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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. National mysticism is closely related to Romantic nationalism, 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.

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 (antiquity frenzy) or any national myth defended as "true" by pseudo-scholarly means.

Notable examples

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• Narratives on the origin of the Albanians in Albanian nationalism
• American Manifest Destiny
• Some currents of Armenian nationalism (see Armenia, Subartu and Sumer)
• Belgians (and even Benelux) descended from the Kingdom of the Franks
• 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
• Hoteps among African-Americans
• Claims of interplanetary travel, possible existence of in-vitro fertilization and genetic engineering by ancient Indians (102nd Indian Science Congress)
• Hungarian Holy Crown Doctrine
• Indonesian nationalism
• Irish author George William Russell has been described as a "prophet of mystic nationalism"
• State Shinto in Japan prior to the forced secularization following World War II
• 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 the Medes
• Lithuanian fictional Rome-descended dynasty of Palemonids
• Mormon belief of Israelite descent for Native Americans
• Philippine Destiny
• Polish Sarmatism and later Christ of Europe concept
• Romanian protochronism and Dacianism
• In a 2004 article, David Gelernter described Ronald Reagan as a "mystic nationalist"
• Currents of Russian nationalism
• The Kosovo Myth in Serbian nationalism
• The Spain destiny in Falangism
• Swedish Gothicism
• Currents of Tamil nationalism (as in Devaneya Pavanar)
• The Sun Language Theory and Turkish History Thesis in Pan-Turkism and Turkish nationalism
• Kabbalistic currents in religious Zionism

See also

• National myth
• Christian mysticism
• Religion in national symbols

References

1. Asmuth, Christoph (April 2024). "Revolution and Nation: Johann Gottlieb Fichte's Late Philosophy of Religion". Religions. 15 (4): 426. doi:10.3390/rel15040426. ISSN 2077-1444.
2. Stone, Dan (2017), Pendas, Devin O.; Roseman, Mark; Wetzell, Richard F. (eds.), "Race Science, Race Mysticism, and the Racial State", Beyond the Racial State: Rethinking Nazi Germany, Publications of the German Historical Institute, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 176–196, ISBN 978-1-107-16545-8, retrieved 2024-10-20
3. Stone, Dan (2017), Pendas, Devin O.; Roseman, Mark; Wetzell, Richard F. (eds.), "Race Science, Race Mysticism, and the Racial State", Beyond the Racial State: Rethinking Nazi Germany, Publications of the German Historical Institute, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 176–196, ISBN 978-1-107-16545-8, retrieved 2024-10-20
4. Mosse, G. L. (1961). "The Mystical Origins of National Socialism". Journal of the History of Ideas. 22 (1): 81–96. doi:10.2307/2707875. ISSN 0022-5037. JSTOR 2707875.
5. Todorović, Miloš (January 2019). "Nationalistc Pseudohistory in the Balkans". Skeptic Magazine. Retrieved 18 December 2019.
6. "The Religious Origins of Manifest Destiny, Divining America, TeacherServe©, National Humanities Center". nationalhumanitiescenter.org. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
7. Birkvad, Ida Roland (September 2020). "The Ambivalence of Aryanism: A Genealogical Reading of India-Europe Connection". Millennium: Journal of International Studies. 49 (1): 58–79. doi:10.1177/0305829820971686. ISSN 0305-8298.
8. Vincent, Pheroze L. (5 January 2015). "'Mere study of ancient texts not science'". The Hindu – via www.thehindu.com.
9. Kürti, László (2015-10-13). "Neoshamanism, National Identity and the Holy Crown of Hungary". Journal of Religion in Europe. 8 (2): 235–260. doi:10.1163/18748929-00802001. ISSN 1874-8929.
10. Sahri (2024-12-31). "The role of Tharîqat in strengthening nationalism in Indonesia". Cogent Social Sciences. 10 (1). doi:10.1080/23311886.2024.2347010. ISSN 2331-1886.
11. Tierney, Michael (1937). "A Prophet of Mystic Nationalism: A.E." Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review. 26 (104): 568–580. ISSN 0039-3495. JSTOR 30097473.
12. Susumu, Shimazono; 島茴進; Murphy, Regan E. (2009). "State Shinto in the Lives of the People: The Establishment of Emperor Worship, Modern Nationalism, and Shrine Shinto in Late Meiji". Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. 36 (1): 93–124. ISSN 0304-1042. JSTOR 30233855.
13. Martin van Bruinessen. "The Ethnic Identity of the Kurds in Turkey" (PDF).
14. Coțofană, Alexandra (July 2021). "Contorted Naturalisms: The Concept of Romanian Nationalist Mountains".
15. Gelernter, David (2004-06-21). "What Ronald Reagan Understood". The Weekly Standard. Retrieved 2021-04-01.
16. e.g. Alexander Sokurow, www.faz.net; see also Arkaim.
17. Described as national mysticism in Christian Kind, Der Wille zur Macht -Wie sich Milosevic zum Herrscher über Serbien erhob NZZ Folio 06/99
18. Aytürk, İlker (2004). "Turkish Linguists against the West: The Origins of Linguistic Nationalism in Atatürk's Turkey". Middle Eastern Studies. 40 (6): 1–25. doi:10.1080/0026320042000282856. hdl:11693/49528. ISSN 0026-3206. JSTOR 4289950.
19. Moshe Sharon, Studies in Modern Religions and Religious Movements and the Babi-Baha'i (2004), p. 77.

• National mysticism