This became a very different book from the one I set out to write fifteen yeas ago. In fact, this became a very different book from the one I set out to write a year ago.

In the last twenty years I have been on familiar terms with several of the occult lodges and political parties described in these pages; I am not certain if one should acknowledge organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan or the National Renaissance Party, or the dark lords of Colonia Dignidad. I don't know if the years I have spent on the periphery (or in the middle) of such groups as the Church of Satan, Scientology, the various OTOs, the Craft, StarGroup One, and the many, many schismatic churches, sects, and underground temples of North America, South America, Europe, and Asia- ears that have certainly been enlightening-merit a comprehensive rundown of all the personalities that have helped shape my ... well, my Weltanschauung, if you will.

Instead, I will confine myself to thanking a few key people who made my life -- and this project -- easier.

A really decent study of Nazi occultism would have to be many thousands of pages longer than this one and would probably lose the general reader in a morass of footnotes and citations in German, Icelandic, Russian, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Sanskrit, French, Spanish, and God knows what else. What I had to content myself with in the interim, however, was this study -- this expose if you will -- of the general outlines of occult theory and practice among elements of the Third Reich with a particular emphasis on the Thule Society, the SS, and the Ahnenerbe-SS. In order to help me accomplish this, I was fortunate enough to have the help of many devoted individuals who may not have believed in my story but who supported my efforts to tell it.

Ingrid Celms -- once herself a victim of the Third Reich-helped with many of the translations from German into English of core Thule documents from the early (pre-WWII) period. She performed this in her spare time and with great (and perhaps distasteful) labor, and for this she has my heartfelt thanks. It should be pointed out, though, that I performed other translations and am ultimately responsible for any errors that may have crept in.

I should thank the resources and staff of the New York Public Library, Main Branch at Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, always my second home no matter where my first one happens to be.

The staff at the Westerly Public Library performed admirably in helping obtain hard-to-locate items from outside the state library system; they and the interlibrary loan program are to be commended.

The people at the Southern Poverty Law Center and its creature, Klanwatch -- and particularly Klanwatch researcher David Webb -- provided tremendous assistance in locating examples of contemporary racist activities in the United States that had a bearing on my thesis. These courageous individuals under the leadership of Morris Dees stand up to the Klan and the neo-Nazis every day of their lives -- sometimes under dire threat -- and are to be warmly applauded.

The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith was a source of information on Skinhead activities and statistics that were informative and vital to my work. Many thanks.

The Religious Movement Resource Center at Fort Collins, Colorado, was very helpful in helping to assess the cult aspects of the Skinhead movement and in suggesting other lines of inquiry.

Ms. Amy Schmidt of the Center for Captured Records at the National Archives was particularly generous with her time, for which I will always be grateful. And earlier, in the seventies, I had several fruitful conversations with Dr. Robert Wolfe at the National Archives, which led me onto the right path with regard to locating Ahnenerbe documentation and introducing me to the work of Michael Kater.

Amnesty International -- in particular Ms. Betsy Ross -- provided valuable assistance in locating documents and testimony concerning the operation of Colonia Dignidad.

As always, Judith McNally provided her excellent critique of the manuscript in early stages and suggested revisions. I have taken most, if not all, of her advice and any shortcomings in the finished product are the result of my stubbornness rather than her judgment.

My thanks also to my agent, Jack Scovil, for his endless patience while I struggled to provide him with a marketable property once and for all.

John Douglas, my editor at Avon, deserves recognition as a fellow conspiracy gourmet for whom paranoia is an essential condiment. Nazi occultism ... what more paranoid a combination is there?

And, as usual, my thanks and love to Rose and Alex (excuse me, "Vivica") who suffered through endless monologues on Nazism, satanism, and the Decline of the West.

Peter Levenda Shanghai, 1994