Review of The Occult Battle of Britain - by Paul Weston (2019)

For the last couple of weeks, I have been reading a fascinating book called The Occult Battle of Britain - History, Magic, Mythology from the 19th century to 1946, by Paul Weston and originally published in 2019. 

The book can be considered as an extensive background to the similarly titled The Magical Battle of Britain, by Dion Fortune and edited by Gareth Knight, which I've previously mentioned. 

Dion Fortune (a woman I both like and admire, and who I regard as a genius) is perhaps the central character. 

The climax is the magical activity in which she was engaged before and during the Battle of Britain - and the timeline ends with her death in 1946. In broad terms the book is about the intersection of occult thinking with the rise of National Socialism in Germany, and its opposition from within Britain - culminating in the Battle of Britain and its aftermath. 

The method is chronological. Starting in the late 19th century, with the international spread of spiritualism; then HP Blavatsky and the (extraordinarily influential) rise of Theosophy; and the Golden Dawn and similar revivals of ritual magic (magic both white and black in nature) - Weston notes some of the main characters involved, and what was happening in Germany and in England - but especially in relation to Glastonbury and its "Avalonians". 

As well as Fortune; Avalonians Wellesley Tudor Pole and Ronald Heaver are followed; since they had a complementary role to play in the occult side of events of 1940. Also; both TP and Heaver were long-term involved in military intelligence; as were many others from both sides of that apparent divide. 

Heaver was heavily involved in the (seemingly) utterly bizarre British Israelite movement - about which I previously knew almost nothing - and it has now disappeared from public consciousness. Yet, although the assumptions and goals of the BIs strike me as almost incomprehensibly strange and misguided; this was clearly a strong movement within the British ruling class - including intelligence services - up to a high level, and had a role to play in global geopolitics.   

With the notable (and noble!) exception of Dion Fortune herself; it seems that the occult-military nexus was so common as to be normal. On the "darker side" of things; Aleister Crowley and Dennis Wheatley were also spooks. 

But some of the most significant British military people were also occultists - most notably Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, head of Fighter Command up to and during the Battle of Britain, the architect of the integrated home defence radar system - and very plausibly the saviour of his nation. 

Dowding was heavily involved with spiritualism (publishing articles and a major book on the subject) and other esoteric subjects - e.g. he regarded fairies as a real and important influence on human life. 

The other side of the book charts the development of the spiritual side of national Socialism from its 19th century origins, and which reached a formalization with Himmler and the SS, and their cathedral like castle of Wewelsburg. But much of this requires to be disentangled from the distortions and fictions that have been widely propagated by early books such as The Morning of the Magicians (1960), and The Spear of Destiny (1972). 

Nonetheless, after the falsehoods have been set aside there seems little doubt of the fact and significance of occultism in National Socialism - and that there was indeed a Battle of Britain which operated purposively at this occult level - whether this phenomenon is interpreted spiritually or materialistically in terms of psychology. 

What is, for me, an open question - is the nature of the military-occult synthesis that Weston describes; not just for WWII, but extending back to encompass aspects of the First World War. 

There was surely a large element of intentional PSYOPS about the manipulations of public opinion (some very successful, both for good and ill) of British intelligence - yet there were also many instances of (apparently) sincere occult belief and activity among a surprisingly high number of very important personnel of both sides. 

The 21st century mind (from its assumption of innate moral superiority and greater insight) is spontaneously inclined to explain-away all this; as merely a mixture of cynical manipulation with the stupidity (and evil) of those unenlightened (sexist, racist etc) people of the past. 

And if this attitude is taken, there is nothing more to be said! But it is all based on assumptions about "our" modern superiority to every previous generation: assumptions that are arbitrary and without any coherent objective basis.  

Much of the fascination of this book is in the range of information provided, including aspects either neglected or passed-over by conventional histories. 

I was especially interested by the accounts of the Phoney War period from September 1939-May 1940 - and the ways that the British people were "prepared" for war. From Weston's account; the mood of the nation at this time (officially partly-feared, partly-seeded and encouraged) was very different in some respects from how it is usually portrayed - with a rampant paranoia concerning spies (leading to executions of the innocent), and wholly-imaginary fifth columnist activities by saboteurs, paratroopers, and sleeper agents. 

I was also impressed by Weston's discernments in relation to the side of the Allies. He is scrupulous about taking into account alternative interpretations - e.g. of the role of Winston Churchill, and the significance of the Battle of Britain. The he makes his decision among possibilities and explains his own assumptions. 

Therefore, Weston regards the "mythology" of the Battle of Britain as basically true, and that it was indeed a battle - spiritual as well as military - between good and evil. Consequently, after the Battle was won, there was a recognition of spiritual growth and commitment to the side of Good; and sincere hopes for a better world - spiritually better that is - to follow the war. 

Yet, Weston also feels that the purity of motive that Britain achieved in 1940, was significantly dissipated and corrupted throughout the course of the war. The alliance with the USSR was a significant downward step (Churchill explicitly likened it to a Faustian pact with the devil, yet embraced it nonetheless). 

The scale, priorities, purposes, and methods of Bomber Command (under the genuinely-delusional Arthur "Bomber" Harris) was another massive military error (a colossal misapplication of resources, causing gross neglect of more necessary and effective strategies); the whole increasingly fuelled by dark, sometimes evil, motives. 

Weston also notes that the strategic destruction of British and European geopolitical power was a sub-theme of US involvement. As was the in-practice building-up of the USSR as a world power, including by open-ended and unconditional "free gift" provision of materiel (in contrast to the sales and loans to the UK, with the consequential crippling war debt entailed). 

In some respects; by the end of the war there was a change of sides by the Allies - so that as the war progressed, not just Britain but also the real victors (ie the USSR and the USA) were spiritually, overall, also on the wrong side. 

And Dion Fortune's hoped-for beneficial spiritual outcomes of the Magical Battle of Britain... therefore didn't happen.    

The Occult Battle of Britain is not an easy read, and I spent many hours reading it; but this was mainly because I found I didn't want to miss anything. I found it to be original, gripping, and very stimulating - with implications that I need to think about much further. 

Fakers and frauds can be very clever and industrious (as well as the opposite)

Not by Vermeer

I recently attended a lecture on frauds in the world of fine art, especially painting - the more notorious examples of those who pass-off their own work as that of famous, prestigious, expensive painters from the past. 

My take-home message was that the world of fine arts is rife with fakes, the "experts" are easily fooled (and indeed an integral part of the scam), and some of the fakers are not just skilled but very clever in marketing their forgery by indirect and non-obvious means. 

I also read more about a notorious and very successful Welsh literary faker called "Iolo Morganwg" (Edward Williams) - who was so skilled, industrious and clever that his frauds have become inextricably bound-up with Welsh literary history (and the history of revived neo-druidry). 

My own reading has led me to consider an influential twentieth century mystic called Wellesley Tudor Pole; and the eventual conclusion that he was essentially (but, of course, not wholly - successful examples never are) a fraud and liar - also clever, capable, industrious, and charismatic. 

It is not exactly Big News that the world of esotericism and mysticism has many fakers and frauds, but perhaps it is more surprising that some of the most feted instances of art are (at least I believe) fakes. These are fields in which the basic set-up makes it easier to be fraudulent. But nowadays the same applies everywhere of which I have insider knowledge, such as science (and especially medical research - as became blazingly obvious in 2020!)  

One difficulty in acknowledging this, is that people underestimate the industriousness and strategic thinking of frauds; another is that they underestimate the degree to which truth can be distorted or inverted by "seeding" broadly correct information with a few key falsehoods; another is to underestimate the importance of theory as compared with "facts". 

But a further difficulty relates to motivation. What motivates the faker or fraud. 

"Normal" people are not only too lazy to be seriously fraudulent, but they lack sufficiently strong motivation. Some frauds seem clearly to be after money, or sex, or status - which are pretty normal motivations.  

However, not all fakers and frauds are impelled by normal motivations, or else their "normal" motives are so extreme as to become abnormal. Normal people are too normal for them to realize the strangeness of motivations in the kind of people who do become successful frauds. 

I include myself here! The motivations of some people can be so strange as to be utterly obscure, and this fact strongly protects Frauds and Fakes (F&Fs) from detection.

This can be such a strong block on understanding, that even solid and certain examples of fraud tend to be neglected, ignored, or forgotten - because thy just don't "make sense" to people, and can't be integrated into their ideologies and schemes of understanding.  

All of this is extremely important in terms of someone seeking "the meaning of life"; and addressing ultimate questions. Because it is quite likely that the "experts" and "wise men" that we encounter in our searchings will - no matter in what domain we are searching - include some (perhaps many) frauds and fakes. 

And yet the evidence suggests that these F&Fs are not detectable by any feasibly attainable level of expertise and specialized knowledge - and with the time and energy we have available.  

So what can we do, in practice?

In my experience, the best guide - and maybe the only guide - is when we have a genuine intuitive conviction that some kind of fakery and fraud is afoot...

(Shomething Shurley Wrong - Shomwhere!)

When the "alarm bells" go-off (often subconsciously, at first; or subtly) at the time we encounter a person or work - a sense that somebody is "...up to something", and not "what they seem" - or, more exactly, not what they are trying to make us believe. 

Yet a great deal of modern culture is (for obvious reasons!) dedicated to inducing us to ignore, systematically, such intuitive promptings - and to induce other, alternative, external, cultural, "fake intuitions" - especially that somebody or some-thing that is actually-good (true, beautiful, virtuous) is instead untrustworthy. 

"They" want us to reject as F&F exactly that which we most need and would most benefit us. 

Therefore, even in terms of what seem to be our own intuitions of validity, we need to apply our best-possible and deepest intuitive awareness; and to become aware of the difference between a real intuition, and something that has been artificially - perhaps subtly and deviously - implanted; including implanted in exactly the strategic and indirect fashion that fakes and frauds pass-off their work. 

(Sometimes - I find - all that needs to happen, is that we seriously consider that some-thing, some person, some-event may be an F or F; then immediately to realize that Of Course! Obviously it is.)

This may sound superficial, but isn't - at least not if your metaphysical assumption is that we really do have a real - eternal and potentially divine - self; that can form a genuine bottom-line for our knowledge. 

A 'closed mind' actually identifies metaphysical assumptions

WTP became a Major and served with distinction in the 1914-18 World War

I am reading The Silent Road - a book of essays by Wellesley Tudor Pole published in 1960; in which he accuses mainstream materialist intellectuals of having a 'closed mind' about spiritual realities; and advocating that they develop a more 'open' mind' as a cure for this.

The book is mostly descriptions about the remarkable spiritual experiences of WTP: and WTP talks about closed minds in relation to those who will always - on principle, without investigation - reject the truth of his experiences. As soon as these people hear the subject matter, WTP says, they immediately make up their minds that whatever he says cannot be true.

I'm sure WTP was correct; I can remember doing the same myself for a long time, and I still respond the same way about what many people say on many topics: I will not believe them, no matter what 'evidence' they bring forward. I relation to WTP, I accept some of his accounts of spiritual experiences, and reject others.

And I quite often reject his explanations of his experiences; that is, I accept that WTP had the experiences described, but reject WTP's explanations of their causality and meaning. In WTP's terms, I am closed-minded on some matters; open minded on others. 

I can remember a great deal of discussion of 'closed' and 'open' minds in the late 1960s and into the 1970s; in which having an open mind was always Good, having a closed mind was Bad. Although initially having wider scope (as when WTP used the terms); open/ closed soon became a left-liberal/ right-conservative distinction. And especially it became related to one's attitude to the sexual revolution; only the 'closed-minded' would reject extra-martial sex, promiscuity, divorce and so on - and only the closed-minded would reject the sexual revolution.

(Later the distinction would be enshrined in psychology by the highly influential, but essentially bogus, personality trait of Openness to Experience.) 

Closed minded became synonymous with irrational and wrong; then was interpreted as evidence of ignorance at best, but more often of cruel wickedness. To be closed minded (implying sealed-off from evidence, from experience, 'dogmatic') was the characteristic attributed to the bogeymen of fanatical 'fundamentalist' right-wing/ fascistic/ authoritarian - Christians; in essence, those who tyrannically restricted sexual behaviour.

However, open versus closed minds is a poor analytic description; partly because so front-loaded with evaluation - a term which has covertly prejudged and decided every issue to which it applied - yet denied this characteristic of itself .

But the open/ closed distinction does indicate a potentially genuine insight; which is that when a person is 'closed minded' on a subject, i.e. when that person becomes immune to evidence or any other form of persuasion - this is because of the metaphysical assumptions.

The reason that a rationalist scientist would reject all of WTP's accounts of spiritual experiences was that the scientists regarded such experiences as unreal and impossible - to the scientist these experiences could not happen. They could not happen because there was No Such Thing as 'the spiritual'. And if they were impossible, then whatever 'evidence' WTP might provide, and however plausible and competent a witness he might be, was irrelevant.

What this reveals is that the mainstream materialist (such as the rationalist scientist) has a metaphysical view - a set of fundamental assumptions about the nature of reality - which excludes the possibility of any 'spiritual' element. This becomes a fault when the materialist denies that he actually does have such assumptions, or when he tries to argue that such assumptions are based on 'evidence'.

However, the reality is that - because of these assumptions - he would always and invariably reject anything and everything put forward as 'evidence'; he would always deny that it was 'real' evidence.

So, the fault of 'closed mindedness' is a fault only when it entails this falsity; this lack of awareness or denial of the reality of, one's own assumptions.

And this explains why, for the past half century or more, it has been the open-minded who are most prone to closed-mindedness! It is the open-minded who are ignorant of their own assumptions, who deny their assumptions, who indeed deny that they have any assumptions; and who falsely claim that therefore everything they themselves open-mindedly assert derives from objective evidence.