The Vril Society was a fictitious secret society that is said to have existed in Germany in the early to mid-twentieth century. A series of conspiracy theories and pseudohistorical texts, starting with The Morning of the Magicians (1960), claim that it was involved in the rise of Nazism and used supernatural energies to develop innovative flying machines during the Nazi era or "Reichsflugscheiben".
There is no historical evidence that this was the name of a secret society, nor for the achievements attributed to it; however historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke acknowledged the existence of a small group that actually believed in the so-called vril energy, but he denied it played a significant political role, while Giorgio Galli, although believing the legends surrounding it to be exaggerated, pays close attention to the Vril Society, which he considers historically documented and significant for its occult influences on nazism.
The term Vril was coined by the English writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873) for his novel The Coming Race (1871), and likely derives from the Latin term virilis (manly, powerful). Bulwer-Lytton used the term for a supposed vital energy which grants its users with telepathy, telekinesis, and a number of other abilities.
Background The novel The Coming Race and the term Vril
The word Vril comes from the novel The Coming Race published in 1871 by the English writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873) and was probably derived from the Latin word virilis (manly', 'powerful').Goodrick-Clarke, 2002,p. 113; Goodrick-Clarke bezieht sich auf die Neutrumform virile.Günther Jürgensmeier: Anmerkungen. In: Edward Bulwer-Lytton: Das kommende Geschlecht. dtv, München, 1999, p. 224–250, here: p. 228. In this novel, the narrator encounters a subterranean race of humanoids with batracian partial ancestry, the Vril-Ya, who possess a psychic vital energy called Vril that is far superior to that of the human race. The Vril powers enable them to use telepathy and telekinesisNicholas Goodrick-Clarke: Die okkulten Wurzeln des Nationalsozialismus, marixverlag GmbH 2009. p. 187. and allow them to influence any form of animate or inanimate matter to heal, to resurrect the dead or to destroy. Originally a people who lived on the surface of the earth, the Vril-ya were cut off from the rest of humanity by a natural disaster and moved into an underground cave system where they found a new home. There, in a history marked by wars and social upheaval, they eventually evolved into an egalitarian society practicing eugenics, superior to all other races, through the discovery of a new force of nature - the Vril Force. Through contact with the novel's narrator, the Vril-ya learn about the humans living on the surface of the Earth and question him in detail about human society. The narrator manages to escape from the realm of the Vril-ya and at the end of the novel he warns his readers of the danger that the Vril-ya would pose to humanity if they were ever to return to the surface.
Vril in Theosophy and popular theories
While contemporary critics saw The Coming Race as satire,David Seed: Introduction. In: Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Coming Race. Wesleyan University Press, 2005, p. xiii. other sections of the public regarded it as an occultist roman à clef. In these circles, the view was held that Bulwer-Lytton was a member of the Rosicrucians and that the "Vril" force was an actually existing universal life force. According to this view, the novel was merely a vehicle with which Bulwer-Lytton wanted to communicate secret knowledge to his readers under the guise of anonymity.
Helena Blavatsky and other occult authors adopted the term "Vril" as a synonym for secret natural forces that could only be used by magic.Marco Frenschkowski: Die Geheimbünde. Eine kulturgeschichtliche Analyse. Marixverlag, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-86539-926-7. p. 168–172. In Blavatsky's first work Isis unveiled (1877), Vril was portrayed as a real, independent force.Strube, 2013, p. 65–69.
In her second book The Secret Doctrine in 1888, she described how the inhabitants of Atlantis had used Vril to build colossal structures. After the fall of Atlantis, a small group of surviving priests would have preserved this knowledge and only passed it on to a select few.Goodrick-Clarke, 2004, p. 24–25. This psychic energy should therefore allow the mastery of all of nature. Several books mention a Vril-ya Club founded in London in 1904, which is said to have addressed this issue.David Seed: Introduction. In: Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Coming Race. Wesleyan University Press, 2005, S. xl–xli. Bulwer-Lytton's writings are passed on in the New Thought movement.Strube, 2013, p. 71–74.
It was particularly momentous that the theosophist William Scott-Elliot described the vril in his 1896 pamphlet The Story of Atlantis in connection with airships, which it served as the driving force behind. This characteristic of the vril, already described in The Coming Race, became a main reference for certain developments after World War II due to Scott-Elliot's explicit Atlantis association.Strube, 2013, especially p. 69ff.
The further reception As early as the mid-1890s, new scientific discoveries, such as the discovery of X-rays, led to the widespread view, even among intellectuals, that science could not yet claim to have finally solved the world's mysteries and that invisible natural forces and energies still existed.Strube, 2013, p. 85f. Occult theories were not only cited as counter-concepts to natural science, but common thematic points of contact were also identified.Priska Pytlik: Okkultismus und Moderne. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2005, p. 9–11; vgl. Strube, 2013, p. 86–97. Many occult circles responded to the unease caused by the materialism of scientific and technological modernity by attempting to formulate a doctrine of the control of earthly and cosmic forces that was on a par with the natural sciences.Sabine Doering-Manteuffel: Das Okkulte. Eine Erfolgsgeschichte im Schatten der Aufklärung. Siedler-Verlag, München 2008, p. 183–184.
Around 1900, the fields of occultism and mysticism experienced a great upswing that lasted until the 1930s.Priska Pytlik: Okkultismus und Moderne. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2005, S. 9. As Theosophy was widespread at this time of the revival of occult movements, the "Vril" concept was also familiar in occult circles in Germany. Bulwer-Lytton's primal force appeared above all in contexts involving the creation of a "magic technique", whose designs expressed the desire for a unification of science and religion.Strube, 2013, vor allem p. 85–97, 193–197. A total of four translations of Bulwer-Lytton's book were published in Germany between 1874 and 1924, including one,Edward Bulwer-Lytton: Vril oder einer Menschheit Zukunft. The coming day, Stuttgart 1922. which Anthroposophist Guenther Wachsmuth at the request of Rudolf Steiner.Guenther Wachsmuth: Vorwort des Übersetzers. In: Edward Bulwer-Lytton: Vril oder eine Menschheit der Zukunft. 5. Auflage. Rudolf Geering-Verlag, Dornach 2003, p. 6. The term "Vril" therefore became known to a wider public in Germany until the 1920s. As a result, lay theories flourished, claiming to be able to fill alleged gaps in the sciences, without taking into account that Bulwer-Lytton only wanted to write an entertainment novel in the style of Jules Verne.
Development and content of the legends about the Vril societies Historical templates Before World War II, there was at least one private circle in Berlin whose members were explicitly involved with the "Vril" force. The few sources that prove the existence of this circle of people later became one of the starting points for the creation of the Vril society legend.Strube, 2013, esp. p. 98–143.
The "truth society"
One of the sources of evidence for the existence of such a group is an article by the German rocket pioneer Willy Ley, which he published in 1947 in the American science fiction magazine Astounding Science Fiction.Ley, 1947, p. 90–98. In it, he attempts to explain to his readers why National Socialism was able to fall on fertile ground in Germany and attributes this to the great popularity of irrational beliefs in pre-war Germany. He describes various examples of pseudoscience and esoteric currents and in this context also mentions what he sees as a particularly peculiar group:Goodrick-Clarke, 2004; Baker, 2000.
"The next group was literally based on a novel. This group, which I believe was called the Truth Society and was more or less based in Berlin, devoted their spare time to the search for Vril. Yes, their beliefs were based on Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race. They knew the book was a fabrication, Bulwer-Lytton had used this artifice to tell the truth about this 'force'. Subterranean humanity was nonsense, Vril was not. Possibly it had enabled the British, who guarded it as a state secret, to build their colonial empire. Certainly the Romans possessed it, encased in small metal spheres that protected their homes and were referred to as lares. For reasons I could not see through, the secret of the Vril could be discovered by immersing oneself in contemplating the structure of an apple cut in half. No, I am not joking, this was what I was told with great solemnity and secrecy. Such a group actually existed; it even published the first issue of a magazine in which it proclaimed its credo. (I wished I'd kept some of these things, but as it was, I had enough books to smuggle out)."Ley, 1947, p. 92–93.
"Reich working group 'The coming Germany'" In 1930, two smaller pamphlets entitled Weltdynamismus were publishedReichsarbeitsgemeinschaft „Das kommende Deutschland" (Hrsg.), 1930. and Vril. Die kosmische Urkraft, which were published by an occult circle that called itself the "Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft 'Das kommende Deutschland'" (RAG).Strube, 2013, p. 98–123.
In it, the RAG claimed to have an elaborate technology that was suitable for utilizing the "Vril" force. The structure and functional principle of the machine described and the political program outlined are almost identical in structure and content to a brochure published by two Austrian authors as early as 1928, which propagated a perpetuum mobile that the Austrian Karl Schappeller is said to have invented.F. Wetzel, L. Gföllner: Raumkraft. Ihre Erschließung und Auswertung durch Karl Schappeller. Herold Verlag, München 1928. The RAG plans only differ from this in a few details. Overall, the impression is created that this is an improved version of Schappeller's machine, the function of which is not explained in (pseudo-)physical terms, but in occult terms. In a longer section of one of the texts, the image of an apple cut in half is used as a model for the structure of the earth and its connection with the "space force". This and the contributions by proven Schappeller supporters suggest that it was primarily followers of the Austrian inventor who contributed to the RAG publications.Strube, 2013, p. 109–123.
From another RAG publication, of the Zeitschrift für Weltdynamismus,Otto Wilhelm Barth (Hrsg.), 1930. it becomes clear that RAG was founded in Berlin in 1930 by a certain Johannes Täufer.Zeitschrift für Weltdynamismus, 1930, p. 15. Täufer was also responsible for the brochure "Vril". Die kosmische Urkraft, but nothing more is known about his person. The name is probably a pseudonym,Bahn & Gehring, 1997, p. 91. and it has been suggested that it may have been the publisher Otto Wilhelm Barth, who had published two of the RAG publications. Fritz Klein, a patron of Schappeller whose writings were recommended by RAG, may also have been behind this.Strube, 2013, p. 111–114.
Summary of the research situation