Ancient Mysteries
Mystic Utopian "Supermen"
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To say that the book you now hold in your hands is a strange, intriguing and highly controversial one, is putting things very mildly indeed. And much the same can be said about its author, too: Webster Edgerly; a name with which very few will today be familiar. Yet, Edgerly has a place in history, and certainly in infamy, that deserves to be told - if only to highlight the bizarre and, at times, dark and disturbing beliefs and motivations of the man.
Excerpt
Edgerly recorded for his followers the following, ominous passage:
"One person may be hypnotized by another without the latter's aid or knowledge. This is the Eleventh Principle. The brain of man is curiously divided into parts that think for reasoning purposes, into parts that think for mere muscular purposes, and parts that think for functional action. These are somewhat dependent upon each other beyond the conscious brain. When the conscious brain is put to sleep by a process that keeps the body awake, the sub-conscious faculty, which is the so-called inner brain, at once asserts itself and stands ready to obey any suggestions that may be given it."
As the above-passage makes abundantly clear, Edgerly was talking about, and exploring the feasibility of, what is commonly known today as mind-control.
Further evidence of Edgerly's interest in the mind and its powers as a medium of both control and manipulation, can be found in his book, In Operations of the Other Mind.
Edgerly related that:
"Against the growing errors, vagaries, morbid theories, occult teachings, and wild beliefs that are darkening present-day life, depressing the mind, weakening the nerves, preying on the health and creating gloomy forebodings, this work comes as an inspiring guide and a practical instructor. It has been our wish and purpose to make this course of training one of the most important and valuable ever published. So, into the book we have put the great study, 'HOW TO EMPTY THE MIND.'
Recall the countless times you have been mentally upset, worried, bothered with troubles. Think of what it would have meant-and will know mean - to know how to cast all such mental torture out of your mind. The relief and peace of mind this one study alone can bring you can be worth thousands of dollars."
The deranged Master-Race concept of Webster Edgerly was far from being alone: Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany held that the collective Germanic and Nordic populations were the closest thing that existed to a pure race.
It was a much-disputed concept that caused wholly justified outrage in many quarters, and that had its origins in a 19th Century scenario that placed African Bushmen and Australian Aborigines at the foot of the ladder, and the Nordics (what a surprise---) firmly at the very top. Aside from in the minds of those racists that adhered to the theory (and who, in some cases, still adhere to it, to this very day), it was utterly lacking in any scientific merit at all.
And, interestingly, as was the case with Webster Edgerly, the Nazis were as fascinated with the occult as they were with the notion of creating the perfect superman.
As far as the Nazis themselves were concerned, they were firmly of the opinion that the people of both Southern and Eastern Europe were racially mixed with non-Europeans from across the Mediterranean Sea; while it was strictly the Northern Europeans who had successfully remained pure. Adherents of this belief additionally maintained that not only had the Nordics' remained pure: as a result of the cold, harsh climate in which they had mostly been raised, they also just happened to be the physically toughest and strongest of all peoples, too. And so, the ominous image of the blonde and blue-eyed Nordic superman of Nazi Germany began to develop - in leaps and bounds.
Somewhat ironically, however, the Nazis did not discriminate against Germans who were not blonde and/or blue-eyed, and who were considered Aryans (the term Aryan being derived from the ancient peoples who lived in Iran and the Indus Valley). The Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg argued that they were fierce, warrior people whose point origin was actually well into the northern hemisphere; but who migrated south in times past, and who were also the ancestors of early Germanic clans and tribes.
Webster Edgerly and Nazi Germany were not the only ones fascinated by the idea of creating a race of super-humans: secret government files generated in Russia in 1926 (and declassified in 2006) under the regime of Premier Josef Stalin reveal that the Soviet premier had a crazed idea to try and create an army of supermen that would be a combination of half-ape and half-man, and that would be utterly unbeatable on the battlefield.
As a result Ilya Ivanov, the former Soviet Union's top animal-breeding expert at the time, was personally told by Stalin: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat." Somewhat shrewdly, Stalin added that the creatures should possess "immense strength but with an underdeveloped brain."
Certainly, in the eyes of Stalin if anyone could make the crackpot project succeed it was Ivanov. A highly regarded figure, he had established his reputation under the Tsar when, in 1901, he established the world's first center for the artificial insemination of racehorses. But more important to Stalin was the fact that Ivanov had already tried to create a "super-horse" by attempting to crossbreed such animals with zebras.
Despite the fact that the attempts to crossbreed a horse with a zebra failed completely, Moscow's Politburo forwarded Stalin's request to the Academy of Science with the order to build a "living war machine;" an order that came at a time when the Soviet Union was embarking upon a crusade to turn the world upside down, with social engineering seen as a partner to industrialization.
In addition, Soviet authorities were struggling at the time to rebuild the Red Army after the devastation of the First World War, and there was also intense pressure to find a new labor force, and particularly one that would not complain. As a result, in the warped mind of Josef Stalin, the secret creation of a super race of hybrid creatures that combined the intelligence of human beings with the physical strength of some of the larger primates, such as gorillas and chimpanzees, seemed to be the perfect antidote to every problem.
10¾" height 8" width - 675+ pages
Perfect-Bound
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