Himmler set up a school of occultism in the Berlin Branch and many of the leading ranks of the Totenkopf SS, the Sicherheitsdienst and the Gestapo were ordered to attend courses in meditation, transcendentalism and magic. It was in this establishment that Himmler was persuaded to found the Ahnenerbe, the Nazi Occult Bureau. The Ahnenerbe incorporated the memberships of the Templar Order, the Vril, and the Thule Gesellschaft into the Black Order of the SS.