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 One New Age channelling cult,
above all the rest, has had a huge - very disturbing influence on hundreds
of thousands of devotees worldwide. Known as 'The Nine', its disciples
include cutting edge scientists, multi-millionaire industrialists and leading
politicians. This exclusive extract based on The Startgate Conspiracy by
Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince looks at the sinister origins of The Nine...
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- "I am the beginning. I am the end. I am the emissary.
But the original time I was on the Planet Earth was 34,000 of your years
ago. I am the balance. And when I say "I" - I mean because I
am an emissary for The Nine. It is not I , but it is the group - We are
nine principles of the Universe, yet together we are one."
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- The declaration above is typical of the channelled pronouncements
of the Council of Nine or just The Nine,. They contain all the usual New
Age ingredients of grandiose statements, shaky grammar and unprovable predictions.
But unlike all the other channelling cults, that of The Nine has serious
clout. Perhaps the reason for this is that they claim to be the Ennead,
or the nine major gods of ancient Egypt (see panel). Or could there be
another reason, one that owes more to The X-Files than the Pyramid Texts?
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 Although The Nine may appear to
be quintessentially a modern phenomenon, our research uncovered its truly
astonishing pedigree. In fact, the story begins nearly 50 years ago, in
a private research laboratory in Glen Cove, Maine, called the Round Table
Foundation, run by a medical doctor named Andrija Puharich (also known
as Henry K Puharich).Set up in 1948 to research the paranormal, among the
noted psychics studied at the Foundation were the famous Irish medium Eileen
Garrett and the Dutch clairvoyant Peter Hurkos (Pieter van de Hirk).Prominent
members included the influential philosopher and inventor Arthur M Young
and the socialite Alice Bouverie (née Astor).
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- In December 1952, Puharich brought into his laboratory
an Indian mystic named Dr D G Vinod, who began to channel The Nine or the
Nine Principles,. In the months before Vinod returned to India, a group
met regularly to hear The Nine,s channelled wisdom. Never known for their
modesty, The Nine proclaimed themselves to be God, stating "God is
nobody else than we together, the Nine Principles of God."
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- Three years later, there appeared to be independent confirmation
of their existence. In Mexico, Puharich and Young met Charles and Lillian
Laughead, former Christian missionaries who were by then prominent in the
burgeoning UFO contactee movement. (For a description of their involvement
in the Dorothy Martin circle, see Jerome Clark,s When Prophecy Failed,
in FT117.) Back in the States a few weeks later, Puharich received a letter
from the Laugheads containing messages received by their group,s channeller.
This message also claimed to come from the Nine Principles, even amazingly
including references to the earlier communications transmitted through
Dr Vinod. Could The Nine possibly be for real?
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 Perhaps the answer is embedded
in the career of Puharich himself. After disbanding the Round Table Foundation
in 1958, he worked for 10 years as an inventor of medical devices and achieved
international recognition as a parapsychologist, most famously studying
the Brazilian psychic surgeon, Arigo (José Pedro de Freitas). But
all that was to pale into insignificance because, in 1971, Puharich discovered
Uri Geller.
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- At their first meetings in Tel Aviv in 1971, Puharich
hypnotised Geller in an attempt to find out where his abilities came from.
As a result, the young Israeli started to channel Spectra, an entity which
claimed to be a conscious super-computer aboard a spaceship. However, Puharich
suggested to him that there might be a connection with the Nine Principles,
and Spectra readily agreed that there was. The Nine claimed that they had
programmed Geller with his powers as a young child.
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- Through Geller, The Nine alerted Puharich to his life,s
mission, which was to use Geller,s talents to alert the world to an imminent
mass landing of spaceships that would bring representatives of The Nine.
However, Geller by now an international psychic superstar bowed out in
1973 and has resolutely turned his back on The Nine ever since. Puharich
had to find other channels. He joined up with aristocratic former racing
driver Sir John Whitmore and Florida-based psychic and healer Phyllis Schlemmer.
They found a new channeller a Daytona cook known to history only by the
pseudonym Bobby Horne, who lived to regret his dealings with The Nine.
Driven to the brink of suicide by their constant demands, he too dropped
out of the scene his despair being dismissed by Whitmore as "signs
of instability". After this, Phyllis Schlemmer was appointed the authorised
spokesperson for the entity known simply as Tom, who represented The Nine
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 Puharich, Whitmore and Schlemmer
then set up Lab Nine at Puharich,s estate in Ossining, New York. The Nine,s
disciples included multi-millionaire businessmen (many hiding behind pseudonyms
and including members of Canada,s richest family, the Bronfmans), European
nobility, scientists from the Stamford Research Institute and at least
one prominent political figure who was a personal friend of President Gerald
Ford.
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- We also know that Lyall Watson (then the darling of the
alternative scene because of his seminal 1973 book Supernature) was involved,
as was the influential counter-culture guru Ira Einhorn and Gene Roddenberry,
creator of Star Trek.
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- The key to predicting eclipses is noticing that they
occur in cycles, or at more or less regular intervals. The Sun goes round
the sky once a year; the Moon once a month. This means that, every month,
the Moon overtakes, the sun. This happens at the New Moon, and this is
when solar eclipses occur. But, of course, we don,t get an eclipse every
New Moon. This is because the Moon has an elliptical orbit: sometimes it
passes above the Sun when it overtakes it, sometimes below. But the Moon,s
elliptical orbit has its own cycle: it returns to the same place it started
from every 18 years or so. Thus if seen from the same place on Earth an
eclipse will be followed by another one just over 18 years later.
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- Roddenberry was part of that circle in 1974 and 1975,
and even produced the screenplay for a movie about The Nine. How much he
was influenced by them is unknown, although it is said that some of their
concepts found their way into the early Star Trek movies, and The Next
Generation and Deep Space Nine (what a giveaway!) series.
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- (There is a character named Vinod, in one Deep Space
Nine episode.) Another key player in Lab Nine was Dr James J Hurtak, who
was appointed Puharich,s second-in-command by The Nine. In fact, Hurtak
had been independently channelling The Nine since 1973. Puharich and Whitmore
commissioned British writer Stuart Holroyd to write an account of their
adventures, which appeared in 1977 as Prelude to the Landing on Planet
Earth (retitled Briefings for the Landing on Planet Earth in paperback)
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- n this extraordinary book the true identity of the Nine
and of Tom was finally revealed. Far from being the chummy character that
his rather avuncular name suggests, Tom is actually Atum, the creator-god
of the ancient Egyptian religion of Heliopolis, and Uncle Tom with his
eight mates are none other than the Great Ennead of Heliopolis,
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- But even with such impressive contacts, all was not well
with Puharich. Lab Nine broke up in 1978 after a series of mysterious events
that culminated in an arson attack on the Ossining estate, and he fled
to Mexico, claiming that he was being persecuted by the CIA. He returned
to the USA two years later, and appears to have played no further part
in The Nine story. He died in 1995 after falling down the stairs in his
South Carolina home.
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- However, The Nine continued. Not only did Schlemmer and
Whitmore continue their mission, but Dr Hurtak has also moved on. He has
become a major player in the unfolding millennial drama currently being
played out at Giza, but perhaps more importantly he has established himself
as a New Age guru par excellence, travelling the world giving workshops
on his book of channelled revelations from The Nine, The Keys of Enoch.
Written and laid out in classic Biblical style, its darkly apocalyptic
vision has huge numbers of influential devotees.This we find very worrying.
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- Another Nine channel an Englishwoman named Jenny O,Connor
was introduced to the avant garde Esalen Institute in San Francisco by
Sir John Whitmore. She and The Nine became so influential there that they
held seminars and unbelievably were actually listed on the Institute,s
staff, even successfully ordering the sacking of its chief finance officer
and the reorganisation of its entire management structure..
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- This should concern us, because many influential people
attended The Nine,s Esalen seminars, including Russians who were part of
the Institute,s Soviet Exchange programme. Some of these later rose to
prominence in the Gorbachev regime and were instrumental in the downfall
of Communism. (The Esalen Institute now runs the US branch of the Gorbachev
Foundation.)
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- The Nine are very much still with us. One of their recent
channels, who is also in contact with Tom, is the American writer David
M Myers. He is co-author with Britain,s David S Percy of that extraordinary
tome Two-Thirds, a history of the galaxy and the human race according to
Myer,s otherwordly contacts (who clearly have no sense of the absurd).
Percy best known as a champion of the Face on Mars, and the hoaxing, of
the Apollo moon landings was at one time part of the Schlemmer circle.
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- Among the other major proponents of the monuments, of
Mars and their alleged connection with ancient Egypt is none other than
Dr James Hurtak The Nine,s great prophet who has promoted this idea since
as long ago as 1973. Richard C Hoagland familiar to FT readers as another
unrepentant Mars Face, enthusiast is also clearly under The Nine,s spell.
David Myers and David Percy were, respectively, American and European Director
of Operations for Hoagland,s Mars Mission. In fact, his interpretation
of the monuments, of Mars comes directly from The Nine. Flake though he
may appear (increasingly in these hallowed pages), but his influence over
huge swathes of the hungrier mystery seekers is undeniable. This is the
man who addresses rapt audiences at the United Nations.
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- But it is in the New Age channelling circuit that The
Nine have truly come into their own. In any other circles their true agenda
would no doubt have been rumbled long ago, but this is the New Age. Anything
The Nine say must be sweetness and light, right? But an objective reading
of their divine pronouncements reveal the first stirrings of something
very nasty in Paradise.
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- Their words appeared in 1992 as the book The Only Planet
of Choice, credited to transceiver, Schlemmer and edited by Mary Bennett
(a one-time member of the Schlemmer circle who also edited Myers and Percy,s
Two-Thirds). This has had an unprecedented influence over the New Age.
According to Palden Jenkins (editor of an earlier edition of Only Planet)
more and more New Age channelling groups are realising, that the real source
of their wisdom is The Nine.8 In fact, we have discerned what amounts to
a campaign by The Nine or their adherents to take over, the New Age. It
would be a mistake to underestimate the economic or even political potential
of this vast subculture rich pickings indeed.
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- But The Nine,s influence does not extend merely to New
Age channelling circles. Andrija Puharich, James Hurtak and Richard Hoagland
have all lectured at the United Nations in New York. And individuals connected
with The Nine are also known to have influence with Vice-President Al Gore.
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- Of course, if The Nine really are the ancient gods of
Egypt, then surely there could be fewer more significant events than their
return. One may be justified in thinking that the more leading politicians
who fall under their influence the better; but are they really the ancient
Ennead of Egypt? Can it be that they have actually returned to sort us
all out, scattering love and enlightenment from their high moral ground?
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- Tom, in The Only Planet of Choice, chooses his words
carefully as he explains that all the races of the Earth were seeded from
space-gods except one, the "indigenous race", the blacks. He
is very careful to urge us not to make an issue out of this. After all,
it,s not the black race,s fault that they have no divine spark like the
rest of us.
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- But The Nine,s influence does not extend merely to New
Age channelling circles. Andrija Puharich, James Hurtak and Richard Hoagland
have all lectured at the United Nations in New York. And individuals connected
with The Nine are also known to have influence with Vice-President Al Gore.
Of course, if The Nine really are the ancient gods of Egypt, then surely
there could be fewer more significant events than their return. One may
be justified in thinking that the more leading politicians who fall under
their influence the better; but are they really the ancient Ennead of Egypt?
Can it be that they have actually returned to sort us all out, scattering
love and enlightenment from their high moral ground?
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- Tom, in The Only Planet of Choice, chooses his words
carefully as he explains that all the races of the Earth were seeded from
space-gods except one, the "indigenous race", the blacks. He
is very careful to urge us not to make an issue out of this. After all,
it,s not the black race,s fault that they have no divine spark like the
rest of us.
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- Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the history of
The Nine is its relationship to the career of Andrija Puharich. Recent
research has revealed Puharich to have a distinctly sinister side. As an
Army doctor in the 1950s, he was deeply involved with the CIA,s notorious
MKULTRA mind control project (see panel). He together with the infamous
Dr Sidney Gottlieb experimented with a variety of techniques to change
or induce actual thought processes even to creating the impression of voices
in the head. These techniques included the use of drugs, hypnosis and beaming
radio signals directly into the subject,s brain. And, significantly, he
was engaged in this work at exactly the same time that The Nine made their
first appearance at the Round Table Foundation. The Foundation itself is
now known to have been largely funded by the Pentagon as a front for its
medical and parapsychological research. Puharich was still working for
the CIA in the early 1970s, when he brought Uri Geller out of Israel. Puharich,s
use of hypnosis is particularly interesting in The Nine circle. In the
case of Uri Geller and Bobby Horne, he first hypnotised them and then suggested
that they were in touch with The Nine and lo, they were! Ira Einhorn a
close associate of Puharich,s during the 1970s confirmed to us that he
believed that Puharich was "humanly directing" The Nine communications.
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- The evidence we have gathered strongly suggests that
Tom and his fellow gods originated, not in the stars, but behind closed
doors as part of a CIA mind control experiment. And what happened to that
experiment? Now with hundreds of thousands of devotees, some in very high
places, can The Nine be deemed a success? Of course, that depends very
much on what the CIA had in mind. With their subtle racist propaganda,
perhaps the flaky New Age Nine should worry the hell out of us.
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- A fully annotated version of this article appears in
Fortean Times 126
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- FT 126 IS OUT NOW!
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- <http://www.forteantimes.com/artic/126/artic/default.htm
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