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Chasing the Green Dragon: French Occult Conspiracy, Nazi Mysticism, and Gaston de Mengel's Journey to the East
In 1937, a British-Belgian occultist arrived in Berlin to brief Heinrich Himmler on a secret society called the Green Dragon. Tracing his unbelievable claims, Chasing the Green Dragon dives into the interwar Parisian occult underground, where intelligence operators and esotericists mingled in the temple of the Polaires, Masonic lodges, and Maria de Naglowska’s Luciferian salons, sometimes with fatal results.
A highly intellectual but eccentric scholar, Gaston de Mengel worked with René Guénon, the Cambodian Prince Iukanthor, and possibly with the French secret service – without realising it.
Based on a wealth of obscure sources, including new archival finds, the stranger-than-fiction story of Gaston de Mengel is a unique account of little-known cultural currents that gave birth to numerous post-war conspiracy theories and Nazi Mysteries – and Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum.
“Truly an alternative history of the fi rst half of the twentieth century!”
(Joscelyn Godwin)
“Reads like a novel—but it’s true”
(Massimo Introvigne, author of A Social History)
“Fascinating... a valuable piece of research”
(Richard Spence, author of Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley,
British Intelligence and the Occult)
A highly intellectual but eccentric scholar, Gaston de Mengel worked with René Guénon, the Cambodian Prince Iukanthor, and possibly with the French secret service – without realising it.
Based on a wealth of obscure sources, including new archival finds, the stranger-than-fiction story of Gaston de Mengel is a unique account of little-known cultural currents that gave birth to numerous post-war conspiracy theories and Nazi Mysteries – and Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum.
“Truly an alternative history of the fi rst half of the twentieth century!”
(Joscelyn Godwin)
“Reads like a novel—but it’s true”
(Massimo Introvigne, author of A Social History)
“Fascinating... a valuable piece of research”
(Richard Spence, author of Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley,
British Intelligence and the Occult)
363 pages, Paperback
Published October 8, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 5, 2026
incredibly fascinating look into one man's journey through the occult in the interwar period, providing fact with an entertaining lens, similar to the novelized reports that created so much mystery in this research
April 26, 2026
Mixed feelings. It paints interesting portraits of personalities in the occult underground. But the Green Dragon is left lurking in the background.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews