The Black Dragons

Esoteric Organizations WWII Japan

     It is often the case that more recent attempts by writers and researchers to link politically extreme groups, such as, of example, the National Socialists in Germany (1920-1945) with “occult” or “esoteric” ideas are beset by wild rumors and pure fantasy. For a sober discussion of such things in Nazi Germany, see my book The Occult in National Socialism. As we will see, the involvement with subjects of the Empire of Japan during this time period can also be full of similar speculation. But because of the largely exotic nature of the concepts involved, ones that the average Westerner could not easily grasp, the idea of “occult forces” motivating the Japanese war-culture went generally unremarked. Where the Germans could be cast as being secretly “pagan” or “satanic,” as we see in the text of Lewis Spence’s war-time propaganda/occult potboiler entitled The Occult Causes of the Present War when went through many printings during WWII. These charges were empty against the Japanese, who were obviously and openly “pagans” and had never even heard of our Devil.

         One of the more fascinating aspects of the war-time activities of the Black Dragon Society was its attempts to influence  groups in the  United States. The aim of this activity. Like the similar efforts made by the Soviets, was to stimulate and encourage racial unrest in the US in an attempt to blunt the American war effort. Two black nationalist groups, the Ethiopian Pacific Movement and the Peace Movement of Ethiopia openly claimed a link with the Japanese Black Dragons. The Empire of Japan, working through the Black Dragons sent an agent named Kaka Nakane (1870-1945) who went by the name Satokata Takahashi (among others). Takahashi was a retired major in the Japanese army and member of the Black Dragons. He was sent to the US with a bankroll from the Japanese government. His mission was to promote the idea of “Pan-Asianism”— a concept in which they endeavored to unify the identity of the Japanese and Africans. Takahashi became a patron of the fledgling Nation of Islam movement headed at that time by the Honorable Elijah Mohammad, whom Takahashi had endeavored to befriend (and finance). Beginning around 1933 Elijah Mohammad started giving speeches in which he suggested that the Japanese would eventually invade America and subjugate the white folk in an alliance with his Nation of Islam (NOI). Takahashi is known to have addressed congregations in NOI temples in Detroit and Chicago. Elijah Mohammad also claimed that Takahashi had actually “approved” the teachings of the NOI. 

     The black nationalist leader Mittie Maude Lena Gordon (1889-1961), who led the Peace Movement of Ethiopia openly claimed a personal alliance with the Kokurukai.

     Among Takahashi’s other efforts was the establishment of an organization called the Society for the Development of Our Own. By “our own” it was understood to mean the Pan-Asiatic people— in America this was mainly an African-American organization. This and all his other efforts were aimed at spreading pro-Japanese and anti-“White” propaganda. “Five Guiding Principles” of the group were “Freedom, Justice, Equality, Liberty, and Honor.” The agenda of the Black Dragons was to cause African-American men to resist being drafted into the American military. They began to refuse to register for the draft on “religious grounds.”

     In connection with racially-charged riots in Detroit in 1943, Japanese propaganda used the events as a backdrop for their campaign to discourage black men from serving in the US military. There was a Japanese-funded flier called “Fight Between Two Races” which highlighted racial divisions in the US at the time. The tactic of exploiting racial tensions in the multi-ethnic state which the USA represents has been a steady policy used by Axis Powers, the Bolsheviks and most recently the Chinese Communist Party. The tactic was used during the Vietnam War and continues to be used today. Ethnic empires, such as the Germans, Japanese, Russians and Han-Chinese have represented at different times, all see the American multi-national or multi-ethnic state as an artificial construct beset by fatal weaknesses. By exploiting frictions in the target society, the higher form of bushido could weaken that society in any war effort against it.

     The Black Dragons even entered into American popular culture in the war-time years, as a film entitled The Black Dragons, starring the great horror actor, Bela Lugosi. It was produced as a sort of war-propaganda thriller in 1942 by the low-budget film studio, Monogram. The story was that of a number of Japanese agents for the Black Dragon Society who underwent plastic surgery performed by a German doctor (Lugosi) to be made to look like American industrialists. Under this guise, the Japanese agents committed acts of sabotage in order to hamper American war-efforts. It is unclear as to the message this film was trying to send, as it would seem to instill the idea that any American could come under suspicion, as no one could be sure if they were “really” Americans at all. It is noteworthy that the film portrays the Nazis and their scientific/medical genius as instrumental in the evil plot.

Poster for the 1942 Film Black Dragons

     Leaving the unsubstantiated and imaginative yarn-spinning to the side, we do have an example of a solid link between the Black Dragons and the kind of esoteric lore which interests us most here in this study. This comes in the person of Morihei Ueshiba, early member of the Black Dragon Society and founder of the school of martial arts known as Aikido.