Chapter Eighteen Continued: In Search of Utopia

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

Sometime before 1929, fellow pastor, Harry Scrimgeour, introduced William Aberhart to the writings of Edward Bellamy, whose 19th century novels became the framework for Utopian societies, in particular Looking Backward: 2000-1887, which was first published in 1887.

Aberhart may have been intrigued by one vision of Bellamy's. The notion of a radiorator, or radio personality, but not just any radio personality, but a radiorating preacher*.

Now, as to hearing a sermon to-day, if you wish to do so, you can either go to a church to hear it or stay at home."

"How am I to hear it if I stay at home?"

"Simply by accompanying us to the music room at the proper hour and selecting an easy chair. There are some who still prefer to hear sermons in church, but most of our preaching, like our musical performances, is not in public, but delivered in acoustically prepared chambers, connected by wire with subscribers' houses. If you prefer to go to a church I shall be glad to accompany you, but I really don't believe you are likely to hear anywhere a better discourse than you will at home. I see by the paper that Mr. Barton is to preach this morning, and he preaches only by telephone, and to audiences often reaching 150,000."

"The novelty of the experience of hearing a sermon under such circumstances would incline me to be one of Mr. Barton's hearers, if for no other reason," I said. (1)

Scientific research into radio waves was then being conducted, and the telephone was already in use, but a radio for home had yet to be invented. But Bellamy is not far off the mark when describing the future of radio:

As Edith had promised he should do, Dr. Leete accompanied me to my bedroom when I retired, to instruct me as to the adjustment of the musical telephone. He showed how, by turning a screw, the volume of the music could be made to fill the room, or die away to an echo so faint and far that one could scarcely be sure whether he heard or imagined it ...

I will set the telephone at eight o'clock." "What do you mean?" I asked. He explained that, by a clock-work combination, a person could arrange to be awakened at any hour by the music. (1)

Aberhart's biographer David Elliot did wonder just how far he would have taken Bellamy's work.

The nature of the State was better defined. Dividends would be given for loyalty to the State; if a person refused to work, or refused to join the Social Credit movement, he would not receive dividends. If he abused his privileges under the new economic system, the Credit House inspector could withdraw his dividends and put him on an "Indian List." The latter expression was not defined, but Aberhart may have had in mind the reservations or concentration camps that Bellamy had described for non-sympathizers. (2)

Major Douglas, the creator of the Social Credit theories, also sought a Utopian world, once his economic principles were adopted.

American Patriotism Defined:

Historian Dr. Rex Curry has done a lot of research into not only Edward Bellamy's work, but also that of his cousin Francis Bellamy, and has written a book Pledge Of Allegiance Secrets.

The Bellamy's promoted military socialism, and it was Francis who authored the Pledge of Allegiance, used in classrooms in the United States. He refers to it as "flag fetishism" that is accompanied by "robotic group-chanting".

He suggests, and he is probably correct, that the Bellamys were the first to "indoctrinate" children into a fierce nationalism, that not only prepared young boys for military service, but created citizens who would either glorify war or be compliant to a country going to war.

None of this is really new. Most armies carried a banner of some kind for inspiration, but Curry argues that it was never a domestic practice prior to 1892, when Francis Bellamy introduced the 'pledge' into the classroom. And along with it, was the robotic hand gesture that started with a military salute, and then the extension of the arm toward the flag, palm down. (3)

Another Famous Salute

Bellamy's futuristic novel, Looking Back, is the third largest selling work of fiction of all time. The first being Uncle Tom's Cabin and the second, Ben Huhr. It was translated into 20 different languages, and was the first book to lay a clear foundation for patriotic nationalism and military socialism.

It's not too hard to imagine where the Nazi salute came from when you look at the photograph of the children above. Once it took on a sinister meaning, it was changed to just hand on head.

According to Dr. Curry, Alfred Rosenberg, was also inspired by Bellamy's book and may have been the one to introduce it to the Thule Society. Though his first interest was antisemitism, inspired by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and Aryan supremacy, as introduced by Helena Blavatsky:

"The intellectual difference between the Aryan and other civilized nations and such savages as the South Sea Islanders, is inexplicable on any other grounds. No amount of culture, nor generations of training amid civilization, could raise such human specimens as the Bushmen, the Veddhas of Ceylon, and some African tribes, to the same intellectual level as the Aryans ..."

Blavatsky also promoted the notion of Brotherhoods and Societies dedicated to the Occult. Where I see Bellamy's book coming in, is with the creation of a perfect society, once they got rid of the Jews and bred an Aryan race. And of course, you can't mistake the military socialism.

I know people will argue that none of this was the intent of Edward Bellamy when he wrote Looking Backward.** He was describing failed capitalism, and promoting a form of communism. But people see what they want to see, I guess, when they need to justify their actions.

I did find one passage in the book that describes how we now honour our fallen soldiers, something that I believe was new in the twentieth century:

It was one of the annual holidays of the nation in the latter third of the nineteenth century, being set apart under the name of Decoration Day, for doing honor to the memory of the soldiers of the North who took part in the war for the preservation of the union of the States. The survivors of the war, escorted by military and civic processions and bands of music, were wont on this occasion to visit the cemeteries and lay wreaths of flowers upon the graves of their dead comrades, the ceremony being a very solemn and touching one. The eldest brother of Edith Bartlett had fallen in the war, and on Decoration Day the family was in the habit of making a visit to Mount Auburn, where he lay. (1)

Decoration Day, is now Veterans Day, Memorial Day or Remembrance Day, not that they are bad things.

And the salute only became sinister when it was adopted by the Nazis, and now symbolizes evil. Before that it was just a gesture. It does remind me of a funny photograph though, that has been kicking around the Internet. I'm sure he wasn't giving the Nazi salute here, and it's actually his facial expression that bothers me. Oh well. What can I say?

Chapter Nineteen: Demagogs and Democracy

Footnotes:

* In 1935 Time magazine referred to him as "Messiah William Aberhart, the radiorating Premier of Alberta" (5)

** You can read Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward for free here. I've been reading it and it's actually quite good. Along the same vein as George Orwell's 1984.

Footnotes:

1. Looking Backward: 2000-1887, By: Edward Bellamy, Boston and New York, Ticknor and Company, 1887

2. Bible Bill: A Biography of William Aberhart, By: David R. Elliot and Iris Miller, Edmonton: Reidmore Books, 1987, Pg. 188

3. Pledge of Allegiance Secrets, By: Dr. Rex Curry. (It can be read online here, though I had a bit of difficulty following it. Lots of very interesting photographs though)

4. Bible Bill's Story, Time magzine, March 02, 1936

Chapter Fourteen Continued: A Star is Born

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

The Antichrist 'does not look like what he is,' and therein precisely lies the danger. He is a young man with a strong personality and seductive power of speech and writing. He is an ascetic and a vegetarian. He will win fame first by a book in which 'respect of the ancient traditions and symbols' stands side by side.

The copy of the Protocols that Alfred Rosenberg brought back from Russia, included the version of the Antichrist, as laid down by Vladimir Soloviev, and interpreted by the alleged forger Sergei Nilus (The Great within the Small and Antichrist, an Imminent Political Possibility. Notes of an Orthodox Believer). And in it "Soloviev's Antichrist finally disappears in a battle against the desperate Jews, many of whom he had massacred before." (1)

Places Everyone

After speaking with Adolf, Dietrich Eckart was convinced that he had found the right person to 'act' as leader. He was an unknown, passionate about politics and had a huge ego*.

And the artist-prince believed that others now recognized the greatness, that he long knew he had.

Passed over for promotion in the army, on the grounds that he "lacked leadership qualities," it was that very lack of leadership qualities that would have appealed to the founders of the German Worker's Party. He was someone they could mould, and so long as they kept his ego fed, could manipulate.

And he had a strangeness about him that would appeal to the mystics in the Thule Society.

And while much has been written about Hitler's involvement with that society, with historians putting that notion to rest, I don't believe he would have qualified to join.

Members were affluent, influential people from Munich society: professors, noblemen, manufacturers, senior officials, businesspeople .... Those wishing to join had to complete a questionnaire and submit a photograph, which was examined for purity of race. The following ‘blood declaration’ also had to be filed: ‘The undersigned assures to the best of his knowledge and conscience that no Jewish or coloured blood flows through his veins or those of this wife and that there are no family members of coloured race among his forefathers ... (2)

Adolf's father was the illegitimate child of a peasant girl. His grandfather was a gypsy. He had no pedigree.

The Thule society was occult in nature, and engaged in symbolic rituals. There were several levels of membership, and while the agenda may have been different for many, they all had a common goal. Purity of the Aryan stock and a belief in the racist philosophy of Guido von List, which asserted the superiority of the Aryans, at least in their interpretations.

And everything that came to define the future Nazi Party, was drawn from that society. Their flag, their anthem and even the creation of their party leader.

Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse

Dietrich Eckart immediately introduced his find to his friends Alfred Rosenberg and Anton Drexler. They obviously approved, and now worked to transform the eager Hitler into the Antichrist of Soloviev's vision.

He already had the mustache, an obvious spiritual sign. But they must now make him athletic, seductive, a powerful speaker and a vegetarian**. But above all he had to be able to pull off omnipotent, if they were able to sell him to the affluent moneyed people of the Thule Society.

And the popular playwright and director, Ekart, used his skills to transform*** the former soldier, who looked like this when he enlisted:

To This

Chapter Fourteen Continued: Aberhart and Manning Find Their Antichrist

Footnotes:

*Hitler would sue his friend Hanisch, from his Vienna days, who was handling the sale of his artwork. He felt that a painting of his that Hanisch sold for ten kronen, was worth at least a hundred, and believed that he'd been cheated. Art critics now agree that it was definitely a ten kronen 'work of art.'

**Hitler's vegetarianism was only part of his created persona. He actually loved sausages, cavier and wild game. (3)

***One aspect of neoconservatism that is often overlooked is the practice of image politics. Political Science professor and author, Trevor Harrison, discusses in his book about Stockwell Day: Requiem For a Lightweight: Stockwell Day and Image Politics; how Conrad Black selected Day to run as leader of the Alliance Party. Day, who only had a high school education, was full of self-importance, had the right look and was virtually unknown outside of Alberta. Soon he was being introduced to the cream of society and speaking at $1,000.00 a plate fundraisers. But Black may have been unaware of his questionable past, that surfaced during the election campaign.

And of course the challenge with Stephen Harper was to change his appearance from this:

"Up until the writ for the 2006 election was dropped, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper was widely viewed outside his home province of Alberta as a sullen and condescending policy wonk. Many believe it was this image of a strident right-wing ideologue that helped seal his party's defeat in 2004. But in 2006, the voters saw a new and improved Harper, one who is more centrist, more polished, a party leader who has been made over both professionally and politically. Gone is the helmet hair-do. Gone is the petulant Harper with the legendary simmering temper..." (4)

All politicians, present and future, work to create a saleable image. But for Neocons, it's a religion. All part of the "noble lie".

Sources:

1. Young Hitler, By: Claus Hant, The Thule Society

2. Der Fhehrer, Hitler's Rise to Power, By: Konrad Heiden, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1944

3. Hitler: Neither Vegetarian Nor Animal Lover, By: Ryn Barry, Pythagorean Books, 2004

4. Stephen Harper: The next prime minister, CTV News, January 24, 2006

Chapter Fourteen: Into the Darkness

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

One day in the summer of 1917 a student was reading in his room in Moscow. A stranger entered, laid a book on the table, and silently vanished. The cover of the book bore in Russian the words from the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew: 'He is near, he is hard by the door.'

The student sensed the masterful irony of higher powers in this strange happening. They had sent him a silent message. He opened the book, and the voice of a demon spoke to him. It was a message concerning the Antichrist, who would come at the end of days. The Antichrist is no mythical being, no monkish medieval fantasy. It is the portrait of a type of man who comes to the fore when an epoch is dying. He is a man with a white skin, in everyday clothes, dangerously contemporary, and a mighty demagogue. He will talk with the masses, and at his word the masses will rise up and turn a culture to ashes, a culture which has deserved no better, since it has borne the Antichrist in its own image and for its own destruction. (1)

The student was Alfred Rosenberg and the book; The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion, with a description of the Antichrist by Russian philosopher, Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov.

And though it would be determined time and again that the protocols were fraudulent, they would be used to justify pogroms, unleash hatred and even be the blueprint for the Holocaust.

The Thule Society and the Antichrist

The Protocols of Zion were forged, taken from the fictional work of a French political satirist, Maurice Joly.

Written in 1864, about Napoleon III, and called a Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu; Joly's work was republished in 1905, with a bit of alteration, by Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky, head of the secret police in Russia; as the Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion. Rachkovsky's intention was to blame the unrest in Russia on a global Jewish conspiracy.

Widely distributed during the Russian Revolution, Rosenberg was not the only soldier to obtain a copy, and they would eventually make their way to other European countries, the United States and even Canada.

But when Rosenberg stuffed the little book into his suitcase in 1918, before heading to Munich; they would soon take on a life of their own.

The Thule Society

The Thule Society was originally a Germanic study group, headed by Walter Nauhaus, a wounded World War I veteran, who had become a keeper of pedigrees for the "Order of Teutons". It became established in Munich in 1917 and the following year, Nauhaus was approached by Rudolf von Sebottendorf, head of the Germanenorden Walvater of the Holy Grail, to combine their efforts.

Both groups were occult in nature, with a keen interest in the origins of the Aryan race. On August 18, 1918, they officially merged and began a massive membership drive.

The society held a great appeal to the twenty-five-year-old Alfred Rosenberg*, and he would soon join their ranks, along with friends Dietrich Eckart, Gottfried Feder and Anton Drexler. How involved they were with the secret society is debatable, but they did help to create the German Worker's Party (DAP) as a loosely based offshoot.

DAP would take over the Thule's newspaper in 1920, where Rosenberg published the Protocols of Zion.

By then he was becoming increasingly concerned with the future of the 'Nordic population', denouncing both homosexuality and abortion as a direct threat to it's future. At the time any woman wanting an abortion could obtain a pill from a chemical plant (Probably Bayer) for 50 marks, so abortions were on the increase. (2)

And given the loss of millions of young men during the war, most future fathers, Rosenberg's duties were clear. He had to save his race.

The Antichrist Appears

The Thule Society was also known to have held seances and rituals, where they would try to call on the Antichrist. Some people have claimed that Hitler himself was involved in this, but records have proven otherwise, and he himself referred to the occult as foolishness.

But while Alberta's droughts and infestations resembled an apocalyptic environment, ripe for William Aberhart's prophesies; the break down of German society after the War, also created an end times atmosphere. And the Russian philosopher, Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov; had already provided a description of the Antichrist:

The Antichrist 'does not look like what he is,' and therein precisely lies the danger. He is a young man with a strong personality and seductive power of speech and writing. He is an ascetic and a vegetarian. He will win fame first by a book in which respect of the ancient traditions and symbols stands side by side with a bold and thorough radicalism in social and political problems ... absolute individualism with an ardent fidelity to the common weal . . . .. Then, in Berlin, he will become ruler of the `United States of Europe'; he will conquer Asia and North Africa; America will submit to him voluntarily. He is an absolute genius, and he may, says Soloviev, wear a small mustache. (3)

On August 14, 1919; Dietrich EcKart was giving a speech to the followers of his Geman Worker's Party, when a stranger entered the room. A new arrival, recruited from the streets of Munich.

Eckart stopped speaking as he gazed at the intruder. He was thin giving the appearance of being taller than he was, with a small toothbrush mustache.

And in that moment, Eckart knew that he had arrived.

Chapter Fourteen Continued: The Power of the Mustache

Footnotes:

*Rosenberg would become the Nazi Party's chief racial theorist, in charge of building a human racial ladder to justify Hitler's genocidal policies.

Sources:

1. Der Fhehrer, Hitler's Rise to Power, By: Konrad Heiden, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1944, Pg. 1

2. Germany After the First World War, By: Richard Bessel, Clarendon Press Oxford, 1993, ISBN: 0-19-821938-5, Pg. 248

3. Heiden, Pg. 1-2