Secret societies and the search for magical artefacts

I’ve held a long fascination with secret societies, covert intelligence and the psychology behind such organisations, and the people who are involved and invest chunks of money into these groups. When researching, it’s like a labyrinth, going one way then to more connections. There are many secret societies, some have been around since the Crusades, their organisations familiar to most people.

A number of these secret societies emerged from necessity, a place where likeminded individuals could discuss, explore and carry out inventions, such as alchemy, out of sight from the tyrannical chains and long reach of the church and state. Such ideals and search into what were deemed to be arcane and the work of the ‘devil’, gave way to incredible discoveries and breakthroughs into medicine, the sciences and arts.

Before the outbreak of World War 2, circa 1928, Himmler, Hermann Wirth and Richard Walter Darre, formed a ‘club’ that was private and a non-profit organisation called The Ahnenerbe. The aim of the society was based on Blut und Boden—blood and soil—of the German people, that the land and blood of the Germans was bound by mystical elements. In 1936, the men parted ways leaving Himmler in control of Ahnenerbe.

Under Himmler, Ahnenerbe became the research centre of the Nazi regime, with fifty research institutes attracting scholars from the Nazi German academic elite. Research projects included publishing German traditions, as a means to invigorate and ‘revive’ the history of the German people and culture. The study of musicology, experiments to make sea-water drinkable, linguistic studies—how Sanskrit may be connected to the Aryans, and used humans as guineapigs for a range of experimentations.

Ahnenerbe funded support for archaeological expeditions searching for Norse artefacts, the quest for Atlantis, journeying to Tibet led by the SS under the guise of gathering samples of flora and fauna, while amassing information on the ethnology of the Tibetan people, their religious practices, homosexual interactions between the older monks and the adepts. This was a front for meeting with the Regent Reting Rinpoche so Germany could invade India.

The main aim of Ahnenerbe, which Hitler and Himmler sought, was to search for evidence and historical artefacts—mythical and real, such as the Holy Grail—that claimed Germany was superior over all races and to gain an advantage to win the war.

Why am I writing about secret societies such as the Ahnenerbe and artefacts? They feature in my novella series, The Coin of Time.

FYI, here is a list of (not so) secret societies:

• The Knights Templar, founded 1100s, Jerusalem
• The Order of Skull and Bones, founded 1832 Yale University
• The Freemasons, founded in the 1700s by a guild of stone masons
• The Illuminati, founded in 1776 in Germany during The Enlightenment period
• Bilderberg, founded in 1954, Netherlands
• The Rosicrucians, founded in the 1500s, Germany
• Ordo Templis Orientis (Order of the Temples of the East), founded in 1904 by Aleister Crowley

Thank you for your continued support and as always, I look forward to your comments and will respond.

Historical fiction novelist and a secondary teacher, Luciana Cavallaro, burnt out but not done… yet.

Sources:

Ahnenerbe and the Quests http://ahnen.greyfalcon.us/ahnen.html

Ahnenerbe: Nazis and the Search for Relics https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/ahnenerbe-nazis-and-search-relics-00424

What did the Nazis have to do with archaeology? By: Charles W. Bryant https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/archaeology/nazi-archaeology.htm

HimmlerHitlerNazi Regimenazissocietyworld war two