New Magic

Spiritualism

“I was introduced to an ex-Minister of Finance as my travelling companion...his theme of conversation was the need of a scientific investigation of spirits and spirit possession and divination etc., in order to decide scientifically the existence of the soul and an overruling mind...He certainly is much more intelligent about it than some of our American spiritualists...It seems there is quite a group of politicians in Tientsin who are much interested in psychical research. Considering that China is the aboriginal home of ghosts, I can’t see why the western investigators don’t start their research here.”

-John Dewey, Letters from China and Japan, 1920

World War One left the West reeling at the sheer numbers that were slaughtered at the height of the conflict. The loss to families and communities could not have been anticipated and in the aftermath there was a soul-wrenching coming-to-terms which radically changed the way in which people thought about themselves and their world. For some, a sense of denial set in and these people became the originators and - some would say - the dupes of the Spiritualist Movement.

Spiritualism is the belief that the human soul is immortal and that it ‘passes over’ to an existence on the ‘other side’ of this world. These souls, or spirits, are able to communicate to the living through the intercession of talented, psychic ‘sensitives’, or mediums, who are able to contact those ‘across the veil’. This contact usually takes the form of a trance generated at a meeting, or séance, where the medium is possessed by the spirit and conveys messages to the waiting group. Most mediums claim to be in touch with a recurring spirit, or ‘control’, who organises the other entities and prevents them from getting out of hand. Traditionally, the séance is not a free event: the medium and their sponsor charge for the session and this is where the whole practise becomes problematic:

In the wake of the War, many bereaved individuals contacted mediums in an attempt to ease their grief at having lost family members. Unscrupulous practitioners of the Spiritualist art often faked their pronouncements, betting on the gullibility of rich widows and widowers to rake in enormous sums. In time, as potential inheritances and fortunes shrank and relocated themselves into the pockets of con-artists, less-suggestible relatives began to investigate the activities of these “agents of the dead”, and many were exposed as the frauds they were.

Despite this, a solid core of citizens still sought to see if there was anything to the Spiritualist cause. Groups such as the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) came into existence and applied the cold eye of science to a range of phenomena, from spiritualism to hauntings. Well-known and respected pillars of society like Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, stood up in support of the Spiritualist Movement, publishing the fruits of their own research, and Harry Houdini made a living from debunking the activities of fraudulent practitioners. Inevitably, the case became clouded and no clear-cut decision as to whether the dead could contact the living was reached: as many phony cases were revealed as there were mysterious instances without apparent explanation.

Legally however, the case was cut and dried: people were making money out of the despair of bereaved wives and mothers, clutching at fairy-stories to allay their grief. It became a crime in England to accept money for divinations or for séances; shortly afterwards, the law passed into effect in Shanghai too, where the diviner’s art was arguably more colourful but subtly more dangerous: there, a visit to a medium would almost certainly lead to blackmail, or the selling of the bereaved into slavery.

Nazi Occultism

The mystical Nazi worldview stemmed largely from the writings of Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and her advocate, Guido von List. Blavatsky taught that the ‘creator race’ which was foretold, would be the fifth ‘root race’ – the Aryans - who would emerge to re-build and consecrate a new world; von List added to this notion a pastiche of Grail legend, heavily influenced by Teutonic ideas. He preached a coming paradise modelled on the Wotanic religions of yore, symbolised by a re-working of the Nordic runes which he published. Failed priest, Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, took this viewpoint and wrapped it in some Eugenics theories which were popular at the time and broadcast the ‘Nazi occult’. After Hitler’s rise to power, he banned the writings of Lanz; Lanz had demanded more credit for the creation of the Third Reich than Hitler was prepared to give and so they tried to silence him.

Blavatsky’s hashish-mashed remembrances of the Book of Dzyan have already been discussed; but what about von List? He claimed to have had ‘visions of the past’ which put him in touch with Wotanic, or Teutonic, rituals and which allowed him to interpret the runic lore of the past. This is heavily suggestive of the use of the Liao Drug and, given the circles in which he moved, it is likely that von List would have been able to locate a copy of Ludwig Prinn’s De Vermis Mysteriis. List’s grail lore informed Wagner’s musical monomania and also Lanz’s idiot scribblings in Ostara, lending an Arthurian tone to the Third Reich’s mysticism.

Himmler’s Ahnenerbe, the archaeological office dedicated to re-writing history from a Nazi viewpoint, travelled the world in the ‘30s and early ‘40s trying to locate mystical objects to help in the success of the Third Reich; the Ark of the Covenant, the Spear of Longinus and the Holy Grail are just a few of the artefacts which they targeted for collection. Many Mythos creations were unearthed as well and led to, amongst other instances, the attempted destruction of Professor Hinterstoisser’s Prolegomena zu Einer Geschichte der Magie for reasons largely, at this time, unknown.

Emblem of the Ahnenerbe