Prophet of the Third Reich

Psychic Erik Jan Hanussen leads
a seance in prewar Germany.
The Jewish-born mentalist improbably
became an advisor to Adolf Hitler.

Born to a family called Steinschneider, Erik Jan Hanussen arrived in decadent Berlin, and became the prophet of the Third Reich.

I first learnt of the existence of Erik Jan Hanussen from a magic manuscript by Bob Cassidy, a fabulous mentalist. The very peculiar tale, certainly more strange than fiction, was woven into a mentalist routine. I then looked into him and lo and behold his tale is a peculiar one.

"The story of Erik Jan Hanussen, the Viennese-Jewish psychic who befriended Adolf Hitler and became known as the “Prophet of the Third Reich,” is one of the most peculiar in modern European history. Few twentieth-century historians have acknowledged Hanussen as a factor in the dissolution of the Weimar Republic. That the Führer had engaged a wily Jewish clairvoyant might seem the stuff of mocking political fantasy or occult make-believe — but the story is true."

 "Hanussen’s yacht was the scene of lavish feasts, where drugs were offered that even sophisticated Berliners — who were quite familiar with the enchantments of cocaine — didn’t know about. Naked women and exotic boys performed shocking revues. Sometimes, after midnight, Hanussen demonstrated one of his specialties: his ability to hypnotize women into sexual frenzy and then sustained orgasm. A Swedish baroness, Barbara van Swieten, otherwise known on the nightclub circuit as La Jana, often hosted these events and sometimes acted as a willing participant. Even for a Berlin accustomed to debauched nighttime displays, Hanussen’s were considered phenomenal, over the top. 

"A debate over the veracity of Hanussen’s omnipotent powers was on every fashionable Berliner’s lips. But still he capitalized on public interest by purchasing a Breslau printing firm in 1931, and then launching an occult journal, Hanussen Magazin, and a biweekly tabloid, Bunte Wochenschau. Prominent writers and artists such as Gerhart Hauptmann, Hanns Ewers, and Conrad Veidt furnished pieces on their experiences with the paranormal. Thomas Mann, the leading novelist of the day, was a regular contributor. Subscribers were encouraged to apply for memberships in the Hanussen Society, where tickets to his stage productions were offered at a fifty percent discount. Clairvoyant workshops and discussion groups formed around the magazine, and its circulation rose into the hundreds of thousands. But as the psychic’s fortunes grew, Germany’s fell.  

Mel Gordon   

The excerpts above are from a superb article by author and scholar Mel Gordon. The authority on the life and peculiar times of Hanussen. A well worth read.

For further reading there is an interesting article, if oddly presented, on the Steinschneider (Hanussens birth name) Family's Genealogical website.

This blog article by Chet Loggins is also great for its pictures and historical reproductions.

Mel Gordon talking about Erik Jan Hanussen, Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant. Unfortunately not available on Kindle, but here'a link to used copies.

Hitler the Judas Showman

In the annals of the Illuminated Showmen we hear of Judas Showmen. People who use the skills and techniques of Showmanship for bad. As we all know there comes great responsibility with great power and every once in a while we Showmen create a super villain. These peculiar and intimate pictures shows Hitler practicing and preparing his Craft. His gesture work is something awesome to behold and now we know it was not an accident or from an innate ability to express himself gesturally.

The following short article is from Dangerous Minds. If you are not checked in over there you should be.

"In 1940, in a review of Mein Kampf, George Orwell (!!!), who was not yet the famous author he would become, wrote: 

But Hitler could not have succeeded against his many rivals if it had not been for the attraction of his own personality, which one can feel even in the clumsy writing of Mein Kampf, and which is no doubt overhwhelming when one hears his speeches. I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler. Ever since he came to power—till then, like nearly everyone, I had been deceived into thinking that he did not matter—I have reflected that I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him, but that I could feel no personal animosity. The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him. One feels it again when one sees his photographs—and I recommend especially the photograph at the beginning of Hurst and Blackett’s edition, which shows Hitler in his early Brownshirt days. It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself. The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is there. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds.

As Orwell points out, Hitler’s appeal was largely symbolic, and, just as with every American president from FDR to Nixon to Reagan to Obama, he understood that public presentation has to be carefully staged and place a premium on non-verbal, one might even say precognitive aspects to politics and ceremony. In the preface toMein Kampf, Hitler wrote, “I know that men are won over less by the written than by the spoken word, that every great movement on this earth owes its growth to orators and not to great writers.”

Hitler understood the power of oratory, and his success in that arena was not accidental; it was the product of a great deal of practice and careful adjustment. Heinrich Hoffmann was Hitler’s personal photographer, who took an astonishing two million pictures of the Führer. Here we see a series of photographs by Hoffmann of Hitler practicing his exaggerated hand gestures to be used in future speeches. Hitler actually characterized different effects for the various poses, such as “gebieterisch” (domineering) or “kämpferisch” (pugnacious).

After he saw the negatives, Hitler ordered that the photos be destroyed, but Hoffmann hid them away. After the seizure of his archives, they were released to the public."