Untold Tales: The Occult Dabblings of the Allied Leadership in WWII
From Nazi runes to Masonic pyramids and Shambhala quests, the occult powered the war of the century
Hitler’s connection to the occult is not a fringe theory. It is one of the most documented features of his regime. The Nazi Party grew out of the Thule Society, a nationalist occult lodge that married Germanic myth with racial ideology. Its symbols, rituals, and distorted paganism bled straight into the movement. Himmler’s SS became a kind of priesthood, dressed in black rune-covered uniforms, with castles converted into shrines and the Ahnenerbe sponsoring expeditions to Tibet in search of ancient wisdom.
The Reich functioned like a cult. Hitler’s speeches were staged as liturgies, rallies as religious revivals, the swastika wielded like a talisman. Goebbels weaponized prophecy, twisting Nostradamus and astrology into propaganda. Millions were told they were not merely fighting a war but fulfilling a destiny written in the stars. Legends swirled about Hitler’s fascination with the Spear of Destiny, a relic believed to carry supernatural power. Whether or not he believed the myth, he guarded it, and in doing so revealed how real symbols were in his worldview.
By war’s end, Nazism had shown itself as more than politics. It was a counterfeit religion, a cult of blood and soil, and its leader was a priest of darkness as much as a dictator. Everyone knows this about Hitler (except for some who are supposedly trying to turn him into a Christian Prince). What is less remembered is that his enemies were not entirely free from similar shadows. Churchill wore the robes of the Druids, Roosevelt tied himself to Freemasonry, and Stalin sent agents chasing the hidden kingdom of Shambhala.
I figured I’d write some of that history, if for no other reason, I’m told I shouldn’t.
CHURCHILL THE DRUID
Winston Churchill is remembered as the bulldog of Britain, the cigar-smoking statesman who rallied his island with words that sounded like cannon fire. Yet in the shadows, he wore different robes. Before the Second World War ever tested him, he had been initiated into the Ancient Order of Druids, a fraternal society cloaked in ritual, pageantry, and the trappings of an ancient priesthood. For a man who would later posture as the great defender of Christian civilization, the image of Churchill dressed in Druidic regalia ought to give us pause. He was not merely a politician of Empire. He was a man willing to step into strange fellowships, dabble in symbolic rites, and entertain the kinds of societies that carry with them more than a whiff of the occult.
The Ancient Order of Druids was not pagan revival in the literal sense, but it was far more than a gentlemen’s club. Founded in London in the eighteenth century, the Order borrowed the imagery and ritual of the ancient Celtic priesthood. Its members processed in white robes, spoke of sacred groves, and cast their fraternal bond as a continuation of an ancient spiritual lineage. Churchill’s initiation into this society took place in 1908 at Blenheim Palace, his ancestral home. The photographs of the event are haunting: Churchill standing among robed figures with beards flowing, sashes and staffs raised in ritual. These were not images of parliamentary debate or military planning. These were images of initiation into something arcane, a ritual act tying Churchill to a Druidic brotherhood.
Some argue it was harmless, a cultural relic in the same vein as Freemasonry (which, of course, is not harmless at all). But harmless societies do not dress themselves in the vestments of pagan priesthood. Harmless societies do not perform ceremonies in which men bind themselves with symbols of sacred trees and ancestral spirits. Churchill’s willingness to join tells us something about him. He was not opposed to the mystical. He was not too rational for ritual. He was attracted to it, amused by it, and willing to cloak himself in its garments when invited.
Churchill also had brief ties to Freemasonry. Though he was not as devoted to the lodge as Roosevelt, he was initiated into the fraternity and moved within its circles. The same Churchill who could thunder against Hitler’s pagan Reich was at ease in rooms filled with men who called themselves brothers by the light of Masonic fire. Even outside of formal lodges, he found comfort in esoteric societies. In one of his more peculiar dining circles, Churchill himself was nicknamed “the Sorcerer,” while other members of Parliament took on beastly symbolic names such as “the Bear.” It was frivolous on the surface, but nicknames reveal what others saw in him and what he was willing to accept as part of his persona.
Perhaps the most famous of Churchill’s occult associations is the “V for Victory” hand sign. It was the gesture that came to symbolize British resolve, a simple raised index and middle finger. Yet the origins of the sign have long been debated. Some historians suggest it was encouraged by none other than Aleister Crowley, the notorious English occultist who called himself “the Beast.” Crowley claimed to have promoted the gesture to Churchill personally as a counter-symbol to the Nazi swastika, loading it with his own esoteric meaning. Strangely, Churchill never disputed Crowley’s public claim and on several occasions, just smiled and danced around the subject when asked by the press. Every time he raised those two fingers, he may have been invoking more than defiance. He may have been echoing a sign crafted in the laboratory of occult symbolism.
The rumors about Churchill and psychic warfare only deepen the mystery. During the Blitz, as bombs fell on London, there were whispers of Britain employing not only radar and codebreaking but psychic defenses. Some accounts claim Churchill entertained the idea of occult practitioners aiding the war effort, just as Himmler relied on astrologers. Hard documentation is scarce, but the very existence of the rumors testifies to the climate of the time. In a world convulsed by death, even the most hardened statesmen could not resist the pull of symbols, rituals, and supernatural whispers.
Churchill’s rhetoric often invoked providence. He could thunder about Christian civilization standing against barbarism. Yet it is worth asking what sort of civilization he had in mind. A man who had stood robed among Druids and who raised a hand sign allegedly popularized by a notorious occultist did not embody a straightforward Christian ideal. He embodied something more conflicted, a man of Empire who found meaning in ritual whether it came from church or from lodge.
The significance of Churchill’s Druidic ties is not that he was a practicing pagan or that he secretly worshiped trees. The significance is that he was part of a generation of leaders who flirted with the mystical as naturally as they smoked cigars or played cards. He was comfortable in a world of symbols, initiations, and hidden societies. He lived at a time when modernity pretended to be rational and secular, but the most powerful men were still drawn to robes, hand signs, and ancient myths.
It is easy to dismiss Churchill’s Druid robes as harmless costume. But the images remain. They show the bulldog of Britain wrapped in white ritual cloth, standing shoulder to shoulder with men who spoke of sacred groves. They remind us that even the leader celebrated as the champion of democracy was not untouched by the allure of occult symbolism. The world was not as cleanly divided as the history books suggest.
Churchill was a Druid, a Mason, a Sorcerer among his friends, both bulldog and brother of a mystic lodge. And in that paradox, we see the truth about the age: modern war was fought with bombs and tanks, but its leaders still reached for ritual and myth, the old shadows that haunt even the most civilized men.
ROOSEVELT THE FREEMASON
Franklin Delano Roosevelt is remembered as the architect of the New Deal and the wartime president who rallied America to victory. He projected calm confidence, speaking of democracy, progress, and providence. Yet behind the public mask stood a man whose private loyalty was to a fraternity older than the republic itself. Roosevelt was a Freemason, not in name only but in conviction. He joined early, advanced eagerly, and carried Masonic symbols into the very fabric of the nation he led.
Roosevelt’s initiation took place in 1911 at Holland Lodge No. 8 in New York. He pledged his oaths, learned the ritual, and embraced the fraternity’s vision of a universal brotherhood under the Great Architect of the Universe. Unlike politicians who treated the lodge as a convenient network, Roosevelt was committed. He praised Masonry openly, sought its company, and surrounded himself with brothers in Washington. For him, the fraternity’s ideals were not a curiosity but a framework that shaped his sense of destiny.
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