Researched and written by Ernst Benz, and translated into English by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Emanuel Swedenborg: Visionary Savant In The Age Of Reason is a thoroughly documented autobiography of the scientist Emanual Swedenborg, a great and influential mind of the 18th century. Swedenborg underwent a profound spiritual transformation in 1744 and thereafter devoted himself to extensively documenting his visions of the world of the afterlife. A profound, amazing, and detailed account of a revolutionary scientific and spiritual thinker, Emanual Swedenborg: Visionary Savant In The Age Of Reason is critically important reading for all serious students of Swedenborg's life, work, philosophy, and metaphysical teachings.

Having read Jung's glowing praises of Paracelsus, as well as various accounts of his amazing life, I was very excited to read this book to get a better idea what his actual writings are like. This selection of excerpts is alternately enjoyable and baffling, since Paracelsus was a very complicated thinker with enormous ambitions, and it appears from these excerpts that his reach often exceeds his grasp. He takes an encyclopedic approach to explaining everything about the science of his day as he understood it, completely mingled with his personal theology. The Paracelsian universe is saturated with living and breathing forces, stars influencing everything but in very strange ways that seem to contradict each other, and the inner light of nature leaving signs strewn about everywhere for the enlightened person to interpret. It's rather daunting to read that you really can't just use a particular herb to cure something, because you have to choose the right herb at the right time to fit the current astrological environment as it relates to the person requiring healing. All very heady stuff, and it might be easy to dismiss Paracelsus as a wooly-headed dreamer except for the known historical facts about his rather heroic life, and his reputation for expending great amounts of energy helping the poor.

In summary, the book doesn't (and really couldn't) cover any of the many subjects that concerned Paracelsus in great depth, but it provides a wonderful survey and starting point for additional investigation into this great man's writings.

This is (hopefully) an accurate factual portrayal of a fascinating individual. The author is clearly not sympathetic to his subject's world view, yet he mostly refrains from editorializing.

Indeed, the presentation is so dry and lifeless, the reader never gets much of a sense of the Savitri Devi as a person. Also, the author does a rather mediocre job of presenting the necessary background on Hindu nationalism and Devi's contributions to that cause.

But the author deserves credit for tackling the biography of such a politically incorrect figure.

A very well written book about the women who believed in Hitler worship. The only problem I have with the book is Devi, like Yockey, is not as important to the movement as the author claims. I've been in the movement for 25 years and can only name a few people who follow her teachings. A very few. Other than that it's great.

A Jewish journalist once observed that when writing about Nazism, objectivity is regarded with suspicion and writers feel obliged to pile on the invective. Just see some of the editorial reviews above. This makes it all the more remarkable that Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke has written such a balanced book on Savitri Devi, who taught that we should love all God's creatures--except Jews. Although the author makes it clear that he does not share Devi's views, he lets her speak for herself, and he actually passes silently over some of her more unattractive and fanatical statements, which would surely be insuperable barriers to otherwise open-minded readers.

I have only two objections to this book. First, the author does not adequately discuss Devi's deep philosophical debt to Nietzsche, who provides the framework for her interpretations of Akhnaton and Hinduism and makes possible their synthesis with National Socialism. Second, he never really captures Devi's unique and powerful personality--with its wild extremes of sentimentality and savagery, cold logic and enthusiastic rapture, love of cats and hatred for most human beings--which is stamped on all of her writings. It is her personality as much as her ideas that contributes to the haunting effect that she has on so many readers.

Devi has already influenced the world we live in today--far more for her work on behalf of Hindu nationalism than National Socialism. This influence will only increase as global capitalism continues to ravage the natural world and homogenize the cultural world, thereby drawing new people to the deep-ecological rejection of anthropocentrism and to the politics of difference. This is a wonderful book. Read it, and the world will seem a richer and stranger place.

The Occult Roots of Nazism by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke is a very well written study of the massive influence Aryan occultism and esoteric societies had upon Hitler and the theoriticians of the NSDAP. He is quite comprehensive in his coverage of Ariosophist philosophers and enigmatic volkish groups which blossomed in late ninteenth-early twentieth century middle Europe.

What makes this book worth reading to the student of Modern European History, is not only Goodrick-Clarke's ability to link these movements to Nazi philosophy, but his attention to detail. Further, he carefully explains the historical surroundings and mystical, sometimes ludicrous, beliefs held by members of the various Ariosophical societies.These explanations, coupled with what must have been very tedious research, enlighten these somewhat obscure and often forgotten influences on the NSDAP.

This book is well worth a read. However, its appeal is somewhat limited to those with particular interest in the occult

philosophy sub-genre of Nazi Studies. By no means is it a typical Shirer inspired playscript of the Reich.

TAB

this was a well written book, if you have an interest in the history of nazi europe this is a must read!

This is a great book on the history of the movement. A lot of good info about Aryan Paganism in Germany at the start of the 1900s. I've known people who were involved with German Wotanism between the 1920s to 1945 and have books of and about that time period, but Mr. Goodricke-Clarke talks about alot of people I've never heard of before, and he gives new details about people I've read a great deal about. This book is the only source for a lot of this info.
His new book Black Sun is like part II of The Occult Roots of Nazism. He talks about the Pagan Revival after WWII and all the new ideas and people in the movement. These two books should be read together.

A handbook for anyone interested in contemporary Nazism and the far political right. It is, however, becoming a little dated as some of the movements have changes names and directions, and some of the personalities have moved to new things.
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke writes with an air of intelligence and knowledgeability, so I was somewhat puzzled to find a reference on page 296 to the ENGLISH Royal Family. As far as I am aware, there is no such thing ! Perhaps the author is American and does not know that England is just one part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The correct term would have been the United Kingdom Royal Family, and British Royal family would have been acceptable, but English, never !
The author leads the reader through the whole gamut of the extreme right, from the sinister to the plain ridiculous. From large worldwide organisations to the individuals with ludicrous conspiracy theories. Fascinating reading which will give you lead after lead for personal research.
Goodrick-Clarke's conclusion highlights the negative consequences which could result if the current trend of forcing multiculturalism on a reluctant indiginous population continues to be pursued. Disaffection with mainstream politics, and a new rise of the extreme right, could bring major divisive change. Here in Europe we are already seeing the beginnings of what he warns of, with the entry of the extreme right into mainstream politics via political parties with rapidly growing memberships.

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke has written two outstanding books on Nazism and its links to religious/occult philosophies and figures: "The Occult Roots of Nazism" and "Hitler's Priestess." In both of those previous books (the first based on his doctoral dissertation at Oxford), he engaged in prodigious original source research and showed a bright light on subjects that had previously received either little attention or sloppy sensationalistic treatment.

If "Black Sun" is a trifle disappointing, it is so only by comparision with his own earlier achievements. This latest work is much more journalistic and relies, unfortunately, on others' research more often than not. Moreover, Goodrick-Clarke, in attempting a survey of current aryan/Neo-Nazi/Satanic/far right groups and writings, ends up covering ground already covered in books like Joscelyn Godwin's "Arktos," Kevin Coogan's "Dreamer of the Day," and his own "Hitler's Priestess" (which is about Savitri Devi, who combined Hinduism and Hitlerism).

It is not as if Goodrick-Clarke didn't spend his time in the trenches: it appears that he engaged in extensive correspondence with a number of his subjects and, as always, he has obviously read and digested much of the material that he summarizes in a clear-cut fashion. His chapter on Miguel Serrano breaks new ground in reporting on the extent of that author/diplomat's eccentric Hitler worship. But on other figures of the neo-nazi fringe, such as David Myatt, one is left with the impression that Goodrick-Clarke may have given too much credence to their own self-presentation or, conversely, to the hyperbole of their critics.

Make no mistake, this is as good a summary of present neo-nazi, extreme right ideas and personae as one is likely to find, but in dealing with the current scene - in a book that was written over the course of nearly a decade - "Black Sun" falls prey to the criticism, (voiced in some other reviews here,) that it is not entirely accurate or up to date. Especially in dealing with the knotty and ambiguous area of neo-nazi and Satanic overlaps, Goodrick-Clarke would have benefitted from inside information which was apparently beyond his grasp.

Still, it is never quite cricket to criticize a book for what a critic thinks it should be or might have been. There is much information here that cannot be found anywhere else, and with the caveat that one should double check any facts that may have been superceded by subsequent events, "Black Sun" is a compelling read.

The Black Sun is a very good book. It deals with info no other book has ever dealt with. I'm not sure why so many of these reviewers have dissed this book so. I imagine some people just don't want this info out.