Greetings,
One has to be slightly careful as the term cosmotheist originally meant almost the same as pantheist
and so someone with no sense of context might legitimately claim it to be innocent enough. However,
since nobody in the modern world referred to themselves as a cosmotheist before Pierce and nobody
(sensible) who didn't share his intent has since Pierce, I suggest it is fair to assume that either
Paul doesn't have a functioning brain, or he shares the racist, radically violent pre-millenarian
eschatology illuminated in the following article. The bibliography should be sufficient to lead
people with an interest to both primary sources and critiques from which, I'm sure, we can all make
up our own minds.
>From Nova Religio:
PIERCE AND THE COSMOTHEIST WORLDVIEW
The Turner Diaries is the first and better known of two novels written by William Pierce, a figure
generally viewed as an intellectual leader of the American far right. Having sold nearly 200,000
copies,<6> Turner has been remarkably well-received for a book with an obvious fringe theme. The
futuristic story unfolds in the 1990s and recounts the experiences of Earl Turner, a leader of an
underground guerrilla force (the Organization) that engages in a campaign of terrorism against a
Jewish-controlled American government. Turner's group of devoted revolutionaries succeeds in
carrying out a series of sabotage operations, bombings, and assassinations which result in the
occurrence of an all-out race war and the eventual violent dissolution of the central government.
The novel concludes with an apocalyptic vision of the future in which the Organization, having
established a separate 'white territory' in California, initiates a global nuclear war. The nuclear
strikes carry strange symbolic connotations, both for their timing and for their intended
consequences. Undertaken in the late 1990s, the worldwide nuclear apocalypse occurs just prior to
the arrival of the new millennium, the dawn of a pristine era promising glory and fulfillment for
the Organization and its racial kinsmen. Equally chiliastic is the totality of destruction wrought
by the weapons themselves and the metaphorical 'cleansing' effect they seem to possess. By
unleashing the forces of mass destruction against its enemies, the terrorists erase from the face of
the earth the impure 'alien hordes' who have long impeded the evolution of a new species'the
rejuvenated white race.<7>
The millennial subcurrents of Turner convey a deeper message than that which is often associated
with the book. While Pierce intended for this fictional work to promote the ideas of his racialist
organization (the National Alliance) to a wider readership, Turner also reflects the author's
observance of a belief system steeped in conceptions of ultimate things.<8> Strangely, this central
feature of Pierce's worldview has gone essentially unnoticed despite his occasional statements and
writings suggesting his adherence to a divine cosmology.
Pierce's gravitation toward extremism appears to have begun during his days at Oregon State
University in the early 1960s. While employed there as an assistant professor of physics (1962-65),
Pierce became increasingly preoccupied with what he saw as the 'racial erosion' of American
society.<9> Convinced that the university environment fostered a 'politically correct atmosphere'
which prevented an honest dialogue on race from taking place, Pierce gave up on an academic career
and shortly thereafter immersed himself completely in a quest for radical solutions to America's
'race problem.'<10>
Following a short association with George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party (ANP) in Arlington,
Virginia, Pierce continued his work as a racial activist with a number of ANP successor
organizations. By 1974, after having worked in high-ranking positions for a number of groups in the
neo-Nazi orbit, he founded the National Alliance, an Arlington-based group devoted to promoting the
progress of the white race.<11> In 1985, Pierce relocated his organizational headquarters to a
300-acre property in a remote portion of southeastern West Virginia. At this site, Pierce and a few
members of his group run the organization's day-to-day operations, which involve the printing and
distribution of racial separatist propaganda through the National Alliance's literature-selling arm,
National Vanguard Books.
>From the time of its inception, the National Alliance has separated itself from other neo-Nazi
groups by its adoption of a distinctive and highly literate organizational rhetoric and a guiding
philosophy that invokes sacred themes. Although the disparate ranks of the American neo-Nazi circle
have commonly shared ideals loosely based on 'Blood and Soil' mythology and Nordic lore, this
general movement has tended to be more ideological than spiritual. In marked contrast to these
'Hitler cults' which emerged in the wake of the post-Rockwell Nazi movement, Pierce's National
Alliance sought to establish itself as a community of the Elect galvanized by a common belief in
racial destiny and the Aryan path to godhood.
In order to understand Pierce's millenarian worldview, it is necessary briefly to explore the
racially rooted theology upon which his organization is based. This philosophy, which Pierce calls
'Cosmotheism,' resonates in his literary work, particularly in Turner, and provides adherents with a
totalistic logic explaining the order of the universe.<12> Blending Darwinian evolutionary theory
with ideas from ancient Teutonic legend, Cosmotheism synthesizes the scientific with the mystical in
its construction of reality. While the empirical and otherworldly components of this belief system
might initially appear incompatible, in a strange sense each reinforces the other in an
all-encompassing concept for human evolutionary development.<13>
Pierce perceives the world in terms of separate, biologically differentiated evolutions of racial
groups. Reflecting strong traces of the theories of scientific racism he read while at Oregon State
University,<14> Pierce's conception of racial progress would seem, at first glance, to be merely an
extension of the early twentieth century's 'racial anthropology' literature. Here it is important to
see that Pierce's system of thought diverges significantly from the purely scientific structure
adopted by early racial theorists. In the Cosmotheist thoughtworld, evolution takes on a spiritual
meaning as mankind follows predetermined courses of racial destiny. Pierce has described this
process as an 'upward path' with its end point leading to the goal of 'oneness with the
Creator.'<15> This ultimate Cosmotheist objective, the white race's realization of godhood, is
viewed as a genetically wired certainty. According to Pierce, who has lectured on the subject to
small gatherings of National Alliance members, the race's 'divine spark' has propelled it to
greatness throughout history and separates it from all other forms of life.<16>
The concept of a unique Aryan path to godhood has parallels with the 'secret wisdom' beliefs found
in ancient Gnosticism. Although lacking the racial mystique that would come to preoccupy some of its
distant offshoots, Gnosticism established an early foundation for alternative expressions of
salvationism. Embracing a mysterious and syncretic belief system borrowed from Platonism, oriental
religions, Judaism, and Christianity, Gnosticism flourished in the first few centuries c.e. in the
Mediterranean Basin as a counter religious movement to orthodox Christianity.<17> The importance of
Gnosticism as a forebearer of other elite, alternative theological systems is found in its dualistic
interpretation of reality. Perceiving in themselves a divine spark that differentiated those within
the sect from outsiders, the early Gnostics held that the realization of spiritual unity with God
could be achieved through secret revelation and initiation into the group's esoteric tradition.<18>
This knowledge, which was deemed unavailable to group outsiders, permitted the 'release' of one's
godly potential, and thus facilitated the 'insider's' personal path to divinity.
The Gnostic gravitation toward dualism and group secrecy was continued by a host of esoteric orders
in the Western world. In particular, notions of occult revelations resonated with many of the secret
societies which drew their inspiration from the Gnostic worldview. It is interesting to note that
the uniquely German permutations of Gnostic belief, which in the nineteenth century combined Volkish
nationalism with the mysticism of legendary secret societies, became the prime expositors of a
'revolutionary gnosis' that possessed both a racial basis and a political agenda.<19> The best-known
of these relatively obscure ideas was Ariosophy, an Aryan variant of the era's widely popular
Theosophy. Blending German nationalistic sentiments, occultism, and Teutonic belief, Ariosophy
emerged as a 'crisis cult' in response to its adherents' sense of dislocation within late
nineteenth-century German society and the disunified nature of the German state.<20>
Pierce has consistently displayed a fascination with various figures who are commonly associated
with the Western esoteric tradition. Throughout his writing career, Pierce has admired the
metaphysical ideas of mystical philosophers such as Meister Eckhart (1260-1327 c.e.) and Giordano
Bruno (1548-1600 c.e.).<21> Scholars have generally located Eckhart and Bruno in the lineage of
esotericists whose brand of mysticism incorporated Gnostic and Neoplationist themes.<22> For Pierce,
these theological scholars provided their race with a glimpse of the Divine in man's soul. Inspired
by similar views about the innate urge to achieve union with a higher nature, Eckhart and Bruno
observed cosmologies which, while subtly differentiated, stressed the possibility of the soul's
perfectibility.<23> It was, in fact, the mystical reference to this divine spark, a point of central
important in Eckhart's philosophy,<24> which Pierce integrated into his own racially based
cosmology. In a 1978 essay entitled 'The Faustian Spirit,' Pierce employs the Gnostic understanding
of the soul's upward path in his racially deterministic framework of thought:
The race which is the bearer of this spirit must, therefore, be doubly careful that its genetic
basis is preserved'that it does not become a race solely of lawyers, clerks, laborers, and merchants
but remains a race also of philosophers, explorers, poets, and inventors: of seekers of ultimate
knowledge, of strivers toward the perfection which is Godhood.<25>
Cosmotheism appears to be philosophically related to this ancient esoteric tradition in some
important ways. First, Cosmotheism can be viewed as an extension of the same type of protest
subculture which organized around groups in the Gnostic constellation. Galvanized by the feeling
that society was flawed and on the wrong course of development, these groups turned inward, away
from the surrounding social system, and sought security in a group-specific, utopian image of the
world. Second, despite the chronological gap between the emergence of the Gnostic outlook and that
of Cosmotheism, there are similarities in their respective uses of dualism. Employed by each as a
means to divide society into camps comprised of the 'enlightened' and the 'unknowing,' these
philosophies provide believers with a neat, systematized way of differentiating between insider and
outsider. Such an outlook provides the group with a sense of unity and a means to coalesce around
shared ideals which are held to be superior to those of the outside culture.<26>
DESTRUCTION AND REBIRTH
Cosmotheism is partly differentiated from what some scholars of radical mass movements have termed
the 'reconstructed tradition,' which defines the outlook of groups seeking to return society to a
past golden age.<27> Finding the dominant culture unsatisfying and threatening, separatist movements
of this type are mobilized around inspirational themes taken from a putatively untarnished past.
Despite sharing this tendency to look backward through history'particularly to Viking lore and
classical antiquity'for models of an earlier, glorified existence, Cosmotheism possesses an
inherently forward-looking character which extends from its emphasis on evolutionary development. In
this respect, the Cosmotheist vision for the future is presented as a linear path of racial
progress, with each forward step taking the race closer to the threshold of divinity. Whereas other
factions in the radical right constellation (such as the Christian Identity fold and the various
Klan organizations) perceive in bygone eras a purity of life to which they long to return,<28> the
National Alliance uses utopian imagery drawn from both the past and the future. It is the more
forward-looking component of Pierce's philosophy which carries revolutionary implications.
Like all millennial beliefs, Cosmotheism is a salvific philosophy that anticipates the dissolution
of an existing world order and the eventual realization of a new and perfect society. Its bio-racial
underpinnings reflect a deterministic view of history in which the anticipated age of ultimate
renewal is arrived at through evolutionary means. This process of 'racial advancement,' as Pierce
sees it, is preordained, and thus part of a cosmic plan for universal order.<29> The connotations of
logical progress in Cosmotheism, albeit disturbing, convey optimism about the future, an attitude
which is linked to an underlying faith in racial destiny. But unlike those 'progressive'
millenarians whose beliefs are anchored in a view of history defined by constant improvement,<30>
Pierce and his adherents envision the secular world in an eroded and decaying condition.
The conviction that the entire social system is headed for destruction is actually a key source of
faith for millenarians whose dreams of renewal are contingent upon the realization of a sweeping
disaster period. This system of thought, which religion scholar Catherine Wessinger has termed
'catastrophic millennialism,' is predicated upon a group's belief that the imminent destruction of
the existing order must first take place before the perfect age, the new millennium, is brought
about.<31> From the perspective of the believer, the catastrophe initiates the process whereby the
forces of total worldly transformation are set in motion. In this vision, hope for the future is
inextricably tied to the catastrophic event which alone has the power to recast an impure
environment in a more hallowed form.
The redemptive quality of the apocalyptic vision for world transformation is understood in two ways
by catastrophic millenarians. At one level, the disaster completely eradicates the past, giving
birth to the new order in which life starts in a pristine form. The second level at which redemption
occurs takes place within the community, which sees itself as benefiting from the destruction of the
old way of life. As Norman Cohn observed, for revolutionary chiliasts the meaning of the Heavenly
City on earth is inherently exclusive. Salvation is reserved for the 'chosen people' who will reap
the reward for their faith when history is brought to its consummation.<32>
Catastrophic millennial theory provides us with a starting point from which to gauge the connection
between disaster and salvation, but it fails to elaborate on an important aspect of this nexus. What
is left undeveloped is the notion that disaster assumes a role in the renewal process that carries
with it a faith-sustaining power. When considered from this vantage point, catastrophic events
designed to bring down the decayed order of things perform a critical function in the totalistic
mindset of those engaged in 'the final struggle.' This function, as Michael Barkun notes, is
illusory and gives catastrophically inclined millenarians the appearance that the ultimate dream for
change is unfolding.<33> Thus, for the believer, the disaster may be seen to be as much an act of
self-confirmation, or reassurance, as it is part of the transformative cycle. At this point we begin
to encounter the strong possibility that disaster is itself part of the millennial dream and not
merely a precursor to it or a separate time on the millennial clock. The result is that whereas
disaster and the era of perfection might, in other situations, be viewed as distinct epochs of
history, here they are joined together in a synthesis of revolutionary change.
Pierce's conception of total change from the degraded state of present affairs to a sublime future
has as its major obstacle the societal institutions which are believed to be responsible for the
decline of white America. Presented in National Alliance literature in pathological terms, the
government, courts, media, universities, and all other vestiges of the modern democratic social
system are considered sick and inherently corrupted.<34> Comprising the core of this societal power
structure are the same groups Pierce portrayed in Turner as 'unassimiliable,' especially Jews and
non-whites.<35> These groups, along with the government and its supporters, are seen as the
promoters of a subversive 'diversity' agenda which has as its goal the disintegration of white
culture. There is, however, a strong hint of hopefulness to be found in the National Alliance's
appraisal of America's diseased condition. As Pierce points out in a recent article he wrote
outlining the future strategy of his organization, the nation's advanced state of social decay
represents the beginning of the end for the old Order:
The situation in America is no longer quasi-static, as it was during most of the 1970s and 1980s.
During that earlier period the Jewish media were able to keep nearly all of the public hypnotized,
to provide a false reality for them in the place of the real world around them. . . . Now the
process of decay and disintegration has accelerated; now the hypnosis is beginning to wear off as
reality becomes too harsh to ignore. This process will continue to accelerate in the future.<36>
TAPPING INTO THE MILLENNIAL OUTLOOK
The theme of 'rebirth' undergrids all expressions of millennialism; but when catastrophe is eagerly
anticipated as a precondition for earthly bliss, critical questions should be asked about the
implications of the group's beliefs. Above all, it is necessary to consider whether the group's
vision of disaster promotes action on the part of adherents to 'trigger' the events leading to the
perfect age. It is this specific behavior, the act of forcing the millennium through human effort,
which may place the group on a collision course with society. The distinction between the passive
expectation and active promotion of catastrophe is important because it effectively separates
disaster-prone millennialism into either nonviolent or potentially violent types. When we turn our
attention to the Cosmotheist impulse which informs Pierce's literary work, it becomes clear that the
doctrine legitimizes violence as a tool for implementing its program for change.
The Turner Diaries' fictionalized route to racial Armageddon provides us with a glimpse of
Cosmotheism's track of logic. Presented in the novel in its most highly distilled form, the
philosophy mandates the complete eradication of enemies who are portrayed as subhuman. Only by
purging the world of their degenerate and impure society can a new system'an Aryan order of life'be
created. The pure vs. impure dynamic in Turner does not lend itself to strategies of change which
are less than total. This interpretive framework is ultimately reductionistic. Absolute distinctions
drawn between 'the righteous' and 'the alien' take the form of a timeless truth and propel the
believer on a course running counter to the interests and values of the larger society.
With these insights in mind, we can begin to see how Pierce's Cosmotheist beliefs, if followed to
their logical ends, may activate the revolutionary forces needed to overthrow the opposing power
structure. As the designs for an Aryan society are increasingly thwarted by the despised regime,
some members of the faith may take it upon themselves to 'make history.' Although Pierce has been
quick to dismiss as 'impulsive and overzealous' the perpetrators of the Oklahoma City bombing,<37>
his early writings reveal an entirely different perspective on the use of terrorism to further
organizational goals. In a 1971 essay, Pierce minces no words about the resolve necessary to do
battle with the 'system':
We do not need to reason with the monster; we need to put a bullet into its brain and hammer a stake
through its heart. If that means blood and chaos and battling the alien enemy from house to house in
burning cities throughout our land'then, by God, it is better that we get on with it now than
later.<38>
While Turner's call for anti-government mobilization appears in the shape of a religious imperative,
the novel's millennial hopes depend on the psychology of its readers. Touching upon the same general
themes normally found in the discourse of the far right, particularly alienation and nativism,
Turner's threatening motif is peculiarly well-suited to appeal to a Manichaean mindset. In this
sense, Pierce's work does not so much reorient the beliefs of readers, but rather taps into the
psychological outlook of those already inclined to see the world in apocalyptic and conspiratorial
terms.<39> Here, Turner's versatility as an instigator for anti-system activism merits special
attention. Depending upon the convictions of the reader, the 'enemy' may assume a number of forms,
all of which become psychologically reconstituted as part of the larger New World Order. This does
not suggest, however, that all those finding confirmation of their beliefs in Turner are blind to
its sanction for religious warfare. One case, of course, stands out. Robert Mathews' close
association with William Pierce, described by some as a student-mentor relationship,<40> points to
the probability that he was a Cosmotheist believer.41
It is likely that the evolutionary basis of Pierce's syncretic Aryan theology lacks the explosive
dynamism required to mobilize legions of religiously inspired terrorists. But, when dealing with
issues of faith, the numerical size of an extremist millenarian movement may have little bearing on
its ability to conduct sacred warfare. Visualizing themselves as participants in a cosmic-level
battle with the forces of evil, religious terrorists are moved by a desire to reshape the existing
order in accordance with the divine will. This source of inspiration is fueled by the group's
profound sense of alienation and a certainty that its way of life is imperiled.<42>
Pierce's 1989 novel, Hunter, may provide us with some perspective on the author's maturation as a
revolutionary prophet. Eschewing the fanciful strategic guerrilla war theme laid out in Turner for a
more realistic plot,<43> Pierce focuses on the activities of a lone terrorist (the fictional Oscar
Yeager) in his second novel. Yeager, a self-employed engineer and contractor in the Washington, D.C.
area, comes to the realization that his one-man attempts at striking out against the government by
random assassinations will not bring about its demise. However, the central character comes to see
that by creating an environment in which such acts trigger exponentially greater effects, the
isolated terrorist incident can be useful as a revolutionary tactic. Joining forces with the
National League, a small band of like-minded revolutionaries, Yeager and the group undertake a
calculated campaign aimed at inciting a nationwide backlash against Jews. Using a media propaganda
strategy to win the allegiance of disaffected whites opposing the Jewish domination of America, the
National League succeeds in fomenting a state of racial discord across the country. As tensions
rise, American cities are reduced to combat zones where armed conflicts take place between
minorities and whites. Like Turner, the novel ends on an apocalyptic note as America dissolves along
racial lines and an all-out race war seems an inevitability.<44>
Pierce's apparent advocacy of a new strategy for insurrection, that of the small
propaganda-utilizing cadre, would seem tailor-made for contemporary times when the far right's
activities are being increasingly scrutinized by law enforcement organizations. Prefiguring the
general strategy of 'leaderless resistance' outlined in 1992 by Christian Identity figure Louis
Beam,<45> the protagonists of Hunter make use of the media to mobilize individuals or small groups
in support of a racial cause. Such a plan improved upon the dated tactics of Turner for two reasons:
leaderless terrorists are difficult for the state to monitor and control, and, lacking central
direction, the 'cells' or individuals engaging in illegal activity provide the inciting policy with
a high degree of plausible deniability from the actor's endeavors.
CONCLUSION
Although Pierce's perception of the best-suited strategy for revolutionary violence may have changed
from the time he wrote Turner, the same Cosmotheist ideals still influence his work. While the
golden age vision in Hunter is presented in a less obvious manner than in the clearly millennial
context of Turner, a Cosmotheist impulse also provides Hunter's protagonists with their sense of
racial duty. At a primordial level of understanding, the 'heroes' in Hunter know that an integrated,
multi-racial world is unnatural. By instigating racial unrest, the major characters in the novel set
the stage for the unfolding forces of racial evolution to purge the country of its alien presence.
Pierce is not alone in his role as the far right's expositor of millennial violence. In recent days,
other writers on America's rightward fringe have succeeded in attracting a limited following of
sympathizers and in captivating the attention of media, law enforcement, and various interest
groups. Of these, two stand out. The first is Richard Kelly Hoskins, whose 1990 book, Vigilantes of
Christendom, tells the story of the Phineas Priesthood. Although Hoskins has been writing in the
racialist genre since the late 1950s, his Vigilantes of Christendom appears to have gained the
reclusive author a significant measure of recent notoriety. Tracing the existence of a divinely
ordained group of zealots from the biblical stories of Phineas, Hoskins maintains that individuals
from this special priesthood have appeared throughout history whenever God's Law was broken.<46>
According to Hoskins, the Phineans act as agents of God's wrath and, in accordance with their holy
duty, 'execute judgment' against those held responsible for the corruption of Christian society.<47>
Hoskins, whose theological justifications for violence seem based in a Christian Identity worldview,
has either intentionally or unintentionally had his beliefs operationalized. Not unlike Turner,
which has at least once incited a receptive mind to violence, Vigilantes of Christendom has already
motivated a handful of sympathizers to place themselves in the self-perceived role of the Phineas
Priest.<48>
Less well-known than Hoskins' Vigilantes of Christendom is another violent work of growing fringe
popularity with roots in the Odinist tradition. Written under the pen name O.T. Gunnarsson, the
anonymous 1993 novel Hear the Cradle Song mimics Turner's race war theme, but sets the futuristic
action in a localized area (southern California) and substitutes an Odinist cosmology for the
implicit Cosmotheism in Pierce's first book, after which Gunnarsson's saga is clearly modeled. The
novel's protagonists, a contingent of Odinists who heroically defend a white community in coastal
southern California against invasion by Hispanic and Chinese armies, rely on their bravery and
cunning to defeat the numerically superior racial outsiders in an America torn apart by economic
turmoil and social chaos. The millennial subcurrents of Hear the Cradle Song surface conspicuously
at the novel's conclusion when, following the final victory over the invaders, the white community
purges itself of troublesome Jews and homosexuals and begins a new future as a racially pure,
orderly utopia.<49> Gunnarsson's novel is a modern-day extension of the Golden Age ideology embraced
by the youthful Odinist subculture of Weimar-era Germany. Turning to the legendary Teutonic gods for
inspiration during the darkest days of the interwar period, disillusioned German youth revived pagan
deities as a means of reconstructing a time of imagined greatness.<50>
Both Vigilantes of Christendom and Hear the Cradle Song cater to an audience attracted to a
reconstructed vision of a fanciful past and in search of a decisive plan for instituting order in a
world perceived as having gone awry. However, despite their innate differences with the
predominantly forward-looking nature of Cosmotheism, all share a common trait: each emphasize the
use of 'purifying' violence enmeshed within a philosophy of the divine. That such works are gaining
increasing attention in the far right subculture at this moment in time may not be surprising.
Countercultural ideas of an intellectual and quasi-religious character have flourished during
previous fin de si'cle periods, and the arrival of the new millennium conveys images of a historical
slate wiped clean of the past.<51> At a sociopsychological level, this turn of the cosmic clock has
contributed to a pervasive mood of anticipation. For millennialists within this protest movement,
however, the hopes associated with the new dawn of time involve the utter destruction of the old
order of things before utopia can be achieved. It is this concept'the notion of eradicating a
corrupted and decayed realm of life'which carries serious implications for public order. The
potential consequences of such outbreaks of catastrophic millennial activism oblige scholars and
police agencies to expand their efforts at understanding the beliefs of those willing to use
violence to usher in the perfect age.
ENDNOTES
<1> Mark Hamm, Apocalypse in Oklahoma: Waco and Ruby Ridge Revisited (Boston: Northeastern
University Press, 1997), 144-45.
<2> Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt, The Silent Brotherhood: Inside America's Racist Underground (New
York: Free Press, 1989), 140.
<3> Michael Barkun, Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement,
rev. ed. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 11.
<4> Flynn and Gerhardt, 121-22.
<5> 'Links of Anti-Semitic Bank Provokes 6-State Parley,' New York Times, 27 December 1984, B7.
<6> This figure is cited on the inside cover of The Turner Diaries (Hillsboro, West Virginia:
National Vanguard Books, 1978). Scholars have generally accepted this sales figure as accurate. See,
for example, Robert S. Robins and Jerrold M. Post, Political Paranoia: The Psychopolitics of Hatred
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 206.
<7> Ibid., 210.
<8> I base this impression upon my personal interview with William Pierce conducted at his West
Virginia Cosmotheist Community on 5 January 1993. This interview lasted approximately 90 minutes.
Pierce proved willing to answer all of my questions concerning Cosmotheism, his writing career, and
his views on the current social and political condition of America. However, he refused to divulge
any information regarding the numerical size of the National Alliance.
<9> Ibid.
<10> Ibid.
<11> William Pierce, Human Dignity: A Racial Ethic (Hillsboro, West Virginia: National Vanguard
Books, 1978). This is a recorded speech given by Pierce at Arlington, Virginia before a small
audience of National Alliance members.
<12> While Cosmotheist beliefs are most clearly evident in Pierce's first novel, the same conception
of ultimate truth also informs his second novel, Hunter (Hillsboro, West Virginia: National Vanguard
Books, 1989). Pierce has been a relatively prolific writer. In addition to his novels, he has
written many editorials and essays for the publications with which he has been associated over the
years. For a good understanding of the Cosmotheistic impulses which move Pierce, see his 'The
Radicalizing of an American,' in The Best of Attack! and National Vanguard Tabloid (Hillsboro, WV:
National Vanguard Books, 1989), 124-26. The article is one of many written by Pierce found in this
compendium of essays marketed by National Vanguard Books.
<13> See Brad Whitsel, 'Aryan Visions for the Future in the West Virginia Mountains,' Terrorism and
Political Violence 7, no. 4 (1995): 129.
<14> Pierce, interview with author.
<15> Ibid.
<16> Ibid.
<17> John Saliba, Understanding New Religious Movements (Grand Rapids, MI: William Eerdman
Publishing Co., 1985), 39.
<18> Ibid., 39.
<19> Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on
Nazi Ideology (New York: New York University Press, 1992), 31.
<20> Ibid., 29.
<21> William Pierce, Cosmotheism: Wave of the Future, audiotape of lecture by William Pierce at
Arlington, Virginia (Hillsboro, WV: National Vanguard Books, 1977). In this address, Pierce pays
tribute to Meister Eckhart for his visionary ideas about human perfectibility. Also see William
Pierce, 'Giordano Bruno: Visionary and Martyr,' in The Best of Attack! and National Vanguard
Tabloid, 165.
<22> Emily Sellon and Ren'e Weber, 'Theosophy and the Theosophical Society,' Modern Esoteric
Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, eds. Antoine Faivre and Jacob
Needleman (New York, NY: Crossroad, 1992), 311.
<23> Antoine Faivre, 'Ancient and Medieval Sources of Modern Esoteric Movements,' in Modern Esoteric
Spirituality, eds. Faivre and Needleman, 7.
<24> Oliver Davies, ed., The Rhineland Mystics: Writings of Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, and
Jan van Ruusbroec and Selections from the 'Theologica Germanica' and the 'Book of Spiritual Poverty'
(New York: Crossroad, 1980), 30-34.
<25> William Pierce, 'The Faustian Spirit,' in The Best of Attack! and National Vanguard Tabloid,
145.
<26> Philip J. Lee, Against the Protestant Gnostics (London: Oxford University Press, 1987), 33.
<27> Jeffrey Kaplan, 'Right Wing Violence in North America,' Terrorism and Political Violence 7, no.
1 (1995): 57-58.
<28> Michael Barkun, 'Religion and Violence in the Christian Identity Movement' (paper presented at
the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., 3 September
1993).
<29> Pierce, Cosmotheism.
<30> For an understanding of the distinctions between catastrophic and progressive millennial
thought, see Catherine Wessinger, 'Millennialism With and Without the Mayhem,' in Millennium,
Messiahs, and Mayhem: Contemporary Apocalyptic Movements, eds. Thomas Robbins and Susan J. Palmer
(New York: Routledge, 1997), 49-51.
<31> Ibid.
<32> Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (New York: Harper and Row, 1961), 308.
<33> Michael Barkun, Disaster and the Millennium (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), 210.
<34> What is the National Alliance?: Ideology and Program of the National Alliance (Hillsboro, WV:
National Vanguard Books, 1993). This pamphlet describes the beliefs of National Alliance members.
<35> It should be noted that in The Turner Diaries other groups, including feminists, liberal
Christians, and conservatives, are also viewed as 'obstacles' to the goals of the Organization.
<36> What is the National Alliance?, 6.
<37> William Pierce, 'OKC Bombing and America's Future' (address given 29 April 1995 on the radio
program American Dissident Voices). This is a weekly, short-wave program broadcasted from WRNO
Radio, New Orleans.
<38> William Pierce, 'Why Revolution?,' in The Best of Attack! and National Vanguard Tabloid, 9.
<39> Michael Barkun, 'Religion, Militias, and Oklahoma City: The Mind of Conspiratorialists,'
Terrorism and Political Violence 8, no. 1 (1996): 59.
<40> Flynn and Gerhardt, 271.
<41> Ibid., 96. It is also known that Mathews studied Odinism. In some respects, Odinism and
Cosmotheism are quite similar. However, as a reconstructed belief, Odinism lacks the
forward-looking, evolutionary character of Cosmotheism.
<42> Bruce Hoffman, 'Holy Terror: The Implications of Terrorism Motivated by a Religious
Imperative,' Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 18 (1996): 273.
<43> Pierce, interview with author.
<44> William Pierce [Andrew MacDonald, pseud.], Hunter (Hillsboro, WV: National Vanguard Books,
1989), 259.
<45> Barkun, Religion and The Racist Right, 280. It bears attention that Pierce's new strategy for
civil insurrection, as laid out in Hunter, preceded Beam's 1992 essay 'Leaderless Resistance,' which
was included in the program of Rev. Pete Peters' Estes Park Conference of the same year.
<46> Richard Kelly Hoskins, Vigilantes of Christendom (Lynchburg, VA: The Virginia Publishing
Company, 1990), 23. The tale of Phineas is taken from Psalms 106: 'Then stood up Phineas, and
executed judgment, and so the plague was stayed.'
<47> Ibid., 26.
<48> 'Possible Lead in Bomb Blast at Olympics,' New York Times, 27 January 1997, A-3. Federal law
enforcement officials reported that three men with ties to the Phineas Priesthood were considered
suspects in the Olympic Park Bombing.
<49> O.T. Gunnarsson, Hear the Cradle Song (self-published, 1993). Marketed by the Institute for
Historical Review, Newport Beach, CA.
<50> Jeffrey Kaplan, Radical Religion in America: Millennarian Movements from the Far Right to the
Children of Noah (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1997), 15.
<51> Walter Laqueur, 'Once More with Feeling,' Society 33, no. 1 (Nov./Dec. 1995): 16.
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