• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

The King Of Fear? Nazi Occultism Question

AlchoPwn

Public Service is my Motto.
Joined
Nov 2, 2017
Messages
2,527
I think that it is a natural transition from a love of 1930s pulp fiction into an interest in Nazi Occultism. Who better as occult villains than the Nazis? I was very pleased when I discovered this rich vein of weirdness in my teens, and as I have grown older I have never lost interest in this rather bizarre phenomenon. I think it is fair to say that few if any modern societies have ever taken occultism as seriously as the Nazis did, and given their obvious and well deserved boogeyman status, being able to read about, and perhaps begin to understand the source of their madness has a bit of a frisson to it. Or is it just me?

In any case, I believe I was reading Who Financed Hitler: The Secret Funding of Hitler's Rise to Power 1919-1933, when I cam across reference to the involvement of the Thule Society, and a passage relating to "the King of Fear". It struck me as amusing and quite interesting at the time. Apparently as part of an initiation ceremony Hitler was required to meet with The King of Fear. After the meeting, everyone asked Hitler what happened, to which he replied "What do you think happened? He's the King of Fear, so I was afraid. Is that somehow a surprise?" or words to that effect.

Needless to say that I am also a Hellboy fan, and Mike Mignola has culled a lot of plots from Nazi Occultism given Hellboy's back story, and the King of Fear is a Hyperborean slaver with great sorcerous power in that publication. I recently cracked that edition open and it made me curious again.

Do any of my esteemed colleagues know anything more about the King of Fear? Understand that I seriously doubt that this is a reference to Stephen King btw. He was a figure from the Weimar Era occult circles of Germany, but is there any more info out there?
 
Do you have the german used to hand @AlchoPwn ?

I'm wondering if there might be slightly different translations which would give more leads to follow.

The figure which came at once to my mind is the Erlkönig.
 
Do you have the german used to hand @AlchoPwn ?
I'm wondering if there might be slightly different translations which would give more leads to follow.The figure which came at once to my mind is the Erlkönig.
Sadly no, I don't have the German reference. In fact I cannot find my copy of "Who Financed Hitler" atm (smh). Needless to say, I jumped on your idea and found the wiki page for Erlkonig. Suffice to say it is a very interesting piece of Germanic folklore, where the Erlkonig is tied into the myths of the tree spirits and Elf Raeds. What was even better was that I was unfamiliar with der Erlkönig , so thanks for giving me the opportunity to learn something new Frideswide, I appreciate it.
 
Thanks to your post AlchoPwn I have just wasted usefully spent a good 30 mins reading up on the Thule Society and got sidetracked onto Hitlers extended family!

If I have understood correctly, the Thule Societies beliefs were a mish-mash of ideas from various sources, bent to support their fascist philosophy. Maybe the King of Fear is something they made-up.
 
According to this book, Black Sun by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke The King of Fear was the the ruler of Shambala, a "terrestial city of power and might" in contrast to Agartha, the "inner, underground realm of contemplation and spirit." This was the view of one Wilhelm Landig, who, in hindsight, blamed the downfall of the Reich on this adherence to the Left Hand Path.

The Nazi approach to the occult was as eclectic and opportunistic as we might expect from their approach to all forms of knowledge. There may well be other definitions of "Der König der Furcht!" :skull:
 
I don’t speak German, but I know that the German word for fear or terror is “schreck”.

Some veiled allusion to Max Schreck, the actor who played Count Orlok, the vampire in Nosferatu?

maximus otter
 
About the Black Sun.... I was being introduced to an alchemical library and the owner shared a story with me.

A scholar was doing ?PhD research (several years worth of concentrated effort anyway) on the Black Sun. A key element was the appearance of the Black Sun in medieval and later manuscripts, incuncubula and so on and the thesis was to catalogue many many new examples. The chapters were written, the expensive detailed reproductions of key images arranged and so on.

The librarian told him that the gold suns were done in real gold and so hadn't discoloured with time while the suns that were dark grey or black had been painted in impure materials and so had changed colour over time. He demonstrated by polishing one of the prime Black Suns that the scholar was about to publish and revealing gold....

I have no idea if the scholar managed to recover the situation somehow or if his research just stopped. I've not seen a thesis or book :(

And the moral is that negative stuff happens when you mess with negative stuff! :p
 
@AlchoPwn Thank you, that's made my day :) There is a Schubert lieder about the Erlkönig. Very atmospheric, horrifying in fact. To me anyway. Here is wikipedia on the song and here is a great version of it, lyrics very clear, and illustrated with shadow puppets!




I don’t speak German, but I know that the German word for fear or terror is “schreck”.

Some veiled allusion to Max Schreck, the actor who played Count Orlok, the vampire in Nosferatu?

maximus otter


just to lower the tone.... is this why Shrek the Ogre is so-called?

1570708991707.png
 
@AlchoPwn
just to lower the tone.... is this why Shrek the Ogre is so-called? ...

The name "Shrek" is the romanization of the Yiddish word שרעק, corresponding to German Schreck and meaning "fear" or "fright", but also used as a common exclamation, often in the form Oy Shrek!.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrek!

If there are any additional connections for the name and its origin they will probably be cited in the late William Steig's diaries, which are allegedly scheduled to be published later this year.
 
Back
Top