The Nazis as occult masters? It’s a good story but not history

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Sciborg_S_Patel

The Nazis as occult masters? It’s a good story but not history

From the History Channel to video games, from Hollywood movies to comic books, from chat rooms to Reddit to YouTube, there is endless speculation about the hidden forces behind Nazi evil. Books on the topic abound. It is a favourite of conspiracy enthusiasts and professional debunkers alike. Somehow, we have all become, like Indy himself, experts on the occult. And a whole lot of us are convinced that its arcane secrets hold the key to understanding Nazism.

The problem with this alluring image is not just that it is false. The myth of Nazi occultism is more than an amusing curiosity, a testament to the power of cinematic suggestion. It actively detracts from a historical understanding of the very themes it highlights. It yields a distorted view of Nazism and a distorted view of occultism. But it also offers an occasion for critical reflection, a chance to see how we might make better sense of the tangled history of occultism in the Nazi era. It might even help us to understand Nazi evil and the not-so-hidden forces behind it.
 
Another article on Nazis and the occult.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/06/did-hitlers-obsession-with-the-occult-lose-him-the-war/#
The British had ASDIC or radar to find German U-boats: the German Navy had the Pendulum Dowsing Institute in Berlin.
Professor Kurlander traces supernatural belief in Nazi Germany to the counter-cultural, mystical theories which abounded in fin-de-siècle Austria and Weimar Germany.
In 1943, at a time of acute labour shortage, an estimated 3,000 tarot-card readers were still working in Berlin alone.
 

I like this quote from the article:

A fixation on diabolical forces can distract attention from the social forces that shape reality. So it is with efforts to make sense out of the stark senselessness of Nazism. History, of course, does not belong to historians. In this case, however, we would do well to pay attention to what the historical record can and cannot tell us about the unsettling parallels between that time and our own. Attributing the horrors of Nazi Germany to obscure occult sources is all too often a convenient way of absolving ourselves from the hard work of understanding the past.

I hope Jay Dyer and Charlie Premiero would understand this. A meta-narrative of global centuries-old occult conspiracy does not work too well - a structural inequality (combined with multiple, conflicting, local conspiracies spawned by it) provides much better framework!
 
Lots of evidence about Nazis and the Occult. Damn I love the occult
 
Anyone read Levenda's Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult? I haven't read it myself, but I hear it brought up a lot. Just curious, as I don't know what to make of Levenda or if I should even bother reading him.
 
Anyone read Levenda's Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult?

I have. If looking for objective facts and documentation, his Leftist Activism so saturates and slants the book it destroys credibility. He would have better served his agenda if he had restrained himself.
 
I hope Jay Dyer and Charlie Premiero would understand this. A meta-narrative of global centuries-old occult conspiracy does not work too well - a structural inequality (combined with multiple, conflicting, local conspiracies spawned by it) provides much better framework!

"Structural Inequality" makes rich people conspire to loot poor people?

I think you have it backwards. Rich people conspire to create structural inequalities for the purpose of looting poor people, not the other way around.
 
Rich people conspire to create structural inequalities for the purpose of looting poor people, not the other way around.
Who makes up the group "rich people" and who makes up the group "poor people"?

Is person A, worth $100, "rich" while person B, worth $90, is poor? $1,000 to $90? $1m to $90k? Where is the line drawn?

Has local grocer A conspired to create a structural inequality over local grocer B by gaining exclusive distribution rights to a desired product? Grocer A goes on to generate more customer traffic forcing grocer B out of business.

I'm curious how we are to identify the bad actors.
 
I'm curious how we are to identify the bad actors.

I say everyone who engages in Rent-Seeking is a bad actor. You may approve of that behavior, but I do not because of the corrosive effect it has on society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking#Examples

If you wish to have a conversation about economics and socio-political theory, it would be polite to start a new thread about that rather than muck up this thread about Nazi Occultism.
 
I wasn't mucking anything up; at least that wasn't previously "mucked" by previous posters.

I'm simply curious to know how we identify the class of conspiring elites that seem so easily bantered about this forum. I've yet to see a compelling response; whether it be theories of occult groups or otherwise.

I only chime in on this topic to challenge the assumptive position I often see attributed to it.
 
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