[]In order to determine the particular constituents which cause gravitation between, and understand the congruence of, various occult groups and fascist ideology, it seemed to be an initial necessity for a prolegomenon to linearize an exegesis on the evolution, or cosmogony, of fascist thinking within the general population. However, my preliminary research on the matter yielded an inextricable tangle of fascist and occult theory. To set forth a basic hypothesis, I should speculate that fascism and occultism are both, more or less, esoteric and highly intellectualized reactions to rationalist and materialist doctrines. However, I am inclined to believe that this entanglement is one that spans several centuries and may very well be rooted deep within the archetypes of primitive religions. Perhaps once an understanding of the congruence between occult and fascist ideologies is obtained, an appeal can be made for the suitable juxtaposition of anarchism and occultism.

Broadly characterized, all philosophies can be relegated into one of two primary and distinct categories, which are defined by their opposite secernments. These primary categories are Idealism and Materialism. The philosophical theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter, without any true spiritual or intellectual existence.^1^Within materialist philosophy, all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions.^2^ Within science and religion, materialist theory yields determinism, the belief in causality. In psychology, materialist theory yields behaviorism, the belief that matter cannot influence mind. Of particular interest here are the sociological interpretations of materialism, namely the types of cultural materialism found within the Marxist tradition. On the one hand, Marxist Dialectical Materialism holds that concepts and ideas are the result of material conditions, more specifically, that the means of production and distribution within a society determines the ideological tenets of that society. On the other hand, Marxist Historical Materialism asserts that the influential members of society hold sway on the material condition, while society’s social institutions are founded upon the material condition.^3^

It was during the Crisis agora lovecruft of Marxism in the 1890s that the political theory of Fascism emerged. Economic theorist David Ramsay Steele writes on the evolution of fascist theory:

“Fascism began as a revision of Marxism by Marxists, a revision which developed in successive stages, so that these Marxists gradually stopped thinking of themselves as Marxists, and eventually stopped thinking of themselves as socialists. They never stopped thinking of themselves as anti-liberal revolutionaries…

The Crisis agora lovecruft of Marxism gave birth to the Revisionism of Eduard Bernstein, which concluded, in effect, that the goal of revolution should be given up, in favor of piecemeal reforms within capitalism. (23) This held no allure for men of the hard left who rejected existing society, deeming it too loathsome to be reformed. Revisionists also began to attack the fundamental Marxist doctrine of historical materialism—the theory that a society’s organization of production decides the character of all other social phenomena, including ideas.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, leftists who wanted to be as far left as they could possibly be became syndicalists, preaching the general strike as the way to demonstrate the workers’ power and overthrow the bourgeois order. Syndicalist activity erupted across the world, even in Britain and the United States. Promotion of the general strike was a way of defying capitalism and at the same time defying those socialists who wanted to use electoral methods to negotiate reforms of the system.

[]Syndicalists began as uncompromising Marxists, but like Revisionists, they acknowledged that key tenets of Marxism had been refuted by the development of modern society. Most syndicalists came to accept much of Bernstein’s argument against traditional Marxism, but remained committed to the total rejection, rather than democratic reform, of existing society. They therefore called themselves “revolutionary revisionists.” They favored the “idealist revision of Marx,” meaning that they believed in a more independent role for ideas in social evolution that that allowed by Marxist theory.

In setting out to revise Marxism, syndicalists were most strongly motivated by the desire to be effective revolutionaries, not to tilt at windmills but to achieve a realistic understanding of the way the world works. In criticizing and re-evaluating their own Marxist beliefs, however, they naturally drew upon the intellectual fashions of the day, upon ideas that were in the air during this period known as the fin de siècle. The most important cluster of such ideas is “anti-rationalism.”

Many forms of anti-rationalism proliferated throughout the nineteenth century. The kind of anti-rationalism which most influenced pre-fascists was notprimarily the view that something other than reason should be employed to decide factual questions (epistemological anti-rationalism). It was rather the view that, as a matter of sober recognition of reality, humans are not solely or even chiefly motivated by rational calculation but more by intuitive “myths” (practical anti-rationalism). Therefore, if you want to understand and influence people’s behavior, you had better acknowledge that they are not primarily self-interested, rational calculators; they are gripped and moved by myths.

Paris was the fashion center of the intellectual world, dictating the rise and fall of ideological hemlines. Here, anti-rationalism was associated with the philosophy of Henri Bergson, William James’s Pragmatism from across the Atlantic, and the social-psychological arguments of Gustave Le Bon. Such ideas were seen as valuing action more highly than cogitation and as demonstrating that modern society (including the established socialist movement) was too rationalistic and too materialistic. Bergson and James were also read, however, as contending that humans did not work with an objectively existing reality, but created reality by imposing their own will upon the world, a claim that was also gleaned (rightly or wrongly) from Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. French intellectuals turned against Descartes, the rationalist, and rehabilitated Pascal, the defender of faith. In the same spirit, Italian intellectuals rediscovered Vico.

Practical anti-rationalism entered pre-Fascism through Georges Sorel (25) and his theory of the “myth.” This influential socialist writer began as an orthodox Marxist. An extreme leftist, he naturally became a syndicalist, and soon the best-known syndicalist theoretician. Sorel then moved to defending Marx’s theory of the class struggle in a new way—no longer as a scientific theory, but instead as a “myth”, an understanding of the world and the future which moves men to action. When he began to abandon Marxism, both because of its theoretical failures and because of its excessive “materialism,” he looked for an alternative myth. Experience of current and recent events showed that workers had little interest in the class struggle but were prone to patriotic sentiment. By degrees, Sorel shifted his position, until at the end of his life he became nationalistic and anti-semitic. (26) He died in 1922, hopeful about Lenin and more cautiously hopeful about Mussolini.

A general trend throughout revolutionary socialism from 1890 to 1914 was that the most revolutionary elements laid an increasing stress upon leadership, and downplayed the autonomous role of the toiling masses. This elitism was a natural outcome of the revolutionaries’ ardent wish to have revolution and the stubborn disinclination of the working class to become revolutionary. (27) Workers were instinctive reformists: they wanted a fair shake within capitalism and nothing more. Since the workers did not look as if they would ever desire a revolution, the small group of conscious revolutionaries would have to play a more decisive role than Marx had imagined. That was the conclusion of Lenin in 1902. (28) It was the conclusion of Sorel. And it was the conclusion of the syndicalist Giuseppe Prezzolini whose works in the century’s first decade Mussolini reviewed admiringly. (29)

The leadership theme was reinforced by the theoretical writings of, Mosca, Pareto, and Michels, especially Pareto’s theory of the Circulation of Elites. All these arguments emphasized the vital role of active minorities and the futility of expecting that the masses would ever, left to themselves, accomplish anything. Further corroboration came from Le Bon’s sensational best-seller of 1895—it would remain perpetually in print in a dozen languages—The Psychology of Crowds, which analyzed the “irrational” behavior of humans in groups and drew attention to the group’s proclivity to place itself in the hands of a strong leader, who could control the group as long as he appealed to certain primitive or basic beliefs. (30)

The initiators of Fascism saw anti-rationalism as high-tech. It went with their fast cars and airplanes. Fascist anti-rationalism, like psychoanalysis, conceives of itself as a practical science which can channel elemental human drives in a useful direction.” ^4^

An anonymous Satanist author propounds that Fascism was not only parallel to Occultism, but was derived from it: “Fascism arose as a revolt against the rationalism of the 18th and 19^th^ centuries. The First World War struck at the depths of the psyche, and plunged the rationalist world view into disarray and a retreat that saw its grand vision of a “League of Nations” dashed. The spread of occult societies during the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th centuries was likewise a response to the sterility of the rationalism and materialism. It is not surprising then that the ground for Fascism was largely prepared by esoteric societies which arose in Europe. Among these were the New Templars of Von Liebenfels, the Runic order of Von List, and the German Order [Germanenorden]. The latter gave rise to the Thule Society, which was to establish the NSDAP as its political front.” ^[5]^

Taking these considerations into account, the most probable exegesis of fascism is that it, firstly, occurred as a revolutionary reaction to the materialism of Marxist philosophy, and that in this reactionary dissidence it sought more mythological and idealistic ideologies, which brought it to the bounds of occultism. Occultism, then, in turn, saw fascism as a means towards hastened ideological revolution, what was commonly termed Aeonic Revolution. However, there is evidence that secret orders such as the Germanenorden and the Thule Society were coerced by a mass influx of Nazi neophytes into espousing racist or anti-Semitic beliefs.^[6]^ Whether it was occult societies which influenced the emerging fascists or the fascists who influenced certain occult societies is controversial, and perhaps may always be so.

Regardless of historical entanglement between the two groups, there currently exists occult orders embracing fascism as a means toward hastened social and individual evolution. Often such extremist hierarchical structures are explained as being nearer to the supposed state-of-nature than current political structures. It is perhaps unnecessary to point out that this logical argument commits the naturalistic fallacy.^[7]^ The above mentioned anonymous Satanic author explains that, “Despite the phenomenon of Neo-Paganism (properly so called to distinguish it from Paganism per se), of wicca and New Age pacifist, cosmopolitan, internationalist creeds, there are today today a plethora of genuinely Pagan societies which remain true to the tribalist, warrior ethos of their ancestors. They are ‘Satanist’ or ‘sinister’ in that they recognise the dark, entropic force of Nature, the cyclic ebb and flow of history, and the creative act of destruction. These ‘sinister’ esoteric societies proclaim the ‘Daemonic revolution’, to usher in the New Order on the collapse of the Old; a New Order that will reawaken the Dark soul of man, that he might live as a totality with the Light and the Dark returned to balance. These esoteric societies recognize Fascism (whether called by that name of not) as the political expression of primal truths. They include The Black Order of Pan-Europa, Fraternity of Balder, Order of Nine Angles, Abraxas Foundation, Blood Axis…All such groups are playing their part in the unfolding of Aeonic destiny and the approach of Ragnarok. Fenrir is about to be unleashed!”^[8]^

The appeal to certain “primal truths” closely mirrors the state-of-nature theory of Benedictus de Spinoza, from “On the foundations of the state” in Theological-Political Treatise:

“By the right and order of nature I merely mean the rules determining the nature of each individual thing by which we conceive it is determined naturally to exist and to behave in a certain way. For example fish are determined by nature to swim and big fish to eat little ones, and therefore it is by sovereign natural right that fish have possession of the water and that big fish eat small fish. For it is certain that nature, considered wholly in itself, has a sovereign right to do everything that it can do, i.e., the right of nature extends as far as its power extends…However, since the universal power of the whole of nature is nothing but the power of all individual things together, it follows that each individual thing has the sovereign right to do everything that it can do, or the right of each thing extends so far as its determined power extends.” ^[9]^

However, the argument for the individual within the state-of-nature can be utilized towards both fascist theory and anarchist theory. For instance, political theorist Robert Nozick, in Anarchy, State, and Utopia, opines the relative unjustness and inordinateness of any amount of government beyond a minimalist libertarian structure, outlining and analyzing the various stages of development from individuals in isolation to hierarchical government.^[10]^In fact, if we are to ignore the naturalistic fallacy within, this argument appears to lend more credence to individualist anarchism than fascism, whose roots and rhetoric are entirely anti-individualist. David Ramsey Steele comments:

“As the dictatorship [Mussolini’s] matured, Fascist rhetoric increasingly voiced explicit hostility to the individual ego. Fascism had always been strongly communitarian but now this aspect became more conspicuous. Fascist anti-individualism is summed up in the assertion that the death of a human being is like the body’s loss of a cell. Among the increasingly histrionic blackshirt meetings from 1920 to 1922 were the funeral services. When the name of a comrade recently killed by the Socialists was called out, the whole crowd would roar: “Presente!”

Man is not an atom, man is essentially social—these woolly clichés were as much Fascist as they were socialist. Anti-individualism was especially prominent in the writings of official philosopher Giovanni Gentile, who gave Fascist social theory its finished form in the final years of the regime.” ^[11]^

If the state-of-nature argument for the suitability of the application of fascist politics towards social evolution is to be disregarded for its erroneous qualities, then precisely what is it that causes a convergence between various strains of occultism and fascism? A possible answer is that both ideologies shared two similar common goals: the creation of a Nietzschean übermensch and the markedly accelerated development of civilized culture towards a prophesied future condition.

“Fascist ideology had two goals by which Fascism’s performance may reasonably be judged: the creation of a heroically moral human being, in a heroically moral social order, and the accelerated development of industry, especially in backward economies like Italy.

The fascist moral ideal, upheld by writers from Sorel to Gentile, is something like an inversion of the caricature of a Benthamite liberal. The fascist ideal man is not cautious but brave, not calculating but resolute, not sentimental but ruthless, not preoccupied with personal advantage but fighting for ideals, not seeking comfort but experiencing life intensely. The early Fascists did not know how they would install the social order which would create this “new man,” but they were convinced that they had to destroy the bourgeois liberal order which had created his opposite.

Even as late as 1922 it was not clear to Fascists that Fascism, the “third way” between liberalism and socialism, would set up a bureaucratic police state, but given the circumstances and fundamental Fascist ideas, nothing else was feasible. Fascism introduced a form of state which was claustrophobic in its oppressiveness. The result was a population of decidedly unheroic mediocrities, sly conformists scared of their own shadows, worlds removed from the kind of dynamic human character the Fascists had hoped would inherit the Earth.” ^[12]^

A communique written by Anton Long, the pseudonymous leader of the modern Order of Nine Angles posits similar goals: “First and most importantly, Satanism is a means whereby individuals may enhance their own evolution by developing their latent abilities—their vitality, perception, consciousness and knowledge as well as their Occult faculties, and such a Way of method is organized for the benefit of individuals over centuries…Second, Satanism encourages…the evolution of our species, since it is a fundamental axiom of Satanist philosophy that every individual possesses the potential to be divine, to achieve far more than they ever realize.” ^[13]^

Though these occult societies and fascist theory share objectives, the political means by which these objectives have been sought after has historically been proven detrimental to results. It seems unlikely that current occult leaders are not aware of this fact, and so the continued romanticization of fascism may be simply a symbolic adoption of a paradigm for consciousness alteration, a practice thoroughly explored in Chaos Magick. Anton Long suggests that this is the case, writing in another communique that “in one important respect Satanism may be regarded as catharsis—a means whereby individuals may divest themselves of those limiting roles that are often (but not always) the creation of the ethos of the society in which the individuals find themselves…Satanic catharsis is essentially blasphemy, but one ordered and with a definite aim—it results from an individual will channelled by a conscious understanding. It is this application of will which marks the genuine Satanist from the imitation or failure. A Satanist revels in life—the failures find themselves trapped by their own conscious desires which they do not have the intelligence to understand nor the will to direct. Blasphemy is only effective if it is, firstly a genuine shock and reaction to those values which though accepted are often unconsciously accepted, and secondly an appreciation of the positive and life-enhancing qualities inferred by infernal opposition. Thus, while the traditional Black Mass is still powerful because of the continuing constraints of Nazarene [Judeo-Christian] beliefs, it is often supplemented today by a Mass which in its unexpurgated version represents a shocking blasphemy for the majority of people in Western Countries…One of the most shocking Satanic Masses used by Satanist groups today is based on an evokation of Adolf Hitler—and not as something artificial, still less as a psychological ‘game,’ but rather as a genuine identification with the positive aspect of National-Socialist philosophy. (To most readers this, of course, will be blasphemy, outrageous—which is exactly the point.)…At its highest level Satanism uncovers what the ethos of a particular society has covered up through images, dogma, words and ideas, returning the individual to the primal chaos out of which opposites were formed. This uncovering gives the individual control, an awareness of their unique Destiny, and it is the purpose of genuine Satanic groups to foster such uncovering by blasphemous rites and individual guidance. Beyond such uncovering, conventional magick, and ritual itself, ceases, replaced by the profoundest empathy. What C.G. Jung called ‘individuation’ is similar to this empathy, but individuation is itself only a beginning. Satanic Orders enhance evolution—while the majority of people sleep, fearful of such internal terrors.” ^[14]^

If these elements of fascism within the occult are interpreted merely as theatrical paradigm inversions, this is simply a play on ideas, not harmful unless the individual occultist is too moronic to recognize it as symbolism. The temporary adoption of such taboo paradigms for psychological therapeutic purposes can also be seen within the BDSM community in the utilization of Master/slave and parent/child sexual fetishes to overcome trauma. Of course slavery and child abuse are wrong, just as fascism is wrong, and no intelligent participant in these activities would ever actually believe otherwise. It could be argued that the use of taboos is itself harmful by propagating negative ideological forms through symbolism, and then counter-argued that censorship of acts which break taboos merely because some dolt might be watching would abbreviate intellectual development to the lowest common denominator.

Therefore, modern occult groups which appear to be fascist are probably not such, but highly intellectualized individuals using extremist symbolism to psychologically reprogram themselves. Actual politics within these groups could vary to any degree, because the group itself is not political.

Works Cited

1 Anonymous. “Materialism - What Matters?.” All About Philosophy. All About God, 13 August 2010. Web. 19 Sep 2010. \<http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/materialism.htm>.

2 “Materialism.” Wikipedia. 18 September 2010. Web.

\<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism>.

3 Harris, Marvin. “Cultural Materialism & Marxist Philosophy.” All About Philosophy. All About God, 13 August 2010. Web. 19 Sep 2010.

\<http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/cultural-materialism.htm>.

4 Steele, David Ramsey. “The Mystery of Fascism.” Libertarian Alliance. Libertarian Alliance, 23 September 2008. Web. 19 Sep 2010. \<http://www.la-articles.org.uk/fascism.htm>.

5 Anonymous. “The Occult-Fascist Axis.” Maledicta. Maledicta Books, 22 Feb 2007.

Web. 19 Sep 2010. \<http://www.maledicta.com/library/axis.html>.

6 “Thule Society.” Wikipedia. 18 September 2010. Web.

\<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_society>.

7 Arago, Gregory. “Naturalistic Fallacy.” ISCID Encyclopaedia of Science and Philosophy. International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design, 2010. Web. \<Arago, G. (2010). Naturalistic Fallacy. Iscid encyclopaedia of science and philosophy. Retrieved September 21, 2010, from http://www.iscid.org/encyclopedia/Naturalistic_Fallacy>.

8 Anonymous. op. cit., note 5 above.

9 Spinoza, Benedictus de. Isreal, Jonathan, and Silverthorne, Michael, eds.

Theological-Political Treatise.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 195. Print.

10 Nozick, Robert.

Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Press, 1974.

11 Steele, David Ramsey., op.cit., note 4 above.

12 ibid.

13 Long, Anton. “Satanism: Its Essence and Meaning.” Infernal Texts: Nox & Liber Koth. Sennitt, Stephen, ed. Tempe, AR: New Falcon Publications, 1997. p. 15. Print.

14 Long, Anton. “Satanism, Blasphemy and The Black Mass.” ibid. pp. 17-18.

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