during the 1870s, by 1879 it was widely recognized as a forgery. Nazi Germany More than forty years later, beginning in 1922, Dutch völkisch philologist Herman Wirth revived the issue. Wirth published a German translation of what he dubbed the "Nordic Bible" in 1933, as Die Ura Linda Chronik. A panel discussion on Wirth's book at the University of Berlin on 4 May 1934 was the immediate impulse for the foundation of Ahnenerbe by Himmler and Wirth, together with Richard Walther Darré. Because of the infatuation of Himmler with the Oera Linda Book and its consequent association with Nazi occultism, it became known as "Himmler's Bible". Wirth's book was by no means universally acclaimed among the Nazi-era Nordicist academics, and the 1934 panel discussion was steeped in heated controversy. Alfred Rosenberg and his circle rejected it. Gustav Neckel had praised Wirth's work before publication, but upon seeing its content published a dismayed recension. Speaking in defense of the book's authenticity were Walther Wüst and Otto Huth, besides Wirth himself. Speaking against its authenticity were Neckel, Karl Hermann Jacob-Friesen (who identified it as a satirical hoax by Linden) and Arthur Hübner. Hübner was one of the most respected Germanists of his generation, and his verdict of the Oera Linda being a falsification settled the defeat of Wirth's party. The public defeat of Himmler's scholarly brand of "esoteric Nordicism" resulted in the foundation of Ahnenerbe, which attracted occultists such as Karl Maria Wiligut and was viewed with suspicion by the mainstream National Socialist ideologues of Amt Rosenberg. Modern esotericism The book experienced a revival of popularity in the English-speaking world with the writings of Robert Scrutton. In The Other Atlantis (1977) he reproduced the full text of Sandbach's 1876 English translation, interspersed with his own commentaries on history and mythology. In Secrets of Lost Atland (1979) he became the first to link the book with the concept of earth mysteries, and, in particular, ley lines and telluric energy. Following Scrutton's example, English language accounts of the Oera Linda Book tend to place it within the New Age or alternate history genres, and do not associate it with National Socialism, as is the case in Germany. Another figure to formulate a contemporary Neopagan tradition influenced by the Oera Linda Book was Tony Steele, who considered the book to reveal the genuine truth about the ancient European megalithic culture. In Water Witches (1998) he