Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Black Sun Aryan Cults Esoteric and the of Identity by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke New Book, Black Sun, Looks at Fringes of National Socialism. A new book, Black Sun , explores the bizarre fringes of National Socialism, past and present. , leader of the until his violent death in 1967, gushed about having had a mystical experience when he first read Hitler's . "I realized that National Socialism [was] actually a new religion," said Rockwell, who considered April 20th the holiest day of the calendar year. That's when neo-Nazis around the world celebrate Hitler's birthday at secretive gatherings with Aryan shrines, devotional rituals, white power regalia, and other racialist kitsch. These annual conclaves are akin to religious ceremonies where true believers worship Hitler as an infallible diety whose every utterance is gospel. The bizarre quasi-religious and mythic elements that proliferate in sectors of the contemporary neo-Nazi milieu are explored by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke in his important, new book Black Sun: Aryan Cults, , and the Politics of Identity . Although there has always been a theocratic strain in fascist movements, several factors are contributing to a latter-day, "folkish" (or tribal) revival among white youth who are beset by an acute sense of disenfranchisement in Western societies. In response to the challenges of globalization, multiculturalism, and large-scale Third World immigration, neo-Nazi in the United States, Europe and elsewhere has sometimes morphed into what the author describes as "new folkish religions of ." This neo-folkish resurgence — reminiscent of some early Nazi ideas — encompasses a hodgepodge of anti-Semitic neo-Pagan sects, churches, skewed variants of eastern mysticism, occult influences, conspiracies, and Satanists into the "black metal" music subculture. Goodrick-Clarke, a British scholar who writes in an engaging and accessible style, has long foraged on the farther shores of right-wing extremist politics. His first book, The Occult Roots of Nazism , is a masterful study of a much sensationalized subject — racist groups in early 20th century Austria that embraced forms of mystical nationalism and helped incubate Aryan racial ideas. Building on his previous work, Goodrick-Clarke draws a parallel in Black Sun between folkish ferment in Hitler's Austria and the role of today's marginalized neo-Nazi sects, many of which have repackaged Aryan racism in new forms influenced by eastern religions. A crucial difference, the author maintains, is the shift from the virulent German nationalism of the Third Reich to a broader racist ideology of global . "It is highly significant that the Aryan cult of white identity is now most marked in the United States," says Goodrick-Clarke, adding that American neo-Nazi groups behave like persecuted religious sects preparing for the final confrontation with a corrupt world. Although each have their specific eccentricities — ranging from anti-Semitic Christian Identity churches to anti-Christian, racist Odinist groups — almost all of them espouse millenarian visions of a white racial utopia. Satan Meets the Führer Early American neo-Nazi James Madole, who rejected Christianity as a degenerate Jewish construct, became a key figure in developing bizarre forms of fascism after he founded the National Renaissance Party, the first U.S. neo-Nazi organization, in 1952. Although he never attracted many followers, Madole became known as "the father of postwar occult fascism" by saturating his ideology with a mish-mash of science-fiction and other notions drawn from eastern traditions and theosophy, a mystical religious movement originating in late 19th century America. During the 1960s and 1970s, Madole's party cultivated close links with a Church of Satan spin-off — an alliance that anticipated the recent emergence of a violent, international fringe network devoted to Nordic gods, black magic, occultism and devil worship. David Myatt, chief representative of Nazi Satanism in Great Britain, defends human sacrifice and praises a new wave of satanic black metal Skinhead bands that spout demented lyrics and anti-social rants. Myatt's "religion of National Socialism" owes much to Savitri Devi, the grand dame of postwar neo-Nazism, who had traveled from her native France to India as a young woman. An admirer of the racist caste system, Devi immersed herself in early Hindu texts. Noting that the Nazi swastika is also an ancient, mystical Indian symbol, she romanticized the Third Reich as "the Holy Land of the West." Devi was the first Western writer to acclaim Hitler as a spiritual "avatar," a supernatural figure who pointed the way toward a future Aryan paradise. The , whom Devi blamed for all the world's suffering and alienation, were predictably pegged as the main obstacle on the path to the Golden Age. Devi's obsession with the pre-Christian origins of Indo-European culture was shared by Julius Evola, an Italian Nazi philosopher whose racial theories were adopted and codified by Mussolini in 1938. Calling for a "Great Holy War" to battle national and ideological enemies, Evola exerted a significant influence on a generation of militant neofascist youth in postwar Italy. Among his protégés were leaders of right-wing terrorist organizations linked to numerous bomb attacks from the 1960s to the 1980s. Evola's mystical fascist writings include books on Zen Buddhism, yoga, alchemy, Tantrism (a kind of sexual mysticism), and European paganism. After he died in 1974, his esoteric musings were rediscovered by New Age publications. Today, many of Evola's books are available in English translation in trendy New Age bookstores in the United States, despite his status as an avowed fascist. UFOs, Polar Bases and the Black Sun Another influential figure in the occult-fascist underground is Miguel Serrano, a former Chilean diplomat and Nazi die-hard who touts yoga, meditation, and hallucinogenic drugs as ways of raising consciousness in order to make contact with higher Aryan intelligence. Serrano blends exotic oriental religious themes with dubious lore about secret religious societies. He likens the Nazi SS — which was condemned in its entirety for war crimes — to an order of initiates seeking the Holy Grail. This notion appealed to Wilhelm Landig, an Austrian SS veteran and postwar Nazi activist who coined the idea of the "Black Sun," a mystical energy source allegedly capable of regenerating the . Goodrick-Clarke credits Landig with reviving the folkish — and far out — Germanic mythology of Thule, the supposed Arctic homeland of the ancient Aryans, in order to prophesy the recovery and resurrection of Nazism as an earth-conquering force. Landig and other occult-fascist propagandists have circulated wild stories about German Nazi colonies that live and work in secret installations beneath the polar icecaps, where they developed flying saucers and miracle weapons after the demise of the Third Reich. The abundance of UFO sightings, which began in the early 1950s, is attributed to the amazing prowess of Nazi science and technology. The fall of the Third Reich is cast merely as a temporary setback; at any moment, a battalion of Nazi extraterrestrials could zoom forth in their magical discs to deliver Aryan folk from the ills of democracy and Judeo-Christian decadence. A hot item among New Age conspiracy theorists and promoters of , stories about Nazi UFOs may seem ludicrous to anyone with their feet firmly planted on terra firma . And, certainly, this kind of thinking does not dominate even the contemporary world of the extreme right. But these sci-fi legends underscore, in the words of Goodrick-Clarke, how "Aryan cults and esoteric Nazism posit powerful mythologies to negate the decline of white power in the world." Moreover, if the past is any kind of prologue, these bizarre, new religious sects "may be early symptoms of major divisive changes in our present- day Western democracies." "The risks of race religiosity are great. . Whenever human groups are interpreted as absolute categories of good and evil, light and darkness," Goodrick-Clarke cautions, "both the human community and humanity itself are diminished." Black Sun : Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity. More than half a century after the defeat of Nazism and fascism, the far right is again challenging the liberal order of Western democracies. Radical movements are feeding on anxiety about economic globalization, affirmative action, and third-world immigration, flashpoint issues to many traditional groups in multicultural societies. A curious mixture of Aristocratic paganism, anti-Semitic demonology, Eastern philosophies and the occult is influencing populist antigovernment sentiment and helping to exploit the widespread fear that invisible elites are shaping world events. Black Sun examines the new neofascist ideology, showing how hate groups, militias and conspiracy cults attempt to gain influence. Based on interviews and extensive research into underground groups, Black Sun documents the new Nazi and fascist sects that have sprung up from the 1970s through the 1990s and examines the mentality and motivation of these far-right extremists. The result is a detailed, grounded portrait of the mythical and devotional aspects of Hitler cults among Aryan mystics, racist skinheads and Nazi satanists, Heavy Metal music fans, and in occult literature. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke offers a unique perspective on far right neo-Nazism viewing it as a new form of Western religious heresy. He paints a frightening picture of a religion with its own relics, rituals, prophecies and an international sectarian following that could, under the proper conditions, gain political power and attempt to realize its dangerous millenarian fantasies. Former Neo-Nazi Explains ‘Esoteric Nazism’ Espousing highbrow “Aryan” ideas, the White Order of Thule (WOT) was a neo-Nazi spiritualist group in the closing years of the 1990s (the name Thule refers to the northernmost habitable regions known to ancient Greek geographers). Founded by imprisoned cocaine dealer Peter Georgacarakos, art student Michael Lujan and new age occultist Joseph Kerrick — eccentrics who considered themselves the intellectual vanguard of the white supremacy movement — WOT required inductees to advance through “degrees of membership,” studying German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, Adolf Hitler and others. The group’s belief system promoted “Nietzschean notions of the Superman against Judeo-Christian religion,” as well as the darker sides of paganism, scholar Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke wrote in Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity, a seminal 2003 work on what’s often called “esoteric Nazism.” Among the White Order’s core beliefs was the idea of Aryan superiority as supposedly embodied in Greco-Roman culture. While WOT avoided overt acts of violence in promoting an all-white nation in North America, one of its more prominent members, , went to prison for plotting to bomb Jewish and black landmarks and incite a race war. (After his arrest, to the shock of his comrades and his skinhead girlfriend, it emerged that Felton’s father was black.) Nathan Pett , also known as Nate Zorn, was a member of the group and worked on both of its publications — Crossing the Abyss , a newsletter that claimed to shed “light on the murky area between cutting-edge Aryan pagan spirituality and revolutionary realpolitik,” and another called Fenris Wolf . Today an avowed critic of the white supremacy movement, Pett spoke with the Southern Poverty Law Center about the White Order and his own eventual dismissal of racist ideas. How would you describe the makeup and identity of the White Order of Thule? They were a very motley crew of eccentric people that weren’t satisfied or didn’t fit in with [more traditional neo-Nazi groups like] the or the or the National Alliance. It was this pseudo-intellectual group, guys who were smarter than some of the knucklehead skinheads I knew. The group catered to people who felt that they wanted something a little smarter, more professional, and a little bit more elitist. But it was really a prison-run fascist book club, more or less. I say that because most of the members hadn’t met each other. What were the group’s core beliefs? The more intellectual people would deny it, but it’s all the same crap [as in less pretentious parts of the white supremacist movement] in hindsight for me. They would combine theosophy [a mystical religious philosophy founded in the 19th century that also influenced some German Nazis] with pagan beliefs, primarily more Greco-Roman, which is different than most of the other racist groups obsessed with the Nordic thing. They rejected that in favor of this more Mediterranean, right-wing, pagan mindset. And as you got more into what they called study, you started to find they also dabbled in things like Christian mysticism, but rejected mainstream Christianity and Christian Identity [a racist variant of Christianity that says Jews are biologically descended from Satan and people of color do not have souls] as unsound. Now you might ask, why? They’re all racist and they’re all the same. But they don’t look at it that way. It was an alternative to the other white separatist, white nationalist, white supremacist groups. Did that thinking draw a large base of followers when the group was most active? We had a hard time getting a lot of followers because, as you know, the white power movement is very right wing. That goes back to the John Birch Society [that was founded in 1958], very anti-communist. But the White Order would promote things like Stalin as a good leader, and so forth. And that’s why the group never caught on — the white supremacist movement will always be right wing. It will always be anti-communist and xenophobic. Of course, I always felt bringing leftist philosophy into this was just a front. I don’t really think you can be a neo-Nazi and truly be a leftist thinker or a progressive or a liberal. Instead, it was catering to people that were looking for an alternative religion, people who felt they wanted something supposedly a little smarter. You’re dealing with a con artist, after all. Peter Georgacarakos was the number one con artist you will ever deal with. I mean, let’s face it: the group is a cult. It was about getting people to join and follow the leader, very similar to Jim Jones’ People’s Temple. A cult? What can you say about that? It was very much a cult of personality surrounding one man, Georgacarakos. He wanted to be the godhead of this group. It’s kind of why Lujan got tired of it, and why I got tired of it. Overall, he’s a good example of why when you talk about any type of discrimination, whether its discrimination against people because of sexual orientation, or their economic background, or their nationality, or their religion, or race, there’s always a Hitler type that wants to be a figurehead. And that’s Georgacarakos. The others wanted to follow the leader — Joseph Kerrick was more or less a former hippie, new age kind of cult person. He has been in every new age cult that you can think of. Mike Lujan is another guy. He’s what you call a joiner and followed Charles Manson for years. Was the group sizeable enough to be divided into chapters? The chapter thing is funny. Let’s face it — the White Order of Thule had such a small amount of people. The chapter in Virginia was just Michael Lujan and a P.O. box. The same with me in Washington state. I was the only guy there. I had one or two people I knew who I tried to get interested, but it was so bizarre to most white supremacists to do the weird mix of philosophy. Most people just didn’t want to get into it, you know? It was so esoteric. People couldn’t understand what the hell it meant, including me. So did you feel conned when you left the group? Something happened when I worked at a fish market in Baton Rouge, near the Louisiana State University campus. Louisiana is a strange place for a white supremacist [because of its multicultural population]. I still don’t understand how can have so much support. But this was a big market of about 50 to 100 employees. Everyone was Caucasian, except for a Hispanic woman and a black guy. And here is the ironic thing about that — the guy that I identified with more than anybody else was the black guy. We had a similar sense of humor and we really hit it off, because we were basically forced to have to work together. He was such a good guy that it started to really make me doubt my own beliefs. I actually thought, “If I wasn’t a damn skinhead, this guy would have been a great friend.” So it’s like living a double life, and I started to get wise to the fact I was being lied to. And that puts a lot of doubt in your mind. Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity (Paperback) Uncovers the mindset and motives that drive far-right extremists More than half a century after the defeat of Nazism and fascism, the far right is again challenging the liberal order of Western democracies. Radical movements are feeding on anxiety about immigration, globalization and the refugee crisis, giving rise to new waves of nationalism and surges of white supremacism. A curious mixture of Aristocratic paganism, anti-Semitic demonology, Eastern philosophies and the occult is influencing populist antigovernment sentiment and helping to exploit the widespread fear that invisible elites are shaping world events. Black Sun examines this neofascist ideology, showing how hate groups, militias and conspiracy cults gain influence. Based on interviews and extensive research into underground groups, the book documents new Nazi and fascist sects that have sprung up since the 1970s and examines the mentality and motivation of these far-right extremists. The result is a detailed, grounded portrait of the mythical and devotional aspects of Hitler cults among Aryan mystics, racist skinheads and Nazi satanists, and disciples of heavy metal music and occult literature. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke offers a unique perspective on far right neo-Nazism viewing it as a new form of Western religious heresy. He paints a frightening picture of a religion with its own relics, rituals, prophecies and an international sectarian following that could, under the proper conditions, gain political power and attempt to realize its dangerous millenarian fantasies. Publisher: New York University Press ISBN: 9780814731550 Number of pages: 371 Weight: 522 g Dimensions: 229 x 152 x 25 mm. Addressing the Satanic, Mystical Aspect of Nazism. Satanic cults popular among SS officers demonstrate the importance of mystic faith in the worldview of the Nazi elite. Mainstream historians must pay more attention. Share share on facebook Tweet send via email reddit stumbleupon. Many have been surprised and fascinated by the fact that murderers like Heinrich Himmler, one of the most powerful Nazi leaders, were also dedicated family men - a subject that recently reignited public interest because letters between Himmler and his wife resurfaced in Tel Aviv. Related Articles. Heinrich Himmler's private letters found in Tel Aviv bank vault. Yad Vashem says will house newly discovered Himmler letters. Attempts to explain this seeming contradiction, as well as other aspects of Nazi leaders, have typically focused on rational reasoning. Only a decade ago did a growing number of historians begin paying attention to the Third Reich’s irrational aspects. The late historian George Mosse, an authority on Nazi Germany, wrote 50 years ago that historians were not paying enough attention to the mystic sides of Nazism because they saw anti-intellectual and irrational elements in them. They tended to think, he argued, that a historian must focus on the more rational aspects of life, but such was not the case regarding the Third Reich. This opinion was deemed strange and unacceptable in 1960. As such, the best of the historical, philosophical and sociological disciplines were called upon to understand the Nazi regime through the lens of rationalism. Acts or opinions that did not sit right with Western rationalism were not researched by the academic research guilds. They were left in the hands of those considered third-rate or pop culture researchers, whose books were cheaper than those released by academic publishing houses. For example, the research of Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, published in the 2001 book “Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity,” was deemed a nonacademic book, and is not generally found on the syllabus of academic courses. Literature dealing with esoteric dogma, satanic cults and mysticism created a broad space for discussion on worship of the kind found among the Nazi leadership. Popular culture has also dealt often with this satanic, mystical aspect of Nazism. Computer games, neo-folk bands and pornographic literature in the style of Stalag fiction all emphasized mystic, satanic, spiritualistic and dark aspects in the Third Reich. However, academic research has until recently tended to deride Nazi or post-Nazi pop culture. Now many researchers have come to recognize the fact that we don’t have enough tools to explain everything that happened between 1933 and 1945, as Tel Aviv University historian Shulamit Volkov wrote a number of years ago. One example of this is the popularity of satanic cults among SS officers. The best legal minds, doctors and scientists volunteered for the SS and became officers. The inner circle of SS head Heinrich Himmler included jurists and doctors who led the campaigns of destruction or were commanders of concentration and death camps. Between 1936 and 1941, some of these people met in Wewelsburg Castle in northwestern Germany once a year, under Himmler's command, to take part in satanic rituals and read cultish texts of Germanic tribes. With Himmler as King Arthur and 12 SS officers as the 12 knights, these Nazi leaders gathered annually in knights' gear at a round table and tried to channel the pagan heroes of German legend. The castle was the pseudo-religious holy center of the SS. It was built in the late Middle Ages, and its walls were decorated with the symbol of the Indo-European “black sun” symbol, similar to the swastika. The castle was believed to be in the area where the German hero Arminius, also called Hermann der Cherusker, defeated the Roman army in year 9 CE essentially liberating the Germans from Roman rule. According to German legend, one of the castle’s rooms served as a center of worship of the Holy Grail.