Neutempler Meda l/ Ordo Novi Templi

Neutempler Medal / Ordo Novi Templi 

Part of the Viennese occult revival in the 1900's

The Neutempler Medal or Ordo Novi Templi (ONT) was a nationalist - religious organization.  It was founded in 1900 by Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels in Vienna.  Lanz initially called the movement Theozoologie or Ario-Christianity.  The Order joined Christian piety with modern notions of racial purity.

His interest in the Templars was the contemporary popular motif of the Grail Knights in the neo-romantic music and literature of Richard Wagner, Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer and Friedrich Lienhard. In addition, the Templars were closely connected with the Cistercians.  Bernard of Clairvaux, the founder of the Cistercian order had written the rules of the Order of the Templars and praised them for their commitment later in the Crusades .

Around the time of his religious foundation, Lanz developed theories of racial purity that saw the Aryan breed as the highest standing race that located itself since time immemorial in a defensive struggle against lower races. In this context, he drew the idea that the Templars objective throughout the Mediterranean regionhad been to establish an Aryan empire.  The brutal persecution of the Templars by the Roman Catholic Church from 1312, he interpreted as a triumph of their racial inferiors, whose goal was to undermine the Aryan race.  His own his own Order as a new beginning of interrupted crusade of the Templars against lower races.

In 1907 acquired Lanz small ruins Werfenstein in Grein in Upper Austria as a Priory of the Order. In the same year he published a program of the Order, in which he described them as the union of Aryans, whose objectives would see that race consciousness through genealogical and heraldic research would establish racially, the best states in underdeveloped regions of the world. 

For the Order he developed his own liturgy and ceremonies . In the rules of the order was determined that only blond and blue-eyed men were allowed to join, which also had to meet further criteria of Aryanism which Lanz in its Series Ostara had explained. Within the Order, a hierarchy was established, which was based on the (alleged) racial purity. On Christmas Day 1907 Lanz hoisted on the tower of his Ordensburg two flags: one with the crest of Liebenfels, one probably extinct around 1790 an aristocratic family he passed himself off their descendent, and one with a swastika.

 From 1908 public festivals were held at Werfenstein.  Several hundred guests traveling on the Danube by steamer and were greeted with cannon shots to then invited to celebrate in the courtyard. This was very well received in the national press and promoted interest in Lanz's publications. 

As early as 1910, Ordo Novi Templi were heavily involved with brethren from across the world forwarding the goals of the New Dawn.  By appealing to the disenfranchised occult students of Vienna and the decadent wealthy upper class, Ordo Novi Templi were one of the dominant occult revival movements in Austria.  Lanz was able to use his considerable influence to obtain mystical texts and artifacts to train an inner core of devotees in the black arts.  As they grew in power they were able to use their mesmeric and occult powers to insinuate themselves into the upper echelons of the military.