The Lightning and the Sun

by Savitri Devi

The Lightning and the Sun is Savitri Devi's magnum opus and one of the founding texts of post-World War II National Socialism. Written in Europe from 1948 to 1956 and published in India in 1958, The Lightning and the Sun sets forth a unique and stunning synthesis of National Socialism with the cyclical Traditionalist philosophy of history and Hindu mythology. Savitri Devi's goal was to create a new National Socialist religion. She aspired to be the Saint Paul to Hitler's Jesus. Paul of Tarsus took Jesus, who was a religious prophet and a failed political revolutionary, and turned him into a divine incarnation, creating a religion which served as the vehicle for the triumph of Jewish values over Rome. Savitri Devi sought to transform Adolf Hitler, who was also both a prophetic figure and a failed political revolutionary, into a divine incarnation-an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu-hoping to create a religion that would serve as the vehicle for the triumph of National Socialism over egalitarian modernity. In spite of its near-legendary status, The Lightning and the Sun is a notoriously hard to find book.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Politics, Nonfiction, Esoterica, Nazi Party, Religion

476 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Savitri Devi Mukherji (September 30, 1905 – October 22, 1982) was the pseudonym of the French writer Maximiani Portas.

She was a pioneering animal-rights activist and proponent of Hinduism and Nazism, synthesizing the two, proclaiming Adolf Hitler to have been sent by Providence, much like an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. Her writings have influenced neo-Nazism and Nazi mysticism. Although mystical in her conception of Nazism, Savitri Devi saw Nazism as a practical faith that did not need metaphysics. Among Savitri Devi's ideas was the classifications of "men above time", "men in time" and "men against time". She is credited with pioneering neo-Nazi interest in occultism, Deep Ecology, and the New Age movement. She influenced the Chilean diplomat Miguel Serrano. In 1982, Franco Freda published a German translation of her work Gold in the Furnace, and the fourth volume of his annual review, Risguardo (1980–), was devoted to Savitri Devi as the "missionary of Aryan Paganism".

Her works, in conjunction with those of Julius Evola, have been major influences on activist Bill White. Far-rightist Italian and self-described "Nazi Maoist" Claudio Mutti was influenced by reading her work Pilgrimage as an idealistic teenager. As a young bodyguard for Colin Jordan, David Myatt enthusiastically embraced the values expressed in her work The Lightning and the Sun. In the U.S., National Socialist James Mason (whose Universal Order bears a strong resemblance to the sentiments of Savitri Devi) paid tribute to her in his work, Siege. Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme of the Charles Manson group has endorsed The Lightning and the Sun. Revilo P. Oliver wrote that he saw the potentiality of a future religion venerating Adolf Hitler "in the works of a highly intelligent and learned lady of Greek ancestry, Dr. Savitri Devi."

She was also one of the founding members of the World Union of National Socialists.

Reviews

[Nanda Rajanala · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a well admitted fact that the Nazi regime was cruel and led to mass destruction and anarchy until its end with World War II. Even if we have been trained over the years to listen, read and learn one-sided stories on the Nazi saga with well crafted allied vs axis propaganda in books, movies, speeches, documentaries and our daily lives; the ultimate truth is that there was large scale loss of life and property during the years leading to the World War up until its end in 1945.

There also existed a parallel stream of so called "Nazi sympathizers" too. They were largely unheard of until the internet revolution provided an alternate medium for them to propagate their ideas. Their theories either invite the ire of Nazi regime haters or historians who feel they have already done enough justice to present the reality to the public. To others, they create confusion as the alternate "truth" that they present is sometimes mixed with realities and hard hitting facts that makes you think, thereby making you feel uneasy. The real truth is probably hidden somewhere in between, but the very pursual of that may seem insignificant and unnecessary.

In that light, I consider this book as contributing to the confusing yet delightfully challenging perspective on what could have happened before, during and after the Nazi years in World History. The narrative in this book is even more interesting as it delves into certain spiritual and philosophical aspects of Aryan wisdom and draws a logical map for what that means in the divine scheme of things in life. The author's primary focus in the book is on three types of men who carve themselves out from the rest in the World- Men in time (drawing a parallel with Lightning), Men above time (drawing a parallel with Sun) and Men Against time (a combination of Lightning and Sun). Adolf Hitler is presented as a Man against time, an incarnation of the creator God of ancient mythology. The author also manages to provide examples in Akhnaton (man above time) and Genghis Khan (man in time) to provide glimpses into the other alternatives the World got to see. The Hindu principle espoused in the Bhagavad Gita on detached violence is also taken as the basis for justifying certain unimaginable acts of death and destruction.

While it is hard to just brush aside the not-so straightforward and not-so truthful acts of the allied nations, I do feel the author makes widely accepted assumptions on Aryan legacy based in Nordic, Celtic, Saxon and Germanic roots that I am yet to truly believe in.

The book is worth a read also because it has been written by someone who is not a German and who didn't truly participate in the Nazi cause actively in Europe, although her husband and she worked on Nazi propaganda in India. The author's name can also be misleading as it is a Hindu name -Savitri Devi. The author however was a European with French and Greek roots (no Germanic roots at all) and was married to an Indian, a Hindu, and she believes in calling herself an Aryan Hindu woman. Moreover, she does not really belong to the group of "Nazi sympathizers". She is more of a Nazi fanatic, a passionate believer in an alternate purpose for that movement started by Hitler. Her commentaries however were all authored well after the World War ended, thereby lending voice to a long dead movement.

I would recommend this book only for people who can digest its contents without taking sides and have the capacity to think through things that go against widely hammered down literature on World History over the years.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Savitri Devi, Hitler's priestess. There can be a lot to be said about her. The Woman Against Time who influenced not only her contemporaries involved in National Socialism but as well as many modern day thinkers, Pagans, whether one agrees with her completely or not. She was insanely obsessed with Hitler, Nazism and esoteric Aryanism, and her most influental book, The Ligtning And The Sun, is dedicated to Hitler as well. Insane or not, she was a very intelligent and brilliant thinker.

This book - in which she explains not only about esoteric Aryanism and her thoughts about vegetarian radicalism (she was a devout defender of animal rights that it can be called like that)- contains three main parts about three historical figures: Genghis Khan, the Lightning, the survivor, fighter and destroyer; Akhnaton, the Sun, the one who creates; and Hitler, both Lightning and Sun, who destroys and creates.

Strange ideas she has sometimes and I personally don't agree with all of them 100%, no one really have to, actually, to realise that this book, neverthless, is full of great thoughts. It makes people think, who can look past her obvious insanity and discover the genious and philosopher. This great book is definietly worths reading, although it's not at all an easy read and I daresay not for everyone. Once read it, history is seen differently. Modern life as well, is seen differently. This book is brilliantly synthetizing Hinduism, refering to the Book of Books, the Bhagavad Gita many times, with National Socialist philosophy, which she sees not as a political movement but as "the true religion" of all those of Aryan ancestry. NS or not, everyone can find truth in this book.

The book dedicated to Hitler is obvious for that the chapter written about him, is clearly obsessive, the longest part of The Lightning And The Sun. She saw him as an Avatar of God. Everyone who reads this book can decide for him/herself how to take this.

[Sami Eerola · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book does get one star, because it is well written and not a horrible drag, like many Nazi and religious books. But the content is absolute depravity, savagery and pure evil. The writer argues that Hitler is a reincarnated Kali-God and that National Socialism is the "natural" ideology of the "Aryan race". That is not the evil or the depravity, but the extreme and open racism. The writer is at least honest, when she argues for the extermination of the Jews. The arguments are logically consistent, but clearly have no base in reality, but in crazy conspiracy theories, weird interpretations of Judaism, Christianity and Hinduism and a hoax document called "the Protocols of the Elders of Zion".

For Devi Nazi-ideology is a elitist white supremacist ideology, where only the "deserving" whites must live, the rest of the population is either exterminated or enslaved. Basically National Socialism is for her a extreme mixture of Neo-Liberalism, White supremacy and Hindu cast system. It is unbelievable that this is an actual serious book and not a pulp comic caricature of a Nazi.

I can say with the upmost confidence that if a person believes in the doctrines of this book, he is evil. End of story.

[Strauss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible book. Could barely put it down.

[Moises Pittounikos · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the film, Pulp Fiction, the two men open a briefcase and they are dazzled. The viewer only sees the light, and the mystery is shared between the viewer and the film stars.

A similar thing happened in the life of Nazi witch Savitri Devi.

When Savitri Devi was imprisoned during the war, with her swastika earrings. she had the manuscript of The Lightning and the Sun under her skirt.

Before the British officer could burn this Nazi trash he opened the book and looked inside.

The officer apologized to Savitri Devi, gave her back her book and let her go.

Like the briefcase, we wonder what was inside the Lightning and the Sun. Like John Travolta, the prison officer saw the light.

[No Body · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got back into reading and this is one of the few books that was able to hold my attention. Savitri provided a refreshing alternative view which may seem harsh to the average person who is "in time". I can inference from some of her viewpoints that she understood some esoteric truths (she referred to such as "cosmic truth", I believe) of our reality.

[Kurt]

Part 1: Ah, yes... cyclic time... the Kali Yuga... this all sounds familiar. We've got a couple mentions of the sun here, nothing too crazy... nothing too wild... a solid intro. I should probably read the Bhagavad Gita.

Part 2: Genghis Khan! OH! I know this guy. Cool to learn his backstory and more about the Mongol Empire. I sure wonder why this author takes such a personal liking to him.

Part 3: This part is cozy. This Akhenaton fellow sure did like the sun.

Part 4: Yeah, I'm not rating this.

[Inkworm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished the abridged version of The Lightning and the Sun by Savitri Devi and it only makes me want to read the unabridged version.

What a remarkable writer and woman. It’s rare when you read something and truly learn something new and know it will stay with you throughout your life. This was the experience I had reading this book and it had imprinted itself already within the first chapter.

I have more praise for it since, to my recollection, I have only been moved to tears while reading twice. Upon the last sentence of the book I watered up a bit. Not only has it earned it’s place in my heart and soul but I believe it has earned its place in history and should be preserved and passed down.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating and disturbing, Devi's arguments are poor, especially as pertains to race and health in the context of modern science. Her view of Kali Yuga is insightful and places Adolf Hitler in a metaphysical context however dubious. Though forgotten and ignored by the mainstream, this book has influenced the modern alt-right and neo-fascism's architects and thinkers. To know where these ideas come from - including many ideas that permeate the internet sub-cultures today - one must read this book if one can stomach it.

[Jacob Senholt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was definitely a controversial eye-opener. I have had it sitting on my shelf for more than a decade. And while Savitri Devis macrohistorical analysis is quite alternative from the established narrative, it certainly provides plenty of food for thought, and her thesis is not as crude as one might be led to think when reading the secondary literature on the topic.
Through a macrohistorical lense Savitri Devi takes on different characters like Ghengis Khan, the Egyptian Solar pharaoh Akhnaton and finally Adolf Hitler and sees them in quite the different light- spanning aeons, or Yugas, leaning on both bio-spirituality, evolutionary theory combined with traditional Vedic and Indo-European scriptures, a primary one being the Bhagavad Gita, in her analysis of men 'in time', 'above time' and 'against time'. While I don't buy into all of the ideas presented I certainly found this inspirational as an alternative view of human history and evolution.

[IMPERIVM · Rating 4 out of 5]

The section on Genghis Khan is well worth reading, particularly for a Nietzschean. If someone is familiar with National Socialist revisionism, the section on Hitler will be kind of boring.

The section on Genghis Khan and understanding the interplay between Sun and Lightning are the only two reasons to read this work.

[Shortsman · Rating 5 out of 5]

My only complaint is that I don't understand why we should fight for the coming Golden Age if it is always destined to come. What reason is there to live in accordance with Nature if it doesn't help anyone? You might just say that it's "the right way" but it obviously doesn't even prevent a future Dark Age, so what's the point?

[Mich7637 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finished this though she somewhat belabors the point. A primer of sorts on Hindu beliefs. I doubt AH was the reincarnation of Vishnu (or is it Shiva? I can’t remember). Rather he was a political gangster with pretty typical views for the time. I’ve given it 2 stars for wackiness and the fact I finished it

[Bobby Daugherty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Devi's book on three different men Akhnaton, Genghis Khan, and Adolf Hitler. A sort of philosophy book with a very niche audience.

[Esdaile · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Lightning and the Sun by Sevitri Devi is a book written with passion, in religious frenzy. The frenzy strikes the reader like a suddenly illuminating shaft of lightning.
Savitri Devi was born Maximine Portaz and adopted the nom de plum in Sanskrit: Goddess of the Sun Rays. She was devoted and fanatical national socialist and Hindu. She believed strongly in the role of avatars in human history. An avatar is the incarnation of a deity in human form. The Lightning and the Sun considers a number of figures whom the authoress regards as avatars and whose lives she recounts from the perspective of what she understands to be cosmic history: Genghis Khan, Akhenaton, Adolph Hitler and finally he who is yet to come, Kalki, the avenger.

The writer passionately rejects Abrahamic religions, that is to say Islam (submission), Judaism (allegiance to the tribes of Israel) and Christianity (followers of the Nazarene cult). The Abrahamic religions all uphold the belief that there is only one god who speaks from above to his followers whose doctrine, so Savitri Devi, runs counter to the laws of nature. She rejects the doctrine of progress and equality of souls before God. Perhaps most importantly, she decries the humanism and anthropomorphism which creates what she sees as abstractions "Man" and "the human race" and "the soul of each individual". History does not run to a final end as preached in The Bible, nor are all men created in the image of God regardless of their origins as preached by the purveyors of the Mohammedan and Nazarene faiths. History in the traditional Aryan world view is cyclical and within that cycle are four yugas or stages, just as a human life is made up of four Ashramas. The four yugas are Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dwapar Yuga, and Kali Yuga. For those whose understanding of the world springs from Hindoo teaching, humankind is now in the last stage, the stage of strife and disintegration, the Kali Yuga.

This is the background to the understanding of this highly unusual, even original work. Savitri Devi is convinced , empowered and inspired by the vision of a world of light to come. The book yearns for the return of the Golden Age The Satya Yuga. Nothing, according to this writer, can save mankind from catastrophe now because that is a cosmic law that man must be destroyed to be reborn. The Gods sent one man to turn back time and he foundered and was brought low. This book is written in contempt, increasing contempt of mankind. Why “increasing”? because as a die hard national socialist, the writer believes the human species is degenerating. It will become and is becoming ever les scapable of creating beautiful things. It is becoming ever less spiritual and more centred on its simplest appetites. This short excerpt exemplifies the writer's pathos:
"The privileged ones-the wise-are those few who, being fully aware of the increasing worthlessness of present-day mankind and of its much-applauded "progress", know how little there is to be lost in the coming crash and look forward to it with joyous expectation as the necessary condition of a new beginning-a new "Golden Age", sunlit crest of the next long drawn downward wave upon the surface of the Endless Ocean of Life."

The Lightning and the Sun stands out above all as a spirited rejection of humanism and progress, doctrines which regards all human lives as inherently equal, all human life inherently superior to the rest of the natural world and of inherent value, regardless of such qualities the individual life may or more importantly may not have. The doctrine spread and proclaimed by Abrahamic religions insists on the equality and timelessness of individual souls, exclusively of human souls, which will be granted eternal bliss by an omniscient God. Animals and plants only exist to serve Man who is made in God's image. The semitic religions are fundamentally, so Devi unnatural, worse they are anti-natural.

For Savitri Devi a human being's value lies "not in the intellect but in the spirit".


The Lightning and the Sun is dedicated to the man hear presented as the penultimate and greatest avatar to date preceding the ultimate avatar, Kalki the destroyer. Her dedication "as a tribute of unfailing love and loyalty, for ever and ever" reads:
To the god-like Individual of our time;
the Man against Time;
the greatest European of all times; both Sun and Lightning: Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler for Savitri Devi is a man against time that is to say fighting valiantly but vainly against the inexorable compulsion of cosmic destiny in which all men sink into death and destruction in the culmination of the horror which is the triumph of Jewish individualism which is in the end of days nihilism and self destruction. The ideal which she believes Hitler longed for was "the Golden Age ideal", the inner vision of a healthy, beautiful and peaceful (necessarily peaceful) world; of the real earthly paradise, faithful image of cosmic perfection, in which righteousness prevails as a matter of course."

Few books are written which such power and passion, the passion of conviction, as this book. One book which does come to mind, (I doubt either writer would thank me for making the comparison but who knows?) is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Yes Ayn Rand née Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum, the Jewish champion of unbridled capitalism, also introduces her book with a dedication which is planned to provoke: to America's persecuted minority Big Businessmen". Ayn Rand's book is religious too in the same sense that she believes in cosmic values. John Galt makes the sign of the dollar over a flourishing landscape based on the Jewish virtues of progress, selfishness and individualism. For Ayn Rand, America's upward surge in its young days, the conquest of the West, the suppression of the savages, the development of the land were the hallmarks of triumphant individualism over what the hero of her book codnemning collectivism, calls the "slime of Europe".

The Lightning and The Sun is at the opposite pole to Atlas Shrugged but therein lies a perverse affinity of opposites. Both works exult great individuals and are contemptuous of the masses. Both acknowledge the Titanic struggles which unfold in the world.

In the world at the time of writing it indeed seems as though the Hindoo writings and Savitri Devi's work is a work of Hindoo writing, is unfolding with clarity. As the human species relentlessly increases its population and its average intelligence sinks and the natural world is exploited ever more, now in the year 2021 there a true apprehension of Armageddon underlying the fear and helplessness in the face of global disasters. The politicians of the entire world still stubbornly creep and cringe before their doleful idols "progress" and "growth" and “development” and scientists working on projects of artificial Intelligence are near to proclaiming in seems the replacement of the species with machines. The humanist dogma that each individual is of equal worth to every other individual, the doctrine which insists that people ignore the evidence of their eyes and that there are no differences from one race to another between one gender and the other, that dogma will be irrelevant when the master scientists and experts announce their cyborg. The plundering of the planet, the industrial slaughter of animals, the cult of ugliness and death: are these not indeed manifestations of an age which is increasingly dire, foreboding and dark, a Kali yuga?

The Lightning and the Sun is a religious book and therefore disregards what would strike a discordant note in this encomium to the avatars of the Aryan race. Specifically Savitri Devi passes in silence the abuse of medicine in the Third Reich and the allegations of mass extermination and mass sterilisation. The admiration for stalin struck a discordant note for me. Savitri Devi refers to a respect which Hitler is purported tohave expressed for Stalin's acumen. I do not know where she had that from. She herself expresses a certain respect for Stalin. another avatar? The dark side to this celebration of greatness is cruelty to the weak. To write enthusiastically of the greatness or mission of men like Genkhis Khan or Adolf Hitler and evince no pity whatsoever for those who suffer that the great may thrive comes uncomfortably close in my view to admiration of power as the natural expression of the law of nature that the strong rule over the weak. However, this social Darwinianism which can certainly be seen in Hitler seems at odds with the writer's insitence that the ultimate vision of the avatar in being a force against time, was to retrieve the era of peace the Kali Yuga.
The national socialist regime was condemned among other things for vivisection practised on human beings, those it considered inferior human subjects. It is stretching belief in Hitler as a man of peace and goodness in his entuirety to breaking point to assume that human experiemnts were a necessary part of his mission. Experiments carried out (in)famously by Dr Mengele were continued in the USA after the war and although the CIA insists that the reprogramming experiemnts code named Monarch have ceased, rumours and consipracy theories abound that they did not cease. For many who believe that the curenet dispensation si demonic, part of that demonic rule owes methods to the regime which Savitri Devi offers as the expression of Aryan greatness and divinity.
What of the alleged link between alleged experiments on mind control in national socialist Germany and the subsequent mind control projects, notably the MK Ultra project developed after the Second World War by the CIA ? These are part of the allegations which adherents of the theses of Lyndon Larouche maintain in their widespread presence on the internet. They cannot be ignored and if they can be refuted, Savitri Devi so far as I am aware, did not attempt that task. This is a significant rift. For those who regard the common doctrines of humanism as manifestations of a force of destruction, is that force Satanic in the Christian sense or Jewish? Was the persecution of witches in Europe for example a healthy reaction to the early challenge of Satanic hysteria, as the current conspiracy theorists of the strong Christian persuasion will have their followers believe, or a Christian man dominated cult persecution of women whose crime was to work more closely with nature than the Church would tolerate? The beliefs of a writer such as Savitri Devi and the beliefs of Christian followers of Larouche who link national socialism itself to Satanism are the same insofar as they believe that we are in a dark age (Kali Yuga or end times)
at least agree that our times are very dark ones. This is one issue which has come to the fore in recent years and which is not dealt with here in any way.

Savitri Devi stresses that part of national socialism which is perhaps after all its fundamental premise, also, to borrow her own phrase, "above time", namely the claim of national socialism to act in harmony with, and not in opposition to, the laws of nature.
"At the beginning of our Time-cycle" she writes in her penultimate chapter, Gods on earth "(as it is shown in the myth of the Garden of Eden, which the Christians borrowed from the Jews, and the latter from immemorial non-Jewish sources) man, — Golden Age man, in all his pristine health and beauty, — was a perfect part of a perfect Creation, in harmony with himself and with it; with every living being, which he at first respected. “Sin” — the cause of degeneracy — consisted not in man’s rebellion against a man-loving “God distinct from the Universe and “Maker” of it in the manner an artisan is the maker of a pot or of a watch, but in rebellion against that divine living Nature of which man was and remains a part and nothing but a part. It consisted in man’s implicit claim to dominate and even to “change” Nature for his own ends and, as time passed and as “civilisation” spread, in his increasing contempt for the silent daily example given him by less evolved (but also less corrupt) living species, still faithful to the spirit and purpose of Creation; in his deliberate transgression of the laws of Life for the sake of pleasure, temporary convenience or mere superstition. In other words, it consisted — and consists — in the sacrifice of the divine whole to the part, and of the future to the present; of the Universe to “man” and of every human race to the individual; and of the individual’s own immortality in his race and of his proper mission in the universal scheme, to a passing whim or a tiny, selfish “happy life.”
It is noticeable that in this Dark Age — the only one, the historical evolution of which we can somewhat follow, religion itself has become, everywhere (in practice at least, when not also dogmatically) more and more man-centred and more and more individualistic. "

"For and more man centred" "more and more individualistic". That is indeed what religions have become, not least humanism which itself is a sort of religion putting the sanctity of individual human life at the centre of ethical striving.”

In Lansberg prison in 1925 Hitler prophesied in Mein Kampf that if his movement was defeated the planet in a hundred years would become lifeless. At the time of writing this review, four years to go..

Savitri Devi is well aware of Hitler's sense of cosmic destiny. She adds her own painful and passionate vision of the humanist dystopia:

“Adolf Hitler has rightly stressed that the definitive victory of such an Ideology would mean the end of life upon this planet — which is precisely the aim of the more-than-human Forces of disintegration that stand behind world Jewry. The tragedy, however, is that it would not mean such a rapid and dignified end as one might imagine. It would mean, first, a general and irredeemable bastardisation of the whole human species and an unbelievable increase of the number of human beings — “producers” — at the expense of the rest of life — increase, till the last beautiful wild animals are killed off and the last patch of forest cut down, to make place for more worthless two-legged mammals; — and then, when all the possibilities of nourishment which the earth can provide even with the assistance of perfected agricultural technique, are exhausted, war for food;1 bitter, savage war to the finish (also with the assistance of perfected technique) until the doomed species has blown itself to pieces. It would mean, in other words, “the reign of quantity” in all its horror, and then, — in the absence of any biological elite capable of starting a new Time-cycle — a full stop; on this planet at least, the final victory of that death-tendency which is, from the beginning, inherent in every manifestation within Time."

This is obsessive and compassionate writing indeed. Passionate in terms of destiny and religious mission, it is cooly silent on the reality of ruthless power: the one party state, the fear of falling into disfavour, the fear of the knock on the door, the pitiful misery of those subject to medical experiments. This kind of esoteric writing is inspired by poetic imagination for the high flowing and historical but lacks imagination for the humdrum for the fate of the individual. National socialism did not only place the Gemeinschaft above the individual. The individual counted ultimately for nothing weighed against the community. Again I am reminded of Ayn Rand, the high priestess of the Jewish world-view.

And where does the reader stand? How does the reader feel? That is for each to decide for herself, for himself by reading this book with the high respect which it undoubtedly deserves but not after all entirely uncritically. Respect of course need not mean agreement. All I can recommend to anyone who cares for what may lie beyond the destiny of the confined three score years and ten of the natural life span of the human individual (expended now often painfully out of the kind of humanistic impulse which Savitri Devi decrieds to face the issues which this writer poses.
Is this book merely an outburst of hysterical frenzy by one more unrepentant devotee of an abhorred sect or is The Lightening and the Sun an arousing statement of faith in nature and a better future and deep respect for the avatars, who reveal to us in the trajectory of their terrible mighty lives something of the jealously guarded secrets of the universe? Or is perhaps something even of both? As the writer herself says in her preface
"The endless future alone will tell us who has understood divine Wisdom the best."

[Hank · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Lightning and the Sun av författarinnan och hindukonvertiten Savitri Devi (1905-1982) skrevs mellan åren 1948-1956. Denna utgåvas utgivningsår anges på ett, för boken, tematiskt korrekt sätt: Kali Yuga AH 130. Vi antar att detta betyder After Hitler och efter som han föddes 1889 bör utgivningsåret vara 2019 enligt den gregorianska tideräkningen.

Boken utgår ifrån Hinduistisk metafysik och dess medföljande uppfattning om cyklisk historia. Den tid vi lever i nu, enligt detta synsätt, är Kali Yuga eller den mörka åldern som efter att den har tagit slut mynnar ut i en guldålder följt av en silverålder sedan en bronsålder. Efter detta sluts cirkeln och en ny mörk ålder börjar.

Titeln syftar på två, för denna bok, centrala attribut. Det första är blixt och det andra är sol. Med blixtattributet menar författarinnan förmågan till avskiljt våld (som Krishna förkunnar till Arjuna i Bhagavad-Gita), en hänsynslöshet och förmågan samt viljan att förgöra sina fiender. Det andra är solattributet som står för förmågan att preservera livet och ljuset, sträva efter det transcendentala i harmoni med naturen samt att ha viljan (och i bästa fall förmågan) att införa en ny guldålder.

Utifrån dessa attribut innehåller boken tre rejäla biografiska redogörelser som exemplifierar tre olika ledararketyper och samtidigt tre sätt att förhålla sig till den cykliska historiens gång, nämligen att vara; ”i tiden”, ”över tiden” och ”emot tiden”.

Den första biografiska redogörelsen handlar om Djingis Khan och hur han på ett envist och hänsynslöst sätt erövrade en stor del av världen. Khan är enligt Devi ett exempel på en man ”i tiden” som enbart besitter blixtattributet och därigenom är en hänsynslös erövrare som är kapabel att utföra avskiljt våld i linje med den cykliska historiens gång.

Den andra är den Egyptiske Faraon Akhnaton som införde en ny religion (den gyllene diskens religion) och uppförde en ny Egyptisk huvudstad i detta syfte. Akhnaton var således ett exempel på en man ”över tiden” som ville införa en ny guldålder. Detta var dömt att misslyckas då det är omöjligt att skapa en stad eller stat byggda på ideal som bara är realiserbara i guldåldern.

Den tredje och sista handlar om Adolf Hitler och hans kamp för att återuppbygga Tyskland och sedan försvara detta land mot resten av världen före och under det andra världskriget. Hitler exemplifierar enligt författarinnan en man ”emot tiden”, alltså en man som besatt både blixt- och solattributen (dock med för lite av blixtattributet för att lyckas fullt ut). Tanken här är att en man med båda dessa attribut kan avsluta Kali Yuga och införa en nya guldålder.

Avslutningsvis knyter Devi ihop boken genom att diskutera en Hinduistisk gudomlighet som kallas för Kalki (som är guden Vishnus tionde avatar). Enligt Hinduismen besitter Kalki en perfekt balans mellan de två nämna attributen och besitter genom detta förmågan att avsluta Kali Yuga (som är den cykliska historiens mörkaste fas) och införa en ny guldålder.

Vi anser att boken är en fascinerande sammanvävning av historiska, religiösa och metafysiska koncept och idéer. Boken är på det hela taget välskriven men meningarna har en tendens att bitvis bli väldigt långa och författarinnan upprepar sig en hel del. Detta kan delvis förklaras av att boken skrevs under en förhållandevis lång tid. Vi tycker att boken mycket väl kunde ha varit 100 sidor kortare utan att tappa någon förklarande kraft. Med detta sagt rekommenderar vi denna bok för alla med ett intresse för historia och Hinduism från ett uttalat högerperspektiv.

[Zevlen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is, in a word, a "gross" book.

It is gross in every sense of the word: it's overlong, bloated, and preachy; it is guilty of extreme generalizations, of hyperbolic claims, and of grave delusions; and it is repulsive, exuding offense from every line. The one star I give to this book are given because it is technically competent in organization and citation, and because it is at least internally coherent; its content, in itself, is worthy of no such praise.

One might forget that Savitri Devi is a furiously fanatical Nazi if she weren't so obsessed with demonstrating her whole-hearted, body-and-soul religious devotion to Adolf Hitler and his National Socialism at least once in every paragraph of this book. Indeed, much of her language is a somewhat less obscurantist pastiche of classical New Age esoterica and Hindu jargon, and it is evident to the reader that she has real conviction in and knowledge of both of these cosmological systems. She is clearly interested in learning, to an extent, and intelligent, as she makes various symbolic connections between mythohistorical figures, literature, religion, and psychoanalysis; indeed, much of her text reads disturbingly close to what Jung might produce in one of his more unhinged hermetica.

Nevertheless, no true value can be found in her pseudo-historical analysis other than a historiographical image of the contemporary Esoteric Hitlerist. From the tales of supposed "great men" --- tales obviously influenced, in large part, by the laughable "archeology" and "history" produced by Himmler's Anenherbe --- and the annals of the Bhagavat Gita, Devi tries to construct a grand epic of humanity's Messiahs (plural), who come and go in different bodies in a great Hegelian dialectic "beyond" and "against" Time. In this bastardized Universalist reading of "Paganism" --- referring to all non-Jewish or Christian religions, both of which she despises for many of the same reasons Nietzschean anti-Christians often did and do --- the ancient gods of old religions are the ur-souls of "great men," fighting to liberate "true" humanity (the Aryan race of Hyperborea and Atlantis) from the "corruption" spread by such villains as... the Jew. Indeed, to Devi, National Socialism is not an ideology of the 20th Century, rooted in the corporatist and nationalist writings of romanticist France, Germany, and Italy, but indeed a sort of Prisca Theologia inherited from the earliest days of humanity. As such, Adolf Hitler is not only a human politician, but a prophet and a "savior" whom she compares with Muhammad and explicitly identifies as an incarnation of Vishnu.

Indeed, much of the length of this anti-Bible is spent worshipping Hitler and the soil upon which he trod. Over tens of pages, Devi almost entirely copies the content of contemporary biographies of the Führer, drooling over the propagandistic parables of his supposed childhood and teenage years, and then lamenting the lack of even more minute detail about life prior to becoming his political persona. These moments of purposeless adoration, bordering on obsessive fixation, riddle the book, bloating its length and creating extreme discomfort in the reader. These passages are not helped by her tendency to entirely dismiss Hitler or his party of any moral responsibility for their unambiguous evildoing (often utilizing whataboutism or baseless accusation as a deflection), or just dismissing their evildoing outright.

In the end, one can only be astounded at the infinite irony of a French Greek woman positioning herself as the mouthpiece of not only ideological, but wholesale spiritual and cosmological National Socialism. A woman --- a class of person deeply oppressed in the German State of Hitler's NSDAP --- and a mixed-ethnicity half-French half-Greek, neither of which are contained in the salvation plan to which she devotes hundreds of pages of masturbatory worship, and indeed one of which (French) she openly disparages multiple times throughout.

Devi, like Himmler, and ultimately like Nietzsche, does not shy at any moment from denigrating Christianity as the Bolshevist, slave-mentality faith of sheep herded by the so-called Eternal Jew; this religion of lies and weakness is contrasted with the ancient, solar, Hyperborean National Socialist system, led by its conqueror-hero-Messiah. And yet, she is incapable of seeing that she is herself a sheep, incapable of anything but blind devotion to a totalitarian religion led by a pathetic political prophet. In the end, after hundreds of pages of propping him up as a living god and emissary of humanity's next Golden Age, Savitri Devi fails to accept the reality that her Messiah failed, and that his religion has effectively died, much like that of Mani or of Mithras or of many others. 'Oh, actually he isn't the REAL deal; just a portent of the real deal," she says, finishing her tractate with an anemic call to action for her co-religionists to never abandon hope and patiently wait on the second coming of their antichrist.

I have read many books written by extremists; indeed, as the study of extremism is my field of choice, I would be hard-pressed not to. However, I must say that I have never quite read a political book so utterly devoid of value or interest since, perhaps, my first tryst with Ayn Rand's dreadful and bloated propaganda pieces for her own political religion. Even Julius Evola and his genuinely diabolical books provide more brainfood than this rot. Read only if you are dead-convinced that you want to learn about Esoteric Nazism from one of its creators; all other readers probably have nothing to gain from listening to this sad woman proselytize for a man who perhaps only did not treat her like dirt because she was too useful and too geographically distant from him.

[Kurbads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it

[Tanner Hoard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting read. I was shocked from her stance on animal rights and treatment of all what she may call “God’s creations”, I.e. everything in nature.
She spoke plenty about Aryandom, the International Jew, racial blending, etc. I was again and again surprised at her ideological stances, which to me, unpredictability of one’s thought may be a great indicator of free thinking.
Would’ve been 5 stars but some parts were a bit too drawn out and partially disorganized I feel.

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had me captured from the first page. As a man of Indo European origin, I could resonate with much of what Devi has to say about the NS movement and mindset. I appreciate her nuances and historical context. Would highly recommend this book to right the wrongs of recent history and the propaganda that has been spread for the last 75 years.

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting passages about Genghis Khan (the lighting) and Akhenaten (the sun) and a highly ironic passage about blood towards the end, but for the most part, it was a complaint and type of complaining- rife with contradictions- that was honestly half a century too late.

[Victor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some interesting ideas, however there was a heavy use of repetition in the chapters that could have been solved with better editing.

[Nathaniel Westermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crazy cat lady with a Hitler fixation. Still, a pretty engaging work of esoteric allegory. Not for the faint of heart, certainly.

[Gagan Kishore · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yeah. Dropped this half way through. This is just deranged white woman rage. This lady is a male version of the unabomber.

[Cw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Better than I expected. Lots of great lines in this.

[cinna annelise · Rating 3 out of 5]

That resigned submission to the terrible law of decay-that acceptation of the bondage of Time by creatures who dimly feel that they could be free from it, but who find it too hard to try to free themselves; is at the bottom of that incurable unhappiness of man, deplored again and again in the Greek tragedies, and long before these were written. Man is unhappy because he feels that the world of which he is a part, is not what it should be, what it was before decay set in. He cannot will the world as it is.

[Kjǫlsigʀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

At her least fraudulent, Maximiani Portas does her race-affirming passion some credit with brilliant flashes of intellectual clarity and rhetorical flair - but, alas, merely intellectual and rhetorical.

[TR · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most interesting parts are the chapters on Hitler.