Bergier, Jacques (1912-1978)

Co-author with Louis Pauwels of the sensational best-selling work Le Matin des magiciens (France, 1960), translated as The Dawn of Magic (London, 1963) and The Morning of the Magicians (1971). This book significantly influenced the magical revival in Europe with its observations about the part that black magic played in the career of Hitler and the establishment of Nazi philosophy.

Bergier, born in 1912 in Doessa in a Jewish family, emigrated to France in 1920. In 1931, he and fellow student Alfred Eskenazi established a laboratory in Paris to study chemical and nuclear reactions, propagating the release of nuclear energy from lighter elements. Bergier was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo in 1943. After the war, Bergier founded and edited the magazine Planeté, which appeared in various foreign editions as Planeta (Spain), Pianeta (Italy), Planeta (Brazil), and Planet (Germany). He also wrote a number of additional books on occult and ancient astronaut themes. Originally published in French, they had a wide appeal in their English editions, with their constant themes of paranoia, conspiracy, and alternative history.

Sources:

Bergier, Jacques. Extraterrestrial Visitations from Prehistoric Times to the Present. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1973. Reprinted as Mysteries of the Earth: The Hidden World of the Extra-Terrestrials. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1974.

——. Secret Doors of the Earth. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1975.

Bergier, Jacques, and INFO editors. Extraterrestrial Intervention: The Evidence. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1974.

Pauwels, Louis, and Jacques Bergier. The Eternal Man. London: Souvenir, 1972.

——. Impossible Possibilities. New York: Stein and Day, 1971.

——. Le Matin des magiciens. Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1960. Translated as The Dawn of Magic. London: Anthony Gibbs and Phillips, 1963. Reprinted as The Morning of the Magicians. New York: Stein and Day, 1964.