The Lightning and the Sun

Softcover book. 195 pages

ISBN: 0-937944-14-9
Stock Number: 0121

In this extraordinary work of mythic vision and poetic force, the author lays out her philosophy of life and history, and her critique of the modern world. This is the greatest and most influential work of a most remarkable woman.

In The Lightning and the Sun, Savitri Devi synthesizes Hitlerism or National Socialism and the Aryan cyclical view of history. She presents her view of historically inevitable cultural decay and rebirth in metaphor: “Lightning” refers to the powerful forces of destruction, while “Sun” refers to thinking and building in accordance with nature's eternal laws. Both are necessary, she says, because to build what is sound, healthy and good, one must first sweep away the rotting debris of the corrupt old order. She argues that the world is now at the end of a cycle of history in which corruption and lies prevail over honor and truth, and that the time is ripe for the storm of violence that will precede the next golden age.

To explain her view, Savitri Devi takes a close look at the lives of three great historical figures: Genghis Khan, a medieval Mongol conqueror; Akhnaton, a pharaoh of ancient Egypt; and Adolf Hitler. Genghis Khan, she contends, was a “Man in Time,” a “Lightning” historical figure of destructive force and power. Akhnaton was a “Man above Time,” a creative, life-affirming “Sun” figure who resisted the process of historical decay, but who also tried to insulate himself from the often sordid realities of the real world.

Adolf Hitler, the author goes on to explain, was a personality of both force and life-affirming idealism, a “Man against time” who exhibited both “Lightning” and “Sun” qualities. He was a rare, perhaps unique combination of popular leader, philosopher, visionary, warrior, and social builder.

Hitler, she contends, fought the forces of decay and degeneracy that prevail in this dark era, a “Kali Yuga,” using sometimes violent methods to build a Golden Age of truth, order and honor. She advances the stunning claim that Adolf Hitler was perhaps an avatar — a human incarnation of the divine.

The author, who wrote under the pen name of Savitri Devi, was Maximiani Portas (1905-1982), a well-educated woman of Greek, English and French background who lived most of her life in India. She was also a passionate crusader for animal welfare and ecological preservation. She wrote eloquently against cruelty to animals, deforestation, soil erosion, overpopulation, and planetary degradation.

She began work on this book in Scotland in 1948, and continued writing it at intervals in Germany. She completed the manuscript in 1956, and in 1958 The Lightning and the Sun was first published in Calcutta (Kolkata), India. It is dedicated “To the god-like Individual of our times; the Man against Time; the greatest European of all times; both Sun and Lightning: Adolf Hitler, as a tribute of unfailing love and loyalty, for ever and ever.”