Abstract
In the 1920s, Central Europe — especially Germany and Austria — teemed with illustrated magazines, journals, and feuilletons, many with two daily editions, each with diverse and colorfully worded write-ups on everything from gay rights, feminism, narcotics, and sports to serial killers, night clubs, health care, and, of course, occultism. Truth claims littered every periodical, often with gusto, and frequently with contradiction by various authors and interviewees. This was a new age of a truly free press — unregulated, uninhibited, out of control. Drs. Arthur Drews of Berlin, Albert von Schrenck-Notzing of Munich, and Hanns Hörbiger of Vienna added their esteemed voices to the cacophony, and with thousands of passionate followers, argued a slew controversial yet charismatic “scientific” ideas. Drews claimed that Jesus never existed: the Gospels were, rather, an “astrological code” based on the zodiac and its decans; Schrenck-Notzing held séances with mediums who squirted “teleplasm” out of their noses, mouths, and vaginas; Hörbiger claimed that “the Jew” Einstein was all wrong, and that the universe came into existence — and would go out — by cosmic collisions of fire and ice. Besides their sheer popularity, these three highly occult notions were heavily illustrated with complex diagrams, photographs, factoid charts, and amateur and expert testimonials. Theirs are only three examples of wild (though earnestly believed) truth claims in a fractured, defeated, and disillusioned postwar society where citizens of all political stripes, left and right, were seeking unity in their imagined community through odd mixtures of science, occultism, and technology.
Presenters
Colton OchsnerPhD Candidate, History, University of Missouri-Columbia, Missouri, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Cultural history, Intellectual history, Ethics, Religion, Occultism
