{"id":7817,"date":"2016-03-18T16:50:20","date_gmt":"2016-03-18T22:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7817"},"modified":"2016-03-31T14:52:29","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T20:52:29","slug":"a-top-nazis-library-violent-heathens-and-a-middle-eastern-old-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7817","title":{"rendered":"A Top Nazi’s Library, “Violent” Heathens, and a Middle Eastern “Old Religion”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"himmler

Heinrich Himmler (front, leather coat) chats with der F\u00fchrer<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

According to the Daily Mail<\/em> (dial skepticism appropriately) a collection of occult books((Hans Thomas Hakl probably has more than Himmer did\u2014but no castle.)) owned by Nazi SS chief Heinrich Himmler has been found in the Czech Republic.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

The bulk of the collection was called the ‘Witches Library’ and concentrated on witches and their persecution in medieval Germany.<\/p>\n

One of Himmler’s quack theories was that the Roman Catholic Church tried to destroy the German race through witch hunts.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

UPDATE, March 31, 2016<\/strong>: The Wild Hunt<\/a><\/em> reports that the news story quoted above resulted from a misunderstanding<\/a>, and that there were no “occult books,” just some Masonic books.<\/p>\n

\u2022 At Religion Dispatches<\/em>, thoughts on how the History Channel series The Vikings\u00a0<\/em>both “subverts and supports the violent heathen<\/em> trope”<\/a> (my italics).<\/p>\n

In one scene, the Christian Prince Aethelwulf, who earlier in the series said that \u201cit is just not possible to imagine a world in which there is both one god and several,\u201d unleashed genocidal fury on a settlement of unarmed, pagan [sic<\/em>], Viking((“Viking” is a job description, not an ethnicity. “Norse” would be a better choice.)) farmers who had been promised protection by the king. Yet,((No comma needed after an introductory conjunction. So stop it!)) the show includes vestiges of the violent heathen trope that\u2019s been a staple of how dominant religious groups have portrayed minority religious groups throughout history.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2022 According to this article, some Kurds, who are various in conflict with Sunni and Shiite Arabs and Iranians, are going back to the Old Religion, that of Zoroaster<\/a>. (It has hung in some places all these centuries since the Arab Muslims rolled over Persia in the 8th century.)<\/p>\n

The small, ancient religion of Zoroastrianism is being revived in northern Iraq. Followers say locals should join because it\u2019s a truly Kurdish belief. Others say the revival is a reaction to extremist Islam.<\/p>\n

One of the smallest and oldest religions in the world is experiencing a revival in the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan. The religion has deep Kurdish roots \u2013 it was founded by Zoroaster, also known as Zarathustra<\/a>, who was born in the Kurdish part of Iran and the religion\u2019s sacred book, the Avesta, was written in an ancient language from which the Kurdish language derives. However this century it is estimated that there are only around 190,000 believers in the world \u2013 as Islam became the dominant religion in the region during the 7th century, Zoroastrianism more or less disappeared.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So does this count as a “Native Faith” movement, like Rodnoverie, etc.,<\/a> but not polytheistic?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the Daily Mail (dial skepticism appropriately) a collection of occult books((Hans Thomas Hakl probably has more than Himmer did\u2014but no castle.)) owned by Nazi SS chief Heinrich Himmler has been found in the Czech Republic. The bulk of the collection was called the ‘Witches Library’ and concentrated on witches and their persecution in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[57,93,202,134,39,53,153,29,277],"class_list":["post-7817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books","tag-germany","tag-middle-east","tag-norse","tag-occultism","tag-russia","tag-television","tag-witchcraft","tag-zoroaster"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-225","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1028,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1028","url_meta":{"origin":7817,"position":0},"title":"Nazi Archaeology and the Holy Grail","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"There really was a Nazi archaeologist who sought the Holy Grail and wrote a book about it, Otto Rahn:There was more in a similar vein -- a lot more. To the untrained ear, this has a note of desperate flannel about it. However, Himmler loved the book and ordered 5,000\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13148,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13148","url_meta":{"origin":7817,"position":1},"title":"Witch Dance is a Phenomenon","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 17, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Time was,\" Minnesota witch Steven Posch wrote in 2016, \"here in Paganistan, the Besom Brigade used to show up at the Heart of the Beast May Day Parade, black steeple hats and all, doing our precision broom drills down the middle of Bloomington Avenue.\" A sort of drill team with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"dance\"","block_context":{"text":"dance","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=dance"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/orDHt1qosDg\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1084,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1084","url_meta":{"origin":7817,"position":2},"title":"Playing with Databases","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A search of the WorldCat library database using the subject category \"Witches -- Fiction\" turns up 1,286 hits, once children's books have been filtered out, and specifying English-language titles. (Adding films, archival materials, sound recordings, etc., boosts the total to more than 1,500.)The Widows of Eastwick is at the top\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"publishing\"","block_context":{"text":"publishing","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=publishing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0307269604","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1041,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1041","url_meta":{"origin":7817,"position":3},"title":"Fooling the Cyber-Censors","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday I wrote a review of The New Generation Witches: Teenage Witchcraft in Contemporary Culture, a collection of papers edited by Hannah Johnston and Peg Aloi, for the upcoming issue of The Pomegranate.Teen Witches, a fluid and constantly changing group, have been heavily dependent on the Internet, because they are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"books\"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":940,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=940","url_meta":{"origin":7817,"position":4},"title":"Witches, a Reading List","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Library Girl offers a chiefly young-adult reading list on witch fiction.","rel":"","context":"In \"witchcraft\"","block_context":{"text":"witchcraft","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=witchcraft"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12603,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12603","url_meta":{"origin":7817,"position":5},"title":"Interview with Helen Berger, Leading Scholar of Paganism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 19, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"At his blog, now called On New and Alternative Religions, Ethan Doyle While interviews Helen Berger, one of the leading American scholars of contemporary Paganism. Since completing her PhD research on the early modern witch trials in the 1980s, Berger has devoted her career to the sociological analysis of modern-day\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/helen-berger.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7817"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7883,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7817\/revisions\/7883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}