December 05, 2025

Système Zaharoff I: The Merchant of Death's Journey from Urchin to Arson to Brothel Tout to Maxim to Vickers Super Salesman ft. Sebbe (#100 Anniversary SCIF Sessions)

2 hours 21 minutes

SUB TO THE PPM PATREON SO KLONNY GOSCH'S CORK BOARD LABOR OF LOVE CAN CONT FOR ANOTHER 100 EPISODES (AND GAIN ACCESS TO "SYSTEME ZAHAROFF II"):

patreon.com/ParaPowerMapping

IN CELEBRATION OF 100 EPISODES OF PPM, I am joined by SEBBE for a synchronized dive into the wilderness of mirrors that is the Balkans-trotting, death-peddling life of Basil Zaharoff, "the mystery man of Europe" whose blood money fortune rivaled those of Rockefeller and Henry Ford. We excavate how Zaharoff was a prototypical deep political figure foreshadowing more modern underworld ne'er-do-wells and sex-crazed arms traders like Jeffrey Epstein, Adnan Kashoggi, Viktor Bout, Sarkis Soghanalian, Efraim Diveroli, Robert Maxwell, etc. We also draw a number of Erik Jan Hanussen symmetries, convenient considering a likely candidate for a character partly patterned after him in Shadow Ticket.

This is the first entry in the SCIF SESSIONS featuring past guests, friends, and Cork Board Cadre members. I initially planned to release a monster episode in call-in special style, but as I got a number of sessions under my belt, it became apparent that a 20 hour or so episode would be prohibitive. So instead, I will be dropping the conversations in discrete installments in between our regular programming. Lots of great material coming at you.

File under: parallels with our Shadow Ticket exegesis by way of Zedzed's relationship with British intelligence and Viennese manse, which evoke MI3b agents Pips and Alf Quarrender; Zaharoff's ward Tereza Damala's amorous relations with Gabriele d'Annunzio also evoking ST; his remote cameo in Against the Day via purchasing agent Viktor Mulciber, who is pursuing the Q-Weapon at Zaharoff's behest (which harnesses time as means of violence), his latter attempts to sell it to the Japanese, and Clive Crouchmas' thwarted scheme to sex traffick the scarlet strumpet Dahlia Rideout to the Lord of War, a bribe seeking to tempt his fabled appetite for redheaded Babalonian women; Hergé, Tintin, and Basil Bazarov lampooning the int'l man of mystery; the varying accounts of Zaharoff's early life and heritage, whether Greek, Turkish, Russian Jew, etc. etc.; his criminal adolescence as a member of an arsonry gang cum fire department, a racket in Constantinople where they would burn down wealthy homes and extort payment and which is right on theme with our recent history of class violence, organized crime, racketeering, and transformismo; his time as a brothel tout; human trafficker in Galway, Ireland, sending girls to MasSUSchusetts textile mills; bigamist marrying a dame in Philly; confidence artist; etc.; there are myriad legends, some of which we'll unpack in Pt. II; all trails eventually merge with Zaharoff's employment as a Nordenfelt machine gun salesman; which leads to his relationship with machine gun manufacturer Hiram Maxim; the Rothschilds connection; PM David Lloyd George; negotiations to bribe the Young Turks and Enver Pasha into abandoning the Central Powers circa WWI; and much much more. I am doing my best to ward off burnt-outage, but I think that is sufficient for liner notes for this second. A second part, solo, and with some research revolving around a possible outcropping of the Zaharoff network amounting to a Nazi - Z i o n i s t gun running ring in Palestine in the late '30s and which I'm actually quite giddy over and which may well be relatively novel and which certainly expands upon past points of interest... will follow in the morning. Inshallah.

Song:

| Spirit Hz - "Promis" |

https://spirithz.bandcamp.com/album/there-is-only-one-thing

...more