Esoteric Nazi Spiritualism Backtracked to Odin and the Rune Ar
It would be difficult to find someone who did not know anything about the Nazis, whose reign ended with the outright slaughter of approximately six million Jews, whom they regarded as subhuman, and the worldwide death of approximately 70 to 85 million people: about three per cent of the entire world’s population. Perhaps due to such magnitude, an enduring fascination with Nazism lingers, but few people would know that Nazi leaders viewed their movement as a spiritual one.
Woden/Odin the Norse God by Carl Emil Doepler (1824-1905) (Public Domain)
Every year, new books about the subject are published, new movies and documentaries are produced, and there is a neo-Nazi movement that envisions a fourth Reich. The continued search for missing Nazi henchmen and the priceless artwork they had stolen has mysticized Nazism, as had claims that Hitler faked his own death and moved to Argentina. Hitler’s personality, too, which many have described as divine and magnetic, has led some to suggest occult involvement. In reality, Hitler, Himmler, and his other minions were interested in the occult, but their beliefs and the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) movement were founded on older spiritual and religious traditions. Nazi leaders’ diaries reveal that they viewed their movement as a spiritual one.
Guido von List (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Its origins can be traced to three connected spiritual traditions: Theosophy, founded by Helena Blavatsky; Ariosophy, which was begun by Guido von List; and the Thule Society’s spiritual notions, which were adopted from the Novus Ordo Templi (New Templar Order) and Germanorden (The German Order), and popularized by Walter Nauhaus and Rudolf von Sebottendorff. To truly comprehend the Nazis and the acts for which they were responsible, it is necessary to understand the spiritual principles that undermined their actions.
Helena Blavatsky's portrait by Spanish-Costa Rican painter Tomás Povedano (Public Domain)
Helena Blavatsky’s Theosophy
The notion of Aryans as a superior white race came from Theosophy, which Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891) founded. Born in the Ukraine, she claimed to have occult powers which she learned from secretive mahatmas in the Himalayas, who chose her to carry on knowledge of an ancient power that human beings once possessed. After leaving the area, she stated that she continued to communicate telepathically with such masters: a skill that all humans can learn. However, there is no evidence to support her claims, and she adopted many of her ideas from pre-existing texts about occultism, Eastern religions, and even fictional works.
