The Right Chemistry: John Dee mixed science and the occult

The enigmatic polymath who had once been the toast of the court of Queen Elizabeth I died in poverty.

Author of the article:Joe Schwarcz • Special to the Montreal Gazette
Publishing date:Jul 16, 2021 • 

A detail from John Dee performing an experiment before Queen Elizabeth I, a painting by Henry Gillard Glindon. A recent X-ray analysis of the 19th-century work shows that originally Dee was surrounded by a circle of skulls, Joe Schwarcz writes. Wellcome Library via Wikimedia Commons

Amazing staging! Trygaeus climbs onto a giant mechanical beetle and flies up to the palace of the gods. That scene from Aristophanes’s play Peace would be spectacular on the Broadway stage today, but what is truly amazing, is that it was orchestrated in 1547 at Trinity College, Cambridge. The brains behind the spectacle was John Dee, a young faculty member who instantly developed a reputation as a sorcerer because the audience could not believe that such a spectacular effect could be produced by normal means

Dee would go on to forge a career as mathematician, astronomer, navigational expert, cartographer, book collector and alchemist. He would certainly qualify as a scientist if the description ended there. But it doesn’t. While the Cambridge beetle had nothing to do with sorcery, Dee later would go on to live up to the reputation it had fostered by dabbling in astrology, exploring contacts with the spirit world and engaging in fortune-telling, a curious melange of science and the occult.

In 1558, Dee cemented his status as a seer by advising young Princess Elizabeth not to despair, because “as the gods have indicated to me, you shall become queen in another four months.” Indeed, exactly four months later, Mary Tudor died, allowing Elizabeth to ascend to the throne. Out of gratitude, the queen appointed Dee as her personal astrologer and advisor.

Before long, John Dee proved to be so useful that he was then given the task of gathering intelligence about foreign rulers and reporting directly to the queen. A secret agent as it were! These reports were not signed with his name, but rather with a symbol of two circles flanked with a horizontal and a vertical line that can be interpreted as the number seven. Supposedly the circles represent eyes, meaning the report was only for Her Majesty’s eyes. The seven was there because it was the alchemists’ lucky number. And there we have the first secret agent, code name 007! Is this where Ian Fleming got the idea for 007? Was John Dee the inspiration for James Bond? We will never know because Fleming is no longer with us. An alternate theory is that Fleming’s research into spy activities revealed that one of the great British successes during the First World War was the cracking of a German code that the British referred to as 0070. The author just shortened this to 007. I prefer the association with Dee, because he was into chemistry.

This is documented in a famous 19th-century painting by Henry Gillard Glindoni depicting Queen Elizabeth and her courtiers watching Dee performing a chemical experiment. “The Queen’s conjurer” is clearly seen pouring some substance from a vial into a flaming brazier. Looks like a demonstration we commonly carry out in chemistry lectures, sprinkling a little lycopodium powder into a flame. Dee documents other chemical experiments in his writings, including the making of silver chloride. Although not completely clear, it seems he reacted silver with nitric acid to form silver nitrate, which then yields silver chloride on reaction with salt, sodium chloride.

Dee’s interest in chemical matters is further demonstrated by his association with the infamous occultist, self-declared spirit medium and alchemist Edward Kelley. Having once been convicted of forgery, Kelley had had his ears cropped as punishment, and we see him in Glindoni’s painting with a hat that covers the disfigurement. Upon hearing of Dee’s efforts to foretell the future by gazing into a mirror, Kelley had sought Dee out in 1582, offering his help as a medium. Indeed, Dee was into “scrying” with a mirror made of obsidian, a volcanic rock. Kelley claimed that he had the ability to contact angels who would help him interpret the visions Dee saw in the mirror.

The mirror that John Dee is supposed to have used is on display in the British Museum, along with his crystal ball. Such obsidian mirrors were introduced into Europe by Spanish explorers who had found Indigenous people in Mexico using such mirrors for divination. The required shine was imparted to the rock by rubbing with, get this, bat droppings! Since bats only digest insects they eat partially, residues of the bugs’ skeletons show up in the feces, making this a functional abrasive to polish the volcanic rock. Also on display in the British Museum is a clay tablet with all sorts of occult symbols that Kelley used in his communications with angels. He would interpret the messages for Dee, including the famous one about the need to share all earthly possessions, including wives. And yes, that meant Dee and Kelley came to engage in wife swapping! One of Dee’s children may actually have been fathered by Kelley.

Dee and Kelley travelled through Europe with Dee telling fortunes and demonstrating scientific phenomena, while Kelley attempted to mutate metals into gold with a magic powder he claimed to have discovered. In Bohemia, he was even imprisoned for a while after he failed to produce the metal as promised. Dee eventually fell out of favour when Elizabeth was succeeded by James I, who abhorred divination and anything to do with the occult. The enigmatic polymath who had once been the toast of the royal court died in poverty.

A recent X-ray analysis of the Glindoni painting shows that originally Dee was surrounded by a circle of skulls, which the painter may have intended to portray that while Dee pursued science, he also had a foot in the occult. Perhaps the patron who commissioned the painting did not like this association and asked the artist to modify the work. He painted over the skulls, and, perhaps piqued, retained the occult connection by replacing a globe in the original with Kelley. I just wish he would have sneaked the 007 in there somewhere.

joe.schwarcz@mcgill.ca

Joe Schwarcz is director of McGill University’s Office for Science & Society (mcgill.ca/oss). He hosts The Dr. Joe Show on CJAD Radio 800 AM every Sunday from 3 to 4 p.m.

Shakespeare's Use of Occult Beliefs and Sources

Helen H Gordon
Howard Schumann

Shakespeare's use of ghosts, witches, astrology, sorcery, magic, and alchemy indicate familiarity with occult ideas. Edward de Vere, who used "William Shakespeare" as a pen name, had connections with astrologers and alchemists like Dr. John Dee, and Rosicrucians like Francis Bacon. He was both a Rosicrucian (exploring science and supernaturalism) and a Freemason (employing symbols and rituals). The Stratford resident, William Shakspere, had no connections to these secret societies.

SHAKESPEARE AND THE OCCULT A Path to Edward De Vere

By Howard Schumann

According to the scientific/materialist paradigm of our time, the only true reality is the one we can detect with our five senses. Believers and practitioners of the occult are usually dismissed as heretics, blasphemers aligned with the Devil, or just simply crackpots. In the Elizabethan era,however, belief in the occult was virtually universal."he Renaissance era saw the emergence of new ideas and a deep curiosity about anything mystical. It was the age of Nostradamus, when the Renaissance fusion of Christianity, Hermetic Philosophy(a set of beliefs based primarily upon the writings attributed to Hermes "Trismegistus) was accompanied by strong belief in magic, astrology and alchemy.

*

References to the occult pervade the works of many literary writers of the time, including William Shakespeare. While the plays are obviously filled with occult references, there is no evidence at all that William Shakspere of Stratford was ever involved with such practices or had even read widely on the subject. On the other hand, there is considerable evidence, as will be discussed later, that Edward de Vere was a patron of the wellknown occultist and philosopher Dr. John Dee and was himself a practitioner of the occult art. 

Shakespeare and His Sources Shakespeare's Occult Sources  

Travis W. Shores 

July, 2013

University of Oxford

 English Literature Exeter College

Shakespearean plays source themselves from such a multitude of influences that I may spend my entire life pulling apart the intricacies of Elizabethan era, Renaissance philosophy and social awareness. Though the elements of Shakespeare's plays can readily speak to any one of these subject headings it is important to consider what his thoughts were or, at very least, what his awareness was to the idea of death, life, afterlife, magic and religion. We see repeated themes within the Shakespearean cannon that deal with the unknown and unexplained supernatural phenomenon. From ghosts to witches and maddening insanity induced by visions. These elements are some of the most effective in his plays yet they remain behind the shroud of common knowledge and relegate themselves to the mists of speculation and periphery. It becomes my interest then to flesh out, if you will, the parts of Shakespeare's influences that have led to the dramatic situations that we cherish and adore within his greater known works. In essence: I choose to examine what were his immediate spheres of influence with the occult. 

DR. DEE THE ORIGINAL 007

The Aztec Origins of a Mysterious Elizabethan Mirror

Candida Moss
Sun, October 10, 2021

Public Domain/Oxford University

When Elizabeth I’s scientific adviser and “philosopher” John Dee died in 1609 at the age of 81 he left behind a trove of unusual artifacts. Among them was his speculum, a hand mirror made of polished obsidian (volcanic glass), that was also known as “the Devil’s Looking-Glass.” This mystical device for talking to the dead was coveted by his peers and later generations; it was acquired by politician and writer Horace Walpole before winding its way into the British Museum, where it resides today. Despite its popularity, however, the mirror’s history was shrouded in mystery. A just-published scientific study has tracked its origins to 16th century Mexico and the religious rituals of the Aztecs.

The mirror in question is part of a cluster of obsidian artefacts in the British Museum and measures about 7.2 inches in diameter and half an inch thick. Visually it resembles drawings of black mirrors that appear in the pages of codex Tepetlaoztoc, a 16th century Aztec book made by residents of Tepetlaoztoc in Central Mexico. The book depicts images of the tribute that indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica were forced to pay to the Spanish conquistadors and among jewelry and other precious objects were at least 10 obsidian mirrors. These objects were associated with the god Tezcatlipoca (literally “smoking mirror”), the authors explain, and were used for scrying, or examining the future.


Public Domain/Oxford University

Just because the mirror resembles those in the manuscript does not mean, however, that it is the real deal. Anything of value is susceptible to forgery, and Dee moved in spiritualist circles that included known forgers like the alchemist Edward Kelly. A scientific team, led by University of Manchester professor of archaeology Stuart Campbell, analyzed the various obsidian objects at the British Museum and compared their chemical composition to various samples from regions of modern Mexico. Their findings, which were published this week in the journal Antiquity, show that the mirror is very similar to the samples from Pachuca, an area that was heavily mined for obsidian during the period that it was under Aztec control.


Though rock mirrors date to 4000 B.C. Anatolia, they were not easy to make. The Franciscan missionary and ethnographer Bernardino de Sahagún (c. 1499–1590) writes that the mirrors were made by specialists, who polished the stone using abrasive sand and a fine cane to make it shiny. The obsidian was believed to have medicinal and religious properties that could protect the user from harm as well as allow them to look into the future. Though there were a variety of different kinds of spiritually useful mirrors in use in Mesoamerica, at least one important was a tool for metaphorical “self-reflection.” Contemporary mirror divination among the Huichol of Santa Catarina Cuexcomatitlan sees mirrors as “like the apprentice’s notebook” in which the diviner learns what is inscribed in the mirror. Among the Huichol, Karl Taube summarizes, the mirror “is much like a camera” and “functions similar to the sight and minds of human beings, with images recorded in the “memory” of the object.”

Though not all mirrors work the same way—some are portals, some are introspective devices, others are predictors of the future, some are combined with hydromancy (water divination), and others are recording devices—the idea that the mirror is a conduit to deities of one kind of another is a cross-cultural phenomenon. Similar kinds of catoptromancy (mirror-divination) took place among ancient Greeks. The travel write Pausanias describes a ritual at a Greek temple in Arcadia in which supplicants would look into a sacred mirror and “see himself very dimly or not at all, but the actual images of the gods” (8.37.7). The Romans also had religious experts who worked as scryers, called specularii (from the Latin word for mirror). Gazing into reflective surfaces was a widely practiced form of divining that involved religious specialists and training.

In Europe the association of polished surfaces with demonology became explicit in the medieval period. The 12th century writer John of Salisbury wrote that any shiny object—from the blade of a dagger to a polished fingernail—might inadvertently become a vessel for communicating with the devil. It is implicit in contemporary practices of crystal ball-gazing and forms the basis for the 2013 supernatural horror movie Oculus.

Given the history of mirror-gazing, one would expect that John Dee, who served as the queen’s philosopher during one of the most religiously contentious periods of history, was a secret occultist. This would only be partly correct, however, as there was nothing secret about it. While Dee was, in many ways, an occultist (his mirror is categorized as an ‘occult artifact’ by the British Museum today) he was also a scientist, a philosopher, and—most surprising of all—a devoted Christian.

The reason for this is that he was, as the quip goes, a true Renaissance man who wrote on everything from astrology and alchemy. In a period in which the line between magic and religion was constantly moving and was as much about power as it was anything else, he straddled the divide. Moreover, his interest in mirror-divination must be understood against the backdrop of Renaissance mirror technology in general. In the sixteenth century, as Sabine Melchior-Bonnet writes in her beautiful history of The Mirror, technologies of mirror-making were still evolving. Mirrors were as likely to distort one’s image as to reflect it. Fifteenth century visitors to the French Chateau of Hesdin were apparently fascinated by the mirror that adorned the entrance to the gallery. The Duke of Burgundy’s financial manager reported that “one sees someone else there rather more than oneself.” All mirrors, in other words, encouraged introspection and invited commentary about the source of the images. “The goal of reflection,” notes Harvard University curator Sara Schechner, “was not mimetic but transformative.” Mirror-gazing was supposed to take you beyond the superficial.

While he was once accused of treason for casting the horoscopes of Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Mary, more recent evaluations of Dee see him as a serious book scholar, manuscript curator, and scientist. In addition to his role of court astrologer and scientist he was allegedly the first to coin the phrase “British Empire” (a questionable achievement) and contributed to developments in navigation and cartography. His commitment to the importance of mathematics led him to write a “Mathematical Preface” for craftsmen and artisans who had not attended university. Investigation into the supernatural wasn’t some side hobby for Dee, however, he hypothesized that mathematical objects could serve as mediators between the human and the divine. If this sounds strange, bear in mind that mathematics, metaphysics, and divination have been intersecting ways of discovering the mysteries of the cosmos since antiquity. That a mathematician might also be a book collector, or a spiritualist is not strange. If you want to commune with the divine why not use every available technology to do so? Arguably, it’s extraordinary that we partition our ways of understanding the world into hermetically sealed streams.

For the Aztecs, the obsidian mirrors had a very particular religious and ritual usage to which specific cultural meanings were attached. When Dee acquired and used his looking-glass and used it in his rituals, said Campbell, “it gained a whole new life and a whole new set of meanings — and it’s continued to acquire those.” For British intellectuals with interests in the occult, the mirror became quasi-famous and accrued a reputation as a demonic portal. “So,” says Campbell “it now sits in the British Museum as an occult artifact. It’s got its own biography and its own impact in the world. I think, because of that, it’s a particularly fascinating object.” Just don’t stare too long—you never know who will look back.

THE AGE OF DR. JOHN DEE

Mysterious graffiti left by Tower of London inmate 500 years ago is solved for first time

Lucia Botfield
Published December 3, 2024 

Nowadays, the historic building is a popular tourist attraction (Picture: GC Images)

Graffiti scrawled on the walls of the Tower of London dating back centuries have finally been deciphered for the first time – including the magical ramblings of ‘sorcerers’

Hundreds of texts etched onto the walls of the historical building that once housed prisoners incarcerated for the most heinous of crimes have been studied by a group of historians researching the significant collections.

Lead researcher, Dr Jamie Ingram, is heading the ‘exciting’ major project, and began studying the Salt Tower on the south-eastern corner, which is part of the curtain wall built by Henry III in the 1230s.

The Salt Tower once imprisoned Hew Draper, who was an innkeeper from Bristol accused of practising sorcery.

Draper was housed in the tower in 1561, and carved an astrological sphere with zodiacal signs in his cell, despite claiming to have destroyed his magic books, The Guardian reports.

‘There were supposed to be 79 examples of graffiti there, according to the historic survey,’ Ingram told the Observer.

‘By the end of the survey that I conducted, there are 354.

‘Very fine viewing of the surface of the walls has allowed us to identify what else is there … acknowledging that every mark is important, rather than just those that have been left by the famous prisoners.’

There are hundreds of inscriptions (Picture: Historic Royal Palaces)

The high profile fortress also held infamous prisoners such as the two princes, Edward V and Richard Duke of York, Anne Boleyn, her daughter Princess Elizabeth, and Guy Fawkes.

The research team are using technology such as raking light, laser scanning and X-ray analysis to decipher the inscriptions, which have never been used at the Tower before.

One of the passages seems to have been written by a woman, which is a groundbreaking revelation in their research.

Ingram said the note referred to a ‘husband’, as well as honours and rivers.

‘We haven’t got any specific records of female prisoners in that tower. This is possibly a woman’s voice, which is incredibly rare in the graffiti, and the first example we’ve got in the Salt Tower itself.

‘We know that there were women at the tower.

‘They’re just not represented in these physical first-person records.

‘This is a rare primary record of a woman’s presence, whether she’s a prisoner herself or the wife of the prisoner.’

Pope seeks 'Copernican revolution' for post-COVID economy

COPERNICUS WAS LABELED A HERETIC BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OF HIS DAY, DR JOHN DEE A MONIST DEFENDED COPERNICUS THEORY THOUGH HE TOO DISPUTED IT AS AN ASTROLOGER

ROME — Pope Francis urged governments on Monday to use the coronavirus crisis as a revolutionary opportunity to create a world that is more economically and environmentally just — and where basic health care is guaranteed for all.

Francis made the appeal in his annual foreign policy address to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, an appointment that was postponed for two weeks after he suffered a bout of sciatica nerve pain that made standing and walking difficult.

Francis urged the governments represented in the Apostolic Palace to contribute to global initiatives to provide vaccines to the poor and to use the pandemic to reset what he said was a sick economic model that exploits the poor and the Earth.

“There is need for a kind of new Copernican revolution that can put the economy at the service of men and women, not vice versa,” he said, referring to the 16th-century paradigm shift that stated the sun was at the centre of the universe, not the Earth.

He said such a revolutionary new economy is “one that brings life not death, one that is inclusive and not exclusive, humane and not dehumanizing, one that cares for the environment and does not despoil it.”

Francis has frequently called for the world to use the pandemic as a chance to re-imagine a global economy that values people and the planet over profits, and one where fraternity and solidarity guide human relationships rather than conflict and division.

The 84-year-old Francis hit those themes in his lengthy address, which was delivered in a larger reception hall than usual to provide greater social distancing for the 88 ambassadors who attended. At the end, Francis invited each one up but said he wouldn't shake their hands and urged them to keep their distance. Francis has been vaccinated against the virus.

In his speech, he called for basic health care to be provided to all. He noted that those on the margins of society and who work in the informal economy have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic, with the fewest social nets to survive it.

“Driven by desperation, many have sought other forms of income and risk being exploited through illegal or forced labour, prostitution and various criminal activities, including human trafficking,” Francis warned.

He said children have suffered from an “educational catastrophe" with closed schools, women have been victims of domestic abuse, the faithful have been deprived of communal worship and that all of humanity has been restricted from close human contact.

“Along with vaccines, fraternity and hope are, as it were, the medicine we need in today’s world," he said.

In addition to the pandemic, Francis listed other areas of particular concern, starting with the coup in Myanmar, which Francis visited in 2017. He called for political leaders to be “promptly released as a sign of encouragement for a sincere dialogue aimed at the good of the country.”

He called for the war in Syria to finally end, noting that 2021 marks its 10th anniversary, and urging the international community to “address the causes of the conflict with honesty and courage and to seek solutions." He praised the U.N. treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons and the extension of the START treaty between the U.S. and Russia.

He also called for disarmament efforts to extend to conventional and chemical weapons.

Nicole Winfield, The Associated Press

Mars in Retrograde Will Be Seen Careening Backwards Across Night Sky

BY JESS THOMSON 

ON 11/1/22 AT 

What Happens When Mars Is In Retrograde?

Mars has just entered retrograde, suddenly reversing its course across the sky.

As of October 30, Mars stopped moving eastwards through the night sky and began crawling its way westwards through the constellation of Taurus. It will continue to move this direction until January 23, 2023, before reversing course once again and traveling towards the east.

Despite how it may look from Earth, Mars is not actually changing course at all, rather the relative positions of Earth and Mars in their orbits around the sun have led to this strange dance in the night sky.

Stock image of Mars (right) and an illustration of the view of Mars' 

retrograde motion in 2016 as seen from NASA Mission Control in Pasadena, 

Mars is our second-closest planetary neighbor, and orbits the sun once every 1.88 Earth years, or 687 days.

"The motion of the planets against the background stars, as we see it from Earth, is caused by the actual motion of those planets, but also by the motion of the Earth, since we're on it. It is therefore an effect of geometry of the planet orbits," Rok Nežič, an astronomer at the Armagh Observatory & Planetarium in Northern Ireland, told Newsweek.

According to Nežič, all the planets move around the sun in the counterclockwise direction, assuming a viewpoint from above the Earth's north pole, so they generally seem to move eastwards relative to the stars.



"Kepler's Laws of Motion tell us the planets closer to the sun move faster than the planets farther away. This is because the gravity of the sun gets weaker if you are further away," Nežič said.

"This means the Earth occasionally 'overtakes' the outer planets on its journey around the sun. As it does that, the position of Mars in this case, appears to stop against the background stars, then it starts moving westward relative to the background stars. Both planets are still moving counter-clockwise around the sun, but because Mars is slower and being overtaken by the Earth, it seems to move the other way against a distant background."

When the planets move further apart again, the "normal" apparent motion across the sky resumes, and Mars begins to move in its usual direction.

As the Earth overtakes Mars, we will approach our closest point to the Red Planet: on December 1, we will be a mere 0.545 astronomical units [51 million miles] apart, according to spaceweather.com. At our furthest point away from Mars, when Earth and Mars are on opposite sides of the sun, we are around 250 million miles away from the planet.

NASA not-to-scale illustration of Earth and Mars' orbits.

NASA / NASA MARS EXPLORATION PROGRAM

"This happens every two years or so, when Mars is high in the night sky around midnight. This is also when Mars is closest to Earth, and so is a good time to launch a spacecraft to Mars," Jason Wright, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State and the director of the Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center, told Newsweek.

If we are far outside this launch window, the amount of fuel required to get a spacecraft to Mars will be a lot higher and therefore the launch will be much more expensive.

Additionally, the further apart the two planets are, the greater the delay in communications: light takes between five and 20 minutes to travel between Earth and Mars, depending on the distance.

Mars and it's moons, Phobos and Deimos, named for the Greek gods of fear and panic.

"What matters much more is when Mars and Earth are in solar conjunction, which means they're on opposite sides of the sun. That makes communicating with spacecraft much harder, so mission teams have to plan around conjunctions (which happen fairly regularly)," Paul Byrne, a planetary geology professor at North Carolina State University, told Newsweek.

This strange movement was a mystery to early humans, who initially believed that the Earth was the center of the universe.

"The ancient astronomers of Greece could not explain this motion as it did not adhere to their belief of a 'perfection of the Heavens' in which planets moved in perfect circles at constant speed as they orbited the Earth," Vahé Peroomian, a physicist at the University of Southern California, told Newsweek.

"They had to invent various devices, including circles upon circles they called 'epicycles' to account for this motion. Nicolas Copernicus was the first to correctly explain apparent retrograde motion. In his model of the Solar System, in which he placed the sun, and not the Earth, at the center, planets closer to the sun moved faster than planets farther out, catching up to and passing them."

COPERNICUS WAS ANOTHER CATHOLIC BLASPHEMER DEFENDED BY THE PROTESTANT MAGUS TO QE, AND HIMSELF A MONIST, DR. JOHN DEE.

A US Soldier Allegedly Gave Classified Information To Satanic Neo-Nazis With The Goal Of Starting A New War

Ethan Melzer allegedly told members of the extremist group he was prepared to die in the attack if it meant starting another war in the Middle East.
Salvador HernandezBuzzFeed News Reporter


Posted on June 22, 2020

,
Melissa Sue Gerrits / AP
US Army soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in January.
A US Army soldier allegedly gave sensitive and classified information to a Satanic neo-Nazi group, hoping to help the extremist group carry out an attack on his own unit, federal prosecutors said Monday.

"Ethan Melzer, a private in the U.S. Army, was the enemy within," Acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement. "As alleged, Melzer was motivated by racism and hatred as he attempted to carry out this ultimate act of betrayal."

The soldier allegedly provided the group with his unit's location, strength, travel routes, and weaponry, prosecutors alleged, with the plan that the white supremacist group would share that information with jihadist terrorists and kick off a new war in the Middle East.

Melzer joined the US Army in 2018, and a year later, he allegedly joined an extremist group known as Order of the Nine Angles, or O9A. Members of the white supremacist group have, according to federal prosecutors, "espoused violent, neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic, and Satanic [beliefs], and have expressed admiration for both Nazis, such as Adolf Hitler, and Islamic jihadists, such as Usama Bin Laden."

When the 22-year-old soldier was told in April 2020 that he would be deployed to Turkey, he allegedly started to help plan an attack on his unit, using an encrypted app to communicate with members of O9A known as the "RapeWaffen Division."

"Ethan Melzer plotted a deadly ambush on his fellow soldiers in the service of a diabolical cocktail of ideologies laced with hate and violence," Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers said.
The group, investigators claim in court documents, has expressed belief in the "inequality of races," that Hitler was "sent by our gods to guide us to greatness," and that the Holocaust was a lie.

O9A has also praised the Nazis for the "practical expression of the Satanic spirit," and held that the world has become "perverted by, among other things, Judeo-Christian beliefs," leading members of the group to plot an overthrow of Western civilization.


Department of Justice

An image captured from Melzer's cellphone, including a text from the extremist group O9A, an Army beret, and a skull mask.

The goal of Melzer and the people he messaged was to instigate a "jihadi attack" during his deployment, killing his fellow service members, prosecutors said.

By May, Melzer allegedly had passed on information such as surveillance, security, and defense capabilities of the facility where he was deployed to an alleged member of al-Qaida.

In encrypted messages, prosecutors said, Melzer wrote that he believed the attack would cause a new war because of the number of deaths.

Melzer allegedly acknowledged that he could be killed in the attack as well, but he told members of the extremist group: "who gives a fuck."

"I would've died successfully," he allegedly said in a message, according to court documents, explaining that "another 10 year war in the Middle East would definitely leave a mark."

Prosecutors said Melzer had also been keeping tabs on other members of the military who were recently arrested for allegedly plotting attacks and linked to white supremacist groups.

"Don't want to end up like that faggot from who got caught while he was in the military," he allegedly wrote the group in April. "Bad shit."

He allegedly promised to send over more information, but before he could, he was interviewed by FBI agents and military investigators.

During the interview, prosecutors say he declared himself a traitor to the US and admitted to his role in the plot.

"He turned his back on his country and his unit while aligning himself with members of the neo-Nazi group O9A," FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney Jr. said.

The soldier, who is from Louisville, Kentucky, was charged with conspiring to murder US nationals, attempting to murder US nationals, and conspiring to murder US military service members, as well as attempting to provide and providing material support to terrorists, and conspiring to murder and maim in a foreign country, among other federal charges.

If convicted, he could face up to life in prison.

Salvador Hernandez is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Los Angeles.

U.S. soldier confesses to plotting attack on unit with neo-Nazi group


A photo found in Ethan Melzer's iCloud account that was included in the criminal complaint shows a knife, a neo-Nazi book, a skull mask and a U.S. Army beret. Photo courtesy of U.S. Attorney' Office. 

YOU FORGOT TO MENTION THE RED BULL 

THE ORDER OF NINE ANGELS IS A SATANIC ARYAN SECT, MORE OCCULT THAN OVERTLY POLITICAL EXCEPT FOR IT BEING INFLUENCED BY EVOLA AND OTHER FASCIST OCCULTISTS. THIS IS NOT UNCOMMON FOR SATANISTS. THE FBI MAY BE CONFUSING O9A WITH A SIMILARLY NAMED NEO NAZI ORG IN GERMANY 

ITS MATERIALS ARE ON LINE, IT WAS FORMED BY A COUPLE OF FRIENDS, AND IS NEITHER OF ANY POLITICAL OR OCCULT SIGNIFICANCE.

MOST SATANISTS ARE RIGHT WING POLITICALLY,DESPITE CLAIMING TO FOLLOW THE LEFT HAND PATH

THE RELIGION OF AYN RAND ANTON LAVEY CALLED THE CHURCH SATAN,  ARYANISTS, LIKE THE TEMPLE OF SET, BROKE AWAY FROM COS AFTER ACHIEVING THE HIGHER ORDER GRADES.

THE SATANIC TEMPLE IS ON THE TRUE LEFT HAND PATH BY BEING LEFT LIBERTARIANS. 

THE MASK IS FOR THE BAND THE 'MISFITS' A COMMON PROTEST MASK RIGHT OR LEFT PRIOR TO THE USE OF GUY FAWKES.

THE PERSON IN THE STORY IS A SINGLE DELUDED INDIVIDUAL THE FBI HAS ABOUT AS MUCH EVIDENCE TO PROVE HE WAS ANYTHING OTHER THAN A NUTTER 

AS THEY HAVE FOR CATTLE MUTILATIONS CASES THEY INVESTIGATE

June 23 (UPI) -- A U.S. Army private has confessed to planning a terrorist attack with a satanic neo-Nazi group to kill as many members of his unit while deployed overseas, prosecutors said.

Ethan Phelan Melzer, 22, has been charged in a 19-page indictment unsealed Monday with a slew of terrorism offenses for sharing sensitive information about his unit with members of the Order of the Nine Angels that prosecutors described as "an occult-based neo-Nazi and racially motivated violent extremist group." 

OH HE SHARED IT TO AN EMAIL ADDRESS FOR AN OBSCURE SATANIC GROUP

"Ethan Melzer, a private in the U.S. Army, was the enemy within," Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss said in a statement. "Melzer allegedly attempted to orchestrate a murderous ambush on his own unit by unlawfully revealing its location, strength and armaments to a neo-Nazi, anarchist, white supremacist group."

ANARCHISTS ARE ANTIFA OPPOSED TO NAZI WHITE POWER

The Louisville, Ky., native was arrested June 10 after his plot was thwarted by the Federal Bureau of investigation and the U.S. Army in late May, prosecutors said in a statement, stating Melzer's plan was fueled by "a diabolical cocktail of ideologies laced with hate and violence."

"Our women and men in uniform risk their lives for our country, but they should never face such peril at the hands of one of their own," said Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers.


THE FBI CREATES A FALSE FLAG CONSPIRACY 

According to the unsealed indictment, Melzer joined the Army in 2018 and joined O9A the year after.

Prior to planning the attack, Melzer consumed propaganda from O9A and the Islamic State as well as other groups, prosecutors said, adding they found in his iCloud account an IS-issued text that describes attacks and killings of U.S. personnel.

After being told in April that his unit was to deploy overseas, he used an encrypted message application to provide information  of Oto members9A and RapeWaffen Division, a U.S. neo-Nazi terrorist network that follows O9A philosophy, "to solicit assistance for a mass casualty attack on his U.S. Army unit once it deployed to Turkey," the unsealed complaint said.

In late May, he transmitted information including his unit's size, anticipated travel routes, weaponry and defensive capabilities. TO WHO?Melzer and his co-conspirators planned what they called a "jihadi attack" with the objective of creating "mascal," meaning mass casualties, with the purpose of starting another war in the Middle East.

During a late-May interview, Melzer confessed to his role in the plot and declared himself to be "a traitor against the United States whose conduct was tantamount to treason," prosecutors said. 

THIS IS ALL BASED ON HIS SOLE CONFESSION THERE IS NO CONSPIRACY EXCEPT IN HIS AND THE FBI'S IMAGINATIONS

Melzer has been charged with conspiring and attempting to murder U.S. nationals, conspiring to and attempting to murder military service members, providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to murder and maim in a foreign country and faces life in prison if convicted.

"Melzer declared himself to be a traitor against the United States and described his own conduct as tantamount to treason -- we agree," said FBI Assistant Director William F. Sweeney, Jr. "He turned his back on his country and his unit while aligning himself with members of the neo-Nazi group O9A. Today, he is in custody and facing a lifetime of service -- behind bars -- which is appropriate given the severity of the conduct we allege today." 


 THE ONA/ON9 IS A PHILOSOPHY OF NECHAYEV NIHILISM NOT ANARCHISM 
AS ANTON LONG IT'S FOUNDER CLAIMS 

FBI: The Order of Nine Angles • MuckRock
https://www.muckrock.com › foi › united-states-of-america-10 › fbi-the-or...
Sep 28, 2018 - The Order of Nine Angles is a secretive Satanist/Occultist group, which comes from the ... (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Myatt).



FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH

A brief history of the Order of Nine Angles. The ONA is the second oldest codified school of Satanism. It has been around for 40 years.

https://archive.org/details/OnaHistory/page/n9/mode/2up

A Modern Mage - Anton Long and The Order of Nine Angles

https://archive.org/details/AModernMage-AntonLongAndTheOrderOfNineAngles

Abyssal Anthology of David Myatt aka Anton Long
by Hagur (Philippe De Coster)
Topics Traditional Satanism, Dark Philosophy, Occultism, History
Language English
Presenting here an Anthology of David Myatt founder of the Order of Nine Angles. He was also a Neo-Nazi, and later converted himself to the Islam, the extreme Isles. The purpose of his conversion is not clear. While he has achieved positive things, he is also known as a dangerous man. The compiler of this Anthology does not agree with all the ideas and acting of David Myatt, let the reader judge for himself. The life and work of Myatt belongs to history, and this is the purpose of the compilerâs work as found hereby.
https://archive.org/details/AbyssalAnthologyOfDavidMyattAkaAntonLong/page/n3/mode/2up

Establishment Orthodoxy About The O9A

°°°

pdf version:

O9A: The Establishment Orthodoxy
(pdf)

°°°°°

Text version:

There are three main problems with items about or mentioning the Order Of Nine Angles (O9A, ONA) published in mainstream Media, by certain anti-fascist groups, and by others.

Problems which the unprecedented reportage of the O9A in 2018 and 2019 have clearly revealed, with items about or mentioning the O9A published (i) in mainstream British newspapers such as The Independent, The Sun, The Guardian, and The Daily Telegraph, (ii) in reports issued by anti-fascist groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and “Hope not hate”, and (iii) in the music section of the newspaper LA Weekly, and on the popular youth-and-music-orientated Quietus website.

§ The first problem is that the reporting is decidedly Old Aeon: decidedly part of the Establishment, of the status quo, with reliance on a dialectic of, a struggle between, conflicting opposites such as “good and evil”, “fascist and anti-fascist”, “nazis and anti-fascists”, “racist and anti-racist”, “Right Hand Path and Left Hand Path”, “Satanist and Christian”, and on clichés such as “we are anti-[this], pro-[that]…”

§ The second problem is that the reporting reflects what has now become the accepted modern orthodoxy, by the Establishment and the Media and by anti-fascist groups, regarding both the O9A and Mr Myatt. Which orthodoxy is the deception that the O9A is a Satanist and a “neo-nazi” group; that Mr Myatt is Anton Long, was the founder and “leader” of the O9A, is a Satanist, is still a neo-nazi, and is still pursuing a subversive or a terrorist agenda by means of the O9A.

Acceptance of or belief in this orthodoxy by journalists, by anti-fascists, and by others, means that journalists, anti-fascists, and others (i) do not bother with providing, or feel it is unnecessary to provide, evidence which has probative value in regard to such orthodox claims and allegations and beliefs about the O9A and about Myatt, and (ii) do not bother with doing, or feel it is unnecessary to do, their own research into the O9A and the life of Myatt, and so do not inform their readers of the necessary wider context, which – in the matter of the O9A – is the “sinister-numinous” esoteric philosophy and methods of the O9A {1}, and which – in the case of Myatt – is his documented post-2010 rejection of extremism {2} and his mystical philosophy of pathei-mathos {3}.

Thus, in respect of O9A esotericism and praxises the wider context is that the O9A is neither Satanist nor neo-nazi but has suggested that those reaching the third stage of the decades-long O9A Seven Fold Way might usefully, as learning experiences and for a year to eighteen months, undertake an Insight Role as a neo-nazi and/or as a ‘satanist’, after which they move to other tasks and other learning experiences such a living alone in the wilderness for between three and six months. {4}

§ The third problem is that those who report on or who write about the O9A often rely on or quote from two forgeries, respectively titled Diablerie and Bealuwes Gast. Both are claimed to have been written by “Anton Long”, are purported to be autobiographical; are assumed to document the hidden O9A aspects of Myatt’s life, and thus are regarded as “proof” that Myatt=Long.

However, both Diablerie and Bealuwes Gast have been described by Myatt as forgeries {5}. In addition, as mentioned in A Skeptic Reviews Diablerie the “evil deeds” that are described
                  “are lame or laughable or sound like the adventures of a frat boy” {6}

with the text containing
                  “clipped sentences of the type often found in first-person ‘action’ novels or comic strips of the Dick Tracey type. It is as if Diablerie is pulp fiction, a first-person narrative of fictional anti-hero and evil Satanist, Anton Long, with – and importantly – some quotes from the writings of the real person who the author wants people to believe is the inspiration for his fictional Anton Long. Quotes inserted as ‘background’ for credibility.”

As described in Bealuwes Gast: A Study in Forgery, the writer of Bealuwes Gast
                  “egoistically boasts that “he does not care,” that he has “exulted in life” and that he is “a nasty piece of work,” all of which statements and sentiments are profoundly at odds with everything Myatt has written post-2006, and in many of which writings he expresses remorse for his decades of extremism […]
                  The sinister sections – detailing Anton Long’s experiences and “exulting in life” as a sorcerer – are rather contrived, fanciful, and unconvincing, not to say more suited to a work of fiction.” {7}

The author of Bealuwes Gast: A Study in Forgery then goes on to describe the errors made by the forger.

In addition, as noted in a little-known and humorous O9A text published in 2015:
                  “Diablerie, like the role of ‘outer representative’, was part of that Sinister Game which we played for several decades. Diablerie was a work of fiction written by a certain friend of mine, and contained some (not many but just enough) facts, and designed as it was to not only create a certain mythos, a certain mystique, but also to test, confuse, mislead, entice, and perhaps inspire a few individuals to do their own primary scholarly research and so discover the truth.” A Most Brief Discourse On The History Of The Order of Nine Angles {8}

The ponderous sub-title and the Preface of A Most Brief Discourse On The History Of The Order of Nine Angles are a homage to John Dee’s A True & Faithful Relation of what Passed for Many Yeers Between Dr. John Dee and Some Spirits published in 1659 by Meric Casaubon.

The Preface of A Most Brief Discourse, complete with archaic spelling and archaic capitalization and relevant as it is to understanding what part of the O9A’s Labyrinthos Mythologicus means, is:
                  “What is here presented might well be deemed and termed A Work of Darknesse. A work by some gladly believed; by others an entertainment; because it is very possible that every Reader will make of it what they will. For the World is full of imposture. Yet there was a Time when sorcery was the delight of many mortals, and many and various Divels were believed in and when things impossible to ordinary sense were believed done by Nature.
                  Finally, if there were any such thing really as Divels then surely they would appear to such as did call upon them as a Mythos and a Mysterium Esoteric even to this day. I read over the transcript exactly and taking note of the most remarkable passages (as they appeared unto me) I present them here for Anton Long was indeed a myth maker, the best sort of Sorcerer.”

That journalists, anti-fascists, some academics, and others have assumed that both Diablerie and Bealuwes Gast are genuine manuscripts written by Myatt proves (i) the efficacy of the O9A’s Labyrinthos Mythologicus, and (ii) that such people have not undertaken “their own primary scholarly research” into both the O9A and the life of Myatt, and (iii) that they have accepted or believe in the prevailing Establishment and Media orthodoxy regarding the O9A and Myatt.

§ The fourth problem, deriving from the previous three, is that those who report on the O9A and who write about Myatt do so in ignorance of the facts and thus present a prejudiced, a biased, view of the O9A and Myatt. A biased view which in the case of politically active anti-fascist groups is propagandistic and often deliberately biased, driving as such bias often does from an irrational dislike or a hatred of those deemed to be their “enemies”, in this case the O9A and/or Myatt. A prejudice and a hatred enshrined in the anti-fascist motto “Never Forget, Never Forgive, Never Again”.

Thus do such anti-fascists invent and propagate rumours and hearsay, and make malicious unproven allegations about those deemed to be their enemies {9}. And thus do they make derogatory remarks about or try to demean those deemed to be their enemies, while hypocritically asserting that they champion “hope” not “hate”.

Thus do they also unknowingly or knowingly make use of forgeries, and fabricate “evidence”, such as misattribute quotations, and claim without providing evidence from primary sources that a certain person said or wrote “this” or “that”. {10}

Thus do they make assumptions and claims – without providing evidence from primary sources – about who is behind pseudonyms such as “Anton Long” and “dark logos”, and thus do they commit fallacies such as (i) Incomplete Evidence, where evidence which does not support their opinion or their view or their claims or their propaganda is omitted, (ii) consensus gentium, stating that since many people believe a thing it must be true, (iii) illicit transference, when for example they argue from the particular to the general, (iv) argumentum ad personam, where they appeal to the personal likes and prejudices of people, (v) appeal to authority, where they reference the opinion of someone regarded by them as an “expert”, and (vi) ignoratio elenchi, where an irrelevant or personal topic is introduced in order to distract attention, the most popular form of which is argumentum ad hominem where claims or allegations are made about a person or a group, or where they make derogatory or abusive remarks about or try to demean a person or a group.

Thus do they – in a classic example of argumentum ad hominem – speculate about the “motives” and the character of those involved with the O9A, and thus do they – in classic examples of presumption, bias and partiality – write such things as “it’s hard to take anything Myatt says at face value, so successfully has he enshrouded himself in self-contradictory disinformation”, {11} and that many of those they allege are involved with the O9A “are deceptive and manipulative so that what they say or write cannot be trusted”.

Conclusion

Such problems are not unique to those who report on or who mention the O9A and Myatt. Rather, they are indicative of two things.

§ First, they are indicative of the nature – the physis, the character, the being – of many individuals in the modern world. A human nature apparently unchanged in so many despite (i) the advantages in all Western lands of State sponsored primary and secondary education for children and young people, and the advantages afforded by tertiary education, and (ii) the existence of libraries (such as The Bodleian. The British Library, The Library of Congress) and the accessibility of many primary sources together with a scholarly tradition dating back over a thousand years.

For the character that is so indicated is one or more of the following: of an acceptance of a contemporary orthodoxy; of adhering to an ideology and placing that ideology before facts personally discovered; of believing what some ideologue or demagogue states is “fact” or “truth”; of being superficial, populist, unscholarly, quick to judge, opinionated, presumptive, and prejudiced.

§ Second, they are indicative of the nature – the physis, the character, the being – of most modern Media, from printed newspapers, to “social media”, to printed and digital reports and television “documentaries” produced for political or idealogical or propaganda purposes or which reflect contemporary orthodoxy about a subject, a person, or a group.

The nature of which Media is often superficial, populist, unscholarly, quick to judge, opinionated, presumptive, prejudiced, with a tendency or a need to sensationalize certain stories or events and stereotype certain individuals.

            We know and we understand that our efforts, in items such as this, to document or to draw attention to the flaws in most reportage of the O9A and of Myatt will not affect most of those who because of such flawed reportage accept the modern orthodoxy about the O9A and about Myatt and which orthodoxy is embedded in and reinforced and added to by such reportage.

We also know and accept that politically active anti-fascist groups and individuals will continue with their often prejudiced and often hateful propaganda against “us” because they deem us to be their “enemies”, just as they will continue to try to denigrate and smear us, and continue to try and agitate for the authorities (the police and the intelligence services) to immediately investigate “us” {12} for so-called “hate speech” and for “encouraging” acts of terrorism {13} with a view to the O9A being proscribed as a “terrorist” organization, with its literature banned, and with those deemed to be its “leaders” or “members” imprisoned. {14}

Such causal, Old Aeon, shenanigans by such Old Aeon individuals aside, we know and understand that such reportage and such activities to suppress the heretical dissent of our sub-culture has engendered in a few individuals, and only in a few individuals, a desire to undertake a detailed study of O9A works with a view to discovering for themselves the true nature – the physis – of O9A esotericism; a physis evident in the term the sinister-numinous tradition, with that tradition founded on and re-presenting in a modern way an ancient Greco-Roman pagan and hermetic mysticism {1}.

Such causal, Old Aeon, shenanigans have also engendered in a minority of those few individuals a desire to undertake a study of David Myatt’s life and works with a view to discovering for themselves his Aeonic legacy {15}.

Which is reason enough for us, and for the Occult cognoscenti who like us possess an Aeonic perspective, to amusingly smile at those who have designated Myatt and us and the O9A as their enemies.

Rachael Stirling
June 2019 ev

{1} (i) https://omega9alpha.wordpress.com/2016/03/30/the-esoteric-hermeticism-of-the-order-of-nine-angles/
(ii) https://omega9alpha.wordpress.com/2018/03/22/quintessence-of-the-o9a/
(iii) https://omega9alpha.wordpress.com/pagan-o9a/

{2} Refer for example to:
(i) Understanding and Rejecting Extremism, 2013, ISBN-13: 978-1484854266. Gratis Open Access pdf version: https://davidmyatt.wordpress.com/rejecting-extremism/
(ii) Myngath: Some Recollections of a Wyrdful and Extremist Life, 2013, ISBN-13: 978-1484110744. Gratis Open Access pdf version: https://davidmyatt.wordpress.com/myngath-2/

{3} Refer for example to https://davidmyatt.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/myatt-mystic-philosophy-second-edition.pdf

{4} A modern, progressive, version of the Seven Fold Way – which does not involve those specific Insight Roles – is given in https://omega9alpha.wordpress.com/7fw-a-modern-guide/

See also (i) The Multiform O9A, https://omega9alpha.wordpress.com/2018/02/18/the-multiform-o9a/ and (ii) The Evolution Of the O9A, at http://www.o9a.org/wp-content/uploads/o9a-evolution.pdf

{5} https://davidmyatt.wordpress.com/concerning-the-occult/

{6} https://regardingdavidmyatt.wordpress.com/a-sceptics-review-of-diablerie/

{7} https://regardingdavidmyatt.wordpress.com/bealuwes-gast/

{8} The text in question is A Most Brief Discourse On The History Of The Order of Nine Angles. The text is available at https://regardingdavidmyatt.wordpress.com/o9a-history/

{9} One of the malicious allegations of a certain anti-fascist group in respect of the O9A is their attempt to link the O9A to paedophilia and to the promotion of misogyny and rape.

As so-called “evidence” of paedophilia they cite the case of two members of a neo-nazi group convicted of paedophilia, claim that group is linked to the O9A, and then in a classic case of the fallacy of illicit transference use those two examples to besmirch the O9A, despite the fact that O9A literature clearly states that
             “individuals of certain proclivities, involving children, are regarded by us as dishonourable individuals who most certainly are not of our kind.” Source: https://wyrdsister.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/o9a-and-children-v2.pdf

Similarly in respect of their smear regarding misogyny and rape, for they quote some things written by a few individuals claiming to be neo-nazis, again generalize from such examples, and neglect to mention that the O9A has and always has had Sapphic nexions, has published a Sapphic novel – Breaking The Silence Down – and has, according to an academic:
             “more female supporters than either the Church of Satan or the Temple of Set [and] more women with children.” Source: J.R Lewis, Satanic Attitudes, in Asbjorn Dyrendal, James R. Lewis, Jesper A. Petersen (editors), The Invention of Satanism, Oxford University Press, 2015. p.191, pp.194–196.

In addition, the O9A Code of Kindred Honour, one of the foundations of O9A esoteric philosophy, enshrines gender equality.

In respect of rape, O9A literature clearly states that rapists are suitable candidates for culling. See, for example, https://wyrdsister.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/culling-o9a-code-v3.pdf which describes a real-life incident.

Thus, such attempts to besmirch the O9A, and the failure of anti-fascists and others to quote relevant O9A texts, are sufficient to reveal just how hateful, deceitful, duplicitous, and hypocritical such anti-fascists are.

{10} Multiple examples, relating to the O9A and Myatt, are given in the articles (i) Exposing Twelve Basic Errors: Or, How To Spread Fake News, available at https://omega9alpha.wordpress.com/fake-news/ and (ii) O9A Transgression And Subversion, available at https://omega9alpha.wordpress.com/2018/12/03/o9a-transgression-and-subversion/

{11} Beyond The Iron Gates: How Nazi-Satanists Infiltrated the UK Underground, The Quietus, November 27th, 2018.

{12} Violent neo-Nazi movements endangering UK are driven by Satanists who want global race war, The Sun newspaper, 22 Feb 2019.

{13} Neo‑Nazis hijack gaming groups to spread hate against Muslims, The Times newspaper, March 23 2019.

{14} That the O9A has no “leader” and no “members” and is not an organization but rather is an Occult sub-culture or movement (or an “idea” and a mythos) is never mentioned by those who report on or who write about the O9A. Neither does such a reality form part of the modern orthodoxy about the O9A.

{15} Three different views are given at https://regardingdavidmyatt.wordpress.com/remembering-mr-myatt/