ABSTRACT
As developed by Eric Voegelin, the concept of political religion arises from
the assumption of a history of decay of the European West that has been
progressing since the Renaissance epoch. According to this assumption, the
advance of an ontological immanence and of the idea that history, in princi-
ple, can be created by human beings rather than by a transcendent actor led
to the replacement of the inherited religions with thought-attitudes directed
at the mundane world. This is said to have culminated in the development
of ‘political religions’. According to this conception, these attained their purest character in the modern totalitarianisms – Stalinism, National
Socialism and Fascism.1
