Editing Ariosophy (section)

=== Order of the New Templars ===
[[File:Flag of the Order of New Templars.svg|thumb|175px|Flag of the Order of the New Templars]]
On December 25, 1900, Lanz founded the [[Fascism|fascist]] [[secret society]] [[Order of the New Templars]] (''Ordo Novi Templi'', or ONT) – a project to unite and mobilise right-wing extremists using [[Western esotericism|esotericism]] to justify violence, such as the castration of innocent people.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Hieronymus |first=Ekkehard |title=Handbuch zur "Völkischen Bewegung" 1871-1918 |chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110964240.131/html |chapter=Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels |date=2012-08-28 |pages=131–146 |publisher=K. G. Saur |isbn=978-3-11-096424-0 |language=de |doi=10.1515/9783110964240.131}}</ref> The ONT was modelled after the [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] [[military order (religious society)|military order]] [[Knights Templar|Knight Templars]] and similar in its hierarchical structure to the [[Order of Cistercians]], the group that had trained Lanz.<ref name=":0" /> Members used [[code name]]s to make betrayal more difficult.<ref name=":0" />

The ideological association was headquartered at Burg Werfenstein, a castle in [[Upper Austria]] overlooking the river [[Danube]]. Rituals were designed to beautify life in accordance with Aryan aesthetics, and to express the Order's theological system, which Lanz called ''Ario-Christianity''. The Order was the first to associate the [[swastika]] with Aryanism, with its flag displaying a red swastika facing right on a yellow field and surrounded by four blue [[fleurs-de-lys]].

The ONT declined from the mid-1930s and – even though it had pioneered many ideas that the Nazis later adopted – it was suppressed by the [[Gestapo]] in 1942. By this time it had established seven communities in Austria, Germany and Hungary. Despite suspending its activities in the [[Nazi Germany|Greater German Reich]], the ONT survived in Hungary until around the end of [[World War II]].<ref name = "GC1985:119,22">{{harvnb|Goodrick-Clarke|1985|pp= 119, 122}}</ref> It went underground in Vienna after 1945, but was contacted in 1958 by a former [[Waffen-SS]] lieutenant, [[Rudolf Mund]], who became Prior of the Order in 1979.<ref name="GC2003:135">{{harvnb|Goodrick-Clarke|1985|p= 135}}</ref> Mund also wrote biographies of Lanz and Wiligut.