Celtic Woman - Caledonia by Lady Avalonya

Celtic Woman

Caledonia by Lady Avalonya

Germanic concepts of Fate

Germanic concepts of Fate

Ex: http://www.gangleri.nl

Der Germanische Schicksalsglaube by Walther Gehl (1939)

A couple of things made me want to have a look at the explanations that I was offered of the terms “Ørlögr” and “heilagr” and this book was suggested. I got a copy through my library, so I had only 3 weeks to study the book. The Germanic Belief In Fate is a very interesting work, offering tons of information about the subject. Gehl does not really work towards the explanations that I was after, but there are things to work with. I want to introduce you to this book and because this text is too lengthy for a book review, this turned out to be an ‘article’. Of course I read the book with a certain idea in mind, so this review may turn out to be a bit onesided.

Ørlög

Gehl has found a staggering amount of terms to describe “Schicksal” (“Fate”), but most of them do not really have the meaning that we give to that term today. How could it be, with so many words? On page 16 (in the introduction) Gehl writes that words like “sköp” and “ørlög” were used to describe “fate”. Both terms are written with a “.” below the “o”, but I cannot reproduce that character, so I use the nowadays more common way of writing with “ö”. There we have the term that I was looking for, but in another meaning.

On page 19 Gehl writes: “Die gleichmäßigste Verbreitung under den germanischen Worten für “Schicksal’ zeigen die Ableitungen zu den germanischen Stämmen *laga, *gaskapa und *wurði (“the orderly spreading of the Germanic word “Fate” show deductions of the Germanic stems *laga, *gaskapa and *wurði“). Then follow terms from different Germanic languages such as gilagu, aldrlagu, ealdorlegu, feorhlegu, lög, forlög and urlac. The line of terms is interesting since the term “ørlög” seems to be present in most (all?) of the Germanic languages. An interesting remark is made on p.21: “Während as. orlag, ags. orlæg stark zurücktreten, scheint im Ahd. urlac das weitaus verbreiteste Word für “Schicksal” gewesen zu sein. old Norse ørlög is, im Gegensatz zu aldrlag, sköp usw., typisch für die mythologische Dichtung, wird aber auch von der Heldendichtung verwendet, wenn eine Steigerung ins Mythische beabsichted ist”. (“As old Saxon orlag, Anglo-Saxon orlæg are hardly present, it seems as if in old High German urlac is by far the most widely spread word for “Fate”. An. ørlög, contrary to aldrlag, sköp, etc., is typical for the mythological poetry; it is also used in the heroic poetry, but only when when it appears in a mythological context.”) A little further (p.22) Gehl writes that “sköp” is more ‘active’ and “ørlög” more ‘passive’. Later (p.37) Gehl makes that into “Weltlich” (“wordly” for “sköp”) and “mythogisch” (for “ørlög”). Towards the end of the book, the writer speaks about personal and impersonal fate and heroic versus organic.

In another article I have given my ideas about the terms “ørlögr” and “heilagr” and it is in that context that I use these terms. The reason that I started to look into the subject is that the major works about Germanic mythology such as De Vries’ or Meyer’s Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte or Simek’s Dictionary of Northern Mythology hardly (or not at all) speak about “ørlögr” and some of the modern books that I read give other explanations. Gehl seems to do the same. When he quotes texts such as the Eddas or the Gautreksaga, the term seems to use simply “fate” and not “primal law”. Ask and Embla are ørlöglausa (“without fate”) before before the three Gods visit them. Starkadr is given ørlög during a þhing. This seems to be ‘very personal’, even when there is another term for ‘personal ørlög’ being førlög.

On the other hand, “Snorri erzählt in seiner Edda, daß Alföðr (Allvater) zu Anfang stjórnarmenn, “Regenten”, eingesetzt habe mit dem Auftrag, at doema með sér ørlög manna (“das Schicksal der Menschen under sich durch Urteilsspruch zu bestimmen”)”, which means that Odin gave mankind “ørlög” and appointed regents to bestow judgements on it. That would mean that “ørlög” is Divine and further ‘handed down’ to mankind and that is the meaning that I give to the term.

 
On page 175 Gehl says that Odin knows “Seiðr” and “ørlög manna” (the “ørlög” of man) and when quoting Friedrich Kauffmann on p.225 Gehl speaks about “Urgesetz” and “Urprinzip” and “die tiefe Hintergründe alles Geschehens”, which lives up to my ideas a lot better, since “Urgesetz” is best translated by “primal law” in my opinion, “primal principle” says enough and especially the sentence “the deep background of everything that happens” does not miss much clarity. I would love to read this book by Kauffmann, but I have not been able to track down a copy, it seems unavailable from any Dutch library… But since Gehl also speaks about “überpersönliche schicksalhaften Urgesetse”, maybe in the end he presents what I was looking for anyway.

The rest of the book

Like I said, I was preoccupied when I read this book, but I made a lot more notes than those I gave above. So that you also learn a bit of other things that Gehl describes, here comes ‘the rest of the book’.

When the term “ørlög” is mentioned in the poetic Edda, somewhere near you will also see the term “leggia”, which I myself linked to the Norns (also present in each quote) and which Gehl translates as “schicksalhaft bestimmen”, or “‘fately’ determine”. This usually refers to the personal level. “þær lög lögðu, þær líf kuru, alda börnum, örlög seggja” (Völuspa 21) which is translated: “Laws they established, life allotted, to the sons of men; destinies pronounced” (Thorpe verse 20), “destiny”, a translation that I do not really like personally, but perhaps it says what it should in a way. “Law” for “lög” is more like it and the “ør” part I take for “Ur” or “primal”.

Gehl concludes that “der germanische Schicksalsglaube” is “gemeingermanisch” (pan-Germanic) since he has found terms referring to fate in every text that he studied. As appendix he gives a gigantic list with terms with their sources! This is extremely usefull for other people who want to have a look into the subject. Like I said, “Schicksal”, or better said, the terms that Gehl collected, do not always mean what we do with the term “fate”. A fairly large part of the book is about “Glück”, or “luck”. Terms such as Hamingja, goefa, gipt(a) refer to luck in connection with fate. That first term I would have explained in another way, but on page 67 Gehl writes: “Auch die hamingja is the Summe der körperlichen und geistlichen Vorzüge einer Menschen, oder vielmehr ihre sichtbare Wirkung in then Außenwelt. Auch Character und geistlichen Anlagen einer Menschen kann man auf seine hamingja schließen”. (“Also the hamingja is the sum of the physical and mental parts of men, or perhaps more even it is the visible result in the outer world. Also character and spirit of a man can be seen as his hamingja.”) (p.67)

“Hamingja” is often seen as (a part of) the soul, just as “fylgja”. About the latter Gehl says that the term is to be linked to the idea of heritable luck (p.68). Luck again, but then again: “[...] das Glück [ist] eine selbständig wirkende Macht” (“luck is an independently working force”) (p.67). This is shown when Gehl names terms that seem to refer to both luck and fate. “Heill” (“magisches Glück”) and “goefa”, “gipt(a)”, “hamingja” (“personsgebundenes Glück”) (p. 78).

The writer has a complete chapter about “fylgja”, which he even equates with the “hamingja” on page 145. 15 Pages earlier, Gehl speaks about “fyljur” in animal form and “fylgjur” in the form of a woman. The first appear in dreams and do not live longer than its carrier, man, because it is only the “Doppelgänger” of man. Another word for animal form “fylgja” according to Gehl, is “Hamr”. The “fylgja” in the form of a woman is connected to a person’s death, but this fylgja does survive its carrier, its goes over to “Sippengenossenen”.

Besides all this, but writer also touches upon subject such as magic (Spá, Seiðr, Útiseti / sitjar a haugi, etc.), ideas such as Sipp-/clan-luck and even “aldar rok” (“Welten Schicksal”) and “Weltenglück”, of course about the Norns, “Wurd”, etc., concepts of the soul, such as önd, hugr (“animus nie anima”), etc. and all that with many quotes in the original languages and, as said, a list with all terms and their sources. A wonderfull book with a much wider subject than I was looking for and inspite of the fact that there are more books dealing with this subject, Der Germanische Schicksalsglaube supposedly is the standard work on the subject to the present day.

29 December 2008

On honour

On honour

Ex.: http://www.gangleri.nl/

I am currently reading a very interesting book about “Compensation Tariffs” in medieval Frisia. Of course I will review the book when I finish it. The book speaks about the “feuding society” in which honour is of high value. The author explains the ancient idea of honour very well.

Compensation systems, of which the Old Frisian penalty lists are an example, appear in many societies. [...] The meganism flourishes in a society without a strong (central) authority – in which the government has the monopoly of violence – and where free men form a constitutional state. Such a society is often typified as being a feuding society. In a feuding society an insult or physical violence (sometimes) leads to revenge and revenge (sometimes) to a feud. The state of enmity that rises between two groups of people can be reconciled, compensation plays an important part.

p. 53 (my translation from Dutch to English)

Honour is brused, the dishonoured person is the same as the group (s)he is part of, so anyone of this group can restore the balance by taking revenge of anyone of the group of the offender. This can again lead to counter-action and to avoid that things run out of hand, the initial offence can be compensated with money (or valueble goods). This system is hard to imagine for us individualised Westerners without any notion of honour and we take offence when in other cultures (within our own) (Muslim for example) a system like this starts to operate. So what is that “honour”?

The idea of ‘an eye for an eye’ means that when somebody hits you and you do nothing back, people will say you are a pussy, so you hit back. In the Middle Ages only the people who fought could have honour, so honour came with status. Therefor honour did not have to be defended against anyone, some people simply are not important enough to take offence of. The people whose opinions did count are called honour group and this usually implies family and the small society that a person is member of. A person’s honour therefor is the same as the honour of his group or family and since honour is the highest of goods, it must be defended at every cost.

The author continues with describing honour economy. In the most simple explanation this means that there is a certain ‘amount’ of honour in a certain society, so when somebody’s honour rises, somebody else’s honour deminishes.

The amount of honor in the Icelandic universe was perceived to be constant at best, and over the long run, it seemed to be diminishing. [...] Honor was thus, as a matter of social mathemetics, acquired at someone else’s expense. When yours went up, someone else’s went down.

(a quote from William Miller’s Bloodtaking and Peacemaking.)

This goes very far, another quote from Miller:

The game was a laborious one because it demanded the greatest sensitivity to insult and challenge and because there were no intermissions once it started in earnest at the onset of physical maturity. And old man could no relax, nor even the corpse that had suffered violent death, for the final assessment of the victim’s honor depended on how much compensation or how great a vengeance his kin could exact on his behalf. The interminability of the enterprice is but one reason why this ‘game’ needs quotes. It was a game only in the sense that honor necessarily meant competition. There was nothing trivial about the ‘game’; it was, for people of self-respect, coterminous with social existence itself.

There being one ‘amount of honour’ did not mean that ever member had the same sized piece of the pie. The social position resulted in a larger or smaller piece and somebody ‘stealing somebody’s honour’ resulted in a need to put things back the way they were.

The book as a whole speaks mostly about the financial ways of balancing, but that is not the subject of this short article. Also more at length the writer speaks about the feuds, justice and the rules around those which are also far from the Westerner’s bed. Strange how rapidly our society (contrary to most other societies worldwide) have lost these values and systems. It speaks about texts upto the 17th century.

Lichaam , Eer en Recht in Middeleeuws Friesland – een studie naar de Oudfriese boeteregisters (Body, Honour and Right in Medieval Frisia – a study of Ancient Frisian compensation tariff registers) by Han Nijdam will be reviewed in the book reviews section when I finished it.

30 April 2009

Fire in Northern Mythology

Fire in Northern mythology

Ex.: http://www.gangleri.nl/

Fire, a concept that is very present in Northern mythology and also a concept that I have broken my head over for some time now. The symbology is multi-layered and however I still haven’t fully worked out the subject, I want to present some thoughts and come to an interpretation of some elements of Northern mythology.

Creation

There are two primal forces in Nordic myths, two forces that are known under the names, “fire” and “ice”. Before there was anything, there was Ginungagap, a “yawning gap”. In the south of it, fire ‘resided’ and in the north, ice. When these two came together, everything started. So, fire is the primal force, one side of the Divine. Some symbology!

It is not strange that fire keeps coming back in the symbology of Nordic mythology. What may be strange is that fire is much better represented than ice, but this is not the subject of this article.

Later in the creation myth, the triple divinity Odin, Hænir (sometimes Hoenir, or Hnir) and Lodur give capacities and make man. “Spirit gave Odin, “óður” gave Hoenir, “lá” gave Lodur and the form of gods”. This is how Rydberg translates Völuspa 18. More often you will read something like “Soul gave Othin, sense gave Hnir, Heat gave Lothur and goodly hue”. (Ari Odhinnsen) In the Prose Edda it is Odin, Vili and Vé who are the givers of these things.

Loki

Lodur is often said to be Loki. In the preface to the Reginsmal Odin, Hænir and Loki are named together, so this is not strange. Loki is the most famous of ‘fire Gods’ from the Northern pantheon. The name Loki has been explained in different ways of which two are most interesting in our story. “Logi” supposedly means “flame” and the terms “liuhan” (Gothic) and “lecht” (Anglo-Saxon) are linked to the English word “light”, but also to the term “flame”. The same goes for the term “Lód”.

Fiery triplicity

When you think of it, there are three Gods connected to the concept of fire and also connected to eachother: Heimdallr, Balder and Loki. Heimdallr is the “white As”, the watchman on the Bifrost bridge and is therefor the middleman between the world of men and the world of the Gods. Heimdallr is not only the connecting smoke-pillar representing the Irminsul in the fire ritual, but also unchanging fire. He is the metaphysic flame, beyond time and space. In this regard Heimdallr can be equated with Brahman of the Hindus.

The second name that I mentioned is that of Balder. Balder is Heimdallr, but on another plane. We can place Heimdallr on the godly level, Balder on the human level and Loki on the underwordly level (or Asgard, Midgard and Utgard). Balder is the incarnated fire, the fire in ‘our world’ so to say. He is the warmth of our heart, the sun, the ancestral hearth-fire. To use another Hindu term, Balder may be seen as Atman.

I have already said a few things about Loki, but you can imagine that in regard of the previous, Loki is the destructive, incinerating, consuming fire. Loki is longing and desire.

When I draw this line further, I can say that Balder and Loki are dual aspects of Heimdallr, but on other levels.

Lightning

Lightning is often connected to fire and when I say lightning, I say Thor. Lightning is sparks of fire when Thor’s hammer hits something. The hammer makes an interesting connection, since with his Mjölnir, Thor kills giants (ice-giants!), but the Mjölnir is also connected with right (the judge’s hammer), consecration (for example of marriages) and initiations (a ‘higher’ form of consecration).

Ragnarök

To bring the above together, we get the following picture. Loki, the lower self, turns against the higher self (Balder), causing Ragnarök. During this Ragnarök, Thor kills the Midgard-snake (‘manifestation’), Heimdallr (our divine spark) fights Loki and all this in order to have our higher self ‘become divine’ (in other words: to develop and realise our Balder to become Heimdallr).

An interesting point that does not fit completely in the above is that Surtr, the leader of the fire-giants who raise up to fight the Aesir, also seems to be the cause of the sparks coming from Muspelheimr and thus creation. During Ragnarök Surtr destroys the Bifrost-bridge (Heimdallr’s ‘domain’), kills Freyr and sets the world to flames. Whereas Heimdallr seems to be some ‘overhuman’ fire-aspect, Surtr is more of an ‘underhuman’ aspect. Both larger than our petty selves, but completely opposital. In this regard Surtr maybe represents the outside forces that try to disconnect us from our divine origin. Whatever we may call “evil” maybe. Surtr seems to have always been there and whereas Loki, Balder and Heimdallr are ‘part of us’, Surtr is not.

Of course there are more figures that can be connected to fire, but here I present a certain aspect that may shed light on some of the symbolism in Northern mythology.
-13/3/07-

24 May 2007

Kinship, gift-exchange, honour and feud in Medieval Frisia and Iceland

Kinship, gift-exchange, honour and feud in Medieval Frisia and Iceland

Ex.: http://www.gangleri.nl/

In this article I want to say a thing or two about a few interrelated ‘processes’ in the Medieval Germanic society. How groups form and how they are maintained and how ‘mechanisms’ such as honour and feudwork. These at first sight varied subjects will prove to be interwoven.
For this article I have used a few books that you will find listed at the bottom. All authors more or less treat parts of the whole, but from different perspectives and speaking about different societies. It seems as if all of these kinds of works owe a great deal to Willam Miller’s Bloodtaking and Peacemaking which is one of the books that I used. Miller is mostly concerned with Medieval Iceland. Another author I consulted is Jos Bazelmans who dived deeply into the Beowulf story and therefor Anglo-Saxon culture. Another Dutch author, Arnoud-Jan Bijsterveld wrote a book about gift-giving mostly concerning people and the Church in the late-medieval Netherlands, a period in which little empires started to arise and this lord-civilian bond is also very present in Bijsterveld’s book. Further I used two articles and last but not least, the inspiration to start this little investigation came from Han Nijdam’s excellent Lichaam, Eer en Recht which is about Medieval Frisian society, with many references to Medieval Iceland.

The individual

Nowdays we speak of an individualistic society, people are atoms in a society and hardly connected to anybody. This was different in times past. In fact, it is not entirely true nowadays either. When you think of who a person is, you think how that person relates to other people to ‘define’ that person. Han Nijdam says: “a person [is] dividable because it is defined in terms of the relationships that he and other members of the society maintains” (Nijdam 50). He continues with a simple example refering to a short film in Sesame Street in which a boy is the newspaper boy for one person, the grandchild of the next and the little brother of the third. The boy is ‘defined’ by the people he relates to. Or the other way around, who he is, depends on the person who describes him.

“If we could abstract a person’s movements and graph them into a network, we would find that the greatest predictor of the identity of the various households in which he or she gained entry, either as visitor or lodger, would be the presence of kin within that household.” William Miller writes (Miller 139), meaning that the visitor would define the persons in the houses he visits by looking at the other people present. Since it still works that way, one can hardly speak of an individual.

So if an individual is defined by his or her surroundings, what are these surroundings? “Family”, “kin”, “sib” , “tribe” perhaps? Just as with an individual, these terms are not so easy to describe, because they too are dependent on the situation. “The oldest Germanic societies that can be reconstructed using historical sources possessed, according to the most widely held opinion, a relatively stable order that was based on the natural principle of blood-relationship. Relationships of descent, whether fictional or not, gave each person a place within the tribal collective.” (Bazelmans 13) On a smaller scale Miller does not only speak of “regional variation[s] in householding practices” (Miller 113), but he continues with saying “that the precise sense of household might change depending on the context in which it is invoked. A household unit as identified for recruitment to the feud is not the same as the household unit used to determine whether someone qualifies for service on a jury or is required to attach himself to a chieftain for the purposes of Thing attendence.” (Miller 114). “Ego-focused kin groupings of shifting composition [...] were quite important in Iceland in a multitude of social and legal settings, even if these groupings were variously constituted depending on a number of personal, social, and other contextual factors and did not include all eligible members. Kinship mattered, even if not all people related to a person felt obliged to assist him or her.” (Miller 140) Or in the words of Jos Bazelmans: “The tribe consisted of a large number of relatively autonomous elements. These were not descent groups in the sense of lineages or clans, but name-bearing groups of disparate size which recruited their members on the basis of kinship and residence in the same geographical area. Each person was not only a member of such corporate, regional groups, but also of an open network of persons related on the father’s or the mother’s side along with dependents (the kindred). Such networks played an important rold especially in the resolution of feuds.” (Bazelmans 3)

“The extend of the kindred, that is, how genealogically distant two people can be and still count each other kin, is formally set in some provisions in the laws at fourth cousins.” (Miller 145) (addition: a fourth cousin is a person of my own generation with whom I share great-great-great-grandparents, in our reckoning that is an 8th grade kinship! Some texts speak of seventh cousins!!)

“Kinship mattered”. But what is a person’s kin? The people he is related to by blood of course, but both in the old and in the current view of things, blood-relations go in two directions, the father’s and the mother’s side. “Bilateralism, the tracing of relationship through links of both sexes, meant that not all a person’s relatives were related to each other. [...] An important feature of bilateral kinship reckoning is that your kin will not entirely coincide with your cousin’s kin; or, from another perspective, you are by virtue of kinship eligible for membership in several different kin groups with different overlap. [...] The kin group, in other words, was not a closed corporation of determinate membership; it did not constitude itself automatically. It always fell to someone to recruit his of her kin for the particular enterprise at hand.” (Miller 155)

You have family on both your father’s and your mother’s side, but the uncles, aunts, nephews and nieces of either side are probably not related to eachother, their kin is different from yours. Therefor the situation exists in which an uncle of both your father’s and mother’s side are called upon, but when one of these uncles invites (or whatever) his kin, he will most likely not ask your other uncle. With that in mind you can only conclude that kinship differs in different situations.

A similar situation goes for “households”, a group of people living in the same house or on the same piece of land under guard of a “householder”. A household is something quite different from kin, since aunts and nieces do not often live in your house and the servants that do, are usually not related by blood. A household surely is a unit of society to take a look at, especially because often it is said that in governmentless society such as in Medieval times there first were separate households:
“Inevitably the attempt was made to add early Iceland to the number of regions that socialized people in nuclear families within simple households. As we shall see, what the sources tell us about the shape of Icelandic householding must compel a different conclusion. The sources, both sagas and laws, are not without their own special problems in this particular topic. For one thing, the laws take an explicit interest in households and even define what constitudes a household unit. But the “juridical” household does not seem to correspond with what archeological evidence there is, nor with saga descriptions of how the main economic unit, the farm, was populated and managed. Outside passages in the laws directly dealing with the legal household, information on householding must be culled from passing comments in the laws and sagas and inferred from contexts devoted explicitly to other matters. The fact that most of our information is acquired incidentally is in its way quite reassuring. Even the most committed member of the Icelandic school of saga scholarschip would have a hard time giving any reason as to why a thirteenth-century saga writer would want to situate his characters in households that had no basis in reality.” (Miller 112/3)

“While the laws formally imposed kinship out to fourth cousins, kinship in the practical or world depended on more than just biological or affinal connections. Just who would be counted kin was clearly subject to much situational variation and was quite context-specific. A second, even a third cousin with whom one shared common interests and with whom one consequently acted or consulted would be counted kin, while a first cousin with whom one was less involved might cease, for practical purposes, to be counted kin at all. Nor might the people with whom one claimed kinship for the purpose of invitations to feasts and weddings be the same people one counted as kin when it came time to assist in a lawsuit or help pay compensation for their wrongdoings.” (Miller 156) Miller calls this “recruitable kin” (Miller 156) and of course the situation is not different nowadays. I suppose the “common interest” could also be with a non-kin version but a friend.

Earlier we saw Jos Bazelmans speaking of “fictional relationships of descent”. This can refer to the famous, but in the used books little described subject of blood-brothership. “Blood-brothership was a formalized relation undertaken between two or more men in which each vowed to avenge the death of the other, just as if he were his own brother.” (Miller 173) And thus a new member of the kin was a fact.

What might sound strange in our logic is that “[i]n various places in the law a sister’s husband is considered an especially close relation. “He is disqualified for interest from sitting on juries and from judging his affine’s cases just as if he were a blood relative.” (Miller 162) This does not count for a wife’s brother!

“People looked to kin and affines for aid in law and life. They avenged each other’s wrongs; they invited each other to weddings and funerals; they gave each other gifts. They stood surety for each other hired on their poorer cousins as servants.” (Miller 178) This had the result that “[o]ne of the chief activities kin undertook with eachother was mutual consultation. Since the target of a vengeance killing might not be the wrongdoer himself, but one of his kin, there was every reason why kin would want to have some say in actions for which others might hold them to account. [...] Uncounseled deeds were considered reckless deeds.” (Miller 164)

The consulting of kin is very different from how things go today. When I do something to somebody, that somebody in most cases will not know my family and if (s)he does,

23 May 2010

Frans Eduard Farwerck

Frans Eduard Farwerck

by Roy

Ex: http:://www.new-antaios.net/

Some 8 years ago I met my girl­friend. We were both involved in a short-lived Dutch ‘spir­i­tual mag­a­zine’ that liked to treat con­tro­ver­sial sub­jects. Through the edi­tor of the mag­a­zine my girl­friend got acquinted with a Flem­ish ‘Asatru’ group and later so did I. At the time my inter­est still mainly laid at Renais­sance eso­teri­cism, Medieval magic, etc. This was already a bit closer to home, since before I had an inter­est in more exotic, East­ern sub­jects. In any case, meet­ing Asatru excelled my shift towards even more domes­tic inter­ests, the old reli­gion of North­ern Europe. While becom­ing active in the group I ini­tially sticked to my inter­ests, but I heard a lot of inter­est­ing new paths.

In the Nether­lands and Flan­ders we have a chain of fairly large anti­quar­ian book­shops called “De Slegte” and at the time I fre­quently vis­ited our local store. Nowa­days I specif­i­cally hunt for titles instead of just see­ing what I run into. Con­trary to my hab­bits of the time, I took a look through the folklore/faery tales sec­tion and my eye fell on the back of an enor­mous, red book. I took it from the shelf, paged through it and I realised that this had to a be title often used by the founder of the Asatru group. Sim­i­lar ideas, sim­i­lar sub­jects. The back said: Noordeu­ropese Mys­ter­iën. It was not cheap, but I bought it, read it and was blown away.

Since that time, this book has become a true cult-work among Dutch speak­ing hea­thens. The book has been out of print since 1978, but as there is demand for it, the price is pushed upwards. It has not yet become another Alt­ger­man­is­che Reli­gion­s­geschichte (Jan de Vries, 1956 and 1974, this two vol­ume work is usu­ally sold for sev­eral hun­dreds euros), but you do not just visit a (web)shop and buy it. Noordeu­ropese Mys­ter­iën is not impos­si­ble to find and it does not even have to be really expen­sive, but you have to look around not to pay an absurd price for it, since espe­cially after the inter­net cat­a­logues of anti­quar­ian book­shops, some peo­ple fig­ured out what they can ask for the title.

Con­trary to Alt­ger­man­is­che Reli­gion­s­geschichte, Noordeu­ropese Mys­ter­iën is writ­ten in Dutch (De Vries’ book is in Ger­man), nar­row­ing its audi­ence. This and the fact that is no longer in print, caused the fact that the book is unknown and over­looked in the non-Dutchspeaking world, espe­cially in the English-speaking world. I hope that this small arti­cle might change that. Of course, this might put even more pres­sure on the price, but per­haps a for­eign pub­lisher gets the idea of repub­lish­ing or even trans­lat­ing it. But at least, peo­ple who ‘should’ know the book, might now hear of it.

The book I am talk­ing about has the full title Noordeu­ropese Mys­ter­iën en hun sporen tot heden. This is trans­lated as ‘Northern-European mys­ter­ies and their traces to the present’. We know about the mys­tery cults of the medit­er­anean area, Greece, Egypt, etc.; we know about the mys­tery reli­gions of the near and far east, but mys­ter­ies in North­ern Europe? Was ancient North­ern Europe not inhab­ited by stu­pid plun­der­ing bar­bar­ians? Some schol­ars even doubt our ances­tors had a reli­gion to start with, let along a mys­tery cult. This book shows us oth­er­wise and shows more, much much more.

Noordeu­ropese Mys­ter­iën is the result of a life­long inves­ti­ga­tion and the result of a respect­full list of pub­li­ca­tions of the Dutch­man Frans Eduard Far­w­erck who lived from 1889 to 1978. Far­w­erck was a suc­ces­full trader of car­pets and joined Freema­sonry in 1918. It took a while before his first pub­li­ca­tion saw the light of day, in 1927 he pub­lished a book about the world’s mys­tery reli­gions through a reg­u­lar pub­lisher, but under the obvi­ously Masonic pseu­do­nym B.J. van der Zuylen (“Zuylen” is an old way of writ­ing “zuilen”, “pil­lars” and the ini­tials of course refer to Boas an Jachin). This impres­sive 565 paged book gives but lit­tle room to Ger­manic and Celtic mys­ter­ies, but they are already present. Farwerck’s next book is a truly Masonic one about the Hiram myth, pub­lished by “the lodge”. Then the Ger­mans raised to power, Far­w­erck joined the NSB (“nationaal-socialistische beweg­ing”, the Dutch national social­ist party) and he was expelled from “the lodge” in 1934 after a 16 year car­reer in which he reached the absolute high­est rank in his order.

With his national social­ist friends he founded a pub­lish­ing com­pany called “Der Vaderen Erfdeel” (losely trans­lated with “fathers’ her­itage”) through which in 1938 he pub­lished his clas­sic work Lev­end Verleden set­ting the tone for his later writ­ings. Far­w­erck trav­elled exten­sively, mak­ing count­less pho­tos, inves­ti­gat­ing local myths, sto­ries and folk­lore and ‘liv­ing past’ is a col­lec­tion of mostly build­ing and frontage sym­bol­ism, the ori­gins of which he traces back to the prechris­t­ian past. Then a few years of silence follow.

Again as Van der Zuylen in 1953 Far­w­erck pub­lishes Noord-Europese Mys­ter­iën en Inwi­jdin­gen in de Oud­heid (‘Northern-European Mys­ter­ies and Ini­ti­a­tions in ancient times’), a rough ver­sion of his much later Noordeu­ropese Mys­ter­iën. In the same year Far­w­erck pub­lished a book about that mys­te­ri­ous object that is nowa­days called the “Frank’s cas­ket” and after that the extremely inter­est­ing and (almost) impos­si­ble to find Noord-Europa, een der bron­nen van de Maçonieke sym­bol­iek (‘North­ern Europe, one of the sources of Masonic sym­bol­ism’ 1955). This lit­tle book con­tains infor­ma­tion that Far­w­erck appar­ently did not want/dare to pub­lish in his pub­lic pub­li­ca­tion, but roughly it rep­re­sents the next step in his inves­ti­ga­tions that would lead to Noordeu­ropese Mys­ter­iën.

This time under his own name, Far­w­erck again pub­lishes about the mys­tery reli­gions in gen­eral in 1960 and 1 year later fol­lows the final result, the man’s mag­num opus. It is sold out in no-time, but has but one reprint, since Farwerck’s war-past sud­denly became an obsta­cle. The sec­ond print­ing did not sell too well either.

Unfor­tu­nately the war past is a big issue in these parts. Many authors with inter­est in the pagan past of North­ern Europe thought that join­ing the national social­ists could be good for their cause and after the dis­as­ter of WWII they all remained with an inerad­i­ca­ble stain on their per­sons. Some even kept the ide­ol­ogy, oth­ers realised their mis­take, but the result remains that when some peo­ple started to raise ques­tions about cer­tain author’s past, they were banned. Their books were no longer printed or repub­lished, new authors who had no war-past what­so­ever can­not use these authors as their sources. The col­lec­tive shame for the actions of some of our peo­ple have made inves­ti­ga­tions in the sub­ject of the prechris­t­ian reli­gion of North­ern Europe vir­tu­ally impos­si­ble. Even the stan­dard works of Jan de Vries (1890–1964), no mat­ter how highly acclaimed by schol­ars, are no longer avail­ble. Iron­i­cally enough among schol­ars De Vries is pop­u­lar enough to give him some credit, so his Edda trans­la­tion can be found in most book­shops to this day and many authors cite him by lack of bet­ter sources. I do not expect a reprint, let alone a trans­la­tion of the Alt­ger­man­is­che Reli­gion­s­geschichte any time soon. The same goes for Farwerck’s superb work.

But enough about all that, let us talk a bit about the ideas in the book. Of course in a small arti­cle in which I want to give a biog­ra­phy and sum­merise the find­ings of half a decade of inves­ti­ga­tions, I can­not go into much detail. I hope to present you just enough to sparkle your inter­est in the sub­ject and/or inspire peo­ple to learn Dutch and/or do their own investigations.

Noord-Europese Mys­ter­iën

Far­w­erck starts with describ­ing “reli­gious and myth­i­cal con­cep­tions of the Ger­mans con­cern­ing rites of ini­ti­a­tion”. Death and the under­world, bur­ial prac­tices, life after death, imag­i­na­tions of the dead. This is all infor­ma­tion you can also find else­where, but it of course sets the tone, since the next part is about can­di­dates for the Ger­manic God of ini­ti­a­tion. Is it Wodan, is it Balder, is it Donar? Most exten­sively treated is Wodan/Odin. His con­nec­tion to the dead (con­form Mer­cury), his wolves, the eight-legged horse, hang­ings, offer­ing rit­u­als, the Ein­her­jar, all ele­ments that, put in the right per­spec­tive, could sug­gest Wodan has some­thing to do with ini­ti­a­tions. An entire chap­ter is ded­i­cated to the wild hunt(er) that goes around the nightly sky in the Yule-period, Wodan with his legion of the dead. Far­w­erck quotes from folk­lore and local myths to show that the idea of the Wild Hunt(er) can be found from France to Nor­way and from Slavic coun­tries to Ire­land. Wodan in con­nec­tion to fer­til­ity (and there­for again with the dead) is the sub­ject of the next chap­ter. After this Far­w­erck starts look­ing for infor­ma­tion about rites of ini­ti­a­tion, and we are not talk­ing about rites de pas­sage in which a boy becomes a man and a girl a woman. The first story that comes to mind is of course the story of Balder’s death and res­ur­rec­tion, the sec­ond Odin hang­ing down the world tree and learn­ing the runes or the hang­ing of king Vikarr by Starkadr, but first we go to another subject.

Män­ner­bünde

After the ground­break­ing work Kul­tische Gehe­im­bünde der Ger­ma­nen (‘cul­tic secret soci­eties of the Ger­mans’ 1934) the sub­ject of “Män­ner­bünde” (‘men bonds’) was ‘hip’ for a while. But… also Höfler became a mem­ber of the Ahnenerbe and the NSDAP so after WWII this was another sub­ject ‘not done’. Only recently schol­ars start to write about the sub­ject again. Even Eng­lish writ­ing schol­ars usu­ally use Höfler’s term “Män­ner­bünde”, so let us stick to that tra­di­tion. Män­ner­bünde, as the term sug­gests, are groups of men that stand with one leg out­side nor­mal soci­ety, they are secret groups. In the con­text of North­ern Euro­pean peo­ples we quickly think about some sort of elite war­rior groups such as the Ein­her­jar, the Uld­hed­nar and the Berz­erkr, but Far­w­erck sug­gests that many of the names that we think were tribes in the writ­ings of the Romans, actu­ally referred to such elite war­rior groups. The Harii, the Chat­tii, the Lan­go­b­ards, even the Vikings in the orig­i­nal mean­ing sup­pos­edly were such groups. Should the Män­ner­bünde have been mere war­rior groups, they would have not been as inter­est­ing as they are though.

When not at war, mem­bers of these groups had all kinds of spe­cial priv­iledges. The right of rep­ri­mand, the right to steal, they had cer­tain dances, fes­tiv­i­ties, dress­ing (such as ani­mal cloth­ing) and spe­cial roles in pub­lic cer­e­monies for fer­til­ity or sea­sonal feasts. Many things sug­gest that mem­bers of these groups ful­filled a spe­cial role in soci­ety, a role which even came with oblig­a­tions such as that of secrecy and sev­eral duties. Far­w­erck shows what he finds around these sub­jects and con­tin­ues to show that such groups have sur­vived much much longer than we may expect. They were cul­tic groups that sur­vived the com­ing of Chris­tian­ity by remod­el­ing to Chris­t­ian groups that we came to know as guilds. Besides such ‘reli­gious guilds’, there were of course the famous work­ers guilds of the masons, the tim­ber­men and the tan­ners, groups that have remark­able sim­i­lar­i­ties to the Män­ner­bünde of old.

Far­w­erck sums up a stag­ger­ing amount of folk­loris­tic hab­bits and other remains that are unmis­tak­enly con­nected to these groups. All kinds of saints seem merely Chris­tian­i­sa­tions of pagan deities and the tra­di­tions around them have but a thin layer of var­nish. Horn– and Mor­ris­dances, Mummer’s plays, sword dances, Schlem­laufen and Klaus­ja­gen, Far­w­erck lets a lot of these nice folk­loris­tic feasts pass the reader. It is amaz­ing how the steal­right or the right to rep­ri­mand are still rights of youth-groups as late as the early 20^th cen­tury, groups that have some watered-down ele­ment of wear­ing ani­mal skin and cer­tain dances that have been per­formed in churches until the Ref­or­ma­tion. Of course much infor­ma­tion comes from Chris­t­ian sources try­ing to ban these pagan prac­tices, but this often did not work too well so they were tried to be Christianised.

Recon­struc­tion of ancient initiations

Chap­ter 10 is ded­i­cated to the sum­ming up of infor­ma­tion that Far­w­erck has been able to find to see if he can recon­struct the rites. He starts with the pos­si­ble places where the cer­e­monies would be held. Of course lakes, for­rests, hills, etc. were the sacred places for Ger­mans and Celts alike. There are many toponyms (place names) that sug­gest cer­tain cer­e­monies. Mur­der pits, wolf pits, devil’s hills even  “woensberg”en or places named “Woensel” (now part of the city of Eind­hoven) and “Woens­drecht” all clearly refer to Wodan and in the case of the mur­der pits, could there death-and-resurrection cer­e­monies have been held? There are also toponyms that seem to refer to (sacred) meals (cul­tic meals?), so called “troja burchten” (con­struc­tions or draw­ings in the form of a spi­ral) about which a lot is to say (Far­w­erck uses 24 pages). Then we have the sacred times of the sol­stices and equinoxes around which (folk)stories exist that sug­gest cul­tic rites vague shad­ows of which have been kept in folk­lore and recent fes­ti­vals. After this Far­w­erck comes to cloth­ing, sacred weapons, cer­tain songs and dances, hang­ings and spear-woundings, trav­els to the under­world and res­ur­rec­tions there­from, new names, the sacred potion (usu­ally some­thing made with honey) and old and less old ref­er­ences to broth­er­hoods of all sorts.

Far­w­erck con­tin­ues with guilds. Since they are fairly recent there is more infor­ma­tion avail­able about their struc­ture, hab­bits, legal sta­tus, etc. Not only workers-guilds are spo­ken about, but also for exam­ple shoot­ing guilds, a beloved sub­ject for peo­ple who want to find the traces back to a fur­ther past.

With “build­ing huts” and build­ing guilds we are a step closer to our own time, because you will prob­a­bly know that they are well rep­re­sented in the his­tory the Freema­sons give them­selves. Dif­fer­ent kinds of guilds have all kinds of secrets that are both prac­ti­cal, but also reli­gious. You can read all about it in the pop­u­lar his­to­ries of Freema­sonry, but Far­w­erck presents a nice overview and very inter­est­ing details. Now also fol­low more pho­tos that Far­w­erck took in churches with faces with a hand below their chin, sup­pos­edly a secret sign of mas­ter masons. Of course there are also the master-signs (some sort of sig­na­tures) that often remind of runes, but we are already talk­ing about the 11/12^th cen­tury here. Quite some infor­ma­tion about these guilds seems to come directly from Masonic writ­ings, but of course, Masons says that these guilds are their pre­de­ces­sors. And then we get pho­tos of all kinds of strange orna­ments in churches with one-eyed fig­ures (Wodan?), mock­eries of the church, pic­tures of men in strange pos­tures and all kinds of sug­ges­tive scenes that seem too unchris­t­ian to be built into a church.

Freema­sonry

And there we have it, Far­w­erck spends the last 150 pages of his book show­ing that “Freema­sonry [is] one of the youngest descen­dants of the ancient men bonds”. Hav­ing been a high-ranking Mason him­self, he quotes all kinds of Masonic texts, rit­u­als, etc. (but I think he tells us noth­ing he should bet­ter not) and com­pares them to what we find in myths, sagas, pagan art or folk­lore. The form of the tem­ple, the place where the dif­fer­ent offi­ciants can be found, rit­u­al­is­tic sym­bol­isms such as the limp­ing or signs of recog­ni­tion, sym­bol­ism on the “tableau”, the three pil­lars, the large and the small lights, Masonic cloth­ing (Thor’s iron gloves and gir­dle), the con­se­crat­ing ham­mer and even the open­ing and clos­ing rites, they all seem to have North­ern Euro­pean ori­gins rather than Jew­ish or Egyptian.

There is a lot more to say, but here you have the red thread. In work­ing to his con­clu­sion, Far­w­erck sheds light on a great many ele­ments of folk­lore and (folk) sym­bol­ism, giv­ing new inter­pre­ta­tions of tales, sagas and texts that we know, cross ref­er­enc­ing dif­fer­ent myths and dif­fer­ent folk­tales and all together his book is a true gold­mine and a just rea­son to have grown into being a cult book. This is the kind of book that I hope to run into some time again, but I doubt I ever will. Besides all the works that I own of Dumézil, Eli­ade, Guénon or De Vries, I often first check Far­w­erck, then the rest. Espe­cially when I am look­ing for visu­als, I go to Far­w­erck, since his books are as much stuffed with pho­tos and draw­ings as they are with infor­ma­tion and until this day, he has col­lected an unprece­dented amount of visu­als of details and sym­bol­ism. These alone are a rea­son to get the book.

Even when you are not inter­ested in the North­ern Euro­pean his­tory of Freema­sonry (most peo­ple who buy this book are not), you will find enough infor­ma­tion in the uplighted parts that Far­w­erck needs to present his proof. Per­son­ally I admire the book too for being a non-Traditionalist, he presents a story that almost no Tra­di­tion­al­ist has ever told even though (s)he should have: the unbro­ken chain has been kept in the West though West­ern organ­i­sa­tions until this very day.

Evola on the Egyptian & Tibetan Books of the Dead

Translation anonymous, revised by Greg Johnson

Ex: http://www.counter-currents.com/

Boris De Rachewiltz
Il libro dei Morti degli antichi Egiziani
Milan: All’Insegna del Pesce d’Oro, 1958

This publication fills a gap long felt by the many students of the history of religions, since previous editions of the Book of the Dead, this most important document of ancient Egypt, have long been unavailable. The works of Lepsius (1842), Naville (1886), Pierret (1882), Sir Peter Le Page Renouf (1904), and Schiaparelli (1881–1890) can only be found in libraries. The only edition reprinted has been the 1953 edition by E. A. Wallis Budge with facsimiles of the papyri.

Mention should also be made of the G. Kolpaktchy edition published in French and Italian. But it is of little use from the scientific point of view, for the author, animated by the praiseworthy desire to give the inner esoteric sense of many passages of the text has too often been carried away by his imagination, or, worse still, allowed himself to be influenced by dubious ideas taken from modern Theosophy.

The edition and translation by De Rachewiltz—handsomely printed—is based on the Turin papyrus, photographic reproductions of which face the pages of the translation so that any who wish may compare the two. The text is of the Saite Book of the Dead, which is more recent than the Theban version. It was studied and reproduced only by Lepsius, and it is more complete than the Theban version, as it represents the final stage of its development in which the basic themes have been preserved apart from several re-elaborations and additions.

The translation is such that it can serve the purposes of both the specialist and the cultured reader interested in the documents of traditional spirituality. For such readers a little glossary has been added to the translation, which explains the leading themes of the Egyptian mythical-religious world that recur in the text. The translation adheres in the main to the literal meaning of the text, but it does so generally in a way that does not hinder a symbolic or esoteric interpretation, which texts of this kind always allow.

It would be interesting—and would come within the scope of this Review—to draw a comparison between the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Tibetan, Bardo Thödol, first made known by Evans Wenz and later by Professor Tucci, who used more complete text. The idea common to both is that after death the soul still has the ability to take actions on which its fate will depend. It can, in a certain way, overcome destiny, modifying the course it would otherwise follow. To express it in oriental terms, it may be said that it has the power of suspending the effects of the karma.

 

It should however be noted that this does not refer to just any kind of soul. The Tibetan text shows that the soul is always that of a person who had already travelled part of the way to liberation during his life.

In the case of the Egyptian text, De Rachewiltz points out that it became the Book of the Dead in general only through a process of “democratization,” for in the ancient Empire it had been reserved exclusively to members of the Royal House and of the high priesthood. Indeed, originally the so-called “Osirification” was reserved for them only, and only to them was attributed the ka, the “double,” destined to make way for the sahu, the immortal body that “stands up,” that “does not fall.”

The real title of the Egyptian text is The Book to Lead out to the Day. The real meaning of this expression, imperfectly understood by several translators, alludes to the supreme purpose: to go out into the day means to go out into the immortal light, the invisible light of Amenti. In the Tibetan ritual, as is known, the meeting with absolute light is the first experience and the first test the soul of the dead encounters. An essential part of the Egyptian ritual is overcoming “the second death,” that is to say the disintegration of the spiritual and psychic nucleus detached from the body by the first death (the death of the physical organism). In this connection the motive of an existential danger, of a fundamental risk encountered in the beyond, often acquires highly dramatic features in the Egyptian text. At the same time, the Egyptian text attributes more importance to behavior of a magic and determinative character than does the Tibetan, which accentuates rather the importance and power of knowledge.

Nevertheless, there are many parallel points between the two texts dealing with the liberating identifications. Just as in the Tibetan ritual the destruction of the appearance of distinct entities, which all things perceived in the experiences of the other world may acquire, is indicated as a means of liberation, so in the Egyptian text formulae are repeated by means of which the soul of the dead affirms and realizes its identity with the divine figures.

In addition to these, there are the formulas for “transformation.” The soul acquires the capacity of making itself manifest in the form of one or other of the cosmic powers, which in the text are made to correspond mostly to the symbolic theriomorphic figures. It is only through a misinterpretation of these references that some have been led to suppose that the doctrine of reincarnation was part of the ancient esoteric teachings of the Egyptians.

Unfortunately, the Egyptian text as it has come down to us is not systematic in character. The formulas are often presented miscellaneously. Apart from spurious features of a folkloric character, the positions taken fluctuate frequently. There are spiritual ups and downs, inner shortcomings, invocations of a religious and mystical nature.

Yet spite of all this, the prevailing character of the most ancient, clear, and essential portions of the text is most certainly inspired by magic. The soul humbles itself so little in the presence of the ultramundane divinities that it sometimes threatens them with destruction. This is the case even with Osiris and Ra, with reference to the principle of a kind of “transcendent virility.” The soul even asserts a substantial metaphysical connection between itself and the divine essences, sometimes even declaring that its salvation is also theirs. The “opening of the mouth,” by which is meant the reacquisition of the magic power of the word, which can render the formulas efficient and irresistible, “breathing the breath of life,” thus becoming a Living Being, having power over the Waters, taking a Name which does not die, these are the most luminous themes in the vicissitudes of the other world.

The Egyptian text was recited at funerals, as the Tibetan Bardo Thödol was read to the dying and even after their death. In either case the purpose was to help the soul not to forget, to stand up and remain active. De Rachewiltz, moreover, rightly calls attention to the fact that several passages suggest that the Egyptian formulas were used also during life and were held to be useful to the living, so one may recognize in the text the character of a magic ritual in the proper meaning of the words. This may indeed apply not only to some special formulas but to the text as a whole if it be referred to the rites of initiation, for it was unanimously believed in the ancient world that the experiences of initiation corresponded to those of life beyond the grave and that therefore the proceedings required in either case to overcome the “second death” and reach “Osirification” were the same.

In calling attention to this new publication, we would again point out that it makes an important contribution also to those who wish to make a comparative study of Oriental and Western traditions which, in a certain sense, find a connecting link in the traditions of ancient Egypt.

East and West, vol. 10, nos. 1 and 2 (March–June 1959): 126–27.

Frans Boenders over Oost en West, primordiale traditie...

Frans Boenders, een Vlaamse Mishima-kenner, over o.a. Oost en West, primordiale traditie en de culturele kaalslag in China

Ex: http://www.h-vv.be/50-jaar-de-pil-Frans-Boenders-over-Oos...

Frans Boenders gaf begin dit jaar aan de FVG een lezing met als thema Oost en West. Een enorm omvangrijk thema, maar twee kernwaarden kwamen snel bovendrijven: verlichting en verlossing. Verlichting associeerde hij met het Oosten, verlossing met het Westen!

Frans Boenders: Dat komt omdat bij ons de leidende godsdienst of levensvorm er een is van verlossing. De mens is zwak, is wel een afspiegeling van God, maar hij moet zich realiseren hoe zwak hij is en hij moet zich eigenlijk overgeven. Dus de overgave impliceert dat je ergens ook wordt opgevangen, en dat is dan de verlossing, de basisbeweging of de basis dubbele richting. Er is een enorme liefde die de verlossing in het vooruitzicht stelt en de mens moet vertrouwen hebben, bijna blind, in die liefde, en dan zal hij verlost worden. Wat is nu verlichting? Verlichting is iets wat je zelf kunt doen, want we hebben allemaal een bewustzijn gekregen dat kritisch is, sceptisch moet zijn volgens de Boeddha. Het boeddhisme is dan toch immers de enige universele religie die in het Oosten is ontstaan en universeel is geworden, net zoals het christendom ontstaan is in het Nabije Oosten en universeel is geworden. Die laten zich dus uitstekend vergelijken. In het boeddhisme is Boeddha trouwens niets anders dan ‘bodhi’, wat licht is, of wijsheid, als je het anders interpreteert. Je hebt dus een bewustzijn, en met dat bewustzijn moet je het doen. Er zijn modellen, Boeddha zelf zegt: als je dat wilt, kun je mij als model nemen, maar je zult toch altijd kritisch moeten blijven, want je moet het zelf doen. Het zelf doen betekent niet dat je op een arrogante manier op je kennis en je eruditie berust; ik denk zelfs dat te veel kennis en te veel eruditie wegen zijn die niet direct leiden naar de verlichting. Maar je moet bij wijze van spreken eerst tabula rasa maken, een soort leegte in jezelf maken, om het licht te laten schijnen. Dat is natuurlijk maar een metafoor, maar dat zegt wat verlichting is, versus de verlossing.

Maar eigenlijk gaat het dan toch wel om een heel fundamenteel verschil, en dat komt ook tot uiting wanneer je het hebt over denken en bewustzijn! Bijvoorbeeld: ‘ ik BEN een bewustzijn’ tegenover ‘ik HEB bewustzijn’!

Wij zeggen: ‘ik HEB een bewustzijn’. Denk aan Descartes! En we leven toch nog altijd onder die fantastische revolutie. Descartes heeft gezegd: ik kan aan alles twijfelen behalve aan het feit dat ik twijfel, dus dat ik denk. En dus, dat heb ik omdat ik een bewustzijn heb. Ik heb alles, eigenlijk bezitten wij alles, vinden wij. Als we nu even God, de Schepper of de Natuur opzijzetten. Die Natuur werkt ook in mij, maar eigenlijk sta ik boven de Natuur door het hebben van dat bewustzijn. In het Oosten gaat het over: ‘ik BEN bewustzijn’. Dat wil zeggen dat ik een onderdeel ben van het bewustzijn dat eigenlijk het universum is. Het universum denkt in mij. Het vreemde is dat dat in de Franse filosofie ook werd gezegd, door hen die je kunt noemen de poststructuralisten of de late structuralisten: ‘ça pense en moi’, het denkt in mij. Dus die komen daar een beetje in de buurt. Alleen Heidegger, overigens niet mijn favoriet, een westerse filosoof, vond eigenlijk ook dat we een onderdeel zijn van iets wat veel groter is. En de Japanse boeddhisten zijn Heidegger gaan bestuderen, die, toen hij nog leefde, het fantastisch vond dat hij aansluiting kon vinden bij hen. Maar inderdaad, het verschil is dus: in het Oosten houdt men veel minder vast, men bezit veel minder, men hecht ook minder aan bezit. Natuurlijk, met onze kapitalistische uitstraling is dat nu wel allemaal anders geworden, maar traditioneel is het wel zo. Men voelt zich een onderdeel van iets heel groots, en of je dat nu kosmos, universum of de wereldgeest noemt, lazert eigenlijk niets; het is gewoon een manier van leven die toch totaal anders is en die verklaart waarom sommige auteurs, maar daar ben ik het eigenlijk niet mee eens, hebben gezegd dat het Westen altijd het Westen en het Oosten altijd het Oosten zal blijven. ‘And the twain shall never meet’, zoals Kipling het zegt. Daar ben ik het niet mee eens. We kunnen zeker elkaar begrijpen en dat is ook volop bezig, denk ik.

Vaak zie je de opdeling: in het Westen streeft men naar iets, er is een doel, er is een project. In het Oosten zou men zich eerder onderwerpen aan het geheel, zou men eerder berusten! Maar in hoeverre beantwoordt zo’n opdeling nog aan enige realiteit? Economisch bijvoorbeeld zijn nu net India en China dé grote groeiers op wereldniveau!

Dat is de grote paradox vandaag. Tot hiertoe heb ik in zeer algemene termen (want anders kun je het niet, je hebt het in het begin zelf gezegd) Oost en West vergeleken. Ik ging uit van de traditionele levensvormen, om dat wittgensteiniaanse woord te gebruiken. De traditie die dieper gaat dan de verschillende tradities. De traditie die we eigenlijk niet meer kunnen benoemen, maar die de basis vormt van de tradities. Dus ik ben heel ver teruggegaan. Ik heb het boeddhisme ook gezien als een offshoot, als een scheut aan een boom die veel ouder is en die teruggaat tot de vedische tijd, misschien tot de zoroastrische tijd enzovoorts. Aan de andere kant heb ik het christendom ook beschouwd als een scheut van een veel grotere boom, waar natuurlijk het jodendom in het vizier komt, maar ook vele andere dingen. Ook een stuk van het zoroastrisme. Dus uiteindelijk zouden we weer terug kunnen komen. Zo ver ben ik teruggegaan. Dat is natuurlijk gedeeltelijk geïdealiseerd, om niet te zeggen sterk geïdealiseerd. Vandaag zien we dat er maar één ideologie meer bestaat, en dat is het kapitalisme. Of men dat nu in communistische termen of linkse termen het laatkapitalisme noemt, in de hoop dat het zal verdwijnen, dat durf ik niet te zeggen. Ik zie alleen dat het kapitalisme bloeit op een verschrikkelijke manier en dat, zoals je zelf hebt geïmpliceerd in je vraag, China maar ook India (India, waarvan we altijd gedacht hebben dat het veel spiritueler was dan wij) nu plotseling onze meesters worden in het hedendaagse kapitalisme, in onze manier om de informatica en de technologie te gebruiken, allemaal dingen die in wezen van ons komen, dus de westerse wetenschap, dat is het enige geüniversaliseerde kennen. Dat heeft men dan ogenschijnlijk op dit moment, ik zou zeggen, allemaal naar voren geschoven in de hoop, voor sommigen althans, in China en zeker in India, dat datgene wat eronder ligt en waaraan ik daarnet refereerde, als de basis van de tradities, uiteindelijk toch wel zal overleven zoals het altijd heeft gedaan. Maar men begint eraan te twijfelen. En versta onder men, ik begin daar ook aan te twijfelen.

Zeker in China zie je dat. Ik ben toevallig vorig jaar nog naar de Heilige Bergen geweest, die gedeeltelijk boeddhistisch en taoïstisch zijn en eigenlijk die twee religies syncretiseren. Daar blijft niets van over! Wat men heeft gedaan en wat de Chinezen altijd doen, is alles eerst afbreken tot op het bot en dan op hun manier, vanuit hun visie, heropbouwen. Dus wat ik daar zag, was een volkomen loze, valse en misleidende vorm van taoïsme en boeddhisme. Alleen erop gericht om toeristen te lokken, vooral de binnenlandse toeristen overigens, want het is ook een bekend fenomeen dat de hedendaagse Chinezen die vandaag weer internationaal gaan reizen (dat wil zeggen die nieuwe rijken tussen dertig en vijfenveertig jaar, de middenmoot die rijk is, heel rijk is in China), toch die leegte aanvoelen en nu overal in het Oosten, maar ook in het Westen, tempels en kerken gaan bezoeken in de hoop daar iets van op te steken. Ze snappen er dus geen moer meer van en het is een heel rare situatie. Mensen die veel meer vertrouwen hebben in de gang van zaken, los van de interventies van de mens, die zeggen: ‘Dat zal zijn tijd wel hebben, dat komt weer terug. In China heb je altijd van die periodes.’ Ik heb daar mijn twijfels over. Laten we niet vergeten wat er gebeurd is tijdens de culturele revolutie, die officieel maar tien jaar heeft geduurd, van ’65 tot ’75 in de vorige eeuw, maar die eigenlijk al begonnen is in voorbereiding vanaf 1950, de stichting van de volksrepubliek, en geduurd heeft tot het aantreden van Deng Xiaoping in 1979. Dus dat zijn twee generaties die zijn opgevoed zonder enige vorm van religie in de zin van een verbinding van geestelijke solidariteit. En dus, zal dat terugkomen? Ik mag het hopen. Maar een teken aan de wand vond ik dat, toen Deng Xiaoping aantrad en ik voor de BRT toen die documentaires maakte over oosterse religies, dat iemand die later mijn vriend is geworden, de grote specialist op het gebied van het taoïsme, Rik Schipper, gevraagd werd in China om de leden van de Sociale Academie, dus de intellectuele top van China, onderricht te geven in het taoïsme. Want nagenoeg alles was verdwenen. De tempels waren verwoest, de teksten waren vernietigd en diegene die over waren gebleven, werden bestudeerd in het Westen. Op zichzelf is het natuurlijk interessant dat wij in het Westen nu niet de pretentie, maar misschien wel de knowhow hebben om de traditie van de Chinezen en de Indiërs weer nieuwe bedding te geven. Dat is vroeger nog gebeurd met het christendom en de islam, wat de Griekse traditie van ons betreft. Dus het kan wel, maar ik vrees, samenvattend, dat het kapitalisme op dit moment zo allesomvattend is, en dus ook niet te bestrijden valt omdat er niemand is die verantwoordelijk is voor het kapitalisme als ideologie. Het is dus bij wijze van spreken een sluipende ideologie die zich niet kenbaar maakt, maar die wel overal aanwezig is, zodat ik op dit moment niet zie hoe ze tot een einde kan komen. En ik denk wel dat het nodig is om terug te komen tot een waarachtige spiritualiteit.

Monotheïstische religies bedreigen rechtsstaat

Ex: http://opinie.volkskrant.nl/artikel/show/id/7482/Monothe%...

Monotheïstische religies bedreigen rechtsstaat

Meindert Fennema

Goddelijke bevelstheorie ontkent individuele autonomie
In de afgelopen tien jaar is vrij plotseling het idee ontstaan dat wij in
een joods-christelijke traditie staan en dat wij die moeten verdedigen tegen
aanspraken die moslims maken op een eigen traditie, gebaseerd op
islamitische wetten die zich niet verdragen met de democratische rechtsorde.

Die stelling impliceert dat de joods-christelijke traditie zich wél laat
combineren met een democratische orde. In zijn recente boek The Secular
Outlook beweert Paul Cliteur echter dat de joods-christelijke traditie net
zo min als de islamitische een positieve bijdrage levert aan de democratie,
omdat ook het jodendom en het christendom gebaseerd zijn op een goddelijke
bevelstheorie die de morele autonomie van de mens ontkent. En zonder morele
autonomie geen liberale democratie.

Als Cliteur gelijk heeft, dient de democratische rechtsorde erop gericht te
zijn alle goddelijke bevelstheorieën buiten de deur te houden. Cliteur noemt
dat in zijn boek ‘het seculiere perspectief’. Burgers die het
‘joods-christelijk perspectief’ omhelzen, staan niet afwijzend ten opzichte
van een rechtsstaat die het christendom een geprivilegieerde positie
toeschrijft. In hun ogen is niet elke goddelijke bevelstheorie een vijand
van de democratie, maar alleen die van de islam.

In dit laatste perspectief herkent men onmiddellijk de opvatting van Frits
Bolkestein over de vrijheid van onderwijs, en de standpunten van de PVV.
Paradoxaal genoeg ligt het standpunt van Rob Riemen, auteur van De eeuwige
terugkeer van het fascisme, daar niet ver van af. Ook Riemen verdedigt onze
cultuur als een joods-christelijke, tegen het platte materialisme van de
PVV: ‘Wat ons daadwerkelijk wordt geboden door de Partij voor de Vrijheid,
is het schaamteloze tegendeel van de joods-christelijke en humanistische
tradities: plat materialisme, benauwend nationalisme, vreemdelingenhaat,
voedsel voor ressentiment, een diepe afkeer van de kunsten en van oefening
in geestelijke waarden, een verstikkende geestelijke bekrompenheid, een fel
verzet tegen de Europese geest en het voortdurend liegen als politiek.’

Riemen beschouwt de PVV daarom als het fascisme in nieuwe gedaante.
Tegenover dat soort fascisme stelt hij een vroeg 20ste-eeuws elitisme dat
hij in een vorig essay ‘adel van de geest’ noemde. Riemen is een groot
bewonderaar van Thomas Mann en een intellectuele erfgenaam van het elitaire
humanisme zoals dat voor de Tweede Wereldoorlog tot vervelens toe
uitgedragen werd door Dirk Coster en door Anthonie Donker, wiens roman
Schaduw der Bergen (1935) sterk geïnspireerd was door Thomas Manns De
Toverberg.

Zij verdedigden een religieus humanisme, dat voor Ter Braak en Du Perron te
esoterisch was, ook al deelden zij hun bewondering voor Thomas Mann en hun
afkeer van het fascisme. Slechts op één punt stemmen de elitaire humanisten
en de fascisten merkwaardig overeen: dat is in hun kritiek op de
massacultuur en op de politieke en intellectuele elite die zijn rol als de
drager van hogere geestelijke waarden verzaakt en het volk geen leiding meer
geeft.

Ook Ella Vogelaar en een deel van haar partijgenoten zien de sociale
democratie in het verlengde van de joods-christelijke traditie, al wil zij
daar de islamitische aan toevoegen.

Wij staan dus voor de keuze tussen een ‘seculiere staat’ die zich niet
uitspreekt over waarden, maar alleen over normen (die van de procedurele
democratie en de rechten van de mens) en de ‘joods-christelijke staat’, die
zijn culturele waarden verdedigt tegen hetzij de islam, hetzij het xenofobe
‘populisme’.

De cultuurhistorische vraag achter dit politiek-filosofische debat is deze:
is de liberale rechtsstaat een vrucht van de christelijke traditie of juist
van een radicale emancipatie van die traditie. De geschiedenis van de Franse
Revolutie lijkt de laatste interpretatie te ondersteunen, terwijl de
Amerikaanse Revolutie de eerste interpretatie aannemelijker maakt.

De encyclopedisten die de intellectuele voorlopers waren van de Franse
Revolutie waren immers bijna allen atheïst of agnost en keerden zich lang
voor 1789 tegen de macht en de moraal van de katholieke kerk. De kerkelijke
goederen werden in de Franse Revolutie genationaliseerd en de katholieke
moraal zou vervangen moeten worden door de religie van Newton.

In de Amerikaanse revolutie is van een onteigening van kerkelijke goederen
nooit sprake geweest. Er was in Noord-Amerika ook geen katholieke kerk die
als grootgrondbezitter optrad. De christelijke religie was wel prominent
aanwezig, maar was georganiseerd in democratische congregaties met weinig
bezit.

Het bijzondere aan de Amerikaanse founding fathers was dat zij ook in
religieuze zin dissenters waren. Velen van hen waren naar Amerika gegaan,
omdat zij vervolgd werden door de Anglicaanse kerk. Het zou de VS maken tot
een samenleving waar de scheiding tussen kerk en staat op religieuze gronden
wordt verdedigd, maar ook uit pragmatisme: men wilde voorkomen dat
rivaliserende kerkgenootschappen zouden proberen zich van de staat meester
te maken om hun theologische conflicten te beslechten.

Het religieus pluralisme werd in de VS zodoende de grondslag van de
scheiding van kerk en staat. Die scheiding was ook onderdeel van het
anti-etatisme dat bij de Amerikaanse revolutionairen sterk leefde:
‘Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst
state, an intolerable one.’ (Tom Paine) De Amerikaanse nationale identiteit
is dus ten diepste religieus, maar tegelijk wars van enige vorm van
staatsbemoeienis in religieuze zaken.

In West-Europa daarentegen wordt de staat van oudsher niet alleen beschouwd
als motor van maatschappelijke vernieuwing, maar ook als hoedster van
religieuze waarden. Alleen Frankrijk kent een rigoureuze scheiding van kerk
en staat, maar in de Scandinavische landen, Duitsland, Nederland, Italië en
Spanje zijn er altijd institutionele banden geweest tussen kerk en staat.

De hoop van 19de-eeuwse politiek filosofen dat religie in het
moderniseringsproces vanzelf zou verdwijnen, is ijdel gebleken. De discussie
over de scheiding van kerk en staat heeft sinds 9/11 een nieuwe urgentie
gekregen, waarin theologische discussies weer oplaaien. Is de islam een heel
unieke en gewelddadige religie, of is zij één van de drie abrahamitische
religies die naar hun aard botsen met de democratische rechtsstaat, omdat
zij de morele autonomie van de mens ontkennen?

Volkskrant-redacteur Chris Rutenfrans verdedigt de joods-christelijke
traditie tegen die van de islam. Alleen de laatste leidt in zijn ogen tot
moord en doodslag. Rutenfrans brengt in debat met Cliteur (Opinie & Debat, 4
december) twee argumenten in. Ten eerste zegt hij dat christendom en
jodendom vandaag de dag toch niet of nauwelijks terroristen voortbrengen,
terwijl dat bij de islam wel het geval is. Cliteur antwoordt dat zijn
filosofische verhandeling niet bedoeld is om tot empirisch toetsbare
hypotheses te leiden, maar om in algemene zin de tegenstrijdigheid aan te
tonen tussen de grondslagen van de democratische rechtstaat en de goddelijke
bevels-theorieën, die kenmerkend zijn voor alle monotheïstische
godsdiensten.

Rutenfrans’ tweede argument is van theologische aard. Volgens hem is Allah
meedogenlozer jegens ongelovigen dan JHWH, die zich volgens hem beperkt tot
het doen doden van vijanden van Israël. Cliteur vindt dat onderscheid niet
relevant, omdat hij onderzoekt in hoeverre een principiële incompatibiliteit
bestaat tussen goddelijke bevelstheorieën en de moderne democratie. Hij is
niet geïnteresseerd in de vraag welke van de drie monotheïstisch religies
het meest gewelddadig is.

Mij dunkt dat het perspectief van een seculiere staat inderdaad het beste
antwoord is op de religieuze en exclusivistische eisen die aan de overheid
gesteld worden. De debatten tussen joden, christenen en moslims lijden
veelal aan een ongemak dat door Freud het narcisme van het kleine verschil
genoemd is.

Meindert Fennema is hoogleraar politieke theorie van etnische verhoudingen
aan de UvA.

Cavalcare la crisi

Cavalcare la crisi

di Stefano Zecchi - Marco Iacona

Fonte: scandalizzareeundiritto

-Evola ha costruito gran parte delle sue riflessioni attorno al concetto di crisi. Lei crede che ciò lo allontani da una cultura italiana che nella sua generalità, nel XX secolo, non ha partorito grandi opere su questo tema? 

«Il tema della crisi è un argomento che ha impegnato buona parte della cultura europea e in questo senso Evola si pone come serio interlocutore. In Italia però, nonostante sia ben conosciuta, la cultura della crisi non viene tematizzata perché domina l’idealismo, quello crociano e quello gentiliano. Si pensi al disconoscimento da parte di Croce del valore di un libro famosissimo come Der Untergang des Abendlandes oppure alle ricerche e alle conferenze in tema di crisi di Husserl o alle tematiche heideggeriane. Ecco, alla sua domanda risponderei di sì, Evola si pone al di fuori della cultura filosofica dominante. Certo poi gioca a suo sfavore la collocazione politica che aumenta il distacco della sua ricerca filosofica dalla restante parte della cultura italiana».               

-Perché ha scritto il saggio introduttivo alla V edizione di Cavalcare la tigre (Stefano Zecchi, Evola, o una filosofia della responsabilità contro il nichilismo, Mediterranee 1995)?

«Fu Gianfranco de Turris ad offrirmi quest’opportunità ed io accetti volentieri. Penso che Cavalcare la tigre sia un testo importante. Evola mostra i limiti della modernità nel momento in cui è trionfante e nel momento in cui esprimersi contro di essa era né più e né meno che un’eresia. Il libro s’incrociava anche con i miei studi, nonostante le tematiche svolte fossero assai diverse. La conoscenza di Cavalcare la tigre era fondamentale perché fondamentale era per me la proposta di un angolo di visuale sul tema della modernità e sul concetto di crisi».

 -Cavalcare la tigre esce agli inizi degli anni Sessanta. Qual è il clima culturale italiano di quel periodo?

«È il clima più ostile possibile nei confronti di una critica alla modernità! La cultura di destra era sotterranea quindi non aveva voce all’interno del dibattito culturale; la cultura laico-liberale e quella comunista si sviluppavano invece su prospettive totalmente diverse da una critica all’idea di modernità. Ma non era solo Evola ad essere bistrattato, si pensi a come erano stati trattati Heidegger e Husserl, cioè gli esponenti di una filosofia che usciva fuori da prospettive diciamo così à la page. Di più, in Italia si stava  instaurando, costruita con grande meticolosità, l’egemonia culturale della sinistra, quindi Evola come altri grandi pensatori europei era posto ai margini del dibattito culturale».       

-Cosa pensa dell’interesse in negativo di Evola per gli esistenzialisti?

«Credo che Evola per certi aspetti abbia visto giusto. La critica evoliana agli esistenzialisti per qualche verso mi sembra analoga alla critica fatta da Henry Miller ai surrealisti. Miller scrisse la Lettera aperta ai surrealisti (che si trova nel volume Max e i fagociti bianchi) accusandoli di intellettualismo e di incapacità di toccare a fondo i temi che essi stessi avevano sollevato. Evola mi dà l’idea di sviluppare una critica, diciamo così, metodologicamente analoga a quella di Miller perché mette in evidenza la mistificazione e le ambiguità di un pensiero esistenziale che in realtà non arriva a porre i veri temi dell’esistenza. Un pensiero che resta come una forma superficiale di interrogazione dell’essere umano».

-Lei scrive che Cavalcare la tigre «può essere letto come un manuale di sopravvivenza» «da chi crede che la società moderna porti al disastro personale e sociale, culturale e politico». Ma in quanto strumento di “salvezza” secondo lei Cavalcare la tigre è davvero efficace?

«Paradossalmente le tematiche evoliane, o comunque se non Evola il clima culturale a cui Evola appartiene sono ben più attuali oggi. Con la perdita dell’enfasi sull’idea di sviluppo e di progresso c’è maggior attenzione ai temi della crisi, e quindi i punti che Evola ha toccato sono di maggiore attualità. Ecco, le critiche di Evola (come alcune cose dette da Heidegger e da Husserl) proprio per questa perdita del valore teoretico ed etico del progresso oggi ritornano. Devo dire però che Cavalcare la tigre ci anche ha dato una mano ad attraversare un deserto: così siamo arrivati all’oggi potendo dire che per fortuna i tempi sono molto diversi».

-Lei mostra qualche affinità col pensiero di Evola...

«Io non sono un “evoliano”, il mio pensiero si sviluppa in modo diverso, sebbene, come dicevo, alcuni aspetti della critica della modernità ritornino nei miei libri. Ricordo ad esempio che quando scrissi un libro come La Bellezza (1990) soltanto il termine “bellezza” venne considerato offensivo nei riguardi della modernità».

-Parafrasando il titolo di un suo libro degli anni Novanta (Stefano Zecchi, Sillabario del nuovo millennio, Mondadori 1993), secondo lei Evola potrebbe essere un pensatore capace di decrittare il nuovo millennio?

«Sicuramente sì. Evola è uno dei grandi pensatori del nostro secolo collocabile, come ho detto più volte, all’interno del filone della crisi. Piuttosto, ripeto, su di lui ha giocato negativamente l’esperienza politica e il fatto che la cultura egemone fosse legata al dibattito politico italiano. Penso che Evola paghi un prezzo che col passare del tempo sarà sempre meno salato».

-Un’ultima domanda. Lei ha scritto di televisione e conosce i mezzi di comunicazione. Potremmo fare un parallelo fra Evola e Pasolini dicendo che si tratta di due autori che si sono opposti al potere trionfante dei moderni mezzi di comunicazione?

«Beh, in Evola c’è anche una sorta di filo moralistico, secondo il quale qualunque fenomeno moderno conduce alla massificazione. In Pasolini invece, a parte il tema moralistico, c’e un’accettazione e perfino un utilizzo dei mezzi di comunicazione di massa. Pasolini è più disponibile perché la sua è una critica ad una modernità dimentica degli aspetti originari dell’esistenza, della dimensione rurale e di quella operaia. Pasolini usa cinema, televisione e giornali ed esercita sul campo le sue critiche. Ritengo invece che Evola non avrebbe mai voluto sporcarsi gli abiti inserendosi fra i protagonisti dei più moderni mezzi di comunicazione».

 

 

 

 

 

Tante altre notizie su www.ariannaeditrice.it

La triade homérienne

La triade homérienne

par Dominique VENNER

Ex: http://engarda.hautetfort.com/

Pour les Anciens, Homère était « le commencement, le milieu et la fin ». Une vision du monde et même une philosophie se déduisent implicitement de ses poèmes. Héraclite en a résumé le socle cosmique par une formulation bien à lui : « L’univers, le même pour tous les êtres, n’a été créé par aucun dieu ni par aucun homme ; mais il a toujours été, est et sera feu éternellement vivant… »

1. La nature comme socle

Chez Homère, la perception d’un cosmos incréé et ordonné s’accompagne d’une vision enchantée portée par les anciens mythes. Les mythes ne sont pas une croyance, mais la manifestation du divin dans le monde. Les forêts, les roches, les bêtes sauvages ont une âme que protège Artémis (Diane pour les Romains). La nature tout entière se confond avec le sacré, et les hommes n’en sont pas isolés. Mais elle n’est pas destinée à satisfaire leurs caprices. En elle, dans son immanence, ici et maintenant, ils trouvent en revanche des réponses à leurs angoisses :

« Comme naissent les feuilles, ainsi font les hommes. Les feuilles, tour à tour, c’est le vent qui les épand sur le sol et la forêt verdoyante qui les fait naître quand se lèvent les jours du printemps. Ainsi des hommes : une génération naît à l’instant où une autre s’efface » (Iliade, VI, 146). Tourne la roue des saisons et de la vie, chacun transmettant quelque chose de lui-même à ceux qui vont suivre, assuré ainsi d’être une parcelle d’éternité. Certitude affermie par la conscience du souvenir à laisser dans la mémoire du futur, ce que dit Hélène dans l’Iliade : « Zeus nous a fait un dur destin afin que nous soyons plus tard chantés par les hommes à venir » (VI, 357-358). Peut-être, mais la gloire d’un noble nom s’efface comme le reste. Ce qui ne passe pas est intérieur, face à soi-même, dans la vérité de la conscience : avoir vécu noblement, sans bassesse, avoir pu se maintenir en accord avec le modèle que l’on s’est fixé.

2. L’excellence comme but

A l’image des héros, les hommes véritables, nobles et accomplis (kalos agatos), cherchent dans le courage de l’action la mesure de leur excellence (arétê), comme les femmes cherchent dans l’amour ou le don de soi la lumière qui les fait exister. Aux uns et aux autres, importe seulement ce qui est beau et fort. « Etre toujours le meilleur, recommande Pelée à son fils Achille, l’emporter sur tous les autres » (Iliade, VI, 208). Quand Pénélope se tourmente à la pensée que son fils Télémaque pourrait être tué par les “prétendants” (usurpateurs), ce qu’elle redoute c’est qu’il meurt « sans gloire », avant d’avoir accompli ce qui ferait de lui un héros à l’égal de son père (Odyssée, IV, 728). Elle sait que les hommes ne doivent rien attendre des dieux et n’espérer d’autre ressource que d’eux-mêmes, ainsi que le dit Hector en rejetant un présage funeste : « Il n’est qu’un bon présage, c’est de combattre pour sa patrie » (Iliade, XII, 243). Lors du combat final de l’Iliade, comprenant qu’il est condamné par les dieux ou le destin, Hector s’arrache au désespoir par un sursaut d’héroïsme tragique : « Eh bien ! non, je n’entends pas mourir sans lutte ni sans gloire, ni sans quelque haut fait dont le récit parvienne aux hommes à venir » (XXII, 304-305).

3. La beauté comme horizon

L’Iliade commence par la colère d’Achille et se termine par son apaisement face à la douleur de Priam. Les héros d’Homère ne sont pas des modèles de perfection. Ils sont sujets à l’erreur et à la démesure en proportion même de leur vitalité. Pour cette raison, ils tombent sous le coup d’une loi immanente qui est le ressort des mythes grecs et de la tragédie. Toute faute comporte châtiment, celle d’Agamemnon comme celle d’Achille. Mais l’innocent peut lui aussi être soudain frappé par le sort, comme Hector et tant d’autres, car nul n’est à l’abri du tragique destin. Cette vision de la vie est étrangère à l’idée d’une justice transcendantale punissant le mal ou le péché. Chez Homère, ni le plaisir, ni le goût de la force, ni la sexualité ne sont jamais assimilés au mal. Hélène n’est pas coupable de la guerre voulue par les dieux (Iliade, III, 161-175). Seuls les dieux sont coupables des fatalités qui s’abattent sur les hommes. Les vertus chantées par Homère ne sont pas morales mais esthétiques. Il croit à l’unité de l’être humain que qualifient son style et ses actes. Les hommes se définissent donc au regard du beau et du laid, du noble et du vil, non du bien ou du mal. Ou, pour dire les choses autrement, l’effort vers la beauté est la condition du bien. Mais la beauté n’est rien sans loyauté ni vaillance. Ainsi Pâris ne peut être vraiment beau puisqu’il est couard. Ce n’est qu’un bellâtre que méprise son frère Hector et même Hellène qu’il a séduite par magie. En revanche, Nestor, en dépit de son âge, conserve la beauté de son courage. Une vie belle, but ultime du meilleur de la philosophie grecque, dont Homère fut l’expression primordiale, suppose le culte de la nature, le respect de la pudeur (Nausicaa ou Pénélope), la bienveillance du fort pour le faible (sauf dans les combats), le mépris pour la bassesse et la laideur, l’admiration pour le héros malheureux. Si l’observation de la nature apprend aux Grecs à mesurer leurs passions, à borner leurs désirs, l’idée qu’ils se font de la sagesse avant Platon est sans fadeur. Ils savent qu’elle est associée aux accords fondamentaux nés d’oppositions surmontées, masculin et féminin, violence et douceur, instinct et raison. Héraclite s’était mis à l’école d’Homère quand il a dit : « La nature aime les contraires : c’est avec elle qu’elle produit l’harmonie. »

Dominique Venner, « La Nouvelle Revue d’Histoire », n°43, juillet-août 2009. Mis en ligne sur le site de Dominique Venner.

 

Entretien avec Alexandre Belov: communauté païenne russe et arts martiaux

Archives de SYNERGIES EUROPEENNES - 1996

 

Entretien avec Alexandre Belov:

communauté païenne russe et arts martiaux

 

Q.: Qu'est-ce que le paganisme pour vous?

 

AB: Pour moi, le paganisme est en premier lieu la somme des expériences indépendantes vécues au fil de l'histoire par un peuple particulier, tant dans le contexte des processus vitaux que dans le domaine de la connaissance.

 

Q.: Comment le paganisme slave a-t-il pu survivre sous la férule du communisme?

 

AB: La dictature communiste n'a nullement contrarié les intérêts du paganisme slave. Il faut ajouter que l'athéisme commu­niste a permis de contenir les attaques chrétiennes contre la liberté de la connaissance. L'ère communiste a ainsi rendu un grand service au paganisme slave.

 

Q.: Quelle est selon vous la particularité du paganisme slave en comparaison avec les autres paganismes euro­péens?

 

AB: La particularité essentielle du paganisme slave est d'avoir cultivé radicalement la “grande idée barbare”, c'est-à-dire l'idée d'unir le Nord de glace à l'élément du feu. La variante russe du paganisme slave a joué un plus grand rôle historique dans les traditions d'Europe orientale que le paganisme slave en général, parce qu'il a réussi à conserver et à maintenir durant des siècles au moins trois linéaments païens fondamentaux: l'adoration du Soleil, de trois divinités associées et de Prav (*), c'est-à-dire l'adoration du Dieu du Tonnerre comme divinité principale assurant l'équilibre et l'harmonie de l'univers. Le der­nier avatar de Prav se retrouve dans la désignation en langue russe du christianisme d'Orient, Pravoslaviyé, soit “orthodoxie”. Le nom, au départ païen, a été volé par les chrétiens.

 

Q.: Quels ont été les réunions, rencontres ou événements qui vous ont conduit à créer la “Communauté Païenne Russe”?

 

AB: La création de la communauté païenne russe a été suivie par une deuxième naissance: la fondation d'un centre du culte pour toute la Russie, le sanctuaire de Peroun, Dieu du Tonnerre des Slaves anciens, à Radoucha. Cette fondation a été condi­tionnée, d'une part, par la nécessité de propager la tradition nationale du culte, et, d'autre part, par la nécessité de développer cette tradition en prenant en compte la dynamique du développement dans la société contemporaine.

 

Q.: Pouvez-vous nous parler de la nature particulière de l'Art Martial Slave, que vous pratiquez et enseignez, et la comparer aux arts martiaux orientaux?

 

AB: Goritsa est un art de combat qui récapitule l'expérience historique de la “lutte russe” et la connecte à cette “grande idée barbare” que je viens de vous évoquer. J'ai créé ce système de lutte et je m'en occupe depuis environ quinze ans. Je m'occupe plus généralement d'arts martiaux depuis 24 ans. L'une des particularités principales de Goritsa est d'utiliser les réflexes les plus caractéristiques des lutteurs cherchant à diriger l'attitude de leurs adversaires. Toutes les actions de l'adversaire relèvent de ce complexe que sont toutes les actions bio-mécaniques typiques. Cela permet d'attaquer un adver­saire en connaissant à l'avance ses réactions possibles. La Goritsa est un système unique de combat qui privilégie l'attaque. La Goritsa n'est donc pas un système d'auto-défense. Autre particularité de la Goritsa: ses sources remontent à la chevalerie et sont héritées du symbolisme physique de l'arme du combattant pendant la lutte. C'est là que réside toute entière la diffé­rence entre cet art martial et sa variante chinoise, qui imite plutôt l'attitude de l'animal. J'ai dénombré plus de vingt différences fondamentales entre l'art martial slave, la Goritsa, et les règles des arts martiaux extrême-orientaux.

 

Q.: L'Art Martial Slave est-il pratiqué aujourd'hui dans toute la Russie?

 

AB: Les objectifs et les tâches de la Goritsa sont difficiles à réaliser dans la Russie actuelle, parce que la caste militaire est déconsidérée par la propagande occidentaliste actuelle au profit d'une vision purement économiciste de la société, portée par les financiers qui ne s'intéressent pas aux arts martiaux.

 

Q.: Vous revenez d'un voyage en Italie. Vous y avez organisé des démonstrations et répendu votre enseignement. Que pensez-vous de l'expansion de l'Art Martial Slave en Europe?

 

AB: La campagne de promotion de la Goritsa en Europe est possible, même nécessaire, parce que cette méthode de combat exprime un mode de connaissance fondamentalement païen, partant non-conformiste dans le contexte actuel. C'est le meilleur moyen pour recréer une caste guerrière dans toute l'Europe, qui soit animée par des principes qui soient vraiment les siens.

 

Q.: En dehors de la Russie, quelles sont pour vous les traditions européennes les plus intéressantes?

 

AB: Ce qui m'attire dans la tradition païenne européenne, c'est surtout la beauté et la sagesse que l'on retrouve dans la poésie épique populaire. Nous découvrons là une éthique authentique. Non importée.

(propos recueillis par Jean de BUSSAC et traduit par Anatoli M. IVANOV).

 

(*) NDT: “Prav” est un terme difficile à traduire, emprunté au “Livre de Velès”, un faux devenu à mon grand regret très popu­laire parmi les néo-païens russes. “Prav” est à la racine des mots russes “pravy” (droit), “pravda” (vérité) et “pravoslaviyé” (orthodoxie).

Goritsa: la culture guerrière russe

Archives de SYNERGIES EUROPEENNES - 1996

Goritsa: la culture guerrière russe

 

Les immenses étendues russes, ses steppes secouées par les vents et ses peuples anciens comme le monde, résonnent encore du chant mystique d'ancestrales traditions. Mais la tradition ne meurt jamais, et aujourd'hui les esprits fertiles de savants bien écolés s'agitent au-delà des bouleversements du temps et de l'histoire, à la recherche de ce qui rapprochait les hommes à l'aube de la civilisation. Parmi eux, le professeur Alexander Belov, enseignant titulaire de la chaire d'«Histoire des Religions à Moscou».

 

Fort de son prestige incontestable au sein de la classe guerrière moscovite, il entreprit, au cours des années 70, une longue recherche sur la tradition martiale russe, pour la réexhumer systématiquement. Cette entreprise le mena dans les villages les plus reculés, à entretenir des relations avec d'anciens maîtres et de rudes guerriers de souche paysanne, jusqu'à rendre toute sa splendeur à l'art martial de la Goritsa, méthode de lutte assez complète qui, au cours des siècles, s'était scindée en différentes branches.

 

Dans la Russie d'aujourd'hui, on assiste à un important réveil de la classe guerrière, à un développement virtuel d'un archétype de bellator bien enraciné dans la branche autochtone de la grande famille indo-européenne. Une rigoureuse conscience de classe rapproche ceux qui appartiennent à cette caste, pour laquelle la conception fondamentale est drujima («Un pour tous, tous pour un»).

 

A cette renaissance s'ajoute la volonté d'élargir toujours plus la caste elle-même, pour réunir les esprits les plus vifs, l'élite des énergies russes, dans les différents clans guerriers, comme celui des «Loups Bleus» auquel appartient le Prof. Belov. Et cela en vertu de profondes racines philosophico-religieuses qui sont à la base du grand édifice de la Goritsa.

 

C'est pourquoi la formation d'un aspirant guerrier exige un travail long et complexe. Les prémices ne sont guère favorables: si virtuellement quiconque peut s'entraîner dans la Goritsa, seulement celui qui est choisi par un Maître peut espérer accéder aux niveaux les plus hauts. Parmi les candidats, seuls trois sur dix y parviendront.

 

L'acceptation du candidat guerrier de la part du Maître, repose sur une fascinante faculté sémiotique: du premier regard le maître est en mesure de juger s'il est opportun de choisir le candidat et dans quelles conditions. Par exemple, il peut se servir d'une classification des typologies humaines basée sur les trois principes de la Nature Prav, Jav et Nam.

 

Au début de l'entraînement, l'élève tente de rejoindre la sublimation spirituelle en travaillant d'abord sur sa propre personnalité et ensuite sur l'énergie intérieure (ce dernier argument est traité seulement avec les initiés). Dans un deuxième temps on accède à une identité collective puisque l'homme, être essentiellement social, peut tirer une grande force des rapports humains. Symboliquement cette conception est représentée par la lettre «I», l'Individu, inscrite dans la lettre «O», la Collectivité, qui enserre l'individualité.

 

Le pratiquant, à qui on attribue un compagnon (appelé «Oncle»), est personnellement suivi par le Maître, car l'enseignement doit être adapté aux caractéristiques spécifiques de chacun. Le système d'entraînement tend à exclure l'activité du cortex cérébral pour favoriser celle de parties plus primitives du cerveau, comme le noyau lenticulaire, l'étage inférieur du pédoncule cérébral et le cervelet. En fait, par cette technique, le guerrier agira de manière instinctive, sans interférences de pensée, qui freineraient l'action et empêcheraient un tonus musculaire correct. Comment arrive-t-on à ce résultat?

 

Au cours d'un entraînement sont proposés environ cent vingt mouvements différents. Le néo-encéphale n'est pas en mesure de les traiter tous, alors il subit une sorte de blocus, pendant que le subconscient prend la relève en amorçant sa propre activité. Durant les premiers mois, le pratiquant, sur base de ces principes, s'entraîne trois fois par jour en raison de quinze minutes par séance.

 

Justement parce qu'il est fondé sur de complexes réactions psychophysiques, ce type d'entraînement peut provoquer de sérieux problèmes s'il est pratiqué sur un système neuropsychique inadéquat. D'autre part, il est vrai aussi que les instructeurs de Goritsa se décarcassent littéralement afin que leur art puisse profiter à des personnes affligées par des problèmes psychologiques en leur donnant, par la pratique, une meilleure confiance en soi et un meilleur équilibre intérieur.

 

Ainsi, depuis quelque temps les sections spéciales de l'Armée Russe s'entraînent dans la Goritsa, non seulement pour son utilité au combat, mais aussi pour l'attitude qu'elle insuffle d'aller toujours de l'avant, sans jamais reculer. Attitude très utile même dans certaines situations au quotidien, comme quand on éprouve une certaine crainte vis-à-vis de personnes en position d'autorité. On peut donc engager un combat psychologique et verbal, source de stratégies capables de renverser la situation à son propre avantage, sans parler de l'efficacité certaine que recèle implicitement une mentalité de “gagnant”.

 

Parmi les disciplines de la Goritsa, il en existe certaines qui possèdent des propriétés curatives: en se basant sur les théories de la médecine ésotérique russe, on stimule des points spécifiques du corps par des mouvements, des percussions et des massages.

 

Un des aspects essentiels de la culture guerrière russe concerne son substrat religieux-spirituel complexe. A sa base, on découvre un courant théologique très ancien, aujourd'hui connu sous le nom de néopaganisme, qui englobe la vie du pratiquant sous tous ses aspects. Dans cette religion, dont Alexander Belov a été longuement ministre, la position centrale est occupée par les différentes manifestations de la Nature, beaucoup d'entre elles étant symbolisées par des divinités. Ces divinités ne font pas l'objet de vénération, n'étant pas directement reconnues comme quintessences suprêmes: leur rôle est de rappeler à l'adepte (et cette valeur paradigmatique recèle la puissance du symbole) une image bien précise.

 

La même fonction est attribuée aux simulacres de dieux, de telle sorte que même une image du Christ pourrait être acceptée dans cette perspective et exploitée d'après les coordonnées historico-religieuses qui la caractérisent (par exemple, la bonté et l'amour universel). Il n'y a pas d'acte de foi plus élevé pour ceux qui reconnaissent un sens religieux à la Nature et à ses merveilles!

 

En quête d'une proximité qui frôle le fusionnement, depuis le mois de mai jusqu'aux premières neiges, les guerriers de la Goritsa s'exercent dans des milieux naturels, en courant et en s'entraînant dans les bois, parmi les arbres séculaires.

 

C'est le contraire de ce qui se passe dans des villes comme Milan, par exemple, où l'élément «pierre» est prédominant, où l'interaction négative de ces murailles avec l'esprit empêche ce dernier de se détendre: voici pourquoi, dans les grandes métropoles sans végétation, beaucoup de personnes sont affligées par des troubles psychiques. Quand le Prof. Belov vit le Dôme de Milan, tout en étant frappé par la force religieuse qu'il dégageait, il ne l'estima pas plus intense que celle produite par une tempête en montagne.

 

Dans ce credo essentiellement animiste, qui présume une étroite connexion entre tous les éléments de l'Univers, on accepte une tétralogie élémentaire, développée dans le schéma suivant:

 

Air - Soleil/Feu - Terre

 

Les quatre éléments se déplacent perpétuellement en sens rotatif, en engendrant une figure graphique proche du svastika tantrique, pendant qu'au centre sied le dieu Ra. Ra, racine lexicale (et ici la mystique païenne montre le lien lexical de signification-signifant) extrêmement ancienne et commune, et tout particulièrement dans un sens théologique, à plusieurs cultures, depuis le dieu Ra des Egyptiens jusqu'au dieu Rama des Indiens.

 

Il est intéressant de noter les traces de la syllabe RA dans les toponymes d'une frange centrale du territoire russe qui s'étend du Nord au Sud, comme si elle y avait été véhiculée par les migrations des peuples vers les régions méridionales, depuis la chaîne de l'Oural jusqu'à la Mer d'Aral, au nom hiératique de la Mer Caspienne.

 

Ra/Rot: le démiurge immobile

 

Le dieu russe Ra, plus tard appelé Rot, est tellement éloigné des hommes qu'il ne se préoccupe pas de leurs affaires. Toutefois, il reste le démiurge immobile qui déplace les éléments de l'Univers. Parmi ceux-ci le feu, au dieu duquel est consacré un style (aux propriétés curatives), qui représente l'art martial de la Goritsa, puisque le feu est le symbole de l'action et de la dynamique pures: les mouvements circulaires du guerrier doivent envahir l'espace, comme le feu envahit l'air.

 

L'importance idéologique de certains principes cosmiques, et de l'iconographie religieuse qui s'y rapporte, est telle qu'un disciple se voue à une divinité, choisie parmi celles qui s'accordent le mieux avec sa personnalité, et cette divinité sera son guide dans son itinéraire existentiel et spirituel.

 

Mais le dieu majeur de cette religion est relié à la trinité de base de la philosophie néopaïenne russe: Nam, terme qui veut désigner le fait de «prendre l'énergie» (se rapportant aussi, par exemple, à ces personnes qui, comme on dit, aspirent  l'énergie d'autrui), Jav, «donner l'énergie»; et Prav, le plus important, l'équilibre entre les deux. Les guerriers ont pour tâche le maintien de cet équilibre. A la conception Prav est lié le dieu principal de l'Olympe russe, comme le Zeus grec: Perun, qui représente aussi l'action continue.

 

Aujourd'hui, au moment où s'accentuent et s'intensifient les relations entre les peuples et les cultures, la possibilité nous est donnée d'accéder à un patrimoine de sagesse de grande élévation. Nous devons espérer que des esprits ouverts et talentueux parviendront à cueillir le message, pour le perfectionnement permanent et régulier de l'homme et de la vie humaine.

 

Stefano PERNATSCH.

Evola on Zen & Everyday Life

Translation anonymous, revised by Greg Johnson

Ex: http://www.counter-currents.com/

Eugen Herrigel
Zen in the Art of Archery
New York: Vintage, 1999
[Zen nell’arte del tirar d’arco (Turin: Rigois, 1956)]

Kakuzo Okakura
The Book of Tea
Stone Bridge Press, 2007
[II Libro del Te (Rome: Fratelli Bocca, 1955)]

The first of these little books, translated into Italian from German, is unique of its kind, as a direct and universally accessible introduction to the spirit the fundamental disciplines and behavior of the civilization of the Far East, especially Japan. Herrigel is a German professor who was invited to teach philosophy in a Japanese University, and decided to study the traditional spirit of the country in its most typical living forms. He took a special interest in acquiring an understanding of Zen Buddhism, and strange as it may seem, he was told that the best way to do so was to study the traditional practice of Archery. Herrigel therefore untiringly studied that art for no less than five years, and the book describes how his progress therein and his gradual penetration into the essence of Zen proceeded side by side with archery, conditioning one another reciprocally, leading to a deep inner transformation of the author himself.

The essence of Zen as a conception of the world is, as is known, its special interpretation of the state of nirvana which, partly through the influence of Taoism, is understood in Japan not as a state of evanescent ascetic beatitude, but as something indwelling, an inner liberation, a state free from the fevers, the ordeals, the bonds of the ego, a state which may be preserved while engaged in all the activities and in all the forms of everyday life itself. Thanks to it, life as a whole acquires a different dimension; it is understood and lived in a different way. The “absence of the ego” upon which, in conformity with the spirit of Buddhism, Zen insists so strongly, is not however akin to apathy or atony; it gives rise to a higher form of spontaneous action, of assurance, of freedom and serenity in action. This may be compared to a man who holds on convulsively to something and who, when he lets it go, acquires a higher serenity, a superior sense of freedom and assurance.

After calling attention to all these points, the author notes the existence in the Far East of traditional arts that both arise from this freedom of Zen and offer the means for attaining it through the training required to practice them. Strange as it may seem, the Zen spirit dwells in the Far Eastern Arts taught by the Masters of painting, serving tea, arranging flowers, archery, wrestling, fencing, and so forth. All these arts have a ritual aspect. There are, moreover, ineffable aspects thanks to which true mastery in any of these arts cannot be attained unless one has acquired inner enlightenment and transformation of ordinary self-consciousness, which makes mastery a kind of tangible sacrament.

Thus Herrigel tells us how in learning to draw the long bow, little by little, through the problems involved in this art as it is still taught in Japan, he came to the knowledge and the inner understanding that be sought. He realized that archery was not a sport but rather a kind of ritual action and initiation. To acquire a thorough knowledge of it one had to arrive at the elimination of one’s ego, overcome all tension, and achieve a superior spontaneity. Only then was muscular relaxation paradoxically joined to maximum strength; the archer, the bow, and the target became one whole. The arrow flew as if of its own accord and found its target almost without being aimed. Stated in these terms, the mastery attained is a degree of spirituality, or “Zen,” not as theory and philosophy but as actual experience, as a deeper mode of being.

By describing situations of this kind, based on personal experience, Herrigel’s little book is important not only because it introduces the reader to the spirit of an exotic civilization, but also because it enables us to view in a new light some of our own ancient traditions. We know that in antiquity, and to some extent in the Middle Ages also, jealously guarded traditions, elements of religion, rites, and even mysteries were associated with the various arts. There were “goods” for each of these arts and rites of admission to practice them. The initiation to crafts and professions in certain guilds and “collegia” proceeded along parallel lines with spiritual initiation. Thus, to mention a later case, the symbolism proper to the mason’s art of the medieval builders served as the basis for the first Freemasonry, which drew from it the allegories for the proceedings of the “Great Work.” It may therefore be that in all this the West once knew something of what has been preserved to this day in the Far East in such teachings as “the way of the bow” or “the art of the sword,” held to be identical with the “way of Zen” in a singularly positive form of Buddhism.

The Author of the second little book, to the Italian edition of which we now turn, is a Japanese interested above all in aesthetic problems, who has studied the modern schools of art in Europe and America but has remained faithful to his own traditions and has engaged in a resolute and efficient action in his own country against the introduction of Europeanizing tendencies. His Il Libro del Te confirms in the central part devoted more closely to the subject under consideration, what we have just been saying.

There have been close connections in the Far East between Zen, the “tea schools” and the “tea cult” (the term used by the author to designate this is “teaism,” an infelicitous word given that “theism” indicates in our countries every religion based on the notion of a personal God). Indeed it is claimed that the tea ceremonial as elaborated in Japan in the 16th century was derived from the much more ancient Zen rite of drinking tea from one single cup before the statue of Bodhidharma. Generally speaking this ceremonial rite is one of the many forms in which the Taoist principle of “completeness in the fragment” is expressed. Lu-wu in his book Cha-ching had already asserted that in preparing the tea the same order and the same harmony must he observed that from the Taoist standpoint reigns in all things.

The author adds that it is part of the religion of the art of life. “The tea became a pretext for the enjoyment of moments of meditation and happy detachment in which the host and his guests took part.” Both the site and structure of the rooms built for this special purpose—the tea-rooms (sukiya)—follow the ritualistic principle; they are symbolic. The variegated and partly irregular path that, within the framework of the Ear Eastern art of gardening, leads to the tea-room is emblematic of that preliminary state of meditation that leads to breaking all ties to the outer world, to detachment from the worries and interests of ordinary life.

The style of the room itself is of refined simplicity. In spite of the bare and poverty-stricken appearance it may offer to Western eyes, it follows in every detail a precise intention. The selection and the use of the right materials call for infinite care and attention to detail, so much so that the cost of a perfect tea room may be greater than a whole casement. The term “sukiya”—the author says—originally meant “the house of imagination,” the allusion being not to wandering fancies but to the faculty of detaching oneself from the empirical world, of recollecting oneself and taking refuge in an ideal world.

Other expressions used by the Masters of Tea rite are “the house of emptiness” and “the house of asymmetry.” The first of these expressions traces back directly to the notion of the Void proper to Taoist metaphysics (and here we may recall also the part played by this notion, almost as a key or background in the “aerial” element of Far Eastern painting). The expression “house of asymmetry” refers to the fact that some detail is always intentionally left unfinished and care is taken to arrange things to give the impression of a lacuna. The reason for this is that the sense of completeness and harmony must not arise from something already fixed and repeatable, but must be suggested by an exterior incompleteness which impels one to conceive them inwardly by means of a mental act.

The author deals also of the connections existing between the art of tea and that of selecting and arranging the flowers in the sukiya, here again in conformity with symbolism and a special sensibility. Often one single flower rightly selected and placed is the only ornament of the “house of emptiness.”

Lastly the author reminds us that a special philosophy of daily life is accessory to the tea ritual, so much so that in current Japanese parlance a man lacking in sensibility to the tragi-comical sides of personal life is said to be “lacking in tea,” while those who give way to uncontrolled impulses and feelings are said to have “too much tea.” This brings one back to that ideal of balanced, subtle, and calm superiority, which plays so large apart in the general attitude of the man of the Far East.

If we think of the wide use made of tea in the West, and of the circumstances of this use in our social life, more especially among fashionable circles, it would be natural to draw comparisons which would show that, even in this seemingly commonplace field, as on the plane of ideas, all things of the Orient are diminished when imported into the Western world.

East and West, vol. 7, no. 3, October 1956, pp. 274–76

Aspetti religiosi e storici del Tibet

Aspetti religiosi e storici del Tibet

La storia documentata di questo popolo risale a circa 2300 anni fa, al tempo dell’Impero Macedone in Occidente

Gianluca Padovan

Ex: http://www.rinascita.eu/ 

In questi ultimi decenni vari personaggi hanno visto il Tibet come uno degli ultimi territori del Pianeta dove si siano conservate le antiche tradizioni dei cosiddetti “indoeuropei”.

Difatti non si esclude l’ipotesi che le ondate migratorie dall’Europa, avvenute tra il terzo e il primo millennio prima dell’anno zero, abbiano interessato anche questi altopiani, portandovi genti e tradizioni europee. Fino a ieri potevamo osservare che a una quota media di 4000 metri si è sviluppata una cultura che si è mantenuta sostanzialmente indipendente nel corso dei secoli: essa avrebbe avuto tanto da insegnare (o da ricordare) a noi europei rimasti si nelle nostre terre, ma in gran parte privati del nostro retroterra culturale. Gli studi sulla preistoria tibetana sono quasi totalmente mancanti, seppure siano stai riconosciuti siti inquadrabili al paleolitico superiore e al neolitico.

La cultura megalitica è diffusa, con menhir isolati e allineamenti; ad esempio: “a Do-ring, esistono 18 file di monoliti”.1 La lingua tibetana presenta numerosi dialetti ed è compresa, secondo alcuni, nella famiglia sino-tibetana. Ma meriterebbe maggiore attenzione e uno studio comparato più approfondito soprattutto dei così detti dialetti.

Riguardo le loro origini i tibetani ricordano vari miti e uno dei più antichi parla dell’esistenza di un uovo, matrice d’ogni creazione: “Quest’uovo primordiale concentrava in sé tutti gli elementi -aria, terra, fuoco, acqua e spazio- e fece nascere altre diciotto uova: da una di queste scaturì un essere informe, ma capace di pensare, che provò il bisogno di vedere, toccare, ascoltare, sentire, gustare e spostarsi e allora creò a sua volta il corpo umano”.2

L’ordine costituito viene da Nyatri Tsen-po, un re guerriero del cielo che indossa un elmo metallico, i cui simboli del potere sono l’armatura che s’infila da sola e gli oggetti magici che agiscono da soli: la lancia, la spada e lo scudo. Questa sorta di semidio è comunque mortale: “Al momento della morte terrena il suo corpo si trasformò in un arcobaleno e gli permise di risalire nella sua prima patria: lo spazio infinito dove giace in una tomba eterea”.3

Parlando del profilo storico del Tibet, Padma Sambhava traccia un interessante disegno: “I tibetani hanno sempre chiamato il proprio paese Bö, in qualche occasione aggiungendo Khawajen, Terra delle Nevi. La storia documentata risale a circa 2300 anni fa, al tempo dell’Impero Macedone in Occidente, dell’Impero Maurya in India, e del tardo Impero Chou in Cina. Nei suoi primi otto secoli, il Tibet fu governato da una dinastia militare. Aveva un sistema religioso animista, retto da un clero di sciamani esperti nella divinazione, nelle arti magiche e nei sacrifici, mentre il suo sistema di governo s’incentrava su una famiglia reale ritenuta di discendenza divina. I primi sette re discesero sulla terra a governare da una scala di corda sospesa nel cielo, sulla quale sarebbero poi risaliti non appena fosse giunta la loro ora. L’ottavo re, in seguito ad un conflitto di corte, recise la corda che lo legava al cielo e, da allora in poi, i sovrani come i faraoni egiziani, furono sepolti in ampi tumuli funerari insieme ai loro beni e al loro seguito».4

Ricordando il proselitismo dei missionari cattolici, i quali dalle terre dell’India si spingono in Tibet, Giuseppe Tucci riporta un loro raffronto tra mussulmani, induisti e lamaisti, che così si delinea nella considerazione di questi ultimi: “La severa organizzazione dei monasteri, l’abilità dialettica dei maestri, le sottigliezze teologali discusse con arguto vigore di logica nelle radunanze di monaci e l’austerità di molti riti ben disposero la loro anima al Buddismo Tibetano”.5

 
Parlando del buddhismo non si può dimenticare che il quattordicesimo Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, guida spirituale e politica del Tibet, nonché Nobel per la Pace nel 1989, vive esule in India dal 1959. Dalai Lama è il titolo dato al capo della religione buddista-lamaista residente a Lhasa (Tibet) nel Palazzo del Potala. Nel 1950 le truppe cinesi del governo comunista maoista attaccano il Tibet e con il trattato del 23 maggio 1951 lo stato è integrato nella Repubblica Popolare Cinese. Sono lunghe e complesse le vicende politiche, religiose e militari che vedono coinvolto il territorio tibetano da circa duemila anni; basterà qui ricordare che nel 1720 la Cina interviene militarmente imponendo due propri commissari accanto al Dalai-Lama dell’epoca. Così racconta Thubten Dschigme Norbu, fratello maggiore del Dalai Lama, nonché abate del monastero buddista di Kumbum situato nei pressi di Sining in Cina: “Ancora una volta dovetti recarmi a Sining dalla commissione per il Tibet. Mi dichiararono che dovevo condurre con loro due coniugi e un radiotelegrafista cinesi; quest’ultimo doveva restare sempre in comunicazione con Sining, per informarli costantemente di quanto accadeva alla nostra carovana. Acconsentii a malincuore. Nel loro discorso i comunisti deposero completamente la maschera. Senza preamboli mi sottoposero delle proposte che mi atterrirono e mi irritarono. Quel che dovetti udire era talmente mostruoso, che solo a fatica potevo dominarmi. Se fossi riuscito a convincere il governo di Lhasa ad accogliere le truppe della Repubblica Popolare Cinese come esercito di liberazione e a riconoscere la Cina comunista, sarei stato nominato governatore generale del Tibet. Come tale avrei guidato e sostenuto la grande opera di ricostruzione, in cui la nostra religione sarebbe stata sostituita dall’ideologia comunista. Se il Dalai Lama si fosse opposto, avrei trovato modi e mezzi per levarlo di mezzo. Mi fecero intendere che anche il fratricidio è giustificato, quando si tratta di realizzare le idee comuniste. Portarono esempi, che dimostravano come simili fatti fossero stati premiati con le più alte cariche”.6

 
Dal 1950 ad oggi più di un milione di tibetani sono morti a causa dell’occupazione cinese, circa seimila monasteri sono stati distrutti e decine di migliaia di persone deportate, tra cui molti monaci. Il territorio è oggetto di un ben preciso programma di deculturazione ed è indiscriminatamente usato per lo stoccaggio di rifiuti nocivi, tossici e radioattivi. Sostanzialmente è diventato la “pattumiera della Cina”.
Gli stati europei stanno a guardare, abbagliati dal mito cinese che irradia la luce del facile guadagno, con l’avvallo di industriali e imprenditori europei nella non considerazione degli operai-schiavi cinesi, decisamente meno impegnativi degli odierni operai-disoccupati europei, nuovi poveri mondiali.
Nonostante questo Dalai Lama non abbia mai proferito una parola contro l’aggressione cinese. In un suo recente libro, L’arte di essere pazienti, riporta le parole di Acharya Shantideva, illuminato buddista dell’VIII sec.: (64) “Anche se altri diffamassero o persino distruggessero immagini sacre, reliquiari e il sacro dharma, è erroneo che io mi arrabbi perché i Buddha non potranno mai essere oltraggiati”.7
Commenta poi così lo scritto: “Si potrebbe cercare di giustificare lo sviluppo dell’odio nei confronti di chi oltraggia tali oggetti con l’amore per il dharma. Shantideva però afferma che non è questa la risposta giusta, giacché in realtà si reagisce in quanto si è incapaci di sopportare il gesto. Ma gli oggetti sacri non possono essere danneggiati”.8

Parlando recentemente con “vecchi” comunisti italiani sono rimasto lievemente perplesso nell’udire che il Dalai Lama è da questi considerato un oppressore del suo popolo, perché ha cercato di mantenere in pieno XX secolo i tibetani in uno stato medievale. Mi ha sconcertato l’acriticità e la scorrettezza delle loro argomentazioni e laconicamente potrei commentare che l’indottrinamento di stampo comunista in Cina permane e i vecchi comunisti italiani guardano a tutto ciò con occhi sognanti. Ad ogni buon conto se delle radici europee c’erano, adesso, anche grazie ai “nuovi europei”, possiamo stare quasi certi che siano scomparse. Ma la speranza, come recita un saggio nostrano, è l’ultima a morire e personalmente credo che qualcuno in Europa rimarrà desto a studiare, a capire e a tramandare.


18 Novembre 2010 12:00:00 - http://www.rinascita.eu/index.php?action=news&id=4991

Il mito, per Eliade, dà valore e significato al mondo e alla vita

Il mito, per Eliade, dà valore e significato al mondo e alla vita

di Francesco Lamendola

Fonte: Arianna Editrice [scheda fonte]

L’uomo non può vivere senza miti; meglio: non può vivere senza un sistema di pensiero mitico, che integri in se stesso l’intero fenomeno dell’esistenza.
Poiché l’universo mitico è proprio delle culture arcaiche e di quelle tradizionali, comunque del mondo pre-moderno, esiste un atteggiamento di sufficienza e di distacco nei suoi confronti, quasi che si trattasse della espressione di un pensiero bambino, giustificato in un conteso “primitivo”, ma assolutamente incongruo nella razionale società odierna.
Questo grossolano pregiudizio scientista fa sì che la cultura occidentale moderna stenti a trovare gli strumenti operativi e le stesse categorie concettuali atti a comprendere il fenomeno della mitologia dall’interno, ossia cogliendone  le vitali articolazioni con l’orizzonte spirituale dei popoli che l’hanno elaborata, per dare fondamento alla loro esistenza e per stabilire una relazione di corrispondenza fra se stessi e la realtà circostante.
Il mito non è soltanto uno strumento per razionalizzare i fenomeni naturali e per rassicurare le paure ancestrali dell’uomo, come vorrebbe la Vulgata scientista, ma qualcosa di molto più complesso e di molto più elevato: è una finestra sulla dimensione trascendente spalancata nell’immanente, sull’atemporale nel temporale, sull’assoluto nel relativo.
Grazie al mito, la realtà assume un significato e si presenta all’uomo sotto la categoria dei valori: a cominciare dalla sua stessa esistenza, collegata al passato (antenati) e al futuro (discendenti), nonché a tutti gli altri viventi, vegetali ed animali, al cielo, alla terra, alle stagioni, al giorno e alla notte; e pervasa da poderose correnti di presenze sovrumane, ora benevole ora maligne, che l’uomo stesso può, a determinate condizioni, comprendere e, talvolta, padroneggiare.
Se l’animale cade sotto la freccia del cacciatore, ciò non avviene per esclusivo merito dell’abilità di quest’ultimo; se la spiga di grano germoglia e giunge a maturazione, ciò non è solamente effetto del lavoro dell’agricoltore. Esiste un patto fra l’uomo e le forze della natura, sottoscritto dagli antenati e rinnovato continuamente mediante i riti sciamanici e le prescrizioni totemiche, grazie al quale la Terra offre all’uomo ciò di cui ha bisogno, purché ne usi con saggezza e con moderazione e purché si riconosca debitore di tutto ciò che riceve.
Il mito è la struttura di pensiero che rende ragione di tutto ciò e, di conseguenza, che offre all’uomo la prospettiva di un significato insito nelle cose, in tutte le cose, ivi compreso il suo stesso esistere; in questo senso, si può anche dire che il pensiero mitico è una forma embrionale di pensiero filosofico, o, per dir meglio, una forma di pensiero parallela al pensiero filosofico. Infatti la mitologia non è una sorta di filosofia bambina, ma una forma di pensiero che, come la filosofia, tende a spiegare l’origine delle cose e della vita; non limitandosi - però - alla dimensione del pensiero logico, né ad una conoscenza di tipo oggettivo ed esterno alle cose, ma calandosi, per così dire, nelle cose stesse, onde rivelarne il volto nascosto ed i significati profondi, che parlano all’uomo per mezzo di simboli.
Ciò non significa in alcun modo che il mito sia una forma di conoscenza inferiore alla filosofia; tanto è vero che un filosofo della statura di Platone si è servito del mito proprio per tentare di esplorare alcune delle verità più profonde e difficili. (Ma su tutto questo, vedi anche il nostro precedente articolo: «Il pensiero mitico è diverso, non certo inferiore a quello scientifico», particolarmente dedicato alla riflessione dell’epistemologo tedesco Kurt Hübner, apparso sul sito di Arianna Editrice in data 15/01/2008).
Il grande storico delle religioni Mircea Eliade ha dedicato gran parte dei suoi studi e delle sue riflessioni proprio ad illuminare il significato del mito nel contesto delle culture arcaiche, con particolare riguardo allo sciamanesimo; e, su tale argomento, ha scritto alcune delle pagine più significative che l’intera cultura europea abbia prodotto.
Osserva, dunque, Eliade in «Mito e realtà» (titolo originale: «Myth and Reality»; trasduzione italiana di Giovanni Cantoni, Roma, Borla Editore, 1974, pp. 144-46):

«In un mondo simile [ossia quello del mito], l’uomo non si sente rinchiuso nel suo modo d’esistenza; anch’egli è “aperto”, comunica con il mondo, perché  utilizza lo stesso linguaggio: il simbolo. Se il mondo gli parla attraverso i suoi astri, le sue piante e i suoi animali, i suoi fiumi e i suoi monti, le sue stagioni e le sue notti, l’uomo gli risponde  con i suoi sogni e la sua vita immaginativa, con i suoi antenati oppure con i suoi “totem” - ad un tempo natura, sovranatura ed esseri umani -, con la sua capacità di morire e risuscitare ritualmente nelle sue cerimonie di iniziazione (né più né meno della luna e della vegetazione), con il suo potere di incarnare uno spirito mettendosi una maschera, ecc. Se il mondo è trasparente per l’uomo arcaico, anche questo si sente “guardato” e compreso dal mondo. La selvaggina lo guarda e lo comprende (spesso l’animale si lascia catturare perché sa che l’uomo ha fame), come pure la roccia, o l’albero, o il fiume. Ciascuno ha la sua storia da raccontargli, un consiglio da dargli.
Pur sapendosi essere umano e accettandosi come tale, l’uomo delle società arcaiche sa anche di essere qualche cosa di più.  Per esempio, sa che il suo antenato è stato un animale, oppure che può morire e tornare alla vita (iniziazione, trance sciamanica) , che può influenzare i raccolti con le sue orge (che può comportarsi con la sua sposa come il cielo con la terra o che può avere la parte del vomere e sua moglie quella del solco). Nelle culture più complesse, l’uomo sa che il suo respiro è vento, che le sue ossa sono simili a montagne, che un fuoco brucia nel suo stomaco, che il suo ombelico può diventare “centro del mondo”, ecc.
Non bisogna immaginare che questa “apertura” verso il mondo si traduca in una concezione bucolica dell’esistenza I miti dei “primitivi” e i rituali che ne dipendono non ci rivelano un’Arcadia arcaica. Come si è visto, i paleocoltivatori, assumendosi la responsabilità di far prosperare il mondo vegetale, hanno accettato ugualmente la tortura delle vittime a vantaggio dei raccolti, l’orgia sessuale, il cannibalismo, la caccia di teste.
Si tratta di una concezione tragica dell’esistenza, risultato della valorizzazione religiosa della tortura e della morte violenta. Un mito come quello di Hainuwele [tramandato nelle Isole Molucche, nella parte più orientale dell’odierna Indonesia], e tutto il complesso socio-religioso che esso articola e giustifica, forza l’uomo ad accettare la sua condizione di essere mortale e sessuato, condannato a uccidere e a lavorare per potersi nutrire.  Il mondo vegetale e animale gli “parla” della sua origine, cioè, in ultima analisi, di Hainuwele; il paleo coltivatore comprende questo linguaggio e scopre un significato per tutto ciò che lo circonda e per tutto ciò che fa. Ma questo lo obbliga ad accettare la crudeltà e l’uccisione come parte integrante del suo modo d’essere. Certamente, la crudeltà, la tortura, l’uccisione, non sono comportamenti specifici ed esclusivi dei “primitivi”. Li si incontra lungo tutta la storia, talvolta con un parossismo sconosciuto alle società arcaiche. La differenza consiste soprattutto nel fatto che, per i “primitivi”, questa condotta violenta ha un valore religioso ed è ricalcata  su modelli sovrumani. Questa concezione si è protratta a lungo nella storia. Gli stermini di massa di un Gengis Khan, per esempio, trovano ancora una giustificazione religiosa.
Il mito non è, in se stesso, una garanzia di “bontà” e di moralità. La sua funzione consiste nel rivelare dei modelli e nel fornire così un significato al mondo e al’esistenza umana. Anche il suo ruolo nella costituzione dell’uomo è immenso. In virtù del mito, lo abbiamo detto, le idee di REALTÀ, di VALORE, di TRASCENDENZA, vengono lentamente alla luce. In virtù del mito, il mondo si lascia cogliere come cosmo perfettamente articolato, intelligibile e significativo. Raccontando come le cose sono state fatte, il mito svela per chi e per che cosa sono state fatte e in quale circostanza. Tutte queste “rivelazioni” impegnano direttamente l’uomo, perché costituiscono una “storia sacra”.»

Come si vede, la visione di Eliade è lontanissima da ogni edulcorazione in chiave roussoiana delle società arcaiche; nessun mito del buon selvaggio, nessuna “bontà” intrinseca del mondo mitico: e, del resto, basta un minimo di conoscenza della storia e della letteratura antiche per rendersene immediatamente conto.
Non è forse per espletare un rito di natura espiatoria e propiziatoria che Achille uccide i dodici giovinetti troiani sulla pira di Patroclo; episodio che perfino il raffinato Virgilio, esponente di una cultura molto più “moderna”, riprende nella sua «Eneide»? Ebbene, si tratta di un’azione che acquista significato alla luce della credenza in un legame tra l’aldiqua e l’Aldilà, che trae origine e significato alla luce del mito: nel caso specifico, la credenza che il sangue di alcune vittime innocenti possa placare i Mani di un defunto strappato anzitempo alla vita.
E non sono forse piene le tombe etrusche, a cominciare dalla celeberrima Tomba François di Vulci, di simili raffigurazioni, addirittura impressionanti nella loro carica di tragicità e di cruento realismo, con il demone infernale Charun (latrino Charon), dall’aspetto spaventoso, che accompagna le anime nel loro viaggio al Regno dei morti?
Eliade ci ricorda che la pratica del sacrificio umano è indissolubilmente legata alle culture dei paleocotivatori; e l’archeologia ce ne dà conferma, da un capo all’altro del mondo, dall’Europa alle Americhe: ad esempio con le cerimonie dei Maya per scongiurare la siccità mediante il sacrificio di una fanciulla vergine, che veniva precipitata in un pozzo, o con quella degli Skidi Pawnee dedicata alla Stella del mattino, nella quale, sempre per propiziarsi le forze magiche della natura, essi uccidevano una vergine, all’alba, trafiggendola con piccole frecce infuocate.
Sbagliano, dunque, sia coloro i quali ostentano disprezzo verso la concezione mitica del mondo, sia coloro i quali la idealizzano in maniera ingenuamente acritica, proiettando su di essa il loro vagheggiamento di un Eden incontaminato e perfetto, che nasce dalla frustrazione di essere membri di una società esasperatamente individualista e materialista.
La funzione del mito era ed è essenzialmente quella di rivelare la dimensione nascosta, originaria, delle cose, mostrando la stretta interconnessione che tutte le congiunge e che unisce ad esse anche l’uomo.
Al tempo stesso, il mito tramanda il ricordo di un tempo in cui un ordine felice regnava nel mondo e l’uomo stesso godeva di uno statuto privilegiato; cose entrambe che sono andate perdute a causa di un disordine, di una perturbazione, di una caduta che ha incrinato l’assetto originario, ma che appunto il mito è in grado di recuperare, almeno parzialmente, consentendo all’uomo di ricollegarsi a quella fortunata condizione originaria.
In questo senso, è corretto affermare che il mito punta a reintegrare l’uomo nella sua pienezza ontologica e che tale reintegrazione assume le forme e la prospettiva di una elevazione, ossia di un superamento della sua condizione presente, limitata e precaria, per sviluppare e potenziare in lui le facoltà superiori, ivi compresa quella di parlare alle cose, alle piante, agli animali e, pertanto, di rinsaldare i vincoli magici che tengono in equilibrio le forze cosmiche.
Il mito si collega anche da questo lato allo sciamanesimo e dischiude all’uomo la possibilità di inserirsi non più da spettatore inerme o da vittima rassegnata, ma da autentico protagonista, nel gioco di tali forze cosmiche, dalle quale può attingere poteri e possibilità che, nello stato ordinario di esistenza, sono per lui inimmaginabili.
Infine il mito delinea una concezione sacrale del reale; una concezione, cioè, che, rivestendo di mistero e di potenza gli elementi del cosmo, si pone agli antipodi della nostra cultura secolarizzata e della sua pretesa di capire tutto, di spiegare tutto, di misurare e quantificare ogni cosa, alla luce del Logos strumentale e calcolante.
Il mito, infatti, non è, semplicemente, conoscenza del reale, ma rivelazione: e, come tale, presuppone un “corpus” di dottrine esoteriche che solo nei tempi e nei modi stabiliti possono venir trasmessi di generazione in generazione, essendo di origine superiore all’umana; ciò che va propriamente sotto il nome di Tradizione.
Riconoscendo una Tradizione sovrumana, dalla quale derivano tanto l’ordine cosmico, quando le dottrine iniziatiche che permettono all’uomo di scorgerlo, di rispettarlo e di porsi in sintonia con esso, il mito si pone, in effetti, come una forma di approccio al reale radicalmente diversa, e antagonista, rispetto a quella cui noi moderni siamo ormai talmente abituati, da considerarla l’unica vera e realmente efficace.
Una cosa è certa: finché non scenderemo dal piedistallo della nostra presunzione scientista, non potremo capire nulla del mito e continueremo o a denigrarlo, o a idealizzarlo, senza mai penetrarne l’intima essenza.
Che non si lascia catturare in schemi di tipo esclusivamente logico e scientifico, quali quelli cui siamo abituati da quattro secoli di razionalismo materialista e meccanicista; ma che richiede un salto, una discontinuità nel nostro atteggiamento verso il reale, che coinvolga non solo il Logos, ma tutte le nostre facoltà, a cominciare dai sensi interni e dalle potenzialità sopite dell’anima.


Tante altre notizie su www.ariannaeditrice.it

Remembering René Guénon

Edouard RIX

Ex: http://www.counter-currents.com/

Translated by Greg Johnson

Editor’s Note:

This essay and the one that follows are presented in commemoration of René Guénon’s birth on November 15, 1886.

On January 7th, 1951, the Frenchman René Guénon, one of the principal representatives of Traditional thought in the 20th century, died in Cairo.

From Occultism to Esotericism

Guénon was born in Blois, on November 15, 1886, to a strongly Catholic family. In 1904, after a pilgrimage to Lourdes, he went to Paris to continue his education. A dawdler, he only obtained his license when he was 29, then at 32 he failed his aggregation in philosophy when his doctoral thesis, devoted to “A General Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines,” was rejected.

Parallel to his studies, Guénon frequented, from his arrival in the capital, the occultist milieu, launching himself headlong into a series of affiliations and initiations. He entered the Hermetic School, was received into the Martinist Order, attended various occultist Masonic organizations, was initiated in the Tebah Lodge of the Grand Lodge of France. In 1908, he was secretary of Second Spiritualistic and Masonic Congress and became Sovereign Grand Commander of the Order of the Renovated Temple. At the age of 23, he was consecrated “bishop of Alexandria” of the Gnostic Church of France, under the name of Palingénius and became editor of La Gnose, “the monthly review devoted to the study of esoteric sciences.”

After several disappointing experiences in the occultist milieu, he turned to the East to find the right path, that of “initiatory Knowledge.” After being interested in Taoism, he was initiated in 1912 into Sufism, an Islamic initiatory current, without embracing the Islamic religion, as he would later explain to a correspondent. Having learned Chinese and Arabic, reading the original texts, he tried to work with initiates in each tradition.

While giving his own lessons and courses of philosophy, René Guénon wrote many articles for Catholic publications like the Revue universelle du Sacré-Cœur Regnabit and Traditionalist publications like the Le Voile d’Isis (Veil of Isis), which became Etudes traditionnelles. He also published books.

The Tradition Against the Modern World

In his Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines (1921), and the Man and His Becoming According to the Vedanta (1925), he defined the criteria of universal traditional metaphysics. For Guénon, Tradition means the whole of “metaphysical” knowledge of order: it admits a variety of forms, while remaining one in its essence.

He insists on the idea, already formulated before him by Joseph de Maistre and Fabre d’ Olivet, of a primordial Tradition, which goes back to a supreme Center, the repository of all spiritual knowledge, which diffuses it by the means of “initiatory chains” present in the various religious paths. In Perspectives on Initiation (1946), he defended the need to attach oneself to  a “chain,” to a “regular organization,” but hardly offers an alternative to those who refuse to defer, like him, to Muslim or Oriental ones. But in all fairness, he recognizes that in spite of its degeneration Freemasonry remains in theory a conduit of genuine initiation.

The most interesting aspect of Guénon’s work lies in his radical criticism of the modern world, to which he opposes the world of Tradition as a positive foil. According to him, traditional civilization,which was realized in the Orient as well as the West—India, Medieval Catholicism, Imperial China, the Islamic Caliphate—rests on metaphysical foundations. It is characterized by the recognition of an order higher than anything human and the authority of elites which draw from this transcendent plane the principles necessary to found an articulated social organization.

This rests on the division of society into four castes or functional classes: at the top representatives of spiritual authority, then a warlike aristocracy, a middle-class of the merchants and craftsmen, and finally the toiling masses. This concept of caste refers obviously to the Hindu, Indo-Aryan system, divided between the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras. In the same way, ancient Iran, Greece, and Rome also had somewhat analogous social organizations, which one finds, moreover, in the political doctrines of Plato. The ultimate revival of this system in the West was the feudal Middle Ages, the clergy corresponding to the Brahmins, the nobility to the Kshatriyas, the third estate with the Vaishyas, and the serfs with the Shudras.

The polar opposition of the world of the Tradition is held to be modern civilization, which is characterized by desacralization, ignorance of all that is higher than man, materialism, frenzied activity.

Two major books, The Crisis of the Modern World (1927) and The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of  the Times (1946) contain the essence of this critique, to which one can add East and West (1924), which holds that the only remaining Traditional civilizations are in the East. This led Guénon to move to Cairo in 1930, where he took the identity of Sheik Abdel Wahid Yahia.

The Regression of the Castes

René Guénon was never politically active, although he moved in the Parisian circles of Action française, because he believed that “at present, there is no movement deserving one’s adherence.”

For him, we are at the end of a cycle, in the Kali Yuga or “Dark Age” of the ancient Hindu texts or Hesiod’s “Iron Age.” His interpretation of the course of History as decline, resolutely anti-Marxist and reactionary, rests on the idea of the “regression of the castes.” In quasi-mythical times, society is ruled by sacred Kings ruling by divine right selected from the first caste. This is followed by the reign of the warlike caste, secular monarchs, military chiefs, or lords of temporal justice, which comes about in Europe with the decline of great monarchies. Then comes rule by the third estate, the middle-class, aristocracy giving way to plutocracy. Finally comes rule by the last caste, the working class, which finds its logical conclusion in Communism and Sovietism.

The idea of the regression of the castes was taken up by Julius Evola in his masterpiece, Revolt Against the Modern World, published in 1934. Guénon, moreover, allowed the publication of his writings in the cultural page edited by Evola from 1934 to 1943 in the daily newspaper Il Regime Fascista.

Knowledge and Action

Although Evola is indebted to Guénon in many ways, they differ on one point: the relationship of spiritual authority and temporal power, i.e., priesthood and royalty. In its book Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power published in 1929, Guénon affirms the primacy of the priesthood over royalty. For him, the Brahmin is higher than the Kshatriya because knowledge is higher than action and the “metaphysical” domain higher than the “physical.” Even if the members of the sacerdotal caste no longer appear worthy of their function, the validity in principle of their superiority cannot be denied lest one risk the disintegration of the socio-political system. Evola, however, who thought that Western culture is rooted in a “tradition of warriors,” defends the opposite thesis, claiming that Guénon’s reasoning is marked by “brahmanico-sacerdotal point of view of an Oriental.”

Faithful to his nature as a Brahmin, as a sage, René Guénon was more a witness of the Tradition than an actor in his time, contrary to the Kshatriya, the warrior Julius Evola, the 20th century’s only true rebel against the modern world.

Source: “Un témoin de la Tradition: René Guénon,” http://www.voxnr.com/cc/ds_tradition/EpZpkZVVlAJuBArRHD.s...

The Primordial Tradition: A Tribute to Ananda Coomaraswamy

The Primordial Tradition:
A Tribute to Ananda Coomaraswamy

by Ranjit Fernando

Ex: http://www.freespeechproject.com/ 

Ananda Coomaraswamy once suggested that Buddhism has been so much admired in the West mainly for what it is not; and he said of Hinduism, that although it had been examined by European scholars for more than a century, a faithful account of it might well be given in the form of a categorical denial of most of the statements that have been made about it, alike by European scholars and by Indians trained in modern modes of thought.

In the same way, it could perhaps be said of Coomaraswamy himself, that he is admired in Lanka, as in India, almost entirely for what he was not, and that a true account of his ideas might well take the form of a denial of most of the statements made about him in the land of his birth.

Coomaraswamy has long been presented, both in India and in Lanka, as a patriot, a famous indologist and art historian, an eminent scholar and orientalist; it would be as well to examine the validity of these widely-held beliefs about a man who was undoubtedly one of the greatest figures of our time.

The subject matter of all Coomaraswamy's mature writings can be placed under one heading, namely, Tradition. The Tradition that he writes about has little to do with the current usage of this term to mean customs or social patterns that have prevailed for some time. Coomaraswamy's theme is the unchanging Primordial and Universal Tradition which, as he shows, was the source from which all the true religions of the present as well as the past came forth, and likewise the forms of all those societies which were molded by religion.

The particular aspect of Tradition which Coomaraswamy chose as his own specialty -- the one best suited to his own talents -- was, of course, the traditional view of art, now mainly associated with the East, but once universally accepted by East and West alike, as also by the civilizations of antiquity and, indeed, by those societies which we are pleased to call primitive. Coomaraswamy never tired of demonstrating that the traditional view of life and of art was always the universal and normal view until the Greeks of the so-called classical period first introduced a view of life and of art fundamentally at variance with the hitherto accepted view.

In his aversion to what has been called 'the Greek miracle', Coomaraswamy is at one with Plato whose attitude to the changes that were taking place in his time was, to say the least, one of the strongest disapproval. Coomaraswamy shows, as Plato did, that the view of life and of art invented and glorified by the Greeks, and subsequently adopted by the Romans was, in the context of the long history of mankind, an abnormal view, an aberration; and that although this view lost its hold on men's minds with the rise of Christendom in the Middle Ages, it was to re-establish itself with greater force at the Renaissance thus becoming responsible for the fundamental ills of the modem world.

In all traditional societies, quite apart from his ability to reason, man was always considered capable of going further and achieving direct, intuitive knowledge of absolute truth which, as the traditionalist writer, Gal Baton says, "carries with it an immediate certainty provided by no other kind of knowledge."

"In the modem world," he continues, "we think in terms of "intellectual progress", by which we mean a progress in the ideas which men formulate with regard to the nature of things; but, from the point of view of traditional knowledge, there can be no progress, except in so far as particular individuals advance from ignorance to reflected or rational know ledge, and from reason to direct intuitive knowledge which, we might add, by its nature cannot be defined, but which, nevertheless stands over and above all other forms of knowledge being nothing less than knowledge itself.

From a traditional point of view, the fault of the Greeks lay in their substitution of the rational faculty for the supra-rational as the highest faculty of man, and in the words of Coomaraswamy's distinguished colleague, Rene Guenon, "it almost seems as if the Greeks, at a moment when they were about to disappear from history, wished to avenge themselves for their incomprehension by imposing on a whole section of mankind the limitations of their own mental horizon." Since the Renaissance, as Baton points out, the modem world has, of course, gone much further than did the Greeks in the denial even of the possibility of a real knowledge which transcends the narrow limits of the individual mentality." Moreover, as we are all aware, that which, from a traditional point of view, appears to be a serious narrowing of horizons, is seen from our modem point of view as an unprecedented intellectual breakthrough!

While it is hardly possible in a brief summary, such as this, to further discuss the issues involved, we might usefully ponder on Plato's story of the subterranean cave where some men have been confined since childhood. These men are familiar only with the shadows cast by a fire upon the dark walls of the cave, which they have all the time to study, and about which they are most knowledgeable. They know nothing of the outside world and therefore do not believe in its existence.

Coomaraswamy, like Plato, would have us realize that we, too, are in darkness like these men, and that we would do well to seek the light of another world above by concerning ourselves with those things, which our ancestors knew and understood so well. He constantly points out, that modem or anti-traditional societies are shaped by the ideas men develop by their own powers of reasoning, there finally being as many sets of ideas as there are men; he also tries to show that traditional societies, on the other hand, were based on perennial ideas of quite another order -ideas of divine origin and revealed -- whereby all the aspects of a society were determined.

A recurrent theme in Coomaraswamy's writings was the traditional view of art. When referring to European art, he repeatedly stressed that Graeco-Roman art and Renaissance art, like all the more modern schools of European art, were of earthly inspiration and therefore of human origin like the philosophies that went with them, whereas traditional art, like traditional philosophy, was related to the metaphysical order and therefore religious in character and divine in origin.

We now see that in his earliest works such as the monumental Medieval Sinhalese Art, Coomaraswamy did not as yet fully understand the difference between these two contrasting points of view which were to form the basis of his later and more significant work; in his early writings, his profound understanding of the traditional arts of Greater India, as indeed his already considerable grasp of the true meaning of religion, was a little clouded with modernistic prejudice, the outcome, no doubt, of his early academic training in England which was of a kind that he had, even then, begun to despise. But later, following his association with the French metaphysician, Rene Guenon, Coomaraswamy's writings assumed the complete correctness of exposition and the great authority, which we associate with his most mature work.

Insofar as we are able to see that a universalist approach to the study of the world's religions, coupled with an understanding of the true meaning of Tradition, have, at the present time, a special importance for the modern world, we shall also see that two men, the Frenchman, Rene Guenon, and Sri Lanka's Ananda Coomaraswamy, stand out as the greatest thinkers of the first half of this century. A great gulf separates their thought from the thought of nearly all their contemporaries. The second half of this century has witnessed the emergence of a whole school founded on their pioneering work and on the Perennial Philosophy, a movement which has found acceptance in many parts of a confused and bewildered world.

It will now be apparent that, if we are to regard Coomaraswamy as an eminent orientalist and art historian, it must first be clearly understood that he stands apart from almost all those other scholars who can be similarly described, in that while they approach the life and art of traditional societies from a modern standpoint {which is both "skeptical and evolutionary", to use his own words), Coomaraswamy, like his few true colleagues and collaborators, takes the view that takes the view that Tradition can only be understood by a careful consideration of its own point of view however inconvenient this may be. Once this is realized, it would certainly be true, not only to say that Coomaraswamy was an eminent scholar but, as Marco Pallis has said, a prince among scholars.

Coomaraswamy saw that a feudal or hierarchical society based on metaphysical principles is essentially superior to the supposedly egalitarian systems held in such high esteem today. Like Plato, he maintained that democracy was one of the worst forms of government, nor did he view any other materialistic system with more favour. His enthusiasm for such institutions as caste and kingship was based, not on sentiment, but on a profound understanding of the vital relationship between spiritual authority and temporal power in society and government. He would hardly have approved of the road which India and Lanka have taken since achieving their so-called independence, although he would have regarded it as inevitable.

It is well known that, from the very beginning, Coomaraswamy deplored the influence of the West on Eastern peoples, and especially the consequences of British rule in Greater India. He has therefore been placed alongside those who in India and Lanka have been regarded as national leaders in the struggle for independence. But here again, a complete difference of approach separates Coomaraswamy from his contemporaries, for it was not imperialism or the domination of one people by another that he was concerned about, but rather the destruction of traditional societies by peoples who had abandoned sacred forms. It was what the British stood for and not the British that he detested; on the contrary, there is no doubt that he loved England because he knew another, older England which in form as well as spirit was so much like the oriental world he understood so well.

It would, in conclusion, be appropriate to quote the words of that highly respected English artist-philosopher, Eric Gill, who in his autobiography paid Coomaraswamy this great tribute:

"There was one person, to whose influence I am deeply grateful; I mean the philosopher and theologian, Ananda Coomaraswamy. Others have written the truth about life and religion and man's work. Others have written good clear English. Others have had the gift of witty exposition. Others have understood the metaphysics of Christianity and others have understood the metaphysics of Hinduism and Buddhism. Others have understood the true significance of erotic drawings and sculptures. Others have seen the relationships of the true and the good and the beautiful. Others have had apparently unlimited learning. Others have loved; others have been kind and generous. But I know of no one else in whom all these gifts and all these powers have been combined. I dare not confess myself his disciple; that would only embarrass him. I can only say that I believe that no other living writer has written the truth in matters of art and life and religion and piety with such wisdom and understanding."

N°10-11 d'HYPERBOREE

N°10-11 d’Hyperborée

Tradition & Revolution

Tradition & Revolution

Edouard RIX

Ex: http://www.counter-currents.com/

Translated by Greg Johnson

What are we fighting for? Every political soldier has to raise this question. Contradictory as it might seem, we are inclined to answer that we fight for Tradition and Revolution.

The Tradition

First of all, one should not confuse the Tradition with traditions, i.e., customs and habits.

The Tradition indicates the ensemble of higher-order knowledge regarding Being and its manifestations in the world, such as they were bequeathed to us by former generations. It pertains not to what is given in space and time, but to what is always. It admits a variety of forms — traditions — while remaining one in its essence. One should not confuse it with the one religious tradition, because it covers the totality of human activities — political, economic, social, etc. . . .

Following Joseph de Maistre, Fabre d’ Olivet, and especially René Guénon, Julius Evola speaks about a “primordial Tradition” which, historically, would make it possible to consider the concrete origin of a whole array of traditions. He refers to a “Hyperborean tradition,” coming from the Extreme North, located at the beginning of the present cycle of civilization, in particular the Indo-European cultures.

From Evola’s point of view, “a civilization or a society is traditional when it is governed by principles that transcend what is merely human and individual, when all its forms come to it from on high, and when as a whole it is oriented toward what is above.” Traditional civilization thus rests on metaphysical foundations. It is characterized by the recognition of an order superior to all that is human and contingent, by the presence and the authority of elites that draw from this transcendent plane the principles necessary to found a hierarchically articulated social organization, to blaze trails towards a higher knowledge, and finally to confer on life a vertical orientation.

The modern world, to Evola, is contrary to the world of the Tradition which was incarnated in all great civilizations, West and East. They are free of our ignorance of all that is higher than man, our generalized desacralization, materialism, and confusion of castes and races.

The Revolution

As for the term Revolution, it must be brought back to its double meaning. In its current sense, which is most commonly used, Revolution means the abrupt and violent change in the government of a State. The French Revolution and the Russian Revolution of 1917 are perfect illustrations.

However, in its original sense, Revolution does not mean subversion and revolt, but the opposite, namely the return to a starting point and movement centered around an axis. Thus, in astronomical terms, the revolution of a star precisely indicates its axial motion, its movement around a center that restrains its centrifugal force, thus preventing the star from losing itself in infinite space.

Today, however, we are at the end of a cycle. With the regression of the castes — the progressive descent of authority down the Traditional hierarchy of the four functions — power has passed from sacred kings to warrior-aristocrats, then to merchants, and finally to the masses. This is the Iron Age, the Indo-Aryan Kali-Yuga, the Dark Age of decline characterized by the reign of quantity, number, mass, and the unrestrained scramble for production, profit, material wealth.

Thus to be for the Revolution today is to want our European civilization to return to its original starting point, in conformity with the values and the principles of the Tradition, which happens, to borrow the words of Giorgio Freda, by “the disintegration of the current system,” the antithesis of the traditional world to which we aspire.

Edouard Rix, Le Lansquenet, no. 16, Fall 2002

Invocation aux Dieux

Ex: http://lecheminsouslesbuis.wordpress.com/

Savitri Devi, de son vrai nom Maximine Portas, née le 30 septembre 1905 à Lyon, est morte le 22 octobre 1982 à Sible-Hedingham (Essex, Angleterre)

« Je me souvins de ma visite à la Godafoss, dans le nord de l’Islande, en juin 1947.

On m’avait dit que quelque temps après l’an 1000, un homme nommé Thorgeir, qui était un «godi» — un prêtre des dieux nordiques — dans la région de Ljosvatn, au nord de l’Islande, devint un chrétien. Et que, comme démonstration spectaculaire de son allégeance à la nouvelle foi étrangère — et peut-être, dans son esprit, comme un «exemple» — il avait pris les images des anciens dieux et les avait publiquement jetées dans la chute d’eau de la rivière Skjalvantaflyot, connue depuis lors sous le nom de Godafoss: la Chute d’Eau des Dieux.

Profondément émue, je m’étais rendue sur les lieux, et je me tenais devant la chute d’eau et je pensais à ces dieux — Odin, et Thor, et Baldur le Beau et les autres, que mes ancêtres vikings adoraient jadis — gisant, depuis plus de neuf cents ans au fond des eaux glacées de la Skjalvantaflyot, attendant l’aube des temps nouveaux, la grande Renaissance Païenne; nous attendant nous, m’attendant moi. J’avais apporté avec moi un papier sur lequel j’avais copié les paroles que le poète français Leconte de Lisle avait mis dans la bouche d’un dieu nordique s’adressant au doux Jésus, venu pour renverser son pouvoir:

… Tu mourras à ton tour:
J’atteste par neuf fois les Runas immortelles.
Tu mourras comme moi, Dieu des âmes nouvelles,
Car l’homme survivra! Vingt siècles de douleurs
Feront saigner sa chair et ruisseler ses pleurs
Jusqu’au jour où ton joug, subi deux mille années
Fatiguera le cou des races mutinées;
Où tes temples, dressés parmi les nations,
Deviendront en risée aux générations;
Et ce sera ton heure!

–Leconte de Lisle, Poèmes Barbares, «Le Runoïa»

Mon bras droit tendu vers l’Orient, j’avais récité ces vers, et ensuite jeté le papier dans la cataracte grondante. Et ensuite — bien que je n’avais pas encore repris espoir; bien que le désastre [de 1945] avait, à mes yeux, retardé, peut-être pour des années et des années, la grande Renaissance païenne de mon rêve — j’avais parlé aux anciens dieux. «Dieux du Nord, frères des dieux védiques que l’Inde vénère encore», avais-je dit, «dieux aryens, dieux de ma race, vous savez que pendant toute ma vie j’ai défendu les valeurs que vous incarniez jadis dans le cœur de vos adorateurs. Oh, quel que soit le destin que vous me réservez, vous que les ancêtres de ma mère invoquaient au milieu des éclairs et du tonnerre, sur les vagues furieuses de la Mer du Nord, aidez-moi à ne jamais cesser de combattre pour nos grands idéaux; à ne jamais cesser de combattre pour le culte de la jeunesse, de la santé, de la force, pour le culte du Soleil — pour votre vérité, notre vérité — où que ce soit dans le monde, jusqu’à ma mort!»

Et ayant dit cela, j’avais senti courir un frisson glacé le long de mon dos, et j’avais été submergée par la conscience d’une solennité infinie, comme si je venais d’être l’instrument d’un rite préparé et attendu depuis longtemps; comme si les dieux nordiques, rejetés par leur prêtre Thorgeir, avaient réellement attendu mon geste symbolique. Il était 10h30 du soir mais il faisait plein jour, comme c’est naturel en juin sous cette latitude. Et je m’étais soudain souvenue que c’était le 9 juin, le septième anniversaire du jour où, également à 10h30 du soir, un brahmane, représentant de l’aryanité la plus à l’Est, avait pris ma main dans la sienne au-dessus du feu sacré et m’avait donné son nom et sa protection. Et j’avais senti que ma visite à la Chute d’Eau des Dieux, et mon geste symbolique en un tel jour, avaient un sens dans l’invisible; qu’il y avait là davantage qu’une simple coïncidence. Maintenant, je me souvenais de cet épisode, qui prenait, à la lumière de l’histoire entre ces deux années, une valeur symbolique plus grande que jamais. «Dieux du Nord, dieux des forts», pensais-je, «dieux aryens, enseignez-moi ce détachement sans lequel il n’y a pas de force véritable, pas d’efficacité durable! Faites de moi un témoin digne de votre vérité — de notre vérité. Débarrassez-moi de toute faiblesse!»

Savitri Devi.

Renato Del Ponte: My Memories of Julius Evola

My Memories of Julius Evola

Renato Del Ponte

Ex: http://www.counter-currents.com/

Translated by Greg Johnson

Renato del Ponte is a central figure in European Evolianism. Founder of the Centro studi evoliani in Genoa in 1969 and editor of the journal Arthos, he also runs the Roman Traditionalist Movement.

Question: Renato del Ponte, your name is closely related to Evola’s. Can you tell us how you came to Evola and what your relationship was with him?

Reply: I am simply a man who has always sought to give my life, on the existential, political, and cultural levels, a line of extreme coherence. It is no surprise that on this way I crossed paths with Evola, who had made coherence in his life as in his writings his watchword.

Naturally because Evola was born in 1898 and I in 1944, our physical encounter could take place only in the last years of his life.

The circumstances and the characteristics of our relationship are developed partly in the letters from 1969 to 1973 (published in the book Julius Evola, Lettere 1955–1974 [Finale Emilia: Edizioni La terra degli avi, 1996], pp. 120–155).

It was always a very cordial relationship, which imparted in me the desire to create an organizational network to make his thought better known in Italy and abroad.

Q.: It is you who deposited the urn containing Evola’s ashes in a crevasse on Monte Rosa. Could you tell us the circumstances?

R.: Yes, it was I, along with other faithful friends, who ensured the transport and the deposit of Evola’s ashes in a crevasse on Monte Rosa at 4,200 meters of altitude, at the end of August 1974. To tell you the truth, I was not the executor of Evola’s will, but I had promised him that, along with our mutual friend Pierre Pascal, I would be vigilant so that the provisions of his will concerning his burial were correctly carried out.

As Evola feared, there were many serious oversights that obliged me to intervene and carry out the burial with the assistance of Eugene David who was Evola’s alpine guide when he made his ascents of Monte Rosa in 1930. It is impossible for me to relate all these adventures, some rather romantic, but you can refer to the collective work Julius Evola: le visionnaire foudroyé [Julius Evola: The Fallen Visionary] (Paris: Copernic, 1979) where some of them are reported.

Q.: You run the Roman Traditionalist Movement. What is this?

R.: The Movimento tradizionalista romano is an essentially cultural and spiritual structure that aims to raise awareness of the characteristics of the Roman Tradition, which is not a historical reality that has been definitively left behind, but an immortal spiritual reality still able to offer today an operative existential model and a religious orientation based on what we define as the “Roman way of the Gods.” To this end, the movement acts on a very discrete internal and communal dedicated to the practice of pietas, and on an external plane dedicated to making known the traditional set of themes of Romanness through manifestos, books — for example my Religione dei Romani (Milano: Rusconi, 1992) which obtained an important literary prize — and periodicals. For more details, you should refer to my contribution in Paris last February to colloquium of L’originel on paganism that will probably be published in French in the journal Antaios.

Q.: For some, Evola’s involvement with the Ur Group is his most interesting period. It seems to us that he mixed quasi-fascist politics, occultism, and modern art in an astonishing and attractive cocktail. Is this correct? How do you analyze this phase of Evola’s life?

R.: I cannot discuss the Ur Group and Evola’s involvement in a brief manner. I recommend my book Evola e il magico Gruppo di Ur [Evola and the Magical Ur Group] (Borzano: Sear Edizioni, 1994).

I will simply say that it was the most committed period in Evola’s life.

This is because it was the period when certain esoteric current, which for the most part laid claim to Roman tradition, had some concrete hope of influencing Italy’s government.

But this phase of Evola’s life can also be interpreted as an attempt, characteristic of his whole existence, “to proceed differently,” to exceed the limits of the forces that condition existence, to create something once more, or better, to return under quite “normal” conditions to a life according to the Tradition.

Q.: How does one reconcile Evolianism and political commitment?

R.: If you speak to me about possible political actions of more limited orientation, reserved to a minority that tries to influence certain groups or certain environments, but at the individual level and without concrete hope of publication of journals and books.

We soon begin to publish Arthos again at quarterly intervals. It is natural that the Italian initiative is accompanied by the birth of similar groups and movements in Europe and especially in France where Evola’s work is well-known. The year to come will surely see the realization of concrete initiatives of which you will be of course informed since we naturally count on your active contribution.

From Lutte du Peuple, no. 32, 1996, http://www.centrostudilaruna.it/mes-souvenirs-de-julius-e...

Le cochon: porte-bonheur ou véhicule d' "impureté"?

« Moestasjrik » / «  ‘t Pallieterke » :

 

Le cochon : porte-bonheur ou vecteur d’ « impureté » ?

 

 

Mes lecteurs me posent des questions ? Je réponds ! Un lecteur veut savoir pourquoi le cochon est un animal symbolique positif en Chine, de même qu’en Europe ( « Schwein haben » en allemand signifie « avoir de la chance »), alors qu’au Moyen Orient, on le considère comme un animal impur. De fait, ce lecteur pose là une question bien utile.  Surtout en ces jours où des organisations caritatives distribuent du bouillon de porc et quelques tranches de pain aux sans-abri, ce qui provoque immédiatement un tollé chez les tenants les plus délirants du « politiquement correct ». Un juge parisien vient d’interdire cette générosité culinaire parce qu’elle constituerait une discrimination à l’endroit des musulmans, alors que les dites organisations caritatives n’ont jamais eu la moindre intention d’empêcher un pauvre, quelle que soit sa religion, de recevoir son bol de soupe. Pour brouiller encore les pistes et insinuer qu’il y a de l’antisémitisme dans l’air, certains agents désinformateurs ont même été jusqu’à affirmer que ces distributeurs de soupe discriminaient et les clochards juifs et les clodos musulmans ; les Juifs, que je sache, n’ont jamais cherché, au cours des siècles, à imposer leurs interdits alimentaires aux autres comme le font aujourd’hui les musulmans dans nos écoles et nos prisons. Quoi qu’il en soit, ces manipulations rhétoriques ne s’avèrent possibles que parce qu’à la base le judaïsme et l’islam interdisent effectivement de consommer de la viande de porc, tandis que les religions dominantes en Europe et en Asie orientale s’abstiennent de prononcer un tel interdit.

 

On explique généralement que cette différence provient de ce que les matrices territoriales de ces différentes religions se situent chaque fois en des zones climatiques différentes. Contrairement aux bovins, ovins et caprins, qui sont exclusivement herbivores, les porcs sont omnivores. Les végétariens n’ont pas entièrement tort lorsqu’ils nous disent que la consommation de viande génère de l’impureté. Les moutons possèdent un système intestinal de dimension très longue afin qu’ils puissent tranquillement absorber et épurer les éléments nutritifs de leur alimentation. Les lions en revanche possèdent un système intestinal court pour pouvoir, après une digestion sommaire, se débarrasser aussi rapidement que possible de la viande qu’ils ont absorbée et qui entre en putréfaction dans leur corps. Au départ, le porc, lui aussi, était végétarien, et donc son système intestinal n’est pas parfaitement adapté à une diète faite de viande. Ils deviennent ainsi assez aisément la proie de vers, de parasites et d’autres germes pathologiques. D’autres animaux carnivores, consommés par l’homme, ont souvent transmis des maladies dangereuses pour l’être humain, notamment la volaille qui nous transmet la grippe.

 

Transmission de maladies

 

Ceux qui tabouisent la consommation de viande de porc prétendent dès lors que leur position est rationnelle ; d’autres éléments apportent de l’eau à leur moulin : l’animal aime se vautrer dans la saleté et le rôle qu’il joue dans la transmission de maladies. A cela s’ajoutent l’amour immodéré du porc pour la boue et le fait qu’il ne mange pas d’herbes mais concurrence l’homme dans la manducation de fruits et de graines.

 

Cette carte d’identité biologique du porc entraine plus de problèmes dans certaines zones climatiques que dans d’autres. Un climat froid, avec de longues périodes de gel, procure à intervalles réguliers, une phase de désinfection générale, tandis que dans les climats chauds tous les microbes et bactéries prolifèrent sans arrêt. En Inde, il y a chaque année prolifération de vermines de toutes sortes juste avant la mousson. Pendant la saison torride, même les moustiques estiment qu’il fait trop chaud pour voler mais après les premières pluies, moustiques, cancrelats et scorpions apparaissent par centaines de millions. Les cadavres commencent alors immédiatement à pourrir : c’est la raison pour laquelle on les brûle le jour même de leur décès avant le coucher du soleil (ou qu’on les enterre s’ils sont musulmans). Sous de tels climats, on ne prend aucun risque avec tout ce que l’on considère comme vecteur d’impureté.

 

Ce problème n’existe pas dans le nord. En Chine, qui est une civilisation née dans le bassin du Fleuve Jaune (Huanghe), nous avons affaire à une zone climatique modérément froide, comparable à nos latitudes. Il n’y existe aucun tabou alimentaire. On y mange de tout : des serpents, des singes, des insectes, des tortues et donc aussi du porc. C’est même cet animal-là qui forme l’essentiel de l’élevage en Chine. Le signe chinois, qui signifie tout à la fois « maison », « foyer » et « famille » (jia), est constitué d’un toit, avec, sous lui, un cochon. Les Chinois accueillent l’Année du Cochon avec joie et les jeunes mariés espèrent, au cours de ces douze mois, avoir un enfant.

 

Et qu’en est-il parmi les peuples indo-européens, que l’on a improprement appelés naguère « Aryens », selon le nom que se donnaient les Indo-Iraniens ? L’opposition nord-sud, que nous avons évoquée en début d’article, est aussi d’application dans le monde indo-européen. En Europe et en Russie, le porc est totalement accepté dans les régimes alimentaires. En Asie du Sud, il n’entre pas dans la cuisine, même chez ceux qui ne suivent pas un régime végétarien. Le sanskrit ne connaît d’ailleurs pas de mot pour désigner le « porc domestiqué » ; il ne connaît seulement qu’un mot, « varahaa », pour le « porc sauvage ». Seules les castes « impures », les plus basses dans la hiérarchie indienne, gardent quelque fois des porcs ; il y a souvent des émeutes quand un de leurs porcs s’échappe et s’égare dans un quartier musulman.

 

Et qu’en est-il entre l’Inde et la Russie, en Asie centrale ? Cette région nous réserve une fameuse surprise. Les archéologues savent que s’ils tombent sur un site de 2000 av. J.C. qui ne contient aucun trace de la présence de porcs, ils l’identifient automatiquement comme indo-européen (1). C’est pour eux une règle d’or. Eviter la viande de porc était donc une caractéristique typique des « Aryens », qui les distinguaient des autres peuples de cette vaste région. On ne doit donc pas partir du principe qu’il y a, d’une part, des Sémites hostiles au cochon et, d’autre part, des « Aryens » adorateurs du cochon.

 

Vishnou le Sanglier

 

Malgré ce rejet du porc chez leurs ancêtres, les Hindous, qui ne mangent pas davantage de porc que les musulmans, ont réussi tout de même à jeter un trouble sacré parmi les musulmans, en évoquant un suidé. Les adorateurs de Vishnou croient que leur dieu se montre à intervalles réguliers dans le monde par le truchement d’une incarnation. Ces incarnations suivent une sorte de modèle ascendant, comme dans la doctrine de l’évolution de Darwin, raison pour laquelle cette doctrine évolutionniste n’a jamais choqué les Hindous. Bien avant que Vishnou ne viennent sur terre, en tant que Rama, ou que Krishna, il fut successivement poisson, tortue et, ensuite, sanglier, « varaaha ». Les musulmans s’insurgent lorsque les chrétiens présente Dieu sous la forme d’un homme souffrant ou humble, comme Jésus le fils du charpentier, ou Krishna comme conducteur de chariot. Alors quand on représente Dieu sous les formes d’un suidé, on tombe pour eux dans le blasphème suprême !

 

« Moestajrik » / «  ‘t Pallieterke ».

(article paru dans « ‘t Pallieterke », Anvers, 21 février 2007 ; trad. franç. : octobre 2010).

 

Note :

 

(1) (ndt) Les Indo-Européens d’Asie centrale sont nomades. L’élevage du porc est signe de sédentarité, comme l’indique d’ailleurs le signe chinois « jia », évoqué par notre auteur. 

Swami Vivekananda e il suo tempo, tra modernità e tradizione

Swami Vivekananda e il suo tempo, tra modernità e tradizione

Elena BORGHI

Ex: http://www.eurasia-rivista.org/

Il quadro storico

Il periodo storico in cui visse ed operò Swami Vivekananda, la seconda metà dell’Ottocento, fu per l’India un momento particolarmente intenso.

Sul piano politico, caratterizzò questi anni il passaggio del governo dell’India dalla Compagnia delle Indie Orientali alla Corona inglese, che assunse il controllo diretto del Paese nel 1858, a seguito del Mutiny. Considerato da alcuni il primo scoppio del fervore nazionalista ed indipendentista, questo evento ebbe come principali conseguenze un’ondata terribile di violenze e la deriva ancor più autoritaria del governo inglese in India. Certamente, la rivolta fu indicativa del carattere predatorio della Compagnia e del livello di esasperazione da essa indotto nella popolazione, che cominciava a mal sopportare il peso del dominio inglese. Se, infatti, il regime coloniale trasformava gradualmente l’India in una nazione moderna – introducendo infrastrutture, reti di comunicazione, organizzazione della burocrazia e della società civile – d’altro canto il Paese pagava un prezzo altissimo in termini economici, sociali e politici.

Sul piano economico, l’India subì in questo periodo la devastazione causata dai legami sproporzionati tra centro e periferia dell’impero, che distrussero la preesistente economia, anche se, per quanto sfrenato, lo sfruttamento economico dell’India garantiva alla Gran Bretagna guadagni complessivamente piuttosto limitati. L’apporto fondamentale della colonia, infatti, rimase sempre la sua funzione di bacino potenzialmente inesauribile di reclutamento di uomini per l’esercito inglese in India, per l’apparato burocratico coloniale e per l’indentured labour, il sistema di “lavoro a contratto” che sostituì gli schiavi africani con migliaia di contadini e braccianti indiani, trasferiti nelle piantagioni e nelle miniere dei luoghi più disparati, legati a contratti che mascheravano uno stato di effettiva schiavitù.

Questi erano tra gli aspetti che, naturalmente, contribuivano a disintegrare il tessuto sociale indiano; vi si aggiungeva il portato del bagaglio ideologico introdotto dal regime coloniale, che cooperò enormemente alla cristallizzazione delle differenze castali e religiose e, dunque, alla frammentazione della società indiana in una miriade di blocchi contrapposti ed ostili, chiusi a livello endogamico, regolati da criteri gerarchici e definiti su basi di purezza razziale e rituale.

I movimenti di riforma

Di pari passo con il potere coloniale, cresceva lo scontento ed il senso di inadeguatezza di alcune categorie, perlopiù intellettuali di classe media ed estrazione urbana, figli di un’educazione di stampo occidentale, dalla cui iniziativa scaturì quel processo di rinnovamento sociale e culturale – nonché di ridefinizione identitaria, presa di coscienza nazionale e critica del regime coloniale – che investì l’India nel periodo in esame.

Si trattò di un periodo di fermento culturale e di tentativi di riforma sociale e religiosa, volti a ripensare le pratiche considerate più aberranti della tradizione hindu (come la sati, l’immolazione delle vedove sulla pira del marito, o il matrimonio infantile), a diffondere un’istruzione di tipo moderno, a ridiscutere la condizione femminile. Motore e scopo ultimo di questi movimenti era l’acquisizione di strumenti atti ad affrontare «l’esibita superiorità dell’Occidente cristiano nei confronti della cultura e delle religioni indiane»¹, come dimostrarono, in particolare, le misure a favore dell’istruzione femminile. Auspicate dai riformatori per motivi che poco avevano a che fare con il reale desiderio di apportare miglioramenti alla generale condizione delle donne, queste misure si rivelarono, in realtà, necessarie ad altri scopi: confutare le teorie europee – secondo le quali la discriminazione cui erano sottoposte le donne in India e la loro condizione erano immagine dell’arretratezza del Paese in generale –, dando prova dell’adeguatezza dell’India all’autogoverno; creare “nuove donne indiane” capaci di essere mogli e madri più adatte alle necessità (pratiche, ma anche identitarie e d’immagine) della classe emergente, e di socializzarne i valori e le aspirazioni, pur entro i confini della tradizione patriarcale, che restava per i riformatori un punto fermo e indiscutibile.²

In ambito religioso, la riforma si concretizzò nelle figure di alcuni pensatori e nella fondazione di istituzioni, volte a rivedere le più grandi tradizioni indiane – hindu e musulmana – alla luce di uno spirito più moderno e razionale.

È tra questi riformatori che si colloca Vivekananda, al secolo Narendranath Datta, nato in quella Calcutta all’epoca centro della vita politica e culturale del Paese, e in una famiglia di scienziati e pensatori illustri.

Fin da bambino profondamente interessato ai temi dell’Hinduismo e della meditazione e dotato di un carisma e di una passione per la ricerca della verità inusuali per la sua età, Narendranath ricevette un’istruzione di stampo occidentale, appassionandosi in particolare alla filosofia, e coltivando allo stesso tempo lo studio della poesia sanscrita, dei testi sacri e degli scritti del riformatore suo contemporaneo Rammohan Ray.

Razionale, dedito al ragionamento logico e sprezzante dei dogmi religiosi tradizionali, Narendranath si avvicinò al Brahma Samaj, l’istituzione fondata a Calcutta nel 1828 da Rammohan Ray al fine di operare una trasformazione dello Hinduismo in senso moderno, depurando la religione dalle pratiche più barbare ed introducendo nello studio della stessa il principio di ragione. Narendranath, affascinato dalle arringhe dei riformatori che facevano parte del movimento, sembrava destinato ad una carriera del tutto simile, borghese e socialmente impegnata, fino a quando un incontro introdusse nel suo percorso un cambiamento di rotta.

Da Narendranath a Vivekananda

Era il 1880, quando Narendranath incontrò per la prima volta Ramakrishna, il sacerdote officiante di un tempio situato a Dakshineshwar, un sobborgo di Calcutta, e dedicato ad una forma del dio Shiva, che veniva lì adorato insieme alla dea Kali. Brahmano di estrazione contadina, con un’istruzione limitata cui sopperivano buon senso, mitezza e profonda devozione, costui era un rinunciante di eccezionale spessore, un rappresentante della corrente mistica della bhakti, la “devozione”, e un punto di riferimento per gli intellettuali bengalesi, affascinati dalla schiettezza dei suoi insegnamenti.

Quell’incontro provocò un imponente cambiamento nella vita del giovane Narendranath, che in pochi anni, durante i quali proseguì nel tentativo di conciliare il materialismo delle scienze occidentali e lo spiritualismo in cui lo precipitavano i momenti a Dakshineshwar, divenne il discepolo prediletto di Ramakrishna. Come il suo Maestro, divenne un Advaitavedantin, un sostenitore dell’indirizzo dottrinale del non-dualismo, che predicava l’unità tra Sé individuale e Assoluto. Da questi insegnamenti Narendranath avrebbe in seguito derivato la convinzione della divinità degli esseri umani, dunque la considerazione di tutte le forme dell’esistenza quali manifestazioni dello spirito divino.

Nel 1886 Ramakrishna, dopo aver iniziato i discepoli alla loro nuova condizione di sanyasin³, indicò Narendranath come loro guida. Fu così che egli divenne Vivekananda, “colui che ha la beatitudine della discriminazione spirituale”. Due anni più tardi Vivekananda cominciò la sua vita di parivrajaka, “monaco errante”, partendo per un pellegrinaggio che durò anni, un viaggio solitario compiuto a piedi sulle strade polverose dell’India, dallo Himalaya fino a Kanyakumari. Questa esperienza fornì a Vivekananda una conoscenza profonda del Paese, quale non aveva mai posseduto. Alla fine del viaggio, quando finalmente raggiunse Kanyakumari, Vivekananda rifletté su tutto quello che aveva visto: «Un Paese dove milioni di persone vivono dei fiori della pianta mohua, e un milione o due di sadhu e circa cento milioni di brahmani succhiano il sangue di queste persone, senza fare il minimo sforzo per migliorare la loro condizione, è un Paese o l’inferno? È quella una religione, o la danza del diavolo?»⁴

Partito con l’obiettivo di portare unità tra le varie sette e confessioni indiane, radunandole sotto l’ombrello del messaggio vedantico, Vivekananda comprese che al suo Paese servivano istruzione e cibo, più che insegnamenti religiosi. Ripensò a quel che aveva sentito dire alcuni mesi prima, circa l’organizzazione a Chicago del World’s Parliament of Religions, un congresso che avrebbe ospitato rappresentanti di ogni religione del mondo; Vivekananda decise che si sarebbe recato negli Stati Uniti, per predicare il messaggio vedantico e chiedere in cambio il sostegno economico necessario a fondare in India istituzioni educative e caritative per le classi più svantaggiate.

Pochi mesi più tardi ebbe inizio la sua missione in Occidente, che lo vide tenere innumerevoli conferenze e radunare intorno a sé molti sostenitori.

Un pensiero moderno e rivoluzionario

Attualizzando gli aspetti religioso-filosofici della dottrina vedantica, all’interno di un pensiero in cui la speculazione teorica e dogmatica veniva costantemente riportata alle necessità pratiche del suo tempo e del suo luogo – percepite come urgenti ed imprescindibili –, Vivekananda divenne l’esempio di una nuova tipologia di riformatore, capace di coniugare gli insegnamenti ancestrali del pensiero vedantico con l’attualità dell’India più comune. Questa narrazione, dunque – a differenza di quelle costruite da altri riformatori, che auspicavano un ripensamento, quando non un distacco, della “tradizione” sociale e religiosa, sentita come ostacolo al “progresso” –, non presupponeva una revisione in chiave filo-occidentale del bagaglio culturale e religioso indiano, bensì glorificava quel passato, proponendolo come la chiave che avrebbe aperto all’India le porte della giustizia sociale, dell’istruzione, dello sviluppo materiale e spirituale.

«La società più grande è quella in cui le verità più alte diventano concrete»⁵, sosteneva Vivekananda, facendo riferimento alla necessità di costruire una società strutturata in modo da permettere la realizzazione della divinità umana. Da questa convinzione di base, derivata dalla filosofia vedantica, egli ricavò il suo progetto di società utopica, che si sarebbe retta sul pilastro dell’uguaglianza tra gli uomini. Il fatto che egli ritenesse necessarie all’avverarsi di questa idea da un lato la diffusione dell’istruzione – che doveva diventare di massa, affinché gli strati più svantaggiati acquisissero forza e coscienza del proprio valore – e, dall’altro, la soppressione di ogni privilegio – politico, economico o religioso che fosse – dimostra il carattere rivoluzionario del pensiero di Vivekananda. Diversamente da molti suoi contemporanei, egli non era disposto a prevedere risultati parziali; eppure, l’imponenza di questo progetto e il suo carattere utopico non compromettevano in alcun modo la fede di Vivekananda nella sua realizzabilità.

«Pane! Pane! Non credo in un Dio che non riesce a darmi il pane in questo mondo, mentre mi promette la beatitudine eterna nei cieli! Bah! L’India deve essere affrancata, i poveri devono essere nutriti, l’istruzione deve essere diffusa, e la piaga del potere sacerdotale deve essere eliminata».⁶

Anche nel suo rapporto ideale con l’Occidente Vivekananda differiva dal resto dei riformatori: non prevedendo né una forma di riverente assimilazione ai suoi valori, né il rifiuto astioso di essi, egli auspicava una sorta di collaborazione e di mutuo scambio di eccellenze: «Direi che la combinazione della mente greca, rappresentata dall’energia dell’Europa, e della spiritualità hindu darebbe origine a una società ideale in India. […] L’India deve imparare dall’Europa la conquista del mondo esteriore, e l’Europa deve imparare dall’India la conquista del mondo interiore. Allora non ci saranno hindu ed europei: ci sarà un’umanità ideale, che ha conquistato entrambi i mondi, quello esterno e quello interno. Noi abbiamo sviluppato una parte dell’umanità, e loro un’altra. È l’unione delle due ciò cui dobbiamo aspirare».⁷

Ancora, la modernità del pensiero di Vivekananda si espresse nella sua considerazione del gesto filantropico che, come in ambito cristiano, fino a quel momento era stato reputato dal sistema hindu tradizionale una questione privata tra donatore e beneficiario. Egli fu il primo a proporre un’etica del seva (il “servizio”) istituzionalizzata – così come è divenuta la filantropia, un po’ ovunque nel mondo, in tempi recenti –, con lo scopo di garantire una ripartizione equa e il più possibile estesa di azioni di solidarietà nei confronti di persone bisognose: “Fare del bene agli altri è l’unica grande religione universale”⁸, sosteneva Vivekananda, accordando alla pratica del seva un significato che andava ben oltre la semplice azione filantropica. Teorizzò, inoltre, che la figura sociale più autorevole in India – e dunque più adatta a diffondere un pensiero in certo modo rivoluzionario – era quella del sanyasin. Mentre i suoi contemporanei proponevano modelli borghesi, di uomini d’alta casta colti e mondani, o figure eroiche della tradizione storica e religiosa indiana, Vivekananda individuava nel monaco, nell’asceta e nel rinunciante la sede della saggezza e della credibilità presso il popolo; era a queste figure, estranee ai meccanismi del potere, all’avidità e al perseguimento dell’interesse personale, che Vivekananda avrebbe affidato il compito di diffondere il messaggio, dimostrando ancora una volta l’intransigenza che guidava il suo pensiero.

Su questi pilastri poggiava la Ramakrishna Mission, istituita da Vivekananda a fine secolo quale organizzazione impegnata in ambito sociale e strettamente connessa alla vita del monastero dell’Ordine di Ramakrishna, i cui monaci fondevano nella propria esperienza quotidiana lavoro sociale e pratica spirituale – due aspetti che, completandosi a vicenda, fungevano l’uno da motore dell’altro. Intervenendo inizialmente soprattutto in ambito educativo e nella lotta alla povertà, la Ramakrishna Mission cominciò così in quegli anni il suo servizio all’India, che Vivekananda descriveva in termini angosciati:

«Fiumi ampi e profondi, gonfi e impetuosi, affascinanti giardini sulle rive del fiume, da fare invidia al celestiale Nandana-Kanana; tra questi meravigliosi giardini si ergono, svettanti verso il cielo, superbi palazzi di marmo, decorati da preziose finiture; ai lati, davanti e dietro, agglomerati di baracche, con muri di fango sgretolati e tetti sconnessi […]; figure emaciate si aggirano qua e là coperte di stracci, con i volti segnati dai solchi profondi di una disperazione e di una povertà vecchie di secoli […]; questa è l’India dei nostri giorni!

[…] Devastazione causata da peste e colera; malaria che consuma le forze del Paese; morte per fame come condizione naturale; carestie mortali che spesso danzano il loro macabro ballo; un kurukshetra di malattie e miseria, un enorme campo per le cremazioni disseminato dalle ossa della speranza perduta.

[…] Un agglomerato di trecento milioni di anime, solo apparentemente umane, gettate fuori dalla vita dall’oppressione della loro stessa gente e delle nazioni straniere, dall’oppressione di coloro che professano la loro stessa religione e di coloro che predicano altre fedi; pazienti nella fatica e nella sofferenza e privati di ogni iniziativa, come schiavi, senza alcuna speranza, senza passato, senza futuro, desiderosi solo di mantenersi in vita in qualche modo, per quanto precario; di natura malinconica, come si confà agli schiavi, per i quali la prosperità dei loro simili è insopportabile. […] Trecento milioni di anime come queste brulicano sul corpo dell’India come altrettanti vermi su una carcassa marcia e puzzolente. Questo è il quadro che si presenta agli occhi dei funzionari inglesi».⁹

Costituito inizialmente da appena una dozzina di monaci, nei cento e più anni che ci separano dalla sua fondazione l’Ordine di Ramakrishna è oggi un movimento transnazionale di proporzioni enormi, simbolo di pace ed ecumenismo, fondato sulla pratica del servizio disinteressato come metodo per la realizzazione del divino e caratterizzato da un approccio razionale alla religione – considerata non un apparato ritualistico ma una scienza dell’essere e del divenire –, da una tradizione colta e dall’efficacia dei suoi interventi in campo sociale.

Definiscono Ramakrishna Mission e Ramakrishna Math (rispettivamente la componente pratica del movimento e l’organizzazione monastica) le tre caratteristiche che sono state segni distintivi di Vivekananda e del suo operato e che, risultando a tutt’oggi innovative, dimostrano la statura di un riformatore illuminato, rivoluzionario per il tempo e il luogo in cui visse: la modernità – che si esprime nell’attualizzazione dei principi vedantici, e nel collocare nel presente il pensiero guida dell’operato di queste istituzioni; l’universalità – data dal rivolgersi non ad un unico Paese o ad uno specifico gruppo di persone, ma all’umanità intera; e la concretezza – che risiede nel porre i principi teorici e spirituali a servizio del miglioramento delle quotidiane condizioni di vita delle persone.

* Elena Borghi, dottoressa in Studi linguistici e antropologici sull’Eurasia e il Mediterraneo (Università “Ca’ Foscari” di Venezia), è autrice di Sai Baba di Shirdi. Il santo dei mille miracoli (Red, Milano 2010) e Vivekananda. La verità è il mio unico dio (Red, Milano 2009)

1 Torri, M., Storia dell’India, Editori Laterza, Roma-Bari 2000, p. 453.

2 Jayawardena, K., Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World, Zed Books, Londra 1986.

3 Asceta errabondo, che ha rinunciato ad ogni piacere mondano e ad ogni forma di possesso materiale ed umano, per dedicarsi unicamente al conseguimento della liberazione, il moksha. Il monaco rinunciante trascorre la propria vita in solitario cammino, elemosinando il cibo, coltivando il silenzio e il raccoglimento, inaccessibile ad ogni desiderio e ad ogni umana debolezza. La contemplazione dello Spirito supremo, il distacco, la disciplina e la meditazione profonda sono i suoi compiti, che lo preparano ad abbandonare per sempre la dimora terrena ed il corpo mortale, liberandolo dal ciclo di rinascita e rimorte.

4 The complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Mayavati Memorial Editing, Advaita Ashrama, Calutta 1992-95, vol. VI, p. 254.

5 Ibid., vol. II, p. 85.

6 Ibid., vol. IV, p. 368.

7 Ibid., vol. V, p. 216.

8 Ibid., vol. IV, p. 403.

9 Ibid., vol. V, p. 441-442.

The Yezidis: The History of a Community, Culture and Religion

The Yezidis: The History of a Community, Culture and Religion
 

Birgul Acikyildiz (author)

Hardback, £49.50

Yezidism is a fascinating part of the rich cultural mosaic of the Middle East. Yezidis emerged for the first time in the 12th century in the Kurdish mountains of northern Iraq. Their religion, which has become notorious for its associations with 'devil worship', is in fact an intricate syncretic system of belief, incorporating elements from proto-Indo-European religions, early Persian faiths like Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism, Sufism and regional paganism like Mithraism. Birgul Acikyildiz offers a comprehensive appraisal of Yezidi religion, society and culture. Written without presupposing any prior knowledge about Yezidism, and in an accessible and readable style, her book examines Yezidis not only from a religious point of view but as a historical and social phenomenon. She throws light on the origins of Yezidism, and charts its historical development - from its beginnings to the present - as part of the general history of the Kurds.

The author describes the Yezidi belief system (which considers Melek Taus - the 'Peacock Angel' - to be ruler of the earth) and its religious practices and observances, analysing the most important facets of Yezidi religious art and architecture and their relationship to their neighbours throughout the Middle East. Richly illustrated, with accompanying maps, photographs and illustrations, the book will have strong appeal to all those with an interest in the culture of the Kurds, as well as the wider region.

 

List of Illustrations 
Acknowledgements 
Abbreviations 
Introduction 

Chapter I: Origins, History and Development 

•  
  • Yezidis in Mesopotamia and Anatolia 
  • Yezidis in Syria 
  • Yezidis in Transcaucasia 

Chapter II: Religious Belief System 

1. God, Angels and the Trinity 

•  
  • God (Xwedê)
  • Angels 
  • The Peacock Angel (Tawûsî Melek) 
  • Sultan Êzi 
  • Sheikh ‘Ad? 

2. Yezidi Mythology 

•  
  • Creation of Cosmos and Universe 
  • Creation of Human Being 
  • The Flood 

3. Holy Books 

4. Religious Hierarchy 

Chapter III: Religious Practices, Observances and Rituals 

•  
  • Haircut, Baptism, Circumcision, Brother of the Hereafter, Marriage, Death 
  • Prayer
  • Fast 
  • Pilgrimage 
  • Festivals and Ceremonies 
  • Taboos 

Chapter IV: Material Culture 

•  
  • Homeland, Landscape, Sacred Places 
  • Places of Worship 
  • The Sanctuary 
  • Mausoleums 
  • Shrines 
  • The Baptistery 
  • Caves 
  • Tombstones 

Conclusion 
Appendixes 
Glossary 
Notes



Birgul Acikyildiz is a Research Fellow at the Khalili Research Centre for the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford.



This is a major, innovative study of one of the least known religious communities of the Middle East…[it will] probably long remain the definitive work on Yezidi material culture.
– Martin van Bruinessen, Professor of the Comparative Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies, Utrecht University

A fascinating narrative and photographic journey through Yezidi religion, society and material culture.
– Nelida Fuccaro, Lecturer in Modern History of the Arab Middle East, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

It is particularly gratifying to see the publication of a scholarly work that takes into account both the living tradition and the archaeological and architectural aspects of the Yezidi heritage...A book that makes a real contribution to Yezidi studies.
– Philip G Kreyenbroek, Professor of Iranian Studies, Georg-August University, Göttingen

An invaluable introduction to Yezidi architectural and spiritual history…An indispensable reference book.
– Sebastian Maisel, Assistant Professor for Arabic and Middle East Studies, Grand Valley State University, Allendale

A remarkable and original interdisciplinary work on Yezidi history, religion and material culture.
– Khalil Jindy Rashow, Consular at the Ministry of Iraqi Foreign Affairs, Baghdad

Imprint: I.B.Tauris
Publisher: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd

Hardback
ISBN: 9781848852747
Publication Date: 30 Sep 2010
Number of Pages: 304