Jacques Bergier

Jacques Bergier (born Yakov Mikhailovich Berger) was a chemical engineer, member of the French-resistance, spy, journalist and writer. He was a gifted child: at two he read his first newspaper and at four he could easily read Russian, French and Hebrew. He was a speed reader (until the end of his life he could read 4 to 10 books per day) and had an eidetic memory. He was a vivacious child, and he told fabulous sounding stories of discussing strategy with generals as well as talking with street prostitutes in Odessa. He never went to school but had private tutors.He co-wrote the best-seller "The Morning of the Magicians" with Louis Pauwels of fantastic realism. "Le Matin des Magiciens" was very popular with the youth culture in France through the 1960s and 1970s. It was translated into English by Rollo May in 1963 under the title "The Dawn of Magic". It first appeared in the USA in paperback form in 1968 as "The Morning of the Magicians". This book spawned an entire genre of explorations into many of the ideas it raised, such as connections between Nazism and the occult.Jacques Bergier died saying of himself: "I am not a legend."