Adonism
[2][3][4] Born into the Bohemian region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Franz Sättler proved himself to be a talented linguist, gaining a doctorate in the subject and publishing the world's first Persian-German dictionary.
Sättler would face legal trouble and a public scandal due to his beliefs in the 1930s, leading to him renaming the Society the Alliance of Orion, before it was eventually shut down by the Nazi government in 1939.
[5] Hakl would also compare Sättler with two of his contemporaries in the European occult movement of the early twentieth century, the Englishman Aleister Crowley and the Armenian George Gurdjieff, but noted that he never received the posthumous fame that these two experienced.
Aside from attacking them with plagues and sickness, he also sent false prophets such as Moses, Zarathustra, Jesus and Muhammad to convert people to his monotheistic worship under such names as Jehovah, Ormuzd and Allah.
Within these religions that venerate Molchos, such as Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Adonists believe that Adonis, the creator and benefactor of humanity was demonised as such figures as Satan, Ahriman and Iblis.
At the university, he became a favourite student of Professor Max Grünert, who gave Sättler the notes for a Persian-German dictionary that had been left unfinished by Dr Jakob Polak.
[13] The French army subsequently invaded and occupied Saloniki at a time when he was staying there, and being a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he and his wife were taken prisoner and deported to an internment camp near Lourdes in France, where he was held until 1919.
"[14] In 1919, following the end of the war, Sättler was released from his imprisonment, and travelled to Austria, and then on to Germany, where he was apparently involved in intelligence work on behalf of the newly formed nation-state of Czechoslovakia, using the pseudonym of Dr. Erich Bauer.
It was here that he first began propagating Adonism through the foundation of his Adonistic Society (known as the Adonistische Gesellschaft in his native German language), and "According to its published constitution and bylaws, this group was founded on 1 May 1925 - in other words, one year before Sättler actually came back to Vienna.
[16] In order to entice interested individuals to join, Sättler described his Adonistic Society as a "large spiritual community" where "magical energies are continuously circulating, the inexhaustible source of which is the Master Lodge Hekate", so named after the ancient Greek goddess of witchcraft.
[17] Sättler likely began an affair with his assistant in the Hekate Lodge, Justine Schnattinger, who herself worked under the pseudonym of "Madame Ariela" as a clairvoyant, spirit medium and astrological councillor.
Sättler was also a friend of the occultist Friedrich Wilhelm Quintscher, who had joined the Society, but in 1929 their friendship broke up, possibly due to jealousy over Schnattinger.
One of the members of this group was Brother Silias, also known as Josef Anton Schuster (1896–1968), who wrote a magical diary that became famous among the German occult movement.
Facing criminal charges for defrauding customers of the Olbia-Gold company, he fled to Greece, where he was arrested in a case of mistaken identity by police who suspected him of being "a much more important Czech swindler.
Meanwhile, Sättler continued with the Society, this time based in Greece, finding a new publisher, Biosophischer Verlag, who began printing his new monthly magazine, entitled Lucifer.
In the early 1940s, the Nazis ordered the invasion of much of the rest of Europe, leading to the Second World War, and it was in this period that all historical trace of Sättler vanishes.
[22] Professor Adolf Hemberger (1929–1991), the holder of the chair for Scientific Theory and Methodology of Research at the University of Gießen, collected Sättler's rare works, making copies of them through mimeographing or photocopying them and distributing them among his friends and members of his magical study groups, C 72.
