Esoteric Nazism
Encyclopedia
The term Esoteric
Nazism refers to semi-religious developments of Nazism
in the post-World War II
period. After 1945, esoteric elements of the Third Reich were developed into new völkisch (German: "ethnic") religions of white identity
. Examples of post-war Nazi mystical philosophies include Esoteric Hitlerism and the Tempelhofgesellschaft. Esoteric Hitlerism includes the race-specific, pre-Christian
religion
(including references to Hinduism
) of some Nazis.
. Devi connected Hitler's Aryanist ideology to that of the pan-Hindu
part of the Indian Independence movement
, and activists such as Subhas Chandra Bose. For her, the swastika
was an especially important symbol, as she felt it symbolized Aryan unity of Hindus and Germans.
Savitri Devi, above all, was interested in the Indian caste system, which she regarded as the archetype of racial laws intended to govern the segregation of different races and to maintain the pure blood of the fair-complexioned Aryans. She regarded the survival of the light-skinned minority of Brahmans among an enormous population of many different Indian races after sixty centuries as a living tribute to the value of the Aryan caste system (Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun, p. 92).
Savitri Devi integrated Nazism into a broader cyclical
framework of Hindu history. She considered Hitler to be Kalki
, the tenth and final Avatar
of Vishnu
, and called him "the god-like Individual of our times; the Man against Time; the greatest European of all times", having an ideal vision of returning his Aryan people to an earlier, more perfect time, and also having the practical wherewithal to fight the destructive forces "in Time". She saw his defeat—and the forestalling of his vision from coming to fruition—as a result of him being "too magnanimous, too trusting, too good", of not being merciless enough, of having in his "psychological make-up, too much 'sun' [beneficence] and not enough 'lightning.' [practical ruthlessness]", unlike his coming incarnation:
took a large interest in racialism
. According to Charroux Hyperborea was situated between Iceland
and Greenland
and was the home of a Nordic
White race with blonde hair and blue eyes
. Charroux claimed that this race was extraterrestial in origin and had originally come from a cold planet situated far from the sun. Charroux also claimed that the White race of the Hyperboreans and their ancestors the Celts had dominated the whole world in the ancient past. Some of these claims of Charroux have influenced the beliefs of Esoteric Nazism such as the work of Miguel Serrano
.
, a former Chile
an diplomat. Author of numerous books including The Golden Ribbon: Esoteric Hitlerism (1978) and Adolf Hitler, the Last Avatar (1984), Serrano is one of a number of Nazi esotericists who regard the "Aryan blood" as originally extraterrestrial
:
Serrano supports this idea from various myths which assign divine ancestry to 'Aryan' peoples, and even the Aztec
myth of Quetzalcoatl
(one of the White Gods
of the ancient Americas) descending from Venus. He also cites the entirely respectable (but not widely accepted) scientific hypothesis of Bal Gangadhar Tilak
on the Arctic homeland of the Indo-Aryans, as his authority for identifying the earthly centre of the Aryan migrations with the 'lost' Arctic continent of Hyperborea. Thus, Serrano's extraterrestrial gods are also identified as Hyperboreans.
In attempting to raise the spiritual development of the earthbound races, the Hyperborean divyas (a Sanskrit
term for god-men) suffered a tragic setback. Expanding on a story from the Book of Enoch
, Serrano laments that a renegade group among the gods committed miscegenation
with the terrestrial races, thus diluting the light-bearing blood of their benefactors and diminishing the level of divine awareness on the planet.
The concept of Hyperborea has a simultaneously racial and mystical meaning for Serrano. He believes that Hitler was in Shambhala
, an underground centre in Antarctica (formerly at the North Pole and Tibet), where he was in contact with the Hyperborean gods and from whence he would someday emerge with a fleet of UFOs to lead the forces of light (the Hyperboreans, sometimes associated with Vril
) over the forces of darkness (inevitably including, for Serrano, the Jews who follow Jehovah) in a last battle and thus inaugurating a Fourth Reich
.
According to Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
:
As religious scholars Frederick C. Grant and Hyam Maccoby
emphasize, in the view of the dualist Gnostics, "Jews were regarded as the special people of the Demiurge and as having the special historical role of obstructing the redemptive work of the High God's emissaries". Serrano thus considered Hitler as one of the greatest emissaries of this High God, rejected and crucified by the tyranny of the Judaicized rabble like previous revolutionary light-bringers. Serrano had a special place in his ideology for the SS
, who, in their quest to recreate the ancient race of Aryan god-men, he thought were above morality and therefore justified, after the example of the anti-humanitarian "detached violence" taught in the Aryo-Hindu Bhagavad Gita
.
reports how Carl Gustav Jung
described "Hitler as possessed by the archetype of the collective Aryan unconscious and could not help obeying the commands of an inner voice". In a series of interviews between 1936 and 1939, Jung characterized Hitler as an archetype, often manifesting itself to the complete exclusion of his own personality. Hitler is a spiritual vessel, a demi-divinity; even better, a myth. Benito Mussolini
is a man' ... the messiah
of Germany who teaches the virtue of the sword. 'The voice he hears is that of the collective unconscious of his race.
Richard Noll
has controversially argued that the early Jung was influenced by Theosophy
, solar mysticism and völkisch nationalism in developing the ideas on the collective unconscious and the archetypes. Jung's suggestion that Hitler personified the collective Aryan unconscious deeply interested and influenced Miguel Serrano
, who later concluded that Jung was merely psychologizing the ancient, sacred mystery of archetypal possession by the gods, independent metaphysical powers that rule over their respective races and occasionally possess their members. A similar esoteric thesis is also put forward by Michael Moynihan
in his book Lords of Chaos.
, Germany. The younger Tempelhofgesellschaft was founded in Vienna
in the early 1990s by Norbert Jurgen-Ratthofer and Ralft Ettl to teach a form of Gnostic religion called Marcionism
. This one was a part of the main THG / Homburg. The group identifies an "evil creator of this world," the Demiurge
with Jehovah
, the God of Judaism
. They believe that Jesus Christ was Aryan
, not Jewish. They distribute pamphlets claiming that the Aryan race
originally came to Atlantis
from the star Aldebaran
(this information is supposedly based on "ancient Sumer
ian manuscripts"). They maintain that the Aryans from Aldebaran derive their power from the vril energy of the Black Sun. They teach that since the Aryan race is of extraterrestrial
origin (cf. Nordic aliens
), it has a divine mission to dominate all the other races. It is believed by adherents of this religion that an enormous space fleet is on its way to Earth from Aldebaran which, when it arrives, will join forces with Nazi flying saucers from Antarctica
to establish the Western Imperium
.
, Savitri Devi, and other proponents of Esoteric Nazism have spawned numerous later works connecting Aryan master race beliefs and Nazi escape scenarios with enduring conspiracy theories about hollow earth
civilizations and shadowy new world orders
. Since 1945, neo-Nazi writers have also proposed Shambhala
and the star Aldebaran
as the original homeland of the Aryans. The book Arktos
: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, and Nazi Survival, by Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
scholar Joscelyn Godwin
, discusses pseudoscientific
theories about surviving Nazi elements in Antarctica. Arktos is noted for its scholarly approach and examination of many sources currently unavailable elsewhere in English-language translations. Godwin and other authors such as Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
have discussed the connections between Esoteric Nazism and Vril
energy, the hidden Shambhala and Agartha
civilizations, and underground UFO
bases, as well as Hitler's and the SS's supposed survival in underground Antarctic oases in New Swabia
or in alliance with Hyperboreans from the subterranean world.
represent significant developments of neo-pagan esotericism and 'Ariosophy
' after World War II
, but they do not all constitute forms of Nazi esotericism. Some northern Europe
an neopagan
groups, such as Theods, Ásatrúarfélagið and Viðartrúar, have explicitly stated that neo-Nazism
is not common among their members. On the other hand, there are neopagan organisations with close ties to neo-Nazism, such as the Artgemeinschaft
or the Heathen Front
, and the attraction of many neo-Nazis to Germanic paganism remains an issue particularly in Germany (see Nornirs Ætt).
. These groups advocate the anti-modern neo-tribalism
and "Traditionalism" found in the "pagan" mysticist ideals of Alain de Benoist
's Nouvelle Droite
inspired by Julius Evola
.
Esoteric themes, including references to artifacts such as the Spear of Longinus, are also often alluded to in neo-Nazi music
(e.g. Rock Against Communism
) and above all in National Socialist black metal
.
Esotericism
Esotericism or Esoterism signifies the holding of esoteric opinions or beliefs, that is, ideas preserved or understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest. The term derives from the Greek , a compound of : "within", thus "pertaining to the more inward",...
Nazism refers to semi-religious developments of Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
in the post-World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
period. After 1945, esoteric elements of the Third Reich were developed into new völkisch (German: "ethnic") religions of white identity
White nationalism
White nationalism is a political ideology which advocates a racial definition of national identity for white people. White separatism and white supremacism are subgroups within white nationalism. The former seek a separate white nation state, while the latter add ideas from social Darwinism and...
. Examples of post-war Nazi mystical philosophies include Esoteric Hitlerism and the Tempelhofgesellschaft. Esoteric Hitlerism includes the race-specific, pre-Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
(including references to Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
) of some Nazis.
Savitri Devi
French writer Savitri Devi was the first major post-war exponent of what has since become known as Esoteric Hitlerism. According to that ideology, subsequent to the fall of the Third Reich and Hitler's suicide at the end of the war, Hitler himself could be deifiedImperial cult
An imperial cult is a form of state religion in which an emperor, or a dynasty of emperors , are worshipped as messiahs, demigods or deities. "Cult" here is used to mean "worship", not in the modern pejorative sense...
. Devi connected Hitler's Aryanist ideology to that of the pan-Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
part of the Indian Independence movement
Indian independence movement
The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...
, and activists such as Subhas Chandra Bose. For her, the swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
was an especially important symbol, as she felt it symbolized Aryan unity of Hindus and Germans.
Savitri Devi, above all, was interested in the Indian caste system, which she regarded as the archetype of racial laws intended to govern the segregation of different races and to maintain the pure blood of the fair-complexioned Aryans. She regarded the survival of the light-skinned minority of Brahmans among an enormous population of many different Indian races after sixty centuries as a living tribute to the value of the Aryan caste system (Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun, p. 92).
Savitri Devi integrated Nazism into a broader cyclical
Social cycle theory
Social cycle theories are among the earliest social theories in sociology. Unlike the theory of social evolutionism, which views the evolution of society and human history as progressing in some new, unique direction, sociological cycle theory argues that events and stages of society and history...
framework of Hindu history. She considered Hitler to be Kalki
Kalki
In Hinduism, Kalki is the tenth and final Maha Avatar of Vishnu who will come to end the present age of darkness and destruction known as Kali Yuga. The name Kalki is often a metaphor for eternity or time...
, the tenth and final Avatar
Avatar
In Hinduism, an avatar is a deliberate descent of a deity to earth, or a descent of the Supreme Being and is mostly translated into English as "incarnation," but more accurately as "appearance" or "manifestation"....
of Vishnu
Vishnu
Vishnu is the Supreme god in the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one of the five primary forms of God....
, and called him "the god-like Individual of our times; the Man against Time; the greatest European of all times", having an ideal vision of returning his Aryan people to an earlier, more perfect time, and also having the practical wherewithal to fight the destructive forces "in Time". She saw his defeat—and the forestalling of his vision from coming to fruition—as a result of him being "too magnanimous, too trusting, too good", of not being merciless enough, of having in his "psychological make-up, too much 'sun' [beneficence] and not enough 'lightning.' [practical ruthlessness]", unlike his coming incarnation:
"KalkiKalkiIn Hinduism, Kalki is the tenth and final Maha Avatar of Vishnu who will come to end the present age of darkness and destruction known as Kali Yuga. The name Kalki is often a metaphor for eternity or time...
" will act with unprecedented ruthlessness. Contrarily to Adolf Hitler, He will spare not a single one of the enemies of the divine Cause: not a single one of its outspoken opponents but also not a single one of the luke-warm, of the opportunists, of the ideologically hereticalHeresyHeresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
, of the racially bastardised, of the unhealthy, of the hesitating, of the all-too-human; not a single one of those who, in body or in character or mind, bear the stamp of the fallen Ages.
Robert Charroux
Unlike most ancient astronaut writers, Robert CharrouxRobert Charroux
Robert Charroux was the best-known pen-name of Robert Grugeau .-Early career:Robert Charroux worked for the French post office until becoming a full-time writer of fiction in the early 1940s...
took a large interest in racialism
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...
. According to Charroux Hyperborea was situated between Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
and Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
and was the home of a Nordic
Nordic
Nordic may refer to:* The Nordic countries, the northwestern European countries of Scandinavia , as well as Iceland and Finland; or a native of one of the Nordic countries...
White race with blonde hair and blue eyes
Blue eyes
Blue eyes may refer to:*Blue eye color*Blue-eyes or Pseudomugilidae, a family of fish*Blue Eyes , a hentai manga by Tohru Nishimaki*Blue Eyes White Dragon, a fictional monster from the Yu-Gi-Oh! universe...
. Charroux claimed that this race was extraterrestial in origin and had originally come from a cold planet situated far from the sun. Charroux also claimed that the White race of the Hyperboreans and their ancestors the Celts had dominated the whole world in the ancient past. Some of these claims of Charroux have influenced the beliefs of Esoteric Nazism such as the work of Miguel Serrano
Miguel Serrano
Miguel Serrano was a Chilean diplomat, explorer and author of poetry, books on spiritual questing and Esoteric Nazism...
.
Miguel Serrano
The next major figure in Esoteric Hitlerism is Miguel SerranoMiguel Serrano
Miguel Serrano was a Chilean diplomat, explorer and author of poetry, books on spiritual questing and Esoteric Nazism...
, a former Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an diplomat. Author of numerous books including The Golden Ribbon: Esoteric Hitlerism (1978) and Adolf Hitler, the Last Avatar (1984), Serrano is one of a number of Nazi esotericists who regard the "Aryan blood" as originally extraterrestrial
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
:
Serrano finds mythological evidence for the extraterrestrial origins of man in the NephilimNephilimThe Nephilim are the offspring of the "sons of God" and the "daughters of men" in Genesis 6:4, or giants who inhabit Canaan in Numbers 13:33. A similar word with different vowel-sounds is used in Ezekiel 32:27 to refer to dead Philistine warriors....
[fallen angels] of the Book of Genesis... Serrano suggests that the sudden appearance of Cro-Magnon Man with his high artistic and cultural achievements in prehistoric Europe records the passage of one such divya-descended race alongside the abysmal inferiority of Neanderthal Man, an abomination and manifest creation of the demiurgeDemiurgeThe demiurge is a concept from the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy for an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. The term was subsequently adopted by the Gnostics...
... Of all the races on earth, the Aryans alone preserve the memory of their divine ancestors in their noble blood, which is still mingled with the light of the Black Sun. All other races are the progeny of the demiurge's beast-men, native to the planet.
Serrano supports this idea from various myths which assign divine ancestry to 'Aryan' peoples, and even the Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
myth of Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and has the meaning of "feathered serpent". The worship of a feathered serpent deity is first documented in Teotihuacan in the first century BCE or first century CE...
(one of the White Gods
White Gods
White Gods is the belief that ancient cultures around the world were visited by Caucasian races in ancient times, and that they were known as "White Gods"...
of the ancient Americas) descending from Venus. He also cites the entirely respectable (but not widely accepted) scientific hypothesis of Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Lokmanya Tilak –, was an Indian nationalist, teacher, social reformer and independence fighter who was the first popular leader of the Indian Independence Movement. The British colonial authorities derogatorily called the great leader "Father of the Indian unrest"...
on the Arctic homeland of the Indo-Aryans, as his authority for identifying the earthly centre of the Aryan migrations with the 'lost' Arctic continent of Hyperborea. Thus, Serrano's extraterrestrial gods are also identified as Hyperboreans.
In attempting to raise the spiritual development of the earthbound races, the Hyperborean divyas (a Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
term for god-men) suffered a tragic setback. Expanding on a story from the Book of Enoch
Book of Enoch
The Book of Enoch is an ancient Jewish religious work, traditionally ascribed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. It is not part of the biblical canon as used by Jews, apart from Beta Israel...
, Serrano laments that a renegade group among the gods committed miscegenation
Miscegenation
Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....
with the terrestrial races, thus diluting the light-bearing blood of their benefactors and diminishing the level of divine awareness on the planet.
The concept of Hyperborea has a simultaneously racial and mystical meaning for Serrano. He believes that Hitler was in Shambhala
Shambhala
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala or Shangri-la is a mythical kingdom hidden somewhere in Inner Asia...
, an underground centre in Antarctica (formerly at the North Pole and Tibet), where he was in contact with the Hyperborean gods and from whence he would someday emerge with a fleet of UFOs to lead the forces of light (the Hyperboreans, sometimes associated with Vril
Vril
Vril, the Power of the Coming Race is a 1871 science fiction novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, originally printed as The Coming Race. Many early readers believed that its account of a superior subterranean master race and the energy-form called "Vril" was accurate, to the extent that some theosophists...
) over the forces of darkness (inevitably including, for Serrano, the Jews who follow Jehovah) in a last battle and thus inaugurating a Fourth Reich
Fourth Reich
The Fourth Reich is a term used to describe a theoretical future successor of the Third Reich.-Neo-Nazism:In terms of neo-Nazism, the Fourth Reich is envisioned as featuring Aryan supremacy, anti-Semitism, Lebensraum, aggressive militarism and totalitarianism...
.
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke B.A. , D.Phil. is a professor of Western Esotericism at University of Exeter and author of several books on esoteric traditions....
:
Serrano follows the Gnostic tradition of the Cathars (fl.FloruitFloruit , abbreviated fl. , is a Latin verb meaning "flourished", denoting the period of time during which something was active...
1025–1244) by identifying the evil demiurge as Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament. As medieval dualists, these eleventh-century heretics had repudiated Jehovah as a false god and mere artificer opposed to the real God far beyond our earthly realm. This Gnostic doctrine clearly carried dangerous implications for the Jews. As Jehovah was the tribal deity of the Jews, it followed that they were devil worshipers. By casting the Jews in the role of the children of Satan, the Cathar heresy can elevate anti-Semitism to the status of a theological doctrine backed by a vast cosmology. If the Hyperborean Aryans are the archetype and blood descendents of Serrano's divyas from the Black Sun, then the archetype of the Lord of Darkness needed a counter-race. The demiurge sought and found the most fitting agent for its archetype in the Jews.
As religious scholars Frederick C. Grant and Hyam Maccoby
Hyam Maccoby
Hyam Maccoby was a British Jewish scholar and dramatist specializing in the study of the Jewish and Christian religious tradition. His grandfather and namesake was Rabbi Hyam Maccoby , better known as the "Kamenitzer Maggid," a passionate religious Zionist and advocate of vegetarianism and animal...
emphasize, in the view of the dualist Gnostics, "Jews were regarded as the special people of the Demiurge and as having the special historical role of obstructing the redemptive work of the High God's emissaries". Serrano thus considered Hitler as one of the greatest emissaries of this High God, rejected and crucified by the tyranny of the Judaicized rabble like previous revolutionary light-bringers. Serrano had a special place in his ideology for the SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
, who, in their quest to recreate the ancient race of Aryan god-men, he thought were above morality and therefore justified, after the example of the anti-humanitarian "detached violence" taught in the Aryo-Hindu Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita
The ' , also more simply known as Gita, is a 700-verse Hindu scripture that is part of the ancient Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata, but is frequently treated as a freestanding text, and in particular, as an Upanishad in its own right, one of the several books that constitute general Vedic tradition...
.
Collective Aryan unconscious
In the book Black Sun, Nicholas Goodrick-ClarkeNicholas Goodrick-Clarke
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke B.A. , D.Phil. is a professor of Western Esotericism at University of Exeter and author of several books on esoteric traditions....
reports how Carl Gustav Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
described "Hitler as possessed by the archetype of the collective Aryan unconscious and could not help obeying the commands of an inner voice". In a series of interviews between 1936 and 1939, Jung characterized Hitler as an archetype, often manifesting itself to the complete exclusion of his own personality. Hitler is a spiritual vessel, a demi-divinity; even better, a myth. Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
is a man' ... the messiah
Messiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
of Germany who teaches the virtue of the sword. 'The voice he hears is that of the collective unconscious of his race.
Richard Noll
Richard Noll
Richard Noll is an author and clinical psychologist. Currently he is Associate Professor of Psychology at DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania. He is best known for his publications in the history of psychiatry, including two critical volumes on the life and work of Carl Gustav Jung...
has controversially argued that the early Jung was influenced by Theosophy
Theosophy
Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
, solar mysticism and völkisch nationalism in developing the ideas on the collective unconscious and the archetypes. Jung's suggestion that Hitler personified the collective Aryan unconscious deeply interested and influenced Miguel Serrano
Miguel Serrano
Miguel Serrano was a Chilean diplomat, explorer and author of poetry, books on spiritual questing and Esoteric Nazism...
, who later concluded that Jung was merely psychologizing the ancient, sacred mystery of archetypal possession by the gods, independent metaphysical powers that rule over their respective races and occasionally possess their members. A similar esoteric thesis is also put forward by Michael Moynihan
Michael Moynihan (journalist)
Michael Moynihan is an American journalist, publisher and musician. He is best known for co-writing the book Lords of Chaos, about black metal....
in his book Lords of Chaos.
Tempelhofgesellschaft
The older Tempelhofgesellschaft (THG) was built in the 1980s by a few members of the Nazi "Erbengemeinschaft der Tempelritter". The leader of this group is an old police man who is living in HomburgHomburg, Saarland
Homburg is a town in Saarland, Germany, the administrative seat of the Saarpfalz district. With a population of c. 44,000 inhabitants, is the third city in its federal state. The medical department of the University of Saarland is situated here. The city is also home to the Karlsberg beer brewery...
, Germany. The younger Tempelhofgesellschaft was founded in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
in the early 1990s by Norbert Jurgen-Ratthofer and Ralft Ettl to teach a form of Gnostic religion called Marcionism
Marcionism
Marcionism was an Early Christian dualist belief system that originated in the teachings of Marcion of Sinope at Rome around the year 144; see also Christianity in the 2nd century....
. This one was a part of the main THG / Homburg. The group identifies an "evil creator of this world," the Demiurge
Demiurge
The demiurge is a concept from the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy for an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. The term was subsequently adopted by the Gnostics...
with Jehovah
Jehovah
Jehovah is an anglicized representation of Hebrew , a vocalization of the Tetragrammaton , the proper name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible....
, the God of Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
. They believe that Jesus Christ was Aryan
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
, not Jewish. They distribute pamphlets claiming that the Aryan race
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
originally came to Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
from the star Aldebaran
Aldebaran
Aldebaran is a red giant star located about 65 light years away in the zodiac constellation of Taurus. With an average apparent magnitude of 0.87 it is the brightest star in the constellation and is one of the brightest stars in the nighttime sky...
(this information is supposedly based on "ancient Sumer
Sumer
Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....
ian manuscripts"). They maintain that the Aryans from Aldebaran derive their power from the vril energy of the Black Sun. They teach that since the Aryan race is of extraterrestrial
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
origin (cf. Nordic aliens
Nordic aliens
Nordic aliens are said by self-described contactees and some UFOlogists to be a group of humanoid extraterrestrials who resemble European racial images, or more specifically Nordic-Scandinavians....
), it has a divine mission to dominate all the other races. It is believed by adherents of this religion that an enormous space fleet is on its way to Earth from Aldebaran which, when it arrives, will join forces with Nazi flying saucers from Antarctica
Nazi UFOs
In science fiction, conspiracy theory, and underground comic books, stories or claims circulate linking UFOs to Nazi Germany. These German UFO theories describe supposedly successful attempts to develop advanced aircraft or spacecraft prior to and during World War II, and further claim the...
to establish the Western Imperium
Fourth Reich
The Fourth Reich is a term used to describe a theoretical future successor of the Third Reich.-Neo-Nazism:In terms of neo-Nazism, the Fourth Reich is envisioned as featuring Aryan supremacy, anti-Semitism, Lebensraum, aggressive militarism and totalitarianism...
.
Conspiracy theories and pseudoscience
The writings of Miguel SerranoMiguel Serrano
Miguel Serrano was a Chilean diplomat, explorer and author of poetry, books on spiritual questing and Esoteric Nazism...
, Savitri Devi, and other proponents of Esoteric Nazism have spawned numerous later works connecting Aryan master race beliefs and Nazi escape scenarios with enduring conspiracy theories about hollow earth
Hollow Earth
The Hollow Earth hypothesis proposes that the planet Earth is either entirely hollow or otherwise contains a substantial interior space. The hypothesis has been shown to be wrong by observational evidence, as well as by the modern understanding of planet formation; the scientific community has...
civilizations and shadowy new world orders
New World Order (conspiracy)
In conspiracy theory, the term New World Order or NWO refers to the emergence of a totalitarian one-world government.The common theme in conspiracy theories about a New World Order is that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an...
. Since 1945, neo-Nazi writers have also proposed Shambhala
Shambhala
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala or Shangri-la is a mythical kingdom hidden somewhere in Inner Asia...
and the star Aldebaran
Aldebaran
Aldebaran is a red giant star located about 65 light years away in the zodiac constellation of Taurus. With an average apparent magnitude of 0.87 it is the brightest star in the constellation and is one of the brightest stars in the nighttime sky...
as the original homeland of the Aryans. The book Arktos
Arktos
In Greek mythology, Arktos was a centaur who fought against the Lapith spearmen....
: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, and Nazi Survival, by Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili , called in English Poliphilo's Strife of Love in a Dream, is a romance said to be by Francesco Colonna and a famous example of early printing...
scholar Joscelyn Godwin
Joscelyn Godwin
Joscelyn Godwin is a composer, musicologist and translator, known for his work on ancient music, paganism and music in the occult....
, discusses pseudoscientific
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
theories about surviving Nazi elements in Antarctica. Arktos is noted for its scholarly approach and examination of many sources currently unavailable elsewhere in English-language translations. Godwin and other authors such as Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke B.A. , D.Phil. is a professor of Western Esotericism at University of Exeter and author of several books on esoteric traditions....
have discussed the connections between Esoteric Nazism and Vril
Vril
Vril, the Power of the Coming Race is a 1871 science fiction novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, originally printed as The Coming Race. Many early readers believed that its account of a superior subterranean master race and the energy-form called "Vril" was accurate, to the extent that some theosophists...
energy, the hidden Shambhala and Agartha
Agartha
Agartha is a legendary city that is said to reside in the earth's core. It is related to the belief in a hollow earth and is a popular subject in esotericism....
civilizations, and underground UFO
Unidentified flying object
A term originally coined by the military, an unidentified flying object is an unusual apparent anomaly in the sky that is not readily identifiable to the observer as any known object...
bases, as well as Hitler's and the SS's supposed survival in underground Antarctic oases in New Swabia
New Swabia
New Swabia is a cartographic name sometimes given to an area of Antarctica between 20°E and 10°W in Queen Maud Land, which within Norway is administered as a Norwegian dependent territory under the Antarctic Treaty System...
or in alliance with Hyperboreans from the subterranean world.
Influences within neopaganism
Organisations such as the Armanen-OrdenArmanen-Orden
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...
represent significant developments of neo-pagan esotericism and 'Ariosophy
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...
' after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, but they do not all constitute forms of Nazi esotericism. Some northern Europe
Northern Europe
Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Sweden...
an neopagan
Neopaganism
Neopaganism is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe...
groups, such as Theods, Ásatrúarfélagið and Viðartrúar, have explicitly stated that neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism consists of post-World War II social or political movements seeking to revive Nazism or some variant thereof.The term neo-Nazism can also refer to the ideology of these movements....
is not common among their members. On the other hand, there are neopagan organisations with close ties to neo-Nazism, such as the Artgemeinschaft
Artgemeinschaft
The Artgemeinschaft Germanische Glaubens-Gemeinschaft is a German Neopagan and Neonazi organization, founded in 1951 by Wilhelm Kusserow...
or the Heathen Front
Heathen Front
The Allgermanische Heidnische Front was an international Neo-Nazi organization espousing a philosophy influenced by anti-Semitism, xenophobia and folkish heathenry or Ásatrú, often called Odalism.-History:...
, and the attraction of many neo-Nazis to Germanic paganism remains an issue particularly in Germany (see Nornirs Ætt).
Nazi satanism and National Socialist black metal
There is a contemporary loose network of small musical groups that combine neo-fascism and satanism. These groups can be found in Britain, France, and New Zealand, under names such as "Black Order" or "Infernal Alliance", and draw their inspiration from the Esoteric Hitlerism of Miguel SerranoMiguel Serrano
Miguel Serrano was a Chilean diplomat, explorer and author of poetry, books on spiritual questing and Esoteric Nazism...
. These groups advocate the anti-modern neo-tribalism
Neo-Tribalism
Neotribalism or modern tribalism is the ideology that human beings have evolved to live in tribal society, as opposed to mass society, and thus will naturally form social networks constituting new "tribes."-Sociological theory:...
and "Traditionalism" found in the "pagan" mysticist ideals of 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:...
's Nouvelle Droite
Nouvelle Droite
Nouvelle Droite is a school of political thought founded largely on the works of Alain de Benoist and GRECE .-Etymology and history:...
inspired by Julius Evola
Julius Evola
Barone Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola also known as Julius Evola, was an Italian philosopher and esotericist...
.
Esoteric themes, including references to artifacts such as the Spear of Longinus, are also often alluded to in neo-Nazi music
Neo-Nazi music
Neo-Nazi music may refer to:*Rock Against Communism*Nazi punk*National Socialist black metal...
(e.g. Rock Against Communism
Rock Against Communism
Rock Against Communism started out as series of white power rock concerts in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s, and is also a name for the subsequent music genre. Despite its name, RAC song lyrics rarely focus on the specific topic of anti-communism...
) and above all in National Socialist black metal
National Socialist black metal
National Socialist black metal is black metal that promotes National Socialist beliefs through their lyrics and imagery. These beliefs often include: white supremacy, racial separatism, antisemitism, heterosexism, and Nazi interpretations of paganism or Satanism...
.
See also
- Adolf Hitler's religious views
- Cosmotheism
- The Foundations of the Nineteenth CenturyThe Foundations of the Nineteenth CenturyThe Foundations of the Nineteenth Century was the best-selling work by Houston Stewart Chamberlain...
- German ChristiansGerman ChristiansThe Deutsche Christen were a pressure group and movement within German Protestantism aligned towards the antisemitic and Führerprinzip ideological principles of Nazism with the goal to align German Protestantism as a whole towards those principles...
- Nazi occultism
- Nazi UFOsNazi UFOsIn science fiction, conspiracy theory, and underground comic books, stories or claims circulate linking UFOs to Nazi Germany. These German UFO theories describe supposedly successful attempts to develop advanced aircraft or spacecraft prior to and during World War II, and further claim the...
- Nazism and ReligionNazism and religionThis article gives an overview about religion in Nazi Germany and the Nazis' complex and shifting policy towards religion."The German census of May 1939 indicates that 54 percent of Germans considered themselves Protestant and 40 percent considered themselves Catholic, with only 3.5 percent...
- Nazis: The Occult ConspiracyNazis: The Occult ConspiracyNazis: The Occult Conspiracy, directed by Tracy Atkinson and Joan Baran, narrated by Malcolm McDowell, is an English language 1998 Discovery Channel documentary regarding Nazi occultism.-Soundtrack:...
- Neofascism and religionNeofascism and religionNeo-fascism and religion refers to debates about the relationships between neo-fascism and various religions.Some scholars, using the term neo-fascism in its narrow sense, consider certain contemporary religious movements and groups to represent forms of clerical or theocratic neofascism, including...
- The Nexus (journal)
- Positive ChristianityPositive ChristianityPositive Christianity was a slogan of Nazi propaganda adopted at the NSDAP congress 1920 to express a worldview which is Christian, non-confessional, vigorously opposed to the spirit of "Jewish Materialism", and oriented to the principle of voluntary association of those with a common...
- Race of JesusRace of JesusThe race and appearance of Jesus have been discussed on a number of grounds since early Christianity, although the New Testament includes no description of the physical appearance of Jesus before his death and its narrative is generally indifferent to racial appearances.Despite the lack of direct...
- Religion in Nazi Germany
- Universal Order
- Vienna Circle (esoteric)Vienna Circle (esoteric)The Landig Group was an occultist and neo-völkisch group formed in 1950, that first gathered for discussions at the studio of the designer Wilhelm Landig in Vienna's 4th district of Wieden, in Austria....