MAGIC REALISM
A book review by William Main
"The Occult Roots of Nazism, Secret Aryan Cults and Their
Influence on Nazi Ideology" by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (New York
University Press, 1992, 293 pages)
In The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their
Influence on Nazi Ideology Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, an historian
at Oxford University, traces how fantasies of occult forces,
pseudo-science and racism made an indirect but significant
contribution to the Nazi rise to power and the Holocaust.
Of course, Goodrick-Clarke does not attribute Nazi influence
directly to occult forces. Since the end of World War II some
journalists have published exaggerated accounts of occult groups
in the Third Reich and taken the claims of obscure cults at their
word. Goodrick-Clarke's book is not an expose of evil magic, but
an account of how marginal, atavistic ideas eventually came to
influence Nazi policy and thus the destiny of modern Europe.
Goodrick-Clarke describes occultism as based on ersatz religious
doctrine dating back to the 1st Century A.D. including Astrology,
Gnosticism, and Hermeticism (writings attributed to a legendary
Egyptian magician, Hermes Trismegistus). The Renaissance and the
late 18th Century each saw a revival of interest in such ancient
magical and pseudo-scientific texts.
Goodrick-Clarke attributes each successive wave of occultism to
political and social upheavals of the time-the decline of the
Roman Empire, the development of scientific methodology, the
growth of rationalism-which seemed to raise doubts about
traditional religious beliefs and institutions.
The 19th Century saw another revival of occultism in Europe which
Goodrick-Clarke attributes to the industrial revolution and the
abrupt displacement of traditional ways of life. One of the major
occult trends of the time was Theosophy developed by the Russian,
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (183 1 - 189 1) . Her works were
largely a plagiarism of earlier occult and Hindu writings. In The
Secret Doctrine (1888) she mixed traditional Hindu teachings and
contemporary archaeological speculation to form a systematic
doctrine that described a cycle of creation, growth, decline and
eventual rebirth of the universe. Blavatsky's rehash of Hindu
teachings influenced occultists of all kinds, but she added one
original element that became particularly significant for Aryan
occultists. Blavatsky identified each cycle in the history of the
universe with the emergence of a new race; depending on the phase
of the cycle in progress a given race represented an advance or
decline in spiritual perfection. This idea was later elaborated
and given a more explicit racist interpretation by Aryan
occultists.
Ariosophy (wisdom of the Aryans) as Aryan occultism came to be
called, first surfaced in Austria in the 1880s and later spread
into Germany. Goodrick-Clarke argues that the emergence of
Ariosophy was sparked by rapid social and economic changes in
Austrian society near the turn of the century. German-speaking
people achieved political unity with the establishment of the
Second Reich in 1871, but even then many ethnic Germans remained
within the borders of Austria-Hungary. The period from 1860 to
World War I in Austria was a time of rapid industrialization and
Slavic immigration; during this time the population of Vienna
nearly tripled and the ethnic demographics of the city changed
significantly so that Germans formed only a plurality of about 35
percent.
A voelkisch (or people's) movement that emphasized the cultural
unity of all German-speaking people became a strong influence in
Austrian society. As Goodrick- Clarke describes it, the voelkisch
movement presented "an idealized image of medieval Germany. . .
to prove her claim to spiritual unity, even if there had never
been political unity." Voelkische groups were formed that
emphasized the importance of German literature and mythology, the
beauty of nature and the traditional lifestyle of German
peasants. Along with furthering real or imagined aspects of
German culture, voelkische groups also denounced Slavic
immigrants, Jews and other potential competitors for political
influence in Austria.
The voelkisch movement also contained a strong anti-Catholic
element. Georg von Schonerer (1842- 1921), the leading exponent
of the pan-Germanism in Austria, started a los von Rom (break
with Rome) movement in 1898 to encourage German conversion from
Catholicism to Lutheranism. Schonerer was not motivated by a
principled dispute with Catholic doctrine, but by a desire to use
Lutheranism as a rallying point against Slavic immigrants and for
pan-German unity.
All of these diverse elements-anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism,
pan-German aspirations, and dislike of industrial society-came
together in the work of Guido von List (18491919). List began his
career in Vienna as a novelist and playwright who specialized in
themes of German history and mythology. His early novels
described the rituals of pagan sun worship, the adventures of
Teutonic warriors and the resistance of German tribes to the
Roman Empire. But List considered himself more than just a
Romantic writer: he styled himself a mystic and nature worshiper
who had clairvoyant recollection of ancient Aryan history and
religion. He claimed that his novels were not simply fiction but
accurate historical reconstructions based on his ancestral
memories of the distant German past.
List gradually shifted his work from literature to a kind of
revisionist interpretation of German history. Goodrick-Clarke
describes List's version of German history as "a personal
mythology, by means of which List imposed a set of modern German
nationalist meanings upon cultural objects." List claimed all
previous accounts of German history were inaccurate. He believed
that the Germans had an advanced civilization long before the
Roman Empire. According to List, Wotanism had been the ancient
Aryan religion-although, in fact, List's description of Wotanism
was mostly lifted from Theosophy (in particular he borrowed
Blavatsky's idea of "root races" and her cyclical view of
history). As evidence of this lost tradition, List interpreted
folk- tales, place-names and heraldic symbolism as a kind of
secret code that had been formulated by the Aryan priesthood to
pass on their occult teachings in the face of Christian
persecution.
List claimed that a sexual morality which prohibited breeding
with racial inferiors had been the foundation of Aryan society.
List outlined a code of racial purity he claimed had once been
practiced by Germans as a kind of ancient eugenics program;
families were required keep records certifying their racial
purity; education, public service and all legal rights were
reserved exclusively for Germans; nonAryans were fit only to be
slaves. List argued that these policies could once again be put
to use for the renewal of modern Germany. Goodrick-Clarke notes
"these ideas, published as early as 1911, bear an uncanny
resemblance to the Nuremberg racial laws of the 1930's and the
Nazi vision of the future."
Lists revision of the ancient German past culminated in a
conspiracy theory that explained the tribulations of modern
Austria. He explained that the downfall of Aryan civilization was
caused by a backlash of primitive people lead primarily by
Christians- indeed, Christianity was little more than a front
organization for racially inferior people jealous of Aryan
accomplishments. Christian values of humility, charity and
respect for the weak were mere disinformation designed to
undermine Aryan unity and self-confidence. In modern times the
assault on Aryan culture was continued by capitalism, socialism,
Jews and the Catholic Church. All of these movements supposedly
coordinated their efforts through an entity List called the Great
International Party, a phantom organization that List claimed was
dedicated to the fall of Aryan civilization.
In 1908 the List Society was formed by List's followers to
sponsor readings of his works and spread his ideas throughout
Austria and Germany. One of the founding members of the List
Society was another Austrian, Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels (1874-
1954), who eventually went on to start his own Aryan cult. Lanz
had been a member of a Cistercian monastery from 1893 to 1899 and
had received an extensive education in ancient languages and Old
Testament history. He eventually broke with Catholicism to
develop his own occult theology.
After studying then current discoveries in anthropology and
physics, Lanz produced a work called Theo-Zoology or the Lore of
the Sodom-Apelings and the Electron of the Gods (1905). Lanz
believed there had once existed a super-human race of creatures
gifted with psychic powers of telepathy and telekinesis. These
gods had miscegenated with animals to produce half-human/
half-animal creatures which were put to use as concubines. Modern
man was a distant remnant of the original god-like race whose
psychic abilities had atrophied as a result of breeding with
biological inferiors (again, some of these ideas had first been
suggested by H.P. Blavatsky and other Theosophists.)
Lanz differed from List by believing that Judaism and
Christianity had originally been Aryan religions. As God's chosen
people Aryans were the least contaminated race of humanity; the
Old Testament had been written for benefit their as a warning
against the dangers of miscegenation (now, that's revisionist
history!). Jesus was the last survivor of this psychically gifted
race and had been crucified by racial inferiors jealous of his
power. Lanz interpreted the teachings of Jesus as an allegory for
the evolutionary process; good was evolutionary progress toward
Godlike power, while evil was synonymous with racial
degeneration.
In 1907 Lanz founded the Order of the New Templars (ONT). The
original Knight Templars had been a military/ religious order
founded after the First Crusade to maintain Christian control of
the Holy Land. Lanz expropriated the name and symbolism of the
Templars, but replaced their chivalric code with his own racist
occultism. Aspiring ONT members had to posses appropriate Aryan
physical characteristics and answer detailed questions about
their racial background. Lanz hoped that ONT members would form
the human stock for a selective breeding program that would
eventually restore Man's latent psychic abilities. In the
meantime, Lanz devised ONT rituals, costumes and forms of address
which vaguely imitated monastic practices. Eventually Lanz raised
enough money from wealthy patrons to buy a castle on the Danube
for use as ONT headquarters and place of worship.
As the Ariosophic movement spread from Austria into Germany it
became more overtly political. Of the many obscure occult groups
that flourished in Germany around World War I, Goodrick-Clarke
focuses on the Germanenorden, most of whose members had
originally been active in the List Society or the ONT. The
Germanenorden was founded in Munich in 1912 as a secret
anti-Semitic organization meant to counteract the supposed Jewish
conspiracy to control Germany. At first the organization
concerned itself mostly with elaborate occult rituals. In 1918
leadership of the Germanenorden was taken over by Rudolf von
Sebottendorff (1875-1945), a German engineer who had become
interested in occultism while living in the Middle East.
Sebottendorff changed the name of the group to the Thule Society
and transformed it from a religious cult into an organization of
political activists dedicated to destabilizing the Weimar
Republic. Among other actions, Sebottendorff organized an attempt
to kidnap Kurt Eisner, the head of the Weimar government (Eisner
was later assassinated by a man with connections to the Thule
Society). Thule Society also members helped organize and train a
paramilitary force that took part in fighting against Communist
forces that briefly seized control of Munich in 1919.
However, Sebottendorff worried that prospective Thule Society
members would be put off by the group's occult orientation. In an
attempt to attract a working class membership, the Thule Society
founded a front organization called the German Workers Party
(DAP) that offered the same anti-Semitic and racist ideas without
mentioning occultism. This was the group that Adolf Hitler first
discovered as an army spy in 1919. Hitler was soon elected to the
leadership of the organization and in 1920 he renamed the DAP the
National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) or Nazi Party.
Hitler eventually took over ownership of the Thule Society's
treasury and weekly newspaper, and also recruited Thule Society
contacts Rudolf Hess and Alfred Rosenberg who went on to become
important officials in the Third Reich. As the emblem of the Nazi
Party Hitler adopted the Thule Society's insignia, a
swastika.
Hitler not only inherited an organization founded by Aryan
occultists, but he was influenced by policies that had their
origin among Ariosophists. From 1905 to 1916 Lanz von Liebenfels
published a magazine, Ostara (the name of the pagan Goddess of
Spring). Goodrick-Clarke establishes that during his early years
in Vienna, Hitler met with Lanz a number of times to obtain back
issues of Ostara and discuss Lanz's theories on race (this
discovery is not original to Goodrick-Clarke and has been
mentioned by Hitler biographers including Joachim Fest.) Lanz
wrote articles for Ostara advocating polygamy for racially pure
Aryan men and sterilization of non-Aryans-both policies put into
practice by the Third Reich. Lanz also explicitly called for the
deportation and extermination of all non-Aryans living in
Germany. Thus it is possible that the idea of the Final Solution
was first planted in Hitler's mind by occultist who believed the
Germans were the Chosen People and Jesus was an Aryan.
While Hitler might have been influenced by Lanz's ideas on race,
he contemptuously rejected other aspects of occult mystification
and pseudo-history. The Nazi leader who made himself a patron of
occult mysticism was the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, who
retained a self-proclaimed Aryan mystic as part of his personal
staff.
Karl Maria Wiligut (18661946) began his career as an officer in
the Austrian Army and saw action during World War I. After the
war Wiligut began to claim that he was the last decedent of an
Aryan priesthood that could trace its origins back to god-like
creatures who inhabited Germany over 200,000 years. Like List,
Wiligut claimed to have clairvoyant recollection of ancient
German society and religion. He corroborated most of List's
description of ancient German history, but he also endorsed
Lanz's belief in an Aryan Jesus (p. 181). Again, Wiligut believed
that Aryan civilization had been destroyed by a conspiracy of
Jews and Catholics. Wiligut made contact with Lanz's ONT in
Austria and later moved to Germany where he became noted as a
lecturer and guru within the Aryan occult network.
In 1933 Wiligut was brought to the attention of Himmler by an SS
officer who had been a member of the ONT. Himmler appointed
Wiligut to the SS Race and Settlement Main Office and eventually
gave him the rank of SS Brigadier. Wiligut's tasks included
advising Himmler on racial policy, developing rituals to be
performed at official SS ceremonies, and designing a special ring
marked with runes and the SS Death's Head insignia to be awarded
to important SS officers by Himmler himself.
According to Goodrick-Clark, Wiligut suggested to Himmler that
the SS expropriate a castle in the German province of Westphalia.
Wiligut prophesied that the castle would become a Nazi stronghold
against invading barbarians from the East. Himmler put the castle
to use as an SS indoctrination center, museum and temple where
wedding ceremonies and solstice festivals devised by Wiligut were
held. Goodrick-Clark describes Himmler's long range plan for
Wewelsburg as "creating an SS Vatican on an enormous scale at the
center of a millenarian Greater Germanic Reich."
In 1939 Wiligut's influence in the SS abruptly declined when it
was discovered that back in Salzburg, Austria he had been
declared legally insane and confined to a mental institution from
1924 to 1927. This action was taken by Wiligut's wife who claimed
he had threatened to kill her after she complained of his
squandering the family savings. Wiligut was forced to resign from
the SS and had to return his prized Death's Head ring to
Himmler.
Goodrick-Clarke does not offer any theoretical conclusions about
the nature of occultism; he considers the social disruption of
German society at the turn of the century enough to explain the
emergence of Ariosophy. To this extent he corroborates T. S.
Eliot's diagnosis of the appeal of occultism in The Dry
Salvages:
To explore the womb, the tomb, or dreams; all these are usual
Pastimes and drugs, and features of the press: And always will
be, some of them especially When there is distress of nations and
perplexity Whether on the shores of Asia, or in the Edgware
Road.
Occultism is a symptom of alienation from society, but it is also
a symptom of alienation from reality itself-an insight
anticipated by another Eliot line: "Human kind cannot bare very
much reality." In a sense, there is a magic to occultism after
all-it is possible to create a fantasy world in one's mind that
blots out reality.
-William Main
Taken from the December 1994 issue of "Fidelity" Magazine, 206
Marquette Avenue, South Bend, IN 46617.
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Further Reading:
Refutation of the New
Age Movement
Holy Spirit Watch
