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THE NEW INQUISITIONS: HERETIC-HUNTING AND THE INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF MODERN TOTALITARIANISM

Notes

CHAPTER 1

1. One such figure is Thomas Fleming, editor of the American political
magazine Chronicles, whose editorial columns sometimes ramble off into
angry denunciations of St. Clement of Alexandria (whom Fleming sees as a
kind of vegetarian hippie).
2. See Tertullian, Against the Valentinians, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers,
vol. III.
3- See Jaroslaw Piekalkiewicz and Alfred W. Penn, Politics of Ideocracy
(Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1995).
4. From Benito Mussolini, "Dottrina," in Political Quarterly 4 (July
1933):341-356, here quoted with minor grammatical corrections of the translation.
5. See Czeslaw Milosz, Captive Mind (New York: Harper, 1953), p. 58.
6. Ibid., p. 60.
7· Ibid., pp. 198-199.
8. Ibid., p. 208.
9. Ibid., pp. 209-210.
10. Ibid., p. 213-
II. Ibid., p. 214.
12. Ibid., p. 219.
13. See Fyodor Dostoevsky, ch. 5, "The Grand Inquisitor," in The Brothers
Karamazov (New York: Random House, 1985), p. 267.
158 NOTES TO PAGES 13-18
CHAPTER 2
!. See, for example, the collection sponsored by the Vatican, Agostino Borromeo,
et al., eds., Minutes of the International Symposium "The Inquisition" (Rome: Vatican,
2°°4)·
2. See, for various broad overviews of the history of the inquisition, Elphege Vacandard,
The Inquisition: A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the
Church, B. Conway, trans. (London: Longman, 1915), or Edward Burman, The Inquisition:
The Hammer of Heresy (Wellingborough: Thorsons, 1984). Another such study is
Guy Mathelie-Guinlet, L'inquisition: Tribunal de la foi (Paris: Auberon, 2000). See also
more recent academic works like Joseph Perez, The Spanish Inquisition (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005), and Irene Silverblatt, Modern Inquisitions: Peru
and the Colonial Origins of the Civilized World (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press,
2004). Also of interest is John H. Arnold, Inquisition and Power: Catharism and the
Confessing Subject in Medieval Languedoc (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2001).
3- See Henry Charles Lea, Superstition and Force (Philadelphia: Lea, 1892), 485.
Lea is also the author of The History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, 3 vols. (New
York: Macmillan, 19°8), and of A History of the Inquisition in Spain, 3 vols. (New York:
Macmillan, 19°6-19°7).
4. See, on confession, John H. Arnold, Inquisition and Power: Catharism and the
Confessing Subject in Medieval Languedoc (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2001), pp. 90ff.
5. Bartolome Bennassar, "Patterns of the Inquisitorial Mind as the Basis for a
Pedagogy of Fear," in Angel Alcala, ed., The Spanish Inquisition and the Inquisitorial
Mind (Boulder, Colo.: Social Science Monographs, 1987), p. 177.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., p. 178.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., p. 180.
II. Ibid.
12. Jaime Contreras, El Santi Oficio de la Inquisici6n de Galicia (Madrid, 1982),
p. 149, cited in Bennassar, p. 18!.
13. See Henry Ansgar Kelly, Inquisitions and Other Trial Procedures in the West
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), p. 417.
14. Bennassar, p. 18!.
15. Ibid., p. 183.
16. Ibid.
17. John Tedeschi, The Prosecution of Heresy (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance
Texts & Studies, 1991), pp. 132-133.
NOTES TO PAGES 20-25 159
CHAPTER 3
I. See Jean-Louis Darcel, "Maistre, Mentor of the Prince," in Richard Lebrun,
ed., joseph de Maistre, Lift, Thought, and Influence (Montreal: McGill, 2001), p. 127. On
Saint-Martin, see p. 123. See also Franck Lafage, Le comte joseph de Maistre (Paris:
L'Harmattan, 1998), pp. 145-15°.
2. See Robert Triomphe, joseph de Maistre: Etude sur la vie et sur la doctrine d'un
materialiste mystique (Geneva: 1968), and see also on the related topic Antoine Faivre,
"Maistre and Willermoz," in R. Lebrun, ed., Maistre Studies (Lanham, Md.: University
Press of America, 1988), pp. 100-125.
3. See Joseph de Maistre, Letters to a Russian Gentleman on the Spanish Inquisition,
A. M. Dawson, trans. (London: Dolman, 1851), pp. 19-22.
4· Ibid., p. 33-
5. See Bartolome Bennassar, "Patterns of the Inquisitorial Mind as the Basis for
a Pedagogy of Fear," in Angel Alcala, ed., Inquisiti6n espanola y mentalidad inquisitorial
(Barcelona: Ariel, 1984), trans. as The Spanish Inquisition and the Inquisitorial Mind
(Boulder, Colo.: Social Science Monographs, 1987), pp. 178-179.
6. Ibid., p. 38.
7. Ibid.
8. This is the argument throughout Letter IV, pp. 38ff.
9. See Rtiflexions sur Ie protestantisme dans ses rapports avec la souveraineti, in Oeuvres
completes (Lyons: Vitte et Perrussel. 1884-1993), vol. 8, p. 493.
10. See Richard LeBrun, Throne and Altar: The Political and Religious Thought of
joseph de Maistre (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1965), pp. 152-154.
II. See Maistre, On the Origins of Sovereignty, in Against Rousseau, R. Lebrun,
trans. (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996), p. 163.
12. Ibid., p. 142. See also The Works of joseph de Maistre, J. Lively, ed. (New York:
Macmillan, 1965), p. 114.
13. Lively, ed., Works of joseph de Maistre, p. 135.
14. See Emile Faguet, Politiques et moralists du dix-neuvieme siec!e, I (Paris: 1899),
p. I, cited by Isaiah Berlin in The Crooked Timber of Humanity (New York: Knopf,
1991), p. 94. See also Samuel Rocheblave, "Etude sur Joseph de Maistre," Revue
d'histoire et de philosophie religieuses 2 (1922):312.
15. Berlin, Crooked Timber, p. 119.
16. Ibid., p. 125.
17. Maistre, Oeuvres, I, p. 376, cited in Berlin, Crooked Timber, p. 126.
18. Berlin, Crooked Timber, p. 126.
19. Ibid.
20. Lebrun, ed. joseph de Maistre's Lift, Thought, pp. 286-287.
21. Ibid., p. 288.
22. See Stephen Holmes, The Anatomy of Antiliberalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1993), pp. 7, 36.
23. See Graeme Garrard, "Joseph de Maistre and Carl Schmitt," in Lebrun, ed.,
pp. 221-222.
24. Ibid., pp. 236-238.
160 NOTES TO PAGES 27-36
CHAPTER 4
I. See John T. Graham, Donoso Cortes: Utopian Romanticist and Political Realist
(Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974), pp. 19ff.
2. See Jeffrey Johnson, ed., The Selected Works of Juan Donoso Cortes (Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood, 2000), p. 46; "Speech on Dictatorship," from Obras completas de
Don Juan Donoso Cortes, 2 vols., J. Juretschke, ed. (Madrid: Bibliotec de Autores Cristianos,
1946). See also Bela Menszer, ed., Catholic Political Thought: 1789-1848 (South
Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1962).
3· Ibid., p. 44·
4· Ibid., p. 53·
5· Ibid., p. 55·
6. Ibid., p. 57.
7· Ibid., p. 56.
8. See Graham, Donoso Cortes, pp. 302-308.
9. Ibid., p. 302.
10. Ibid., p. 303.
II. Ibid., p. 304.
12. Johnson, Selected Works, p. 72.
13. Ibid.
14. See his letter to the editor of EI Heraldo, 15April 1852, in Selected Works,
P·95·
15· Ibid., pp. 97-98.
16. See "Letter to Cardinal Fornari on the Errors of Our Times," in ibid., pp. I02-
1°3·
17. See Donoso Cortes, Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism, W. Mc-
Donald, trans. (Dublin: W. Kelly,1874), p. 201, and Juan Donoso Cortes, Ensayo sobre
el catolicismo, elliberalismo y el socialismo, J. Gomez, ed. (Barcelona: Planeta, 1985).
18. Essays, pp. 37-44; Ensayo, pp. 25-29.
19. Essays, p. 42; Ensayo, p. 29.
20. See Carl Schmitt, "The Unknown Donoso Cortes," in Telos 125 (Fall 2002):
84-85.
21. Ibid., p. 86.
22. See, for example, Carl Schmitt, "Donoso Cortes in Berlin (1849)" in Telos 125
(Fall 2002):99.
CHAPTER 5
I. Wyndham Lewis, The Art of Being Ruled (London: 1926), p. 128.
2. Sorel's emphasis on the salutary value of violence as a revolutionary means
manifested itself in a new form in the celebration of the violence of war in Nazi-era
figures such as Ernst Junger. In both cases, violence was seen as having a quasimystical
revelatory power, though in Sorel that power was instrumental in bringing
about an imagined coming workers' utopia, whereas in Junger and related similar eel·
ebrants of war, heroism in war was a kind of existential act in itself.
NOTES TO PAGES 36-44 161
3. See, on the Mafia and Sorel's work, Michael Freund, Georges Sorel: Der revolutioniire
Konservatismus (Frankfurt: Klostermann, I932), pp. 63-64.
4. See Sorel, "Le caractere religieux du socialisme," published in Mouvement socialiste
(November, I906), and republished in Materiaux d'une thCorie du proletariat
(Paris: Riviere, I9I9, I923), translated version in Hermeneutics and the Sciences: From
Georges Sorel, Vol. 2, John Stanley, ed. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, I989),
pp.67-98.
5. From Georges Sorel, Vol. 2, p. 36.
6. Ibid., p. 41.
7. Ibid., "The Religious Character of Socialism," p. 79.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
IO. Ibid., p. 80.
II. Ibid., p. 81.
I2. Ibid., "Marxism and Social Science," p. I86, from Sorel, Saggi di critica del
Marxismo (Milano-Palermo: Sandron, I903), pp. I69-I88.
I} Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence, T. E. Hulme, trans. (Glencoe: Free
Press, I950), p. I25.
I4. Ibid.
I5. Ibid., pp. I24-I25·
I6. Ibid., p. I32.
I7. See Sorel, Reflections on Violence, p. 285. It is clear, because he cites him, that
Sorel knew Maistre's work first hand. Furthermore, the conclusion to Reflections on
Violence is quite Maistrean.
I8. Ibid., p. 298.
I9. Ibid., p. 300.
20. Ibid., p. 28.
21. See Jack Roth, The Cult of Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press,
I980), pp. 223-224-
22. Ibid., p. I6I.
230 See Sorel, Reflections, pp. 303ff.
24. Richard Vernon, Commitment and Change: Georges Sorel and the Idea of Revolution
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, I978), p. 69.
25. See Jules Renard, Journal, 1887-1910 (Paris: Gallimard, I960), II:I203, cited
in Michael Curtis, Three Against the Third Republic (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, I959), p. 57·
26. See Charles Maurras, Au signe de Flore (Paris: I93I), p. 9.
27. Charles Maurras, Barbarie et poesie (Paris: I925), p. iii.
28. Charles Maurras, L'Allee des philosophes (Paris: I924), p. 256.
29. Charles Maurras, La Democratie religieuse (Paris: I926), pp. 219, 343.
30. Ibid., pp. I95, 341.
31. See "Intermede philosophique: les solutions de la question juive," La Gazette
de France, 7 January I899, cited in William Buthman, The Rise of Integral Nationalism
in France (New York: Columbia University Press, I939), p. 232.
32. See "Sagesse! Sagesse!" in La Gazette de France, 9 Feb. I899: and "M. Joseph
162 NOTES TO PAGES 44-53
Reinach, La Gazette de France, 30 April 1899, cited in Buthman, Rise of Integral Nationalism,
p. 232.
33. See Charles Maurras, Oeuvres Capitales (Paris: Flammarion, 1954), ii:33-34'
34. Charles Maurras, Le Pape, la Guerre, et la Paix (Paris: Nouvelle Librairie,
1917), esp. pp. 57-59.
35. On Maurras and occultism, see Maurras, Music Within Me, Count Potocki,
trans. (London: Right Review, 1946), p. 3.
36. See Eugen Weber, Action Franliaise: Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth-
Century France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962), p. 220.
37. Michel Winock, Nationalism, Anti-Semitism, and Fascism in France (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1998), p. 183.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. See Weber, Action Franliaise, p. 363.
41. See Charles Maurras, La Contre-Revolution Spontanee (Paris: Lardanchet,
1943), pp. 99-102.
42. Charles Maurras, La Democratie Religieuse (Paris: Nouvelle Librairie, 1921),
PP·204-207·
43- See Winock, Nationalism, pp. 155-157.
CHAPTER 6
I. See Jan-Werner Miiller, A Dangerous Mind: Carl Schmitt in Post-War European
Thought (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 7.
2. Ibid., p. 205.
3. See Carl Schmitt and G. Schwab, trans., The Leviathan in the State Theory of
Thomas Hobbes (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1996), p. 26.
4. See Hugh Urban, "Religion and Secrecy in the Bush Administration: The
Gentleman, the Prince, and the Simulacrum," in Esoterica VII (2°°5):1-38.
5. See Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1952), p. 17; Leo Strauss, "Farabi's Plato," Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume
(New York:American Academy for Jewish Research, 1945), pp. 357-393, 384.
6. Schmitt, Leviathan, p. 3.
7· Ibid., p. 29·
8. Ibid., p. 60.
9. Ibid., p. 62.
10. Ibid., pp. 96-97.
II. See Heinrich Meier, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss: The Hidden Dialogue (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 59, citing The Concept of the Political (1933
ed.), III:9.
12. See Schmitt, Politische Theologie II (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1970),
p. 103, to wit: "Fiir eine Besinnung auf die theologischen Moglichkeiten spezifisch
justischen Denkens ist Tertullian der Prototyp."
13. Heinrich Meier, The Lesson of Carl Schmitt (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1998), p. 92.
NOTES TO PAGES 53-57 163
14. See Meier, Lesson of Carl Schmitt, p. 94, citing Tertullian, De praescriptione
haereticorum, VII:9-13: "Quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolyrnis? Quid academiae et ecclesiae?
Quid haereticis et Christianis?"
15. Schmitt, PTII, Politische Theologie II, p. 120: "Der gnostische Dualismus setzt
einen Gott der liebe, einen welt-fremden Gott, als den Erl6ser-Gott gegen den gerechten
Gott, den Herrn und Schopfer dieser b6sen Welt ... [einer Art gefahrlichen
Kalten Kriegesj."
16. Ibid., p. 122.
17. See A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, eds., Ante-Nicene Fathers (Edinburgh: T & T
Clark, 1989). III:521.
18. Ibid., III:643.
19. See Tertullian's treatise "Scorpiace," De praescriptione haereticorum, III:633-
648.
20. Here we might remark that Western forms of Christianity are strikingly different
in this respect from those in the Eastern Church, where mysticism remained
(however uneasily at times) incorporated into orthodoxy itself and not imagined as
inherently inimical to orthodoxy.
21. See Carl Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus
Publicum Europaeum, G. L. Ulmen, trans. (New York: Telos, 2003), pp. 59-60.
22. Ibid., p. 60.
23. Carl Schmitt, G. Schwab, trans., The Concept of the Political (New Brunswick,
N.J.: Rutgers, 1976), p. 51.
24· Ibid., p. 64·
25· Ibid., p. 65.
26. Ibid., p. 67.
27. I write "supposedly" dualist and "reputedly" held the world to be evil because
these accusations, repeated by Tertullian and several other ante-Nicene Fathers, are
hardly borne out as characteristics of all the works we see in the Nag Hammadi library,
the collection of actual Gnostic writings discovered in 1945.
28. Ibid., p. 29.
29. See Luciano Pellicani, Revolutionary Apocalypse: Ideological Roots of Terrorism
(Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003), p. xi. I wholeheartedly agree with Pellicani's basic
thesis that "The expansion on a planetary scale of a new form of chiliasm that substituted
transcendence with absolute immanence and paradise with a classless and
stateless society is the most extraordinary and shattering historical-cultural phenomenon
of the secular age." But this "new form of chiliasm" has nothing whatever to do
with Gnosticism as an actual historical phenomenon. One cannot find a single instance
in late antiquity among the Gnostics themselves for such a phenomenonbut
if one were to refer instead to "the destructive calling of modern secular millennialist
revolution" that seeks to "purify the existing through a policy of mass terror and
annihilation," Pellicani's thesis would no longer be subject to the criticism of an
anachronistic misuse of terms. Later in the book, Pellicani discusses the cases of the
Pol Pot regime and of Communist China-both of which illustrate his larger thesis
well. But neither of these have anything whatever to do with the phenomenon of
Gnosticism in any historically meaningful sense. Even Voegelin himself expressed
164 NOTES TO PAGES 58-65
doubts about attempting to apply "Gnosticism" to the case of Communist Russia-let
alone to Cambodia!
30. See Carl Schmitt, "Das Judentum in der deutschen Rechtswissenschaft: in
"Die deutsche Rechtswissenschaft im Kampf gegen den jiidischen Geist," in Deutsche
juristen-Zeitung, 41 (15October 1936), 20:1193-1199, cited in Gopal Balakrishnan, The
Enemy: An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt (London: Verso, 2000), p. 206. See also
Schmitt's lecture "Die deutsche Rechtswissenschaft im Kampf gegen den jiidischen
Geist," in Die judentum in der Rechtswissenschaft (Berlin: Deutscher Recht-Verlag,
1936), a brief volume that contains Schmitt's assertions of Jews as "parasitic," adding
"fur uns" a "Jewish author has no authority." See in particular pp. 29-30. See also
Bernd Riithers, Carl Schmitt im Dritten Reich, 2nd ed. (Munich: Beck, 1990)'
31. See "K6nnen wir uns vor Justizirrtum schiitzen?" Der Angrijf. I September
1936, cited in Andreas Koenen, Der Fall Carl Schmitt (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche,
1995). p. 703; see also Balakrishnan, The Enemy, pp. 202-203.
CHAPTER 7
I. See Arto Luukkanen, The Party of Unbelief The Religious Policy of the Bolshevik
Party, 1917-1929(Helsinki: Finnish Historical Society, 1994), pp. 42-43.
2. See Nicholas Berdyaev, The Russian Revolution (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1966).
3. See Lev D. Trotsky, The Young Lenin (Devon, U.K.: Newton Abbas, 1972), p. 95.
4· Luukkanen, Party of Unbelief p. 55·
5. Robert Wesson, Lenin's Legacy: The Story of the CPSU (Stanford: Hoover Institute,
1978), pp. 21-22.
6. Ibid., p. 99, citing Vladimir Lenin, Collected Works (London: Lawrence & Wishart,
1960), vol. 31, p. 353.
7. Ibid., p. 80.
8. See Vladimir Lenin, On the United States of America (Moscow: Progress,
1967), p. 364.
9· Ibid., p. 365.
10. Wesson, Lenin's Legacy, p. 21.
II. Ibid., p. 23.
12. See V. 1. Lenin, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (New
York: International Publishers, 1934), p. 19, citing Friedrich Engels, "Uber das Autoritatsprinzip,"
Neue Zeit (1913-1914) I:39. See also Robert Service, A History of Twentieth-
Century Russia (New York: Penguin, 1997), pp. 1°7-108.
13. John Reshetar, A Concise History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(NewYork: Praeger, 1965), p. 212. See Lewis Siegelbaum, Soviet State and Society between
Revolutions, 1918-1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 53-54.
14. Luukkannen, Party of Unbelief pp. 64-65. See also Siegelbaum, Soviet State
and Society, pp. 156-165.
15. See Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956(New York:
Harper & Row, 1974).
NOTES TO PAGES 65-72 165
16. See Luukkanen, Party of Unbelief, pp. 80, 85. See also Dmitry Pospielovsky,
Soviet Antireligious Campaigns and Persecutions (London: Macmillan, 1988), pp. 5-II.
17. See Robert C. Tucker, Stalin in Power: The Revolution From Above 1928-1941
(New York: Norton, 1990), pp. 102ff. See also Joshua Rubenstein and Vladimir Naumov,
eds., Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001), and Oleg Khlevnyuk, "The
Objectives of the Great Terror, 1937-1938," in Julian Cooper et aI., eds., Soviet History,
1917-1953 (London: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 158-176.
18. See Nicolas Werth, "Strategies of Violence in the Stalinist USSR," in H.
Rousso, ed., Stalinism and Nazism (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004),
PP·73-75·
19· Ibid., p. 73·
20. Ibid., pp. 84-85.
21. Ibid., p. 86.
CHAPTER 8
1. See Wouter Hanegraaff, "On the Construction of 'Esoteric Traditions' " in Antoine
Faivre and Wouter Hanegraaff, eds., Western Esotericism and the Science of Religion
(Leuven: Peeters, 1998), pp. II-62. This article confirms my thesis here concerning
Voegelin. See page 36, where Hanegraaff quotes Hans Blumenberg, who in
Siikulisierung und Selbstbehautptung (Frankfurt: Surhkamp, 1985). p. 144, writes that
"When someone says that modernity would be better labeled 'the Gnostic era: he recalls
to memory the enemy from the beginning (der UTjienclJwho did not come from
outside but sat at the very root of Christianity's origin." Hanegraaff adds "That is wellformulated,"
and concludes that "heresiological propaganda" did not cease with the
Enlightenment, but continued in secular form in "conspiracy" or "disease" interpretations
of esotericism like Voegelin's.
2. I will note here at the outset the conventional and useful scholarly distinction
between the generic terms gnosis (direct realization of spiritual truth for oneself) and
gnostic (those who realize spiritual truth or union, a term that can apply not only to
Christians but also more broadly, to, for instance, Muslims and Buddhists), and the
specific terms Gnosticism and Gnostic, which are generally taken to refer to the Christian
religious currents of late antiquity that later became demonized by what came to
be known as orthodox Christianity. Although Voegelinism uses capitalized and non·
capitalized forms of these terms indifferently, I have endeavored to keep to common
usage. When in doubt, however, I use lowercase forms such as "gnosis" and "gnosticism."
3. Eric Voegelin, Science, Politics and Gnosticism (Chicago: Regnery, 1958), p. II.
4. Ibid., p. 12.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., p. 30.
7· Ibid., p. 30.
8. Ibid., p. 43.
r66 NOTES TO PAGES 72-78
9. See Gregor Sebba, "History, Modernity, and Gnosticism," in The Philosophy of
Order: Essays on History, Consciousness and Politics, Peter Opitz and Gregor Sebba, eds.
(Stuttgart: Klett, r98r), p. 190.
10. Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1952), p. 134·
II. Ibid., pp. 134-135.
12. It is worth noting here that Philip J. Lee took up Voegelin's argument in a
book entitled Against the Protestant Gnostics (New York: Oxford University Press,
1987), in which he makes giant Voegelinian claims about how "gnostic" Calvinism is,
how the Founding Fathers of the United States make (in the sardonic summary of
Culianu) "awesome gnostics," and how modern Protestantism has to purge itself of
this growing menace.
13. Eric Voegelin, "Ersatz Religion" in Science, Politics, and Gnosticism, p. 83-
14. See loan P. Culianu, "The Gnostic Revenge: Gnosticism and Romantic Literature,"
in Gnosis und Politik (Munich: W. Fink, 1984), p. 290, in which he bemusedly
remarks on his "enlightenment," his realization that neoplatonism, the entire Reformation,
"Communism," "Nazism," "liberalism, existentialism and psychoanalysis
were gnostic too, modern biology was gnostic," "science" is gnostic; Marx, Freud, and
Jung were gnostic; "all things and their opposite are equally gnostic." One should
note that although Culianu does not directly say so, this sarcastic list is in fact primarily
referring to Voegelin's ascriptions to "gnosticism."
15. Ibid., p. 100.
16. See The Philosophy of Order, p. 452.
17· Ibid., p. 456.
18. On this subject, see Arthur Versluis, Wisdom's Children: A Christian Esoteric
Tradition (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press: 1999), esp. ch. XVIII, "Theosophy and Gnosticism."
19. See, for instance, Alain de Benoist, L'Europe Pai"enne (Paris: Seghers, 1980);
Comment peut-on etre paiimne? (Paris: Albin Michel, 1981). See also his dialogue with
Thomas Molnar entitled L'Eclipse du sam! (Paris: La Table Ronde, 1986), esp. pp. 129-
177. See also Deuteronomy 13.12-16.
20. Ferdinand Christian Baur, Die christliche Gnosis, oder die christliche Religions-
Philosophia in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Tubingen: 1835),pp. 21ff.
21. See Gregor Sebba, "History, Modernity, and Gnosticism," in Philosophy of Order,
p. 192.
22. Ibid., pp. 195ff.
23. Stephen McKnight, "Voegelin's Challenge to Modernity's Claim to be Scientific
and Secular," in The Politics of the Soul, Glenn Hughs, ed. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman
& Littlefield, 1999). p. 186.
24- See Stephen McKnight, "Gnosticism and Modernity: Voegelin's Reconsiderations
in 1971," 2001 APSA Panel Paper, downloaded as a pdf file from http://www.pro
.harvard.edu/papers/ °91/ °910°7 /McKnightSt. pdf.
I took the liberty of correcting some grammatical errors in the transcription, but
the meaning is unaltered. See also Stefan Rossbach, " 'Gnosis' in Eric Voegelin's PhiNOTES
TO PAGES 79-9I I67
losophy," downloaded as a pdf file from http://www.pro.harvard.edu/papers/09I/
°910°7 jRossbachSt.pdf.
25. Ibid., p. 202.
26. See The Philosophy of Order, p. 241.
27. Stefan Rossbach, Gnostic Wars: The Cold War in the Contest of a History of
Western Spirituality (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), p. 230.
28. Stephen McKnight, "Gnosticism and Modernity."
I took the liberty of correcting some grammatical errors in the transcription, but
the meaning is unaltered. Voegelin's remark cited is on page 2.
29. Cyril O'Regan, Gnostic Apocalypse: jacob Biihme's Haunted Narrative (Albany,
N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2002), pp. I, 231, 299.
30. See Versluis, Wisdom's Children. See also Antoine Faivre, Theosophy, Imagina·
tion, Tradition, C. Rhone, trans. (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2000).
31. O'Regan, Gnostic Apocalypse, p. 24.
32. Ibid., p. 23.
33. Ibid., p. 212.
34· Ibid., p. 213.
35· Ibid., p. 14·
36. See Catherine Tumber, American Feminism and the Birth of New Age Spirituality:
Searchingfor the Higher Self, 1875-1915 (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield,
2002), pp. 2-3.
37· Ibid., p. 174-
38. Ibid., pp. 174-175.
CHAPTER 9
I. Joseph McCarthy died in 1957.
2. See Norman Cohn, Pursuit of the Millennium (London: Seeker, 1957), p. xiii.
3- Ibid., p. xiv.
4. Ibid., p. 306.
5· Ibid., p. 307·
6. Ibid., pp. 179-185.
7. Ibid., p. 184; the phrase "Goded with God" was that of Ann Bathurst, in her
journal entry of 25 December 1692, where she exclaimed "in the fullness I say, I am
Goded with God, he has filled and how else can I utter myself when I am filled with
him? He speaks, not I: for I am no more I." See Arthur Versluis, ed., Wisdom's Book:
The Sophia Anthology (St. Paul, Minn.: Paragon House, 2000), p. 165.
8. Cohn, Pursuit, p. 185.
9. Ibid., p. 186.
10. Ibid., pp. 179, 259, 304-305.
II. Ibid., p. 314.
12. See Norman Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great
Witch·hunt (New York: Basic, 1975), p. xiv.
13. Ibid., p. xi.
168 NOTES TO PAGES 91-101
14. Ibid., especially pages I-59, wherein Cohn treats the "demonization of medieval
heretics," focusing in particular on the transformation of the Waldensians into
"Luciferians. "
15· Ibid., p. 85·
16. Ibid., p. 88.
17. Ibid., p. 258.
18. Ibid., pp. 258-259.
CHAPTER 10
1. See Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism (New York:New
York University Press, 1985) and Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics
of Identity (New York:New York University Press, 2001). See also Corinna Treitel,
A Science for the Soul: Occultism and the Genesis of the German Modern (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), especially her chapter "The Spectrum of Nazi
Responses," pp. 210-242.
2. See Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life (Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp, 1951/London: Verso, 1974), pp. 238-244; Telos 19 (1974)7-13; and
Stephen Crook, ed., The Stars Down to Earth and other Essays on the Irrational in Culture
(London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 128-134.
3. See the Telos translation, p. 7; Minima Moralia, p. 238. Of these two, the Telos
translation is significantly superior.
4· Telos translation, p. 7·
5. Ibid., p. 8.
6. Ibid.
7· Ibid., p. 9·
8. Ibid., p. 10.
9. Ibid.
10. See, for instance, Antoine Faivre's Access to Western Esotericism (Albany, N.Y.:
SUNY Press, 1994), or Jean-Paul Corsetti's Histoire de l'esoterisme et des sciences occultes,
(Paris: Larousse, 1993), or the first half of my own Restoring Paradise (Albany,N.Y.:
SUNY Press, 2004), or my forthcoming Magic and Mysticism: An Introduction to Western
Esotericism.
II. Ibid., p. II.
12. Ibid, p. 12.
13- See Theodor Adorno, "The Stars Down to Earth: The Los Angeles Times Astrology
Column," Telos 19 (1974):13-90; see also Crook, ed., The Stars Down to Earth.
14· Ibid., p. 13.
15· Ibid., pp. 14-15.
16. Ibid., p. 16.
17· Ibid., p. 27.
18. Ibid., p. 85.
19· Ibid., p. 89·
20. Ibid., p. 90.
21. See, for example, Patrick Curry, Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early ModNOTES
TO PAGES 101-108 169
em England (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989)' For another, much more
limited but still historically informed account, see Arthur Versluis, The Esoteric Origins
of the American Renaissance (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), especially the
discussion of astrological almanacs in early American life.
22. See Daphna Canetti-Nisim, "Two Religious Meaning Systems, One Political
Belief System: Religiosity, Alternative Religiosity, and Political Extremism," in Leonard
Weinberg and Ami Pedhzur, Religious Fundamentalism and Political Extremism
(London: Frank Cass, 2004), pp. 35-54.
23- See Treitel, A Science for the Soul, pp. 210-242.
24. Ibid., p. 231.
25· Ibid., p. 233.
26. Ibid., p. 235.
27. For more on Nazism and occultism, see Nicholas Goodrick·Clarke, The Oc·
cult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology (New York:
New York University Press, 1992 ed.), and Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism,
and the Politics of Identity (New York: New York University Press, 2003 ed.). See also
Joscelyn Godwin, Arktos: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, and Nazi Survival
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Phanes, 1993).
CHAPTER II
1. See Carl Raschke, The Bursting of New Wineskins: Reflections on Religion and
Culture at the End of Alfluence (Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1978), p. 93.
2. Ibid., p. 109.
3· Ibid., p. 73·
4. Carl Raschke, The Interruption of Etemity: Modem Gnosticism and the Origins of
the New Religious Consciousness (Chicago: Nelson, 1980), p. xi.
5· Ibid., pp. 23-35, 146-157, 188-189, and so forth.
6. Ibid., p. 184.
7. Ibid., p. 218.
8. Ibid., p. 236.
9. Ibid., p. 242.
10. Ibid., p. 243.
II. See Carl Raschke, Painted Black: From Drug Killings to Heavy Metal-The
Alarming True Story of How Satanism Is Terrorizing Our Communities (New York: Harper,
1990), back cover.
12. Ibid., p. xiii.
13. Ibid., p. II7.
14. Ibid., p. 268.
15· Ibid., pp. 293-332.
16. See, for a careful analysis of some of the errors in Raschke's book, http://
www.witchvox.comjwhsjkerr_expertL2a.htrnl, "Raschke Paints Things Black," writ·
ten by Detective Constable Charles A Ennis of the Vancouver Police Department,
Youth Services Unit.
17. Raschke, Painted Black, p. 4II.
170 NOTES TO PAGES I08-II5
18. Ibid., p. 399.
19. Ibid., p. 400.
20. Ibid., p. 406.
21. Raschke's book has a bibliography that includes many relevant news articles
and books of the 1980s during the height of the day care "ritual abuse" witch-hunts.
What it doesn't acknowledge, save in passing, are the books and articles of the prescient
doubters. The False Memory Syndrome Foundation Newsletter and the Justice
Committee (San Diego, Calif.) have documented thousands of cases of false memory
syndrome and subsequent false accusations. See, for various views, C. Ronald Huff,
Arye Rattner and Edward Sagarin, Convicted But Innocent (Thousand Oaks, Calif.:
Sage, 1996); Mark Pendergast, Victims of Memory (Hinesburg, Vt.: Upper Access,
1995); or Jeffrey S. Victor, Satanic Panic (Chicago: Open Court Press, 1993).
22. See Carl Raschke, Fire and Roses: Postmodernity and the Thought of the Body
(Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1996).
23. Carl Raschke, The Digital Revolution and the Coming of the Postmodern University
(London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 72-73.
24. Ibid., p. 86.
CHAPTER 12
I. See Jon Trott and Mike Hertenstein, "Selling Satan: The Tragic History of
Mike Warnke," Cornerstone Magazine 21 (1992)98, available from http://www
.comerstonemag.com/features /isS098 / sellingsatan.htm.
2. Trott and Hertenstein, "Selling Satan."
3. Trott and Hertenstein, "Selling Satan."
4. All of these rather nauseating details, and many more, are to be found both in
the Trott and Hertenstein Cornerstone Magazine article, and in their subsequent book.
5. See Michelle Smith and Lawrence Pazder, Michelle Remembers (New York:
Congdon & Lattes, 1980), Lauren Stratford's Satan's Underground (Eugene, Oreg.:
Harvest House, 1988; Gretna, La.: Pelican, 1991). Other books in the genre include
Judith Spencer, Suffer the Child (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), and Robert S.
Mayer's Satan's Children (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1991). On the phenomenon
itself, see James T. Richardson, Joel Best, and David G. Bromley, The Satanism Scare
(New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991).
6. See the purported text of a "restricted" bulletin issued by a Lt. Larry Jones of
the Boise, Idaho, police department on "cult activity," File 18 Newsletter (2 May 1986),
Boise, Idaho, reproduced at http://www.skepticfiles.org. The "facts" in the newsletter
are also drawn upon by Jerry Johnston, The Edge of Evil (Dallas: Word, 1989), p. 4,
quoting a Dr. AI Carlisle of the Utah Prison System who claims fifty to sixty thousand
ritual murders a year in the United States. One could trace exactly how such notions
were passed on in a sort of game of "telephone" between "cult experts" and police
departments-cumulatively contributing to if not outright producing the hysteriabut
such an effort is beyond our current scope.
7. Jeffrey Victor, Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend (laSalle,
Ill.: Open Court, 1993), esp. pp. 273ff.
NOTES TO PAGES 115-120 171
8. See Victor, esp. Chapter Four, "Rumor Panics Across the Country," and Chapter
Six.
9. See Jon Trott and Mike Hertenstein, "Selling Satan."
10. See Darryl E. Hicks and David A. Lewis, The Todd Phenomenon: Fact or Phantasy
(Harrison, Ark.: New Leaf, 1979). This strange little volume does document John
Todd's tapes and activities, and it is quite helpful as a primary source in itself. Its
authors are primarily bent on character assassination of Todd after his intemperate
attacks on Billy Graham and other prominent evangelicals as secretly being in cahoots
with the "Illuminati," but the work is ambiguous about whether the "Illuminati"
conspiracy really exists.
II. See Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary
America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 51-52.
12. Ibid., pp. 61-62.
13- Ibid., p. 121.
14· Ibid., p. 4.
15. See, for instance, the articles on http://www.thecuttingedge.org. A case in
point is this quotation from a section of the Web site devoted to connections between
Rev. Moon and the evangelical leadership:
We have already spoken of "disinformation agents," a term commonly used
in the intelligence field to describe an agent who is sown in the target country
and is designed to look like, act like, and sound like a normal citizen or
patriot of that country. Such agents will provide 75-90 percent good information
to their target in order to build up credibility and believability, but
during the time of the most critical moment, they will provide disinformation
that is designed to make the target country lose the battle or the war.
It seems to me that these Evangelical Christian leaders who have tight
ties to the Illuminati or to Rev. Sun Moon may be considered disinformation
specialists. This means they will provide good solid Christian information,
perhaps to the 95 percent level, in order to establish rapport and trust
among their followers. However, at the right moment, or for the right issue,
they will "toe the line"-take the position-the Illuminati wants them to
take.
See http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/m818.efm.anddon·tmiss the elaborate thesis
of "Illuminati" weather control at http://www.cuttingedge.org/articles/weather.cfm.
16. See Pat Robertson, The New World Order (Dallas: Word, 1991), pp. 9-10.
17. Ibid., pp. 6, 8.
18. See Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment (New York: Books in
Focus, 1981), and Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (New York:
Macmillan, 1966); for how conspiracism can be based on Quigley, see Robertson,
New World Order, pp. 111-113.
19. Robertson, New World Order, p. 69.
20. Ibid., p. 70.
21. Ibid., p. 71.
22. Ibid., p. 183.
172 NOTES TO PAGES 120-124
23. Ibid., p. 185.
24. Amitabha is a bodhisattva of compassion, but Robertson somehow manages
to confuse him with assassins.
25. Robertson, New World Order.
26. Ibid., p. 261.
27. Ibid., p. 268.
28. See Robert Dreyfuss, "Reverend Doomsday: For Tim laHaye, the Apocalypse
is Now:' Rolling Stone (February, 2004) at http://www.rollingstone.com/features/
nationalaffairs /featuregen.asp?pid = 2771.
29. See Tim laHaye, The Rapture (Eugene, Ore.: Harvest House, 2002), p. 208.
30. Ibid., p. 217.
31. See Larry Burkett, The Illuminati (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991), p. 18.
32. Ibid., pp. 18-19.
33- Ibid., p. 19·
34. Ibid., p. 20.
35. I also will note here the books and Web site(s) ofTexe Marrs, especially Circle
of Intrigue: The Hidden Inner Circle of the Global Illuminati Conspiracy (Austin: Rivercrest,
2000), and http://www.texemarrs.com. Marrs's book cover proclaims that he
taught political science at the University of Texas, Austin, and his books do have
some endnote documentation. But they are shot through with a paranoiac outlook
that converts everything into a manifestation of worldwide conspiracy-the devil is
everywhere! A closer look at Marrs's Web site reveals a pronounced anti-Semitism
that is more subdued in Circle of Intrigue-his Web site even has a predictable link to
the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Marrs, like many IIIuminatiphobes, found it
easy to see George Bush Sr. as one of the Illuminati, but were more reticent about the
"born-again" George Bush Jr., even though he, too, was a member of Skull and
Bones, and so on. By 2005, Marrs's newsletter Power of Prophecy included the thesis
that George W. Bush was a front man for the sinister Jews who were in fact in charge
of his administration and policies. Given that the Bush Jr. administration oversaw the
PATRIOT Act and various other abrogations of American civil liberties, and further
given that administration's obsession with secrecy-both of which would have earned
any Democratic administration much IIIuminatiphobic vitriol-it is noteworthy how
many IIIuminatiphobes refrained from criticizing George W. Bush, particularly in his
first term.
36. See Robert Dreyfuss, "Reverend Doomsday."
37. See Jeffrey Victor, Satanic Panic, p. 304.
38. Ibid., p. 290.
39. The reader is invited to peruse http://www.thecuttingedge.org, http://www
.thewatcherfiles.com, http://www.tribwatch.com, and http://www.savethemales.ca, as
well as, for what will be by then a welcome change of pace, http://www.answers.org
or http://www.pfo.org.
40. See the increasingly bizarre books of David Icke, the most industrious proselyte
for the reptilian theory, in particular, The Biggest Secret (Scottsdale, Ariz.: Bridge
of Love, 1999), and Children of the Matrix: How an Interdimensional Race Has ConNOTES
TO PAGE 124 173
trolled the World for Thousands of¥ears-and Still Does (Wildwood, Mo.: Bridge of
Love, 2001). Here is a sample:
Then there are the experiences of Cathy O'Brien, the mind controlled slave
of the United States government for more than 25 years, which she details
in her astonishing book, Trance-Formation Of America, written with Mark
Phillips. She was sexually abused as a child and as an adult by a stream of
famous people named in her book. Among them were the US Presidents,
Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and, most appallingly, George (H. w.] Bush, a major
player in the Brotherhood, as my books and others have long exposed. It
was Bush, a paedophile and serial killer, who regularly abused and raped
Cathy's daughter, Kelly O'Brien, as a toddler before her mother's courageous
exposure of these staggering events forced the authorities to remove Kelly
from the mind control programme known as Project Monarch. Cathy writes
in Trance-Formation Of America of how George (H. W.] Bush was sitting in
front of her in his office in Washington D.C. when, he opened a book at a
page depicting lizard-like aliens from a far off, deep space place. Bush then
claimed to be an "alien" himself and appeared, before her eyes, to transform
"like a chameleon" into a reptile.
See, for more if you can take it, http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/6583/
et042.htrnl; http://www.greatdreams.com/thelie.htrn; http://www. thereptilianagenda
.com; and, of course, Sherry Shriner's http://www.thewatcherfiles.com. which actually
has sections with titles such as "Spiritual Warfare Prayers to Stop Abductions and
Close Portals and Entrances in Your Home." See also, for an example of how this
could become a "reptilian" witch-hunt, "Murdering Masonic Reptilian Shape-shifters"
at http://www.reptilianagenda.com/exp /e02240 la.shtrnl.
41. It is worth noting here that although in the United States, witch-hunts typically
have emanated from the Christian right, in Sweden in 2005 one saw a flurry of
accusations concerning extreme feminist groups, including a national women's shelter
group called ROKS.A controversial documentary called "The Gender Wars"
broadcast on Swedish national television outlined how various prominent feminist
groups and authors were propagating an extremely antimale ideology, to such a degree
that the director of ROKS, Ireen von Wachenfeldt, was filmed in an interview
endorsing Valerie Solanas's outrageous 1960s-era The Scum Manifesto (which recently
had been translated and published in a new Swedish edition) asserting that men are
"animals" and "walking dildos." She was later forced to resign. A prominent Swedish
feminist academic, Eva Lundgren, was put under review by her university. See, for
various aspects of the controversy, Andy Butterworth, "SVT Releases Unedited 'Men
are Animals' Interview" (27 May 2005), http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=1505&
date=20050527; Andy Butterworth, "Controversial Women's Shelter Chairwoman Resigns,"
(6 July 2005), http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=1710&date=20050706&
PHPSESSID=37bbled2b69bcb035a2f73be7aoa9a24; and Paul O'Mahoney, "If in
Doubt, Attack the Messenger," Stockholm Speculator (29 May 2005), http://www
.spectator .se/ stambord/index. php?author = 2.
174 NOTES TO PAGES 125-131
Most relevant for our interests: some major feminist figures associated with
ROKSwere alleged to have said that Sweden's male population included members of
secret Satanic cults that victimized women. One polemical Swedish author summarized
the most incendiary charges: "Many young women who have been in contact
with ROKS have been brainwashed into believing that Satanist sects are out to kill
them; individual women have even been forced to live in small cabins in our neighbor
country Norway in order to avoid the imaginary sects. Many other women have
been brainwashed by ROKS into believing that they have been exposed to sexual
abuse during their childhood." See Nima Sanandaji, "Tax-hungry Swedish Feminists"
(8 July 2005), http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/sanandaji2.htrnl.Although closer
investigation reveals that some of the more exaggerated claims about these feminist
groups were later critiqued and in some cases retracted, the fact remains that the archetype
of the "Satanic panic" in this strange episode evidently did perhaps partially
manifest in Sweden not on the Christian right but on the feminist left.
42. See Peter Jones, The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back: An Old Heresy for the New
Age (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 1992 ed.), p. 14.
43· Ibid., p. 99·
44. See Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays
(New York: Knopf, 1965).
45. I might in passing note that the Illuminatiphobic theorists on, for instance,
http://www.thecuttingedge.org.bearsomestrikingresemblancestotheBushJr.administration
in their opposition to international accords like the KyotoTreaty, their
disdain for environmentalism, and a number of other areas. Further study of parallels
might be instructive.
CHAPTER 13
I. See Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2005), p. 2.
2. Ibid.
3. See Karen Greenberg and Joshua Dratel, eds., The Torture Papers: The Road to
Abu Ghraib (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
4. See Jane Mayer, "Outsourcing Torture" in The New Yorker (14 February 2005),
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/ content/ ?050214faJact6.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Yoois a primary advocate for an imperial presidency, as discussed in Paul
Barrett, "A Young Lawyer Helps Chart Shift in Foreign Policy," The Wall Street Journal
(12 September 2005), p. I. Yoodefends presidential prerogatives at length in his book
The Powers of War and Peace (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). To quote
Barrett: "his claim is that American law permits the president to go to almost any
lengths in the name of fighting terrorism."
8. See Paul Barrett, "A Young Lawyer,"p. A12.
9. Ibid.
10. "Text of Bush's Inaugural Speech," 20 January 2005, AP version.
NOTES TO PAGES 131-141 175
II. See Peggy Noonan, "WayToo Much God: Was President's Speech a Case of
'Mission Inebriation'?" in The Wall Street Journal (21 January 2005), http://www
.opinionjournal.com/ columnists /pnoonan/ ?id= II0006 184.
12. Interesting, the connection to Dostoevsky was recognized and pointed out by
Justin Raimondo in "Radical Son," The American Conservative (28 February 2005),
PP·7-9·
13. See llewellyn Rockwell, "The Reality of Red-State Fascism," on LewRockwell
.com (31December 2004), http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/red-state-fascism
.hunl. See also Steven laTulippe, "The Ugly Mutation of American Conservatism" (13
January 2005), http://www.lewrockwell.com/latulippe/latulippe4o.htrnl See also Patrick
Buchanan, "The Anti-Conservatives," in The American Conservative (28 February
2005), pp. 13-14, in which he writes about John Adams's comment that "America
goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy." For the intellectual background of
the Bush Jr. administration and handlers, see Hugh Urban, "Religion and Secrecy in
the Bush Administration: The Gentleman, the Prince, and the Simulacrum," Esoterica
VII (2°°5):1-38.
14. See "The Koranic Excesses," Wall Street Journal (6 June 2005), p. A1O.
IS. See Michael Calderon, "Is New Orleans a Prelude to Al-Qaeda's American
Hiroshima?" (2 September 2005), http://moonbatcentral.com/wordpress/?p=1069'
16. See Mayer, "Outsourcing Torture."
CHAPTER 14
1. See Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (New York: Random House,
1985). p. 26.
2. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Diary of a Writer, 2 vols. (New York: Scribner's, 1949)
(January 1877)2: 563; see also Diary [November 1877] 2:906. See Denis Discherl, Dostoevsky
and the Catholic Church (Chicago: Loyola, 1986), p. 97.
3. Nicholas Berdyaev, "The Ruin of Russian Illusions," GIBEL' RUSSKIKH ILLIUZII,
originally published in the journal Russkaya Mysl (September-October 1917),
pp. 101-1°7, republished in Vol. 4 of Collected Works, "Dukhovnye osnovy russkoi revoliutsii
(Stat'i 1917-18)" ("Spiritual Grounds of the Russian Revolution [Articles 1917-
18J,"[Paris: YMCA, 1990]), pp. II3-122. Translated by Father S. Janos, http://www
.berdyaev.com/berdiaev /berd-lib /1917_280.htrnl.
4. Nicholas Berdyaev, "Concerning Fanaticism, Orthodoxy, and Truth," 0 PHANATIZME,
ORTODOKSII I ISTINE, in Russkie zapiski (1937) 1:180-191, translated by
Father S. Janos, http://www.berdyaev.com/berdiaev/berd-lib/1937-430.htrnl.
5. Ibid.
6. See Berdyaev, "The Ruin of Russian Illusions," lightly edited for clarity.
7. See Berdyaev, "Concerning Fanaticism, Orthodoxy, and Truth."
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
II. See Roxana lordache, "L'Autre Holocauste," Romania Libera, 27 April 1993,
cited by Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine, in "Fascism and Communism in Romania," Sta176
NOTES TO PAGES 141-154
linism and Nazism (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), pp. 173-174. In
France, for instance, Raymond Aron has argued against the view of Stalinism and Nazism
as equivalent, whereas Alain Besan<;on has argued in favor of it. See, on Italian
Fascism as a "heresy of the left," the special issue of Telos (133, Winter 2006) devoted
to this question.
12. Laignel-Lavastine, "Fascism and Communism," p. 183.
13. See Eckard Bolsinger, The Autonomy of the Political: Carl Schmitt's and Lenin's
Political Realism (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2001), p. 178.
14. Ibid., p. 180.
15. Ibid., p. 183.
16. Alexander Dugin, for example, drew on this nostalgia for Stalin in some of
his writings early in the twenty-first century. See the collection of Dugin's writings at
http://www.arctogaia.com.ru.
17. See, for instance, John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching (New York: Doubleday,
1944)·
CHAPTER 15
I. Cardinal Renato Martino spoke about the possibility in Europe of a "lay Inquisition"
that criminalized Catholicism or Christianity. See John L. Allen, The Word
From Rome (12 November 2004), http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/
wordIII204.htm. Yet at the same time, apologists such as Robert Lockwood sought to
minimize the Inquisition, even going so far as to attempt to justifY the burning of
Giordano Bruno. See Robert Lockwood, "History and Myth: The Inquisition" (August
2000), http://www .catholicleague.org/research /inquisition.html.
2. See Jacob Bohme, Six Theosophic Points (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1958), III.iv.20-2I.
3. Ibid., IY.vi.I.
4. Ibid., V.vii·34·
5. Ibid., V.vii·40.
6. Ibid., VI.ix.15.
7. Ibid., VI.x.8.
8. Ibid., VI.X.IO.
9. See Barry Cooper, New Political Religions (Columbia: University of Missouri
Press, 2004), a Voegelinian analysis of terrorism that reveals some genuine insights
into the phenomenon. One might note that Cooper never once, in this Voegelinian
study, misuses the word "gnostic" in Voegelinian fashion: unlike dogmatic Voegelinians,
he knows better.
10. See Steven Bartlett, The Pathology of Man: A Study of Human Evil (Springfield:
c.c. Thomas, 2005), p. 182.
II. Ibid., p. 184.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., p. 185.
14. Ibid.
15· Ibid., p. 314.
NOTES TO PAGES 155-156 177
16. Ibid., p. 322.
17. See, for example, the scholarly journals ARIES and Esoterica, the numerous
books in this field, including the introduction to it in my own Restoring Paradise:
Western Esotericism, Literature, Art, and Consciousness (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press,
2004), as well as the massive Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, W. Hanegraaff,
ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2005).
18. In this regard, Bartlett points out that surveys conducted after World War II
showed that the higher an individual's emphasis on aesthetic dimensions of life, the
more that individual was likely to be resistant to fascism. By contrast, those who fervently
had endorsed fascism rated politics highest and aesthetics lowest. Aesthetic
transcendence through art and music is, of course, also partial transcendence of selfother
or subject-object dualism. It is not surprising that those seduced by totalitarianisms
would have little use for aesthetics, something verified, for instance, by the lifeless
concrete architecture produced by Soviet Communism.
19. Some will, of course, immediately retort that a figure like Julius Evola (1898-
1974),a well-known esoteric author who was associated with Italian Fascism, and to a
lesser extent with German National Socialism, "proves" a connection between the esoteric
and totalitarianism. But Evola was far from being a mystic or gnostic. He insisted
not on the transcendence of self-other dualism, but on an adamantine, enduring
self as the goal of various kinds of esotericism, even mistakenly attributing such a
view to Buddhism in his extremely misleading book The Doctrine of Awakening. Evola
was an ingenious writer, no doubt of that, but he is hardly a solid peg on which to
hang a theory that gnostics or mystics are somehow to blame for modern totalitarian-
Ism.
20. Here I am thinking, in particular, of my trilogy of works on Christian theosophy-
Wisdom's Children: A Christian Esoteric Tradition (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press,
1999), Wisdom's Book: The Sophia Anthology (St. Paul, Minn.: Paragon House, 2000),
and Theosophia: Hidden Dimensions of Christianity (Hudson, N.Y.: Lindisfarne, 1994)-
as well as Awakening the Contemplative Spirit (St. Paul, Minn.: New Grail, 2004). Wisdom's
Children and Awakening the Contemplative Spirit offer some initial considerations
of subjects alluded to here.

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