What did "Aryan" mean in the 1930s?

Solution 1:

There is actually some rather significant usage of the term to describe race in theosopical works, but my familiarity with these works is secondhand at best. The term was used as a name for what Madame Hellena Petrovena Blavatsky called the fifth root race. From what I gather, Blavatsky may have been using the word race along the lines of its meaning as describing a species, similar to the human race rather than any national race, since the first root race was ethereal in nature. However, I am not familiar enough with her work to tell you the exact sense of the word being used. Here is an example of Madame Blavatskey's usage as seen in From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan (1892 ):

Rajputs are called Hindus and are said to belong to the Aryan race; but they call themselves Surya-vansa, that is to say descendents of Surya or the sun.

Moreover, Madame Blavatsky's work dates back to the late 19th century and it was was not without influence. There are works written about her such as Some Account of My Intercourse with Madame Blavatsky from 1872 to 1884 written by Emma Coulomb, which contains the following excerpt:

The conversation related to the sad ignorance of the Aryan philosophies which prevailed among the people of India.

Perhaps more importantly her work was proliferated and spread around, Alice A. Bailey's works, which were written from 1919 through to 1949 is notably related. It is not implausible that she was using the word similarly to Blavatsky in the 1930s, but I can't confirm it at the moment since the earliest example of the word being used In Bailey's works shown is Discipleship of the New Age II, dated by google as being published in 1955.

Blavatsky's work is clearly too old to be Nazi in nature, so it is precedented, but I am not sure as to what degree. While Blavatsky was influential, I am not entirely sure how influential it was, and it is entirely possible that this is naught more than a niche usage.