a "German Romantic", one who was "beholden to the cultural and historical traditions of old Germany..." to someone classified as a part of an alleged "Nordic/Hitler Cult", one who followed Voelkisch (traditional, antisemitic) beliefs. To further prove the point, Merkl discovered that of those willing to submit their testimonies, "Protestants tended to be German Romantics, Catholics to be anti-Semites, superpatriots, and solidarists. Areas of religious homogeneity were particularly high in anti-Semitism or in the Nordic-German cult," of which members of both religious groups were prone to "Judenkoller", an alleged sudden and violent sickness that would manifest either in blatant hatred or hysteria at being within proximity of Jews. Coincidentally, Merkl mentions a relationship to this Nordic/German-agrarian cult in relation to the 19th century to a "crypto-Nazi tradition", despite being written ten years prior to The Occult Roots of Nazism. Some of this modern mythology even touches Goodrick-Clarke's topic directly. The rumor that Adolf Hitler had encountered the Austrian monk and antisemitic publicist Lanz von Liebenfels, already at the age of 8, at Heilgenkreuz abbey, goes back to Les mystiques du soleil (1971) by Michel-Jean Angbert. "This episode is wholly imaginary." Nevertheless, Michel-Jean Angbert and the other authors discussed by Goodrick-Clarke present their accounts as real, so that this modern mythology has led to several legends that resemble conspiracy theories, concerning, for example, the Vril Society or rumours about Karl Haushofer's connection to the occult. The most influential books were Trevor Ravenscroft's The Spear of Destiny and The Morning of the Magicians by Pauwels and Bergier. Claims One of the earliest claims of Nazi occultism can be found in Lewis Spence's book Occult Causes of the Present War (1940). According to Spence, Alfred Rosenberg and his book The Myth of the Twentieth Century were responsible for promoting pagan, occult and anti-Christian ideas that motivated the Nazi party. Demonic possession of Hitler For a demonic influence on Hitler, Hermann Rauschning's Hitler Speaks is brought forward as a source. However, most modern scholars do not consider Rauschning reliable. (As Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke summarises, "recent scholarship has almost certainly proved that Rauschning's conversations were mostly invented".) Similarly to Rauschning, August Kubizek, one of Hitler's closest friends since childhood, claims that Hitler—17 years old at the time—once spoke to him of "returning Germany to its former glory"; of this comment August said, "It was as if another being spoke out of his body, and moved him