Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions - James Randi [37]
I often wonder what would have happened had I stayed at it. Success in the occult world can lead to positions of great prestige and power. When the Nazis took over in Germany, as Dusty Sklar points out in her book Gods and Beasts, they were helped along by widespread belief in occult powers, symbolism, and magic, as well as astrology. Mythology became more than mere stories, and the destiny of Germany was discovered to be written in the stars. But Nazi rule needed claptrap galore to build its greatest piece of pseudoscience—the Aryan Legend. Though this myth was to be implanted in minds already prepared for it by various stupidities from astrology to hollow-earth theories, the Nazis needed to stamp out the lesser "isms" and notions that distracted the German people from this unifying doctrine. The notorious Reinhard Heydrich issued a directive aimed at removing "occultist teachings which pretend that the actions and missions of human beings are subject to mysterious magic forces." He listed astrologers, occultists, spiritualists, followers of occult theories of rays, fortune tellers, faith healers, Christian Scientists, anthroposophists, theosophists, and arisophists. They were all to be "purged." One wonders what that entailed.
But while throwing out astrology and magic, Hitler and his lackeys privately maintained their own occult advisers. One of the most powerful was an astrologer-magician named Steinschneider, who operated under the name Erik Jan Hanussen. He predicted great success for the Nazi party, at a time when it needed it, and was Hitler's darling of the moment. Indeed, Hanussen's personal charm and speaking mannerisms were studied by Der Fuhrer carefully; he knew a good gimmick when he saw it. It mattered not at all that Hanussen was Jewish. His predictions were widely published, and they all helped the Nazi cause.
But Hanussen went a step further than was wise. No doubt he could have been court astrologer all the way to the eventual Armageddon that the stars failed to warn the Nazis about, but on the eve of the famous Reichstag fire, which is attributed to the Nazis, Hanussen had a "vision" during a seance at his home. In his inspired state, he saw a building in flames, and when the fires roared the next day it seemed to confirm his prophetic ability. A few weeks later he was grabbed in Berlin and driven to the woods nearby, where Nazi bullets ended his career as a soothsayer.
Indeed, the belief in astrology among the Nazi hierarchy was so strong that the Allied forces employed astrologers to tell them when the Nazis would believe that the stars were right for various important undertakings. It was to little avail, however. Astrologers are accustomed to telling people what they want to hear, and tend to speak in generalities that can be interpreted in more than one way. Neither process was of any use in the war effort.
Even the scientific efforts that have been launched in an attempt to legitimize astrology have foundered. They are also prohibitively expensive and difficult to carry out. Recent attempts to test a "Mars Effect" have shown that the Red Planet is just that, and not a magic influence that reaches across space to influence our lives. The Mars Effect was supposed to have been confirmed during investigations of the claim that prominent athletes were more apt to be born when that planet was influencing their sign. Careful tests have failed to support any such claim, though fancy excuses have been plentiful. But more money will go into similar projects. There are plenty of sponsors of such idiocy waiting.
That journal of the irrational, Psychic News, proudly announced in April 1978 that Ingo Swann had been proved a real cosmic traveler as a result of approval by two leading lights of the paranormal firmament. According to the newspaper,