Podcast Summary: American Alchemy

Episode Title: “Aliens Are Controlling Human Timelines!” - CIA Historian Peter Levenda
Host: Jesse Michels
Guest: Peter Levenda
Date: November 22, 2025

Episode Overview

In this marathon, mind-bending conversation, Jesse Michels welcomes celebrated writer and historian Peter Levenda, author of Sinister Forces, Unholy Alliance, and Secret Machines (with Tom DeLonge). The episode traverses a dizzying range of topics—including deep-state conspiracy, the occult and its infiltration of both Nazi Germany and US intelligence, the strange involvement of high society in esoteric séances, the possible existence of a reality-choreographing “control mechanism,” secret societies, the ambiguous origins of UFOs, and the role of consciousness and language in accessing non-human intelligence. The tone is energetic, curious, and occasionally incredulous as Levenda recounts first-hand encounters and explores the boundaries between myth, fact, and disinformation.

Major Topics & Key Insights

1. Synchronicities, Control Mechanisms & Choreographed Reality

• Levenda’s Introduction to High Weirdness

  • While researching Sinister Forces during the Watergate era, Levenda notes uncanny synchronicities and connections beyond chance—such as randomly befriending E. Howard Hunt’s CIA associate while researching Hunt (07:06).
  • Quote: “This is not possible. Like, if you had been a journalist and you were desperately looking for this guy, you wouldn't have found him, right? But here I am next to him...” (09:35, Peter Levenda)

• Choreography of Reality

  • Michels and Levenda discuss how setting intention (“entropy reducing focus”) seems to draw more improbable connections and data into one’s life, making the researcher a participant in the phenomenon (10:22).
  • Levenda references the notion of time as a spiral (21:43), and how big historical events often involve tight-knit circles with deeper esoteric ties.

2. The JFK Assassination, the ‘Nine’, Intelligence & UFOs

• JFK & the ‘Alien Presence’ Motive

  • The popular theory that part of the reason for JFK’s assassination related to knowledge of "the alien presence" is explored. Levenda is cautiously skeptical, but notes the often overlapping personnel between major historic events, covert ops, and ufology (11:21).

• The Nine & Elite Séances

  • Levenda unpacks the story of The Nine, an elite group (including DuPont, Astor, Forbes, Arthur Young) conducting séances in Maine in the 1950s, aiming to contact "non-human intelligences" who purportedly provided them with guidance (15:00–19:31).
  • Memorable Moment: The same families show up in both occult séances and crucial nodes of history (e.g., Ruth Paine—daughter-in-law of séance participant—hosts Lee Harvey Oswald in her home before JFK’s assassination) (19:32).
  • Quote: “Everybody that represents the blue-blooded Brahmins of American society were at a seance in the woods in Maine on New Year’s Eve.” (15:00, Levenda)

• Maury Island Incident Connection

  • Levenda links Fred Crisman and Guy Bannister (players in both UFO lore and the JFK plot) as examples of inexplicably overlapping circles between intelligence, high weirdness, and historic violence (23:23–25:30).

3. Occult Churches as Intelligence Fronts

• Orthodox Catholic Church/Spy Games

  • Levenda narrates his accidental involvement in a small Orthodox splinter church in the Bronx in the late 1960s, which doubled as an intelligence front, recruiting oddball priests (real and fake) as assets, vetting them through J. Edgar Hoover himself, and serving Cold War purposes (38:18–54:30).
  • Quote: “The bishop who ran the church, Perfetta, he constantly said that his people were vetted by J. Edgar Hoover himself.” (54:29, Levenda)
  • This led to entanglements with Russian spies and Selective Service attempts to conscript Levenda as an intelligence informant.

• Accidental Infiltration

  • Levenda recounts how, as a 17-year-old, he and a friend crashed Bobby Kennedy’s funeral in full Orthodox regalia, highlighting the permeability and rituality of "official" social boundaries (43:33).

4. The Nature and Power of Myth, Ritual, and Esoteric Symbolism

• Fight Club Analogy & Reality as Unutterable

  • Levenda likens the study of the occult to “Fight Club”—an experience not easily discussed, defined, or even reliably transmitted via language, only through images and direct initiation (70:54).
  • He and Jesse stress the incommunicability of certain experiences and truths, referencing Terence McKenna: "A secret is not something that isn't told. It's something that cannot be told." (73:09)

• UFO Contact and Art/Consciousness

  • The conversation touches on how art, not science, may be closest to understanding consciousness and the anomalous—as repeatability is often beyond the reach of science in these matters (67:27–69:49).

5. Secret Space Program, Nazi Technology, and Roswell

• Nazis, Paperclip, and Antediluvian Tech

  • Levenda details the Nazi fascination with the occult (Unholy Alliance), the reality of Ahnenerbe expeditions, and American (and Russian) postwar recruitment of Nazi scientists—raising the possibility that some postwar UFO incidents (including Roswell) may be tied to lost Nazi tech, not ET (130:40–139:03).
  • Quote: “Remember when you're talking about Roswell ... you're talking about all the Nazi scientists. ... Walter Doernberger from Peenemunde, his first posting was to Wright Patterson. ... So he was there [when Roswell debris arrived].” (139:03)
  • Levenda discusses the evidence for exotic Nazi saucers, secret logistics movements, and the ambiguity of "non-human" as a label used in military paperwork.

• Disinformation and the Flux of Belief

  • When pressed, Levenda is skeptical that the United States (or anyone) possesses unambiguously alien vehicles from the 1940s—unless multiple nations do, and there’s some “Fight Club” mutual secrecy. He implies a high possibility of ongoing disinfo and mythologizing by intelligence (152:17–154:26).

6. The Occult—From Nazi Ahnenerbe to Strategic Air Command

• The Necronomicon & Military Interest
  • Levenda describes discovering a manuscript called the Necronomicon (the infamous Lovecraftian grimoire), its publication, and receiving a congratulatory letter from Strategic Air Command—an example of how occult interests seeped into the highest levels of the defense establishment (180:32–207:36).
  • Quote: “We would get letters from Fort this or Fort that... and then Strategic Air Command came in with a letter on their stationary... It's evidence that they were interested in this material from the get-go.” (207:12)

7. Angels, Demons, Gnostic Models, and NHI (Non-Human Intelligence)

• Are Aliens Angels or Demons?

  • Levenda is unconvinced by simplistic interpretations equating UFOs with “angels and demons” but notes that historical taxonomies (Book of Enoch, Gnostic cosmologies) may offer nuanced ways to approach the question—especially when considering the literal descriptions of fiery chariots, ascent, and non-physical communication (247:54–249:06).

• Gnostic Escape Models

  • The discussion interrogates the Gnostic “prison planet” hypothesis: if the world is managed by archonic/sinister forces, is hidden knowledge a means of escape, or another snare? Levenda continually returns to the limitations of ideology, the dangers of fanaticism, and the power of humor as a defense against being overpowered by mythic thought (113:16–115:06).

8. Contact, Abductions & the Limits of Disclosure

• High-Profile Abductions

  • Levenda references Jim Semivan, a high-ranking CIA official who publicly claimed abduction experiences; raising uncomfortable questions for national security (241:06).

• TTSA and High-Level Obfuscation

  • Meetings with government insiders (e.g. Hal Puthoff, Jacques Vallée, Chris Mellon) are described as yielding little direct data, but a strong sense that these topics are taken very seriously, and siloed with extreme compartmentalization and security (234:34–237:34).

• Epistemic Humility

  • Levenda urges listeners to “look for what you can prove” and to retain humor, skepticism, and a sense of wonder without losing themselves in dogma or despair (272:26).

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “It’s the fight club. If we have a crash saucer from the 40s, I would say if we are in possession of it and they're in possession of it too, then there is an agreement between countries that says we're not going to talk about this.”
  (154:09, Peter Levenda)

• “Everybody that represents the blue blooded Brahmins of American society…were at a freaking seance in the woods in Maine on New Year's Eve.”
  (15:00, Levenda, on The Nine séance)

• “It's as if reality itself is being managed by some control mechanism.”
  (86:16, Jesse referencing Vallee)

• “I think the UFO phenomenon is our big piece of evidence that leads us into all these directions. It's there to say, look, open your freaking eyes and look.”
  (270:05, Peter Levenda)

• On Synchronicity:
  Jesse: “There's something that happens… when you set your attention on something that is somehow entropy reducing.”
  Levenda: “Exactly.”
  (10:22)

• Fight Club Analogy
  “When you're asked to define this field…you can't. You fall apart. You can't define Fight Club. You can't talk about it.”
  (70:54, Levenda)

• On Truth-Seeking & Ideology:
  “All my books are about [the way out]. They're all chapters of one book.” (115:43, Levenda)
  “You have to maintain a sense of humor. Otherwise you become a fanatic. Fanatics famously have no sense of humor.” (113:16, Levenda)

• On Modern Research:
  “When you can't get a straight answer on something, it opens up the field to anybody who has an imaginary answer.”
  (228:26, Levenda)

Select Timestamps for Key Sections

• Conspiracies, Synchronicity & The Nine: 07:06 – 23:23
• Orthodox Church Spy Stories: 38:18 – 54:30
• Language, Magic, Fight Club: 66:42 – 73:09
• Nazi Occultism, Secret Space Program, Roswell: 130:23 – 154:18
• Necronomicon/Strategic Air Command: 178:53 – 207:36
• MJ12, Government Secrecy, Puthoff on ‘15 craft’: 230:31 – 269:31
• Personal Advice & Conclusion: 272:26 – End

Conclusion / Takeaways

• The world is weirder than consensus reality allows.
  Levenda demonstrates, through personal experience and research, the persistent interweaving of occult, intelligence, and high-weird phenomena in our recent history—pointing to mechanisms of reality and control that defy easy scientific or political explanation.

• Epistemic humility and humor are essential.
  The peril lies as much in losing oneself to seductive, ideologically-charged (or outright fabricated) narratives as it does in raw materialist reductionism.

• The ‘truth’ remains elusive and perhaps inherently inexpressible.
  Language, culture, and consciousness themselves are implicated in the phenomena. Secrecy is less about cover-ups and more about the limitations of comprehension, translation, and belief.

• A mosaic rather than a monolith.
  Each culture, discipline, “contactee,” and eccentric niche possesses only a shard of the whole—collaborative, open-ended exploration may be our best (and only) path forward.

Resources for Further Exploration

• Books by Peter Levenda: Sinister Forces trilogy, Unholy Alliance, Secret Machines
• Notable References: Jacques Vallée; Gnostic and Hermetic writings; research on Nazi occultism; contemporary government documents on the UAP phenomenon; Gershom Scholem and Moshe Idel (on Kabbalah)
• Key Concepts: The Nine, ‘Cargo cult’ origins of civilization, Synchronicity, Fight Club as occult metaphor

For More

Subscribe to American Alchemy on Substack, Instagram @jessemichels, Twitter @alchemyamerican.

“Reality is Fight Club. You can’t talk about it, but you just know when you’re in it.”
— Peter Levenda (70:54, paraphrased)