You’ve probably heard of the Knights Templar. They are the stuff of legend, Hollywood movies, and late-night history channel marathons. But there’s a weirder, darker chapter in the "Templar" story that most people have never actually heard of. It’s called the Order of the New Templars (or Ordo Novi Templi—ONT).
Honestly, it wasn't a group of noble knights protecting pilgrims.
It was something much more bizarre. Founded in 1900 by a former Cistercian monk named Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, this wasn't your standard fraternal lodge. It was a cocktail of occultism, pseudo-science, and a very specific, radical brand of mysticism.
Lanz wasn't just some guy with a hobby. He was obsessed. He claimed to have had a spiritual awakening after finding a Templar tombstone at Heiligenkreuz Abbey. That moment sparked a lifelong mission to "revive" a version of the Templars that, frankly, the original knights wouldn't have recognized.
Why the Order of the New Templars Still Matters Today
To understand why anyone still talks about the Order of the New Templars, you have to look at the weird intersection of the occult and politics in early 20th-century Europe. Lanz von Liebenfels didn't just want to play dress-up in robes. He developed a doctrine called "Ariosophy."
Basically, he took the concept of the Holy Grail and turned it into a metaphor for "racial purity."
It’s heavy stuff. Lanz’s magazine, Ostara, was allegedly read by a young, struggling artist in Vienna named Adolf Hitler. While historians like Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (author of The Occult Roots of Nazism) caution against saying Lanz "created" Hitler, the ideological overlap is hard to ignore. The ONT used the swastika as a symbol long before the Nazi party was even a thought in a beer hall.
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Lanz's vision for the Order of the New Templars was highly structured:
- The Liturgy: They had their own psalms and prayers, but they weren't exactly traditional. They prayed for the "redemption" of what Lanz called the "Aryan race."
- The Castle: Lanz actually bought a ruined castle, Burg Werfenstein, in 1907. He flew the Order’s flag over it—a yellow banner with a red swastika and four fleurs-de-lys.
- The Criteria: You couldn't just join. Membership was restricted to men who met strict physical requirements. We're talking blonde hair and blue eyes.
The Bizarre Science of Theozoology
One of the weirdest parts of the ONT was Lanz's book, Theozoology. It’s a wild read. He argued that "lower races" were the result of ancient interbreeding between humans and animal-like monsters.
It sounds like bad sci-fi. But he was serious.
He believed the "New Templars" were the vanguard of a movement to undo this supposed biological mistake. This "Ario-Christianity" was a complete rewrite of traditional faith. In his world, the struggle wasn't between good and evil in the spiritual sense, but between "higher" and "lower" types of humans.
The Reality of Life Inside the Order
Despite the grand claims of 100,000 subscribers to Ostara, the actual Order of the New Templars was quite small. At its peak, it probably had around 300 members.
It was an elite, secretive club.
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Members used code names to protect their identities. They held elaborate ceremonies at Burg Werfenstein and other "priories" that cropped up in Hungary and Germany. They wore robes and followed a hierarchy modeled after the Cistercians, the monks who had originally trained Lanz.
The ONT wasn't just about reading pamphlets. It was a lifestyle. Lanz encouraged members to engage in "genealogical research" to prove their ancestry. They held "beauty pageants" to celebrate their specific aesthetic ideals. It was an attempt to create a "state within a state," governed by these strange, mystical laws.
Misconceptions and Modern Confusion
A lot of people today mix up the Order of the New Templars with modern Catholic Templar groups or Masonic orders.
Don't do that.
Modern groups like the "Templars Today" (who actually serve at the Vatican during the Jubilee) are recognized by the Church and focus on charity. Lanz's ONT was the opposite. It was unofficial, fringe, and eventually suppressed by the very regime it helped inspire.
When the Nazis took over Austria in 1938, they didn't embrace Lanz. They actually banned his writings and dissolved the Order. Why? Because the Nazis didn't want any competition. They also found Lanz’s specific brand of "mystical racism" a bit too eccentric for their state-controlled ideology.
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Actionable Insights: How to Spot the ONT’s Legacy
If you’re researching the Order of the New Templars, you need to be able to separate the historical reality from the "Da Vinci Code" style fiction.
Check your sources.
Look for academic work by historians like Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. Avoid "alternative history" sites that claim the ONT is still running the world from the shadows. Most of those claims are just modern myths.
Understand the symbols.
The ONT’s use of the swastika and the fleur-de-lys was a specific branding exercise. If you see these symbols in an early 20th-century Austrian context, it’s a red flag for Ariosophic influence, not necessarily "Ancient Templar" secrets.
Visit the sites (if you can).
Burg Werfenstein still exists. While it’s not an "occult headquarters" anymore, seeing the physical space where these rituals happened gives you a sense of the scale Lanz was working on. It was a tiny castle for a tiny group with huge, dangerous ideas.
The story of the Order of the New Templars is a reminder of how easily history can be twisted. Lanz took a medieval myth and used it to package a radical, exclusionary worldview. It's a niche chapter of history, but one that shows exactly how powerful—and destructive—a reimagined past can be.
If you are looking into the history of secret societies, start with the primary texts. Look at the digitizations of Ostara magazine if you can find them in library archives. You’ll see exactly how Lanz built his narrative, one "scientific" article at a time. This allows you to see the propaganda for what it was: a manufactured tradition designed for a very specific political moment.