Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
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Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (15 January 1953Template:Spaced ndash29 August 2012) was a British historian and professor of Western esotericism at the University of Exeter, best known for his authorship of several scholarly books on the history of occultism in Nazism and Western esotericism, including The Occult Roots of Nazism, Hitler's Priestess, and Black Sun. He also edited and translated several other books, and edited two academic book series on religion and esotericism. Goodrick-Clarke was the founder and director of the Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism (EXESESO).
Early life and education
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke was born in Lincoln, England, on 15 January 1953, to David and Phyllis Goodrick-Clarke (Template:Nee).<ref name="ThomsonGale2003">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="DailyTelegraph1985">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> His father was a lawyer.<ref name="ThomsonGale2003" /> Nicholas was the pair's only son,<ref name="DailyTelegraph1985" /> though his father had another son, Andrew.<ref name="TheDailyTelegraph1989">Template:Cite news</ref>
Goodrick-Clarke was an Open Exhibitioner at Lancing College.<ref name="TheTimes2012">Template:Cite news</ref> He studied German, politics, and philosophy at the University of Bristol, and gained a Bachelor of Arts with distinction in 1974.<ref name="ThomsonGale2003" /><ref name="TheTimes2012" /> Moving to St Edmund Hall, Oxford, Goodrick-Clarke obtained a D.Phil. in 1983.<ref name="ThomsonGale2003" /><ref name="McIntosh2013">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Career
During his education he worked as a schoolmaster, first in Perth, Scotland from 1978 to 1980, before moving to Schelklingen in West Germany until 1981, and finally Cambridge until 1982. From 1982 to 1985, he was the manager of the Chase Manhattan Bank in London. He also worked on a fundraiser for the Campaign for Oxford.<ref name="TheTimes2012" /><ref name="McIntosh2013" /> He convinced the Keston College to move to Oxford.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He was made a visiting scholar at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge in Cambridge in 1982.<ref name="ThomsonGale2003" />
In 1987, he was involved in the investigation of Austrian president Kurt Waldheim for war crimes. With two other researchers he visited Germany, and was told to investigate Waldheim's ties to the Nazis; he acted as an interpreter, interviewer, and researcher for the investigation.<ref name="Saltman1988">Template:Cite book</ref> He was also the director of IKON Productions starting in 1988.<ref name="ThomsonGale2003" /> In 2002, he was appointed a Research Fellow in Western Esotericism at the University of Lampeter,<ref name="ThomsonGale2003" /><ref name="TheTimes2012" /> and then in 2005 he was appointed to a personal chair of Western Esotericism in the Department of History at Exeter University.<ref name="McIntosh2013" /> He described his research interests as "globalization of esotericism in modernity; Paracelsica; Rosicrucianism; Hermeticism, pietism and alchemy in the Enlightenment era; esotericism and modern political ideology; conspiracy theory".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Goodrick-Clarke was the founder and director of the Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism (EXESESO) within the College of Humanities at Exeter.<ref name="McIntosh2013" /><ref name="Hedesan2021" /> He helped co-found the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism, and was a founding member of the American Association for the Study of Esotericism.<ref name="McIntosh2013" /> He edited Aquarian Press's Essential Readings anthology series on religion and esotericism from 1986 on.<ref name="ThomsonGale2003" /><ref name="Hedesan2021" /> He also edited for North Atlantic Books a series on "Western Esoteric Masters".<ref name="TheTimes2012" /><ref name="Hedesan2021" />
Works
Goodrick-Clarke's 1982 Oxford Ph.D. dissertation was the basis for his most celebrated work, The Occult Roots of Nazism.<ref name="McIntosh2013" /><ref name="Hedesan2021">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> This book is about the connections between Nazism and occultism; Goodrick-Clarke wrote that he found the previous discussion of the connection to be "a literature rich in mystery and suggestion, but short on facts and hard evidence", but that after looking into it he found "there was a hard kernel of truth" to the connection, the improbable accounts disregarded, once he had done historical research.<ref name="ThomsonGale2003" /> The Occult Roots of Nazism has been translated into twelve languages and has been in print since its first publication in 1985.<ref name="McIntosh2013" />
He also wrote a 1987 work on Welsh mystic Arthur Machen.<ref name="McIntosh2013" /> In 1998, Goodrick-Clarke wrote a biography of the fascist writer and esoteric Hitlerist Savitri Devi, titled Hitler's Priestess.<ref name="Hedesan2021" /><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> He wrote another book as a follow-up to The Occult Roots of Nazism, Black Sun, published in 2002, focusing on modern occult kinds of neo-Nazism.<ref name="ThomsonGale2003" /><ref name="Whaley2004">Template:Cite journal</ref> His final book, The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction, was published by Oxford University Press in 2008.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> He also contributed several chapters to academic edited volumes and encyclopedias.<ref name="Hedesan2021" />
Goodrick-Clarke also edited several books.<ref name="McIntosh2013" /><ref name="Hedesan2021" /> In 1990, he edited and translated the book Paracelsus: Essential Readings, a collection of the writings of the alchemist Paracelsus,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and in 2005 edited a collection on Helena Blavatsky titled Helena Blavatsky.<ref name="TheTimes2012" /><ref name="Hedesan2021" /> He and his wife co-edited and prefaced the book G.R.S. Mead and the Gnostic Quest in 2005, about Theosophist G. R. S. Mead.<ref name="Hedesan2021" /> Goodrick-Clarke also translated several books, including in 2002 Emanuel Swedenborg: Visionary Savant in the Age of Reason by Ernst Benz and Western Esotericism: A Brief History of Secret Knowledge by Kocku von Stuckrad in 2005.<ref name="McIntosh2013" /><ref name="Hedesan2021" />
Personal life
Outside of his studies, Goodrick-Clarke also had an interest in photography and steam trains.<ref name="TheTimes2012" /> He was involved in a society that read papers on esoteric subjects. As the members were unable to come up with a better name, the group was simply called "The Society". Other members of The Society included Clare Badham, Gerald Suster, and Ellic Howe.<ref name="McIntosh2013" /> He was fluent in German.<ref name="Saltman1988" />
Goodrick-Clarke married Clare Radene Badham, a scholar of English literature and publisher, on 11 May 1985.<ref name="ThomsonGale2003" /><ref name="DailyTelegraph1985" /><ref name="McIntosh2013" /> With her he ran a publishing house. She has also written several books on esoteric and alchemical topics, and was also a member of EXESESO. They had a silver wedding in 2010.<ref name="McIntosh2013" />
Death and legacy
Goodrick-Clarke died on 29 August 2012, in Torquay, of pancreatic cancer.<ref name="TheTimes2012" /><ref name="McIntosh2013" />
The 2021 academic book Innovation in Esotericism from the Renaissance to the Present, edited by Georgiana D. Hedesan and Tim Rudbøg, was dedicated to him. The editors describe him as "one of the foremost pioneering scholars of the academic study of Western Esotericism".<ref name="Hedesan2021" /> In 2021, Christian Giudice described The Occult Roots of Nazism as Goodrick-Clarke's "magnum opus", and as a "ground-breaking work" that decades later "stood the test of time, and it is still today considered as one of the most important works on the topic".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>