The Stargate Conspiracy

by Lynn Picknett

  VandenBroeck’s book largely describes his own struggle to define why he found Schwaller de Lubicz so fascinating, and why he felt compelled to move to the south of France to be close to him. This fascination was even more of a puzzle when he discovered that his hero was in fact very much ‘a man of the right’9 — the political opposite of VandenBroeck himself - and he was shocked to the core to discover that Schwaller de Lubicz was, as befitted an eminence grise of the Nazi party, vehemently anti-Semitic.10 VandenBroeck had some serious soul-searching to do, for he is himself of Jewish descent. Curiously, his mentor still held a fascination for him, and he helped out by correcting more than seventy factual errors in Le temple de l’homme, including some fundamental mistakes in his discussion of harmonics.11

  VandenBroeck visited Schwaller de Lubicz’s house many times before he was offered the chance to become his pupil in Hermeticism and alchemy, a rare privilege. The teacher made it clear that he only made the offer once he had ascertained that VandenBroeck knew nothing whatsoever about the subjects. As he said: ‘You see, I have to be careful. There are people who would like to know what I do.’ Then he added by way of explanation : ‘Governments.’12 But significantly, he elaborated on this cryptic statement, saying: ‘It is well-known that both the USA and the USSR are running experiments with dabblers in all kinds of occult stuff, from psychics to pseudo-alchemists and who knows what not. It has always been a good policy not to attract attention, particularly in times like ours.’13

  Originally simply René Schwaller, the future Nazi guru and mystical Egyptologist was born in Asnières in Alsace in 1887. After serving an apprenticeship as a chemist, at the age of eighteen he moved to Paris, where he was drawn irresistibly into occult studies and became deeply involved in the Theosophical Society. In Paris he also joined an alchemical group called the Brotherhood of Heliopolis. His name has even been put forward as that of the mysterious writer - under the pseudonym ‘Fulcanelli’ — of Le mystère des cathédrales (The Mystery of the Cathedrals), published in 1925, one of the most influential books to come out of that time and place. This masterwork argued that the Gothic cathedrals of medieval Europe carry encoded alchemical and esoteric symbolism in their architecture and decoration. The real identity of the author has long been hotly debated: for a time it was believed to be Schwaller de Lubicz himself,14 but although he was not Fulcanelli, he knew and inspired the man who was: Jean-Julian Champagne.15 In fact, it was Schwaller de Lubicz who claimed to have been the first to discover the Hermetic principles encoded in the Gothic cathedrals, enabling him to recognise the same principles in the temples of Egypt later in life.

  In 1918, with his wife Isha, Schwaller founded a group called Les Veilleurs (The Watchers), to (in Isha’s words): ‘give a new momentum with new words, with the aim of revealing to the troubled world the knowledge (conscience) of the aim of human existence’ [her emphasis].16 He also founded a journal called L’Affranchi (The Emancipated), later changing its title to Le Veilleur. Les Veilleurs began within the Theosophical Society, but later became an independent organisation, primarily because of its political ambitions. It was mostly composed of esotericists and artists, but among its members also boasted the famous astronomer Camille Flammarion, perhaps significantly one of the first proponents of the idea of life on Mars. As the leader of this group, Schwaller took the mystical name Aor, which may also have been used as a ‘pseudonym’ for channelled material, for André VandenBroeck wrote, without elaborating further: ‘What is signed ‘Aor’ comes from a mystic source . . . a private source of knowledge with which Aor alone had contact, and he took its name.’17 One of Schwaller’s greatest supporters at this point in his life was a member of Les Veilleurs, a Lithuanian nobleman and poet called O.W. de Lubicz Milocz, who in 1919 adopted Schwaller into his clan, giving him the right to use the title Chevalier de Lubicz.

  Reading through the articles written by Schwaller de Lubicz and others in Le Veilleur, one soon discerns a rather disquieting undercurrent, exemplified in their slogan ‘Hiérarchie! Fraternité! Liberté!’, substituting ‘hierarchy’ for the French Republic’s original ‘equality’. The over-riding concept in Schwaller de Lubicz’s ideology was that of an élite who, being more spiritually aware than their fellow man, should be allowed to govern.

  Unfortunately, this was not just an organisation with a high regard for authority. The pages of Le Veilleur contained strong anti-Jewish sentiments: a Christmas 1919 article called ‘Letter to the Jews’, written by Aor himself (or even the ‘private source of knowledge’ mentioned by VandenBroeck, perhaps entities he channelled), urged the Jews to return to the promised land and build their own country. Superficially, this may seem fair, not to say farsighted, but the implication was very much that Jews should get out of our beloved France — or else... Schwaller de Lubicz was emphatically, unequivocally, racist. He wrote in Le Veilleur that there is ‘an insurmountable partition between one race and another‘,18 and elsewhere that, based on studies of ancient Egyptian corpses, apart from a few exceptions, ‘there are no blacks properly so called [in dynastic Egypt]’.19 (This is patently untrue — archaeological evidence conclusively proves that the ancient Egyptian people were composed of several different races, including ones racially defined as black.20 Indeed, many see the features of the Sphinx itself as being decidedly negroid.)

  At this point in his life - in the years immediately after the First World War - Schwaller de Lubicz designed a uniform for himself and his disciples, which was subsequently adopted by the SA (Stiirmabteilung - Storm Section), the forerunner of the SS, who were instrumental in Hitler’s rise to power.21 Many of the members of Les Veilleurs were involved in right-wing political events that led both directly and indirectly to the rise of fascism in Europe, such as Vivien Postel du Mas, a major influence on Rudolf Hess. The deputy führer was himself a member of a French group called Tala, which was affiliated to Les Veilleurs.22

  In 1920, Schwaller de Lubicz disbanded the organisation, instructing the membership to carry the work into their chosen profession or field of influence. Aor and Isha’s own work took them to Switzerland, where they established the Scientific Station Suhalia near St Moritz in the Alps to undertake research, with several others, into such fringe alchemical sciences as homeopathy, crystallography and the therapeutic effects of plants. They also built an observatory. In 1927 Schwaller de Lubicz and Isha left Suhalia for Plan-du-Grasse in the south of France, moving on three years later to Majorca. But in 1938 they made their most significant move - to Egypt, where they remained for fifteen years, mainly studying the Temple of Luxor. Finally, in 1952, they returned to their home at Plan-du-Grasse, where Schwaller de Lubicz remained until his death in 1961.

  These were not random moves, nor were they occasioned by wanderlust or economic necessity. Neither may they have been entirely the travels of esotericists seeking out their own kind. Schwaller de Lubicz may have been a celebrated mystic, but he was also a political philosopher. It is notable that his departures from both Spain and Egypt coincided with successful right-wing takeovers, just after the Spanish Civil War had been won by Franco, and just after a military coup d’état in Egypt in July 1952. The victors in both cases were people of whom Schwaller de Lubicz would undoubtedly have approved - if not the world’s greatest dictators, they were certainly dictatorial - yet he moved on once they came to power. Perhaps he had simply done his job, or, like many others before and after him, he combined his occultism with intelligence-gathering, maybe on behalf of some powerful international cabal.

  Like many people in this investigation, it is a mystery how Schwaller de Lubicz acquired his money. He came from an ordinary family and his books — most of which were written towards the end of his life — were never bestsellers, yet he always seems to have been affluent. He kept on his large house in Plan-du-Grasse for the full fifteen years that he was in Egypt. Was he paid for his part in setting the scene for various political and military coups? Was he on some kind of retainer for his services as
undercover agent for one - or more - intelligence agencies? Both scenarios seem likely, but Schwaller de Lubicz was so successfully secretive that we shall probably never know for sure.

  He also always concealed the influences that shaped his own philosophy, but an examination of his ideology places him firmly in the context of a specific politico-esoteric system, a movement known as Synarchy. This is ‘government by secret societies’, or by a group of initiates who operate from behind the scenes. It is an analogue of ‘theocracy’, or rule by a priesthood. Schwaller de Lubicz was a fervent Synarchist, which is why he admired ancient Egypt so much, ruled as it was by divine kings and priesthoods. One of his books was entitled Le roi de la théocratie pharaonique (The King of the Pharaonic Theocracy).

  The founder of Synarchy, a Frenchman named Joseph Alexandre Saint-Yves d‘Alveydre (1824-1909), explained that the term was the opposite of anarchy. Whereas anarchy is based on the principle that the state should have no control over individuals, Synarchy proposes that it should have complete control. He proposed that Synarchists achieve power by taking over the three key institutions of social control: political, religious and economic. With its own members in positions of power, the Synarchists would, in effect, secretly govern entire states. And why stop there? One of the aims of Synarchy, from its very inception, was — from the words of a Synarchist document — the creation of a ‘federal European Union’.23 Is it any coincidence that we are now moving rapidly towards such a European state? Significantly, those words were written as far back as 1946. Interestingly, several commentators discern a sudden burst of activity by Synarchists in France in 1922, soon after Schwaller de Lubicz disbanded Les Veilleurs with the instruction to carry his ideology into their particular spheres of influence.

  The Synarchists were a real threat in at least the first two decades of the twentieth century, influencing the rise of fascism, which, by and large, accords very well with their aims, although they had problems with the fanatical nationalism of Nazi Germany. The Synarchist movement was especially active in France, where it had close associations with right-wing terrorist groups such as the Cagoule (composed of army officers) and its civilian counterpart, the CSAR (Comité Secret d’Action Revolutionnaire), which was active in the 1930s. Many members of the CSAR were also members of Synarchist orders.24

  As might be expected from a movement dedicated to governing by secret societies, Synarchy had close ties with some of the most powerful of such organisations, including the Martinist Order, of which Saint-Yves d‘Alveydre was Grand Master. As the French writer Gérard Galtier states: ‘The synarchic ideal influenced all the Martinists and occultists of the beginning of the century.’25 Not unexpectedly, Synarchists were also members of French Masonic Lodges, and their ranks included former disciples of Schwaller de Lubicz, including Vivien Postel du Mas (who wrote a document called The Synarchist Pact — effectively its manifesto — in the 1930s26) and Rudolf Hess.

  Synarchy is by definition a shadowy group lurking behind many uprisings and revolutions, and whose jealous gaze is automatically fixed on any stable regime or established government unless it already conforms to their ideals. Schwaller de Lubicz’s serial domiciles coincided with successful changes of government in his previous country of residence: not only was he a Synarchist in word but also in deed, truly a prime mover in the events that shaped his epoch. Indeed, history may one day come to admit, albeit reluctantly, that he was one of the major political influences of the twentieth century.

  There is another aspect to Synarchy. The concept of nine legendary leaders plays a large part in its philosophy. They derived this from the fusing of two legends. One was a tale brought from India and popularised by a French diplomat and travel writer, Louis Jacolliot (1837 — 90), which told of the Nine Unknown Men, a secret group said to have been formed by Asoka, the third-century BCE Buddhist emperor of India, to secretly rule the world.27 The other tradition was that of the Knights Templar, founded by nine French knights shortly after the First Crusade. The Templars were believed by Saint-Yves d’Alveydre to have represented the supreme expression of Synarchy in the medieval world, because they had almost total political, religious and financial control during the two centuries of their existence yet remained at heart a secret, heretical order whose real agenda was known only to its membership.28

  In nineteenth-century France several secret societies all claimed to be the true descendants of the medieval Knights Templar. Saint-Yves drew upon their ideals and practices for his movement, especially those of certain types of occult Freemasonry known as the Strict Templar Observance and its successor, the Rectified Scottish Rite, thus bestowing on the primarily political movement a strong undercurrent of mysticism and magical rites.29 This proved to be a two-way traffic, for the Synarchist ideal was adopted by several occultists and their organisations, such as Papus (Gérard Encausse, 1865-1916), an enormously influential figure who was the French Grand Master of both the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) and the Masonic Order of Memphis-Misraïm, whose rituals, significantly, were based on the rites and ceremonies of the ancient Egyptian priesthood. Papus considered Saint-Yves to be his ‘intellectual Master’.30 As Gérard Galtier wrote: ‘Without doubt, the Martinist directors such as Papus ... had the ambition to secretly influence the course of political events, notably by the diffusion of synarchic ideals.’31

  Papus put the Synarchist ideals into practice by working to bring together the various secret societies of his day, merging orders where possible and creating ‘confederations’ where representatives of the organisations could meet. The bodies he created fragmented during the First World War, but others, notably Theodore Reuss and H. Spencer Lewis, created similar groups afterwards.32

  Undoubtedly, Saint-Yves was hugely influential on the development of Western occultism. Theo Paijmans, an authority on nineteenth-century European esotericism, pointed out to us that Saint-Yves introduced the seminal idea of Agartha, the mysterious underground realm from which highly evolved Adepts psychically direct the development of the human race.33 This was to become a common feature of Western occultism — as in the works of Madame H.P. Blavatsky — and was the basis for a belief in Hidden Masters, or Secret Chiefs, which we will discuss shortly. Saint-Yves claimed that he had travelled astrally to Agartha, and that he was in telepathic contact with its inhabitants. He also claimed that he had derived his Synarchist ideology from them.

  Saint-Yves, Synarchist supreme, held a deeply mystical view of the evolution of civilisation, believing in the existence of an advanced ancient science and technology, as well as Atlantis. Saint-Yves believed that the Great Sphinx of Giza was built before the emergence of the Egyptian civilisation by visitors from Atlantis.34 He explained that, as the Atlanteans were red-skinned, this was the reason the Sphinx was originally painted red (as classical authors asserted, and which seems likely, judging from the small traces of red colouring that have been found on it). Saint-Yves writes that the Atlantean civilisation existed between 18,000 and 12,000 BCE — exactly the same dates given for Altea/Atlantis by James Hurtak in The Keys of Enoch.35 Significantly, a central concept in Saint-Yves’s mystical writings is that of the Holy Light, otherwise known as Aor,36 the name taken by Schwaller de Lubicz.

  Saint-Yves, in his idiosyncratic reconstruction of history, describes a great Celtic warrior called Ram who conquered the ‘degenerate’ black races in 7700 BCE. According to Saint-Yves, it was Ram, the superhero, who created the first Synarchist Empire, which extended from Europe to India.37 Curiously, in a discussion about far distant events, Edgar Cayce said: ‘[This was] some... years before the entry of Ram into India.’38 This uniquely Synarchist character could only have found his way — as a historical fact - into Edgar Cayce’s writings via Saint-Yves, who invented Ram and all his works.

  Clear links lie between the godfather of the New Egyptology — Schwaller de Lubicz — and mystical Synarchist movements that encompass a belief in Atlantis and Nine mysterious figures who seek to rule the world. The twe
ntieth-century legacy of today’s ‘Nine’ is even more colourful, and involves one of the most flamboyant and controversial figures of our times - the ritual magician Aleister Crowley.

  Conjurations of the ‘Beast’

  In March 1904 the — even by then - notorious occultist Aleister Crowley (1875 — 1947) and his new wife Rose paid a visit to Cairo where they carried out a ‘magickal’ operation (a ‘working’) in their rented apartment. The result was unexpected. The untrained Rose, totally ignorant of magickal workings (and, if Crowley’s somewhat disloyal description is anything to go by, of much else too), went into trance, repeating, ’They are waiting for you.‘ During the next few days, she revealed that ‘they’ were primarily the god Horus, who had chosen Crowley for a special task, telling him the ritual to facilitate contact. At first Crowley was irritated by Rose’s words - after all, he was the great magus, not her - but then he gave her a series of questions to test the authenticity of the communicator. When he asked her which planet was traditionally associated with Horus, she answered, correctly, Mars.39

  A few days later, in the Cairo Museum, Rose — who had never visited it before - confidently led her husband through the halls to stand before one particular exhibit, a rather unremarkable Twenty-Sixth-Dynasty painted wooden stele showing an Egyptian priest standing before Horus in his form of Ra-Hoor-Khuit (a variation of Ra-Horakhti, who is closely associated with the Sphinx). This has been known ever since in the occult world as the Stele of Revealing. Crowley was impressed by the synchronicity of the exhibit’s number — 666, the number of the Great Beast of Revelation, which also happened to be Crowley’s own proud alter ego, thanks to an overliteral interpretation of the Bible by his religious-maniac mother. (When we saw the stele in April 1998, we were amused to note that, although it is now exhibit 9422, the original 1904 label, bearing the number 666 in a beautiful but faded copperplate hand, has been laid beside it in the display case. Could there be Crowleyite sympathisers on the staff of the Cairo Museum?)