There seems to be no shortage of connections between British Intelligence writers and the occult, and while I’ve examined a good deal of Ian Fleming, one of the more overtly Satanic writers we haven’t looked at is Dennis Wheatley. Wheatley was the son of a winemaking family who caused some stir early in his college days for creating his own campus “secret society.” Following his expulsion for this incident, Wheatley joined the military, fighting in World War I as a Royal Artillery Lieutenant, while focusing on military intelligence and covert operations in World War II in the London Controlling Section. After his war activities, Wheatley worked for British Intelligence and was introduced to Aleister Crowley, stating:
“The fact that I had read extensively about ancient religions gave me some useful background, but I required up-to-date information about occult circles in this country. My friend, Tom Driburg, who then lived in a mews flat just behind us in Queen’s Gate, proved most helpful. He introduced me to Aleister Crowley, the Reverend Montague Summers and Rollo Ahmed.” (The Time Has Come: The Memoirs of Dennis Wheatley (Vol 3) 1919-1977: Drink and Ink, p. 131.)
However, there is more to the story concerning his relation to British Intelligence and MI5, as his personal site explains:
“Then in May 1940, following a chance conversation between his wife and her passenger while she was a driver for MI5, Wheatley was commissioned to write a series of papers on various strategic aspects of the War. These ‘War Papers’ were read by the King and the highest levels of the General Staff, and as a result in December 1941 he was re-commissioned, becoming the only civilian to be directly recruited onto the Joint Planning Staff. With the final rank of Wing Commander, for the rest of the War Wheatley worked in Churchill’s basement fortress as one of the country’s small handful of ‘Deception Planners’ who were charged with developing ways to deceive the enemy of the Allies real strategic intentions. Their top secret operations, which included the plans to deceive the enemy about the true site of the Normandy landings, were highly successful and saved countless lives.”
Wheatley’s wife also worked for MI5, yet these details do not easily emerge in research on the subject, though it is now known Wheatley was MI6, including writing anti-German and anti-Russian occult spy fiction. To old dusty books one must go before the fuller picture emerges and we see the connections to Fleming and Maxwell Knight, and the decision to co-opt Aleister Crowley into MI5 work. (more...)
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