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‘The guru and the baron’, was published in April 2026. Journalists and former news readers Rick Nieman (1965-) and Sacha de Boer (1967-) bought a summer house in an area that proved to be historically interesting. They started digging in the past and Nieman eventually presented this double biography of Philip van Pallandt (1889-1979) and Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986). Van Pallandt gifted his large estate to the society that organised the “star camps” and that promoted the new ‘world leader’ Krishnamurti. The latter had been discovered by the Theosophists Annie Besant (1847-1933) and Charles Leadbeater (1854-1934) who consequentally tried to get him ready for his task. Krishnamurti was educated, lived a life of luxury and was dragged around the world to give lectures. In the Netherlands the base of the organisation was formed on the former estate of the idealistic baron Van Pallandt who formed a very close friendship with Krishnamurti. Nieman describes how things came about and how they developed. Krishnamurti’s doubt about his role, him becoming an independent thinker as he aged and in spite of clashes, Besant and Leadbeater kept supporting him. Nieman and De Boer had access to Van Pallandt family archives, so I was curious if… Read More »De Goeroe en de Baron

On my main website I wrote a text about a figurine on the Stephansdom in Vienna/Wien, Austria, that Farwerck has published images of in three books. None of these images appear to be very factual. Continue reading here: Stephansdom figure – Gangleri – articles

A fellow Farwerck enthousiast found a note in a copy of Het Teken van Dood en Herleving: Is this a note of Farwerck to a buyer of his book or is it a note of the buyer of the book him-/herself? Based on the examples of his handwriting on this website the fellow enthousiast thinks that this is Farwerck’s handwriting. Farwerck only made a less ‘autograph-like’ F for his name. I was not immediately convinced, but I think he’s right. I have some examples of Farwerck’s handwriting. Unfortunately, I found no F in regular writing, like the capital of a word in a sentence. I do have one example of him just writing his name, not signing with an autograph. That is still a pretty fancy F. I did find an example of handwriting that is quite similar to the example in the book, unfortunately in bad quality: Too bad it’s not too clear, but this looks quite like the first image, doesn’t it? It’s actually below a hand written letter, but the complete signing looks like this: Is “J.L. Tates” the author of the letter? Could this same person be the one who made the note in Farwerck’s book?… Read More »Handwriting question

Apparently there is not just a market for (old) postage stamps, but even for old envelops without content. I didn’t find it myself, but on Ebay (1) appeared an envelop addressed to Farwerck.

Earlier this week my eye fell on something (or so I thought) which made me have an extra look at the subject of the church tower of Vries, about which Farwerck wrote in Nehalennia III-3 (1958).

Vries is a small village in the North of Drenthe, a province in the North of the Netherlands. There is a 12th century Romanesque nowadays Protestant church in the village, dedicated to Saint Boniface. It was enlarged in the 15th century and has been under restauration between 1946 and 1949 according to Wikipedia.

In the bibliography I mention titles that appear to be lost and writings that never saw the light of day. Lost books? Farwerck was active in a local archaeological group. He even was one of the founders. In 1979 in the annual report (1), the group lists “literature”, “List of books of the society.” See below. Five titles by Farwerck are mentioned, none I know! Another founder of the same group, Siem Pos (1916-2001), is said to have been a long time friend of Farwerck. It could be that not the group, but rather Pos, was the owner of these titles. Pos’ library supposedly scattered after his passing (as did Farwerck’s). Even though the head says “books”, the titles actually suggest articles. “Vries I en II” (1 and 2) and “Volksgebruiken I, II en III” (1, 2 and 3) could be essays planned to be printed in two and three issues of, for example, the periodical Westerheem that the local archaeological group published since 1952 (2). Then again, Farwerck published only one text in Westerheem in 1954. Why would he have five (or even eight when you count the separate parts) texts ready in the year after his death and… Read More »Lost writings

I have been looking through newspaper and magazine archives hoping to find a clue why Farwerck and a few others left so soon. I have not found a definitive answer yet, but perhaps painting the history of the organisation as portrayed by these sources could be helpful. As we saw, the society was founded in November 1931 in Utrecht as announced in different newspapers. 9 Days after the announcement of the foundation, Farwerck and a few other founders left. In the newspaper Barchem bladen in 1931 an author quotes an invitation that he received concerning the first meeting of the society. Only an organic (aristocratical-patriarchical-hierarchical) common living to the Divine Law – Ara Rita, supported by free Aryan (=nobel) people will lead a people to its highest education, to culture. Also a focus on Christianity shines through. In advertisements -seemingly from the society itself- it is mentioned that the group is aligned to the “Guido von List-Gesellschaft” and the “Edda-Gesellschaft”. Of course this can mean that the people behind the society were inspired by these organisations or simply used the names to boast their own, but it could also mean that they connected themselves to Ariosophic thinking. In a magazine… Read More »Nederlandsch Ario-Germaansch Genootschap

Armanism and Ariosophy are esoteric ideological systems that were largely developed by Guido von List and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels respectively, in Austria between 1890 and 1930. The term ‘Ariosophy’, which means the wisdom of the Aryans, was invented by Lanz von Liebenfels in 1915, and during the 1920s, it became the name of his doctrine. […] the term ‘Ariosophy’ is generically used to describe the Aryan/esoteric theories which constituted a subset of the ‘Völkische Bewegung’. (1) Thus says Wikipedia. The current was there before the World Wars. Perhaps it can be seen as a somewhat more Western version of Blavatsky’s “Theosophy”, but of course the term “Aryan” refers to Indo-European culture, so Ariosophy is not entirely Western. There is more focus on Western elements such as runes and Norse mythology, but as it comes to the runes, the (in)famous “rune-Yoga” of Von List is -of course- not a very Western thing. The first organisation for Ariosophy (very broadly used) seems to be the “Guido von List Society” from 1908. According to the German Wikipedia (2) (translated): In 1908, friends and followers of List founded the Guido von List Gesellschaft to promote his “research” and publications, members included the industrialist… Read More »Ariosophy (in the Netherlands)