The Nazis And Occult

The Occult and Nazism Re-Examined

The Origins of Fascism

There have been many attempts to understand and explain fascism in purely materialistic and economic terms, and perhaps as many analyses looking beyond conventional socio-economic factors to more unusual origins. The problem is that 'fascism,' like communism, has several flavors and varieties, some of which (like Maoism and Leninism) are somewhat at odds with each other. Clearly, some of the purported influences on German Nazism, such as pan-Germanism and neo-paganism, had not played as much of a role in Spanish, Italian, or Latin American fascist movements, which emerged out of Catholic roots. Nazism has been analyzed from various perspectives, including that of Wilhelm Reich, who saw it as a massive 'armoring' of society resulting from the sexual dysfunction of the populace1, and Norman Cohn2, who saw parallels between the Nazis and millenarian, anti-Semitic, and eschatological movements of the Middle Ages such as the Lollards. Historians have a problem with getting a grasp on fascism, because it is a label applied to such a wide panoply of political movements (especially by putative political opponents) - some collectivist or corporatist, others radically individualist; some rabidly puritanical, others flouting of all morality and taste; and some imperialistic, while others are isolationist.

Today, we ponder the applicability of the label to our own politicians. Is Pat Buchanan a fascist? What about Lyndon LaRouche, Jacques Le Pen, Leonard Jeffries, or David Duke, whose attacks on affirmative action closely parallel that of the 'mainstream' Republican party? Is fascism necessarily racist, anti-Semitic, or religiously biased? Was Barry Goldwater calling for fascism when he said "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice?" How about politicians who run on a "law and order" or "America First!" plaform- some of whom are assumedly liberal Democrats? German Nazism as a particularly unique brand of fascism must be closely examined and understood and its historical geneaology traced. It will not do to go after "fascism" with a wide sociological lens (which is, not suprisingly, unfocused) and tar all right-wing thinkers with the same brush. And one of the important roots of German Nazism is, in fact, the existence of certain high-profile occult societies who operated in the period between the wars- the Germanorden, the Thule Gellenschaft, Ariosophy, and the Neo-Templars3.

Blame It on Blavatsky, et al.

Sadly, most of the analyses of Nazism leave all of its various occult roots at the doorstep of one poor old Russian woman, Helena Blavatsky. The German occult societies appropriated some Theosophical ideas, to be sure, to the same extent that the Nazis eagerly distorted some of the doctrines of Nietzsche (so carefully doctored by his sister to omit the parts where he condemns German nationalism as an "abyss of stupidity!"4 or disavows anti-Semitism.) When Nietzsche discusses the Superman, he does not say that he shall be a German or an Aryan, only that we will not recognize him. It should be pointed out that Blavatsky's doctrine of the Six Root Races5 - Astral, Hyperborean, Lemurian, Atlantean, Aryan, and the Coming Race - did not assign much importance to the Aryan race. They would also be supplanted in turn by the Sixth Root Race, which would arise out of all the existing races and nations, sort of like a 'mutant' strain. Blavatsky does not attach much importance to racial magic, which she puts in the category of "sorcery." It should be pointed out that the Nazis closed most of the Theosophical lodges in Germany, including Rudolf Steiner's Goetheaneum, and banned Freemasonry and many other occult societies.

There are others often mentioned in this occult cast of villains. Jung is blamed for reviving interest in mythology and the workings of the racial unconscious, and for originally supporting the Nazis because of their attempts to revive Teutonic ritual and mythic thinking. Yet, when Jung discusses that the dreams of many patients in the 1930s reveal the archetype of a "great blond beast," he issues it as a warning, not as a herald of good fortune6. Jung himself described Nazism as the type of mass psychosis that afflicts a society when its leader becomes 'possessed' by one of the archetypes of the unconscious. Gurdjieff and Crowley are also mentioned as possible Reich supporters, which is astounding based on the evidence that both may have well been working clandestinely for the Resistance movements in France and England. Many occult groups, such as the Prieure du Sion, seem to have acted as infiltrators, aping the Nazi party line while passing on important information to its enemies in their journal Vaincre. In places like Vichy France, occult groups might have had no choice but to appear firmly in the Nazi fold7.

The German Occult Orders

While it is true that the various German mystical societies borrowed some of their ideas from Hermetic/Rosicrucian groups in England and from Theosophists on the continent, some of their principles are different. In particular, their emphasis on the mystical powers of the Aryan race and its resulting 'decline' and degeneration from miscegnation with lower races is a unique idea. Their Teutonophilism - interest in the Runes, Nordic myths, and the Swastika (along with the belief that Christianity had broken the back of Teutonic civilization) - came out of the general climate attendant with the new pan-Germanic nationalism. The idea that all the languages of Europe had one Indo-European source, and that many of the world's myths (from the Hindus to the Greeks) had a common 'Aryan' origin was gaining ground among respectable philologists and antiquarians8. Many Russians in 1905 were already promoting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as evidence that the inferior Semitic races were trying to bring about Bolshevism and the downfall of Europe.

Guido von Liszt (founder of the Germanorden) may not have been as important in the Nazi pantheon as Oswald Spengler and Alfred Rosenberg, who both advanced the belief that the West was in decline from the onslaught of "Magianism" or the "World Cavern" philosophy of the Oriental Semites, which was in direct contrast to the Apollonian or Faustian guiding principle of 'no limits' which governed the European/Aryan races9. Both reacted in horror to the "primitive" African, Latino, and Polynesian elements that artists like Picasso and Gauguin were importing into Western art, a clear sign of 'degeneration.' Not unlike some anti-rock