Radical Politics and Political Esotericism

What do esoteric phenomena such as Chaos Magick, runic symbolism, Tantric yoga and the mythical Atlantis have to do with radical right-wing politics? Not a lot, one would think, but as will be demonstrated in this chapter, the radical political right serves as an important example when talking about esoteric transfers, that is, the impact of esoteric currents and their discourse on “non-esoteric” social, cultural and ideological systems. There are numerous historical and contemporary examples of connections and overlaps between esoteric currents and right-wing political ideas. Beginning with the historical, a prominent example is the politicization of esotericism with the rise of the so-called völkisch movement in nineteenth-century Germany, emerging from the Romantic nationalism of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Johann Gottfried von Herder. This movement combined nationalism, anti-liberalism, cultural pessimism and racism into a coherent ideological system. ¹ In the early twentieth century these ideas mixed with Theosophical ² notions and grew into Ariosophy, a doctrine of Aryan racist and occult ideas promoted by Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, Guido von List and their followers. ³ In the wake of Ariosophy, numerous groups inspired by these ideas formed, from Theodor Fritsch’s Germanenorden, Friedrich Marby’s Rune Yoga and Liebenfels’s Order of the New Templars (Ordo Novi Templi), to the Thule Society, which sponsored the burgeoning Nazi Party and included important party members such as Rudolf Hess and Dietrich Eckart. This völkisch awakening culminated during the Third Reich, although, quite ironically, most of these groups were banned and their members imprisoned. The notable exception was Himmlers own personal coterie, where Karl Maria von Wiligut acted as a personal adviser, or “Himmlers Rasputin”, in matters of astrology and Ariosophy. ⁴