Freemasons
==========

I was thinking how wiccans, nazis and scientologists are all
spiritually related because all three groups ultimately descend from
the freemasons. They're all, say, cousins in occultism.

It's alaways a funny story to tell how the Nazi Party was founded by
Hitler from the Thule Society as its political wing (he basically
coopted it), and the society started as the Munich lodge of the
Germanenorder, an occultist society that followed a certain German
ethnonationalist ideology and that had an internal hierarchy based
on that of the freemasons.

On the other hand, both Gerald Gardner and L. Ron Hubbard, the
founders of Wicca and Scientology respectively, were influenced by
Aleister Crowley or met him personally. Crowley, just in case you've
never heard of him, was probably the most important occultist of the
20th century and is influential to this day (regretfully, I must
admit). A mason (among other things), of course, he was the founder
of the neopagan magical religion of Thelema and of the occultist
society Ordo Templi Orientis. It's intimately related to Freemasonry.

Although Gardner, the witch, was a straight-up mason, I think it's
Crowley who connects him and Wicca to Hubbard and Scientology.
Legend tells that Hubbard learned of Crowley's writings and
philosophy through Jack Parsons, the famous rocket engineer and
occultist. Parsons was an avid practitioner of Thelema and was a
member of Ordo Templi Orientis. Hubbard and Parsons became good
friends in the 40s and shared women and practiced sex magic[1]
together. A few years later Hubbard would give a series of talks in
which he connected many of Scientology's beliefs with the magical
practices of Crowley.

So there you have it.

[1] I'm not spelling it "magick", screw you!