Author Description

National Socialist philosopher Savitri Devi's first major work, written from 1942 to 1945, provides a thorough examination of the apostate Egyptian Pharaoh Akhnaton, focusing upon his attempt to reform religion into worship of solar power, called the religion of the Disc by the author. This work is important background reading to Devi's more famous work, The Lightning and the Sun (1958), which drew upon the Hindu cycle of birth and rebirth of three sorts of history-making men: those who cause destruction, those who seek to rise above destruction, and those who fight against destruction. As detailed in that work, Akhnaton is an example of someone who seeks to rise above the destruction of his time. A Son of God is divided into three sections: a description of the King's early life, up to and including his ascension and his replacement of the national religion; a discussion of the particulars and implications of Atonism; and an exposition of the resultant decline of Egypt due to Akhnaton's refusal to compromise his beliefs, which concludes with a chapter considering the lessons for people today to be gleaned from Akhnaton's life and religion. The final chapter reveals Savitri Devi's ultimate purpose, which she states herself, namely to present for consideration the intellectual work of a forgotten hero: an ancient, but strikingly contemporary belief system which she believed had the potential to light the way beyond the impasse of the modern mindset, crippled by the severance of science (or rationality) and religion.