National mysticism
Form of nationalism which raises the nation to the status of numen or divinity
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
National mysticism (German: Nationalmystik) or mystical nationalism is a form of nationalism that elevates the nation to the status of numen or divinity. Its best-known instance is Germanic mysticism, which gave rise to occultism under the Third Reich. The idea of the nation as a divine entity was presented by Johann Gottlieb Fichte.[1] National mysticism is closely related to Romantic nationalism,[citation needed] but goes beyond the expounding of romantic sentiment, to a mystical veneration of the nation as a transcendent truth. It often intersects with ethnic nationalism by pseudohistorical assertions about the origins of a given ethnicity.[2]
National mysticism is encountered in many forms of nationalism other than Germanic or Nazi mysticism and expresses itself in the use of occult, pseudoscientific, or pseudohistorical beliefs to support nationalistic claims, often involving unrealistic notions of the antiquity of a nation or any national myth defended as "true" by pseudo-scholarly means.[3][4]
Notable examples
- Narratives on the origin of the Albanians in Albanian nationalism[5]
- American Manifest Destiny[6]
- Some currents of Armenian nationalism (see Armenia, Subartu and Sumer)
- Belgians (and even Benelux) descended from the Kingdom of the Franks
- Bosnian pyramid claims in Bosniak nationalism[7]
- British Israelism
- Some branches of revisionist history theories of Bulgarians and Bulgaria (i.e. "Thracomania") and Macedonian nationalist history theories
- Croatian Illyrian movement
- Greek Epsilonism
- The Indigenous Aryans hypothesis in Hindu nationalism[8]
- Hoteps among African-Americans
- Claims of interplanetary travel, possible existence of in-vitro fertilization and genetic engineering by ancient Indians (102nd Indian Science Congress) [9]
- Hungarian Holy Crown Doctrine[10]
- Indonesian nationalism, including misinterpretations of Gunung Padang[11][12]
- Within both a Catholic and a broader Christian setting, many Irish Nationalists such as Pádraig Mac Piarais have historically viewed their movement and nation as being spiritual and mystical. Irish author George William Russell has been described as a "prophet of mystic nationalism"[13]
- State Shinto in Japan prior to the forced secularization following World War II[14]
- Jews as the chosen people in Judaism
- Juche in North Korea and Ilminism in South Korea
- Kurdish nationalists often make the claim that they are the descendants of Hurrians and the Medes[15][16]
- Lithuanian fictional Rome-descended dynasty of Palemonids
- Mormon belief of Israelite descent for Native Americans
- Philippine Destiny and Maharlika Kingdom conspiracy of Ferdinand Marcos[17]
- Polish Sarmatism and later Christ of Europe concept
- Romanian protochronism and Dacianism[18]
- In a 2004 article, David Gelernter described Ronald Reagan as a "mystic nationalist"[19]
- Currents of Russian nationalism[20]
- The Kosovo Myth and Vinča symbols in Serbian nationalism[21][22]
- The Spain destiny in Falangism[citation needed]
- Swedish Gothicism
- Currents of Tamil nationalism (as in Devaneya Pavanar)
- The Sun Language Theory and Turkish History Thesis in Pan-Turkism and Turkish nationalism[23]
- Kabbalistic currents in religious Zionism[24]