Adonism
Encyclopedia
Adonism is a Neopagan
religion founded in 1925 by the German esotericist Franz Sättler (1884-c.1942), who often went by the pseudonym of Dr. Musalam. Although Sättler claimed that it was the continuation of an ancient pagan religion, it has been recognised by academics as being "instead the single-handed creation of a highly gifted and educated man", this figure being Sättler himself. Adonism is a polytheistic
religion, revolving around a belief that there are five principal gods: Belus, Biltis, Adonis, Dido and Molchos. Adonis
is the most prominent of these in the group's theology, being a benevolent figure that Sättler equated with the Christian mythological figure of Satan
. In contrast to Adonis, Molchos is believed by Adonists to be malevolent, and to be responsible for the enslavement of humanity through monotheistic
religions such as Judaism
, Christianity
and Islam
: the religion therefore has "a pronounced anti-Christian bias".
Born into the Bohemia
n region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Franz Sättler proved himself to be a talented linguist, gaining a doctorate in the subject and publishing the world's first Persian-German dictionary. Subsequently travelling across much of Europe, he was imprisoned by the French during the First World War, where he first came across Theosophy
and the occult
, topics which greatly interested him. Briefly becoming an intelligence agent for the Czechoslovak government, he was again arrested and imprisoned, this time in Germany, and whilst imprisoned here he began formulating some of his esoteric ideas and writing books on the subject. Being released in the mid 1920s, he went on to begin propagating Adonism through the foundation of his Adonistic Society. Sättler would face legal trouble and a public scandal due to his beliefs in the 1930s, leading to him renaming the Society the Alliance of Orion, before it was eventually shut down by the Nazi government in 1939. Sättler himself disappeared in the early years of the following decade, with some believing that he was executed by the Nazi authorities.
Scholar Hans Thomas Hakl stated that "The influence of Adonism… on the German magical scene is substantial. It definitely influenced the German magus Friedrich Wilhelm Quintscher
(1893-1945)… and also the Fraternitas Saturni, the most interesting occult fraternity in modern Germany". Many of the group's adherents have also claimed that Adonism was an influence on the German magician Franz Bardon
(1909–1958), although this remains debatable as Bardon's magical beliefs differed to "a noticeable degree". Hakl would also compare Sättler with two of his contemporaries in the European occult movement of the early twentieth century, the Englishman Aleister Crowley
and the Armenian George Gurdjieff, but noted that he never received the posthumous fame that these two experienced.
, Phoenicians, Persians, Egyptians and Greeks. He also made the claim that it survived in part amongst the Yezidis of the Middle East, and also among the people of Nuristan (a fictional place he considered to be separate to the actual Nuristan in Afghanistan
). It was in this latter city that he claimed that there was a large temple, the Bit Nur (House of Light), where he claimed the original ancient Adonist scriptures were kept. Other than Sättler’s claims however, there is no evidence that Nuristan or the Bit Nur have ever existed. Sättler claimed that it was in this temple that he first learned about Adonism, and where he was given the name of Dr Mussalam.
Adonism is a polytheistic
religion, believing in a number of different gods, of which there are five principal deities. Adonists believe that the first two of these were the primordial god Belus and his consort Biltis, and that they emerged from Chaos
. According to Adonistic beliefs, Belus and Biltis had a child, Molchos, who was a malevolent deity and who created a world populated with deformed monsters; because of the horror of it, Belus and Biltis destroyed this world, before going on to give birth to two more children, a benevolent son named Adonis and a daughter called Dido. Adonis then created our world, basing humanity upon the likeness of both himself and his sister, however then killed Adonis out of jealousy, taking control of the world. Being resurrected by Dido, Adonis then went on to try to protect humanity from Molchos' machinations, for instance telling one human, a man called Noah
, to build a wooden ark to save him and the other animal species from the Great Flood.
Molchos, however, was not finished in his attempts to harm humanity. Aside from attacking them with plagues and sickness, he also sent false prophets such as Moses
, Zarathustra, Jesus
and Muhammad
to convert people to his monotheistic
worship under such names as Jehovah
, Ormuzd and Allah
. Within these religions that venerate Molchos, such as Zoroastrianism
, Judaism
, Christianity
and Islam
, Adonists believe that Adonis, the creator and benefactor of humanity was demonised as such figures as Satan
, Ahriman and Iblis. Through the domination of these monotheistic religions, Adonists believe that Molchos maintained control of the world, but that in 2000 CE, Adonis will face Molchos in a final battle, defeating him and bringing about a Golden Age
, which will last until the universe is once more subsumed under Chaos.
The primary way in which Adonis and Dido are celebrated in Adonistic religious practice is by the sensual enjoyment of sexual intercourse
, both of the heterosexual and homosexual varieties. Indeed, Sättler summarised his faith by remarking that "Adonism is worship of the Devil [i.e. Adonis] with an erotic background." He was therefore a prominent proponent of sexual reform in early nineteenth-century Germany, holding to beliefs that would later be legally accepted in the last decades of that century. Adonism also holds to a great belief in tolerance for other human beings, with Sättler stating that "The most important virtue of the Adonist is tolerance and the area in which he can practice it is boundless", and also holding to a personal maxim: "To understand everything means to pardon everything."
, a city in northern Bohemia
, a Czech region which was then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There he attended elementary and then grammar school
, where he excelled in languages, learning Greek
, Hebrew
, Arabic
, Ancient Greek and Latin
by the time that he left. He had also begun writing for a local newspaper. He began attending the Charles University of Prague, where he initially studied philology
, but becoming bored of this, switched to Oriental studies
. At the university, he became a favourite student of Professor Max Grünert, who gave Sättler the notes for a Persian
-German
dictionary that had been left unfinished by Dr Jakob Polak. Sättler completed the task, producing the first ever dictionary between the two languages. In 1905 he travelled to Montenegro
and Albania
, being paid to do so by the Austrian Institute of Military Geography, who employed him to check the accuracy of their maps. The following year, he travelled to Dresden
in Germany
, where he met his literary idol, Karl May
, whose German-language adventure novels had inspired him as a child. In the latter part of 1906 and much of 1907, he again went travelling, this time visiting Albania, Lebanon
and Syria
(which he used as inspiration for several novels that he would later write), and in 1908 he then travelled to the north of Europe, visiting Finland
.
In 1909 he began studying for a doctorate
, earning it by writing a dissertation on the Arabian dialect of Hadramaut, while in the same year marrying Anastasia Goldschmidt. Gaining employment at a private school for foreign languages in Prague
, he co-wrote two books on how to study the German language with the owner of the school. Using what he described as the "direct learning method", he attempted to teach people the language using the methods developed by Jan Amos Comenius. He then worked as a private tutor both in the house of Count Khevenhüller in Beirut
and the consular school in Salonika. It was while he was here that the First World War broke out across Europe, and he began travelling across the Ottoman Empire
(which was on the side of the Austro-Hungarian Empire).
The French army subsequently invaded and occupied Saloniki at a time when he was staying there, and being a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he and his wife were taken prisoner and deported to an internment camp near Lourdes
in France, where he was held until 1919. It was here that he befriended the camp's chief officer, M. Parizot, who was actively involved in the esoteric movement of Theosophy
. Following their many discussions on the subject, Parizot transferred his library of occult books to the camp in order that Sättler could read them. These texts included the works of such figures as Helena Blavatsky, Annie Besant
, Charles Leadbeater
, Camille Flammarion
and Maurice Maeterlinck
, and these texts "formed the intellectual basis of his later occult career."
In 1919, following the end of the war, Sättler was released from his imprisonment, and travelled to Austria
, and then on to Germany, where he was apparently involved in intelligence work on behalf of the newly formed nation-state of Czechoslovakia
, using the pseudonym of Dr. Erich Bauer. In 1922 he was captured by the German authorities and sentenced to a four year imprisonment in Brandenburg an der Havel. Here, he was once more allowed the use of the prison library, writing several books, including Buch der orientalischen Geheimnisse (Book of Oriental Secrets) and Zauberbibel (Magical Bible), the latter of which was divided into seven sections, each of which looked at a different occult practice: cartomancy
, astrology
, the interpretation of dreams, chiromancy
, magic
, alchemy
and necromancy
. Meanwhile, Sättler divorced his wife, probably due to his affairs with other women.
. It was here that he first began propagating Adonism through the foundation of his Adonistic Society (known as the Adonistische Gesellschaft in his native German language), and "According to its published constitution and bylaws, this group was founded on May 1, 1925 - in other words, one year before Sättler actually came back to Vienna." "By 1927 Sättler had developed the whole doctrine of Adonism and written all the major treatises on it", declaring in the Society's constitution that the main group was also accompanied by the Adonistic Publishing House, the Master Lodge Hekate in Vienna, and various study lodges scattered across the German-speaking part of Europe. Whether these genuinely existed or not is unknown, although it is quite possible that they didn't, as his Adonistic Society was relatively small, not even being a registered organisation and the Austrian authorities in fact suspected him of being guilty of criminal fraud. He also claimed that the Adonistic Society was a sister organisation to an international group known as Nizâm-el Khâf, which he claimed had branches in Bombay
, Constantinople
, Tehran
and other major Asian cities; according to scholar Hans Thomas Hakl, this organisation was "almost certainly fictitious".
In order to entice interested individuals to join, Sättler described his Adonistic Society as a "large spiritual community" where "magical energies are continuously circulating, the inexhaustible source of which is the Master Lodge Hekate", so named after the ancient Greek goddess of witchcraft. Membership applications and payment were to be sent directly to Sättler, and new members had to wait two years before they were permitted to learn the "deeper secrets" of Adonism, before they would be allowed to subscribe to a twelve-lesson course ending in an exam, successful completion of which would allow them to attain the third degree of a Châkim Kabâlit, or a master of magic.
Sättler likely began an affair with his assistant in the Hekate Lodge, Justine Schnattinger, who herself worked under the pseudonym of "Madame Ariela" as a clairvoyant, spirit medium and astrological councillor. Sättler was also a friend of the occultist Friedrich Wilhelm Quintscher
, who had joined the Society, but in 1929 their friendship broke up, possibly due to jealousy over Schnattinger. Quintscher remained devoted to the Adonist religion, continuing to propagate "its doctrine, cosmology, and principles even after he had broken with Sättler" and founding an Adonistic group called the Ateschga-Taganosyn. One of the members of this group was Brother Silias, also known as Josef Anton Schuster (1896–1968), who wrote a magical diary that became famous among the German occult movement.
, he was finding it very hard to make a living. In 1929 he began selling magical cures and other items which included talismans, love potions and even powder that allegedly belonged to the Dalai Lama
to supplement this income, as well as founding a stock company called Olbia-Gold, through which he defrauded stock holders by telling them that he had discovered a gold treasure at the foot of Mount Olympus
in Greece. With all these money-making activities that he was involved with, he became embroiled in a financial scandal in 1932, after which various journals began accusing him of being a fraud and a criminal. Facing criminal charges for defrauding customers of the Olbia-Gold company, he fled to Greece, where he was arrested in a case of mistaken identity
by police who suspected him of being "a much more important Czech swindler."
Investigating his papers in Vienna, police came upon a list of the eighty German members of the Adonistic Society, causing yet another scandal in the press, who felt it shocking that so many members of "high society" were involved with such a secretive occult group that they accused of committing sexual orgies
. With Sättler out of reach, police instead began investigating Quintscher and his alternate Adonist group, but he denied a continuing connection to his former friend. Meanwhile, Sättler continued with the Society, this time based in Greece, finding a new publisher, Biosophischer Verlag, who began printing his new monthly magazine, entitled Lucifer. Finding it hard to get new members (who would bring with them the membership fees and donations that he needed to survive), Sättler dissolved the Hekate Lodge and renamed the Society the Alliance of Orion (Orion Bund in German). Nonetheless, the group was having significant problems within Germany itself as it faced opposition from the Nazi Party who had recently taken control of the government, with some figures in the regime declaring the group to be a part of a Jewish
-Masonic conspiracy.
In 1935, Sättler had apparently left Greece and moved to Petralka in Slovakia
, from where he offered courses in nature healing and magic. Meanwhile, in Germany, the Nazi government banned all quasi-Masonic organisations in July 1937, and while initially the Alliance of Orion was unusually exempt, they too were illegalised in June 1939. In the early 1940s, the Nazis ordered the invasion of much of the rest of Europe, leading to the Second World War, and it was in this period that all historical trace of Sättler vanishes. It is unknown how he died, although it has been claimed that it was either in a Vienna prison or in Mauthausen concentration camp, although neither of these remain proven.
near Munich
in West Germany
, and published a brochure announcing the re-creation of the group, but nothing more appeared of it, and Koblizek died in 1967.
Professor Adolf Hemberger (1929–1991), the holder of the Chair for Scientific Theory and Methodology of Research at the University of Gießen, collected Sättler's rare works, making copies of them through mimeographing or photocopying them and distributing them among his friends and members of his magical study groups, C 72. In the 1970s, Hemberger had plans of reviving the Adonist Society, but these never came to fruition.
Another German academic, Professor Helmut Möller of the University of Göttingen, published a German language
essay on Sättler in a 1990 festschrift in honour of Ellic Howe, an academic who had specialised in the study of ceremonial magical groups like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
and the Ordo Templi Orientis
. His work was expanded upon by Hans Thomas Hakl, an Austrian independent scholar, who also made an examination of Sättler in the German language, which he followed by publishing an edited version in the English language, appearing in The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies (2010).
Neopaganism
Neopaganism is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe...
religion founded in 1925 by the German esotericist Franz Sättler (1884-c.1942), who often went by the pseudonym of Dr. Musalam. Although Sättler claimed that it was the continuation of an ancient pagan religion, it has been recognised by academics as being "instead the single-handed creation of a highly gifted and educated man", this figure being Sättler himself. Adonism is a polytheistic
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....
religion, revolving around a belief that there are five principal gods: Belus, Biltis, Adonis, Dido and Molchos. Adonis
Adonis
Adonis , in Greek mythology, the god of beauty and desire, is a figure with Northwest Semitic antecedents, where he is a central figure in various mystery religions. The Greek , Adōnis is a variation of the Semitic word Adonai, "lord", which is also one of the names used to refer to God in the Old...
is the most prominent of these in the group's theology, being a benevolent figure that Sättler equated with the Christian mythological figure of Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
. In contrast to Adonis, Molchos is believed by Adonists to be malevolent, and to be responsible for the enslavement of humanity through monotheistic
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
religions such as Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
, Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
: the religion therefore has "a pronounced anti-Christian bias".
Born into the Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
n region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Franz Sättler proved himself to be a talented linguist, gaining a doctorate in the subject and publishing the world's first Persian-German dictionary. Subsequently travelling across much of Europe, he was imprisoned by the French during the First World War, where he first came across Theosophy
Theosophy
Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
and the occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
, topics which greatly interested him. Briefly becoming an intelligence agent for the Czechoslovak government, he was again arrested and imprisoned, this time in Germany, and whilst imprisoned here he began formulating some of his esoteric ideas and writing books on the subject. Being released in the mid 1920s, he went on to begin propagating Adonism through the foundation of his Adonistic Society. Sättler would face legal trouble and a public scandal due to his beliefs in the 1930s, leading to him renaming the Society the Alliance of Orion, before it was eventually shut down by the Nazi government in 1939. Sättler himself disappeared in the early years of the following decade, with some believing that he was executed by the Nazi authorities.
Scholar Hans Thomas Hakl stated that "The influence of Adonism… on the German magical scene is substantial. It definitely influenced the German magus Friedrich Wilhelm Quintscher
Friedrich Wilhelm Quintscher
Friedrich Wilhelm Quintscher was a notable German member of the Neopagan religion of Adonism, as well as being a noted occultist and ceremonial magician. In 1922 he founded a group known as the Orden Mentalischer Bauherren , which he closed down in 1928, leading its members to join another occult...
(1893-1945)… and also the Fraternitas Saturni, the most interesting occult fraternity in modern Germany". Many of the group's adherents have also claimed that Adonism was an influence on the German magician Franz Bardon
Franz Bardon
Franz Bardon , born in Opava, Austrian Silesia, was both a stage magician and student and teacher of Hermetics. He was a member of the Czech hermetic society Universalia. During World War II Bardon was at one point held in a concentration camp for refusing to participate in Nazi Mysticism. Bardon...
(1909–1958), although this remains debatable as Bardon's magical beliefs differed to "a noticeable degree". Hakl would also compare Sättler with two of his contemporaries in the European occult movement of the early twentieth century, the Englishman Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
and the Armenian George Gurdjieff, but noted that he never received the posthumous fame that these two experienced.
Beliefs and practices
Sättler erroneously claimed that Adonism was an ancient religion which had been followed by the ChaldeansBabylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
, Phoenicians, Persians, Egyptians and Greeks. He also made the claim that it survived in part amongst the Yezidis of the Middle East, and also among the people of Nuristan (a fictional place he considered to be separate to the actual Nuristan in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
). It was in this latter city that he claimed that there was a large temple, the Bit Nur (House of Light), where he claimed the original ancient Adonist scriptures were kept. Other than Sättler’s claims however, there is no evidence that Nuristan or the Bit Nur have ever existed. Sättler claimed that it was in this temple that he first learned about Adonism, and where he was given the name of Dr Mussalam.
Adonism is a polytheistic
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....
religion, believing in a number of different gods, of which there are five principal deities. Adonists believe that the first two of these were the primordial god Belus and his consort Biltis, and that they emerged from Chaos
Chaos (cosmogony)
Chaos refers to the formless or void state preceding the creation of the universe or cosmos in the Greek creation myths, more specifically the initial "gap" created by the original separation of heaven and earth....
. According to Adonistic beliefs, Belus and Biltis had a child, Molchos, who was a malevolent deity and who created a world populated with deformed monsters; because of the horror of it, Belus and Biltis destroyed this world, before going on to give birth to two more children, a benevolent son named Adonis and a daughter called Dido. Adonis then created our world, basing humanity upon the likeness of both himself and his sister, however
Noah
Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
, to build a wooden ark to save him and the other animal species from the Great Flood.
Molchos, however, was not finished in his attempts to harm humanity. Aside from attacking them with plagues and sickness, he also sent false prophets such as Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
, Zarathustra, Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
and Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
to convert people to his monotheistic
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
worship under such names as Jehovah
Jehovah
Jehovah is an anglicized representation of Hebrew , a vocalization of the Tetragrammaton , the proper name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible....
, Ormuzd and Allah
Allah
Allah is a word for God used in the context of Islam. In Arabic, the word means simply "God". It is used primarily by Muslims and Bahá'ís, and often, albeit not exclusively, used by Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic Christians, Maltese Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Mizrahi Jews and...
. Within these religions that venerate Molchos, such as Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster and was formerly among the world's largest religions. It was probably founded some time before the 6th century BCE in Greater Iran.In Zoroastrianism, the Creator Ahura Mazda is all good, and no evil...
, Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
, Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, Adonists believe that Adonis, the creator and benefactor of humanity was demonised as such figures as Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
, Ahriman and Iblis. Through the domination of these monotheistic religions, Adonists believe that Molchos maintained control of the world, but that in 2000 CE, Adonis will face Molchos in a final battle, defeating him and bringing about a Golden Age
Golden Age
The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology and legend and refers to the first in a sequence of four or five Ages of Man, in which the Golden Age is first, followed in sequence, by the Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages, and then the present, a period of decline...
, which will last until the universe is once more subsumed under Chaos.
The primary way in which Adonis and Dido are celebrated in Adonistic religious practice is by the sensual enjoyment of sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
, both of the heterosexual and homosexual varieties. Indeed, Sättler summarised his faith by remarking that "Adonism is worship of the Devil [i.e. Adonis] with an erotic background." He was therefore a prominent proponent of sexual reform in early nineteenth-century Germany, holding to beliefs that would later be legally accepted in the last decades of that century. Adonism also holds to a great belief in tolerance for other human beings, with Sättler stating that "The most important virtue of the Adonist is tolerance and the area in which he can practice it is boundless", and also holding to a personal maxim: "To understand everything means to pardon everything."
Sättler's early life: 1884-1925
Sättler was born on 7 March 1884 as the son of a police constable in MostMost
Most is the capital city of the Most District, situated between the Czech Central Mountains and the Ore Mountains, approximately northwest of Prague along the Bílina River and southwest of Ústí nad Labem.-Etymology:...
, a city in northern Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
, a Czech region which was then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There he attended elementary and then grammar school
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...
, where he excelled in languages, learning Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, Ancient Greek and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
by the time that he left. He had also begun writing for a local newspaper. He began attending the Charles University of Prague, where he initially studied philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
, but becoming bored of this, switched to Oriental studies
Oriental studies
Oriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology; in recent years the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies...
. At the university, he became a favourite student of Professor Max Grünert, who gave Sättler the notes for a Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
-German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
dictionary that had been left unfinished by Dr Jakob Polak. Sättler completed the task, producing the first ever dictionary between the two languages. In 1905 he travelled to Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...
and Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
, being paid to do so by the Austrian Institute of Military Geography, who employed him to check the accuracy of their maps. The following year, he travelled to Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, where he met his literary idol, Karl May
Karl May
Karl Friedrich May was a popular German writer, noted mainly for adventure novels set in the American Old West, and similar books set in the Orient and Middle East . In addition, he wrote stories set in his native Germany, in China and in South America...
, whose German-language adventure novels had inspired him as a child. In the latter part of 1906 and much of 1907, he again went travelling, this time visiting Albania, Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
(which he used as inspiration for several novels that he would later write), and in 1908 he then travelled to the north of Europe, visiting Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
.
In 1909 he began studying for a doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
, earning it by writing a dissertation on the Arabian dialect of Hadramaut, while in the same year marrying Anastasia Goldschmidt. Gaining employment at a private school for foreign languages in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, he co-wrote two books on how to study the German language with the owner of the school. Using what he described as the "direct learning method", he attempted to teach people the language using the methods developed by Jan Amos Comenius. He then worked as a private tutor both in the house of Count Khevenhüller in Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
and the consular school in Salonika. It was while he was here that the First World War broke out across Europe, and he began travelling across the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
(which was on the side of the Austro-Hungarian Empire).
The French army subsequently invaded and occupied Saloniki at a time when he was staying there, and being a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he and his wife were taken prisoner and deported to an internment camp near Lourdes
Lourdes
Lourdes is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in south-western France.Lourdes is a small market town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees, famous for the Marian apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes occurred in 1858 to Bernadette Soubirous...
in France, where he was held until 1919. It was here that he befriended the camp's chief officer, M. Parizot, who was actively involved in the esoteric movement of Theosophy
Theosophy
Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
. Following their many discussions on the subject, Parizot transferred his library of occult books to the camp in order that Sättler could read them. These texts included the works of such figures as Helena Blavatsky, Annie Besant
Annie Besant
Annie Besant was a prominent British Theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator and supporter of Irish and Indian self rule.She was married at 19 to Frank Besant but separated from him over religious differences. She then became a prominent speaker for the National Secular Society ...
, Charles Leadbeater
Charles Leadbeater
Charles Leadbeater is a British author and former advisor to Tony Blair.He first came to widespread notice in the 1980s as a regular contributor to the magazine Marxism Today. Later he was Industrial Editor and Tokyo Bureau Chief at the Financial Times...
, Camille Flammarion
Camille Flammarion
Nicolas Camille Flammarion was a French astronomer and author. He was a prolific author of more than fifty titles, including popular science works about astronomy, several notable early science fiction novels, and several works about Spiritism and related topics. He also published the magazine...
and Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also called Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life...
, and these texts "formed the intellectual basis of his later occult career."
In 1919, following the end of the war, Sättler was released from his imprisonment, and travelled to Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, and then on to Germany, where he was apparently involved in intelligence work on behalf of the newly formed nation-state of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, using the pseudonym of Dr. Erich Bauer. In 1922 he was captured by the German authorities and sentenced to a four year imprisonment in Brandenburg an der Havel. Here, he was once more allowed the use of the prison library, writing several books, including Buch der orientalischen Geheimnisse (Book of Oriental Secrets) and Zauberbibel (Magical Bible), the latter of which was divided into seven sections, each of which looked at a different occult practice: cartomancy
Cartomancy
Cartomancy is fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. Forms of cartomancy appeared soon after playing cards were first introduced into Europe in the 14th century...
, astrology
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
, the interpretation of dreams, chiromancy
Chiromancy
Palmistry or chiromancy , is the art of characterization and foretelling the future through the study of the palm, also known as palm reading, or chirology. The practice is found all over the world, with numerous cultural variations...
, magic
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
, alchemy
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
and necromancy
Necromancy
Necromancy is a claimed form of magic that involves communication with the deceased, either by summoning their spirit in the form of an apparition or raising them bodily, for the purpose of divination, imparting the ability to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge...
. Meanwhile, Sättler divorced his wife, probably due to his affairs with other women.
Sättler and the Adonistic Society: 1926-1931
Being released from the German prison, Sättler returned to Austria in 1926, settling down in the city of ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. It was here that he first began propagating Adonism through the foundation of his Adonistic Society (known as the Adonistische Gesellschaft in his native German language), and "According to its published constitution and bylaws, this group was founded on May 1, 1925 - in other words, one year before Sättler actually came back to Vienna." "By 1927 Sättler had developed the whole doctrine of Adonism and written all the major treatises on it", declaring in the Society's constitution that the main group was also accompanied by the Adonistic Publishing House, the Master Lodge Hekate in Vienna, and various study lodges scattered across the German-speaking part of Europe. Whether these genuinely existed or not is unknown, although it is quite possible that they didn't, as his Adonistic Society was relatively small, not even being a registered organisation and the Austrian authorities in fact suspected him of being guilty of criminal fraud. He also claimed that the Adonistic Society was a sister organisation to an international group known as Nizâm-el Khâf, which he claimed had branches in Bombay
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
, Constantinople
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, Tehran
Tehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
and other major Asian cities; according to scholar Hans Thomas Hakl, this organisation was "almost certainly fictitious".
In order to entice interested individuals to join, Sättler described his Adonistic Society as a "large spiritual community" where "magical energies are continuously circulating, the inexhaustible source of which is the Master Lodge Hekate", so named after the ancient Greek goddess of witchcraft. Membership applications and payment were to be sent directly to Sättler, and new members had to wait two years before they were permitted to learn the "deeper secrets" of Adonism, before they would be allowed to subscribe to a twelve-lesson course ending in an exam, successful completion of which would allow them to attain the third degree of a Châkim Kabâlit, or a master of magic.
Sättler likely began an affair with his assistant in the Hekate Lodge, Justine Schnattinger, who herself worked under the pseudonym of "Madame Ariela" as a clairvoyant, spirit medium and astrological councillor. Sättler was also a friend of the occultist Friedrich Wilhelm Quintscher
Friedrich Wilhelm Quintscher
Friedrich Wilhelm Quintscher was a notable German member of the Neopagan religion of Adonism, as well as being a noted occultist and ceremonial magician. In 1922 he founded a group known as the Orden Mentalischer Bauherren , which he closed down in 1928, leading its members to join another occult...
, who had joined the Society, but in 1929 their friendship broke up, possibly due to jealousy over Schnattinger. Quintscher remained devoted to the Adonist religion, continuing to propagate "its doctrine, cosmology, and principles even after he had broken with Sättler" and founding an Adonistic group called the Ateschga-Taganosyn. One of the members of this group was Brother Silias, also known as Josef Anton Schuster (1896–1968), who wrote a magical diary that became famous among the German occult movement.
The decline and death of Sättler: 1932-1942
Although he had published a wide variety of books, both occult-based and otherwise (including a joke book), and had become entirely financially reliant on his publisher, Bartels of BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, he was finding it very hard to make a living. In 1929 he began selling magical cures and other items which included talismans, love potions and even powder that allegedly belonged to the Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama is a high lama in the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a combination of the Mongolian word далай meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan word bla-ma meaning "teacher"...
to supplement this income, as well as founding a stock company called Olbia-Gold, through which he defrauded stock holders by telling them that he had discovered a gold treasure at the foot of Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece, located on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia, about 100 kilometres away from Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. Mount Olympus has 52 peaks. The highest peak Mytikas, meaning "nose", rises to 2,917 metres...
in Greece. With all these money-making activities that he was involved with, he became embroiled in a financial scandal in 1932, after which various journals began accusing him of being a fraud and a criminal. Facing criminal charges for defrauding customers of the Olbia-Gold company, he fled to Greece, where he was arrested in a case of mistaken identity
Mistaken identity
Mistaken identity is a defense in criminal law which claims the actual innocence of the criminal defendant, and attempts to undermine evidence of guilt by asserting that any eyewitness to the crime incorrectly thought that they saw the defendant, when in fact the person seen by the witness was...
by police who suspected him of being "a much more important Czech swindler."
Investigating his papers in Vienna, police came upon a list of the eighty German members of the Adonistic Society, causing yet another scandal in the press, who felt it shocking that so many members of "high society" were involved with such a secretive occult group that they accused of committing sexual orgies
Orgy
In modern usage, an orgy is a sex party where guests engage in promiscuous or multifarious sexual activity or group sex. An orgy is similar to debauchery, which refers to excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures....
. With Sättler out of reach, police instead began investigating Quintscher and his alternate Adonist group, but he denied a continuing connection to his former friend. Meanwhile, Sättler continued with the Society, this time based in Greece, finding a new publisher, Biosophischer Verlag, who began printing his new monthly magazine, entitled Lucifer. Finding it hard to get new members (who would bring with them the membership fees and donations that he needed to survive), Sättler dissolved the Hekate Lodge and renamed the Society the Alliance of Orion (Orion Bund in German). Nonetheless, the group was having significant problems within Germany itself as it faced opposition from the Nazi Party who had recently taken control of the government, with some figures in the regime declaring the group to be a part of a Jewish
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
-Masonic conspiracy.
In 1935, Sättler had apparently left Greece and moved to Petralka in Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, from where he offered courses in nature healing and magic. Meanwhile, in Germany, the Nazi government banned all quasi-Masonic organisations in July 1937, and while initially the Alliance of Orion was unusually exempt, they too were illegalised in June 1939. In the early 1940s, the Nazis ordered the invasion of much of the rest of Europe, leading to the Second World War, and it was in this period that all historical trace of Sättler vanishes. It is unknown how he died, although it has been claimed that it was either in a Vienna prison or in Mauthausen concentration camp, although neither of these remain proven.
Adonism after Sättler: 1943-present
The first attempt to recreate the Adonist Society occurred in the 1950s by "an otherwise unknown" individual known as Walter Koblizek. He lived in RosenheimRosenheim
Rosenheim is a town in Bavaria at the confluence of the rivers Inn and Mangfall. It is seat of administration of the district of Rosenheim, but is not a part of it.-Geography:...
near Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
in West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, and published a brochure announcing the re-creation of the group, but nothing more appeared of it, and Koblizek died in 1967.
Professor Adolf Hemberger (1929–1991), the holder of the Chair for Scientific Theory and Methodology of Research at the University of Gießen, collected Sättler's rare works, making copies of them through mimeographing or photocopying them and distributing them among his friends and members of his magical study groups, C 72. In the 1970s, Hemberger had plans of reviving the Adonist Society, but these never came to fruition.
Another German academic, Professor Helmut Möller of the University of Göttingen, published a German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
essay on Sättler in a 1990 festschrift in honour of Ellic Howe, an academic who had specialised in the study of ceremonial magical groups like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a magical order active in Great Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which practiced theurgy and spiritual development...
and the Ordo Templi Orientis
Ordo Templi Orientis
Ordo Templi Orientis is an international fraternal and religious organization founded at the beginning of the 20th century...
. His work was expanded upon by Hans Thomas Hakl, an Austrian independent scholar, who also made an examination of Sättler in the German language, which he followed by publishing an edited version in the English language, appearing in The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies (2010).
Primary literature
- Franz Sättler:
- Adonismus oder die uralte Geheimlehre, wie sie uns von d. Chaldaern, Phöniziern, Persern, Ägyptern u. Griechen überliefert, noch heutigentags im Orient bei d. Nasairiern oder „Lichtauslöschern“, d. Jezîdi-Kurden od. „Teufelsanbetern“ u. a. erhalten ist u. durch e. eigenen Orden, den „Nizâm el-Khâf“ neuerdings wieder verbreitet wird. Ohne Ortsangabe, 1926
- Macht und Erfolg. Berlin: Adonistischer Verlag, 1927
- Jugend und Schönheit. Berlin: Adonistischer Verlag, 1927
- Hes oder: Die Flamme des Lebens. Berlin-Weissensee, 1927
- Der Adept. Die zwölf Stufen des magischen Einweihungsweges. Archiv für Altes Gedankengut und Wissen, Sinzheim 2004, ISBN ISBN 3-937592-11-3. Mit einer Einleitung von Hans Thomas Hakl und Bibliographie.
Secondary literature
- Marco Frenschkowski: Die Adonistische Gesellschaft. In: Die Geheimbünde. Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-86539-926-7. S. 172–176
- Hans-Jürgen Glowka: Deutsche Okkultgruppen 1875–1937. Hiram-Edition, München 1981, ISBN 3-9215-1354-5, S. 81–91
- Adolf Hemberger: Der Adonismus als Baalskult. In: Organisationsformen, Rituale, Lehren und magische Thematik der freimaurerischen- und freimaurerartigen Bünde im Deutschen Sprachraum Mitteleuropas. Bd. 2: Pansophie und Rosenkreuz. Gießen 1974.
- Horst E. Miers: Lexikon des Geheimwissens. Freiburg 1979. S. 86.
- Helmut Möller: Licht aus dem Osten. Franz Sättlers wundersame Reise nach Nuristân. In: Albrecht Götz von Olenhusen (Hrsg.): Wege und Abwege. Beiträge zur europäischen Geistesgeschichte der Neuzeit. Festschrift für Ellic Howe zum 20. September 1990. Freiburg 1993, ISBN 3-8107-5051-4. S. 199–230