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| Not all neo-pagans are extreme right wingers |
In my piece on The Morning of
the Magicians in June 2018, I wrote: ‘’As covered fairly extensively in
our May 2018 posts, due probably to the current socio-political realities (i.e.
the rise of right-wing nationalistic politics with xenophobic agendas due to
refugee problems), there has been a recent upswing in interest in the relation
of politics and the occult, including the influence of the theosophical
movement on Nazism.’’
At the time, I noted the above-average media coverage
of the Kurlander book and was consternated by the widespread uncritical
acceptance, with a solitary exception. Fortunately there has been more critical
responses since then, as more reviews from academic journals have come out.
Below is a selection that has many perceptive and knowledgeable observations of
great interest, in response to a work that can be said to have a perspective of
an anti-esoteric modern materialist rationalism in the vein of The Greeks and
the Irrational (1951) by E. R. Dodds, (empirical logic=rational=good vs. supernatural=irrational=bad).
I must say that, having read the introduction of the book recently, it's not bad. He seems to be a solid scholar of political history, the history of liberal democracy. Useful until something better comes along. It's marred by the sensationalist packaging (a gratuitous full page photo of Blavatsky at the beginning, among others lapses in taste). Perhaps the problem is that the esoteric angle is not the author's specialty, and he was not fully aware of the problems of wildly uneven quality and accuracy in the burgeoning literature in the field, judging from the tendency to accept second-hand references without verifying the original sources. When dealing with the 1925-1945 period, it seems more solid, whereas the 1875-1925 period is a lot weaker, full of sketchy references and wild speculation phrased as facts. (PS- He actually has researched 1900-1925 period extensively, so I'll assume the weaknesses lie in the esoteric and 19th century history areas, but see Thorwald Franke's review).
Hitler’s Monsters? A Look at
German “Scientific Occultism” and Fascism
Andreas Sommer March 4, 2019
I can only suppose Eric Kurlander’s work on his book Hitler’s
Monster’s. A Supernatural History of the Third Reich (Yale University
Press, 2017) has been motivated by similar feelings of anxiety and
helplessness. At least this might explain (though by no means excuse) this
unhelpful historical scapegoating exercise. Because impartial, rigorously
researched historical scholarship the book is not. Yale University Press
advertises Hitler’s Monsters as the “definitive history of the
supernatural in Nazi Germany”, but the most detailed review of the book, by a
historian of religion and politics at Heidelberg University,
begs to differ (Strube, 2017). https://www.forbiddenhistories.com/hitlers-monsters-part-1-2/
Anti-Fascist Holism and
Jewish Parapsychology: Another Look at Hitler’s Monsters
Andreas Sommer October 13,
2019
Interestingly, Kurlander himself states that “Given
occultism’s broad impact on Weimar
culture, including a number of left-wing and Jewish artists, it would be
inaccurate to suggest that occultism was inherently racist or fascist”
(Kurlander, 2017, p. 76). Yet, as we have already seen, his book as a whole
tells a rather different story: It lumps together all sorts of sometimes
competing ‘esoteric’ ideas and Eastern philosophies in his shorthand of
‘occultism’ as a pastime of anti-Semites and other villains, only to contrast
it with an equally absurd depiction of ‘mainstream science’ as an aggregate of
self-evident anti-fascism. https://www.forbiddenhistories.com/hitlers-monsters-part-2-2/
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| This alternative spirituality group is peaceful |
Eva Kingsepp Ariès - Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism, 2019
Instead, after a brief accountof the book’s narrative content, regarded as part of contemporary occulture, the rest of this article discusses its form as part of scientific discourse, with focus on the author’s treatment of his referenced sources being misinterpreted and/or distorted in order to support the narrative. https://www.academia.edu/40438780/Scholarship_as_Simulacrum_The_Case_of_Hitlers_Monsters
Eric Kurlander, Hitler’s
Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich
Brandon Bloch, January 11, 2018
Hitler’s Monsters leaves open the question of
how to integrate the supernatural into the mainstream of scholarship on Nazi
Germany, where it continues to play a secondary role. While demonstrating the
ubiquity of supernatural thinking at the highest levels of the regime,
Kurlander recognizes that occultism constitutes only one of multiple factors
necessary to explain Nazi atrocities. “The Third Reich’s crimes took on
monumental dimensions because the Nazis drew both on border scientific theories
peculiar to the Austro-German supernatural imaginary as well as a
broader European mix of eugenics, racism, and colonialism” (232). https://readingreligion.org/books/hitlers-monsters
A really scary book with many mistakes by Professor Eric Kurlander.
Thorwald C. Franke, 31 October 2023.
This book is authored by a real scientist and a real historian, and it
has as bold claim to be scientific and comprehensive. The book is highly
praised in many reviews. And it has been translated into many
languages, even Chinese.
But in truth, Eric Kurlander has just written another semi- if not
pseudo-scientific book which draws heavily on the eerie fascination of
connecting National Socialism with the occult as the alleged foundation
of the Nazi ideology, while by doing so obscuring the real foundations
of the terrible ideology, that National Socialism is.
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