CHAPTER 6: NAZISM AND NEW AGE

While most Jews are sure that Hitler represented the Christian community, his associates knew better. In this section we see not only that Hitler rejected Christianity, but that there is also ample research showing that Hitler founded far more than a political regime - the Third Reich was an occult-based religious movement to usher in the same New Age examined in this series. [For documentation besides the Angeberts, see also D. Sklar, "The Nazis and the Occult"; Joseph Carr, "The Twisted Cross"; Robert G.L. Waite, "The Psychopathic God - Adolf Hitler"; Gerald Suster, "Adolf Hitler, The Occult Messiah"; Trevor Ravenscroft, "The Spear of Destiny".] 

The Nazi President of the Danzig Senate, Hermann Rauschning (who defected to the Allies and in 1939 wrote the book quoted above), recorded statements made by Hitler which are unintelligible except from a NA orientation. [The fact that Rauschning included quotes which he admitted he did not understand only adds to the credibility of his testimony, for these often turn out to be occultic references of the kind meant to be understood by fellow-initiates alone.] 

[One of the best sources I have seen is the Angeberts' book quoted above. The strength of their work is ironically due to their positive attitude toward the occult: it appears they rather admire the "Ancient Wisdom" as expressed in Gnosticism, Catharism and other esoteric movements, and they trace its threads through history with nostalgia as well as academic interest. Their far-ranging documentation allows them to conclusively show that Nazism was/is an initiation into the classical Gnostic "path of enlightenment", but unlike me the authors do not fault the "Ancient Wisdom" itself for the infamous results. On the contrary, "the prime lesson to be learned is that the practice of occultism and magic is fraught with danger and, therefore, not to be entrusted to just anyone." (p.160) This book is valuable for its uninhibited look at the many movements and occultists - including unlikely names like Plato, Nietzsche, Goethe and Pythagorus - who shared Hitler's dream of the Holy Grail and a new-age return of the ancient Hyperborean godmen with their "sacred sciences". The English publisher is MacMillan (1974), McGraw-Hill (1975) in paperback.] 

Hitler turned against Christianity from his early teens and sought his destiny in the occult. He later joined with associates who also embraced those teachings, and together they built a state guided by the same occultic principles and goals repeated in today's NA. And no wonder, because he drew on the same esoteric sources as the NAers of today. [How have so many scholars overlooked this all-important key to understanding the Nazi mentality? In the words of the Angeberts' English translator, Lewis A.M. Sumberg, nearly all historians missed the "militant neo-Paganism" and "Gnostic racism" in Nazism "because they have brought conventional outlooks and methodologies to their examination of an unconventional phenomenon." ("The Occult and the Third Reich", p.x) We must either re-assess the Nazi philosophy with these roots exposed, or be forced to settle for theories which fail to completely explain Nazi priorities. Its unconventional nature lay in "magic thought allied to science and know-how" (Angeberts, p.179) - exactly the hybrid being encouraged today by NA leaders like Peter Russell. Sumberg's observation in 1974 about this blind spot among historians fell mostly on deaf ears, which makes it more difficult now - but more urgent than ever - to recognize that not only is Nazism not dead, we are now surrounded by a "kinder, gentler" version of the same philosophy, sprouted from the same roots and having the same priorities.] 

1. Hitler and the Occult 
According to available sources (see above), Hitler first made contact in 1909 with other occultists, the first of these being Goerg Lanz von Lieberfels and Guido von List, after coming across their occultic-racist magazine "Ostara" in Vienna. (Sklar, p.5. For samples of the typical copy published in "Ostara", and how Hitler later echoes it, see p.17-22) Besides his publishing activities, Lanz was known for starting a society called the "Order of New Templars" which imitated the traditions of occultic Grail lore. (Angeberts, p.237) Lanz would later claim credit for influencing Nazi ideology - a claim which has some merit considering that one of his books was found in Hitler's personal library (now archived in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC). As for List, he founded the "Armanen", a Germanic pagan priestly order which apparently accepted Hitler into their brotherhood; evidence is in another occultic book from Hitler's library bearing an inscription from a comrade to Adolf, "my dear Armanen brother." (Sklar, p.48) Books by List were found stamped with the insignia of the SS Ahnenerbe (the Nazi Ancestral Research division), indicating that his teachings were studied by SS candidates. (As an aside, Angeberts note that the documents dealing with the Ahnenerbe itself, which they identify as "the Nazi Occult Bureau", are listed in the U.S. National Archives but for some reason are not available to researchers - p.259-260) Both Lanz and List were obsessed with blood purity, the Jewish threat, Grail legends and a "new world order". Both embraced the swastika as a central symbol, borrowing it from Hindu mysticism. [see comments below] 

By 1913, Adolf had passed the novice stage in his occult pursuits. (Carr, p.95) In 1918 (age 29) he claimed to hear voices announcing that he was "selected by God to be Germany's messiah" (Carr, p.36); later he made contact with an "ascended master" whom he identified as Lucifer or "the beast from the pit". He eventually became convinced he was the reincarnation of Woden (or, Woton). At some point, he discovered two German occultists who eloquently expressed his own understanding of Aryan religion and destiny: Richard Wagner [details later] and Friedrich Nietzsche. These influenced Nazi thought so heavily that the authors of "The Occult and the Third Reich" name them as "the two prime initiators of the Third Reich", (p.119) and devote two entire chapters to documenting this claim. To these can be added a third, who lived before Hitler and tried to weld Wagnerian and Nietzschean thought into one work: the British occultist Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who wrote in his epic "Foundations of the Nineteenth Century" (1900): "Every Mystic is, whether he will or not, a born Anti-Semite." (Sklar, p.11) 

Another occultist to influence Hitler's thinking was Dr. Karl Haushofer, who was introduced to Hitler in 1924 while the latter was in Landsberg prison. Haushofer, a Blavatsky disciple, combined a dubious "science" called "geopolitics" with Eastern mystical texts and "The Secret Doctrine" principles, and claimed to have clairvoyant powers. It was Haushofer who schooled Hitler in "The Secret Doctrine". (Carr, p.93) His geopolitical theories found their way into "Mein Kampf". (Sklar, p.62) It was also Haushofer who forged Hitler's alliance with Japan basing his case on astrological predictions (Sklar, p.69), and who gave him the "Lebensraum" concept. As the Nazi conquest advanced, Haushofer applied his theories through prophecies which overruled the military leadership in directing troop movements. (Sklar, p.69) Besides Hitler, Haushofer had other prominent disciples: Rudolf Hess, later to become Hitler's secretary; and Anton LaVey, who gained notoriety in later years for his promotion of Satanism. LaVey dedicated his work "The Satanic Bible" in part to "Karl Haushofer, a teacher without a classroom." (Sklar, p.63) Haushofer's fortunes fell, however, when his son Albrecht conspired in the 1944 coup against Hitler and was arrested; father Karl was sent to Dachau. 

Hitler, like today's NA philosophers, firmly believed in the coming of a new species of humanity. Like modern New Agers, he expected them to be a literal "mutation" of homo sapiens, achieved by arriving at "higher levels of consciousness". He also believed that the new humanity would be free of "the dirty and degrading chimera called conscience and morality," as well as "the burden of free will" and "personal responsibility" which should rightly be borne only by the few with the fortitude to make the awful decisions necessary for the good of humanity. (Sklar, p.58) 

Hitler's associate, Bernhard Forster (who happened to be Nietzsche's brother-in-law) related to Hermann Rauschning how Hitler had proclaimed that he "would bring the world a new religion,... the blessed consciousness of eternal life in union with the great universal life... when the time came. Hitler would be the first to achieve what Christianity was meant to have been, [without] any fear of death [or] the fear of a so-called bad conscience. Hitler would restore men to the self-confident divinity with which nature had endowed them." Forster then added his own opinion: "He drew his great power from intercourse with the eternal divine nature." (Sklar, p.54-55) [The reader should note the familiar "cosmic consciousness" vocabulary here, more appropriate to the founder of a religion than to a political schemer.] 

The Nazi sacred symbols and concepts - the swastika or "gamma cross", the eagle, the red/black/white color scheme, and ancient Nordic runes (one of which became the insignia of the SS ) - were all adopted from occult traditions going back centuries, shared by Brahmins, Scottish Masons, Rosicrucians, Manichaeans and others. (Angeberts give detailed histories, p.194-200) The Nazi motto, "One Reich, One Folk, One Fuehrer", reflected the standard 3-fold power circles of the occult. (See a good example in Bailey's "Discipleship in the New Age" II, p.165, where the Great Invocation is to be explained on three distinct levels.) The Reich was the psychic adepts of the Nazi Party, which would build the bridge between the Folk (the masses which unite into a cosmic Entity greater than its parts) and the Fuehrer (the initiates in the elite leadership which unite with Hitler, the divine incarnation). The outer fringe, the Folk, are taught what they can handle: blind obedience, group service, a new history and identity. The Party elite such as the SS are taught something different: psychic knowledge, tapping into the "Vril Force", self-denial, brotherhood mission, medieval lore, fearlessness of death. The innermost circle was privy to the hard-core Gnostic teaching on the Grail, immortality and godhood. Many neo-Nazi groups continue to pursue these topics with devotion. But under it all was the invisible presence of "Unknown Superiors" (Angeberts, p.178, quoting Rudolf Olden, "Hitler the Pawn", written 1936. Rauschning used the same term - p.233) who taught Hitler himself and who were assumed by his associates to endow him with his uncanny hypnotic power. 

Concerning Hitler's relationship with these Unknowns, there is not much known besides his reference to a guiding voice of "Providence". However, we do have a vivid account related by an unnamed associate of Hitler to Rauschning (both were not sure what to make of it), in which Hitler wakes up in the middle of the night in total panic at some unseen visitation: "Hitler was standing there in his bedroom, stumbling about, looking around him with a distraught look. He was muttering: 'It's him! It's him! He's here!' His lips had turned blue. He was dripping with sweat. Suddenly he uttered some numbers which made no sense, then some words, then bits of sentences. It was frightening. He used terms which were strung together in the strangest way and which were absolutely weird. Then, he again became silent, although his lips continued to move. He was given a massage and something to drink. Then all of a sudden, he screamed: 'There! Over there! In the corner! Who is it?' He was jumping up and down, and he was howling." (Rauschning, p.285-286) [Whatever the reader may conclude about the Unknown Superiors, whether a figment of a sick mind or real entities, please remember that both Nazi cosmology and NA religion view(ed) them as real and independent beings - and also as extensions of one's own untapped divinity. No provision is made in either system for the possibility of ascended beings who first seduce their channels and then torment them. Yet stories similar to the above are not uncommon in NA circles. From those who leave the New Age after such an experience, the verdict is uniform: the Guides are clever deceivers with evil motives. For those who stay, the solution is to blame oneself for the "bad trip" and blindly dive in deeper; this was apparently Hitler's choice.] 

Hitler's personal devotion to occult principles was proven ultimately by his self-inflicted death. His choice of April 30 for his suicide may well have been meant as a sacrifice; it was the eve of Beltane (known in Germany as Walpurgisnacht), identified on popular Wiccan websites as a Druid feast in honor of the deity Bel. In witchcraft, this "power-point" day is regarded as a "great sabbat" equal in potency to Halloween. According to Wiccans, Bel is derived from the Canaanite Baal; but Helena Blavatsky goes farther in "The Secret Doctrine" (vol.2), reconstructing an astrological trinity of Bel/Baal (sun-god, father), Christos (Mercury, son) and Lucifer (Venus, holy spirit). [more on the Lucifer connection in "Gods of the New Age"] As for Hitler's suicide itself, this was not a cowardly act from an occultist viewpoint, but rather an honorable practice known among the Druids, as well as among the Cathari "Perfects", those medieval guardians of the Grail, who called it the rite of "Endura". A curious requirement of the "Endura" was that it was always to be done by pairs of intimate friends, a detail known by the Nazis (Angeberts p.28) which makes sense of Hitler's joint suicide with his new wife Eva Braun. Incidently, Hitler's associates Karl Haushofer and Goebbels also killed themselves in ceremonial fashion along with their wives. (Angeberts, p.275, note 11) 

2. Hitler and Christianity 
Not only did Hitler regard Christianity as a defective, failed enterprise, he saw himself as replacing both its God and its Christ. At one of the huge Nuremberg rallies hung a gigantic poster of himself, with the caption stolen from the Christian gospel of John: "In the beginning was the Word." German youth were indoctrinated from infancy to pray to Hitler, who they were taught was sent from heaven to protect them. (Sklar, p.56) Nazi-approved sermons in German churches proclaimed, "Adolf Hitler is the voice of Jesus Christ." And lest some readers [especially Jews] should conclude from this that Nazi Christians viewed Hitler as the mouthpiece of the New Testament Jesus, the statement is clarified to leave no doubt: "If Jehovah has lost all meaning for us Germans, the same must be said of Jesus Christ, his son.... He [Jesus] certainly lacks those characteristics which he would require to be a true German. Indeed, he is as disappointing, if we read the record carefully, as is his father [the G-d of Israel according to Christian tradition]." ("What the Christian Does Not Know About Christianity", quoted by Sklar, p.56)

In Hitler's words, Christianity "only added the seeds of decadence such as forgiveness, self-abnegation, weakness, false humility and the very denial of the evolutionary laws of survival of the fittest [social Darwinism]," and would obviously be a handicap to the new species which he was personally commissioned by the "masters" to see properly birthed and nurtured. But Hitler perceptively placed the ultimate blame where it is due: "Conscience is a Jewish invention. It is a blemish, like circumcision.... There is no such thing as truth, either in the moral or in the scientific sense. The new man would be the antithesis of the Jew." (Sklar, p. 57-58) Nietzsche likewise considered the Christian Bible nearly worthless because of its Jewish origin: "In Christianity, seen as the art of sacred lying, we're back with Judaism.... The Christian is but a Jew of more liberal persuasion." ("Antichrist", quoted in Angeberts, p.126) [Compare with the NA view of how Judaism "defiled" Christianity.] In this context, antisemitism was not a starting point for the inner Nazi society as it was for the masses; Jew-hatred was the inevitable result of absorbing these bedrock occult teachings. 

The nurture of the new humanity included the need to "encourage the growth of a violent, domineering, intrepid, cruel youth... nothing weak or tender in it." (Angeberts, p.209, Rauschning quoting Hitler) This reached its climax in SS training, and it corresponded to the Nazi view of "pure" Gnostic, Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, which did not teach compassion and gentleness, but Aryan duty and honor above all (Angeberts, p.220-221). [This would seem confirmed by the presence of Tibetan Buddhists in Hitler's Berlin, as well as Bailey's prediction that Buddhism is destined to drop its image of gentle pacifism.] 

But there was an obstacle to sweeping away the Jew and raising this cruel new generation, in the person of that "Jew of more liberal persuasion", the Bible-believing Christian. Knowing that Christian Germany would not easily accept an open return to paganism, Nazism attempted to wean the masses from standard Christianity by removing the Jewish-influenced "negative" parts, that is the Old Testament and most of the New Testament, imposing gnostic meanings on key passages, adding colorful pagan legend, and repackaging it in their 1920 platform as "positive Christianity" (Angeberts, p.202-203). [This term is freely used today by many groups, some of them fervent NAers offering the same package to naive Christians, for the same purpose.] 

Hitler's vision of returning to "pure" pagan religion was echoed, or more accurately anticipated, by psychoanalyst Carl Jung in 1923: "We [Germans] need new foundations. We must dig down to the primitive in us, for only out of the conflict between civilized man and the Germanic barbarian will there come what we need: a new experience of God." (Sklar, p.134) When esotericist Jakov Wilhelm Hauer founded the Nordic Faith movment, Jung urged participation on the part of Germans who were "intelligent enough not only to believe but to know that the god of the Germans is Wotan and not the Christian God." ("Wotan", essay by Jung - emphasis his, quoted by Sklar, p.134) The Nazis reciprocated by making Jung President of the German Medical Society for Psychotherapy in 1933, at which time he finally found a forum from which to expound a belief he had held since 1918: the need to distinguish between "German" and "Jewish" psychology. (The Society's Dec. 1933 issue) In his view, such a distinction was not antisemitic, it was liberating for both Aryans and Jews. (Sklar 136-137) When the Jews were fleeing Nazi Germany in ever-increasing numbers, Jung advised his followers in England to keep up their "negative feelings" about Jews and resist allowing them to participate as colleagues, as he also did. [See further details about Jung in Harvard Professor Richard Noll's books.] As for the destruction being wreaked by the Nazis, Noll notes that Jung viewed them as the necessary precursors to the great "light", those whose task was to destroy to make "rebirth" possible. [Compare with Bailey's assessment below.] It took until 1945 for Jung to finally denounce the Nazi extermination of the Jews, but he never retracted his proposal for a "Germanic, Jew-free psychotherapy". (Sklar, p.138-139) 

To remove the "bad seeds" of Christian (that is, Jewish) thinking, Nazi preparation of children for the new humanity would be diligent from cradle to grave, centered around the notion that they were born to die for their god, wmbodied in their Fuehrer. The education began with revised fairy tales teaching new-humanity principles of heroes struggling and dying to set their race free. Then group membership started at age 10, followed by continuous reinforcement in group settings for the remainder of their lives, "so that they shall in no case suffer a relapse, and they don't feel free again as long as they live," as Hitler bluntly put it. (Sklar, p.110) There was non-stop activity which required passive participation, allowing no time for reflection or discussion. 

And what did Christian leaders think of Hitler? Although many Christians eventually bought into "positive Christianity", apparently there was enough opposition to necessitate an early purge of that community. Before launching his "final solution", Hitler made an effort to remove all churches and pastors who showed the least resistance to policies already in operation. For example, refusal by a church to sponsor a Hitler Youth chapter was sufficient grounds to close it down. Leaders whose integrity would not yield to political expediency, who could not be discredited by scandal, and who had the potential to influence Christians at large, were imprisoned indefinitely (Dietrich Bonnhoefer for example). Although Hitler did not close down many Catholic churches, especially where local support was strong, he vented his rage on Pope Pius XI, who had issued an encyclical condemning him as "a mad prophet possessed of repulsive arrogance" ("Mit Brennender Sorg", March 14, 1937). 

2a. Hitler and the Pope 
This Catholic leader and his successor, Pius XII, have long been the subject of controversy for their publicly ambivalent statements regarding the Jewish genocide taking place in their times. However, in the eyes of the Third Reich, Pius XI had already gone too far with his encyclical, and Nazi General Ludendorf was convinced that Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, then the Vatican Secretary of State and soon-to-be Pope Pius XII, was behind the wording of this document and "behind all the anti-German activities of Rome's policy". (Pinchas Lapide, "Three Popes and the Jews", p.120) The Nazi government lodged a harsh protest with the Vatican shortly afterward (April 12, 1937 - see Georg May, "Kirchenkampf oder Katholikenverfolgung", p.582). When Pius XII came to power in 1939, he appeared to adopt a more diplomatic tone, making his position much harder to identify. [It is not my aim here to evaluate whether Pius XII did or did not do enough to oppose the Holocaust. There is a great number of published papers which come to conflicting conclusions, but the prevailing opinion today is that Pius XII failed abysmally by remaining silent in the face of Nazi genocide. For open-minded readers, I recommend a documented rebuttal from the Catholic side, which ironically relies on the research of several Jewish scholars, especially Israeli historian Pinchas Lapide. My goal here is to show the Nazi response to what Pius XII did say, and to suggest motives for it.] Yet the so-called "Silent Pope" came under attack in Nazi political cartoons published in "Der Stuermer", which showed the pontiff kissing rabbis. (reported to me by German researcher Robert Jesolowitz, who has them on file) 

In what most historians consider a vague protest, Pius XII referred to "those hundreds of thousands who, without any fault of their own, sometimes only by reason of their nationality or race, are marked for death or progressive extinction" (Christmas Message 1942). Vague or not, his message was not missed by the Nazi leadership. Himmler's deputy Reynhard Heydrich responded with: "The Pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order... He is virtually accusing the German people of injustice toward the Jews and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals." (quoted by Lapide, p.137) In Italy, the editor of "Regime Fascista" wrote: "The Church's obstruction of the practical solution of the Jewish problem constitutes a crime against the New Europe." (Michael Schwartz, "The Persistent Prejudice: Anti-Catholicism in America", p.246) [Besides the obvious Nazi conviction that Catholics were heeding a covert call from the Pope for resistance, note the familiar phrase "New European Order", its only difference being on a regional scale rather than today's global goal.] 

[It can be - and usually is - argued that Pius XII did not do enough, given his vast resources and global influence. On the other hand, Lapide shows that he did substantially more than other leaders who were not caught in Hitler's hammer-lock, such as the U.S. government which turned away Jewish refugees even though immigration quotas left room for over one million between 1933 and 1943. (Documentation of American inaction is available in "While Six Million Died", by Arthur D. Morse.) This sense of perspective is often lost by over-reliance on the 1963 German drama, "Der Stellvertreter" (performed as "The Deputy" in London that same year), which repeats Heydrich's charge of "war criminal", only this time presenting the Pope as an accomplice for the Nazi side by his "silence". Aside from the fact that the charge itself is debatable, I have yet to see anyone portray then-President Roosevelt as a "war criminal" for his refusal to get involved at a much lower risk.] 

[Four points about "The Deputy" which reflect on the NA-Nazi connection: (1) This play focusing on Pius XII to the exclusion of many other silent "Deputies" was introduced by playright Rolf Hochhuth as a "fantasy", yet it has come to be regarded by many as a definitive "work" on the Holocaust Pope. In sharp contrast, many students of the Holocaust have never heard of Pinchas Lapide's assessment of Pius XII, based not on fantasy but on solid research. (2) This initiative to elevate Pius to "war criminal" status did not come from the Jewish community but from post-Nazi Germany, where no small number of unrepentant war criminals were able to continue their lives - and their occultic beliefs. (3) "The Deputy" was strongly criticized by Lapide, who said that world Jewry did not endorse this view of Holocaust history. For some reason, few Jews are aware of this disclaimer, let alone in agreement. Point (2) conveniently serves the NA divide-and-conquer strategy toward Jewish-Christian relations, manipulating this painful history of the Church failing the Jews while covering up their own designs against both groups. Points (1) and (3) show the unapologetic history revision commonly seen in the New Age framework - not merely a retroactive application of create-your-own-reality, but disinformation with an agenda.] 

[But Point (4) is perhaps the most telling: One of the earliest records of Pius XII denouncing the Nazi movement dates back to April 1935, when Pacelli was still a Cardinal: "These ideologues are in fact only miserable plagiarizers who dress up ancient error in new tinsel." (address at Lourdes to 250,000 pilgrims) By recognizing the return of the "ancient error" which the Church had repeatedly battled in the past - occultic Gnosticism - this pope declared himself a formidible enemy in the arena most important to the Nazis: the ancient cosmic-religious War of Light against Darkness. I would submit that his evident knowledge of the occult roots of Nazism disturbed Hitler and his fellow-initiates far more than anything Pius did later, for they were in the process of burying all such traces [see below]. This is the best explanation for the hysterical tirades reportedly directed personally at Pacelli by Hitler, and even a plot in 1940 to kidnap him. The threat from this pope did not end with the Third Reich, because the real "War" was - and is - still in progress. On the contrary, Pius XII was so highly esteemed that at his death (1958), Israel's Foreign Minister Golda Meir eulogized him in the name of the Jewish State, and the Israeli public called for a forest of 860,000 trees to be planted in honor of the estimated number of Jews saved by this Righteous Gentile. Surviving guardians of the Gnosis must have realized that Pacelli's continuing influence on the Jewish people could do great damage to the future of the Plan if they came to comprehend his analysis of Nazism. This is the only reasonable explanation for the total reversal of his reputation within five short years, after unknown parties financed and heavily promoted a reconstructed pseudo-history of Pius XII on the stages of Europe. Today, not many Jews are interested in anything this Nazi "deputy" had to say.] 

3. Hitler and the Mufti 
And what about Islam, the third monotheistic religion? While Hitler ranted against Christianity and Judaism, expressing "a violent feeling of anger at the idea that some Germans were able to be taken in by theological doctrines devoid of any depth," he contrasted these hated teachings with "those of Confucius, of Buddha and of Mohammed" which provided spiritual "sustenance". (Angeberts, p.246) In this context, Hitler's friendship with Haj Amin al Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem - which included asylum in 1941, the honorary rank of SS Major and an acceptable racial "genealogy" - can be understood as more a sign of respect than political expedience. There were even cases of Nazis relocating to Arab countries and converting to Islam. (p.275-276 note 14) In this opinion, Hitler had the backing of the Thule Society, whose founder Sebottendorf praised Islam for having a "vitality greater than that of Christianity" which flowed "from a torrent which nourished everything" - that same "thread of lost knowledge" which was the goal of the Nazi quest. (Angeberts, p.165-166) [This raises other ideas for why Hitler's Mein Kampf is so popular among some Moslems; besides the expected political admiration for brute force, there may also be a consensus of spiritual worldviews.] 

4. The Nazi Mentality - Group Mind 
The Nazi goal was group-think, or the eradication of private conviction and dissent. As stated above, the "burden" of free choice and decision-making could be entrusted only to the few with the enlightenment and courage to implement the new age without flinching. For the masses, it was enough that they submit to the leadership, which would weld them into one entity through a common psychic experience. [Today this would be called a guided group "light experience", practiced by most NA channelers on their followers. See the parallels in the "Transformation" Section.] 

[Eerily, this group-think is the stated goal and the practical outcome of the UN-sponsored World Core Curriculum, as well as the American OBE (Outcome Based Education) which incorporates the WCC into US public schools. Alice Bailey disciple Robert Muller, author of the WCC, presents planetary group-think as the proper goal for all enlightened individuals. The first principle of the WCC Manual clearly states that "the group idea, group good and group understanding" are to "replace all limited, self-centered objectives, leading to group consciousness". The UN Global Governance Commission goes farther, branding "some assertions of particular identities" as nothing less than "intolerance", a cardinal sin in the New Age. (See the massive report by the Commission on Global Governance, "Our Global Neighborhood", and search for the "Core Value" of "mutual respect".) Obviously, someone at the top will have to bear the "burden" of dictating the parameters for group-think. Yet the question of who will wield this immense power over the rest of mankind, and whether they might abuse it, is never brought up - seemingly not worth troubling ourselves about. The New Age global forum known as "Planetary Initiative for the World We Choose" is an example of those who have donned the mantle of choice for the group, as is the "State of the World Forum", but as usual the question is never answered how the "We" who "choose" were themselves chosen.] 

Hitler's contention that free will is a burden to the masses was confirmed by the popular reaction. Said one young Nazi to the press in the glory days of the Reich: "We Germans are so happy - we are free of freedom." (Sklar, p.152) For many, it was a relief not to be saddled with personal convictions and responsibility for what was happening, as a perceptive professor reflected after the war: "I suppose we were grateful. Who wants to think?" (see "They Thought They Were Free", Milton Mayer) 

On the other hand, cultivation of personal will and initiative is a noble duty incumbent on the high-level occult initiate destined to lead the pliant, group-conscious new humanity. Hitler was obsessed with the potential of the human will. So was Helena Blavatsky: "...that mysterious and divine power latent in the will of every man, and which, if not called to life, quickened and developed by Yogi training, remains dormant in 999.999 men out of a million." (Sklar, p.51) It was likely this fascination which lay behind the title of that definitive Nazi propaganda piece in 1934, "The Triumph of the Will". [The reader will remember that "Will" is not a mere human effort but is deified in NA as an attribute of Sanat Kumara.] A German youth interviewed by a French writer in 1937 explained the Nazi triumph of will not in militaristic but in gnostic terms: "I am studying the conception of the world.... We refuse to think and to be; we refuse to stand by helplessly under the determinism of the so-called laws of matter. What we want is inside, an inner structure.... We shall not let anyone stop us from building before God and before men that which must be built!" The writer then remarked on the similarity of Nazi sentiment to the (as he thought) extinct French Templar philosophy. (Alphonse de Chateaubriant, quoted in Angeberts, p.175) 

5. New Age Leaders Commenting on the Nazi Experiment 
And what is the opinion in the NA community to this infamous historical figure who so closely resembles them? Ambiguous, to say the least. When pressed to comment publicly about Nazism, most will say the politically correct thing and applaud the fact that "the monster" Hitler failed. [It takes a bit of sleuthing to find out what they say to one another.] 

New Age references to Hitler are sometimes veiled in positive generalities. Examples are Alice's husband Foster Bailey, and David Spangler, a Findhorn leader (a NA community in Scotland where the goat-god Pan is worshiped). F. Bailey tactfully does not name Hitler but describes a disciple who tried to put the Plan of the New Age gods into action "on a regional scale in the Rhine River valley" ("Running God's Plan", p.14). Spangler, dedicated to "anchor the Plan on earth" by establishing other NA communities like Findhorn, distances the New Age Aryans from Nazi Aryans only in that the "blond, blue-eyed Germanic race which Hitler spoke of" was unnecessarily narrow - the Aryans "are actually a more wide-ranging and ancient super-race". (quoted by Constance Cumbey, "Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow", p.107) As an avowed disciple of Bailey and Blavatsky, he can be assumed to hold the same views about need to safeguard the "purity" of the Aryan race. 

Then there is the schizoid response to Hitler - condemning his brutality while justifying his philosophical premises. This describes Alice Bailey ("The Externalisation of the Hierarchy" II, p.122-127), who called Nazism a "peculiarly distorted blend of Fascism and Communism", yet included it in "the great world ideologies" birthed by the "Shamballa force" (a flow of energy from the Hierarchy directed at the world). Says Alice, "The objective [of the Hierarchy] was to stimulate the free will of the masses; the result upon them has been relatively good." And what prompted the "masters" to trigger these beneficial ideologies, including Nazism? "It was the acuteness of the situation and the wide extent of the cleavage." Which cleavage is that? "The cleavage between the two groups... the forces of materialism and... the energy of light." The forces of materialism are known to Bailey as the "Dark Forces", which "work to preserve that which is ancient and material... and feed... separateness." The Jews' insistance on retaining their chosen-people identity "made it possible for the forces of separativeness and hate to use the Jewish race"; therefore, the Jews are the tools of the Dark Forces. ("Externalisation" II, p.76-77) Here it took a bit of effort to piece the picture together, but later Bailey is more outspoken: "Hitler, who lifted a distressed people upon his shoulders; Lenin, the idealist; Stalin and Franco are all expressions of the Shamballa force and of certain little-understood energies.... We call these people dictators, demagogues.... But all these leaders are... being used to engineer great and needed changes and to alter the face of civilisation." ("Externalisation" II, p.134-5) So then, according to this channeler whose teaching is energetically promoted by the UN, Hitler was empowered by the Hierarchy to continue the ancient and honorable War against Darkness, personified by the Jews -- precisely what Hitler himself claimed. [See more Bailey comments on the "beauty" of World War II in general, in the "Views on Jews" section.] 

It is no wonder, then, to find New Age factions which openly applaud the Third Reich. Savitri Devi Mukherjee, a French convert to Hindusim who became an influential mystical leader in the West, firmly believed that Hitler was an "avatar" (divine manifestation), a being in natural harmony with the Hindu tradition. She considered him the embodiment of twin mystical light sources, "the sun and the lightning." [See "Hitler's Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth and Neo-Nazism", Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke] Devi's book about her human idol ("The Lightning and the Sun") bears the dedication: "To the god-like Individual of our times; the Man against Time; the greatest European of all times; both Sun and Lightning: ADOLPH HITLER, as a tribute of unfailing love and loyalty, for ever and ever." [capitals in original. It is likely that the tribute, "the Man against Time", referred to Hitler's reversal of the swastika's direction from the Hindu orientation which symbolized harmonic movement with the sun, to the opposite direction, that is, against time.] Devi, now deceased, still has a following in India, known as the "Hindutva" movement. 

Naturally, Devi's book is heavily promoted by neo-Nazis such as Canadian Ernst Zundel, as are her tapes, "for serious students of the occult". Zundel himself follows the time-honored Nazi obsession with occult and psychic phenomena, particularly UFOs. Another major neo-Nazi center in New Zealand offers a book catalog which contains as many titles on the occult as on politics - dealing with runes, Atlantis, Norse religion, magicians, and Hitler-as-god. The best personal example of neo-Nazi ideology merged with NA thought is David Icke, former BBC commentator turned Green Party activist and "son of the godhead" guru, whose seminars are crowded with NAers and neo-Nazis alike. Likewise the British magazine "Rainbow Ark" and the Australian periodical "Nexus", which Icke recommends to his followers. (For a good overview of Icke, see "From Green Messiah to New Age Nazi", "Left Green Perspectives", Jan. 1996.) [Note the quotes by Icke, many of which are almost verbatim Bailey teachings.] Also worthy of mention is the "New Acropolis", ostensibly a NA philosophy club to outsiders, but a Fascist group known by insiders to be imitating the Third Reich. 

Reasons for Hitler's failure to usher in the new humanity are given by various NA sources: he was premature; he did not coordinate with the "Hierarchy" but tried to build a rival power base [see below for confirmation]; his vision for mankind wasn't global enough; he was blocked by the "old order". If any of Hitler's NA critics detected any weakness in him toward the Christianity which they are working to eliminate, they have yet to mention it. 

[Here it's appropriate to speculate why prominent New Agers in recent decades have refused to follow the Baileys (and by implication the spirit guide "DK") in rationalizing the Nazi war on the Jews. On the contrary, many are hard at work to perpetuate the memory of Nazi brutality in the Holocaust, even emphasizing their savage treatment of the Jews. There are two possible explanations: (1) The high-profile NAers are not necessarily high-ranking NAers, particularly in the entertainment industry - they may be uninformed about the NA doctrines of human evolution and Jewish karma, and honestly believe that New Age thought could never sanction Nazi antisemitism. (2) High-ranking NAers, who know the true roots of Nazism, are promoting the evil of the Nazi-brand Final Solution in order to more effectively contrast the benevolence of their own Solution - something like the "good cop / bad cop" strategy where two interrogators pretend to be on opposite sides to manipulate the suspect into trusting the "good guy" to protect him from the "bad guy". Or call it reverse camouflage: next to pitch black, gray can look fairly white.]

6. The "Missing" Link: The Thule Society 
The same year Hitler had his New Age revelation, Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorf, an avid fan of Helena Blavatsky, founded the "Thule Society", a spiritist group which borrowed heavily from HPB's "The Secret Doctrine". Thule in occultic, Greek and Viking lore was the capital of an ancient ice-island called Hyperborea (known in Hindu legend as the "White Isle"), inhabited by superhumans with psychic powers who eventually founded the Aryan race. After an unexplained disaster, survivors of Hyperborea took refuge first in the "West" [meaning west of India, perhaps Babylon?], then in the Gobi desert, and later in Tibet; their spirit mentors retreated to a hidden spiritual center called "Asgard" (variously located in space or in a subterranean city). [Fans of the TV series "Stargate" will recognize this as the name of the benevolent alien race which offers hidden knowledge to the SG-1 team in times of need.] In Scandinavian myth, Asgard was the abode of the gods, connected with earth by a rainbow bridge. (Angeberts, p.280 note 43) These beings, headed by one known in Hindu/Buddhist tradition as "the Lama of lamas" or "King of the world", can only be contacted on the spiritual plane. The symbol of this "Master" is the swastika, "symbol of the central power of the gem of Heaven". (Angeberts, p.96, quoting J. Marques-Riviere, "In the Shadow of the Tibetan Monastaries") [Note the similarity to the NA history of the "White Lodge" retiring to "Shamballa". I would also guess that the "gem of Heaven" is a symbolic reference to Lucifer's stone, or the Grail.] The Thule mythology was apparently embraced long before the Thulists by Nietzsche, who began his final work, "Antichrist", with the words: "Let us see ourselves for what we are. We are Hyperboreans." (Angeberts, p. 124) 

The goal of Thule members was to break the barrier of the "small self" - consisting of physical reality and (upon promotion to their inner circle) moral constraints - so as to merge with the "divine self" in the unseen spirit realm. (Sklar, p.33) That in turn allowed the initiate to reach the "universal energy fields" (Carr, p.108) which would "awaken the sleeping powers within" and access superhuman psychic abilities which had once belonged to the proud Aryan race. Attainment to this new level would lead to their thousand-year mastery over the earth. Thulist powers were embodied in pagan deities, specifically Woden/Woton; their symbols were the swastika (an ancient "rune" symbolizing the sun, the moving wheel of life and the process of transmutation) and the red eagle (which Sebottendorf defined as the symbol of the death-to-life experience - Sklar, p.40). Thule discipline required blind, unquestioning obedience to the enlightened master in whatever he may ask, which would create conditions for personal transformation. (Sklar, p.46) Sebottendorf called this the "Fuehrerprinzip" ("the Fuehrer principle"), and he concocted a formal response by which to salute such a god-man: "Sieg, Heil!" ("Glory, Hail!") (Sklar, p.34) Thule initiates fervently awaited someone worthy of that title to whom they could submit. When Hitler joined the Society, Thule member Dietrich Eckart prophesied that the day had come; he began introducing him in Munich occult circles as "the long-awaited savior". To Alfred Rosenberg he said: "I believe in Hitler; above him there hovers a star." (Sklar, p.53) Eckart was following his own mission revealed to him in a seance: that when "Lord Maitreya" [none other!] would soon make his appearance as a German messiah to "lead the Aryan race to final victory over the Jews", he, Eckart, was charged with the responsibility of "nurturing" him. (Carr, p.110) 

The Thule Society considered the Jew ("Juda") their cosmic enemy. As early as 1920, Sebottendorf advocated a "Final Goal" of "cleaning out the Jews once and for all", using "the most ruthless measures, including Sammellager [concentration camps] and sweeping out the Jewish vermin with an iron broom." (Sklar, p.57) [Readers will recognize the same terms made infamous by later Nazi propaganda.] 

Thule did not stop with a war of words, however. Society members were implicated in the assassination of then-President of Bavaria, a Jew named Kurt Eisner. When police arrived to arrest suspects, Sebottendorf threatened to ignite an anti-Jewish pogrom. Whether due to expedience or to Thule's wealthy backers, law-enforcers backed down. (Sklar, p.42) One year later (1919), the Thule Society established a political arm, the NSDAP, an acronym for the rather cumbersome name later shortened to the "Nazi" party. Sebottendorf wanted the new party run by his "Fuehrer principle", but he was overruled in favor of elected leaders. Shortly thereafter, Thule absorbed several beleagured occult groups such as the Germanen Orden. Interestingly, Sebottendorf attacked certain kindred groups, specifically Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophists and the Freemasons - denouncing the former as a corrupted version of the truth, and the latter as Jew-ridden. [Since there was little actual difference in doctrine, the likely motive was either to discredit Thule's closest occult competitors, or to eliminate those considered too "weak", that is, too compassionate to carry out the necessary purge for the new humanity. Hitler later adopted the same strategy - see below.] Thule also joined forces with the "Free Corp", a paramilitary group comprised of demobilized soldiers who knew no other life. When the Thule Society finally disbanded, the NSDAP and Free Corp (by now known as the Storm Troopers) continued, marching under the Thule sign of the swastika. 

Thule Society members or supporters who became key Nazi officials included: Max Amann (Editor of Nazi Party publications), Hans Frank (governor of Occupied Poland), Anton Drexler (founder of the German Workers' Party), Gottfried Feder (co-founder of the Nazi Party), Karl Harrer (first chairman of the NSDAP), Rudolf Hess (Hitler's Minister of State), Dr. Heinz Kurz (SS leader), Feiedrich Krohn (designer of Nazi insignia), Ernst Roehm (leader of Storm Troopers), Alfred Rosenberg (Foreign Services chief, propagandist, author of "The Myth of the Twentieth Century"), Julius Streicher, (Gauleiter of Franconia), and of course Hitler himself (as a "visiting brother"). [list supplied by Sebottendorf, "Before Hitler Came", quoted in Angeberts, p.169] Dietrich Eckart, a leading Thulist who died in 1923, deserves posthumous Nazi membership; among his last words was this proclamation: "Follow Hitler! He will dance, but it is I who will call the tune." (Carr, p.87) Eckart took credit for initiating Hitler into Blavatsky's "Secret Doctrine" and for putting him in contact with "the powers"; Hitler later dedicated "Mein Kampf" to Eckart. 

7. Why would Nazis attack fellow-occultists? 
According to research (see "Adolf Hitler, The Occult Messiah," Gerald Suster), Hitler was devoted to Theosophy and kept a copy of Blavatsky's "The Secret Doctrine" by his bedside. Yet from the 1920s, his thugs ruthlessly attacked and killed adherents of Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Freemasons and others who shared the same occult doctrines. He banned their groups from the Third Reich, and publicly denounced occultists Rudolf Steiner and Aleister Crowley. He ignored astrologers, seance mediums, fortune tellers and similar groups, until 1942 when they also were banned. This has led historians to assume that Hitler was simply anti-occult, a conclusion that fails to explain all the evidence to the contrary. 

The Nazi relationship to the Thule Society in particular begs for an explanation. By 1933, when occultist Sebottendorf sought to revive Thule, he found himself roundly rejected by the Nazi party he had nurtured. He retaliated by writing a book, "Bevor Hitler Kam" (Before Hitler Came), claiming credit for Thule's role in launching Hitler into leadership. The book was apparently popular and sold well, until the Nazis confiscated all available copies and sent the author into enforced retirement. Thus Nazi origins in the occultic Thule Society, as well as Nazi plagiarism of many Theosophical and Thule terms, were buried; to this day they remain relatively unknown to many students of the Holocaust. 

One explanation is camouflage. Hitler seemed determined to keep his occult roots hidden from the general public; the groups and individuals he targeted for early elimination were those who knew of those roots and who might expose him (thereby challenging his control of the "Plan"). This would explain why the Nazis burned every available copy of Sebottendorf's book which proclaimed those roots, and why Rudolf Hess's defection to the West in 1941 prompted Hitler to outlaw all remaining occultists in the Third Reich, such as astrologers, mediums and even parlor magicians. (Carr, p.88-100) 

Such actions can be also be understood as attempts to eliminate competition. Hitler recognized occultic power in each of the banned groups which could compete with his own occult enterprise, and eliminated them from the field. He considered Steiner a particular threat, making him the first target. [According to Angeberts, Steiner was an avowed practitioner of "white magic" who viewed Hitler as a tool of "black magic" - p.160. Since they both believed they manipulated the same Force, this equality would have suggested to Steiner the possibility of thwarting Hitler, a direct threat which Hitler in turn would have recognized.] This would make sense of the fact that he confiscated (rather than burned) all the books of the outlawed groups, and is the only explanation for his treatment of the Thule founder to whom he owed so much. Heinrich Himmler confirmed this when he defended the official Nazi policy banning astrology: "We cannot permit any astrologers to follow their calling except those who are working for us." (SS astrologer William Wulff, "Zodiac and Swastika", quoted by Sklar, p.2) While Himmler fell back on the traditional esoteric rationale, "It is not for the broad masses", who would misinterpret the occult secrets, the fact that recognized adepts were also disenfranchised betrays more of an attempt to clear the field. 

Hitler did make one exception, however; his 1942 law banning secret societies and confiscating their assets specifically exempted the "old Prussian" Freemason lodges, otherwise known as the Bavarian Illuminati. This group followed the Nazi racial purity ideal far more closely than the "humanitarian Freemasonry" (as the Angeberts distinguish the different streams), and in fact the Bavarian sect shared Hitler's disdain for the other branches of Freemasons, not to mention for the Jews as well. (p.157) [This would imply another reason why Steiner and the Freemasons, as "humanitarian" strains of occultism, were ruthlessly attacked by both Thulists and Nazis: they were considered too compassionate to do what was needed to usher in the New Age.] 

8. Gnostic-Nazi-New Age Convergence 
The one esoteric legend in particular which captivated the Nazis was the Quest for the Holy Grail. While popular mythology presents the Grail as the cup Jesus Christ used at his last supper, occult groups dismiss this materialistic interpretation as a "blind" to preserve for initiates the Grail's true meaning: the quest for the divine bloodline or racial purity (See "Holy Blood, Holy Grail", Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln), which would bring with it supermortal Knowledge and immortality. Alternately, the Grail was defined in gnostic symbolic style as the "philosopher's stone", the "third eye" or the spiritual "crown" of Lucifer which fell from his forehead when he lost his place in heaven (Angeberts, p.264 note 14). In real terms, that "seeing eye" is the Knowledge of self-as-god which Lucifer exhibited, and which he offered mankind in the Garden of Eden. Hitler saw in Wagner's "Parsifal" a detailed parable of the Nazi calling as "a religious brotherhood of templars to guard the Holy Grail, the august vessel containing the pure blood". (Hitler to Rauschning, quoted in Angeberts, p.155) The Grail defined here as the "vessel" refers to the racially pure body which holds the blood that can absorb god-knowledge. [See more about Wagner's Luciferism in the "Gods" section.] The racially inherited god-consciousness idea appears in the Gnostic teaching of a divine lineage descended from Jesus Christ (not a Jew but a Gnostic initiate) who didn't actually die on the cross, and who achieved a singular level of Aryan racial purity and corresponding god-consciousness (his Jewish identity was dismissed as an Oriental fiction). In search of this holy blood which contains the coveted god-knowledge, every member of the SS was screened for purity of Aryan lineage, and was taught his duty to father as many racially pure children as possible. Himmler believed that if conception took place in an Aryan cemetery, the resulting child would receive the spirit of "all the dead heroes" buried there; accordingly, lists of Nordic cemeteries were published in the SS periodical "Das Schwarze Korps". (Sklar, p.114) 

Gnosticism had another, lesser-known influence on Nazi religion, which also appears in New Age thought: the Jewish God (as they mispronounce it, "Jehovah") is not the Most High and only God, but a "demiurge" pretending to be such. Blavatsky agreed that the Gnostics "were right in regarding the Jewish God as belonging to a class of lower, material and not very holy denizens of the invisible world." (quoted in Sklar, p.144) (For more evidence on the gnostic roots of New Age, see Stephan Hoeller's "The Hermetic-Gnostic Roots of Theosophy", sold on tape by the Theological Society.) In Blavatsky's understanding, "only angels of a low hierarchy" could have created "those wretched races, in a spiritual and moral sense, which grace our globe." [Not shy about contradicting herself, Blavatsky also identified the Jewish God as Cain, son of Eve by Satan.] The "moral wretchedness" referred to is Jewish enjoyment of everyday life (everything from meals to sex) and their continual thanksgiving for every material blessing. This attitude was feared and hated by the gnostics, who considered the body and the physical world a prison which the mind must reject and transcend through meditation and magical rites, and escape to the "real" or spiritual world. The "spiritual wretchedness" is the Jewish "Old Testament", rejected by gnostics as evil, which teaches that the Creator of heaven and earth is the Most High God. Since materialism is evil, and "Jehovah" created the physical world, He must be evil as well: not merely a usurper of the title "God", but in fact Satan. [For more details, see the "Gods" section.] The Jews who persist in spreading their teachings (in their Bible) are the tools of Satan, and their influence in the world is deadly to human souls. Hitler reiterated this gnostic doctrine: "The Jew is the anti-man, the creature of another god. He must have come from another root of the human race." (Sklar, p.146) [compare with Bailey's similar assessment] Hitler was also known for his severely simple lifestyle, voluntarily shunning material pleasures, physical appetites and a meat diet - all classic Gnostic elements of "purification from the world". 

The NA cosmology placing the Jews in alliance with cosmic Evil neatly reinforced the Nazi pursuit of racial purity: not only was the Aryan race threatened with defilement on a genetic level, but on a spiritual level as well. Both NA and Nazism clearly borrowed from the Zoroastrian teaching (originating in Persia in the 6th c. BCE and experiencing a comeback through NA endorsement) and the Cathari, both of whom taught that Moses was an evil magician who received his law from "the god of Darkness", and that this "Devil caused the Deluge". (Angeberts, p.262 notes 24,25) The gnostic themes of the Grail quest and the cosmic struggle between Light and Darkness were portrayed in Richard Wagner's "Parsifal", a favorite opera of Hitler. Being an occult initiate, Hitler was aware of the gnostic message behind "the absurd externals of the story [Parsifal], with its Christian embroidery... [the real message was] pure, noble blood, in [whose] protection and glorification the brotherhood of the initiated have come together." (Sklar, p.146, emphasis mine) Gnosticism also clarifies some otherwise unintelligible proclamations, like those by Nazi apologist Alfred Rosenberg: "The earth-centered Jew lacks a soul"; and "[The continuing existence of the Jew] would lead to a void, to the destruction not only of the illusory earthly world but also of the truly existent, the spiritual." These statements, and also his insistence that "The denial of the world needs... to grow so that it will acquire a lasting predominance over affirmation of the world," (Sklar, p.147-148) only makes sense to a Gnostic. [The Theosophy studied by Rosenberg as a Thulist was his likely source - see similar statements.] 

9. Other New-Age Threads Preserved in Nazism 
Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler first entered the Thule Society orbit as a fighter in the Free Corp, by which time he was already a devoted occultist. He was especially fascinated with reincarnation and karma (individual and racial); he became convinced that he was the reincarnation of King Heinrich I the Fowler (10th c), who spoke to him in his sleep. (Sklar, p.85) He was similarly obsessed with legends of the medieval order of Teutonic knights (a secret brotherhood which required Germanic racial purity for eight generations), the meaning of ancient Nordic runes, the Hindu/Buddhist idea of sacrificial detachment from the consequences of daily life, and the precepts of the "Kautilya Arthasastra", a cynical, amoral Hindu philosophy utilizing deceit. (Sklar, p.91) When he was given command of the SS, he molded his Black Guards after a combination of all these. He required his officers to read the mystical research of SS Colonel and Ahnenerbe member Otto Rahn: "Crusade Against the Grail" (1933) and "Lucifer's Court in Europe" (1936). [Both are available in German and French only, far as I know.] Himmler's nickname, the "Black Jesuit", stems from his slavish imitation of the (equally secretive) brotherhood of Jesuit priests, whose literature he avidly studied (Sklar, 86-87, citing Nuremberg Trials witness Walter Schellenberg). He made use of the time-honored Jesuit practice of "spiritual Exercises" - intensive visualization to create personal and group reality. (Sklar, p.88) [The explanation that visualization is not a powerful, time-honored occult manipulation of others, but merely a new psychological self-help exercise, is promoted only to deceive the few who still have scruples against occult practices.]

Himmler, like his Thule fellows and like most NAers today, denied the existence of objective reality. Not surprisingly, he went on to advocate "freeing" science to pursue research unhampered by notions of provable truth - especially science dealing with ancient origins. [Leading evolutionists are only recently beginning to admit that their research is similarly "free" of objectivity, even proposing that Darwinism might be better classified as philosophy or myth than as science. See my sample list of quotes.] This attitude was shared by the Nazi leadership, and led their rejection of valid astronomy and physics in favor of occult-based pseudo-theories such as the "doctrine of eternal cosmic ice" concocted by Hans Hoerbiger, a mechanical engineer. It was Dietrich Eckart who introduced his protege Hitler to Hoerbiger's work, and its similarity to Thule mythology on new ages birthed from ice was immediately recognized. Hoerbiger himself declared war on "objective science" as "a pernicious invention" (Angeberts, p.183), advocated substituting the "uselessness" of mathematics with a mystical "knowing" of the universe, and targeted Albert Einstein as an archenemy (emphasizing the latter's Jewish origin no less than his pernicious scientific work). Hoerbiger's cause was taken up by the Hitler Youth, and later by the SS Ahnenerbe, and Storm Troopers became fanatic supporters who disrupted meetings of conventional astronomers with shouts and threats. (Sklar, p.75-77) It was Hoerbigerian weather forecasting (continuing after his death in 1931) that fixed 1941 as a mild winter, convinced the Nazis to leave behind heavy winter gear for the invasion of Russia, and sent them into a record-breaking cold front which marked a turning point in the war. Even after the disaster, no one admitted the bankruptcy of Hoerbiger's theory. (Amazingly, works praising his theories continued to be published as late as 1952 - see Angeberts, p.277 note 14) On the contrary, Hitler blamed the German people for the defeat in Russia: "The nation has proved itself weak, and the future belongs solely to the stronger eastern nation. Besides, those who remain after the battle are of little value; for the good have fallen." (Sklar, p.81) [This follows the pattern of the "ascended masters" themselves, who invariably blame their devoted servants when things go wrong.] 

True to Hitler's vow, "We shall wash off the Christian veneer and bring out a religion peculiar to our race" (Sklar, p.147), SS soldiers underwent occult initiations and ceremonies, to replace their Christian faith and names with ancient Germanic names and worship rites (Hitler being their incarnate deity), and to harness latent spiritual forces believed to reside in the Aryan psyche. (Sklar, p.100) [This was not an abrupt change, since these SS candidates had grown up in 1920s Germany, where the occult, psychic phenomena and paganism were quite trendy. Presumably their parents, school teachers, civic leaders and other role models had already contributed to the next generation's conditioning by their own immersion in Eastern mysticism and spiritism. The implications for today's youth, who are being raised on an even more potent and invasive brew of the same, are unmistakable.] Secrecy, a total dedication that erased all other loyalties, unquestioning obedience, isolation from 'common society', a sense of self-sacrifice, a place in an exalted and ancient line of "guardians" [as the black-cloaked, Force-wielding Jedi Knights were described in "Star Wars"], and a strict observance of hierarchal status were the methods of fostering unity - all of them borrowed from occult societies. 

But under it all, the abject fear was instilled in SS men of being found unworthy of their exalted status, especially through the sin of independent thinking. The group-think to which they had been subjected since early childhood sank to new depths to minimize the chances of such a mishap. A required achievement for SS candidates was Kadavergehorsam, or "dead-body [unfeeling, robotic] obedience". In merciless drills, they were trained to disregard their own emotions and consciences by performing acts of brutality on self and others usually associated with satanic cult rituals. (See descriptions in Sklar, p.96-100) (Such practices in satanism are meant to produce an altered state of consciousness and, as they believe, to channel the natural horror response into psychic energy which empowers spells.) In the resulting numbness, they could carry out the most horrific orders without thinking, and walk among sickening sights without flinching. Himmler firmly believed in the holiness of this ultimate devotion, in which the SS suffered and sacrificed more than their victims. For him, the unsung "glory" of the SS was "to have stuck it out... and to have remained decent fellows." As for Himmler himself: "I try to reach a compromise in my own life; I try to help people and do good, relieve the oppressed and remove injustices wherever I can. Do you think my heart is in all the things which have to be done simply from reasons of state?" The extreme sacrifices of the SS, he said, were required in part by German racial Karma; an individual "oughtn't to think of himself". (Sklar, p.90-91) [Undoubtedly, many NAers will view themselves in precisely the same light when they are required to take part in necessary future purges. The view is already prevalent in NA that individual human rights must give way to humanity's rights, and this includes inflicting pain as well as enduring it.] It was also German Karma, Himmler said, that they be "saved" by "a figure of the greatest brilliance" - meaning not Hitler, but the spirit "incarnate" in him and possessing him. (Sklar, p.157) 

An inner circle of SS officers took on the roles of Teutonic knights, complete with coat-of-arms, and met regularly at Himmler's Wevelsburg fortress for deep meditation, week-long visualization sessions (Sklar, p.88) and contacts with disembodied spirit masters. The very insignia of the SS was loaded with occult meaning; the twin lightning bolts were an ancient Nordic power rune. [Savitri Devi also focused on the imagery of twin cosmic light sources in her adoration of Hitler.] The Ahnenerbe branch of the SS invested huge sums in trips to Tibet to search for an ancient Aryan clan, (Angeberts, p.95) and exhaustive efforts were made to harness supernatural powers for the Nazi war effort: everything from pendulum divination and ESP to yoga and Zen Buddhism was investigated. (Sklar, p.101-103) Himmler was certain that his British adversaries were doing the same kind of research, and possibly with more success. (In reality, the British were aware of the high regard Himmler and others had for astrology, and commissioned astrologer Ludwig von Wohl to predict what kind of advice they were getting from Nazi stargazers.) Hitler's strict vegetarianism was a matter of principle because of reincarnation of souls into animal bodies. (This was not only Hindu and Buddhist belief but Cathar as well - Angeberts, p.238) In fact, Nazis were seen to show great respect for animal life even while slaughtering human beings (see note 6 by Angeberts' translator, p.281). [This peculiar devaluation of humans below animals is a pillar of Hindu life as well, where the sacred cows and cobras of India fare far better than the luckless human born to a low caste. In the West animal rights are threatening to eclipse human rights as well, reflected in the "Earth First" mentality.] 

Yet another ancient belief adopted by the Nazis was the dualist cycle of the universe - a cosmos full of energies at polar opposites carrying on a continual battle, colliding to bring temporary balance and transmuting to a higher state of being, evolving into a new polarization, renewed battle, and on endlessly. Fire and Ice, Light and Darkness, Matter and Spirit, Good and Evil, the human races all followed this spiral path. Each "new world order" could not proceed without the destruction of the "old order"; therefore destruction is as healthy as the following restructure. This cosmology was shared by many cultures: the Zoroastrians of Persia (who greatly impressed Nietzsche), the Hindu writers of the Veda, the Greek gnostics (particularly Pythagoras, who carried the concept from Egypt), the Manachaeans (gnostic Christians), the Cathars, Nordic legends (Angeberts, p.68ff) and Germanic lore tranmitted mostly through Wagner (p.154). It is also a pillar of Theosophical teaching and of Alice Bailey, who clearly approved of Hitler's role in destroying the old order and "establishing of a new world order", as Hitler described it in Bailey's own words. (Angeberts, p.155) 

A tactic especially interesting to Jews which was shared by both Nazism and NA is faulting the Jews for rejecting Jesus as their Messiah. Like Hitler, no NA leaders accept Jesus's claims as recorded in the New Testament, yet they make much of the fact that the Jews did not either. While Hitler drew on Martin Luther's vitrolic condemnation of the Jews for stubbornly rejecting Jesus, Alice Bailey simply adds this rejection to her tally of the Jews' karmic debt: "Christ came to bring an end to the Jewish dispensation which should have climaxed and passed away as a religion... In the rejection of Christ as the Messiah, the Jewish race has remained symbolically and practically in the [astrological] sign of Aries, the Scapegoat [actually Aries is a ram, as noted elsewhere in her book, but the purpose for this "mistake" is self-evident]... they will repeat their ancient sin of non-response to the evolutionary process. They rejected that which was new and spiritual in the desert [by making the golden calf at Sinai]; they did it again in Palestine 2000 years ago; will they do it again, as opportunity is offered to them?" (Alice Bailey, "The Reappearance of the Christ", p.81) 

[Here we have a masterful "catch-22", for if the Jews reject Maitreya as a false messiah, they will "remain the Scapegoat" and be removed from the new humanity as they deserve. If they accept him, they will accept his assessment that past karma requires their annihilation - first spiritual erasure and then physical death. The only question is whether they will go out in submission or in rebellion, but go they will...] 

Knowing that Christians are susceptible to such reasoning, today's NAers have become adept at using "Christian" arguments against the Jews. Christians coming from an environment that never mentioned Alice Bailey will recognize the eerie similarity of Bailey's quote above to the widespread Christian doctrine known as "Replacement Theology", the belief that the Jewish dispensation ended with Christ and that the failure of Jews to accept him cost them their place as G-d's chosen people. But the Christian linkage is maintained on the NA side for its PR value only; it rallies support among Christians for their own goals, while they work for the end of both the Jews and the Christians, as did Hitler. [A case can be made that the very existence of this as a "Christian" theology may be due to NA infiltration into Christian leadership. Only someone who is indifferent to the survival of Christianity could support such a belief, because if Replacement happened to the Jews, there is no guarantee that it won't happen next time to the Christians! Precisely the argument that NA uses.] 

Besides all the above common ground, there is universal reverence in NA and Nazism for Tibetan Buddhism. Blavatsky and other Theosophists considered the Tibetan Himalayas the home of the Hierarchy themselves. According to some opinions, Hitler sent SS officers to the Himalayas not only to seek out the source of the Aryan race, but if possible to make contact with "Asgard" and consult directly with the "ascended masters". A colony of Tibetan Buddhists flourished in Berlin (Angeberts, p.215). The translator of Angeberts' work, Lewis Sumberg, notes that the Russian troops entering Berlin in May 1945 found "the corpses of a thousand men of Himalayan origin, in German uniform, but carrying no papers or identification." (p.281-282) [One wonders what today's Dalai Lama might be conveniently forgetting in relation to his community's Nazi affiliations, each time he proclaims the Tibetan Buddhist's identification with the suffering of the Jews.] 

A virtually unknown component in Nazism is the glorification of homosexuality as a path to higher consciousness and superhuman power. In accordance with widespread occult practice dating back to the Greeks, promotion in the SS brotherhood was conditional on adopting "warrior" or super-masculine homosexuality. The homosexuals who were despised and were sent to the camps were exclusively the effeminate kind. [See "The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party", Scott Lively & Kevin Abrams, on line via the Web. I recommend an annotated version, an interesting blend of the original, somewhat flawed text with a reader's hostile comments; the end result is a welcome correction of minor points and an unintentional confirmation of the authors' main contentions.] It is interesting to note the rising popularity of "warrior" images in entertainment (both male and female-Amazon types) which combine occult powers with subtle homosexual or anti-heterosexual attitudes. [A good, blatant example is the cheesy "Xena" TV series newly arrived on Israeli TV - read the character histories.] 

10. Nazi and American Eugenicists Working Together 
The agreement among eugenicists from these two vastly different societies (for more details, see the eugenics section) reveals yet another thread borrowed from ancient occult-based societies both in the East (India) and West (classical Greece). While the Nazis were open about the necessity of "blood purity" to elevate the human race, Americans were more circumspect, veiling their goal of "racial thoroughbreds" in more acceptable social/humanitarian terms - undesirables in the U.S. were ostensibly targeted because they were "uneducated and poor", not because they were racially inferior. The Nazis understood the restrictions to which their U.S. colleagues were subjected and did not protest. They closely followed the writings of Madison Grant, associate of American Birth Control League director Stoddard, who advocated the ancient Spartan practice of infanticide as a natural weeding-out process. The Nazis publicly thanked both Grant and Stoddard for "awakening in Germany the movement for the preservation and increase of the Nordic race." The U.S. League likewise took a great interest in ongoing Nazi developments, and published an article in May 1933 entitled "Eugenic Sterilization, an Urgent Need", by Ernst Rudin, Director of Genetic Sterilization and founder of the Nazi Society for Racial Hygiene. A group of American eugenists sat as guest judges in the German "eugenic courts" in the 1930's, and returned with highest recommendations: "The [Nazi] sterilization law is weeding out the worst strains in the Germanic stock in a scientific and truly humanitarian way." (Lothrop Stoddard, 1940, after spending 4 months in Germany) [For excellent source material, see Professor Stefan Kuhl's "The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, & German National Socialism"] 

11. Never in a Vacuum... 
Countless historians and sociologists have tried to analyze how Nazism became the new value system for a civilized, humanistic people seemingly overnight. The fact is that Nazi doctrine was introduced to an entire generation of Germans raised on magic, cosmic mythology, medieval lore, tales of secret guardians of the Ancient Wisdom and mystical god-men. The titles being published and devoured were reminiscent of today's blockbuster movies in the science fiction, mythology and "world disaster" genres: "Ulysses' Bow", "The Great Dream", "The Seventh Ring" (an actual end-of-the-world novel), "The Star of the Alliance". (See Angeberts, p.253-255 for a list of German bestsellers between 1896 and the 1930s.) Astrology, Theosophy, experiments in "animal magnetism", clairvoyance and other ESP, combinations of "white" sorcery and science, seances, and other occult pursuits were widespread and trendy. Some were involved purely for entertainment or psychological manipulation, but others took it quite seriously as a door to enlightened knowledge and spiritual power. The reasons for this stampede away from reason and into mysticism have been attributed to a complex environment: the upheaval in German society and economy, an inner emptiness and fatalism which stifles personal initiative, an erasure of moral and spiritual boundaries which leaves youth with nothing to believe in and nowhere to belong, disintegration of traditional family authority, a social devaluation of personhood which makes one ashamed of having private values and goals at variance with the group. (Sklar, p.150) [I would propose that all these conditions are not the cause for the abandonment of rational thinking, so much as the result of a society accepting theosophical principles like Karma and Group Mind.] 

What happens then is inevitable. Out of the chaos and apathy (the destruction of the old order) rises a mass movement (a new order). It feeds on the loss of individual thinking, but in return promises a secure, responsibility-free place in the Group Mind where thinking is done for you. It removes all rights to family autonomy, but guarantees a lifelong brotherhood; outlaws all religions except its own, but provides ego-friendly answers for all life's questions. It requires you to die, but offers a Supreme Opportunity to give up your life with honor and dignity, and a sense of intrinsic value as a tiny cog in the Vast Plan. It's better than being lost and lonely. And after all, there is no real death, nor is there any particular reason to hang onto this life; why not pay the karma sooner than later? At the head of the movement is an enlightened individual who apparently has a direct connection with that which the whole society has been seeking: Asgard, home of the Hierarchy across the Rainbow Bridge. And he declares that the time has come for the new humanity, for a return to our long-lost god consciousness, and he has been "overshadowed" and sent to guide us there. Only first, there is a "virus" that must be removed from the body of humanity so that it does not endanger the pure "seeds". And now you have a Cause to fight for - a personified yet dehumanized Darkness on which to vent your righteous rage as Sons of Light. 

[Thus a whole generation of German youth was prepared to receive a NA messiah and obey his every command. How did it happen that a vulnerable society at its lowest point had the misfortune to cross wires with a loser, an obscure little man, and inexplicably welcomed him hysterically as an "avatar" - a divine channel? And how did he proceed to turn the "Shamballa force" loose across a continent and rip through the Jewish community, with millions to help him and no one to stop him? Was it just a ghastly conjunction of random social trends? If so, we are witnessing an eerie repeat coincidence - the same occultic atmosphere, and another mass movement based on the same foundations, calling for unity against the same "virus". This time it is on a far wider scale and has a global media-driven culture to accelerate its spread. At this point, the movement appears to be securely entrenched; only its "avatar" is lacking. And all this within two generations of the last nightmare encounter. The evidence suggests that we should not only acknowledge the familiar face of this movement, but stop viewing it as a "repeat" and recognize it as a continuation of something that never really went away.]