Following WW2, the film’s writer, Jean-Marie Rivière, was imprisoned. Its producer, Robert Muzard, and director, Paul Riche (the pseudonym of Jean Mamy), were executed for their part in the production of this film. “Occult Forces” was the last film Riche directed before his unjust execution.

The film recounts the life of a young member of parliament who joins the Freemasons in order to relaunch his career. He thus learns of how the Freemasons are conspiring to encourage France into a war against Germany.

The Jesuit sect operated as a sort of early proto-intelligence agency for the Catholic Church. How did they set the template by which other secular intelligence agencies evolve?

A code of instructions alleged to be addressed by Acquaviva, the fifth general of the Society, to its various superiors, and laying down the methods to be adopted for the increase of its power and influence. According to them, every means is to be employed of acquiring wealth for the order, by enticing promising young men to enter it and endow it with their estates; rich widows are to be cajoled and dissuaded from remarriage; every means is to be used for the advancement of Jesuits to bishoprics or other ecclesiastical dignities and to discredit the members of other orders, while the world is to be persuaded that the Societies animated by the purest and least interested motives: the reputation of those who quit it is to be assailed and traduced in every way.