The Vril Society - The Luminous Lodge and the Realization of the Great Work

by Terry Melanson

The Vril Society or The Luminous Lodge combined the political ideals of the Order of the Illuminati with Hindu mysticism, Theosophy and the Cabbala. It was the first German nationalist groups to use the symbol of the swastika as an emblem linking Eastern and Western occultism. The Vril Society presented the idea of a subterranean matriarchal, socialist utopia ruled by superior beings who had mastered the mysterious energy called the Vril Force.

"This secret society was founded, literally, on Bulwer Lytton’s novel The Coming Race (1871). The book describes a race of men psychically far in advance of our own. They have acquired powers over themselves and over things that made them almost godlike. For the moment they are in hiding. They are said to live in caves in the center of the Earth. Soon they will emerge to reign over us."

While researching their classic book, Morning of the Magicians, authors Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwels were given the above account by one of the world’s greatest rocket experts, Dr. Willy Ley, who fled Germany in 1933. Dr. Ley said that the Vril Society—which formed shortly before the Nazis came to power—believed they had secret knowledge that would enable them to change their race and become equals of the men hidden in the bowels of the Earth. Methods of concentration, a whole system of internal gymnastics by which they would be transformed.

These methods of concentration were probably based on Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises. The Jesuit techniques of concentration and visualization are similar to many occult teachings, especially in shamanic cults and Tibetan Buddhism. The Nazi’s revered these Jesuit Spiritual Exercises, which they believed had been handed down from ancient Masters of Atlantis. The occultists of the time knew that Ignatius was a Basque — some claimed that the Basque people were the last remnant of the Atlantean race — and the proper use of these techniques would enable the reactivation of the Vril for the dominance of the Teutonic race over all others.

The Vril Society believed that whoever becomes master of the Vril will be the master of himself, of others around him and of the world. The belief was that the world will change and the "Lords" will emerge from the center of the Earth. Unless we have made an alliance with them and become "Lords" ourselves, we shall find ourselves among the slaves, on the dung-heap that will nourish the roots of the New Cities that will arise.

In The Unknown Hitler, Wulf Schwarzwaller says:

“In Berlin, Haushofer had founded the Luminous Lodge or the Vril Society. The Lodge’s objective was to explore the origins of the Aryan race and to perform exercises in concentration to awaken the forces of "Vril". Haushofer was a student of the Russian magician and metaphysician George Gurdjieff. Both Gurdjieff and Haushofer maintained that they had contacts with secret Tibetan lodges that possessed the secret of the "Superman." The Lodge included Hitler, Aalfred, Rosenberg, Himmler, Goring and Hitler’s subsequent personal physician Dr. Morell. It is also known that Aleister Crowley and Gurdjieff sought contact with Hitler. Hitler’s unusual powers of suggestion become more understandable if one keeps in mind that he had access to the "secret" psychological techniques of Gurdjieff which, in turn, were based on the teachings of the Sufis and the Tibetan lamas and familiarized him with the Zen teaching of the Japanese Society of the Green Dragon.”

The Vril Force and the Black Sun

In Lytton’s The Coming Race, the subterranean people use the Vril Force to operate and govern the world (a few children armed with vril-powered rods are said capable of exterminating a race of over 22 million threatening barbarians). Served by robots and able to fly on vril-powered wings, the vegetarian Vril-ya are — by their own reckoning — racially and culturally superior to everyone else on Earth, above or below the ground. At one point the narrator concludes (from linguistic evidence) that the Vril-ya are "descended from the same ancestors as the great Aryan family, from which in varied streams has flowed the dominant civilization of the world."

The Vril Force or Vril Energy was said to be derived from the Black Sun, a big ball of "Prima Materia" which supposedly exists in the center of the Earth, giving light to the Vril-ya and putting out radiation in the form of Vril. The Vril Society believed that Aryans were the actual biological ancestors of the Black Sun.

This force was known to the ancients under many names, and it has been called Chi, Ojas, Vril, Astral Light, Odic Forces and Orgone. In a discussion of the 28th degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry—called Knight of the Sun or Prince Adept— Albert Pike said, "There is in nature one most potent force, by means whereof a single man, who could possess himself of it, and should know how to direct it, could revolutionize and change the face of the world."

This is the force that the Nazis and their inner occult circle were so desperately trying to unleash upon the world, for which the Vril Society had apparently groomed Hitler. A manifestation of the "Great Work" promulgated by the Adepts of secret societies throughout the ages. The Vril Society latched on to a very old archetype already in the minds of alchemists and magicians, which was only re-interpreted, by Lytton, in light of that age of occult revival and scientific progress.

The idea of mutation and transformation into a higher form of a "god-man" was envisioned, through the Vril-ya, in Buller-Lytton’s The Coming Race. Lytton, himself, was an initiate of the Rosicrucians and was well versed in the arcane-esoteric philosophies (and of course the greatest advances in the sciences of his day).

"Through his romantic works of fiction he expressed the conviction that there are beings endowed with superhuman powers. These beings will supplant us and bring about a formidable mutation in the elect of the human race."

(J. Bergier)

This is where the philosophy turns dangerous. The moment we speak of an elect and "illumined" class which is above the general populace, you inevitably encounter racism and classism — with fascism in due course.

"We must beware of this notion of a mutation," Bergier warns. "It crops up again with Hitler, and is not extinct today."

Bergier and Pauwels were writing in 1960, but today this philosophy is, sadly, once again in the forefront of popular culture. The New World Order, so vehemently opposed, is under the direct influence and guidance of the New Age Movement. A hodgepodge of occult doctrines and dangerous socialism, which hides under a cover of "spiritual enlightenment." Theosophy is considered the main foundation, and its founder, Mme. Blavatsky, was a great admirer of Lytton’s. In The Occult Conspiracy, the excellent researcher, Michael Howard, writes about the compatibility of the two philosophies:

“Blavatsky had read Bulwer Lytton’s novels and was very impressed by their occult content, especially Zanoni and the Last Days of Pompeii. The latter was published in 1834 and dealt with the time between early Christianity and the Mysteries of Isis in Italy in the first century A.D.

Blavatsky’s esotericism was virulently anti-Christian...The racial ideas of Madame Blavatsky, concerning root races and the emergence of a spiritually-developed type of human being in the Aquarian Age, were avidly accepted by the nineteenth-century German nationalists who mixed Theosophical occultism with anti-Semitism and the doctrine of the racial supremacy of the Aryan or Indo-European peoples.”

Vril Powered Nazi UFOs?

Perhaps the most wild claims still circulating about the Vril Society, and its offshoot The Thule Society, is the legends of a secret Nazi UFO program. Presumably the Vril Society established contact with the "Secret Chiefs" or the Vril-ya themselves, and secretly began cooperating with certain German scientists in the late 20’s.

As early as 1936 Hitler was sending teams of "Spelunkers" into caves and mines all over Europe searching for the Vril-ya. The Nazi’s had also explored Antarctica extensively during the years 1937-38. In search of the fabled hole of the South Pole they apparently had success, like Admiral Byrd, in discovering these entrances. It was here that some say they made contact with the "Unknown Superman" who lived in the fabled "Rainbow City".

"In his controversial presentation UFO Secrets of the Third Reich, Vladimir Terziski draws a connection between alien beings and such German secret societies as the Tempelhoff, the Thule, the Vril, and the Black Sun. Terziski tells of an "alien tutor race" that secretly began cooperating with certain German scientists in the late 1920’s in underground bases and began to introduce their concepts of philosophical, cultural, and technological progress."

(The Rainbow Conspiracy, p.62)

"With help from extraterrestrial intelligences, Terziski postulates, the Nazis mastered antigravity space flight, established space stations, accomplished time travel, and developed their spacecraft to warp speeds. At the same time the aliens "spread their Mephistophelean ideas" into the wider German population through the Thule and Vril Societies."

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"Terziski maintains that antigravity research began in Germany in the 1920’s with the first hybrid antigravity circular craft, the RFZ-1, constructed by the Vril Society. In 1942-43 a series of antigravity machines culminated in the giant 350-foot long, cigar-shaped Andromeda space station (above image), which was constructed in old zeppelin hangars near Berlin by E4, the research and development arm of the SS."

(ibid p.62, Brad Steiger)

A familiar tune by now for those familiar with UFOlore. Many books have claimed this as well — although none of them seem to agree on one particular scenario. Many photographs have also turned up as would be expected. Some have been exposed as hoaxes while others remain "unknowns". The Allies confiscated every scrap of Nazi documents, and most are still classified to this day. It is well known that the Germans had some out-of-this-world research for the time. Incidentally, the Vril Society’s existence was verified in the pilfered records and is in the possession of the British.

If in fact the Vril-Ya do exist and the Nazis did indeed establish contact with this superior race, then we could assume that this antigravity propulsion worked on the principles of Vril force. On the other hand, the Nazis, it has already been established, were driven by occult groups, like the Vril society, whose workings extended into the reaches of just such a force that would lead to the discovery Vril. So whether the tale of the Vril-Ya is for real or not is besides the point. Many have discovered this force independently of Lytton’s work. It will continue to be suppressed. And for exactly the reasons that Lytton warned about in his book.

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