Bartholomew's Notes

Radio Free Europe on Greece’s new government:

…recently leaked e-mails are revealing some of the extent and duration of Syriza’s ties with Kremlin-connected Eurasianist ideologue Aleksandr Dugin and Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev, who is believed to have bankrolled much of the separatist movement in Ukraine.

…Several dozen of the e-mails reveal conversations between [Georgy] Gavrish [an official in Dugin’s Eurasia movement] and people inside Syriza, says Christo Grozev, a media investor and blogger specializing in information issues in eastern Europe.

…One of the people involved in the exchanges is Nicolas Laos, a Greek intellectual and Syriza adviser with business ties to Russia. He is a partner of the Russian corporate-security firm R-Tekhno.

In one leaked e-mail, Laos writes to Dugin, “I know very well how the enemy works, and, under your patronage, I can strike back effectively and hard.”

I previously blogged on Dugin here, on Malofeev here, and on the leaked emails here. And just a couple of days ago, I looked at Panos Kammenos, who heads Syriza’s right-wing coalition partner and who has been described by the Economist as wanting to be “Russia’s best friend in Greece”.

Of course, it’s impossible to judge how much influence should be read into the word “advisor”, and there’s not much evidence of a political presence. Laos is, however “Founder and President of the Kairological Society– Reality Restructuring Resources”, described as a “philosophical and policy-oriented think-tank, private exclusive membership club and consultancy organization”, and his publications include Kairological Economics: An Anthropocentric and Creative Theory of Political Economy and Management.

Further, he appears in a 2013 LarouchePAC article about a Greek anti-Euro movement (Drachma 5):

The initiator of the movement is Professor of Labor Economics Theodore Katsanevas, who was among the speakers at the Schiller Institute’s international conference, “The Last Chance for Humanity,” held April 13-14 in Frankfurt, Germany.

On May 7, the Greek national daily Hellada published a two-page article reporting on Katsanevas’s presentation to the conference, along with the entire conference resolution, and a photo of the professor in discussion with Lyndon LaRouche. On the second page is a Greek translation of Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s open letter calling on the U.S. Congress to pass HR 129, the bill to revive Glass-Steagall.

The author of the article, Nicolas Laos, has previously interviewed Zepp-LaRouche and former French Presidential candidate and longtime LaRouche ally in France, Jacques Cheminade. The fact that the article was published the day before the launching the new party, and that the author is a member of its organizing committee, indicates that the party is associating itself with the fight for a Glass-Steagall reform, as well as for dismantling the Eurozone.

I noted Kammenos’s links to the LaRouche movement in my previous post.

Like Dugin, Laos is also interested in more esoteric matters; the first result for Laos’s name on Google takes us to the website of White Crane Publishing, and to a page devoted to a book of his with the glorious title The Kairological Qabalah: Rediscovering Western Esotericism within Philosophy, Science and the Revolutionary Secrets of Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism and the Illuminati. This is the sort of thing that the anti-Putin wing of the American Christian Right will seize on; Cliff Kincaid, for instance, has linked Dugin’s ideas to Aleister Crowley and the occult.

On Twitter, Grozev has also drawn attention to old registration details for a website that Laos used to own in 2009 and 2010. The site described itself as “The Official Website Of The Master-General Of The Masonic Society Of The Illuminati”, and it offered visitors the chance to join the “Societas Masonica Illuminatorum”. Here’s the pitch:

Be part of an Illuminati-Masonic organization that is rich in history and tradition and enjoy human networking. Membership in our Society is not incompatible with membership in other Masonic Bodies, provided our members never compromise our Illuminati principles. However, in the system of our Society’s degrees, one can find, among other things, the highest Masonic knowledge. Thus, our candidates need not be Masons.

Or men, presumably?

Inquirers were directed to a PO Box in Greece, or, alternatively, a business address in Pimlico, of all places. A bio-blurb under all this describes Laos as “the Master-General Ad Vitam (for life) of the Masonic Society of the Illuminati”, as well as the Director of the “Laboratum Literatorum Illuminatorum”. One couldn’t troll David Icke better if one tried.

Also:

For his research work in philosophy, religion and heraldic studies, he has been honoured with the title of Doctor of Divinity from the St Elias School of Orthodox Theology (USA) as well as with the title of Academician from the Norman Academy (Rome) and the International Academy of Saint George (Wyoming, USA). Additionally, he has been awarded with the titles of Knight and Chancellor of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem under the auspices of the United Grand Priories of the Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem, and with other chivalric titles.

I previously looked at the world of “Chivalric Orders” here (and at Freemasonry here); for the most part, such groups are essentially harmless charitable clubs for people who like dressing flamboyantly.

However, although Orthodox Christianity tends to view Freemasonry with hostility, Laos is also the founder of the Sovereign Orthodox Christian Order of Saint Nikolaos of Myra, which takes a Duginist view:

Our chivalric organization is a traditionalist institution. Following the methodology of the Russian geopolitician and philosopher Alexander Dugin, we utilize the postmodernists’ criticism and deconstruction of modernity, but, instead of following the postmodernists to anti-foundationalist arguments, we make a great philosophical shift from post-modernity to pre-modernity, and, therefore, we rediscover pre-modern metaphysics through post-modernity.

The Founding Naval Patron is Captain First Rank (Ret.) Igor Kurdin, of the Russian Navy.

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