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the most part, incapable of putting them to successful use. We shall now look at those who
made these intuitive insights the essence of their lives.
Rasputin was one of the Great War's casualties. He need not have been assassinated; he
could have left St Petersburg at any time; but he had resolved upon linking his destiny to that
of his patrons, the Romanovs. After his death, there was a flood of anti-Rasputin
propaganda, and he was blamed for almost everything, becoming in time like an ogre
created by the mind of a neurotic adolescent girl. His only perceptive biographer, Colin
Wilson, has justly remarked that the truth about Rasputin is much more interesting than the
legend.
Unfortunately, there are still certain minor mysteries about him which we are unable to
elucidate. It is not known for certain whether he was, like Karl Haushofer, a member of the
Russian branch of the Green Dragon Society, and hence sworn both to a mission and to
suicide in event of failure. And could it have been Rasputin who advised the Tsarina to
introduce the Swastika at the Russian court? Badmaiev, a medium and theosophist, who
had been brought up in Tibet, where the Swastika is a common symbol, has been advanced
as a plausible candidate by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier. Or could it possibly have
been Gurdjieff, when he visited the Russian court in the guise of a Tibetan lama and
diplomat? This sounds more likely than Rasputin, although Rasputin was often accused, with
the Tsarina, of being pro-German.
Mystery also surrounds Rasputin's fellow Russian, G. I. Gurdjieff, who, however, was rather
more fortunate. He does not seem to have regarded the Great War as a matter of much
importance to him except insofar as it caused him inconvenience. He did not care if millions
of sleeping men killed millions of other sleeping men: for him it was much more important if
just one man woke up. He occupied his time in teaching pupils and in making money through
a variety of schemes. According to Louis Pauwels, he once more dabbled in politics since,
for services rendered to France during the war, in India and in Asia Minor, he enjoyed the
protection of Poincare who personally authorised his establishment in France.'2 France, at
any rate, is where Gurdjieff went at some time during the Russian civil war, and there he set
up his school at Fontainebleau, to which so many eminent writers and intellectuals would go.
Some aver that he continued to keep in touch with his former pupil, Karl Haushofer.
The war was good to Haushofer, who achieved the impressive rank of general. He also
acquired a high reputation for his uncanny predictive powers. He successfully predicted the
dates and times of Allied attacks, the extent of casualties in coming battles, and political
events in other countries.
After the war, the General metamorphosed into the Professor. The University was Munich,
the subject Political Geography, and the Professor declared his intention of re-educating the
43
Publisher Love(+)Wisdom(=)Truth
GERALD SUSTER HITLER AND THE AGE OF HORUS
entire nation so as to awaken Germany to a fulfillment of its destined greatness.
One of his earliest, and most devoted students, was Rudolf Hess.
Aleister Crowley was also thinking in terms of whole continents in the years 1914-18. He
spent them in America after the British Government rejected the offer of his services in 1914,
due to his increasingly unsavoury reputation: that, at least, is what he claimed. He also
claimed that he had assisted in bringing the USA into the war on the Allied side, by writing
deliberately absurd and inflammatory pro-German propaganda. This assertion has been
contested, though Crowley was not prosecuted as a traitor when he returned to Britain in
1919. Of three things we can be sure: Crowley's pro-German propaganda was so ludicrous
as to be counter-productive to all except humourless Germans, though it hardly brought the
United States into the war; the money he received for it preserved him from starvation; and
The Fatherland, which he edited, was a useful vehicle for serious articles on the religion for
which he was the prophet.
For Crowley, a sincere and intelligent man, had despite these qualities become convinced
that he was in truth The Beast 666 prophesied in The Book of Revelation in The Bible and
hailed in The Book of the Law, who would bring an end to the Christian Age. He welcomed
the First World War not only as a vehicle for the destruction of the old aeon, a baptism of
blood, but also as the messenger of the freedom which he believed would dawn upon the
peoples of the world. The war did not have this latter effect; the people of the world were
much too badly frightened to cope with freedom. Crowley thereupon adopted the view that
yet another and more destructive world war was inevitable, and would come soon.
After the war, Crowley returned to England, found the climate inhospitable, and set sail for
Sicily, where, in Cefalu, he founded the Abbey of Thelema, or Will. This retreat, comparable
to that .of Gurdjieff at Fontainebleau, was soon savaged by the English press, which regaled
its readers with accounts of dreadful and unspecified sexual practices. It was on account of
this that Crowley was dubbed The Wickedest Man in the World'. It is obvious that for many,
the new aeon had not yet dawned.
For Crowley there were compensations. He was elected World Head of the OTO, which
gave him tremendous occult influence in Germany, and allowed his manuscripts to circulate
among a wider circle of readers. It has been suggested that one of these readers was Adolf
Hitler, who was, in the early 1920s, very well known in German occult circles, but it should
be stressed that this is pure speculation.
Is it at all significant that Gurdjieff, Haushofer and Crowley were teaching enthusiastically at
this time, each one convinced of the importance of his own mission, to wake people up to
something? How odd too, that we find Dr Rudolf Steiner setting up an institute to do
precisely this at the same time! Why was it so important to wake up? Weren't people aware
of their situation?
We are awake,' said Adolf Hitler to Rauschning, let others sleep'. This is a fundamentally
different attitude, and based upon a desire for power over others. Was Adolf Hitler awake' in
the Great War? Certainly he was very different from what he had been in his Vienna days.
Like many others, he had rejoiced at the coming of the Great War:
I am not ashamed to say that, carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, I sank down
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