Occult Forces

When the Nazi's occupied France during World War II, their ferocious propaganda machine worked to indoctrinate citizens into their warped value system — including an intense disdain for Freemasonry.

One of their tools was the 1943 movie Occult Forces. Ignoring the fact the film is grainy with poor sound quality, factually inaccurate and uses sinister props that conjure up visions of Plan Nine From Outer Space, it provides some insight into what may be a contributing factor to any anti-Masonic sentiment in France — or elsewhere — today.

Maurice Rémy plays Pierre Avenel, the film's protagonist. Rémy was a "B-List" French actor who had even played in anti-Nazi films. However, he had a quick, if not predictable, change of heart once the Gestapo took charge. Regardless of whether his conversion to Nazi sympathies was genuine, his role in the movie earned him a hasty one-way ticket to Argentina after the war.

Director Jean Charles Mamy and screenwriter Jean Marquès-Rivière were Freemasons who "saw the light" and renounced their memberships. After the war, France sentenced both to death, specifically for the roles they played in producing the film. Marquès-Rivière fled to Argentina. Mamy faced a firing squad on March 29, 1949.

The film telegraphs its anti-Masonic theme from the opening credits where a shadowy blob descends before the viewer's eyes and comes into focus as an ugly spider with a square and compasses on its back. Subtle, eh?

Rémy's character, Pierre Avenel, is a high-ranking French official whom the Masons feel they need to control in order to accomplish their evil purposes. (I might add, the film's Freemasons are members of the Grand Orient of France, one of the groups considered clandestine in the US). Their solution is to initiate and indoctrinate him. His initiation is a combination of the familiar and bizarre, and once a member, he falls into the abyss of clandestine alliances and corrupt deals.

Over time, Avenel becomes disillusioned as the Masons plot to put their plan for world domination into practice. He attempts to demit, but the Grand Master encourages him to remain a member with a combination of threats and promises to promote him to "superior levels."

Finally, the Masons can no longer tolerate Avenel's insolence. The Grand Master expels him and sends men to attack him. As Avenel recuperates the Masons rise up against Germany and drag it and the rest of the world into the flames of war.

There is no telling what influence this film had on audiences at its release. It certainly had enough impact to have Rémy, Mamy and Marquès-Rivière convicted of collaborating with the enemy. Some of the accusations and myths about Freemasonry it brought into focus were the following:

Conspiracy theorists today claim there is a top tier of Masons, run behind the scenes by powerful individuals, who hold the real authority. Outside that elite tier, "average" Masons don't know what is going on. "In Masonry," the Grand Master tells Avenel, "we hide everything from the little people."

Claims abound that there are "higher degrees" in the craft, whose recipients learn the real secrets and gain the real benefits and power of the fraternity. The film reinforces this when the Grand Master dangles membership in the "superior levels" of Freemasonry in front of Avenel, in an attempt to get him to cooperate.

The film depicts Masonry's perceived anti-Catholic stance by the fact that Avenel is himself a member of the Catholic church. In the investigation scene, one member of the committee literally gasps upon learning Avenel is Catholic. It takes fancy footwork to convince the committee members Avenel is "spiritual, but non-practicing." Even at that, his election to receive the degrees is not unanimous.

The audience is made to see Brothers as social-climbers who seek and grant favors among themselves. Government officials hand out jobs and judges acquit the guilty because of the bond of fraternity.

In one telling scene the Grand Master reveals absolutely no one is in charge of Freemasonry; that it moves as a ubiquitous force. Even the Grand Master just receives and passes orders. He describes a nebulous structure that leaves the door open for conspiracy theorists to fill in the blanks and make of Freemasonry practically anything they want.

With these and other examples Occult Forces is a film full of stereotypes, myths and deceptions about Freemasonry. These misrepresentations so parallel some of the outrageous claims of anti-Masons today one wonders if this single piece of Nazi propaganda merely included existing fabrications or was, in fact, the origin of prevailing myths about the fraternity.