Astrologers and the Hungarian State Security Agency

Abstract

The history of astrology in twentieth-century Hungary has not yet been a subject of research. Consequently, the attitude of Hungarian state security agency towards astrologers and astrology during the communist era is unknown – especially since the files of agents have not been made public in Hungary. In the present article, I examine the question through the cases of Sándor Raisz, András László, Zoltán Lemhényi and Viktor Juhász-Schlatter, using sources preserved in the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security Services (Állambiztonsági Szolgálatok Történeti Levéltára). I conclude that the secret service was only interested in astrologers because they met regularly with their students, all regular and secret meetings being politically suspicious. Astrology as an illegal activity or a subject of contempt only appears in sources from the 1980s. All the astrologers discussed in my article were in one way or another opposed to the ruling communist regime. Part of the reason for this is that astrology was a popular intellectual, middle-class activity in the Horthy era, and representatives of this stratum were considered enemies of the regime after 1945. Also, the communist system represented an avowedly materialist ideology, while astrology flourished primarily among those interested in mysticism, theosophy and anthroposophy. The picture that emerges from the sources is that astrology classes were not overtly political, but their participants were nevertheless bound together by the knowledge that they were listening to forbidden, secret teachings. In this respect, astrology can be classified as counterculture in the era. The topic also offers a valuable insight into the overlapping subcultures in twentieth-century Hungary.