I heard that Zimenhof was involved with the occult. Does any have any information about that?

Alkanadi:I heard that Zimenhof was involved with the occult. Does any have any information about that?

Zamenhof was an Oculist, an eye doctor, not an Occultist.

He also has invented Homaranismo, which as he thought, would be a common religion.

Alkanadi:I heard that Zimenhof was involved with the occult. Does any have any information about that?

Zamenhof's relationship with religion is a bit complicated. The facts, as I understand them, are as follows:

• Zamenhof was Jewish in Russian occupied Poland at a time when it was extremely dangerous to be overtly Jewish.
  
• Sporadic progroms were an all too frequent in Tsarist Russia.
  
• As a consequence of the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) a new secular Jewish culture emerged and competed with traditional religious expressions of Judaism for "hearts and minds."
  
• As evidenced by the fact that Zamenhof attended Gymnasium (something between modern high school and modern college) in preparation for his professional career as an oculist, Zamenhof was clearly an assimilated secularist.
  
• At about 1900, Zamenhof produces a pamphlet Hillelism. This was his attempt to reform Judaism into a more modern secularist religion with obligatory mitzvot (commandments) being abrogated to the status of little more than cultural vestiges. I'm genuinely not sure if Hillelism could fairly be thought of as analogous to Humanistic Judaism or not.
  
• Zamenhof later reworked this Hellelism pamphlet about 1904, suggesting it was not well received, for a global audience and renamed it Homaranism. The dedication reads like a secular Ani Ma'amin (Principals of Faith.)
  
• A new religious movement diverged from Persian Islamic traditions emerged, and became known as the Bahá'í Faith. Bahá'íism reflects many of the values of LL Zamenhof's Hillelism. His daughter, Lidja, converts becoming a major proponent of the new religion.
  
• Adolf Hitler becomes aware of the Esperanto movement and cites it as "proof" of an international Jewish conspiracy in his infernal work Mein Kampf.
  
• During World War II all known family members of LL Zamenhof were successfully targeted for extermination by the by the Nazi regime. Lidja is known to have died at Treblinka in 1942.
  
• Zamenhof died in 1917. At some point (I'm not sure if it was before or after his death) the Japanese new religious movement of Shinto origin, Oomoto, declares Zamenhof a god.

eojeff:Zamenhof died in 1917. At some point (I'm not sure if it was before or after his death) the Japanese new religious movement of Shinto origin, Oomoto, declares Zamenhof a god.[/list]

Now that is interesting. Could you give some source? (Apart from the wiki article which says "citation needed").

nornen:Now that is interesting. Could you give some source? (Apart from the wiki article which says "citation needed").

How dare you question the SQL tables of stone which Jimmy Whales hath brought down from On High?

I did some digging: I can't find anything academic or obviously authoritative to support this—at least not quickly.

I did find a FAQ which indicates at least some Oomoto adherents view Esperanto as the "heavenly language." That's, obviously, not nearly the same thing as saying Zamenhof is a god.

Zamenhof's "apotheosis" at the hands of the Oomoto might just be the Wikipedia echo chamber effect. I can't say for sure.

~Jeff

eojeff:
Zamenhof's relationship with religion is a bit complicated. The facts, as I understand them, are as follows:

• ...............
  
• Zamenhof died in 1917. At some point (I'm not sure if it was before or after his death) the Japanese new religious movement of Shinto origin, Oomoto, declares Zamenhof a god.

From 'Demandoj kaj respondoj pri instruoj de Oomoto
http://www.oomoto.or.jp/Esperanto/esDokt/demres.ht...

(my translation)

10) What does it mean that L.L. Zamenhof is a "god" en Oomoto ...?

[Reply] The qualification "god" given to the spirit of Zamenhof does not have the same meaning as that of ordinary ancestral spirits. The meritorious work carried out by Zamenhof, who strove to bring to reality his noble ideal, i.e. the unification of the people of the world, could not possibly have come about without Divine guidance. In this sense, Oomoto sees that the spirit of Zamenhof is active even now as a missionary of the angelic realm; so his spirit was apoteozita (either glorified or deified, don't ask me - ml) in the Senrei-sha chapel (a shrine where the spirits of the deceased Oomoto missionaries are apoteozitaj), and Oomotans earnestly kultas (either worship or venerate - ml) his spirit together with that of other missionaries.

nornen:

eojeff:Zamenhof died in 1917. At some point (I'm not sure if it was before or after his death) the Japanese new religious movement of Shinto origin, Oomoto, declares Zamenhof a god.[/list]

Now that is interesting. Could you give some source? (Apart from the wiki article which says "citation needed").

I don't have a source, but when I lived in Korea it was a commonly known fact. Actually the Esperanto movement in Japan has a large group of Oomoto adherents.

nornen:

eojeff:Zamenhof died in 1917. At some point (I'm not sure if it was before or after his death) the Japanese new religious movement of Shinto origin, Oomoto, declares Zamenhof a god.[/list]

Now that is interesting. Could you give some source? (Apart from the wiki article which says "citation needed").

"Oomoto" is listed in the credits of the video Esperanto course "Pasporto al la Tuta Mondo" as having helped fund it or something, I don't remember exactly what. Dunno if that makes things any clearer or not.

Zamenhof did have some unorthodox religious views, but so far as I know he wasn't in the occult. But maybe Zimenhof, whoever that is, was.