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Originally Posted by Edman
According to this this wikipedia article, there is not MI18, despite there being an MI19. ... the idea of a secret organization that should exist but doesn't, is somewhat tantalizing
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MI19 has not existed for many years. The plausible mundane explanations for the lack of an MI18 include it having been in a plan at some stage, but never created - it's entirely plausible that MI19 would not be renamed, since that would be hard work in an all-paper administrative system - or it being a deliberate gap to confuse people. Icelander does seem to be trying to keep the 20th century history of his campaign world very close to reality.
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so what if there was a secret occult cadre to match the Nazis?
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An occult study group to try to predict the effects that occultism would have on Nazi policy and strategy is plausible*, and doesn't require that the organisation doing it believes in the occult. (I play in a WWII secret-magic campaign that has used this as a cover story a few times.) But it doesn't sound plausible as an MI department in its own right, since that would require it having more official structure and paper trail; it would be easier to keep it secret as an internal branch of MI6.
* For the definitive account of how Germanic occultism did influence the Nazi worldview, see The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890-1935, by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke.