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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Savitri Devi's masterpiece mutilated, her readers robbed,
By ninthavatar "ninthavatar" (Berkeley, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The lightning and the sun (Paperback)
If this were actually Savitri Devi's THE LIGHTNING AND THE SUN, it would be worth a whole galaxy of stars. But this is a "condensation" of L&S by William L. Pierce, author of THE TURNER DIARIES among other works. Pierce was an intelligent and well-meaning editor, but he removed about two-thirds of the original edition, omitting everything he did not like or understand.
To add insult to injury, the book is being sold on Amazon Marketplace at vastly inflated prices while it is still in print, in plentiful supply, at a mere $12.95 from the publisher, National Vanguard Books. Do a web search. That said, even in mutilated form, THE LIGHTNING AND THE SUN is one of the most remarkable books you will ever read. As R.G. Fowler, the Archivist of the Savitri Devi Archive put it, L&S is "absolutely unbelievable and absolutely compelling at the same time." In it, Savitri Devi tries to lay the foundations for a new religion that reveres Adolf Hitler as an avatar (incarnation) of the Hindu god Vishnu, the sustainer of order. Along the way, she presents overviews of Hindu cyclical cosmology and philosophy of history, which is a philosophy of decline, not progress, beginning with a Golden Age and then declining through two more ages to the fourth age, the present Dark Age (Kali Yuga), after which a new Golden Age will dawn and a new cycle of decline will begin. Savitri Devi also offers three mini-biographies of Genghis Khan, Akhnaton, and Hitler as archetypes of three different ways the individual can relate to the cycles of time: Men in Time, like Genghis Khan, who go with the downward flow of history; Men above Time, like Akhnaton or Jesus, who seek to rise above decay; and Men against Time, like Hitler, who seek to combat decay and re-establish the Golden Age. It is hard to take any of this literally, of course, and it would be foolish to do so, since Savitri Devi is in fact weaving different strands of myth into an extraordinary new myth, and nobody should take myths literally. Nevertheless, this book has the power to profoundly alter how you see the world. Make sure sure you have plenty of time to finish it, because once you start, you will not want to put it down. If you like the condensed version, or if you just want to skip it, the full original edition is now available online at the Savitri Devi Archive website. Again, do a web search. You will be glad you did.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A condensation of the original that focuses on social evolution and the relationship between biology and culture.,
By
This review is from: The lightning and the sun (Paperback)
This edition of "THE LIGHTNING AND THE SUN" is, as an earlier reviewer noted, a condensation of the original work. Dr. William Pierce asked Savitri Devi for, and received, her permission to produce it. What is omitted is mostly Devi's various endorsements of vegetarianism and some philosophy pertaining to environmentalism, which Dr. Pierce wanted to leave out because he wanted a more "to the point, make it march" kind of production.
I know these things because I was the editor for National Vanguard Books in charge of preparing this volume. I selected the picture that appears on the book cover -- Dr. Pierce instructed me to photo-edit it to remove the Hindu dot that originally had appeared on the author's forehead. The book does quite well the job that Dr. Pierce intended it to do, though the cover or else the title page really should indicate that the work is an abridgment of the original manuscript. If you want to read what Devi had to say about the duty of man to protect the environment, preserve endangered species, and avoid eating meat, then you shouldn't buy this book. On the other hand, if you want a book that gets straight to the heart of why the Jew-dominated modern technical civilization is a threat to itself and to all life on Earth, then this book will be much more convenient than the original would have been.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Some Great Ideas Waiting For A Better Interpreter,
By
This review is from: The lightning and the sun (Paperback)
First of all, as this is an abridged edition by William Pierce (who I respect to some degree but certainly do not trust to edit a book by such an ecclectic thinker as Savitri Devi), I can only review the portions of the book that I have read. It is possible that any criticisms of the book would be completely unjustified if everything was in its original context. Is this likely? Absolutely not. But it must be thrown out there in the interest of fairness.
In my studies of Savitri Devi I have come to the conclusion that she is an interesting thinker, a sub-par writer, vastly more emotional than logical and much more inspired by hatred towards mankind than love of life. As such, I think her writings do a disservice to those, like myself, who may be sympathetic to the general thrusts of her arguments. The first part of the book deals with Genghis Khan and the nobility of violence for violence's sake. Devi admires him for his lack of ideology and ability to unleash a tremendous amount of terror and pain upon innocent people just because he wants to. His ultimate value to her is that he wages war for no reason other than his desire to do so. He is the "Lightning" of the title. The second part of the book concerns Akhenaten (the "Sun" in the title), the Pharoah who broke with Egyptian religious tradition and introduced his own monotheistic religion which worshipped the sun, the famous "Religion of The Disk". Here she glorifies his love of all living things, his joy in nature and his iron-willed, though peaceful, attempt to convert his kingdom to the new religion. To Devi, Genghis Khan's weakness was that he had no ideology and Akhenaten's weakness was that his abhorrence of violence led to his ultimate destruction as he refused to defend his kingdom, defend his allies, et cetera because of his profound love of all life. This book was written forty or so years ago so one cannot fault her for the factual errors in the book. Here I refer specifically to Akhenaten, as so much has come to light since then and so much remains unknown. Regarding Genghis Khan I am not in a position to say if any information is incorrect as I admit to knowing very little about him or the history of the Mongol Empire. I do know however that a lot of the history is mere speculation and theory, especially regarding his personal life which is something that Devi deals with quite a bit, hence the information she presents is highly likely to be exaggerated to enhance her thesis. The perfect combination of "lightning" and "sun" is to be found in Adolf Hitler, according to Devi. His willingness to use brute, merciless force to accomplish his idealistic goals is the mark of an almost god-like man. He embodies everything that a warrior-king should be. Unfortunately, for her, he came about at an age where the word was not ready for him and the dark forces that exist in every age sought to destroy him and succeeded to the detriment of the universe. The major flaw of this book is the fact that she readily accepts the notion that Hitler used brute, merciless force to accomplish his goals. She essentially argues that Hitler would have been absolutely justified in the extermination of millions of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, et cetera had he done so. Nowhere does she suggest that he did not do this. To those of us who study the issue we know very well that the Holocaust is a grand hoax and that Hitler never sanctioned any such thing nor is there any conclusive evidence that anything like it ever happened while there is plenty of evidence that it did not. That having been said, were it true that Hitler did order the "Final Solution" and that National Socialism did try to destroy an entire race of people any person with a soul would clearly say that he was an evil man and that National Socialism was, to say the least, an imperfect doctrine. Devi does not think so despite her own professed love for all living creatures and idolization of the life-loving, nature-worshipping Akhenaten. She does not see a contradiction here. This is why I say that she is so intellectually overcome with misanthropy that she fails to be logically consistent. Devi's ideas are valuable. But they deserve a new treatment by someone who is more of an intellectual and thus possesses more logic, more knowledge of history, religion and philosophy. Hitler and National Socialism are done a disservice by this book and as such I don't think this book has much real value. It is better to read a biography of Devi than to read her own words. I would recommend reading Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke's biography of her to get an overview of her general beliefs and then pursue other, independent sources on one's own. There is much to many of her beliefs and much value in her synthesis of love and racial nationalism but these ideas need a lot of revision and polishing before they can be argued intelligently. Perhaps you will be the one to take her nuggets of truth and make them cohesive and truly valuable.
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