Western Esotericism in Scandinavia

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Western Esotericism in Scandinavia
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Western Esotericism
in Scandinavia
Edited by
Henrik Bogdan
Olav Hammer
LEIDEN | BOSTON
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Names: Bogdan, Henrik, editor.

Title: Western esotericism in Scandinavia / edited by Henrik Bogdan, Olav
Hammer.
Description: Boston : Brill, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and
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Identifiers: LCCN 2016002650 | ISBN 9789004302419 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Occultism--Scandinavia--Encyclopedias.
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Contents
Contents v
Contents
List of Contributors xii
Introduction 1
Henrik Bogdan and Olav Hammer
Alchemy
in Denmark 11
Morten Fink-Jensen
in Finland 18
Tomas Mansikka
in Norway 25
Gina Dahl
in Sweden 33
Carl-Michael Edenborg
Anthroposophy
in Denmark 43
René Dybdal
in Finland 49
Kennet Granholm
in Norway 53
Ingvild Sælid Gilhus
in Sweden 58
Håkan Lejon
Astrology in the Early Modern Period

in Denmark 64
Morten Fink-Jensen
in Norway 70
Gina Dahl
vi Contents
in Sweden 78
Kjell Lekeby
Astrology in the Contemporary Period

in Denmark 89
Kirstine Munk
in Finland 98
Tom Sjöblom
in Sweden 104
Jenny-Ann Brodin Danell
Christian Theosophy
in Denmark 113
Søren Feldtfos Thomsen
in Finland 119
Tomas Mansikka
in Norway 127
Jan-Erik Ebbestad Hansen
in Sweden 137
Fabian Linde
Freemasonry
in Denmark 145
Andreas Önnerfors
in Finland 152
Nils G. Holm
in Norway 162
Andreas Önnerfors
in Sweden 168
Henrik Bogdan
Contents vii
Hermeticism
in Denmark 182
Morten Fink-Jensen
in Sweden 189
Susanna Åkerman
Human Potential 195
Liselotte Frisk
Jungianism 203
Suzanne Gieser
Kabbalah
in Denmark 212
Sara Møldrup Thejls
in Sweden 218
Thomas Karlsson
Magic in the Early Modern Period

in Denmark 228
Morten Fink-Jensen
in Finland 236
Tomas Mansikka
in Sweden 244
Henrik Bogdan and Kjell Lekeby
Martinus 254
Helle Bertelsen
Mesmerism
in Denmark 264
Søren Bak-Jensen
in Norway 269
Tonje Maria Mehren
viii Contents
in Sweden 285
Olav Hammer
New Age
in Denmark 292
Mikael Rothstein
in Finland 301
Tom Sjöblom
in Norway 307
in Sweden 313
Liselotte Frisk
Occultism
in Denmark 319
in Finland 324
Kennet Granholm
in Norway 332
Geir Uldal and Geir Winje
in Sweden 343
Kennet Granholm
Paganism
in Denmark 350
Benjamin Weber Pedersen
in Finland 360
Titus Hjelm
in Norway 367
Contents ix
in Sweden 380
Fredrik Gregorius
Pansophy 390
Fabian Linde
Paracelsianism
in Denmark 402
Jole Shackelford
in Finland 410
Tomas Mansikka
in Norway 417
Gina Dahl
in Sweden 425
Susanna Åkerman
Rosicrucianism in the Early Modern Period

in Denmark 431
Jole Shackelford
in Sweden 439
Susanna Åkerman
Rosicrucianism in the Contemporary Period

in Denmark 445
Jacob Christiansen Senholt
in Finland 448
Tom Sjöblom and Jussi Sohlberg
in Norway 453
Kjersti Løken
Satanism
in Denmark 463
Jesper Aagaard Petersen
x Contents
in Finland 474
Titus Hjelm
in Norway 481
Asbjørn Dyrendal
in Sweden 489
Henrik Bogdan
Spiritualism
in Denmark 494
Jesper Vaczy Kragh
in Finland 500
Jussi Sohlberg
in Norway 506
Tonje Maria Mehren
in Sweden 521
Robert Carleson and Caroline Levander
Swedenborgianism 534
Jane Williams-Hogan
Theosophy
in Denmark 554
René Dybdal
in Finland 563
Kennet Granholm
in Norway 570
Siv Ellen Kraft
in Sweden 578
Einar Petander
Contents xi
Theosophically Inspired Movements

in Denmark 587
René Dybdal
in Finland 595
Kennet Granholm
in Norway 603
Ingvild Sælid Gilhus and Janemil Kolstø†
in Sweden 606
Einar Petander
Traditionalism
in Denmark 615
Kristian Bjørkelo
in Norway 618
Kristian Bjørkelo
in Sweden 624
Robert Carleson
UFO movements
in Denmark 630
Mikael Rothstein
in Finland 640
Jaakko Närvä
in Norway 650
Jan Bertil Heilund
in Sweden 660
Jonathan Peste
Index of Names 667
Index of Subjects 689
xii List of Contributors List Of Contributors
List of Contributors
Susanna Åkerman
PhD, Secretary at Swedenborg Forum, Stockholm. Research interests include
Swedenborgianism, Queen Christina of Sweden, Rosicrucianism and alchemy.
Søren Bak-Jensen
holds a PhD degree in history, and has published several articles on the history
of medicine in Denmark. He is currently Director of the Workers’ Museum in
Copenhagen.
Helle Bertelsen
senior master at Randers Statsskole, Denmark. Primary areas of research are
NRMs and spirituality in Denmark and India.
Kristian A. Bjørkelo
is a folklorist and a freelance writer working with various topics ranging from
extremism to communication science. He teaches communication at the Uni-
versity of Bergen.
Henrik Bogdan
is Professor in Religious Studies at the University of Gothenburg. His main ar-
eas of research are New Religious Movements, Twentieth-Century Occultism,
and Freemasonry.
Robert Carleson
MA in History of Ideas and Literature Studies. He is Archivist at the Library and
Archives of the Swedish Order of Freemasonry.
Gina Dahl
Dr. Art. in history of Religion (2007) and a consultant at the Regional State Ar-
chives of Bergen, has published extensively on book distribution in early mod-
ern Norway.
Jenny-Ann Danell
is Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer in Sociology, at Umeå University.
Her main research is on production and negotiation of knowledge, with spe-
cial focus on complementary medicine.
List of Contributors xiii
René Dybdal
is Head of Center for Research and Development in Health Technology at VIA
University College. PhD about Theosophy in Denmark and has furthermore
conducted research on new religions.
Asbjørn Dyrendal
is Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Norwegian
University of Science and Technology. His main research areas are contempo-
rary Western religion and conspiracy culture.

is Professor in History of Ideas, Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of
Arts and Ideas, University of Oslo. Fields of research: Christian mysticism, eso-
tericism, Faust literature and Norwegian History of ideas.
PhD in History of Ideas (2002), is a writer, critic, editor, publisher, and historian
of alchemy.
Morten Fink-Jensen
PhD, Associate Professor of History, the Saxo Institute, University of Copenha-
gen. His research interests revolve around the cultural history of science and
religion in early modern Scandinavia.
Liselotte Frisk
Professor in Religious Studies at Dalarna University, Sweden, since 2006. PhD
with dissertation on New Religious Movements in 1993 at Åbo Akademi, Fin-
land. Research areas include New Age and children in minority religions.
Suzanne Gieser
PhD in the History of Sciences, Uppsala University, licenced relational psycho-
therapist. Research areas: History of Dynamic Psychology in Sweden, Jung His-
tory.

is Professor of Religion at the University of Bergen, Norway. She works in the
areas of religion in late antiquity and New Age spiritualities.
xiv List Of Contributors
Kennet Granholm
is Docent in Comparative Religion at Åbo Akademi University. He has pub-
lished extensively on contemporary esotericism and new religions, popular
culture, and sociological method and theory.
Fredrik Gregorius
PhD, is Senior Lecturer in History of Religions at Linkoping University, Sweden.
His main areas of research are American Evangelical movements, contempo-
rary European Paganism, and African-American diaspora religions.
Olav Hammer
is Professor of the Study of Religions at the University of Southern Denmark.
His main areas of research are new religious currents and Western esotericism
in the post-Enlightenment West.
Jan Bertil Heilund

PhD, primary research on Norwegian UFO groups and organisations, teaches at
Bergen Cathedral School.
Titus Hjelm
is Reader in Sociology at University College London. His main areas of interest
are sociology of religion, social theory, social problems, media, and popular
culture.
Nils G. Holm
professor em. of Åbo Akademi University, Finland. He has been teaching world
religions for more than thirty years, especially psychology of religion. He holds
a Dr. Theol. from Uppsala University, Sweden.
Thomas Karlsson
PhD, Stockholm University, Sweden. His main focus is Renaissance and Ba-
roque esotericism and Scandinavian Kabbalah, as well as contemporary Left
Hand Path occultism. Karlsson is Director of the Esoteric Crossroads seminars
on Villa San Michele, Capri, Italy.
Janemil Kolstø†
was a doctoral candidate who worked on a thesis on the Share International
movement.
List of Contributors xv
Siv Ellen Kraft

is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Tromsø, Norway’s Arctic
University. Major Research interests include Theosophy, New Age, Neo-pagan-
ism, and Indigenous religion(s).
Jesper Vaczy Kragh

Associate Professor, MA, PhD, is currently working on a research project fund-
ed by the Danish Ministry of Culture and the Danish Agency of Culture.
Håkan Lejon
retired priest of the Church of Sweden and Waldorf teacher, completed a PhD
dissertation on anthroposophy in Sweden at Stockholm University in 1997.
Kjell Lekeby
BA is a private scholar in history of ideas, specialising in alchemy, astrology,
magic, and Freemasonry.
Caroline Levander
is a PhD Candidate in Art History at the University of Gothenburg. Her re-
search is focused on esoteric ideas expressed in late Nineteenth- and early
Twentieth-Century art.
Fabian Linde
(PhD) is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eur-
asian Studies (UCRS), who specialises in Russian intellectual history.
Kjersti Løken
MA in History of Religions, is a private scholar. She is the author of an MA thesis
on AMORC in Norway.
Tomas Mansikka
Phil. Lic. Independent researcher in the fields of History of Ideas, History of
Religions, Philosophy, Reformation Culture, Western Esotericism.
Tonje Maria Mehren

is a historian of ideas specialising in Spiritualism, parapsychology, and psychic
research in Norway.
xvi List Of Contributors
Kirstine Munk
completed a PhD dissertation in 2008 on the role of astrology in contemporary
society, with a special focus on astrology in Denmark.
Jaakko Närvä
PhD, Religious Studies. Primary areas of research: UFO religiosity and philoso-
phy of Religious Studies.
Andreas Önnerfors
is an Associate Professor in Intellectual History at the University of Gothen-
burg, Sweden. His main areas of research are the intellectual culture of the
Enlightenment and organised sociability, Freemasonry, and fraternal orders of
the period.

is part-time Lecturer in the Study of Religions at the University of Southern
Denmark. His main research interests are Norse religion, occultism, and con-
temporary pagan movements.
Jonathan Peste
PhD in History of Religions, is an independent scholar. His main areas of re-
search are Hermetism, Gnosticism, and the relation between religion and vio-
lence.
Einar Petander
is doctoral candidate in Comparative Religion at Åbo Akademi University. His
main focus of research is the history of Theosophy, particularly in a Swedish
context.

is Associate Professor of Religion and Education at the Norwegian University
of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. His primary research interests
include contemporary Satanism and Left-Hand Path groups, religion and sci-
ence, and art as transgression.
Mikael Rothstein
PhD is Associate Professor/Senior Lecturer of Comparative Religion, Universi-
ty of Southern Denmark, and Visiting Professor, Vytautas Magnus University,
Kaunas. He specialises in the study of hunter-gatherers and new religions in
the West.
List of Contributors xvii

PhD candidate in history of ideas, University of Aarhus, research areas include
political and religious radicalism, traditionalism, political esotericism, occult-
ism, and neopaganism.
Jole Shackelford
Assistant Professor of the History of Medicine, University of Minnesota Medi-
cal School. His areas of research include Early European Science and Medi-
cine, and History of Chronobiology.
Tom Sjöblom
ThD, is a Docent in the Study of Religions at the University of Helsinki. His re-
search objects include the origins of religious thinking, magic in the Middle
Ages, and pre-Christian religions in Europe.
Jussi Sohlberg
MTh, is a research coordinator at the Research Institute of the Lutheran
Church in Finland. He is specialised in Western esotericism and Alternative
Spirituality.

holds an MA in history of religions from University of Copenhagen and Univer-
sity of Amsterdam. Her main research interests are esotericism, Kabbalah,
New Age, and New Religious Movements. She is employed as a religious stud-
ies teacher at Helsingoer High School in Denmark.

PhD is Postdoctoral researcher at Aarhus University, Department for the Study
of Religion.
Geir Uldal
has studied and practised ritual magic and related concepts since the 1970s,
and has many contacts in Norwegian paganistic and occult milieus.
Jane Williams-Hogan
Professor Emerita at Bryn Athyn College, PA. PhD, University of Pennsylvania,
1985, focusing on the sociology of religion. Co-director of MA of Religious Stud-
ies programme. Research area: Swedenborg studies.
xviii List Of Contributors
Geir Winje
is an Assistant Professor, working with teacher education at Buskerud and
Vestfold University College (Norway). His research fields are religious art and
modern religiosity, such as neopaganism and occultism.
Introduction
Introduction 1
Introduction
Henrik Bogdan and Olav Hammer Bogdan and Hammer
The Field
In the last two decades or so, the study of Western esotericism has become one
of the most rapidly expanding academic pursuits. Currents ranging in time
from alchemy and Hermeticism of the early modern period to various New
Age pursuits and UFO-related beliefs of the contemporary age are often placed
under this general category. Which substantive characteristics might unite
such a disparate set remains an open and controversial issue. Luckily, this is of
little concern for an encyclopedic work such as ours: considerably less contro-
versy surrounds the question of what contents should be counted as part of the
category of Western esotericism. This partial consensus is in no small measure
due to an authoritative encyclopedia, Hanegraaff et al (2005), which in more
than 1200 pages summarises information on roughly 300 currents, concepts,
and individuals.
With few exceptions, the Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism
focuses on Western esotericism in countries where the main language of com-
munication is English, German, Italian or French. Even when it comes to the
earlier periods, when most learned works were written in Latin, the same geo-
graphical limitation can be observed. In this sense, the Dictionary awaits
follow-up volumes that cover esotericism in other parts of the world where
esoteric currents have been influential: for older periods, the Islamic and
Jewish cultural spheres; for the early modern and contemporary periods,
Eastern and Northern Europe. The present work represents such an attempt,
covering Western esotericism in four Northern European countries: Denmark,
Finland, Norway, and Sweden.
What has been done in the Dictionary need not be redone. We have not
attempted to define or introduce the main currents covered here, nor have we
asked our contributors to do so. We assume that the gamut of currents, ranging
in alphabetical order from Anthroposophy and astrology to Traditionalism and
UFO s, are already at least minimally familiar to our readers. If not, the
Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism provides extensive coverage of
these and many other relevant terms.

2 Bogdan And Hammer
The Selection and Organisation of Entries
Sociologist Roland Robertson (1992) coined the term glocalisation to denote

the way in which global ideas, practices, and material objects are adapted to
local conditions. The story of religion in Scandinavia after Christianisation (as
summarised in, e.g., Hammer 2015) is very much the tale of many glocalisations,
and so are the many manifestations of Western esotericism from the early six-
teenth century to the present day. Even the most innovative esotericists tended
to mine concepts and practices already found on the European continent, and
produce local, Scandinavian versions. In some cases the degree of adaptation
is minimal: organisations with their headquarters outside of Scandinavia can
open branches in Copenhagen or Stockholm, and run these local branches as
faithful replicas of their counterparts abroad. In other cases the effect of locali-
sation is much more pronounced. When Swedish sixteenth-century esotericist
Johannes Bureus (1568–1652) became familiar with kabbalistic ideas concern-
ing the role of the Hebrew alphabet, he chose to devise a structurally similar
system that assigned occult qualities to the Nordic rune alphabet.
Given the dependence of Scandinavian esotericism on currents developed
elsewhere, it seemed a natural choice to organise our volume in terms of such
currents as they are manifested in each of the Scandinavian countries.
Individual entries will thus provide information on such topics as alchemy in
Denmark, Freemasonry in Norway, Theosophy in Finland, and UFO move-
ments in Sweden, to mention just a few examples. Although the borders
between currents are scholarly constructions, and our choice has at times been
guided by pragmatism rather than hard-and-fast rules, this way of organising
the material should also make it easy for readers unfamiliar with Scandinavian
history to orient themselves in the material. Those who wish to find specific
data on individual people will be able to locate that information by consulting
the detailed index. The single exception to this role is our choice to place
Martinus (1890–1981) and the movement named after him in a chapter of his
own, since his particular form of esotericism is difficult to place into one of the
existing categories.
Over the several years that this book project developed, we have drawn on
the expertise of numerous individuals, from established scholars to rising stars.
Most people we have approached were eager to share their knowledge and
were generous in providing information about colleagues who had explored
the lesser-known nooks and crannies of Western esotericism in a Scandinavian
setting (a brief summary of the existing research that we have drawn on can be
found in Bogdan & Hammer 2008). The reader will nevertheless discover lacu-
nae in the text. To the best of our knowledge, there is at the time of writing
Introduction 3
simply no research on such topics as astrology in contemporary Norway, or the

influence of Traditionalism in Finland. This volume thus serves as a map of the
state of the art on our selected topic, and indirectly provides clues as to poten-
tial research topics.
An aid to further research is provided by the bibliographies at the end of
each chapter. Although academic scholarship in the humanities is said to be
internationally oriented, one aspect of these reference lists seems to strik-
ingly disconfirm this notion. Almost all research on esotericism in Scandinavia
has resulted in publications in local languages. If Western esotericism in
Scandinavia is such an uncharted field for most non-Scandinavians, that is the
reason. Much of what appears between the present covers will have been pre-
viously inaccessible to those who lack command of a Scandinavian language
and of Finnish. Quotes from Scandinavian- and Finnish-language sources
and scholarship included in the present volume have been translated by the
authors of the respective chapters, unless noted otherwise.
The Scandinavian Countries
Our choice of what countries to include is in part dictated by the extent of our
personal networks and the limits of our own knowledge. Strictly speaking,
Scandinavia is a term that covers three countries with a shared linguistic and
cultural heritage: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. In an extended sense, the
term Scandinavia is used as a synonym for the (stylistically clumsier) term “the
Nordic countries”, which also includes Finland, Iceland, and the Faeroe Islands.
Until very recently, even distant Greenland was a dependency of Norway (until
1814) and then of Denmark (until colonial status was abolished in 1953).
Politically, but not geographically, Greenland thus also belongs to the immedi-
ate sphere of influence of the Nordic countries.
Culturally, not least when it comes to the history of ideas and history of
religion, Finland has been close to the three Scandinavian countries senso
strictu. Swedish was up to the modern period extensively used as a language of
learned communication, and for many years, political fortunes (to be outlined
below) united Finland with Sweden. It therefore seemed natural to include the
situation in Finland in our volume. Iceland, the Faeroe Islands, and Greenland
were excluded for pragmatic reasons only. To the extent that there have been
writers on esoteric topics, organisations with esoteric foci, and researchers
surveying esotericism in these territories, linguistic barriers and our own lack
4 Bogdan And Hammer
of familiarity with the relevant histories have made us decide against cov-
ering them. The occasional mention by one or another of our authors – for
instance the fact that the Norwegian priest Hans Egede (1686–1758), mission-
ary to Greenland after 1721, sent for alchemical works and tried to manufacture
the Philosopher’s Stone in his new homeland – suggests that much could be
uncovered outside Scandinavia as we have chosen to define the term. We do, of
course, hope that somebody will take up the challenge and extend the present
survey beyond our self-imposed borders.
For ease of reference, we have allowed a historical anachronism to pervade
our book. We describe the situation in four countries that have seen shifting
borders and where political sovereignty has come and gone over the centuries.
A historically precise identification would have entailed placing some of the
people and events that are covered here in such chapters as “Alchemy in
Norway”, in a separate section that could have a title such as “Alchemy in the
Norwegian Part of the Danish-Norwegian Kingdom”. Such historical precision
comes at the price of both linguistic awkwardness and potential confusion,
especially for readers unfamiliar with the broad political events in Scandinavian
history. A few basic facts that might be included in a thumbnail sketch of the
various fortunes of nations and national borders from the early sixteenth cen-
tury to today will illustrate why:
The Scandinavian countries were from 1397 to 1523 joined in a political
union, the Kalmar Union, with a single monarch at its head. When our story
begins, various nations were beginning to break away from this union and,
with various degrees of success, assert their national independence and their
dominance over neighbouring territories. In 1523 Sweden definitively broke
out of the union, with Gustav Vasa becoming king. Sweden was at this time a
considerably smaller country than today, since much of the present-day terri-
tory was controlled by the Danish crown.
Denmark also broke out of the union at this time, but retained control over
Norway. A double kingdom of Denmark-Norway lasted until 1814, and strictly
speaking, all events described here as taking place in Norway before that year
took place in the double monarchy of Denmark-Norway. This double kingdom
also continued to rule over several of the southern and western provinces of
what later became part of Sweden. Brutal wars between Sweden and Denmark
led to the incorporation of these provinces into Swedish territory in a peace
treaty signed in 1658. By then, Swedish military fortunes had also made the ter-
ritory of Sweden expand greatly. Parts of the Baltic countries, for instance, had
come to belong to Sweden, but were later lost again: Estonia and Livonia (part
of present-day Latvia) in 1721, and Courland (Western present-day Latvia) in
1795.
Introduction 5
The bond between Sweden and Finland was even stronger. The Danish-
Norwegian double monarchy concentrated power to Copenhagen, but Norway
had its own legal code and its own institutions. Finland, by contrast, was con-
sidered a completely integrated part of the Swedish state from the Middle Ages
up to 1809. After Sweden lost a war against Russia, the Finnish-speaking area
came under two distinct spheres of influence. A territory roughly equivalent to
what is today Finland became an autonomous part of the Russian empire, the
so-called Grand Duchy of Finland, until independence was achieved in 1917. A
much smaller Finnish-speaking area, west of the Torne River, remains an inte-
gral part of Sweden to the present day.
These few pointers to the extreme flux that has characterised boundaries
delimiting the Scandinavian countries barely begin to scratch the surface of
the complexities. In short, the decision to divide the topics of the present vol-
ume after the present-day geographic entities may perhaps offend purist
historians, but we insist that this is the most sensible option.
Esotericism in Scandinavia: A Brief Overview
The large amounts of information that follow in the body of this encyclopedia
are arranged alphabetically and by country, rather than in a chronological nar-
rative, and are often quite detailed. For newcomers to the history of religions in
Scandinavia, and to the place of Western esotericism within that general his-
tory, a thumbnail sketch (with examples culled from various chapters in this
book) may be useful.
Once the Scandinavian countries emerged from the Kalmar Union as
separate entities, Lutheranism was imposed as the only tolerated religion. In
Sweden, religious hegemony had been enforced by the end of the sixteenth
century, and all Swedish citizens were compelled to belong to the Lutheran
state church. In Denmark-Norway, a similar process led to the country-wide
establishment of Lutheran orthodoxy already in 1536. Although religious
dissent was seen as a serious matter, esoteric currents from the European con-
tinent – in particular, astrology, alchemy, and kabbalistic and paracelsian ideas
– managed to influence some segments of the population. Three factors in
particular impacted on the dissemination of these early forms of esotericism.
Firstly, they presupposed a considerable degree of specialised and often
bookish knowledge. Given the minuscule size of the Scandinavian intellectual
elite, and its concentration to parts of Denmark and Sweden, relatively few
people were actively involved in promoting such pursuits. The influence of
esoteric currents in the Norwegian part of the double kingdom and in the
6 Bogdan And Hammer
Finnish part of Sweden, which at the time were cultural peripheries, was par-
ticularly restricted. In Sweden, for instance, a survey of the available sources
reveals the names of only some eighty active alchemists in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. The situation of astrology was even more extreme: only
one professional astrologer of early modern Sweden is known to us: Sigfrid
Aron Forsius (ca. 1560–1624). It is symptomatic that Johannes Bureus (1568–
1652), who was the most innovative Swedish esotericist of the early modern
period, barely had any influence on his contemporaries.
Secondly, shifting opinions on whether esoteric ideas conflicted with basic
Christian tenets, or with the Aristotelian philosophy that was part of the stan-
dard university curriculum, led to an unstable situation where support for
particular practices could be forthcoming for a while, until the tides shifted,
and the same practices were criticised or even banned. Astrology, in particular,
was at times accepted, and at other times perceived as a threat to the funda-
mental Christian doctrine of free will. In Denmark, astrology was included in
the charter of the University of Copenhagen, formulated in 1539. Tycho Brahe
(1546–1601), the most celebrated astronomer of early modern Scandinavia,
published predictions that drew attention in royal circles. King Frederik II
(1534–1588) felt that Tycho’s methods could be useful in that they delivered
both broad political predictions and information on the fate of individual
members of the royal family. Many theologians, however, were averse to the
practise, and once a less supportive king was in place, the situation of astrology
changed dramatically. In 1633 King Christian IV issued a decree making spe-
cific predictions in almanacs forbidden, because the practise might provoke
the ire of the deity.
Thirdly, as a consequence of the first two factors, the situation of at least
some esoteric currents in early modern Scandinavia often depended on the
efforts of a handful of key individuals: sympathetic members of the royal fam-
ily who chose to support unorthodox ideas, or centrally placed intellectuals
who went against prevailing mainstream opinions. For instance, paracelsian-
ism gained a firm foothold in Denmark largely through the efforts of one man,
Peder Sørensen (1542–1602), better known by his Latinised name Petrus
Severinus, and through the protection of his royal patron. Severinus took the
fundamental ideas of Paracelsus’ medicine, and created a systematic body of
thought. The publication in 1571 of his main work, Idea medicinae philosoph-
icæ, secured him the position as royal physician to King Frederik II of Denmark.
At the cusp of the eighteenth century, Lutheran religious hegemony met
new challenges, and countermeasures became even harsher. In the decades
around 1700, Pietist movements entered Scandinavia from Germany. A form of
religion that saw organised churches as irrelevant to true piety, or even as
Introduction 7
impediments to a spiritual life, could be construed as a major threat by states

that wished to impose complete religious uniformity. In 1726, the Swedish
political administration enacted a law against religious dissent, named konven-
tikelplakatet, prohibiting all unsanctioned religious gatherings. In 1735, it was
further stipulated that not only were religious gatherings and religious prosely-
tism forbidden, it was also a punishable offence to hold “erroneous” ideas. In
Denmark-Norway a similar law, designated by the nearly identical name kon-
ventikelplakaten, was promulgated in 1741 by King Christian VI, outlawing all
religious gatherings that had not received authorisation by the local parish
priest. Pietists and revivalists who were understood to violate these laws could
be imprisoned or exiled.
Whereas the religious activities of commoners were strictly supervised, the
uppermost social strata were much freer to experiment with forms of religios-
ity far outside the bounds of Christian orthodoxy (Lekeby 2010). Two new
sources of influence became highly important in the mid-to-late eighteenth
century: the development of masonic-style secret orders, and the legacy of the
Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772).
Several secretive orders were formed, where members delved into such eso-
teric interests as Hermeticism and magic. The highly secret order Metatron was
probably founded in the 1720s. According to a few surviving manuscripts (now
at the masonic archives of the Swedish Grand Lodge), this was a Hermetic-
kabbalistic order that was critical of the Order of Freemasonry, which they
considered to have revealed too much of the arcane sciences. The group seems
to have performed some highly unorthodox rituals, in particular attempts to
communicate with higher beings such as angels.
In a number of books published in the last three decades of his life, Sweden
borg presented a complex cosmology based on his visionary experiences, in
which he conversed with angels and spirits. It should be noted, however, that
Swedenborg’s ideas were at first more influential abroad, especially in England
(where the first Swedenborgian church-like group was founded in Manchester
in 1782; see Mayer 2005: 1105) and the United States, than in his native Sweden.
In his home country, Swedenborg’s experiences were at first often seen as a
source of inspiration, the idea being that if Swedenborg could converse with
spirits, so could others. In the 1770s, Duke Charles (later, King Charles XIII)
gathered around himself a small group of people, who met at the royal castle
in order to contact spirits of the dead and angels, practise ritual magic, and
perform alchemical experiments (Lekeby 2010).
By the end of the eighteenth century, mesmerism entered Scandinavia as
yet another current to challenge orthodoxy. In Sweden, various organisations
could attempt in rather diverse ways to combine mesmerist practices and
8 Bogdan And Hammer
Swedenborgian ideas, attempt to restrict the use of mesmerism for purposes of

healing, or experiment with paranormal phenomena that seemed to be mani-
fested by particularly sensitive subjects. In Denmark, a number of cultural
luminaries praised the medical potential of mesmerist treatments, or sug-
gested that mesmerism was one of the great discoveries of mankind.
The laws against religious dissent were gradually weakened, but were only
completely lifted in the mid-nineteenth century. By then, orthodoxy could no
longer contain innovative and heterodox religious practices. Local revival
movements, in particular, had gripped large segments of the population. The
first missionaries from abroad were also able to operate in Scandinavia.
Mormonism, for instance, attracted a fair number of converts in Denmark after
mission efforts had begun in 1850, immediately after the adoption of a new,
more religiously tolerant constitution in 1849. The more accepting religious cli-
mate of the mid- to late nineteenth century also allowed new esoteric currents
from abroad to enter Scandinavia.
Spiritualism, in particular, gained a strong foothold in all Scandinavian
countries. The new movement came to Denmark very soon after its inception
in the United States. In 1853, the German press began to print reports of table
turning, and news of these experiments reached Denmark. Spiritualism
became an object of public debate, and several leading Danish intellectuals
and artists showed an interest in the topic. After the British medium William
Eglington visited Stockholm in 1875, and his séances had been covered by the
Swedish press, a Swedish spiritualist organisation was founded in 1877. In
Norway, spiritualism gained a somewhat less secure foothold in the last two
decades of the century.
Another major esoteric movement of the nineteenth century, Theosophy,
arrived in Scandinavia a few years later. Theosophical lodges were founded in
major cities throughout Scandinavia. A site on the Swedish island of Visingsö
was even destined to become a new world centre for the movement, but the
death of Theosophical leader Katherine Tingley and financial troubles aborted
those plans. Local organisations, closely inspired by the Theosophical Society
have imparted a home-grown flavour to this international movement.
Examples include Shan the Rising Light in Denmark and Ruusu-Risti (‘The
Rose-Cross’) in Finland.
The twentieth century, and especially the latter half of that century, was a
time of massive religious experimentation. Numerous religious groups, from
Christian denominations outside the Lutheran tradition, to religions of Asiatic
(Hindu or Buddhist) origin, came to Scandinavia. As part of this broader
trend of religious innovation, the entire panoply of esoteric currents that one
finds abroad spread in the Scandinavian countries. Movements inspired by
Introduction 9
Theosophy were among the earliest to proliferate, most importantly among

them Anthroposophy. Norway, in particular, has been a stronghold of interest
in the legacy of founder Rudolf Steiner. Numerous occult orders can be found
in all four countries. Satanism has its subcultural foothold. Modern Rosicrucian
groups have found a small but sympathetic following. New Age activities, in
particular, continue to fascinate sizeable segments of the Scandinavian pop-
ulation. Finally, the twentieth century also saw the emergence of Martinus
Cosmology, a home-grown form of esotericism that combines Christianity,
Theosophy, and the cosmological beliefs of its creator, Martinus Thomsen, into
an original synthesis. All of these currents continue to exist also at present,
demonstrating the vibrant presence of esotericism in twenty-first century
Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.
Concluding Remarks
The editors of the Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism note that the
sheer diversity of currents and ideas should dispel any simple notion of an
essential unity of Western esotericism. At the same time, an air de famille nev-
ertheless pervades much of what counts as “esoteric”. By expanding the view so
that the situation in Scandinavia is also covered, this double picture of family
resemblances and a multiplicity of approaches is confirmed.
We invite readers to explore a world where topics from the global world of
esotericism can be found in forms familiar from the European continent, as
well as in versions that betray the distinct creative input of local spiritual
virtuosi. A uniquely Satanist take on Theosophy, a monument built to com-
memorate the visit of benevolent space brothers, “heavenly marriages” carried
out in the carnal sense, and necromantic experiments performed by Swedish
aristocrats are just some of the many striking phenomena that resulted when
various forms of Western esotericism were transposed to a Scandinavian
context.
References
Bogdan, Henrik and Olav Hammer, “Research on Esotericism in Scandinavia”, in: Tore
Ahlbäck (ed.), Western Esotericism, Åbo/Turku: Donner Institute, 2008, 38–49.
Hammer, Olav, “Old New Religions in Scandinavia”, in: James R. Lewis and Inga Bårdsen
Tøllefsen (eds.), Nordic New Religions, Leiden, etc.: Brill, 2015.
10 Bogdan And Hammer
Hanegraaff, Wouter J., et al., Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, Leiden: Brill,
2005.
Lekeby, Kjell, Gustaviansk mystik, Sala & Södermalm: Vertigo, 2010.
Mayer, Jean-François, “Swedenborgian traditions”, in: Wouter J. Hanegraaff et al. (eds.),
Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, Leiden: Brill, 2005, 1105–1110.
Robertson, Roland, Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture, London: Sage, 1992.
Alchemy in Denmark 11
Chapter 1
Alchemy in Denmark
Morten Fink-Jensen
Only scant evidence exists of alchemy being practised or even known in medi-
eval Denmark. Archbishop Jens Grand (d. 1327) owned a book on alchemy, and
archaeological findings support indications that one or two of the bishops
of Aarhus were engaged in alchemical experiments in the fifteenth century.
Given the costs of the substances and equipment needed, the art of alchemy
is generally best documented within the upper strata of society, and sources
suggest that, beginning with King Christian II (1481–1559, r. 1513–1523), alchemy
was over the following two centuries mainly a royal pursuit. The female advisor
to Christian II, Sigbrit Villoms, was rumoured to be an adept in alchemy. Both
King Christian III (1503–1559, r. 1534–1559) and his son and successor Frederik
II (1534–1588, r. 1559–1588) were intrigued by the possibilities of alchemy,
especially with regards to its importance in regard to the production of chem-
ically-prepared medicine.
Tycho Brahe’s Laboratory
King Frederik II funded Tycho Brahe’s (1546–1601) research into astronomy

(which at the time included astrology) and alchemy, and Tycho supplied the
court with his chemical remedies. Tycho, as far as we know, did not try to trans-
mute metals into gold, but equated alchemical investigations with chemical
experiments and he held minerals, metals, and chemical substances to be
analogous to the celestial bodies and containing the same power to influence
the microcosm of the body as the stars exerted on the macrocosm. For this
reason, Tycho labelled alchemy “terrestial astronomy”. Tycho professed to have
been as much occupied by alchemy as astronomy throughout his career, but
while he published his astronomical observations, he kept in line with the tra-
dition of secrecy in alchemy and refused to disclose his findings, claiming that
it was not given to everybody to treat such great mysteries properly and
honestly.
In the basement of his Uraniborg castle on the Island of Hven, Tycho had a
laboratory built, by his own description containing sixteen different furnaces
for chemical use, viz. three bath-heaters, a digesting furnace with ashes, four
large athanors (used for constant heating) and two small ones, two distillation
furnaces with sand or ashes, one for a large bellows, connected to the furnace

12 Fink-jensen
by means of two pipes, another furnace placed apart, with lamps, two furnaces
reflecting the heat, one directly, the other in a spiral, partly placed freely, partly
in a closed chamber. Many individuals in the circle around Tycho Brahe were
also pursuing alchemy, whether for reasons of health or wealth. The most nota-
ble among these were his sister Sophie Brahe (1556–1643), who personally
conducted iatrochemical experiments (i.e., combining alchemy with medi-
cine), and her second husband, the nobleman Erik Lange. He squandered vast
sums trying to transmute base metals into gold and finally fled the country in
order to avoid being imprisoned for debt. Lange died in exile in 1613, perhaps in
Prague while staying with relatives of Tycho Brahe.
Paracelsian Chemistry and Medicine
In 1555, the bishop of Sealand, Peder Palladius (1503–1560), referred to alchemy

as an integral part of medicine, but accused those who professed to be able to
make gold of being imposters. Palladius’ connection of alchemy with medicine
squared well with the university curriculum where pharmaceutical alchemy
was plainly accepted. Caspar Bartholin the Elder, professor of medicine at the
University of Copenhagen 1613–1624, taught his students both Galenic humor-
alism and the spagyric art of Paracelsus, but the quest for gold by way of
transmutation was as a rule left out. Occasionally, the Academic Senate at the
University of Copenhagen was called upon to act as court in matters involving
alchemy. In 1595 the professor of Latin, Hans Rasmussen Skomager (Johannes
Erasmi Hafniensis), was summoned before the Senate by a German alchemist,
Casper Kröger, with whom he had collaborated. Disagreements between them
prompted the alchemist to accuse the professor of having stolen his secrets
contained in a handwritten manuscript with the title De confiendo sigillo
Salomonis. Professor Skomager vehemently denied the charge and even hit his
accuser in the face in front of the judges, forcing the Senate to reprimand the
professor for such un-academic behaviour. The fact that the professor had
been dealing with the alchemist in the first place was, however, not a matter of
concern to the Senate. In 1700, the Copenhagen physician Christian Hacqvart
appeared in a case brought before the Senate by the coppersmith Henrik Ehm.
Hacqvart had promised to pay Ehm 600 thalers for a method to make gold from
silver, but as the method turned out to be quite worthless, Hacqvart refused to
pay and the Senate supported his stance.
Since alchemy in connection with Paracelsian chemistry and medicine was
commonplace in late sixteenth and seventeenth century Denmark, Paracelsian
remedies were fully incorporated in the official pharmaceutical tariff of 1619.
This also included prescriptions composed by famous alchemists such as

Oswald Croll and Joseph Duchesne (Quercetanus). In 1629 royal physician
Henning Arnisæus noted that the tariff was already out of date because it
included too few of the popular chemical prescriptions. The renewed tariff of
1645 mirrored this sentiment by including twice the number of chemical com-
posites, tinctures, elixirs, and essences. The trend continued and the tariff of
1672 tripled the number. The popularity of the chemical remedies continued,
but their Paracelsian and alchemical background became less important – or
were no longer of interest – in the eighteenth century. A telling example is the
Elixir proprietatis Paracelsi of the pharmacopoeia Dispensatorium Hafniense of
1658 being sold as Elixir proprietatis cum/sine acido in the Pharmacopoea
Danica of 1772.
Chemically prepared medicine was also recommended in popular manuals
of medicine such as pastor Niels Mikkelsen Aalborg’s Medicin eller Læge-Bog
(Medicine or Cure-book), printed in 1633, which contained numerous refer-
ences to Croll’s Basilica chymica (1609). Mikkelsen Aalborg (1562–1645)
admitted that many of the chemical prescriptions – as compared to traditional
herbal recipes – were difficult to prepare without the proper equipment. This
naturally led to iatrochemistry being pursued by more affluent members of
society, often in conjunction with alchemy in the sense of the attempted trans-
mutation of base metals into gold.
Alchemy in a Royal Setting
This dual interest in iatrochemistry and alchemy can be seen in Peter Payngk,
who in 1609 was appointed royal chymicus and distiller to King Christian IV
(1588–1648) in Denmark. Payngk, who was born ca. 1575 in Husum in Southern
Jutland, had previously held a position as chemist at the court of Emperor
Rudolph II in Prague. In Copenhagen he was given a newly-built laboratory
next to the royal castle of Rosenborg in Copenhagen. The laboratory included
fifteen different ovens and was perhaps partly modelled on directions taken
from the 1606 edition of Alchymia by Andreas Libavius of which Payngk owned
a copy. Payngk’s assignment was to produce medicine, liquor, and perfume to
the court, and he wrote a collection of prescriptions of nearly 700 pages that
was never published but is preserved in manuscript form. This manuscript is a
testament to Payngk’s great admiration for Paracelsus who he believed had
acquired his insights into the secrets of nature from the Egyptians and since
then had worked wonders through magic, not least by achieving the transmu-
tation of numerous metals into gold. Payngk eagerly tried to copy Paracelsus’
14 Fink-jensen
apparent success in the laboratory at Rosenborg, and his book of prescriptions

contains various hints as to how to produce the coveted Philosopher’s Stone,
tincture or materia prima. He even ended the collection with a biography of
his hero, entitled Rhapsodia vitae Theophrasti Paracelsi. Payngk, who was
undoubtedly regarded as one of the leading alchemical experts in Denmark
until his death in 1645, claimed to have been successful in transmuting copper
into silver, but the transmutation of mercury into gold was, alas, something
that he had only seen others perform.
Payngk also supplied the minor court of crown prince Christian at Nykøbing
Castle in southern Denmark. Iatrochemistry was actively pursued here, and
the German chemist Daniel Sennert in Wittenberg dedicated his fifth book of
Practicae medicinae to the Danish prince. The castle in Nykøbing was also fur-
nished with a laboratory in 1641 upon the arrival of the prince’s newly appointed
physician, Helvig Dietrich.
In 1642 the Saxon Casper Herbach (d. 1664) was hired by King Christian IV to
work alongside Peter Payngk as a consultant with expertise on metallurgy. In
1623 the mining of silver had begun in Kongsberg, Norway, and Herbach was to
examine ore samples sent down from Norway to Copenhagen for possible con-
tents of gold. In 1646 the so-called Melting-House was erected in order to refine
Herbach’s methods of analysis. His salary was initially eighty thalers yearly, but
when Frederik III (1648–1670) ascended the throne his commission was
renewed and his salary was raised more than sixfold to 500 thalers yearly. This
was a gesture pointing to the increasingly favourable circumstances alchemy
was offered during the reign of King Frederik III. In 1655 the King’s residence
at Copenhagen Castle was provided with a new laboratory. Here he joined in
the quest for the Philosopher’s Stone, and the following year he dispatched
Herbach to Amsterdam to negotiate with the famous alchemist Johann Glauber
who was willing to sell certain alchemical secrets to the king. Preserved corre-
spondence from Herbach to the king reveals that this included a method to
produce aurum potabile at a price of 1,000 ducates and a technique that,
according to Glauber, would allow one to produce one extra ducate from 100
ducates in the course of three hours. Glauber demanded 200 ducates to reveal
this technique to the king. Herbach was particularly impressed with this latter
offer and the king gave instructions to Herbach to buy what he deemed reason-
able provided that Glauber was to be trusted. It is uncertain whether a deal was
struck.
Professor of chemistry Ole Borch (1626–1690) described how King Frederik
III on one occasion personally worked in the laboratory, with Borch as assist-
ant. The king produced potable gold by braying some gold leaves in a mortar
until they turned into a dark powder. The powder was then distilled in a glass
retort resulting in a red liquid not unlike wine. The liquid was placed in the sun
to evaporate and this finally resulted in a greenish salt to be used as an ingredi-
ent in a potion.
Giuseppe Francesco Borri in Copenhagen
A host of influential members of society, some of them advisors to the king,

were similarly occupied by alchemy. Thus, many a manor housed a chemical
laboratory. When Ole Borch in 1661 had made contact with the Italian alche-
mist Giuseppe Francesco Borri (1627–1695) in Amsterdam, the nobleman Erik
Rosenkrantz of Rosenholm made inquiries to Borri through Borch, stating that
he was willing to pay a substantial amount in order to learn Borri’s techniques.
Valdemar Daa of Borreby in 1681 lost his manor and entire estate at least partly
due to his vain investment in the art of transmutation. Large-scale alchemy
was as expensive as ever, and besides the costs of equipment and raw materials
the many ovens of the laboratories demanded advanced heating techniques
with substances often being boiled for months at a time. Thus, in the year of
1650 the alchemical ovens in the castle of Gottorp consumed no less than 1375
tons of charcoal.
Borri was rumoured to be able to mint ducates from his chymical gold, and
when he offered Borch such a coin, word quickly spread to Denmark. While in
Amsterdam, Borri was visited by Ulrik Frederik Gyldenløve, son of King
Frederik III and from 1664 governor of Norway, and Hannibal Sehested, Lord
Treasurer. Even the anatomist Niels Stensen (Steno) made Borri’s acquaint-
ance, and by 1663 plans were set in motion to try to bring him to Copenhagen.
In 1666 Borri finally travelled to Denmark and met with the king. News of his
arrival resounded in the newspapers with great expectations as to what riches
the chymistry of Borri would result in. It is not clear whether the king expected
Borri to transmute base metals into gold or rather sought his expert advice on
extracting gold from Norwegian ores, i.e., continuing the work of Casper
Herbach who had died in 1664.
Borri began work in the laboratory in Copenhagen Castle, but soon had a
laboratory building constructed near Rosenborg Castle. It was quickly nick-
named The Gold House, not just because of the work to be carried out in it, but
also due to the costs of building it, to which end the king levied no less than
300 soldiers to assist the builders. A controversial figure and a favourite of the
king, Borri was soon met with envy even at court and when Frederik III died in
1670 he left the country within days [see also the chapter on Hermeticism in
Denmark in the present volume].
16 Fink-jensen
Alchemy in the Eighteenth Century
The new king, Christian V (1646–1699, r. 1670–1699), was less keen on alchemy
than his father, but alchemists still found easy access to the Danish court well
into the eighteenth century. The son of Christian V, the future King Frederik IV
(1671–1730, r. 1699–1730), even visited the by now captive Borri in Rome in 1692.
The same year in Copenhagen King Christian V had been part of an alchemist’s
audience in the Queen’s quarters witnessing a transformation of mercury into
silver, seemingly done without deceit, as the king noted in his diary. In 1708 an
Italian count, Grimaldi, arrived in Copenhagen professing that he could make
gold. He was immediately hired by King Frederik IV who promised him the
princely salary of 3,000 thalers per year, but within a year he was jailed, pre-
sumably for having deceived the king. Yet another Italian, Maldini, in 1723
presented himself to the king promising to make gold from lead. He, too, was
immediately taken into the king’s service and placed in the laboratory of
Rosenborg Castle. Being unable, however, to fulfil his promise, he was dis-
missed little over a year later.
The general and Privy Councillor Christian Ditlev Reventlow also occupied
himself with alchemy. In 1707 he persuaded King Frederik IV to reward the
German alchemist Johann Konrad Dippel (aka Christianus Democritus, 1673–
1734) with the honorary title of Councillor (kancelliråd) and in 1714 he invited
Dippel to live in the Danish city of Altona. Dippel fell from grace, too, but this
was not due to his alchemical activities but rather on account of his radical
religious views and the charges of defamation levelled against him. For this
reason he was imprisoned in 1719 with his publications to be burnt by the hang-
man. In 1726 Dippel was released and he left Denmark. Yet another alchemist
from this period was Christian Gaulcke (d. 1737), royal physician to King
Christian VI (1699–1746, r. 1730–1746). Eventually, however, the belief in both
the transmutation of metals and in the existence of a single drug that could
cure all diseases waned as the eighteenth century drew to a close. The attrac-
tion of the occult sciences, however, did not entirely disappear from the royal
circles, and the “immortal” Count of Saint-Germain, renowned alchemist of
unknown nationality, in 1779 found a patron in Landgrave Charles of Hesse-
Cassel, son-in-law to King Christian VII (1749–1808, r. 1766–1808) and Danish
governor in Schleswig-Holstein. Saint-Germain lived on the governor’s estate,
initiating him into the secrets of transmutation and the manufacture of arcana
until the count’s death in 1784.
In 1783 the Copenhagen chemist J.D. Cappel was the centre of much atten-
tion because of his claims to have extracted gold from pure silver using a
treatment involving arsenic. Cappel did not try to conceal his method, allow-
ing for other chemists to repeat his experiments which led to the conclusion
that the small quantities of gold stemmed from the arsenic and not the silver.
The fact that Cappel did not try to shroud his result in a veil of secrecy can be
taken as a sign that traditional alchemy and the transmutation of metals had
lost its general appeal in Denmark outside certain initiatory societies. Within
these, such as Der Orden des Gold- und Rosenkreuzes, alchemy continued to
play an important part well into the nineteenth century. This can also be seen
from the collection of alchemical manuscripts at the archives of the Danish
Order of Freemasons in Copenhagen. Finally, there appears to have been a
minor renaissance for alchemy at the end of the nineteenth and early twenti-
eth century, involving people such as the occultist Carl William Hansen (aka
Ben Kadosh) who was in contact with the Swedish writer August Strindberg.
References
Christianson, John Robert, On Tycho’s Island: Tycho Brahe and his Assistants, 1570–1601,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Fink-Jensen, Morten, “Ole Borch mellem naturlig magi og moderne naturvidenskab”,
Historisk Tidsskrift 100 (2000), 35–68.
———. “Paracelsus og Danmark. Medicin og teologi i 1500- og 1600-tallet”, in: Charlotte
Appel et al. (eds.), Mentalitet og historie, Ebeltoft: Skippershoved, 2002, 95–118.
——— . Fornuften under troens lydighed. Naturfilosofi, medicin og teologi i Danmark
1536–1636, Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2004.
Fjelstrup, August, Guldmagere i Danmark i det XVII. Aarhundrede, Copenhagen: V. Pio’s
Boghandel, 1906.
——— . Dr. Peter Payngk. Kong Kristian IV’s Hofkemiker, Copenhagen: A. Gieses Eftf.,
1911.
Limbeck, Sven, “Paracelsus in einer Frühneuzeitlichen Historiensammlung. Die Rhap
sodia vitae Theophrasti Paracelsi von Peter Payngk”, in: Joachim Telle (ed.), Analecta
Paracelsica. Studien zum Nachleben Theophrast von Hohenheims im deutschen Kultur
gebiet der frühen Neuzeit, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1994, 1–58.
Ræder, Hans, Elis Strömgren and Bengt Strömgren (eds.), Tycho Brahe’s Description of
his Instruments and Scientific Work as given in Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica
(1598), Copenhagen: The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 1946.
Schepelern, H.D., Olai Borrichii Itinerarium 1660–1665. The Journal of the Danish Polyhistor
Ole Borch I–IV, Copenhagen: The Danish Society of Language and Literature, 1983.
Werlauff, E.C., “Efterretninger om Italieneren J.F. Borro’s Ophold ved det danske Hof i
Aarene 1667–1670”, in: J.D. Herholdt and F.V. Mansa (eds.), Samlinger til den Danske
Medicinal-Historie, Vol. 1, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1835, 152–192.
18 Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Alchemy in Finland
Tomas Mansikka
There are apparently no sources from the seventeenth century or before that
can document the existence of practicing alchemists in Finland. However, as
chemistry, physics, and medicine were seen within the broader framework of a
natural philosophy that was informed by alchemical principles, discussions
and expositions regarding alchemical doctrines are nevertheless present in
dissertations from the era. Alchemical views were transmitted by, e.g., Daniel
Sennert (1572–1637), a renowned author who was frequently cited by scholars
at the Academy of Turku (Sw. Åbo). Alchemy, as the art of transmutation
including chrysopoeia, i.e., producing gold from base metals, but also technolo-
gies of metals and minerals more generally, interested many learned people
during the century. Dissertations on natural magic, which depended on works
such as Giambattista Porta’s De magia naturalis (1558), not only suggested that
it was possible to transmute base metals into gold, but also insisted that this
was a fully legitimate undertaking. Hence, the art of transmutation was not
seen as an illegitimate art, but as part of natural philosophy.
Among notable people familiar with alchemy or alchemical literature, the
bishops Carl Fredrik Mennander (1712–1786) and Jakob Gadolin (1719–1802)
should be mentioned. Mennander was the owner of the largest private library
in Finland in the eighteenth century, including an impressive collection of
alchemical literature. Works by alchemical authors such as Artephius, Kenelm
Digby, Daniel Stolcius, and Bernhard Trevisanus are represented in the library’s
catalogue, as are various collections of alchemical tractates. In 1773, Mennander
commented on two alchemically-related issues in the earliest (and then
recently founded) newspaper in Finland, Tidningar Utgifne af et Sällskap i Åbo:
one concerning Lars Roberg’s and Johannes Franck’s disputations on alchemy,
the other on the publishing of Daniel Achrelius’ Contemplationes mundi (1680),
a seminal work that challenged the scholastic tradition and introduced
alchemical views derived from the Paracelsian tradition. Mennander’s attitude
to alchemy was not wholeheartedly sympathetic, even though he apparently
believed in alchemical transmutations. Mennander’s interest in alchemical
matters could evidently be dated to the early 1730s during his stay in Uppsala
within the circle of Carl von Linné, which included the ichtyologist and alche-
mist Petrus Artedi (1705–1735), a pupil of Roberg and preserver of Franck’s

Alchemy in Finland 19
alchemical writings. An equally vast collection of alchemical literature is rep-

resented in the library of Gadolin, containing works by Paracelsus and authors
inspired by him, as well as texts by Eirenaeus Philalethes, Georg Ripley, and
Basilius Valentinus. Mennander’s and Gadolin’s interest should, however, pri-
marily be viewed as the privilege of the learned to discuss and collect books on
issues of science, natural philosophy, and religion.
Alchemical Practices
Documentation of alchemical practices can be found in the early eighteenth

century after the Great Nordic War 1713–1721, notably among learned individu-
als and noblemen on private estates and within manor culture and life. In the
aftermath of the war, this culture was significantly influenced by returning
soldiers from the Carolingian army, a great majority of whom had converted
to Pietistic doctrines. Within this emerging religious and cultural milieu,
marked by early eighteenth-century utilitarianism, alchemical practices and
speculations seem to have been a not uncommon feature. In some cases,
these practices were also passed on as family heritages into the late eighteenth
century, a period marked by a renewed interest in alchemical and mystical
doctrines. Thus, among the Finnish-born Baron Gustav Adolph Reuterholm’s
(1756–1813) manuscripts one finds both alchemical theories linked with kab-
balistic and magical procedures and recipes for transmuting gold from lead.
Reuterholm’s father, Esbjörn Reuterholm (1710–1773), was rumoured to have
been skilled in alchemy as well. Alchemical ideas are present also in, e.g., the
theories and practices of the magician Gustav Björnram (1745–1801).
Among early eighteenth-century alchemists, the two brothers Carl Fredrik
Nordenskjöld (1702–1779) and Magnus Otto Nordenberg (1705–1756) stand out.
The brothers had studied the natural sciences at the University of Uppsala dur-
ing the war, and after their return to their family estates in Finland they became
engaged in various projects that aimed to improve the wealth of the country.
Both brothers were interested in prophetic and alchemical speculations, with
Nordenskjöld especially fascinated by the former and Nordenberg involved
with the latter. In the years 1725–1728, Nordenberg travelled in Holland and
other European countries, and studied at the universities of Leyden and
Saardam, where he presumably became acquainted with alchemy. In 1735, he
experienced an illumination which he tried to develop in writings and in prac-
tice. In the early 1740s, after a series of unfortunate political and military
misfortunes, Nordenberg, who was now commander of the Häme Castle (Sw.
Tavastehus slott), was arrested first by the Russian and then by Swedish rulers,
20 Mansikka
accused by the former of espionage and by the latter of laying down his arms.
Nordenberg was granted amnesty in 1752 and spent the last four years of his life
at the family estates, immersing himself in philosophical and alchemical
works.
Nordenberg’s alchemy is distinctly coloured by Biblical and millenarian
ideas. It is primarily a spiritual alchemy, aiming at an enlightenment which is
expressed as the attainment of Urim and Thummin, that is, the visible and
spiritual lights of creation. The art being ultimately a gift from God, requiring
from its practitioners a mind cleared from darkness, Nordenberg believed that
the Philosopher’s Stone might be attained through a series of regenerations/
calcinations with gold, which thus would regenerate to Urim. Alchemy is here
a restoring of nature to its first principles, by penetrating into the inwardness
of the fallen nature of materia secunda. The symbolism of Urim and Thummin
seems to have been common within mystical speculation and secret societies
in the early eighteenth century. Nordenberg himself hinted at the existence of
an Urim society in St. Petersburg, into which he allegedly had been initiated. A
symbolic and mystical use of Urim and Thummin is also found among the radi-
cal pietists, e.g., Erik Erikson, and later in the century in the magical symbolism
in the society of Metatron (Häll 1995; Lekeby 2010).
August Nordenskjöld
The heritage of millenarianism and alchemy was carried on by Nordenskjöld’s

sons, especially August Nordenskjöld (1754–1792), who together with two other
brothers, Carl Fredrik Jr. and Ulrik, also became adherents of Emanuel
Swedenborg (1688–1772). August Nordenskjöld was born in Sipoo (Sw. Sibbo)
in Southern Finland at the family estate of Eriksnäs. After education at the
Academy of Turku, Nordenskjöld moved to Stockholm in 1772 where he stud-
ied the science of mining at the Bergskollegium (Swedish Board of Mines).
During this period Nordenskjöld became familiar with Swedenborg’s teach-
ings and established contacts with Swedenborgians such as G.A. Beyer in
Gothenburg. After completing his studies in 1779, Nordenskjöld set off for
London where he, under the patronage of a wealthy physician by the name of
Gumpertz Levison, aimed at publishing an alchemical treatise with the title A
Plain System of Alchymy. The project was, however, interrupted after the first
sixteen printed pages, because Levison suggested that the theory should be
kept secret and that Nordenskjöld rather than publishing a book should offer
his alchemical services to King Gustavus III. The proposal was approved by the
king and Nordenskjöld returned to Stockholm, after Levison had set off in
advance to negotiate with the king. A preparatory precaution may be seen in

Nordenskjöld’s dedication of his planned alchemical treatise to the chemist
Torbern Bergman, who in turn had given a letter of recommendation to
Nordenskjöld to take with him to London. The king conversely had asked the
Mason and mystic C.A. Plommenfelt about his opinion on Nordenskjöld,
which was fairly favourable.
Nordenskjöld’s unpredicted turn to alchemy caused rumours and intrigues
that were to continue for the years to come. A laboratory was set up in
Drottningholm in Stockholm where experiments were carried out until 1784.
In 1785–1787 Nordenskjöld worked in a laboratory set up at Uusikaupunki (Swe.
Nystad) in Finland, and from 1788 to 1790 the alchemical project was once
again set in motion at Drottningholm. Although Nordenskjöld spent years of
labour on his alchemical practice, he was reduced to poverty as the financial
means offered him were minimal. From the period in Uusikaupunki onwards,
Nordenskjöld had enlisted the collaboration of Carl Fredrik Bergklint (1763–
1824), a surveyor from Helsinki, who for most of the time carried out the actual
laboratory work, as Nordenskjöld was busy with various Swedenborgian proj-
ects. In the late 1780s, Finnish supervisor Count Adolph Fredrik Munck
attempted to enlist Bergklint’s services, but in vain, as Bergklint remained ded-
icated to his master.
Nordenskjöld’s alchemical theory is summed up in a series of writings, most
notably in An Address to the True Members of the New Jerusalem Church (1789).
Nordenskjöld’s alchemy is distinctly influenced by classical alchemical authors
such as Jean d’Espagnet, Michael Sendivogius, and Eirenaeus Philalethes.
What is new is the natural philosophy of Swedenborg that provides the overall
backdrop, discreetly conveyed in A Plain System but openly in the Address. The
alchemical goal is to generate the Philosopher’s Stone from pure gold by regu-
lating the fire: ‘Gold may be so opened in the Furnace as to discover its two-fold
and it’s three-fold Principles, and how to put them into Action, in Order to
accomplish its Perfection’ (Address § xxiv). Nordenskjöld held an especially
high opinion of Philalethes, an author who, however, had only revealed the
road to salvation regarding the natural realm, while Swedenborg had revealed
the corresponding path regarding the spiritual realm. Nordenskjöld was like-
wise inspired by Nordenberg’s illumination and theory and by the idea of a
new order which, according to Swedenborg, had been inaugurated in 1757 in
the spiritual realm. This new order entailed a progression toward a pristine
state that, in Nordenskjöld’s view, would finally allow the alchemical work to
succeed. Nordenskjöld concludes his Address by stating: ‘At length I must
declare that I have not this Knowledge of myself, but from another, who died
in 1756 in Finland, and who had obtained this Science by a supernatural Way.
22 Mansikka
The same had even Revelations concerning the Last Judgement, that was to
take Place in 1757, and concerning the New Church of the LORD that was to be
established afterwards’ (Address § XLI).
Nordenskjöld’s combination of alchemy and Swedenborgianism was not,
however, generally approved of, but was criticised by rival alchemists as well as
by orthodox Swedenborgians. Hence, the first person he collaborated with in
the alchemical work, the Swedenborgian Christian Johanssén (1746–1813),
strongly rejected Nordenskjölds views, and most other alchemists attached to
the court in the 1780s regarded his theory with suspicion. Nordenskjöld also
faced growing concerns and disillusionment concerning his commitment and
nominal financial support. As the expectations put on him as a royal alchemist
ultimately was to bring wealth to the Royal House, Nordenskjöld actually
believed that a successful transmutation would result in a collapse of the exist-
ing political orders, as they were based on the “tyranny of money”. Like
Philalethes, Nordenskjöld regarded himself ultimately as a harbinger for a new
approaching order, the primitive church or the New Jerusalem.
Alchemy in Radical Pietism
The pietistic culture fostered alchemical modes of thinking as evidenced, for

instance, in the writings of Jakob Böhme and in the impact of the alchemist
and radical pietist Johann Konrad Dippel (1673–1734). The early eighteenth-
century Finnish radical pietist Peter Schäfer (1662–1729), for instance,
articulated alchemically-flavoured millenarian views, as did Jakob Wallenberg
(1756–1799/1800) at the end of the century.
A curious episode involving alchemy and prophetic mission is connected to
Jakob Wallenberg, founder of a religious movement in the late eighteenth cen-
tury in the Finnish province of Ostrobothnia. Wallenberg, who presented
himself as a prophet and harbinger of the approaching millennium, claimed
that he had extraordinary gifts, including that of making gold. The movement
had permanent financial problems that Wallenberg attempted to remedy by
transforming granite stones into gold, by heating the stones in a pot. The out-
come was unsuccessful, and Wallenberg blamed the failure on his adherents’
infidelity. After the group, now reduced to only ten people, had moved to
Wallenberg’s home district of Ylihärmä, Wallenberg made a new claim: a quan-
tity of stones, filled in a coffin, would be transformed into gold if they were
moved to the city of Vaasa (Sw. Vasa), some fifty kilometres away. The transmu-
tation would take place during the journey and, on arrival, the stones could be
passed on to a goldsmith who could certify their authenticity. With the money
they would get from selling the gold the followers could not only buy provi-
sions, but also purchase luxury items. Three men accepted the laborious task
of transporting the coffin to its destination. When twenty kilometres remained,
they decided to take a glimpse into the coffin to check whether the transmuta-
tion had been accomplished. No change was visible, but they decided that
some of the stones should be removed, allowing two of the men to continue to
Vaasa and one to stay behind and wait. When they arrived in the city, they let
the local goldsmith examine their cargo. When they were told that the coffin
still contained nothing but stones, they decided to throw the coffin into the
river and return home to confront Wallenberg. While the men were away,
Wallenberg had received a prophetic illumination. He had been informed of
the vanity of luxury, doomsday was approaching and gold and luxuries were no
longer needed. The movement’s early phase with Wallenberg as leader ended
shortly after this incident, as Wallenberg was imprisoned.
Summary
As we have seen, the presence of alchemy and alchemical modes of thinking in

eighteenth-century culture was connected to a variety of systems and
approaches. The classical tradition of alchemy was, in its closing stages, to a
large extent still attuned to eighteenth-century common sense and popular
thinking. A vitalistic worldview, being essential in alchemy, was intrinsic in
manuals such as Bonde-Praktikan (The Farmer’s Practice), in popular devo-
tional books such as Johann Arndt’s Four Books on True Christianity as well as
in the works of Jakob Böhme and his followers. Thus, alchemical views could
enter into the pietistic and religious thinking of the era, with such conse-
quences as the world-view of religious leader Jakob Wallenberg. Even more
easily, alchemy could amalgamate with eighteenth-century magical and mil-
lenarian approaches, including Swedenborg’s doctrines, as witnessed by the
magical subculture of the 1780s.
References
Akiander, Matthias, Historiska Upplysningar om Religiösa rörelserna i Finland i äldre och

senare tider IV, Helsingfors: J. Simelii arfingar, 1860.
Ambjörnsson, Ronny, “Den sista striden: Om en svensk pacifist från 1600-talet”, Lychnos
(1979–1980), 20–78.
24 Mansikka
Bodman, Gösta, “August Nordenskjöld, en Gustav III:s alkemist”, Lychnos (1943),

189–229.
Cajander, Carl Alexander, Kullantekijöitä Uudessakaupungissa, Uusikaupunki: Julkaisija,
1929.
Edvard, Adolf Arppe, Anteckningar om finska alkemister (Bidrag till kännedom af Fin
lands natur och folk 16), Helsingfors: Finska litteratur-sällskapets tryckeri, 1870.
Häll, Jan, I Swedenborgs labyrint, Stockholm: Atlantis, 1995.
Kallinen, Maija, Change and Stability: Natural Philosophy at the Academy of Turku (1640–
1713), Helsinki: Shs, 1995.
———. “Naturens hemliga krafter. Daniel Achrelius’ Contemplationes mundi”, Historisk
Tidskrift för Finland 3, 76 (1991), 317–346.
Lekeby, Kjell, Gustaviansk mystik, Sala/Södermalm: Vertigo förlag, 2010.
Mennander, C.F., Bibliotheca Caroli Frider. Mennander, Uppsala: Johann. Edman, 1788.
Nordenskjöld, August, “An Address to the True Members of the New Jerusalem Church”,
in: Marsha Keith Schuchard, “The Secret Masonic History of Blake’s Swedenborg
Society”, Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly 26 (1992), 48–51.
——— . A Plain System of Alchymy. London, 1779.
Tidningar Utgifne af et Sällskap i Åbo. N:o 8 (30 April 1773).
Alchemy in Norway 25
Chapter 3
Alchemy in Norway
Gina Dahl
Alchemy and the Shortage of Testimonies
Knowledge of the art of alchemy in Norway was restricted to the upper and
upper middle classes. In this respect, Norwegian society prior to 1800 shows a
particular lacuna: due to the successive unions with Sweden and Denmark,
Norwegian educational institutions that could engender a higher number of
learned societies, and hence milieus with esotericist interests, came to be situ-
ated in Denmark. Apart from medieval monasteries, Cathedral/ Latin Schools,
and an upper secondary school in Christiania which only existed for a few
years, almost all higher education took place on Danish soil.
As a result of these circumstances, there were no broad-scale, learned socie-
ties with alchemical interests in Norway. And although alchemy must have
been known to at least some of the medieval intellectuals, there is no testi-
mony to confirm that the art was practised in Norway in the Middle Ages. In
the early modern period, however, the number of people interested in alchemy
increased, and many of these, like most exponents of esotericism in Norway
prior to 1800, were part of the growing number of official representatives, phy-
sicians and, above all, apothecaries. These skilled professionals gradually
appeared on Norwegian soil from the seventeenth century onwards, due to the
government’s increased focus on health care. The link between esotericism
and the medical curriculum is by no means unique to Norway. Norwegian
scholars, however, seem to have been receptive to influences from two core
countries in particular, namely Germany and the Netherlands: these countries
were important to education as well as for book imports.
Due to the shortage of written testimonies, and the lack of research in the
field, it is difficult to know in what way those people interested in, or practis-
ing, alchemy in Norway in the early period interpreted this art. To many,
alchemy seems by and large to have constituted a natural part of the period’s
scientific curriculum: in fact, the majority of those known as esotericists in the
Norwegian context were physicians, which simply mirrors the integral part
played by esotericist currents in the period’s natural philosophy. Some, natu-
rally, interpreted the art in a more radical spiritual way, although we do not
necessarily know very much about their metaphysical speculations, due to the

26 Dahl
shortage of sources and the small number of studies undertaken in this field.
Overall, however, most adherents of alchemy may have been most interested
in pharmacology or in bringing about metallic transmutation by means of, for
instance, the Philosopher’s Stone.
Alchemy and Apothecaries
The majority of the people who we know practised alchemy in Norway prior to
1800 were apothecaries. The first privilege to establish a pharmacy was granted
in 1595, and in the early phase of the business, many medications, as well as
herbs and spices, were imported from abroad. Later on, however, the produc-
tion of compounds was often undertaken in laboratories attached to the
pharmacies. Some reports on these laboratories have been passed down from
eyewitnesses: the German-born physician Otto Sperling, for instance, who
served as a physician in Bergen in the seventeenth century, reportedly visited a
laboratory where the apothecary prepared his medicamenta chymica. Another
seventeenth-century apothecary conducting alchemy in his laboratory was
Arnoldus von Westen, a Danish-born apothecary who was granted the privi-
lege to establish a pharmacy in Trondheim in 1680. Von Westen also had access
to a number of Paracelsian books, which he apparently used in his pharmaco-
logical endeavours. Several of the apothecaries were former students of
chemistry: the apothecary Johan Julius von Strachen (1677–1748) in Trondheim,
for instance, was reportedly a “great Chymicus”, as was Andreas Thue (1703–
1751), a Norwegian-born apothecary in Fredrikstad. At the beginning of his
career, Thue, the author of the work Descriptio salis culinaris vulgaris ejusque
eks. chymicum, was reportedly only interested in gold-making, which he only
abandoned after causing a great fire that threatened to burn down the entire
city.
A Christiania apothecary, Hans Jochum Scharff (1649?-1703?), was also
engaged in iatrochemical pharmacy, and his library contained a range of
alchemical/ chemical textbooks which attest to his interests, such as Johann
Baptist van Helmont’s Ortus medicinae, Johan Jackob Wecker’s Antidotarium
generale, Johannes Schröder’s Pharmacopoeia medico chymica, Johan Zwelfer’s
Pharmacopoeia augustana, Angelo Sala’s Spagyrische Schatz Kamer, Oswald
Croll’s Basilica chymica, Jean Beguin’s Tyrocinium chymicum, Martin Ruland
the Elder’s Progymnasmata alchymiae and Johann Hartmann’s Practica chymi-
atrica. Scharff’s library also included a work on the Philosopher’s Stone (Opera
mineralia sive de lapide philosophorum) and the work Antimon triumphans,
probably written by Johann Thölde. Scharff, however, seems to have taken a
particular interest in Paracelsian cosmology and theology, which is how he

gained a reputation as a Paracelsian-inspired radical spiritualist.
Alchemy and Physicians: Olsen, Bonsac, and Kempe
Physicians in Norway were also familiar with the spagyric art, either on account
of personal interest or by necessity: as physicians were obliged by law to inspect
apothecaries, they where required to have at least some acquaintance with
pharmaceutical medicine. At least one of them, the Bergen physician Hans
Olsen (1607–1684), had practised alchemy at various European courts. Apart
from what is written about Olsen in Gottfried Arnold’s Unpartheyische Kirchen-
und Ketzer-Historie (the Frankfurt edition of 1729), the main testimony to
Olsen’s career was his autobiography, which was included in Paul Brandt’s trib-
ute to Olsen, published in Amsterdam in 1685 (Beatissimus manibus et aeternae
memoriae viri sancti et venerabili Dn Johannis Olsonii). According to this biogra-
phy, Olsen was born in Bergen in 1607, and after having attended the Bergen
Latin School for a couple of years, he was sent to Copenhagen University. Olsen
finished his studies in Copenhagen in 1628, and he then returned to Norway to
work as a private tutor. After this interlude, Olsen took up a more bohemian
career: he travelled throughout Belgium, England, and the Netherlands, and
while staying in the Netherlands he made contact with two other natural phi-
losophers with esotericist preferences, namely Ole Borch and Francesco
Giuseppe Borri. After Borri had established himself in the chemical laboratory
in Copenhagen through the support of Frederik III, Olsen was sent for due to
his knowledge of alchemical processes: one of the important tasks of the labo-
ratory was gold-making (chrysopoeia), as it sought to transform Norwegian
silver into gold. After having served at the chemical laboratory in Copenhagen,
Olsen was appointed medicus in Bergen, a position he held until his death.
It is hard to assess from what angle Olsen himself viewed alchemy, as there
is scant information about this topic in his short biography. What we do know
is that Olsen was profoundly inspired by the mystical tradition: Olsen trans-
lated Hugh of Palma’s Mysticus libellus and John the Evangelist’s Regnum Dei
intra nos into Danish. Olsen also translated Augustine’s Manuale and Soliloquia,
books which also incorporated passages from Anselm, Bernhard, and Hugh of
St. Victor. Olsen also translated Francis Rous’ The Heavenly Academie into
Danish. Olsen was opposed to what he saw as abuses of power by the church,
and added a rather apocalyptical preface to some of his books. What is also
attested by Paul Brandt, Olsen’s friend and co-physician in Bergen, is Olsen’s
vivid interest in the writings of Paracelsus and Jacob Boehme, which could
28 Dahl
indicate that his views on the functions of alchemy might have been coloured
by Paracelsus’ theology or by Boehme’s theosophy. According to Brandt, Olsen
read Boehme daily, and he reportedly healed the Bergen population by “the
powers of Salt”. Olsen is, additionally, said to have translated one of Boehme’s
writings into Danish, but this manuscript was unfortunately lost after Olsen’s
death.
Olsen was not the only physician practising in Norway who had first-hand
knowledge of alchemy; so did the physicians Anders Kempe and Henrik
Jochumsen Bonsac. Kempe (1622–1689), who was born in Sweden, had learned
alchemy from his tutor Mattias Drakenstjerna. Very soon, however, Kempe met
with problems due to his radical spiritual claims, and he therefore settled as a
physician in Verdalen in mid-Norway. In Verdalen, Kempe set up his own labo-
ratory, but after only a short period of time, he was exiled from Norway due to
his radical spiritualist theology and what was perceived as anti-Church propa-
ganda: by a royal decree issued in 1674, Christian V made it illegal to possess or
read Kempe’s heretical works, on pain of death. Kempe eventually settled in
Hamburg, where he continued to publish books in German, Norwegian, and
Swedish. Henrik Jochumsen Bonsac, a physician who practised in Christiania
in the early eighteenth century before leaving for Copenhagen and eventually
East India, was also apparently highly interested in alchemy, or at least in the
Philosopher’s Stone: Bonsac was the author of Tractatus chymicus de lapide
philosophico, a manuscript which Christopher Hammer (1720–1804), a natural
scientist, governmental official and Freemason, sought to have published.
Hammer was for a while highly interested in alchemy, as well as in the Kabbalah,
and he wrote down his kabbalistic speculations, some of which dealt with the
construction of Solomon’s temple, in the preface to his Bible. The Paracelsian-
inspired physician, astrologer, and lecturer at the Christiania upper secondary
school Ambrosius Rhodius (1605–1696), also possessed a substantial number
of alchemical works written by authors such as the Arab Geber, Thomas
Aquinas, Jean Beguin, Johann van Helmont, Johannes Hartmann, Oswald Croll,
Martin Ruland the Elder, Lazarus Zetzner, and Quercetanus.
Alchemy and Physicians: Woldenberg, Blumenthal, and Dons
Apart from these people, there is evidence that several other physicians also
had first-hand knowledge of alchemy, although it is not certain how they per-
ceived the art, or even if they themselves practised it. This fact is supported by
a study of books owned by three physicians practising across Norway, namely
Jacob Woldenberg, Georg Blumenthal, and Poul Dons. Woldenberg, who was
born in Copenhagen in the mid-seventeenth century, was the twelfth stads-

medicus to reside in Bergen. After having spent some time studying in Kiel,
Woldenberg received his PhD at the University of Copenhagen in 1679. He then
joined the Danish army as a physician, and in 1686 he was appointed botanicus
in Norway. Between 1686 and 1687, Woldenberg served as a physician in the
mining town of Kongsberg, and in 1688 he was appointed physician in Bergen,
a position he held until his death in 1735. Although Woldenberg must have
practised surgery during his period in the army, he had trained as a physician,
and he defined himself as a healer of internal diseases.
What seems clear from Woldenberg’s collection of books is that he was pro-
foundly interested in alchemy, as quite a few books fall into this category: his
library included Johann van Helmont’s Ortus medicinae and the work Aufgang
der Artzney-Kunst, first edited in 1683 by Christian Knorr von Rosenroth; this
latter book, however, is a German translation of Helmont’s Ortus medicinae.
Oswald Croll is represented with his Basilica chymica, and Jean Beguin with his
Tyrocinium chymicum, a work that spread with remarkable rapidity across
Europe. Zetzner’s Theatrum chemicum, an anthology of previous authorities
within the domain of alchemy, is also there, as is Antimon triumphans. Other
works on alchemy include Angelo Sala’s Vincentini medici spagyrici tractatus
duo, Johann Hartmann’s Practica chymiatrica and Hadrianus Mynsicht’s The
saurus et armamentarium medico-chymicum. In addition to several works
attributed to Daniel Sennert and Petrus Poterius, Johan Schröder is represented
with his Pharmacopaeia as well as his Quercetanus redivivius, hoc est ars medica
dogmatico-hermetica.
Georg Henrich Blumenthal, another physician practising in Norway, was
born in Germany in 1687. Blumenthal started his studies in surgery in Lunen
burg at the age of seventeen, and three years later he left for Bremen. Thereafter
he worked as a surgeon on ships hunting whales off the shores of Greenland.
In 1710, Blumenthal settled in Denmark to serve as a surgeon to the navy, and
he continued to be promoted into new positions: Blumenthal matriculated at
the University of Copenhagen in 1725, he was created licentiatus medicinae in
1726, and he obtained a doctorate in medicine in 1733 with the disputation
Disp. medica inaug. sistens aegrum haemorrhagia ventriculi spontanea gravis-
sima correptum. From 1736 and until his death in 1742, Blumenthal practised as
a physician in Kongsberg, a mining district in the eastern part of Norway which
must have been greatly in need of a skilled surgeon. Blumenthal’s book collec-
tion also reveals that its owner must have had a certain knowledge of alchemy:
his library includes works such as Zetner’s Pharmacopoeia augustana and van
Helmont’s Ortus medicinae. One of the works on alchemy is accredited to
Martin Ruland the Elder, who engaged in the contemporary debate on the
30 Dahl
Philosopher’s Stone, and Quercetanus, originally Joseph Duchesne, a Calvinist

Paracelsian, is also represented. Of newer iatrochemical works it is worth not-
ing Pyrosophia, succinte atque breviter iatro-chemiam, written by the chemistry
professor Johann Conrad Barchusen, and there are other iatrochemical works
attributed to Michael Ettmüller and Johann Mauritz Hoffmann.
Poul Dons (1689–1748), a second-generation Dane, practised as a physician
in the city of Trondheim, the fifth city to be given an officially appointed phy-
sicus after the cities of Bergen, Christiania, Kristiansand, and Kongsberg. Dons
started studying at the Trondheim Latin School in 1706, and continued as a
medical student in Denmark by joining Ehler’s Collegium from 1710–1711 and
Borch’s Collegium from 1711–1715, followed by a period serving as assistant medi-
cus at Kvæsthuset. After ending his studies, Dons was appointed physician in
Trondheim, although he had not obtained his doctorate. Dons’ appointment,
however, proved to be only the first step in a stellar career in the city admin-
istration: Dons was appointed vice-mayor in 1730 and mayor of Trondheim in
1733. Later on, Dons was appointed presiding judge, but kept his position as
stadsmedicus.
There is little historical evidence of how Dons practised as a physician. Only
in one case is he reported to have supervised surgeons in conducting an
autopsy. His books, however, indicate that their owner was acquainted with
the alchemical art: the listed authors include Johann van Helmont, Daniel
Sennert, de le Boë Sylvius, Paul Amman, Oswald Croll, and Johan Kunkel. There
were also five volumes by Paracelsus, two iatrochemical works by Johan
Schröder and works accredited to Joachim Becher, Martin Ruland the Elder,
and Angelo Sala. Girolamo Cardano was represented with the work De subtili-
tate rerum, and there were also books by Johann Hartmann, Johann Rudolph
Glauber, Hadrianus Mynsicht, and Zwelfer. Further works on alchemy also
appear in Dons’ collection, for instance several works attributed to Athanasius
Kircher and Urban Hiärne’s defence of Paracelsus. Given the circulation of
books among physicians practicing in Norway, it seems likely that these offi-
cials were well acquainted with major European traditions in the alchemical
art. And, on the basis of where books in this field were printed, it appears that
knowledge of alchemy primarily originated from two main areas, Germany
(Frankfurt and Leipzig) and the Netherlands (Leiden and Amsterdam).
Other Practitioners of Alchemy
That fact that people other than physicians and apothecaries could also engage
in alchemy can be attested by a look at the career of the Greenland missionary
Hans Egede (1686–1758). Egede was born in Trondenes in the far north of
Norway, and after finishing his theological studies in Copenhagen at the age of
twenty-one, he became vicar of Vågan in Lofoten. Egede, who was inspired by
Pietist theology, quickly engaged himself in missionary work, and he saw
Greenland as a particular object for his endeavours in this field. Egede moved
to Bergen in 1718, making the city the point of departure for his future travels
northwards. While in Bergen, Egede practised alchemy in an attempt to acquire
money for his missionary project: Egede concentrated on producing the
Philosopher’s Stone, a task which he believed would have granted him fame
and fortune had it been successful. Egede reportedly first learned practical
chemistry from an apothecary, and he followed this up by reading a range of
alchemical books in minute detail but, as he himself admitted, he could not
grasp their hieroglyphic symbolism. Although he was unsuccessful in his
labours while living in Bergen, Egede continued to read alchemical treatises
during his stay in Greenland: he sent for works on chemistry by more than sixty
authors which he read with great eagerness. Although Egede did not manage
to solve the enigma of the Philosopher’s Stone, the transmuting agent, he did
not loose faith in it. Rather, he interpreted his alchemical failures as a sign of
godly providence: it was God’s decision not to grant him insight into this illus-
trious art.
Overall, it seems to have been mainly apothecaries and physicians who
practised alchemy in Norway prior to 1800. Whereas some of them harboured
radical spiritualist interests (Kempe, Olsen, Scharff), it remains uncertain how
others interpreted the art, or even if they practised it at all. Given the various
testimonies that do exist, however, it seems clear that several officials who
worked with medicine or related topics in Norway in the early modern period
were well acquainted with important alchemical traditions. This might, how-
ever, just reflect the importance of alchemy to the natural philosophical
curriculum, a legacy which only slowly faded away in this northern periphery.
References
Borgen, Peder, “Johannes Olsonius – theosophus et medicus bergensis”, Norsk Teologisk

Tidsskrift (1972), 27–54.
Dahl, Gina, Questioning Religious Influence: Private Libraries of Clerics and Physicians in
Norway 1650–1750, unpublished Dr. Art. dissertation, Bergen, 2007.
——— . Books in Early Modern Norway, Leiden: Brill, 2011.
32 Dahl
Elvestrand, Vegard, Generalkonduktør Christopher Hammer (1720–1804) og hans manu

skriptsamling. Registratur, biografi, slektshistorie, Trondheim: Universitetsbibioteket
i Trondheim and Tapir Akademisk Forlag, 2004.
Flood, Jørgen W., Norges Apothekere i 300 Aar, Kristiania: A.W Brøggers Bogtrykkeri, 1889.
Johannessen, F.E. and J. Skeie, Bitre piller og sterke dråper. Norske apotek gjennom 400 år
1595–1995, Oslo: Norsk farmasihistorisk museum, 1995.
Kragh, Helge (ed.), Natur, Nytte og Ånd, Aarhus: Aarhus universitetsforlag, 2005.
Shackelford, Jole, “Hans Jochum Scharff: A Paracelsian Apothecary in 17th-Century
Norway”, Norges Apotekerforenings Tidsskrift 95:9 (1987), 212–217.
——— . Paracelsianism in Denmark and Norway in the 16th and 17th Centuries, unpub-
lished PhD dissertation, Wisconsin, 1989.
Alchemy in Sweden 33
Chapter 4
Alchemy in Sweden
There are no sources documenting alchemical activities that can be dated to

the Swedish Middle Ages. There probably were some such activities, as mining
and metallurgy were of great importance: metal was a major export commod-
ity. Mining and metallurgy attracted many foreign workers and experts who
could have introduced alchemical theory and practice. Even if higher educa-
tion was rare in Sweden (the first university was founded in 1477), there were
many cloisters with monks and nuns who were sufficiently educated to have
cultivated an interest in alchemy.
The first known Swedish alchemist was Peder Månsson (d. 1534), a monk
from Vadstena, head of the Birgittine house in Rome and the last Swedish
Catholic bishop. In his manuscripts from his time in Rome 1514–1522 we find
many transcripts of classical alchemical works, especially al-Jabir’s, as well as a
translation of Rupescissa to Swedish, but no texts of his own.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there were many more
alchemists in Sweden. In this period Sweden, through a series of wars and eco-
nomic successes, developed from a newborn nation-state with a poorly
developed intellectual culture into one of the foremost cultural nations of
Europe.
Among the Swedish alchemists there were a few individuals of whom we do
not know much and who do not seem to have been part of any networks.
Among these one can mention the nobleman Abraham Brahe (1569–1630),
whose alchemical interests can be traced in marginal annotations in his library;
similarly, we do not know much about the unhappy prince Gustav Eriksson
Vasa (1568–1607), son of the murdered King Erik XIV, who during his exile in
Prague dealt with alchemy and was called “the second Paracelsus”.
Fortunately enough, many of the Swedish alchemists have left many traces
and were also interested in communicating and collaborating with each other
in networks, based on common ideas and pursuing common goals. Here, I will
try to describe alchemy in Sweden via a series of such networks. (The statistical
numbers are based on the close to eighty known alchemists active in Sweden
during this period.)

34 Edenborg
Seventeenth-Century Alchemists
During the seventeenth century, alchemy was of interest mainly for people
working as medical doctors, pharmacists, metallurgists, and chemists. Most
of the alchemists (approximately 80%) were commoners. For many of the
Swedish seventeenth-century alchemists, the metallic mysticism with which
they operated was an integrated part of a larger, Renaissance Platonic system
that in a syncretistic way combined astrology, Kabbalah, theosophy, millena-
rism, and other influences, and that with Johann Amos Comenius’ word could
be called “pansophy”. This philosophical background does not imply that
alchemy in this context was a merely speculative endeavour; these people also
worked practically in their laboratories.
One of the most notable persons in early seventeenth-century Sweden
was Johannes Bureus (1568–1652), known as the first Swedish antiquarian.
Comparable only with his two contemporary Swedish intellectuals Georg
Stiernhielm (1598–1672) and Olaus Rudbeck (1630–1702) in scope and depth of
his interests and ambitions, he did not manage to produce a summary of his
thoughts; the larger part of his activities are documented in annotations.
Bureus was a typical exponent of Renaissance Platonic syncretism: he
combined the study of practical esotericism (magic, amulets, astrology, and
alchemy) with an interest in theosophy, Kabbalah, Hermeticism, and chiliasm.
In 1616 he answered the call of the Rosicrucians with a couple of short Latin
texts. His most original contribution was trying to find and describe an old,
Nordic Kabbalah based on runes, which included alchemical topics. He pre-
sented those ideas in the book Adulruna rediviva, which was published for the
first time long after his death (see the chapter on Kabbalah in Sweden).
The diaries that Bureus wrote between the years 1604 and 1629 allow us to
follow his communication with other alchemists, his studies of alchemical
classics (such as Aurora consurgens and Aureum vellus), and his laboratory
practices (‘Tinctura producta est, quae à centro ad superficiem producitur
et extrahitur, inveni 12 merid. 22 febr. 1612’. / ‘A Tincture is created, that is
produced and extracted from the centre to the surface, I found it at noon,
22 February 1612’). He is also said to have performed alchemical experiments in
the presence of King Gustavus Adolphus II.
Bureus’ main goal, especially after an epiphany in 1613, was to show that all
secret sciences and esoteric teachings were connected, that they had already
been disclosed in hyperborean antiquity and that they foretold of the final
days. Alchemy was an important albeit minor part of this system.
Alchemy at the Universities
Alchemy was an art that demanded education. Among the teachers at the uni-
versity at Uppsala during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there were
several alchemists who sometimes also defended the art in the form of dispu-
tations in the lecture halls.
The man responsible for medical education in Uppsala between 1624 and
1661 was Johannes Franck (1590–1661). He was regarded as an eccentric person
with his old-fashioned Gustaf Vasa-haircut, his soldier’s boots, and sabre.
Because he attracted too few students to his lectures he often stood alone in
the lecturing hall. Furthermore, he received criticism for not performing the
autopsies his profession demanded; he defended himself with the argument
that the mob shouted “hangman!” after him in the streets.
Johannes Franck was raised in Stora Kopparberget together with his brother
Matthias; their common alchemical interest may have been a legacy from their
father. In 1669 the lieutenant Matthias Franck (who was raised to the nobility
and took the name Drakenstierna, “Dragon Star”, which was obviously taken
from alchemical symbolism), published the text Der philosophische Weg zu der
wahren Materia wahrhafftiger Universal Medicin. He also became a part of pop-
ular fantasies in the region in the form of “The Black Franck” because of
rumours of being involved in magic and alchemy.
In 1629 Johannes Franck published the dissertation De transmutatione
metallorum, theses hermetico-philosophicae (On the Transmutation of Metals,
Hermetic-Philosophical Theses). This speech in defence of alchemy was prob-
ably written as an answer to criticism against alchemy that Franck’s colleague,
the professor Johannes Chesnecopherus, had made a couple of years earlier, in
his work De chrysopoeia.
The second of Franck’s dissertations, De principiis constitutivis lapidis philo-
sophici, theses hermeticae, was presented in 1645. Here, Franck teaches about
sulphur and mercury, refers to classical alchemical authorities, such as
Trevisanus, tells stories of transmutation and finishes with a couple of prophe-
cies that he hopes can be interpreted as signs that the alchemical secrets would
be revealed in Sweden in 1658, which in turn would lead to a messianic trans-
mutation of the world.
The most remarkable text Johannes Franck wrote was published in 1651:
Colloquium philosophicum cum diis montanis. Despite the Latin title, this is a
Swedish text, mostly a translation of a book by Töpfer but combined with a
preface, a dedication to the Queen Christina, poems, and images. By publish-
ing this book, Franck hoped to awaken the Queen’s interest in alchemy and at
36 Edenborg
the same time teach it to the “common reader” so as to not only transmute
metals but the whole world. Franck spent his last years in illness and poverty.
When Franck dedicated his work to the queen, this may have been a quite
reasonable gesture. Especially in her later days, Queen Christina (1627–1689)
showed a passionate interest in alchemy. She worked practically and commu-
nicated with alchemists such as Glauber and Borri. The alchemical imposters
Samuel and Christopher Forberger (father and son) also awakened her interest.
Letters with alchemical recipes were found at her deathbed. Modern research
has suggested that she did not only search for gold, health, and enlighten-
ment in alchemy. Considerable evidence suggests that she hoped that the
Philosopher’s Stone could help her change her gender; from her early years,
she confessed feeling like a man in a female body.
Alchemy in the Eighteenth Century
“The father of Swedish chemistry”, Urban Hiärne (1641–1724), who played a

major role in the abolishment of the witchcraft trials in Sweden 1676, was a
member of Royal Society and managed to start a royal Laboratorium Chymicum
in Stockholm. A great part of his activities was focused on useful innovations
for the mining business; at the same time, he worked with practical and theo-
retical chemical research. Towards the end of his life he was increasingly
inclined towards pietism. Most of his activities are documented in diaries and
notebooks; unfortunately they are written in a very obscure handwriting.
Urban Hiärne based his thinking on a vitalistic natural philosophy with
Paracelsian and Neoplatonic features, and in 1709 he wrote a defence of
Paracelsus. One of his teachers was the alchemist Laurentius Fredrik Peringer.
In Hiärne’s texts we find a strong interest in the ‘acidum universale’ that accord-
ing to Paracelsian teachings together with sulphur (or “fat”) constitutes all
metals. One of the main purposes of the Laboratorium Chymicum was to com-
pare new, experimental chemical research (in the Boylean tradition) with the
‘old and rightful Philosophorum and Hermeticorum scriptures’.
In Stockholm, in the year 1707, a dramatic and well-known incident in the
history of public transmutations occurred: the so-called Paijkull affair. The
Livonian aristocrat Otto Arnold von Paijkull (1662–1707) was sentenced to
death for treason after having fought the Swedish army despite of the fact that
Livonia was part of Sweden. To save his life, he offered King Charles XII that he
would produce 100,000 riksdaler a year by means of the Philosopher’s Stone. In
prison, he allegedly performed a transmutation of lead into gold in front of
witnesses. This did not mollify the king, who is said to have exclaimed: ‘Even if
he transmutes half of Stockholm into gold, his head will roll’. On 4 February
1707, Paijkull was executed. 147 coins were made out of the gold Paijkull had
produced in prison, each bearing the king’s portrait and the text ‘Hoc aurum
arte chemica conflavit Holmiae Anno 1706 O.A.V. Paiykull’ / ‘O.A.V. Paijkul con-
structed this gold with chemical art in Stockholm, in the year 1708’.
After the execution, Urban Hiärne wrote a text where he defended Paijkull
and the alchemical art and complained that the only thing that counted in
his times were gold and money: Intygande at sachsiska general lieutenanten
Otto Arnold von Paykull wärkeligen warit en adeptus, eller kunnat gjöra guld
(Attesting that the Saxon General Otto Arnold von Paykull really was an adept
or was able to produce gold, first printed in 1757).
A friend and student of Hiärne was the medical doctor and chemist Magnus
Gabriel von Block (1669–1722). In 1708, Block published a book that strongly
criticised astrology, prophecies, and magic, and attacked Paracelsus. This text
and a couple of others that criticised common beliefs, have given many histo-
rians the idea that Block was an exponent of the Enlightenment. His Cartesian
philosophy of nature was, however, strongly influenced by Hermeticism.
In 1698 the young Swede communicated with the philosopher Leibniz, who
told him not to deal with the uncertain art of gold-making, but added that he
himself could not with certainty deny the possibility of transmutation. In 1701,
Block took the doctor’s degree in Harderwijk with the disputation Scrutinium
arsenici physico-chemico-medicum that contains purely alchemical parts that
refer to the Polish alchemist Michael Sendivogius (1566–1636), where a poeti-
cal and almost erotic view of nature is presented. With sentences like ‘Matter
and movement, Salt and Sol, heaven and earth, elementary water and inner
sulphur …’ Block tried to harmonise Cartesian cosmology with alchemy.
In 1700, Block worked with the alchemist Reinhold Johan von Fersen (1646–
1716), searching for the alkahest, supposedly produced out of dew that was
collected on the fields. In their correspondence, we can follow Block’s practical
work and his doubts whether the recipes could be followed literally. The work
was in time abandoned, but Block kept his alchemical interest alive; several
years later, in 1711, he still spoke in positive terms about “filii artis”. Unfortunately,
all his notebooks and papers were burned when the Russian army plundered
Norrköping in 1720.
The famous chemist J.G. Wallerius (1709–1785), professor at the University of
Uppsala, was called “our good Hermes Trismegistus” by a colleague. Even if he
did not write any purely alchemical texts, references to alchemy and defences
of the art are plentiful in his books on chemistry, e.g., Chemia physica (1759), an
important text from the so called “golden age of Swedish chemistry”. In 1767 he
38 Edenborg
supposedly performed a transmutation of mercury into silver in the presence

of the royal family at the castle in Drottningholm.
Wallerius was a close friend of the libertine, artillery lieutenant, alchemist,
and Enlightenment writer Jakob Johan Anckarström (1729–1777). Anckarström’s
book Chemiske tankar och rön (Chemical thoughts and findings, 1774, with a
preface by Wallerius) was written in order to spread the study of chemistry
among Swedish youth. In this work, Anckarström defended ancient Hermetic
wisdom and alchemy. In the days before his death, he wrote a testament to his
fifteen year-old son, begging him to continue the alchemical work that was
underway in the laboratory, referring to an “alchemical journal”.
Anckarström was also an Enlightenment writer who started a project
intended to result in a Swedish encyclopedia. Only a small part, covering the
letter “A”, ever appeared, but this section contains numerous references to
alchemy (mainly culled from the work of the French writer and alchemist Dom
Pernety [1716–1796]). After Anckarström’s death, the King Gustavus III sent a
man to collect all his alchemical books, notes, and diaries, which thereafter
disappeared. Fifteen years later, Anckarström’s son Jacob Johan jr. made his
father’s name infamous when he murdered King Gustavus III at an opera ball.
The Aristocratic Turn
Between the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, the social background
of the Swedish alchemists shifted. While they in earlier times tended to be aca-
demics and medical doctors from the middle class, they now came to consist
mainly of aristocrats who worked as officers or bureaucrats, and ultimately
some eighty per cent of Swedish alchemists belonged to these social classes.
The most prolific Swedish alchemist of that period was the member of the
Privy Council Count Gustaf Bonde (1682–1764). During the whole of his adult
life, despite long periods when he was active as one the most powerful men of
the nation, he was busy with alchemical studies, in laboratory experiments as
well as in writing. He also communicated with a large network of like-minded
persons in and outside the country.
The person who initiated Gustaf Bonde into alchemy was – as was so often
the case – a relative, the Baron Crister Bonde (1655–1712). Letters reveal that he
was the true inventor of the alchemical process that Gustaf Bonde presented
in his book Clavicula hermeticae scientiae (1746); furthermore he is said to have
written an alchemical commentary on the Book of Revelation.
In 1720, Gustaf Bonde became president of the Bergskollegium (Mining
Guild), where many alchemists were members. Here, he also met the young
Emanuel Swedenborg, whose career he followed into its theosophical phase.

(Swedenborg rejected alchemy during his scientific period, but showed a
renewed interest in it during the latter half of his life, according to his library
inventories.) When the leader of radical pietism, Johann Konrad Dippel, vis-
ited Sweden in the years 1726–1728, Bonde was one of his followers, probably
both because of his interest in mystical theology and alchemy.
The alchemically most intense period in Gustaf Bonde’s life started in 1739,
when he lost all his political offices as the power over the Swedish state shifted
to another party, “Hattarna” or the Hat Party. Through notebooks and his cor-
respondence, we can follow his eager attempts to understand the alchemical
classics and produce the Philosopher’s Stone. His wife Fredrika Viveka Trolle
worked together with him in the laboratory. The couple had alchemists from
other countries visit their castles in order to teach and practise with them.
Gustaf Bonde’s most important alchemical text, written already in 1732, was
published during this period. The first edition of this work, entitled Clavicula
hermeticae scientiae (Small Key to the Hermetic Science), was printed in
Amsterdam in 1746 and thereafter in an edited version in 1751. A third printing
appeared in 1786. In this parallel Latin and French text we find references to
John Dee’s Hieroglyphical Monad and the Kabbalah, but also to Nordic mythol-
ogy and the hyperboreans.
The process described in metaphors and symbols in the Clavicula had been
devised by Crister Bonde. With the help of other sources, we can with some
degree of confidence interpret the text, which tells of a highly original alchem-
ical work. Probably, the body of the alchemist is intended to function as the
stove, and the gastrointestinal apparatus is the “secret fire”. Briefly, the process
consisted of letting small pieces of gold pass through the stomach during two
years, after which the gold would be transmuted into the Philosopher’s Stone.
The secret lay in the spiritual state of the alchemist, which must be kept tem-
pered and high. Bonde assures his readers that he was close to succeeding with
this transmutation on two occasions, but had to stop the process because of
political demands.
In Gustaf Bonde’s network, we find Johan Arckenholtz (1695–1777), who
became famous as the author of a large biography of Queen Christina. He lived
a cosmopolitan life, and had to spend some time in jail in the early 1740s due to
his political activities. He was a close friend of Gustaf Bonde and was involved
with the publication of both the 1746 and the 1751 edition of the Clavicula.
Two other members of this alchemical network were the Swedish censor
Niklas von Oelreich (1699–1770) and Ulrik Rudenschiöld (1704–1765). In letters
and notes we can follow their troublesome works. Through Oelreich, Bonde
was in contact with the esoterically oriented marquise d’Urfé, who also figures
40 Edenborg
in Casanova’s memoirs. During his time in Paris in the 1740s, Oelreich and
d’Urfé were close. In Gustaf Bonde’s diaries we find recipes from the Marquise
that among other things include such ingredients as blood from young boys.
During the eighteenth century, more and more critical voices were heard
attacking alchemy. This criticism not only came from chemists but also from
theologians and lawyers. The critique was seldom based on an increasing per-
ception that alchemy was incompatible with chemistry; more often it dealt
with ethics and ideas about society and man. Christopher Polhem (1661–1751)
and his student Emanuel Swedenborg (1668–1772) were some of the few that
critiqued the ambitions of alchemy with arguments drawn from chemistry.
Carl Fredrik Mennander (1712–1786), archbishop of Åbo and professor
of physics, is a typical exponent of the ethico-social line of arguments. He
attacked alchemy in a lecture on mineralogy held in 1747, where he focused on
what the perceived as the moral and social problems connected with alchemy:
the art is ungodly both because it wants to turn earth into a paradise and
because it threatens the economy. Instead, Mennander defends temperance in
the thirst for knowledge and advocates the control over science by the citizens.
Another Swedish chemist, Axel Fredrik Cronstedt (1722–1765), in 1758 exposed
the Swedish alchemists with a famous “Letter of the mystical natural sciences”.
The most famous alchemist in late eighteenth-century Sweden was August
Nordenskjöld (1754–1792). Together with his brother Carl-Fredrik (1756–1828),
he was active as a Swedenborgian in Sweden and elsewhere, and they both
wrote extensively on many subjects.
The brothers co-wrote the book Oneiromantien (1783), that at first sight
appears to be merely a handbook of dream interpretation. A closer read-
ing reveals that the brothers in their joint volume communicated their
Swedenborgian ideas and presented relatively advanced esoteric knowledge
in areas such as numerology, magic, Kabbalah, and alchemy. Parts of the book
were based on Dom Pernety’s Les fables égyptiennes et grecques dévoilées (1758),
a work that was attractive to the brothers because its analogical discourse
could be interpreted as a sort of Swedenborgian correspondence system.
The alchemical interest displayed in the work was a legacy from the broth-
ers’ uncle, Magnus Otto Nordenberg (1705–1756), who through a series of
mystical illuminations had created his own natural philosophy, and on this
basis crafted a personal interpretation of the alchemical work. The process
consisted of melting small balls of gold, keeping them in a molten state at a
steady temperature for a long time, after which they pass through the black,
white, and red phases described in the alchemical literature, and finally end up
as the Philosopher’s Stone. For a period of time, August Nordenskjöld’s alchem-
ical work was financed by King Gustavus III in a laboratory at the castle on
Drottningholm.
August Nordenskjöld combined Swedenborgianism and alchemy with
political radicalism. In some of his texts, he advances the idea that the goal of
alchemy was to annihilate the “tyranny of money”; on 6 June 1790, he danced
on the ruins of the Bastille. Two years later, he died in Sierra Leone, where he
had travelled in an attempt to realise his utopian ideas.
King Gustavus III was not alone among the most powerful people of the
nation in his interest in alchemy. Many famous politicians and aristocrats
(such as Gustav Adolf Reuterholm and Duke Charles, later King Charles XIII)
were during the 1770s and 1780s deeply involved in esoteric Freemasonry and
also worked with alchemy, which they viewed as part of a larger system that
also included astrology, magic, spiritualism, treasure hunting, and Kabbalah. A
special interest in alchemy was shown by the mystic Henric Gustaf Ulfvenklou
(1756–1819) and the poet Johan Gabriel Oxenstierna (1750–1818).
The last known classical alchemist in Sweden is Fabian Wilhelm af Ekenstam
(1786–1868). Between 1814 and 1818 he lived in London in order to study
Sanskrit; in secret he also worked as an agent for the Swedish Swedenborgians.
Through them, he got in contact with the English Swedenborgian and alche-
mist John Augustus Tulk, from whom he received some alchemical books and
who probably also acted as a master for the young Swede. Through the mar-
ginal notes, we can follow Ekenstam’s alchemical studies, that were both
theoretical and practical. His philosophical standpoint, which included a vital-
istic view of nature, had many similarities with that of the German mystic and
romanticist Franz von Baader.
John Augustus Tulk was an active Swedenborgian already when August
Nordenskjöld in 1789 propagated for a mix of Swedenborgianism and alchemy.
In the same circle, we find the sculptor John Flaxman and the poet/artist
William Blake. Like Nordenskjöld, Ekenstam showed a special interest in the
English seventeenth-century alchemist Eirenaeus Philalethes.
Ekenstam has not left any larger contributions to intellectual history with
his own texts, but through his close friendship with important Swedish
Romantics such as Per Daniel Amadeus Atterbom (1790–1855) and Carl Jonas
Love Almqvist (1793–1866), he probably had some influence on the latter. In
Atterbom’s major work Lycksalighetens ö (The Island of Happiness, 1824–27),
we find alchemical themes as the golden spring of youth; and Almqvist later
defended the possibility of alchemical transmutation in his book Guldmakeriets
historia (History of Gold-Making, 1867), which he wrote during his time in the
United States, perhaps in collaboration with Ethan Allen Hitchcock.
42 Edenborg
References
Ambjörnsson, Ronny, Det okända landet, Stockholm: Gidlunds, 1981.

Edenborg, Carl-Michael, Gull och mull – Den monstruöse greve Gustaf Bonde, upplysnin-
gens fiende i frihetstidens Sverige. Historien om hans exkrementalkemi, hans krets och
värld. Försedd med psykoanalytiska, batailleska och historiematerialistiska reflexioner,
samt ett utkast mot döden, Lund: Ellerströms förlag, 1997.
——— . Alkemins skam: den alkemiska traditionens bortstötning ur offentligheten,
Stockholm: Vertigo förlag, 2004.
Lamm, Martin, Upplysningstidens romantik, Stockholm: Geber, 1918–1920.
Lindroth, Sten, Paracelsismen i Sverige till 1600-talets mitt, Stockholm: Almqvist &
Wiksell, 1943.
——— . Magnus Gabriel von Block, Stockholm: Svenska akademin/Norstedts, 1973.
anthroposophy in denmark 43
Chapter 5 anthroposophy in denmark
Anthroposophy in Denmark
René Dybdal
The Founding Years
In April 1908, during a lecturing tour in Scandinavia, Rudolf Steiner paid his
first visit to Denmark. As general secretary of the German Section of the
Theosophical Society (TS) and a well known articulator of Theosophical
thoughts and ideas, Steiner’s visit garnered considerable attention from numer-
ous members. From then and until December 1912, when Steiner left the TS
and subsequently founded the Anthroposophical Society (AS), he visited
Denmark on a yearly basis. Following his visit in January 1910, a Theosophical
lodge primarily focusing on Steiner’s work and ideas was founded in Copen
hagen and given the name Steinerlogen. Establishing lodges that primarily
followed a particular source of inspiration or impulses provided by a particular
Theosophical leader was at the time not unique to Steinerlogen. In Denmark
there were already several such lodges, transparently named HPB-logen, Olcott-
logen, Besant-logen and – later on – Leadbeater-logen. Steinerlogen, however,
presented a somewhat different case, since it apparently was formed by three
members of the TS, Bernhard Løw, Caroline Kühle, and Henry Riis-Magnussen,
who had been excluded by the local Theosophical Society in Copenhagen in
March 1909. Although critique of the leadership seems to have been a major
issue behind the exclusion, these members’ interest in Steiner’s work was a
contributing factor (Borgman Hansen 2004). On 17 January 1910 Steiner visited
the Swedish city of Lund, and a group of between twenty and thirty Danes
inspired by his message went to see and talk to him. Steiner advised them to
form a separate lodge, and the group returned to Denmark eager to do so. On
29 January, less than two weeks later, a constituting meeting was held, and on
3 March 1910 the first general assembly took place, at which the first Steiner-
based organisation in Denmark was formally founded. Although still a lodge
associated with the TS, Steiner’s initial visit in 1908 and the launching of
Steinerlogen are seen by the AS as key foundational events for the dissemina-
tion of Anthroposophy in Denmark.
When Steiner left the TS in the last days of 1912 and founded the AS, these
events impacted developments in Denmark, as well. Apart from Steinerlogen,
another relatively small lodge located in Vejle on Jutland left the TS in March

44 Dybdal
1912. In terms of membership, this meant that more than one-fifth of the mem-
bers of the TS left and joined the AS (or in absolute numbers, approximately
sixty members out of 300, as documented in the protocol from the annual
meeting of the TS Denmark in 1913). In contrast to the situation in neighbour-
ing Scandinavian countries when lodges left the TS, the Danish “split” caused
disputes over the division of assets and property. Løw and others argued that
the assets of the now dissolved Theosophical Steinerlogen could be transferred
to a new lodge operating autonomously but within an Anthroposophical con-
text. According to the TS, any property held by a dissolved lodge should be
returned to the TS. Eventually, TS and Steinerlogen seem to have reached an
agreement, but other disputes over ownership followed. In January 1914 when
a member of Steinerlogen, H.P. Rasmussen, passed away leaving an inheritance
of 60,000 Danish crowns to the lodge, conflicts over how to manage these funds
emerged among the leadership of the lodge. Negotiations proved unsuccessful,
and Løw and a group of followers left Steinerlogen and founded a new lodge,
Johannesgruppen. After this schism, another six years passed until a further
lodge was founded in Denmark (1920), Eremogruppen, under the leadership of
Carl Wallen and his wife Soffy Wallen.
As in other countries, Anthroposophical lodges or groups had until then
been organised as autonomous bodies. In 1923 this changed, when the interna-
tional leadership of the AS decided to implement a new and more centralised
organisational structure that was intended to unify and strengthen Anthro
posophical work and initiatives across borders. In Denmark this new structure
would have had the effect of uniting all Danish AS lodges in one common
organisation. However, not all Steiner-inspired lodges approved of this new
centralising development. Due to disagreements between Løw and other
prominent Danish Anthroposophists, another two and a half decades passed
before Johannesgruppen joined the Danish AS.
The first Danish general secretary who was elected after the unification of
the Danish national section in 1923 was Johannes Hohlenberg (1881–1960).
Hohlenberg was a writer on diverse subjects including yoga and the philoso-
phy of Søren Kierkegaard, and an artist of considerable reputation, and was
therefore well-known also outside the AS milieu in Denmark. The general sec-
retary that followed, Esper Eising (1876–1951), who took over after Hohlenberg
in 1931 and held the position until 1943, was a successful businessman and
chairman in several national business councils and therefore, like his prede-
cessor, also a prominent figure outside of the AS. Having respected figures as
general secretaries had a positive impact on the work of AS during these years
– especially Eising’s experience in organisational matters helped structuring
the initiatives of the Danish section. Despite the ongoing conflicts between the
Danish section of the AS and Johannesgruppen, Anthroposophy as a move-

ment prospered during its first decades.
After the Second World War
Unlike the AS in other occupied countries, the AS in Denmark was not pre-
vented from continuing its activities during the Second World War. Although
they did not advertise publicly, their meetings continued uninterrupted
throughout the German occupation. When the war ended, the AS in Denmark
was able to resume its public role, and launch new initiatives that aided in
spreading Steiner’s teachings in Denmark. A pan-Scandinavian initiative taken
by two Danes, Ernst Sørensen and Arne Klingborg, proved particularly impor-
tant in this respect. In 1949, a first Nordic Anthroposophical conference was
held in Nyborg on the island of Funen, with more than 270 members from the
Nordic countries participating. Similar conferences have since then taken
place regularly in each of the Nordic countries, including Denmark.
Although the majority of Danish Anthroposophists after the War supported
the centralisation of lodges, not all were in favour. During the 1940s and early
1950s, a group of prominent Danish Anthoposophists, including in particular
Edgar Høier and Karen Østergaard, two unaffiliated Anthroposophists who
influenced a significant number of members, advocated against a centralised
national leadership. Differences over leadership and organisation threatened
to split the movement in Denmark, as it did abroad. The international conflict
between Marie Steiner, widow of Rudolf Steiner, and the leadership in Dornach
at the time, Albert Steffen and Günther Wachsmut, over the question of who
owned rights to Steiner’s work also affected the Danish branch. Høier and
Østergaard supported Marie Steiner, while the Danish AS leadership sided with
Steffen and Wachsmut. When the first Nordic summer conference was to be
organised in Denmark, both Høier and Østergaard were opposed to these
plans. After Marie Steiner passed away in 1949, the conflicts gradually dimin-
ished, internationally as well as locally in Denmark.
After many years marked by such conflicts, the period from around 1960 and
up to the present day has been a period of stability for the AS. In part, this has
been due to the leadership of Oskar Borgman Hansen, who was elected general
secretary in 1966, a position he held until 2001. Both before and after his retire-
ment as general secretary of the AS, he has been a significant influence on the
AS in Denmark. Like his predecessors, Borgman Hansen is a well-known figure
in the broader Danish cultural landscape, both as lecturer and scholar at the
department of philosophy at the University of Aarhus from the late 1950s until
1994, and as a public intellectual.
46 Dybdal
Steiner-Inspired Activities
In Denmark, as in other countries, Steiner’s teachings have been the founda-

tion of a broad variety of practical activities, such as education, caretaking,
agriculture, and even banking. These Steiner-inspired ventures have been facil-
itated by the close cooperation of various Scandinavian branches of the AS.
The spread of Steiner-based education in Denmark has, for instance, been
facilitated by contacts with the Rudolph Steiner Seminar in Järna, Sweden. A
number of summer schools for youth had been held on a yearly basis, primar-
ily arranged by prominent young representatives from the three Scandinavian
countries, Arne Klingborg (Sweden), Jørgen Smit (Norway), and Oskar Borgman
Hansen (Denmark). The idea of founding a seminar arose and eventually
resulted in the establishment of the Järna seminars in 1964. A Nordic Waldorf
cooperation was formally initiated in 1969. Even though there had been two
Waldorf schools in Denmark already in 1961 (the Steiner school in Aarhus and
Vidarskolen in Copenhagen), teachers’ meetings, as the forum for cooperation
was called, could provide practical advice on how to establish a school, how to
plan and direct one, and how to cope with the critique that was repeatedly
raised against Waldorf schools. From the perspective of the Danish section, the
organisational advice was most important, since Waldorf education has been
accepted with only minimal outside opposition. Compared to the other
Scandinavian countries, Denmark has a much more established tradition of
accepting schools based on ideological and religious convictions, and Waldorf
education thus entered an already well-established field.
Denmark has a number of other practical applications of Steiner’s legacy:
medical doctors, farmers, commercial companies, and others, who are listed
on the website of the AS in Denmark < http://www.rudolfsteiner.dk>. Among
the most successful over the last years are Aurion, a manufacturer of biody-
namic food, and Merkurbank (“Bank of Mercury”). Aurion was established in
1974 as a bakery using organic and biodynamic products, and has significantly
expanded its operations. At the time of writing (2014), Aurion has a workforce
of more than thirty employees, and its products are sold to consumers nation-
wide, including in supermarkets with no ideological connection whatsoever
with Anthroposophy.
Arguably even more successful is Anthroposophically-inspired banking,
in Denmark represented by Merkurbank. Inspired by the German GLS Gemein
schaftbank, an organisation similarly influenced by Steiner, a group of people
from the same milieu that had established Aurion founded the bank in October
1982 in the town of Hjørring in Jutland. Their ideal of offering loans to ethically
and ecologically sustainable initiatives attracted growing attention during the
1990s. Today with more than seventy-five employees, nearly 23,000 clients
(from less than 10,000 ten years earlier in 2004), and a financial balance of close
to 1,6 billion Danish crowns in 2013 (more than tripling since 2004), Merkurbank
has experienced a remarkable growth. Even during the financial crisis in 2008
and 2009 the bank experienced positive growth, a fact that spokespersons of
the bank have attributed to their corporate philosophy.
Interestingly, Anthroposophically-inspired companies barely mention their
connections to Steiner’s work on their websites. The link is only clearly visible
on website of the AS. The rather loose connection between the AS and Steiner
on the one hand, and various Anthroposophically-inspired ventures on the
other, is further demonstrated by the fact that neither Aurion, Merkurbank or
Waldorf schools require their staff to share an Anthroposophical world view.
Furthermore, and as in neighbouring countries, these activities are also for-
mally organised as autonomous institutions, with no explicit ideological or
financial ties to the AS. This could, however, change in the years to come. After
Oskar Borgman Hansen left the position as general secretary in 2001, new
initiatives under the leadership of Troels Ussing have brought various Steiner-
inspired activities more closely together. In particular, virksomhedskredsen
(“The business circle”) was formed in 2006/7 as a forum where representatives
of a variety of autonomous Steiner-inspired activities could meet on a regular
basis in order to inform, inspire, and strengthen cooperation. Although similar
fora exist in neighbouring countries, this is the first attempt in Denmark to
gather the various activities that either has been initiated or inspired by Steiner
with the intention of strengthening cooperation.
Demography – the Past and the Future
In the first decades in existence, the Danish branch of the AS experienced a

significant growth in membership. This expansion came to a halt after the
Second World War, despite of the fact that the AS had been able to continue its
activities throughout the German occupation. The number of members of the
AS, some 800, has therefore been relatively stable for several decades. On the
other hand, the number of institutions or organisations inspired by Steiner’s
ideas has nonetheless expanded significantly in Denmark since the early 1960s,
and the number of people who are not in any strict sense Anthroposophists
but who are sufficiently sympathetic to Steiner’s message to enlist the services
of such institutions is large. That is for instance the case with schools and kin-
dergartens based on Waldorf education. Since the early 1960s, fifteen Waldorf
schools and more than sixty Waldorf kindergartens have been founded.
48 Dybdal
Although they at the time of writing seem to receive fewer applicants than in
past years, thousands of Danes are nonetheless still indirectly introduced to
Steiner and his teachings through these institutions. Finally, and impossible to
quantify, there are countless people who have a more or less passing acquaint-
ance with Steiner and Anthroposophy via his books. Danish translations of his
works can be found in libraries and in most Danish bookstores selling books on
“New Age” or alternative religion and spirituality. For many of these readers,
Steiner’s Anthroposophy is presumably just one building block in a quest for a
personal, holistic view on life.
References
Borgman, Oskar Hansen, Erindringer og reflektioner, København: C.A. Reitzels Forlag,

2001.
———. Kulturkamp – artikler og essays fra 40 år, København: C.A. Reitzels Forlag, 2004.
Teosofisk Tidskrift för Scandinavien (1893–1918).
Tidsskrift for antroposofi (1962–1969 & 2006–).
Vidar – Nordisk tidsskrift for åndsvitenskap (1915–1940)
Anthroposophy in Finland 49
Chapter 6
Anthroposophy in Finland
Kennet Granholm
The Finnish Anthroposophical Society
The Finnish section of the Anthroposophical Society was founded in 1923 by

Uno Donner (1872–1958), at Steiner’s own request. Donner acted as the chair-
man from the founding of the society in Finland until 1932. The society was
officially registered on 16 April 1970, and is today run by a board of directors
consisting of eight people.
The activities of the society are diverse, and take a holistic approach where
religious issues are treated in conjunction with themes from philosophy, art,
science, and so forth. Consequently, the activities include everything from
lectures and seminars to various artistic performances. The society is based
in Helsinki, where an Anthroposophical library is maintained, but activities
are arranged in thirty-two other regions in the country. In addition, Swedish-
language activities are organised in several Finnish cities. The society also
publishes Anthroposophical literature and the journal Takoja four times annu-
ally. Dues-paying members receive the journal Kirjokansi. The membership
was approximately 730 people according to information available in October
2009.
The Christian Community in Finland
Suomen Kristiyhteisö is the Finnish section of the Christian Community

founded in Germany in 1922. The community is based on Anthroposophical
interpretations of Protestant Christianity. The Finnish section was founded in
1967 by Steiner school teacher Helmer Knutar (1926–1991), who was ordained
at the Christian Community seminar in Stuttgart in the early 1960s. The society
was registered as a religious community on 5 September 1969.
In the beginning the community was based in Helsinki, but in 1983 its cen-
tre was moved to Tampere. Congregations exist in Helsinki, Tampere, Lahti,
and Tammisaari, and activities are organised in nine other regions in Finland.
The Community has four ordained priests in Finland. Since 1980 the journal
Kristiyhteisö (Christian Community) has been published in four issues per year.
There were 251 members in 2008, which is a significant growth since the early
to mid-2000s, when the Community had less than one hundred members.

50 Granholm
Anthroposophical Medicine
Antroposofisen lääketieteen yhdistys/Föreningen för antroposofisk medicin

(The Association for Anthroposophical Medicine) is a Finnish association with
the aim of supporting and promoting the school of holistic healing created by
Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman. The association was officially registered on 18
November 1987. It also works as an expert body in dealings with government
officials, assesses research done on Anthroposophical medicine, publishes
material, and in general provides information.
In addition, a professional association – Antroposofisen lääketieteen lääkäri-
yhdistys (ALLY, the Medical Professional Association for Anthroposophical
Medicine) – was founded in 1993. The membership is divided into regular
members – who need to be certified medical doctors, dentists, or veterinar-
ians, or people who have a bachelor degree in one of these areas, and who
are members of the international association for Anthropological medicine,
Internationale Vereinigung anthroposophischer Ärztegesellschaften – and
extraordinary members – who are medical professionals or students, but are
not members of the international association.
There are no Anthroposophical hospitals in Finland – the closest one is in
Järna, Sweden – nor are there any educational institutions for Anthropological
medicine – the closest location also in this regard is in Sweden. Facilities for
Anthroposophical treatment pedagogy do, however, exist in thirteen locations
in Finland. These are special needs schools and nursing homes for mentally
disabled youths and adults, operating according to the Anthroposophical
Camphill philosophy developed in the 1940s by Austrian paediatrician Karl
König (1902–1966). Facilities operating with this philosophy are the Myllylähde
yhteisö in Hämeenkoski, the Sylvia-koti yhteisö in Lahti (founded 1956 in Jorvas,
moved to Hyvinkää in 1962, and finally to Lahti in 1970), and Tapolan kyläyh-
teisö in Niinikoski (founded 1974).
Waldorf Education
Waldorf schools – locally called Steiner schools (Steinerkoulu) – have existed

in Finland since 1955 when the first school was opened in Helsinki. Twenty-
four Steiner schools – two of which are Swedish-language schools – and three
special needs schools operate in Finland, and the website Steinerkoulu.fi clams
that more than 5,000 children were enrolled in the Waldorf system in the fall of
2007. Education is provided from elementary school-level (age seven) all the
way to secondary education (until age nineteen). In addition forty-five Steiner
Anthroposophy in Finland 51
kindergartens provide pre-school teaching, of which four in the Swedish lan-

guage. Since 2009, all Steiner schools operate within Steinerkasvatuksen liitto
ry (the Association for Steiner Education), based in Jyväskylä. Before this, two
separate associations had governed the running of the schools. Parents who
want to educate their children according to the Waldorf method apply at the
school of their choice, as no centralised system for applications exists. Both
kindergarten and school teachers are educated at Snellman-korkeakoulu. The
association also publishes the journal Steinerkasvatus in four issues per year.
Snellman-korkeakoulu (the Snellman University College) is a Helsinki-based
higher education institution providing teaching building on Rudolf Steiner’s
Anthroposophical world view, as well as Johan Vilhelm Snellman’s (1806–1881)
philosophy of education. The institution was started in 1980, with Reijo Wile
nius (b. 1930), Jukka Jormola, Matti Kuusela, Martti Tuomola, and Ajami
Wilenius as the active parties. Reijo Wilenius, a former Professor of Philosophy
at the University of Jyväskylä, has functioned as the principal of the school
since its inception. Snellman-korkeakoulu was granted official status as a higher
education institution in 2002.
The college provides both a scientific curriculum – consisting of, e.g., biol-
ogy, psychology, philosophy, and anthroposophy – and teaching in art subjects.
The education in Waldorf pedagogy is an obvious focus of the institution, and
can be extended to full degrees in kindergarten teaching or class teacher certi-
fication. A specialisation in pedagogy for children with special needs is also
possible. Studies at the institution provide certification to teach at Steiner
schools, but in order to gain qualification to teach in general schools additional
education is needed, for example studies in pedagogy at a Finnish university
or in the MA-programme at Rudolf Steiner Høyskolen (The Rudolf Steiner
University College) in Oslo, Norway. Other educations provided are studies in
visual arts, rhetoric and drama, Eurythmy (a form of rhythmic movement that
can function both as an art form and used in therapy) and biodynamic cultiva-
tion (240 ECTS). Short courses are also organised.
The Donner Institute and Library
The Donner Institute for Research in Religious and Cultural History was estab-
lished in 1959 with funds donated by Anthroposophists Uno and Olly Donner
(1881–1956). The institute operates as an independent research institute and
library connected to Åbo Akademi University and has no ties to the Anthropo
sophical Society.
52 Granholm
Biodynamic Cultivation in Finland
Biodynaaminen yhdistys/Biodynamiska föreningen (The Biodynamic Associa

tion) has operated in Finland since 1946. The association provides information
on biodynamic cultivation, and publishes the journal Demeter in four issues
per year, as well as literature of relevance for biodynamic cultivation. It also
grants the international Demeter certification to products that are biodynami-
cally grown. The association stresses that it is not only about cultivation, but
also about getting people together to plan for the future. A key theme is sus-
tainable development.
BiOviini (Bio-wine) and Itu (Sprout) are two Helsinki-based joint stock
companies that focus on biodynamic products. The former imports and sells
wines and the latter is a wholesale retailer that deals in everything from grocer-
ies to cleaning materials and cosmetics Products by Itu are sold by the
Ruohonjuuri (Grass roots) eco shops in Helsinki, Tampere, and Turku, as well
as the chain of Life “wellbeing and health food”-shops that operate in several
Finnish cities.

Anthroposophy in Norway 53
Chapter 7
Anthroposophy in Norway
Rudolf Steiner and Norway
Rudolf Steiner visited Norway eight times between 1908 and 1923. He was
invited by Richard Eriksen, the chairman of the Christiania lodge of the
Theosophical Society, who had met Steiner in Germany in 1907. In addition to
about seventy-five lectures to selected groups, Steiner also gave about twenty-
five public lectures, some of them very well attended. His visits were sometimes
covered by the main newspapers, which contributed to make Rudolf Steiner
and Anthroposophy known in Norway.
From 1908 articles and books by Steiner were translated into Norwegian.
The authors Ingeborg Møller and Martha Steinsvik were in addition to Richard
Eriksen active in promoting Anthroposophical ideas in Norway in the early
days of the movement. In 1913, the Theosophical Vidar lodge (founded in 1911),
consisting of forty members, headed by Richard Eriksen, collectively resigned
from the Theosophical Society. They joined the Anthroposophical Society,
which had been established in Germany in December 1912. This “conversion”
was a protest against the creation of the Order of the Star in the East and the
strong Indian influence on Theosophy, and a support of Steiner’s Anthroposophy
with its Christological orientation. The name of the lodge, Vidar, was a tribute
to Old Norse mythology and to the lectures which Steiner had given on this
topic in Christiania (Oslo) the year before. Very soon, Anthroposophical groups
were established in Bergen, Lillehammer, Stavanger, and Trondheim, in addi-
tion to Christiania (Oslo).
Steiner attracted a number of gifted people. A famous Norwegian clairvoy-
ant healer, Marcello Haugen, was invited to the Anthroposophical Society in
Germany, where he created something close to a sensation because of his psy-
chic powers, and people flocked to him to get healings. Nevertheless, Haugen
was soon excluded by Steiner, probably because Steiner regarded him as
unruly. According to Steiner, clairvoyance belonged to an earlier stage in
human development (Parmann 1979: 75 ff). Twenty-five Norwegian Anthroposo
phists sent a protest letter to Steiner on that occasion. In 1926 Richard Eriksen,
who had initially recommended Marcello Haugen to Steiner, resigned from the
Anthroposophical movement, and wrote critical articles against Anthropo-
sophy and Theosophy.

54 Sælid Gilhus
The Anthroposophical Society
The Vidar lodge was a precursor of Antroposofisk Selskap (Anthroposophical

Society) that was established in 1923 as the Norwegian national society within
The General Anthroposophical Society. Today Antroposofisk Selskap has about
1,000 members in twenty-one local groups. Since 1914, its headquarters have
been in Oscarsgate 10 in Oslo.
The Anthroposophical movement includes many gifted people, among
them several authors. In Norway the movement has been associated with a
cultural elite, mainly expressing a conservative view of culture, though there
are radical voices among the Norwegian Anthroposophists as well. Prominent
Anthroposophists in Norway have been the authors Ingeborg Møller (1878–
1964), Ivar Mortensson-Egnund (1857–1934), Olav Aukrust (1883–1929), Alf
Larsen (1885–1967), Aasmund Brynildsen (1917–1974), André Bjerke (1918–
1985), Jens Bjørneboe (1920–1976), Peter Normann Waage (b. 1953), and Kaj
Skagen (b. 1949). They are celebrated authors in Norwegian society, whose
influence has reached far beyond the circle of Anthroposophists. At the same
time they have contributed to giving Anthroposophy a good reputation in
Norway. Larsen, Bjerke, Waage, and Skagen have also been editors of Anthro
posophical periodicals. The most active spokesperson for Anthroposophy is
Norway today is the lawyer Cato Schiøtz (b. 1948).
There are two Anthroposophical publishing houses in Norway, Antropos
forlag, which also runs a bookshop, and Vidarforlaget. Antropos forlag has pub-
lished more than two hundred books by Rudolf Steiner, most of them
translations into Norwegian. In addition to Vidar (1915–1940), which was the
first Anthroposophical journal outside Germany, Janus (1933–1941), Spektrum
(1946–1954), Horisont (1955–1967), and Arken (1978–1989) have been the main
Anthroposophical periodicals. Some of these have combined the promotion of
Anthroposophy with broader cultural interests. The two main Anthroposophi-
cal periodicals in Norway today are Libra and Antroposofi i Norge.
Waldorf Schools and Biodynamic Agriculture
Why and to what degree have Norwegians been attracted to Anthroposophy?

The practical applications of Anthroposophy have been far more significant in
Norway that its religious and philosophical dimensions: ‘It seems as if the
Anthroposophical fruits are reasonably savoury, while the Anthroposophical
tree is far less attractive’ (Waage and Schiøtz 2000: 6). The most important
fruits of the Anthroposophical tree are the Waldorf schools (in Norway called
“Steiner schools”), but the Camphill movement with its curative education, in
addition to biodynamic agriculture and banking, are also well established in
Norway.
The first Waldorf school in Norway was opened in 1926. In 2013, there were
thirty-five Waldorf schools and fifty-six kindergartens, which makes the
Norwegian Waldorf school movement the largest in the world in relation to the
population. In 2000, the schools had 5,000 pupils and 750 teachers, which
implies that ca. 2% of the Norwegian population, more than 100,000 people –
counting pupils, parents, and teachers – have been affected by Steiner’s
pedagogical methods (Bergesen 2000: 53). The schools are private, but have
85% state funding. Until recently, the Waldorf schools have been the main pri-
vate alternative to the public school system in Norway, which may explain part
of their success.
Vidaråsen for the mentally handicapped was established in 1966 and was
the first institution within the Camphill movement in Norway. Today there are
six institutions for Anthroposophical curative pedagogy with a total of 150
residents.
Anthroposophical (biodynamic) agriculture was introduced in the 1930s as
the only type of organic farming in Norway. Anthroposophical agriculture
influenced the counter-cultural ecological movement and the farming collec-
tives which were established in the 1970s. Biodynamic products were earlier
sold in a chain of shops called Helios (established in 1969). Helios was the most
important wholesaler, and among the most important distributors, of organic
and biodynamic food and health products in Norway. It is now part of Alma
Norge, owned by the Nordic Validus Group and its products are sold in grocery
stores.
Cultura sparebank (Cultura savings bank) was established in 1997 in Oslo. It
is an alternative bank, inspired by Steiner’s ideas about banking and interest.
In 2013 Cultura sparebank had ca. 5,000 customers and a capital of 560 million
Norwegian crowns.
The Christian community was established in Norway in 1927. Its full name is
Kristensamfunnet i Norge. Bevegelse for religiøs fornyelse (The Christian
Community in Norway. Movement for religious renewal). In 2013 it had approx-
imately 2,500 members. There are communities in Oslo, Bergen, Trøndelag,
Stanvanger, and Hamar.
56 Sælid Gilhus
Public Debate
Over the years there have, time and again, been public debates about Anthro
posophy. The movement has been attacked by scientists because of its views
on evolution and by theologians because of its Christological views. Questions
have also been raised about the religious philosophy of the Steiner school
teachers. To what degree do these schools transmit Anthroposophical esoteric
tenets? The answer to this question has usually been that there is no explicit
Anthroposophical esoteric teaching in the Steiner schools, but that the peda-
gogy of the schools is based on Anthroposophical ideas about children and
their development. When Jens Bjørneboe, who had been a Steiner school
teacher, published his novel Jonas in 1955, a famous novel of high literary qual-
ity in which he attacked the public school system and presented the Steiner
school as an alternative, the novel gave rise to a public debate. In the main,
however, the Norwegian public has not been very interested in the religious
philosophy of the Steiner schools.
Next to Switzerland, Norway is the country in the world where Anthroposo-
phy has gained the strongest foothold. Anthroposophy was introduced in
Norway at a time when every visit by a lecturer from abroad was a major event
and such visits were frequently commented upon by the newspapers. Rudolf
Steiner’s visits were for fifteen years almost annual events. In its formative
phase in Norway, and for most of its history, the Anthroposophical movement
has been blessed with gifted persons who combined Anthroposophy with a
broader cultural commitment. Most of these people seem to have been more
interested in the spirit of the movement than with agreeing with every word
Rudolf Steiner ever said. Since the Steiner schools have been almost the only
alternative to the public school system, they, more than anything, have con-
tributed to making Anthroposophy known.
Occult physiology, Christology, planetary evolution, reincarnation and spiri-
tual science and what, more generally, “der Doktor hat gesagt” – i.e., the specific
pronouncements of Rudolf Steiner – are certainly discussed among Norwegian
Anthroposophists and elaborated upon in the Anthroposophical periodicals,
just as such themes are treated in other countries. However, it is not the move-
ment’s views on these questions, but the practical applications of its teachings
that make the Anthroposophical movement the most successful New Religious
Movement in Norway in the twentieth century. So, at the same time as the
Anthroposophical movement has always been a rather isolated countercul-
tural current in the Norwegian society, it is, at the same time, an active cultural
power – especially in the field of education, but also as a provider of organi-
cally farmed products and as part of public debate.
References
Bergersen, Helge Ole, “Steiners etterfølgere – subkultur eller motkultur?”, in: Cato
Schiøtz and Peter N. Waage (eds.), Fascination og forargelse: Steiner og antroposofien
sett utenfra, Oslo: Pax Forlag, 2000, 51–58.
Christensen, Terje, En kulturimpuls slår rot. Fra antroposofiens første tid i Norge, Oslo:
Antropos forlag, 2008.
Ebbestad Hansen, Jan-Erik, “Autoritetens filosofi”, in: Cato Schiøtz and Peter N. Waage
(eds.), Fascination og forargelse: Steiner og antroposofien sett utenfra, Oslo: Pax Forlag,
2000, 119–132.
Gilhus, Ingvild Sælid and Lisbeth Mikaelsson (eds.), Skjult visdom – universelt brorskap.
Teosofi i Norge, Oslo: Emilia forlag, 1998.
Parmann, Øistein, Marcello Haugen, Oslo: J.W. Cappelens forlag, 1979.
Schiøtz, Cato, “Den offentlige kritikk av antroposofien”, Libra (1995), 3–4.
Simonsen, Terje G., Janus, et tidsskrift og en tid, Oslo: Solum, 2001.
Waage, Normann Peter and Cato Schiøtz (eds.), Fascinasjon og Forargelse. Steiner og
antroposofien sett utenfra, Oslo: Pax, 2000.
58 Chapter 8
Chapter 8
Anthroposophy in Sweden
Håkan Lejon
The Beginnings of Anthroposophy in Sweden
The Anthroposophical movement in Sweden has its origin in the conflicts that
existed within the Theosophical movement in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
When Rudolf Steiner broke with the Anglo-Indian branch in the last days of
1912, a small group of Swedish Theosophists a few days later followed his exam-
ple. In Stockholm, the first Anthroposophical lodge, Rosenkorset, was formed
in January 1913, and was initially led by officers Gustaf Kinell and Gustaf
Ljungqvist. On 23 February of the same year a new lodge, Balder, was founded
in Norrköping, with Anna Wager Gunnarsson as the leader and in Lund a pro
fessor’s wife, Clara Wahlberg, also started a lodge.
The new ideas often spread via publications. In January 1913 Anna Wager
Gunnarsson founded a publishing house devoted to this purpose, Förlagsföre
ningen AS u.p.a., located in the city of Norrköping. When the First World War
broke out, members were unable to arrange lodge meetings and publishing
translations of books by Steiner became a key activity for the new movement.
Already during the first year of operation, seven translations into Swedish were
published; six of works by Rudolf Steiner and one work by the German pastor
Max Seiling. Journals followed: at first in Norway with the magazine Vidar,
launched in 1915, while in Sweden, the first Anthroposophical journal,
Antroposofisk Tidskrift (Anthroposophical Journal), only appeared in 1923.
These journals followed international developments closely, and many articles
were translations of German originals.
Translations and articles in journals made the movement increasingly
known, and the number of supporters slowly grew. On 18 December 1919 the
total number of members had increased to 162. Despite the modest number of
members, the Anthroposophical Society in Sweden was debated in the media
and in books. The attention that the budding movement attracted from outsid-
ers can be gauged by the fact that the University chancellor in Uppsala and
later Swedish Archbishop, Nathan Söderblom (1861–1931), made it possible in
April 1919 for one of the founders of The Christian Community, a Christian-
Anthroposophical church, Friedrich Rittelmeyer, to be invited to Stockholm
and Uppsala to hold public lectures. One reason for this sympathetic reception

Anthroposophy in Sweden 59
was the fact that Swedish Anthroposophists during these first years stressed
their links to the broader Christian family, as opposed to the Orientalizing
trend in Adyar-based Theosophy.
The Next Generation
On the European continent, the Anthroposophical movement was affected by

the two world wars and their consequences. During the First World War, nearly
all activity came to an end in the German-speaking countries, and the head-
quarters were moved from Germany to Dornach near Basel in neutral
Switzerland. During World War II the Anthroposophical institutions in
Germany were closed or dissolved. Sweden remained a neutral country and
stayed out of both wars, and the Anthroposophical movement continued to
flourish. In the 1940s, refugees from the war came to Sweden and helped to
create and develop Anthroposophical institutions. Conversely, Swedish
Anthroposophists supported the activities at the Goetheanum in Dornach,
and made efforts to rebuild Anthroposophical institutions in Central Europe
after the war.
In the spring of 1935, Edith Knaffl-Granström took over the presidency of
the Swedish Society from Anna Wager Gunnarsson, who in turn had replaced
Gustaf Kinell in 1930. The new chairman was not only a dedicated member of
the Society, but was also strongly linked with Central European Anthropo
sophical culture. The board of the Swedish Society began to take an increasing
interest in international matters. In April 1945 the Swedish board became
aware that Marie Steiner, Rudolf Steiner’s widow, had demanded compensa-
tion from the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach for having released
Rudolf Steiner’s lectures and books without having the legal rights to these
works. The dispute led to schisms between different groups within the Society.
For the Swedish Anthroposophists the conflict between Marie Steiner and the
Dornach Anthroposophists was extremely problematic, because both parties
in the conflict had close ties to Swedish members.
As noted above, many activities of the society had in the first years been
directed toward reading texts by Steiner, attending lectures, and assimilating
the esoteric Christian world view associated with Anthroposophy. Under Edith
Knaffl-Granström’s leadership, the Swedish Society continued to see the study
of esoteric doctrines in lodge meetings as the society’s main function. In the
1930s and 1940s, various practical aspects of Anthroposophy, such as Waldorf
schools and biodynamic farming, nevertheless gained an increasingly strong
foothold in Sweden. These activities were, however, often kept organisationally
60 Lejon
apart from the Swedish Anthroposophical Society. Despite their central

European origins, these practical Anthroposophical ventures in Sweden over
time adapted to local social and cultural developments and to Swedish leg-
islation. Numerous such activities came to Sweden in these years: the first
Anthroposophical home for children in need of special care was established
in 1934, biodynamical farming also arrived in 1935, the Christian Community
established a branch in 1937, and the first of many Waldorf schools opened in
1948 (after a short and unsuccessful first attempt as far back as in 1931). Such
international impulses came to Sweden not least because it was deemed impor-
tant for Swedish members to attend conferences abroad and for the Swedish
organisation to invite international Anthroposophical guests to give lectures.
A modest first endeavour toward establishing a home for children in need of
special care was started in 1934 in Sweden, when a small home for such chil-
dren was established by Per Sundberg, headmaster of Viggbyholm boarding
school, outside Stockholm. Marit Laurin, a lecturer at the boarding school,
along with two special trained educationists from Germany, Gustav and
Charlotte Ritter, taught a first class of at first only three but later five boys. The
activities soon moved to Järna, south of Stockholm, where a number of such
homes were founded over the following years: Mikaelgården, Saltå, Mora Park,
Solberga, and others.
The first experiments in biodynamic gardening in Sweden were carried out
by people involved in running these homes. Biodynamic gardening was also
promoted by the nationally very well-known advocate of a healthy life-style,
Are Waerland (1876–1955). Waerland’s perspective on what constituted a
healthy life covered a whole gamut of practices, from yoga and physical exer-
cise to food and drink. Waerland was one of the pioneers in promoting
organically grown foodstuffs, and recommended his followers to also take an
interest in the biodynamic method. The Society for the Promotion of Bio
dynamic Cultivation was formed in early 1944 and was intended to promote
health food among growers and consumers.
Interest in Waldorf education expanded in the late 1940s, again promoted by
people who stood outside the Anthroposophical Society’s traditional group-
ings. Indeed, in February 1947 the board of the Anthroposophical Society made
it clear that the Anthroposophical Society had no organisational or financial
responsibility for any school. It was also decided that educational activities
could not be conducted in any premises belonging to the Society. The bound-
aries between a more esoterically-coloured Society and practical humanistic
Steiner-inspired activities could not have been more firmly drawn.
The Re-Orientation of the Anthroposophical Society in Sweden
In 1954 the Board of the Anthroposophical Society in Sweden began to take ini-
tiatives to reorganise the Society’s way of working. On advice from the newly
elected leader Arne Klingborg, work in the lodges would have wider humanistic
and social aims. He urged for closer ties between the independently-organised,
practical legacy of the Anthroposophical movement and the more esoterically
oriented segments within the Society. With the sanction of the central admin-
istration in Dornach, the Society was to focus on teaching a small number of
key topics, including the study of basic Anthroposophical concepts, reincarna-
tion and karma, meditation, esoteric Christology, studies in Rudolf Steiner’s
lectures, painting and other arts, and eurythmy (an Anthroposophical per-
forming art that “translates” speech into movement).
The following years were a period of expansion for the broader Anthropo
sophical movement. This coincided with and was partly borne by specific
changes in Swedish culture and society, not least the post-War economic
growth. The number of Anthroposophical institutions and companies, such
as Waldorf schools, the homes for special care, biodynamic farms, publishing
houses, shops, etc., increased from a few dozen in the mid-1950s to just over
600 in the mid-1980s. The number of people employed by such bodies rose to
over a thousand, and those who were more loosely involved or affected by the
activities could be counted in the tens of thousands. The Anthroposophical
movement’s growth in Sweden took place in a highly ambivalent period: on
the one hand, there was a utopian vision of how the welfare state could pro-
vide good schooling, care, and basic wellbeing for all in need; on the other,
it was also a time when the cracks in the welfare state became visible, when
industrialisation and consumerism led to increasing signs of environmental
degradation. For some, Anthroposophical initiatives were a viable alternative.
Some of the practical applications of Anthroposophy, not least Waldorf educa-
tion and Biodynamic farming, became quite popular with a young generation.
The Anthroposophical Society in the narrower sense, however, encountered
difficulties in profiting from these new trends. The 1960s and early 1970s coun-
terculture was a time of interest in the occult and in alternative lifestyles, but
rather than welcoming a potential influx of new members, the Society closed
itself off. On the one hand, the leaders of the various Anthroposophically-
inspired bodies were involved in negotiations with the Swedish authorities
regarding the establishment of new schools, etc., and had no wish to be associ-
ated with occultism or countercultural permissiveness. On the other, the
mother Anthroposophical Society remained very conservative, despite all
efforts at reorganisation. In principle, little had changed since Rudolf Steiner’s
62 Lejon
days in the early 1920s, in that Steiner’s instructions were followed and his texts
were read. Klingborg tried recruiting new members to esoteric meetings, but
only a few were attracted.
The Contemporary Period
The practical initiatives associated with Steiner’s legacy grew so quickly, while
the Anthroposophical Society nearly stagnated, that new measures seemed to
be called for. In September 1979 an international meeting was held in Dornach,
with such organisational matters as the main topic. The result of the confer-
ence was the adoption of a new organisational concept: integration. The
School of Spiritual Science, it was decided, should be the backbone within the
traditional Anthroposophical Society. Practical aspects of Anthroposophy that
had previously been separately organised, i.e., Waldorf schools, biodynamic
farming, and so forth, would henceforth be represented as different sections
under the School of Spiritual Science.
Many of the most extroverted manifestations of Anthroposophy took shape
during these years. In the summer of 1980 three large, coordinated exhibitions,
with Arne Klingborg as one of the organisers, presented aspects of Anthro
posophy to a large audience. Already beginning in the 1930s, several of the
practical activities of the Anthroposophical movement had their headquarters
in the small town of Ytterjärna, approximately 50 kilometres south of Stock
holm. Now, in the 1980s and 1990s, Ytterjärna expanded and became a centre
for much of the Swedish Anthroposophical milieu, and due to the many visi-
tors who come to this township every year, also an important point of contact
with the rest of society. Anthroposophical medicine has its main Swedish base
at Vidarkliniken which opened in 1985. In 1992, Kulturhuset (the House of
Culture), was inaugurated as a venue for concerts, art, theatre, dance perfor-
mances, and much else beside.
Although the idea of the central administration was to create an organisa-
tional form able to integrate practical and more esoteric aspects of Steiner’s
legacy, traditional studies of Steiner’s works and meditative exercises still take
place. The latter, once a closely guarded practice for the inner core of mem-
bers, has become more open for public inspection. A leading Anthroposophist,
Jørgen Smit, has published a number of titles on this topic, including Antro
posofi och meditation (Anthroposophy and Meditation) in 1991, Skolningsvägen
och livspraxis (The Method of [Spiritual] Development and Practical Life) in
1994, and Meditation och Kristusupplevelse (Meditation and the Experience of
Christ) 1996. Since the first years of the twenty-first century, public courses in
meditation have been held regularly at Kulturhuset in Ytterjärna.
The expansion of the Anthroposophical movement has continued into the
present day. The increasing interest in alternatives to state-run schools and a
growing environmental awareness among the general public have continued
to provide goodwill for those who are involved in Waldorf education, biody-
namic farming, and so forth. As the movement has expanded, it has come to
consist of people with very different views on life and quite diverse lifestyles.
There is no consistent and strongly cohesive organisation to gather all inter-
ested parties, even if attempts have been made and continue to be made by the
central administration of the Anthroposophical Society, nor is a direct ideo-
logical link to Steiner’s core concepts necessarily shared by all. In this sense,
Anthroposophy in Sweden has undergone a fundamental transmutation from
its foundation to the present day.
References
Danielsson, Lennart, and Ingrid Liljeroth, Vägval och växande – specialpedagogiskt per-
spektiv. Förhållningssätt, kunskap och specialpedagogik för yrkesverksamma hjälpare,
2nd ed., Stockholm: Liber, 1998.
Frisk, Liselotte, Nyreligiositet i Sverige: ett religionsvetenskapligt perspektiv. Nora: Nya
Doxa, 1998.
Frödén, Sara, I föränderliga och slutna rosa rum: en etnografisk studie av kön, ålder och
andlighet i en svensk waldorfförskola. Dissertation, Örebro universitet, 2012.
Lejon, Håkan, Historien om den antroposofiska humanismen: Den antroposofiska bild-
ningsidén i idéhistoriskt perspektiv 1880–1980, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1997.
Nobel, Agnes, Educating Through Art: The Steiner School Approach, Edinburgh: Floris,
1996.
——— . Filosofens knapp. Om konst och kunskap och waldorf-pedagogikens okända
bakgrund, 2nd ed. Stockholm: Carlsson, 1999.
———. Hur får kunskap liv? Om konst och eget skapande i undervisning, 2nd. ed. Stock
holm: Carlsson, 2001.
64 Chapter 9
Chapter 9 Early Modern Astrology in Denmark
Astrology in the Early Modern Period in Denmark

Morten Fink-Jensen
In Denmark an early discussion of astrology was provided by Anders Sunesen

(ca. 1160–1228) who had studied in Paris and in 1201 became archbishop of
Denmark. In his long didactic poem Hexaëmeron, he opposed judicial astrol-
ogy and the claims by the magi of being able to foretell events of the future,
although he did not question the possible influence of the stars on earthly
matters as such. The late Middle Ages saw a general increase in the interest in
astrology, and in Denmark the Dominican Nicolaus de Dacia in the middle of
the fifteenth century composed Libri tres anaglypharum, a comprehensive
work on both astrology and astronomy. Many members of the clergy contin-
ued, however, to distance themselves from astrology, and the leading critic of
Danish Protestantism, the humanist and Carmelite Poul Helgesen (Paulus
Helie, d. ca.1535), made critical remarks about astrology.
Astrology Taught at the University of Copenhagen
In the first hundred years after the Lutheran reformation of 1536, astrology
held a uniquely privileged position in society, first and foremost because of its
inclusion in the charter of the University of Copenhagen issued in 1539. The
curriculum in Copenhagen was greatly influenced by the German reformer
Philipp Melanchthon’s (1497–1560) ideas on university training. This led to the
inclusion of astrology, with judicial astrology too, in the statutes for the Faculty
of Medicine. The mention of astrology in the charter did, however, raise the
question of the legitimacy of this particular branch of learning. Many theolo-
gians were averse to the practise of judicial astrology because it attempted
both the impossible and the ungodly by predicting God’s will, and at the same
time cancelling out the free will of man. This was not an argument concerning
the rationality of astrology, but a question of what was forbidden in the eyes of
God and his spokesmen, the Danish clergy. Nonetheless, the statutes defended
the art of astrology and warned against confusing the mistakes of individual
astrologers who might have gone too far, with the art of astrology as a whole.
Such confusion, leading to the condemnation of astrology, would not please
God, the statutes pointed out, because astrology was a gift from God who

Early Modern Astrology in Denmark 65
wished for man to make use of it. This argument had been put forward by
Melanchthon in 1535 in his oration on the dignity of astrology, Oratio de digni-
tate astrologiae, from where it seems to have traversed into the University
Charter.
Despite supporting astrology, the statutes admitted that astrology could be
misused and lead to superstition. The “mathematicians” (as the astrologers
were called) accordingly had to perform a balancing act weighing the possibil-
ity and usefulness of the predictions against the unlawfulness of transgressing
into territory reserved for God. This was being deemed possible on the grounds
that hardly anyone, including the theologians, called into question the fact that
the stars exerted a certain influence on the earth and the creatures inhabiting
it. The debate only concerned the extent of the influence and the possibility
of foretelling it.
Theologians who like Melanchthon were favourably inclined towards astrol-
ogy would also point to biblical evidence suggesting firstly that the stars were
instruments by which God ruled the universe and secondly that God used the
stars as portents. At any rate, the statutes expressed the view that the Danish
population at large accepted the practice of astrology. It was therefore to be
hoped that students when receiving proper university instruction in astrology
could channel their astrological interests into realising the majesty of creation
and the wisdom of its architect.
Almanacs
The University Charter also assigned the task of composing yearly almanacs
alternately to the two professors of medicine. Their ability to do so in all likeli-
hood played a part when King Christian III (1503–1559) and his advisors singled
out possible candidates for the two chairs. The Dutchman Peter Capeteyn
(1511–1557) had prior to his appointment as professor of medicine in Copen
hagen in 1546 already made a name for himself as an author of astrological
treatises, and King Christian III even tried to persuade the Italian Girolamo
Cardano (1501–1576) – who would later be tried before the Inquisition for hav-
ing cast the horoscope of Jesus – to accept a chair in Copenhagen.
Almanacs were more than just calendars and contained predictions, com-
piled by means of astrological interpretation, of wars, diseases, and meteo
rological phenomena for the coming year. The printed almanacs would soon
become common property and the book publishers’ best-selling titles. When
the astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) had his own printing press estab-
lished on the island of Hven, the first publication to leave the press was an
66 Fink-jensen
astrological calendar for 1586. By this time several yearly almanacs were avail-
able on the market and the success of this commodity in all likelihood attests
to the popularity of its astrological content. Another popular book on the sub-
ject was written by the Copenhagen printer and editor Lorentz Benedicht (d.
ca. 1604), who in 1594 issued En Astronomische Bescriffuelse (An Astronomical
Description), which in fact was an astrological description of the influence of
the stars on the nature and inclination of man. Benedicht’s book, a transla-
tion into Danish from a German original, explained how the planets and the
stars affected all aspects of human life, but did so with the permission of God.
Astrology was, in other words, not an infallible guide to one’s fate. Rather, it
was a supplementary guide to the inscrutable ways of the Lord. This particular
view of astrology continued to be supported even by many members of the
clergy well into the seventeenth century. In 1590 the pastor Niels Heldvad (d.
1634) had begun to compose almanacs and astrological prognostications. They
were immensely popular and were printed both in Denmark and Germany
with tens of thousands of copies being sold. In 1616 Heldvad was appointed
royal astrologer to King Christian IV (1577–1648). Also Jens Jensen, formerly
pastor on Hven and chaplain to Tycho Brahe, in the early seventeenth century
published several astrological almanacs and weather predictions.
Tycho Brahe and Astrology
In 1574 Tycho Brahe delivered an oration at the University of Copenhagen on

the mathematical sciences, a topic that included astrology which Tycho treated
at great length. Tycho spoke of the importance and value of astrology and
argued that denying the influence of the stars led to a denial of the wisdom of
God, since the planets could not have been created without a purpose. The
influence of the heavens on earth was easy to discern, Tycho said: sailors and
farmers had noticed that the rising and setting of certain stars caused storms,
and astronomers had on numerous occasions shown how conjunctions were
followed by not only atmospheric changes but also by pestilence and war. The
influence of the stars extended to mankind also, since man was made from the
elements, and Tycho gave a detailed account of the analogy between the parts
and organs of the human body and the seven planets, placing his view of
astrology along the lines of Paracelsian medicine and Hermetic cosmology.
Tycho also touched upon the negative view of astrology held by the theolo-
gians who feared that the art drew men away from God. He reminded his
audience that in the Bible only sorcery was forbidden, not astrology, but he
also readily admitted that neither man nor God was absolutely bound by the
stars.
In his autobiography Tycho Brahe would later write of astrology that,
although it was considered meaningless by laymen and scholars alike, it was
more reliable than one might think. That positive assessment extended to judi-
cial astrology as well, and Tycho claimed to have developed a new method of
forecasting future events, although he refused to reveal it. Tycho’s statement
shows that astrology was by no means accepted by all members of the learned
world, and Tycho therefore consciously distanced himself from what he
deemed to be “crude astrology”, attesting instead to the existence of a more
refined and esoteric type of astrology which could only be grasped by true
scholars.
His treatise on the supernova of 1572 included a whole section on astrologi-
cal forecasts calculated from the observations of the bright star. Besides causing
diseases and natural disasters, the new star, Tycho predicted, warned of
unprecedented political changes across Europe. He outlined these upheavals
in general terms in his treatise, claiming that he knew more on the subject
than he was prepared to reveal in print. Tycho was summoned by King Frederik
II (1534–1588) to discuss the matter on a more detailed level, Tycho’s astrologi-
cal studies now having become a matter of national security. Frederik II
realised how useful the advanced techniques of Tycho’s observations of the
stars could be, not just regarding broad-scale political predictions but also to
the individual members of the royal family in connection with horoscopes. By
1576 the king granted to Tycho Brahe the Island of Hven as a fief for as long as
he lived and as long as he wished to pursue his “mathematical studies”. When
in 1577 Tycho analysed the astrological effects of the comet of that year, he
determined that comets, too, were a matter of major significance to Danish
national security, and he wrote a manuscript for the eyes of the king and the
queen only where he elaborated on the subject. In the same year he was com-
missioned by the king to cast the horoscope of the new-born Prince Christian,
the future King Christian IV.
Sophie Brahe (1556–1643), the sister of Tycho, also preoccupied herself with
astrology and the casting of horoscopes. But whereas Tycho had instructed her
in iatrochemistry, he had warned her against astrological computations
because they, according to Tycho, were too complicated for a woman’s talents.
This only spurred the self-confident and erudite Sophie on, and in a short time
she learned the principles of astrology from German and Latin authors. When
Tycho realised her resolve, he stopped opposing her and offered his advice
instead. He even considered publishing one of her astrological letters. Other
women, too, were known for their astrological expertise. Magdalene Zeger
68 Fink-jensen
(d. 1568), the wife of Thomas Zeger, professor of medicine at the University of
Copenhagen, upon her husband’s death in 1544 settled in the town of Kolding
in Jutland and made a living as an astrologer and author of almanacs.
In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, all the major schools of
medicine, whether Hippocratic, Galenic or Paracelsian, accepted that the stars
could be involved in causing illness. Far from all physicians would agree on the
iatromathematical idea of foretelling the outcome of a disease on the basis of
observations of the planetary constellations at the time of the outbreak, a
practice that made the examination of the patient all but superfluous. The
overall consensus, however, on the influence of the stars on the development
of a disease explains why astrology was assigned to the professors of medicine
at the university – and not, say, the professor of astronomy. Medical astrology
continued to be held in high esteem at the University of Copenhagen well into
the seventeenth century. Caspar Bartholin the Elder, professor of medicine
from 1613 to 1624, published an often reprinted Astrologia sive de stellarum
natura, and in his handbook for students of medicine, De studio medico, which
contained advice on subjects and authors indispensable to the future physi-
cian, Bartholin named eighteen authorities on astrology including Marsilio
Ficino, Giovanni Magini, and Johannes Stöffler, whose student Melanchthon
had been.
The Thirty Years War and Ban on Predictions
Despite their widespread popularity, the astrological contents of the almanacs

were always susceptible to theological criticism for depriving God of his free
will. Leading Danish sixteenth-century theologians such as bishop Peder
Palladius (1503–1560) and professor Niels Hemmingsen (1513–1600) would
accept the influence of the stars on Earth in principle. But Hemmingsen spoke
out against the attempts to predict the fate of men, and several authors of
devotional literature lamented the apparently alarming number of people
who had deposited their free will with the heavenly bodies. Yet it took almost a
century after the Reformation before legislative measures were taken to con-
trol astrology. In 1633 King Christian IV issued a decree making specific
predictions in almanacs forbidden. The ban followed the disastrous interven-
tion in the Thirty Years War which sparked an eschatological mood in Denmark,
particularly following the occupation of a large part of the country by German
imperial troops in 1629. Nothing that could avert the wrath of God, which was
believed to have struck the nation, was left untried. The astrologers’ ungodly
calculations were identified as a major source of God’s anger with the Danes,
and all prophecies with political or theological overtones were prohibited.

Professor of theology Jesper Brochmand (1585–1652) expressed similar senti-
ments about another calamity that struck Denmark in his book De peste
published in 1625, in which he explained that the plague had initially been sent
by God. This did not exclude, however, the possibility of secondary influences
stemming from, e.g., planetary conjunctions. But it was forbidden to engage in
prophesising about the exact effects of these influences. The ban was therefore
not issued as a result of a decline in the belief in the influence of the stars, but
out of fear of divine repercussions.
Not all types of astrology were banned. As with the bull against astrology
issued in 1586 by Pope Sixtus V (1521–1590, pope from 1585), the Danish ban did
not include weather predictions and the practice of astrology in medicine.
Thus, weather predictions continued being printed in the almanacs until the
nineteenth century. The attraction of astrology to both doctors of medicine
and astronomers alike, however, declined over the course of the seventeenth
century, and by the end of the century astrology had acquired an indelible
stigma of pseudo-science.
References
Dreyer, J.L.E. (ed.), Tychonis Brahe Dani Opera Omnia, Vol. I–XV, Copenhagen: Libraria
Gyldendaliana, 1913–1929.
——— . Tycho Brahe: A Picture of Scientific Life and Work in the Sixteenth Century, New
York: Dover, 1963.
Fink-Jensen, Morten, Fornuften under troens lydighed. Naturfilosofi, medicin og teologi i
Danmark 1536–1636, Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2004.
——— . “Medicine, Natural Philosophy, and the Influence of Melanchthon in Refor
mation Denmark and Norway”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 80 (2006),
439–464.
Kragh, Helge (ed.), Fra middelalderlærdom til den nye videnskab, 1000–1730. Dansk natur-
videnskabs historie, Vol. 1, Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2005.
his Instruments and Scientific Work as Given in Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica
(1598), Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1946.
70 Dahl
Chapter 10 Early Modern Astrology in Norway
Astrology in the Early Modern Period in Norway

Gina Dahl
A Shortage of Learned Circles
Throughout the Middle Ages, the Norwegian upper classes apparently had a
scholarly interest in the movements of the heavenly bodies and their influence
on the natural world, including man. There are, however, few sources relating
to medieval astrology in Norway, and no horoscopes dating back to the period
have been preserved. References attesting to this interest may, however, occa-
sionally be spotted in the period’s literature: a list of omens, including
predictions based on astrology, has been preserved, reflecting the medieval
preoccupation with the heavenly bodies’ effect upon man and his surround-
ings. These dealt with the Moon’s passage through the zodiac and the effects
that this crossing would have on the natural world.
Throughout the early modern period, there is evidence of a fascination with
astrology among a broader section of the population. Symptomatic of this
interest is the printing of an almanac in Christiania in 1643, one of the first
books to be printed on Norwegian soil. Astrological speculations also influ-
enced a wide range of topics: when Horticultura, a book on gardening written
by the Trondheim gardener Christian Gartner, was published in 1694, certain
astrological signs were described as either beneficial or harmful to the planting
of fruit trees.
What Norway lacked, however, in the Middle Ages as well as in the early
modern period, were communities that could engender larger scientific socie-
ties stimulating the writing of works on astronomy and astrology: there were
no counterparts to major Danish proponents of astrology such as Anders
Sunesen or Peder Nattergal (Petrus de Dacia) in Norway during the Middle
Ages, and no major centres of learning existed on Norwegian soil. Similarly,
astrology, which was only slowly differentiated from astronomy, was from the
Renaissance period to the end of the seventeenth century generally practised
at courts, universities, and attached observatories, none of which were found
in Norway. Norway’s first scientific society was established as late as during the
latter part of the eighteenth century, and a university observatory as late as
in 1833. Astronomical observations, however, were conducted on Norwegian
soil prior to this date, and in the second half of the eighteenth century in

Early Modern Astrology in Norway 71
particular, the Arctic attracted a range of European astronomers: the Austrian

astronomer Maximilian Hell, for instance, constructed an observatory in Vardø
in 1768 in order to study the transit of Venus. By this time, however, astrol-
ogy had suffered a drastic loss of credibility as part of the scientific, or natural
philosophical, curriculum studied by the upper classes.
Due to the lack of large scientific communities, it was only in the sixteenth
century, a period when the class of educated officials expanded, that authors
on astrology appeared in Norway, and even then only in very limited numbers.
No learned circles professing astrological or astronomical interests existed in
Norway in the early modern period, although books on this topic circulated
among the learned classes. Similarly, the number of writings printed in the
field was very limited, partly due to the hostility occasionally expressed by the
Church towards the art and the small number of printing offices operating in
Norway at the time. What should also be noted is that astrology in the early
modern period only constituted one of several divinatory arts that were prac-
tised at the time: apart from lore concerning conjunctions, the examination of
clouds, comets, and portents appearing in the natural world were also elabo-
rated on by several Norwegian scholars, and these phenomena were generally
interpreted as bearers of divine meaning.
A Tour de Force: Jens Nilssøn
As to astrology proper, a major defence of the art was published in the six-
teenth century by Jens Nilssøn (1530–1600), a Christiania-born theologian
whose father was of Danish origin. Nilssøn completed his education at Copen
hagen University, and after his return to Christiania, he was appointed head of
the Latin School. He also became an important member of the humanist circle
in the capital. Later on, in 1580, Nilssøn was appointed bishop of Christiania,
but throughout this time, he nourished his interest in astrology/astronomy, an
interest that he had developed at an early age: as a student, Nilssøn had made
friends with Peder Jacobsen Flemløse and Tycho Brahe, and he also visited
Brahe on the island of Hven. Apart from writing two major works in Danish,
which were only put into print much later (his diary and his travel accounts),
Nilssøn also wrote six works in Latin, all of which were published during his
own lifetime. Of these, three works in particular deal with astrology/astron-
omy, namely De portentoso cometa, Epideigma and In Genesin. Nilssøn, however,
also professed a profound interest in medicine and botany, and like several
Renaissance philosophers, he was convinced of the existence of correspond-
ences in nature.
72 Dahl
The work De portentoso cometa (1577) was a response to the comet that
Nilssøn had spotted in the sky in the autumn of 1577, a comet which was com-
pared to Tycho’s famous supernova with regard to its brilliance. As was
traditional, Nilssøn interpreted the comet as a bad omen: he saw it as a warn-
ing from God to mankind that the period’s idolatry could only lead to disaster.
The poem, however, also reveals Nilssøn’s astronomical skills: the cause of the
comet was a conjunction between the Moon and the Sun in the sign of Scorpio.
A chart (schema coeli positvm exhibens) showing the heavenly constellations
at the time the comet appeared in the sky, was also attached to the poem. In his
work In Genesin Seu primum Mosi volumen prooemium (1597), Nilssøn defended
astrology as a noble art, because it points back to God’s omnipotence: all exist-
ing things are given by God and thereby constitute manifestations of His
eternal wisdom.
The work Epideigma (1583) represents a more full-blown defence of the art
of astrology. It is not, however, only an astrological, or astronomical, manual:
Epideigma was the first school manual to be written and published by a
Norwegian, and in it Nilssøn seeks to root his natural philosophy in the Mosaic
philosophy imbedded in Genesis. In the book, Nilssøn discusses the world’s
creation, man’s fall from grace and the natural world and its vegetation, ani-
mals, cities, and countries. As a whole, the book should be seen as a manual
presenting the basic rules of Lutheran theology as well as an introduction to
knowledge of nature and the cosmos.
A large part of Epideigma covers the topic of astrology/astronomy. Nilssøn’s
argument as to why astrology reveals what happens in the natural world is
largely Platonic in outlook. God, according to Nilssøn, is everywhere, in every-
thing, and works through everything, which implies that everything which
exists, including the heavenly constellations, simply reveals the will of God.
Because constellations which cause events to occur in the terrestrial realm are
imbued with a meaning given by God, the study of astrology should be consid-
ered the noblest of arts. As an art, Nilssøn therefore places astrology/astronomy,
along with geometry and arithmetic, within the field of mathematics and thus
theoretical philosophy.
Apart from his defence of astrology, Nilssøn also presents a technical clas-
sification of the heavenly bodies in his Epideigma: Nilssøn states that there are
1,022 fixed stars, and he divides these into forty-eight constellations. According
to Nilssøn, conjunctions between planets cause storms, climatic changes, crop
failure, and pestilence. They also account for the rise and fall of empires, riches,
and cities. The movements of the heavenly bodies also cause war and peace, as
well as the appearance of sects and religions, and they also determine the acts
of kings. In fact, Nilssøn believes that each person’s social position, as well as
the other circumstances in a person’s life, are determined by heavenly constel-

lations. Thus, apart from supporting a more mundane use of astrology, Nilssøn
also stresses the importance of natal horoscopes as well as the use of interro-
gational astrology as a way of analysing events occurring at specific moments
in a person’s adult life. Nilssøn also points to the many beneficial aspects of
astrology: according to Nilssøn, astrology is important to practical tasks such
as cartography, sowing, and fixing the days of feasts. Astrological predictions
are also seen as having great value to the general population: knowledge of
forthcoming storms, wars, and epidemics gives people the possibility to pre-
pare for these upcoming events. Nilssøn also defends astrological medicine,
as he claims that the moment of blood-letting can be determined by looking
at the constellations. According to Nilssøn, therefore, heavenly bodies do not
only cause diseases, but are also helpful in the healing process.
Nilssøn also insists that the soul, or will, of man is not subordinated to
astrology. According to Nilssøn, the stars are only influential in those areas of
life where the “bodily” aspects reign, which implies that only events which are
related to the body are ruled by the stars. This “bodily” realm, however, covers
a wide range of areas, notably fortune, physical and psychological conditions,
skills and wit, good or bad health, a long or short life, and violent death. All
human acts, habits, and interests are, as Nilssøn sees it, influenced by the heav-
enly bodies, their different qualities, and the way in which they combine. And
because human humours are influenced by stars people act in many different
ways. Only acts that are based on free will are in Nilssøn’s view not susceptible
to planetary influence and therefore not totally predetermined: a man’s soul,
or the will it has been given, is according to Nilssøn not subject to astrological
predestination, which means that Nilssøn gives a classical answer to the
charges of determinism levelled at astrology: astrology is limited to man’s mor-
tal frame, the body’s passions and its “appetites”, but it does not have any power
over a human’s immortal and immaterial soul.
Renowned Astrologers: Kempe and Edvardsen
Another author with links to Norway who held a vivid interest in astrology was
Ambrosius Rhodius (1605–1696), a lecturer at the Christiania upper secondary
school, who was well known as a Paracelsian spiritualist. Rhodius, who after
his return to Germany set up an observatory in his garden, was in possession
of a wide range of books on astrology/astronomy: in addition to cosmologies
attributed to Paracelsus and Boehme, there were books in Rhodius’ library
written by Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Longomontanus, Erasmus Reinhold,
74 Dahl
David Origanus, Johannes Regiomontanus, Cardano, and Cyprian Leovitz, all

of whom were major authorities in the field. As to his own writings, Rhodius
defended a thesis on medical astrology in 1635, Disputatio astrologica de astro-
rum influxu (Astrological disputation concerning the influence of the stars).
In this work, which deals with the stars’ effects on the generation of disease
in man, astrology is defended as an art which simply deciphers God’s mira-
cles. In addition to his writings on medical astrology, Rhodius, like Nilssøn, also
engaged in mundane astrology. Rhodius used his skills at interpreting plane
tary constellations to comment on political events, and this might in fact have
been the reason for his and his wife’s imprisonment: the interpretation of a
phenomenon spotted in the Christiania sky in 1657 included political predic-
tions that were not welcomed by certain sections of the Christiania elite. In his
interpretation, published in a poem in 1660, Rhodius also complained that the
Church did not exert proper leadership, an interpretation which also reflects
Rhodius’ support of Paracelsus’ theology.
Another author influenced by Paracelsus’ natural philosophy, who was
also profoundly interested in astrology, was the Bergen theologian Edvard
Edvardsen (1630–1695). Edvardsen started his elementary training at the
Bergen Latin School at the age of seven, and left for Copenhagen in 1651. As
he had no personal wealth, Edvardsen only stayed in Copenhagen for the two
years required to obtain the necessary training as a theologian, and in 1654 he
stayed rather briefly in Franeker and in Leiden. It remains uncertain whether
he actually studied there, or whether he just registered as a student in order
to be able at a later stage in his career to show that he had done some stud-
ies abroad. After this interlude, Edvardsen returned to Norway. In the period
1654–1661 he worked as a private tutor, and in 1661 he was appointed lecturer at
the Bergen Latin School. Later, he was appointed conrector, a position in which
he remained until his death in 1695.
Edvardsen was fairly well known in Bergen during his own lifetime, as a
teacher, author, and astrologer. According to his grandchild, the radical Pietist
Edvard Schwarzkopf, Edvardsen was famous for drawing up birth charts, or
nativiteter. According to Schwarzkopf, Edvardsen was so good at casting horo-
scopes that his fellow citizens considered him a sorcerer. Schwarzkopf also
claimed that his grandfather professed knowledge of mathematics, arithmetic,
astronomy, and astrology superior to that of the famous Danish astronomer
Ole Rømer, and that he should be labelled “the second Tycho Brahe”.
There is also evidence of Edvardsen’s interest in the movements of the heav-
enly bodies in some of his writings: in the second part of his history of Bergen
(only published posthumously), a whole chapter is dedicated to signs and por-
tents and remarkable events that had occurred throughout Norwegian history
from the Middle Ages until Edvardsen’s own time. In this account, Edvardsen
also occasionally mentions the heavenly constellations that supposedly caused
the phenomena he discusses. A chapter in the book also reports on the time of
sunrise and sunset in Bergen throughout the year, and another section is
devoted to an elaboration on the Bergen climate. Here he suggests that unu-
sual weather is caused by particular planetary constellations. In the article
“Observation om Cometen dateret Bergen den 20. Aug. 1682”, an observation of
a comet seen on the Bergen sky in 1682 that was published in the Danish jour-
nal Extraordinaire maanedlige Relationer, Edvardsen describes the comet’s
astrological location and its eschatological meaning: like many other early
modern astrologers, Edvardsen interpreted the comet as a bad omen, and elab-
orated in eschatological language on the disastrous events caused by the
comet.
Edvardsen’s unpublished manuscript Sapientia coelestis also attests to the
author’s interest in astrology. The manuscript, which is also evidence of the
author’s belief in Paracelsian philosophy, includes several references to famous
authors on astrology/astronomy, such as Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, and Israel
Hiebner von Schneeberg; the latter author also wrote about alchemy. Also used
as authorities in his cosmic presentation are Origanus’ Introductio to astrology
and astronomy and Andras Argoli’s Ephemerides; Argoli was appointed a
knight of Saint Mark by the Republic of Venice for his excellence as an astrolo-
ger. In Sapientia coelestis, a Paracelsian account of the cosmos, Edvardsen also
elaborates on the planets’ qualities; Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon are seen as
beneficial, whereas Saturn and Mars are malefic. Mercury, according to
Edvardsen, possesses both qualities, as it incorporates the tria prima in more
balanced proportions. In keeping with the Platonic idea of a world soul,
Edvardsen considers the planets as “lesser gods”, each performing his or her
task by exerting a specific innate influence on humankind.
Other Testimonies of Astrological Interests
Although few Norwegians wrote on astrology, titles by various authors from

other countries who had written on this topic were circulated in Norway in the
early modern period: in the Bergen bishopric, for instance, Vaclav Budevez’
Circulus horlogii lunaris seems to have held a certain importance, and in
Trondheim, various other authors seem to have been particularly in vogue, for
instance Christopher Clavius, Argoli, and Wilhelm Blauuw. In the county of
Jarlsberg, astrological/astronomical works written by Thomas Blebel, Wilhelm
Scribonius, Antonius Mizaldus, and Caspar Peucer circulated among the
76 Dahl
parsons. The library belonging to Niels Friis, a late seventeenth-century parson

of Tynset (eastern Norway), also demonstrates that its owner had a particular
interest in astrology/astronomy and geometry, which were all related fields of
study. Friis’ collection is recorded as containing works such as Cyprian Leovitz’
Beschreibung der Eclipsium von 1556 bis 1606; Leovitz, an astronomer and math-
ematician patronised by Maximilian II, predicted in some of his earlier works
that the world would come to an end in 1584. Friis’ library also includes Opus
chronologicum, written by the astrologer/astronomer, mathematician, and
musician Sethus Calvisius (born 1556), as well as works written by Longomon
tanus (Astronomia danica), Jacob Pelletier, Petrus Ramus, and Georg Fromme.
Books of this kind circulated side by side with books on Paracelsianism and
Hermeticism, which simply reflects the importance of esoteric currents in the
period’s natural philosophical curriculum. Overall, however, only a small part
of this knowledge seems to have ended up being written down, and the people
who did write on astrology proper, such as Nilssøn, Edvardsen, and Rhodius, by
and large interpreted unusual celestial phenomena in an eschatological man-
ner, a tendency which they shared with authors who interpreted signs and
portents in the natural world.
References
Balvoll, Gudmund and Gunnar Weisæth, Horticultura; norsk hagebok frå 1694 av Chris
tian Gartner, Oslo: Landbruksforlaget, 1994.
Norway 1650–1750, unpublished Dr. Art dissertation, Bergen, 2007.
Edvardsen, Edvard, Sapientia Coelestis circa 1677, unpublished manuscript at The Royal
Library in Copenhagen, transcribed version by Peder Borgen.
——— . “Observation om Cometen dateret Bergen den 20. Aug. 1682”, Extraordinaire
maanedlige Relationer (1682), 292–293.
——— . Bergens Beskrivelse (part 1 and 2), Bergen: Bergen Historiske Forening and J.D.
Beyer A/S Boktrykkeri, 1952.
Gilje, Nils and Tarald Rasmussen, Tankeliv i den lutherske stat, 1537–1814, Oslo, Aschehoug,
2002.
Hødnebø, Finn (ed.), Kulturleksikon for nordisk middelalder, Oslo: Gyldendal, volume
6, 1961: 675–676, volume 8, 1968, 496–497.
Ingerslev, Emmerik, “Ambrosius Rhodius og hans hustru”, Medicinsk-historiske smaa
skrifter 14 (1916), 3–81.
Nilssøn, Jens, De portentoso cometa, translated by A.K. Fighagen and B. Tosterud, in: Egil
Kaggerud (ed.), Johannes Nicolai. Biskop Jens Nilssøns latinske skrifter, Oslo:
Universitetsforlaget, 2004, 17–39.
——— . In Genesin, translated by M. Heuch Berg and N. Berg, in: Egil Kaggerud (ed.),
Johannes Nicolai. Biskop Jens Nilssøns latinske skrifter, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2004,
269–338.
———. Epideigma, translated by A.K. Frihagen and B. Tosterud, in: Egil Kaggerud (ed.),
Johannes Nicolai. Biskop Jens Nilssøns latinske skrifter, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2004,
133–232.
Pippin, Per Aspaas and Truls Lynne Hansen, Maximilian Hell’s Geomagnetic Observations
in Norway 1769, Tromsø: Tromsø Geophysical Observatory reports vol. 2, 2005.
Shackelford, Jole, A Philosophical Path for Paracelsian Medicine: The Ideas, Intellectual
Context, and Influence of Petrus Severinus (1540/2–1602), Copenhagen: Museum
Tusculanum Press, 2004.
——— . “A Reappraisal of Anna Rhodius: Religious Enthusiasm and Social Unrest in
Seventeenth-Century Christiania, Norway”, Scandinavian Studies 65 (1993),
349–389.
Valkner, Kristen, “Konrektor Edvard Edvardsen”, Nordisk tidsskrift för vetenskap, konst
och industri 41 (1971), 426–439.
78 Lekeby
Chapter 11 Early Modern Astrology in Sweden
Astrology in the Early Modern Period in Sweden

Kjell Lekeby
Introduction
The occult sciences were only marginally influential in sixteenth and seven-
teenth-century Sweden. Only a few learned individuals had delved into the
Hermetic and Neo-Platonic ideas that were fundamental to learned astrology.
Beside this more intellectual form of divination, a more popular form of astrol-
ogy was spread via almanacs, of which the best-known is Bondepraktikan (The
Farmer’s Almanac) which was widely consulted by the common people and
was printed in numerous editions, the first of which appeared in 1662.
Lutheranism in Northern Europe had after the Reformation allowed for the
freedom of each Christian to pursue his or her spirituality within the frame-
work of Church practices and doctrines. This freedom gave rise to a plethora of
“heresies” which challenged official Lutheranism in Sweden and elsewhere.
Lutheran priests took on the role of watchmen of orthodoxy, against “heretics”
and religious dissenters.
In Sweden, which at the time was part of the cultural periphery of Europe,
some of these religious innovators challenged the doctrines and beliefs of
Lutheran priesthood by exploring the mysteries of the heavens. To the extent
that learned astrology gained a foothold in Sweden, it was in close imitation of
trends from the European continent. The only original author on astrology was
Sigfrid Aron Forsius (ca. 1560–1624). Other Swedish esotericists from this
period who had a greater or lesser interest in astrology include Johannes
Bureus (1568–1652), Georg Stiernhielm (1598–1672), and Johannes Franck
(1590–1661), all of whom will be discussed below.
Whereas there are few astrological treatises dating from the early modern
period, there are a considerably larger number of writings against astrology.
Among these one finds works by the professor of astronomy at Uppsala
University Martinus Olavi Stenius (1574–1644), bishop Paulinus Gothus (1565–
1646), and the physician Magnus Gabriel von Block (1669–1722), who wrote
tracts against divination and other forms of “superstition”.
This astrological and anti-astrological material has only to a limited extent
been the topic of academic research. The historian of ideas Sten Lindroth
(1914–1980), to whose scholarship the present chapter is heavily indebted,

Early Modern Astrology in Sweden 79
mentions astrology in several works. A number of historians also briefly touch

upon the subject, but often do so in negative, normative terms. Despite the few
sixteenth and seventeenth-century writers on the topic, and the very limited
interest that modern scholarship has shown in astrology, it is clear that the
practice was of paramount importance to individuals in the highest political
circles of early modern Sweden.
The highly educated King Erik XIV (1533–1577) scrutinised the movements
of the heavenly bodies on a daily basis, a fact that is readily apparent from his
diaries for the years 1566 and 1567. In a book of horoscopes (now at the Royal
Library in Stockholm) he recorded the birth charts of his family, friends and
foes (Andersson 1936). His younger brother Charles IX (1550–1611) was also
careful to take note of major celestial events, and of comets in particular. When
King Charles IX in 1604 proposed a reform of Uppsala University, he suggested
that the professor of astronomy should also teach astrology. The response of
the professors of the University Council to the king’s suggestion reveals no mis-
givings about this innovation. When Charles’ son Gustavus II Adolphus
(1594–1632) was born, his horoscope was cast as usual, among others by Tycho
Brahe (1546–1601). Gustavus II Adolphus himself was not to devote much
attention to astrology. He did, however, share the fear of comets common at
the time. Sources also document his belief in fate, e.g., in his saying ‘my time is
written in heaven, and cannot be changed on Earth’. At Queen Christina’s
(1626–1689) birth astrologers were also present. During her stay in Rome, she
repeatedly consulted astrologers, e.g., at papal elections and other major politi-
cal events. A horoscope of Christina, prepared in the 1650s by the German
astrologer Andreas Goldmayer, is interpreted as a prediction of her difficulties
in love and her inability to bear children (Lekeby 1987: 2001; original horoscope
MS: Royal Library in Stockholm X755). Christina’s cousin and successor Charles
X Gustavus also frequently consulted astrologers (Dahl 1937; Losman 1980).
Sigfrid Aron Forsius
Sigfrid Aron Forsius, priest, poet, and professor of astronomy, was as far as is
known the only professional astrologer in early modern Sweden. At first he
probably studied in Rostock, but was in 1595 registered at Uppsala University.
Beside authors specifically writing about astrology, foremost of which was
Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576), his main sources of inspiration were Cornelius
Agrippa (1486–1535), Valentin Weigel (1533–1580) whom he cites in a defence
of astrology published in 1619, and in particular the versatile Paracelsus. In the
years between 1608 and 1610 he was professor of astronomy in Uppsala, and
80 Lekeby
also taught astrology as part of his duties. He began to publish almanacs with
predictions tailored to a Swedish readership; these almanacs appeared
between 1606 and 1624. His predictions routinely foretold major political and
spiritual upheavals.
During his professorship in Uppsala, Forsius wrote a textbook on natural
philosophy – the first in the Swedish language – which was completed in 1611
under the title Physica. Forsius based this work on Johannes Magirus’ (ca.
1560–1596) scholastic philosophy of nature, Physiologiae (1597), which was
compulsory reading at Uppsala University, but also attempted to introduce
various anti-scholastic ideas. His point of departure in doing so was a Hermetic
and Neo-Platonic philosophy of nature that saw the cosmos as a whole and
described nature in poetic and spiritual terms. He also relied on Paracelsus,
and in particular his tract Liber meteororum. A lengthy section of his book is
devoted to astrology, while other passages are devoted to discussions of the
world soul and of the doctrine of four elements (see below).
Forsius discusses the great value of knowledge and the elevated position of
the human being in the world: humans alone have an immortal and rational
soul, by means of which they can contemplate nature. With great admiration,
they see a creation wherein all is filled with beauty and meaning. In the third
book of the Physica, Forsius emphasises the theory of the world soul: the world,
which is mother of all things, must necessarily also possess life and soul. This
theory of an anima mundi, a world soul, was to become an influential compo-
nent of Forsius’ attempt to explain the celestial influences.
Forsius, following Paracelsus, only accepted three of the Aristotelian ele-
ments: earth, water, and air, as did a number of other writers in the sixteenth
century. The excluded element, fire, was by Forsius replaced by Heaven. Indeed,
Heaven functions as a kind of fourth element in all things, including the human
being whose inner heaven corresponds to the outer heaven, in accordance
with the principle of “as above, so below”. Objects as well as human beings thus
comprise a celestial component, or a divine core of heaven/fire, which is acti-
vated by the movement of the outer heaven and by the motions of the planets.
This is an idea developed further in his defence of astrology published in 1619.
In a time of increasing Lutheran intolerance, Forsius developed a specula-
tive and apocalyptic philosophy that incorporated Paracelsian themes. In a
prognostication published in 1609, he writes of an alchemical saviour and of
the rise of a new age: ‘in this time of ours an Elias Artista will arise, of whom
Theophrastus has prophesied’. These apocalyptic themes culminate in the
forecasts for 1619 and 1620. His speculations apparently went too far in the eyes
of the clerical authorities, who compelled him to defend his astrological opin-
ions in front of the cathedral chapter at Uppsala. He did so by composing a
tract in favour of astrology, the Scriptum apologeticum. It appears that Forsius

was protected by one or more highly placed individuals, and was therefore able
to avoid any more dire consequences of his heterodox views.
In this text, Forsius defends the truth and raison d’être of astrology, and
deplores the attacks directed against the art by theologians. In fact, Forsius
suggests, astrology is theologically impeccable. It does not contradict the word
of God, as the theologians claim, but demonstrates divine providence: the
heavens are the very instruments by which God rules over the world and over
human beings.
Forsius relies on a scholastic tradition that differentiates between the heav-
ens on the one hand and the three lower elements on the other: the material
and passive elements earth, water, and air. Heaven (fire) is in Forsius’ text
almost identical with the world soul or aether, an active and essential element.
Forsius suggests that astrology is based on a generally accepted physical model,
according to which heaven is made of a nobler element than our world. At the
same time, everything celestial is in some sense also present on earth.
Everything under the Moon is ruled and initiated by the non-elemental
nature of heaven, its anima mundi. For Paracelsus in particular – an authority
invoked by Forsius that was certainly not well accepted by the Uppsala theolo-
gians – the existence of celestial forces and celestial effects was axiomatic.
Behind the events of visible nature there was an invisible domain, a spiritual
operative force: these were arcana or magnalia which impart life and essence
to all things. With Paracelsus, “heaven” was to be understood not only as the
visible sky above, but also das Gestirn, the inner firmament of all things in
nature, a spiritual nature concealed within the material. Every person has an
inner heaven which influences his or her fate and directs him or her to pursue
various arts and sciences. The outer heavens studied by astrologers are by no
means the sole influence on the individual; at most, they constitute a force that
incites people to develop in particular ways. In accordance with the principles
of correspondence, the heavens awaken the powers or abilities that exist in
astral Man. The stars cannot compel us to do anything for which we lack such
inner aptitudes. By studying the picture of heavens found in the horoscope,
Forsius suggests that one can become conscious of one’s inner nature and
thereby escape blind fate. The wise man rules over his stars. Echoing Ptolemy,
Paracelsus, Valentin Weigel, and Cardano, Forsius writes in his apology:
One [element], however, is higher: heaven or aether together with the

stars, which is active in relation to the other elements like a father and
like being itself, ousia. This is the name given by the kabbalists of secret
philosophy to the source, the formal or essential element and the world
82 Lekeby
soul. For it is from this element that all events in the microcosm take their
origin. For the nature of all things comes from aether, and from heaven
and through heaven the outer are promoted and incited, so that the inner
forces or possibilities become active and manifest in various actions.
Other Early Modern Astrologers
Forsius had a few predecessors, among whom one can mention Georgius Olai
(d. 1592) and Nicolaus Ringius (b. ca. 1550), each of whom published a prognos-
tic for the year 1588, including astrological predictions (Sandblad 1942). Forsius
was nevertheless the key figure of early modern Swedish astrology, and his
influence on seventeenth-century intellectual circles was considerable. Among
those who drew on Forsius’ ideas one finds the kabbalist Johannes Bureus, the
author Georg Stiernhielm, the professor of medicine Johannes Franck, and the
physician and polymath Urban Hiärne.
Of these individuals, Johannes Bureus (1568–1652) held philosophical ideas
that were arguably closest to Forsius’. Bureus was considered a heretic by con-
temporary theologians, but was able to avoid reprisals because he was the
teacher and confidant of King Gustavus Adolphus. Bureus achieved some mea-
sure of fame on the European continent, due to his Rosicrucian writings and
the speculations on a Nordic Rune Kabbala in his book Adulrunan. His specific
interest in astrology is poorly documented, although the sources indicate that
he consulted his own horoscope, as did the father of Swedish poetry Georg
Stiernhielm (1598–1672). Stiernhielm’s interest in neo-Platonic and Hermetic
ideas was awakened through his contacts with Bureus. Around 1650, Stiernhielm
participated in the learned discussions at the court of Queen Christina, and
impressed foreign intellectuals who visited Stockholm with his original think-
ing. His astrological insights are apparent from the fact that he drew a birth
chart for Gustavus II Adolphus (Lekeby 2001).
Among the other individuals who were in some way connected to the art of
astrology, one can mention the following. Professor of medicine at Uppsala
Johannes Franck (1590–1661) defended astrology 1626 in his tract De insigni
[…]. Franck was a devoted alchemist, but sympathised to a greater extent with
scholasticism than with neo-Platonic philosophy of nature. Martinus Erici
Gestrinius (1594–1648) in 1647 published the first Swedish handbook of astron-
omy, Uraniae, where he also describes the art of calculating horoscopes. The
professor of astronomy Petrus A. Schomerus (1607–1660) was convinced of the
validity of astrology, and the lecturer in mathematics Nicolaus L. Malmenius
(d. 1697) in 1633 suggested that the stars held a considerable influence over the
sublunary world. The professor of mathematics Simon S. Kexlerus (1602–1669)

briefly discussed astrology in his works, e.g., in Disputatio inauguralis astrolo-
giam generalem proponens (1653). Johannes Erici Stiernstråle (1607–1686) in
1645–1646 chaired discussions held under the headings De veritate astrologica
I and II (On the Truth of Astrology). As late as in 1688, Petrus Lagerlööf (1648–
1699) chaired a discussion in Uppsala with the title De astrorum influxu (On
the influence of the stars). These and other astrological authors are discussed
in Nordenmark 1959 and Nordström 1965.
The Critique of Astrology
In Sweden, the influence of astrology remained rather limited due to negative

reactions from two groups of people. On the one hand, several neo-Aristote-
lians, e.g., Martinus Olavi Stenius (1574–1644) and Johannes Rudbeckius
(1581–1646), who shortly after 1600 returned from studies in Germany, were
very hostile toward astrology. On the other hand, the Lutheran clerical leader-
ship saw it as their duty to protect Church doctrines against what they saw as
spiritual deviations. Religious intolerance was elevated to legal status at the
1611 Riksdag session in the city of Örebro. The demand was raised that ‘those
who have succumbed to false doctrines should be considered severed from the
nation’. The persecution of “heretics” culminated in the 1620s.
After having studied mathematics in the Protestant city of Helmstedt,
Martinus Olavi Stenius was appointed professor of astronomy at Uppsala in
1605. After a few years he fell out with King Charles IX and was removed from
his position, probably because Stenius was adamantly opposed to astrology.
After the death of the king in 1611, Stenius wrote his Disputation mot astrologin
(Tract Against Astrology). The choice of topic was due to his controversies with
Forsius, who had been appointed professor in 1609–1610, and had taught astrol-
ogy at the request of the king.
In this work, Stenius takes as his point of departure the neo-Aristotelian phi-
losophy taught at Protestant universities in Germany. In this Lutheran version
of scholasticism, occult influences and theories of a world soul had no place.
He borrows arguments from Otto Casmann’s Astrologia (1599), a work which in
turn relies on Agrippa’s De incertitudine et vanitate (1527). Stenius categorically
rejects astrology, and makes a clear distinction between astronomy and astrol-
ogy. He emphasises that the heavenly bodies are natural objects, and that their
effects are therefore also natural and not supernatural. He thereby divorces
the science of celestial mechanics from religious speculations on the heavens.
When Stenius discusses whether the celestial bodies can have the influences
84 Lekeby
claimed for them by astrologers, it is the efficient cause that he focuses on. The
only quality he accords to these bodies is motion, and therefore he rejects the
possibility that they may have hidden qualities and influences.
Crucial to his tract is thus his concept of causality. Astrological predictions
are made on the basis of the generally operating causes that the heavenly bod-
ies are understood to be. According to Stenius, however, there is no evidence of
any causal nexus between celestial events and events on Earth. Nor can the
heavens influence people, since human rationality is not material, and a mate-
rial object cannot affect a spiritual agent. The human will is therefore free, an
opinion that astrologers for different reasons also accepted.
Bishop Paulinus Gothus was at first positively inclined toward astrology.
After the death of Charles IX in 1611, he changed his mind: it was no longer
politically very expedient to support astrology. In his Ethica Christiana (1617)
he devotes a chapter entitled “Om stjernespådomar” (On Star Divination) to a
violent attack. The official line of the Swedish Church had apparently changed:
what was previously tolerated to some extent was now characterised as forbid-
den. The report of the cathedral chapter of Uppsala to Gustavus II Adolphus
on 5 June 1619 regarding Forsius’ astrological activities can similarly be seen as
the official attitude of scholarly Uppsala. Presumably, Paulinus Gothus was
directly involved in formulating a rejection of astrology that follows in Stenius’
footsteps. Judiciary astrology is rejected as being both false and against the
word of God: ‘Such divination is completely uncertain and false, damaging and
forbidden by Scripture. For with such divination one sanctions a Stoic concep-
tion of fate, and diminishes Divine Providence and the free will of the Son of
Man’.
During the seventeenth century, the church gradually lost its unique status
as authority in matters of science. Especially in the natural sciences, a new
conception of causality gained foothold in intellectual milieus, and with it
scholastic physics as well as astrology lost their position. Teleology was ruled
out of the sciences, and the stars were no longer accorded any particular
importance in human life. By the middle of the seventeenth century, Cartesian
philosophy had gained a dominant position in the academic world, and astrol-
ogy simply became irrelevant in university circles. Although most astronomers
no longer took astrology seriously, the astrological art was not entirely forgot-
ten. A royal decree of 2 October 1665, explains that “reading the planets” was a
forbidden superstition. When professor of astronomy Anders Spole (1630–
1699) in 1694 published a textbook of astronomy, Exercitatio academica […], he
included instructions on how to calculate a horoscope. Almanacs also contin-
ued to include astrological prognostications, even if some doubts were voiced
in these publications regarding the validity of divination; perhaps predictions
were kept in the almanacs simply to cater to a readership that otherwise might
stop buying them.
The Eighteenth Century and Beyond
By the beginning of the eighteenth century, learned astrology was entirely

passé at Swedish universities. The question of the validity of astrology was very
rarely raised, and then only to be flatly rejected. Professor of astronomy at
Uppsala Nils Celsius (1658–1724) had several times in the 1690s discussed
astrology, and took up the question once again in his dissertation De vanitate
astrologiae (1721), but it remains unclear why Celsius should devote polemics
against a practice defended by none of his peers. Perhaps his dissertation was
merely an exercise in the art of argumentation. The term “astrology” no longer
occurs in titles of tracts, which – if they are at all concerned with the subject
– discuss “destiny” (de fato) and “superstition” regarding human fate.
The attempts by Charles XII (1682–1718) to safeguard Swedish rule over the
Baltic area gave rise to numerous prophecies, but these were denounced as
“nonsense” and “madness” by physician and alchemist Magnus G. von Block
in his Åtskillige Anmärkningar öfwer thesza Tiders Falske Astrologiska, Phan
tastiska och Enthusiastiska Prognostiker, Spådomar och Prophetier (Numerous
Remarks on the False Astrological, Fantastic and Enthusiastic Prognostications,
Predictions and Prophecies of These Times, 1708).
Chaplain to the king Simon Isogaeus (1643–1709), in his Carla Seger-Skiöld
(Carl Triumph Shield, printed in 1714), posed the questions whether it is
because of fate that a soldier should die, whether a soldier should observe
omens, and whether the stars affect the events of a war. His theological conclu-
sions are that people may try to make predictions, but that it is God who rules
our destinies. Johan Arckenholtz (1695–1777) wrote a voluminous biography of
Queen Christina in 1751, where he calls astrologers ‘vermin that had spread
even to the furthest North’ (cette vermine d’astrologues s’étoit donc transpor-
tée même au fond du Nord). Carl Gustaf Tessin, mentor of King Gustavus III, in
1755 declared that astrology was “sinful”. The fact that several critics, including
the aforementioned von Block and Arckenholtz, were alchemists, is character-
istic of the times: alchemy was seen as an instrumental manipulation of metals
with no connection to the kind of speculative philosophy of nature that formed
part of astrology. Famous people such as Carl von Linné, who in younger years
had been attracted by alchemy, and the mystic and esotericist Emanuel
Swedenborg, seem to have had no interest in astrology.
86 Lekeby
Astrology underwent a modest revival in the latter half of the eighteenth

century, in the subcultures of secret orders. However, the attraction of astrol-
ogy seems to have been the perceived antiquity of its symbolism, rather that
the practice of calculating and interpreting horoscopes. A very few individuals
seem to have pursued a private fascination with astrology. Johan Åbom, librar-
ian of King Charles III (1748–1818), and active in the esoteric circles of the
Stockholm court in the 1780s, was one of these, as was chamberlain Gustav
Adolf Reuterholm (1756–1813), and the poet Johan Gabriel Oxenstierna (1750–
1818) who left some astrological manuscripts. In 1784, Åbom drew up a chart
over Reuterholm (Swedish Masonic Archive, nr 121.102), but the latter has
added the remark that ‘I keep this [horoscope] more for my amusement than
as an oracle; the future will tell whether it will deserve being preserved’.
A different kind of celestial divination flourished in the eighteenth century
and survived well into the nineteenth. More than 400 popular almanacs were
published in the first half of the eighteenth century alone. In these, the peas-
ant population could follow the phases of the Moon, and choose auspicious
days for farming tasks such as sowing and harvesting as well as for personal
activities such as bathing, cupping or having one’s hair cut. This folk version of
astrology seems to have been particularly popular in times of political trouble.
As a divinatory genre, Swedish folk almanacs do not appear to have much in
common with astrology as an intellectual endeavour. They are mentioned here
because they are nevertheless tangentially related to the esoteric conviction
that cosmic events affect human destiny.
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——— . “Ett Kort Judicium om Astrologiske Fåfänge Stiernegissningar”, in Celsius’ al-
manacs for the years 1696–1700.
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Uppsala Universitets Årsskrift (1952), 10.
——— . Scriptum Apologeticum, Försvarskrift 1619, ed. F.W. Pipping, Historiska Bidrag
till Finlands Calendariografi I, in Bidrag till Kännedomen om Finlands Natur och
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Franck, Johannes, De insigni et admirabile siderum coelestium […], Upsaliae 1626.
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Gothus, Laurentius Paulinus, Ethica Christiana, Stockholm 1617.
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Skrifter intill 1749, Stockholm 1878.
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Lindroth, Sten, “Forsius” in Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon.
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Lithberg, Nils, Almanackan: från astrologisk rådgivare till svensk kalender, Svenska hu-
manistiska förbundet 40, Stockholm: Norstedt, 1933.
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Contemporary Astrology in Denmark 89
Chapter 12 Contemporary Astrology in Denmark
Astrology in the Contemporary Period in Denmark

Kirstine Munk
Historical Background
After being part and parcel of early modern intellectual culture (see the chap-
ter Astrology in the Early Modern Period in Denmark in the present volume),
astrology experienced a massive decline, but was like in other Western coun-
tries revived toward the end of the nineteenth century. The rise of astrology in
the contemporary era in Denmark was here – as elsewhere – intimately con-
nected with the successful dissemination of other esoteric currents, primarily
the Theosophical movement, and until the mid-1950s astrology unfolded
mainly within closed esoteric societies such as the Theosophical Society and
the Anthroposophical Society. This period until the mid-1950s is not very well
documented, and the present presentation will therefore mainly focus on
astrology in late modernity.
One of the best-known astrologers of the first part of the twentieth century
was Max Heindel (1865–1919), who was born in Denmark but emigrated early
in life to Scotland and later to California, where he founded the Rosicrucian
Fellowship and wrote several books on astrology, among others Message of the
Stars (1917). However, he is not part of the development of astrology in Den
mark, which only took off many years after his departure.
As for the period in focus in the present chapter, the earliest astrology book
in Danish, Astrologi og symbolik (Astrology and Symbolism), was written by the
Freemason Ove Rosmund (who later changed his name to Rosmon) and was
published in 1926. Rosmon (1893–1961) is the most salient figure in Danish
astrology prior to World War II. He also wrote the popular book De 12 mennes-
ketyper. Den esoteriske astrologis grundprincipper (The Twelve Human Types:
The Basic Principles of Esoteric Astrology) which was published in 1936 and
later reprinted in 1944, 1956, and 1967.
The Theosophical Society expanded in Denmark during the 1920s and many
of the pioneers of astrology came from this movement. Among these one can
mention Poul Kastrup (1910–1964) and Carl V. Hansen (1907–1976). Together
with the flamboyant astrologer, fakir, hypnotist, and illusionist, Louis Brinkfort
(1888–1958), they published the occult magazine OM. Louis Brinkfort wrote
one of the first Danish sun sign astrology books, Zodiakken – din fødseldag, din

90 Munk
skæbne (The Zodiac – Your Birthday, Your Destiny; published in 1947). Text
passages from this book were used as sun sign descriptions in the divination
machine in Copenhagen’s popular amusement park Tivoli.
Poul Kastrup was among the first to give astrology classes (beginning in
1952), and Carl V. Hansen wrote several books, among others Astrologi (1965),
which is considered to have been among the most influential astrology books
on the market when astrology became mainstream in the late 1960s and
onwards. Also, a Danish translation of Louis de Wohl’s Astrologi (1951) circu-
lated throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
An important shift took place on the Danish astrology scene in the mid-
1950s: “Fru Stella”, alias Irene Christensen, began to publish the monthly
magazine Stjernerne (The Stars) in 1956 and two years later founded the first
astrology school in Denmark, the I.C. Institute – an abbreviation for Irene
Christensen as well as for a significant point in a chart. Both the magazine and
the school still exist. Irene Christensen was not affiliated with any esoteric
movements, and both her magazine and the school became pivotal in the
development of Danish astrology as an “existential” and – by self-definition –
non-religious discipline.
In 1969, Gilbert Tjørnum, who was teaching at the I.C. Institute, published
the book Astrologi. Horoskopets opstilling (Astrology: Chart Calculation), which
had earlier appeared as a series in the magazine Stjernerne. The book gave a
very didactic and simple instruction in chart calculation, so that anybody
could now calculate a chart simply by following the steps of the book. In 1974,
the school introduced a diploma exam in chart calculation and interpretation.
Among the techniques to be mastered was the German astrologer Heinrich
Kündig’s method of rectification. This method was considered the best by the
teachers at the I.C. Institute, and since most Danish astrologers were taught
here, Kündig’s method of rectification (according to which the “astrological
birth” can only take place at certain mathematically appropriate times) has
become one of the characteristic traits of Danish astrology.
Another important figure in Danish astrology is the Hungarian Ferenc
Szöllösi who had fled to Denmark in 1956. He had an immense number of cli-
ents and in 1969 created the first evening school classes in astrology, i.e., classes
that are subsidised by the ministry of education and open for all. It may seem
odd that the state would support such classes financially, but astrology was
classified as a hobby along with sewing or painting and therefore entered the
evening school curriculum almost without protests. Later others followed in
his steps and during the 1970s, the evening school programme became instru-
mental in disseminating astrology as a legitimate occupation and hobby
among the Danish population. In 1970, Szöllösi also published the popular
books Astrologi. Rigtigt lært I–II, (Astrology taught correctly I–II) which for
many people at the time became the pathway to astrology. Some of the best-
known Danish astrologers today (e.g., Karen Boesen and Claus Houlberg) were
educated by him through the evening school programme.
Astrology expanded through the 1980s and many new books appeared on
the market, e.g., Horoskopets byggestene (The Building Blocks of the Horoscope;
published in 1982) and Det progressive horoskops tolkning (The Interpretation
of the Progressed Chart; published in 1985) by Birthe Kirk who was manager of
the I.C. Institute from 1976 to 1986. The astrologers Johan Hjelmborg and Louise
Kirsebom published Øjeblikshoroskopet. Teori, metode og astrologisk praksis
(Horary Astrology: Theory, Method and Astrological Practice) in 1987, and the
astrologer Karl Åge Jensen published Astrologiens verden (The World of
Astrology) in 1989. The latter sold 20,000 copies, which is a very high number
for the small Danish-language market. The effort of seeking scientific legiti-
macy resulted in Denmark in the book Astrologien i videnskabelig belysning
(Astrology in the Light of Science; published in 1980) by Sven Frederik Fischer
Svensson.
There is a close connection between developments in the astrological
milieu and technological developments, and the appearance of the personal
computer resulted in a major growth of astrology throughout the 1980s. The
Danish astrologer Laurids Højbjerg Pedersen was the first to design astrologi-
cal software for computers, and these were exported internationally. The first
program was made in 1981, and in 1986 the first astrological software designed
specifically for a personal computer was on the market, which made chart
calculation an easy task. Initially this software was used worldwide, but now
it competes with other programmes, and the Danish software from Electric
Ephemeris is today mainly used by Danish and Norwegian astrologers. (The
Danish software includes the Kündig method of rectification which is used in
both Denmark and Norway).
The period from the mid-1980s until the mid-1990s became a golden age for
astrology, and several new schools were founded, most of which disappeared
when the peak was over. Among these one may mention Institut for Astrologi
in Århus, which was affiliated with the I.C. Institute, Astrologskolen in Copen
hagen which was led by the English-born Adrian Duncan, and The Unicorn
School – an Anglophone astrology school in Copenhagen led by English-born
Derek Seagrief and the American astrologer Tad Mann. Modern astrology is
mainly an urban phenomenon, but during this peak astrology was widespread,
and even smaller towns in Jutland could boast of having their own astrology
schools.
92 Munk
In 1990, the astrologer Karl Åge Jensen founded Skandinavisk Astrologi

Skole (The Scandinavian School of Astrology), which is situated in Copenhagen
as a part of Astrologihuset – a location in Copenhagen which is used for lec-
tures and events on astrology and other types of modern divination and
alternative therapy. The school now exists under the name Astrologisk
Akademi after its fusion with Jupiterskolen in 2007. Jupiterskolen was launched
by Claus and Laila Houlberg in 1990 and taught a combination of esoteric
astrology and psychotherapy. It remains situated on the island of Bornholm,
but has connections to Astrologisk Akademi in Copenhagen and even has a
branch in Norway. Skandinavisk Astrologi Skole also had branches in Odense
and Århus, but these have closed.
In 1996, the esoteric astrologer Holger Stavnsbjerg started Den Astrologiske
Skole in Århus, which teaches both classical and esoteric astrology. While the
general interest in classical astrology has declined since 2000 (measured in the
number of astrology students in the schools), esoteric astrology, although mar-
ginal, has remained relatively steady.
The Organisation of Astrology
From a sociological point of view, contemporary astrology is a dynamic and

minimally organised religious system. In Denmark, the first organisation of
astrologers, SAFA, Sammenslutningen af Fagastrologer (Society of Professional
Astrologers), was founded in 1978 by Birthe Kirk, who was at the same time also
manager of the I.C. Institute. SAFA later changed its name into DAF, Danske
Astrologers Forening (Union of Danish Astrologers), and later again into Dansk
Astrologforening – in colloquial speech simply Astrologforeningen – which
was finally dissolved in 2003 after a long history of internal disagreements.
Denmark does therefore not have an umbrella organisation for astrologers, but
there is an interest organisation, Ekliptika, which organises astrology lectures
and discussion evenings in Copenhagen. Ekliptika was founded in 1980 and is
open to all types of astrologers and to anybody who is interested in astrology.
The gravitational centres in contemporary Danish astrology are currently
The Astrology House in Denmark and the I.C. Institute. The I.C. Institute holds
occasional master classes, until the recent past often involving Christian Borup
(d. 2015) who was by far the most popular and well-known Danish astrologer.
Christian Borup was manager of the school from 1986 to 1997. He often gave
lectures abroad and has been instrumental in bringing foreign guest lecturers
to the I.C. Institute. The I.C. Institute is still affiliated with the monthly maga-
zine Stjernerne and has a publishing unit by the same name.
The Astrology House was founded by Karl Åge Jensen in 1992. It was situated
in Valby (in the vicinity of Copenhagen) until 2002, when it moved to more
spacious surroundings in the centre of Copenhagen. The Astrology House
comprises the astrology school, Astrologisk Akademi, The Astrological
Museum, an astrological telephone consultation service, the astrological quar-
terly magazine Horoskopet, a small publishing company which specialises in
astrological literature, an auditorium, and consultation rooms which The
Astrology House sublets to various alternative therapists and divination
experts. Besides astrology, The Astrology House offers clairvoyance, healing,
reflexology, hypnosis, psychotherapy, massage, etc. Many of the astrologers
who are affiliated with The Astrology House also claim to master other forms
of divination. In this sense, the Astrology House is typical of the New Age net-
work, whereas the I.C. Institute focuses on astrology.
The Astrological Museum is the world’s first museum of astrology. It was
founded in 1999 by a number of dedicated astrologers and comprises a large
book collection, databases, and curios. In 2003, the Astrological Museum
began to publish the Internet journal Cornelius which was dedicated to doc-
umentation of and research into astrology. Since 2003, the museum has also
published a free information e-letter, Sophie, which is concerned with the
history of astrology in Denmark, and in 2007 the international information
e-letter, Tycho, appeared.
In 1997 the Danish business astrologer Karen Boesen founded ISBA (Inter
national Society of Business Astrologers). The organisation aims to ‘increase
public awareness of professional and business astrology’. Its membership con-
tinues to increase and at the time of writing has members in most parts of the
world. On a more local level, Center for Esoterisk Astrologi was founded by
Holger Stavnsbjerg in Århus in 2005. The centre organises guest lectures on
both classical and esoteric astrology.
Much of the internal astrological debate in recent times has taken place
on the Internet, first through one of the largest newspapers in Denmark,
Politiken, which had a Bulletin Board Service where astrological “confer-
ences” took place. When this service closed down in 1999, the debate moved to
Astrologyforum.dk, situated on Christian Borup’s personal website. Further
more, when Astrologforeningen still existed, it hosted a lively web debate
forum, Den Røde Tråd (The Red Thread). At the time of writing, Den Røde Tråd
only exists as a database at The Astrological Museum. Some of the astrologers
continue the discussions at Astrologiforeningens Gratistråd which is spon-
sored by The Astrological Museum.
94 Munk
Astrology and the Media
In contemporary Denmark, practically everybody is exposed to astrology via

the modern media. Sun sign astrology appears in almost all magazines and
tabloids as well as on the Internet. Magazines have experienced increased sales
when they offer extra astrology related material, and almost 40 % of the read-
ers of the largest tabloid, Ekstrabladet, are said to read their horoscope every
day. The Internet grew explosively during the mid-1990s, and compared to
the rest of Europe, Denmark and other Scandinavian countries were in the
forefront, and today the Internet offers numerous Danish astrology sites. At
Jubii.com – the largest Danish Internet portal – approximately half of the users
access the astrology pages on a regular basis. Astrology via SMS has also become
a rapidly expanding business. Not surprisingly, mainly individuals in the age
bracket 15 to 35 use mediated astrology.
There is a close connection between the development of modern media and
astrological currents. As mentioned above, in Denmark, modern astrology
experienced a peak in the late 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. A major
reason for this is the fact that the popular astrologer Birthe Kirk appeared on
national television every Saturday evening during prime time, interpreting the
charts and guessing the identity of various celebrities. As a result, astrologers
in Denmark had more clients than ever, astrology schools arose in numerous
localities, and a new branch, “business astrology”, appeared on the scene and
was relatively well received in business circles.
From 2002 and the following years, astrology experienced its most recent
boom in Denmark due to another entertainment TV programme, The 6th
Sense, which was running on weekdays during prime time and had close to
one million viewers each week, i.e., one-fifth of the Danish population. In
The 6th Sense two teams competed about guessing the identity of two secret
celebrity guests in the show. One of the teams included the popular astrol-
oger, Christian Borup, whose performance made astrology so popular in
Denmark that his colleagues have nick-named this latest peak “the Christian
Borup effect”. This effect was clearly measured both by the number of astrol-
ogy clients in astrological consultations and on Internet statistics. Following
the success of the TV show, Christian Borup published an introductory astrol-
ogy book, Astrology for nysgerrige (Astrology for the Curious; published in
2003).
The price of participating in the media is that one becomes defined by its
entertainment value, and astrology in Denmark is in many ways characterised
by the postmodern conditions of mediated experience: It has to be immediately
interesting, inspiring, and quick. Astrology has therefore for many of its con-
temporary users become part of a daily morning ritual: When the work day
begins and the computer is started, the first thing to do is to grab a cup of cof-
fee and access one’s favourite Internet site with the daily stars.
Who are the Danish Astrology Clients?
Danish clients who use astrology on the Internet or who seek personal consul-
tations are relatively well-educated urban dwellers with medium to high levels
of education. In Denmark, as elsewhere, women constitute the vast majority of
astrology users. Approximately three-quarters of the clients who consult an
astrologer are women, but there is an increase in the number of male clients.
Astrology is a middle-class phenomenon which is now connected with the
processes of postmodernity. Increased media interaction, increased levels of
information, distrust in science, and a challenged sense of self are some of the
factors that contribute to the growth of astrology. The lack of a privileged view-
point creates an opening towards alternative visions of the world, and Denmark
is one of the countries in the world that is most clearly affected by the social
conditions of postmodernity. Compared to the rest of Scandinavia, Denmark
has little heavy industry, and a significant part of the export surplus is created
by the film and fashion industries. Postmodernity marginalises people in a way
which is not gender specific, and this is probably both the reason for the
increase of male clients as well the reason why astrology has such a prominent
place in Denmark compared to the rest of Scandinavia.
The use of astrology does not replace other religious orientations. In Den
mark, people can belong to the mainstream Churches and still find astrology
a meaningful practice, or they may consider themselves non-religious, or may
be interested in New Age spirituality. Furthermore, the use of astrology is not
correlated with belief in astrology. People may believe in astrology, without
actively using astrological services, or they may use astrology regularly while
insisting that they do not believe in it. Astrology in contemporary, modern
Denmark is an input that can be used on a daily basis (e.g., on the Internet), or
during a crisis when people prefer an astrological consultation, but due to this
loose connection between belief and practice, interviews with Danish clients
indicate that they seldom follow the advice they get (Munk 2009, 2011).
96 Munk
The Main Characteristics of Astrology in Denmark
Despite the fact that Denmark is such a small country, the international
influence on Danish astrology is significant, and Danish astrologers inter-
act frequently with astrologers abroad. They often teach and give lectures
in other countries, where they present their newly developed techniques of
interpretation. The afore-mentioned Christian Borup was a regular speaker at
international conferences, and had an impact on the development of astrol-
ogy in Russia when astrology began flourish there just after the fall of the iron
curtain. The astrologers Johan Hjelmborg and Louise Kirsebom have created
their own “school” of astrological practice and often teach in German-speaking
countries. ISBA (International Society of Business Astrologers) was founded
by Danish Karen Boesen, and astrologers from other countries have settled in
Denmark from where they maintain their international connections. As we
have seen, Copenhagen at one point even had an Anglophone astrology school.
The interaction between astrology in Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia
has mainly been between Denmark and Norway: Many astrologers in Denmark,
but also quite a few astrologers in Norway, use the Kündig method of rectifica-
tion, and Danish software produced by Electric Ephemeris is therefore easily
sold in both countries. The Danish astrology school on the Island of Bornholm,
Jupiterskolen, has a branch in Norway, and books on astrology in the Danish
language can be found in Norwegian bookstores. Norwegian astrologers have
also on several occasions taught in Denmark and vice versa.
Whereas astrology in other countries in contemporary times is often eclecti-
cally connected with New Age spirituality in some form, the more exclusive
approach, which has always been characteristic of the oldest Danish school of
astrology, the I.C. Institute, is still dominant. Danish astrologers from the I.C.
Institute are generally reluctant to combine astrology with any particular reli-
gious interpretations. They often understand astrology as an existential
approach, whereas astrology at the Astrology House and its connected schools
thrive within a New Age network.
References
Borup, Christian, Astrologi for nysgerrige, København: Aschehoug, 2003.

Brinkfort, Louis, Zodiakken – din fødselsdag, din skæbne: Skematisk udarbejdet, Køben
havn: Emil Brönniches Forlag, 1947.
Christensen, Irene, Horoskopets byggestene, København: Forlaget Stjernerne, 1978.
Heindel, Max & Augusta Voss Heindel, The Message of the Stars: An Esoteric Exposition
of Natal and Medical Astrology Explaining the Arts of Reading the Horoscope and
Diagnosing Disease, Oceanside, Calif.: The Rosicrucian Fellowship, 1917.
Hjelmborg, Johan & Louise Kirsebom, Øjeblikshoroskopet: Teori, metode og astrologisk
praksis, Gylling: Klitrose, 1987.
Jensen, Carl V., Astrologi, København: Borgens Forlag, 1965.
Jensen, Karl Åge, Astrologiens verden, København: Gyldendal, 1989.
Kirk, Birthe, Astrologi: Horoskopets tydning, København: Forlaget Stjernerne 1982.
——— . Det progressive horoskops tolkning, København: Forlaget Stjernerne 1985.
Kündig, Heinrich, Astrologische Prognose, Zürich: Verlag Max S. Metz, 1955.
Munk, Kirstine, Signs of the Times: Cosmology and Ritual Practice in Modern, Western
Astrology, Dissertation, University of Southern Denmark, 2007.
——— . “Det hypotetiske liv: Om brugen af astrologi i senmoderne tid”, AURA 1 (2009),
1–19.
———. “‘Baby in a Bowl’ and Other Stories: Socialization in Astrological Narrative”, in:
Armin W. Geertz & Jeppe Sinding Jensen (eds.), Religious Narrative, Cognition and
Culture: Image and Word in the Mind of Narrative, London: Equinox, 2011, 291–302.
——— . “The Stars Down to Earth: Why Educated Women in the Western World Use
Astrology”, Bulletin for the Study of Religion, 41 (2), 2012, 3–9.
Rosmon, Ove, De 12 mennesketyper og den esoteriske astrologis grundprincipper,
København: Skandinavisk Litografisk Forlag, 1936.
Rosmund, Ove [sic], Astrologi og symbolik, København: Co-F.M. Forlag, 1926.
Svensson, Sven Frederik Fischer, Astrologien i videnskabelig belysning, Viby: Strubes
Forlag, 1980.
Szöllösi, Ferenc, Astrologi: Rigtigt lært, I–II, København: Strube, 1970.
Tjørnum, Gilbert, Astrologi: Horoskopets opstilling, København: Forlaget Stjernerne,
1969.
Wohl, Louis de, Astrologi, København: Westermann, 1951.
98 Chapter 13
Chapter 13 Contemporary Astrology in Finland
Astrology in the Contemporary Period in Finland

Tom Sjöblom
Horoscopes and Popular Astrology
A discussion of the role played by astrology in modern Finnish society is made

difficult because of the lack of scholarly research on the topic. At the time of
writing (2014), nobody had systematically investigated this issue, and thus the
data for this discussion have been summarised from anecdotal evidence col-
lected from the field as well as from studies dealing with the Finnish religious
or spiritual environment in general. Thus, we lack information, for example, of
the extent to which people buy astrological literature or to what degree profes-
sional astrologers are consulted by individuals and corporations before they
make important decisions. As in other Western countries, all the above can be
found in modern Finnish society, but all we can say is that the number of peo-
ple who seem to seriously believe in the predictive power of astrology appears
to be relatively small (see Tikkanen 2007: 10–13).
In a survey conducted by the Church Research Institute in Finland in 1996,
10% of the respondents said that they believed in astrology, while 87% thought
astrology was totally unconvincing (Heino 1997: 360, 364). A more recent study,
conducted by the Research Institute in 2004, confirms these results (9%
strongly believe in astrology, 84% strongly disbelieve in it) and indicates that at
least during the last decade, the Finnish attitudes towards astrology have not
changed in any noteworthy way (unpublished survey data generously provided
by Kimmo Ketola).
The data above suggest that Finns tend to believe in astrology to a lesser
extent than people in many other Western countries. This result can, however,
be at least partly explained by the fact that the questions that the participants
in these surveys were asked highlighted the belief in the accuracy of the infor-
mation gained through astrology. Even professional astrologers today seldom
argue that they can provide totally accurate information. Instead they point
out that astrology works by providing a map that can be used as an aid for
life management (see Hätönen 2007). Indeed, in a more informal net-based
survey organised by the magazine City in 2001, as many as 41 % of women and
14 % of men claimed to believe in astrology. Most of the participants of this
survey were urban and well-educated young people (See <http://www.city.fi/

Contemporary Astrology in Finland 99
artikkeli/Huuhaa+Suomi/370/>). On the other hand, the Finnish belief envi-

ronment is both rather secularised and monolithic, as it is organised in an
Evangelical-Lutheran Christian framework. This environment does not
encourage people to adopt beliefs and practices that are considered “supersti-
tious” or “foolish” by many. This might be an additional factor explaining the
low interest in astrology in Finland, as indicated in the surveys.
Astrology is a complex of beliefs and practices that can adopt various forms
and can be integrated into very different belief systems. This means that few
if any religious groups and institutions construct their activities solely on the
basis of astrology. It is not possible here to discuss all the various religious
communities in Finland that to a more limited extent use astrology in their
teachings and practices. Instead, I will discuss the profiles and programmes of
the two registered astrological societies in Finland. Suomen astrologinen seura
(The Astrological Association of Finland <http://www.saunalahti.fi/astrolo2/
eindex.htm>) provides a more general forum for those interested in astrology,
while Suomen ammattiastrologit (The Association for Professional Astrologers
in Finland <http://www.ammattiastrologit.net/>) defines itself as an informa-
tion forum as well as a provider of astrological services, and as an interest
organisation for professional astrologers.
The Astrological Association of Finland (Sas)
The Astrological Association of Finland (sas) was founded in 1964 in Helsinki.

Independently of this association, another astrological association was
founded in the city of Tampere in 1982. While these two associations are offi-
cially independent from each other, they do co-operate and seem to co-ordinate
their activities to the extent that I treat them here together under the label of
the Helsinki based association. In addition to Helsinki and Tampere, The
Astrological Association has organised group activity also in Turku and Pori. As
mentioned above, the main object of the association is to spread information
about astrology for the general public and to function as a discussion and
debate forum for all those interested in astrology. At the end of 2004, it had
around 520 registered members, a number that has remained on the same level
at least for the last decade or so (see also Heino 1997: 366).
According to its webpage, the association operates by organising public lec-
tures and discussions about once a month. These include events for reading
astrological charts. In addition, it administrates an e-mail discussion group
called Linnunrata (The Milky Way) and organises study-groups for particular
topics. Every summer a weekend seminar is organised by the association. In
100 Sjöblom
addition to the quite extensive web-based services, the association also runs a
small astrological library in Helsinki and sells astrological literature. Most of
the activities are open to the general public but the library is only for those
who have paid the membership fee.
sas publishes Astro Logos, an astrological periodical for both beginners and
more advanced readers. It has been published since 1984 and today appears
four times every year. The periodical includes discussions of current topics as
well as articles by both Finnish and foreign experts in the field. The language of
the publication is Finnish.
However, the most important activity of the association is to carry out
examinations in astrology, something the association has done yearly for its
members since 1996. The idea behind this examination is to raise the status of
and respect for astrology by organising an official examination, to influence
public opinion regarding the credibility of astrology and to regulate the profes-
sional competence of practicing astrologers in Finland.
The examination programme underwent a thorough revision in 2004. Today
it consists of a three-phased programme. The basic examination covers every-
thing one needs in order to master astrological symbolism and basic astrological
tools, such as charts. The basic examination takes two days. The advanced
examination includes the history of astrology and the methods for reading of
the planetary charts. It strives for a more holistic understanding of the astro-
logical principles. As with the basic examination, the advanced examination
also takes two days to complete. The highest-level examination covers the
mathematical and technical aspects of astrology. Those who wish to pass this
level must have some experience of doing astrological readings. A large part of
the examination consists of drawing up charts and interpreting them, based
on birth data presented to the candidate. The examination is governed and
supervised by an examination board consisting of five astrologers chosen every
third year by the general meeting of sas. There is no available information
about how many people have actually taken these examinations.
The Association for Professional Astrologers in Finland
In 1979, professional astrologers in Finland organised themselves into Suomen

Ammattiastrologien Liitto (SAAL), or the Union of Professional Astrologers in
Finland, in order to promote the working conditions of professional astrolo-
gers in Finland (Heino 1997: 366). The union was reorganised and renamed in
2000 as Suomen Ammattiastrologit ry., or the Association for Professional
Astrologers in Finland. Being a professional organisation, the association is not
open to the general public, but it does provide astrological consultations via its
members and its web pages contain information about astrology in general
and particularly in Finland. According to the association there are around
twenty professional astrologers in Finland. Even of this modest number, only
half practise their profession full-time. The low number of professional astrol-
ogers in Finland has to some observers suggested that the attitude of many
Finns towards astrology is rather negative. In the words of Maarit Laurento,
herself a professional astrologer and the chairperson of sas, Finns are still
“somewhat allergic” to astrology (Tikkanen 2007: 10).
As with astrology in general, we lack general research data on who uses the
services of professional astrologers in Finland. According to Laurento, most of
her clients are not individuals but businesses in need of consultation (quoted
in Tikkanen 2007: 10). A survey done by the astrologer Raimo Nikula among his
own clients (550 individuals) provides some idea of the general profile of who
consults professional astrologers in Finland. The results of this survey are as
follow:
Habitual Residence
Helsinki with surroundings 52%

Other cities and towns 13%
Rural areas 35%
This result suggests that it is basically from the urban population of the Helsinki
metropolitan area that professional astrologers receive their clients. Only 5%
of the clients are from Tampere, even though this is the city with the second
largest client group in the survey.
Age Groups
0 – 15 years 5%
16 – 30 years 22%
30 – 45 years 60%
45 – 60 years 11%
Over 65 years 2%
102 Sjöblom
The first group consists of children, whose astrological charts have been
ordered by their parents. Most clients seem to belong to lower middle age
bracket. Furthermore, Nikula points out that 91% of his clients are women. The
number of women among the clients of astrologers in Finland appears to be
exceptionally high in comparison to available data from other countries. The
reasons for this are not known, but the role of traditional Finnish upbringing
may play a role. Finnish men are not accustomed to seeking advice for their
problems from professional helpers of any kind. It should perhaps be noted
that an official survey conducted by The Church Research Institute suggests
that there is no noticeable difference between women and men in how helpful
they think astrology is in predicting their future lives.
Conclusions
During the first decade of the twenty-first century, the supply of astrological
services in Finland has increased and become more diverse. For example, in
the beginning of 2007, Astro Bar, an astrological step-in bar opened in Helsinki.
The idea with the bar is that anyone can just step in at any time and without a
previous appointment receive an astrological analysis. Clients can choose the
desired analysis from a menu and receive it with a cup of coffee or tea (Tikkanen
2007: 10). There is also an astrological park called Huvila Härkä (Villa Taurus) in
Somero, about 100 km north-west of Helsinki. This park provides similar ser-
vices to the Astro Bar, and also features astrological exhibitions and installations.
See <http://www.astrobar.fi/>.
Without reliable research, the present status of astrology in Finland is hard
to estimate. All the major surveys indicate that “serious believers” in astrology
are few and that this situation has remained unchanged for some time now.
Still, the growing supply of astrological services suggests that at some level
astrology might indeed be more popular among the general public than what
the results of the official results would suggest. In any case, astrologers in
Finland do not want to profile their craft as a belief system or religious tradi-
tion. Instead, they promote the idea that astrology is a science among other
sciences and stress the role of astrologers as life-management consultants
rather than as prophetic visionaries with supernatural abilities.
References
Hätönen, Paula, “Aakkoset ammattiin: Astrologi ei ennusta, vaan tulkitsee”, Turun Sa
nomat Internet version 6 March 2007 <http://www.turunsanomat.fi/extra/?ts=
1,3:1010:0: 0,4:10:0:1:2002–10–19,104:10:126444,1:0 :0:0:0:0:>.
Heino, Harri, Mihin Suomi tänään uskoo, Helsinki: WSOY, 1997.
Mustelin, Nils, “Astrologian oudot maailmat”, in: Heta Häyry, Hannu Karttunen & Matti
Virtanen (eds.), Paholaisen asianajaja. Opaskirja skeptikoille, Helsinki: Ursa, 1989,
123–169.
Tikkanen, Elisa, “Planeettojen pauloissa”, Presso 6 January 2007, 10–13.
104 Chapter 14
Chapter 14 Contemporary Astrology in Sweden
Astrology in the Contemporary Period in Sweden

Jenny-Ann Brodin Danell
The Establishment of Modern Astrology in Sweden
As in the rest of the Western world, astrology in Sweden almost disappeared

during the eighteenth and much of the nineteenth century. From being con-
sidered as at least in part scientific, i.e., as a sub-discipline of early astronomy,
astrology came to be regarded as superstition and pseudo-science (as can be
seen, e.g., from the early twentieth century Swedish encyclopedia Nordisk
Familjebok, pp. 630–632). In the late nineteenth-century a general comeback
and popularisation of astrology took place, a revival that is often associated
with a general spread of esoteric ideas, especially in the guise of Theosophy.
There is very little available information about precisely how modern astrology
was established in Sweden, although there are suggestions regarding a similar
comeback in Sweden as in the rest of the Western world (Dahlin 1983: 35).
A reawakening interest in astrology, and some sort of establishment of modern
astrological perspectives, can nevertheless be observed in the publication of
new astrological literature during the late nineteenth century. Astrological
associations were also established during this period of time. However, a more
comprehensive revival would not take place until the middle of the twentieth
century.
Today, astrology is arguably the most popular and commercialised form of
Western esotericism in Sweden. It is possible to buy astrological literature in
almost any bookstore. There are daily and weekly horoscopes in newspapers
and magazines, especially in evening papers and so-called women’s maga-
zines. On the Internet, there are countless web pages related to astrology. It is
possible to get personal consultations, computer-generated horoscopes, and
download the software necessary to do the calculations on your own. However,
like their counterparts elsewhere, most professional astrologers in Sweden,
and many adherents, make a clear distinction between these popular forms of
astrology and their “serious” counterparts. Astrology, in all forms, has met
severe critique in media and popular scientific debate (such as in the sceptical
publications Allt om vetenskap, Folkvett, and Humanisten).

Contemporary Astrology in Sweden 105
Astrological Literature
The first modern astrological literature was published in Sweden at the end of
the nineteenth century. In 1872 Stjernornas profetior: eller himmeltecknens infly-
tande på våra öden (Prophecies of the Stars: or the Influence of the Signs on
our Destinies) was published by an anonymous author. A large part of this
book consists of astrological charts, but it also included poetic descriptions,
written in rhyme, of the twelve signs of the zodiac. A couple of decades later,
several translations of astrological literature were published. Examples include
Astrologi för nybörjare (a translation of an unidentified original title by Thomas
H. Burgoyne; Swedish transl. 1916), Planeternas inflytande på människans liv:
med karaktärstolkning av personer, födda under tecken by Eleanor Kirk (The
Influence of the Zodiac Upon Human Life, originally published in 1894;
Swedish transl. in 1926), and Astrologi: Levnadstolkning by Paul von Gerich
(Astrologia, published in Finnish in 1925; Swedish transl. the same year). All of
these books are examples of psychological and symbolic astrology. Some of
them, such as the volume by Kirk, are written in an esoteric and occult
tradition.
The boom of astrological literature in Sweden took place in the 1970s and
the 1980s. The titles that became bestsellers were books focusing on love, rela-
tionships, and psychological aspects of life. Most of them are based on
sun-signs. The most widely sold book in this category is Ulla Sallert’s Astrologi
– ett sätt att leva (Astrology – A Way of Life) originally published in 1974. Sallert
(b. 1923) had a career as a famous musical actress, with an international
Broadway success in the 1950s. Her book introduces the reader to the twelve
signs of the zodiac and to the psychological characteristics of people born
within each sign. It is not concerned with any technical or mathematical
details on calculating horoscopes, nor on detailed interpretations. This kind of
literature (other examples being Appelgren 1994 and Granberg 1998) to a con-
siderable extent overlaps with general self-help books. These astrological
books often incorporated ideas from other esoteric traditions and from Eastern
religions, for example ideas on karma, reincarnation, alchemy, holism, numer-
ology, Jungian symbolism, and healing. Another frequent feature is the
reference to psychoanalytic ideas of a general kind.
Another popular kind of astrological literature that sold widely in the 1970s
and the 1980s consists of introductions to the practice of calculating and inter-
preting horoscopes. Examples include Jonson 1982, Stenudd 1979 and 1991, and
Almqvist 1984. Similar esoteric ideas as those mentioned above are often found
in this literature. The focus, however, is on technical and mathematical aspects
of horoscopes and on suggestions of how to interpret charts.
106 Brodin Danell
Much of the bestselling astrological literature from this period consisted of

translations from other languages into Swedish. For example, Linda Goodman’s
books on sun-signs (see the references at the end of this chapter) sold out in
several editions in Sweden. Highly specialised literature, for example on how
to calculate mundane horoscopes or transits, for advanced astrologers, was
usually not available in Swedish at all.
Astrology in the Swedish Media
Daily horoscopes were introduced in the largest evening paper in Sweden,

Aftonbladet, in January 1961. Under the headline Tänk om stjärnorna har rätt …
ert dagliga horoskop av Frances Drake (Imagine If the Stars Are Right … Your
Daily Horoscope by Frances Drake), short sun-sign horoscopes were presented,
on the same spread as the cartoons. The presumably pseudonymous Frances
Drake disappeared shortly after the introduction, the headline was changed to
Ditt Dagliga horoskop – vad ni kan vänta av (Your Daily Horoscope – What Can
You Expect Of …) [date of the day] and the style has changed slightly over the
years, but the overall focus on personal relationships, work, successes and
potential failures, has remained the same. A few years after Aftonbladet, in
1967, horoscopes also began appearing in the second largest evening paper,
Expressen.
Since the 1960s and 1970s, weekly and monthly horoscopes have been a fre-
quent feature in women’s magazines in Sweden. In the oldest one, Hemmets
journal, published by Egmont since 1921, astrology and horoscopes have been
salient features since 1959. General sun-sign horoscopes are presented every
week. In addition, there are often specialised horoscopes on topics such as
love, diet, health, and gambling for the upcoming year. On an irregular basis,
articles related to astrology, for example about the future of royalties, appear
(Ahlin 2001: 131–133). From the 1980s, the magazine came to associate astrology
with numerology. A similar content is found in other women’s magazines, such
as Allers, Året runt, and Allas veckotidning, and in magazines targeted at a
younger audience, such as Veckorevyn and Frida. In all of these, short weekly
horoscopes are presented. Over the years, ask-the-astrologer columns and
introductions to astrology, held in a general and simple style, have appeared. In
almost all of these magazines there are advertisements for astrological ser-
vices, such as computer generated horoscopes and personal consultations.
In 1997, the magazine Hennes Tecken (Her Sign) was launched by the pub-
lisher Egmont Richter. In many ways, Hennes Tecken was a traditional women’s
magazine. Articles about fashion, home decorating, and celebrities were mixed
with editorials on love, work, and relationships. However, as the title indicates,
Hennes Tecken was characterised by a particular focus on astrology. In each

issue, there was a two-week horoscope, based on sun-sign astrology. Other
regular features were astrological columns (for example on the relationship
between astrology and science), “star astrology” (where an astrologers inter-
preted the birth chart of a well-known Swede, the celebrity being interviewed
in relation to the horoscope), “ask the astrologer” (where the readers could ask
personal questions to one of the astrologers), and “school of astrology” (where
basic astrology was taught in an easily accessible style). In these issues of the
magazine, there were usually other stories, for example about what it was like
to work as a professional astrologer, or on how to use astrology in the work-
place. On an average, there were 15–18 pages on astrology in each issue.
Although Hennes Tecken had a specific focus on astrology, the style was for
the most part characterised by humour and a tongue-in-cheek attitude even in
pieces written by astrologers. In several of the articles and the columns, the
astrologers pointed out that it is impossible to give precise predictions by
means of horoscopes. Horoscopes should be regarded as general clues. In con-
trast, there were also references to putative scientific proofs of astrology, even
though these references were in very general terms. In 1998 the magazine was
re-named Hennes (Hers). The two-week horoscopes could still be found until
the paper ceased being published in 2009, but the distinct focus on astrology
faded away quite soon after the new name was introduced.
Astrology on the Internet
Since the middle of the 1990s, there has been a huge supply of astrological ser-
vices on the Internet. People write about astrology on their personal home
pages and blogs, astrologers advertise their services, astrological associations
spread information about their activities, and there are numerous commercial
services, for example, computer generated horoscopes, software for astrologi-
cal calculations, and on-line astrological tutorials. There is also astrological
content in social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, and astrological appli-
cations for cell-phones (such as daily horoscopes). Most of these services are
available in English, even if some of the authors and practitioners are from
Sweden. The majority of these commercial services are, like most of the astro-
logical content in newspapers and women’s magazines, based on sun-sign
astrology. The horoscopes are usually written in a short format, characterised
by general formulations.
However, the Internet is also used by professional astrologers, who publish
more elaborated web pages. Individual websites can be short-lived, but the
108 Brodin Danell
contents typically include chart calculations, astrology lessons, astrological

software and relationship analyses, downloads of astrology-related images,
links to software and other astrology resources, downloadable books, distance
education, monthly newsletters, ask-the-astrologer columns, discussion
groups and mailing lists and horoscopes for the upcoming year and advertise-
ments for personal consultations. Most of the services on these home pages
require the payment of fees, especially the personal consultations.
The Organisation of Astrology
As in the New Age movement in general (Brodin 2001) the adherents of astrol-
ogy are seldom members of specific astrological organisations or groups. The
organisations are usually professional associations, even though interested lay-
people sometimes can be members. As will be seen from the following remarks,
many attempts to formally organise astrologers have been made, but nearly all
have proved short-lived.
The first modern astrological association in Sweden appears to be Astro
logiska förbundet (The Astrological Association) founded in Stockholm on 14
October 1910 by Gustaf Ljungqvist. The articles of the association were pub-
lished in issue number seven (1910) of Aur: tidskrift för esoteriskt studium (Aur:
Journal of Esoteric Studies). Aur was a publication that was limited to the
membership of a number of occultist organisations in Sweden, including the
Martinist Order and the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. The journal carried
several articles on astrology, and it even included advertisements for the sale of
horoscopes. The organisation published some astrological titles, such as
C.A. Lilje’s Tabeller öfver de astrologiska husen för Stockholm, Göteborg, Helsing
borg (1912) (Tables of Astrological Houses for Stockholm, Gothenburg, and
Helsingborg) and arranged lectures. During the 1950s and 1960s, there were
some public astrological events. For example, Medborgarskolan, an institute
for community education located in Stockholm, arranged lectures on astro-
logical topics. In the 1960s and 1970s, there were several further attempts to
organise professional astrologers in Sweden. In 1976 there was an astrological
meeting at Hallhyttans Herrgård, followed by another meeting in the southern
Swedish town of Ingelstad a year later. At these meetings preparations were
made for launching an astrological association, including some financial
arrangements. However, it took yet another couple of years before Sveriges
Astrologiska Riksförbund (The National Astrological Association of Sweden)
was founded in 1983 (Ekström 1983: 1–2). The original board included a number
of well-known Swedish astrologers, such as Ivan Wilhelm, Anders Ekström, Per
Dahlin, Helge Hjelmeus, Outi Ekström, Karin Nordgren, and Hans Eriksson
(Ekström 2007: 3). The organisation was created for professional astrologers
and arranged conferences and lectures. In the founding year, 1983, they had 274
members (Ekström 1984: 1). Sveriges Astrologiska Riksförbund was dissolved in
1992.
During the 1980s several local organisations were established in Sweden.
For example, there were organisations and networks in the cities of Stockholm
(Stockholmsastrologerna), Gothenburg (Göteborgsastrologerna), Malmö
(Malmö Astrologiförening), Mönsterås (Kräftans vändkrets, Tropic of Cancer),
Halmstad (Asterix), Helsingborg, and Västerås (n.a.: 1989: x). Many of these
organisations arranged seminars and lectures, and had newsletter for their
members. With very few exceptions, these organisations were only in exis-
tence for a couple of years.
The most vigorous local organisation at the time of writing is Malmö
Astrologiförening, which was established in 1983. In 1997, the organisation was
reorganised under the name Vintergatan (The Milky Way), and publishes a
paper with the same name. The association describes itself as a politically and
religiously independent organisation with the goal of supporting a serious
development and diffusion of astrology (n.a. 1999: 38). In 1997 they had 120
members (Sundbro 1998: 1). Over the years Vintergatan has arranged many lec-
tures and courses in basic and advanced astrology.
As a reaction to the problem of organising astrologers in Sweden formally, a
network was formed in 1996, Astrologinätverket Prometheus. In 1997 the first
Prometheus Forum was arranged in Steninge, in the south of Sweden.
According to the organisers, this was the first astrological conference for six-
teen years in Sweden. The meeting was attended by forty astrologers, and was
primarily concerned with the status of contemporary Swedish astrology.
Thereafter, a Prometheus Forum was arranged almost annually, either by the
board of Prometheus or in collaboration with other Swedish astrological
organisations, such as Vintergatan and Asterix. At the meetings there have
been numerous lectures on a wide variety of topics (for example on how to live
with astrology and different ways of interpreting chart data). There have also
been discussions on ethical guidelines among professional astrologers. Astrolo
ginätverket Prometheus was dissolved at the end of 2007.
Astrological Magazines
The first modern astrological magazines in Sweden were Astrologen – med

horoskop och övernaturligt (The Astrologer – with Horoscopes and [Information
110 Brodin Danell
on] the Supernatural) and Libra, both launched in the early 1980s. The aim of
Astrologen was to create a platform for people interested in life and the
unknown; ‘… we who are a bit romantic, fond of feelings and sometimes also
“knock on wood” and spit when we see a black cat crossing the street from left
to right …’ (Benthorn 1983: 1). The content was both astrological and generally
esoteric, and included such topics as life after death, parapsychology, tarot,
numerology, and the I Ching. A regular column was “My contact with the
unknown”, where readers were encouraged to share their personal experiences
of the paranormal. The astrological content was presented in a popular style,
with monthly sun-sign horoscopes, ask-the-astrologer columns, and book
reviews. There were also some reports on astrological research, on the relation-
ship between science and astrology, and the societal role of the astrologer. In
1986 the magazine was re-named Hela Livet (All of Life; Nessling 1987: 3).
However, only a few more issues were published and the magazine soon ceased
appearing.
In 1981 Per Dahlin published the first issue of Libra. A few years later, in
1983–84, this publication became the members’ magazine of Sveriges Astro
logiska Riksförbund (Ekström 2007: 3). The board included Per Dahlin and
Ivan Wilhelm, who also contributed many of the articles in the magazine.
Libra was, according to the board, a magazine for professional astrologers. In
the first issue, Anders Ekström wrote that it is in the interest of everyone [in
SAR and in Libra] to present astrology in an objective way – and to distinguish
serious practitioners from their less serious counterparts (Ekström 1983: 3).
The magazine was characterised by specialised and rather technical articles
on astrological topics, for example on so-called novien horoscopes and mun-
dane horoscopes, on astrological computer programs, and on the nature of
the aspects and transits. In editorials and in articles, the relationship between
astrology and science was often discussed. The book reviews often focused on
the shortcomings of popular astrological literature, especially concerning cal-
culations. In the last year of publication, 1993, the magazine was published
by Jupiter-stiftelsen, since Sveriges Astrologiska Riksförbund had by then been
dissolved.
During the years 1990 to 1995, the magazine Nya tidsåldern (The New Age)
was published by the organisation with the same name. This magazine was not
exclusively devoted to astrology but also included what could be characterised
as general New Age content. The editors were Erica Larsson, Sam Christiansson,
Leif Linder, and Hans Eriksson.
In 1994 another magazine, Zodiak, was launched by Leif Linder. In contrast
to Libra, which was a non-commercial magazine, Zodiak was printed in colour
and was sold in general stores and newsstands. The magazine contained book
reviews, interviews with astrologers, and reports from various astrology-related

events. It also published astrological advertisements. However, there were few,
if any, in-depth astrological articles. The magazine also included more general
New Age content, for example reports from New Age festivals. In 1997, Zodiak
had 1,200 subscribers and an edition of 5,000 copies per issue. In the same year,
the magazine ceased being published.
In the same year, in January 1997, the local astrological association in Malmö
Vintergatan published a magazine with the same name. It contained book
reviews, specialised articles, reports from astrological events, and translations
of articles published in international astrological magazines. Many of the arti-
cles were written by the editor Mark Beal. The printed edition of Vintergatan
ceased to appear at the end of 2005 (Beal 2005: 1). After that, the content con-
tinued to be published on the association’s website.
From 2001, Astrologinätverket Prometheus published the magazine Prome
theus, aimed both at beginners and professional astrologers. The magazine
continued to be published until the end of 2007.
References
Ahlin, Lars, New Age – konsumtionsvara eller värden att kämpa för? Lund: KSF AB, 2001.
Almqvist, Michael, Komplett handbok i astrologi – ställ och tolka ditt horoskop – alla
nödvändiga tabeller, Stockholm: Legenda, 1984.
Anon., Stjernornas profetior eller himmeltecknens inflytande på våra öden, Stockholm:
Sigfrid Flodins förlag, 1872.
——— . “Stjärnorna spår … styr stjärnorna våra öden. Tror ni det, så läs här vad som
väntar er under den kommande veckan”, Hemmets Journal, 1 (1959), 50.
——— . “Astrologiföreningar”, Libra, 33 (1989).
——— . “Astrologiföreningen Vintergatan”, Vintergatan, 1 (1999).
Appelgren, Anne Marie, Astrologi idag – självkännedom genom symboler, Västerås: ICA,
1994.
Beal, Mark, “Ingress”, Vintergatan, 4 (2005).
Benthorn, Agneta, “Välkommen till Astrologen”, Astrologen, 1 (1983).
Brodin, Jenny-Ann, Religion till salu? En sociologisk studie av New Age i Sverige, Stock
holm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2001.
Burgoyne, T.H., Astrologi för nybörjare, Stockholm: Björck & Börjesson, 1916.
Dahlin, Per, “Astrologins historia”, Libra, 3 (1983).
Drake, Frances, “Tänk om stjärnorna har rätt … ert dagliga horoskop av Frances Drake”,
Aftonbladet, 27 January 1961.
Ekström, Anders, “Astrologin i Sverige”, Libra, 1 (1983).
112 Brodin Danell
——— . “Ledare”, Libra, 2 (1984).

Ekström, Outi, “Redaktören har ordet”, Astrologi-Journalen, 75 (2007).
Gerich, Paul von, Astrologi: Levnadstolkning, Stockholm: Björck & Börjesson, 1925.
Goodman, Linda, Soltecken, Stockholm: Bernces/Wahlström & Widstrand, 1981.
——— . Linda Goodmans livsguide, Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 1993.
——— . Relationstecken, Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 2000.
Granberg, Anna, Astrologi – en väg till inre harmoni, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1998.
Jonson, Bert Yoga, Astrologi – så gör du ditt och andras horoskop, Göteborg: Zindermans,
1982.
Kardos, Ursula, “Ert horoskop för hela 1967”, Expressen, 8 January 1967, 22–23.
Kirk, Eleanor, Planeternas inflytande på människans liv: med karaktärstolkning av per-
soner, födda under tecken, Stockholm: Wahledow, 1926.
Lilje, C.A., Tabeller öfver de astrologiska husen för Stockholm, Göteborg, Helsingborg,
Stockholm: Astrologiska förbundet, 1912.
Meijer, Bernhard et al. (eds.), Nordisk Familjebok – konversationslexikon och realen
cyklopedi, Stockholm: Nordisk familjeboks förlag, 1904–1926.
Nessling, Bo, “Ledare”, Astrologen, 7 (1986).
Sallert, Ulla, Astrologi – ett sätt att leva, Solna/Täby: Larsson/Seelig, 1974.
Stenudd, Stefan, Ställ ditt horoskop, Stockholm: AWE/Geber, 1979.
——— . Ställ och tolka ditt horoskop, Stockholm: Nordstedt, 1991.
Sundbro, Karin, “Sedan sist”, Vintergatan, 1 (1998).
Christian Theosophy in Denmark 113
Chapter 15 Christian Theosophy in Denmark
Christian Theosophy and the Influence of Böhme

in Denmark
Little research has been done on the presence of the Christian theosophical
tradition in Denmark. This chapter should not be taken as an exhaustive sur-
vey of the subject, but rather as an attempt to tread the first few steps into
relatively uncharted territory, while suggesting areas for further study.
Heterodox Lutheranism and Radical Pietism in the Seventeenth

and Eighteenth Centuries
The first Dane who can be described as a follower of Jacob Böhme was Niels
Svendsen Chronich (ca. 1608–1662), a professor of theology at the gymnasium
in Oslo (then Christiania). During his studies and travels in Germany as a
young man, Chronich came into contact with the works of Böhme and German
mystical-spiritualist Christian Hoburg (1607–1675), both of whom decisively
influenced Chronich’s anti-clerical fervor and his critical stance toward confes-
sional Lutheranism. Because of his unrelenting criticism of the confessional
church and its clergy as well as his claim to prophetic authority, Chronich
found himself continually embroiled in conflict with the local clergy in Oslo. In
1651 Chronich anonymously published his major work Troens Erindring og
Prøvelse, a spiritualist criticism of the “false”, “historical” faith of the established
churches informed by Böhmean anticlericalism. The following year Chronich
was forced to abandon his position in Oslo and settled in Copenhagen where
he worked for some time as a private tutor, gathering a small group of adher-
ents. Soon Chronich was once again at the centre of controversy: following a
formal investigation by the Lutheran consistory in Copenhagen, which ruled
that Chronich’s teachings deviated on central points from the Confessio
Augustana, Chronich was officially banished from Denmark and imprisoned.
Released in 1658, Chronich travelled to the Netherlands where he seems to
have settled in Amsterdam. His later whereabouts are difficult to trace, but he
stayed at least for some time at the home of Johann Amos Comenius (1592–
1670). In 1659 the Copenhagen consistory issued a formal warning against

114 Feldtfos Thomsen
Chronich and his teachings to students travelling to the Netherlands. An in-

depth study of Chronich’s writings has yet to be written.
In the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, where cultural impulses from
Germany naturally made their way, the writings of Johann Arndt (1555–1621)
and Valentin Weigel (1533–1588) were particularly influential, and it seems
clear that the dissemination of what may be termed “proto-pietist” and mysti-
cal-spiritualist literature in the period is an important area for further research
into the reception and adaptation of Christian theosophical thought. One of
the most interesting figures in this regard is the controversial Lutheran pas-
tor Friedrich Breckling (1629–1711), whose literary output, vast correspondence
and personal ties with such influential theosophers as Johann Georg Gichtel
(1638–1710) and Gottfried Arnold (1666–1714), made him an important figure in
the history of heterodox Lutheranism in Germany and the south of Denmark.
Though Breckling was not strictly speaking a follower of Böhme, he was no
doubt influenced by the Christian theosophical tradition and drew on the writ-
ings of Arndt and Weigel in addition to being well versed in paracelsianism
and medieval German mysticism. Critical of the confessional church and of
Lutheran orthodox theology, Breckling published a number of anti-clerical
writings which brought him into conflict with the ecclesiastical authorities. In
1660 he fled from his hometown of Flensburg after having been removed from
his office. Settling in Amsterdam, he continued to publish his writings, even-
tually accepting the position of minister in the Dutch city of Zwolle, where
his home became a refuge for like-minded religious and political dissidents.
Further study of Breckling’s literary output and intellectual network is an
important part of establishing the early history of the spread of Christian the-
osophy in the south of Denmark in the latter half of the seventeenth century.
The spread of radical Pietism in Denmark from the early eighteenth century
onwards surely provided a venue for the dissemination of theosophical
thought, though our knowledge of this aspect of Danish religious history is still
limited. Böhme was a likely source of inspiration for the small separatist com-
munity established by Johan Peter Piper (b. 1698) in Frederiksberg in the
mid-1730s; a reference to Böhme in a 1733 anti-pietist sermon by royal confes-
sor Johann Frauen (1688–1736) suggests, at least, that the teachings of the
“heretical shoemaker” were viewed by confessional Lutherans as a source of
religious radicalism and separatism. Accordingly, one of the charges levelled
against separatist Jens Christensen Broch (b. 1706) – whose refusal to attend
church or baptise his child ultimately led authorities to banish him from
Denmark in 1736 – was thus that his teachings were derived from those of
Böhme and the Quakers, though such accusations arguably say more about the
polemical vocabulary of ecclesiastical authorities than about Böhme’s actual
influence on Broch.
Gottfried Arnold in particular seems to have had an impact within Danish

radical pietist circles. Along with those of Johann Konrad Dippel (1673–1734),
Arnold’s writings were circulated in Copenhagen around the turn of the cen-
tury, particularly in the circle surrounding the separatist preacher Otto
Lorentzen Strandiger (d. 1724). Strandiger came under investigation by the
theological faculty in Flensburg due to his anti-clerical writings, and in 1704 he
travelled to the capital to defend himself against the charges brought against
him. Though initially met with good will by King Frederick IV, who was a
staunch patron of Halle Pietism, 1716 saw Strandiger denounced as a heretic
and expelled from the Danish kingdom, while a ban was put on his writings.
During his stay in Copenhagen, the notorious Strandiger led weekly Sunday
gatherings, which included the German students J.O. Glüsling and Christoffer
Eberhard, both of whom drew on and circulated Arnold’s writings. In 1706
Strandiger’s conventicles were banned and Eberhard was expelled from
Denmark in an attempt by the authorities to contain the growing anti-clerical
sentiment in the country. Further research into Strandiger and other separat-
ists is much needed for a clearer picture of the influence of Christian theosophy
in the period to come.
With regard to the impact of Gottfried Arnold, another interesting figure is
the pietist theologian and hymnist Hans Adolph Brorson (1694–1764), who was
bishop of Ribe from 1741 to 1764. A central figure in the reception of German
pietist poetry in Denmark, Brorson wrote hundreds of hymns while translating
the work of, amongst others, Paul Gerhardt (1607–1676), C.F. Richter (1676–
1711), and Angelus Silesius (Johann Scheffler) (1624–1677) into Danish. Through
his encounter with these writers he was exposed to the influence of German
mystical theology and Christian theosophy, especially through Silesius, who
was an important figure in the circle surrounding Abraham von Franckenberg
(1593–1652) and whose writings were heavily influenced by Böhme and his fol-
lowers. The single hymn by Gottfried Arnold translated into Danish by Brorson
(“Verliebtes Lust-Spiel reiner Seelen”), is hardly indicative of a pervasive influ-
ence on Brorson’s thought, but it is undoubtedly the case that Arnold’s
sophianic mysticism was a factor in Brorson’s own views on piety and the rela-
tionship between Man and Christ. In particular, Bernardian eroticism and
bridal mysticism, in which the relationship between the individual soul and
Christ is likened to the relationship between bride and bridegroom, played a
part in Brorson’s thinking, and though Brorson does not share Arnold’s sophi-
anic mysticism explicitly, it has been argued (Arndal 1989: 222) that a common
denominator exists between Brorson and Arnold when it comes to their funda-
mental psychology of awakening and piety, and their views on human desire
and sexuality. A further study of these aspects of Brorson’s writings might give
us a better understanding of his appropriation of Christian theosophical

thought.
The Romantic Period
The nineteenth century had seen the esoterically tinged current of Romantic
and idealist Naturphilosophie from Germany spread to intellectual circles in
Denmark, and the intellectual and spiritual legacy of Christian theosophy
made its mark on Danish philosophers and theologians of the period, particu-
larly through the influence of Franz von Baader (1765–1841). Christian
theosophical thought found an eloquent and profound, though not altogether
uncritical, exponent in theologian and philosopher Hans Lassen Martensen
(1808–1884). Born and raised in Flensburg and educated in Copenhagen,
Martensen was the leading Danish systematic theologian of the nineteenth
century and bishop of the diocese of Zealand from 1854 until his death. During
his travels throughout Europe as a student, he encountered many leading intel-
lectuals of his time, including Baader, whom he met in Münich in 1835. Baader
made an indelible mark on Martensen, and his influence can be detected
throughout most of Martensen’s later writings. In particular, Martensen sym-
pathised with Baader’s criticism of the epistemological tradition from René
Descartes (1596–1650) onwards, espousing an explicitly religious philosophy of
consciousness in opposition to G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831), who he believed had
neglected the fundamental role of the personal God in human consciousness
and cognition. Like Baader, Martensen found inspiration for this philosophy in
the writings of the Christian mystics and theosophers, especially Meister
Eckhart (ca. 1260–1328) and Böhme, both of whom he studied extensively, and
on whom he wrote insightful and influential monographs (his book on Böhme
was published in an English translation in 1885). Judging from these works,
Martensen was intimately acquainted with currents of Western esotericism in
European history, attempting to reconcile Hegelianism with medieval German
mysticism, which he – echoing Hegel and Baader – saw as a precursor of mod-
ern speculative philosophy (cf. Stewart 2007: 417ff.). To Martensen, Böhme thus
represented a thinker of immense importance in Christian thought, a writer
who was still very much relevant in Protestant theology because of his earnest
search for spiritual truth and his grappling with Christian dogma. Though
Martensen was not unfamiliar with or uncritical of the controversial aspects of
Böhme’s speculative thought as seen from an orthodox Lutheran perspective,
he argued for the continued relevance of mysticism and theosophy in theology
and philosophy. As such, Martensen can be said to be the primary exponent of
Christian theosophy and mystical theology in Denmark during the nineteenth

century.
Martensen’s famous student, philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard
(1813–1855), followed his teacher in regarding Böhme as a forerunner of specu-
lative philosophy, though to Kierkegaard – a fervent critic of Martensen’s
attempt to synthesise philosophy and Christianity – this was a cause for criti-
cism rather than admiration: along with Hegel and F.W.J. Schelling (1775–1854),
Böhme fell within the purview of Kierkegaard’s general criticism of speculative
philosophy as incompatible with the realisation of a simple, Christian faith.
Whether Böhme, despite this, exerted a more profound influence on Kierke
gaard through his concept of the “Ungrund”, which may have informed
Kierkegaard’s understanding of the indeterminacy of freedom and anxiety as
suggested by David Kangas (2007) and others, is open to discussion. Future
research into the role of Western esotericism in Danish Romanticism and ide-
alist philosophy in general may reveal new aspects of the impact made by
Böhme and Christian theosophy in the period and beyond.
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Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag, 1989.
Barrett, Lee C., “Jacob Böhme: The Ambiguous Legacy of Speculative Passion”, in: Jon
Stewart (ed.), Kierkegaard and the Renaissance and Modern Traditions, Tome II:
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achtzehnten Jahrhundert, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995.
Kangas, David J., Kierkegaard’s Instant: On Beginnings, Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2007.
Klosterberg, Brigitte and Guido Naschert (eds.), Friedrich Breckling (1629–1711): Prediger,
‘Wahrheitszeuge’ und Vermittler des Pietismus im niederländischen Exil, Halle: Verlag
der Franckeschen Stiftungen zu Halle, 2011.
Koch, Carl Henrik, Den Danske Filosofis Historie (5 vols.): Den Danske Idealisme, Køben
havn: Gyldendal, 2004.
Lausten, Martin Schwarz, Danmarks kirkehistorie, København: Gyldendal, 1987.
Martensen, Hans Lassen, Mester Eckhart: Et Bidrag til at oplyse Middelalderens Mystik,
København: Reitzel, 1840.
——— . Jacob Bøhme: Theosophiske Studier, København: Gyldendalske Boghandels
Forlag, 1881.
Pedersen, Johannes, Fra brydningen mellem ortodoksi og pietisme (2 vols.), København:

G.E.C. Gads Forlag, 1945–1948.
Pedersen, Jørgen, “Et møde med perspektiver eller perspektiver i et møde: Martensen
hos Baader i München 1835” in: Leif Grane et.al. (eds.), Kirkehistoriske Samlinger 1976,
København: Akademisk Forlag, 1976.
——— . “Traditionsarv og hovedanliggende i romantikken: Med særligt henblik på to
mindre skrifter af Franz von Baader og dennes indflydelse i Danmark” in: Jørgen
Pedersen, Fra Augustin til Johs. V. Jensen: Essays og afhandlinger, København: Museum
Tusculanums Forlag, 1991.
Rørdam, H.F., “Separatisten M. Niels Svendsen Chronich og hans Tilhængere”, in: idem.
(ed.), Kirkehistoriske Samlinger, 3: III, København: G.E.C Gad, 1881–82.
———. “Fra den pietistiske Tid”, in: idem. (ed.), Kirkehistoriske Samlinger, 3: IV, Køben
havn: G.E.C Gad, 1882–84.
——— . “Bidrag til Separatismens Historie i Christian VI’s Tid”, in: idem. (ed.) Kirke
historiske Samlinger, 5: III, København G.E.C. Gad, 1905–1907.
Stewart, John, A History of Hegelianism in Golden Age Denmark, Tome II: The Martensen
Period: 1837–1842, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel, 2007.
Svendsen, Niels Chronich, Troens Erindring oc Prøfuelse, Christiania 1651.
Christian Theosophy in Finland 119
Chapter 16 Christian Theosophy in Finland

in Finland
Tomas Mansikka
Radical Pietism
The influence of the thoughts and religious philosophy of Jakob Böhme on

Finnish ground can be determined from the late seventeenth century onward,
from which time Boehmenism came to play a significant role within the
Pietistic milieu in the country. In the early eighteenth century its anchorage
was mainly among returned Carolingian militaries and middle-class citizens in
the city of Turku (Sw. Åbo). Later on, Boehmenist influences can be detected
predominantly in the area of Ostrobothnia in the central parts of Finland
among peasants and artisans.
In the standard (mid-nineteenth century) collection of sources on early reli-
gious movements in Finland, the publisher Matthias Akiander dedicates no
less than two-thirds of his Preface to presenting the tenets of Jakob Böhme.
This is, according to Akiander, for the reason that ‘the school of Böhme with its
corollaries deserves special attention in our country, because its doctrines first
gained ground here, has been preserved for the longest time and of all the sects
has most infiltrated the religious ideas of other doctrinal parties’. (Akiander
1857, I: vi).
A widespread reading and influence of Böhme can be documented also
elsewhere. According to Emanuel Linderholm (Linderholm 1911: 38ff), Boehme
nist theosophy was, in at least some regions, actually to pose a real threat to
orthodox Lutheranism at the end of the seventeenth century. At this time,
Boehmenist thinking was disseminated through the works of Fr. Breckling and
J.G. Gichtel and the latter’s editing of the writings of Böhme in 1682. From 1690
onward, the importance of Boehmenism on the contemporary religious land-
scape reached new heights due to the works of the English Behmenists John
Pordage, Thomas Bromley, and Jane Leade. These influences can from an early
stage onwards also be recognised in Finland.
The earliest documented interest in Boehmenist literature was among the
first radical Pietists, Lars (Laurentius) Ulstadius (d. 1732) and Peter Schäfer
(1663–1729). Although they were not Boehmenists in the strict sense of the

120 Mansikka
word, they stand out, however, as forerunners of the particular milieu that later
was to promote a spread of Boehmenism. In a new edition of J.N. Edenius’
church history Epitome Historiae ecclesiasticae novi Testamenti (1708), the
bishop in Turku Johan Gezelius jr. (1647–1718) appended an account of radical
Pietism in terms of two distinct movements, one that used Schwenkfeldian,
Weigelian, and Labadistic doctrines, the other consisting of the followers of
Böhme. Both Ulstadius and Schäfer belonged mainly to this first category and
Gezelius probably, in updating the work with the new heresies, had these two
individuals in mind. With Ulstadius we witness one of the earliest appearances
of radical Pietism within Lutheranism. After reading Schwenckfeld and Weigel
among others, he had resigned from his duty as a minister in his hometown
Oulu (Sw. Uleåborg) and travelled to Turku in 1683, where he caused a great stir
by interrupting a sermon in the Turku Cathedral 1688; an incident for which he
was sentenced to death in 1692, though the sentence was overturned into life
imprisonment. Due to the efforts by the church authorities to put an end to the
spread of dissenting ideas, Schäfer, as well, was soon afterwards forced under
heavy pressure to recant his conviction.
With the passing of time, however, the harsh treatment by the orthodox
clergy had the effect of raising Ulstadius and Schäfer to the status of martyrs
for later generations of dissenters. Judging his situation in Finland to be impos-
sible, Schäfer left the country and spent more than ten years of restless living
abroad. During his peregrinations he met Philipp Jakob Spener, the father of
Pietism, in Berlin and worked as a teacher at August Hermann Francke’s parish
in Halle. From Halle he moved on to Quedlinburg in 1699 to visit Gottfried
Arnold. Arnold was at the time deeply immersed in studying Böhme and par-
ticularly his doctrine of the Heavenly Sophia, which resulted in the publication
of his work Geheimnis der göttlichen Sophia the following year. More impor-
tantly, Schäfer told Arnold of the persecution that he and Ulstadius had
suffered in Finland, which prompted Arnold to include a description of these
events in his Unparteyische Ketzer- und Kirchenhistorien published in 1699–
1700. In Holland, Schäfer established contacts with mystics and theosophists
such as Gichtel, who mentions him in his Theosophia practica (1732). Schäfer’s
stay in Holland and notably his acquaintance with Quakers encouraged him to
travel to Pennsylvania, where he met William Penn, with whom he continued
to correspond after his return to Finland.
Returning to Finland in 1701, and deeply regretting his former repeal of con-
viction, he subsequently stepped forward as an apocalyptic preacher from the
year 1707 onward, recapitulating the criticism Ulstadius had directed at the
clergy twenty years earlier. Schäfer similarly received a death sentence, which
was altered to life imprisonment in 1709. He was locked up in Turku Castle,
from where he was transferred to the Castle of Gävle in 1714.
In his captivity Schäfer studied, among other works, Böhme’s De tribus prin
cipiis, a book that, as can be seen from Schäfer’s diaries, was particularly dear
to him. Among people who supported him from abroad one can also mention
Arnold’s pupil Johann Konrad Dippel, who in 1712 via their mutual friend Johan
Andersson Dorsche voiced concerns about Schäfer’s welfare and collected a
sum of money to be sent to him. Like Dippel, Johann Maximilian Daut, and
other radical Pietists, Schäfer interpreted the flight of King Charles XII to the
Ottoman Empire as an eschatological sign. The king was the Lion of the North,
or Der Löwe aus der Mitternacht, that was to appear before the end of time.
From the late 1730s a Boehmenist movement in a stricter sense of the word
began to emerge around the brothers Jakob (1689–1737) and Erik Eriksson
(1695–1761). Residents of a quite different part of Finland, Kälviä (sw. Kelviå)
in Central Ostrobothnia, and with seemingly no direct ties connecting them
to the events in Turku, they nonetheless came to see themselves as spiritual
heirs to Ulstadius and Schäfer. Their religious and philosophical orientation
was profoundly marked by the work of Jakob Böhme, whose writings they may
first have come across during their services in the Carolingian army. With the
Eriksson movement, a parallel to the Philadelphian society can be seen emerg-
ing on Finnish ground. More militant, however, and possibly due to outward
pressures, the Finnish group developed into a highly exclusive and uncompro-
mising group of dissenters, displaying intolerance towards the clergy as well
as towards other religious approaches. In their view, any attempts to compro-
mise with orthodox Lutheran views were detestable. Alongside the works of
Böhme they accepted only a few other writings, such as Thomas Bromley’s Way
to the Sabbath of Rest, Pordage’s Göttliche und Wahre Metaphysica, and some
works by Gottfried Arnold. The theosophy of the Eriksson brothers stressed
the voluntarism and Sophiology of Böhme, but did not share the visionary and
apocalyptic mode of contemporary radical Pietism. Hence, while they held
in high esteem the Philadelphians Pordage and Bromley, the writings of Jane
Leade were only to be read with great caution.
The presence and influence of the Eriksson brothers was deemed so danger-
ous by the authorities that they and their followers were expelled from the
country in 1734, and thus became the first dissidents to be forced into exile on
religious grounds. The support and sympathies that they enjoyed among the
learned classes is attested, for instance, by the Finnish senator Esbjörn
Reuterholm, who in a report delivered to the palace of the nobility voiced that
the opinions the Eriksson brothers had been forced to divulge, probably were
shared by a great many among the nobility. Together with a group consisting of
eighty-five followers, the brothers began their exodus via Stockholm and
122 Mansikka
Copenhagen to Holland and Germany, where they impatiently moved from

one place to another, tormented by both external and internal conflicts. From
the viewpoint of church orthodoxy they were indeed dangerous, as their pres-
ence usually promoted an immediate radicalisation among societies of
moderate Pietists. Returning in 1745 to Sweden, the group had been reduced to
twenty-one in number, with Erik as the sole leader after the older brother Jakob
had died in 1737. They finally found a haven in Skevik in Sweden where the
movement survived up to the middle of the nineteenth century when the last
follower passed away (See the chapter on Christian Theosophy and the
Influence of Böhme in Sweden).
The Mystics of Ostrobothnia
The spread of Boehmenist ideas gave birth also to a loosely structured move-
ment known as the “Mystics of Ostrobothnia”. The movement undoubtedly
had its prelude in the earlier events mentioned above, although it was quite
different both in nature and religious outlook from the preceding ones. Their
leader Anders Collin (1754–1830) was a renowned librarian and Boehmenist in
Stockholm, who kept up a lively correspondence with his followers overseas in
Ostrobothnia. What is remarkable about this movement is the number of
Finnish translations of works by Böhme that they produced. Whereas the
Eriksson brothers did not translate any writings by the Silurian shoemaker,
except for a short handwritten collection of utterances (En kort Samling af
Jacob Böhmes skriffteligen författade Uthlåtelser), the “mystics” produced a
number of books, chapters, and shorter works in the form of handwritten man-
uscripts, which circulated among the followers. In addition to works by Böhme,
they also produced translations of other works, even non-religious writings,
such as books on history and geography. Although the Mystics of Ostrobothnia
read widely in the works of Böhme, they had, as can be seen from the transla-
tions, quite a different approach to the theosophical corpus than was the case
with the Eriksson brothers. They did not translate Aurora and other more
obscure works, but focused exclusively on writings on Christian life and piety,
such as De regeneratione, Von vier Complexionen, Psychologia vera, and Der weg
zu Christo. The Boehmenist literature seems for them, therefore, to have served
first and foremost as devotional literature. In contrast to the Eriksson’s move-
ment, Collin was cautious also to remind his followers not to leave the Lutheran
church. This made the movement more difficult to detect and suppress, and its
influence, accordingly, can be traced well into the mid-nineteenth century.
Due to the increased availability of Böhme’s writings, yet another move-

ment emerged before the end of the century. In Lapua (Sw. Lappo) in southern
Ostrobothnia, a Finnish translation of Böhme’s Psychologia vera had come into
the hands of Jakob Wallenberg (1756–1798), a glass manufacturer who had
fallen into misfortune when planning to establish a glass factory. In the year
1798 he became the charismatic leader and prophet of a group in the neigh-
bouring district of Kauhava, a group that from an early point caught the
attention of outsiders due to its unusual activities. Wallenberg, who evidently
held a strong appeal for women, came to initiate a series of rituals which
apparently also included some sexual ingredients. More than Boehmenist
teachings properly speaking, joint rites in the form of “jumping” and “tram-
pling” seem to have been important for the group. By jumping, one trampled
on the snake’s head, an action that was meant to transport the adherents into
a state of bliss. Another ingredient that caught attention was the abundant
consumption of alcohol and tobacco, which were believed to keep the devil
away. During the meetings all sexual restrictions were abandoned in favour of
heavenly marriages, which were to be carried out in their carnal sense. The
atmosphere of sexual relief and freedom that Wallenberg fostered not surpris-
ingly held a particular appeal for the youth. Although only a few of the
members were granted insight into the inner secrets of his teaching, the num-
ber of followers grew to roughly one hundred people.
Wallenberg’s reading of Böhme appears to have been sensitive albeit one-
sided and idiosyncratic. Stressing the “inner light” and freedom of the spirit, as
well as man’s relationship with Sophia as the mirror and bride of God,
Wallenberg’s theosophy was also strongly eschatological and centred on his
prophetic role, which ultimately caught the attention of the clergy and led
to his downfall. Abandoning both communion and service, he claimed that
Luther had falsified the teachings of the apostles. Furthermore, God had
become disappointed with Jesus and overturned his mandate and had replaced
him with Wallenberg, whose mission was nothing less than to redeem the
whole of humanity. In his new position, Wallenberg was also capable of per-
forming miracles, such as turning stones into gold. Wallenberg was subsequently
arrested and like Schäfer and Ulstadius before him, given a death sentence,
which was converted into imprisonment for life. Wallenberg died shortly after
his arrest, but the movement persisted, and Psychologia vera continued to be
read as the “Book of Böhme” (“Böhmin kirja”) or “Catechism of Wallenberg”.
In the early nineteenth century, the group moved to the adjacent district of
Kuortane and became known as the “Wasuits” after its new leader Isak
Wasumäki (1783–1854). The movement was still in existence at the time of
Akiander’s collecting of documentary sources in 1860. He noted that of the
124 Mansikka
inhabitants of Kuortane at the time, approximately one quarter of the elderly

population was connected to the movement. After Wasumäki’s death and
under the leadership of Enoch Hynnilä, some decline in proselytising new fol-
lowers was reported. Nevertheless, in the early twentieth century a priest,
Kustaa Hallio, reported that Boehmenist literature continued to be read in a
number of districts in Ostrobothnia (Hallio 1901: 350).
The spread of Boehmenist theosophy in the area of Ostrobothnia in Finland
had its repercussions in upper and middle class culture as well. A representa-
tive example is Christian Henrik Snellman (1777–1855), father of the Finnish
national philosopher Johan Vilhelm Snellman, who developed an intricate
spiritual philosophy on the basis of the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg and
also, to some degree, on the views of Böhme. After the death of his first wife,
the mother of Johan Vilhelm, he married Catharina Sofia Ahla (1798–1879),
who was heir of the mystical tradition from Wallenberg and the Wasuits and a
devout follower of Böhme. Christian Henrik had a deep respect for Catharina’s
religious and philosophical views, and wrote to his son that she is ‘the greatest
philosopher who gets everything for free through faith; [i.e.] everything that
so-called science with its logical metaphysical reasoning produces [and] that
Schelling, indeed, has tried to attain’. Due to Böhme’s influence on the
Romantic movement and on Schelling in particular, the followers of Böhme
could indeed see an affinity between their views and the new Zeitgeist. A
renewed esteem towards the doctrines of Böhme to some degree also emerged
via Franz von Baader, whose direct influence, however, seems to have been
restricted mainly to the theology of A.F. Granfelt (1815–1892) (Luukkanen
1993).
The followers of Böhme in Finland were a vast and heterogeneous assem-
bly. There was a widespread reception of his ideas within the peasant culture
of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, notably in the area of
Ostrobothnia in central Finland, a reception that formed part of a broader
cultural change that was taking place in connection with the emergence of
a more widespread literacy. An instructive example is the case of Samuel
Rinta-Nikkola (1763–1818), a tailor and autodidact who both translated and
reproduced earlier manuscripts, a total of over thirty books, between 1794
and 1809, including Pordage’s Sophia, two collections of letters by Gichtel and
Johann Wilhelm Überfeld and several works by Böhme. Rinta-Nikkola also col-
lected and transcribed folk songs and translated Daniel Djurberg’s Geografi för
begynnare (Geography for Beginners), the first book on geography to appear in
Finnish. Other prolific translators and reproducers that could be mentioned
were Jakob Norrgård and Michel (Mikko) Sauso. It is also notable that different
translations of Boehmenist literature were in circulation; Böhme’s Psychologia
vera, for instance, which was twice translated by Rinta-Nikkola, had been pre-
ceded by at least one translation by Jakob Kärmäki (1699–1789), a copy of which
reached Wallenberg. Commenting on the cultural efforts of Rinta-Nikkola and
others, J.V. Snellman in 1855 remarked that it was truly astonishing to behold
that these Finnish peasants and artisans not only read and translated works
by theosophers and mystics, but engaged in a lively correspondence regarding
their ideas (Snellman 1932: 210).
References
Akiander, Matthias, Historiska Upplysningar om Religiösa rörelserna i Finland i äldre och

senare tider I–VII, Helsingfors, 1857–1863.
Djurberg, Daniel, Geografia alkaville Samuel Rinta-Nikkolalta, E.M. Laine (ed.), Helsinki:
SKS, 1999.
Hallio, Kustaa, “Suomen mystikoista”, Teologisk Tidskrift – Teologinen aikakausikirja,
(1901), 345–356, 401–409.
Kvist, H.-O., “Der Einfluss Jakob Böhmes in Finnland”, in: Klaus Fitschen & Reinhart
Staats (eds.), Grundbegriffe christlicher Ästhetik, Beiträge des V. Makarios-Symposiums
Preetz 1995, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1997.
Laine, Esko M., “Taivaallinen Sofia ja lihallinen Eeva. Seksuaalisuus suomalaisessa
radikaalipietismissä ennen isoavihaa”, in: Minna Ahola, Marjo-Riitta Antikainen &
Päivi Salmesvuori (eds.), Taivaallista seksiä. Kristinusko ja seksuaalisuus, Helsinki:
Tammi, 2006.
Laine, Tuija, Englantilaisperäinen hartauskirjallisuus Suomessa Ruotsin vallan aikana.
Bibliografia (English Devotional Literature in Finland during the Swedish Era.
Bibliography), SKST 778, Helsinki: SKS, 2000.
——— . Ylösherätys suruttomille: Englantilaisperäinen hartauskirjallisuus Suomessa
Ruotsin vallan aikana (English Devotional Literature in Finland during the Swedish
Era), SKST 775, Helsinki: SKS, 2002.
Linderholm, Emanuel, Sven Rosén och hans insats i frihetstidens radikala pietism,
Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1911.
Loimaranta, Sakari, Erikssonien mystillis-separatistinen liike vuoteen 1745, Lahti:
Kirjapaino- ja Sanomalehti oy, 1940.
Luukkanen, Tarja-Liisa, In Quest of Certainty. Axel Fredrik Granfelt’s Theological
Epistemology, Schriften der Luther-Agricola-Gesellschaft 29, Helsinki: Luther-
Agricola-Gesellschaft, 1993.
Manninen, Juha, “Härmä-katekesen. Christian Henrik Snellmans (1777–1855) sweden-
borgiansk-mystiska världsbild”, in: M. Lahtinen (ed.), Historiallinen Arkisto 105,
Helsinki: Suomen historiallinen seura, 1995, 180–250.
126 Mansikka
Pajula, J.S., “Jacob Böhmen vaikutuksesta Suomen n. k. Mystikoihin”, Teologisk Tidskrift

– Teologinen aikakausikirja (1911), 1–12.
Pohjolan-Pirhonen, Holger, “Näkökohtia ulstadiolaisesta liikkeestä”, Xenia Ruuthiana
SKHS, 47 (1947).
Råberg, Herman, Teologins historia vid Åbo universitet I, Skrifter utgivna av Svenska
Litteratursällskapet i Finland 23, Helsingfors, 1893.
Ruuth, Martti, “Kaksi Petter Schäferin päiväkirjaa osaksi lyhennettyinä sekä johdan-
nolla, muistutuksilla ja nimiluetteloilla varustettuina”, in: Suomen kirkkohistoriallisen
seuran toimituksia XII,1. Helsinki: Suomen Kirkkohistoriallinen Seura, 1915.
Snellman, Johan Vilhelm, Kootut teokset, Part 8, Porvoo: WSOY, 1932.
Wallmann, Johannes, Pentti Laasonen & Esko M. Laine (eds.), Der Pietismus in seiner
europäischen und aussereuropäischen Ausstrahlung, Suomen kirkkohistoriallisen
seuran toimituksia 157, Helsinki 1992.
Christian Theosophy in Norway 127
Chapter 17 Christian Theosophy in Norway

in Norway
Jacob Böhme (1575–1624) is probably the Christian mystic who has exercised
the greatest influence. Even though his theosophy springs out of pre-modern
thought that is radically different from the views of reality hegemonic to
modernity, he has always had his supporters and admirers. These are, however,
individuals and groups opposed both to orthodox theology and rationalism,
naturalism and the secularisation processes of modernity. Böhme’s reception
history is therefore first and foremost related to various countercultures.
This pattern emerges from the beginning. Right after Böhme’s death in 1624,
a Boehmenist congregation was established in Holland, which departed from
the traditional church. And it is in Holland that Böhme’s writings and ideas
were imparted. Boehmenist theosophy also made an early impact in England,
first in the Philadelphian Society and later among philosophers, theologians,
and writers in opposition to orthodox theology and rationalistic ways of think-
ing, of which probably the best known are William Blake and William Law. The
most important influence is, however, on German Romanticism and parts of
German Pietism. In Norway we find the same pattern, his influence may be
traced early on in spiritually oriented groups and Radical Pietism, later on
among spiritually oriented lay Christian writers and theologians (here called
spiritualists, obviously with a different meaning intended than for the nine-
teenth century movements discussed elsewhere in this volume).
The Danish theologian Niels Svendsøn Chronich (ca. 1608–1662), employed
as master at the gymnasium in Kristiania in 1639, is the first person known to
have spread Böhme’s writings and ideas in Norway. Having studied theology at
the university in Groningen, Chronich came into contact with a separatist
movement inspired by Valentin Weigel, while travelling in Germany. Through
this movement he became acquainted with Böhme’s theosophy. In Norway
Chronich began preaching a radical spiritualism: In opposition to the literal
orthodoxy of the clergy, he maintained that true belief required an inner spiri-
tual enlightenment. In this connection he propagandised for Böhme, and soon
came in conflict with the authorities who accused him of holding illegal prayer

128 Ebbestad Hansen
meetings and spreading heretical literature. In his defence, Chronich insisted

that his accusers had not understood the writings of the “Holy Jacob Böhme”.
In 1648 he appeared before a clerical court and was later forced to leave
Kristiania.
During the second half of the seventeenth century, Bergen was the centre of
a spiritually oriented Christianity, whose main proponent was Hans Olsen
(1607–1684). After studies in Copenhagen, the Netherlands, and England,
Olsen settled in Bergen where he became the town physician. A polymath in
the spirit of his age, having studied languages and theology besides medicine,
he was also well versed in alchemy, with which he experimented. While in
Bergen, Olsen translated the writings of Catholic mystics as well as The
Heavenly Academy written by the English Puritan Francis Rous (published in
1638, in Norwegian as Det Himmelske Academie). According to a memorial text
written upon Olsen’s death, not a day went by in which he did not read the
writings of Paracelsus and Böhme, and he supposedly compiled an anthology
of Böhme’s writings, which unfortunately has not been preserved. Olsen repre-
sented a type of spiritualism in which a synthesis of medieval mysticism and
natural philosophy in the tradition of Paracelsus was sought, and of which
Jacob Böhme was the foremost representative.
Another central figure in the spiritualistic milieus of seventeenth-century
Bergen, was Edvard Edvardsen (1630–1695) who was a teacher and conrector at
the Bergen Latin School. He had studied theology in Copenhagen and spent
some time in the Netherlands where he probably came into contact with
groups spreading the writings of spiritualists, i.e., anti-materialistic writers,
and mystics. Edvardsen was a well-known astrologer, and in an unpublished
manuscript, Sapientia coelestis, he developed an astrologically-grounded cos-
mology. The influence of mysticism on Edvardsen’s text is strong and in the
introduction he explicitly refers to the writings of Jacob Böhme. According to
Edvardsen, Böhme’s books teach us about the nature of God, and it can be
shown that Edvardsen had copied large parts of Böhme’s most famous book,
Aurora oder Morgenröthe im Aufgang. He was particularly influenced by
Böhme’s view of nature, in which we find the teaching of the seven formative
qualities in nature, the basic principles of sal, sulphur, and mercurius, as well as
the dialectics of light vs. darkness and good vs. evil. Furthermore, Böhme’s idea
of the Angst of nature was integrated by Edvardsen in his own text. However,
Böhme’s Christology and theogonic speculations do not seem to have influ-
enced Edvardsen.
Peder Olufssøn Svegning (d. 1671) was another contemporary who probably
read Böhme. He was a vicar on the island of Stord and wrote a great many
hymns. In 1668 he published a collection of hymns entitled Aurora eller Ny
Morgenrøden (Aurora or New Rose of Dawn), most likely a direct reference to

Böhme’s well-known major work, Aurora oder Morgenröhte im Aufgang. Apart
from the title, there is little to connect the hymns to Böhme except a vague
tendency towards a Christocentric mysticism which appears in metaphors
taken from nuptial mysticism. These may be interpreted as an influence from
Böhme, but could equally be an influence from other sources.
Böhme’s influence can also be traced to eighteenth-century Bergen. In 1771
Böhme’s treatise on true penitence was translated and published (as Om den
sande Poenitensze). The famous lay preacher Hans Nielsen Hauge (1771–1824),
as well, tells of meeting several individuals in Bergen and the surrounding
areas who were greatly interested in Böhme. It is, however, not known whether
there was any connection between this eighteenth-century interest in Böhme
and the spiritualism, i.e., the anti-materialism, of the mid-seventeenth century.
In Kristiania, too, there must at this time have been a certain interest in Böhme.
At least, in 1771 a translation was printed of his tract on the suprasensual life,
De vita mentali.
Magnus Berg (1666–1739) is the first Norwegian who in his own writings
propagated the theosophical teachings of Böhme as a whole. Not much is
known of Berg, but he probably came from Romedal in the county of Hedmark
in south-eastern Norway, and he apparently distinguished himself as a picto-
rial artist as he is known to have received a royal scholarship to study painting
in Copenhagen, the capital of the then combined state of Denmark-Norway. It
is not known when he left Norway, but it was certainly no later than 1690. After
several years of studying abroad, he settled in Copenhagen and remained there
until his death in 1739.
Berg made a career as a sculptor in ivory and became famous throughout
Europe. In addition to working as a painter and carver in ivory, he wrote reli-
gious texts in the esoteric and anti-materialistic tradition, three of which were
published in German under the title Microscopium in 1735. The rest of his writ-
ings circulated in handwritten copies, mainly within the radical pietistic
community in Copenhagen. Some of his writings were probably also circulated
in Norway.
The context for Berg’s ideas can be traced to the radical pietistic movement
he came into contact with in Copenhagen at the beginning of the eighteenth
century, a pietism highly critical of the church and where great emphasis was
placed on personal conversion and visionary experience. Chiliastic and theo-
sophical speculations as well as speculations in the philosophy of nature
flourished. Here theosophy meant a religious form of knowledge emphasising
a redeeming insight into the inner life of God and nature.
130 Ebbestad Hansen
The catalogue of books in his library includes works by German mystics

such as Johannes Tauler, Johann Arndt, and Thomas à Kempis, as well as
alchemical writings, the Corpus Hermeticum and books by Paracelsus, Valentin
Weigel, Johannes Reuchlin, and Agrippa von Nettesheim, to mention only the
best known, thus providing a good idea of his religious inclinations. In other
words, Berg was interested in the Hermetic or mystical-theosophical tradition
that was so influential in the history of ideas of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.
The most important source of inspiration for Magnus Berg was Böhme, the
“theosophus and mysticus”. In Böhme he found a combination of mystical
piety and speculations in the philosophy of nature which he would refer to and
repeat in several of his most important writings, such as Denne siste verdens
tids speil (The Mirror of This Last World) and Beskrivelse av det åndelige Babylon
(Description of the Spiritual Babylon).
In his biblical exegesis, he is especially concerned with Böhme’s under-
standing of creation as a fall going through several stages and of the parallel
between Adam and Christ: The first stage was Lucifer’s revolt as a result of the
realisation of will. This led to God creating man, i.e., Adam, as an androgynous
being with a non-material body. The next stage appeared when Adam turned
away from contemplating perfection and fell asleep. The third and last stage
was realised when Eve tempted Adam, the point in history in which humans
appeared as two separate genders with coarse material bodies.
In another central motif, Christ is the new Adam who has come to restore
the original spiritual unity that Adam had destroyed. In this perspective, Christ
is identical to man reborn. The change occurred in man’s inner being, while
the exterior remained in the state of imperfection. Böhme and Berg were here
clearly opposed to the Lutheran orthodoxy of sola fide, and emphasised instead
the importance of choice and rebirth. Both of these transformations could be
described in alchemical terms, i.e., inner perfection being the Philosopher’s
Stone – lapis philosophorum.
As evidenced by his use of fire symbolism, Berg had adopted the main con-
cepts of the Boehmenist theosophical system. This symbolism illustrated the
main theme of Böhme’s theogony, namely the transformation of God’s self
from chaos and destructivity into a harmonious unity. In this perspective, fire
was both an image of a consuming, destructive force – the wrath of God – and
of the life-giving light of love and harmony – the joyous kingdom of God. Both
Böhme and Berg claimed that this process developed through seven stages, or
“nature spirits”.
Böhme used terms, concepts, and metaphors from the natural philosophy
of Paracelsus and alchemy, for instance sal, sulphur, and mercurius, in his
descriptions of the theogonic processes of God. He also wrote of “God’s Angst”

when describing the transformation from a wrathful, destructive, and jealous
God into a harmonious and loving God. Böhme maintained that in the state
of divine perfection the consuming fire would eternally be transformed into
light and warmth. In the state of creation, however, these forces fell apart and
were separated as spirit and matter, chaos and harmony, good and evil. Thus,
in a certain sense, evil originated in God himself, in God’s nature. This highly
original doctrine, with its provoking implications, attracted a lot of attention,
and fascinated Berg. In the created world of matter, everything was constituted
by good or evil, and evil could thus be understood as a precondition of good.
But in perfection, in God, evil would always be transformed into good.
Magnus Berg also makes use of the occult-astrological cosmology found in
Boehmenism and Paracelsianism, in which qualities embodied in nature corre-
spond to celestial bodies. By possessing knowledge of these correspondences,
one could influence the processes of nature by way of magic. Though the astro-
logical-magical system is not described in detail in Berg’s oeuvre, it provides
the worldview in which his thought should be placed. The same is true of the
theory of signatures, which Böhme probably acquired from Paracelsus and
the professor of medicine and alchemy at the University of Marburg, Oswald
Croll, and included in his own philosophy of nature. Knowledge of the secrets
of nature enabled one to deduce the inner qualities of things based on their
exterior qualities, such as form, colour, and smell. This understanding was
important in medicine, but was also given wider epistemological implications.
The Nineteenth Century
In the nineteenth century, theologians and philosophers became interested in

Böhme, most likely because of the importance attributed to him in German
Idealism and Romanticism. In Denmark, it was primarily theologians who
took an interest, as for instance C. Henrik Scharling, professor of theology, who
wrote Jakob Bøhmes Theosophi: En religionsfilosofisk og dogmatisk undersøgelse
(The Theosophy of Jacob Böhme: A Religio-Philosophical and Dogmatic
Inquiry). It was published 1879 as a Festschrift commemorating the 400-year
anniversary of the founding of the university of Copenhagen. Some years later,
in 1881, Bishop Hans Lassen Martensen published Jacob Bøhme: Theosophiske
studier (Jacob Böhme: Theosophical Studies). Both books were thorough and
insightful inquiries into Boehmenist theosophy.
In Norway an interest in Böhme is found among professional philosophers
strongly influenced by Hegelianism, due to Hegel’s positive references to
132 Ebbestad Hansen
Böhme in his lectures on the history of philosophy. In his most important work
Grundtankernes system (Basic System of Thought) Georg Vilhelm Lyng (1827–
1884), professor of philosophy at the University of Kristiania, in continuation
of Hegelian logics inquired into the concepts of “inner” and “outer” using the
Boehmenist theory of signatures as an example of personification of inanimate
nature. Böhme’s significance was due to his being the main representative of
this type of thinking as well as being the founder of a German national phi-
losophy. But in Lyng’s historicising and evolutionary perspective, the theory of
signatures exemplified a naïve and early view. Only divine revelation enabled
one to draw conclusions regarding the hidden inner qualities of nature on the
basis of exterior signs and symbols, as Böhme did. The same applied to astrol-
ogy and numerology. Such deductions indicated a lack of understanding of the
unity of things, in Lyng’s view. The inner had to reveal itself in the outer, and
in accordance with Hegelian logic, the boundary between inner and outer was
thereby dissolved.
Norway’s most important nineteenth-century philosopher was the Hegelian
Marcus Jacob Monrad (1816–1897). He discussed Böhme’s theosophy, although
not based on any profound insight into his writings, nonetheless in a qualified
and informative manner. Monrad did not place Böhme in the tradition of
Catholic mysticism or natural philosophers. In opposition to both mystics and
philosophers, Böhme understood the “Absolute” as unfolding itself in his inner
self as well as unfolding itself in the real world. Such a synthesis of introvert
mysticism and nature mysticism was in Monrad’s view ‘a Protestant form of
mysticism’, and it was here that Böhme’s epochal originality could be found.
The Twentieth Century
In the twentieth century Böhme provided poetic inspiration to a variety of

writers. The author Gabriel Scott (1878–1958) was decisively influenced by New
Romanticism and Symbolism, currents which appeared in the 1890s as a reac-
tion against naturalism and realism in literature. This was a literature of
metaphysical longings, concerned with the mysterious, with occult phenom-
ena, alchemy, and spiritualism, looking for unconscious forces in the soul and
finding connections between the soul and the divine. Two writers from this
period were particularly inspirational to Scott, namely Thomas Krag (1868–
1913) and Sigbjørn Obstfelder (1866–1900). In Krag’s Mester Magius (Master
Magius) published in 1909 we find elements of nature mysticism and a fascina-
tion with the mysteries of the soul; and in Obstfelder’s De Røde dråper (The Red
Drops, 1897) the conceptual world of alchemy was an important source of
inspiration. At the turn of the century this openness towards mysticism and
esoteric forms of thought became part of a substantial critique of nineteenth-
century positivism, naturalism, and rationalism and the faith in progress.
In Scott’s novels, nature is a spiritual wholeness, an organism infused with
divine forces, providing his protagonists with ecstatic experiences of nature.
Scott read and was inspired by Spinoza’s pantheism, but he was also well
acquainted with Böhme and made several explicit references to him. In Våren
(Spring), the first volume of the trilogy En drøm om en drøm (A Dream of a
Dream, 1940–1947), the shepherd boy Marius is described as a child of nature
with an immediate, intuitive access to her inner workings. Scott explicitly drew
on the popular conception of Böhme as an unsophisticated cobbler, a natural
genius who was given ecstatic, visionary access to the inner workings of nature
through divine illumination. Marius is only a mystic in a small way, in a man-
ner of speaking a very small-scale Böhme. Several of Scott’s stories of nature
bear a strong resemblance to Böhme’s descriptions of an inspired nature. If
one’s inner eye were open one would see behind the shell of appearances and
gaze upon the real essence of things, which was spirit, often described as light
or fire.
In Helgenen (The Saint, 1936) Scott is concerned with the conditions under
which human beings could gain immediate insight into the divine nature; the
autodidact Daniel explained that man by himself would not be found worthy
of such revelations, rather it was God who descended into the person and
revealed the mysteries. The reference here is to Böhme’s Aurora, in a passage
which tells how he acquired insight into the hidden life of nature. In Høsten
(Autumn), volume 3 of the trilogy, Scott was concerned with the origin of evil
and had his protagonist refer to Böhme’s teachings on evil as a condition for
experiencing good, when claiming that the church should abandon its dogma-
tism and develop its teachings in this direction instead.
In the twentieth century, one major conduit of Böhme’s thought has been
via Anthroposophy. Rudolf Steiner, founder of the anthroposophical move-
ment, regarded Böhme as a major representative of a Western, spiritual current.
The writer and culture critic Aasmund Brynildsen (1917–1974) was one of the
most important writers in spreading Christian spiritualism to the Norwegian
public. He did not himself adhere to Anthroposophy, but was nevertheless
decisively influenced by it. He did not write anything specifically on Böhme,
but referred to him in several places.
One of Norway’s most important poets, Stein Mehren (b. 1935) shows strong
affinities with Böhme. He has written philosophical essays, plays, and novels.
In Mehren’s poetic universe the world, man, and poetry are seen through the
perspective of a logos philosophy which has been a constitutive element in
134 Ebbestad Hansen
much of Christian mysticism. This tradition originated in the pre-Christian

Greek philosophy of Heraclitus and the Stoics, but has first and foremost been
ascribed to the Gospel of John and the Gospel’s teaching on logos as the mean-
ingful, creative word. By way of the Gospel of John, this teaching became an
integral part of the Christian mysticism and cosmology of Origen, Eckhart,
Cusanus, Weigel, and Böhme. It is in this connection possible to show a signifi-
cant affinity between the conceptual worlds of Mehren and Böhme, in addition
to explicit references.
The central topic of Mehren’s poetry is the fact that man gives expression to
the mute voice within things, thus echoing Böhme’s conception of an imma-
nent illumination as expressed, e.g., in his theories of signatures and the
language of nature. In his essay Det forseglede budskap (The Sealed Message),
published in 1992, Mehren is critical of the postmodern deconstruction of the
self, though he sees a justification for dissolving the notion of a substantial self
to the extent that the self is understood as historically and socially conditioned.
Where he parts ways with postmodernism is when he argues for a substantially
united self. He refers instead to the notion of a transformed, “reborn” self cen-
tral to a forgotten Western tradition, namely the Christian mysticism of for
instance Jacob Böhme.
As mentioned, Böhme has never been important within the hegemonic
thought of modernity. Those who sought out his theosophy were mostly indi-
viduals searching for spiritual alternatives to contemporary religious orthodoxy
and to the disenchantment of nature. Apart from a few scholars who have
studied the historical significance of Böhme, he has mainly attracted the inter-
est of countercultural movements and groups: At first, spiritualists and radical
pietists who were opposed to religious orthodoxy; later, intellectuals and writ-
ers who were revolting against the materialism, naturalism, and rationalism of
modernity. For all of them, Jacob Böhme was seen as the steward of a hidden
wisdom about man and nature.
References
Andersen, Per Thomas, Stein Mehren – en logosdikter, Oslo: Aschehoug forlag, 1982.
Åshild Paulsen, Magnus Berg, en kunstner ved kongens hoff, Oslo: Dreyer forlag, 1989.
Berg, Magnus, Denne Sidste Verdens tids Speil Hvorudi Een Hver Kand beschue dend sande
Christum udi sin Tempel som er det nye Creatur Ligeleedis dend falsche – eller Anti-
Christum Med sin høyspidsset opbygte Capelle udj dend gamble Adam, ca. 1721, unpub-
lished manuscript at The Royal Library in Copenhagen, transcribed version at The
National Library in Oslo.
——— . Een kort og eenfoldig beskrivelse om det stoere Aandelige Babylon, Sodoma og
Ægypten, dets begyndelse, Tilvæxt, fuldkommen Alder saa og Endelig, som indbefattis
udi de syf Sende-breve til de syf Menigheds Engle udi asia etc. 1727, unpublished ma-
nuscript at The Royal Library in Copenhagen, transcribed version at The National
Library in Oslo.
Borgen, P., “Johannes Olsonius: Theosophus et Medicus Bergensis”, Norsk Teologisk
Tidsskrift, 73 (1972), 1–27.
Coucheron, Peter, “Om Mag. Niels Svendsen Krönikes Stridigheter med Præsteskabet i
Christiania i Aarene 1642–1652”, Theologisk tidsskrift for den evangelisk-lutherske kirke
i Norge, 1 (1858), 234–255, 257–298, 2 (1859), 46–67.
Edvardsen, Edvard, Sapientia Coelestis ca. 1677, unpublished manuscript at the Royal
Hansen, Jan-Erik Ebbestad, Jacob Böhme. Liv, tenkning, idéhistoriske forutsetninger, Oslo:
Solum forlag, 1985.
——— . (ed.), Den levende kjærlighets flamme. Kristen mystikk fra Augustin til vår tid.
Introductory essay by J.-E. Ebbestad Hansen, Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 2000.
——— . “Det forseglede budskap. Stein Mehren og mystikken”, in: Ole Karlsen (ed.),
Som du holder mitt hjerte i din ømhet, Oslo: Unipub forlag, 2004, 79–96.
——— . (ed.), Vestens mystikk. Introductory essay by J.-E. Ebbestad Hansen, Oslo: De
norske Bokklubbene, 2005.
——— . “Frihet og nødvendighet i F.W.J. Schellings frihetsfilosofi”, in: Friedrich W.J.
Schelling, Om menneskets frihet, Oslo: Aschehoug, 2013, 7–47.
Lyng, Georg Vilhelm, Grundtankernes system. Anden del. Metafysikken, Christiania: Osk.
Knobelauchs forlag, 1883.
Martensen, Hans Lassen, Jacob Bøhme. Theosophiske Studier, Kjøbenhavn: Gyldendalske
Boghandels Forlag, 1881.
Mehren, Stein, Det forseglede budskap: et essay om jeg-dannelse i lys av postmodernisme,
mystikk og kjønnsroller, Oslo: Aschehoug kursiv, 1992.
Monrad, Marcus Jacob, “Jakob Bøhmes Theosophie. En religionsphilosophisk og dog-
matisk Undersøgelse af C. Henrik Scharling. Kjøbenhavn 1879”, Theologisk tidsskrift
for den evangelisk-lutherske kirke i Norge, ny rekke, 8 (1882), 1–23.
Oddmund Hjelde, Det indre lys. Religiøs mystikk i norsk litteratur og åndsliv, Oslo: Solum
forlag, 1997.
Rørdam, H.F. , “Separatisten M. Niels Svendsen Chronich og hans Tilhængere”, Kirke
historiske Samlinger, tredje rekke, 3 (1881–1882), 508–609, 4 (1882–1884), 561–628.
Scharling, C. Henrik, Jakob Bøhmes Theosophi. En religionsphilosophisk og dogmatisk
Undersøgelse, Kjøbenhavn: Gads Forlag, 1879.
Scott, Gabriel, Helgenen, Oslo: Gyldendal, 1936.
——— . Våren, Oslo: Gyldendal, 1940.
——— . Høsten, Oslo Gyldendal, 1947.
136 Ebbestad Hansen
Sejersted, Jørgen Magnus, Pasjonsdiktning på 1600-tallet: det er noen kommentarer til

Aurora eller ny Morgenrøden av dikterpresten på Stord Peder Oluffssøn Svegning. Cand.
philol. thesis, Nordic Studies, University of Bergen, 1994.
Skaanes, Per Jakob, “Salige er de rene av hjertet, for de skal skue Gud”. En idéhistorisk
undersøkelse av religiøs mystikk som litterært motiv i Gabriel Scotts romaner. Cand.
philol. thesis, History of Ideas, University of Oslo, spring 2003.
Steiner, Rudolf, Mystikken, Oslo: Antropos, 2004.
Svegning, Peder Olufssøn, Aurora eller Ny Morgenrøden, Kiøbenhaffn: Jørgen Lamprecht,
1668.
Valkner, Kristen, “Konrektor Edvart Edvartzen”, Nordisk tidsskrift för vetenskap, konst och
industri, 41 (1971), 426–439.
Christian Theosophy in Sweden 137
Chapter 18 Christian Theosophy in Sweden

in Sweden
Fabian Linde
Böhme in Sweden: General Considerations
The study of the reception of Böhme in Sweden is still in its early stages and
the following outline should be considered as nothing more than a summing-
up of the present embryonic state of research. Although Böhme never travelled
outside of his native region, his thought did wander northwards, in due course
finding its way into heterodox varieties of Swedish spirituality. However, an
unbroken tradition of Christian theosophy never developed on Swedish soil, as
it did on the continent and in England, no doubt owing to the organised oppo-
sition of the theological authorities, who quite effectively neutralised all
attempts at dissent. This said, it is possible to discern an influence on two his-
torical currents: first, on Paracelsianism, involving mainly secular scholars and
physicians (Lindroth 1943), and, second, on Pietism, a revivalist movement
pervasive among nonconformist clergymen and devout laypeople. Out of the
latter, a radical subcurrent developed on the fringes of the Swedish national
church. Whereas the Hermetic-Paracelsist current attached itself to the sphere
traditionally dedicated to knowledge, Pietism struggled as a heterodox move-
ment within, or on the periphery of, the domain traditionally devoted to faith.
If the former has been proto-scientific and esoteric, the latter has been more
devotional and mystically inclined.
The Seventeenth Century
After having adopted Lutheranism in the sixteenth century, the established

Church worked hard to consolidate its teachings and position of power.
Sweden developed into a country without freedom of religion, in which the
religious views of its citizens were supervised and regulated by the ecclesiasti-
cal authorities, whose insistence on the hegemony of Lutheran Orthodoxy was
rigorous. Other viewpoints than the accepted creed, such as those represented
by Calvinism and Catholicism, not to speak of Judaism, were strictly prohib-
ited. Individuals who were found guilty of heresy or of deviating in any way

138 Linde
from Lutheran orthodoxy were exiled or punished in other ways. Even capi-
tal punishment was applied in some cases. As a result, dissenters were forced
either to keep their opinions to themselves or face the harsh consequences
that followed upon a public declaration of faith. It is hardly surprising, then,
that Sweden experienced several waves of religiously motivated emigration
throughout its Early Modern history. It goes without saying that the teachings
of Böhme were considered a false and subversive doctrine by the theological
authorities. Its adherents were branded fanatics (Sw. svärmare) in much the
same way as Martin Luther in his day had attempted to ostracise some of his
more radical contemporaries. Given the risk of persecution, one should not
expect the influence coming from Böhme to be readily apparent, but instead
realise that it flowed forth like a more or less hidden stream in the spiritual life
of the nation. This also entailed that the translations into Swedish of Böhme’s
works, which have been few and far between, were for the most part made
anonymously and spread in manuscript form only, making it difficult for schol-
ars to contextualise them with any greater degree of accuracy.
It is probable that the Swedish reception of Böhme commenced already a
few years after his death. On a visit to Danzig in 1641, the Swedish esoteric
autodidact and self-styled Rosicrucian Johannes Bureus (1568–1652) made the
personal acquaintance of Böhme’s friend and first biographer, Abraham von
Franckenberg (1593–1652). It is more than likely that Bureus came to know of
Böhme’s teachings at this time, although we lack textual evidence to establish
this fact conclusively. Bureus, who was placed close to the pinnacle of power, is
undoubtedly one of Sweden’s most neglected intellectual pioneers, whose rep-
utation has been tainted by his unconventional interests in Christian Kabbalah,
numerology, astrology, and the magic properties of runes (Karlsson 2009). Not
only was he the personal tutor of both King Gustavus Adolphus and Crown
Princess Christina, he was also the country’s first national archivist and anti-
quarian, as well as the first head of the Royal Library (from 1611 to 1634). It was
he who first began to collect and decipher the nation’s rich heritage of runic
inscriptions, and he is also credited with having compiled the first grammar of
the Swedish language. During his lifetime, Bureus encountered opposition
from the Lutheran clergy, who raised doubts about his orthodoxy. He was
acquitted from the accusations of heresy that were levelled at him owing solely
to the personal intervention of the king.
Later in the seventeenth century, Böhme helped to inspire in Sweden a
number of strongly apocalyptic and chiliastic projects. One of these was that
of Anders Pedersson Kempe (ca. 1622–1689), who was forced to leave the coun-
try owing to his radical pacifism. Kempe was an alchemist and an important
precursor of Pietism, inspired by Paul Felgenhauer, Paracelsus, and Valentin
Weigel (Ambjörnsson 1993). Two other precursors of Pietism during the end of
the seventeenth century, Lars Ulstadius (ca. 1650–1732) and his disciple Peter
Schaefer (ca. 1660–1729), were apocalyptic penitent preachers from the Finnish
city of Åbo (Fi. Turku) who displayed a great deal of hostility towards the
Church. They were accused of heresy in a court trial in 1689, which ended with
Ulstadius being condemned to imprisonment for life, while Schaefer was
allowed to emigrate after recanting. Schaefer later became acquainted with
Gottfried Arnold (1666–1714), before returning to Åbo. He was then brought to
court anew and condemned to capital punishment, a verdict which was later
converted to life imprisonment.
The Eighteenth Century
In 1726, the Lutheran clergy sought to tighten its grip on power when the so-
called Konventikelplakatet was adopted, a law prohibiting the population from
organising religious gatherings or prayer meetings, so-called conventicles,
without the attendance of a priest from the national Church. This law, not
abolished until 1858, was above all directed against Pietism, which surfaced in
Sweden during the 1720s. Pietism was a movement that strove to intensify reli-
gious fervour and deepen faith by appealing to the emotional life of its devotees
rather than to their intellect. Although it was perhaps not esoteric in the strict
sense of the word, esoteric writers such as Jacob Böhme and Gottfried Arnold
constituted important sources of inspiration. Its greatest German forerunner,
however, was Johann Arndt (1555–1621), whose Vier Bücher vom wahren
Christentum (Four Books on True Christianity) became exceptionally popular
in Sweden. The fourth of these books propounds a Paracelsian philosophy of
nature, although this has often been left out of the translations. Swedish
Pietism’s period of greatness was the beginning of the 1730s, when it was
embraced by soldiers formerly belonging to the army of Charles XII, who had
experienced untold hardships in the Great Northern War against Russia and
now sought spiritual consolation. Although it did not produce any writer of
lasting value, the movement did play a crucial role in Swedish church history,
owing to the fact that it set in motion a process in which the established Church
began to loosen its firm grip on the population (Lindroth 1975: 127). In this
sense, it was an important precursor of the Swedish revivalist movement and
of the Free Churches that arose during the nineteenth century, and which to
this very day make up an important feature of the religious life of the nation.
The foremost representative of the older, more moderate, and ecclesiastical
form of Pietism was Erik Tolstadius (1693–1759), a vicar in the centre of
140 Linde
Stockholm. Tolstadius had become a Pietist under the direct influence of the
German physician and alchemist Johann Konrad Dippel (1673–1734), who
sojourned in Stockholm during the years 1726–28 and disseminated his teach-
ings there. Dippel was eventually expelled, and Tolstadius was then accused of
being his follower, but was acquitted after intense cross-examination. Whereas
Tolstadius adhered to a practically-oriented piety, Dippel was more rationalis-
tically and indiviualistically minded, and is sometimes regarded as a forerunner
of the Enlightenment. The latter also propounded a theosophical and alchemi-
cal philosophy of nature.
During his stay in Sweden, Dippel became the source of inspiration for
Radical Pietism. When the mentioned law on conventicles was adopted at this
time, Swedish Pietism naturally became more radicalised and many of its rep-
resentatives were forced underground. They came to heavily criticise the
Orthodox Lutheran views on atonement, scriptural literalism, and the sacra-
ments, and questioned the authority of the clergy. Of the few Radical Pietist
groups that were formed at this time, one was centred on Sven Rosén (1708–
1750), who became the leader of Sweden’s first separatist congregation. He was
a friend of Dippel and like his contemporary, Carl Michael von Strokirch (1702–
1776), came to work actively towards the establishment in Sweden of freedom
of religion. A lengthy trial was later launched against both of these men. Rosén
was eventually condemned to exile, after which he emigrated to Germany, and,
from there, to America where he remained until his death.
By 1740, Radical Pietism had been stamped out and a spiritual void followed
in its wake, later to be filled only by Herrnhutism, a movement with roots in
Pietism, although less separatist than the radical variety of the latter. The
importance of Böhme diminished in the process, although it is possible to
speculate about an influence on individual wandering preachers well into the
nineteenth century.
Another group which deserves mention in this connection is variously
known as Främlingarna (The Strangers) and Skeviksborna (Settlers in Skevik,
after the farm where the group came to live). They were among the first to be
condemned to exile on charges of heresy during the eighteenth century.
Böhme, whom they possibly were the first to translate into Swedish, took pride
of place in their readings. Originally consisting of only two brothers from
Ostrobothnia in Finland, the size of the group increased to about ninety mem-
bers during the period in exile. For the duration of eleven years they travelled
from country to country, eventually returning to Sweden where they found a
refuge in Skevik on the island of Värmdö in the Stockholm archipelago. From
then on, the authorities let them be and they were even visited at one time by
the king himself. However, their radicalism was such that they eventually came
to reject mundane society altogether, and within a few decades the group had
died out, due to the practice of celibacy. The dearth of historical sources poses
a challenge to scholarly attempts at reconstructing the beliefs of this group. It
has nevertheless been possible to establish that they were autonomists who
rejected the validity of the sacraments, as well as the legitimacy of the clergy,
and that they promoted the establishment of an intimate relationship between
the individual and God.
Whether Böhme exerted any influence on the internationally most well-
known of Swedish mystics, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), remains an
open question. The Swabian priest and Pietist Friedrich Christoph Oetinger
(1702–1782), who corresponded with Swedenborg, once asked him explicitly
about his relation to Böhme. In his reply, Swedenborg claimed that he had
been forbidden to consult any dogmatic works subsequent to the commence-
ment of his revelations. The answer is far from unambiguous, given that
Böhme’s works hardly can be categorised as dogmatic. Moreover, there is every
reason to believe that Swedenborg knew Böhme’s teachings quite well, in view
of the fact that his intimate friend and follower, Thomas Hartley, a physician
based in London, was an avid reader of the works of Böhme and in all probabil-
ity must have discussed the latter’s teachings with him.
Swedish Freemasonry, which experienced a Golden Age during the reign of
Gustavus III, should also be mentioned here. Under the grandmastery of the
king’s brother, Duke Charles, later crowned Charles XIII (reigned 1809–1818),
the Swedish Order of Freemasons entered an era when esoteric matters, such
as alchemy and Christian Kabbalah, enjoyed wide popularity in its top circles.
Further research will very likely uncover interesting connections between this
movement and Böhme, and establish what truth there is to the claim that
Anders Collin (1754–1830) introduced the duke and future king to the writings
of Böhme (Forsstrand 1913).
Having been marginalised by the prevalent Rationalism of the Enlightenment,

Böhme returned to favour during the Romantic era, as was the case on the
continent. A number of prominent Swedish writers of the age, such as Per
Daniel Amadeus Atterbom (1790–1855) and Carl Jonas Love Almqvist (1793–
1866), are known to have read Böhme. In Erik Johan Stagnelius’ (1793–1823)
poetry, which draws heavily on Gnostic and Mandaean motifs, one can easily
142 Linde
recognise the rudiments of a Hermetic cosmology, inspired by readings of

Böhme (Nilsson 1916). As exemplified, for instance, by the poem “Tingens
natur” (The Nature of Things) from 1820, there are to be found such motifs as
the vision of a dark abyss in the innermost plane of Being, the mystical
Nothingness (Sw. Intet), which clearly reverberates with Böhme’s Ungrund.
Even so, scholarship has experienced difficulties in pinpointing the exact
nature of the influence of Böhme on Swedish Romanticism owing to the fact
that his ideas often were mediated via German Romantic philosophy, above all
that of Schelling, and thus reached Sweden in a somewhat diluted form.
Later in the century, the so-called Bergman circle was formed. It consisted of
a number of chaplains to the king who in the period stretching from the 1860s
to the 1890s collectively nurtured a deep interest in mysticism. According to
Bengt Åberg, the Bergman circle constituted a link in a chain of mystics whose
origins can be traced back to the early decades of the eighteenth century, when
Pietism had its heyday. The legacy of individuals such as Tolstadius, Rosén,
and Collin, mentioned above, was handed down through networks of personal
contacts (Åberg 1968: 55ff). Unlike the Radical Pietists, the Bergman circle
remained loyal to the State Church. The views shared by its members can best
be described as a mixture of Böhme-influenced theosophy and quietist mysti-
cism. Among its core members were such individuals as the chaplain Carl
Henrik Bergman (1828–1909); the professor, later bishop and fellow of the
Swedish academy, Waldemar Rudin (1833–1921); the pioneers in Free Church
aid, Johan Christopher Bring (1829–1898) and Gustaf Emanuel Beskow (1834–
1899). The circle assembled a library containing the writings of Christian
mystics and theosophers that became known as the Petri collection, which at
present is housed in the Sigtuna Foundation. The writings of Böhme are well
represented in this collection, which contains the major editions of his col-
lected works in the original German, as well as a few autographic translations
of Böhme into Swedish made by the brothers Carl Henrik and Wilhelm
Bergman. Also represented in the collection are works by some of Böhme’s
most important followers, such as Louis Claude de Saint-Martin (1743–1803)
and Franz von Baader (1765–1841).
During the last century, the most significant figure in Sweden to be inspired by
Böhme was the mystic Hjalmar Ekström (1885–1962), who, like Böhme himself,
was a shoemaker by profession. Ekström’s letters, in which he offered spiritual
guidance and consolation, have been published in several editions (Ekström
1988, 2012). As these letters testify, Ekström valued Böhme highly after having
come into contact with his thought early on. From 1922 onwards, he would
gather a number of likeminded friends in Stockholm, a group which later
become known as the Flodberg circle, whose members jointly strived to emu-
late Christ. One of its members, the customs officer Henrik Schager, bequeathed
on it the legacy of the Bergman circle, which was mentioned above (Ljungman
1984).
With only one minor exception in the nineteenth century, not until the
twentieth century were translations into Swedish of Böhme’s works ever pub-
lished. The time had finally arrived when Böhme could reach a wider audience.
The translations were made by Eric Hermelin (1860–1944), an eccentric aristo-
crat who published prolifically while living in a mental institution in the city of
Lund. Hermelin attempted to stylistically reproduce the archaic and rich lan-
guage of the Swedish Bible translation from the time of Charles XII. Incidentally,
Hermelin was a friend of Hjalmar Ekström, with whom he exchanged letters
for the duration of roughly two decades. In his commentaries to the transla-
tions, Hermelin frequently drew his reader’s attention to the similarities that
he thought existed between Böhme’s teachings and those of the Persian Sufis
whose writings he translated as well.
References
Åberg, Bengt, Individualitet och universalitet hos Waldemar Rudin: jämte en teckning av
hans kyrkohistoriska bakgrund, Acad. Diss., Stockholm: Verbum, 1968.
Ambjörnsson, Ronny, “Krig och fred: Om en glömd pacifist från de stora krigens tid”, in:
Gunnar Broberg (ed.), Svensk historia underifrån: Tänka, tycka, tro, Stockholm:
Ordfronts förlag, 1993, 102–125.
Böhme, Jakob, Böner, transl. B. E. P., Stockholm: A.V. Carlson, 1900.
———. De poenitentia: Om den sanna hängifvenheten; Om den heliga bönen, transl. Erik
Hermelin, Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & söner, 1918.
———. Om de fyra lynnena: Gudomlig syn; Om födelse på nytt; Mysterium pansophicum,
transl. Erik Hermelin, Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & Söner, 1918.
——— . Det gudomliga väsendets tre principia, transl. Erik Hermelin, Stockholm: P.A.
Norstedt & söner, 1920.
——— . Om människans trefaldiga lif, transl. Erik Hermelin, Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt
& söner, 1920. Published translations of Böhme into Swedish:
——— . Sanningens Väg framstäld i samtal mellan lärjunge och mästare, transl. Carl
Henrik Bergman, Stockholm: A. Nilson, 1875 (2nd ed., Stockholm: Samfundet Pro
Fide et Christianismo, 1923).
144 Linde
——— . Om lycka på jorden: naturen med sina färger och toner, transl. Ann-Britt
Andersson, St. Gallen: Quellen, 1998.
Ekström, Hjalmar, Den stilla kammaren. Brev av Hjalmar Ekström, Skellefteå: Artos, 1988.
——— . Den fördolda verkstaden: Själavårdande brev, Skellefteå: Artos, 2012.
Forsstrand, Carl, Spåkvinnor och trollkarlar: minnen och anteckningar från Gustaf IIIs
Stockholm, Stockholm: Geber, 1913.
Geels, Antoon, Det fördolda livet: mystikern Hjalmar Ekström (1885–1962) – liv och lära,
Skellefteå: Artos, 1996.
Halldorf, Peter, Hädanefter blir vägen väglös, Göteborg: Trots allt / Pilgrim, 1998.
Källor till trygghet: tankar och dikter, transl. Ann-Britt Andersson, Malmö: Bergh, 1982
(2nd ed., Solna: Seelig, 1990).
Karlsson, Thomas, Götisk kabbala och runisk alkemi: Johannes Bureus och den götiska
esoterismen, Acad. Diss., Stockholm: Stockholms universitet, 2010.
Lindroth, Sten, Paracelsismen i Sverige till 1600-talets mitt, Uppsala: Lychnos, 1943.
——— . Svensk lärdomshistoria: Stormaktstiden, Stockholm: Norstedts, 1975.
Ljungman, Ulrika, Gud – och intet mer: Levnadsteckningar och brev från den mystika
Flodbergskretsen: Carl A. Flodberg, Henrik Schager, Linnea Hofgren, Hjalmar Ekström,
Skellefteå: Artos, 1984.
Mazer, Theodor (ed.), Sanningsfrön: brottstycken ur skrifter af Jacob Böhme och Franz
von Baader, 2 vols., ed., Stockholm: Ad. Johnson & C:o, 1927–1929.
Nilsson, Albert, Svensk romantik: Den platonska strömningen, Lund: Gleerup, 1916.
Freemasonry in Denmark 145
Chapter 19 Freemasonry in Denmark
Freemasonry in Denmark
Andreas Önnerfors
At the time when Freemasonry was introduced in the country, the Kingdom of
Denmark was a conglomerate state made up of a large variety of territories,
from Greenland and Iceland in the North, to Norway, the Danish isles and
Jutland in the South. The Danish conglomerate state, the so-called “Helstat”,
also comprised German-speaking territories as well as possessions in the old
German empire (Slesvig and Holstein in addition to the important port city of
Altona across from Hamburg). These German possessions were administrated
separately. For any proper understanding of cultural processes and transfer of
ideas it is vital to take this multicultural background of the Danish realm into
consideration. Freemasonry in Norway, the origin of which directly relates to
its link with Denmark and developed further during the union with Sweden
1814–1905, is treated in a separate chapter in this volume and is therefore not
discussed in the present chapter.
Freemasonry in Denmark developed in four different phases: 1743–1765:
its introduction up to the establishment of the Strict Observance; 1765–1782:
the zenith of the Strict Observance; 1782–1855: the period of the Rectified
System; 1855/1858-present: the Swedish system as practised in Den Danske
Frimurerorden.
It is also worth mentioning that a non-Christian order, Det Danske Frimur
erlaug, was established during this last phase, in 1929. The difference between
these two orders is that Den Danske Frimurerorden (around 10,000 members)
applies a system that is distinctly indebted to a Christian Western esoteric
tradition, whereas Det Danske Frimurerlaug (around 1,700 members) was
established as a union of movements that accepted the deist and religiously
tolerant principles based upon the original constitutions of Freemasonry of
1723. The latter considers itself an organisation in the tradition of the United
Grand Lodge of England. Both organisations suffered substantially during the
Nazi German occupation of Denmark and the anti-masonic persecutions dur-
ing this period. Freemasonry in Denmark has, however, since then developed
into a vibrant movement and has recently (as of 2014) featured extensively in
the Danish media.

146 Önnerfors
Period of Introduction
The first lodges in the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg were established
already in the 1730s. A provincial lodge of Lower Saxony was formed at the end
of the decade, theoretically also with jurisdiction over the German possessions
under the Danish crown. A number of Danish subjects had joined Freemasonry
in Hamburg as well as in the lodge Aux trois globes (The Three Globes) in
Berlin. We find Danish members in a couple of the oldest lodges on German
territory. Some of those members in 1743 and 1744 formed the first Danish
lodges working in Copenhagen: St. Martin and Zorobabel. Around fifty Danish
Freemasons who had been initiated in various German towns, Geneva,
Scotland, London, and Paris now joined the lodges in Copenhagen.
Strangely enough, one the first signs of the influence of Freemasonry on
Danish territory is, however, the foundation of an “Anti-masonic society”
already in 1741. Most likely this was the result of a first wave of anti-masonic
ideas and practices in Europe after the papal condemnation in 1738. This
society in itself adopted many features of a masonic organisation, including
secret passwords, symbols and signs, jewels and special dresses. Later on, many
members of this anti-masonic society would join masonic lodges in Denmark.
This episode shows how widespread the European consciousness about
Freemasonry was at this relatively early stage.
The first proper Danish lodge, St. Martin, was formed in November 1743
(later constituted with an English patent in 1749) in Copenhagen. It is interest-
ing to note that the minutes were written in German, and besides people with
origins in the Danish realm the members were of a multinational background
(Russia, Sweden, France). The language of the ritual was also German until the
late 1770s. A second lodge, Zorobabel, was founded in June 1744 (English patent
1745). It is from this lodge that the initiative came to publish one of the most
prominent masonic songbooks of the eighteenth century, Johan Adolph
Scheibe’s Neue Freymaurer-Lieder (with the first of many editions printed in
1749). A prominent Freemason, Wilhelm Matthias Neergard, formed irregular
lodges working in craft and higher degrees from 1750 onwards. These lodges
apparently worked with a more elaborate ritual that was performed with a rich
variety of artefacts. Neergard also established the first Danish lodge for women
Freemasons. It is also of interest that a lodge Phoenix was founded in 1763 by
the secretary in the British diplomatic mission Carl Adolph Tullmann. Two
years later, Tullmann would cause a split in Swedish Freemasonry by establish-
ing lodges with constitution from London, contesting the existing Swedish
Grand Lodge that had a stronger link to France. The first lodge in Norway
(which at the time belonged to the Danish realm), St. Olaus til den hvite Leopard,
was founded in Kristiania (Oslo) in 1749 on the initiative of many brethren

from Copenhagen.
During the period 1743–1765 no less than ten lodges were constituted in
Copenhagen, four of them working the Scottish degrees; the first lodge of these
latter was established in 1747 under the name of The Four Ore Columns. The
introduction of Scottish lodges in Copenhagen is closely linked to what was
most probably the first Scottish lodge on German territory, L’Union, established
30 November 1742 in Berlin. The rituals worked in these lodges can only par-
tially be reconstructed. In comparison to the first three craft degrees, the
constitutive motive of the Scottish degrees follows the narrative of the destruc-
tion and symbolical restoration of the Temple of Solomon. This narrative has
many features linking it to ideas found in the Western Christian esoteric tradi-
tion and as well as in chivalric motives. In 1762, the above-mentioned Neergard
had through his contacts with Berlin established the first chivalric masonic
chapter working according to the so-called Clermont system. This masonic
system was the first to consequently adopt a ritual built upon the chivalric
order of the Knights Templar. As “Magister Prium” Neergard presided over a
“Capitulum Hiersolymintanum” in Copenhagen (called Capitulum Hafniense).
The Strict Observance
This latter episode forms the prelude to the introduction of the Strict Observ
ance to Denmark. Since 1754, a masonic system claiming an ancestry going
back to the Order of Knights Templar existed in Germany. This system, the so-
called Strict Observance, successfully contested the chapters founded by
Clermont and began to replace them, starting in 1764. The goal of this new
masonic system was to subdue all existing lodges and to submit them to a
“strict observance” of its own rules, hence the name. Regular craft lodges and
chapters now formed nine provinces of the order, ruled by “unknown superi-
ors” and cutting across state borders in Europe. As this division of the order
was based upon the supposed medieval administrative division of the Knights
Templar, the VIIth province covered the vast territory between “Oder and Elbe”,
Denmark, Sweden, and parts of the Baltic region were also counted to this
province. The province was subdivided into four parts, called Sub-priorates,
and these again in eight prefectures, divided into commanderies. Denmark, as
prefecture Binin (Copenhagen) and Holstein and Slesvig under the prefecture
Ivenack (Hamburg) belonged to the Sub-priorat Ratzeburg (Rostock in
Mecklenburg). The prefecture Binin was subdivided into the commanders
Plessin, Collin, Trelswe, Priebernkow, Edesmum, Edenwisch, Fulsbüttel, and
148 Önnerfors
Lundsberg. All of these names were derived from medieval sources. The leader
of the Order was the German Baron von Hund, who also presided over the
government of the order from his estate Unwürde. When the Strict Observance
finally was established in 1764, its emissary Johan Christian Schubart travelled
around the territory of the VIIth province in order to convert as many lodges as
possible to the new system. In 1765 he arrived in Copenhagen and managed to
affiliate the existing lodges there with the Strict Observance. This new affilia-
tion caused significant changes in the existing rituals and introduced a
coherent system of initiation from the craft to the chivalric degrees.
In 1775 Prince Charles of Hesse-Kassel, governor of the German territories
under the Danish crown, was initiated in the Danish lodge Josua zum Corallen
baum in Rendsburg. Over the subsequent sixty years he profoundly influenced
the development of Freemasonry in Denmark. At his estates in Louisenlund he
designed a magnificent landscape garden with many initiatory and esoteric
motifs. Furthermore, the prince was deeply involved in alchemical workings
and all kinds of esoteric practices of the time. On his initiative a new prefec-
ture in the Strict Observance was formed, Eydendorp.
After the death of the leader of the Strict Observance, von Hund, a crisis
erupted that to a high degree was caused by the anti-Swedish sentiments of the
Danish government and in consequence, Freemasonry. The Swedish prince
Duke Charles of Sudermania attempted to replace von Hund and had prepared
the ground for this step with a diplomatic mission. The duke was nominated
for election at a convent of the Strict Observance in Leipzig, but the Danish
prefectures vehemently rejected this appointment. After reconciliation Duke
Charles was elected, but now the Danes refused to take an oath of allegiance to
a foreign prince. After Sweden had formed its own, IXth, province of the order
in 1780, the situation worsened further and the Danish king signed a royal proc-
lamation against any Danish Freemasons submitting to Swedish rule. It was
only a matter of time until this episode and several other severe internal prob-
lems within the Strict Observance would lead to its downfall. At a European
congress in summer 1782 in Wilhelmsbad, the system that had been estab-
lished by von Hund thirty years earlier was abolished.
The Rectified System
A new system, Chevaliers Bienfaisants de la Cité Sainte, was introduced.

However, the delegates of the convent in Wilhelmsbad were declared free to
adopt it. Only the lodges under the rule of the Prince of Hesse-Kassel and three
French Scottish directorates decided to organise themselves according to the

new rituals. The Rectified rite modified and toned down the Knights Templar
motive in the higher degrees, but retained a consistent degree structure with
many Christian and esoteric features. There was some initial resistance in
Denmark to adopt this system, and the process of implementing it took until
1786 when the Strict Observance finally was dissolved. Almost the entire
archive of the Strict Observance finally ended up in the collections of the
Danish Order of Freemasons and is today one of the major sources for masonic
studies in Europe.
Freemasonry was not too affected by the high politics that had shaken the
movement during the 1770s and 1780s, and could therefore expand through the
Danish realm, out into provincial towns like Husum, Slesvig or Altona, and
even to the Danish isles in the Caribbean, St. Croix and St. Thomas, as well as
to the small Indian colony of Tranquebar, where lodges were founded. During
the last decade of the eighteenth century, the cosmopolitan character of
Danish lodges, in terms of their multinational membership and the use of for-
eign languages (German and French), changed as more and more members
from the socially advancing middle classes joined. The lodges now started to
switch to performing rituals and instructions in Danish. The Danish lodges did
not form a united body until 1818 when an “Old Scottish Directorate” was estab-
lished and even received governmental approval. After his death in 1836, its
first “General Grand Master” Prince Carl of Hesse-Kassel was replaced by
Prince Christian Frederik (later crowned as King Christian VIII).
A remarkable character of this period in Danish Freemasonry was Friedrich
Münther (1761–1830), savant, Illuminate, bishop. Born in Germany, he spent his
childhood and adolescence in Copenhagen. He pursued a broad education in
theology, natural sciences, and classical languages. Already at the age of nine-
teen he entered Freemasonry and during his Grand Tour on the continent
became lodge officer in a German lodge in Gotha. Shortly afterwards, he spent
a long period of time in Vienna in close interaction with the lodge Zur wahren
Eintracht, that was frequented by Mozart and led by the mineralogist and
Illuminate Ignaz von Born. From Austria Münther travelled further to the
Italian states, where he visited a large number of lodges and made acquain-
tance with the German poet Goethe. Upon his return to Copenhagen, Münther
was affiliated with the lodge Friedrich zur gekrönten Hoffnung and became an
ardent member, presenting lectures that demonstrated the profound knowl-
edge about various masonic systems that he had acquired during his travels
abroad. Already in 1788 Münther was appointed professor of theology at the
University of Copenhagen. He achieved an international reputation as a
150 Önnerfors
scholar, especially in ecclesiastical law, church history, and Egyptology. In 1794

Münther published the Statutes of the Order of Knights Templar based on an
old French manuscript. In 1808 he was appointed bishop of Sealand.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, national sentiments sweeping over
Europe threatened the unity of Danish Freemasonry. In 1848, national liberals
in the German parts of the Danish realm called for independence. Backed up
by Prussia a civil war with heavy nationalist undertones was fought, ending in
1850 without any changes of the political situation. As a consequence, the
lodges on German territory declared themselves independent from the Danish
grand lodge, but were affiliated again after the unsuccessful civil war. In 1856,
the Swedish Rite was introduced in all parts of the Danish realm. After the final
loss of Slesvig and Holstein in the Danish-Prussian war of 1864, the Danish
lodges on German territory fell under the jurisdiction of the Grosse Landesloge
von Deutschland.
The Introduction of the Swedish Rite
The growth of national sentiments in Europe sparked off a remarkable cultural

current, Scandinavianism, that linked Denmark and Sweden. It started off in
the 1840s as a pan-Scandinavic student movement, with students at the univer-
sities of Lund and Copenhagen crossing the Oresund in order to celebrate
cultural brotherhood. These fraternal sentiments were strengthened by the
first war in Slesvig, and Sweden-Norway even promised to take part in the war
on the Danish side. At the peak of this important cultural movement, Danish
Freemasonry overcame its old hostility towards the Swedish Rite and worked
actively for its introduction.
Although Scandinavianism and the new rapprochement between Denmark
and Sweden cooled down significantly after Sweden declined to support
Denmark in the unsuccessful war against Prussia in 1864, Danish Freemasonry
has remained faithful to the Swedish Rite ever since. As its Scandinavian coun-
terparts, it has developed along with Danish societal and historical progression
during the twentieth century with a recurring pressure to reveal its supposed
“secrets” that remain an object of significant speculation and attraction.
References
Bartholdy, Nils, “Friederich Münter – videnskapsmand og frimurer”, Acta Masonica

Scandinavica I (1998), 15–39 .
Bugge, Karl Ludwig, Det danske frimureries historie indtill aar 1765, Copenhagen: Rom,
1910 .
——— . Det danske frimureriets historie indtill aar 1855, Copenhagen: Rom, 1927.
152 Chapter 20
Chapter 20 Freemasonry in Finland
Freemasonry in Finland
Nils G. Holm
The Arrival of Freemasonry in Finland
During the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, Freemasonry expe-

rienced a time of expansion in many countries in Europe (MacNulty 2007).
Freemasonry came to Sweden at the beginning of the century and as early as
1756 the first lodge intended for Finland, St. Augustine, named after the Church
Father, was established in Stockholm. The first Worshipful Master (the sen-
ior officer in a masonic lodge) was John Jennings, cavalry captain and later to
become Master of the Royal Household. In 1762 the St. Augustine lodge trans-
ferred its activities to Helsinki. This was because the majority of the members
were officers posted to the fortress of Sveaborg/Viapori (now Suomenlinna)
off Helsinki. (Many cities in Finland have a Finnish and a Swedish name, since
both languages are official languages of the country. Where relevant, both
names are given, separated by a slash and with the Swedish name first.)
The first meeting in Helsinki was held on 28 August 1762 with Baron Hans
Henrik Boije af Gennäs as Worshipful Master. He also became number one in
the roll of members (Gräsbeck 1954). During the years 1765 and 1766, the lodge
met in Stockholm, since the Swedish Parliament assembled there and many
of the members of the lodge therefore lived in Stockholm. During the time in
Stockholm the lodge gained new members.
Freemasonry soon generated criticism from the church because of its ideol-
ogy and activities. As early as 1769, the diocese of Borgå/Porvoo looked upon
Freemasonry as a threat to the ecclesiastical order.
The early 1770s were a period of decline for the lodge’s activities. However,
after Carl Björnberg had been made Worshipful Master, activities revived once
more during the latter part of 1776. After that, the lodge seems to have thrived.
On 17 July 1782 Duke Charles (later to become King Charles XIII, 1748–1818)
visited the lodge, and this was of great importance for the stabilisation of the
lodge’s work. During the years 1787–1790, however, the lodge’s activities again
declined because of Gustavus III’s war against Russia.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the lodge experienced a new
revival under Baron Axel Gabriel Leijonhufvud’s leadership. After the war
between Sweden and Russia in 1808–09, Finland became a Grand Duchy under
the Russian tsar. Since contacts with Sweden were more or less impossible
after that, it was decided in 1813 to discontinue Freemasonry in Finland. The

Freemasonry in Finland 153
funds accumulated by Freemasons were handed over to the city of Helsinki to

be used for the welfare of the poor. In 1822 the tsar ordered that Freemasonry
should be banned in the Russian empire. Further additions to the ban were
issued by the tsar in 1826 and 1848. Individual Freemasons nevertheless con-
tinued in secret to be members of lodges abroad.
Varieties of Freemasonry that worked with the higher degrees also reached
Finland during the Swedish era. In 1777 the Phoenix lodge that conferred
Andrew degrees was founded in Helsinki. The St. Andrew Phoenix lodge started
its activities only in 1790, however. For the higher degrees the chapter lodge,
Finska Capitlet (Finnish Chapter), was set up in Åbo/Turku in 1778. Its activities
remained modest, however (Bergroth 1991; Ahtokari 2000; Bergroth 2006;
Nyberg 2005).
It may be noted that other orders and societies established a foothold in
Finland during the period of union with Sweden. These included the Timmer
mansorden (Order of Carpenters), the Arla Coldinu Order, and the Aurora
Society. The Order of Carpenters, which was, allegedly, founded in England in
1522, was active in Viborg/Viipuri and Åbo/Turku. Some 500 persons, mainly
officers and civil servants, belonged to the two lodges. The activities of the order
were quite similar to those of Freemasonry and focused on the pastoral aspect.
It had close links with the Swedish royal house. The Arla Coldinu order was
founded in Sweden in 1765 and soon acquired lodges in Finland, e.g., in Viborg/
Viipuri. Charitable activities also formed part of its programme. It has revived
its activities in Finland and still operates today. The Aurora Society was active
primarily in Turku and operated in collaboration with the Swedish university,
Åbo Akademi. It focused on culture and on overall education. Consequently,
it published the first newspaper in Finland, Tidningar utgifvne af et Sällskap
i Åbo. A number of other orders and societies were founded towards the end
of the eighteenth century in Finland. Many of them concentrated their atten-
tion on helping others but also on developing social life (Stenius 1987; Ahtokari
2000).
The period of Russian rule meant, as we have already seen, that Freemasonry
was discontinued. Nonetheless, some individual Freemasons met and dis-
cussed common topics of interest over a meal together. A somewhat strange
memory of the Russian times was the visits paid to the grave of Major Fredrik
Granatenhjelm in the Kajsaniemi Park in Helsinki. Granatenhjelm was a well-
known benefactor in the eighteenth century, and Freemasons organised his
funeral in 1784 although he never was a Freemason. In the early twentieth
century, it became the custom among Freemasons to lay a wreath on Gra
natenhjelm’s grave each year on 1 May, a custom that continues to this day. It
was also decided to set up a society in his memory. In 1913 this was transformed
into Granatenhjelms Stiftelse (The Granatenhjelm Foundation), which came
154 Holm
to be the seed from which Swedish-speaking Freemasonry was to spring up

once more (Ahtokari 2000; Bergroth 2006).
The Years 1918–1939
After Finland had achieved its independence at the end of 1917, it did not take
long before the idea of Freemasonry was again revived in the capital. As early
as 6 January 1918, Axel Salingre, a dentist, sent an application to the Swedish
Order of Freemasons to found a brother society in Helsinki. The application
was rejected, however. The order in Stockholm was uncertain about how
the political situation in Finland would evolve. It must be remembered that
there was, after all, a civil war in Finland. Nevertheless, in 1920 members of
the Granatenhjelm Foundation took the initiative of setting up a lodge. They
wanted to unite Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking Freemasons in
Finland in a joint organisation. Nothing came of this attempt at union, however.
Developments led to the foundation of two masonic organisations, one
working mainly in Finnish following the Anglo-American system, and the
other working in Swedish along the lines of the Swedish Order of Freemasons.
It should be remembered that at the beginning of the 1920s many organisa-
tions in Finland operated along linguistic lines. The cultural climate of the day
was such that there should preferably be a marked distinction between
Swedish and Finnish speakers. It was also considered important to raise the
status of the Finnish language in a cultural context.
It was against this background that it was decided in the autumn of 1922 to
approach the Order in Stockholm, and a promise was received from the
Swedish organisation to set up a Craft lodge. Somewhat earlier, the predomi-
nantly Finnish-speaking brothers had sent an application to the Grand Lodge
in New York asking to set up a masonic lodge in Helsinki. The Finnish speakers
were somewhat ahead and founded the Suomi Lodge No. 1 on 18 August 1922. To
begin with it was a bilingual lodge. The corresponding Swedish lodge was
established on 3 April 1923. In effect, it was a revival of the original St. Johannes
Lodge St. Augustine of the eighteenth century. The first Worshipful Master was
Consul General Gösta Salingre (Ahtokari 2000; Nyberg [2005]).
Behind the establishment of the Suomi Lodge No. 1 lay Finnish emigrants to
America. It was, above all, Toivo H. Nekton who was active in this respect. He
was a lawyer in New York and an emigrant from Finland. Nekton was nomi-
nated by Grand Master Arthur S. Tompkins in New York as Deputy Grand
Master for the masonic district in the Republic of Finland and authorised to set
up lodges of Freemasons in Finland until the country got its own first Grand
Lodge. The lodge Tammer II was founded in Tampere on 1 August 1923 and the
following day the Phoenix III lodge was founded in Turku. It should be noted
that Phoenix III was mainly a Swedish-speaking lodge during its first years.
Officially it is still bilingual even today.
With three lodges in Finland, it became possible to found a Grand Lodge
and this took place on 9 September 1924. The first Grand Master was Consul
General Axel Solitander. Among the first Freemasons on the Finnish-speaking
side may be noted the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865–1957). His masonic
music is even today frequently played in Finnish lodges. By 1939 a further two
lodges working on the Anglo-American pattern had been established. These
were the Johannes lodge No. 4, founded in 1928, and the St. Henrik No. 5 lodge,
founded in 1929. The latter uses Swedish as the language for its rites (Ahtokari
1998, 2000; Ekman 1997; cf. also copies of histories of the St. Henrik No. 5 lodge).
The text of the rites used by the Anglo-American lodges in Finland is a trans-
lation of the corresponding English rites both in the USA and in Great Britain.
It also has traits from the Swedish Rite. Nekton himself helped to translate
them not only into Finnish but also into Swedish. The rites have subsequently
been revised a number of times (Ahtokari 2004).
The Swedish branch of Freemasonry in Finland expanded in 1927 with the
setting up of a lodge of the St. Andrew degrees; this later became the Scottish
St. Andreas Lodge Phoenix in 1934. In Vasa/Vaasa the Brödraföreningen Korsholm
(Brothers’ Society Korsholm) was founded in 1933. It became a lodge only in
1954. In Åbo/Turku a Brothers’ Society for the Craft degrees was set up in 1928;
this was promoted to the status of Lodge and named the St. Johannes Lodge St.
Henrik in 1931. At its inauguration a cantata, “Templet och Anden” (The Temple
and the Spirit), was played; it was written by the composer and conductor
Alfred Anderssén (1887–1940) to a text of Jon Hartman (1875–1951). Since then
it has been played several times at jubilees. On 9 April 1938, Mikael Agricola
day, the Frimurare St. Andreasföreningen Erasmus was founded in Åbo/Turku.
At Viborg/Viipuri on the Karelian Isthmus, too, a Brothers’ Society was set up
in 1936; two years later it became the St. Johanneslogen Tyrgils (Bergroth 1987,
2006).
Clouds on the Horizon During the 1930s and the War Years in the
1940s
The 1930s were a difficult time for Freemasonry in Finland. Old prejudices
were revived in a way that meant a real threat to the organisation. In 1930
mutilated bodies were found at Tattarisuo (Tattarmossen) on the outskirts of
156 Holm
Helsinki. The people’s imagination ran riot and the mass media linked these
killings with Freemasonry, claiming that Freemasons needed body parts for
their ceremonies. It was only in 1932 that it became clear that it was the work
of four mentally disturbed and religiously high-strung persons, who were sub-
sequently given jail sentences. Nonetheless, the affair cast dark shadows over
Freemasonry for a long time to come. The matter was taken up in army officer
circles in the spring of 1931, and after considerable discussion the commander-
in-chief Hugo Österman in 1943 forbade his subordinates to join masonic
lodges. A large number of officers left the organisation at the time.
Within the Evangelical-Lutheran Church, too, similar negative attitudes
persisted. At the meeting of the synod in Viborg/Viipuri in 1932 there was dis-
cussion as to whether it was suitable for the clergy to be Freemasons. A change
was proposed in ecclesiastical law whereby membership would be forbidden.
At the church assembly of 1933 in Turku the matter was debated on several
occasions. The St. Augustine Lodge in Helsinki had sent a letter to the archbish-
opric, explaining the attitude of Freemasonry towards Christianity and society.
The professor of musicology and folklore at the Swedish university Åbo
Akademi University, Otto Andersson (1879–1969), spoke up strongly in defence
of Freemasonry. However, his plea won limited support since he was himself a
Freemason. His pleas, nevertheless, led the assembly to decide not to ban ser-
vants of the church from becoming Freemasons.
Extreme political movements in the 1930s also allied themselves against
Freemasonry. The model for this was taken from Germany, where National
Socialism had taken upon itself the task of crushing Freemasonry. Finnish
National-Socialist sympathisers constantly brought up the topic of Free-
masonry and published literature of a negative kind. In 1939 Paavo Susitaival
(earlier Sivén, 1896–1993), lieutenant-general and member of the Finnish
Parliament, put a motion to Parliament to ban Freemasonry in Finland. This
did not lead to any concrete results, but the trials and tribulations of the 1930s
meant that the number of active members in the masonic organisations fell
dramatically. Previously they had numbered just under a thousand but now
decreased to almost half of that number.
When the Winter War with the Soviet Union broke out in the autumn of
1939, there was some discussion as to how Freemasonry should continue its
activities. The prime minister at the time, Risto Ryti, later to become the coun-
try’s president – himself a Freemason – was of the opinion that Freemasonry
should voluntarily relinquish its activities so that a total ban would not come
into question. Such a ban, it was held, would be offensive to the parent organi-
sations in Sweden and the United States. In full understanding with the state,
therefore, both organisations of Freemasons in Finland discontinued their

activities at the beginning of 1941. The funds accumulated for the organisations’
pastoral activities were passed over to other charity organisations (Ahtokari
2000).
The Post-War Period
After Finland’s two wars, 1939–40 and 1941–44, Freemasonry began to recover
once more. It was not easy to begin with. The organisations had been forced to
abandon their meeting places as a result of the wars, many of their belongings
had disappeared, and several lodges had no economic resources. As early as
1945, activities were nevertheless started once more in Helsinki by both organi-
sations. Elsewhere in Finland it took somewhat longer before things began to
get under way, but by 1950 all the lodges were active again. The following
decades constituted a time of prosperity for Finnish Freemasonry. By the end
of the 1970s there were seventy-five different lodges within the two organisa-
tions in the country (Ahtokari 2000).
The 1980s was another time when Freemasonry came into the limelight. The
unacknowledged lodge P2 in Italy gave rise to a scandal because of economic
irregularities, and these events tarnished the reputation of Freemasonry
in most of the Western world, including Finland. Once again Freemasonry
became the object of defamation in many countries, including Finland. The
negative reports in the mass media were exacerbated in Finland by certain
shady financial dealings that became the subject of court proceedings. Serious
over-generalisation was common and Freemasonry was held responsible for
these improprieties. Furthermore, people complained that the membership
lists of the masonic movement were not public. There was discussion of the
relationship of the Freemasons’ oath both to the oath of allegiance required
of state employees and to the Church and religion in general. The matter was
raised once more in Parliament, albeit without any measures being taken. The
government noted, very matter-of-factly, that Freemasonry was a normal civic
activity that observed the customs and laws of the land. There was nothing to
justify any kind of intervention on the part of the state (Ahtokari 2000).
The reactions of the mass media led to the Kirkon tutkimuskeskus (Church
Research Centre) in Tampere under its then head, Harri Heino, to embark
on a study into Freemasons’ conceptions of life and their religious orienta-
tion. This led to the publication in 1995 of a book, Mihin vapaamurari uskoo?
(What Do Freemasons Believe?). The study was based on questionnaires sent
to Freemasons and the author was able to note that Freemasons respect both
158 Holm
Christian values and social institutions more highly than Finnish men of a
similar age in the reference groups (Heino 1986, 1995).
All this attention meant that Freemasons reacted in such a way that today
the movement is much more open in regard to society than it used to be, and
informs the public about its activities, ideals, and aims. All that the movement
tries to keep secret are the actual rites of initiation to the different grades; the
rationale given for doing this, is that for didactic reasons initiation should be
experienced as something new and fresh for the candidate.
The Finnish Masonic Organisations
During the post-war period, the Finnish system developed considerably. Many
new lodges working in the first three degrees were founded in different places
in the country. Parallel lodges were established in the major cities and towns
such as Helsinki, Turku, and Tampere. At the beginning of the Second World
War there were only five lodges but now, at the beginning of the twenty-first
century, lodges number more than a hundred. When referring to themselves
and their system Finnish-speaking Freemasons use the abbreviation “V ja
O.M.”, Vapaat ja Oikeutetut Muurarit (Free and Accepted Masons).
A characteristic feature of the mainly Finnish-speaking Masons is that the
three first degrees – those known as blue or Craft lodges – are supplemented by
several independent associated masonic systems. Most of these belong – along
English lines – to the York rite. They include Mark Master Masons, Royal Ark
Mariner Masons, Royal Arch, Knights Templar, Knights of Malta, Red Cross of
Constantine, Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, St. John the Evangelist and Royal
Order of Scotland. The Scottish Rite with 33 degrees is Christian by nature. A
lively research and lecture activity has been pursued over the years. In 1962 the
Minerva Lodge No. 27 was founded as a research lodge. It publishes the maga-
zine Acta Minervae. The Finnish name of the Freemasons’ newspaper is
Koilliskulma (Northwest Corner). Activities also include a number of circles
and clubs. Masonic seminars are organised by Sompala seura (Sompala
Society). There are also various foundations for humanitarian activities. The
Finnish Grand Lodge was recognised by the United Grand Lodge of England in
1927 and by the Swedish Order of Freemasons in 1948. Visiting rights between
the two organisations in Finland have been in existence since then. In step
with the establishment of the Finnish-speaking lodges and degrees the right to
visit has been regulated in relation to the corresponding degrees in the Swedish
system. At the time of writing (2014) members number about 7,000.
The Swedish System
The chapter lodge (working the highest degrees in the Swedish system) in
Finland was revived in 1953 as a so-called Stewards’ lodge. Two decades later it
became Provinsiallogen i Finland (Provincial Lodge in Finland). In 1983 it took
on a more independent role and was named Stor Capitlet i Finland (Grand
Chapter of Finland). It is domiciled in Helsinki, where it has a meeting house
of its own. The house was built over the years and today comprises several dif-
ferent rooms and floors; it also has a masonic museum. For many years, the
Grand Chapter of Finland accepted as members all (in accordance with the
Swedish Rite) Freemasons living in Finland. But in 2003 Stewardslogen Öster
botten (Stewards’ Lodge in Ostrobothnia), which confers degrees VII–VIII, was
opened for members in Northern Finland.
In Helsinki there is also the Skottiska S:t Andreas logen Phoenix (Scottish St.
Andrew’s Lodge Phoenix). For a number of years it was the only lodge for St.
Andrew degrees in Finland. Consequently, members from the Åland Islands,
Turku, and Ostrobothnia had to be admitted there. However, in 2003 the S:t
Andreas loge Henrik Tavast (St. Andrew’s Lodge Henrik Tavast), which also con-
fers the St. Andrew degrees, was set up in Jakobsstad/Pietarsaari. As brother
organisations it has Erasmus (degrees IV-IX) in Åbo/Turku, Morgonstjärnan
(Morning Star) (degrees IV–X) in Mariehamn (since 1975), and Hans Henrik
Boije (2011, degrees I–III) in Tammerfors/Tampere.
In recent years, two new Craft lodges have been set up, Tyrgils in 2001 in
Borgå/Porvoo and Axel Gabriel Leijonhufvud in 2005 in Ekenäs/Tammisaari.
The older Craft lodges are S:t Augustin in Helsingfors/Helsinki, S:t Henrik (1931)
in Åbo/Turku, Korsholm (1954) in Vasa/Vaasa, Ledstjärnan (1968) in Mariehamn,
and S:t Peder (1980) in Jakobstad/Pietarsaari. In addition to this, there are four
masonic clubs, Triangeln (1988) in Närpes/Närpiö, Gamla-Carleby (1988) in
Karleby/Kokkola, and Symbolen (1989) in Esbo-Grankulla/Espoo-Kauniainen.
Seminar activities are arranged on a regular basis, often linked to special
degrees and alternating between the different towns where there are lodges.
Cooperation with the Finnish system is close and also with Freemasons in the
other Nordic countries, especially with Sweden, of whose system the Swedish-
speaking Masons in Finland form an integrated part. The magazine Frimuraren
(The Freemason), which has been published in Sweden since 1928, is sent to all
active Swedish-speaking Masons in Finland. Moreover, the Swedish Masons in
Finland have their own magazine, Föreningsbandet (Bond of Union), which
was begun in 1993. Today (2014) the Swedish-speaking Masons number just
over 1,300 (Matrikel LXVIII).
160 Holm
Female Freemasons
The two masonic systems in Finland are open only to men. Female Freemasonry
exists but to a more limited extent. The Swedish-speaking Order of Female
Freemasons in Finland was founded in 1946 in Helsinki. Its rites follow those of
the Swedish Rite, but were drawn up without the official approval of the
Swedish Order of Freemasons. There is therefore no cooperation between the
Swedish system and the Order of Female Freemasons. At the moment it has
about fifty active members.
Unpublished Sources
Copies of histories of the lodge S:t Henrik N:r 5 40 years, 1969–1978, 1978–1988,
1989–1998.
Published Sources
Matrikel över Svenska frimurareorden i Finland. Stor Capitlet i Finland. Arbetsåret

2013–2014, LXVIII.
References
Ahtokari, Reijo, Muinainen ja oikeutettu. Suomen Muinaisen ja Oikeutetun Riitin Korkein

Neuvosto, 33°, 1973–1998, [Helsinki]: Suomen R.C. yhdistys, 1998.
——— . Salat ja valat, Vapaamuurarit suomalaisessa yhteiskunnassa ja julkisuudessa
1756–1996, Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2000.
——— . “Suomalaiset vapaamuurarirituaalit”, in: Reijo Ahtokari & Eero Ekman (eds.),
Näkymättömän temppelin rakentajat, Helsinki, 2004, 257–265.
Ahtokari, Reijo and Eero Ekman (eds.), Näkymättömän temppelin rakentajat, Suoma
laisen vapaamuurariuden historia, Helsinki: Otava, 2004.
Bergroth, Tom C., (ed.), Kultaa ja taivaansinistä. Vapaamuurarius, aate ajassa. Turun
maakuntamuseo, näyttelyluettelo 15 / I guld och himmelsblått. Frimureri, ett ideal i ti-
den, Turku/Åbo: Åbo landskapsmuseum, utställningskatalog 15, 1991.
——— . Frimurare S:t Andreasföreningen Erasmus 1938–1988, Turku: Brödraföreningen
Erasmus i Åbo, 1987.
——— . Med det himmelska ljuset som ledare. S:t Johannes Logen S:t Henrik i Åbo 1931–
2006, Åbo: Föreningen S:t Henriks skriftserie Nr 3, 2006.
Ekman, Eero, L., Phoenix loosi No 3:n 75-vuotisjuhlakirja. Phoenix loosin 75-vuotta 1923–
1998, Ruotsin vapaamuurariuden historia “kuninkaallista taidetta” vuodesta 1735
nykypäivään, [Turku: Turun Sanomat], 1997.
Gräsbeck, Armas, S:t Johannes logen S:t Augustins matrikel 1762–1808, Helsingfors, 1954.
Heino, Harri, Vapaamuurarius ja kristinusko. Suomalaisen vapaamuurariliikkeen uskon-
nollisuuden ja etiikan tarkastelua. Pieksämäki: Kirkon tutkimuskeskus, Sarja A N:o
65, 1986.
——— . Mihin vapaamuurari uskoo? Suomalaisten vapaamuurarien arvot, etiikka ja
uskonnollisuus. Tampere: Kirkon tutkimuskeskus, sarja A Nro 65, 1995.
Huovinen, Kalevi, Kuusikymmentä vuotta 1930–1990 merkkimestarimuurariutta Suomessa,
[Oulu: Ultima Thule,] 1990.
Kirjoituksia vapaamuurariudesta, [Helsinki:] Koilliskulma OY, 1990.
Kirk MacNulty W., Vapaamuurarit. Symbolit, salaisuudet, merkitys, Helsinki: Tammi,
2007.
Nyberg, Folke, S:t Johannes Logen S:t Augustin 1756–2006, [Helsingfors: 2005].
Stenius, Henrik, Frivilligt jämlikt samfällt: föreningsväsendets utveckling i Finland fram
till 1900-talets början med speciell hänsyn till massorganisationsprincipens genombrott,
Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet, 1987.
162 Chapter 21
Chapter 21 Freemasonry in Norway
Freemasonry in Norway
Andreas Önnerfors
During the time period when Freemasonry was introduced, Norway was part
of the Danish realm, a conglomerate state made up of a large variety of territo-
ries, from Greenland and Iceland to the North, to the Danish isles and Jutland,
including possessions in the old German empire. It is crucial to bear this mul-
ticultural background in mind when analyzing the history of Freemasonry in
the various parts of the Danish realm. In 1814 Norway entered into a political
union with Sweden, a union that was dissolved in 1905, when Norway became
an independent nation state. The development of Freemasonry in Denmark
and Sweden are treated in separate chapters in this volume.
Freemasonry in Norway developed in three different phases: 1749–1818: affil-
iation to the Danish masonic bodies; 1818–1890: as part of the Swedish Order of
Freemasons; 1891 to the present (interrupted 1940–1945 by the Nazi occupa-
tion): forming the Norwegian Order of Freemasons.
It is worth mentioning that lodges were established during the late nine-
teenth century with a German warrant, despite the asserted Swedish supremacy
of constitution. The split between Swedish/Norwegian and German/Norwegian
masonic jurisdiction lasted until 1960. Whereas the Norwegian Order of Free
masons has a distinctly Christian character, the lodges warranted from
Germany defined themselves as part of the deist and religiously tolerant tradi-
tion based upon the English constitutions of Freemasonry of 1723. In the years
from 1940 to 1945, the Norwegian masonic bodies suffered considerably from
persecution under the Nazi occupation, not least by quislings. The Norwegian
Order of Freemasons has about 19,000 members and has recently (as of late
2014) featured extensively in media (see below).
The Danish Period
Norwegians were Danish subjects and had been initiated into lodges in
Denmark and abroad before a lodge was officially established on Norwegian
territory in 1749 – the second oldest lodge establishment in Scandinavia. With
a patent from its mother lodge, St. Martin in Copenhagen, the lodge St. Olaus

Freemasonry in Norway 163
was consecrated close to or in Christiania (the old name of the Norwegian

capital, now Oslo) on St. Hans Day (midsummer) and named after Olav, the
patron saint of Norway. Most evidence suggests that the Danish king, Frederik V,
attended the foundation of the lodge during a visit to the Norwegian part of
the realm. The lodge St. Martin had close relations to the earliest German
lodges in Hamburg (Absalon) and Berlin (Aux troix Globes), and hence it makes
sense to place St. Olaus in the same tradition. A Danish-Norwegian provincial
Grand lodge was founded with English constitution in the same year of 1749.
Unfortunately, no lodge records are preserved that could cast a light on this
very early organisation of lodges in the Danish realm. No lodge minutes from
St. Olaus earlier than 1757 have been preserved. The first records of this year
speak of the assembled Freemasons as “restauratores”, a term from which we
can conclude that the lodge was dormant for a couple of years after its estab-
lishment. Kristiania had close economic ties to the British Isles, English was as
common here as German was in Copenhagen. Freemasonry was identified
with a typically British way of organised sociability. A British merchant living
in London was initiated into the lodge, as were other foreigners. A number of
brethren from abroad, mainly of maritime professions, visited the lodge over
the years. St. Olaus adopted the custom of giving its members certain coded
names to be used within the lodge. One of the brethren meeting in 1757 called
himself in English “The Freethinker”. The close links to Britain led to the estab-
lishment in Oslo of a Royal-Arch Chapter constituted from London and
working in higher degrees of Freemasonry.
Contrary to the lodges in Copenhagen, St. Olaus seems to have worked com-
pletely in the vernacular language. The lodge seems to have been inactive
during the years 1764–1772, 1773–1780, and 1792–1810. When the lodge opened
again in the 1780s, the dynamic development of Freemasonry on the continent
and Scandinavia soon influenced its workings. The Danish lodges now
belonged to the VIIth province of the masonic system Strict Observance and
the lodge in Kristiania was integrated into the Danish organisation of lodges
(see the chapter Freemasonry in Denmark for more information). Carl of
Hesse-Kassel now acted as Provincial Grand Master of the Danish lodges and
incorporated the Norwegian lodge into his jurisdiction. With the issuing of the
warrant, the name of the lodge was changed to St. Olaus til den hvide Leopard,
“To the White Leopard”, a name that remains in use up to the present day and
that has been associated with the process of “Albedo” (“whitening”) in alchemy.
Over the ensuing years, recruitment figures increased. In 1786, a building for
masonic purposes was purchased. A central figure during this lively period of
Norwegian Freemasonry is Bernt Anker (1746–1805), head of the Anker trading
164 Önnerfors
firm. Lodges were also established in Trondheim and in Bergen, but little is
known about their activities.
The Introduction of the Swedish Rite
After the establishment of the Union between Sweden and Norway in 1814,
confirmed by the treatises of the Vienna Congress in 1815, Freemasonry in
Norway went through a period of revitalisation. Many new members were
recruited and academics such as professor of philosophy Niels Treschow (1751–
1833) joined the lodge. Treschow was a key figure in establishing the University
of Oslo and served several periods as minister of the Norwegian government
under Swedish rule. Due to Norway’s changing political status, the affiliation of
Norwegian Freemasonry also became a topic of discussion, and various sce-
narios were envisaged: should one remain under Danish supremacy, join the
Swedish Order of Freemasons, or create an independent Norwegian masonic
body? In 1819 the union between Norwegian and Swedish Freemasonry was
finally completed and the Swedish Rite was introduced. In 1841 a St. Andrew’s
lodge was established, followed in 1857 by a Stewards’ lodge (transformed in
1870 into a provincial lodge), working in higher degrees. In the 1870s the lodges
in Oslo counted more than 500 members. New lodges were established in the
capital and in provincial towns throughout the country.
The Establishment of the Norwegian Grand Lodge and Internal

Splits
Norwegian Masons, backed up by the German Grand lodge Zur Sonne in

Bayreuth, challenged the Swedish monopoly of constituting lodges on
Norwegian territory (the so-called “Sprengelrecht”, delimiting such right to
one’s own “parish” boundaries). In 1881 a lodge with German constitution was
founded in Trondheim, followed by four other establishments throughout the
country. In 1893 three lodges formed a provincial grand lodge and in 1920
acquired the status of an independent Grand lodge. The Swedish Order of
Freemasons gave up its right of territorial jurisdiction in 1898. Already seven
years earlier, in 1891, the Norwegian Grand lodge was established (as the Xth
province of the order), acquiring independence from Sweden after the dissolu-
tion of the Union in 1905.
Freemasonry During the Nazi Occupation and Thereafter
After the occupation of Norway, the Norwegian Order of Freemasons was dis-
solved in the autumn of 1940 and its belongings seized, many members were
persecuted both because of their masonic affiliation and their involvement in
the resistance movement. The headquarters of the order were used by the Nazi
occupation forces. Plundered material belongings of Norwegian Freemasonry
have since the 1990s been partially rediscovered in Poznan (Poland) and in
Moscow and negotiations about their restitution have been carried out. After
the war, the devastated headquarters of the Order had to be refurbished for a
considerable sum of money. Norwegian Freemasonry also had to grapple with
the painful question of how to deal with members who had collaborated with
the Nazis.
In the post-war period, membership has continued to grow, new lodges have
been established, and currently there are sixty-three lodges in the craft degrees
(I–III), nineteen lodges working in the so-called Scottish degrees (degrees
IV-VI), four provincial chapter lodges (degrees VII–X), and numerous smaller
local units, counting around 19,000 members altogether.
The Debate on Freemasonry in Contemporary Norway
An exposure of Swedish Rite rituals was published by the Norwegian theolo-

gian Sverre Dag Mogstad in 1994. Throughout Scandinavia this exposure
sparked considerable attention in the press. Mogstad criticises Freemasonry
for its secrecy, and following a Pietist/evangelist standpoint, he questions the
fact that the Swedish Rite potentially hides knowledge about the Christian reli-
gion and consequently challenges the biblical call to “give light to everyone”
and to extend salvation to “all”, not exclusively to an esoteric elite (based on
biblical references like Matthew 5:15–17, 10:27; Mark 16:15; 1 Timothy 2:4; John
18:20). Thus, Mogstad aligns himself with a line of arguments dating back to
the religiously motivated attacks on Freemasonry of the eighteenth century. A
second Norwegian exposure was published in 2009, this time from an insider
who had left the Order. Roger Karsten Aase gives an autobiographical account
of the inner life of Freemasonry in Trondheim and his personal walk through
the degree system of the Swedish Rite. In his book, Aase describes a tension
between ideology and reality, the elaborate rituals of the Swedish Rite and the
realities of life in a Norwegian provincial town, where personal matters and
petty crime ensnare the members in more and more sect-like conditions, lead-
ing to advanced bullying among adults.
166 Önnerfors
On 22 July 2011 the worst mass killings in modern Scandinavian history were
committed in Oslo and on the island of Utøya. On the evening of the double
terrorist attack that left 77 people (most of them youngsters) dead, the identity
of perpetrator Anders Behring Breivik was released, together with information
regarding his masonic affiliation. In an appendix to his counter-jihadist “mani-
festo”, Breivik had inserted images of himself in his fake “European Knights
Templar” uniforms and dressed as a Master Mason. Norwegian Freemasonry
immediately distanced itself from Breivik and expelled him from the Order,
with reference to the incompatibility of the committed crimes with masonic
values. Furthermore, it was declared that Breivik had not been a particu-
larly active member. Despite of this, Breivik’s masonic affiliation has given
rise to massive speculations. In his “manifesto”, Breivik praises (Norwegian)
Freemasonry for being a conservative Christian and pro-Zionist force and thus
occupying an important place within the general “counter-jihadist” political
ideology and struggle. Breivik’s links to Freemasonry and his thoughts about its
role according to his idiosyncratic world view, fuelled the imagination of the
conspiracist web community. Furthermore, the renowned Norwegian profes-
sor of peace studies, Johan Galtung, picked up the thread and lent it the power
of academic authority in developing it further in one of his “Ten theses on July
22” (declared in September 2011). Galtung claims that Breivik’s obsession with
the Knights Templar and Freemasonry points at potential links with secret ser-
vices and makes sense within his Judeo-Christian and anti-Muslim worldview.
Galtung has repeatedly returned to this explanation and has to the massive
consternation of the scholarly community entrenched himself in support of
the infamous forgery “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, in which Freemasonry is
portrayed as a Jewish manipulation. Galtung suggests, based on these assump-
tions prominent in Nazi, white supremacy, and Arab conspiracy theories, that
Breivik might have acted on behalf of the Israeli secret service Mossad.
The Norwegian exposures as well as the debate in the aftermath of the July
22 terrorist attacks prove that Freemasonry remains a contested issue in
Norwegian society of today.
References
Aase, Roger Karsten, Frimurernes hemmeligheter. Fortalt fra innsiden, Oslo: Kagge, 2009.
Bugge, Karl Ludwig, St. Johannes-logen St. Olaus til den hvide Leopard, Kristiania: Bjørn
stad, 1907.
——— . Det danske frimureriets historie indtill aar 1855, Copenhagen: Rom, 1927.
Færseth, John, “Galtung leker med ilden”, Humanist, 4 (2011), 22–33.
Galtung, Johan, “Ti teser om 22. Juli”, Morgenbladet, 7 October 2011.

Mogstad, Sverre Dag, Frimureri. Mysterier, Felleskap, Personlighetsdannelse, Oslo: Univer
sitetsforlaget, 1995 .
Önnerfors, Andreas, “Leaderless Counter-Jihad? The Absence of Ideological Leaders in
the Contemporary European Far-Right”, in: Matthew Feldman and John Pollard
(eds.), special issue “Key themes in European Fascism, past and present”, Patterns of
Prejudice (forthcoming).
Stephensen, Kaare J.E.  (ed.), Under St. Olai merke: St. Olaus til den hvide Leopard 1749–
1799, Oslo: St. Olaus, 1999.
168 Chapter 22
Chapter 22 Freemasonry in Sweden
Freemasonry in Sweden
Henrik Bogdan
The French Period
Freemasonry arrived in Sweden as early as 1735, when the lieutenant Axel

Wrede Sparre opened a so-called private lodge on Riddarholmen in Stockholm.
Like many other young Swedish aristocrats during this period, Wrede Sparre
had been initiated into Freemasonry abroad – in Wrede Sparre’s case he had
been initiated into a French-Jacobite lodge in Paris at the age of 23, in 1731. It
was also in Paris that the future first Swedish National Grand Master, Carl
Fredrick Scheffer, was initiated in 1737, and Scheffer would in November of that
year receive a charter from Charles Radclyffe, Earl of Derwentwater, to open
one or more lodges in Sweden under French obedience. In addition to this
charter, Radclyffe provided a set of Règles générales (Sw. Allmänna frimurar
lagar), which regulated the work in Sweden.
The 1740s marked a chaotic period in Swedish Freemasonry, with several
different lodges competing for recognition, often either founded by foreign
masons in Sweden (such as General Keith’s lodge 1743–44, and the Lodge of
Kilwinning [Sw. Kilwinningska logen], set up temporarily in Ystad in 1746 by
officers from the army of Charles Edward Stuart), or by Swedish Masons who
had been initiated abroad. In 1752 Knut Posse founded the lodge S:t Jean
Auxiliaire at Stockholm, which is usually credited as the first regularly consti-
tuted lodge in Sweden (with a charter from count Clermont-Tonnerre), and in
1753 Wrede Sparre, who had opened the first lodge in Sweden, would join the
lodge and turn over his charter from Radclyffe. S:t Jean Auxiliaire became
known as the Mother Lodge and was the most dominant lodge in Sweden dur-
ing the 1750s, and it was through this lodge that much of the work in Sweden
was organised and regulated. Carl Fredrick Scheffer also affiliated with the
lodge, and in 1753 he was elected the first National Grand Master (Sw.
landsstormästare), while the Swedish king Adolf Fredrik a few months later
became the royal protector of Freemasonry (Sw. övermästarskap över alla
frimurarsamhällen i landet). Freemasonry would from then on enjoy royal
patronage in Sweden. It was also during this period that an increasing number
of high degrees were introduced from abroad. These were in 1759 regulated by
the creation of a national ruling body, the so-called Swedish Grand Chapter

Freemasonry in Sweden 169
(Sw. Svenska storkapitlet), with the influential Mason Carl Friedrich Eckleff as
its first Grand Master.
Eckleff played a key role in introducing the high degrees that later would be
used by Duke Charles when creating the Swedish Rite. The so-called Acts of
Eckleff consisted of S:t Andrew’s or Ecossais degrees which Eckleff allegedly
had received from Strasbourg in 1756, and Chapter or Templar degrees received
from Geneva in 1759. During the 1760s the nascent Swedish Rite consisted of
nine degrees in total: three Craft degrees, three St. Andrew’s degrees, and three
Chapter or Templar degrees. These degrees would be revised a number of
times, and eventually a uniform system was created, in which each degree was
connected to each previous degree in a systematic and pedagogical way. In par-
ticular, it was Duke Charles, later King Charles XIII, who together with fellow
Freemasons such as Reuterholm, was responsible for creating the Swedish Rite
and giving it the form and content that it maintains to this day. The remainder
of this chapter will thus focus on Duke Charles, the creator of the Swedish Rite,
and his friend Reuterholm, the latter being an illustrative example how esoteri-
cism and Freemasonry often were interpreted as being inseparable during the
eighteenth century.
Duke Charles and Creation of the Swedish Rite
Duke Charles (1748–1818), later King Charles XIII, of Sweden from 1809 and
King of Norway from 1814 until his death, became a Freemason together with
his two brothers Gustavus and Duke Fredrik Adolphus in 1771 through the Craft
lodge The Swedish Army’s Lodge (Sw. Svenska arméens loge), and two years
later, on 4 May 1773, Charles was initiated into the Grand Chapter, in which he
chose the knightly name Eques A Sole Vivificante. Charles became a dedicated
Freemason for the rest of his life, and he was instrumental in shaping the
Swedish Rite which is still being worked in Scandinavia and parts of Germany.
On 8 April 1774, Charles founded a Scottish (St. Andrew’s) lodge that met until
1777 in his private rooms at the royal palace in Stockholm. The lodge was called
The Scottish Lodge of Duke Charles of Södermanland and later changed its name
to The Blazing Star (Sw. Glindrande Stjärnan) (Thustrup 1892: 75). In the same
year Duke Charles became the head of Swedish Freemasonry: on 14 May 1774
he succeeded Carl Friedrich Eckleff as head of the Saint Andrew’s lodges in
Sweden (Sw. ordensmästare); on 7 June he succeeded Eckleff as head of the
Grand Chapter (Sw. storkapitlets styresman); and finally 30 November he suc-
ceeded Count Carl Fredrik Scheffer as Master of the Grand Lodge (Sw.
ordförande i landslogen). The latter body consisted of all Worshipful Masters,
170 Bogdan
Past Worshipful Masters, Senior and Junior Wardens, and Past Senior and
Junior Wardens of the Swedish Craft lodges. Up until that time the lodges in
Sweden had to a large extent been working independently of the ruling bodies,
which accounted for the fact that there were many local variations in both
form and content of the rituals used by the lodges. Duke Charles took it upon
himself to standardise Swedish Freemasonry, and his first action was to send
out a demand to all the lodges that they should send copies of their charters
and list of members. Swedish Freemasonry derived to a large extent from
France, and this was not only reflected in the rituals (which were often per-
formed in French) but also in the organisational structure and emphasis on
high degrees. Duke Charles, however, increasingly turned his attention towards
English Freemasonry for inspiration in reorganising Freemasonry in Sweden.
English laws and regulations were translated into Swedish, and on 9 December
1775 Charles founded the first Swedish Stewards’ Lodge in emulation of English
practice (Thustrup 1898: 1–5). In 1777 Charles continued his effort to strengthen
and regulate Swedish Freemasonry by creating a financial trust and by begin-
ning to implement standardised rituals based on the so-called Acts of Eckleff.
Charles realised the disadvantages of having three separate masonic bodies
and one of his main preoccupations was to transform the Craft, Scottish, and
Chapter degrees into one coherent and continuous system. The initiatory sys-
tem of the Swedish System or Rite, as it later became known, leads from the
moral and religious basis of the Old Testament to that of the New Testament.
Charles’ work with reorganising the initiatory system of Swedish Freemasonry
was completed around 1801, and in its final form it consisted of nine degrees:
the three Craft degrees (St John’s lodges), three Scottish degrees (St Andrew’s
lodges), and three Templar degrees (Chapters), above these degrees Charles
implemented a supreme degree with a limited number of members, the Knight
Commander of the Red Cross. Later a tenth degree was added to the Swedish
System, a system that is still being practised in Scandinavia and parts of
Germany (Bogdan 2007: 99–100).
The Esoteric Circle at the Royal Court
Duke Charles placed special importance on the chapter degrees that to a large
extent were based on Christian esotericism veiled in Templar symbolism, and
emphasised that these degrees should be kept secret from the members of
lower degrees. Most of the members that were admitted to the chapter degrees
belonged to the Swedish aristocracy, a fact that can be explained as an attempt
to maintain aristocratic control over Freemasonry at a time when the social
structure of Swedish society was changing rapidly and the bourgeoisie increas-
ingly entered the echelons of Swedish society. The emphasis on Christian
esotericism in the Chapter degrees was reflected in Duke Charles’ personal
interest in various aspects of Western esotericism, such as alchemy, Kabbalah
and ceremonial magic. By the early 1780s Duke Charles had gathered around
him a small circle of esotericists, including persons such as Gustaf Adolf
Reuterholm (1756–1813), Johan Gabriel Oxenstierna (1750–1818), Adolf Fredrik
Falkenberg af Trystorp (1745–1802), Carl Björnberg (1735–1790), and at a later
stage Carl Adolf Boheman (1764–1831) (Lamm 1920: 18–39; Lekeby 2010). This
group functioned to a certain extent as an inner and highly secret elite within
Swedish Freemasonry. This can be ascertained from the fact that many of the
members of this small circle received the highest degrees of Freemasonry
directly from Duke Charles himself in his private sanctuary at the Royal Palace,
without having to go through the preliminary St. John and St. Andrew’s degrees.
Perhaps the most prominent figure in this secret cabal was the shadowy Gustaf
Björnram (1743–1801), a self-styled adept of the arcane sciences who was
received into the Chapter on 26 February 1779. The form of magic that Björnram
performed was chiefly concerned with communicating with beings on other
planes, such as angels and spirits, and the modus operandi resembles that of
the spiritualism of the nineteenth century (Dahlgren 1925: 167–193).
Duke Charles and the Strict Observance
One of these esotericists, Carl Anders Plommenfelt (1750-?) came to play a key
role in the affairs of Swedish Freemasonry during the second half of the 1770s.
Plommenfelt approached Charles in 1776 after an extended visit abroad and
claimed to be in contact with certain unknown leaders of Freemasonry that
allegedly lived in Italy. Furthermore, Plommenfelt stated that he had met with
leading members of the Strict Observance while in Germany, and that they
wanted to establish contacts with Swedish Freemasonry. When Karl Gotthelf
von Hund died on 28 October 1776, Charles entered in negotiations through
Plommenfelt with Ferdinand of Braunschweig (1721–1792) about succeeding
von Hund as leader of the VIIth Province of Freemasonry and Deputy Grand
Master of the Strict Observance. The negotiations lasted for almost two years
and on 17 August 1778 Duke Charles was elected as Grand Master of the VIIth
Province at the Convent in Wolfenbüttel and an Act of Union was signed
between Swedish Freemasonry and the Strict Observance. On 11 December 1779
Duke Charles was formally installed as Grand Master, with A.G. Leijonhufvud
acting as his deputy at the event (Thustrup 1898: 24–50).
172 Bogdan
In order to devote himself to the new position, Duke Charles had resigned as
Master of the Swedish Grand Lodge, and on 22 March 1779 his brother Duke
Fredrik Adolphus assumed the office. By virtue of his new office as Grand
Master of the VIIth Province and authority as Magnus Visitator generalis ordi-
nis, Duke Charles decided to “re-instate” the IXth Province, which included
Sweden, Finland, and Russia, and he installed himself as Grand Master of this
newly created province on 15 March 1780. However, the members of the VIIth
Province, with Ferdinand of Braunschweig as acting magnus superior of the
Strict Observance, took exception to the decision and argued that all the prov-
inces should have been involved in the decision, and furthermore, that Duke
Charles would receive too much authority over Freemasonry as Grand Master
of both the VIIth and the IXth Provinces (Thustrup 1898: 61–79). The ensuing
correspondence between Duke Charles and leading members of the VIIth
Province came to its head on 10 April 1781, when Charles signed an Act of
Abdication as Grand Master of the VIIth Province, and furthermore broke all
formal contacts with the said Province. One of the main points of critique lev-
elled against Charles by members of the VIIth Province had been that they had
not received any deeper knowledge of the Order, nor had he revealed the iden-
tity of the true Grand Master of the Order, which they claimed he had promised
to do. Duke Charles stated, however, that it is only the true Grand Master him-
self who can decide when, and under what circumstances, the Grand Master’s
true identity can be disclosed and one of Freemasonry’s most important
secrets can be revealed. In the Act of Abdication it was emphasised that the
Swedish Grand Chapter had received its charter from a Clerical Chapter that
was not located in Germany, and that Duke Charles did not recognise the
authority of any other than the Grand Master and the true superiors, whose
identity he maintained that he knew (Thustrup 1898: 80–95).
Duke Charles’ vision of extending Swedish Freemasonry was at this time
also directed towards Russia, where lodges working according to the Swedish
Rite had been established as early as 1771. On 10 April 1778 a Provincial Chapter
was chartered in Saint Petersburg and for a few years various attempts were
made to spread Swedish Freemasonry throughout Russia, but this came to an
end in 1782, when Russian Freemasonry, characterised by internal strife and
conflict at this time, formally ended the contacts with Swedish Freemasonry.
Although Duke Charles continued to take an active interest in Freemasonry,
his attention was increasingly directed towards political matters, first by the
Russo-Swedish War of 1788–90 and then by Charles acting as regent of Sweden
1792–96. After the regency, however, Charles resumed his active involvement
with Swedish Freemasonry and set out to complete the work of revising the rit-
uals and the constitution, and to create new administrative offices and bodies.
In 1798–99 Charles spent fifteen months on the continent, particularly in

Prague and Vienna, where he found additional material that he used for revis-
ing the rituals, a work which was completed around 1801. A new constitution
(Sw. Ordens allmänna lagar) was adopted in 1800, and the Grand Officers of the
National Grand Lodge of Sweden (Knight Commanders of the Red Cross) were
established in the same year. On 27 May 1811, King Charles instituted the Royal
Order of King Charles XIII, a royal order which can only be conferred upon
Freemasons. The order was originally restricted to only thirty knights, but was
increased by three vacancies in 1858. It remains the only official State Order
that can only be awarded to members of an exclusive assembly in Sweden
(Bergroth 2002).
Gustaf Adolf Reuterholm
Duke Charles surrounded himself with several esoterically-minded Masons

over the years, but it was in particular his close friend and collaborator Gustaf
Adolf Reuterholm who came to influence Charles’ understanding of Free
masonry, especially through Reuterholm’s contacts with esoteric forms of
Freemasonry abroad. Reuterholm was born in 1756 in Finland, which at that
time was part of Sweden. His father, Esbjörn Christian Reuterholm (1710–1773),
had since 1766 been a councillor of the state and a firm supporter of the so-
called cap party. After the revolution in 1771, his father was arrested and placed
in prison, where he became ill and subsequently died. Reuterholm would later
blame the Swedish king, Gustavus III (1746–1792, reigned from 1771), for his
father’s death and became a firm opponent of the king. His mother Maria
Gyllenstierna seems to have been a charismatic woman and, according to
Reuterholm, there was a long tradition of mystical visionaries in the Gyllen
stierna family (Forsstrand 1925: 17).
After studies at Uppsala University, the young Reuterholm journeyed to St.
Petersburg in order to broaden his mind and learn the ways of life. Upon his
return to Sweden, he was appointed gentleman groom to Gustavus III. It might
appear surprising that Reuterholm accepted this appointment, given the fact
that he detested the king, but at the same time this proved to be an important
step forward in his career, since it gave him the opportunity to move in the
highest circles of Swedish society. One year later, he was appointed chamber-
lain to Queen Sofia Magdalena (1746–1813), and it was now that he befriended
Duke Charles of Sudermania (1748–1818), who in 1809 would become King
Charles XIII (SBL, Vol. 30: 43). Reuterholm and Duke Charles shared a common
interest in esoteric matters, such as ritual magic, alchemy, and Kabbalah and
174 Bogdan
they soon became inseparable. It was, however, through the bonds of Free
masonry that the two esotericists cemented their friendship. In 1782 Duke
Charles received Reuterholm as a Freemason. The latter subsequently rose
quickly through the degrees and the masonic hierarchy. It is often claimed that
Duke Charles was an insecure and weak person, and that his interest in esoteri-
cism was a sign of his gullibility and lack of judgement. Reuterholm, on the
other hand, has been accused of using the duke’s weaknesses to his own advan-
tage and by means of his position as Duke Charles’ spiritual advisor to meddle
in political affairs (SBL, Vol. 30: 44).
Four years after becoming a Mason Reuterholm entered the political scene
in earnest, but due to Gustavus III’s suspicion of his political orientation he
was outmanoeuvred, and subsequently, in 1789, he departed on a year-long
journey that took him through Germany, France, and Italy. Upon his return in
1790, he was openly accused by Gustavus III of having fraternised with French
revolutionaries and dangerous secret societies on his journey, and he lost his
royal pension of 1,000 riksdaler which had been granted to him in 1789.
Disheartened, Reuterholm decided to leave Sweden for another year. While in
Rome, the news reached him of Gustavus III’s assassination, and Duke Charles
urged him to return to Sweden to help him in this hour of chaos. Since Gustavus
IV Adolphus (1778–1837, King of Sweden 1792–1809), the heir, was too young to
become king, Duke Charles became the ruler of the regency. The period from
1792 to 1796 marked the high-water mark of Reuterholm’s political career: Duke
Charles appointed him to a number of important positions – positions that
Reuterholm was quick to use. In his first year in power, Reuterholm tried to run
a liberal political line, his most important endeavour being to enforce a law
that ensured the freedom of the press. At the same time, he played an active
part in straightening out the national finances, and he created a secret police
whose primary object was to keep an eye on Sweden’s main enemy at the time,
Russia. After the execution of Louis XVI (1754–1793) and the subsequent waves
of shock and fear that swept across Europe in royal and aristocratic circles,
Reuterholm adopted a more conservative and restrictive policy and, among
other measures, imposed limitations on the freedom of press that he had
granted just one year earlier. Opposition to Duke Charles and Reuterholm
became fiercer, especially among adherents of the assassinated Gustavus III,
and Reuterholm became the symbol of the regency and the main target of crit-
icism (SBL, Vol. 30: 45–46). On 1 November 1796, Gustavus IV Adolphus assumed
the office of King of Sweden and one of his first actions was to have Reuterholm
thrown out of Sweden. Reuterholm, who had anticipated that his fortunes
would turn as soon as Gustavus IV Adolphus assumed power, had already
resigned from his position, and he quickly left Sweden (SBL, Vol. 30: 46–47).
After an unsuccessful attempt to return to Sweden in 1800, Reuterholm

was forced to live in exile as a restless wanderer, the only permanent place
to which he could occasionally return being to his masonic brother Charles
of Hesse-Cassel in Schlesvig. During his exile, Reuterholm adopted the name
Tempelcreutz, probably a reference to his belief that he was a modern Knight
Templar, and perhaps, an allusion to Christian Rosencreutz, the mythical
founder of the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross. In 1809 Duke Charles finally became
king of Sweden, taking the name King Charles XIII. The now fifty-three year
old Reuterholm returned to Sweden but – as a final humiliation – the king,
his former friend and brother, refused to see him. Reuterholm, defeated and
rejected, returned to Schleswig-Friedrichsberg where he died on 27 December
1813.
Reuterholm and Freemasonry
If Reuterholm’s political career is well documented, his early masonic career is

shrouded in mystery. In the lists of members of the Swedish Grand Lodge it is
stated that Reuterholm received the Chapter degrees on the following dates:
on 12 February 1782 he became a Confidant Brother of the Stewards’ Lodge (Sw.
Stewardslogens Förtrogne Broder); on 10 February 1783 a Confidant Brother of
St. John’s Lodge (Sw. S:t Johanneslogens Förtrogne Broder); on the following
day, 11 February 1783 a Confidant Brother of St. Andrew’s Lodge (Sw. S:t
Andreaslogens Förtrogne Broder); and finally, on 22 March 1784 he received the
high dignity of the Ruby Cross. However, according to a manuscript in
Reuterholm’s handwriting, he was admitted, together with fellow magician
Carl Göran Bonde (1757–1840), to the higher degrees of Freemasonry on 6 April
1782 by Duke Charles himself in a private sanctuary at the Royal Palace in
Stockholm (ms. 121.25). In another important manuscript written by
Reuterholm, Samling af Maçonnique händelser (ms. 121.45), it is stated again
that he was received as a Freemason by the duke on that date. As we do not
have information about what degrees Reuterholm actually received on 6 April
1782, it is difficult to speculate on what actually took place. One possibility,
albeit a highly unlikely one, could be that he received the Chapter degrees
twice: once privately by Duke Charles at the Palace, and then officially at the
lodge building of the Swedish Grand Chapter at Rosenhaneska Palatset on the
island of Riddarholmen in Stockholm. Another possibility might be that the
initiations performed at the Royal Palace were only communicated verbally,
and that Reuterholm therefore had to go through the degrees ritually on other
occasions. Be that as it may, the fact that Reuterholm was received by Duke
Charles himself, the then head of the Order of Freemasons in Sweden, testifies
176 Bogdan
to the close ties between them, ties that became further cemented through the
oaths of fraternity. Reuterholm not only rose extremely quickly through the
degree system of the order, he also became one of the most important and
leading masons in Sweden of his time.
In a small publication by Reuterholm, published in 1787, he listed the
masonic offices that he held at the time: Marshall of the 9th Province, Grand
Guardian of the Order Archives, and Heraldicus Magnus of the Grand Chapter
(Sw. 9:e Provinsens Marskalk, Storgardien av Ordens Arkiv, Storkapitlets
Heraldicus Magnus). These offices show that Reuterholm was deeply involved
in the running of the Order in Sweden. The first office, Marshall of the 9th
Province, in practice meant that he was Duke Charles’ right-hand man in the
Order and that he was responsible, among other things, for carrying out the
decrees and edicts of the Grand Master. The second office, that of Grand Guar
dian of the Order Archives, was a newly constituted position, and Reuterholm
was thus the first archivist of the Swedish Order of Freemasonry. Reuterholm’s
private interest in collecting books and rare manuscripts was thus reflected
in his efforts as the Order archivist, and through his endeavours in this field
the foundation was laid for one of the most impressive masonic collections
in Europe. The third office, Heraldicus Magnus of the Grand Chapter, was
concerned with the heraldic aspects of the highest, Templar, degrees of the
Swedish Rite. The chapter degrees included ritual knighting of the candidates,
marked by the giving of a Templar ring and by the candidate assuming the
name of a knight – in Reuterholm’s case, he chose the name Eques De Sanguine
Puro (he would later include et Frater Professus in the name). Reuterholm
never states what the pure blood refers to, but it might be a reference to either
Templar symbolism, or perhaps to his relationship through his mother’s family
to the King of Sweden, Karl Knutsson Bonde (1408/09–1470), which in that case
would indicate that Reuterholm had pure, royal blood in his veins. Furthermore,
the newly dubbed knights were requested to design a personal heraldic shield
which was required to be approved by the Heraldicus Magnus.
Les Illuminés d’Avignon
It has often been claimed that Reuterholm had been initiated into a number of
masonic and other closed societies during his travels abroad in 1789–1790 and
1790–1791, but apart from his initiation into Les Illuminés d’Avignon in 1789, no
conclusive proof of this has been unearthed to date. Nevertheless, the fact that
Reuterholm changed his knightly name from Eques De Sanguine Puro to Eques
et Frater Professus De Sanguine Puro might refer to Reuterholm having been
initiated during his travels into the Rectified Scottish Rite, or Rite Ecossais
Rectifié, in which the two highest degrees were called Professed and Grand
Professed. (Baron Karl Gotthelf von Hund [1722–1776] had added, around 1770,
a seventh degree to the Strict Observance called Eques Professus. This became
the highest degree in the Strict Observance and, as the name suggests, it was a
highly religious and explicitly Christian degree firmly rooted in the Templar
tradition – just as the later Professed and Grand Professed degrees of the Rite
Ecossais Rectifié). The Rite Ecossais Rectifié was founded around 1774 by Jean-
Baptiste Willermoz (1730–1824), by profession a tradesman in silk living in
Lyon, today remembered as a keen explorer of the more hidden or esoteric
aspects of high degree Freemasonry. Willermoz had become a Mason in 1750,
in 1767 he was initiated into L’Ordre des Élus Coëns, and in 1773 into the Rite of
the Strict Observance. The rituals of the Rectified Scottish Rite developed,
from the rituals of the Strict Observance, over a span of some thirty-four years
from 1775 to 1809. The main object of the rituals is said to be the ‘progressive
revelation of the theosophical doctrine and teachings of Martinez de Pasqually’
(1708/1709–1774) who had founded L’Ordre des Élus Coëns, or the Order of the
Masonic Knights Élus Coëns of the Universe, in the 1760s. Willermoz remained
faithful to the teachings of Martines de Pasqually and the Élus Coëns and con-
sidered them to be the key to the true secret and object of Freemasonry. In fact,
L’Ordre des Élus Coëns functioned as an inner order of the Rectified Scottish
Rite, or as a “Masonry beyond Masonry”.
To a certain extent, the esotericism of Reuterholm and his fellow Swedish
magicians bears close resemblance to the esoteric teachings of L’Ordre des
Élus Coëns, in that he was seeking to return to “True Christianity” by means of
intermediary angels and other entities. L’Ordre des Élus Coëns was founded by
the theosophist and kabbalist Martines de Pasqually (1708/1709–1774) in the
1760s, and the members of the order were expected to live a marked religious
life, which is referred to in the name of the order: “chosen priests”, from the
Hebrew kohen, meaning priest. Pasqually’s teachings focus on the Gnostic idea
of the Fall of Man through which humankind became separated from God.
Through the initiatory system of the order, the members were expected to
reverse the Fall and make an upward journey, in which the seven degrees of the
order (not counting the three Craft degrees) corresponded to the seven gifts of
the Spirit. The final goal of the initiatory process was “reintegration”, a return to
the primitive and primordial state of man characterised by union with God.
The theurgy employed in the order was a means to this goal, through which
divine energies were invoked and the communion with good spirits was
sought. According to Jean-François Var, this theurgy was not aimed at acquir-
ing natural or supernatural powers, but it was part of a religious “cult”, which
included a liturgy. After the death of Pasqually in 1774, Caignet de Lester
178 Bogdan
(1725–1778) succeeded him as leader of the order (Grand Souverain de l’Ordre),

followed by Sebastian de Las Casas in 1778. Although L’Orde des Élus Coëns
was formally dissolved in 1781, it continued to have active lodges, most notably
one in Lyons under the leadership of Willermoz.
Reuterholm’s initiation into Les Illuminés d’Avignon is, on the other hand,
well documented. (Over twenty letters written by members of Les Illuminés
d’Avignon to Reuterholm between November 1789 and June 1790 are preserved
in the archives of the Grand Lodge in Stockholm. In this order the members
usually referred to each other by a number, followed by a letter: in the case of
Reuterholm he was referred to as 373 A). This order was founded in Berlin
around 1778, and was initially a loosely formed group with an alchemical inter-
est. Soon, however, the group came under the control of Louis Joseph Bernard
Philibert Guyton de Morveau, called Brumore (1738–1786), the alchemist and
former Benedictine Dom Antoine Joseph Pernety (1716–1796), and the Polish
count Thaddeus Leszczy Grabianka (1740–1807). The group was transformed
into a formal initiatic organisation, and around 1784 it was relocated to Avignon.
The order to relocate had been given by “La Sainte Parole” (The Sacred Word),
a mysterious oracle that became central to the group. The written consultation
of the oracle went through Brumore, who passed on the questions to the eso-
tericist and millenarian prophet Johann Daniel Müller (1716-after 1786), whose
identity remained secret to the other members of the order. The combination
of alchemy with the regular consultation of La Sainte Parole was central to the
order’s activity, and in order to become a full member of the order, one had to
go through an initiation which took no less than nine days to complete. The
initiation was seen as a consecration and the climax consisted of the gift of
seeing one’s guardian angel.
Reuterholm and his fellow Mason and esotericist Carl Göran Silfverhielm
(1759–1808) were, after eight days of preparation, initiated/consecrated by
Pernety and L’Homme in a circle in a wood outside the city of Avignon on 9
December 1789. Three days later, Reuterholm received the high dignity of
“Sacrificateur du Nord” and became the Nordic representative of the Order. On
the same occasion, his friend Silfverhielm received a similar title and a so-
called illuminé degree (Silfverhielm was referred to as 357 D within the order).
Reuterholm would later mention in a letter to Duke Charles that he had in
Avignon undergone the allegories of the entire “Black Degree” and “won the
Acacia”. By the time that Reuterholm and Silfverhielm joined Les Illuminés
d’Avignon, it had already broken up into three different factions, and by 1793
the order was completely disbanded.
When Reuterholm later returned to Sweden in 1790, his affiliation with Les
Illuminés d’Avignon would be the cause of misgivings on the part of Gustavus
III, who after the French revolution became increasingly suspicious of secret
societies. The king also accused Reuterholm of being in contact with the
Illuminati Order, founded by Adam Weishaupt (1743–1830) in 1776. However, it
seems highly unlikely that Reuterholm would have had any contact with this
order, as it was in large part a reaction against the esoteric Rosicrucian high
degree systems and degrees that flourished in the German-speaking world at
the time, towards which Reuterholm was probably much more sympathetic
given his esoteric proclivity. Surviving manuscripts at the archives of the Grand
Lodge of the Swedish Order of Freemasons show that Reuterholm was deeply
involved with various esoteric practices, including ritual magic, Kabbalah,
and necromancy. Reuterholm shared this interest with Duke Charles who had
gathered around him a small circle of esotericists. Among these esotericists
it was particularly Gustaf Björnram who influenced Reuterholm. Reuterholm
remained Björnram’s pupil for at least four years, from 1782 to 1786. His first
so-called “conviction” together with Björnram was on 17 August 1782, and
Reuterholm probably saw this as a form of initiation. It occurred at the St.
John’s Cemetery, but the results were quite limited. Six months later, on 16
February 1783, Reuterholm performed his first magical working on his own,
followed by numerous experiments. The following day, Reuterholm was initi-
ated by his master Björnram into ‘the higher science’, and this was followed
by ‘the highest initiation as a magical worker’ (Sw. den allra högsta initierin-
gen som magisk arbetare) three years later, on 7 July 1786 (Bogdan 2005: 29–31;
Reuterholm, ms. 121.44 and 121.45).
Later Developments
By the time of Charles XIII’s final revision of the rituals of the Swedish Rite in
1801, the creation of the Rite was to all intents and purposes completed, and
the subsequent history of Freemasonry in Sweden is more or less limited to the
spread and implementation of the Swedish Rite throughout Sweden, with
lodges opening in practically every major city in Sweden during the nineteenth
century. The Swedish Rite was also exported to the other Nordic countries, as
well as to parts of Germany, and the system stands out as one of the few explic-
itly Christian masonic systems, in the sense that in order to be admitted to the
system the candidate has to profess the Christian faith. During the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, the Christian moral character of Freemasonry was
emphasised, and esoteric interpretations of the symbols encountered in the
rituals tended to disappear from masonic discourse. The turn from an essen-
tially esoteric understanding of Freemasonry and its symbols, as expressed in
180 Bogdan
the surviving papers of Charles XIII, Gustav Reuterholm, and others, to a

Christian moral interpretation of the same rituals and symbols, is reflective on
the one hand of the moral emphasis of the United Grand Lodge of England
which Freemasonry in Sweden increasingly identified with, and on the other
hand of the general decrease of esotericism in the public sphere in Sweden
during the nineteenth century. Esoteric interpretations of Freemasonry reap-
peared on the scene towards the end of the nineteenth century, with the
emergence of fin-de-siècle occultism and related esoteric currents such as
Theosophy, and later, Anthroposophy. Compared to other European countries,
there is a surprising lack of competing masonic systems on Swedish soil, and
the hegemony of the Swedish Rite in Sweden was to all intents and purposes
unchallenged, and remains so to this day. That being said, there have been a
few attempts to establish other systems in Sweden, although they have been
largely unsuccessful in recruiting any large number of members.
On 1 May 1918, a lodge of Le Droit Humain (LDH) was opened at Stockholm.
LDH, founded in France in 1893, is a mixed masonic order which admits both
men and women on an equal basis (Snoek 2014). In most English-speaking
countries – as well as in Scandinavia – the order is tightly connected to the
Theosophical movement, and Annie Besant (1847–1933) was both the President
of the Theosophical Society (from 1907) and the Deputy Grand Master of LDH
(from 1909), as well as Grand Commander of the British Federation of the LDH.
The lodge in Stockholm is part of the Scandinavian Federation of the LDH,
which includes three lodges in Denmark and two in Norway. According to their
website, the Swedish LDH has, apart from the lodge at Stockholm, local
branches in Malmö and Vänersborg. In contrast to the Swedish Rite, the mem-
bers of LDH do not have to profess the Christian faith, but instead adhere to
the belief in a supreme being. This non-denominational approach to religion is
shared with Svenska Frimurare Lägret (SFL), founded by John Trollnäs (1908–
1970) in Lund, in 1951. According to their (now defunct) website, Trollnäs had
been initiated in Germany in 1929, from where he received a charter to estab-
lish lodges in Sweden. At least four lodges were founded: Lodge No. 1, The Three
Pyramids (De Trenne Pyramiderna), in Lund, 1951; Lodge No. 2, The Acacia
(Acacian), in Halmstad, 1956; Lodge No. 3, The Chain of Brotherhood (Brö
drakedjan), in Gothenborg, 1957; and finally Lodge No. 4 Veritas, in Helsingborg
1958. In addition to these four lodges, there was also a lodge of instruction. The
lodges worked according to the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite and the
Rite of Memphis, which Trollnäs had been initiated into. At the height of its
activities in the 1960s, the membership of the organisation peaked at around
350 members. During the 1980s and 1990s, the membership dwindled and it
was decided in 2006 that the lodges should go inactive. In 2009 there was an
attempt to reactivate the lodges, which lasted until 2011, when the SFL went
inactive once again. Finally, mention should be made of Gran Oriente
Latinoamericano (GOLa), which has existed since 1984 in Sweden. This mixed
Grand Lodge was founded by refugees from Chile. It has four lodges in Sweden:
Janus and Nórdica in Stockholm, Amerika in Norrköping, and Constructores por
la Paz in Södertälje. LDH, SFL, and GOLa are seen as irregular by the Swedish
Order of Freemasons, which in practice means that members of the Swedish
Order of Freemasons are not allowed to partake in the rites and ceremonies of
these organisations.
References
Bergroth, Tom C., Kungliga Carl den XIII:s Orden, Stockholm: Svenska Frimurare Orden,
2002.
Bogdan, Henrik, Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation, Albany: State University
of New York Press, 2007.
Dahlgren, Carl, Frimureriet med tillämpning på Sverige, Stockholm: H. Klemmings
Antikvariat, 1925.
Eklund, Dan, Sten Svensson and Hans Berg (eds.), Hertig Carl och det svenska frimureriet,
Uppsala: Forskningslogen Carl Friedrich Eckleff, 2010.
Forsstrand, Carl, En Gustaviansk ädlings ungdomshistoria. Några anteckningar av och
om Gustaf Adolf Reuterholm, Stockholm: Hugo Gebers Förlag, 1925.
Kinnander, Magnus, Svenska frimureriets historia, Stockholm: Natur och Kultur, 1943.
Lamm, Martin, Upplysningstidens romantik, Stockholm: Hugo Gebers Förlag, 1918, 1920.
Lekeby, Kjell, Gustaviansk mystik. Alkemister, kabbalister, magiker, andeskådare, astrolo-
ger och skattgrävare i den esoteriska kretsen kring G.A. Reuterholm, hertig Carl och
hertiginnan Charlotta 1776–1803, Sala/Södermalm: Vertigo Förlag, 2010.
Lenhammar, Harry, Med murslev och svärd: Svenska frimurarorden under 250 år. Delsbo:
Bokförlaget Åsak, 1985.
Reuterholm, Samling af Maçonnique händelser. Till egen ro och hielpreda för minnet up-
tecknade uppå Svidja år 1784 af G[ustaf ] A[dolph] R[euterholm] (ms. 121.45).
Reuterholm, J.E. Gripenvaldts arfvode för Carl Bonde … (ms. 121.25).
Reuterholm, Magisk Arbets Iornal, författad af G[ustaf ] A[dolph] R[euterholm] (ms.
121.44).
Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon [SBL], Vol. 30.
Thustrup, Carl Ludvig Henning, Anteckningar till Svenska Frimureriets Historia, Stock
holm: Meddelanden från Svenska Stora Landslogens arkiv och bibliotek, Vol. 1, 1892;
Vol. 2, 1898.
182 Chapter 23
Chapter 23 Hermeticism in Denmark
Hermeticism in Denmark
Morten Fink-Jensen
The myths of ancient Egypt as the cradle of magic and alchemy and the thrice
great Hermes probably held little attraction in Denmark prior to the
Renaissance and the publication of the various texts of the Corpus Hermeticum
by Marsilio Ficino in fifteenth-century Florence. The influence of this revived
Hermeticism, however, took almost a century to reach the by then Lutheran
Denmark. The fathers of the Danish Reformation of 1536 were not unaware of
Florentine Platonism given that Christiern Pedersen (ca. 1480–1554), a prolific
translator of many of Luther’s works into Danish, was the owner of a copy of
Ficino’s De christiana religione. Hermeticism held no influence on the Danish
Lutheran Church, and it was not perceived as a theological threat in the years
following the Reformation. This allowed for Hermetic influences to seep into
natural philosophy, first and foremost in the late sixteenth century, when alter-
natives to the joint forces of Aristotelian philosophy and Lutheran orthodoxy
were being sought after by certain members of the learned world. In this
respect Hermeticism in early modern Denmark was fused with Paracelsianism,
and as in Europe generally the phrase Hermetic medicine was used as a substi-
tute for Paracelsian medicine. This also caused Hermeticism to be an integrated
and widely accepted part of alchemy and iatrochemistry.
However, Hermeticism, in the strict sense of the word, would have had
strong bearing on theology and out of fear of repudiation it caused would-be
propagators of Hermeticism to tread carefully. To edit and publish Hermetic
writings such as Poimander or Asclepius would have been unlikely to go down
well with the censorship at the University of Copenhagen at the time. Also the
relative scarcity of academics and well-educated laymen would have ruled out
the publication of Hermetic texts. Too few people were potential readers and
buyers for a Danish printer to risk it financially. This was not a situation unique
to Hermetic texts but also affected, say, works of Aristotle. Yet Hermetic writ-
ings, whether texts of the Corpus Hermeticum itself or by authors commenting
on them, were not illegal to either read or possess and they were easily avail-
able in libraries and book collections of noblemen or members of the learned
republic, who had bought these volumes on their student travels abroad.

Hermeticism in Denmark 183
The Tycho Brahe Circle
In the 1570s Hermeticism influenced the intellectual outlook of the astrono-

mer Tycho Brahe, royal physician Peter Severinus (Peder Sørensen), and
professor of medicine at the University of Copenhagen Johannes Pratensis
(Hans Philipsen). The three of them were friends, and surviving letters show
how they shared a zest for esoteric knowledge while trying to ward off interest
from those uninitiated and unworthy of the divine knowledge they believed
they possessed.
Severinus made his name in European medicine with his Idea medicinae
(1571) which can be described as an epitome of moderate Paracelsian medicine
and cosmology. Severinus was well aware of Paracelsus’ debt to the writings of
Hermes, and both in the Idea and the short publication Epistola scripta
Theophrasto Paracelso (ca. 1572), Severinus wrote of Paracelsus’ own reverence
for Hermes and how the Paracelsian ideas corresponded with theories found
in the Hermetic texts. Severinus died in 1602, but without having published
anything for the last thirty years of his life. By his own somewhat blurred
account because he feared criticism, or perhaps even reprisals. He also appears
to have distanced himself from more overt Hermeticism, leaving, with the
untimely death of Pratensis in 1576, Tycho Brahe as the by far most influential
representative of Hermeticism in late sixteenth-century Denmark.
As an independent and affluent nobleman, Tycho did little to hide his rever-
ence for the Hermetic tradition. In a public lecture at the University of
Copenhagen he attributed the invention of the mathematical sciences to the
ancient Egyptians, and elsewhere in his writings Hermes Trismegistus was
praised as the author of the Tabula Smaragdina (The Emerald Tablet). His own
castle Uraniborg was adorned by two sculptured emblems at its entrance. They
were Hermetic allegories of the interdependence between the earth and the
skies in the shape of chemistry, or alchemy, personified with the statement:
Despiciendo, suspicio (By looking down, I see up) and astronomy stating: Susci
piendo, despicio (By looking up, I see down). This was a reference to a famous
phrase from The Emerald Tablet (“as above, so below”), but at the same time an
expression of Tycho’s philosophy of life and science, viz. that the earth and the
heavens were interconnected in a cosmic analogy and therefore neither of
them could be studied in isolation. Furthermore, traditional Aristotelian cos-
mology claimed the spheres above the moon to be perfect and unalterable. But
as a result of his astronomical observations Tycho realised this to be incorrect.
Rather, judging from the appearance of the supernova in 1572 and on the basis
of his observations of comets, Tycho deemed Hermetic and Paracelsian cos-
mology to be best in accordance with reality. The Hermetic vision of Tycho was
184 Fink-jensen
thus more than rhetoric and ideals, but presented a valid foundation to him,
one that lent proof to his empirical observations.
The Acceptable Face of Hermeticism
When Tycho died at the dawn of the seventeenth century, Hermeticism no

longer played a discernible part of academic life. This does not mean that
Hermeticism vanished, but it was mellowed down and fused into an eclectic
natural philosophy which was dominated by Aristotelian and Galenic philoso-
phy and theory. This is evident from the writings of Caspar Bartholin the Elder,
who was appointed professor of medicine at the University of Copenhagen in
1613. Despite being much of a traditionalist, and an orthodox Lutheran as well,
Bartholin made numerous references to Hermes Trismegistus, the Corpus
Hermeticum, and Paracelsus in his many writings. Bartholin the Elder was no
Hermeticist, but even so he believed in the truth of the once pristine wisdom
of the ancients. The Hermetic tradition could therefore not be ignored, and he
included Ficino among the authors recommended to the students of medicine
in his handbook De studio medico (1628).
Already in 1626 Bartholin the Elder had become a professor of theology in
Copenhagen, yet for him it was not a question whether one should study the
Hermetic tradition or not, but how it should be interpreted. As could be
expected, he strongly subordinated the Hermetic tradition to Christian think-
ing, and the legitimacy of Hermeticism in sixteenth and seventeenth-century
Denmark relied on Biblical evidence and connotations; for instance, professor
Ole Borch stated as a fact in his Hermetis sapientae (1674) that Moses had dis-
integrated the golden calf (Exod. 32:20) by means of chemical processes which
he had learnt in Egypt. Advocates of Hermetic ideas were few and far apart in
the middle of the seventeenth century. For instance, the lore of Egypt and the
Hermetic tradition exerted little influence on Bartholin the Elder’s son, the
anatomist Thomas Bartholin, even though he as part of his European peregri-
natio unsuccessfully made for Egypt in 1644. One exception was Ambrosius
Rhodius, who in 1635 arrived in Copenhagen from Saxony. He published a cou-
ple of treatises on Pythagoras and astrological medicine in Copenhagen. In
1637 he was appointed medicus in Christiania, Norway, where he continued to
promote Hermetic and Paracelsian ideas, including a work on Severinus. These
publications were studied by the young Ole Borch, and they influenced him a
great deal. Rhodius tried to rehabilitate Severinus, and Borch would later stage
himself as walking in the footsteps of Severinus.
Ole Borch and the Revival of Hermeticism
With the accession of King Frederik III to the throne in 1648, Denmark acquired
a monarch with a personal interest in alchemy and Hermeticism, and in 1660
Ole Borch obtained a royal appointment to the university as professor in phi-
lology, poetry, chemistry, and botany. Although his lectures in botany as well as
chemistry were supposed to address only topics of relevance to medicine,
Borch was nevertheless the first to be appointed to a chair of chemistry at the
University of Copenhagen.
Prior to his appointment as professor, Borch had worked as a teacher to,
amongst others, Nicolaus Steno (Niels Stensen). Borch did his best to exert his
influence, as can be seen from Steno’s surviving notes from 1659. Borch had
Steno read Paracelsus and Ficino, and Steno also busied himself with alchemi-
cal experiments. The two of them also held debates, on one occasion about the
standpoint that Paracelsus and the magi had not been devils, but natural phi-
losophers. Steno would, however, soon reject the Hermetic path.
On the instigation of Borch, King Frederik III in 1667 appointed the Italian
Giuseppe Francesco Borri as court alchemist. Borri was an Italian refugee who
had fled Rome where he had been sentenced to death for heresy and burnt in
effigie in 1661. On his Grand Tour Borch met him in Amsterdam, and Borch was
convinced that he was a great Hermetic magus being able to produce gold by
chemical processes [see also the chapter on Alchemy in Denmark]. Borri was
met with great expectations in Copenhagen, where he was equipped with a
laboratory, but with the much anticipated gold being long in coming, his posi-
tion became untenable after Frederik III had died in 1670. Borri left Denmark
and in 1672 he was arrested in Austria and sent as prisoner to Rome where he
died. His reputation rapidly faded, and he left no alchemical legacy behind him
in Denmark, even though Borch would still call Borri “the Hermes of our times”
in his Hermetis sapientiae of 1674.
Ole Borch was an ardent advocate of iatrochemistry, and he accepted and
promoted the idea that it was based on the joint ideas of Hermetic philosophy
and Paracelsian medicine. In his capacity as professor, he subsequently pub-
lished several works on the history of chemistry and alchemy, where he
vigorously defended the legacies of Hermes and Paracelsus.
The publication of Borch’s defences of Hermetic philosophy and Paracelsian
alchemy was made possible by way of royal support. As opposed to the reli-
gious climate of the late sixteenth century, where Severinus had to subdue his
reverence for Hermetic and Paracelsian ideas, the ancient philosophy was no
longer deemed as a threat to Lutheran orthodoxy provided, however, that cer-
tain measures were taken. These measures concerned the elements of magic
186 Fink-jensen
in the Hermetic and alchemical traditions. Borch and those similarly disposed
had to make sure they were not promoting heresy or witchcraft, with such
accusations otherwise being certain to follow from the Church. Borch, who con-
sidered himself to be a model Lutheran, consequently set out to tie the ancient
magic of Hermes to Paracelsus and the natural magic of the Renaissance, try-
ing to prove the necessity of this tradition to contemporary science, while also
carefully making it devoid of magic and putting natural processes in its place.
The Debate with Conring
Borch’s first defence of Hermeticism came in 1668 with De ortu et progressu

chemiae. It was a stern critique of the German scholar Hermann Conring’s
book De hermetica Aegyptiorum vetere et Paracelsicorum nova medicina (1648).
Conring had questioned the supremacy of the Hermetic tradition, calling into
question the rationality of its supporters such as Paracelsus and Severinus.
Borch, dedicating his reply to King Frederik III, fired back at Conring, claim-
ing Hermes was the inventor of all sciences. He placed chemistry in an Old
Testament setting, attributing its invention to Tubal-Cain. After the deluge,
Noah’s grandson Canaan settled in Egypt, where he was known as Hermes
Trismegistus. Alchemy and iatrochemisty derived from him and were handed
down to the time of Borch by a succession of prisci theologi including Moses,
Orpheus, Plato, medieval alchemists and mystics including Basil Valentinus,
Arnald of Villanov, Ramon Llull, and Ficino and Paracelsus in the Renaissance.
Obviously, Borch argued, keepers of this originally antediluvian wisdom could
not be accused of sorcery or quackery. Conring was swift with his reply and
published a second edition of his De hermetica which included a rebuff of
Borch. Borch hit back with the copious Hermetis, Aegyptiorum et chemicorum
sapientae (1674), in which he attempted to ridicule Conring while once again
praising Hermes Trismegistus and Paracelsus.
The Hermeticism of Borch made him an adversary of Aristotelian natural
philosophy, and he dedicated a large section of his book to vehement attacks
on Aristotle, who in Borch’s mind was not only a second-rate natural philoso-
pher, but ungodly, too. Also, with his reply Conring had taken the debate to an
international level, dedicating his work to Cardinal Colbert in Paris. Accordingly,
Borch also dedicated Hermetis sapientia to the cardinal, and the debate with
Conring was followed by the learned world of Europe with reviews appearing
in Journals des Scavans and the Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society
in London.
In his works on chemistry, Borch made numerous references to Hermetic

texts such as the Latin treatise Asclepius, the Tabula Smaragdina, as well as
Hermetic manuscripts he had studied in the Royal Library in Paris. Borch’s own
library has been lost and no records survive to tell of the Hermetic literature he
undoubtedly owned. His thorough knowledge of the Hermetic texts is, how-
ever, well documented in his writings. Prior to his appointment to the chair at
the university, Borch held a five-year tenure as teacher in the household of the
seneschal Joachim Gersdorff. Here Borch had access not only to a chemical
laboratory, but also to the nobleman’s large library containing, for instance,
numerous editions of the Corpus Hermeticum, which were later incorporated
in the Royal Library in Copenhagen.
Borch’s Arguments and Legacy
The case of Borch is a clear indication that the dating of the Corpus Hermeticum
to late antiquity, as carried out by Isaac Casaubon in 1614, proving that the texts
could not have been written in ancient Egypt, had limited immediate effect.
Borch was not unaffected by the philological arguments, but citing for instance
the Stromata of Clement of Alexandria, he maintained that the core of the
texts was genuinely ancient and originally by Hermes Trismegistus. Also, since
Borch believed that Hermes Trismegistus was called Thoth by the Egyptians,
Hermes by the Greeks, and Mercury by the Romans, he applied the tactic of
taking everything that had ever been written in an approving vein about these
gods in support of the theory of the divine wisdom of the ancient Egyptians.
This opened the door to arguments from the world of poetry and classical
authors, neatly allowing Borch to incorporate the poetry and philology of the
other half of his university chair in the debate.
Borch was very clear about Paracelsian medicine resting on a foundation of
Hermeticism. But as was the case with Hermes Trismegistus, Paracelsus, too,
had to be purged of affiliations with the overtly occult. Borch argues that the
healing qualities of chemical remedies have been proved by experience –
Borch was practising medicine privately – wherefore he cannot do anything
but support chemical philosophy, but he was adamant that this was not neces-
sarily an occult science, but rather based on natural processes which were
possible to repeat in the laboratory.
Borch died a bachelor in 1690 and his will left most of his assets to the estab-
lishment of a students’ hall in Copenhagen, which still exists today as Borch’s
Kollegium. In his will, Borch had specified that he wanted the institution to be
called Collegium Mediceum. One may safely assume that this alluded to the
188 Fink-jensen
Medicis of Florence, under whose protectorate Hermetic philosophy had been

reintroduced to Western Europe in the fifteenth century. Fittingly, Borch had a
statue of Hermes erected in the garden of the kollegium.
Not long after his death, the Hermetic visions of Borch were abandoned by
academic circles. In the early eighteenth century they were largely forgotten,
too. Accordingly, when in 1737 an expedition under the leadership of F.L.
Norden set out from Denmark to explore Egypt and Ethiopia, the aim was not
to search for arcane Hermetic wisdom, but to map the Nile and document the
topography of its surroundings. The myth of Hermes, however, continued to
appeal to occult societies and Freemasons.
References
Historisk Tidsskrift, 100 (2000), 35–68.
1536–1636, Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2004.
Iversen, Erik, “Ægyptologi indtil 1937”, in: P.J. Jensen and Leif Grane (eds.), Københavns
Universitet 1479–1979, Vol. 8, Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, 1992, 593–
633.
Kragh, Helge (ed.), Fra middeladerlærdom til den nye videnskab, 1000–1730. Dansk natur-
videnskabs historie, Vol. 1, Aarhus: Aarhus University, 2005.
his Instruments and Scientific Work as Given in Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica
(1598), Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1946.
Hermeticism in Sweden 189
Chapter 24 Hermeticism in Sweden
Hermeticism in Sweden
Susanna Åkerman
The fragmentary sources for tracing Hermeticism in Sweden stem from the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when these texts still formed a basis for
cosmological thinking. The Corpus Hermeticum was often associated with
another Hermetic text, the Tabula smaragdina or Emerald Tablet. Translated
into Latin from the Arabic in the twelfth century, the text was particularly pop-
ular among German alchemists, who rarely read the Corpus Hermeticum but
instead based their understanding of Hermeticism on the short sentences
from the Emerald Tablet. The Emerald Tablet was furthermore used to present
alchemy in a simple but enigmatic form. The Tablet formulated the kernel of
Hermeticism in a widely spread maxim on the parallels between the cosmo-
logical macrocosm and the human microcosm: “As above, so below”. This figure
of thought had a great influence on Hermeticism in Sweden. Swedenborg, for
example, reformulated it to treat of correspondences between the natural, the
spiritual, and the heavenly realms. Hermetic philosophy likewise influenced
three other currents: mysticism, alchemy, and Rosicrucianism.
Seventeenth-Century Metaphysics
Hermeticism began to be an important current in Sweden with Johan Skytte

(1577–1645), who was the Chancellor of Uppsala University. In the 1640s Skytte
delivered an oration in which he praised King Gustavus II Adolphus for having
opened the doors for “Theophrastus [Paracelsus] and [Hermes] Trismegistos”
to the Swedish universities. This was a clear signal that the older pagan phi-
losophy was compatible with Christian beliefs. In the same spirit, the Finnish
natural philosopher Sigfrid Aron Forsius (1560–1624) edited several almanacs
to be used for astrological purposes. Forsius’ Hermetic ideas became evident
when he was brought to justice in 1619, as his ideas were no longer tolerated
by the Swedish Lutheran orthodoxy. Although Forsius once mentioned
Rosicrucianism in a negative manner, he nevertheless used ideas that had been
spread through Rosicrucian writings, such as the special significance of the
great conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn appearing every twenty years.

190 Åkerman
Their appearance and position in the heavens was taken to herald a new age of
outpouring of the grace of nature (gratia naturae) and of new discoveries in
the sciences. [See the chapter on Paracelsianism in Sweden in the present vol-
ume]. Forsius also pointed to the appearance of Jan Hus in Bohemia in the
fourteenth century as a precursor of Luther. Furthermore, Forsius described
how the word LUX (light) springs forth from the Cross of St. Andrew [X] and its
constituent parts L, V and X, an exegesis that can be found in several other
Hermetic texts and was therefore well-known at the time. The same play on
words is also found in the sixteenth theorem of the British hermeticist John
Dee’s celebrated Hermetic-mystical text Monas hieroglyphica (Antwerp, 1564).
Queen Christina’s Court
In Stockholm, Queen Christina (1626–1689) was described by her librarian

as “trembling with joy” when she received a copy of Iamblichus’ De mysteriis
Aegyptiorum, Chaldeorum et Assyriorum (On the Mysteries of the Egyptians,
Chaldeans, and Assyrians). Neoplatonic and Hermetic sources were in this
volume used to describe methods and practices of theurgy and divination,
the ascent of the soul and how to come in contact with gods and demons.
The Latin translation of Iamblichus’ tract on the mysteries was originally
published in 1491 in a collection of Neoplatonic texts translated by Marsilio
Ficino. In Rome, Christina was to acquire a bulky edition, printed at Aldus
press in Venice in 1516. This edition was later cut down to a handy anthology
printed in many editions, the last in Lyon 1607. The book Christina received
in Stockholm, before her abdication in 1654, was probably such a condensed
version. The anthology of 1607 contains Proclus’ commentary to Alcibiades’
pronouncements in Plato’s dialogue on the soul, demons, offerings, and magic.
The volume also contains Porphyry’s exposition of the unique nature of gods
and demons, and Michael Psellus’ similar thoughts on the nature of demons.
The most important part of the volume was the reprint of two central texts
attributed to Mercurius [Hermes] Trismegistus, Poemander and Asclepius –
perfect discourses on the union of the higher self and the mind of light (Gr.
nous). In Rome, Christina collected a large amount of Hermetic texts, among
them Ficino’s edition of the Corpus Hermeticum. Christina shared the interest
in hermetica with a number of Italian alchemists. In Sweden, as in the rest of
northern Europe, on the other hand, direct reading of the source texts in the
Corpus Hermeticum was rare.
Hermeticism was influenced by Platonic thought. Christina’s teacher
Isaac Vossius writes that she was led to Platonism at an early stage in her
life through the works of the Florentine Renaissance Platonist and Christian
kabbalist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, but he does not specify which works
she had studied. He may have intended Pico’s entire collected works that were
available in Stockholm. The most widely-known text by Pico is his program-
matic Oration on the Dignity of Man (De hominis dignitate), consisting of 900
Hermetic, philosophical, magical, and kabbalistic theses that Pico wanted to
debate. The list was banned by the Church, but the ban was revoked in 1493 by
the Pope Alexander VI (Borgia) who was interested in Hermeticism. In vivid
images Pico explains that Seraphs and Thrones constantly watch over humans.
The goal for each human being is to climb Jacob’s ladder all the way up to
God’s throne and stand there together with the Seraphs, Cherubs, and Thrones.
One is to emulate the Seraphic fire of love, the Cherubic intelligence, and the
Thrones’ steadfastness of judgement. Christina’s interest in Pico’s philosophy
may have been sparked by Johannes Bureus, who quotes Pico in his notes.
Pico’s central role was further shown in that she shipped a portrait of Pico to
Antwerp, and then to Rome, when she left Stockholm.
During the 1650s the poet Georg Stiernhielm (1598–1673) wrote several
smaller drafts on natural philosophy and on the light and darkness of crea-
tion. In this choice of topics he followed the model of the English hermeticist
Robert Fludd’s Philosophia moysaica (Gouda, 1638). Fludd cites the Christian
kabbalist Johannes Reuchlin, who a century before had written about the
“Wondermaking Word” in the beginning of creation: The bright Aleph and
the dark Aleph spin two spheres, an upper and a lower, combining the soul’s
domain above and the natural world below. Inspired by this idea, the Swedish
Baroque poet started to write a series of smaller philosophical tracts in which
he claimed that a web of ideas was formed through the vibrating creative
power of the Hebrew letter Aleph. This web of ideas was ordered as a golden
chain of active principles. In Stiernhielm’s words it was “Minerva’s necklace”,
a phrase that he also used as the title of his manuscript presented to Queen
Christina and her court of Dutch, French, and German humanist scholars. The
necklace was a chain linked together by twelve principles of spiritual vitality:
ens, mens, lux, styx, res, vis, fas, fors, spes, amor, ops, pax – the mental sword,
consciousness, light, streams in the netherworld, things, will, justice, chance,
faith, love, power, and peace.
According to Stiernhielm, following the links of Minerva meant faithfully
following in the tracks of Nature. Minerva’s necklace binds together all things
in their allotted places in the emanation from God. First, God created Nox, the
pure Non-being from which prime matter, prima materia, would be created.
Stiernhielm derived the concept of a primary Nothingness from Robert Fludd,
whose Philosophia moysaica (1638), he studied diligently. Like Giordano Bruno,
Stiernhielm saw matter as constructed by atoms: In the beginning of the pro-
cess of creation atoms are spread throughout the void. Stiernhielm sees this
192 Åkerman
prima materia as virtually non-being, without qualities or quantities. The next

step in the world process, according to Stiernhielm, is Chaos. In this phase mat-
ter is sterile, shapeless, void of existence, but is equipped with a possibility to
bring forth all things. This formation of things works through the spirit of God,
which infuses Mens, the Soul, into prima materia. Mens contains in itself the
conceptual seeds of all things, rationes seminales, with which matter is now
replenished. The Soul has been secretly hidden in the Godhead from eternity
and is a reflection of the Divine Light.
Infused into matter, the Soul streams through the cosmos, to which it relates
as the soul of man relates to his body. It expresses itself as the instinct of ani-
mals and as reason in man. Through the Soul each thing partakes of the One,
the Good, and the True. This doctrine of a soul which forms, gives life to, and
maintains all created things, played an important role in anti-Aristotelian nat-
ural philosophy. Stiernhielm viewed his doctrine of the Soul as an interpretation
of the original Platonic tradition, which he claimed he had restored in a purer
and truer form than had ever been done before. (Stiernhielm’s Mss. Fd 3, 5,
6, 9.)
In the next phase of the world process, Light forces the tenacity and slug-
gishness of matter to realise the seeds of things hidden in the forms. Light in
itself is an almost immaterial substance, a ray and splendour emanating from
God, who in an instant fills and infiltrates the All. With Light, dark matter
becomes visible, with its warmth it revives the sleeping forms in matter, and
with its movement it confers life. Everything specific is the work of the Soul.
With his doctrine of Nox, Mens, and Lux, Stiernhielm believed that he had
given a secure foundation for all further philosophising.
After participating in Queen Christina’s learned discussions in Stockholm,
the courtier Bengt Skytte (1614–1683) journeyed to England in 1659 to propose
to Charles II that the British crown should found a royal academy of sciences
in London. These plans bore fruit in 1660 with the founding of the famous
Royal Society. Skytte’s original plan was, however, replaced by another scheme
proposed by the chemist Robert Boyle. Skytte instead travelled to Berlin and
in 1667 proposed building a utopian city of science in Pomerania, called
Sophopolis. Skytte also suggested, in an unpublished manuscript called Sol
praeciparium linguarum sub solarium, that an ideal language should be built
around Paracelsian alchemical symbols.
Another Swedish hermeticist was the Livonian professor Friedrich Menius
(ca. 1593–1659), who held a chair at the University of Dorpat. In the 1640s he
wrote manuscripts on the Last Judgment using the pseudonym Salomon
Majus, and he published the tract Consensus hermetico-mosaicus. Divine
Providence is here mirrored in the forward stride of the light of creation. After
a universal conflagration, the clear light of Paradise will shine again over those
who have been saved from Divine wrath. Menius argues for and illustrates this
coming scenario by means of selected scriptural quotations. In 1639, he had
dedicated a similar text, Pandora Sophica, to Queen Christina. His manuscripts
were confiscated in 1646, and Menius was accused of having come close to
Giordano Bruno’s heresy on the existence of an infinite variety of worlds.
Campanella and the Swedish King
The fate of Sweden was also mentioned by the hermetically influenced Domi
nican monk from Naples, Tommaso Campanella, who in exile in Paris in 1638
wrote a salutation to the King and Queen of France on the day of the birth of
the French Dauphin, claiming that:
The Swedish King in vain desired to build a wonderful city, after the name
of the Sun, as I can assure you with a sincere heart The King of Sweden
started the project as it is described by the author in the wonderful little
book The City of the Sun, fooled thereto by the astrology of Tycho Brahe
(Campanella 1638–39: 300).
Campanella’s The City of the Sun, written in 1602, is a Hermetic work describing
a utopian city built in seven concentric circles with a round temple in the cen-
tre. The city is to be understood as an image of the human psyche. Campanella
saw Gustavus Adolphus as a monarch who could put this utopian idea into
practice. Johann Valentin Andreae’s utopian vision of a Christianopolis was
presented in 1628 to, among others, the Swedish diplomat Johan Adler Salvius,
and thus may also have influenced the Swedish king. Was it perhaps the archi-
tecturally intricate fortress Gustafsburg in Mainz that would be built on the
model of The City of the Sun? Another possibility is the geometrically con-
structed city plan of Gothenburg. Or was there a third Swedish project to build
a City of the Sun that never proceeded beyond the blueprint?
Eighteenth-Century Creation Stories
Hermetic ideas from the Emerald Tablet turn up in the early eighteenth cen-
tury in the writings of alchemists such as Urban Hjärne (1641–1724), Magnus
Gabriel von Block (1669–172?), and Johan Gottschalk Wallerius (1709–1785). In
these writings they describe the principles of creation by means of Hermetic
194 Åkerman
metaphors of light, selected in order to support the idea of tight connections

between the three spheres of nature: the plant, mineral, and animal kingdoms.
These thinkers belonged to the last generations in Sweden who used Hermetic
ideas as an inspiration for writing works of natural science.
References
Campanella, Tommaso, Ecloga Christianissimis Regi et Reginae in portentosam Delphin

nativitatem, Paris: 1638–1639, in: Luigi Firpo (ed.), Tutte le Opere di Tommaso Cam
panella, Milano, 1954.
Blok, Frans Felix, Isaac Vossius and his Circle: His Life until His Farewell to Queen Christina
of Sweden 1618–1655, Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 2000.
Dickson, Donald, The Tessera of Antilia: Utopian Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in the
Early Seventeenth Century, Leiden: Brill, 1998.
Ebeling, Florian, The Secret History of Hermes Trismegistus: Hermeticism from Ancient
to Modern Times, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2007.
Lindroth, Sten, Paracelsismen i Sverige till 1600-talets mitt, Uppsala: Lychnos-bibliotek
7, 1943.
——— . Svensk Lärdomshistoria. Vol. 4, Part 2, Stormaktstiden, Stockholm: Norstedts,
1975–1981.
Menius, Friedrich, Pandora sophica, Ms. P 8, Uppsala: Uppsala University Library.
——— . Consensus hermetico-mosaicus, Uppsala, 1646.
Nordström, Johan (ed.), Samlade skrifter av Georg Stiernhielm. 2 vols. Stockholm: Albert
Bonniers förlag, 1924.
———. “Fredrich Menius: En äventyrlig Dorpatprofessor och hans glömda insats i det
engelska komediantdramats historia”, Samlaren Ny Följd, Årgång 2 (1921), 42–91.
Purver, Marjory, The Royal Society: Concept and Creation, London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1967.
Skytte, Bengt, Sol praeciparium linguarum sub solarium, Stockholm: Royal Library.
Stiernhielm, Mss. Fd 3, 5, 6, 9, Stockholm: Royal Library.
Van Heertum, Cis, Philosophia Symbolica: Johannes Reuchlin and the Kabbalah, Amster
dam: In de Pelikaan, 2005.
Human Potential 195
Chapter 25 Human Potential
The Human Potential Movement in Scandinavia

Liselotte Frisk1
Introduction
The Human Potential Movement arose in the 1960s in the USA. It had its roots
in humanistic psychology, which presented a view of human beings as living
far below their natural capacities. Important founding figures were Abraham
Maslow (1908–1970), Carl Rogers (1902–1987), and Rollo May (1909–1994). The
Human Potential Movement was, however, much more practically oriented
than humanistic psychology. A central institution closely connected to it was
the Esalen Institute in California, founded in 1962.
As with all cultural currents, it is difficult to define precisely which phenom-
ena belong inside and which outside of this movement, especially as it has
interacted with other cultural currents and changed over time. Most impor-
tantly, it interacted with New Thought currents (inherited from the middle of
the nineteenth century) and later, during the 1980s, 1990s and up to the present
day with various New Age currents. For the present purposes, six central char-
acteristics can be seen as defining the Human Potential Movement, and the
contemporary heritage of the Human Potential Movement in Scandinavia is
traced by focusing on cultural currents where these characteristics are
present.
1. At the core of the Human Potential Movement is the ideological frame-
work borrowed from humanistic psychology that focuses on human potential.
Each individual is taken to have the capacity to attain total mental health and
self-actualisation, to be authentic and free from inner and outer restraints such
as defence mechanisms and social roles. Especially from the end of the 1960s,
* This chapter is partly based on original research, interviews with key individuals in the
Scandinavian therapeutic milieus, and on the generous assistance of researchers in the various
Nordic countries. Interviews were conducted with Lena Kristina Tuulse on 1 Nov 2007, Øyvind
Solum on 21 Nov 2007, Torbjörn Fjällström on 27 Sep 2007, Isabella Söderström, Baravara, on
6 Dec 2007 and Anna Maria Norén on 30 Jan 2008. Responses by e-mail from Isabella
Söderström (Baravara, dated 11 Dec 2007) and Osho Risk (dated 5 Jan 2008) are gratefully ac-
knowledged. For the situation in Denmark, I particularly wish to thank Mikkel Pade. Jussi
Sohlberg has provided information on the situation in Finland.

196 Frisk
this ideological component was integrated with more religious views, mainly
borrowed from Eastern religions.
2. The expression of emotions through catharsis is seen as healthy for the
individual. Emotions, especially specific emotions such as anger, are conceived
of as constrained by social forces and therefore often suppressed. Ideally, in the
therapeutic situation the individual is allowed to act out all emotions, shout-
ing and weeping, and losing all inhibitions. According to this view, neurosis is
the result of being out of touch with one’s own true feelings.
3. Body therapies are a central component of the Human Potential move-
ment. Discovering more about the self by developing a greater awareness of
how the body moves and feels is crucial. Memories of physical and emotional
traumas can in this perspective be triggered by manipulating the affected part
of the body.
4. Focus on here-and-now is encouraged. The therapies of the Human
Potential Movement focus on the present instead of searching through the
past for the causes of various problems.
5. Another hallmark of the Human Potential Movement is the use of group
therapy. Therapy is often conducted as a group process instead of on a one-to-
one basis between patient and therapist. Feedback from and encounter with
the group is seen as essential.
6. Syncretism. The founders of Esalen, Michael Murphy (b. 1930) and
Richard Price (1930–1985), wanted to establish a centre for the exploration of
new ideas, and did not wish to promote any particular school or discipline. The
guiding principle for them was synthesis – the flowing together of East and
West, the ancient and the modern, science and religion, scholarship and art.
This mixture of different elements has been characteristic for the whole
Human Potential Movement.
At Esalen, the characteristics described above were during the 1960s to a
great extent expressed in therapies such as gestalt therapy and encounter.
These therapies had their predecessors in Europe in the beginning of the twen-
tieth century (e.g., psychodrama), but came into full blossom at Esalen under
therapists such as Fritz Perls (1893–1970) and William Schutz (1925–2002).
Later on, the same characteristics were expressed in the New Age milieu, often
in less intense forms of therapy such as rebirthing and body harmony.
At present (2014), the terms human potential and the Human Potential
Movement are not much used. According to a questionnaire distributed to
holistic or alternative therapists in the Danish city of Aarhus (Ahlin 2007) as
many as 48 % of the respondents had not heard of the Human Potential
Movement at all, and only 9 % considered it important for their practice. As a
comparison, 70 % suggested that holism was important for their practice, 53 %
Human Potential 197
similarly found the chakra concept important and 33 % had the same opinion
regarding clairvoyance. Figures were somewhat higher for some of the impor-
tant individuals in the Human Potential Movement. Abraham Maslow,
Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957), Stanislav Grof (b. 1931), and Fritz Perls were con-
sidered to be of medium importance for inspiration, while people like Deepak
Chopra (b. 1946) and C.G. Jung (1875–1961) were considered of great impor-
tance (Ahlin 2007).
The Human Potential Movement in the Nordic Countries
In the Nordic countries the Human Potential Movement has today to a great
extent entered into and mixed with the broader New Age. Some of the key
persons of the present-day New Age milieu claim that they see no difference
between the Human Potential Movement and the New Age, since the New Age
also focuses on the idea of innate human potential. Contemporary successors
of the human potential body therapies tend to be a bit gentler than their
Human Potential counterparts, an example of this being the therapy known as
body harmony. Gestalt therapy has generally become more established, and
tends to focus more on the individual than on group sessions, and is less
focused on catharsis than it was under its founder Perls. The Gestalt Academy
in Scandinavia, which was founded in 1976 in Stockholm, is now affiliated with
a British university, the Derby University, and today gives university courses in
the subject on a Master’s level. Gestalt therapy in Norway and Finland also has
an academic connection, while in Denmark human potential activities seem
to be more influenced by various forms of New Age than in the other Nordic
countries.
Generally, the Human Potential Movement in the Nordic countries appears
to have developed in three directions:
1. There are so-called growth centres and individual therapists which to
varying degrees focus on activities where the human potential characteristics
outlined above are central. Many human potential-inspired therapists, how-
ever, mix these influences with various New Age currents. In each country,
there have been key individuals who because of their interests and activities
have been instrumental in this development.
2. From ca. 1975 therapies from the Human Potential Movement were inte-
grated and used in the New Religious Movement formed around the charismatic
Indian leader Osho (1931–1990), at that time called Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
Several key people affiliated with the Human Potential Movement converted
to the Osho movement, and with them many of their clients followed into the
198 Frisk
movement. The Osho movement became known for taking these therapies to
greater extremes than in the Human Potential Movement sensu stricto, and
one of the founders of Esalen, Richard Price, came to criticise the way in which
Human Potential-inspired therapies were used in the Osho movement. Today,
however, the Osho movement and its successors have become some of the
main expressions of the Human Potential Movement.
3. Some characteristics important in the Human Potential Movement
have entered into mainstream culture. The focus on the individual and on
the creative potential of the individual have during the last decade become
central in elements of mainstream culture, which if not directly deriving from
the Human Potential Movement, were strengthened and influenced by it.
Gestalt perspectives are today present in some mainstream psychotherapeu-
tic and organisational activities and in education. In the medical domain, the
patient-centred perspective has come into focus, as has the student-centred
perspective in learning. Similarly, perspectives from the Human Potential
Movement could be recognised in the rehabilitation of criminals, addiction
and in dependency therapies, as well as in various contemporary psychological
therapeutic techniques as mindfulness (which are also inspired by Buddhism).
The remainder of this chapter will focus on the first two directions, which
have developed in different ways in the various Nordic countries. Inevitably,
the representation will focus on a small selection of individuals. Many more
could have been mentioned, but the selection made here has the advantage of
avoiding a mere listing of names.
Sweden
Influences from the Human Potential Movement first came to Sweden via the
universities, where the new currents became part of the social sciences in the
mid to late 1960s. Already at that time there were gestalt therapists and practi-
tioners of sensitivity training (a kind of group therapy) in Sweden. In 1971
an academic society for group therapy was formed, closely affiliated with
Stockholm University. Here many social scientists participated in workshops
with therapies such as Janov’s (b. 1924) primal therapy, psychodrama, and
gestalt therapy.
In 1976 a growth centre, Galleri Medmera, was founded in Stockholm by a
group of eight people. Lena Kristina Tuulse (b. 1943), who was to become the
front figure for the Human Potential Movement in Sweden, was one of them.
Tuulse had been active in this environment for a few years, and was at that
time engaged as a gestalt therapist and also worked with body therapies. After
Human Potential 199
some time, she took over the leadership of Galleri Medmera, now renaming it
Wäxthuset Galleri Medmera. It existed in Stockholm until 1979. Also in 1976,
she started Wäxthuset on Väddö some distance from Stockholm, a therapy
centre which was also residential. In 1986, another residential therapy centre
was bought in the close neighbourhood.
The human potential environment in Sweden has been greatly influenced
by Lena Kristina Tuulse with her growth centre Wäxthuset. One of her key
interests has been rebirthing (a breathing technique sometimes described as a
milder form of primal therapy), which has been the most important therapy at
Wäxthuset since 1978, when the founder Leonard Orr (b. 1938) for the first time
visited Sweden. Wäxthuset was sold in 2010 and today functions as an addic-
tion treatment centre, combining conventional addictment treatments with
techniques from the Human Potential Movement. Lena Kristina Tuulse is
today working with a foundation called Life University, which is a centre
focused on healing and cultural activities, for people who wish to connect to
nature and develop their own inner potential.
Tomas Frankell (b. 1957) is another key person in the alternative milieu in
Sweden, although he has been more influenced by other currents than by the
Human Potential Movement. At the end of the 1970s he came into contact with
human potential currents through Janov’s primal therapy and Barbara
Findeisen’s STAR (Self Analysis Towards Awareness Rebirth, a group therapy
which includes emotional catharsis and primal sessions) at Galleri Medmera.
Tomas Frankell has launched several centres in Stockholm, which on their pro-
grammes combined varying amounts of human potential activities, lectures
and courses, with New Age activities. The first of these centres was Café Vega,
followed by Café Pan in 1984, Deva center in 1991, and Gaia center in 1996. Only
Deva center still existed at the time of writing.
The Osho movement came to Sweden in 1978, and formally affiliated Osho
centres existed in Stockholm between 1981 and the year 2000. The Osho move-
ment was between these years one of the main ways by which therapies
originating from or inspired by the Human Potential Movement were present
in Sweden. Due to economical difficulties and a diminishing general interest,
the last centre closed in the year 2000. A characteristic development in the
Nordic countries is, however, the creation of Osho-inspired institutes with no
formal connection to the international Osho movement. These institutes have
developed in different directions. The largest of these is Baravara in Dalarna,
founded in 1999 by Lars and Helena Knutsson, both of whom were initiated
into the Osho movement. Around 1,000 people attend residential courses there
each year (2007). Baravara is clearly oriented towards the Osho-inspired part
of the Human Potential Movement, and offers courses with internationally
200 Frisk
well-known Osho-related therapists. Ängsbacka in Värmland was founded

in 1996, also by Osho disciples, but is more eclectic and New Age-inspired,
although human potential currents are also strong. Ängsbacka is well-known
for the residential festival each summer, which lasts for one week, and which
attracts around 1,000 people. Mullingstorp near the southern Swedish city of
Norrköping was founded in 1985 by the medical doctor Bengt Stern (1930–
2002), and also offers Osho-inspired courses. Hällungen on the west coast is
connected to a Dutch-based movement derived from the Osho movement,
called the Humaniversity.
Denmark
In Denmark there has since the 1920s existed a therapeutic tradition focused
on deep relaxation, and in the beginning of the 1960s a centre for the practice
of this therapeutic method, Afspændingspædagogisk Institut, was founded in
Copenhagen. In 1975 the centre changed its name to Skolen for Kropsdynamik
(School for Body Dynamics). This school was inspired by the Norwegian thera-
pist Lillemor Johnsen (1920–1997), who in her turn was inspired by the Reichian
tradition in Norway. Her tradition was in Denmark developed by Danish thera-
pist Lisbeth Marcher. In 1982 she founded Bodynamic Institut, which has since
then offered a variety of courses inspired by the Human Potential Movement.
In Denmark, the human potential currents seem to have integrated with the
New Age currents to an even greater extent than in Sweden. One key person in
this milieu is Jes Bertelsen (b. 1946), who in 1982 together with his wife Hanne
founded Vækstcentret in the village of Nørre Snede, a residential centre where
around sixty adults and fifteen children lived in 1995, the latest date for which
there is any available information. Bertelsen, who had a university career as
lecturer in the history of ideas, left the university in connection with creating
Vækstcentret. He has written several books about depth psychology, and is
inspired by C.G. Jung in his thinking. A central aspect of his practice is dream
interpretation. Another source of inspiration for Bertelsen is the Irish healer
Bob Moore, who lived in Denmark for several years. Bertelsen is not a pure
representative for the Human Potential Movement, but it is one of his sources
of inspiration.
There are also several therapists associated with the Human Potential
Movement. One example is Ole Vedfelt, who together with his wife Lene
started the Institut for Integreret Psykoterapi og Kybernetisk Psykologi (Insti
tute for Integrated Psychotherapy and Cybernetic Psychology) in 1995. Vedfelt
is trained in Jungian psychoanalysis, gestalt therapy, psychodrama, body
Human Potential 201
therapy, and meditation. Another example is Klaus Gormsen, a therapist in the

Grof-inspired method Gensidig Terapi (Re-evaluating Councelling or Co-coun
selling), in which two people share difficult experiences and encourage each
other to go through them.
The Osho movement has since 1986 operated a large residential centre in
Jutland in Denmark, called Osho Risk. Unlike the institutes in Sweden, Osho
Risk is closely affiliated with the international Osho movement in Pune, India.
Around seventy to eighty people have settled in villages near Osho Risk in
order to be near the various activities on offer at the centre. Around 400–500
people participate in activities there every year.
Norway
The Human Potential Movement in Norway has been strongly influenced by

Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) who lived and worked in Norway for several years
during the 1930s as a refugee from Germany. Because of Reich – who worked
with orgone energy, a vital energy that he suggested flowed unhindered
through the bodies of neurosis-free individuals – there has been a large psy-
chotherapeutic and body therapeutic milieu in Norway from a very early date.
The tradition of energy work and body therapy has continued to be strong in
Norway.
Two major figures inspired by Reich are Odd and Lois Reiserøl, who founded
a centre in Oslo, Solvervcenter (Solstice Centre), in 1977. Lois Reiserøl is
American by birth, and was also influenced by the American Human Potential
Movement. At present they work with primal therapy, psychodrama, breath-
ing, and vegetotherapy (a therapy which originated with Wilhelm Reich), as
well as with other forms of therapy.
Mandala Senter, started by Harald and Benedicte Thiis in 1978 in Trondheim
has also been very important for the human potential-inspired milieu in
Norway. They work with various forms of therapy, creativity, healing, dreams,
and meditation. Many later human potential activities have been inspired by
this centre, such as Norsk Psykodramaskola (Norwegian Psychodrama School,
founded in 1986).
In the 1980s there was also a lecture and course activity called Forum 2000
(founded by Sven Bjørk) which introduced several lecturers from the milieu
surrounding Esalen, e.g., Fritjof Capra (b. 1939) and Peter Russell (b. 1946).
The bimonthly magazine Visjon (previously Alternativt Nettverk) was
founded in 1992 by Øyvind Solum, and is more clearly inspired by the Human
Potential Movement than the New Age periodicals published in the other
Nordic countries.
202 Frisk
There is no residential Osho centre in Norway as there for example is in

Denmark, and no Osho-inspired retreat centres as in Sweden. There are some
Osho activities, but on a smaller scale.
Finland
The research situation in Finland regarding the Human Potential Movement is

unfortunately weak. There are non-residential Osho centres offering therapies,
but no residential Osho-related centres such as those found in Denmark or
Sweden. Human potential-inspired currents may be even more thoroughly
integrated with the larger New Age milieu than in the other Nordic countries,
as no interviewee contacted in connection with writing the present chapter
was able to relate to the term Human Potential Movement. There are, however,
Human Potential-based therapies such as the Silva Method and NLP on offer.
References
Ahlin, Lars, Krop, sind – eller ånd? Alternative behandlere og spiritualitet i Danmark,
Højbjerg: Forlaget Univers, 2007.
Frankell, Tomas, Sökare i en ny tid: Min väg genom nyandlighetens Sverige, Stockholm:
Natur & Kultur, 2002.
Frisk, Liselotte, De nya religiösa rörelserna – vart tog de vägen? Nora: Nya Doxa, 2007.
Hinge, Helle, New Age på dansk: Jes Bergelsen-bevægelsen, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1995.
Satyarthi, Swami Deva, Kroppens veje 2. En oversigt over forskellige helbredelsesmetoder
og terapiformer fra øst og vest – veje til sundhed, følelsesmaessig harmoni og personlig
utveckling, Copenhagen: Borgen, 1982.
Tuulse, Lena Kristina, Livslust: Vägen till livet och kärleken, Orsa: Energica förlag, 2003.
Jungianism 203
Chapter 26
Jungianism in Scandinavia
Suzanne Gieser
Introduction
Since very little research on Jungianism in Scandinavia has been carried out,
this chapter largely focuses on the present author’s own area of research, the
early reception of C.G. Jung’s works in Sweden, with special reference to his
ideas concerning spiritual and existential issues. Some general trends regard-
ing the reception of psychodynamic ideas in the Scandinavian countries can,
however, be sketched.
Acceptance of these ideas has been very slow, and apart from a handful of
pioneering medical doctors at the beginning of the twentieth century (Sigurd
Næsgaard [1883–1956], Denmark, Poul Bjerre [1876–1964], Sweden, Johannes
Irgens Strømme [1876–1961], Norway, Yrjö Kulovesi [1887–1943], Finland)
no real breakthrough was made until the 1960s. Interestingly, almost all the
early Scandinavian pioneers preferred the so-called anagogical school, i.e.,
the school opposed to Freudian psychoanalysis that developed around Jung
and Eugen Bleuler in Zürich. This school emphasised a constructive, teleologi-
cal tendency in the human psyche and a striving for self-healing and inner
wholeness, i.e., a perspective that was much more compatible with a spiritual
or religious outlook than with Freud. But even early Freudians, like the broth-
ers Harald and Kristian Schjelderup from Norway, were more influenced by
the Swiss Protestant minister Oskar Pfister’s version of psychoanalysis than
by classical psychoanalysis. Pfister was the only psychoanalyst with a positive
view of religion who was tolerated by Freud. Harald Schjelderup (1895–1974)
together with his brother Kristian (1894–1980), who later became bishop, stud-
ied psychoanalysis in the 1920s and 1930s in Vienna and Zürich. Harald became
the first professor of Psychology in Norway and founder of the Norwegian
Psychoanalytic Society. Perhaps this shows that psychodynamic ideas were
only able to reach Scandinavia through a religion-friendly filter.
The Norwegian psychiatrist Johannes Irgens Strømme (1876–1961) had a
decisive influence on the early reception of Jung’s ideas in Norway and Sweden.
Like most of the early inaugurators of psychodynamic ideas, he created his
own unique mixture and brand. In his case this was a blend of Jung’s theory of

204 Gieser
neurosis from 1913, Alphonse Maeder’s and Herbert Silberer’s method of dream
analysis, and Bleuler’s work therapy and his theory of “mnemistic biopsychol-
ogy”. The theory of “mnemism” refers to a biogenetic-vitalistic theory that
assumes that all organic life is via experiences able to learn from the environ-
ment and to pass the acquired knowledge on to following generations as a form
of memory (“engrams”), without involving any self-reflecting consciousness.
Patterns of stimulus reactions are memorised and reactivated under similar
situational circumstances via the psychological mechanism of association. It
is likely that C.G. Jung, working under Bleuler during the period 1900–1909,
was influenced by this idea when formulating his concept of the archetypes
and the collective unconscious. Later in life, Strømme stopped calling himself
a psychoanalyst and instead began referring to himself as a “teacher in the Art
of Life” (as in his book published in 1932, Sjeledypets sprog [The Language of
the Depth of the Soul]). He rejected the concept of mental illness and saw
neurosis and other “disorders” as unintegrated experiences and as a language
that needs to be interpreted. The patient, in his view, is a pupil who needs
retraining. Strømme influenced several people who later introduced Jung’s
ideas in Sweden: the two psychiatrists Emmanuel af Geijerstam (1867–1928)
and Iwan Bratt (1881–1946), and later the Norwegian psychotherapist (with no
medical background) Egil Rønne-Petersen (1904–1978), who was trained by
Strømme.
The Early Jung Reception
Iwan Bratt wrote popular books during the 1920s, with titles such as Kultur
och neuros (Culture and Neurosis) and Splittring och enhet i människans väsen
(Fragmentation and Wholeness in Human Nature). These books are typical
examples of the early introduction of Jung’s ideas to a wider public during this
period. In the beginning his ideas were never presented as a systematic whole,
but rather as individual elements that could be selected and combined with
other ideas. Notably, Jung’s views about the important role of religion and the
need for wholeness were emphasised. The first Nordic association for psycho-
therapists, the Nordiskt Psykoterapeutiskt Kollegium, NPK (Nordic Team for
Psychotherapy), was founded in 1933 as a forum for analysts who wanted to
emphasise the positive and constructive powers of the psyche, a credo that was
synonymous with that of the anagogical school. This first inter-Nordic associa-
tion for psychotherapists had an integrative approach towards the different
schools of psychotherapy. Among its members were people like Poul Bjerre,
Johannes Irgens Strømme, Iwan and his wife Signe Bratt, Egil Rønne-Petersen,
Jungianism 205
and Sigurd Næsgaard. Næsgaard introduced psychoanalysis into Denmark in

1929 and founded the first Association for Psychoanalysis there in 1933. With
his version of psychodynamic psychology (a mixture of Freud, Jung, Reich, and
Harald Høffding’s philosophy) he soon came into conflict with more orthodox
Freudians. He had a strong influence on the Danish novelist, dramatist, and
social critic Leif Panduro, who, with his book Rend mig i traditionerne (Kick
Me in the Traditions, 1958), influenced many young people in the 1950s and
1960s in Scandinavia. Two of the most central themes in this book are the many
possible ways of viewing reality and the question of normality and mental
illness as defined by convention and conformity. It is important to remem-
ber that from the very beginning the introduction of psychodynamic ideas
touched upon a wide range of topics outside their medical confines: questions
concerning alternative world views, the meaning of life, authenticity, eman-
cipation, and spirituality. In 1956, Eigil Nyborg (1916–2005), the first Danish
Jungian analyst trained in Zürich, received his diploma. With his book Den
indre linie i H.C. Andersens eventyr (The Inner Line in the Adventures of H.C.
Andersen) he introduced analytical psychology as a tool for literary analysis in
Denmark, which stirred a considerable public debate. In 1980 the first and still
today (2014) the only Jungian Training Institute in Scandinavia was founded in
Copenhagen.
Jung’s ideas thus reached a wider audience in Sweden through Iwan Bratt’s
and Poul Bjerre’s books (Bjerre 1924, 1935). In addition, Oscar A.H. Schmitz’
book Psychoanalysis and Yoga was translated into Swedish in 1925, as Psyko
analys och yoga. In this book Jung’s psychology is compared to the wisdom of
Eastern religions and to their practices. Inspired by The Guild of Pastoral
Psychology and the Tavistock Clinic in England, Bjerre founded Institutet för
medicinsk psykologi och psykoterapi (the Institute for Medical Psychology and
Psychotherapy) in 1946, where Jung’s ideas were taught. The first Swedish
Jungian, the theologian Ivar Alm (1897–1973), was active at this Institute for a
period. Alm was a student of theology when he first encountered Jung’s ideas
and became so taken with them that he decided to write his doctoral thesis (at
Uppsala University’s Department of Theology) entitled Den religiösa funk-
tionen i människosjälen (The Religious Function in the Human Soul, 1936), in a
Jungian vein. Here he argues that in contrast to the Freudian school, Jung’s
psychology shows an understanding of the religious nature of man. Together
with the theologian Gösta Nordqvist, and with the support of Bjerre, he initi-
ated Sällskapet för pastoralpsykologi (The Society for Pastoral Psychology) in
1944. He translated some of Jung’s works into Swedish, notably parts of
Psychological Types and later Jung’s autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflec
tions, and wrote an introductory book called Från Freud till Jung (From Freud
to Jung, 1973). He also influenced other theologians at Uppsala University, for
206 Gieser
instance Hjalmar Sundén, who translated Jung’s book Answer to Job into
Swedish; a book that led to considerable debate in the Swedish press. Sundén
also wrote the first Swedish academic book on the psychology of religion,
Religionen och rollerna (Religion and the Roles, 1971), in which he presents
Jung’s views on the psychology of visions and the function of rituals in a posi-
tive light. Later he published a book in which he uses the concepts of persona,
anima, and Self in order to analyse the works of six Swedish authors (Persona
och anima: En tillämpning av C.G Jungs psykologi på sex författare, published in
1981).
Ivar Alm also influenced the politically active historian Lydia Wahlström
(1856–1954), a well-known champion of women’s rights who eventually earned
the title of professor. From the mid-1930s, she travelled through Sweden giving
anti-Nazi lectures, deriving her arguments from perspectives culled from
Adlerian and Jungian psychology. The appeal of Nazism, she argued, is based
on a feeling of inferiority among young men, and it is the superior task of
women to teach men a more psychological approach to dealing with the prob-
lem of opposites. For example, instead of fighting on the battlefield or on the
stock exchange, men should learn to reconcile the opposites to be found in
their souls. As women have a more developed psychological capacity than men
to deal with Eros and sexuality, and are looking for a spiritual connection with
their partners and not just a sexual one, this leads women to strive towards a
higher consciousness. The consequence of this is that the future of humankind
lies in women’s hands, and it is thereby women’s important and cultural task to
lead mankind into a New Age. Wahlström was in this respect a forerunner of
ideas that have become popular in Jungian pop psychology books relating to
men’s and women’s psychology.
Later Developments
In the late 1950s, Egil Rønne-Petersen revived the Nordic association NPK,
which had been inactive since the beginning of the Second World War. He
gathered a small group around him, said to represent a school of psychody-
namic psychology known as Psychogenetics, which included people such as
Strømme, Bleuler, Jung, George Groddeck, Wilhelm Reich, Erich Neumann,
Leopold Szondi, and Tomas Szasz. He soon became a popular lecturer on top-
ics ranging from sociology, politics, psychiatry, child psychology, anthropology,
the crises of culture, the psychology of religion and so on, often with titles like
Jungianism 207
“Moderskapets sorti och barnaslaktandets principer i en välfärdsstat av mod-

ern suicidaltyp” (The Exit of Motherhood and the Principles of Slaughter of
Children in a Welfare State of the Modern Suicidal Type), which deals with
the negative influence of divorce and the disintegration of the family in mod-
ern society. In a little booklet called Inseminationen Rønne-Petersen published
a letter from Jung under the heading “Individualitetens och självaktningens
sorti” (The Exit of Individuality and Self-Respect). In this letter Jung answers
the question what he thinks about artificial insemination. Jung states that
artificial insemination (when the donor is unknown) leaves the child with the
psychological problem of being fatherless, much like an adopted or orphaned
child. Jung also points out that this way of thinking devaluates human procre-
ation into a kind of ‘cold blooded scientific breeding’ where the breeders decide
which racial and other characteristics should be preferred. This all amounts
to a ‘catastrophic devaluation of the human individual’ (Jung 1976). The main
message seems to be that the modern welfare state – through standardisations
of education and state – suffocates the true individual who is searching for an
authentic life. Many artists and people belonging to the cultural elite came to
listen to him, among others the staff and actors surrounding the famous film
director Ingmar Bergman. His vision was no less than ‘Peace, ecological orien-
tation, and the environmental interaction with the unconscious layers, mental
hygienic guidelines, the reintegration of family life and the conditions for the
global remythologising and rehumanising process with the accompanying
expansion of consciousness’ (cited from Encyklopædisk koncentrat till Nordiskt
Psykoterapeutiskt kollegiums historia, unpublished ms by Egil Rønne-Petersen).
In 1972 the first Swedish New Age bookstore, Vattumannen (Aquarius),
opened in Uppsala (see the chapter on New Age in Sweden in the present vol-
ume). In 1974 it moved to Stockholm, where it has been located ever since. The
founders’ main interest was Theosophy, but it wasn’t long before C.G. Jung’s
collected works and other Jungian literature could be regularly found on the
shelves. In this respect, the development in Sweden follows the same pattern
as in other Western countries. Books on how to understand astrology by inter-
preting the planets and houses as archetypes in the Jungian sense began to be
popular. In personal horoscopes the sun can be interpreted as the ego, the
Moon as the personal unconscious, Mercury as the cognitive function, and the
transit of the planet Pluto as a period of transforming unconscious material
(Ljungqvist 1993). The use of tarot cards, and especially the so called twenty-
two cards of the greater Arcana, can also be legitimated by seeing them as an
archetypal sequence describing the journey of the individuation process, i.e.,
208 Gieser
moving through the stages of life towards wholeness. Laying out the cards is
described as mirroring the processes of the soul (Cronstedt 2002). Both in the
case of astrology and the tarot cards, Jung’s principle of synchronicity (i.e., an
acausal connecting principle based on the emergence of archetypal structures
at a certain moment in time) is referred to in order to explain the correspon-
dence between the constellations of the personal horoscope or the “random”
laying of cards with one’s actual life situation or challenges. The theory of syn-
chronicity and its relationship to a new “holistic” paradigm in terms of science
and world view has been explored in both academic and popular studies
(Gieser 1996, 2005; Cederquist 2006).
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the influence of Jung’s ideas in
Sweden can be observed in many different fields. This broader influence
started in the 1960s with the publication of Jung’s autobiography and the beau-
tifully illustrated anthology Man and His Symbols – both of which became
bestsellers. Jungian themes were discussed in a number of books and articles
published over the following years, including titles by authors such as Martin
Johnson (a Swedish Professor of Parapsychology at the University of Utrecht,
the Netherlands, 1973–1988), who analyzed the parapsychological accounts in
Jung’s autobiography, and Anna-Brita Ståhl who discussed how to use dreams
as a guide in one’s life (Ståhl 1995). The main Swedish New Age magazine,
Sökaren (The Seeker), published 1964–2008, carried articles on Jung’s near-
death experiences and many other issues relating to Jung’s “mystical” side.
Jungianism in Sweden: All Time High in the 1990s
In the late 1980s and early 1990s several organisations, such as the C.G. Jung
Foundation, were founded around Jungian interests. This foundation was initi-
ated by a few Jungian analysts who gathered around the first practicing Jungian
analyst in Sweden, Stina Thyberg (1925–2007). Its purpose is to promote C.G.
Jung’s analytical psychology in Sweden by, inter alia, offering courses, semi-
nars, and scholarships for studies and research in analytical psychology. The
foundation also published a quarterly, later a yearbook, named Coniunctio, that
today (2014) only exists in digital form. In association with the foundation
there have emerged smaller local societies collectively known as Friends of the
C.G. Jung Foundation, which offer lectures, workshops, and social activities to
their members. In 1987 a publishing company with an exclusive focus on
Jungian literature was established at the Centrum för Jungiansk Psykologi CJP
Jungianism 209
(Centre for Jungian Psychology), with Håkan Raihle as founder. The centre and
the publishing company ceased their activities in 2009.
In 1992 another institute opened under the name of the Institute for
Analytical Psychology, offering academic courses and programmes in Jungian
subjects. This institute was founded by a group of young academics with Kurt
Almqvist as director. The courses were given in affiliation with Ersta Sköndal
University College as a commissioned education and had a strong focus on
religious studies and the history of ideas. The institute was in operation for ten
years and closed in 2003.
At the time of writing (2014) the University College of Gävle is the only aca-
demic institution in Sweden offering courses in Jungian psychology (at its
Department of Religious Studies).
Apart from his influence on various schools of psychotherapy (and espe-
cially those with an existential, spiritual or expressive non-verbal direction
such as Psychosynthesis, transpersonal psychology, and the Expressive Arts
Therapies), Jung’s influence can also be seen in the theological field, the psy-
chology of religion, and religious studies, including sub-fields such as the study
of mythology, Western esotericism, mysticism, Gnosticism, and alchemy
(Almqvist & Hammer 1999). Jungian ideas have also become influential in the
analysis of themes in literature, poetry, and film, among artists, poets, and
authors (Rönnerstrand 1993, Almqvist 1998), in the analysis of gender issues
(Robert & Uvnäs-Moberg 1994), in sociological concerns relating to violence
and the need for meaning and myth among young people today (Carlberg
2007), in groups interested in female spirituality and in women’s support
groups (Junus 1995). In management, leadership, and teamwork, Jung’s typo-
logical model is considered by some to be a valuable working tool. People
interested in Jungian ideas thus come from very different walks of life and
range from academic scholars, business people, and artists to amateurs inter-
ested in New Age spirituality and alternative thinking.
The overall picture is that although Jung and Jungian ideas inspire many
different areas and are combined with other ideas and influences in an eclectic
fashion, Jung is rarely studied in detail as a coherent spiritual thinker. In many
ways, the reception of Jung in Sweden is comparable with his reception and
development in other Western countries. What is noteworthy when it comes to
the reception of Jung and Jungianism in Sweden is its early foothold in the
theological community.
210 Gieser
References
Alm, Ivar, Den religiösa funktionen i människosjälen, Stockholm: Svenska kyrkans dia-
konistyrelsens bokförlag, 1936.
——— . Från Freud till Jung: några kapitel ur djuppsykologiens historia, Stockholm:
Almqvist & Wiksell, 1973.
Almqvist, Kurt (ed.), Jung och litteraturen, Stockholm: Natur och Kultur, 1998.
Almqvist, Kurt and Olav Hammer (eds.), Jung och det andliga, Stockholm: Natur och
Kultur, 1999.
Bjerre, Poul, Psykoanalysen – dess uppkomst, omvandlingar och tillämpning, Stockholm:
Natur och Kultur, 1924.
——— . Själsläkekonst och Själavård, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1935.
Björkhem, Örjan and Martin Johnson, Parapsykologi och övertro, Stockholm: Forum,
1986.
Bratt, Iwan, Kultur och Neuros, Stockholm: n.p., 1925.
——— . Splittring och enhet i människans väsen, Stockholm: Natur och Kultur, 1927.
Carlberg, Anders, Generationsklyftan hotar demokratin, Stockholm: Hjalmarson &
Högberg, 2007.
Cederquist, Jan, Slumpen är ingen tillfällighet, Lidingö: Langenskjöld, 2006.
Cronstedt, Marie-Louise, Tarot: levande symboler, Grödinge: Algiz, 2002.
Edholm, Mats, Carl-Gustav Jung: hans inflytande i Sverige: en psykologihistorisk under-
sökning, Unpublished paper, Dept. of Applied Psychology, Uppsala University, 1981.
Junus, Petra, Den levande gudinnan: kvinnoidentitet och religiositet som förändringspro-
cess, Nora: Nya Doxa, 1995.
Gieser, Suzanne, Den innersta kärnan. Djuppsykologi och kvantfysik: Wofgang Paulis dia-
log med C.G. Jung (Uppsala). Ph.D. dissertation, Uppsala University, 1995.
———. The Innermost Kernel, Depth Psychology and Quantum Physics: Wolfgang Pauli’s
Dialogue with C.G. Jung, Berlin: Springer, 2005.
———. “Jung i Sverige”, Coniunctio 2008: årsbok för analytisk psykologi och kultur (2008),
151–168.
——— . “Jungintroduktören Ivar Alm”, Coniunctio 2009: årsbok för analytisk psykologi
och Kultur (2009), 59–74.
Hjort, Stig Dankert, Sigurd Næsgaard: Det naturlige menneske, København: Gyldendal,
1988.
Ljungqvist, Hans, Jung och astrologin, Västerås: Solrosen, 1993.
Rajamaa, Ruth, “Sverige möter Jung”, Coniunctio 2008: årsbok för analytisk psykologi och
kultur (2008), 169–188.
Robèrt, Rigmor and Kerstin Uvnäs Moberg, Hon & han, Stockholm: Bromberg, 1994.
Rønne-Petersen, Egil (ed.), Inseminationen: experiment med människolivet, Stockholm:
Norstedt, 1953.
Jungianism 211
——— . Encyklopædisk koncentrat till Nordiskt Psykoterapeutiskt kollegiums historia.

Unpublished, archive at Nansenskolan, Lillehammer, Norway.
Rönnerstrand, Torsten, Arketyperna och litteraturen: om arketypbegreppet i litteratur och
litteraturanalys, Malmö: Gleerup, 1993.
Schmitz, Oscar A.H., Psykoanalys och yoga, Stockholm: Natur och Kultur, 1925.
Ståhl, Anna-Britta, Drömmens bilder: jungiansk drömtolkning, Täby: Larson, 1995.
Strømme, Johannes Irgens, Sjeledypets sprog, Oslo: Fabritius, 1932.
Sundén, Hjalmar, Persona och anima: en tillämpning av C.G. Jungs psykologi på sex förfat-
tare: Karlfeldt, Strindberg, Camus, Lagerkvist, Heliga Birgitta, Mora-prosten Jacob
Boëthius, Stockholm: Proprius, 1981.
———. Religionen och rollerna: ett psykologiskt studium av fromheten, 5th ed., Stockholm:
Verbum, 1971 [1st ed. 1959].
212 Chapter 27
Chapter 27 Kabbalah in Denmark
Kabbalah in Denmark
From Tycho Brahe and Ole Borch to Ben Kadosh: The Renaissance
to the Twentieth Century
The history of Kabbalah in Denmark is rather short compared to that of most

other parts of Europe. During the Renaissance, Christian kabbalists in the rest
of Europe held the Jewish Kabbalah in high esteem and considered it to be part
of the perennial philosophy so eagerly sought. It was even seen as a method
whereby the truth of Christianity could be proved, and kabbalistic specula-
tions concerning the Hebrew alphabet and the divine names were used by the
Christian kabbalists to provide proof for the superiority of the Christian God
and Jesus Christ. Together with the Corpus Hermeticum and Platonic texts, kab-
balistic treatises such as the Sefer ha Zohar, Sefer ha Bahir, and the Shaarei
Orah were considered to reveal the esoteric foundation of Christianity and the
secrets of nature. For intellectuals like Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola,
Johannes Reuchlin, Jacob Boehme, Giordano Bruno, and John Dee, Kabbalah
thus played a crucial role. However, in Denmark the contemporary intellectual
elite does not appear to have shown any interest in the kabbalistic doctrines, in
spite of a great interest in the Hebrew Bible among Danish theologians in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Nor do Danish esotericists appear to have
had much interest in the Hebrew language and texts. Even Tycho Brahe, who
was well versed in Hermeticism and Platonism, seemed to completely neglect
the existence of kabbalistic material. It seems highly unlikely that he did not
know about these doctrines, since he was in contact with both Giordano Bruno
and John Dee. Furthermore, he spent the last years of his life employed by the
Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II in Prague, who was renowned for his interest
in esoteric subjects, including Kabbalah. The absence of kabbalistic material
thus seems more like a conscious choice than mere ignorance. However, a
thorough examination of the archives in the Danish Royal Library might reveal
a hitherto unknown interest in Kabbalah by the Renaissance scholars.
The first mention of Kabbalah in Danish literature is a refutation of Kabba
lah written by Ole Borch (Olaus Borrichius, 1626–1690), De cabala characterali
dissertatio published in 1649. Though a persistent defender of Hermeticism
and Paracelsianism, he dismissed Kabbalah as being an accomplice of the

Kabbalah in Denmark 213
devil. This hostility towards Kabbalah may have been due to Borch’s need to
please the theologians at his university.
Borch maintained close contacts with the Italian alchemist Guiseppe
Francesco Borri (1627–1695), who lived in Copenhagen from 1664 to 1670. Borch
had apparently met Borri during his study years in Amsterdam, and they both
held Paracelsianism and Hermeticism in high esteem. Borri even dedicated
one of his later medical works to Borch, Hyppocrates chymicus seu specimina
quinque chimiae Hyppocraticae a Francesco Josepho Burrho recognita, pub-
lished in Cologne in 1690. Contrary to Borch, Borri would refer to part of his
ideas as “Gabala”, mainly applying the term Gabala to alchemical practices of a
magical nature. However, as was often the case with alchemical-kabbalistic
speculations in general, Borri’s magical-alchemical universe populated with
supernatural beings is not directly connected to Kabbalah as such. His use of
the term may thus be regarded as an appeal to the authenticity and authority
of Kabbalah.
In the next centuries there does not seem to be much interest in kabbalistic
doctrines in Denmark, besides what might have followed the introduction of
Freemasonry in Denmark in 1743. Again, it is conceivable that kabbalistic inter-
est in this period merely remains undocumented.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Kabbalah in Denmark was mainly
connected to the growing occult milieu and to various Rosicrucian, masonic,
and Martinist societies which all borrowed kabbalistic concepts in authorising
their mythical narratives. A central figure of these movements was Carl William
Hansen (1872–1936), also known as Ben Kadosh, who was the leading person of
many of the thriving initiatory societies in Denmark at the beginning of the
twentieth century. As is often the case in occultist Kabbalah, Hansen merely
used Kabbalah as an authoritative point of reference and his knowledge of
Kabbalah probably derived from French occultism, primarily Eliphas Lévi.
New Age Kabbalah
During the late 1980s, knowledge of and interest in Kabbalah spread beyond
the occultist societies to be more widely adopted in the spiritual milieu in
Denmark. Whereas Kabbalah in the occultist and masonic inspired groups was
perceived to be an ancient doctrine of initiatic and magical wisdom, the New
Age understanding was, perhaps unsurprisingly, very different. It was still per-
ceived to be of an ancient origin but usually in a much more eclectic setting
emphasising the universality of the kabbalistic teachings. The focus on the
Hebrew language which is still to some extent present in occultist Kabbalah
214 Møldrup Thejls
has almost entirely disappeared in the New Age adaptation. Only a few Hebrew
concepts have been integrated into the common religious language of the New
Age milieu, often without any knowledge of their original meanings and thus
the significance of these terms has changed considerably. An example of this
type is found in the Kamadon Academy, a group of Australian origin which has
teachers and followers all over the world, including Scandinavia. In Denmark
there are about a handful of teachers who often combine the Kamadon
teaching with other kinds of New Age practices. How many students they have
is unknown. According to the Kamadon Academy, a term such as “the
Merkabah” is not just a heavenly chariot as the Jewish Merkabah mystics
stated, but a rotating energy field of light, surrounding the body of every
human being. The Kamadon Academy teaches a spiritual healing technique
called the Melchizedek Method. The Academy was established in 1997 by the
spiritual teacher Alton Kamadon, who allegedly received the teaching from the
ascended master Thoth/ Enoch. This teaching was supposedly practised first
by the Cetaceans (that is, the dolphins and whales) in the temples of Atlantis.
Kamadon is said to have been in continuous contact with The Ascended
Masters, The Angelic Realms, Lord Sananda, and Lord Melchizedek in the
Intergalactic Council of the Great White Brotherhood. He also had memories
of his deep connection to the ancient Mystery Schools of Lemuria, Atlantis,
and Egypt.
The main teaching concerns the activation of one’s 33rd degree Adam
Kadmon Light Body, also called the Zohar Body. This is said to enhance the
person’s spiritual awareness and provide healing abilities, and it is connected
to the rotating light field surrounding everyone’s body, the Merkabah men-
tioned above.
One of the objectives of the Kamadon Academy is to draw down the pres-
ently etheric “Kamadon Temple” which is said to be the temple of the soul of
Adam Kadmon and where the higher spiritual education takes place. According
to Kamadon, Kabbalah is the science of “many universes of higher intelli-
gence”, that is, a kind of primordial science transmitted by the beneficial higher
civilisations throughout the universe. It is a teaching which has to be revealed
to man directly by an emissary or angel of YHWH. Judging from the texts of the
Kamadon Academy, it seems evident that the followers do not have any direct
knowledge of the Jewish kabbalistic sources from which they borrow their ter-
minology. They merely use and adapt powerfully laden words en vogue in the
New Age milieu. These words and phrases are used to provide the teaching
with the necessary authority and thus the kabbalistic terms stand side by side
with references to Zen, yin and yang, Indian Mantras, Theosophical ascended
masters, and so on.
The Kabbalah Centre and the Hermetic School of Kabbalah
In Denmark there are only a few established groups that explicitly base
themselves on kabbalistic teachings, at least two of which are widespread
international groups. The most well-known of these is the Kabbalah Centre
founded by Rav Philip Berg. The centre in its present form was established in
the United States in 1965, but according to Berg the lineage of his teachings
comes from the kabbalistic circles revolving around the prominent Lurianic
kabbalist Rav Yehuda Ashlag who taught in Israel from 1922 to his death in
1954.
Whereas the Kabbalah of Ashlag was an exclusively Jewish prerogative, the
teachings of the Kabbalah Centre have become more universal. Thus it is not
necessary to be Jewish to take part of their courses and even though the
Hebrew language plays a major role, mastery of the language is not essential.
The reason for this is that, according to the Kabbalah Centre the power of the
Hebrew text does not lie in its meaning but in its visual form. Thus every single
letter is seen to possess an inherent spiritual efficacy and to benefit from it one
only needs to look at it and meditate upon the written names of God. For Berg,
Kabbalah is a spiritual tool given to the whole of humanity in order to unify the
world. The focus of the teachings of the Centre revolves around the seventy-
two names of God and one of the major texts of Kabbalah, the Zohar. Even
though academic scholarship established long ago that the main authorship of
the Zohar belongs to the medieval kabbalist Moses de Leon (ca. 1250–1305), the
Kabbalah Centre holds on to the mythical authorship of the book, namely the
first century rabbi Shimeon bar Yohai.
The centre has in recent years become widely popular, especially in the
United States, South America, and Israel where they have several “world cen-
tres”. In Denmark they tried to establish a study group, but this initiative seems
to have failed.
Inspired by the occultist Kabbalah of Israel Regardie and Dion Fortune
on the one hand and Theosophy on the other, a new school of Kabbalah has
recently been founded in Denmark called The Hermetic School of Kabbalah.
This organisation is an extension of The School of Living Kabbalah which was
established in 1999, and both organisations were founded by London-born
astrologer Derek Seagrief (b. 1952). Seagrief came to Denmark in 1978 and has
worked fulltime with astrology, tarot readings and tarot workshops, personal
development and art since then. He gives workshops and courses on how to
combine art, astrology, tarot, and Kabbalah as a means of personal growth
and development throughout Scandinavia and England. His focus is the inter-
pretation of Kabbalah, and especially the Tree of Life, from the perspective of
216 Møldrup Thejls
astrology and the tarot, and he offers different types of workshops and corre-
spondence courses.
Erwin Neutzsky-Wulff
The final person to be mentioned is Erwin Neutzsky-Wulff (b. 1949), a Danish

occultist and writer of science fiction novels with an underlying kabbalistic
structure. The chapters in his works are often arranged according to the ten
sefirot and some can be interpreted with the explicit use of gematria. Besides
novels, Neutzsky-Wulff has written books on magic and occultism, culminat-
ing in 2004 with the major work Det overnaturlige (The Supernatural), which is
a wide-ranging presentation of the author’s theory of religion. The book is
called the ultimate grimoire and is said to function as the theoretical guide to
transcendence and the supernatural. In Neutzsky-Wulff’s view, our perception
of reality and the transcendent realm is a purely cognitive phenomenon. This
means that everything, according to Neutzsky-Wulff, is a product of our brain,
and thus we project and create our own reality. However, the transcendent
reality is perceived as being more “true” or “real” than what we usually term
reality. This is where Kabbalah becomes relevant to Neutzsky-Wulff. The ten
sefirot are seen as a map of the cognitive universe, that is, the transcendent
realm, and a proper knowledge of Kabbalah provides the person with the
means to navigate in this neurological landscape. The different sefirot are even
seen as symbols for the different centres of the brain. In this way, the mystic
who climbs the sefirotic tree moves deeper into the brain and beyond mere
sensual perception and further towards higher knowledge, as represented by
the three highest sefirot. Compared with most other kabbalistic exponents in
Denmark, Neutzsky-Wulff is an exception in the sense that he actually knows
the Hebrew language and makes use of original kabbalistic texts. This is rarely
the case with more typically New Age types of religiosity, where Kabbalah is
almost exclusively referred to as an ancient, authoritative teaching and bearer
of esoteric wisdom – but the kabbalistic material itself is hardly ever touched
upon.
Generally speaking, the history of Kabbalah, both Jewish and non-Jewish, in
Denmark has received only the scantest attention from scholars, and thus this
chapter can only give a tentative account of the subject as further research is
highly needed.
References
Borch, Ole, De cabala characterali dissertation, Copenhagen, 1649.

Borri, Guiseppe Francesco, La Chiave Gabinetto, Cologne, 1681.
——— . Hyppocrates Chymicus seu Chyniae Hyppocraticae Specimina quinque a
F.I.B. recognita et Olao Borrichio dedicate, Cologne, 1690.
Byberg, Peder Madsen and Bjarne Salling Pedersen, “Den hellige søn – en biografisk
skitse”, in: Peder Madsen Byberg and Bjarne Salling Pedersen (eds.), Den ny morgens
gry: Lucifer-Hiram: Verdensbygmesterens genkomst, Copenhagen/ Hafnia, 2006.
Faxneld, Per, “The Strange Case of Ben Kadosh: A Luciferian Pamphlet from 1906 and
Its Current Renaissance”, Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism, 11:1 (2011),
1–22.
Historisk Tidsskrift, 100:1 (2000), 35–67.
Neutzsky-Wulff, Erwin, Det overnaturlige, Copenhagen: Borgens Forlag, 2004.
Thejls, Sara Møldrup, “Erwin Neutzsky-Wulff and the Neurological Landscape of the
Sefirot”, in: Boaz Huss, Marco Pasi and Kocku von Stuckrad (eds.), Kabbalah and
Modernity, Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2010, 301–325.
——— . “Exploring Contemporary Kabbalah: Divine Names, Dolphins and Sexual
Magic”, AURA: Tidskrift för akademiska studier av nyreligiositet, 2 (2010), 63–105.
218 Chapter 28
Chapter 28 Kabbalah in Sweden
Kabbalah in Sweden
Thomas Karlsson
The Swedish esotericist Johannes Bureus (1568–1652) is the first person to use
the word Kabbalah in the Swedish language; furthermore, he viewed himself
as a kabbalist. During the late autumn of 1613 King Gustavus Adolphus and
Johannes Bureus were travelling through Sweden to organise the new printing
of the Bible. When they, on 5 December of that year, found themselves in Tuna
in the province of Dalarna, Bureus was overwhelmed by what he described as
‘a moment of excitement’. The time was 6.22 in the morning and Bureus heard
a voice singing ‘Close up the streams young boy, because the meadows have
drunk themselves full’, ‘RIVos IaM CLaVDe pVer sat prata bIberVnt’. In these
words the Roman numerals for 1673 are hidden, and Bureus interpreted this to
mean that the world was to end that year.
What took place in 1613 would forever influence Bureus, and after the expe-
rience in Dalarna he would take on the role as one initiated into the mysteries,
a prophet in the middle of a blind world. At this stage in his career, Bureus was
inclined to have mystical experiences; for several years he had studied esoteric
teachings such as astrology, magic, and Kabbalah. From his diary entries we
find out that he ‘began to enjoy the Kabbalah’ in 1591 when he was reading the
magical text Arbatel. From then on, Bureus developed his own esoteric system
centred around the runes, but based on the structure of the Kabbalah. He
referred to this system as a Nordic Kabbalah.
Johannes Bureus and the Nordic Kabbalah
Johannes Bureus is the most important non-Jewish Swedish kabbalist. Bureus

was a driving force in Gothicism, an ideology that associated the legendary
Gothic tribes with the Swedes in order to emphazise the powerful history of
the Swedish nation. In Bureus’ work, older Gothicism from the sixteenth cen-
tury along with runic and linguistic research blended with his strong interest
in all forms of esotericism: astrology, magic, alchemy, and above all Kabbalah.
Bureus would re-interpret the legends about the Goths so that they would not
merely lend glory to the history of Sweden, but also provide an individual path
of illumination. Johannes Bureus did groundbreaking work for structuring

Kabbalah in Sweden 219
Swedish grammar, but he was moreover a great pioneer in runology. He pub-

lished a catalogue of 663 rune stones, which is about one quarter of all rune
stones known today, and he developed a runology that was rooted in linguis-
tics, but also incorporated esoteric speculations. Bureus, who lived in Uppsala,
was inspired by Agrippa, Paracelsus, Reuchlin, and other well-known eso-
teric writers. By analogy with the Kabbalah, Bureus became convinced that
the runes had various different dimensions; they were not only signs used for
writing, but also esoteric and magical symbols. He created a Gothic Kabbalah
that he referred to as “Kabala Upsalica”, and he called the secret dimension of
the runes Adul runes or “Adel” runes. Furthermore, he constructed a symbol
that he named Adulruna which contained the fifteen Adul runes. This symbol
has certain similarities to the Monas Hieroglyphica of John Dee, which con-
tains all the symbols for the planets. Bureus interpreted the Adulruna as a map
of the universe and of the progression of mankind through various layers of
existence.
Beside the Adulruna, the rune cross is the central symbol of Bureus’ esoteric
universe. The vertical rune row of the cross is one of the most important parts
of his system; these runes illustrate a seven-step initiatory process that can
move upward (ascensus) and downward (descensus). Bureus explains how the
Son of God descends and is born as a man following this path, but that he also
ascends to heaven through the very same path. The mediator in this process is
Christ, who is equated with the Norse god Odin. In the Cabbalistica this seven-
fold path of initiation recurs in several versions. It is for example associated
with the alchemical process with its seven stages to the elixir found in the writ-
ings of Paracelsus. In the Antiquitates Scanziana, Bureus reveals how the seven
runes describe the steps taken by Christ as a saviour, from conception to resur-
rection, and his ascent up to God. Bureus illustrates how the goal of the adept
is to reunite Byrghal and Thors, terms that in Bureus’ work signify man and
God. This is, however, not a complete melding into God, since man retains his
individual characteristics. Man and the entire material world is on the contrary
elevated to the divine spheres symbolised by the rune Thors. The symbol of
Byrghal and Thors united appears in several different variations, but in
Adulruna rediviva Bureus draws a special version that ‘reveals the immeasur-
able force that those can reach, who are united with God’.
Bureus was influenced by Christian kabbalists such as Pico della Mirandola
and Johann Reuchlin, and especially their speculations regarding the penta
grammaton, YHSVH, a modified version of the more familiar tetragrammaton,
YHWH, that according to Pico and Reuchlin was a Hebrew form of the name
Jesus. In his Antiquitates Scanziana, Bureus illustrates a cross consisting of
IHVH at each arm with the letter Shin in the centre. To the Christian kabbalists
220 Karlsson
the letter Shin was associated with the Messiah, and due to its crown-like
shape, Bureus also associated it to the three regal crowns of Sweden.
Bureus read the Sefer Yetzirah in the translation by Guillaume Postel and
was influenced by its thoughts regarding the three mother letters of the Hebrew
alphabet, and its seven double and twelve single letters. The three Hebrew
mother letters Alef, Shin, and Mem represent, according to the Sefer Yetzirah,
the three primal elements, air, fire, and water, and also spirit, soul, and body.
Bureus illustrates how these three kabbalistic mother letters represent the
three crowns (Bureus, F.a. 3, p.95). Bureus transfers this thought into the specu-
lations regarding the three regal crowns of Sweden.
In the Cabbalistica Bureus dedicates a page to describing the ten Sephiroth.
He also gives them planetary attributes, to which he seems to have devoted a
lot of thought, since in his notes one can find several versions of correspon-
dences. In a sketch-like depiction of the Tree of Life Bureus reveals that the
Moon corresponds to Malkuth, Mercury to Yesod, Venus to Hod, Jupiter to
Netzach, Sun to Tiphareth, Mars to Geburah, and Saturn to Chesed. The Tree of
Life model was taken from Cesare d’Evolis De divinis attributis sephirot ab
hebraeis nuncupata (1573).
Bureus experimented with the kabbalistic system Aiq Bekr, “the nine cham-
bers”, which was used to create sigils. In this system, the Hebrew letters are
placed in nine so-called chambers. Agrippa, who presents this system in De
occulta philosophia, uses the archangel Michael as an example, while Bureus
works with a Hebrew word, which seems to be beyeshuati, “in my salvation”,
taken from the Book of Psalms. He creates a sigil out of this word through the
method of Aiq Bekr.
The esoteric runic research of Bureus also became famous outside Sweden,
and a number of foreigners, who wished to study the secrets of the Adul-runes,
visited him. On his deathbed, Bureus explained that it was his research in mys-
ticism that he was most proud of, even if he had also made great contributions
in linguistic research.
The influence of Johannes Bureus on his contemporary age and the intel-
lectual climate of Sweden during the seventeenth-century Swedish Empire
brought innumerable esoteric ideas into Gothicism and paved the way for
Swedish initiatory esotericism.
Kabbalah in Sweden after Bureus
Even if very few Swedes studied and wrote about the Kabbalah in the dedi-
cated and innovative way that Bureus did, there was nevertheless significant
interest in kabbalistic ideas. The Christian Hebrew scholar Andreas Norrelius
(1679–1749) translated the Zohar into Latin, and published this version in 1720
in Amsterdam. The text was provided with a commentary by his friend and
teacher Johan Kemper (1670–1716), and was published as Phosphoros ortho
doxae fidei veterum cabbalistarum. Kemper, whose real name was Moshe ben
Aharon Cohen, was originally a Rabbi and a Sabatean, but had converted to
Christianity. Kemper also wrote a commentary on the Zohar in another text
called Mateh Moshe (Staff of Moses), but Norrelius failed to find the funds
needed to publish this work. In his texts, Kemper used gematria and discov-
ered that the word Nechesh, which is translated as “serpent”, has the same
numerical value as “Mashiach” which is “Messiah” (Eskhult 2007: 457). Kemper
was originally a follower of the Judeo-Turkish Messiah pretendent Sabbatai
Zevi (1626–1676), who was identified with a serpent who would journey down
into the darkest depths to save the souls which were stuck there. According to
their belief, the one who has sunk into the deepest depths seemed to be the
one most suitable to behold the light (Scholem 1967/1992: 348).
This was also the logic behind the fact that Sabbatai Zevi under the threat of
being burned at the stake converted to Islam; it was interpreted by his follow-
ers as a sign that he had to travel into the darkness to fulfil his act of illumination.
Kemper, who also converted, but to Christianity, probably did not give up his
Sabatean beliefs, which influenced his interpretations also after his conver-
sion, a conversion which in all likelihood had strategical reasons (Huss 2007:
136–138).
During the eighteenth century, mysticism flourished alongside ideas of the
enlightenment and scientific progress. Freemasonry and Swedenborgianism
grew and attracted well-established and erudite individuals who viewed their
esoteric experiments as scientific. Spiritism, animal magnetism and divination
fascinated the bourgeois, nobility and even kings (Oja 2000: 280). The states-
man Count Gustaf Adolf Reuterholm (1756–1813) was an important person in
esoteric circles in Sweden during this time. He exerted a key influence on
Swedish politics during the regency of 1792–1796, but has been described as
something of a charlatan (Bogdan 2005: 1). Reuterholm’s political power was
strengthened by the fact that he was a close ally and fellow Freemason of Duke
Charles. They also shared an extensive esoteric interest. Thus, the library of
Reuterholm contains several kabbalistic texts. The collection is now part of the
library of the Swedish Order of Freemasonry in Stockholm catalogued by the
222 Karlsson
historian of ideas Kjell Lekeby. Among these texts one finds Cabbalisternas
stora och Hemliga Problem (The Great and Secret Problem of the Kabbalists)
that describes the numerological aspects of creation, Konung Salomons
Semiphoras och Schemhamphoras (The Semiphoras and Schemhamphoras of
King Solomon) that conveys the holy and secret names of God, and De cabala
sancta (On the Sacred Kabbalah), which describes the ten Sephiroth. The text
Reflextioner om Cabbalen och Inledningen (Reflections on the Kabbalah and
the Introduction) tells about the mythical origin of the Kabbalah and the sig-
nificance of Hebrew in Kabbalah.
The Cabalists believe that everything has its true name, through the
interconnection and pronunciation of which they can achieve great
things. (…) This is something that reveals the pre-eminence of the
Hebrew language. The effects are more significant, since the words that
they employ, express either the name of God, or its perfection and
emanations.
A captain of the navy, Henrik Gustaf Ulfvenclou (1756–1819), was a spirit con-
jurer in the 1780s. He was part of the intimate esoteric circle around Duke
Charles, and in a letter to the king the duke reveals that in Ulfvenclou he had
encountered ‘… a man rather enlightened in the higher sciences and secrets’,
and that he had contributed to the duke’s experience ‘… that the light is stron-
ger that any power that man can endure’, and that he had now seen spirits
(Forsstrand 1913: 113). Ulfvenclou was well versed in esoteric practices such as
astrology, chiromancy, and geomancy, and was very interested in Kabbalah.
During his stay with the duke, Ulfvenclou persuaded him that he was in con-
tact with all kinds of spirits and that he had forced the spirit of the widow
queen into a bottle, which he had ‘sealed with the wondrous seal of Solomon’
(Forsstrand 1913: 116). In a letter to his friend Carl Göran Bonde, Ulfvenclou
includes two magical pentacles and describes how his friend should be able to
communicate with the holy guardian angel. He signed the letter Chæremon, a
name he had received on 11 February 1796, at 10 o’clock in the evening, when he
‘all of a sudden gained his first ordination from the Lord’s angels and was given
the keys of nature, mercy and all power in the presence of the witnesses
Gabriel, Uriel, Raziel and others’ (Forsstrand 1913: 134).
At this time there was an order known by the kabbalistic name Metatron.
Among the kabbalists this name has been the subject of numerous specula-
tions. It is often described as the name of an angel that is associated with either
the lowest or the highest Sephirah on the Tree of Life. According to one tradi-
tion, God took the patriarch Enoch from earth and turned him into the angel
Metatron. Metatron is also linked to the heavenly writer who holds God’s
archive (Scholem 1996: 132). Through a newspaper advertisement in the spring
of 1781, the previously unknown order proclaimed its existence and declared
that it wished to make public ‘the high purpose and history of the society’ (Häll
1995: 121). They claimed that the society had been in existence for forty years,
and that they, among other things, had engaged in welfare. There was no use
applying for membership, since they chose their members through physiog-
nomy, a method that analysed man by the appearance of the face. The order
claimed to keep watch on all of Sweden, and especially Stockholm, in order to
identify suitable candidates. The grand master of Metatron had left behind
several valuable manuscripts; one titled Blick der unbekanten Gloria was the
foundation of the order.
Besides the advertisement, Reuterholm’s essay titled “Maçonnique Händel
ser” (Masonic Events) written in 1784 is the most important source for this
mysterious society. Reuterholm describes the society as ‘cosmopolitan and
magical’ (Häll 1995: 124). At first, Metatron did not approach the experienced
mystic Reuterholm, which seems to have angered him, but this was remedied
in the following year when he speaks about the order as ‘a known and highly
estimated society’ (Lundin & Strindberg 1882: 436).
The most astounding fact about Metatron was that the order, according to
Reuterholm, owned Urim and Thummim, which he describes as a mirror in
which one can see the true nature of the human spirit. Urim and Thummim
are first mentioned in Exodus 28:30, where Aaron is to carry them when he is
to meet with God.
Magic, mysticism, Freemasonry, and Kabbalah were by no means uncom-
mon at this time. August Strindberg and Claes Lundin describe the spirit of the
age in their book Gamla Stockholm: Anteckningar ur tryckta och otryckta källor
(Old Stockholm: Notes from Published and Unpublished Sources, 1882):
This was the time of mysticism (…) The entire town seemed to wish to
start orders to find out about the supernatural and lived only for magical
convictions (Lundin & Strindberg 1882: 436).
Although individuals such as Duke Charles, Reuterholm, and Ulfvenclou

moved in a milieu that could have allowed them come into contact with
Bureus’ understanding of Kabbalah, they seem to have taken no inspiration
from his innovative speculations, but chose to devote themselves to a more
traditional form of Kabbalah.
224 Karlsson
Kabbalistic Literature
A detailed description of the Kabbalah is to be found in Jonas Hallenbergs

Historiska anmärkningar öfver uppenbarelse boken (Historical Comments on
the Book of Revelation), which was published in three volumes in 1800. Besides
descriptions of the meanings of the various Sephiroth, it also presents central
terms in the Kabbalah, and explores kabbalistic numerology on the number of
the Beast.
The Swedish Hebrew scholar, Knut Stenring, published an English trans
lation of the Sepher Yetzirah in 1923. He wished to re-ignite the interest in
Kabbalah with this publication and wrote in his foreword:
It is hoped that the elucidations provided in the notes will not only
reawaken interest in the text itself but in Kabalistic philosophy at large
and lead to a much-needed renaissance of occultism (Stenring 1923: 17).
In his commentary to the Sepher Yetzirah he discussed how the twenty-two

Major Arcana cards of the tarot correspond to the twenty-two letters of the
Hebrew alphabet. The idea that the tarot corresponds to the Hebrew letters
was introduced by Eliphas Lévi in his book Dogme de la Haute Magie published
in 1854, and thereafter became something of an established fact in the occult
milieu. Stenring, however, constructs a different set of correspondences than
Lévi, and explains:
The meaning which “Sepher Yetzirah” assigns to each letter has enabled
us to place the Tarot cards in their original and proper order (Stenring
1923: 38).
The Kabbalah has had a significant influence on art and literature and it is
primarily through these channels that it has reached many Swedes. There is
hardly any kabbalistic literature written in Sweden, but there are a number of
widely read translations. Umberto Eco’s novel Foucault’s Pendulum (orig. Il
Pendolo di Foucault) is one such example of a fictional work that refers to the
Kabbalah. Other translated books appeal especially to readers sympathetic to
the New Age genre. An example of this is Tarot och Kabbala (Tarot and
Kabbalah) by Samael Aun Weor, translated and published in 1997 by AGEAC
(Gnostic Association of Anthropological, Cultural and Scientific Studies), a
book that reproduces an argument that is common in modern kabbalistic
literature, namely that the Kabbalah and Indian mysticism point at the same
underlying truths. Another example is Lyfta av Slöjan: praktisk kabbala och
kundaliniyoga (Lifting the Veil: Practical Kabbalah and Kundalini Yoga) by
Joseph Michael Levry (published in Swedish in 2002) which is based on the
teachings of the Indian guru Yogi Bhajan (1929–2004). This book explains that
the Kabbalah is for the Western world what Kundalini Yoga is for the East. The
wisdom of the Kabbalah, the author asserts, can be found in the Bhagavad
Gita, the Yoga sutras, and several other Indian sacred texts (Levry 2002: 5).
Kabbala: Om Livets träd som hjälpmedel för andlig och personlig utveckling
(The Elements of the Qabalah) by Will Parfitt, which was translated from
English and published in Swedish in 1997, combines Kabbalah with yoga and
Jungian psychology. In the 1980s the kabbalistically coloured so-called Black
Bible (or Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses) evoked some interest in both the
Swedish esoteric milieu and in youth cultures. This translation of an English
book contains various forms of spirit conjurations, magical seals, and names of
spirits and demons.
Books about Kabbalah in Swedish include Staffan Danell’s brief text of eight
pages Kabbala: introduktion (1998), which contains short aphorisms regarding
the being of God, the salvation of the world, and the Sephiroth. Kabbala, kliffot
och den goetiska magin (2004) and Adulrunan och den götiska kabbalan (2005)
by Thomas Karlsson have occasionally been on the best seller lists at New Age
bookstores, they have also been translated into English, German, Russian, and
Italian. The first book is an example of practical use of the kabbalistic theories
and the second is a historical and academic description of the teachings of
Johannes Bureus, later developed into a PhD Thesis, published in 2010.
Kabbalah in Sweden Today
The eclectic occultist form of Kabbalah that was developed in England during
the nineteenth century in orders such as the Golden Dawn has ever since had
a decisive influence on the modern Kabbalah. In Sweden today, there are a
number of groups practising a Kabbalah that can be entirely or partly traced
back to the Golden Dawn. The perhaps best-known of these is the Ordo Templi
Orientis or Oto, an organisation founded in Germany by Theodor Reuss (1855–
1923) and from the 1920s headed by former Golden Dawn member Aleister
Crowley (1875–1947). Another is Dragon Rouge, an order founded in the early
1990s in Sweden that practises a form of Kabbalah that focuses on its dark side,
226 Karlsson
called the Qliphoth or the Kelippot, which members believe provide knowl-
edge about the hidden aspects of man. Within Dragon Rouge there is also an
interest in the kabbalistic theories of Johannes Bureus. The Golden Dawn is
also represented in Sweden, but has split into a number of smaller fractions
which were subsequently developed into independent orders. Sodalitas Rosæ
Crucis (Src) is one of these, a group which mixes the rituals of the Golden
Dawn with Gnostic traditions and rites of Freemasonry. Another example is
Ordo Primæ Lucis (Opl) that studies Christian theosophy, alchemy, theurgy,
and Kabbalah. In Sweden one also finds sections of the Martinist order Ordre
Reaux Croix (Orc) and the esoteric organisation Builders of the Adytum
(Bota), in which the Kabbalah is an important element. The Swedish Satanic
group Misantropiska Lucifer Orden (Mlo) has also been inspired by the
Kabbalah and its descriptions of the dark side.
When the artist Madonna declared her interest in a modern form Kabbalah
created by the American Kabbalah Center, it gained a lot of response from the
New Age milieu and generated attention in Swedish media. Nevertheless, as an
organised movement, this version of Kabbalah never really established itself in
Sweden.
Concluding Remarks
When Kabbalah reached Sweden it was mainly non-Jewish Kabbalah that

gained influence, even if its Jewish roots were acknowledged. Johannes Bureus,
like the Christian kabbalists on continental Europe, united Christian motifs
with the symbolic world of the Kabbalah. Bureus, however, added runes,
ancient Norse gods, and Gothic ideas in his own unique manner. In the eigh-
teenth and nineteenth centuries we can find Kabbalah in Freemasonry and
esoteric societies, while the Kabbalah of the twentieth century and onwards
has been associated with the New Age, parapsychology, occultism, and Indian
mysticism. Apart from Bureus, most kabbalists in Sweden have followed the
trends that were prevalent abroad. Bureus was the first to create a specifically
Swedish interpretation of the Kabbalah.
References
Kabbalistic Manuscripts
Codices Holmienses:
Johannes Bureus, Adulruna rediviva, F.a. 21
Adulruna rediviva, F.a. 22
Adulruna rediviva, Rål. 9 8°
Adulruna rediviva, Rål. 6 12°

Antiquitates Scanziana, F.a. 3.
MSS from the Archives and Library of the Swedish Order of Freemasonry:
The Reuterholm collection, 121.71 Cabbalisternas stora och Hemliga Problem
——— . 121. 33 De Cabala Sancta
——— . 121.59 Konung Salomons Semiphoras och Schemhamphoras
——— . 121. 3 Reflextioner om Cabbalen och Inledningen.
Other References
Åkerman, Susanna, “The use of Kabbala and Dee’s Monas in Johannes Bureus’
Rosicrucian Papers”, paper presented at the IAHR conferens in Durban, South Africa,
August 2000, subsection “Jewish Mysticism and Western Esotericism”, 2000.
Bogdan, Henrik, “Esoteric Manuscripts in the Swedish Collection of Gustav Adolph
Reuterholm”, in: [Andréa Kroon] (ed.), Masonic and Esoteric Heritage: New Perspectives
for Art and Heritage Policies, The Hague: OVN, 2005, 23–35.
Eskhult, Josef, Andreas Norrelius’ Latin Translation of Johan Kemper’s Hebrew Commentary
on Matthew Edited with Introduction and Philological Commentary, Uppsala: Uppsala
universitet, 2007.
Forsstrand, Carl, Spåkvinnor och trollkarlar: Minnen och anteckningar från Gustav III:s
Stockholm, Stockholm: Hugo Geber Förlag, 1913.
Huss, Boaz, “The Text and Context of the Zohar Sulzbach Edition”, in: Chanita R.
Goodblat and Howard Kreisel (eds.), Tradition, Heterodoxy and Religious Culture:
Judaism and Christianity in the Early Modern Period, Beersheva: Ben-Gurion University
of the Negev Press, 2007, 117–138.
Häll, Jan, I Swedenborgs labyrint: Studier i de gustavianska swedenborgarnas liv och tän-
kande, Stockholm: Atlantis, 1995.
Karlsson, Thomas, Adulrunan och den götiska kabbalan, Sundbyberg: Ouroboros
Produktion, 2005.
Levry, Michael, Lyfta av slöjan: praktisk kabbala och kundaliniyoga, Lidingö: L. Pihl, 2002.
Lundin, Claes and August Strindberg, Gamla Stockholm: Anteckningar ur tryckta och
otryckta källor från 1882, Stockholm: Jos. Seligmann & C:is förlag, 1882.
Oja, Linda, Varken Gud eller natur: Synen på magi i 1600- och 1700-talets Sverige, Stockholm/
Stenhag: Brutus Östlings Bokförlag Symposion, 2000.
Scholem, Gershom, Den judiska mystiken, Stockholm/Stenhag: Brutus Östlings Bokförlag
Symposion, 1992.
——— . On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism, New York: Schocken Books, 1996.
Stenring, Knut (trans.), The Book of Formation (Sepher Yetzirah), London: Rider, 1923.
228 Chapter 29
Chapter 29 Early Modern Magic in Denmark
Magic in the Early Modern Period in Denmark

Morten Fink-Jensen
The practice of magic in medieval and early modern Denmark can for analyti-
cal purposes be divided into two main types, namely sorcery or unlawful magic
(including diabolical witchcraft and curative magic) and learned or natural
magic. This also roughly follows a demarcation of concepts applied through-
out Europe in the period in question.
Witchcraft in Medieval and Reformation Denmark
Only circumstantial evidence attests to the existence of unlawful magic being

practised in medieval Denmark. In 1080 Pope Gregor VII criticised the Danish
King Harald III for holding witches responsible for misfortunes which, accord-
ing to the pope, in reality were punishments sent by God. The Scanian Church
Law and The Sealandian Church Law, both dating from ca. 1170, mention
punishment for homicide by means of sorcery. Town statutes from the early
fourteenth century draw attention to bewitchment of persons, whereas a
fifteenth-century amendment to the secular Jutlandic Law, originally issued in
1241, provides a description of procedures to be followed in cases concerning
bewitchment of one’s possessions, presumably animals. How these laws were
put into effect remains unknown due to lack of records. It is not until after the
Lutheran Reformation of 1536 that evidence of trials against witches or sor
cerers exists.
In the wake of the Reformation the Danish Church actively began to combat
sorcery. The concerns of the Church were directed towards sorcery and the use
of, e.g., magical incantations and formulas. In his Visitation Book of ca. 1544
Peder Palladius (1503–1560), the bishop of Sealand, called for the clergy to warn
the population against consulting the local healer, conjurer or midwife who
used magic. In the opinion of the Church, such persons were sorcerers or
witches, and the populace was to be warned that it was the duty of every good
Christian to report such sorcerers to the authorities lest one risk being accused
of aiding the devil. The sorcerers themselves would now, since the clear light of
the Gospel had begun to shine in Denmark, as Palladius put it, get what they
deserved, namely death at the stake. He reported ‘a herd of them’ to have been
burnt of late in Malmö, Køge, and other towns, and in Western and Southern

Magic in the Early Modern Period in Denmark 229
Denmark they were ‘hunted as wolves’ with fifty-two having recently been
burnt. No records survive to determine the actual extent of these persecutions,
and Palladius might have exaggerated to press his point. Palladius, however,
also wrote how the sorcerers were ‘crowding to pass over to the next world’
because one of them would betray the other (Jacobsen 1925–1926: 110). The
effect of such denunciations appears to have been comprehensive, and there
was at the time a real possibility of Denmark developing into a country with
large-scale witch-crazes.
Prevention of Large-Scale Witch-Hunts
Legal measures were quickly taken, however, to dampen the ostensibly victori-
ous Bishop Palladius and the Church. The Copenhagen articles of 1547 decreed
that accusations from dishonest individuals, a term which extended to witches,
could not on their own lead to the conviction of an accused person. Alleged
accomplices could therefore not be prosecuted on the basis of the confession
of a witch. The articles also forbade the use of torture before the final sentence,
preventing forced confessions. This is reflected in the records where confes-
sions are rare. These legal measures, unique in a European perspective, were
quite clearly aimed at limiting the large-scale persecutions hinted at by
Palladius. Furthermore, the Kalundborg statutes of 1576 subjected all capital
sentences pronounced by lower court juries to automatic appeal to higher
courts. This halted the otherwise customary immediate execution of a witch
who had been found guilty by a local court. Making appeal compulsory would
later be a common strategy for dealing with witch convictions across Europe,
but Denmark was the first secular court to adopt this practice.
Also of importance was the fact that accusatory procedure applied in Danish
witch-trials. The alleged victim took the initiative to accuse the person he or
she believed to have caused harm. This was contrary to most other parts of
Europe, where inquisitorial procedure applied, and where inquiries could be
set up and cases decided by an inquisitor. Initially, that type of procedure often
led to large-scale witch-crazes, but eventually also led to the demise of the
entire phenomenon. In Denmark, however, witches were almost always
accused on an individual basis. The combination of the Danish criminal codes
and the legal procedure had profound effects on the further development of
the Danish witch-trials. Although Denmark was the most active witch-hunting
country in Scandinavia, large-scale witch-hunts did not occur.
Almost all of the Danish cases were concerned with specific crimes by use
of sorcery or maleficia, mostly infliction of illnesses or subsequently death on
230 Fink-jensen
people and livestock. The population at large believed that the witch harmed
life, limbs or organic processes such as butter churning, but not equipment or
tools. The witch was never accused of ruining the plough; only the draught
animals were at risk. Contrary to other regions of Europe, the idea of the
Witches’ Sabbath never took hold of the minds of the populace at large, or of
the clergy. The earliest evidence of the Witches’ Sabbath having been recorded
in connection with a trial dates from the town of Malmö in 1579, and even at
the height of the Danish witch persecutions ca.1620 mentions of the Sabbath
were rare and the alleged activities taking place at these meetings, as presented
to the courts, somewhat subdued and without the orgiastic features recorded
elsewhere in European trial sources.
The devil, too, played a rather insignificant part in the performances of the
witches, and in many Danish records of witch trials there is no mention of him
at all. The notion of the pact with the devil was quite rare, and when it did
appear it was not as a part of the Sabbath, but the result of a private meeting
between the devil and the witch. Furthermore, the devil characteristically
appeared to the witch in the shape of an animal, usually a black dog, and the
witch would beat it in order to get it to aid her. In popular opinion the witch
was thus the master, and the devil the servant.
The Sorcery Ordinance of 1617
The extent of the witch trials and the number of people burned at the stake in
Denmark is not easy to calculate due to lack of records. Very approximate fig-
ures suggest that two thousand people were prosecuted, resulting in one
thousand executions during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Eighty-
five percent of the trials took place in rural areas, mirroring the distribution of
the population as a whole.
Not until the Sorcery Ordinance of 1617 was the nature of crimes by unlawful
magic defined anew (replacing the medieval law codes) and corresponding
penalties specified. The ordinance of 1617 for the first time accommodated the
Church by associating sorcery with devil pacts. Witches who had made a pact
with the devil were to suffer death at the stake. The same applied to the privy
of a witch. The healers and “wise persons” who used magical formulas, incan-
tations or conjuring faced confiscation of all possessions and exile, while their
customers had to pay a fine and publicly confess to their crimes. This ordi-
nance greatly increased the number of trials, though most cases continued to
be about maleficent magic. In the peninsula of Jutland, more than half of the
known trials took place after 1617. By the end of the 1620s the panic had largely
ended, possibly due to the supply of suspected witches being exhausted.
The surge in the number of cases after 1617 was not instigated directly by the
legislators’ focus on satanic pacts. On the contrary, the peasants who gave evi-
dence at the lower courts were remarkably indifferent to the possible affiliation
of the witch with the devil. They were instead concerned with the actual harm
caused by the witch – something he or she was thought to be capable of inflict-
ing without the devil’s aid. Among the population at large, and especially
among the peasantry, many were favourably inclined towards magic used for
curative means for both man and beast. This positive view of curative magic
extended to the upper layers of society, too, and the Sorcery Ordinance of 1617
specifically included punishments for members of the nobility who engaged in
sorcery. The criminalisation of practical and curative magic certainly accounts
for the rise in the number of trials after 1617, even though the legislators did not
go as far as certain influential members of the clergy would have wished,
namely in curative magic being equated with diabolical witchcraft and with all
offenders being liable to capital punishment.
Documentation taken from the court rolls of the cases brought before the
Landsting (High Court) in Viborg in Jutland 1612–1637 – a period coinciding
with the peak of the witch persecutions – shows 255 witches being brought
before the court, i.e., persons who had already been handed death sentences at
the lower courts. Of the 255 accused 129 had their judgments affirmed by the
higher court. This shows an acquittal rate of 49.5 percent, but the actual per-
centage of cases being dropped was higher because it does not include those
who had already been let off by the lower courts. It should be noted, however,
that an estimated 90 percent of the accused of witchcraft were found guilty by
the jurors at the lower courts. Of the 255 persons tried in Viborg 10 percent
were male, 90 percent female. Almost 60 percent of the women were married
with a further 8 percent being widows. Six percent were not married and the
marital status of the remaining 27 percent is unknown. Two-thirds of the
accused were over the age of fifty with hardly anyone being under twenty-five
years of age. This statistical imbalance underlines the fact that it often took
many years to acquire a reputation of being a witch. Poor and marginalised
members of society, in particular, were at risk of being accused of witchcraft.
The Waning of the Witch Trials
The jurisdiction of Viborg extended to twenty-four towns (“købstæder”) and

approximately 950 parishes. Yet during the peak of the witch trials 1612–1637
this area generated less than ten cases per year. This does not take into account
the cases having been brought before the lower courts and which ended with
232 Fink-jensen
acquittal, but even if the figure is doubled to twenty trials per year, thereby also
taking into account the fact that we have incomplete source material, it still
leaves an average of only a quarter of the Northern Jutland parishes and towns
having had a witch tried and burnt at the time of the peak of the persecutions.
This is probably not an indication that the local population thought that
there were few sorcerers, but rather that they were hesitant when it came to
accusing others of witchcraft. Many of those accused of being witches had
been working in the local communities for years as healers and were thus often
felt to be of good use by parts of the population. Furthermore, the accuser was
financially responsible for the imprisonment of the accused and if the case
resulted in acquittal, serious allegations of calumny could follow. With the
acquittal rate being 50 percent, not everyone would gamble on successfully
accusing someone of being a witch.
Around the middle of the seventeenth century, a marked drop in the number
of witch trials occurred. For example the High Court in Viborg only had two or
three of these types of cases per year by then. It is quite evident that the judges
became increasingly sceptical about the whole phenomenon, frequently label-
ling the supposed witches as being simple-minded or demented individuals
rather than belonging to the devil’s minions.
The Danish Law Code of 1683 repeated the stipulations of the ordinance of
1617 with death penalty for witchcraft by way of pacts with the devil and fines
for other types of sorcery. But a further distinction was added with the men-
tioning of alleged sorcerers making use of “mad, imaginary arts”. The possibility
of sorcery being “imaginary” was thus acknowledged. Similarly, The Church
Ritual of 1685 admonished pastors first to consider melancholy and other nat-
ural causes in cases involving apparent sorcery, before they pondered the
possibility of the devil being at play. In 1686 it was decreed that all death sen-
tences in the high courts should be automatically appealed to the Supreme
Court. Judicial witch-hunting ended shortly thereafter. The last burning of a
witch in Denmark took place in 1693, and it was in fact only the beheaded
corpse of the witch being burnt. Soon thereafter civilian witch trials ended
altogether. Such trials were, however, still carried out within the jurisdiction of
the military, and in 1721 the last execution of a soldier convicted of sorcery took
place in Copenhagen. Only in the nineteenth century were the criminal codes
concerning sorcery repealed, and an ordinance of 1840 classified sorcery as
merely being a form of fraud or deceit.
Already before the end of the seventeenth century, many peasants took the
consequences of the higher courts’ refusal to consider death sentences for
witches and ceased bringing the problems they faced with sorcery to court.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the belief in witches had largely
disappeared among the upper classes of society; among the lower classes,
there were complaints that the judges were merely siding with the witches.
Instead, many tried to deal with the witch by using counter-magic or quite
simply by taking the law into their own hands. In 1722 a mob of peasants burnt
to death a woman whom they accused of being a witch. The deed was met by
the authorities with execution of the ringleaders. The last known murder of a
suspected witch took place in Jutland in 1800, but as late as 1897 a suspected
witch was violently attacked in Northern Jutland.
Learned Magic
Despite spelling out various types of illegal magical practises, the very word
“magic” was not used in the Sorcery Ordinance of 1617. Undoubtedly this was
out of consideration for natural magic, which was regarded as a respectable
science in academic circles. Natural magic meant the utilisation of hidden, but
natural forces of the universe. This was how Caspar Bartholin (1585–1629), pro-
fessor of medicine at the University of Copenhagen 1613–1624, applied the
term, and in this respect he followed the path of Paracelsian and Hermetic
authors whom he on numerous occasions referred to in his writings. Indeed,
Caspar Bartholin stated that natural magic was a cornerstone of physics and
mathematics. Likewise in his textbook on natural philosophy, Physicae genera-
lis praecepta issued in 1618, he included a chapter on occult qualities and
natural magic, where he keenly pointed out that natural magic was something
entirely different from diabolical magic. It was, of course, only the previous
year that the Sorcery Ordinance had been issued.
In retrospect, there could be a thin line between the learned magic as put to
use in Hermetic medicine, and what was deemed sorcery. An uneasy likeness
existed between engraving a precious stone in order for it to attract astral sym-
pathies and affect the body of the doctor’s patient carrying the stone, and the
piece of parchment with a formula written on it, carried in a string around the
neck by the sorcerer’s clientele. And if a poor elderly widow had used an
engraved charm to cure the illness of another person, she might find herself in
dire straits. Widespread confusion seems to have prevailed on the matter in the
early seventeenth century, with even a printed sermon in Danish from 1613 rec-
ommending the use of a variety of engraved stones such as a green jasper with
an engraved cross to keep one from drowning, or a ruby with an engraved
dragon to accumulate wealth (Garboe 1915: 226–229). The possibility of such
effects being of a diabolical nature, however, gradually forced all practitioners
of natural magic to turn their backs to the idea of certain figures, signs, and
234 Fink-jensen
formulas having healing powers. The physicians would, however, long mull
over the curative effects of engraved charms and although they would be disin-
clined to condone them, some, like professor Bartholin, shrank back from an
outright condemnation of them. At any rate, as Caspar Bartholin put it in 1628
in his Systema physicum, only a fool would declare that precious stones had no
occult qualities at all, and unengraved charms and stones continued to be an
integral part of natural magic and Hermetic medicine for the remainder of the
seventeenth century.
Ole Borch (1626–1690), physician and professor at the University of Copen
hagen, made his debut in 1649 with the book De cabala characterali dissertatio,
that dealt with forbidden medicine and therapy. Yet in his subsequent writings
Borch would develop into a stern defender of natural magic. According to
Borch, Hermeticism and Paracelsianism were part and parcel of natural magic,
and natural magic was a pure art, free from necromancy and other illegal types
of magic, and most importantly it was concordant with Christianity. In his
copious Hermetis, Aegyptiorum et chemicorum sapientiae (1674), Borch singled
out the Jesuit demonologist Martin Del Rio for criticism, and warned anyone
wanting to continue the Spaniard’s hard-line approach to natural magic, that
attempts to associate Paracelsus and Hermes Trismegistus with sorcery would
be futile. As a matter of fact, Borch took the magic out of natural magic, assign-
ing as he did the term to an empiricist approach to natural philosophy which
in reality had little practical use for any associations with the magical and
philosophical tradition of Hermeticists and Paracelsians. It is perhaps no coin
cidence that both the witch trials and the academic art of natural magic as part
of university training all but disappeared by the coming of the eighteenth cen-
tury. From then on, magic would increasingly escape notice, whether pursued
in rural communities or masonic circles.
References

Historisk Tidsskrift, 100 (2000), 35–68.
Garboe, Axel, Kulturhistoriske Studier over Ædelstene med særligt Henblik paa det 17.
Aarhundrede, Copenhagen: Nordisk Forlag, 1915.
Henningsen, Gustav, “Witchcraft in Denmark”, Folklore, 93 (1982), 131–137.
Jacobsen, Lis (ed.), Peder Palladius’ Danske Skrifter, Vol. 5, Copenhagen: Universitets-
Jubilæets Danske Samfund, 1925–1926.
Johansen, Jens Christian Vesterskov, Da Djævelen var ude. Trolddom i det 17. århundredes
Danmark, Odense: Odense University Press, 1991.
——— . “Denmark. The Sociology of Accusations”, in: Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav
Henningsen (eds.), Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries,
Oxford: Clarendon, 1993, 339–365.
Kallestrup, Louise Nyholm, “Lay and Inquisitorial Witchcraft Prosecutions in Early
Modern Italy and Denmark”, Scandinavian Journal of History, 36 (2011), 265–279.
Mitchell, Stephen A., Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages, Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.
236 Mansikka
Chapter 30 Early Modern Magic in Finland
Magic in the Early Modern Period in Finland

Tomas Mansikka
Magic and the Christianisation of Finland
The notion of the Finnish people as particularly predisposed towards magic is

of old date, and it is part of the history of Finland from its initial process of
Christianisation to the late eighteenth century. According to King James I of
England, the main reason for the practice of magic, as expressed in his Dae
monologie published in 1597, was that in ‘such wild partes of the worlde’ as
Lapland, Finland, and the islands of Orkney and Shetland, the devil finds, the
greatest ignorance and barbarity, wherefore he also, accordingly, assails ‘gros-
seliest’ (King James I 1924: 70).
During the early period of the Reformation, the clergy from time to time
bemoaned that the process of Christianisation was an almost insurmountable
task. In the earliest records of the Church, the statutes of the Catholic bishop
Conrad Bitz (d. 1489), all forms of magical or superstitious activities were con-
demned, and those convicted of such crimes were condemned to death. In
Ericus Erici Sorolainen’s (1546–1625) Postilla from 1621–1625, a work distin-
guished by a fairly humanistic approach, the magical practices of the Finns
were regarded not only as remnants of paganism but also of Catholicism. The
bishop of Turku (Sw. Åbo) and Vice-Chancellor of the Academy of Turku,
Isaacus Rothovius (1572–1652), also regarded the Catholic era as a period that
had encouraged the practice of magic rather than condemning it. Nevertheless,
after a period of one hundred years of Reformation, as he expressed in a circu-
lar dated 1646, the extent of magic among the people was still astonishing. In
his inaugural sermon held in 1640 Rothovius gave several examples of magical
activities among the people, such as the custom of performing rituals in the
dark with animal heads. Two decades later, the bishop Johannes Terserus
(1605–1678) stated that ever since schools had been established in Finland,
that is, as far as one could recall, its inhabitants had always practised black arts
(Hertzberg 1889: 2).
Definitions of Magic
During the seventeenth century, which was the foundational period of Lutheran
orthodoxy, a most conspicuous characteristic of the academy in Turku was the

Magic in the Early Modern Period in Finland 237
effort to overcome various forms of demonic magic that allegedly were being
practised in the country. Although magic was primarily an intrinsic part of
popular traditions, magical practices could also be transmitted through books
on learned or natural magic. Moreover, due to ambiguous definitions of magic
and science on the one hand, and of natural and demonic magic on the other,
the accusations were not only restricted to alleged practitioners of magic or to
owners of forbidden literature, but could be used to discredit members of the
clergy. Struggles over clerical positions and power thus significantly marked
the early decades of the academic institutions, and from the founding of the
academy in 1640 until the 1660s, a predominant issue under debate was the
scope and content of malevolent magic.
In the 1640s two Master’s theses on natural magic, one by Johannes Munthe
lius (1645) and the other by Johannes Wassenius (1648), both of them entitled
De magia naturali, were written under the supervision of Georg Alanus (1609–
1664). Approaching the subject from its approved aspect, the authors relied
chiefly on Giambattista Porta’s Magia naturalis and, in the case of Munthelius,
Balthasar Meisner’s much-utilised Philosophia sobria. In accordance with
Porta, all sciences are perceived to culminate in natural magic, being a true
natural knowledge. Natural magic explores the inherent virtues, or occult
properties, in all created things. This acceptable form of magic also has prag-
matic or utilitarian aims, such as determining appropriate times for hunting
and fishing. As to demonic magic, there are three kinds, divinatoria, prestigia
toria, and effectoria. These forms of illicit magic did not require any particular
skills by their practitioners, and it was usually ignorant people who adhered to
demonic magic in order to compensate for their lack of knowledge. Books on
natural magic, however, could also be used in illegitimate ways, one example
being Agrippa von Nettesheim who wrote on secret things in a crude and
superstitious way. Demonic magic was also connected with inappropriate curi-
osity. In this respect it was an aspiration to obtain knowledge in matters that
God had not revealed, thereby trespassing the limits that he had set to the
world.
Accusations of Magical Practices
Discussions of illegitimate forms of magic were mostly connected to allega-

tions directed against the first professor of Greek and Hebrew in Finland,
Martin Stodius (1590–1675), who, it was assumed, had let demonic magic gain
foothold within the academy. Born in Turku, Stodius had studied in Wittenberg
and after 1627 worked as a teacher in his hometown and in Vyborg (Fi. Viipuri,
238 Mansikka
Sw. Viborg). In 1636 he took up a position as a lecturer in theology and in 1638

he was made a member of the committee that in 1642 completed the Finnish
Bible translation. As early as 1627, he was suspected of being involved in
importing “necromantic” books from Lübeck, but he was freed from these
charges due to lack of evidence. The first formal accusation against him was
made in 1644 by Rothovius, after parents of a student accused Stodius of being
responsible for their son turning insane. Rumoured to have kept a “spiritum
familiarem” (a familiar spirit) and giving students secret lectures on Thursday
nights, Stodius defended himself by admitting to having given lectures, but
only with harmless experiments, such as writing with invisible ink and produc-
ing fire by using convex glass as a lens. More damaging for Stodius, however,
was the fact that he had requested the students not to divulge the private
teachings to anyone.
One of the most talented scholars at this time was Andreas Thuronius
(1632–1665) whose genius, however, had raised suspicions against him for hav-
ing practised illegal arts. On the occasion of a promotion in 1653, where some
fifteen candidates were to receive their graduations, rumours were proffered
that a kabbalistic book by Michael Paletz had been used by some of the stu-
dents, notably Thuronius and Arvid Forstadius (d. 1683). The latter became
involved in a trial in Vyborg in 1655, when a young student by the name of
Johannes Enrot admitted to having practised demonic magic. Forstadius, who
held a position as lecturer in the Vyborg Lyceum, was pointed out as the teacher
who had distributed magical literature. Stodius was subsequently implicated
in the case as well, as his signature was found in a confiscated copy of Paletz’
work. A second charge was raised against Stodius in 1656, but after having been
supported and powerfully defended by Thuronius, the chancellor Per Brahe
freed Stodius in a decree from 1656, arguing that huge libraries, such as Stodius’,
usually contained magical and kabbalistic works. To misuse a book was indeed
abominable, but the content of such writings was not necessarily directed
against the Lord and his servants. This was, according to Brahe, for the reason
that also ‘many other forms of knowledge, such as magia naturalis, chymia and
others are by their artists kept in secreto’ (Schybergson 1923: 36).
Freed once again from the charges, but not from the suspicions, Stodius was
considered a burden to the academy by the powerful bishops Enevald Sveno
nius (1617–1688) and Terserus. When Terserus was appointed bishop in 1658,
his main objective was to prove the suspicions that Stodius had practised and
instructed students in “artibus necromanticis”. Terserus subsequently met
King Charles X and asked him to remove Stodius from his position, with the
result that, despite some dissatisfaction on the part of Brahe and Thuronius,
Stodius was forced to resign from his academic duties in 1660 but continued
his duty as minister (1654–1675) in Naantali (Sw. Nådendal).
Magical Books and Practices
The increased awareness that forbidden books were in fact widely available led
in 1653 and onward to the confiscation of a number of such books and manu-
scripts, an act that was considered necessary in order to clean the academy
from its reputation of being a school of magic and a kabbalistic nest. Apparently,
the most popular manuscript was Ars cabalistica, sive cabala Christiana
Michaëlis Paletzii, which, despite its title, seems to have been more of a magical
handbook. Other works were Schemhamphoras, Clavis Salomonis, De occulta
philosopia libri tres (as well as the spurious Fourth Book) by Agrippa, and
Angelus Lucis, possibly a German translation from 1584 of Salomon Trismosin’s
Splendor Solis. In association with the Ars cabalistica, a magical-astrological
work titled Planetzbooken was also found, as were some Faustian writings, such
as Christopher Vagnerus Doctoris Fausti disciples. Stodius had become, as it
were, branded explicitly as a Faustian character leading the youth astray.
As can be deduced from the records, the attraction of magic among stu-
dents was foremost that it held out the promise of becoming instantly learned,
without the painstaking efforts that were normally required. Magical letters
and symbols served to strengthen the brain (pro confortatione cerebri), and
could thereby hasten the process of learning. This had allegedly been done by
some undergraduates such as, for instance, Henricus Thomae Eolenius who
had carelessly applauded himself of obtaining respectable skills in Syriac and
Arabic on a Thursday night. Another motive was to obtain riches, a popular
goal especially among underprivileged students and which, occasionally, could
include also a pactum cum diabolo, a pact with the devil.
The magical craze within the academy also affected strictly orthodox cir-
cles, which serves to illustrate the difficulty if not impossibility to demarcate
orthodox faith from magic. Terserus, for instance, had in a sermon stated that
by writing the words of John 1:1 on a paper and placing the text in a box, one
would be protected against bullets and swords. Although he was the foremost
accuser and detector of magical practices, Terserus was therefore sometimes
considered to practise magic himself. Thus, Thuronius, in a letter to Brahe writ-
ten in 1662, assumed that the bishop’s zeal to blame others sprung from his
own acquaintance and dealing with magic (“trollkonster”, literally “the art of
sorcery”). A similar blurring of the lines between Christian orthodoxy and
magic can be found in the sermons of Laurentius Petri Aboicus (1605–1671).
240 Mansikka
Petri was an expert on and collector of Finnish names of demonic spirits, but
also maintained that the Christian creed itself, as well as certain words, names
and prayers functioned as means by which one’s health and property could be
protected. Since the devil had disguised himself as the masters of Catholics,
Calvinists and other parties, an efficient protection against him was to recite
the Lutheran confession. Once the devil had heard the right confession from
one’s mouth, he became unable to act. The most powerful protection was pro-
vided, however, by the name of Jesus, a notion that was common in Christian
kabbalah and could also be found, e.g., in the Schemhamphoras.
Witchcraft and Magic
The controversies within the academy can be seen as a reflection of a more

widespread concern with magical practices. During the seventeenth century,
the lower courts had to handle a number of cases concerning practices of
magic. Finnish, as well as Estonian and Icelandic peasant culture, was distinct
from other European traditions by the fact that practitioners of witchcraft
were predominantly male. Wizards or itinerant magicians spread terror in the
communities, demanding that households provide them with shelter and pro-
visions, lest they leave spells and misfortune behind them. Two of the most
notorious professional wizards were Antti Lieroinen and Erkki Puujumala,
both of whom were put on trial and sentenced to death in the early 1640s,
shortly after the academy of Turku had been founded.
In the wake of the great witch trials in late seventeenth century, a number of
academic writings came to deal with the doctrines of witchcraft, an area that
had hitherto received little attention. Many practices of popular magic, for-
merly regarded as benign, were under the new framework considered suspect.
Due to the new attitude towards popular magic, an increasing number of
alleged diabolical pacts were investigated, a process that culminated in the
mid-1670s. The subject of demonic magic continued to be of interest in the fol-
lowing decades, as in bishop Johannes Gezelius’ Casuum conscientiae (1689),
which maintained the traditional division of benevolent and malevolent
magic. Other works with a similar approach worth mentioning are De tympa-
nis magicis (1680) by Nicolaus L. Forzelius, a work on the magical drums of the
Sami people, and De magia numerorum (1703) by Christian Alander. A large
number of the dissertations on magic was published under the auspices of the
professor of physics Petrus Hahn, most notably Panegyrios Satanicae (1697) by
Wilhelm Wargentin and Magia naturalis seu de qvalitatibus occultis (1698) by
A. Aeimelaeus, both works relying on authors such as Johannes Wier (De
praestigiis), Jean Bodin (Daemonomania), and Johannes Georgius Godelmannus

(De magis).
An increased influence of Cartesian dualism, on the other hand, led to a
growing scepticism regarding the reality of demons. Although no overt cri-
tique was put forward, the Cartesian distinction between spirit and matter,
stressing an exclusively empirical and physiological approach to the latter,
gradually shifted the grounds of explanation away from magical and super-
natural causes. Descartes’ works were known and referred to, but usually as
only one source among many, and the Finnish authors generally proposed a
mediating view, thus maintaining a belief in the reality of demonic power. A
conviction of the reality of demonic magic thus persisted in the scholarly cur-
riculum until the Great Northern War (1700–1721) and the temporary closing of
the academy in 1714 (Heikkinen 1969: 333–348).
Magic in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
The persistence of a magical subculture in Finland has been regarded as a rea-

son for the radical turn of the Pietist movement in the country. The widespread
belief that Finnish peasants were versed in “pure” or efficacious magic received
high esteem at the close of the eighteenth century, as magic came to be
regarded fashionable within mystical and masonic circles. The Finnish-born
Baron Gustav Adolf Reuterholm (1756–1813) stated that he among Finns had
encountered widespread forms of “sinister magic” which they freely exercised.
The magician and necromancer Gustav Björnram (1745–1801), perhaps the
most outstanding of the court magicians, was born in eastern Finland in the
district of Savo (Sw. Savolax). From the early 1780s onward, Björnram kept most
of the nobilities at the court of Gustavus III enthralled by his magical rituals,
including the conjuring of spirits at graveyards and the divination of future
events. His expertise also included the preparation of herbs and liquors for
longevity, a knowledge he claimed he had obtained from an “old military man”
in Finland whom he occasionally visited to receive instructions. Intrigues and
conspiracies notwithstanding, Björnram managed to retain his credibility as a
prophet and magician well into the 1790s. A.F. Munck wrote in a letter (1792) to
Reuterholm that ‘of all the mystics none is to be more relied upon than our
oldest prophet B[jörnram]’ (Rein 1938: 40). Unsuccessful in obtaining a perma-
nent income, Björnram was forced to spend his last years in poverty and ill
health, as his income was successively withdrawn by the new rulers, including
his former apprentice Reuterholm.
242 Mansikka
The decline of magic in Finland is concurrent with the changing status of

magic in nineteenth-century European culture. This transition was, at least
partly, connected to the decline of magic in higher social circles and its adop-
tion among the lower classes. This social downwards movement can be
illustrated by the fate of magical books. The Schemhamphoras, mentioned
above, still enjoyed a prominent position within high degree Masonry in
Sweden and Finland at the close of the eighteenth century. In the mid-nine-
teenth century, Schemhamphoras was reprinted and incorporated in the
notorious Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses by the prolific German publisher of
magical texts J. Scheible, but this wider circulation was in a new context of
“Raritäten und Kuriositäten”. The work was translated into Finnish in 1902 by
emigrant Finns in Michigan, Usa. Magical texts such as Schemhamphoras thus
did not disappear from the Finnish scene, but on the contrary became avail-
able in the vernacular and as such a principal source for popular magic in the
twentieth century, a social transition documented by ethnographers in
Scandinavia (Steen 1965).
References
Cronstedt, A.F., “Fortsättning af Bergmästar Cronstedts Brefväxling angående Mystiska

Naturkunnogheten”, Bergs-Journal, N:o 2, (1787), 83–107.
Donner, Harry, Frimurarröster ur det förflutna, Helsingfors: Söderström, 1935.
Heikkinen, Antero, Paholaisen liittolaiset (diss.). Historiallisia tutkimuksia LXXVIII,
Helsinki: Suomen historiallinen seura, 1969.
Hertzberg, Rafael, Kulturbilder ur Finlands historia II. Hexprocesser på 1600-talet,
Helsingfors: G.W. Edlund, 1888.
———. Vidskepelsen i Finland på 1600-talet (diss.), Helsingfors: Hufvudstadbladets Nya
Tryckeri, 1889.
King James I, Daemonologie (1597), London: E.P. Dutton & Company, 1924
Lamm, Martin, Upplysningstidens romantik, Part I, Stockholm: Hugo Gebers förlag, 1918.
Lekeby, Kjell (ed.), Gustaviansk mystik, Sala/Södermalm: Vertigo, 2010.
M[ansikka], T[omas], “Johdatus Kuudennen ja seitsemännen Mooseksen kirjan taus-
toihin”, in: Musta Raamattu: Kuudes ja seitsemäs Mooseksen kirja, Juva: Salakirjat,
2012.
Nenonen, Marko and Timo Kervinen, Synnin palkka on kuolema. Suomalaiset noidat ja
noitavainot 1500–1700-luvulla, Helsinki: Otava, 1994.
Rein, Gabriel, Mystikern Björnram, Soc. Scient. Fenn., Comm. Hum. Litt. IX,1, Helsingfors,
1938.
Schybergson, Carl Magnus, “Per Brahes ställning till rättegångarna angående förbjuden
lärd magi vid Åbo akademi”, in: Förhandligar och Uppsatser 36/1922, Skrifter utg. av
Sv. Litt.sällskapet i Finland 167, Helsingfors, 1923, 1–90.
——— . (ed.), Per Brahes brevväxling rörande Åbo akademi, II, 1, Skrifter utg. av Sv. Litt.
sällskapet i Finland 230, Helsingfors, 1932.
Steen, A., “Litt om sjette og sjunde Mosebok”, Norsk Teologisk Tidsskrift, Årg. 66, (1965),
65–88.
Sturzen-Becker, Oscar Patric, Reuterholm efter hans egna memoirer, Stockholm: Trier,
1862.
244 Bogdan And Lekeby
Chapter 31
Magic in the Early Modern Period in Sweden

Henrik Bogdan and Kjell Lekeby Bogdan and Lekeby
Discourses on Magic in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Magic is a notoriously difficult subject to delimit and define, not only from a
scholarly perspective (Otto & Stausberg 2013), but also from an emic or insid-
ers’ perspective. In the present chapter, we have tried to limit the discussion to
types of magic that can be linked to the wider scholarly concept of Western
esotericism (Bogdan 2010), which in the case of early modern Sweden prima-
rily concerns “learned” types of magic associated with the grimoire tradition of
continental Europe (Owen 2009: 6–43). Although it is difficult to separate
learned magic from “folk” or “popular” magic (as will be discussed below), this
chapter does not discuss Swedish popular forms of magic, such as trolldom and
signerier, which somewhat loosely can be described as acts of magic associated
with cunning men and women, and priests and monks, respectively. Nor do we
discuss allegations of magic associated with the witchcraft trials in Sweden,
which culminated in 1668–1676, 1720–1724, and 1757–1763.
Overt references to the practise of learned magic in the Middle Ages, as well
as during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are virtually impossible to
find, which is not surprising given the fact that both the ecclesiastical and the
judicial authorities fiercely condemned any form of magic as the work of Satan.
A telling example of the condemnation of magic can be found in the impor-
tant and highly influential work by bishop Laurentius Paulinus Gothus, Ethicae
christianae, which in the second edition (1633) included a substantial chapter
on magic, “Om magia illicita eller widskepelse uthi gemen” (On Illicit Magic
and Superstition in General). The punishments imposed on those who were
found guilty of practicing magic during the sixteenth and seventeenth centu-
ries were severe, and sometimes even resulted in being condemned to death.
Even though magic was still considered to constitute a crime during the eight-
eenth century, the actual punishments were, however, gradually relaxed over
the century. Linda Oja has argued that while there was an agreement on the
condemnation of malevolent magic between the ecclesiastical and judicial
authorities on the one hand, and the people in general on the other, it was
another matter with benevolent forms of magic. Here, people in general tended

Magic in the Early Modern Period in Sweden 245
to have a more positive attitude towards magic, whereas the ecclesiastical and
judicial authorities vehemently diabolised benevolent magic as they saw this
form of magic as a more potent threat towards the Church. Or to put it in Oja’s
words: ‘Benevolent magic constituted the worst threat against official religion,
which is probably why the authorities particularly disliked it. Ritual actions
with the aim of healing, regaining lost goods or making livestock stronger
could easily be interpreted as good and useful. […] Consequently, benevolent
magic was closely related to official religion but without being controlled by
the clergy’ (Oja 1999: 300–301).
It is therefore understandable that people interested in magic had to keep
it secret or veil it in obscure terminology, which makes it difficult for current
scholarship to identify the practice of learned magic in Sweden prior to the
eighteenth century. An illustrative example is the Swedish esotericist Johannes
Bureus (1568–1652), who was deeply occupied with kabbalistic ideas con-
cerning the role of the Hebrew alphabet. It has been argued that at the core
of his aim to devise a structurally similar system to that of Kabbalah which
assigned occult qualities to the Nordic rune alphabet (especially the glyph
called Adulruna which appears to have been inspired by John Dee’s Monas
Hieroglyphica), was a form of magic or theurgy that was inspired by practi-
tioners of magic such as Cornelius Agrippa and John Dee (see the chapter
on Kabbalah in Sweden in the present volume), although his discussion is so
obscure that it is difficult to say anything definite about his system in relation
to magic.
Metatron
The eighteenth-century esoteric milieu in Sweden was characterised by an

increasing institutionalisation in the form of a wide range of secret societies
and initiatic orders, especially from the 1750s and onwards. Chief among these
was of course the Order of Freemasons, which was introduced in Sweden as
early as 1735. As will be discussed presently, it was in particular in masonic
circles connected to the court that learned magic was practised, but there also
existed competing secret societies, separate from the world of Freemasonry,
that focused on magic. The most significant example of this type of organisa-
tion is the mysterious and highly secretive Metatron, of which relatively little
is known. Metatron first came to the public attention when it published an
open letter (Avertissement af sällskapet Metatron) in the Stockholm daily paper
Dagligt Allehanda, Dagliga Tidningar, on 27April 1781:
The Society Metatron whose age in Sweden is a bit more than 40 years,
has so far existed in secrecy, without being in the least known, suspected
or spoken of […]. The highest secrets of nature are not possible to com-
prehend by the many, but only by the few, that are so disposed. […]
The text continues to reveal that the founder of the organisation died in 1740,
and that a large amount of valuable manuscripts, which explain the basis of
their teachings, is in the hands of the current leaders. The advertisement
caused a stir among people with an interest in magic, and it is known that
influential people, such as Gustaf Adolf Reuterholm (see below), tried to apply
for membership, but were rejected. Based on the internal evidence of a num-
ber of manuscripts derived from, or related to, Metatron preserved among
Reuterholm’s papers (now at the library of the Swedish Grand Lodge of Free
masons), it is possible to conclude that the founder was colonel Arvid
Stjernecrantz (1662–1740), and that he was succeeded by the well-known
preacher Eric Tolstadius (1693–1759), as argued by Jan Häll (1995). Tolstadius
was an important leader in the Swedish Pietist movement, which emphasised
individual piety and living a devout Christian life. Although no conclusive evi-
dence has been unearthed to date, it seems likely that Arvid Stjernecrantz’s
son, Christer Adrian Stjernecrantz (1700–1776), succeeded Tolstadius as head
of Metatron upon the death of the latter in 1759: there can be no doubt that
Christer Adrian’s son, Arvid Adrian Stjernecrantz (i.e., Arvid Stjernecrantz’s
grandson), was a member of Metatron, since he signed the only known official
document sent in the name of that organisation. The letter was sent to one of
the court magicians, Henrik Gustaf Ulfvenklou (see below), and contains a
sharp criticism of Ulfvenklou’s divinations and the fact that he had joined the
Order of Freemasons – just like another of the court magicians, Gustaf Björn
ram, Ulfvenklou had been appointed to the highest degree of Swedish
Freemasonry, the Ruby Cross, directly by Duke Charles, without having to go
through the rituals of the previous degrees. The last known head of Metatron
was probably Peter Fredell.
As mentioned, several interesting manuscripts related to Metatron have
survived, and they show that the teachings were on the one hand inspired by
radical Pietism, Swedenborgianism, and Böhmenism, and on the other by eso-
teric teachings such as physiognomy, and the use of magical mirrors. The
organisation also sought to divine the future, often with the help of what they
called Urim and Thummim (of which nothing is known), a practice which it
held in common with the magicians at the court (SFMO:s arkiv, 121.106).
A Sanctuary of Magic at the Royal Palace
The most conspicuous phase in the history of magic in Sweden occurred in the
1780s, when two esoteric circles met at the royal palace in Stockholm: first,
there was a small circle of magicians that gathered around King Gustavus III,
the most significant members of which included general Johan Christoffer Toll
(1743–1817), the king’s protégé Adolph Fredrik Munck (1749–1831), and the
alchemist August Nordenskjöld (1754–1792). This small group of magicians met
for only a few years in the early 1780s, and there is at least one eyewitness
account of a magical ceremony carried out by the king himself at the palace,
on the night between 19 and 20 May 1781, in which the king sought to commu-
nicate with spirits, without any apparent results. After a few years, the king’s
interest in magic waned considerably, and he became increasingly suspicious
of the second, larger circle of magicians that convened at the royal castle, led
by his brother, Duke Charles of Södermanland (later King Charles XIII).
Duke Charles’ interest in magic and other arcane sciences, such as astrology
and alchemy, is well-documented, and it is clear that his esoteric pursuits had
a profound effect upon his worldview and actions. Duke Charles’ esoteric pur-
suits were framed within the larger context of high degree Freemasonry and
French Illuminism, and it was in particular through his close friend Gustav
Reuterholm (1756–1813) [for more information on the relationship between
duke Charles and Reuterholm, see the chapter on Freemasonry in Sweden in
the present volume] that Charles came into possession of a remarkably large
and diversified collection of books and manuscripts on magic. The majority of
these books and manuscripts are preserved at the library of the Grand Lodge of
the Swedish Order of Freemasons, and they reveal the extent of the duke’s
interest in magic (Lekeby 2010). In particular, there are four large bound vol-
umes in Duke Charles’ own handwriting, titled Practiska systemet af cabalistica
(The Practical System of Kabbalah) and Clavicula Salomonis (The Key of
Solomon). The chapter headings of the collection are indicative of the sort of
magic that Duke Charles occupied himself with:
On Kabbalah, compendium totius santisimae cabalae; On the Sephiroth;

On the ten names of God; On Semiphoras and Schemhammaphoras; On
Heptameron or the elements of magic; On magical hieroglyphs and their
meaning; On the preparation and consecration of the workplace; how
the magical circle should be made; On the evocation of binding of spirits;
On sacrifices to the spirits; on incense sacrifice; On blood sacrifice; On
the evocation of good and evil angels; On the signs and characteristics of
the angels and spirits; On the way to use and evoke the seventy-two
angels, etc. (Lekeby 2010: 25).
The type of magic encountered in these volumes, and in the other manuscripts
preserved at the library of Freemasons in Stockholm, derives from the grimoire
tradition of Western magic and authors such as Cornelius Agrippa (in fact,
there is a manuscript Swedish translation of the first two books of Agrippas’ De
occulta philosophia preserved among Duke Charles’ papers), as opposed to
more popular forms of magic on the one hand, and to natural or intellectual
magic of Renaissance magicians such as Marsilio Ficio, Pico della Mirandola,
and Giordano Bruno on the other.
The esoteric circle around Duke Charles met at his private rooms at the
Royal Palace in Stockholm. Although the circle would meet for almost thirty
years at the palace, the magical activities culminated during the winter of
1783–1784, when King Gustavus III was away on a journey to Italy. The duke had
a special room, Sanktuariet or the Sanctuary, set up at the palace, in which he
carried out the magical workings. According to contemporary accounts, the
room was decorated with paintings of partially nude women, with a nude
woman on the floor with a triangle over her genitals. Behind a veil, coloured in
four colours in allusion to the four elements, was the holy of holies, a simple
room with three steps leading up to an altar, with a large crucifix mounted on
the wall behind the altar. Magical workings were also carried out at other
places, in particular in various cemeteries and churches in the Stockholm
region. Apart from Duke Charles and Reuterholm, there were around thirty
people who belonged to the secret cabal at the palace, with an inner core of
twelve persons, many of whom were also active Freemasons. The magical
operations carried out by the circle were kept secret from other Freemasons,
and it should be emphasised that even though Freemasonry was intertwined
with the group’s various esoteric pursuits, magic was not part of the activities
of the Order of Freemasons in Sweden. Most of the members were young aris-
tocrats who belonged to influential families, such as Jean Jacob De Geer
(1745–1800) and Johan Gabriel Oxenstierna (1750–1818), but the most signifi-
cant and influential magicians were Carl Anders Plommenfelt (b. 1750), Gustaf
Björnram (1745–1801), Henrik Gustaf Ulfvenklou (1755–1819), and Carl Adolf
Boheman (1764–1831), the only commoner of the group.
Plommenfelt became the first “prophet” at the court towards the end of the
1770s, and he claimed that he had learned the magical arts while travelling for
five years abroad. Plommenfelt, who in 1782 was banished from Sweden
accused of treason against the king, apparently based the secret teachings that
he taught at the court on the writings of Jacob Böhme and an old handbook on
magic. He was succeeded by the mysterious Björnram, who was highly appre-
ciated by not only Reuterholm and Duke Charles, but also by King Gustavus III.
In fact, Björnram, the only court magician who was not eventually banished
from the court, became the personal teacher in magic to Duke Charles, Johan
Gabriel Oxenstierna, and Reuterholm for four years, 1782–1786. Reuterholm
later recorded in his important record of magical experiments, Samling af
Maçonnique händelser (Collection of Masonic Events), that Björnram is ‘one of
the few real Rosicrucians’, and in 1782 he wrote that ‘the first evidence of magic
that I have received, I got through royal secretary Gustaf Björnram who has
been my mentor upon this path’ (121.63). Several manuscripts that have sur-
vived in the Reuterholm collection show that Björnram’s magic was a mixture
of folk magic and classical grimoire texts. Björnram’s position as the main
magician at the court was temporarily challenged during the winter of 1783–
1784, when the charismatic magician Ulfvenklou appeared at the court. In
contrast to Björnram, who had a more modest background and whose claim to
be a descendent of the medieval noble family Björnram was questioned,
Ulfvenklou belonged to the high nobility and was related to Johan Skytte, who
had promulgated the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus at Uppsala University
at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The interest in magic and other
esoteric sciences ran deep in the family, and Ulfvenklou claimed that he had
been taught magic by his great uncle, General Carl Gustaf Cronhiort (1694–
1777). Not only Ulfvenklou’s background set him apart from Björnram, so did
his personality. Whereas Björnram reportedly shunned attention and preferred
not to be in the centre of social settings, Ulfvenklou apparently took a delight
in finding himself in the spotlight, much to the ire of Reuterholm, who soon
began to conspire against him. Ulfvenklou eventually saw himself outmanoeu-
vred by Reuterholm, and was in August 1784 banished from court due to
trumped-up charges – he had allegedly made a snide comment about the king.
Ulfvenklou continued, however, to correspond with Duke Charles and appears
to have been very serious about his magical operations, as shown by surviving
correspondence and manuscripts. It can also be argued that the period during
which Ulfvenklou acted as the main magician at the court (the winter of 1783–
1784), marked the height of magical practices at the court, both in terms of the
frequency and the advanced nature of the magical ceremonies carried out in
the sanctuary.
After Ulfenklou’s exit from the court, Björnram returned as the favoured
magician – at least for a few years. The last “court magician” to appear on the
scene was Carl Adolf Boheman. In addition to being a practicing magician,
Boheman was a promulgator of esoteric high degree Freemasonry, and he
introduced a secret society at the court, called Delu, believed to stand for “Det
eviga ljusets utvalde” (The Elect of the Eternal Light). This highly secretive
order admitted both men and women, and the teachings were based on explic-
itly esoteric orders such as the Asiatic Brethren and the Order of the African
Master Builders, which is not surprising considering that it is believed that
Charles of Hesse-Cassel in Schleswig was its Grand Master. Boheman managed
to attract several highly influential individuals to this new order, including
Duke Charles and his wife Charlotta, before he was arrested by King Gustavus
IV Adolphus in the spring of 1803 on unclear charges: Boheman was banished
from Sweden with no possibility for appeal. Furthermore, Gustavus IV
Adolphus ordered the sanctuary at the castle to be closed – a decision which
marked the end of Duke Charles’ magical circle.
According to Lekeby (2010), the two primary techniques used in the magical
rituals at the court were necromancy and evocation (citering). Through the
first type of magic, the magicians sought to commune with the spirits of dead
people, often with the distinct purpose of divining the future. The material
means through which necromancy was believed to work was often a human
skull placed on an altar, or a collarbone which by its shape alluded to the letter
“Y” (ypsilon), which sometimes was interpreted as a symbol of God’s unspeak-
able name. The skull and collarbone should ideally come from a dead boy less
than twelve years old, and it is reported that the members of Duke Charles’
magic circle collected these items from a cemetery in Stockholm (Johannes
kyrkogård). One of Reuterholm’s manuscripts, Magisk arbets iournal (Magical
Record), describes this sort of magical rituals in detail, mentioning how the
‘signs from the other side of the grave’ manifested as particular light and sound
phenomena, and through loud bangs on the walls. It was in particular Björnram
who led these necromantic ceremonies. The other type of magic, evocation,
was based on classical ritual magic as described by Cornelius Agrippa in his De
occulta philosophia, and in various handbooks such as Heptameron, Arbatel,
Clavicula Solomonis, and Divina magia (all of which have survived as transla-
tions into Swedish in manuscript form among Reuterholm’s papers). The last
of these would towards the end of the nineteenth century become famous as
The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage when it was translated into
English, together with an additional manuscript, by the Golden Dawn leader
MacGregor Mathers. Again, the primary aim seems to have been to divine the
future through communication with angels and other entities. In addition to
necromancy and evocation, Duke Charles and his colleagues used other forms
of divination, such as bibliomancy (using the Bible), and a peculiar form a divi-
nation called sållningen (sieving), in which a small sieve was turned while
questions were being asked. The answers were then divined according to the
position of the sieve.
One striking aspect of the work carried out by this group of magicians is the
interest they took in folk or popular forms of magic, in particular the type of
magic associated with cunning men and women. One telling example is the
importance placed on the divinations performed by a “mamsell Arfvidson”.
Ulrika Arfvidson, who lived in a less prosperous part of Stockholm (kvarteret
Träsket) and who was well-known in the 1780s as a practitioner of tasseomancy,
i.e., the practise of divination or fortune-telling through the interpretation of
coffee grounds, was visited by many people who belonged to the upper eche-
lons of Swedish society, including Reuterholm who describes one of his visits
to Arfvidson in Maçonnique händelser. The interest in popular forms of magic
indicates that the border between learned magic and folk or popular magic is
often difficult to draw in eighteenth-century discourses on magic in Sweden.
Books of Black Art
The difficulty of differentiating between learned and folk magic becomes

apparent when discussing the so-called Books of Black Art (Svartkonstböcker),
which were popular in Sweden during the eighteenth and nineteenth centu-
ries. These handbooks in magic were partly influenced by the continental
grimoire tradition, and often included magical seals, incantations in Hebrew
and Greek, and many times allude, through their titles, to well-known grimoi-
res such as Clavicula Salomonis, the Key of Solomon. They differ from traditional
grimoires, however, through the inclusion of themes that derive from folk
magic, such as various remedies and cures associated with cunning men and
women, local ritual practices associated with the wellbeing of one’s livestock,
gaining of luck, attraction, and so forth. Another typical aspect is the inclusion
of runes and rune calendars, which often were interpreted as having magical
properties. According to popular belief, this type of books could be acquired
through a pact with the Devil, and even though there actually is very little evil
or “black” magic in the books, they had a sinister reputation and the possession
of such books could lead to serious problems with the authorities.
An illustrative example of such a Book of Black Art is the Salomonic Magical
Arts: The Red Book and The Black Book, recently translated into English by
Fredrik Eytzinger (2013). The book was first published by Paul Heurgren in
1918, with the full title Salomoniska Magiska Konster, Utdrag ur en Westboprests
Svartkonstböcker. Ur friherre Gabriel Djurklou’s till Örebro Läns Museum done-
rade handskriftsamling (Salomonic Magical Arts. Excerpts from a Priest’s
Books of Black Magic, from the Collection of Manuscripts Donated by Freiherr
Gabriel Djurklou to Örebro County Museum). The book was based on a
manuscript by Gabriel Djurklou, who in in the early 1870s travelled in southern

Sweden as superintendent for the Swedish National Heritage Board (Riksan
tikvarieämbetet). One of the things that Djurklou collected, was Books of Black
Art, and he was delighted when a young priest lent him two manuscripts on the
Black Art that he had discovered. The two manuscripts were untitled, but were
given the names The Red Book and The Black Book due to the colouring of the
covers. The manuscripts turned out to have been written mainly by Johannes
Gaslander (1718–1793), pastor and parson in the parish of Sandvik. The manu-
scripts were passed on to his son, Sven Peter Gaslander (1754–1833), district
taxation registrar, who was known as a magician (Eytzinger 2013: 12–13). It is
significant that the manuscripts passed from father to son, as most of these
books were more or less personal handbooks, compiled by their authors for
personal use, rather than for commercial benefit. Also, passing on knowledge
about magic and other arcane sciences as some sort of family secret is well
attested in Sweden at that time – see for instance Ulfvenklou’s claim to have
learned magic from his great uncle, discussed above. As mentioned, The Red
Book and The Black Book can be seen as illustrative examples of this particular
genre of magical literature, and they contain the mixture of grimoire elements
and folk magic discussed above. Significantly, the original manuscript of The
Black Book was found together with a printed copy of a rune calendar by Sven
Digelius, printed 1755. Finally, mention should be made of Emanuel Linder
holm’s Signelser ock besvärjelser från medeltid ock nutid (Magical Formulas
from the Middle Ages and the Contemporary Period, 1917–1940), which con-
tains a wide range of spells and magical formulas for the banishing of disease,
possession, fulfilment of wishes, and so forth, although the vast majority of
the materials contained in the work technically falls under the category of folk
magic, and is thus outside the scope of the present chapter.
References
Bogdan, Henrik, “Modern Western Magic”, Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Eso
tericism, 12:1 (2012), 1–13.
Carleson, Robert, “Affären Boheman”, in: Hertig Carl och det svenska frimureriet, Uppsala:
Forskningslogen Carl Friedrich Eckleff, 2010, 359–372.
——— . “Den esoteriska kretsen”, in: Hertig Carl och det svenska frimureriet, Uppsala:
Forskningslogen Carl Friedrich Eckleff, 2010, 279–297.
Davies, Owen, Grimoires: A History of Magic Books, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2009.
Eytzinger, Fredrik, Salomonic Magical Arts: Being two Swedish Books of Black Art,
Richmond Vista, CA: Three Hands Press, 2013.
[Fredell, Peter], Förteckning på afledne kongl. hof-predikantens och kyrkoherdens Fredells
efterlemnade boksamling, Stockholm, 1788.
Gothus, Laurentius Paulinus, Ethicae christianae, second edition, 1633.
Häll, Jan, I Swedenborgs labyrint. Studier i de gustavianska swedenborgarnas liv och tän-
kande, Stockholm: Atlantis, 1995.
Lamm, Martin, Upplysningstidens romantik. Den mystiskt sentimentala strömningen i
svensk litteratur, Stockholm: Hugo Gebers Förlag, 1918, 1920.
Lekeby, Kjell, Esoterica i Svenska Frimurarordens arkiv 1776–1803, Stockholm: Pleiaderna,
2011.
———. Gustaf Adolf Reuterholms hemliga arkiv från 1780-talet, Stockholm: Pleiaderna,
2011.
——— . Gustaviansk mystik. Alkemister, kabbalister, magiker, andeskådare, astrologer
och skattgrävare i den esoteriska kretsen kring G.A. Reuterholm, hertig Carl och hertig-
innan Charlotte 1776–1803, Sala/Södermalm: Vertigo Förlag, 2010.
Linderholm, Emanuel, Signelser ock besvärjelser från medeltid ock nutid, Stockholm:
Norstedt, 1917–1940.
Oja, Linda, Varken Gud eller natur. Synen på magi i 1600- och 1700-talets Sverige, Stock
holm/Stehag: Brutus Östlings Bokförlag Symposium, 1999.
Otto, Bernd-Christian and Michael Stausberg (eds.), Defining Magic: A Reader, Sheffield:
Equinox Publishing, 2013.
Reuterholm, Gustav, Samling af Maçonnique händelser (SFMO:s arkiv 121.63).
Sveriges framtid förestäld uti en syn för sällskapet M[etatron] natten emellan d: 11 och 12
november 1771 (SFMO:s arkiv 121.106).
254 Bertelsen
Chapter 32 Martinus
Martinus Cosmology
Helle Bertelsen
Introduction
Martinus Thomsen, who was later to be known by his first name only, was born
in humble circumstances on 11 August 1890 in Sindal, a small provincial town
in the Northern part of the Danish peninsula of Jutland. His schooling was
limited to a few years at the village school, in which teaching took place twice
a week during summer and autumn. At the age of twelve he became a herd boy,
and four years later he began his apprenticeship as a dairyman. He worked in
various dairies in different parts of Denmark. Later on he became a watchman,
and in 1920 he was employed as an office clerk at the dairy Enigheden in
Copenhagen.
During two days in 1921, Martinus Thomsen, then aged thirty, had two spiri-
tual revelations. He had borrowed a book on Theosophical meditation practices
and reincarnation from a friend, Lars Nibelvang (1879–1948). Guided by the
directions on how to meditate found in the book, Martinus began meditating
on the concept of God. During the first meditation, Martinus suddenly had
some extraordinary experiences, which he later called “the white baptism of
fire”. It was succeeded the next day by “the golden baptism of fire”. The allusion
to the concept of “fire” refers to the luminous states in these revelations and
the “baptism” to the divine initiation that Martinus recorded had taken place.
Martinus felt a unity with God during these meditations, and he had the
impression that the very consciousness of God was incarnated in him. He
described this experience as a profound transformation of consciousness, a
permanent state that never left him, a state in which he had direct access to
divine knowledge and in which he was able ‘to apprehend all the main spiri-
tual forces, invisible causes, eternal world laws, basic energies, and basic
principles behind the physical world. The mystery of existence was therefore
no longer a mystery to me. I had become conscious of the life of the whole
Universe, and had been initiated into the “Divine Creative Principle”’ (Martinus,
On the Birth of my Mission, ch. 20). According to the traditions of the Martinus
movement, this decisive initiation into cosmic consciousness took place on 24
March 1921, and therefore this date is regarded as the birthday of the Martinus
mission or “The Cause”.

Martinus 255
Biographical accounts of Martinus Thomsen are inconclusive about the

Theosophical inspiration for Martinus’ spiritual revelation. Martinus himself
rejected any suggestion that his revelations were inspired by Theosophy. It is
emphasised that Martinus never finished reading the Theosophical book on
meditation, and that he was not at all well read at the time of his spiritual expe-
riences. To put it another way, it is an important part of the self-image of the
Martinus circle that there is one source only for his insight and calling, namely
God. The only mundane inspiration openly acknowledged by Martinus was his
Christian childhood education. Elsewhere, however, one can read that Nibel
vang had introduced Martinus to Theosophy just before Martinus received his
revelations (Kosmos 1948–01, available online at <http://www.martinus.dk/da/
kosmos/kosmos/1948/kos1948–01–013.php>).
No matter what the true sequence of events may have been, it is a fact that
Martinus moved in Theosophical and Anthroposophical circles and communi-
cated his teachings there in the period immediately after his spiritual revelation.
From the middle of the twentieth century, however, the connections with
these milieus were severed. Martinus insisted on his spiritual affinity to the
Christian tradition in spite of many elements of ultimately Indian origin but
probably mediated by Theosophical, Anthroposophical, and other esoteric
sources. For instance, Martinus’ teaching incorporates conceptions of karma,
reincarnation, energies, and levels of energy.
Martinus’ Writings and Message
A few years were to pass, though, before Martinus could devote himself entirely
to his mission. Of crucial importance was the fact that Lars Nibelvang from the
very beginning was convinced that Martinus had gained access to a form of
cosmic consciousness. As a consequence, he became Martinus’ first intellec-
tual and financial supporter. Later on, other friends helped with economic
support, and Martinus could therefore devote himself entirely to his spiritual
work from the autumn of 1922. It was a challenge from the outset that Martinus
was not thoroughly familiar with a conceptual framework capable of commu-
nicating his metaphysical experiences in writing. Therefore, the first medium
for communicating his message was to draw and colour geometrical symbols
of what he saw as the true cosmic structure of the universe. These characteris-
tic symbols can be seen as conspicuous symbols of his life work and function
even today as important didactic tools or “maps” for presenting Martinus’
cosmology.
256 Bertelsen
By 1928, Martinus had become experienced enough as a writer to begin pro-

ducing the first volume of his major work Livets Bog (The Book of Life), which
appeared in 1932 in 2,000 copies. The final and seventh volume was published
in 1961. He then set about writing Det evige verdensbillede (The Eternal World
Picture, 4 vols.), Bisættelse (Funeral), Logik (Logic), and about thirty shorter
books, together with numerous articles published in the magazine Kosmos. In
1971 the Danish publishing house Borgen offered to publish Martinus’ com-
plete works under the collective title he had given it, Det Tredje Testamente
(The Third Testament), an obvious reference to Christianity. In addition, Marti
nus contributed to various magazines. For example, his first series of articles
appeared in Skandinavisk Blad for Moderne Okkultisme (Scandinavian Maga
zine for Modern Occultism) in 1933.
Martinus regarded his writings as having a pivotal role in the mission he was
selected to carry out. The mission was to pass on the message of a new redemp-
tion of the world, consisting of a newly formulated doctrine of wisdom and
love. Martinus perceived himself as belonging to a line of prominent religious
messengers like Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad. He thought that his message,
in contrast to the earlier ones, appealed to modern and scientifically-minded
people, who had a spiritual need for knowledge rather than blind faith. This
was not meant to be a critique of previous deliverers’ messages; it was just that
their communications were appropriate for an earlier stage of cosmic evolu-
tion. Behind this notion is the thought that God’s spirit or consciousness flows
through the entire universe by means of various impulses or streams of energy.
This means that all living creatures are embarked on an endless journey in the
divine consciousness, and that this unitary consciousness moves forward in an
upward spiral movement, thus constituting a progressive evolution of con-
sciousness. According to Martinus, the Earth is right now in contact with three
universal impulses. The first, expressed in “primitive” people’s consciousness,
is disappearing while the second, expressed in classical religious traditions, is
fading. The new and growing universal impulse is or will be characterised by a
paradigm shift, in which the natural sciences will be united with insights from
Eastern mystical traditions – a combination of science and spirit as it were.
Hence the characterisation of Martinus’ work both as Martinus’ spiritual sci-
ence and as Martinus Cosmology (a term that also in English-language sources
is spelled without an apostrophe after Martinus’ name). This combination is
reflected in the purportedly “scientific” approach of his teaching. Martinus’
books are meant to provide a systematic exposition of the structure of the uni-
verse, focusing on the principles and laws that, according to his view, operate
in the cosmos. Likewise, the simple and colourful symbols function as dia-
grams that lend his teaching a scientific touch. His analyses have particularly
Martinus 257
been used in a reinterpretation of Christianity, by which he claimed to “prove”

the truth in Christianity. But Martinus’ analyses are used in addressing all
aspects of life, and it is characteristic of Martinus and adherents of The Cause
today that they often concern themselves with recent scientific research or
current issues as explained on the basis of Martinus Cosmology.
Evolution of the Cause
In the first years after his two spiritual experiences, Martinus held small study
groups at private gatherings in, among others, Anthroposophical circles. From
1930 onwards he began addressing larger audiences with public lectures, e.g., at
Borups Højskole, a centre for adult education in Copenhagen with a capacity
of approximately 500 people. In the same period, Martinus employed a secre-
tary, Erik Gerner Larsson (1907–1973), who would take care of the practicalities
of arranging lectures and study groups all around Denmark. Other employees
were included later on. The monthly magazine Kosmos was launched in 1933
and still functions as the official journal of The Cause. Ten yearly issues of this
publication appear, in a print run of 1,000 copies. It carries such items as talks
and articles by Martinus, retrospective looks at the history of The Cause, arti-
cles on current issues, news from the Martinus Institute, and so forth.
In 1935 Kosmos Koloni (Cosmos Camp), now renamed the Martinus Centre,
was inaugurated in the town of Klint in Northern Zealand, Denmark. The pur-
pose of the camp was to give those with an interest in The Cause an opportunity
to spend the summer with like-minded people in restful surroundings, study-
ing The Book of Life. In 1946 the camp was expanded considerably by the
acquisition of the neighbouring manor Klintsøgård, but due to financial prob-
lems the manor buildings later had to be sold. The present lecture hall, seating
200, was built on the plot instead. The Martinus Centre is nowadays described
as a modern education centre, where the focal point for activities and projects
is the cosmology of Martinus based on The Third Testament. The goal of the
centre’s activities is to create a ‘loving and tolerant atmosphere’, where inter-
ested people can be introduced to Martinus’ spiritual science, or continue
advancing in their studies, and at the same time have an opportunity to meet
like-minded individuals. At present, the centre has accommodation for about
200 people in apartments, houses, cabins, and a camping site. In addition to
the lecture hall, it includes study rooms, library, and a vegetarian restaurant
and café.
Summer courses are held during six weeks every summer, each week offer-
ing a series of lectures on a new subject. The centre is visited by approximately
258 Bertelsen
1,000 people every summer, many of whom stay for more than just one week.
Two weeks are singled out as international weeks, in which guests can receive
information about Martinus Cosmology in English, German, Dutch, and
Esperanto, the latter being the official language of The Cause. Even though the
place primarily hosts activities during summer, activities have taken place out-
side the high season since 1984–1985. In 2014, for example, one could sample
lectures, weekend courses, workshops, conferences, weekly courses, and – as a
token of the spirit of the times – a retreat. The range of the subjects is wide, but
apart from concrete instruction in Martinus’ world view, emphasis is typically
placed on how an individual human being succeeds in applying Martinus’
world view in practice, e.g., by transforming undesirable patterns of thought
into positive and constructive ones, or how to interpret and meet the chal-
lenges of life, whether problematic relationships, illness or other concerns. The
aim is to create a better and more humane global kingdom of love on Earth; a
society on a higher spiritual level where every living being is guaranteed peace,
justice, and a truly happy life.
Spiritual Practice
Considering that Martinus’ religious breakthrough took place through medita-

tion, and that his work contains countless references to Christianity and many
concepts reminiscent of a Theosophical world view, one might expect that a
place like the Martinus Centre in Klint would contain a colourful palette of dif-
ferent methods for spiritual self-development. However, that is not the case. At
the practical level, Martinus Cosmology could be characterised as almost puri-
tanical. For example, there are no Martinus-based services to attend, nor are
there any other ritual activities to participate in, and while the décor of the
centre in Klint certainly displays Martinus’ many symbols, it is otherwise
devoid of religious references. Martinus’ reason for this was that the Centre
should be a place where people would have no religious doctrines imposed on
them, since he was convinced that people who were attracted to his cosmology
were already fed up with what he labelled ‘denominations and spiritual sec-
tarianism’. Hence the guidelines for the centre state that prayer, meditation or
other forms of rituals, exercises or joint activities with a religious character
may not take place (Martinus 2003: 80). The only day that is jointly celebrated
is the commemoration day of Martinus’ birth on 8 August, which coincides
with the closing of the summer courses at Klint.
Martinus did not completely discourage people from meditating. He did,
however, recommend that only people with deep spiritual insight should make
Martinus 259
use of meditation techniques, since such methods might otherwise lead to

serious mental harm. Instead he pointed to individual prayer as available to
everyone. Prayer – especially the Lord’s Prayer – could establish an intimate
relationship with divinity and should always have a positive purpose (Kosmos
2001/3).
The Institute in Copenhagen
In 1943, The Cause was offered a large house on favourable terms at Marien
dalsvej 94–96 in Copenhagen. A couple of years later, the Martinus Institute
was established at this address. The newly restored building now functions as
headquarters of Martinus’ work, and houses a lecture hall, a publishing com-
pany for his books and for the magazine Kosmos, as well as the administration
of the Martinus Centre in Klint. Martinus himself lived in a small flat in the
house until his death in 1981. The flat is now preserved as a site in commemora-
tion of Martinus – the same goes, by the way, for his birthplace Moskildvad in
Sindal.
According to its bylaws, the institute has a strictly circumscribed function.
The bylaws were revised in collaboration with Martinus in 1980 and collected
in the book Samarbejdsstrukturen (Structure of Collaboration), which was
published in 1982, the year after his death. The objects of the institute are
defined as follows: ‘With all its activities and all the resources at its disposal
the institute must serve the following non-profit-making objectives: to pre-
serve Martinus’ works unchanged as he left them, inform the public about
these works, and make these works available for those who may be interested
through publishing, translation and teaching in appropriate ways’.
The institute fulfils this aim this by administrating publishing activities and
by arranging lectures every other Saturday, and study groups three days a week
during the winter. One finds active study groups all around Denmark, and
there are regular talks in large towns. As mentioned before, the main activities
during summer take place at the Martinus Centre in Klint. As for the dissemi-
nation of Martinus’ books and thoughts abroad, an extensive translation effort
has been made. A bibliography from 2014 shows that parts of The Third
Testament or other works by Martinus have been translated into twenty differ-
ent languages (see <http://www.martinus.dk/da/litteraturen/andre-sprog/>).
The interest in translations has obviously been greater in certain countries rather
than others. For example almost the entire collected works and the monthly mag-
azine Kosmos have been translated into Swedish. Kosmos is also published in
English, German, Dutch, and Esperanto in editions that have been abridged to
260 Bertelsen
varying extents. On the whole, many employees at the institute have made a great
effort to disseminate knowledge of Martinus and his cosmology outside Denmark.
Martinus Activities outside the Martinus Institute
Looking for Martinus-related activities in Denmark outside the auspices of the

Martinus Institute, one can find many courses, lectures, and other educational
initiatives. These activities can roughly be divided into two groups. The first
group takes Martinus’ teachings as the point of departure, analysing, commu-
nicating, and interpreting events, scientific theories, and facts in the light of
Martinus Cosmology. Lectures will typically give a spiritual interpretation of
some current scientific finding. Quite a few well-known names from the
Martinus Institute involve themselves in these efforts as speakers. One can also
in this group include a few publishing companies which print books with
Martinus’ ideas as a main subject, including Nordisk Impuls (Nordic Impulse)
and Kosmologisk Information (Cosmological Information). Martinus Cosmol
ogy is in the present period also amply represented on Internet: there are
websites such as < http://www.Martinusguiden.dk> and <http://www.Martinus
forum.dk>, and Martinus-related Facebook and twitter accounts.
The second group is characterised by a less loyal relation to Martinus Cos
mology. People involved in these activities can be said to use Martinus’ work
as an inspiration, often combined with other spiritual sources of inspiration.
Thus, a research project the results of which were published in 2007 shows that
a number of Danish alternative spiritual therapists and healers see Martinus
as one source of inspiration that can be combined with the teachings of such
variously Theosophy-related personalities as Rudolph Steiner, Alice Bailey,
and Krishnamurti (Ahlin 2007: 144). According to Martinus, all such initiatives
belong to The Cause, but do not fall under the Institute’s area of responsibility.
The Institute depends on this creative “undergrowth”, since its own activities
are limited to communicating Martinus’ authorised teachings only.
Martinus Outside Denmark
Looking at other Nordic countries, Martinus Cosmology gained its first foot-
hold in Iceland, at first due to the translation into Icelandic of a small booklet
in 1935. This relation became more personal later on, as Martinus visited the
island six times from 1952 to 1970, at the outset by invitation from the president
of the Icelandic Theosophical society. The last record of lectures on the island
Martinus 261
by people from the Martinus Institute is from 1980 (see <http://www.martinus.

dk/da/bo/begivenheder.php>). In Norway and Finland the level of activity is
modest, while Sweden is the country outside Denmark where one finds the
largest interest in Martinus.
The first book in Swedish was published in 1950, and various contacts were
established during the 1950s supported by letters in Swedish translation (super-
seded in 1967 by the Swedish edition of the Kosmos magazine) and study
groups in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Jönköping. Between 1962 and 1969,
Martinus travelled to Sweden in order to give lectures, with the inauguration in
Stockholm of Stiftelsen Martinus Institut i Sverige (The Foundation Martinus
Institute in Sweden) in 1966 as one of the highlights. Other Swedish Martinus
sympathisers financed a holiday house in Klint (known as Svenskerhuset, i.e.,
the Swedes’ house) with the aim of catering specifically to Swedish guests.
Over the years, Martinus’ works have been successively translated into
Swedish. Today interest in Martinus Cosmology is concentrated around the
centre in Stockholm, which functions as an extension of the Danish Institute
but with its own bylaws. Swedish lecturers regularly give guest lectures at the
Martinus Centre in Klint, testifying to the important role that Sweden has
come to play in the dissemination of Martinus’ ideas.
As in Denmark, one finds in Sweden an “undergrowth” of activities with a
more or less explicit point of departure in Martinus Cosmology, to varying
extents combined with other sources of inspiration. A couple of examples are
the foundation Stiftelsen KOSMOS – Varhem, which is specifically dedicated to
spreading the teachings of Martinus, and the Solsökehem kursgård, which
offers lectures on Martinus Cosmology as well as numerous other spiritual and
self-help topics.
The impact of Martinus Cosmology in the rest of the world is lower than
that in Scandinavia. There are a number of active study groups in Germany, but
generally speaking, and despite a considerable effort with translations and lec-
tures abroad, there is no evidence of any significant breakthrough for the
movement worldwide.
The Influence of Martinus in Denmark Today
Over the years, Martinus worked diligently as a speaker and author, and when
he died in 1981 at the age of 90, he left a large written work as well as the auton-
omous Martinus Institute. In a 2007 exhibition, The Third Testament, opening
in his birth town Sindal, he was nonetheless characterised as ‘the best kept
262 Bertelsen
public secret in Denmark’ (quoted from the Danish newspaper Kristeligt

Dagblad, 9 May 2007). One reason for this relative anonymity is the fact that
Martinus wished that his person or work should not be made into an object of
any association, new religion, sect, or global organisation. He considered his
work as a kind of school, college or institution for a science of life. Martinus
Cosmology, it is said, embraces all existence and according to that logic all
human beings are already in advance members of this totality – which is one
reason why one cannot sign in for a membership in a Martinus movement. In
the light of these facts, it can be hard to estimate how large the interest in
Martinus was and is, at the time of writing more than thirty years after his
death. There is a report in Martinus’ erindringer (Martinus’ Memoirs) of a talk
given in 1951–1952 in a hall seating 550, but whether the audience filled the hall
is not mentioned. A somewhat more accurate indicator is Martinus’ 70th birth-
day celebration, which was attended by 400 people. At his 90th birthday, 1,200
guests from home and abroad gathered, and when Martinus died the next year,
1,400 people attended the funeral service (his coffin was placed in a mauso-
leum in Frederiksberg Ældre Kirkegård [Old Cemetery], Copenhagen).
In Denmark, at least, there are signs of a growing interest. The Danish news-
paper Kristeligt Dagblad assessed in 2005 that the interest in movements with
a spiritual and philosophical outlook is growing and estimated that about
2,000 people at that time participated in study groups based on Martinus
Cosmology. The same newspaper estimated that the number ten years earlier
had been about 1,200 (Løwendahl & Læsøe 2005).
References
Ahlin, Lars, Krop, sind – eller ånd? Copenhagen: Forlaget Univers, 2007.
Bertelsen, Helle, “Martinus’ åndsvidenskab”, in: Rene D. Pedersen (ed.), I Lysets Tjeneste,
Copenhagen: Forlaget Univers, 2005, 74–95.
Buch, Tage, “Klintebilleder” (Film).
Hermansen, Bo Dahl, “Fra Teosofi til Martinus åndsvidenskab” in: Mette Buchardt & Pia
R. Böwadt (eds.), Den gamle nyreligiøsitet, Copenhagen: Forlaget Anis, 2003,
117–138.
Løwendahl, Dorthe Hein & Kathrine Læsøe, “Nyreligiøse bevægelser mister medlem-
mer”, Kristeligt Dagblad, 14 June 2005.
Martinus, Martinus Kosmologi. En introduktion, Copenhagen: Martinus Institut, 1990.
——— . “On the birth of my mission”, in: The Road to initiation, Valby: Borgen, 1990.
——— . The Third Testament, Martinus Instituttet, 1999.
——— . Samarbejdsstrukturen, Valby: Borgens Forlag, 2003.
Martinus 263
Steens, Jørgen, “Den ‘hemmelige’ Martinus”, Kristeligt Dagblad, 9 May 2007.

Zinglersen, Sam, Martinus erindringer, Frederiksberg: Zinglersens Forlag, 1987.
——— . Martinus som vi husker ham, Frederiksberg: Zinglersens Forlag, 1990.
264 Bak-jensen
Chapter 33 Mesmerism in Denmark
Mesmerism in Denmark
Søren Bak-Jensen
The Introduction of Animal Magnetism in Denmark
Animal magnetism was a controversial subject among Danish medical doctors,

scientists, and philosophers in the decades around 1800. Furthermore, it was a
procedure that went from being rejected by scientific and medical authorities
in the late eighteenth century to being the subject of positive interest and scru-
tiny in the early nineteenth century. The history of animal magnetism in
Denmark centres on this period of time, and the changing fortunes of animal
magnetism relate closely to more general changes in the view of reason, imagi-
nation, and the nature of human consciousness in this period.
Danish medical doctors were acquainted with the theories of animal mag-
netism proposed by Franz Anton Mesmer from early on, and the fact that his
rise and fall was recorded in the Danish medical press testifies to the attention
Mesmer gained in late eighteenth-century Europe. Danish medical journals
informed readers of Mesmer’s magnetic cures in Vienna in the mid-1770s, his
move to Paris and rapid success there, and one of Mesmer’s books was even
reviewed for a Danish medical audience. Mesmer’s claim that he had discov-
ered a new and revolutionary healing method was generally dismissed in these
reports, and there was an overbearing attitude regarding what was seen as a
harmless scam affecting only hysterical high-society women. Accounts stressed
the sexual undertones of the magnetic treatments and the violent convulsions
and faintings they produced, but also foresaw that animal magnetism would
not be able to reach the same level of popularity in level-headed Denmark as it
had in more impulsive France. There is evidence to suggest that some medical
doctors found it worthwhile to conduct investigations into Mesmer’s claim
that a hitherto unknown but very powerful universal magnetic fluid existed in
the universe, something that testifies to the neutrality of the early reception of
mesmerism in Denmark.
The attitude towards animal magnetism changed markedly in the late 1780s,
however, with the first reports of the magnetic somnambules produced by
Armand Marie Jacques Chastenet, Marquis de Puységur (1751–1825), and his
primarily German followers. Accounts of clairvoyant patients looking inside
their own bodies and communicating their visions to the magnetiser made

Mesmerism in Denmark 265
several Danish medical doctors take a strong stand against magnetic treat-
ments. Johan Clemens Tode (1736–1806), professor of medicine at the University
of Copenhagen and a central figure behind several medical journals, saw a real
threat in the treatments. To him, the effects of the magnetic manipulations
had nothing to do with a mysterious, imponderable fluid, just as he placed no
confidence in the visions of the somnambules. Rather, he regarded the power
of the treatment to emanate from the strong sexual emotions provoked in the
(usually female) patient by the hands of the (usually male) magnetiser. In this
situation, Tode argued, the imagination of the patient would run wild and pro-
duce the dramatic effects that could admittedly be observed in the magnetised
patient. And since Tode regarded over-excitement of the imagination, and
consequent loss of reason, as a health risk, he warned against any attempts at
introducing animal magnetic treatments in Denmark.
Tode was supported by several prominent physicians during the 1790s and
early 1800s. It is nevertheless clear that even though medical authorities were
thus publicly opposed to animal magnetism, the method was the subject of
positive interest in other parts of society. According to the historian Louis Bobé,
animal magnetic treatment was administered to the insane King Christian VII
in an attempt to improve his condition. Bobé also states that a young Swedish
girl was magnetised and brought to a clairvoyant state in front of several mem-
bers of the Danish royal family in 1790. The interest in animal magnetism and
somnambulism in the highest circles of Danish society is confirmed by the
visit, in 1793, by Johan Casper Lavater (1741–1801) to Denmark upon the invi-
tation by Prince Charles of Hesse-Cassel (1744–1836) and the Danish Prime
Minister A.P. Bernstorff (1735–1797). Lavater, a German priest and central fig-
ure in the promotion of animal magnetism in Germany from the late 1780s
onwards, attributed divine qualities to the somnambule. This view fit well with
the attitudes of the small circle of Illuminates around Prince Charles of Hesse-
Cassel and A.P. Bernstorff.
In the early years of the nineteenth century, a positive attitude towards animal
magnetic treatments became visible among the leading figures of the Romantic
movement in Denmark. In 1803, the young Hans Christian Ørsted (1777–1851)
visited several of the most prominent advocates of animal magnetism in
Germany and reported enthusiastically on the potential of the treatments. The
Swedish obstetrician and magnetiser Pehr Gustaf Cederschjöld (1782–1848),
who practised in Copenhagen in 1811, claimed that Ørsted was then himself
266 Bak-jensen
performing animal magnetic treatments. The poet Adam Oehlenschläger

(1779–1850) regarded animal magnetism as the most important scientific
development at the time. Frederik Christian Sibbern (1785–1872), professor of
philosophy at the University of Copenhagen, argued in 1816 that the somnam-
bule state was closely related to genius, in that both conditions depended upon
the awakening of otherwise dormant abilities in human beings. Around that
time, the first medical doctors also started to speak openly in favour of a
renewed interest in animal magnetism. Copenhagen surgeon Christian
Wilhelm Wendt (1778–1838) praised those who had the courage to enter into an
open-minded exploration of this method for the benefit of mankind. And in
1818, German-born Joachim Dietrich Brandis (1762–1845), who practised as a
respected and high-ranking doctor in Copenhagen from 1810 onwards, pub-
lished a comprehensive account of the positive effects of animal magnetism
for medical science. According to Brandis, the somnambulist patient offered
privileged insights into the workings of the human mind and body.
A change had thus taken place in the way that prominent medical doctors
talked about animal magnetism. It is difficult to judge the impact that the idea
of animal magnetism had on the population more generally, just as we know
nothing of the extent to which animal magnetic treatments were taken up by
lay healers. Yet it is clear that the practical application of animal magnetism
reached a level that brought it to the attention of the highest authorities. In
1816, King Frederik VI decided that animal magnetic treatments could only be
carried out under the supervision of a medical doctor, and that a written report
relaying the unfolding of every treatment should be sent to the National Board
of Health. The decision was a compromise between a perceived need to regu-
late a potentially dangerous or corruptive healing method, and pressure from
medical doctors who wanted to examine the method in practice. The legis
lation testifies to a widespread interest in animal magnetism among Danish
medical doctors. But it also means that a unique source material concerning
the practical application of animal magnetism was created in the archives of
the National Board of Health. Over the next fifteen years, more than fifty
reports were filed.
The reports make it clear that medical doctors were generally not optimistic
concerning the therapeutic potential of animal magnetism. When it was used
on patients, it was as a last resort. Judging from the reports, it seems that the
more mystical aspects of the magnetisations were the primary attraction, and
the doctors involved generally showed great interest in the clairvoyant abilities
of the somnambule. In several cases, the animal magnetic sessions took on the
appearance of an exploration of the somnambule state rather than an attempt
to cure the patient. Medical doctors tested the epistemological abilities of
Mesmerism in Denmark 267
somnambules by asking them to predict the unfolding of their disease, to look

inside their own bodies, or to read books placed on their stomachs. The
National Board of Health had no objections to these procedures and seems to
have regarded animal magnetic treatments that produced somnambule
patients as the most interesting ones. Little attention was paid to treatments
that actually appeared to benefit the patient, but did not produce somnam-
bules. The reports also show that animal magnetism was tried on male as well
as female patients. The magnetisations would be performed either by the med-
ical doctor or by a non-medical person, but in all cases the magnetiser was
male.
Part of the explanation for the shift from a highly negative to a positive atti-
tude towards animal magnetism among Danish medical doctors during the
decades around 1800 probably lies in the change in attitudes towards reason
and imagination that accompanied the waning of the Enlightenment and the
beginning of Romanticism. The latter involved a strong interest in the irratio-
nal and emotional aspects of the human mind, very different from the negative
view of the imagination expressed by, e.g., Tode. The Romantics regarded rea-
son alone to be incapable of understanding the world in its totality. In order to
reach such insight, reason had to be coupled with its antithesis, the imagina-
tion, in an equal relationship. The animal magnetic session with its (at least
discursively) healthy, rational, male magnetiser mysteriously connected with a
diseased, irrational, female patient, seemed to offer a way of achieving such an
epistemologically powerful union. Rather than a new healing method, the ani-
mal magnetism of the early nineteenth century was thus a way to explore
aspects of the world believed to be inaccessible to the reason of the Enlight
enment. In that perspective, it is also logical that medical doctors lost interest
in animal magnetism when Romanticism took on a less mystical appearance
around 1830.
Consequently, Denmark did not experience the mid-nineteenth century
interest in animal magnetism and the early explorations of hypnotism that
may be observed in the United Kingdom or North America. The exception is
the magnetiser Carl Hansen (1833–1897), who put on magnetic and hypnotic
performances in Copenhagen and other Danish towns in the early 1860s. In the
1930s, an organisation by the name of Dansk Magnetopathisk Forening (Danish
Magnetopathic Association), led by Valdemar Borkfeldt, published pamphlets
on the power of the magnetic fluid first described by Mesmer, but the associa-
tion did not attract many followers. In Denmark, animal magnetism never
again reached the level of interest and discussion seen in the decades around
1800.
268 Bak-jensen
References
Bak-Jensen, Søren, Den dyriske magnetisme og de danske læger 1775–1830, unpublished

M.A. thesis, University of Copenhagen, 1999.
——— . “De danske lægers modtagelse af mesmerismen – historien om en lægeviden-
skabelig holdningsændring ved overgangen fra Oplysningstid til Romantik”, Bibliotek
for Læger, 192(4), (2000), 356–75.
——— . “Mesmerismen mellem følelse og fornuft. Brud og kontinuitet i en lægeviden-
skabelig debat 1780–1830”, 1066 Tidsskrift for Historie 31(2), (2001), 3–11.
Bjørn, Claus, (ed.), Reise Bemerkungen Sr. Excellenz des Herrn Geheime Staats Ministers
und Kammerpræsidenten Grafen v. Reventlow auf einer Reise durch die Herzogthümer
im Jahre 1796, Kerteminde: Landbohistorisk Selskab, 1994.
Bobé, Louis (ed.), Johan Caspar Lavaters Rejse til Danmark i Sommeren 1793, Copenhagen:
Lehmanns og Stages Forlag, 1898.
Brandis, Joachim Dietrich, Ueber psychische Heilmittel und Magnetismus, Copenhagen:
Gyldendalische Buchhandlung, 1818.
Cederschjöld, Pehr Gustaf, Journal för Animal Magnetism, Stockholm, 1815–21.
Dansk Magnetopatisk Forenings Kampskrift, Aarhus, 1939.
Friedrichsen, Fr., Hufelands mærkelige Resultater af den dyriske Magnetisme. Anden med
de væsentligste Grundtræk af Dr. Stieglitz’s Bog om Magnetismen forøgede Udgave,
Copenhagen: n.p., 1817.
Hansen, Uffe, Psykoanalysens fortrængte fortid. Hypnotisøren Carl Hansen og Sigmund
Freud, Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1991.
Helveg, Hans Zacharias, Nogle Betragtninger over den dyriske Magnetismes Ubrugelighed
som Lægemiddel, og sammes skadelige Følger, Odense: n.p., 1821.
Holm, R.A., “Om den saakaldte ‘dyriske Magnetisme’”, Tidsskrift for populære Frem
stillinger af Naturvidenskaben 3(1), (1864), 1–89.
Johannisson, Karin, Magnetisörernas tid. Den animala magnetismen i Sverige, Uppsala:
Kluge, Carl Alexander Ferdinand, Fremstilling af den dyriske magnetisme som lægemid-
del, Copenhagen: C.T. Steens Forlag, 1817.
Koch, Peter Didrik, Nogle træk af den dyriske magnetismes (mesmerismens) historie,
Copenhagen: Prior, 1889.
Manicus, Claus, “Magnetismens senere skæbne”, Bibliothek for læger 10 (1844),
294–314.
Mansa, F.W., “Den dyriske Magnetisme”, Dansk Ugeskrift 4 (1834), 98–99, 205–224.
Preisz, Daniel, (ed.), Breve fra og til Adam Oehlenschläger. November 1809-oktober 1829,
Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1953–1980.
Reiter, Paul J., “Hypnosis in Denmark”, in: F.L. Marcuse (ed.), Hypnosis Throughout the
World, Springfield: Chas. C. Thomas Publ., 1964, 53–76.Mesmerism in Norway
Mesmerism in Norway 269
Chapter 34
Mesmerism in Norway
Tonje Maria Mehren
Mesmerist Cures
Mesmerism never gained any major popularity in Norway. There was some
interest in Mesmer’s theories among medical doctors, some clergymen and
others at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and in the last two decades
of the century there was renewed interest in animal magnetism and hypnosis
among the medical profession and in the general public. Norwegians also
became acquainted with more popular forms of mesmerism thanks to visits by
mesmerists, especially from Denmark, in the second half of the nineteenth
century.
In his brief tract Magnetiske kure i Kristiania 1817–1821 (Magnetic Cures in
Kristiania 1817–1821, published in 1886), Axel Theodor Johannessen (1849–
1926), a physician and subsequently professor, writes that Kristiania went
through a period of “magnetic Sturm und Drang” in the years 1817–1821.
According to Johannessen, Dr. Jens Grønbech Døderlein (1787–1867) was the
first person in Norway to mention using animal magnetism. After having read
Carl A.F. Kluge’s book Versuch einer Darstellung des animalischen Magnetismus
als Heilmittel (1811), Døderlein experimented with mesmerism. In a report writ-
ten in 1818, he mentions several treatments, one of which was said to have been
particularly successful. The patient was a young woman in her early twenties
who suffered from hysteria. While she was undergoing Døderlein’s treatment,
she could predict the times that changes would occur in her own condition,
she could clairvoyantly see what the doctor had placed on her chest, and she
was able to diagnose her own condition and determine what remedies would
be efficient (in casu, garlic). Døderlein states that the woman recovered com-
pletely. In a report composed two years later, in 1821, Døderlein describes yet
another successful treatment of a woman who had been suffering for years
from headaches. In a somnambulistic state, she was able to determine that
her pains had originally been caused by a blow to the head, and was able to
prescribe medication that cured her.
Another person who used magnetism at this time was Frederik Holst
(1791–1871), a medical officer in Kristiania and subsequently professor of
pharmacology. Holst had visited Karl Christian Wolfart’s mesmerist clinic in

270 Mehren
Berlin while traveling abroad in 1819–1821, and he described his impressions

in an article published in the magazine Budstikken (The Messenger). Here,
Holst described a typical mesmerist séance. Wolfart used Mesmer’s invention,
the baquet – a container filled with glass, sand, and iron – and had patients
attached to it by ropes, rubbing metal bars that protruded from its midst. The
large room where treatments were administered was darkly lit by means of
a lamp covered in green cloth, which produced a dramatic effect in the dark
evening. Holst relates that Wolfart’s treatments were not purely magnetic, and
that he also used medication. Upon his return home, Holst tried out a magnetic
cure on a woman who had suffered from cramps, and who was cured after hav-
ing received daily treatments for three months. Holst specifically notes that
the patient gave no signs of having clairvoyant abilities.
Thereafter, mesmerism went into a period of decline, according to Axel
Johannessen because the other professors of medicine at the University of
Kristiania did not use the method or mention it in their lectures. Johannesen
also says that one of the most frequently consulted and most highly regarded
doctors in Kristiania, Martin Rasmus With (1788–1848), ridiculed the mesmer-
ist movement.
There are, however, other sources that record an interest in “vital magne-
tism” (a commonly used synonym for the expression animal magnetism)
among medical students and others in the first decades of the nineteenth cen-
tury. While he was a medical student, Christian Peter Bianco Boeck (1798–1877),
who subsequently became professor of physiology, submitted a prize essay in
medicine under the aegis of the Norwegian Student Society, with the title: “Can
the theory of vital magnetism, or a theory based on the assumption of the
proposition that there is a dynamic link between the individual organs of an
organic body, between such a body and earthly, inorganic nature, between
such a body and everything else in the mass that makes up the world, bring
useful results for the practical exercise of medical science, or ought one here
stick only to the experiential knowledge of the most immediate physical,
chemical, and organic influences of the organs?”
Boeck wrote an extensive study of “vital magnetism”, that was published as
a supplement to the weekly magazine Hermoder (the name of the messenger
of the gods in Norse mythology) in 1823. His presentation took its starting point
in Mesmer, but he was especially influenced by mesmerism within a German
Romantic tradition, and he dwelt on the higher abilities that could appear dur-
ing mesmeric sleep and in a somnambulist state, such as clairvoyance,
foresight, remote vision, and the gift of philosophical and poetical speech.
Boeck, who (together with the geologist B.M. Keilhau) had discovered the
Jotunheimen mountains as a hiking region for the bourgeoisie of Kristiania,
found in mesmerism a confirmation of a Romantic view of nature.
A member of the clergy who took an interest in vital magnetism was the
Danish-Norwegian pastor and author Frederik Schmidt (1771–1840), who pub-
lished a Norwegian translation of a small selection of texts from the works by
the physician Jean Paul Richter, Mai-Krandsen: Et utvalg af Jean Paul Friderik
Richters Værker (The May Garland: A Selection from Jean Paul Friderik Richter’s
Works, 1820). A number of passages discussed “organic magnetism”. Schmidt,
who commented in letters and diaries on the times in which he lived, and who
was able to compare the situation in Norway with that in Denmark, thought
that Norwegians were not particularly receptive to mesmerism.
Another theologian who was interested in magnetism was the well-known
pastor and educator Niels Hertzberg (1759–1841), who was also a physicist,
astronomer, meteorologist, and physician. He thought that he had found in
vital magnetism a definitive proof of the eternal life of the soul, independently
of the Bible. Claus Pavels (1769–1822), bishop and author, borrowed two
German books about magnetism from Hertzberg during a visitation that he
carried out in the summer of 1818. Pavels writes in his diary that the books –
one by J.D. Brandis and the other by C.A.F. Kluge – had strengthened him in his
belief that there were many hidden powers in nature, and he believed that
animal magnetism was one of the great discoveries of that age. Nevertheless,
unlike his colleague Hertzberg, he did not rejoice at the new discovery – not
even at ‘the remarkable words and actions of the clairvoyants’. The mystical
implications of somnambulism and mesmerism were incompatible with
Pavels’ Christian faith. For him, the central point of magnetism was that it
could explain all of Jesus’ miraculous healings in a natural manner. He also
hoped that neither he himself nor his family would ever need to get involved
more closely with magnetism as an instrument of healing. In the summer of
1821, Pavels learned that mesmerism was fashionable in Kristiania’s learned
circles. Christopher Hansteen, professor of astronomy and mathematics, told
of Døderlein’s success with magnetism; he related that Michael Scheldrup,
professor of medicine, had been converted by this, and that even the philoso-
pher and politician Niels Treschow had been convinced.
Another adherent of vital magnetism was the well-known lawyer and author
Conrad Nicolai Swach (1793–1860), who was considered in the 1820s to be a
great poet in Norway, but whose prestige diminished after new literary ideals
came to prevail. We can also mention that Henrik Wergeland (1808–1845), the
author and educator of the people, whom some regard as Norway’s most
important lyric poet of all time, made a thorough study of the theories of mag-
netism when he began his medical studies in Kristiania in 1834. Wergeland had
been trained as a theologian, but after he failed to obtain a position as pastor,
272 Mehren
he turned to medicine; he broke off his studies when he was appointed to a

post as librarian at the University Library.
In 1851, Frans Christian Faye (1806–1890), professor of medicine, mentioned
the topic in a lecture held at the medical society of Kristiania. Faye had visited
Scotland earlier that year, and he told his audience of two professors at the
University of Edinburgh, Bennett and Simpson, who lectured on and experi-
mented with animal magnetism. In his lecture, Faye dismissed the possibility
of clairvoyance. In 1860, he held another lecture on animal magnetism, this
time at the meeting in Copenhagen of the Scandinavian natural scientists’
congress, entitled “Nogle Bemærkninger om Hiernens sensitive og imaginative
Evne i Relation til den saakaldte dyriske Magnetisme, Ecstase, Klarsyn, Hypno
tisme” (Some Remarks Concerning the Sensitive and Imaginative Ability of the
Brain in Relation to So-Called Animal Magnetism, Ecstasy, Clairvoyance, and
Hypnotism). On this occasion, he revealed how he himself had operated on a
patient in a magnetic sleep, and that he had no doubt that such a state existed.
He suggested that this state could lead to the patient demonstrating extraordi-
nary abilities, such as poetic inspiration or the ability to speak foreign languages
fluently (xenoglossia). Faye insisted that these were examples of natural abili-
ties that were heightened under magnetic sleep, and again dismissed the
possibility that this state could result in clairvoyance or other paranormal
abilities.
The famous Danish mesmerist and hypnotist Carl Hansen (1833–1897) went
on a tour to Norway and Sweden after the Danish police had prohibited him in
November 1864 from hypnotising people in public. Hansen visited Kristiania in
March 1868 and appeared in the Folketheater under the title “Underholdning i
den dyriske Magnetisme” (Entertainment in Animal Magnetism). This was
part of a larger show; the programme that evening included vaudeville and
poetry reading. At this time, the interest in mesmerism was very limited both
in Scandinavia and in the rest of Europe, and Hansen closed his business for a
lengthy period of time after his tour. Not until the 1880s and 1890s does one
again see a renewed interest in animal magnetism and hypnosis in Norway.
Among the medical profession, hypnosis in particular was a topic of discussion
at this time; one of the debated issues was whether this was a pathological
condition. Mesmerism in its more spiritualist varieties was mainly of interest
outside medical circles.
“Vis-Knut” – A Magnetic Phenomenon on a Grand Scale
The best known Norwegian healing medium was the lay preacher Knut Ras
mussen Nordgarden (1792–1876) from Gausdal in the Gudbrand Valley, also
known as “Vis-Knut” (Wise Knut). He was celebrated for his ability to make
diagnoses and to cure sicknesses by the laying-on of hands, and to find water
veins and lost objects and animals. The author Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832–
1910) wrote a brief biography, Vis-Knut (Wise-Knut, 1878), of the man and his
abilities, which was published in many languages and made the man known
even outside Norway. Bjørnson himself, who made his home on the Aulestad
farm, very near to Vis-Knut’s home, never met the “miracle doctor”, but he
wrote about him: ‘There was a poetic explosive force in his mind that trans-
formed ever little hour without pain into a paradise’. In a letter to the Danish
author Georg Brandes in 1878, he called Vis-Knut ‘a magnetic phenomenon on
a grand scale’.
Bjørnson discussed the paranormal phenomena that could arise under
hypnosis and magnetism in his novel Det flager i byen og paa havnen (Flags
are Flying over Town and Port, 1884). In one passage, a medical doctor from
America holds a lecture for the women of the city on ‘certain nervous phe-
nomena’, telling them that hysterical women and women with weak nerves in a
hypnotic, somnambulistic or magnetic state could experience telepathic con-
tact with others over long distances, as well as clairvoyance and precognition.
In an article published in 1896, Bjørnson supported mesmerism and
Reichenbach’s theory of the Odic force. Bjørnson was an enthusiastic sup-
porter of Darwin, and had been involved in a lengthy debate in Nyt Tidsskrift
(New Magazine) with Dr. Gerhard H. Armauer Hansen regarding the possibil-
ity of inheriting acquired characteristics, a theory defended by Bjørnson. In his
last article, “Mod Armauer Hansen” (Against Armauer Hansen), this time in
the magazine Kringsjaa (Panorama), Bjørnson mentioned the Odic force as an
argument for his view that acquired characteristics could be inherited.
Bjørnson referred to both Reichenbach and Kluge, but first and foremost he
quoted and referred to the German philosopher Karl du Prel. Du Prel belonged
to a German Romantic tradition in which animal magnetism was linked to
Romantic Naturphilosophie and in which the somnambulistic state was
thought to uncover a hidden self with supernatural abilities. Bjørnson cited
Karl du Prel as a scientific authority who could support the view that the Odic
force transferred emotions and thoughts from mother to child via the blood.
Armauer Hansen, however, rejected Bjørnson’s arguments. Hansen had writ-
ten a couple of articles on hypnosis in the journal Naturen (Nature) in 1887,
274 Mehren
where he summarised French research in this field, and rejected the possibility
that higher, “supernatural” abilities could be produced by means of hypnosis.
Armauer Hansen withdrew from the debate with Bjørnson, stating that he did
not want to discuss with an “occultist” who believed in hidden powers.
Stage Mesmerists and Miracle Doctors
There were many stage mesmerists and miracle doctors who fuelled a renewed
interest in mesmerism among a wider Norwegian public, and who were the
object of a public debate in the last half of the 1880s. One of these was the
Danish healing medium Carl Sixtus (b. 1860), who visited Kristiania in February
1886 and held a “séance in animal magnetism and somnambulism” in the Hals
Brothers’ concert hall. Sixtus had discovered his magnetic abilities in America
as a young man, where he had played a leading part in a romantic comedy and
by chance had magnetised his female opponent. Sixtus made use of the public
for his stage show in Kristiania, and this led several Norwegian doctors to write
warnings against animal magnetism in the newspapers. One of them was Ernst
Ferdinand Lochmann (1820–1891), professor of medicine, who held that mag-
netism as an entertainment ought to be prohibited. He pointed out that since
science had recognised hypnotism as an ‘expression of natural powers, or an
influencing of the nerves of an unknown, puzzling, and almost demonic
nature’, one ought to entrust magnetic experiments exclusively to scientific
research. He argued that experiments by stage mesmerists, most of them
involving women, could leave lasting disturbances in the nervous system.
Sixtus’ shows were stopped, and the Danish healing medium himself wrote a
defence of his activities. Christopher Blom Leegaard (1851–1921), likewise a
professor of medicine and head of the department for nervous illnesses at the
Rikshospital, wrote several newspaper articles about animal magnetism and
hypnotism, in which he supported a prohibition of such shows. He was an
adherent of the neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and his pupils at the women’s
asylum La Salpêtrière in Paris, who regarded hypnosis as a pathological phe-
nomenon that could be elicited only in hysterical individuals with weak nerves.
In the following year, 1887, the Swedish preacher and miracle doctor Fredrik
August Boltzius (1836–1910) generated a new debate about animal magnetism
in the Norwegian public arena. Boltzius was a farmer who made a career as a
lay preacher and healer in the 1870s, and became celebrated throughout
Scandinavia for his miraculous healings through the laying-on of hands and
anointing with oil. People came from far and near to his home in Grava in
Värmland to be healed; many of these were Norwegians. Norwegian pastors
took a particular interest in the Swedish healer, and the religious significance
of his “miraculous healings”. This led to articles and debates in the Norwegian
press. At the request of Michael Johan Færden, pastor and editor of the Luthersk
Ugeskrift (Lutheran Weekly), E.F. Lochmann wrote an article in this magazine
in 1887, in which he interpreted Boltzius’ healings from a medical perspective.
Whereas doctors like Gerhard Armauer Hansen and Christopher Leegaard
regarded hypnosis as a physiological-pathological phenomenon, Lochmann
revealed himself here to be a representative of a Romantic medicine that pre-
supposed a close link between the soul and the body. He held that Boltzius’
healings were of two different kinds. One of these could be explained by the
influence of the patient’s own imagination and nervous system on the bodily
organs; he attributed the other kind of healings to a magnetic ability in Boltzius.
Lochmann held that some individuals possessed an ability of this kind; for
want of a better term, one could call it a “mental power” or “animal magne-
tism”. Through the laying-on of hands and performing magnetic passes, they
could influence other persons and bring about changes in their nervous sys-
tems, thereby assuaging and healing painful illnesses. According to the doctor,
it was completely unknown what such an ability consisted of, except that ‘it
seems to be half of a mental and half of a bodily kind’. In the spirit of Mesmer,
Lochmann linked the power to an infinite and eternal energy that permeated
all that existed.
When the Polish-Norwegian photographer and spiritualist Ludwik Szacinski
(1844–1894) conducted hypnotic experiments in the presence of a group of
doctors at the Rikshospital on 23 December 1887, Lochmann once again took
to the barricades. In a couple of newspaper articles published in January 1888,
he warned against “the dangers of hypnotism”. He wrote that those who let
themselves be hypnotised were not completely normal, and that hypnotic
experiments meant that the nervous system became even more “abnormal”
– and this could have very grave consequences, in the form of nervous and
mental illnesses. He pointed out that public presentations of this kind were
prohibited in Denmark, and he urged the chief of police to issue a similar
prohibition in Norway. A further argument against animal magnetism was
that it was closely related to spiritualism, which Lochmann also regarded as
a disturbance of the mental life. In the case of spiritualism, he referred to the
prohibition in the Bible.
One of the Danish stage performers who visited the Norwegian capital was
Faustinus Edelberg Pedersen (1868–1846), hypnotist, thought-reader, and anti-
spiritualist, known in Denmark by the name of “Faustinus”. His great inspiration
was Denmark’s most famous mesmerist, Carl Hansen, and he was also inter-
ested in medicine and psychology. Faustinus had collaborated with the Danish
psychology professor Alfred Lehmann in connection with the publication of
276 Mehren
the latter’s book Overtro og Trolddom (Superstition and Magic, 1893–96). In

Kristiania he held public séances in thought-reading and hypnosis in March
1900. These consisted of lectures accompanied by hypnotic experiments in
which he used his wife as a guinea pig. Faustinus was a darling of the Norwegian
public, and he continued to visit Kristiania regularly until the 1920s.
The doctors’ call for a prohibition was not in vain. The penal law of 1902
forbade others than doctors and psychologists from making use of hypnotism
(§364). When Faustinus returned to Kristiania in the spring of 1908 and held a
hypnotic séance for the public, he was given a special permission to carry out
his experiments. This was because Faustinus was popular even among doctors,
who held that his hypnotic experiments belonged within scientific parame-
ters. Faustinus conducted experiments on ladies in the public, who obeyed his
commands to behave as if they were very drunk, to talk in an Indian language,
or to speak in tongues. Several doctors were present during the show, and after
some time they put an end to the part involving hypnosis.
Mesmerism and Spiritualism
The establishment of spiritualist milieus in Kristiania in the second half of the

nineteenth century contributed to a renewed interest in animal magnetism
(see the chapter on Spiritualism in Norway). The spiritualist Hendrik Storjo
hann opened a private library for spiritualist literature in Kristiania in 1884,
where he also offered books about Theosophy and animal magnetism. The key
words in the subtitle of the spiritualist journal Morgendæmringen (Dawn)
included “animal magnetism (hypnotism)”. The editor of the journal, Bernt
C.S. Torstenson, was a supporter of Mesmer’s methods and felt that the use of
“life magnetism” was the medical method of the future. As an anti-vivisection-
ist, it was also important for him to stress the fact that magnetism was based
on natural methods and did not require painful experiments on animals. The
journal carried lengthy articles on the history of animal magnetism, kept its
readers up to date on the latest developments in countries such as France and
Germany, and reported on international congresses on magnetism.
Torstenson took part in the discussion of Szacinski’s demonstrations in a
couple of newspaper articles in January 1888, in which he defended animal
magnetism and revealed that he himself had applied magnetism and “brought
about relief”. He held that the magnetic power could not be “purely mental”. It
must come from the heart: ‘The magnetic fluid, if it is to be healing, must be
animated and nourished by that which flows out of a pure heart’. Torstenson
translated a book by the German spiritualist Hans Arnold, Skolemedisin og
underkure (School Medicine and Miraculous Cures, 1893), with the subtitle: “A
Critical Study of the Prejudices Against the Healing Power of Hypnotism,
Magnetism, and ‘Miraculous Cures’”. In this book, Arnold’s primary addressee
was the medical profession. He maintained the layman’s right to practise hyp-
notism, magnetism, and “sympathetic cures”.
A Danish healing medium, J.P. Jensen, arrived in Kristiania in late 1889 in
order to practise mesmeric healing. Morgendæmringen advertised his cures,
and mentioned that he had cured paralysis, nervous ailments, and rheuma-
tism. Jensen published his book Naturlægemethoden, eller magnetismen som
helbredelsesmiddel (The Natural Healing Method, or Magnetism as a Cure,
1890), in Kristiania. In this book, he presented an overview of animal magne-
tism, the diseases that the method purportedly could heal, together with
reports of successful cures that he had carried out, some of them in Norway.
Jensen was inspired by the Danish mesmerist Sophus von Huth, who in 1889
had published the book Menneskets livskraft som helbredelsesmiddel, støttet
paa Karl von Reichenbachs undersøgelse af odkraften (Man’s Life Force as
Healing Agent, on the basis of Karl von Reichenbach’s Investigation of the Odic
Force), and learned how to practise animal magnetism from the mesmerist
Carl Hansen. J.P. Jensen stayed in Kristiania for a period, and in May 1890 the
journal carried further reports of successful treatments of rheumatism and
anemia in the Norwegian capital. After this, he continued at regular intervals
in the course of more than fifteen years, and from various addresses, to offer
the citizens of Kristiania his services as a “magnetopath”. In the first years, his
advertisements in the newspapers claimed that he could cure all kinds of ill-
nesses, but gradually he narrowed this down, and finally offered “special
treatment of sciatica” (1905).
Morgendæmringen also opened its columns to a Norwegian representative
of the natural healing method, the photographer and theosophist Ole Olvik
(1858–1924). After staying at Sebastian Kneipp’s clinic in Bavaria in 1896, Olvik
began to practise in Haugesund in accordance with the natural healing method.
He promoted a natural diet and Kneipp’s water cures, and fought against vac-
cination and vivisection. Olvik also employed magnetisation to relieve pain.
This part of his activity as a healer, however, left no great mark on his books
and articles. Olvik wrote several articles in Morgendæmringen, and the periodi-
cal advertised his book Naturens Mediciner (Nature’s Medicines, 1905). Olvik
founded his own periodical, Naturlægen. Maanedskrift for et naturligt levevis og
for fysikalsk och diætetisk terapi (naturlægemetoden) (The Natural Doctor,
1908–1939, with the subtitle “Monthly Periodical for a Natural Way of Life and
for Physical and Dietary Therapy [the Natural Healing Method]”), which was
later extended to include the words imot rusdrik og dyrplageri, i.e., “against
278 Mehren
intoxicating drinks and the ill-treatment of animals”. He was its editor and
most prominent author until his death in 1924.
Mesmerist Technologies
At the turn of the twentieth century, and at least until 1913, there was a “mag-
netic-hygienic institute” in Kristiania. The institute sold “sun-ether radiation
apparatuses” which were claimed to cure all kinds of illnesses, from a nervous
disposition and insomnia to rheumatic pains. The radiation apparatuses were
the invention of the German chemical engineer Oskar Korschelt (1853–1940).
He was inspired by Reichenbach’s theory of the Odic force, and wished to com-
bine this theory with contemporary physics. Korschelt suggested that the sun
was the source of a primal power which in turn was the basis of all forces that
were effective on Earth, and that this power was transported through the ether
in the form of small particles. Sun-ether radiation apparatuses, according to
Korschelt, constituted the first example of a direct use of the living force
emanating from the sun-ether. Like Reichenbach, Korschelt claimed that
particularly sensitive individuals were able to see this radiation.
Korschelt himself demonstrated and sold his products at fairs, and was
awarded the gold medal at the hygiene exposition in Halle in 1891. The
magnetic-hygienic institute in Kristiania sold a variety of models, from rack-
mounted apparatuses to stools. Customers could also purchase flower pots
that were supposed to enhance plant growth by means of the same principles.
The institute advertised its range of products in Morgendæmringen. It also
published a booklet called Sol-æther-straaleapparater (Sun-Ether Radiation
Apparatuses, 1904) with the subtitle “Apparatuses That Radiate Magnetic
Healing Force”, with information based on Korschelt’s own description of his
remedies and of their operative principles. Korschelt explained that the effect
of these apparatuses was identical to that of living magnetism, and that they
provided a physical explanation of the mysterious power.
At the turn of the twentieth century there was another company in Kristiania,
the Bureau Sanitas, which sold Korschelt’s inventions. Bureau Sanitas was
owned by the Swede Andreas Fridman (1856–1921), who had studied to be
a dentist in America, but who moved to Norway in the 1890s and opened a
clinic there. The Bureau Sanitas sold a range of apparatuses supposedly oper-
ating with the healing properties of electricity and magnetism, from electrical
brushes that could stop hair loss to electric and magnetic belts against a wide
variety of chronic and nervous ailments. In the brochure Electricitet og mag-
netisme som helbredelsesmiddel (Electricity and Magnetism as Healing Agents,
1903) he advertised his products, and described how the effects of electricity
and magnetism could stimulate and redress the balance and strength of the
body. Fridman described magnetism as a physical force related to electric-
ity. However, Fridman had also studied theology, and was of the opinion that
God’s creative and healing power permeated the ether, and that this was the
ultimate cause of health.
One of the remedies that Fridman offered for sale was the “Magnetopath”, a
belt that according to the brochure had a direct influence on the nerves and
could redress the “magnetic harmony” of the body. Similar effects were to be
had from his magnetic bracelets, necklaces, leg bands, and chest plates.
Fridman’s greatest commercial success, however, was the “Electropath”, also
known as the “Stanley belt”. The belt sent varying amounts of electricity
through the body, and was said to cure most illnesses. By the time Fridman
published the third edition of his brochure, he had abandoned the magnetic
principle entirely, and the title was now simply Electricitet som tapt helbreds
gjenopretter (Electricity, the Restorer of Lost Health, 1909).
Fridmann’s “Electropath” had a competitor around the turn of the century
in “Freding’s Induction Belts”. These belts were obviously inspired by Michael
Faraday’s discovery of electromagnetic induction in 1831. They were intended
to bring new strength to the nerves and to the body, including the sexual
organs, through the supply of a steady current. Surprisingly enough, behind
the name S.E. Freding was a woman, Sophie Elisabeth Freding (b. 1862), origi-
nally a woodcarver from Karlstad, who was married to the Swede Israel
Ljungberg, the owner of a machine factory in Kristiania. Her first belt came
onto the market in 1897, and she patented the belts and launched them in con-
tinually improved versions. “Freding’s Bureau” widely advertised the belts, and
“vital magnetism”, in the newspapers until 1915. In the period around the First
World War, “Freding’s Bureau” switched to selling electric motors.
Korschelt, Fridman, and Freding can be seen as historical precursors of the
ideas of the Austrian medical doctor and psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (1897–
1957), who lived in Norway from 1934 to 1939. Reich developed “orgone therapy”,
a method that built on the assumption that the atmosphere contained orgone,
a form of universal energy that could be used therapeutically in the tradition
of Mesmer. Reich constructed the orgone box, in which patients were made to
sit in order to restore the lost energy balance of the body. Thanks to Reich’s
work in Norway, a vigorous Reichian psychoanalytic movement arose there. In
particular, the Reichian therapists Nic Waal (1905–1960) and Ola Raknes (1887–
1975) became well-known figures both in Norway and abroad.
280 Mehren
Healing Mediums in the Interwar Years
After the First World War, there was a peak season for all kinds of alternative
medicine in Norway, including mesmerism. One active mesmerist in this
period was the Swedish craftsman Einar Eriksson (b. 1894), who became a
Norwegian citizen and opened his own institute in Oslo (earlier called Kris
tiania). Eriksson practised the laying-on of hands, magnetic passes, and
massages. He also offered magnetised cloths and garments, as well as magne-
tised tablets that were to be dissolved in water for a massage – all these things
were for use at home by patients who did not have the opportunity to come to
Oslo. He employed several masseurs at his institute; like Eriksson himself, they
were supposed to possess a certain ability to heal. He held joint sessions for
poorer patients, where he treated several patients simultaneously.
Against the background of nearly twenty years’ activity as a healer, Eriksson
wrote the book Helbredende hender (Healing Hands, 1931), which appeared in
a new and expanded edition as Hendenes utstråling helbreder I–II (The
Radiation of the Hands Heals, 1934). Some years later, a small additional text
appeared: Hendenes utstråling helbreder III (1937/38). In these books, he wrote
about his system of treatment and presented various examples of cures, signed
by the patients. Eriksson mainly treated illnesses of the blood, the nerves, and
the skin. His specialty was eczema, but he also presented examples of patients
who had been healed of paralysis, cancer, and blindness. The books were richly
illustrated with photographs that showed the patients’ condition before the
treatment and after its conclusion. Vitamins were a new discovery that began
to reach a wider public during the interwar years. In the first edition of his
book, Eriksson drew parallels between healing magnetism and vitamins. He
believed that vitamins came from the sun, and that one could receive vitamins
through the air, through eating vitamin-rich food, and through being in the
proximity of vitamin-rich persons. Sicknesses came about through a lack of
vitamins, and the cure was the result of a “healing magnetic vitamin power”. In
the two last books, he played down the role of vitamins, and maintained that
magnetism was a matter of radiation and rays, which he called antropoflux –
something that could be demonstrated scientifically. Eriksson did not want to
be associated with the natural healing method; he saw his own activity as a
continuation of Boltzius’ healings and of the healings in the Bible.
Another healing medium in this period was the farmer Steinar Steinarsson,
né Ormerud (1880–1964), from the Ormerud farm in Hallingdal; he was also
well known as a hunter of bears. He discovered his healing abilities in the mid-
1920s during the illness of his son. He gave up farming and began an itinerant
life as a healing medium. Gradually, he began his own practice in Oslo, where
he employed not only the classic magnetic passes, but also electric heat-lamps
against eczema. Steinarsson called himself a “natural doctor”, and like Eriksson,
he explained his own activity in religious terms, as a result of the power of God.
Another practitioner of mesmerism in the years around the First World War
and in subsequent years was the schoolmaster and phrenologist Hans Andreas
Tandberg (b. 1880). After breaking off his medical studies and American
courses in psychology, Tandberg practised from 1913 onwards in Kristiania,
Bergen, and several other Norwegian towns as a phrenologist, “nerve trainer”,
and “magnetopath”. Tandberg was Norway’s first and most prominent phre-
nologist, and his short illustrated popular book Moderne frenologi (Modern
Phrenology, 1914) went through two editions. Here, he stated that phrenology
meant “knowledge of the soul”, and that it was an experiential science built on
knowledge of the structure and the workings of the brain. A trained phrenolo-
gist could decipher the personality by measuring and feeling the contours of
the skull, and Tandberg’s practice offered an “evaluation of the character and
gifts” as well as guidance with regard to the choice of one’s position in life and
one’s education.
Tandberg also worked as a specialist in nervousness and nervous illnesses,
and he gave courses and lectures on this subject. He published a pamphlet
entitled Nervøsitet og nervetræning (Nervousness and Nerve Training, 1916), in
which he described various remedies against nervousness. In addition to a
healthy diet and natural instruments of healing such as warm baths, fresh air,
and music, these remedies also consisted of a light, soothing massage inspired
by Mesmer. Tandberg held that some people had an excess of animal magne-
tism, or “personal magnetism”, which they transferred to their patients. He
offered two forms of massage: soothing massages, magnetisation and sugges-
tion against headaches, nervousness, sleeplessness, nervous and rheumatic
illnesses etc., and also a “hardening cure with massage” against colds, sniffles,
and hoarseness. Tandberg travelled throughout the whole country, holding lec-
tures on topics such as “Personal magnetism and thought transfer”.
Healing mediums and those who offered all kinds of alternative treatments
were subject to a critical searchlight in the Norwegian public arena in the
1930s. The so-called Quackery Act of 1936 restricted treating of illnesses exclu-
sively to doctors and medical personnel. One of those who were active in the
fight against the “quacks’” activities was Dr. Arne Høygaard (1906–1981), who
held lectures and wrote articles attacking healing mediums such as Eriksson
and Steinarsson.
282 Mehren
Hypnosis
It seems that hypnosis, a practise which had its origin in the mesmerist milieu,
was much less commonly practised in Norway than in many other countries.
In 1907, Norsk metapsykisk selskab (The Norwegian Metapsychical Society), a
Norwegian sister organisation of the British Society for Psychical Research, was
founded in Kristiania. Its chairman was Dr. Anton Enger (1866–1922), who had
studied hypnosis in Berlin and Stockholm, inter alia under the Swedish hypno-
therapist Otto G. Wetterstrand. Enger wished to use hypnosis therapeutically
in order to treat alcoholism, but he was also a spiritualist and saw hypnotic
trance from a spiritualist perspective. Finally, Norway’s first professor of psy-
chology, Harald K. Schjelderup (1895–1974), was interested in and did research
on hypnosis and paranormal phenomena. His interest in these fields resulted
in the book Det skjulte menneske (Hidden Man, 1961), which became widely
known among a general readership in Scandinavia. Schjelderup was the chair-
man of the Norwegian parapsychological association from 1965 to 1971.
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Mesmerism in Sweden 285
Chapter 35 Mesmerism in Sweden
Mesmerism in Sweden
Olav Hammer
Mesmerism was introduced to Sweden in the 1780s, only a few years after Franz
Anton Mesmer (1735–1815) in the 1770s publicised the results of his first forays
into animal magnetism. Mesmerism became an important cultural factor as
successive waves of interest swept the country from the late eighteenth cen-
tury until the middle of the nineteenth century. Animal magnetism was
practised by doctors, embraced by societies of people with esoteric interests,
combined with Swedenborgian and masonic ideas, used for entertainment
purposes, became a familiar reference in fictional literature, and in various
other ways entered Swedish society in quite diverse guises. In forms such as
hypnotism, and the investigation by parapsychologists of some of the many
unusual phenomena reported from Mesmerist séances, one could even say
that mesmerism has survived into the present day.
Much of the historical trajectory from Mesmer’s own time up to the mid-nine-
teenth century has been traced in a magisterial Swedish-language monograph
(Johannisson 1974). The author of that work subsequently pursued other
interests, and no younger scholars seem to have continued investigating the
dissemination and practice of mesmerism in eighteenth- and nineteenth-
century Sweden. For the history of “classical” mesmerism, the present chapter
thus builds on the one towering survey of the field. For the more recent pursuit
and investigation of mesmerist phenomena in Sweden under names such as
hypnotism and parapsychology, other literature is available, much of which,
however, is either partisan or debunking. At the time of writing, a thorough,
scholarly survey based on archival sources as well as printed materials still
remains to be written.
The First Contacts with Mesmerism
In 1781 Mesmer published a summary of his findings entitled Précis historique

des faits relatifs au magnetisme animal. This text was widely distributed, some
copies reached Sweden, and articles and a review were published in the
Swedish media already in the following year (Johannisson 1974: 31). Two mem-
bers of Kirurgiska societeten (Surgical Society), botanist Adam Afzelius and

286 Hammer
his brother Pehr, professor of medicine, decided to investigate the literature on

this new therapeutic procedure, but remained undecided about the value of
the method. A more concerted effort to introduce the practice of animal mag-
netism was inaugurated with the arrival in 1785 of a French magnetic healer by
the name of Marais (Johannisson 1974: 33), who performed several cures before
an audience. Once again, the learned Swedes in the audience remained mildly
sceptical.
Mesmerism definitively entered Swedish society through the efforts of a
military officer, Carl Göran Silfverhjelm (1759–1808), who witnessed mesmerist
séances during a prolonged voyage to France in 1785–1786 (Johannisson 1974:
34–49). After his return to Stockholm in 1786, Silfverhjelm enthusiastically pro-
moted animal magnetism as a therapeutic method, and in November of that
year inaugurated the first mesmerist organisation in Sweden, Harmoniska
societeten (Harmonic Society). In France, mesmerists were divided in their
interests, some focusing on the medical aspects, other fascinated by the som-
nambulist phenomena that appeared when the most suggestible patients were
treated. Harmoniska societeten followed Mesmer’s lead closely, aiming at cur-
ing people with otherwise intractable conditions.
Mesmerism Meets Swedenborgianism
A decisive change in the Swedish reception of animal magnetism occurred in

1786–1787 (Johannisson 1974: 50–71). Interest in the purportedly paranormal
phenomena produced in sensitive patients gradually increased, as individ-
ual mesmerists operating outside Harmoniska societeten took up the new
methods. The strange abilities demonstrated by these patients were often
explained in Swedenborgian terms. Swedenborg’s theories concerning con-
tacts with the spirit world, it was felt, were confirmed in the magnetic séances.
A Swedenborgian society, Exegetiska och Philantropiska sällskapet (Exegetical
and Philanthropic Society), founded in 1786 and led by Carl Bernhard Wadström
(1746–1799) and Carl Fredrik Nordenskjöld (1756–1828), became one of two
main conduits for this syncretistic teaching after mesmerist practices had
been introduced in 1787. Even the medical linchpin of Mesmer’s own theory,
i.e., that illness is caused by an obstruction in the flow of animal magnetism,
was replaced by a Swedenborgian understanding of illness as a spiritual disor-
der. According to this understanding, animal magnetism influenced the spirit
world, and the spirit world was the immediate cause of disease and health.
The other conduit for spiritualised mesmerism was Swedish Freemasonry.
Members of the highest degrees experimented with a variety of magical and
occult rituals, and mesmerism was incorporated into this eclectic set of prac-
tices, as a way to open up a channel of communication to the spirit world.
Whereas the Masons kept their rituals secret, Exegetiska och Philantropiska
sällskapet went to considerable lengths to publicise its new views, abroad as
well as in Sweden. The cultural climate of the late eighteenth century was still
dominated by Enlightenment values, and the result was a public relations
disaster for the society. A commonly voiced sentiment was that the mesmerist
method needed to be subjected to rigorous experimental studies, and that
combining a controversial method with a speculative theory of spirits was the
wrong way to proceed. The most devastating response came from a Swedish
representative of the Enlightenment. In October 1787, one of the country’s
most famous authors, Johan Henric Kellgren (1751–1795), published a satirical
poem lampooning Swedenborgians, mesmerists, and other purportedly irra-
tional fringe groups, entitled Man äger ej snille för det man är galen – roughly,
Being Crazy Doesn’t Make You a Genius (Johannisson 1974: 92- 98). Even worse:
Kellgren and others also alerted the authorities to the fact that the religious
views expressed by the Swedenborgians were illegal, since Lutheran orthodoxy
was at the time enforced by law. The writings of Exegetiska och Philantropiska
sällskapet broke the censorship laws and were therefore banned. Swedish mag-
netic healers could do little to avert the massive public ridicule and the harsh
legal measures generated by such attacks, and the polemics went on until they
fizzled out around 1790, simply because there by then were barely any active
mesmerists left to satirise.
Mesmerism in the Romantic Period
Two Swedish mesmerists provided a tenuous link from the disastrous events of
the late 1780s to the more receptive Romantic period (Johannisson 1974: 133–
153). Firstly, in the years around 1800, Adolf Gustaf Nordenskjöld (1745–1821)
experimented with magnetic sleep, cured a range of illnesses, but also discov-
ered that sensitive patients became clairvoyant under the influence of
mesmeric passes. Nordenskjöld also developed theories to explain the two
types of phenomena, which he saw as quite distinct. Magnetic healing he
attributed to natural causes, whereas the clairvoyant phenomena were seen in
swedenborgian terms. The second of these links was provided by Mårten
Sturzenbecher (1760–1836). Sturzenbecher, who was known for his heterodox
theological views and for a distinct variety of Naturphilosophie based on the
theory of correspondences, experimented with animal magnetism during two
prolonged periods of his life, i.e., in the heydays of classical Mesmerism around
288 Hammer
1790, and after the near-demise in Sweden of the practice, beginning in 1814.
The results were published in his magnum opus, entitled Några delar av
naturkunnigheten, I–VI (Some Parts of the Knowledge of Nature, 1815–1829).
His explanation of the effect of animal magnetism attempted to harmonise the
idea that healing had a divine origin, with the notion that the force involved in
mesmerism could be integrated into a system of natural philosophy.
Sturzenbecher’s work in part foreshadows and in part coincides with the
introduction of German Romantic Naturphilosophie in Sweden in the 1810s.
His theory of animal magnetism met with harsh criticism for being patently
irrational, but the new ideas that entered the country would soon provide a
more fertile ground for other writers interested in mesmerism. In particular,
several medical doctors began experimenting with the method in the 1810s and
early 1820s. The most active supporter of animal magnetism was Pehr Gustaf
Cederschjöld (1782–1848), who performed several series of mesmerist experi-
ments in the years 1814 to 1821, and who published his findings in seven issues
of his publication Journal för animal magnetism (Johannisson 1974: 163–204).
In his writings, animal magnetism comes across as an empirical reality that
can be demonstrated and used instrumentally for healing patients. As in so
much of the international mesmerist literature, Cederschjöld also notes cases
of clairvoyance and telepathy among his most susceptible patients. His theo-
ries as to the underlying nature of mesmerism shifted over the years. On the
one hand, Cederschjöld launched a polemical attack against Enlightenment
rationalism, and suggested that nature operated with hidden powers beyond
what mere reason could fathom. On the other, his own attitude to the phenom-
ena of animal magnetism was that of the critical experimental scientist, who
could attempt to link the phenomena he witnessed to various medical theories
current at the time. These even included the idea that suggestion was the cause
of the cures.
Cederschjöld saw his work as that of a pioneer successfully promoting a
new therapeutic method that could be of general use. In reality, few people fol-
lowed in his footsteps, and in the medical circles where Cederschjöld moved,
most were unimpressed by this aspect of his work. He tried to set up a com-
mittee to scientifically investigate animal magnetism, but these efforts came
to nothing, since the members who were appointed never convened. The coup
de grace for his forays into animal magnetism was a highly publicised case that
took place in 1821. A 26 year-old woman identified as E. showed all the exter-
nal signs of being in an advanced state of pregnancy, but no signs of a fetus
could be detected. Cederschjöld examined her, and as part of the diagnosis
magnetised her. E. fell into a deep state of somnambulism, and in this state
told Cederschjöld that she carried a dead fetus and recommended the root of
a particular tree as a remedy. Cederschjöld had previously come across cases

of magnetised patients who clairvoyantly prescribed treatments for their ill-
nesses. He therefore proceeded to procure the root, and continued with several
mesmerist sessions during which the symptoms of false pregnancy subsided
under great drama, with E. apparently expelling tissue and bone from a dead
fetus. The events were the talk of the day in Stockholm, and it appears that
E. both enjoyed the attention and benefitted financially from her role. When
it finally became abundantly apparent that E. had faked her somnambulism,
and that the aborted fetus tissue was in fact composed of gory fragments of a
dead bird, the newspapers mercilessly satirised Cederschjöld. Soon thereafter,
Cederschjöld ceased carrying out any further mesmerist experiments.
A handful of other mesmerists from Cederschjöld’s time are known, but
they left few written traces (Johannisson 1974: 205–220). Thus, a doctor Carl
Gustaf Schönbeck (1786–1866) appears to have conducted mesmerist séances
before large audiences in the southern university town of Lund, but the sources
that tell of these sessions are mainly brief mentions penned by visitors. When
Cederschjöld gave up the practice, the history of “classical” mesmerism in
Sweden effectively came to an end. The most widely publicised of the magne-
tisers operating after the 1820s treated the mesmeric method as a mere source
of entertainment, rather than as a therapeutic method or a spiritual phenom-
enon. Danish magnetiser Carl Hansen (presented in more detail in the chapter
on Mesmerism in Denmark in the present volume) visited Sweden on several
occasions during the second half of the nineteenth century (Gauld 1992: 302–
306). His performances were reported on by the national press, but provoked
little other comment from intellectual and medical circles than that the phe-
nomena Hansen could display on stage were merely the effect of the willpower
of the magnetiser dominating that of his subjects.
From Mesmerism to Hypnosis and Parapsychology
The completely naturalistic explanation of what went on in Carl Hansen’s

séances foreshadows the main successor up to the present day of Mesmer’s
creation: the interest in and instrumental use of hypnosis as a therapeutic
tool. Internationally, this decisive shift is usually attributed to the Scottish sur-
geon James Braid (1795–1860; see Gauld 1992: 279–288). It took several decades
before Braid’s work on hypnotism, as documented in his only book on the topic,
Neurypnology (1843), reached Sweden. Only in 1887 was the first work in Swedish
on the subject of hypnotism published: Fredrik Björnström’s Hypnotismen,
dess utveckling och nuvarande ståndpunkt (Hypnotism: Its Development and
290 Hammer
Present State). At around the same time, Otto G. Wetterstrand (1845–1907),

who had studied under the famous French psychologists Hippolyte Bernheim
and Ambroise-Auguste Liébault, began to include hypnotism in his medical
practice (Gauld 1992: 346–347, 473–474). Wetterstrand saw hypnotism as a cure
for a vast variety of illnesses, including paralysis, asthma, alcoholism, heart dis-
order, vomiting, and menstrual problems. He barely provided any details about
how his hypnotic cures were carried out, but an eyewitness account relates
how he, like Mesmer, employed passes over the body of his clients. Despite
these obvious similarities, hypnosis was freed from associations to such spec-
ulative topics as spirits, animal magnetism, and Romantic philosophy, and
became one component in the arsenal of methods available to Swedish thera-
pists as well as experimental psychologists.
Hypnotism at first constituted a fairly marginal therapy, but interest
increased in the post-World War II years. In 1965, a professional association
for hypnotists, Svenska Föreningen för Klinisk och Experimentell Hypnos
(Swedish Association for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis) was formed,
and was later renamed Svenska föreningen för klinisk hypnos (Swedish Asso
ciation for Clinical Hypnosis). Membership is limited to licenced members of
a medical or therapeutic profession, or students who have completed most
of their studies in a field leading to such a profession. As this instrumental
use and thorough professionalisation of the practice demonstrate, the links to
mesmerism are merely historical.
Closer to its historical predecessor is the interest evinced by parapsycholo-
gists in more exotic psychological phenomena that can occur under hypnosis.
In a Swedish context, the best-known pioneer in what we might call paranor-
mal hypnosis was John Björkhem (1910–1963). Björkhem practised as a medical
doctor, but the focus of his real interests can be seen in the two PhD degrees
that he had earned, one in theology, on a seventeenth century mystic, and one
in psychology, on hypnotically induced hallucinations. He investigated the
possibility of inducing paranormal abilities such as clairvoyance and psycho
metry by means of hypnosis, a controversial suggestion that he answered with
cautious affirmation in his book Det ockulta problemet (The Occult Problem,
1939). A sizeable portion of this book is devoted to the purported paranormal
abilities of a medium active at the time, Helga Braconnier, who much later
described her abilities in a book of her own, Mitt liv med det okända (My Life
with the Unknown, 1972).
A modern-day successor in such efforts is Etzel Cardeña (b. 1957), who
directs a research institute dedicated to investigating parapsychology and hyp-
notism, the Center for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology
at the Department of Psychology, Lund University. Cardeña is one of the
editors of an important recent volume (Cardeña, Lynn & Krippner 2013) on

“anomalous” experiences, a term that covers much of the ground that many
Mesmerists were interested in: healing experiences, synesthesia, past life
memories, and so forth. Cardeña’s and his colleagues’ approach, however, is
science-based (although controversially so, see Halle et al 2012 for a harsh cri-
tique of the research centre in Lund), whereas their distant historical forebears
were solidly anchored in the esoteric and Romantic world-views of their own
time.
References
Björkhem, John, Det ockulta problemet, Uddevalla: Zindermans, 1939.

Björnström, Fredrik, Hypnotismen, dess utveckling och nuvarande ståndpunkt, Stockholm:
H. Geber, 1887.
Braconnier, Helga, Mitt liv med det okända, Malmö: Allhem, 1972.
Cardeña, Etzel, Steven Jay Lynn, and Stanley Krippner, Varieties of Anomalous Experience:
Examining the Scientific Evidence, second ed., Washington, DC: American Psychologi
cal Association, 2013.
Cederschjöld, Pehr Gustaf, Journal för animal magnetism, Stockholm: Carl Delén,
1815–1821.
Gauld, Alan, A History of Hypnotism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Halle, Bertil et al. “Pseudovetenskap sprids okritiskt”, Svenska Dagbladet, 31 October
2012.
Johannisson, Karin, Magnetisörernas tid. Den animala magnetismen i Sverige, Uppsala:
Silfverhielm, Carl Göran, Inledning til kunskapen om den animale magnetismen, Stock
holm: Kungl. tryckeriet, 1787.
Sturtzenbecher, Mårten, Några delar av naturkunnigheten på ett alldeles nytt sätt betrak-
tade, 6 parts, Stockholm (various publishers), 1815–1829.
292 Rothstein
Chapter 36 New Age in Denmark
New Age in Denmark

Mikael Rothstein
Denmark is probably one of the most secular countries in the world, despite of
the fact that 77,8% of the population remain members of the protestant Danish
National Church (Folkekirken; literally The People’s Church). To a very large
extent, membership of the Church is a national, rather than a religious, marker,
and any assessment of the Danes’ religious lives needs to consider people’s
private spheres, and not rely on their formal religious affiliations. In fact, New
Age perspectives (however defined, e.g., in accordance with Hanegraaff’s semi-
nal 1996 monograph New Age Religion and Western Culture) are very often part
and parcel of the average Dane’s religiosity. Hence, being a member of the
Church by no means excludes interest in New Age activities, and certainly does
not prevent people from entertaining beliefs quite alien to Protestant doc-
trines. Most significant in this respect is perhaps the presence of belief in
reincarnation among 16% of the population (2009 census by the newspaper
Politiken), in a version of reincarnation that does not conform with any tradi-
tional Hindu or Buddhist conceptions, but is conceived of as a progression on
a kind of “spiritual path”.
Only a fraction of what is produced and consumed in terms of New Age
religion in Denmark is specific to this particular country. Most elements,
whether mythological, ritual, aesthetic or otherwise, could just as well be
found in other parts or Europe, the United States or the rest of the world.
Danish spokespersons for New Age are thus co-producers of a global, religious
phenomenon (Rothstein 2001). Nevertheless, the intention in this chapter is to
consider a few examples of how such a global New Age is expressed in a Danish
context.
In order to gain a foothold in Denmark, a global New Age has obviously
needed local modes of production and delivery. The large-scale dissemination
of the many New Age-related concepts, practices, products, and services in
Denmark is in particular due to four channels of distribution: New Age book-
shops; Body, Mind, Spirit fairs; individual high-profile New Age teachers with
the capacity to reach out to large audiences and the centres from which they
operate; and the widely available magazine Nyt Aspekt. This chapter will be
organised to reflect this four-fold localisation. Other themes closely related to
New Age as found in Denmark are dealt with elsewhere in this volume, and

New Age in Denmark 293
the reader is therefore also referred to chapters on contemporary astrology

in Denmark, Martinus cosmology, Theosophy and Theosophically-inspired
movements in Denmark, and Danish UFO movements. For more general infor-
mation on the history of research into new religions and New Religious
Movements in Denmark, much of which is relevant also to the New Age scene,
see Rothstein 2015.
Bookstores and the Dissemination of the New Age
It is impossible to determine with any precision when New Age beliefs entered
Danish society, and when they started to make an impact. The only feasible way
of addressing this question may be to consider the bookshops in Copenhagen
where literature related to esoteric, occult or otherwise “alternative” topics
was sold in the decades leading up to the 1970s. Strubes Boghandel (Strube’s
Bookstore) was established in 1951 by Poul Strube (1907–1991) in order to serve
an audience interested in all things “mystical”, from Swedenborgian philosophy
and animal magnetism, to early twentieth-century spiritualism, chiromancy,
ley lines, dowsing, parapsychology, telepathy, telekinesis, secret societies,
UFO s, and various versions of early neo-Hindu thought. Later, subjects such
as astro-archaeology, crypto-zoology, the Bermuda Triangle, the enigmas of
the pyramids, and Stonehenge mythology, among many other things, entered
the bookshelves. As new book shops emerged that specialised in New Age
themes, Strube’s bookstore entered the same market. The bookstore never
expanded significantly, but Poul Strube and his wife Jonna Strube (1939–2002)
also ran a small publishing house specialising in occult and esoteric litera-
ture in line with their previous work. Poul Strube was, for instance, during the
period 1954–1982 the publisher of Psykisk Forum (Psychic Forum), a forerun-
ner of later New Age magazines. Strube’s books, characteristically simple and
old-school in design, were available primarily from their own shop, but sec-
ond-hand copies were always to be found elsewhere. Some were translations
of internationally acclaimed authors (Gurdjieff, Schuré, Brunton, Blavatsky,
Leadbeater, Paramahansa Yogananda, Vivekananda, von Däniken, etc.), others
were written by Danish authors, who usually never made it beyond a small
Copenhagen-based readership. Strube’s also offered books and other materi-
als from the neighbouring Unitarian Church which, in its own way, served as a
common ground for people with religious interests that could not be accom-
modated in the National Church, or in the host of so-called free churches, i.e.,
formally established Christian congregations outside the Protestant main-
stream. Indeed, the Unitarian Church (in Denmark the least ecclesiastical, and
294 Rothstein
least unambiguously Christian Church) may be seen as a precursor to the later

New Age movement, not because similar religious beliefs were entertained, but
due to their common interest in drawing on (in principle, if not in fact) all reli-
gious traditions. Presently (2014) Strube’s has transformed into an average New
Age shop (with a presence also online), Bog og Mystik (Book and Mysticism).
Apart from Strube’s importance as retailer and publisher, the shop served as a
physical meeting place for people with similar interests, and thanks to flyers,
business cards, and posters on display, occult merchants, healers, clairvoyants,
and small religious groups outside the mainstream were able to reach their
audiences. While no comprehensive or precise assessment of Strube’s impor-
tance can be made, it remains a fact that the shop, for two decades, was one
of only two commercial venues in Denmark with such a profile. It is therefore
likely that Poul and Jonna Strube’s personal interest in the occult and esoteric
paved the way not only for their own lifelong careers, but also for the entry of
the New Age in Denmark which, at first, was an urban phenomenon restricted
to the capital, Copenhagen, where Strube’s was located.
A parallel development lies behind the other major bookstore, Det Ukendtes
Boghandel (Bookstore of the Unknown), where, during the 1970s, a number of
occultists, UFO enthusiasts, spiritualists, and others joined forces and, among
other things, founded the publishing house Sfinx. Subsequently, the shop
embraced broader New Age interests and in particular focused on healing and
health issues. Sfinx published some very popular Danish New Age titles, includ-
ing books by crystal healer Jette Holm which were widely read as Sfinx became
a leading force in the dissemination of New Age ideas during the 1990s. The
bookshop has since the late 1980s been run by a married couple, Per and Rita
Johansson (who after numerological advice changed their names to Robbin
Peer and Ritazol), who have formulated a policy statement that fits well with
their intention of making New Age ideas and practices mainstream: ‘1) To
teach people that they can live a happy life, if they want it themselves, 2) to
unite the alternative world, 3) to establish a spiritual shop in all major cities,
4) to make science and the spiritual world meet, and, apart from that, work to
ensure that all hospitals will get libraries with lots of spiritual books and CD’s
in order for sick people to get an opportunity to know alternative ways to
become well’. This kind of implicit New Age activism has not only stimulated
sales, but also encouraged the spread of New Age ideologies among a broader
segment of the population. At the time of writing, bookshops with physical
premises are increasingly under pressure from online book sellers, and in 2013
at Det Ukendtes Boghandel also closed its shop, and became an online business
at <http://www.detukendtes.dk/shop/profile.html>.
Bookshops, even online, however, are still of great importance, as are retail-
ers of New Age-based health products, but the influence of centres where New
Age professionals and clients meet, where courses are given and rituals con-
ducted, should not be underestimated. From a historical perspective, it seems
as if literature laid the foundation, and that the New Age subsequently is enter-
tained in centres by a devoted minority. Examples include Astrologihuset (The
House of Astrology), Kosmos Center, and the New Age Wisdom Center. Most of
these cater to special-interest groups; a comprehensive list of these is available
(in Danish) at <http://nytaspekt.dk/annoncer/modelisten-2>
Body, Mind, Spirit Fairs
Since the early 1990s, Body, Mind, Spirit fairs have been arranged every year in
several major Danish cities. Originally, these events were counter-cultural
manifestations designed to attract a minority of interested people, but gradu-
ally, as New Age concepts became more widespread, these fairs gradually
entered the mainstream. This entry into popular consciousness was presuma-
bly a major impetus for establishing a separate venue for people interested in
the more occult aspects of New Age thinking: Mystikkens Univers (The
Universe of Mysticism), which has been around yearly since the year 2000.
Whereas Body, Mind, Spirit fairs predominantly host healers, clairvoyants, rep-
resentatives of various health products, and a variety of therapists, the
Mystikkens Univers experience features ritualistic magicians, wizards, exor-
cists, diviners and oracles of all kinds, contactees who claim to receive messages
from extraterrestrials, apotropaic rituals and ritual remedies, and representa-
tives from dogmatic traditions such as ISKCON (the Hare Krishna movement)
and a few Christian sects; see <http://www.daninfo.dk/index.html>.
Together, these two types of venues are crucially important when it comes
to promoting New Age, which makes the Danish case quite typical: New Age
concepts and practices are largely the same that one finds in other countries,
they are exchanged commercially, mainly in urban areas, in venues resembling
those found elsewhere, and attract the same segments of the population as in
other parts of the West. A few contrasts with adjacent countries can neverthe-
less be noted. Crystal healing and the associated trade with minerals thought
to possess beneficial properties was during the 1990s and early years of the new
millennium a more visible component of the New Age scene than in other
Scandinavian countries. A few other innovations produced by Danish New
Ages spokespersons, e.g., specific methods of healing created locally, will also
be mentioned later in this chapter. On the other hand, because of the lack of
296 Rothstein
high-profile local spokespersons for angel beliefs, Denmark never experienced

anything comparable to the interest in angels that was prominent in Norway,
due to a member of the Norwegian Royal Family espousing such concepts.
More generally, few people with any major fame in Denmark have made public
statements in favour of New Age concepts such as healing, clairvoyance or
astrology. One of the few exceptions is businesswoman and former model
Henriette Zobel (b. 1961), who now works as a “spiritual coach”. The New Age
hence largely remains an interest confined to people’s private spheres.
Centres and Teachers: A Few Examples
Numerous New Age teachers have been active on the Danish scene. Some have
worked independently, whereas others have formed centres or (more or less)
loosely-knit organisations. As everywhere else, successful teachers have edu-
cated generations of new teachers, so that many practitioners are linked
through personal networks and share roughly the same ideas.
During the formative years of the New Age movement, many of these loose
networks emerged from milieus interested in alternative medicine, or Theo
sophical and spiritualist milieus, often thanks to the activities of energetic
religious entrepreneurs. One of these individuals was Frank Munkø (1941–
2004), originally a coppersmith, but from his late twenties a self-made healer
and clairvoyant who, based at Daniel Kirken (The Daniel Church) which had
previously accommodated a spiritualistic congregation, offered healing, psy-
chic reading, and contacts with the dead. Munkø practised “magnetic healing”
from 1972, but broadened his activities around 1980, occasionally in collabora-
tion with representatives of the Liberal Catholic Church and Theosophists in
Copenhagen. Today Munkø is cherished by many New Age enthusiasts as a
beloved pioneer. Daniel Kirken, which functioned as an intermediary between
early twentieth-century spiritualism and Theosophy, and the subsequent New
Age, ceased its activities in 2008 (Lund Jensen 2004). Other individuals with
similar backgrounds have had an even more direct impact, one of the more
important being Irishman Bob Moore (1928–2008), who settled in Denmark in
1974 and opened an international New Age centre near the town of Ringkøbing.
Among his many interests, he focused in particular on “energy work” and aura
reading. Moore has inspired many other practitioners, and he is a common
reference in Danish New Age professionals’ self-presentations.
Moore had a significant impact on former academic Jes Bertelsen (b. 1946),
who probably is the most important “spiritual teacher” and author currently in
operation. Bertelsen vehemently rejects the label “New Age”, although his
system includes Jungian psychology, Tibetan Buddhism, aura reading, alchemy,

colour symbolism, mandala meditation, chakras, cosmic voices, “inner Tantra”,
and many other disciplines and notions eclectically combined in the New Age
milieu. Bertelsen and his associates have offered courses since 1982, when his
commune and retreat, Vækstcentret (The Centre of Growth), was established
in the village of Nørre Snede in central Jutland. Still thriving, and continuously
evolving, the centre is probably, apart from the Martinus Institute, the most
long-lived place of its kind in Denmark (Hinge 1995).
Asger Lorentsen (1949–2012) was another energetic New Age activist.
Originally, Lorentsen was affiliated with Ananda Tara Shan’s (a.k.a. Jeanne
Morashti, 1946–2002) Theosophical off-shoot Shan the Rising Light (which was
formed in Denmark in 1987 on the basis of a fellowship dating back to 1982,
later transformed into Teosofisk Fellowship [Theosophical Fellowship]), but
he separated from Ananda and became a teacher and author in his own right.
In 1994 he founded the Golden Circle, which later established a centre in Crete.
Lorentsen’s approach was Theosophical, but by cutting loose from the
Theosophical establishment, he became instrumental in the introduction of
Theosophical concepts into the open cosmology of New Age thought. For
more information on Lorentsen’s Theosophical roots, see the chapter on Theo
sophically influenced movements in Denmark, in the present volume.
Former pop musician, Lars Muhl (b. 1956), also deserves a mention. Accord
ing to his autobiographical notes, he had his first experience of enlightenment
in 1968 at the age of twelve, and in 1993 he came forward as a teacher of a mes-
sage that contains obvious New Age references. On the one hand, Muhl’s
teachings involve topics such as psychological harmony, bodily health, and
“inner states” as opposed to materialism, but he is primarily a strong propo-
nent of occultist or “Mystery School”-based traditions centred on New Age
renderings of Biblical mythology. In several books he expounds the “real teach-
ings of Jesus” (whom he refers to by the Hebrew name, Yeshua), and one of his
organisations, Gilalai Institut for Energi og Bevidsthed (The Gilalai Institute
for Energy and Consciousness), according to Muhl, offers the same insight that
“Yeshua the Nazarene and Mary Magdalene” most likely had received from
“The Mystery tradition of Therapists in Alexandria, and by the Dead Sea”. Lars
Muhl is not only a prolific writer. He lectures frequently, and his appearances
are usually sold out many months before they take place. Muhl also arranges
“Holy Grail trips” to France for small groups of devoted participants.
Yet another example is teacher and author Steen Kofoed, who has been
active since the mid-1980s and has had a key role in teaching others to pro-
vide a variety of New Age services. His Healerskolen (The Healer School) was
established in 1989 as one of the first venues of its kind, and – according to
298 Rothstein
the School’s own statement – more than 1,100 students have passed through
the school. Currently, it is claimed, 45% of these former pupils work as pro-
fessional healers. Kofoed has created several healing modalities, including
Sindsro (Peace in Mind) which, among other things, is offered as an alternative
to psychiatric treatment; LYSiDIG (LIGHTinYOU) which is supposed to make
the individual experience his or her “inner sacredness”; and the Buddhi pro-
cedure which will cleanse the practitioner’s chakras. Working with “spiritual
beings in the spiritual realm”, Kofoed also offers to communicate with clients
at a physical distance, via a procedure known as Spirit Cards.
Psychologist Birgit Klein (b. 1945) is a further example. She works as an
astrologer, clairvoyant guide, and author, and has done so since the early 1980s
when, inspired by “spiritual experiences” while practicing Transcendental
Meditation, she was given “a conscious contact with the spiritual world”. Birgit
Klein’s significance lies in her eight books, all written in a very accessible lan-
guage, which have passed on her New Age perspective to a host of readers.
This brief mention of a few New Age proponents with an impact in
Denmark ends with Michael Barnett (b. ca. 1930) whose Wild Goose Company
became known in Denmark in 1994, when National Team footballer Lars
Elstrup renounced his sport in order to join Barnett’s “spiritual commune” as
the initiate Dorando. This movement was, and still is, one of relatively few,
and therefore atypical, groups with a New Age message but a sectarian struc-
ture. The remodelled successor to Barnett’s movement, Solens Hjerte (Heart
of the Sun), is (as the mother organisation used to be), established outside
the city of Odense, where Knud Kløvedal (a.k.a. Premda) and Hubi Heiming
(a.k.a. Shendo) are in charge. “Inner Light”, sacred dance, meditation, heal-
ing, pranayama, and “energy work” are among the disciplines offered to the
approximately sixty residents, including home-schooled children.
Communes of this kind will often identify particular sites in their vicinity
as special or sacred, but a number of creeks, groves, old trees, and marshlands
have also been identified by New Age practitioners more generally, as spots
where healing energy enters the planet, or where the effect of healing is ampli-
fied. One example is a small hill surrounded by tall trees in Frederiksberg Have,
a park in uptown Copenhagen, which in 1987 was ritually initiated as a receiver
of cosmic energy during the culminations of the “Cosmic Convergence” cele-
brations in August that year. The event was not noticed by many in the general
population, but the growing New Age community saw it as quite significant,
and even at the time of writing (2014) the site continues to be regularly vis-
ited by meditation groups and the like. In the early 1990s a local radio station,
Radio Lotus, would cover most of Copenhagen with daily New Age-inspired
messages produced by whoever had signed up for air time. The “Cosmic
Convergence” event had been announced through this station, and the ritual
in Frederiksberg Have was led by clairvoyant Jaquelin Tejblum. The same sta-
tion later distanced itself from Tejblum after she had begun working with an
Englishman who claimed to function as a channel for the disembodied spirit
of Adolf Hitler. The incident itself was one of very few cases where borders
were drawn and a consensus was reached: in the otherwise utterly open and
eclectic New Age milieu, where everybody is left to compose their own pack-
age of concepts and practices, channelling Hitler as an Archangel transgressed
a distinct boundary.
Nyt Aspekt and Steen Landsy
The perhaps most important channel of distribution of New Age in Denmark

is the magazine Nyt Aspekt (New Aspect), and the guide published in asso-
ciation with it. This magazine has, since the New Age interest boomed in
Denmark in the early 1980s, been the hub of most activities and the primary
scene for the sharing of information, debates, and so forth. Perhaps surpris-
ingly, Nyt Aspekt grew out of what was originally a UFO magazine published
by a small UFO-interested group, FUFOS (Frederiksberg UFO Studiekreds; The
Frederiksberg UFO Study Group), established in May 1968 by Steen Landsy and
his associates. Landsy later broadened his interests, and became instrumen-
tal in the dissemination of the New Age in Denmark, but until 1982–1983 his
activities were primarily centred on the notion of UFO s and extraterrestrial
contact. Landsy, however, had already begun working as a “spiritual teacher”
in 1976, thereby promoting New Age concepts to a growing number of people.
His current work is based at the Kosmos Center (Cosmos Centre), a “school for
spiritual understanding and healing” where he (and his wife, Ingelise Landsy)
offer Martinus-inspired clairvoyance, massage, healing and therapy for indi-
viduals and companies. The magazine Nyt Aspekt is published by Foreningen
Nyt Aspekt (The Association New Aspect). In 2007 there were approximately
7,000 members of the organisation (which is the same as the subscribers to
the publication), but as many as 75,000 sample copies of the magazine were
distributed. Presently five people are employed, while it took fifteen employ-
ees to run the magazine in 1996 during its heyday. Nyt Aspekt is published four
times a year, including a 28–48 page guide that covers all aspects of the New
Age scene. The readership reaches more than 18,000 per issue, and 52% con-
firm that they make use of one or more of the offers announced in the journal
(according to their website <http://nytaspekt.dk/abonnement2?mact=NytAs
pekt,cntnt01,abonnement,0&cntnt01returnid=242&cntnt01formular=abonne
300 Rothstein
ment>). The best source of information to what is going on in the New Age
milieu in Denmark remains this publication and its associated website.
References
Ahlin, Lars, “Nye spirituelle og religiøse grupper i Aarhus”, in: Lars Ahlin et al. (eds.),
Religion i Aaarhus 2013, ch. 6; unpaginated online publication at <http://samtidsre-
ligion.au.dk/religion-i-aarhus-2013/>.
Hanegraaff, Wouter, New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of
Secular Thought, Leiden, etc.: Brill, 1996.
Hinge, Helle, New Age på dansk. Jes Bertelsen-bevægelsen, København: Gyldendal, 1995.
Jensen, Ann Lund, Åndernes Vidne – Mennesket, Mediet Og Magnetisøren Frank Munkø,
N.p.: Svanur, 2004.
Petersen, René Dybdal, I lysets tjeneste. Nye religiøse og spirituelle grupper i Danmark,
Århus: Univers, 2005.
Rothstein, Mikael (ed.), New Age Religion and Globalization, RENNER Studies on New
Religions Vol. V, Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2012.
——— . “The Study of New Religions in Denmark: A Brief and Subjective Research
History 1985–2014”, in: James R. Lewis & Inga B. Tøllefsen (eds.), Handbook of Nordic
New Religions, Leiden: Brill, 2015, 15–35.
New Age in Finland 301
Chapter 37 New Age in Finland
New Age in Finland

Tom Sjöblom
The Development of New Age Spirituality in Finland
According to Kimmo Ketola, the early years of New Age spirituality in Finland
are connected with the establishment of two associations, Oraansuojelijat and
Rajatiedon yhteistyöryhmä, both founded in the early 1970s. Oraansuojelijat
(The Sprout Guardians) was founded in the early 1973 as an ideological associa-
tion for backing up a vegetarian restaurant enterprise. In addition to running
the restaurant, the association criticised modern Western society as being
estranged from nature and immersed in material hedonism. It promoted a
more balanced, creative, and richer life through simplicity, distribution of
power, and an appreciation of crafts and of the diversity of human skills. It was
also among the first associations to promote counter-cultural communities in
Finland (Ketola 2003: 57–58).
While the original goal was simply to advance the awareness of human
beings as a part of nature and to attempt to promote a more ecological world
view, due to the interests of some of its members, spirituality soon became an
important part of the activities of The Sprout Guardians (Olavinen 1989: 18–19,
30). In connection with this, the magazine Uuden Ajan Aura (The Plow of New
Age) was founded in 1976. The articles of this magazine dealt with philosophi-
cal themes, ecological issues, and cultural criticism but also with Eastern
religions, art, and music. The magazine was published until 1982 (Ketola 2003:
59).
The spiritual visions of some of the members led to a schism within the
movement, which resulted in many of the original members abandoning it
and founding new forums in order to fulfill their goals. Thus, some of the for-
mer Sprout Guardians joined the ecological Koijärvi Movement in 1979, which
introduced ecological activism into the Finnish political system and can be
seen as the executive force behind the political party Vihreät (The Finnish
Greens). The Finnish Greens first took part in parliamentary elections in 1983
and became a registered political party in 1988. The popularity of the party has
grown steadily since that time and in the elections of 2007 it peaked with fif-
teen seats in the Finnish parliament (dropping to ten seats in 2011). The Greens

302 Sjöblom
are especially popular among young urban individuals with an academic edu-
cation (Ketola 2003: 60. See also the home page of the Finnish Greens <http://
www.vihrealiitto.fi/>)./ What is worth mentioning here is that support for the
Greens is unusually high in Finland, making it the fourth largest political party
in the country.
The popularity of the Greens suggests that urbanised younger generations
of Finns are open to alternative life-styles and ecological awareness. However,
it is a political movement and not a spiritual one. Indeed, most of the more
spiritually inclined members of the Sprout Guardians went ahead and estab-
lished their own associations focusing on various alternative religious
traditions. Thus, the New Age Movement was channelled into totally new
forms of activities and cultural expressions (See Ketola 2003: 60).
The second influential association from the early 1970s is Rajatiedon
yhteistyöryhmä (The Network for Paranormal Knowledge). It was established
in order to function as a co-operative network for new paranormal associa-
tions in the country, but the emergence of such associations was so rapid that
the idea of organising a yearly festival, in which different associations could
present their activities, soon came up. The first of these festivals was held in
1983, in the tradition of the Mind, Body & Spirit festivals held in London since
1977 (Ketola 2003: 60; see also <http://www.rajatiedonyhteistyo.fi/> for infor-
mation on the Finnish network and <http://www.mindbodyspirit.co.uk/> on
the London Festival).
The yearly festival has proven to be a very popular form of counter-cultural
spirituality and the number of exhibitors and presenters participating in it has
grown during the last decade, from around sixty to approximately 200. The
number of visitors has been in the range of three to five thousand yearly, reach-
ing 6,500 visitors during the peak years in the middle of the 1990s (Ketola 2003:
60; <http://www.rajatiedonyhteistyo.fi/>). Since 1996 a second festival called
Minä Olen (I Am) has been held in Helsinki, and has attracted the same num-
ber of visitors. Today similar festivals are organised also in other localities in
Finland (Vuorila 1996: 20; Waris 1997: 17; <http://www.minaolen.com/frameset.
html>).
In addition to these two associations, an important forum for New Age spiri-
tuality in Finland is the esoteric monthly magazine Ultra published by the
independent publishing house Kustannus OY Rajatieto. Under the manage-
ment of its editor-in-chief, the ufologist Tapani Kuningas, this magazine has
been published since 1972, first under the name Ufoaika (UFO Era) and from
1975 under its present name. The articles cover a wide range of esoteric topics,
and also include sceptical contributions. Its circulation is 5,300 copies. The
publishing house also publishes esoteric literature. In addition to its
publishing activities, the magazine every summer organises Ultrapäivät (The

Ultra Symposium; <http://www.ultra-lehti.com/>) at the Kuortane Sports
Resort in western Finland. This symposium includes talks, presentations, and
exhibitions connected with esoteric and occult topics.
Bookstores and Healing Practices
To get an idea of the nature of New Age spirituality in Finland, one way to pro-
ceed is to examine what kinds of exhibitors participate in Finnish festivals of
alternative spirituality. The combined results of a survey conducted by Kimmo
Ketola of the exhibitors participating in the Mind, Body & Spirit Festival in
Helsinki in 2002 and the I Am festival of 2003 are as follows (Ketola 2003: 65):
Exhibitors Number %
Commercial 139 44
Alternative medicine, healing 83 26
Clairvoyants, astrologers, and mediums 32 10
Religious associations: yoga and meditation 35 11
Others 25 9
In all 314 100
This table clearly demonstrates that different commercial enterprises consti-

tute by far the largest group of exhibitors. Most important among these are
bookstores that specialise in esoteric and New Age literature. The first New Age
bookstores opened in Helsinki in the early 1980s. During the 1990s they spread
to other major towns in Finland. Era Nova in Helsinki is the largest of these.
The topics vary from healing to spiritual growth, and from meditation and yoga
to tarot and runes. Most of the titles on sale are in English. In addition to books,
music, therapeutic stones, incense, and other products generally associated
with the New Age milieu are also available (Ketola 2003: 61–62).
The dominance of commercial initiatives at such events is symptomatic of
the nature of the New Age movement in Finland, as elsewhere. While it is
a social movement, it is a social movement consisting of individuals. In con-
trast to traditional types of religious behaviour, participants do not necessarily
associate themselves with any one group or teacher. Instead, they act like con-
sumers, who construct their own spirituality by gathering and buying different
products and services made available to them. This applies also to the second
304 Sjöblom
largest group of exhibitors: practitioners of alternative medicine and healing.

The range and selection here is quite extensive and global. The exhibition cata-
logue from the 2006 Mind, Spirit & Body Festival, for example, gives a list which
includes traditional Finnish folk medicine, aromatherapy, traditional Chinese
medicine, homeopathy, bioenergy, reiki, shindo, and other methods (Koivunen,
Mero & Pirinen 2006).
A similar kind of relationship between service providers and customers
applies also to the third largest group of exhibitors, i.e., clairvoyants, astrolo-
gers, and mediums. In Finland, the best-established group among these is
probably the astrologers. There are between ten and twenty professional
astrologers in Finland. They tend to describe their activities as a form of life
management consulting. In addition to astrology, other popular practices in
this group are tarot reading and clairvoyant consultations. Numerology, palm-
istry, and feng shui are other examples (Ketola 2003: 65–66).
Only 11% of the exhibitors represent alternative spiritual communities.
Moreover, a majority of these do not see themselves as religious or spiritual
associations at all. Instead, they operate on the basis of providing meditation
services or complementary therapies to a general audience. Among such asso-
ciations one finds various yoga schools operating in Finland, as well as the
Ananda Marga and Amma Center movements. Moreover, the religious and
ideological associations present at these fairs include, among others, the
Theosophical Society and the Freemasons, which should strictly speaking not
be considered a part of New Age spirituality and are covered in other chapters
in the present volume. Thus, as pointed out by Ketola, the overall picture
emerging from the survey is that New Age in Finland is closely connected with
health, healing, and life management. Most typically, New Age is associated
with different types of service providers, such as alternative bookstores, profes-
sional astrologers, and meditation schools (See Ketola 2003: 66–68).
New Age as Modern Finnish Folk Religion
The trends present in Finnish New Age spirituality are largely imported from
other countries (Martikainen 2004: 260–284). The question one must then ask
is how widely these trends have spread into Finnish popular religion. This issue
was dealt with in a survey conducted by the Church Research Institute in 1999
(Kirkkomonitor 1999).
According to this survey, the number of people who strongly believe in the
above-mentioned elements connected with New Age spirituality is very low.
Usually, only one or two percent of the respondents identified themselves as
belonging to this category. However, if we include those who think that prac-
tices connected with New Age spirituality are likely to be valid, the number of
believers increases drastically. To cite just two examples, 44% of the respon-
dents thought that alternative medicine provides better cures for illnesses
than traditional Western medicine does, and 23% said that they are interested
in meditation.
Much in keeping with the self-presentation of the New Age milieu, nearly
half of the respondents stated that they were interested in spirituality, and that
they sought to incorporate new elements into their own world view. 37% stated
that spiritual growth was very important to them, to the extent that they were
willing to pay for spiritual services. As for alternative bookstores and other ser-
vice producers, 32% of the respondents were willing to buy spiritual literature,
while 17% would also buy other items (like aromatic oils and therapeutic
stones) and services (like therapies and astrological consultations) associated
with the New Age milieu (Kirkkomonitor 2000).
In conclusion, it can be argued that New Age spirituality has its established
place in the Finnish religious landscape. While a truly alternative life style and
world view has attracted only a small minority of people, some aspects of New
Age spirituality have become an integral part of Finnish popular religiosity.
Nevertheless, New Age spirituality in Finland is mainly a phenomenon of inter-
est to middle-aged, urban, and well-educated women, who also in other areas
of their daily life are in contact with global trends and influences (Takanen
2001: 38).
References
Ketola, Kimmo, “Uusi kansanomainen uskonnollisuus”, in: Kimmo Kääriäinen, Kati

Niemelä & Kimmo Ketola (eds.), Moderni kirkkokansa. Suomalalainen uskonnollisuus
uudella vuosituhannella, Publications of the Church Research Institute 82, Jyväskylä:
Gummerus, 2003, 53–86.
Koivunen, Helmi, Vuokko Mero, and Juhani Pirinen, Hengen ja Tiedon messujen mes-
sulehti, Helsinki: Rajatiedon Yhteistyö ry, 2006.
Martikainen, Tuomas, “The Global New Age”, in: Jari Kupiainen, Erkki Sevänen & John
A. Stotesbury (eds.): Cultural Identity in Transition: Contemporary Conditions, Practices
and Politics of a Global Phenomenon, New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 2004, 260–
284.
Olavinen, Juha, “Oraansuojelijat: kronikka Kasvisravintolan synnystä ja yhdistyksen
varhaisemmista vaiheista”, in: Juha Olavinen, J.O. Mallander & Echo Lahdenmäki
(eds.), Oraansuojelijat: Tätä aikaa etsimässä, Helsinki: Oraansuojelijat, 1989.
306 Sjöblom
Takanen, Mirva, Suomalainen uushenkisyys: Hengen ja Tiedon Messut. Uskonnon so-

siaalisen muodon muutos suomalaisessa yhteiskunnassa. Unpublished MA-thesis.
Department of Comparative Religion, University of Helsinki, 2001.
Vuorila, Heikki, “Minä Olen – messut tulivat jäädäkseen”, Ultra 25:3 (1996), 20.
Waris, Menna, “Minä Olen –messut hakee paikkaansa Hengen ja Tiedon jalanjäljissä”,
Ultra 26.3 (1997), 17.
New Age in Norway 307
Chapter 38 New Age in Norway
New Age in Norway

New Age up to the 1970s
The background of the New Age in Norway was, like in other countries, the
countercultural movement of the late 1960s, characterised by political radical-
ism, the anti-war movement, hippie culture, the use of psychoactive drugs, pop
music, a growing ecological awareness, and an interest in Asian religions.
In the early 1970s, New Religious Movements of Asian provenance such as
Hare Krishna (ISKCON), Ananda Marga, the Divine Light Mission of guru
Maharaji Ji, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation as well as the
Western, sufi-inspired Eckankar and the Christian-inspired Children of God
had representatives in Norway. Through information meetings and courses, for
instance at the universities, the representatives of these movements contrib-
uted to increase the general awareness of Eastern religions and to nourish
countercultural religious syncretism and alternative spirituality in Norwegian
youth culture.
In the 1970s there existed several distribution centres for alternative thought
and lifestyle, including religious ones. Most important among them were the
countercultural work communes in Hjelmsgata 1 in Oslo and on Karlsøy in
Troms. In 1976 Karma Tashi Ling, a centre for Tibetan Buddhism, was opened
in Oslo. It attracted people from countercultural milieus as well as Buddhists.
Magazines and periodicals were important vehicles for alternative thought
in the 1970s when thirty-six different titles, most of them short-lived, were pub-
lished (Ahlberg 1980: 221). The most important were Vibra (appearing in 1969),
Gateavisa (the Street Paper, published 1970-), Vannbæreren (Aquarius, 1974–
78), Arken (1978–1989) and Josefine (1971–1977). While occultism, Christian
mysticism, and alternative religious movements and therapies were among the
topics of Gateavisa in the early 1970s, the publication soon changed its profile
and largely stopped carrying articles on these topics. The religious part of the
counterculture was then continued by Vannbæreren, which was the largest
countercultural magazine in the Nordic countries. Vannbæreren published
many articles about ecology and religion. The tradition of Vannbæreren was
continued by Arken, which started out as a more broadly countercultural pub-
lication, but became a vehicle of anthroposophical thought, while Josefine

308 Sælid Gilhus
from the beginning was an anthroposophic periodical, concentrating on medi-

tation, spiritualism, and consciousness, as well as on ecology and biodynamic
farming.
Ecological thinking and the preservation of natural resources have been a
major component of the Norwegian counterculture from the beginning, fre-
quently with connections to alternative religious thinking. Biodynamic
farming, for instance, became an ideal for several of the countercultural com-
munes that were established in the 1970s. Most of them, however, were
short-lived. Ecological thinking and environmental concerns were nourished
by the deep ecology of the philosopher Arne Næss (1912–2009). Deep ecology
is characterised by a belief in the inherent value of all living beings, regardless
of their utilitarian instrumental benefits for humans. Ecological thinking and
concerns for the environment were further nourished by two massive demon-
strations against the exploitations of the river Mardøla (1970) and the river Alta
(1979–80) to get hydroelectric power.
In his Økologi, samfunn og livsstil, utkast til en økosofi, 1974 (translated into
English as Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy, 1989), Arne
Næss was influenced by the neohinduism of Mahatma Gandhi in his support
of pantheism and non-violence, and his use of Hindu concepts and belief in
the intrinsic value of all living beings. In 1987, Erik Damman, who was the
founder and leader of the movement Fremtiden i våre hender (The Future in
Our Hands), working for political, personal, and social change and for a just
world, published Bak tid og rom (Behind Time and Space, 1987) where he pre-
sented the attempts by central New Age thinkers to create a synthesis between
religion and science.
One main influence on alternative religious thinking in Norway has been
the considerable number of people who have taken courses in meditation.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi visited Oslo in 1960 and gave a lecture. Courses in TM
meditation started in the 1960s, and in 1965, a Norwegian section of Maharishi’s
organisation, Spiritual Regeneration Movement, was established. From the
1960s until today, some forty to fifty thousand people have attended courses in
Transcendental Meditation. In 1966, students at the University of Oslo on the
initiative of Are Holen founded AMS (Academic Meditation Society). To begin
with, AMS cooperated closely with TM, but the group broke loose from
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s organisation in 1972 and changed its name to Acem in
1974 (Løøv 2010). Acem rejected the Hindu background and Eastern philoso-
phy of TM and increasingly promoted this-worldly goals and sought its support
in science and Western psychology instead of in religion. TM’s meditation on a
mantra was in Acem replaced by meditation on a “method sound”. Its ideal is
to avoid any connotation of mysticism, and to provide a method of meditation
with no links to religion. Today Acem is an international school of meditation

with yoga and meditation centres in Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Great Britain,
Germany, India, and Taiwan, in addition to Norway. About 60,000 people have
attended its introductory courses in Norway. The organisation publishes the
magazine Dyade.
The 1980s and Beyond
During the 1980s a change took place in the New Age/alternative religious
milieu. While the 1970s and much of the 1980s were characterised by the intro-
duction of new religious ideas, a great variety of approaches, and small and
marginal groups, the 1990s and beyond have been characterised by consolida-
tion, networking, and a wider circulation of alternative religious ideas and
practices in society. New Age spirituality in Norway has gradually become part
of the mainstream, and has increasingly become commercialised. Today there
is also a stronger focus on healing and alternative medicine than in the earlier
phases (Kalvig 2013).
Books constitute an important means of disseminating New Age ideas.
Certain publishing houses and book clubs have specialised in New Age litera-
ture and have taken an active part in the distribution of alternative religious
ideas and techniques. Most of these books are translations, mainly from
English.
A number of Norwegian authors have written books that allegedly are
channelled from various spiritual sources. Among these are Bente Müller,
Gry Jannicke Jarlum, and Rita Eide. Bente Müller’s book Gjennom lysmuren
(Through the Light Barrier, 1985) was channelled from an entity named Era,
presented as the female original principle. Gry Jannicke Jarlum’s book, Du er
jeg (You are I, 1994), is written by means of automatic writing and built on
Jarlum’s own alleged experience of being abducted by UFO s. Rita Eide is one
of two individuals in Norway who claim that they act as channels for princess
Diana (Dianas bok. Gaven fra himmelen, 1998; English translation The Celestial
Voice of Diana: Her Spiritual Guide of Finding Love, 1999).
Margit Sandemo (b. 1924) is an author in a different genre. She writes his-
torical novels in which important ingredients are ideas from traditional folk
religion – Old Age – combined with New Age beliefs and ideas. Sandemo had
at the time of writing (2014) written some 180 books that have sold more than
35 million copies. She has clearly contributed to the distribution of alternative
religious ideas and values in Norwegian society.
310 Sælid Gilhus
Energica, a book club for “soul, body and consciousness” with more than
10,000 members, distributes books that deal with subjects such as the interpre-
tation of auras, feng shui, healing, astrology, and crystals, and sells New Age
objects and CDs as well. Energica also arranges courses, for instance in angel
healing and astrological consultations, and provides services associated with
New Age niche tourism.
There are specific hubs in the New Age networks from which ideas about
spirituality and self-development are disseminated. Examples of such hubs
have been the Mandala Centre, established in 1978, first on Bauker farm in
Eastern Gausdal and later in Oslo; ArunA Academy (1993-) in Oslo; and ILIANA
Nordic Academy (1983-) in Oslo. In 2007, Princess Märtha Louise and Elisabeth
Nordeng (formerly Samnøy) established Astarte Education (later Astarte
Inspiration). The centres offer courses based on a variety of ideas and tech-
niques which are also frequently combined with each other. These centres
share a holistic and spiritualistic worldview combined with a therapeutic
approach to human beings.
Among the specialities of Astarte Education are angel meditations and
angel therapies, and Princess Märtha Louise and Elisabeth Nordeng have also
published books on angels (Møt din skytsengel [Meet your Guardian Angel],
2009 and Englenes hemmeligheter [The Secrets of the Angels], 2012). The estab-
lishing of Astarte Education led to a media debate in Norway, mainly because
of the royal status of one of the authors. Among other things, the debate illus-
trates the challenges from religious globalisation of a New Age spirituality type
to a secularised and Lutheran society where 77% are members of the Church
of Norway (as of 1 January 2012) and the changes that have taken place. In
many ways New Age spirituality is the new folk religion.
A mediator of many of the things that can be found on the Norwegian New
Age scene today is the organisation Alternativt nettverk (Alternative Network),
established in 1992. It publishes a magazine, originally called Nettverksnytt
(News of the Network), then Alternativt nettverk and, from 2006, Visjon (Vision).
It is a magazine for spirituality, complementary and alternative medicine, and
alternative ways of living, and includes articles on topics such as aroma ther-
apy, homeopathy, reflexology, regression therapy, holistic massage, Reiki and
other forms of healing, yoga, Osho body therapies, astrology, chakra balancing,
aura interpretation, tarot reading, and acupuncture. It also includes articles
about international figures on the New Age scene and regularly presents new
books. The magazine has a separate section with advertisements for alterna-
tive therapists (“Therapists in network”).
In addition to publishing the magazine Visjon, the organisation Alternativt
nettverk also arranges alternative fairs – Alternativmesser – in several cities in
Norway. These fairs take place once a year and include self-presentations by
religious organisations, therapists who offer their services, sales booths for
New Age merchandise and various types of courses. The first alternative fair
was arranged in Oslo in 1993 with 4,000 visitors. Today there are approximately
fifty different fairs with a total of 100,000 visitors. The largest is in Lillestrøm
with 15,000 visitors in 2013.
The founders of Alternativt nettverk were Øyvind Solum and Roald
Pettersen. Solum combines a commitment to the variety within the New Age/
alternative movement with a belief in the existence of certain common ideas
that unify the field. Chief among them is holism. Together with the belief in a
spiritual unity in diversity goes Solum’s talent as a religious entrepreneur and
his ability to create umbrella organisations.
In 2002 Holistisk Forbund (The Holistic Federation of Norway) was founded.
Its aim is to promote alternative healthcare, support sustainable commerce
and economics, and nourish ecological and global awareness. According to the
self-presentation of the organisation, Holistisk Forbund recognises the spiri-
tual dimensions of all life and its interdependence. It differentiates between
spirituality and religion, does not accept the term religion, and represents a
non-dogmatic approach to spirituality. The organisation attempts to systema-
tise and make New Age into a comprehensive view of life and a well-defined
alternative to Christianity and traditional belief systems on the one hand, and
to the secular humanist association Human-Etisk Forbund (The Norwegian
Humanist Association) on the other. At the time of writing, Holistisk Forbund
is in the process of building up local branches and establishing alternatives to
the rites of passage offered respectively by the Church of Norway and Human-
Etisk Forbund (i.e., name-giving, confirmation, wedding, and burial). So far,
few have chosen the holistic alternatives. Holistisk forbund has its root in the
alternative movement and in the milieu connected to Alternativt Nettverk in
Oslo.
References
Ahlberg, Nora, Religiøs motkultur i Norge, 1967–1978, Ph.d. dissertation, University of

Oslo, 1980.
Botvar, Pål Ketil, “Why New Age is Giving Way to Spirituality: The Silent Revolution
within Alternative Religiosity”, in: Inger Furseth and Paul Leer-Salvesen (eds.), Reli
gion in Late Modernity. Essays in Honour of Pål Repstad, Trondheim: Tapir Academic
Press, 2007, 87–100.
312 Sælid Gilhus
Botvar, Pål Ketil and Ulla Schmidt (eds.), Religion i dagens Norge: Mellom sekularisering
og sakralisering. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2010.
Engedal, Leif Gunnar and Arne Tord Sveinall (eds.), Troen er løs, Trondheim: Tapir aka-
demisk forlag (Egede instituttet), 2000.
Gilhus, Ingvild Sælid and Lisbeth Mikaelsson, Kulturens refortrylling, Oslo: Universitets
forlaget, 2005.
——— . (eds.), Skjult visdom – universelt brorskap. Teosofi i Norge, Oslo: Emilia forlag,
1998.
Kalvig, Anne, Åndeleg helse: Livssyn og menneskesyn hos alternative terapeutar, Oslo:
Cappelen Damm Akademiske, 2013.
Løøv, Margrethe, Fra Veda til vitenskap. En kulturanalytisk studie av meditasjonsorgan-
isasjonen Acems utvikling, M.A. Thesis, University of Oslo, 2010.
Uldal, Geir and Geir Winje, Hekser og healere. Religion og spiritualitet i det moderne,
Oslo: Høyskoleforlaget, 2007.
New Age in Sweden 313
Chapter 39 New Age in Sweden
New Age in Sweden

Liselotte Frisk
The New Age in Sweden was, as in other countries, the result of various cul-
tural currents and social changes during the 1960s and 1970s. In the following,
I will focus on the most important vehicles for New Age thought and practice
– New Age bookshops, magazines, publishing companies, New Age centres
and institutes, festivals, and personalities – and the specific developments in
Sweden.
Publications
One important hallmark was the opening of the New Age bookshop Vattu
mannen (Aquarius) in 1972 in the university town of Uppsala by Per Frisk, at
the time a young student (b. 1949) with many interests in the alternative scene,
including Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Tibetan Buddhism, and the Indian guru
Sri Chinmoy. The bookshop moved to Stockholm in 1973, and has now (2014)
been situated in the same place in central Stockholm since the end of the
1970s, however since the early 2000s with other owners. The second New Age
bookshop in Sweden, Näckrosen (The Water Lily), opened in Gothenburg in
1976, and was closed a couple of years ago. Another one, East & West, opened
in Stockholm in 1982, but closed around 1992 due to financial difficulties.
Per Frisk and his wife Monica Katarina Frisk have over the years remained
central characters associated with New Age publications in Sweden. Since 1984
they have been the owners of the publication Energivågen (The Wave of
Energy), renamed Free– din ledstjärna (Free – Your Guiding Star) in 2010, a free
advertisement magazine for New Age goods and services that had been
launched in 1982 by among others Tomas Frankell (see below). Today Free is
printed bimonthly in 25,000 copies. Per Frisk and Monica Katarina Frisk were
also the owners of the publishing house Energica between 1984 and 2008.
Energica has published many important New Age-related titles, some of which
are translations from English. Among the more successful titles are, for exam-
ple, You can Heal your Life by Louise Hay which has sold in more than 80,000
copies, and Creative Visualisation by Shakti Gawain which has sold in more
than 70,000 copies. At the end of 1990s, they published the bestseller The Power

314 Frisk
of Now by Eckhart Tolle, which sold more than 90,000 copies, and in the middle
of the 2000s The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, with more than 110,000 copies.
Between 1991 and 2008 Per Frisk and Monica Katarina Frisk were also the own-
ers of the monthly magazine Hälsa (Health), originally started by the health
pioneer Are Waerland in 1940, with a print run of 39,600 copies in 2013. In 2008
Hälsa and Energica publishing house were sold to Forma Publishing Group,
the third biggest media company in Sweden, that also owns several main-
stream magazines and publishing companies. This sale may be seen as one
expression of New Age becoming mainstream.
An important early forerunner of these New Age publications was the mag-
azine Sökaren (The Seeker), owned by Sven Magnusson (1930–2008), and
issued regularly between 1964 and 2008. Articles published in Sökaren were
concerned with various religions and world views, and over time came to
include material relevant to New Age concerns, the paranormal and methods
for inner growth. During the 1970s and 1980s, New Age material had become
dominant and the print runs quite large, but later Sökaren attracted fewer
readers and ended up as a special-interest magazine with approximately 1,000
subscribers. Another alternative magazine, Nexus, was launched in 1976 and
was in print for a few years. The owner, Peter Sandblad, was mainly interested
in humanistic psychology and the Osho movement, and this was reflected in
the contents of the magazine. It may be mentioned as a curiosity that writer
Monica Katarina Frisk (then Monica Seilitz), also participated in the editorial
work for a couple of years in Nexus, before she started to develop the magazine
Energivågen.
Centres and Institutes
Various New Age centres have also been important vehicles for New Age thought
and practice. Also here there were forerunners, for example Måndagsgruppen
(The Monday Group), a venue that was in operation in Stockholm between
1951 and 1994, where one could attend lectures on philosophy, religion, mysti-
cism, and science. The first distinctly New Age-oriented centre, Hälsans hus
(The House of Health) – which by its very name signals the important role
health and healing play in the New Age milieu – opened in Stockholm in 1971,
and from 1976 up to the time of writing (2014) has been located at the same
address in central Stockholm. Hälsans hus is organised as a foundation, with
the purpose to create a forum for physical and spiritual health. The ideology
of the foundation comes from the health movement – vegetarianism, exercise,
abstinence from tobacco and alcohol, environmentalism, and peace. Hälsans
hus rents space to a variety of associations and individuals with purposes com-
patible with this basic ideology, including Hälsofrämjandet, an organisation
that promotes a healthy life-style; Stiftelsen Martinus Institut (see the chap-
ter on Martinus Cosmology in the present volume); Nordiska Yogainstitutet
(Nordic Yoga Institute); and practitioners of a wide variety of complementary
therapies such as acupuncture, rebirthing, energy balancing, gestalt therapy,
various kinds of massage, and Rosen therapy.
In 1976 a growth centre, Galleri Medmera (a nearly untranslatable name
roughly meaning “Gallery Andsoforth”), was opened in Stockholm by a group
of eight people. Lena Kristina Tuulse, who was to become the front figure for
the Human Potential Movement in Sweden, was one of them. Tuulse had been
active in this environment for a few years, and was at that time engaged as a
gestalt therapist and also worked with body therapies. After some time, she
took over the leadership of Galleri Medmera, now renaming it Wäxthuset
Galleri Medmera. It continued its operations in Stockholm until 1979. Also in
1976, Lena Kristina Tuulse opened Wäxthuset (The Growth House) on Väddö
some distance from Stockholm, a therapy centre which was also residential.
One of her key interests has been rebirthing (a breathing method sometimes
described as a milder form of primal therapy), which has been the most impor-
tant therapy at Wäxthuset since 1978, when the founder of the method, Leonard
Orr, visited Sweden for the first time. Courses at Wäxthuset also focus on
health, massage, relations, and relaxation. But there has also been a cultural
engagement through her husband Tomas Tuulse, who is a musician and inter-
ested in the creative potential of the human being. In 2007 around 300 people
attended courses at Wäxthuset on Väddö. Wäxthuset was sold in 2010 and
functions today as an addiction treatment centre, combining conventional
addiction treatments with techniques from the Human Potential Movement.
There have also been quite important New Age centres in cities outside
Stockholm. One example is Holistiskt Center in Gothenburg, which opened in
1983 and was in operation for several years.
Another important venue for New Age activities in Sweden has been insti-
tutes conducting residential courses. There are many such institutes, each with
its own specific orientation. One of the most important of these institutes is
Fridhems kursgård, run by the foundation Stiftelsen Stjärnsund, which was
created in 1984 by, among others, Eva and Erik Johansson with inspiration from
the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland. Stiftelsen Stjärnsund has since then
been an important actor on the New Age scene, hosting courses about, e.g.,
yoga, shiatsu, mindfulness, feng shui, tai chi, animal communication, medita-
tion, and the creative arts. Characteristically for the New Age milieu, the group
316 Frisk
that runs the foundation has insisted on pluralism, and on not focusing on any
specific guru or teaching.
A more recent institute is Ängsbacka, founded in 1996 by a group of people
who had been active in the Osho movement for many years. They wanted to
include teachers and activities who were not only related to the Osho move-
ment, but were also inspired by other spiritual teachers like Gangaji and
Poonjaji. Each year, Ängsbacka kursgård hosts a one-week residential course,
The No Mind Festival, which over the years has become more and more inter-
national, and attracts about 1,000 people each year. The focus of the festival lies
on a variety of activities of, e.g., Indian or Native American origin, creative
music and dancing, therapies and body therapies, various forms of yoga, and
meetings with different teachers. The Ängsbacka festival has become a very
important element of the Swedish New Age milieu, and is a place where new
spiritual teachers are introduced.
New Age festivals and New Age fairs have become a common feature in
Sweden, in bigger cities as well as in small towns. One of the major actors is the
company Harmoniexpo, which arranges Inner Harmony Fairs for body and
mind. They launched their activities in 1996 and have organised fairs all over
Sweden since then. These fairs are usually very well visited.
Personalities
One of the best-known New Age personalities in Sweden is Tomas Frankell

(b. 1957). At the end of the 1970s he came into contact with human potential
currents through Arthur Janov’s primal therapy and Barbara Findeisen’s STAR
(Self Analysis Towards Awareness Rebirth, a group therapy which includes
emotional catharsis and primal sessions) at Galleri Medmera. Together with a
number of other people, Tomas Frankell opened Café Vega in 1981 in Stockholm,
a small vegetarian restaurant with various lectures and sessions related to
New Age interests, such as lectures about Martinus, Alice Bailey, C.G. Jung,
Bhagwan (Osho), and the discarnate entity Ambres, that at the time was being
channelled through Sture Johansson. Between 1984 and 1992, Frankell was also
a driving force behind Café Pan/Pan Helhetscenter/Pan – Center för hälsa och
helhet (Pan Centre for Health and Holism), also in Stockholm, with a much
larger gamut of activities. Café Pan was declared to be a centre for New Age
thinking, with holism as its basic philosophy. The declaration of purpose states
that everything belongs together, and that whatever we do towards Earth and
other humans will come back to ourselves. Furthermore, it says that humans
have a spiritual aspect, and that body, mind, and spirit should be taken into
account when treating illnesses, as the basic cause of disease is some kind of
imbalance in any of these parts. Café Pan also had a vegetarian restaurant, and
hosted lectures and courses on a variety of topics related to New Age. Since
1991 Tomas Frankell has run Deva Center, also in Stockholm. Deva Center (still
in existence at the time of writing) focuses on teacher training in various per-
sonality development areas. Tomas Frankell has developed his own style of
yoga, influenced by the kundalini yoga of Yogi Bhajan, which he calls livsyoga,
i.e., yoga of life. Deva Center also conducts a yoga teacher training in this style.
The New Age Goes Mainstream
Like in other countries, parts of the New Age have during the last years become
increasingly mainstream in Sweden. One component of the New Age, comple-
mentary therapies, have become very commonplace and were according to a
survey conducted in 2001 used by about half of the Swedish population. Even
in quite small towns, there will often be health and complementary therapy
centres, where practitioners cooperate to offer therapies, yoga, and other New
Age-related activities. As in other countries, yoga has become immensely pop-
ular, with more than 20 % of the Swedish population having practised yoga
and meditation (according to a survey in 2008). Mindfulness has become pop-
ular as part of cognitive therapy. In the domain of popular culture, there have
been several television series constructed around popular themes such as
spirits, ghosts, and mediums, including Det okända (The Unknown), Ghost
Whisperer, Mannen som talar med andar (The Man who Talks with Spirits), and
Medium. In a poll carried out in 2008, around 60 % of the Swedish population
claimed to have watched one or several of these programmes.
Unpublished Materials
Interview with Per Frisk and Monica Katarina Frisk 25 April 2009.
Interview with Lena Kristina Tuulse 1 November 2007.
Interview with Tomas Frankell 26 August 2009.
Archive material (Per Frisk), Orsa – pamphlets, letters, advertisements, minutes.
Internet questionnaire made by the magazine Dagen, July 2008.
318 Frisk
References
Anon., “Stockholmare och den komplementära medicinen” online at <http://www.sll.

se/Handlingar/MPB/MPB%203/2003/Sammantr%C3%A4de%202003–04–23/punk-
t03bil1.pdf>.
Frankell, Tomas, Sökare i en ny tid: Min väg genom nyandlighetens Sverige, Stockholm:
Natur & Kultur, 2002.
Frisk, Liselotte, “Vad är New Age? Centrala begrepp och historiska rötter“, Svensk reli-
gionshistorisk årsskrift (1997), 87–97.
——— . “New Age-utövare i Sverige: Bakgrund, trosföreställningar, engagemang och
‘omvändelse’”, in: Carl-Gustav Carlsson and Liselotte Frisk (eds.), Gudars och gudin-
nors återkomst: Studier i nyreligiositet, Umeå: Institutionen för religionsvetenskap,
2000, 52–90.
——— . “New Age Participants in Sweden: Background, Beliefs, Engagement and
´Conversion´”, in: Mikael Rothstein and Reender Kranenborg (eds.), New Religions in
a Postmodern World, Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2003, 241–256.
——— . De nya religiösa rörelserna – vart tog de vägen? En studie av Scientologi-kyrkan,
Guds Barn/Familjen, Unification Church/Familjefederationen, Hare Krishna-rörelsen
och Bhagwan-rörelsen och deras utveckling över tid, Nora: Nya Doxa, 2007.
Hammer, Olav, På spaning efter helheten: New Age – en ny folktro? Stockholm: Wahlström
& Widstrand, 2nd ed., 2004.
Tuulse, Lena Kristina, Livslust: Vägen till livet och kärleken, Orsa: Energica förlag, 2003.
Occultism in Denmark 319
Chapter 40 Occultism in Denmark
Occultism in Denmark
The Birth of Danish Occultism: Ben Kadosh
The beginning of the Danish history of occultism is closely tied to a single per-
son, namely Carl William Hansen (1872–1936), who was later to be known as
Ben Kadosh, a self-proclaimed Luciferian, alchemist, and kabbalist. His occult
career began as a member of the French Order of the Martinists into which he
became initiated in 1898 by the Finnish Baron Carl Alphonse Walleen-Borne
mann, who at that time was the Danish head of the order. In time, Hansen
advanced to become head the Martinist Order in Denmark, with the title of
Suprême Délégué de l’Ordre. It seems that this advancement took place in
1906, at least he used this title on the cover of his publication Den ny morgens
gry, Lucifer-Hiram, Verdensbygmesterens genkomst (The Dawn of the New
Morning, Lucifer-Hiram, the Return of the Master Mason of the World) which
appeared in 1906. The booklet promulgated esoteric Freemasonry and included
a call for possible candidates to join a study group and maybe even to form a
new esoteric order. Hansen termed himself a “Luciferian”, and his book is an
evocation and appraisal of Lucifer in his many guises, most prominently as
Pan. He is seen as the ideal of the gods, the God of gods, and is venerated as the
primordial creative darkness. Furthermore, Lucifer is presented as the centre
of all ancient mythologies and the foundation of life in all aspects.
The peak of Hansen’s occult activities took place in the 1920s. In 1921 Hansen
received a variety of charters from Theodor Reuss, Eduardo Frosini, and Joanny
Bricaud, and in the same year Reuss appointed Hansen to the X˚ of the Ordo
Templi Orientis (Oto). This made Hansen the Supreme and Holy King of the
order in Denmark. However, it is doubtful that the Oto existed as an indepen-
dent order in Denmark at this time. Rather, it probably served as an extension
to the other Martinist and masonic lodges under Hansen’s control. In 1923
Hansen founded the Martinist order Sphinxen (The Sphinx) which, however,
only lasted one year but was a part of Hansen’s project to introduce a system of
graded orders by the name of Grand Orient de la Vraie et Haute Maçonnerie
Esoterique et Gnostique du Danemark.

320 Møldrup Thejls
Soon Hansen founded another organisation, Den Danske Stor-Orient

af gamle og antagne frie Murere (The Danish Grand Orient of Ancient and
Accepted Free Masons), in which he installed his co-worker Grunddal Sjallung
(1895–1976) as Magus Cancellarius. The lodge used Theodor Reuss’ consti-
tution, but not all members were satisfied with this, and in 1929 the lodge
adopted regular Freemasonry and changed its name to Frimurerlauget. They
used a set of rituals written by Grunddal Sjallung, the Ritus Hauniensis. In 1930
Hansen was about to be expelled from the lodge, but he resigned before the
expulsion took place.
Toward the end of his life, Hansen resigned from most of his masonic activi-
ties but remained active in an English Rosicrucian lodge, the German Ordo
Aurea & Rosae Crucis, the French Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose Croix, and an
undefined secret “fraternitas” lodge. Both Hansen and Sjallung seem also to
have inscribed themselves in the tradition of the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica,
as both of them used the symbol Tau, associated with this organisation, when
signing documents.
After Hansen’s death in 1936, much of his work was continued by Grunddal
Sjallung who installed himself as the Rex Supremus of the OTO and rewrote
the rituals. In the late 1930s he was in contact with Aleister Crowley, but
Crowley seemed never to accept the way Sjallung had organised the order. In
1946 Sjallung and a number of members of the OTO left the group in order to
focus on more regular masonic work.
During the following years, there appeared a couple of lodges that worked
with ritual magic inspired by international magical orders such as The Her
metic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua (OTOa),
and the OTO. In two of these lodges a certain Johannsen was active of whom
hardly anything is known except that he might have been in contact with Marc
Lully of the OTOA and Pelle Bull (pseudonym of Per Jørgensen), who was later
to be the co-founder of the neo-pagan community Forn Siðr. None of these
groups, however, seem to have been officially recognised by any of the interna-
tional counterparts of the orders.
Contemporary Ritual Magical Groups
In 1989 the Gere and Freke Camp, a local body of the OTO, was founded by
Bjarne Salling Pedersen, and in 1998 he established the Starcatherus Oasis
together with Isabel Munksgaard Berg. He served as the head of the Danish
order until 2002. Since then the Danish OTO has led a more or less dormant
existence for a few years. During this time, the name of the local body was
changed to Athene Oasis. For a few years, the order and the associated Ecclesia
Gnostica Catholica seemed again to be thriving, but at the time of writing
(2014) it seems to be almost inactive, with only a handful of members.
Bjarne Salling Pedersen (b. 1970) can be seen as one of the main characters
of contemporary Danish occultism, as he has been the founder of at least two
Danish orders: The Neo-Luciferian Church and the masonic lodge Danske Frie
og Uafhængige Murere (Danish Free and Independent Masons), the only
Danish masonic lodge working with Sjallung’s Ritus Hauniensis. The Neo-
Luciferian Church is still active, with about fifteen–twenty members in
Denmark, Sweden, and Chile, whereas the masonic lodge was closed after five
years. Furthermore, Pedersen was the Danish contact of Aleister Crowley’s
A.˙.A.˙. Isabel Munksgaard Berg was “acting priestess” of the Ecclesia Gnostica
Catholica and together Pedersen, Michael Bertiaux, and Berg established the
Neo-Luciferian Church in the winter of 2004–2005 after they, in 2001, had been
consecrated bishops in the Ecclesia Gnostica Spiritualis by Bertiaux. The Neo-
Luciferian Church uses an initiatory system of seven degrees, where the last
two are administrative degrees held by only one person at a time. The highest
degree, honorary Archbishop and Spiritual Supervisor, is held by Bertiaux, the
sixth degree, the Archbishop and Church Leader, by Pedersen, and the fifth
degree, Bishop, by Berg. The Church is tied to the Ecclesia Gnostica Spiritualis
in that ordinations received in the first are acknowledged by the latter. They
use a magical system that combines many different traditions, such as French
occultism, thelema, occult Kabbalah (Golden Dawn), voodoo, and the sexual
magic of Fraternitas Saturni. The latest addition to the occult milieu in
Denmark by Berg and Pedersen is the establishment of an occult bookshop in
Copenhagen called Nekropolis. The bookshop serves as a café and a venue for
lectures on occult themes and social gatherings.
Neurological and Sexual Occultism: Erwin Neutzsky-Wulff
Another prominent contemporary Danish occultist is Erwin Neutzsky-Wulff

(b. 1949). He is the author of many voluminous science fiction novels and of
pseudo-scientific literature on magic and occultism. His first volumes on these
topics, Okkultisme (Occultism, 1985) and Magi (Magic, 1986) were meant as
theoretical and practical introductions to these subjects. His earlier novels also
revolved around occult themes, and thus the novel Indsigtens Sted (The Place
of Insight, 1980) gives a detailed description of the initiatory and magical work
of a small occult circle and its relations to contemporary satanic groups. How
ever, Neutzsky-Wulff shows nothing but disdain for these satanic and occult
322 Møldrup Thejls
groups, and he usually designates them as mere amateurs at best. The later
novel Rum (Space, 2001, which like its English counterpart can mean both the
abstract “space” but also an actual physical space or location) is according to
Neutzsky-Wulff the closest one can get to an actual initiation. It was followed
by Det overnaturlige (The Supernatural, 2004), which he described as the ulti-
mate grimoire. With these two books at hand, the reader should be able to
transcend what is usually perceived to be reality and enter the transcendent
realms.
According to Neutzsky-Wulff, religion cannot be separated from sexuality in
its most ritualised form, and thus true religion can only be manifest where a
true sacred marriage or hieros gamos takes place. Religion and the supernatu-
ral are seen as just as real as the common reality that people perceive. It is
emphasised that reality is a projection of the mind and thus purely subjective
and open to change by changing one’s mind-set and perception. Accomplishing
this change is, of course, not an easy task, but it can be achieved through the
teachings of Neutzsky-Wulff. Women can accomplish this by becoming “tem-
ple prostitutes”, which in a contemporary setting means to be absolutely
devoted and submit her life to a man. This involves being disciplined, put in a
cage with fetters and to be constantly sexually available to her master.
According to Neutzsky-Wulff, this method will have a quite rapid effect on the
brain function, putting the pre-frontal cortex out of function so that the tran-
scendent world can be reached.
Neutzsky-Wulff suggests that the situation is a bit more complicated for a
man, at least if he does not have a proper temple prostitute at his disposal. The
divine needs a woman in order to become manifest, and thus woman is the
direct link with the transcendent, just as she is the one who can make the tran-
scendent become immanent. Through her, the man can obtain a connection to
the transcendent reality. Another possibility for the man is to attract a female
entity, a succubus, by presenting himself to her as a slave. As she descends into
“ordinary” reality a path is opened for the man to transcend to her reality, the
so-called “supernatural”, which in Neutzsky-Wulff’s view is far more real than
what we perceive as being reality.
Ritual magical groups in Denmark constitute a minor part of the Danish
occult milieu, where Satanism and different forms of witchcraft and neo-
paganism seem to make up the most important currents. A ritual magical order
which is gaining popularity in Denmark is the Swedish order Dragon Rouge,
established by Thomas Karlsson in 1989. It is noteworthy that none of the
larger international magical orders, such as the Hermetic Order of Golden
Dawn or Temple of Set, are presently active in Denmark. This does not mean
that there are no Danish members, only that currently no official branches
exist in Denmark.
References
Faxneld, Per, “The Strange Case of Ben Kadosh: A Luciferian Pamphlet from 1906 and
Its Current Renaissance”, Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism 11:1 (2011),
1–22.
Kadosh, Ben (Carl William Hansen), Den ny morgens gry: Lucifer-Hiram: Verdensbygmes
terens genkomst, Copenhagen/ Hafnia, 1906, in: Peder Byberg Madsen and Bjarne
Salling Pedersen (eds.), Den ny morgens gry: Lucifer-Hiram: Verdensbygmesterens
genkomst, Copenhagen/ Hafnia, 2006.
König, Peter Robert, Der OTO. Phänomen REMIX, München: Arbeitsgemeinschaft für
Religions- und Weltanschauungsfragen, 2001.
Madsen, Peder Byberg and Bjarne Salling Pedersen, “Den hellige søn – en biografisk
skitse”, in: Peder Byberg Madsen and Bjarne Salling Pedersen (eds.), Den ny morgens
gry: Lucifer-Hiram: Verdensbygmesterens genkomst, Copenhagen/ Hafnia, 2006.
Møldrup Thejls, Sara, “Erwin Neutzsky-Wulff and the Neurological Landscape of the
Sefirot”, in: Boaz Huss, Marco Pasi and Kocku von Stuckrad (eds.), Kabbalah and
Modernity, Leiden: Brill, 2010, 301–325.
Neutzsky-Wulff, Erwin, Indsigtens sted, Copenhagen: Borgens Forlag, 1980.
——— . Okkultisme, Copenhagen: Borgens Forlag, 1985.
——— . Magi, Copenhagen: Borgens Forlag, 1986.
——— . Rum, Copenhagen: Borgens Forlag, 2001.
——— . Det overnaturlige, Copenhagen: Borgens Forlag, 2004.
324 Granholm
Chapter 41 Occultism in Finland
Occultism in Finland
Kennet Granholm
Research on esotericism in Finland is in its infancy, and it is therefore difficult

to find reliable and comprehensive information on early occultism in the
country. What can be said with certainty is that the introduction of Theosophy
into Finland in the 1890s and the founding of the Finnish Section of the
Theosophical Society in 1907 inspired the formation of several other move-
ments in the country (Solhberg 2008: 205–207) (see the chapters on Theosophy
in Finland and Theosophically Inspired Movements in Finland). Interest in
spiritualism was on the rise in the early twentieth century, with Helmi Krohn
(1871–1967) commonly being regarded as the mother of Finnish spiritualism.
In 1946 she founded the first spiritualist organisation in the country, the still
active Suomen spiritualistinen seura ry (Solhberg 2008: 207). The first issue of
Ufoaika, a magazine primarily dealing with UFO beliefs but also carrying arti-
cles on subjects such as parapsychology and occultism, was published in 1972.
In 1974 the magazine was renamed Ultra, a name under which it is still pub-
lished. Due to the difficulties in gaining information on late nineteenth- and
early twentieth-century occultism in Finland, I will primarily discuss the
Finnish occult milieu from the 1970s onwards, with an emphasis on the situa-
tion in the early 2000s.
The Fourth Way in Finland
Individuals and groups inspired by George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1866?-1949)

have been active in Finland since at least the late 1960s. Karatas-kirjat started
publishing translations of Gurdjieff’s and his pupils’ works in 1969, and the
Karatas society was formed in 1979 with the aim of disseminating Gurdjieff’s
and his pupil J.G. Bennett’s (1897–1974) teachings (Heino 1997: 318–319).
According to Gurdjieff, human beings act as “automatons” who are not only
incapable of realising their inner potential but utterly unaware of the fact that
they lead a mechanistic existence. Gurdjieffian teachings focus on awakening
the human being to “real” consciousness, and in order to do this all three
aspects of the human being – the body, the emotions, and the intellect – must

Occultism in Finland 325
be activated. Gurdjieff envisioned his school as “the Fourth Way”, the other
three being the way of the fakir, the monk, and the mystic (Needleman 1993).
Gurdjieff-seura (The Gurdjieff Society) was registered as a society in Finland
on 19 December 2003. The society rarely organises meetings, but it has inde-
pendent workgroups that are more active. The society as such does not
maintain international contacts, but individual work groups collaborate with
other Gurdjieffian groups in Scandinavia, England, France, and USA (Gurdjieff-
seura, e-mail message to author, 1 February 2007).
The Neljäs Tie Suomessa website (neljastiesuomessa.net) was launched
in the spring of 2004 with the aim to collect and present Finnish-language
Fourth Way material and maintain a posting list and discussion forum.
Gurdjieffian-style material that does not strictly adhere to the guidelines of
the international Gurdjieff foundation is also disseminated on the website. In
contrast to the international Gurdjieff foundation, Finnish Gurdjieffians have
historically tended to be strongly oriented towards the work of J.G. Bennett
(ibid.).
Thelema in Finland
The so-called Caliphate OTO was introduced into Finland in 1997, when the
first Finnish member, Frater HRN, received his initiation into the order in
Norway. The Finnish branch of the OTO, the Helsinki-based Pohjan Neito
Encampment, was founded on 12 July 1997, and in 1998 Frater HRN was issued
a charter to initiate members in Finland. Before the Finnish branch received a
charter of its own, members had been initiated in Norway, Sweden, Denmark,
and USA, and in Finland by visiting foreign initiators. The members of Pohjan
Neito Encampment are regularly visited by foreign OTO members, and Finnish
members also visit members in Europe and North-America. The closest co-
operation is with the Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian branches of the order
(Frater HRN, e-mail message to author, 11 November 2006).
Pakanaverkko ry is an organisation that functions as a nodal point for mem-
bers of various neopagan orientations. On its website the organisation provides
information on different neopagan religions and various magic traditions can
be found. Thelema is one of the magical traditions discussed at length on the
site, and is, furthermore, discussed in an information package on paganism
provided by the organisation.
The Finnish online bookseller and small-print publisher Ixaxaar is strongly
focused on “dark” occultism. Works published by Ixaxaar include E.A. Koet-
326 Granholm
tingen’s Works of Darkness: A Guide to Advanced Black Magic (2007), Archaelus

Baron’s Kingdom’s of Flame: A Grimoire of Black Magic, Evocation, and Sorcery
(2005), and Jeremy Christner’s Kosmology: Luciferian Philosophy (2005). The
bookshop is also an important disseminator of Kenneth Grant’s (1924–2011)
works in Finland. The website of Ixaxaar has its own category for “Typhonian
Gnosis”, which mostly includes publications by Grant, and can thus be regarded
as a propagator of the Typhonian Order in Finland.
Theosophical Satanism
The interest in the darker spectrum of occultism and so-called Left-Hand Path
philosophies and practices is unusually high in Finland. Thus, the Ixaxaar
online bookseller publishes and exclusively sells material of this sort, the
membership of the Temple of Set in Finland is relatively large (see the chapter
Satanism in Finland), and the Left-Hand Path magic order Dragon Rouge has a
ritual group in the country (see Occultism in Sweden). An interesting develop-
ment in Finland has been the occasional union of Satanism and Theosophy.
The most famous – or perhaps infamous – of the Finnish occultists combin-
ing Theosophical metaphysics with Satanic ideology and symbolism was Pekka
Siitoin (1944–2003). Siitoin was an outspoken neo-Nazi leader and self-pro-
claimed black magician, operating from the cities of Turku, Naantali, and
Vehmaa in the south-western coastal region of Finland. Raised by rather ordi-
nary parents, he later came to claim that his father was the German SS officer
Peter von Weltheim and his mother a Russian-Finnish prostitute. He did at
times refer to himself as Baron von Weltheim and published some of his books
under the pseudonym of his imagined father. Siitoin became active in politics
in the 1960s, grew increasingly anti-communist, right-wing, and racist from the
1970s onwards and ultimately came to state that he had been a Nazi ever since
the age of four (Vil 2003: 387). He was sentenced for inciting the arson of a
communist printing house and served time in jail from 1978 to 1981 (Kalliala
1999a).
Siitoin’s magical activities were intimately linked to his political views and
his activism, and thus the numerous organisations Siitoin founded combined
these two areas. Siitoin claimed to have come into contact with the occult from
an early age. He is supposed to have met a clairvoyant friend of his father when
very young (Nordling & Koskela 2006: 39), having been foretold by a gypsy
woman that he would grow up to be a famous man (ibid., 40, 188–189), and
started practising magic in the 1960s (Vil 2003: 387). In 1971 he contacted the
famous Finnish fortune-teller Aino Kassinen in order to get help with some
financial troubles. Kassinen, who had read some Theosophical and Anthro
posophical material but did not strictly work within those traditions, came to
regard Siitoin as one of her most promising students (Kassinen 1972: 64–65).
Directly inspired by his contact with Kassinen, Siitoin founded Turun hen-
gentiedon seura (The Turku Occult Society) and began to publish books on
magic in 1971. In the following years Siitoin also founded organisations such as
Föreningen Veronica (the Veronica Organisation) and Pegasos seura (Pegasus
Society, in Swedish versions of his books called Pegasos-Club) in order to
market and sell occult material outside Finland, and political right-wing orga
nisations such as Isänmaallinen kansanrintama (1970s, The Patriotic Peoples
Front), and Kansallis-mytologinen yhdistys (1981, The National-Mythological
Association). All of Siitoin’s societies combined occultism with neo-Nazi poli-
tics in one way or another.
Works with occult themes written by Siitoin and published by his various
societies are Yhteys ufoihin ja henkimaailmaan (Contact with UFO s and the
Spirit World, 1973; also published in a two-part Swedish-language version titled
Kontakt med UFO s och andevärlden), Musta magia, osa 1 (Black Magic, part 1,
1974; also published in a Swedish-language version as Svart magi, del 1), Uuden
ajan unikirja (Dream Book for a New Age, 1974; also published in a Swedish-
language version as Nya tidens drömbok), Ufot, uskonto ja paholainen (UFOs,
Religion and the Devil, 1974), Musta magia, osa 2 (Black Magic, part 2, 1975; also
published in a Swedish-language version as Svart magi, del 2), Paholaisen
katekismus (The Catechism of the Devil, 1977), and Kohti uutta uskoa (Towards
a New Faith, 1989). Many of these books where published under pseudonyms
such as Peter von Weltheim, Jonathan Shedd, and Hesiodos Foinix. The societ-
ies he founded also published books by other writers, such as Mustan magian
salaisuudet by Ray Isaksson (The Secrets of Black Magic, 1985), and a transla-
tion of the grimoire The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses (Musta Raamattu,
1986). Siitoin also published a number of books that primarily focused on poli-
tics and racist propaganda (Granholm 2009).
Siitoin’s approach to Satanism and magic is profoundly anti-Semitic, but not
necessarily anti-Christian. In Svart magi, del 1 Siitoin identifies an impersonal
God as the highest being and creator, and Jesus Christ, Satan, and Lucifer as
subordinate personified gods. According to Siitoin, one can worship any of
these subordinate beings as long as this is done in the name of God. Jesus
Christ supports humanistic virtues, whereas Satan supports material and
bodily enjoyment. Moses is regarded as the originator of magic, but the jealous
subordinate god Jehova kept the knowledge of it with his chosen people, the
Jews. In addition to the above-mentioned beings, Siitoin also discusses a num-
ber of hierarchically organised subordinate entities (Siitoin 1985 [1974/5]:
328 Granholm
14–58). Interestingly enough, despite this negative view of Jews and Judaism,
these entities are based on Kabbalah and even called “Zefiroths” (Granholm
2009).
In general, Siitoin’s doctrines are a mix of folk magic and Theosophical
metaphysics. In Svart magi, del 1 and Svart magi, del 2 magical practices, rit-
uals and incantations for making pacts with the devil, humiliation of and
victory over enemies, calming an angry dog, curing warts, and waking the
dead, etc., are described (Siitoin 1985 [1974/5]: 70–73, 89–93, 121–129). In terms
of cosmogony and anthropogony, Siitoin’s teachings are largely based on
H. P. Blavatsky’s writings. The material world was created by Lucifer, and both
the world and human beings evolve through a seven-staged process (Shedd 1974:
12–27).
Azazelin tähti (Azazel’s Star), another group that mixes Satanism and
Theosophy, was founded in 2006. The fraternity identifies itself primarily as a
Theosophical organisation, and acknowledges the Theosophical Society’s orig-
inal threefold statement of objectives from 1875. These objectives state that the
goal of the society, and thus of Azazelin tähti as well, is to function as a univer-
sal brotherhood independent of superficial differences such as race or gender,
to search for the common and true core of all religions, and to investigate
spiritual powers in man and nature. However, in contrast to the Theosophical
Society, Azazelin Tähti insists on the primacy of Satan as a revered spiritual
being. The philosophical background of the movement is expressed in seven
statements that revolve around the belief in an immanent godhead, the goal of
rational truth, Satan as a revered being, the relativity of good and evil, embrac-
ing death as a natural and beautiful part of life, and a three-part “key to truth”
consisting of understanding, love, and the will to do right. The fraternity is
selective in admitting new members, but once a person is admitted member-
ship is free. There are three main individuals identified as contact persons and
authors on the website of the organisation, and presumably membership is
rather small at this early stage of the fraternity’s existence.
The Rune-Gild in Finland
The Rune-Gild, a Radical Traditionalist group founded in Texas in 1980 by

Edred Thorsson (pen name of Stephen Flowers, b. 1953), had a presence in
Finland from 1999 until the late 2000s. While no more than a few individuals
were involved, the Gild was part of the Finnish occult milieu through Ensio
Kataja’s book Riimujen viisaus (The Wisdom of the Runes, 2005). Kataja
identifies the Gild as an initiatory school focused on the Germanic tradition,

and as a reviver of the tradition of ancient rune masters. He further defines
‘initiation into the secret of the runes’ as the development of one’s conscious
Self through Rune-work (Kataja 2005: 9–10). This implies techniques in which
magicians focus on the runes in a meditative fashion and in this way unlock
the potential of the runes within themselves. The idea is that the runes repre-
sent aspects of our consciousness, and a full understanding of them therefore
equals a more conscious Self (ibid., 89–90). The practice of the Gild centres on
a series of exercises called “The Nine Doors of Midgard” (Thorson 2003), a sys-
tem of initiation where the magician successively gains increased proficiency
in using the runes for magical purposes. The first two Doors are to be finished
in 108 days per door, Doors three and four in 240 days per door, and Doors five
through eight in seventy-two days per door. For the last Door initiates are to
trust their own judgements as to when the necessary training is finished. After
finishing the fourth Door the adept is considered proficient enough in rune
work to apply to become a Fellow in the Rune-Gild (seventy-two 89), the mid-
level initiatory degree. On the website of the Gild, the rune work is divided into
Rune thinking, which involves meditation and contemplation, divination in
the form of Rune casting, galdor, a ritual technique involving the verbal magi-
cal use of the runes, the manufacturing of rune talismans, and, perhaps most
importantly, self-transformational Rune-work. Ensio Kataja describes Rune-
work as the ‘internalisation of the runes’ in a way that lets one ‘experience and
activate the power of the runes in oneself’ in order to ‘effect change’ in the
outer and inner worlds (Kataja 2005: 89–90).
As a self-defined Radical Traditionalist group, the Rune-Gild emphasises
the importance of preserving the Runic tradition in what is perceived to be
an authentic and pure form, and not to mix it with other traditions. Although
the historical roots of Radical Traditionalism lie in earlier twentieth-cen-
tury Guénonian Traditionalism, major differences lie the Rune-Gild’s focus
on European pre-Christian religion where earlier Traditionalists commonly
sought the perennial wisdom outside Europe, and the Gild’s emphasis on
meticulous historical research in contrast to earlier Traditionalists’ aversion to
historical research methods in their search for universal and ahistorical spiri-
tual truth. However, while claiming to strictly adhere to Germanic traditions
the Gild is still fairly innovative in its interpretations. For example, the worlds
of Old Norse mythology are interpreted as representations of different aspects
of the human psyche (Kataja 2005: 31–35).
As the Gild’s founder is a long-time member of the Left-Hand Path group the
Temple of Set, it is not surprising that there are some major philosophical
330 Granholm
similarities between the two groups. They both operate with the concepts of
objective and subjective universes, regard their respective deities as exemplary
initiators rather than gods to worship, and pursue ultimate autonomy and self-
deification (Kataja 2005: 20–21, 38).
The Rune-Gild is organised in an outer and inner hall. The outer hall con-
sists of members working with the Nine Doors of Midgard exercises under the
guidance of the Gild, and is subdivided into the initiatory degrees of Learner,
Fellow, and Master. The inner hall consists of members who are particularly
knowledgeable in runes, and is divided into the degrees of Drighten and
Erulian. Edred Thorsson, who has led the Gild since its conception, is called
the Yrmin-Drighten.
References
Granholm, Kennet, “‘Worshiping the Devil in the Name of God’. Anti-Semitism, Theo
sophy and Christianity in the Occult Doctrines of Pekka Siitoin”, Journal for the
Academic Study of Magic 5 (2009), 256–286.
——— . “The Rune-Gild: Heathenism, Traditionalism, and the Left-Hand Path”,
International Journal for the Study of New Religions 1:1 (2010), 95–115.
Kalliala, Mari, “Traditions of the Radical Right in Finnish Political Culture”, in: Kyösti
Pekonen (ed.), The New Radical Right in Finland, Jyväskylä: The Finnish Political
Science Association, 1999, 61–83.
———. “Pekka Siitoin – A Representative of the Cultic Milieu”, in: Kyösti Pekonen (ed.),
The New Radical Right in Finland, Jyväskylä: The Finnish Political Science Association,
1999, 87–113.
Kassinen, Aino, Sierskan, Täby: Larson, 1972.
Kataja, Ensio, Riimujen viisaus, Helsinki: Athanaton, 2005.
Needleman, Jacob, “G.I. Gurdjieff and His School”, in: Antoine Faivre and Jacob Needle
man (eds.), Modern Esoteric Spirituality, London: SCM Press, 1993, 359–380.
———. “Gurdjieff Tradition”, in: Wouter J. Hanegraaff, et al. (eds.), Dictionary of Gnosis
& Western Esotericism, Leiden: Brill, 2005, 450–454.
Nordling, Iiro, and Olavi Koskela, Suomen Fuhrer. Valtakunnanjohtaja Pekka Siitoin, Tam
pere: self published, 2006.
Shedd, Jonathan, Ufot, uskonto ja paholainen, Turku: Turun hengentieteellinen seura,
1974.
Siitoin, Pekka, Svart magi. Del I. Åbo: Pegasos-Club, 1985 (1974/5).
Sohlberg, Jussi, “The Esoteric Milieu in Finland Today”, Scripta Instituti Donneriani
Aboensis 20 (2008), 204–216.
Thorsson, Edred, The Nine Doors of Midgard: A Curriculum of Rune-Work. Smithville, TX:
Rûna-Raven Press, 2003.
Vil, Ike, “Suomentajan jälkisanat. Ex boreus lux” (postscript by translator), in: Gary V.
Lachman, Tajunnan alkemistit. Kuusikymmentäluvun mystiikkaa ja vesimiehen ajan
pimeä puoli, Helsinki: Like kustannus, 2003, 380–395.
332 Uldal And Winje
Chapter 42 Uldal and Winje
Occultism in Norway
Geir Uldal and Geir Winje 1
In Norway, as in other Western countries, the number of magic-occult groups

and practitioners has increased over the last thirty to forty years. The magical
work in these milieus involves performing rituals in order to restructure and
change oneself, and through this change potentially influence one’s surround-
ings. Norwegian practitioners work as members of magical groups and on a
more individual basis. Many see themselves as belonging to a global move-
ment, rather than a merely Norwegian one, and some have found teachers in
countries such as Brazil, USA, France, and Switzerland. Various forms of ritual
magic derived from rather distinct contexts are combined and integrated in
many ways. The practitioners often belong to more than one group, and they
often wander from one milieu to another. Diverse practices and concepts are in
a constant state of flux.
Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) has the largest membership and is clearly the
most influential magic-occult group in Norway. It has about 100 members, but
many more followers, and operates a website (<http://www.oto.no>). Because
of the influence of Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), the Norwegian OTO under-
stands itself as a thelemic order. The order is often misunderstood, since
references to it often focus on sexual magic and other sensationalist activities,
even if this is not a part of any of the initiation rites.
After Crowley’s death, many people continued the work of OTO in different
parts of the world. Some presented themselves as Crowley’s heirs, with varying
degrees of success. Over the years a lot of groups have claimed to be the
authentic OTO; among them is an originally American branch which was
headed by Grady McMurtry or Hymenæus Alpha 777 (1918–1985). This branch
has often been referred to as Caliphate OTO, and this is the group we find in
Norway. A so-called Typhonian branch was developed by Kenneth Grant
(1924–2011), who for a short period was Crowley’s secretary. This was originally
an English branch, which, compared to the Caliphate OTO, was characterised
by a lack of rituals of initiation. It has later seemed more interested in innova-
tion and the development of new rituals, pantheons and the like. Even if the
* We wish to thank Harald Andreas Lie, Cathrine Brandt, Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold and other
informants for their helpful suggestions.

Occultism in Norway 333
Typhonian Order (previously known as the Typhonian OTO) has no formal sta-
tus in Norway, it represents – as we shall see – a creative force in the magic-occult
environment.
Besides the organisations set up by McMurtry and Grant, there is also a
Haitian-inspired branch, Ordo Templis Orientis Antiqua (OTOA), where ele-
ments from Vodun are combined with the remaining elements. This branch is
also represented in Norway. Besides these three branches of the OTO, contem-
porary Norwegian occult groups are strongly influenced by a wide variety of
lodges, orders, and magical milieus.
In this chapter we will take a closer look at the OTO in Norway before
we present some of the more important non-Caliphate OTO magic-occult
groups. However, let us firstly cast a short glance backwards in time.
The Magical Revival og the 1890s
The Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1863–1944) is often mentioned in con-

nection with the so-called magical revival at the end of the nineteenth century.
In the early 1890s he spent some years in Berlin, where he, together with artists
such as the Swedish dramatist August Strindberg (1849–1912) and the Polish
writer Stanislaw Przybyszewski (1868–1927), occupied himself with studies in
the occult and paranormal. According to some secondary sources, he was a
member of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (HOGD), but no primary
sources known to us mention this. What is mentioned is an interest in monism
and crystallography (Næss 2004). We also know that Munch was inspired by
older occult works, for instance Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens (1617, Berman
2006). However, we know very little about other influences.
Whatever happened, the suggested connection between Edvard Munch and
the HOGD is a good example of how cultural life in Norway, as in other Western
countries, was influenced by the magical revival at the time (Vindheim 1990).
But while Spiritualism, Theosophy and other trends led to the establishment
of various organisations, we do not know of any Norwegian organisation for
ritual magic. Among students in Oslo there was, however, an attempt to estab-
lish a temple around the end of the nineteenth century. This was inspired by
the Ahathoor Temple in Paris, but was probably never realised.
We may assume that some Norwegians, individually or as members of
groups outside Norway, did practise ritual magic during the first part of the
twentieth century, but we have no record of any organised activity before 1982,
when the OTO established itself in Bergen.
334 Uldal And Winje
The OTO
In 1982 Soror Lola D. Wolfe came from the United States to visit Germany and
Norway. Some practitioners were initiated into the OTO, and in that year Hugin
& Munin, named after Odin’s ravens, was founded as the first Norwegian camp.
In 1983 the Caliph or Outer Head of the Order (OHO), Hymenæus Alpha 777,
came to Europe. He visited Germany, Yugoslavia, and Norway, and some
Norwegians were initiated to the first degree. According to the pamphlet OTO
Hugin & Munin Lodge. 10th Anniversary Celebrations 1992 EV, the first post-war
European Gnostic Mass was celebrated in Bergen in 1984. These events estab-
lished Norway, together with England and Switzerland, as an important
European centre for the OTO. It also meant that it was the OTO that defined
both the ideas and the practices of ritual magic in Norway. Many of the early
members later became influential in other milieus, such as Wicca and Asatru.
When McMurtry died in 1985, William Breeze (b. 1955), under his magical
name Hymenæus Beta, succeeded as OHO. In Germany some Norwegian par-
ticipants were initiated into the third degree, and thus gained the right to
initiate others. Among them was Frater Evmaios, who since then has been a
key figure in the Norwegian milieu. In 1986 Frater Thanatos moved to England,
but the Norwegian OTO groups continued to grow. That year Nidhvg Camp was
founded in Oslo (Nidhvg or Nidhogg [“tearer of corpses”] is in Old Norse
mythology a monstrous serpent that gnaws perpetually at the deepest root of
Yggdrasil, the World Tree that grows between the worlds of gods and men). In
the same year, Yggdrasil Camp was founded in the southern Norwegian town of
Tvedestrand, and Hugin & Munin edited a collection of poems written by
Hymenæus Alpha 777. In 1989 Liber AL vel Legis (The Book of the Law) was
translated into Norwegian and published by the Swedish publisher Psychick
Release.
Other OTO bodies were established and dissolved during the 1990s, namely
Yr Camp and Balt Oasis, both in Oslo. Today (2014) there are lodges in Oslo,
Bergen and Trondheim, and camps in Stavanger and Mo i Rana. Their activities
vary: there are study groups, initiations are arranged and the Gnostic Mass is
performed. During the 1990s camps were also founded in Denmark and
Sweden, and in 1992 Freya Rose Croix Kapittel, a Rosicrucian Chapter, was
established for members who had attained the fifth degree. It was at first a
Scandinavian Chapter under Norwegian leadership, but is now a national
chapter.
OTO Norway includes a “family” of groups and milieus, such as Mysteria
Mystica Maxima or M∴M∴M∴. This was originally the name of the
English branch of the OTO, administered by Aleister Crowley himself. In the
Norwegian context, M∴M∴M∴ denotes the seven lowest degrees of the OTO,
which are administered by the Norwegian organisation. The first degrees sym-
bolise attraction, birth, exaltation, and destruction, and the degrees from the
fifth degree and onwards may, according to Crowley, be understood as com-
mentaries on the mysteries of life, and corresponding to the needs of knowing
oneself and realising one’s own will. M∴M∴M∴ offers education and fel-
lowship for studies, but also initiations. As in traditional Freemasonry, the
initiation rituals are kept secret for pedagogical reasons. There is a charge (not
more than 1,000 Norwegian kroner), which varies according to the degree into
which one is to be initiated.
While M∴M∴M∴ may be considered as integrated in the OTO structure,
the A∴A∴ is a more independent group. Although it was founded by Crowley
as a continuation of the Golden Dawn, the two orders are actually not con-
nected. It is often referred to as Argentum Astrum or the Order of the Silver
Star. There is no membership list, but A∴A∴ has some Norwegian members.
They mainly work with ceremonial magic, usually alone or with one other
individual, namely the teacher who has initiated him or the person who he
himself has initiated and teaches.
A fourth group in the Norwegian OTO milieu is the Ecclesia Gnostica
Catholica or EGC. According to the Norwegian OTO website, EGC is open for all
who are baptised, and baptism is open for anyone who is at least eleven years
old. The church celebrates rites of passage and the Gnostic Mass, which is an
official ritual in the OTO. It is performed by a priest, a priestess, a deacon, and
“the people”, and consists of various rituals and symbols, many of a magical
character. The final words before the blessing are: ‘There is no part of me that
is not of the Gods’ (Liber XV: VIII). The Gnostic Mass can be traced back to
Theodor Reuss (1855–1923), who received a charter for Église Gnostique,
founded by Jules-Benoît (1842–1902), and developed it further by integrating
the Gnostic Mass (Liber XV), written in 1913 by Aleister Crowley, who besides is
referred to as Prophet.
The members of OTO may, like members in other occult orders, also per-
form rituals on a more individual level. These rituals are often magical in
nature, e.g., the so-called Theurgia Goetia Summa, which is taken from Crow
ley’s Liber Samekh (Liber DCCC). This is a kind of theurgy, concerned with
establishing contact with one’s Holy Guardian Angel. Other examples are the
Star Ruby ritual, also written by Crowley, and the invocation of the Goetia
demons, a group of seventy-two demons described in a grimoire from the sev-
enteenth century, The Lesser Key of Solomon (Lemegeton Clavicula Solomonis),
which was published by Crowley in 1904. Furthermore, Enochian magic and
different kinds of sigil magic are performed.
336 Uldal And Winje
Common to the whole OTO corpus is a strong criticism of the doctrines of

Christianity. The information pamphlet Ordo Templi Orientis Norge (2003: 27)
declares: ‘In the whole system we emphasise the Christian doctrines of original
sin and vicarious atonement as the main enemy of the Order’ (translation by
the authors).
Other Magic-Occult Groups
For many occult groups it is important to have a lineage, a list of persons who
have succeeded one another through formal initiation. This may be under-
stood as a way of establishing and ensuring authority and authenticity. Outside
the OTO system, many groups give little or no heed to any established lineages,
and instead practise self-initiation. Others combine lines from different tradi-
tions in a more or less eclectic way. While some focus on what are presented as
age-old, secret, and extremely powerful magical rituals, others are playing and
experimenting with magical concepts. And instead of submitting to the
authorities of established orders, each person can be or choose his or her own
authorities without asking anyone for permission.
Since these groups cannot easily be controlled or mapped out, there exists
no systematic overview over this part of the occult landscape. A lot of people
and groups are active without our knowledge, and some prefer not to be
approached. And even if the groups consist of Norwegian citizens, they are in
closer contact with related groups in the global network, than they are with
other occult groups in Norway. Nevertheless, we will give an outline consisting
of some typical examples, based on what we have learned from our informants.
We will present some of the impulses that have led to the creation of new
occult orders, both abroad and in the Norwegian context, before we conclude
this essay with some concrete examples from Norway.
Kenneth Grant was the first to bring the Chtulhu Mythos into modern ritual
magic. The term refers to a fictional universe involving a group of mysterious,
powerful deities, based on the novels of H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). The intro-
duction of literary material into occultism exemplifies how figures taken from
movies, cartoons, science fiction and so on, can be given mythological, and
thereby magical, meaning. This can be interpreted as one of the main threads
in the texture of postmodern magic. The fictional and postmodern nature of
magic based on the Chtulhu Mythos is, however, often masked by the associa-
tion of elements in this fantasy universe with more traditional esoteric
concepts, such as Goetic Kabbalah and the Tree of Life.
Chtulhu Mythos magic is also practised inside the Lovecraft-based cult

named Esoteric Order of Dagon and the originally Swedish order Dragon
Rouge (D.R.). Since its founding in 1989, D.R. has had some influence on
Norwegian practitioners, but not many Norwegian members. There exist many
editions of Lovecraft’s fictitious Necronomicon, but it is probably only Simon’s
Necronomicon (1980) that includes rituals, based on Babylonian magic, that is
actually used (Harms/Gonze III 2003). Also among some Satanists, the Cthulhu
Mythos may be important, as Anton LaVey’s Satanic Rituals comprise a fully
developed ritual in a fictitious Chtulhu language (LaVey 1972).
The Chtulhu Mythos has also influenced people such as Michael Bertiaux
(b. 1935), who has been important for the OTOA in recent years. He combines
elements from traditional OTO doctrines and rituals with elements from
Lovecraft’s work, Vodun, ufology, Christianity, Shinto, and Jungianism. Linked
ideologically to OTOA is La Couleuvre Noire (LCN or “The Black Snake”), that
has exerted a significant influence on the Gnostic Vodun of the OTOA. Both the
OTOA and the LCN were established in Norway in 1995 by Nicholaj de Mattos
Frisvold (b. 1970), who for a period was European Grand Master of the OTOA.
He is highly influential, both in the Norwegian and the international occult
milieus, and has published several academic studies on witchcraft in both
Western and other traditions, e.g., Vodun and spirits in Brazilian Umbanda
religion.
Due to conflicts between Frisvold and Courtney Willis, the current head of
both OTOA and LCN, the Norwegian branch of the OTOA has since 2000 con-
tinued to operate under another name, and under the leadership of Cathrine
Brandt (b. 1974). She has been an important practitioner in these groups, as
well as a main figure in other environments, i.e., as a worshipper of Melek
Taus (the peacock-angel of the Kurdish Yazidi religion), as leader of the house
Tara Kurukulla under AMOOKOS (see below), and as bishop in TEGA (see
below).
The Chtulhu Mythos also plays a role in modern or postmodern chaos
magic, as it is developed in The Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT). The order has
no Norwegian branch, even if some individual initiations have taken place.
However, ideas and practices from chaos magic are to a great extent shared on
the Internet, and is therefore a growing influence on Norwegian magic-occult
groups. As far as it is practised in the IOT, chaos magic seems to be inspired by
both the Typhonian Order and Bertiaux’s OTOA.
As we have seen, the inspiration from Vodun and other Afro-American tra-
ditions is quite strong in many Norwegian milieus. Several Norwegians have
visited Brazil and other Latin American countries for inspiration or initiation.
338 Uldal And Winje
There are also some smaller organised Santeria groups, inspired by Cuban spir-
ituality. Besides these impulses and the impact from Lovecraft’s fiction and
chaos magic, influences from more traditional kabbalistic magic can also be
found in the diversity of magic-occult oriented groups in Norway. Here we
refer to the lesser banishing pentagram ritual, which is often used for cleaning
a circle. We can also point out that different forms of sexual magic are treated
in a number of books that circulate in the magic-occult environment.
This brings us to The Arcane Magical Order of the Knights of Shambala
(AMOOKOS), a tantric group that incorporates elements from Western magic.
Its lineage is traced back to the legendary founders Matsyendranath and
Gorakhnath (ninth to eleventh century), close to the historical origin of Indian
tantrism. Their principle, svecchachara, is translated as ‘The Way of One’s Own
Will’ and is understood as having a lot in common with Crowley’s thelema, or
more precisely, how True Will is perceived as similar to the Sanskrit concept of
dharma. Moreover, the founder, Mike Magee (b. 1949), has his background in
the Typhonian Order. He received the parampara (succession) of the nath
sampradaya (the Navnath initiatory tradition) from Shri Dadaji Mahendra
Nath. Although the work and philosophy of AMOOKOS does not exclusively
draw on this transmission, the diksha (initiation) into the nath sampradaya is
the initiation given. Self-initiation is accepted, but not encouraged. Each mem-
ber chooses when he or she will work with a higher degree. One of its influential
members in Norway has been Toyah S. Thorstensen (b. 1970), who was also one
of the founders of Yr Camp (see above). A group called Lila Aropa was founded
in Oslo in 1991, ‘oriented in the direction of cataclysmic and erotic awakening
to reality’ (translated from Lie 2004). In the mid-1990s it was renamed Vajra
Yama Zonule. The group remained active until 2005, with Frisvold and Harald
Lie (b. 1973) as influential members.
As in many other occultist contexts, most of the practitioners in AMOOKOS
understand the different features of the occult traditions as equal, and see
diversity as a resource, so they participate in more than one group. There are
also creative individuals and orders that combine rather different traditions.
Here we will use Harald Lie as an example. He was initiated in the Balt Oasis
(OTO, see above) in 1995, but soon began crossing the lines between different
milieus. Together with Cathrine Brandt (see above) he was also responsible for
the Al Aswan Coven for some years, after they both received a triple initiation
into druidism, Alexandrine Wicca, and Strega.
As mentioned above, Lie has been active in AMOOKOS, and in 2006 he par-
ticipated in the formation of the Agni Vajra Yama Grand Lodge, a group that
carries on the work of the defunct Vajra Yama Zonule by supplying training,
giving diksha and celebrating the four traditional pujas or festivals of the year.
The parampara of the nath sampradaya is given in two instalments: The first
(guru of naths) gives the power and authority to give diksha, the second (guru
of gurus) gives the power and authority to give parampara. Lie holds both lev-
els, and is also initiated into a traditional house of Haitian Vodun, as a Houngan
Asogwe (male high priest). Furthermore, he is an initiated Babalawo (a kind of
priest) of the Yoruba Ifa religion, he has received initiations into Fa, a religious
divination system in Benin, and into several Orisha cults. In this connection we
will also mention Torill Adde (b. 1970), who works in the same field and is initi-
ated in several African and Haitian lines, as well as Sufi lines (see below).
In 2004 Lie founded the Vajra Ordo Templi Orientis (VOTO). It was rooted in
his initiation to parampara and the reception of eight independent lineages of
OTO, including Reuss, Crowley, and the major post-Crowley lineages. The order
also presides over several other lineages, including the Kapalika lineage of
Matsyananda Jagrthii Madhyamik Tantrik Pracaraka Sangha, the Fraternitas
Rosicruciana Antiqua (FRA) and the Thelemic Gnostic Church (TGC). In the
context of VOTO this church collects the lines of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica
(EGC, see above) and Ecclesia Gnostica Apostolica (EGA). The EGA is a church
outside the OTO system that also celebrates Gnostic Masses in Norway. In con-
trast to the EGC it claims apostolic succession in a direct line back to Saint
Peter. It was brought to Norway by Runar Karlsen (b. 1965), who was also active
in the FRA at the end of the 1990s. Karlsen also founded Balt Oasis (see above),
named after the Enochian god of righteousness, and is by many respected as an
innovative and influential force in the Norwegian OTO milieus. In addition, he
is an international authority on the field of Enochian magic (Asprem 2012).
In the VOTO, Lie has worked closely with both Frisvold and Jan Ekker (b.
1973). The teachings of the group are heavily influenced by the philosophy of
the Bon Siddha tradition (bon is a Tibetan shamanistic religion, while siddha
refers to an initiatory kind of yoga, with spiritual self-realisation as a goal). Due
to threats of legal action from the more established OTO, the name of the order
was in 2008 changed to Kapalik rDorje Ordo Magica (KROM). In 2012 Lie
received Uttara Kaula, a Northern tantric lineage. KROM exemplifies one of
several ways in which late modern initiatory occultism can combine a variety
of different traditions; other orders or groups will have their own ways of draw-
ing on other traditions.
According to the KROM Manifesto the order offers the eight independent
lineages of the OTO and the other lines mentioned above in connection with
the VOTO. Besides it initiates in the A∴A∴ (see above), the Rite of Memphis-
Misraim and three Sufi Tariqahs or orders: The Lebanese Tariqah Marabout
Khidir, a Morrocan Maraboutic Tariqah, and the Persian Naqshbandi Tariqah.
The base and centre of the order is the lineage of the nath sampradaya, ‘as it is
340 Uldal And Winje
incarnated in, and bestowed by the AMOOKOS’ (KROM Manifesto: 2). The mani-
festo also says that under the protection and guidance of the Nath-tradition ‘lie
the secret teachings of the IX. and the XI. Degree [i.e., of the OTO] (…) All these
lineages and traditions together form the body of KROM. The purpose of this
order is to facilitate the true development of the Candidate both on a spiritual,
psychic and material level, with focus on the responsible growth in magickal
power and spiritual abilities as the entire esoteric structure of KROM makes
manifest the tantrik fire and true understanding of the Svecchachara-principle’
(ibid.).
In the Norwegian occult milieu, magic-occult groups such as these continu-
ally arise, decline and merge. Another example is the Choronzon Club (C.C.),
founded by Cecil Frederick Russell (1897–1987) in 1928. In Norway there has
been and perhaps still is a small C.C. group, but it is difficult to get information
about the number of initiates, degrees, and so forth. C.C. is inspired by the
higher degrees of OTO. Worth mentioning is also Thee Temple ov Psychick
Youth (ToPY). It was established in Norway in the end of the 1980s by Erik
Wegge and others, and was active until the end of the 1990s, when Wegge left
for Peru. ToPY mainly focused on different forms of mind-expanding work,
inspired by, among others, the British artist and occultist Austin Osman Spare
(1886–1956) and the rock group Psychic TV, founded by Genesis P-Orridge
(b. 1950) in 1981.
Finally, we will mention The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (HOGD),
probably the largest Hermetic magical group in Norway outside the OTO-
inspired milieus. While it has been claimed that the HOGD is extinct, a
Norwegian branch of about thirty members continues to operate under the
name Sodalitas Rosae Crucis (SRC). It was officially opened on the vernal equi-
nox of year 2000; the Norwegian temple was, at that time, under the patronage
of the Stockholm temple. Due to reorganisations within the Swedish HOGD,
the leaders of the Oslo and Stockholm temples later founded the SRC. It prac-
tises the initiations of the HOGD and offers its members tutelage in ritual
magic. Apart from the SRC there are also members of other orders in Norway
that (claim to) originate from the HOGD, such as the Builders of the Adytum
(BOTA), the Servants of the Light (SOL) and Argentum Astrum (A∴A∴, see
above). None of these orders has any official temples in Norway and their
members work as solitary practitioners or with members in other countries.
There are also smaller groups, which mainly publish material from the golden
age of the HOGD.
Concluding Remarks
Even if the history of modern occultism in Norway in many ways begins with
the magical revival of the 1890s, it may also be said to begin with the establish-
ment of the OTO in 1982. This order constitutes a basis and starting point for
the development of later magic-occult oriented groups in Norway, including
those who expressly distance themselves from the OTO.
While ritual magic until recently only could be practised in secrecy in closed
groups, it is now less secret than ever. Instead of meeting each other in local
temples, many late modern magicians work alone and participate in global
networks on the Internet, where ritual texts and instructions are easily acces-
sible. Therefore, various different kinds of initiatory ritual magic are practised,
and these are more or less open to eclecticism, experimentation, and the free
movement of individuals between different orders or milieus. Practitioners
take an eclectic approach, and many question the respect for authority and the
appeal to unchangeable tradition that was characteristic of magic-occult
groups of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Travel abroad has led to
contacts with a variety of more “exotic” traditions, leading to a situation where
occultism in Norway is strongly influenced by, e.g., Afro-American religions
and tantrism.
References
Asprem, Egil, Arguing with Angels. Enochian Magic and Modern Occulture, Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2012.
Asprem, Egil and Kennet Granholm (eds.), Contemporary Esotericism, Sheffield: Equinox,
2013.
Berman, Patricia G., “Edvard Munch’s ‘Modern Life of the Soul’”, in: Kynaston McShine
(ed.), Edvard Munch. The Modern Life of the Soul, New York: The Museum of Modern
Art, 2006, 35–51.
Bogdan, Henrik and Martin P. Starr (eds.), Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism, New
York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Brage, Frater, OTO Huginn & Muninn Lodge. 10th Anniversary Celebrations 1992 EV,
Stockholm, 1992.
Crowley, Aleister, The Holy Books of Thelema, York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1988.
——— . Magick: Liber Aba: Book 4, York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1994.
——— . Liber XV, 1918 [<http://www.hermetic.com/sabazius/gnostic_mass.htm>,
accessed 18 February 2014].
342 Uldal And Winje
Evans, Dave, The History of British Magic after Crowley, Kenneth Grant, Amado Crowley,
Chaos Magic, Satanism, Lovecraft, the Left Hand Path, Blasphemy and Magical
Morality, Harpenden: Hidden publ., 2007.
Grant, Kenneth, The Magical Revival, London: Frederick Muller, 1972.
Hanegraaff, Wouter J. et al. (eds.), Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, Leiden:
Brill, 2006.
Harms, Daniel and John Wisdom Gonce III, The Necronomicon Files, York Beach, Maine:
Weiser Books, 2003.
Kilcher, Andreas B. (ed.), Constructing Tradition: Means and Myths of Transmission in
Western Esotericism, Leiden: Brill, 2010.
Koenig, Peter-R., The Ordo Templis Orientis Phenomenon, <www.parodyreligion.ch>,
accessed 20 February 2014].
KROM Manifesto (n.d.).
LaVey, Anton S., The Satanic Rituals, New York: Avon, 1972.
Lie, Harald Andreas, “AMOOKOS”, in: I Ny og Ne, summer 2004.
Næss, Atle, Munch, en biografi, Oslo: Gyldendal, 2004.
Ordo Templi Orientis Norge, Informasjonsbrosjyre, Trondheim, 2003.
Ordo Templi Orientis Study Guide 1 Degree, Oslo, 1998.
Price, Robert M. (ed.), The Necronomicon, Oakland: Chaosium, 1996.
Simon, The Necronomicon, New York: Avon, 1980.
Kristiansand: Høyskoleforlaget, 2007.
Vindheim, Jan Bojer, Vestens mysterier, Oslo: Ex Libris, 1990.
Winje, Geir, Fra bønn til magi. Nye religioner og menneskesyn, Kristiansand: Høyskole
forlaget, 1999.
Occultism in Sweden 343
Chapter 43 Occultism in Sweden
Occultism in Sweden
Kennet Granholm
Sweden is often perceived as one of the most secularised Western societies,

and yet the country has a plethora of magic orders and occult groups. The
present article is divided into sections dealing with early occultism, groups
influenced by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, neopagan magic,
Thelema, black and dark magic orders, and online occultism.
Early Occultism
Sweden has a long history of occultist approaches to esotericism. Emanuel

Swedenborg’s (1688–1772) notions of the spiritual worlds are regarded by many
scholars as an example of proto-occultism (see the chapter on Swedenbor
gianism in Scandinavia). Occultism proper in Sweden saw the light of day with
the founding of the first Spiritualist organisation in 1878 (see the chapter on
Spiritualism in Sweden), and the establishing of a Swedish section of the Theo
sophical Society in 1889 (see the chapter on Theosophy in Sweden). Occultist
magic was also practised in Sweden in the late nineteenth century. The short-
lived (1884–1885) but influential occult order Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor
had a small number of members in Sweden (Bogdan 2008: 320). The Brother
hood recruited members among Theosophists disillusioned with the Society’s
focus on the Orient and advocated practical magical work primarily based on
the sexual magic teachings of Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825–1875) (Deveney
1997: 7; Deveney 2005).
The Martinist Order was another practice-focused order active in Sweden in
the late nineteenth century (Bogdan 2008: 320; see Introvigne 2005: 780–783
for general information on Martinism). The order was founded in 1891 by
French occultists Gérard Encausse (1865–1916, also known as Papus) and
Augustin Chaboseau (1868–1946), based on the teachings of Louis Claude de
Saint-Martin (1743–1803), Martinès de Pasqually (1727?–1774), and Jean-Baptiste
Willermoz (1730–1824). After the death of Papus, schisms occurred within the
movement, and consequently several different Martinist orders exist today.
The webpage of the Martinist Order of the Netherlands provides information
on a group established in Sweden. However, the website does not appear to

344 Granholm
have been updated since the early 2000s. The Martinist order Ordre Reaux
Croix was formed in 2002 and is active in Norway and Sweden. Ordre Reaux
Croix seeks to ‘mend the wounds that Man brought upon himself after falling
from grace’, and works with Christian and kabbalistic symbolism. The two sep-
arate branches, Voie Cardiaque and Elus Cohens have different initiatory
structures and practice.
The Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC), founded by
H. Spencer Lewis in 1915, is possibly the largest and most influential order
to arise out of the Martinist movement, and has a number of members in
Sweden.
The Golden Dawn Tradition
There exist several orders claiming to be the legitimate successors of the origi-
nal Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, many of which are in conflict with
each other. The Golden Dawn is active in Sweden as the Rosicrucian Order of
Alpha+Omega, which regards itself as the inner order of the Hermetic Order
of the Golden Dawn. The first temple of the order, the Isis-Nut Temple, was
founded in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1994, by David Griffin (b. 1955). Griffin’s
European-based Golden Dawn was for many years in conflict with Chic
Cicero’s primarily North American based Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,
inc., and Griffin claims ownership of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
trademark in the European Union, and the Hermetic Order of the Golden
Dawn International trademark in Canada since 2007. In addition to physi-
cal temples, the order also provides the Harparkrat Cyber-Temple (opened
in 2002) for members who do not have a regular temple in their immediate
vicinity. It is possible for a member to do the work for the grades at distance,
but the initiations will have to take place in a physical temple (e-mail mes-
sage to author 31 January 2007). The order maintains an online discussion
forum with almost 6,000 subscribers. As this is a public forum, one cannot
assume that the number or subscribers to the forum corresponds to any actual
membership.
The Rosicrucian Order of Alpha+Omega functions as part of a confedera-
tion of independent Golden Dawn temples, that professes to be a genuine
successor to the original nineteenth-century Golden Dawn. In the proclama-
tion “Reformatio Fraternitatis of 1999” the order states that all of the published
rituals and practices of the Golden Dawn will be performed in the outer order,
whereas the inner order works with secret material consisting of Rosicrucian,
magic, and alchemical sources (Alpha+Omega, Types of Esoteric Orders and the
1999 Reformation of the Rosicrucian Order of A+O. [The Second Order (RR+AA)
Curriculum, Rosicrucian Order of Alpha+Omega, 2007].
Sodalitas Rosae Crucis & Solis Alati (SRC & SA) is an organisation founded
in Scandinavia in 2002, basing its work on the Golden Dawn tradition and sup-
plementing this with Gnosticism, Christian Theurgy, and Alchemical working.
The main centres of the organisation are located in Stockholm and Oslo.
Members, temples, and affiliated sister temples are said to exist in other parts
of Europe as well as in North and South America. Contacts are maintained
with leaders of esoteric groups around the world, with SRC & SA being one of
the initiators of the global “Western Mysteries Conference” held in USA in
September 2006 (Frater AVIAF, e-mail message to author, 13 January 2007; SRC,
Sodalitas Rosae Crucis & Solis Alati, informational document, 2007).
The organisation actually consists of two orders, corresponding to the two
first orders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The aim of the first
order, Sodalitas Rosae Crucis, is to lead adepts into contact with their Holy
Guardian Angel. Contact with the Holy Guardian Angel makes the adept ready
for the second order, Solis Alati, which involves alchemical workings of a self-
developmental character. The bylaws of SRC & SA state that the purpose of the
order is to lead members to transcend the limitations of matter, to rediscover
their spiritual origin, and to become more than human. Kabbalah, Gnosticism,
Christian mysticism, Hermetism, and Alchemy are studied in their mystical,
magical, and intellectual aspects (SRC, Sodalitas Rosae Crucis & Solis Alati,
informational document, 2007).
A candidate for membership is required to send in an application form, and
then meet with two members of the order. Based on a report on some personal
work scheduled by the order, the applicant is either initiated into the order or
dismissed. In order to advance in the grades, members’ requests for initiation
must be accepted by the order, and they will then have to undergo an examina-
tion where their skills and knowledge are assessed. Members are also required
to partake in the meetings of the order, which regularly take place twice a
month, and to report on their personal work. SRC & SA professes an interest in
Martinism, but does not provide training in this tradition. For this purpose, the
order recommends getting in touch with Ordre Reaux Croix, with which SRC &
SA collaborates.
The Servants of the Light is another occult order with teachings based on the
Golden Dawn tradition that, while not having any lodges in Sweden, claims to
346 Granholm
arrange workshops in esoteric subjects in the country. The order was founded
in 1972 by Walter Ernest Butler (1898–1978), who received his training in Dion
Fortune’s (Violet Mary Firth, 1890–1946) Society of Inner Light.
Magic and Neopaganism
Svenska Misraimförbundet (Societas Misraim), formed as Merlinorden (Ordo

Merlini & Rosae Crucis) on 8 April 1988 by Mikael W. Gejel, Mikael Hedlund,
and Karin Norberg, and adopting its current name in the summer of 2007, is
with its approximately 200 members (in 2007) the most significant magical
group with neopagan influences in Sweden. The organisation identifies itself
as a Rosicrucian order, and is organised in three layers. In Merlinorden the
focus in the first layer was on Druidic, i.e., Celtic, and Drott, i.e., Germanic,
shamanism, as well as on Hermeticism. Whether this is still the case with the
renamed order is unknown. In the two subsequent layers the focus is on the
Rite of Misraim, in the tradition of Rudolf Steiner. Through the years Merlin
orden has been granted charters to initiate and work with different iterations
of the rite (M. Gejel, e-mail message to author, 15 February 2007). The order is
led by a council consisting of members who have attained at least the third
degree of the Rite of Misraim, and has lodges in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and
Ödeshög (in Southern Sweden, near the eastern shore of lake Vättern). Gejel
and Hedlund have been influential in the Swedish pagan and neo-shamanic
movements (Lindqvist 1997), and the neo-shamanic organisation Yggdrasil-
gillet operates as part of Svenska Misraimförbundet.
Thelema
The Swedish branch of the OTO was founded in 1990. Before that, Swedish
members had been initiated abroad. From its initial centre in Stockholm, the
Swedish OTO has grown to include groups in Gothenburg, Stockholm, and
Malmö. Groups have also been active in Lund, Roslagen, Uppsala, and Växjö
but these were at the time of writing closed down. Besides arranging national
meetings, the Swedish branch of the order has hosted international gatherings.
Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law, the holy scripture of Thelema, was trans-
lated into Swedish in 1992 (Frater Oculus, e-mail message to author, 13 January
2007), and a new translation was released in 2014.
When at its largest, the order had around 150 members in Sweden. In recent
years membership numbers have decreased somewhat. Some of the Swedish
OTO groups arrange meetings and study groups, whereas others mainly per-
form initiations and the Gnostic Mass. The Swedish OTO maintains no official
contacts with other organisations, but is actively in contact and co-operation
with other OTO bodies around the world (Frater Oculus, e-mail message to
author, 13 January 2007).
Dark/Black Magic
Dragon Rouge (Ordo Draconis et Atri Adamantis) was founded in Stockholm,

Sweden, on the eve of New Year 1990, by the then 17-year old Thomas Karlsson.
Karlsson had spent his teenage years exploring the occult and immersing him-
self in the alternative spiritual subculture of Stockholm. He felt the lack of a
practice-based dark magic order, and therefore founded Dragon Rouge. The
order was quickly noticed in the alternative spiritual milieu, and not always in
positive terms (Bjarke 1991). In the mid-1990s the order caught the attention of
the Swedish news media, and Dragon Rouge was given coverage, again in a
rather pejorative fashion. The coverage did, however, attract a large number of
new members to the order, necessitating an organisational restructuring in
which the administration of the order was rationalised (Granholm 2014).
Dragon Rouge is organised as a mother order located in Stockholm and
regional lodges, temple groups, and ritual groups. In late 2013 the order had
four active lodges (three in Sweden and one in Italy), three temple groups
(Finland, Athens, and Liverpool), and one ritual group (in Brazil). Earlier
groups and lodges have existed in several cities in Sweden and in Germany,
Poland, the Czech Republic, Argentina, and Mexico. In the 2000s the member-
ship of the order has fluctuated between 300 and 500, with more than a third
located outside Sweden (Granholm 2014). The order is governed by an inner
circle, consisting of long-time members who are responsible for formulating
the ideology and administrating the order. The inner circle is dynamic in char-
acter, in that it involves those people who are concerned by the issues treated.
However, as Stockholm is the location of the mother order and those members
who have been affiliated for the longest period of time, the inner circle gener-
ally draws on people active there.
Dragon Rouge is a Left-Hand Path magic order, which in this context signi-
fies that the ultimate aim is the (symbolic or actual) self-deification of the
practitioner. The order operates with the dichotomies of Chaos and Cosmos.
Chaos, which is the focus of the Dragon Rouge magician, is understood as the
sphere of un-manifest potential, and as a source of power that the magician
can tap into. Through utilising the destructive powers of Chaos, magicians can
348 Granholm
tear down obstacles and restrictions in their lives, in order to recreate the foun-
dations of their existence. The form of magic practised in Dragon Rouge is
called Dark Magic, by which is meant the exploration of hidden aspects of the
Self and existence (Granholm 2014). Dragon Rouge is strongly eclectic in char-
acter, and the themes treated during its meetings are derived from a vast array
of sources, with Old Norse mythology, Tantrism, and European occultist magic
being particularly prominent (Granholm 2014).
Dragon Rouge’s initiatory system of the order is based on the eleven Qlipho
thic spheres of Kabbalah, with the degrees named after the different spheres.
The Qliphoth are the shadow-side of the Sephirothic Tree of Life, in Dragon
Rouge identified as the Tree of Knowledge (Karlsson 2004: 70). When becom-
ing a member, one has the possibility to partake in correspondence courses in
magic, which lead to initiation in the degree system. The order is arranged in
three primary levels. Level one consists of those members who have not yet
been initiated into the first degree, while level two consists of those initiated in
degrees 1.0 and 2.0. Upon initiation into degree 3.0 the member swears the
Dragon Oath and is initiated into the Dragon Order, the third organisational
level and the inner order of Dragon Rouge (Granholm 2014).
Another important group in the Left-Hand Path milieu, the Temple of Set, is
discussed in the article Satanism in Sweden in the present volume.
Occultism on the Web
The Swedish magic and occult milieu is quite active on the Internet. Beside the
web pages of different magic orders, there exist a considerable number of web-
sites devoted to different aspects of occultism and magic.
The website Paranormal Sweden (paranormal.se) was created by Jonas
Liljegren and is intended to function as an encyclopedia of the paranormal.
The website contains articles on diverse paranormal subjects, including magic
and the occult. The administrators of the website describe Paranormal Sweden
as ‘a collective of beings who want to advance their knowledge of paranormal
phenomena’. The website discusses terminology relevant to the study of the
paranormal, reports on experiments and theories on the paranormal, and de-
scribes various theories on the paranormal. The contributors of Paranormal.se
are thus not interested in the paranormal in a purely academic sense, and in an
article by Liljegren the practical application of occult ideas is discussed.
Sentinels, twenty-four in number, work with the contents of the site to
which almost 4,000 members have contributed. In order to become a member,
one simply has to register on the site, and contribute material at some point.
No specific level of activity is required in order to become a member. Members

are considered “citizens” of the Paranormal Sweden collective, and have the
right to search the members’ register in order to contact other “citizens”. The
website is free and open to the public. The content on the website includes
articles on subjects such as black magic, astral travel, kabbalah and Qliphoth,
as well as on occult figures such as A.E. Waite, Aleister Crowley, Anton Szandor
Lavey, and Thomas Karlsson.
References
Bjarke, B., “Bärsärken kommenterar”, Gimle. Tidskrift för shamanism, myt och magi 19
(1991), 49.
Bogdan, Henrik, “Esoteriska rörelser”, in: Ingvar Svanberg & David Westerlund (eds.),
Religion i Sverige, Stockholm: Dialogos, 2008, 315–323.
Deveney, J.P., Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-Century Black American Spiritualist,
Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.
Deveney, John Patrick, “The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor”, in: Wouter J. Hanegraaff,
et al. (eds.), Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, Leiden: Brill, 2005,
486–487.
Dracontias, nr. 3 – 2008, Stockholm: Dragon Rouge (unpublished members’ paper).
Granholm, Kennet, Dark Enlightenment: The Historical, Sociological, and Discursive
Contexts of Contemporary Esoteric Magic, Leiden: Brill, 2014.
Introvigne, Massimo, “Martinism: Second Period”, in: Wouter J. Hanegraaff, et al. (eds.),
Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, Leiden: Brill, 2005, 780–783.
Karlsson, Thomas, Kabbala, kliffot och den goetiska magin, Sundbyberg: Ouroboros pro-
duction, 2004.
Lindquist, Galina, Shamanic Performances on the Urban Scene: Neo-Shamanism in
Contemporary Sweden, Stockholm: Stockholm University Press, 1997.
350 Weber Pedersen
Chapter 44 Paganism in Denmark
Paganism in Denmark
Charting the Field
The twenty-first century has witnessed a number of interesting developments

in the Danish Pagan milieu. On the one hand, these changes reflect general
tendencies in Scandinavia, while on the other there are specific local develop-
ments, as well. The present chapter describes the most important Pagan
milieus in contemporary Denmark, and presents some of the most significant
developments that have taken place since the 1980s.
Paganism can be described as a contemporary form of polytheistic religios-
ity, which attempts to revitalise what participants in these milieus see as
pre-Christian religions and traditions (Pedersen 2005: 123–124, 133). Paganism
is thus an umbrella term that encompasses a plethora of religious groups,
united by a strong emphasis on ritual and on the sacralisation of nature.
Historically, the emergence of Paganism in Denmark is linked to the socio-cul-
tural changes of the 1960s and 1970s, involving firstly a rejection of a number of
establishment values, such as materialism and conventional gender roles, and
secondly a strong interest in alternative lifestyles, including new religious or
spiritual options (Steno 2012: 116; Pedersen 2005: 124–127). Paganism used to be
seen as part of the broader New Age scene (Heelas 1996; York 1995; Hammer
1997), but has in the first decade of the twenty-first century increasingly been
perceived as an independent field of scholarly study (Lewis & Pizza 2009). The
field of Pagan studies has, however, been critiqued for being dominated by
essentialist approaches and by an excessive loyalty to insider understandings
of Paganism, and recent scholarship has called for a greater degree of method-
ological reflection (Davidsen 2012). The recent development of a separate
academic field notwithstanding, it can be difficult to draw distinct boundaries
between Paganism, New Age, esotericism, and some forms of alternative
medicine.
In the pages that follow, I have avoided following terminological trends that
attempt to distinguish categories such as “world paganism” and “indigenous
paganism” or “eclectic” and “reconstructionistic paganism”, since these are at
best academic constructions and can in the worst case distort the empirical

Paganism in Denmark 351
data. All major Pagan currents are in fact heterogeneous entities that can man-
ifest in traditionalist/exclusivist forms, eclectic/inclusivist versions, and any
number of intermediate varieties between these two extremes. Instead, I have
simply chosen to structure this chapter in a manner that reflects the most basic
threefold distinction between Pagan currents in Denmark, namely asatro (a
Danish version of Nordic Paganism), neo-shamanism, and witchcraft-related
forms.
One problematic issue in coming to grips with the Danish Pagan milieu is
the fact that there are no major surveys that assess its size. Danish official sta-
tistics do not register the religious affiliation of the country’s inhabitants, and
the more recent surveys that do exist are limited to studying the asatro milieu,
which in 2007 was estimated to consist of roughly 1,000 people (Warmind 2007:
226), and the witchcraft milieu that was estimated to comprise some 500 indi-
viduals (Steno 2012: 114). There are no similar surveys of people involved in
neo-Shamanism, but my impression is that this milieu is of the same size as the
witchcraft milieu. However, the overall porous, fragmented, and inclusivist
nature of the Danish Pagan scene makes it extraordinarily difficult to measure.
It would, for instance, be quite possible to find a self-declared witch who par-
ticipates regularly in neo-Shamanic drumming sessions and is an active
member of the asatro organisation Forn Siðr. There is thus a significant overlap
between the three Pagan currents, and the eclectic nature of Paganism as a
whole implies that many contemporary Pagans find it unproblematic to inte-
grate elements from all three major currents and other influences as well in
their personal beliefs and religious practices. This is a fundamental feature of
Paganism that needs to be taken into account in connection with any socio-
logical survey of the Pagan scene.
It should, finally, also be noted that the emergence of the Internet as a
medium available to a vast proportion of the population has had a tremendous
influence on the dissemination of Pagan ideas, and has promoted the founda-
tion of several Pagan organisations. It is nevertheless difficult to assess the
degree to which this volatile and complex virtual milieu reflects the degree of
Pagan practice in real life. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, there
were numerous Pagan on-line fora, but at present (2014) few of these are still
active. The Pagan virtual scene in Denmark is today mainly a Facebook-based
phenomenon, a format that makes research on Paganism even harder to
conduct.
352 Weber Pedersen
Asatro
In terms of size and visibility, the local form of Nordic Paganism called asatro
is by far the most dominant strand of Paganism in Denmark. Asatro is described
as a revitalisation and/or reconstruction of the pre-Christian religion of Viking-
age Scandinavia, mainly by using medieval sources such as the Eddas, the saga
literature, and so forth. Most Danish practitioners of asatro are aware of con-
structing a new connection to an old tradition where the historical link has
been broken, and the so-called forn sed movement found elsewhere in
Scandinavia that professes to carry on an unbroken local folk tradition is prac-
tically non-existent in Denmark.
The asatro milieu is organised in smaller groups called blót groups (after the
Norse name for ritual sacrifice), and larger, national Pagan organisations. The
asatro milieu is a more tightly structured phenomenon than the other Pagan
currents in Denmark, both in its on-line manifestations and in real life.
The first signs of an organised asatro milieu in Denmark can be traced back
to the mid- 1980s, with the founding in 1986 of the first self-professed asatro
group Odins Hird (Housecarls of Odin) in the Copenhagen district of Amager.
In 1988 the group Heimdals Sønner og Døtre (Sons and Daughters of Heimdal)
was founded, the first organisation to hold four blót rituals per year. Both of
these groups still exist (Pedersen 2005: 140). A first abortive attempt to found a
nation-wide asatro community took place in 1993, and was intended to result
in an organisation called Asatrúsamfundet (The Asatrú Community), but the
project came to nought due to internal schisms over such issues as the risk of
ending up as a dogmatic institution (Pedersen 2005: 140).
A more successful attempt was the launch of Forn Siðr. Asa- og vanetrosam-
fundet i Danmark or FS (Forn Siðr, the Society for Asa- and Vane-believers in
Denmark; despite its name not to be confused with the forn sed current men-
tioned above). This organisation was founded in 1997 with the purpose of
facilitating contacts between asatro practitioners and striving to make asatro
better-known and more widely accepted. From the beginning FS wished that
asatro would be respected on an equal footing with other religions, and in 1999
the organisation filed a request with the Danish Ministry of Ecclesiastical
Affairs to be accredited as a religious body. Under Danish law, there is religious
freedom but not religious equality, and only official accreditation allows a reli-
gious organisation certain tax benefits and the right to conduct legally valid
marriages. After a period of four years during which the application was
reviewed, the FS was – to the great interest of the media – in 2003 finally recog-
nised as an accredited religion. The process came at a cost: the Ministry of
Ecclesiastical Affairs placed a number of additional demands on the FS if they

were to receive the coveted accreditation, and conflicts arose in the ranks of
the FS with some members protesting that the organisation had gone too far in
its wish to be accepted by the surrounding society (Bøgelund 2008: 44–45). As
a consequence, several members left FS.
In the wake of this development, two new asatro organisations were
founded in 2003: Asatrofællesskabet i Danmark (ATFD; The Asatrú Fellowship
in Denmark) and Asatrofællesskabet Yggdrasil (ATFY; The Asatrú Fellowship
Yggdrasil). ATFD is less centralised than FS and functions as less of a joint body
for asatro practitioners: associated blót groups retain their full autonomy as
long as they share the basic statutes of the ATFD, and the ATFD has merely
administrative functions. In 2006 ATFD applied for accreditation, but the
request has at the time of writing not yet been approved. ATFY is an umbrella
organisation with one section on Jutland and one on Zealand. The organisa-
tion owns a three-acre tract of forest near the town of Silkeborg on Jutland,
which is used for asatro-related activities, and they are working on establishing
a similar site on Zealand.
The fourth nation-wide asatro organisation in Denmark is Nordisk Tings
fællig (NT; the name is a neologism based on an older, now obsolete Danish
word for community), established in 2010. NT has a focus on the veneration of
the Nordic deities, and insists that membership in NT commits one to actively
taking part in the activities of the organisation.
Despite conflicts and the existence of rival organisations, FS is today by far
the largest, most visible, and most established asatro community in Denmark.
Currently (2014), FS has 635 members. If one compares available figures from
2005 (Warmind 2007: 221), when there were 435 members, one can see that
membership has risen by nearly 50%. FS has over the last decade also managed
to generate significant public and media interest. One example concerns the
raising in 2006 of a modern rune stone commemorating the pioneers of mod-
ern asatro, on the occasion of the ninth anniversary of the organisation’s
existence.
In 2009 the first modern Pagan burial site was inaugurated in Denmark’s
third largest city, Odense, as a collaborative effort between the municipality of
Odense and FS. The burial site is reserved exclusively for FS members and their
relatives.
The asatro milieu is dynamic in the sense that new blót groups are quite
frequently founded and old groups are disbanded. In 2005 Warmind identified
twenty-four active blót groups in Denmark (Warmind 2005: 220), while Bøgelund
in 2008 counted thirty-five (Bøgelund 2008: 16). The number of members in a
354 Weber Pedersen
blót group can vary from two to more than fifty. Among the largest at present are
Harreskovens Blótgilde (established in 1996), Aarhus Blótlaug (est. 2000), Solbjerg
Blótlaug (est. 2000), and Uias Blótlaug (est. 2001), with more than thirty members
each.
Most people in the Danish Pagan milieu are vehemently opposed to the
right wing and racist form of asatrú found inter alia in the USA (Bøgelund 2008:
28; Pedersen 2005: 138–139; cf. Gardell 2003 on the situation in the USA).
Nevertheless, there is a considerable and, in some groups, growing emphasis
on ethnic identity also in the Danish milieu (Warmind 2002: 38–40). An exam-
ple of this is the fact that two Danish members of both the American-based
Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA) and of the FS managed to have the AFA hold its
first official event outside the USA, in 2013, in the Danish city of Odense. As a
result, the group Asatru Folk Assembly Denmark was founded. This is all the
more remarkable, given that the AFA has been heavily frowned upon in the
Scandinavian Pagan milieu because of the ethnic and nationalist ideology of
its main spokesperson Stephen McNallen (b. 1948).
Neo-Shamanism
Contrary to the other Scandinavian countries, where there have been Sami
shamanic traditions, Denmark has not in historically recorded times had any
indigenous form of shamanism. Nevertheless, there is a considerable interest
in shamanism among Danish Pagans. This interest can be seen both in the use
of shamanic techniques and concepts within witch covens and blót groups,
and in the form of a Pagan current with a distinctive focus on shamanism.
The modern shamanic (or neo-shamanic) milieu in Denmark is domi-
nated by practices developed since the 1970s by the American author Michael
Harner (b. 1929) as part of what he calls “core shamanism”. Core shamanism
presents itself as a gamut of ritual techniques said to constitute a shared core
of shamanic traditions from various parts of the globe. The most important
of these ritual techniques is the shamanic journey undertaken to the sound
of drumming. Harner’s core shamanism represents a considerable innovation
compared to the practices of indigenous peoples, in that the shamanic journey
is taught as an instrumental technique available to all, and is detached from
any specific, local socio-cultural context (cf. Hammer 1997: 102–104; Pade 1999:
380–381; Jakobsen 1999: 158–167).
In comparison to much else found in the Pagan milieu, neo-shamanism is a

fairly commodified activity in that there are courses that one can join for a fee.
Introductory-level courses provide instruction in animistic beliefs and ritual
methods for establishing contact with a shamanic reality populated by spirit
beings. After completing the introductory level, one can progress to courses on
topics such as shamanic counselling, soul retrieval, and spiritual ecology.
Shamanic techniques are also used as a form of complementary treatment,
e.g., in the form of shamanic healing or counselling. These commercial struc-
tures are not characteristic of other sectors of the Pagan milieu.
The oldest and largest neo-shamanic organisation in Denmark is the
Scandinavian Center for Shamanic Studies (SCSS). The SCSS was founded in
1986 by Jonathan Horwitz (b. 1941), who was taught the ritual techniques by
Michael Harner, and Anette Høst (b. 1951), who specialises in what she describes
as the shamanic and witchcraft traditions of the North. The SCSS functions as
a key venue for people interested in learning neo-shamanic techniques, and
offers more than twenty different courses in several European countries. Most
of the activities take place in Denmark and at the Åsbacka Center for Shamanic
Healing in southern Sweden. Besides a wide range of courses, the centre also
offers personal sessions for shamanic healing, counselling and retreats, as well
as special events, rituals, and lectures (Pedersen 2005: 127, 274–275; Jakobsen
1999: 8–9, 159).
The organisation Shamanselskabet Danmark (Shamanic Society Denmark;
SSD) was founded in 2007, and at the time of writing has three teachers of
shamanism, including Svend Pedersen (b. 1947), who previously ran the now
defunct Foundation for Shamanic Studies Denmark (cf. Pedersen 2005: 264–
265). SSD was inspired by Siberian shamanic practices, and presents its aims
as providing a community where modern shamanism can be developed in a
form that fits the surrounding society without trivialising the contents. SSD
was founded after a critical appraisal of the existing market for shamanic
courses and their relations to alternative and complementary healing prac-
tices, and presents itself as a more serious alternative. The organisation offers
a six-month introductory course called “Shamanlærling på prøve” (Shamanic
apprenticeship), and once this course has been completed the full shamanic
curriculum can be completed in a minimum of five years (as compared to the
weekend courses offered by the SCSS).
At present (2014) the first attempts are being made to found a shamanic
religious community in Denmark. The initiative to do so has been taken by
John Russell-Møller (b. 1946), who describes himself as a nature shaman. He
356 Weber Pedersen
has had a shamanic practice in Copenhagen since 1992, but offers shamanic
treatments and counselling all over Scandinavia, and has led wilderness tours
to Lapland. Inspired by similar events in Norway, Russel-Møller has since 2013
worked to establish Shamanistisk Forbund – Danmark (Shamanic Society –
Denmark), which he describes as ‘a religious community that attempts to
promote a shamanic world view and to ensure the right of individuals and
groups to seek and pursue a shamanic practice’. (cf. <http://www.shamanis-
tiskforbund.dk/formaal>).
Besides the organisations mentioned above, there are a number of other
more or less loosely organised, local drum groups around the country, which
regularly arrange shamanic get-togethers centred on shamanic drum journeys
and similar activities. Usually, participants are required to have participated in
a basic course in shamanism or have an equivalent amount of relevant experi-
ence (Pedersen 2005: 275).
Witchcraft and Wicca
Danish witches are part of an extremely diverse milieu, that includes every-
thing from practitioners who primarily use plants for magic and healing, to
witches associated with one or another of the many strands of the modern
religious tradition of Wicca (Hammer 1997: 114; Steno 2012: 115). Wicca has been
around in Scandinavia for the last three decades, and came from Norway to
Denmark in the mid-1990s. Some scholars have seen the arrival of wicca as a
major impetus for the development of Danish asatro and of the blót ritual
(Warmind 2007: 216; Warmind 2002: 40). Most Danish witches are solitary prac-
titioners, but some are organised in smaller groups or covens. Most practitioners
are women (Steno 2012: 115). Two of the most important traits distinguishing
the witchcraft milieu from other forms of Paganism is its focus on the concept
of energy, and its use of magic (Steno 2012: 113).
Denmark’s best-known witch is Dannie Druehyld (b. 1947), who already in
the 1970s began using the term witch to describe herself. During this period of
time she was also a central figure in the feminist movement, and a co-founder
of the women’s groups Økofeministerne (Organic Feminists) and Gudinde-
bevægelsen (The Goddess Movement), a group celebrating Mother Earth.
Druehyld is today best known for her advocacy and use of herbal remedies,
and her role in the climate movement, but she has been a major source of
inspiration for the contemporary witches’ milieu in Denmark (Pedersen 2005:
159, 161–162).
One of the oldest extant covens in Denmark is called Lorjanar, and works
with a form of Wicca based on the heritage of Gerald Gardner (1884–1964). The
coven was founded in 1997, and has men and women from Denmark as well as
Norway as members.
The most intensively researched coven in Denmark is Hekselogen Isikaja
(HLI; The Isikaja Coven). The coven was founded in Århus in 1999, and saw
itself as a spiritual network of contemporary witches that celebrated the pri-
mal feminine power. HLI was a very eclectic coven, where members were
inspired by topics as diverse as Scandinavian folklore, shamanism, clairvoy-
ance, asatro, and much else. In 2005, HLI split into two covens, one in the city
of Århus, and the other in the rural region of Djursland. Both covens later
ceased their activities and HLI is now defunct (Pedersen 2005: 158–176; Fibiger
2004: 419–425).
The oldest country-wide organisation for witches in Denmark is Cyprianus,
Netværk for hekse i Danmark (Cyprianus, Network for Witches in Denmark),
which was founded in 2000 with the purpose of functioning as an umbrella
organisation for witches in Denmark by, e.g., providing a very active Internet
forum, arranging weekend meetings for witches, and (in the period from 2002
to 2006) publishing a magazine, Blade fra Cyprianussen (Pages from the Cypria
nus). After some very vigorous first years of activity, the organisation now
appears to be nearly dormant.
In 2013, yet another nation-wide witches’ organisation was founded, simply
called Foreningen Hekse (Witches’ Organisation). The organisation describes
itself as a meeting point for active practitioners of witchcraft and magic. The
organisation intends to publish a members’ magazine twice annually, and to
organise yearly witches’ conferences. At the time of writing, these activities
were still in the planning stage.
Concluding Remarks
Declaring oneself a Pagan and accepting labels such as asatro (the term
denotes both the religion and its adherents), witch or shaman is an active,
individual choice, which decisively shapes one’s religious identity. Various
Pagan identities of these kinds are united by a desire to reconstruct or rec-
reate the values of ancient cultures, especially their perceived proximity to
nature, and to embrace ritual as a way to achieve this goal. The Pagan milieu
can in this respect be seen as an alternative to the secular and disenchanted
values of contemporary society (Pedersen 2005: 19; Steno 2012: 117–118). It
358 Weber Pedersen
is, on the other hand, also a milieu characterised by epistemological indi-

vidualism (Heelas 1996: 21) rooted in the much more recent heritage of the
counterculture and its rejection of traditions and social structures that were
perceived as reactionary, stagnant, and counterproductive, as well as its
struggle to allow each individual to form his or her own way of life. The main
asatro organisation in Denmark, Forn Siðr, expresses this individualism in its
hyperinclusivistic creed: ‘No one knows the faces of the gods; we construct an
image that resembles ourselves; we see the same, but see differently; no one
knows whose vision is the most truthful’. (cf. <http://www.fornsidr.dk/om-forn-
sidr/grundlag>).
References
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Bøgelund, Vinni, “Asatro: Harreskovens Blótgilde”, in: Birgit Andersen, Helle Bertelsen,
et al, Senmoderne religiøsitet i Danmark, Viborg: Systime, 2008: 16–51.
Davidsen, Markus Altene, “What is Wrong with Pagan Studies?”, Method and Theory in
the Study of Religion 24 (2012), 183–199.
Fibiger, Marianne C. Qvortrup (ed.), Religiøs mangfoldighed. En kortlægning af religion
og spiritualitet i Århus, Gylling: Systime Academic, 2004.
Gardell, Mattias, Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism, Durham
and London: Duke University Press, 2003.
Hammer, Olav, På jagt efter helheden. New Age – en ny folketro?, Århus: Forlaget Fremad,
1997.
Heelas, Paul, The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and the Sacralization of
Modernity, Oxfordshire: Blackwell Publishers, 1996.
Jakobsen, Merete Demant, Shamanism: Traditional and Contemporary Approaches to
the Mastery of Spirits and Healing, New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1999.
Lewis, James R. and Murphy Pizza (eds.), Handbook of Contemporary Paganism, Leiden
and Boston: Brill, 2009.
Pade, Mikkel, Nye religiøse bevægelser i Danmark, København: Gyldendal, 1999.
Pedersen, René Dybdal, I Lysets Tjeneste – nye religiøse og spirituelle grupper i Danmark,
Gylling: Forlaget Univers, 2005.
Steno, Anne Mia, “Parallelle Verdener. Magisk og rituel praksis blandt moderne hekse i
Danmark”, Kulturstudier 1 (2012), 111–133.
Warmind, Morten, “Asatro i Danmark – en foreløbig oversigt”, Religion: tidsskrift for
Religionslærerforeningen for Gymnasiet og HF 1 (2002), 33–37.
——— . “Asatro i Danmark – spredning og vækst af en ny religion”, in: Margit Warburg

and Brian Jacobsen (eds.), Tørre tal om troen: Religionsdemografi i Danmark i det 21.
århundrede, Højbjerg: Forlaget Univers, 2007: 208–220.
York, Michael, The Emerging Network: A Sociology of the New Age and Neo-pagan Move
ments, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 1995.
360 Hjelm
Chapter 45 Paganism in Finland
Paganism in Finland
Titus Hjelm
The growth and public recognition of different types of contemporary

Paganism in the West, especially in the English-speaking world, has led some
scholars to conclude that the developments of the last fifteen or so years can
indeed be called a “Pagan explosion” (Lewis 2006). While surveys of Pagans, an
ever-increasing scholarly interest, and the establishment of “Pagan studies” as
an independent field of study (e.g., Ezzy, Blain & Harvey 2005; Davy 2006) all
do point to a definite change, there is variation in the intensity of the emer-
gence of contemporary Paganisms in different social contexts.
In Finland, researchers have also noted a steady growth in the number of
people identifying themselves as Pagans (although no truly reliable surveys
exist). In addition, the Pagan presence on the Internet has grown and publica-
tions discussing certain forms of Paganism (e.g., Hjelm 2005) have appeared
since the early 2000s. Nevertheless, the only discernible “explosion” in Finnish
Paganism has been the public controversy about the alleged occultism in the
highly popular Harry Potter books, a debate which Pagans were drawn into
only reluctantly. This is significantly different from the United States, where the
Pagans (widely understood) not only have a strong presence in the spirituality
book market, but also a more recognised public status that has enabled the
establishment of state-funded prison chaplains in certain states, for example.
Despite the emergence of a lively subculture, Finnish Paganism remains mar-
ginal with little organisation and struggling with the question of legitimacy.
There are currently no reliable numbers for contemporary pagans in
Finland. Tom Sjöblom (2000: 239) gives a conservative estimate of 500–1,000
practitioners, but organised coven activity is very likely taking place on a much
smaller scale. However, the virtual community is very active, with all of the
organisations maintaining more or less active discussion lists and forums. It
seems that in a country of small population and large distances, the Internet
has become the main vehicle for communication and recruitment in the Wicca
and wider Pagan community (cf. Fernback 2002; Linderman & Lövheim 2003).
Contemporary Paganisms in Finland can be roughly divided into two differ-
ent groups (for a different typology, see Sjöblom 2000). The first is what I call
“World Paganisms”, which refers to forms of Paganism that draw from interna-
tionally recognised Pagan traditions that have originated outside of Finland.

Paganism in Finland 361
Most significant among these are Wicca and different types of Goddess reli-
gion. The second group I have termed “Indigenous Reconstructions”, referring
to groups and traditions that are primarily inspired by Finnish folklore and
folk religion. The distinction is, however, analytic in the sense that in practice
the field of contemporary Paganism is very eclectic. Therefore, it would not be
uncommon to find a Witch chanting incantations from the Finnish national
epic The Kalevala, for example.
“World Paganisms” in Finland
Neopaganism came to Finland in organised form in 1979 when an organisation

called The Center of Mielikki and Hare (the group used this English-language
name) was formed. The centre was the Finnish branch of the Fellowship of Isis,
established in Ireland in 1976. The Fellowship of Isis emphasised the role of the
Great Earth Mother, allegedly worshipped before the triumph of Christianity
and patriarchal monotheism in Europe (Hjelm & Sohlberg 2004: 9–10; Sjöblom
2000: 228).
From the beginning, the Finnish Pagans borrowed elements from the rich
Finnish folklore in their practice. The so-called Sirius group was formed in
1979, with the cultivation of ancient Finnish pagan beliefs as its main aim. This
group was later renamed Jumalten Ystävät (Friends of the Gods) and acted as
an umbrella organisation for those interested in various forms of Western eso-
tericism, contemporary Paganism, the occult, and mysticism (Heino 1997: 368).
Along with another umbrella organisation, Pohjoismainen pakanaliitto (The
Nordic Pagan Association), all of these groups are now defunct.
The late 1990s saw resurgence in the interest in Paganism and led to a forma-
tion of new associations. The longest-surviving of these, Shamaaniseura ry
(The Shaman Association, the abbreviation ry stands for registered associa-
tion), was established in 1994 and officially registered in 2000. Lehto ry (The
Grove) was established in Helsinki in 1998. It is an association for contempo-
rary Pagans who consider themselves practitioners of nature religion, no
matter what the name of the specific strand of belief is (Aarnio 2001: 207).
Pakanaverkko ry (The Pagan Network), established in 1999, is a loose associa-
tion of representatives of different Pagan religions (including Satanism that is
often considered controversial and not a Pagan religion by other Pagan asso-
ciations) and people interested in different forms of magic. The Wiccans also
have two registered associations, one for traditionalist (i.e., Gardnerian and
Alexandrian) Wiccans (Wicca ry, est. 2000) and the other, Suomen vapaa Wicca-
yhdyskunta (The Finnish Free Wicca Association, est. 2001, not registered as an
362 Hjelm
association) for traditionalists and eclectics alike. It is unclear how much

organised activity, if any, goes on under these two organisations today. In addi-
tion, an association practising “Tensegrity”, a meditative technique developed
by Carlos Castaneda (Kirkkaanvihreä ry, Cleargreen, est. 1999), is registered
under the Associations Act. The newest arrivals in the Finnish Pagan scene are
Reclaimed ry. (est. 2007) and the Pagan Federation International which estab-
lished its (unregistered) Finnish branch in 2010.
Indigenous Reconstructions
Despite the fluctuating fortunes of contemporary Paganism, Pagan religion has

strong roots in Finnish culture. Historically, Finland has often been regarded as
the land of shamans and spell-weavers. The significance of the national epic
Kalevala as a national symbol led to practical revitalisation attempts of the “old
spiritual wisdom” already at the time of its publication in the mid-nineteenth
century, and ‘also played a central role in such religious movements as
Anthroposophy and the Finnish Rosicrucian movement during the first
decades of the [twentieth] century’ (Sjöblom 2000: 228). Although this kind of
“academic esotericism”, mainly practised by people with an interest in national
myths and history, probably survived among a small number of adherents,
nothing comparable to the Pagan revivals in 1950s and 1960s in the UK and US
happened in Finland.
Rejuvenation of (or perhaps more correctly, reconstruction of) Finnish folk
religion was the main purpose of the Hiidenkirnu (Giant’s Kettle, est. date
unknown, active in the 1990s) group, which also aimed at cooperating with
emerging Baltic Pagan groups. Like many of its contemporary peers, Hiiden
kirnu is also now defunct. The newer Suomen kansanuskon yhdistys ry.
(Finnish Folk Religion Association, est. 2001) claims not to represent contem-
porary Paganism or a reconstruction of Finnish folk religion, but instead
(somewhat ambiguously) seeks ‘to continue what our mothers and fathers
have taught us and respect their way of practising folk religion’ (Kansanuskovat
webpage). The association is also active in promoting folk religion among
kindred nations in Russia and Estonia, for example. Other new organisations
include Taivaannaula ry. (Heaven’s Nail, est. 2007), which practises a contem-
porary reconstruction old pre-Christian Finnish folk religion, and Wakka-mys-
teerikoulu (Wakka Mystery School, est. 2006), which combines features from
Western esotericism (an initiatory system, for example) with aspects of Finnish
folk religion. All of the above are registered under the Associations Act. In
December 2013, Finland got its first registered Pagan community when Karhun
kansa (People of the Bear), a group professing reconstructed Finnish folk reli-
gion, was added to the register of officially recognised religious communities.
Less recognisably religious is the Suomen kansanparantajaseura ry. (The
Finnish Naturopathic Society, est. 1996). Their aim is to promote the preserva-
tion of old folk healing techniques passed down from generation to generation.
Although many of these techniques compete with other “alternative” forms of
medicine in the secular well-being market, some folk healers are explicitly
spiritual, using chanting and spells and aiming at altered states of conscious-
ness in their practice.
Public Paganism, Legitimacy, and Authenticity
One marked feature of the Finnish Paganism milieu is that with the exception
of Karhun Kansa, none of the above associations is registered as a religious
community as defined in the Freedom of Religion Act. Most of them are geared
towards networking, organising social events (without notable religious con-
tent), and providing information on contemporary Paganism for the broader
public. One recent addition to the list, Pakanatieto ry (Pagan Information
Association, est. 2004) is a model example of the latter function.
For many groups this is probably enough. Because the field is generally
eclectic, the small community understandably wants to remain inclusive. This
comes, however, at the cost of legitimacy. Although recognised as bona fide
religions by scholars and also by a growing number of the broader public, the
lacking official status of religion is a feature which affects and in some cases
undermines the public image of Paganisms as serious religions. Although
Karhun Kansa succeeded in 2013, the previous (failed) attempt at registering a
Pagan community serves as an example of the wider concerns that Finnish
Pagans face (Hjelm, Mäkelä & Sohlberg, forthcoming).
The Finnish Free Wicca Association (SVWY) applied for the status of a regis-
tered religious community in the beginning of 2001. Practising religion in
Finland does not require registration, but it brings with it some benefits, nota-
bly the right to perform public ceremonies, such as marriage, and the right to
levy taxes on members for religious purposes (Seppo 1998). However, in the
case of Wicca the aim was rather to gain public recognition as a serious reli-
gion (Hjelm 2005: 96). With respect to tradition, the application submitted by
SVWY tried to be as inclusive as possible. It included under the name “Wicca” a
diverse array of different beliefs and practices, including some that many
364 Hjelm
inside the Pagan movement do not consider “Wicca”. This turned out to be the
stumbling block for the registration attempt.
In late 2001 the department responsible for the registration at the Ministry
of Education rejected the application on the grounds that Wicca did not fulfill
the requirements of a religious community as defined in the Freedom of
Religion Act of 1922. The major problem was that SVWY tried to include all dif-
ferent branches of Wicca in their application. This would be analogous to
trying to register “Christianity” or “Lutheranism”, whereas the registration
applies only to clearly defined groups like the Finnish Methodist Church or the
Jewish Congregation of Helsinki. Even if the Finnish authorities’ definition of
religion could be justly considered to have a Judeo-Christian bias, the applica-
tion could not have worked the way it was drafted (Sjöblom 2005). The eclectic
and inclusive nature of Wicca in Finland turned against itself when confronted
by the authorities. The Finnish Free Wicca Association filed a complaint
against the decision with the Finnish Supreme Administrative Court, but the
court voted against their appeal. Consequently, all Wiccan and other Pagan
groups in Finland operate under the register of associations.
Soon after the initial disappointment with the failure of the registration
process, the Wiccan community also recognised the problems with the appli-
cation. Although the inclusive atmosphere of the community had never been
shared by everyone (the more reclusive Gardnerians being a prime example),
this setback has put new strains on the unity of the movement. Especially
important is the growing worry about the motivations of new recruits and the
loss of credibility such “Wiclettes” (the actual English word some of the older
Finnish Wiccans use) may bring (cf. Pearson 2002: 41–44). For some, a turn to
what I have termed the “new rise of tradition” (Hjelm 2006) has served as the
best legitimation strategy.
The sentiment felt among some of the traditionalists is that to be a legiti-
mate Wiccan, one should at least know the basic writings of the “classics”
(although there is some variation regarding which texts are to be considered
the definitive works). Some have also indicated that being part of a coven is
necessary, thus excluding solitary practitioners who comprise the majority of
all Finnish Wiccans. Interestingly, these claims conform very well to the com-
plaints made by the Ministry of Education quoted earlier. One cannot avoid
the impression that, for some, a stricter interpretation of tradition is a response
to the authorities’ denial of the religion status.
This exclusivity expressed by the Wiccan traditionalists is in stark contrast
to the professed openness of the Finnish Pagan community and is undoubt-
edly a response to the pressure created by the public reception of Wicca and
Paganism in general. It should be noted that Wicca is of course a specific case.

For some forms of Paganism there is little incentive to register. Also, the opin-
ions regarding registration vary also in the more organised groups. However,
the question of legitimacy is intimately intertwined with the fate of the Pagan
community in Finland. The more secluded the Pagan community is, the more
likely it is to remain marginal. However, entering the public arena as a genuine
religion vying for legitimacy unavoidably creates tension within the movement
because the internal boundaries of practice and belief need to be drawn more
tightly, as the case of The Finnish Free Wicca Association shows. It remains to
be seen which direction the emerging contemporary Pagan community in
Finland will take in the future.
References
Davy, Barbara Jane, Introduction to Pagan Studies, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press,
2006.
Ezzy, Douglas, Jenny Blain and Graham Harvey (eds.), Studying Paganisms, Walnut
Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2005.
Fernback, Jan, “Internet Ritual: A Case Study in the Construction of Computer-Mediated
Neopagan Religious Meaning”, in: Stewart M. Hoover and Lynn Schofield Clark (eds.),
Practicing Religion in the Age of the Media: Explorations in Media, Religion, and
Culture, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, 254–275.
Hjelm, Titus (ed.), Mitä Wicca on?, Helsinki: Like, 2005.
Hjelm, Titus, “Wicca kohtaa valtion”, in: Titus Hjelm (ed.), Mitä Wicca on?, Helsinki:
Like, 2005, 95–132.
——— . “Between Satan and Harry Potter: Legitimating Wicca in Finland”, Journal of
Contemporary Religion 21(1), 2006, 39–58.
Hjelm, Titus and Jussi Sohlberg, “Jumalattaren helmassa. Wicca nuorten uskonnollisena
liikkeenä”, Nuorisotutkimus 22(2), 2004, 3–19.
Hjelm, Titus Essi Mäkelä and Jussi Sohlberg, “What Do We Talk About When We Talk
About Legitimate Religion? Failure and Success in the Registration of Two Pagan
Communities in Finland”, in: George Chryssides (ed.), Minority Religions in Europe
and the Middle East: Mapping and Monitoring, Farnham: Ashgate, forthcoming.
Lewis, James R., “The Pagan Explosion”, A paper presented at the annual meeting of the
American Academy of Religion, Washington, D.C., 9–21 November 2007.
Linderman, Alf and Mia Lövheim, “Internet, Religion, and Attribution of Social Trust”,
in: Jolyon Mitchell and Sophia Marriage (eds.), Mediating Religion: Conversations in
Media, Religion, and Culture, London & New York: T & T Clark, 2003, 229–240.
366 Hjelm
Pearson, Joanne, “The History and Development of Wicca and Paganism”, in: Joanne
Pearson (ed.), Belief Beyond Boundaries: Wicca, Celtic Spirituality, and the New Age,
Aldershot: Ashgate, 15–54.
Seppo, Juha, “The Freedom of Religion and Conscience in Finland”, Journal of Church
and State 40(4), 1998, 847–872.
Sjöblom, Tom, “Contemporary Paganism in Finland”, in: Jeffrey Kaplan (ed.), Beyond the
Mainstream: The Emergence of Religious Pluralism in Finland, Estonia, and Russia,
Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2000, 223–40.
——— . “Uskontona olemisen taidosta – keskustelua wiccan virallistamisesta uskon-
noksi”, in: Titus Hjelm (ed.), Mitä Wicca on?, Helsinki: Like, 2005, 133–149.
Topi, Aarnio, “Vanhat jumalat, uudet pakanat”, in: Jussi Niemelä (ed.), Vanhat jumalat,
uudet tulkinnat, Helsinki: Department of Comparative Religion, 196–208.
367
Chapter 46 Uldal and Winje
Paganism in Norway
In Norway, like in other Western countries, modern Paganism is a vibrant reli-

gious current. Both as part of alternative spirituality and within certain strands
of youth culture, there are people who reconstruct pre-Christian religions or
combine aspects of pre-Christian religions with other elements. Imaginative
concepts are blended with more historical facts in many different ways. Even if
there has not been much research on Paganism in Norway, some academic
papers have appeared, and a few books and articles have been published on
this topic (i.e., Bråthen 2012; Fonneland 2010; Gilhus & Mikaelsson 2005; Kraft
2011; Krzywinski 2006; Uldal & Winje 2007). Based on these sources, but mainly
on participation, observation, and contacts with informants in Pagan milieus,
we will give an account of the Norwegian Pagan landscape. For analytical pur-
poses, the Pagan field can be seen as comprising four categories. Like any other
typology, this may be a simplification of the rather more complicated details of
Norwegian Paganism. Many Pagans belong to different milieus and move
across the religious landscape. Other categorisations may therefore be as valid
as ours, and phenomena that do not fit into our scheme will be pointed out in
the course of our discussion.
After a short look backwards in history, we present the Norwegian Asatru
milieus of today, as they may be the most typical examples of contemporary
Norwegian or Scandinavian Paganism. We then look at wicca, primarily
Gardnerian wicca, which may be seen as a starting point of “the religion of
witches” in Norway. The third category we examine is the Goddess movement,
which we find evidence of both inside and outside the wicca groups. Finally,
we will discuss neoshamanism, a practice with historical roots in Paganism.
The neoshamanistic movement influences both Pagan and other modern reli-
gious or spiritual milieus in today’s Norway.
A Short Retrospective Sketch
Asatru is the only Pagan religion that has been visibly present in Norway before
the 1980s. In the nineteenth century, when the European national states were
established, the National Romantic movement entailed an understanding of
the nation’s past as a Golden Age. Old songs, stories, and other traditions were

368 Uldal And Winje
collected, and trendsetting artists, historians, and writers took an interest in

Old Norse culture, including the Eddas, written in Iceland in the thirteenth
century. The Eddas contain poems and stories about gods belonging to two
categories, the æsir and vanir, as well as other mythological beings such as a
race of giants, jotnir. The Eddas also contain ethical codes that differ from the
ethics of Christianity. The first attempts to reconstruct Asatru were made dur-
ing the Romantic period, but this was more of a literary endeavour than a
practised religion. Examples of this early literary form of Asatru include the
Danish writer N.F.S. Grundtvig (1783–1872) who published Om asalæren (About
the Gods) in 1807 and Nordens mythologie (Scandinavian Mythology) in 1808,
and the Norwegian historian Peter A. Munch (1810–1863) and others who pub-
lished translations of the Eddas for a broader readership (Steinsland 2005).
The ideas from this period became a part of what may be described as a
Norwegian national romantic, and partly nationalist, philosophy, and were har-
monised with the more established thoughts and values based on Christianity
and modernity. In the 1930s these romantic and more or less nationalistic
notions were developed in a politically more radical direction (Emberland
2003; Tveito 2007). Two important Pagans from this period were the composer
Geirr Tveitt (1908–1981) and the national socialist Per Imerslund (1912–1943).
Both of them participated in the milieu centred on the periodical Ragnarok
(1935–1945), edited by Hans S. Jacobsen (1901–1980). This group of journalists
and others were also known as “The Men of Hagal”, named after the rune hagal
that was the symbol of both the periodical and the group.
The Men of Hagal espoused broadly racist and right-wing political views.
Here we will only point out elements of these views that are directly relevant
to their Pagan interests. First, their creed may be understood as a branch of the
mainly German völkisch ideology, one that is particularly connected to its
occultist version, Ariosophy. Second, they did not arrange any Pagan religious
rituals, but were mainly interested in the political and cultural significance of
reconstructed Norse Asatru. Third, since they saw Christianity as a religion
based on Judaism, their ideal of a racially based revolution called for replacing
Christianity with a modernised form of Norse religion.
Asatru
Today the main Norwegian Asatru milieus take a strong stand against racist or
nationalist interpretations of Norse religion. Apart from this general anti-racist
consensus, they contain many different interpretations of what Asatru actu-
ally means and how it may be practised today. While some address the Norse
Paganism in Norway 369
gods as entities, others see them as symbols of, e.g., elements in nature. And
while the majority celebrates many gods, some Pagans only focus on the wor-
ship of Odin.
Among the Norwegian Asatru groups, Asatrufelleskapet Bifrost (The Asatru
Fellowship Bifrost) has a unique position. Bifrost is the name of the bridge that
in Norse mythology connects the world of the gods (Åsgard) with the world of
men (Midgard). Asatrufelleskapet Bifrost is an officially registered religious
community, with (at the time of writing) close to 300 members and a much
larger number of sympathisers. On its website the fellowship states: ‘No kind
of discrimination based on origin, sexual orientation or other personal trait is
acceptable within Bifrost – or anywhere else, if you ask us. Unfortunately and
sadly, Norse symbols have been heavily abused in the past and even today by
far right-wingers and outright Nazis. One of our missions is reclaiming the
expressions of the old customs so that they shall no longer be associated with
hateful ideologies. Though different, all human beings possess indispensable
intrinsic value, as do all living things’ (Information in English from www.
bifrost.no, accessed 11 February 2014).
The fellowship also states that ‘one of the most important goals of Bifrost is
to carry on old customs and traditions, and establish new ones when there is a
need (…) It is important that we manage to adjust the customs to our own
modern everyday life, so that they continue to be meaningful actions, also to
people of today. We want to live the wisdom and knowledge of the old ones
through following their customs, but we do not necessarily want to live like
Vikings’ (ibid.). In fact, religious practice may be combined with academic
study, and many of the most active members have university degrees in sub-
jects such as History of Religions and Folkloristics.
The Bifrost Fellowship is an umbrella organisation that includes differ-
ent blotslag. This concept combines the words blot (sacrifice) and lag (small
group), so that a blotslag is a group of people who meet to sacrifice together.
The fellowship also includes individuals, and publishes Bifrost Tidende (The
Bifrost Times). One of its sources of inspiration has been the Icelandic society
known as Félag Ásatruarmanna, founded in 1973. In Norway, Blindern Åsatrolag
(BÅL or Blindern Asatru Group) was founded in Oslo in 1983, named after the
district in Oslo where the university is located. Bifrost carries on BÅL’s form of
late modern Asatru, and has blotslag in many Norwegian towns.
In order to be registered as an officially accepted religion by the Norwegian
government, Bifrost was required to present a statement summarising its basic
doctrines. These are published as Eden (The Oath), which is incorporated in
The Laws of Bifrost. Eden opens with the words: ‘I believe in a better life through
the life and teachings of asatru’ (translated from <www.bifrost.no>, accessed
370 Uldal And Winje
11 February 2014), and goes on to list eight central points. These points include
definitions of the æsir and vanir, the two main groups of Norse gods, and a
systematic discussion of other mythological beings and natural forces. The
underlying ontology in this text seems close to what we know today about pre-
Christian Norse religion. The final and concluding point states: ‘I will claim
my ancestors’ customs and heathen practices as far as possible in my age and
in accordance with my own conditions. I will honour my forefathers and gods,
and consider all that lives in nature. I will claim the honour of my family and
myself, and live in accordance with good custom, heathen practice and the will
of the gods’ (ibid.).
It should be stressed that while some members of Bifrost have a magical
view of reality, others do not. As in most late modern or postmodern forms of
religiosity we see an openness and great tolerance on the level of doctrine.
What keeps the fellowship together seems to be common practice rather than
shared belief.
Apart from the ting, or main yearly gathering, where, among other matters,
the leaders are chosen, the main activity in Bifrost is arranging sacrifices or
blots. These may be celebrated at any time, but are usually arranged at the large
solar equinox and solstice festivals or the main turning points in the lives of its
members, such as childbirth, marriage, and death or funeral. The blots are, as
far as possible, modelled on what is known about Norse pre-Christian religion,
and consist of four main elements: 1) Reading from the Eddas, the Old Norse
poems about the gods, 2) sanctifying the place of the offering, 3) the offering
itself, usually food and other gifts that are thrown into a fire, and 4) a ceremo-
nial toast to the gods. The ceremony is practised in a both serious and humorous
way, and the gilde, the party after the blot, is as important as the blot itself.
Besides participating in blots, many of the members of Bifrost practise rune
magic and seid, mainly on an individual level. Seid is an Old Norse word for
magic or sorcery. These activities are, unlike the blot, difficult to reconstruct
from historical sources. In a Pagan context, seid seems to be influenced by
practices found in the New Age milieu. Attempts to reconstruct apparently
authentic forms of divination, healing, and the like are usually made without a
historical-critical use of sources, and are often based on a mixture of traditions
from various indigenous people. In the context of Bifrost, runes are used for
divination, as signs of power, and as talismans. Seid is connected to galdr, an
Old Norse word that may be translated as “healing song” or “magic song”. Many
people in the Asatru milieus create and sing their own healing songs, inspired
by how they imagine galdr would have functioned in Norse times.
Besides The Oath and the blot, The Laws of Bifrost deal with other rituals, as
well as a code of ethics, derived from Old Norse texts. A great part of The Laws
also describes different roles within the Asatru community, such as that of
høvding (Chief), råd (Council), and lovsigare (chosen members with a certain
responsibility for jurisdiction).
Besides the Fellowship of Bifrost there are several more or less organised
groups with a similar profile. Foreningen Forn Sed (The Forn Sed Union), with
close to seventy members, is the most important of these. Forn Sed is an Old
Norse expression for “customs of past times”. This group publishes Ni heimer
(named after the nine worlds in Norse mythology), and is the only asatru group
besides Bifrost that has been accepted as a registered religious community by
the Norwegian government. The guidelines for Foreningen Forn Sed state,
among other things, that ‘the main content of the heathen custom is that each
human being is responsible for his or hers own life and actions’ and that the
union ‘is loyal to Norwegian laws and Norwegian legal authorities’ (translated
from <www.forn-sed.no> accessed 11 February 2014).
The reason for the existence of two religious organisations that have so
much in common, is said to be personal disagreements between key figures in
the Asatru milieu in the 1990s. Even if Forn Sed keeps a lower profile, both
groups attempt to be visible by, e.g., advertising blots in local newspapers,
arranging meetings at pubs, etc. Both groups also have members who partici-
pate in different ways in a broader cultural movement characterised by
reconstructions of Viking ships, Viking markets, music inspired by Old Norse
lyrics and instruments, and Viking tourism. In this mixture of commercialism,
a romantic view of the past, and a quest for authenticity, each individual can
combine ideas in his or her own eclectic way. Some of the concepts and values
originate from the National Romantic era of the nineteenth century rather
than in any historically documentable Norse culture.
Some individuals with a nationalistic understanding of Asatru gather in
groups with nationalistic or racist ideological profiles. For these groups,
mythology and religious rituals are less important than in Asatrufellsskapet
Bifrost or Foreningen Forn Sed. Instead, they spread propaganda for their polit-
ical views in a language characterised by Norse religious concepts. Despite
their arguably more marginal connection to Pagan religiosity, we will give brief
outlines of the two most important organisations of this kind active in the first
decade of the twenty-first century: Det norske åsatrusamfunn (DNÅ, The
Norwegian Asatru Union) and Vigrid.
DNÅ presents itself as a polytheistic, pagan group (see Vegtams nettsider or
“Vegtam’s sites – dedicated to the struggle for survival of the Norwegian people”,
translated from vegtam.info, accessed 12 February 2014). The union claims to
represent some 250 members, and seems to concern itself mainly with political
challenges in connection with modern global migration, the World Bank, and
similar issues. DNÅ has also published Vilfred T. Hansen’s Handbok i hedenskap
372 Uldal And Winje
(Pagan Manual), which has provided the data for our presentation of the
group. The Handbok focuses among other things on the symbolic values of the
different gods, which are understood both as entities and as aspects of the hu-
man psyche. The gods are nevertheless mainly interpreted in accordance with
racial theories, and DNÅ links Asatru with a love of the homeland and national
independence. Historically, Asatru seems to have considered itself as ethnical
or locally delimited movement, accepting that other ethnical groups had other
gods (Steinsland 2005). For DNÅ this means that today’s Asatru is considered to
be suitable only for Scandinavian or Germanic peoples, and not for other eth-
nic groups. One of the pronounced aims of DNÅ is to defend what they consider
to be “Norwegian”, genetically as well as politically, cf. statements such as: ‘You
shall protect your own race and give lebensraum and the opportunity of life to
the other races!’ (translated from vegtam.info, accessed 12 February 2014).
Vigrid is named after the giant plain where, according to Norse mythology,
Ragnarok will take place. The group seems to carry on some of the ideology
that characterised The Men of Hagal (see above). The organisation differs from
the others presented in this chapter, partly because it was highly publicised in
the Norwegian media for roughly a decade after it was founded in 1998. In 2009
Vigrid was disbanded because the leader Tore W. Tvedt (b.1943), who was titled
“Prophet”, retired, but some activity seems to have resumed after 2013. Accord
ing to its website (<www.vigrid.net>, accessed 12 February 2014), Vigrid’s focus
is directed towards political issues including “criticism of Jews” (a concept that
for Vigrid includes both Jewish people, Zionist politics, and Judaism) and of
Christianity.
Besides such right-wing political topics, the often-cited slogan: ‘Odin is great
and we are his chosen people!’ reveals a somewhat monotheistic form of
Asatru. Besides this, Vigrid seems to concern itself with three more decidedly
religious and Pagan-related topics. One is a form of baptism, which is seen in
connection with cleansing or becoming skiri, an Old Norse word for clean.
During its most active period, Vigrid mostly had rather young members, who
went through this initiation performed by Tvedt himself. The second is confir-
mation, which was arranged online. The third topic deals with some verses
from the Eddas, which are seen as canonical scripture.
When asked about membership, Tore W. Tvedt answered: ‘The only number
we give is that we have made more than 200 persons skiri, so that they have
earned the right to the title menneske ([literally “human being”, but glossed by
Tvedt as] man + skiri = menneske), and that we have arranged more than 300
ceremonies. If you look around on our website, you’ll find the information you
need. Our aims are the most important thing’ (from an e-mail received from
Tore W. Tvedt on 16 June 2006). In a later e-mail, dated 1 June 2007, when
Vigrid was at the height of its activity, he wrote that the numbers were between
250 and 300 who had been made skiri and that a total of between 350 and 400
ceremonies had been conducted.
Wicca
Some 200 Norwegian witches or supporters of Wicca were until recently organ-
ised in the umbrella organisation Nordisk Paganistforbund (NPF or Nordic
Association of Pagans), which also contained members who practised Asatru.
Beginning in 1992, NPF published the journal I ny og ne (Wax and Wane), and
operated a voluminous website. Both the website and the association itself
were disbanded in 2013, and the occasion was marked with a ceremony where
among other things ritual equipment was burned. Communication between
wiccan groups is now less centralised. It is established networks consisting of
more private sites, i.e., <www.wicca.no> (accessed 12 February 2014), as well as
social media, such as Facebook.
Even if a lot of wiccans are rather young, we find some older, trendsetting
personalities who in the 1980s and 1990s had a strong influence on both Wicca
and Asatru in Norway. Some of them were members of the OTO, an organisa-
tion that in many ways has dominated the magic-occult environment in
Norway (see the article on Occultism in Norway in the present volume). Among
them was Stein Jarving (“Dalula”, 1945–2005), who in 1988 invited Vivianne
Crowley – a Jungian psychotherapist and writer initiated in both Gardnerian
and Alexandrian Wicca by the founders of those movements – to visit Norway
from England. In that year she initiated Wicca followers in the small southern
Norwegian town of Tvedestrand and in Bergen, and since then numerous
covens have been established in Bergen, Oslo, and other cities.
Even if Gardnerian Wicca was dominant from the start, eclectic Wicca
seems to be the most important today. A growing number of younger people,
especially girls, who see themselves as witches, operate individually. Infor
mation on Wicca and ritual instructions are no longer understood as secret
knowledge that is only accessible from initiated priests or priestesses or secret
books. Instead, “teenage witches” can find what they need on websites or in
popularised “do it yourself” books (i.e., Sabin 2006; Berger and Ezzy 2007).
They do not necessarily understand Wicca as a coherent religious system or
distinguish between different types of Wicca, but are content with more frag-
mented knowledge derived from various sources. These self-declared witches
seem to oppose or seek alternatives to the initiations and the “classical” Wiccan
system of three degrees, which they consider too rigid or too formal. Many
therefore initiate themselves, or they enter groups with less hierarchical
structures.
374 Uldal And Winje
In the Norwegian Wicca groups, ceremonial magic is a key activity. One

type of ritual is initiatory, often in a three-tiered structure reminiscent of the
practice of occultist groups such as the OTO. More important, however, is the
wiccan ritualisation of nature that is particularly prominent during eight “sab-
bats” over the course of a year, namely the equinoxes and solstices, plus at the
four old Celtic festivals in between; imbolc (2 February), beltane (30 April), lam-
mas (1 August) and samhain (31 October, cf. Halloween). During these eight
solar festivals, the Wiccans dramatise the lives of the Goddess and the God, as
an expression of the life cycle of nature throughout the year. The cycle of the
moon is followed and celebrated by gatherings on esbats. The notion of esbat
seems to originate from the books of Margaret Murray (1862–1963). It may have
been developed from French esbat or ébat, terms for “full moon”, and indicates
in a wiccan context a gathering, usually at new or full moon, on the level of
covens with up to thirteen members.
While some wiccans experience the Goddess and the God as actual beings,
others understand them in terms that resemble Jungian archetypes or symbols
of forces in nature. The Goddess and the God may in these groups be given
proper names, as they are in other Wicca traditions. They may be called Aradia
and Pan or Cernunnos (names found also in the version of The Book of Shadows
passed on by Gerald Gardner [1884–1964] and Doreen Valiente [1922–1999]).
However, many other names, including Norse ones, are used (as in Pagan
Asatru as presented above). Although Wiccans have adopted the ritual cele-
bration of a goddess, Wicca may, nonetheless, be understood as different from
the Goddess movement strictly speaking (see below), in the light of statements
such as this: ‘The Goddess is central (…) but the important thing is to accept
both the feminine and the masculine aspect of the divine (...) which also is
reflected in the rituals’ (translated from <http://www.wicca.no>, accessed 12
February 2014). Wiccan texts usually also point out that, besides worshipping
such symbolic or real deities, ‘pagan religions are strongly connected with the
Earth and nature, with the elements and planets, the sun and moon’ (ibid.).
Wiccans often understand themselves as practitioners of a religion, even
though no Wiccan organisation had at the time of writing applied to the gov-
ernment to be officially registered as a religion. In this way they appear as
rather different from the Goddess movement (see below), that may be better
understood as a broader and less specific movement or element inside such
diverse currents as the New Age milieu, Wicca, and other religions.
Another distinctive feature is that Wicca is strongly non-commercial.
Wiccans signal that their religion differs from the alternative movement and
the rest of modern society by never receiving money for doing rituals, giving
speeches, and so on. By contrast, representatives of both the Goddess Move-
ment and neoshamans may be present at gatherings such as “alternative fairs”,

and offer their products and courses side by side with, i.e., alternative medical
firms.
In contrast to the blots celebrated in Bifrost (see above), Norwegian Wicca
rituals can take on many different shapes. Each individual can to a certain
degree decide how to define or practise witchcraft. It is, however, expected that
those who participate in the activities of the covens are loyal to their groups
when it comes to matters such as initiations, sabbats and esbats.
The Goddess Movement
The Goddess movement is not as easy to delimit as Asatru or Wicca, and not all
aspects of the Goddess movement need necessarily be defined as a form of
religion. While many people relate to goddesses as part of a Pagan form of wor-
ship, others do so as a mode of self-development. We will therefore define the
Goddess Movement as a current that has an influence on the religious land-
scape in Norway, both outside and inside the Norwegian Church and other
established institutions. It also has an influence on what we may term late
modern spirituality or New Age. A characteristic trait of this current is a focus
on and valuation of the feminine aspect of the divine or the god(s).
Inside the Christian Church, the Goddess movement may imply an increased
focus on Mary and other female saints, on feminine aspects of God or man, or
a greater receptiveness when it comes to goddesses from other religious tradi-
tions. Outside the religious institutions, there are seminars and other types of
meetings where the participants listen to lectures about, meditate upon, or
even worship the Goddess or the feminine aspect of the divine. Many
Norwegians have for example attended courses at Ängsbacka, a Swedish cen-
tre for spiritual development, where a focus on the Goddess may be combined
with practices such as shamanism and yoga. In Norway it is usually women
who visualise or worship the Goddess in organised form, and the Goddess
movement is often described as a kind of feminist religious orientation.
A central factor in this attempt to make a distinction between the Goddess
movement and Wicca, is the understanding of the divine as feminine within
the Goddess movement, as opposed to the focus on sexual polarity in Wicca
(see above). However, we would suggest that the Goddess movement, as a con-
temporary Pagan current, is related to and partly overlaps with the Wiccan
movement. To some degree we see this in Norway, where, as mentioned,
Gardnerian Wicca dominates. However, in the United States the notions of
Wicca and the Goddess movement to a great extent refer to the same religious
current. To simplify, we may say that the Norwegian Wicca milieus are inspired
376 Uldal And Winje
by the English witch movement, while the Norwegian Goddess movement is

influenced by its American counterpart. At the same time, we find covens
within Wicca that worship only the Goddess, and not both the Goddess and
God.
Among those who represent the Goddess movement in Norway, theolo-
gian Jone Salomonsen (b. 1956) is particularly prominent. She has conducted
research on, but also participated in, the Reclaiming movement in San
Francisco, California, and is inspired by Starhawk (Miriam Simos, b. 1951),
activist and author of The Spiral Dance (1979) and other books that have influ-
enced both Wicca and the Goddess movement.
Salomonsen provides an example of how the Goddess movement has influ-
enced the Norwegian religious landscape. As a theologian with a degree from
the University of Oslo, she communicates her views in a more academic con-
text than most Goddess worshippers. At the same time, she is involved
practically in Goddess-related activities, e.g., in Galder (a name derived from
Old Norse galdr or “healing song”), a ritual workshop which has cooperated
with organisations both inside and outside the Norwegian Church. Among
them are the Dialogue Centre of Emmaus, that works with dialogue and spiri-
tuality in close contact with various Christian and non-Christian communities,
as well as unorganised new religious milieus. Another example is Holistisk
Forbund (HoF, Holistic Union), an association for people with a holistic view
of life, founded in 2002. HoF claims to be a non-dogmatic alternative to both
traditional religions and to the more modern Human-Etisk Forbund (Humanist
Ethical Union), a secular association with some 70,000 members, which also
arranges rites of passage. When HoF in the spring of 2006 organised an alterna-
tive confirmation arrangement for the first time, Salomonsen and Galder
helped to create suitable ceremonies.
The non-dogmatic creation of rituals is a distinctive feature of the Goddess
movement; in fact, it is a characteristic of all of the Norwegian Pagan milieus
that are the subjects of this chapter. The members of the Pagan groups meet in
shared practices, characterised by tolerance and freedom in the way they inter-
pret and understand their practice. In this way, the modern man’s or woman’s
need of personal freedom seems satisfied. At the same time, shared ritual prac-
tice gives an experience of fellowship and solemnity.
Neoshamanism
While it is hard to give the Goddess movement a precise location on the Norwe
gian religious map, it is even harder to place neoshamanism. Some modern
shamans believe their practice to be a continuation or revitalisation of Pagan,
mainly Sami, religion. Among these, some have established an organised reli-
gion, while others prefer to operate outside of it. Still others are not linked to
any Pagan traditions at all, and may therefore be better understood as partici-
pants in the loosely-defined New Age. Many of those who provide or make use
of alternative therapies or alternative forms of spirituality in Norway are repre-
sented by an umbrella organisation known as Alternativt Nettverk (Alternative
Network). They advertise in the same periodical (Visjon) and meet each other
at yearly “alternative fairs”, arranged in different parts of Norway. In this milieu
one also finds many people who may be characterised as neoshamans.
The first Norwegian neoshaman writer was Arthur Sørensen (b. 1950), who
published Shaman in 1988, after visiting Michael Harner in California. Harner
(b. 1929) published The Way of the Shaman in 1980, and is, besides Carlos
Castaneda (1926–1998), one of the most influential writers on this subject. His
main sources are Native American Indians, while neoshamanism in Norway is,
as mentioned above, linked with Sami religion. An important figure in joining
the two was Ailo Gaup (1944–2014). Gaup is a common Sami family name in
Norway. In his novels, poetry, and non-fictional works, as well as in his lectures
and courses, he connected shamanism to a rediscovery of his own Sami iden-
tity. At the same time, he opened the shamanistic universe to individuals who
have no roots in any ingenious culture.
In 2012 Sjamanistisk Forbund (SF, Shamanistic Union) was founded as the
first organised shamanistic religious organisation in Norway. Here Sørensen is
an important member, and Gaup was an advisor, even if he himself was not a
member. SF has today (2014) roughly fifty members, and has the right to con-
duct ceremonies to mark birth, confirmation, marriage, and death. In order to
be registered as an officially accepted religion, SF was required to present a
statement summarising its basic doctrines. In this document neoshamanistic
beliefs are described as the ‘acknowledgement of life in all that exists and are
our relatives (…) by holy techniques access wisdom and knowledge from the
Power of Creation, the forces of nature and the spirit world (…) a both collective
and individual responsibility for all living beings, all creatures in nature, and
Mother Earth (…) techniques to stimulate one’s own evolution and help fellow
humans and other fellow creatures. This means that nature is holy and that
the display of vital force is celebrated’ (translated from sjamanforbundet.no,
accessed 27 February 2014).
The document is published on the union’s website (sjamanforbundet.no),
where we among other topics also find articles on shamanistic world views,
totem animals, and rituals, both of Native American and Sami origin. In the
healing ceremonies there are elements such as drumming (the Sami tradi-
tional drum is called runebomme), prayer and invocation in the four heavenly
378 Uldal And Winje
directions, and a sacred fire. Ritual use of chaga, a mushroom that grows on
birch and other trees and is a traditional medicine plant, is also recommended.
It is understood as sacred, and the spirit of Chaga is invoked by the Sami name
Nivvsat Olmai.
The leader of SF, Kyrre Gram Falck (b.1973), is titled “national patron and
vision keeper”. He is also co-founder of The World Drum Project (founded
2006), an idealistic organisation with focus on peace and environmental issues.
A Sami drum is sent on a journey ‘from country to country, people to people
and from hand to hand (…) its heartbeat grows stronger each day. It is a wakeup
call to reinstate our spiritual relationship to Mother Earth’ (translated from
theworlddrum.com, accessed 1 March 2014).
Neoshamanism involves a revitalisation of indigenous people’s cultures,
religions, and political rights. It is interesting to observe how Native American,
Sami, and other groups co-operate in a number of fields. In Norway, mostly in
the north of the country, there are festivals where representatives from various
indigenous groups meet to exchange music, art, thoughts, and practices – both
religious and non-religious. At the same time, there are Norwegians without
any contact with Sami culture who take courses, make drums, and gain neo-
shamanistic experiences – often understood as a form of healing.
The Norwegian variety of neoshamanism is, as mentioned above, mainly
based on Sami and Native American concepts and practices as presented in
books written by anthropologists, both with and without Sami or Native
American backgrounds. Many practitioners nevertheless claim imaginary or
real ancestors in the process of identifying themselves with their Sami herit-
age. This may be compared to the historically perhaps rather shaky claim of
some modern witches to pursue the practices of their wise foremothers.
Neoshamans can in similar terms suggest that the spiritual helpers and ani-
mals that they contact during drumming sessions are the same entities that
the pre-modern Samis met. At the same time some modern shamanistic rituals
closely resemble those that are performed in the contexts of other Pagan cur-
rents such as Wicca and Asatru: The cardinal points are used, incense is burned,
and mantras are chanted. Drumming and dancing are combined in new ways
with concepts and practices from all over the world – filtered and blended in
the postmodern melting pot of alternative religion and spirituality.
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Minnesota: Llewellyn, 2006.
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——— . Riter. Religiøse overgangsritualer i vår tid, Oslo: Pax, 1999.
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380 Gregorius
Chapter 47 Paganism in Sweden
Paganism in Sweden
Fredrik Gregorius
Introduction
Paganism is a comparatively late phenomenon on the Swedish alternative reli-

gious scene. Although there is evidence for the existence of small Pagan groups
during the late 1970s, the oldest groups still active at the time of writing date
from the late 1980s, and are based in the Stockholm area. During the middle of
the 1990s Pagan groups began to spread to the rest of Sweden, mostly to other
urban areas like Gothenburg and Malmö. A similar trend can be seen among
magical orders in Sweden, such as Ordo Templi Orientis and Dragon Rouge,
which also began to establish camps and lodges outside Stockholm at the same
time. Paganism, however, is not generally established through the type of cen-
tral structures that one finds in magical orders, but rather in the form of
relatively autonomous local groups. Apart from Wicca, there is hardly any ini-
tiatory Paganism in Sweden and thus no perceived need for a lineage from a
previous order or initiation. At present there are few academic studies of
Paganism in Sweden, and the field remains relatively unexplored. The two
most important forms of Paganism in Sweden are Norse Paganism, also called
Asatru or Heathenism, and Wicca; these will be the focus of this chapter.
Norse Paganism-Heathenism
The most prominent form of Paganism in Sweden is the attempt to reconstruct

the beliefs of pre-Christian Scandinavia, often called Asatru. The term “Asatru”,
however, is controversial and most contemporary practitioners in Sweden pre-
fer the term forn sed (ancient custom) as they regard the label Asatru to be a
product of nineteenth-century national Romanticism. It is problematic to use
forn sed as a general term for reconstructions of Old Norse religion, as it has
little meaning and use outside Scandinavian-speaking countries and using it
would therefore create an impression that Scandinavian reconstructions of
Old Norse religions are regional rather than part of a global new religious
movement. An alternative is the term Heathenism, which has become widely

Paganism in Sweden 381
accepted by both scholars and practitioners as an umbrella term for a variety

of movements with similar ambitions. The present chapter will follow this ter-
minological convention (see also Gregorius 2015). Far from being a unified
movement, Heathenism is divided into several different interpretations of Old
Norse religious beliefs and practices. Some are modern practitioners of sejd,
considered to be a form of Nordic shamanism. Many modern-day followers of
sejd are also members of larger Heathen organisations, but smaller groups con-
sisting of people exclusively practising sejd also exist. Due to the commonly-held
opinion that it is a “New Age” practice, Heathens who do not practise sejd can
feel rather ambivalent about sejd (Gregorius 2008: 270–273).
Heathenism came rather late to Sweden. While a neo-shamanic sejd group
called Yggdrasil existed already in the late 1970s, the first modern Heathen
group in the strict sense of the term was Telge Fylking, founded in Stockholm
in 1987. Telge Fylking had close ties to Breidablikk-gildet, a nationalistic semi-
religious order founded by Arne Sjöberg in 1975. At first, they held joint
celebrations, but later the two groups drifted apart and Brediablikk would later
disband. Telge Fylking was never a large organisation, and consisted of at most
twenty-five members located in Stockholm. After a couple of years as a public
organisation, appearing in various forms of media, printing their own maga-
zine and accepting new members, Telge Fylking was closed to outsiders in 1994
(Gregorius 2008: 93–94). Telge Fylking became important for future Heathen
movements in Sweden in several ways, particularly in terms of a political stand
against racial interpretations of Heathenism.
Sveriges Asatrosamfund/ Samfundet Forn Sed

The most important Heathen organisation in Sweden is Samfundet Forn Sed
(henceforth abbreviated Samfundet), founded in 1994 as Sveriges Asatro
samfund (Swedish Asatru Assembly). Samfundet is an open organisation with
a democratic structure, and with an ambition of being a national rather than
regional organisation. In the early years, Samfundet was primarily based in
Stockholm, but in the late 1990s local groups were established in other parts of
Sweden (Skott 2000: 14). Apart from urban centres such as Malmö and Gothen
burg, Samfundet was also established in more rural regions of Sweden and
hence became a less urban phenomenon than is usually the case with Swedish
Paganism. From consisting of only around twenty members at the fist national
meeting in 1995, Samfundet would in 2000 claim to have 450 members. This
figure was later questioned by other members who claimed that there were at
most only some 250 members (Skott 2000: 14; Gregorius 2008: 101).
In the year 2000 a turbulent time started for Samfundet. The organisa-
tion went through a series of crises and there was growing criticism of the
382 Gregorius
chairman Carl Johan Rehbinder for being ineffective in handling the problems.
At this time most of the local groups had become inactive, and some members
would join other Heathen organisations such as Nordiska Ringen/Norröna
Samfundet (see below) instead. Later, after a controversy regarding accusa-
tions about connections to far-right organisations and Norröna Samfundet in
2003, a number of former members returned to Samfundet that by now had
a new board of directors and a new chairman. After only a couple of months,
the new chairman Jóhannes Agústsson left the organisation due to criticism
regarding his leadership and his allegedly excessive interest in Icelandic pagan-
ism. Agústsson had, among other things, expressed the opinion that anyone
who wanted to become a gode (priest) had to learn Icelandic. After Agústsson
left the organisation it was in a state of complete disarray and for a while there
were two different camps that claimed ownership of Samfundet. In 2004 a
new board was presented and the most turbulent period for Samfundet was
over. Samfundet has progressively become a more stable organisation. In 2004
Samfundet claimed to have fifty-six members, according to the new chairman
Henrik Hallgren the membership had in 2007 risen to around 150 members,
and according to later reports from the organisation it has, at the time of writ-
ing (2014), around 350 members (Gregorius 2008: interview Erik).
Samfundet was registered as a religious organisation in 2007, which led to
some unsubstantiated claims from both Swedish Pagans and from abroad that
it was now possible to conduct legally binding Heathen marriages and funer-
als. However, being registered as a religious organisation in Sweden is, after
2000, just another way of being registered as a non-profit organisation. In order
for a religious organisation to have the right to conduct legally valid marriages,
3,000 members are needed, something no Pagan organisation in Sweden comes
close to having.
Samfundet is important not only because it is the largest organisation for
Heathens in Sweden, but also because it in many ways defined the shape that
Heathenism would take in Sweden. The most important aspects of this process
were an emerging view of Heathenism as an ecological, democratic, and anti-
racist form of religion. Samfundet used to have on its website a so called nid
page, nid being an Old Norse form of cursing, directed towards anyone who
abused Old Norse religion, primarily for racist reasons. This “curse” was not
only used by Samfundet but also by other groups in Sweden who believed that
it was important for modern Heathenism to take a clear stand against racism
and xenophobia. Today the nid page no longer exists, but the rejection of racial
interpretations is still a part of Samfundet’s beliefs. The reason for discontinu-
ing the nid page was that it was seen as as a form of curse and too aggressive
towards those who had other ideas about ethnicity and race (interview Erik).
In 2000 a yearly tradition was established, in which a public blot ritual is

held around Easter at old Uppsala, where an old Swedish Pagan temple is
believed to have been located. If this tradition will lead to a more unified
Heathen community in Sweden remains to be seen, but it has generated some
media attention and is one of the few Pagan public happenings in Sweden that
continues to take place regularly.
Samfundet changed its name in 2010 to Samfundet Forn Sed Sverige
(Assembly for Ancient Customs, Sweden). This reflected a growing rejection in
Samfundet of the term Asatru. Over the years, Samfundet has also become less
concentrated in the Stockholm area, and today most of the board members
live in other parts of Sweden. Despite never being a large organisation, they
have become a stable element of the alternative religious scene in Sweden.
Their cultural presence can be gauged from the fact that they on several occa-
sions have hosted worship sessions on Swedish public radio, which at times
has led to critique from local Christian media.
Samfälligheten för Nordisk Sed

Samfälligheten för Nordisk Sed (The Community for Nordic Ways), founded in
1997, in 2000 became the first Swedish Heathen organisation to be registered as
a religious organisation. Samfälligheten was always more closed to the public
than Samfundet and has never cooperated with other Pagan organisations.
Just as Samfundet, they have taken a stand against racist and ethnic interpreta-
tions of Heathenism. Samfälligheten was more oriented towards folklore and
claimed that the “old ways” were still alive in Sweden. Any attempts to present
them as part of a larger Heathen milieu have been vehemently rejected by
Samfälligheten, since they do not recognise other organisations as being genu-
ine Heathens. While they claim to be the largest Heathen organisation in
Sweden they seem to have only at most a handful of members.
Nätverket Forn Sed

Nätverket Forn Sed was founded in 2004 and throughout its existence con-
sisted primarily of former members of Samfundet who left after the conflicts in
that organisation. Nätverket was organised as a decentralised organisation
consisting of a federation of various godeord (congregations) that acted more
or less independently. All had, however, to agree to some common principles,
similar to those in Samfundet, regarding democracy and anti-racism. Nätverket
was most active during the years 2004–2006 and has never had more than
around fifty members. They have had local groups in Malmö, Stockholm,
Gothenburg, and Umeå. Nätverket was involved in starting a national group for
homo-, bi- and transsexual followers of Heathenism, called Bilröst. The project
384 Gregorius
later continued as part of Samfundet. Around 2007, as Samfundet was becom-

ing more stable, most members from Nätverket Forn Sed re-joined them and
today Nätverket Forn Sed is disbanded (interview Erik).
Norröna Samfundet
Norröna Samfundet was founded in 2000 as Nordiska Ringen (the Nordic Ring).
It was, in contrast to most other forms of Heathenism in Sweden, based on an
ethnic view of Heathenism, which was understood as a primordial expression
of the Nordic soul. This led to accusations of racism from other Pagans. In 2002
the name Nordiska Ringen was changed to Norröna Samfundet and for a while
it was the leading Swedish Heathen organisation due to Samfundet’s problems.
In the same year, it became the second Swedish Pagan organisation to be
officially registered as a religious organisation. Former members of Sveriges
Asatrosamfund began to join, and soon the debate regarding the issue of eth-
nic contra non-ethnic forms of Heathenism became a pressing issue. The
former members of Sveriges Asatrosamfund demanded that Norröna take a
stand against racism and xenophobia. Norröna Samfundet refused, and several
members left because of this. Rumours about leading members being con-
nected to various far-right organisations also became more intense and in 2005
Norröna Samfundet was disbanded and its website closed down (Gregorius
2008: 113–115).
Swedish Heathen Front

The Swedish Heathen Front was a small group formed around 1996. The Swe
dish Heathen Front was a Swedish chapter of the Allgermanische Heidnische
Front that was founded by, among others, the Norwegian Black Metal musician
Varg Vikernes, who in 1993 had been sentenced to twenty-one years of impris-
onment for murder. In prison, Vikernes converted to a race-oriented form of
Paganism that was to become the ideological base for the Heathen Front.
Although never a large group, probably never more than around ten members
in total, they published their own magazine, Budkaveln, that included articles
about Old Norse religion and ariosophy. In 2005 both the Swedish Heathen
Front and the Allgermanische Heidnische Front were closed down. Heathen
Front is one of the few examples of racially based interpretations of Heathenism
that have taken the form of an organisation. There have been plans to found a
new group with a similar ideology, but at the time of writing these attempts
have not been carried out (Gregorius 2008: 116–117).
The Number of Adherents of Heathenism

Although there have been no quantitative studies carried out in Sweden
regarding the number of followers of Heathenism, the total membership most
probably does not exceed a thousand. Looking at the numbers in the different
organisations, none, except Samfundet, have had more than 100 members. It is
likely that the most active followers of Heathenism in Sweden today amount to
no more than fifty or fewer individuals, who tend to shift organisations from
time to time, creating a permanent milieu in terms of religious activity but
rather flexible in terms of organisations. A similar trend is apparent in other
forms of Paganism as well. The number of solitary followers is, however, dif
ficult to estimate and there are also smaller local groups of followers of
Heathenism, which have chosen to be private. Even taking such non-affiliated
Heathens into account, nothing suggests that any large number of people are
involved in the Heathen milieu (Gregorius 2008: 119).
Wicca
The basis of what was to be the first Swedish Wiccan coven, called Skogsstjärna
(after the Swedish name for the Arctic starflower, trientalis europaea), was
founded in Stockholm in 1987 by Laila Wiberg (1956–2002). The group was in
1994 re-established as Court of Joy. Court of Joy focused on Celtic traditions
and had a structured hierarchy with three degrees and a High Priestess who
lead the coven. Rather than focusing on the God and the Goddess, as is com-
mon in Wicca, Court of Joy has a more polytheistic approach and sees gods and
goddesses as sentient beings and not as manifestations of a higher unity. One
of Court of Joy’s most original innovations was their work with dragons that
were seen as entities of the Earth (Levander unpublished).
During the 1990s, Laila Wiberg was the most influential Wiccan leader in
Sweden, and it is mainly from her tradition that other Swedish initiatory covens
derive their lineages. Wiberg was opposed to the idea of self-initiation and
claimed that a person who was not properly initiated could not have access to
the mysteries. It is, however, unclear whether Wiberg herself was initiated in
any pre-existing Wiccan tradition as neither Court of Joy, or any coven derived
from it, have been able to state clearly where or if Wiberg was initiated. Her
lineage is not recognised by Gardnerian or Alexandrian traditions (interview
Pandora). It is hence most likely that the form of Wicca practised by Court of
Joy was created in Sweden by Wiberg herself. Wiberg would lead Court of Joy
until her death in 2002. Apart from Court of Joy, there are at the time of writing
at least four other covens directly derived from this group. Two of these are
386 Gregorius
directly affiliated with Court of Joy, one located in the city of Eskilstuna, west
of Stockholm, and the other in the city of Stockholm itself. The two other
covens are organisationally independent of Court of Joy but base their teach-
ings and form of initiation on this group (Levander unpublished).
Court of Aine was founded in 1995 in Gothenburg and is the second oldest
coven in Sweden. Originally part of Court of Joy, they broke with the mother
organisation in the late 1990s and have developed in a different direction.
Court of Aine also holds a polytheistic theology but places a larger focus on the
God and the Goddess and the cyclical order of life, becoming more oriented
towards a more traditional form of Wicca (Levander unpublished). From Court
of Aine one daughter coven, Rönnmåne, has been formed in Trollhättan in the
west of Sweden.
Apart from Court of Joy and Court of Aine and their daughter covens,
smaller covens and circles have been founded in different parts of Sweden, but
few have managed to remain active during any longer period of time. Most fol-
lowers of Wicca in Sweden are solitary and there seems to be a growing interest,
especially among young people, in the religion, but if those who now are soli-
tary will join a coven in the future or remain solitary remains to be seen.
There is a smaller Gardnerian presence, mostly consisting of people initi-
ated in Norway. The Gardnerians have remained more private and have usually
not taken any public role as representatives of Wicca. Based on interviews with
Gardnerians in Sweden many, just like in Norway, seem to be members of Ordo
Templi Orientis (interview Pandora).
Other Forms of Paganism
At the time of writing there are solitary members in Sweden who follow other
forms of Paganism such as Hellenismos, i.e., attempts to reconstruct Ancient
Greek religion, or Pagan Druidism, but there exist no formal organisations
devoted to these Pagan currents. In the 1990s a small group of Druids was
organised as Druids of Scania in the South of Sweden. The centre was located
at Hässleholm where the leader lived; the same person also owned a small
Pagan/ New Age store called Månkällan (The Lunar Source). After internal
conflicts, the Druids of Scania were divided into two sections. There is no evi-
dence that any of the two groups has survived. Around 2002 an attempt was
made by the former leader of the druid order to form a Celtic Faith Community
similar to Sveriges Asatrosamfund (e-mail Karl, 2 March 2007). Nothing came
of these plans, and at the moment Druids are primarily found as more or less
solitary practitioners, or as members of international organisations such as
Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids that do not have any local congregations in
Sweden.
Pan-Pagan organisations
Just as there are organisations for people who belong to specific Pagan tradi-
tions, there are umbrella organisations that seek to create the opportunity for
meetings and cooperation between Pagans from different paths and groups.
Rather than having one organisation that organises pagans nationwide, such
as the Pagan Federation in England, the Swedish Pagan milieu is more oriented
towards local groups that act independently of each other. Usually, such local
groups organise the various so-called pubmoots that exist in Sweden. Pubmoots
began in England as a way for Pagans to meet in an informal setting. The two
oldest and largest pubmoots in Sweden are in Stockholm and Gothenburg.
There are also examples of more organised forms of umbrella organisations
for Pagans of different paths. The oldest is Hedniska Nätverket Vitka (The
Heathen Network Vitka), founded in 1987 as Swedish Wicca Association, later
renamed Swedish Vitka Association. While open to people of various faiths,
they have been criticised by other Pagans for being too oriented toward a New
Age-influenced interpretation of Paganism.
Pagan Federation Sweden is not a local organisation but has its primary base
in Stockholm. Pagan Federation has an influence that is much greater than is
warranted by the small number of members, around ten individuals nation-
wide. Pagan Federation organised yearly Pagan conferences in Sweden in the
years 1998–1999 and 2005–2007. Pagan Federation was the organiser but
worked with local Pagan groups in order to set up these meetings. Today the
organisation is small and seems to be based primarily in Stockholm and
Uppsala.
Göteborgs Hedniska Nätverk-GHN (Gothenburg’s Pagan Network) was
founded in 2006. GHN has held various social gatherings such as a Pan-Pagan
Lupercalia celebration that included rituals and lectures. GHN does not offi-
cially hold pubmoots, as these were established before GHN was created. In
practice, however, one can say that the pubmoot in Gothenburg is being organ-
ised by GHN as the person responsible for it is also the founder of GHN. GHN
has also started to organise Pagan conferences in the way that Pagan Federation
used to do.
388 Gregorius
Paganism and the Internet
During the last ten years the Internet has come to play an increasing role for
the development of Pagan networks. The Internet has not only made it easier
to establish contacts with other Pagans or to get information about different
paths, but has also created a community where the physical locality is of a
lesser importance and it is possible for people to relatively easily create a reli-
gious identity without having to join a specific group. Still, forums that deal
exclusively with Pagan traditions and are independent of a specific organisa-
tion have had a difficult time establishing themselves. For a while there was a
Wiccan web community called Cerridwen, but it closed down in 2008. Instead,
most Pagans tend to use Facebook as a means of communication, rather than
creating their own communities.
Conclusion
At the time of writing (2014) Paganism in Sweden is a marginal movement if

one considers the number of active members in Pagan organisations. There is
very little indication of any substantial growth at the moment. While new
organisations appear and new people are attracted, other organisations close
down and apart from Samfundet Forn Sed (with only some 350 members)
there are no larger functioning Pagan organisations. The majority of Pagans in
Sweden are most likely solitary, i.e., they are not members of any organisation,
either by choice or because there are no other Pagans sharing their interests
where they live. There is little information available on how many these soli-
tary practitioners are, what forms of beliefs that are most common among
them, or if Paganism is a world view that a person typically holds over an
extended period of time or merely as a phase in a more wide-ranging spiritual
quest.
There seem to be difficulties for Pagan organisations to maintain any form
of activity over a longer period of time, and most of these groups tend to be
short-lived, existing only for a couple of years and then being disbanded. Many
Pagans seem to remain within the Pagan community even after their original
organisation is disbanded, either forming new groups, joining others, or act-
ing in a more solitary manner. The Pagan milieu has thus a growing number
of people who are active as participants in Pagan activities but who are not
members of any organisation. At present, Paganism in Sweden is in an early
phase and is still trying to establish itself as an actor on the Swedish religious
scene. The future for Swedish Paganism is thus hard to determine, and the
question which groups and ideas that will have a lasting effect on the milieu
remains open. Some basic conclusions can be drawn. One is the dominance of
Heathenism and references to Old Norse religion. So far, Heathens are the most
organised of the various Pagan religions represented in Sweden. The scene is
also fairly democratic with few charismatic leaders. Doctrinally, many Pagans
in Sweden, both Wiccans and Heathens, tend to have a polytheistic view of the
divine and reject any idea of a unified or predominant deity. While it is not rare
to be a member of several organisations, it seems to be more common to be
a member of only one group. Today the greatest challenge Paganism faces in
Sweden is how to maintain and create organisations that can take care of and
engage those interested in Paganism.
Unpublished Sources
Interview Erik 18 February 2014.

Interview Pandora 12 September 2008.
Mail Karl 3 February 2007.
References
Gregorius, Fredrik, Modern Asatro; Att kontruera etnisk och kulturell identitet, Lund:
Lunds Universitet, 2008.
———. “Modern Heathenism in Sweden: A Case Study in the Creation of a Traditional
Religion”, in: Kathryn Rountree (ed.), Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Europe,
New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2015, 64–85.
Levander, Caroline, “Wiccas historia Sverige”, unpublished manuscript, no date.
Skott, Fredrik, Asatro i tiden, Göteborg: Språk och folkminnesinstitutet, 2000.
390 Linde
Chapter 48
Pansophy in Sweden
Fabian Linde
The events associated with John Amos Comenius’ Swedish Pansophical ven-
ture transpired during a decisive period in the political and intellectual history
of Northern Europe. In the course of the seventeenth century, Sweden devel-
oped into a Great Power with adjoining territories in what in our day constitutes
Finland, the Baltic States, Poland, and northern Germany. As a result, the Baltic
Sea nearly became a Swedish inland sea (mare clausum). During the reign of
Gustavus Adolphus (1594–1632, reigned 1611–1632), Sweden entered European
power politics in earnest as a defender of Protestantism, with troops being
disembarked on the continent in the already raging Thirty Years’ War. After
the sudden and unexpected death of the king on the field of battle, a regency
council was set up, as the heiress to the throne, Christina (1626–1689, reigned
1644–1654), was too young to carry the sceptre. Its leader was Axel Oxenstierna
(1583–1654), generally recognised as one of the most skilled and shrewd states-
men of the age. But not only the geopolitical developments turned out to be
decisive for the future, as the authorities also implemented broad adminis-
trative, educational, and ecclesiastical reforms in order to render the young
state more effective. Although the upstart Northern Kingdom was relatively
uncultured and of an unrefined nature in comparison with the great histori-
cal monarchies on the continent, the circumstance that it was less weighed
down by tradition and lacked strong independent institutions that might chal-
lenge the consolidation of state power brought the advantage that it was quite
malleable and lent itself to tough reforms implemented from above. The two
most important exceptions were the nobility and the priesthood, whose inter-
ests sometimes diverged from that of the Crown. Ever since the adoption of
Lutheranism, the Church of Sweden had strived to establish itself as the lead-
ing ideological body in the Kingdom, gaining far-reaching rights to implement
its teachings, as well as to enforce adherence to Lutheran Orthodoxy among
the general population. While it did on the whole live in a close relationship
with the secular powers, functioning as a guarantor of state consolidation and
carrying out various administrative duties, there were times when its position
of power was challenged by members of the nobility who were more open
to unorthodox ideas brought by various European currents of thought. This
is the case with the period under discussion, which coincides with the first

Pansophy 391
significant peak of Swedish esotericism. It was advanced by loosely linked net-

works of individuals committed to esoteric teachings. The individuals involved,
if admittedly constituting only a small minority, were in many cases pioneers
within their respective field of activity, who exerted a certain degree of influ-
ence at court, within the expanding industrial complex, in higher education,
and even in ecclesiastical circles. The central and strategic positioning of these
individuals can in other words be said to have compensated for their limited
numbers. Nonetheless, as was to be expected, their activity was significantly
hampered by being constantly monitored by the theological authorities. It was
into this volatile atmosphere that the internationally renowned reformist ped-
agogue Comenius stepped in the early 1640s, bestowing on Swedish spiritual
life what arguably amounts to one of the most significant impulses of the age.
Comenius and the Unity of Brethren
The Moravian theologian and pedagogue Jan Amos Komenský (1592–1670) is

better known under the Latinised form of his name: John Amos Comenius.
This deeply religious man was secretary, spiritual counsellor, and eventually
last bishop of the Bohemian Unity of Brethren (Jednota bratrská or Unitas
Fratrum), a Christian community forced into exile and eventually dispersed in
connection with the violent re-Catholicisation of their native regions during
the course of the seventeenth century. The Unity of Brethren, whose ideo-
logical fathers were, among others, John Hus (1369–1415) and Petr Chelčitský
(ca 1390–1460), acted as custodians of a comparatively tolerant and undog-
matic form of Christian piety, adhering to the principle that in essentials unity
should prevail, in non-essentials, liberty, and in all things, charity. Their teach-
ings were centred on a few central articles of faith, the particulars open to the
individual to supplement as he or she saw fit. At the basis of their attitude
towards the world and its inhabitants lay an emphasis on universal edification,
which is why it is hardly surprising that it was in the capacity of pedagogue
that Comenius was to gain his enduring reputation. To this Christian heritage
Comenius added a comprehensive Humanist erudition and a predilection for
Hermeticism. The latter is discernible not only in the repeated references to
the venerable Trismegistus that are scattered throughout his writings, but also
in his most popular book, the richly illustrated Orbis sensualium pictus (The
Visible World in Pictures), which is structured around the Hermetic principles
of the four elements, and the triune interrelation of God, man, and cosmos, and
tries to show the interrelatedness of all things. In addition, his vast literary out-
put is marked by a utopian and apocalyptic streak. As Comenius experienced
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numerous personal hardships during the course of his life, such as forced exile
and the loss of his wife and children at the hands of the plague, his worldview
came to reflect the rift between the “Light of Christ” and the confused ways of
men, an experience dealt with in his consolatory masterpiece Labyrint svĕta i
ráj srdce (The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart), written
in 1623.
Pansophy and the Rosicrucian Connection
While Comenius is chiefly remembered as a pioneer of modern education, his

pedagogy cannot be dissociated from the greater whole in which it was embed-
ded, namely Pansophy (Gk. παν, “full”, “entire” and σοφια, “wisdom”). Although
the term had been used before him, it was Comenius who more than any other
came to define it. In his hands it became an integrative manner of understand-
ing, which would counteract not only the growing compartmentalisation of
the various spheres of knowledge based on the analytical and mechanistic
paradigm that was becoming increasingly influential at the time, but also the
one-sided fideism and dogmatism of traditional Church doctrine. Its aim was
to further a full comprehension of the divine order of things, as disclosed in
the three scriptures: the book of nature (Liber naturae), the book of man (Liber
hominis), and the book of God (Liber Dei or Liber revelatus), and to integrate
science, religion, and human action into an all-encompassing synthesis. On
the basis of this truly holistic paradigm, Comenius strived to demonstrate the
interconnectedness of all things and to lead them back to their divine source.
At its root lay a Hermetic Naturphilosophie that was to deeply influence Georg
Stiernhielm (1598–1672), who is traditionally regarded as the founding father of
Swedish literature (Nordström 1924).
Comenius’ Swedish involvement must above all be viewed as part of an
endeavour to instigate a universal renovation of human affairs (reformatio
generalis). Comenius outlined how an emphasis on universal knowledge
would change the face of the social life of mankind, which in his view had lost
its sound foundation. More specifically, Pansophy was intended to become the
foundation of a new social order that was to arise in the wake of the Thirty
Years’ War, which had devastated large parts of Central and Northern Europe,
and torn society apart. To this end, he worked hard to promote a reconciliation
between the warring churches and proposed as well the creation of various
international institutions that would help regulate educational, political, and
ecclesiastical affairs, and thus ensure lasting peace among the nations. In this
endeavour, Comenius was inspired by such thinkers as Francis Bacon and
Pansophy 393
Tommaso Campanella. More importantly, his reformatory calling received its

decisive spiritual impulse from the Rosicrucian manifestos, as he himself
attested in his late work Clamores Eliae (The Exhortations of Elijah), in which
he mentions coming into contact with these texts even previous to their publi-
cation (Comenius 1992). Later in life, Comenius would keep up a correspondence
with Johann Valentin Andreae (1586–1654), the co-writer of the Rosicrucian
pamphlets, who in a letter passed the Rosicrucian reformatory legacy on to
him, or as Comenius later expressed it, bestowed on him “the flaming torch”
(Blekastad 1969: 153; Brecht 1988). The universal reformation in the sign of the
Rosy Cross was a reform movement that in a sense carried forth what the
Protestant Reformation had set out, but failed, to accomplish. If the latter in its
initial impulse may be considered as being an attempt to free the common
man from the priestly yoke and the church hierarchy and to refurbish him with
the possibility of an unmediated individual experience of the divine, it had
eventually given rise to an intolerant dogmatism and confinement to the letter
of the scriptural text. If Luther had originally championed the “priesthood of
all believers”, i.e., self-authority, fierce theological infighting over dogmas and
rituals had ensued with the result that the church had petrified. Among the
select few, there was a sense that the renewing forces of the Reformation had
been neutralised on most fronts. There was also a fear that something similar
would happen with the budding sciences, whose relation to established reli-
gion was a matter of great controversy. It is in this light that the Rosicrucian
Fama Fraternitatis (Call of the Brotherhood), published in 1614, ought to be
viewed:
… the only wise and merciful God [has] in these latter days … raised
enlightened and ingenious men, who might partly renew the spotted and
imperfect arts to perfection; so that finally man might thereby under-
stand his own nobleness and worth, what the nature of the microcosmus
is, and how far his art extends in nature. […] To such an intent of a gen-
eral reformation, the most godly, Christian and highly illuminated Father,
our Brother C.R., a German, the head and founder of our Fraternity, has
much and long time laboured. (Fama Fraternitatis 72, 74; my translation
from the original German – F. L.)
It seems safe to say that Comenius himself represented the type of “enlight-
ened and ingenious man” to whom the quoted passage makes allusion. The
ultimate goal of his project, and the means towards its realisation, were
detailed in De rerum humanarum emendatione consultatio catholica (A General
Consultation on the Reform of Human Affairs), an immense work in seven
394 Linde
parts that was never completed, but which brought up for discussion all the
relevant aspects of the ambitious endeavour to reform human society in accor-
dance with the Pansophical programme. Earlier on, Comenius had also written
a number of minor introductions to Pansophy, the most important being
Prodromus pansophiae (A Preamble to Pansophy, 1639) and Via lucis (The Way
of Light, 1641/2; printed 1668), which Will-Erich Peuckert once called a
“Comenian Fama” (Gilly 1992: 17).
Comenius’ Swedish Enterprise
It was Comenius’ friend, the Scottish ecumenist John Dury (1596–1680), who
drew the Swedes’ attention to Comenius. Dury had worked in Sweden during a
two-year period for the purposes of promoting religious tolerance, before being
banned from the country. He had come to Sweden in 1636 invited by Louis De
Geer (1587–1652), a Calvinist immigrant from Wallonia, who had earned a con-
siderable fortune by tapping into the rich iron ores of Sweden with the help
of Walloon expertise, and had turned out to be indispensable to the Swedish
Crown as key provider of firearms. In 1641, Comenius himself was invited by
De Geer to come to Sweden. Comenius declined, however, for several reasons.
First, he did not want to neglect his obligations toward the Unity of Brethren.
Second, he was afraid of encountering envy and resentment, and third, he
did not consider himself equipped for restructuring the Swedish schools, the
task with which he was presented. However, during the winter of 1641–1642,
Comenius and his friends in England continued their correspondence with De
Geer and his representatives. De Geer then offered Comenius to come to live
at his estate in a private capacity and work on Pansophy. Although this did not
come about, De Geer eventually became Comenius’ personal Maecenas.
In due course, Comenius gave in to the offer to come to Sweden. In August
1642, he arrived there for the first time, on the invitation of the Chancellor
Axel Oxenstierna and De Geer. He was at this time hardly unknown in
Sweden, as his highly popular Janua linguarum (Gateway to Languages) had
been published in a Swedish edition a few years earlier. The tutor of Crown
Princess Christina, Johannes Matthiae Gothus (1592–1670), a devoted ireni-
cist and ecumenist, used it in teaching her Latin. Comenius first travelled to
Finspång, the industrial town where the iron foundry of De Geer was located,
and then to Örebro where he met Matthiae and Christina. He then travelled
on to Stockholm where he met Oxenstierna in September 1642. Their lengthy
discussions are vividly described in Comenius’ autobiographical sketches
(Comenius 1975). In view of the fact that the chancellor in the main was
heavily occupied, the four days that he devoted to Comenius must be said
Pansophy 395
to have been a remarkably long time. On the second day of their negotia-
tions, Oxenstierna unexpectedly informed Comenius that the latter had been
assigned with the task of reforming the schools of the Kingdom on behalf of
the Crown and with the approval of the Church. Comenius was overwhelmed
by this proposal, which implied a great deal of responsibility. He seems at this
stage to have been wary of settling in Sweden as he had the words of his friend
Dury in fresh memory: ‘The [Swedish] people do not like foreigners, and do
not approve of any improvement, but quickly become suspicious’ (Blekastad
1975: 16). Nonetheless, Comenius reluctantly accepted and Oxenstierna com-
missioned De Geer to finance the undertaking. It was decided that Comenius
should take up residence in Elbing (Elbląg) in West Prussia, at that time under
Swedish rule. During the last day of the negotiations, the discussion turned
to the subject of Pansophy. It turned out, to Comenius’ great surprise, that
not only was Oxenstierna familiar with the covert Pansophical teachings, he
had also personally read A Preamble to Pansophy, the Pansophical manifesto.
During the course of the conversation, Oxenstierna expressed his general
doubts about the Pansophical project, not least concerning its viability at a
time when Europe lay in ruins after decades of ravaging war (Comenius 1975:
77–78). Even so, he pinned great hopes on Comenius, whose “sparks”, he said,
would one day flame a fire that would spread from the North all over Europe
(Comenius 1975: 76). Prior to leaving the Swedish heartland, Comenius also
met with Johan Skytte (1577–1645), the chancellor of Uppsala University, who
was favourably inclined towards him.
Thus began Comenius’ pedagogical commission for the Swedish State. The
contact with the Swedish authorities was carried out mainly by correspon-
dence, or through intermediaries, but throughout the years Comenius also
paid a few visits to the Swedish heartland in person. Although De Geer to all
intents and purposes seems to have supported Comenius’ Pansophical striv-
ings, the two men had different views on how best to proceed. De Geer decided
that Comenius for the time being had to put Pansophy aside and concentrate
on the school books in order to keep the Swedish authorities satisfied. It
appears that De Geer early on had identified a concern which in time would
grow into a substantial problem for Comenius. Comenius for his part was con-
vinced that the pedagogical works depended on the final elaboration of
Pansophy, and he was encouraged in this direction in letters from his friend
Samuel Hartlib (ca. 1600–1662) in England. Being faithful to this view, Comenius
wrote a Pansophical outline that was printed in Danzig in 1643 under the title
Pansophiae diatyposis, and moreover commenced work on his great Consultatio,
a work which he sustained for the greater part of his life. In Elbing he com-
pleted its first part, entitled Excitatorium universale, later re-titled Panegersia
396 Linde
(Universal Awakening). He also secretly distributed a few essential Pansophical

writings, above all A Preamble to Pansophy, among key individuals in Sweden
who could be deemed supportive of the project. He also sent the yet unpub-
lished and covert Way of Light to Johannes Matthiae, who displayed a great
deal of interest in Pansophy. Even Oxenstierna received this text and was rec-
ommended to read chapters 12–15, which treat of the reorganisation of society
(Blekastad 1977: 136). On another occasion, Comenius sent no less than twenty
copies of the recently published Pansophiae diatyposis to De Geer for further
distribution, with instructions that it be given to the Chancellor and Matthiae.
Yet Comenius was soon challenged in his endeavours by numerous setbacks.
A crucial incident occurred early on when Johannes Matthiae, newly installed
Bishop of Strängnäs, presented a proposal for a new church regulation, enti-
tled Idea boni ordinis in ecclesia Christi (Matthiae 1644). It was an attempt at
introducing a more tolerant approach in Church affairs, which was, however,
ultimately rejected. It reportedly echoes, in some parts word for word, the reg-
ulation of the Unity of Brethren and also the history of the Unity entitled De
bono unitatis, which Comenius had sent Matthiae in 1643 (Blekastad 1977: 140).
This event coincided with Christina’s ascension to the throne, even though
Oxenstierna continued to uphold a leading position in the country. It deserves
mention that different sources give witness to contradictory views regarding
Christina’s attitude towards Comenius. At times, she would allegedly utter dep-
recative statements about him in public. However, the fact that Matthiae, in
whom she confided, to all intents and purposes supported Comenius ought to
have played a significant part in making her favourably disposed towards him.
As is well known, she was generally receptive to various European currents of
thought, even having the courage to invite Descartes, who by some was accused
of being an atheist. Christina nurtured plans of making Stockholm into a cen-
tre of European learning and culture.
Matters became even more complicated when Comenius’ participation
in an ecumenical conference in Toruń in 1645 led to (entirely unfounded) sus-
picions among the Swedish clergy that he was a covert Calvinist. Comenius
was summoned to Stockholm in 1646 to explain himself, but a clash with Oxen
stierna was unavoidable. That same ominous year, a court trial was enacted
against Friedrich Menius (1593/1594–1659), who under the pseudonym of
Salomon Majus had authored two books entitled Pandora Sophica (1639) and
Consensus Hermetico-Mosaicus (Menius 1644). The former, which was pre-
ceded by a dedication to Crown Princess Christina, put forward a heterodox
philosophy of nature and cosmogony inspired by Comenius’ writings. The
outcome of both of these events was that the opinion of the Swedish clergy
irreversibly turned against Comenius, a development which in turn influenced
the powerful Oxenstierna. Nevertheless, despite the fact that his reputation
Pansophy 397
had been tarnished, Comenius nurtured plans to stay in Sweden for the winter.
Oxenstierna, however, who seems to have lost his confidence in him, opposed
this decision and forced Comenius to leave the country. Before doing so, how-
ever, Comenius met the queen once more, who requested that he should
continue his work on Pansophy and move to Sweden, something which De
Geer, who was present at the audience, at once offered to support financially.
For some unknown reason, this, however, did not come about.
In 1647, the orthodox Lutheran priesthood tried to consolidate its ideologi-
cal position by attempting to have the Lutheran Formula of Concord accepted
by the Riksdag of the Estates, which would effectively have put an end to the
ecumenical movement once and for all. Even though this attempt failed,
Matthiae was attacked and had to defend himself. Comenius’ relation to De
Geer still held out, but the Pansophical project was seriously threatened when
Comenius was accused of not fulfilling his pedagogical duties. Even Matthiae
sided with the critics, who were unsatisfied with the pedagogical works that
Comenius presented to his commissioners, maintaining that they were only
reworkings of older material. These charges were not entirely fair, given that
Comenius actually did produce the school books and the pedagogical manuals
that had been commissioned of him, including the Methodus linguarum novis-
sima (The Latest Method of Language Teaching), which is considered one of
his most progressive pedagogical works by specialists in the field.
In 1648, Comenius moved from Elbing to Leszno in Poland. The following
year Sweden received a new regulation of the educational system, elaborated
by Matthiae, among others. It has been claimed that it was based on that of the
Unity of Brethren, but this issue demands further research. That same year
(1649), Comenius again returned to Sweden, on Christina’s demand, in connec-
tion with her plans to found an academy of sciences in Stockholm. Comenius
received a renewed invitation to stay there, but also this time it came to nought.
Upon Descartes’ death in Sweden the following year, the plans to found an
academy in Stockholm were ultimately abandoned.
In 1650, Comenius’ work for the Swedish state came to an end, and his
interactions with Sweden became more sporadic from now on. One should
mention, however, that for several weeks in 1651, Comenius socialised with
Bengt Skytte (1614–1683) in Sáros-Patak in Hungary. Bengt, the son of the
above-mentioned Johan Skytte, was a devoted Pansophist and Hermeticist,
who in 1666 would attempt to found a Sophopolis in Brandenburg, which was
to be centred around a universal college (Collegium universale) (Grape 1936:
327; Husén 2003).
During the 1650s, the circumstances in Sweden changed drastically. In 1652,
De Geer, still supportive of Comenius, passed away. His son, Laurens De Geer
398 Linde
(1614–1666) continued in his father’s footsteps by being Comenius’ patron. In

1654, Oxenstierna died as well and Queen Christina abdicated, emigrated, and
converted to Catholicism, first in secret and then openly, after having held
secret negotiations with the Jesuits. Through this move, she entirely discarded
the legacy of her father and of the powerful Oxenstierna family who were the
defenders of Lutheran Orthodoxy. Her cousin then became king of Sweden
and is known to history as Charles X Gustavus (1622–1660, reigned 1654–1660).
During the following year, Comenius, who still strived to keep up good rela-
tions with the Swedish Crown and hoped for its continued support, wrote a
pamphlet entitled Panegyricus Carlo Gustavo (In Praise of Charles Gustavus),
in which he drew the king’s attention to the plight of his people. In 1656,
Comenius was forced to flee Leszno in Poland, where he was residing, and was
invited by the Swedish king to stay at his military quarters there. In the end,
Comenius decided to leave Poland altogether and instead establish a home in
Amsterdam, where he was to remain for the rest of his life.
Legacy
Taking into consideration that Comenius had received a number of enticing

offers from various quarters in Europe, reportedly even from Harvard College
in New England, it seems surprising that Comenius accepted the Swedish invi-
tation in the first place. This was no doubt in part motivated by the hope that
the Swedes, who at that time had become a military and political force to
reckon with, would support the return of his people to their native regions,
something for which he indeed received guarantees from the Swedish authori-
ties (although they were never met). There were also other, more profound,
reasons. What seems to have motivated Comenius above all else was the hope
that the Swedish Crown would establish a tolerant realm, in which people of
good will would live in peace and charity and be granted the opportunity to
freely develop their spiritual potential without fear of persecution. He was
spurred in this direction by the prophecies of Christina Poniatowska, which
echoed the then widely disseminated predictions about the coming Lion of
the North. Sweden was in this connection thought to represent the Northern
Kingdom that in the End Times would intervene to defend evangelical
Christianity. To this end, Comenius worked carefully on quietly gaining the
support and earning the trust of those key individuals who were, or could turn
out to be, favourably disposed towards the Christian Pansophy that he hoped
would lay at the basis of this renewed society.
Pansophy 399
Unfortunately, the truly magnificent potential of Comenius’ visionary

project foundered on the political realities of the day, on the intolerance of the
Lutheran clergy, and on the petty power struggles that took place between vari-
ous theological camps. Due to the organised opposition levelled against him,
the results of his endeavours remained on the whole marginal, amounting per-
chance to mere faint echoes of what could have been. In the afterword of his
unfinished Consultatio, which was to be dedicated to “the three Northern
Kingdoms” of Sweden, Poland, and England, Comenius succinctly summarised
the bitter experience that he had gathered from his Swedish involvement: ‘In
Sweden […] you seem to protect freedom of conscience abroad whilst restrict-
ing it at home’ (Comenius 1991: 84). Yet, must Comenius’ Swedish project
necessarily be deemed a complete failure? One of the most influential esoteri-
cists of the last century, Rudolf Steiner, is credited with having said that ‘when
one wants to obtain an understanding of Swedish history, it is necessary to
commence with Comenius’ discussion with chancellor Axel Oxenstierna at the
castle in Stockholm’ (Nilsson 1958: 168). This strong statement seems perplex-
ing, given that Comenius’ role in Swedish history is not widely recognised. Yet,
upon closer consideration, one can certainly agree with Steiner that the
Comenian Pansophical impulse ought to be regarded as a singular event in the
Early Modern history of Sweden. Hopefully, future research will uncover
exactly what part Comenius played in the reform proposals for new church
regulations and for the educational system that were presented during the
course of the seventeenth century. No less important will be to grasp what
bearing his Pansophical legacy might have in our own time. Perhaps one day
the prophetic words of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz will come true: ‘The time
will surely come, Comenius, when all good men will study your works, your
hopes and your innermost desires’ (Leibniz 1965).
References
Blekastad, Milada, Comenius: Versuch eines Umrisses von Leben, Werk und Schicksal des
Jan Amos Komenský, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1969.
——— . Menneskenes sak: Om den tjekkiske tenkeren Comenius i kamp om en universal
reform av samfunnslivet, Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1977.
——— . “Geniet i stormaktenes spill: Comenius og Sverige”, Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift
(1974), 31–70.
——— . “Introduction”, in: Comenius’ självbiografi: Comenius about himself, Årsböcker
i svensk undervisningshistoria, Vol. 131, Yearbook 54:1974, Stockholm: Föreningen för
svensk undervisningshistoria, 1975, 11–29.
400 Linde
Brecht, Martin, “‘Er hat uns die Fackel übergeben …’: Die Bedeutung Johann Valentin
Andreaes für Johann Amos Comenius”, in: Das Erbe des Christian Rosenkreuz:
Vorträge gehalten anläßlich des Amsterdamer Symposiums 18.-20. November 1986,
Johann Valentin Andreae 1586–1986 und die Manifeste der Rosenkreuzerbruderschaft
1614–1616, Amsterdam: In de pelikaan, 1988, 28–47.
Čapková, Dagmar, “Comenius and his Ideals: Escape from the Labyrinth”, in: Mark
Greengrass, Michael Leslie and Timothy Raylor (eds.), Samuel Hartlib and Universal
Reformation: Studies in Intellectual Communication, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994, 75–91.
Carlson, Martin E., “Johannes Matthiae and the Development of the Church of Sweden
during the First Half of the Seventeenth Century”, Church History, 13:4 (1944),
289–309.
Comenius, Jan Amos, Comenius’ självbiografi: Comenius about himself, Årsböcker i
svensk undervisningshistoria, Vol. 131, Yearbook 54:1974, Stockholm: Föreningen för
svensk undervisningshistoria, 1975.
——— . Prodromus Pansophiae: Vorläufer der Pansophie, original text with translation
into German and comments by Herbert Hornstein, Düsseldorf: Pädagogischer Verlag
Schwann, 1963.
——— . “Clamores Eliae”, in: Dílo Jana Amose Komenského, vol. 23, Prague: Academia,
1992.
Comenius, Johan Amos, Pannuthesia or Universal Warning, addressed in God’s holy name
to all who may participate in the execution of policies for the salvation of the world, A
Universal Deliberation on the Reform of Human Affairs, Part Seven, translated by
A.M.O. Dobbie, Shipston-on-Stour: Peter I. Drinkwater, 1991.
Dílo, Jana Amose Komenského, Johannis Amos Comenii Opera omnia, ed. Antonín
Škarka, Prague: Academia, 1969.
Fama Fraternitatis: Oudste manifest der Rozenkruisers Broederschap bewerkt aan de hand
van teruggevonden manuscripten door Pleun van der Kooij, met een inleiding over ont-
staan en geschiedenis van de Manifesten der Rozenkruisers door Carlos Gilly, Haarlem:
Rozekruis Pers, 1998.
Gilly, Carlos, “Comenius’ Via Lucis in het teken van het Rozenkruis. ‘per crucem ad lu-
cem, rosis tamen solatiorum dei refocillata’: Door het Kruis tot het Licht, Verkwikt
door de Rozen der Vertroostingen Gods”, preface to Johannes Amos Comenius, Via
Lucis: De Weg van het licht, Amsterdam: In de pelikaan, 1992, 11–31.
Göransson, Sven, “Comenius och Sverige 1642–1648”, Lychnos (1957–1958), 102–137.
Grape, Anders, “Comenius, Bengt Skytte och Royal Society”, Lychnos (1936), 319–330.
Husén, Tosten [sic.], “Comenius and Sweden, and Bengt Skytte’s Sophopolis”, Scandi
navian Journal of Educational Research 47: 4 (2003), 387–398.
Karlsson, Blanka, Comenius und sein Werk in Schweden 1630–2000, Acad. Diss., 2nd ed.,
Norrköping: Blanka Pragensis, 2008.
Pansophy 401
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, “Elegy on the Death of Comenius (1671)”, The Educational
Forum, 29: 3 (1965), 274.
Lindroth, Sten, Paracelsismen i Sverige till 1600-talets mitt, Uppsala: Lychnos, 1943.
——— . Svensk lärdomshistoria: Stormaktstiden, Stockholm: Norstedt, 1975.
Matthiae, Johannes, Idea boni ordinis in ecclesia Christi: In anniversaria synodo Streng
nensi loco orationis introductoriae ad episcopatum, Strängnäs: 1644.
Menius, Friedrich, Consensvs hermetico-mosaicus: Von dem wahren Anfange aller siechti-
gen vndt vnsiechtigen dingen, sodan auch von der warhafften einigen Universal Materi
des ... höhesten Arcani der gantzen Weldt … Aus beiden Liechtern, der Natur vndt
Gnaden, / gestellet durch Salomonem Maium, Stockholm: 1644.
Neval, Daniel A., Comenius’ Pansophie: Die dreifache Offenbarung Gottes in Schrift, Natur
und Vernunft, Unvollendete Habilitationsschrift, Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich,
2007.
Nilsson, Rut, “Die Rosenkreuzerströmung in Schweden”, Blätter für Anthroposophie und
Mitteilungen aus der Anthroposophischen Bewegung (1958), 168–169.
Nordström, Johan, “Inledning”, in: Georg Stiernhielm. Samlade skrifter: Filosofiska frag-
ment, Stockholm: Svenska vitterhetssamfundet, 1924.
Piaget, Jean, “Jan Amos Comenius”, Prospects 23:1/2 (1993), 173–196.
Yates, Frances A., “Comenius and the Rosicrucian Rumour in Bohemia”, in: The Rosi
crucian Enlightenment, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972, 156–170.
402 Shackelford
Chapter 49 Paracelsianism in Denmark
Paracelsianism in Denmark
Jole Shackelford
The Luther of Physicians
Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenhaim (1493–1541),

known to most by the cognomen Paracelsus, was a contemporary of Martin
Luther and, like Luther, was caught up in the religious and political ferment of
the early sixteenth century. Largely an autodidact, Paracelsus learned medicine
from his father, who was a physician in the mining district of Villach in Austria,
and from years of wandering, perhaps studying for brief periods at universities
in Vienna and Ferrara, but mainly acquiring knowledge and skills as a field sur-
geon and itinerant healer. But, he was also a biblical exegete and lay preacher,
for which he came under suspicion during the suppression of the German
Peasants’ Rebellion in 1525. Paracelsus wrote extensive treatises on medical,
alchemical, astrological, prophetic, and theological subjects. These writings,
many of which were published posthumously, but many of which circulated
widely in northern Germany in manuscript, convey a spiritualised, radically
heterodox vision of human nature that is grounded in his novel chemical phys-
iology and pathology and close reading of scripture. For this reason, his ideas
appealed to a wide audience, who drew diversely on his enthusiasm for chemi-
cal semiotics and therapeutics, his radical political ideas, and his conception
of the relationship between the human and the divine.
Paracelsianism, as the further development and application of his ideas is
named, is thus as much a part of medical history as of religious history – espe-
cially esoteric history – and must be considered in both medical-philosophical
and religious contexts. Indeed, the ideological foundation for Rosicrucian
thought is Paracelsian religion, which will be considered separately in the
chapter on Rosicrucianism in Early Modern Denmark. Nevertheless, the reli-
gious resonances of Paracelsian medical theory must be kept in mind when
assessing the reception of Paracelsianism in an age when religious profession
was of profound normative importance. Certainly this was the case for
Denmark in the early modern period, where a strong, centralised state Church
sought to conform all citizens to a Lutheran faith that was based on Luther’s
writings and the articles of the Augsburg Confession, protecting them from the
hegemony of Roman Catholicism and the wayward tendencies of Protestant
sectarianism and further reformation.

Paracelsianism in Denmark 403
A Paracelsian Ideal for Medical Biology
Paracelsus may have served as a field surgeon in a Danish army, if his claim to
have visited “Stockholm in Denmark” is believed, but there is no record of
Danish interest in his ideas or methods of curing before the 1560s, when two
Danish students travelled to Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy, on a
grand tour of Europe’s finest medical schools and urban attractions. Hans
Filipsen du Pre (1543–1576) and Peder Sørensen (1542–1602), known by their
Latin academic names Johannes Pratensis and Petrus Severinus, shared a royal
stipend to immerse themselves in elite philosophical medicine as it was taught
in Basel, Padua, and Paris and bring it back to Denmark, where they would
implement it in teaching and practice and reduce Danish dependence on for-
eign-born physicians. Pratensis received an M.D. from Padua, at that time a
prominent school for Aristotelian philosophy and Galenic medicine and espe-
cially sought out by those students interested in anatomical training. Where he
was introduced to Paracelsian chemical medicine remains unknown. Severinus
also travelled to Italy, but details of where he studied remain obscure. He was
deeply engaged with Paracelsian medical ideas in Paris already by 1567, when
he penned Exercitationum liber in qua quæstiones philosophicæ, astronomicæ,
medicæ, cabalisticæ explicantur (Book of Exercises, In Which Philosophical,
Astronomical, Medical, and Cabalistic Questions are Explicated). This re
mained in manuscript, but many of the ideas in it were further developed in
his Idea medicinae philosophicae (Ideal of Philosophical Medicine), which he
put the finishing touches on in Florence in 1570 and published at Basel in 1571.
Severinus’ genius was to take the fundamental tenets of Paracelsus’ approach
to medicine, which were not presented in a coherent system in the various
volumes that were first published in the 1560s, and to create a well-thought-
out metaphysical basis for a new medical biology. Paracelsus had written that
some diseases come into the body with food and drink in latent form as seeds
of diseases. Severinus generalised this idea, bringing to it the ancient Stoic and
Neoplatonic notion that all things in nature are formed of seed-like princi-
ples, whether these be conceived as material (Stoic) or spiritual (Neoplatonic)
in essence. Saint Augustine had adopted these seminal principles to explain
the temporal appearance of things in a pre-ordained, providential Christian
creation, which appealed especially to the Lutheran followers of Philipp
Melanchthon, as were Severinus and many of his educated Danish contem-
poraries. Severinus’ seed-like principles provided a Christianised, Aristotelian
epigenetic model of organic development to explain Paracelsian chemical
philosophy, from the nature of hot mineral springs to grafting fruits and spon-
taneous generation, but in particular chemical physiology and pathogenesis.
404 Shackelford
Such a broad, erudite approach, drawing on ancient and contemporary author-

ities, brought to Paracelsian medicine a measure of philosophical rigor and
academic credibility that it previously lacked. The Idea medicinæ philosophicæ
made Paracelsianism sensible to a generation of readers and gave Severinus an
international reputation as a Paracelsian author. His seed theory in particular
found favour even among authors such as Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle,
who otherwise disapproved of Paracelsians and their ideas.
Publication of the Idea medicinae philosophicæ secured for Severinus a posi-
tion as royal physician to King Frederik II of Denmark, who was eager to
develop Denmark’s intellectual resources. His patronage for Severinus as his
personal physician in 1571 and for Pratensis, who on their return to Denmark
was appointed to the medical faculty at the University of Copenhagen, was
part of a general pattern for attaining Danish prominence in the arts and sci-
ences that is evident in augmented funding for the university, the construction
of Kronborg castle, and financial support for Tycho Brahe’s astronomical
observatory and chemical laboratory on the nearby island of Hven. With
Pratensis teaching Paracelsian medical ideas at the university and Severinus
practising Paracelsian medicine at court, a foundation was laid for the further
influence of Paracelsus’ medical ideas and therapeutics in Denmark.
Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), too, had absorbed some Paracelsian medical and
cosmological ideas while studying in Germany, which are evident in his mus-
ings about the significance of the new star he observed in 1572 and his
engagement in alchemical work at Herrevad Cloister, later at Uraniborg, and
ultimately at Benatky in Bohemia. When royal patronage secured for him the
island of Hven in fief and sufficient funding to build in 1576, he began to erect
his villa and research centre, Uraniborg, which housed one of the most
advanced alchemical laboratories of the day in its basement. Little is known
about Tycho’s involvement in alchemy, but his correspondence makes it plain
that he opposed alchemical preoccupation with goldmaking and extolled its
medical and philosophical aspects – Paracelsian chemical medicine. Tycho
shared an enthusiasm for Paracelsian chemically-prepared drugs with other
members of the high nobility and the royal family, who concocted them in
their private laboratories, sharing both medicines and recipes with their peers.
These drugs, often based on toxic ingredients, acted quickly and powerfully on
the body and were favoured by patients who could afford them. Tycho’s young-
est sister, Sophie, was an accomplished preparer of chemical medicines, which
she corresponded about with her sister as well. Her second husband, Erik
Lange, was also an alchemical enthusiast, and Tycho chided him for his exces-
sive interest in the transmutational rather than the medicinal aspects of the
art in his long poem Urania Titani.
The Institutional Failure of Paracelsian Medicine
Despite aristocratic interest in chemical medicines as therapeutic agents, which

the widespread ownership of Paracelsian books also suggests, Paracelsian the-
ory made few inroads into academic medicine in Denmark. By statute, medical
instruction at the University of Copenhagen was to be based on traditional
medieval and Renaissance sources, not the neoteric medicine of Paracelsus.
Johannes Pratensis admitted, however, that he managed to introduce some of
Paracelsus’ medicine into the university’s otherwise medieval curriculum, but
his death in 1576 cut short any pedagogical reforms he might have brought
about. His successor, Anders Lemvig (1538–1603), was no Paracelsian, although
he owned several books by Paracelsus. However, Anders Krag (1553–1600),
who taught natural philosophy at the University of Copenhagen until 1600,
was known as a skillful preparer of chemical medicines, which he supplied
to the Danish court. Anders and his brother Niels Krag (1550–1602) were part
of Tycho Brahe’s intellectual circle and, inasmuch as he served as personal
physician to Princess Anna, he likely collaborated with Severinus at court.
Anders would have been a logical choice for one of the two chairs in medi-
cine, but he died before there was a vacancy. Another adherent to Paracelsian
cosmological and medical ideas, Kort Aslakssøn (1564–1624), took a master’s
degree in natural philosophy at the University of Copenhagen under the direc-
tion of Anders Krag and assisted Tycho Brahe on Hven for several years. But,
Aslakssøn pursued a doctorate in theology instead of a medical career, and
eventually became an important professor of theology in the first decades of
the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, he exerted no influence on the spread
of Paracelsian ideas within the academy, which during his tenure was becom-
ing theologically orthodox and intolerant of Paracelsian religious ideas. With
Krag dead, the University of Copenhagen negotiated with Severinus to fill the
chair in medicine that was vacated in 1601, but Severinus died in 1602 before he
could bring Paracelsian medicine into the classroom. With the appointments
of Thomas Fincke (1561–1656) and Gellius Sascerides (1562–1612) to the two
chairs in medicine in 1603, the medical faculty became even more staunchly
Aristotelian and Galenic in theoretical orientation. Fincke was a relative of
Severinus by marriage and had been recommended by him for medical study,
but he seems not to have found Paracelsian ideas attractive. Likewise, Gellius
Sascerides, who had assisted Tycho at Uraniborg for several years before falling
out of his favour over a family matter, pursued a medical career that was largely
traditional.
Thomas Fincke’s longevity and familial hegemony – several subsequent
appointees to professorships at the University of Copenhagen sought his
406 Shackelford
patronage through marriage to his daughters – helped maintain a strong

Aristotelian orientation among Copenhagen’s academics. When two young
promising Danish students of medicine, Ole Worm (1588–1655) from Jutland
and Caspar Bartholin (1585–1629) from Scandia, studied medicine in Germany
and Switzerland in the first decade of the seventeenth century, they, like
Johannes Pratensis and Petrus Severinus before, were exposed to Paracelsian
medicine and eagerly sought training in laboratory methods from Europe’s
best chemical physicians. Worm even studied for a short time with Johann
Hartmann, the Paracelsian professor of chemistry at Marburg and an ardent
follower of Severinus’ brand of Paracelsian theory. However, by this time the
affiliation between Paracelsian theory and radical protestant heterodoxies was
becoming apparent at Marburg, and Ole Worm opted to steer his course of
study away from Marburg and away from a commitment to Paracelsian cos-
mology and anthropology and toward a more secular interest in Paracelsian
chemical pharmacy, which entailed the extraction of minerals and herbs
via acidic reagents, alcohol solvents, and concentrated essential oils and the
amelioration of toxic metallic substances through distillations, precipitations,
and like processes. This he found at Giessen under Gregor Horst and Heinrich
Petræus, who incorporated elements of chemical philosophy and therapeu-
tics into Galenic medicine, without engaging the heterodox religious ideas
that were bound up with Paracelsian medicine. By the time Worm returned to
Copenhagen to begin practice and seek academic preferment, including mar-
riage to one of Thomas Fincke’s daughters, he seems to have left Paracelsian
theory behind, bringing traditional Aristotelian and Galenic principles to bear
on explaining the use and effectiveness of chemically-prepared drugs. Worm
taught natural philosophy and other subjects at the University of Copenhagen
until he was appointed to succeed his friend Caspar Bartholin as Thomas
Fincke’s colleague in the medical faculty in 1624. Caspar likewise eschewed
chemical philosophy and adapted whatever practical pharmaceutical prepara-
tions he used to Aristotelian physics and metaphysics. The many textbooks he
published while professor of medicine at the University of Copenhagen 1613–
24 indicate an entrenched neo-Aristotelianism and no trace of Paracelsianism,
befitting another son-in-law of Thomas Fincke.
A decisive turning point for the future of Paracelsian ideas in the Danish
academy came as a result of the German physician and chemist Andreas
Libavius’ lengthy exposition of Paracelsian “vital philosophy”, which pointed
out that it was both antithetical to traditional learning and linked with impi-
ous medical practices and the heterodoxies of the Rosicrucians. Like Libavius,
Caspar Bartholin found Paracelsian claims to extract a panacea, a medicinal
substance containing vital principles, from the body parts of prematurely
deceased humans to be particularly hostile to received religion. And Ole Worm,

who cited Libavius’ attack on the Rosicrucians, began to inquire into the claims
of the Rosicrucians via correspondence with colleagues and students in
Germany. This culminated in his denunciation of Rosicrucianism in a public
oration that he delivered at the University of Copenhagen in 1619, after which
he did not publicly endorse Paracelsian medicine and clearly applied
Aristotelian and Galenic explanations for those Paracelsian ideas he did men-
tion in print. Many years later Worm professed in a letter to his former student
Ambrosius Rhodius, who had asked for his opinion about Severinus’ Paracelsian
ideas, that he followed the lead of Daniel Horst, one of his earlier teachers at
Giessen, who pursued a course of compromise between chemical philosophy
and traditional scholastic Aristotelian and Galenic philosophy and medicine.
In all likelihood, Worm had been won over to this middle of the road position
while still a student at Marburg and Giessen and had remained ambivalent to
the radical claims of the Paracelsians ever since.
Paraacademicum: Paracelsian Ideas and Practices Outside the

Academy
If Paracelsians and their ideas did not find support within the academic com-
munity, owing to educational statutes and the suspicion that they were linked
to unacceptable religious ideas and practices, the same cannot be said for pri-
vate laboratories and practices. When physicians Nicolaus Teting (1593/4–1642)
and Hartvig Lohmann (ca. 1590- ca. 1642) were legally suppressed for maintain-
ing and teaching heterodox religious propositions linked to Paracelsian
religious ideas, their effectiveness as chemical medical practitioners was not
subject to censure, but rather their Paracelsian religious ideas (see the chapters
on early modern Rosicrucianism in the present volume). Paracelsian practical
medicine was nurtured by King Christian IV, who hired the German Paracelsian
physician Peter Payngk (1575–1645) to produce medicines in the new royal lab-
oratory installed at Rosenborg castle in Copenhagen. Payngk waxed eloquent
about Paracelsus and his medicine and produced Paracelsian-style chemical
medicines along with confections and cosmetics for the court at Rosenborg,
but apparently never wrote anything that could be considered religiously sus-
pect in Lutheran Denmark. Subsequent chemists, like the nobleman Joachim
Gersdorff (1611–1661) and the professor of botany and chemistry at the
University of Copenhagen Ole Borch (1629–1690), drifted further away from
Paracelsian theory as chemical pharmacology itself became adapted to an
eclectic Galenism; Iatrochemistry was no longer a synonym for Paracelsian
408 Shackelford
chemistry, but rather denoted an established medical practice that employed

drugs prepared in the chemical laboratory, regardless of diagnostic and thera-
peutic framework.
In Ole Borch’s defense of Paracelsianism as part of the historical develop-
ment of state-of-the-art medicine in 1660s Copenhagen, we see that Paracelsus
and his ideas were no longer viewed as a coherent and living movement that
was positioned in violent antithesis to scholastic Galenism and the “pagan”
philosophy of Aristotle, but rather as one historical tributary to an eclectic
confluence of medical traditions that was bringing medicine and science
forward; Paracelsian chemical philosophy, which had once stirred Severinus
and Payngk to compose paeans in praise of the German reformer and also
aroused the bitter invectives of anti-Paracelsians Thomas Erastus and Andreas
Libavius, had become historicised by the end of the seventeenth century. In
this form, as a bygone approach to medicine that is worthy of study as medical
background to the latest theories and practices, Paracelsianism was compared
to Hippocratism, Galenism, and the newer iatro-mechanical philosophical
underpinnings to neo-methodist conceptions of medical therapeutics. We
see this historical point of view clearly manifested in Kurt Polycarp Sprengel’s
pioneering history of medicine, Versuch einer pragmatischen Geschichte der
Arzneikunde, vol. 3 (Halle, 1801), in which Paracelsus and the Paracelsians were
given their own chapters. In Denmark this historicist approach is exhibited
in part two of Andreas Bremer’s (1810–1857) 1836 M.D. dissertation on the life
and opinions of Theophrastus Paracelsus, Dissertationis de vita et opinionibus
Theophrasti Paracelsi particula posterior, which recounted Severinus’ explica-
tion of Paracelsian ideas. By the end of the nineteenth century, the works of
Galen, Hippocrates, Paracelsus, and the even more recent Hermann Boerhaave
and Georg Stahl would no longer be read for contrasting useful perspectives by
medical students like Bremer, as advances in tissue pathology, organic chem-
istry, and ultimately the germ theory finally rendered past medical theories
quaint. Paracelsian ideas were then left solely to historians and esoteric reli-
gionists to ponder.
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Busck, 1939.
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Marianne Alenius and Peter Zeeberg (eds.), Litteratur og Lærdom: Dansk-svenske
nylatindage april 1985, Renaissancestudier, vol. 1. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculaneum,
1987, 149–161.
——— . Tycho Brahes Urania Titani: En digt om Sophie Brahe. Renaissance Studier 7.
Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 1994.
410 Mansikka
Chapter 50 Paracelsianism in Finland
Paracelsianism in Finland
Tomas Mansikka
The influence of Paracelsus in Finland has been predominantly of an indirect

kind. One rarely finds Paracelsus’ name referred to in academic sources, and
when it occurs, it is mostly in the context of a condemnation or admonition.
As the main ideological background for the foundation of the Academy of
Turku in 1640 had been to train the clergy and to buttress Lutheran orthodoxy
in the country, the university functioned mainly as a bastion of neo-scholasti-
cism and Aristotelianism. In the training of students certain fixed rules were
employed, with the aim of having them master the art of arguing, i.e., the
proper use of rhetoric and dialectic. Novelties and independent thought were
not encouraged. Despite such strictures, there was a spread and reception of
various modified Paracelsian ideas. This occurred particularly within natural
philosophy, which at that time was greatly influenced by Daniel Sennert (1572–
1637), who had striven for a synthesis of Paracelsist iatrochemistry with the
Aristotelian and Galenic tradition. Sennert, alongside his disciple Johannes
Sperling (1603–1658), were highly respected at the University in Turku, one of
the five universities of the Kingdom of Sweden in the seventeenth century.
Another source of Paracelsian ideas came through Athanasius Kircher (1602–
1680) and his influential Mundus subterraneus (1665). The modified Paracelsian
doctrines transmitted by these authors were incorporated in dissertations on
natural philosophy, notably within the curricula of physics and medicine, an
influence that held its grip until the end of the century.
Sigfrid Aronus Forsius
A notable exception within the Finnish cultural setting was the astronomer
and almanac-maker Sigfrid Aronus Forsius (1560–1624), who was an early sev-
enteenth-century advocate and outspoken defender of Paracelsian tenets.
Forsius was born in Helsinki and had studied in Rostock, probably under the
physician and Paracelsist Levinus Battus (1545–1591). He matriculated at the
University of Uppsala 1595, after which he was ordained minister and worked
as a preacher in Turku. In 1601 Forsius participated in the Arctic expedition
conducted by Duke Charles (Charles IX) and in 1608 received the chair of pro-
fessor in astronomy at Uppsala University. In 1613 he became the vicar of the

Paracelsianism in Finland 411
Finnish Church in Stockholm and from 1619 the vicar of Ekenäs in southern
Finland, where he quietly spent the rest of his life.
Forsius’ notoriety rests primarily upon his knowledge of astronomy. From
1597 onwards he published almanacs and prognostications for the general
public, for which he in 1613 was honored with royally protected exclusive rights.
From a natural philosophical point of view, Forsius’ most interesting work is a
textbook on physics, Physica Eller Naturlighe tings Qaliteters och Egendomars
Beskrijfuelse (Physica, or Description of the Qualities and Particularities of
Natural Things). Although completed and dated 1611, the work remained in
manuscript form as a result of the controversial contents, and it was printed
for the first time as late as 1952.
Forsius was an eclectic author who combined Aristotelian doctrines with
Stoic, Hermetic, and Neoplatonic ideas. From the year 1607 onwards, and in
connection with his studies of the literature on comets, Paracelsian ideas
began to appear in his writings, probably through the mediation of Tycho
Brahe. Among other things, he embraced Paracelsus’ view of the heavens as
being one of the elements, rather than fire as in Aristotelian doctrine. In a
Paracelsian vein, Forsius also described heaven and earth as close to each
other, the former being active and the latter passive. Forsius’ astrological views
were also influenced by Valentin Weigel, who in turn was influenced by
Paracelsus. In general, one can say that Forsius’ Paracelsianism was close to
Tycho Brahe’s, although they came to emphasise different aspects of Paracelsus’
teachings. In striving to create a coherent natural philosophical system, Forsius
did not adopt Paracelsus unreservedly, but only incorporated elements which
he considered would support his own astrological theory. Forsius’ view of
nature and the world also came to change during his active period as an author.
Besides the natural philosophical doctrines, one also finds in Forsius’ writ-
ings the prophetic-chiliastistic motif of Elias the artist. There was a widespread
view among seventeenth-century Paracelsians that a prophet by this name
would emerge at the threshold of the new millennium. Forsius prophesied that
great upheavals and disasters would occur when this happens, and that only a
third of humanity would survive. In the new kingdom everyone will be an
alchemist; both learned and unlearned will then be able to transmute base
metals into gold and silver.
Johann Arndt
Another source of Paracelsian ideas was devotional literature, notably the

works of Johann Arndt (1555–1621). Arndt’s impact was considerable, as he had,
despite accusations of heterodoxy, wide support among the clergy throughout
412 Mansikka
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In Arndt’s Vier Bücher vom wahren
Christentum (Four Books on True Christianity) all arts and sciences, e.g., medi-
cine, botany, physics, and theology, are unified in a natural philosophy inspired
by Paracelsus, blended with meditations on Lutheran piety and faith. These
reflections on the relationship between piety and scientific progress seem to
have been widely accepted at the time. Thus, in 1648, the University of Dorpat
(Estonia) explicitly recommended that the chair in medicine be given to a fol-
lower of Arndt, with the added remark that the person in question should also
have some familiarity with chemistry. As an indication of Arndt’s growing
esteem, the 1626 statutes for the universities of Uppsala and Turku had recom-
mended physicians to study the works of Galen and Hippocrates, with the
addition that “chemical authors” should also be studied.
Both Arndt and Forsius were influenced by Valentin Weigel, or the Weigelian
variant of Paracelsianism. This is apparent for instance in both authors depend-
ing on the work Astrologia theologizata. There are two contemporary versions
of this work, different in style but similar in content, one anonymous (1617)
and one by Weigel, forming the second part of his three-part work Nosce
teipsum (1618). Both Arndt, in his Vier Bücher, and Forsius in a defence of
astrology, refer to central principles in this work, e.g., the Paracelsian notion of
man as a microcosm, enveloping an inner firmament that impels man to prac-
tise the arts and sciences.
Daniel Sennert
In the decades following the foundation of the University of Turku in 1640,

Paracelsianism came to influence the natural philosophical subjects taught
there in a variety of ways. This was achieved through minor adjustments,
expansions or additions to the dominant Aristotelian understanding of phys-
ics. The Aristotelian natural philosophical framework was a flexible system,
allowing such modifications as long as one adhered to its basic principles. No
serious attempts were made to entirely theologise physics. The natural philo-
sophical subjects were, however, more or less subordinate to theology, which
in turn served as an institution devoted to the training of priests. As a conse-
quence, natural philosophy generally adhered to the theological principles
imposed at the time, while theologians did not interfere with the details of
natural philosophy.
The doctrine of the tria prima of Mercury, Sulfur, and Salt belong to the basic
ideas of Paracelsianism. In Sennert’s atomism the four elements are combined
with these three principles, and the latter are seen as bearers of the perceptible
qualities. The Paracelsian principles were initially introduced into disserta-

tions on physics through Georgius Alanus (1609–1664), who held the first
chair in physics in Turku. Alanus’ successor Abraham Thauvonius (1622–1679)
also presupposed the existence of the three Paracelsian chemical principles.
Referring to Sennert, he described Salt and Sulfur as the basis for the percep-
tual qualities, the former for taste and the latter for smell and colours, while
Mercury caused the lack of firmness of the bodies.
The Faculty of Medicine had a relatively low status in the University of
Turku. The pharmacological use of herbs was acknowledged at the university,
but otherwise the relationship between medicine and the botanical and physi-
cal sciences seems to have been nominal and theoretical. The first professor of
medicine, Eric Achrelius (1604–1670), was born in Roslagen in Sweden and had
studied at Uppsala, where he was acquainted with the Paracelsists Johannes
Franck and Johannes Raicus. His only text is an academic oration (1627) dating
from this early period, in which he presents a Paracelsian-inspired survey of
man as a microcosm. During the many years (from 1641 to 1670) that he held
the chair in medicine, Achrelius did not publish any further works, and when
reproached for his lack of written output by the Senate, Achrelius defended
himself by complaining of the lack of students. It is known, however, that
Achrelius tutored students at his home and, together with Alanus, held botani-
cal excursions with the aim of cataloguing local herbs.
Achrelius was succeeded as professor of medicine in 1670 by Elias Til-landz
(1640–1693) who had studied and earned a doctorate in Leyden 1668–1670.
During this time Francis de le Boë Sylvius (1614–1672), a follower of Paracelsus
and Jan Baptista von Helmont, and founder of the Iatrochemical School of
Medicine, was active in Leyden. Til-landz, as well as his successor Laurentius
Braun (knighted Braunerskjöld, 1657–1729), described medicine as the noblest
of all sciences, founded by God himself. In an introduction to medicine
(Disputationem medicarum prima: medicinae praecognita Levites delineans,
1695) Braun describes how, through the ages, four schools have arisen, which
he called Empirica, Dogmatica, Methodica and Spagyrica. The empirical school
was the oldest, but suffered from significant errors, for instance by regard-
ing nature as incomprehensible and therefore excluded from the study of
medicine. An improvement was made with the dogmatic school founded by
Hippocrates, while the methodical school was based on a few simple principles
and was short-lived, which caused the dogmatic school to be the dominant one
until Paracelsus’ appearance in Germany, when the fourth school arose. Braun
provides an exhaustive account of the Paracelsian school, to which he ascribes
a great importance. The practice of medicine is, according to Braun, the art of
preserving human health, and in case of illness, recovering it. Braun’s account
414 Mansikka
is based here primarly upon Sennert. His high opinion of the Paracelsian
school notwithstanding, Braun retained old Galenic views and was one of the
first people to spread Cartesian ideas at Turku.
The influence of both Sennert and Athanasius Kircher is also to be found in
the work of the productive Professor of Physics Petrus Hahn (1650–1718), who
like Braun was among the earliest scholars to incorporate Descartes’ views in a
natural philosophical system. The opinions of Descartes had earlier been pre-
sented by Andreas Thuronius (1632–1665), but were simultaneously refuted
because they contradicted key aspects of Sennert’s and Sperling’s teachings.
The influence of Sennert upon Hahn shows itself especially in the so-called
seminal doctrine (Diss. Physica the panspermia rerum, 1689). This was a central
idea of the Paracelsian doctrine of nature, which had already been articulated
by Alanus, and was part of the debate about abiogenesis or spontaneous repro-
duction. According to the theory of panspermia rerum, all life is born from
seeds, that is, all organisms have their origin in seeds of life or seed-principles,
which are hidden and scattered in nature. Seminalism had been disseminated
through the work of Petrus Severinus (1542–1602) to Sennerts’ Hypomnemata
Physica (1636) and his disciple Sperling and constituted an important element
also in Kircher’s Mundus subterraneus.
The work that would provide the most complete and systematic treatment
of natural philosophy based on Kircher and Sennert was a textbook entitled
Contemplationes mundi, written by the Professor of eloquentia Daniel Achrelius
(1644–1692). Contemplationes mundi is considered a pioneering work, pub-
lished first as a series of dissertations and finally in a single volume in 1682. As
a general introduction to natural philosophy, Achrelius depicts nature organi-
cally and in Paracelsian terms as a maternal womb. The Paracelsian concept of
the tria prima is combined with the Aristotelian doctrine of elements, in which
the tria prima explain the sympathies and antipathies of nature as well as the
tactile qualities of things, while the elements act as building materials for the
former. Achrelius distinguishes between a passive and magnetic force (vis
magnetica) and an active and plastic one (vis plastica, vis formatrix); the for-
mer is the receiver and matrix while the latter is the organising and conducting
principle. Based on this theory, Achrelius explains a number of natural pro-
cesses, such as natural reproduction through panspermia rerum. In describing
the fertilising power of the seed, spiritus spermaticus, Achrelius is more in
accord with Paracelsus than with Sennert and Kircher. The fertilising power
inherent in the tria prima principle distributes itself through a vapour (vapor)
originating in the stars and planets, as an excretion or effluvium. In this view, as
also in more general views on how the tria prima of Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury
correlate with the four elements, Achrelius essentially connects back to
Paracelsus. Achrelius was an eclectic author, and disagrees with Paracelsian

doctrines on other points. This is, for example, the case in his discussion of
diseases, where he is dependent on the Greek theory of bodily humours.
It is conspicuous that Contemplationes mundi – the first work which in both
style and content distanced itself from the scholastic tradition – did so by
incorporating Paracelsian ideas into the basic Aristotelian framework. That
Paracelsus’ name is not mentioned in Achrelius’ work could probably be
understood as a precaution, even though Paracelsianism spread in various
variations and through the work of his followers rather than via Paracelsus’
own writings. In the seventeenth century the names of both Paracelsus and
Weigel usually carried negative, heterodox connotations. Thus, with the excep-
tion of medicine, Paracelsus was as a rule mentioned in condescending terms
only, e.g., in a thesis by Nicolaus L. Forzelius under the auspices of Petrus
Laurbeccius (1628–1705) on the use of magic drums (De tympanis magicis
1680), in which he is described as a magician in the same sense as Agrippa and
Faust. During the eighteenth century and the changing scientific climate,
Paracelsus was presented in a much more positive light as the pioneer of
chemical science, for instance by the professors of physics Johan Browallius
(1707–1755) and Pehr Adrian Gadd (1727–1797).
The Pietist Movement
In the early eighteenth century a variety of Paracelsian-inspired chiliastic and

prophetic ideas re-emerged within the Pietist movement and more explicitly
among Radical Pietists. Because of the millenarian-messianic wave that swept
across northern Europe during the end of the seventeenth century, Paracelsian
prophecies that dated from the beginning of the century received a renewed
interest, and were adapted to contemporary political and religious conditions.
Reprints of prophecies, in the form of extracts from the writings of Paracelsus
and the prophecies of the Silesian visionary Christopher Kotter, spread within
pietistic circles. Two Swedish collections of texts that the Finnish radical pietist
Peter Schaefer used were Extract af Doctor P.T. Paracelsi Prophetie samt andra
märkliga mäns spådomar om den stora revolution i denna vår tid och den 4:de
Monarchiens undergång (Extracts by Doctor P.T. Paracelsus’ Prophecies and
Other Remarkable Men’s Predictions About the Great Revolution in This Our
Time, and the Doom of the 4th Monarchy) and Utur Chr. Cotteri underliga
uppenbarelse som tog sin begynnelse A:o 1619 och sin ända den 6 October 1624
(From Chr. Cotter’s Strange Revelation Which Commenced in the Year 1619 and
Ended on 6 October 1624), compiled in the early eighteenth century. In this
416 Mansikka
circle Charles XII was interpreted alternately as the prophet Elijah and as the
Nordic Lion (Der Löwe aus der Mitternacht), and the king’s military campaign,
which at first was successful, was seen as a sign of the old regime’s downfall
and the beginning of the millennium.
References
Fagerlund, L.W. and Robert Tigerstedt, Medicinens studium vid Åbo universitet,
Helsingfors: Skrifter utgivna av Svenska Literatursällskapet i Finland XVI, 1890.
Kallinen, Maija, Change and Stability. Natural Philosophy at the Academy of Turku (1640–
1713). Studia Historica 51, Helsinki: SHS, 1995.
———. “Naturens hemliga krafter. Daniel Achrelius’ Contemplationes mundi”, Historisk
Tidskrift för Finland 3 (1991), 317–346.
———. “Daniel Achreliuksen teos Contemplationes mundi libri tres – sen lähdepohja
ja tulkintaa”, Minerva. Aate- ja oppihistorian vuosikirja 2, Oulu (1991), 3–140.
Kiiskinen, Terhi, Sigfrid Aronus Forsius: Astronomer and Philosopher of Nature (European
Studies in the History of Science and Ideas), Frankfurt a.M.; Bern [etc.]: Peter Lang
Publishing, 2007.
Lindroth, Sten, Paracelsismen i Sverige till 1600-talets mitt, Lychnos-bibliek 7, 1943.
——— . “Uralstringen. Ett kapitel ur biologins äldre historia”, Uppsala: Lychnos, 1939.
Newman, William R., Atoms and Alchemy. Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the
Scientific Revolution, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
Repo, Matti, Uskon lahja vai rakkauden päämäärä? Johann Arndtin käsitys vanhurskaut-
tamisesta ja unionista, Helsinki: Gummerus, 1997.
Ruuth, Martti, “Kaarle XII mystillis-separatistisen profetian valossa”, in: Ur de religiösa
rörelsernas historia i Finland. Urkunder och forskningar I. Finska kyrkohistoriska sam-
fundets handlingar XII,1. Helsingfors, 1915, 227–253.
Tigerstedt, Robert, Kemiens studium vid Åbo universitet. (Skrifter utgivna av Svenska
Literatursällskapet i Finland XLII), Helsingfors, 1899.
Paracelsianism in Norway 417
Chapter 51 Paracelsianism in Norway
Paracelsianism in Norway
Gina Dahl
Paracelsianism as a Learned Tradition
Paracelsianism in Norway falls into three main categories. Firstly, a passing

knowledge of Paracelsian pharmacology was fairly commonplace amongst
scholars working in the medical field. These scholars, however, did not neces-
sarily adhere to Paracelsian metaphysics. A second group of scholars were
adherents of Paracelsianism in so far as they accepted a natural philosophy or
a medical cosmology in which the human being, viewed as a microcosm, could
both know and operate upon the natural world by recognising the signatures
and correspondences of creation. Thirdly, many people adopted a radical spir-
itual theology indebted to Paracelsus and Boehme, but without any specific
adherence to their natural philosophical speculations.
Those who subscribed to the Paracelsian cosmology naturally belonged to
the educated upper classes. However, due to the lack of corpora of higher
education as well as scientific societies prior to the modern age, the learned
class in Norway remained small. As a result, there were few exponents of the
more scientific aspects of Paracelsianism. Equally, few exponents had their
manuscripts printed, even if they did write on the subject. Two circumstances
might account for this deficiency: firstly, the small number of printing offices
in Norway at the time did not facilitate the publishing of works in the field:
secondly, the fear of a radical spiritualism into which the readers of Paracelsian
literature might easily be drawn, made such literature suspect in the eyes of
government officials at a time when religious orthodoxy was important.
As initially noted, several officials working on Norwegian soil were
acquainted with Paracelsian literature, although we do not know if they had
any specific interest in Paracelsus’ cosmology. Most of them were physicians,
and their acquaintance with Paracelsian literature is attested through their
book collections: Jacob Woldenberg (1649–1735), a physician in Bergen who
presumably also had a vivid interest in alchemy, owned books by Paracelsus as
well as by his followers Joan van Helmont, Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, Jean
Beguin, and Oswald Croll. Books in the Hermeticist tradition were also report-
edly in Woldenberg’s possession, including Trismegistus de lapide Philosophico

418 Dahl
and Henricus Petraeus’ Nosologia harmonica, dogmatica et hermetica. The

physician Georg Blumenthal (1687–1742), who practised in the mining city of
Kongsberg, also owned books written by authors indebted to Paracelsus’ teach-
ings, for instance Martin Ruland the Elder, Quercetanus (i.e., Joseph Duchesne),
Zetzner, and Joan van Helmont. Another physician, Paul Dons (1689–1748) in
Trondheim, also owned a range of Paracelsian books: in addition to owning
books attributed to Paracelsus himself (five volumes), books by Oswald Croll,
Johan Kunkel, Urban Hiärne, and Athanasius Kircher (Mundus Subterraneus)
were also reportedly in his possession, as were books attributed to Henricus
Petraeus (Nosologia harmonica) and Jacob Boehme (Theosophische Send-
Schreiben). The early seventeenth-century parson in Trondheim Thomas von
Westen also possessed a substantial collection of Paracelsian literature, as
well as other works of an esotericist nature, books which he might have inher-
ited from his father Arnoldus, an apothecary in Trondheim. This collection
included books written by authors such as Kircher (Mundus subterraneus),
Zwelfer (Pharmacopoea augustana), Schott (Technica curiosa), and Christian
Knorr von Rosenroth (Kabbalah denudata).
A Sixteenth-Century Paracelsian: Kort Aslakssøn
A certain number of people in early modern Norway were also Paracelsians in

the sense that they appear to have adopted the more spiritual aspects of
Paracelsus’ teachings. In this respect, the sixteenth century fostered at least
one prominent exponent of Paracelsus’ natural philosophy, namely Kort
Aslakssøn (1564–1624), one of the few Norwegian-born scholars to become a
professor at Copenhagen University. Aslakssøn was born in Bergen, where he
attended Latin School before taking up studies in philosophy, theology, medi-
cine, and law at Copenhagen University. He was also deeply interested in
astronomy, and he assisted Tycho Brahe on the island of Hven in the period
1590–1593. Returning to Copenhagen, he completed a master’s degree, and he
eventually spent six years abroad visiting the universities at Wittenberg,
Rostock, Herborn, Heidelberg, Basel, Geneva, Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge.
Eventually Aslakssøn returned to Copenhagen where he was appointed profes-
sor of theology, and he also served as rector at the university in the periods
1614–1615 and 1629–1621.
Aslakssøn, who wrote several theological treatises, also published works
on natural philosophy that were indebted to Paracelsian metaphysics, two
of which are worth mentioning here, namely De natura caeli triplicis libelli
tres (1597) and Physica et ethica Mosaica (1613). Particularly De natura caeli
triplicis reflects Aslakssøn’s familiarity with Paracelsian philosophy. In it,

Aslakssøn describes the world as filled with both corporeal and incorporeal
beings, which he believes are bound together by a world soul that sustains
the entire creation. To support his claim, Aslakssøn cites historical authori-
ties such as Hermes Trismegistus, Plato, Iamblichus, Virgil, Proclus, Lactantius,
and Agrippa. Chapter two of De natura, named “De caelo sidero”, further devel-
ops his Paracelsian-inspired cosmology. Aslakssøn starts by expounding the
Paracelsian view that all being derives from a prime matter, a soul or spirit
in nature. The superior creative principle, the Archeus, is responsible for all
existence, and differences between things are a result of the Archeus bring-
ing some beings to a higher level of perfection than others. Further evidence
of Aslakssøn’s familiarity with Paracelsianism can be found in his view of
the material world as a product of chemical processes. Although De natura
remains Aslakssøn’s most openly Paracelsian-inspired work, Physica et eth-
ica Mosaica also reflects his sympathies with Paracelsus: in Physica et ethica
Mosaica Aslakssøn combines the account of Genesis with a Renaissance and
Platonic natural philosophy, a fusion also found in works by other Paracelsians
from that period.
Seventeenth-Century Spiritualists in Bergen and Christiania
A group of academics adhering to the teachings of Paracelsus and Boehme also

appeared in Bergen in the seventeenth century. This group probably included
the physicians Paul Brandt, Diderik Ekhof, and Hans Olsen, an alchemist, as
well as the theologian, Latin School lecturer and astrologer Edvard Edvardsen
(1630–1695). Of these, only Edvardsen left behind a written testimony elaborat-
ing upon his Paracelsian worldview, namely the unpublished manuscript
Sapientia coelestis. In the preface to Sapientia coelestis, started in 1674, Ed
vardsen refers to authors that he has drawn on in his presentation, mentioning
radical spiritualists and medieval mystics like Hoburg (Praetorius) and Hugh
of St Victor. With respect to natural philosophers, Edvardsen refers to Paracel
sian-inspired authors such as Caspar Bartholin the Elder, Kort Aslakssøn, Joan
van Helmont, Caspar Schott, and Jean Beguin. Of these, Caspar Schott (Physica
curiosa) is quoted on several occasions, and Baldvini’s Hermeticist work Aurum
aurae hermeticum phosphorus is also referred to in the manuscript.
Sapientia coelestis describes a cosmos similar to that proposed by Paracelsus.
Nature, emphasises Edvardsen, is inhabited by God, and the three foundations
of life, Essentz, Væsen, and Natur (principia prima omnium operationum & pro-
prietatum), are present in all creation. These immaterial forces are in their
420 Dahl
principius activum represented by the triad of Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury.

According to this conception, the term tria prima does not refer to the observed
compounds Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury, but rather to consistencies of matter:
immaterial principles that underlie the elements, which means that Edvardesen
likens Salt to consistency or matter, Sulphur to the form or the soul, and
Mercury to the spirit or the effect that emanates from the two others. These
tria prima are in Edvardsen’s view to be found everywhere, in man as well as in
the planets. God himself is also composed of the same essences: The Holy
Spirit should be equated to Mercury, the Father to Salt, consistency, or matter,
and the Son to Sulphur, the form or the soul. According to Edvardsen, the tria
prima radiate from God and into the cosmos, and make up for the diverse
qualities of the seven planets: Mars, being too fiery, is equated to a tyrant,
whereas Jupiter has a sweeter nature. Venus brings love, whereas Mercury
incorporates all of the powers in one body. Edvardsen also claims that the com-
bination of the three principles Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury produces the
sensory characteristics of every existing thing, a unique “signature” that reflects
its inner properties. Every being can also be good or bad, depending on the
instability of its tripartite nature. This goes for human beings as well as for
angels, who according to Edvardsen are equipped with bodies which are more
subtle than those of human beings.
Some adherents of Paracelsus’ natural philosophy also appeared in Chris
tiania in the seventeenth century. The most prominent of these was the
Paracelsian spiritualist, astrologer, and lecturer at the Christiania upper sec-
ondary school Ambrosius Rhodius (1605–1696), the author of a defence of
Severinus’ Paracelsian medicine called Disputationes supra ideam medicinae
philosophicae Petri Severini. Ambrosius was not, however, the only Paracelsian-
inspired person serving in Christiania at the time. The Christiania apothecary
Hans Jochum Scharff (1649?-1703?) was probably also a follower of Paracelsian
spiritualism. Scharff, who was granted a license to practise as an apothecary in
1672, grew up in the midst of a sectarian turmoil: His mother was excommu-
nicated for refraining from joining in the communion, and his father allegedly
hosted secret religious meetings at home. Scharff, who did not write anything
himself, nevertheless owned a substantial collection of Paracelsian literature,
written by authors such as Joan van Helmont, Jean Beguin, Johann Hartmann,
Johan Zwelfer, Angelo Sala, Oswald Croll, and Alexander von Suchten. Apart
from owning several books written by Paracelsus himself, Scharff also owned
books written by Daniel Becher (Medicus microcosmus seu spagyria micro-
cosmi triplo auctior et correctior) and Johannes Isaac Hollandus (De lapide
philosophorum). Scharff was also interested in radical theology, or theosophy,
which can be seen in his ownership of books written by Jacob Boehme, Johan
Arndt, Elias Praetorius, Sebastian Franck, and Johan Jacob Fabritius (i.e., Justus
Klager), a follower of Boehme. Overall, Scharff’s adherence to a Paracelsian-
inspired radical spiritualism may have contributed to his downfall: Scharff’s
accusations against a prominent Christiania citizen, whom he suspected of
seducing his daughter, proved unsuccessful, and whereas the accused was
acquitted, Scharff was sentenced to penal servitude for life. Although Scharff’s
problems were apparently brought about by false accusations, his adherence
to radical spiritualism might have been one of the reasons for him being given
such a harsh punishment. Scharff managed to escape from captivity, but his
subsequent destiny is unknown.
Radical Spiritualists in the Eighteenth Century
Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, radical sects and group-
ings attacking the established religion sprung up across the country, and in the
major cities in particular. Although there are few sources that tell us of the
spiritual tendencies of these groups, various testimonies indicate that some of
them adopted a spiritual theology indebted to Paracelsus and Boehme, the
mystical Paracelsian metaphysician. It also appears that the radical spiritual-
ism of Boehme was of particular importance to some of these movements.
Many of these movements also received impulses from Denmark, Germany,
and the Netherlands: the German Johan Otto Glüsing, for instance, who was
profoundly inspired by Johann Conrad Dippel as well as by Jacob Boehme,
arrived in Christiania in 1707. Glüsing, who gathered around him several adher-
ents, was quickly expelled from the capital, however. Glüsing subsequently
joined the Gichtelians, a sect named after Boehme’s ascetically minded adher-
ent Johann Georg Gichtel.
One of the people writing and disseminating manuscripts of a radical spir-
itualist nature was Magnus Berg (1666–1739), who was inspired by Boehme as
well as by Paracelsus. Berg, admired as one of the most prominent European
ivory sculptors of his time, wrote numerous religious pamphlets of a radical
spiritual nature that presumably circulated in Denmark, Germany, and Norway.
He was also a great book collector, and had in his library works written by
Paracelsus and Boehme, as well by Joan van Helmont, Gottfried Arnold,
Sebastian Franck, Christian Hoburg, Caspar Schwenckfeld, Valentin Weigel,
Thomas a Kempis, and Tauler. He also had several Moravian and Rosicrucian
tracts (Fama fraternitatis, Confessio fraternitatis, and Chymische Hochzeit), as
well as works written by Renaissance occultists (Agrippa, Francesco Patrizi,
Johann Trithemius). According to the sources, Berg started to write radical
422 Dahl
Pietist pamphlets in 1707, and several of his writings supported Boehme’s the-
osophy as well as Paracelsus’ teachings. In Den siste verdens speil (Mirror of the
Last World), for instance, written in 1721–1722, Paracelsus is praised, and topics
such as apocatastasis, signatures in nature, alchemy, and Boehme’s metaphys-
ics are also covered. Berg’s highly apocalyptical outlook is a characteristic
shared by many of the period’s spiritualists, including Hans Olsen, Edvard
Edvardsen, and Anders Kempe.
In Bergen, groups inspired by Paracelsus and/or Boehme also sprung up. A
radical faction of the first generation of Moravian Brothers in Bergen, for
instance, had Paracelsian and Hermeticist literature circulating among them.
This faction gathered around the physician Johan Turck and his wife, both of
whom had close ties to the Netherlands. Evidence that there also were groups
following Boehme’s teachings around the turn of the nineteenth century is
provided by the Norwegian spiritual reformer Hans Nielsen Hauge (1771–1824),
who claimed that in his travels to Bergen around 1800 he met several followers
of Jacob Boehme: Whether these people were also acquainted with Paracelsus’
natural philosophy is unknown, however.
Other Outbursts of Radical Spiritual Theology
In Christiania, various people also sided with radical spiritual theology. Some
of these gathered around the Danish-born theologian Niels Svendsøn Chronich
(b. ca. 1608), who worked as a lecturer at the Christiania upper secondary
school. Chronich, who was mentioned by Gottfried Arnold in his Unpartheyische
Kirchen- und Ketzer-Histoire, quickly became embroiled in disputes with
church officials on account of his criticism of their lifestyle and his support for
radical spiritualists such as Boehme. Chronich also refused to take commun-
ion, thereby siding with the Paracelsian metaphysics and Christology which
claimed that Christ was an entirely spiritual being who therefore could not be
physically present at the communion. Chronich, like Berg, also published
strongly apocalyptic writings, such as En Merckelig Vise Om den ydterste
Dommedag (A Strange Song About the Final Day of Judgment, 1643) and Tre
Aandelige Sange (Three Spiritual Songs, 1649). Due to his unorthodox claims,
Chronich was eventually forbidden to speak from the pulpit, and when he later
also lost the protection of the viceroy Hannibal Sehested, he was quickly
charged with agitating on account of his spiritualist views. Eventually, he was
imprisoned, but because of his close ties to parts of the upper classes, Chronich
was pardoned. Released from captivity, he moved to the Netherlands with his
family, where he settled in the home of another millenarian, the Moravian
pedagogue Joan Amos Comenius. A decree issued after Chronich had moved,
however, stated that it was illegal for Danish-Norwegian students in the
Netherlands to make contact with him.
That Boehme’s writings also inspired other theologians is evidenced by the
edifying work Aurora eller ny Morgenrøden (Aurora, or New Dawn), written by
Peder Svegning (1615- 1671), parson on the isle of Stord in southwestern Norway.
Although this work lacks Boehme’s more metaphysical and pantheistic specu-
lations, it portrays a path of conversion and a religious breakthrough in a
manner similar to that of Boehme. The author also reveals his belief in the
divine harmony of mathematical laws by constructing the poem in accordance
with a specific pattern of number symbolism revolving around the numbers
three and seven. Overall, radical Pietists around the turn of the nineteenth
century appear to have been more inspired by Boehme than by Paracelsus, and
are more indebted to their predecessors’ spiritualism than to their natural
philosophy.
References
Amundsen, A. Bugge and Henning Laugerud, Norsk fritenkerhistorie, Oslo: Humanist

Forlag, 2001.
Bergen 1650–1750,, unpublished Dr. Art dissertation, Bergen, 2007.
——— . Mystikkens plass innenfor norsk åndsliv på 1600-tallet og dens mulige etter-
virkninger, unpublished master’s thesis, Bergen, 2000.
——— . Books in Early Modern Norway, Leiden: Brill, 2011.
Edvardsen, Edvard, Sapientia coelestis circa 1677, unpublished manuscript at The Royal
Garstein, Oskar, Cort Aslakssøn: Studier over dansk-norsk universitets- og lærdomshistorie
omkring år 1600, Oslo: Lutherstiftelsen, 1953.
——— . “A Reappraisal of Anna Rhodius: Religious Enthusiam and Social Unrest in
Seventeenth-Century Christiania, Norway”, Scandinavian Studies 65 (1993), 349–
389.
Kragh, Helge (ed.), Fra Middelalderlærdom til Den Nye Videnskab, 1000–1730, Aarhus:
Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2005.
Paulsen, Åshild, Magnus Berg. En kunstner ved kongens hoff, Oslo: Dreyer, 1989.
Sejersted, Jørgen Magnus, Pasjonsdiktning på 1600-tallet. Det er noen kommentarer til
Aurora eller ny Morgenrøden av dikterpresten på Stord Peder Oluffssøn Svegning, un-
published master’s thesis, Bergen, 1994.
424 Dahl
Shackelford, Jole, “Rosicrucianism, Lutheran Orthodoxy, and the Rejection of Para

celsianism in Early Seventeenth-Century Denmark”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine
70 (1996), 181–204.
——— . “Hans Jochum Scharff: A Paracelsian Apothecary in 17th-Century Norway”,
Norges Apotekerforenings Tidsskrift 95:9 (1987), 212–217.
——— . Paracelsianism in Denmark and Norway in the 16th and 17th Centuries, unpub-
lished PhD dissertation, Wisconsin, 1989.
——— . A Philosophical Path for Paracelsian Medicine. The Ideas, Intellectual Context,
and Influence of Petrus Severinus (1540/2–1602), Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum
Press, 2004.
Valkner, Kristen, “Konrektor Edvart Edvartzen. Til belysning av hans personlighet og
verk”, Nordisk tidskrift för vetenskap, konst och industri 41 (1971), 426–439.
Paracelsianism in Sweden 425
Chapter 52 Paracelsianism in Sweden
Paracelsianism in Sweden
Susanna Åkerman
The first mention of Paracelsus in Sweden is in Simon Berchelt’s Om pestilen-

zen (On the Plague, 1589), in which readers are advised to use spagyric herbal
medicines in order to cure the plague. Other useful substances include lauda-
num, calcinated antimony, and oil of vitriol. It is telling that the well-known
spiritual alchemist Heinrich Khunrath (ca. 1560–1605) in 1597 offered a manu-
script, Consilium de Vulcani magia fabrecatione armorum Achilles (Ms. Rål
4, 1597 (43), National Library of Sweden), to Duke Charles, later Charles IX, on
the topic of the armour of Achilles, thought to be made of electrum, i.e., a mix
of gold and silver. Such an armour would, supposedly, make its bearer invinci-
ble and, furthermore, a cup made of this electrum would signal if any liquid
was poisonous. According to Khunrath’s own recipe, the electrum was made
up of the seven metals forged together at an astrologically suitable time.
Several Paracelsians, for example Gerhard Dorn (ca. 1530–1584), continued
to develop Paracelsus’ spiritual-philosophic ideas. They saw alchemy as an al
ternative spirituality built around Paracelsus’ theological agenda and under-
stood his role as advocating a “Theophrastia Sancta” – a form of spirituality
which stood in conflict with the established churches. The Swedish royal
archivist Johannes Bureus (1668–1652) would in several writings ally himself
with this religious current. This was in line with the University Chancellor
Johan Skytte’s (1577–1645) oration in 1640, welcoming the opening at Uppsala
University for the “the double doors” of “Trismegistus’ and Theophrastus’ true
philosophies”. As a Ramist logician and professor of rhetoric, Skytte welcomed
critics of the ingrained Aristotelian scholasticism to Uppsala. One example is
the German professor of medicine Johannes Raicus (1580–1632), who during
his time at Uppsala published De phtisi ex tartaro (1628), a treaty on the nefari-
ous disease of lungs caused by inhalation of stone particles – a disease dealt
with by Paracelsus in Opus paramirum and explained by Raicus as a desicca-
tion of the body. Moving to Dorpat in 1630, Raicus wrote on terra sigillata – a
fat, claylike earth used as votive medicament. He explained that this substance
was composed of axungia solis et luna and anima solis, i.e., fat of gold, fat of
silver, and soul of gold, meaning oils based on Sulphur and balms of Mercury,
which when combined with the metallic root vitriol produces anima solis.
Another aspect of this welcoming attitude towards Paracelsianism was the
reception of Daniel Sennert (1572–1637) from Wittenberg and his modified

426 Åkerman
theory of the mixture of elements to explain the “life” of metals. Sennert’s the-
ory was commented upon by a number of Uppsala professors, such as Olavus
Unonius, Martinus Gestrinius, Isaacus Isthmenius, and especially Ericus
Danielus Achrelius, whose De admirabili et pulcherrima microcosmia hoc est
hominis fabrica et structura (1627) treats of the chemical medicines obtained
by these mixtures in metals.
Skytte’s speech at Uppsala was followed by the adoption of Johannes Bureus’
design for the University Seal with a globe inscribed IHVH and the text Gratiae
veritas naturae – the truth of grace and nature – showing the two sources for
natural light in Paracelsian theology and science, namely heavenly grace and
the study of nature.
Johannes Bureus and the Lion Prophecy
Bureus practised alchemy and was enamoured with Paracelsian ideas. In par-
ticular, he devoted himself to the prophetic parts of Paracelsus’ writings and
attached particular significance to certain numbers, inspired by the Rosicrucian
Reformation, using these numbers in order to interpret the Apocalypse. He
also developed a three-tiered chronology marking significant revelations in
the field of learning, thus creating links to the Reformation and to Renaissance
scholars:
˗˗ 1396, the year of the emergence of John [Jan] Hus (1369–1415), the first
European reformer, as well as the year of the opening of the Greek school
by Manuel Chrysoloras (1355–1415), the translator of Plato and author of a
Greek grammar in the same year.
˗˗ 1530, or the coming forth of Martin Luther (1483–1546) and the opening of
the Hebrew school through Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522), the Christian
Kabbalist.
˗˗ 1614, when ‘was heard the sacred voice “as a call from the desert” which was
raised to a sense never higher’ – a reference to the Rosicrucian manifestos
(Ms. R 551a, Uppsala UB).
In his Adulruna manuscripts Bureus also developed the idea of the “Cherubinic
Lion” that is going to reveal the ultimate sense of scripture, as prophesied in
Rev. 5:5. Bureus’ lion was modelled on the Paracelsian idea of “der Löwe aus der
Mitternacht”, or the Lion of the North, who at the end of time shall bring out
the hidden meaning of the Apocalypse. This lion is referred to in the Rosicrucian
Confessio Fraternitatis RC (1615) with the line ‘our treasures shall remain
untouched and unstirred, until the Lion doth come, who will ask them for his
use, and employ them for the confirmation and establishment of his kingdom’
(transl. Thomas Vaughan in Yates 1972: 255). Paracelsus’ prophecy stated that
three treasures would be found in Europe and that the Midnight Lion of the
North would take possession of them. The prophecy circulated again among
radical Paracelsians in various forms after 1600. The first use of it in Sweden
appears to have been in a letter by Michael Lotich to Charles IX in 1605 (Ms. D
363, National Library of Sweden, Stockholm). Lotich wrote about the coming
of “einer aus der Mitternacht” and drew designs depicting the passage of the
great conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter from the watery to the fiery trigon,
and placed a sword topped by a star upon a Leo-inscribed altar. The “fiery
trigon” is the pattern of passage of the planets in the zodiacal signs of Aries in
1583, to that of Sagittarius in December-January of 1603/04 and, significantly, to
that of Leo in 1623.
The importance placed on the great conjunctions between Jupiter and
Saturn and their significance had been discussed since Abū Maʿshar, Jaʿfar ibn
Muḥammad al-Balkhī’s ninth century text, known in the West as De magnis
conjunctionibus, and was applied to the case of Bohemia by Cyprian Leowitz at
Prague in 1563. Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) calculated the regular triangular
pattern of the great conjunctions in 1596, and in his De nova stella in pede
Serpentarii (1606), he pointed out that it was the seventh such passage since
creation. Significantly, the Rosicrucian Fama refers to it with the line ‘trigono
igneo that will give us the last light’, which is plain to view once one has grasped
Abū Maʿshar’s theory. The celestial mechanics raised the expectations for the
year 1603/04 and furthermore implied there was to be a hidden leonine signifi-
cance to the year 1623 (Åkerman 1998: 109, 214).
The Paracelsian Lion of the Darkest Night was a biblical symbol for how the
higher self lies slumbering in consciousness. This lion-related lore was given
political and heraldic significance as lions appeared on various princely crests
and was interpreted in terms of the biblical tale of the apocalyptic struggle
between the lion and the eagle in chapters 11 and 12 of the apocryphal Fourth
Book of Ezra (2nd Esdras) (Hamilton 1999). This symbolism was employed in a
prophecy that predicted that the northern Protestant powers would rise to
power. A similar eschatological scenario was contained in Michael Sendivogius’
prophecy of a fourth and northern kingdom in which the alchemical secrets
would be revealed and society would prosper. In 1619, Johannes Plaustrarius, a
then well-known millenarian, made a prophecy for Frederick V, “the Winter
King” of Bohemia, the former now contending that the latter was the biblical
Lion of the Woods. After Frederick’s defeat at Prague the prophecies changed
accordingly. In 1625, the Protestant leader August of Anhalt sent two texts to
428 Åkerman
Bureus which Johan Nordström has shown were two copies of a version of the
Lion prophecy (Nordström 1934). A year before, the collector of Rosicrucian
books at Lübeck, Joachim Morsius, visited Bureus in Stockholm to study his
Buccina, an important text of apocalyptic chronology written by the latter
(Schneider 1929). Later in 1625, Morsius under the pseudonym “Anastasius
Philareta Cosmopolita” published his new version of the Lion prophecy in
Denmark to mark out Christian IV as the new Lion. The text also reached a
significant Dutch readership via the Amsterdam-based author Anton Hober
weschel von Hobenfeldt (Hobenfeldt is mentioned in Anastasius Philareta
Cosmopolita’s Lion pamphlet collected in MS. A 200 c, Uppsala University
Library). The spread of the prophecy in northern Europe thus appears to have
been the work of a Rosicrucian political pressure-group.
Sigfridus Aronus Forsius (1550–1624), who was interested in these prognos-
tications, but was not a member of these groups, had already in 1611 produced
a work in manuscript form entitled Physica that referred to the Paracelsian
elemental spirits of earth, air, fire, and water (represented as gnomes, sylphs,
salamanders, and undines) and the trinity of Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury in
order to explain the creation. It was reviewed for publication in 1653, but the
University did not grant Forsius permission to publish it.
The Botanist and Alchemist Johannes Franck
In Stockholm, Queen Christina (1626–1689) was approached by the alchemist,

botanist and physician Johannes Franck (1590–1661). He described her realm
as the place where a possible future fulfilment of Paracelsus’ prophecy on the
return of the alchemical adept Elias Artista could take place. The biblical
theme referred to was the heavenly ascent and return of the prophet Elijah,
inspired by the Biblical passage ‘See I am sending you the prophet Elijah before
the arrival of the great and dreadful day of the Lord’ (Malachi 4: 5). This eagerly
anticipated return generated new expectations that contemporary Paracelsian
chemical science would gain in influence. The name Elias Artista was inter-
preted as a collective, symbolising alchemists as a united group.
Franck argued that Sweden would also represent the fulfilment of the
Polish adept Sendivogius’ vision on the rise of a “metallic monarchy” in the
North. Franck published these prophecies in his work De principis consti-
tutivis lapidis philosophici, theses hermeticae (Hermetic Theses on the Basic
Principles of the Philosopher’s Stone, 1645). Franck wanted to urge Queen
Christina to start searching for the Philosopher’s Ruby Red Powder, a material
capable of generating the Philosopher’s Stone. He expressed these thoughts
in an alchemical tract written in Swedish that he dedicated to her: Colloquium
philosophicum cum diis montanis. Thet är: Ett Lustigt och Liufligt Samtaal emi-
llan the Förnembsta och Edelste Berg-Gudar och een Högförfaren Philosopho
Zamolxides benämnd: Om den Edle och Dyrbare Klenodien Lapide philosopho-
rum (Philosophic Debate with the Gods of the Mountains, 1651). This lively
tale of a philosopher on a quest in the mineral realm is in large parts a trans-
lation of another tract, Xamolxides, Tractatus Aureus, printed in Benedict
Figulus’ (Töpfer), Thesaurinella Olympica aurea (An Olympic and Golden Little
Treasure Trove, 1608).
In 1645, when Johannes Franck made Sendivogius’ prophecy known in
Sweden, he could not have had on anyone else in mind than Queen Christina,
as he dedicated the text to her. This was especially the case since he argues that
Paracelsus’ prophecy regarding Elias Artista (which he published at the same
time) would be fulfilled in 1658 by the revelation of the secrets of alchemy to
the common people. The Swedish ex-Queen had the collected works of
Paracelsus in her Roman library and eagerly acquired volumes of alchemy and
esoteric medicine. In her maxims, the medically interested Queen Christina
even adopts Paracelsus’ motto: ‘One who can belong to himself, shall not
belong to anyone else’ (Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest).
Enlightenment Critique of Paracelsian Prophecy
In 1709, the critic of astrology and alchemist Magnus Gabriel von Block (1669–
1722) attacked Paracelsus’ prophecies and dismissed the thought that Charles
XII could be the Lion of the North. The chemist Urban Hjärne (1641–1724), at
work at the spa Medevi brunn, now stepped in to defend the Hermetic world-
view and its focus on divination. A heated debate followed between them on
the value of Paracelsian cosmology. Block saw the Paracelsian model of nature
as flawed, while Hjärne continued to abide by Paracelsian concepts. Despite
their fundamental differences, both worked in the alchemical tradition. The
struggle between von Block and Hjärne was the last phase of Paracelsian influ-
ence on natural philosophy in Sweden. The last generation of scientists who
systematically depended on Paracelsian ideas soon died out. The only people
to carry on Paracelsus’ legacy were members of various esoteric orders, who
kept the system because it seemed to them a means of shedding light on the
tripartite constitution of human beings into body, soul, and spirit.
430 Åkerman
The Spiritual Legacy of Paracelsian Regeneration
An indirect source of this latter view in Sweden, that continued to be influen-

tial until the end of the nineteenth century, was the German spiritualist Johann
Arndt’s (1555–1621) Vier Bücher vom wahren Christentum (1610), in which spiri-
tual regeneration is seen as taking an alchemical form. This text was translated
into Swedish in 1647 and republished many times. Thus, Paracelsian spiritual-
ity had its hold on Swedish readers almost up to modern times, albeit not in
medicine but in daily contemplation in Christian pietistic circles.
References
Åkerman, Susanna, Rose Cross Over the Baltic: The Spread of Rosicrucianism in Northern
Europe, Leiden: Brill, 1998.
Edenborg, Carl-Michael (ed.), Johannes Franck: alkemiska skrifter, Stockholm:
Philosophiska förlaget, 1992.
Gilly, Carlos, “‘Theophrastia Sancta’. Paracelsianism as a Religion, in Conflict with the
Established Churches”, in: Transformation of Paracelsism 1500–1800: Alchemy, Chem
istry and Medicine (Glasgow-Symposium 15–19 September 1993), Leiden: Brill, 1998,
151–185.
——— . “The ‘Midnight Lion’, the ‘Eagle’ and the ‘Antichrist’: Political, Religious and
Chiliastic Propaganda in the Pamphlets, Illustrated Broadsheets and Ballads of the
Thirty Years War”, Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 80 (2000), 46–77.
———. (ed.), Rosenkreutz als Europäische Phänomen, Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan, 2002.
Hamilton, Alaistair, The Apocryphal Apocalypse: The Reception of the Book of Esdras (4
Ezra) from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999.
Klemming, G.E., “Anteckningar av Johannes Thomae Agrivillensis Bureus”, Samlaren 4
(1883), 12–43, 71–126.
Lindroth, Sten, Paracelsismen i Sverige till 1600-talets mitt, Uppsala: Lychnos-bibliotek,
7 (1943).
———. Magnus Gabriel von Block. Svenska akademiens minnesteckningar, Stockholm:
Norstedts, 1973.
——— . Svensk Lärdomshistoria. Del 2. Stormaktstiden. Stockholm: Norstedts, Stock
holm, 1975–1981.
Nordström, Johan, “Lejonet från Norden”, Samlaren Ny följd 15 (1934), 1–66.
Schneider, Heinrich, Joachim Morsius und sein Kreis, Lübeck: Otto Quitzow Verlag, 1929.
Yates, Frances, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, London: Chapman & Hall, 1972.
Early Modern Rosicrucianism in Denmark 431
Chapter 53 Early Modern Rosicrucianism in Denmark
Rosicrucianism in the Early Modern Period

in Denmark
Jole Shackelford
Rosicrucianism was an idealistic movement of the counter-Reformation

period that was officially proclaimed in 1614 by the anonymously published
manifesto Fama fraternitatis Roseæ Crucis oder Die Bruderschaft des Ordens
der Rosenkreuzer (Rumour of the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross) in Kassel,
Germany. This was soon followed by the anonymous Confessio oder Bekenntnis
der Societät und Bruderschaft Rosenkreuz (The Confession of the Rosicrucian
Society and Brotherhood) and Secretioris philosophiæ consideratio brevis (A
Brief Consideration of a More Secret Philosophy) in 1615, and the alchemical-
religious allegory Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosenkreutz (The Chemical
Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz) by Johan Valentin Andreæ in 1616. These
tracts are thought to be the product of a collaboration among a loosely-
affiliated group of students and religious thinkers in Tübingen and Marburg
during the first fifteen years of the seventeenth century, which included Johan
Valentin Andreæ. Although advertised as a brotherhood, there is no historical
evidence to support the actual existence of a Rosicrucian organisation in the
early seventeenth century, and historians regard it as an informal intellectual
and spiritual movement with a coherent, but loosely defined ideological basis
that was expressed through manuscript and printed letters, pamphlets, and
treatises that circulated in northern Europe in the late sixteenth and early sev-
enteenth centuries.
Lutheran Concordists Oppose Continued Reformation
The main thematic currents of the Rosicrucian ideology were grounded in the
frustration felt by many Protestants who were disillusioned with the direction
that the Reformation had taken after Martin Luther’s death. Turning away from
dogma, the Rosicrucian authors and their spiritualist predecessors, among
whom were Johan Arndt and Valentin Weigel, instead drew concepts and ter-
minology from alchemical and Paracelsian medical and religious tracts along
with the chief texts of medieval mysticism and Renaissance Hermetism. These
writers sought to further the process of religious reformation, which had been

432 Shackelford
betrayed by confessional bickering and had become ossified in the magisterial

reforms of Luther and, ultimately, the conservative turn that Lutheranism took
with the Formula of Concord (1577). The Formula of Concord was, as its name
suggests, an attempt to create unity among the diverse protestant factions
within the broad Lutheran camp that had appeared during the tumultuous
years of argument over the Augsburg Confession (1530–1540), which defined
the central beliefs of the Lutheran denomination.
Between 1540 and 1580, a predominantly rationalist faction of Luther’s fol-
lowers, took its inspiration from Philip Melanchthon’s curricular initiatives
and his basic idea that Protestant unity should not be sacrificed to intransigent
positions on doctrinal matters that he did not view as central to the creed. He
taught that religion and natural philosophy ought to be mutually supportive
and he sought a measure of accommodation with the variant confessional for-
mulations, thus healing the greatest rifts that threatened Protestant harmony.
The Philippists, as they were known, advocated tolerance and broad interpre-
tation of Calvinist positions on the nature of Christ, Baptism, the Lord’s Supper,
and related issues, and were consequently labelled Crypto-Calvinists (closet
Calvinists) by opponents who regarded themselves as Luther’s true followers.
Guided by the powerful theological voices of Johannes Brenz, Jakob Andreæ,
and Martin Chemnitz, and with the support of the powerful Elector August of
Saxony, who was married to the sister of King Frederik II of Denmark, the
Gnesio-Lutheran (ultra-orthodox) party was organised to define narrowly the
Lutheran creed; they determined to denounce and suppress the Philippists
and created the Formula of Concord, which was used to exclude Philippist tol-
erance of confessional variants. The Book of Concord, which bound the Formula
with Luther’s Catechism and other fundamental codifications of the Lutheran
creed, was legitimated by the Saxon elector as defining a unified Lutheranism
that could stand up to political and religious forces within the Protestant world
and the threat of Catholic counter-reformation. However, it also presented a
narrow definition of the faith, which left many self-proclaimed Lutherans out-
side of the fold, to be branded by the orthodox with such appellations as
“enthusiasts”.
Concordists and Philippists in Denmark
All of this touched Danes quite closely, since Denmark and the North German
duchies also ruled by Frederik II were reformed by the followers of Philipp
Melanchthon and attempted to follow a Lutheran path of moderation that
was tolerant of Calvinism and other sectarian tendencies. Pressured by his
Rosicrucianism in the Early Modern Period in Denmark 433
brother-in-law Elector August to suppress Philippism in Denmark, Frederik

II reasserted the Danish Church’s commitment to the Augsburg Confession
and forced the strident Danish Philippist leader Niels Hemmingsen (1513–
1600) to retire from the theological faculty of the University of Copenhagen.
However, Frederik II, who had patronised the sciences and opened the door to
Paracelsian medicine and philosophy in Denmark during the 1570s and 1580s,
perceived the threat to national unity and participation in wider European
Renaissance culture that the confessional rigidity of the Formula implied and
consequently outlawed the Book of Concord. The Danish Church’s determina-
tion to steer its own Lutheran course, with Philippists at the helm, persisted
into the first decade of the seventeenth century. But then a handful of young
Danish scholars, who had been imbued with Gnesio-Lutheran ideas during
their theological studies in Germany, began turning the Danish Church onto a
decidedly orthodox heading. The officially-sanctioned Danish and Norwegian
religion and church discipline would remain on this orthodox heading for
most of the century.
The window of opportunity for Rosicrucianism in Denmark was rather nar-
row. Danes showed little awareness of the Rosicrucian manuscripts that had
circulated and been secretly discussed in Germany by the time their academic
and religious leaders moved to defend orthodoxy and suppress ideas that
challenged it. There is scant evidence for Danish interest in the complex of
heterodox religious ideas associated with Paracelsus, Valentin Weigel, and the
Rosicrucians prior to the second decade of the seventeenth century. Paracelsus’
religious tracts were slow to diffuse beyond German-speaking lands, and
the principal purveyors of Paracelsian medical and philosophical ideas in
late sixteenth-century Denmark – Tycho Brahe (1541–1601), Petrus Severinus
(1542–1602), and Johannes Pratensis (1543–1576) – left no indications of any
interest in Paracelsian religion, although they were sympathetic to Philippism.
Caspar Bartholin (1585–1629) and Ole Worm (1588–1655) were students in
north Germany 1607–1612, during the years when Rosicrucian ideology was
taking shape in Tübingen and Marburg, and returned to Copenhagen to fol-
low medical careers that were marked by a strong commitment to Aristotelian
natural philosophy and a conservative Lutheran disposition toward medical
discussions that impinged on the central tenets of the faith. For example,
Paracelsians taught that powerful medicines could be made by recovering the
vital balsam that persisted in human body parts after a premature death, an
idea that Caspar Bartholin rejected as contrary to the Lutheran teachings on
death and resurrection, which were central to the Christian faith. Both during
their student years and after they returned to take teaching positions at the
University of Copenhagen in 1613, Bartholin and Worm exhibited no sympathy
434 Shackelford
with the matrix of ideas that would be openly identified as Rosicrucian after
the public announcement of the brotherhood in 1614.
Alarm over Suspected Rosicrucian and Paracelsian Sedition
The publication of the treatises proclaiming the Rosicrucian Brotherhood came

at a pivotal moment in Danish church history, which helps explain the very
limited effect of Rosicrucianism in early modern Denmark. In 1614, when Fama
fraternitatis was published, Hans Poulsen Resen (1561–1638), the senior profes-
sor of theology at the University of Copenhagen and an orthodox Lutheran
opponent of Philippism in Denmark, was accused by the dominant Philippist
faction of endorsing the Formula of Concord in violation of Frederik II’s pol-
icy. Supported by King Christian IV, his royal chancellor, and the powerful and
theologically influential nobleman Holger Rosenkranz, Resen successfully
defended himself and then turned the tables on his accusers. The follow-
ing year (1615) he was appointed Bishop Primate and assumed control of the
Danish Church, which under his guidance entered upon what Danish church
historians have labelled the first period of Lutheran orthodoxy (1615–1660).
Also in 1615, the German chemist and prolific polemicist Andreas Libavius (ca.
1550–1616) published the first of several tracts attacking Paracelsian medicine
and Rosicrucian religion, which he perceived as integrally enmeshed, heretical,
and politically dangerous. In Libavius’ view, the Rosicrucian calls for reform
sounded a “war horn of sedition” that promised to rekindle the Anabaptist
movement that had led to the tragedy of the Münster rebellion.
Libavius’ words must have sounded an alarm for Ole Worm, then profes-
sor of philosophy at the University of Copenhagen, for he began to write to
his friends looking for news of the new brotherhood and to read whatever
printed tracts he could obtain, including a number authored by the anony-
mous Irenæus Agnosta, who according to Worm called himself the secretary
of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood. Referring to what Libavius had written in
his 1615–1616 treatises attacking the Rosicrucians, Worm spoke out against
the brotherhood in an official university graduation address at the end of the
spring semester 1619. Worm and his medical colleague Caspar Bartholin had
for years steadfastly defended Aristotelian principles, taking positions against
specific claims made by Paracelsians or Rosicrucians that threatened reli-
gious orthodoxy. Worm persisted in rejecting Paracelsian ideas that clearly ran
contrary to Aristotelian and Galenic teaching after he replaced Bartholin in
medical faculty, a position he retained until his death in 1654. In short, philo-
sophical orthodoxy and religious orthodoxy unified the intellectual leadership
of Denmark at the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, which soon drew the
kingdom into military, economic, and eventually political crisis. Under these
conditions, the stimulus for further reformation that underlay the Rosicrucian
movement was forced into the Danish Church’s shadow, where it was reshaped
into a lay pietist movement.
Rosicrucians and the Paracelsian Roots of Pietism
In a general sense, the religious impulse behind the early Rosicrucian tracts,
which were shaped in Tübingen by Johan Valentin Andreæ and his circle of
friends, reflected the pietistic direction of Johan Arndt’s religion. Arndt was an
eager student of Lutheran theology, but also aspired to Paracelsian chemistry,
and the result was a sensitivity to the mystical side of Luther’s early thought
and what Arndt characterised as a spiritual awakening. In the late 1590s, Arndt
turned away from the Concordist ideas and the confessional debates that had
riven the Protestant fold and embraced the cause of further reformation; He
returned to Luther’s early teachings, before the practicalities of the magisterial
reform overtook his inspiration from the medieval German mystical writers.
Arndt’s reawakening inspired Andreæ and the other early Rosicrucians at
Tübingen and Marburg, but also led him to write Four Books of True Christianity,
which he published between 1605 and 1610. These combined Paracelsian philo-
sophical ideas with traditional Lutheran formulations and a pervasive
commitment to spiritual rebirth in this life that derived from the medieval
German unio mystica, the mystical union of man and God in this life. The first
three books of True Christianity were met with immediate criticism by ortho-
dox Lutheran writers, while the fourth, which described the study of the book
of nature as a way to understand divinity and openly quoted Paracelsus, elic-
ited little comment. The subject of Book IV did not touch directly on human
nature and the nature of Christ, which were sensitive points of doctrine, and it
was not subjected to censure.
Arndt’s books seem to have won adherents among Denmark’s elite, inas-
much as they were translated into Danish in manuscript about the time that
orthodoxy took control of the church. Book IV was printed in Danish in 1618
and dedicated to the king’s favoured mistress, Kirsten Munk (1598–1658), but
the first three would not appear in print for another seventy years, implying
that the forces that opposed Paracelsian or Rosicrucian philosophy and reli-
gion also suppressed the spread of Arndt’s mystical piety. Legislation against
the printing and distribution of foreign religious texts throughout this period
aimed to discourage the dissemination of separatist and enthusiastic religious
436 Shackelford
ideas that were mainly coming from Germany and Holland, but also worked
against the Jesuit counter-reformation; it provided the Danish and Norwegian
church with the legal apparatus to discourage pietism and enforce doctrinal
and disciplinary conformity to a strict Lutheran interpretation through the rest
of the century.
To the extent that the impulses of further reformation that underlay the
Rosicrucian movement persisted in Denmark-Norway, they must have gone
underground, kept alive in the conventicles that the state church persecuted,
or else transformed into a quietistic piety that would eventually emerge in the
Pietist movement of Jakob Spener, who himself was an ardent follower of
Johan Arndt’s religion. J.V. Andreæ, arguably the single most productive writer
of the Tübingen Rosicrucians, followed such a path himself. After publicly
identifying himself as a Rosicrucian sympathiser with the publication of the
Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz in 1616, he recognised the danger
that conservative reaction promised and renounced his Rosicrucian writing as
youthful fantasy, a jest. Yet throughout his lifetime he reformulated his ideal of
a Rosicrucian-like brotherhood within the limits of Lutheran orthodoxy, pre-
senting it in less revolutionary form in the utopian Christianopolis (1619),
Christianiæ societatis imago (1619, 1620), and Christiani amoris dextera porrecta
(1620, 1621).
Andreæ’s path of spiritual transformation was recreated in Denmark by
Holger Rosenkrantz (1574–1642). Rosenkrantz, an intensely orthodox Lutheran
and Aristotelian during his years as a student in Germany, had supported
Resen in the effort to unify the Danish Church in conformity with a strict inter-
pretation of the Augsburg Confession, but also underwent a kind of Arndtian
spiritual awakening. His public support for Lutheran orthodoxy did not flag
while he served the Danish government, but after withdrawing to private life,
he became more public about his pious heterodoxy, which brought him into
conflict with the Danish Church authorities. The lives of Rosenkrantz and
Andreæ aptly capture the evolution of Rosicrucian idealism from the heady
days of its formative period in the first decade of the century, as an enthusiastic
fusion of Paracelsian chemical philosophy and theology, German mysticism,
and the desire to reawaken the spirit of Luther’s reformation, which had gone
off its rails during the confessional disputes of the sixteenth century. Lacking
institutional support and threatened by orthodox churchmen, frightened aris-
tocrats, and traditional educators, this idealism quieted down with the
outbreak of the Thirty Years War, laying the foundations for Protestant Pietism.
References
Agnosta, Irenæus, Clypseum veritatis (1618), Fons Gratiæ (1618), Speculum constantiæ
(1618) and several books epitomising and defending the Rosicrucian Brotherhood
that were published in 1619 and 1620 are collected together in a bound volume be-
longing to the Royal Library of Copenhagen, which began as Frederik III’s library.
Andersen, J. Oskar, Holger Rosenkrantz den Lærde. En biografisk Skildring med Bidrag og
Belysning af danske Kirke- og Studieforhold i det syttende Aarhundredes første Halvdel,
Copenhagen: August Bangs Boghandels Forlag, 1896.
Arvidsson, Bengt, Naturlig teologi och naturteologi: Naturen som bild i dansk fromhets-
tradition omkring år 1600, Lund: Lund University Press, 1990.
——— . “Wissenschaft und Frömmigkeit Johann Arndt in der dänischen Geistes
geschichte der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts”, in: Anders Jarlert (ed.), Johann
Arndt. Rezeption und Reaktion im Nordisch-Baltischen Raum, Lund: Lund University
Press, 1999, 27–33.
Dickson, Donald R., “Johannes Saubert, Johann Valentin Andreæ and the Unio Chris
tiana”, German Life and Letters 49 (1996), 18–31.
Edighoffer, Roland, “Andreæ, Johan Valentin”, in: Wouter J. Hanegraaff, et al. (eds.),
Fink-Jensen, Morten, Fornuften under Troens Lydighed: Naturfilosofi, Medicin og Teologi
I Danmark 1536–1636, Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Forlag, 2004.
Gilly, Carlos, “‘Theophrastia Sancta’ – Paracelsianism as a Religion, in Conflict with the
Established Churches”, in: Ole Grell (ed.), Paracelsus: The Man and His Reputation,
His Ideas and Their Transformation, Leiden: Brill, 1998, 151–185.
Glebe-Møller, Jens, Doctrina secundem pietatem. Holger Rosenkrantz den Lærdes teologi,
diss., Copenhagen, Institut for dansk kirkehistorie, 1966.
———. “Holger Rosenkrantz, Arndt og Andreä. Uortodokse strømninger i ortodoksiens
tid”, Kirkehistoriske Samlinger (1963–1965), 306–318.
Libavius, Andreas, Analysis Confessiones Fraternitatis de Rosea Cruce, Frankfurt am
Main, 1615.
——— . Wolmeinendes Bedencken von der Fama und Confession der Bruderschafft dess
Rosen Creutzes, Frankfurt, 1616.
Shackelford, Jole, “Paracelsianism and the Orthodox Lutheran Rejection of Vital Philos
ophy in Early Seventeenth-Century Denmark”, Early Science and Medicine 8 (2003),
210–252.
——— . “Rosicrucianism, Lutheran Orthodoxy, and the Rejection of Paracelsianism in
Early Seventeenth-Century Denmark”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 70 (1996),
181–204.
——— . “Western Esotericism and the History of European Science and Medicine in
the Early Modern Period”, in: Tore Ahlbäck (ed.), Western Esotericism. Scripta Instituti
438 Shackelford
Donneriani Aboensis XX, Åbo: Donner Institute for Research in Religious and Cul
tural History, 2008, 173–203.
Wallmann, Johannes, “Johann Arndt (1555–1621)”, in: Carter Lindberg (ed.), The Pietist
Theologians: An Introduction to Theology in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,
Oxford: Blackwell, 2005, 21–37.
Worm, Ole, Breve fra og til Ole Worm, H.D. Schepelern (ed.), 3 vols. Copenhagen: Det
danske sprog- og litteraturselskab, 1965–1968.
——— . Laurea philosophica summa, Copenhagen: Henrik Waldkirch, 1619.
Early Modern Rosicrucianism in Sweden 439
Chapter 54 Early Modern Rosicrucianism in Sweden
Rosicrucianism in the Early Modern Period in

Sweden
Susanna Åkerman
Johannes Bureus: the First Swedish Rosicrucian
The Rosicrucian message reached Sweden shortly after the anonymous publi-
cation of the original Rosicrucian Manifestos in Germany. When the Royal
archivist Johannes Bureus (1568–1652) had read the first Rosicrucian tract
Fama Fraternitatis RC (Kassel, 1614), which presents a secret society guarding
hidden knowledge soon to be revealed, he published his own answer to the
Rosicrucian call in his short tract FRC Fama e Scanzia redux (1616), which in
seven sections presents biblical verses pointing to the dawning of the new age.
It was in particular the prophetic aspects of the Rosicrucian movement that
seem to have attracted Bureus, and in his tract he draws special attention to
Balaam’s passage on the coming of ‘a star out of Jacob and [that] a sceptre shall
rise out of Israel’ (Numbers 24:17), an allusion to the hidden significance of the
new star of 1602 in the Swan, also called the Northern Cross, and the second
one in Serpentarius (the “Serpent-Bearer”, now more commonly referred to as
Ophiuchus) in 1604, both mentioned in the Rosicrucian Fama.
To explain his vision, Bureus uses prophecies ‘from the jawbone of the Ass’
– Balaam’s Ass – who before anyone else saw the Angel of the Lord (Numbers
22:23). Signed “BisvATI Ierubbabel”, a signature that conceals an inverted acro-
nym of Bureus’ full, Latinised name Johannes Thomae Agrivilensis Bureus, or
ITAB, his pamphlet was called Buccina Jubilei Ultimi – The Trumpet of the
Ultimate Jubilee with the subtitle Hyperboreic Prediction of Eos, Smiting With
Resplendent Noise the Summits of the Mountains of Europe, Sounding Amidst the
Hills and Valleys of Arabia. The pamphlet specifically announces recent discov-
eries of “northern antiquities” that would be instrumental for the new reform
of science, arts, and society.
Essential to Bureus’ work was the idea of a prisca theologia – ancient theol-
ogy – the Renaissance concept denoting a supposedly pristine form of thought
created at the very beginning of time, yet still valid. Key to this idea of the
ancient theology was the belief that the Christian doctrine of salvation had
already been formulated during an early Golden Age, albeit in pagan terms.

440 Åkerman
The wisdom of the ancients was generally attributed to figures such as Hermes
and Zoroaster. Bureus’ ideas on the northern antiquities constitute a similar
theory about a form of proto-Christian knowledge, but in his case ancient wis-
dom is seen as part of the spiritual heritage of the northern, Hyperborean
peoples.
Toward the end of his life, Bureus dedicated a manuscript to the com-
ing Queen Christina with speculations on the mystical origin of the Runes,
entitled Adulruna rediviva (1643), as well as a copy of his apocalyptic work,
Nordlandalejonsens rytande (The Roar of the Northern Lion, 1644). Bureus
begins the latter with a passage directed to Queen Christina on the succession
of three ages, the third and final of which would soon commence. Perhaps he
also showed her his answer to the Rosicrucian Fama. Bureus’ presence at the
court may have influenced Christina’s interest in Christian esoteric mysticism
and at the same time have given her hope for a new and highly effective spa-
gyric and alchemical medicine.
Bureus’ writings had a small but interested readership, and he sent his Fama
e Scanzia redux to the Boehme scholar Abraham von Franckenberg, who in
turn in 1646 sent it on to the famous Jesuit and Hermeticist Athanasius Kircher
in Rome. Franckenberg discussed Bureus with Kircher in a series of letters up
until 1652 (see Kircher’s correspondence, deposited at Archivio Pontificale
Universitario Gregoriana, Rome).
Gustaf Bonde
The most important person connected to the Golden Rosy Cross in eighteenth-
century Sweden was the parliamentarian and count Gustaf Bonde till Björnö
(1682–1764), one of Emanuel Swedenborg’s colleagues at the Board of Mines
and an avid collector of Rosicrucian pamphlets. The Order of the Golden and
Rosy Cross, which influenced Bonde, was secretly founded in Naples 1678, but
was made known to the world in 1710 by Sincerus Renatus (Samuel Richter)
under the formal name Orden des Gülden- und Rosen Creutzes. Their aim was
to perfect the soul of initiated individuals through alchemy.
Gustaf Bonde developed his own form of excremental alchemy, based on
swallowing the same golden nugget each morning, thus using the body as an
athanor. In his anonymous mythopoetic and alchemical study, Clavicula her-
metica scientiae ab quaedam hyperboreo (The Small Key to the Hermetic
Sciences, 1751), Bonde places John Dee’s famous Monas symbol among the
numbers that form a Pythagorean tetractus (a pyramid of dots in the series 1, 2,
3, 4 giving a sum of 10). This figure, according to Bonde, explicated the divine
light in letters and numerical signs.
Bonde had a large esoteric library and among the books there were several
alchemical texts, but tellingly also the important collection Kabbala denudata
(Sulzbach, 1677), translated into Latin from Hebrew by Christian Knorr von
Rosenroth. Bonde also owned Johannes Reuchlin’s ground-breaking Renais
sance text De arte cabalistica (Hagenau, 1517) (Bonde’s book register Ms. E
9356, National Archives of Sweden, Stockholm and the auction catalogue
of Stockholms Stads Bokauktionskammare 11–12 November, 1932, no. 10. pp.
16–35). In 1760 Bonde published a commentary on the kabbalistic source text
Zohar in Lärda Tidningar that was reviewed at Lund University in a series
of open seminars, printed together with a hyperborean language analysis by
Bonde in sixteen parts, in which he showed the supposedly northern origins of
the stems and roots of various languages.
It was now, in 1763, that Gustaf Bonde let himself be painted in the costume
of the Royal Order of the Seraphim against the background of a pillar inscribed
with an obscure pentagram, a sign used already by the Pythagoreans as a sigil.
To the Greeks, the pentagram symbolised bodily and spiritual hygeia or health.
The pentagram also signals a further esoteric connection. In Reuchlin’s De arte
cabalistica there is a pentagram inscribed with the five letters of the Christian
kabbalistic name of God. That is, the Hebrew unspeakable name JHVH (Jahveh)
completed with the three-pointed letter “shin” forming the name of Christ
JHSVH (Jesus). Kabbalah was for this reason seen to conceal a Christian secret.
Another sign of Bonde’s central position in the Swedish esoteric tradition is
Eric Choraelius’ tract, Utkast til en Jämförelse emellan Den Bibliska och Werlds
liga Historien (Draft of a Comparison Between Biblical and Profane History,
1760). It has an introduction dedicated to Gustaf Bonde and treats of the
Hebrew letters’ special significance: every point and curve has its own mean-
ing which can be interpreted by spiritual hermeneutics. Kabbalah is said to
awaken nishmat hajim or spiraculum vitarum, i.e., the Spirit of Life in ecstatic
perceptions of how the soul and the body are united. Choraelius here pre-
sented a theory regarding the identity of Hermes of Egypt, and claimed that
Thoth was the first Hermes, while Hermes Trismegistus stepped forth only
after the rise of Christianity. The Hebrew texts Zohar (splendour) and Mercava
(the heavenly chariot) are said to be the most important expressions of the
kabbalistic tradition of spiritual receptivity, that is an expression of the female
aspect of the Divine presence, schechina, during interpretation of the Divine
Word by inspired prophets.
Besides Kabbalah and magic, Gustaf Bonde’s library contained approxi-
mately one hundred alchemical writings and three manifestos of the Order of
442 Åkerman
the Golden and Rosy Cross, for example S[incerus] R[enatus], Die wahrhaffte
und volkommene Bereitung des philosophischen Steins der Brüderschafft aus
dem Orden des Gülden und Rosen-Creutzes (Breslau, 1710). Renatus’ writings
are also mentioned in correspondence between Gustaf Bonde and Nils Jacob
Reuterholm, who were not alone at that time in their interest in esotericism.
Magical and alchemical texts together with theosophical speculations by
Sincerus Renatus are also to be found in the De Geer family’s Finspongsamling
(i.e., archival materials deposited at Norrköping City Library). The influential
modern institution Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam includes
in its collection a substantial volume of early Rosicrucian tracts that belonged
to Gustaf’s relative, the alchemist Lorentz Fredrik Bonde (1715–1783), and his
now dispersed collection of writings, the so-called Säfstaholmsamling. It can
be shown that these tracts were bought by Gustaf Bonde, who was familiar
with secret sciences and bookish arcana. The volume contains Johan Valentin
Andreae’s allegory on the alchemical wedding, Chymische Hochzeit des
Christiani Rosenkreutz, Anno 1459 (Strassburg, 1616), Michael Maier’s answer to
the Rosicrucians, Silentium post clamores (Frankfurt, 1617), and Robert Fludd’s
rare defence of the Rosicrucian program, Tractatus apologeticus integritatem
Societatis de Roseae Cruce defendens (Leiden, 1617). Two volumes in folio
by Fludd, including the Rosicrucian-inspired works Philosophia Moysaica,
Summum Bonum and Medicina Catholica, all printed in the 1630s, carry the
Säfstaholm exlibris and are now to be found at Carolina Rediviva, the univer-
sity library of Uppsala University. These books also derive from Gustaf Bonde’s
Hesselby collection (Ms. E 9356, National Archives of Sweden, Stockholm)
which was incorporated in the Säfstaholm collection at the death of Bonde in
1763 and was finally sold at the Stockholm book auction in 1932.
Bonde’s interest in the contemporary Golden Rosy Cross opened the way for
him to acquire two of the original Rosicrucian manifestos, Fama fraternitatis
Rosae Crucis and Confessio fraternitatis Rosae Crucis (1615). In addition to these
original manifestos, he acquired other rare Rosicrucian works, such as Antwort
über den Fama et Confessio (1615), Pyrrho Clidensis Redivivus (1616), Julianus de
Campis’ Sendbrief von FRC (1615), Julius Sperber’s Echo von der Fraternität der
RC, and the anonymous tracts, Bedencken ad Fama in Confessio FRC (1616), in
addition to the prophetic text Helias tertius ad … FRC. (1616). The arrival of a
third Elijah, prophesied in some of these texts, was sometimes interpreted as
the emergence of a collective of alchemists with insight into the mysteries of
creation, who were by some identified with the Rosicrucians.
Illuminism, Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism
While the first Rosicrucian tracts were open manifestos written in the 1610s by
small-town alchemists, travelling merchants and Paracelsian doctors, Rosicru
cianism towards the end of the eighteenth century had acquired a distinctly
aristocratic and secretive character. It was, particularly in the period from 1750
to 1815, often interpreted as part of the Illuminist movement. This was a late
Enlightenment current with a spiritual focus on inner light and an inclination
towards the occult. Illuminists studied what they understood to be the hidden
powers of human nature, and in the process discovered the unconscious. In
due course this took a more popular form in Mesmeristic séances, where “mag-
netic sleep”, a kind of hypnotic therapy, produced paranormal phenomena.
These discoveries were particularly influential in the German-speaking world
where the phenomenon was called Erleuchtung, illumination, in contrast to
the well-known path of Aufklärung, enlightenment. Illuminism spread also to
Sweden, but was there found mainly in secretive milieus at court or in the
inner circles of some masonic groups.
High degrees in several masonic systems are strongly connected to the Rose
Cross. It is well-known, for instance, that the eighteenth degree of the Ancient
and Accepted Scottish Rite (founded in 1801) uses the symbols of rose, the
cross, and a pelican piercing its own chest to give blood and nourishment to its
young. In this degree the candidate is initiated into the degree of Chevalier de
Rose-Croix (Knight Rose Croix), which in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish
Rite focuses on Christian mysticism, with Christ being symbolically identified
with Christian Rosencreutz. The older so-called Acts of Eckleff, written in 1756
in Stockholm, describe the foundational ritual system of Swedish Freemasonry.
Significantly, these acts end with a red seal with a rose, a cross and hand around
which a snake is coiled, and the text: ‘Fide et prudentia colui donec …’ (I shall
faithfully and vigilantly guard it until …). In the same spirit, the masonic library
at the Bååtska Palace in Stockholm has collected some thirty Rosicrucian man-
uscripts from the second half of the eighteenth century. A host of printed
Rosicrucian tracts can also be consulted, among them the illustrated compen-
dium Geheime Figuren der Rosencreutzer (Altona, 1785).
References
Åkerman, Susanna, Rose Cross Over the Baltic: The Spread of Rosicrucianism in Northern
Europe, Leiden: Brill, 1998.
444 Åkerman
Bergé, Christine, “Illuminism”, in: Wouter J. Hanegraaff, et al. (eds.), Dictionary of Gnosis
& Western Esotericism, Leiden: Brill, 2005, 600–606.
Edenborg, Carl-Michael, Gull och mull: den monstruöse Gustaf Bonde …, Lund: Eller
ströms, 1997.
Edighoffer, Roland, “Rosicrucianism I”, in: Wouter J. Hanegraaff, et al. (eds.), Dictionary
of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, Leiden: Brill, 2005, 1009–1014.
Gilly, Carlos, Cimelia Rhodostaurotica: Die Rosenkreutzer im Spiegel der zwischen 1610 und
1660 entstandenen Handschriften und Drucke, Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan, 1995.
——— . (ed.), Rosenkreutz als europäisches Phänomen im 17. Jahrhundert, Amsterdam:
In de Pelikaan, 2002.
Gustaf Bonde’s library sold at Stockholms Stads Bokauktionskammare 11–12 November,
1932, no. 10, 16–35.
Klemming, G.E., “Anteckningar av Johannes Thomae Agrivillensis Bureus”, Samlaren 4
(1883) 12–43, 71–126.
Lindroth, Sten, Paracelsismen i Sverige till 1600-talets mitt, Uppsala: Lychnos-bibliotek
7, 1943.
——— . ‘Licentiatavhandling’: “Erfarenhet och illumination: till paracelsismens kun-
skapslära”. Unpublished manuscript no. 522:A2, 1981/26. Carolina rediviva, Uppsala
University Library.
Telle, Joachim (ed.), Abraham von Franckenberg: Briefwechsel, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt:
Frommann-Holzboog, 1995.
Vanloo, Robert, L’Utopie Rose-Croix du xvii:e siècle à nos jours, Paris: Dervy, 2001.
Yates, Frances, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972.
Contemporary Rosicrucianism in Denmark 445
Chapter 55 Contemporary Rosicrucianism in Denmark
Rosicrucianism in the Contemporary Period in

Denmark
Rosicrucian ideas were present in Denmark already during the seventeenth

century, fuelled by the publication of the tracts Fama fraternitatis rosae crucis
and Confessio fraternitatis in Germany in 1614 and 1615 respectively. After a gap
in the history of Rosicrucian presence in Denmark of almost 300 years, modern
Rosicrucian societies spread across the world, and following this wave of Rosi
crucian fraternities, Danish offshoots of these fraternities also emerged. The
modern-day Rosicrucians and their presence in Denmark stem from two differ
ent historical roots. The first is an influence from Germany via the Rosicrucian
Society in Germany (Rosenkreuzer-Gesellschaft in Deutschland), and the
other comes from the United States, with the formation of Antiquus Mysticus
que Ordo Rosæ Crucis (AMORC) by Harvey Spencer Lewis (1883–1939) in 1915.
The Rosicrucian Fellowship
The history of modern Rosicrucianism in Denmark starts in 1865 when Carl

Louis von Grasshoff (1865–1919), later known under the pseudonym Max
Heindel, was born. Although born in Denmark, Heindel was of German ances-
try, and spent most of his life travelling in both the United States and Germany.
He was a member of the Theosophical Society and met with the later founder
of Anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner, in 1907. In 1909 he published his major work,
The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, which dealt with Christian mysticism and
esotericism, and later that year Heindel founded The Rosicrucian Fellowship.
It was a German spin-off of this group lead by occultist and theosophist Franz
Hartmann (1838–1912) and later Hugo Vollrath, that later became influential in
Denmark.
The Danish section of the Rosenkreuzer-Gesellschaft was founded in 1928
by Johannes Haarvard (d. 1950), who was a student of Vollrath. Haarvard was
based in Copenhagen but organised monthly public lectures in major Danish
cities such as Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense, and Aalborg. Later it seems that
the activities diminished with lectures held only in Copenhagen and Aalborg.

446 Christiansen Senholt
From 1929 to 1931 a monthly magazine called Rosenkorset (the Rose-Cross) was
published by Haarvard. It consisted mainly of articles by Haarvard and a few
other supporters as well as translations of articles by Max Heindel. In 1931 pub-
lication of the magazine ceased, but the Rosicrucian Society in Denmark
continued its activities outside of public view even during the Second World
War when the German section of the society was disbanded. The Rosicrucian
Society was primarily focused on Christian beliefs, basing the main part of its
teachings on Biblical sources. Haarvard simply considered Rosicrucianism to
be an esoteric form of Christianity, whereas AMORC has a broader view of what
Rosicrucianism is and encompasses, incorporating ideas of mysticism and
esotericism from non-Christian sources such as Greek philosophy, Egyptian
religion, and Hermetica.
When Johannes Haarvard died in 1950, Eli Wamberg (1906–1980) took con-
trol of the Rosicrucian Society. He is described by his “disciples” as a mystic,
claiming to have received several Rosicrucian visions. Wamberg is said to have
reformed the Danish section of the order, concentrating on individual corre-
spondence with followers, instead of lectures and study groups. Some of these
letters and personal instructions have later been published posthumously, but
almost nothing of his literary production was publicly available while he was
leading the Society. Wamberg also explicitly distanced himself from the
American Rosicrucian societies AMORC and The Rosicrucian Fellowship,
claiming that although personalities such as Max Heindel and Rudolf Steiner
were “spiritual researchers”, their words and ideas were not to be accepted
uncritically. After the death of Haarvard in 1980 all activities of the Rosicrucian
Society ceased.
AMORC
The largest group of Rosicrucians in Denmark has throughout the contempo-

rary period been AMORC. The order became active in Scandinavia with the
formation of a “Danish Grand Lodge” in Copenhagen in 1920. The contact to
founder Spencer Lewis in the United States was initially established by Carli
Andersen, born in 1862. Andersen was born in Horsens, educated as a nurse,
and travelled around Europe to work, leaving for the United States at the out-
break of the First World War. In New York she came in contact with various
Theosophical groups through which she met Spencer Lewis. She was initiated
into the first templar degree of AMORC in 1916, and received her 7th degree in
1919, after which she returned to Denmark in order to create a Grand Lodge.
Together with her cousin Kaj Andersen, and two other men with an interest in
AMORC, Svend Turning and Arthur Sundstrup, they asked Spencer Lewis to
Contemporary Rosicrucianism in Denmark 447
form a Danish Lodge, and in 1920 they received a charter to start a Grand Lodge.
Svend Turning was appointed Grand Master of this lodge.
The order continued to grow, gaining members, and in 1923 initiations were
given up the highest 9th degree. In 1927 Turning retired as Grand Master and
Carli Andersen’s brother-in-law, Edvard Emil Andersen took up the office. In
1930 he initiated new premises at Tuborgvej in Copenhagen that constituted
the setting for the Danish Lodge until 1976 when the Danish Lodge closed
down and all Scandinavian lodges were united into one Nordic Grand Lodge,
that in 2001 was renamed the Scandinavian Grand Lodge, within which Finland
receives its own administration. At the time of writing (2014), AMORC in
Denmark is run from the Scandinavian headquarters near Gothenburg. AMORC
is primarily focused on providing correspondence courses that are sent out on
a monthly basis to all members, with a Danish/Norwegian version and a
Swedish language version. In addition to these courses that take approximately
five years to complete, members have the option to meet regularly for prayer
and meditation evenings, as well as participate in initiations at lodges.
Currently only two lodges are active in Denmark with public meetings, namely
the Harvey Spencer Lodge in Copenhagen and the Atrium in Aalborg.
Concluding Remark
Lectorium Rosicrucianium, a Rosicrucian order founded in 1935 by Dutch eso-

tericist Jan van Rijckenborgh (1896–1968), should also be mentioned. It has
been active in Søborg with a website and public lectures since the year 2000,
but with little activity except for maintaining the website.
Although Rosicrucian organisations have been permanently active in
Denmark during the last century or so, there has never been a Rosicrucian
renaissance or a blossoming of ideas that has taken the Rosicrucian ideas
beyond a small groups of “initiates” that have been practising and studying the
teachings of Spencer Lewis and Max Heindel, and as such modern Rosicru
cianism in Denmark has to be seen in the broader perspective of Rosicrucian
ideas throughout Scandinavia.
References
Haarvard, Johannes (ed.), Rosenkorset. Organ For Kristelig Åndsvidenskab, 1–3

(1929–31).
Kjar, Gregers, “30 års jubilæum”, Rosenkorset 4:30 (2006), 4–11.
Svensson, Niels, Eli Wamberg. En Kristen Mystiker, København: Borgen, 2000.
448 Sjöblom And Sohlberg
Chapter 56 Contemporary Rosicrucianism in Finland

Finland
Tom Sjöblom and Jussi Sohlberg Sjöblom and Sohlberg
History
Modern Rosicrucian orders in Finland belong to two different traditions. The

first tradition consists of the Finnish branches of the international Rosicrucian
orders. The second tradition is particular to Finland. The latter has nothing to
do with the international Rosicrucian orders and was born from a split within
the Finnish Theosophical society in 1920. None of the different groups in these
two traditions have been studied extensively, but they have been treated in
scholarly works and academic studies discussing new religious movements in
Finland, as well as in discussions of esoteric and occult movements. General
information on different groups active in Finland has also been compiled in
The Religions in Finland Project, an electronic platform and database managed
by the Church Research Institute.
The Finnish branch of Antiquus Mysticusque Ordo Rosae Crucis or AMORC
became independent from the Scandinavian Grand Lodge in 1998, and has
from then on formed an independent administrative unit, AMORC – Finland.
Functionally it operates as a Grand Lodge, although it does not officially have
that status yet, due to the low number of members in Finland (Heino 1997:
340).
It is difficult to estimate when AMORC received its first Finnish members,
but the organisation has been operating in Finland at least from the 1950s.
Most of the Finnish members are corresponding members, who pursue their
studies and practise exercises privately at home. Studying Rosicrucian materi-
als in the Finnish language has been possible since the early 1980s. The
estimated number of members of AMORC – Finland today is around two
hundred.
The second branch of international Rosicrucian orders active in Finland is
Lectorium Rosicrucianum or the International School of the Golden Rosy
Cross, a society established in the Netherlands in 1932. The society began its
activities in Finland in 1995 and it was officially registered in 1997. The centre
of activities in Finland is in the town of Hämeenlinna. The number of Finnish

Contemporary Rosicrucianism in Finland 449
members is very low and can be counted in tens rather than in hundreds
(Heino 1997: 340). A third international Rosicrucian order operating in Finland
is the Rosicrucian Order or the Rose Cross Order, originally established in 1988
and with headquarters on the Canary Islands. The Rose Cross Order was regis-
tered in Finland in 2002, but it does not seem to have any officially organised
activities in Finland at present.
The second Rosicrucian tradition, particular to Finland, is represented by
Ruusu-Risti (The Finnish Rosicrucian Society), a society established by Pekka
Ervast (1875–1934), the former general secretary of the Finnish Theosophical
Society, in 1920. Ervast left the Theosophical Society and established Ruusu-
Risti in order to promote an occult interpretation of Jesus and his role as a
spiritual guide for the whole of humanity. Many of the members of the Finnish
Theosophical Society, and even some local lodges as a whole, joined this new
society as soon as it was founded; the number of members thereby quickly rose
to about 200 (Kuha 1989; Krohn 1981). The society was registered in 1931 and the
headquarters are in Helsinki. Today Ruusu-Risti has slightly fewer than 300
members.
The International Rosicrucian Orders in Finland
Among the international Rosicrucian orders in Finland, AMORC is the one

with the longest history and the most well-established institutions and pro-
grammes. The activities of AMORC – Finland do not differ to any great extent
from those found in other countries. Corresponding members constitute a
major part of the membership of AMORC – Finland. These members partici-
pate in the organisation by studying the teachings and exercises as set out in
written study material. The organisation recommends members to study for
one to two hours, one evening every week. Only a part of the teachings are
public; these consist of meditation techniques, courses on spiritual alchemy,
healing, the symbolism of sacred architecture, the teachings of Pythagoras,
and the law of karma. A strict organisational hierarchy and a set initiatory sys-
tem are followed closely.
In addition, AMORC – Finland has published the journal Rosa et crux since
1998. Many of the articles are translations from other international Rosicrucian
journals, but Finnish contributions are sometimes included. The topics range
from discussions of the history of Western occultism to poems, and articles
that debate the relationship of religion, magic, and science.
Lectorium Rosicrucianum views itself as the representative of “real Rosicru

cianism” and thus claims to continue the traditions and practices of ancient
Gnostic mystery schools. The basic form of activities is to offer services to its
members and a correspondence course to non-members interested in the
society. For those non-members who wish to develop a better understanding
of the Lectorium Rosicrucianum, the society organises events where intro-
ductory material on the Rosicrucian teachings is presented and discussed.
An “Introductory Manual” presenting the basic principles and teachings of
Lectorium Rocicrucianum can be downloaded from their website. The soci-
ety also publishes a Finnish language version of the bi-monthly international
journal Pentagram. The fourth international Rosicrucian order in Finland is
Aurora Borealis College that belongs to Societas Rosicruciana in Scotia. Aurora
Borealis College was founded in 2007 and it has around 40 members. This
Rosicrucian order accepts only freemasons as members, but it is not a masonic
organisation itself.
Ruusu-Risti (The Finnish Rosicrucian Society)
The Finnish Rosicrucian Society represents a distinctive case among the

Rosicrucian orders, as the birth and ideological background of this organisa-
tion is so closely connected with the Theosophical Society. The founder of
the group, Pekka Ervast, did not accept Jiddu Krishnamurti’s authority as a
spiritual teacher and objected to the political activities of the Theosophical
Society. Indeed, Ruusu-Risti defines itself as representing the original and true
Theosophical inheritance of Helena P. Blavatsky. Thus, Ruusu-Risti promotes
the belief in reincarnation and the law of karma. At the same time, Ervast had
a strong experience of the spiritual presence of Christ in his life. He also identi-
fied himself with the ideas and worldview of the famous Russian author Leo
Tolstoy, and especially how the latter interpreted the Sermon of the Mount.
These influences brought the Ruusu-Risti version of Theosophy closer to Chris
tianity and also with the international Rosicrucian orders (Heino 1997: 281).
The official programme of the society is based on three major principles (as
presented on their Internet pages):
1. Ruusu-Risti is defined as a society for truth-seekers. Its members are

expected to show great respect and understanding towards each other
irrespective of race, colour, nationality, religion, social status, gender, or
any other superficial quality. Truth is higher than any religious tradition.
2. Ruusu-Risti is a sanctuary for free thinking. Its members are searching
for the absolute truth, the secret divine wisdom hidden in the religions,
mythologies, philosophies and scientific systems of all times.
Contemporary Rosicrucianism in Finland 451
3. Ruusu-Risti is one ring in the chain of humanity’s invisible brotherhood.

Its members are searching for the road to eternal life which grows and
develops the spirit of brotherhood among human beings.
In addition to Theosophy and Gnostic Christianity, the Finnish national epic

Kalevala plays an important role in Ruusu-Risti as a manifestation of Finnish
folk spirituality. The society also promotes the belief that there is a group of
spiritually highly developed divine humans, masters who have reached perfec-
tion. These spiritual masters form the White Brotherhood. Some of the
members of this brotherhood live in the visible world, but most of them are
said to live in an invisible, spiritual dimension. Indeed, Ruusu-Risti teaches
that humans are spiritual soul-beings and that the material body is just a shell
(Heino 1997: 281–282).
Within Ruusu-Risti there is an Inner School (sisäinen koulu) that was organ-
ised and established by Pekka Ervast on the basis of eighteenth-century
Freemasonry. The Inner School is organised as a hierarchy consisting of three
levels. The first level is that of Accepted Apprentice. This is followed by the
level of Professional. The third and final stage is that of Master Mason. In order
to be accepted into the Inner School, one must be a member of Ruusu-Risti
and participate in an initiation ceremony organised every year at Easter. After
having completed this ritual, the applicant can ask the master of the Inner
School to be accepted into the brotherhood.
The members of the Inner School study different religious and philosophi-
cal traditions from a perennialist perspective, i.e., as expressions of an eternal
wisdom. At the second level, one is expected to acquaint oneself with the spiri-
tual essence of man, with the ethics of esoteric Christianity, and with the
essence of science and art. The third level consists of the study and research of
the history of Freemasonry and the secrets of the White Brotherhood. The
whole education programme is considered to take about ten years.
Ruusu-Risti organises public lectures and public discussions for its mem-
bers and for a general audience. The ceremonial lodge activities are restricted
to members only. The bi-monthly journal Ruusu-Risti defines itself as a journal
for truth-seekers. It is a journal founded by Pekka Ervast himself in 1905 and
adopted by Ruusu-Risti after the organisation was established in 1920, but it
has changed its name several times during its history. The aim of the journal is
to introduce the Rosicrucian worldview and lifestyle to its readers, and to com-
ment on various topical issues from a Rosicrucian perspective. Every issue also
includes selections from the writings of Pekka Ervast.
The continuing importance of Pekka Ervast and his writings for Ruusu-
Risti is also highlighted by the fact that the publisher associated with the
organisation – the Ruusu-Risti Literary Society – mainly focuses on the works

of Ervast, with additions from the Theosophical classics and works by some
later members of the society.
Conclusion
Despite the early arrival of modern Rosicrucian orders in Finland and the
development of an independent Finnish Rosicrucian tradition, the numerical
importance of the Rosicrucian currents as a whole has remained marginal. At
present, none of the groups have more than 300 members and many of these
– especially in the context of the international branch – are corresponding
members with no actual contact with each other in real life. Even Ruusu-Risti
– the Finnish branch of the Rosicrucian movement – has not been able to con-
tinue its initial success in attracting new members. The initial popularity of
Ruusu-Risti can be explained as a late manifestation of Romantic nationalism
in Finland in the early decades of the twentieth century. This is mirrored in the
way Pekka Ervast in his thought and writings combined Christianity and
Theosophy with Finnish folk traditions. However, when the nationalistic
movement lost its impetus in Finnish society and culture, ideological move-
ments and societies built on that basis – like Ruusu-Risti – soon became
marginalised, and have remained so to this day.
References

Krohn, Eino, “Ruusu-Risti”, in: Nils G. Holm, Kirsti Suolinna and Tore Ahlbäck (eds.),
Aktuella religiösa rörelser i Finland, Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1981, 87–106.
Kuha, Tarvo, Analyysi Ruusu-Risti – seuran taustasta ja aseman muotoutumisesta
Suomessa. Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Helsinki, 1989.
Contemporary Rosicrucianism in Norway 453
Chapter 57 Contemporary Rosicrucianism in Norway

Norway
Kjersti Løken
Modern Rosicrucian orders, many of which can be said to be children of fin de

siècle occultism and Theosophy, have been treated in some Norwegian schol-
arly works and academic studies on topics relating to esotericism, Theosophy,
occultism, and the New Age (see for example Gilhus & Mikaelsson 1998: 40;
Winje 1999: 214–217 and Løken 2006). These publications and studies have
mainly focused on either modern Rosicrucianism generally, and/or the Rosi
crucian Order AMORC specifically, whereas a complete survey of the modern
Rosicrucian milieu in Norway seems to be still lacking. Consequently, this con-
tribution is mainly based on written and oral primary sources kindly provided
by insiders.
My point of departure is in accordance with Massimo Introvigne (2006),
who treats Rosicrucian orders in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as
autonomous organisations, brought into existence following the occult and
spiritual revival in the late nineteenth century. None of these orders can lay
claim to a continuous existence since the early seventeenth century (Intro
vigne 2006: 1018), which we may call the Rosicrucian period in the most
restricted sense. Thus, the Rosicrucian landscape can be portrayed as having
two distinct manifestations: Rosicrucianism in the historical (narrow) and the
Rosicrucian tradition in the modern (broad) sense. It is primarily the latter
that will be the focus of this chapter.
A natural starting point and main topic of this account is the Antiquus
Mysticusque Ordo Rosae Crucis, or Rosicrucian Order AMORC, founded in 1915
by Harvey Spencer Lewis. AMORC is currently the largest modern Rosicrucian
order in the world (Melton 1986: 70 and 1986: 72), a fact which is probably
reflected in the Norwegian context: Approximately 500 of the 1,200 Scandinavian
AMORC members are Norwegian. AMORC’s history and situation in Norway
will be presented chronologically, followed by the organisational implications
of the case and legal action against the order’s third Imperator, Gary L. Stewart,
with the emergence of a new Rosicrucian body in Norway: Den Norske Orden
av Rosen og Korset (NORK, i.e., The Norwegian Order of the Rose and Cross),
closely affiliated with Stewart’s Ancient Rosae Crucis (ARC). The presentation

454 Løken
will conclude with a brief exposition of a few minor modern Rosicrucian

orders which have relatively recently announced their presence in Norway (in
the sense that they have members or charters for operation in Norway). Due to
their short history as part of the Norwegian religious landscape, their modest
size, and the dearth of primary sources, these latter will be treated somewhat
superficially. It should also be noted that there may be smaller Rosicrucian
orders present in Norway which are not mentioned here.
Many modern Rosicrucian orders in Norway seem to treat their Rosicrucian
heritage as being linked to a primordial wisdom tradition, the Rosicrucian
manifestos in the early seventeenth century being only one of many manifes-
tations of a purported ageless wisdom. Consequently, the emic understanding
of the Rosicrucian tradition can be perceived as a version of the topos of the
philosophia perennis.
A tentative definition of modern Rosicrucian orders, used to demarcate the
currents presented in this article, can be stated as follows: An esoteric and ini-
tiatory order drawing primarily (and explicitly) upon Rosicrucianism in the
narrow, historical sense as part of its self-designation and of its presentation of
its historical or traditional background (and often, but not necessarily, suggest-
ing that this movement was only one of many manifestations of a primordial
wisdom tradition).
This definition excludes from the present survey orders belonging primarily
to other Western esoteric traditions, which use self-designations related to the
rose and the cross. Examples of such orders will be mentioned at the end of
this chapter.
The Rosicrucian Order AMORC
It is difficult to say when the first Norwegian members joined the Rosicrucian
Order AMORC. The present Grand Lodge in Scandinavia has no record of this,
there being no administration in Scandinavia before 1920. Due to the early
establishment of a Grand Lodge in Scandinavia, it is, nevertheless, safe to
acknowledge the Scandinavian Grand Lodge’s assumption that the first Norwe
gian member must have been registered quite early in AMORC’s history. It is
quite probable that there were Norwegian members who subscribed to study
materials directly from the American mother organisation.
The first Grand Lodge in the Nordic countries was established in early
September 1920 in Denmark, when Carli Andersen brought home a charter
from the USA. It is impossible to state the number of Norwegian members
affected by this change in administration, but the present Grand Lodge believes
that there were probably not very many members in Scandinavia at this
point in time. A historical record of the Oslo Pronaos states that there were
approximately thirty-five members in Norway in the early 1960s. This number
may or may not include members who did not change membership from the
American to the Scandinavian jurisdiction.
Andersen did not wish to accept the post as Grand Master of the new Grand
Lodge, and passed this privilege on to Svend Turning. From 1933 two Grand
Lodges co-existed in Scandinavia, one in Sweden, the other in Denmark. The
latter had the responsibility for those Norwegian members who wished to
change their membership from the American to the Scandinavian jurisdiction.
Both of these Grand Lodges were quite small and with limited constituencies,
causing them to unite in 1976, forming the Nordic Grand Lodge which embraced
members and local units in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland.
The first Grand Master was Irving Söderlund, who stayed in office from 1977
until 1994, when the Norwegian Live Söderlund was inaugurated. The Grand
Lodge’s headquarters were in Gothenburg until 1982, when they bought the
country estate Rösan situated in Onsala, south of the city. In 2003, a new tem-
ple was erected on the premises, Ljusets Tempel (The Temple of Light), in
which initiations, lectures and other ceremonies are performed.
In the late 1970s, the Nordic Grand Lodge took on the responsibility of initi-
ating the translation of AMORC’s study materials into Finnish. The ultimate
aim of this process was to pave the way for an independent Grand Lodge in
Finland. In 1999, an independent administration was established in Finland,
and the Nordic Grand Lodge was consequently renamed The Scandinavian
Grand Lodge.
Most AMORC members in Norway are correspondence members, implying
that they carry out their studies and exercises in the privacy of their own “sanc-
tuaries” (Sanctum), i.e., at home, but there are also local units in various parts
of the country. These local units have different designations according to size
(i.e., the number of active members), and the size of the unit has implications
for the level of activity that the unit is obliged to undertake, and also for the
type of rituals and other activities that they may perform without a visit from
representatives of the Grand Lodge.
Rituals which are performed on a regular basis include a meditation for
peace and a ceremony of remembering the tradition. The meditation may also
be performed with non-members present. There are two different versions of
this ritual. The international version is performed once a year, on the third
Sunday of June. The Scandinavian Grand Lodge has created its own peace
meditation to be used at meetings. Oslo Pronaos kindly admitted me at one of
these ceremonies. The participants were seated in a circle. The only objects
456 Løken
present were roses and candles, and soft music was playing. The general idea is
that in order to bring peace to the world one must start with being at peace
with oneself.
The smallest unit within the movement needs to comprise a minimum of
seven active members, and is called an atrium group. In June 2009, Norway had
atrium groups in Bergen, Fredrikstad, and Hamar. The second smallest unit is
the Pronaos, which needs to be sustained by at least twenty-two active mem-
bers. At the time of writing there are Pronaoi in Oslo, Trondheim, Stavanger,
and Kristiansand. Norway has presently no Chapters (for which a minimum of
forty-four active members is required) or Lodges (with a minimum of seventy-
two active members) at the moment.
The Norwegian Pronaoi and Atrium Groups hold at least one meeting per
month. The structure of these meetings includes a ritual, which has been cre-
ated specifically to meet the needs and capacities of the smaller units, a
monthly lecture dispatched from the Grand Lodge, followed by discussion and
social activities. In addition, they hold open meetings with lectures, peace
meditations, picture shows, and other activities, depending on the size and
capacity of the unit.
In 1961 the Grand Lodge in Denmark, headed by Grand Master Arthur
Sundstrup, addressed an enquiry to members in Norway concerning the estab-
lishment of Pronaoi in Oslo and Bergen. The historical records of the Pronaos
in Oslo intimately link this development with the Norwegian writer and vision-
ary Marcello Haugen (1878–1967). The earliest recorded AMORC member in the
Oslo Pronaos membership rolls received a letter from Haugen in 1948, recom-
mending him to join the Rosicrucian Order AMORC. This member claimed that
Haugen a few years later approached him asking him to found a branch of
the order in Norway. The Oslo Pronaos was established in 1961, changing its
name in 1968 to Marcello Haugen Pronaos, perhaps as a wish to pay tribute to
the recently deceased poet. The same year saw the distribution of the first
Norwegian AMORC bulletin: Rosenkorset i Norge (The Rose Cross in Norway).
This periodical appeared until 1977, when the Nordic Grand Lodge chose to
amalgamate the different Nordic publications into Rosenkorset (The Rose
Cross), a trilingual official quarterly publication which was published by the
Nordic Grand Lodge until the latter ceased to exist in 1999. The publication was
then taken over by the newly established Scandinavian Grand Lodge.
Rosenkorset ceased being an official publication in November 2007, and it is
no longer possible for non-members to subscribe to AMORC’s periodical. The
Grand Lodge wished to turn Rosenkorset into a journal exclusively for mem-
bers of the order. The Grand Lodge has stated that articles of general interest
will be published on the Order’s official website. So far, only about a dozen
articles have been published. This may be an indication of a more protectionist
approach toward the outside world. Rosenkorset featured pictures and names
of members, whereas AMORC now states that each member must decide for
him-/herself whether they find their membership to be of a confidential nature
or not.
In 1971 Marcello Haugen Pronaos was upgraded to Marcello Haugen Chapter,
followed by a transitional ceremony in April the following year. Beginning in
1977, the Chapter also conducted initiations, which today are only available at
the temple on the Grand Lodge’s premises. Following a suggestion from the
unit’s Master, the unit in Oslo changed its name to Oslo Chapter in 1980. It was
downgraded to Pronaos in 1997, subsequently upgraded to Chapter in 1999,
and then downgraded to Pronaos again in 2002. Oslo Pronaos had approxi-
mately sixty registered members in 2006, with approximately twenty members
regularly attending convocations and other activities.
The Nidaros Pronaos in Trondheim was founded in 1978. The unit was
upgraded to Chapter in 1979, and subsequently downgraded to Pronaos in 1993.
The unit holds monthly meetings for members, except in July. The Chapter
used to perform initiations, until this right was withdrawn.
The Mjøsa Pronaos in Hamar was instituted in 1979, changing status in 1982
to Chapter, subsequently downgraded to Pronaos in 1994, and upgraded to
Chapter around the turn of the millennium. In later years the unit in Hamar
has downgraded twice, to Pronaos in 2001, and to Atrium Group in 2005. During
the 1980s and early 1990s the Mjøsa Chapter used to hold initiations in the
Temple degrees. At the time of writing there are twenty-six members of Mjøsa
Atrium Group, with an attendance rate of on the average thirteen people at
each meeting.
In the early 1990s the privilege of performing initiations in non-permanent
temples was withdrawn. Normally, AMORC initiations are only supposed to be
performed in permanent temples. This is due to a belief in the particular vibra-
tions created by the order’s ritual work. The Nordic Grand Lodge was exempt
from this rule from 1976 to May 1992, due to a lack of permanent temples.
When the first permanent temple was consecrated, situated close to Rösan, the
local units in Oslo, Trondheim, and Hamar continued to perform initiations in
a transitional period until 1994.
The original Bergen Pronaos was only operative for a short period of time,
but was re-instituted in 1982, subsequently changing its name and status in
2003 to Bjørgvin Atrium Group. The Bergen Pronaos was the location in Norway
where the Gary L. Stewart issue had the strongest impact on the community
(cf. infra).
The Borg Atrium Group in Fredrikstad was founded in the mid-1990s by
ten local members. Today, it has between fifteen and twenty members, with a
turnout rate of approximately ten. In addition to the regular monthly member
458 Løken
meetings, they hold two open meetings per year. At these meetings they hold
lectures followed by a Question and Answers session and the standard-
ised peace meditation. The turnout has been approximately fifty–seventy at
open meetings.
There are also Pronaoi in Kristiansand in the south of Norway, and in
Stavanger in the south-west. There also used to be an atrium group in the
south-eastern village of Åsgårdstrand, but it was dismantled in 2006.
This account shows that there has been an overall decline in organised
AMORC activities in Norway over the past years. Whether this decline is
reflected in a decreasing number of members recruited to the order is difficult
to ascertain, as membership rolls are not disclosed to the public. There has,
however, been a decline from approximately 2,000 Nordic members in 1982 to
about 1,200 today. As a note of caution, it should be mentioned that when the
Grand Lodge jurisdiction no longer comprised Finland and Iceland it automat-
ically lost members to the Finnish administration.
Active members in local units complain about difficulties in recruiting
volunteers for honorary offices. This may reflect a more general decline in
voluntarism in Norwegian communities, affecting all types of local activities
including the religious. The Norwegian sociologist of religions, Pål Repstad
(2000), has studied membership, church attendance, and participation in vari-
ous activities in the Norwegian established church. His findings show a large
discrepancy between high membership figures, and little participation in
regular organised activities (Repstad 2000: 28). Even though an esoteric order
demands a voluntary application for membership, the privatisation of religion
and spirituality may have had negative effects also on the extent of regular
organised activities in such assemblies.
Zygmunt Bauman has criticised the postmodern tendency of indifference
and lack of fellowship and solidarity (Furseth & Repstad 2003: 88). The phe-
nomenon characterised by the neologism glocalisation has been applauded as
the idea of thinking globally and acting locally, for the benefit of both. However,
there is a danger of downplaying the importance of the local communities.
The double focus on individualism and global threats to humanity, such as cli-
mate change, may cause the local environment to fall between two stools. It
may be argued that this is a negative side effect of glocalisation, implying a
merger of the local and the global perspectives, at the local perspective’s
expense.
Rosicrucian and other esoteric orders in Norway may also suffer from what
Johannes Aagaard (1997) has identified as particular Scandinavian social struc-
tures ‘which tend to reward conformity and to downplay dissidence and
nonconformity’ (1997: 175). Norwegian society has been marked by a relatively
strong idea of openness and egalitarianism, which may cause orders with
secret doctrines and ceremonies to be viewed as a bit elitist, and therefore with
some distrust. Aagaard, however, identifies AMORC as an upholder of a ‘subtler
form of occultism’ leading a rather quiet life (1997: 180). This may be a reason
for AMORC’s relatively high membership figures in Norway.
Schisms and Problems
Introvigne (2003) mentions that AMORC has experienced a remarkable suc-

cess, but also ‘a number of schisms and problems in more recent years’
(2003: 13). As mentioned above, of the Norwegian local units, Bergen Pronaos
was most acutely afflicted with such schisms and problems.
When AMORC’s second Imperator Ralph Maxwell Lewis died in 1987, the 34
year old Gary L. Stewart was inaugurated as Imperator, but he was removed
from his post in 1990, following a conflict with the order. Little is known about
his short period in office. He is seldom mentioned in AMORC contexts, and in
official publications his name and his three years in office are all but deleted
from AMORC’s history. In 2007, Christian Rebisse published Rosicrucian History
and Mysteries, a long account of AMORC’s traditional and institutional history.
In this book, the order’s third Imperator is only mentioned in passing:
Upon the death of Ralph Maxwell Lewis, Gary Stewart was elected to the
position of Imperator on 23rd January 1987. He soon however, demon-
strated that he was not up to the task of leading the Order, and after a
series of grave errors, he was dismissed from his office and duties by all
the Grand Masters on 12th April 1990 (2007: 327).
The nature of this conflict is uncertain, but some oral primary sources have
suggested that he might have been personally unsuited for the position. When
asked about the removal of Gary L. Stewart, Live Söderlund replied that he no
longer had the order’s trust and confidence. In a letter to the Scandinavian
members from Irving Söderlund, who was Grand Master of the Scandinavian
jurisdiction at the time of the trial, Stewart is described as not meeting the
demands of his post. Stewart was also sued on issues of embezzlement in the
superior court of the state of California, but the case was dismissed (with prej-
udice) in 1993.
His removal, and replacement by Christian Bernard, formerly Grand Master
of the French jurisdiction, led to a forming of factions both within and without
the order. Stewart insisted that Lewis had chosen, avowed, and admitted him
460 Løken
officially into the office of Imperator in accordance with the order’s tradition.
In his eyes this implied a pledge and an obligation for life, no matter the name
of the organisation involved. In many initiatory orders there is a strong belief
in lineage, comparable to the ecclesiastical lineage in many churches. In 1991
he merged his office with a newly founded Rosicrucian order, called Ancient
Rosae Crucis (ARC), which keeps to the Lewises’ original monographs and
material, whereas AMORC is constantly updating and revising their study
material. He also merged his lineage with the British Martinist Order (BMO)
and a chivalric order, called Ordo Militia Crucifera Evangelica (OMCE), thereby
implying that these orders already existed, but received new lineages and char-
ters for operation through Gary L. Stewart. In 1996, Stewart left the ARC with
three of its founders, and instituted a new Rosicrucian order, the Confraternity
of the Rose Cross (CR+C), which has close relations with BMO and OMCE.
In 1992, a conflict of interest arose within the Bergen Pronaos, and between
members of this unit and the Nordic Grand Lodge. A part of the problem was
the relation between the local choice and understanding of lecture topics, and
the Rosicrucian tradition as interpreted by AMORC centrally. This conflict ulti-
mately resulted in the Grand Master expelling the appointed leader of the unit
from the order. One year later, five AMORC members and ex-members in
Bergen contacted Gary L. Stewart in order to be informed of the proceedings
in the case and lawsuit against him. They were also interested in connecting
with Stewart’s recently formed Rosicrucian branch, ARC. The ideological rea-
son for this was a purist reaction against AMORC’s projects of modernising the
study material and monographs, feeling that these measures were signs of a
degeneration of the tradition, and of displaying too much openness toward
New Age ideas. They wished to continue working with the old material as pre-
sented by the Lewises.
Active from 1993, the group in Bergen expanded, and started a Commanderie
(i.e., Lodge) of OMCE, joined BMO, and instituted an independent Norwegian
branch of ARC: Den Norske Orden av Rosen og Korset (The Norwegian Order of
the Rose and Cross, NORK). Something similar also happened in Ghana where
an independent Ghanian Order of the Rose Cross was established. Membership
and activities have also spread to Oslo, and there may be correspondence
members in other parts of the country.
Borderline Organisations
Beyond the AMORC and NORK there are other orders pertaining to the
Rosicrucian tradition. Such orders may or may not have organised groups of
members in Norway. Many of these are at present small-scale operations, and

may or may not be subject to fluctuations within the Norwegian cultic milieu.
The Builders of the Adytum (BOTA) was founded by Paul Foster Case (1884–
1954), who was affiliated with a later version of the Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dawn. This order has correspondence course members in Norway, but
no further registered activity.
In addition there are orders which explicitly belong to other traditions, but
which use the symbols of the rose and cross in their designations, and as such
their activities fall outside the scope of this chapter. Examples of such orders
active in Norway are Ordre Reaux Croix (ORC) and Sodalitas Rosae Crucis &
Sodalitas Solis Alati (SRC+SSA).
ORC is a Martinist order, instituted in 2002 and directed from Norway. It
comprises the three separate orders that take as their points of departure
Martinez de Pasqually’s work: Elus Cohens, Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin
(1743–1803): Voie Cardiaque, and a reformed and non-masonic version of Jean
Baptiste Willermoz’ Chevaliers Bienfaisants de la Cité Sainte (CBCS).
SRC+SSA was founded in 2002. It is directed from Sweden, has membership
activities in Norway, and is a Golden Dawn-type initiatory order comprising
Sodalitas Rosae Crucis (SRC) as an outer and Sodalitas Solis Alati (SSA) as an
inner order. SRC is organised around the traditional Golden Dawn degree sys-
tem, and what is referred to as a Rosicrucian church, called Ecclesia Theurgia
Apostolica Rosae Crucis (ETARC). SSA comprises, amongst others, the fol-
lowing Rosicrucian orders: Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose Croix, Asiatic
Brethren, Rose Croix d’Orient, and Deus est Lux Universalis (DELU) (see also
the chapter on Occultism in Norway in the present volume).
References
Aagaard, Johannes, “Denmark and Scandinavia vis-à-vis New Religious Movements”, in:
Helle Meldgaard and Johannes Aagard (eds.), New Religious Movements in Europe,
Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1997, 175–183.
Bernard, Christian, Rosicrucian Questions and Answers, USA: Supreme Grand Lodge of
AMORC, 2001.
Furseth, Inger and Pål Repstad, Innføring i religionssosiologi, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget,
2003.
Gilhus, Ingvild Sælid and Lisbeth Mikaelsson, Kulturens refortrylling: Nyreligiøsitet i
moderne samfunn, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1998.
462 Løken
Introvigne, Massimo, “Lectorium Rosicrucianum: A Dutch Movement Becomes Inter

national”, in: Mikael Rothstein and Reender Kranenborg (eds.), New Religions in a
Postmodern World, Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2003, 11–22.
——— . “Rosicrucianism III: 19th-20th century”, in: Wouter J. Hanegraaff, et al. (eds.),
Løken, Kjersti, Ad Rosam per Crucem – En religionshistorisk studie av Rosenkors-Ordenen
AMORC. MA thesis, University of Oslo, 2006.
Melton, J. Gordon (ed.), Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America, New York & London:
Garland Publishing, 1986.
Rebisse, Christian, Rosicrucian History and Mysteries, Crowborough: The Rosicrucian
Collection, 2007.
Repstad, Pål, Religiøst liv i det moderne Norge. Et sosiologisk kart, Kristiansand S.:
Høyskoleforlaget, 2000.
Winje, Geir, Fra bønn til magi. Nye religioner og menneskesyn, Kristiansand S.: Høyskole
forlaget, 1999.
Satanism in Denmark 463
Chapter 58 Satanism in Denmark
Satanism in Denmark
The phenomenon of Satanism in Denmark should be understood in relation

to the basic dichotomy between a ubiquitous Christian mythology of subver-
sive evil and spiritual warfare on one hand and the discourse and practices
of self-designated Satanists on the other. For this reason, when discussing
contemporary Satanism it should be made clear from the outset whether one
is referring to Christian voices and their claims about others, voices within the
“satanic milieu” talking about themselves, or reproductions and appropria-
tions of these voices by the media and popular culture (Petersen 2009, 2012).
All influence, relate to, and gradually shade into each other; nevertheless, they
should be kept analytically separate. In addition, these types should be related
to global trends in order to fully appreciate the impact on Danish cases.
Christian and Reactive Paradigmatically Conform Satanism
Up until the mid-1990s, Christian understandings of Satanism as inverted

Christianity and immorality dominated the discourse on Satanism in the
media and in popular culture (Dyrendal & Lap 2002). Although neither the
Satanic Ritual Abuse scare of the United States and the United Kingdom nor
the violent church burnings and murders in Norway had any equivalents in
Denmark, they were nevertheless reported and reproduced as models of inter-
pretation in small-scale scares over the “occult” and church desecrations in
the 1980s and 1990s. It is important to stress, though, that the media gener-
ally exercised a critical stance towards religious interpretations; thus Christian
counter-cult groups, such as Dialogcenteret (Dialogue Centre International),
primarily influenced the media and public education by framing Satanism as
a secular psychological and social problem of youth deviance (Dyrendal & Lap
2002: 209, 219, 222).
In this sense, Satanism is conflated with the “occult” and “crime” by coupling
it to graveyard and church desecrations and constructing a slippery slope lead-
ing from adolescent interest in the occult over participation in “above-ground”
groups to a full-time criminal career (e.g., Frederiksen 1999). This interpreta-
tion was not entirely hegemonic, as we shall see below, but it has continued

464 Aagaard Petersen
into the present as one available frame in which to conceptualise new and old
events. School libraries are still full of Christian books on “the occult”, and the
media are still quick to sensationalise even the most speculative link to
Satanism.
Within the broader satanic milieu, Black Metal groups and adolescent seek-
ers have appropriated this Christian model, but with a twist: They have allied
themselves with the “Prince of Darkness” and his cohorts in the battle against
Christianity. In most cases, though, this identification should be considered a
rebellious identity-construction or an ironic play with society’s taboos through
the model of transgression provided by Norwegian Black Metal’s worship of
“Darkness”, rather than a coherent discourse of beliefs, practices, and organisa-
tion (Mørk 2009). Thus this first type of self-styled Satanism, which could be
termed Reactive paradigmatically conform Satanism, or reactive Satanism for
short, covers anti-Christian Devil-worshipers who react to Christianity by con-
forming to the model of evil provided there and reproduced in popular culture
(Petersen 2009: 6–7; Schmidt 2003: 11).
A parallel could be drawn to the historical case of shoemaker Christen
Pedersøn (Holst 1990: 267–273), who sold his soul to the Devil in September
1634. He did this by signing a Faustian contract to the effect that he was secured
economically for life, even quoting passages from the literary antecedent ver-
batim (the seminal Historia von D. Johann Fausten, published by Johann Spies
in 1587, was translated into Danish in 1588). After a complex secular and cleri-
cal juridical process, in which he repented, he was finally sentenced to death in
1635, but was released before the verdict could be effectuated. When the self-
designation is serious and meaningful, it is necessary to include individuals
and informal groups that participate in ostensive performance of myth to get a
full picture of the satanic milieu; nevertheless they belong on the periphery
and should be considered in a wider cultural rather than a specific satanic con-
text (in contrast to the “counter-theologies” proposed by Sørensen 2006).
Certain figures within the Black Metal scene straddle the fence between
Christian myth, adolescent transgression, and the satanic milieu in a narrower
sense; the Danish singer King Diamond can serve as one example. He is a long-
time member of the American Church of Satan and has participated in media
events to promote this understanding of Satanism. At the same time, his
bloody and aggressively anti-Christian stage shows can be compared to similar
acts within the Heavy Metal scene. Even though these shows contribute to and
apparently substantiate the Christian understanding of Satanism, at least on a
surface level, they are as ironic as, e.g., Alice Cooper’s (a born-again Christian),
and should be understood as reflections on morality and the hypocrisy of
Christianity and society, not as Satanism per se. We should not conflate artistic
expression and religious discourse, although one of course influences the

other.
Serving as a further complication of the boundaries between artistic appro-
priation and serious social antagonism is the aftermath of the (in)famous
Anholt affair of 1973, an old story involving alleged satanic activity in Denmark.
In May 1973, “ritual objects” were uncovered from various sites on the small
island, subsequently generating speculation about a satanic cult in the yellow
press (Alver 1974). In late 2013, numerous Danish media revisited this case fol-
lowing two documentary filmmakers and their half-serious journey to uncover
the cult on the island, released on DVD in the same year (Bech & Ussing 2013).
Not surprisingly they found nothing, but in the process they proposed some
plausible connections between the original Anholt affair and the discovery of
some 400 “Satan coins” hidden in churches and museums in Denmark as well
as “satanically” themed letters both found in odd places and delivered to vari-
ous people from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s (some of which are found now,
after the case has become widely known).
In a six-part serial running in October 2013, the newspaper Politiken substan-
tiated these connections, concluding that a quiet middle-class rebel named
Knud Langkow (1931–2005) was to blame (Schmidt & Stockmann 2013).
Langkow apparently led a double life, planting the original objects in the early
1970s, minting the first batch of coins and writing all of the letters under the
nom de plume Alice Mandragora, the witch queen of the satanic coven. What
his intentions were is impossible to verify as he passed away in 2005. Neverthe
less, it is likely from the remaining evidence that the entire forty-year elaborate
prank is something between a bizarre promotional campaign for Langkow’s
amateur short stories and novellas and a giant counter-cultural subversive
Gesamtkunstwerk using stereotypes in order to destabilise the religious and
political establishment. What it is not is satanic. Indeed, his “Satanism” is hard
to take seriously, cobbled together from exotic objects, Christian stereotypes,
and tongue-in-cheek demonology, and it is obvious that while Langkow’s proj-
ect certainly is anti-establishment and even anti-Christian, it is not satanic in
the sense discussed in the following.
Though there were forerunners with limited impact (Dyrendal & Lap 2002:
202, 207, see below), it was not until the late 1990s that self-designated groups
and individuals within the satanic milieu gained a public foothold by actively
promoting an understanding of Satanism that was clearly independent of
Christianity. They correctly pointed out that one should discern between mod-
ern Satanism as endorsed by established organisations and elaborated upon
in available texts on the one hand, and the Christian antics, whether mythic
or ostensively inverted, of Dialogcenteret and Black Metal enthusiasts on the
other. It seems that this counter-discourse has gained some weight today, as
Satanists participate in media events and interviews, and teachers and pupils
are likely to use help for their assignments from satanic websites and mes-
sage boards. Thus the satanic milieu is becoming more visible by condensing
around discernible counter-hegemonic outlets: texts, websites, and spokesper-
sons. But this has a longer pedigree – let us now turn to the history, beliefs, and
practices of these self-designated Satanists in Denmark.
Religious Satanism: Rationalist and Esoteric
As mentioned above, the satanic milieu in Denmark is closely tied to the wider
cultic milieu of the West and thus shares many traits of modern “occulture”: it
is detraditionalised, eclectic, syncretistic, and focuses on individual seekership
(Petersen 2009). It should therefore be understood through the lens of “self-
religion” or “life-spirituality” as proposed by Paul Heelas (e.g., Heelas 2002),
although the specific understandings of self and life vary widely within mod-
ern Satanism and should not be equated with New Age concepts of “Higher
Self” and the like. In the satanic milieu, two ideal types of contemporary reli-
gious Satanism can be discerned: Rationalist and esoteric Satanism (Petersen
2009, 2012). Rationalist Satanism is atheistic, materialistic, and epicurean, and
often presents itself as a philosophy, while esoteric Satanism can be theistic,
pantheistic, and even atheistic, but has an idealistic streak and presents itself
through mystical and initiatory discourse. In both, Satan is understood as a
symbol, model, principle, or force not to be worshipped but to be emulated
and understood. Consequently, Satanism is rather the practice of satanists as a
self-religious and non-conformist adversarial project than the belief in a
Christian figure. The reactive Satanism described above can be considered a
cultural antithesis to the two types, the sounding board for the construction of
a satanic identity in popular culture, and an ever-present archive of mythical
Christian resources from which to select and synthesise (Petersen 2012, 2013).
The history of Danish Satanism can be safely traced back to Carl William
Hansen or Ben Kadosh (1872–1936), who espoused a semi-Gnostic Luciferian
interpretation of Satan that properly belongs in the category of esoteric
Satanism. He was inspired by the French occultism prevalent in the cultic
milieu of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and was a member of
a wide variety of magical orders; thus his sources of inspiration could reason-
ably be traced to Carl von Kohl and possibly Éliphas Lévi, H.P. Blavatsky, and
Stanislaw Przybyszewski, as well as the mythic “Palladists” of Léo Taxil, a
French journalist responsible for an influential satanic conspiracy hoax in the
1890s (Faxneld 2006: 160–175, 2011; Gregorius 2006: 29). In the short pamphlet
Den ny morgens gry: Lucifer-Hiram, Verdensbygmesterens genkomst (The Dawn
of the New Morning: Lucifer-Hiram, the Return of the Master Mason of the
World), published in 1906, Ben Kadosh outlines a positive reading of Satan and
Lucifer as both a personified and diffuse “Dark Ideal” combining opposites of
intelligible and unknown, light and dark, and Lucifer and Demiurge (Ben
Kadosh 1906/2006: 30–31). He also advocates the establishment of an esoteric
study circle modelled upon the “old cult” of this complex creative force (Ben
Kadosh 1906/2006: 17–18), that is, from an entirely non-Christian perspective.
He continues to trace complex connections between Satan, Lucifer, Hiram of
the Freemasons, Pan in British Romantic poetry, and other mythological fig-
ures, and connects all of these in an elaborate system of mediation and
initiation that can be approached through study and the manipulation of keys
and sigils.
Apparently, Ben Kadosh had some success in establishing a circle of Sata
nists, as a small group of at least four people converged from around 1900 (Ben
Kadosh 1906/2006: 7–8). Nevertheless, his influence in Denmark has been vir-
tually non-existent until the translation of the pamphlet into English in 1993
(by Bjarne Salling Pedersen, published in the esoteric journal The Fenris Wolf,
edited by Swedish occult entrepreneur Carl Abrahamsson) and the republica-
tion in Danish by Bjarne Salling Pedersen and Peder Byberg Madsen in 2006.
In addition, one should understand the Satanism of Ben Kadosh in the wider
context of magical speculation – he was active in the Martinist Order, OTO, and
several masonic lodges, and seems to have moved towards a more Christian
perspective later in life (Faxneld 2006: 171; 2011). What is clear, though, is that
several ideological successors to the views of this enigmatic man can be found;
I will briefly describe three contemporary examples of esoteric Satanism in
Denmark.
First, the speculations of Ben Kadosh are directly promoted and elaborated
upon by the Neo-Luciferian Church of Bjarne Salling Pedersen (b. 1970) and
Isabel Munksgaard Berg (b. 1975), formally established in the winter of 2004 or
early 2005, but building upon loose networks of initiates dating back to the
1970s and the consecration of Pedersen and Berg in 2001 by Michael Bertiaux
(Gregorius 2006: 26–29, Faxneld 2011, and the Church’s website). The Church is
therefore connected to a wide variety of magical orders, notably the Ecclesia
Gnostica Spiritualis, and considers itself the reanimation of the Naasseniske
Gnostiske Synode (Naassene Gnostic Synod) of Ben Kadosh. The Satanism of
the Church is formalised in the hierarchy and the practical work of Neo-
Luciferian Masses, sex magic, and sigils; they describe Lucifer as a ‘force’ and
Neo-Luciferianism as ‘the science and worship’ of this force as ‘a practical and
result-oriented occult path for those with the will and talent of success’
(Gregorius 2006: 28). Significantly, they also distance themselves actively from
both the rationalist Satanism of Anton LaVey and Black Metal. Thus they
belong to the same esoteric traditions as Ben Kadosh, and have a rather down-
played relation to the term Satanism as a self-designation; nevertheless they
should be included here as representatives of an esoteric, “Luciferian”
interpretation.
The same can be said of another possible “successor”, Erwin Neutzsky-Wulff
(b. 1949), who in numerous interviews and books from the mid-1980s onwards
describes Satanism as both a rhetorical position given by Christians to all free-
thinkers and non-Christians, and as a “humanism” or “mystery cult” with a long
tradition of opposition to Christianity, but not in any genealogical relationship
with Christianity as such. “Serious” Satanism, in contrast to Devil worship and
“pop Satanism”, should be understood as a part of “qualified Occultism”, an
“experimental and practical” worship of those parts of human nature that
Christianity has neglected and repressed. Thus Satanism is generally concep-
tualised along the same lines as wider esoteric discourse and practice, namely
as a transcendence from mechanistic materialism to a subjective but equally
material reality; a new culture for a post-Christian world focused on redressing
the balance of the body, the emotions and the instincts (Neutzsky-Wulff 1980,
1985, 1986a; Dyrendal & Lap 2002: 206–208; Thejls 2010). In other instances,
Satanism is in fact portrayed as the progressive culture of the world today:
Democracy, secular humanism, and feminism, to name some examples, essen-
tially equating modernity and the satanic (e.g., Neutzsky-Wulff 1986b).
In some widely commented articles written in the mid-1980s, Neutzsky-
Wulff stated that serious Satanism had existed since the 1920s in Denmark and
had around 200 active participants, mostly from the higher strata of Danish
society. He also mentioned an occult “university” that scouted the popular
fringe for candidates and provided systematic training (Kjærgaard 1986;
Ritterband 1986); it is not known whether he here referred to successors of Ben
Kadosh or to an unknown organisation, or bolstered his claims by constructing
an imaginary tradition, but it is obvious that Neutzsky-Wulff relates modern
Satanism to the cultic milieu of the 1920s and 1930s and the wider “elitist coun-
ter-culture” of the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and older traditions. He has
since then functioned as an ideological focal point for small groups working
with distinct interpretations of esotericism distant from Satanism per se, and
seems to have distanced himself from the designation.
A final example of esoteric Satanism is the Temple of Lucifer of Petra Johans
son, which gained a brief media presence in 2000 mainly because of the
converted barn loft that worked as temple building. The Temple seems to have
disbanded in the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century. When
perusing extant interviews (Pedersen 2003: 69–77; Sørensen 2004) and their
now defunct website, one is struck by the wide variety of sources acknowl-
edged and the loose structure of the congregation, and we should probably
understand the Temple of Lucifer as an audience cult related to the New Age
movement and modern Witchcraft, rather than to the narrower esoteric tradi-
tions outlined so far. Lucifer/Satan is a force related to nature as well as a
symbol of humanity and is worshipped in rituals reminiscent of the eclectic
ceremonial magic found in the detraditionalised templates of the cultic milieu.
Early exponents of rationalist Satanism are similarly connected loosely to
Witchcraft and “occultism” and later clearly indebted to the thoughts and prac-
tices of Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan. In this sense, rationalist Satanism
has undergone the same fracture from the cultic milieu in Denmark as in the
United States, from broad associations with witches and ceremonial magic in
the 1970s to atheistic philosophy today. An example of the former is the earliest
known proponent of rationalist Satanism in Denmark, Gittan Jäderberg, who
gained a brief media exposure in 1973–1974 as a critical commentator on the
Anholt case discussed above. In partial contrast to the media depiction of a
“satanic cult”, she describes Satanism as a mixture of LaVeyan ideas and
Witchcraft, a world view or philosophy that uses the symbol of Satan to express
a carnal egoism with added rituals purportedly surviving from primeval times
(Berg 1973; Snitkjær 1973). In several articles and interviews, Jäderberg speaks
of “satanic covens” and claims to be corresponding with Anton LaVey to
organise the 500–700 Danish Satanists into a local Church of Satan. Nothing
much came of it, probably because of her untimely death from cancer in 1975
(Dyrendal & Lap 2002: 201–202).
From the late 1990s onwards, following the renewed interest in Satanism
that was a result of Norwegian church burnings and Danish cases of vandal-
ism, new and more successful spokespersons have arrived on the public scene
– on the Internet and in the media. They present interpretations of Satanism
that have roots in the writings of Anton LaVey and the “Dark Doctrines” of Tani
Jantsang and Phil Marsh (Petersen 2005: 438–439), although the relationship
with both has been eclectic, and a significant reinterpretation has taken place.
All should be considered variations of rationalist Satanism in Denmark.
The formation of the Prometheus Grotto (briefly named CoS DK) in 1997
marked the formalisation of individual aspirations of a handful of notable
Danish Satanists, namely Max Schmeling, who promoted LaVeyan Satanism in
several media interviews as an affiliated individual of the Church of Satan, Hr.
Vad, active on the Internet in newsgroups and with a popular website, and
Amina Lap, the creator of the online Satanic Media Watch and News Exchange,
among others (Lap & Wolf 2003). The immediate motive for creating an official
organisation was the publication of a newsletter, Satanisk Bulletin (The Satanic
Bulletin), which began in 1998; all were members of the Church of Satan at the
time and articulated an atheistic humanism in the tradition of LaVey, even if
the specifics varied from a mystical Left Hand Path to a more materialistic phi-
losophy. Although initially independent, they applied for official status as a
“grotto” and changed the name by requirement of the American Church, with
Hr. Vad as “grotto master”.
Major changes followed the death of LaVey in 1997 and the internal battles
within the Church of Satan in the following years – most notably the expulsion
of Hr. Vad and the Prometheus Grotto’s declaration of independence from the
Church in around 2000–2001 (Hr. Vad 2001; Odal 2001). More expulsions and
resignations followed and have contributed significantly to the anti-Church of
Satan atmosphere of much Danish Satanism today. What is most noteworthy is
that the Prometheus Grotto split in 2001 along both ideological and organisa-
tional lines. One group, continuing as the Prometheus Grotto around Hr. Vad,
focuses on the solitary nature of the Left Hand Path and associates itself with
Tani Jantsang and Phil Marsh’s Satanic Reds, an informal Internet group com-
bining left-wing politics and eclectic esoteric speculations. Satan is thus related
to non-dualistic philosophy along the lines of Advaita Vedanta, Tantric tradi-
tions, and Daoism, with concepts of Boundless Darkness and the Flame or Sat
and Tan, being and becoming, and the emanation of the latter from the former
in successive stages. Sat-Tan is thus both a concept such as dynamism and the
Dark Force of the emanated universe. The Satanist resonates with this gnosis,
a knowledge that is also an intuitive practice, and strives to become what is
already his or her inner core through a participation in the unending change of
the physical universe. As with many Internet-based groups, the present activity
of the Prometheus Grotto seems to be virtually nil.
The other group, called Satanisk Forum (The Satanic Forum), formed around
Amina Lap, Max Schmeling, and Ole Wolf, among others, in 2001, is an example
of rationalist Satanism taken almost to its logical extreme. The stated goals are
to ‘build a network benefiting individuals in Satanic Forum and the Satanic
community’ and to ‘create a Satanic “subculture”, where the Satanic identity
and culture is strengthened for present and future generations’ (see the bylaws
on the group’s website, article 2; my translation). It is thus an umbrella organi-
sation uniting all Satanists interested in clearing out misconceptions and
prejudice – rational self-interest, one could say, available for all. Although the
group seems to be in hiatus and has been so for several years, it nevertheless
still updates relevant websites and keeps the membership files intact. Today
the group has around 250 members in Scandinavia; manages the (infrequent)
publication of Satanisk Bulletin, and has an enduring presence both off-line (in
radio interviews, on television, and by helping out school pupils) and on-line
(with several websites, a message board, and a popular FAQ).
In its heyday, in the mid to late years of the first decade of the twenty-first
century, Satanisk Forum actively engaged both Christian, secular, and alterna-
tive conceptions of Satanism through many channels: by integrating Amina
Lap’s news archive mentioned above, by publishing a Danish demographical
analysis of Satanists in response to James R. Lewis’ studies (Amina 2002; cf.
Lewis 2001), by constructing an ideological history (Lap 2002; Lap & Wolf 2003),
and by advocating a specific local version of Satanism in contrast to what they
described as the Americanised values and goals of the Church of Satan (Wolf
2003; Søderlind & Dyrendal 2009). Although the organisation’s major spokes-
persons, Amina Lap and Ole Wolf, still make occasional use of the Dark
Doctrines and advocate a Satanism that unifies brain and body, the main thrust
of the organisation’s ideology could be described as materialistic and rational-
ist, since their texts refer to modern physics, logic, and materialist arguments
rather than to mystical monistic conceptions. Satan is a symbol referring to the
act of rebellion as well as to subjective states, but the organisation is aggres-
sively atheistic and secular in its rhetoric (Petersen 2005, 2013).
At present, organised Satanism in Denmark seems exhausted, with little
online or offline activity to encourage Danish Satanists apart from small-scale
personal networks. That said, of the groups and individuals surveyed here,
Satanisk Forum and the rationalist Satanism advocated by this organisation
seems to be the most prevalent interpretation of Satanism in Denmark, espe-
cially in conjunction with appeals to the writings of Anton LaVey. While there
are significant variations between young and old and the cultic milieu con-
tains varieties of subcultural, esoteric, and philosophical formulations, the
interpretations of Satanism that are most secularised seem to fit best in the
public arena. This could be a consequence of the liberal theology of the
Lutheran State Church and the consensus culture of the welfare state in
Denmark.
References
Amina, “Dansk Satanisme”, Satanisk Bulletin 7 (2002), 30–35.

Bech, Jonas and Kristian Ussing, Satankulten på Anholt, DVD 2013.
Bente Gullveig Alver, “Blæsten om Anholt”, Tradisjon 4 (1974), 1–20.
Berg, Jesper Juel, “Hun er chef for satanisterne”, Morgenposten, 29 July 1973.
Dyrendal, Asbjørn and Amina Olander Lap, “Satanism as a News Item in Norway and
Denmark: A Brief History”, SYZYGY: Journal of Alternative Religion and Culture 11
(2002), 197–233.
Faxneld, Per, Mörkrets apostlar. Satanism i äldre tid, Warszawa: Ouroboros, 2006.
——— . “The Strange Case of Ben Kadosh: A Luciferian Pamphlet from 1906 and its
Current Renaissance”, Aries 11:1 (2011), 1–22.
Frederiksen, Tom Thygesen, Hvidbog om Satanisme, Aarhus: Dialogcentrets forlag, 1999.
Gregorius, Fredrik, Satanismen i Sverige, n.p: Sitra Ahra Förlag, 2006.
Hr. Vad, “Leder”, Satanisk Bulletin 5 (2001), 3–8.
Holst, Peter (ed.), Dansk litteraturhistorie, bind 2: 1480–1620, Viborg: Gyldendal, 1990.
Kadosh, Ben, (Carl William Hansen), Den ny morgens gry: Lucifer-Hiram, Verdensbygmeste
rens genkomst, Copenhagen/Hafnia, 1906/2006.
Kjærgaard, Peter, “Satanist og folkefjende”, Jyllandsposten, 2 December 1986.
Lap, Amina Olander, “Satanismens danske rødder”, Satanisk Bulletin 8 (2002), 13–16.
Lap, Amina Olander and Wolf, “Satanismens danske rødder – Satanismen i nyere tid”,
Satanisk Bulletin 9 (2003), 11–19.
Lewis, James R., “Who serves Satan? A Demographic and Ideological Profile”, Marburg
Journal of Religion, 6:2 (June 2001). Accessed 18 February 2008, at <http://archiv.
ub.uni-marburg.de/mjr/lewis2.html>.
Mørk, Gry, “‘With my Art I am the Fist in the Face of God’: On Old-School Black Metal”,
in: Jesper Aagaard Petersen (ed.), Contemporary Religious Satanism: A Critical
Anthology, London: Ashgate, 2009, 171–198.
Neutzsky-Wulff, Erwin, Indsigtens sted, Copenhagen: Borgens Forlag, 1980.
——— . Okkultisme, Copenhagen: Borgens Forlag, 1985.
——— . Magi, Copenhagen: Borgens Forlag, 1986a.
——— . “Satanisme i pressen”, Berlingske Tidende, 22 December 1986b.
Odal, “Sidste tog til Satanville”, Satanisk Bulletin 5 (2001), 28–35.
Pedersen, Kim Møller, Hvad tror du på? Århus: CDR-forlag, 2003.
Petersen, Jesper Aagaard, “Modern Satanism: Dark Doctrines and Black Flames”, in:
James R. Lewis and Jesper Aagaard Petersen (eds.), Controversial New Religions,
Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, 423–457.
——— . “Introduction: Embracing Satan”, in: Jesper Aagaard Petersen (ed.), Contem
porary Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology, London: Ashgate, 2009, 1–24.
——— . “The Seeds of Satan: Conceptions of Magic in Contemporary Satanism”, Aries
12:1 (2012), 91–129.
——— . “From Book to Bit: Enacting Satanism Online”, in: Egil Asprem and Kennet
Granholm (eds.), Contemporary Esotericism, London: Equinox, 2013, 134–159.
Ritterband, Monica, “200 i topjobs dyrker Satan”, Ekstra Bladet, 3 December 1986.
Schmidt, Gudrun Marie and Camilla Stockmann, “Kapitel 6: Hvem var Knud Langkow?”,
Politiken, 26 October 2013.
Schmidt, Joachim, Satanismus. Mythos und Wirklichkeit, Marburg: Diagonal-Verlag, 2003

[1992].
Snitkjær, Aage, “Satan er løs i Eskildsgade”, Ekstra Bladet, 11 June 1973.
Søderlind, Didrik and Asbjørn Dyrendal, “Social Democratic Satanism? Some Examples
of Satanism in Scandinavia”, in: Jesper Aagaard Petersen (ed.), Contemporary Religious
Satanism: A Critical Anthology, London: Ashgate, 2009, 154–170.
Sørensen, Lars Munk, Satanisme, København: Gyldendal, 2006.
Sørensen, Marie Sisse, “De rare satanister”, Berlingske Tidende, 22 April 2004.
Thejls, Sara Møldrup, “Erwin Neutzsky-Wulff and the Neurological Landscape of the
Sefirot”, in: Marco Pasi, Kocku von Stuckrad and Boas Huss (eds.), Kabbalah and
Modernity: Interpretations, Transformations, Adaptations, Leiden: Brill, 2010, 301–325.
Wolf, “Kulturkulten”, Satanisk Bulletin nr. 5: 7–13, 2003.
474 Hjelm
Chapter 59 Satanism in Finland
Satanism in Finland
Titus Hjelm
Satanism entered the Finnish public consciousness in the mid-1980s. Per

haps not surprisingly, the first people who were interested in and concerned
about Satanism were Pentecostalist Christians, namely the Finnish preacher/
prophet Leo Meller. Meller’s book Rock (1986) “exposed” the “satanic” content
of contemporary rock and Heavy Metal music, very much in line with the con-
temporary discussions in the USA. Although little discussed in the mainstream
media at the time, Meller’s role set an example for later religious commenta-
tors who posed and were received as experts on Satanism.
Whereas the public attention generated by Meller and others denouncing
the “satanic” popular culture of the times was regarded more or less sceptically
or even with mild amusement in the media, Satanism acquired a more sinister
image in the early 1990s with the church burnings and homicides connected to
Satanists in Norway. Mainstream newspapers discussed the possibility of
satanic cults in Finland and some murders were linked − no matter how tenu-
ously − to an allegedly satanic motivation (Hjelm 2005a). The reality of
Satanism was finally “proven” in the public eye when some people, namely the
Finnish rock singer Kauko Röyhkä, publicly professed to be practising Satanists.
Finnish Satanism in the Early 1990s
Some anti-Satanist commentators (such as the abovementioned Leo Meller)

have suggested that satanic ritual groups existed in Finland already in the
1970s, but this allegation hardly stands the test of critical scrutiny. There may,
however, have been magical/occult groups or individuals in Finland at that
time, but there is no knowledge of explicitly satanic involvement by any of
these. Therefore, it is safe to say that religious Satanism first came to Finland in
the early 1990s.
The most famous self-professed Finnish Satanist was the rock singer Kauko
Röyhkä mentioned above. He was frequently interviewed about his satanic
beliefs and became the “face” of Satanism for a short period in the early 1990s.
Röyhkä’s Satanism was mainly influenced by the writings of Anton LaVey and

Satanism in Finland 475
in his public appearances he consistently denied having anything to do with

alleged satanic crime, such as human sacrifice. Röyhkä tried to organise a pub-
lic satanic ritual in 1993 but that came to nought. Therefore, Röyhkä’s Satanism
was more a public expression of a private belief than an example of organised
Satanism in Finland. It was also relatively short-lived, since already in the late
1990s he described Satanism as a phase that he had since passed.
Another “satanic” figure sometimes featured in the media was the eccentric
Pekka Siitoin (1944–2003), an occultist, neo-Nazi, and self-professed Satanist.
Siitoin’s Satanism was, however, a (minor) part of his eclectic occultism and
not influenced by organised Satanism or left hand path groups such as The
Church of Satan or The Temple of Set. Also, plain shock value probably played
no small part in Siitoin’s public declarations of practising Satanism.
On the less visible grassroots level, a few individual Satanists attempted to
organise a satanic group in Helsinki in the early 1990s. In a time before the
emergence of the Internet, recruitment campaigns by word of mouth had little
success, despite the fact that Hans K., the main persona behind these early
attempts, also appeared in a very popular talk show on Finnish television.
Apart from a few card-carrying members of the Church of Satan and some self-
professed Satanists drawing on the philosophy of Anton LaVey, Satanism had
few followers and did not manifest itself as an organised religion in the early
1990s in Finland − despite the fact that it was presented as such in an influen-
tial book on religion in Finland, written by the late Harri Heino, director of the
(Lutheran) Church Research Institute (Heino 1998).
The Temple of Set is the only organisation that has actually had an active,
albeit numerically small, membership in Finland since the late 1980s. Although
the Temple was originally an offshoot of the Church of Satan, the Setians have
been reluctant to call themselves Satanists, preferring the notion of the “left-
hand path”. The Temple of Set and other Finnish left-hand path organisations
are covered elsewhere in this book in Kennet Granholm’s chapter on occultism
in Finland.
The Finnish Satanism Scare
Considering the lukewarm reception that actual practising Satanists had in

their early attempts to recruit members, it is perhaps a bit surprising that by
the end of the 1990s, Satanism was one of the most widely-discussed public
issues in Finland. Despite the fact that actual practising Satanists were only a
handful, the Finnish media, and through it large segments of the population,
476 Hjelm
became convinced that Satanists were rampant in Finland and that Satanism
posed one of the most serious threats to the Finnish youth.
Unlike in the United States, where the Satanism scare focused mainly on
ritual abuse, or in Norway, where Satanists were connected with church burn-
ings and murder, the Finnish Satanism scare focused on cemetery vandalism
(Hjelm 2002, 2005b). Between 1997 and 2001, hundreds of gravestones were
toppled in cemeteries around Finland. What made the phenomenon interest-
ing for the wider public was that from very early on the news media attributed
the cause for this widespread vandalism to Satanism. True, in some cemeteries
chapels were painted with pentagrams, inverted crosses, and “satanic” slogans,
and burial crosses were stuck upside down on the ground. However, the con-
jecture that this was the work of Satanists was almost always made without
any knowledge of who the actual perpetrators were, or what their motivations
might have been. Upon closer examination it becomes evident that the inter-
pretive leap from a toppled gravestone to Satanism was made by journalists or
in many cases a specific group of self-identified experts hailing from an evan-
gelical Christian background (e.g., Rinne 1994, 1997; Ahorinta 1996).
While some of the reports regarding “satanic” activity at cemeteries might
have been received with scepticism among journalists and the wider audience,
especially in the beginning of the phenomenon, the homicide case referred to
as the “Hyvinkää garbage dump murder” etched the horror of Satanism indel-
ibly into the consciousness of Finns. With its gory details of a group of Black
Metal fans who − after a long day of drinking home-brewed spirits − killed and
mutilated their friend, the Hyvinkää case defied rational explanation. Building
on the already widely discussed public myth, Satanism seemed like a plausible
explanation. And this time it was the secular public prosecutor, not a sectarian
with a religious agenda, who brought up the issue. Although the appeal court
decided that there was not enough evidence to link Satanism to the murder, in
public consciousness − largely thanks to the media − the Hyvinkää case
remains a satanic ritual murder (see Hjelm 2005a).
Satanism in Finland Today
So, should we conclude from the apparent overreactions of the media and
some segments of Finnish society that Satanism does not exist? This is what
the evangelical experts claim that academic researchers are doing when they
say that Satanism is a social construction. What these experts misunderstand
is that calling Satanism a social construction does not entail a dismissive
stance − although certainly a critical one. From a social scientific perspective
the public reactions to Satanism and the actual practice of Satanism are insep-
arably intertwined.
First, the Satanism scare has created what I call − following Bill Ellis (1991)
− pseudo-Satanism. Pseudo-Satanists are not actual Satanists at all but, espe-
cially in the case of cemetery vandalism, youth who exploit the hype
surrounding alleged Satanist attacks on cemeteries and perpetuate the scare
discourse by doing exactly what is expected. Even if the perpetrators are not
consciously mimicking a topical type of deviance, the public hype gives the
youth an example of where to cross the boundaries of decency and proper
behaviour. Regarding this type of “Satanist”, it is interesting to note that the
amount of cemetery vandalism cases runs roughly parallel to the amount of
news coverage. After the media began to show some reluctance in attributing
cemetery vandalism to Satanism, the actual occurrences of vandalism also
decreased. Of course, it is evident that no clear-cut cause-and-effect dynamics
can be proven in this case, but a correlation nevertheless exists.
Second, it is clear that some people actually profess to be practising Satanists
or “Satan worshippers”. The two main groupings among these are a) those who
draw their inspiration from Anton LaVey or other more organised and estab-
lished “satanic” traditions and b) those who have constructed their satanic
worldview from a bricolage of Christian teachings, popular culture (horror
films, Black Metal music), and interpretations of contemporary Satanism cir-
culated especially on the Internet. (More fine-grained classifications have also
been made − although not very convincingly [Hermonen 2006]). Although not
very significant in the English discussions of the topic, the separation of
Satanism (in the LaVeyan sense) and “Satan worship” (bricolage Satanism) has
become a standard in the descriptions of the situation in Finland. Therefore,
although these two groups should not be confused with each other, the com-
mon denominator is that members of both self-identify as Satanists or Satan
worshippers.
The major presence of Finnish Satanists adhering to the teachings of the
Church of Satan or other established organisations can be found on the
Internet. However, it seems that, unlike many other religious groups, Finnish
Satanists have not harnessed the Internet as a vehicle for recruitment. Very
likely, the easy availability of information has aroused interest in a way not
possible before, but this has not resulted in a marked growth of practising
Satanists, not to mention any attempts at organising satanic groups.
Most of the Internet pages in Finnish are of an informational nature. A
very important source of information on LaVeyan Satanism is Pakanaverkko
ry. Pakanaverkko is a registered umbrella organisation for contemporary
Finnish Pagans of any persuasion, including practitioners of, e.g., Wicca and
478 Hjelm
Shamanism. It is exceptional in the sense that, also in an international context,

it is one of the few organisations that admit Satanists among other contempo-
rary Pagans.
There are also two independent publishing houses in Finland that have spe-
cialised in the publication of satanic and left-hand path literature. Perhaps the
most important publication has been the Finnish translation of LaVey’s Satanic
Bible (LaVey 2007) by the publishing house Voimasana, now defunct. Temple of
Set activist Tapio Kotkavuori has published a book explaining the philosophy
of the left-hand path (Kotkavuori 2004) that has been recently translated into
English (Kotkavuori 2007). The other notable publishing house is Ixaxaar,
which publishes and distributes occult and satanic literature, notably the ritual
works of The Order of Nine Angles. Important publications in Finnish include
books explaining the philosophy of Azazelin tähti, a left-hand path organisa-
tion established in 2006 (see the chapter on occultism in Finland in this book).
If tracking down and evaluating the number and religious outlook of indi-
viduals adhering to the more organised forms of Satanism (e.g., Church of
Satan, Order of Nine Angles) in Finland is difficult, making any definitive
statements about the group I have called bricolage Satanists is even more so.
This group, although arguably largest in number, does not constitute a single
body whether gauged by religious beliefs, actual practice of rituals, sources of
inspiration, or by any other criterion. This type of Satanism is eclectic, draw-
ing from various influences, most importantly popular culture such as extreme
Metal music and horror films. In many cases the Satanism of the people in
this category is a sort of secondary symbolism, drawing from popular culture
interpretations of Satanism and the myth of satanic cults perpetuated by the
media and popular folklore.
Although the beliefs and commitment to a satanic worldview vary consider-
ably within the group, it differs from pseudo-Satanism in the sense that these
bricolage Satanists actually self-identify as Satanists. Unfortunately, there is no
room to discuss whether this is the outcome of genuine spiritual seeking or a
response to outside labelling (Becker 1997; Hjelm 2002), but it is important to
note that there is an active (and mostly youthful) community of people dis-
cussing a “satanic” way of life on message boards and in discussion groups.
Going back to the public image of Satanism, one of the probable reasons for
the hegemony of evangelical Christian experts in the news media was the late
awakening of the Finnish academic community to the phenomenon of
Satanism. Before the late 1990s there were hardly any critical studies of the
issue. The systematic studies that have emerged in the beginning of the new
millennium have either concentrated on the public reactions to phenomena
understood as “Satanism” (Häger 2001; Hjelm 2002, 2005a) or have tried to typ-
ify the different forms that Satanism (or more widely, the left-hand path) takes.
Of the latter, the most notable studies are Kennet Granholm’s analysis of the
left-hand path group Dragon Rouge (Granholm 2005) and Merja Hermonen’s
descriptive account of Satanism among Finnish youth (Hermonen 2006).
There is, however, a continuing need for theoretically informed analyses of the
relationship between Satanism and cemetery vandalism, and analyses of the
belief systems and social forms of what I have referred to as bricolage Satanism.
Concluding Remarks
In sum, Satanism does exist in Finland, but hardly in the conspiratorial form
imagined by some of the religious experts (cf. Frankfurter 2006). The most
visible form of “Satanism” is and has been what I have referred to as pseudo-
Satanists, whose aim is mainly to shock without any personal commitment to
a satanic worldview. The number of actual practising Satanists still remains
small, but the advent of the Internet has created a “hangaround culture”, to
borrow a term from biker slang. That is, people interested in the more organ-
ised forms Satanism and possibly subscribing to some of their tenets, but
refraining from organised or ritual activity. In addition there is a group of self-
styled Satanists whose inspiration comes mainly from secondary sources, such
as extreme Metal music and horror films. A noteworthy fact is that despite
sporadic attempts at organisation, no stable and explicitly satanic groups have
emerged in Finland − not to mention groups seeking public recognition under
the Freedom of Religion Act. However, as long as the “dark” youth subculture
of gothic rock and extreme Metal continues to be popular in Finland, there will
be reactions − albeit not likely as strong as in the late 1990s − from the wider
society to the perceived “Satanism” of the youth. Even if Satanism as a religion
remains marginal, the phenomenon of Satanism is potentially alive and well in
Finland.
References
Ahorinta, Keijo, Saatananpalvonnan monet kasvot, Helsinki: LK- kirjat, 1996.

Becker, Howard, Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance, New York: The Free Press
of Glencoe, 1997 [1963].
480 Hjelm
Ellis, Bill, “Legend-Trips and Satanism: Adolescents’ Ostensive Traditions as ‘Cult’

Activity”, in: James T. Richardson, Joel Best and David G. Bromley (eds.), The Satanism
Scare, New York: Aldine deGryuter, 1991, 279–295.
Frankfurter, David, Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in
History, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.
Häger, Andreas, Religion, rock och pluralism. En religionssociologisk studie av kristen dis-
kurs om rockmusik, Diss. Uppsala Universitet, 2001.
Hermonen, Merja, Pimeä hehku: Satanismi ja saatanpalvonta 1990-luvun suomalaisessa
nuorisokulttuurissa, Helsinki: Loki, 2006.
Hjelm, Titus, “Driven by the Devil: Popular Constructions of Adolescent Satanist
Careers”, Syzygy: Journal of Alternative Religion and Culture 11 (2002), 177–195.
——— . Saatananpalvonta, media ja suomalainen yhteiskunta, Helsinki: Helsinki
University Press, 2005a.
——— . “Religionizing Crime: Ethos and Action in the Construction of the Finnish
Satanism Scare”, in: George Lundskow (ed.), Religious Innovation in a Global Age.
Essays on the Construction of Spirituality, Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2005b, 176–198.
Kotkavuori, Tapio, Vasemman käden polku, Kaarina: Voimasana, 2004.
——— . The Left-Hand Path, Kaarina: Voimasana, 2007.
LaVey, Anton Szandor, Saatanallinen raamattu, Kaarina: Voimasana, 2007.
Meller, Leo, Rock, Helsinki: Kuva ja Sana, 1986.
Rinne, Riku, Syvyyden kuilusta, Helsinki: Kuva ja Sana, 1994.
——— . Pimeys väistyy, Helsinki: Kuva ja sana, 1997.
Satanism in Norway 481
Chapter 60 Satanism in Norway
Satanism in Norway
Asbjørn Dyrendal
The history of Satanism in Norway is, like everywhere else, primarily a history
of fantasies about the Other. This history cannot, as Titus Hjelm explains (this
volume), be left out of the picture in a presentation of Satanism. In Norway, as
elsewhere, there has been important interaction between the publicly shared
myth of Satanism as otherness, and the actual practice of Satanism. If one
leaves early modern fantasies of witchcraft out of the picture, the recent his-
tory of “Satanism” belongs primarily to the world of media-enhanced rumors.
Only during the first decade of the twenty-first century do we find organised,
“religious” Satanism as a proven fact in Norway. Before this, there may have
been scattered individual Satanists, or even small, but unknown groups, but
the main arena for Satanism was in Evangelical lore about “the occult”. At dif-
ferent points in time, media took up these rumors, and during the early 1990s,
they were fed by the pioneering bands of Norwegian, “satanic” Black Metal.
The 1970s and 1980s
Modern rumors about Satanism seem first to have reached Norwegian media
during the middle of the 1970s. Evangelical summer camps a few years previ-
ously were reported to have spread an American lore about Satanism that was
derived from apocalyptic, charismatic literature (cf. Dyrendal & Lap 2002).
Pentecostal publishers Filadelfiaforlaget in Norway also translated and issued
British “ex-Satanist” Doreen Irvine’s From Witchcraft to Christ in 1974, main-
stream Christian publisher Luther forlag published a Norwegian book on the
dangers of Satanism in 1976 (Hagen 1976), and another Pentecostal publisher
(Logos) published a translation of Nicky Cruz’ Satan on the Loose in 1978.
Throughout this literature, we find a clear pattern of adopting topics from
American sources, which is made all the more clear by the only Norwegian
book, Kaare Hagen’s Den religiøse Satan (The Religious Satan), which is also
concerned with American examples. This set a pattern which was repeated
throughout the 1980s and 1990s, with translations of popular American books

482 Dyrendal
assimilating local concerns and lore about Satanism to current American

trends.
From early on, these books used the Church of Satan as one of the examples
of American Satanism, as the evidence of organised Satanism lending credibil-
ity to darker rumours. Thus knowledge about the recent organisational exploits
of Satanism was mediated and disseminated, but there are few signs that any
organised Satanism reached Norway at this time. There are hints in a few news-
papers, a couple of letters and a phone call allegedly placed by anonymous
self-declared Satanists who took issue with scaremongering stories about
Satanism, but there is no further confirmation of the existence of any activi-
ties. Further hints were dropped during the late 1980s, when a later prominent
claims-maker during the Norwegian Satanism scare alleged that there were
clandestine, organised Satanists in Bergen who were engaged in criminal activ-
ities. No one has confirmed these reports, and the claims have been declared
highly unlikely or dismissed as fantasies by both researchers and the occult
community (Dyrendal 2006). The oldest of my informants became a member
of the Church of Satan in 1984, and at the time knew of no other Norwegian
Satanist. There may have been a few other individuals like him, although none
is known to me.
There is little evidence of any public interest in Satanism during the first
half of the 1980s, neither from mainstream nor Evangelical media. During the
last two years of the decade and the first two years of the 1990s, this slowly
changed. The claims of the American Satanism scare were reported both scep-
tically and credulously in media, gradually turning into a media scare during
the period 1991–1993. Mainstream media concentrated on allegations about
organised ritual abuse, while Evangelical media translated several American
books blending Satanism, teenage rebellion, and popular culture (foremost
Heavy Metal music and horror film). This package seemed to fit with the first
phase of overt Satanism in Norway, that of Black Metal and church arson, and
thus had some success.
Black Metal and Satanism
During the late 1980s and first years of the 1990s, the Norwegian extreme metal
scene turned from Death Metal to a homegrown version of Black Metal.
Turning away from the casual dress style of Death Metal, they invented a more
explicit, uniformed style going with a demand for ideological and musical
purity. The central figure, Øystein Aarseth (aka “Euronymous”), wanted Satan
to have the place in Black Metal that Jesus had in gospel music (Søderlind &
Dyrendal 2009). His ideas about Satan were, however, derived less from Anton
LaVey than from demonology-inspired horror. Indeed, several seminal record-
ings carried the inscription “anti-LaVey”, and in interviews Aarseth and
fellow-minded Black Metallers decried LaVey as “too soft”. Their brand of
Satanism was apocalyptic, directed towards “evil” and destruction, and thus
had more in common with the Evangelical anti-Satanist literature’s portrayal
of Satanism than it did with any existing organised Satanism. Nor did Black
Metal Satanism have much (public) use for Aleister Crowley, but when Black
Metallers hit the front pages, Crowley and Thelema were implicated by the
press. In addition to labeling all Black Metallers Satanists, the OTO was pushed
into the role as the sinister, organised Satanism “behind the curtain” that
American-style conspiracy theories of Satanism craved. Sale of Crowley’s
books was discontinued in several bookstores, in others, they were taken off
the shelves and sold under the counter.
The reasons for these reactions were twofold: First, Black Metal ceased being
a virtually unknown subcultural phenomenon overnight when musician Varg
Vikernes went public with a connection between it, church arson, and mur-
der. (He was later convicted of one murder and several arsons; cf. Moynihan &
Søderlind 1998). Second, the scene was set for serious concern about Satanism
with the import of the Satanic Ritual Abuse mythology. A series of claims-
makers came forth from 1991 through 1994 presenting allegations of conspiracy
by sinister elitist Satanists involved in horrific child abuse, murder, and a host
of other crimes (e.g., Nilsen 1996; cf. Dyrendal 1998). Concern about adolescent
Satanism could be included in this scenario, but the theory demanded a nefari-
ous scheme run by an elite of occultists behind it. Since the OTO had already
been used as an example of Satanism in connection with the larger conspiracy
theory, it was easy for media to continue the trend. As knowledge about Black
Metal subculture increased, including the number of people involved in arson,
violence, etc., and evidence of the larger conspiracy continued to be elusive,
the latter theory dropped out of sight. Only the real phenomenon of church
arson ever created local panics, but they nevertheless served to create a last-
ing image of what Satanism “really was” to the Norwegian public. It was all the
more effective since there was no other public Satanism to contrast the public
myth with.
Ironically, there was an attempt at creating an esoteric form of Satanism
during the early 1990s in Oslo. A meeting was announced with the explicit
ambition of creating a satanic group, but according to informants interviewed
by the present author the would-be leader was the only one who showed up,
and no group was organised. The only “organised” Satanism to come out of the
1990s was the idiosyncratic Satanism of a few notable Black Metallers. However,
484 Dyrendal
theirs was not the only version of Satanism among Black Metallers. Some were
attracted to deeper esoteric sources and took a more thelemic approach. And
although Aarseth and Vikernes expressed contempt for LaVey and his brand of
Satanism, others found it more to their liking. Several joined the Church of
Satan on an individual basis, but they did not organise activities. Unlike
Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, Norway got neither Church of Satan grottos
nor Temple of Set pylons. Nor did they organise autonomous “temples”. As late
as the end of the 1990s, it was impossible to find any satanic organisation in
Norway.
The Norwegian Satanic Society
One of the barriers for constructing any partially above-ground version of

Satanism was the image that had been constructed in the early 1990s. Satanists
of other stripes had reason to keep their heads low, as conflation with the pub-
lic myth was almost certain. Satanists were also few and far between when the
Internet explosion made both international and national networking much
easier. And it was primarily through the medium of the Internet that Satanism
became visible and to any degree organised in Norway.
The first “group” to go public was Det Norske Sataniske Samfunn, DNSS
(The Norwegian Satanic Society), which went online during the fall of 2001. It
started out as a one-man venture. More a website and a point where Satanists
may connect than a conventional group, it has been devoted to promoting a
LaVeyan, rationalist form of Satanism. Like the other satanic “organisation”
considered below, DNSS has been crystal clear in its denunciation of the trans-
gressive activities of Black Metal “Satanists”, who are considered mainly as
“Christian Satanists”, caught up in the mistakes of Christian thought.
DNSS started out as a webpage with only a few articles delineating the
founder’s understanding of what Satanism was, but soon developed a forum
and an electronic newsletter. At its high point, the forum had more than 400
registered users from across the country. Few of them (less than twenty) were
actively participating at any one time. According to the founder, the newsletter
had about an equal number of subscribers before a server crash in 2006
destroyed the subscriber list. In January 2008, there were slightly less than sixty
subscribers to the newsletter, which has generally contained “heads up” about
books, articles and coming events.
Many of the subscribers to the forum at its high point were recent joiners,
and most of the ones who had written a self-presentation were young (15–20
years) and male. Although their cultural preferences lean towards the Metal
subculture, sympathisers with old Black Metal crimes are met with immediate
and harsh criticism similar to that found in official policy statements. A few of
the older participants are members of the Church of Satan, while most are not.
Attitudes towards the CoS from non-members varied from sympathetic to gen-
erally critical, but the main reason for non-affiliation seemed to be the
individualist philosophy of LaVeyan Satanism: Just why should a non-joiner
join a club for non-joiners? The minimal community of sometime online par-
ticipation seemed to suffice. One might even say that this level has been too
much: participation has dropped into the miniscule. The forum is now almost
dead, and even the later Facebook site is devoid of any activity.
The official statement on Satanism is purely LaVeyan in a highly secular,
rationalist version. Satan and gods are interpreted symbolically, and they pre-
fer to call the system of thought a philosophy, rather than a religion. The satanic
ideal is likened to Nietzsche’s Übermensch, but with a focus mainly on the abil-
ity to rise above a search for absolutes, and embracing life as it really is. Central
satanic values proclaimed are pride, productivity, reflection, pleasure, and
responsibility. The ideology proclaimed by DNSS embraces a plurality of views
on specific issues, but the core LaVeyan ideas seem unchallenged.
Interest in esoteric subjects has seemed to be generally low. The few times
such questions have come up in the forum – usually as a guarded question
rather than as the promotion of a point of view – few replied, and the replies
were generally sceptical. The founder comments that there is no consensus
on esotericism and magic, but that LaVey seems to opt for a Satanism where
magic and the esoteric is absent. Thus, those who do not want to include such
elements are free to manage without them. For the more esoterically inclined,
DNSS cooperated with another “organisation”, Ordo Illuminatorum (OI), which
set up an ambitious chart of “subgroups”, consisting of Norwegian Satanic
Temples (NST) and Ordo Templi Satanas (OTS).
Ordo Illuminatorum
The official document of this now long defunct “group” stated that the Norwe
gian branch of the OI was started from Scotland in 2000, whereas the NST was
started by a circle of friends in Sandefjord in the late 1990s. The central figure
seems in both cases to have been the same person. Like DNSS, the OI/NST was
run by a young male student. The implicated “Ordo Templi Satanas” is unrelated
to the known splinter group of the Church of Satan, which had a brief lease on
life during the mid-1970s. I have no information on this alleged version of the
OTS, other than that it was supposedly set up as an organisation for contact
486 Dyrendal
between “lodges” throughout the country. These “lodges” were of dubious exis-
tence. Even the theoretical relations between OI, NST, and “OTS” were unclear,
and it is uncertain to which degree it would be useful to treat them as separate.
The NST was certainly in name and symbolism described as a subgrouping of
the OI, but at the same time referred to the OTS for information on its degree
system. There was however, no spokesperson for the OTS, and all OTS links
quickly lead to dead ends, making it probable that this was quickly reduced to
mainly being the name of an idea. The OI and the NST were both clearly used
as names given to active participants, but it is far from clear to which degree
they were anything but co-extensive in practice. For the present purposes, they
may be treated as such, since its principals and the sources of information
were identical.
Early in its history, the OI/NST had links to regional contacts and alleged
groups in several Norwegian cities. These were gone by 2008, when there almost
certainly still were “members” from many regions, but from looking at the NST
discussion board, it was unlikely that they reached the level of even potentially
constituting groups in more than a couple of places. With seventy-five members
for an open board, one would estimate a small handful of active participants.
In 2009, all activity had died down, and active participants seemed to have
moved on to more established, related esoteric bodies.
As the names Ordo Illuminatorum and Ordo Templi Satanas imply, the
OI/NST drew inspiration from the thelemic reading of esoteric history, with a
genealogy of inspiration leading back to many of the same sources as those
invoked in thelemic mythic history. As with the DNSS, Anton LaVey’s The
Satanic Bible was a primary source of inspiration for its Satanism. This was
stated both on its home page and in interviews (cf. Søderlind & Dyrendal
2009). But unlike DNSS, the OI/NST was both explicitly thelemic and an initia-
tory order with a degree system. It tried to take LaVey’s words that Satanism
demands study, not worship seriously, in that elevation to higher degrees was,
theoretically, dependent on the fulfillment of requirements.
Two on-line classes were offered to members, with two teachers following
up. The OI/NST reading list consisted of around seventy documents, most of
them books in the esoteric tradition ranging from classical Hermetic texts to
Theosophy, Golden Dawn, and Crowley’s books. Links to additional, outside
articles, Thelemapedia among them, and the beginnings of an internal ency-
clopedia of symbolism, made it clear that the OI should be classified among the
esoteric forms of Satanism. From conversation and correspondence it would
seem that this esotericism was primarily interpreted in a rationalist man-
ner as a symbolic language for self-transformation. The OI seemed to stress
study and personal development, with alchemy and Kabbalah as aids. There
were, however, almost certainly individual differences with regard to both the
importance of the esoteric and in how it was interpreted. Closer scrutiny might
have shown a situation somewhat similar to that of the OTO, with whom the
OI even at that stage had at least a small overlap in membership: some leading
members propose an almost exclusively rationalist, psychological understand-
ing of magick, while others have a stronger esoteric interest with spiritualist
leanings. This would also fit with the founder’s statement that the NST was
the Norwegian order of the Temple of Nox, an international, Internet-based
Satanic order which was linked from the NST homepage, and which embraces
many versions of Satanism in addition to LaVey’s.
Future Prospects
Unlike the public myth that was constructed through to the early twenty-first
century, Satanism is mainly an individual identity, not a collective venture.
Thus, Satanism tends to be low-cost for almost all, with regard to both time and
money spent. Organisation in Norway was at best rudimentary, and the pull of
organised activity all but non-existent. Individual creativity and identity-mak-
ing still continues, and most known Satanist activity has been short-lived and
rooted in a small group of friends. Norwegian Satanism seems to have become
relatively well-rooted and diverse, but “organisation” and “organised” activities
have hinged on a very few persons. Thus it is no surprise that this part of it has
died out for the time being. Most Satanists are fairly young, but there are also
several who have reached the age where they are (or even have been) raising a
second generation in a satanic household. Research into these aspects of
Norwegian Satanism has yet to be done, as is indeed the case for most aspects
of Norwegian Satanism. In a country where public misperception is still very
strong, where psychiatric “experts” still issue warnings about rings of satanic
perverts, and where affiliation with Satanism may be the sole cause for the
intervention of child protective services, such research is sorely needed.
References
Dyrendal, Asbjørn, “Media Constructions of Satanism in Norway”, FOAF Tale News 43

(1998), 2–5.
——— . “Fusk eller heksejakt? Saken mot Eva Lundgren”, Humanist. Tidsskrift for livs-
synsdebatt 1 (2006), 48–65.
488 Dyrendal
Dyrendal, Asbjørn and Amina Olander Lap, “Satanism as News Item in Norway and
Denmark: A Brief History”, Syzygy: Journal of Alternative Religion and Culture 11
(2002), 197–232.
Hagen, Kaare, Den religiøse Satan, Oslo: Luther forlag, 1976.
Levi, Geir Nilsen, Satanisme som samtidsmyte, M.Phil. Thesis, Dept. for Cultural Studies,
University of Oslo, 1996.
Moynihan, Michael and Didrik Søderlind, Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic
Metal Underground, Venice, Ca.: Feral House, 1998.
Søderlind, Didrik and Asbjørn Dyrendal, “Social Democratic Satanism? Some Examples
of Satanism in Scandinavia”, in: Jesper Aa. Petersen (ed.), Contemporary Religious
Satanism, London: Ashgate, 2009, 154–170.
Satanism in Sweden 489
Chapter 61 Satanism in Sweden
Satanism in Sweden
Henrik Bogdan
Satanists and Satanic Organisations in Sweden
Although it is likely that a number of Swedes during the 1970s and 1980s took
an interest in Satanism, and a few perhaps even joined foreign organisations
such as the Church of Satan, it is during the first half of the 1990s that Satanism
enters the Swedish religious landscape in earnest (Bogdan 2008). As in the
other Nordic countries, organised Satanism in Sweden can be divided into two
main categories: (1) groups inspired by or directly linked to “mainstream
Satanism”, in particular the LaVeyan brand as codified by The Satanic Bible and
institutionalised as the Church of Satan, and (2) groups that have evolved from
the Scandinavian Black Metal scene. It should be noted, however, that organ-
ised Satanism has always been a small phenomenon in Sweden, even during its
heydays in the 1990s. The majority of the Swedish Satanists appear to have
been individuals who did not belong to any satanic group or organisation, and
who thus can be labelled as “solitary Satanists”. The majority of these solitary
Satanists got in contact with Satanism through either the Internet or by read-
ing The Satanic Bible, which was translated into Swedish in 1995 by Carl
Abrahamsson, and published with the title Den sataniska bibeln (Stockholm:
Looking Glass Press). Although Abrahamsson during the early 1990s was often
considered to be a high ranking member of The Church of Satan and a per-
sonal friend of Anton LaVey, there has never been an official Swedish section of
the CoS.
The Temple of Set, on the contrary, has had a more formal presence in
Sweden with a so-called pylon (i.e., a local section) in Uppsala with the name
Black Rûna Pylon. This section was according to their website (now defunct)
founded in 1997, and the first Swedish member joined the ToS in 1993. The
Swedish members appear to have had close contact with the Finnish section at
the time, the Kalevala Pylon, founded in 1991. The ToS only appears to have
operated for a few years in Sweden, however, and it does not seem to have any
formal presence in Sweden at the time of writing, although it still has a few
solitary Swedish members. It is debatable, however, whether the Temple of Set
should be considered as belonging to the Satanic milieu despite of strong

490 Bogdan
historical links between the CoS and ToS. In 1975 a number of high-ranking
members of CoS left the organisation and founded the ToS, under the leader-
ship of Michael A. Aquino. The ToS differed primarily in how Satan, identified
as the ancient Egyptian god Set, was interpreted. In contrast to the “rationalist”
form of Satanism encountered in the writings of LaVey and the CoS, Aquino’s
understanding of Set/Satan is theistic, and Satan is thus worshiped as a deity
rather than a symbol. ToS has distanced itself over the years from its origins in
Satanism, and the members today usually refer to themselves as Setians rather
than as Satanists.
Of the Swedish satanic organisations it is in particular Svenska Satanistkyr
kan (The Swedish Satanist Church) and Misantropiska Lucifer Orden (The
Misanthropic Luciferian Church) that stand out, both in terms of the attention
they have received in the media and in terms of their organisational efforts.
Svenska Satanistkyrkan (SSK) was founded in Uddevalla in 1996 by Tommy
Eriksson, and according to their journal Anti-Krist (2000) the church merged
with another existing organisation, The Satanic Order, in 1998, and for a num-
ber of years both names were used by the organisation. It had at one stage two
local sections, the Muspelheim lodge in Uddevala, and the Nexion lodge in
Malmö. In addition to these sections, it maintained for a number of years an
Internet-based bookstore called Belial Center in Uddevalla, which sold esoteric
and satanic literature, specialising in books by Anton LaVey. The form of
Satanism that Svenska Satanistkyrkan represented was heavily coloured by
LaVey’s atheist and rationalist Satanism, although they emphasised that they
did not want to limit their understanding of the satanic view of life and phi-
losophy to that of LaVey. In an interview with Tommy Eriksson, published in
the first issue of Anti-Krist (1999), Eriksson explained how he interpreted Satan,
in terms akin to those of LaVey: ‘He represents the eternally burning life-force.
I see Satan more as a symbol that motivates my will-power and energy towards
a specific goal, rather than as the Christian version of Satan as a physical entity’.
The Church emphatically stressed that it did not have any formal ties to other
satanic organisations, such as the Church of Satan. With the waning interest in
Satanism during the first years of the twenty-first century the Svenska
Satanistkyrkan gradually appears to have ceased its activities, and at the time
of writing seems to have closed down.
Misantropiska Lucifer Orden (MLO) was founded in the mid-1990s in
Gothenburg, and it received a lot of attention from the media in connection
with a homicide on Ramberget in Gothenburg in 1997. Two leading members
of the organisation, “Vlad” and Jon Nödtveidt, shot and killed the Algerian Josef
Ben Meddaour, whom they believed to be homosexual. Nödtveidt, who was
also a member of the Death/Black Metal band Dissection, would later commit
suicide (on 13 August 2006) after he had been released from prison in 2004. It
is hard to ascertain to what extent (if any) the perpetrators’ satanic ideology
was a motivating factor for the murder, but it is nevertheless obvious that MLO
represented a far more radical form of Satanism than mainstream LaVeyan
Satanism. The original members of MLO belonged to the Black Metal scene,
and the movement was in its initial stage highly closed and introverted – but
it gradually opened up and even launched a website through which their par-
ticular form of Satanism was presented to presumptive members. In order to
become a member of MLO, at least in the early days, one had to undergo a rite
of initiation that, according to an interview published in No Tears for Queers
(2005), included an animal sacrifice in the form of slaughtering five cats. The
Satanic doctrines of MLO are set down in a collection of texts, Chaosophy, the
contents of which show that the author is well versed in a number of occultist
systems. Apart from a number of philosophical and religious texts, Chaosophy
contains descriptions of a large number of rituals, which might attest to the
fact that MLO emphasises the performance of rituals and the practice of
magic. MLO has in recent years changed its name to Temple of the Black Light,
and its ideology can be described as a form of esoteric Satanism, or as they
prefer to call it, a ‘new wrathful form of Gnostic Left Hand Path’. This form of
Satanism can be understood as a form of “esoteric” Satanism in the terminol-
ogy of Jesper Petersen. According to Petersen, self-declared Satanists can be
divided into three ideal-typical categories: Rationalist, Esoteric, and Reactive
(Petersen 2009: 6–7). The first type is the atheistic and philosophical Satanism
derived from LaVey and the CoS; the second is an esoteric and initiatory form
of Satanism focused on “self-deification”, and thus closely linked to “Left-Hand
Path” forms of occultism (Granholm 2009: 85–101). Finally, the third type is
to a large extent a reaction against traditional and institutionalised forms of
Christianity, an inversion of Christianity and popular conceptions of Satan and
Satanists.
The Swedish Satanism Scare
Compared to the other Nordic countries, the Swedish Satanism scare is con-
spicuous by the fact that it contains all the four factors that characterise
Satanism scares in the Nordic context: ritual abuse, church burnings, mur-
der, and cemetery vandalism, whereas the Satanism scare in the other Nordic
countries tend to emphasise only one or two of these characteristics. In addi-
tion to this, the Swedish Satanism scare is, from a Nordic perspective, unique
in the sense that the most prominent voices in the debate were not limited
492 Bogdan
to Christian evangelical counter-cult groups, or the yellow press, but also

involved the national television networks and daily papers, as well as academic
participants.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, the Swedish notion of a satanic under-
ground was to a large extent influenced by the North American Christian
evangelical counter-cult movement, with an especial focus on the malevolent
nature of Hard Rock music. It was claimed that the music genre functioned as
a cover for a sinister organised satanic underground which, through the music,
aimed to seduce the Swedish youth to embrace Satanism, drug abuse, and sex-
ual promiscuity. The impact of this discourse is remarkable, and the awareness
(if not the actual belief) that Hard Rock records allegedly contain hidden
messages – especially when played backwards – was widespread among
schoolchildren in the 1970s and early 1980s.
In the 1990s the Satanism scare was to a large extent influenced by the
events in Norway, and it was in particular the Black Metal version of Satanism
that was singled out as being specifically dangerous. Although cemetery van-
dalism was reported in the media already in the early 1980s (in the form of
alleged occult/satanic ceremonies), the 1990s witnessed a widespread vandal-
ism that often included toppled gravestones. This practice continues to be
reported in the media with hundreds of toppled gravestones throughout
Sweden, and it is often assumed that Satanists are responsible for these acts.
The reason for this assumption is that in certain cases it has been reported that
satanic symbols, such as pentagrams and inverted crosses, as well as sacrificed
animals, such as cats, have been found at cemeteries. In a similar manner, a
number of church burnings are assumed to have been perpetrated by Satanists,
and in a few cases this is apparently the case. The afore-mentioned 1997 mur-
der by two leading members of MLO was widely discussed in the media, and it
was often assumed that the murder was motivated by their satanic ideology.
The Satanism scare during the 1990s was thus to a certain extent based on
actual acts that had been committed by self-styled Satanists, but the number of
such acts was not in proportion to the attention given to Satanism by the
media. Allegations of satanic crimes were often founded on hearsay and wild
speculations, and hard facts and evidence were absent.
The most high-profile involvement by any academic in the Swedish Satanism
scare concerns Eva Lundgren, a Professor at the Department of Sociology,
Uppsala University. Lundgren claimed on a number of occasions during the
1990s and the early 2000s that Swedish organised Satanic groups had not only
sexually abused children, but also ritually sacrificed children. The fact that
these allegations came from a professor at one of Sweden’s most prestigious
universities, caused them to be widely discussed in the media. The controversy
surrounding Lundgren’s research (controversies which were not limited to

claims of satanic ritual abuse and murder) culminated in 2005 when Uppsala
University evaluated charges that, among other things, her research was based
on fabricated sources. Lundgren was, however, acquitted from the charges
(Dyrendal 2006).
In sum, then, the Satanism Scare and the actual forms of Satanism practised
in Sweden follow the same pattern as in the other Nordic countries. It should
be noted, however, that mainstream Satanism (understood as the LaVeyan
form) has all but disappeared from the Swedish scene, while the more radical
and esoteric form – as typified by the Temple of the Black Light – continues to
have a presence.
References
Alexandersson, Kerstin and Anette Karls Fos, Kyrkan brinner! Vad händer sedan?,
Stockholm: Riksantikvarieämbetet, 2004.
Bogdan, Henrik, “Satanism i Sverige”, in: Ingvar Svanberg and David Westerlund (eds.),
Religion i Sverige, Stockholm: Dialogos, 2008, 339–343.
Dyrendal, Asbjørn, “Fusk eller heksejakt? Saken mot Eva Lundgren” (2006) [<http://
skepsis.no/index.php?page=vis_nyhet&NyhetID=78>] (Accessed 11 March 2014).
Granholm, Kennet, “Embracing Others than Satan: The Multiple Princes of Darkness
in the Left-Hand Path Milieu”, in: Jesper Aagaard Petersen (ed.), Contemporary
Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology, London: Ashgate, 2009, 85–101.
Petersen, Jesper Aagaard (ed.), Contemporary Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology,
London: Ashgate, 2009.
494 Kragh
Chapter 62 Spiritualism in Denmark
Spiritualism in Denmark
Jesper Vaczy Kragh
Spiritualism was a highly conspicuous movement in nineteenth- and twenti-

eth-century Denmark. It attracted people from a range of social classes and
spread to various parts of the country. It also became a widely discussed move-
ment among the public. Danish spiritualists caught the attention of academics,
created a stir in the press, and alarmed and annoyed the Danish clergy.
However, spiritualism had its rise and fall, and periods of great interest were
followed by times of decline.
The Rise of Spiritualism in Denmark
Spiritualism came to Denmark from Germany. In March, 1853, the German

press began to print reports of table turning, and news of these experiments
reached Denmark in April the same year. Spiritualism became an object of
public debate in Copenhagen, and several pamphlets on spiritualism were
published in the 1850s. Especially the writings of the Danish politician, author,
and spiritualist, Constant Dirckinck-Holmfeld (1799–1880), attracted atten-
tion to the spiritualist cause. In the late 1850s, leading Danish intellectuals and
artists such as the theologian Hans Lassen Martensen (1808–1884), the drama-
tist Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1791–1860), and the actress Johanne Luise Heiberg
(1812–1890) began to show an interest in spiritualism. Thus, small private cir-
cles, devoted to the study of spiritualist phenomena, were established. In the
early 1860s, the first spiritualist organisation, Foreningen til Undersøgelse af
de såkaldte Spiritistiske Fænomener (The Society for the Investigation of the
So-called Spiritualist Phenomena) was founded by the bookkeeper Harald
Jensen (1810–1889). He also translated works by the French spiritualist Allan
Kardec (1804–1869), Le Livre des Esprits (1857) and Le Livre des Médiums (1861),
into Danish. However, it was not until the late 1880s that a large spiritualist
movement took shape. In the following decades, new organisations, private cir-
cles, and a large number of spiritualist journals appeared. The exact number of
people sympathising with spiritualism is unknown, but a considerable number
of spiritualist organisations existed in the twentieth century. In the 1930s,
more than sixty spiritualist organisations were united in Danske Spiritisters

Spiritualism in Denmark 495
Kirkesamfund (The Religious Community of Danish Spiritualists). The biggest

organisation, Spirititisk Broderskab (The Spiritualist Brotherhood), founded in
1894, had more than 2,000 members in the beginning of the twentieth century.
The Spiritualist Brotherhood was also one of the oldest of the organisations,
and its teachings were an example to most of the other organisations.
The foundation of the spiritualist organisations was the belief in life after
death and that contact with spirits could be obtained through a sensitive inter-
mediary, i.e., a medium. According to the spiritualists, life on earth did not end
with the death of the physical body; rather, the human soul was reborn several
times. In this respect, most Danish organisations were deeply inspired by Allan
Kardec and his notion of reincarnation. Unitarian conceptions about a unity of
God and the humanity of Jesus as well as a belief in science and progress were
included in the teachings of the majority of spiritualist organisations. The spir-
itualists supported Darwinism and opposed the Danish National Church and
its notions of hell and eternal condemnation, which they found erroneous.
Instead, they proclaimed a new liberal Christian faith. Salvation was for every-
one, said the spiritualists, and God did not condemn or punish anybody. In the
spiritualist version of Christianity, the belief in progress played a central role.
It was a part of God’s scheme that both the material and spiritual world were
developing for the better. Life was a learning process and part of a perfect plan,
where every man and woman, after a series of reincarnations, would attain all
the love and happiness that God had intended for all his creations.
The religious life in the spiritualist organisation was centred on séances
or sittings, lectures on the spiritualist religion and, to a lesser extent, vari-
ous social causes. Unlike their peers in the USA and other Western countries,
Danish spiritualists were not deeply engaged in social reforms. In their jour-
nals, Danish spiritualists occasionally supported the emancipation of women
and criticised prevailing gender roles. Philanthropic work was also carried out
by a small segment of the spiritualist organisations, but social and economic
inequality was not a major issue in the majority of these organisations.
Besides the spiritualist organisations, a number of private circles existed in
the early twentieth century. For the members of some of these circles, religious
matters played a minor role. They raised objections to the spiritualist organisa-
tions’ religious ceremonies, which they found unscientific, and they also
criticised the organisations’ adherence to the teachings of Allan Kardec. On
the other hand, anti-Christian spiritualists, well-known in countries like
Britain, were not common in Denmark.
496 Kragh
Spiritualists, Scientists, and Critics
Despite these controversies, Danish spiritualists reached a consensus when

they discussed the scientific nature of spiritualism. They claimed that it was
possible to prove the existence of life after death, and that spiritualist phe-
nomena could be observed under strictly scientific conditions at séances
with mediums. Like in other European countries, these claims were tested
by scientists. In Denmark, respected scientists, especially psychiatrists and
psychologists, were engaged in the study of spiritualist phenomena. The
most extensive work on the subject was done by the first Danish professor
of psychology, Alfred Lehmann (1858–1921). Lehmann, who had studied psy-
chology at Wilhelm Wundt’s institute in Leipzig, in 1886 established the first
Psychophysical Laboratory in Copenhagen. In 1890, he embarked on a criti-
cal study of spiritualism and its predecessors. Lehmann’s four-volume work
Overtro og Trolddom (Superstition and Witchcraft), published between 1893
and 1896, became a key element in the struggle against spiritualism in Denmark.
However, Lehmann’s errand was not an outright dismissal of spiritualism, but
to carefully replace what he felt were erroneous interpretations with scientific
explanations. He also stressed that the study of spiritualist phenomena such
as automatic writing could give a valuable insight into psychological matters
and shed light on the subject of the unconscious mind. Lehmann’s study of
superstition and witchcraft was also embraced by sceptical scientists outside
Denmark, and was translated into German, Hungarian, Russian, and other
languages. Particularly in Germany, Lehmann’s work was very well received.
German editions of Superstition and Witchcraft (under the title Aberglaube
und Zauberei) were published in 1898, 1908, 1925, 1969, and 1986. A sixth edi-
tion was released as recently as in 2008.
Alfred Lehmann became a member of the Danish Society for Psychical
Research, founded in 1905 in Copenhagen. The aim of the society was to con-
duct critical, but impartial, studies of spiritualist phenomena. Beside Lehmann,
all the leading figures within Danish psychiatry and psychology were mem-
bers of the society. Professor of psychiatry, August Wimmer (1872–1937), was
one of many medical doctors who conducted critical studies of spiritualism.
Like many of his colleagues, Wimmer rejected the spiritualists’ claims about
communication with the dead. He considered spiritualism to be a pathologi-
cal phenomenon and argued in Danish and international medical journals
that a preoccupation with spiritualism could lead to insanity. Similar claims
were published by another distinguished psychiatrist, Alexander Friedenreich
(1849–1932), who stated that spiritualist séances might cause psychosis. Only
a small number of medical doctors had a more positive attitude towards
spiritualism. The staff doctor at the St Hans Mental Hospital, Niels Christian
Borberg (1880–1964), who also was a member of the Society for Psychical
Research, was one of the few to dispute the claims put forward by Wimmer
and Friedenreich. He doubted that spiritualism posed any significant risk to
mental health and emphasised that he had never in his long carrier as a psy-
chiatrist seen any cases of spiritualist madness.
Scientific investigations of spiritualist mediums were conducted by the
Danish Society for Psychical Research in the period from 1920 to 1950. The
society’s inquiries into spiritualist manifestations included two famous
Danish mediums, Einer Nielsen (1883–1965) and Anna Melloni Rasmussen
(1898–1983), both of whom had also received the attention of scholars in other
European countries.
In 1921, investigations of the materialisation medium Einer Nielsen were
carried out by three members of the society, who subsequently published a
favourable report recognising Nielsen’s abilities. A new investigation, however,
was set up in 1922 by a committee from the Kristiania University in Norway.
The Norwegian researchers could not confirm the Danish results and accused
Nielsen of being a fraud. The Norwegian disclosure, which was widely covered
by the Danish press, was a serious setback for the Danish spiritualists.
Experiments with Anna Melloni Rasmussen, who had a reputation of pro-
ducing poltergeist or telekinesis phenomena, were conducted by the Danish
Society for Psychical Research in the early 1920s. A favourable report, that con-
sidered Melloni’s mediumship genuine, was published by the president of the
society, Professor Christian Winther (1873–1968), in 1930. Later, in the 1940s, the
report gave rise to a controversy regarding Anna Melloni, and new experiments
with the medium were conducted by researchers from the University of
Copenhagen in 1945. These experiments took place in April the same year, and
a statement from the researchers at the University was subsequently released,
concluding that the phenomena could be wholly ascribed to mechanical
causes. In 1950, during a new series of experiments, a hidden camera revealed
that Anna Melloni had used fraudulent methods to produce the alleged spiri-
tualist phenomena. This revelation in 1950 made headlines in the Danish
newspapers and was an even more serious setback for the spiritualists than the
Einer Nielsen scandal. Numerous spiritualist organisations and journals ceased
to exist after the disclosure. The last of the spiritualist journals, Spiritistisk
Tidende (Spiritualist Tidings), stopped being published in 1959.
498 Kragh
The Contemporary Situation
In the 1950s and the following decades, spiritualism was a marginal religious
movement in Denmark. However, a new interest in spiritualism could be
observed in the 1990s. In particular, the television broadcast Åndernes Magt
(The Power of the Spirits) reached a large audience and drew attention to spir-
itualism. Several books and other publications on spiritualism were published
after the television broadcast had been shown, and new spiritualist organisa-
tions were also established. A small number of spiritualist churches still exist
in Denmark at the time of writing, notably in the larger cities such as
Copenhagen and Aarhus. The Society for Psychical Research in Copenhagen
also exists, but is no longer an organisation that attracts distinguished scien-
tists. At the time of writing, experimental research in spiritualism and
parapsychology is not being carried out by the society. The members convene
on a monthly basis, where lectures on parapsychology are given and the Society
publishes a half-yearly journal, Dansk Tidsskrift for Psykisk Forskning (Danish
Journal of Psychical Research).
References
Berger, Arthur S. and Joyce Berger, The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical
Research, New York: Paragon House, 1991 (contains articles on Danish mediums Anna
Melloni and Einer Nielsen).
Borberg, Niels Christian, “Spiritismen i Nutidsbelysning”, Politiken, 26 February 1920.
Borregaard, Svend, Spiritisme. Historie, Fænomener, Lære, København: Gads Forlag 1936.
“Det endelige resultat”, Politiken, 8 April 1945.
Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Constant, Overnaturlige Phænomener, København: Pio, 1856.
Friedenreich, Alexander, “Om Spaltningen af Bevidstheden”, Ugeskrift for Læger, 70
(1908): 871–879 and 899–907.
“Fru Anna Rasmussen Forsøgene i London”, B.T., 1 February 1938.
Gerloff, Hans, Phantome von Copenhagen. Das Medium Einer Nielsen, München: Dr.
Gerlach’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1954.
Kragh, Jesper Vaczy, “Mellem religion og videnskab. Spiritismen i 1800- og 1900-tallet”,
Scandia 68:1 (2002), 53–75.
——— . “En anden verden. Strejftog i spiritismens ritualer og seancer”, in: U. Langen
(ed.), Ritualernes magt. Ritualer i europæisk historie 500–2000, Roskilde: Roskilde
Universitetsforlag, 2002, 163–195.
——— . “Overtro og trolddom. Selskabet for Psykisk Forskning 1905–1930”, Fortid og
nutid, 89:3, (2003), 163–185.
Lehmann, Alfred, Overtro og Trolddom. Part I–IV, København: Thanning og Appel,

1893–1896.
——— . Aberglaube und Zauberei von den ältesten Zeiten an, Greiz: Mediengruppe
König, 2008.
Mediet Einer Nielsen, kontrolundersøkelser av universitetskomiteen i Kristiania, Kristiania
1922.
Moustgaard, I.K. (ed.), Udviklingslinier i dansk psykologi fra Alfred Lehmann til i dag,
København: Gyldendal, 1986.
Nielsen, Einer, Solid Proofs of Survival, translated by Helmi Krohn, London: Psychic Book
Club, 1950.
Overskou, Thomas, Af mit Liv og min Tid. 1819–1873, 2, edited by Robert Neiiendam,
København: Arnold Busck, 1962.
Ravn, A., Borddans, Bordvandring og andre Bordbevægelser. Fremstillede og oplyste ved
Forsøg, København: Pio, 1853.
Schioldann, Johan, “On Possession States, August Wimmer”, History of Psychiatry, 4
(1993), 413–440.
Triantafillou, Peter, and Alfonso Moreira, “Modern Templates of Happiness: Performing
Spiritualism and Psychotechnics in Denmark”, History of the Human Sciences, 18:2
(2005), 87–109.
“Uhyggelig Svindel med Ånde-maning afsløret”, Politiken, 17 April 1950.
Wimmer, August, “Mediumistiske Sindslidelser”, Hospitalstidende, 65:34 (1922),
545–552.
——— . “La folie médiumnique”, L’Encéphale 18:1 (1923), 8–26.
Winther, Christian, Experimentelle Untersuchungen über Telekinesis, Leipzig: Verlag von
Oswald Mutze, 1930.
500 Sohlberg
Chapter 63 Spiritualism in Finland
Spiritualism in Finland
Jussi Sohlberg
The Early Days of Spiritualism in Finland
Spiritualism in Finland had a precursor in Swedenborgianism. The famous

Swedish mystic, theologian, and natural scientist Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–
1772) has been seen as one of the forerunners of Spiritualism. Some writings
of Emanuel Swedenborg have been available in Finland at least since the mid-
nineteenth century. But it was as late as in 1900 that the first book by Swedenborg
was translated into Finnish. During the early twentieth century, Swedenborg
was mentioned quite frequently in the Finnish newspapers. Swedenborg’s
purported ability to converse with spirits, his journeys to other planets, and
his descriptions of heaven and hell became well- known in Finland. Finnish
scholars Tiina Mahlamäki and Tomas Mansikka have suggested that Sweden
borg’s ideas influenced on the Finnish cultural and spiritual milieu during the
nineteenth century was considerable (Mahlamäki & Mansikka 2013: 300–307).
Spiritualism in the strict sense of the word arrived in Finland at the turn of
the twentieth century, a time when other alternatives to the dominant Evan
gelical Lutheran Church, such as Theosophy, also gained a foothold in the
country. It is known that some English mediums visited Finland at this time. In
1908 the famous English medium Alfred Vouis held eight Spiritualist séances in
Helsinki. This may have provided the inspiration for founding the first Finnish
Spiritualist magazine, Spiritualisti (The Spiritualist). Soon thereafter, in 1909,
local Spiritualist societies were founded in Helsinki and Tampere. Articles in
the magazine indicate that Theosophical ideas aroused interest also among
Finnish Spiritualists (Hjelt 2012).
Closely related to Spiritualism is the scholarly (or semi-scholarly) interest in
parapsychology, also introduced in Finland at this time. A Swedish-speaking
society for studying parapsychological phenomena, Sällskapet för psykisk
forskning (Society for Psychic Research), was founded in 1907. Especially in
its early phase, the society had a special interest in Spiritualist phenomena.
One prominent member, Professor of Philosophy Arvi Grotenfelt (1863–1941),
was one of the few academics who tried to establish the scientific study of
parapsychology. Grotenfelt himself had a critical (but open) attitude towards
Spiritualist and supranormal phenomena.

Spiritualism in Finland 501
A similar Finnish-language organisation, Suomen parapsykologinen tut-

kimusseura ry (Parapsychological Research Society of Finland), was founded
in 1938 and officially registered in 1943 (the abbreviation ry stands for regis-
tered association). In the 1950s, the society decided to conduct empirical
parapsychological research, along lines similar to those of the parapsychologi-
cal research programme that had been conducted at Duke University already
during the 1930s. In the 1960s, the Finnish society shifted away from academic
issues and focused increasingly on spirituality and metaphysics (Aho 1993:
15–26, 101–105, 125–132).
The Post-War Years
After the Second World War, interest in Spiritualism increased. An organisa-

tion with Spiritualist aims, Suomen Spiritualistinen Seura ry (The Spiritualist
Association of Finland) was founded in 1946 (and registered in 1948) in
Helsinki. The association joined the International Spiritualist Federation (IFS)
in 1948. Several individuals played key roles in promoting Spiritualism in
Finland in these post-War years. The first chairman of the society, Helmi Krohn
(1871–1967), had a significant role in disseminating, translating, and writing
Spiritualist literature. Gerda Ryti (1886 -1984), the wife of President Risto Ryti,
supported the translation of Spiritualist books into Finnish (Religions in
Finland database 2014). Under the leadership in the period 1971 to 1985 of
Maire Kiira (1922–2009), chairman of the Finnish Spiritualist association and
board member of IFS, the Finnish Spiritualist movement gained more mem-
bers than ever before (Suomen Spiritualistinen Seura ry 2014). Finally, mention
should be made of Svea Richnau (1922–2007), who was a founding member of
the Swedish Spiritualist society in Finland in 1951. Finnish journalist and author
Oskar Reponen wrote her biography in 1977, a book that was widely read and
gained a lot of publicity for the Spiritualist movement (Suomen Spiritualistinen
Seura ry 2014).
In 1988, local groups of Suomen Spiritualistinen Seura ry began to function
as separate local entities called Spiritual Growth associations. At the time of
writing (2014), Suomen Spiritualistinen Seura ry has 1545 members and nine
local associations. The Association promotes seven basic tenets that British
medium Emma Hardinge Britten (1823–1899) claimed to have received from
the spirit world in 1871. These seven tenets are formulated in the following way
by the Association:
502 Sohlberg
1. God is Our Father, Light, Power and Love, 2. All people are our sisters
and brothers, 3. The Soul will continue its life after death, 4.Contact with
the spiritual world is possible, 5. Every human being is responsible for his
or her deeds, 6. What we sow in this life, we shall reap in another life, 7.
Every soul is on its way of eternal progress (Suomen Spiritualistinen
Seura ry 2014, my translation).
Countercultural influences came to Finland in the early 1970s. The New Age
milieu that developed in its wake (and is described in a separate chapter in the
present volume) comprises an element that has distinct similarities with ear-
lier Spiritualism: channelling. One of the earliest New Age communities in
Finland is Valonkantajat ry (Lightbearers), founded in 1987 (registered in 1990).
The group itself was formed on the basis of British channelled messages from
the 1960s. Channelling has been its main activity since the beginning. Members
of the group have received messages purportedly coming from various non-
physical entities, but also from deceased persons. Valonkantajat is still active
and has around 200 members (Udd 2006: 26, 45–50).
Recently Founded Spiritualist Associations
Kaariporttiystävät and Kaariportti kappeli -yhdistys ry (Friends of Bowgate

and Gate of Heaven Chapel, respectively) are two closely linked associations,
which have been important and influential in Finnish Spiritualism. They are
linked to the Gate of Heaven Chapel, a Californian Spiritualist organisation
founded by the USA-based Finnish couple, Seppo and Aulikki Plaami, in 1996.
The Plaamis lived in Finland until they left for Luxembourg in the early 1990s
and later moved to the USA. They had in 1984 established a holistic health and
music therapy centre that was active until 1987. After emigrating, they have
returned to Finland on numerous occasions, and have been instrumental in
promoting Spiritualism in their former home country. Kaariporttiystävät
started its activities in 2001. Around 200 Finns joined their church at this time
and a Finnish section, the Kaariportti kappeli –yhdistys ry (Gate of Heaven
Chapel –association) was registered in 2005. The associations have 200 Finnish
members today (2014). Aulikki Plaami is nationally well-known for acting as a
trance medium for a number of famous deceased artists. Her husband is
known for receiving channelled music from the world of spirits (Gate of
Heaven Chapel 2013: Little Handbook).
Even more recently, two new spiritualist communities have been founded in
Finland. The first is particularly influenced by the ideas of French spiritualist
Allan Kardec (1804–1869, pen name of Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail), one of
the major figures in the history of Spiritualism, who introduced the doctrine of
reincarnation in Spiritualist milieus. The association Allan Kardecin opin
ystävät ry (Friends of Allan Kardec’s Teachings) started its activities in 2010
(and was registered in 2013). Besides promoting Kardec’s ideas, the group is
also involved in charity work (Religions in Finland 2014: Allan Kardecin opin
ystävät ry). A few dozen individuals are estimated to participate in the associa-
tion’s activities. As part of this recent interest in Kardec, five of his books have
been published in Finnish since 2011.
The second of these recent organisations is Casa de Dom Inacion ystävät ry
(Friends of Casa de Dom Inacio), which was founded in 2010 and focuses on a
form of Brazilian Spiritualism, associated with a healing centre in Brazil by the
name of Casa de Dom Inacio and established by the healer and psychic sur-
geon João Teixeira de Faria (b. 1942). Besides organising Spiritualist séances,
the Finnish association supports the activities of the centre in Brazil (Religions
in Finland 2014: Casa de Dom Inacion ystävät ry). This group also has an esti-
mated few dozen participants.
Spiritualism and Finnish Religiosity
As can be seen from the description above, Spiritualism as an organised reli-

gious alternative has relatively few adherents. Surveys nevertheless suggest
that key ideas propagated in Spiritualist milieus are accepted by a far greater
proportion of the Finnish population. In the Kirkkomonitor survey (conducted
in 2007 by the Church Research Institute), people were asked about their opin-
ion on concepts that are typical of New Age spirituality. Seven percent of the
respondents agreed with the statement that it is possible to interact with the
deceased. It is also a quite obvious that many people in the field with interests
in the New Age milieu share Spiritualist ideas, even though they do not define
themselves as Spiritualists or participate in Spiritualist séances. Finally, Finnish
surveys (see Ketola 2007) suggest that alternative spirituality is not necessarily
a form of coherent religious culture that is incompatible with traditional reli-
gion. Despite the fact that spokespersons for the Finnish Evangelical-Lutheran
Church have been critical toward Spiritualism, many people who hold Spiritua
lists opinions remain members of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church. Thus,
504 Sohlberg
while Spiritualism as a specific religious current attracts small numbers of peo-

ple, many more Finns include ideas that originate with Spiritualism in their
own world view.
Pluralism goes both ways: at the same time as people outside the Spiritualist
organisations can accept Spiritualist beliefs, Spiritualism itself is deeply influ-
enced by Christian as well as New Age-related concepts. Spiritualists in Finland
interpret the Christian heritage in different ways than in mainstream Christian
Churches. As in many other esoteric movements influenced by Christianity,
Jesus is mainly understood as a spiritual and moral teacher and a model. Belief
in reincarnation is widely held among Finnish Spiritualists, often connected
with the view that the doctrines of reincarnation and karma were part of the
original Christian teachings, but that they were banned by the Council of
Constantinople in 553.
This loose affiliation between Spiritualism, Christianity, and other religious
currents is aided by the fact that Spiritualists do not usually consider that
Spiritualism itself is a religion or is restricted to any religious tradition. Instead,
Spiritualism can be practised in different religious contexts. The emphasis is
not on doctrine, but on individual spiritual progress and inner experience
(Heino 1997: 355–356).
References
Aho, Jouko, Parapsykologit: Ulkopuolisen näkemys poikkeavan tieteen suomalaiseen his-

toriaan, Helsinki: Suomen historiallinen seura, 1993.
Harmainen, Antti, “Modernin mystikot. Teosofian ulottuvuudet Pekka Ervastin ja Eino
Leinon maailmankuvissa 1902–1908”, MTh dissertation, University of Tampere, 2010.
Hjelt, M., “Jokaiseen palatsiinja jokaiseen majaan”, 2012, online article available at www.
henkinenkehitys.fi/144.
Ketola, Kimmo, “Spiritual Revolution in Finland? Evidence from Surveys and the Rates
of Emergence of New Religious and Spiritual Organisations”, Nordic Journal of
Religion and Society 1 (2007), 29–39.
Mahlamäki, Tiina and Tomas Mansikka, “His Visions Have Captured My Thoughts:
Emanuel Swedenborg in the Newspapers and National Literature in 19th Century
Finland”, unpublished paper, 2013, available at <https://www.academia.edu/5192566/
Tiina_Mahlamaki_and_Tomas_Mansikka_2013._His_Visions_have_captured_my_
thoughts_Emanuel_Swedenborg_in_the_Newspapers_and_National_Literature_
in_19th_Century_Finland.
Religions in Finland Database. Online resource available at www.uskonnot.fi.

Suomen Spiritualistinen Seura ry. Online resource available at www.henkinenkehitys.
fi.
Udd, Heli, “Kaikki vastaukset löytyvät ihmisen sisimmästä. Epistemologinen individu-
alismi ja kanavoinnin tulkinnalliset viitekehykset uushenkisessä Valonkantajat-
yhdistyksessä”, MTh dissertation, University of Helsinki, 2006.
506 Mehren
Chapter 64 Spiritualism in Norway
Spiritualism in Norway
Tonje Maria Mehren
The Formative Years
Spiritualism never became a broad popular movement in Norway. After an ini-

tial peak in the late 1880s and the early 1890s, it was not until after the First
World War that it received renewed interest. Organised spiritualism did not
have favourable conditions in Norway, and the spiritualist societies were few.
The spiritualistic doctrine was, however, supported by some influential indi-
viduals in the period from the late 1880s up to the Second World War.
Ghosts have been part of Norwegian folklore for centuries, and under many
different names, such as dauding, gjenganger, and draug. Stories of ghosts who
rise from the grave and are vengeful and evil abound in Norse literature from
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and have continued their existence in
Norwegian folklore. A typical Nordic ghost was utburden, the ghost of a new-
born child who had been carried out into the woods and left to die. It was said
that it cried and complained, because it had not been given a name, and in
some cases it even clung to passers-by. A distinctly Norwegian ghost was sjø-
draugen, the ghost of a person who had been lost at sea. Dressed as a fisherman,
often headless, he sailed around alone in half a boat and was dangerous to
sailors who met him; they would not come home safely. In addition to all the
tales and stories connected to nature, there are also plenty of reported instances
of Norwegian poltergeist experiences and of haunted houses, where people
tell of mysterious knocking sounds and of objects being thrown around.
Modern spiritualism gained a foothold in Norway in the last two decades of
the nineteenth century. Prior to that, however, the former Norwegian lieuten-
ant and teacher, Adolph Theodor Boyesen (1823–1916), who in the early 1860s
had studied in America, was an early proponent of the spirit communications
and religious writings of the Swedish scientist and visionary, Emanuel Sweden
borg, throughout Scandinavia. He translated a wide range of Swedenborg’s
texts from Latin into all three Scandinavian languages. In Norwegian he pub-
lished, inter alia, Om det nye Jerusalem og dets Himmelske Lære (On the New
Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine, 1864). After being educated at and
ordained as a priest by the Swedenborgian New Church in England in 1871,

Spiritualism in Norway 507
Boyesen left for Copenhagen, where he was a preacher for Swedenborgianism

in the 1870s. In the late 1870s, he moved on to Sweden and played an important
part in establishing assemblies for the Swedenborgian New Church.
In the 1880s, it was especially French spiritualism that found its way to
Norway. One of the early spokesmen for spiritualism in Norway was Hendrik
Storjohann (1840–1915), a language teacher born in Bergen, on the Norwegian
west coast. In 1880, he wrote to the American spiritualist journal Banner of
Light: ‘Spiritualism is just commencing to give a sign of its existence here in
Norway’. He reported about some promising Norwegian mediums, and empha-
sised his own efforts: ‘I am doing all I can to make people acquainted with our
great course’. Storjohann was a keen traveller, who had become acquainted
with spiritualism in Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo, where he had been to
séances with a French medium. Having purchased books in Paris and London,
Storjohann opened a private library in Kristiania in 1884, where the general
public could rent or buy books and journals about spiritualism and related top-
ics, such as Theosophy and animal magnetism.
Spiritualism had its breakthrough in Norway in the mid-1880s, thanks to one
man, the lawyer Bernt Christian Sverdrup Torstenson (1846–1925). When the
American medium Henry Slade visited the Norwegian capital, Kristiania, in
September 1886, Torstenson took advantage of the public stir and founded the
first and only Norwegian spiritualist journal the following month. It was a
monthly publication called Morgendæmringen (Dawn). The Danish spiritualist
Christian Brinch would later characterise the journal as the first noteworthy
spiritualist journal in Scandinavia. Since no equivalent spiritualist forum was
available in Denmark, for many years Brinch and other early Danish spiritual-
ists contributed articles to the Norwegian journal.
Torstenson’s conversion to spiritualism was originally inspired by Allan
Kardec’s “spiritism”, and the columns of his journal bore witness to Kardec’s
doctrines. Torstenson, who was especially interested in spiritualism as a phil-
osophical doctrine, saw spiritualism as a renewal of Christianity. However,
the journal’s columns were open to various voices and perspectives, and the
keywords of the journal’s subtitle reflect its scope: ‘Psychology, somnambu-
lism, animal magnetism (hypnotism), thought reading’. Ample space was
given to fringe medicine, e.g., animal magnetism and the Natural Healing
Method. Torstenson himself advocated antivivisectionism. He believed that,
along with spiritualism, all these different movements would create a bet-
ter world. Torstenson translated many of the classical works of spiritualism
into Norwegian, both Kardec’s books and others. He also gave public lectures
about spiritualistic doctrine, and defended spiritualism against attacks from
508 Mehren
the church. One of his works of defence was published under the title Om spir-
itismens sandhed (On the truth of Spiritualism, 1888).
In April 1887, the first Norwegian spiritualist society of which we have reli-
able evidence was established in Kristiania under the name of Den spiritistiske
forening (The Spiritualist Association). However, a small pamphlet, Hvad er
Spiritismen? (What is Spiritualism?), published in the name of the society in
1886, makes it probable that an earlier society had existed under the same
name. In 1888, the society changed its name to Det Norske Spirite Samfund
(The Norwegian Spiritual Society), a name selected in order to acknowledge
that the society was now open to all interested persons. The society held regu-
lar meetings with lectures and séances. The main medium of the society, a Mr.
Olsen, let the members hear voices from the other side during séances. The
message he mediated was Christian with a Kardecian tinge. Torstenson, who
was head of the society, lectured about Kardec’s spiritistic doctrine, but other
strains of spiritualism were represented as well.
The society reached a peak in 1889, with more than 100 members. Torstenson
moved out of town in 1891, leaving the chair to Carl I. Sjöstedt (1860–1916), who
had a variety of occupations, ranging from a teaching post to the directorship
of an insurance company. Under his leadership, the society soon divided into
factions and it was probably shut down in 1892.
In 1891, a scientifically minded faction of Det Norske Spirite Samfund formed
a Norwegian society for psychical research in Kristiania, modelled on the
British Society for Psychical Research. The President was the schoolteacher
Peter Marius Petersen (1845–1917), who had become a spiritualist after the loss
of two daughters in an epidemic in Kristiania in 1887. Petersen had studied
chemistry and was influenced by English scientists and spiritualists like
William Crookes and Alfred Russell Wallace. With mediumistic help from sev-
eral housekeepers and his wife, Petersen arranged experiments to get in touch
with his daughters, experiments that were described in scientific terms in his
book Studier over Experimentalspiritismen (Studies in Experimental Spiritual
ism, 1893). The new society was small and was active only for two years. When
it was disbanded in 1894, some of its members formed a spiritualistic club,
called Spiritisternes forbund (The Alliance of Spiritualists).
Many of the most significant members of Det Norske Spirite Samfund con-
verted to Theosophy in the first half of the 1890s, including the chairman Sjöstedt
and Richard Eriksen (1869–1941), a member of the board. Eriksen, who would
later take a degree in philosophy, was one of the earliest writers on spiritualism
in Norway, publishing the first original work on the subject, Det oversanselige
(The Supra-sensible, 1891). He was inspired by the German philosopher and
spiritualist Karl du Prel, who was one of the founders of Germany’s first society
for psychical research, the Munich-based Psychologische Gesellschaft. Du Prel

encouraged a scientific approach to the phenomena of spiritualism, and he
wanted to use spiritualism as a basis for a “transcendental psychology” and for
a non-materialist world view. A Theosophist and believer in reincarnation, Karl
du Prel combined Eastern mysticism and Western philosophy. Accordingly, for
an admirer of du Prel such as Eriksen, the leap from spiritualism and psychical
research to Theosophy was short. Two of du Prel’s books were translated into
Norwegian in the early 1890s under the titles Menneskets gaade (The Riddle of
the Human Being, 1893) and Spiritismen (Spiritualism, 1894).
The spiritualistic community in the Norwegian capital had lost its greatest
enthusiast in 1891, when Torstenson moved to the small town of Skien, south of
Kristiania, to take over the family farm. There he tried to establish a spiritualis-
tic centre, launching several spiritualist societies. Meanwhile, he continued to
publish Morgendæmringen and translate spiritualist books. In Kristiania,
another spiritualist society was founded in 1902 under the name Den Spirite
forening Benjamin Franklin (Spiritualist Society Benjamin Franklin). Best
known today as one of the founding fathers of the United States, Franklin was
not only a celebrated diplomat and a scientist renowned for his theories of
electricity and the invention of the lightning rod; he was also an icon for many
spiritualists. One of the leading figures behind the club was P.M. Petersen, and
the name of the club was carefully selected to signal its scientific aspirations.
Through séances, lectures, and discussions, the club was to encourage spiritu-
alism in the capital. It was, however, a closed society and the only way to
become a member was by recommendation and vote. Accordingly, the club
lived a rather quiet and secluded life. It is not known for how long it existed,
only that it must have been in existence for more than a decade, since
Torstenson acted as a delegate for the club at the international spiritualistic
congress in Geneva in 1913.
Most proponents of spiritualism in its earliest phase in Norway appear to
have been men, but there were also a few women amongst them. One of the
earliest and most prominent Norwegian feminists, the painter and writer Aasta
Hansteen (1824–1908), daughter of the famous scientist and professor in
astronomy and mathematics at the University in Kristiania, Christopher
Hansteen, got acquainted with spiritualism in America in the 1880s. Before she
left for America, Hansteen had published her religious-philosophical magnum
opus, Kvinden skabt i Guds billede (Woman Created in the Image of God, 1878),
at her own expense. In this book, she criticised the church’s views on women
and presented her own view of femininity as something divine. These were
highly controversial ideas that met with scepticism, even among her peers.
510 Mehren
During her years in American exile, she regularly went to services in the
spiritualist church in Boston, The First Spiritual Temple, and she was inspired
by the close ties between spiritualism and the women’s rights movement in
America. After returning to Norway, Hansteen participated in spiritualist
séances, and she was part of the circle around the journal Frie Ord (Free Speech,
1894–1898), which later merged with Det nye rige (The New Kingdom, 1897–
1899). Under its editor and publisher, Axel Sabro, the journal opened its
columns to various forms of religious and spiritualistic ideas and movements,
such as idealism, Swedenborgianism, and Christian Science. Sabro’s publish-
ing house published Hansteen’s book Kristi kirke i det 19de aarhundrede (Christ’s
Church in the 19th Century, 1897). In this book, she once again criticised the
church and the Bible, and maintained that female spirituality and religion
could save the world.
In Norway, spiritualism never became the broad movement that it was in
Denmark and Sweden, and after a peak in the late 1880s and early 1890s its
existence was for a long period largely confined to private circles. One reason
for this may be that movements like Swedenborgianism, mesmerism, and
Unitarianism, which usually served to pave the way for spiritualism, did not
have any major following in Norway. Another reason may be that spiritualism
in Norway in the 1890s was soon to receive competition from movements such
as Theosophy and psychical research. Yet another reason was probably that
Norway lacked good mediums. Visits from famous foreign mediums like Henry
Slade, Anne Eva Fay in 1888, and Madame d’Esperance in the late 1880s and the
early 1890s attracted some interest in the subject, but since Norway is located
on the outskirts of Europe, such visits were rare. Nationally well-known
Norwegian mediums like “Vis-Knut” and “Fløttumgutten” did not match their
international colleagues, who offered spectacular psychical and physical phe-
nomena on a regular basis. One final important factor in explaining the modest
spread of spiritualism in Norway may be the lack of spokesmen from high soci-
ety and academic circles. Admittedly, the national poet Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
was interested in psychic phenomena such as telepathy and clairvoyance at
the end of the nineteenth century, but he kept spiritualism at arm’s length. The
writer Arne Garborg did participate in some séances with Madame d’Esperance
in 1893, but he wrote wittily and slightly sarcastically about his experiences
with the spirits. At this early stage, there were no scientists with a genuine
interest in spiritualism.
Although spiritualism never became a popular movement in Norway, it was

fronted by some influential individuals. In the second decade of the 1900s,
women entered the spiritualist scene. One of these was the journalist Ella
Anker (1870–1948), whose father was Herman Anker, the founder of the first
folkehøyskole (a typically Scandinavian institution for adult education that
does not grant academic degrees) in Norway, Sagatun in the town of Hamar.
During her stay in London as a correspondent for several Norwegian newspa-
pers from 1909 onward, Anker had attended some séances at a location known
as Julia’s Bureau. The bureau had been opened by William Stead, editor of the
journal Review of Reviews, after he had received posthumous messages from a
deceased journalist colleague, Julia Ames. She had asked him to open a bureau
in her name, in order to help people get in touch with deceased family mem-
bers and loved ones through professional mediums.
Anker’s experiences of séances at the bureau made a strong and lasting
impression on her. She also got access to the inner circle around Stead and
participated in his private weekly séances. After Stead died on the Titanic in
April 1912, Anker submitted articles to Norwegian newspapers about spiritual-
istic séances where Stead had supposedly made himself known. Like Stead,
Anker was a Christian spiritualist, but she was also interested in the scientific
study of the phenomena of spiritualism and in the work of the British Society
for Psychical Research. She wrote two books about spiritualism, psychical
research, and her own experiences in the field, Personlighetens liv efter døden
(The Survival of Personality after Death, 1911) and Ukjendte kræfter (Unknown
Forces, 1912).
At the same time, Anker tried to start a Norwegian Society for Psychical
Research in 1912, together with an English lady, Hermione Ramsden, the grand-
daughter of the duke of Somerset. To create interest in the subject, the two
women invited the American medium for direct spirit voices, Mrs. Wriedt. At
her séances, the spirits were said to talk directly through a trumpet, and she
was widely known after her séances in England, where Stead had allegedly
reached through from the other side of the grave. Both Anker and Ramsden
had experienced successful séances with Wriedt in England.
In order to secure a scientific monitoring of the medium, the two ladies
assembled a commission under the leadership of one of Norway’s leading
scientists, the professor of physics at the University of Kristiania, Kristian
Birkeland. The séances were held at a hotel in Kristiania, and a public scan-
dal soon ensued. The newspapers wrote about the séances on a daily basis,
and although journalists did not have access to the séance room, they brought
512 Mehren
interviews and reported rumours. Evidently, the spirits were bad-tempered,

tossing the trumpet normally used for spirit voices across the séance room.
Birkeland and his men stopped the séances when a small explosion was heard
from the trumpet. They wrote a public declaration denouncing the medium as
a fake; Birkeland even compared Mrs. Wriedt to the witches of the Middle Ages.
In numerous newspaper columns, Anker did her best to defend spiritualism in
general and the medium in particular, and she also gave a large number of pub-
lic lectures about spiritualism and her own successful séances at Julia’s Bureau.
This episode was a serious blow to spiritualism in Norway, and the plans to
start another Norwegian society for psychical research were not realised.
As in other European countries, there was a renewed interest in spiritualism
in Norway after the First World War. The fact that Arthur Conan Doyle’s book
The New Revelation (1918) was translated into Norwegian as early as 1920 is only
one of many signs of this interest. Torstenson relaunched Morgendæmringen
in July 1919, after a break of three and a half years during the war. He continued
to publish the journal until his death in 1925, when the young spiritualist
Nanna Lindefjeld (1896–1978) took over as editor. However, the journal was
unable to get enough subscribers, and this led to the journal closing in the
spring of 1927. Lindefjeld later became a grammar-school teacher and also
wrote some books, two novels and a work on the gods and heroes of Antiquity,
Antikkens guder og helter (Gods and Heroes of Antiquity, 1947), which was
republished several times.
Another spokesperson for spiritualism after the First World War was Ragna
Nielsen (1845–1924). She had founded the first school with mixed classes in
Norway in 1885, which was also the first institute of secondary education (gym-
nasium) to have female teachers, and she ran the school herself for many years.
Nielsen had also headed the Norwegian women’s liberation society, Norsk
Kvindesaksforening, for several periods in the 1880s and 1890s. Nielsen claimed
to be a medium for automatic writing, and she held several public lectures
about her contact with spirits, including some well-known Norwegians like
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, who had died in 1910. She looked upon the First World
War as part of God’s plan to lead the world into a new era, and she considered
that women, through a kind of spiritual motherhood and maternal love, had a
vital role in the process of realising the Kingdom of God. These ideas were too
radical for most newspapers and magazines, and most of her articles were
rejected. Nielsen also opened a spiritualist office, modelled on Julia’s Bureau,
where people could get in touch with departed friends and family members.
The engineer Jørgen Ebbesen Castberg (1861–1940) was another active spiri-
tualist in the interwar period. He returned to Norway after many years abroad,
primarily in Sweden and the USA. He gave numerous public lectures on
spiritualism across the country, and he also became the leader of a spiritualist
society in Kristiania, Det norske spiritistiske selskab (Norwegian Spiritualist
Society). Since Castberg was interested in Hinduism and Indian philosophy,
and believed in a worldwide reformation of religion, he had written a book
about the subject: Den kommande reformationen; eller religionens ljus mot kyr-
kans mörker (The Coming Reformation; or the Light of Religion Against the
Darkness of the Church, 1917). In a somewhat different capacity, he was an agi-
tator for issues concerning public health and wrote two books on the topic,
one of them on how to stay young and healthy: Kunsten å holde sig ung og frisk
og leve lenge (The Art of Staying Young and Healthy, and Achieving a Long Life,
1935).
The history of spiritualism in Norway between the wars is closely linked to
the history of the Norwegian Society for Psychical Research, which was estab-
lished in 1917 by Miss Ramsden, along with some academics and other
interested persons. This society was comparatively long-lived, lasting until the
outbreak of the Second World War. The untiring Torstenson helped the society
financially by offering a large sum of money he himself had received from an
anonymous benefactor. Many of the most active members of the society were
spiritualists. One of them was Ragna Nielsen, who for many years housed the
society at her school. The head of the society was Oskar Jæger (1863–1933), pro-
fessor of economics of the University of Norway, who had been interested in
mediumistic phenomena since the 1890s and became a fully-fledged spiritual-
ist after the death of his wife in 1918. In a series of public lectures given in
Kristiania in 1921, he declared himself a spiritualist, whilst stressing the scien-
tific quality of the endeavour. For him, psychical research and spiritualism
represented a way to combine science and religion and secure a foundation for
the Christian worldview.
One of the most active members of the new Norwegian society for psychical
research was the spiritualist Ludvig Dahl (1864–1934), a judge and stipendiary
magistrate in Fredrikstad in the south-east of Norway. In the late 1920s and
early 1930s, Dahl became a prolific writer, occasioned by his contact with his
two dead sons through his daughter, Ingeborg (married Køber). Dahl was
inspired by Oliver Lodge’s book Raymond (1916) about the writer’s contact with
his son who had died on the battlefield. The everyday life on the other side
described in Dahl’s books bears a close resemblance to the spirit world that
Lodge portrayed. The first of Dahl’s titles was Livet efter døden i nyt lys (Life
After Death in a New Light, 1925), and he even wrote a book for an English
audience, published in London under the title We are here (1931), with a fore-
word by none other than Lodge himself.
514 Mehren
Dahl’s daughter Ingeborg was a trance and writing medium, and as close as
Norway ever came to a medium of international reputation. One of her spe-
cialties was to read and communicate replies to sealed letters through the
spirits of her departed brothers. She even received sealed letters from people
abroad who wished to establish contact with lost family members and loved
ones. In 1933 the spirits, through Ingeborg, predicted the death of her father
within about one year, and the following summer, in 1934, Dahl drowned while
swimming near his summerhouse at Hankø, with his daughter as the only wit-
ness. The chairman of the Norwegian Society for Psychical Research, Thorstein
Wereide, delivered an address at a society meeting shortly after, relating
Ingeborg’s predictions. The society saw them as signs of the girl’s mediumistic
abilities. The press was present at the meeting, and the case hit the headlines
the next day. For weeks, the publicity was immense, and the newspapers
included references to Dahl’s huge insurance policy – 60,000 Norwegian
kroner.
A Justice of the Supreme Court, Thomas Bonnevie, wrote an accusation of
murder and posted it to the Public Prosecutor. Bonnevie saw a connection
between the insurance sum, the predictions, and the drowning. Faced with
this accusation, Ingeborg herself asked the prosecuting authorities to conduct
criminal inquiries into the death of her father. The trial lasted about a month,
from February to March 1935, and ended inconclusively. Soon after the trial,
some new discoveries shed new light on the case. Mrs. Dagny Dahl, mother of
the medium, had worked at her husband’s office and held the position of chief
municipal treasurer in Fredrikstad. When the new magistrate took up his
office, irregularities were discovered in the accounts and Mrs. Dahl was found
to have engaged in embezzlement. Shortly after the newspaper broke the news,
Mrs. Dahl was found in her bed, dead from an overdose of sleeping pills. In her
suicide note, she took full responsibility for the embezzlement. It emerged that
for many years the Dahls had lived beyond their means, inviting spiritualist
friends to séances and expensive dinner parties. One visitor, Harry Price, a
member of the American Society for Psychical Research, who had a séance
with Ingeborg, described a dinner at Dahl’s house as the longest – it lasted for
nearly four hours – and most sumptuous dinner he had ever sat through. The
lifestyle had proved too expensive, and secretly Mrs. Dahl had given the domes-
tic economy a helping hand.
In the light of these developments, it was decided to reopen the murder
case, and towards the end of 1935 new legal investigations were carried out on
a broader basis. Eighty-six letters were confiscated, supposedly unopened and
read by the spirits and still in the possession of the family. The investigations
showed that in fact they had been opened and read by human means, and in
April 1936 Ingeborg was charged with the murder of her father. The prelimi-
nary inquiries were closed in February 1937, due to insufficient evidence.
Whether Ingeborg was a medium or a murderess, or neither, was never conclu-
sively stated, although it was concluded that the medium herself or somebody
in her circle had opened the letters, and that she had used the information to
fake her contact with the spirits.
The Køber trial became a public show to a degree unprecedented in
Norwegian press and legal history. The trial divided the Norwegian press and
general public into two factions; the one led by the conservative press defend-
ing the Dahls, the other one, championed by the radical-liberal press, attacking
them. For the medium Ingeborg, the trial ended somewhat happily when she
married her counsel, Wilhelm Segelcke. For spiritualism in Norway, the trial
represented a major setback.
Towards a New Millennium and into the Twenty-first Century
It was not until the last two decades of the twentieth century that spiritualism
met with renewed interest in Norway. This time, it was part of a broader spiri-
tual movement, often subsumed under the heading of New Age, a diverse
movement primarily based on Anglo-American trends in astrology, self-devel-
opment, holistic medicine, and healing (see the chapter on New Age in Norway
in the present volume).
After the Second World War and up to the 1980s, the conditions for spiritu-
alism in Norway were poor. When former members of the Norwegian Society
for Psychical Research established a new society in 1954 under the name Norsk
selskap for parapsykologisk forskning (The Norwegian Society for Parapsy
chological Research), they did not want the spiritualists on board. However,
the renowned writer André Bjerke (1918–1985) brought the paranormal and the
unexplained to the public’s attention. Under the pseudonym Bernhard Borge,
he wrote several crime novels about the paranormal, with titles such as De
dødes tjern (Lake of the Dead, 1942) and Døde menn går i land (Dead Men Go
Ashore, 1947). The first book was filmed in 1958, and became one of Norwegian
film’s greatest classics. Together with the television personality Harald Tusberg,
Bjerke made a documentary series on Norwegian television, “Streiftog i
grenseland” (Incursions into the Borderland, 1971–72), where paranormal and
spiritualistic phenomena were discussed with experts from various disciplines
in the studio.
When the so-called New Age movement had its breakthrough in Norway
in the mid-1980s, spiritualism had a renaissance. A main component of this
516 Mehren
diverse movement was channelling, a transformed and renewed version of

the mediumship of spiritualism. The very first Norwegian book based on a
channelled message was Gjennom lysmuren (Through the Light Barrier, 1986),
by Bente Müller. She channelled a vaguely defined entity from a higher con-
sciousness, to which she gave different names such as “Era”, “Eva”, and “Maria”.
There were, however, other mediums who channelled messages from dead
persons. One of them, Rita Eide (b. 1957), claimed to receive a message from
the deceased Princess Diana, recorded in Dianas bok (Diana’s Book, 1998).
Yet another medium, Anne Gjeitanger (b. 1963), a writer and former publish-
ing editor, settled in the spiritual community of Damanhur in northern Italy,
where she started channelling messages from Mary Magdalene, which were
published as Pistis Maria: Arven etter Maria Magdalena (The Legacy of Mary
Magdalene, 2014). According to Gjeitanger, Mary Magdalene’s intention in tell-
ing her own life story was to give her version of what happened two thousand
years ago and thereby correct the information given in the Bible. This kind of
feminist religiosity, taken in conjunction with Gjeitanger’s social background
as part of the cultural elite, is reminiscent of predecessors such as Hansteen
and Nielsen.
Spiritualism even reached the very top of the social hierarchy, when the
Norwegian Princess Märtha Louise (b. 1971) founded the Astarte Education
school in 2007, offering courses in how to get in contact with angels. In 2010,
she publicly declared that she even talked with the dead, and she garnered
strong criticism from the church and others for her engagement in a presump-
tively anti-Christian activity, which was regarded as incompatible with her
position as part of the royal family. Together with Elisabeth Samnøy/Nordeng,
Märtha Louise has published books in both Norwegian and English, Møt din
Skytsengel (Meet Your Guardian Angel, 2009) and The Spiritual Password (2014).
Kardec’s form of spiritism reappeared in the Norwegian capital more than a
hundred years after it had made its way there for the first time, when Gruppen
for Spiritistiske studier Allan Kardec (The Group for Spiritistic Studies Allan
Kardec, GEEAK-Norge) was established in Oslo in 1993. This time, it was
brought to Norway by two Brazilian musicians, Cristina and Claudio Latini,
who moved to Norway in 1982. They are composers and musicians – she a
singer and he a guitarist. The duo released their first record in 1983, which
became a big hit across the country. Maria Cristina Xavier Latini (b. 1954), who
works for the Peace Corps, is the president of GEEAK-Norge, and the society
has a strong connection to the Brazilian spiritualist tradition. It has a perma-
nent base in the centre of Oslo where there is a meeting-room, and the
meetings are held in both Norwegian and Portuguese. GEEAK has 45 registered
members, and there are also local groups in Bergen, Trondheim, and Stavanger.
Another spiritualist society, which was also the first of its kind to get authori-
sation by the government as a spiritualist church, was Norsk Spiritualist
Forening (The Norwegian Spiritualist Society), established in 2007 and regis-
tered as a church in 2009, as Norsk Spiritualistisk Trossamfunn (The Norwegian
Spiritualist Church). The leader and spiritualist priest, André Kirsebom (b.
1961), has a background in marketing and healing, and has experience from
English spiritualistic churches. He has written the book Mediumskap og klarsyn
i teori og praksis (Mediumship and Clairvoyance in Theory and Practice, 2012),
which together with the CD, Kontakt med Åndene (Contact with the Spirits),
presents itself as a guide to spiritualism. The society offers séances, courses,
and certification as a medium, and is based on an English spiritualist tradition.
In addition, the church performs rituals such as baptism, confirmations, wed-
dings, and funerals. The Norwegian Spiritualist Society has groups in several of
the largest Norwegian towns: Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger, and Sarpsborg. At the
time of writing, the society has 1,109 members, and the church has 695
members.
Although Swedenborgianism had followers in the 1900s, it was not until 2011
that the Swedenborgian Den nye kirken (The New Church) was registered as an
organisation in Norway, under the leadership of Thomas Xavier Floyd (b. 1969).
The church arranges Swedenborgian services, and it operates with an esti-
mated membership of thirty–forty people. Floyd has translated Swedenborg’s
book, En himmelsk lære om det nye Jerusalem (A Heavenly Doctrine about the
New Jerusalem, 2013) into Norwegian, almost 150 years after Boyesen did so for
the first time.
From the 1990s and onwards, spiritualism reached out to new groups through
the media, through both new periodicals and television. The main journal for
the new spiritual movement, Visjon (Vision, 2006-, formerly Nettverk-nytt /
Alternativt nettverk, 1992–2006), gives ample space to spiritualism. The journal
Medium (2005-) is another forum for mediums and spiritualists. In the early
twenty-first century, the Norwegian commercial television channel TV-Norge
joined an international trend within television, with several programme con-
cepts borrowed from Danish television. One of these, “Fornemmelse for mord”
(Sensation of Murder, 2002–2004) looked into cold cases through mediums
who made contact with the other side. Another series, “Åndenes makt” (The
Spirits’ Power, 2003-) became the channel’s biggest success with 500,000
viewers. In each episode, the television team visits a haunted house together
with a medium, who contacts the spirits and thereafter “cleanses” the house.
The host for the programme, Tom Strømnæss, wrote a book about the most
persuasive cases, Åndenes makt (2013). Two of the mediums in the series, Lilli
Bendriss (b. 1946) and Gro-Helen Tørum (b. 1962) have written their autobio-
518 Mehren
graphies – Bendriss, Gaven (The Gift, 2010), and Tørum, Sjaman på høye hæler
(Shaman in High Heels, 2014), a title which shows the extent of the mediums’
ability to present their message in a modern packaging: the Oracle of Delphi
meets “Sex and the City”.
The new commercial TV channel Fem, which especially targets women,
launched its own talk show in 2009, “Studio Fem”, which also debated paranor-
mal phenomena. In 2010, this became a separate series called “Fra den andre
siden” (From the Other Side, 2010-), where the hostess, together with mediums,
journalists, actresses, and other female celebrities, discusses themes like dream
interpretation, healing stones, and life on the other side. When the English
fashion-duo Trinny and Susannah gave the medium Bendriss a makeover on
the same channel in the autumn of 2013 – they dressed her up in a lemon-
yellow jacket and gave her a more colourful style – the marriage between
spiritualism and entertainment was complete.
At the beginning of a new millennium, it seems that spiritualism is more
popular in Norway than ever before. In spite of the fact that it has never become
a broad popular movement in Norway, it now combines with media and popu-
lar culture in new ways and thereby continues to reach out to new groups of
consumers.
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521
Chapter 65 Carleson and Levander
Spiritualism in Sweden
Robert Carleson* and Caroline Levander** 1 2
Precursors
Long before there was a spiritualist movement, in the mid- to late nineteenth
century, there were visionaries in Sweden who suggested that they could see
spirits. The person who without any doubt has most decisively influenced this
tradition in Sweden up to our own time was Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772).
The son of Bishop Jesper Svedberg, Swedenborg pursued a widely acknowl-
edged scientific career until the 1740s. For the remaining years of his life, he
explored the spirit world in visionary states, and worked out the details of the
correspondences that he maintained existed between the world of the spirits
and our own (see the chapter on Swedenborgianism in Scandinavia).
In the 1770s, Duke Charles (later to become King Charles XIII) gathered
around himself a circle of esotericists, who met at the royal castle. The princi-
pal members of this circle were the spirit visionaries Karl Anders Plommenfelt
(b. 1750, died at an unknown date in America), Gustav Björnram (ca. 1745–1801),
and Henrik Gustaf Ulfvenklou (1756–1819). In this circle, the first spirit séances
in Sweden were held.
By the end of the 1780s, the theories of Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1815)
concerning animal magnetism were introduced, after Baron Carl Göran Silf
verhielm (1759–1808) had received instruction in the practice in Paris. In
1786 the teachings of Swedenborg and Mesmer were united in the practices
of Exegetiska och Philantropiska Sällskapet (The Exegetic and Philanthropic
Society), a fact that made a form of proto-spiritualist somnambulism known to
a wider audience (see Mesmerism in Sweden in the present volume).
By the second half of the nineteenth century, interest in similar hypnotic
and purportedly paranormal phenomena had spread to representatives of the
medical profession, and considerable interest was shown in the Danish mag-
netic medium Carl Hansen, who in the 1860s demonstrated his abilities to the
medical societies of Uppsala and Stockholm.
* Main body of chapter.

** Section on Hilma af Klint.

522 Carleson And Levander
The Formative Years of Spiritualism
An international spiritualist movement properly speaking arose in the wake of

the 1848 “spirit rappings” in Hydesville. This budding spiritualist movement is
the topic of a Swedish thirty-page tract written in 1853 by the pseudonym “en
f.d. twiflare” (an ex-doubter). The text mainly deals with physical phenomena
such as turning tables and rapping sounds caused by spirits. Nine years later, a
brief Swedish-language summary of the doctrines of the French spiritist Allan
Kardec was published. Spiritualism became widely known in 1858, after being
described in positive terms by a well-known author, Viktor Rydberg (1828–
1895). Rydberg also published a poem that he had received by paranormal
means from the spirit of the deceased French songwriter Pierre Jean de
Béranger.
The seeds of a local, Swedish spiritualist movement were sown around 1872,
when the director of the Hamburg mail service, Johan Carl Hellberg (1815–
1877), travelled around Sweden and lectured on the subject. The first spiritualist
organisation was established in Hellberg’s home on 4 February 1877, under the
name Spiritistiska Lånebiblioteket (The Spiritualist Library). Other board
members were the lecturer in geology (later Professor, doctor honoris causa at
Uppsala University, and chair of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences)
Alfred Elis Törnebohm (1838–1919), the music editor Johan Albert Schildknecht
(1833–1919), and L. Schubert and C.G. Lindmarck. The purpose of the organisa-
tion was to conduct research and hold séances. After three years, a siseable
library of spiritualist literature, Swedish as well as foreign, had been accumu-
lated, and the organisation changed its name to Spiritistiska Litteraturföre-
ningen (SLF), i.e., the Spiritualist Literary Association.
The earliest known regular séances were held in 1885, at the home of dentist
A. Dahlin. The chairman of the organisation was at this time colonel Erik
Gustav Klingenstierna. The organisation had by now been divided into differ-
ent sections with approximately ten members in each. The medium presiding
at most of the séances was the artist Bertha Valerius (1824–1895).
During this period, it was quite inopportune for scientists with established
careers to be publicly associated with spiritualism. Memberships were there-
fore kept secret, and new members were only accepted after a careful screening
process. Séances were held in private homes, and the rules of the organisation
even stipulated that séances were not to be held, and that the main purpose of
the society was studying texts and arranging public lectures. The organisation
was disbanded as late as 1984.
Spiritualism in Sweden 523
The Growth of Spiritualism
In 1879, the British medium William Eglington visited Stockholm. In the after-
math of his trip to Sweden, a number of séances were held in the Swedish
capital, featuring local mediums. These séances were reported by the press,
and the interest in spiritualism increased dramatically. Several new spiritualist
organisations and publications were founded. In 1890, Huldine Beamish-
Mossander founded the spiritualist Edelweissförbundet (Edelweiss Society),
which included among its members the well-known artist Hilma af Klint (on
whom more will be said below), the artist and medium Bertha Valerius, and
the writer Carl von Bergen. Among the activities of the society were séances,
prayers, and meditation. At a much later date, the Society became known
for the fact that Hermann Göring married the granddaughter of Huldine
Beamish, Carin, which entailed that Göring became a member of the Society
and participated in some of its activities. The Society suspended its activities
in 2005.
The first issue of the spiritualist journal Efteråt? (Afterwards?) was pub-
lished in 1891, with Emma Mathilda Nilsson as editor. Nilsson had been a
member of the board of Spiritistiska Litteraturföreningen ever since the organ-
isation was founded. The driving force of the movement, however, was Major
Oscar Busch (1844–1916). Busch had come into contact with spiritualism via his
commanding officer Erik Klingenstierna in the southern Swedish city of
Karlskrona in 1878. The year after, he attended a séance with Bertha Valerius as
medium, and from that day onward, Busch was the leading spiritualist in the
movement. Busch himself became a medium, and was to publish a number of
books produced by means of automatic writing.
The purpose of the journal Efteråt? was to inform that part of the public that
was interested in spiritual and spiritualist matters of the ‘true meaning of
spiritualism’, and to follow the development of spiritualist and related psychic
phenomena. The journal continued to appear at the rate of one issue per
month until 1922.
The English medium Elisabeth Hope (1849–1919), known as Madame
d’Espérance, came to Gothenburg in 1890. The first Swedish séances involving
materialisations were held in that city, in the home of the English wholesaler
Matthew Fidler, as well as in a spiritualist organisation founded by him. Little
else is known of this organisation, but it was reported to have had several hun-
dred members. At some of these séances, the theosophist Torsten Hedlund
was present; Hedlund described the events that had taken place in one of
Sweden’s leading daily newspapers, Göteborgs Handels och Sjöfartstidning. The
medium was attacked as a fraud in an article entitled “Spiritistiska trollkonster”
(Spiritualist conjuring tricks). A few months later, the Russian psychic inves-
tigator Aleksander Nikolajevitj Aksákov came to Gothenburg, studied the
materialisation phenomena of d’Espérance, and vouched for their authentic-
ity. This was the beginning of the scientific exploration of psychic phenomena
in Sweden.
In the same year, 1890, Svenska Samfundet för psykisk forskning (The
Swedish Society for Psychic Research) was founded by the writer Carl von
Bergen, with Karl O. Kallenberg, Gottlieb Klein, Georg von Rosen, and Otto
Wetterstrand as members of the governing board. In the following year, the
medical doctor Alfred Backman was severely criticised for publishing (report-
edly successful) experiments on the telepathic and clairvoyant abilities of
hypnotised subjects. Three years later, Karl O. Kallenberg published his experi-
ments on hypnosis. During his travels abroad in the 1920s, he was also to follow
up the purported contacts with the spirit world of the internationally known
researcher doctor William Jackson Crawford and the spirit photographer
William Hope.
In 1892 The Principles of Nature by the American spiritualist medium
Andrew Jackson Davis was published in a Swedish translation (under the title
Naturens principer), and three years later an appeal was published, addressed
to the general public in Scandinavia, asking those who had had psychic experi-
ences to get in touch with the researchers who signed the document. Among
these one finds well-known intellectuals of the period, such as the university
docent in experimental psychology Alfred Lehman and the university docent
in theoretical philosophy Axel Herrlin.
The first issue of the journal Psyche appeared in 1898. The publication con-
tinued to appear at least until 1910. The editors of the journal state that
‘members of the spiritualist societies, the Martinist Order, the Theosophical
Society, the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, the Temple and the Universal
Brotherhood as well as the FMO’ are eligible as subscribers. The journal
changed its name to Aur, tidskrift för esoteriskt studium (Aur, Journal for
Esoteric Studies) before it was discontinued.
In 1900 Spiritualistiska Föreningen (The Spiritualist Association) began its
activities in Stockholm. At first the association, which was founded by Anders
August Alexanderson (1845–1923) had fifty-six members. Alexanderson was
born in the southern Swedish province of Småland, moved to Stockholm
with his brother at the age of thirteen, and at first pursued a military career.
He left the military, having become convinced that war was merely legalised
homicide, migrated to the USA in 1883, and became a priest in 1890. Two years
later he came into contact with the Church of the Soul in Chicago. This was a
spiritualist church, led by the trance medium Cora L.V. Richmond (1840–1923).
Alexanderson now became a devoted spiritualist. To this religious orientation

he added an interest in Oriental religions, which he had come in contact with
at the World Parliament of Religions in 1893. The following year he began to
publish the monthly Swedish-language Svenska Spiritualisten (The Swedish
Spiritualist). In 1898 he was once again in Stockholm, where he began to hold
weekly public lectures on spiritualism. He returned to Chicago, but continued
to publish a Swedish-language spiritualist journal, Lifsgåtor (Riddles of Life) in
the years 1908–1912.
In the same year, 1900, a society for the scientific study of psychic phenom-
ena, P.F.S. Allah-Gehbar (a name of unknown meaning and etymology), was
founded in Stockholm. Its meetings were attended by large audiences, repre-
senting all social classes. The society enlisted the services of several trance
mediums, including Amalia Andrea Werner, Gurli Gummesson, Augusta
Jönsson, and Anna Malm. The free-thinker and theosophist Axel Frithiof Åker
berg (1833–1901) was made honorary member of the society.
Finally, two other spiritualist associations were founded in Stockholm in
that year, under the names A.E. Carlssons förening (A.E. Carlsson’s Association)
and Spiritualistkretsen Johannes Budbärare (The Spiritualist Circle Messengers
of John). The latter was founded by Carl Söderling (1873–1948) and machinist
Johan Ragnar Nilsson. In his youth Söderling had been active in the Salvation
Army and in the temperance movement. On one Sunday in the autumn of 1899
he attended one of A.A. Alexanderson’s lectures, and some time later he visited
the medium Augusta Jönsson. Shortly thereafter, Söderling experienced a state
of trance, and spent much of the rest of his life as a highly active spiritualist,
holding lectures and séances in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Söderling con-
sidered spiritualism to be the “religion of the spirit”, and therefore as the
religion that surpassed all others. In the years 1912 and 1913 he published the
journal Spiritistiska Meddelanden (Spiritualist Messages), which contained
speeches that he had produced while in trance, as well as texts written by
means of automatic writing. Until his death in 1948, Söderling was Sweden’s
most highly publicised trance medium.
Hilma af Klint
No other figure associated with Spiritualism in Sweden has had an interna-

tional impact even approaching that of artist Hilma af Klint, and it is only
fitting to devote a section to her.
Hilma af Klint was born on 26 October 1862, in Stockholm, Sweden. She
studied at the polytechnic school, now the Swedish School of Arts, Crafts and
Design. In 1882 she joined the Academy of Fine Arts, where she studied for five
years. She mostly painted conventional landscapes, portraits on commission
and, which was characteristic for women artists, illustrations. When she died
in 1944, her legacy was that of a skilled but uninventive female painter, typical
of her era, and with a very small amount of work in the last thirty years of her
life. This picture of her was, however, revalued with the discovery of her occult
abstract art.
Religion was an important part of af Klint’s life. She came into contact with
Spiritualist circles in Stockholm in 1879. She was a member of the Edelweiss
Society for a brief time in 1896 and she ran the Sunday School at the family
farm on Adelsö during the 1890s together with a cousin. Her interest in
Spiritualism led her to the Theosophical Society, where she became an active
member, and subsequently to the Anthroposophical Society.
Together with some women friends from the Academy, af Klint formed a
small group which held regular Spiritualist meetings. The group took the name
De fem (The Five) or Fredagsgruppen (The Friday Group), named after the
number of participants and the day of the week they usually met.
In 1904 Hilma af Klint received a message from one of the group’s spiritual
leaders, asking her to do a series of temple paintings as part of the group’s mis-
sion of enlightenment. According to af Klint’s notebooks, the paintings were
supposed to mediate a message to those who were ready, i.e., enlightened
enough, to receive it. The message was centred around one idea in particular:
the dualisms between matter and spirit, earth and heaven, and man and
woman, inspired by both Theosophy and Rosicrucianism, with her own
thoughts added to it. Dualism, she thought, implied that individuals should
search out and unite with their complementaries, or soul mates, in order to
become complete. The soul mate originated from the angel that “gave birth” to
both man and woman. The split into man and woman was also the origin of
how feelings were connected to woman and thoughts to man, as well as many
other symbols she thought would create a balance when united: earth and
heaven, blue and yellow, upwards and downwards.
Af Klint’s paintings Målningarna till templet (The Temple Paintings) were
made up by themes that were repeated throughout several series of paintings.
The early series were highly dependent on the mediumistic technique,
although preliminary sketches were done. The paintings vary greatly in size,
but the pictures within each series are of the same size. Before she started
working, she saw numbers that indicated the size of each series of paintings.
The first period of work consists of 111 paintings.
The style of the temple paintings was very different than that of the art
she was publicly known for. They are mostly abstract with large details in
contrasting colours, which form an iconographic message. The symbols

include colours, geometrical shapes, numbers, letters, words, and figurative
images, such as flowers and other symbols.
In the second period, 1912–1915, she was freer in her painting: she described
how she got a feeling of the image from an external source, but was more
involved with the interpretation of the image than before. She developed a
technique where she entered a state of half trance, so that she could receive
messages while still remaining in control of her brush strokes. She created
eighty-one paintings during this period. When these works were completed,
she considered her main work as finished. She then proceeded to create several
smaller paintings, which she thought of as explanatory to the temple
paintings.
From 1916 and onwards her method was less mediumistic and more deter-
mined by her own ideas. She created geometric compositions describing
religious viewpoints as well as paintings of plants, both from direct observa-
tion and from spiritual perception. She produced 343 paintings during a
five-year period.
Hilma af Klint became a member of the Anthroposophical Society and vis-
ited the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, several times in the 1920s.
During this time her painting was influenced by Rudolf Steiner. She used
watercolours and explored plant themes and elemental beings. She also con-
tinued with more personal studies of her experiences on a spiritual plane.
During the next twenty years she completed more than 450 paintings.
Hilma af Klint died in Stockholm in 1944. She left over a thousand occult
paintings, several sketchbooks, and a large number of notebooks, which are
now in the care of Hilma af Klint Stiftelsen (The Hilma af Klint Foundation).
She stipulated in her will that the paintings should be kept together and not to
be shown to the public until twenty years after her death. In 1986 her occult art
was part of the exhibition The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890–1985 in
Los Angeles. Since then, her art has been exhibited several times in Sweden
and in other countries.
The Early Twentieth Century
In the years from 1902 to 1904 Mary Karadja (1868–1943), Lizzy Lind af Hageby
(1878–1963), and Anna Synnerdahl published the journal XX:e seklet (The
Twentieth Century). The publication was presented as a humanitarian journal,
the principal mission of which was to combat materialism from a spiritualist
point of view. Karadja, like so many other spiritualists of the time, came into
contact with spiritualism via the lectures of A.A. Alexanderson, and soon
advanced to becoming a medium. She also promoted spiritualism by inviting

mediums from other countries to Stockholm, notably Alfred Vout Peters from
England and a woman from Germany presenting herself as Frau Abend.
In 1904 the spiritualist society that Alexanderson had founded was reorgan-
ised with F.C.W. Wallenkamph as leader, and was given the new name Sällskapet
Sanningssökarna (SS) (The Society of Seekers for Truth). Wallenkamph had
begun his religious career in the Baptist and Adventist churches, and was
later (from 1912) to become an active Theosophist. He ran a publishing com-
pany, Litteraturförlaget, which published a large amount of spiritualist and
Theosophical literature.
In 1920 Sällskapet Sanningssökarna was reorganised yet again, and was
renamed Föreningen Spiritistisk Mission (Spiritualist Mission Society). The
society was governed by a board consisting of fifteen members, and with
Countess Louise Breitholtz as its chairperson. Since then, the society has
undergone several successive changes of name, and is today active under its
old name Sällskapet Sanningssökarna (SS). During the years 1916 to 1942 the
paper Hjälp (Help) was published by Föreningen Självhjälp (The Society for
Self-Help). This association was a philanthropic society that offered help to
those who had become indigent, but the contents of the paper included a con-
siderable amount of material on spiritualist experiences and presented current
psychic research. The editor of the paper was the vicar Johannes Uddin
(1878–1970).
In 1927 a spiritualist organisation called Stockholms Spiritualistiska Före
ning (The Spiritualist Society of Stockholm) was founded by director G.
Sundqvist, who was also the chairperson of Spiritualistiska Sällskapet. The
society organised study groups in which the development of mediumistic abil-
ities was furthered, and arranged séances that featured table turning and
clairvoyance. Attempts to let spirits speak directly, without using the voice of a
medium, were also unsuccessfully attempted, but records tell of one occasion
when a larynx materialised in the séance room. In 1929 the society invited the
then well-known British medium Alfred Vout Peters to Stockholm.
In the same year, 1929, the first issue of Mysteria, Tidskrift för psykisk forskn-
ing, spiritualism och ockultism (Mysteria, Journal for Psychic Research,
Spiritualism and Occultism) appeared. Franz C.W. Wallenkamph was the edi-
tor of the journal until his death in 1930, after which the editorship was taken
over by director Carl Alfred Carleson. The journal at the same time changed
focus, so that it now, beside spiritualism, came to include material on Rosicru
cianism and Theosophy. The journal was discontinued in 1932. In 1929 Institutet
för psykologisk forskning i Uppsala (Institute for Psychological Research in
Uppsala) was founded by Sydney Alrutz, who was the first university docent in
experimental psychology in Sweden. Alrutz was a friend of Carl Alfred Carle

son, and shared his interest in spiritualist phenomena.
Carl A. Carleson (1881–1940) travelled to the USA at the age of twenty-four. In
1921 he visited a New York-based medium, Cecil M. Cook, and her organisation
T. Stead’s Memorial Centre with the express purpose of unmasking spiritualism
as fraud. Carleson wrote of this meeting that he had been able to speak directly
to his deceased relatives in Swedish, without the intermediary of a medium.
The experience convinced him of the validity of spiritualism and radically
changed the course of his life. In the following year he got in touch with Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, who was visiting New York in order to deliver a series of
lectures at Carnegie Hall. Carleson returned to Sweden in 1925, and began to
translate spiritualist literature into Swedish, including the entire spiritualist
oeuvre of Conan Doyle. Carleson invited Conan Doyle to Stockholm in 1929,
and the famous overseas visitor spoke on two occasions to an audience that
filled the large hall of the Stockholm Concert Hall. Whereas spiritualism until
then had been a marginalised minority view in Sweden, it had now crossed the
threshold into becoming a widely publicised and accepted movement.
As can be seen from the chronology summarised above, spiritualism was
until the decisive events of 1929 based in Stockholm and was split up among
a considerable number of separate organisations. Conan Doyle urged his
Swedish hosts to join forces, and Carleson followed up on this suggestion
by becoming the chairperson of a united spiritualist society, formed by the
merger of Stockholms Spiritualistiska Förening and Spiritualistiska Sällskapet.
At the initiative of lieutenant-colonel N.G. Psilander and Carl A. Carleson, a
national organisation was formed in 1938, under the name Spiritualistiska
Riksförbundet (SR) (National Spiritualist Federation). The stated purpose of
this organisation was to ‘test and study the truths of spiritualism in a scientific
and dignified manner’. Carleson was appointed the first chairperson of the
society. For the first two years, it published the journal Spiritualistisk Tidskrift.
In 1938, Spiritualistiska Riksförbundet invited the American medium
Gertrude Irving to present four public lectures in Stockholm. These were
reported to the police, with the result that Carleson as chairperson of the
organisation was charged with having broken a law against organising public
demonstrations of hypnotism and similar phenomena. Carleson was sen-
tenced to paying a fine of 100 Swedish crowns, and in October that year the
police banned all public spiritualist lectures and séances.
In the same year, the priest in the state church Martin Liljeblad (1877–1951),
in the southern Swedish city of Helsingborg, became known throughout
Sweden for advocating spiritualism and organising public séances. The most
serious public scandal in the history of Swedish spiritualism occurred when a
Danish medium, Dorothea Christensen, who had been invited to Stockholm,

manifested the spirits of queen Astrid of Belgium and Swedish archbishop
Nathan Söderblom. Liljeblad, who was responsible for arranging the séance,
was reported to the Cathedral Chapter, which in turn not only reported him to
the police, but demanded that he submit to a psychiatric examination. Liljeblad
refused to comply with the latter order, left for Stockholm, and held a public
meeting which was attended by an audience of 1,500 people. The Cathedral
Chapter removed him from office for two months, stating that Liljeblad’s con-
duct was incompatible with the position of priest in the Church of Sweden.
Spiritualistiska Riksförbundet also at first denounced Liljeblad for his provoca-
tive behaviour, which they felt had made the Swedish public view spiritualism
in a more negative light, but also criticised the decision of the Cathedral
Chapter.
The outbreak of the Second World War prevented Spiritualistiska Riksför
bundet from inviting further mediums from abroad, and the plans of presenting
lectures all over Sweden and thereby encouraging the formation of a network
of local spiritualist organisations were also temporarily given up. To reflect its
more local status, the name of the organisation was in 1942 changed to Stock
holms Spiritualistiska Förening (SSF) and the publication Medlemsblad för
Spiritualistiska Riksförbundet (Paper for the Members of the National Spiritua
list Federation) that the organisation had begun to publish in 1941 now changed
its name to Spiritualisten (The Spiritualist), with Rolf Carleson (1910–1968) as
its editor.
The Post-War Years
After the end of the war, several new Swedish mediums entered the scene.
Ernst Broberg (1881–1976) led séances at which spirit voices were heard and
materialisations could be observed. Broberg had a background in the Salvation
Army, and was for some time a Theosophist. In the 1920s he became a mem-
ber of Stockholms Spiritualistiska Förening, and was active in a study group
that attempted to develop mediumistic abilities. In 1931 the group moved to
Broberg’s home. After two years of intense efforts, sources report that trumpets
sounded and spirit voices could be heard. In March 1939 materialisations were
reported, and in 1943 Broberg felt ready to manifest spirit voices in front of a
larger group of people. Another medium with similar abilities was active dur-
ing the same time in the city of Linköping. The séances of these mediums were
never held in public.
After the war, Rolf Carleson travelled to England and took the initiative to
revive the International Spiritualist Federation (ISF). A world congress was
held in Stockholm in 1951, organised by Carleson. After this event, he served as
the secretary general of the federation for many years.
In 1947 the Sällskapet för parapsykologisk forskning, SPF (Society for Para
psychological Research) was founded, and in 1949 Stockholms Spiritualistiska
Förening took the initiative to hold a Nordic spiritualist conference in Viggby
holm, north of Stockholm. There were fifty participants from Danmark,
twenty-six from Finland, 105 from Sweden, and three each from Norway and
Iceland. At the meeting, the decision was taken to form a Nordic spiritualist
union, Nordisk Spiritualistisk Union (NSU), with a first conference to be held
in Denmark in 1950.
As a result of the Viggbyholm conference, a national association called
Svenska Spiritualisters Riksförbund (SSR), (Swedish Spiritualist National Asso
ciation) was formed in 1949, with three local branches in Stockholm, and one
each in Gothenburg, Uppsala, and Malmö. Already two years before, a spiritu-
alist publishing house, Bokförlaget Excelsior AB, had been set up; this company
was to publish vast amounts of spiritualist literature, until it finally closed in
1974.
In the late 1940s, the news that world-famous sculptor Carl Milles (1875–
1965) was a spiritualist was reported in newspapers around the world. Roughly
at the same time, the author Jan Fridegård (1897–1968), who was very well
known to a broad Swedish audience, announced that he was convinced of the
truth of spiritualism, and launched a series of public lectures on spiritualism
across large parts of the country. These events led to a wave of popularity for
spiritualism in the 1950s. Many new mediums became active, some fifty new
spiritualist groups were formed, and the total number of registered members
in spiritualist organisations reached 3,000, and remained at approximately
that level for a couple of decades.
Yet another publicity boost for spiritualism came in June 1963, when artist
Friedrich Jürgenson (1904–1987) invited representatives from the press to his
cottage in Mölnbo south of Stockholm, to announce that he since 1958 had
recorded messages from the spirit world on tape.
In 1967 Svenska Spiritualisters Riksförbund took over the journal Spiritua
listen from Stockholms Spiritualistiska Förening, changed its name to Utan
Gräns (No Borders) and instated Leo Torgny as editor after Rolf Carleson.
In 1968 a retirement home located in central Sweden, Ramsbergsgården,
was acquired by a trust with Rolf Carleson as chairman, and was converted
into a conference centre for the spiritualist movement.
In the mid-1970s, Maria Aparecida Bergman took the initiative of founding

an organisation for promoting the kardecist version of spiritism. The organisa-
tion, Gruppen för Spiritistiska Studier Allan Kardec – Sverige (GSSAK) (The
Group for Spiritualist Studies Allan Kardec – Sweden) adopted as its stated
mission to foster the study, practice, and promotion of Spiritualism, in all three
aspects of this movement as foreseen by Allan Kardec: as a scientific, philo-
sophical, and religious pursuit. The group is still active.
In the 1980s, there were serious conflicts within the national spiritualist fed-
eration, and in 1986 a schism split this body and several local groups joined
forces in a new umbrella organisation, Spriritualistiska Riksförbundet för
Andlig Utveckling (SRAU, National Spiritualist Association for Spiritual Devel
opment). After the schism, the old national association has led an increasingly
passive existence; the new organisation, on the other hand, also lost many
local groups as members and today constitutes just one small group among
many.
During the 1980s and 1990s, the spiritualist milieu was heavily influenced by
the more general “alternative” or “New Age” practices that had become popular
in Sweden. As a result, it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish spe-
cifically spiritualist organisations from other “alternative” networks and
groups. There is no umbrella organisation that represents spiritualism, and
there are no new mediums with a visible presence on the religious scene.
Spiritualism as a distinct religious phenomenon has thus lost much ground
since the 1980s, despite the fact that several Swedish commercial television
channels in the first years of the twenty-first century have presented popular
shows with spiritualist themes.
References
Alexanderson, Anders August, Lifsgåtor, Chicago: n.p., 1912.

Briem, Efraim, Spiritismens historia, Lund: Gleerup, 1922.
Carleson, Rolf, Vidare går min väg – spiritualistiska erfarenheter, Stockholm: Excelsior,
1967.
Carlsson, Carl Alexander, Förteckning öfver litteratur angående spiritism och spiritualism
samt några föregångare jämte biografiska och bibliografiska anteckningar. 1, Spiritism
och spiritualism jämte bidrag till belysning af det kristliga mediumskapets historia och
beskaffenhet, Stockholm: Nordin & Josephson, 1902.
Fant, Åke, Hilma af Klint: ockult målarinna och abstrakt pionjär, Stockholm: Raster förlag
1989.
Hilma af Klint: målningarna till templet : temppelimaalaukset : 30 oktober 1999–9 januari

2000, Liljevalchs, Stockholm: Liljevalchs konsthall, 1999 (exhibition catalogue).
Müller-Vestermann, Iris (ed.), Hilma af Klint: Abstrakt pionjär, Stockholm: Moderna
Museet, 2013.
Sanner, Inga, Att älska sin nästa såsom sig själv – om moraliska utopier under 1800-talet,
Stockholm: Carlsson, 1995.
534 Williams-hogan
Chapter 66
Swedenborgianism in Scandinavia
Jane Williams-Hogan
Eighteenth Century Swedish Response
The name Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) has often been associated with
esoteric currents, in Scandinavia, as well as in other parts of the world. For over
250 years the religious works of this spiritual visionary have received widely
different interpretations, including esoteric ones. They have been warmly
received by those who saw the outlines of a new Christianity in them; they
were enthusiastically endorsed by occultists and spiritualists who saw in them
a key to daily contact with the spirit world; they have also been idiosyncrati-
cally embraced by a variety of creative writers and artists who saw in them
visions of a deeper human reality. But the responses have not been all positive,
particularly in Sweden. In fact, they were censored and rejected by the Lutheran
establishment almost from the beginning, although not by all Lutheran priests,
because they challenged the doctrine of the trinity and faith alone; and they
were also rejected and ridiculed by rationalists inspired by the Enlightenment,
because they were not grounded in the sole reality of the empirical world.
Emanuel Swedenborg – “the Call” and the Message
Emanuel Swedenborg believed he was called by God during a spiritual crisis in

the mid 1740s to abandon his search for the soul’s domain using the methods of
science and philosophy. In a private journal, he wrote down the dreams that
illuminated his crisis and he interpreted them. He wrote in Swedish rather
than his customary Latin. The dreams centred on his hubris and his need for
humility. The period of intense, devastating and uplifting dreams lasted for
approximately eight months during 1744. At the end of that period, he recog-
nised his need to become like a little child with regard to all things spiritual
and to be nurtured into such knowledge by God’s leading alone (Swedenborg
1977: number 267). In this state of humility, he believed he was called to explore
the world of the spirit through the careful study of God’s Word (Bible). The key
given to him was the doctrine of correspondences.

During his “call” he wrote and published eighteen different titles, the first
was the eight-volume Arcana Coelestia (Secrets of Heaven), London 1749–1756.
The last was Vera Christiana Religio (True Christianity) Amsterdam 1771. He
wrote anonymously until 1768, when he published in Amsterdam, Amore
Conjugiali (Marriage Love) which he signed ‘Emanuel Swedenborg, A Swede’.
He also listed all the works he had previously published and several he intended
to write. In his last work he signed himself, ‘Emanuel Swedenborg, Servant of
the Lord Jesus Christ’. He made it clear that he was only called to write and
publish. While he actively distributed his books throughout Europe, he never
preached and he never attempted to found a church.
He believed he was called to illuminate and witness the following funda-
mental truths: that God, the Lord Jesus Christ, is one in essence and person;
that the spiritual world is the world of causes, and the natural world is the
realm of effects; the purpose of the whole of God’s creation is a heaven from
the human race; heaven is the destiny of any person, who loves what is true
and does what is good, regardless of his or her religious affiliation; marriage
love, the love between a man and a woman, is the fundamental love of heaven
and the Church; individual salvation is dependent upon the performance of
uses (works) in this world to the neighbour and God, not on faith alone. The
doctrines that have most intimately connected him to esotericism are the doc-
trine of correspondences and the concept that heaven is in the form of a
“Grand Man”.
Swedenborg’s claims of daily contact with the spiritual world, and his “new”
doctrines challenged both established Christianity and the emerging scientific
empiricism of the age. While Swedenborg’s message was addressed to the
whole of western Christendom, the very fact that this “new revelation” was
written and not preached limited knowledge of it, and therefore response to it.
Nonetheless Swedenborg’s sensational claims and provocative words did
spread and there were individual and official reactions to them. Their spread
was intimately bound up with access to the books, the degree of individual
religious freedom available, the relative strength of state churches, and the
local attitudes of the political and religious elites.
The Response
Swedenborg wrote and published all his religious works outside of Scandinavia
in either London or Amsterdam, due to the freedom of the press found in those
two cities, and the strict censorship regulations in force in Sweden. In 1766 a law
promoting freedom of the press was passed; however, religious publications
536 Williams-hogan
were not included in the law and they continued to be censored. He wrote and
published all his works in Latin, the lingua franca of Europe in the middle of
the eighteenth century. The fact that they were written in Latin made them
easier to import into Scandinavia, but restricted their circulation to only those
elites conversant in it. However, by the end of the century the vernacular began
to dominate, making his works less accessible unless translated. While there
were men willing and even eager to translate his works into Swedish, the oppo-
sition of the Lutheran establishment made publishing those efforts in Sweden
virtually impossible until the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
Prior to 1800 Swedenborg’s religious writings generated significant responses
in three locations: Gothenburg, Skara in Västergötland, and Stockholm. It is
useful to point out that Emanuel Swedenborg had personal connections to all
of these places. His father Jesper Svedberg (1653–1735) was the Bishop of Skara
for the last thirty-three years of his life; Swedenborg lived and worked in
Stockholm throughout his adult life; and he frequently travelled through
Gothenburg on his trips to England and Europe. Gothenburg is also the loca-
tion of his most public clairvoyant experience – seeing the Stockholm fire of
1759 while at a dinner party at the home of the English merchant William
Castel (dates unknown).
Gothenburg
Gothenburg was not only the site of Swedenborg’s most public clairvoyant
experience, but it was the location of the first affirmative response to
Swedenborg’s religious writings in Sweden, and the place of the first heresy
trial involving his doctrines and men devoted to them. By 1765 there was a
group of men actively reading and discussing his works. Sven Wenngren
(d.1798) the secretary of the Swedish East India Company was a member of
that circle. Two Lutheran clergymen joined the group during Swedenborg’s
stay in Gothenburg in the summer of 1765. These were the Reverend Dr. Johan
Rosén (1726–1773), and Dr. Gabriel Anders Beyer (1720–1779). Both men became
avid and devoted readers of Swedenborg’s works, while continuing to teach at
the diocesan high school in Gothenburg.
Swedenborg’s works had been circulating in the city in Latin without creat-
ing any disturbance. In fact, in 1766 Swedenborg had even sent copies of his
most recent work Apocalysis Revelata (Revelation Unveiled) to the Bishop, Eric
Lamberg (1719–1780) and the Dean of the Cathedral, Olaf Eckbom (1716–1784)
without generating any response. However, as soon as his ideas circulated in
Swedish there was an immediate response from orthodox and Moravian influ-
enced clergy. Rosén’s translation of a German review of Revelation Unveiled
published in the Göteborgska Spion number 42 was noticed in the fall of 1767,
as was Beyer’s 1768 collection of Household Sermons that incorporated some of

Swedenborg’s teaching and methods.
Demands were made at the meeting of Consistory in the fall of 1768 to assess
the danger of Swedenborg’s works that were seen to directly challenge God’s
word and the pure teachings of the church. The Vice President of the Consistory
Anders Kollinius (1720–1776) placed on the agenda for the meeting the charge
to determine the “orthodoxy” of Swedenborg’s writings. This charge set in
motion the “heresy” trial of Beyer and Rosén and Swedenborg’s doctrines in
Gothenburg.
In 1769 Swedenborg’s works were labeled Socinian, as well as a form of
Mohammedanism. They were seen as a threat to Lutheranism, and Beyer and
Rosén were disciplined, but not defrocked. They were no longer permitted to
teach theology, and could not be promoted. Swedenborg, only eight days
before he left Sweden for the last time, wrote to his nephew that this trial was
the most important trial in 1,700 years (Acton 1955: 733).
The case was not closed, however, and it moved from one venue to another
until 1778, when the case was finally dropped, perhaps because there had been
no public disturbance. During this time every level of the establishment had
expressed an unwillingness to fully engage Swedenborg’s theology, fearful, that
if they did, they would stimulate greater public interest in his teachings. Beyer
was reinstated in 1779, but died not long after (Smoley 2005: 45).
Despite or because the response of the Church, Swedenborgianism contin-
ued to grow in the diocese of Skara in Västergötland, and in Eskilstuna and
Stockholm in the Mälaren region. Swedenborgianism in Västergötland was
primarily personal and private and focused on living a useful Christian life,
while in Stockholm the emphasis was more social and focused on institution
building.
Skara
The involvement of the Dean of the Skara cathedral, Anders Knös (1721–1799)
and his wife and family with Swedenborgianism undoubtedly helped the cause
in Västergötland. He was a religious leader interested in promoting practical
Christian living. By 1777 there were so many young priests interested in
Swedenborg’s doctrines that they were required to write down their sermons
to ensure purity of doctrine (Lenhammar 1966: 149). One priest wrote a book
critical of Swedenborg, but the decision of the diocese was not to publish it,
lest it generate additional interest in his teachings.
In the early 1780s contact was made between the Swedenborgians in Skara
and those in Stockholm and the more public programme of the Swedenborgians
there. This connection led to the Dean’s wife supporting the printing of a
538 Williams-hogan
Swedenborgian publication in Skara without proper approval. The pamphlet

Grunder för ett Wacklande Förnuft (Grounds for Wavering Reason) was most
probably written by Christian Johanssén (1746–1814), a portraitist and manu-
facturer living in Eskilstuna, who was a strongly committed Swedenborgian
evangelist (Häll 1995: 406). It was brought to the attention of the Bishop of
Skara while he was in Stockholm. He felt compelled to respond. While the tone
of the pamphlet was philosophical, the content was judged to be Swedenborgian.
The printer was held accountable of printing without the censor’s seal of
approval. This event did not dampen the enthusiasm of the Skara Swedenbor
gians, but it encouraged them to be even more cautious. Thus, they continued
to emphasise a personal and private commitment to Swedenborg’s doctrines.
With the socially important personal protection of the Dean until his death
in 1799, Västergötland became an active centre for the underground Sweden
borgian movement in nineteenth-century Sweden.
Stockholm
The response to Swedenborg in the west of Sweden centred primarily on mat-
ters of doctrine and faith; in Stockholm the response was as much about the
esoteric nature of Swedenborg’s claims as it was doctrinal. Swedenborgianism
emerged in Stockholm during the reign of Gustavus III (1746–1792); the rhetoric
of the king was about freedom and enlightenment, the reality was absolutism.
The Swedenborgians in Stockholm, some of whom personally knew the
king, naïvely believed his words were the reality, and laboured throughout the
1780s to publish Swedenborg’s writings in Swedish. Nonetheless, every venture
they attempted failed. The leading members of the Swedenborgian movement
during this period were: August Nordenskjöld (1754–1792), his brother Carl
Fredrik Nordenskjöld (1756–1828), Carl Bernard Wadström (1746–1799), and
Johan Gustaf Halldin (1737–1825). Two other men, Johan Tybeck (1752–1837), a
Lutheran priest recently converted to Swedenborgianism from Strängnäs, and
Christian Johanssén made significant contributions to the growth of the move-
ment in the capital and in the country.
August Nordenskjöld and his brother Carl Fredrik were at the centre of the
Swedenborgian movement in Stockholm and they both played important roles
in the broader history of Swedenborgianism. They, along with Wadström and
Johanssén, formed the first anti-slavery society in the world in Nörrköping in
1779. August displayed incredible zeal in his effort to publish Swedenborg’s
unpublished manuscripts stored at the Royal Academy of Sciences, as well as
to translate Swedenborg’s published works into Swedish. It appears that he
translated five of the seven works completed before 1800.
August also had a strong interest in alchemy. This interest was supported by
Gustavus III, who, after reading his Plain System of Alchemy (1779), provided
him with a laboratory in 1780. August functioned as the court alchemist until
1789, when he left for England and Africa (Häll 1995: 428). Nordenskjöld wanted
to move beyond theosophical alchemy and unite it with the rational spirit of
science. He also wanted to connect it with Swedenborg’s teachings. He used
Swedenborg’s discussion of heat and light in Divine Love and Wisdom to point
out what he believed was the scientific key to understanding the physics of
changes in matter (Häll 1995: 97). He believed that finding the alchemical
secret of producing an unending supply of gold would lead to the creation of a
Swedenborgian utopia (Häll 1995: 507).
Wishing to expand their membership and unable to publish Swedenborg’s
works in Sweden or easily import them, they decided to try and have them
printed in Denmark. Halldin was sent to Copenhagen in 1782 to oversee the
printing. He discovered, however, that the censorship laws there were equally
strict. He returned to Sweden disappointed.
In 1783 Gustavus III made Halldin editor of a newspaper called Aftonbladet.
Its purpose was to engender support for the king while he was abroad in Italy.
It was permitted to have religious as well as political content. However, Halldin
was soon publishing anonymous excerpts of Swedenborg’s Doctrine of Charity;
it was not long before the censors closed the paper. Halldin wrote an impas-
sioned appeal for religious freedom in the last issue.
Another effort in 1783 was the anonymous publication of Carl Fredrik Nor
denskjöld’s two-volume work titled Oneiromantien eller konsten att tyda drömar
(Oneiromancy or the Art of Interpreting Dreams). It was written in alphabeti-
cal order as a dream dictionary with articles on such topics as alchemy,
numbers, correspondences, mythology, and hieroglyphics. It gives a good over-
view of the interests of occultists and theosophists of that period. It was
positively reviewed in Stockholms Posten, but was critically assessed in Dagligt
Allehanda. Nordenskjöld unjustly believed that the negative review was writ-
ten by the rationalist Johan Henrik Kellgren (1751–1795).
Perhaps the partial success of Oneiromantien inspired the expanding group
of individuals to again attempt to publish Swedenborg’s works abroad. This
time Halldin broached the idea to the king, recently returned from his trip to
Rome. He received substantial support from Gustavus III, who gave Halldin a
two-year pension in advance and named him Secretary to the Swedish Legation
in Copenhagen (Lenhammar 1966: 197).
This idea was greeted with enthusiasm from the many readers of Swedenborg,
who also contributed generously to this project. The group in Skara wished to
receive one hundred copies of the printed work, and supported the effort by
540 Williams-hogan
supplying suitable Swedish translations. Halldin went to Copenhagen, but soon

realised he needed to raise more money and returned to Sweden. He left the
printing process in the hands of General Christian Tuxen (1713–1792), a friend
of Swedenborg and a Danish believer. With change brewing in Stockholm,
Halldin was reluctant to seek support from the king. Ultimately it did not mat-
ter, because he learned that once again the Danish Lutheran Church would not
permit the work to be published.
The next effort was to establish a private organisation dedicated to printing
and publishing the works of Swedenborg in Swedish and Latin. The Stockholm
leadership along with Beta Knös made the decision when they gathered at the
mineral spring, Himmelstalund, near Värnhem. It was modeled on the London
Theosophical Society founded by Robert Hindmarsh (1759–1835) in 1783. In
addition, beyond publishing, they would gather to discuss the works they pub-
lished and, they would correspond with other interested groups in Europe.
They became the Exegetical and Philanthropic Society.
The society met for the first time at the end of 1786, and before long they had
a membership of over 150, including individuals from the highest circles in
Stockholm. It is reported that Duke Charles (1748–1818) attended at least one
meeting (Lenhammar 1966: 285). Wadström seems to have been the driving
force behind the publishing efforts of the society. Along with a weekly newslet-
ter, the society published commentaries, apologetics, and excerpts from
Swedenborg’s own writings. Among other things, they published Nordenskjöld’s
Tankar om falska profeter (Thoughts on False Prophets), Wadström’s Strödda
tankar (Casual Thoughts), excerpts from True Christianity, and Samlingar för
Philanthroper (Collections for Philanthropists). The king’s librarian assembled
a catalog of Swedenborg’s books and manuscripts (Lenhammar 1966: 274–75).
The publication of these books alerted the established church and the press
to the activities of Stockholm’s Swedenborgians, many of whom were also
involved with anti-rational, mystical and occult currents and activities, partic-
ularly alchemy and Mesmerism. Halldin and others saw animal magnetism as
scientific confirmation of the world of spirits.
The Exegetical and Philanthropic Society was founded the same year that
Gustavus III had to confront a hostile parliament. As a result, the king had to
accommodate to the interests of the clergy who sought governmental protec-
tion for church doctrine. He could no longer seem to favour marginal or suspect
groups, such as the Swedenborgians. The Consistory charged them with violat-
ing the censorship laws, by printing material without censorial review. They
took the matter to court. From the opposite direction, the rationalists attacked
the Swedenborgians for their mystical beliefs and unscientific practices in the
Stockholms Posten. Caught in between, the Swedenborgians sought support
from Gustavus III in vain. Even if he had wanted to support them, politically he
was in no position to do so. His reckless foreign policy and his alienation of the
aristocracy generated politics tensions. These ultimately led to Gustavus III’s
assassination in 1792.
Johan Tybeck took the part of the Swedenborgians and wrote articles in
response to the attacks. He was soon silenced by the Consistory. This gave the
proponents of the Enlightenment, such as Kellgren, the king’s secretary, and
the tutor of the crown prince and acting Secretary of the Royal Academy of
Sciences, Nils von Rosenstein (1752–1824) free reign to ridicule the Sweden
borgians and their positions. Mesmerism had opened Swedenborg’s theology
to a new level of criticism.
The effect of this dual assault on Swedenborgianism from the Church and
the rationalists was devastating. The Exegetical and Philanthropic Society dis-
integrated and the membership split into two camps, those who focused
primarily on the doctrinal elements of Swedenborg, and those who at heart
were occult practitioners.
Esotericism had compromised the theological and rational elements
of Swedenborg’s teachings, and had made suspect any conception it had of
non-empirical reality. The outbreak of the French Revolution made Sweden
borgianism seem even more radical and irrational. Enlightened opinion in
Sweden at that time, whether held by the priesthood or the intellectual elite,
had no room for the spiritual visions of Swedenborg. The Swedenborgians
were defined as outside of the normal taken-for-granted world; their attempts
to obtain religious freedom and freedom of the press had no legitimacy. The
Mesmerists did not seek the same sort of social and political legitimacy, and
continued to use their practices to achieve visions and revelations.
After the death of Gustavus III no change took place in the situation of
those Swedenborgians who sought to live their faith in life. The impact of their
immediate history was to make their faith personal and to keep it private.
Swedenborgianism went “underground”. Swedenborgians with essentially
occult interests, on the other hand, drifted away or immersed themselves in
other forms of esotericism. Thus, the Swedenborgianism that survived and
developed in nineteenth-century Sweden was more confessional in nature.
The intolerant environment in Sweden forced Swedenborgians there to
reflect and choose between their occult interests and their doctrinal concerns.
The relatively tolerant atmosphere in England and the United States permitted
Swedenborgians to unreflectively hold both positions throughout most of the
nineteenth century – giving rise to an intimate relationship between spiritual-
ism and Swedenborgianism in those countries.
542 Williams-hogan
Another important and interesting contrast between Swedenborgianism in

Sweden and in the English-speaking world is the fact that in Sweden, Sweden
borg’s teachings were available to and captured the imagination of the
country’s upper class – the very class whose privileges were being challenged
in the era of increasing freedom and democracy. It was a class that was on the
decline. In British Commonwealth nations and in the United States, Sweden
borgianism took hold among the middle or rising class. This difference, as well
as the difference in the relative social strength of the established churches in
these nations, may account for the differential patterns of Swedenborgian
growth in the nineteenth century – relatively high in the English speaking
world, low in Sweden.
Pro Fide et Charitate

The collapse of the Exegetical and Philanthropic Society left the Sweden
borgian movement with an organisational vacuum. Two societies were formed
by Swedenborgians to fill the void. One was called Fribyggarorden and was
devoted to the quiet service of humanity. Martin Sturtzenbecker (1760-1836)
was one of its founders. As the order developed, it deemphasised the Sweden
borgian roots of its founders.
The other organisation was called Pro Fide et Charitate and was founded in
1796 by two men, Carl Johan Schönherr (1772–1848) and Gustav Johan Billberg
(1772–1844). Very much like the Exegetical and Philanthropic Society, the pur-
pose of the organisation remained to print and distribute the religious writings
of Emanuel Swedenborg. The need for the books was particularly acute for
those who remained doctrinally faithful and chose to focus on the path of per-
sonal regeneration. The books served as the source of charismatic inspiration
and pointed the way to transformation. Without access to them, the move-
ment would die.
Some of the faithful Swedenborgians so feared further action by the church
and/or the state that they opted not to join. Others agreed to join but wished to
keep the activities of the organisation as secret as possible. The esotericists
were among those who did not join, along with priests who feared joining
might compromise their livelihood.
Over time the group recruited new members, but chose to maintain its low
profile, even after the Revolution of 1809 and changes in the Swedish Consti
tution that eliminated censorship. The focus was solely on publishing the
works of Swedenborg, and not works by other Swedenborgians. They refused
to publish Johan Tybeck, and would not even publish the British Swedenborgian
John Clowes (1743–1836).
The well-known author Carl Jonas Love Almquist (1793–1866) was a mem-
ber of the society in Stockholm and wanted the society to open itself to be a
forum for the discussion of general religious questions. They chose not to.
Perhaps because nine years after censorship was abolished, the consistory in
Västerås put Johan Tybeck, outspoken priest and Swedenborgian, on trial.
Although acquitted by the civil court, he was convicted of heresy and publicly
defrocked in 1818.
While Almquist was able to breathe life into the society for a time, it neither
adapted to the changing time nor grew and by 1830 it was defunct.
Individual Efforts
In the nineteenth century three individuals each in their own unique way took
upon themselves leadership roles in the Swedenborgian movement. They
were: Johan Tybeck, Carl Jonas Love Almquist, and Anna Fredrika Ehrenborg.
Johan Tybeck
The Lutheran priest Johan Tybeck of Strängnäs had been involved in the
Swedenborgian movement since 1782. He discovered Swedenborg’s works, as a
result of being disciplined by the church for attempting to heal a young woman
of “spirit possession”. As has been shown, he immediately became very active
in the Swedenborgian cause. Not only was he involved with the 1787 debates in
Stockholms Posten, but in 1792 sermons he had printed in Copenhagen were
confiscated by the Authorities. His on-going attempts to publish Swedenborgian
ideas must have been a constant source of annoyance within the church. It is
not surprising that ultimately he was defrocked; even after that occurred he
worked tirelessly to promote the spread of Swedenborg’s ideas, writing an
addition twenty-five works before his death in 1831.
Carl Jonas Love Almquist

Carl Jonas Love Almquist is known today as one of Sweden’s most original
authors. He is recognised for developing the literary form of the novel in
Swedish. He became a Swedenborgian during his student days at Uppsala
through his contact with students from Västergötland. After graduation in 1814
he moved to Stockholm and worked in the Ministry of Education. As we saw
he also became involved with Pro Fide et Charitate, becoming its President in
1817.
His first novel Murnis was published in 1819. The novel highlights a Sweden
borgian theme about the “other world” (Hjern 1988: 83). Like many of his
subsequent works, it focuses on the importance of “spiritual” or marriage love.
544 Williams-hogan
He began his career as a romantic and moved toward realism. His stories por-
tray his concern for social justice, equality between the sexes, and democracy.
He was a friend and correspondent of the Swedenborgian author Anna
Fredrika Ehrenborg. She is reported to be the model of Sarah’s aunt in his
famous 1839 novel Det går an (Sarah Videbeck). The feminist theme of this
book upset the established church as well as Swedenborgians. As a result he
lost his job at an experimental school in Stockholm and was disciplined by the
Consistory in Uppsala. This forced him to make his living writing for newspa-
pers and he wrote for the radical paper Aftonbladet. In 1851 he was accused of
theft, forgery, and attempted murder. Rather than face the charges he fled to
America from Sweden. He connected with the Swedenborgian community in
Philadelphia. He resided in the United States for fourteen years. He returned to
Europe in 1865, and died in Bremen in 1866.
Almquist filled an important but controversial role in the Swedenborgian
movement in Sweden. Unable to convince his fellow believers to bring
Swedenborg into the cultural mainstream, he drew on Swedenborg’s teachings
to address some of the radical issues of the day. He wove Swedenborgian
themes into his ground-breaking literary forms, bringing Swedenborg invisibly
into Swedish culture. His approach to moral and social issues foreshadows the
work of August Strindberg (1850–1912).
Anna Fredrika Ehrenborg

Anna Fredrika Ehrenborg (1794–1873) was the single most important person
involved in keeping the movement alive. Ehrenborg came from a simple rural
background. She was introduced to Swedenborg’s teachings by her husband
Casper Ehrenborg (d.1823) who had been raised in a Swedenborgian house-
hold in Västergötland. Ehrenborg was widowed at the age of twenty-nine, and
was left with five children to raise. Self-educated, like her friend Love Almquist,
she was particularly interested in women’s education and the welfare of the
poor.
Fluent in several languages, Ehrenborg worked as general translator, and as
a translator and publisher of Swedenborg’s works. She pushed to have the
international Swedenborgian community financially support the publication
of Swedenborg’s religious writings in Swedish. Her success was minimal. She
wanted support to publish as many of Swedenborg’s works as quickly as pos-
sible. Her correspondents suggested her plans were simply too ambitious.
Undeterred, she continued to press zealously for publication. In addition she
maintained an active involvement with Swedenborgian communities both in
Sweden and abroad. Among her correspondents was the prominent English
Swedenborgian and spiritualist, James John Garth Wilkinson (1812–1899). She

visited him during a trip to England in the early 1850s.
Ehrenborg did not limit her correspondence to English Swedenborgians,
but she wrote to members of the Swedenborgian community throughout
Sweden and Europe. She was interested in their news, but always focused on
promoting the growth and development of Swedenborgianism in Sweden.
Late in life she moved to Lund, perhaps to support the work of Achatius Kahl
(1794–1888), professor at the University of Lund and Swedenborg translator.
She died in 1873, having successfully nurtured Swedenborgianism through the
difficult and shadowy period when official censorship was no longer practised,
but neither was official recognition granted. That changed the year of her
death, when the Swedish government passed a law granting its citizens free-
dom of religious association. The first legal association, called Nya Kyrkans
Bekännare (Confessors of the New Church), was established in Stockholm in
1874.
The Institutionalisation of the Swedenborgian Church

In 1885 the New Church was recognised by the state. The organisation was
called Nya Kyrkans eller Det Nya Jerusalems Församling (The Society of the
New Church or The New Jerusalem), another society was recognised in 1887;
and in 1888, the two hundredth anniversary of Swedenborg’s birth was publicly
celebrated by two Swedenborgian religious services, the placement of a memo-
rial tablet at Swedenborg’s old property on Horngatan, and a banquet at the
Grand Hotel. The events were written up in many of Sweden’s leading newspa-
pers, and Stockholm’s Dagblad printed several of the banquet speeches
including one given by Professor Sahlin, Dean of the Uppsala University. From
this one might conclude that the future of the New Church in Sweden at the
end of the nineteenth was reasonably bright.
August Strindberg
August Strindberg (1850–1912) is perhaps the most famous Swede to have been
influenced by the religious writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. In the early 1890s
in France he had dabbled in alchemy, Theosophy, and occult currents. He dis-
covered the life-changing power of Swedenborg’s words during his road to
Damascus. The chapters in Inferno (1897), that detail his encounter with
Swedenborg, are titled: Swedenborg, Pilgrimage and Atonement, and The
Redeemer. He had read Swedenborg in D’Aillant de la Touche’s 1789 compila-
tion of Swedenborg’s teachings, given to him by his mother-in-law Marie Uhl in
1896. What arrested his attention was Swedenborg’s description of hell. He
546 Williams-hogan
wrote, ‘it is thus that Swedenborg, perhaps without knowing it, depicts our
early life when meaning to describe hell’ (Strindberg 1979: 211).
Strindberg believed that he had found the explanation of his maladies in
Swedenborg’s Earths in the Universe (1758). He wrote: ‘Swedenborg had set me
free from the electrical experts, … and the fear of insanity’ (Strindberg 1979:
261). What freed Strindberg was the belief that his afflictions were not a sign of
his inherent evil, but that they came about as he was being disciplined – lead-
ing him to the good. He became convinced through Swedenborg’s writings that
suffering was atonement. Swedenborg helped him view life in a new way. One
key for him was the concept of “correspondences”. For Strindberg this term
meant that the inner life of a person is projected into external reality, as
Swedenborg depicts in the spiritual world. This helped Strindberg see the dif-
ference between appearance and reality from a metaphysical perspective
(Stockenström 1988b: 147).
These insights unleashed Strindberg’s tremendous creative power. Accord
ing to Göran Stockenström, the revolutionary works that formed his enduring
legacy were all written “post-Inferno”; that is they were all written after his
transformative encounter with Swedenborg (Stockenström 1988a: 50–51).
Strindberg acknowledged this debt himself in 1907 in En Blå Bok (A Blue Book)
in which he wrote: ‘To Emanuel Swedenborg, Teacher and Leader, this is dedi-
cated by a disciple’ (Strindberg 1907).
Toward the end of his life he wrote: ‘Life forces me out, it seems or perse-
cutes me, and I have long ago set my hopes “to the other side”, to which I am
connected like Swedenborg’ (Stockenström, 1988a: 71).
Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Swedish Response
Homecoming
In 1908 Swedenborg’s remains were returned from England with great cere-
mony. Two years later, in 1910, there was an International Swedenborg Congress
that was well attended by the Swedish academic community. For a time, both
these events helped to sustain an atmosphere of optimism among Sweden
borgians in Sweden and around the world. After all, there was a great deal of
interest in Swedenborg’s scientific manuscripts, with a pledge to publish them
all in Sweden. It appeared as if Swedenborg was finally being hailed a star and
as an ornament of Swedish life and thought. However, when the beautiful sar-
cophagus that was commissioned by the Riksdag to hold Swedenborg’s earthly
remains was unveiled in solemn ceremony on 19 November, history would
note that Sweden did not so much welcome her prodigal son home as put him
finally to rest – the national duty was done and thus, he could be forgotten.
Martin Lamm’s 1915 biography of Swedenborg closed the case so to speak, and
nothing of substance was written about Swedenborg for almost fifty years.
New Church Congregations

In 1927 one of the Stockholm congregations built a chapel for worship on
Tegnérlunden. It is still in use in 2014. The Swedenborgians in Sweden were
affected by schisms that occurred among members in the United States in
1890, and again in 1937. The high point in membership was in the 1920s,
although there are operative congregations in Stockholm, Jönköping, and
Gothenburg in 2014, as well as members scattered around the country.
Intellectual Response
Inge Jonsson re-opened the intellectual Swedish exploration of Swedenborg in
1961 with his dissertation on Swedenborgs skapelsedrama De Cultu et Amore Dei
(Swedenborg’s Drama of Creation, ‘On the Worship and Love of God’). This
was followed by Harry Lenhammar’s 1966 dissertation on Tolerans och bekän-
nelsetvång: Studier i den svenska swedenborgianismen 1765–1795 (Tolerance and
Doctrinal Unity: Studies in Swedish Swedenborgianism 1765–1795). In 1995 Jan
Häll published his dissertation I Swedenborgs labyrint: Studier i de gustavianska
swedenborgarnas liv och tänkande (In Swedenborg’s Labyrinth: Studies in the
Lives and Teachings of Gustavian Swedenborgians); and in 2004 David Dunér
published his dissertation Världsmaskinen: Emanuel Swedenborgs naturfilosfi
(The World Machine: Emanuel Swedenborg’s Nature Philosophy). In 2010 an
International Conference on Swedenborg was held at the Royal Academy of
Sciences. It was called: Emanuel Swedenborg – Exploring a “World Memory”
Context, Content, Contribution. Nine of the twenty participants were from
Scandinavia, seven from Sweden and two from Finland. Karl Grandin was the
editor of the proceedings which were published in 2013 by The Center for the
History of Science, The Royal Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden. The
Conference and the proceedings have made a significant contribution to
Swedenborg scholarship in Sweden and more broadly in Scandinavia.
The Future in Sweden

The Swedenborgian movement in Sweden has managed to survive into the
twenty-first century. Over time the recent (2000) disestablishment of the
Lutheran Church could have a positive effect on its ability to expand. However,
the decline in church attendance among Swedes throughout the twentieth
century may make it difficult to recruit even spiritually oriented individuals
into what appears to be a traditional church structure.
548 Williams-hogan
Swedenborg’s Reception in Scandinavia
While this article has focused primarily on the response to Swedenborg in

Sweden, his homeland, over the years, his theological writings also have had an
impact in Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Swedenborgian congregations are
found today in both Denmark and Norway, and there are some devoted readers
of Swedenborg in Finland. That being said, initial research indicates that
Swedenborg’s contribution to these nations has been more cultural than
devotional.
Denmark
In Denmark, Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) owned seven first editions of
Swedenborg’s theological works (Wiliams-Hogan, 2008: 266–267). He has
notations in five of the works indicating that he read them. They are the
Doctrine of the Lord, the Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture, the Doctrine of Life
which were all published in 1763. He made no notations in the Doctrine of Faith,
also published that year. He owned two additional works published in 1763 in
which he made notations, Divine Love and Wisdom and Divine Providence. He
made no notations in Heaven and Hell, Swedenborg’s consistently most popu-
lar work, published in 1758. In addition, he owned a two-volume overview of
Swedenborg’s Theology in German, published in Basel in 1795. At this writing it
is unclear whether it has notations or not. A study of the teachings in Sweden
borg’s works that Kierkegaard highlighted and his own indicates some
remarkable similarities. They both refer to God’s Word and not to the more
common term the Bible. They both emphasise that loving God requires people
to hear his Word, abide by it, and do it. Works are essential to love and the reli-
gious life (Williams-Hogan, 2008: 273). Kierkegaard is perhaps Denmark’s most
well-known theologian and philosopher. While he apparently never men-
tioned Swedenborg, he read him and may even have drawn some of his own
views from him. Clearly more research is required before a more definite link
can be made. However, it illustrates both the possibilities and difficulties in
assessing the response to Swedenborg’s impact.
Norway
In Norway, Swedenborg’s possible influence on Edvard Munch (1863–1944) is
even more difficult to assess. Again he never makes any references to
Swedenborg, and none of Swedenborg’s works are found in his library at the
end of his life. However, he had no permanent residence until he bought Ekely
in 1916 at the age of forty-three, so what he read previously is not recorded. It is
known that Munch was deeply influenced by both Edgar Allan Poe and Fyodor
Dostoevsky, both of whom had read and were influenced by Swedenborg

(Williams-Hogan, 2008: 259). According to Sue Prideaux in her biography of
Munch (2005), his father read Poe and Dostoevsky aloud to his children.
Prideaux notes Dostoevsky’s influence: ‘… I was trying to dissect souls. No one
in art has penetrated as far as Dostoevsky into the mystic realms of the soul,
toward the metaphysical, the subconscious, viewing the external reality of the
world as merely a sign, a symbol of the spiritual and metaphysical’ (Bering
2006). Munch was a Symbolist painter and in the 1880s in Paris, he absorbed
the Symbolist atmosphere he discovered there. Filiz Eda Burhan in her 1979
dissertation focused on the formation of the Symbolist aesthetic and discov-
ered the importance of psychology and the occult sciences to it. She found that
Swedenborg’s works provided both. He offered them a vision and a methodol-
ogy. Insights from Swedenborg were directly absorbed by Baudelaire, Aurier,
Sérusier, and Gauguin, and indirectly through reading Balzac and Poe. Accord
ing to Burhan, the Symbolists used Swedenborg to redefine the locus of true
perception. They also drew inspiration from him concerning the occult power
of clairvoyance. Every Symbolist ought to be a “sublime voyeur” (Burhan 1979:
131).
Munch filled this role. He painted the modern life of the soul. He said, ‘The
camera cannot compete with the painter as long as it cannot be used in Heaven
or Hell’ (Bishoff 2000: 85). Whether intentionally or not, Swedenborg’s vision is
found in the works of Munch. This is particularly evident in his last painting, a
self portrait, By the Window (1940). It highlights the Symbolist use of colour and
structure. In the painting Munch stands upright in front of the window toward
the right part of the frame. Munch’s face is red and his clothing is a solid blue
green. This is the realm of life, vertical and defiant. The frame is white as is the
horizontal view outside the window of ice and snow portraying the flat, static
grip of death. Life and death are in conversation in this painting, as are heaven
and hell. Swedenborg’s doctrine of correspondences states that red corre-
sponds to love, and white to truth. Munch’s view of heaven and hell appears to
mirror Swedenborg’s. To discover whether this was intentional or not remains
an open question, requiring more research, nevertheless it appears that there
is mutual illumination.
Finland
Recent research on the response to Swedenborg in Finland has discovered
some interesting connections in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
In fact one of Finland’s most well known poets, Johan Ludvig Runeberg (1804–
1877), first novelist to write in Finnish, Aleksis Kivi (1834–1872), and best-loved
artists, Hugo Simberg (1873–1917) were well acquainted with the ideas of
550 Williams-hogan
Swedenborg. In fact Nina Kokkinen, in an article on Simberg, writes that while

she has researched several sources in which Simberg may have discovered
Swedenborg beliefs, she states that in addition, she wants ‘to emphasise the
popularity of these ideas as part of fin-de-siècle occulture’ (Kokkinen 2013:
247). Tiina Mahlamäki and Tomas Mansikka in their article titled “‘His Visions
have Captured my Thoughts’: Emanuel Swedenborg in the Newspapers and
National Literature in 19th Century Finland” also demonstrate that Swedenborg
was ‘part of the literary, cultural and religious discourse of the time’ (Mahlamäki
& Mansikka 2013: 296).
It is Runeberg, the national poet of Finland, whose words are found in the
title of their article. They come from a letter he wrote to his friend Bernhard
von Beskow (1796–1868) about Beskow’s work on Swedenborg. In the letter, he
adds his thoughts on the “internal and external parts” of human beings, a key
idea found in Swedenborg’s teachings (Mahlamäki & Mansikka 2013: 303).
Seitsemän veljestä (Seven Brothers), Kivi’s novel, incorporates Swedenborgian
ideas by his use of correspondences, spirits living near us, and journeys to
other planets, and the concept of heavenly marriage (Mahlamäki & Mansikka
2013: 306).
Simberg in his art visually depicts both the reality of the internal and exter-
nal human, and that of spirits living near us. Kokkinen illustrates her article
with several of Simberg’s paintings. Two will be discussed: One is At the
Crossroads (1896, gouache, watercolour, ink, 15×17 cm, Ateneum Art Museum,
Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki); and the other is Death and the Peasant at
the Gates of Heaven and Hell (Watercolour, both 13×8 cm, Ateneum Art
Museum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki). Both paintings represent choices
between good and evil or heaven and hell. The first painting, At the Crossroads,
takes place in the natural world. In it a man stands at a crossroad looking across
a river. An angel holds his left hand and a devil holds his right one. The path of
the angel leads to a white boat across the river, the path of the devil to a red
one. What is remarkable about this painting is the taken-for-granted way in
which Simberg incorporates these transcendent beings into everyday natural
life. They are as real as the man who holds their hands. This scene reflects
Swedenborg’s belief that there are angelic and evil spirits in continual associa-
tion with people. These spirits maintain our freedom during our life, but they
also respond to our loves inspiring us to choose our path of life. Symbolists,
and Simberg was one, saw Swedenborg as a guide to help them open their
inner selves or their inner eye. This notion of the inner eye was part of Albert
Aurier’s (1865–1892) manifesto about Gauguin’s symbolist art in which he para-
phrased Swedenborg (Kokkinen 2013: 253). In Simberg’s other painting, the
peasant has made his choice, and he stands before the door of both heaven
and hell. He stands before the gate of heaven in one panel and before the gate
of hell in the other. The gate of hell is wider and seems to be more easily
opened. In addition, over the doorway is painted a winged serpent, whereas in
the panel of heaven that space in the final rendering is blank. These elements
may suggest that the peasant chose hell. According to Swedenborg, ‘the ones
that choose to love their neighbour and God will get a place in the heavenly
spheres. Love for oneself and the love of the world, on the other hand, lead to
the gates of hell’ (Kokkinen 2013: 254). These two recent articles indicate that
beyond the influence of Swedenborg on the Nordenskjöld family in eighteenth-
century Finland, his impact over the centuries has been both broad and
culturally deep. This may prove to be the case in the whole of Scandinavia as
well.
References
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Bering, Henrik, “On Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream, by Sue Prideaux”, Policy Review,
Hoover Institute, N. 136, April and May <http://www.hover.org/publications/policy
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Bischoff, Ulrich, Munch, Köln: Taschen, 2000.
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———. “Carl Jonas Love Almquist—Great Poet and Swedenborgian Heretic”, in: Erland
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——— . “The Influence of Emanuel Swedenborg in Scandinavia”, in Jonathan S. Rose,
Stuart Shotwell, and M.L. Betucci (eds.), Scribe of Heaven: Swedenborg’s Life, Work,
and Impact, West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 2005, 151–165.
Kokkinen, Nina, “Hugo Simberg’s Art and the Widening Perspective into Swedenborg’s
Ideas”, in: Karl Grandin (ed.), Emanuel Swedenborg—Exploring a “World Memory”
Context, Content, Contribution, Stockholm: Center for History of Science, The Royal
Academy of Sciences, 2013, 246–261.
552 Williams-hogan
Lenhammar, Harry, Tolerans och bekännelsetvång: Studier i den svenska swedenborgianis-

men 1765–1795, Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1966.
——— . Sveriges kyrkohistoria: individualismens och Upplysningens tid, Stockholm:
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Mahlamäki, Tiina and Tomas Mansikka, “‘His Visions have Captured my Thoughts’:
Emanuel Swedenborg in the Newspapers and National Literature in 19th Century
Finland”, in: Karl Grandin (ed.), Emanuel Swedenborg—Exploring a “World Memory”
Context, Content, Contribution, Stockholm: Center for History of Science, The Royal
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Prideaux, Sue, Edvard Munch: The Man Behind the Scream, New Haven, CN: Yale, 2005.
Sigstedt, Cyriel O., The Swedenborg Epic: The Life and Works of Emanuel Swedenborg,
New York: Bookman Associates, 1952.
Smoley, Richard, “The Inner Journey of Emanuel Swedenborg”, in: Jonathan S. Rose,
Stuart Shotwell, and M.L. Betucci (eds.), Scribe of Heaven: Swedenborg’s Life, Work,
and Impact, West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 2005, 3–49.
Stockenström, Göran, “The Great Chaos and the Infinite Order: The Spiritual Journeys
of Swedenborg and Strindberg”, in: Erland J. Brock (ed.), Swedenborg and His Influence,
Bryn Athyn, PA: Academy of the New Church, 1988a, 47–78.
———. “Strindberg and Swedenborg”, in: Robin Larsen et. al. (eds.), Emanuel Swedenborg
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Strindberg, August, Inferno/From an Occult Diary, trans. Mary Sandbach, London:
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(trans.), New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1977 .
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the Science of Religion, Leuven: Peeters, 1998, 201–252.
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554 Dybdal
Chapter 67 Theosophy in Denmark
Theosophy in Denmark
René Dybdal
The Foundation of the Theosophical Society in Denmark
Modern Theosophy as introduced by Helena P. Blavatsky was brought to

Denmark from England by engineer and Councilor of State G. Howitz (1821–
1900). Together with Johanne Meyer (1838–1915), a nationally known women’s
rights proponent, Howitz founded the first Danish Theosophical Society lodge,
the Copenhagen lodge, on 17 November 1893. According to the bylaws of the
Theosophical Society (from here on referred to as TS), Danish Theosophists
were required to have at least seven lodges in order to form a national section.
The TS in Denmark was therefore, in the first decades, formally organised as
part of the Scandinavian section of the TS. Initially, progress and expansion
was slow. It was not until 1905 that the second Danish lodge appeared, but
gradually new lodges were founded, and by 1918, the TS in Denmark and Ice
land together counted seven lodges and thus decided to leave the Scandi-
navian section to form their own section: Teosofisk Samfunds Dansk-Islandske
Nationalsamfund (the Danish-Icelandic National Society of the TS). However,
the TS expanded rapidly in Iceland at this time, resulting in the foundation of
seven Icelandic lodges only two years later. At a meeting on 12 August 1920,
these seven lodges decided to end their cooperation with the Danish lodges
and instead to gather the Icelandic lodges into an Icelandic “national” section.
Despite the fact that Denmark did not yet count the seven lodges required by
TS Adyar in order to form a separate section, permission was granted from
Adyar to form a Danish national section in the wake of the split with the TS in
Iceland.
The Golden Age
The worldwide expansion that the TS experienced during the 1920s took place
in Denmark as well, rapidly exceeding the seven lodges required to form a sep-
arate section – the number of lodges rose from six in 1918 to fifteen in 1928, and
the number of members nearly doubled from 315 to 522 during the same
period. Three factors in particular can explain this expansion. First, the

Theosophy in Denmark 555
international popularity that Annie Besant (1848–1933) had gained through

her different activities worldwide (her work for women’s rights, for the libera-
tion of the state of India and, of course, as the president of the TS) had a
positive effect on the public interest for and opinion on the TS in Denmark.
The popularity of Besant in Denmark became evident when she visited
Denmark for the last time in 1927. The public interest in Besant was so immense
that a media centre had to be organised in order to cope with the overwhelm-
ing attention from various national news media (Theosophia, September 1927).
The second reason for expansion was the extensive effort devoted by General
Secretary Christian Svendsen (1869–1944), who was head of the Danish section
during most of the 1920s. His speeches delivered at the growing number of
lodges as well as his letters and articles published in Theosophia (the Danish
section’s member journal at the time) helped to increase the commitment of
the members in the local lodges and in the national section. This resulted in
several new initiatives. For example, (a) public speeches on Theosophical
issues were given nationwide, (b) internationally known Theosophists were
encouraged to visit Denmark to make speeches and teach courses, (c) jumble
sales were held to raise funding for TS Denmark, (d) Theosophical radio shows
were broadcast weekly, etc. These new initiatives were highlighted on several
occasions as particularly significant for the increase in membership in the
Danish section in the 1920s. A third factor for growth in that period was the
increasing focus on Krishnamurti and the expectations on him to be the com-
ing World Teacher. Although not all Danish members of the TS supported this
idea, the majority seemed to gradually accept that he should play a significant
role in the future of the TS. As an example, in the 1920s, when attention on
Krishnamurti’s role intensified, Christian Svendsen insisted that the work and
focus of the TS and Order of the Star (founded in 1925) were different and that
they should therefore continue as separate institutions (Theosophia, February
1926). Only six months later, however, Svendsen seems to have changed his
mind and signed a manifesto supporting Besant’s ideas on the development of
a world religion initiated by a coming World Teacher (Theosophia, September
1926). Despite some internal conflicts concerning this issue within the TS, the
idea of Krishnamurti being the World Teacher caught the attention of a wider
audience in Denmark, bringing new members to both the TS and the Danish
section of the Order of the Star.
556 Dybdal
Krishnamurti and the Succession Crisis
The expansion that the Danish section of the TS experienced in the 1920s did
not, however, continue in the 1930s. Membership figures as well as TS activities
and the number of lodges gradually decreased during the pre-Second World
War years. As a reason for this decline, the Danish section emphasised the
overall financial crisis and a lack of qualified speakers within the Danish sec-
tion (Theosophia, April 1934). Although Krishnamurti’s rejection of being the
World Teacher in 1929 and the death of Besant in 1933 are only mentioned
casually by Danish TS leaders as having affected the decline, several comments
and letters brought in Theosophia during the 1930s indicate that these events
nonetheless did play a role – particularly the “abdication” of Krishnamurti in
the summer of 1929 in the Dutch city of Ommen. Despite the attempts in the
following few months by TS leadership to downplay the impact of Krishna
murti’s proclamation by not commenting on the incident, the discrepancies
between TS theology and the statements given by Krishnamurti occasioned
numerous comments and discussions in the early 1930s. Members appeared to
feel bewildered by Krishnamurti’s call to ‘search for guidance within and not
[be] guided by others’ (Theosophia, September 1930). Prominent Theosophists
felt compelled on the one hand, to try to reassure TS members that there were
no discrepancies and, on the other hand, to attempt to persuade these mem-
bers to retain their membership (Theosophia, February 1931). The loss of nearly
one quarter of the members of the TS in Denmark in the year following
Krishnamurti’s abdication, however, indicates that this event actually did play
a crucial role in the decreasing level of activities and members of the TS in the
1930s.
The Second World War
As in several other European countries, the Second World War also had a sig-
nificant impact on the TS in Denmark. Although the activities of the TS were
not restricted during the first years of the German occupation, news from the
TS in countries such as Germany, Austria, Russia, and Italy in the 1930s showed
the Danish section what to expect in the case of an occupation. On 9 April
1939, when German troops first crossed the Danish borders, the general
secretary in Denmark at the time, Charles Bonde Jensen, therefore hid the
membership files and destroyed all key documents relating to the Society and
its individual members. Until 23 August 1943, when the Danish government
resigned, refusing to cooperate further with the German forces, and declaring
a state of emergency, a number of Danish lodges to some extent continued

their activities. Blackouts and problems with transportation, however, made it
difficult to keep up a regular meeting schedule, which resulted in gradually
decreasing activities. Although the level of activities in the Danish lodges was
very low, indeed almost non-existing, in the last years of the Second World
War, the editors of Theosophia managed to publish the journal throughout the
German occupation. Compared to earlier years, due to difficulties in receiving
new material from leading international Theosophists, there was an increased
number of articles written by Danish members of the TS.
Introducing Theosophical Summer Schools
During the War, no record of active members or lodges was kept. At the first
annual general meeting after the War, it was revealed that the drop in member-
ship experienced before the War had continued during the period 1939–1945.
The decline starting in the late 1920s, however, had by then been brought to a
halt. In the next thirty years, which was a period characterised by a lack of new
initiatives, poor economy, and passive leadership, the number of members
remained stable around 300. There was one activity, though, which managed
to engage a significant number of Theosophists during those years: the Theo
sophical summer schools. The first Danish Theosophical summer school was
initiated already in 1924 by Otto Viking (1883–1966), who later became the first
Nordic bishop of the Liberal Catholic Church. The following summer schools
were attended by hundreds of members from Denmark as well as from other
neighbouring countries. Still, the importance of summer schools to the
national Society grew in the post-war years. This trend was particularly pro-
nounced from the 1940s to the mid 1960s, a period during which the successive
general secretaries at the annual general meetings particularly highlighted the
value of the summer schools as a means to fuel the members’ enthusiasm for
the Theosophical work in local lodges. An important reason for this increasing
focus on summer schools was that Jørgen and Birgitte Winde (later Birgitte
Valvanne) from the summer of 1946 and the following summers put their for-
mer vicarage, Gamle Præstegaard (Old Vicarage), at Nørre Aaby in Funen at the
disposal of the TS free of charge. Whereas the former Theosophical summer
schools had been a private initiative, Old Vicarage gave the national Society an
opportunity to conduct a summer school entirely arranged by the national
leadership of the TS.
558 Dybdal
Reestablishing Nordic Cooperation
Although the summer schools had a significant effect within the section, it did
not bring new members to the TS. The topics presented and discussed at the
schools were primarily intended for members who were familiar with basic
Theosophical doctrines. They did, however, pave the way for a new coopera-
tion between the Nordic sections. During the late 1940s and 1950s, several
Theosophists from in particular Sweden, Norway, and Finland participated in
these schools. Apart from building up transnational personal relations, the
summer schools inspired the visiting Theosophists to establish similar activi-
ties in the neighbouring countries, and a formal cooperation in arranging
Scandinavian summer schools on an annual rotating basis started in the late
1950s. The summer schools held at Old Vicarage, however, still maintained a
dominant position – among other things because of the participation of the
changing presidents of TS Adyar (particularly N. Sri Ram was a frequent par-
ticipant in the 1950s and 1960s). Its central position compared to the other
Scandinavian summer schools was manifested in 1966, when Jørgen Winde
and Birgitte Valvanne (1899–1979) decided to donate Old Vicarage to the five
Scandinavian sections.
A few years earlier, the new cooperation between Scandinavian TS sec-
tions had been further strengthened through the publication, in 1961, of the
journal Teosofi i Norden (Theosophy in the Nordic Countries, hereafter TiN)
– a joint cooperation between the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish sections.
Compared to the first Scandinavian Theosophical journal, Teosofisk Tidskrift
för Skandinavien, launched during the first decades when the TS was present in
Scandinavia, TiN was split up into three parts: one for each section with texts in
the languages of the individual countries. Apart from problems in understand-
ing the other Nordic languages, which had been expressed by members, and
which seem to have been an essential reason for this subdivision in TiN, there
was a common interest in keeping national autonomy. The evolving coopera-
tion, at least for the Danish section, was based on more than just “ideology”.
Pragmatic aspects, such as economy, which, in the case of TS Denmark, had
been in a state of severe crisis for years, were significant factors for cultivating
the inter-sectional relations with other Scandinavian countries. Not only had
the economy since the Second World War been fragile due to the decrease in
membership, which often made it necessary to ask members for additional
funding and donations; the journal Theosophia had been running with a defi-
cit through most of the 1950s, surviving only on financial support from either
private sponsors or the section’s capital (Kurukshetra, June 1955). By increasing
the circulation of the Nordic journal, and thus bringing down the production
costs, the publication of the journals directed at Danish members became

cost-effective, which made it possible again to present an overall profit at the
annual general meeting in 1964 (TiN, vol. 6 1964).
Renewed Optimism
In 1975, the Danish section decided to end its engagement in TiN and conse-
quently also its engagement in this second round of Scandinavian/Nordic
cooperation. Discontent with the editorial standard of the journal, delayed
deliveries and other problems, had for long been a source of irritation to many.
The primary reason for this disruption, however, was a recurring impression
that, having overcome the post-war crisis, both financially and in terms of
membership, the TS in Denmark should again be able to operate as an autono-
mous section. Preben Sørensen, general secretary from 1970 to 1976, played an
essential role in this development. He took the initiative to publish a new
monthly journal under the name NU, the content of which was based on
Theosophical teaching but aimed at a wider audience. The concept almost
instantly turned out to be a success. In 1966, the first year of publication, the
circulation of NU was 250 copies, expanding to 1,400 per year in 1974. With
close to 300 TS members in Denmark, NU thus reached a significant amount of
people not engaged in the TS milieu. However, NU was not the only initiative
taken during the leadership of Preben Sørensen to introduce Theosophy to
people outside the TS. Between 1971 and 1974, the TS organised public meetings
and lectures held in the national museum in Copenhagen, which, according to
their own judgment, were a great success as they were attended by many who
had hitherto been unfamiliar with Theosophy (TiN, vol. 4 1971). With the grow-
ing public interest and an increasing equity capital, there was thus a spirit of
optimism within the national section in the first half of the 1970s. Expecting
this positive development to continue, Preben Sørensen in 1974 proposed that
the Danish section should reduce its engagement with the Scandinavian sec-
tions and once again focus on the activities in Denmark in order to strengthen
the national section. His proposal was endorsed by the supervisory board,
resulting in the Danish section again ending their engagement in a Scandinavian
cooperation. The publication of NU hereafter stopped and, in January 1975, it
was succeeded by a new national Theosophical journal, Teosofia (the same
name as a previous journal but spelled slightly differently), which differed
from the former national journals by not being primarily aimed at members of
the TS.
560 Dybdal
Introducing Bailey
Although both NU and the public meetings held in the national museum were
essential to the expansion of the TS in Denmark in the following decades, it
was, however, Preben Sørensen’s role in introducing both Alice Bailey and
meditation to Theosophy in Denmark that turned out to be most vital to the
development of the TS in subsequent years. Previously, the Theosophical
milieu in Denmark had been characterised by a distinct loyalty towards the
leadership of TS Adyar. Conflicts between leading personalities of the TS on an
international level, which had resulted in the emerging of new Theosophical
traditions, generally only affected the Danish section to a minor degree. Conse
quently, neither the TS Pasadena nor ULT has ever operated in Denmark
– unlike the case in several other neighbouring countries. Although Rudolph
Steiner’s Anthroposophical Society did succeed in building up a significant
organisation, the split between Steiner and TS Adyar in 1913, however, only
made one of the Danish lodges (the Steiner lodge in Copenhagen) and a rela-
tively low number of members (approximately fifty) leave the Danish section
of the TS (Teosofisk Tidskrift för Skandinavien, protocol p. 10, 1913). When the
conflicts between Alice Bailey and TS Adyar took place in the 1920s, this was
not even mentioned in the Danish Theosophical journals. Apart from a few
articles published in Theosophia in the 1940s, Bailey was basically unknown to
most Theosophists in Denmark. Bailey’s Theosophy was in the international
Theosophical milieu seen to be incompatible with the teaching of the TS Adyar
tradition, and it was therefore disturbing to the international presidency of the
TS when Preben Sørensen in the early 1970s began to introduce Bailey to the
Danish section through both TiN and NU. The fact that other prominent Danish
Theosophists, such as the editor of Teosofia, Niels Brønsted, and the general
secretary who succeeded him, Hardy Bennis, in the following years also
embraced Bailey’s teachings, gradually transforming her into an essential
source of inspiration to the TS in Denmark, caused some tensions between the
headquarters in Adyar and the Danish section. What according to the head-
quarters was a breach of loyalty, was regarded by the Danish section as a
necessary action to avoid stagnation, which they experienced had increasingly
affected the TS on an international level. A change, or rather a vitalisation, was
required both organisationally and in terms of practice in order to secure the
survival of the TS (Teosofia, October 1988).
Initiating New Activities
For several years, the conflict was not known to the public, the headquarters
letting the Danish section continue their focus on Bailey and her writings and
on developing new forms of practice. The 1970s and 1980s constituted a period
of experimentation for the Danish section, motivated by an urge to make the
TS in Denmark appeal to and attract more people interested in the rapidly
growing spiritual market. Under the inspiration of Bailey – and her theories
that not only a Theosophical elite but everybody was able to attain contact
with masters or higher spiritual levels – the Danish section developed and
increasingly practised group meditations. Previously, it had primarily been the
stated aim of TS activities to enlighten Theosophists through study groups and
lectures in the lodges and to turn members into role models for others to fol-
low. This approach, however, was now considered as being too ineffective, one
that would not sufficiently affect the physical world as such. Therefore, group
meditations with participants experiencing “healing” energies channelled
from spiritual levels to people in need were introduced, since these practices
were considered to affect the public more than other lodge activities (Teosofia,
March 1977 & August/September 1984). Other initiatives taken to accommo-
date the requirements of potential members were courses on Theosophical
topics offered through public adult education associations and the revival of
the concept of Theosophical summer schools. Earlier on, the summer schools
were primarily seminars, where members participated in order to socialise and
discuss current Theosophical challenges or topics. At the end of the 1970s, this
seminar form ended, and summer schools started offering courses designed
for people familiar with Theosophical teaching on different levels – introduc-
tory as well as advanced level courses. As opposed to previous summer schools,
the schools from 1980 and onwards were not limited to members of the TS only.
Everyone with an interest in Theosophical topics or just spirituality in general
could participate.
Schisms within the Danish Section
Although these new initiatives turned out to be successful, resulting in an

increase in membership (which more than doubled throughout the 1980s), the
tension between TS Adyar and the Danish section continued to grow – particu-
larly during the presidency of Radha Burnier. In 1988 and the spring of 1989,
the situation reached a critical state. Despite the section’s success in introduc-
ing Theosophy to the public in Denmark, not all section members supported
562 Dybdal
the new “Danish form”. Uffe Vilstrup, spokesman for Logen den hvide lotus (the
White Lotus lodge), who, for several years, had offered his candidacy to become
general secretary of the national section, was one of the more prominent
Danish Theosophists in strong opposition to the “experiments” carried out by
Bennis and Brønshøj. The final straw, however, came when, following a letter
by Bennis published in Teosofia (October 1988), which openly criticised TS
Adyar for not modernising its organisation and practice, Vilstrup in a letter to
Burnier requested that he and the White Lotus lodge became members directly
associated under the headquarters in Adyar. Due to accusations of financial
and electoral fraud within the national section brought forward by Vilstrup
and others prior to him, Burnier launched an inquiry into the Danish section
in the summer of 1989, which, on 28 August 1989, led her to withdraw the char-
ter of TS Denmark from the general secretary in power, Hardy Bennis, handing
it over to Uffe Vilstrup. However, only a few members supported Vilstrup as
general secretary and his loyalty to Adyar, and the vast majority of members
left TS Denmark in order to join the newly established Teosofisk Forening
(Theosophical Association – TA) with Bennis as the chairman. Following a
year-long lawsuit between TA and TS Denmark over the estate that TA ended
up winning in 1993, TS Adyar never succeeded building up a nationwide organ-
isation again. With less than thirty-five active members throughout the 1990s,
primarily residing in the Copenhagen area, TS group activities in Denmark
finally ended in 2003. Today, only a small group of individuals is still assumed
to be associated under the headquarters in Adyar.
References
Jørgensen, Mathilde Lindh, “Teosofisk Forening i Århus”, in: Marianne Q. Fibiger (ed.),
Religiøs mangfoldighed, Aarhus: Systime, 2003, 454–460.
Kurukshetra (1946–1961).
Pedersen, René Dybdal, I Lysets Tjeneste, Aarhus: Forlaget UNIVERS, 2005, 28–73.
Teosofi i Norden (1961–1975).
Teosofia (1975–1989).
Teosofisk Samfunds Dansk-Islandske Nationalsamfund (1918–1920).
Teosofisk Tidskrift för Scandinavien (1893–1918).
Theosophia (1923–1961).
Vidar (1921–1922).
Theosophy in Finland 563
Chapter 68 Theosophy in Finland
Theosophy in Finland
Kennet Granholm
Introduction
The Theosophical Society, founded in New York, USA, in 1875 by Helena

Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891), Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907), and William
Quan Judge (1851–1896) is one of the most significant occultist groups to have
operated in Finland. It is the direct inspiration for a large number of other
esoteric organisations (on which, see the chapter in the present volume on
Theosophically inspired groups in Finland), and is the forerunner of the
Anthroposophical Society which has influenced many social fields in Finland
(see the chapter Anthroposophy in Finland).
The Swedish Section of the Theosophical Society in Finland
In order to explore the history of the Theosophical Society in Finland one

needs to first look at the rise of the Society in neighbouring Sweden with which
there were close ties. The Swedish section of the Theosophical Society was
founded by Gustaf Zander in February 1889. In Finland, this event was covered
in a lengthy article in the Swedish-language newspaper Åbo Tidning on 7 April
1889. The article managed to stimulate some interest in Finland. The article,
and the founding of the Swedish section, were preceded by the publication of
Swedish-speaking Finn Carl Robert Sederholm’s books Andens eller det rena
förnuftets religion (The Religion of the Spirit or Pure Reason) in 1883 and
Buddha, den upplyste och hans lära (Buddha, the Enlightened and his Teach-
ings) in 1886, and nearly coincided with the publication of his Den moderna
spiritualismen, dess filosofi och etik (Modern Spiritualism, its Philosophy and
Ethics) in 1889. These books were not exactly Theosophical in character and
differed from Theosophy on some key issues, nor was the author a member of
the Society (although he did join later). They did, however, express very similar
ideas and played an important part in popularising Theosophical ideas among
the Swedish-speaking population of Finland. Two years later, in 1891, a transla-
tion of Alexander Fullerton’s Wilkesbarre Letters on Theosophy was published

564 Granholm
in serial form in the Swedish-language Helsinki-based newspaper Nya Pressen.

The article series, which was given the title Hvad är teosofin? (What is
Theosophy?), was also issued in a stand-alone edition and circulated widely
among the Swedish-speaking population of the country. Largely as a result of
this, the Swedish section of the Theosophical Society gained its first two
Finnish members in 1891: Oskar Lönnroth and Johannes Hilli. By 1892 four
more members had joined, although two of these were Swedish citizens resid-
ing in Finland.
In 1893 the Swedish section of the Theosophical Society was transformed
into the Scandinavian section, which included Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and
the Swedish-speaking parts of Finland (as the aim of the section was to encom-
pass all Scandinavian language areas). In early 1894 organised Swedish-language
activities started to be arranged in Finland. The membership numbers had
risen to twenty, and there were already plans to found a lodge in Finland. By
the end of the year the membership had risen to thirty, and a founding meeting
of a Theosophical association was arranged in Helsinki on 14 October 1894,
with Alarik Wendell being elected chairman. In 1896 a second regional associa-
tion was formed in Hangö, and the number of members had risen to forty-four.
This was also the year when the Theosophical Society experienced its major
international leadership struggle between the William Quan Judge-led
US-based Theosophists and the group led by Henry Steel Olcott, based in India.
In the subsequent split a number of the Swedish Theosophists – including
Gustaf Zander – sided with Judge and consequently left the original Swedish
section where most members remained loyal to Olcott. The Finnish members,
however, chose to stay with the original group.
On 10 January 1897, a Theosophical library was opened in Helsinki. By
1898 it was reported to contain 331 titles, and it proved to be popular with
approximately 600 book loans within a year. The library was also the centre
for Theosophical activities in Helsinki, and Swedish-language meetings were
held each Thursday. On 11 December 1897, the Theosophical discussion asso-
ciation was founded, and it gathered around forty participants in its monthly
meetings.
The Finnish Theosophical Society
When considering the history of the Theosophical Society in Finland one

needs to pay attention to the language politics of the country, as well as the
overall political situation. The area today known as Finland was historically a
part of Sweden (from 1249) until it became an autonomous Grand Duchy of
Russia in 1809. Although autonomous, Finland still abided by certain laws of

the Russian Empire, one of these being rather strict legislation regarding the
forming of associations. For most of the time that Finland was part of Russia,
associations could only be formed by approval of the senate. As the Theo
sophical Society was not granted permission to found a section in Russia, it
was not granted this permission in Finland either. The laws were relaxed in
1906, and now any newly founded association simply needed to be registered
by the senate. The language-political issues had to do with Finland’s historical
relations to Sweden. Due to having been part of Sweden for such a long time,
Swedish was the language for official state matters and the educated classes,
whereas Finnish was the language of the majority of the population. With the
rise of Finnish national romanticism from the 1820s onwards, a movement to
adopt Finnish as the official, main – and often only – language of Finland was
born, and it gained strength in the coming decades. Part of this project of
Finlandising Finland was the creation of the Finnish national epic Kalevala by
Elias Lönnrot in the mid-1800s (in two versions: the “old” Kalevala in 1835–6,
and the extended “new” Kalevala in 1849). Many people in the earlier Swedish-
speaking upper classes adopted Finnish as their language of choice, and
tensions started to build between the Finnish- and Swedish-language popula-
tions. In terms of Theosophy, some even expressed the idea that the Finnish
people were part of the fourth – Atlantean – root-race, whereas the Swedish
people were part of the more evolved fifth – Aryan – root-race.
The central figure in the creation of the Finnish section of the Theosophical
Society is Pekka Ervast (1875–1934). Ervast was born to Swedish-speaking par-
ents, but was educated in Finnish due to the trends of the time. He first heard
of the Theosophical Society in 1894, joined the Scandinavian section in 1895,
and soon began to actively contribute to Theosophy in Finland. Already in 1897
he was one of the most active lecturers at the Theosophical library in Helsinki
– both in Swedish and Finnish – and the same year he produced the four-page
pamphlet Ihminen, miksi itket? (Human, why are you crying?) – the first strictly
speaking Theosophical publication in Finnish. In 1899 he published the first
book on Theosophy in Finnish, in the form of Johdantoa Teosofiaan (Intro
duction to Theosophy), translated excerpts from Annie Besant’s publications
(possibly her Ancient Wisdom: An Outline of Theosophical Teachings. The book
had been published in Swedish the year before as En inledning till Teosofien).
In 1900 Ervast participated in the annual meeting of the Scandinavian sec-
tion of the society and met the society’s founder and president Henry Steel
Olcott. This probably provided a further impetus for Ervast and others to
develop Finnish-language Theosophy. In 1901 Ervast started to give lectures
in Finnish at the labour association premises Vuorela in Sörnäinen, Helsinki,
566 Granholm
and the Finnish-language Theosophical journal Uusi Aika (New Age) was pub-
lished for the first time the same year. Ervast also published his first own book,
Valoa kohti (Towards the Light) in 1901. The Theosophical literature committee
Valon airut (the Herald of Light) was founded in 1902, and as a consequence
increasing numbers of books on Theosophy were published in Finnish. The
Finnish-language journal Omatunto (Conscience), headed by Maria Ramstedt
(1852–1915), was launched in 1905, the same year as the Theosophical book-
shop and publishing house was founded. With the growing number of
Finnish-language Theosophical publications and increased intensity of Fin
nish-language meetings – up to seven a month in Helsinki by the fall of 1906
– the number of Finnish Theosophists also grew. For example, Omatunto had
over 1,000 subscribers by 1906. This period also saw the first expression of
Theosophical “missionary activity” in Finland, as Veikko Palomaa (1865–1933)
systematically travelled through the country from March 1906 to March 1907
lecturing on Theosophy.
With the changes in the laws regarding the forming of associations in 1906,
as discussed above, the endeavour to form a Finnish section of the Theosophical
Society could be approached seriously. A first constitutional meeting was held
in November 1906 with approximately eighty Finnish Theosophists attending,
during which a committee was formed to investigate if the necessary interest
existed to form seven Finnish lodges with a minimum of seven members each
– as required in the bylaws of the Theosophical Society. After the second con-
stitutional meeting in March 1907, again with around eighty Finnish Theoso-
phists attending, a decision was made to request the right to create a Finnish
section of the Theosophical Society. The request was approved by Annie Besant
– who had taken over leadership of the society after the death of Olcott in 1906
– and by October 1907 the seven lodges required had been founded in Helsinki
(the lodges Kalevala, 22 September, Atra, 12 October, Kalervo, 14 October, and
Vågen, 14 October – the last one being the only Swedish-language lodge),
Vyborg (the lodge Sampo, 2 February), Kurikka (the lodge Etsijä, in early 2007),
and Nokia (the lodge Sarastus, September 2009). An eighth lodge, Aura, was
founded in Turku on 31 October 1907. The founding of the Finnish section of
the Theosophical Society was ratified by Besant on 21 October 1907. The total
number of members in the Finnish lodges was at this time 155.
Pekka Ervast was elected the first general secretary of the Finnish section,
and remained in the position until 1920. By that time he had begun to have seri-
ous misgivings about the direction in which Annie Besant was taking the
Theosophical Society, including the promotion of Jiddu Krishnamurti as the
new World Teacher. Ervast withdrew from the Theosophical Society and
founded Ruusu-Risti on 14 November 1920 (on which further information can
be found in the chapter on Theosophically inspired groups in Finland, in the

present volume). He nonetheless remained in high regard among the Finnish
Theosophists, as his books are considered important reading in the society
even to this day and there is even some cooperation between the Theosophical
Society and Ruusu-Risti.
Theosophy in Finland Today
The form and regularity of activities arranged by the Theosophical Society in

Finland varies from location to location. In the late nineteenth and early twen-
tieth centuries, activities were mainly arranged in Helsinki and were in the
form of lectures based on Theosophical literature and study circles. The fre-
quency of activities ranged from Swedish-language lectures once a week in the
1890s to several meetings per week in both Swedish and Finnish in the early
1900s. To this can be added the lecture tours in Finland conducted primarily by
Veikko Palomaa. In general, activities are currently arranged from once a
month in the smaller cities where the Theosophical Society is active, to one or
more meetings a week in the larger cities. In the fall of 2009 (the most recent
year for which information was available at the time of writing) the society as
a whole arranged an average of eighteen meetings per month in Finland. Week-
long summer courses are arranged each year, usually around midsummer. In
2004 the theme was Uusiutuva ihminen (The Renewing Human Being), in 2008
Viisauden lähteillä (At the Well of Wisdom), and in 2009 Kosminen rytmi,
musiikki ja harmonia (Cosmic Rhythm, Music, and Harmony). The society pub-
lishes the journal Teosofi in four issues per year. The current general secretary
(at the time of writing) of the Finnish section of the Theosophical Society is
Marja Artamaa (from 2007).
The Theosophical Society (Adyar) had 487 members in Finland in 2004,
and approximately 460 members in 2007. According to information provided
by the society in 2004, the membership has for a number of years fluctuated
between 470 and 500. The number of people interested in Theosophy and
Theosophical issues has always been much greater than the official member-
ship. In the early 1900s, when the membership was less than a hundred, the
number of participants in the lectures arranged by the society amounted to
several hundred. As recounted earlier, the Finnish-language Theosophical
journal Omatunto had more than a thousand subscribers in 1906. The number
of lodges in Finland is twenty-four (although the number twenty-two is given
on the website of the Finnish Theosophical Society), out of which the Aurora
lodge in Turku is the only explicitly Swedish-language one. In addition to this,
568 Granholm
there are three study circles in Finland – in Helsinki, Lieksa, and Rovaniemi
– and the two lodges in Estonia – in Tallinn and Tartu – operate under the
Finnish section of the society. The Finnish lodges are located in Helsinki (four
lodges), Hyvinkää, Hämeenlinna, Jyväskylä, Kajaani, Kokkola, Kotka, Lahti,
Lappeenranta, Mikkeli, Oulu, Porvoo, Pori, Raahe, Rauma, Tampere (two
lodges), Turku (two lodges), Vaasa, and Ylivieska. Dues-paying members are
entitled to a members’ publication issued four times a year, study letters issued
three to four times a year, a discount on Theosophical literature bought via the
lodges of the society, and free participation in the summer courses organised
by the society. Membership is through application, and requires the sponsor-
ship of two existing members.
No information on the Finnish membership numbers of the Theosophical
Society (Pasadena) exists. The web page of the international society did, how-
ever, earlier list a Finnish National Secretary resident in Helsinki. The spelling
of the society was given in its Swedish form, and it can therefore be expected
that the Pasadena fraction of the society would mainly operate in the Swedish
language in Finland.
In addition to the Theosophical Society (Adyar) and its Finnish online pres-
ence, Theosophy is in Finland also represented on the webpage teosofia.net.
The webpage was launched in September 1996, and received its current name
on 11 November 1999. The website can be regarded an expression of “freelance
Theosophy”, as it is not officially affiliated with any of the major Theosophical
groups and does not take sides for or against any of these groups. Teosofia.net
mainly concerns itself with the online publication of articles and other materi-
als that relate to Theosophy. On the editorial page of the site, the moderators/
webmasters encourage readers to send in their own texts – which will then be
published if considered to fit the overall framework of the site in terms of con-
tent and subject – as well as any Theosophical material that is free of copyright.
Teosofia.net thus functions as a sort of archival site, as well as a site that is at
least partly formed by the interests of its readership. In true Theosophical
tradition the material published represents a cross-section of most world reli-
gions, with a focus on mystical and esoteric interpretations.
References
Ahlbäck, Tore, Uppkomsten av Teosofiska Samfundet i Finland, Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1995.
Ervast, Pekka, Johdantoa Teosofiaan, Hämeenlinna: Teosofien yhdistys, 1899.
——— . Valoa kohti; nykyaikisesta teosofiasta, Helsinki, 1901.
——— . Kortfattad teosofisk uppslagsbok, Stockholm: Nordin & Josephson, 1906.

Omatunto: teosofinen aikakauskirja, 1905–1907.
Tietäja: teosofinen aikakauskirja, 1908–1920.
Uusi aika, 1900–1901.
570 Kraft
Chapter 69 Theosophy in Norway
Theosophy in Norway
Siv Ellen Kraft
Background and Formative Years
Norway’s first Theosophical lodge was founded in Christiania (Oslo) in 1893,

with Gerhard Elfwing as chairman and seven members (Kirkebø 1998: 84). Some
of these had been detached members of The Swedish Theosophical Society,
and most of them probably had a connection to Det Norske Spiritie Samfunn
(The Spiritualist Organisation of Norway). The spiritualist Bernt Christian
Sverdrup Torstenson had been distributing Theosophical literature in Norway
since 1887, including Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled and Olcott’s People from the Other
World (1875). The spiritualist journal Morgendæmringen (Dawn) referred to
these texts as “spiritualist literature” (Kirkebø 1998: 38). Morgendæmringen
also commented upon the first meetings of the TS, and printed advertisements
for Theosophical lectures.
A survey from 1896 shows that most of the early Theosophists belonged
to the middle class and were connected to liberal professions (Kirkebø 1998:
87). The first decade of Theosophical activity to a large extent revolved around
the study and discussion of Theosophical teachings. A library was estab-
lished in 1894, and a publishing house (Norsk Teosofisk Samfunns Forlag) was
founded in the same year. In 1897 the journal Balder was founded, with recent-
ly elected chairman Richard Eriksen as editor. This, and later, journals con-
sisted mainly of translated articles from international Theosophical journals,
news from leading Theosophical centres, and commentaries on international
Theosophical literature. Weekly lodge meetings revolved around similar
issues, usually in the form of lectures and discussions. Endeavours to spread
the Theosophical teachings were limited to public lectures and advertisements
in relevant journals. Eriksen organised public lectures in Studentersamfundet
(The Student Society in Christiania) from 1894, many of which appear to
have been well visited. Two lectures by Annie Besant in 1898 and 1904 were
particularly successful in terms of the society’s attempt to reach a broader
audience – approximately 500 people came to her lectures in Christiania
(Kirkebø 1998: 91).

Theosophy in Norway 571
An Esoteric Section may have been established already during this early
period, but on this point the Theosophical journals are silent and other sources
have not been discovered. If such a section existed, Eriksen was no doubt a key
member. Throughout this early period, Eriksen was the main lecturer, he trans-
lated a large part of the Theosophical literature published in Norway, and he
served as the main link to the outside world. To the general public, Eriksen
became known through the so-called university conflict in 1911, based on the
rejection of his doctoral dissertation in philosophy by an examination com-
mittee appointed by the Theological faculty. Eriksen’s supporters argued that
the rejection was due to his spiritualist worldview and that the attitude of the
committee thus represented a threat to the liberty of research. The dissertation
was finally accepted in 1915.
Schisms
The Norwegian TS split into two sections in the wake of the Judge conflict.
Thirteen (of a total of thirty-two) members in 1896 left to form Norsk Teosofisk
Forbund (The Norwegian Theosophical Association) placed under The
Theosophical Society in America. Norsk Teosofisk Forbund published its own
journal (Mimer/tidsskrift for teosofi), counted several educated members, and
during the first couple of years gained support from the visit of international
leaders. The profile and activities of the organisation resembled those of the
Adyar section. Norsk Teosofisk Forbund was active until the Second World
War, if not longer.
At some point in time between 1907 and 1913, a third Theosophical group
was founded, the so-called Aurvanga Teosofisk Samfunn, chaired by Henrik
Alme and placed under the Theosophical Society in America (Kirkebø 1997:
60). In 1923 Aurvanga separated from the Theosophical Society in America in
order, according to protocols, ‘not to be connected to any foreign organisation
with old and recently invented dogmas and authorities’ (ibid.). Its primary goal
was to develop the ‘specifically Norwegian’ heritage, which was by members
interpreted as Old Norse traditions (Sørensen 1998). In Grundtræk af Asalæren
og Vøluspaa med fortolkning (Basic Traits of the Asa Creed and the Völuspá
with Interpretation, 1917), Alme and Ludvig Gerhard Bendix Flock argued that
Old Norse religion corresponded to Theosophical teachings on all points, and
that its mythology was one of the early sources of ancient wisdom. It is unclear
how long Aurvanga remained in existence.
In 1913 a new schism within the Adyar TS took place, again as a direct conse-
quence of international developments. Rudolf Steiner was by then well known
572 Kraft
among Norwegian members, partly because of the yearly two-week lecture

tours that he held in Norway between 1908 and 1912. Two so-called Steiner
Lodges were founded in Bergen and Oslo as early as in 1911. At this point differ-
ences between Steiner and Besant’s versions of Theosophy were acknowledged,
but not considered a problem (Kirkebø 1997: 70). Following Steiner’s constitu-
tion of the Anthroposophical Society, the Steiner Lodges collectively left the
TS. Approximately seventy (of a total of 252) members left at this point, among
them Eriksen, who had been its leading spokesperson since 1897. For more
information on these and subsequent events, see the chapter on Anthropo-
sophy in Norway in the present volume.
In 1913 a Norwegian section of the TS was established, directly under the
international leadership in Adyar. Eva Blytt was elected General Secretary, and
– after the departure of Eriksen – she became the main leader of the TS. Blytt
had a background as a journalist and between 1901 and 1904 studied Theosophy
in London, where she met Annie Besant. Her links to the international leaders
were further strengthened by a visit to Adyar in 1911. Blytt had private means
and throughout her leadership worked full-time for the TS.
The election of Blytt marks a change from the male-dominated organisation
of the early movement, to a period in which women became active, if not dom-
inant, on all levels of the organisation. The Norwegian Order of the Star in the
East was led by three women: Eva Blytt, Helen Egilsrud, and Lilly Heber, all of
them well educated, cosmopolitan, and feminists (Hope 1995). During their
leadership the movement changed from that of a literary organisation, charac-
terised by intellectual debate – typical of the society prior to the turn of the
century – to becoming a more spiritual community, concerned with devotion
and ritual, what Blytt referred to as ‘the wisdom of the heart’. Annie Besant was
and remained the leading light of these women.
During Blytt’s leadership the Norwegian TS experienced its heights, but also
its gravest disappointments. By 1913 the Norwegian section had two lodges in
Christiania, two in Bergen, and one each in Stavanger, Trondheim, Lillehammer,
Tromsø, Skien, Rendalen, and Kristiansund. Membership increased from 208
in 1913 to 384 in 1921 (the highest ever) and the activity level reached an all-time
high, with several new institutions, committees, and activities – all of them
linked to the expected coming of the World Teacher and most of them consid-
ered vital to the realisation of this coming. Here, as on most other matters,
Norwegian Theosophists copied the moves of their leading lights in Adyar and
London, in this case Besant and the international Order of the Star in the East.
Norwegian contributions included a section of the Star in the East and a new
journal (Stjernebladet, the Star Magazine). Co-masonry and The Temple of the
Rosy Cross were introduced in Norway by James I. Wedgwood during a visit in
1913. The Round Table was founded in 1921, to be followed by the Liberal
Catholic Church (established in Norway during the early 1920s) and a section
of The Theosophical Order of Service (in 1921) (Kirkebø 1997: 91–107). So-called
self-improvement and social reform groups included astrology, mental help,
and thought control (including a group intended to heighten the conscious-
ness level in the world through the mental thought control exerted by
members), lecture and study groups, and language courses in Esperanto and
English; one group even took on the task of translating Theosophical literature
into Braille. In addition, the Norwegian section had committees working for
peace, vegetarianism, educational reform, women’s liberation, temperance,
animal protection, and anti-vivisection (ibid.). Propaganda initiatives included
a Theosophical press office (intended to influence public opinion through the
media), and extensive distribution of literature to teachers. Some of these
activities were based at a “Star Colony” established at Blommenholm, in Oslo,
in 1922. Lilly Heber, Gyda Haabjørn, and two other Star Colony members lived
permanently at this centre, which was also used for meditation groups, sum-
mer camps, courses, and the reception of national and international guests.
Throughout this period, members also visited Star camps and meetings at the
World Congress of the Star in the East, in Ommen, Netherlands.
Helen Engelsrud led the Order of the Star in the East from 1914 to 1916, when
she moved with her family to Minneapolis (Hope 1998: 46). During her stay in
the USA she divided her time between the TS and the suffragette movement.
Eva Blytt replaced her as leader of the Order of the Star. She was succeeded as
general secretary by Agnes Martens Sparre in 1922, and as leader of the Order
of the Star by Lilly Heber in 1922. During her leadership, ten so-called Star
groups were added to the already established spectrum of committees and
institutions.
Heber received a doctorate in literature in 1915 and throughout her career
worked as a writer, a literary critic, and a scholar. As a professional and as a
Theosophist, she was particularly interested in pioneers and reform move-
ments, all of which were interpreted through the frame of the coming of the
World Teacher. Heber’s publications revolve around such issues. They include
her PhD Dissertation (1914), a book about Camilla Collett (1913), a biography
of Annie Besant (1927), two books about Krishnamurti (1930 and 1933), a study
of female pioneers (1925), and two novels (1918 and 1938). Her novels are based
upon Theosophical ideas, but never explicitly refer to Theosophy or use
Theosophical terms (Hope 1998). As a type of “hidden propaganda”, they may
have been inspired by similar publications signed by contemporary Theoso
phical feminists in the UK.
574 Kraft
A period characterised by enthusiasm and growth, the Star era was also tur-
bulent. Financial problems were a primary matter of concern. The Order of the
Star was based solely on donations, and the many new initiatives were costly.
In 1926 the financial situation was so difficult that public TS lectures were can-
celled. A second reason for turbulence had to do with the emphasis on the
World Teacher. The entire Theosophical leadership worked enthusiastically for
the coming, but only half of the members actually joined the Order of the Star
in the East. This helps to explain the fact that membership fell prior to the
abdication of Krishnamurti, then dropped more sharply after 1929 (Kirkebø
1997: 84). By 1931 membership had dropped to 175 and in 1932 to 130. Apart from
lodge meetings most of the established orders and activities were suspended.
Norwegian members were clearly shocked by the turn of events in 1929. A
number of interpretations of these events were represented in the Norwegian
Theosophical milieu, among them that Krishnamurti was a fake and – on the
other extreme – that his abdication proved his status as a World Teacher. Most
remaining members appear to have chosen the latter version. Section meet-
ings during 1929 and 1930 repeatedly dealt with Krishnamurti’s departure, and
with the related question of what this meant to the TS as an organisation
(Hope 1995: 99). Leading members argued that the Order of the Star had
achieved its goal and was no longer needed as an organisation, but that the TS
still had a role to play. Heber continued to live on Blommenholm, which was
now converted into a Krishnamurti information centre.
During the following period three factors contributed to a certain degree of
optimism. First, an attempt to organise summer schools proved successful.
Summer schools were organised from 1932 to 1934, with the Scottish Theo
sophist Edwin C. Bolt as main lecturer. Second, a new member (M. Iversen)
organised and financed a lecture tour, which – at a time when membership
was dropping everywhere – resulted in a new lodge being opened in Oslo.
Third, Krishnamurti visited Norway in 1933, and on this occasion gave six pub-
lic lectures and participated in a Nordic Krishnamurti gathering. Two thousand
people heard him speak at the Colosseum in Oslo, among them an enthusiastic
press. Norwegian Theosophists, who for almost two decades had spread infor-
mation about Krishnamurti, clearly felt that his increasing popularity was at
least partly thanks to them (Kirkebø 1998: 105).
In 1930, Heber published Glimt av en ny idéverden (Glimpses of a New World-
view, later translated into English). Abandoning much of what she had worked
so hard for, she here presented a harsh attack on the Order of the Star in the
East. Three years later she published Krishnamurti og vår tids krise: bidrag til
den moderne nyorienterings historie (Krishnamurti and the Crisis of Our Times:
A Contribution to the History of the Modern Reorientation), and in 1938 a new
novel appeared, titled Livets tre (The Tree of Life) and published under the
pseudonym Tore Hav. Heber again stressed the need for reforms, at this point
placing her hope in women’s liberation and ‘the power of female love’. Ideas of
an imminent transition to a new era are here replaced by a more long-term
perspective. Helen Egilsrud dealt with similar issues in the novel Ny dag (New
Day), published in 1932. Egilsrud in this novel avoids the use of Theosophical
terminology and never uses the word Theosophy (Hope 1998). However, a
Theosophical worldview is presented through the dialogue of the two main
characters, both of them men. The third – a woman – provides wise answers to
their many questions and struggles, and shows them how to seek truth for
themselves, through the use and interpretation of sources from the past and
signs in the present.
The Norwegian TS was not banned during Second World War, but the jour-
nal ceased appearing and public activities were suspended. Activities were
resumed after the War; the TS now counted approximately ninety members,
with lodges in Oslo, Stavanger, Bergen, and Trondheim. The married couple
Ernst and Ruth Wessel Nielsen were key figures during the years to come; Ernst
as General Secretary from 1945 until his death in 1963; Ruth as General Secretary
from 1963 to 1984. Their private home at Oscars gate 11, in Oslo, housed the TS
library and was used for lodge meetings and public lectures from 1945 to 1990,
with the exception of a short period when activities were held at Arbiensgate 4
(Kirkebø 1998: 107). Membership saw a slight rise to 165 in 1958, but from then
on the Norwegian TS has gradually declined, both in terms of members and
activities. By the beginning of the 1990s the TS had approximately fifty paying
members and only one active lodge (Kraft 1998). The average age was high, the
economic situation was very difficult, and the section lacked a permanent
place for meetings (and for the library) and – for all of these reasons – had
problems recruiting new members. In 2000 the Norwegian TS was due to its
reduced membership figures formally replaced by a regional association of the
TS. A monthly newsletter replaced the journal in 2003. According to Organising
Secretary of the Norwegian TS, Dr. Saleh Noshie, the section had fourteen reg-
istered members in 2014, and two active lodges (in Bergen and Oslo). Seminars
are still organised regularly, some of these in co-operation with the Krishna
murti Foundation. It also hosts a Facebook group, which in February 2014 had
seventeen members.
576 Kraft
Teosofisk forening Stavanger
In 1995 a new Theosophical organisation was founded in Stavanger, on the ini-

tiative of Sigmund Eie. Titled Teosofisk forening Stavanger (The Theosophical
Association, Stavanger), this is an independent organisation which since the
start has co-operated with Alice Bailey-oriented Theosophists in Copenhagen.
Teosofisk forening Stavanger started as a study group during the early 1990s,
and in 2009 had approximately 110 members (information from Sigmund Eie).
By 2014, it is presented as an independent part of Teosofisk Forening Skandi
navia. The organisation offers study and meditation groups, a magazine for
members, Visdoms Magasinet (The Wisdom Magazine) along with three
educational venues: Den teosofiske skole, Den egyptiske teosofiskole, and
Den astrologiske skole (The Theosophical School, The Egyptian School of
Theosophy, and The Astrological School, respectively). The organisation (in
2014) has a Facebook group with fifty-eight members, and a website with infor-
mation about activities.
Concluding Remarks
The history of Theosophy in Norway has only been explored to a limited extent.
So far four MA theses and a book (based primarily on the theses) have appeared.
The MA theses are based partly on the library of St.Olafslosjen (in Trondheim),
which in 1991 was deposited at the Department of Religious Studies, University
of Bergen. The main library of the Norwegian section has been stored privately
in an attic since 1990. This collection may contain more detailed information
about the history of Norwegian Theosophy than that which is available in jour-
nals (such as membership records, records of lodge activities, and so forth).
The lasting contribution of Norwegian Theosophists is likely to be found in
their broader social impact, rather than in the history of Theosophy narrowly
defined. Such influences on the broader environment remain more or less
uncharted, but no doubt include Theosophical themes explored by a number
of authors and artists, a Theosophical influence on parts of the women’s move-
ment and the vegetarian movement (which in Norway was founded by a
Theosophist), as well as the development and spread of complementary and
alternative medicine in Norway.
References
Alme, H. and L. Flock, Grundtræk af Asalæren og Vøluspaa, Oslo: O. Norli, 1917.

Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna, Isis Unveiled, Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1877.
Egilsrud, Helen, Ny dag, Minneapolis, 1932.
Gilhus, Ingvild and Lisbeth Mikaelsson (eds.), Skjult visdom – universelt brorskap. Teosofi
i Norge, Oslo: Emilia Forlag, 1998.
Heber, Lilly, Camilla Collett, Kristiania og Kjøbenhavn: Gyldendalske Boghandel Nordisk
Forlag, 1913.
——— . Norsk realisme i 1830 og 40 aarene, Kristiania: Olaf Norlis Forlag, 1914.
——— . Det dages, Kristiania: Olaf Norlis Forlag, 1918.
——— . Kvindeskikkelser i norsk aandslivs historie. II Alvhilde Prydz, Oslo: Olaf Norlis
Forlag, 1925.
———. Annie Besant. En moderne pioner. Biografisk skitse, Oslo: Olaf Norlis Forlag, 1927.
——— . Glimt av en ny idéverden, Oslo: Olav Norlis Forlag, 1930.
———. Krishnamurti og vår tids krise. Et bidrag til den moderne nyorienterings historie,
Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1933.
——— . (under the pseudonym Tore Hav) Livets tre, Oslo: Olaf Nordlis Forlag, 1938.
Hope, Ingvild, Teosofi i Norge. En historisk analyse av Ordenen Stjernen i Øst, unpublished
MA thesis, Bergen, 1995.
———. “Ordenen Stjernen i Øst: Verdenslærerens tjenere”, in: Ingvild Gilhus and Lisbeth
Mikaelsson (eds.), Skjult visdom – universelt brorskap. Teosofi i Norge, Oslo: Emilia
Forlag, 1998, 35–61.
Kirkebø, Synnøve, Teosofi i Norge. Norsk Teosofisk Samfunn 1893–1940, unpublished MA
thesis, Bergen 1997.
——— . “Teosofi i Norge 1893–1940: en historisk skisse”, in: Ingvild Gilhus and Lisbeth
Mikaelsson (eds.), Skjult visdom – universelt brorskap. Teosofi i Norge, Oslo: Emilia
Forlag, 1998, 79–108.
Kraft, Siv Ellen, Teosofisk Samfunn i Norge: En samtidsanalyse, unpublished MA thesis
Bergen, 1993.
Olcott, Henry Steel, People from the Other World, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing
Company, 1875.
Sørensen, Eli H., En teosofisk tolkning av Voluspå. Henrik Anton Almes reinterpretasjon
av norrøn mytologi, unpublished MA thesis, Bergen 1996.
——— . “Teosofi og norrøn mytologi – universelt budskap i nasjonal drakt”, in: Ingvild
Sælid Gilhus and Lisbeth Mikaelsson (eds.), Skjult visdom – universelt brorskap.
Teosofi i Norge, Oslo: Emilia Forlag, 1998, 109–224.
578 Petander
Chapter 70 Theosophy in Sweden
Theosophy in Sweden
Einar Petander
Background and Formative Years
Sweden was a particularly fertile ground for the introduction of Theosophy,

due to the philosophical idealism that dominated Swedish universities in the
second half of the nineteenth century, and which had its roots in the particu-
lar version of idealism that had been formulated by the Uppsala philosopher
Christopher Jacob Boström (1797–1866). The breakthrough of the Theosophical
movement was also prepared for by the wide appeal of religious liberalism,
especially among the so-called “believers in rationality”, Sw. förnuftstroende,
a group which had the journal Sanningssökaren (The Seeker after Truth; pub-
lished in the years 1877–1893) as its main forum. In the last volumes of the
journal, the förnuftstroende moved toward an increasingly Theosophical world-
view. Several individuals who had actively worked with the journal entered the
first Theosophical organisation to be founded in Sweden. One of them was
Baron Victor Pfeiff (1829–1901), who came to function as the vice chairman of
the Swedish Theosophical Society during the first years of the organisation, and
as editor of its journal Teosofisk Tidskrift (Theosophical Journal) during the first
two years. Another Theosophist who had been involved in the circle around
Sanningssökaren was the writer and social democrat Axel Fritiof Åkerberg
(1833–1901). He was the secretary of the society until he left in September 1891.
A person who played an important role in introducing Theosophical ideas
in Sweden – without becoming a member himself – was the writer Carl von
Bergen (1838–1897), who in 1887 began delivering a series of public lectures on
Theosophy. In his earlier writings, he had attacked orthodox dogmatic
Christianity, and was in this respect inspired by the critique of the Bible formu-
lated by the Swedish writer Viktor Rydberg (1828–1895). Carl von Bergen had
also met Blavatsky personally.
Theosophists themselves tend to single out Viktor Rydberg as the most
important person to introduce Theosophy in Sweden. Rydberg was one of the
most influential individuals in late nineteenth-century Swedish intellectual
culture, and had a particular interest in religion. According to the historiogra-
phy of the Theosophists, in October 1888 Rydberg invited a number of
individuals interested in Theosophy to his home on Karlavägen in Stockholm.
Among those present on that occasion was Dr. Gustaf Zander (1835–1920), the

Theosophy in Sweden 579
originator of so-called medico-mechanic gymnastics and for three decades

one of the leading figures within the Swedish Theosophical movement. The
meeting at Rydberg’s home was the first impetus toward the formation of a
Swedish Theosophical society, which was formally incorporated at a meeting
at Gustaf Zander’s home on 10 February 1889. At this meeting seventeen people
participated, most of whom were to occupy leading positions in the Theo
sophical movement; Rydberg, however, did not attend. Zander was elected
chairman of the society. For the next two years, Teosofiska Samfundets Svenska
Afdelning (The Swedish branch of the Theosophical Society) was formally a
lodge under the European section in London. In 1891 the name of the lodge was
changed to Svenska Teosofiska Samfundet (Swedish Theosophical Society). A
number of members from Norway, Denmark, and Finland also joined, a fact
that was acknowledged in 1893 with yet another change of name to Skandi
naviska Teosofiska Samfundet (Scandinavian Theosophical Society), organised
as a sub-section under the European section. What were previously conceived
of as local branches were now reorganised as distinct lodges.
By the time the Society celebrated its fifth anniversary, it counted eight
Swedish, one Norwegian, one Danish, and one Finnish lodge. There were 306
registered members, of whom 266 were Swedes, twelve Norwegians, eight
Danes, and twenty Finns. In 1895, the Scandinavian sub-section had grown to
such a size that it was promoted to the status of a section organised directly
under the international headquarters in Adyar, India, under the name
Teosofiska Samfundets Skandinaviska Sektion (Scandinavian Section of the
Theosophical Society). In 1909 the name was changed again, to Teosofiska
Samfundet i Skandinavien (Theosophical Society in Scandinavia).
For the first several years, the activities of the Society consisted mainly of
study sessions, discussions, and lectures. The lectures were often based on arti-
cles in foreign Theosophical periodicals, but there were also lectures written
by Swedish Theosophists. Quite often, such lectures would later be published
in Teosofisk Tidskrift. The society had an official statement of purpose, which
included the study of ‘Aryan and other Oriental literature, science and religion’;
this was directly borrowed from the statutes of the international Theosophical
Society, and was clearly also the main preoccupation of the Swedish branch in
these formative years.
Countess Constance Wachtmeister (1838–1910), functioned as an important
link between the Swedish and international Theosophical milieus. She knew
Blavatsky personally, and had lived with her during the period when Blavatsky
wrote The Secret Doctrine. Countess Wachtmeister was also very active in pro-
moting Theosophy via public lectures in much of Sweden.
580 Petander
On several occasions in the 1890s, leading individuals in the international

Theosophical movement visited Sweden. In September 1891, the President of
the Society, Henry S. Olcott, visited Stockholm. Olcott also met the Swedish
king, Oscar II, who was very interested in Theosophy. In May 1894 Annie Besant
– who from 1907 to 1933 was president of the Society – attended the annual
meeting of the Society in Stockholm, and also visited Uppsala and Gothenburg.
Annie Besant returned to Sweden in January 1898 in connection with a series
of lectures in Scandinavia. Such visits by leading figures in the international
Theosophical milieu were reported on by the press, and could generate quite
fierce polemics. Priests in Sweden at first tended to regard Theosophy as a kind
of Buddhism. They were opposed to what they perceived as the lack of a per-
sonal God and the denial of the special role in religious history of Jesus. By
contrast, the so-called 1880s radicals, a group of writers and intellectuals asso-
ciated with the modern breakthrough in Sweden (with writer Karl af Geijerstam
as the most outspoken critic), reacted to what they saw as a form of modern
“superstition”. Another common theme in the critical literature was the alleg-
edly immoral behaviour of some leading international Theosophists.
Organisational Schisms
When the international Theosophical movement in 1895 split into an Anglo-

Indian branch led by H.S. Olcott, and an American branch under William Q.
Judge, there were repercussions also in the Swedish Theosophical milieu, albeit
with some delay. On 23 August 1896, forty-two of a total of 455 members,
including General Secretary Gustaf Zander, left the Scandinavian section and
formed their own organisation, Svenska Teosofiska Samfundet (Swedish
Theosophical Society). By the end of the year, a total of 151 members had joined
the new organisation, which affiliated itself with other Judge-based lodges
throughout Europe. Gustaf Zander was elected President for life of Svenska
Teosofiska Samfundet. Zander explained his decision as not only the result of
conflicts within the international movement, but also of the desire to create
more independent national Theosophical organisations (Theosophia, March
1897: 36–37).
When the majority within the Theosophical Society in America in February
1898 decided to join forces in the newly-formed Universal Brotherhood, most
members of Svenska Teosofiska Samfundet followed their example, including
Gustaf Zander and other leading members of the organisation. However, a
minority preferred to remain outside the Universal Brotherhood, and claimed
to be the legitimate representatives of Svenska Teosofiska Samfundet. Similar
organisational differences between those who wished to join the Universal
Brotherhood and those who declined to do so existed in other European coun-

tries as well.
After the split, the actuary Vilhelm Härnqvist was elected leader of Svenska
Teosofiska Samfundet. Having lost access to the facilities and the publication,
both of which were taken over by the Universal Brotherhood, the minor-
ity organisation approached Teosofiska Samfundets Skandinaviska Sektion,
and requested the use once a week of their meeting facilities in Stockholm,
and to be able to dispose of one page of the journal of that organisation in
order to publish messages for their members. A couple of subsequent issues of
Teosofisk Tidskrift did in fact include communications from Svenska Teosofiska
Samfundet. After June 1899, the communications from Svenska Teosofiska
Samfundet stopped, and the further events involving that organisation are not
known.
Universal Brotherhood
The Universal Brotherhood founded in February 1898 was a highly centralised

organisation, held in firm reins by leader Katherine Tingley. Under her leader-
ship, the emphasis was put on the first point of the Theosophical charter, i.e.,
to contribute to the formation of a universal brotherhood of humanity. By
means of the inner development of the human being, the Theosophists felt
that the conditions were in place for the spread of such a universal brother-
hood. The means of accomplishing this was a special educational method
called Raja Yoga, a Sanskrit term that might be translated “royal uniting”. The
method was implemented at special boarding schools that were run by the
Universal Brotherhood. The first and most important of these was located at
the utopian Point Loma community which was established in California. The
community was also the site of flourishing musical and artistic activities,
which were partly modelled on Greek art and architecture. In Sweden, another
centre for the Universal Brotherhood was built on the island of Visingsö. A Raja
Yoga school operated in the summer season, and a temple in Greek style was
built. There were plans to make the centre on Visingsö a centre of the same
dignity as Point Loma – in effect a “Point Loma no. 2” (Theosophia, 1899: 156)
– but these plans were never fully implemented. Katherine Tingley died in 1929
on Visingsö of injuries she suffered in a car accident, and the work on the
planned centre gradually came to a halt.
During the 1930s, activities continued at the summer school that had been
started already in the 1920s. In the World War II period, the Theosophists saw
to it that children from Finland (which was heavily affected by the war) could
be lodged with host families on the island. Elsewhere in Sweden, Theosophical
582 Petander
educational programmes were also pursued via the lodges, as well as via so-
called Theosophical clubs which primarily targeted young people. For the
youngest children, Theosophical education was offered via the Lotus Circles,
which had formed part of Tingley’s educational ideas already from the 1890s.
Katherine Tingley felt a particular affinity for Sweden, and for Visingsö, and
she visited Sweden on several occasions. Tingley met the Theosophically inter-
ested King of Sweden Oscar II on such occasions, including a visit only a few
months before his death in 1907. In 1899 the king attended a meeting in con-
nection with the world conference of the Universal Brotherhood in Stockholm
(Theosophia, 1899: 154; Den teosofiska vägen, 1916: 165). On the occasion of the
so-called “Swedish day” at Point Loma, a bust of Oscar II was presented (Den
teosofiska vägen, 1916: 161–168). An international peace congress was organised
on Visingsö in June 1913, and a Jubilee congress was held in 1925 to mark the
fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Theosophical Society. Most Swedish
Theosophists were at some point in their careers visitors at the Point Loma
community.
Due to a shrinking number of members and the ensuing economic troubles,
the headquarters of the international movement were moved, at first (in 1942)
to Covina near Los Angeles, and then to Pasadena. Activities in Visingsö were
also suspended. The large-scale educational plans envisaged by Tingley were
effectively abandoned. The new leader of the Universal Brotherhood after
Tingley, Gottfried de Purucker, worked towards reconciliation with the Adyar
branch. In Sweden, the two Theosophical groups began to attend each others’
meetings. The two were, however, never to reunite. The reorientation under de
Purucker was marked by a change of name, to Teosofiska Samfundet. Today
the society calls itself Teosofiska Samfundet Pasadena, with the place-name
appended in order to avoid confusion with the Adyar-based organisation.
Beginning in 1921 the Universal Brotherhood/Theosophical Society Pasadena
was operating in Stockholm, with headquarters at the Theosophical library on
Sveavägen in central Stockholm. Activities continued also after the decline of
the Visingsö centre, but were halted in the years from 1952 to 1972. This was due
to a decision by the international head of the society at the time, James Long,
to discontinue all public activities. When he was succeeded by Grace F. Knoche
in 1972, these public activities were resumed. For a number of years, the
Stockholm group organised study activities, discussions, and lectures (includ-
ing some by members of the Adyar-based Theosophists). By the late 1990s the
cost of renting premises in Stockholm had increased to such an extent that
the group felt compelled to find a less costly location. At the time of writing
(2014), the Stockholm group of the Theosophical Society Pasadena is at least
temporarily inactive, and the remains of the library are stored in a private
cellar.
In connection with a conflict regarding leadership succession in the Theoso

phical Society, a schism in the American branch in 1951 led to the founding of
two further branches, one with James Long as leader and headquarters in
Pasadena, the other with William Hartley as leader and headquarters at first in
Covina, and later in The Hague, Netherlands. The latter branch, in Swedish
called Teosofiska Samfundet Point Loma, has in recent years organised activi-
ties in Sweden, including lectures open for all as well as lodge-based studies
reserved for members. They reported having twenty-eight members in Sweden
in 2013.
Svenska Teosofiska Samfundet/Universella Broderskapet published the
journal Theosophia, at first with three trial issues, and thereafter with monthly
issues from 1897 until the summer of 1911. From the second half of 1898 until
the end of 1903, a journal by the name of Nya Seklet (The New Century) was
published in the southern Swedish city of Helsingborg, where there was a lively
Theosophical milieu under the leadership of Erik Bogren. In 1904 Nya Seklet
merged with Theosophia. In the summer of 1911 Theosophia was replaced by
Den Teosofiska Vägen (The Theosophical Way), which was the Swedish-
language version of a journal by the same name which appeared in several
European countries. In 1925, Tingley decided to shut down Den Teosofiska
Vägen. Under its new leader G. de Purucker, the Point Loma-based Theosophists
in Sweden once again had a journal, now called Teosofiskt Forum. This publica-
tion continued to appear until 1950. Due to the discontinuation of public
activities, no publication appeared in the years 1952 to 1972. A new series of the
magazine Teosofiskt Forum began appearing in 1981. Since 2009, Teosofiskt
Forum appears only in an online version.
The Adyar Branch
At the time of the split in the Scandinavian Theosophical milieu in 1896, the
majority of members remained in the Adyar branch. Navy paymaster Axel
Zettersten (1839–1909) became the new secretary general of the Scandinavian
section. New sections were founded in the various Scandinavian countries,
as the Theosophical movement gained an increased foothold there. The first
section to be formed was the one in Finland, inaugurated in October 1907.
A Norwegian section was founded in connection with the congress in June 1913
in Stockholm of the European Federation. This was just months after the seces-
sion in Sweden of the Anthroposophical Society in Sweden under Gustaf Kinell
(1847–1935); at the time of the secession, he was chairman of the Scandinavian
section. In 1918 Denmark also founded a section of its own. The result of these
events was the renaming of the Scandinavian section as Teosofiska Samfundet
i Sverige (Theosophical Society in Sweden).
584 Petander
In the summers of 1915 and 1916 so-called Theosophical colonies were organ-
ised in Bråviken on the Baltic Sea coast, and in the southern Swedish town of
Båstad. These summer activities developed into a yearly event. In general, the
1920s were a very active period for Teosofiska Samfundet i Sverige. A commu-
nity of young Theosophists was formed in the Stockholm suburb of Stocksund,
and the society Teosofins vänner (Friends of Theosophy) was founded in order
to financially support lecture tours in the Swedish provinces.
A major crisis occurred in the international Theosophical movement in
1929, when Jiddu Krishnamurti dissolved the Order of the Star in the East. In
Sweden, several hundred members left the organisation, and the Swedish sec-
tion has since then never managed to reach comparable membership figures
(just before the crisis, the Swedish society had 763 members).
During World War II, contacts with Theosophists in other countries were
sporadic at best. After the end of the War, Swedish Theosophists initiated a
very fruitful collaboration with their Scandinavian peers, which led inter alia
to summer gatherings in Denmark, at a location called Gammel Præstegaard.
In the 1950s and 1960s the Swedish section also had extensive contacts with
Theosophical groups throughout Europe and the rest of the world. President of
the Theosophical Society, N. Sri Ram, visited Sweden on five occasions. Sri
Ram’s reorientation of Theosophy was important for the way in which
Theosophy was interpreted and articulated in Sweden in the 1970s and up to
the present. Theosophists have in these last decades evinced interest in various
spiritual trends that lie outside the historical core of Theosophical doctrine,
including topics such as Zen Buddhism, the ideas of Carl Gustav Jung, spiritual
interpretations of physics (such as those of Fritjof Capra), the holism of David
Bohm, and so forth. At the time of writing (2014), this Theosophical branch
remains active, with a library and book store in central Stockholm, lectures,
study groups, and summer schools located in various localities in the Swedish
countryside. The Theosophical Society Adyar in Sweden has a membership of
about 150 people.
In Sweden one also finds the organisation Theosophical Order of Service,
which was founded by Annie Besant in 1908 as a charity or aid organisation.
The Swedish organisation cooperates with the association Letthjälpen (Latvia
Aid) in providing aid to indigent children and youths in Latvia.
Teosofiska Samfundet Adyar publishes the journal Tidlös Visdom – Svensk
teosofisk tidskrift (Ageless Wisdom – Swedish Theosophical Journal), which
functions as a continuation of the original Teosofisk Tidskrift which has
appeared under various names since 1891. In 1928 and 1929 a few issues of the
journal were called Horisonten (Horizon) and Fri Horisont (Free Horizon). In
1961 the journal became pan-Scandinavian and changed its name to Teosofi i
Norden (Theosophy in Scandinavia). In 1987 the journal once again became a

local Swedish publication, and the present name was adopted.
The United Lodge of Theosophists
The third main Theosophical organisation, globally speaking, is The United

Lodge of Theosophists (ULT). The ULT was founded by Theosophist Robert
Crosbie in Los Angeles in 1909, as a reaction to the organisational crises and
schisms within the Theosophical movement. Crosbie had been a member of
the Universal Brotherhood, but left this organisation in 1904. The stated pur-
pose of the ULT is to spread knowledge of the original form of Theosophy that
had been formulated in the writings of Blavatsky and Judge. The ULT consists
of a network of independent lodges. In Sweden, there is one lodge, located
in Malmö and founded in 1979. The activities of the lodge are carried out in
accordance with Crosbie’s original guidelines, i.e., the publication of texts writ-
ten by Blavatsky and Judge, and the study of Theosophy as presented in these
texts. These study activities consist of lectures and study groups (where texts
by Blavatsky and Judge and commentaries on these by Crosbie are studied),
meditation groups, and discussions. There is a library in Malmö and Lund,
and a book store in Malmö. The ULT in Malmö also runs a website, where the
ULT in general and its local activities are presented, and where documenta-
tion concerning the history of Theosophy in Sweden is made available. This
documentation is part of a project entitled Svensk Teosofisk Historia 2000
(Swedish Theosophical History 2000). Up to the time of writing, most of the
work in this project has focused on making an inventory of the contents of
archives with Theosophical materials. The ULT in Malmö published a magazine
called Teosofiska rörelsen (The Theosophical Movement) from 1979 to 1983, a
publication which was revived in 2004 in an online version. The ULT in Malmö
is organised as a trust fund called Teosofiska Kompaniet (The Theosophical
Company).
References
Barton, H. Arnold, “Swedish Theosophists and Point Loma”, Scandinavian Studies, 60:4
(1988), 453–463.
Gustafsson, Ingemar, Bengt Samuelsson and Per Sundberg, Nyreligiösa rörelser i Sverige,
Göteborg: Gothia, 1983.
586 Petander
Hedberg, Cia, Teosofernas ledare M:me Tingley. Fredsängel eller häxa? Vem var hon och
vad uträttade hon? Hur påverkade hon livet på Visingsö?, Visingsö 2013.
Kinell, Gustaf, “Teosofiska Samfundets och Antroposofiska Sällskapets historia i Sverige
m.m.”, Antroposofisk Tidskrift, no 5 (1924) & no 4 (1926).
Lejon, Håkan, Historien om den antroposofiska humanismen. Den antroposofiska bild-
ningsidén i idéhistoriskt perspektiv 1880–1980, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1997.
Lindström, Hans, Hjärnornas kamp. Psykologiska idéer och motiv i Strindbergs åttiotals-
diktning, Uppsala: Diss., 1952.
Lund, Tore, “Rydberg och teosoferna”, Veritas. Viktor Rydberg-sällskapets tidskrift, vol 23
(2007), 37–46.
Nya seklet (1898–1903).
Petander, Einar, “Teosofi och kristendom i 1890-talets Sverige: Artiklar i Teosofisk
Tidskrift”, Aura. Tidskrift för akademiska studier av nyreligiositet 1 (2009), 20–43.
——— . “Teosofi och vetenskap: 1890-talets Sverige”, Aura. Tidskrift för akademiska
studier av nyreligiositet 3 (2011), 71–119.
——— . “Teosofi och vetenskap i Teosofisk Tidskrift under mellankrigstiden”, Aura.
Tidskrift för akademiska studier av nyreligiositet 5 (2013), 35–72.
Rodhe, Edvard, Den religiösa liberalismen. Nils Ignell–Viktor Rydberg–Pontus Wikner,
Stockholm: Svenska Kyrkans Diakonistyrelses Bokförlag, 1935.
Sanner, Inga, Att älska sin nästa såsom sig själv. Om moraliska utopier under 1800-talet,
Stockholm: Carlssons, 1995.
Sirén, Osvald, “Viktor Rydberg och teosofiens framträdande i Sverige”, Teosofiskt Forum
11 (1942), 64-88.
Szalczer, Eszter, “Strindberg och Georg Ljungström”, Strindbergiana vol. 13 (1998),
37–48.
Teosofisk Tidskrift (1891–1960).
Teosofiska rörelsen (1979–1983).
Den Teosofiska Vägen (1911–1925).
Teosofiskt Forum (1930–1950).
Teosofiskt Forum (1981–2008).
Teosofiskt medlemsblad (1975–1986).
Theosophia (1897–1911).
Tidlös Visdom – Svensk teosofisk tidskrift (1987-).
Theosophically Inspired Movements in Denmark 587
Chapter 71
Theosophically Inspired Movements in Denmark

René Dybdal
Introduction
In Denmark, like in many other countries in the West and elsewhere, modern
Theosophy, as introduced by H.P. Blavatsky and H.S. Olcott in 1875, has played
a key role as a source of inspiration to many religious groups. Although the
Theosophical Society Adyar (here abbreviated TS) has left its mark on numer-
ous contemporary new religious movements, globally and locally, the following
presentation will focus solely on groups that historically descend from or
doctrinally have their primary inspiration from this modern Theosophical
tradition. It will be subdivided into two parts: (a) Groups formed in Denmark
and (b) Groups imported to Denmark, i.e., international groups inspired by
Theosophy that are or have been present in Denmark. A variety of new groups
emerged in the wake of the transformation that the Danish section of TS
underwent during the 1970s (as described in the chapter in the present volume
on Theosophy in Denmark). Some of these groups, e.g., the Anthroposophical
Society and Martinus Cosmology, have experienced a significant expansion
over the years and are covered in separate chapters in the present volume.
Consequently, they will only be mentioned briefly here.
Groups Formed in Denmark
Shan the Rising Light

Up to the 1970s, the Theosophical current in Denmark was primarily repre-
sented by the Danish section of the TS. The period was characterised by an
urge to transform or even revolutionise both the organisation and the practice
of this section, and several new initiatives were taken. A central figure was the
Theosophist Jeanne Morashti (1946–2002), later known as Ananda Tara Shan,
who in 1978 founded the TS lodge Den lysende Cirkel (The Shining Circle).
Morashti soon met fierce resistance from other prominent Theosophists
because of her claim that she was an active channel or even vehicle for the
Ascended Masters. This resulted in the leading council of the TS in Denmark
deciding to expel her only a few months after the foundation of Den lysende

588 Dybdal
Cirkel (Teosofia, November 1978). Together with a large group of former TS

members, Morashti founded Shan the Rising Light, where she continued as a
practitioner of channelling from the Ascended Masters to “mankind”, through
group meditations as well as through private healing sessions. With the inten-
tion of expanding their activities globally, Morashti, in 1982, moved with her
family and a core of followers to Australia, where she established a new centre
in Victoria. The leadership of the Danish branch passed into the hands of a
couple of prominent figures of the group, including Asger Lorentsen, and the
activities of Shan the Rising Light in Denmark in the following years were cen-
tred around the spiritual commune Rosenhaven (The Rose Garden). Before her
death in 2002 at the age of 56, Morashti founded several other organisations
based on her teachings, such as the Society for Maitreya Theosophy in 1991,
The Theosophical Fellowship in 1994, and Heart Flow Worldwide in 2001. After
a period of turmoil in the mid-1990s, several central figures left the group, tak-
ing a significant amount of members with them (see Den Gyldne Cirkel [The
Golden Circle] below). At the time of writing (2014), Theosophical Fellowship
and Heart Flow are the last two Morashti groups practising in Denmark, with
between 150 and 200 members, respectively, in Copenhagen and Esbjerg in the
western part of Jutland.
Den Gyldne Cirkel

During the early 1990s, a conflict erupted between prominent members of
Shan the Rising Light and Jeanne Morashti, the charismatic leader of the
group. Several of the schismatic members, including Asger Lorentsen, were
opposed to what they experienced as an increasing centralisation in the group,
which had positioned Morashti as the sole authority on doctrinal matters.
Lorentsen decided to leave Shan the Rising Light in 1993, accusing the organi-
sation of isolating itself from similar groups and being reluctant to accept that
others, too, could establish some kind of contact with higher spiritual levels
or Ascended Masters (Dybdal Pedersen 2005: 50). The following year, he and
his wife, Yvonne Wassini, established Den Gyldne Cirkel (The Golden Circle).
Due to his experience with Morashti’s group, Lorentsen intended Den Gyldne
Cirkel to be a non-hierarchical organisation, where groups of individuals, as
equal participants, could practise so-called lystjenester (light services), i.e.,
group meditations channelling healing light and energy to people or societies
in need. Shortly after Den Gyldne Cirkel had initiated its meditation services,
Lorentsen established a school in order to instruct people how to conduct
these services locally. This resulted in local light service groups beginning to
sprout nationwide already during the first years of the existence of Den Gyldne
Cirkel.
Another reason for this rapid expansion was that, through the 1980s and
early 1990s, Lorentsen had become a well-known figure in various new
religious or spiritual milieus. This was both due to his numerous public
speeches and teaching and to the fact that he wrote several rather successful
books (inspired by Alice Bailey) on various Theosophical topics. The continu-
ous development of new levels of teaching and courses and the publication of
books, which were often intended to assist the teaching, made Den Gyldne
Cirkel quite successful, attracting people towards its activities and keeping up
an overall high level of participation and involvement. Besides offering a com-
prehensive programme of old and new courses for people associated with Den
gyldne Cirkel in Denmark, the movement has in recent years also increased its
efforts to establish new centres abroad – primarily on Crete, where a group of
members has invested financially in a retreat centre. Until Lorentsen passed
away in January 2012 the number of local light service groups had reached a
steady level of around twelve groups in Denmark. Since then the majority of
local groups have ended their activities, leaving Birkemosegaard in North
Zealand the primary centre of activities for Den Gyldne Cirkel. Until 2012,
between 300 and 400 people were engaged in activities of Den Gyldne Cirkel
on a regular basis. Since then the number of followers is presumed to have
been reduced by half.
Sirius Center
The last group emerging from the Jeanne Morashti lineage is Sirius Center
(Sirius Centre), which was established in May 1994 by Søren Vejs-Petersen. Like
Asger Lorentsen, Vejs-Petersen had also previously been a member of Shan the
Rising Light, which he left in the early 1990s because of internal conflicts. Like
Lorentsen, Vejs-Petersen was inspired by the works of Alice Bailey, and for sev-
eral years these two prominent figures worked closely together. Due to a
dispute over what were apparently organisational rather than ideological mat-
ters, 2002 saw the end of the cooperation between Vejs-Petersen and Lorentsen.
The latter was more successful in drawing people to his activities, and Sirius
Center therefore only has activities in Aarhus, attracting a total of between
thirty and fifty people (Lotte Damsgaard 2004).
Teosofisk Forening
The largest group in Denmark in recent years that traces its history back to
the Theosophical Society Adyar (TS) is Teosofisk Forening (Theosophical
Association), which was established in August 1989 by former leaders of TS
Denmark following several years of dispute between the Danish leadership
of TS and the Society’s international presidency. This dispute primarily con-
cerned the question whether the Danish section was allowed to include the
works of Alice Bailey as a source of inspiration for their activities (for further
590 Dybdal
information on this dispute, see the chapter on Theosophy in Denmark in

the present volume). The situation grew increasingly tense during the 1980s,
and Radha Burnier, the international president of the TS (Adyar), thus found
herself forced to withdraw the charter of the Danish section of the TS in the
summer of 1989, handing it over to another prominent Danish Theosophist,
Uffe Vilstrup (Teosofia, September 1989). Although the Danish members of the
TS were able to continue their membership in TS in Denmark under a new
leadership, the vast majority decided to leave the parent organisation and to
join the newly established Teosofisk Forening (TF). Since most former leaders
of the Danish section of the TS kept their positions in TF, Hardy Bennis remain-
ing the general secretary and Niels Brønsted the editor of the Theosophical
journal Teosofia, the new “Danish form” of Theosophy, which had already been
established in the Danish section of TS during the 1970s, continued to be prac-
tised in TF.
The split with the TS, however, made it possible to further incorporate Bailey
in the work of TF as well as to expand the relations with other like-minded
groups. Due to an increase in both the number and types of meditation, the
public courses on Theosophical subjects and further development of the sum-
mer courses, and so forth – activities that were all initiated prior to 1989 in TS
Denmark – the number of members continued to grow throughout the 1990s,
and the organisation had close to 1,200 members in 2000. In spite of its success
in terms of membership, TF experienced several major conflicts, which finally
resulted in the dissolution of the group in the summer of 2000. One such con-
flict was the dispute about whether Birgit Lomborg, former vice general
secretary of TF, actually did act as a channel of the Ascended Master Djwhal
Khul when writing her book Disciplens Spejl (Mirror of the Disciple). The
majority of the leadership judged that this was not the case, which resulted in
a split between TF and the local lodge in Aarhus, the lodge later known as
Spirituelt Center (Spiritual Centre), of which Lomborg was the spokesperson
(Teosofia, November 1992). Another cause for dissension was an escalating
conflict about national leadership. Since World War II, there has been an ongo-
ing discussion among prominent members of the TS in Denmark as to whether
TS in Copenhagen should have a central status compared to the lodges in the
provinces. During the 1990s, an increasing request for local autonomy within
TF added fuel to this fire, once again questioning the centralised organisational
structure of the Society. This time, however, the discussion resulted in a decen-
tralisation of TF in May 2000 (Teosofia, September 2000), turning the local
lodges into autonomous centres. Over the following years, the majority of the
local centres decided to completely terminate their involvement in TF, gradu-
ally dissolving TF as an institution. In recent years, several of these centres as
well as other Theosophically based groups have joined forces in another forum
– Teosofisk Netværk (Theosophical Network). In comparison with TF, Teosofisk
Netværk is even more decentralised, being an open forum where representa-
tives from different groups can inspire each other and interact in different
initiatives.
Martinus Cosmology
According to several scholars (e.g., Bo Dahl Hermansen 2003), the Danish
movement known as Martinus Cosmology has to a considerable extent been
inspired by Theosophy. For further information on Martinus Cosmology, see
the chapter with this title in the present volume.
Local Groups
Apart from the groups with nationwide activities mentioned above, several
local groups inspired by Theosophy have emerged over the last decades.
Among these are Sariel and Sindal gruppen (the Sariel and Sindal groups),
both situated in the Northern part of Jutland, Krystalsolen (Crystal Sun)
located in Esrum in Zealand, and Lev i Lyset (Live in the Light) in Copenhagen.
Although the details of the practices offered by these groups are unique to
them, they all basically rely on Theosophical doctrines. A look into the history
of those who initiated these groups generally reveals a prior engagement in
other Theosophical milieus. Also several spiritual groups, such as Daniel
Kirken (Church of Daniel), have in certain periods over the years worked
closely together with other, related Theosophical groups.
Groups Imported to Denmark
Antroposofisk Selskab, Ordenen Stjernen i Øst, and Liberal Katolsk

Kirke
During most of the first century of the existence of the TS in Denmark, Danish
Theosophists were thoroughly loyal towards this particular Society. Other early
Theosophical traditions such as ULT or Pasadena Theosophical Society man-
aged to establish activities in neighbouring countries, but they never succeeded
in starting up activities in Denmark. However, the situation is different when
one looks at groups emanating from TS but with a slightly different doctrinal or
practical focus. One of these groups, the Anthroposophical Society, founded by
Rudolf Steiner, has to this day had a major influence on new religious or spiri-
tual milieus in Denmark. Steiner, who for years prior to 1913 had been a
prominent representative of the TS and frequently visited Denmark, had
592 Dybdal
managed to attract a solid group of Danish followers, who provided the base
from which Steiner’s own initiatives could gain a foothold in Denmark, with
the establishment of Antroposofisk Selskab in Denmark (see the chapter on
Anthroposophy in Denmark).
Another group with activities in Denmark, particularly during the second
half of the 1920s, is Ordenen Stjernen i Øst (Order of the Star in the East), which
for years was considered to be one of several parallel institutions emerging
from the Theosophical mother branch (i.e., the TS). The expectations that
Jiddu Krishnamurti, who had been selected for this role by Leadbeater in the
early 1900s, should be the vehicle of the coming World Teacher and the initia-
tor of a new world religion, did not only appeal to Theosophists. People who
were not familiar with Theosophy also found inspiration in this idea, and dur-
ing the 1920s, a growing number of Danes joined the order. Although the
majority of TS members in Denmark seemed to accept that Krishnamurti was
to be the coming world teacher as claimed by Besant and Leadbeater, the
opposition from a number of prominent Theosophists – among others Anna
Schiøtt, a leading figure in the Danish section of the Order of the Star (Theo
sophia, January/February 1925) – prevented any formalised cooperation
between the Danish section of the TS and the Order. Despite successfully
extending the activities of the Order nationwide, the activities of the Danish
section came to a sudden halt when Krishnamurti dissolved the Order on 2
August 1929.
Liberal Katolsk Kirke (LKK) (the Danish designation of the Liberal Catholic
Church), found its way to Denmark in 1925. The first Danish church was estab-
lished in Copenhagen by Otto Viking (1882–1966), who for years had been a
prominent member of TS Denmark. Until his death in 1966, Viking remained
the formal leader of the LKK in Denmark. His authority expanded even further
in 1946 when he was elected as the church’s first Scandinavian bishop (Theo
sophia, May 1946). Despite his position in the LKK, Viking continued to be a key
figure also within TS Denmark, especially due to his publication of numerous
letters and articles in various Theosophical journals and his active role in
several TS forums. His most significant contribution to the TS, however, was
the summer schools that Viking and his wife, Anna Viking, hosted on an almost
yearly basis in their home, Besantgaarden (the Besant farmhouse) from 1924
to the mid-1960s. These summer schools were attended by members of both
the LKK and the TS – some years they were held jointly, and in other years
as separate arrangements. Just as had been the case with the Order of the
Star, Theosophists regularly discussed to what extent the LKK and the TS
should cooperate. However, during periods when prominent TS members were
active in the LKK, the bonds between these two groups were tight. This was the
case with Viking as well as with Niels Peter Selander (from the mid-1970s to the
beginning of the 1990s), who was the former spokesman for the TS Alban lodge
and one of the pioneers who introduced group meditations to the Danish sec-
tion of the TS (Teosofia, August/September 1984). Since the foundation of the
LKK in Denmark, generally three to five lodges have been active at any one
time. At the time of writing, in 2014, this is still the case. However, the national
section of the church was split into two separate churches in 2005 (due to a
dispute over inviting women to become priests in the church), with the LKK
practising in the cities of Copenhagen, Næstved, Aarhus, and Roskilde and Den
Frie Universelle Kirke (the Free Universal Church) operating in Copenhagen.
Up to 150 people are said to participate on a regular basis in the activities of
these two churches (Siersbæk 2004). In December 2012, the LKK became a
state-approved congregation which provided the group with several privileges
such as conducting legal weddings, establishing own cemeteries as well as
being exempt from a number of taxes. Although this state approval has been of
great internal importance, the new status seems to have had neither positive
nor negative impact on the number of members/followers of the LKK.
Summit Lighthouse
In the beginning of the 1980s, the first lodge of the Summit Lighthouse was
established in Denmark. Because of their former engagement in Theosophical
milieus, the practice and doctrines presented and developed by Summit
Lighthouse founders Mark and Elizabeth Clare Prophet were in many aspects
similar to those found in TS and other Theosophical traditions. However, the
Danish Summit Lighthouse has never cooperated formally with any other
Theosophical or Theosophically-inspired group. Due to a relatively modest fol-
lowing over the years (twenty to forty followers nationwide), the activities of
some of the three to four local lodges active in Denmark since then have at
times been unstable. As an example, the lodge in Aarhus was inactive from
1988 until 1996 because the leaders during that period moved to the headquar-
ters of the Summit Lighthouse in Montana, USA (Nielsen 2004: 450). Due to the
small number of people attending the activities of the Summit Lighthouse, the
group has so far not succeeded in forming a Danish branch of the Church
Universal and Triumphant, the formal church institution within the Summit
Lighthouse (Nielsen 2004).
White Eagle Lodge

A group inspired by Theosophy that has been more successful than most of the
aforementioned is the White Eagle Lodge, which was founded in London in
1936 by Grace and Ivan Cooke. After Grethe Fremming and Rolf Havsbøl estab-
lished Polaris Centret (Polaris Centre) in Kirke Hyllinge, Zealand in 1981, close
to twenty local meditation groups have been formed. Over the years, the centre
594 Dybdal
in Kirke Hyllinge has manifested its position as the national centre of the
White Eagle Lodge in Denmark, gradually expanding its range of activities
(meditation, courses, and so forth) open to both members and non-members.
In 2004, the White Eagle Lodge in Denmark formalised its work by organising
itself as an association. Between 250 and 300 people are estimated to partici-
pate regularly in the group’s activities in Denmark.
Crimson Circle
The most recent international group inspired by Theosophy that has suc-
ceeded in establishing activities nationwide in Denmark is Crimson Circle,
founded in 1999 in Colorado, USA by among others Geoffrey Hoppe (b. 1955).
Already in the following year, the first Crimson Circle was active in Copenhagen.
During the first decade of the twenty-first century, between forty and fifty peo-
ple are estimated to have attended the monthly meetings in the four to five
local circles in Denmark. The primary activities included meditation and chan-
nelling from the spiritual master Tobias via Hoppe, activities which were
broadcast live over the Internet – another 100 are expected to have followed
these broadcasts from their private computers. Since 2010 the local groups
have gradually decreased their number of meetings and at the time of writing
(2014) no regular meetings seem to be held. According to the international
webpage of Crimson Circle, only a couple of meetings and courses yearly are
being arranged for the Danish followers of this movement.
References
Borup, Jørn, Dansk Dharma, Aarhus: Forlaget Univers, 2005.

Damsgaard, Lotte, “Sirius Center”, in: Marianne Q. Fibiger (ed.), Religiøs Mangfoldighed,
Aarhus: Systime, 2004, 445–449.
Hermansen, Bo Dahl, “Fra Teosofi til Martinus’ åndsvidenskab”, in: Mette Buchardt and
Pia Rose Böwadt (eds.), Den Gamle Nyreligiøsitet – Vestens Glemte Kulturarv,
København: ANIS, 2003, 117–138.
Kurukshetra (1946–61).
Nielsen, Charlotte Guldberg, “Summit Lighthouse”, in: Marianne Q. Fibiger (ed.), Religiøs
Mangfoldighed, Aarhus: Systime, 2004, 449–453.
Pedersen, René Dybdal, I Lysets Tjeneste, Aarhus: Forlaget Univers, 2005.
Siersbæk, Benny, “Den Frie Universelle Kirke”, in: Marianne Q. Fibiger (ed.), Religiøs
Mangfoldighed, Aarhus: Systime, 2004, 401–405.
Teosofia (1975–2002).
Theosophia (1923–61)
Theosophically Inspired Movements in Finland 595
Chapter 72
Theosophically Inspired Movements in Finland

Kennet Granholm
Introduction
In Finland, as in most other Western countries, the Theosophical Society is one

of the occultist movements that has had the most profound influence on the
esoteric milieu. This is clearly shown in the number of groups that are direct
descendants of the original Theosophical Society of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky,
Henry Steel Olcott, and William Quan Judge. The internationally largest and
most influential of these offshoots, the Anthroposophical Society, is treated in
a chapter of its own in the present volume. It should be noted that the number
of Theosophically-inspired groups in Finland is large and only a small selec-
tion of them is dealt with here. This article is heavily indebted to the information
collected in the Uskonnot Suomessa (Religions in Finland) project and pre-
sented on the project webpage <http://www.uskonnot.fi>.
Groups Formed in Finland
Ruusu-Risti
One of the most significant individuals in Finnish Theosophy – both for the
Theosophical Society and the subsequent development of Theosophically
inspired groups, movements, and philosophy – is Pekka Ervast (1875–1934).
Ervast had been the general secretary of the Finnish section of the Theosophical
Society (as described in the chapter on Theosophy in Finland in the present
volume) from its inception in 1907, but left both his position and the society
itself in 1920. This was due to certain doctrines advocated by the Annie Besant-
led Theosophical Society Adyar, such as the promotion of Jiddu Krishnamurti
as the new World Teacher, as well as due to the Theosophical support for the
Finnish opposition to Germany in the First World War. The latter clashed with
Ervast’s pacifist standpoints, which were specifically inspired by the Sermon
on the Mount. Earlier on, Ervast had created an Esoteric Section within the
Finnish Theosophical Society, and it was from the membership of this sec-
tion that the organisation Ruusu-Risti was formed on 14 November 1920. The
group was focused on both Rosicrucianism (the name of Ervast’s organisation

596 Granholm
literally translates as Rose-Cross) and Jesus Christ as the most important World
Teacher. Christ was furthermore regarded as an expression of a cosmic-mysti-
cal force that resides at the core of each human being. In addition, Ervast also
emphasised the importance of the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, and its
“pagan wisdom” that he considered to be compatible with Christianity. The
break with the Theosophical Society was, however, not particularly dramatic.
At the founding meeting of the new organisation Annie Besant was named
honorary chairman, the organisation currently provides links to many other
Theosophical groups in Finland, and Ervast’s writings remain important for
the Theosophical Society in Finland to this day.
Ruusu-Risti is founded on a tripartite programme very similar to that for-
mulated by the founders of the Theosophical Society. A person can become
a member by accepting this programme and by being recommended by two
current members. An annual celebration is held during Easter, and it is dur-
ing this celebration that new members are ritually initiated into the group.
Once initiated, members can then apply for membership in the inner school of
Ruusu-Risti, which is said to operate on a ceremonial basis, with Masonic-style
temples existing in several Finnish cities. The stated goal of this inner school
is to ‘awaken the awareness of their spiritual nature, or higher selves, in the
members’, and the school operates with a three-degree Masonic structure. In
the first degree the initiate studies ‘religious, philosophical, and ideological
systems that display the perennial wisdom’; in the second degree the schedule
includes the study of the soul- and spirit-composition of the human being,
the ethics of esoteric Christianity, and the nature of science and art; the third
degree involves the study of Masonic history and of the Secret Brotherhood.
The programme as a whole is said to take about ten years to complete.
Ruusu-Risti is centred in Helsinki, but at present (2014) temples exist in the
cities of Jyväskylä and Siilinjärvi as well, and additional activities are organised
in Tampere and Kuopio. In addition to these cities, contact persons can be
found in Anjalankoski, Lieksa, Rovaniemi, and Vihti. At the time of writing the
organisation is led by Jarmo Anttila (from 1991). The main forms of activity are
lectures and discussion meetings, as well as the publication of the magazine
Ruusu-Risti – launched in 1905 by Pekka Ervast – with six issues per year. The
more than 100 books by Pekka Ervast can be freely downloaded from the web-
site of the organisation. With its 276 members in 2007 (which at the time of
writing was the most recent year for which there was any information), the
organisation is one of the largest Theosophically-inspired groups in Finland,
although smaller than the Anthroposophical Society and the Theosophical
Society itself.
Kristosofinen Kirjallisuusseura
A schism within Ruusu-Risti, over the devotion accorded the person of Pekka
Ervast, gave rise to another Theosophically-inspired movement in Finland;
Kristosofia. This movement was founded by Johan Rikhard Hannula (1873–
1956), who became involved in Theosophy in 1907 and experienced a “spiritual
rebirth” in 1913. From 1915 onwards he functioned as a full-time lecturer on
Theosophical issues. He also joined Ruusu-Risti when Ervast left the Theoso
phical Society to found his new group. Eventually, Hannula started to teach
that Pekka Ervast was a World Teacher comparable to Jesus and Buddha, some-
thing that Ruusu-Risti and Ervast himself did not appreciate. In January 1938
Ruusu-Risti prohibited Hannula from teaching this doctrine, and in the spring
of 1940 he was expelled from the organisation along with around forty of his
supporters. Pekka Ervastin kannatusliitto (the Pekka Ervast Support Society)
was founded the same year, with the first summer courses held in 1942. The
magazine Hyväntahdon aikakauskirja Pohjolan Valo (The Chronicle of Well-
Meaning Light from the North) also began appearing in 1942.
Kristosofinen kirjallisuusseura (The Christosophical Literature Society) was
founded on 6 January 1966 with the aim of continuing the work done by the
Pekka Ervastin kannatusliitto movement, as well as to promote the spread of
Christosophical literature. The society, which is based in the city of Tampere,
publishes the magazine Kristosofi – Kristosofinen aikakauslehti with ten issues
per year. Lecture meetings, music and poetry recitals, and plays are arranged in
seventeen cities around Finland. Week-long summer courses are also arranged
each year.
Ihmisyyden Tunnustajat
Starting in the late 1970s, a number of Theosophically-inspired spiritual com-
munes were founded by Martta Horjander (b. 1930). In 1968 Horjander was
diagnosed with leukaemia and had mystical experiences in connection with
her illness. When she became familiar with Pekka Ervast’s writings and Christo
sophy in the late 1970s, she came to believe that she had these experiences
because the Ascended Masters were in contact with her. The first commune,
with about twenty residents, was founded in Kaavi in eastern Finland in 1978.
In December 1984 an old retirement home in Vilppula in western Finland was
purchased. The building was renovated in 1985 and named Väinölä. The com-
mune had about thirty residents at the time of writing (2014). Two more
communes, Toukola and Sampola, were later founded in the neighbouring
town of Mänttä. Together, these communes have about ten residents. The
Ihmisyyden tunnustajat foundation was founded on 1 February 2000 and regis-
tered on 27 June 2000, with the aim of supporting the work of the communes.
598 Granholm
The activities of Ihmisyyden tunnustajat is focused on various cultural activi-

ties, such as organising summer theatre plays, concerts, and art exhibitions, as
well as publishing poetry, books, and music. The journal Väinämöinen (named
after the main protagonist of the Kalevala epic) has been published with four
issues per year since 1980. The aim of these activities is to promote pacifism,
based on Pekka Ervast’s interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount, and
Christosophical philosophy.
Pohjolan Valo
Pohjolan valo (Northern Light Society) is an esoteric “mystery school” inspired,
among other things, by Pekka Ervast’s teachings. The society was registered on
19 August 1999, and operates in Kirkkonummi, near Helsinki. The society
adheres to the Theosophical notion of a spiritual hierarchy consisting of
ascended masters, or the Great White Brotherhood, and aims to teach and pro-
mote the “Ageless Wisdom” of these masters. While this wisdom is believed to
exist in a number of different traditions, the Finnish national epic Kalevala is
specifically emphasised.
The Society operates with the idea of an “inner temple of silence”, described
as the “Silent Centre of Love, Light and Power” within each human being. The
outer temple, located in Kirkkonummi and called Rauhanlinna (Castle of
Peace), provides tools for further spiritual development by way of meditation,
music, and ceremonial arts. In the spring of 2009 courses on esoteric astrology
and psychology were offered, and the annual Wesak celebration commemorat-
ing the Buddha was arranged. Pohjolan valo also operates the Serapis College
for Music, Drama and the Ceremonial Arts – named after the “Great Egyptian
Ascended Master” Serapis Bey – which according to the latest available infor-
mation (2009) teaches the course “The Magic of the Ceremonial Arts; Temple
Service in the New Age”.
The Theosophical/Anthroposophical Satanism of Pekka Siitoin

A radically different interpretation of Theosophy can be found in the writings
of Pekka Siitoin (1944–2003) (see also the chapter on Occultism in Finland).
Siitoin combined Theosophical and Anthroposophical metaphysics with
Satanist ideology and symbolism, and was an outspoken neo-Nazi leader and
self-proclaimed black magician. He founded Turun hengentieteen seura (The
Turku Occult Sciences Society) and started publishing books on magic in 1971.
Later on, Siitoin founded, among others, Föreningen Veronica (the Veronica
Association) and Pegasos seura (Pegasus Society, in Swedish versions of
Siitoin’s books called Pegasos-Club) in order to market and sell occult material
outside Finland, as well as the more politically focused Isänmaallinen kan-
s anrintama (1970s, The Patriotic Peoples Front) and Kansallis-mytologinen

yhdistys (1981, The National-Mythological Association). All of these societies
combined occultism with neo-Nazi politics in one way or another. Siitoin’s
books usually combine ideas of racial evolution based on ideas presented by
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky’s works, UFO s, Satanic symbolism, and black magic.
They also identify an impersonal God as the highest being and creator, and
Jesus Christ, Satan, and Lucifer as personal subordinate gods – any of whom
can be worshiped if this is done in the name of God.
Azazelin Tähti
Azazelin tähti (Azazel’s Star) is another Finnish group which combines Theo
sophy with Satanist symbolism (see the chapter in the present volume on
Occultism in Finland). It should be noted, however, that this fraternity, founded
in 2006, differs considerably from the Theosophical Satanism of Pekka Siitoin
in that it does not promote racism and instead highlights the Theosophical
Society’s original statement of equality among all people.
Groups Imported to Finland
Vapaa Katolinen Kirkko

The Finnish section of the Liberal Catholic Church (the mother organisation of
which was founded by Charles Leadbeater and James Wedgwood in 1916)
began operation in Finland in 1927 with the ordination of its first priest, Artturi
Vesenterä (1881–1954). The first steps were taken already in 1919, when a
Christian research group was founded within the Finnish Theosophical Society.
Dutch Liberal Catholic Church-bishop Julian Adrian Mazel visited Finland in
1925 and inspired the formation of a study group, which in turn led to the prin-
ciples of the Church being issued in Finnish in 1926. The Finnish Liberal
Catholic Church was officially founded on 6 January 1929, and was registered as
a religious society on 24 October of that year. With the consecration of Harald
Olander in 1957, the Church got its first Finnish bishop.
In its doctrines the Liberal Catholic Church conforms to Theosophical
notions such as reincarnation and the law of karma. In addition, it stresses the
significance of the seven Catholic sacraments of baptism, confirmation, con-
fession, Eucharist, anointing of the sick, matrimony, and ordination of priests.
In contrast to the Roman Catholic Church, the Liberal Catholic Church has no
claim to absolute truth and every world religion is regarded as equally legiti-
mate. People of all religious convictions are welcome to participate in the
Church’s ceremonies.
600 Granholm
The Church has two congregations in Finland: the Congregation of Holy

Mary in Helsinki and the Congregation of the Holy Mother in Pori. The latter of
these is also in charge of activities in Turku, Tampere, Jyväskylä, and Matku.
There are two bishops in Finland: Göran Bärlund, who was consecrated in 1991,
and Gunnar Lindberg, who was consecrated in 2005. The journal Vapaa kato-
linen kirkko has been published since 1935.
Summit Lighthouse
Summit Lighthouse – founded in Washington, D.C., in 1958 by Mark L. Prophet
– has operated in Finland since 1976. A study group was founded in Helsinki
in 1992 and the foundation Helsinki Summit Lighthouse ry was registered on
10 December 2001. The foundation organises study circles, Sunday services,
family services where children are taught the basics of the organisation’s
doctrine, and the Jesus Vigil on Wednesdays with song, prayer, communion,
and mantra-like decrees. Helsinki Summit Lighthouse also operates a web
shop that sells literature, music, and other merchandise. The fraternal order
Liekinpitäjien veljeskunta (Keepers of the Flame), founded by Mark L. Prophet
in 1961 (according to Summit Lighthouse the fraternity was established by the
ascended master Saint Germain by mediation of Mark L. Prophet) also oper-
ates in Finland.
Summit Lighthouse also has the youth group Nuoret mystikot (Young Mys
tics). This group has existed since the fall of 1997 and was officially registered as
a society on 19 May 1999. Various activities, including nature hikes and musical
celebrations, are arranged once or twice a month.
VOPUS (Previously Known as Gnostinen Seura AGEAC Suomi)

Asociacion Gnostica de Estudios Antropologicos, Culturales y Cientificos
(AGEAC), or the Gnostic Association of Anthropological, Cultural and Scientific
Studies, opened a Finnish section in the city of Jyväskylä in 1998. The inter-
national association was founded by Óscar Uzcategui Q. (b. 1950) in 1989 in
order to promote and continue the teachings of Samael Aun Weor (pen name
of Victor Manuel Gomez Rodriguez, 1917–1977).
The association is, according to the latest information available to me, pri-
marily involved in promoting Weor’s ideas – known as Samaelian Gnosis – in
three lecture series consisting of twenty lectures each. The lectures in the first
series consist of: Gnostic Wisdom; the path and life; Ego, essence, personality;
the human machine; the fourth dimension; astral projection; the world of
dreams, dream yoga; awakening to awareness; transforming influences; the law
of Karma; the phenomenon of death; return, repetition, and reincarnation; the
transmigration of souls; the universe of the mind; opening of the inner mind;
need and greed; the myth and reality of Atlantis; and the new age of Aquarius.
The second lecture course is equally eclectic and includes lectures on, e.g., the
Kabbalah, chakras, alchemy, and Dante’s nine circles of hell. However, the
focus of the second series is more on practice whereas the focus is more on
theory in the first series. The third lecture series provides more detailed exposi-
tions of esoteric subjects, and by finishing this series the student has the
possibility of joining a more advanced group. The courses are arranged in
intense study periods every three weeks in order to allow students from differ-
ent parts of Finland to participate.
Suomen Crimson Circle

Crimson Circle, founded by Geoffrey Alan Hoppe (b. 1955) in Golden, Colorado,
in 1999, has activities in Helsinki, Joensuu, Kouvola, Kuopio, and Vaasa. Hoppe
claims to channel the ascended masters Tobias of the Crimson Circle, Adamus,
Saint-Germain, and Kuthumi. The organisation teaches the spiritual evolution
of mankind, i.e., that humans are evolving from a human state of mind to a
state of divine consciousness. Lightworkers – who within this organisation are
known as Shaumbra – and Indigo Children (children who are supposed to have
special supernatural abilities) are said to create a spiritual path that the rest of
humanity can follow. One can identify as being or becoming a Shaumbra by
the following signs or symptoms: bodily pains, especially in the neck, shoulder,
and back; strong feelings of sorrow that do not have external causes; crying
without reason; unexpected job or career changes; withdrawal from family
relations; an unusual sleep rhythm; intense dreams; physical delirium;
increased occasions of talking to oneself; feeling lonely even when in the com-
pany of others; loss of passion; and a deep longing to “leave the planet and
return home”.
Suomen Crimson Circle makes the messages channelled by Hoppe available
in Finnish on their website, provides a discussion forum, and has a web shop
where various publications for spiritual self-development are sold.
White Eagle Lodge

The White Eagle Lodge, founded in England in 1936 by medium Grace Cooke
(1917–1979), was registered as a society in Finland on 14 October 1996. However,
activities are no longer arranged.
602 Granholm
References
Granholm, Kennet, “’Worshiping the Devil in the Name of God’: Anti-Semitism, Theo
sophy and Christianity in the Occult Doctrines of Pekka Siitoin”, Journal for the
Academic Study of Magic 5 (2009), 256–286.
Shedd, Jonathan, Ufot, uskonto ja paholainen, Turku: Turun hengentieteen seura, 1974.
Siitoin, Peter, Svart magi del 1, Turku: Pegasos-Club, 1985.
603
Chapter 73 Sælid Gilhus and Kolstø
Theosophically Inspired Movements in Norway

Ingvild Sælid Gilhus and Janemil Kolstø✝
Compared to the situation in, e.g., Denmark and Sweden, few organisations
outside the fold of the Theosophical Society but based on a more general
Theosophical discourse seem to have established themselves in Norway (with
the exception of Anthroposophy, which is discussed in a separate chapter).
These groups, furthermore, are very small. The only available research on these
concerns the Norwegian branch of Summit Lighthouse, and that of Share
International.
Summit Lighthouse
Summit Lighthouse has had activities in Norway since 1985. There have been
groups in Oslo and Bergen, and there has also been a group in Stavanger. The
first Summit Lighthouse group was established in Oslo after Elisabeth Clare
Prophet visited the city in 1985 and gave a lecture. In the spring of 2000 there
were three to five active members in the group in Bergen and ten to fifteen in
Oslo (Aasheim 2000). At the most, approximately 100 people have been on the
group’s mailing list. The movement was thus diminutive at the time when the
most substantial research was carried out, and as of early 2014, the member-
ship and level of activity of the Norwegian groups of Summit Lighthouse seem
to have been reduced even further.
The members of the groups usually met about once a week. The activities
consisted of what were called divine services, which included decreeing (a
ritual in which one confirms a wished-for result), the use of mantras, medita-
tion, and prayer. The groups used to meet at places rented for this purpose, but
later they met in private houses in Bergen and Oslo. The rooms where the
divine services were held had pictures of the masters Jesus, Saint Germain, El
Morya, Kuthumi, and Maha Chohan. There was a chart on the altar, which was
said to represent the divine self. There were also pictures of Mark and Elizabeth
Clare Prophet. The premises included a library with flyers, brochures, books,
tapes, CDs, and other materials relevant to the movement (Aasheim 2000).
In addition to divine services, the activities of the groups consisted of invit-
ing and listening to lecturers from abroad – mainly from Sweden and USA. In

604 Sælid Gilhus And Kolstø
connection with these lectures, the groups advertised in the local newpapers
and distributed leaflets in places associated with the broader New Age milieu
(Aasheim 2000).
In other ways as well, Summit Lighthouse had some connections with the
broader New Age milieu in Norway. Before they came to Summit Lighthouse,
some of the members had been affiliated with other alternative religious
groups; some continued to keep in touch with the broader new religious milieu,
for instance by subscribing to the periodical Alternativt nettverk/Visjon or by
visiting the annual alternative fairs (Alternativmessen) (see the chapter on
New Age in Norway). Summit Lighthouse groups have also participated with a
stand at these fairs. Some of the members participated in the organisation’s
annual summer conference in Montana (Aasheim 2000).
Summit Lighthouse is seldom referred to in Norwegian newspapers, but
Elizabeth Clare Prophet and the movement’s end-time expectation in 1990
elicited some limited interest (Aasheim 2000: 25–52). The organisation remains
unknown to most people in Norway.
Share International
Share International in Norway is a relatively small and loose network of indi-

viduals. Local discourses are centred on the emergence and presence of a
transcendent being named Maitreya, portrayed as a superhuman Master of
Wisdom, and his spokesperson, British esotericist Benjamin Creme (b. 1922).
Some of Creme’s writings have been translated into Norwegian and are avail-
able online and at gatherings. Commitment is fostered in weekly transmission
meditation sessions and monthly information meetings. Affiliates also arrange
stands in outdoor public spaces and at various alternative conventions. Gen
erally, there seems to be a slight division between those interested in Creme’s
millenarian and Theosophically-based conception of the world and those who
are more interested in transmission meditation.
The national website is a central rallying point. Earlier, the website pre-
sented contact information to groups in Arendal, Bergen, Haugesund, Oslo,
and Steinkjer, and to interested individuals in Lillestrøm, Sortland, Stavanger,
Tønsberg, and Volda. In 2009, only groups in Bergen, Haugesund, and Oslo
reported communal activity. In Bergen and Haugesund, meditation was then
practised once a week, whereas in Oslo there were meditation activities three
times per week. The largest hub group was in Haugesund (eight regular mem-
bers), followed by Oslo (five), and Bergen (four). Precise demographics are
difficult to determine, due to the lack of membership records and the presence
Theosophically Inspired Movements in Norway 605
at such meetings of first-timers, spiritual seekers, and peripheral or irregular

familiars. The network, in its full extent, probably did not comprise more than
fifty associates nationally. In December 2008, participants orchestrated a cam-
paign of nationwide newspaper advertisements, which featured a depiction
of Maitreya and a passage heralding Maitreya’s impending appearance on TV.
One characteristic of the Share International discourse is postulations of
local theophanies. Phenomena supposedly relating to Maitreya’s emergence,
for example patterns of light observed on house facades or on other urban sur-
faces, are frequently reported by participants. In 2009, the national website
offered photos of light-circles from fourteen Norwegian cities. Arguably, the
recognition of such signs serves to ground the larger Share International cos-
mology in familiar localities, and to establish notions of divine proximity and
immediacy in everyday life.
As of early 2014, there seems to be even less activity in the networks than
there was five years ago. Representatives of Share sometimes have stands on
Alternative fairs and offer lectures on these fairs as well as on UFO conferences.
In addition to the return of Maitreya and the Masters of Wisdom, topics of
these lectures are UFO s, corn circles, and extraterrestrial helpers, the so-called
Space Brothers.
Others
Very little information is available regarding other Theosophically inspired

groups operating in Norway. The Liberal Catholic Church has appointed a
bishop for Norway, who, however, resides in Denmark. People sympathetic to
the messages of Alice Bailey can remain within the folds of the Theosophical
Society, but there is also at least one independent Bailey-based Goodwill group
in Oslo. Further research would be needed to ascertain the existence of any
further organisations, historically or on the contemporary scene. Interest in
writers inspired by the Theosophical message but not part of a more narrowly
defined Theosophical milieu can, of course, be cultivated by reading, with no
need to organise formally.
References
Aasheim, Thomas Nordraak, Summit Lighthouse. En studie av historien, læren og beve

gelsen i Norge, Unpublished MA thesis in Religious Studies, University of Bergen,
2000.
606 Petander
Chapter 74
Theosophically Inspired Movements in Sweden

Einar Petander
The Liberal Catholic Church
The origins of the Liberal Catholic Church go back to the Old Catholic Church
in Utrecht, the Netherlands, a Catholic denomination that has been independ-
ent from Rome since 1724. In the early 1910s, priests in England with an interest
in Theosophy attempted to create an ecclesiastical community that was open
also to Theosophists. At first, they found a congenial environment in one of the
branches of the Old Catholic Church in England, but once this was no longer
possible, a separate church was created. The birth of the new denomination
was marked by the ordination as bishop of the Theosophically-inclined priest
James I. Wedgwood (1883–1951) in January 1916.
Wedgwood embarked on a journey around the world in order to spread and
establish the new church. His first stop was Australia, where he met his friend
Charles W. Leadbeater (1847–1934), who belonged to the top echelon of the
Theosophical Society (Adyar). Wedgwood and Leadbeater cooperated in com-
posing the liturgy of the Church; this liturgy was officially adopted at a synod
held in England on 6 September 1918, at which occasion the name of the church
was also established.
The Church soon established new branches around the world, not least
because of the global presence of the Theosophical Society. The Liberal
Catholic Church has a declaration of principles and a summary of doctrines,
both of which show a Theosophical influence, e.g., the concepts of reincarna-
tion and karma. The Church is liberal in the sense that members are not bound
by such specific doctrines, but are granted a considerable liberty to interpret
the declaration of principles and summary of doctrines, as well as the Bible,
the traditions of the Church, the creeds, and the liturgy. On the other hand, the
Church strictly observes the ritual details of the liturgy. The rationale for this
strict observance is the Church’s view of its rites, which are considered to
transmit resources of divine power – a position that bishop Leadbeater formu-
lated in the early 1920s.
The Liberal Catholic Church was officially established in Sweden in 1925,
but church services following a simplified form of Church liturgy had already
been held in the first years of the 1920s. The first service of the newly

Theosophically Inspired Movements in Sweden 607
established church was held in April 1925 in a Theosophical commune on

Barnhusgatan in Stockholm, with the Dutch Liberal Catholic bishop Adriaan
Mazel presiding. Twenty-two individuals were baptised and confirmed, and
two declared their interest in joining the clergy. These two – captain Sven
Selander and economist Sigfrid Fjellander (1899–1974) – entered priesthood at
a ceremony in the Netherlands on 28 August of the same year. The first mass
open to the public was a midnight service held on Christmas 1925 in the grand
hall of the Theosophical Society building on Östermalmsgatan in Stockholm.
These premises continued to be used for Liberal Catholic Church masses until
1937, when the Church moved to a location of its own on Tegnérgatan 13 in
central Stockholm. In 1970 a church building on Stora Essingen (an island in a
suburb of Stockholm), the Church of St. Michael, was acquired. A few years
after the start in Stockholm a congregation was also formed in Gothenburg.
For the first two decades of its presence in the Nordic countries, the Liberal
Catholic Church in Scandinavia was organised directly under the presiding
bishop of the world-wide Church. In 1946, the Scandinavian congregations
were reorganised in a separate regional body, with bishop Otto Viking as
regional bishop. Bishop Sigfrid Fjellander (1899–1974) assumed this post in
1967 and held it until 1974. In 1978 the Scandinavian regional Church was fur-
ther divided into three wards: Sweden, Finland, and a combined ward for
Denmark, Norway and Iceland. The three wards became fully independent
regions in 1981, and have since then been presided over by their respective
regional bishops.
In 2004, the Liberal Catholic Church split over the question how various
views on the accession of women to the clergy should be handled. Most con-
gregations wished to accept women clergy, and joined the branch of the
international Liberal Catholic Church that had already introduced this new
order. The congregation in Gothenburg, which constitutes the largest Swedish
Liberal Catholic Church body, remained within the international branch that
retained the older order with an exclusively male clergy. In an international
perspective, this branch constitutes the majority of the Liberal Catholic
Church. Both branches continue to use the name Liberal Catholic Church in
various international contexts, but identify themselves in Swedish with differ-
ent names. The Gothenburg branch calls itself Fria Universella Kyrkan i Sverige
(The Free Universal Church in Sweden) and has 150 members in Gothenburg.
The other branch, which comprises the majority of Swedish members of the
Liberal Catholic Church, has kept the original name. It has congregations in
Uppsala, Västerås, and Stockholm which together comprise 400 members. The
Liberal Catholic Church in Sweden publishes the journal Communio – Liberal
katolsk kyrkotidning (four issues per year).
608 Petander
Krishnamurti Center
Toward the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the young Indian
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) was designated World Teacher by the then
President of the Theosophical Society (Adyar), Annie Besant. The doctrine of
the World Teacher had been formulated by Annie Besant and her close col-
laborator Charles W. Leadbeater. An organisation by the name of Order of the
Star in the East was formed in January 1911 for those who believed in the immi-
nent appearance of the World Teacher. The order was never formally affiliated
with the Theosophical Society, but many members of the Theosophical Society
did join the new organisation. Annie Besant and Leadbeater invested much of
their prestige in this order.
In the 1920s the order spread over much of the world. Thousands of mem-
bers gathered in summer camps in Ommen in the Netherlands. A number of
Swedes also participated in these gatherings, and their presence was duly
reported on in the Swedish Theosophical publications Teosofisk Tidskrift and
Quo Vadis? (1928–1937). The high points of these camps were the evening talks
given by Krishnamurti. It was at one such occasion in the summer of 1929 that
Krishnamurti dissolved the Order of the Star in the East. Krishnamurti stated
that he did not wish to become a World Teacher or a religious leader, that truth
could not be organised in any movement, and that every individual needed to
find his or her own truth. Krishnamurti spent the rest of his life writing books
and holding lectures all around the world. Although Krishnamurti broke his
affiliation with the Theosophical movement, his teachings continued to hold a
great fascination for many Theosophists. Krishnamurti’s emphasis on the need
for every person to seek their own truth fits well with the self-presentation of
Theosophy.
Today there is a network of committees, centres, and schools around the
world, that continue to disseminate Krishnamurti’s teachings. In Sweden,
there is a Krishnamurti Center in Stockholm. The centre does not have mem-
bers, but presents itself via a website and organises various activities. Roughly
once a month, video recordings with Krishnamurti are shown at the premises
of the Stockholm lodge of the Theosophical Society (Adyar), followed by a dis-
cussion. English-language literature published by the Krishnamurti Foundation
Trust is made available to those present, together with books by Krishnamurti,
in the original English as well as in Swedish translation. Books by Krishnamurti
are also sold by the book shop of the Swedish branch of the Theosophical
Society.
Alice Bailey
Englishwoman Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) developed her own version of Theo

sophy and created various organisations where her interpretation of the
Theosophical worldview could be propagated and practised. At first, Alice
Bailey was active within the Theosophical Society (Adyar) in the USA, where
she had first been introduced to Theosophy in 1915. She disagreed with some
aspects of Theosophy as presented by Annie Besant, and in 1919 she began to
disseminate her own version, which led to her split with the Theosophical
Society. Alice Bailey referred to her contacts with Master Djwhal Khul as the
source of most of the books she published.
The organisational and financial structure for her international activities
was founded in 1922 under the name Lucis Trust. In the following years, sev-
eral other organisations were formed. First of these was the Arcane School,
founded in 1923, which offers correspondence courses in esotericism and med-
itation. World Goodwill was founded in 1932 as a voluntary association open
to all who wish to mobilise the energy of good will in the world and establish
true human relations. It is not a membership organisation and does not levy
any membership fees. World Goodwill is accredited with the United Nations
as a non-governmental organisation, and is represented at regular consultant
meetings at the UN headquarters. World Goodwill presents itself on a Swedish
language website. There are contact persons in Tyresö near Stockholm and in
Uppsala. The Swedish website informs visitors of the activities of the so-called
Triangles, an activity introduced by Alice Bailey in 1937. A triangle is a group
of three individuals who meditate simultaneously for a few minutes every day.
The three members of the triangle need not be present at the same geographi-
cal location, and need not even have met in real life. In a triangle the power of
thought is used to invoke the energies of good will, and via the global network
of triangles these energies are said to benefit all of mankind. During the medi-
tation the Great Invocation is recited; this is a text that functions as a prayer. In
Sweden one can join a triangle by contacting one of the information centres
for World Goodwill and Triangles, which will connect one with two other tri-
angle members.
The Swedish information centres publish the journal Triangelbulletinen
(The Triangle Bulletin) and the newsletter World Goodwills Nyhetsbrev (World
Goodwill Newsletter), which are the Swedish language editions of the corre-
sponding publications in other languages. These publications exist both in
print and on-line format.
Swedish translations of the books of Alice Bailey are published by Stiftelsen
Tibetanens Bokfond (The Book Trust of the Tibetan [Master]) founded in
610 Petander
1981. Tibetanens Bokfond issues electronic newsletters twice a year. The pur-
pose of the foundation is to make all of Bailey’s books available in Swedish;
at the time of writing (2014) more than 80 percent of her total production
had been published in Swedish. The website of the foundation informs read-
ers of the long-term plan (i.e., several years) of establishing an occult school
in Sweden.
The idea of organising an occult school in Sweden comes from a prediction
in Bailey’s book Letters on Occult Meditation (1922), according to which Sweden
will be the centre of one of seven preparatory occult schools. The website has
little specific information regarding the work of constructing an occult school,
but states that a school building is being erected somewhere in Sweden. The
entire planning of the school is said to be ‘enveloped in a wall of silence’ and
‘at present’ no direct contact can be established between interested individu-
als and the actual school project. However, it is stated that the school will be
part of a small utopian community of individuals who ‘in the midst of the
degeneration of the Age of Pisces can point people toward the principles for a
future society’. Readers of the newsletters are encouraged to study and medi-
tate, in order for the ‘spiritual light in and over Sweden’ to reach the ‘ “critical
mass” necessary to realise the plans for the preparatory occult school’. For the
same purpose, donations are also requested.
One of the driving figures involved with Tibetanens bokfond is the writer
and public lecturer Karl-Erik Edris (b. 1946). Edris has written and lectured on
subjects such as personal development and the development of managerial
skills in the private and public sectors, topics on which he also organises
courses.
The Arcane School has no activities in Swedish; apparently, however, there
was in the late 1980s a trust fund called Den esoteriska vägen (The esoteric
path), established in 1987, that offered two-year courses in the ideas of Alice
Bailey (Arlebrand 2002: 167).
The I AM Activity
The I AM Activity was founded in Los Angeles by mining engineer Guy Ballard,
who claimed to have met Master Saint Germain – a Rosicrucian from the eight-
eenth century mentioned in Madame Blavatsky’s writings – at Mount Shasta
in northern California. Ballard created a set of doctrines which he purported
to have received from Saint Germain. The messages that Ballard received in
this way were set in writing in the so-called I AM letters (some of which were
subsequently translated into Swedish). This name – and the name of the
movement – is inspired by the passage in Exodus 3:14, where God explains
to Moses that his name is “I am”. The Hebrew designation of the divinity YHWH
is perhaps also similarly translatable as “being” or “he is”. The point of using
this designation is that every individual is at the deepest level identical
with God. By abandoning our lower selves, we come in contact with our Divine
Self.
I AM was introduced in Sweden in 1963 by Astrid Hagelin (b. 1910). In the
Swedish context the movement also adopted the name Malteser-Triangeln
(The Maltese Triangle). Beginning in 1970, a stencilled periodical called
Malteser-Triangeln was published. Astrid Hagelin was also responsible for
organising correspondence courses on I AM-related topics. The literature of
the movement was published by the Malmö-based publisher Freijs Förlag.
Of this literature, the title that became most widely known is Det gröna gul-
det (The Green Gold, 1969) by Hillevi Lindahl (pseud. of Getrud Bengtsson,
b. 1918), which was printed in several editions. The people who were active in
the Swedish branch of I AM are at the time of writing either no longer alive or
very old.
The Summit Lighthouse
The Summit Lighthouse was founded 1958 in Washington, D.C.. In this year
Ascended Master El Morya supposedly appointed Mark L. Prophet (1918–1973)
as the new messenger of the Great White Brotherhood – largely the same set
of hidden spiritual masters also found in the mythology of the I AM religious
activity, Bailey’s books, and the various Theosophical organisations. There are
various overt similarities between the teachings of the Summit Lighthouse
and the I AM religious activity. When Mark L. Prophet married Elizabeth Clare
Wulf (1939–2009) she, too, became a messenger for the Ascended Masters. The
movement came to Sweden in 1968 in connection with a visit by the leaders of
the Summit Lighthouse. On that occasion, a group was formed in Stockholm.
In 1978 a new Summit Lighthouse group was formed, this time living a commu-
nal lifestyle in the Stockholm suburb of Danderyd. Somewhat later, the group
moved to a villa in another Stockholm suburb, Bromma. In the mid-1980s, the
Summit Lighthouse in Sweden reached a peak membership of about 150, in
some ten different locations around the country. The movement has an eccle-
siastic branch, the Church Universal and Triumphant, with training for clergy
taking place in Montana. At least one individual in the Swedish branch of the
612 Petander
movement has completed this clerical training. Today, the somewhat down-
sized movement has two centres, one in Stockholm and one in the southern
Swedish city of Helsingborg. In Stockholm, the movement disposes over a
building with church-like facilities (an altar, services) and facilities for study
groups and lectures. The literature of the movement is produced by the pub-
lishing house Fyrtornet (The Lighthouse).
Hylozoics
Hylozoics was created by the Swede Hugo von Zeipel (1882–1971). The term
itself designated the philosophical concept that matter is living and conscious.
Hugo von Zeipel studied philosophy in Uppsala in the years from 1908 to 1910,
and completed his studies with a “filosofie kandidat” degree, roughly equiva-
lent to a BA. He worked most of his life as actuary at the Royal Swedish Board
of Trade (Kungliga Kommerskollegiet). Hugo von Zeipel joined the Theo
sophical Society in 1917 and spent the following years studying its doctrines.
After a mystical experience in the summer of 1931, he was inspired to write his
first book, De vises sten (The Philosophers’ Stone, 1949). His books are pub-
lished under the pseudonym Henry T. Laurency. Later publications include
Kunskapen om verkligheten (Knowledge of Reality, 1961). Several titles have
been translated into languages such as English and German.
Hylozoics is not disseminated through an organisation with members, but
only through books and study courses. Laurency’s books are published by
Förlagsstiftelsen Henry T. Laurency (The Henry T. Laurency Publication Trust
Fund), founded in 1979. The trust fund continues to publish materials left in
manuscript form at the death of von Zeipel. In 1984 a foundation for the study
of hylozoics, Institutet för hylozoiska studier, was founded in the Swedish city
of Skövde. This foundation makes study courses available for self-study, and to
a lesser extent for study groups. By the end of the 1980s, hylozoics began to
attract the attention of growing numbers of people active in the Swedish New
Age milieu. From the 1990s and on, even several educational organisations
began offering courses on hylozoics.
Hylozoics is today mainly associated with Lars Adelskogh (b. 1950). Adels
kogh has written an introduction to hylozoics, under the title Förklaringen
(The Explanation, 1991). Adelskogh also manages an extensive website with
texts intended to introduce visitors to esotericism in general and hylozoics in
particular. Hylozoics is thus embedded in a broader context by being presented
together with commentaries to the writings of Alice Bailey, in particular her
book A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, and translations of a variety of esoteric li

terature. The website exits in versions in various languages (beside Swedish,
there are translations into Danish, English, Finnish, French, German, Hunga
rian, and Russian) and is linked to the website of the Publication Trust
Fund.
From the website of the Publication Trust Fund, it is apparent that Laurency
can be placed within the broader Theosophical current, since inter alia
Blavatsky, Leadbeater, Annie Besant, and Alice Bailey are referred to. Laurency
resembled several other writers of the post-Blavatsky generation in his opinion
that the orientation toward Eastern religions of the Theosophical Society was
not entirely suitable for the Western mind. In particular, Eastern terminology
and symbolism were to be replaced by a mode of presentation more accepta-
ble to Westerners. Laurency did so by claiming historical roots in a Western
esoteric current, “Pythagorean hylozoics”. Critics of Laurency’s hylozoics – in
particular the former adherent of hylozoics Håkan Blomqvist – reject this
claim, and see Leadbeater and Alice Bailey as the main influences on Laurency’s
work. Critics have also pointed out that Lars Adelskogh’s writings tend toward
historical revisionism. Regardless of whether his revisionism affects his role
in disseminating the work of Laurency, hylozoics has due to these associa-
tions in recent years fallen out of favour with much of the Swedish New
Age milieu.
References
Alcén, Ragnar, Den liberala katolska kyrkan, unpublished ms, kept at Uppsala University
Library, 1951.
Arlebrand, Håkan, Det okända. Om ockultism och andlighet i en ny tidsålder, Örebro:
Libris, 2002.
Blomqvist, Håkan, “Varning för hylozoiken!”, Sökaren, no 8 (1987), 28–30.
——— . “Henry T. Laurency och teosofin”, Sökaren, no 4–5 (1988), 32–35.
——— . “Från ockultism till extremhöger”, Humanisten, no 3–4 (2002), 23–39.
Fast, Krister, Liberala Katolska Kyrkan – dess ursprung och bakgrund, unpublished
essay.
Frisk, Liselotte, Nyreligiositet i Sverige, Nora: Nya Doxa, 1998.
Liberala katolska kyrkan – principförklaring och kort lärosammanfattning, Stockholm,
1982.
Lundström, Ann, “’Gud och psykologin ger låtsastrygghet’” (interview with Krishnamurti),
Svenska Dagbladet 8 January 1985.
614 Petander
Ståhl, Bo R. and Bertil Persson, Kulter, sekter och samfund. En studie av religiösa mi-
noriteter i Sverige, 2nd edition, Stockholm: Proprius, 1971.
Tidskriften Quo Vadis? (1928–1937).
Wikström, Lester, Nya religioner mitt ibland oss. En liten handbok om nyandliga strömn-
ingar i 80-talets Sverige, Älvsjö: Skeab Förlag, 1982.
Traditionalism in Denmark 615
Chapter 75
Traditionalism in Denmark
Kristian Bjørkelo
Traditionalism has only evoked minimal interest in Denmark. There are a few
individuals who share an interest in the Sophia Perennis, some of whom refer
to themselves as Traditionalists, while others prefer the label radical tradition-
alists, and yet others accept neither label. There have been attempts to start
Traditionalist blogs with Vedic and Hare Krishna predilections. One of these
was on the Swedish platform, Motpol, which catered to radical traditionalists
and identitarian bloggers. There have even been attempts at organising a
Eurasian Traditionalist network in the form of Nordsolen, an organisation
fronted by the Ukrainian expat Maxim Borozenec and Russian expat Katja
Bessmertnaja. In their manifesto, they call for dialogue and unity between the
diverse people of the north, based on the common origin of their traditions.
They are encouraged, like the aesir and vanir of Norse mythology, to reach a
cease-fire and join together.
The Allgermanische Heidnische Front had a presence in Denmark, as does
KulturOrgan Skandinaujo, but how large this presence was and how influ-
enced by Traditionalism it was, is unknown. The most visible Traditionalist
presence in Denmark is represented by Integral Tradition Publishing (ITP), a
small underground publisher and book distributor focused on Traditionalist
material and associated topics. Their profile is not purely Traditionalist, but
can rather be characterised as eclectic, both politically and philosophically.
Integral Tradition Publishing
Integral Tradition Publishing was officially formed in December 2006 by two

friends – Patrick Boch, a law graduate of the University of Buckingham, and
Jacob Christiansen, from Denmark – who shared an interest in Guénon and
Evola and felt that there was a dearth of knowledge about Traditionalism in
Scandinavia, and thought that there should be an international publisher that
specialised in Traditionalist writings. While officially based in England, ITP
was a very Scandinavian project, and a very small operation that attracted a
small group of devoted contributors who wrote, edited, and translated in their
own spare time, for free. Business grew slowly up until 2010, and their goal was

616 Petander
for the ITP to become successful enough for those working for this publisher
eventually to be financially compensated for their work. Their first publica-
tion was Metaphysics of War: Battle, Victory & Death in the World of Tradition
by Julius Evola, published in March 2007, a title that collected several articles
by Evola in English. Through 2007 ITP published several books, including
Tradition and Revolution: The Collected Writings of Troy Southgate, a book on
the national anarchist and Traditionalist Troy Southgate. The book included
an introduction and interviews written by the Norwegian Tord Morsund
(see the chapter on Traditionalism in Norway). Additionally, ITP sold books
and journals on Traditionalism and related topics, including the writings of
the Norwegian black-metal musician Varg Vikernes of Burzum. These books
are good examples of the eclectic and metapolitical approach of the ITP.
According to Christiansen there is little interest for Varg Vikernes among most
Traditionalists, but those who are interested in his approach to heathendom
might find Traditionalism interesting too.
This is partially the reason for the presence of the ITP at the Nazi-affiliated
Nordiska Festivalen in Sweden in 2007. According to Christiansen, representa-
tives of ITP were already in Sweden at the time, and as there was a growing
interest in Traditionalism in the political circles around Nordiska Festivalen
they decided to organise a bookstand. The people involved with ITP consider
themselves to be apolitical, in accordance with the Evolian concept of apo-
liteia, and therefore willing to work with anyone to promote their own
Traditionalist agenda. In spite of this, Christiansen is clear about the ITP not
having any common political ground with certain groups who attend Nordiska
Festivalen, and that ITP did not wish to be associated with them.
In 2009 Integral Tradition Publishing opened offices in India, and in 2010
they joined forces with the Swedish Nordiska förlaget, the now defunct pub-
lishing arm of Nordiska förbundet, a far-right, Identitarian organisation in
Sweden with roots in traditional neo-nazism that was also responsible for
organising Nordiska festivalen. Nordiska förbundet collapsed in 2010, follow-
ing a wave of controversy. With a new editor-in-chief, John Morgan, Arktos
continued to build on the precepts of ITP, publishing works relating to Tradi
tionalism and far-right politics, including Evola and the Russian Alexander
Dugin. With the inclusion of Nordiska förlaget the publisher seemed to lean
even more to the far right, and they have been represented at Identitarian and
Radical Traditionalist events such as the Traditional Britain seminars of 2014.
The Initiate
In cooperation with Insula Sacra Production, ITP published two issues of The
Initiate, a radical traditionalist journal aimed at ITP’s customers in Scandinavia
and elsewhere in the world. The co-editor, David Wingfield, lives in England
and has been involved with proofreading and producing marketing material
for ITP. The Initate was intended to come out twice a year, but only two issues
were ever produced and sold via the ITP website, now Arktos. According to its
website The Initiate ‘stands against the ethos of materialism, atomised indi-
vidualism, political correctness and multiculturalism that characterises the
modern world. In our studies, we seek to honour the eternal quest for higher
meaning, which characterises the human condition in the world of Tradition
and Initiation’. In the editorial of the first issue, The Initiate is clearly aligned
with the usual mixture of New Right, Identitarianism, National Anarchism,
Nationalists, Third Positionists, and more, while still making its claim to being
outside the realm of politics and ideologies.
It is fair to assume that as an academic journal, The Initiate aimed towards
being the European equivalent of the American radical traditionalist Tyr jour-
nal, perhaps with a greater focus on the perennial philosophy. The first issue
included articles by Julius Evola and Tage Lindbom, as well as David Griffiths,
David Wingfield, and Martin Häggkvist, and deals with a wide variety of topics
such as the clan, initiation, Norse religion, and heathenism.
618 Bjørkelo
Chapter 76
Traditionalism in Norway
Kristian Bjørkelo
Traditionalism is a marginal phenomenon in Norway. Very few people are

interested in the subject and no formal groups are officially dedicated to the
Sophia Perennis. One of the largest distributors of spiritual or “New Age” litera-
ture in Norway, the bookstore Tanum, states that over the last years, they have
on average sold one book per year related to Traditionalism and Traditionalists.
While potential Traditionalists might of course get books from elsewhere, such
low sales figures at least indicate that there are only a few people who read
Traditionalist books as part of a wider spiritual diet.
Since Traditionalism is associated with such a small number of individuals,
their particular predilections will strongly influence the direction that the cur-
rent takes. Whereas Traditionalism in Sweden has been associated with a small
group of religiously conservative writers sympathetic to the projects of René
Guénon and Fritjof Schuon, Norwegian Traditionalism is primarily oriented
toward the right-wing visions of Julius Evola and other political writers, and is
found amongst marginal political extremists and in certain artistic and aca-
demic circles. Historically there have been few people who converted to Sufism
and associated themselves with similar philosophies, but it is unknown
whether any of these have considered themselves Traditionalists. Among the
few people interested in Traditionalism, several express an aversion to being
“outed” as Traditionalists, in particular those who are followers of Evolian poli-
tics. At least one individual interviewed in connection with the author’s
research for this article refused to be named or involved due to fear that the
attempts to gather information were a ploy by a “Communist, Zionist and
masonic” group to implicate him as part of a neo-Nazi conspiracy.
Nation & Kultur
Nation & Kultur was a radical Nationalist publication active for just a couple of
years, from 2004 to 2006, spearheaded by Tord Morsund, formerly Tommy
Foorabally Morsund. As a youth, Morsund was an active Nazi skinhead, and
throughout his career he has tried to reinvent himself, by changing name and

disguising his politics in different terms. Although the editorial policy varied,
Nation & Kultur focused strongly on Norwegian culture and history in a larger
European context. It made references to radical left-wing publications, and to
major and minor countercultural phenomena. Nation & Kultur clearly showed
the editor Tord Morsund’s interests in Traditionalist philosophy. References to
Traditionalist thinkers were found side by side with a romantic longing for a
more “natural” heathen culture and political commentary inspired both by the
anti-authoritarian left and the French New Right. This was particularly the
case during the later years of the publication. Among articles attacking the
anti-racist left and multiculturalism, readers could find articles on May Day
celebrations and links to radical left-wing newspapers. A frequent theme was
attacks on modern society, which was represented by Marxists, liberals, and
faux-conservatives, who were trying to destroy Norwegian identity by reshap-
ing its history and traditions, by altering or suppressing the truth.
How many people who were involved in the paper is unknown, and very few
of the articles were signed. It is, however, apparent that Morsund was not alone
in the work, and that he had some sympathisers of his Traditionalist project.
Despite being a marginal, and generally unknown, publication, Nation &
Kultur did manage to attract some attention and criticism for its statements,
and was often accused of being racist or Nazi. This was partially due to the his-
tory and activities of editor Morsund, who has cooperated and been involved
with openly Nazi groups, but the contents of the publication itself were usually
enough to provoke a reaction. Morsund’s far-right sympathies were as visible
in the publication as his Traditionalism. Nation & Kultur was discontinued in
2006 after some controversy.
Autonom
After Nation & Kultur disappeared in late 2006, the editor Morsund focused on
writing as a member of Motpol, a Swedish blogging community where com-
mon themes are ultra-nationalism, National Socialism and, among some
contributors, a politically radical Traditionalist philosophy. In 2013 (after
Morsund left) Motpol redefined itself as a right-wing Traditionalist think tank.
Morsund’s blog features material of a personal, political, and philosophical
nature, ranging from love poems to discussions on the Evolian view of women
and women’s place in Traditionalist society. The blog was a platform for
Morsund to communicate with the radical right-wing community, and in par-
ticular those who shared his Traditionalist-oriented nationalism. In addition to
more ordinary Traditionalist writings, the blog also showed Morsund’s interest
620 Bjørkelo
in, and sympathies for, radical national socialists such as the Strasser brothers,
and a belief in autonomist ideals, such as those professed by national anarchist
and Traditionalist, Troy Southgate.
There can be no question of Morsund’s political affiliations, even when
cloaked in Traditionalist philosophy, and despite several, failed, attempts at
making himself more politically acceptable. There was a scandal when it was
revealed that he, as a formerly active neo-Nazi skinhead, was working as a
political advisor to Fremskrittspartiet, the Progress Party, the largest populist
right-wing party in Norway. Morsund is apparently accustomed to wearing
many different ideological hats, and the only common theme is racism, anti-
democratic sentiments, and an interest in various aspects of National Socialism.
Morsund had a long association with Nordiska Förbundet, and Nordiska
Festivalen, a cultural festival which included several avowed neo-Nazis among
its organisers and which is shunned by more moderate nationalist groups in
Sweden. Former spokesman of the KKK, David Duke, has held a speech at this
festival, as has Tord Morsund. David Duke has also published letters from
Morsund, where he expresses his appreciation for the work that David Duke
has done. Nordiska Festivalen, and its parent organisation, Nordiska Förbundet,
collapsed in 2010 after several controversial incidents. Their publishing wing,
Nordiska Förlaget, joined with Integral Tradition Publishing to become Arktos
(see the chapter on Traditionalism in Denmark in the present volume). This
is in addition to his ties to the extreme right wing through the Motpol com
munity, and a presence on several nationalist web forums. Morsund has
contributed an introduction and an interview with Troy Southgate to Tradition
and Revolution: The Collected Writings of Troy Southgate published by Integral
Tradition Publishing. After being evicted from Motpol and the remains of the
defunct Nordiska Forbundet, due to allegations of being a Satanist infiltrator,
Morsund disappeared from the radar. He resurfaced as Alexander Viken and
joined a new online publication, Kulturverk.com, in 2011, where he signed his
articles as A. Viken. Kulturverk focuses on culture, ecology, and philosophy,
and as Morsund’s influence grew the publication developed a visible Tradi
tionalist perspective. To begin with, little of the Radical Traditionalist position
was visible, but as his influence grew this changed. His writings in Kulturverk
have the same taste and flair as his earlier writings, without the overtly right-
wing politics. In spite of this, Kulturverk continued to draw readers and
contributors from outside far-right and Traditionalist circles, making it a
potential recruitment point for both.
At the same time, Morsund has been active in the group surrounding the
Traditionalist group KultOrg (see below), though he has no official position in
the organisation.
Allgermanische Heidnische Front & Varg Vikernes
In the periphery of modern Traditionalism, in particular as it connects to right-

wing activism and anti-modern Nordic heathenism, one finds the musician
Varg Vikernes, also known as Count Grishnakh of the Black Metal band
Burzum. Even the broadest interpretation of Traditionalism would not include
him as an adherent. Vikernes’ writings and persona, however, seem to inspire
others, including Traditionalists, particularly people on the extreme right who
espouse Nordic heathen, anti-Christian, and anti-modern beliefs. His books
are now sold by the self-professed Traditionalist publisher Arktos, formerly
Integral Tradition Publishing, which had its base of operations in Denmark.
Vikernes’ career is well-documented, from aspiring Black Metal musician to
murderer and Satanist often blamed for a series of church burnings in Norway.
After being imprisoned for the murder of Øystein Aarseth (of the band
Mayhem), a popular Black Metal musician and store owner, Vikernes pro-
claimed himself a neo-Nazi, although he later would distance himself from
this label, and refer to himself as a heathen, Odinist or, more often, an Odalist.
At one time he would also state that the white race should escape this doomed
planet in a spaceship, and at another time he encouraged his followers to fol-
low ley lines into the Norwegian woods to find the real religious sites of the
Norse culture, kept secret by what can only be described as a Judaeo-Christian
conspiracy of cartographers. His heathen nationalism is the basis for his writ-
ings on Norse mythology and history, as well as the Allgermanische Heidnische
Front (AHF) of which he was co-founder. The AHF was divided into national
groups, Norsk Hedensk Front (Norwegian Heathen Front) and Svensk Hednisk
Front (Swedish Heathen Front). Varg Vikernes apparently left the AHF soon
after the organisation was founded, while the organisation itself continued on
for several years and became a forum for neo-Nazis, heathen nationalists, and
even some people with Traditionalist interests. When the network closed
down, its members spread out into other organisations, and some continue
their work in KulturOrgan Skandinaujo.
KulturOrgan Skandinaujo
KulturOrgan Skandinaujo (KultOrg) is a Scandinavian organisation that focuses

on historical and Traditionalist questions. It started in 2000 as a publication
that intended to ‘revitalise and explore Scandinavian culture’, and in 2002
the circle around this publication formed an organisation by the same name.
Central to the KulturOrgan Skandinaujo is the question of what Scandinavian
622 Bjørkelo
culture is, and to reintroduce old, forgotten traditions to society. The group
organises lectures and nature walks, and is trying to strengthen interest in his-
torical, cultural, and environmental issues. The organisation does not publicly
promote any political issues, but several contributors to their publications
are well-known far-right activists. Like their official website, their publica-
tion features articles from all of the Scandinavian countries, and in various
Scandinavian languages. The majority of these, however, appear to originate
from Norwegian writers.
According to their self-presentation, they have no official stance on the
question of Traditionalism, and their publication contains material on sub-
jects ranging from H.P. Lovecraft to Norse religion. However, it has also
contained articles on Traditionalism, and has featured several writers that
have an outspoken interest in the topic. According to one core member, he was
introduced to the ideas of Julius Evola when KultOrg was formed as an organi-
sation in 2002. He considers himself a Traditionalist, or as an environmentally
conscious and religious monarchist. His interest lies mostly in Evola, whom he
considers to be one of many guides to Tradition, and he has translated several
texts by the Italian author into Norwegian. These texts are available online
through the Evola As He Is website, which is run by Thompkins & Cario, a
minor publisher of Evolian literature. According to this member, there are sev-
eral people involved in KultOrg who are very interested in Traditionalism and
Traditionalist writers such as Evola. Even so, KultOrg’s publications are not
purely Traditionalist, though some traces of Traditionalism are to be found in
its contributions. How large the organisation is, and how many readers the
publication has, is unknown at the time of writing.
Growing Interest?
KultOrg has spawned some interest in Traditionalist ideas and Evolian poli-
tics, leading to the foundation of “Identitær Bergen”, a loose-knit organisation
based in the city of Bergen on the Norwegian west coast. Their main inter-
ests are Traditionalism, Evolian and Identitarian politics inspired by similar
New Right groups in France and elsewhere in Europe where this new flavour
of Neo-Nazism has become popular. KultOrg and Kulturverk, and associated
groups, might indicate a slightly growing interest in Traditionalism. This is
predominantly Evolian-flavoured Traditionalism, heavily influenced by his
philosophy of apoliteia: the highly political act of rejecting politics and any
appearance of politics. Still, KultOrg has some, and Kulturverk even more
so, potential to make people outside of the right wing sphere interested in
Traditionalist thought through their focus on nature and tradition. Kulturverk

has attracted writers from different political camps, and is likely to continue
to do so.
624 Carleson
Chapter 77
Traditionalism in Sweden
Robert Carleson
Traditionalism or philosophia perennis (the perennial philosophy) is in Sweden

closely connected with a small number of writers and artists. Their works have
without exception been printed in small editions and have reached a restricted
number of readers. Only the artist Ivan Aguéli (1862–1917) has become known
to a broader audience, but this fame arose after his death and is connected to
his work as a landscape painter, not as a thinker and esotericist. Only two writ-
ers in the period after Aguéli became reasonably well-known traditionalist
thinkers. As this chapter will show, the concept of philosophia perennis has
been understood in very different ways by Aguéli and those who succeeded
him.
Ivan Aguéli
Ivan Aguéli’s fluid identity can remind one of the vague figures and landscapes
that he depicted in his paintings. His family name was not Agéli but Agilli,
his first name was Johan Gustaf, not Ivan. On the surface, he seemed to be a
failure, a man who lived in perpetual poverty and was largely met with incom
prehension. His biographer Bengt Lagerkvist describes him as a ‘poste restante
person, living without a fixed address’ (quoted from a brochure presenting
Aguéli written by Bengt Lagerkvist, member of the board of the Ivan Aguéli
Society).
In 1890 Aguéli arrived in Paris, where he installed himself as a bohemian on
the Boulevard St Michel. He was regularly seen in the company of a Mme Huot,
known as “La dame du silence” or the Silent Lady, an eccentric who roamed the
streets of Paris at all hours dressed in ragged Renaissance dresses, but also fre-
quented the same circles as Cézanne, Gauguin, and van Gogh. He was
aesthetically attracted to Anarchism, and wrote that ‘Anarchism is a thing of
beauty. It is certainly the most beautiful thing in our sordid times. Imagine a
sunset and a sunrise at the same time. The grand, conscious, calm heroism of
the dynamitards; the revenge of the victims of culture; the dreams of utopians,

Traditionalism in Sweden 625
intuition, and artists. This may be a pale shimmer, but it contains the first rays
of the new sun’ (letter to Richard Bergh, quoted in Gauffin 1940: 101).
Aguéli’s sympathy with the socially marginalised and his fascination for
radical politics nearly cost him his life. He was put on trial together with other
suspected criminals, charged with having planned an armed revolt. During his
time in prison, he began to develop his ideas on art as related to an infinite or
transcendent dimension. He explains in a letter that ‘I speak with the utmost
reluctance of what is modern or ancient in art, for in my opinion true art like
religion is outside of time [extra temporel]’ (Gauffin 1940: 114).
Aguéli returned to Stockholm from Paris, and after having borrowed a copy
of Baudelaire’s Les fleurs du mal from the Swedish Royal Library, and inspired
by the message in these poems that the inner and outer dimensions of life cor-
respond to each other, he began to explore related concepts in the doctrines of
Emanuel Swedenborg. His ideas on art now began to incorporate such ideas as
the correspondence of landscapes with states of the soul, and that elements in
a landscape painting that appear distant to the viewer correspond to lofty prin-
ciples whereas lower principles correspond to what appears close to the viewer
(Gauffin 1940: 160–161).
Aguéli at the time described his longing to produce a pure and spiritual art,
but appeared to be incapable of making this vision come true: for several years,
he did not produce a single painting. These years can be seen as a spiritual
crisis, for in 1898 Aguéli took the then extremely unusual step of converting to
Islam. A year later, he travelled to India to learn more about the teachings of
the Buddha (Gauffin 1940: 167–168).
His conversion to Islam compelled him to change his identity and name
once again, now calling himself Abd Al-Hadi Aqhili, (i.e., Aguéli, Servant of the
Guide). His conversion did not stop him from harbouring Anarchist sympa-
thies. During a procession that took place before a bullfight in Paris on 4 June
1900, Aguéli fired shots at two bullfighters, wounding one of them. He was
imposed a fine and a suspended sentence. His writings from this time reveal
little of these dramatic incidents, and his focus remained on religious ques-
tions. He reflects on his faith in Allah and concludes that there are points of
contact with other monotheistic religions, resulting in a universal kind of
belief with “fanatical” moral demands towards oneself.
In 1902, Aguéli was initiated into a Sufi brotherhood, the Shadhiliyya. From
now on, he was prepared to formulate his religious vision in writing. He lived
in Egypt for the next ten years, and wrote works that he hoped would contrib-
ute to a greater understanding between European and Arab peoples. He
returned to Stockholm in 1911, left again for Egypt in 1913, painted prolifically
from then on, but remained a nomadic being who tragically lost his life in a
626 Carleson
train accident in Barcelona in 1917. A letter penned shortly before his death
sums up his perspective on human life: ‘The purpose of our existence is to
combine the good and the true, the active and the passive, a cross that is the
formula of life and is the ray of which I have spoken to you of – an absolute
precondition for our rebirth. This ray will determine our eternal life’ (cited in
Gauffin 1940: 168).
Aguéli played a seminal role in the early development of Traditionalism, as
understood by the French esotericist René Guénon (1886–1951). Just like Aguéli,
Guénon converted to Sufism and later moved to Egypt where he would remain
for the rest of his life, and it is clear that Aguéli inspired him to make these life-
changing decisions.
Kurt Almqvist
Compared to Aguéli, no other Swedish traditionalist has acquired a similar

degree of international fame. Arguably, the second best-known is Kurt Almqvist
(1912–2001), a man who led a much more ordinary life than Aguéli. Almqvist’s
outer circumstances remained unremarkable. He achieved a doctorate in
Romance languages in 1951, pursued a career as a teacher at a secondary school
in the small town of Strängnäs, and was rarely involved in any debates on social
and cultural issues. In his writings, however, his cultural critique was just as
mordant as that of Aguéli. In a series of books and articles, Almqvist contrasted
Western modernity with what he considered to be “timeless wisdom”. In his
texts, the representatives of this utter contrast to modernity are Platonic think-
ing, the stable cosmology of the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance with its
interest in a spiritual dimension.
In his collection of essays Den glömda dimensionen (The Forgotten Dimen
sion, 1959), Almqvist critiques the belief in progress and the trend toward
secularisation that he saw as rapidly growing cultural factors. These elements
of modern society, Almqvist insists, lead only to anguish and a sense of being
existentially lost. Humanity needs to find its lost identity, its inner personal
power, which connects us to “the whole”. Because we continually focus on an
imagined future, we lose the stability that we originally possessed. This situa-
tion stems from the fact that we have forgotten who we really are, i.e., that we
are spirits who have emanated from the divine, and who have a perennial exis-
tence outside time and space.
Seen in this perspective, Almqvist’s critique of his own time is coupled with
a fundamental optimism. Our fundamental nature is intact, no matter how
shattered and incoherent our existence may seem on the surface. No matter
the anguish a human being can experience, in her innermost being there is a
‘wave movement, frozen solid so to speak, of both the creative and the light-
bearing Word. That is the secret wave movement or quivering that we must
attempt to awaken …’ (Almqvist 1991: 190).
Almqvist sees a path toward this awakening in religion, a concept that he
understands in terms similar to Guénon and those of his mentor, the Swiss
neo-Sufi and writer Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998). Like Schuon, Almqvist posits
that religions behind their exterior contain an inner essence, and “uncreated
core of truth” that each human being guards in his or her “heart”. This revealed
core of religion, which is invisible to the eye, Almqvist calls the religio perennis
or perennial religion. Inner religion perforce has an outer form, and in
Almqvist’s case this was the kind of Sufism that Aguéli had belonged to, and
that Schuon initiated Almqvist into in 1941. As a member of the Shadiliyya
brotherhood, Almqvist acquired the name Abd al-Muqsit, or Servant of the
Just.
In Almqvist’s writings, the perennial religion is presented as common to the
various religions and traditions of culture-bearing peoples. Whoever follows
the path of the perennial religion can start with the outer form of any religion
and find it a fruitful point of departure. At the end of an inner quest, followed
by what Almqvist characterised as ‘worship, inner stillness and reverence for
the Creator’, lies the unio mystica. The path toward union with the divine is for
Almqvist a path of knowledge, one that requires humility and concentration.
Since we are created in the image of God, Almqvist insists that we have a ‘vast
capacity to attain knowledge of all things, terrestrial and celestial, even though
this is made difficult by the “hardness of the heart”. Since this all-embracing
and all-pervading spiritual knowledge results in unity with its object, it is also
universal love’ (Almqvist 1994: 7). Fittingly, Almqvist collected a personal
library of books that contained the canonical writings of the major religions
together with commentaries on these texts by notable representatives of these
religions. His collection was after his death bequeathed to a foundation located
a short distance outside Stockholm (Sigtunastiftelsen, the Sigtuna Foundation),
where it can be consulted by interested visitors.
Tage Lindbom
The last Swedish spokesperson for traditionalism to be considered here is Tage

Lindbom (1909–2001). Lindbom’s approach to religious identity and diversity is
apparent from the fact that he, after having ‘met God in the Cathedral of
Chartres’, converted to Islam and was (like Aguéli and Almqvist) initiated into
628 Carleson
the Shadhiliyya brotherhood. Lindbom’s conversion to Sufism is in line with

the Traditionalist notion that it is crucial to be initiated into a “genuine” or
“authentic” tradition (such as Orthodox monasticism, Sufism, Hindu mystical
traditions, or Freemasonry) in order to re-connect with the perennial Tradition
which is believed to be accessible through these “genuine” traditions. Lindbom’s
writings differ from those of his predecessors in being almost entirely devoted
to the critique of modern Western culture, with little effort to sketch an alter-
native. Much of his output consists of sweeping and utterly pessimistic
statements such as ‘modernity is a perversion and a dissolution of what is
human, and is not only a threat to those who are directly under the influence
of the prophets of the avant-garde. It is a threat against humanity as such’
(Lindbom 1970: 147).
Lindbom’s view of the human condition is also different from that of Aguéli
and Almqvist. According to Lindbom, we all live in a state of “homelessness”, a
self-imposed alienation that is probably permanent. Alienation is a cosmic
drama, but has its historical roots and manifestation in Enlightenment phi-
losophy, and particularly in the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778).
Before Rousseau, power was vertical, emanating from a superior, divine source.
Lindbom wishes to reinstate such a theocratic order, and as a consequence
rejects notions such as human rights and democracy. A close personal friend of
Lindbom’s, Claes G. Ryn, explains that
Tage [Lindbom] always returned to what for him was the most funda-
mental aspect of the rule of the people, namely that it illegitimately
dethroned God, and that the fact that people had placed themselves in a
position that rightfully belonged to God must lead to a political and
human catastrophe. Tage may ultimately have accepted the idea that
democracy, at least in some form and under particular historical circum-
stances, could coexist with high ethical and cultural demands placed on
leadership as well as people, but he probably saw this more as an abstract
thought experiment than as a real possibility (Ryn 1999: 118).
Lindbom was a very productive writer, and his oeuvre constantly comes back to
one fundamental point: the necessity of restoring the power of God over his
creation. “Tradition” in his works signifies the conception that the creation of
God is defined by form, that form is limitation, and limitation implies opposi-
tion, but that what is created is related to the divine and must subject itself to
this higher power. Truth is given by God and is above discussion, and the pur-
pose of human life is to try to become conscious of and live according to this
God-given truth.
References
Almqvist, Kurt, “Uppenbarelsen i religionen och i hjärtat”, Gnosis 1/90–1/91 (1991).

——— . Ordet är dig nära, Delsbo: Åsak, 1994.
Gauffin, Axel, Ivan Aguéli, Part I, Stockholm: Norstedt, 1940.
Lindbom, Tage, Mellan himmel och jord, Stockholm: Norstedt. 1970.
Ryn, Claes G., “Tage Lindbom: Vännen – Tänkaren”, in: Jonas de Geer (ed.), Vänbok till
Tage Lindbom, Skellefteå: Norma, 1999, 111–119.
630 Rothstein
Chapter 78 UFO movements in Denmark
UFO movements in Denmark

Mikael Rothstein
Introduction
There is no such thing as the Danish UFO community, but in the early days of
what has come to be known as the “UFO Era”, when the American interest in
UFO s reached Denmark, there used to be one. The UFO s hit the headlines, but
initially only few people became interested enough to seek the company of
like-minded individuals. Later, as the initial clusters of UFO-interested people
grew, however, notable differences in approach to the issue of UFO s became
apparent, and a more diversified organisational pattern developed. Various
UFO communities came into being in Denmark as elsewhere. Some were (and
still are) steadfast, loyal, and true to a religiously inclined ufology based on
Theosophical assumptions, while others applied a more scientifically valid and
rational strategy, and turned their backs on mythological, undocumented
explanations and on science fiction presented as plain truth. In terms of suc-
cess, the rationalist perspective prevailed. Hence, the largest group within
Danish organised ufology has reached a point, where it is questionable whether
it should be included in a volume such as this. There is, of course, a widespread
religious interest in UFO s and UFO-related issues in Denmark, but in terms of
organisations only one stands out, one that is not religious at all, or only very
indirectly and usually unimportantly so. In the following, highlights of this
development will be discussed, and the current state of affairs, i.e., the situa-
tion at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, will be described.
The history of Danish ufology in the time span from 1946 until 1990 has been
thoroughly documented by amateur historian and member of the Danish net-
work of “sceptics” Willy Wegner, primarily in his UFOer over Danmark (UFO s
over Denmark), vols. I (1989) and II (1990), and on various websites. Later
developments have not been described in any detail, presumably because
nothing significant in terms of ufology has occurred on the Danish scene since
then. The present historical outline (until 1990) largely builds on Wegner’s data
but much else could be included. A lot of interesting data are available thanks
to many devoted participants in the various UFO circles, who have contributed
numerous articles and notes in a series of UFO journals and booklets, not least

UFO movements in Denmark 631
the many sceptical ufologists, who have engaged themselves in a sincere quest
for “the truth about the flying saucers”. While speculation and fantasy obvi-
ously have played a significant role in Danish ufology, scepticism has also been
an important part of the game from the very beginning.
Organisational Patterns
The first attempts to organise the interest in UFO s in Denmark goes back to
1954, when very small groups of people gathered in private homes to form “UFO
clubs”. They had little to relate to apart from the stories that came from the
United States, but as UFO reports began to emerge in the Danish news media
as well, they felt that there was a local case to consider. Already in 1946, shortly
after the end of World War II, there had been a wave of sightings of so-called
“Ghost Rockets” in Denmark, and even if it is difficult to find a direct link to the
American purported sightings that would initiate the modern UFO era the year
after (1947), it is very likely that the “Ghost Rocket” scare had paved the way for
the Danish UFO fascination of the early 1950s. In 1957, following a number of
alleged UFO sightings in Denmark, some of the small UFO groups went public
and were immediately embraced by journalists. Designating themselves “ufol-
ogists”, and claiming an expert insight into the riddle of the UFO s, they were
attractive prey for reporters in two ways. The new breed of experts could, as
sources, provide material for fascinating stories, but they were at the same time
a good story themselves. In Denmark, as elsewhere, a symbiosis between ufolo-
gists and journalists soon developed, and even if this symbiosis has changed
considerably in character, it still exists. Also in Denmark UFOs fly thanks to
the news media, although explicitly religious interpretations of the alleged
phenomena rarely reach the headlines. In the 1950s and 1960s the Danish UFO
debate clearly mirrored what was happening in the United States, not least
because Danish news media, with some delay, would carry the same stories
as their American counterparts, and because significant American UFO books
were translated into Danish, thereby reaching a relatively large audience.
A distinction between what we may tentatively term religious and secular
ufology was latently present from this early stage. Some individuals questioned
the nature of the strange phenomena observed in the skies, while others were
convinced that UFO s were space ships from other worlds, piloted by intellectu-
ally and spiritually superior human-like beings with an important message to
people on Earth. In Danish UFO literature the term IFOs was later used to
denote the alleged space ships as being in fact Identified Flying Objects. It is,
632 Rothstein
however, impossible to discuss religiously inclined ufology as something com-

pletely distinct from the more secular approach to the supposed enigma.
In 1957 SUFOI, Skandinavisk UFO Information (Scandinavian UFO Informa
tion) was established, and a systematic registration of Danish UFO reports was
initiated. Other organisations with similar ambitions had predated SUFOI, but
none of them survived for more than a few years, and none of them would
embark on a similar venture. SUFOI has done well in the long run: For a num-
ber of years the majority of reports remained unexplained, and it was easy
to present various colourful assumptions as to the nature of the UFO s, but
gradually the organisation’s hard-working network gained new and valuable
insights, and a growing number of strange cases were explained in quite mun-
dane, if sometimes surprising terms. By proceeding systematically, developing
advanced ways of observing and interpreting things in the skies, accumulat-
ing knowledge, and learning from mistakes, SUFOI reached remarkable results.
When the organisation in 2008 published a report on the past fifty years’ work,
the author, Toke Haunstrup (who has a background in engineering), warned
the reader that the majority of cases mentioned in the text would be “solved
cases”, acknowledging that some readers – even today, after sixty years with
the flying saucers – might be more interested in the few that remained “unex-
plained”. Why be content with revealing the mundane nature of supposed
sightings, when you have hoped for – and perhaps in fact expected – something
very special? Indeed, schisms have occurred over the years, as some members
have become disillusioned with SUFOI’s rationalist approach to the problem
of UFO reports, and from the very beginning it was clear that no single UFO
organisation would be able to satisfy everyone. In fact, as we shall see, SUFOI
came into being on the basis of beliefs that were far from rationalistic, and
far from what was to become the organisation’s ideology and strategy. Until
very recently (2014), SUFOI remained neutral as to how the UFOs should be
explained, effectively leaving the door open for supernatural explanations.
The current (2015) version of the their website (<http://www.sufoi.dk/info/
om-sufoi.php>) is thoroughly naturalistic, thus widening the gap between
rationalist and religious UFO theories. In fact, this text calls the UFO pheno
menon a “myth”.
One of the first people to abandon the organisation was SUFOI’s co-founder,
air force lieutenant (later to become major) H.C. Petersen. He had, from the
very beginning, claimed that UFO s were alien space ships, and that intelligent
extraterrestrials were constantly monitoring people of Earth. In effect there
was no enigma to solve, only a fact to accept and understand. Inspired by the
first UFO prophet, or so called contactee, the controversial George Adamski
(1891–1965), Petersen, and a group of Danish UFO enthusiasts, set up a local

branch of Adamski’s International Get Acquainted Program (IGAP) in 1965
in order to carry out what SUFOI was unable and unwilling to do, namely to
seek contact with the “space people”. Several other very small Adamski-groups
had come and gone, one among which was schoolteacher William Kiørboe’s
organisation DISC (Dansk Interplanetarisk Selskab for Contact, i.e., Danish
Inter Planetarian Society for Contact). Kiørboe proclaimed that Adamski’s
narratives about his encounters with space beings were completely true and
reliable, and that these highly evolved beings ‘were living according to the Laws
of God’. He also believed them to be eternally young, and that Earth peoples’
alliance with them was a precondition for the survival of our planet. Hence,
apocalyptic perspectives and the idea that the space beings represented some
kind of divine intervention were core assumptions. Another Adamski-related,
and thus Theosophically inclined organisation was UFO’54 headed by Poul
Kastrup (1910–1964). Kastrup, a devoted occultist and spiritualist, among other
things, republished Adamski’s explicitly religious doctrines under its English
title Cosmic Science (originally self-published by Adamski in 1957), a publica-
tion still in use and read by Danish UFO enthusiasts with occult inclinations.
It was, however, H.C. Petersen (1924–2013) who stood out as the single most
important ufologist in Adamski circles, due to his claim that Adamski was
‘99,9% trustworthy’. While stationed in the United States, and later while
working in the Danish air force, he had seen things and read documents that
convinced him that Adamski’s stories were true, and that the authorities were
deliberately withholding the truth about the UFO s from the public. SUFOI was
in this early phase (until ca. 1964) indeed Adamski-related in several ways, but
as things developed, not everybody in the organisation would foster the same
kind of religious theories, and there is little doubt that H.C., as he came to
be known, formed his further organisational affiliations in order to meet and
nourish his own beliefs. Adamski visited Denmark in 1963 as H.C. Petersen’s
and SUFOI’s guest and managed to impress a crowd of 700 people with his tales
from Venus and other planets. More importantly, however, he also received a
strange letter, and met with a Venusian in Copenhagen, who gave him a small
package, which Adamski a few weeks later allegedly delivered to Pope John
XXIII in the Vatican. Many of his Danish followers accepted these stories,
but Adamski’s credibility was falling apart in the eyes of others. It should be
observed here that H.C. Petersen considered his own perspective on the UFO
phenomenon to be strictly rational, and that he dissociated himself from what
he understood to be a religious hysteria associated with spiritualism, although
he in fact embraced Adamski’s slightly reformed Theosophy. H.C. Petersen,
now assuming the title of “Cosmic Advisor”, clearly felt that SUFOI should act
634 Rothstein
in complete accordance with his own beliefs, but a growing opposition had
developed as Petersen, energetically pursuing his goals and emphatically fight-
ing for Adamski, employed telepathy as yet another methodology in his quest
for UFO contact. Years of internal struggle and conflict ended in 1965 when
H.C. Petersen left SUFOI in favour of a clear-cut and undisputed Adamski-
inspired path.
Since then the Danish UFO scene has been sharply divided between a larger,
rather successful, rationalistic branch, primarily embodied in SUFOI, and a
Theosophical Adamski branch with a modest following. IGAP’s journal, UFO-
kontakt (UFO Contact) and the organisation’s home page are dedicated to the
long-awaited meeting between people of Earth and the denizens of other plan-
ets, but the organisation does not reach far beyond its own limited membership
and remains numerically insignificant. It is very difficult to determine what
worldview more precisely the few members of IGAP entertain, but texts pub-
lished on, or made available through, the organisation’s website (<http://www.
igap.dk/>) suggest a fascination with various conspiracy theories and an occa-
sional twist towards a racial ideology. It is likely that the small group has
adopted beliefs and ideas from the broader occult milieu, ideas that were origi-
nally alien to Adamski.
The Orthon Movement
Denmark has (apart from the developments with relation to Adamski) only
few examples when it comes to religiously inclined UFO lore, but one inci-
dent deserves mention: A small apocalyptic group, popularly known as
Orthon-bevægelsen (the Orthon Movement), that came into being in 1967
and immediately hit the headlines, is in effect the only UFO cult to originate
in Denmark, although the impetus to establish it came from Britain. The
movement was many years after its demise carefully researched by a jour-
nalist from the Danish newspaper Politiken (Vuorela 2012), and the course of
events can be summarised as follows. In 1961 one Richard Grave had, through
a series of strange events, received a message from a space being known as
Orthon – by some considered to be the same Orthon that had been in con-
tact with Adamski in 1952, while others believed him to be another entity.
The name was the same but no claim was made that it was the same “per-
son”. Furthermore, the new Orthon, through his earthly medium, claimed to
be the same entity that previously had emerged on Earth as the Buddha and
as Jesus, which was not the case with Adamski’s friend from space. Serving
as Orthon’s channel, Grave produced a large corpus of texts, and news about
his work spread among psychics and people occupied with “the supernatural”.
Around 1965 the Danish journal Psykisk Forum (Psychic Forum) wrote about
Grave and Orthon, and a few interested members of SUFOI (at that point still
rather strongly influenced by Adamski’s views) read these articles. After a trip
to England, where the Danes were given Grave’s texts to bring back home,
Danish translations of Orthon’s message were prepared, and soon a Danish
counterpart to Grave emerged on the scene. On 20 February 1967, at 1.15 AM,
taxi driver Knud Weiking (1921–2006), calmly smoking a cigarette in his home,
suddenly (under conditions almost identical to what allegedly happened in
1954 to the founder of The Aetherius Society, George King, also a taxi-driver)
heard a strange voice: ‘Put out that smoke. I want to talk to you’. Weiking sub-
sequently received message after message from Orthon, whom he described
as ‘a big, handsome man. He is approximately 188 cm. tall, he is athletic but
slim. His face is noble and nicely shaped, his hair is golden-brown, and his skin
is golden. Orthon is always dressed in a tight fitting, golden shining costume.
He also wears a cape that changes in the colours purple, black and red. He is
surrounded by a radiating white light’. Weiking claimed that Orthon had pre-
dicted a nuclear holocaust, and together with his supporters, he decided to
prepare a bomb shelter near the small town of Borup some 50 km. southeast of
Copenhagen (Bork 1998). Until then, SUFOI leaders had been positively inter-
ested and supportive of Weiking, but it was difficult for them to embrace an
explicitly apocalyptic belief of that kind. Weiking and his associates explained
that some people probably would be rescued by UFO s, and that others would
be teleported to safety in the same way that the alien spaceships were believed
to be ‘transferred from one galaxy to another’. Those with the proper aura
would be selected. Earth itself, though, would survive, as Orthon would not
allow the ‘balance of Cosmos’ to be destroyed. The planet would only tip and
change orbit. Considerable amounts of occult lore emerged from the alleged
messages from Orthon. Among other things Weiking received the blueprint
for a space ship engine, he was informed about the ‘secrets of the pyramids of
Egypt’, and Biblical passages that had never been properly understood before
were explained to him. In 1968, following the disillusion of failed prophecy
(in a manner of handling such disappointments that is well known from simi-
lar groups), the Orthon movement split into several fractions. One of the new
groups, headed by Martinus Kris Petersen, believed that Orthon would reveal
himself in the city of Haparanda in the northernmost part of Sweden on New
Year’s morning 1969, an event linked with the coming Age of Aquarius that
(apparently) would begin at that particular point in time. After a few years it
was all over, even if a few individuals would maintain that Weiking’s contact
was genuine after all. For SUFOI, the Orthon story was an embarrassment, and
636 Rothstein
later leaders of the organisation have effectively dissociated themselves from

it.
Danish society is among the most secularised in the world, even if Pro
testantism permeates Danish culture in many ways, and even if a host of
popular beliefs and practices flourish in society’s non-institutionalised reli-
gious undergrowth. The Orthon movement, according to media reports and
the way the case was discussed, made people dismiss the phenomenon with
ridicule. Weiking and Orthon were relegated to a minor footnote in history,
and no further contactee-based movements have seen the light in Denmark.
UFO Religions in Denmark
Only very few UFO religions in the strict sense of the term are represented in
Denmark (or have been so in relatively recent years), and their following is
extremely modest to say the least. The oldest and most important is, as we have
seen, IGAP, which still has a small number of members in this country. There is
little doubt that this organisation owes its very existence to H.C. Petersen and
his roots in SUFOI. No other UFO movement has a similar history in Denmark,
and all such organisations that have attempted to establish themselves here
have failed to do so: Unarius Foundation had at one point in the mid-1990s two
known supporters in Denmark, and in 2007 the Raelian Religion was repre-
sented by one single individual, a young man with a preoccupation for
conspiracy theories rather than extraterrestrial visits (the Raelian Religion, on
this meagre basis, counts Denmark as one of the countries into which the
organisation has spread). Another large European UFO religion, The Aetherius
Society, has never been active in Denmark even if some individuals be familiar
with it and perhaps receive its newsletters. In short, UFO religions are almost
absent in Denmark, perhaps with one partial exception – The Church of
Scientology. Although Scientology certainly entertains notions of space beings
and spacecraft, it is not, however, a UFO religion in the strict sense of the word.
Only people on higher initiatory levels are introduced to the subject, which
means that the majority of active Scientologists may be totally unaware of the
ufological aspect of the belief system. Danish core Scientologists probably
number around 600 individuals (Scientology has an important international
headquarter in Copenhagen), but only a small minority of these have been
initiated into the UFO-related aspects of their religion.
Finally, Christian sects with UFO s on the mythological agenda, such as The
Family, have no presence in Denmark at the time of writing (2014). Jesus, how-
ever, has not been totally absent in the discourse on UFO s, as H.C. Petersen, in
1986, was able to announce that ‘the return of Christ is at the core of the UFO
enigma’.
UFO s and the New Age
New Age-related beliefs in UFO s, in Denmark, have been completely absorbed

into the whirlpool of modern occult or esoteric beliefs, and no religious UFO
interest seems to exist detached from New Age beliefs in general. While this
may be an indication of how a popular, coherent New Age mythology is com-
ing into being, it also signifies an important change in the way UFO beliefs are
present on the Danish scene. In the 1970s and 1980s UFO s were treated as a
subject – a phenomenon – in its own right, but evidently things have changed.
It is difficult to say why this has been the case, but one may hypothesise that
the general interest in the esoteric or occult made it almost impossible to
entertain UFO notions undisturbed from or unaffected by a host of other
beliefs. The beginning of this process is apparent through the history of
Frederiksberg UFO Studiekreds (FUFOS) (Frederiksberg UFO Study Group,
subsequently renamed Frit UFO Studium, i.e., Free UFO Research) that was
established by a group of young people around 1970. Members of FUFOS were
not only interested in “flying saucers”, but in a wide variety of strange and con-
troversial phenomena. A significant move to further this integration of UFO
beliefs into a broader esoteric or occult pattern happened when FUFOS’ jour-
nal UFO Aspekt (UFO Aspect, established by clairvoyant Steen Landsy in 1968),
in 1983 was transformed into the highly successful New Age journal Nyt Aspekt
(New Aspect), which has the entire range of occult and esoteric goods to offer
its readers. In Nyt Aspekt UFO s are treated within the same framework as a
multitude of other esoteric or occult notions and disciplines, and as this jour-
nal has for decades been the most important medium for people interested in
New Age matters, its impact has been significant. UFO s may still be interpreted
as alien vessels, but they are no longer enigmas, but rather means for the seek-
er’s spiritual evolution – in Denmark as elsewhere. It seems as if the concept of
hardware UFO s, space ships, has become obsolete while the extraterrestrials
have gained new importance. A growing number of people claim to “channel”
various different space beings, which no longer need to arrive in strange crafts,
but simply relate their cosmic wisdom by means of these human channels.
UFO s in the strict sense of the word, consequently, have declined in impor-
tance while the notion of extraterrestrial communication is very popular.
The notion of life on other planets and of the importance of extraterrestrials
obviously predates the more recent UFO interest and the modern New Age
638 Rothstein
movement. One important, but often overlooked early contributor, was the
renowned mystic and esotericist Emanuel Swedenborg, who believed that all
the planets of the solar system were inhabited by human-like beings with vari-
ous cultures and religious ways. In the late 1960s Gudmund Boolsen prepared
a Danish translation of Swedenborg’s De Telluribus in Mundo Nostri Solari qua
vocantur Planetae (On the Earths in Our Solar System Called Planets, 1758). In
this work, Swedenborg explains that he has been communicating with spirits
and angels from many different planets, and that it is his duty to pass on his
knowledge of how beings living on other worlds live and think. The book was
not published in Danish until 1978, and the translator explains that he deliber-
ately withheld the manuscript because ‘it would probably not be well received
for the time being, when scientific discoveries, or rather conclusions, regarding
life on our neighbouring planets, are in such high esteem’ (Gudmund Boolsen,
translator of Sweedenborg 1978, on p. iii of his introduction to that work).
While any direct impact on the Danish UFO scene is difficult to observe, the
Swedenborgian perspective seems to have influenced some religiously inclined
UFO enthusiasts, who believe the “nuts and bolts theory” to be too materialis-
tic. Hence the New Age market offers “spiritual journeys” to other planets and
“spiritual encounters with extraterrestrials” in ways quite similar to what
Swedenborg claimed to practise.
Recent Developments
Finally, in contrast to the explicitly religious UFO-interest, a rather recent

Danish development should be mentioned, the establishment of Exopolitics
Denmark in 2010 by Frederik Uldall (b. 1972), M.Sc., as a membership associa-
tion in close connection with other national Exopolitics groups, i.e., groups
that present programmes for how contacts and interaction with extrater-
restrial beings should be organised. Exopolitcs Denmark is, in its own words
(on its website < http://www.exopolitics.dk/mission>; the quotes that follow
preserve the grammar and spelling of the English language found on that web-
site), a non-partisan movement, ‘primarily engaged in exopolitical activism
and not in exopolitical studies and ufology’. The organisation explicitly states
that it ‘not necessarily shares views and foci with other organisations and indi-
viduals who are engaged in exopolitics (e.g., The Exopolitics World Network
and Exopolitics Europe)’. The organisation’s mission is, among other things, to
lobby the Danish government to ‘place UFO-studies on a university level on the
state budget. I.e., research of the small percentage of UFO-sightings that are not
easily explained. But also to finance studies in the social, political, economical,
business, psychological, environmental, religious, humanitarian, and demo-

cratic aspects connected with the phenomenon. Existing and potential societal
developments should also be investigated in order to create a knowledge base
for passing laws in the Danish Folketing and other forums’. Fighting for the
‘declassification of government documents and “truth-amnesty” to govern-
ment insiders who are prepared to testify under oath, but are constrained by
security protocols’, Exopolitics Denmark wants this country to be ‘a front-run-
ner by initiating a dialogue within the framework of the EU and the UN’. The
image of this group is deliberately secular, and the website projects a modern
management or business-oriented style in everything from the language it uses
to its aesthetics. The interest generated by the group, however, remains modest
as membership does not exceed thirty, according to the organisation’s website.
References
Bork, Erik, “Hurra – verden går under”, Interview with Knud Weiking in Berlingske
Tidende, 21 May 1998. Also available at <http://skeptica.dk/artikler/?p=102>2.
Swedenborg, Emanuel, Om kloderne i vort solsystem som kaldes planeter, transl. Gudmund
Boolsen. Copenhagen: Nykirkeligt Tidsskrift, 1978.
Vuorela, Mikkel, six-part set of feature articles on the Orthon movement, published
under six titles in Politiken from 20 to 26 December 2012.
Wegner, Willy, Ufoer over Danmark, vol. 1, 1946–64. Træk af den danske ufo-bevægelses
historie, København: Sphinx, 1989.
———. Ufoer over Danmark, vol. 2, 1965–1990. Træk af den danske ufo-bevægelses historie,
København: Sphinx, 1990.
Numerous articles and a collection of source material are available on the Danish scep-
tics’ (Skeptica) website: <http://skeptica.dk/artikler/?page_id=12> (specifically the link
“UFOlore”).
640 Närvä
Chapter 79 UFO Movements in Finland
UFO Movements in Finland

Jaakko Närvä
A Basic Typology of UFO Movements
Finnish ufologists, like their international counterparts, can be roughly divided

into two main camps. Sociologist Joseph A. Blake, for example, makes a dis-
tinction between scientific ufology and paraufology (Blake 1979). One could
also call the latter religious or spiritual ufology. Scientific ufologists hold that
UFO phenomena should be studied in a strictly scientific manner and without
any a priori claims that UFO sightings are evidence of aliens or of paranormal
phenomena, or that they have any spiritual significance. Religious or spirit-
ual ufologists can be subdivided, according to the main source of inspiration,
as, e.g., esoteric or Christian. The former, who are part of the UFO contactee
movement, favour explanations of the UFO phenomena which assume that
benevolent beings from space or from other dimensions have come to assist us
in our quest for spiritual evolution. On the other hand they may also espouse
more sinister theories, e.g., that humanity has been manipulated by alien intel-
ligences in the course of history. The latter interpret UFO phenomena through
a Christian worldview, either as positive signs of divine intervention or in nega-
tive or even demonic terms. In Finland all of these forms are represented, as
well. Several ufological organisations present themselves as scientific groups,
while others promote religious understandings. Given the topic of this volume
as a whole, the emphasis of this chapter lies squarely on the religious interpre-
tations. Most of these are inspired by Theosophical ideas or by eschatological
scenarios of a New Age kind. There are far fewer Christian interpretations in
the Finnish milieu, although some of these will also be briefly presented below.
An Overview of the Finnish UFO Milieu
No organised UFO religions in the strict sense had appeared in Finland at

the time of writing (2014), although some unofficial discussion and medita-
tion groups for UFO contactees and abductees had been formed. Despite the
lack of organisational structures, a set of shared beliefs have spread widely

UFO Movements in Finland 641
within the Finnish ufological milieu. These typically resemble those of the
international UFO contactee movement, and include various Theosophical,
spiritualistic, and New Age currents, and Western interpretations of Indian
religions. The UFO contactee movement was first established in the United
States in the 1950s. At that time individuals with an essentially Theosophical
background, such as George Adamski in the United States and George King
in England, took an interest in the then recent concept of the flying saucer.
They started to claim, often in Theosophically-coloured terms, that they were
in contact with highly evolved extraterrestrials who travelled on board flying
saucers. According to them, these extraterrestrials, who were back then usually
referred to as Masters (and were seen as enlightened beings from space) had
come to help the human race to achieve its next stage of spiritual evolution, or
to evacuate the chosen ones onto spaceships or to other planets in case catas-
trophes should destroy Earth. Space beings, it was suggested, were especially
concerned about the dangers of nuclear technology and nuclear war. Later,
during the 1980s, a part of the UFO contactee movement began to adopt more
sinister narratives of abduction by aliens, and conspiracy theories linked to
these abductions were formed.
In these UFO-based cosmologies god and the universe are understood as
basically the same. God is understood as a kind of eternal and abstract electro-
magnetic wholeness, oneness or universal law, which is composed of light and
can be described as having such personal characteristics as wisdom and a lov-
ing nature. It has created everything and all things are its manifestations. God,
as the universe, includes a vast number of “vibrational” dimensions and worlds.
God/universe manifests itself in the course of its spiritual evolution, which
takes place over extremely long cosmic time spans. Furthermore, according to
many Finnish UFO enthusiasts, the human race was at some point in the past
created by extraterrestrials, beings who are also assumed to have had a great
impact in the history of humanity by, e.g., having influenced religious teach-
ings and practices. It is commonly held in the Finnish UFO community that
humans are essentially spiritual beings, with a normally hidden physiology
comprising “energies” that are particularly focused in the chakras. Humans are
thought to evolve spiritually through a process of reincarnation guided by the
law of karma and, as in many post-Theosophical movements as well as New
Age thought, humanity is expected to move to a higher spiritual level in the
relatively near future. It is emphasised in the Finnish UFO community that
extraterrestrials are benevolent and guide us towards a new spiritual age, but it
is also pointed out that there are all kinds of beings in the universe, not all of
whom are good or spiritually highly developed.
Since much of this cosmology differs markedly from Christian as well
as standard scientific perspectives, the Finnish UFO community (like its
642 Närvä
international counterpart) is critical against Christianity and the sciences. The

Christian Churches are said to be coercive organisations that suppress infor-
mation about historical facts such as the creation of humans by aliens.
Although the Finnish UFO milieu includes purportedly scientific ufological
perspectives as well as a more general interest in UFO matters, including popu-
lar stories and descriptions of UFO experiences, the presence of religiously
tinged interpretations in the Finnish UFO milieu is certainly strong. To show
this I will next give a short historical view of the Finnish ufological milieu.
Scientific and Religious Ufology
A Finnish UFO milieu arose in the 1960s and 1970s, and these decades can
therefore be seen as the formative period for Finnish ufology. An economist by
the name of Joel Rehnström, who was later greatly inspired by the channelled
text known as The Urantia Book, led the first Finnish UFO club which made an
effort to study cases of purported UFO sightings. The club was founded in
Porvoo in southern Finland in 1960. Margit Lilius (1899–1991), a former ballet
dancer, had developed an interest in Theosophy and claimed to have estab-
lished her first contact with an extraterrestrial in 1955 in Los Angeles. After this
she was introduced to an extraterrestrial master from the Brotherhood of
Venus (a concept that can be traced back to the works of Helena Blavatsky, the
founder of the Theosophical Society). It was Lilius who introduced The Urantia
Book in Finland after she moved back from the United States in the mid-1960s.
She was also the author of the first UFO book written by a Finn, Ihminen ja
avaruuden avautuminen (Man and the Opening of Space, 1967). Rehnström
also founded a publishing company called Kustannus Oy Vimana (Vimana
Publishing, Inc.) in 1962, which published the first UFO books in Finland, such
as a Finnish translation of Desmond Leslie’s and George Adamski’s Flying
Saucers Have Landed.
Interplantistit ry (Interplanetary Registered Association), the first Finnish
national UFO association, was founded on 21 November 1962 in the capital
Helsinki. Arvi Merikallio, a Christian priest, was the first chairman of Inter
planetistit ry, with Rehnström acting as secretary. Interplanetistit, later
renamed Helsingin ufoyhdistys (UFO association of Helsinki), presented its
official position on UFO s in the spring of 1963. It largely replicated the views of
the UFO contactees, although formulated in more careful terms: according to
the organisation, extraterrestrials may already have been in contact with some
people and it is possible that they have a special message for humankind. In
1963 Interplantistit ry began publishing a magazine called Lentolautaslehti
(The Flying Saucer Magazine) which in 1967 changed its name to Vimana. The
name refers back to a Theosophical reinterpretation of a Sanskrit term as
meaning “space ship”, presumably because such Theosophical concepts appeal
to the core members of the association. The magazine became defunct in 1972.
Merikallio left Interplanetistit already in 1965, because he felt that the beliefs
of the other members were in contradiction with the Bible. A fundamental fac-
tor for his resignation was a dispute with Theosophically-oriented Lilius.
Merikallio was convinced that UFO s were a part of God’s plan and that at the
final judgement flying saucers would carry Christians to heaven.
A large number of purported UFO sightings were reported over the
Pudasjärvi area in north-central Finland during 1969 and 1970. These sightings
inspired a lot of discussions not only in the Finnish UFO community but also
among the population in general. Investigations into these sightings were led
by a graduate engineer and esoteric ufologist by the name of Ahti Kariveri, one
of the pioneers of Finnish ufology and a member of Oulun UFO-kerho (Oulu’s
UFO Club). Karivieri is very well known in the Finnish UFO community, and
has since the 1970s written and lectured extensively on topics such as ancient
mysteries and extraterrestrials. He has argued, e.g., that the Egyptian pyramids
were built by aliens.
Arguably, Tapani Kuningas (1945–2009) is the most important figure in the
development of an early Finnish UFO milieu. During the early 1970s he studied
social sciences, but later abandoned his studies in order to do UFO research.
In 1972 Kuningas became the editor-in-chief of a monthly UFO magazine,
Ufoaika (The UFO Age). Two years later, the magazine’s name was changed to
Ultra, and now began to cover a range of alternative worldviews and paranor-
mal phenomena. By this time Kuningas had also written several informative
and influential books on UFO topics, including several that deal specifically
with Finnish cases. Generally speaking, these books take a science-inspired
approach to the phenomena, but there are also discussions of contactee cases
that consider them as potentially genuine encounters with aliens.
In 1973, Tapani Kuningas and his wife Arja Kuningas founded two new UFO
associations in the city of Tampere in southern Finland: Tampereen Ufo ry
(Tampere UFO registered association) on 8 March and Suomen Ufotutkijat ry
(Finnish UFO Research Association) on 29 April. Suomen Ufotutkijat quickly
became the most important organisation for the development of Finnish ufol-
ogy, and it continues to play a key role in the Finnish UFO milieu. In 1976,
Tapani Kuningas founded another group in Tampere called Rajatiedon
yhteistyöryhmä (The Cooperative Group for Borderline Knowledge). On 8
February of the same year, Kuningas also launched a publishing company
called Kustannus Oy Rajatieto (Borderline Knowledge Publishing, Inc.), which
644 Närvä
soon became the publisher of Ultra. In the resort of Kreivilä, Kustannus Oy

Rajatieto began arranging a summer event for alternative spirituality called
Ultrapäivät (Ultra Days), which quickly became an annual tradition. In 1983
Rajatiedon yhteistyöryhmä started to arrange an annual fair called Hengen ja
Tiedon messut (The Fair of Spirit and Knowledge) for alternative spirituality.
In 1994 Suomen Ufotutkijat started to publish an annual book series entitled
Uforaportti (UFO Report). These books include both scientifically-inspired and
religious articles, including stories of contactees and abductees. Similar reli-
gious topics have also figured in the association’s member magazine, Yhteys
(Communion). The reason for this eclectic approach is the fact that both
approaches represent major trends in the Finnish ufological community, and
since the religious interpretations of UFO phenomena are an integral part of
the Finnish ufological landscape they should be treated with respect. The pres-
ent Chairman of the organisation is the author of this chapter (Jaakko Närvä,
b. 1973).
The role of contactees and others who claim to have experienced UFO s
has been significant in the Finnish UFO community ever since the formative
period. For example, during the 1970s Helge Lindroos (1921–1981),who was a
clairvoyant, a healer, and an inventor (and a masseur by profession) launched
a career as an influential contactee. At present, Kalevi Riikonen (b. 1950) is one
of the best-known UFO contactees in Finland. In 1993, Riikonen published a
book entitled Universaalista opetusta kosmoksesta (Universal Teachings from
the Cosmos) followed in 1996 by a follow-up volume divided into two parts,
called Universaalista opetusta kosmoksesta II–III (Universal Teachings from
the Cosmos II–III), with a total of about 1,200 pages. These books contain
revealed messages concerning the history and structure of the universe; the
history, spiritual state, and future of our planet; and the spiritual structure and
development of humankind. Today Kalevi Riikonen and his wife Eija Riikonen
run a UFO-themed business, Tähtitieto (Star Knowledge), which arranges
events such as Kosmiset Parapäivät (Cosmic Para-days), with popular lecturers
who draw a good deal of people interested in UFO s and alternative spirituality.
Yet another influential figure in the Finnish UFO milieu from the 1970s is
architect Tapani Koivula (b. 1946). In his book Ufojen kosminen viesti (The
Cosmic Message of the UFO s, 1988), he presented the thesis that a new era
is imminent, and gave this message a ufological slant by giving UFO contacts,
from classic cases to stories of Finnish contactees, a key role in guiding human-
ity to new, higher level of consciousness. He developed his views further in a
later book entitled Viestejä (Messages, 1996). For several years during the first
decade of the twenty-first century, Koivula served as the Chairman of Suomen
Ufotutkijat ry. Through the years he has continued to write prolifically for such
publications as Uforaportti and Ultra. His most recent book at the time of writ-
ing is Kosminen kosketus (Cosmic Touch, 2013). This book deals mainly with
Finnish ufological history, stresses the importance of love for one’s neighbours
as we are approaching a new spiritual age, and describes the role of aliens in
this millenarian scenario. In recent years Koivula has also led UFO-related ses-
sions during Hengen ja Tiedon messut, Ultrapäivät and also a few years ago in
Suomen Ufotutkijat’s autumn seminars (which have been held in September
of almost every year since 1994).
It is noteworthy that scientifically-oriented ufologists have since the begin-
ning often taken part in the same gatherings as religious ufologists and UFO
contactees. For example, in Suomen Ufotutkijat’s autumn seminars individu-
als interested in UFO s meet to share their different views. Presentations in the
seminar vary from discussing theories concerning the scientific methodology
that ufology should adopt, to relating narratives of personal UFO contact
accounts. The borders between scientifically-inspired and religious ufology are
thus not always clear-cut.
Ancient Astronaut Theories
Swiss hotel manager Erich von Däniken’s ideas regarding the role of ancient
astronauts in human history inspired the Finnish UFO community and the
larger population especially at the end of the 1960s and during the 1970s. Von
Däniken’s books were at that time translated into Finnish. The first one, Vieraita
avaruudesta (orig. Erinnerungen an die Zukunft; translated into English as
Chariots of the Gods?), was published in Finnish translation in 1968. Although
Däniken’s ancient astronaut theories constitute a somewhat different set of
claims than ufology in the strict sense, by not suggesting that aliens are at pres-
ent in touch with humans, ancient astronaut speculations interest many
ufologists. Ancient astronaut authors typically claim that there in ancient reli-
gious texts including the Bible as well as in archaeological findings is proof, or
at least suggestive hints, that aliens visited Earth in ancient times. Tom Pellert’s
(a pseudonym) book entitled Raamatun arvoitus ja Halleyn komeetta (The
Enigma of the Bible and Halley’s Comet, 1982) was the first Finnish book to
develop a detailed ancient astronaut hypothesis.
It is also worth mentioning Seppo Heinola (b. 1944), an actor by training and
a charismatic lecturer, who since 1995 has been an active promoter in Finland
of the so-called Bible code theory, associated with the work of American jour-
nalist and author Michael Drosnin. Heinola explains that the Bible code is a set
of messages encrypted in the Hebrew Bible and in the Greek New Testament,
646 Närvä
and claims that the existence of these messages has been proven by com-
puter-assisted statistical analysis. According to Heinola, these messages, when
decoded, reveal a chronology of events, some of which have already taken
place. The messages purportedly reveal the existence of UFO s and support an
occult interpretation of both the Bible and the history of Christianity. In par-
ticular, the hidden messages show that humans were not created by a deity, but
by a civilisation from outer space, and that this civilisation interacted with the
ancient Israelites.
Although ancient astronaut theories are clothed in a scientific language and
refer to fields such as astronomy, space travel, genetics, and archaeology, their
content – especially in von Däniken’s books – comes across as a technology-
oriented version of occult thought in general and Theosophy specifically. Most
notably, in his book Züruck zu den Sternen (Gods from Outer Space) von
Däniken refers to the creation myth of the alleged Book of Dzyan on which
Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine was also said to be based. He also relies on Blavatsky’s
views in order to explain the meanings of specific words of the myth. Further
more, in his book Erscheinungen (Miracles of the Gods) von Däniken states
that everything is composed of spirit and refers to “Theosophical” and “eso-
teric” religions to support his argument. He points out that consciousness is a
form of energy and that all conscious beings search for the primeval spirit
without realising that they are part and parcel of that spirit. Von Däniken also
states that humanity develops via paranormal means and religious revelations,
and stresses that in order to develop we should try to establish contact with
the beings that created us. He speaks of spiritual healing, precognition, astral
bodies, mediumism, materialisations, levitation, spirit worlds, and other con-
cepts common in occult and New Age milieus. In addition, Christopher
Partridge (2003) notes that von Däniken’s conception of the history of human-
ity and of religions resembles Leslie’s and Adamski’s views.
Christian Ufology
Besides Theosophically-inspired theories regarding UFO s, Christian elements

are also invoked in understanding the phenomenon. The views of Arvi
Merikallio have already been briefly mentioned above. Another example is
Juho Tenhiälä, a pastor and a longstanding representative of the Finnish Centre
Party, who also served as a Minister for Social Affairs, who in 1972 published a
book entitled Usko ja ufot (Faith and UFO s). It was inspired by the ancient
astronaut theory and reflected on the ufological significance of Kalevala, the
Finnish national epic, claiming that this work refers to UFO s. Yet another is
Voitto Viro, former vicar of Lauttasaari (in Helsinki), who in the early 1970s
stated that many biblical events could be interpreted ufologically and sug-
gested that Jesus might have been an alien.
The authors referred to above have a positive view of UFO s. In general, how-
ever, Christian interpretations of UFO phenomena in Finland tend to be
negative. Thus, during the 1960s and the 1970s an influential preacher by the
name of Leo Meller studied the subject and came to the conclusion that UFO
phenomena are satanic manifestations, a thesis which he argued in his book
Ufot ja maailmanloppu (UFOs and the End of the World, 1973). More recently,
Christian preacher Teijo-Kalevi Lusa has favoured the same view in his books
Maailmanloppu 2008? (The End of the World in 2008), published in 2001, and
Avaruuden terroristit: Taivaan ilmiöt profetian valossa (Terrorists from the
Space: Sky Phenomena in the Light of the Prophecy), published in 2005.
Eschatological Views in the Finnish Ufological Milieu
Finally, besides Theosophical and Christian conceptions of the nature and role
of UFO s, several influential people in the UFO milieu offer eschatological inter-
pretations that draw on more eclectic sources. This chapter will conclude with
a brief look at three individuals who have presented influential UFO theories of
this kind.
Artist Martin Keitel became a significant figure during the 1990s as a crop
circle investigator. Keitel insists that humanity is at the dawn of a spiritual
awakening. He is convinced that alien forces are guiding humanity towards
this new harmonious era and expects aliens to reveal themselves at some
point. Keitel has said that one means used by the extraterrestrials to elevate
the vibrational level of humanity is to create crop circles which balance the
Earth’s energetic body through its energetic ley-lines. According to Keitel, crop
circles also sensitise and open up the minds of people to a higher spiritual
understanding. He has suggested that meditating in a crop circle can be a spiri-
tually inspiring experience. Even man-made crop circles, according to Keitel,
act as gates for ushering in this new level of human consciousness.
Juhan af Grann (b. 1944) is a flamboyant film producer and director with an
interest in ufological issues. He has not been involved in the activities of any
Finnish UFO associations, but has introduced UFO theories current abroad to
a Finnish audience through his documentary work. Af Grann’s programme
Vieraita taivaalta (Visitors from Space) was shown on Finnish television in the
spring of 1992 and his UFO series Ufot ja paranormaalit ilmiöt (UFOs and
Paranormal Phenomena) in the spring of 1995. Af Grann’s Uusi ilmestyskirja
648 Närvä
– ihmiskunnan viimeinen exodus (The New Apocalypse – Mankind’s Last

Exodus) was aired in 1998, again in the spring, followed by the rerun of Ufot ja
paranormaalit ilmiöt. Finally, in the spring of 2002 Finnish audiences could
watch af Grann’s two-part television programme Tunkeilijat (Intruders).
In these documentaries af Grann presents a number of well-known ufolo-
gists, witnesses of purported UFO sightings, and people who speak of coming
spiritual, material and ecological catastrophes and wars, events that were pur-
portedly predicted by Nostradamus but could now be explained in terms of
alien civilisations. The message is that aliens may have manipulated humanity
throughout history via religions, churches, and various ideologies. It is also sug-
gested that a secret world government could be involved with this effort. The
documentaries allege that there are also predictions about a coming Messiah,
but what is clear according to the documentaries is that humankind is already
living in apocalyptic times and that Armageddon will come. This, however,
should not prevent us from trying to reach out to other dimensions, and from
joining the intergalactic community in order solve our problems.
Finally, medical doctor Rauni-Leena Luukanen-Kilde (1939-2015) was one of
the key figures of the Finnish UFO milieu. Luukanen-Kilde’s career as a suc-
cessful UFO lecturer started in the early 1990s with the publication of several
books. At the time she had already become a significant figure in the Finnish
parapsychological milieu, which helped her to achieve prominence as a
spokesperson for ufological theories. Her first book on UFO-related topics was
Tähtien lähettiläs (Envoy of the Stars, 1992). This was followed by Kuka hän on?
(Who is S/He?, 1993) and Universumin lapsi (The Child of the Universe, 1995).
In 1996 Luukanen-Kilde arranged an international UFO conference, which was
held in Hanasaari, Espoo near Helsinki. In 2007 she published the book Salatut
maailmamme (Our Secret Worlds).
In her books Luukanen-Kilde develops a vision of a coming new age couched
in UFO-related terms. The arrival of this new spiritual age is presented as ulti-
mately a matter of free will and our own choice. Nonetheless, by the end of the
1990s Luukanen-Kilde began to express increasing worries about the world’s
alleged secret government trying to radically reduce the world’s population
and to exploit the remaining people for their own purposes. Luukanen-Kilde
borrowed heavily from the international UFO milieu and especially from forms
of UFO belief that have emerged in the USA. By taking part in UFO conferences
abroad and meeting prominent ufologists, she was able to contribute to the
adaptation of international ufological trends to the Finnish UFO movement. In
this respect, Luukanen-Kilde was typical for the Finnish UFO milieu in general,
which consists of local adaptations and local social settings for ideas that have
their origins in a global UFO-interested milieu.
References
Blake, Joseph, “The Intellectual Development and Social Context of the Study of
Unidentified Flying Objects”, in: Roy Wallis (ed.), On the Margins of Science: The Social
Construction of Rejected Knowledge, Staffordshire: University of Keele, 1979,
315–337.
Grann, Juhan af <http://personal.inet.fi/business/grann/www/thejag.com/> (accessed
23 June 2014).
Hänninen, Kirsi, Yliluonnollisen ilmeneminen ufokontaktikerronnassa, Turku: Turku
University, MA thesis, 2002.
Heinola, Seppo, Ufot ja raamattukoodi. Raamatun salakielten tarkastelua esoteerisen
perinteen valossa, N.p.: Author’s edition, 1998.
Kananen, Marko, Kun jumalat olivat humanoideja – Ancient astronaut -teorioiden tulo
Suomeen, Tampere: Tampere University, MA thesis, 1998.
Keitel, Martin <http://www.martinkeitel.net/cropcircles/index-suom.html> (accessed
23 June 2014) .
Koivula, Tapani, Kosminen kosketus, Helsinki: UFO-Finland, 2013.
——— . (ed.), Uforaportti 13. Ufotutkimuksen vuosikirja 2006, Tampere: Suomen
Ufotutkijat ry., 2006.
Luukanen-Kilde, Rauni-Leena, Salatut maailmamme, Son: Star Sister International,
2007.
Närvä, Jaakko, “The Finnish UFO tradition, 1947–94”, in: Christopher Partridge (ed.), UFO
Religions, London & New York: Routledge, 2003, 194–212.
——— . Ufologia ja ufokokemukset uskonnollisina ilmiöinä: Teoreettinen tutkimus,
Helsinki: Helsinki University, Uskontotiede – Religionsvetenskap – Comparative Reli
gion 12, Doctoral thesis, 2008.
Partridge, Christopher, “Understanding UFO Religions and Abduction Spiritualities”, in:
Christopher Partridge (ed.), UFO Religions, London & New York: Routledge, 2003,
3–42.
Riikonen, Kalevi <http://www.dlc.fi/~starinfo> (accessed 26 June 2014).
650 Heilund
Chapter 80 UFO Movements in Norway
UFO Movements in Norway

Jan Bertil Heilund
Introduction
Modern UFO beliefs followed in the wake of Kenneth Arnold’s observation of

“flying saucers” in 1947, the Roswell case a couple of months later, and subse-
quent developments that saw George Adamski (1891–1965) and others take on
the role of contactees with the “space brothers” in the 1950s. UFO groups were
formed, not only in the USA, but in most Western countries. This was the case
also in Norway, which saw the formation of some informal groups in the 1950s,
the most prominent of which was established in the city of Bergen. Institu
tionalisation did not take place until 1967 when Finn Kalvik (1922–2001) and
Nils Sælensminde (1922–2004) founded the association Bergen UFO-forening
(Bergen UFO Association). Sælensminde’s close friend, the founder of Danish
SUFOI (Scandinavian UFO Information) Major H.C. Petersen, was also a friend
of George Adamski. Bergen UFO-forening was thus regularly updated on what
happened on the American UFO scene. The Theosophically-inspired depiction
of the space brothers and Adamski’s role as a messenger put his credibility
into doubt among the more sceptically oriented in the early 1970s, and when
Sælensminde found diminishing support for his belief in Adamski’s narratives,
he left the group.
In 1973 most of the local Norwegian UFO-groups were united in Norsk UFO
Center (NUFOC), an organisation that saw as its primary task to collect infor-
mation on Norwegian UFO observations. In 1979 internal controversies led to a
schism within NUFOC, and a new organisation, UFO-Norway, was founded on
the initiative of Knut Aasheim (b. 1932). Whereas Aasheim gradually devel-
oped a more distinctly spiritual and occult understanding of the UFO s, NUFOC
became a sceptics’ organisation and a local branch of CSICOP (Centre of
Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal; the organisation in 2006
changed its name into Committee for Skeptical Inquiry).
In 1983 Project Hessdalen was organised as a joint effort by UFO-Norway and
UFO-Sweden to investigate a recurrent atmospheric phenomenon in a valley
30 kilometres north of the town of Røros. Early reports on the phenomenon
described mysterious lights in different colours and shapes moving around at
different speeds and heights. These reports naturally triggered the interest of

UFO Movements in Norway 651
UFO enthusiasts. Key figures in the formative phase of Project Hessdalen were
electronic engineer and lecturer at Østfold University College Erling Strand
(b.1955) and Knut Aasheim. At the time of writing, Strand remains the leader
of the project. Internationally acclaimed scientists and representatives of sev-
eral scientific organisations have visited the valley, including Allan J. Hynek
and several NASA scientists.
The other institutionalised UFO organisation in Norway, NETI (Norwegian
Organisation for the study of Extraterrestrial Intelligences), was founded in
1997. The founding of this group was inspired by American leader of CSETI
(Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Steven Greer’s appeal
during a UFO conference in Oslo to establish work groups aiming to promote
‘a serious, open and democratic handling of the UFO case’. CSETI is primarily
associated with the Disclosure Project, an effort to have military and scientific
authorities disclose UFO evidence and alien technology supposedly covered
up by various governments. The spiritually oriented Greer tried in this way to
combine the authority of scientific rationality with popular belief in an invisi-
ble, spiritual dimension of life. This strategy, a core characteristic of many UFO
communities since the early 1950s, and which has resulted in fusions and con-
flicts, also characterises the development of the Norwegian UFO milieu.
The Norwegian UFO Organisations and their Theorising on the

“UFO Phenomenon”
UFO-Norway
Although UFO-Norway claims to be founded on and seeks support in estab-
lished science, stories, myths, and ideas known from the international UFO
milieu influence the imagery and the theories found within the organisation.
Frequent references to Roswell and von Däniken, and speculations on ESP
phenomena and the existence of spirit worlds in order to explain UFO phe-
nomena, are symptomatic of an “alternative” worldview, rather than of a
rationalist and scientific perspective, despite of the fact that the organisation
more than thirty years ago distanced itself from Adamski and his contactee
narratives. The organisation has on several occasions ridiculed Finnish ufolo-
gist Rauni-Leena Luukanen for purportedly being a spiritualist, and it has
labelled Steven Greer an esoteric mystic, but cooperation with the more mysti-
cally inclined NETI nonetheless shows how fluid borders can be between the
various branches of ufology. Greer, for example, who was one of the main
speakers at a UFO conference arranged jointly by UFO-Norway and NETI in the
652 Heilund
year 2000, was after his appearance there recognised as an important and cred-
ible UFO researcher even by UFO-Norway “sceptics”.
While insisting on a scientific approach UFO-Norway has, contrary to its
Scandinavian sister organisations (in particular Danish SUFOI which today
resembles a sceptic’s organisation), thus been open to supernatural explana-
tions of reports and narratives of mysterious sightings.
Project Hessdalen
In order to gain scientific support for the existence of UFO s, UFO-Norway has
in particular referred to the events at Hessdalen. Stories of mysterious atmo-
spheric phenomena reaching back over a hundred years, culminating in the
early 1980s with almost daily observations of lights, objects, and even a few
reports of alien beings, led to much ridicule in Norwegian media, but several
photos of the phenomena eventually convinced some scientists to investigate
things more closely. In 2001 scientists from Instituto di Radioastronomia di
Bologna, supported by the Italian National Council of Research (CNR), led by
astrophysicist Massimo Teodorani, came to Norway in order to investigate the
Hessdalen phenomena. In the initial phase of their research Teodorani vigor-
ously attempted to distance himself from any associations with ufology and
claimed that standard scientific methods would eventually solve the mysteries
of Hessdalen. Nonetheless, their instruments soon registered an atmospheric
high energy phenomenon that Teodorani came to describe as signs of a seem-
ingly autonomous and conscious behaviour. The scientists were puzzled by
observations of elliptic, triangular cigar-shaped objects, changing shape,
speed, and colour in seconds, and flying high and low in the valley.
In 2001 Teodorani hypothesised that these observations originated from
some kind of plasma phenomenon. This meant, he suggested, the possible dis-
covery of a revolutionary new source of non-polluting energy. Teodorani’s
theory may be scientifically unorthodox, but is nonetheless distinctly down-
to-earth compared to the speculations of his colleague, Erling Strand, who
thinks it plausible that the phenomenon may be due to visitors from outer
space. Relying on the authority of scientists like Einstein, Alain Aspect, and the
more controversial Rupert Sheldrake, Strand argues for the possible existence
in Hessdalen of materialisations and dematerialisations of travellers from
other worlds transmitted through the cosmos by mind waves. These sugges-
tions combine core elements of ufology with references to theories of relativity,
particle physics, and information field theories, thus attempting to furnish the
belief in UFO s as extraterrestrial vessels with scientific legitimacy.
In his more recent writings, Teodorani speculates that the observations at
Hessdalen may be evidence of probes from extraterrestrial civilisations. This
new belief suggests a form of conversion resulting from his personal experi-
ences in Hessdalen. Teodorani is today leader of the Italian branch of SETV
(Search for Extraterrestrial Visitation) – an organisation working to provide
proof for the presence of probes, proxies, and craft of extraterrestrial origin.
According to SETV researchers, Hessdalen has provided the best indications of
such visits. This belief was expressed by the mystically inclined Knut Aasheim
already twenty years ago, and was later confirmed, he claims, by telepathic
information from the aliens. Paradoxically, since mainstream scientists have
shown interest in the Hessdalen phenomena, scientific research so far has con-
tributed more to nourishing occult speculations than to solving the mystery.
Scientific and public interest initiated the foundation of a UFO centre in
Holtålen county in the summer of 2002, and both public and private investors
thought that UFO tourism had a great potential. Although this initiative
flopped, Hessdalen every year draws many UFO enthusiasts hoping to have a
genuine UFO experience. Individuals from Norwegian esoteric milieus fre-
quently visit the valley, and NETI arranges group excursions every year. For
these individuals Hessdalen may be regarded as a place of pilgrimage and a site
where hidden mysteries can be experienced. By constituting one of the
unsolved riddles of our time the Hessdalen phenomena have taken on existen-
tial significance for seekers of the unknown.
During the autumn of 2008, headlines in Norwegian media proclaimed that
‘The mystery in Hessdalen is solved’. Assistant professor Bjørn Gitle Hauge
from Østfold University College stated that the Hessdalen light was due to
chemical processes involving the rare metal scandium along with oxygen and
nitrogen. Hauge (like his colleague Teodorani) suggested that the phenome-
non’s electromagnetic field of high energy might be a future source of unlimited
pollution-free energy. The lights, says Hauge, are like miniature stars, and the
processes behind the phenomenon resemble pulsars in the universe.
Core elements of UFO lore seem to co-exist with such findings. Both early
theories of UFO s that travel through space by non-polluting modes of propul-
sion, the concept of free energy, and later speculation regarding stardust and
pulsar energies find some resonance in the scientists’ new theories.
NETI
For members of NETI the mysterious Hessdalen phenomena prove what they
already claim to know. Most members can tell of personal UFO experiences,
ranging from light- and atmospheric phenomena to strange incidents, some-
times involving meetings with mysterious beings. Like local authority Morten
Eriksen and the leader of NETI, Torgeir S. Hansen, several members claim that
654 Heilund
their initial UFO experiences were followed by both physical and spiritual con-
tacts with extraterrestrials.
In NETI New Age concerns regarding wholeness, energies, and self-devel
opment are combined with ideas associated with the belief in UFO s and
extraterrestrial presence. Conspiracy theories also flourish in this milieu, and
are referred to in order to explain the lack of hard UFO evidence.
Members of NETI are influenced by international literature that connects
UFO s to spiritual concerns, but there are also Norwegian titles on such top-
ics, some of which are frequently described by UFO believers as particularly
important sources of knowledge and as “catalysts” for their own spiritual awak-
ening. Among these books one can mention Karen-Sofie Thorstensen Alpha
Centauriforbindelsen (The Alpha Centauri Connection, 1994), Jannicke Jarlum
Du er jeg (You are Me, 1999), Knut Aasheim Stjernefolket blant oss – De frivil-
lige og deres Misjon (The Star People Amongst us – The Volunteers and their
Mission, 1995), Rune Øverby En ny tidsalders fødsel (The Birth of a New Age,
1998), Jordens Fjernhistorie i et Nytt Lys (A New Light on the Remote History
of Earth, 2000) and Tore Alfstad En Alternativ Kosmologi 2000 (An Alternative
Cosmology, 2000). These books all reflect elements of well-known mysti-
cal, spiritual, and esoteric ideas, and incorporate the authors’ own personal
experiences.
Thorstensen states that her book is ‘a document of love from a higher
dimension, telepathically received from our brothers and sisters in space’
(Thorstensen 1994). She emphasises, like many other authors in this genre, the
importance of positive transformations through the development of love and
thought energies.
Jannicke Jarlum, a Norwegian rock singer who was particularly popular in
the late 1970s, gained new national fame when she in 1993 once more stepped
forth on the media scene, to tell of her close encounter with alien beings.
She finally came to understand her experience by reading Finnish ufologist
Rauni-Leena Luukanen (who is presented more fully in the chapter on UFO
movements in Finland). Realising the meaning of her experience, she began
to receive messages from extraterrestrials and became a channel for the being
Betroz, whom she describes as ‘an existence on the sixth level’.
Co-founder of UFO-Norway and Project Hessdalen, Knut Aasheim, origi-
nally inspired by the 1950s contactees, after twenty years as an ufologist in 1985
claimed contact with extraterrestrial beings. Based on these contacts he pub-
lished the aforementioned book in which he primarily propagates the idea of
the existence of the “star people”, an idea that American author Brad Steiger
popularised in Star People (1981).
Electronic engineers Øverby and Alfstad, UFO researchers for thirty years,
describe in detail past and present intergalactic space travels and extraterres-
trial technology. Claiming both physical and telepathic contacts with various
extraterrestrial civilisations, they aim to ‘prepare searching souls for the energy
lift that Earth now enters’ through informing us of ‘the cosmology and thinking
common in other galactic civilisations’. Expressions such as levels of existence,
monads, dimensions, etheric forces, astral bodies, cosmic masters, and intelli-
gences are part of a vocabulary in which Theosophical terms coexist with
concepts from quantum physics that allegedly explain various mysterious phe-
nomena, such as teleportation and telepathic communication. Futuristic
technologies found in science fiction movies like Star Trek, Alien, The Matrix,
and Star Wars are depicted as products of (a future) science. Like these movies,
books by Aasheim, Øverby, and Alfstad blend traditional codes and cultural
expressions such as the cross, resurrection, sacrificial death, and salvation with
elements from Eastern religious literature, from Western esotericism, and from
local traditions such as the Norse mythic epos Völuspá. This local bricolage also
incorporates Norwegian geography and sacred places, such as Hessdalen and
the well-known medieval church Nidarosdomen, in a conceptual web that also
includes technological and scientific terms like electrons, positrons, gravitons,
amplitude modulations, transmitter substances, transport channels, and so
forth. This amalgamation of elements from physics and religion may be seen as
a (post-modern) attempt to bring back together what science once divided.
The Norwegian Internet Scene and Communications with Ashtar
The synthesis of science, technology, and spirituality that we have seen evi-
dence of in the previous section, has also been the basis for establishing
organised religious systems, i.e., UFO religions. While these have remained a
marginal phenomenon, the UFO myth has spread on a larger scale and on a
grassroots level. Especially within “alternative” and spiritual milieus it has
developed into a non-institutionalised form of folk religiosity that comprises a
variety of belief systems and traditions. Today, this vernacular religiosity has
the Internet as its most important medium for the exchange of theories and
ideas.
The Norwegian UFO-related esoteric Internet scene is dominated by NETI
members. Alfstad (Galactic Server) and Øverby (Forum Polaris) run two of the
most comprehensive web sites, where ideas expressed in their books are illus-
trated with pictures and paintings of divine cosmic beings, drawings explaining
extraterrestrial technology, and even sound samples of a variety of space
656 Heilund
languages. This material, claims “walk-in” Alfstad, has been received directly
from “the space people” by means of a regenerative receiver utilising crystal
technology connected to a TV monitor.
Beside directly UFO-related content, their websites include a variety of spir-
itual, esoteric, and New Age-related material, dealing with themes such as
healing, crystals, energies, Mayan prophecies, astro-archaeology, and the rise
and fall of Atlantis. Among the UFO-related topics, the culture and cosmology
of other planets and in particular The Ashtar Command hold a prominent
place.
Ashtar, originally introduced into UFO mythology by 1950s contactee George
van Tassel, has in recent years become an increasingly shared reference in
UFO-related milieus (Denzler 2001; Helland 2003). The Ashtar Command Com
munications (ACC), an international on-line communication forum for the
exchange of information on Ashtar, has a Norwegian edition administered by
Bjørn Intelhus or Shekiah Ray-El, a name representing his higher self. The
Norwegian website (with around 10,000 visits each year) – which is approved
by “The Ashtar Command Official Web Ring” which in turn is part of “The
Lightworkers’ Webring” – was created in order to promote ‘a positive attitude
towards ascension and holistic healing with a focus on spiritual light work’.
Seeking to communicate a unified worldview, the ACC has since 1990 worked
to control the growing channelled material (Ashtar Command World Site).
Despite their efforts to construct an orthodoxy by reserving sole access to
Ashtar for themselves, Norwegian channeler Siv Akre claims to have been
independently contacted by the commander of the star ship “Northern Star”
positioned above Norway and told that she is chosen to be one of the com-
mand’s main contacts on Earth.
Johan Lein, another Norwegian contactee, has on several occasions told
of his experiences with the Ashtar Command on Norwegian television and
in magazines. Like scientist Strand, he thinks extraterrestrials materialise
and dematerialise through an act of will, something that mankind will need
to master in order to ascend to higher dimensions. However, Lein’s descrip-
tion of the Ashtar Command as a galactic military and spiritual elite has been
met with scepticism by members of NETI. They have expressed reluctance to
submit to an external authority and to accept a hierarchically based episte-
mology, and insist in accordance with New Age egalitarian principles on their
own ability and right to find “the truth for themselves”. Contactee and spiritual
guide Morten Eriksen has tried to rationalise this ambiguity. Insisting on the
equality of every individual, he nonetheless argues that some people, like him-
self and Lein, should be regarded as “lightworkers” specifically chosen by the
extraterrestrials.
Norwegian Bricolage and the Naturalisation of International Ideas
In the early 1930s Guy Ballard, founder of the I AM movement, claimed contacts
with the ascended master St. Germain and with spiritually and technologically
highly developed Venusians at Mt. Shasta in California. Ballard’s efforts linked
Theosophical ideas to a particular site in northern California, and succeeded in
giving the mountain a prominent place in modern occult mythology as one of
the most important grid points of energy on Earth, a portal to another dimen-
sion. Among some Norwegian UFO enthusiasts Hessdalen is regarded as an
area of similar importance.
Tore Alfstad and Rune Øverby believe that the Norwegian valley is the main
centre for all extraterrestrial activities on Earth because we here find ‘the ter-
mination point of an intergalactic highway’ (UFO-nytt 4–2001). The Hessdalen
phenomena are explained in terms of vessels entering and leaving this high-
way. Due to this cosmic role, Johan Lein suggests, the Ashtar Command has
informed him of the importance of focusing international attention on Norway,
which is to have a leading position in the important changes to come.
Øverby believes that Norway and Hessdalen will play a major role in the
coming transformation of Earth, and that Norway is ‘particularly chosen in this
mission in which mankind is to be taken to higher dimensions’ (Øverby 1998).
According to Knut Aasheim, Norway’s role in the end drama will be crucial, as
it is the place where the battle against the negative cosmic forces will be fought.
He finds support for this belief in the Danish Universal Link group, also known
as the Orthon group (see the chapter on UFO movements in Denmark), initi-
ated by Børge Jensen and Knud Weiking, both former members of Danish
SUFOI. Based on messages that they received from the space being Orthon, an
apocalyptic Danish movement emerged that built an air-raid shelter in 1967 at
the town of Borup on Sealand. Amongst their many statements was that
‘Scandinavia is the new heart chakra on Earth’. This, according to Aasheim,
confirms not only the chosen role of his country, but also his belief that the
majority of the star people are now being born in the North, ‘volunteers in
their earthly bodies’, many of whom Aasheim claims to have met himself
(Aasheim 1995). They have a mission, says Aasheim, to bring humanity safely
into a higher dimension. We also, he suggests, depend on the star people in the
battle against the negative counter-forces (Aasheim 1995). Danish channeller
Marina Munk, a frequent speaker in Danish Theosophical organisations and
the author of several books on earthly and cosmic transformations, has like-
wise been informed that ‘Shamballa no longer lies in the Gobi desert, but has
been moved to Scandinavia’, and that ‘The people of the North are spiritually
far more mature than their fellow human beings on Earth’ (Aasheim 1995).
658 Heilund
Accordingly, Lein has been informed that the Holy Grail now lies underneath
the Norwegian medieval cathedral Nidarosdomen. As far back as 1973, Akatu, a
spokesman for the Ashtar Command, through channeller Grete Ahlberg (1901–
1993) revealed the central role to be played by Norway: ‘Norway, belonging to
the Scandinavian brotherhood, will play a major role in the building of the new
age’ (Aasheim 1995). The Ashtar Command has likewise informed Folke
Strømholm that ‘Scandinavia is a special area where spiritual development will
have a particular focus’ (Øverby 1998). This fact, claims Aasheim, is confirmed
by the great number of ‘spiritually mature people now being incarnated in the
North’. Rune Øverby thinks that we in these incarnations find ‘great souls that
will achieve great things in the years to come’. ‘The light is now coming from
the North’, says Øverby, who stresses that ‘believing that everything spiritually
important comes from distant places, and especially from the USA, is the result
of petty thinking and of an inferiority complex’ (Øverby 1998).
Final Comments
In their arguments for seeing Norway as a unique and chosen country, local
bricoleurs have, as we have seen, referred to statements from several Scandi
navian spokespersons within the spiritually oriented UFO milieu. These
statements are, they feel, confirmed by the phenomena in Hessdalen, but they
also draw on Norse mythology, claiming that Norse descriptions of ‘gods, half
gods, giants, dragons, and witchcraft’ are by no means merely the traces of
an ancient religion, but are based on facts that point at the existence of an
epoch in the Norwegian past, when the mastery of advanced magic and tech-
nology was in no way inferior to that of the ancient cultures of Egypt and the
Maya and Inca cultures in Latin America (UFO-nytt 2–99). Various UFO believ-
ers have thus created a connection between a mythic past and contemporary
Norway, giving the country an extraordinary significance in both a global and
cosmic context. While the Norwegian UFO milieu reflects internationally
widespread ideas and theories, i.e., the global UFO myth, local spokespersons
simultaneously add a nationalistic twist to this myth by pointing to the special
significance of Norway and of its inhabitants as a chosen people.
References
Aasheim, Knut, Stjernefolket blant oss. De frivillige og deres misjon, n.p.: INCA, 1995.
Alfstad, Tore, En alternativ kosmologi, Oslo: Polaris forlag, 2000.
Heilund, Jan Bertil, Spenninger, syntese og spiritualitet i norsk UFO-bevegelse, særlig eks-
emplifisert i organisasjonen NETIs forestillingsunivers, PhD. dissertation, University
of Bergen, 2005.
——— . “Konspiratører fra det ytre rom. Konspirasjonsteorier i norske ufo-miljøer”, in:
Arnfinn Pettersen and Terje Emberland (eds.), Konspiranoia, Oslo: Humanist forlag,
2003, 262–294.
Jarlum, Gry Jannicke, Du er jeg, Oslo: Grøndahl og Dreyer, 1994.
Øverby, Rune, En ny tidsalders fødsel, Oslo: Polaris Forlag, 1998.
——— . Jordens fjernhistorie i et Nytt Lys, Oslo: Polaris Forlag, 2000.
Strand, Erling, “Project Hessdalen – Main Technical Report”, 1984 <http://www.hess
dalen.org/>.
——— . “Project Hessdalen – April 2002”, 2002 <http://www.hessdalen.org/>.
Strømholm, Folke, “Jorden blir aldri den samme”, in: Rune Øverby (ed.), En ny tidsalders
fødsel, Oslo: Polaris Forlag, 1998, 60–81.
Teodorani, Massimo, “The Physical Study of Atmospheric Luminous Anomalies and the
SETV Hypothesis”, Paper presented at World Symposium on Space Exploration and
Life in Cosmos on the theme: EuroSETI: Extraterrestrial Intelligences from SETI to
SETV, March 2002 <http://www.hessdalen.org/reports/>.
——— . “A Physical Study of the Hessdalen Anomaly and the SETV Hypothesis”, Paper
presented at the first Norwegian UFO-Center workshop, Holtalen, Norway, 2002.
——— . “Physical Data Acquisition and Analysis of Possible Flying Extra-terrestrial
Probes by using Opto-Electronic Devices”, Extraterrestrial Physics Review, Vol. 1, No.
3 (2001), 32–37.
Thorstensen, Karen-Sofie, Alpha Centauriforbindelsen, Oslo: Polaris Forlag, 1997.
——— . Kjærlighetens Budbringere, Oslo: Polaris Forlag, 1999.
——— . Kontakt med andre virkeligheter, Oslo: Polaris Forlag, 2005.
UFO-nytt (magazine published 1998–2003).
UFO (magazine published 1995–2003)
660 Peste
Chapter 81 UFO Movements in Sweden
UFO Movements in Sweden

Jonathan Peste
Introduction
The study of and belief in UFO s in Sweden to a large extent reflect the develop-
ment of UFO-based beliefs in the rest of the Western world. Sweden has its
own share of individuals and groups that are convinced of the existence of
alien life and of extraterrestrial visits to Earth. Sweden has also had individuals
claiming personal first-hand experiences of alien visits and even alien
abductions.
A considerable amount of books on the subject of UFO s, alien life, and
alien technology, including ideas of paranormal phenomena connected to
UFO s, have been published in Swedish. Three small but important Swedish
publishers of UFO-related literature are Zindermans förlag, Parthenon, and
Regnbågsförlaget. There are Swedish UFO observation groups as well as individ-
ual authors writing about UFO s and extraterrestrial life. Outside the southern
Swedish town of Ängelholm there is a site where the contactee Gösta Carlsson
in 1972 built a monument representing an extraterrestrial vessel, and where he
has made cement casts of the traces in the ground that he claims were made
when the spacecraft landed. This is a popular site to visit for UFO enthusiasts.
Riksorganisationen UFO-Sverige is the largest national organisation which
focuses on UFO observations. It was founded in 1970 and regularly publishes
the magazine UFO-aktuellt (Current UFO News). This magazine contains arti-
cles which approach the UFO theme from a variety of different perspectives.
Many articles discuss possible scientific explanations for the existence of
UFO s. Over the years, a number of articles about telepathy and other paranor-
mal phenomena have been published in the same magazine. Some of the
issues have contained articles about UFO religions, often written from a scepti-
cal perspective. Examples of other organisations are UFO-Häggvik and
Göteborg GICOFF (an abbreviation of Sw. Göteborgs infromationscenter för
oidentifierade flygande föremål, i.e., Gothenburg Information Centre for
Unidentified Flying Objects). Håkan Blomqvist, a former member of a reli-
gious group that to some extent incorporates UFO s in its mythology (Hylozoism,
see the chapter on Theosophically-inspired movements in Sweden in the
present volume), is the chair of a private archive for “UFO research” in the

UFO Movements in Sweden 661
Swedish town of Norrköping (Sw. Arkivet för UFO-forskning, AFU). This archive
is now one of the world’s largest repositories of UFO-related materials.
Interesting as these phenomena are, the remainder of the present article is
limited to the religious aspects of UFO belief. Religious traditions which only to
some marginal extent refer to extraterrestrial beings, such as Scientology,
ISKCON, and Swedenborgianism, are not discussed here.
International UFO Movements in Sweden
Two international UFO religions can currently be found in Sweden; the Raelian
Movement and Ashtar Command. The Raelian Movement was established in
Sweden in the middle of the 1990s. The founder of the religion, Claude Vorilhon,
visited Sweden in 1995, and in the beginning of 1997 the organisation had six
members. At the time of writing (2014) the Raelian Movement has approxi-
mately thirty members in Sweden, according to the current leader of the
Swedish section of the movement. The leader also claims that the number of
visitors on their website and the number of books sold are increasing.
According to the Swedish leader, the Raelian movement adapts its activities
to each country were it exists. Sweden is, according to him, a country where the
population is largely secularised, a fact that influences the status of the Raelian
movement in a negative way. Many Swedish libraries have refused to buy books
by Claude Vorilhon or other members of the Raelian movement, which accord-
ing to the Swedish leader is “pure censorship”. Other topics that the Raelian
movement focuses on internationally are also stressed in Sweden. Thus, the
Swedish section of the movement stresses the benefits of cloning, gene modi-
fication, and stem cell research. The movement in Sweden has been involved
in various social and political campaigns, for example the so called “clitoraid”
campaign, which was initiated for the purpose of defending women who risk
genital mutilation. The leader also told me about common reactions to the
movement’s ideas when members are out in the public to spread the move-
ment’s message. Many people find their philosophical teachings acceptable,
but feel that the references to extraterrestrials in the group’s teachings are
strange. Furthermore, Swedes are also often not willing to belong to a specific
organisation or religious movement. Paradoxically, according to the Swedish
leader of the Raelian movement, some individuals in Sweden have problems
with the fact that the movement does not acknowledge the existence of a god
or divine principle. The Raelian teachings deny both the validity of the theory
of evolution and the belief in a god or divine being, and when combined, these
two stances may seem strange in the eyes of most Swedes. The Raelian
662 Peste
movement in Sweden faces a similar situation as in most other European

countries, where the number of followers is quite small.
The Swedish part of the world wide network of the Ashtar Command pro-
motes its ideas on the Internet. The administrator of the Swedish webpage
(founded 15 May 2006), who calls himself Ben-Arion, insists (in an interview
with the present author) that Ashtar Command is not an organisation, but a
‘platform for universal knowledge’ based on the teachings of the master
Ashtar. The platform is a part of the wider cosmic Galactic Federation and the
Great White Brotherhood. According to the chair there are 1,500 registered
members.
The purpose of Asthar Command is, according to the website, to bring
knowledge and love to humanity, and this purpose is not dependent upon the
country where the teachings are spread. Real knowledge and love is to be found
inside humans, in their hearts and in their inner light and energy. According to
Ben Arion, Ashtar Command is not focused on material UFO s. The UFO s that
are of interest to the Ashtar Command are made of “higher energy” and are not
subject to any limitations. While the Raelian movement claims that extrater-
restrials have technology that is 25,000 years more advanced than that found
on Earth, the Great White Brotherhood of the Ashtar Command is said to be
several million years in advance.
Swedish-based UFO Movements
One early influential example of a person to disseminate a religiously tinged

Swedish UFO belief is Edith Nicolaisen (1911–1986). She was born in Denmark,
studied at various universities in the USA, but later lived most of her life in
Sweden. She heard about UFO s for the first time in 1954 and was greatly
inspired by George Adamski and his paradigmatic encounters with UFO s.
Edith Nicolaisen claimed to have encountered her first UFO in 1955 outside the
town of Linköping, in southern Sweden. In 1957, she founded the publishing
company Parthenon, which published Swedish translations of several UFO
books that were widely read at that time. Her stated purpose with running the
publishing company was to publish literature with a philosophical message
that she called “den kosmiska filosofin” (the Cosmic Philosophy), which was to
be especially suitable for the Swedish youth. She visited and held lectures and
seminars in hundreds of schools and libraries all over Sweden. Edith Nicolaisen
also studied occult topics such as clairvoyance, Anthroposophy, Theosophy,
and Rosicrucian teachings. Although she was inspired by George Adamski, she
departed from his ideas by suggesting that the aliens and UFO s that she
encountered came from higher non-physical worlds. For this reason she
referred to the aliens as messengers and angels. She came to suggest that she
had an important mission from God. According to writer Håkan Blomqvist, in
her late years she frequently spoke of the coming of a “new age”. Individuals
that she liked and who she felt were especially spiritual she called “interplan-
etary humans”.
Sten Lindgren’s organisation Intergalaktiska Federationen (Intergalactic
Federation), abbreviated IGF, was active at least from 1965 and during the
1970s. In this organisation, Sten Lindgren functioned as a charismatic spiritual
leader who claimed to have experienced several hundred contacts with alien
beings from other civilisations, in particular visitors from the planet Venus. A
closely related organisation was Ifologiska Sällskapet (the Ifological society),
where some members claimed to have contacts with a Cosmic Brotherhood.
Many concepts in these organisations had clear connections to existing reli-
gious traditions, mainly Christianity, because Jesus was often viewed as the
saviour in an imminent eschatological scenario. There were also Theosophically-
inspired elements (such as telepathy, reincarnation, and the concept of a
spiritually superior brotherhood). The ideal of following an ascetic life-style
also circulated in these movements, as did conspiracy theories about intelli-
gence services in various countries trying to hide the fact that UFO s and aliens
existed. At least on one occasion conflict arose when one associate began to
move toward a more scientifically-inspired conception of UFO s. This person
was then by some members of Intergalaktiska Federationen identified as being
a member of an evil serpent race. Allegedly, there were plans to place him in a
specially designed electric chair so that his reptile head would reveal itself, but
these plans were never carried out. In the mid-1980s, Sten Lindgren increas-
ingly adopted Theosophical ideas that were not combined with UFO beliefs,
and created a teaching course on what he called esoteric particles (esoteriska
stoftkorn).
Several other Swedish authors have written about UFO s from a religious
perspective, including Sune Hjort, Ante Jonsson, Boris Jungqvist, Staffan
Stigsjöö, Kristina Wennergren, and Björn Örtenheim. A further movement,
active in the 1990s but now defunct, is Anders B. Johansson’s Tri Orion Sirius
(later renamed Metatron), a charismatically-led organisation comprising a
considerable number of female followers, who were awaiting the coming of
the so-called Sirians.
Religious, spiritual, and esoteric elements are sometimes mixed with
pseudo-scientific UFO beliefs, conspiracy theories, racial, anti-Semitic, and
right-wing extremist ideas. These kinds of teachings have both similarities
and differences with parallel phenomena in other Western countries. In the
664 Peste
Swedish versions of conspiracy theories alleging that there are attempts to con-
ceal the existence of UFO s and aliens, the Swedish Defence Research Agency
(Totalförsvarets forskningsinstitut, FOI) is the main culprit.
Sweden has had its own share of innovative mixes of UFO beliefs and right-
wing extremism. For example, the ex-member of one Swedish Nazi party
(Svensk socialistisk samling) during the Second World War, and former high
school teacher in Sundsvall, Sune Hjort, claims that the ancient Northern gods
Odin and Thor are aliens. Odin’s Wagon is in fact a sophisticated spaceship.
Hjort turned to UFO beliefs during the late 1980s, inspired by the Swiss con-
tactee Eduard Meyer. He came in conflict with certain prominent Swedish UFO
enthusiasts, who he claimed were part of a CIA conspiracy. In 1992 he founded
the organisation Sveriges UFO-förbund (UFO Association of Sweden) and the
magazine UFO-kontakt. He also wrote books, such as Rymdmänniskor på jorden
(Space People on Earth, 1996), that are clearly inspired by the anti-Semitic text
Protocols of the Elders of Zion. His teachings are highly eclectic, combining New
Age concepts with Norse and Egyptian mythology. He claims, for instance, that
Osiris, Horus, and Seth have been incarnated in certain Swedish members of
his UFO organisation.
The most important person in the Swedish milieu to combine Theosophical
and UFO-inspired concepts is Lars Adelskogh (b. 1950). Adelskogh’s writings
are heavily influenced by the works of Swedish esotericist Henrik von Zeipel
(1882–1971), who wrote under the pseudonym Henry T. Laurency. Zeipel, who
is the creator of a Swedish esoteric tradition known as hylozoism (see the
chapter on Theosophically-inspired movements in Sweden) studied philoso-
phy in Uppsala, but soon became interested in yoga, Pythagorean philosophy,
Theosophy, and Anthroposophy. He had mystical experiences and claimed to
be a reincarnation of the Greek philosopher Democritos. During a period of
his life, Zeipel was member of the Adyar-based Theosophical Society. Zeipel
was married to Sonja Reuterskiöld, who helped him with printing, publishing,
and distributing his books, because no publisher wanted to publish his texts.
After Zeipel’s death his wife at first kept his unpublished writings, but a strug-
gle erupted between Bertil Kuhleman and Lars Adelskogh as to who of them
should be the next person to have the rights to his texts. Adelskogh won the
battle.
Lars Adelskogh has a background as teacher (at an educational institution
for adults, Folkhögskolan i Axevalla), but was fired after publishing an article
where he described the European Union as part of a Jewish conspiracy.
Adelskogh was also a member of Sten Lindgren’s IGF, and claimed to be in
contact with hidden spiritual masters. Together with some followers, he
formed Förlagsstiftelsen Henry T. Laurency in 1979 and in 1984 he founded
Institutet för hylozoiska studier (The Institute for Hylozoic Studies) and organ-
ised courses and seminars on Hylozoism. The Estonian Jüri Lina, who has
promoted UFO beliefs and anti-Semitism in Estonia, has also cooperated with
Adelskogh. At present, Adelskogh runs a webpage where Laurency’s books and
texts are published, together with his own books which explain Laurency’s
teachings. It is also possible to order printed copies of the books.
During the 1990s Adelskogh began to openly claim that the Holocaust had
never occurred. He translated revisionist literature into Swedish, and wrote a
revisionist book himself that was published by a right-wing publishing house
(Nordiska förlaget). Adelskogh, together with Laurency, is perhaps the clearest
example of Swedish UFO-belief with esoteric elements. There is not enough
space here to develop a full analysis of their teachings, but there are elements
of Theosophy, Ariosophy, and esoteric fascism. As there are historical connec-
tions – today hard to document precisely – between Lars Adelskogh and other
UFO believers such as Sune Hjort, we could probably speak of a cultic milieu or
subculture of a specific Swedish anti-Semitic esoteric UFO belief. Even though
this cultic milieu perhaps consists of less than 100 individuals, it draws on con-
spiracy theories from other subcultures, including some that advocate the use
of violence. The historical and social connections between these various ideas
and Swedish subcultural milieus are yet to be researched.
References
Adelskogh, Lars, Förklaringen, Skövde: Foinix förlag, 1991.

——— . En tom säck kan inte stå: Myten om “förintelsen i gaskamrarna” i Auschwitz,
Skövde: Nordiska förlaget, 2007.
Åkerbäck, Peter, “Raeliska rörelsen”, in: Ingvar Svanberg and David Westerlund (eds.),
Religion i Sverige, Stockholm: Dialogos förlag, 2008, 332–334.
Blomqvist, Håkan, UFo – i myt och verklighet, Nyköping: Parthenon, 1993.
Hjort, Sune, Den dolda sanningen om UFO, Göteborg: Zindermans, 1991.
——— . Mästarens lära och liv, Göteborg: Zindermans, 1994.
——— . Rymdmänniskor på jorden!, Göteborg: Zindermans, 1996.
Hjort, Sune and Ante Jonsson, Fantastiska resor med UFO, Sundsvall: Zindermans, 1989.
Laurency, Henry T., (pseud.), Livskunskap, Vol. 1–5. Skövde: Förlagsstiftelsen Henry T.
Laurency, 1986–1995.
——— . Människans väg, Skövde: Förlagsstiftelsen Henry T. Laurency, 1998.
——— . De vises sten: världs- och livsåskådning, Skövde: Förlagsstiftelsen Henry T.
Laurency, 1995.
666 Peste
——— . Kunskapen om verkligheten. Skövde: Förlagsstiftelsen Henry T. Laurency, 1961.

Lina, Jüri, UFO-forskning i Sovjetunionen, Stockholm: Faag, 1984.
——— . Ufo-gåtan fördjupas, Stockholm: Förlaget Referent, 1992.
——— . Världsbyggarnas bedrägeri: frimureriets dolda historia, Stockholm: Förlaget
Referent, 2001.
Index ofIndex
Namesof names 667
Index of Names
Aagaard, Johannes 458, 459, 461 Alander, Christian 240

Aalborg, Niels Mikkelsen 13 Alanus, Georgius 237, 413–414
Aarseth, Øystein 482–484, 621 Alcén, Ragnar 613
Aase, Roger Karsten 165–166 Alcibiades 190
Aasheim, Knut 650–651, 653–655, 657–659 Alenius, Marianne 409
Aasheim, Thomas Nordraak 603–605 Alexander VI, Pope (Borgia) 191
Abend, Frau 528 Alexanderson, Anders August 524–525,
Åberg, Bengt 142–143 527–528, 532
Aboicus, Laurentius Petri 239 Alexandersson, Kerstin 493
Åbom, Johan 86 Alfstad, Tore 654–659
Abrahamsson, Carl 467, 489 Al-Jabir 33
Achrelius, Daniel 18, 414–415 Alm, Ivar 205–206, 210
Achrelius, Eric 413, 426 Alme, Henrik 571, 577
Acton, Alfred 537, 551 Almqvist, Carl Jonas Love 41, 141, 543–544
Adamski, George 632–635, 641–642, 646, Almqvist, Kurt 209–210, 626–227, 628–629
650–651, 662 Almqvist, Michael 105, 111
Adde, Torill 339 Alrutz, Sydney 528–529
Adelskogh, Lars 612–613, 664–665 Alver, Bente Gullveig 465, 472
Adolf Fredrik of Sweden 168 Ambjörnsson, Ronny 23, 42, 139, 143
Aeimelaeus, A. 240 Ames, Julia 511
Afzelius, Adam 285 Amman, Paul 30
Agnosta, Irenæus 434, 437 Amundsen, A. Bugge 423
Agrippa, Cornelius, von Nettesheim 79, 83, Ananda Tara Shan (Jeanne Morashti) 297,
130, 219–220, 237, 239, 245, 248, 250, 415, 587–589
419, 421 Anckarström, Jakob Johan 38
Aguéli, Ivan 624–626, 627–628 Andersen, Birgit 358
Agústsson, Jóhannes 282 Andersen, Carli 446–447, 454–455
Ahla, Catharina Sofia 124 Andersen, Edvard Emil 447
Ahlbäck, Tore 9, 438, 452, 553, 569 Andersen, J. Oskar 437
Ahlberg, Clara 58 Andersen, Kaj 446
Ahlberg, Grete 658 Andersen, Per Thomas 134
Ahlberg, Nora 307, 311 Anderssén, Alfred 155
Ahlin, Lars 106, 111, 196–197, 202, 260, 262, Andersson, Ann-Britt 144
300 Andersson, Ingvar 79, 86
Ahnlund, Nils 86 Andersson, Otto 156
Aho, Jouko 501, 505 Andreae, Jakob 432
Ahola, Minna 125 Andreae, Johann Valentin 193, 393, 431,
Ahorinta, Keijo 476, 479 435–436, 442
Ahtokari, Reijo 153–155, 157, 160 Ankarloo, Bengt 235
Åkerbäck, Peter 665 Anker, Bernt 163
Åkerberg, Axel Frithiof 525, 578 Anker, Ella 511–512, 518
Åkerman, Susanna 227, 427, 430, 443 Anker, Herman 511
Akiander, Matthias 23, 119, 123, 125 Anna of Denmark (Princess) 405
Akre, Siv 656 Antikainen, Marjo-Riita 125
Aksákov, Alexander Nikolajevitj 524 Anttila, Jarmo 596

668 Index Of Names
Augustine 27 Baron, Archaelus 326

Aukrust, Olav 54 Barrett, Lee C. 117
Aurier, Albert 549–550 Bartholdy, Nils 150
Appel, Charlotte 17, 409 Bartholin, Caspar, the Elder 12, 68, 184,
Appelgren, Anne Marie 105, 112 233–234, 406, 419, 433, 434
Aquinas, Thomas 28 Barton, H. Arnold 586
Aquino, Michael A. 490 Bastholm, Eyvind 408
Archenholtz, Johann 39, 85 Battus, Levinus 410
Arfvidson, Ulrika 251 Baudelaire, Charles 549, 625
Argoli, Andras 75 Bauman, Zygmunt 458
Aristotle 182, 186, 408 Beal, Mark 111–112
Arlebrand, Håkan 610, 612 Beamish-Mossander, Huldine 523
Armauer Hansen, Gerhard H. 273–275, 282 Bech, Jonas 465, 472
Arndal, Steffen 115, 117 Becher, Joachim 30
Arndt, Johann 23, 114, 130, 139, 411–412, 421, Becher, Daniel 420
430–431, 435–436 Becker, Howard 478–479
Arnisæus, Henning 13 Beguin, Jean 26, 28–29, 417, 419–420
Arnold, Gottfried 27, 114–115, 120–121, 139, Ben-Arion 662
421–422 Bendriss, Lilli 517–518
Arnold, Hans 276–277, 282 Benedicht, Lorentz 66
Arnold, Kenneth 650 Bennett, J.G. 324–325
Arppe, Edvard Adolf 24 Bennis, Hardy 560, 562, 590
Artamaa, Marja 567 Benthorn, Mark 110, 112
Artedi, Petrus 18 Béranger, Pierre Jean de 522
Artephius 18 Berchelt, Simon 425
Artista, Elias 80, 411, 428–429 Berg, Hans 181
Arvidsson, Bengt 437 Berg, Jesper Juel 472, 469
Ashlag, Rav Yehuda 215 Berg, Magnus 129–131, 421
Aslakssøn, Kort 405, 418–419 Bergé, Christine 444
Aspect, Alain 652 Bergen, Carl von 523–524, 578
Asprem, Egil 341, 473 Berger, Arthur S. 498
Atterbom, Per Daniel Amadeus 41, 141 Berger, Helen A. 373, 378
August of Anhalt 427 Berger, Joyce 498
Aviaf, Frater 345 Bergersen, Helge Ole 57
Aziza 358 Bergh, Richard 625
Bergklint, Carl Fredrik 21
Baader, Franz von 41, 116, 124, 142 Berg, Rav Philip 215
Bacon, Francis 392, 404 Bergman, Carl Henrik 142, 144
Backman, Alfred 524 Bergman, Ingmar 207
Bailey, Alice Ann 260, 316, 560, 561, 576, Bergman, Maria Aparecida 532
589–590, 605, 609–610, 611–613 Bergman, Torbern 21
Bak-Jensen, Søren 268 Bergman, Wilhelm 142
Ballard, Guy 610, 657 Bergo, Jørgen 518
Balvoll, Gudmund 76 Bergroth, Tom C. 153–155, 160, 173, 181
Balzac 549 Bering, Henrik 549, 551
Barchusen, Johann Conrad 30 Berman, Patricia G. 333, 341
Bärlund, Göran 600 Bernard, Christian 459, 462
Barnett, Michael 298 Bernheim, Hippolyte 290
Index of Names 669
Bernstorff, A.P. 265 Bobé, Louis 265, 268

Bertelsen, Helle 262, 358 Boch, Patrik 615
Bertelsen, Jes 200, 296–297, 300 Bodin, Jean 241
Bertiaux, Michael 321, 337, 467 Bodman, Gösta 24
Besant, Annie 180, 555–556, 570, 572–573, Boeck, Christian Peter Bianco 270, 282
580, 584, 592, 595–596, 608–609, 613 Boerhaave, Hermann 408
Beskow, Bernhard von 550 Boesen, Karen 91, 93, 96
Beskow, Gustaf Emanuel 142 Bogdan, Henrik 341, 343, 349, 489, 493
Bessmertnaja, Katja 615 Bøgelund, Vinni 353, 354, 358
Best, Joel 480 Bogren, Erik 583
Betucci, M.L. 551–552 Boheman, Carl Adolf 171, 248–250
Beyer, Gabriel Anders 20, 536–537 Bohm, David 584
Bhajan, Yogi 225, 317 Böhme, Jakob 22–23, 27–28, 73, 113–143,
Billberg, Gustav Johan 542 212, 258, 417–419, 421–423
Bischoff, Ulrich 551 Boije af Gennäs, Hans Henrik 152
Bitz, Conrad 236 Bolt, Edwin C. 574
Bjarke, B. 347, 349 Boltzius, Fredrik August 274–275, 280
Bjelfvenstam, Erik 282 Bonde, Carl Göran 175, 222
Bjerke, André 54, 515 Bonde, Christer 38–39
Bjerre, Poul 203–205, 210 Bonde, Gustaf 38–40, 440–442
Bjørk, Sven 201 Bonde, Karl Knutsson 176
Björkhem, John 290–291 Bonde, Lorentz Fredrik 442
Björkhem, Örjan 210 Bonnevie, Thomas 514
Bjørn, Claus 268 Bonsac, Henrik Jochumsen 27–28
Björnberg, Carl 152, 171 Boolsen, Gudmund 638–639
Bjørneboe, Jens 54, 56 Borberg, Niels Christian 497–498
Björnram, Gustav 19, 171, 179, 241, 246, Borch, Ole (Olaus Borrichius) 14–15, 27, 30,
248–250, 521 184, 185–188, 212–213, 217, 234, 407–408
Bjørnson, Bjørnstjerne 273–274, 282, 510, Borge, Bernhard 515, 518
512 Borgen, Peder 31, 76, 135, 423
Björnström, Fredrik 289, 291 Borgman, Oskar Hansen 43–48
Blain, Jenny 360, 365 Bork, Erik 635, 639
Blake, Joseph A. 640, 649 Born, Ignaz von 149
Blake, William 41, 127 Borozenec, Maxim 615
Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna 293, 328, 450, Borregaard, Send 498
466, 554, 563, 570, 577–579, 585, 587, 595, Borri, Giuseppe Francesco 15, 16, 27, 36,
599, 610, 613, 642, 646 185, 213, 217
Blauuw, Argoli 75 Borup, Christian 92–94, 96
Blauuw, Wilhelm 75 Borup, Jørn 594
Blebel, Thomas 75 Boström, Christopher Jacob 578
Blekastad, Milada 393, 395–396, 399 Botvar, Pål Ketil 311
Bleuler, Eugen 203–204, 206 Böwadt, Pia R. 263, 594
Block, Magnus Gabriel von 37, 78, 85–86, Boyesen, Adolph Theodor 506–507, 517
193, 429 Boyle, Robert 192, 404
Blok, Frans Felix 194 Brach, Jean-Pierre 330, 349
Blomqvist, Håkan 613, 660, 663, 665 Braconnier, Helga 290–291
Blumenthal, Georg Henrich 28–29, 418 Brage, Frater 341
Blytt, Eva 572–573 Brahe, Abraham 33
670 Index Of Names
Brahe, Per 238–239 Bureus, Johannes 2, 6, 34, 78, 82, 138, 191,
Brahe, Sophie 12, 67 218–220, 221, 223, 225–227, 245, 425–428,
Brahe, Tycho 6, 11–12, 65, 66–68, 71, 73, 75, 439–440
79, 183–184, 193, 212, 404–405, 411, 418, 433 Burgoyne, Thomas H. 105, 112
Braid, James 289 Burhan, Filiz Eda 549, 551
Brandes, Georg 273 Burnier, Radha 561–562, 590
Brandis, Joachim Dietrich 266, 268, 271 Busch, Oscar 523
Brandt, Cathrine 332, 337–338 Byberg, Peder Madsen 217, 323, 467
Brandt, Paul 27–28, 419 Byrne, Rhonda 314
Bråthen, Heidi 367, 379
Bratt, Iwan 204–205, 210 Cajander, Carl Alexander 24
Bratt, Signe 204 Calvisius, Sethus 76
Braun, Laurentius (Braunerskjöld) 413–414 Campanella, Tommaso 193, 194, 393
Brecht, Martin 117, 393, 400 Canaan 186
Breckling, Friedrich 114, 117 Capeteyn, Peter 65
Breeze, William 334 Capkova, Dagmar 400
Breitholtz, Louise 528 Cappel, J.D. 16–17
Breivik, Anders Behring 166 Capra, Fritjof 201, 584
Bremer, Andreas 408–409 Cardano, Girolamo 30, 65, 74, 79, 81
Brenz, Johannes 432 Cardena, Etzel 290–291
Bricaud, Joanny 319 Hesse-Cassel, Charles of 16, 148–149, 163,
Briem, Efraim 532 175, 250, 265
Brinch, Christian 507, 518
Carlberg, Anders 209–210
Bring, Johan Christopher 142
Carleson, Carl Alfred 528–529
Brinkfort, Louis 89, 96
Carleson, Robert 252
Britten, Emma Hardinge 501, 518
Carleson, Rolf 530–532
Broberg, Ernst 530
Carlson, Martin E. 400
Broch, Jens Christensen 114
Carlsson, Carl Alexander 532
Brochmand, Jesper 69
Carlsson, Carl-Gustav 318
Brock, Erland J. 551–552
Carlsson, Sten 551
Brodin, Jenny-Ann 108, 112
Carlsson, Gösta 660
Bromley, David G. 480
Casaubon, Isaac 187
Bromley, Thomas 119, 121
Brønsted, Niels 560, 590 Case, Paul Foster 461
Brorson, Hans Adolph 115 Casmann, Otto 83, 86
Browallius, Johan 415 Castaneda, Carlos 362, 377
Brumore, Louis Joseph Bernard Philibert Guy- Castberg, Jørgen Ebbesen 512–513, 518
ton de Morveau 178 Castel, William 536
Bruno, Giordano 191, 193, 212, 248 Cederquist, Jan 208, 210
Brunton, Paul 293 Cederschiöld, Pehr Gustaf 265, 268, 288–291
Brynildsen, Aasmund 54, 133 Celsius, Nils 85–86
Buddha 256, 597–598, 625, 634 Cézanne, Paul 624
Budevez, Vaclav 75 Chaboseau, Augustin 343
Buch, Tage 263 Charcot, Jean-Martin 274
Buchardt, Mette 263, 594 Charles II of England 192
Bugge, Karl Ludwig 151, 166 Charles IX of Sweden 79, 83–84, 427, 410,
Bull, Francis 284 425
Bull, Pelle (Per Jørgensen) 320 Charles X Gustavus of Sweden 79, 398
Index of Names 671
Charles XII of Sweden 36, 85, 121, 139, 143, Cosmopolita, Anastasius Philareta, see
416, 429 Joachim Morsius
Charles XIII of Sweden 7, 41, 141, 152, Coucheron, Peter 135
169–173, 174–180, 221–223, 246–250, 521 Crawford, William Jackson 524
Charlotta of Sweden 250 Creme, Benjamin 604
Chelcitský, Petr 391 Croll, Oswald 13, 26, 28–30, 131, 417–418, 420
Chemnitz, Martin 432 Cronhiort, Carl Gustaf 249
Chesnecopherus, Johannes 35 Cronstedt, Axel Fredrik 40, 242
Chopra, Deepak 197 Cronstedt, Marie-Louise 208, 210
Choraelius, Eric 441 Crookes, William 508
Christensen, Dorothea 530 Crosbie, Robert 585
Christensen, Irene 90, 96 Crowley, Aleister 226, 320–332, 334–335,
Christensen, Terje 57 338–339, 341, 347, 349, 483, 486
Christian II of Denmark 11 Crowley, Vivianne 373
Christian III of Denmark 11, 65 Cusanus, Nicolaus 134
Christian IV of Denmark 6, 13–14, 66–68,
407, 428, 434 Daa, Valdemar 15
Christian V of Denmark 16, 28 Daae, Ludvig 284
Christian VI of Denmark 7, 16 Dahl, Dagny 514–515
Christian VII of Denmark 16, 265 Dahl, Folke 79, 87
Christian VIII of Denmark 149 Dahl, Gina 31, 76, 423
Christiansen, Jacob 615–616 Dahl, Ingeborg 514–515
Christianson, John Robert 17, 69, 188 Dahl, Ludvig 513–515, 518
Christiansson, Sam 110 Dahl, Thor Edvin 518
Christina of Sweden 35–36, 39, 79, 82, 85, Dahlgren, Carl 171, 181
138, 190–193, 390, 394, 396–398, 428–429, Dahlin, A. 522
440 Dahlin, Per 104, 109, 110, 112
Christner, Jeremy 326 Damman, Erik 308
Chronich, Niels Svendsen 113–114, 118, Damsgaard, Lotte 589, 594
127–128, 422–423 Danell, Staffan 225
Chrysoloras, Manuel 426 Danielsson, Lennart 63
Cicero, Chic 344 Däniken, Erich von 293, 645–646, 651
Clavius, Christopher 74 Darwin, Charles 273
Clement of Alexandria 187 Daut, Johann Maximilian 121
Clermont 147 Davidsen, Markus Altene 350, 358
Clermont-Tonnere 168 Davies, Owen 252
Clowes, John 543 Davis, Andrew Jackson 524
Cohen, Moshe ben Aharon 221 Davy, Barbara Jane 360, 365
Collijn, Isak 86 De Geer, Jean Jacob 248
Collin, Anders 122, 141–142, 147 De Geer, Laurens 397–398
Comenius, Johann Amos 34, 133, 390–399, De Geer, Louis 394–397
400, 422–423 Dee, John 39, 190, 212, 219, 245, 440
Conring, Hermann 186–187 Del Rio, Martin 234
Cook, Cecil M. 529 Descartes, René 116, 241, 396–397, 414
Cooke, Grace 593, 601 Deveney, John Patrick 343, 349
Cooke, Ivan 593 d’Espagnet, Jean 21
Cooper, Alice 464 d’Esperance, Madame (Elizabeth) 510,
Copernicus, Nicolaus 73, 75 523–524
672 Index Of Names
Dickson, Donald 194, 437 Egilsrud, Helen 572, 575, 577

Digby, Kenelm 18 Eglington, William 8, 523
Digelius, Sven 252 Ehm, Henrik 12
Dílo, Jana Amose Komenského 400 Ehrenborg, Anna Fredrika 543, 544–545
Dingwall, Eric J. 282 Ehrenborg, Casper 544
Dippel, Johann Konrad (Christianus Democri- Eide, Rita 309, 516
tus) 16, 22, 39, 115, 121, 140, 421 Eie, Sigmund 576
Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Constant 494, 498 Einstein, Albert 652
Djurberg, Daniel 124–125 Eising, Esper 44
Djurklou, Gabriel 251–252 Ekenstam, Fabian Wilhelm af 41
Doinel, Jules-Benoît 335 Ekhof, Diderik 419
Donner, Harry 242 Ekker, Jan 339
Donner, Olly 51 Eklund, Dan 181
Donner, Uno 49, 51 Ekman, Eero 155, 160–161
Dons, Poul 28–30, 418 Ekström, Anders 108, 110–112
Dorn, Gerhard 425 Ekström, Hjalmar 142–143
Dorsche, Johan Andersson 121 Ekström, Outi 109–110, 112
Dostoevsky, Fyodor 548–549 Elfwing, Gerhard 570
Doyle, Arthur Conan 512, 519, 529 Ellis, Bill 477, 480
Drake, Frances 106, 112 Elvestrand, Vegard 32
Drakenstjerna, Mattias 28 Elstrup, Lars 298
Dreyer, J.L.E. 69 Emberland, Terje 368, 379, 659
Drosnin, Michael 649 Encausse, Gérard (Papus) 343
Druehyld, Dannie 356 Eneström, G. 87
Duchesne, Joseph (Quercetanus) 13, 28, 30, Engedal, Leif Gunnar 312
418 Engelsrud, Helen 573
Dugin, Alexander 616 Enger, Anton 282
Duke Charles, see Charles XIII of Sweden Enrot, Johannes 238
Duncan, Adrian 91 Eolenius, Henricus Thomae 239
Dunér, David 547 Erik XIV of Sweden 33, 79
d’Urfé, Marquise 39–40 Eriksen, Henrik 519
Dury, John 394–395 Eriksen, Morten 653, 656
Dyrendal, Asbjørn 463, 465, 468–469, Eriksen, Richard 53, 508–509, 519, 570–572
471–473, 481–483, 486–488, 493 Erikson, Erik 20
Eriksson, Einar 280–281, 283
Ebelin, Florian 194 Eriksson, Erik 121–122
Eberhard, Christoffer 115 Eriksson, Hans 109–110, 121–122
Eco, Umberto 224 Eriksson, Tommy 490
Eckbom, Olaf 536 Ervast, Pekka 449–452, 565–566, 595–598
Eckleff, Carl Friedrich 169 Eskhult, Josef 221, 227
Edenborg, Carl-Michael 42, 430, 444 Espeland, Velle 519
Edenius, J.N. 120 Ettmüller, Michael 30
Edholm, Mats 210 Evans, Dave 341
Edighoffer, Roland 437, 444 Evmaios, Frater 334
Edris, Karl-Erik 610 Evola, Julius 615, 616, 617, 618, 622
Edvardsen, Edvard 73–75, 76, 128, 135, Eytzinger, Fredrik 251–253
419–420, 422–423 Ezzy, Douglas 360, 365, 373, 378
Egede, Hans 4, 31
Index of Names 673
Fabritius, Johan Jacob (Justus Klager) 421 Franck, Johannes 18, 35–36, 78, 82, 87, 413,
Færden, Michael Johan 275, 283 428–429
Færseth, John 166 Franck, Matthias 35
Fagerlund, L.W. 416 Franck, Sebastian 421
Faivre, Antoine 330, 349, 552 Francke, August Hermann 120
Falck, Kyrre Gram 378 Franckenberg, Abraham von 115, 138, 440
Falkenberg af Trystorp, Adolf Fredrik 171 Frankell, Tomas 199, 202, 313, 316–318
Fant, Åke 532 Frankfurter, David 479–480
Faraday, Michael 279 Frauen, Johann 114
Fast, Krister 613 Fredell, Peter 246, 253
Faxneld, Per 217, 323, 467, 472 Frederik II of Denmark 6, 11, 67, 404,
Fay, Anne Eva 510 432–434
Faye, Frans Christian 272, 283 Frederik III of Denmark 14–15, 27, 185–186
Feldman, Matthew 167 Frederik IV of Denmark 16, 115
Felgenhauer, Paul 138 Frederick V of Bohemia 427
Ferdinand of Braunschweig 171, 172 Frederik V of Denmark 163
Fernback, Jan 360, 365 Frederik VI of Denmark 266
Fersen, Reinhold Johan von 37 Freding, Sophie Elisabeth 279
Fibiger, Marianne Q. 357–358, 359, 562, 594 Fredrik Adolphus, duke 169, 172
Ficino, Marsilio 68, 182, 184–186, 190, 212 Fredriksen, Tom Thygesen 463, 472
Fidler, Matthew 523 Fremming, Grethe 593
Figulus, Benedict 429 Freud, Sigmund 203, 205
Fincke, Thomas 405–406 Fridegård, Jan 531
Findeisen, Barbara 199, 316 Fridman, Andreas 278–279, 283
Fink-Jensen, Morten 17, 69, 188, 217, 234, Friedenreich, Alexander 496–498
409, 437 Friedrichsen, Fr. 268
Fitschen, Klaus 125 Friis, Niels 76
Fjällström, Torbjörn 195 Frisk, Liselotte 63, 202, 318, 613
Fjellander, Sigfrid 607 Frisk, Monica Katarina (Seilitz) 313–314, 318
Fjelstrup, August 17, 409 Frisk, Per 313–314, 318
Flaxman, John 41 Frisvold, Nicholaj de Mattos 332, 337–339
Flemløse, Peder Jacobsen 71 Frödén, Sara 63
Flock, Alme 571, 577 Fromme, Georg 76
Flock, Ludvig Gerhard Bendix Flock 571, 577 Frosini, Eduardo 319
Flood, Jørgen W. 32 Fullerton, Alexander 563
Floyd, Thomas Xavier 517 Furseth, Inger 311, 458, 462
Fludd, Robert 191, 442
Fonneland, Trude A. 367, 379 Gadd, Pehr Adrian 415
Forberger, Christopher 36 Gadolin, Jakob 18–19
Forberger, Samuel 36 Galtung, Johan 166–167
Forsius, Arno 87 Gandhi, Mahatma 308
Forsius, Sigfrid Aron 6, 78, 79–82, 83–84, Gangaji 316
87, 189–190, 410–411, 412, 428 Garborg, Arne 510
Forsstrand, Carl 141, 143, 173, 181, 222, 227 Gardell, Mattias 354, 358
Forstadius, Arvid 238 Gardner, Gerald 356, 374
Fortune, Dion (Violet Mary Firth) 215, 346 Garstein, Oskar 423
Forzelius, Nicolaus L. 240, 415 Gartner, Christian 70
Fos, Anette Karls 493 Gaslander, Johannes 252
674 Index Of Names
Gaslander, Sven Peter 252 Grane, Leif 118, 188

Gauffin, Axel 625–626, 629 Granfelt, A.F. 124
Gauguin 549–550, 624 Granholm, Kennet 327–328, 330, 341,
Gaulcke, Christian 16 347–349, 473, 475, 478–479, 491, 493, 602
Gauld, Alan 289–291 Grann, Juhan af 647–649
Gaup, Ailo 377, 379 Grant, Kenneth 326, 332, 336, 342
Geber 28 Grape, Anders 397, 400
Geels, Antoon 143, 225 Gräsbeck, Armas 152, 161
Geertz, Armin W. 97 Grave, Richard 634–635
Geijerstam, Emmanuel af 204 Greengrass, Mark 400
Geijerstam, Karl af 580 Greer, Steven 651
Gejel, Mikael W. 346 Gregor VII, Pope 228
Gerhardt, Paul 115 Gregorius, Fredrik 381–382, 384–385, 389,
Gerich, Paul von 105, 112 467–468, 472
Gerloff, Hans 498 Grell, Ole Peter 409, 437
Gersdorff, Joachim 187, 407 Griffin, David 344
Gestrinius, Martinus Erici 82, 87, 426 Griffiths, David 617
Gezelius, Johan jr. 120 Grimaldi, Count 16
Gezelius, Johannes 240 Groddeck, George 206
Gichtel, Johann George 114, 119–120, 124, 421 Grof, Stanislav 197
Gieser, Suzanne 208, 210 Grønbech Døderlein, Jens 269, 283
Gilhus, Ingvild Sælid 57, 284, 312, 367, 379, Grotenfelt, Arvi 500
453, 462, 519, 577 Grundtvig, N.F.S. 368
Gilje, Nils 76 Guenon, René 615, 618, 626–627
Gilly, Carlos 394, 400, 430, 437, 444 Gummesson, Gurli 525
Gjeitanger, Anne 516, 519 Gunnarsson, Anna Wager 58–59
Glauber, Johann Rudolph 14, 30, 36 Gurdjieff, George Ivanovitch 293, 324–325
Glebe-Møller, Jens 437 Gustafsson, Ingemar 586
Glüsling, Johan Otto 437 Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden 79, 82, 84,
Godelmannus, Johannes Georgius 241 138, 189, 193, 218, 390
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 149 Gustavus IV Adolphus of Sweden 174
Goldmayer, Andreas 79 Gustavus III of Sweden 20, 85, 141, 152.
Gonce III, John Wisdom 342 173–174, 241, 247–249, 538–541
Goodblat, Chanita R. 227 Gyldenløve, Ulrik Frederik 15
Goodman, Linda 106, 112 Gyllenstierna, Maria 173
Gorakhnath 338
Göransson, Sven 400 Haabjørn, Gyda 573
Göring, Carin 523 Haarvard, Johannes 445–447
Göring, Hermann 523 Hacqvart, Christian 12
Gormsen, Klaus 201 Hageby, Lizzy Lind af 527
Gothus, Johannes Matthiae 394 Hagelin, Astrid 611
Gothus, Laurentius Paulinus 78, 84, 87, 244, Hagen, Kaare 481, 488
253 Häger, Andreas 479–480
Grabianka, Thaddeus Leszczy 178 Häggkvist, Martin 617
Granatenhjelm, Fredrik 153–154 Hahn, Petrus 240, 414
Granberg, Anna 105, 112 Häll, Jan 20, 24, 223, 227, 246, 253, 538–539,
Grand, Jens 11 547, 551
Grandin, Karl 547, 551–552 Halldin, Johan Gustaf 538–540
Index of Names 675
Halldorf, Peter 144 Hedberg, Cia 586

Halle, Bertil 291 Hedlund, Mikael 346
Hallenberg, Jonas 224 Hedlund, Torsten 523
Hallgren, Henrik 383 Heelas, Paul 350, 357–358, 466
Hallio, Kustaa 124–125 Hegel, G.W.F. 116–117, 131–132
Hamilton, Alaistair 427–430 Heiberg, Johan Ludvig 414
Hammer, Christopher 28 Heiberg, Johanne Luise 414
Hammer, Olav 2, 9, 209–210, 318, 350, 354, Heikkinen, Antero 241–242
356, 358 Heilund, Jan Bertil 659
Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 1, 10, 292, 300, 330, Heiming, Hubi (Shendo) 298
342, 349, 437, 444, 462, 552 Heindel, Augusta Voss 97
Hänninen, Kirsti 649 Heindel, Max (Carl Louis von Grasshoff) 89,
Hannula, Johan Rikhard 597 97, 445–447
Hansen, Carl 267, 272, 275, 277, 289, 521 Heino, Harri 98–100, 103, 157–158, 161, 324,
Hansen, Carl V. 89–90 330, 361, 365, 448–452, 475, 480, 504–505
Hansen, Carl William (Ben Kadosh) 17, 213, Heinola, Seppo 645–646, 649
319–320, 323, 466, 472 Heldvad, Niels 66
Hansen, Jan-Erik Ebbestad 57, 135 Helgesen, Poul (Paulus Helie) 64
Hansen, Oskar Borgman 43, 45–48 Hell, Maximilian 71
Hansen, Torgeir S. 653 Hellberg, Johan Carl 522
Hansen, Truls Lynne 77 Helveg, Hans Zacharias 268
Hansen, Uffe 268, 283 Hemmingsen, Niels 68, 433
Hansen, Vilfred T. 372, 379 Henningsen, Gustav 234–235
Hansson, Stina 87 Henningsen, Peter 409
Hansteen, Asta 509–510, 516, 519 Herbach, Casper 14–15
Hansteen, Christopher 271, 509 Hermansen, Bo Dahl 263, 591, 594
Harald III of Denmark 228 Hermelin, Eric 143–144
Harmainen, Antti 505 Hermonen, Merja 477, 479–480
Harms, Daniel 337, 342 Herrlin, Axel 524
Harner, Michael 354–355, 377, 379 Hertzberg, Niels 271
Härnqvist, Vilhelm 581 Hertzberg, Rafael 236, 242
Hartley, Thomas 141 Heuch, J.C. 77, 283
Hartley, William 583 Heurgren, Paul 251
Hartlib, Samuel 395 Hiärne, Urban 30, 36–37, 82, 193, 418, 429
Hartman, Jon 155 Hilli, Johannes 564
Hartmann, Franz 445 Hindmarsh, Robert 540
Hartmann, Johann 26, 28–30, 406, 420 Hinge, Helle 202, 297, 300
Hartveit, Karl M. 379 Hippocrates 408, 412–413
Harvey, Graham 360, 365 Hitchock, Ethan Allen 41
Hätönen, Paula 98, 103 Hitler, Adolf 299
Hauge, Bjørn Gitle 653 Hjelm, Titus 360–361, 363–366, 474, 476,
Hauge, Hans Nielsen 129, 422 478–481
Haugen, Marcello 53, 456–457 Hjelmborg, Johan 91, 96–97
Haunstrup, Toke 632 Hjelmeus, Helge 109
Havsbøl, Rolf 593 Hjern, Olle 543, 551
Hay, Louise 313 Hjort, Sune 663–665
Heber, Lilly 572–575, 577 Hjort, Stig Dankert 210
Hedberg, Björn 87 Hobenfeldt, Anton Hoberweschel 428
676 Index Of Names
Hoburg, Christian (Praetorius) 113, 419, 421 Isogaeus, Simon 85, 87

Hodne, Ørnulf 519 Isthmenius, Isaacus 426
Hødnebø, Finn 76 Iversen, Erik 188
Høffding, Harald 205 Iversen, M. 574
Hoffmann, Johan Mauritz 30
Hohlenberg, Johannes 44 Jabukowski-Tiessen, Manfred 117
Høier, Edgar 45 Jacobsen, Brian 355
Holen, Are 308 Jacobsen, Hans S. 368
Holm, Jette 294, 300 Jacobsen, Lis 229, 234
Holm, Nils G. 452 Jäderberg, Gittan 469
Holm, R.A. 268 Jæger, Oskar 513
Holst, Frederik 269–270, 283 Jakobsen, Merete Demant 354, 355, 358
Holst, Peter 464, 472 James I of England 236, 242
Hoover, Stewart M. 365 Janov, Arthur 198–199, 316
Hope, Elisabeth 523 Jantsang, Tani 469–470
Hope, Ingvild 572–575, 577 Jarlert, Anders 437
Hope, William 524 Jarlum, Gry Jannicke 304, 654, 659
Hoppe, Geoffrey 594, 601 Jarving, Stein (Dalula) 373, 379
Horjander, Martta 597 Jennings, John 152
Hörman, Ernst 283 Jensen, Ann Lund 296, 300
Horst, Daniel 406 Jensen, Børge 657
Horst, Gregor 407 Jensen, Carl V. 97
Horwitz, Jonathan 355 Jensen, Charles Bonde 556
Høst, Anette 355 Jensen, Harald 494
Houlberg, Claus 91–92 Jensen, J.P. 277, 283
Houlberg, Laila 92 Jensen, Jens 66
Howitz, State G. 544 Jensen, Jeppe Sinding 97
Høygaard, Arne 281 Jensen, Karl Åge 91–93, 97
Hugh of St. Victor 27 Jensen, P.J. 188
Hund, Karl Gotthelf von 148, 171, 177 Johan, Jacob Jr. 38
Huovinen, Kalevi 161 Johannessen, Axel Theodor 269–270, 283
Hus, Jan 190, 426 Johannessen, F.E. 32
Husén, Torsten 397, 400 Johannisson, Karin 268, 285–289, 291
Huss, Boaz 217, 221, 225, 227, 323, 473 Johansen, Jens Christian Vesterskov 235
Huth, Sophus von 277, 283 Johanssén, Christian 22, 538
Hybel, Nils 409 Johansson, Anders B. 663
Hynek, Allan J. 651 Johansson, Erik 315
Hynnilä, Enoch 124 Johansson, Eva 315
Johansson, Per (Robbin Peer) 294
Iamblichus 190, 490 Johansson, Petra 468
Idel, Moshe 225 Johansson, Rita (Ritazol) 294
Imerslund, Per 368 Johansson, Sture 316
Ingerslev, Emmerik 76 John XXIII (Pope) 633
Intelhus, Bjørn (Shekiah Ray-EL) 656 Johnsen, Lillemor 200
Introvigne, Massimo 343, 349, 453, 459, 462 Johnson, Martin 208, 210
Irvine, Doreen 481 Jonson, Bert Yoga 105, 112
Irving, Gertrude 529 Jonsson, Ante 663, 665
Isaksson, Ray 327 Jönsson, Augusta 525
Index of Names 677
Jonsson, Inge 547 Kiira, Maire 501, 504

Jormola, Jukka 51 Kiiskinen, Tehri 87, 416
Judge, William Quan 563–564, 571, 580, 585, Kilcher, Andreas B. 342
595 Kinell, Gustaf 58–59, 583, 586
Jung, Carl Gustav 197, 200, 203–211, 316, 584 King, George 635, 641
Jungqvist, Boris 663 King Diamond 464
Junus, Petra 209, 210 Kinnander, Magnus 181
Jürgenson, Friedrich 531 Kiørboe, William 633
Kircher, Athanasius 30, 410, 414, 418, 440
Kääriäinen, Kimmo 305 Kirk, Birthe 91–92, 94, 97
Kaggerud, Egil 77 Kirk, Eleanor 105, 112
Kahl, Achatius 545 Kirk MacNulty, W. 161
Kallenberg, Karl O. 524 Kirkebø, Synnøve 519, 570–575, 577
Kallestrup, Louise Nyholm 235 Kirsebom, André 91, 97, 517
Kalliala, Mari 326, 330 Kirsebom, Louise 91, 96, 97
Kallinen, Maija 24, 416 Kivi, Aleksis 549, 550
Kalvig, Anne 309, 312 Kjærgaard, Peter 468, 472
Kalvik, Finn 650 Kjar, Gregers 447
Kamadon, Alton 214 Klein, Birgit 298, 360
Kananen, Marko 649 Klein, Gottlieb 524
Kangas, David 117 Klemming, G.E. 87, 430, 444
Kaplan, Jeffrey 362, 365–366 Klingborg, Arne 45–46, 61–62
Karadja, Mary 527 Klingenstierna, Erik Gustav 522–523
Kardec, Allan 494–495, 503, 507–508, 516, Klint, Hilma af 523, 525–527
522, 532 Klosterberg, Brigitte 117
Kardos, Ursula 112 Kløvedal, Knus (Premda) 298
Kariveri, Ahti 643 Kluge, Carl Alexander Ferdinand 268–269,
Karlsen, Ole 135 271, 273
Karlsen, Runar 339 Knaffl-Granström, Edith 59
Karlsson, Blanka 400 Kneipp, Sebastian 277
Karlsson, Thomas 138, 144, 225, 227, 322, Knoche, Grace F. 582
347–349 Knös, Anders 537
Kärmäki, Jakob 125 Knös, Beta 540
Kastrup, Poul 89–90, 633 Knutar, Helmer 49
Kassinen, Aino 326–327, 330 Knutsson, Helena 199
Kataja, Ensio 328–330 Knutsson, Lars 199
Keilhau, B.M. 270 Koch, Carl Henrik 117
Keitel, Martin 647, 649 Koch, Peter Didrik 268
Kellgren, Johan Henric 287, 539, 541 Koettingen, E.A. 325–326
Kempe, Anders Pedersson 27–28, 31, 138, Kofoed, Steen 297–298, 300
422 Koivula, Tapani 644–645, 649
Kemper, Johan 221 Koivunen, Helmi 304, 306
Kepler, Johannes 427 Kokkinen, Nina 550–551
Kervinen, Timo 242 Kollinius, Anders 537
Ketola, Kimmo 98, 301–305, 503, 505 Komensky, Jan Amos, see Comenius
Kexlerus, Simon S. 83, 87 König, Karl 50
Khunrath, Heinrich 425 König, Peter Robert 323
Kierkegaard, Søren 44, 117, 548 Korschelt, Oskar 278–279, 283
678 Index Of Names
Kotkavuori, Tapio 478, 480 Larsson, Erica 110

Kotter, Christopher 415 Larsson, Erik Gerner 257
Koskela, Olavi 326, 330 Larsen, Alf 54
Kraft, Siv Ellen 367, 379, 575, 577 Larsen, Øivind 283
Krag, Anders 405 Larsen, Robin 552
Krag, Niels 405 Las Casas, Sebastian de 178
Krag, Thomas 132 Latini, Claudio 516
Kragh, Helge 32, 69, 188, 423 Latini, Maria Cristina Xavier 516
Kranenborg, Reender 318, 462 Laugerud, Henning 423
Kreisel, Howard 227 Laurbeccius, Petrus 415
Krippner, Stanley 291 Laurency, Henry T., see Zeipel, Hugo von
Krishnamurti, Jiddu 260, 450, 555, 556, Laurento, Maarit 101
573–575, 584, 592, 595, 608 Laurin, Marit 60
Kröger, Casper 12 Lausten, Martin Schwarz 117
Krohn, Eino 449, 452 Lavater, Johan Casper 265
Krohn, Helmi 324, 499, 501 LaVey, Anton Szandor 377, 342, 349,
Krzywinski, Therese 367, 379 468–471, 474–475, 477–478, 480, 483–187,
Kuha, Tarvo 449, 452 489–491
Kühle, Caroline 43 Law, William 127
Kuhleman, Bertil 664 Leadbeater, Charles W. 293, 592, 599, 606,
Kulovesi, Yrjö 203 608, 613
Kündig, Heinrich 90–91, 96–97 Leade, Jane 119, 121
Kuningas, Arja 643
Leer-Salvesen, Paul 311
Kuningas, Tapani 362, 643
Leegaard, Christopher Blom 274–275
Kunkel, Johan 30, 418
Lehmann, Alfred 275, 496, 498
Kupiainen, Jari 306
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von 37
Kuusela, Matti 51
Leijonhufvud, Axel Gabriel 152, 171
Kvist, H.-O. 125
Lein, Bente Nilsen 519
Lein, Johan 656–658
Laasonen, Pentti 126
Lejon, Håkan 63, 586
Lachman, Gary V. 331
Lekeby, Kjell 7, 10, 20, 24, 79, 82, 87, 88, 171,
Lactantius 419
181, 222, 242, 247–248, 250, 253
Læsøe, Kathrine 262–263
Lagerkvist, Bengt 624 Lemvig, Anders 405
Lagerlööf, Petrus 83, 87 Lenhammar, Harry 181, 537, 539–540, 547,
Lahdenmäki, Echo 306 552
Lahtinen, M. 125 Leon, Moses de 215
Lamberg, Eric 536 Leowitz, Cardano 74
Lamm, Martin 42, 171, 181, 242, 253, 547 Leowitz, Cyprian 74, 76, 427
Landsy, Ingelise 299 Leslie, Desmond 642, 646
Landsy, Steen 299–300, 637 Leslie, Michael 400
Lange, Erik 12, 404 Lester, Caignet de 177
Langen, U. 499 Levander, Caroline 385–386, 389
Langkow, Knud 465 Lévi, Eliphas (Alphonse Louise Constant)
Laine, Esko M. 125–126 213, 224, 466
Laine, Tuija 125 Levi, Geir Nilsen 488
Lap, Amina Olander 463, 465, 468–472, 481, Levison, Gumpertz 20
488 Levry, Joseph Michael 225, 227
Index of Names 679
Lewis, James R. 9, 350, 358, 360, 365, 471, Lönnrot, Elias 565
472 Lönnroth, Oskar 564
Lewis, Harvey Spencer 344, 445–447, 453, Løøv, Margrethe 308, 312
460 Lorentsen, Asger 297, 300, 588–589
Lewis, Ralph Maxwell 459–460 Losman, Arne 79, 88
Libavius, Andreas 13, 406–408, 434, 437 Lotich, Michael 427
Lie, Harald 338, 342 Louis XVI of France 174
Liébault, Ambroise-Auguste 290 Lovecraft, H.P. 336–338, 622
Lieroinen, Antti 240 Lövheim, Mia 360, 365
Lilius, Margit 642, 643 Løw, Bernhard 43–44
Lilje, C.A. 108, 112 Løwendahl, Dorthe Hein 262–263
Liljeblad, Martin 529–530 Lully, Marc 320
Liljegren, Jonas 348–349 Lund, Tore 586
Liljemark, David 283 Lundin, Claes 223, 227
Liljeroth, Ingrid 63 Lundgren, Eva 492–493
Limbeck, Sven 17 Lundstedt, Göran 552
Lina, Jüri 656, 666 Lundström, Ann 614
Lindahl, Hillevi (Gertrud Bengtsson) 611 Luther, Martin 123, 138, 182, 190, 393, 402,
Lindberg, Carter 438 426, 431–432, 435–436
Lindberg, Gunnar 600 Luukanen-Kilde, Rauni-Leena 648–649, 651,
Lindbom, Tage 617, 627–628 654
Lindefjeld, Nanna 512, 519 Luukkanen, Tarja-Liisa 124–125
Linder, Leif 110 Lyng, Georg Vilhelm 132, 135
Linderholm, Emanuel 87, 119, 125, 252–253 Lynn, Steven Jay 291
Linderman, Alf 360, 365
Lindgren, Sten 663–664 Maeder, Alphonse 204
Lindh Jørgensen, Mathilde 562 Magee, Mike 338
Lindmarck, C.G. 522 Magini, Giovanni 68
Lindquist, Galina 349 Magirus, Johannes 80
Lindroos, Helge 644 Magnusson, Sven 314
Lindroth, Sten 42, 78, 87, 137, 139, 144, 194, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi 307–308
401, 416, 430, 444 Mahlamäki, Tiina 500, 505, 550, 552
Lindström, Hans 586 Maier, Michael 333, 442
Linné, Carl von 18, 85 Maldini 16
Lithberg, Nils 87 Mallander, J.O. 306
Ljungberg, Israel 279 Malmenius, Nicolaus L. 82
Ljungman, Ulrika 143, 144 Mandragora, Alice 465
Ljungqvist, Gustaf 58, 108 Manicus, Claus 268
Ljungqvist, Hans 207, 210 Mann, Tad 91
Llull, Ramon 186 Manninen, Juha 125
Lochmann, Ernst Ferdinand 274–275, 283 Mansa, F.W. 17, 268
Lodge, Oliver 513 Mansikka, Tomas 500, 505, 550, 552
Lohmann, Hartvig 407 Månsson, Peder 33
Loimaranta, Sakari 125 Marais 286
Løken, Kjersti 453, 462 Marcher, Lisbeth 200
Lomborg, Birgit 590 Marcuse, F.L. 268
Long, James 582–583 Marriage, Sophia 365
Longomontanus 73, 76 Marsh, Phil 469–470
680 Index Of Names
Martensen, Hans Lassen 117–117, 131, 135, Moore, Bob 200, 296
494 Moreira, Alfonso 499
Martikainen, Tuomas 304, 306 Morgan, John 616
Martinus (Thomsen) 2, 9, 254–263, 293, Mørk, Gry 464, 472
299, 315–316, 591 Mortensson-Egnund, Ivar 54
Märtha Louise of Norway (Princess) 310, Morsius, Joachim 428
516, 519–520 Morsund, Tord 616, 618–620
Maslow, Abraham 195, 197 Moustgaard, I.K. 499
Mathers, Samuel L. MacGregor 250 Moynihan, Michael 483, 488
Matsyendranath 338 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 149
Matthiae, Johannes 394, 396–397, 401 Muhl, Lars 297, 300
Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor 76 Müller, Bente 309, 516, 519
May, Rollo 195 Müller, Johann Daniel 178
Mayer, Jean-François 7, 10 Müller-Vestermann, Iris 533
Mazel, Adriaan 599, 607 Munch, Edvard 333, 548–549
McMurtry, Grady (Hymenæus Alpha) 332, Munch, Peter A. 368
334 Munck, Adolph Fredrik 21, 241, 247
McNallen, Stephen 354 Munk, Kirsten 435
Meddaour, Josef Ben 490 Munk, Kirstine 95, 97
Mehren, Stein 133, 134–135 Munk, Marina 657
Mehren, Tonje Maria 283, 519 Munkø, Frank 296
Meijer, Bernhard 112 Munksgaard Berg, Isabel 320–321, 467
Melanchthon, Philipp 64–65, 68, 403, 432 Munthelius, Johannes 237
Meldgaard, Helle 461 Münther, Friedrich 149–150
Meller, Leo 474, 480, 647 Murphy, Michael 196
Melton, J. Gordon 453, 462 Murray, Margaret 374
Merikallio, Arvi 642–643, 646 Mustelin, Nils 103
Mero, Vuokko 304, 306 Mynsicht, Hadrianus 29–30
Meisner, Balthasar 237
Meister Eckhart 116, 134 Næsgaard, Sigurd 203, 205
Menius, Friedrich 192–194 Næss, Arne 308
Mennander, Carl Fredrik 18–19, 40 Næss, Atle 333
Mesmer, Franz Anton 264–291, 521 Narrow, Morton H. 225
Meyer, Eduard 664 Närvä, Jaakko 644, 649
Meyer, Johanne 554 Naschert, Guido 117
Mikaelsson, Lisbeth 57, 284, 312, 367, 379, Neiiendam, Robert 499
453, 462, 519, 577 Nessling, Bo 110, 112
Milles, Carl 531 Nattergal, Peder (Petrus de Dacia) 70
Mirandola, Giovanni Pico della 191, 212, 219, Natvig, Richard 284
248 Needleman, Jacob 325, 330
Mitchell, Jolyon 365 Neergard, Wilhelm Matthias 147
Mitchell, Stephen A. 235 Nekton, Toivo H. 154–155
Mizaldus, Antonius 75 Nenonen, Marko 242
Moberg, Kerstin Uvnäs 209–210 Neumann, Erich 206
Mogstad, Sverre Dag 165, 167 Neutzsky-Wulff, Erwin 216, 217, 321–322,
Møller, Ingeborg 53–54 323, 468, 472
Monrad, Marcus Jacob 132, 135 Neval, Daniel A. 401
Monsen, Nina Karin 519 Newman, William R. 416
Index of Names 681
Nibelvang, Lars 254–255 Oelreich, Niklas von 39–40

Nicolaisen, Edith 662 Oetinger, Friedrich Christoph 141
Nicolaus de Dacia 64 Oja, Linda 221, 227, 244–245, 253
Nielsen, Charlotte Guldberg 593–594 Olai, Georgius 82, 88
Nielsen, Einer 497–499 Olavinen, Juha 301, 306
Nielsen, Ernst 575 Olcott, Henry Steel 563–566, 570, 577, 580,
Nielsen, Ragna 512–513, 516, 519 587, 595
Nielsen, Ruth Wessel 575 Olsen, Hans 27–28, 31, 128, 419, 422
Niemelä, Jussi 366 Olvik, Ole 277, 283–294
Niemelä, Kati 305 Önnerfors, Andreas 167
Nikula, Raimo 101–102 Origanus, David 74–75
Nilsson, Albert 142, 144 Origen 134
Nilsson, Emma Mathilda 523 Orr, Leonard 199, 315
Nilssøn, Jens 71–73, 74, 76–77 Ørsted, Hans Christian 265
Nilsson, Johan Ragnar 525 Örtenheim, Björn 663
Nilsson, Rut 399, 401 Osho, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh 197,
Nobel, Agnes 63 199–200, 310, 316
Nödtveidt, Jon 490 Østergaard, Karen 45
Norberg, Karin 346 Österman, Hugo 156
Norden, F.L. 188 Otto, Bernd-Christian 244, 252
Nordenberg, Magnus Otto 19–20, 40 Øverby, Rune 654–659
Nordeng, Elisabeth (Samnøy) 310, 516, 519 Overskou, Thomas 499
Nordenmark, N.V.E. 83, 88 Oxenstierna, Axel 249, 394–399
Nordenskjöld, Adolf Gustaf 287 Oxenstierna, Johan Gabriel 41, 86, 171, 248,
Nordenskjöld, August 20–21, 24, 40–41, 247, 390
538–539
Nordenskjöld, Carl Fredrik 19 P-Orridge, Genesis 340
Nordenskjöld, Carl Fredrik Jr. 20, 286, 538–540 Paasche, Fredrik 284
Nordenskjöld, Ulrik 20 Pade, Mikkel 195, 354, 358
Nordgarden, Knut Rasmussen (Vis-Knut) Paijkull, Otto Arnold von 36–37
273–274 Pajula, J.S. 126
Nordgren, Karin 109 Paletz, Michael 238
Nordling, Iiro 326, 330 Palladius, Peder 12, 68, 228–229
Nordqvist, Gösta 205 Palma, Hugh of 27
Nordström, Johan 83, 87–88, 194, 392, 401, Palomaa, Veikko 566–567
427–428, 430 Pandora 385–386, 389
Norén, Anna Maria 195 Panduro, Leif 205
Norrelius, Andreas 221 Paracelsus (Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus
Norrgård, Jakob 124 Bombastus von Hohenheim) 6, 12–13,
Noshie, Saleh 575 19, 27–28, 30, 36–37, 73–74, 79–81, 128,
Nostradamus 648 130–131, 138, 183–187, 189, 219, 234, 402–430,
Nyberg, Folke 153–154, 161 433, 435
Nyborg, Eigil 205 Paramahansa Yogananda 293
Parfitt, Will 225
Obstfelder, Sigbjørn 132 Parmann, Øisten 53, 57
Odal 470, 472 Partridge, Christopher 646, 649
Oddmund, Hjelde 135 Pasi, Marco 217, 323, 473
Oehlenschläger, Adam 266 Pasqually, Martines de 177, 343, 461
682 Index Of Names
Patrizi, Francesco 421 Plaami, Aulikki 502

Paulsen, Åshild 134, 423 Plaami, Seppo 502
Pavels, Claus 271, 284 Plato 186, 190, 419
Payngk, Peter 13–14, 407–408 Plaustrarius, Johannes 427
Pearson, Joanne 364, 366 Plommenfelt, Carl Anders 21, 171, 248, 521
Pedersen, Bjarne Salling 217, 320–321, 323, Poe, Edgar Allan 548–549
467 Pohjolan-Pirhonen, Holger 126
Pedersen, Christiern 182 Polhem, Christopher 40
Pedersen, Faustinus Edelberg (Faustinus) Pollard, John 167
275, 284 Poniatowska, Christina 398
Pedersen, Johannes 118 Poonjaji 316
Pedersen, Jørgen 118 Pordage, John 119, 121, 124
Pedersen, Kim Møller 469, 472 Porphyry 190
Pedersen, Laurids Højbjerg 91 Porta, Giambattista 18, 237
Pedersen, Rene Dybdal 262, 350, 352, Posse, Knut 168
354–358, 562, 588, 594 Postel, Guillaume 220
Pedersen, Svend 355 Poterius, Petrus 29
Pedersøn, Christen 464 Pratensis, Johannes (Hans Philipsen du Pre)
Pekonen, Kyösti 330, 365 183, 403–406, 433
Pellert, Tom 645 Preisz, Daniel 268
Pelletier, Jacob 76 Prel, Karl du 508–509
Penn, William 120 Price, Harry 514, 519
Peringer, Laurentius Fredrik 36 Price, Richard 196, 198
Perls, Fritz 196–197 Price, Robert C. 342
Pernety, Dom Antoine Joseph 38, 40, 178 Prideaux, Sue 549, 552
Persson, Bertil 614 Proclus 190, 419
Petander, Einar 586 Prophet, Elizabeth Clare 593, 603–604
Peters, Alfred Vout 528 Prophet, Mark 593, 600, 611
Petersen, H.C. 632–634, 636, 650 Przybyszewski, Stanislaw 333, 466
Petersen, Jesper Aagaard 463–464, 466, Psellus, Michael 190
469, 471–473, 488, 491, 493 Psilander, N.G. 529
Petersen, Martinus Kris 635 Ptolemy 81
Petersen, Peter Marius 508–509, 519 Purucker, Gottfried de 582–583
Petersen, René Dybdal 300, 358, 562, 588, Purver, Marjory 194
594 Puujumala, Erkki 240
Petræus, Heinrich 406, 418 Puységur, de, Armand Marie Jacques
Pettersen, Arnfinn 659 Chastenet 264
Pettersen, Roald 311
Peucer, Caspar 75 Quercetanus (Joseph Duchesne) 13, 28, 30,
Peuckert, Will-Erich 394 418
Pfeiff, Victor 578
Pfister, Oskar 203 Råberg, Herman 126
Philalethes, Eirenaeus 19, 21–22, 41 Radclyffe, Charles, Earl of Derwentwater
Piaget, Jean 401 168
Piper, Johan Peter 114 Ræder, Hans 17, 69, 188
Pippin, Per Aspaas 77 Raicus, Johannes 413, 425
Pirinen, Juhani 304, 306 Raihle, Håkan 209
Pizza, Murphy 350, 358 Rajamaa, Ruth 210
Index of Names 683
Raknes, Ola 279 Riis-Magnussen, Henry 43

Ram, N. Sri 558, 584 Rijckenborg, Jan van 447
Ramsden, Hermione 511, 513 Ringius, Nicolaus 82, 88
Ramstedt, Maria 566 Rinne, Riku 476, 480
Ramus, Petrus 76 Rinta-Nikkola, Samuel 124–125
Randolph, Paschal Beverly 343 Ripley, George 19
Rasmussen, Anna Melloni 497 Rittelmeyer, Friedrich 58
Rasmussen, H.P. 44 Ritter, Charlotte 60
Rasmussen, Tarald 76 Ritter, Gustav 60
Ravn, A. 499 Ritterband, Monica 468, 473
Raylor, Timothy 400 Roberg, Lars 18
Rebisse, Christian 459, 462 Robertson, Roland 2, 10
Regardie, Israel 215 Rodhe, Edvard 586
Regiomontanus, Johannes 74 Rogers, Carl 195
Rehbinder, Carl Johan 382 Rønne-Petersen, Egil 204, 206,-207, 210
Rehnström, Joel 642 Rönnerstrand, Torsten 209, 211
Reich, Wilhelm 197, 201, 205–206, 279 Rørdam, H.F. 118, 135
Reichenbach, Karl von 273, 277–278 Rose, Jonathan S. 551–552
Rein, Gabriel 241–242 Rosen, Georg von 524
Reinhold, Erasmus 73 Rosén, Jerker 551
Reiserøl, Lois 201 Rosén, Johan 536–537
Reiserøl, Odd 201 Rosén, Sven 140, 142
Reiter, Paul J. 268 Rosenkrantz, Erik 15
Renatus, Sincerus 440, 442 Rosenkrantz, Holger 436
Repo, Matti 416 Rosenroth, Christian Knorr von 29, 417–418,
Reponen, Oskar 501 441
Repstad, Pål 458, 462 Rosenstein, Nils von 541
Resen, Hans Poulsen 434 Rosmund, Ove (Rosmon) 89, 97
Reuchlin, Johannes 130, 191, 212, 219, 426, Rothovius, Isaacus 236, 238
441 Rothstein, Mikael 292–293, 300, 318, 462
Reuss, Theodor 225, 314, 320, 335, 339 Rountree, Kathryn 389
Reuterholm, Esbjörn Christian 19 Rous, Francis 27, 128
Reuterholm, Gustav Adolph 19, 41, 86, 169, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 628
171, 173–174, 180–181, 221, 223, 241, 246–251, Röyhkä, Kauko 474–475
253 Rudenschiöld, Ulrik 39
Reuterholm, Nils Jacob 442 Rudbeck, Olaus 34
Reuterskiöld, Sonja 664 Rudbeckius, Johannes 83
Reventlow, Christian Ditlev 16 Rudin, Waldemar 142
Rhodius, Ambrosius 28, 73–74, 76, 184, 407, Rudolph II, Holy Roman Emperor 13, 212
420 Ruland, Martin, the Elder 26, 28–30, 418
Richardson, James T. 480 Runeberg, Johan Ludvig 549–550
Richmond, Cora L.V. 524 Russell, Cecil Frederick 340
Richnau, Svea 501 Russell, Peter 210
Richter, C.F. 115 Russell-Møller, John 355
Richter, Jean Paul 271 Ruuth, Martti 126, 416
Rigmor, Robèrt 210 Rydberg, Viktor 522, 578–579
Riikonen, Eija 644 Ryn, Claes G. 628–629
Riikonen, Kalevi 644, 649 Ryti, Gerda 501
684 Index Of Names
Ryti, Risto 156, 501 Schönbeck, Carl Gustaf 289

Schönherr, Carl Johan 542
Sabin, Thea 373, 379 Schott, Caspar 418–419
Sabro, Axel 510, 519 Schubart, Johan Christian 148
Sælensminde, Nils 650 Schubert, L. 522
Saint-Germain, Count 16 Schuchard, Marsha Keith 24
Saint-Martin, Louis Claude de 142, 343, 461 Schuon, Fritjof 618, 627
Sala, Angelo 26, 29–30, 420 Schuré, Édouard 293
Salingre, Axel 154 Schutz, William 196
Salingre, Gösta 154 Schröder, Johannes 26, 29–30
Sallert, Ulla 105, 112 Schwarzkopf, Edvard 74
Salmesvuori, Päivi 125 Schwenckfeld, Caspar 120, 421
Salomonsen, Jone 376, 379 Schybergson, Carl Magnus 238, 243
Salvius, Johan Adler 193 Scott, Gabriel 132–133, 135
Samuelsson, Bengt 586 Scribonius, Wilhelm 75
Sandblad, Henrik 82, 88 Seagrief, Derek 91, 215
Sandblad, Peter 314 Sederholm, Carl Robert 563
Sandemo, Margit 309 Segelcke, Wilhelm 515, 520
Sanner, Inga 533, 586 Sehested, Hannibal 15, 422
Sascerides, Gellius 405 Seiling, Max 58
Sauso, Michel (Mikko) 124 Sejersted, Jørgen Magnus 136, 423
Schäfer, Peter 22, 119–121, 123, 139, 415 Selander, Sven 592, 607
Schager, Henrik 143 Sendivogius, Michael 21, 37, 427–429
Scharff, Hans Jochum 26, 31, 420–421 Sennert, Daniel 14, 18, 29–30, 410, 412–415,
Scharling, C. Henrik 131, 135 425–426
Scheffer, Carl Fredrick 168–169 Seppo, Juha 363, 366
Scheibe, Johan Adolph 146 Sérusier, Paul 549
Scheible, J. 242 Sevänen, Erkki 306
Scheldrup, Michael 271 Severinus, Petrus (Peder Sørensen) 6, 183–186,
Schelling, Friedrich W.J. 117, 124, 142 403–409, 414, 420, 433
Schepelern, H.D. 17, 438 Shackelford, Jole 32, 77, 409, 424, 437
Schildknecht, Johan Albert 522 Shakti Gawain 313
Schioldann, Johan 499 Sheba, Lady 379
Schiøtt, Anna 592 Shedd, Jonathan 327–328, 330, 602
Schiøtz, Cato 54, 57 Sheldrake, Rupert 652
Schjelderup, Harald 203, 282 Shotwell, Stuart 551–552
Schjelderup, Kristian 202 Shri Dadaji Mahendra Nath 338
Schmeling, Max 469–470 Sibbern, Fredrik Christian 266
Schmidt, Frederik 271, 284 Sibelius, Jean 155
Schmidt, Gudrun Marie 465, 473 Siersbæk, Benny 593–594
Schmidt, Joachim 464, 473 Sigstedt, Cyriel O. 552
Schmidt, Ulla 311 Siitoin, Pekka 326–328, 330, 475, 598–599
Schmitz, Oscar A.H. 205, 211 Silesius, Angelus (Johann Scheffler) 115
Schneeberg, Hiebner von 75 Silfverhielm, Carl Göran 178, 291
Schneider, Heinrich 428, 430 Simberg, Hugo 549–550
Schofield, Clark 365 Simon 337, 342
Scholem, Gershom 211, 223, 227 Simonsen, Terje G. 57
Schomerus, Petrus A. 82, 88 Siren, Osvald 586
Index of Names 685
Sixtus, Carl 274 Spole, Anders 84, 88

Sixtus V, Pope 69 Sprengel, Kurt Polycarp 408
Sjallung, Grunddal 320–321 Sri Chinmoy 313
Sjöberg, Arne 381 Staats, Reinhart 125
Sjöblom, Tom 360–362, 364, 366 Stagnelius, Erik Johan 141
Sjöstedt, Carl I. 508 Ståhl, Anna-Brita 208, 211
Skaanes, Per Jakob 136 Ståhl, Bo R. 614
Skagen, Kaj 54 Stahl, Georg 408
Skeie, J. 32 Stai, Arne 520
Skomager Hans Rasmussen (Johannes Erasmi Starhawk (Miriam Simos) 376
Hafniensis) 12 Starr, Martin P. 341
Skott, Fredrik 381, 389 Stausberg, Michael 244, 252
Skov, Hans 408 Stavnsbjerg, Holger 92–93
Sky, Jeanette 520 Steen, A. 242–243
Skytte, Bengt 192, 194, 397 Steens, Jørgen 263
Skytte, Johan 189, 249, 345, 397, 425–426 Steffen, Albert 45
Slade, Henry 507, 510 Stead, William 511
Smit, Jørgen 46, 62 Steiger, Brad 654
Smoley, Richard 537, 552 Steinarsson, Steinar (né Ormerud) 280–281
Snellman, Christian Henrik 124 Steiner, Marie 45, 59
Snellman, Johan Vilhelm 51, 124–126 Steiner, Rudolf 9, 45–63, 133, 136, 260, 346,
Snitkjær, Aage 469, 473 399, 445–446, 527, 560, 571–572, 591–592
Söderblom, Nathan 58, 530 Steinsland, Gro 368, 372, 379
Söderling, Carl 525 Steinsvik, Martha 53
Söderlund, Irving 455, 459 Stenius, Henrik 153, 161
Söderlund, Live 455, 459 Stenius, Martinus Olavi 78, 83–84, 88
Söderström, Isabella 195 Steno, Anne Mia 350–351, 356–357, 359
Sofia Magdalena of Sweden 173 Stenring, Knut 224, 227
Sohlberg, Jussi 195, 330, 361, 365 Stensen, Niels (Nicolaus Steno) 15, 185
Solitander, Axel 155 Stenudd, Stefan 105, 111–112
Solum, Øyvind 195, 201, 211 Stephensen, Kaare J.E. 167
Søderlind, Didrik 471, 473, 482–483, 486, Stern, Bengt 200
488 Stewart, Gary L. 453, 457, 459–460
Sørensen, Arthur 377, 379 Stewart, John 116, 117
Sørensen, Eli H. 571, 577 Stewart, Jon 117
Sørensen, Ernst 45 Stiernhielm, Georg 34, 78, 82, 191, 194, 392
Sørensen, Lars Munk 464, 473 Stiernstråle, Johannes Erici 83, 88
Sørensen, Marie Sisse 469, 473 Stigsjöö, Staffan 663
Sørensen, Preben 559–560 Stjernecrantz, Arvid 246
Sorolainen, Ericus Erici 236 Stjernecrantz, Christer Adrian 246
Southgate, Troy 616, 620 Stockenström, Göran 546, 552
Spare, Austin Osman 340 Stockmann, Camilla 465, 473
Sparre, Agnes Martens 573 Stodius, Martin 237–239
Spener, Philipp Jakob 120, 436 Stöffler, Johannes 68
Sperling, Johannes 410, 414 Stolcius, Daniel 18
Sperling, Otto 26 Storjohann, Hendrik 276, 507
Spies, Johann 464 Stotesbury, John A. 306
Spinoza, Baruch 133 Strachen, Joahn Julius von 26
686 Index Of Names
Strand, Erling 651–652, 656, 659 Szondi, Leopold 206

Strandiger, Otto Lorentzen 115
Strindberg, August 17, 223, 227, 333, 544, Takanen, Mirva 305–306
545–546, 552 Tandberg, Hans Andreas 281, 284
Strokirch, Carl Michael von 140 Tassel, George van 656
Strömgren, Bengt 17, 69, 188 Tauler, Johannes 130, 421
Strömgren, Elis 17, 69, 188 Taxil, Leo 466
Strømholm, Folke 658–659 Tejblum, Jaquelin 299
Strømme, Johannes Irgens 203–204, 206, Telle, Joachim 17, 444
211 Tenhiälä, Juho 646
Strømnæss, Tom 517, 520 Teodorani, Massimo 652–653, 659
Strube, Jonna 293–294 Terserus, Johannes 236, 238–239
Strube, Poul 293–294 Tessin, Carl Gustaf 85
Stuart, Charles Edward 168 Teting, Nicolaus 407
Stuckrad, Kocku von 217, 323, 473 Texeira de Friars, Joao 503
Sturzen-Becker, Oscar Patric 243 Thanatos, Frater 334
Sturzenbecher, Mårten 287–288 Thauvonius, Abraham 413
Suchten, Alexander von 420 Thejls, Sara Møldrup 217, 323, 473
Sundberg, Per 60, 586 Thiis, Benedicte 201
Sundbro, Karin 109, 112 Thiis, Harald 201
Sundén, Hjalmar 206, 211 Thölde, Johann 26
Sundmark, Stina Fallberg 552 Thomas à Kempis 130, 421
Sundqvist, G. 528 Thorson, Edred (Stephen Flowers) 328–329
Sundstrup, Arthur 446, 456 Thorstensen, Karen-Sofie 654, 659
Sunesen, Anders 64, 70 Thorstensen, Toyah S. 338
Suolinna, Kirsti 452 Thue, Andreas 26
Susitaival, Paavo 156 Thuronius, Andreas 238–239, 414
Sylvius, de le Boë 30, 413 Thustrup, Henning Carl Ludvig 169–172, 181
Svanberg, Ingvar 349, 493, 665 Thyberg, Stina 208
Svedberg, Jesper 521, 536 Tigerstedt, Robert 416
Svegning, Peder Olufssøn 128, 136, 423 Tikkanen, Elisa 98, 101–103
Sveinall, Arne Tord 312 Til-landz, Elias 413
Svendsen, Christian 555 Tillhagen, Carl-Herman 88
Svendsen, Niels Chronich 113, 118 Tingley, Katherine 8, 581–583
Svenonius, Enevald 238 Tjørnum, Gilbert 90, 97
Svensson, Niels 447 Tode, Johan Clemens 265, 267
Svensson, Sten 181 Tolle, Eckhart 314
Svensson, Sven Frederik Fischer 91, 97 Tøllefsen, Inga Bårdsen 9
Swach, Conrad Nicolai 271 Tolstadius, Erik 139–140, 142, 246
Swami Deva Satyarthi 202 Tolstoy, Leo 450
Swedenborg, Emanuel 7–8, 20–21, 23, 39, Tompkins, Arthur S. 154
40, 85, 124, 141, 189, 286–287, 343, 440, 500, Topi, Topi Aarnio 336
506, 517, 520–521, 534–553, 625, 638–639 Torgny, Leo 531
Synnerdahl, Anna 527 Törnebohm, Alfred Elis 522
Szacinski, Ludwik 275–276 Torstenson, Bernt Christian Svedrup 276,
Szalczer, Eszter 586 282–283, 507–509, 512–513, 519–520, 570
Szasz, Tomas 206 Tørum, Gro-Helen 517–518, 520
Szöllösi, Ferenc 90, 97 Touche, D’Aillant de la 545
Index of Names 687
Treschow, Niels 164, 271 Vasa, Gustav Eriksson, of Sweden 4, 33

Trevisanus, Bernhard 18, 35 Vedfelt, Lene 200
Triantafillou, Peter 499 Vedfelt, Ole 200
Trismosin, Salomon 239 Veibel, Stig 409
Trithemius, Johann 421 Vejs-Petersen, Søren 589
Trolle, Fredrika Viveka 39 Vesenterä, Artturi 599
Trollnäs, John 180 Viken, Alexander 620
Tulk, Johan August 41 Vikernes, Varg 384, 483–484, 616, 621
Tullmann, Carl Adolph 146 Viking, Anna 592
Tuomola, Martti 51 Viking, Otto 557, 592, 607
Turck, Johan 422 Vil, Ike 331
Turning, Svend 446–447, 455 Villanova, Arnald of 186
Tusberg, Harald 515 Villoms, Sigbrit 11
Tuulse, Lena Kristina 195, 198–199, 202, 315, Vilstrup, Uffe 562, 590
318 Vindheim, Jan 333, 342
Tuulse, Tomas 315 Virgil 419
Tuxen, Christian 540 Viro, Voitto 647
Tvedt, Tore W. 372 Vivekananda, Swami 293
Tveito, Lill-Hege 368–379 Vlad 490
Tveitt, Geirr 368 Vollrath, Hugo 445
Tybeck, Johan 538, 541, 543 Vorilhon, Claude 661
Vossius, Isaac 190
Überfeld, Jojann Wilhelm 124 Vouis, Alfred 500
Udd, Heli 502, 505 Vuorela, Mikkel 634, 639
Uddin, Johannes 528 Vuorila, Heikki 302, 306
Uhl, Marie 545
Uldal, Geir 312, 342, 367, 379 Waage, Peter Normann 54, 57
Uldall, Frederik 638 Waal, Nic 279
Ulfvenklou, Henrik Gustaf 41, 246, 248–249, Wachsmut, Günther 45
252, 521 Wachtmeister, Constance 579
Ulstadius, Lars (Laurentius) 119–121, 123, 139 Wadström, Carl Bernhard 286, 538, 540
Unonius, Olavus 426 Waerland, Are 60, 314
Ussing, Kristian 465, 472 Wahlberg, Clara 58
Ussing, Troels 47 Wahlström, Lydia 206
Uzcategui, Óscar 600 Waite, Arthur Edward 349
Wallace, Alfred Russell 508
Vaczy, Jesper Kragh 499 Walleen-Bornemann, Carl Alphonse 319
Vad, Hr. 469–470, 472 Wallem, Fredrik B. 284
Valentinus, Basilius 19, 186 Wallen, Carl 44
Valerius, Bertha 522–523 Wallen, Soffy 44
Valiente, Doreen 374 Wallenberg, Jakob 22–23, 123–125
Valkner, Kristen 77, 136, 424 Wallenkamph, F.C.W. 528
van den Broek, Roland 330, 349 Wallerius, Johan Gottschalk 37–38, 193
van Gogh, Vincent 624 Wallis, Roy 649
van Helmont, Johann Baptist 26, 28–30, 413, Wallmann, Johannes 126, 438
417–421 Wamberg, Eli 446
Vanloo, Robert 444 Warburg, Margit 359
Var, Jean-François 177 Waris, Menna 302, 306
688 Index Of Names
Wargentin, Wilhelm 240 Wilenius, Reijo 51

Warmind, Morten 351, 353–354, 356, 359 Wilhelm, Ivan 108, 110
Wassenius, Johannes 237 Wilkinson, James John Garth 545, 552
Wassini, Yvonne 588 Willermoz, Jean-Baptiste 177–178, 343, 461
Wasumäki, Isak 123–124 Williams-Hogan, Jane 548–549, 552
Wecker, Johan Jackob 26 Willis, Courtney 337
Wedgwood, James I. 572, 599, 606 Wimmer, August 496–497, 499
Wegge, Erik 340 Winde, Birgitte (Valvanne) 557
Wegman, Ita 50 Winde, Jørgen 557–558
Wegner, Willy 630, 639 Wingfield, David 617
Weigel, Valentin 79, 81, 114, 120, 127, 130, 134, Winje, Geir 312, 342, 367, 379, 453, 462
139, 411–412, 415, 421, 431, 433 Winther, Christian 497, 499
Weiking, Knud 635–636, 657 With, Martin Rasmus 270
Weisæth, Gunnar 76 Wohl, Louis de 90, 97
Weishaupt, Adam 179 Woldenberg, Jacob 28–30, 417
Weltheim, Peter von 326–327 Wolf, Ole 470–471, 473
Wendell, Alarik 564 Wolfart, Karl Christian 269–270
Wendt, Christian Wilhelm 266 Wolfe, Lola D. 334
Wennergren, Kristina 633 Worm, Ole 406–407, 433–434, 438
Wenngren, Sven 536 Wrede Sparre, Axel 168
Weor, Samael Aun (Victor Manuel Gómez Wriedt, Etta 511–512
Rodríguez) 224, 600
Wereide, Thorstein 514, 520 Yates, Frances A. 401, 427, 430, 444
Wergeland, Henrik 271 York, Michael 350, 359
Werlauff, E.C. 17
Werner, Amalia Andrea 525 Zander, Gustaf 563–564, 578–580
Westen, Arnoldus von 26 Zeeberg, Peter 409
Westen, Thomas von 418 Zeger, Magdalene 67–68
Westerlund, David 349, 493, 665 Zeger, Thomas 68
Wetterstrand, Otto G. 282, 290, 524 Zeipel, Hugo von (Henry T. Laurency)
Wiberg, Laila 385 612–613, 664–666
Wier, Johannes 240 Zettersten, Axel 583
Wikström, Lester 614 Zetzner, Lazarus 28–29, 418
Wilenius, Ajami 51 Zevi, Sabbatai 221
Zinglersen, Sam 263
Zobel, Henriette 296, 300
Zwelfer, Johan 26, 30, 418, 420
Index ofIndex of subjects
Subjects 689
Index of Subjects
Aarhus Blótlaug 354 Aristotelianism 83–84, 182–184, 186, 403,

adulruna 219, 245 405–407, 410–412, 414, 415, 425, 433–434,
A.E. Carlssons förening 525 436
Aetherius Society 635, 636 ArunA Academy 310
Afspændingspædagogisk Institut, see Skolen Asatro 351, 352–354, 362, 368–373
for Kropsdynamik Asatrofællesskabet i Danmark 353
Agni Vajra Yama Grand Lodge 338–339 Asatrofællesskabet Yggdrasil 353
Alchemy 75, 80, 82, 85, 105, 128, 130, 131, 132, Asatru, see Asatro
133, 138, 140, 141, 148, 163, 171, 173, 178, 183, Asatru Folk Assembly 354
185, 186, 189, 190, 192, 193, 209, 213, 218, 219, Asatrufelleskapet Bifrost 369–371
226, 247, 297, 313, 345, 402, 404, 411, 417, Asatrúsamfundet 352
419, 422, 425–420, 431, 440–443, 449, 486, Åsbacka Center for Shamanic Healing 355
539–540, 546, 601; in Denmark 11–17, in Ashtar Command 655–656, 658, 662
Finland 18–24, in Greenland 30–31, in Association for Professional Astrologers in
Norway 25–32, in Sweden 33–42 Finland, the 100–102
Allan Kardecin opin ystävät ry 503 Astarte Education 310, 516
Allgermanische heidnische Front 615, 621 Astarte Inspiration, see Astarte Education
Almanacs, see astrological calendars Astrological Association of Finland 99–100
Alternativt Nettverk 310–311, 377 astrological calendars 65–66, 69, 70, 78, 80,
AMORC, see Ancient and Mystical Order 84–86, 410, 411
Rosae Crucis (AMORC) Astrologinätverket Prometheus 109
Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis Astrologiska förbundet 108
(AMORC) 344, 445, 446, 448, 449, 453, Astrologskolen 91
454–460 astrology 6, 11, 34, 37, 41, 138, 207–208, 215, 216,
218, 222, 247, 295, 304, 310, 412, 429, 515,
Ängsbacka festival 200, 316, 375
573, 598; contemporary in Denmark
Anholt affair 465
89–97, in Finland 98–103, in Sweden
Anthroposophic banking 46–47, 55
104–112, early modern in Denmark
Anthroposophic curative education 60
64–69, in Norway 70–77, in Sweden
Anthroposophic medicine 50, 60
78–88
Anthroposophy 9, 591–592; in Denmark
Astrology House, the 93
43–48, in Finland 49–52, in Norway
Astrology Museum, the 93
53–57, in Sweden 58–63
Athene Oasis 321
Antroposofisk Selskap 54
Augsburg Confession 402, 432–433, 436
apocalypticism 19, 20, 22, 23, 35, 27, 34, 37,
auras 296, 297, 310
69, 76, 80, 85, 120–121, 123, 129, 138–139, 178, Aurvanga Teosofisk Samfunn 571
241, 295, 391, 398, 411, 415, 421, 422, automatic writing 309, 496, 512, 523, 525
426–429, 439, 440, 442, 481, 483, 604, Azazelin tähti 328, 478, 599
634–635, 645, 647–648
Arcane Magical Order of the Knights of Balt Oasis 334
Shambala 338, 340 baquet 270
Arcane School 609–610 Baravara institute 199
archeus 419 Bergen UFO-forening 650
Argentum Astrum 321, 335 Bergman circle 142–143

690 Index Of Subjects
Biodynamic farming in Denmark 46, in Church Universal and Triumphant 611, see
Finland 52, in Norway 55, in Sweden 60– also Summit Lighthouse
63 clairvoyance 53, 264–266, 269, 271–273,
Black Metal 384, 464, 465, 468, 476, 477, 481, 287–290, 296, 298–299, 303–304, 510, 524,
482–484, 489–492, 616, 621 528, 536, 549, 637
Blindern Åsatrolag 369 clairvoyant, see clairvoyance
blót 352, 353, 356, 369, 370 Clermont system of Freemasonry 147
Bodynamic Institut 200 contactees 295, 632, 634–636, 641–645
Bog og Mystik 294 core shamanism 354
Bohemian Unity of Brethren 391 Cosmic convergence 298–299
Böhme, influence of, see Christian Theosophy Counter-Reformation 431, 432, 436
Borch’s Kollegium 187 Court of Aine 386
Breidablikk-gildet 381 Court of Joy 385–386
bricolage 477–479, 655, 657–658 Craft degrees of Freemasonry 146, 147, 148,
Buddhism 198, 297, 307, 313, 580, 584, 598, 155, 158, 165, 169, 170, 177
625 Crimson Circle 594, 601
Builders of the Adytum 226, 340, 461 crop circles 647
Cyprianus – Netværk for hekse i Danmark
Café Pan 199, 316 357
Café Vega 199
Caliphate OTO 315, 332, 346 Damanhur spiritual community 516
Calvinism 30, 137, 240, 394, 396, 432 Daniel Kirken 296, 591
Cartesianism 37, 84, 241, 414 Danish Association for Psychoanalysis 204
Casa de Dom Inacion ystävät ry 503 Danish Law Code of 1683 232
Dansk Astrologforening 92
Catholicism 33, 128, 132, 137, 236, 240, 391,
Dansk Interplanetarisk Selskab for Contact
398, 402, 432
633
Center for Research on Consciousness and
Dansk Magnetopathisk Forening 267
Anomalous Psychology 290
Danske Frie og Uafhængige Murere 321
Center for Mielikki and Hare, The 361
Danske Spiritisters Kirkesamfund 494–495
Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial
De Fem 526
Intelligence 651
deep ecology 308
Centrum för Jungiansk Psykologi 208
DELU 249, 461
chakras 297, 298, 601, 641
Den Astrologiske Skole 92
channelling 299, 502, 516, 588
Den Danske Frimurerorden 145
chiliasm, see apocalypticism Den Danske Stor-Orient af gamle og antagne
Choronzon Club 340 frie Murere 320
Christian Community in Finland 47, in Den esoteriska vägen 610
Norway 55, in Sweden 58, 60 Den Frie Universelle Kirke 593
Christian Science 510 Den Gyldne Cirkel 588–589
Christian Theosophy 28, 34, 226, 420–421, Den lysende cirkel 587–588
422; in Denmark 113–118, in Finland Den Norske Orden av Rosen og Korset 460
119–126, in Norway 127–136, in Sweden Den nye kirken, see New Church
137–144 Den Spirite Forening Benjamin Franklin
Chtulhu mythos 336–337 509
Church of Satan 464, 469–471, 475, 478, 482, Den spiritistiske forening 508
485, 489 Det Danske Frimurerlaug 145
Church of the Soul 524 Det norske åsatrusamfunn 371–372
Det Norske Spirite Samfund 508, 570 Föreningen Veronica 327, 598
Det norske spiritistiske selskab 513 Formula of Concord 397, 432, 434, 435
Det Ukendtes Boghandel 294 forn sed, see Asatro
Deva Center 199, 317 Forn Siðr 320, 352, 357
Dialogcenteret 463, 465 Forum 2000 201
Disclosure Project 651 Foundation for Shamanic Studies Denmark
Donner Institute and Library 51 355
Dragon Rouge 226, 322, 326, 337, 347–348, Fourth Way 324–325
380, 479 Fraternitas Rosicruciana Antiqua 339
dream interpretation, see oneiromancy Fredagsgruppen 526
Druids of Scania 386 Frederiksberg UFO Studiekreds 299, 637
Freemasonry 7, 41, 141, 213, 223, 226, 242,
East & West 313 245–249, 286–287, 319–321, 443, 451, 467,
Ecclesia Gnostica Apostolica 339 572, 596; in Denmark 145–151, in Finland
Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica 320, 321, 335, 152–161, in Norway 162–167, in Sweden
339 168–181
Ecclesia Gnostica Spiritualis 321, 467 Freya Rose Croix Kapittel 334
Edelweissförbundet 523, 526 Fria Universella Kyrkan i Sverige 607
Ekliptika 92 Fribyggarorden 542
elements, theories of 66, 80–81, 220, 248, Friends of the C.G. Jung Foundation 208
391, 411–412, 414, 420, 426 Frit UFO Studium, see Frederiksberg UFO
end-time prophecies, see apocalypticism Studiekreds
engrams 203
Enlightenment 38, 140, 152, 287, 429, 443, Gaia center 199
534, 541, 628 galdr 329, 370, 376
Era Nova 303 Galenism 12, 68, 184, 403, 405, 406, 407, 408,
Esalen Institute 195, 196 410, 414, 434
Eschatology, see apocalypticism Galleri Medmera 198, 199, 315, 316
Esoteric Order of Dagon 337 Gate of Heaven Chapel 502
Esoteric satanism 466–471, 491 GEEAK-Norge, see Gruppen for Spiritistiske
Exegetiska och Philantropiska sällskapet studier Allan Kardec
286–287, 521, 540–542 gematria 216, 221
Exopolitics Denmark 638–639 Gensidig Terapi 201
Gere and Freke Camp 320
Félag Ásatruarmanna 369 Gestalt Academy in Scandinavia 197
Fellowship of Isis 361 Ghanaian Order of the Rose Cross 460
feng shui 304, 310, 315 Gilalai Institut for Energi og Bevidsthed 297
Finnish Free Wicca Association, see Suomen glocalisation 2, 292, 458
vapaa Wiccayhdyskunta Goddess Movement 375–376
First Spiritual Temple, The 510 Golden Circle 297
Flodberg circle 143 Golden Rosy Cross, see Ordo Aurea & Rosae
Foreningen Forn Sed 371 Crucis
Foreningen Hekse 357 Göteborg GICOFF 660
Föreningen Självhjälp 528 Göteborgs Hedniska Nätverk 387
Föreningen Spiritistisk Mission, see Sällska- Gothicism 218, 220
pet Sanningssökarna Gran Oriente Latinoamericano (GOLa) 181
Foreningen til Undersøgelse af de såkaldte grimoires 216, 244, 248, 249, 251–252, 322,
Spiritistiske Fænomener 494 327, 335
Gruppen för Spiritistiska Studier Allan hypnosis 269, 272, 274–276, 282, 289–290,
Kardec – Sverige 532 524
Gruppen for Spiritistiske studier Allan Kardec
516 I AM Activity, The 610–611, 657
Gudindebevægelsen 356, see also Goddess iatrochemistry 12–14, 26, 30, 67–68, 182,
Movement 185–186, 407–408, 410, 413; see also
Gurdjieff-seura 325 Paracelsianism
I.C. Institute 90–91
Hälsans Hus 314 Ifa religion 339
Hälsofrämjandet 314 Ifologiska Sällskapet 663
Harmoniska societeten 286 IGAP, see International Get Acquainted
Harparkrat Cyber-Temple 344 Program
Harreskovens Blotgilde 354 IGF, see Intergalaktiska Federationen
Healerskolen 297 Ihminen Tunnustajat 597–598
healing 50, 53, 199, 214, 235, 271, 273–281, ILIANA Nordic Academy 310
287–288, 291, 294–296, 298–299, 303–304, Illuminates of Thanateros 337
309–310, 314, 355–356, 363, 370, 376–378, Illuminati 179
449, 503, 507, 561, 578 Illuminism 247, 443
Heathenism, see Asatro Institut for Integreret Psykoterapi og
Hedniska Nätverket Vitka 387 Kybernetisk Psykologi 200
Heimdals Sønner og Døtre 352 Institute for Analytical Psychology 209
Hekselogen Isikaja 356–357 Institutet för hylozoiska studier, see Hylozoics
Helsingin ufoyhdistys 642 Institutet för medicinsk psykologi och
Hermeticism 34, 37, 38, 66, 76, 78, 80, 82, psykoterapi 205
137, 141, 212–213, 233, 234, 391, 392, 397, 411, Intergalaktiska Federationen 663, 664
417, 419, 422, 429, 440, 446; in Denmark International Get Acquainted Program 633
182–188, in Sweden 189–194 International Society of Business Astrologers
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn 93
225–226, 250, 320, 321, 322, 333, 335, 340, International Spiritualist Federation 501
343, 344–346, 461 Interplanetistit ry 642
Hermetic School of Kabbalah, The 225 Isänmaallinen kansanrintama 327, 598
Herrnhutism 140 Islam 221, 625, 627
Hessdalen, see Project Hessdalen
Hiidenkirnu 362 Julia’s Bureau 511, 512
Hilma af Klint Stiftelsen 527 Jumalten Ystävät 361
Hinduism 293, 308, 513, 628 Jungianism 105, 197, 200, 203–211, 225, 297,
Hippocratic medicine 68, 408, 412, 413 347, 383, 384, 594
holism 48–50, 100, 195, 208, 310, 376, 392,
502, 515, 584, 656 Kaariportti kappeliyhdistys ry 502
Holistisk Forbund 311, 376 Kaariporttiystävät 502
Holistiskt Center 315 kabbalah 28, 34, 39, 40, 41, 138, 141, 171, 173,
Human-Etisk Forbund 311, 376 179, 240, 245, 247, 321, 328, 345, 348, 349,
Human Potential Movement 195–202, in 441, 486, 601; in Denmark 212–217, in
Denmark 200–201, in Finland 202, in Sweden 218–227
Norway 201–202, in Sweden 197–200 Kabbalah Centre 225
humanistic psychology 195 Kamadon Academy 224
Humaniversity 200 Kansallis-mytologinen yhdistys 327, 599
Hylozoics 612–613, 664–665 Kapalik rDorje Ordo Magica 339–340
Karatas society 324 286–287, 441–442; in Denmark 228–235, in

karma 61, 105, 255, 307, 449, 450, 504, 599, Finland 236–243, in Sweden 244–253
600, 606, 641 Malmö Astrologiförening 109
Kirkkavihreä ry 362 Malteser-Triangeln, see I AM Activity
Kirurgiska societeten 285 Måndagsgruppen 314
Koijärvi Movement 301 Mandala Senter 201, 310
konventikelplakatet 7, 139–140 Martinism 108, 213, 226, 319, 343, 344, 345,
Kosmos Koloni, see Martinus Centre 460, 461, 467, 524
Krishnamurti Center 608 Martinus Centre 257–259
Krishnamurti Foundation 575 Martinus Cosmology 254–263, 299, 315, 587,
Kristosofia, see Kristosofinen Kirjallisuus- 591
seura Martinus Institute 259–261, 297
Kristosofinen Kirjallisuusseura 597 Matsyananda Jagrthii Tantrik Pracaraka
Krystalsolen 591 Sangha 339
KulturOrgan Skandinaujo 615, 621–622 meditation 71, 72, 73, 211, 264, 255, 258–259,
298, 303, 304, 308–309, 317, 447, 449, 455,
La Couleuvre Noire 337 560, 561, 573, 576, 585, 588, 593, 604, 640
La Sainte Parole 178 mediums, see Spiritualism
Le Droit Humain (LDH) 180 Melchizedek Method 224
Lectorium Rosicrucianum 447, 448–449, Men of Hagal, The 368
450 Merlinorden, see Svenska Misraimförbundet
Left Hand Path 326, 329, 348, 470, 475, Mesmerism 7–8, 443, 510, 540, 541; in
478–479, 491 Denmark 264–268, in Norway 269–284, in
Lehto ry 361 Sweden 285–291
Les Illuminés d’Avignon 176, 178–179 Metatron 7, 20, 222–223, 245–246, 663
Lev i Lyset 591 millenarianism, see apocalypticism
Liberal Catholic Church 296, 557, 573, mnemism 203
592–593, 599–600, 605, 606–607 mindfulness 198, 315, 317
Liberal Katolsk Kirke, see Liberal Catholic Misantropiska Lucifer Orden 226, 490–491
Church Moravian Brothers 421, 422, 536
Liekinpitäjien veljeskunta 600 Mysteria Mystica Maxima 334–335
Life University 199 Mystics of Ostrobothnia 122–124
Lila Aropa, se Agni Vajra Yama Grand Lodge
Living School of Kabbalah 225 Naasseniske Gnostiske Synode 467
Logen den hvide lotus 562 Näckrosen 313
L’Ordre des Élus Coëns 177–178 National Socialism 145, 152, 156, 165, 206,
Lorjanar 356 326–327, 368, 475, 598–599, 616–622, 624
Lotus Circles 582 Naturphilosophie 18, 36, 116, 273, 287–288,
Lucis Trust 609 392
Lutheranism 5, 78, 113–114, 119, 120, 137, 390, Nätverket Forn Sed 383–384
432, 537 Nazism, see National Socialism
necromancy 250
magic, contemporary forms of, see entries on Nekropolis 321
Occultism, Paganism and Satanism Neljäs Tie Suomessa 325
magic, early modern 13, 18, 19, 20, 23, 34, 35, Neo-Luciferian Church 321, 467
37, 40, 41, 131, 138, 171, 173, 175, 177, 179, 182, Neoplatonism 36, 78, 80, 82, 190, 403, 411
185–186, 190, 213, 218–220, 222, 223, 225, Neoshamanism 351, 354–356, 376–378
NETI, see Norwegian Organisation for the Odins Hird 352

study of Extraterrestrial Intelligences Økofeministerne 356
New Age 223; in Denmark 93, 292–300, in oneiromancy 40, 200, 204, 208, 518, 534, 539
Finland 301–306, in Norway 307–312, in Oraansuojelijat 301
Sweden 313–318 Orden des Gold- und Rosenkreutzes 17
New Age fairs 295, 302–304 Ordenen Stjernen i Øst, see Order of the Star
New Church 506, 517, 545 in the East
New Thought 195 Order of Nine Angles 478
Nidhvg Camp 334 Order of the Martinists, see Martinism
No Mind Festival 316 Order of the Star in the East 53, 572,
Nordic Kabbalah 218–220 573–574, 592, 608
Nordisk Paganistforbund 373 Ordo Aurea & Rosae Crucis 320, 440,
Nordisk Spiritualistisk Union 531 441–442, see also Orden des Gold- und
Nordisk Tingsfællig 353 Rosenkreutzes
Nordiska Förbundet 616, 620 Ordo Illuminatorum 485–487
Nordiska Ringen, se Norröna Samfundet Ordo Primæ Lucis 226
Nordiska Yogainstitutet 315 Ordo Templi Orientis 225, 319, 320, 332, 333,
Nordiskt Psykoterapeutiskt Kollegium (NPK) 334–336, 380, 386
204, 206 Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua 320, 333, 337
Nordsolen 615 Ordo Templi Satanas 485–486
Norröna Samfundet 384 Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose Croix 320
Norsk Hedensk Front 621 Ordre Reaux Croix 226, 344, 345, 461
Norsk metapsykisk selskab 282 orgone 201, 279
Norsk Psykodramaskole 201 Orthon Movement 634–636, 657
Norsk selskap for parapsykologisk forskning Osho movement 197–202, 310, 314, 316
515 Osho Risk 201
Norsk Spiritualist Forening 517 Oulun UFO-kerho 643
Norsk Spiritualistisk Trossamfunn 517
Norsk Teosofisk Forbund 571 Paganism 322, 346; in Denmark 350–359, in
Norsk UFO Center 650 Finland 360–366, in Norway 367–379, in
Norwegian Order of Freemasons 162, 165 Sweden 380–389
Norwegian Order of the Star in the East 572 Pagan Federation Sweden 387
Norwegian Organisation for the study of Pajkull affair 36–37
Extraterrestrial Intelligences 651, Pakanatieto ry 363
653–655 Pakanaverkko ry 325, 361, 477–478
Norwegian Psychoanalytic Society 203 pansophy 34, 390–401
Norwegian Satanic Society 484–485 Paracelsianism 6, 12–13, 18, 26, 27, 28, 30, 36,
numerology 40, 106, 110, 132, 138, 224, 304 66, 68, 73–75, 80–81, 114, 130–131, 137, 139,
Nuoret mystikot 600 182, 183, 184, 185, 187, 192, 233, 234, 431, 433,
Nya Kyrkans Bekännare 545, see also New 434, 435–436, 443; in Denmark 402–409,
Church in Finland 410–416, in Norway 417–424, in
Nya Kyrkans eller Det Nya Jerusalems Sweden 425–430
Församling 545, see also New Church Pegasos seura 327, 598
Pekka Ervastin kannatusliitto 597
Occultism 223; in Denmark 319–323, in perennialism 212, 329, 451, 454, 596, 615, 617,
Finland 324–331, in Norway 332–342, in 624–628
Sweden 343–349 P.F.S. Allah-Gehbar 525
odic force 273, 278 Philippists 432–444
philosopher’s stone 14, 20, 26, 30, 36, 40 Rosicrucians, early modern 179, 393; in
Pietism 6–7, 19, 22–23, 31, 36, 39, 113–115, Denmark 431–438, in Sweden 439–444
119–120, 127, 129, 137–140, 142, 435–436 Rosicrucians, contemporary groups in
Platonism 72, 75, 80, 82, 190–191, see also Denmark 445–447, in Finland 448–452,
neo-Platonism in Norway 453–462
Pohjan neito encampment 325 Round Table, The 573
Pohjoismainen pakanaliitto 361 Rudolf Steiner Seminar 46
Pohjolan Valo 598 rune cross 219
Polaris Centret 593 Rune-Gild 328–330
poltergeist phenomena 497, 506 runes 34, 82, 138, 218–219, 226, 251, 303,
postmodernism 94–95, 134, 335, 337, 370, 329–330, 370, 440
378, 458 Ruusu-Risti 449, 450–452, 566, 567, 595–597
prisca theologia 186, 439
Pro Fide et Charitate 542–543 sabateans 221
Project Hessdalen 652–653, 657 Sällskapet för parapsykologisk forskning 531
prophecy, see apocalypticism Sällskapet för pastoralpsykologi 205
Protocols of the Elders of Zion 166 Sällskapet för psykisk forskning 500
pseudo-Satanism 477; see also Reactive Sällskapet Sanningssökarna 528
paradigmatically conform Satanism Samfälligheten för Nordisk Sed 383
Psychogenetics 206 Samfundet Forn Sed 381–383, 388
Psychologische Gesellschaft 509 Sami religion 377–378
Sammenslutningen af Fagastrologer 92
Raëlian movement 636, 661–662 Santería 338
Raja Yoga 581 Sarielgruppen 591
Satanic Order, The 490
Rajatiedon yhteistyöryhmä 301, 302, 643,
Satanic Reds 470
644
Satanisk Forum 470–471
Rationalist Satanism 466–471, 484–485,
Satanism 226, 321, 326–328, 337, 362,
490, 491
598–599, 621, 647; in Denmark 463–473, in
Reactive paradigmatically conform Satanism
Finland 474–480, in Norway 481–488, in
463–466, 491
Sweden 489–493
Reformation (Lutheran) 64, 68, 78, 88, 182,
Satanism panic 463–464, 474, 476, 481–482,
228, 236, 426
491–493, 647
reincarnation 292, 450, 495, 503, 504, 509,
Scandinavia, geographical delimitation of 3–5
599, 600, 641
Scandinavian Center for Shamanic Studies
Riksorganisationen UFO-Sverige 660 355
Rite of Memphis 180, 339 Scanian Church Law 228
Romanticism 117, 127, 131–132, 142, 267, 368, School of Spiritual Science 62
380, 565 Scientology 636
Rönnmåne 386 Scottish degrees of Freemasonry 146, 149,
Rose Cross Order 449 155, 158, 159, 165, 169, 176–177, 180, 443
Rosenkreutzer-Gesellschaft in Deutschland, Sealandian Church Law 228
see Rosicrucian Society in Germany Search for Extraterrestrial Visitation 653
Rosicrucian Fellowship 445–446 seid 370, 381
Rosicrucian Order 449 sephiroth 220, 222, 224, 225, 348
Rosicrucian Order of Alpha+Omega Servants of the Light 346
344–345 SETV, see Search for Extraterrestrial
Rosicrucian Society in Germany 445 Visitation
Shamaaniseura ry 361 Sprengelrecht 164

Shamanistisk Forbund – Danmark 355 St. Andrew’s lodges 164, 169
Shamanselskabet Danmark 355 Star Coloniy 573
Shan the Rising Light 297, 587–588, 589 Stewards’ lodges 159, 164, 170, 175
Share International 604–605 Stiftelsen KOSMOS – Varhem 261
Sindalgruppen 591 Stiftelsen Martinus Institut 261, 315
Sirius Center 589 Stiftelsen Stjärnsund 315
Sirius group, see Jumalten Ystävät Stiftelsen Tibetanens Bokfond 609–610
Sjamanistisk Forbund 377 Strict Observance 147–149, 163, 171–173, 177
Skandinavisk Astrologi Skole 92 Stockholms Spiritualistiska Förening 528,
Skandinavisk UFO Information 632–634, 530, 531
635, 636 Stoicism 84, 134, 403, 411
Skandinaviska Teosofiska Samfundet 579 Strubes boghandel 303
Skevik group 122, 140 Sufism 143, 625–628
Skogsstjärna, see Court of Joy SUFOI, see Skandinavisk UFO Information
Skolen for Kropsdynamik 200 Summit Lighthouse movement 593, 600,
Societas Misraim, see Svenska Misraimför- 603–604, 611–612
bundet Sun-ether 278
Society for Psychical Research 496, 497, Suomen kansanparantajaseura ry 363
498, 508, 511, 513, 524 Suomen kansanuskon yhdistys ry 362
Society of Inner Light 346 Suomen parapsykologinen tutkimusseura ry
Sodalitas Rosæ Crucis 226, 340, 345, 461 501
Solbjerg Blótlaug 354 Suomen Spiritualistinen Seura ry 501
Solens Hjerte 298 Suomen ufotutkijat ry 643, 644, 645
Solis Alati 345, 461 Suomen vapaa Wiccayhdyskunta 361,
Solsökehem kursgård 261 363–365
Solvervcenter 201 Svensk Hednisk Front 621
somnambulism, mesmeric 264–270, Svenska föreningen för klinisk hypnos 290
273–274, 288–289, 507, 521 Svenska föreningen för Klinisk och Experi-
sophianic mysticism 115, 120, 123 mentell Hypnos 290
sorcery, see witchcraft Svenska Frimurare Lägret 180
spagyric medicine, see Paracelsianism Svenska Misraimförbundet 346
Sphinxen 319 Svenska Satanistkyrkan 490
Spiritistisk Broderskab 495 Svenska Spiritualisters Riksförbund 531
Spiritistiska Lånesällskapet 522 Svenska Teosofiska Samfundet 579, 580, 581
Spiritistiska Litteraturföreningen 522, 523 Sveriges Asatrosamfund, see Samfundet Forn
Spiritual Growth associations 501 Sed
Spiritualism 8, 275, 276–278, 282, 296, 324, Sveriges Astrologiska Riksförbund 108
343, 570, 633; in Denmark 494–499, in Sveriges UFO-Förbund 664
Finland 500–505, in Norway 506–520, in Swedenborgianism 7, 20, 21–22, 40–41, 221,
Sweden 521–533 246, 285, 286–287, 293, 500, 506, 507, 510,
Spiritualistiska föreningen 524 517, 521, 638; in Denmark 548, in Finland
Spiritualistiska Riksförbundet 529, 530 548–549, in Norway 549–551, in Sweden
Spiritualistiska Riksförbundet för Andlig 534–548
Utveckling 532 Swedish Grand Chapter 169
Spiritualistiska Sällskapet 529 Swedish Heathen Front 384
Spiritualistkretsen Johannes Budbärare 525 Swedish Rite of Freemasonry 150, 169–170,
Spirituelt Center 590 179
Swedish Vitka Association, see Hedniska Theosophy 8–9, 53, 59, 100, 180, 207, 215,
Nätverket Vitka 254–255, 296, 313, 324, 326, 328, 450–452,
Swedish Wicca Association, see Hedniska 453, 486, 500, 507–510, 526, 528, 633, 642,
Nätverket Vitka 646, 662, 664, 665; in Denmark 554–562,
Symbolist art 132, 549–550 in Finland 563–569, in Norway 570–577, in
synchronicity 208 Sweden 578–586, see also Theosophically
inspired movements
Taivaannaula 362 theurgy 177, 180, 190, 226, 245, 335, 345
Tampereen Ufo ry 643 Traditionalism in Denmark 615–617, in
tarot 11, 207–208, 215–216, 224, 303, 304, 310 Finland 329, in Norway 618–623, in
telekinesis 497 Sweden 624–629
telepathy 497, 510, 634, 660 Tri Orton Sirius 663
Telge Fylking 381 tria prima 75, 412, 420
Temple of Lucifer 468–469 Turun hengentiedon seura 327
Temple of Nox 487 Turun hengentieteen seura 598
Temple of Set 326, 475, 477, 484, 489 Typhonian Order 326, 332, 333, 337, 338
Temple of the Black Light, see Misantropiska
Lucifer Orden UFO-based movements in Denmark
Temple of the Rosy Cross 572 630–639, in Finland 640–649, in Norway
Teosofisk Fellowship 297 650–659, in Sweden 660–666
Teosofisk Forening 562, 589–591 UFO ’54 633
Teosofisk forening Stavanger 576 UFO-Häggvik 660
Teosofisk Netværk 591
UFO-Norway 650, 651–652
Teosofisk Samfunds Dansk-Islandske
Uias Blótlaug 354
Nationalsamfund 554
Unicorn School 91
Teosofiska Kompaniet 585
Unitarian Church 293–294
Teosofiska Samfundet Adyar 584
United Grand Lodge 145
Teosofiska Samfundet i Skandinavien 579
United Lodge of Theosophists 585
Teosofiska Samfundet i Sverige 583–584
Universal Brotherhood 580–583, 585
Teosofiska Samfundet Pasadena 582, see
Urim and Thummim 20, 223, 246
also Universal Brotherhood
utopianism 41, 193, 401, 436, 539, 591, 620
Teosofiska Samfundet Point Loma 583
Utøya massacre 166
Teosofiska Samfundets Skandinaviska Sektion
579, 581
Teosofiska Samfundets Svenska Afdelning Vajra Ordo Templi Orientis 339
579 Vajra Yama Zonule, see Agni Vajra Yama
The Cause, see Martinus Cosmology Grand Lodge
Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth 340 Vækstcentret 200, 297
thelema 325–326, 332, 338, 346–347, 483, Valonkantajat ry 502
484, 486 Vapaa Katolinen Kirkko, see Liberal Catholic
Thelemic Gnostic Church 339 Church
Theosophical Order of Service, The 573, 584 Vattumannen 207, 313
theosophical Satanism 326–328 Vigrid 372
Theosophical Society, see Theosophy Vihreät (Finnish Greens) 301–302
Theosophical summer schools 557, 561, 574 Vintergatan 109
Theosophically inspired movements in VOPUS 600–601
Denmark 587–594, in Finland 595–602,
in Norway 603–605, in Sweden 606–614 Wakka-mysteerikoulu 362
Waldorf education in Denmark 46–47, in Wicca ry 361

Finland 50–51, in Norway 54–55, in Wild Goose Company 298
Sweden 60–63 witchcraft 228–233, 351, 356–357
Wäxthuset, see Galleri Medmera World Drum Project, The 378
Western esotericism, definitions of 1, brief World Goodwill 609
history of in Scandinavia 5–9, in Green- world soul 80–81
land 30–31, in Iceland 260, 369, 455, 554,
607 xenoglossia 272
White Eagle Lodge 593–594, 601
White Lotus lodge, see Logen den hvide lotus Yggdrasil 381
Wicca 356–357, 360, 361, 363–365, 367, Yggdrasil Camp 334
373–375, 377, 378, 380, 385–387, 388, 389, York rite 158
478 Yr Camp 334

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Western Esotericism in Scandinavia

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004325968_001

Brill Esotericism Reference

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/berl

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bogdan, Henrik, editor.

Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Astrology in the Early Modern Period

Astrology in the Contemporary Period

Magic in the Early Modern Period

Rosicrucianism in the Early Modern Period

Rosicrucianism in the Contemporary Period

Theosophically Inspired Movements

Jan-Erik Ebbestad Hansen

Ingvild Sælid Gilhus

Jan Bertil Heilund

Siv Ellen Kraft

Jesper Vaczy Kragh

Tonje Maria Mehren

Benjamin Weber Pedersen

Jesper Aagaard Petersen

Jacob Christiansen Senholt

Sara Møldrup Thejls

Søren Feldtfos Thomsen

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004325968_002

The Selection and Organisation of Entries

Sociologist Roland Robertson (1992) coined the term glocalisation to denote

simply no research on such topics as astrology in contemporary Norway, or the

The Scandinavian Countries

Esotericism in Scandinavia: A Brief Overview

impediments to a spiritual life, could be construed as a major threat by states

Swedenborgian ideas, attempt to restrict the use of mesmerism for purposes of

Theosophy were among the earliest to proliferate, most importantly among

Tycho Brahe’s Laboratory

King Frederik II funded Tycho Brahe’s (1546–1601) research into astronomy

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004325968_003

Paracelsian Chemistry and Medicine

In 1555, the bishop of Sealand, Peder Palladius (1503–1560), referred to alchemy

This also included prescriptions composed by famous alchemists such as

Alchemy in a Royal Setting

apparent success in the laboratory at Rosenborg, and his book of prescriptions

Giuseppe Francesco Borri in Copenhagen

A host of influential members of society, some of them advisors to the king,

Alchemy in the Eighteenth Century

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004325968_004

alchemical writings. An equally vast collection of alchemical literature is rep-

Documentation of alchemical practices can be found in the early eighteenth

The heritage of millenarianism and alchemy was carried on by Nordenskjöld’s

advance to negotiate with the king. A preparatory precaution may be seen in

Alchemy in Radical Pietism

The pietistic culture fostered alchemical modes of thinking as evidenced, for

As we have seen, the presence of alchemy and alchemical modes of thinking in

Akiander, Matthias, Historiska Upplysningar om Religiösa rörelserna i Finland i äldre och

Bodman, Gösta, “August Nordenskjöld, en Gustav III:s alkemist”, Lychnos (1943),

Alchemy and the Shortage of Testimonies

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004325968_005

Alchemy and Apothecaries

particular interest in Paracelsian cosmology and theology, which is how he

Alchemy and Physicians: Olsen, Bonsac, and Kempe

Alchemy and Physicians: Woldenberg, Blumenthal, and Dons

born in Copenhagen in the mid-seventeenth century, was the twelfth stads-

Philosopher’s Stone, and Quercetanus, originally Joseph Duchesne, a Calvinist

i

Elvestrand, Vegard, Generalkonduktør Christopher Hammer (1720–1804) og hans manu

Biodynaaminen yhdistys/Biodynamiska föreningen (The Biodynamic Associa