to understand it. He became very distraught at this revelation, and probably came close to a nervous breakdown! But after a few days, he ditched the occult for good, picked himself up, dusted himself off, returned to the Christian faith, and resumed teaching science at Cambridge. Sir Isaac was one of the greatest minds in science, comparable to Eienstein, and even with his genius, he couldn't make it work! Neither will you or anyone else.

Sir Isaac Newton: Occultists of all kinds everywhere should follow his example and ditch the occult, no matter how much time you’ve invested in it!

CATHERINE DESHAYES a.k.a Madame LaViosin (1640?-1680)A Satanist who headed a cult of Devil worshipers that celebrated the Black Mass. LaViosin’s use of a nude girl as an altar was practiced by later Satanists groups, including Anton LaVey’s original Church of Satan. The chicken or egg question is, was LaViosin the first to celebrate actual Black Masses inspired by earlier but untrue legends, or did some sort of abominations actually take place in the centuries prior to her cult, providing an actual basis for the stories? At any rate, LaViosin’s case is well documented...perhaps the best documented witch trial ever...and such rituals did take place, and the parties involved were not innocent of their crimes.

    LaViosin was a witch and fortune teller who also ran an “abortion clinic” of sorts and sold poisons. She would take the fetuses of unborn babies and unwanted infants and slit their throats in Black Masses. Her clients who bought poison were usually nobility, often women. The Paris Police broke up her poison ring which reached all the way to England. They were tipped off by two Roman Catholic priests who had received several confessions of French noble ladies who confessed to trying to poison their husbands. The stories were almost always the same; a noble woman would poison her husband’s shirts, causing him to break out. His wife would then give him an ointment for the rash...which was more poison. Sometimes the husbands figured out what was happening, and fled to monasteries for safety, but some were not as fortunate.

    Priests are obliged to keep confessions secret, because Priests are bound by what is known as the “seal of the confession” not so their Bishop told the two Priests involved to give the police just enough information to begin searching without actually naming names of confessors. This information began an investigation that ultimately  lead police to LaViosin. When the police raided LaViosin’s house, they knew something was strange about her family immediately because they all slept in the same bed.  Police discovered a hidden chamber in the house that led to a room draped completely in black with black candles, and an altar covered with a mattress. Also discovered were several books on black magic and astrology owned by LaViosin. 367 people were arrested in all, and 74 people were sentenced. Many French nobles fled to England and other countries to avoid arrest, and the scandal rocked French high society.

      A debauched priest named Gibourg created communion wafers from flour and blood from the sacrificed infants. These were then used in the Black Masses against King Louis XIV. The King’s mistress had employed LaViosin to use Satanic black magic to kill the King, which didn’t work. When this failed to work, she planned to poison him, but the plot was uncovered before she could carry it out.

    LaViosin and several debauched Priests who had converted to Satanism conducted Black Masses with placentas and fetuses of the aborted babies provided by LaViosin’s abortion business, as well as living unwanted ones, over the naked bodies of young girls as altars. During the Masses, the demons Astoroth and Asmodeus were “invoked” for assistance. LaVisoin later confessed to police that over the years she had cremated some of the remains of the fetuses and babies in her furnace, and some she buried some in her garden. This was confirmed when authorities unearthed thousands of bones of infants on her property. An exact body count of the child murders and poisonings was impossible to tell, but must have been quite high.

   To avoid a public scandal, King Louis the 14th ordered the trial to be conducted in a sealed court ( a star chamber). LaViosin and her gang were all arrested, tried, and convicted for their crimes. The Government of France then created laws against fortune telling, sorcery, and poison to help assure successor cults didn’t arise. Years later the King ordered all records of the trial to be burned, but a few copies accidentally (or intentionally) weren’t destroyed and survive even today. Even though LaVisoin practiced human sacrifices, which some occultists consider to be the ultimate act for attaining power (it was widely practiced by the Pagans of old), it still did her no good. The Devil never gives complete success to those who follow him.  LaViosin was burned at the stake in 1680.

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG (1688-1722) Created the occultic New Jerusalem Church, which still exists today. Representatives from the New Jerusalem Church were present at the installation of Frank Griswold as the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the 1990's, indicating that denomination had sank to previously unfathomable depths. Although from a well to do family, Swedenborg was strange man, who had visions and was said to have hated children. His contemporaries considered him mad. He had many bizarre hallucinations that inspired him to create a new “syrupy” theology, based mostly on his own ideas (The Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural by James Randi, pg 226-227).  Swedenborg taught  reincarnation, which is not compatible with Christian Theology, among other things. In his book Conjugal Love, he stated keeping mistresses and having concubines were OK. But it’s his doctrines on extraterrestrial life that are perhaps the most bizarre.

    His claims about events on other planets are the proof positive  he was a fake. Swedenborg claimed there were people living on Venus, who were Christians:  "They are of two kinds; some are gentle and benevolent, others wild, cruel and of gigantic stature. The latter rob and plunder, and live by this means; the former have so great a degree of gentleness and kindness that they are always beloved by the good; thus they often see the Lord appear in their own form on their earth."  They talk through their stomachs, and so their voices are said to sound like belches. The next time you hear some sophomoric friend belch the alphabet, make sure they’re not from Venus!  He also said the moon was inhabited:  "The inhabitants of the Moon are small, like children of six or seven years old; at the same time they have the strength of men like ourselves. Their voice rolls like thunder, and the sound proceeds from the belly, because the Moon is in quite a different atmosphere from the other planets." It seems a lot of aliens talk through their stomachs. Only Doctor Who would know for sure.

    He was quite paranoid about Quakers, whom were probably the most harmless people of the day. He repeatedly called their religion vile and indecent and made up the most ridiculous charges against them, including wife swapping...a curious accusation considering his own liberal views on sex.  Once he awoke screaming that his hair had been turned into snakes. He was convinced that Quaker ghosts had caused it to have actually happened, instead of dismissing it as a dream.(The Occult: A History By Collin Wilson, p 278). 

    Most of his contemporaries thought he was a madman and a liar...and they certainly seem to have been right. Clearly, he was just a crackpot! But since people didn't know things back in the 1700's like Venus and the Moon don't have life, he managed to fool a few people. Today his followers simply seem to ignore the more embarrassing parts of his writings and keep the parts they like in a sort of “cafeteria religion”, if they’ve even read them at all. Modern Psychiatrists have noted a similar pattern in Swedenborg's visions and the hallucinations of schizophrenics, which would certainly explain a lot.

"COUNT" CLAUDE LOUIS SAINT GERMAIN (1710?-1784) He seems to be a favorite of occultists nowadays. The Rosicrucians and Theosophists claim that Saint Germain is still alive and that he was once known as Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)! H.P. Blavatsky claims the Count to be one of the “ascended masters” that lives inside a mountain in Tibet, apparently even in the present time. Her successor Annie Besant claimed  she actually met the Count still alive in 1896. Her follower Henry Olcott claimed he met centuries old Count St. Germain in 1926, still alive and said to be living in a castle in Transylvania. Guy Ballard, founder of the "I AM" New Age cult, claimed he too met Saint Germain, but on Mount Shasta in California in August of 1930. He must have must have gotten tired of having Dracula as a neighbor and moved out of his castle.  Elizabeth Claire Prophet claimed to receive regular revelations from him, and her cult has practically deified the Count. Prophet claims the Count magically appeared to the founding fathers at the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, telling them to sign it (as though they wouldn’t have otherwise?). Other occultists claim he lived on from the 1700's  and became known as the psychologist Carl Jung. Obviously all these stories can’t be true  (in fact, none of them are), and the actual truth is much less fanciful.

   The real “Count” St. Germain spun quite an unbelievable yarn of being extremely old...anywhere from 300 to 2000 years old, depending on whom he wanted to impress. He spoke of ancient events as though he had been present at them, and this apparently fooled some people into thinking he actually had. It’s a secret many occultists use called lying. He made it a point never to eat in public, and this added to the image that he had somehow discovered the secret of eternal youth and no longer needed food to survive. He did eat in private, or else he would have starved to death.

    No one knows where exactly “Count” St. Germain came from, and it’s unlikely he was actually a Count. Sometimes he claimed he was a Russian Prince, a count from Transylvania, or a German nobleman. In 1774 he fooled the Margrave Charles Alexander into believing he was Prince Rakoczy, until Alexander eventually learned several months later that all the Rakoczys were all dead.  One account says he was simply the Itallian son of a tax collector born in 1710 in San Germano (Itallian for Saint Germain), and most  historians think this is correct. Nothing of his life is known before 1740.

    St. Germain was said to have owned an impressive art collection, but famous pieces of art have pedigrees, and there is no famous painting ever documented to have been owned by Count St. Germain. Not even one. Since Germain was said to have been an artist himself, this suggests his paintings were really forgeries. Count St. Germaine managed to gain the confidence of Louis XV of France.

    Not everyone was fooled by St. Germain. Once he tried to impress the famous Giacomo Casanova (who was also a fake, but later at least he eventually admitted it in his memoirs) by changing a small ingot of lead into gold. But since he was a “fellow traveler”, Casanova told St. Germain he knew the trick was accomplished- -by switching the lead ingot for a gold one through slight of hand. St. Germain was miffed, and  politely asked him to leave his house. Concerning the Count, Casanova had this to say:

“This extraordinary man, intended by nature to be the king of impostors and quacks, would say in an easy, assured manner that he was three hundred years old, that he knew the secret of the Universal Medicine, that he possessed a mastery over nature, that he could melt diamonds, professing himself capable of forming, out of ten or twelve small diamonds, one large one of the finest water without any loss of weight. All this, he said, was a mere trifle to him. Notwithstanding his boastings, his bare-faced lies, and his manifold eccentricities, I cannot say I thought him offensive. In spite of my knowledge of what he was and in spite of my own feelings, I thought him an astonishing man as he was always astonishing me.”
           
      Another account from a contemporary comes from a letter written in 1745 by Horace Walpole The letter states Count St. Germain was arrested in London on suspicion of espionage but released without charge:

   “ ...the other day they seized an odd man, who goes by the name of Count St. Germain. He has been here these two years, and will not tell who he is, or whence, but professes that he does not go by his right name. He sings, plays on the violin wonderfully, composes, is mad, and not very sensible. He is called an Italian, a Spaniard, a Pole; a somebody that married a great fortune in Mexico, and ran away with her jewels to Constantinople; a priest, a fiddler, a vast nobleman. The Prince of Wales has had unsatiated curiosity about him, but in vain. However, nothing has been made out against him; he is released; and, what convinces me that he is not a gentleman, stays here, and talks of his being taken up for a spy.” (From a Letter to Sir Horace Mann, Dec. 9, 1745, available on Project Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12073/12073.txt)

    Cassanova’s writings give a clue as to why the Count got away with his ruse for so long; St. Germain was a charismatic character. Some people probably thought him an entertaining and  harmless quack. But no doubt there were some people who probably believed him, or else he couldn’t have made a successful living sponging off of rich nobles.

    The mystery of his identity seemed to be part of his charm. His very last meal ticket had him quartered in a particularly damp room, which is said to have lead to his rheumatism. He became depressed toward the end of his life. During his lifetime, it’s said he also met another occult quack, Count Cagliostro, who he claimed he initiated into Freemasonry in London...even though the Prussian grand master Freemason St. Germain once met spotted him as a fake when he couldn’t give the correct handshakes and passwords.  

    In reality, Count St. Germain wasn’t really a count, didn’t have occult powers, and was just a con artist. Count St. Germain was probably 74 when he died in 1784...even though he claimed to be centuries old and knew the secret to eternal life! He was just a con man, nothing more, certainly was not an “ascended master”!

"CONTE" ALESSANDRO CAGLIOSTRO (1743?-1795) Cagliostro founded now extinct Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry and claimed to have had occult powers. He was an inspiration for future occultists like H.P. Blavatsky and Goethe, among others. Born of a peasant family named Balsamo, Cagliostro claimed to be a count, a Hermetic magician, an alchemist, and a Gypsy. Historian Thomas Carlyle called him the “Prince of Quacks.” Goethe was so impressed with Cagliostro at first, he traveled to Palermo to meet his family. How disappointed he must have been when “Count” Cagliostro’s family turned out to be peasants who lived in a one room house! He managed to write positive things about the encounter at first, but must have changed his mind later about Cagliostro, because in Goethe’s play The Grand Copht, he portrays Cagliostro as a charlatan.

    Unmanageable as a child, Cagliostro’s  family sent him to a seminary for education. One day he read the Gospels and replaced the names of Biblical figures with the names of local prostitutes, causing him to be expelled.  In Palermo he traveled with a gang of robbers. He used his talent for forgery to make theater tickets, a falsified will, and anything else he could profit from. He even robbed his own uncle and was accused of a murder. He conned the gullible and greedy by pretending that he was able to locate gold and buried treasure with magic, showing clients the sites where he said it was buried. When the gullible nobles went to dig up the treasure at the prescribed site, they instead found Cagliostro’s henchmen waiting for them dressed in devil costumes, who then proceeded to mug the nobles. Cagliostro would later tell the nobles that actual demons had robbed them, and also taken the treasure! This ruse landed him in prison on at least one occasion. At times Cagliostro was none too stable, and did the most embarrassing things, like putting a teacup on his erect penis and telling women "This is the only Bishop you will bow to!"  

    Cagliostro was initiated into Freemasonry in London in 1776 and decided to start his own version. He claimed he found a manuscript in a bookstall that gave instructions for Egyptian Rite Masonry.  Cagliostro told his followers he was thousands of years old, and was the Old Testament prophet Elijah, which were of course all lies.  Egyptian Rite Masonry wasn’t really Egyptian at all, and was the creation of Cagliostro. He went about Europe setting up lodges which all sent payments to himself personally.

    Cagliostro held seances before they were called seances. Using a child as a medium (which he called a “pupille” or a “colombe”), Cagliostro claimed he could summon spirits to answer questions of wealthy patrons. In other words, he invented the medium scam that would be used in the next century. Cagliostro told the children how to act and what to say prior to the seance, and bribed them with candy. A few times the children actually told the patrons about Cagliostro’s coaching and  bribery!

    Cagliostro is said to have “pimped out” his own wife at times. Once she tried to ditch Cagliostro for a wealthy noble, and in retaliation Cagliostro had her thrown in prison for a year for adultery. Another time he blackmailed a man whom he had caught in bed with his wife, most likely a pre-arranged set up.

   Cagliostro managed to worm his way into Louis XVI’s court. He hatched a scheme to purchase an expensive necklace and charge it to Marie Antoinette. The French Royals found out about the attempted swindle, and Cagliostro and his gang went to prison in the Bastille. He was released after one year, but couldn’t stay out of trouble, and was imprisoned again in Italy. He died in St. Leo’s prison 1795, despite claiming he had the elixir of eternal youth.

SIR FRANCES DASHWOOD Dashwood founded the infamous “Hellfire Club” in 1745. He was an inspiration to future occultists, such as Anton LaVey, Aleister Crowley, and no doubt to some degree, Gerald Gardner. Those Wiccans who think Wicca is an ancient religion think Dashwood might have been a Wiccan himself (he wasn’t). Even though most people classify him as a Satanist, more than likely Dashwood was an atheist who did blasphemous things for shock value, just as many Satanists do today. Dashwood was a wealthy libertine who, like Crowley later, was able to get away with many things he did because of his rank in British society. King George I had passed a law to prevent Hellfire-type clubs in 1721, but this didn’t discourage the more perverted types of English nobility. The Hellfire Club (also called “The Monks of Medmenham Abbey”) performed blasphemous rites, but the main interest was always orgies, not magic.

    It can’t be said no one suffered from the activities of Dashwood’s gatherings. Pedophillia was a common indulgence at Dashwood’s parties. Children were bought from the slums of London outright and used as sex slaves.  Prostitutes dressed as nuns serviced the club’s patrons. Prostitution, unlike what you may have seen in Pretty Woman, is a crime against women. Women involved in prostitution were forced into it because they had no alternative, and certainly didn’t enjoy such a lifestyle. The only thing they could look forward to was an early death from disease or murder. Incest, a taboo in every culture,  was also typical among the group. Daughters being molested by their fathers was a common practice. The members paid the price for their debauchery in the form of venereal diseases, naturally.

    By 1762, the membership included some of the highest ranking members of the British government; Dashwood was Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Wilkes,  Paul Whitehead, and Charles Churchill were members of Parliament, and the Earl of  Bute, was Prime Minister (but Adam Weishaupt, and Benjamin Franklin were never members as some people have suggested). Despite the wealth and connections, or rather because of it, Dashwood’s club for perverts eventually imploded.  For some reason, Wilkes and Churchill thought they could topple the Bute government and gain control of Parliament if they leaked details of the Hellfire Club’s Satanic rites and perverted sexual activities, incredibly not realizing they were all under the roof of the same glass house. The plan worked, and Bute was removed, but the scandal also predictably tainted them in the process, and also more or less ruined the lives and reputations of everyone in the Hellfire Club.

    After the Bute scandal, Dashwood tried to revive the club in caves near Wycomb Hill, but the group had already peaked, and it folded not long after. Dashwood and his “monks” all died off from age and disease over the next twenty years. After Dashwood died, he left an enormous library of pornographic works...a legacy few people would proud of !

ADAM WEISHAUPT (1748-1811) Founder of the short lived and extremely over-rated Order of the Illuminati. Many occultists claim (falsely) to be in contact with the Illuminati. Fake Anti-Christ Aleister Crowley claimed to be a member, as did fake ex-Satanist Mike Warneke. The AMORC claims it is the highest level of their bogus mail order occult school, and initiation into this level allegedly takes place out of the body on the astral plane (!). Obviously only the most self-deluded make it to that level. The conspiracy nut crowd has a much less favorable view of the Illuminati, however.
   
    There is a mountain of myth surrounding this now extinct order, but we can determine the truth. Weishaupt was a Bavarian law professor who started the Illuminati in 1778 (not 1776). The Illuminati actually seems to have been more concerned with politics than the occult, and Weishaupt was probably an atheist. The Masonic-like rituals it used by the order were probably just a smokescreen for their subversive political activities. Weishaupt hated the Jesuits, but was said to have patterned his order after them in some ways.  While the Illuminati was Masonic-like, it doesn’t appear to have been an actual branch of Freemasonry.

    The Illuminati sought to overthrow the government of Bavaria, and hoped it could eventually spread it’s revolution all over the world. Their overly ambitious goal was to end all kingdoms and all religions. But their activities were exposed in 1784, when an Illuminati courier was struck by lightning, and his secret papers came to light. Wieshaupt lost his position as a Professor and fled  Bavaria.  Weishaupt wrote a few books in exile, such as An Apology For The Illuminati, but the order was kaput.  Weishaupt  died in poverty, alone and forgotten (at least for a while). By the end of the 18th century, the Order of The Illuminatti had ceased to exist. Period. End of story.

    But of course, old legends die hard. The Illuminati has been a favorite subject of conspiracy writers from Texx Mars (who’s an Anti-Semite) to Jack Chick (who’s anti-Catholic). Exactly who is behind the Illuminati depends on the conspiracy nut who’s telling the tale. Anti-Semites say it's the Jews (the Rothschild's in particular, they’re always a favorite target of Jew haters), while others say the Roman Catholic Church, or the Freemasons (including the American founding fathers!), or the Communists, or Wiccans, or Satanists, or The Trilateral Commission, or even the Mafia, among others, and sometimes several groups are included in the conspiracy. The Illuminati is sort of like extraterrestrial aliens that pilot U.F.Os,...lots of people claim to have seen them and believe they exist, write detailed books about what they do, explain how they’ve shaped history, make claims about what their plans are for humanity...but no one can actually prove they’re real. Oh, and speaking of U.F.O.s, British soccer player turned New Ager, David Icke, says the Illuminati are actually Reptilian Aliens! Help! Call Dr. Who! Obviously all these things are bigoted and crackpot ideas created by bigots and crackpots, and should be dismissed.
  
     In reality, the Illuminati hasn't existed in over 200 years, and it was a total failure. There is no evidence of their existence after the 18th century, and certainly no evidence the American Founding Fathers or the Rothschilds ever belonged to it. The lluminatti was exposed early on, and thus their operations ended. If there was an Illuminati today, it's the most unsuccessful secret society of all time, since a) everyone has heard of it and b) it’s over 200 years later since it was founded and it still hasn't taken over the world! You may even come across this or that webpage claiming to be the website of the “Illuminati” created as a joke or by someone living in a dream world. They too, can be dismissed, and have no connection to Weishaupt’s short lived Illuminati other than wishful thinking. Even though the legend has gotten a lot of mileage, there is no “real” Illuminati around today. It’s the stuff of crackpots and hatemongers, just deal with it.

Adam Weishupt’s dream of world domination never materialized and he died an impoverished failure...and probably wasn’t even an occultist!

DR. FRANZ ANTON MESMER (1734-1815) Falsely credited with creating hypnotism (he didn't, actually). He was Quack doctor who promoted the belief magnets could induce healing powers, called "animal magnetism"...the forerunner of quack magnetic healing practices of today. Mesmer believed in astrology, and thought the planets moved about in an ether, which caused tides. Disease was caused by blockage of these tides. Mesmer thought magnets were magic (as do superstitions people today) and could cure these “astral blockages”.

   Mesmer was somewhat of a gold digger, and married an older woman who had been one of his patients, and moved into her palace outside of Vienna. There he set up shop. He took special interest in some patients whom he allowed to live in his estate so he could heal them...all of them pretty young women, oddly enough. He also began to neglect his elderly wife about this time, focusing all his attention on his special patients. Local authorities became suspicious of Mesmer, because his treatments involved massaging the thighs and breasts of his female patients while they wore only a loose smock.. A blind 16 y.o. girl live-in patient (named Maria Paradies) that Mesmer claimed he was curing was examined by a Doctor and discovered to be in fact still very blind. However, not wanting to miss out on the “treatments”, she refused to leave when her parents tried to retrieve her.  Eventually the police intervened, Mesmer left Vienna for France to avoid being arrested.

    Mesmer set up shop in Paris, and became a big hit. Patients would swoon and shudder during some of Mesmer’s dramatic magnet treatments, and the phenomenon soon was called "Mesmerism".  Mesmer’s healing sessions were theatrical, not therapeutic. The healing sessions often dealt with men and women sitting next to each other in a darkened room pressing their hands against the inner thighs of the person next to them. It’s certainly not hard to imagine ulterior motives for people participating in the “healing” rituals!
       
    A cocky Mesmer approached King Louis the XVI of France for an endowment of 250,000 francs. The King agreed, but only if Mesmer would allow his methods to be examined by a committee first (French Physicians had been requesting the King do this for some time).  Furious at the King’s requirements, Mesmer refused and left France, knowing he’d be exposed as a fake under such an examination. Rich clients of  Mesmer’s began to pledge money to him, and soon the totals reached 350,000 Francs, much more than he initially asked the King for. Mesmer returned to France, and now it was the King’s turn to be furious. The King ordered a commission to investigate Mesmer, who was now compelled to comply.

    In 1784 by the French Academy of Sciences, including  the company of U.S. ambassador Benjamin Franklin, drew the conclusion that Mesmer’s miraculous “cures” were merely due to suggestion (or probably due to what Psychologists would now call “the Placebo Effect”).  A Physician pretending to be ill went to Mesmer who treated him. The Physician later revealed Mesmer could not correctly diagnose illness with magnets as he claimed. About this same time, news of the Maria Paradise incident surfaced in Paris, and he became a laughing stock. Mesmer lost his fortune after being exposed as a fraud, subsequently planned a comeback in Vienna, but was turned away at the border by authorities. He lived out a modest retirement, never achieving his previous success.

    Anton Mesmer was a fake, and magnets can’t cure you. People get sick from things like germs not planets or stars. Magnets aren’t magic, they’re just magnets.

FRANCIS BARRETT (1770?-1820?) Wrote The Magus in 1801. In the book Barrett claimed he was a “Professor of Chemistry”, but there is no record of him attending any school in England, and he seems to have simply been lying. The book sold poorly and was forgotten until it was re-discovered 60 years later by Eliphas Levi and later others. The book is basically a re-writing of Corneilius Aggripa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy. Barrett died in obscurity, and since there is no known grave for him, he probably died in poverty and was buried in a pauper’s field. His book became popular only years after his death, and he never enjoyed the success of it. Barrett couldn’t make the occult  work for him, neither could Aggrippa whom he plagiarized it from, nor can anyone else.

Francis Barrett; He died in poverty and was simply regurgitated a previous fake’s writings. 

MARIE LAVEAU (1783?-1881?) There were apparently two Marie LaVeaus, the title seems to have been passed from mother two daughter, which is why she appeared to live to be around 100.  Marie LaVeau Jr. seems to have been the one most people were familiar with. The junior LaVeau of the 19th century is said to have taken care of an elderly woman who bore a resemblance to her...apparently this was her mother, the first Marie LaVeau. The LaVeaus were known for her wild religious Voodoo ceremonies...really little more than orgies where rich white men paid to "get it on" with LaVeau’s black and mulatto voodoo girl followers (more like hookers, really). So in other words, the LaVeaus were little more than  "Cathouse Madams".

     The LaVeaus were hairdressers by trade, and learned the secrets of their rich clients that they later used to blackmail them with. If the famous Voodoo Queens were so powerful why did they resort to blackmailing their hairdressing clients? Because she had no powers! The famous book Black and White Magic by Marie Laveau obviously wasn’t written by her but by the sellers of worthless and fake voodoo oils and powders...just colored baby oil and colored baby powder. The lodestones she gave people in the little red flannel bags weren’t magic...just magnets. Voodoo is for the superstitious. Are you superstitious?

KATE FOX (b.1829-1892) and MARGARET FOX(b.1825-1892), At ages 11 and 15 respectively, the Fox sisters started the whole spiritualist/seance’ movement in 1848 in upstate New York. Much of modern occultism has its roots in Spiritualism. Spiritualism had no hierarchy, was often practiced in the homes of the followers, and women played a prominent role. It was the Wicca of it’s day. About four decades later, after years of poverty, failed marriages, and alcoholism, the sisters confessed the strange popping sounds had been made by the girls cracking their toe joints. The thumping sounds heard by their parents were made by simply bouncing an apple on the floor! Catherine even became a Roman Catholic and renounced spiritualism (calling it “evil”) at one point, but she backslid later and settled back into her old ways. They wrote a book exposing the truth called The Death Blow To Spiritualism, confessing the whole thing had been a hoax.

    The gals tried a road show, demonstrating how they popped their toes (they were double jointed), but it failed to draw large audiences. A few people just didn’t want to believe their confession, and evidence of this is the fact that even while the Foxes were on tour denouncing themselves as fakes, Kate still gave seances for money to private clients! A year later,  failing to get rich by 'fessing up, they then recanted their confession and tried to return to Spiritualism. Mediums knew they were really fake all along, because they used all kinds of tricks in these seances’ (wires, mirrors, etc.), and were eventually exposed by skeptics, including magician Harry Houdini. Skeptics and disillusioned followers of the day didn’t buy the Foxes latest story, that they had lied about lying.

    Spiritualism had indeed received a death blow, and from the very people that started it. The days of a new book on Spiritualism coming out each week were over. Kate was arrested in 1888 for drunkenness and “idleness”. She lived from then on by begging and borrowing and died impoverished in 1892. Margaret died a few months after her sister Kate, and followed her into a pauper's grave. Even though spiritualists today swear the Foxes were legit (it's called being deluded), they don't even give seances in the last Medium camp, Cassadagga, Florida anymore. The masses left spiritualism like rats leaving a sinking ship. Spiritualism had a brief re-surge after WWI, with lonely people who tried to contact dead loved ones lost in battle. Once again, there were Mediums ready to prey on the desperate. Seances became a popular parlor trick, but died out again with the advent of the radio. Now people could hear the disembodied voices of Burns and Allen, Jack Benny, and Abbot and Costello, as well as news sports and commercials. Once again spiritualism was all but extinguished.

The Fox Sisters, founders of the Spiritualist occult religion, were self admitted fakes and failures.

ELIPHAS LEVI (1810 - 1875) Wrote several books on the occult, and put a new spin on magic. Born Alphonse Constant, Levi became a Deacon in the Roman Catholic Church. He found the vow of celibacy hard to keep, and left the Church to marry a young girl. The marriage only lasted a year. Levi made a big splash by trying to make sense of the occult by translating and reinterpreting (“misinterpreting” would be a more accurate word) medieval grimories. He basically rewrote them to make old spell-books sound as though they were sources of hidden wisdom. He transformed them from the superstitious books that had previously been for slackers, who thought spirits could be compelled to find buried treasure, or lovesick old men trying to win the hearts of teenage maidens via magic spells. By Levi’s reinterpretation for instance, a love charm in an old grimorie might now be re-written as a “seal to commune with the Olympian spirit of Venus”. Levi is probably best known for his drawing of the Devil, which he now called “the god of witches”  also known as “Baphomet” or “The Goat of Mendes”. This drawing is a favorite of occultists of all types, including Wiccans and Satanists, and no doubt you’ve seen it previously as it has become somewhat famous.

    Under Levi, sorcery was now a religious path...something it had not previously been. He tried to make the occult more respectable and to the more naive types, he succeeded. He’s credited with creating the term “occult” to describe sorcery, fortune telling, necromancy, and all kinds of spooky weirdness to make it sound less like spooky weirdness.  Levi created a myth that all, occult teachings and magic practices were all connected. Tarot cards, alchemy, sorcery, astrology, the cabala, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, etc., were all part of a mystical religious knowledge that was handed down from time immemorial and had been all but lost. Levi was convinced the key to this knowledge was through ritual magic. Not everyone agrees with his theory. Occult historian Collin Wilson bluntly called it “a lie” [The Occult: A History by Collin Wilson, pg.326) . The man who had many of Levi’s books translated, occultist A. E. Waite, warned readers Levi was prone to use his imagination...a case of the pot calling the cauldron black.

   Even though Levi wrote extensively about sorcery, he didn’t actually do things anyone would consider “magical”. While Levi may have thought of the occult as a science, he was never able to repeatedly produce results through magic (not even once) under the observation of others, which would have been necessary to validate this idea. He traveled to England in 1854, but the English expected him to be able to actually produce miracles which he couldn’t do. Although this event ended in failure, he did make a few contacts, notably author Bulwer-Lytton who gave him a well needed infusion of cash. Levi returned to France and still continued on as an occultist. 

   Determined to actually produce magic after this, he later claimed he had conjured the spirit of Apollonius of Tyana (a Greek mystic who lived around 30 A.D.) to ask him two questions...obviously, Levi had a lot of time on his hands. In some accounts of the story,  Levi got so scared when the spirit appeared, he forgot the two questions and passed out! No one else was present when this incident supposedly occurred, so it’s possible the story is a deliberate invention of Levi, or the product of his vivid imagination. He had to prepare for three weeks before this ritual that included 2 weeks of vegetarian dieting and a week of fasting. During this three weeks, Levi constantly meditated on Apollonius and imagined having conversations with him (visualization).  The conjuration itself consisted of a grueling 12 hours of incantations. It’s not hard to believe since Levi wanted the spirit to appear so desperately, coupled with weakness from weeks of starving and constantly visualizing the “ghost” that he had simply hallucinated. Since by his own admission he passed out (which can happen from starvation), it’s even possible the whole thing was just a dream. Even Levi later admitted it was possible he had  imagined it. If so, where was the magic? Passing out and having hallucinations aren’t magic!

   Nevertheless, Levi’s books about sorcery were a big inspiration to later occultists such as H.P.Blavatsky, A..E. Waite (who translated several of Levi’s books into English), MacGregor Mathers and the occultists of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley. Crowley even declared he was the reincarnation of Levi, who died in 1875, the same year Crowley was born. Gardner was familiar with the works of Levi and seems to have followed in his footsteps; Just as Levi had taken ancient grimories and changed them from superstitious spell books to repositories of religious wisdom, so Gerald Gardner later took witchcraft and changed it from nefarious sorcery to a pre-Christian Pagan priesthood.

   Levi did not seem to begin his career in the occult until his wife left him, which suggests to me that initially he got into the occult for the reason so many people do, to win back a lost lover through love spells.  I wonder if his wife had never left him what would have happened. Perhaps he would have never got into the occult in the first place, and the occult revival would not have lasted as long as it did, nor had the long reaching impact.

Eliphas Levi; A man with an active imagination who didn’t really have occult powers.

LORD BULWER-LYTTON A English blue blood writer best remembered for the now cliched line “It was a dark and stormy night.” Bulwer-Lytton was a believer in the occult who wrote a book titled The Coming Race in 1870. It dealt with a mysterious energy called “Vrill”,  and a race of fictitious underground supermen by the same name who were destined to emerge when they ran out of living space and destroy humanity. Lytton meant his work to be fiction, but many Theosophists believed the book to somehow be true! The Theosophists concluded the fictitious Vrill people were the Aryans. The idea of Vrill became popular among German racists, and even seems to have had an influence on Nietzsche, even though he was supposedly an atheist. The AMORC and Theosophists still write about the Vrill energy, which doesn’t actually exist, and probably will continue to write about it. All this from one novel!  The legend of Vril continued to grow, and several occult groups were established in Germany before World War II inspired by this Vril fallacy, including a “Vril Lodge”. Serbottendorf, Hitler and Hess are said to have belonged to one of them. No doubt if Bulwer-Lytton could see how his novel inspired so much evil he would be horrified!

    The legend of underground Aryans continued to grow, even after Germany was crushed by WWII. In the 1970's, a crackpot writer named Dr. Raymond Bernard wrote several books about Nazis living at the South Pole, who had found the entrance to the “Hollow Earth”. He tried unsuccessfully to raise money to buy a Zeppelin, which was to have been decorated with swastikas, to fly to the South Pole to find it. Some fringe groups today believe Hitler and the Nazis escaped to the South Pole and to this non-existent Hollow Earth.

    Hitler’s committed suicide in 1945 according to eyewitnesses who were with him, and his remains were positively identified through dental records, therefore he did not escape to the South Pole or the Hollow Earth. Scientists know the earth is not hollow, but filled with molten rock. Anyone who has heard of volcanoes knows this is true. It just shows you how far occultists can take a work of fiction! Today, Lytton is today considered a hack writer, and UCLA even gives out a “Bulwer-Lytton Award” each year for incredibly bad writing. There is no Vrill, there are no Aryan Supermen - - not above ground, below ground, or at the South Pole - - and the Nazis were evil and lost WWII. This is reality.

Bulwer Lytton; A hack writer who accidently launched an occult myth that inspired the Nazis.

ALBERT PIKE (1809-1891) Revitalized Scottish Rite Masonry. Sovereign Grand Commander of Scottish Rite Masonry from 1859 until his death. Born a Boston Yankee, he nevertheless fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. A notorious womanizer, Pike had left Massachusetts long before the war broke out, due to his numerous affairs. Despite being 300 lbs, he was what most people today would call “a player”. Pike claimed to have graduated from Harvard, although there is no record of it. Pike was made a Brigadier General due to his Masonic connections and position in the now extinct Whig Party...a position he was ill equipped to handle. Pike hatched a scheme to recruit Native Americans to fight for the Confederacy. In 1862 Pike’s brigade fought at the Battle of Pea Ridge, resulting in a Confederate rout. Later, his men were accused of desertion, scalping and defiling the bodies of dead Union soldiers. Pike resigned his commission in disgrace, and was later imprisoned for misappropriating funds.

    After the Civil War, Pike abandoned his wife and children to live in poverty and headed to Arkansas. It was during this time he began to re-write the rituals of Scottish Rite Masonry. Masonry had fell from grace after the Captain Morgan incident of 1840. Morgan had published two books exposing the secret rituals, handshakes, and passwords. A band of Masons kidnaped Morgan in broad daylight, took him across the border to Canada, and murdered him. All the accused Masons were acquitted for the crime by a jury and judge who were all Masons, and the resulting scandal turned most Americans against Masonry. Masonry was given a second chance due in part to Albert Pike’s efforts and probably would have gone extinct in the U.S.A. otherwise. It’s been said of Pike he found Freemasonry in a log cabin and left it in a palace.

    While Pike maybe remembered by Freemasons as a veritable saint (at least until recent years), others outside of Masonry may not think so. Pike was a racist who considered black people inferior, and forbid their entrance to Freemasonry, citing they were not born free. Pike is even said to have written the rituals of the Ku Klux Klan for Bedford Forrest during this same period. There are many Masonic and occultic elements in the KKK, such as the titles of “Cyclops”, “Wizard”, “Dragon” and “Ghoul” and the burning of crosses, which is something that you would expect of Satanists rather than Christians. The rituals also talk about “seeking the light” and “accepting the light”, just like in Masonry. Many of the original members of the KKK were Masons, and The Klan even met in Masonic lodges in the early days.

    It’s also said Pike was the Imperial Wizard for the Arkansas KKK. It’s hard to say if this all this was true, considering the KKK was also a secret society like Freemasonry, but it is certainly possible. Pike seems to have had similar ideas to the Klan, as a newspaper article written by Pike illustrates:
"With Negroes for witnesses and jurors, the administration of justice becomes a blasphemous mockery. A Loyal League of Negroes can cause any white man to be arrested, and can prove any charges it chooses to have made against him. ...The disenfranchised people of the South ... can find no protection for property, liberty or life, except in secret association.... We would unite every white man in the South, who is opposed to Negro suffrage, into one great Order of Southern Brotherhood, with an organization complete, active, vigorous, in which a few should execute the concentrated will of all, and whose very existence should be concealed from all but its members." [Memphis, Tennessee Daily Appeal, April 16, 1868]

     Despite decries of Mason apologists, it’s hard to imagine Pike’s secret society organized as a “Order of Southern Brotherhood” to suppress Black freedom could have been anything other than the Ku Klux Klan. Small wonder many Klan chapters held their meetings in the lodge halls of Freemasonry...another “whites only” secret society.  The original Klan might have even been some kind of extension to American Freemasonry of the 19th century like the Shriners are today.

    Many people get offended when I point out Freemasonry is “whites only”, but the truth is the York Rite and Scottish Rite Freemasons still follow the despicable practice of barring blacks from joining (even though certainly all blacks alive today were “born free”, and have been for decades) at this writing. In 1975, the U.S. Federal Government told the Freemasons to allow blacks to join or lose their tax exempt status. Instead of letting blacks join, they chose the latter! Even though not all Freemasons are racist, they belong to a racist organization. The racism of Masonry is the legacy of Albert Pike. No Christian should be part of such a nefarious legacy! If you’re a Mason and consider yourself a Christian, leave Masonry immediately.

   There is a claim made by many conspiracy writers that Pike said the god Masons worship was Lucifer, which he apparently did not actually make. Pike allegedly told a group of 33rd Degree Masons that this secret could be told to Masons of the 32nd, 31st, and 30th degrees as well. The claim was first made by anti-Semite Edith Miller Star, a.k.a., Lady Queensboro, in her book, The Occult Theocracy. Star cited no reference to the source, and it appears to be bogus. Star spent her life in and out of mental asylums, and eventually died in one.
   That being said, Pike nevertheless did seem to have knowledge of the occult regardless if he was a “Luciferian” or not. In his Magnum Opus, Morals and Dogma, Pike made several references to the Cabala, instructing Masons to study it. He compares Christianity to the world’s religions, including the Pagan religions of old. Pike seems to hint that Sun worship is the original religion, a view echoed by later Masonic occultists such as Albert Macky, Rosicrucian Max Heindel, and Manly Palmer Hall. Pike considered Satan to be merely a dark force of nature, as did Helena Blavatsky and Anton LaVey. Whatever Pike’s religious beliefs might have been, he doesn’t seem to have been a Christian.

    In dire straits toward the last years of his life, Albert Pike was allowed to live in a Masonic Temple. Albert Pike, an occultist, (Luciferian? ) womanizer, racist, who flopped as a Confederate General and spent his last days impoverished !

DAVID HOME A Medium who came on the beginning of the Spiritualist scene at the time the Fox Sisters created it, even though he claimed he was “contacting spirits” before then. Home is said to be one of the few, if not the only, medium that wasn’t publically exposed as fake. The reason for Home’s success is due to the fact that he only allowed his seances to be examined under conditions he approved of. Skeptics during that time would light lanterns during the seances revealing the trickery of the mediums (such as wires, strings, assistants dressed in black, etc.). Home avoided this by never letting anyone attend a seance he thought might cause him trouble. Home was indeed caught using tricks once during a Seance, but the information was never made public during his lifetime (The Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural by James Randi, pg 120 ).

   Home’s Seances often utilized a concertina (a little accordion) locked in a cage. During the seance, faint music could be heard, and the attendees assumed it was a ghost playing the locked-up concertina. After his death, a small 8 note harmonica was discovered among his possessions. Magician James Randi has noted it would have been easy for Homes to conceal the little 8 note harmonica in his mouth, covered by his enormous moustache. For some reason, the spirits only played the same two songs at every seance, which were probably all the songs Home knew how to play. One of the songs was “Home, Sweet Home”, (The Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural by James Randi, pg 121 ) no doubt intended as an inside joke.

   Home suffered from TB most of his life and died at age 53. One of his assistants later went on to even greater fame than he did. Her name was Helena P. Blavatsky, who no doubt learned all of Home’s tricks. Like all Mediums and channelers, Home was a fake.

HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY (1831-1891) Authoress of Isis Unvieled, The Secret Doctrine, The Stanzas of Dyzan, and founder of the Theosophical Society. Theosophy became the basis for many occult societies who borrowed from it, including an offshoot called “Arianosophy”, most Rosicrucian groups around today, The Chaney’s Astara of Los Angeles, and Elizabeth Claire Prophet’s Church Universal and Triumphant, to name just a few. Many members of the Golden Dawn had started out in Theosophy, and it’s teachings seem to have been incorporated into modern day Spiritualism.

    The two hundred fifty pound Russian Medium Helena Blavatsky started the Theosophical Society 1875 claiming she had made telepathic contact with mysterious “ascended masters” in Tibet. She dubbed herself a “Priestess of Isis”, and combined Spiritualism, Cabala, Western occultism, Hinduism and Buddhism along with a dash of Darwinian evolution, to make the whole thing sound “scientific”. In fact, most occultists snidely think they are more scientific than Christians, simply because they believe in Evolution and the Big Bang (even though many  if not most Christians do too!)...while they also believe in such things as elves, fairies, and magic and carry red flannel bags with a lodestones to bring good luck.(7). While Theosophists may not believe in all those things, they do have many beliefs that most people would find strange.

    The Theosophical Society had an alliance with an organization run by a certain Swami Sarasvati, until the Swami denounced Blavatsky and her sidekick Ollcott as charlatans (8), and they were exposed as such many times. Nevertheless, the society is still around today. She wrote two occult best sellers, Isis Unveiled (1887)  and  The Secret Doctrine (1888), which are still in print. Blavatsky claimed the ascended masters (humans who are centuries old living inside a mountain in Tibet) inspired her to write the books and communicated with her telepathically. She claimed the goddess Isis herself gave her the ideas for Isis Unveiled. There’s actually no real evidence she actually  had any contact with “ascended masters” or “Isis”, and the bulk of the material for her books is simply plagiarized from other works.

    A skeptic named William Coleman discovered 2000 passages Blavatsky lifted from other books and never gave credit for. He counted a total of 100 books in all used in the making of Isis Unveiled, and The Secret Doctrine was discovered to be in a similar vein, with even entire pages plagiarized from other books!  The footnotes to Blavastky’s books were added years after her death by her followers to help cover up her plagiarism.. The Book of Dyzan, yet another book Blavatsky wrote, claiming it was the oldest book in the world, also turned out to be a hoax with many passages copied from books of the 19th century! Nevertheless, her books are still in print to this day (Madame Blavatsky High Priestess Of The Occult pgs. 374-375 by Gertrude M. Williams).

    Blavatsky was born of Russian nobility. She married a 50 year old Colonel, but soon left him. She is said to have had several odd jobs, including a trick rider in a circus, a piano teacher, and manager of an artificial flower factory. She also became the traveling companion of a wealthy heiress who had a library of hundreds of books that she always took with her. This is no doubt where Blavatsky got much of her material to plagiarize from.

    As previously mentioned, for a time she was the assistant to medium Daniel Home, and this is where she learned the tricks of the trade of Spiritualism. She was not as cautious as Home, however, and got accused of fraud and exposed as a fake several times during her career. She set up shop as a medium in Cairo, Egypt, but was exposed as a fake when someone found a long white glove stuffed with cotton in the Seance room right before a Seance was about to begin (The Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural by James Randi, pg 34 ). She fled Egypt after that and went to America.

    Blavatsky decided she needed a better scam than Spiritualism. At first they called it The Miracle Club, but it didn’t take, since it was too much like Spiritualism. Then she decided on the name Theosophy, and the scam worked.  Once she claimed to have materialized a teacup by meditating while sitting on the ground. When an observer accused of her of  having buried it there earlier and merely digging up the teacup, she was treated to one of those blasts of foul language Blavatsky was notorious for. ( The Occult: A History by Colin Wilson, page 334)   Another time Blavatsky claimed to have found a lost broach of an heiress. The heiress accused Blavatsky of simply buying one that looked like it. Blavatsky denied this profusely, even though a receipt for the broach from a local pawn broker was later produced by a defector! (Ibid, 334)

    One follower (who had apparently been Blavatsky’s assistant in fakery) named Emma Coulomb became disillusioned with Blavatsky and set out to expose Blavatsky as the fraud she was. Coulomb passed along evidence which showed Blavatsky to be a fake to the editor of Christian College Magazine. One revelation was that Blavatsky made letters from “Coot Hoomi” (one of the Tibetan ascended masters Blavatsky supposedly had contact with) seem to magically appear from nowhere by simply shoving them through cracks in the ceiling from the room above! Coulomb also revealed Blavatsky had secret passages and hidden doors built into her house which aided her in deceiving people about her “psychic abilities”. Why did she do this? Well, it’s because she was a fraud and she had no powers and people who follow her teachings today need to accept this. The Theosophists tried to strike back, claiming Christian missionaries were behind a conspiracy to stop them involving thousands of dollars. The reality is Christian missionaries never took the Theosophists seriously, and never launched such a campaign, nor did they have the thousands of dollars at their disposal as Theosophists charged.

   Not long after this, a medium in America claimed that Blavatsky plagiarized one of his lectures and published it as a "revelation" from Coot Hoomi. (The Occult: A History by Collin Wilson pgs ) . About this same time The Society for Psychical Research set out to India to investigate Blavatsky at the insistence of Coulomb. The investigator, Richard Hodgson, was admitted to the room containing the "shrine" where Coot Hoomi's letters magically appeared, but only after much stalling. He smelt a rat after finding just a newly made cedar wood box and freshly plastered walls. A bungling follower tried to defend HPB by saying "You see, it's perfectly solid" while slapping the back of the “shrine”, and thus accidentally causing the back to fall off, revealing a secret entrance to Blavatsky's bedroom! The investigator interviewed several people who had witnessed her “magic feats” and grouped them into four categories: 1. Skeptics 2. Partial skeptics 3. Sincere believers 4. Confederates who aided her in deception. (Madame Blavatsky High Priestess Of The Occult by Gertrude M. Williams pgs.270-271)

    The Society for Psychical Research published a detailed 200 page report, detailing the methods of trickery Blavatsky used. The report concluded by calling her “...one of the most accomplished, ingenious, and interesting imposters in history”.  Her society sounds as though it was actually a cult. Many of her closest followers were said to have suffered miserable fates, including suicide.  Biographer Gertrude Williams wrote that “she ruled her followers ambidextrously, through glamour and fear”. Toward the end of her life, she wrote a confession to one of her detractors, a Russian writer named Solyvov, and admitted she had lied about many things, including the existence of the Mahatmas, having hundreds of lovers (she was actually a virgin until they day she died), that she faked communications with spirits and that some of the phenomena her followers saw could be attributed to hallucination! Even then, she wrote the letter in the most dramatic manner possible, making herself sound like a persecuted martyr rather than a fraud. Later she retracted part of the confession, claiming the Ascended Masters were real after all, which would mean she lied about lying if that were the case. Considering the Chinese Army has control of every square inch of Tibet, it’s unlikely they would have failed to miss the discovery of an underground Bhuddist momentary. And if Tibetan Bhuddists had all these miraculous powers, with all due respect, the Dalai Lama would not have to live in exile as he has for decades!

    Though Blavatsky was proven a fraud in her lifetime and even finally admitted it, her Theosophical Society continues on. There are chapters in several countries even today, including the U.S. Her followers will even say things like “Sure, HPB had a streak of charlatanism in her, but you have to look past that and read her teachings for what they really are.”  What are these teachings? Blavatsky’s Theosophy deals with such hookum as the "seven root races". The god like giant Aryan race lived on Atlantis and lost their god-like status by intermarrying with the “semi-human” Jews. The intermarrying with Jews caused the Aryans to devolve, according to Blavatsky. Blavatsky called Judaism a “religion of hate and malice toward everyone and everything outside itself.” , while the Aryans were the most advanced people spiritually. Compare this type of mentality with that of Joseph Mengele. Theosphy is nothing but recycled occult gobbledy gook from previous books with a strong flavor of anti-Semitism and anti-Christianism  thrown in for flavor!

   Eventually, so the story goes, the Aryans blew up Atlantis through black magic. Kaboom! The next root race were invisible, made from “fire mist”, and lived at the North Pole. No doubt, neighbors of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  I wonder if they were invisible how anyone knew they existed since they can't be seen? There’s a head scratcher. The race after that was just barely visible, lived in Asia and “invented sex”. A race of giant telepathic apes inhabited the now vanished continent of Lemuria. (I know, it sounds like a D.C. comic.).

     Her writings are not only anti-Semetic but as well as anti-Christian. She considered Jesus to have been “a failure”, and seemed very troubled, if not jealous, of the many depictions of the Virgin Mary by Roman Catholics. She often snidely commented on the “many changes of wardrobe” Mary seems to have, almost like one woman envious of another woman’s clothes.  Blavastky’s hokum was a big inspiration for many occultists of her day. It stirred up interest in goddess worship and influenced many Rosicrucians groups, The Golden Dawn, Astara ( the California psychic church and mail order occult school run by the Cheney’s), The Church Universal and Triumphant (Elizabeth Claire Prophet’s gun toting survivalist cult), among others. The Rosicrucian Fellowship uses Blavatsky’s teachings for the bulk of their mail order “Western Philosophy” course. Aleister Crowley, claimed to have actually met her in person, and Blavatsky’s books were required readings for members of  Crowley’s occult organizations.

    HPB was probably the first to introduce reincarnation into Spiritualism. Up until then, most Spiritists believed in a heaven like existence throughout eternity, called “Summerland”. Blavatsky also introduced evolution into reincarnation by saying people were reincarnated as people, not randomly switching incarnations between animals and people as in the version of reincarnation taught by Eastern religions, like Hinduism and Bhuddism..

    Her saddest and most horrifying accomplishment was being the spiritual impetus for the Nazi regime, decades after her death. As you can guess by her doctrines about Aryans and Jews previously mentioned, many German occultists and racists embraced Blavatsky’s idea of being descended from Aryan god-men and her anti-Semeticism. Blatvatsky’s favorite occult symbol was the swastika, which she claimed was the symbol of the Aryan race and the most powerful of all occult symbols. This symbol was adopted by the Nazis. Heinrich Himmler was a devout believer in Blavatsky’s teachings, and even went on an expedition to Asia as Germany was losing WWII to try and find the (non-existing) link to the Tibetans and the Aryans.

     Blavatsky was one of the first occultists to make goddess worship an alternative to Christianity, paving the way for Gardner and the Wiccans. Likewise, Gardner borrowed some ideas from Blavatsky, particularly her take on reincarnation which was different from the Eastern idea of it.

    Even though Blavatsky admitted she was a fake, there are still a handful of followers that refuse to believe it. There are two branches of the Theosophical society, the result of a schism after her death. One branch is based in Arya, India, the other in Wheaton, Illinois. In the 1990's during a Theosophist convention of the American branch, a pair of ice tongs Blavatsky had “materialized” during her career (no doubt by slight of hand) was proudly on display. Some people will always want to believe.

    Supposedly, the Tibetan masters she was in telepathic contact with lived for centuries. Why then was she in poor health during her final years, and only lived to be 61 instead of hundreds of years like Coot Hoomi and Count St. Germain? Why follow a follow a fraud who caused so much evil? Blavatsky helped in part create the holocaust. Her racist doctrines are more than just  pure fantasy, they are also pure evil. 

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE A 19th century German philosopher perhaps best known for the saying “That which does not kill us makes us stronger”, and also coined the phrase "God is dead".He was actually an atheist, not an occultist. But since so many occultists seem to read Nitzche (or pretend to), I’ll mention him.  Occultist Aleister Crowley seemed to be very influenced by him, as were Anton LaVey and even Charles Manson.  Nietzsche did not believe in conventional morality, but thought man was “beyond good and evil”, and had to choose his own moral code. This is basically the way most occultists live their lives. Nietzsche believed a person should throw themselves completely into a cause without hope of personal gain or reward (according to most interpretations). Many historians think Nietzsche’s writings are why so many intellectuals joined the Nazi and Communist parties during the early 20th century. His writings of "Ubermench" (supermen) rising up from the masses certainly sound as though they could have been written by Joseph Goebels. Neitzche's writings are somewhat ambiguous, almost to the point of being mystical. This allows for a lot of wiggle room interpretation wise, and thus there are actually several school of thought on how to interpret what his philosophy is about. Writings about "The Will To Power" and the rise of "Supermen" are what made him Hitler's favorite sage, and the anti-Semetic and anti-Christian tone was no doubt an added bonus. He was also said to be a favorite of Joseph Stalin, too.

    Apologists for Nietzche claim he wasn't really anti-Semetic, and that the Nazis simply took selections of his writings they liked out of context, and ignored what they didn't like. The thing is, there doesn’t seem to be much that they wouldn’t have liked! His apologists will claim things such as Nietzche allegdly dropped a publisher because the publisher was anti-Semetic, as an example (other accounts say, it was simply a dispute over money). Nietzsche is favorite of college professors, and when the fact he had been a source of inspiration for the Nazis came out, it became necessary to claim Nietzsche was not anti-Semitic, and even opposed to anti-Semitism. This is because atheistic professors just love Nietzsche’s hatred of Christians and want to keep him the classrooms. It’s really just a convenient way to promote bigotry. Hating Christians isn’t as detestable as hating Jews, but it should be.

    If  Nietzsche wasn't an anti-Semite, he sure kept some peculiar company, especially for someone who supposedly opposed anti-Semitism! One of his best friends was composer Richard Wagner, a man who never tried to hide his hatred of Jews. If the Nazi regime had been a movie, Wagner provided the soundtrack for it 50 years in advance. It would have been hard to have been Wagner's friend without having his issues with Jews and Judaism come up, because anti-Semitism and German romanticism dominated his music and his life. His sister was an anti-Semite and even left Germany with her husband for Uruguay to start an "Aryan colony" ,which still exists today. In a foreshadow of things to come, the group even adopted a swastika flag as it's symbol! In other words, the group created a proto-Nazi Germany south of the border (well, south of our border, anyway).  His other sister was also an anti-Semite, whom apologists blame for editing and arranging his posthumous writings to appear anti-Semitic. It might be presumed his sisters learned anti-Semitism and German nationalism from their parents, which would have been the same parents Professor Friedrich had. How is it that this man was surrounded by so many haters of Jews, and yet somehow remained unaffected?

   The fact Nietzsche hated Christianity is unquestionable, so is it really so unreasonable to think he hated it's parent religion? His biggest source of inspiration, Shopenhauer, was also an anti-Semite who hated Christianity. Shopenhauer wrote extensively about the will, like Nietzsche, although he did not seem to practice much will power in real life. He usually gorged himself at dinner and drank wine until he fell asleep at the dinner table, food particles still clinging in his beard. These are the type of people that wake up in various puddles of their own fluids (and those of others!).  

    Nietzsche’s idea that he could make up his own morality allowed him to frequent brothels, which is how he contracted syphilis. Some think this may have been the cause of his madness, although many of his readers like to romanticize he went insane from learning too much of life’s mysteries.  He spent his final days in an insane asylum where he spent his time screaming “I am God! I am God!” Now that you know all that, you might want to skip reading him and Shopenhauer too.

 ANNIE BESANT (1847-1933) Blavatsky chose her to lead the Theosophical society. It has been alleged she and Blavatsky were lesbian lovers, citing some curious comments in surviving letters written between the two of them. Blavatsky addressed her letters to Besant “‘My Darling Penelope’ from ‘Your female Ulysses’” Besant’s biographer notes that there seemed to be a lesbian element to the way she dominated Blavatsky. There’s no way to prove such allegations for sure. After a dispute in which William Q. Judge, leader of the American section, was accused of falsifying letters from the Masters (just like Blavatsky), the American section split away. Besant is best known for having botched an attempt to bring a fake Messiah into the world. Like Blavatsky before her, Bessant was a fake. In reality, the Theosophists had adopted (or kidnaped, according to the boy's parents) the boy, and the parents sued to try to get him back, accusing the Theosophists of corrupting their son. Krisnamurti nevertheless remained under their wing for his formative years. Years later Krishnamurti once ran into writer Bernard Shaw, while he was on vacation in Bombay. Besant had once been a mistress to Shaw years earlier, and when it ended, she was hurt deeply. Perhaps she too sought out the occult as a way to bring back a lost lover. Shaw enquired of Krishnamurti how she was doing. “Fine”, he told her “but at her great age she cannot think consecutively” to which Shaw replied “She never could.” (The Occult: A History by Collin Wilson pgs ) Eventually Krishnamurti ditched the Theosophists to start his own Guru business in the 1960's.
Annie Besant A fake who followed in the footsteps of another fake.

COLONEL HENRY STEEL OLCOTT Helped Blavatsky found the Theosophical society. Since he was in Blavatsky’s inner circle, he no doubt knew of her tricks. Olcott wrote A Bhuddist Chatachism, and developed his own standing within the Theosophical Society, which irked Blavatsky.  For a while Olcott and Blavatsky shared a house together in a platonic relationship. A little acknowledged fact among occultists is that Col. Olcott is where Blavatsky got the idea for the name of her fictitious ascended master “Coot Hoomii”...it’s a play on words for Colonel Olcott!

CHARLES LEADBEATER The number two man in Theosophy under Bessant’s leadership. Leadbeater was an Episcopal minister who became a Theosophist, simply after having been handed a letter that claimed the spurious “Coot Hoomi” wanted him to join! He would later claimed he joined around 350 B.C. in Greece by Pythagoras, and then spent the rest of the time in Theosophist Heaven called Devachan. Leadbeater has been described as a “hopeless romantic”, and not meant in a good way. 
    Leadbeater , according to writer James Webb, Leadbeater was a “homosexual” (The Occult Underground by James Webb, pg 87) and also notes that "From his early days as a Hampshire curate until the close of his life at at Sydney, he seems to have had an incurable taste for young men."(The Occult Underground by James Webb, pg.97). It was Leadbeater who had discovered an 8 year old Krishnamurti on an Indian beach and decided to “adopt” him. Krishnamurti’s father nearly ruined the scheme for the Theosophists, however, when he accused Leadbeater of “corrupting” his son. “There was...small doubt that Leadbeater had been up to his old tricks again”, according to Annie Bessant’s biographer, Arthur H. Nethercot ( The First Five Lives of Annie Besant by Arthur H. Nethercot pg 102).

    Narayaniah, had agreed to allow Annie Bessant to raise his two sons, and in return she agreed to give the boys a proper English university education. However, Narayaniah was horrified to discover Bessant and the Theosophists wanted to declare Krishnamurti the new Maitreya (the Bhuddhist Messiah), in addition to other questionable activities.  Narayaniah, took the Theosophical society to court to get his sons back. Leadbeater’s reputation as a pedophile came up several times during the trial. There were several times Leadbeater had been observed in questionable circumstances with Krishnamurti. The judge made the children wards of the court, but Bessant managed to get the boys back in the end. Leadbeater was dismissed from the Theosophical Society, and spent his last days in a self imposed exile.

Charles Leadbeater; Fake and pedophile

JITTA KRISHNAMURTI (1895-1986) The fake messiah introduced by the Theosophical Society, who later denied being divine. In his 20's, Krishnamurti became disillusioned with the Theosophy when his brother died from Tuberculosis after Theosophists had failed to heal him as they claimed they could. An occult order was formed by Theosphists called The Order of The Star in The East (mocking the star that announced the birth of Christ) to introduce the new “World Teacher” in 1907.  But in 1929 Krishnamurti dissolved the order during an address he gave before the group, which shocked and angered them.

   After the dissolution embarrassment, the  Theosophists turned against Krishnamurti. Theosophist leaders had unwittingly set themselves up for such a thing to happen, having told their gullible followers over the years that the “World Teacher” might someday say things that were completely unexpected and contrary to their preconceived notions, and it would be unwise and even “dangerous” not to do as he instructed! So when Krishnamurti said he wasn’t some sort of occult messiah, they had no choice but to believe him!
   
    Krishnamurti gained some fame in the 1960's during the Eastern Religion craze. Ironically, Krinamurti is now known as the “un-guru”, because he told seekers that they should forgo all religions and all gurus (including Theosophy) and try to find answers themselves. He came full circle by having his books carried by Quest Publishing, the publisher of Theosophical books. After his death, his popularity seems to have dropped off.

Krishanmurti failed to rise from the grave or do any miracles during his lifetime, indeed confirming his claim not to be a messiah!

 RUDOLPH STEINER (1861-1925) A racist and occultist, probably best known today for the Steiner Schools, called Waldorf Schools in some areas (named after a German brand of cigarette, oddly enough).  The schools are known to slip in occult doctrines, and if you’re a Christian you might want to remove your child  if you have one enrolled in such a school.

    Steiner left Theosophy when Annie Besant introduced Krishnamurti as the "reincarnation of Christ". Steiner, a believer in “Aryan supremacy”, couldn't accept a brown skinned Hindu to be the new Messiah. He started a more racist version of Theosophy called the Anthroposophical Society to promote “Arinosophy”. Building on Theosophy's doctrine of root races, Steiner further built on the myth of Aryan supremacy, saying Aryans were more "spiritually advanced" than the other races and that their time had arrived. The similarities with many of Steiner's bizarre doctrines and Nazi ideas are unmistakable. Wolfgang Treher makes a convincing case that Steiner's racial theories, especially the repeated scheme of a small minority evolving further while a large mass declines, bear striking similarities even in detail to Hitler's own theories. He concludes: "Concentration camps, slave labor and the murder of Jews constitute a praxis whose key is perhaps to be found in the 'theories' of Rudolf Steiner." (Wolfgang Treher, Hitler Steiner Schreber, Emmingden 1966, p. 70.). Steiner was by his own account "enthusiastically active" in pan-German nationalist movements in Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century. No one in their right mind considers the Nazis to have been right...and yet many occultists consider this ancestor to Nazi thought an "adept"!

    Steiner must have had some impact on Nazi thought. Nazi Germany’s number two man, Rudolph Hess, was a fan of Steiner and insisted on vegetables grown with Steiner’s methods. No doubt there were others. The Nazis eliminated every right-wing pro-Aryan group, even though these groups often had identical beliefs to the Nazis, not wanting rival groups to emerge. In 1924 they were believed to have burned down Stiener’s headquarters. He was said to have been so devastated from this he could not go on. He died the following year from a heart attack, although some accounts say he was actually murdered by Nazis.

    Aryans are not “more evolved than other people”, and such racism has proven to be lethal. The only people who need to feel somehow inherently superior are those of impoverished egos and filled with hate.

ALICE BAILEY Succeeded Bessant as head of the Theosophical Society. Like her predecessors, Bailey was a pro-Aryan anti-Semite. Bailey dismissed  the persecution the Jews had endured had simply been their “Karma”, eerily reminiscent of Neo-Nazis who say the Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves. Bailey also informed her readers that the Jews had lost their right to be the people whom a future Messiah would be born due because of their arrogance, and that they would have to go through “fires of purification”. Bailey wrote that statement in 1949, after the ovens of Nazi extermination camps had been made well known. It’s unlikely such a poor choice of words was an accident, considering her attitude toward Jews. In addition to that,  Bailey Claimed the atomic bomb was actually a “gift” from the ascended masters to mankind.

    After her death, her husband continued her work, and claimed that a few years prior an unnamed “disciple” had tried to “unite the people of Europe by the Rhine River” and had failed. It seemed obvious Bailey was talking about Adolph Hitler! If there was any doubt that some high ranking Theosophists are pro-Nazi, that statement would seem to remove it.

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS (1826-1910) A Medium who coined the term "Summerland" (The Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural by James Randi, p 226) for the spiritual afterlife...a term later plagiarized by Gerald Gardner to describe the Wiccan afterlife. Jackson wrote a  book titled The Principles of Nature . Davis plagiarized long passages word for word from Swedenborg, both in this book and in his subsequent writings. Perhaps that's why Davis claimed that the planets Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury all had humans living on them! Even though he was obviously a fake and a fraud, his books are still in print today.

PASCHAL BEVERLY RANDOLPH (1825-1875) He wrote many books about sex magic (which he called the “rites of Elusis”), and how it could enlighten people. Good luck trying to decipher his convoluted writings written in a muddled 19th century colloquial English. His works inspired people like Aleister Crowley, the members of the O.:T.:O.:., and Henri Gamache, and are still in print.

   Randolph was the illegitimate son of a plantation owner and a barmaid (Randolph once remarked his parents "did not stop to pay fees to the justice or to the priest."). His mother died from smallpox when he was 5, and he went to live with a half sister. He ran away from home at 15 and became a sailor. When the spiritualist  movement kicked off, Randolph jumped on the bandwagon, appearing on stage as a medium and advertising his services.

    There have been legends and claims about Randolph that have arisen that have been questionable. One is his supposed friendship with President Abraham Lincoln, and being denied to ride on the train carrying Lincoln’s body because he was a Negro.  He claimed to have been a medical doctor, although how and when he received his training is unclear. An early advocate of “free love”, in February 1872 Randolph was jailed for promoting immoral sex, although later acquitted.  He married his second wife, Kate, while still legally married to his first wife, meaning Randolph was a bigamist.

    Apparently Randolph’s sex magic didn't bring happiness, because he committed suicide at age 49, leaving his wife and son to live in poverty. Sex magic doesn't get you anything except perhaps a venereal disease. Sex magic isn’t magic...it’s nothing more than an excuse to have sex and a way for gullible people to be seduced. When you realize this, you will be a step closer to a better life. Would you want to wind up like poor Mr. Randolph?

P.B. Randolph Bigamist and fake who committed suicide.

GEORGE PICKINGILL (1816-1909) A Wiccan named Bill Lidell a.k.a. "Lugh" claimed Pickingill was an adept, skilled in ancient mystery religions and the occult. Lugh