We have to take the Nazis
seriously; after all they were the authors of a regime that took the
lives of some 40 million people and the destruction of most of Europe…
therefore, since such people took occultism seriously, so should
we.—David Morris, The Masks of Lucifer.1
Political parties are
inclined to compromises; philosophies never.— Adolf Hitler, Mein
Kampf .2
Author’s Note: This is
the second article in a multi-part series on New Age thought and
political utopianism.
Ever since humanity was
ushered out of the Garden of Eden for rebellion against God (Genesis 3),
we have been constantly scheming and working towards unifying Man with
some system of Paradise. From the mystical doctrines of the Egyptian
mystery religions to the hammer and sickle of the Soviet Union, from
Plato’s Republic and council of wise men to the dreams and aspirations
of a globally enhanced United Nations—mankind has sought to create the
"perfect utopian" society shaped in Man’s image.
The New Age Movement fits in
nicely with this concept, envisioning a spiritually evolved humanity
coupled with a complete global social, political, and economic system.3
It’s a world where cosmic forces are at work shaping individuals,
cultures, and entire nations. It’s a world where "old norms" are torn
down, and where newness is embraced—and yet, in this remaking of the
world, ancient powers, symbols, and mythologies are drawn upon in this
quest to re-forge civilization.
A New Fundamental Philosophy
It was self-evident that
the new movement could hope to achieve the necessary importance and
the required strength for this gigantic struggle only if it succeeded
from the very first day in arousing in the hearts of its supporters
the holy conviction that with it political life was to be given, not
to a new election slogan, but to a new philosophy of
fundamental significance.4
The above words, penned by
Adolf Hitler, the leader of the National Socialist German Worker’s
Party, demonstrated the essential point of Nazism: a new and
fundamental philosophy. As the political and forceful expression of
this "holy conviction," the Nazi Party’s new philosophy centered on the
interlocking ideals of blood and soil, race and Nature. Ultimately, it
was believed, humanity’s spiritual and cultural evolution would rest on
the strength of the Germanized Aryan ideal.
And then Europe burned.
It’s in the Roots
[Note: Much of the
historical material on the Germanic esoteric societies and their links
to National Socialism is based on the scholarly work of Nicholas
Goodrick-Clarke and his book, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret
Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology (New York
University Press, 1985/1992).]
Millions of pages of material
have been published in an attempt to explain Germany’s military actions,
political structures, and overall historical impact. And much thought
has been given to Germany’s social and cultural setting. But one area
that hasn’t seen as much literature is in the realm of German esoteric
interests. There has been some items published on this subject, but it’s
hard to find non-sensationalist accounts. However, we can glean some
important material that points to the philosophical roots—the "holy
conviction"—of the German National Socialist ideology.
Germany’s theological roots
run deep; Martin Luther’s strike against entrenched Roman Catholicism,
and much of the ensuing Reformation and Anabaptist movement, are
historically significant to Germany. As such, this particular nation has
been looked up to for centuries as a bastion of theological thought and
action. However, Germany’s spiritual history encompasses more than just
the Reformation. Rosicrucian orders5 and other esoteric
schools of thought emerged from the German heartland. But it wasn’t a
German-born who gave impetus to the Nazi philosophy, it was a
Russian-born woman by the name of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky—the founder
of the Theosophical Society.
Blavatsky, in her seminal
work The Secret Doctrine, outlines the activities of "God"
throughout a number of evolutionary cycles. Each cycle, she explained,
witnessed the rise and fall of "root-races," and the pinnacle of mankind
at this stage of the cycle was represented by the Aryan race.
Furthermore, Blavatsky’s theosophical ideas also incorporated
reincarnation, karma, and other Hindu beliefs. Gnosticism, Hermetic
philosophies, Kabbalahism, Eastern religions, occult lore, alternative
esoteric histories and mythologies—all of these streams of spirituality
funneled into Blavatsky’s writings. And through this blending of
mystical concepts, her emphasis on racial development and evolutionary
hierarchy struck a cord within segments of American, Indian, English,
and German high-society.
In 1884, the first German
Theosophical Society was established. But because of internal stresses
and outside accusations made against Blavatsky, this particular
organization fell apart. However, the interest in theosophy remained,
and by 1896 a German national branch of the International Theosophical
Brotherhood was established.6
Out of this greater interest
in theosophy—and the re-organized German Theosophical Society in
particular—a number of splinter groups and alternative esoteric
organizations were birthed, both in Germany and Austria. By the time
World War I had started in 1914, German occultism had taken on a number
of forms; from the volkisch mysticism of Guido von List to Rudolf
Steiner’s Anthroposophical Society, from "irregular" Masonic and
Rosicrucian lodges to Theozoology and the Order of the New Templars. It
could be said that German-central Europe was experiencing an occult
renaissance of sorts, and each of these movements (and others not
listed) played a part in creating an undercurrent of Germanic spiritual
adventurism. Moreover, many of these foundational groups viewed Jews as
being a contaminant in the continued unfolding of an Aryan evolutionary
line—thinking that would later find a political foothold in National
Socialism.
With the defeat of Germany in
World War I, a cultural and social vacuum precipitated an even greater
interest in Germanic mysticism, alternative pagan histories, and
occultism. Riding this wave, Rudolf J. Gorsleben kick-started a radical
Aryan movement that centered on runes and occultism, creating "an
original racist mystery-religion which illuminated the priceless magical
heritage of the Aryans and justified their spiritual and political
world-supremacy."7
The ideas of Karl Maria
Wiligut also found root during this time. Wiligut, a proclaimed German
sage with alleged clairvoyant skills, held to a blend of racist "Ario-Christianity"
and Teutonic paganism. Later changing his name to Karl Maria Weisthor,
Wiligut’s high-point contribution to the Third Reich was his involvement
in the Wawelsburg project—the complete remodeling of a castle near
Paderborn into an SS-order officer’s college and pan-Germanic SS
spiritual center, complete with cult-styled pagan ceremonies and rituals
[more on the SS order to follow].
And finally, during the years
between the Great War and World War II, an aristocrat named Rudolf von
Sebottendorff organized the Thule Society. Drawing from some of earlier
Germanic mythologies and esoteric groups, such as the Germanenorden—"an
anti-Semitic group organized like a secret quasi-masonic lodge"8—the
Thule Society became a haven for nationalistic leanings in light of
Germany’s loss of the Great War.
Thule saw some interesting
future Nazi figures pass through its lodge doors: Alfred Rosenberg— the
eventual Reich Minister for the Eastern Occupied Territories, Dietrich
Eckart—a key early member of the Nazi Party and editor of the
Völkischer Beobachter [the Nazi Party newspaper], Rudolf Hess—the
eventual Deputy of the Fuehrer,9 and Ernst Rohm—who became
the Reichsminister of the SA.10
The symbol of the Thule
Society was a circular swastika mounted atop a double-edge dagger.
The Third Reich
Adolf Hitler himself had come
into contact with some of these arcane doctrines and teachings, and was
no doubt influenced by them to a certain extent, particularly from Thule
interests and the mystical inclinations of Guido von List—a leading
figure in German esoteric and Aryan blood-and-race ideologies.11
Mein Kampf, Hitler’s major work, indirectly linked the meaning of
the swastika with the Aryan racial mythologies of List.
As National Socialists, we
see our program in our flag. In red we see the social ideal of the
movement, in white the nationalistic idea, in the swastika the mission
of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man, and, by the same
token, the victory of the idea of creative work, which as such always
has been and always will be anti-Semitic.12
But of all the major Nazi
Party leaders, Heinrich Himmler—head of the SS—seemed most inclined
towards mystical interpretations. The SS, short for Schutzstaffel, was
originally an inner guard for the Nazi leadership but, as the regime and
its military components evolved, the SS took on multi-task military
functions.13
Historian Marc Rikmenspoel,
in his encyclopedic work on the SS, explains that "The official
religious doctrine of the Nazi Party and the SS was a sort of deism, an
undefined belief in God separate from any organized religion. The SS, in
particular, encouraged the belief in Nordic paganism, and urged its
members to abandon any Christian denomination."14
Certainly a large part of
this mystical orientation came from Himmler’s close association with
Karl Wiligut. Author and Nazi historian Nocholas Goodrick-Clarke
explains,
By virtue of his [Wiligut]
alleged possession of ancestral memory and an inspired representation
of archaic Germanic traditions, he became the favoured mentor of
Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler on mythological subjects and was
given an official assignment for prehistorical research in the SS
between 1933 and 1939.15
Adding to this, Goodrick-Clarke
writes,
Among the top leaders of
the Third Reich, Himmler appears the most ambiguous personality,
motivated simultaneously by a capacity for rational planning and by
unreal fantasies. His zeal for order, punctuality, and administrative
detail, and the pedantic impression of an "intelligent primary school
teacher," were seemingly belied by his enthusiasm for the utopian, the
romantic and even the occult. It was Himmler’s idealistic imagination
which led to a visionary conception of the SS and its future role: his
black-uniformed troops would provide both the bloodstock of the future
Aryan master-race and the ideological elite of an ever-expanding
Greater Germanic Reich.16
Keep in mind, Himmler was the
organizer of the concentration camp system, and specific units within
his SS were tasked with carrying out the "Final Solution" against the
European Jews.
From the employment of runes
to the celebration of the swastika sun symbol, from the racially
motivated mystical philosophies of an Aryan blood-line to the esoteric
teachings of a pagan-Germanic pre-history, the "holy conviction" of the
National Socialist German Worker’s Party—a blend of occultism and
racism—culminated in one of the worst atrocities in human history.
Knowing that the Nazi’s
ideology was fixated on arcane beliefs, the question of German
Freemasonry, Rosicrucian orders, and even pan-Germanic mystical
associations needs to be addressed. Understand, Hitler and his regime
pursued these groups with a bent towards their destruction; even
Germanic esoteric organizations that had helped establish the
philosophical ideals of the Reich were targeted. Given the fact that the
Nazi Party was the political expression of various arcane doctrines,
some critics have suggested that this purging throws doubt on the
esoteric foundation for Nazism.
On the eve of World War II,
Hermann Rauschning, a former advisor to Hitler and president of the
Danzig Senate, attempted to warn the world of Nazism’s ultimate aim by
publishing his book, The Revolution of Nihilism: Warning to the West.
Commenting on Freemasonry and other secretive societies in Germany, and
their relationship to National Socialism, Rauschning wrote,
If we try to understand
what it is that tempts Hitler again and again to dwell on Freemasonry,
on the Jesuits, or on the Teutonic Order, we come close to the
essential secret of the National Socialist elite, the "mystery," as
the Teutonic Order called it, the esoteric doctrine confined to the
brethren who were called to initiation. It was the piecemeal character
of their initiation into secret aims, the aims and methods of a ruling
class, by stages of discipline, enlightenment, liberation, that set
the eyes of National Socialism in envious rivalry on such
organizations as Freemasonry.17
Simply put, all rivalries
must be removed—no matter how close the historical associations may be,
such as was the case, ultimately, with Theosophy.
So why is it important to
understand all this complex and obscure Nazi esoteric history?
First, the simple fact is
that as a movement Nazism re-forged the entire structure of Europe, and
continues to have lasting social repercussions. This fact alone demands
that we examine its deeper roots.
Secondly, and of immense
importance, is the fact that this movement’s historical philosophies
were grounded in the same ideologies that today comprise the New Age
Movement. Remember Blavatsky’s Theosophy and its early role in the
development of Germanic mysticism? Consider this substantial statement
from Cherry Gilchrist, author of Theosophy: The Wisdom of the Ages,
Though its origins lie in the
nineteenth century, the theosophical perspective has much in common with
that of the New Age, and, it can fairly be said, it is the impetus of
Theosophy that has enabled the whole New Age movement to come into
being.18
Hitler was absolutely
correct; "Political parties are inclined to compromises; philosophies
never."
Notes:
1
