Talk:Ariosophy

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[edit] Merger proposal

I've moved the Thule Society section from Nazi mysticism, so most of the 'Early influences' section of that article is now here. There's still a lot of nonsense that needs fixing though (Hitler and other leading Nazis were never Thule Society members). There are also noticeable gaps in this article which would be neatly filled by merging some other small articles (e.g. Germanenorden and of course Thule Society) into this one. What do other people think? Gnostrat 21:07, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I would now add the Guido von List Society and Order of the New Templars to the list of articles that could be usefully merged into this one. There is also a lot of pointless overlap between this article and the one on Guido von List, which could be slimmed down by cutting duplicate passages in the latter and moving some material here. Gnostrat 01:20, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I partly disagree. The Order of the New Templars and Germanenorden articles could be merged, while the article on the Thule Society should definitely stand on its own and the one one the Guido von List Society, too. The last one should rather be merged with Guido von List, if at all. -Zara1709 02:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I adamantly disagree on the merger of Guido von List Society with Nazi mysticism. The group preceded the NSDAP and existed after the NSDAP. Pigeon-holing their entire history into "Nazi mysticism" is disingenuous. If anything, it should be merged with Guido von List. - WeniWidiWiki 05:55, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, who said anything about Nazi mysticism? I was proposing to merge it into this article (Germanic mysticism) which is all about the non-Nazi and pre-Nazi groups. I've no strong objection to a merger between GvLSociety and Guido von List, but I'll wait and see if any more replies come in before I comment on that. Gnostrat 06:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread your intent. Most of these articles are in a poor state, so anything which consolidates sources and eliminates redundancy will probably be for the best. - WeniWidiWiki 06:13, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

No problem. That was exactly my thinking; what's more, there will be serious gaps in any comprehensive treatment of Germanic mysticism if any of these groups are left out. This article will need sections on GvLSociety and Thule regardless of the separate pages so the duplication seems pointless. Gnostrat 07:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The comments above, plus the frankly underwhelming nature of the response to the merge proposals, suggest to me that there isn't any enthusiasm out there for keeping Order of the New Templars and Germanenorden as separate articles, and they do fill gaps in this one, so I will begin merging them in shortly.

As for the Thule Society merger, Zara1709 and Gazpacho have both declared against it, and I am now inclined to agree. The Thule's historical relevance to Nazi origins, and the conspiracy theories swirling around that, are probably good enough reasons for maintaining it - even if that link looks pretty tenuous to sober historians, and even though the article covers much the same ground as the more concise Thule section here. I'm not exactly picking up a groundswell of opinion either way; still, if there's no comeback on that merger in the next few days I will remove the merge tag from Thule Society.

I will be leaving the merge tag on Guido von List Society for a while longer. As an influential personality, List is entitled to a biographical article but I think that organisations are another matter when they are simply fragments of a wider movement that has little enough information on Wikipedia as it is. Better to consolidate most of the organisations in one article, and you will notice that there is a distinct shortage of Armanism material in this one. However, there might be a case for dividing Guido von List Society between this article and the one on Guido von List himself. I am open to any opinions or suggestions about that. Gnostrat 20:20, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nazi section

The "Nazi" section needs work. For now, I have removed sub-standard or unsourced bits, introducing a {{main}} link. That's not to say this shouldn't be addressed here, but it needs to be done properly. The section began with "Ariosophy has been termed a theoretical precursor of the Nazi genocide", followed by some contorted apologetics from Flowers, apparently himself a dodgy occultist author. To begin with, "Nazi genocide" is not a term. It would mean, "the killing of the people of the Nazi", which is clearly not what is intended. What the section is addressing is the role of Germanic mysticism in the formative phase of Nazism. That there was such an influence is obvious, and the proper place to discuss it is the Nazi mysticism article. Of course, the connection does not necessarily go to discredit Germanic mysticism as a whole, much as Hitler's dietary habits don't discredit vegetarianism (reductio ad Hitlerum). Still, the paragraph was in serious violation of WP:UNDUE. Something like

"Although it is now considered conventional wisdom that the ideas of List, Lanz and others were directly implemented in the Nazi genocide, Flowers states that this is “with little to no actual critical investigation”"

is unacceptable. Mainstream positions are not to be dealt with in an "although" clause introducing a lengthy discussion of fringy apologists. The section will have to treat "conventional wisdom" (that is, academic mainstream opinion) first and foremost, and then maybe briefly mention dissent from corners like Flowers'. The focus on Hitler is also unjustified. It is a popular fallacy to immediately reduce "Nazism" to "Hitler". It is true that Hitler de-emphasized occultism, but it is a red herring, suggesting that if Hitler wasn't into occultism, Nazism as a whole wasn't. Ignore Hitler and discuss Himmler and Rosenberg instead. dab (𒁳) 14:42, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining your rationale. I think that, first, we have to determine what the mainstream academic opinion in fact is. (And if it were so obvious that Germanic mysticism was influential on the formative phase of Nazism, there wouldn't even be a controversy.)

As Goodrick-Clarke summarised it, the mainstream position among historians of Nazism has actually been to deny or minimise occult input. Even G-C, who dissents somewhat from this mainstream, is clear that there are some structural resemblances but few actual lines of influence. (In fact the main influence was in the other direction: it's more the case that the Nazis seduced some Germanic mystics who were drawn into the Ahnenerbe and SS long after the formative phase of the NSDAP.) And Goodrick-Clarke seems to be the authority par excellence in this field. This is pretty much the position of Flowers and McNallen too. (I can't speak about McNallen, but Flowers is an accredited scholar — occultists are allowed to be scholars, and Flowers being both doesn't make him "dodgy".)

So if there can be said to be a "conventional wisdom" that should be emphasised first and foremost, it is surely the mainstream position occupied by Goodrick-Clarke and most historians of Nazism: that the formative influence of Germanic mysticism on the Nazis was tenuous at best. Flowers is academically mainstream on this question; Schnurbein is not. What was amiss with the section, as it stood, was to have suggested that the reverse was the case — that "the ideas of List, Lanz and others were directly(!) implemented in the Nazi genocide" was the mainstream academic opinion in the first place.

Concerning the most appropriate place to discuss these (actual or supposed) connections, I would approach the problem as a taxonomist. Nazi occultism should concentrate on the occult interests of the Nazis themselves and their successors, while this article should focus on what preceded or led up to them. So "formative" Germanic-mystical influences on Nazism should be treated in Germanic mysticism, with Nazi occultism referring to this one as the main article for that subject. And this article should refer to Nazi occultism as the main article for Himmler and Rosenberg. Finally, actual Ariosophists at the Ahnenerbe (or Wiligut in the SS) might be appropriate subjects for both articles.

Agreed that it's simplistic to focus on Hitler so, yes, there's work to be done on the other real or postulated links. I will be gathering materials that might be used on one of my personal subpages. I wonder if there's a template I can paste on the section to let people know it's being worked up elsewhere? Gnostrat 22:21, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

since you are obviously capable of giving a coherent and intelligent summary on the topic, I am happy to entrust the section to you. We seem to agree that it wasn't acceptable as it stood, but I am confident that you will come up with a good solution. dab (𒁳) 06:13, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name change

[edit] Help!

Dbachmann removed the following segment from the Nazism section a couple of months back. It needs a good rewrite, which I hope to be working on (having got distracted a bit in the meantime). I'm putting it here because it also needs sources, particularly for the Flowers quotes, which I think are still useful to the article. Unfortunately, the presumed original author of this material hasn't been forthcoming with references, and it looks like I'd have to obtain all of Flowers' books to chase them down. So if anybody can supply in-line references, please feel free to insert them below and I'll work them into my rewrite. Gnostrat 21:21, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Ariosophy has been termed a theoretical precursor of the Nazi genocide.^{[citation needed]} However, the foremost expert on Guido von List in the English-speaking world, Stephen E. Flowers, refuses to connect the theories of List and other early 20th century rune magicians directly to the excesses of Auschwitz.^{[citation needed]} One German academic, Stefanie von Schnurbein (1992: 136), in commenting on Flowers' introduction to The Secret of the Runes, states:

Dabei erwähnt [Flowers] an keiner Stelle, daß List und die anderen Ariosophen Vordenker des Rassenwahns des Nationalsozialismus waren... (In this work [Flowers] nowhere mentions that List and the other Ariosophists were intellectual predecessors of the racial madness of National Socialism...)

Although it is now considered conventional wisdom that the ideas of List, Lanz and others were directly implemented in the Nazi genocide, Flowers states that this is “with little to no actual critical investigation”.^{[citation needed]} Because the very term “Ariosophy” was analogous to its predecessor, “Theosophy”, it has also been argued that the racial ideas in Ariosophy can be traced to Theosophy.^{[citation needed]} Flowers states that “no one has ever shown that racial policies of the NSDAP are based on so-called 'Ariosophical' ideas.”^{[citation needed]}

It has further been argued that even the writings of the most "extreme" of the Ariosophists, Lanz von Liebenfels, cannot be definitively linked to the applied anti-semitism of the Nazis. Apologists for Lanz state that he did not write unfavorably about the Jewish race,^{[citation needed]} that he cooperated with Jewish scholars in many of his publications,^{[citation needed]} and while it can be argued that individual Nazis became familiar with the mystical racism of Theosophy through the works of List and Lanz,^{[citation needed]} it does not necessarily follow that List and Lanz were culpable in the crimes of the Nazis.

[edit] Writers and organisations

It's a low-importance issue, but it would have been better to delete the list of writers and organisations altogether rather than expand it into a subsection. Listing all these names at the beginning was always a superfluous exercise that wasted space, and I thought we'd just whittled the 'Prominent Armanists' list down to zero for exactly that reason.

All the organisations are either section titles or bolded in the text; and linking the various authors so early only means that they can't be linked in the sections where they are most directly relevant. This is unavoidable for List and Lanz, but shouldn't become a general thing. The only names in the list which don't appear elsewhere in the article are Shou and Glahn. I'm sure that a place can be found for those two somewhere, and then the subsection should be deleted, if nobody objects. Gnostrat 14:42, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I thought that if we debate people like Ernst Wachler in this article, then they should be mentioned in a list at the beginning. At least, if they name redircts to this article, as it is the case with Werner von Bülow. I am not completly sure about this, though, I have to put some thought into it. Zara1709 14:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Bülow's the only personal name that redirects here, by the way. Wachler doesn't. Gnostrat 15:31, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, names can be redirected straight to the sections or subsections where they are bolded, making an introductory list unnecessary. Gnostrat 04:08, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I thought about this, and I think that you are right. The Overwiev section should do without the lists. However, the whole texts of this article needs to be summarized there. I would like to preserve that list until I get to the point where I can write a few sentences for this. Zara1709 08:18, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 03:29, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nice edits

Hitler was no member, he payed no membership.....Sorry but you really think this was organized like a Kaninchenzuechterverein, a club for raising up rabbits? Himmler was member, met very often together at the ranch (Rittergut) of Mr.Hammerbacher in the 1920s, for example at the marriage Mr. Hammerbacher und the mother of the so called Sigrun Freifrau von Schlichting (she had different names, because of various marriages)

But its important to see the parallel strings of these societies, the close together of the participants, very often close family ties up to today (from 1900 to the year 2008). But dont merge all these groups, then you will not discover this organisation, more 'non-organisation' and loose the relationship of these various but also similar ideas. LordNice 21:07, 08 Januar 2008 (UTC)

I've moved this post to its chronological sequence since it has little to do with the merge proposal which is over and settled. I've also reverted your edits to the article. Sorry, but Wikipedia articles are not written on the basis of unsourced allegations (particularly those which implicate entire families of still-living persons up to the present day). Claiming some privileged source of information (such as family tradition or personal communication) won't wash here, we need claims to be verifiable. If you want to restore this material, please provide reliable published sources and write it up in a properly encyclopaedic style.

Even if these informal connections were true, what exactly would they prove? Friends and associates are under no necessity to hold the same opinions or agendas. We can't document these private discussions; what we are summarising here is the record of organisations because that is how it all finally works out in history. The article already does trace (and I hope will continue to trace) personal links between these organisations insofar as they are documented and relevant.

But as a matter of historical record, neither Himmler nor Heydrich nor Rosenberg were committed neopagans — unlike Darré, who made no secret of it. Rosenberg was a rationalist who denounced Wotan worship, and Himmler's dabbling in mysticism (mostly to do with Christian orders like the Teutonic Knights and the Jesuits) had few practical consequences beyond his naive support for Wiligut (who was no Wotanist either); see this article.

Given that the Schleipfers have explicitly distanced their concept of Armanism/Odinism from the whole ethos and quasi-religiosity of the SS, it is fair to say that even if Sigrun's family had known Himmler personally, this is of no consequence for the present-day Armanen Orden. Gnostrat (talk) 05:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)