Armanen-Orden
Encyclopedia
The Armanen-Orden is an Arman Heathen organisation active in the German countries. It was founded in 1976 by Adolf Schleipfer and his then-wife Sigrun von Schlichting as the reorganisation of the Ariosophical
Guido von List Society, though its doctrine is not limited to List's teachings. Other reference figures of the Armanen-Orden are Julius Evola
, Johann von Leers
and Alain de Benoist
.
, the initiator of the doctrine of Armanism, on the Summer solstice
of 1911. A circle of inner adepts of higher initiatory degree within the society formed the Hohen-Armanen-Orden ("High Arman Order"), including List himself. In the ideology of the group the Armanen were, in ancient times, the highest priestly class of the Germanic populations, descending from the primordial stock of the White race
.
The Armanen-Orden was founded in 1976 as the re-activated Guido von List Society, after contacts in 1967 between Adolf Schleipfer (born 1947) and the still living last president of the society, Hanns Bierbach.
Schleipfer founded the Armanen-Orden with his then-wife, Sigrun Schleipfer, née Hammerbacher (1940–2009), after the divorce known with her noble
titles of "Sigrun, Baroness von Schlichting" or simply "Sigrun von Schlichting" (daughter of the Völkisch writer Hans Wilhelm Hammerbacher). Despite the divorce Adolf and Sigrun served together as the "Grandmasters" of the Armanen-Orden.
and the fight against the subversive and destructive forces of the modern world. The Armanen-Orden is organised as an elitist, hierarchical and initiatory
society (with nine grades of initiation). The Order is openly ethnonationalist
, ethnicist
and racialist
, and rejects race-mixing
as a modern degeneration.
, near Szlichtyngowa
, in Silesia
, Poland
, which will serve as the main center of the Armanen-Orden and one of the main religious centers for Heathens in Germanic Europe
. The Order has a public arm organisation, the Association of European Natural Religion Tribes which publishes a magazine named Irminsul. The Armanen-Orden is a member of the European Congress of Ethnic Religions.
Over many years, Adolf and Sigrun Schleipfer have republished all of Guido von List
's works (and many others relating to the Armanen runes
) in their original German. Adolf Schleipfer has also contributed an article to The Secret King, a study of Karl Maria Wiligut
by Stephen Flowers
and Michael Moynihan
, in which he points out the differences between Wiligut's beliefs and those which are accepted within Odinism
and Armanism.
) at the Heathen holidays of Ostara, Midsummer
and Fallfest (Wotan's sacrificial death), which are mostly celebrated at castles close or in sacred places, such as Externsteine
.
The author Stefanie von Schnurbein
attended a Fall Thing in 1990 and gives the following report in Religion als Kulturkritik (Religion as Cultural Criticism):
"The participants meet in a room decorated with hand-woven wall hangings and pictures of Germanic gods, Odin
and Frigg
a in this case. [...] At one end of the room is a tablecovered with black cloth. On this a 4 feet high wooden Irminsul
, a spear, a sword, a replica of a sun disc chariot, a leather-bound copy of the Edda
as well as ritual bowls and candles are placed. The participants are seated in a semi-circle in front of the table, the front row being occupied by Order members clothed in their ritual garb (black suits for the men and long white dresses for the women; both have the Armanen-Orden emblem sewn on them). [...] After several invocations the 'spirit flame,' symbolising Odin in the spirit world, is lit in a bowl filled with lamp oil. The purpose of this cultic celebration is the portrayel of Odin's concentration from spirit into matter. After a recital of the first part of Odin's rune poem from the Edda, the "blood sacrifice" commences, in which a bowl with animal blood is raised to the beat of a gong and an invocation of sacrifice. Then Odin is called into the realm by the participants who assume the Othala
rune stance, whisper 'Wodan' nine times and finally sing an ode to Odin with the following words: 'Wodan come to us, od-uod, uod.' Odin's sacrifice to himself is symbolised by extinguishing the flame."
Ariosophy
Armanism and Ariosophy are the names of ideological systems of an esoteric nature, pioneered by Guido von List and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels respectively, in Austria between 1890 and 1930. The term 'Ariosophy', meaning wisdom concerning the Aryans, was first coined by Lanz von Liebenfels in 1915 and...
Guido von List Society, though its doctrine is not limited to List's teachings. Other reference figures of the Armanen-Orden are Julius Evola
Julius Evola
Barone Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola also known as Julius Evola, was an Italian philosopher and esotericist...
, Johann von Leers
Johann von Leers
Dr. Johann von Leers, alias Omar Amin , was an Alter Kämpfer and an honorary Sturmbannführer in the Waffen SS in Nazi Germany, where he was also a professor known for his anti-Jewish polemics. He was one of the most important ideologues of the Third Reich, serving as a high-ranking propaganda...
and Alain de Benoist
Alain de Benoist
Alain de Benoist is a French academic, philosopher, a founder of the Nouvelle Droite and head of the French think tank GRECE. Benoist is a critic of liberalism, free markets and egalitarianism.-Biography:...
.
History
The Guido von List Society was founded by the Ariosophist Guido von ListGuido von List
Guido Karl Anton List, better known as Guido von List was an Austrian/German poet, journalist, writer, businessman and dealer of leather goods, mountaineer, hiker, dramatist, playwright, and rower, but was most notable as an occultist and völkisch author who is seen as one of the most important...
, the initiator of the doctrine of Armanism, on the Summer solstice
Summer solstice
The summer solstice occurs exactly when the axial tilt of a planet's semi-axis in a given hemisphere is most inclined towards the star that it orbits. Earth's maximum axial tilt to our star, the Sun, during a solstice is 23° 26'. Though the summer solstice is an instant in time, the term is also...
of 1911. A circle of inner adepts of higher initiatory degree within the society formed the Hohen-Armanen-Orden ("High Arman Order"), including List himself. In the ideology of the group the Armanen were, in ancient times, the highest priestly class of the Germanic populations, descending from the primordial stock of the White race
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
.
The Armanen-Orden was founded in 1976 as the re-activated Guido von List Society, after contacts in 1967 between Adolf Schleipfer (born 1947) and the still living last president of the society, Hanns Bierbach.
Schleipfer founded the Armanen-Orden with his then-wife, Sigrun Schleipfer, née Hammerbacher (1940–2009), after the divorce known with her noble
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...
titles of "Sigrun, Baroness von Schlichting" or simply "Sigrun von Schlichting" (daughter of the Völkisch writer Hans Wilhelm Hammerbacher). Despite the divorce Adolf and Sigrun served together as the "Grandmasters" of the Armanen-Orden.
Doctrine
The Armanen-Orden aim as formulated in its publications can be synthesized as the reawakening of the true soul of the Germanic peoples and lands, through the re-establishment of the German ethnic religionEthnic religion
Ethnic religion may include officially sanctioned and organized civil religions with an organized clergy, but they are characterized in that adherents generally are defined by their ethnicity, and conversion essentially equates to cultural assimilation to the people in question. Contrasted to this...
and the fight against the subversive and destructive forces of the modern world. The Armanen-Orden is organised as an elitist, hierarchical and initiatory
Initiation
Initiation is a rite of passage ceremony marking entrance or acceptance into a group or society. It could also be a formal admission to adulthood in a community or one of its formal components...
society (with nine grades of initiation). The Order is openly ethnonationalist
Ethnic nationalism
Ethnic nationalism is a form of nationalism wherein the "nation" is defined in terms of ethnicity. Whatever specific ethnicity is involved, ethnic nationalism always includes some element of descent from previous generations and the implied claim of ethnic essentialism, i.e...
, ethnicist
Ethnicism
Ethnicism, also known as ethnic nationalism, is an ideology, often racist in nature, that focuses on the superiority of one generally narrow ethnic or national group ....
and racialist
Racialism
Racialism is an emphasis on race or racial considerations. Currently, racialism entails a belief in the existence and significance of racial categories, but not necessarily that any absolute hierarchy between the races has been demonstrated by a rigorous and comprehensive scientific process...
, and rejects race-mixing
Miscegenation
Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....
as a modern degeneration.
Activities
In 1977 Sigrun von Schlichting founded the Gemeinschaft zur Erhaltung der Burgen (Society for the Conservation of Castles), which proclaims castles to be among the "last paradises of the romantic era" in this cold modern age. Since 1995 the society has been restoring a then run-down castle Sigrun acquired — the 12th century Feenschloss Rothenhorn — in JędrzychowiceJedrzychowice, Wschowa County
Jędrzychowice is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Szlichtyngowa, within Wschowa County, Lubusz Voivodeship, in western Poland. It lies approximately north-east of Szlichtyngowa, south of Wschowa, and south-east of Zielona Góra....
, near Szlichtyngowa
Szlichtyngowa
Szlichtyngowa is a town in Poland, in the Wschowa County of the Lubuskie Voivodship, near the Oder River.It was founded in 1644, about one mile behind the border between Silesia and Greater Poland by the junker Johann Georg von Schlichting who obtained a royal charter from the King Władysław IV...
, in Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, which will serve as the main center of the Armanen-Orden and one of the main religious centers for Heathens in Germanic Europe
Germanic Europe
Germanic Europe may refer to:*Historically,**The parts of Europe settled by Germanic peoples during the Migration period*In a modern context,**Germanic-speaking Europe...
. The Order has a public arm organisation, the Association of European Natural Religion Tribes which publishes a magazine named Irminsul. The Armanen-Orden is a member of the European Congress of Ethnic Religions.
Over many years, Adolf and Sigrun Schleipfer have republished all of Guido von List
Guido von List
Guido Karl Anton List, better known as Guido von List was an Austrian/German poet, journalist, writer, businessman and dealer of leather goods, mountaineer, hiker, dramatist, playwright, and rower, but was most notable as an occultist and völkisch author who is seen as one of the most important...
's works (and many others relating to the Armanen runes
Armanen runes
The Armanen runes, or Armanen 'Futharkh' as Guido von List referred to them, are a row of 18 runes that are closely based in shape on the Younger Futhark...
) in their original German. Adolf Schleipfer has also contributed an article to The Secret King, a study of Karl Maria Wiligut
Karl Maria Wiligut
Karl Maria Wiligut was an Austrian Ariosophist- Biography :...
by Stephen Flowers
Stephen Flowers
Stephen Edred Flowers is an American Runologist and proponent of occultism and Germanic mysticism. The Bonham, Texas-born author has over two dozen published books and hundreds of published papers on a disparate range of subjects. He is also known by the pen-name Edred Thorsson...
and Michael Moynihan
Michael Moynihan
Michael Moynihan may refer to:*Michael Moynihan , author of The Coming American Renaissance*Michael Moynihan , American journalist and founder of Blood Axis...
, in which he points out the differences between Wiligut's beliefs and those which are accepted within Odinism
Odinism
Odinism is a type of Germanic Neopaganism.Odinism may also refer to:*Norse paganism** the cult of Odin- See also :*Odinist Fellowship*Odinic Rite*The Odin Brotherhood*Wotanism, a Völkisch / White Nationalist movement*Wodenism...
and Armanism.
Celebrations
The Armanen-Orden celebrates seasonal festivities in a similar fashion as Odinist groups do and invites interested peopole to these events. The highlightened ones are three "things" (assembliesThing (assembly)
A thing was the governing assembly in Germanic and introduced into some Celtic societies, made up of the free people of the community and presided by lawspeakers, meeting in a place called a thingstead...
) at the Heathen holidays of Ostara, Midsummer
Midsummer
Midsummer may simply refer to the period of time centered upon the summer solstice, but more often refers to specific European celebrations that accompany the actual solstice, or that take place on a day between June 21 and June 24, and the preceding evening. The exact dates vary between different...
and Fallfest (Wotan's sacrificial death), which are mostly celebrated at castles close or in sacred places, such as Externsteine
Externsteine
The Externsteine are a distinctive rock formation located in Ostwestfalen-Lippe of northwestern Germany, not far from the city of Detmold at Horn-Bad Meinberg. The formation is a tor consisting of several tall, narrow columns of rock which rise abruptly from the surrounding wooded hills...
.
The author Stefanie von Schnurbein
Stefanie von Schnurbein
Stefanie von Schnurbein is a German professor of modern literature who first became well known for her 1992 book Religion als Kulturkritik as well as for publishing research about occult literature.-Biography:...
attended a Fall Thing in 1990 and gives the following report in Religion als Kulturkritik (Religion as Cultural Criticism):
"The participants meet in a room decorated with hand-woven wall hangings and pictures of Germanic gods, Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
and Frigg
Frigg
Frigg is a major goddess in Norse paganism, a subset of Germanic paganism. She is said to be the wife of Odin, and is the "foremost among the goddesses" and the queen of Asgard. Frigg appears primarily in Norse mythological stories as a wife and a mother. She is also described as having the power...
a in this case. [...] At one end of the room is a tablecovered with black cloth. On this a 4 feet high wooden Irminsul
Irminsul
An Irminsul was a kind of pillar which is attested as playing an important role in the Germanic paganism of the Saxon people. The oldest chronicle describing an Irminsul refers to it as a tree trunk erected in the open air...
, a spear, a sword, a replica of a sun disc chariot, a leather-bound copy of the Edda
Edda
The term Edda applies to the Old Norse Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, both of which were written down in Iceland during the 13th century in Icelandic, although they contain material from earlier traditional sources, reaching into the Viking Age...
as well as ritual bowls and candles are placed. The participants are seated in a semi-circle in front of the table, the front row being occupied by Order members clothed in their ritual garb (black suits for the men and long white dresses for the women; both have the Armanen-Orden emblem sewn on them). [...] After several invocations the 'spirit flame,' symbolising Odin in the spirit world, is lit in a bowl filled with lamp oil. The purpose of this cultic celebration is the portrayel of Odin's concentration from spirit into matter. After a recital of the first part of Odin's rune poem from the Edda, the "blood sacrifice" commences, in which a bowl with animal blood is raised to the beat of a gong and an invocation of sacrifice. Then Odin is called into the realm by the participants who assume the Othala
Othala
Othala may refer to:*Othala rune, an attempt to reconstruct the proto-Germanic name for the Odal rune*Othala , a planet in the galaxy of Ida that is home to a colony of Asgard from the science fiction television show Stargate SG-1...
rune stance, whisper 'Wodan' nine times and finally sing an ode to Odin with the following words: 'Wodan come to us, od-uod, uod.' Odin's sacrifice to himself is symbolised by extinguishing the flame."
See also
- Armanism
- AriosophyAriosophyArmanism and Ariosophy are the names of ideological systems of an esoteric nature, pioneered by Guido von List and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels respectively, in Austria between 1890 and 1930. The term 'Ariosophy', meaning wisdom concerning the Aryans, was first coined by Lanz von Liebenfels in 1915 and...
- Heathenism
- Paganism
- European Congress of Ethnic Religions