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Rasputin, the Black Sun and Serial Killers
Episode 48 • 31st October 2023 • Digging Up Ancient Aliens • Fredrik Trusohamn
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An archaeologist discussing Rasputin, the famous scapegoats from the Russian Revolution, Nazi symbology, and the stigmatization of mental health in pop culture? Yes, you do want to hear this.

First, we will talk about how Ancient Aliens and similar shows add to the stigma of mental health with the claims they make in their show. Then we move on to talk about the Rasputin myth, and while finding out who he really was, we learn that many of the pop myths about him are incredibly unfair. Last out, we will deal with the Nazi Symbol called the Black Sun. Some claim it's drawn from Norse sources. We will discover that's far from the case and that the neo nazi mythology circulating about it originates from a 1991 novel.

In Digging up Ancient Aliens, our host Fredrik uses his background in archaeology to discover what is genuine, fake, and somewhere in between in popular media, such as Ancient Aliens, Ancient Apocalypse, and many other places.

In the U.S., the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s # is 1-800-273-8255. Crisis Text Line can be reached by texting HOME to 741741 (US), 686868 (Canada), or 85258 (UK).

For international listeners, you can find an international collection here https://blog.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines/

In this episode:

Mental health and pop culture 3:05

Rasputin - man, myth, and alien? 17:15

The Black Sun - a Neo-Nazi Myth 39:06

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Transcripts

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You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.

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Hi, hello and welcome to Digging Up Ancient Aliens. This is the podcast where we examine

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strange claims about alternative history and ancient aliens in popular media. Do the claims

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hold water to an archaeologist or are there better explanations out there? We are now on episode 48.

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I am Fredrik, your guide into the world of pseudo-archaeology. This episode premieres on the

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day of Halloween and could it be that we're in for yet another spooktacular to some extent? But

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to be honest with you, no, not really. While the episode Dark Forces from Ancient Aliens season 10

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episode 4 does its best to be perceived as scary or spooky, I find a lot more problematic things

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that we will spend our energy on within this episode. This episode will not deal much with

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archaeology to be honest, but we will have some thrilling discussions anyway. First we will talk

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about how ancient aliens and similar shows add to the stigma of mental health with the claims

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that they make within the show. And then we will move on to talk about the Rasputin myth and we

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will find out who he really was and learn that many of the pop culture myths that we hear about

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him are, well, incredibly wrong. Last out we will deal with a Nazi symbol called the Black

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Sun. Some claim it to draw from Norse sources. We will discover however that's far from the case and

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that the origin of this neo-Nazi myth originates from a 1991 thriller novel. Remember that you find

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sources, resources and reading suggestions on our website diggingupancientaliens.com. And if you

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like the podcast I would appreciate it if you left one of those fancy five-star reviews that I heard

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so much about. And if you want to learn more how to support the show and the archaeological podcast

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network I will tell you more about that at the end of the episode. You know books and stuff ain't

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free you know. Before we start the show I just want to say that while discussing mental health

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it will be a bit more of an academic approach to this discussion. But if you struggle and need

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someone to talk to you can call the US hotline on number 988. And if you listen from any other

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country I've added more resources in the episode description here in your podcast player app. Now

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that we have finished our preparation let's dig into the episode.

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So I have repeatedly said that this show is dangerous and I am prepared to sound like a broken

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record here. Let's just listen to the to the first claim of of the show here. Richard Ramirez

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the night stalker found guilty of killing 13 people. He claims to be a minion of Satan

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charged with killing six people and wounding seven others. He stated that he was a soldier in a satanic army.

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Ted Bundy serial killer and a serial killer. He claims to be a minion of Satan

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and a serial killer. He claims to be a minion of Satan and a serial killer.

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Ted Bundy serial killer and rapist arrested in connection with over 36 murders.

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He alleged that something overtook him while committing the crimes. He called it the entity.

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Were these men simply delusional or could their claims that they were compelled to violence by

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dark entities actually be true? Yeah I'm going to be a bit blunt here. There's nothing scary,

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dark or spooky really going on here or rather the frightening thing is how the show writers again

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try to demonize mental illness. I know that we covered this in part while exploring the myth

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surrounding the Aikogahara forest but I will continue here on a little bit of a different

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track. While I can somewhat understand the fascination some have for serial killers,

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myself I don't really get it. However I see a danger in how they are portrayed here. Both that

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a diagnosis or just speculation and especially the connection between Satan and the disorders of

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these people. I have not found that these three were officially diagnosed and most of the

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assumptions about their condition are from people who never met them. While understanding their

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mental health can be significant, it's most interesting because we could potentially help

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people before it's too late. Not from really a criminal perspective per se. That's what I'm going

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to say about these men. Now some of you might wonder what the issue here is and that's fine.

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And some of you might already know where this conversation is heading. There is an issue of

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stigmatization around mental disorder in our society and ancient aliens managed to contribute

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to both toward the religious stigma of mental health and the idea that people with mental health

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are evil and dangerous. That people within the religious community have a built-in stigma

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originating from their faith should not maybe come as a considerable surprise. And several

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studies have been published in the area both from religious and secular publication. Most of the

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studies in the English language tend to, no surprise, focus on the Abrahamic religious and

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that includes Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. This is a fact that I just want to highlight so

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the discussion we are going to have here will be slightly skewed toward the western world. And I

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just want to point out there is a lack of data in case you have questions and wondering why I don't

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bring up other culture in this segment. Now as I mentioned studies have been done on the connection

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between mental illness, religion, and stigma for some time. Many point out that connecting mental

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illness with sin and immorality leads to symptoms being viewed as something the individual themselves

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are responsible for and has caused or you know brought upon themselves. As Lloyd and Pangaloppos

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2022 point out there is quote

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Blaming the cause of a mental illness on an outside force lead to the idea that the individual could have prevented this by acting differently. And in a

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2023 article the same author state that these ideas quote

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And we don't fare better in the Muslim communities where mental illness to this day is blamed in many

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communities as being possessed or caused by the jinn. Authors within the Muslim world point out that

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while there is no connection between mental illness and jinn possession in the Quran the

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belief is firmly rooted within the folk superstition itself. Islam and Campbell wrote in a 2012 article

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the rather sad statement that quote

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What we see here in the religious context we also see kind of in the alien sphere. It's not unknown that people believed to have been

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abducted by aliens and countered them or in case you think they even are possessed of them. Often

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they don't seek medical treatment or maybe even worse go to memory regressing therapy, hypnotists

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or support groups where their beliefs are confirmed and aggravated. While they don't necessarily face

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the stigma as their religious counterpart they still hesitate to seek out medical professional.

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For example this is something we brought up in episode 44, alien abductions,

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kachinas and Peru's elongated skulls. There's also ample evidence that the portrayal of mental

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health in popular media affect how we view disorders and treatments. So a lot of responsibility falls

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on the writers here but unfortunately they decide to use or they decide to portray mental illness

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as something evil, something dangerous and violent. Worth pointing out is that ancient

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aliens are not the only popular media that engage with this trope and try to make content out of it.

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It's been around for for quite a long time. The first time the scary doctor trope appeared on film

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was in 1914 with the movie Andy and the Hypnotist in which a young man is put under the control of a

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nefarious doctor by hypnosis. But the hypnotist named Mysterio is arrested by a children's society

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agent and Andy ends up on an intended murderous spree acting as a native american which

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retrospect is problematic for sure. And with this movie a new genre was born within film.

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Now this phenomenon has been quite well studied and Hayden et al have classified the negative

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stereotypes as follow. So first in movies we have the homicidal maniac that appears in films such as

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Psycho, American Psycho and The Exorcist. Then we have the rebellious free spirit labelled mentally

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ill by society but in the end they are vindicated since nice characters can't be mentally ill. And

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moving on we have the run-of-the-mill enlightened member of society as depicted in King of Hearts.

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We had a female patient as a seductress and a narcissistic parasite. And lastly we have of

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course the zoo specimen. And if you think back about a movie depicting someone with mental health

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I'm sure you can start to see how the character might be problematic even if they are not shown

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as dangerous. The stereotypes are still harmful even if it's a lovable free spirit portrayed as a

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trope leading to you know destructive ideas about mental illness and health. And there is a clear

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link between the stigma around mental illness and the discrimination of these people in areas such

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as housing, employment, relationships and even funding for treatment center or mentally healthy

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equality. Leading in the end to a loss of status, low self-esteem, shame, withdrawal and less likely to seek

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professional help for this. Much of this seems unfortunately to be rooted in the media portrayal

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of mental health. In 2002, 6 out of 10 of the most popular violent movies included someone who were

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depicted as suffering from mental illness. The characters are often referred to with derogatory

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terms and often the villain in these movies were reported to be mentally ill as we see in the

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Halloween movies for example. And looking at the top 100 films from 2016 and 2017 and the top 100

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top rated series during this time, in 46% of those involving a mentally ill character, this character

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was the perpetrator of violence. While usually it's the other way around, the mentally ill persons are

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less likely to be the perpetrator of violence and almost almost always the victim of violent crimes.

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Percival and Mayers publicized a study in 2016 where they aimed to see how movies affect a

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person's attitude towards people with schizophrenia. When shown a film with a fear-based portrayal, the

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subjects tended to more often support stigmatization attitudes such as, I would be afraid to meet

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somebody who has schizophrenia and people with schizophrenia need to be supervised at all times.

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If we compare these results with a control group or the group that saw a positive representation

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of schizophrenia, we could see that these people had a improved attitude toward people suffering

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from this mental illness. And the media representation not only affects society's view

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about mental health but can also skew and hinder advancing knowledge about mental health. Further,

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as we touched on, the stigma born from this portrayal leads to people not seeking medical

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help, even if they feel they would need it. It's also been demonstrated that even if help is sought,

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people don't stick with the treatment due to the stigma enforced by films directed at both adults

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and children. The healthcare portrayed in movies can also set an unrealistic expectation on

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how the treatment will be and how a mental facility will look like and work within it. Again, this

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hindered people from seeking treatment to, you know, being afraid to, quote, turn into a zombie or

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getting shock treatment. A treatment that in some cases might help alleviate some symptoms.

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But if you picture how a mental facility operates, it's usually influenced by movies. Since most of

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these portrayals are negative, you might not want to seek one out fearing to be, you know,

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becoming Jack Nicholson's character in A Flight Over the Cocoa Nest. A common trope is that you

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will be locked up indefinitely. You don't do what medical professional wants or anything like that,

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that you will be robbed of your freedom for money and all of that rather unrealistic ideas that we

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still see in movies and television shows. An even less extreme example of mental health professionals

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often set unrealistic standards where, you know, the cure is often portrayed to be love and family.

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Two things that can benefit someone undergoing treatment but should not be deemed the only cure

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towards this mental illness. Media also tend to cultivate a myth that psychiatry can be anything

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and therapy can be anything around you. So to round up this segment, we have demonstrated how movies

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and religious affect our views and often in a way that increase the stigma around mental health.

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While there are of course potential upsides if used positively, key phrase there positively, this is

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not really the current case that we see in, well, our modern pop culture. And even if Ancient Aliens

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is not the most prominent show out there, there still contribute to these ideas and actually need

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to take responsibility for it. Because this is not the first time we see this depiction and from the

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look it will continue in later episodes, in later series. This is something I have mentioned and

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certainly will do in the future. Again, Ancient Aliens is a harmful show in more than promoting

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alien theories. They stigmatize people suffering from mental health issues. And on that very upbeat

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note, I will go and cool off the nerves with some whiskey while you listen to a couple of messages.

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Welcome back. We have now moved from the demonic realm to Russia, maybe it's the same, where we will

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encounter perhaps one of the most famous and most misunderstood figure from the Russian revolution,

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Grigory Rasputin. A name that's become almost synonym for evil and villainy. He has even

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appeared as the main bad guy in the, well, at least now, Disney movie Anastasia. There is so

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much legend about this man that scholars, as we will learn, have difficulty separating truth from

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fiction. Very little academic work seems to have been written about Rasputin, especially in English.

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There are, however, tons, tons of popular science book and articles on him with a wide variety of

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quality. More have been published in Russian, of course, and Rasputin seemed to have appeared in

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several memoirs of people from the era. The drawback is here that I don't read Cyrillic

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and translate it will, well, even transcribed to western letters, will take me some time to

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translate properly. But with some written patience I believe to have unlocked some of the real

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Rasputin that's hiding in all of this mess. Most things regarding Rasputin's life have been

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mythologized to a point where I believe most of us likely consider some of these ideas as

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facts. From death to birth, stories about Rasputin's life and mythologies are repeated

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even by historians like, in this case, Dr. Dan Haley. From the memoir of Maria Rasputin,

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Rasputin's daughter, she wrote that when he was born there were other omens and portents,

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things like a dog with six legs being born, babies with deformities, that kind of thing.

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Maria Rasputin has indeed written three memoirs. That is Rasputin, The Man Behind the Myth,

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published in 1977. The second is called My Father, published in 1934. And lastly we have the first

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book, The Real Rasputin, published in 1929. None of these books mention these things Dr. Haley say

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and it would be a bit out of character for Maria to describe her father in this way. In all these

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memoirs she paints an almost saintly picture of her father, whom she seemed to have loved very

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much. Reading these books it becomes evident Haley was either mistaken or might even have bought

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into part of the Rasputin mythos. The closest I get to some sort of miracle associated with Rasputin

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birth is that Maria claims that a comet was visible on the day of her father's birth. The issue with

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that statement or claim is that Maria managed to get both the date and year wrong for the birth of

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Rasputin. According to the official records, Grigori Rasputin was born on January 9th and baptized on

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January 10th 1869. Grigori was born in Pokrovskoje, a small village in the vast Siberian landscape.

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He was the first child of his parents, Yefim Rasputin and Anna Pashkova, to survive his infancy. While the family had some money, it seemed to have been quite tight for the family. Yefim was at least once jailed for not paying his taxes. The sources seem split about Yefim. He was serving as an elder in the village and was a very good man.

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Some have described him as a learned man, while others remark more to Yefim's fondness for vodka.

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The family have been in Siberia since at least 1643, one year after the founding of Pokrovskoje.

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A man named Isosim brought the family there, who then had no real last name and Isosim was

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only known as the son of Fjodor. Isosim's son however, Nason, took Rasputin as his last name,

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which would later be spelled more modern as Rasputin. There are many strange tales about

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the name's origin and very few seem trustworthy. Rasputin was a quite common name in Siberia and

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a possible source might be Rasputa, a word that would be translated to crossroads in English.

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The early life of Rasputin was definitely shaped by Siberia. The land and its toils follow its

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people. Gregory helped his father with farm work in the spring and summer while trying to shelter

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from the elements during the winter. Rasputin was most definitely illiterate until his adulthood,

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something that's far from surprising. According to a 1897 census, the Rasputin family was in whole

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illiterate and looking at the Russian society as a whole, only some 20% of the population could

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read at this time. But very little is known about Gregory Rasputin's use. This period of his life

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is a little bit like a black hole, as historian Douglas Smith puts it. This has left room for

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some rather fanciful stories. My favorite depiction of the young Rasputin tells us,

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quote, in his youth Rasputin was a uncommonly hapless with a foul mouth, inarticulate speech,

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driveling, dirty as one can be, a thief and a blasphemer. He was the fright of the village.

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The quote is from the Petrograd leaflet from 1916. While accounts of Gregory Rasputin often

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depict him as a die-hard criminal and a whore thief, this seems to be a bit of an exaggeration

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of the reality. A Gandhari report from 1909 interviewed the people of Pokrovskoye and

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then Rasputin is reported to have had various vices, like, you know, getting drunk, committing

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some minor theft, quite minor stuff. But he then left Pokrovskoye and returned a changed man,

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is reported by the people that they interviewed. And the leaving part is also something that's

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often played off as a big thing. But at the time, do you really need more reason than living in,

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for more reason to leave than living in the middle of Siberia in a small village? Rasputin told his

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acolytes about his early life and they documented in the book the life of an experienced pilgrim.

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Why he left, Gregory Rasputin himself claimed that, quote,

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I had many sorrows too. Whatever mistake was made somewhere, I was blamed, although I was not

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involved. Workmen from teams mocked me. I plowed hard and slept little and I kept asking my heart

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how to find a way to be saved. And there are several other stories on why Rasputin left.

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And among the alternative historians, there's one in particular that's often repeated here by

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Kathleen Coppins. One day while plowing his fields, Rasputin sees a strange light in the sky

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and out from the middle of this light emerges a vision of the Virgin Mary. And she doesn't speak

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to him, but he watches her gesture to the horizon. And Rasputin takes this to mean that he is being

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told by the mother of God that he must go and find himself on a spiritual pilgrimage. And this begins

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the huge shift in Rasputin's life. And this account is actually from one of the editions

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of Maria Rasputin's memoirs. Gregory Rasputin also mentioned that he made the pilgrims to atone for

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his sins, or that it might have been commanded by Saint Simon of Berkotorje. And yet another reason

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why he left could be his meeting with a theology student, Meleti Saborovski. Others have claimed

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the pilgrimage was undertaken to escape hard work or to avoid punishment for various crimes that

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Rasputin should have committed. Rasputin also gave us two different years for when he embarked on his

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pilgrim. Either it was in 1893 or in 1897. And according to historian Douglas Smith, the later

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date that he gave to Father Jurveski seemed to be more likely. What we do know for a fact is that

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Gregory Rasputin undertook the 500 kilometer journey from Pokrovoske to Saint Nikolaus Monastery

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in Berkotorje, which seems to have changed his life from there. Gregory Rasputin seemed to have

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been quite a charismatic character. And shortly after his reformation and return to Pokrovskie,

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he seemed to start to build a small following within the village, which soon would grow and

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expand as Rasputin continued his pilgrimage to different and other cities and sites. And the

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rumors would of course not stop, but they took a different style. Starting to accuse Rasputin of

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being part of a sect called the Klysty and engaging in according to, well, the morality of the time,

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lewd acts with his followers. Klysty was a heretic sect founded around 1640 in Russia when the Russian

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Orthodox Church started to crumble. And more fanciful stories surround this cult that they

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would whip each other, engage in ritual ordeals during worship, and even cannibalism is supposed

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to have been performed by this group of people. Now the whipping part connected to the cult seem

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to be genuine. There are eyewitness reports to this that seems quite credible and the word

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Klyst translates to just whip. But the other claims lack credible evidence and are more likely to,

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you know, just be attempts to vilify the cult. I also want to point out that Klysty might be a

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clever play on Krity or Christ in Russian. Now with Rasputin's growing influence he then met

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Tsar Nicholas in November 1905, something that the Tsar records in his diary. And the royal couple

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seem to have taken quite good liking to Rasputin and he often seemed to have visited them in their

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palaces and at their different vacation homes. Skeptical officials however start to launch

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investigations into Rasputin and his backgrounds, hence the John Drumme report that we mentioned

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earlier. But nothing would turn up that could remove him from the capital. But it was not until

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1912 and the so-called miracle in Spawa, Tsar's hunting grounds in modern Poland, that Rasputin's

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reputation as a healer was cemented. Prince Alexei, who was suffering from hemophilia, developed a

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hematoma while being at the Spawa hunting grounds and it quickly got worse. And it's claimed that

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the prince was nearly, if not extremely, close to death. At the time, Queen Alexandra sent a telegram

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back to Rasputin in Russia, who answered surprisingly quickly with a now lost telegram. It's often claimed

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that this telegram goes as follow.

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After this, it's claimed that Alexis made a miraculous recovery. Not to throw shade, but if you have the option of receiving medical help in 1910s

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and not, you might want to opt for the not option. It was not uncommon to, for example, administer

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aspirin to hemophiliacs. You know, aspirin is blood thinning and it's really not recommended to give to

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someone whose blood does not clot from the start. So it suggests that his advice that basically do

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nothing saved the prince in this case. But let's fast forward to 1916 and the death of Rasputin.

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I mean, we could do a hardcore history length with several episodes just on Rasputin here, but

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we will save that for another time, another place. So let's forward to 1916 and the death of Rasputin.

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And that is, of course, to not anyone's surprise, surrounded with speculations, rumors and myth.

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Rasputin wrote an open letter to Russia and within this open letter he states,

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if I am murdered by the royal family or by someone related to the royal family, within two years

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every member of the royal family will be dead. This claim's origin is from Aaron Simanovich and

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from the evidence we have, this seemed to be a bit made up. Simanovich, however, never claimed it was

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a open letter, but a letter to Rasputin's lawyer to be added to his testament. Aaron Simanovich

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might have been inspired, however, by a letter Rasputin did send to his family. In it, Rasputin

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claimed that disaster and misfortune in general were coming. Not really a prediction, I would say.

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If you look back how it was at the end of 1916, we're two years into World War I and the February

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Revolution would start relatively shortly on the 8th of March. And no, the Russian was not late to

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their own revolution, but you know, they use a Julian calendar at this time, making some dates

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rather confusing for everyone. But there wasn't really any discussion if something was going to

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happen. The question was just when it was going to happen. And in this letter there are no claims

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from Rasputin regarding his own death. And he had even had an assassin attempt on his life already

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at this point, but he did not see this coming. And a commonly told story of Rasputin's death is that

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Rasputin was invited to Prince Yusupov's palace on 94 Moika. That part is not really debated, but

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what happened after is. According to Yusupov, Rasputin was taken in through the side passage

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of the palace and down into the cellar where they sat down, had some tea. And there Rasputin was

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offered cake glazed with cyanide. While at first declining the cake, Gregory then, according to

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Yusupov, ate several of them. And since the poison did not work in the cake, Yusupov

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offered some sweet wine with some potassium cyanide in it. And again, according to the story,

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the wine did not work either. But Rasputin started to become more and more agitated.

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And Yusupov ended up shooting Rasputin in the chest with a revolver. Yusupov's accomplished

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hurdleshot came down and there they declared Rasputin dead. And they started to set their

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second part of the plan in motion, pretending to drive Rasputin home. But in the meantime,

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Rasputin is claimed to have miraculously came back to life, shouting like a wounded animal

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and behaving like an awful demon while he's trying to escape. The assassins hear this and follow with

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guns, shooting Rasputin several more times and then throwing him into the river where he is

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supposed to get out of his robes and everything and be frozen in a rather gruesome pose. But

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what really happened on that night is unfortunately quite hard to tell. It does not make it easier

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that the people involved in the plot have later suggested that part of the story can't be true.

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For example, Yusupov's claim to have gotten the potassium cyanide from Vasily Maklakov,

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a later ambassador for Russia. Maklakov claimed that he did not give any poison to Yusupov,

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but just a harmless powder. But even if the poison was obtained, the one who laced all the cakes and

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all the wine, Dr. Stanislav Lazovert, changed his mind in the last section, the second, and did not

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want to break his Hippocratic oath. So Lazovert claimed to have used something else and it's

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suggested that he used aspirin instead. And the autopsy could not really confirm anything other

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than a gunshot to the head as a cause of death. No sign of drowning or poison seemed to have been

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visible in the autopsy. But again, this was performed in the early 1900s where, you know,

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we were still giving aspirin to hemophiliacs, so we might have to take this with a grain of salt,

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of course. And Maria Razputin also claimed in her memoirs that her father did not enjoy sweets, so

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the poison part of the story would be completely out of the question. And while we might be, well,

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not able to fully confirm the story, I think it's important to note here that the story primarily

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builds on Yusuf's claim. And he wanted to eliminate Razputin due to his claimed influence

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over the Tsar. So using the rumors surrounding this religious man, and Yusuf then tried to

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portray him as in more or less in league with the devil, a Satan incarnated trying to destroy

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the beautiful Russia homeland and all this. So he's just saving Russia from this enemy.

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And it's important to remember that tales can have an agenda, and we need to evaluate this

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agenda when we're listening at the story. Interestingly, Nationalists has picked up

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this story and then completely reversed it. So in the Nationalistic version of the story,

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Yusuf is portrayed as a decadent bisexual who have been influenced to become one of those

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secular Westerners. Yusuf was then trying to kill the protector of Russia, Razputin, who gets,

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well, protection from God Almighty due to his pure Orthodox belief in the one Almighty God. But

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the devil could not be beaten in the end, and he dies. Alien proponents in turn claim that Razputin

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was possessed or channeled, you know, alien being, and those were the ones protecting him in all of

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these powers and everything, trying to tie in their segments back to the idea that extraterrestrial

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beings can take over a person and make them do evil things. Again, this adds to the stigma around

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mental health in this while Razputin seems to not have been mentally ill. The ancient aliens want to

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make this type of connection. In the end, Razputin was not some evil magician who tried to take over

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Russia, but more or less a convenient scapegoat during a time of extreme turbulence. And I find

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the connection that the show make that Razputin was possessed by evil aliens quite harmful to be

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honest, and it does tie into the idea of stigmatization that we talked about in the first

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part of this show. And out of the oven and into the fire we travel to Nazi Germany for this last

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section, after these few messages.

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Welcome to the Renaissance castle Wibblesburg, outside a small village in Germany. We have been

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here previously in our episode Aliens and the Third Reich, but it seems to be time to make a

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revisit at the site. The castle was built in 1603 and acquired by Heinrich Himmler in November of

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1933, who wanted to expand the palace and make it to become a cult place for his

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Ariosophic ideas. One symbol in the castle have been a center of many theories and speculations.

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Mike Fitzgerald described the black sun symbols just as this. Wibblesburg castle was acquired

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in 1933 by Himmler. He intended to make that the spiritual center of the world.

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Black sun symbol symbolized an invisible sun or a dead sun and consequently it was believed

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that there was hidden power that resided in that that could be tapped. That would link you into a

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completely different source of energies from the ordinary ones that you would get. In what was

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formerly known as the SS-Obergruppführer Hall, located on the first floor of the castle,

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we can find a room with 12 pillars and a type of sun symbol with 12 spokes created from tiles in

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the center of the rooms. Each spoke almost look like a Sigrun and connects to the center of the

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symbol in what could be described as a shield. There have been speculation that this symbol

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have taken inspiration from older sources. While it's often suggested to be a Norse symbol, it is

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in fact not. What we know today as the black sun seems to be modeled after French disc with a

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similar design. We find these engraved, especially women graves interestingly, as disc that seems to

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have been part of either a belt or a brooch for a tunic during the especially Merovingian period

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in France. While there are older examples from the Bronze Age, the ones we find during the 5th

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and 8th century CE and early Middle Ages are more analogous to what we see at the floor or see in

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the floor at Wölfersberg. But why did Himmler add this symbol to the floor of this castle? As usual,

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we can thank our three usual suspects within Nazi symbolism. Gideon von List, William Landing and

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Helena Blavatsky. In her most influential work The Secret Doctrine from 1888, Blavatsky described

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quote a point unseen and mysterious the ever hidden center of attraction of our sun and system

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and within this quote she make a distinction between the Semitic and Aryan cosmology. An idea

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that was picked up by the Völkisch movement in Germany and Gideon von List often talk about this

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primal fire. But the most influence over the Black Sun as a modern neo-Nazi idea could be credited to

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William Landing, a former SS member and occultist who in large preserved the idea of Aryosophy and

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introduced it to later generations of Nazis. Landing wrote for example the Thule Theology to

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attract younger people to the esoteric Nazis that he is or was promoting. And in this fantasy for

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right-wing radicals, a former SS official are heroes fighting you know the Jewish conspiracy

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and he mixes Atlantis and the origin of Aryans with the neo-nationalistic mythos of hidden Nazi UFO

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based in Antarctica, Nazi Tibet connections of ancient masters, grain mythos and of course alchemy.

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And it makes sense that Himmler would have found this concept about the esoteric light

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fascinating and most likely why the symbol is found here can be found within the esoteric ideas.

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Himmler is one of the few top Nazis official who were active in the esoteric movement during

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Nazi Germany. But something we should note here is that within Nazi Germany there was not a concept

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referred to as the Black Sun or Schwarze Sonne. The symbol we find in Wilversburg was only referred

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to as Sonnenrad or a Sunwheel by the Nazi Germans. SS officer and folklorist Bernhard Frank who spent

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time at the castle around 1935 never heard the term Black Sun being used to reference the Sonnenrad

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in the center of this room. He claims that this is a post-war idea and this claim seemed to be

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correct. The first connection made between the concept of the Black Sun and the Sunwheel that

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we find at Wilversburg is in the book The Black Sun on Tashi Lunopo by author Russell MacLeod

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released in 1991. In the book MacLeod links the Sunwheel to the esoteric myth of Carl Maria

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Willigott and Gideon Liszt. And the book is a occult Nazi thriller that utilized the Nazi

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mythos around Tibet, Thule, and Mongolia. And the Nazi mythos incorporated Blavatsky's idea about

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Shambhala, a concept that Blavatsky herself borrowed from Tibetan Buddhism. And within this

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branch of Buddhism Shambhala is a type of spiritual kingdom. And within theosophy this

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spiritual kingdom became an invisible land where the hidden masters who spoke to the

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theosophic prophets like Helena Blavatsky resided. The Nazis also added the idea of

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Agartha to their legends. And this is an invention by Alexandre Saint-Huves,

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the Alverger. It was claimed that Alexander was visited by higher masters in 1885 from Agartha.

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That's part of Alexander's idea of the Hall of Earth. In the past they had been part of a world

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government. But around 3200 BCE they had been transferred to reside within the Hall of Earth

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instead. One of the entrances to the invisible earth in Agartha is supposedly to be found in

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Mongolia. And all of this became part of MacLeod's story that would come to heavily influence the

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neo-Nazi movement in the early 90s. And since then the Black Sun of Wölfersberg has become a

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key symbol among neo-Nazis. And today is maybe one of the most frequent symbols you might encounter.

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But as we see here the symbol is not connected to the Vikings or symbology used within the

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Scandinavian Viking societies. So the Black Suns with Norse runes are heavily heavily anachronistic.

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Also while Fitzgerald Kuh is correct regarding the idea of an invisible sun as part of the esoteric

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legacy of Nazi mystics. He, like many others, get the connection between that idea and the symbol

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wrong as we see here. I also want, as in our Nazi episode, bring up the problematic aspect of

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connecting these horrible ideas and crimes of Nazi Germanians with Alien. As we saw in back in

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episode 19 they allude to that the Germans did what they did not due to cultist following, bad

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people, and a horrible view of humans, but due to alien influence. These claims take away some of

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the individual autonomy and shift blame from the Nazis to Alien. I also find it highly problematic

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that they allude to the mental illness and crimes of people in Germany during the Nazi regime.

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Ancient Aliens is not really Holocaust denialism and is pretty darn close to be honest and

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does add to the misinformation about the cause and the idea of Nazis. As we have seen in the past

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ancient aliens are not beyond directly quoting and using neo-Nazi writers as sources in their

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materials. And on that bombshell I will close out this episode. While we did not talk much about

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archeology, I think we did have an exciting and at least important discussion and probably managed to

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remove some misguided ideas we might have had going into all of this. So I guess we have to

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continue our search for alien life forms in our next episode. Well until next time please spread

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the word by leaving a positive review on platforms like iTunes, Spotify, or preferably among your

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fellow trench dwellers or armchair professors. For more information about me and the podcast check

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out diggingupancientaliens.com. There you will also find an extensive list of sources and resources

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and reading recommendations for those eager to expand their knowledge on the subject matter

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on the episode page. If you want to support the show head over to patreon.com digging up

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ancient aliens or if you want to get the most out of your buck head over to archaeologicalpodcastnetwork.com

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where you get tons of bonus content, slack channels, and hourly ad-free episode. And that membership

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covers every episode so there's a great amount of content for your hard-earned money. And if you want

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to contact me it can be done through most social media sites and if you have comments, corrections,

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suggestions, or want to write an email in all caps you find my contact info on the website. Sandra

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Martelor created the intro music and our outro is by the amazing band called Tralskriv who sings

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their song Foliehatt. Links to both of these artists can be found in the show notes. Until next time keep

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shoveling that science!

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