How West Midland witches and wizards helped bring down Hitler and the Nazis

And they had some success. They played a decisive part in luring Rudolf Hess, the Fuhrer’s deputy, a man jackboot deep in clairvoyance and astrology, to Scotland in a misguided attempt to broker peace.

This is the near unbelievable story of Britain’s secret sorcery war, waged by covert coven commandos. The swastika and pentagram, a Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Satanist saga worthy of John le Carre.

This is Operation Mistletoe, orchestrated by Worcestershire educated warlock Cecil Williamson, directed by Leamington’s leading occultist Aleister Crowley, aided by local men and women who believed in ancient religions and dark arts.

There was method in the secret service’s use of magic: a kind of Wicca warfare run from the “Witchcraft Research Centre”.

For them, it was a powerful propaganda tool. The plan was to unsettle, un-nerve and wrong foot Nazi top brass through the same mystical rites that influenced their vile actions.

And those ruling Germany were becoming increasingly addicted to the occult and primitive rituals.

SS chief Heinrich Himmler, in particular, was near obsessed by Satanism, Viking mythology and the super-natural. He had become reliant on the prophesies of occultist Karl Maria Wiligut who claimed to be a descendant of Norse god Thor.

Hitler’s Achilles’ heel were horoscopes – and British intelligence knew it. They planted fake horoscope predictions that played on the Fuhrer’s unlucky Taurus sign.

Mobile south coast radio stations pumped out bogus news, bogus horoscopes and Nostradamus predictions.

The Third Reich fired back with its own bogus astronomy. The phony star sign skirmish had begun.

Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels also used Nostradamus’ sometimes woolly visions. One favourite was: “The great em­pire, dismembered early, Will grow from the inside out, From a small country. In his lap the sceptre shall rest.”

The German Navy took things to another level. In 1942, they set up the “Pendulum Institute”, comprising astrologers, astronomers, clairvoyants and mathematicians, to discover why so many U-boats were suddenly being destroyed.

Rituals, rites, runes…it was all rubbish to MI6, but these were desperate times that called for desperate measures.

You didn’t have to believe in it, they reasoned, you just had to make the Germans believe you believe in it. At least the Germans who believed in it too.

Those they recruited, however, had no doubt the power to humble Hitler had been harnessed. They pointed out magical ceremonies had thwarted two previous invasions: the Spanish Armada, scattered by storms in 1588, and Napoleon’s plan to over-run this country in 1805. He had second thoughts.

In his 1954 book “Witchraft Today”, Gerald Gardner, civil servant and founder of the modern Wicca religion, said: "Witches did cast spells to stop Hitler landing after France fell.

"They met, raised the great cone of power and directed the thought at Hitler's brain: 'You cannot cross the sea' ... just as their great-grandfathers had done to Boney and their remoter forefathers had done to the Spanish Armada.”

He added: "I am not saying that they stopped Hitler. All I say is that I saw a very interesting ceremony performed with the intention of putting a certain idea into his mind …and though all the invasion barges were ready, the fact was that Hitler never even tried to come."

It is no surprise Operation Mistletoe found its leaders in our region. The supernatural is strong here, the bumps in the night resound louder than anywhere else.

According to folklorist Charlotte Burne, Shropshire was once so awash with witchcraft. A vicar voiced shock over how it influenced the every day lives of his new flock in the Clee Hills and was warned, in no uncertain terms, not to pan dark practices from the pulpit.

The last individual to be burned at the stake for heresy met his grisly end in Lichfield, Staffordshire, on April 11, 1612.

Edward Wightman’s wrongs included providing “spiritual intervention” when a 13-year-old boy was possessed by the devil.

Cecil Williamson and Aleister Crowley were a million miles from the dark age image of those who summoned sinister forces. They were not ragged, cackling outsiders with only their familiars for company. Both were affluent individuals who swam in a champagne sea of cocktail parties and posh gatherings.

Williamson was born in 1909 sucking on a silver spoon. He was educated at Malvern College where he endured relentless bullying until allegedly helped by a local witch. She showed the lad how to cast spells and shortly after Williamson’s classroom tormentor suffered a broken leg while skiing.

In 1947, he attempted to open a witchcraft shop in Stratford-on-Avon, but mass public opposition bulldozed the businesses.

Crowley, aka The Beast, needs no introduction. His occult infamy grew so large in the 1960s – a decade when anti-heroes appeared on t-shirts - that his face features on The Beatles “Sergeant Pepper’s” album cover.

Crowley was born into immense wealth and had acquired his own manor house close to Loch Ness by the age of 25.

That money allowed him to indulge expensive passions. He was a poet, traveller, mountaineer, painter and, to some, a prophet.

The majority of dark deeds levelled at Crowley, such as honing Hitler’s public speaking skills, have no substance. Wipe away the mysticism and you have a man with vices very much of this world. He took hard drugs and possessed a veracious sexual appetite.

His most terrible act? Possibly naming one daughter Nuit Ma Ahathoor Hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith.

It would be a devil of a job to drive out Hitler. Williamson and Crowley had the credentials to do it, spymasters decided.

In 1940, they pulled off one of the more bizarre war-time hoaxes – a ruse designed to ruffle the Third Reich’s feathers.

Picture the scene.

The date is August 1, the eve of Lammas Day, a harvest festival and Greater Sabbat in the Wiccan calendar.

It is close to midnight in the depths of Ashdown Forest, Sussex, and a large group of individuals sway and chant in a trance like state.

Williamson, Crowley and Gardner, swathed in cloaks, are at the centre of the ceremony summoning ancient gods. They hold aloft a “magic mirror” and dummy of Hitler. A lantern points towards Berlin to focus “magical assaults”.

The ritual, titled “Cone of Power”, is an exact copy of one carried out all those years before when Napoleon’s forces flexed their muscles. The robes worn by participants are decorated with symbols from the Key of Solomon, an age-old magical text.

But those 40 devotees who dance in the witches’ circle have one thing in common. They are all, Williamson later insisted, Canadian soldiers ordered to take part in this secret mission.

Yes, the ghoulish gathering is a sham, a Pagan pantomime staged to show Hitler, Himmler and their suspicious henchmen that the same spirits they are trying to illicit are now working for the other side.

Williamson’s account has been dismissed as baloney by some military historians, but there is one piece of compelling evidence to back his story.

An American transmitter, codenamed Aspidistra, was set-up and working when the alleged incident took place.

Professor Sabrina Magliocco, anthropologist at California State University, said the ceremony, whether true or not, is an important insight into the wartime resolve of witches and warlocks.

"It tells us something about what those witches wanted to be true,” she said. “It’s about the power of witches to do something that is nearly impossible.

“It is also about the patriotism of these witches and it also talks about the power of witchcraft to channel the energies of the earth, of nature, through their bodies, to create this Cone of Power."

Author and Wiccan Philip Heselton believes the ceremony took place, but the location was the Dorset seaside town of Highcliffe-on-Sea and 17 true believers – not actors –took part.

"I think it's largely true. In fact, I turn the question on its head and reply that I think it extremely unlikely that something like this would not have happened," he said.

“They were motivated by the times to take part in the defence of their country, however it could be achieved, so they used what skills they believed they had, which were magical ones. Operation Cone of Power was just the sort of thing they would have done.”

Williamson – the Allies very own Witchfinder General – certainly scored memorable successes following his recruitment in 1938.

He identified 2,000 Nazi Party members with interest in the occult and astrology. Assigned to Special Executive Operations, he helped to compile an intelligence dossier entitled “The Use of Astrology in Propaganda”.

And he signed-up Hungarian astrologer Louis de Wohl who was promptly sent on a lecture tour of the States. His subject was “the downfall of the Third Reich as predicted by the stars”. His words made some top Germans jittery.

But by far Williamson’s greatest triumph was his claimed part in the capture of Rudolf Hess.

Hess had already been primed and softened. He had been told some members of the aristocracy were prepared to engage in peace talks.

Williamson was tasked with setting a date for his arrival and did so through a fake astronomical chart that conveniently fell into Hess’ hands.

May 10 – when six planets aligned in the zodiac sign of Taurus – was perfect, the chart revealed. Hess flew solo expecting to be greeted by the Duke of Hamilton and Duke of Kent, then taken to see King George VI.

Instead, he received a not so warm welcome from the Home Guard.

The incarceration of Hess had an unexpected result. Hitler, enraged by his betrayal, blamed psychics and clairvoyants. He rounded-up many, including Hess’ occult advisor Ernst Schutte-Strathaus.

They were banned from staging public performances.

Cecil Williamson, Britain’s state sorcerer, had destroyed Hitler’s faith in sorcery.