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In its broadest sense, the word cosmotheism may be considered synonymous with pantheism, although not all modern pantheists would accept the term as a synonym for their own worldview due to its historical association with William Pierce and his white separatist political views, which some within the pantheist community find objectionable.
According to a Cosmotheist Web site dedicated to Pierce:
In the United States, Cosmotheism usually refers to a religion adopted in 1978 by National Alliance founder William L. Pierce. Pierce affirms his cosmotheist belief
in a speech that he once gave entitled "Our Cause":
rces: interpretations of George Bernard Shaw's play Man and Superman; strains of German Romanticism; Darwinian concepts of natural selection and of survival of the fittest, mixed with the relate
d early 20th century eugenic ideals; and Ernst Haeckel's version of monism.
The foundation of Pierce's Cosmotheism was essentially similar to classical monistic pantheism --he recognized no physical difference or separation between human and divine, between creator and created --but with a few differences.
Pierce described his form of Cosmotheism as being based on "the idea of an evolutionary universe ... with an evolution toward ever higher and higher states of self-consciousness," and his political ideas were centered on racial purity and eugenics as the means of advancing the white
race first towards a superhuman state, and then towards godhood. In his view, the white race represented the pinnacle of human evolution thus far and therefore should be kept genetically separate from a
ll other races in order to achieve its destined perfection in Godhood.
Pierce believed in a hierarchical society governed by what he saw as the essential principles of nature, including t
he survival of the fittest. In his social schema, the best-adapted genetic stock, which he believed to be the white race, should remain separated from other races; and within an all-white society, the most fit individuals should lead the rest. He thought that extensive programs of "racial cleansing" and of eugenics, both in Europe and in the U.S., would be necessary to achieve this socio-political program.
His National Alliance was to be the political vanguard and the spiritual priesthood of this program, which was designed ultimately to bring about a "white racial redemption". His Cosmotheist Community Chur
ch, which was to be the next step of this plan, was set up in the mid-1970s, alongside Pierce's other political projects --the National Alliance, National Vanguard Books, and th
e weekly broadcast American Dissident Voices --all from his mountain retreat headquarters in West Virginia.
Pierce's views have been characterized as a version of early twentieth
century racial anthropology, but driven by spiritual, as well as scientific, beliefs. This area of his belief was likely influenced by his early association with George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party. Others have noted the German Romantic roots that Pierce's ideas shared with Nazism and have observed similarities between the two ideologies: Pierce's plan for white divinity was similar to Adolf Hitler's vision for the Herrenvolk; also, his attacks against J*ws as "parasites" on white society, who would prevent the white race from reaching its destined godhood by replacing the white elite with their own kind, echoed previou
s Nazi descriptions of Jewish traits and character.
In its broadest sense, the word cosmotheism may be considered synonymous with pantheism, although not all modern pantheists would accept the term as a synonym for their own worldview due to its historical association with William Pierce and his white separatist political views, which some within the pantheist community find objectionable.
According to a Cosmotheist Web site dedicated to Pierce:
William L. Pierce's Cosmotheism
In the United States, Cosmotheism usually refers to a religion adopted in 1978 by National Alliance founder William L. Pierce. Pierce affirms his cosmotheist belief
in a speech that he once gave entitled "Our Cause":
His interpretation of cosmotheism developed from several disparate sou
rces: interpretations of George Bernard Shaw's play Man and Superman; strains of German Romanticism; Darwinian concepts of natural selection and of survival of the fittest, mixed with the relate
d early 20th century eugenic ideals; and Ernst Haeckel's version of monism.
The foundation of Pierce's Cosmotheism was essentially similar to classical monistic pantheism --he recognized no physical difference or separation between human and divine, between creator and created --but with a few differences.
Pierce described his form of Cosmotheism as being based on "the idea of an evolutionary universe ... with an evolution toward ever higher and higher states of self-consciousness," and his political ideas were centered on racial purity and eugenics as the means of advancing the white
race first towards a superhuman state, and then towards godhood. In his view, the white race represented the pinnacle of human evolution thus far and therefore should be kept genetically separate from a
ll other races in order to achieve its destined perfection in Godhood.
Pierce believed in a hierarchical society governed by what he saw as the essential principles of nature, including t
he survival of the fittest. In his social schema, the best-adapted genetic stock, which he believed to be the white race, should remain separated from other races; and within an all-white society, the most fit individuals should lead the rest. He thought that extensive programs of "racial cleansing" and of eugenics, both in Europe and in the U.S., would be necessary to achieve this socio-political program.
His National Alliance was to be the political vanguard and the spiritual priesthood of this program, which was designed ultimately to bring about a "white racial redemption". His Cosmotheist Community Chur
ch, which was to be the next step of this plan, was set up in the mid-1970s, alongside Pierce's other political projects --the National Alliance, National Vanguard Books, and th
e weekly broadcast American Dissident Voices --all from his mountain retreat headquarters in West Virginia.
Pierce's views have been characterized as a version of early twentieth
century racial anthropology, but driven by spiritual, as well as scientific, beliefs. This area of his belief was likely influenced by his early association with George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party. Others have noted the German Romantic roots that Pierce's ideas shared with Nazism and have observed similarities between the two ideologies: Pierce's plan for white divinity was similar to Adolf Hitler's vision for the Herrenvolk; also, his attacks against J*ws as "parasites" on white society, who would prevent the white race from reaching its destined godhood by replacing the white elite with their own kind, echoed previou
s Nazi descriptions of Jewish traits and character.
