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Ariosophy

December 30, 2022

Not to be confused with Arianism.

Armanism and Ariosophy are esoteric ideological systems that were developed largely by Guido von List and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels respectively, in Austria between 1890 and 1930. The term 'Ariosophy', which means the wisdom of the Aryans, was invented by Lanz von Liebenfels in 1915, and during the 1920s it became the name of his doctrine. For research of the topic, such as Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke's book The Occult Roots of Nazism, the term 'Ariosophy' is used generically to describe the Aryan/esoteric theories of a subset of the 'Völkische Bewegung'.[1] This broader use of the word is retrospective and it was not generally current among the esotericists themselves. List actually called his doctrine 'Armanism', while Lanz used the terms 'Theozoology' and 'Ario-Christianity' before the First World War.

Werner von Bülow's World-Rune-Clock, illustrating the correspondences between List's Armanen runes, the signs of the zodiac and the gods of the months.

The ideas of Von List and Lanz von Liebenfels were part of a general occult revival that occurred in Austria and Germany during the late 19th and early 20th centuries; a revival that was loosely inspired by Christianity, historical Germanic paganism, and holistic philosophy, as well as by esoteric concepts that were influenced by German romanticism and Theosophy. The connection between this form of Germanic mysticism and historical Germanic culture is evident in the mystics' fascination with runes, in the form of Guido von List's Armanen runes.

Overview

The ideology regarding the Aryan race (in the sense of Indo-Europeans, runic symbols, the swastika, and sometimes occultism) are important elements of Ariosophy. By 1899 at the earliest or by 1900 at the latest, esoteric notions entered Guido List's thoughts.[2] In April 1903, he sent his manuscript, proposing what Goodrick-Clarke calls a "monumental pseudoscience" concerning the ancient German faith, to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna[3] onwards. These Ariosophic ideas (together with, and influenced by, Theosophy) contributed significantly to an occult counterculture in Germany and Austria. A historic interest in this topic has stemmed from the ideological relationship between Ariosophy and Nazism, and it is obvious in such book titles as:

However, Goodrick-Clarke's comprehensive study finds little evidence of direct influence, except in the case of the highly idiosyncratic ancient-German mythos that was elaborated by the "clairvoyant" SS-Brigadeführer Karl Maria Wiligut,[Note 1] of which the practical consequences were, first, the incorporation of Wiligut's symbolism into the ceremonies of an elite circle within the SS; and, secondly, the official censure of those occultists and runic magicians whom Wiligut stigmatized as heretics, which may have persuaded Heinrich Himmler to order the internment of several of them.[Note 2] The most notable other case is Himmler's Ahnenerbe. (For the debate on the direct relations to Nazi ideology, see Religious aspects of Nazism.) Goodrick-Clarke examines what evidence there is for influences on Hitler and other Nazis, but he concludes that "Ariosophy is a symptom of rather than an influence in the way that it anticipated Nazism".[7]

'Ariosophic' writers and organisations

While a broad definition of the term 'Ariosophy' is useful for some purposes, various of the later authors, including Ellegaard Ellerbek, Philipp Stauff and Günther Kirchoff, can more exactly be described as cultivating the Armanism of List.[8] In a less broad approach, one could also treat rune occultism separately. Although the Armanen runes go back to List, Rudolf John Gorsleben distinguished himself from other völkisch writers by making the esoteric importance of the runes central to his world view. Goodrick-Clarke therefore refers to the doctrine of Kummer and Gorsleben and his followers as rune occultism, a description that also fits the eclectic work of Karl Spiesberger. Highly practical[further explanation needed] systems of rune occultism, influenced mainly by List, were developed by Friedrich Bernhard Marby and Siegfried Adolf Kummer.[9] Also worthy of mention are Peryt Shou, the occult novelist; A. Frank Glahn, noted more for his pendulum dowsing; Rudolf von Sebottendorff and Walter Nauhaus, who built up the Thule Society; and Karl Maria Wiligut, who was the most notable occultist working for the SS.

Organisations include: the Guido von List Society, the High Armanen Order, the Lumen Club, the Ordo Novi Templi, the Germanenorden (in which a schism occurred) and the Thule Society.

Armanism

"Armanism" redirects here. For the Dutch Protestant theological movement, see Arminianism.
 
Guido von List in 1910 from the book Guido v. List: Der Wiederentdecker Uralter Arischer Weisheit by Johannes Balzli, published in 1917

Guido von List elaborated a racial religion premised on the concept of renouncing the imposed Semitic creed of Christianity and returning to the native religions of the ancient Indo-Europeans (List preferred the equivalent term Ario-Germanen, or 'Aryo-Germanics'). List recognised the theoretical distinction between the Proto-Indo-European language and its daughter Proto-Germanic language but frequently obscured it by his tendency to treat them as a single long-lived entity (although this framing is also used in linguistics as the Germanic parent language).[10] In this, he became strongly influenced by the Theosophical thought of Madame Blavatsky, which he blended however with his own highly original beliefs, founded upon Germanic paganism.[11]

Before he turned to occultism, Guido List had written articles for German Nationalist newspapers in Austria, as well as four historical novels and three plays, some of which were "set in tribal Germany" before the advent of Christianity.[12] He also had written an anti-semitic essay in 1895. List adopted the aristocratic von between 1903 and 1907.

List called his doctrine Armanism after the Armanen, supposedly a body of priest-kings in the ancient Aryo-Germanic nation. He claimed that this German name had been Latinized into the tribal name Herminones mentioned in Tacitus and that it actually meant the heirs of the sun-king: an estate of intellectuals who were organised into a priesthood called the Armanenschaft.[13]

His conception of the original religion of the Germanic tribes was a form of sun worship, with its priest-kings (similar to the Icelandic goði) as legendary rulers of ancient Germany. Religious instruction was imparted on two levels. The esoteric doctrine (Armanism) was concerned with the secret mysteries of the gnosis, reserved for the initiated elite, while the exoteric doctrine (Wotanism) took the form of popular myths intended for the lower social classes.[14]

List believed that the transition from Wotanism to Christianity had proceeded smoothly under the direction of the skalds, so that native customs, festivals and names were preserved under a Christian veneer and only needed to be 'decoded' back into their heathen forms.[15] This peaceful merging of the two religions had been disrupted by the forcible conversions under "bloody Charlemagne – the Slaughterer of the Saxons".[16] List claimed that the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church in Austria-Hungary constituted a continuing occupation of the Germanic tribes by the Roman empire, albeit now in a religious form, and a continuing persecution of the ancient religion of the Germanic peoples and Celts.

He also believed in the magical powers of the old runes. From 1891 onwards he claimed that heraldry was based on a system of encoded runes, so that heraldic devices conveyed a secret heritage in cryptic form. In April 1903, he submitted an article concerning the alleged Aryan proto-language to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna. Its highlight was a mystical and occult interpretation of the runic alphabet, which became the cornerstone of his ideology. Although the article was rejected by the academy, it would later be expanded by List and grew into his final masterpiece, a comprehensive treatment of his linguistic and historical theories published in 1914 as Die Ursprache der Ario-Germanen und ihre Mysteriensprache (The Proto-Language of the Aryo-Germanics and their Mystery Language).

List's doctrine has been described as gnostic, pantheist and deist.[17] At its core is the mystical union of God, man and nature. Wotanism teaches that God dwells within the individual human spirit as an inner source of magical power, but is also immanent within nature through the primal laws that govern the cycles of growth, decay and renewal. List explicitly rejects a Mind-body dualism of spirit versus matter or of God over or against nature. Humanity is therefore one with the universe, which entails an obligation to live in accordance with nature. But the individual human ego does not seek to merge with the cosmos. "Man is a separate agent, necessary to the completion or perfection of ‘God's work’".[18] Being immortal, the ego passes through successive reincarnations until it overcomes all obstacles to its purpose. List foresaw the eventual consequences of this in a future utopia on earth, which he identified with the promised Valhalla, a world of victorious heroes:

Thus in the course of uncounted generations all men will become Einherjar, and that state – willed and preordained by the godhead – of general liberty, equality, and fraternity will be reached. This is that state which sociologists long for and which socialists want to bring about by false means, for they are not able to comprehend the esoteric concept that lies hidden in the triad: liberty, equality, fraternity, a concept which must first ripen and mature in order that someday it can be picked like a fruit from the World Tree.[19]

List was familiar with the cyclical notion of time, which he encountered in Norse mythology and in the theosophical adaptation of the Hindu time cycles. He had already made use of cosmic rhythms in his early journalism on natural landscapes.[20] In his later works[Note 3] List combined the cyclical concept of time with the "dualistic and linear time scheme" of western apocalyptic which counterposes a pessimism about the present world with an ultimate optimism regarding the future one.[22] In Das Geheimnis der Runen,[23] List addresses the seeming contradiction by explaining the final redemption of the linear time frame as an exoteric parable that stands for the esoteric truth of renewal in many future cycles and incarnations. However, in the original Norse myths and Hinduism, the cycle of destruction and creation is repeated indefinitely, thus offering no possibility of ultimate salvation.[24]

Guido von List Society and High Armanen Order

Already in 1893 Guido List[Note 4] together with Fanny Wschiansky, had founded the Literarische Donaugesellschaft, a literary society .[25]

In 1908 the Guido von List Society (Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft) was founded primarily by the Wannieck family (Friedrich Wannieck and his son Friedrich Oskar Wannieck being prominent and enthusiastic Armanists) as an occult völkisch organisation, with the purpose of financing and publishing List's research.[26] The List Society was supported by many leading figures in Austrian and German politics, publishing, and occultism.[Note 5] Although one might suspect a völkisch organisation to be antisemitic, the society included at least two Jews among its members: Moritz Altschüler, a rabbinical scholar,[27] and Ernst Wachler.[28] The List Society published List's works under the series Guido-List-Bücherei (GLB).[29][Note 6]

List had established exoteric and esoteric circles in his organisation. The High Armanen Order (Hoher Armanen Orden) was the inner circle of the Guido von List Society. Founded in midsummer 1911, it was set up as a magical order or lodge to support List's deeper and more practical work. The HAO conducted pilgrimages to what its members considered "holy Armanic sites", Stephansdom in Vienna, Carnuntum etc. They also had occasional meetings between 1911 and 1918, but the exact nature of these remains unknown. In his introduction to List's The Secret of the Runes, Stephen E. Flowers notes: "The HAO never really crystallized in List's lifetime – although it seems possible that he developed a theoretical body of unpublished documents and rituals relevant to the HAO that have only been put into full practice in more recent years".[30]

Listians under the Third Reich

List died on 17 May 1919, a few months before Adolf Hitler joined a minor Bavarian political party and formed it into the NSDAP. After the Nazis had come to power, several advocates of Armanism fell victim to the suppression of esotericism in Nazi Germany.

The main reason for the persecution of occultists was the Nazi policy of systematically closing down esoteric organisations (although Germanic paganism was still practised by some Nazis on an individual basis), but the instigator in certain cases[citation needed] was Himmler's personal occultist, Karl Maria Wiligut. Wiligut identified the monotheistic religion of Irminism as the true ancestral belief, claiming that Guido von List's Wotanism and runic row constituted a schismatic false religion[citation needed].

Among the Listians – Kummer and Marby are not mentioned by Goodrick-Clarke[31] among the signatories who endorsed the List Society around 1905 but both men were indebted to "Listian" ideas[32] – who were subjected to censure were the rune occultists Friedrich Bernhard Marby and Siegfried Adolf Kummer, both of whom were denounced by Wiligut in 1934 in a letter to Himmler.[33] Flowers[34] writes: "The establishment of [an] 'official NS runology' under Himmler, Wiligut, and others led directly to the need to suppress the rune-magical 'free agents' such as Marby". Despite having openly supported the Nazis,[35] Marby was arrested by the Gestapo in 1936 as an anti-Nazi occultist and was interned in Welzheim, Flossenbürg and Dachau concentration camps.[36][37][38] Kummer disappears from History after Wiligut's denunciation in 1934, and his fate is unknown. He may have died in a concentration camp.[39] According to Rudgley,[40] "[u]nsubstantiated rumours" have him fleeing Nazi Germany in exile to South America, but "it is more likely that he perished in one of the camps that Marby was to survive or died during the Allied bombing of Dresden."

Günter Kirchhoff, a List Society member whom Wiligut had recommended to Himmler on the strength of his researches into prehistory, is reported to have written that Wiligut by intrigue had ensured that Ernst Lauterer (a.k.a. "Tarnhari") – another List Society member, who claimed a secret clan tradition that rivalled Wiligut's own – was committed to a concentration camp as an "English agent". Flowers and Moynihan[41] reproduce Kirchhoff's testimony as reported by both Adolf Schleipfer and researcher Manfred Lenz (but doubted by Wiligut's former secretary Gabriele Dechend).

Theozoology

 
Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels (code name of the fascist agitator Adolf Joseph Lanz)

In 1903–04, a Viennese ex-Cistercian monk, Bible scholar and inventor named Jörg Lanz-Liebenfels (subsequently, Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels) published a lengthy article under the Latin title "Anthropozoon Biblicum" ("The Biblical Man-Animal") in a journal for Biblical studies edited by Moritz Altschüler, a Jewish admirer of Guido von List. The author undertook a comparative survey of ancient Near Eastern cultures, in which he detected evidence from iconography and literature that seemed to point to the continued survival, into early historical times, of hominid ape-men similar to the dwarfish Neanderthal men known from fossil remains in Europe, or the Pithecanthropus (now called Homo erectus) from Java.[42] Furthermore, Lanz systematically analysed the Old Testament in the light of his hypothesis, identifying and interpreting coded references to the ape-men that substantiated an illicit practice of interbreeding between humans and "lower" species in antiquity.

In 1905 he expanded these researches into a fundamental statement of doctrine titled Theozoologie oder die Kunde von den Sodoms-Äfflingen und dem Götter-Elektron[43] ("Theozoology, or the Science of the Sodomite-Apelings and the Divine Electron"). He claimed that "Aryan" peoples originated from interstellar deities (termed Theozoa) who bred by electricity, while "lower" races were a result of interbreeding between humans and ape-men (or Anthropozoa). The effects of racial crossing caused the atrophy of paranormal powers inherited from the gods, but these could be restored by the selective breeding of pure Aryan lineages. The book relied on somewhat lurid sexual imagery, decrying the abuse of white women by ethnically inferior but sexually active men. Thus, Lanz advocated mass castration of racially "apelike" or otherwise "inferior" males.[44] In the same year, Lanz commenced publication of the journal Ostara (named after a pagan Germanic goddess of spring) to promote his vision of racial purity.

Secret Society Order of the New Templars

On December 25, 1900, he founded the fascist secret society Order of the New Templars (Ordo Novi Templi, or ONT) – a project to bring rightwing extremists together and mobilise them in favor of Nazism in Germany by using esotericism to justify violence such as castration of innocent people to establish fascism in Germany and defend it against communism.[45] The ONT was modelled after the catholic military order Knight Templars and similar in its hierarchical structure as the Order of Cistercians which was the group that trained the New Templars founder and political agitator Adolf Lanz.[45] Members used code names so that betrayal was difficult.[45]

The ideological association was headquartered at Burg Werfenstein, a castle in Upper Austria overlooking the river Danube. Its declared aim was to use pseudo-science and religion to make people believe in racist concepts. Rituals were designed to beautify life in accordance with Aryan aesthetics, and to express the Order's theological system that Lanz called Ario-Christianity. The Order was the first to use the swastika in an "Aryan" meaning, displaying on its flag the device of a red swastika facing right, on a yellow-orange field and surrounded by four blue fleurs-de-lys above, below, to the right and to the left.

The ONT declined from the mid-1930s and – even though it had pioneered many ideas that the Nazis later adopted – it was suppressed by the Gestapo in 1942. By this time it had established seven communities in Austria, Germany and Hungary. Though suspending its activities in the Greater German Reich, the ONT survived in Hungary until around the end of World War II.[46] It went underground in Vienna after 1945, but was contacted in 1958 by a former Waffen-SS lieutenant, Rudolf Mund, who became Prior of the Order in 1979.[47] Mund also wrote biographies of Lanz and Wiligut.

Ariosophy

The term "Ariosophy" (wisdom concerning the Aryans) was coined by Lanz von Liebenfels in 1915, with "Theozoology" describing its Genesis and "Ario-Christianity" as the label for the overall doctrine in the 1920s.[Note 7]

This terminology was taken up by a group of occultists, formed in Berlin around 1920 and referred to by one of its main figures, Ernst Issberner-Haldane, as the 'Swastika-Circle'. Lanz's publisher, Herbert Reichstein, made contact with the group in 1925 and formed it into an institute with himself as director. This association was named the Ariosophical Society in 1926, renamed the Neue Kalandsgesellschaft (from Kaland, Guido von List's term for a secret lodge or conventicle) in 1928, and renamed again as the Ariosophische Kulturzentrale in 1931, the year in which it opened an Ariosophical School at Pressbaum that offered courses and lectures in runic lore, biorhythms, yoga and Qabalah.

The institute maintained a friendly collaboration with Lanz, its guiding intellect and inspiration, but also acknowledged an indebtedness to List, declaring itself as the successor to the Armanen priest-kings and their hierophantic tradition. Reichstein's circle therefore establishes the historical precedent for a broad conception that was followed by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke in 1985 when he redefined Ariosophy as a general term to describe Aryan-centric occult theories and hermetic practices, including both Lanz's Ario-Christianity and the earlier Armanism of List, as well as later derivatives of either or both systems. If the term is employed in this extended sense, then Guido von List, and not Lanz von Liebenfels, was the founder of Ariosophy.

The justification for the broad definition is that List and Lanz were mutually influencing. The two men joined one another's societies; List figures in Lanz's pedigree of initiated predecessors; and Lanz is cited several times by List in The Religion of the Aryo-Germanic Folk: Esoteric and Exoteric (1910).


Germanenorden

Main article: Germanenorden

Although List had been concerned "to awaken German nationalist consciousness",[49] the High Armanen Order had addressed itself to the upper and middle class Germans in Austria,[49] and here List had preferred the "role of the mystagogue"[50] over political activism. List's disciples, however, became active in the Reichshammerbund and the Germanenorden, two "historically significant", "virulently antisemitic groups"[50] in Germany. Both groups were organized by the political activist Theodor Fritsch, a major figure in German antisemitism. Fritsch, born 1852, was the son of Saxon peasants, and he was concerned about the "small tradesmen and craftsmen"[50] and their threat from what he perceived to be the large 'Jewish' industry.

The List-inspired Germanenorden (Germanic Order or Teutonic Order, not to be confused with the medieval German order of the Teutonic Knights) was a völkisch secret society in early 20th-century Germany. It was founded in Berlin in 1912 by Theodor Fritsch and several prominent German occultists including Philipp Stauff, who held office in the List Society and High Armanen Order as well as Hermann Pohl, who became the Germanenorden's first leader. The group was a clandestine movement aimed at the upper echelons of society and was a sister movement to the more mainstream Reichshammerbund.[51]

The order, whose symbol was a swastika, had a hierarchical fraternal structure similar to Freemasonry. Local groups of the sect met to celebrate the summer solstice, an important neopagan festivity in völkisch circles (and later in Nazi Germany), and more regularly to read the Eddas as well as some of the German mystics.[52]

In addition to occult and magical philosophies, it taught to its initiates nationalist ideologies of Nordic racial superiority and antisemitism, then rising throughout the Western world. As was becoming increasingly typical of völkisch organisations,[citation needed] it required its candidates to prove that they had no non-Aryan bloodlines and required from each a promise to maintain purity of his stock in marriage.

In 1916, during World War I, the Germanenorden split into two parts. Eberhard von Brockhusen became the Grand Master of the "loyalist" Germanenorden. Pohl, previously the order's Chancellor, founded a schismatic offshoot: the Germanenorden Walvater of the Holy Grail.[53][54] He was joined in the same year by Rudolf von Sebottendorff (formerly Rudolf Glauer), a wealthy adventurer with wide-ranging occult and mystical interests. A Freemason and a practitioner of sufism and astrology, Sebottendorff was also an admirer of Guido von List and Lanz von Liebenfels. Convinced that the Islamic and Germanic mystical systems shared a common Aryan root, he was attracted by Pohl's runic lore and became the Master of the Walvater's Bavarian province late in 1917. Charged with reviving the province's fortunes, Sebottendorff increased membership from about a hundred in 1917 to 1500 by the autumn of the following year.[55]

Thule Society

Main article: Thule Society

In 1918 Sebottendorff made contact with Walter Nauhaus, a member of the Germanenorden who headed a "Germanic study group" called the Thule Gesellschaft (Thule Society).[56] The name of Nauhaus's original Thule Society was adopted as a cover-name for Sebottendorff's Munich lodge of the Germanenorden Walvater when it was formally dedicated on August 18, 1918, with Pohl's assistance and approval.[57] Sebottendorff states that the group was run jointly by himself and Nauhaus.

Deriving elements of its ideology and membership from earlier occult groups founded by List (Guido von List Society, established 1908) and by Lanz von Liebenfels (the Order of the New Templars, established 1907), the Thule Society was dedicated to the triune god Walvater, identified with Wotan in triple form. For the Society's emblem Sebottendorff selected the oak leaves, dagger and swastika.[54] The name Thule (an island located by Greek geographers at the northernmost extremity of the world) was chosen for its significance in the works of Guido von List. According to Thule Society mythology, Thule was the capital of Hyperborea, a legendary country supposedly in the far North polar regions, originally mentioned by Herodotus, citing (among other sources[58]) Egyptian ones.[citation needed] In 1679, Olaf Rudbeck equated the Hyperboreans with the survivors of Atlantis, who were first mentioned by Plato, again following Egyptian sources. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) began his work Der Antichrist (The Antichrist) in 1895 with, "Let us see ourselves for what we are. We are Hyperboreans."

From a historian's[whose?] perspective, the importance of the Thule Society lies in its organising the discussion circle that led to the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei, or DAP), founded in January 1919. The Thule Society's Karl Harrer was a co-founder, along with Anton Drexler (the party's first chairman). Later the same year, Adolf Hitler joined the DAP, which was renamed as the National Socialist German Workers' Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) or Nazi party, registered from 20 February 1920) on April 1, 1920. Some conspiracy-theorists argue that the NSDAP, when under Hitler's leadership, was a political front for the Thule Society. However, against this theory stands Harrer's and Drexler's resistance to Hitler. After unsuccessful challenges to his growing power, both men resigned from the party, Harrer in 1920 and Drexler in 1923.

Speculative authors assert[citation needed]that a number of high Nazi Party officials had been members of the Thule Society (including such prominent figures as Max Amann, Dietrich Eckart, Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg and Gottfried Feder)[citation needed]. Eckart, the wealthy publisher of the newspaper Auf gut Deutsch (In Plain German), has been represented[citation needed] as a committed occultist and the most significant Thule influence on Hitler. He is believed to have taught Hitler a number of persuasive techniques[citation needed], and so profound was his influence that the second volume of Hitler's book Mein Kampf was dedicated to him. However, although Eckart attended Thule Society meetings, he was not a member and there is nothing to indicate that he trained Hitler in techniques of a mystical nature. Examining the membership lists, Goodrick-Clarke[59] notes that Hess, Rosenberg and Feder were – like Eckart – guests of the Thule Society in 1918 but not actual members. He also describes a Thule Society membership roll including Hans Frank and Heinrich Himmler as "spurious". There is no evidence that Hitler himself had any connection with the Society, even as an associate or visitor. However, a member of the Thule Society, dentist Dr. Friedrich Krohn, did choose[citation needed] the swastika symbol for the Nazi party (although the design was revised at Hitler's insistence)[citation needed].

In 1923, Sebottendorff was expelled from Germany as an undesirable alien; around 1925, the Thule Society disbanded. In 1933, Sebottendorff returned to Germany and published Bevor Hitler kam: Urkundliches aus der Frühzeit der nationalsozialistischen Bewegung von Rudolf von Sebottendorff.[56] The book was banned by the Bavarian Political Police on March 1, 1934; Sebottendorff was arrested by the Gestapo, interned in a concentration camp, then expelled to Turkey yet again, where he committed suicide by drowning in the Bosphorus on May 9, 1945,[citation needed] as the Nazis surrendered to the Allies.

Edda Society

 
Rudolf John Gorsleben

Rudolf John Gorsleben was associated with the Thule Society during the Bavarian Soviet Republic of 1919 and, along with Dietrich Eckart, he was taken prisoner by the Communists, narrowly escaping execution. He threw himself into the ferment of Bavaria's völkisch politics and formed a close working relationship with the local Germanenorden before devoting himself to literary pursuits.[60]

On 29 November 1925, Gorsleben founded the Edda Society (Edda-Gesellschaft), a mystic study group, at Dinkelsbühl in Franconia. He himself was Chancellor of the Society and published its periodical Deutsche Freiheit (German Freedom), later renamed Arische Freiheit (Aryan Freedom). Assisted by learned contributors to his study-group, Gorsleben developed an original and eclectic mystery religion founded in part upon the Armanism of List, whom he quoted with approval.[61]

Grand Master of the Society was Werner von Bülow (1870–1947). The treasurer was Friedrich Schaefer from Mühlhausen, whose wife, Käthe, kept open house for another occult-völkisch circle (the 'Free Sons of the North and Baltic Seas') that gathered around Karl Maria Wiligut in the early 1930s.[62] Mathilde von Kemnitz, a prolific völkisch writer who married General Erich Ludendorff in 1926, was an active member of the Edda Society.[Note 8]

When Rudolf John Gorsleben died from heart disease in August 1930, the Edda Society was taken over by Bülow who had designed a 'world-rune-clock' that illustrated the correspondences between the runes, the gods and the zodiac, as well as colours and numbers. Bülow also took over the running of Gorsleben's periodical and changed its name from Arische Freiheit to Hag All All Hag, and then Hagal.

Modern organisations

In the later 20th century, Germanic neopagan movements oriented themselves more towards polytheistic reconstructionism, turning away from theosophic and occult elements, but elements of Ariosophical mysticism continue to play a role in some white supremacist organizations. Alleged mystical or shamanic aspects of historical pre-Christian Germanic culture, summarized as seidr are also practiced in Odinism (Freya Aswynn, Nigel Pennick, Karl Spiesberger, see also Germanic Runic Astrology, The Book of Blotar).

Armanen-Orden

 
Circular arrangement of the Armanen Futharkh.
Main article: Armanen-Orden

The Guido von List Society was re-established in the late 1960s through contacts between the German/Austrian occultist Adolf Schleipfer (1947–) and the still-living last president of the Society, Hanns Bierbach.[63] Schleipfer had discovered some of List's works in an antique bookstore in the mid-1960s, and was inspired to found the runic and Armanist magazine Irminsul[64] in hopes of attracting suitable people for a revived Listian order. He was appointed the new president and continued to publish Irminsul as the "Voice of the Guido von List Society."

Schleipfer also attended meetings of a related organisation, the Gode-Orden (Gothi-Order), which propagated a similar mixture of occult völkisch thinking. There he met his wife Sigrun Schleipfer, née Hammerbacher (1940–2009),[65] daughter of the völkisch writer and former NSDAP district leader, Dr. Hans Wilhelm Hammerbacher.[66] In 1976 the Schleipfers founded the Armanen-Orden (Armanen Order) as the reorganised Guido von List Society.[67] Since then, Adolf and Sigrun have served as the Grandmasters of the Order, although they have divorced and Sigrun now refers to herself as "Sigrun von Schlichting" or "Sigrun Freifrau von Schlichting". They also revived the High Armanen Order (HAO) and brought it to "an unprecedented level of activity".[68]

The Armanen-Orden is a neopagan esoteric society and religious order reviving the occult teachings of Guido von List. Its internal structure is organized in nine grades, inspired by Freemasonry. The order is modelled on, but not limited to, the precepts of List, and its principles as formulated in its brochures are as follows:

The Armanen Order embodies the entire Germanic and Celtic peoples in their mental, spiritual and physical uniqueness.

The Armanen Order embodies the true realisation of the divine world order based on Germanic and Celtic wisdom, whose religious and cultic aspect is formed by the native myths of the gods.

The Awakening of the Armanen Order is a rebirth of life based on its natural foundations of the Germanic and Celtic people.

The Armanen-Orden celebrates seasonal festivities in a similar fashion as Odinist groups do and invites interested people to these events. The highlights are three 'Things' at Ostara (Easter), Midsummer and Fall (Wotan's sacrificial death), which are mostly celebrated at castles close to sacred places, such as the Externsteine. The author Stefanie von Schnurbein attended a Fall Thing in 1990 and gives the following report in Religion als Kulturkritik (Religion and Cultural Criticism):

…the participants meet in a room decorated with hand-woven wall hangings and pictures of Germanic gods, Odin and Frigga in this case… At one end of the room is a table covered with black cloth. On this a 4 ft. 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 shirts for the men and long white dresses for the women; both have the AO 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 portrayal 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 Odal rune stance, whisper 'W-O-D-A-N' nine times and finally sing an ode to Odin with the following words: 'Odin-Wodan come to us, od-uod, uod'. Wodan's sacrifice to himself is symbolised by extinguishing the flame.

In 1977 Sigrun Schleipfer 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 and had as its primary aim the purchase and restoration of a castle for the Order. In 1995, the society finally acquired the castle of Rothenhorn in Szlichtyngowa (Poland), a run-down structure dating back to the 12th century, though most of the complex dates from the 16th century.

Over many years, Adolf and Sigrun have republished all of 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 that are accepted within Odinism or Armanism.[69]

Research on Ariosophy

After the war, Lanz von Liebenfels was first brought to a wider (and scholarly) attention with Wilfried Daim's book Der Mann, der Hitler die Ideen gab (The Man Who Gave Hitler His Ideas) (1957). Although the book was not always taken seriously within academia, for some time Lanz was seen as one of the most important influences on Hitler. Since the 1990s, however, historians have cast doubt on Lanz' significance. The historian Brigitte Hamann, who has written Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship, is of the view that Lanz partly influenced Hitler's diction, but had only marginal influences on Adolf Hitler's religious views.

The occult roots of Nazism

Main article: Occultism in Nazism

Some of Lanz's proposals for racial purification anticipate the Nazis. The sterilisation of those deemed to be genetically "unfit" was in fact implemented under the Nazi eugenics policies, but its basis lay in the theories of scientific racial hygienists. The Nazi eugenics programme has no proven connection with Lanz's mystical rationale. Eugenic ideas were widespread in his lifetime, whereas he himself was banned from publishing in the Third Reich and his writings were suppressed.

Following Goodrick-Clarke's caution in assessing the relation between the two,[70] Adolf Hitler cannot be considered a pupil of Lanz von Liebenfels, as Lanz himself had claimed.[71] However, it has been suggested with some evidential basis that the young Hitler did read and collect Lanz's Ostara magazine while living in Vienna:

In view of the similarity of their ideas relating to the glorification and preservation of the endangered Aryan race, the suppression and ultimate extermination of the non-Aryans, and the establishment of a fabulous Aryan-German millennial empire, the link between the two men looks highly probable.[72]

Nevertheless: "It also remains a fact that Hitler never mentioned the name of Lanz in any recorded conversation, speech, or document. If Hitler had been importantly influenced by [Lanz], he cannot be said to have ever acknowledged this debt".[73]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ In November 1924, Wiligut was committed to the Salzburg mental asylum and declared insane. "The full report on his mental condition referred to his violence at home, including threats to kill his wife, grandiose projects, eccentric behaviour, and occult interests, before diagnosing a history of schizophrenia involving megalomaniac and paranoid delusions. A Salzburg court ruled that he was incompetent to administer his own affairs on the basis of this medical evidence".[4] The case is fully described in Mund's (1982) biography. Throughout his confinement and after his release in 1927, Wiligut continued his ancient-Germanic pretensions. He retired from the SS on 28 August 1939 after his psychiatric history, previously a closely guarded secret, became an embarrassment to Himmler.
  2. ^ The cases of three Listian occultists – Kummer, Lauterer and Marby – are discussed below. In 1938 Wiligut's recommendations were also decisive in securing the official disapproval of the Italian esotericist Julius Evola.[5][6]
  3. ^ Goodrick-Clarke refers especially to Die Armanenschaft der Ario-Germanen. Zweiter Teil, 1911 and the second edition of Die Armanenschaft der Ario-Germanen. Erster Teil, 1913.[21]
  4. ^ Guido List started to use the aristocratic von in his name between 1903 and 1907.
  5. ^ A list of the signatories in support of the Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft is printed in GLB 3 (1908), p. 197f. Membership lists of the Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft are printed in GLB 2 (1908), pp. 71–4 and GLB 5 (1910), pp. 384–9. The articles of the List Society are printed in GLB 1, second edition (1912), pp. 68–78.[full citation needed]
  6. ^ Two other later works of List were published by Adolf Burdeke[citation needed] in Zürich. For a complete list of List's books, see the bibliography in Goodrick-Clarke 1985: 274.
  7. ^ "The term "Ariosophy", meaning occult wisdom concerning the Aryans, was first coined by Lanz von Liebenfels in 1915 and became the label for his doctrine in the 1920s. List actually called his doctrine "Armanism", while Lanz used the terms "Theozoology" and "Ario-Christianity" before the First World War. In this book [i.e. The Occult Roots of Nazism] 'Ariosophy' is used generically to describe the Aryan-racist-occult theories of both men and their followers."[48]
  8. ^ According to 'Lexicon of Ariosophy' by Frater Georg Nikolaus of the ONT, an undated manuscript preserved in the Rudolf Mund Archive (Vienna) and cited in Goodrick-Clarke (1985), pp. 159, 254.

References

  1. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 227, note 1 to the Introduction.
  2. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 51–52
  3. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 41
  4. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 182
  5. ^ Flowers & Moynihan 2007, p. 59
  6. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 190
  7. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 192–202
  8. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 155
  9. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 160–62
  10. ^ The Secret of the Runes, translated by Flowers, 1988, pp. 43, 69 and passim.
  11. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 2
  12. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 36–41
  13. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 56
  14. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 57
  15. ^ List 1988, pp. 16–17
  16. ^ List 1988, p. 77
  17. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 40, 50, 84 and passim
  18. ^ List 1988, p. 24
  19. ^ List 1988, p. 109
  20. ^ List (1891), Deutsch-Mythologische Landschaftsbilder (republished), Berlin.
  21. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 239–40, notes to Chapter 9
  22. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 79, 80
  23. ^ The Secret of the Runes, translated by Flowers, 1988, pp. 107ff.
  24. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 79, 239, note 14 to Chapter 9
  25. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 39
  26. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 42
  27. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 99
  28. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 43, 162 affirms Wachler's membership in the List Society.
  29. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 44
  30. ^ List 1988, p. 11
  31. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 43
  32. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 181–82
  33. ^ Karl-Maria Weisthor (i.e. Wiligut) to Himmler, 2 May 1934, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, Himmler Nachlass 19, cited in Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 254 n.21
  34. ^ List 1988, p. 35
  35. ^ Marby 1935, pp. 7–42 cited in List 1988, p. 117 n.47
  36. ^ List 1988, p. 117 n.47
  37. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 161
  38. ^ Rudgley 2007, p. 119
  39. ^ Lange 1998.
  40. ^ Rudgley 2007, p. 125
  41. ^ List 1988, pp. 59, 165, 177
  42. ^ Lanz-Liebenfels 1903, pp. 337–39
  43. ^ Theozoologie oder die Kunde von den Sodoms-Äfflingen und dem Götter-Elektron (in German), Archive.
  44. ^ Lanz von Liebenfels 2002
  45. ^ a b c Hieronymus, Ekkehard (2012-08-28). "Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels". Handbuch zur "Völkischen Bewegung" 1871-1918 (in German). K. G. Saur. doi:10.1515/9783110964240.131. ISBN 978-3-11-096424-0.
  46. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 119, 122
  47. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 135
  48. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 227, note 1 to the Introduction
  49. ^ a b Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 65
  50. ^ a b c Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 123
  51. ^ Levy, Richard S. (2005). Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. p. 269.
  52. ^ . Intelinet. Archived from the original on June 4, 2007.
  53. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 131–32
  54. ^ a b Thomas 2005
  55. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 142–43
  56. ^ a b Phelps 1963
  57. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 144
  58. ^ Herodotus (1890). "Book 4". Histories. Translated by Macaulay, G. C. Retrieved 17 November 2022. Hesiod [...] has spoken of Hyperboreans, and so also has Homer [...]. But much more of them is reported by the people of Delos [...].
  59. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 149, 221
  60. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 156
  61. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 156–59
  62. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, pp. 159, 183
  63. ^ According to List 1988, p. 36, Schleipfer renewed the GvLS in 1969. According to Schnurbein 1995, p. 24, he became its president in 1967.
  64. ^ . Archived from the original on May 15, 2008. in the German National Library.
  65. ^ Handbuch Deutscher Rechtsextremismus (in German). 1996.[full citation needed]
  66. ^ Schnurbein 1995, p. 27ff
  67. ^ Schnurbein 1995, p. 25
  68. ^ List 1988, p. 36
  69. ^ Schleipfer 2007
  70. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, (preface by Rohan Butler).
  71. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 192
  72. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 194
  73. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 1985, p. 198

Bibliography

  • Balzli, Johannes (1917). Guido v. List: Der Wiederentdecker Uralter Arischer Weisheit – Sein Leben und sein Schaffen (in German). Leipzig and Vienna: Guido-von-List-Gesellschaft.
  • Flowers, Stephen E.; Moynihan, Michael (2008). The Secret King: The Myth and Reality of Nazi Occultism. Feral House and Dominion Press. ISBN 978-1-932595-25-3. (paperback) and Flowers, Stephen E.; Moynihan, Michael (2007). The Secret King: The Myth and Reality of Nazi Occultism. Feral House and Dominion Press. ISBN 978-0-9712044-6-1. (hardcover). Revised and expanded edition of Flowers, Stephen E.; Moynihan, Michael (2001). The Secret King: Karl Maria Wiligut, Himmler's Lord of the Runes. The Real Documents of Nazi Occultism. Dominion Press and Rûna-Raven Press.
  • Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (1985). The Occult Roots of Nazism: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany 1890–1935. Wellingborough, England: The Aquarian Press. ISBN 0-85030-402-4. Republished as The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890–1935. New York University Press. 1992. ISBN 0-8147-3060-4.) and as The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology. Gardners Books. 2003. ISBN 1-86064-973-4.
  • Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (2003). Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity. New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-3155-4.
  • Kertzer, David (2001). The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-40623-9.
  • Lange, Hans-Jürgen. (1998). Weisthor : Karl-Maria Wiligut : Himmlers Rasputin und seine Erben (in German). Arun. ISBN 3-927940-35-6. OCLC 48419221.
  • Lanz-Liebenfels, Jörg (1903). "Anthropozoon Biblicum". Vierteljahrsschrift für Bibelkunde. 1: 307–55, 429–69.
  • Lanz-Liebenfels, Jörg (1904). "Anthropozoon Biblicum". Vierteljahrsschrift für Bibelkunde. 2: 26–60, 314–35, 395–412.
  • Lanz-Liebenfels, Jörg (1905). Theozoologie: oder die Kunde von den Sodoms-Äfflingen und dem Götter-Elektron. Vienna. (Republished as Lanz von Liebenfels, Georg Jörg (2002). Theozoologie: oder die Kunde von den Sodoms-Äfflingen und dem Götter-Elektron. ISBN 978-3-8311-3157-0.)
  • List, Guido von (1988). The Secret of the Runes (Guido-von-List-Bücherei 1). Translated by Flowers, Stephen E. Rochester, Vermont: Destiny Books. ISBN 0-89281-207-9.
  • List, Guido von (1910). Die Religion der Ario-Germanen in ihrer Esoterik und Exoterik (in German). Zürich.
  • Marby, Friedrich B. (1935). Rassische Gymnastik als Aufrassungsweg (in German). Stuttgart: Marby-Runen-Bücherei 5/6.
  • Mund, Rudolf J. (1982). Der Rasputin Himmlers: Die Wiligut-Saga (in German). Vienna.
  • Phelps, Reginald H. (1963). "'Before Hitler Came': Thule Society and Germanen Orden". The Journal of Modern History. 35 (3): 245–261. doi:10.1086/243738. JSTOR 1899474. S2CID 143484937.
  • Rudgley, Richard (2007) [2006]. Pagan Resurrection: A Force for Evil or the Future of Western Spirituality?. London: Arrow Books. ISBN 978-0-09-928119-1.
  • Schleipfer, Adolf (2007). . Archived from the original on 2009-10-27. In Flowers & Moynihan 2007 Originally published in Irminsul 5. 1982.
  • Schnurbein, Stefanie von (1995) [1992]. Religion als Kulturkritik (in German).
  • Strohm, Harald (1997) [1973]. Die Gnosis und der Nationalsozialismus [Gnosis and National Socialism]. Suhrkamp. ISBN 3-932710-68-1.
  • Sünner, Rüdiger (1997). Schwarze Sonne: Entfesselung und Missbrauch der Mythen in Nationalsozialismus und rechter Esoterik (in German).
  • Thomas, Robert (2005). (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-04-17.

December 30, 2022
ariosophy, confused, with, arianism, armanism, esoteric, ideological, systems, that, were, developed, largely, guido, list, jörg, lanz, liebenfels, respectively, austria, between, 1890, 1930, term, which, means, wisdom, aryans, invented, lanz, liebenfels, 1915. Not to be confused with Arianism Armanism and Ariosophy are esoteric ideological systems that were developed largely by Guido von List and Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels respectively in Austria between 1890 and 1930 The term Ariosophy which means the wisdom of the Aryans was invented by Lanz von Liebenfels in 1915 and during the 1920s it became the name of his doctrine For research of the topic such as Nicholas Goodrick Clarke s book The Occult Roots of Nazism the term Ariosophy is used generically to describe the Aryan esoteric theories of a subset of the Volkische Bewegung 1 This broader use of the word is retrospective and it was not generally current among the esotericists themselves List actually called his doctrine Armanism while Lanz used the terms Theozoology and Ario Christianity before the First World War Werner von Bulow s World Rune Clock illustrating the correspondences between List s Armanen runes the signs of the zodiac and the gods of the months The ideas of Von List and Lanz von Liebenfels were part of a general occult revival that occurred in Austria and Germany during the late 19th and early 20th centuries a revival that was loosely inspired by Christianity historical Germanic paganism and holistic philosophy as well as by esoteric concepts that were influenced by German romanticism and Theosophy The connection between this form of Germanic mysticism and historical Germanic culture is evident in the mystics fascination with runes in the form of Guido von List s Armanen runes Contents 1 Overview 1 1 Ariosophic writers and organisations 2 Armanism 2 1 Guido von List Society and High Armanen Order 2 2 Listians under the Third Reich 3 Theozoology 3 1 Secret Society Order of the New Templars 3 2 Ariosophy 4 Germanenorden 5 Thule Society 6 Edda Society 7 Modern organisations 7 1 Armanen Orden 8 Research on Ariosophy 8 1 The occult roots of Nazism 9 See also 10 Notes 10 1 References 10 2 BibliographyOverview EditThe ideology regarding the Aryan race in the sense of Indo Europeans runic symbols the swastika and sometimes occultism are important elements of Ariosophy By 1899 at the earliest or by 1900 at the latest esoteric notions entered Guido List s thoughts 2 In April 1903 he sent his manuscript proposing what Goodrick Clarke calls a monumental pseudoscience concerning the ancient German faith to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna 3 onwards These Ariosophic ideas together with and influenced by Theosophy contributed significantly to an occult counterculture in Germany and Austria A historic interest in this topic has stemmed from the ideological relationship between Ariosophy and Nazism and it is obvious in such book titles as The Occult Roots of Nazism by Nicholas Goodrick Clarke Der Mann der Hitler die Ideen gab The Man Who Gave Hitler His Ideas Wilfried Daim s biography of Lanz von LiebenfelsHowever Goodrick Clarke s comprehensive study finds little evidence of direct influence except in the case of the highly idiosyncratic ancient German mythos that was elaborated by the clairvoyant SS Brigadefuhrer Karl Maria Wiligut Note 1 of which the practical consequences were first the incorporation of Wiligut s symbolism into the ceremonies of an elite circle within the SS and secondly the official censure of those occultists and runic magicians whom Wiligut stigmatized as heretics which may have persuaded Heinrich Himmler to order the internment of several of them Note 2 The most notable other case is Himmler s Ahnenerbe For the debate on the direct relations to Nazi ideology see Religious aspects of Nazism Goodrick Clarke examines what evidence there is for influences on Hitler and other Nazis but he concludes that Ariosophy is a symptom of rather than an influence in the way that it anticipated Nazism 7 Ariosophic writers and organisations Edit While a broad definition of the term Ariosophy is useful for some purposes various of the later authors including Ellegaard Ellerbek Philipp Stauff and Gunther Kirchoff can more exactly be described as cultivating the Armanism of List 8 In a less broad approach one could also treat rune occultism separately Although the Armanen runes go back to List Rudolf John Gorsleben distinguished himself from other volkisch writers by making the esoteric importance of the runes central to his world view Goodrick Clarke therefore refers to the doctrine of Kummer and Gorsleben and his followers as rune occultism a description that also fits the eclectic work of Karl Spiesberger Highly practical further explanation needed systems of rune occultism influenced mainly by List were developed by Friedrich Bernhard Marby and Siegfried Adolf Kummer 9 Also worthy of mention are Peryt Shou the occult novelist A Frank Glahn noted more for his pendulum dowsing Rudolf von Sebottendorff and Walter Nauhaus who built up the Thule Society and Karl Maria Wiligut who was the most notable occultist working for the SS Organisations include the Guido von List Society the High Armanen Order the Lumen Club the Ordo Novi Templi the Germanenorden in which a schism occurred and the Thule Society Armanism Edit Armanism redirects here For the Dutch Protestant theological movement see Arminianism Guido von List in 1910 from the book Guido v List Der Wiederentdecker Uralter Arischer Weisheit by Johannes Balzli published in 1917 Guido von List elaborated a racial religion premised on the concept of renouncing the imposed Semitic creed of Christianity and returning to the native religions of the ancient Indo Europeans List preferred the equivalent term Ario Germanen or Aryo Germanics List recognised the theoretical distinction between the Proto Indo European language and its daughter Proto Germanic language but frequently obscured it by his tendency to treat them as a single long lived entity although this framing is also used in linguistics as the Germanic parent language 10 In this he became strongly influenced by the Theosophical thought of Madame Blavatsky which he blended however with his own highly original beliefs founded upon Germanic paganism 11 Before he turned to occultism Guido List had written articles for German Nationalist newspapers in Austria as well as four historical novels and three plays some of which were set in tribal Germany before the advent of Christianity 12 He also had written an anti semitic essay in 1895 List adopted the aristocratic von between 1903 and 1907 List called his doctrine Armanism after the Armanen supposedly a body of priest kings in the ancient Aryo Germanic nation He claimed that this German name had been Latinized into the tribal name Herminones mentioned in Tacitus and that it actually meant the heirs of the sun king an estate of intellectuals who were organised into a priesthood called the Armanenschaft 13 His conception of the original religion of the Germanic tribes was a form of sun worship with its priest kings similar to the Icelandic godi as legendary rulers of ancient Germany Religious instruction was imparted on two levels The esoteric doctrine Armanism was concerned with the secret mysteries of the gnosis reserved for the initiated elite while the exoteric doctrine Wotanism took the form of popular myths intended for the lower social classes 14 List believed that the transition from Wotanism to Christianity had proceeded smoothly under the direction of the skalds so that native customs festivals and names were preserved under a Christian veneer and only needed to be decoded back into their heathen forms 15 This peaceful merging of the two religions had been disrupted by the forcible conversions under bloody Charlemagne the Slaughterer of the Saxons 16 List claimed that the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church in Austria Hungary constituted a continuing occupation of the Germanic tribes by the Roman empire albeit now in a religious form and a continuing persecution of the ancient religion of the Germanic peoples and Celts He also believed in the magical powers of the old runes From 1891 onwards he claimed that heraldry was based on a system of encoded runes so that heraldic devices conveyed a secret heritage in cryptic form In April 1903 he submitted an article concerning the alleged Aryan proto language to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna Its highlight was a mystical and occult interpretation of the runic alphabet which became the cornerstone of his ideology Although the article was rejected by the academy it would later be expanded by List and grew into his final masterpiece a comprehensive treatment of his linguistic and historical theories published in 1914 as Die Ursprache der Ario Germanen und ihre Mysteriensprache The Proto Language of the Aryo Germanics and their Mystery Language List s doctrine has been described as gnostic pantheist and deist 17 At its core is the mystical union of God man and nature Wotanism teaches that God dwells within the individual human spirit as an inner source of magical power but is also immanent within nature through the primal laws that govern the cycles of growth decay and renewal List explicitly rejects a Mind body dualism of spirit versus matter or of God over or against nature Humanity is therefore one with the universe which entails an obligation to live in accordance with nature But the individual human ego does not seek to merge with the cosmos Man is a separate agent necessary to the completion or perfection of God s work 18 Being immortal the ego passes through successive reincarnations until it overcomes all obstacles to its purpose List foresaw the eventual consequences of this in a future utopia on earth which he identified with the promised Valhalla a world of victorious heroes Thus in the course of uncounted generations all men will become Einherjar and that state willed and preordained by the godhead of general liberty equality and fraternity will be reached This is that state which sociologists long for and which socialists want to bring about by false means for they are not able to comprehend the esoteric concept that lies hidden in the triad liberty equality fraternity a concept which must first ripen and mature in order that someday it can be picked like a fruit from the World Tree 19 List was familiar with the cyclical notion of time which he encountered in Norse mythology and in the theosophical adaptation of the Hindu time cycles He had already made use of cosmic rhythms in his early journalism on natural landscapes 20 In his later works Note 3 List combined the cyclical concept of time with the dualistic and linear time scheme of western apocalyptic which counterposes a pessimism about the present world with an ultimate optimism regarding the future one 22 In Das Geheimnis der Runen 23 List addresses the seeming contradiction by explaining the final redemption of the linear time frame as an exoteric parable that stands for the esoteric truth of renewal in many future cycles and incarnations However in the original Norse myths and Hinduism the cycle of destruction and creation is repeated indefinitely thus offering no possibility of ultimate salvation 24 Guido von List Society and High Armanen Order Edit Already in 1893 Guido List Note 4 together with Fanny Wschiansky had founded the Literarische Donaugesellschaft a literary society 25 In 1908 the Guido von List Society Guido von List Gesellschaft was founded primarily by the Wannieck family Friedrich Wannieck and his son Friedrich Oskar Wannieck being prominent and enthusiastic Armanists as an occult volkisch organisation with the purpose of financing and publishing List s research 26 The List Society was supported by many leading figures in Austrian and German politics publishing and occultism Note 5 Although one might suspect a volkisch organisation to be antisemitic the society included at least two Jews among its members Moritz Altschuler a rabbinical scholar 27 and Ernst Wachler 28 The List Society published List s works under the series Guido List Bucherei GLB 29 Note 6 List had established exoteric and esoteric circles in his organisation The High Armanen Order Hoher Armanen Orden was the inner circle of the Guido von List Society Founded in midsummer 1911 it was set up as a magical order or lodge to support List s deeper and more practical work The HAO conducted pilgrimages to what its members considered holy Armanic sites Stephansdom in Vienna Carnuntum etc They also had occasional meetings between 1911 and 1918 but the exact nature of these remains unknown In his introduction to List s The Secret of the Runes Stephen E Flowers notes The HAO never really crystallized in List s lifetime although it seems possible that he developed a theoretical body of unpublished documents and rituals relevant to the HAO that have only been put into full practice in more recent years 30 Listians under the Third Reich Edit List died on 17 May 1919 a few months before Adolf Hitler joined a minor Bavarian political party and formed it into the NSDAP After the Nazis had come to power several advocates of Armanism fell victim to the suppression of esotericism in Nazi Germany The main reason for the persecution of occultists was the Nazi policy of systematically closing down esoteric organisations although Germanic paganism was still practised by some Nazis on an individual basis but the instigator in certain cases citation needed was Himmler s personal occultist Karl Maria Wiligut Wiligut identified the monotheistic religion of Irminism as the true ancestral belief claiming that Guido von List s Wotanism and runic row constituted a schismatic false religion citation needed Among the Listians Kummer and Marby are not mentioned by Goodrick Clarke 31 among the signatories who endorsed the List Society around 1905 but both men were indebted to Listian ideas 32 who were subjected to censure were the rune occultists Friedrich Bernhard Marby and Siegfried Adolf Kummer both of whom were denounced by Wiligut in 1934 in a letter to Himmler 33 Flowers 34 writes The establishment of an official NS runology under Himmler Wiligut and others led directly to the need to suppress the rune magical free agents such as Marby Despite having openly supported the Nazis 35 Marby was arrested by the Gestapo in 1936 as an anti Nazi occultist and was interned in Welzheim Flossenburg and Dachau concentration camps 36 37 38 Kummer disappears from History after Wiligut s denunciation in 1934 and his fate is unknown He may have died in a concentration camp 39 According to Rudgley 40 u nsubstantiated rumours have him fleeing Nazi Germany in exile to South America but it is more likely that he perished in one of the camps that Marby was to survive or died during the Allied bombing of Dresden Gunter Kirchhoff a List Society member whom Wiligut had recommended to Himmler on the strength of his researches into prehistory is reported to have written that Wiligut by intrigue had ensured that Ernst Lauterer a k a Tarnhari another List Society member who claimed a secret clan tradition that rivalled Wiligut s own was committed to a concentration camp as an English agent Flowers and Moynihan 41 reproduce Kirchhoff s testimony as reported by both Adolf Schleipfer and researcher Manfred Lenz but doubted by Wiligut s former secretary Gabriele Dechend Theozoology Edit Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels code name of the fascist agitator Adolf Joseph Lanz Flag of the Order of the New Templars In 1903 04 a Viennese ex Cistercian monk Bible scholar and inventor named Jorg Lanz Liebenfels subsequently Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels published a lengthy article under the Latin title Anthropozoon Biblicum The Biblical Man Animal in a journal for Biblical studies edited by Moritz Altschuler a Jewish admirer of Guido von List The author undertook a comparative survey of ancient Near Eastern cultures in which he detected evidence from iconography and literature that seemed to point to the continued survival into early historical times of hominid ape men similar to the dwarfish Neanderthal men known from fossil remains in Europe or the Pithecanthropus now called Homo erectus from Java 42 Furthermore Lanz systematically analysed the Old Testament in the light of his hypothesis identifying and interpreting coded references to the ape men that substantiated an illicit practice of interbreeding between humans and lower species in antiquity In 1905 he expanded these researches into a fundamental statement of doctrine titled Theozoologie oder die Kunde von den Sodoms Afflingen und dem Gotter Elektron 43 Theozoology or the Science of the Sodomite Apelings and the Divine Electron He claimed that Aryan peoples originated from interstellar deities termed Theozoa who bred by electricity while lower races were a result of interbreeding between humans and ape men or Anthropozoa The effects of racial crossing caused the atrophy of paranormal powers inherited from the gods but these could be restored by the selective breeding of pure Aryan lineages The book relied on somewhat lurid sexual imagery decrying the abuse of white women by ethnically inferior but sexually active men Thus Lanz advocated mass castration of racially apelike or otherwise inferior males 44 In the same year Lanz commenced publication of the journal Ostara named after a pagan Germanic goddess of spring to promote his vision of racial purity Secret Society Order of the New Templars Edit On December 25 1900 he founded the fascist secret society Order of the New Templars Ordo Novi Templi or ONT a project to bring rightwing extremists together and mobilise them in favor of Nazism in Germany by using esotericism to justify violence such as castration of innocent people to establish fascism in Germany and defend it against communism 45 The ONT was modelled after the catholic military order Knight Templars and similar in its hierarchical structure as the Order of Cistercians which was the group that trained the New Templars founder and political agitator Adolf Lanz 45 Members used code names so that betrayal was difficult 45 The ideological association was headquartered at Burg Werfenstein a castle in Upper Austria overlooking the river Danube Its declared aim was to use pseudo science and religion to make people believe in racist concepts Rituals were designed to beautify life in accordance with Aryan aesthetics and to express the Order s theological system that Lanz called Ario Christianity The Order was the first to use the swastika in an Aryan meaning displaying on its flag the device of a red swastika facing right on a yellow orange field and surrounded by four blue fleurs de lys above below to the right and to the left The ONT declined from the mid 1930s and even though it had pioneered many ideas that the Nazis later adopted it was suppressed by the Gestapo in 1942 By this time it had established seven communities in Austria Germany and Hungary Though suspending its activities in the Greater German Reich the ONT survived in Hungary until around the end of World War II 46 It went underground in Vienna after 1945 but was contacted in 1958 by a former Waffen SS lieutenant Rudolf Mund who became Prior of the Order in 1979 47 Mund also wrote biographies of Lanz and Wiligut Ariosophy Edit The term Ariosophy wisdom concerning the Aryans was coined by Lanz von Liebenfels in 1915 with Theozoology describing its Genesis and Ario Christianity as the label for the overall doctrine in the 1920s Note 7 This terminology was taken up by a group of occultists formed in Berlin around 1920 and referred to by one of its main figures Ernst Issberner Haldane as the Swastika Circle Lanz s publisher Herbert Reichstein made contact with the group in 1925 and formed it into an institute with himself as director This association was named the Ariosophical Society in 1926 renamed the Neue Kalandsgesellschaft from Kaland Guido von List s term for a secret lodge or conventicle in 1928 and renamed again as the Ariosophische Kulturzentrale in 1931 the year in which it opened an Ariosophical School at Pressbaum that offered courses and lectures in runic lore biorhythms yoga and Qabalah The institute maintained a friendly collaboration with Lanz its guiding intellect and inspiration but also acknowledged an indebtedness to List declaring itself as the successor to the Armanen priest kings and their hierophantic tradition Reichstein s circle therefore establishes the historical precedent for a broad conception that was followed by Nicholas Goodrick Clarke in 1985 when he redefined Ariosophy as a general term to describe Aryan centric occult theories and hermetic practices including both Lanz s Ario Christianity and the earlier Armanism of List as well as later derivatives of either or both systems If the term is employed in this extended sense then Guido von List and not Lanz von Liebenfels was the founder of Ariosophy The justification for the broad definition is that List and Lanz were mutually influencing The two men joined one another s societies List figures in Lanz s pedigree of initiated predecessors and Lanz is cited several times by List in The Religion of the Aryo Germanic Folk Esoteric and Exoteric 1910 Germanenorden EditMain article Germanenorden Although List had been concerned to awaken German nationalist consciousness 49 the High Armanen Order had addressed itself to the upper and middle class Germans in Austria 49 and here List had preferred the role of the mystagogue 50 over political activism List s disciples however became active in the Reichshammerbund and the Germanenorden two historically significant virulently antisemitic groups 50 in Germany Both groups were organized by the political activist Theodor Fritsch a major figure in German antisemitism Fritsch born 1852 was the son of Saxon peasants and he was concerned about the small tradesmen and craftsmen 50 and their threat from what he perceived to be the large Jewish industry The List inspired Germanenorden Germanic Order or Teutonic Order not to be confused with the medieval German order of the Teutonic Knights was a volkisch secret society in early 20th century Germany It was founded in Berlin in 1912 by Theodor Fritsch and several prominent German occultists including Philipp Stauff who held office in the List Society and High Armanen Order as well as Hermann Pohl who became the Germanenorden s first leader The group was a clandestine movement aimed at the upper echelons of society and was a sister movement to the more mainstream Reichshammerbund 51 The order whose symbol was a swastika had a hierarchical fraternal structure similar to Freemasonry Local groups of the sect met to celebrate the summer solstice an important neopagan festivity in volkisch circles and later in Nazi Germany and more regularly to read the Eddas as well as some of the German mystics 52 In addition to occult and magical philosophies it taught to its initiates nationalist ideologies of Nordic racial superiority and antisemitism then rising throughout the Western world As was becoming increasingly typical of volkisch organisations citation needed it required its candidates to prove that they had no non Aryan bloodlines and required from each a promise to maintain purity of his stock in marriage In 1916 during World War I the Germanenorden split into two parts Eberhard von Brockhusen became the Grand Master of the loyalist Germanenorden Pohl previously the order s Chancellor founded a schismatic offshoot the Germanenorden Walvater of the Holy Grail 53 54 He was joined in the same year by Rudolf von Sebottendorff formerly Rudolf Glauer a wealthy adventurer with wide ranging occult and mystical interests A Freemason and a practitioner of sufism and astrology Sebottendorff was also an admirer of Guido von List and Lanz von Liebenfels Convinced that the Islamic and Germanic mystical systems shared a common Aryan root he was attracted by Pohl s runic lore and became the Master of the Walvater s Bavarian province late in 1917 Charged with reviving the province s fortunes Sebottendorff increased membership from about a hundred in 1917 to 1500 by the autumn of the following year 55 Thule Society EditMain article Thule Society In 1918 Sebottendorff made contact with Walter Nauhaus a member of the Germanenorden who headed a Germanic study group called the Thule Gesellschaft Thule Society 56 The name of Nauhaus s original Thule Society was adopted as a cover name for Sebottendorff s Munich lodge of the Germanenorden Walvater when it was formally dedicated on August 18 1918 with Pohl s assistance and approval 57 Sebottendorff states that the group was run jointly by himself and Nauhaus Deriving elements of its ideology and membership from earlier occult groups founded by List Guido von List Society established 1908 and by Lanz von Liebenfels the Order of the New Templars established 1907 the Thule Society was dedicated to the triune god Walvater identified with Wotan in triple form For the Society s emblem Sebottendorff selected the oak leaves dagger and swastika 54 The name Thule an island located by Greek geographers at the northernmost extremity of the world was chosen for its significance in the works of Guido von List According to Thule Society mythology Thule was the capital of Hyperborea a legendary country supposedly in the far North polar regions originally mentioned by Herodotus citing among other sources 58 Egyptian ones citation needed In 1679 Olaf Rudbeck equated the Hyperboreans with the survivors of Atlantis who were first mentioned by Plato again following Egyptian sources Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 1900 began his work Der Antichrist The Antichrist in 1895 with Let us see ourselves for what we are We are Hyperboreans From a historian s whose perspective the importance of the Thule Society lies in its organising the discussion circle that led to the German Workers Party Deutsche Arbeiter Partei or DAP founded in January 1919 The Thule Society s Karl Harrer was a co founder along with Anton Drexler the party s first chairman Later the same year Adolf Hitler joined the DAP which was renamed as the National Socialist German Workers Party German Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei NSDAP or Nazi party registered from 20 February 1920 on April 1 1920 Some conspiracy theorists argue that the NSDAP when under Hitler s leadership was a political front for the Thule Society However against this theory stands Harrer s and Drexler s resistance to Hitler After unsuccessful challenges to his growing power both men resigned from the party Harrer in 1920 and Drexler in 1923 Speculative authors assert citation needed that a number of high Nazi Party officials had been members of the Thule Society including such prominent figures as Max Amann Dietrich Eckart Rudolf Hess Alfred Rosenberg and Gottfried Feder citation needed Eckart the wealthy publisher of the newspaper Auf gut Deutsch In Plain German has been represented citation needed as a committed occultist and the most significant Thule influence on Hitler He is believed to have taught Hitler a number of persuasive techniques citation needed and so profound was his influence that the second volume of Hitler s book Mein Kampf was dedicated to him However although Eckart attended Thule Society meetings he was not a member and there is nothing to indicate that he trained Hitler in techniques of a mystical nature Examining the membership lists Goodrick Clarke 59 notes that Hess Rosenberg and Feder were like Eckart guests of the Thule Society in 1918 but not actual members He also describes a Thule Society membership roll including Hans Frank and Heinrich Himmler as spurious There is no evidence that Hitler himself had any connection with the Society even as an associate or visitor However a member of the Thule Society dentist Dr Friedrich Krohn did choose citation needed the swastika symbol for the Nazi party although the design was revised at Hitler s insistence citation needed In 1923 Sebottendorff was expelled from Germany as an undesirable alien around 1925 the Thule Society disbanded In 1933 Sebottendorff returned to Germany and published Bevor Hitler kam Urkundliches aus der Fruhzeit der nationalsozialistischen Bewegung von Rudolf von Sebottendorff 56 The book was banned by the Bavarian Political Police on March 1 1934 Sebottendorff was arrested by the Gestapo interned in a concentration camp then expelled to Turkey yet again where he committed suicide by drowning in the Bosphorus on May 9 1945 citation needed as the Nazis surrendered to the Allies Edda Society Edit Rudolf John Gorsleben Rudolf John Gorsleben was associated with the Thule Society during the Bavarian Soviet Republic of 1919 and along with Dietrich Eckart he was taken prisoner by the Communists narrowly escaping execution He threw himself into the ferment of Bavaria s volkisch politics and formed a close working relationship with the local Germanenorden before devoting himself to literary pursuits 60 On 29 November 1925 Gorsleben founded the Edda Society Edda Gesellschaft a mystic study group at Dinkelsbuhl in Franconia He himself was Chancellor of the Society and published its periodical Deutsche Freiheit German Freedom later renamed Arische Freiheit Aryan Freedom Assisted by learned contributors to his study group Gorsleben developed an original and eclectic mystery religion founded in part upon the Armanism of List whom he quoted with approval 61 Grand Master of the Society was Werner von Bulow 1870 1947 The treasurer was Friedrich Schaefer from Muhlhausen whose wife Kathe kept open house for another occult volkisch circle the Free Sons of the North and Baltic Seas that gathered around Karl Maria Wiligut in the early 1930s 62 Mathilde von Kemnitz a prolific volkisch writer who married General Erich Ludendorff in 1926 was an active member of the Edda Society Note 8 When Rudolf John Gorsleben died from heart disease in August 1930 the Edda Society was taken over by Bulow who had designed a world rune clock that illustrated the correspondences between the runes the gods and the zodiac as well as colours and numbers Bulow also took over the running of Gorsleben s periodical and changed its name from Arische Freiheit to Hag All All Hag and then Hagal Modern organisations EditIn the later 20th century Germanic neopagan movements oriented themselves more towards polytheistic reconstructionism turning away from theosophic and occult elements but elements of Ariosophical mysticism continue to play a role in some white supremacist organizations Alleged mystical or shamanic aspects of historical pre Christian Germanic culture summarized as seidr are also practiced in Odinism Freya Aswynn Nigel Pennick Karl Spiesberger see also Germanic Runic Astrology The Book of Blotar Armanen Orden Edit Circular arrangement of the Armanen Futharkh Main article Armanen Orden The Guido von List Society was re established in the late 1960s through contacts between the German Austrian occultist Adolf Schleipfer 1947 and the still living last president of the Society Hanns Bierbach 63 Schleipfer had discovered some of List s works in an antique bookstore in the mid 1960s and was inspired to found the runic and Armanist magazine Irminsul 64 in hopes of attracting suitable people for a revived Listian order He was appointed the new president and continued to publish Irminsul as the Voice of the Guido von List Society Schleipfer also attended meetings of a related organisation the Gode Orden Gothi Order which propagated a similar mixture of occult volkisch thinking There he met his wife Sigrun Schleipfer nee Hammerbacher 1940 2009 65 daughter of the volkisch writer and former NSDAP district leader Dr Hans Wilhelm Hammerbacher 66 In 1976 the Schleipfers founded the Armanen Orden Armanen Order as the reorganised Guido von List Society 67 Since then Adolf and Sigrun have served as the Grandmasters of the Order although they have divorced and Sigrun now refers to herself as Sigrun von Schlichting or Sigrun Freifrau von Schlichting They also revived the High Armanen Order HAO and brought it to an unprecedented level of activity 68 The Armanen Orden is a neopagan esoteric society and religious order reviving the occult teachings of Guido von List Its internal structure is organized in nine grades inspired by Freemasonry The order is modelled on but not limited to the precepts of List and its principles as formulated in its brochures are as follows The Armanen Order embodies the entire Germanic and Celtic peoples in their mental spiritual and physical uniqueness The Armanen Order embodies the true realisation of the divine world order based on Germanic and Celtic wisdom whose religious and cultic aspect is formed by the native myths of the gods The Awakening of the Armanen Order is a rebirth of life based on its natural foundations of the Germanic and Celtic people The Armanen Orden celebrates seasonal festivities in a similar fashion as Odinist groups do and invites interested people to these events The highlights are three Things at Ostara Easter Midsummer and Fall Wotan s sacrificial death which are mostly celebrated at castles close to sacred places such as the Externsteine The author Stefanie von Schnurbein attended a Fall Thing in 1990 and gives the following report in Religion als Kulturkritik Religion and Cultural Criticism the participants meet in a room decorated with hand woven wall hangings and pictures of Germanic gods Odin and Frigga in this case At one end of the room is a table covered with black cloth On this a 4 ft 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 shirts for the men and long white dresses for the women both have the AO 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 portrayal 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 Odal rune stance whisper W O D A N nine times and finally sing an ode to Odin with the following words Odin Wodan come to us od uod uod Wodan s sacrifice to himself is symbolised by extinguishing the flame In 1977 Sigrun Schleipfer 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 and had as its primary aim the purchase and restoration of a castle for the Order In 1995 the society finally acquired the castle of Rothenhorn in Szlichtyngowa Poland a run down structure dating back to the 12th century though most of the complex dates from the 16th century Over many years Adolf and Sigrun have republished all of 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 that are accepted within Odinism or Armanism 69 Research on Ariosophy EditAfter the war Lanz von Liebenfels was first brought to a wider and scholarly attention with Wilfried Daim s book Der Mann der Hitler die Ideen gab The Man Who Gave Hitler His Ideas 1957 Although the book was not always taken seriously within academia for some time Lanz was seen as one of the most important influences on Hitler Since the 1990s however historians have cast doubt on Lanz significance The historian Brigitte Hamann who has written Hitler s Vienna A Dictator s Apprenticeship is of the view that Lanz partly influenced Hitler s diction but had only marginal influences on Adolf Hitler s religious views The occult roots of Nazism Edit Main article Occultism in Nazism Some of Lanz s proposals for racial purification anticipate the Nazis The sterilisation of those deemed to be genetically unfit was in fact implemented under the Nazi eugenics policies but its basis lay in the theories of scientific racial hygienists The Nazi eugenics programme has no proven connection with Lanz s mystical rationale Eugenic ideas were widespread in his lifetime whereas he himself was banned from publishing in the Third Reich and his writings were suppressed Following Goodrick Clarke s caution in assessing the relation between the two 70 Adolf Hitler cannot be considered a pupil of Lanz von Liebenfels as Lanz himself had claimed 71 However it has been suggested with some evidential basis that the young Hitler did read and collect Lanz s Ostara magazine while living in Vienna In view of the similarity of their ideas relating to the glorification and preservation of the endangered Aryan race the suppression and ultimate extermination of the non Aryans and the establishment of a fabulous Aryan German millennial empire the link between the two men looks highly probable 72 Nevertheless It also remains a fact that Hitler never mentioned the name of Lanz in any recorded conversation speech or document If Hitler had been importantly influenced by Lanz he cannot be said to have ever acknowledged this debt 73 See also EditBlack Sun occult symbol Fylfot Neopaganism in German speaking Europe Ludwig Fahrenkrog Julius Evola Rene Guenon Glossary of Germanic mysticism Sig RuneNotes Edit In November 1924 Wiligut was committed to the Salzburg mental asylum and declared insane The full report on his mental condition referred to his violence at home including threats to kill his wife grandiose projects eccentric behaviour and occult interests before diagnosing a history of schizophrenia involving megalomaniac and paranoid delusions A Salzburg court ruled that he was incompetent to administer his own affairs on the basis of this medical evidence 4 The case is fully described in Mund s 1982 biography Throughout his confinement and after his release in 1927 Wiligut continued his ancient Germanic pretensions He retired from the SS on 28 August 1939 after his psychiatric history previously a closely guarded secret became an embarrassment to Himmler The cases of three Listian occultists Kummer Lauterer and Marby are discussed below In 1938 Wiligut s recommendations were also decisive in securing the official disapproval of the Italian esotericist Julius Evola 5 6 Goodrick Clarke refers especially to Die Armanenschaft der Ario Germanen Zweiter Teil 1911 and the second edition of Die Armanenschaft der Ario Germanen Erster Teil 1913 21 Guido List started to use the aristocratic von in his name between 1903 and 1907 A list of the signatories in support of the Guido von List Gesellschaft is printed in GLB 3 1908 p 197f Membership lists of the Guido von List Gesellschaft are printed in GLB 2 1908 pp 71 4 and GLB 5 1910 pp 384 9 The articles of the List Society are printed in GLB 1 second edition 1912 pp 68 78 full citation needed Two other later works of List were published by Adolf Burdeke citation needed in Zurich For a complete list of List s books see the bibliography in Goodrick Clarke 1985 274 The term Ariosophy meaning occult wisdom concerning the Aryans was first coined by Lanz von Liebenfels in 1915 and became the label for his doctrine in the 1920s List actually called his doctrine Armanism while Lanz used the terms Theozoology and Ario Christianity before the First World War In this book i e The Occult Roots of Nazism Ariosophy is used generically to describe the Aryan racist occult theories of both men and their followers 48 According to Lexicon of Ariosophy by Frater Georg Nikolaus of the ONT an undated manuscript preserved in the Rudolf Mund Archive Vienna and cited in Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 159 254 References Edit Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 227 note 1 to the Introduction Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 51 52 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 41 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 182 Flowers amp Moynihan 2007 p 59 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 190 Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 192 202 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 155 Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 160 62 The Secret of the Runes translated by Flowers 1988 pp 43 69 and passim Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 2 Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 36 41 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 56 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 57 List 1988 pp 16 17 List 1988 p 77 Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 40 50 84 and passim List 1988 p 24 List 1988 p 109 List 1891 Deutsch Mythologische Landschaftsbilder republished Berlin Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 239 40 notes to Chapter 9 Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 79 80 The Secret of the Runes translated by Flowers 1988 pp 107ff Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 79 239 note 14 to Chapter 9 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 39 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 42 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 99 Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 43 162 affirms Wachler s membership in the List Society Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 44 List 1988 p 11 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 43 Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 181 82 Karl Maria Weisthor i e Wiligut to Himmler 2 May 1934 Bundesarchiv Koblenz Himmler Nachlass 19 cited in Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 254 n 21 List 1988 p 35 Marby 1935 pp 7 42 cited in List 1988 p 117 n 47 List 1988 p 117 n 47 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 161 Rudgley 2007 p 119 Lange 1998 Rudgley 2007 p 125 List 1988 pp 59 165 177 Lanz Liebenfels 1903 pp 337 39 Theozoologie oder die Kunde von den Sodoms Afflingen und dem Gotter Elektron in German Archive Lanz von Liebenfels 2002 a b c Hieronymus Ekkehard 2012 08 28 Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels Handbuch zur Volkischen Bewegung 1871 1918 in German K G Saur doi 10 1515 9783110964240 131 ISBN 978 3 11 096424 0 Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 119 122 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 135 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 227 note 1 to the Introduction a b Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 65 a b c Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 123 Levy Richard S 2005 Antisemitism A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution Volume 1 ABC CLIO p 269 The Swastika and the Nazis Intelinet Archived from the original on June 4 2007 Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 131 32 a b Thomas 2005 Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 142 43 a b Phelps 1963 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 144 Herodotus 1890 Book 4 Histories Translated by Macaulay G C Retrieved 17 November 2022 Hesiod has spoken of Hyperboreans and so also has Homer But much more of them is reported by the people of Delos Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 149 221 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 156 Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 156 59 Goodrick Clarke 1985 pp 159 183 According to List 1988 p 36 Schleipfer renewed the GvLS in 1969 According to Schnurbein 1995 p 24 he became its president in 1967 Irminsul Archived from the original on May 15 2008 in the German National Library Handbuch Deutscher Rechtsextremismus in German 1996 full citation needed Schnurbein 1995 p 27ff Schnurbein 1995 p 25 List 1988 p 36 Schleipfer 2007 Goodrick Clarke 1985 preface by Rohan Butler Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 192 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 194 Goodrick Clarke 1985 p 198 Bibliography Edit Balzli Johannes 1917 Guido v List Der Wiederentdecker Uralter Arischer Weisheit Sein Leben und sein Schaffen in German Leipzig and Vienna Guido von List Gesellschaft Flowers Stephen E Moynihan Michael 2008 The Secret King The Myth and Reality of Nazi Occultism Feral House and Dominion Press ISBN 978 1 932595 25 3 paperback and Flowers Stephen E Moynihan Michael 2007 The Secret King The Myth and Reality of Nazi Occultism Feral House and Dominion Press ISBN 978 0 9712044 6 1 hardcover Revised and expanded edition of Flowers Stephen E Moynihan Michael 2001 The Secret King Karl Maria Wiligut Himmler s Lord of the Runes The Real Documents of Nazi Occultism Dominion Press and Runa Raven Press Goodrick Clarke Nicholas 1985 The Occult Roots of Nazism The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany 1890 1935 Wellingborough England The Aquarian Press ISBN 0 85030 402 4 Republished as The Occult Roots of Nazism Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany 1890 1935 New York University Press 1992 ISBN 0 8147 3060 4 and as The Occult Roots of Nazism Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology Gardners Books 2003 ISBN 1 86064 973 4 Goodrick Clarke Nicholas 2003 Black Sun Aryan Cults Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity New York University Press ISBN 0 8147 3155 4 Kertzer David 2001 The Popes Against the Jews The Vatican s Role in the Rise of Modern Anti Semitism Knopf ISBN 0 375 40623 9 Lange Hans Jurgen 1998 Weisthor Karl Maria Wiligut Himmlers Rasputin und seine Erben in German Arun ISBN 3 927940 35 6 OCLC 48419221 Lanz Liebenfels Jorg 1903 Anthropozoon Biblicum Vierteljahrsschrift fur Bibelkunde 1 307 55 429 69 Lanz Liebenfels Jorg 1904 Anthropozoon Biblicum Vierteljahrsschrift fur Bibelkunde 2 26 60 314 35 395 412 Lanz Liebenfels Jorg 1905 Theozoologie oder die Kunde von den Sodoms Afflingen und dem Gotter Elektron Vienna Republished as Lanz von Liebenfels Georg Jorg 2002 Theozoologie oder die Kunde von den Sodoms Afflingen und dem Gotter Elektron ISBN 978 3 8311 3157 0 List Guido von 1988 The Secret of the Runes Guido von List Bucherei 1 Translated by Flowers Stephen E Rochester Vermont Destiny Books ISBN 0 89281 207 9 List Guido von 1910 Die Religion der Ario Germanen in ihrer Esoterik und Exoterik in German Zurich Marby Friedrich B 1935 Rassische Gymnastik als Aufrassungsweg in German Stuttgart Marby Runen Bucherei 5 6 Mund Rudolf J 1982 Der Rasputin Himmlers Die Wiligut Saga in German Vienna Phelps Reginald H 1963 Before Hitler Came Thule Society and Germanen Orden The Journal of Modern History 35 3 245 261 doi 10 1086 243738 JSTOR 1899474 S2CID 143484937 Rudgley Richard 2007 2006 Pagan Resurrection A Force for Evil or the Future of Western Spirituality London Arrow Books ISBN 978 0 09 928119 1 Schleipfer Adolf 2007 The Wiligut Saga Archived from the original on 2009 10 27 In Flowers amp Moynihan 2007 Originally published in Irminsul 5 1982 Schnurbein Stefanie von 1995 1992 Religion als Kulturkritik in German Strohm Harald 1997 1973 Die Gnosis und der Nationalsozialismus Gnosis and National Socialism Suhrkamp ISBN 3 932710 68 1 Sunner Rudiger 1997 Schwarze Sonne Entfesselung und Missbrauch der Mythen in Nationalsozialismus und rechter Esoterik in German Thomas Robert 2005 The Nature of Nazi Ideology history PDF Archived from the original PDF on 2007 09 27 Retrieved 2007 04 17 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Ariosophy amp oldid 1122367237, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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