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April 10, 2026
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"The complex process that has led to the current spread of magic and esotericism is constituted on the one hand by secularisation and secularism, and on the other by the alternative gnosticisms heavily advocated by secular, ‘disenchanted’ and progressive thought. Such is the humus on which thrives the new magism, as weel as the "supermarket occultism" of our times that journalists and mass communicators ennoble and repropose in the dominant cultural vacuum."
"Italy, the unchallenged fiefdom of Catholicism until World War II, has gradually seen the emergence of a new religious landscape in which non-Catholic Christian sects occupy a considerable place."
"While Positivism was founding the social sciences (proclaiming the death of theology) and Marxism was instigating the proletariat to leave institutional religion branded as the ‘opium of the people’, thousands and thousands of people were attempting to communicate with the spiritual worlds through mediums and seers."
"Spiritualism opposes reasoning with the force of its conviction, its facts, its miracles, its supernatural. It is the religion of the 19th century, without rituals, without priests, and wrapped in an envelope of scientificity. Imagination and sentiment find their place there, and rituality is represented by invocations, prayers, evocations and continuous revelations."
"Eusapia Palladino's popularity went into crisis in Cambridge, where during a séance the medium was caught moving an object with her hand that should have levitated by occult force. Accused of fraud, she defended herself by declaring that she had only acted because she was driven by an unconscious and irresistible impulse."
"Positivist historiography defined the belief in witches as a mass psychosis that happened to mix Christian ideas and relics of ancient paganism. The premises rested on the one hand on fear-laden ideas about the Devil, who really existed for Christian culture, and on the other on fantasies such as the magical capacity for malefiction, the possibility of harm with the help of demons, flying, animal metamorphoses and sexual intercourse with demons in the famous Sabbath."
Young though he was, his radiant energy produced such an impression of absolute reliability that Hedgewar made him the first sarkaryavah, or general secretary, of the RSS.
- Gopal Mukund Huddar
Largely because of the influence of communists in London, Huddar's conversion into an enthusiastic supporter of the fight against fascism was quick and smooth. The ease with which he crossed from one worldview to another betrays the fact that he had not properly understood the world he had grown in.
Huddar would have been 101 now had he been alive. But then centenaries are not celebrated only to register how old so and so would have been and when. They are usually celebrated to explore how much poorer our lives are without them. Maharashtrian public life is poorer without him. It is poorer for not having made the effort to recall an extraordinary life.
I regret I was not there to listen to Balaji Huddar's speech [...] No matter how many times you listen to him, his speeches are so delightful that you feel like listening to them again and again.
By the time he came out of Franco's prison, Huddar had relinquished many of his old ideas. He displayed a worldview completely different from that of the RSS, even though he continued to remain deferential to Hedgewar and maintained a personal relationship with him.