Ariosophists Combined Völkisch Nationalism, Racism, and the Occult to Prophesy a Coming Era of German World Rule

The Ariosophists, initially active in Vienna before the First World War, combined German völkisch nationalism and racism with occult notions borrowed from the theosophy of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, in order to prophesy and vindicate a coming era of German world rule. Their writings described a prehistoric golden age, when wise gnostic priesthoods had expounded occult-racist doctrines and ruled over a superior and racially pure society. They claimed that an evil conspiracy of anti-German interests (variously identified as the non-Aryan races, the Jews, or even the early Church) had sought to ruin this ideal Germanic world by emancipating the non-German inferiors in the name of a spurious egalitarianism. The resulting racial confusion was said to have heralded the historical world with its wars. economic hardship, political uncertainty and the frustration of German world power. In order to counter this modern world, the Ariosophists founded secret religious orders dedicated to the revival of the lost esoteric knowledge and racial virtue of the ancient Germans, and the corresponding creation of a new pan-German empire.

--Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, introduction to The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology (1985; repr., London: Tauris Parke Paperback, 2005), 2.