Resources on the Nazis and the Occult The Occult Roots of Nazism: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890-1935 is a book by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke about Nazi occultism and Ariosophy, tracing some of its roots back to Esotericism in Germany and Austria between 1880 and 1945. The foreword is by Rohan Butler, who had written The Roots of National Socialism in the 1930s. The book is based on Goodrick-Clarke’s 1982 Ph.D. thesis The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany 1890-1935: Reactionary political fantasy in relation to social anxiety. This book has been continually in print since its first publication in 1985, and has been translated into twelve languages, including French, Polish, Italian, Russian, Czech, German and Greek.