SPIRITUALISTS BANNED

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 27 March 1935, Page 8

SPIRITUALISTS BANNED

ACTION TAKEN IN GERMANY,

DISSOLVED BY SECRET POLICE. LONDON, March 16. A hundred thousand Germans, membens of the Weissenberg spiritualistic religions sect, were stunned recently when* they learned that the secret police had dissolved and prohibited their movement “for scandalous behaviour at religious meetings.” v- The sect claims that its leader, the - SO-year-old Patriarch, Josef Wiessenberg, has magnetic powers of healing and “achieves cures by transferring these powers to beautiful young female assistants.”

It is also claimed that he inspired Hitler himself—a claim that is nowheld to be an “insult to National Socialism.”

Another claim made by the sect is that the spirits of Martin Luther and President von Hindenburg sometimes appear at its meetings. One grave complaint now made by the Nazis against the sect is that exsoldiers appeared at its services—or seances—wearing uniforms with the Swastika, thereby “humiliating Nazi ideals.”

Til is sect, which has grown from humble beginning to wealth and fame lias now bad all its property confiscated. It lias a church, heer hall and other buildings at Trebbin, fifteen miles from Potsdam.

Josef Weissenberg, a Prussian, who is fanatically revered bv bis followers, is .said to have foretold Germany’s downfall and to have warned the exKaiser long before the war. One of his most profitable sidelines is a miraculous “cure” composed of cream cheese. Visitors drive up to his estate in luxurious cars to consult him.

In the past ho is reported to have been prosecuted several times, but prominent persons were always ready to come forward to support him, and he was never convicted.