Ectoplasm

[David Casseres]

>I have also read (somewhere...I'll try & find it) that in addition
>to the occult, Nazis supported some whacky pseudo-sciences.
>The one that comes to mind is an "inner earth" theory that suggested
>that earth was a sphere, but that we were "inside" the sphere, and that
>a radio transmission from Berlin would go across the eather to, say,
>Tokyo. They actually tried this near the end of the war, more in des-
>paration than in solid belief. I also read that the Nazi occult linkages
>included some serious attempts at counter-espionage (savants were
>recruited to help war planners). Not too far out given the US/Russian
>experiments in the 1950s & 60s with psycics, LSD, etc.

My favorite is the Weltseislehre or "Cosmic Ice Theory," which held that 
the size of the Universe is actually only about 5000 km (I think) and the 
"stars" are just the glittering of the many chunks of ice that orbit the 
Sun in a globular cluster.  I believe this one got some official 
endorsement from the Nazis.  And they used to dowse for Allied warships 
by swinging pendulums over a chart of the North Atlantic, and they 
employed all kinds of psychics and astrologers.  They get the First Prize 
for being up to the tits in pseudoscience and pop mysticism in the Age of 
Science -- the U.S. Government gets the Second Prize, easily outstripping 
the Soviets, various European contenders, Papa Doc Duvalier, etc.


Cheers,
David