A Dangerous Form of Belief: An Analysis of Alfred Rosenberg's Mythus of the Twentieth Century as an Example of a Modern Form of Religion

Abstract

This paper examines the thought of the Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg as it is contained in his book, The Mythus of the Twentieth Century. I examine the spiritualized racism he describes in the Mythus as a distinctly modern form of religion. I do this by analyzing it according to three categories that I believe reflect the form of the modern consciousness: scientific naturalism, the culture of authenticity and self-conscious narrative epistemology. I argue that although the tribalist ground of this religiosity is pre-modern in origin, it is nevertheless modern in its form. Rosenberg articulates and understands his racist religion of the blood in a form that reflects the three categories that I take to be representative of modern consciousness. I conclude with a discussion of how this form of religion or ‘spirituality’ is characteristic of modernity.