CHAPTER 4: The Thule Society

In the depths of his subconscious every German has one foot in "Atlantis" where he seeks a better Fatherland and a better patrimony.
-- Hermann Rauschning, Hitler Speaks

After the war, it was not uncommon to find occult secret societies coupling with politics of the conservative, racist sort and growing quite militant. The Germanen Orden was reactivated, and Hermann Pohl's Bavarian branch took the cover name of Thule.

Not until 1933 did the connection between Thule and the prehistory of National Socialism come to light, when a beefy adventurer published, in Munich, a book with the intriguing title Bevor Hitler Kam ("Before Hitler Came"). It must have enjoyed a vogue, because there was a second printing in 1934. Both editions were confiscated by the Nazis, and the author vanished -- murdered, his publisher claimed. Hitler had already given a rather simple, straightforward account of his political debut in an insignificant workers' party, and he apparently did not care to have another version publicized.

The author, who called himself Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorff, had been Grand Master of a small lodge which called itself the Thule Society, and he stated right at the outset: "Thule people are the ones to whom Hitler first came."

Sebottendorff himself acknowledges his debt to "a man whom Juda [Jewdom] could not get rid of" -- Theodor Fritsch -- and to "three Austrians who started the fight against Juda": Guido von List, Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels, and List's disciple, Philipp Stauff. There was one other, a Baron Wittgenberg, who, Sebottendorff claimed, "chose to kill himself" in 1920 because his wife and daughter were "caught under the influence of a Jewish banker." This unfortunate man's compendiums, published in 1914 (An Index of Jewish Titled People, An Index of Titled People and Their Connection with Jews, and Jews of Industry, Science, Authors and Artists), had been snatched up by Jews, said Sebottendorff, and there were no more copies available.

Thule and the Germanen Orden joined forces right after the war. Sebottendorff prepared a brochure for the initiates coming home, and started a publication called Runen to bring in new members. The first three members of the reconstituted circle were Dr. George Gaubatz, a bald- headed Red Cross worker and member of the Audubon Society, who looked like  Erich von Stroheim and wore a key chain across his waistcoat, from which dangled the swastika, emblem of the Thule Society; Wilhelm Rohmeder, an educator and member of a German education society; and Johannes Hering, who had already distinguished himself in Pan-German circles.

There were, apparently, attempts at gaining magical knowledge. Sebottendorff was an authority on astrology, alchemy, divining rods, and rune symbolism, happy to expatiate on these subjects. Johannes Hering's diary entry for August 17, 1918, shows great vexation with Sebottendorff for delivering a talk to the group on divining rods. Hering feared "such occult nonsense lost them good will."

Sebottendorff was nostalgic for the Middle Ages, when the Jews in Germany had been openly persecuted. Nowadays, he said, they exerted an influence not only on the Catholic Church, but, through Freemasonry, even on the Protestants. In fact, the Jews were always the "machers" in the Masonic lodges, and plotted an international conspiracy under the guise of liberty, fraternity, and equality. Sebottendorff mouthed the usual attitudes of volkisch writers toward Freemasons, who have traditionally been associated with the forces of liberalism. The Pan-Germans pledged themselves to combat the "world conspiracy" being led by "Freemasons and international Jewry."

However, Sebottendorff had a love-hate relationship with the Freemasons. They were the prototype for most secret organizations. "The old Freemasonry," he said, "had been a keeper of secrets which they had learned from the Aryan wisdom and from the alchemists, and which concerned itself with the building of cathedrals." Naturally, he supposed, when the cathedrals were all built, the Masonic guilds had died out, and with them, the Aryan wisdom.

Like other occultists, Sebottendorff accepted the view that the medieval master builder knew more than just the secrets of his trade. Many of the European cathedrals, four hundred years in construction, exemplified, in esoteric circles, the occult symbolism. As a modern Freemason, Delmar Duane Darrah, described it in The History and Evolution of Freemasonry:

Everywhere was the mystic number. The Trinity was proclaimed by the nave and the aisle (multiplied sometimes to the other sacred number, seven), the three richly ornamented recesses of the portal, the three towers. The rose over the west was the Unity, the whole building was a Cross. The altar with its decorations announced the real perpetual Presence. The solemn crypt below represented the underworld, the soul of man in darkness and the shadow of death, the body awaiting the resurrection.

Even the uninitiated could feel the power of the symbolism underlying the great cathedrals.

Sebottendorff recognized that for the Mason himself, the work of building cathedrals was symbolic of and important to the soul's journey, as all work was. But, he said, "after the Thirty Years' War, Juda started Freemasonry again," with a difference. An article in the July 21, 1918, edition of Runen gives Sebottendorff's views on the antithesis between modern Freemasonry and the Aryan wisdom:

We look at our world as a product of the people. The Freemason looks at it as a product of conditions.

We don't acknowledge the brotherhood of people, only blood brotherhood. We want the freedom, not of herds, but of duty. We hate the propaganda of equality. Struggle is the father of all things. Equality is death....

For Sebottendorff, the modern Freemason, like the Jew, was a parasite, unbending, incapable of change -- ironic, considering the reputation for liberalism of the Freemason and Jew, and the conservatism of racist-nationalists. All the same, he borrowed liberally from the Freemasons, as well as from Madame Blavatsky, perhaps influenced by her boldness as much as by her Theosophy.

Sebottendorff, born with the less glamorous name of Adam Rudolf Glauer to a Silesian locomotive conductor in Hoyerswerda, on November 9, 1875, the same year that Countess Blavatsky was launching her Theosophical Society in America, became first a merchant seaman. At twenty-six, he transplanted himself to Turkey, and became a Turkish citizen. In 1909, he had the good fortune to be adopted by an Austrian baron named Heinrich von Sebottendorff, in Istanbul, according to Turkish law. Rudolf was badly wounded in the Balkan War and came back to Breslau in 1913. The adoption was contested in Germany, and in 1920 the last remaining members of the Sebottendorff family readopted him in Baden-Baden.

During his sojourn in Turkey, with his sinecure as engineer-cum-supervisor of a substantial estate, he had been able to spend time reading Oriental philosophy and Theosophical writings, as well as engaging in Sufi meditation.

He acknowledged that he had been a Knight of the Masonic Order of Constantine. Turkish Freemasonry, it seemed, had kept the ancient Aryan wisdom intact. "It must be shown," said Sebottendorff, "that Oriental Freemasonry still retains faithfully even today the ancient teachings of wisdom forgotten by modern Freemasonry, whose Constitution of 1717 was a departure from the true way."

By 1918 he had formed his own lodge, the Thule Society, and elevated himself to the rank of Grand Master.

One of his first acts was to place an advertisement in the local paper, inviting men to a meeting. Those who responded were sent a letter, predicting the imminent collapse of Germany if racial intermarriage were not halted. Each prospective member was to be on probation for one year. The initiation fee was twenty marks; the quarterly Ardensnacht, ten marks. The applicant was required to fill out a form declaring that, to the best of his knowledge, not a drop of Jewish or Negro blood flowed through his or his wife's veins. On returning this, he was sent a questionnaire and asked for a photograph. A most thorough questionnaire, inquiring into such intimacies as the amount of hair on various parts of the body and asking, if possible, for an imprint of the sole of the foot on a separate piece of paper. "We then tested for race purity," says Sebottendorff, "and started an inquiry." The one-year probationary period was only the first level in the member's initiation. He had to take a ritualistic vow of absolute obedience and loyalty to the Master of the lodge. "Symbolically," said Sebottendorff, "it was the return of the lost Aryan to the German Halgedom."

Sebottendorff did not need to invent anything. Inspired by Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, he respun the age-old myth of Atlantis, calling it Thule. Like Atlantis, Thule was believed by occultists to have been the magic center of a vanished civilization. Madame Blavatsky speculated that it had been swept away in the first Deluge, 850,000 years ago. Compared with it, the much more recent Noah's Flood had been a puddle, and mythical, besides. One could get some idea of the appearance of the inhabitants of the island of Atlantis by studying the colossal statues at Easter Island. Here, Madame Blavatsky believed, were the relics of the giants of the Fourth Race; only this Atlantean being deserved to be called "MAN," for only he was completely human. After him, the Fall. Among other things, the Fall supposedly cost him his invaluable third eye, which gave him spiritual insight.

What had caused the Fall? Tucked away in The Secret Doctrine is the answer: The Atlanteans had mated with semi-human beings. Anticipating the argument that this was contrary to nature, she argued: "Esoteric science replies to this that it was in the very beginnings of physical man. Since then, Nature has changed her ways, and sterility is the only result of the crime of man's bestiality...."

In the chaos and distress of Germany after World War I, with the occultist boom, the German racist groups seized upon mystical speculations of this sort and wove them into a myth of the master race. Sebottendorff transposed Blavatsky's complicated cosmology, by which she had sought to confound the evolutionists. In place of her sub-races who had extinguished the "Flames" by "long generations of bestiality," ruining it for the Aryans, he taught members of Thule that the purity of their blood had been defiled by the Jews. Thus, as his predecessors, List and Lanz, had done, Sebottendorff gave status to the lower and middle classes, who must have fantasized wistfully of having aristocratic blood -- the only sure way to amount to something in that time and place. Not only did this mystical doctrine elevate them to potential Aryan supermen (the dormant occult powers would reawaken in the Aryan people in the twentieth century, with the appearance of "supermen" who would restore the German folk to their ancient glory and lead them in conquering the world), but it released them from the binding strictures of the Judeo-Christian morality, which had been, after all, inspired by the enemy, and calculated to rob the pagan heroes of their vitality.

With the old order going down to destruction, people felt threatened on all sides by the specter of "progress" -- the frighteningly rapid growth of alien populations in the cities and the advent of mass production and modern technology -- and, above all, the feeling that an imminent revolution would come to turn everything upside-down.

Sebottendorff owed a considerable part of his success to these fears. He was an accomplished astrologer and magus. His mission, as he saw it, was to reveal certain basic esoteric secrets, to counteract a vast network of alchemists and Freemasons and Jews who had hatched a plot of monstrous dimensions to undermine the civilized world. The existing religious institutions had apparently grown too weak to make any unified effort to resist. There was only one way to avoid the chaos that would throw everything into the abyss, and that was the intervention of the spiritual chiefs in the West.

The ideology of purity of the blood was founded on the esoteric alchemical theory of the Grand Work. It was necessary for Sebottendorff to prepare suitable Aryan candidates for their proper place in a mystical hierarchy. Therefore, he taught them certain mystico-magical exercises which the French occult scholar Rene Alleau defines as

a Yoga founded on the repetition of certain syllables during periods determined by the synodic revolution of the moon and in association with signs of the hand and passes that had for a goal capturing the most subtle radiations of the original force for the purpose of integrating them into the human body and to spiritualize matter into universal energy.

This is reminiscent of the conjurations and incantations which occultists have always used in the practice of the black arts. Alleau points out:

For example, to make the sign "I" one closes the right hand and extends the index finger toward the outside of the closed palm. The sign "A" is represented by the hand held so that all the fingers are situated on one plane, while the thumb forms, with the index finger, a right angle....

These movements of the hand are then held at various parts of the body -- neck, chest, stomach. One concentrates mentally on these gestures and the repeated syllables until, little by little, according to Alleau, an abnormal heat increases progressively and is conducted to different points in the body. At the same time, changes in the senses of taste and smell are observed, and ultimately "the disciple will see a black shadow that marks the end of the first part of the work."

When that happens, "the day is celebrated like the beginning of a new life, and the disciple receives his lodge name...."

The initiate perceives colors changing, which signifies his subtle transmutation from one phase to the next. "The black of the shadow changes itself to blue, to light red, and to pale green. When the tint has become a luminous green this period is finished."

Next, in conjunction with "passes" of the chest, comes a glaring white. Alleau says:

After the "ventral posture," these mystico-magical exercises end in the elaboration of a shadow of a pomegranate red. "The Oriental Mason has become the perfect master. The cubic stone is entirely shaped." The Oriental initiates ... name these tasks of the "spiritual Work" the "Science of the Key" and name themselves the "Sons of the Key."

That there is a colored light-field around human bodies and that the colors change with changing spiritual development is an old esoteric belief. These colors, or auras, are allegedly visible to clairvoyants and sensitives. The colors, while presumably present for these people, are also symbolic, and there are varying interpretations as to the significance of each.

All of Sebottendorff's rituals had as their aim one effect, the same as that of other esoteric groups: dissolving the "small self" so that the "divine self" could become manifest. The teaching holds that there is a world beyond the senses which can be reached with proper preparation. It is not material. The occultist believes he can ascend to it in various stages, each of which has its own particular pitfalls. It is certainly not for everyone. A great effort of will is necessary. So is courage. It is not possible to get anywhere by moving haphazardly from one stage to the next. One must observe the strictest protocol and techniques. For this, of course, the services of a master are absolutely indispensable. Demons lie in wait everywhere, and the journey is most perilous. Sebottendorff taught:

Once come to the end of our training, we sense our terrestrial body becoming more and more a stranger to us. We cross beyond it. We see distinctly that it has become dust and ashes. It is the lowest point that can be attained, that where the shadows of death and their terrors involve us. It is for this reason that the ancient Oriental Freemasons received into their community nothing but courageous men because the tests reserved for the neophyte were very harsh. Courage and endurance were the two principal virtues that were necessary.

To this end, Sebottendorff exacted from his disciples the cry Sieg Heil ("Glory Hail!"), which symbolizes the kind of blind obedience the Arab formula speaks of when it exhorts the initiate: "Be between the hands of your sheikh like a cadaver in the hands of him who washes him." The master, in esoteric teaching, like the sheikh, is God's emissary. The relationship between disciple and master is particularly meaningful in the occult tradition. The neophyte must place himself completely in the teacher's hands and obey even his most eccentric commands, whether or not those commands do violence to his own individual conscience. There are at least two reasons for this: First, the master is the repository of ancient and secret wisdom which the disciple presumably cannot acquire in any other way, and second, the master seeks deliberately to create an atmosphere in which the disciple's consciousness will be changed. Toward that end, the master is prepared -- in fact, it is necessary -- to go beyond rational thought and behavior. For this, extremely harsh discipline may be called for.

History provides a number of examples of irrational cults by powerless people who fell under the domination of a powerful master and accomplished his will.

The Assassins, a secret politico-religious order of eleventh-century Islam, made the murder of its enemies a religious duty. An absolute ruler presided over three deputy masters. Under them were the initiated, and then the students, who were only partially acquainted with the secrets of the order. The students in time graduated into the ranks of the initiated. Below the students came the active members of the order, "the devoted ones," young men who were kept in absolute ignorance of the teaching of the sect, but from whom complete obedience was expected. They were the blind instruments in the work of secret political assassination planned by the leaders. The terrorism they spread for two centuries was disproportionately greater than their actual numbers, and the name "Assassin" became associated with dread in the Middle East. They struck down generals, statesmen, and caliphs. They were even hired by contending political factions. The secret of their power lay primarily in the peculiar manner of their training. Before they were assigned to their tasks, the disciples were stupefied by means of hashish ("Assassin" is just the English analogue of the Arabic hashshashin, one who is addicted to hashish), and, while in an ecstatic state, plunged into sensual pleasure, as a foretaste of the bliss which would be theirs in paradise if they faithfully followed the orders of their superlords. The training was so marvelously effective that the young men were indifferent to the threat of death, which gave them a considerable edge over their opponents.

The Thugs of India were comparable. A religious fraternity of Hindu origin, they were known to commit murders in honor of the goddess Kali as early as 1290, and lived chiefly on plunder. (Thug=conceal, hence a cheat in Sanskrit.) They were highly organized gangs traveling about India for more than three hundred years. They had a jargon and signs, and the character of their assassinations conformed to certain ancient religious rites, pointing back to the destructive power of nature. Through spies, they would learn of wealthy people undertaking a journey and strangle them with a cloth. Another class of Thugs murdered people in charge of children and then sold the children into slavery. They really formed a caste, hereditary for the most part, although a few recruits were admitted from outside. A number of Muhammadans joined. But no washermen, sweepers, musicians, poets, blacksmiths, carpenters, oil vendors, cripples, or lepers could become Thugs. After each murder, there would be a special ritual in honor of Kali, the feminine aspect of nature's demonic power.

In addition to all the other dangers, then, the disciple of an esoteric group runs the real danger of falling victim to a domination which may indeed leave him little more than a living cadaver.

Like all other such groups, Thule had an inner circle and an outer circle. Both were involved in raising their consciousness to an awareness of nonhuman intelligences in the universe and in trying to achieve means of communicating with these intelligences. Some writers have speculated that the inner circle were Satanists, who practiced black magic. Satanism is, of course, not unknown in esoteric circles. It is simply the crooked path to self-transcendence. There is even a philosophical rationale, Gnostic in origin: Since the world's ways are illusory and evil, the creation of Satan, all worldly behavior is equally sinful. The occultist, therefore, has two choices open to him. He can either become an ascetic and renounce the world or, since he recognizes the nonmateriality of the divine nature, he may feel morally free to defy convention and indulge his passions to the full.

Whether Thule members chose the "left-hand path" or not, it is certain that, like other occult groups, they aped Freemasonry. One reason why secret societies like Thule imitated the earlier prototype, despite their enmity toward it, was that it had a history of guarding ancient secrets. In a series of pamphlets published in Germany in the early seventeenth century, at a time when the upheavals of the Renaissance and Reformation had called into question many verities, this mysterious fraternity announced that it possessed spiritual knowledge of supernatural truths which could be revealed only to specially prepared initiates. It became fashionable for wise men to belong to the Freemasons, and their rituals and techniques were widely copied by other groups.

Thule gave its members a set of symbols and a place to voice their alienation. In exchange for obedience, it promised protection. In the face of the unstable economic and social conditions, the initiate received assurance that there were forces which, through magic, he could make work for him. More important and immediately satisfying, the elaborate hierarchy in which the initiate advanced only if he did as he was told meant that one could at least control other people and assert his superiority over them. Membership in Thule set one apart from nonmembers, inferior beings. The advantage that accrued to Thule members more than made up for the totalitarian aspects; without having to make independent decisions, they could become an elite cadre whose task was nothing less than saving the world.

To deal with that task, the Thule Society became the active political branch of the Germanen Orden after the war. Without undue modesty, Sebottendorff observed of his branch: "This decision was important, for Bavaria has thereby become the cradle of the National Socialist movement.

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