Longing for the fifth race: Esoteric racialist revolutionaries in Hispanic America, 1910-1935

This is a study about the refashioning of human beings and culture in Hispanic America, from 1910--1935. These attempts were motivated by a spiritualized confluence of esoteric and revolutionary concepts as they intersected with the race idea. We examine the worldviews of three twentieth-century, radical Latin American revolutionary figures: Jose Vasconcelos (1882--1959) of Mexico, Victor Raul Haya de la Torre (1895--1979) of Peru, and Augusto Sandino (1895--1934) of Nicaragua. They crafted comprehensive, world-transformative plans for a perfected humanity out of racialist speculations based on esoteric beliefs. All three revolutionaries believed in the supremacy of the Latin American race, and that it was destined to play a pivotal role in the impending cosmic transformations. The analysis demonstrates that their universalist revolutionary rhetoric masked a narrow element of racial identity, and that the visions and goals of their racialist spiritualities possessed a millenarian character.