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Ronald Reagan and the occultist: The amazing story of the thinker behind his sunny optimism

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Christopher O'Brien

Back in the Saddle Aginn
Staff member
[Ronny Ray-gun had some interesting beliefs.... good article —chris]

Ronald Reagan often spoke of America’s divine purpose and of a mysterious plan behind the nation’s founding. “You can call it mysticism if you want to,” he told the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1974, “but I have always believed that there was some divine plan that placed this great continent between two oceans to be sought out by those who were possessed of an abiding love of freedom and a special kind of courage.” These were remarks to which Reagan often returned. He repeated them almost verbatim as president before a television audience of millions for the Statue of Liberty centenary on July 4, 1986.

When touching on such themes, Reagan echoed the work, and sometimes the phrasing, of occult scholar Manly P. Hall.

From the dawn of Hall’s career in the early 1920s until his death in 1990, the Los Angeles teacher wrote about America’s “secret destiny.” The United States, in Hall’s view, was a society that had been planned and founded by secret esoteric orders to spread enlightenment and liberty to the world…

Reagan’s penchant for science fiction has been widely noted. The United World Federalists could seem like the kind of universal government that sometimes showed up in sci-fi entertainment, like the United Federation of Planets in “Star Trek,” or the Galactic Republic (replaced by the evil Galactic Empire) in the “Star Wars” movies. Perhaps not coincidentally, Reagan also spoke openly of his belief in UFOs for much of his life. According to family friend Lucille Ball, Reagan insisted in the 1950s that he and Nancy had a close brush with a flying saucer while they were driving down the coastal highway one night. The couple, Ball recalled, arrived almost an hour late for a Los Angeles dinner party at the home of actor William Holden. They came in “all out of breath and so excited” and proceeded to tell shocked friends about witnessing a UFO. As president, Reagan more than once assured Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev that an interstellar threat would unite U.S. and Soviet societies. Gorbachev honestly seemed perplexed as to whether Reagan was kidding, but ultimately decided he was not…

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The Lucy story was interesting- I had to dig for the full quote:

“…One night we went to Bill Holden’s for dinner, and it was fun at first, but we couldn’t eat until two of the other guests arrived, and they were almost an hour late. The tardy two were Ron and Nancy Reagan. Desi had time for a few extra cocktails, and was sailing by the time the Reagans arrived. They were all out of breath and so excited and said they couldn’t help being late because of what happened. Are you ready? They saw a UFO and stopped to watch it. After he was elected president, I kept wondering if he’d have still won if he told everybody he’d seen a flying saucer.” -From the book, Lucy in the Afternoon

Anyone have more information on this? Sounds like the 50s? From what I hear President Reagan had more SPP (sightings per President) than anyone else ever to hold the office!
 
Reagan tried to float the idea that humanity must unite to protect ourselves from threats from the "outside." I think it is a spectacular notion and probably the ultimate planetary goal. I have thought we should be spending a great deal of money and time on a global scale figuring out how to survive the next major planetary catastrophe. However, with the advent of Fukushima I don't think we need to wait for asteroids or alien overlords from Planet X, we have a unifying threat right now. Can we unite and beat our own stupidity, greed, and short-sightedness? Nah. aliens though, we could totally handle. Sheesh.

The reality is that if aliens from another world came here to monkey with us, they probably would not be fighting according to our playbook. Biological, germ, and radiological warfare would probably be their first choices not their last resorts. Think exterminator rather than terminator, or space marine. Why wage war with something you can just genocide with the right mixture of chemicals and a suborbital delivery system?
 
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