From Ariosophy to National Socialism

Lecture 2 in a series entitled “Reflections Beneath a Dark Sun: Myth, History, Politics and Paganism”.

In Dr. Alexander’s opinion, the Nazis didn’t so much concoct as unleash a chaos of esoteric ideas to do with racial supremacy and the need for a New Order that were rooted in an “Aryan” form of mysticism (Ariosophy) combined with völkisch nationalism. In this paper he will trace the way in which the myths, symbols and fantasies of a small number of occultists led towards the establishment of the Third Reich and, ultimately, the Holocaust. This lecture-seminar is the second in Stephen Alexander’s series on fascism, paganism and politics.

Philosopher of the taboo Stephen Alexander does an annual lecture-seminar at Treadwell’s. This year’s series looks at the darkly romantic temptation to seek out ways to tear apart the material reality of modern life, to make manifest “unbound powers of being”. His aim is to identify the nihilism in us all: not to say things because we think them, but so that we will not have to think them anymore; to rid our speech and our acts, our hearts and pleasures, of fascism. Dr. Stephen Alexander did his Ph.D. at Warwick University on D.H. Lawrence and continental philosophy. His work focuses on transgression, shock and forbidden subjects.

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