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The Impeachment of Man
The acclaimed Aryanist and keeper of the Hitler flame (her book, The Lightning and the Sun, inspired such postwar Hitlerites as George Lincoln Rockwell) argues passionately for a society that transcends the human-centered to recognize the value of all living things. Vegetarian, anti-vivisectionist, and opposed to Jewish ritual slaughter, Impeachment of Man will infuriate, inspire, and inform across the ideological spectrum. Makes a great gift for the young person who thinks that concern for animal rights is "left-wing" and began with PETA.
156 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
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About the author
Savitri Devi
26 books128 followersSavitri 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 31, 2024
Okay, wow, where to begin with this absolute mess of a book?
Devi believed in some pretty wacky stuff, most notably that Adolf Hitler was an avatar of Vishnu. She also believed that the one true religion was a pre-Christian one (exemplified by Hinduism today, but also by Akhenaten’s sun cult, and an idealised version of pre-Christian Germanic religion). Hitler was a living embodiment - according to Devi - of this perennial tradition.
Right, so that’s pretty wild, but fine. It isn't really why this book is bad. This book is mostly about vegetarianism, and why followers of the true spirituality should reject eating meat. Hitler is mentioned in passing twice. No part of this book relies on Hitler to make its point (but the final chapter does get pretty close).
The central argument is that Christianity, and a number of other traditions (such as Chinese traditional religion) are man-centric. These traditions are therefore not perennial and true. The true religion holds animals on the same level as man. Animals are endowed with souls too, and although their roles on this earth might be different to mankind's, they should not be considered beneath man. By way of comparison, Akhenaten’s sun-cult, “had it endured, would have been perhaps the one joyous creed of worldwide scope”. This is because, according to Devi, it held animals on-par with man.
This book isn’t very well-written. Its arguments are chaotic and disorganised. Significant points pop up, and then disappear, only to return again chapters later to be repeated nearly verbatim. I don’t feel that this book was well edited. I’m not convinced that it was edited at all. It is rambling and repetitive.
Another problem is that this book makes terrible use of sources, mis-representing important information, mixing fact in with unsourced nonsense, and generally just dealing with information improperly. In an attempt to prove her point, Devi wildly mis-represents historical research making fantastical claims about topics that even leading scholars know very little about.
The sun cult of Akhenaten gets some of the most absurd treatment in this regard.
But we know of no historic civilization based upon a joyous earthly wisdom, implying active love towards all living creatures; upon a religion of this world and of this life in flesh and blood, which would be neither man-centered nor pessimistic, nor lacking truly universal kindness in the Buddhistic sense of the word. We only know of a very few individuals who have put forward such a philosophy, professed such a religion - consciously or unconsciously, from time to time; a few individuals of whom the most ancient and the most illustrious seems to have been Akhnaton, King of Egypt, and Founder of the Religion of the Disk in the early fourteenth century B.C. - perhaps the one man who ever dreamed of building a world civilization upon the basis of a joyous wisdom like that to which we have just alluded.
What?
How did she reach that conclusion on the basis of some limited archeology? She goes on to explain various details about the theological beliefs of this religion, and how it aligns with her idea of the one, true, perennial tradition. I don’t know if these details were revealed to her in a dream (if they were, she doesn’t say), but they certainly weren’t revealed by any credible research or scholarship.
Her takes on the history of Christianity are also vapid and elementary. There is no reference to scholarship and very rarely does Devi reference any other author at all. Devi draws parallels between Soviet Communism and the New Testament, supposedly picking holes in Christian theology, and then careens into using the Bhagavad-Gita as an unimpeachable source of spiritual truth, even employing it to disprove straw-men. It’s all so arbitrary.
The endeavour of some Theosophists to maintain an irreducible breach between humanity and animalhood by introducing in their explanation of the hereafter the idea of animal “group-souls” […] The Bhagawad-Gita makes no mention whatsoever of group-souls; nor does, as far as we know, any recognized Hindu “shastra” in which the question of birth and rebirth is discussed. On the contrary, it would seem that, in the eyes of the Indian sages, authors of the Scriptures, as well as in those of the ordinary Hindu, every soul is endowed from all times (and not merely from the day it enters a human body) with an individuality that persists through all its successive incarnations, whatever be the different species in which these might take place.
Who cares what Theosophists think? The movement was already withering by the time Devi wrote this book. Although I do agree that the Theosophists were just making stuff up. The problem is that Devi is doing the same thing!
If Devi’s takes were at least interesting then I would forgive some of the nonsense, but most of her views are actually quite pedestrian. Put aside the highfalutin talk about perennial religions and sun-cults, and you are left with many truly straight-forward takes.
A soft, warm, fluffy ball of purring fur that stretches its velvet paws with pleasure, while its two deep greenish-blue eyes express confidence in the friend who is carrying it home; a creature that wags its trail for joy and licks one’s hand as soon as it feels one loves it; a tiny feathery body, with wings that flutter, and a frightened heart that one feels beating between one’s fingers;, and all the other creatures of the earth, wild or tame, are lovable in themselves, without it being necessary for them to be either “reasonable” or “useful”. They are lovable just because they are alive.
I mean, that’s something we can all agree on, right? We don’t need a sun-cult for that!
But yet, Devi couldn’t leave it at that. The final chapter takes the pleasant hippie-like argument about being nice to all beings, and takes it in a fundamentally different direction… towards eugenics.
The immediate step to take, therefore, all over the world, in order to raise the standard of human life everywhere and to avoid useless wars, would be, logically, to stop the indiscriminate production of babies - to cease bribing people to have young ones, in the countries of moderate birthrate, unless, of course, these be of exceptionally fine racial stock, to encourage them to have none, or extremely few, in countries already burdened by overpopulation, especially if these be also of inferior racial stock.
So I can’t even make the argument that her conclusions are basically inoffensive. This book is tedious, vapid and obnoxious. It has no value as scholarship, and as a manifesto of vegetarianism, it is let down by transforming itself into a work of Nazi apologetics in the final chapter. I don’t have anything good to say about it at all.
Devi believed in some pretty wacky stuff, most notably that Adolf Hitler was an avatar of Vishnu. She also believed that the one true religion was a pre-Christian one (exemplified by Hinduism today, but also by Akhenaten’s sun cult, and an idealised version of pre-Christian Germanic religion). Hitler was a living embodiment - according to Devi - of this perennial tradition.
Right, so that’s pretty wild, but fine. It isn't really why this book is bad. This book is mostly about vegetarianism, and why followers of the true spirituality should reject eating meat. Hitler is mentioned in passing twice. No part of this book relies on Hitler to make its point (but the final chapter does get pretty close).
The central argument is that Christianity, and a number of other traditions (such as Chinese traditional religion) are man-centric. These traditions are therefore not perennial and true. The true religion holds animals on the same level as man. Animals are endowed with souls too, and although their roles on this earth might be different to mankind's, they should not be considered beneath man. By way of comparison, Akhenaten’s sun-cult, “had it endured, would have been perhaps the one joyous creed of worldwide scope”. This is because, according to Devi, it held animals on-par with man.
This book isn’t very well-written. Its arguments are chaotic and disorganised. Significant points pop up, and then disappear, only to return again chapters later to be repeated nearly verbatim. I don’t feel that this book was well edited. I’m not convinced that it was edited at all. It is rambling and repetitive.
Another problem is that this book makes terrible use of sources, mis-representing important information, mixing fact in with unsourced nonsense, and generally just dealing with information improperly. In an attempt to prove her point, Devi wildly mis-represents historical research making fantastical claims about topics that even leading scholars know very little about.
The sun cult of Akhenaten gets some of the most absurd treatment in this regard.
But we know of no historic civilization based upon a joyous earthly wisdom, implying active love towards all living creatures; upon a religion of this world and of this life in flesh and blood, which would be neither man-centered nor pessimistic, nor lacking truly universal kindness in the Buddhistic sense of the word. We only know of a very few individuals who have put forward such a philosophy, professed such a religion - consciously or unconsciously, from time to time; a few individuals of whom the most ancient and the most illustrious seems to have been Akhnaton, King of Egypt, and Founder of the Religion of the Disk in the early fourteenth century B.C. - perhaps the one man who ever dreamed of building a world civilization upon the basis of a joyous wisdom like that to which we have just alluded.
What?
How did she reach that conclusion on the basis of some limited archeology? She goes on to explain various details about the theological beliefs of this religion, and how it aligns with her idea of the one, true, perennial tradition. I don’t know if these details were revealed to her in a dream (if they were, she doesn’t say), but they certainly weren’t revealed by any credible research or scholarship.
Her takes on the history of Christianity are also vapid and elementary. There is no reference to scholarship and very rarely does Devi reference any other author at all. Devi draws parallels between Soviet Communism and the New Testament, supposedly picking holes in Christian theology, and then careens into using the Bhagavad-Gita as an unimpeachable source of spiritual truth, even employing it to disprove straw-men. It’s all so arbitrary.
The endeavour of some Theosophists to maintain an irreducible breach between humanity and animalhood by introducing in their explanation of the hereafter the idea of animal “group-souls” […] The Bhagawad-Gita makes no mention whatsoever of group-souls; nor does, as far as we know, any recognized Hindu “shastra” in which the question of birth and rebirth is discussed. On the contrary, it would seem that, in the eyes of the Indian sages, authors of the Scriptures, as well as in those of the ordinary Hindu, every soul is endowed from all times (and not merely from the day it enters a human body) with an individuality that persists through all its successive incarnations, whatever be the different species in which these might take place.
Who cares what Theosophists think? The movement was already withering by the time Devi wrote this book. Although I do agree that the Theosophists were just making stuff up. The problem is that Devi is doing the same thing!
If Devi’s takes were at least interesting then I would forgive some of the nonsense, but most of her views are actually quite pedestrian. Put aside the highfalutin talk about perennial religions and sun-cults, and you are left with many truly straight-forward takes.
A soft, warm, fluffy ball of purring fur that stretches its velvet paws with pleasure, while its two deep greenish-blue eyes express confidence in the friend who is carrying it home; a creature that wags its trail for joy and licks one’s hand as soon as it feels one loves it; a tiny feathery body, with wings that flutter, and a frightened heart that one feels beating between one’s fingers;, and all the other creatures of the earth, wild or tame, are lovable in themselves, without it being necessary for them to be either “reasonable” or “useful”. They are lovable just because they are alive.
I mean, that’s something we can all agree on, right? We don’t need a sun-cult for that!
But yet, Devi couldn’t leave it at that. The final chapter takes the pleasant hippie-like argument about being nice to all beings, and takes it in a fundamentally different direction… towards eugenics.
The immediate step to take, therefore, all over the world, in order to raise the standard of human life everywhere and to avoid useless wars, would be, logically, to stop the indiscriminate production of babies - to cease bribing people to have young ones, in the countries of moderate birthrate, unless, of course, these be of exceptionally fine racial stock, to encourage them to have none, or extremely few, in countries already burdened by overpopulation, especially if these be also of inferior racial stock.
So I can’t even make the argument that her conclusions are basically inoffensive. This book is tedious, vapid and obnoxious. It has no value as scholarship, and as a manifesto of vegetarianism, it is let down by transforming itself into a work of Nazi apologetics in the final chapter. I don’t have anything good to say about it at all.
January 4, 2023
A surprisingly modern and forward-thinking work of animal liberation literature. Shame it's completely riddled with racist nonsense.
September 5, 2020
I don’t normally give negative reviews, but I just cannot understand how this book is so highly rated. For such a short read (156 pages), this book was a real chore to get through due to its highly repetitive and poorly structured text.
Devi succeeds at one thing in this book. She provides a thorough criticism of the callousness towards nature propagated by what she entitles “man-centred creeds” (such as Christianity and socialism, and practically every other widely held belief), as opposed to her “life-centred creed” that dignifies the inherent value in all living things and not just man. She also provides an incisively accurate description of the general attitude many people hold towards nature and the rights of animals; even criticising many self-professed “animal lovers”, and the general hypocrisies they live by.
If this is what the author set out to do, then I would say she accomplished that much, but towards this end the first few pages of the book would have sufficed. The rest of the book is mostly just a reiteration of the same litany over and over with some more focus put into specific issues here and there, pausing every few paragraphs to praise ancient rulers like Akhnaton and Ahsoka and their “life-centred” kingdoms. Not to mention her problematic exaltation of certain authoritarian regimes of the mid-20th century, and her outright denial of the holocaust.
While her criticism of the supposed shortcomings of “man-centred creeds” remains valid, she fails to produce any convincing alternative. Her main appeal to the rights of animals is a pure appeal to emotion, outright stating that one should simply “feel” his responsibility towards animal life. Going so far as to invoke imagery of cute and fluffy animals as a self-evident basis for her argument. Admittedly, she does bring up an interesting perspective, that mankind’s value should not be judged based on his capacity for reason, but on his capacity for sympathy towards other living creatures.
However, she then goes on to espouse the racialist dogma of the Nazi regime, suggesting that the ideal “life-centred” utopia can only be achieved by controlling the population of “lesser human races” and promoting the population of a purely Nordic stock. And unlike the implications of certain reviewers, her racialist views (which come up every few paragraphs) cannot easily be put aside, as they are quite central to the author’s beliefs and her organisation of living creatures in the “hierarchy of life”.
Quite honestly, I cannot see who this book would interest. Any person already convinced of the rights of animals wouldn’t find her “impeachment of man” of much value, save perhaps for coming up with a couple mediocre talking points which can easily be obtained elsewhere. On the other hand the average meat-eating person wouldn’t find her argument centred around the fluffiness of kittens very convincing. And for anyone who claims that Devi’s writing is “poetic”, I simply have no idea what they’re talking about, as I found it to be extremely dry and monotonous. On top of all that, the average person with the barest shred of morality would find her racist views reprehensible. I would say this book would at least appeal to ecofascists or people interested in wacky historical characters, but even then it is simply boring, and there are plenty of wackier fascists out there.
Devi succeeds at one thing in this book. She provides a thorough criticism of the callousness towards nature propagated by what she entitles “man-centred creeds” (such as Christianity and socialism, and practically every other widely held belief), as opposed to her “life-centred creed” that dignifies the inherent value in all living things and not just man. She also provides an incisively accurate description of the general attitude many people hold towards nature and the rights of animals; even criticising many self-professed “animal lovers”, and the general hypocrisies they live by.
If this is what the author set out to do, then I would say she accomplished that much, but towards this end the first few pages of the book would have sufficed. The rest of the book is mostly just a reiteration of the same litany over and over with some more focus put into specific issues here and there, pausing every few paragraphs to praise ancient rulers like Akhnaton and Ahsoka and their “life-centred” kingdoms. Not to mention her problematic exaltation of certain authoritarian regimes of the mid-20th century, and her outright denial of the holocaust.
While her criticism of the supposed shortcomings of “man-centred creeds” remains valid, she fails to produce any convincing alternative. Her main appeal to the rights of animals is a pure appeal to emotion, outright stating that one should simply “feel” his responsibility towards animal life. Going so far as to invoke imagery of cute and fluffy animals as a self-evident basis for her argument. Admittedly, she does bring up an interesting perspective, that mankind’s value should not be judged based on his capacity for reason, but on his capacity for sympathy towards other living creatures.
However, she then goes on to espouse the racialist dogma of the Nazi regime, suggesting that the ideal “life-centred” utopia can only be achieved by controlling the population of “lesser human races” and promoting the population of a purely Nordic stock. And unlike the implications of certain reviewers, her racialist views (which come up every few paragraphs) cannot easily be put aside, as they are quite central to the author’s beliefs and her organisation of living creatures in the “hierarchy of life”.
Quite honestly, I cannot see who this book would interest. Any person already convinced of the rights of animals wouldn’t find her “impeachment of man” of much value, save perhaps for coming up with a couple mediocre talking points which can easily be obtained elsewhere. On the other hand the average meat-eating person wouldn’t find her argument centred around the fluffiness of kittens very convincing. And for anyone who claims that Devi’s writing is “poetic”, I simply have no idea what they’re talking about, as I found it to be extremely dry and monotonous. On top of all that, the average person with the barest shred of morality would find her racist views reprehensible. I would say this book would at least appeal to ecofascists or people interested in wacky historical characters, but even then it is simply boring, and there are plenty of wackier fascists out there.
December 13, 2008
Impeachment of Man is Savitri Devi's animal rights/ecology book. She is best known for her wacky ideas about Adolf Hitler being an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu that she expressed in The Lightning and the Sun. Devi, to put it nicely, is nuts, but Impeachment is pretty great as far as her observations on how all the "man based" religions, meaning Judaism, Christianity and Islam view animals and nature as something to be exploited, used, raped, mastered, etc and in the end leads to death for all. There are also some good misanthropic Might is Right style observations included in this too.
Her writing style is a bit dry at times but considering Impeachment can be found for less than $10 I'd still recomend it.
Her writing style is a bit dry at times but considering Impeachment can be found for less than $10 I'd still recomend it.
Read
October 14, 2019Disclosure - this was read in a matter of days but I felt like writing something about it and didn't want to clear it until I could do so.
I picked this up during a used bookstore spree thinking that it was going to be just a [potentially aged] vegetarian tract written from the point of view of a Buddhist or Hindu. There was nothing to let on what it really is from the blurb on the back other than 'occasionally controversial'. The person who wrote it is not in fact a native of India but rather some white chick Nazi-supporter who moved to India and changed her name to fit in with the population. In the beginning of the book she proudly declares that she refuses to read any newspapers and denounces the reports of atrocities that had occurred in Germany as made up. Periodically throughout the book, her true feelings about 'inferior' races are mentioned. Like the Jews who are lower than low because they still eat meat even after temple sacrifices were no longer required. She felt that the glorious plans of the supreme race had been maliciously stopped by the dark powers [aka the Allied Forces] and that Hitler was a really great guy who had the right idea, especially since he was a vegetarian so that meant he totally was in tune with the real needs of the world and couldn't possibly be responsible for any of the evil things that were being said about him or his great work.
For those who rate this thing high claiming it's a good book if you can ignore the Nazi crap, more power to them but I couldn't. Especially when considering the high points of the last chapter in which she outlines a severely reduced population utopian world in which the superior races will rule and have massive families to ensure their continued rulership while all inferior races would be allowed one child merely to keep their own population up. But only if they weren't too inferior to breed after all. I guess in order to feel superior, you need to have an inferior population of some kind to step on even in a utopian world.
In summary, read if you want if you have a vague interest in historical writings from that time just after the end of the war. But personally, it's a crap book written by a crap person who took a decent idea and title and smeared it all with feces. It was like being tricked into reading a Gutfeld book all over again.
I picked this up during a used bookstore spree thinking that it was going to be just a [potentially aged] vegetarian tract written from the point of view of a Buddhist or Hindu. There was nothing to let on what it really is from the blurb on the back other than 'occasionally controversial'. The person who wrote it is not in fact a native of India but rather some white chick Nazi-supporter who moved to India and changed her name to fit in with the population. In the beginning of the book she proudly declares that she refuses to read any newspapers and denounces the reports of atrocities that had occurred in Germany as made up. Periodically throughout the book, her true feelings about 'inferior' races are mentioned. Like the Jews who are lower than low because they still eat meat even after temple sacrifices were no longer required. She felt that the glorious plans of the supreme race had been maliciously stopped by the dark powers [aka the Allied Forces] and that Hitler was a really great guy who had the right idea, especially since he was a vegetarian so that meant he totally was in tune with the real needs of the world and couldn't possibly be responsible for any of the evil things that were being said about him or his great work.
For those who rate this thing high claiming it's a good book if you can ignore the Nazi crap, more power to them but I couldn't. Especially when considering the high points of the last chapter in which she outlines a severely reduced population utopian world in which the superior races will rule and have massive families to ensure their continued rulership while all inferior races would be allowed one child merely to keep their own population up. But only if they weren't too inferior to breed after all. I guess in order to feel superior, you need to have an inferior population of some kind to step on even in a utopian world.
In summary, read if you want if you have a vague interest in historical writings from that time just after the end of the war. But personally, it's a crap book written by a crap person who took a decent idea and title and smeared it all with feces. It was like being tricked into reading a Gutfeld book all over again.
August 10, 2020
A masterful, yet radical string of opinions. Nevertheless, a brilliant read. It's always pleasing to me to find out my worldview was (and still is) shared by others with more affinity an incline to write such a manifesto.
What I find unfortunate is that my worldview isn't 100% mirrored by the author's,and this book, although it made me ponder upon my semi-man centered believes, will probably never manage to shift my meat eating habbits. Regardless, I recommend this book to anyone interested in the betterment of future of both mankind and especially Nature.
What I find unfortunate is that my worldview isn't 100% mirrored by the author's,and this book, although it made me ponder upon my semi-man centered believes, will probably never manage to shift my meat eating habbits. Regardless, I recommend this book to anyone interested in the betterment of future of both mankind and especially Nature.
July 18, 2020
This book inspired me to go vegan. Worth a read for a thought provoking conversation on morals around food and eating habits, our relationship to animals and nature. I read it as a gift from a friend and not as a political or religious reading so my review is merely from that perspective. I would like to re-read now and see how it resonates, especially in the current climate of riots and racism on everyones mind.
April 4, 2025
The author of it was a mentally disturbed woman preaching racial purity while marrying indians. Besides few insides into Indian culture from inside, it's worthless.
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