Talk:Savitri Devi

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Contents 1 Nationality 2 Cut down 'related' list 3 Influenced? 4 removed text 5 Marriage 6 External links 7 White Supremacist? 8 S. Devi and Traditionalism 9 Kalki Avatar

[edit] Nationality

I was wondering if "Franco-Greek" is a correct description of her nationality. While born and raised in France, she never embraced a "French identity", and obtained Greek citizenship early in her youth. Even if she cannot escape identification with with her country of birth, wouldn't it be "Graeco-French" (though this would still ignore her Anglo- ancestry). -- Morning star 15:43, 04 April 2004 (UTC)

It would ignore it, as well as her Italian roots (her father was half Italian) and her embracing of and identification with Indian nationalism. That's why she called herself an "Aryan woman". I think this self-description is really the most matching one--even to label her "European" would mean to cut her identity down to a too low common denominator. -- Falk9 19:14, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Falk9, the information about her ethnicity is relevant, would have been included in any print encyclopedia before Wiki, and therefore should remain in Wiki. We are not serving HER here, we are serving facts. The reader comes here for information, not for a glistening snow job. Her extreme racist views, coupled with her attempts to "escape" from identification with her own background, need to be presented. The dichotomy is just as relevant to her later political choices as Bobby Fischer's statements that he is not Jewish are to his political choices. Catherineyronwode 00:16, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cut down 'related' list

It's not standard practice to have quite so many 'related' links. There's no need to link to every well-known neo-Nazi; a few links to general pages will do. --Saforrest July 8, 2005 16:56 (UTC)

I agree. I cut the list down to topics of esoteric nazism that hadn't already been mentioned. -Willmcw July 8, 2005 21:51 (UTC)

[edit] Influenced?

Savitri Devi herself was influenced by writers and thinkers like René Guénon, Julius Evola, and Oswald Spengler.

Where are the sources for an influence of Evola?

Although it wouldn't surprise me if this were true (that Spengler had, at least), this is the first place I've encountered this assertion. Hitler's Priestess only indexes these thinkers to influences on activists who Savitri Devi also influenced. —Morning star 17:46, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

May be she was influenced by Spengler, but the alleged Guenon influence seems nothing but a forgery. In addition, it is not mentionned that she met Subhas C. Bose, and the Pandit Rajwade, from Puna. TwoHorned 19:03, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

She certainly reads like she's been influenced by Guenon, though not necessarily directly. I couldn't provide evidence, though, I'm just saying. Dogville 08:14, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] removed text

I removed the following text:

NOTE: The claim that Savitri Devi influenced Ernst Zündel's views on the Holicaust is false. According to Zündel himself, the reverse is the case. He claims that Savitri Devi believed all the major tenets of the Holocaust story, including the use of homicidal gas chambers. She was extremely skeptical of Zündel's attempts to dispute elements of the Holocaust story. Zündel even suspected that she WANTED to believe in the extermination of six million Jews. At the very least, she did not care. In her 1978 interviews she said that her standard answer to the accusation of the six million was: "Pity it was not sixteen million, then the Jewish problem would have been solved." In the same interviews, Savitri also claimed that she believed in the standard Holocaust story until 1977, when she read Arthur Butz's THE HOAX OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

I have no idea about its validity, and that is why I added the tag. If the info is true, please source it, and add it in a coherent manner. If not, feel free to remove that tag! --Irishpunktom\^talk 15:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I added the claim (that Savitri Devi influenced Zündel's views on the Holocaust) based on what Goodrick-Clarke states in Hitler's Priestess (pp. 206-207). The alternate claim wouldn't surprise me, but—as you say—it would need to be sourced. —Morning star 20:37, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

While certainly believing (and delighting) in the Holocaust from early on, Devi was also quick off the mark in claiming its scale had been exaggerated. For example, the following is a quote from 'Pilgrimage', written 1953-4:

‘By the way,’ said I, ‘it seems that, in their desire to show tourists how “awful” we were, the Democrats have built gas-chambers in former camps in which there were none, and added new ones in such places as Auschwitz … Is it true?’

‘It’s just like them, anyhow!’ laughed Hans F. ‘But let them do so! It will spare us the trouble – and the expense – of new installations, next time …’

Dogville 21:08, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Seeing how the disputed text has been removed, I'm removing the tag for now. I'm going to look into sourcing that claim, however. Deleuze 14:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Marriage

There's still no source for the article's claim that Devi's marriage was never consummated. Can anyone supply? 194.66.226.95 11:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External links

Removed links to savitridevi.org (s.o), library.flawlesslogic.com (l.f.c), and the Kerry Bolton treatise on geocities.com again. The l.f.c site contains racist and antisemitic texts by Savitri Devi and other writers. The s.o site includes her own racist and antisemitic texts, and contains links back to l.f.c. So both sites are neither useful or tasteful, see

Wikipedia:External_links#What_to_link: Is it proper in the context of the article (useful, tasteful, informative, factual, etc.)?

The s.o and l.f.c aren't sites of recognized authorities on the biography of Savitri Devi.

The Kerry Bolton text is a personal blog. It has no critical comment about Savitir Devi or Nazism. Instead it repeats Savitri Devi's opinions and seems to agree with it. Bolton even claims that "she was the first to discover the secret and spiritual power behind Hitlerism", which in no way is a scientific fact . So this is neither a suitable nor reliable source wikipedia should link to.--Schwalker 10:26, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't see how the sites aren't useful if you wish to understand Savitri Devi's POV. As for their tastefulness, they are far from the "DEATH TO SUBHUMANS!"-screeching variety of racist site. As the letter page of s.o states: "the purpose of this archive is research, not propaganda." The literature page includes links to critical and scholarly articles about Savitri Devi and it's webmaster has edited three published books by her.

The l.f.c site is a bit more propagandistic, but aside from R.G. Fowler's Woman Against Time and Savitri Devi: Life and Work by Irmin, it simply presents Savitri's writings.

Kerry Bolton is a notable far-right activist and author so I think of his viewpoint on Savitri Devi as significant. —Morning star 23:10, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Savitri Devi point of view can be explained well enough by using secondary sources. Wikipedia should not link to uncritical presentations of her writings, since the content is racist, anitsemitic and pro nazism. The editors of the s.o and l.f.c sites may be passionate collectors and editors of Savitri Devi stuff, but that does not turn them into authoritative experts. The editors claim that the purpose of the archive is not propaganda, however this does not change the fact that the sites are full with it. One of many examples for racism can be found on the very same letter page of s.o, where the editor in an answer to a letter extensively advocates race segregation and purity.--Schwalker 13:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The only secondary sources left would be those of Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke and Koenraad Elst which, beside having their own inaccuracies and biases, do not provide as full a picture as her writings and the findings of s.o.

It's logical to make links to her writings available, just as the pro-Nazi racist antisemitism in Mein Kampf is available from its article. Wikipedia is not Germany (where presenting these views are illegal), it does not have to limit itself solely to sites advocating universalist egalitarianism. I might find Communism objectionable, but I'd never argue that direct links to the writings of Lenin should not be provided, even if the site providing them presented him as the greatest genius ever to walk the earth.

I fail to see where the editor of s.o "extensively advocates race segregation and purity." I assume you mean his response to the letter inquiring if "Savitri Devi was a race-mixer," in which he argues that she doesn't meet the definition of that term. Note that I'm not making the case that Fowler is not "a racist," I assume he's sympathetic to Savitri's POV, I am arguing that those are not proper grounds for censoring him. As Wikipedia is not censored, "some articles may include objectionable text, images, or links if they are relevant to the content". —Morning star 17:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

If Wikipedia would use s.o or l.f.c as a source for its articles, it would declare these sites as reliable sources. But such a declaration would include every statement on these sites. So Wikipedia would agree with the racist or antisemitic content, too. This could be offensive for the reader. I have also explained this on Wikipedia_talk:External_links#Links_to_racist_or_antisemitic_sites, and demanded to remove s.o and l.f.c sites as sources from Wikipedia.--Schwalker 18:44, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia has direct links to Mein Kampf...in 10 languages. Are you going to ask that those links be removed as well? Links to Devi's writings should remain. Aryaman (☼) 15:23, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

In case of the Mein Kampf article it depends to what kind of web-sites these links go. I think the discussion belongs to Talk:Mein Kampf. --Schwalker (talk) 20:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

It's a direct analogy, used as an example in relation to changes to this article, and thus relevant. The links to Mein Kampf include a Gutenberg e-text - without any kind of 'critical preface'. (Which is how they can publish it in the first place: if it had a preface by another author, the same would be under copyright.) But we needn't limit it to Mein Kampf: following your argument, we should also eliminate links to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, for example, because some unsuspecting reader could assume that Wikipedia considers his philosophy to be a 'reliable source'.

The s.o. site is far from a shock site, and presents a fair collection of Devi's original work with little to no commentary (and where this is the case, the author is clearly identified). Unless you have other arguments to bring up, I see no reason to eliminate the link. Aryaman (☼) 22:08, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

At least the Gutenberg organization does not advocate racism like the s.o and l.f.c sites do as I've tried to explaine above. If you really believe that Kant advocated racism and antisemitism please propose a removal of links on Talk:Critique of Pure Reason. --Schwalker (talk) 09:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

If you can accept Gutenberg's edition of Mein Kampf, then you should have no problem including links to PDFs of Devi's works. Though I really see no need for one, I think that is a fair comprimise. Aryaman (☼) 11:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] White Supremacist?

This has always kinda bothered me. She believes Hitler was a demi-god, that more Jews should have died in the holocaust and that Germany is the spiritual was homeland of the Aryan peoples. Yet... she was also a Hindu & supported the struggles of ethnic Indians. So, technically, can she be considered a White Supremacist? It's seems the usage of the word Aryan in this case works in both the factual sense (Indian) and non-factual sense (German). So which one? Was she a multicultural anti-Semitic or what? I find it hard to believe many people would continue to take her very seriously…

69.250.130.215 22:12, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Linguistics traces the languages of both German and Hindi (as well as all other Indo-European language, hence the term) back to an 'Aryan' tongue at some point in distant history. The implication of this is that both Indians and the Germanic peoples of Europe are of the same cultural stock, albeit one very distant historically. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.205.110.52 (talk) 11:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] S. Devi and Traditionalism

The current article reads:

"(Her works) have also influenced traditionalist thought (philosophia perennis)."

Can we get some kind of qualification or reference here? I have read works of several members of the Traditionalist School (Guénon, Schoun, Coomaraswamy and others), and have yet to run across any mention of Savitiri Devi or anything in the way of original ideas advocated by her. Unless someone is willing to argue that Evola was the mouthpiece of Traditionalism, I don't see how we can make anything more than a mention of a perceived similarity - provided someone notable noticed the same. If we can't get references on this, I nominate it for deletion. Aryaman (☼) 21:33, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

P.S.: I just noticed the earlier discussion regarding this subject (under: Influenced?). This only encourages me to delete what appears to be a case of WP:OR. If anyone has evidence to the contrary, please submit it below. Aryaman (☼) 21:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kalki Avatar

Does anyone who has read her book know if Savitri Devi actually said that she believed Hitler to be the Kalki avatar? It does not say that in the article here. Yet it says this in the Kalki article. Vedantahindu (talk) 14:22, 9 June 2008 (UTC)