At 3 o’clock Sunday morning, November 4, 1956, I returned to the hotel in Vienna where I had been staying for three days. I paused to leave a call and exchange a few idle words with the hall porter. Nostalgic early morning music from the radio behind the telephone switchboard echoed through the empty lobby. I went to my room, and within a few minutes after getting into bed, was...
The story of Klaus Fuchs is a tale that seamlessly weaves together elements of mystery, espionage, and scientific genius. Arrested in 1950 for leaking atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, Fuchs was initially branded a traitor by the British press. Fleet Street’s sensational headlines claimed he had sold the secrets of the atom bomb to the Russians, but as the dust of hysteria settled, the true nature of Fuchs’s espionage...
Dublin Brigade
With the Dublin Brigade tells the story of one man’s role in the Irish War of Independence. First published in 1929, the author, Charles Dalton, was but a young man, only twenty-six years old, when he decided to write about his experiences during the conflict that resulted in Ireland winning independence, although not full independence, from Great Britain. James Francis Dalton Dalton was born in January 1903 to James Francis...
Crowley in China
Part 1 – Aleister Crowley, agent 666 and Lord Tregedar One of those practitioners of the magical and occult arts was Aleister Crowley. Crowley is perhaps the best known ‘occult spy’ operating in the Second World War. And in fact he was already a spy long before the war. It is not surprising that through history occultism and espionage always have been linked. Undercover operations always need a veil of...
Dashwood
Could it be that the London club mentioned in the Maier Files episode 2, is inspired by the Hell-fire Club? The Hell-Fire club in London is the most notorious “Satanist” organization in eighteenth-century Britain, the Hell-Fire Club was originally founded in London in 1719 by Philip, Duke of Wharton, a liberal politician and atheist who set out to ridicule the religious orthodoxies of his time by holding mock-Satanist ceremonies in...
A former MI6 officer, one of the few to have risen to become ‘C’ or Chief of the Service, takes pleasure in recounting a story. Framed by a collection of John le Carré’s novels on the bookshelves behind him, he tells it with a boyish smile and a playful twinkle in the eye which suggests a mischievousness not entirely lost to age. The story concerns a young officer making his...
Cecil Williamson
Part 4 – The Occult Adepts of British Intelligence, Cecil Williamson Another occultist who was supposed to have been involved in or connected to the Hess affair was Cecil Hugh Williamson. He is the founder of the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic at Castletown on the Isle of Man. Now it’s located in Boscastle in North Cornwall. Major Edward Maltby, a family friend, recruited Williamson into MI6 in 1938. Maltby was...
Aleister Crowley is, few would argue, the father of modern occultism, neopaganism, and New Age spirituality. Today’s Thelemites (avowed followers of Crowley and his spiritual doctrine of Thelema) far outnumber the small cadre he recruited in his lifetime. His motto “Do What Thou Wilt” has had a subtle and profound influence on modern culture. While some still fear and loathe him, Aleister Crowley inspires fascination, even admiration, in others. Crowley’s...
V2 Rocket
T-Force … In the spring of 1945 as the Allied army advanced into Germany there was one objective paramount for the vast majority of its troops – the prompt defeat of the Germans on the battlefield and the swift restoration of peace. However, there was one unit in and around the frontlines whose aim was very different. Unlike their frontline colleagues, these men were actively discouraged from engaging with the...
Richard Sorge was a bad man who became a great spy – indeed one of the greatest spies who ever lived. The espionage network that he built in pre-war Tokyo put him at just one degree of separation from the highest echelons of power in Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union. Sorge’s best friend, employer and unwitting informant Eugen Ott, German ambassador to Japan, spoke regularly to Hitler. Sorge’s top...
walingsham
War is older than History. Battle axes of polished stone found in late Neolithic culture, and the arms of war have appeared in every society since, escalating from cavemen’s weapons of personal destruction to nations’ weapons of mass destruction. Vicious fights evolved into nation-versus-nation and culture-versus-culture wars. Covered within every war is a secret war whose actions may never be chronicled. Secret wars Because of the lack of documents, historians...
Wheatley-Fleming MI6 Occult
Part 2 – Dennis Wheatley, Crowley and Ian Fleming Adventitiously Dennis Wheatley was a dear companion of the mysterious essayist Joan Grant who composed top of the line books about reincarnation. Novels such as “The Winged Pharaoh” taking into account her own particular life in Ancient Egypt. Grant practised Rosicrucian-sort sex magic rituals with her psychiatrist spouse. She was additionally a member of the International Order of  Co-Freemasonry. (Freemasonry which...
Maier files books