Hyperborea is one of the many lost lands that people have imagined. It is said to be the oldest, with a civilization that came before Atlantis and Lemuria. According to legend, this Arctic paradise was home to a race of wise beings whose descendants would go on to build the civilizations we know from history. Greek poets were the first to bring Hyperborea to the attention of Western thinkers. However, in the 20th century, Nazi occultists turned this mythical place into "evidence" for Aryan racial superiority, which was a very bad thing. The search for Hyperborea led German explorers to the most remote parts of the world, from Antarctic ice fields to Tibetan mountain monasteries, in search of ancient knowledge that was mostly made up rather than found through archaeology.
The Greek Vision: A Heaven Beyond the North Wind
The name "Hyperborea" comes from ancient Greek and means "beyond Boreas," which is the land north of where the god of the cold north wind, Boreas, blew. Herodotus first wrote about Hyperborea around 450 BCE. It was often talked about in classical Greek literature as a far-off, semi-mythical northern area.
The poet Pindar wrote the most detailed descriptions of Hyperborea, calling it an earthly paradise where there was no disease, old age, hard work, or war. These stories say that Hyperboreans were always happy and didn't need to farm because nature gave them everything they needed. They had no idea what punishment or divine retribution was because they lived in perfect harmony with the gods.
Most importantly, Greek sources wrote about astronomical events that were similar to those in polar regions. The sun was said to rise and set only once a year in Hyperborea. This suggests that the land was at or near the Earth's axis, where seasonal light patterns cause six months of daylight and six months of darkness. This detail is very interesting because the ancient Greeks didn't know anything about the Arctic firsthand. It wasn't until 1909 that Europeans reached the North Pole, but classical texts correctly described its unique solar cycle.
Apollo worshipers thought Hyperborea was very important. According to myth, Apollo went to Hyperborea every 19 years to celebrate the cycles of the stars. Some stories say that Hyperborean messengers built the first Apollonian temples in Greece. The god's connection to this northern paradise linked him to ideas of light, purity, and knowledge that goes beyond what we can understand.
Greek myths said that Hyperboreans were very different from other people. They were very tall, had pale or even glowing skin, and had golden hair. They were said to have mastered healing to the point where they could defeat death. Instead of dying, Hyperboreans "migrated to a better world," which is very similar to how Tolkien's immortal Elves worked. Tolkien's Elves were heavily influenced by these classical sources.
Historical Interpretations: Where Was Hyperborea?
Ancient Greek geographers had different ideas about where Hyperborea was. Herodotus thought that any land north of the Scythian territories was a good place to live. Some writers thought it was the British Isles, Gaul, or some other northern area.
Contemporary scholarship presents various theories regarding the myth's origins. By the 6th century BCE, Celtic people living along the Danube River were still trading with people in the Mediterranean, especially amber from the Baltic Sea. These northern traders, who looked and acted differently than people from the south, may have inspired stories about strange northern civilizations.
Another possibility is that the legendary basis came from the Scythians or Sarmatians who lived north of the Black Sea. Iron Age Celtic Britain is another possibility because traders from the Mediterranean came to these islands and told stories about faraway places.
The astronomical descriptions make the strongest case for Arctic connections. The once-a-year sunrise and sunset described in Greek texts only happen in polar regions. It seems that some classical Mediterranean cultures learned about Arctic conditions, either from ancient informants who traveled to polar latitudes or from secondhand accounts.
The Thule Society: Nazis in the Dark and Old Fantasies
Hyperborea could have stayed an academic curiosity that classicists studied if German occultist groups hadn't taken it over in the early 1900s. The Thule Society (Thule-Gesellschaft) was founded in Munich in 1918. Its name comes from Thule, which is the northernmost place mentioned in classical geography and is often thought to be Hyperborea.
The Thule Society was more than just a study group. It was a secret society that brought together wealthy industrialists, military officers, and intellectuals who wanted to bring back what they saw as Germany's ancient greatness. They used old Germanic runes, practiced ritual magic, and promoted a racial ideology that said Aryans were better than other people.
Rudolf von Sebottendorf, a German adventurer who spent a lot of time in Turkey (including years in Istanbul running Thule operations from there), mixed Turkish Sufism, Freemasonry, and Germanic paganism into a strange occult system.
Many future Nazi leaders were members of the Thule Society, including Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, and Dietrich Eckart. The German Workers' Party (DAP), which Hitler would later turn into the Nazi Party (NSDAP), was started with money from the Thule Society. Hitler never officially joined the party.
Thule ideology regarded Hyperborea as the ancestral homeland of the Aryan race. They thought that this Arctic paradise was home to a better civilization of god-like beings who had advanced technology and spiritual powers. After geological disasters wiped out Hyperborea, the people who lived there moved south and built Atlantis, Lemuria, and eventually historical civilizations like Egypt and Sumer.
According to this pseudohistorical narrative, the Aryan race's physical and spiritual superiority was inherited from these Hyperborean ancestors. The Thule Society looked for proof of this ancient heritage in mythology, archaeology, and occult texts. They thought that finding and using this ancient knowledge would bring Germany back to its former glory and power.
Rudolf von Sebottendorf: The Link to Istanbul
It is important to pay special attention to Rudolf von Sebottendorf's part in making Nazi occultism. Glauer was born in 1875 to a working-class German family. He changed his name to "von Sebottendorf" to make himself look like an aristocrat, even though he didn't have any real claim to the title.
Sebottendorf spent a lot of time in Turkey between 1901 and 1913, including years in Istanbul. He said he joined Sufi orders and Masonic lodges, where he learned mystical practices that he would later combine with Germanic paganism. Turkish ideas were a big part of his occult teachings, especially when it came to jinn, manipulating mystical energy, and esoteric Islam.
Sebottendorf's 1933 book Bevor Hitler kam (Before Hitler Came) talked about how the Thule Society was involved in early Nazism. Sebottendorf said in a quote from the video, "I chose Adolf...I did not need a nobleman, but a leader who would lead the German nation towards my goal...Germany will not lose. Even if she ends the war defeated, it will not be the end. We have a second refuge".
People said that this "second refuge" was hidden bases in far-off places like Antarctica and Tibet, where Nazi remnants could keep their ideas and technology alive. Even though there are still myths about it, there is no proof that organized Nazi groups survived after 1945.
The Tibet Expeditions: Looking for Shambhala and Agartha
Thule ideology included not only Hyperborea, but also Shambhala and Agartha, two legendary hidden kingdoms that are said to be in Central Asia or under the Himalayas. These ideas, which came from Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism but were badly twisted by occult filters, were very important to Nazi expeditions.
The 1938-1939 German Tibet Expedition: Looking for Aryan Roots
From 1938 to 1939, Ernst Schäfer led a German expedition to Tibet that was funded by the SS Ahnenerbe. Heinrich Himmler was very interested in proving Aryan racial origins and getting to what he thought was ancient knowledge. He strongly supported the project.
The official goals of the expedition were to study Tibet's climate and geography, do zoological research, and make diplomatic contacts. But behind these scientific reasons was pseudoscientific racial research. SS anthropologist Bruno Beger joined the team specifically to measure Tibetan skulls, looking for proof that Tibetans were "pure" Aryan stock that had been kept separate from other groups.
According to occult beliefs, Tibetan monasteries guarded entrances to Agartha and Shambhala, underground kingdoms where Hyperborean survivors maintained their advanced civilization. Nazi occultists wanted Tibetan lamas to tell them where these entrances were and let them use old technologies.
The truth was disappointing. Tibetan monks didn't care about Nazi racial theories and definitely didn't show any secret underground kingdoms. Schäfer's team got useful biological samples and ethnographic data, but they didn't find any proof for occult fantasies. The people on the expedition were serious scientists who were embarrassed by the mystical hopes their SS sponsors had.
Even though the Nazis tried, they couldn't find any entrances to hidden kingdoms. There is no proof for the video's claims that "mysterious guardians" in the mountains cause "serious deaths" during exploration. While exploring mountains is dangerous, saying that supernatural protectors caused deaths is more of a guess than a fact.
Agartha and Shambhala: Misunderstood Buddhist Ideas
To comprehend Nazi appropriation, we must investigate the true origins of these concepts. In Tibetan Buddhism, Shambhala is more of a spiritual place than a physical one, though some traditions say it is in Central Asia. The kingdom is a storehouse for Kalachakra teachings and will, according to prophecy, come to light when Buddhism is in danger of going extinct.
Agartha, also spelled Agarttha or Agharti, became known in the West through occult books from the 1800s. In the 1880s, French occultist Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre made the idea popular by saying that Agartha was an underground kingdom where advanced beings secretly guided human evolution.
The 1922 book Beasts, Men and Gods by Polish author Ferdynand Ossendowski helped spread the Agartha myth by saying that it was a secret place that could be reached through tunnels in Mongolia. In the 1920s, Russian painter and mystic Nicholas Roerich led expeditions to Asia to promote ideas like these.
Nazi occultists combined these different sources into a single myth that supported their racist ideas. They thought that Shambhala stood for communist "Judeo-Bolshevik" forces because it was linked to Russia, and that Agartha stood for the pure Aryan underground civilization that was ready to help German racial destiny.
This interpretation was not in line with what Buddhists actually taught. Serious scholars like Alexander Berzin have completely disproven any links between the Nazis and Shambhala. They show that occult claims are based on basic misunderstandings of Tibetan Buddhism and wishful thinking.
The Dangers of Modern Pseudohistory
Hyperborea mythology continues to exist in modern esoteric neo-Nazi groups. These groups keep pushing stories about ancient Aryan homelands, secret bases in Antarctica, and racial purity in underground kingdoms.
This kind of fake history is dangerous for more than just being wrong about the past. Neo-Nazi groups use ancient mystical stories to make racist ideas seem more spiritual. The Hyperborean myth turns political extremism into a cosmic fight, making people feel like they are taking part in battles between light and darkness that have been going on for thousands of years.
Hindu nationalists promote indigenous Aryanism, which is another bad appropriation. These movements assert that Aryans originated in India rather than migrating from external regions, dismissing established Indo-European linguistics and archaeology in favor of nationalist mythology.
The persistence of these ideas illustrates the enduring allure of origin myths that link modern groups to illustrious ancient civilizations. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, a historian, says that occult racism gives people peace of mind by giving them simple answers to complicated social issues, finding clear enemies, and promising ultimate victory through mystical destiny.
The Archaeological Void
There is no archaeological proof that Hyperborea existed in history outside of Greek literature. There are no Arctic ruins that prove that advanced prehistoric civilizations existed. During warmer climatic periods, humans lived surprisingly far north, but these were hunter-gatherer cultures, not the technological paradise of myth.
Likewise, Tibet has no entrances to underground kingdoms, even though Nazis and later explorers looked for them. The Hollow Earth theory, which is needed to find kingdoms on Earth, goes against basic physics and seismology. We know what the inside of the Earth is like by studying earthquake waves. The planet is definitely solid, not hollow.
The remarkable precision in Greek accounts of polar solar cycles probably stemmed from data exchanged via northern trade routes, rather than direct Greek observation or divine revelation. People in northern Europe and traders of Baltic amber knew a lot about the Arctic, and this knowledge spread south through trade networks.
Conclusion: Myth, Manipulation, and Modern Relevance
Hyperborea started as a Greek literary fantasy, a mythical paradise that stood for the mystery and beauty of the unknown north. Classical writers used it to talk about legendary events and represent the golden age of humanity, not to talk about real places or events.
The conversion of this literary device into Nazi racial ideology illustrates the potential for mythology to be utilized as a weapon. Nazi occultists used false spiritual reasons to justify genocidal politics by saying they were descended from mythical supermen. People spent money and lives looking for Hyperborea, Shambhala, and Agartha, which were all based on fantasies that had nothing to do with reality.
Today, Hyperborea reappears in obscure neo-Nazi groups and other New Age settings. These groups often use it in a way that is not racist, but they still spread false historical stories. The persistence of such myths illustrates the human desire for connection to illustrious histories and the peril of permitting fantasy to replace empirical evidence.
Learning about Hyperborea's real place in classical mythology and how Nazis twisted it can teach us how extremist groups use cultural stories to their advantage. By recognizing these manipulations, we can better fight against modern efforts to connect hateful ideas to ancient mysticism.
Hyperborea was never a real place. But the fact that people can make meaning out of myths and that those myths can be used for bad purposes is all too real. There is no lost paradise in the frozen Arctic, no underground kingdoms in the Tibetan mountains, and no cosmic proof of racial superiority in ancient stories. These are modern myths pretending to be ancient truths, and it is still important to see them as such in order to fight extremism that uses mystical language.