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List, Guido Karl Anton (von), * 5 Jan 1848 (Vienna), † 17 May 1919 (Berlin) Journalist, novelist, dramatist and folklorist with emphasis on Germanic mythology, religion and prehistory. List was associated with the Austrian Pan-German movement and völkisch nationalism at Vienna from 1890. In 1878 he married Helene Förster-Peters († 1890), and in 1899 Anna Wittek. While temporarily blind in 1902, List had an illumination concerning the secret meaning of the runes, which led him to assimilate esoteric ideas from 1903 on. List was the …

A dualistic-gnostic racial religion which attracted followers in Austria and Germany during the first half of the 20th century. The term “Ariosophy”, meaning esoteric wisdom of the Aryan race, was first coined by → Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels in 1915. He earlier used the terms “theozoology” and “Ario-Christianity” and founded the Ordo Novi Templi (ONT) at Vienna in 1900 as a Christian gnostic order to celebrate an Aryan cult of pure race. → Guido von List, whose ideas on the occult heritage of the …

Lanz von Liebenfels, Jörg (Adolf Josef Lanz), * 19 Jul 1874 (Vienna), † 22 Apr 1954 (Vienna) Cistercian monk, journalist and author, creator of a racial-esoteric doctrine known as → Ariosophy, and founder of the Ordo Novi Templi (ONT), a Christian gnostic order based on a cult of Aryan race. Born Adolf Josef Lanz, the son of a Viennese schoolmaster, he developed a fascination for religious and chivalrous orders at an early age. In 1893 he entered the noviciate at Heiligenkreuz Abbey near Vienna as Frater Georg. …

1. Hermeticism By the 18th century, Hermeticism had expanded well beyond its Renaissance focus on → Hermes Trismegistus and his revelation of a prisca theologia [→ Tradition]. Contemporary interest in encyclopaedias, universal histories, and comparative mythology created an eclectic current in which “Hermetic” denoted a wider field including → Egyptomany, Orphic mysteries, Pythagoreanism, Kabbalah [→ Jewish Influences], → Paracelsianism, → alchemy, and → Rosicrucianism. Several Enlightenment historians included an acco…

Hartmann, Franz, * 22 Jan 1838 (Donauwörth), † 7 Aug 1912 (Kempten) German physician, author, and leading German Theosophist. Hartmann first worked as a pharmacy assistant in Kempten. In 1859 he was enlisted as a volunteer in the 1st Artillery Regiment of Bavaria during the Austrian-Italian War. In 1860 he commenced studies in pharmacy (receiving his state qualification in 1862) and medicine at Munich University. In July 1865 he took passage as a ship's doctor on a vessel bound from Le Havre to New York and…