• Title: The Spear of Destiny
• Author: Trevor Ravenscroft
• Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser
• Pub. Date: June 1987
• ISBN-13: 9780877285472
• Pages: 400
• Edition Number: 2
• Rating **** (out of 5 possible)

In order to explain the otherwise unfathomable rise to power of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis, mainstream historians devised the phrase “the banality of evil.”

Hitler and his henchmen, so the theory goes, appeared so ordinary and mundane that no one could spot their real intentions or their murderous deeds until it was too late. 

The author of this book has a different take on topic. He maintains that Hitler was the reincarnation of an evil political minister from 1,000 years earlier and was motivated by revenge for being castrated.  (Hitler had only one descended testicle. Make of that what you will.)

The central theme of Ravenscroft’s book is Hitler’s strange fixation on an ancient Roman spear, which some believe was the weapon a Roman soldier named Longinus used to pierce the side of Jesus, ending his suffering on the cross. The spear of Longinus came to be known as the Spear of Destiny because the legend surrounding the weapon stated that whatever nation possessed the spear would control the fate of the world.

Hitler fervently believed this legend. When he came to power in 1933, the spear was in a museum in Vienna. According to Ravenscroft, one of Hilter’s primary motivations for expanding German territory prior to World War Two was to possess the spear, which came about in 1938 with Germany’s takeover of Austria.

Ravenscroft also explores Hitler’s occult beliefs and practices, an area mainstream historians either don’t know about or, if they do, they avoid discussing because they don’t want to seem weird. Hitler was very strange, and Ravenscorft’s explanations of the man’s beliefs and practices help our understanding to a certain extent.

Too bad Ravenscroft either did not know about energy or did not choose to reveal further details about it. One of Hitler’s most consequential abilities was his skill in using the energy of consciousness while he was speaking. He may have looked and sounded comical, but his evil intent was to manipulate his listeners at the subconscious (emotional) level. He succeeded, with repercussions on world events that echo to this day.

Long out of print and hard to find, thanks to print-on-demand technology this book is now readily available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble online and most likely other Internet bookstores, too.

I would give the book 5 stars, but the writing of the edition I own  is terrible and should have been heavily edited before going to print. So it gets 4 stars for fascinating content and a compelling story that takes readers way out of the banality of evil into the full horror of it.

After the defeat of the Third Reich, the United States took possession of the weapon, and has dominated the world’s destiny ever since. If the legend is true, another nation will have to control the spear for that to change.