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The Secret King – Moynihan & Flowers (2007)

The second and revised edition is starting to have the price of the original edition. Good that there is also a Kindle version with a normal price.

“The Myth and Reality of Nazi Occultism” is the subtitle of the book and this is also the theme of the introduction, the most interesting part in my opinion. Michael Moynihan and Stephen Flowers describe how the myth of Nazi occultism took root and how it developped. Basically, there is but one person to whom the myth can be acribed: Karl Maria Willigut (1866-1946), also known as Weisthor, Jarl Widar and Lobesam.

Here we have a high ranking person who actually experimented with the occult. He was also a fairly active author. There is an interesting history why Willigut thought he stood in a long, magical tradition, his theories, alleged troubles between “Irminists” and “Wotanists”. At the end of the book there is an interview of Manfred Lenz with Gabriele Dechend who knew Willigut when she was young. The interview has some interesting details, such as that the symbol of the Wewelsburg (see cover of the book) was only called “black sun” in hinsight.

Between these introductions and appendices, there are translations of texts of Willigut. He had a very messy, inpenetrable, tickly layered writing style with all kinds of mythological and occult references. Hard to read, hard to follow. The texts do contain writings such as Gotos-Kalanda and the Halgarita Charms.

I found the texts of Willigut the least interesting part of the book.

2007 Feral House, isbn 1932595252

Passages: Studies in Traditionalism and Traditions – Volume II (journal)

In February 2025 Volume II of Passages was published. Again it is an almost 400 page journal. 12 Authors contributed their essays. Many have been translated to English by Prav owner Jafe Arnold.

The authors include familiar names such as Evgeny Nechkasov (Askr Svarte) and Alexander Dugin. The only other name that is familiar to me is Veleslav Cherkasov. Of the rest I may or may not have read something before.

The theme for Volume II “the language of Tradition”, a subject familiar to Nechkasov and Dugin, but obviously also to other authors. Another theme is contemporary Traditionalism. In more than one essay critique is expressed on Traditionalism as it was presented a century ago (but also praise), so you not only get repetitions of familiar themes, but also ‘updates’ of Traditionalistic thinking so to say.

As with most Prav publishers, the level is academic, subjects often difficult yet mostly interesting. Symbols, language, music, theology, but also native faith, metaphysics and critique on the modern world. It is all here. Less ‘political’ than the first volume too.

Certainly an interesting publication, but not exactly easy reading.

2025 Prav Publishing, isbn 1952671248

Slavic Paganism Today – Roman Shizhensky (2021)

Another Prav book. Shinzhensky wrote an academic book about Slavic paganism “between ideas and practice” in Russian and Prav director Jafe Arnold translated it to English, so that also the non-Russian-speaking audience can learn about the current state of academic interest in “Rodnoverie”.

The book is fairly dry and academic, especially towards the end. Sure, you will learn about the many different heathen groups in Russia, their founders, their histories, some of their ideas, their sizes and celebrations, but often academics seem to be more interested in statistics. How many attendees of a “Kupala” festival see which God as their main God? How many are members of other groups than the organising party? How do they explain certain terms?

Shinzhensky often summarises the findings of colleagues, refers to all kinds of academic inquiries, but he also sifted through the sometimes voluminous bibliographies of some of the big names of the “Rus” scene. You get histories, learn about umbrella organisations (the World Congress of Ethnic Religions is frequently mentioned) and not just in contemporary Russia, but also in countries such as Lithuania and Baltic countries.

What annoys me a bit is that (this is the same in other Prav books btw.) the author quite forcibly tries to avoid using the same words too often, so when a chapter is about a certain person, he is one time mentioned by name, then a “our author” (or some similar term), “Volkhv”, but also a word such as “polytheist” is often used, while it is clear that not all pagans are polytheists. Also the term “proselyte” is used too often in my opinion.

All in all the book gives a nice look into (larger) Russian paganism. It is interesting to see how many things are similar to Western countries, while other things are much different. The book is not a handbook to learn about “Rodnoverie” from, but if you are interested in an academic approach of the ‘scene’, this book might be of interest.

2021 Prav Publishing, isbn 1952671094

The Reawaking of Myth – Boris Nad (2020)

This is weird. I found this book because it is published by Prav Publising, but there is also a book with a similar title (The Return of Myth) available from Manticore Press (2016) which I could have read for that very reason, but apparently missed.

Boris Nad is a Serbian author, born in 1966. This collection of “meditations on Myth” (sometimes) has that ‘Russian tone’ and subjects of other Prav books.

It is a bit of an odd book. The texts vary wildly in subjects and tone. Some texts are well written and interesting, but there is also a lengthy piece of fiction and chapters that I find not very interesting.

The book opens with short chapters about mythology and mythologies. A red thread appears to be myths of Hyperborea. This culminates halfway in a lengthy “tale of Agartha”, a long piece of apparant fiction about a man who has visited the underground realm of the “king of the world”.

The latter is of course a theme that we find with René Guénon and Nad refers to Guénon and other Traditionalists more often. One of the more interesting texts of this book is a critique on Guénon though. Nad goes from comparitive myth, which can be interesting, to more speculative texts. Present is a hard view of modern life and “the crisis of the Western world”.

All in all I have to conclude that the book contains more texts that I found not too interesting and only a few that I did.

2020 Prav Publishing, isbn 1952671078

Einführung In Die Westliche Esoterik, Für Freimaurer – Jan Snoek (2011)

This is suprising. This book had been on my wish list for many years. Recently I ran into it while not looking specifically. Happily I read this little book of the eminent Masonic scholar Joannes Augustinus Maria Snoek (1946-) and while writing this review I find out that Salier Verlag has republished the book in June 2024 and it is now quite easy to obtain. (I got a first print.)

Snoek was born in Amsterdam, originally a biologist and chemist, he later studied comparative religion and he was the first professor to tutor Freemasonry in the Netherlands, but he also did the same in Germany.

Initiated in the Netherlands in 1971, Snoek became an avid scholar of Freemasonry both within and without Freemasonry. He is a member of (virtually?) every lodge of investigation in Europe and an active writer, publishing through academic publishing houses, but also Masonic publishers.

The Swiss lodge Modesta Cum Libertate (Alpina) in Zürich, asked Snoek to write an “introduction into Western esotericism, for Freemasons”. Snoek complied and wrote a 270+ page book which is published nicely with a linnen hardcover and with colour plates. A luxury small edition! Since the audience was probably small (members of the lodge?) the book was not easy to find, until recently.

As the title suggests, Snoek wrote an introduction to Western esotericism. After a general introduction, starting with the 2010 problems of the Dutch Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, Snoek sets out to shortly introduce astrology, neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Alchemy, Kabbalah, Hermetism, the Astrea cult, Rosicrucianity, stone masons and occultism. As these are no new subjects to me (only Astrea I never really looked at), there is little really new here. Perhaps a bit too little, the author uses ‘the Masonic angle’, details of particular interest to Freemasons. The last chapter “Freemasonry and Western esotericism” is what the reader has been waiting for. Unfortunately Snoek does not really say how some elements found their way into Freemasonry.

All in all the book is exactly what the title promises: an introduction. I am glad that it is now available to a larger audience. An English edition would be even better as the book indeed is a basic introduction into Western esotericism for Freemasons and I think it might benefit a larger audience.

2011 Freimaurerloge Modestia Cum Libertate, republished 2024 Salier Verlag, isbn 3962850686

Eschatological Optimism – Daria Dugina (2023)

I was looking what other books Askr Svarte‘s publisher Prav Publising has available and I ran into Eschatological Optimism. The name of the author did not yet ring a bell.

From the introduction of translator and owner of Prav, Jafe Arnold, it soon became clear to me: here we have a book of Darya Aleksandrovna Dugina (1992-2022), the daugher of Alexander Dugin (1962-) who died in a car crash before she turned 30. The book is introduced by Arnold and Alexander Dugin himself.

Daria had studied philosophy and was so ‘Plato minded’ that she used the pseudonym “Platonova”. Obviously she was massively influenced by her father and the circle around him. I see several similarities with the writings of Askr Svarte (or would that be because they have the same translator?).

Dugina appears to have been an avid writer and lecturer and the book is a collection of lectures and essays. The book is divided in four parts. Two first two are -even though very philosophical- quite interesting. The last two interest me less. These last to parts are -very shortly- about the political side of Platonism and later philosophy.

The first part gave the book its title:

eschatological optimism is the consciousness and recognition that the material world, the given world which we presently take to be pure reality, is illusory: it is an illusion that is about to dissipate and end.

“Eschatology” is the acknowledgement that the material world is finite. The “optimism” part of the concept is not so much the being happy about that, but more the ‘riding the tiger’ attitude of Julius Evola: we are going down, let us make the best of the time that is left (but also: “live a life of unhappiness”).

Julius Evola represents an authentic revolt within Postmodernity. Guénon is even more fundamental. They show us the paths we can take. For myself, this path is, without a doubt, Orthodoxy and Edinoverie.

Explaining the latter term later in the book.

I belong to Edinoverie. This Edinoverie Church is somwhere between the Old Believers’ Rite and the ruling Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.

So quite like her father, Dugina is interested in philosophy, Traditionalism, politics and Russian Orthodoxy. Different from her father, Dugina was also a feminist, but I must say: of a very specific type that is completely different from our Western view of feminism and so we see that Dugina was also a thinker of her own.

Just like Svarte, Dugina’s writing frequently goes over my head, but it makes an interesting and often non-Western way of thinking inspite of being too philosophical for my liking. She sure was a thinker with great potential, so her early passing is certainly a shame. With an afterword of Daria’s mother Natalya Melentyeva the book has a tragic opening and closing, but it is good that also the Western audience now has a chance to read this young philosopher.

2023 Prav Publishing, isbn 1952671787

The Great Knowledge – Maria Kvilhaug (2023)

The Kindle version of this book turned out to be a strenuous read. The view is turned 90 degrees, shows on only half my screen, the letters are crammed together and not all pages have the same lay-out. And that for almost 800 pages!

The book is about “Fjölkyngi”, a term that Kvilhaug translates as “great knowledge” and which she splits in “Seiðr” and initiation. But “Fjölkyngi” is a very broad term as you will find in this book. The author goes from shamanism to witchcraft, various kinds of ancient magic of different peoples and along the way deals with subjects such as gender fluidity, gender roles, ‘souls’, mythology, folklore, etc. etc. etc.

As we know from her books, Kvilhaug presents her own translations of mostly saga texts in this case and she usually explains how she came to her translations. She returns a massive number of sagas highlighting elements such as magic or initiation. The result is perhaps an encyclopedia or the vast breath of the subject of magic within Northern sagas complete with source material.

Impressive, but perhaps it is wiser to buy the (expensive) physical version of the book.

2023 Three Little Sisters, isbn 1959350994

Eleusis to Florence – Nicola Bizzi (2019)

  • history

After a few of his smaller works, I picked up what appears to be Bizzi’s main work. The full title of this book is: From Eleusis to Florence: the transmission of a secret knowledge. Part A: the origin of the mysteries (Vol. 1).

As you may have guessed from my reviews of his other books, we here have an author who claims to be part of an initiation tradition that goes back to the dawn of time. As a matter of fact, Bizzi says that his branch of “Eleusinity” can be traced back to older Gods and the few other initiations that are left, stem from younger Gods.

The deepest roots of Eleusinity lie in the culture and civilization of the ancient Pre-Greek people who inhabited the Aegean lands;

In about 330 page Bizzi starts to sketch who ‘his’ initiation comes “from the Aegean-Minoan era to the entrance of the Elusinians in clandestinity”. In order to do so, you get a lot of ‘alternative history’ about antediluvian civilizations and archaeologists who neglect facts that do not fit their “paradigm”. Bizzi cites theories such as the Templar origin of Freemasony, the ideas of Graham Hancock and other authors which (in my eyes) do not really strengthen his point.

What also does not help, is that everybody that Bizzi admires, had to be an Elusean “Initiated”, such as Arturo Reghini. Now I happen to be reading material of Reghini and even though he frequently says he was a Freemason and he does refer to mysteries of Eleusis every now and then, he does appear to have seen Eleusis as something of the past and certainly does not place himself in that tradition.

So Bizzi sets out to prove that there are initiations thousands of years old, only now coming to the surface. The book is mostly historical. I would have preferred to learn a bit more about what the mysteries entail.

The essay by Nicola Bizzi, […] in the original Italian edition consists of three massive volumes of almost a thousand pages each. For reasons due to it vastness and complexity, Edizioni Aurora Boreale has decided to divide the English edition into several volumes. Each volume has three distinct parts, for a total of nine books, whose publication will continue over several years.

So I guess, five years after the first English volume, we still have got something coming. I am not sure yet if the first volume enthused me enough to buy the next volume when it comes out. We will see.

2019 Edizioni Aurora Boreale, isbn 889863546X

Albert Pike’s Esoterika – Arturo de Hoyos (2005)

Albert Pike (1809-1891) is perhaps the most famous of Freemasons and also one of the most influential ones, especially in the USA. Every so often I try to read his Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (1871), but every time I get stranded in the gigantic amount of words that Pike used to make his point.

Morals and Dogma is not universally applauded, but more and more I see that (mostly American) Masons suggest Esoterika when somebody asks about the esoteric side of Freemasonry. Arturo de Hoyos made it available, so I decided to give the work a try.

Esoterika is not a work of Pike, but a compilation made by De Hoyos. The texts are about “Symbolism of the Blue Degrees of Freemasonry”, hence, symbols of the degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft and Master Mason. Pike investigates the original words that often became garbled Hebrew in Freemasonry (Pike sees Samaritan as the actual language and the religion of Zoroaster as the basis of Freemasonry), talks about passwords, the lost word, the Hiram myth, etc. etc.

Here and there are some interesting angles, but overall I still have the idea that Pike talks a lot, but doesn’t say too much. Esoterika certainly is not the ‘deep esoteric’ approach to Freemasonry you may expect.

2005 / 2022 Scottish Rite Research Society

Towards Another Myth – Askr Svarte (2024)

Another 340 page book with essays by Askr Svarte / Evgeny Nechkasov. The full title goes: Towards Another Myth: A Tale of Heidegger and Traditionalism. Thematically this book continues with the last book of Svarte that I reviewed.

In 25 longer and shorter texts, Svarte investigates the relationship between Heidegger and Traditionalism. To do that he makes side steps into Northern mythology, poetry and of course philosophy and language and all that to come to “another myth”.

In recent years, more and more Traditionalists and right-wing thinkers have been trying to incorporate the thought of Martin Heidegger into theirs. Critical notes have already been made in Passages. Svarte takes this a step further. He dissects Evola’s erroneous critique on Heidegger, investigates the common and diverting points between the philosophy of Heidegger and that of Guénon and in order to do so, dives into Northern mythology, Advaita Vedanta.

As all of Svarte’s work, the present title is not an easy read, but he does once again come with interesting observations and explanations.

Amidst his general empathy and sympathy for mythos as an ontological principle of extreme importance in culture and thinking, Heidegger’s program nevertheless does not propose returning to one or another mythology, even the Greek, as a form of identity, state religion, or system of values. Instead, he speaks of the non-metaphysical, groundless (Ab-Grund) and poetic refounding of the whole of mythos and the holy on the horizon of Another Beginning. For Traditionalism, this means being compelled to seek out and tell forth Another Myth.

2024 Prav Publishing, isbn 1952671825