The Nazis and The OccultThe Nazis And The OccultLowell K. Dyson, Ph.D. Columbia, 1968There is probably more mythology about the nazis and the Occult thanabout Hitler's sex life or his later (?) life in Argentina -- or at theSouth Pole. In certain circles it is a cottage industry and aparticular kind of writer repeats "facts" from earlier bookswhich were repeated from "facts" in other earlier books,which in turn may have come from such absolutely trustworthy sources asthe National Inquirer. (I am very sorry to tell you that simplybecause something is in a book does not make it true). The followingbibliography is my interpretation of some of the books which I havecollected over the years.Lets's start our with the one serious book which everyone with anopen mind and a willingness to evaluate sources should start with:Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret AryanCults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology, The Ariosophists of Austriaand Germany, 1890-1935 (published 1985; republished as pb. by I.B.Tauris & Co., Ltd. London: 1992 -- I think there is also now anAmerican publisher) This is a book by a scholar with a D.Phil. FromOxford and who is a serious student of the occult. It haswell-researched material on the 19th and early 20th century volkish andoccult groups and leaders: Ariosophy, Wotanism, the Armanenschaft,Order of New Templars (NOT the OTO), the Germanenorden, the EddaSociety, the Thule, the probably imaginary Vril; von List, Lanz"von Liebenfels", "von Sebottendorff", Wiligut, etcetera, et al. You come away with a recognition that although a fewoccultists operated on the fringes of Nazism, they were prettypitiful.After reading G.C, one is pretty well prepared to separate truthfrom mythology in the other books. G-C, by the way, maintains aninterest in the serious study of mysticism and the occult He was one ofthe major participants in the conference on Rosicrucianism in Bohemialast year.If you want to get a fascinating background of the renaissance ofinterest in the occult in the 19th and 20th centuries, which forms awonderful foundation for the above, I suggest two magnificentlyresearched and well-written volumes:James Webb, The Occult Underground [originally published as TheFlight from Reason] (La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1974)(Someone should tell us more about Open Court which does a lot of goodsolid occult and mystical books. Apparently one son of the wealthyfamily which started it married a granddaughter of Dr. P. B. Randolph)________, The Occult Establishment (Idem., 1976)Webb later wrote a book on Gurdjieff which I haven't read.According to a friend in occult circles, Webb later went mad and hassince died. Another friend says that he sometimes gathered togetherwith Ellic Howe, Bob Gilbert, John Hamill, Francis King, andOccasionally Gerald Suster in a bonny drinking and discussion"seminar." I cannot attest to this, but it would have beengrand.... Joscelyn Godwin's Theosophical Enlightenment, is also a goodbackgrounder here, although less than Webb as leading to the groupssupposed to control the Nazis.A book which destroys.many of the myths about nazi occultism andHitler s supposed dependence on astrology is:Ellic Howe, Astrology: A Recent History Including the Untold Storyof its Role in World War II. [originally published in the UK asUrania's Children] (New York: Walker and Company, 1967).Howe was in British "black" intelligence in WW II. In hislater years he wrote The Magicians of the Golden Dawn, arguably thebest book on that group although quite skeptical of the cypher mss.Etc, but using sources unavailable to other scholars.Recently an Australian journalist has published a partly reliableand partly credulous book based on sources, some dependable and somenot so.... His heart and mind seem to be approximately in the rightplace in that he is debunking the theories of occult control of theNazis, but I am a little contemptuous of an author who almostcompletely refuses to acknowledge Goodrick-Clarke, who preceded him andbetter. At any rate:Ken Anderson, Hitler and the Occult (Amherst, NY: Prometheus,1995).Prometheus is the publisher of CSCIOP books of skepticism. I guessthey weren't too skeptical about publishing a book which followed thetail blazed earlier and better by G-C.I have not read Lewis Spence, The Occult Causes of the Present War(London, 1940) or lesser books of that era.Nor have I read the ravings of Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi occultphilosopher, whom no important Nazi took seriously. Nor have I readthe nutsy German authors whom I cite under G_C above. Sorry, my Germanwent dormant 40 years ago.Nor have I been able to locate a copy of Francis King, Satan andSwasticka, much to my regret (London: Mayflower Books, 1976) , althoughI would love to find one, hint, hint,...(beg?). King, who died fairlyrecently, wrote generally excellent popular books on the occult as mostof you know (including a now almost impossible "expose" ofOTO rituals). Sometimes he seemed to write in haste (need of money,that old devil?). By all reports this is not one of his better booksand has indeed been called a potboiler by those I respect.Joscelyn Godwin (again), The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, andNazi Survival (Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1993) does not reallyfall into the present category, but it has a lot of fascinating stuffon the weird beliefs of Nazi fringe groups in re Shamballa, Agarthi,Tibet, etc. It is completely enlightened by Godwin's characteristiccool dissection of nonsense.Similarly, Walter Kafton-Minkel (WHO IS HE?), Subterranean Worlds:100,000 Years of Dragon, Dwarf, the Dead, Lost Races, and UFOs FromInside the Earth (Port Townsend, WA: Loompanics Unlimited {you all knowthem folks, don't you, Arcanoi?}, 1989) has a generally"interesting" chapter on "The nazis and the InnerWorld", along with others on Symmes, Teed, "Koresh", RayPalmer and Richard Shaver, etc.I will not go into Himmler and the SS. Just too many more myths.Now for the rest. For the best discussion of these, see Appendix Eof G-C.There is a junkyard of odds and ends connecting pre-Nazism andNazism, the Secret Masters, Unknown Superiors, Nine Old Men, Agarthi,Shamballa, Tibet, the Gobi, etc. Much of it centers on Herr ProfessorDoktor General Karl Haushofer, his supposed initiation into a Japaneseoccult society prior to WW I, his unposed trips to Tibet and meetingsthere with Gurdjieff, his supposed contacts with the King of the World,and on and on. For a recent recrudescence of this, see some of theravings of the Larouchites (according to whom, btw, the world drugtrade is controlled by Queen Elizabeth and the Wittelsbachs, formerkings of Bavaria).The book which has been given the greatest credibility by someoccultists is the famous (in some circles) Louis Pauwels and JacquesBergier, The Morning of the Magicians, sometimes cited as The Dawn ofMagic (Le Matin des Magiciens, Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1960; NewYork: Stein and Day, 1974) They were, I guess, reputable Frenchjournalists (?) And quite convincing (though without notes,bibliography, or index), but Part Two on the Nazis is, in reality, awild fairy tale of the ice world, inner world, attempted contacts withthe King of the World, a Hitlerian attempt to perform an act ofcreation to create a new race of supermen ;and demigods (shades of ACand Babalon, the Scarlet Woman!) (Although one of AC' followers,however, did believe that Hitler was AC's mystical child, I rush todeny any belief that AC or the OTO had any influence on Hitler)(although I am not particularly a lover (no pun intended) of the OTO).J. H. Brennan, The Occult Reich (New York:Signet, 1974). I pickedthis up at an airport magazine shop, and it shows.... Cover quote:"How Hitler harnessed the pwers of Satan and practiced Black Magicin hi plan to conquer the world! . . . in terrifying detail." Nosources cited. Do I need say more than the publisher's blurb did?Gerald Suster, Hitler: Black Magician , first published in 1981 bySphere Books in Great Britain as Hitler and the Age of Horus, 1981 (mycopy, London: Skoob Books, 1996) does indeed see Hitler as a product ofthe Age of Horus. The author "an MA in Philosophy and Law atCambridge,. . . advertising executive. . . , " and so on, tiesyoung Hitler very closely to the Austrian pre-WW I anti-Semites asthough it were a proven fact. It is not. Much of the rest of the bookis full of similar speculations. This recently reissued book is foryou only if you are a collector or credulous.Dusty Sklar, The Nazis and the Occult (New York: Dorset Press,1977). She at least gives us an index and a bibliography, which is amelange of good, inconsequential, and what the. . .??? The point seemsto be that Nazi cultism happened there and can also happen here. Youcan usually get it cheap on remainder, especially from Barnes andNoble.Savitri Devi, The Lightning and the Sun (my copy: Buffalo: SamisdatPublishers, , but originally in Calcutta, 1958). From the intro:"Savitri Devi, will be remembered in White History as one of thetruly great names of Our Race, when our history is once again writtenby White Historians." The dedication: "To the god-likeIndividual of our times; the Man against Time; the greatest European ofall times; both Sun and Ligtning: ADOLF HITLER, as a tribute ofunfailing love and loyalty, for ever and ever."The occult history of the world and its saviour, AH.Note: this book is also sold by AMORC. DO THEY KNOW ITS NATURE?Trevor Ravenscroft, The Spear of Destiny: The Occult Power Behindthe Spear Which Pierced the Side of Christ (New York: Putnam, 1973),This is wild, folks. After WW II Ravenscroft met an emigre AustrianJewish Anthroposophist who supposedly had picked up an ancient copy ofthe Parzifal legend, annotated and previously owned by -- guess who --Adolf Hitler. Hitler came to believe himself a reincarnation ofKlingsor/Landulf II of Capua, the villain of the tale, and that he wentthrough intitiation by Dieter Eckart and Haushofer to confirm it. Toseize absolute power as the anti-Christ, he had to seize the"spear of destiny of of Longinus", which had been used topierce the side of Jesus on the cross, from the treasure house of theHabsburgs in Vienna in order to conquer the world.And I have a bridge to sell you on the cheap. I have seen thespear, which the Austrians simply label, "A medieval relic"whilst around it are several labelled "pieces of the True Cross.Major (ret.) Bruce Pirnie (Ph.D. Heidelburg), a friend of militarydays, has told me that this is definitely a medieval spear because thebase has a stop to prevent deep penetration, something which was nottrue in classical times.Jean-Michel Angebert (pseud. for two or more journalists), TheOccult and the Third Reich: The Mystical Origins of Nazism and theSearch for the Holy Grail, published in France as Hitler et latradition cathare, 1971 (New York, Macmillan, 1974). The Nazissearched for the Holy Grail and had all sorts of connections withoccultism, Atlantis, Hyperborea, Asgard, Templars, R+C, Wagners, etc,etc. Sorry, I am not going to search Colin Wilson for references.Probably not much if I remember rightly.I have mentioned the Larouchies. Now for The Reverend Doctor PatRobertson, J.D,, Yale, Esq.:The New World Order (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1991), p. 168:"...the occult power leads straight to demonic power, and theselead, in turn, to a single source of evil identified by the Bible asSatan (the adversary), the Devil (the accuser), Lucifer (the light one)or Abbaddon (the one who rules over hell and destruction)."To understand this concern, I recommend a careful reading of a1977 book by Dusty Sklar, called The Nazis and the Occult, whichdetails what happens to a government and its people when occulticforces begin to influence its leaders. Occultism was pervasive amongthe leaders of Nazi Germany, and it clearly influenced their ghastlyprograms for world domination."Well, isn't that just special.... (There are also denunciations ofthe usual gang of world-manipulators, including at the center, ofcourse, Freemasons and hints of a certain ancient tribe.Well, I just about forgot, although no great loss:Michael Howard, The Occult Conspiracy: Secret Societies -- TheirInfluence and Power in World History (Rochester, VT: Destiny Books,1989) Hitler, Haushofer, Tibet, Gurdjieff, Hess, Stalin (Stalin?),Alfred Rosenberg, Himmler -- need I go on?Hey, gang, this has been fun. I hope that I have offended a fewpeople (the right kind), and entertained, if not amused others. Butunderneath, I am a very serious student of the subject, and I welcomeall corrections, emendations, additions, suggestions for furtherresearch.. There is a huge Nazi file on their investigation ofoccultism, which to the best of my knowledge has hardly been touched.I hope someone does. I grow old, in body at least, and as I said myGerman is probably irretrievable.Lowell K. Dysonlkdyson@ers.bitnet orlkdyson@econ.ag.gov(202) 219-0786ARCANA| Bibliographies |
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