Arktos: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, and Nazi Survival

Although published by Adventures Unlimited which tends not to be, shall we say, conventional in its authors (who cover conspiracy, lost worlds, free energy and what-have-you), Arktos is a serious and interesting account of polar mythology in popular culture, in the history of science and in esoteric lore.

Joscelyn Goodwin provides an intelligent and often wry overview that remains well within scholarly standards. It is a valuable addition to that shelf in the library that is dominated by the work of Goodrick Clark and it is a useful guide to the fringe science and theosophical speculation of a world now lost.

Given its hysterical conclusion in the exploits of educationally challenged SS officers and demented neo-Nazi diplomats, it is a show more world that we hope will never return. Hyperborea, Agartha, Thule, Shambhala, the Hollow Earth - these are names to conjure with in pulp science fiction, which is where they belong and should remain. show less

Well, this was a disappointment. I'd been led to expect a scholarly overview of "polar mythology", but it turns out Godwin is a credulous esotericist himself. For example, noting that Blavatsky's and Guénon's accounts of prehistory contradict one another and that both rely on unidentified sources, his instinct is to try and reconcile them. Which is darkly amusing in a way, but it's not something I'd bought if I'd known what I was getting.

Arktos is an encyclopedic look at a fairly obscure topic: the prevalence of Hyperborean creation tales in modern occult and fascist literature. Godwin is even-handed in relating the links and legacies of this strange and singular concept.