Root race

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Root Race (Engl. Root race ) is a concept from the esoteric cosmology of modern Theosophy . It was known mainly by Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891) and its 1888 published book The Secret Doctrine (German: The Secret Doctrine ). In it, she unfolds the idea of ​​a development of a total of seven " human races ", which were integrated into cosmic evolution and which would have arisen or would arise one after another on different continents . Blavatsky divided each root race into seven "sub-races". They defined the Germanic sub-race of the Aryan (fifth) root race as the current highest stage of this development, which would be replaced by a coming sub-race of American origin.

Blavatsky's race theory offered various, including obscurantist and racist currents, points of contact and a rich treasure trove of myths and symbols. The anthroposophy knows a similar pattern of seven "ages", "Main periods" or "ages" of the spiritual development of mankind.

Blavatsky's root race system

Helena Blavatsky. Photo from 1889.

Basic idea

Blavatsky's theosophy formulates a syncretic creation mythology , one of whose central elements is the doctrine of the root races. Basically, from a neognostic point of view, she regards humanity as an emanation of divine nature: The divine Logos fell into matter and has since been on the way back to the spirit. This development takes place in several stages, which are linked by the law of karma and a reincarnation mechanism. Blavatsky assumed that humanity was much older and that above all other life on earth arose. Inspired by popular scientific representations of embryology , she formulated an idea according to which mankind goes through different stages of development, while their physicality would increasingly differentiate into seven clearly different human races, to which she assigned different continents: the root races. The development of mankind is cyclical: first people would exist in a purely spiritual state, then a descent takes place, which manifests itself more and more in the material world, before a return to spirituality begins at the lowest point. This cycle of the root races is embedded in other cycles of ever greater temporal scope up to an " Age of Brahma " of 311 trillion years in which the universe is fully developed. It is followed by an equally long period of time in which it develops back again until the process begins again.

The development of mankind is controlled by a sophisticated breeding program that supernatural beings have devised for mankind. The theologian Linus Hauser therefore speaks of "educational evolutionism". In Blavatsky, each root race is divided into seven so-called sub-races, and these in turn are divided into seven branch or family races. When a race has fulfilled its task in the development of humanity, it goes under with its associated continent in order to make way for the next higher race. It is foreseeable that there will soon only be three types of people: the " Aryan ", the "Yellow" and the "African Negro ". “Redskins, Eskimos, Papuans, Australians, Polynesians, etc. - all are dying out. […] And its extinction is […] a karmic necessity ”.

Blavatsky's racial myth set itself apart from both the biblical doctrine of creation ex nihilo and the theory of evolution criticized as materialistic , such as that represented by Charles Darwin . She rejected a descent of humans from apes, since humans are the oldest kind of living being on earth. On the other hand, she received intensive scientific research results, such as the studies of the linguists Franz Bopp (1791–1867) and Max Müller (1823–1900), who both researched Sanskrit and classified it as an “Aryan” (today one would say: Indo-European ) language. Blavatsky adopted the Aryan myth from Müller, who is considered the founder of comparative religious studies . In part, it tied in with the findings of paleontology from the late 19th century, insofar as it adapted their racial theories on the development of mankind. The popular Atlantis theory of the American Ignatius Donnelly (1831–1901), who stated that the Aryans originally came from the lost continent and from there settled Europe and then India, ultimately facilitated the acceptance of their similar historical myth by the public.

The first root race and the moon forefathers

Blavatsky distinguished a total of seven developing human root races that would experience their rise and fall one after the other. Accordingly, human development began with the first, the astral , disembodied and sexless root race, which arose in an invisible “immortal, holy land”. The first earthly people of this ethereal root race were descendants of the " Pitris ", the "moon forefathers" who came from the moon , the alleged predecessor planet of the earth. These would have developed into “Dhyan-Chohans”, angelic or godlike superior beings who also represented the goal of human evolution. There are seven “Dhyan Chohans”, each of which creates an “outwardly and inwardly different race of people”. The first root race was not extinct because it was immortal, it had simply withdrawn.

The second breed of roots

The second root race had its domicile on a now defunct continent Hyperborea near the North Pole . She is said to have possessed an etherophysical body and a psycho-spiritual mind - a first, unsuccessful attempt to convey these two elements together that make up human beings. This root race was composed of a wide variety of huge, half-human monsters with little brains, which reproduced by budding . They went down in a torrential natural disaster. Such catastrophes were or would be the end of the other root races.

The third root race

It was only with the third root race that lived on Lemuria , an imaginary sunken continent in the Indian Ocean , that humans took on material forms. It initially originated from sweat-like outflows from the Hyperboreans, from which animals then also emerged, and reproduced through eggs. This “holy” root race was of gigantic growth, great beauty and extensive knowledge, and has not yet known an individual self. They would be remembered by the ancient ideas of the gods . From their fifth sub-race onwards, they would have developed language, self-awareness and sexual reproduction 18 million years ago . According to Blavatsky, the latter had resulted in a fall from grace: the Lemurians had mated with lower races, which had almost been animals, from which malevolent "monsters" arose.

The fourth root race

After the Lemurians fell into sin, only a small number of spiritually pure elect remained who founded the "Lemuro-Atlantic dynasty of the Priest-Kings" on the island of Shambala in the Gobi desert . This fourth, Atlantic root race, which was the first to resemble humanity as we know it and which already possessed language and a moral awareness, was located on the now-vanished continent of Atlantis in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlanteans were initially of gigantic stature and had a highly developed technology that enabled them to erect gigantic structures such as the temples of the megalithic culture and the Egyptian pyramids . In addition, like the Lemurians before them, they would have had a “third eye”, which would have enabled them to “ recognize eternity ”. But from its fifth sub-race onwards it gradually disappeared. After their continent Atlantis sank several million years ago, the survivors fled to the islands of Ruta and Daitya, which in another catastrophe around 850,000 BC. Chr. Went down. Many flood legends and Plato's Atlantis story refer to this . Thousands of years later, the undeveloped, dark-skinned descendants of the Atlanteans were driven out of Europe and Asia by the more highly developed Aryans and "gradually slipped into an even more depraved and uncivilized state" in Africa and on remote islands.

The fifth root race

The fifth root race, the Aryans, formed about a million years ago in northern Asia . After the sinking of Atlantis, they emigrated to the southwest, where their continent Europe rose from the sea. With this root race "the perfect meridian point of the perfect alignment of spirit and matter has been exceeded - or the balance between the brain-intellect and the spiritual perception". In addition to the Indians, Blavatsky counted the Europeans, the fifth sub-race of the Aryans, to be among these spiritual Aryans. All other and especially almost all colonial peoples would represent remnants of the Lemurians and Atlanteans and were doomed to extinction.

In her last work The Key to Theosophy Blavatsky predicted that the next Aryan sub-race would emerge in the near future. She linked this prophecy with the announcement of “a new teacher of humanity” for the last quarter of the 20th century, for whose message humanity would be prepared thanks to the work of the Theosophical Society.

Blavatsky leaves open whether the Jews , whom Blavatsky also counts among the Aryans, were descended from Indians or Egyptians. Already unveiled in Isis of 1877, she had declared all Semites to be the least spiritual race, since their languages ​​were supposedly incapable of expressing moral or intellectual thoughts: therefore all of her literature was based on borrowings from other peoples. In the Secret Doctrine she now explained that the Jews were a hybrid people who had mixed with every other race with which they had come into contact. According to the Israeli historian Isaac Lubelsky, Blavatsky is thus suggesting that Judaism itself could not have developed an original, but only a mixed culture. Lubelsky explains this polemic with Blavatsky's intention to delegitimize Christianity based on Judaism . Compared to the anti-Semitic prejudices that were common in the Russian milieu from which Blavatsky came, their attitude seems rather reserved.

The sixth root race

Blavatsky predicted two more root races. The advent of the sixth root race in America would go hand in hand with the emergence of a new, sixth continent, on which the survivors of the catastrophe that would largely destroy present humanity in a few hundred years' time would be saved. The sixth root race will prepare for the coming of the final seventh root race in about 25,000 years. It will "grow out of the bonds of matter and even of flesh," that is, it will again be more ethereal and androgynous ; it would also regain the occult powers that the Atlanteans had lost.

The seventh root race

From the subsequent seventh root race, the “race of the Buddhas, the sons of God, born of immaculate parents”, the “last messiah ”, the Maitreya Buddha, will emerge. With it, humanity will return to pure spirituality and the cycle of human life on earth will be completed. The people of this seventh stage of development would be gods ruling over planets, who work as planetary spirits divided into groups of seven into the material.

classification

Blavatsky himself described the doctrine as a "softened polygenism": The root races indeed arise from one and the same divine origin, they all share in the divine spark and are therefore essentially the same; however, they would not be descended from each other and differ greatly in appearance, potential, and ability. The Dutch anthropologist Peter van der Veer points out that Blavatsky racial theory is by no means egalitarian ; According to the literary scholar Gauri Viswanathan , her theosophy is known as the universal brotherhood of mankind regardless of race, religion, gender, caste or skin color, but is based on a hierarchical concept of race evolution. The American religious scholar James A. Santucci, on the other hand, takes the view that the theosophical root race theory cannot be called racist: Blavatsky emphasizes the common, divine origin of all human beings, their common spiritual goal and their mutual connection through the principle of reincarnation; she only used the term race, which seems offensive today, to make her doctrine of the spiritual, cyclical development of mankind compatible with the scientific discourse of her present.

precursor

One of the literary predecessors of the root race theory is the French illuminist Antoine Fabre d'Olivet (1767-1825) who reported on the fall of Atlantis in his 1824 work Histoire philosophique du genre humain (Philosophical history of the human race) , whose inhabitants, a red race, almost completely went under. Fabre d'Olivet described human history as a succession of different human races over a period of 12,000 years. He identified the white race as the forerunners of the Hyperboreans in Greek mythography . Originally at home at the North Pole, it moved south to Europe, where it was enslaved by the dominant black race there. The white race had succeeded in reversing this situation and becoming the dominant race in Europe. Your spiritual leader Rama had the teaching of the whites 6.729 BC. Brought to India and founded the universal empire of early history there, which lasted until 2,000 BC. Should have existed.

Fabre d'Olivet's version of the evolution of mankind was adopted by Saint-Yves d'Alveydre (1842–1909) in his work Mission de Juifs (The Mission of the Jews) in 1884 , which d'Alveydre derived from Esoteric Buddhism by the theosophist Alfred Percy Sinnett ( 1840–1921) which appeared in 1883. In this book, root race theory was presented in context for the first time. Sinnett stated that he did not develop it himself, but rather took it from the so-called master letters, which had been transmitted supernaturally by the masters of wisdom Koot Hoomi and Morya. Blavatsky's secret doctrine is said to come from them , whose racial doctrine does not differ significantly from that of Sinnett. Whether the letters Sinnett received were actually of supernatural origin or from Blavatsky himself is a matter of dispute.

Another reference point through which came the Theosophical rootrace system to the public before it got its final shape in Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine was written by two students of the Theosophical Society book Man: Fragments of Forgotten History (Man: Fragments of a Forgotten History) , which appeared in 1885. Fabre d'Olivet's concept was taken up by many occultists and developed further by Blavatsky in her Secret Doctrine (1888).

Successor in the Theosophical Society

At the turn of the century, the American theosophist William Scott-Elliot (1849–1919) presented two books that described the submerged continents of the root race myth in more detail: Atlantis and Lemuria. He divided the fourth, Atlantic root race into the following sub-races: the "Rmoahals", who are said to have come directly from Lemuria, black-skinned and up to four meters tall; the "Tlavatli peoples" with copper-colored skin; then for over 10,000 years the Toltecs , the culturally highest sub-race of Atlantis, also very large, also copper-colored, but with Greek facial features; they are even said to have been able to construct airships ; they were followed by the Turanians , who for the first time developed a strong sense of individuality ; then the Semites , an allegedly belligerent race whose strength lay in reason and conscience ; after them Akkadians who created the first legislation ; the seventh were the Mongols , who emigrated to Asia - the first Atlantic sub-race to perform their cultural achievements outside of Atlantis.

Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater. Photo from 1901.

Annie Besant (1847–1933), who had taken over the management of the Adyar Theosophical Society in 1907 , based the root race myth on her doctrine of the world teachers: Each Aryan sub-race had its own world teacher: the Indian Buddha , the Egyptians Hermes Trismegistus , the Persians Zoroaster , the Celts Orpheus and the " Teutons " Jesus of Nazareth . The current world teacher will not appear towards the end of the 20th century, as Blavatsky prophesies, but he is already alive. The young Indian Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986 ), discovered by Charles Webster Leadbeater (1847-1934), is preparing the emergence of the next root race in Southern California , for which increasing parapsychological phenomena and catastrophes such as earthquakes, wars and the beginning of climate change are the signs. Besant and Leadbeater presented a further development of the root race myth in 1913 under the title Man: Whence, How and Whither . In this work, which is based on visions that both of them claim to have experienced together in Adyar , India, in 1910 , they formulated the millenarian expectation that the fifth Aryan sub-race, the Teutons, would take over the world over the next few centuries . Germany , Great Britain and the USA would found a community of all peoples in which India would occupy a particularly honorable place as the alleged original cell of Aryan culture. The turning point for the emergence of the sixth root race was brought forward by them into the 26th century.

Rudolf Steiner. Photo from 1905.

In the German-speaking world, the root race myth was further developed and numerous details added by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), who was Secretary General of the German section of the Theosophical Society from 1902 to 1912 . He tied mainly to Scott-Elliot's speculations on race. He published his representation of the root races from 1904 to 1908 in a series of essays under the title From the Akasha Chronicle in his journal Lucifer Gnosis . According to the American historian Peter Staudenmaier, Steiner abandoned the cyclical structure of the Blavatsky race theory: The sequence of the root races and their sub-races represented the linear progress of human development for him . The German cultural scientist Jana Husmann, on the other hand, interprets Steiner's root race theory as gnostic and thus cyclical: mankind originally existed purely spiritually. The increasing materialization and "ossification" of both the later root races and the animal world (which supposedly all descended from humans) are based on degenerative processes, which then turned into a return to pure spirituality.

Steiner assumes that every root or sub-race that has fulfilled its task in this upward development degenerates and withers away. The injustice that some people belonged to higher races and others to lower races is compensated for by the fact that every person incarnates in different races on his spiritual path:

“So we see how one is not condemned merely to live in a primitive race and the other to be at the highly developed stages of racial existence. Each one of us goes through the most varied levels of races and the passage means a further development for the individual soul. "

The awareness of having previously incarnated in lower races sharpens for every theosophist the sense of the universal brotherhood of all human beings. The goal of this development is the “world man”, a stage of development at which all racial and ethnic differences between people have become meaningless. The fact that members of human races of different values ​​exist side by side at all was not planned by the divine rulers of human development; it was due to the disturbing influence of Ahriman and Lucifer , two evil beings in Steiner's mythology. Steiner repeatedly and explicitly rejected open racism, such as that represented by the Völkische Movement .

During World War I Besant and Leadbeater took sides against the Central Powers , whose leaders denounced them as "possessed by the forces of darkness". It should be wrestled in an "apocalyptic ' world judgment ' of racial divorce and race annihilation" before the parousia of the new world savior. The later chairman of the TG-Adyar Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa (1875-1953) explained during the Second World War that Krishnamurti abandoned his intended role as a world teacher in 1929 , explaining that this did not fully succeed and that Germany was not forced to unconditionally surrender in 1918 had resigned: The dark forces had thereby been given the opportunity to grow again.

The theosophical societies centered in Germany, the Anthroposophical Society and the International Theosophical Fraternization responded to this political instrumentalization of the theosophical race doctrine with cultural imperialist concepts. Only the non-German parent companies TG-Adyar , TG New York and TG Point Looma retained the universal orientation. While the political views of Franz Hartmann and Hermann Rudolph remained politically moderate until the National Socialists came to power in 1933 , apart from concessions to the zeitgeist, the German theosophical groups around Hugo Vollrath (1877-1943) and Paul Zillmann turned completely to the racist-nationalist Warehouse too.

reception

The theosophical teachings of the development of the world and of mankind met with broad public interest in the 19th and 20th centuries. They were popular at the time and are still considered today by various secret societies that are directly or indirectly derived from the Theosophical Society as the foundation of their teaching structures. From today's scientific point of view, the spiritistically inspired world model of the root race theory is no longer plausible and understandable. More recently, Blavatsky's theses on root race development have been taken up by neo-Nazi authors such as Wilhelm Landig and Trevor Ravenscroft .

Anthroposophy

In the course of his departure from theosophy from 1907, Rudolf Steiner no longer used the terms “root race” and “subrace”. Instead he wrote of "epochs", "main periods" and "ages" or "cultural epochs", "cultural periods" and "cultural ages". In lectures from 1908 he declared that the death of Jesus Christ had laid the foundations for a new humanity that, like people of earlier epochs, would again be clairvoyant and fraternal, regardless of racial or ethnic ties; now, in the fifth sub-race, the “concept of culture has replaced the concept of race”.

At the same time Steiner admitted that the races of the people still have their meaning for the present. He reduced the genetic differences between people to three or five races: white Europeans, black Africans, "yellow" East Asians, as well as "red" Indians and brown Malays . In several places he explained these as different degrees of development, their extinction after fulfilling their respective tasks in human development and their significance in the higher development of the individual soul, which could be reincarnated in each of them. He qualified “negroes” as childlike, instinctual and not very spiritual, while North American Indians, on the other hand, were aged, and were “dying to a kind of ossification”. The white European, on the other hand, represents the normal stage of current human development, their adulthood, and is capable of intellectual penetration of the world and spiritual renewal like no member of other races.

On the basis of these and other assertions by Steiner, anthroposophy was accused in the 1990s by various authors of the political left in Germany of representing racist ideas and having paved the way for the Nazi regime. Anthroposophical authors sharply rejected this thesis and emphasized against it that anthroposophy means precisely the overcoming of racism. In the scientific literature on the anthroposophical race discourse, on the other hand, reference is made to the strong ambivalence of Steiner's statements, which were compatible on both sides. The German theologian Helmut Zander underlines the hierarchization of the human races that Steiner adopted from theosophy and the social Darwinist consequences of the assumption that groups of people who have fulfilled their task must wither away:

"This logic of construction leads to naming the cultures that one believes to have left behind:" the negroes "," the savages "or" the Jews "."

Jana Husmann states that “Steiner's neognostic evolution model is based on the concepts and structure of discourses on race theory”. Steiner spiritualize the "racial" categories he uses. The German religious scholar Michael Rißmann, on the other hand, denies that one finds social Darwinism in Steiner. If we count these and racial hygiene as constitutive elements of racism, Steiner was not racist; However, he has ascribed specific properties and tasks to human phenotypes that are only accessible to them, which can be “subsumed under certain definitions of racism”. Overall, anthroposophy could not be seen as a forerunner of National Socialism. The American historian Peter Staudenmaier judges that the rattle teachings spread by Steiner and his followers are incompatible with the self-image of anthroposophy as the bearer of spiritual wisdom and cosmopolitan tolerance.

See also: Anthroposophy # Cosmic evolution, human development and cultural epochs
See also: Accusations of racism

Ariosophy

Guido von List. Photo from 1913.
Jörg Lanz from Liebenfels. Photo from 1907.

Before the First World War, there were movements in Austria which, with the Germanic-Nordic or Teutonic sub-race, began to herald an impending era of German world domination and replacement of the British world empire . The teachings initially spread by Guido von List (1848–1919) as Wotanism and Armanism and by Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels (1874–1954) as theozoology were propagated as Ariosophy from 1915 , a specifically Austrian völkisch - racist variant without any organizational reference to the theosophists Blavatskys. The Guido von List Society had connections to the New Templar Order of Lanz and to Theosophy. The entire supporters of the Theosophical Association of Vienna were represented on the list of members of the Lists Society, which used the writings of Blavatsky to prove their common Aryan origin on the basis of similarities between Germanic and Indian wisdom teachings. This esoterically oriented current within the völkisch movement was based in its basic ideas on the ideas of the secret doctrine of Blavatsky and specifically took up their view, according to which the "Aryans" are the most highly developed root race of humanity. The doctrine of race development advocated by Blavatsky was a strong impetus for ariosophy. For example, Lanz dealt intensively with the five root races of their theosophical race doctrine and adopted modern theosophy for the ideological development of his neognostic "Germanized" religion. He carried out a selective exegesis of Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine and saw his assumption confirmed that fornication with animals , as Blavatsky accused the Lemurians, had been the cause of the deterioration of the breed: the fourth, Atlantean root race was divided into an animal and a pure one Subspecies divided, from which the fifth root race of the Aryans emerged. However, these would have mixed up with the descendants of the animal subspecies. The Ariosophers also adopted the ancient Indian swastika symbol that Blavatsky used as part of the emblem of the Theosophical Society and that German theosophists were the first to use in Germany. In this respect, Blavatsky unintentionally contributed to the later takeover of the swastika by the National Socialists .

The ariosophical interpretation of the root race theory was carried into German theosophy by the theosophical publisher Hugo Vollrath during the Weimar Republic . In 1923 he founded the Theosophical Society (Leipzig) , which was soon joined by the founder of the far-right Thule Society, Rudolf von Sebottendorf (1875–1945). For Vollrath, the völkisch-nationalistic orientation of his TG was more important than the universal one. He propagated pure breeding and, in contrast to the Adyar theosophists, strived for a theosophy "which is based on ... universal German intellectual culture".

National Socialism

Adolf Hitler. Photo from 1932.

Repeatedly the accusation was raised that the theosophical racial doctrine had contributed to the rise of National Socialism. In 1958, the Austrian writer Wilfried Daim introduced the ariosophist Lanz von Liebenfels as the man “who gave Hitler the ideas”. The American historian Jeffrey A. Goldstein refers to the Thule Society , which, in addition to ariosophy, mediated between National Socialism and Theosophy: Their occult doctrine of races of different spiritual value “helped to prepare a program aimed at the extinction of the the lower race because it is an obstacle to evolution ”.

This thesis is mostly rejected in historical studies. In his dissertation, first published in 1982, the English religious scholar Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke examines the “occult roots of National Socialism” and comes to the conclusion that Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) knew works by List and Lanz von Liebenfels and was partly influenced by them was, especially from their millenarianism and their Manichaeism . He was not interested in other central aspects of ariosophic teaching, such as the past “golden age” of the Aryans or their secret cultural heritage. According to the German historian Corinna Treitel , the Ariosophs had a share in political fantasies and myths in post-war Vienna and in Hitler's early environment, but less in the development of Nazi ideology. In the time of National Socialism from 1933 onwards, relevant sects were observed by the police and finally banned. The Israeli historian Isaac Lubelsky comes to the conclusion that, although theosophy carried on the racist discourse that was prevalent at the end of the 19th century, it influenced National Socialism at most indirectly. Their direct racist offshoots, the ariosophs, would have had less of an influence on the ideology of the “Third Reich” than Goodrick-Clarke's formulation of the “occult roots of National Socialism” would suggest.

literature

Primary sources

Secondary literature

  • Isaac Lubelsky: Mythological and Real Race Issues in Theosophy. In: Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Ed.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current (= Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. 7). Brill, Leiden 2013, ISBN 978-90-04-23596-0 , pp. 335-355.
  • James A. Santucci: The Notion of Race in Theosophy. In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. Vol. 11, H, 3, 2008, pp. 37-63, doi : 10.1525 / no.2008.11.3.37 .
  • Peter Staudenmaier: Race and Redemption. Racial and Ethnic Evolution in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy. In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. Vol. 11, H. 3, 2008, pp. 4-36, doi : 10.1525 / no . 2008.11.3.4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrich Linse : Theosophy III. Theosophical Society (from 1875). In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Bd. 33 ISBN 978-3-11-017132-7 De Gruyter, Berlin 2002, p. 405 (accessed from De Gruyter Online); Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: The Occult Roots of Nazism. Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology . Tauris Parke, London 2005, p. 19; Colin Kidd: The Forging of Races. Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000 . Cambridge University Press 2006, p. 239 ff.
  2. ^ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: The Occult Roots of Nazism. Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology . Tauris Parke, London 2005, p. 19 ff .; James A. Santucci: The Notion of Race in Theosophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions , 11, Issue 3 (2008), pp. 41-44.
  3. ^ Isaac Lubelsky: Mythological and Real Race Issues in Theosophy . In: Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Eds.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current . Brill, Leiden 2013, p. 336.
  4. ↑ Linus Hauser: Critique of the neo-mythical reason , Vol. 1: People as gods of the earth . Schöningh, Paderborn 2004, p. 325.
  5. ↑ James A. Santucci: The Notion of Race in Theosophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions , 11, Issue 3 (2008), p. 46.
  6. ↑ Helena Blavatsky: The Secret Doctrine , Vol. 2, p. 780 ( online , accessed January 31, 2014); quoted by Helmut Zander : Social Darwinist racial theories from the occult underground of the empire . In: Uwe Puschner , Walter Schmitz, Justus H. Ulbricht (eds.): Handbook on the "Völkische Movement" 1871-1918 . Munich 1996, p. 229 f .; Isaac Lubelsky: Mythological and Real Race Issues in Theosophy . In: Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Eds.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current . Brill, Leiden 2013, p. 347.
  7. ↑ Helena Blavatsky: The Secret Doctrine , Vol. 1, p. 185 ( online , accessed January 31, 2014); Linus Hauser: Critique of the neo-mythical reason , Vol. 1: People as gods of the earth . Schöningh, Paderborn 2004, p. 325; Sumathi Ramaswamy: The Lost Land of Lemuria. Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories . University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles 2004, p. 66.
  8. ^ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: The Occult Roots of Nazism. Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology . Tauris Parke, London 2005, pp. 20f
  9. ^ Isaac Lubelsky: Mythological and Real Race Issues in Theosophy. In: Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Eds.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current . Brill, Leiden 2013, pp. 339-341.
  10. ^ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: The Occult Roots of Nazism. Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology . Tauris Parke, London 2005, p. 20 (here the quote); James A. Santucci: The Notion of Race in Theosophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions , 11, Issue 3 (2008), p. 47 f.
  11. ↑ Linus Hauser: Critique of the neo-mythical reason , Vol. 1: People as gods of the earth . Schöningh, Paderborn 2004, p. 319 and p. 323 ff., The quotation p. 325.
  12. ↑ Linus Hauser: Critique of the neo-mythical reason , Vol. 1: People as gods of the earth . Schöningh, Paderborn 2004, p. 327; James A. Santucci: The Notion of Race in Theosophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions , 11, Issue 3 (2008), p. 48.
  13. ↑ Linus Hauser: Critique of the neo-mythical reason , Vol. 1: People as gods of the earth . Schöningh, Paderborn 2004, p. 327.
  14. ↑ Sumathi Ramaswamy: The Lost Land of Lemuria. Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories . University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles 2004, p. 59.
  15. ↑ Helena Blavatsky: The Secret Doctrine , Vol. 2, pp. 286, 318 and 683-686 ( online , accessed February 2, 2014); Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: The Occult Roots of Nazism. Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology . Tauris Parke, London 2005, p. 21 (here the quote) and 101.
  16. ^ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: The Occult Roots of Nazism. Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology . Tauris Parke, London 2005, p. 21.
  17. ↑ Linus Hauser: Critique of the neo-mythical reason , Vol. 1: People as gods of the earth . Schöningh, Paderborn 2004, p. 327.
  18. ↑ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: The occult roots of National Socialism , marixverlag GmbH 2004. P. 25; James A. Santucci: The Notion of Race in Theosophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions , 11, Issue 3 (2008), p. 48 (here the quote).
  19. ^ "The undeveloped tribes and families of the Atlantean stock fell gradually into a still more abject and savage condition", Helena Blavatsky: The Secret Doctrine , Vol. 2, p. 744 ( online , accessed January 31, 2014); quoted from Peter Staudenmaier: Race and Redemption. Racial and Ethnic Evolution in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 11, no. 3 (2008), p. 6.
  20. ^ "In the Fifth, we have, therefore, crossed the meridian point of the perfect adjustment of Spirit and Matter - or that equilibrium between brain intellect and Spiritual perception", Helena Blavatsky: The Secret Doctrine , Vol. 2, p. 300 ( online , accessed February 21, 2014), quoted in James A. Santucci: The Notion of Race in Theosophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions , 11, Issue 3 (2008), p. 49.
  21. ↑ Ulrich Linse: Theosophy III. Theosophical Society (from 1875). In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Bd. 33 ISBN 978-3-11-017132-7 De Gruyter, Berlin 2002, p. 406 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  22. ↑ Ulrich Linse: Theosophy III. Theosophical Society (from 1875). In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Vol. 33 ISBN 978-3-11-017132-7 De Gruyter, Berlin 2002, p. 406 (accessed via De Gruyter Online)
  23. ↑ "They became a hybrid people, not long after Moses, as the Bible shows them freely intermarrying [...] with every other nation or race they came in contact with". Helena Blavatsky, Isis unveiled , Vol. 2, p. 438 f; and The Secret Doctrine , Vol. 1, p. 313 ( online , accessed January 31, 2014); Isaac Lubelsky: Mythological and Real Race Issues in Theosophy . In: Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Eds.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current . Brill, Leiden 2013, p. 342 ff.
  24. ↑ “and the Sixth will be rapidly growing out of its bonds of matter, and even of flesh”, Helena Blavatsky: The Secret Doctrine , Vol. 2, p. 446 ( online , accessed on February 21, 2014), quoted in Ulrich Lens: Theosophy III. Theosophical Society (from 1875). In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Bd. 33 ISBN 978-3-11-017132-7 De Gruyter, Berlin 2002, p. 406 (accessed from De Gruyter Online); Isaac Lubelsky: Mythological and Real Race Issues in Theosophy . In: Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Eds.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current . Brill, Leiden 2013, p. 346.
  25. ↑ James A. Santucci: The Notion of Race in Theosophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions , 11, Heft 3 (2008), p. 49 f.
  26. ↑ Ulrich Linse: Theosophy III. Theosophical Society (from 1875). In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Vol. 33 ISBN 978-3-11-017132-7 De Gruyter, Berlin 2002, p. 406 (here the quotation) (accessed via De Gruyter Online); James A. Santucci: The Notion of Race in Theosophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions , 11, Issue 3 (2008), p. 50.
  27. ↑ Linus Hauser: Critique of the neo-mythical reason , Vol. 1: People as gods of the earth . Schöningh, Paderborn 2004, p. 321.
  28. ^ Colin Kidd: The Forging of Races. Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000 . Cambridge University Press 2006, p. 242 f .; "Mankind did not issue from a solitary couple. Nor was there ever a first man - whether Adam or Yima - but a first mankind. It may, or may not be, "mitigated polygenism." Once that both creation ex-nihilo - an absurdity - and a superhuman Creator or creators - a fact - are made away with by science, polygenism presents no more difficulties or inconveniences (rather fewer from a scientific point of view) than monogenism does ", Helena Blavatsky: The Secret Doctrine , Vol. 2, p. 610 ( online , accessed January 31, 2014).
  29. ^ Peter van der Veer: Imperial Encounters. Religion and Modernity in India and Britain. Princeton University Press, 2001, pp. 143 f.
  30. ↑ James A. Santucci: The Notion of Race in Theosophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions , 11, Heft 3 (2008), pp. 36–54, especially pp. 38 and 51.
  31. ↑ a b c James Webb : The Flight from Reason . Marix, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-86539-213-8 , pp. 415-416.
  32. ↑ a b Joscelyn Godwin: Arktos. The polar myth between Nazi occultism and modern esotericism. Ares-Verlag , Graz 2007, ISBN 3-902475-40-4 , pp. 50-52.
  33. ^ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: The Occult Roots of Nazism. Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology . Tauris Parke, London 2005, p. 21; James A. Santucci: The Notion of Race in Theosophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions , 11, Heft 3 (2008), p. 39 ff.
  34. ^ Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa : Did Madame Blavatsky Forge the Mahatma Letters? Reprint, Kessinger, Whitefish 2010; Joscelyn Godwin: Blavatsky and the first Generation of Theosophy . In: Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Eds.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current . Brill, Leiden 2013, p. 23; James A. Santucci: The Notion of Race in Theosophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions , 11, Heft 3 (2008), p. 52 ff.
  35. ↑ Mohini M. Chatterji and Laura Holloway: Man: Fragments of Forgotten History. London Reeves & Turner 1885; Joscelyn Godwin: Arktos. The polar myth between Nazi occultism and modern esotericism. Ares-Verlag, Graz 2007, ISBN 3-902475-40-4 , p. 50.
  36. ^ William Scott-Elliot: The Story of Atlantis. A Geographical, Historical and Ethnological Sketch . Theosophical Publishing Society, London 1896; the same: The Lost Lemuria . Theosophical Publishing Society, London (1904); see. Pierre Vidal-Naquet : Atlantis. Story of a dream . CH Beck, Munich 2006, p. 234 ff.
  37. ^ Martin Gardner : Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science . Courier Dover Publications, Mineola NY 2012, p. 167 f. (First edition 1952).
  38. ↑ James A. Santucci: The Notion of Race in Theosophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions , 11, Issue 3 (2008), pp. 46 and 49; Isaac Lubelsky: Mythological and Real Race Issues in Theosophy . In: Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Eds.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current . Brill, Leiden 2013, p. 347 ff.
  39. ↑ Ulrich Linse: Theosophy III. Theosophical Society (from 1875). In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Bd. 33 ISBN 978-3-11-017132-7 De Gruyter, Berlin 2002, p. 407 (accessed from De Gruyter Online); Isaac Lubelsky: Mythological and Real Race Issues in Theosophy . In: Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Eds.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current . Brill, Leiden 2013, p. 347 ff.
  40. ↑ Jana Husmann : Black and White Symbols. Dualistic traditions of thought and the imagination of “race”. Religion - Science - Anthroposophy. transcript, Bielefeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-8394-1349-4 , p. 267 (accessed via De Gruyter Online)
  41. ↑ Helmut Zander: The history of mankind and their races . In: Anthroposophy in Germany , Volume I. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, pp. 628f.
  42. ^ Peter Staudenmaier: Race and Redemption. Racial and Ethnic Evolution in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 11, no. 3 (2008), p. 7 f.
  43. ↑ Jana Husmann: Black and White Symbols. Dualistic traditions of thought and the imagination of “race”. Religion - Science - Anthroposophy. transcript, Bielefeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-8394-1349-4 , pp. 266-273. (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  44. ^ Peter Staudenmaier: Race and Redemption. Racial and Ethnic Evolution in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 11, no. 3 (2008), p. 7 f.
  45. ↑ Rudolf Steiner: The basic concepts of theosophy: Human races . Lecture from November 9th, 1905. In: The same: The world riddles and anthroposophy . Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach 1983, p. 133. ( online , accessed on March 24, 2014), quoted from Peter Staudenmaier: Race and Redemption. Racial and Ethnic Evolution in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 11, no.3 (2008), p. 27.
  46. ^ Peter Staudenmaier: Race and Redemption. Racial and Ethnic Evolution in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 11, H. 3 (2008), pp. 9-13.
  47. ↑ Michael Rißmann: National Socialism, Völkische Movement and Esotericism , in: Zeitschrift für Genozidforschung 2 (2003), p. 66 f.
  48. ↑ Ulrich Linse: Theosophy III. Theosophical Society (from 1875). In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Vol. 33 ISBN 978-3-11-017132-7 De Gruyter, Berlin 2002, pp. 406 f. (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  49. ↑ Ulrich Linse: "Universal Brotherhood" or National Race War - the German theosophists in the First World War. In: Heinz-Gerhard Haupt and Dieter Langewiesche (eds.): Nation and religion in German history. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2001, p. 641 ff.
  50. ↑ Priska Pytlik: Occultism and Modernity. A cultural-historical phenomenon and its significance for literature around 1900 . Schöningh, Paderborn 2005, p. 92 u.ö.
  51. ^ Karl RH Frick: Light and Darkness. Gnostic-theosophical and Masonic-occult secret societies up to the turn of the 20th century , Volume 2; Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005; ISBN 3-86539-044-7 ; P. 292.
  52. ↑ Sabine Doering-Manteuffel : The occult. A success story in the shadow of the Enlightenment. From Gutenberg to the World Wide Web . Siedler, Munich 2008. pp. 199–201.
  53. ↑ Martin Brauen: Traumwelt Tibet: Western illusions. Publishing house Paul Haupt Berne, Bern; Stuttgart; Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-258-05639-0 . P. 74.
  54. ^ Michael Rissmann: National Socialism, Völkische Movement and Esotericism . In: Zeitschrift für Genozidforschung 2 (2003), p. 67 f .; Ralf Sonnenberg: "... a mistake in world history"? - Judaism, Zionism and Anti-Semitism from the perspective of Rudolf Steiner on Hagalil.com , November 8, 2009, accessed on March 23, 2014.
  55. ^ Michael Rissmann: National Socialism, Völkische Movement and Esotericism . In: Zeitschrift für Genozidforschung 2 (2003), p. 67 f.
  56. ↑ Helmut Zander: Social Darwinist race theories from the occult underground of the empire . In: Uwe Puschner, Walter Schmitz, Justus H. Ulbricht (eds.): Handbook on the "Völkische Movement" 1871-1918 . Munich 1996, p. 242 f.
  57. ^ Michael Rissmann: National Socialism, Völkische Movement and Esotericism . In: Zeitschrift für Genozidforschung 2 (2003), pp. 70–73, the quotation on p. 71; Peter Staudenmaier: Race and Redemption. Racial and Ethnic Evolution in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 11, H. 3 (2008), pp. 14-19.
  58. ↑ See e.g. B. Jutta Ditfurth : Fire in the heart. Against the devaluation of people . Konkret Literatur Verlag, Hamburg 1997; Peter Bierl : root races, archangels and folk spirits. Konkret Literatur Verlag, Hamburg 1998; summarizing Michael Rißmann: National Socialism, Völkisch Movement and Esotericism . In: Zeitschrift für Genozidforschung 2 (2003), p. 60 f.
  59. ↑ See e.g. B. Hans-Jürgen Bader, Lorenzo Ravagli: Overcoming racism through Waldorf education. "Racial ideals are the decline of humanity" . Free Spiritual Life Publishing House, 2002. Ramon Brüll and Jens Heisterkamp: Frankfurter Memorandum. Rudolf Steiner and the topic of racism , 2008. Cf. Peter Staudenmaier: Race and Redemption. Racial and Ethnic Evolution in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 11, H. 3 (2008), pp. 20 and 34.
  60. ↑ Helmut Zander: The history of mankind and their races . In: Anthroposophy in Germany , Volume I. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, p. 246; Michael Rißmann: National Socialism, Volkish Movement and Esotericism . In: Zeitschrift für Genozidforschung 2 (2003), p. 73 fuö .; Peter Staudenmaier: Race and Redemption. Racial and Ethnic Evolution in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 11, no. 3 (2008), p. 7.
  61. ↑ Helmut Zander: Social Darwinist race theories from the occult underground of the empire . In: Uwe Puschner, Walter Schmitz, Justus H. Ulbricht (eds.): Handbook on the "Völkische Movement" 1871-1918 . Munich 1996, p. 244.
  62. ↑ Jana Husmann: Black and White Symbols. Dualistic traditions of thought and the imagination of “race”. Religion - Science - Anthroposophy. transcript, Bielefeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-8394-1349-4 , p. 272 ​​f. (accessed via De Gruyter Online)
  63. ^ Michael Rissmann: National Socialism, Völkische Movement and Esotericism . In: Zeitschrift für Genozidforschung 2 (2003), p. 73 f. and 88 f.
  64. ^ Peter Staudenmaier: Race and Redemption. Racial and Ethnic Evolution in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 11, no.3 (2008), p. 21.
  65. ^ Ulrich Linse: Theosophical Society (from 1875) . In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie , Vol. 33, Walter De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2002, SS 406 f.
  66. ↑ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: Ariosophy . In: Wouter J. Hanegraaff (Ed.): Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism . Brill, Leiden 2006. p. 91.
  67. ↑ René Freund: Brown magic? Occultism, New Age and National Socialism . Picus, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-85452-271-1 . P. 38.
  68. ↑ Helmut Reinalter : Conspiracy Theories: Theory, History, Effect. Studienverlag 2002. p. 115.
  69. ^ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: The Occult Roots of Nazism. Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology . Tauris Parke, London 2005, pp. 93 f., 101 f. and 228.
  70. ↑ Jan Kuhlmann: Subhas Chandra Bose and the India policy of the Axis powers. Hans Schiler Verlag, Berlin 2003. p. 43; Peter van der Veer : Imperial Encounters. Religion and Modernity in India and Britain . Princeton University Press, 2001, p. 143.
  71. ^ Isaac Lubelsky: Mythological and Real Race Issues in Theosophy . In: Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Eds.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current . Brill, Leiden 2013, p. 345.
  72. ^ Heinz-Gerhard Haupt and Dieter Langewiesche : Nation and Religion in German History. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2001, pp. 638–642.
  73. ↑ Peter Levenda: Unholy Alliance. A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult . Bloomsbury Academic, London 2002, quoted in James A. Santucci: The Notion of Race in Theosophy . In: Nova Religio. The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions , 11, Issue 3 (2008), p. 37; Colin Kidd: The Forging of Races. Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000 . Cambridge University Press 2006, p. 41; Isaac Lubelsky: Mythological and Real Race Issues in Theosophy . In: Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Eds.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current . Brill, Leiden 2013, p. 335.
  74. ↑ Wilfried Daim: The man who gave Hitler the ideas. The sectarian foundations of National Socialism . Isar, Munich 1985.
  75. ↑ Jeffrey A. Goldstein: Anti-Semitism in Occultism and Nazism. In: Michael R. Marrus (Ed.): The Nazi Holocaust. Part 2: The Origins of the Holocaust. Meckler, Westport CT 1989, pp. 59-78 (here the quote).
  76. ^ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: The Occult Roots of Nazism. Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology . Tauris Parke, London 2005, pp. 192-204.
  77. ^ Corinna Treitel: A Science for the Soul - Occultism and the Genesis of the German Modern . Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore / London 2004, p. 220 f.
  78. ^ Isaac Lubelsky: Mythological and Real Race Issues in Theosophy . In: Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Eds.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current . Brill, Leiden 2013, p. 354.