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vendredi, 09 octobre 2020

John T. Koch: Thinking about Indo-European and Celtic Myths in the 2nd and 3rd Millenia

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John T. Koch:

Thinking about Indo-European and Celtic Myths in the 2nd and 3rd Millenia

 
 
The opening lecture from the 2016 Celtic Mythology Conference at the University of Edinburgh.
 

jeudi, 08 octobre 2020

Denazifying Savitri Devi

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Denazifying Savitri Devi

The very idea sounds absurd. Militant supporter of National Socialism, foundational figure of Esoteric Hilterism, the iron maiden known to academia — insofar as she is known at all — as “Hitler’s Priestess [1]”: dissociating Savitri Devi from her fanatical loyalty to Hitler’s Germany seems as futile as denazifying The Führer himself.

Beyond its futility, what purpose would it serve? There is no hope of rehabilitating Savitri Devi for general academic use. Any scholar who quotes her approvingly and without the perfunctory “danger warning” will certainly be ostracized by respectable peers. Even among the hard Right who take no offense at her National Socialism, pan-Aryanism, anti-Semitism, valorization of the S.S., and other taboo subjects, Savitri Devi is often regarded as a mystical fanatic. She is seen as something of a crank, whose bizarre depiction of Hitler as an avatar of Vishnu is typically amalgamated with Miguel Serrano’s [2] (far more mystifying) theories concerning Hitler’s survival, Ultima Thule, Nazi UFOs in Antarctica, and other occult arcana. Savitri Devi’s writings and activism are seemingly inseparable from the strange milieu of Esoteric Hitlerism, putting her beyond the pale not merely of respectable political discourse but even that of the most open-minded elements of the Right.

However, I believe it is possible and worthwhile to distinguish the timeless content of Savitri Devi’s thought from her particular devotion to National Socialism. My motivation for this endeavor is twofold. For one, on a selfish note, Savitri Devi had a profound effect upon my own thinking. Though I am not particularly attached to National Socialism or Esoteric Hitlerism, it is my belief that one can appreciate her ideas — without compromising them in some milquetoast liberal fashion — and still acknowledge the flaws in that particular political movement. Moreover, Savitri Devi was a lucid and powerful writer whose writings contain unique insights that remain significant to the application of True Right principles to the problems of the present.

savitrichild-233x300.pngSavitri Devi is particularly insightful in understanding the relationship between man and nature, which she views through the lens of her aristocratic ideal. It is this essential notion of biological and spiritual aristocracy that determines her views on the natural world, human types, and politics. While in her metaphysics she counted herself alongside Julius Evola and Rene Guénon as a proponent of “the Tradition,” she was unique in her concrete political preoccupations and attempts to actualize this ideal in a contemporary political state. This led to her vigorous and unflagging support for National Socialism, which she regarded as the only regime that could serve as a bulwark (even temporarily) against universal decay and preserve the spiritual and biological aristocrats of the earth.

I have some points of disagreement with Savitri Devi’s thought: her uncritical attachment to Adolf Hitler and National Socialism and her rejection of certain religious traditions, for instance. However, while these will be briefly addressed at the end of this essay, such quibbles are not the point. My aim is to distill from Savitri Devi’s oeuvre the essence of her thought, in order to demonstrate its lucidity, its highly original application of traditional principles to the present, and the fundamental truth it contains. While it is too much to expect the contemporary academy to treat such controversial figures fairly, it does behoove those on the Right — who are not burdened by such prejudices — to confront their thought and take it seriously.

The Religion of the Strong

Savitri Devi’s thought is fundamentally religious. Born Maximiani Julia Portas in 1905, from an early age she felt an affinity for nature, for Greek culture, and for the traditional folk religions of Europe. While she came to reject most exoteric religious traditions — particularly Christianity — for their apparent otherworldliness, veneration of weakness, and adulation of a nebulous “mankind,” she made it clear that a feeling of “true piety” was the essential ground to her thought. This she defined as “feeling and adoring ‘God’ — the Principle of all being or non-being, the Essence and the light as well as the Shadow — through the splendor of the visible and tangible world; through the Order and the Rhythm, and the immutable Law that is its expression; the Law that melts the opposites into the same unity, reflection of the unity in oneself.” [1] [3] Rather than maintaining a division between mankind and the rest of the world, or between the sacred and the profane, this religiosity is one in which “the sacred penetrate[s] life, all of life, as in traditional societies.”

Lest we perceive this as just another twentieth-century “spiritual but not religious” nature mysticism, Savitri Devi takes pains to associate it with authentic traditional thought. She portrays this outlook — variously called the “philosophy of the Swastika,” the “religion of the strong,” and the “religion of life and light” — as a return to the primordial Tradition, purified and shorn of its humanistic and foreign accretions. She approvingly quotes one scholar who describes Guénon’s thought as “Hitlerism minus the armored divisions” [2 [4]] [5] and describes the primordial tradition itself as follows: “This is not the philosophy of any man. It is, in the clear consciousness of the really great Ones who are capable of feeling it — from the oldest Aryan lawgivers of Vedic and post-Vedic India, down to Adolf Hitler today — the wisdom of the Cosmos, the philosophy of the Sun, Father-and-Mother of the earth.” [3] [6] Of the historical societies and religions that most perfectly embodied this creed, she included the European folk religions, Pythagoreanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and her particular object of fascination, the solar cult of Akhnaton [7].

450155.jpgAnd what are the specific qualities of this religiosity, which she believed undergirds not only the authentic noble traditions of the ancient Indo-Aryan world but also the ideology of National Socialism? It is founded upon the belief in an everlasting cosmic law that binds all living beings. Cosmic energy is the fount of life and is particularly worthy of veneration, being symbolized for terrestrial mankind by the Sun. Man, being a “solar product,” cannot disregard these laws, particularly the laws that “regulate the art of breeding and the evolution of races,” as this will lead to physical and moral degeneracy — the ultimate “sin against the will of the Creator.” [4] [8] Indeed, the moralism and obsession with “original sin” she attributes to Christianity have no place here, “the only ‘sin’ being (along with all forms of cowardice and faithlessness) the sin of shameful breeding — the deadly sin against the race.” [5] [9] Thus, rather than the otherworldly emphasis of more dualistic religions, this religion of the strong stresses the physical aspect of life, the duty of mankind to preserve the health and vigor of both the individual and the race, as well as that of the earth as a whole. This is a religious and aesthetic duty.

While the cosmic law is universal in scope, it will express itself differently in different folk groups. Therefore, in opposition to the universalism she associated with Christianity, Islam, and modern liberalism, Savitri Devi upheld the importance of the folk-soul, folk religion, and ancestor worship.

The religion of the reborn Aryans must naturally have much in common with that of the pre-Christian European North, and with that, of similar origin and spirit, kept alive to this day, in India, in the tradition of the Vedas. It must be, before all, the religion of a healthy, proud, and self-reliant people, accustomed to fight, ready to die, but, in the meantime, happy to live, and sure to live forever, in their undying race; a religion centered around the worship of Life and Light — around the cult of heroes, the cult of ancestors, and the cult of the Sun, source of all joy and power on earth. Indeed, it must be a religion of joy and of power — and of love also; not of that morbid love for sickly and sinful “mankind” at the expense of far more admirable Nature, but of love for all living beauty: for the woods and for the beasts; for healthy children; for one’s faithful comrades in every field of activity; for one’s leaders and one’s gods; above all, for the supreme God, the Life force personified in the Sun. . . . [6] [10]

Though she would probably dislike the comparison, Savitri Devi’s metaphysical and religious outlook, her “religion of the strong” and “religion of life and light,” might be understood as a kind of idiosyncratic Neoplatonism. While some will doubtless accuse me of understanding neither Savitri Devi nor Neoplatonism, the parallels are clear: life is the unfolding of a divine order throughout the cosmos; creatures approach perfection in life the more they embody and understand the divine will in themselves; one’s place in the hierarchy of being is dependent upon one’s alignment with the divine order. While Savitri Devi’s understanding departs from classical Neoplatonism in explicitly stating the nonhuman participation in the divine order, this was always implicit (if underemphasized) in the classical formulation anyways. Neoplatonism has often been associated with a life-denying and ascetic outlook. However, while reserving their highest praise for the One from whom all things emanate, Neoplatonism nevertheless regards existence as an outflowing of the divine and venerates it as such. The philosopher Plotinus wrote an invective against the life-denying Gnostics [11] on just that subject.

Neoplatonism, as I’ve argued in a previous article [12], is a Western expression of monistic panentheism, which is the basic metaphysical outlook of the primordial tradition. Thus it is no surprise that Savitri Devi espoused a version of it, as she stated her alignment with “the Tradition” and sought to demonstrate how National Socialist ideology — as she understood it — was a weaponized expression of that tradition. This distinguishes her from the more purely biological and Darwinian elements among the Right (though her thinking is not without its flaws, as I discuss in the conclusion). It is to her understanding of the relationship between man and nature that we now turn.

Man and Nature

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You can buy Savitri Devi’s Gold in the Furnace here. [13]

Savitri Devi’s love for the natural world is one of the most noteworthy features of her writing. She seemed to hold particular admiration for big cats and ancient trees, the “aristocrats” of the natural world, but had a great compassion for animals and living beings of all types. She scorned humans who would destroy such beauty and innocence in the name of comfort, longevity, or fruitless curiosity. It is therefore unsurprising that, aside from her rather outré ideas concerning Adolf Hitler and the end of the world, Savitri Devi is most well known as a forerunner of “deep ecology” and a major Rightist proponent of animal welfare. However, it is necessary to dissociate her ideas on this subject from the more contemporary (and invariably Leftist) expressions of these positions. For it is in Savitri Devi’s articulation of a Rightist theory of nature and man — one that takes into account contemporary scientific knowledge while rejecting both egalitarianism and narrow humanism — that her greatest strength as a thinker lies.

The academic philosophy of deep ecology [14], as it has been developed by its major theorists such as Arne Naess, George Sessions, and Bill Devall, is premised upon the idea of “biospheric egalitarianism,” that there is no fundamental ontological divide between humans and nature. It also maintains that the wellbeing and flourishing of both human and nonhuman life on Earth have value in themselves, variously described as “intrinsic value” or “inherent worth,” and that humans consequently have no right to reduce the richness and diversity of life except to satisfy vital needs. Animal rights theories also typically begin with a notion of fundamental equality, and decry “speciesism” as an injustice in the same way they would condemn “racism” or “sexism” or the other sins of the modern age.

612710.jpgSavitri Devi, as a Rightist and proponent of Tradition, disdains such insipid and indiscriminate egalitarianism. Her nature is a world of order and hierarchy, blood and death, struggle and harsh beauty. She is outside the main current of Western thought in her refusal to place a nebulous “humanity” at the pinnacle of the Chain of Being. In her metaphysics (which is, again, akin to a version of militant Neoplatonism) there is a natural law of strength and beauty, and beings approach perfection insofar as they adhere more closely to that divine idea. Any being which expresses its nature most perfectly — be it a tiger or an oak tree, a butterfly or a man — approaches the pinnacle of the hierarchy for its particular species. Clear hierarchies exist, but rather than a single pyramid with the entire human race at the top (including the most diseased and depraved), we have several pyramids, of which humanity only constitutes one. Indeed, “in the eyes of the believers in quality. . . any Bengal tiger, nay, any healthy cat — any healthy tree; any perfect sample of manifested Life — is worth far more than an ugly,  degenerate human bastard. Alone man in his perfection — superior man ‘like unto the Gods,’ not the patched-up weakling that this conceited Age exalts — is to be looked upon as ‘the highest creature,’ ‘God’s image,’ etc. . .” [7] [15]

There is a sense, then, in which mankind’s pyramid does rise above the others, and might justify our species’ claim to be the pinnacle of creation. It is only the human ability to transcend its animal nature, concerned solely with self-preservation, that gives man any claim to a superior station in the Chain of Being: “The actual master races surely cannot allow themselves to think and feel as it would seem natural to man of a mean type. And the real master species, if any, is the one that puts its consistent nobility above any advantage.” [8] [16] Of what does this nobility consist? Something far more than the pursuit of happiness, or even universal human welfare:

But those who have the Word, father of thought, and among them the Strong especially, have something better to do than pursue “happiness.” Their supreme task consists in finding this harmony, this accord with the eternal, of which the Word seems initially to have deprived them; to hold their place in the universal dance of life with all the enrichment, all the knowledge, that the Word can bring to them or help them to acquire; to live, like those who do not speak, according to the holy laws that govern the existence of the races, but, this time, knowing it and wanting it. The pleasure or the displeasure, the happiness or the discontent of the individual does not count. Well-being — beyond the minimum that is necessary for each to fulfill his task — does not count. Only the task counts: the quest for the essential, the eternal, through life and through thought. [9] [17]

It is humanity’s misuse of its remarkable gifts — its consciousness and reason, its super-natural desires and unnaturally efficient means of attaining them — that poses such a threat the rest of life on earth. To have these gifts, and to use them for such low ends as obtaining mere comfort for the greatest number, strikes Savitri Devi as profoundly ignoble.

He who has the Word, father of thought, and who, far from putting it in service of the essential, wastes it in the search for personal satisfactions; he who has technology, fruit of thought, and who makes use of it especially to increase his well-being and that of other men, taking that for the main task, is unworthy of his privileges. He is not worthy of the beings of beauty and silence, the animal, the tree — he who himself follows their path. He who uses the powers that the Word and thought give him to inflict death and especially suffering on the beautiful beings that do not speak, in view of his own well-being or that of other men, he who uses the privileges of man against living nature sins against the universal Mother — against Life — and the Order that desires noblesse oblige. He is not Strong; he is not an aristocrat in the deep sense of the word, but petty, an egoist and a coward, an object of disgust in the eyes of the natural élite. [10] [18]

photo-drawings3.jpgSavitri Devi points to overpopulation as one particularly egregious example of the base triumphing over the noble. Her concern is not only with the ecological effects of overpopulation, nor with its effects on human survival. She observed that the growth in human population was enabled by industrialism and the development of medical technology, both of which permitted the survival of “more and more people who might as well never have been born.” [11] [19] This worked against natural selection and would lead to the crowding out of noble humans and animals “by human types that are qualitatively inferior to them but dangerously prolific and whose demographics escapes any control.”

Indeed, is not the prospect of a world destroyed by human overpopulation that truly disturbs Savitri Devi. Indeed, she appears to welcome the apocalypse. [12] [20] It is, rather, the triumph of a technological and communistic society, in which humanity has wholly mechanized the earth and driven the noble men and animals to extinction: “It would mean the intensified, and more and more systematic exploitation of living nature by man, on an ever-broadening scale. . . . [Man] would make the world a safe place for his own species, never mind at the cost of what ruthless exploitation of the rest of the living, both animals and plants . . . There would be one king of the earth: mankind; one slave: subdued living nature. Most hateful prospects!” [13] [21] Relatedly, her loathing of vivisection is based on indignation that innocent and noble animals should have to suffer in order to develop medical treatments that “alleviate the suffering of diseased humanity” or to satisfy the “criminal curiosity” of scientific researchers. [14] [22] However, Savitri Devi should not be classified among the anti-natalists and primitivists, insofar as she promotes higher birthrates for superior racial stocks, and a technology that genuinely enriches human life (more on this below).

It is important to note that Savitri Devi does not advocate “animal rights.” She does not believe in metaphysical rights of any kind, which are a liberal construct. Rather she teaches, for one, that respect is due to nonhuman creatures because we are all emanations of the same divine energy — but that it is our foremost duty to preserve the noblest specimens of mankind and nature. She also teaches that the higher man is characterized by the noble virtue of compassion: “Not merely to be ‘harmless’; not merely not to exploit, for human ends, any beast, and even the vegetable world as far as possible, but to extend our active love to all that lives; to do our utmost, even at our own cost, so that every individual creature, bird or beast, might continue to enjoy the sight of the sun, in health and beauty — these are our ethics.” [15] [23] We shall now examine how Savitri Devi envisioned the noble human type, and the kind of society that is most suited to encouraging its development.

The Higher Man

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You can buy Savitri Devi’s Defiance here. [24]

Since there are vast differences between individuals in terms of their adherence to the cosmic law, there is a natural inequality of persons as well as races: “Man’s value — as every creature’s value, ultimately — lies not in the mere intellect but in the spirit: in the capacity to reflect that which, for lack of a more precise word, we choose to call ‘the divine,’ i.e. that which is true and beautiful beyond all manifestation, that which remains timeless (and therefore unchangeable) within all changes.” [16] [25] For Savitri Devi, the Aryan race (which, adhering to the classical definition, includes the Aryans of ancient India and Iran as well as certain European groups) is the highest manifestation of mankind, the one most attuned to the cosmic soul. As she writes of its Nordic branch, which she believed to be the purest Aryan remnant in the modern world:

That this Nordic race is a natural aristocracy, there is no doubt. First a physical aristocracy. To make sure of that, one need only look at its representatives, especially the purest Germanic types among the Germans and the Swedes, outwardly, perhaps, the finest men on earth. An aristocracy of character also, as a whole. One only has to live with Scandinavians, Germans, or real English people, after spending years amidst less pure Aryans, or totally different races, in order to find that out. An aristocracy of kindness, too — its most attractive sign of superiority. And this is a fact. The best proof of it is to be seen in the spontaneous sympathy which most pure-blooded Nordic children show towards animals, even before being taught to do so.” [17] [26]

Savitri Devi believed that National Socialism was a contemporary adaptation of the primordial tradition — the religion of the strong — uniquely suited for the Northern Aryan soul: “Hitlerism considered in its essence . . . is the religion of the Strong of the Aryan race, as opposed to a world in decline; a world of ethnic chaos, contempt of living Nature, the silly exaltation of ‘man’ in all that is weak, morbid, eccentrically ‘individual,’ different from other beings; a world of human selfishness (individual and collective), of ugliness and cowardice. It is the reaction of the Strong of this race, originally noble, to such a world.” [18] [27] Only among Aryan mankind, she believed, would the National Socialist ideology find any support. This is because it appeals to the finest elements of their character: selflessness, courage, fortitude, intelligence, the hunger for sacrifice, and the love of truth and beauty.

While she acknowledges that the majority of Germans would join the NSDAP for more mundane reasons, Savitri Devi was confident that the inner circles — particularly the notorious SS — would have constituted the core of a new Aryan-European nobility:

But these soldiers of the first hour would, little by little — along with the youths rigorously selected and hardened, in the “Burgs” of the Order of the SS, in the asceticism of the body, the will, and knowledge — form an aristocracy, hereditary from hence forth, strongly rooted — owners of vast family domains in conquered spaces — and itself hierarchized. They would, these members of the élite corps par excellence, among whom stood side by side the most handsome, the most valorous sons of the peasantry, the most brilliant academics of good race, and many youths representing the ancient and enduring German nobility, gradually meld themselves into a true caste, an inexhaustible reservoir of candidates for super-humanity.” [19] [28]

b7e719157ed6700c875135ef67c50214.jpgAll of this talk of Aryans, Hitler, and the S.S. is obviously inextricable from Savitri Devi’s passionate support for National Socialism. However, it is important to note that the recognition of an Indo-Aryan race, while frowned upon nowadays, has a long pedigree and is not invariably associated with Nazism. Moreover, while Savitri Devi did uphold the Aryan race as the highest human group, she was emphatic that other races (and indeed other species) possess the capacity for a perfect expression of their God-given folk-soul: thus it is necessary to “respect the man of noble races other than your own, who carries out, in a different place, a combat parallel to yours — to ours. He is your ally. He is our ally, be he at the other end of the world.” [20] [29] She envisions an alliance among the noblest individuals of each noble race in order to oppose to the deracinated and ignoble men who strive to destroy all that is holy and beautiful.

In short, Savitri Devi’s aristocratic ideal, while strongly associated with Aryan blood descent, entails many of the essential virtues of the traditional world: courage, truthfulness, noblesse oblige, and detached violence against the forces of evil. This ethos has parallels, of course, to the karma yoga of the Bhagavad Gita, by which Savitri Devi was clearly influenced; one also finds it in the Taoist wu-wei, or injunction to “act without acting,” and Meister Eckhart’s conception of detachment or Abgeschiedenheit. This ideal of noble behavior has ancient roots. And like the ancients, Savitri Devi taught that the cultivation of a higher human type can only occur within a favorable sociopolitical framework, an organic state wholly unlike the liberal societies of today.

On the State 

While liberal political theory maintains that the state’s role is solely to provide for the defense of life, liberty, and property, the classical conception of politics is far more expansive. The state is an expression of a folk-soul, and its purpose is to cultivate virtue, excellence, and a particular way of life. It is, moreover, an earthly mirror of the celestial hierarchy, and should therefore be organized in such a way that the higher values of spirit and honor reign over and direct more material concerns. Savitri Devi believed that this model of the state had been revived by National Socialism, whose leaders and soldiers had constructed a fortress of order and human excellence amidst the barren wastes of modernity. Though she believed the principles of National Socialism are those of the primordial tradition and therefore eternal, the movement itself is unique in being “the sole systematic attempt to build a state — nay, to organize a continent — upon the frank acknowledgment of the everlasting laws that rule the growth of races and the creation of culture; the one rational effort to put a stop to the decay of a superior race and to the subsequent confusion. It is the movement ‘against Time’ par excellence.[21] [30] While its ethos and goals are those of the ancient world, National Socialism adapted the struggle to the modern setting.

Though spiritual proponents of nature preservation are commonly denigrated as primitivists and Luddites, Savitri Devi strongly supports technology that is tailored to have a positive effect on the human spirit and minimal impact upon that natural world: “The society we call ‘ideal’ would be a very highly mechanized one, and electrified one, in which man himself would have to work only as little as possible.” [22] [31] A high level of technology was in fact essential in order to liberate a regenerate Aryan mankind from drudgery and provide a high quality of civilization; to defend the state against conquest by less scrupulous powers; to provide for the well-being of the Volk; and to enable mankind to gain greater knowledge of the natural world. This should, to her mind, be the true purpose of science, technology, and scholarship, not merely to prolong the existence of the unfit.

And we are far, far more grateful to the scholars whose discoveries in astronomy and higher physics, in philology and archaeology, etc., have enabled a few of the better men to live more richly, more intensely, more harmoniously, by opening to them new and more astounding sources of inspiration, than we ever will be to those so-called “benefactors of mankind” whose main work has resulted merely in keeping alive thousands of human beings neither good or bad, nor even physically beautiful, who could as well have died and made place for others at the best of times, as the rest of the living do.” [23] [32]

51YYO8aN2UL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpgHer enthusiasm for certain forms of high technology coupled with a decisive rejection of liberal modernity places Savitri Devi within the current of “reactionary modernism [33],” alongside other thinkers associated with Fascism, National Socialism, and the German Conservative Revolutionaries. Unlike nowadays — where runaway technological growth has led to the diminishment of man and the tyranny of petty bureaucrats and corporate overlords — in Savitri Devi’s National Socialist state, technology would be in the service of higher values. In this respect, her thinking can be described as a kind of archeofuturism [34], in the manner of Guillaume Faye, in which the “foundational values” of hierarchy, justice, duty, spirituality, and folk traditions are revived in a highly technological society.

Aside from providing for the material welfare of the Volk and defending it against its enemies, the chief purpose of the classical state — as well as the state envisioned by Savitri Devi and the National Socialists — is to cultivate excellence, nobility, the full flowering of the race. It does this, in part, by promoting eugenics. Again, such a form of selective breeding was practiced in many societies of the ancient world, namely Sparta. But in the contemporary world, it is not sufficient simply to encourage more births for exceptional individuals. Due to the destructive effects of overpopulation on other animals as well as noble humans, births must be controlled.

The immediate step to take, therefore, all over the world, in order to raise the standard of human life everywhere . . . would be, logically, to stop the indiscriminate production of babies — to cease bribing people to have young ones, in the countries of moderate birthrate, unless, of course, these be of exceptionally fine racial stock, to encourage them to have none, or extremely few, in countries already burdened by overpopulation, especially if these be also of inferior racial stock. Less people would mean “more living space” for all men. And racial selection would mean a more beautiful and nobler mankind.” [24] [35]

This naturally entails a great degree of government intrusion into the reproductive lives of its subjects, particularly those deemed to be of inferior quality: “Indeed if the number of men is not to increase indefinitely, very strict regulations are to keep down the numbers of the inferior races lest the Aryan — the ruling race — be forced to have larger and larger families, merely in order to survive.” [25] [36] The negative side of this eugenics program, in advocating for which Savitri Devi is probably even more ruthlessly consistent than historical most Nazi ideologues, would include a broad campaign of sterilization and euthanasia to minimize these undesirable births.

On a more positive note, the state would take a strong interest in the education of the young, in order to cultivate nobility and excellence. Under National Socialism, this was the role of the Hitler Youth, which Savitri Devi wholeheartedly endorsed. The Hitler Youth provided the physical training and intellectual and moral formation to cultivate a new generation of dedicated elites:

All great movements put stress upon the training of youth. “Catch them young,” say the Jesuits. National Socialism has not merely “caught them young,” but has striven to create them; to prepare them, not only from childhood, or from birth, but from the very moment of conception, to be the embodiment of the highest idea of all-round manly perfection — of physical health and beauty; of moral health and beauty; of character; of sound and clear intelligence, firmly linked up with the whole of life; the human élite, from every point of view. [26] [37]

TipusTomb2.jpgTaken together, Savitri Devi describes her ideal state — her dream of National Socialism — as follows:

Modern civilization at its best, modern industry in all its efficiency, in all its power, in all its grandeur; modern life with all its comforts and, along with that, the eternal Heathendom of the Aryans; the religion of living — physical and supra-physical — perfection, of “God residing in pure blood” to repeat the words of Himmler; the religion of the Swastika which is the religion of the Sun; efficiency and inspiration; iron discipline coupled with enthusiasm; work, a parade; life, a manly hymn; military schools and up-to-date dwellings in the midst of trees; blast furnaces and Sun temples. That is the super-civilization according to my heart. That is, that always was my conception of true National Socialism applied in practice.” [27] [38]

This archeofuturist vision weds the modernist emphasis on high technology to an archaic state based on hierarchy, communal religion, and good breeding. While the National Socialist state was one of the more successful attempts to create such a society in the 20th century, thus earning Savitri Devi’s veneration, this cultivation of nobility and concern with eugenics is not confined to the Nazis. It is a feature of classical politics, notably in the Greek world, where it found expression in the ancient Spartan regime and the political theory of Plato. Among the ancients, it was likewise understood that confusion in breeding — the “regression of castes” — led to myriad social ills, ultimately resulting in the downfall of the state. Like the ancients, Savitri Devi was under no illusions about the permanency of any political solutions, at least not in the world as we know it. All things are swept away by the current of time, in order that others might be born.

The Kali Yuga and the Men Against Time

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You can buy Savitri Devi’s The Lightning and the Sun here [39].

One of Savitri Devi’s more unique contributions is how she situated the National Socialist enterprise in universal history. She subscribed to the cyclical theory of existence, and accepted that mankind presently found itself at the nadir of the cycle, known to the Hindus as the Kali Yuga.

In her opus The Lightning and the Sun [40], she posited the existence of three types of world-historical figures: “Men In Time,” who are unwitting agents of divine destruction to bring about the end of a cycle (Genghis Kahn, for instance); “Men Above Time,” whose advanced spiritual state places them outside the cosmic cycle altogether (Akhnaton, Buddha, Christ); and “Men Against Time,” who combine the transcendence of the Men Above Time with the ferocity of the Men In Time, and battle with detached violence to resist the decline. She placed Adolf Hitler in this last category. Following Germany’s defeat in the war, Savitri Devi rationalized that this defeat was inevitable as the forces of decline had become too great. It was a “heroic but practically vain attempt at ‘rectification’ . . . Despite all the power and all the prestige at his disposal, Adolf Hitler could not create — recreate — the conditions that were and remain essential to the blossoming of a Golden Age.” [28] [41] National Socialism’s defeat was simply the final push for a world already in ruins, eagerly awaiting its destroyer and liberator. Hence, Savitri Devi would (infamously) describe Hitler as an avatar of Vishnu, but not the ultimate avatar. This task is reserved to Kalki, who would come to bring an end to this dying world so that another might arise from its ruins.

It is difficult to say whether this is intended symbolically or if Savitri Devi actually worshipped Hitler as a demigod. Needless to say, her apparent deification of Hitler creates some obvious difficulties for anyone seeking to detach her philosophy from National Socialism. Moreover, her acceptance that we are at the end of a cosmic cycle, and that nothing can be done save to pray for the coming of Kalki the Destroyer, seemingly lends itself to nihilism and despair. It is at any rate not conducive to the great efforts now needed in the political and cultural spheres.

Regarding the potential for nihilism, it is important to remember that most traditional religious doctrines, and indeed even modern science, posit an inevitable end to life as we know it. How one reacts to this knowledge is dependent upon one’s personal equation. For some, it may lead to hedonism, selfishness, or destructive despair. For the noble, for the true Man Against Time, the likelihood or certainty of defeat on the temporal plane does not lessen his resolve. His action flows from the essence of being, the cosmic role he is meant to play, rather than any certainty of success. He therefore fights dispassionately against the forces of disintegration and chaos.

9780692371947_p0_v1_s1200x630.jpgAnd what are these forces? Savitri Devi names several malefactors throughout her writings: democratic demagogues, Marxist revolutionaries, vivisectionists, “the so-called ‘benefactors of mankind,’” modern artists, Christians, and the “Jewish world-community.” Savitri Devi viewed these corrupting figures as more-or-less unwitting servants of the darkness, and describes their mission thus:

It is an unholy purpose, the fulfillment of which would imply the dissolution of all races and of all genuine nationalities; of all natural communities, i.e., of all those that have a solid racial background . . . and the ever-tightening grip of a soulless money power — the power of the raceless, gifted with destructive intelligence — over increasingly bastardized and numberless masses of Menschenmaterial, possessing neither thought nor will of their own, nor the innocence and nobility of real animals. It is the purpose of the Forces of darkness, whose influence grows, whose free play becomes more and more free and shameless, and whose rule asserts itself as a more and more obvious reality, as history run; its fated downward course. It is the purpose of Time itself, as Destroyer of all creation; as Leveller and Denier.” [29] [42]

This battle is thus understood as a contest between higher powers, using humans as their material and pawns, a kind of “occult war [43].” Despite the high stakes, this perspective has the odd effect of depersonalizing the struggle. Savitri Devi, following the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita, states of the enemy that “it is not necessary to hate him. He follows his nature and achieves his destiny while being opposed to the eternal values. . . .  But — and precisely for this reason — [fight him] with detachment and all your power: the strong preserve a serene balance even in the most exultant fanaticism.” [30] [44] Given the heavily decayed state of the world, Savitri Devi insisted that great violence and brutality would be necessary to fight back the forces of darkness, and that any violence done for that purpose would therefore be sacred and justified.

Savitri Devi strongly admired the SS in part because she perceived it as the agent of divine retribution upon these forces of decadence. The men who comprised the SS were “the physical and moral elite of awakening Aryandom, the living, conscious kernel out of which and round which the yet unborn race of gods on earth — regenerate Aryandom — was to take shape and soul.” [31] [45] Their standards of racial purity, physical beauty, vigor, cleanliness, martial valor, and high character alone were sufficient to justify this high praise; the fact that their ideological underpinnings were those of a monastic warrior brotherhood fighting dispassionately against decadence was even more so. In fact, in Savitri Devi’s eyes, the S.S. takes on the form of a kind of weaponized Tradition, akin to the League of Shadows [46].

Savitri Devi summarizes her attitude towards the Kali Yuga and detached warfare, and their relationship to the primordial tradition expressed in National Socialism, as follows:

It is, I repeat, a Golden Age philosophy in the midst of our age of gloom; the philosophy of those who stand heroically against the downward current of history — against Time — knowing that history, that moves in circles, will one day forward their lofty dreams; the philosophy of those few who . . . prefer to fight an impossible battle and to fall, if necessary, but to feel, when the new dawn comes, that they have called it, in a way, through the magic virtue of action for the beauty of action; who, if the dawn is not to shine in their lifetime, will still act against the growing tide of mediocrity and vulgarity, for the sole joy of fulfilling the inner law of an heroic nature.” [32] [47]

Despite her praise for the warrior, Savitri Devi’s pessimism concerning the post-WWII world gives her little hope of successfully resisting the decay. She writes that there are few activities in modern life which are not wholly futile, beyond growing food, [33] [48] working to preserve the “elite minorities” of all races and species from extinction, showing kindness towards the innocent among the animal and human world, and “curs[ing] in one’s heart, day and night, today’s humanity (apart from very rare exceptions), and to work with all one’s efforts for its destruction.” [34] [49] One cannot help but notice that this overwhelming pessimism grows far more prominent in Savitri Devi’s postwar writings, after witnessing the destruction and humiliation of the last bastion of Aryandom on earth.

The Education of Maximiani Portas

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You can buy And Time Rolls On: The Savitri Devi Interviews here. [50]

With respect to the purpose of this essay, I am forced to admit that it is impossible to imagine a Savitri Devi who is not a Nazi. The circumstances of her life, particularly her love for ancient Indo-Aryan culture, its perceived embodiment in Hitler’s state, and that state’s crushing defeat and humiliation, solidified her fanatical devotion as well as her hatred for the post-war order. But perhaps we can imagine how Savitri Devi’s outlook might have differed if this enthusiasm for National Socialism had not fully taken hold of her mind; if she had remained Maximiani Portas and not become Savitri Devi, the iron maiden, the eulogist and apologist of Nazi Germany, “Hitler’s Priestess.”

If we set aside the veneration of Nazism, I believe we could still preserve everything that makes Savitri Devi particularly valuable as a thinker, even to those who disagree with her devotion to Hitler:

  1. Her understanding of the primordial Indo-Aryan religion;
  2. Her conception of aristocracy within and among species, and insistence that humans have no claim to superiority unless they rise above their merely natural selves;
  3. Her injunction to preserve the noble elite of all species, and to treat the Earth and its myriad creatures with the kindness befitting the noble man;
  4. The need for a state based on classical principles that cultivates true physical and spiritual aristocracy, while utilizing modern technology to advance the goals and improve the lot of its people; and
  5. The recognition of universal forces of decay and the need to combat them with the detached violence of the Aryan warrior.

These are the ways in which Savitri Devi’s thought embodies the themes of an authentic traditional society and adapts them to the present. These are important and original observations that should be taken seriously by any Rightist.

And what of the rest? While I do not intend to offer a critique of National Socialism or Esoteric Hitlerism here, and while I have no particular quarrel with those who embrace these ideologies, I would argue that these are the weaker points in Savitri Devi’s thought. Her idealization of Hitler and the “actually existing” National Socialist state, while a bracing corrective to the propaganda barrage of the post-WWII era, have an element of the outrageous to them. I will not dwell on this point, as the critique of National Socialism from the Right [51] has been done by far greater minds than my own. I will simply say that upholding Hitler’s Germany as the purest expression of the primordial religion since the dawn of the age is hyperbolic, and ignores the many ways in which the regime compromised with modernity. This is not to deny it a certain grandeur, or indeed to deny that life under this regime would almost certainly be preferable to our current situation. Whether it deserves religious veneration is another matter.

JF_cover.jpgOn the subject of religion, Savitri Devi’s loathing of most traditional religions, particularly Christianity, appears to have been partly instinctive and partly informed by Nietzsche and later Nazi pronouncements on the subject. However, though she counted herself among the proponents of the Integral Tradition along with Evola and Guénon, her disdain for these world religions — the very vessels of the primordial religion — separates her from that milieu. Her countless criticisms of Christianity, in particular, are a somewhat tedious and clichéd amalgam of Nietzscheanism, biological racism, and neo-pagan hubris: Christianity “alienates its faithful from nature,” “teaches them the contempt of the body,” and betrays the “stench of the miserable and servile common man.” [35] [52] Moreover, she agreed with Hitler in regarding Christianity as “nothing but a foreign religion imposed on the Germanic peoples and fundamentally opposed to their genius.” Savitri Devi therefore longs for a return to pre-Christian Indo-Aryan paganism.

I’ve sought to address these misconceptions of Western Christianity elsewhere [53], arguing that it is neither foreign to the European soul nor simply a precursor of modern democratic liberalism. I have also argued [12], with Guénon and even Evola, that Western Christianity was a legitimate vehicle of the Traditional idea. Specifically addressing its supposed anti-natural bent, Savitri Devi (and many modern environmentalists [54]) accuse Christianity of human-centeredness and domineering attitudes towards the natural world. However, Christianity is theocentric, not anthropocentric. Its true focus is not on maximizing human numbers or comfort, but in living in accordance with the will of God. Indeed, as men have rejected the divine and natural order and cannot even master themselves, they hardly deserve to be masters of the world. A consequence of their fall from the primordial state is their profound lack of mastery, their physical and intellectual weakness, their susceptibility to natural disaster, sickness, death, and time. Ecological degradation is not an outcome of belief in Christ, but rather a consequence of the timeless and universal attitude of dull pragmatism, the plebeian outlook of the man whose chief concern is wealth and comfort at the expense of the sacred. It is not a feature of any genuine religion.

Ironically, by jettisoning most traditional religions in the name of returning to a primordial “religion of life and light,” Savitri Devi removes some of these traditional restraints on human behavior. Though the metaphysics are vaguely Neoplatonic due to her apparent opposition to transcendent divinity, her religion devolves into a kind of purely immanentistic pantheism, in which gods are simply the spirits of one’s ancestors and one’s folk-soul, and God and nature are synonymous. This mystical Darwinism and reverence for the strong, however, need not lend itself to a reverence for the noble Aryan and lion. It could just as easily involve the worship of the migrant waves in Europe, or the cancerous growth of the modern city, or indeed swarms of locusts, as they are also a part of “nature” and have proven their strength over the old ways and old masters of that land. There is not an objective standard from which to judge human behavior, since (as we know from history) people can judge purely “natural law” to mean all kinds of different things. In short, while Savitri Devi expresses many essentially correct metaphysical ideas, she errs in rejecting the transcendent traditional faiths in favor of what is basically 19th-century racialist pantheism.

page_1sdky.jpgFinally, there is a shocking inhumanity in Savitri Devi’s thought. In some ways, this can be quite refreshing to a modern reader indoctrinated in maudlin liberal humanitarian platitudes. She questions the value of modern medicine, which keeps countless people alive who are too sick and weak to contribute to their race or live purposeful lives. She straightforwardly endorses eugenics programs to maximize the wellbeing and numbers of healthy Aryans, and reduce those of more prolific but less noble bloodlines. The human and material costs of warfare in defense and expansion of Hitler’s Germany are fully justified due to its role as the vehicle of Aryan regeneration. Traitors should be executed without mercy. Though Savitri Devi sometimes questions the Holocaust numbers and narratives, more often than not she simply defends the execution of countless political enemies — among which she includes Jews — as not only necessary but laudable.

Savitri Devi prided herself on her ruthless consistency, her “appalling logic,” and there is no reason to doubt her sincerity. [36] [55] Admittedly, it does seem strange for a woman who spoke so warmly of nonhuman animals — who urged readers to “give an armful of grass to the horse or the weary donkey, a bucket of water to the buffalo dying of thirst. . . a friendly caress to the beast of burden” — to so utterly set such compassion aside when dealing with human beings. [37] [56] And it is not merely towards the enemy that her ruthlessness is directed. She seems to have believed that the sick and weak of her own people must be sacrificed in order to secure the dream of deified Aryandom.

This may be the price one has to pay. But it also entails an abrogation of the traditionally noble ideals, of European chivalry, which demands protection of the weak and defenseless, widows and orphans, children and the innocent. It ignores that members of a community have a responsibility to care for their own people, even the sick, old, fallen, and imperfect. Perhaps not to the insane lengths people go to today, but the obligation still remains. These are the spiritual values, the kindness and compassion of the Aryan race which Savitri Devi prizes so highly, without which its bloodline will cease to be associated with genuine nobility.

In her fury at the destruction and humiliation of Hitler’s Germany, in the fanaticism with which she took up its banner, in the sheer horror of the postwar years, Savitri Devi appears to have lost that element of humanity. She seems to have taken some pride in this fact. Nevertheless, she would also write that “the real superman, if any, is the man in whom boundless kindness to all creatures goes side by side with the utmost intelligence and power.” [38] [57] Perhaps if she had remained Maximiani Portas — the young European girl who loved ancient Greece, who loved the beasts of the forests and fields, who longed to see a rebirth of ancient Indo-Aryan civilization in all of its ancient glory — she might not have forgotten this sentiment.

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Notes

[1] [60] Savitri Devi, Memories and Reflections of an Aryan Woman. New Delhi: Savitri Devi Mukherji, 1976, ch. 8 [61].

[2] [62] Reflections, ch. 10 [63].

[3] [64] Savitri Devi, Gold in the Furnace: Experiences in Post-War Germany [65], ed. R. G. Fowler. Atlanta: Savitri Devi Archive, 2006, ch. 1.

[4] [66] Ibid.

[5] [67] Ibid.

[6] [68] Ibid.

[7] [69] Savitri Devi, The Lightning and the Sun [40]. Buffalo, New York: Samisdat Publishers, Ltd., 1979, p. 265.

[8] [70] Savitri Devi, Impeachment of Man [71]. Costa Mesa, California: The Noontide Press, 1991, p. 82.

[9] [72] Reflections, ch. 1 [73].

[10] [74] Ibid.

[11] [75] Impeachment, p. 113.

[12] [76] Reflections, ch. 12 [77], passim.

[13] [78] Impeachment, p. 147.

[14] [79] Lightning, p. 395.

[15] [80] Impeachment, p. 134.

[16] [81] Lightning, p. 5

[17] [82] Gold, ch. 1.

[18] [83] Reflections, ch. 1.

[19] [84] Reflections, ch. 9 [85].

[20] [86] Reflections, ch. 1.

[21] [87] Gold, ch. 1.

[22] [88] Impeachment, 150.

[23] [89] Ibid., 105.

[24] [90] Ibid., 145.

[25] [91] Ibid., 150.

[26] [92] Gold, ch. 9.

[27] [93] Gold, ch. 12.

[28] [94] Reflections, ch. 11 [95].

[29] [96] Lightning, 248.

[30] [97] Reflections, ch. 1.

[31] [98] Lightning, 374.

[32] [99] Gold, ch. 14.

[33] [100] Lightning, p. 4.

[34] [101] Reflections, ch. 11.

[35] [102] Reflections, ch. 8.

[36] [103] Savitri Devi, Defiance: The Prison Memoirs of Savitri Devi [104], ed. R. G. Fowler. Atlanta: The Savitri Devi Archive, 2008, 77.

[37] [105] Reflections, ch. 1.

[38] [106] Impeachment, 104.

Article printed from Counter-Currents: https://counter-currents.com

URL to article: https://counter-currents.com/2020/09/denazifying-savitri-devi/

URLs in this post:

[1] Hitler’s Priestess: https://nyupress.org/9780814731116/hitlers-priestess/

[2] Miguel Serrano’s: https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Miguel_Serrano

[3] [1]: #_ftnref1

[4] [2: #_ftnref2

[5] ]: http://k

[6] [3]: #_ftnref3

[7] Akhnaton: https://www.savitridevi.org/son-contents.html

[8] [4]: #_ftnref4

[9] [5]: #_ftnref5

[10] [6]: #_ftnref6

[11] life-denying Gnostics: https://plotinusarchive.wordpress.com/2-9-against-the-gnostics/

[12] a previous article: https://counter-currents.com/2020/09/integral-ecology/

[13] here.: https://counter-currents.com/2019/11/gold-in-the-furnaceexperiences-in-post-war-germany/

[14] deep ecology: https://openairphilosophy.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/OAP_Naess_Deep_Ecology_Movement.pdf

[15] [7]: #_ftnref7

[16] [8]: #_ftnref8

[17] [9]: #_ftnref9

[18] [10]: #_ftnref10

[19] [11]: #_ftnref11

[20] [12]: #_ftnref12

[21] [13]: #_ftnref13

[22] [14]: #_ftnref14

[23] [15]: #_ftnref15

[24] here.: https://counter-currents.com/2019/11/defiance-the-prison-memoirs-of-savitri-devi/

[25] [16]: #_ftnref16

[26] [17]: #_ftnref17

[27] [18]: #_ftnref18

[28] [19]: #_ftnref19

[29] [20]: #_ftnref20

[30] [21]: #_ftnref21

[31] [22]: #_ftnref22

[32] [23]: #_ftnref23

[33] reactionary modernism: https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/twentieth-century-european-history/reactionary-modernism-technology-culture-and-politics-weimar-and-third-reich?format=PB&isbn=9780521338332

[34] archeofuturism: https://arktos.com/product/archeofuturism/

[35] [24]: #_ftnref24

[36] [25]: #_ftnref25

[37] [26]: #_ftnref26

[38] [27]: #_ftnref27

[39] here: https://counter-currents.com/the-lightning-and-the-sun-order/

[40] The Lightning and the Sun: http://www.savitridevi.org/PDF/lightning.pdf

[41] [28]: #_ftnref28

[42] [29]: #_ftnref29

[43] occult war: https://www.gornahoor.net/?p=3675

[44] [30]: #_ftnref30

[45] [31]: #_ftnref31

[46] League of Shadows: https://counter-currents.com/2012/07/christopher-nolans-batman-movies-weaponizing-traditionalism-transvaluing-values/

[47] [32]: #_ftnref32

[48] [33]: #_ftnref33

[49] [34]: #_ftnref34

[50] here.: https://counter-currents.com/and-time-rolls-on-order/

[51] from the Right: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a697/746226cff370819e943d6708faa2b66beb2d.pdf

[52] [35]: #_ftnref35

[53] elsewhere: https://counter-currents.com/2020/09/michaelmas/

[54] environmentalists: http://www.cmu.ca/faculty/gmatties/lynnwhiterootsofcrisis.pdf

[55] [36]: #_ftnref36

[56] [37]: #_ftnref37

[57] [38]: #_ftnref38

[58] our Entropy page: https://entropystream.live/countercurrents

[59] sign up: https://counter-currents.com/2020/05/sign-up-for-our-new-newsletter/

[60] [1]: #_ftn1

[61] ch. 8: https://www.savitridevi.org/M&R_chapter_8.html

[62] [2]: #_ftn2

[63] ch. 10: https://www.savitridevi.org/M&R_chapter_10.html

[64] [3]: #_ftn3

[65] Gold in the Furnace: Experiences in Post-War Germany: https://pvsheridan.com/Gold-in-the-Furnace.pdf

[66] [4]: #_ftn4

[67] [5]: #_ftn5

[68] [6]: #_ftn6

[69] [7]: #_ftn7

[70] [8]: #_ftn8

[71] Impeachment of Man: http://www.savitridevi.org/PDF/impeachment.pdf

[72] [9]: #_ftn9

[73] ch. 1: https://www.savitridevi.org/M&R_chapter_1.html

[74] [10]: #_ftn10

[75] [11]: #_ftn11

[76] [12]: #_ftn12

[77] ch. 12: https://www.savitridevi.org/M&R_chapter_12.html

[78] [13]: #_ftn13

[79] [14]: #_ftn14

[80] [15]: #_ftn15

[81] [16]: #_ftn16

[82] [17]: #_ftn17

[83] [18]: #_ftn18

[84] [19]: #_ftn19

[85] ch. 9: https://www.savitridevi.org/M&R_chapter_9.html

[86] [20]: #_ftn20

[87] [21]: #_ftn21

[88] [22]: #_ftn22

[89] [23]: #_ftn23

[90] [24]: #_ftn24

[91] [25]: #_ftn25

[92] [26]: #_ftn26

[93] [27]: #_ftn27

[94] [28]: #_ftn28

[95] ch. 11: https://www.savitridevi.org/M&R_chapter_11.html

[96] [29]: #_ftn29

[97] [30]: #_ftn30

[98] [31]: #_ftn31

[99] [32]: #_ftn32

[100] [33]: #_ftn33

[101] [34]: #_ftn34

[102] [35]: #_ftn35

[103] [36]: #_ftn36

[104] Defiance: The Prison Memoirs of Savitri Devi: https://www.savitridevi.org/PDF/defiance.pdf

[105] [37]: #_ftn37

[106] [38]: #_ftn38

 

mercredi, 07 octobre 2020

Michaelmas: Of Harvest Festivals & Holy Warriors

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Michaelmas:
Of Harvest Festivals & Holy Warriors

Come out, ’tis now September, the hunters’ moon’s begun,
And through the wheaten stubble we hear the frequent gun;
The leaves are turning yellow, and fading into red,
While the ripe and bearded barley is hanging down its head.

— “All Among the Barley,” British folk song

September the 29th is the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, traditionally known as Michaelmas. Though not as widely observed nowadays, in medieval and early modern Europe this feast — falling as it does around the autumn equinox — was important both as a holy day and as a harvest festival, the last day of summer and the growing season. Like other “quarter days” and seasonal observances, its traditional customs are a synthesis of Christian devotion and European folk traditions.

The word “harvest” comes from the Old English word hærfest [1], meaning “autumn.” In England, the harvest season traditionally began with Lammas (old English for “loaf-mass”) on August 1, which marked the end of the hay season. Lammas was a religious as well as an agricultural festival, the day when the first loaf of bread made from the flour of the new harvest would be brought to church to be blessed. The Gaelic festival of Lughnasadh commemorates the sacrifice of Taltiu, the mother of the sun-god Lugh, who died of exhaustion after clearing the fields of Ireland for planting. The Harvest Home [2] festival in old England, also known as “Ingathering,” occurred around the date of the autumn equinox. Neopagans and Wiccans celebrate the equinox under various names, “Mabon” being the most common (though the name itself is a neologism). And the American Thanksgiving [3], of course, is our version of a harvest festival, though coming significantly later in the year.

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In old England, Michaelmas marked the end of the harvest. It was the largest festival of the season, associated with country fairs and bonfires. It was a time for the settling of accounts and hiring new labor for the coming season, retaining strong association with hiring fairs even into the 20th century. It was customary at this time of year to feast on the “Michaelmas goose,” called the “green goose” or “stubble goose” because it fed on spring grass and was therefore leaner than its Christmas counterpart. In Scotland, celebrants made St. Michael’s Bannock from the cereals grown on the family land and cooked it on a lambskin, representing the fruits of the fields and the flocks. Blackberry desserts, such as pies and Michaelmas dumplings, were also traditionally prepared on this day. British folklore [4] relates that when St. Michael expelled Satan from heaven, the devil fell into a thorny blackberry bush and cursed its fruit. It is therefore considered unlucky to eat blackberries after Michaelmas, which commemorates the date of that precipitous fall.

The primary focus of this day in the Christian calendar, of course, is the commemoration of St. Michael, the warrior archangel who defeated the rebellious angels and cast Satan into the pit. He is venerated as the patron saint of soldiers, policemen, paramedics, and those in peril on the sea, and represents a figure in Christian history that is largely forgotten today: the holy warrior.

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Michaelmas therefore seems an opportune time to revisit the themes in Christian history and doctrine that pertain to the warrior caste of old Europe. I am well aware that many on the New Right have a negative perception of Christianity, and given the state of the contemporary Church this is unsurprising. Nor do I believe that Christianity is the panacea for the West, a return to which will put all to rights and “save us.” [5] However, while I do not hope to win any converts, I hope that this essay will at least serve as a corrective to some of the current misunderstandings of the Christian religion, the faith which has been at the heart of the European soul for over fifteen hundred years. In the conclusion, I will discuss the place St. Michael as an archetypal holy warrior, and his particular relation to the harvest time.

Christianity Critiqued from the Right

The Rightist criticisms of Christianity will be well known to readers. It is reputed to be a life-denying creed, promoting an ascetic “slave morality” that subverted traditional European societies, precipitated the downfall of Rome, and led inexorably to the universalist, humanitarian insanity of the contemporary Left. It is rooted in Judaism and Oriental mysticism and thus fundamentally alien to the European spirit. Its emphasis on the uniqueness and importance of the individual soul promotes destructive tolerance, pathological altruism, pacifism, and egalitarianism and therefore discourages adherents from fighting for their own interests and those of their people. And so on. Christianity, seen in this light, is the poison in the veins of the modern West. Its teachings may be appropriate for ascetic, world-weary priests and resentful lumpenproles, but it is totally alien to the heroic worldview of the warrior caste and the mighty men who built Western civilization.

This critique of the religion, most powerfully articulated by Nietzsche, is a compelling rebuke of the humanitarian pseudo-Christianity that developed in the nineteenth century, and which currently prevails in almost every major denomination in the West. However, it fails to account for the traditional form that Christianity took in the West for over a thousand years.

I would like to address some of the above criticisms, in an admittedly abbreviated fashion, in order to lay the groundwork for a specific discussion of the warrior caste. It is important to emphasize that the common feature of these critiques is that they regard Christianity as monolithic, and therefore alien to Europe, despite its long presence in the West and undeniable importance to Western development. This is born of a rationalist, Enlightenment tendency, buttressed by Protestant literalism and exclusive emphasis on the Bible (sola scriptura), to ignore the important fact that Christianity in the West developed into a distinct religion in its own right, and should therefore be distinguished from the version that arose in Palestine, or for that matter the versions that developed in Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, etc. Thus, this article particularly addresses Western Christianity, the faith of Christendom, historically identified with Catholicism but not necessarily exclusive to it. And Protestant criticisms aside, one does not have to agree with every decision or action by the papal Curia, or deny the existence of bad priests and decidedly unimpressive practitioners, in order to acknowledge the validity of the ancient doctrine and ritual. As it stands, however deeply flawed it may be, the Church is the last bastion of unbroken tradition and spiritual values in the Western world. It should become clear that there was once a fully functional and organic society that fully embraced the Christian religion, which permeated not just the lower and priestly classes but the warrior caste as well.

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The slavish ideas of the contemporary Left — radical egalitarianism, distributive justice, hedonism, democracy — play no part in historical Christian doctrine. To argue that traditional Christianity preaches this insanity is plainly wrong. To argue that it has become infected by such ideas is merely to admit that the Christian community is susceptible to subversion. But what faith community is not? Hinduism today is a shadow of its former self, with the traditional caste system all but abolished. It was itself subverted by Buddhism, which — however noble [7] its origins — is now regarded by Western adherents as nothing more than a mélange of meditation, self-fulfillment, and social justice activism. Neopaganism is infested by Leftists continually wringing their hands over potential racists in their midst, and the virile warriors of ancestral Europe would be disgusted by the limp-wristed Wiccans of today. While much of Christian practice throughout the West has indeed been corrupted into sentimental humanitarianism, this is due to a rejection of fundamental points of doctrine, not an inevitable consequence of them. The prevalent Left-wing perversion of Christianity essentially places its highest value upon mankind and strives to achieve an egalitarian utopia on earth: to “immanentize the eschaton [8],” as Eric Voegelin put it. The same applies to communism, socialism, and other Leftist ideologies that critics such as Nietzsche trace to Christianity.

Rightists who criticize Christianity’s “slave morality” believe (again with Nietzsche) that this is attributable to its Jewish roots. They argue that these ignominious origins render Christianity unsuitable for Europeans, and sometimes regard the whole religion merely as a Trojan Horse of Jewish subversion, an ancient prototype of the Frankfurt School. This is despite the fact that Christ himself criticized orthodox Jewry of his day for their dry legalism and rank hypocrisy; despite the fact that he was murdered by these same hierarchs; despite the fact that many of the earliest expositors of Christianity aimed their message at Gentiles, and taught that adherence to the Old Law was unnecessary and in some cases harmful; and despite the fact that until the 20th century and the promotion of “Judeo-Christianity” and evangelical fawning over Israel, Jews have been regarded as outsiders and viewed with suspicion throughout the West.

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Certainly, Christ emerged from a Jewish milieu (though his teaching was in opposition to the orthodoxy). And it is true that the Church has incorporated the Old Testament into its holy canon, and believes it to contain prophecies and prefigurations of Christ. However, Judaism is not the only religion to prophesize a future figure of divine justice and restoration, nor are such prophecies absent from Indo-Aryan religions: medieval Christians believed that the coming of Christ was also foretold by the Sibyl of Cumae and in Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue [9], and one can also point to the Hindu Kalki [10], the Buddhist Maitreya [11], and the Zoroastrian Saoshyant [12] as other manifestations of this universal idea. Much of the anthropological and metaphysical framework of the Hebrew Bible, the omniscient God locked in battle with a principle of evil, the fall of man due to manipulation by that power — is present in the Indo-Aryan Zoroastrian religion. In addition, Christian doctrine incorporated the truths of Greek and Roman philosophy (particularly Neoplatonism and Stoicism), and in practice and form Christianity has often taken on a regional character, owing much to European folk religion. Thus, Christianity can be seen as a synthesis of what is best in religion, adapted to the soul of Western man, and not merely as a heretical outgrowth of Judaism — whose influence is obviously significant, but should not be overemphasized. As it developed in the West, I would be so bold as to assert that Christianity is far more Greek and Frankish than Jewish in character.

Traditional Christianity did not deny differences among humans, individually or culturally. The equality of souls before God is the only respect in which people are the same. Otherwise, humans are clearly different in terms of gifts, virtues, and bloodlines. All men might be endowed with a soul, but what they choose to do with that divine spark determines their place in the chain of being. Those whose lives and actions are most aligned with the will of God are considered saints. This category does not just consist of monks, priests, and hermits, but also kings and warriors: Joan of Arc, Martin of Tours, Louis the Pious [13]. While no one has a right to the unbridled exploitation of another (which I hope most people will agree on), hierarchy exists for a reason and historical Western Christianity is quite comfortable with this notion. In addition to affirming the existence of earthly hierarchies, Western Christian tradition affirms and acknowledges the existence of valid ethnic, cultural, and racial distinctions [14]. These are not simply regarded as obstacles to be overcome, prejudices of a primitive and pagan age, but considered a divine gift in their own right. And as rulers have an obligation to protect their own people, traditional Christianity does not counsel or condone the sacrifice of one’s own subjects or citizens to a nebulous “humanity.”

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Finally, the notion that Christianity rejects all virility and places supreme emphasis on human comfort and welfare is patently false. Unlike modern Catholic Social Teaching, which is unfortunately infected by Liberation Theology, traditional Western Christianity prioritizes many things above the mere preservation of human life: the salvation of souls, the maintenance of social order, the administration of justice, the defense of the community against its enemies. In contrast to most contemporary Christian organizations, which have indeed succumbed to the Enemy and preach universalism, egalitarianism, and a degree of tolerance bordering on nihilism, traditional Christianity was characterized by a far more demanding and warlike mentality. The remainder of this essay will examine the historical manifestations of this warrior faith, beginning with Christ himself.

Christus Victor and the Church Militant

Critics of Christianity, as well as many of its contemporary adherents, depict Christ exclusively as a teacher of love, nonviolence, and resignation, who counseled his disciples to abjure the sinful world and patiently await the life to come. This characterization misses many significant aspects of Christ’s teaching expressed in the Gospels. Those who emphasize his nonviolence ignore his exhortation that he came not “to bring peace, but a sword [15];” his instruction to his disciples that “he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one [16];” his praise for the faith of the centurion [17], and his violent expulsion of the moneychangers [18] from the Temple. Those who emphasize Christ’s love and doctrine of nonjudgment ignore his constant condemnations of the hypocritical Pharisees [19] as well as comments about separating the wheat from the chaff [20], the sheep from the goats [21]. Far from resignation, he counseled stoicism and endurance of hardship [22] to his apostles in furtherance of their mission: the total defeat of the Enemy.

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Indeed, the traditional understanding of Christ’s death was not simply an act of meek resignation, but a conscious and powerful rebuke to the forces of darkness. This known as the Christus Victor [23] view of atonement, which is arguably the oldest understanding of Christ’s death. While most Christians nowadays believe that Jesus died in order to slake God’s wrath against a sinful mankind (“for your sins”), the prevalent Christus Victor understanding is that Christ’s death and Resurrection liberated man from the powers of death, evil, Satan, and legalistic religion. Since mankind was severed from its connection with the divine (“the Fall”) in the material realm, God’s incarnation and death had to occur in this realm as well, in order to decisively defeat the powers that bind mankind and restore their potential for transcendence. The Resurrection thus represents the light’s triumph over darkness, the sanctification of the material world, and the restoration and elevation of the human soul and person. This is the idea of the triumphant Christ, Christ the King, which animated the early Christians and the faithful of old Europe. This is not a god of guilt and suffering and weakness, but of strength and self-overcoming. Christians are not simply to rely on Christ for salvation, but to follow their King’s example and transcend the merely human within themselves, to ascend to their natural role as viceroys and contemplators of Creation.

Thus, in contrast to the feminized understanding of Christ prevalent today, Western Christianity is a warlike creed, exhorting its followers to ceaseless combat [24] against “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” C.S. Lewis encouraged Christians to regard the world as “occupied territory [25]” and themselves as secret agents: “Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.” Hence the term “church militant.”

There is, I believe, no better modern depiction of this warlike, vigorous conception of Christ than the beautiful poem of Ezra Pound, “Ballad of the Goodly Fere [26]” (“fere” meaning “mate” or “companion”), which is worth reading in its entirety:

Ha’ we lost the goodliest fere o’ all
For the priests and the gallows tree?
Aye lover he was of brawny men,
O’ ships and the open sea. [. . .]

Oh we drank his “Hale” in the good red wine
When we last made company,
No capon priest was the Goodly Fere
But a man o’ men was he. [. . .]

I ha’ seen him drive a hundred men
Wi’ a bundle o’ cords swung free,
That they took the high and holy house
For their pawn and treasury. [. . .]

He cried no cry when they drave the nails
And the blood gushed hot and free,
The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue
But never a cry cried he. [. . .]

A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea,
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.

This ballad, of course, is derived from Northern European poetic forms, and excellently captures how Christianity was understood and adopted by ancient Europeans. This is the subject of the next section.

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Germanized Christianity and the Emergency of Chivalry 

Christianity spread throughout the Empire and became the state religion of Rome during the reign of Constantine, who issued the Edict of Milan [27] in 313 AD. The Nietzschean interpretation is that Christianity caused the fall of Rome by embracing ascetic and life-denying values, but it seems more plausible that its widespread adoption was a response to the collapse of Roman society and religion that had already begun. Attempts by Julian the Apostate to restore the ancestral tradition were unsuccessful because it had lost its vitality and was no longer widely accepted. Christianity remained the unifying force in the Mediterranean world even after the collapse of Rome, and was soon adopted by the invading Germanic tribes, some willingly and some by force. This naturally changed the form of Christianity in significant ways and gave birth to the Western Christianity of the Catholic Middle Ages.

It would be incorrect to say that this “Germanized Christianity” completely changed the character of the original creed, transforming a life-denying and pacifistic faith into a tool for social cohesion. As explained above, original Christianity is rife with martial imagery and exhortations, and never condemned war or government (“turn the other cheek” [28] is understood by almost all traditional expositors as a prohibition against destructive individual vengeance, rather than nonresistance to evil). Indeed, one of Christianity’s vehicles of transmission was the Roman soldiery [29], whose faith evidently did not prevent them from carrying out their duties. Constantine’s conversion reputedly occurred on the battlefield.

Nevertheless, the focus and external forms of Christianity did change radically once it was adopted by the Europeans. These changes are convincingly detailed in James Russell’s The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity [30]. He argues that Eastern Christianity developed in a largely alienated and anomic urban milieu, and was influenced by the otherworldly ethos of the mystery religions prevalent in that area. In Northern Europe, it encountered a civilization that was heroic, magico-religious, patriarchal, pastoral-agricultural, and warlike. Missionaries to the Anglo-Saxons and Franks emphasized the role of Christ as a warrior God, akin to Wotan, allowing for the sanctification of warfare in the name of God. The cult of saints, relics, and holy places, as well as the proliferation of holy days and festivals, served to redirect the same devotion and festivals of the pre-Christian religions.

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Anglo-Saxon poetry provides a particularly stirring example of this warlike, syncretic Western Christianity, in such poems as The Dream of the Rood [31] and Beowulf [32]. The following quotation is from the Heliand [33], a ninth-century paraphrase of the gospels written in the style of an Anglo-Saxon epic. Here is Christ speaking to his apostles:

He promised them Heaven’s Kingdom and spoke to the heroes:
“I might also tell you, O My companions,
With true words, that you shall henceforth be
The light of this world, fair among warriors,
Over many folk, beautiful and sweet,
For the children of people. Your great works may not
Become hidden because of the heart with which you make them known.” (1389-94)

The highest social expression of Western Christianity is the code of chivalry, which tempered the ferocity of the Viking-Germanic warrior class and directed knightly endeavors to the service of the King, the Church, and the people, particularly the innocent and defenseless. The chivalric ideal is a synthesis of the warrior code of the classical and Northern world with the Christian ethic. Hence the “Nine Worthies [34],” the paragons of chivalry in the Middle Ages, features three representatives from the classical world, three from the Old Testament, and three from the medieval age (Charlemagne, King Arthur, and Godfrey de Boullion). This ideal of noblesse oblige, loyalty to Church and King, and martial valor in service of God formed the ideal foundation for the feudal system.

Since the Renaissance, it has been commonplace to criticize the medieval era as a period of darkness and fanaticism. And even those critics of Christianity who admire the Catholic Middle Ages, such as Evola, believe that it was great in spite of Christianity, rather than because of it. But even Evola acknowledged that Christianity had a “galvanizing effect” on the peoples of Western Europe:

In spite of everything, Christianity revived the generic sense of a supernatural transcendence. The Roman symbol offered the idea of a universal regnum, of an aeternitas carried by an imperial power. All this integrated the Nordic substance and provided superior reference points to its warrior ethos, so much as to gradually usher in one of those cycles of restoration that I have labeled Christianity is a part of the European soul, but refigured from its Asiatic and life-denying origins; Germanized, transformed into the motivating creed behind chivalry, Rhineland mysticism, Gothic statuary, French stained glass, King Arthur, etc. (Mystery of the Grail [35], p. 120)

However, again, it is necessary to emphasize that every element of the Christian religion that made the Middle Ages great was present from the foundation, and was simply amplified and developed by its contact with Germanic Europe. The life-denying resignation attributed to Christianity by Nietzschean critics did indeed arise in Europe in the form of Catharism, but this sect was denounced as heretical and ultimately destroyed [36] (quite unjustly). Feudalism, chivalry, mysticism, Gothic architecture, and holy warfare are all expressions of the Germanic spirit under the influence of Christianity, and to those who are not blinded by the secularism and humanism of the Enlightenment, these represent some of the highest achievements of Western civilization. This is nowhere more apparent than in the military monastic orders of the Crusades.

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The Holy War: Templars and Teutonic Knights

The culmination of Western chivalry is to be found in the campaigns of the Crusades. Aside from true atrocities such as the siege of Zara [37] and the sack of Constantinople [38], the Crusades represent one of the few genuine moments of pan-European unity and military effort in the name of a shared European ideal. It gave Europe many of its tales of chivalry, heroism, and martial valor. This is particularly true of the monastic military orders such as the Knights Templar. These holy warriors, drawn from several European peoples, wedded the ferocity of the Frankish and Teutonic warriors with the chivalry and devotion of the Christian ethic, and therefore represented the pinnacle of Western knighthood. As Bernard of Clairvaux, the mystic and founder of the Benedictine Order who supplied the Rule for the new order, wrote in De Laude Novae Militiae [39] (In Praise of the New Knighthood):

This is, I say, a new kind of knighthood and one unknown to the ages gone by. It ceaselessly wages a twofold war both against flesh and blood and against a spiritual army of evil in the heavens. When someone strongly resists a foe in the flesh, relying solely on the strength of the flesh, I would hardly remark it, since this is common enough. And when war is waged by spiritual strength against vices or demons, this, too, is nothing remarkable, praiseworthy as it is, for the world is full of monks. But when the one sees a man powerfully girding himself with both swords and nobly marking his belt, who would not consider it worthy of all wonder, the more so since it has been hitherto unknown? He is truly a fearless knight and secure on every side, for his soul is protected by the armor of faith just as his body is protected by armor of steel. He is thus doubly armed and need fear neither demons nor men.

The Templars were the ultimate warrior monks. Their lives were highly regimented, with the inner cadre of knights committing to celibacy, an austere diet with frequent fast days, and rigorous physical training and prayer. They fought with extreme conviction to liberate the Holy Land and defend the pilgrims and Crusader states established there. The knights who formed the core of the order were drawn from the nobility, but individuals of other ranks and marital status could join in auxiliary roles. Its strength and wealth became so great as to pose a threat to the King of France, leading to its annihilation on fabricated charges of heresy. The Teutonic Order [40] was also renowned for its combination of religious devotion and martial valor, and would form a central component of Prussian and German identity into the twentieth century.

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Evola, though critical of Christianity, held these orders in high regard. He seems to have regarded them as the last true bastions of tradition and initiation in the West, with their emphasis on the ascesis of action, military discipline, and self-transcendence through both the greater and the lesser (internal and external) Holy War. Based upon statements made during their trials, it appears that the Templars initiated their highest class of knights into an esoteric form of Christianity:

During the Middle Ages, the realization of the human personality was believed to consist either in the path of action or in the path of contemplation; the two paths usually referred to the Empire and to the Church, respectively. As is well known, this was Dante’s view. In its deeper aspect, Ghibellinism more or less claimed that through the view of earthly life as discipline, militia, and service, the individual can be led beyond himself and reach the supernatural culmination of human personality through action and under the aegis of the Empire. This was related to the character of a nonnaturalistic but “providential” institution acknowledged in the Empire; knighthood and the great knightly Orders stood in relation to the Empire in the same way in which the clergy and the ascetic Orders stood in relation to the Church. These Orders were based on an idea that was less political than ethical-spiritual, and partially even ascetic, according to an asceticism that was not cloistered and contemplative, but rather of a warrior type. In this last regard, the most typical example was constituted by the Order of Knights Templar, and in part by the Order of the Teutonic Knights. (Men Among the Ruins [41], p. 207)

These military monastic orders are similar in nature to King Arthur’s legendary court, particularly in the quest for the Holy Grail. The Grail legend is one of the most significant myths in the Western psyche, an amalgam of Celtic, Germanic, and Catholic themes, representing a striving for wholeness in the psychological, political, and spiritual realm. Sir Galahad, one of only three knights to achieve the Holy Grail and the most renowned for his purity and gallantry, was likely inspired by Bernard de Clairveaux’s conception of the holy warrior. He was, significantly, equipped with a white shield emblazoned with a vermillion cross — the very emblem of the Knights Templar.

Muscular Christianity

The last manifestation of this warlike spirituality is the nearest to us in time: the “muscular Christianity [42]” of the Victorian era and early twentieth century. Developed in response to the perceived effeminacy of the mainstream churches, muscular Christianity emphasized physical strength and moral courage as necessary to doing God’s will on earth. As Thomas Hughes [43] wrote in 1861, its adherents promoted “the old and chivalrous Christian belief, that a man’s body is given him to be trained and brought into subjection, and then used for the protection of the weak, the advancement of all righteous causes, and the subduing of the earth which God has given to the children of men.”

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In this rebirth of the Christian warrior ideal, which was largely developed in Anglo-American Protestant churches but also had its Roman Catholic manifestations (for instance, the Knights of Columbus [44]), emphasis was placed upon physical strength. Churches organized boxing clubs and scouting organizations to teach young men the rigors of combat and woodcraft. Rather than the plaintive, melancholy, or sentimental hymns sung in churches, these muscular Christians would sing [45], in the worlds of Charles Richards (1915), “songs of character, of service, of brotherhood, of Christian patriotism, of aggressive missionary spirit, of the practical Christian life.” It promoted active involvement in the din and strife of the real world, and was a driving force behind the Social Gospel Movement. Muscular Christianity essentially sought to operationalize the Lord’s Prayer, affirming “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.”

The essence of muscular Christianity was summarized by Theodore Roosevelt [46]:

If we read the Bible aright, we read a book which teaches us to go forth and do the work of the Lord; to do the work of the Lord in the world as we find it; to try to make things better in this world, even if only a little better, because we have lived in it. That kind of work can be done only by the man who is neither a weakling nor a coward; by the man who in the fullest sense of the word is a true Christian. . . We plead for a closer and wider and deeper study of the Bible, so that our people may be in fact as well as in theory “doers of the word and not hearers only.”

This muscular, activist model of Christianity that emerged in the Victorian era was far from perfect. In its engagement with politics, it could lend itself to abolitionism (think “Battle Hymn of the Republic”) just as well as to the chivalric ethos of the Second Ku Klux Klan. Its strong association with Progressive Era reforms likely hastened the decline of the mainstream churches into spiritually lukewarm appendages of the Left. The whole movement was indelibly tainted by the fact that it arose in a democratic and Protestant society and therefore lacked the elements of hierarchy and willing obedience that must characterize any true religious-military order. However, it was nevertheless a major motivating ethos behind the last generation of WASP elites who sought to maintain America as a traditional, hierarchical nation of European settlers. It also stands as the last movement to fully embrace the virile, warlike dimensions of Christianity in the contemporary West.

St. Michael: Archetype of the Holy Warrior

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

— Revelation 12:7-9

This brings us back to the figure of St. Michael. In Christian tradition, he is an archangel — prince and “Archistrategos” of the heavenly armies, first defender of the Kingship of Christ, the invincible warrior who conquered the Dragon and all his minions and cast them into Hell. St. Michael is the archetypal holy warrior, perfectly aligned with his Lord’s will, fighting with detachment and iron determination against the Enemy, upholding Order against Chaos. He is also an archetypal dragonslayer in the Indo-Aryan tradition, akin to Thor, Saint George, and Beowulf. As one writer insightfully notes [47],

As a healer, warrior and peace-maker, St. Michael is the Archangel honored as the guardian and guide of the individual in his/her battle for the self. In historic Germanic tradition, Michaelmas was the time of strength, of exercising one’s will, pitted against those things that challenge and threaten to overwhelm the spirit. This retains at some cultural level the virtue of Wotan (Odhin) whose own resilience fought and conquered all, leading him to self-victory and triumph. In that historic culture, such challenge was manifest in the “worm” and in the most aged of depictions, the dragon beneath the spear of St Michael is more akin to a writhing worm than any dragon or later demonic “devil.” This spear inherited according to theology as that very same attributed to Wotan as the harbinger of destiny, and is thus the arrow of truth and the dispeller of all falsehoods, including self-deceit.

But that is not all. In addition to his martial association as patron of soldiers and policemen, St. Michael is also regarded as a healer, protector of the innocent, and guide at the hour of death. He therefore represents the constructive obverse of the warrior’s fury, that which makes the difference between a mere barbarian and a true knight: the ability to restore that which is broken. He is envisioned as the particular guardian of God’s people, specifically in Christendom. He was accordingly the most important saint in the Middle Ages, with monasteries in his name — such as Mont Saint Michel in Normandy — believed to ward off demons from the borders. He was also a patron of many of the Catholic nationalist organizations that arose in the twentieth century, most notably the Romanian Iron Guard, formally known as the Legion of St. Michael the Archangel [48].

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St. Michael embodies a primordial Indo-European archetype of the holy warrior, the knight and defender. This is well-understood. What of his association with the harvest, and the special seasonal significance of this festival of Michaelmas?

St. Michael’s association with the harvest began in the fourth century, when he was viewed as a guarantor of rain and consequently a patron of agriculture. One reason for St. Michael’s association with autumn, which marks the end of the growing season and the beginning of nature’s dormancy and symbolic death, is due to his role as a defender and guide. He is the divine light guiding man through the uncertainty of the winter months, steeling man for the battle against darkness, hunger, and cold that lie ahead.

I believe that an additional explanation for this association may be warranted. The harvest is a celebration of nature’s bounty, a feast of thanksgiving, a time of year when the fruits of the fields and forest are gathered and stored. But this requires effort, a separation of the wheat from the chaff, a winnowing out of what is unnecessary and harmful. This is also the role played by St. Michael as a guide to souls after death, and an essential quality of the holy warrior: to struggle against the baser impulses and make oneself a fitting servant of one’s people and one’s God. Moreover, the harvest requires effort not just in cultivation but also in defense. The world is a place of beauty and bounty, but it requires warriors to defend it against the wickedness and snares of the Enemy. The association of the holy knight St. Michael and the harvest feast reminds us that all that is good, pure, and holy on this Earth must be defended — by gods, angels, and above all by men, with all the strength that is in us.

At this time of year the aster blooms, known as the Michaelmas Daisy, one of the last flowers to appear before the onset of winter. Just as St. Michael is a protector against darkness and evil, just as the holy warrior defends his land, his people, and his gods against those who would destroy them, this simple daisy stands amidst the dying weeds and grasses, a burst of life in the approaching gloom. This is what all of us, we Knights of Old Europe, should aspire to be: symbols of light and beauty in the darkness, heralds and guardians of the coming spring.

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URL to article: https://counter-currents.com/2020/09/michaelmas/

URLs in this post:

[1] hærfest: https://www.etymonline.com/word/harvest

[2] Harvest Home: https://www.countryfile.com/how-to/food-recipes/british-harvest-how-long-does-the-season-last-when-is-harvest-day-plus-history-and-traditions/

[3] Thanksgiving: https://counter-currents.com/2011/11/thanksgiving-day-as-a-harvest-festival/

[4] British folklore: https://picnicinakeldama.wordpress.com/2016/10/04/taking-stock-with-st-michael-bannock-blackberries-and-more/

[5] “save us.”: https://counter-currents.com/2013/07/why-christianity-cant-save-us/

[6] here: https://counter-currents.com/2020/09/graduate-school-with-heidegger-2/

[7] noble: https://counter-currents.com/2013/06/spiritual-virility-in-buddhism/

[8] immanentize the eschaton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanentize_the_eschaton

[9] Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_interpretations_of_Virgil%27s_Eclogue_4

[10] Kalki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalki

[11] Maitreya: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitreya

[12] Saoshyant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saoshyant

[13] Joan of Arc, Martin of Tours, Louis the Pious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_saint

[14] ethnic, cultural, and racial distinctions: http://faithandheritage.com/2011/01/a-biblical-defense-of-ethno-nationalism/

[15] to bring peace, but a sword: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+10%3A34-42&version=NRSV

[16] he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one: https://www.biblehub.com/luke/22-36.htm

[17] faith of the centurion: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+8&version=NIV

[18] violent expulsion of the moneychangers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleansing_of_the_Temple

[19] constant condemnations of the hypocritical Pharisees: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%2023&version=NIV

[20] the wheat from the chaff: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+3&version=NIV

[21] sheep from the goats: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A31-46&version=NIV

[22] stoicism and endurance of hardship: https://biblehub.com/matthew/10-22.htm

[23] Christus Victor: https://reknew.org/2018/11/the-christus-victor-view-of-the-atonement/

[24] ceaseless combat: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+6:12&version=KJV

[25] occupied territory: https://merecslewis.blogspot.com/2010/11/invasion-of-enemy-occupied-territory.html

[26] “Ballad of the Goodly Fere: https://poets.org/poem/ballad-goodly-fere

[27] Edict of Milan: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Edict-of-Milan

[28] “turn the other cheek”: https://aleteia.org/2017/02/22/jesus-didnt-turn-the-other-cheek-neither-should-you/

[29] Roman soldiery: https://gatesofnineveh.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/christians-in-the-roman-army-countering-the-pacifist-narrative/

[30] The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-germanization-of-early-medieval-christianity-9780195104660?cc=us&lang=en&

[31] The Dream of the Rood: https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/dream-of-the-rood/

[32] Beowulf: http://csis.pace.edu/grendel/projs1d/CHRIST.html

[33] Heliand: https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-ancient-writings/heliand-germanic-portrait-jesus-0011498

[34] Nine Worthies: https://www.gornahoor.net/?p=331

[35] Mystery of the Grail: http://cakravartin.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/Julius-Evola-The-Mystery-of-the-Grail.pdf

[36] destroyed: https://www.ancient.eu/Albigensian_Crusade/

[37] siege of Zara: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Zara

[38] sack of Constantinople: https://www.ancient.eu/article/1188/1204-the-sack-of-constantinople/

[39] De Laude Novae Militiae: https://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/344bern2.html

[40] Teutonic Order: https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Teutonic_Knights#:~:text=The%20Teutonic%20Knights%20have%20been%20known%20as%20Zakon,state%20of%20the%20Teutonic%20Knights%2C%20now%20Malbork%2C%20Poland.

[41] Men Among the Ruins: https://juliusevola.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/2-juliusevolamenamongtheruins.pdf

[42] muscular Christianity: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/when-christianity-was-muscular/

[43] Thomas Hughes: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26851/26851-h/26851-h.htm

[44] Knights of Columbus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Knights_of_Columbus

[45] sing: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.32000013003910&view=1up&seq=3

[46] Theodore Roosevelt: http://www.oldandsold.com/articles24/speaking-oak-45.shtml

[47] notes: https://clantubalcain.com/2014/09/25/michaelmas-3/

[48] Legion of St. Michael the Archangel: https://counter-currents.com/2011/04/codreanu-and-the-iron-guard/

[49] our Entropy page: https://entropystream.live/countercurrents

[50] sign up: https://counter-currents.com/2020/05/sign-up-for-our-new-newsletter/

jeudi, 01 octobre 2020

Titus Burckhardt: Compte rendu : « CAVALCARE LA TIGRE » (Chevaucher le Tigre)

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Ex: https://dinul-qayyim.over-blog.com

Compte rendu paru dans Etudes Traditionnelles juillet-octobre 1962

Par son récent livre intitulé Cavalcare la Tigre, Julius Evola veut montrer comment l'homme « naturellement traditionnel », c'est-à-dire conscient d'une réalité intérieure dépassant le plan des expériences individuelles, puisse non seulement survivre dans l'ambiance traditionnelle du monde moderne, mais encore l'employer à son propre but spirituel, selon la métaphore chinoise bien connue de l'homme qui chevauche le tigre : s'il ne s'en laisse pas désarçonner, il finira par en avoir raison.

51kteUI0tYL._SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_ML2_.jpgLe tigre, au sens qu'envisage Evola, c'est la force dissolvante et destructive qui entre en jeu vers la fin de tout cycle cosmique. En face d'elle, dit l'auteur, il serait vain de maintenir les formes et la structure d'une civilisation désormais révolue ; la seule chose qu'on peut faire, c'est de porter la négation au-delà de son point mort et de la faire aboutir, par une transposition consciente, non pas au néant mais à « un nouvel espace libre, qui sera peut-être la prémisse d'une nouvelle action formatrice ».

Le monde qui doit être nié parce qu'il est voué à la destruction, c'est avant tout la « civilisation matérialiste et bourgeoise » qui représente déjà en elle-même la négation d'un monde antérieur et supérieur. - Sur ce point, nous sommes d'accord avec l'auteur, mais nous constatons immédiatement qu'il ne distingue pas entre les formes propres à cette civilisation « bourgeoise » et l'héritage sacré qui survit en elle et malgré elle. De même, il semble englober dans le destin de cette civilisation tout ce qui subsiste des civilisations orientales, et cela également sans faire une distinction entre les structures sociales et leurs noyaux spirituels.
 
Nous reviendrons sur cette question. Relevons d'abord un autre aspect de ce livre : il s'agit de la critique souvent magistrale, des différents courants de la pensée moderne. Evola ne se place pas lui-même sur le terrain des discussions philosophiques, car cette philosophie moderne n'est plus une « science du vrai » ; – elle n'a même plus la prétention de l'être ; – il la considère comme un symptôme, comme un reflet mental d'une situation vitale et existentielle, essentiellement dominée par le désespoir : depuis qu'on a nié la dimension de la transcendance, il ne peut y avoir que des impasses ; il n'y a plus de sortie hors du cercle infernal du mental livré à lui-même ; tout ce qui reste, c'est la description de la propre défaite. Comme point de départ de cette analyse, l'auteur choisit la « philosophie » de Nietzsche, chez lequel il découvre un pressentiment des réalités transcendantes et comme une tentative de dépasser l'ordre purement mental, tentative vouée à l'échec par le manque d'une directive spirituelle.
 
Avec la même acuité, l'auteur analyse les fondements de la science moderne. De ce chapitre, nous citerons le passage suivant qui répond avec pertinence aux illusions spiritualistes de certains milieux scientifiques : « … De ce dernier point de vue, la science la plus récente n'a aucun avantage sur la science matérialiste d'hier. À l'aide des atomes et de la conception mécanique de l'univers, on pouvait encore s'imaginer quelque chose (bien que d'une manière très primitive) ; les entités de la dernière science physico-mathématique, par contre, sont absolument inimaginables ; elles ne constituent plus que les simples mailles d'un filet fabriqué et perfectionné non pas pour connaître au sens concret, intuitif et vivant du terme – c'est-à-dire selon le seul mode qui avait de la valeur pour une humanité non abâtardie –, mais uniquement pour avoir une prise pratique toujours plus grande, mais toujours extérieure, sur la nature qui, dans son fond, reste fermée à l'homme et mystérieuse plus qu'auparavant. Ses mystères ont seulement été « recouverts » ; le regard en a été distrait par les réalisations spectaculaires de la technique et de l'industrie, sur un plan où il ne s'agit plus de connaître le monde mais seulement de le transformer pour les buts d'une humanité devenue exclusivement terrestre... »
 

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« Répétons que c'est une mystification que de parler de la valeur spirituelle de la science récente parce qu'en elle, au lieu de matière, on parle d'énergie, parce qu'elle porte à voir dans la masse des irradiations coagulées, et quasi de la ''lumière congelée'' ou parce qu'elle envisage des espaces à plus de trois dimensions... Ce sont là des notions qui, une fois substituées à celles de la physique précédente, ne changent absolument rien à l'expérience que l'homme d'aujourd'hui peut avoir du monde... Quand on nous dit qu'il n'existe pas de matière mais seulement de l'énergie, que nous ne vivons pas dans un espace euclidien à trois dimensions, mais un espace ''courbé'' à quatre ou plus de dimensions, et ainsi de suite, les choses restent comme auparavant, mon expérience réelle n'est changée en rien, le sens dernier de ce que je vois – lumière, soleil, feu, mer, ciel, des plantes qui fleurissent, des êtres qui meurent –, le sens dernier de tout processus et phénomène n'est nullement devenu plus transparent pour moi. Il n'y a pas lieu de parler d'une connaissance qui transcende les apparences, qui connaisse en profondeur, au sens spirituel et vraiment intellectuel du terme... »

Non moins pertinentes sont les remarques de l'auteur sur les structures sociales et les arts dans le monde contemporain. Il nous faut cependant faire une réserve pour ce qui est de sa thèse de l'« asservissement de la force négative », appliqué à certains aspects de la vie moderne. Citons un exemple typique : « Les possibilités positives (du règne de la machine) ne peuvent concerner qu'une minorité exiguë, à savoir les êtres dans lesquels préexiste la dimension de la transcendance ou chez lesquels elle peut être réveillée... Eux seuls peuvent donner une toute autre valeur au ''monde sans âme'' des machines, de la technique et des métropoles modernes, en somme de tout ce qui est pure réalité et objectivité, qui apparaît froid, inhumain, menaçant, privé d'intimité, dépersonnalisant, ''barbare''. C'est précisément en acceptant entièrement cette réalité et ces processus que l'homme différencié pourra réaliser son essence et se former lui-même selon une équation personnelle valable... ».

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« Sous ce rapport, la machine même et tout ce qui, dans certains secteurs du monde moderne, a été formé selon les termes d'une pure fonctionnalité (notamment dans l'architecture) peut devenir symbole. En tant que symbole, la machine représente une forme née d'une équation exacte et objective des moyens à une fin, excluant tout ce qui est superflu, arbitraire, dispersant et subjectif ; c'est une forme qui réalise avec précision une idée (celle de la fin à laquelle elle est destinée). Sur son plan, elle reflète donc d'une certaine manière la valeur même que possédait, dans le monde classique, la pure forme géométrique, le nombre comme essence, de même que le principe dorique du rien de trop... ». Ici, l'auteur oublie que le symbole n'est pas une forme « objectivement adéquate » à n'importe quelle fin, mais une forme adéquate à une fin spirituelle ou à une essence intellectuelle ; s'il y a coïncidence, dans certains arts traditionnels, entre la conformité à un but pratique et la conformité au but spirituel, c'est que dans ce cas le premier ne contredit pas le second, ce qu'on ne saurait affirmer de la machine qui, elle, n'est pas concevable hors du contexte d'un monde désacralisé. En fait, la forme de la machine exprime exactement ce qu'elle est, à savoir une sorte de défi lancé à l'ordre cosmique et divin ; elle a beau être composée d'éléments géométriques « objectifs » tels que des cercles et des carrés, dans son ensemble et par son rapport – ou son non-rapport – avec l'ambiance cosmique, elle ne traduit pas une « idée platonique » mais bien une « coagulation mentale », voir une agitation ou une ruse. Il y a certes des cas-limites, comme celui d'une machine encore proche d'un simple outil, ou celui d'un navire moderne dont la forme épouse à un certain degré le mouvement de l'eau et du vent, mais ceci n'est qu'une conformité fragmentaire et ne contredit pas ce que nous venons de dire. Quant à l'architecture « fonctionnelle », y compris l'urbanisme moderne, elle ne peut être appelé « objective » que si l'on admet que sa fin même est objective, ce qui n'est évidemment pas le cas : toute architecture est coordonné à une certaine conception de la vie et de l'homme ; or Evola lui-même condamne le programme social sous-jacent à l'architecture moderne. En réalité, l' « objectivité » apparente de celle-ci n'est qu'une mystique à rebours, une sentimentalité congelée et déguisée en objectivité mathématique ; l'on a d'ailleurs vu combien vite cette attitude se convertit, chez ses protagonistes, en un subjectivisme des plus arbitraires et des plus flottants.
 
Certes, il n'existe pas de forme totalement retranchée de son archétype éternel ; mais cette loi trop générale ne saurait être invoquée ici, et cela pour la raison suivante : pour qu'une forme soit un symbole, il faut qu'elle se situe dans un certain ordre hiérarchique par rapport à l'homme. Distinguons, pour être précis, trois aspects du symbolisme inhérent aux choses : le premier se réduit à l'existence même d'une forme, et en ce sens, toute chose manifeste son origine céleste ; le second aspect est le sens d'une forme, sa portée intellectuelle, soit à l'intérieur d'un système donné, soit encore en elle-même par son caractère plus ou moins essentiel et prototypique ; enfin, il y a l'efficacité spirituelle du symbole qui présuppose chez l'homme qui l'utilise, une conformité à la fois psychique et rituelle à une certaine tradition.

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Nous avons insisté sur ce point, parce que Julius Evola méconnaît l'importance cruciale d'un rattachement traditionnel, tout en admettant la possibilité d'un développement spirituel spontané ou irrégulier, guidé par une sorte d'instinct inné et éventuellement actualisé par l'acceptation de la crise du monde actuel comme une catharsis délivrante. C'est là presque l'unique perspective qui resterait ouverte à l' « homme différencié » de nos temps, car l'appartenance à une religion se réduit, pour Evola, à l'intégration dans un milieu collectif plus ou moins décadent, tandis que la possibilité d'une initiation régulière serait à écarter : « ...Retenons que de nos jours, elle (cette possibilité) doit être pratiquement exclue ou presque, par suite de l'inexistence quasi complète des organisations respectives. Si les organisations de ce genre ont toujours eu, en Occident, un caractère plus ou moins souterrain à cause du caractère de la religion qui parvint à y prédominer et de ses initiatives de répression et de persécution, elles ont entièrement disparu dans les derniers temps. En ce qui concerne d'autres régions, l'Orient surtout, ces organisations y sont devenues toujours plus rares et inaccessibles, à moins que les forces dont elles étaient les véhicules n'aient été retirées d'elles, parallèlement au processus général de dégénérescence et de modernisation qui a fini par envahir même ces régions. De nos jours, même l'Orient n'est plus capable de donner autre chose que des dérivés ou un ''régime de résidus'' ; on est forcé de l'admettre rien qu'en considérant le niveau spirituel des Asiatiques qui ont commencé à exporter et à divulguer chez nous la sagesse orientale... »
 
Ce dernier jugement n'est absolument pas concluant : si les Asiatiques en question étaient les vrais représentants des traditions orientales, les divulgueraient-ils ? Mais supposons qu'Evola ait raison avec son jugement des organisations traditionnelles en tant que groupements humains : sa façon de voir n'en comporte pas moins une grave erreur d'optique, car aussi longtemps qu'une tradition conserve intactes ses formes essentielles, elle ne cesse d'être le garant d'une influence spirituelle – ou d'une grâce divine – dont l'action, si elle n'est pas toujours apparente, dépasse incommensurablement tout ce qui est dans le pouvoir de l'homme. Nous savons bien qu'il existe des méthodes ou des voies, comme le Zen, qui se fondent sur le ''pouvoir de soi-même'' et qui se distinguent en cela d'autres voies se fondant sur le ''pouvoir de l'autre'', c'est-à-dire en dehors du cadre formel d'une tradition donnée. Le Zen notamment, qui offre peut-être, l'exemple le plus saillant d'une spiritualité non formelle, est parfaitement, et même particulièrement, conscient de la valeur des formes sacrées. On dépasse les formes, non en les rejetant d'avance, mais en les intégrant dans leurs essences supra-formelles.  

D'ailleurs, Evola défnit lui-même la fonction médiatrice de la forme quand il parle du rôle du « type » spirituel, qu'il oppose à l'individu ou à la « personnalité » au sens profane et moderne du terme : « Le type (la tipicità) représente le point de contact entre l'individuel et le supraindividuel, la limite entre les deux correspondant à une forme parfaite. Le type désindividualise, en ce sens que la personne incarne alors essentiellement une idée, une loi, une fonction... ». L'auteur précise bien que le type spirituel se situe normalement dans le cadre d'une tradition, mais il ne conclut pas, apparemment, à la nature typique, c'est-à-dire implicitement supraindividuelle, de toute forme sacrée, sans doute parce qu'il n'envisage pas ce que les religions monothéistes appellent révélation. Or, il est inconséquent d'admettre la « dimension transcendante » de l'être – autrement dit la participation effective de l'intellect humain à l'intellect universel – sans admettre également la révélation, c'est-à-dire la manifestation de cet Intellect ou Esprit en formes objectives. Il y a un rapport rigoureux entre la nature supraformelle, libre et indéterminée de l'Esprit et son expression spontanée – donc « donnée par le Ciel » – en des formes nécessairement déterminée et immuables. Par leur origine, qui est illimitée et inexhaustible, les formes sacrées, bien que limitées et « arrêtées », sont les véhicules d'influences spirituelles, donc de virtualités d'infini, et à cet égard il est tout à fait impropre de parler d'une tradition dont il n'existerait plus que la forme, l'esprit s'étant retiré d'elle comme l'âme a quitté un cadavre : la mort d'une tradition commence toujours par la corruption de ses formes essentielles.

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Selon toutes les prophéties, le dépôt sacré de la Tradition intégrale subsistera jusqu'à la fin du cycle ; cela signifie qu'il y aura toujours quelque part une porte ouverte. Pour les hommes capables de dépasser le plan des écorces et animés d'une volonté singulière, ni la décadence du monde environnant, ni l'appartenance à tel peuple ou tel milieu, ne constituent des obstacles absolus.  

Quaerite et invenietis.

Revenons un instant au titre du livre d'Evola : l'adage qu'il faut « chevaucher le tigre » si l'on ne veut pas être déchiré par lui, comporte évidemment un sens tantrique ; le tigre est alors l'image de la force passionnelle qu'il faut dompter. On peut se demander si cette métaphore convient réellement à l'attitude de l'homme spirituel à l'égard des tendances destructives du monde moderne : remarquons d'abord que n'importe quoi n'est pas un « tigre » ; derrières les tendances et les formes que Julius Evola envisage, nous ne trouverons aucune force naturelle et organique, aucune shakti dispensatrice de puissance et de beauté ; or, l'homme spirituel peut utiliser rajas, mais il doit rejeter tamas ; enfin il y a des formes et des attitudes qui sont incompatibles avec la nature intime de l'homme spirituel et avec les rythmes de toute spiritualité. En réalité, ce ne sont pas les caractères particuliers, artificiels et hybrides du monde moderne qui peuvent nous servir de support spirituel, mais bien ce qui, dans ce monde, est de tous les temps.

Titus Burckhardt

lundi, 21 septembre 2020

The Puritan Legacy Birthed the American Creed

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The Puritan Legacy Birthed the American Creed

Secularized Calvinist beliefs about the elect now animate progressive causes
 
Ex: https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org

Right-wing critics of Christianity often quote from The Hour of Decision, the last work of a once widely read German historian of philosophy, Oswald Spengler. This short, graphically composed book was published in 1933, the year Adolf Hitler took power in Germany. Although it has never been proven, there is a suspicion that the Nazi government disposed of this onetime hero of the right, who did not hide his contempt for Hitler or his “plebeian” followers. Spengler supposedly referred to Christianity as the “Bolshevism of antiquity,” and today’s neo-pagan Alt-Right has picked up his description to justify its contempt for Christianity as a proto-socialist religion of slaves.

9625631987.jpgHaving found the original statement in the German text, which I own, I am not sure the Alt-Right has interpreted Spengler’s drift correctly. The author is not expressing contempt for the primitive church but rather viewing it as a prototype for revolutionary movements. Spengler correctly suggests that Marx, Engels, and the Bolsheviks, despite their pretension to being “scientific socialists,” viewed the early church as a model for their own movement; as did the French anarchist Georges Sorel, who thought his labor-class revolutionary movement needed a “redemptive myth” as powerful as the one that animated early Christians.

In Christianity, Spengler and Sorel saw a religion of the downtrodden—though they may have exaggerated the predominance of slaves and the poor in early Christianity—one which practiced communal ownership as it awaited the end of human history. Moreover, after an initial persecution and the killing of martyrs, this religious community managed to become the official religion of the Roman Empire. All other revolutionaries on the left, as opposed to revolutionary nationalists on the right (who were heavily influenced by neo-paganism), found lessons in the ascent of the early church from its humble beginnings.

Christians themselves later looked back at how their church rose from these blood-stained, painful beginnings to become a dominant world religion. They ascribed this course of events to divine Providence. Sometimes, as in the writings of St. Augustine, the trials would have to be endured by the faithful until the end of secular history. But there was an upward course in which the founding of the church presaged the end times, when Christ would return.

The centrality of this founding and its institutional arrangements played an even larger role for radical Protestants. Sects like the German Anabaptists in the 16th century and the Fifth Monarchy Men during the English Civil War in the 17th century believed they were living in a final historical age and that their attempted return to the primitive church was being undertaken in preparation for Christ’s Second Coming. Among such sectarians, of whom there were many in early modern Europe, going back to the early church was essential to their plans.

Indeed, much of the Protestant Reformation was about returning to a purer form of Christianity before papal councils and institutions borrowed from the pagan world were thought to have corrupted the true faith. Significantly for Luther and other earlier Reformers, the “fall of the church” was not seen to have occurred in the early centuries. This fall was mostly identified with the High Middle Ages and papal monarchical pretensions. But for the more radical Anabaptists, Christendom had already fallen into grievous error when the church leaders gave power over its deliberations and decisions to Roman emperors. The early church had remained uncorrupted because it was separated from political power.

41834462._SY475_.jpgA different model, however, became prevalent in Puritanism, especially after this religious movement traveled to the New World. Perry Miller’s classic study Errand into the Wilderness (1956), leaves no doubt about the overshadowing presence of the ancient Hebrews on Puritan society and religion. The New Israelites—which is how the Puritans envisioned themselves—were bound by a covenant, just as the ancient Jews had been under the covenant of Abraham and Moses. Just as the Hebrews had gone forth from bondage to settle the Holy Land, so too were their Puritan successors summoned into the North American wilderness to carry out a divine mandate. They were to establish their own community of believers where they would build the godly city on the hill as the New Jerusalem. Puritan sermons and political ordinances are so permeated with Hebrew and Old Testament images and phrases that their borrowings from an earlier chosen people are unmistakable. Harvard, Yale, and other originally Puritan institutions encouraged the study of biblical Hebrew, and the most common Christian names given to both sexes were taken from Hebrew Scripture.

In considering why these early American settlers were so mesmerized by the example of the ancient Hebrews, we might look at the European Calvinists from whom they were theologically descended. Like the American Puritans, Protestant followers of John Calvin strongly rejected the tradition of Roman authority they found in the Catholic Church. For them, the Catholics were too heavily influenced in their authority structure and canon law by Roman paganism. The early Protestants felt it necessary to return to the Bible as a guide for building a Christian society.

Calvinists also believed that salvation came through unmerited divine election. Since all humans had fallen away from God with the sin of Adam, no mortal could earn grace through his own efforts. Indeed, any sense that humans earned grace was mere vanity on our parts, for outside of God’s will, which was inscrutable to man, there could be no salvation. Yet those who were elected had a sense of being saved and lived in a manner that comported with the undeserved grace that had been ascribed to them by an all-knowing and all-powerful Deity.

Particularly revealing for the Calvinists in general were the passages in Deuteronomy, in which the Israelites are shown two paths, either obedience to divine commandments, which will result in blessings for the people, or falling away, which will bring collective curses. In this narrative, the Puritans and other Calvinists saw the paths that were laid out for their own lives. If they grasped the signs of divine election and acted accordingly, they would prosper; if they were among the sinners, they would suffer in this life and in the next. 

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Like their ancient model, the Calvinists strongly focused on signs of divine favor or divine disfavor in this life. Preparing for the next life was not a particularly rewarding task for those who never knew for sure whether they belonged “in that number when the saints go marching in.” No matter how hard the Puritans tried to believe they were in “that number,” some doubt probably lingered in their minds. That black spiritual about the saints marching in, which first began to be sung about a hundred years ago, refers to the end times, not to the afterlife. 

Millenarianism, which refers to a preoccupation with the thousand-year kingdom that would usher in Christ’s rule, became a recognizable part of American Protestant culture. Although tonier Calvinist denominations, like Congregationalists and Presbyterians, moved away from such speculative points, less upper-class denominations like Southern Baptists absorbed them. Such speculation about the end times drew from the Hebrew prophets and the Book of Daniel, as well as from the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. It also became strongly associated with an American brand of Protestantism. It was one in which fevered debates took place between Pre- and Post-Millenarians, those who believed that Christ would return before the end of secular history and those who believed that humanity would first have to endure “the tribulations” before Christ returned. 

A Calvinist legacy, with a strong Old Testament orientation, and various forms of millenarianism shaped American culture and politics. A once-deeply-embedded Protestant work ethic, which originated in Calvinist moral theology; an emphasis on public morality, the content of which went back to the Mosaic law; and a view of religion as above all an individual commitment, have roots in America’s Calvinist founding. The willingness to tolerate religious dissenters, which by the late 18th century had become a more-or-less prevalent American view, also went back to the Protestant idea that religion depended on the individual’s experience of faith, independent of priestly mediation or hierarchical structures.

Finally, republican government fit with the Calvinist-Puritan historical experience. In Europe, Catholic and High Church Anglican monarchs had opposed the proliferation of Protestant sects and had often been at war with the Calvinists. When James I tried to unite the Anglican and Presbyterian confessions in the late 16th century, the deal breaker was the Scottish Calvinist refusal to accept the office of bishop. To which James famously and presciently responded, “No bishop, no king.” The political and ecclesiastical chain of command understandably went together in the king’s mind.

Portrait_of_John_Calvin,_French_School.jpgThese Protestant traditions have served the American people well. Religious freedom but not indifferentism, the enforcement of strong communal moral standards, and the expectation that the young will apply themselves diligently to their work and study as a religious act, have all benefited our country. So have the Calvinist Protestant suspicion of power in the hands of earthly princes and an awareness of the need to rein in such political actors. One need not denigrate other political or religious traditions that suit other societies to recognize the strengths of what has worked well in this country. It is also the case that the Puritan-Calvinist value of teaching the young to study biblical and classical languages was a spur to education and the founding of great universities in early America.

Still, the Protestant legacy has had its problematic side, much of which is related to the idea of divine election. At least in American politics, it has expressed itself in a moral arrogance that has nurtured a missionary foreign policy from which our country cannot seem to break free. Martin E. Marty, a Lutheran scholar, entitled his history of American Protestantism Righteous Empire (1970). The American government’s relation with other countries has usually meant trying to export our “democratic values” and “human rights” while making others more like ourselves. That means stressing whatever our dominant values are at any given time, be it traditional Judeo-Christian morality or LGBT self-expression. But whatever those rights and values are, they are supposedly universally valid because they come from an “exceptional nation” (read: Calvin’s ingathering of the elect); and it has been America’s destiny to become “a city on a hill,” albeit not in the manner intended by Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts who constructed that phrase in the 17th century. We end wars against the wicked with demands for unconditional surrender and then we hold war trials so that our virtues can stand out more brightly in relation to those reprobates whom we have just defeated.

Kurth.jpgCalvinist scholar James Kurth (photo) once defined “the American Creed” that dominated American views of international relations in the 20th century as a degraded form of American Protestant theology:

The elements of the American Creed were free markets and equal opportunity, free elections and liberal democracy, and constitutionalism and the rule of law. The American Creed definitely did not include as elements hierarchy, community, tradition, and custom. Although the American Creed was not itself Protestant, it was clearly the product of a Protestant culture—a sort of secularized version of Protestantism…

Although Kurth views this American missionary politics as peculiarly American and as a “declension of the Reformation,” he also stresses its rootedness in the individualism and repugnance for hierarchy that came out of older Protestant thinking. This creed is intolerant of societies and countries that display traditional ways of life. It requires redeemed Americans to raise the less fortunate or perverse out of their degraded conditions. According to Kurth, one has yet to figure out how to keep the Protestant baby while disposing of the unwanted bathwater. But as the American Creed has become more widespread, much of its original Protestant character has eroded. Today, Protestants are far from the only ones boasting about American exceptionalism and an American mission.

Paul Gottfried

Paul Gottfried is Editor in Chief of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. He is also the Raffensperger Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Elizabethtown College, where he taught for 25 years. He is a Guggenheim recipient and a Yale Ph.D. He is the author of 13 books, most recently Fascism: Career of a Concept and Revisions and Dissents.

jeudi, 17 septembre 2020

Immobile Warriors: Evola’s Post-War Career from the Perspective of Neville’s New Thought

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Immobile Warriors:
Evola’s Post-War Career from the Perspective of Neville’s New Thought

What has got to be gotten over is the false idea that a hallucination is a private matter.

— P. K. Dick [1] [1]

There is no fiction. What is fiction today will be a fact tomorrow. A book written as a fictional story today comes out of the imagination of the one who wrote it, and will become a fact in the tomorrows.

— Neville [2] [2]

4127dlLdp6L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpgGianfranco de Turris’ newly translated book on Julius Evola’s war years [3] [3] is a veritable secret archive of obscure and obscured information on Evola’s activities in the last two years of the Second World War and the immediate aftermath, all of which is used by the author to throw light on many occurrences that have remained poorly documented and, inevitably, subject to more or less informed speculation, if not outright gossip.

One of these is the injury Evola received in Vienna, which left him an invalid for the remainder of his life. Collin Cleary, in his review [4], gives a nice summary:

On January 21, 1945, Evola decided to take a walk through the streets of Vienna during an aerial bombardment by the Americans (and not the Soviets, as has been erroneously claimed). While he was in the vicinity of Schwarzenbergplatz, a bomb fell nearby, throwing Evola several feet and knocking him unconscious. He was found and taken to a military hospital. When the philosopher awoke hours later, the first thing he did was to ask what had become of his monocle. Once the doctors had finished looking him over, the news was not good. Evola was found to have a contusion of the spinal cord which left him with complete paralysis from the waist down. As Mircea Eliade notoriously said, the injury was roughly at the level of “the third chakra.” It resulted in Evola being categorized as a “100-percent war invalid,” which afforded him the small pension he received for the rest of his life.

An all-too-common tragedy of wartime. Yet with Evola, nothing is so simple. Speculation and rumor have swirled around this incident. If this is how Evola was injured, why was he engaged in such an apparently suicidal act (and indeed, “taking a walk . . . during an aerial bombardment” was actually a habit with him)? And if it wasn’t the cause, what was? As in the title of de Turris’ book, Evola is known as not only a philosopher but a magician: surely something spookier was involved? And indeed, since Evola was apparently in Vienna to examine Masonic documents, including rituals, the latter of which he intended to “rectify” and purify of anti-traditional elements, the idea of his being injured by an esoteric ritual gone wrong becomes possible (if one takes such things seriously).

De Turris deals with all these issues magisterially and has surely produced a definitive account (unless more documents turn up; he is a scrupulous scholar who admits when something is still unclear, and corrects his own earlier accounts when new information has appeared).

One amazing bit of information de Turris provides concerns novelizations of Evola’s situation, which inevitably take the Dan Brown path of giving magical accounts; no less than three, and two of them by Mircea Eliade! Both Il segerto del Graal by Paolo Virio (1955) and Diciannove rose by Eliade (1978) appeared after the incident (and in Eliade’s case after Evola’s death). The third novel, the first of Eliade’s two, is the most interesting; here is de Turris’ description:

It is also necessary to make reference to another novel by the Romanian author that is a most bewildering coincidence if not a real prophecy. Upon his return from his stay in India in 1931, Mircea Eliade would write some novels and short stories within that setting with its appropriate allusions; among this literary output is Il Segreto del Dottor Honigberger, published in 1940. The protagonist was a Saxon physician in the 1800s who had really existed. It first appeared in two parts in a magazine and a few months later, slightly but significantly expanded, in the form of a book accompanied by Notti a Serampore. The author makes reference to an inexperienced disciple who has remained paralyzed for having not known to thoroughly master the knowledge of his own discoveries on the spiritual plane when seeking to perfect a “yoga initiation.” The stupefying fact is that the name of this tragic character is J. E.! The young Mircea Eliade had known Julius Evola in Rome during his travels to Italy in the years 1927 to 1928, which was at the time of the Ur Group, and maintained a correspondence with him when he was in India. Is it perhaps possible that he just might have named the unfortunate spiritual researcher with the abbreviation J. E., since he was impressed by his personality and by his “occult” interests? Whatever it might be, the paralysis is described five years before the bombardment of Vienna, and the antecedents ascribed to it are the very rumors that surrounded Evola once he returned to Italy in 1951. Eliade probably had only learned of it on the occasion of another journey to the Italian Peninsula, where in 1952 he had another encounter with Evola. Or perhaps even after having only read Il cammino del cinabro [Evola gifted him a copy of the first edition in 1963]. Hence he consciously and deliberately made use of this for Diciannove rose. But to write of it before it had ever occurred in 1940. . . . [Author’s ellipsis, for spooky effect?]

So the stunning aspect in these novels is that both the authors, Paolo Virio and Mircea Eliade, knew what they were talking about. Both could boast of having sufficient experiences with initiatic methodologies, and both had long-lasting personal friendships with Julius Evola. . . . Had they deemed as insufficient the explanation of the bombing, considering it to be too prosaic, too banal for someone like him? And so they dreamed up in an equally effective and powerful evocation to describe the protagonist in their works.

EldritchEvola-KindleCoverB-200x300.jpgYou can buy James O’Meara’s book The Eldritch Evola here. [5]

Perhaps, but we should note again that this novel was published in 1940, “five years before the bombardment of Vienna, and the antecedents ascribed to [his injury] are the very rumors that surrounded Evola once he returned to Italy in 1951.” Surely a coincidence, says the man of common sense. Yet of course, Evola himself was not such a dreary man of sense, and as we’ll see he was certainly open to such esoteric interpretations.

Consider this [6]: Futility is a novella written by Morgan Robertson and published as Futility in 1898, and revised as The Wreck of the Titan in 1912.

It features a fictional British ocean liner Titan that sinks in the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg. Titan and its sinking are famous for similarities to the passenger ship RMS Titanic and its sinking fourteen years later. After the sinking of Titanic, the novel was reissued with some changes, particularly in the ship’s gross tonnage.

Although the novel was written before RMS Titanic was even conceptualized, there are some uncanny similarities between the fictional and real-life versions. Like Titanic, the fictional ship sank in April in the North Atlantic, and there were not enough lifeboats for all the passengers. There are also similarities in size (800 ft [244 m] long for Titan versus 882 ft 9 in [269 m] long for the Titanic), speed, and life-saving equipment. After the Titanic’s sinking, some people credited Robertson with precognition and clairvoyance, which he denied. Scholars attribute the similarities to Robertson’s extensive knowledge of shipbuilding and maritime trends.

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As it happens, I was alerted to this historical oddity a while ago as a result of reading one of Neville’s lectures, “Seedtime and Harvest,” which articulates the principle that “there is no fiction [7].”

14 years before the actual harvest or that frightful event of the sinking of the Titanic a man in England wrote a book. He conceived this fabulous Atlantic liner and there he built her just like the Titanic, (only the Titanic was not built for 14 years) but he, in his imagination, conceived the liner of 800-ft. She was triple screw, she carried 3000 passengers, she carried few lifeboats because she was unsinkable; she could make 24 knots; and then one night he filled her to the brim with rich and complacent people, and on a cold winter night he sunk her on an iceberg in the Atlantic. 14 years later the White Star Line builds a ship. She is 800 ft., she is a triple screw, she can make 24 knots, she can carry 3000 passengers, she has not enough lifeboats for passengers but she, too, is labeled unsinkable. She is filled to capacity with the rich, if not complacent, but the rich, because her passenger list was worth in that day, when the dollar was one hundred cents, two hundred and fifty million dollars was the worth of the passenger list. Today [1956] it would be a billion dollars. All the wealth of Europe and the wealth of this country was sailing on that maiden voyage out of Southampton. Five nights at sea in this wonderful glorious ship and she went down on a cold April night on an iceberg.

Now that man wrote a book either to get something off his chest because he disliked the rich and the complacent, or he thought it might sell or he thought this is the means of bringing him a dollar as a writer. But, whatever was the motive behind his book which, by the way, he called Futility to show the utter futility of accumulated wealth, but the identical ship was built 14 years later and carried the same kind of a passenger list and went down in the same manner as the fictional ship.

Is there any fiction? There is no fiction! Tomorrow’s world is today’s fiction. Today’s world was yesteryear’s fiction — the dreams of men of yesteryear. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could talk with someone across space and just use a wire? And I couldn’t see that one: it would be a mile away beyond the range of my voice — then maybe five miles and maybe a thousand miles — fantastic dreams — then they came true. When they came true, suppose I could do it without the means of a wire. And it came true; suppose now I could do it not just in an audio sense but in a video sense. Suppose I could be seen? And that came true, but when they were conceived, they were all fictional, all unreal.

And how can this be [8]?

Now, am I responsible for others in my world? I certainly am! When I take my little mind, my little imagination and think because it’s mine — my Father gave it to me, that I can simply misuse it, it isn’t going to hurt another. I tell you you do have to use more control for the simple reason I am rooted in you and you are rooted in everyone and all of us are rooted in God. There is no separate individual detached being in my Father’s Kingdom. We are one. I am completely responsible for the use or misuse of my imagination.

Now, I’m sure all this just sticks in the craw of those self-styled “rationalists” or “materialists” out there (including many who idolize the political Evola and wish everyone would forget about all that magical stuff). I won’t try to gainsay that here, but as I said above, Evola certainly agreed with this basic idea (without going the full “we are all one” New Age route politically), [4] [9] and I think it’s worthwhile to put our rationalism “in parentheses,” as the phenomenologists would say [10], and explore some of the ramifications.

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What Neville’s talking about is an extension of the notion of magical combat into the realm of the involuntary or accidental — as if you gave a monkey a machine gun. [5] [11] Guénon believed he himself had been paralyzed for six months due to such a magical attack in 1939, recovering only when an “evil influence” was deported from Egypt. On this basis, he suggested Evola “reflect upon it” and “see if something similar could not have been around you.” [6] [12] As Evola later recalled,

I told Guénon that a similar attack would be an unlikely cause in my case, not least because an extraordinarily powerful spell would have been necessary to cause such damage; for the spell would have had to determine a whole series of objective events, including the occurrence of the bombing raid, and the time and place in which the bombs were dropped. [7] [13]

Evola’s reasoning here is interesting, because Neville addresses exactly this point, and denies it; in fact, rejecting it is a key part of his “method for changing the future.” [8] [14] One is to imagine the end, being in the state of the desire satisfied; not the means. To dwell on the means is unnecessary and even counterproductive, as thereby one remains in the state of lack; [9] [15] instead, when the future state is imagined so clearly as to feel real, the larger world itself will arrange things in ways you could never have imagined. A “bridge of incidents” will be constructed for you to cross; your materialist friends will point to this sequence of “objective” events and call it “coincidence,” and claim it would have happened anyway. Indeed, since most of us have little control over our thoughts, we may have no recollection of the idle thought in the past that led to a current situation. [10] [16]

The more careful one is with what thoughts we allow ourselves to entertain, and the more outlandish the apparent means used to bring about a desired outcome, the more likely one is to make the leap from mere coincidence to meaningful coincidence — i.e. synchronicity.

Thus, Neville’s stories tend to involve improbable means; in his most famous story, “How Abdullah Taught Neville the Law [17],” Neville’s hoped-for escape from a New York City winter occurs when his brother “decides” to have to whole family together for Christmas, and sends him a ticket and expenses for a voyage back to Barbados. [11] [18] The family business — today’s massive Caribbean conglomerate, Goddard Enterprises [19] — is founded when, after his brother spends two years of lunch hours gazing at a business rival’s building, imagining his family name on the side, a stranger, “looking for a better return on his savings,” walks up with an offer to buy him the building [20]. His two brothers visit New York and want to see a sold-out production of Aida; Neville goes to the Met box office, foils a con man (because Neville’s tall enough to look over the man’s shoulder and recognize the short change scam he’s “attempting”), and is rewarded with VIP tickets [21].

I’ve used scare quotes because in each case a third party — brother, stranger, con man — thinks he is just going about his business, exercising his free will, when actually they are essential parts in the bridge of incidents invoked by Neville himself.

On the other hand, the lack of specific means — “a way you could never imagine” — leaves open the possibility of foul play. Neville consoles a follower who had wished to be rid of neighbor — who (consequently?) dies. [12] [22] Another listener asks point-blank if one can wish for someone’s death, and Neville sort of side steps in his answer: no one really wants someone to die, just to go away, which could involve a change of jobs or retirement to Florida. [13] [23] In general, one should only wish for the best, not only for oneself but for others — who, after all, are us as well. [14] [24]

In any event, there is no need to try to determine if someone, perhaps Eliade, launched a magical attack on Evola, perhaps inadvertently; Evola himself attributed a different, though related, supervening cause. Perhaps the best way to shift gears here is to again aver to our skeptical readers, who have no doubt already asked themselves: well, if Evola was such a great magician, why didn’t he just heal himself?

Remarkably, De Turris presents evidence that Evola simply didn’t want to. [15] [25] He quotes the recollections of a distinguished Orientalist:

“One day, probably in 1952, Colazza, Scaligero, and I had been to see Evola in his apartment in Corso Vittorio. I had noticed that Evola could move his legs, despite the paralysis that we knew he had. After visiting, we left Evola’s house. As we went down the stairs, I heard Scaligero saying to Colazza: ‘But Evola could not. . . .’ As he was talking about certain practices, a certain subtle operation, a kind of exercise to which Colazza answered suddenly, in an almost clipped tone: ‘Of course he could! But he doesn’t! He does not want to do it.’”

The professor was convinced that Evola could have resolved his partial invalidity, if he were willing to practice some exercises on the etheric or subtle body that were most definitely known by Colazza, Scaligero, and Evola himself. The reason why Evola did not want to operate in this direction remains a mystery and, for Professor Filippani, even this fact goes back to Evola’s “peculiar bad character.”

The abrupt but anguished response from the anthroposophist, Dr. Colazza, who the philosopher had asked for advice and explanations about his disability, makes it clear Evola possessed psychospiritual resources and an immeasurable inner being on the subtle plane to the point that he could “self-heal.” But he did not want to do it. One must ask why?

edb21aa27bdc8120f66092847c81f7ec--fantasy-weapons-vampire-armor.jpgIndeed, we must; surely the only thing stranger than someone walking around during an aerial bombardment is that same person refusing to “self-heal.” What the professor calls Evola’s “bad character” was his stubborn refusal to take an interest in anything, however important, that, in fact, did not currently interest him; a character flaw he no doubt considered part of his prerogative as either an aristocrat or a genius. In particular, the three Anthroposophists who visited him may have tried to have him accept their assistance through what Evola’s UR group would have called a “magical chain,” [16] [26] exactly the sort of outside cause we have seen Neville discuss. [17] [27]

De Turris, however, suggests a more developed reason, which also brings us back to Neville. In a letter from 1947, Evola writes:

What is not clear to me is the purpose of the whole thing: I had in fact the idea — the belief if you want to call it, naive — that [when testing fate] one either dies or reawakens. The meaning of what has happened to me is one of confusion: neither one nor the other motive.

Evola will expand on this in The Path of Cinnabar:

What happened to me constitutes an answer that however wasn’t at all easy to interpret. Nothing changed, everything was reduced to a purely physical impediment that, aside from the practical annoying concerns and certain limitations of profane life, it neither affected nor effected me at all, my spiritual and intellectual activity not being in any way whatever altered or undermined. The traditional doctrine that in my writings I have often had the opportunity to expound — the one according to which there is no significant event in existence that was not wanted by us before birth — is also that of which I am intimately convinced, and such a doctrine I cannot but apply it also to the contingency now referred to. In reminding myself why I had wanted it is to however grasp its deepest meaning for the whole of my existence: this would have been, therefore, the only important thing, much more important than my recovery, to which I haven’t given any special weight. . . . But in this regard the fog has not yet lifted. Meanwhile, I have calmly adjusted myself to the situation, thinking humorously sometimes that perhaps this has to do with gods who have made the weight of their hands felt a little too heavy for my having joked around with them. [18] [28]

For some reason de Turris elides the following passage after “weight,” which seems to state the whole issue in a nutshell:

Besides, as I saw it, had I been capable of grasping the “memory” of such a wish by the light of knowledge, I would no doubt also have been capable of removing the physical handicap itself — if I had wished to.

The idea of our making a choice before birth – which Evola contrasts to mere amor fati, a la Nietzsche – can be found at least as far back as Plato’s Myth of Er [29]. [19] [30] And here again we can find a parallel with Neville’s teachings.

Unlike most New Thought teachers, who either rely on an accepted Christian terminology, or else posit a vague sort of Original Substance, Formless Substance, Formless Stuff, Thinking Substance, or Thinking Stuff, [20] [31] Neville offered something of an explanation, principally in the previously cited Out of This World: Thinking Fourth-Dimensionally [32]:

At every moment of our lives we have before us the choice of which of several futures we will choose. [21] [33]

How on Earth is that supposed to happen? Well, speaking of “Earth,” Neville posits a four-dimensional universe. [22] [34] The fourth dimension of course is time, and each of us — like everything in this three-dimensional world — is a sort of cross-section of a higher, fourth-dimensional being. Through the faculty of imagination — by a kind of controlled dreaming — one can rise to a level at which the whole time-line is laid out before us; we can both see the already determined future, and, by concentrated thought, enter it, and alter it.

918YDe-tmfL.jpgRemember when we were talking about not worrying about the means? It’s the fourth-dimensional self that takes care of them, having means available we know not of.

The method works, because it is, in fact, “the mechanism used in the production of the visible world.” Mitch Horowitz uses quantum physics to explain this:

Neville likewise taught that the mind creates multiple and coexistent realities. Everything already exists in potential, he said, and through our thoughts and feelings we select which outcome we ultimately experience. Indeed, Neville saw man as some quantum theorists see the observer taking measurements in the particle lab, effectively determining where a subatomic particle will actually appear as a localized object. Moreover, Neville wrote that everything and everyone that we experience is rooted in us, as we are ultimately rooted in God. Man exists in an infinite cosmic interweaving of endless dreams of reality — until the ultimate realization of one’s identity as Christ.

In an almost prophetic observation in 1948, he told listeners: “Scientists will one day explain why there is a serial universe. But in practice, how you use this serial universe to change the future is more important.” More than any other spiritual teacher, Neville created a mystical correlate to quantum physics. [23] [35]

Neville has taken Evola’s “naïve idea” and projected it beyond a single, prenatal moment and onto every moment of our subsequent life. [24] [36] Evola believed “this truth should be sufficient to render all events that appear tragic and obscure less dramatic; for — as the Eastern saying goes — ‘life on Earth is but a journey in the hours of the night’: as such life is merely one episode set in a far broader framework that extends before and beyond life.” [25] [37] And for Neville, “This world, which we think so solidly real, is a shadow out of which and beyond which we may at any time pass.” [26] [38]

What, then, was the meaning of Evola’s injury, what he calls “the purpose of the whole thing”? De Turris admits this “has always remained a personal, private mystery, clearly and definitely one that is internal,” but tries to essay an “external response” based on “what happened after the end of the war.”

This man, immobilized in bed, wrote letters and articles with a copying pencil on a lectern placed leaning in front of him or at the typewriter seated at the desk in front of the window. After having been an “active” personality in every sense of the word, culturally and worldly, a mountaineer and traveler about the whole of Europe, he now engaged his intellectual and spiritual forces for those who, starting in the late forties, thought of reconstructing something. He used his symbolic vision, present since his first letters to friends back in 1946, “among the ruins” in Europe and Italy. He used a political movement of the right that kept in mind not only the negative but also the positive lessons of Fascism and National Socialism, in the way Evola and others had envisioned it to be after July 25 and September 8. An “immobile warrior,” as he was defined by his French biographer in an effective and suggestive image, and which — not without equivocations and misunderstandings — was an example for everyone. [27] [39]

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You can buy James O’Meara’s book Green Nazis in Space! here. [40]

In short, Evola turned from direct engagement with the world to an attempt to influence and, moreover, inspire the next generation of European youth, the “men among the ruins,” still standing; or Spengler’s Roman soldier buried under the ashes of Pompeii because he was never ordered to leave.

Indeed, such was his influence that “he was tried by the Italian democracy for ‘defending Fascism,’ ‘attempting to reconstitute the dissolved Fascist Party’ and being the ‘“master’ and ‘inspirer’ of young Neo-Fascists. Like Socrates, he was accused of not worshipping the gods of the democracy and corrupting youth.” [28] [41] As John Morgan says, he became “something of a guru to the various Right-wing and neo-fascist groups which emerged in Italy in the first three decades after the war.” [29] [42]

In a previous essay, I briefly compared Evola’s last years to the dénouement of Hesse’s novel The Glass Bead Game. [30] [43] Joseph Knecht, the Game Master, disillusioned with an institution he finds to be intellectually sterile and doomed by its political naivety, resigns to become a tutor to the son of an old friend, Designori, who had already left for the “real” world, hoping to thereby provide some influence on the next generation. On their first morning stroll together, however, Knecht — unwilling to seem shy or cowardly — dives into a nearby lake and, overcome by cold and fatigue, drowns.

It seems anticlimactic as a novel, and futile and senseless as an act; as senseless, perhaps, as “questioning fate” by taking a walk during an aerial bombardment. The fact that Knecht dies in this effort, however, does not constitute failure. Hesse makes it clear from his portrait of Designori’s highly physical, yet still malleable and spiritually pure son Tito, that the incomplete work of Knecht and Designori might come to full fruition in him. A child of the world, Tito yet seems to sense the spiritual duty laid upon him by Knecht’s sacrifice, and the text suggests he will rise to meet it:

And since in spite of all rational objections he felt responsible for the Master’s death, there came over him, with a premonitory shudder of awe, a sense that this guilt would utterly change him and his life, and would demand much greater things of him than he had ever before demanded of himself. [31] [44]

91kbe+gMmxL.jpgNeville, of course, was no kshatriya. In fact, I have described him as a member of the haute bourgeoise — and that’s a good thing! The merchant is a legitimate class, very populous, especially today. [32] [45] Neville is an excellent model for the average man in today’s world; [33] [46] really the perfect mid-century American life, exactly what Mad Men’s Don Draper would have had if Matthew Weiner didn’t have an axe to grind. [34] [47]

His early first marriage, with a son, and second, lifelong marriage with a daughter [48], are a social idea, and compares favorably with many “alt-right” figures. He traveled between furnished, upscale residential hotels in New York City (Washington Square) and Los Angles (Beverly Hills), as he alludes to in his lectures, and the “success stories” he tells come from the same upper-middle-class milieus of nice houses, restaurants, and vacations. [35] [49] He was from a family of merchants, and mostly lived on various stipends from his family, as well as the high dividends paid out by the family-held corporation, even during the Depression. [36] [50] This enabled him to lecture with minimal admission costs to cover the rental of the hall, self-publish about ten small books, and allow — and encourage — his lectures to be taped without charge. [37] [51]

So much not a kshatriya that another of his most famous stories is how he imagined himself out of the Army! Despite being a middle-aged father of two and a non-citizen, Neville — perhaps due to the ex-dancer’s superb physical condition — was drafted in November 1942; effectively shanghaied into the fight against the forces Evola was willingly supporting as a noncombatant. [38] [52] How he extricated himself is one of his most interesting stories:

In 1942 in the month of December, this direction came down from Washington DC, any man over 38 is eligible for discharge, providing his superior officer allows it; if his superior officer, meaning his battalion commander disallows, there is no appeal beyond his battalion commander. You could not take it to say to the divisional commander, it stops with the battalion commander. This came down in 1942 in the month of December. They gave a deadline on it. This will come to an end on March 1st of 1943 so anyone 38 years, before the first of March, 1943 was eligible. All right. That is Caesar’s law. I got my paper, made it out. They had my record, my date. I was born in 1905 on the 19th of February, so I was 38 years old before the 1st of March of 1943 so I was eligible.

My battalion commander was Colonel Theodore Bilbo. His father was a senator from Mississippi. I turned [in my application for discharge], in four hours it came back “disapproved” and signed the colonel’s name. That night I went to sleep in the assumption that I am sleeping in my apartment house in New York City. I didn’t go through the door. I didn’t go through the window. I put myself on the bed. So I slept in that assumption. At 4:00/4:15 in the morning here came before my inner eye a piece of paper not unlike the one that I had signed that day. On the bottom of it was “disapproved.” Then came a hand from here down holding a pen and then the voice said to me “That which I have done I have done. Do nothing.” It scratched out disapproved and wrote in a big bold script “Approved”. And then I woke. I did nothing.

Nine days later that same colonel called me in. He said, “Close the door, Goddard.” “Yes, sir.” He said “Do you still want to get out of the army?” I said “Yes, sir.” He said “You’re the best-dressed man in this country, who wears the uniform of America,” I said, “Yes, sir.” “You still want to get out of the Army?” “Yes, sir.” Yessed him to death as I sat before him. He said, “All right, make out another application and you’ll be out of the Army today.”

I went back to my captain, told him what the colonel had said, made out another application and he signed it and that day I was out of the Army, honorably discharged. That’s all that I did. I went right into my home as a discharged soldier of our army and I’m a civilian. I slept that night in my home in New York City though physically my body was in Camp Polk, Louisiana. That’s how it works!

The colonel, when I went through the door that evening, he came forward and he said “Well, good luck Goddard. I will see you in New York City after we have won this war.” I said “Yes, sir.” And that was it. I share this with you to tell you how it works. This is not good and that is wrong. We are living in a world of infinite possibilities.” [39] [53]

Did this happen? Mitch Horowitz has established the external facts: that the Army discharged Neville in March, 1943 so as to “accept employment in an essential wartime industry”: delivering metaphysical lectures in Greenwich Village. [40] [54]

Remember, Neville was 38 years old, a non-citizen, had a wife and a young daughter; moreover, he fails to add, in the version above, that his son from his previous marriage was already drafted and serving at Guadalcanal. Apparently all that was being ignored now in the name of more cannon fodder for Churchill’s war. [41] [55] The military draft itself is a perfect example of the modern “reign of quantity,” in which all are regarded as interchangeable “individuals,” and I can see no reason why Neville, a true member of the merchant caste, should not have availed himself of a perfectly legal avenue of escape (“Caesar’s law”).

Marcus_Garvey_H_Selassie_I_Leonard_Howell.jpg

It’s also interesting to note that his commanding officer was a Col. Theodore Bilbo, son of Sen. Bilbo. [42] [56] One wonders if he shared his father’s interest in the resettlement of America’s negroes, [43] [57] and if Neville revealed to him that his guru, Abdullah, was involved with Marcus Garvey and Ethiopianism, [44] [58] leading him to look with favor on Neville’s application; could Neville have used not Abdullah’s teaching, but his connection with Ethiopianism, to smooth his eventual premature, but honorable, discharge from the Army?

But from our perspective here, the most interesting features of this story are, first, that Neville’s “essential wartime activity” was delivering metaphysical lectures — that is, instructions in his “method of changing the future” — which is not entirely unlike Evola’s wartime activities among the archives of secret societies that had been confiscated by the Germans; has there been any modern war in which magicians — Evola, Neville, Crowley — have played so great a role?

And secondly, this:

I had my 13 weeks’ basic training, and then when I came out, they gave me my citizenship papers. Back in 1922 I could have been an American, but I just didn’t have the time or the urge to get around to become a citizen; so I drifted on and drifted on and drifted on until after this little episode. That’s why I went into the Army, or I would still be drifting through, being a citizen of Britain. But now I’m an American by adoption. And they gave it to me because I did fulfill a 13-week training course in the American Army. So, I tell you, I know from experience how true this statement in [The Epistle of] James is. [45] [59]

Have we found here the key to the whole puzzling incident: the government’s dogged determination to press-gang [60] Neville like Billy Budd, only to then dangle a tantalizing offer of a get out of jail card, complete with citizenship? Once again, we see, perhaps, the unintended consequences of imagination; was the whole draft incident, seemingly absurd, the “bridge of incidents” leading to Neville’s desired naturalization as an American?

And in any event, Neville’s teaching evolved in a way very congruent to Evola’s aristocratic reserve and dedication to doing what has to be done.

51hQWvEIk2L.jpgAfter a mystical experience of being reborn from his own skull (Golgotha) in 1959, Neville’s teaching bifurcated: in addition to The Law (which became Oprah’s “Law of Attraction”), he also began to teach The Promise. The Law was given to enable you to live in the material world; the Promise was that you could then work to obtain union with God; a path suitable to the Dark Age:

One day you will be so saturated with wealth, so saturated with power in the world of Caesar, you will turn your back on it all and go in search of the word of God . . . I do believe that one must completely saturate himself with the things of Caesar before he is hungry for the word of God. [46] [61]

In short, Riding the Tiger. Interestingly, then as now, Neville’s listeners were more interested in The Law than in The Promise; they wanted him to return to stories about how people had obtained new cars and bigger houses. As Horowitz recounts [62] it:

Many listeners, the mystic lamented, “are not at all interested in its framework of faith, a faith leading to the fulfillment of God’s promise,” as experienced in his vision of rebirth. Audiences drifted away. Urged by his speaking agent to abandon this theme, “or you’ll have no audience at all,” a student recalled Neville replying, “Then I’ll tell it to the bare walls.” [47] [63]

Warrior or not, the picture of Neville standing on stage, lecturing to bare walls, recalls again Spengler’s Roman soldier, buried at Pompei because no order to stand down was given. From the start of his career:

He stood very still for an appreciable time, looking straight before him. Then he said, “Let us now go into the silence.” He squared himself on his feet, shut his eyes, flung his head sharply back, and became immobile. [48] [64]

And a few years from the end:

I know my time is short. I have finished the work I have been sent to do and I am now eager to depart. I know I will not appear in this three-dimensional world again for The Promise has been fulfilled in me. [49] [65] As for where I go, I will know you there as I have known you here, for we are all brothers, infinitely in love with each other. [50] [66]

It’s an attitude fully in keeping with New Thought, despite its reputation as encouraging an airy-fairy dreamworld attitude to life. Evola’s own attitude is actually not far from what the apostle of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale, would counsel:

The tough-minded optimist takes a positive attitude toward a fact. He sees it realistically, just as it is, but he sees something more. He views it as a challenge to his intelligence, to his ingenuity and faith. He seeks insight and guidance in dealing with the hard fact. He keeps on thinking. He knows there is an answer and finally he finds it. Perhaps he changes the fact, maybe he just bypasses it, or perhaps he learns to live with it. But in any case his attitude toward the fact has proved more important than the fact itself. [51] [67]

Or Biblical scholar — and Lovecraft authority — Robert M. Price:

We will never really finish. Our quests will be rudely suspended when the Grim Reaper taps us on the shoulder. “What the hell?” you say. Then why bother in the first place? Because it’s the chase. It’s the hunt. It’s acting without the fruits of action. You needn’t be bitter about it, like the fellow who wrote Ecclesiastes 2:21, “sometimes a man who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by a man who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.” No, it isn’t! Better that someone pick up where you left off! Pass the torch! Doing your part is all you can do, and that should be satisfaction enough. It is for me. [52] [68]

bhagavadgita-6s.jpg

Speaking of the Bhagavad Gita — “acting without the fruits of action” — a somewhat similar attitude is demanded of us who would listen to Evola or Neville (just as Knecht’s sacrifice lays a burden on the pupil Tito); as John Morgan said in his speech on Evola:

The fact that we may lose the battle doesn’t mean that we are absolved of the responsibility of fighting it and standing for what is true. The best illustration of this that I know of comes from the Bhagavad Gita. . . .

And that’s how I see those of us here tonight. In spite of the million other things you could have been doing in this enormous and hyperactive city tonight, you decided to come here and meet with a group of some of the most hated people in America to listen to a lecture on Julius Evola. That clearly indicates that there’s something in you that has decided that there are more important things than just doing what everyone else expects you to do. So really, we’re already creating the “order” that Evola called for in order to preserve Tradition in the face of degeneracy. So let’s not despair about the latest headlines, but keep our heads up in the knowledge that, whatever happens, we are the ones who stand for what is timeless, and our day of victory will come, whether it is tomorrow or a thousand years from now. [53] [69]

Arguably, we have an easier time of it today; Neville allowed his lectures to be freely taped and transcribed, and they now live on through the intertubes; the books of both he and Evola are available in electronic formats you can read on the subway without fear of discovery. So ride that technological tiger! And as you do so, spare a thought for those who make them available, such as Counter-Currents, and consider what you can do to keep them standing [70].

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Notes

[1] [73] Exegesis, 15:87 (The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick; edited by Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Letham; Erik Davis, annotations editor (Houghton Mifflin, 2011).

[2] [74]Believe It In [75],” Neville Goddard, 10/06/1969.

[3] [76] Gianfranco de Turris, Julius Evola: The Philosopher and Magician in War: 1943–1945 (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2020), reviewed by Collin Cleary here [4].

[4] [77] See my Mysticism After Modernism: Crowley, Evola, Neville, Watts, Colin Wilson & Other Populist Gurus [78] (Melbourne, Australia: Manticore Press, 2020), especially the title essay, “Magick for Housewives: The Not So New and Really Quite Traditional Thought of Neville Goddard.”

[5] [79] Evola mocks materialists who think they have acquired “power” because they’ve devised a missile they can launch by pressing a button, while still being psychologically as underdeveloped as a monkey; see “The Nature of Initiatic Knowledge,” reprinted in Introduction to Magic: Rituals and Practical Techniques for the Magus (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2001); compare: Dr. Ian Malcolm: “If I may. . . Um, I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you’re using here, it didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now [bangs on the table] you’re selling it, you wanna sell it.” — Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993). Evola brought the original Ur and Krur articles with him to Vienna and was reworking them into the three volumes that would appear in 1955 as Introduction to Magic (and apparently bankrupted his publisher: de Turris, p. 145).

[6] [80] Letter to Evola; see de Turris, p. 148.

[7] [81] De Turris, loc. cit., quoting The Path of Cinnabar (London: Arktos, 2012), p. 184. I have substituted the latter translation by Sergio Knipe, as the one in de Turris seems garbled: “I explained to Guénon that nothing of the sort could be of value for my case and that, on the other hand, he would have had to come up with a most potent spell to cast because it would have had to determine a whole set of objective circumstances: the air strike, the moment, and the point of the bomb release, and so on.”

[8] [82] “The first step in changing the future is desire — that is: define your objective — know definitely what you want. Secondly: construct an event which you believe you would encounter following the fulfillment of your desire — an event which implies fulfillment of your desire — something that will have the action of self predominant. Thirdly: immobilize the physical body and induce a condition akin to sleep — lie on a bed or relax in a chair and imagine that you are sleepy; then, with eyelids closed and your attention focused on the action you intend to experience — in imagination — mentally feel yourself right into the proposed action — imagining all the while that you are actually performing the action here and now. You must always participate in the imaginary action, not merely stand back and look on, but you must feel that you are actually performing the action so that the imaginary sensation is real to you. It is important always to remember that the proposed action must be one which follows the fulfillment of your desire; and, also, you must feel yourself into the action until it has all the vividness and distinctness of reality.” Out of this World: Thinking Fourth-Dimensionally (1949); Chapter 1, “Thinking Fourth Dimensionally”; online here [83].

[9] [84] “The end of your journey is where your journey begins. When you tell me what you want, do not try to tell me the means necessary to get it, because neither you nor I know them. Just tell me what you want that I may hear you tell me that you have it. If you try to tell me how your desire is going to be fulfilled, I must first rub that thought out before I can replace it with what you want to be. Man insists on talking about his problems. He seems to enjoy recounting them and cannot believe that all he needs to do is state his desire clearly. If you believe that imagination creates reality, you will never allow yourself to dwell on your problems, for you will realize that as you do you perpetuate them all the more.” 10/6/1969, “Believe It In [75].”

[10] [85] “All cause is spiritual! Although a natural cause seems to be, it is a delusion of the vanishing vegetable memory. Unable to remember the moment a state was imagined, when it takes form and is seen by the outer eye its harvest is not recognized, and therefore denied.” Neville, “The Spiritual Cause [86],” May 3, 1968.

[11] [87] You can hear him narrate it here [88].

[12] [89] “If Any Two Agree. . . [90]” March 22, 1971. Rather like the classic tale “The Monkey’s Paw,” a woman’s wish to be rid of a disturbing neighbor seemingly results in his death, leaving three orphans. In this context, one might imagine someone fervently wishing “to be rid of this meddlesome Evola” or some such thing; a neighbor, an academic rival, perhaps a landlady?

[13] [91] “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest [92]?”

[14] [93] On another occasion, Neville’s idle wish to get out New York after a disappointing lecture seems to have sped up his mother’s not entirely unexpected death:

The war in Europe was on. England was at war. No ships were plying the Atlantic. They were going down faster than they could build them, and we were almost at war, and then came the month of August, and I received a cable from my family saying: “We didn’t tell you, because we knew you couldn’t come to Barbados. There aren’t any ships,” (and certainly in those days there were no planes) and they said: “Mother is dying. She’s been dying for two years, but now, this is it, and if you want to see her in this world once more, you’ve got to come now,” I mean, now. I received that cable in the morning, and my wife and I sailed the very next night. But it taught me a lesson: not to use this law idly, not to use it to escape, but to use it deliberately because you cannot escape from it. A series of events will mold themselves, across which you will walk, leading up to the fulfillment of that state. And so here I put myself, just to escape from the cold and the disappointment of the evening, in Barbados of all places. Then something happens, and I am compelled to make the journey, the last place in the world we intended to go. And we sailed at midnight, and got there four and a half days later on this “Argentine” ship. (It was an American ship, but it was called the Argentine.) Mother dies, as they all said she would, and I returned to the States with the knowledge of what I had done and began to teach it.

Faith [94],” 7/22/1968.

[15] [95] “The first step in changing the future is desire — that is: define your objective — know definitely what you want.” Neville, Out of This World, loc. cit.

[16] [96] See Magic, op. cit., especially “Opus Magicum: Chains” by “Luce.”

[17] [97] Evola’s relations with Anthroposophy are a puzzle to me; the UR and KRUR group included disciples of Steiner, and Evola maintained friendly relations with them, as with these three; see Magic, op. cit., “Preface: Julius Evola and the UR Group” by Renato del Ponte. His Sintesi di dottrina della razza even presents two photos of Steiner to illustrate the Aryan “solar” type. Yet officially, as a “traditionalist,” Evola had to treat Anthroposophy as yet another grave “deviation” and “counter-tradition” worthy of extermination, even by the National Socialists. Was he ambivalent to Steiner because of the similarity of their intellectual development — from German Idealism to esotericism? (Both essentially claimed to have completed the system of German Idealism [98]). Was he afraid of being accused of hypocrisy; or of having to admit, if the treatment had succeeded, that Steiner was a legitimate psychic researcher?

[18] [99] De Turris, p. 166; this translation of a passage from Cinnabar would correspond to p. 183 of the abovementioned English translation. Again, this seems garbled; “neither affected nor effected me” is nonsense, but Knipe renders it as simply as “remained unaffected.”

[19] [100]

The end of the Republic is somewhat disconcerting. It ends with a strange myth about the afterlife. In this myth, people have the potential to choose the kind of life that they would like lead in their next incarnation. The dialogue concludes on this oddly apolitical note. But I want to argue that actually the whole purpose of the Republic is to lead up to this issue of choosing one’s life, of what kind of life is most choiceworthy.

The theme of choosing your life appears throughout the Republic. It appears in Book I, Book II, Book VII, Book IX, and Book X. There are different ways of formulating the choice of lives. It’s the choice between the private life and the public life, the philosophical and the political life, the life of justice versus the life of injustice, the contemplation of reality versus the manipulation of appearances.

Greg Johnson, “Introduction to Plato’s Republic [101],” reprinted in his From Plato to Postmodernism [102] (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2019).

[20] [103] All terms used at various times by Wallace D. Wattles [104], author of The Science of Getting Rich and various similar books.

[21] [105] Out of This World, op. cit., Chapter One, “Thinking Fourth-Dimensionally.”

[22] [106] This, we’ll see, is the “serial universe” of quantum physics, or the “block-universe” of Michael Hoffman, who posits that the ancient Mystery Religions used psychoactive or “entheogenic” drugs to induce a vision of this state of total determinism and loss of agency, then proposed a liberating Savior, such as Mithras or Christ; see, generally, the research collected at egodeath.com [107]. Neville finds freedom rather than determinism here. If Neville were more than fitfully in a philosophical mood, he might admit that our preference in futures is “determined” as well, but might insist that the only meaningful notion of “freedom” is “free to do what we in fact want, unhindered” rather than “free to choose, include what to want,” the so-called liberum arbitrium. As he says in Feeling is the Secret: “Free will is only freedom of choice.”

[23] [108] “In essence, more than eighty years of laboratory experiments show that atomic-scale particles appear in a given place only when a measurement is made. Quantum theory holds that no measurement means no precise and localized object, at least on the atomic scale. In a challenge to our deepest conceptions of reality, quantum data shows that a subatomic particle literally occupies an infinite number of places (a state called “superposition”) until observation manifests it in one place. In quantum mechanics, an observer’s conscious decision to look or not look actually determines what will be there.” All quotes from Horowitz, “A Cosmic Philosopher,” in At Your Command: The First Classic Work by the Visionary Mystic Neville (New York: Snellgrove Publications, 1939; Tarcher Cornerstone Editions, 2016), reviewed here [109] (and reprinted in Mysticism After Modernism).

[24] [110] Ironically, Neville also insists that “Creation is finished,” meaning that all possibilities are already there, four-dimensionally, and need only be chosen in order to be actualized; no “work” is needed to “bring them about.” See “Faith [111],” where Neville compares his doctrine to Richard Feynman [111], who had recently received the Nobel Prize: “I didn’t know it as a scientist. I knew it as a mystic.” Feynman states in a paper from 1949 that “We must now conclude that the entire concept that man held of the universe is false. We always believed that the future developed slowly out of the past. Now, with this concept which we have seen and photographed, we must now conclude that the entire space-time history of the world is laid out, and we only become aware of increasing portions of it successively.”

[25] [112] Path of Cinnabar, p. 230.

[26] [113] Out of This World, loc. cit. Cf. Blake, as frequently quoted by Neville: “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” If all this seems opaque, maybe you should see Nolan’s new film, Tenet; a commenter on Trevor Lynch’s review [114] says “Tenet is about belief. The main character is not conscious in what he does, yet his deeper self is looking out for him. Time doesn’t exist to his deeper self, only the present. There’s no point in trying to rationalise or moralise it all, what happens is what happens and that is that; much like life. Be in touch with your spirit, act in accordance with it, possess plentitude and be the true protagonist of your own world. You are complete, a part of existence and exactly where you need to be. Such is freedom. Surrender.”

[27] [115] De Turris, 167-68; he also refers the reader to his Elogio e difesa di Julius Evola: Il barone e it terrroristi (Rome: Edizioni Mediterrranee, 1997).

[28] [116] E. Christian Kopff, “Julius Evola, An Introduction” in Julius Evola, A Traditionalist Confronts Fascism: Selected Essays(London: Arktos, 2015).

[29] [117] See “What Would Evola Do? [118]”, the text of the talk delivered to The New York Forum.

[30] [119] See “Two Orders, Same Man: Evola, Hesse [120],” reprinted in Mysticism After Modernism, op. cit.

[31] [121] Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game, translated from the German Das Glasperlenspiel by Richard and Clara Winston, with a Foreword by Theodore Ziolkowski (New York: Bantam, 1970), p. 425.

[32] [122] Culturally, at least; in the current economy, of course, Neville’s lifestyle seems more out of reach.

[33] [123] There’s no “sin” in being a merchant. Sure, some picturesque versions of Hinduism would claim (re)birth in a lower caste is some kind of punishment, but that’s just what you’d expect a “high” caste person to claim, isn’t it? Evola rejected such “moralistic” accounts of karma — remember, every significant event in one’s life is chosen before birth; he even disparaged Heidegger’s claim that “authentic” “Dasein” must feel “guilty” over its “thrownness” as mere disguised Christianity (see his Ride the Tiger, chapter 15). As Nicholas Jeelvy says [124] about Boomer who “just want to grill”:

Do understand that I’m not knocking these people. They were born with average or below-average IQ and a weaker will than others. This is something they have zero control over. Low IQ and low thumos aren’t crimes. These people very prudently do not want to be involved in politics — they’ve neither the ability nor the inclination. Indeed, they are forced into politics by the republican-democratic system and the concordant liberal culture of “the good citizen” who is engaged with grand ideas. Really, the best these people can muster is local politics, which is why they expect small institutions to scale up. To them, the American federal government is a massive homeowner’s association and the FBI is their local sheriff’s department writ large. Small minds (which are small through no fault of their own) cannot comprehend the nature of macroentities. If they knew what we know about globohomo’s various institutions and agendas, they would be so thoroughly demoralized that they’d either be too depressed to leave their homes or the human submission instinct would kick in and they’d immediately convert to globohomo.

[34] [125] For more on Don Draper, see my End of an Era: Mad Men and the Ordeal of Civility (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2015) as well as more recent essays here on Counter-Currents.

[35] [126] After the war, Evola was given lifetime use of an apartment in Rome by a princely admirer.

[36] [127] He left Barbados for New York City at seventeen, eventually became a successful professional dancer on Broadway [128], but also working such jobs as an elevator operator. “I made thousands in a year, and spent it in a month.” Evola boasted of never receiving a paycheck, but this is difficult to reconcile with the evidence de Turris presents of his desperate letters to various officials to try to continue his “stipend” from the Fascist government as the latter collapsed, as well as his journalistic activities; a “paycheck” may suggest subservience to an employer, but Evola’s “stipend” was hardly passive income; if he was a “Baron,” it was more in the style of “Baron” Corvo’s: fiercely independent, but often hand-to-mouth.

[37] [129] “With Neville there’s nothing to join, nothing to buy.” — Mitch Horowitz.

[38 [130]] [130] Evola, though a veteran, was unable to rejoin the Italian military forces because, feeling himself to be “more fascist than the fascists,” he had never joined the party, which was now required for service; see de Turris, p. 69.

[39] [131] “The Secret of the Sperm,” 1965. Hear Neville tell it at 17:50 here [132].

[40] [133] “A Cosmic Philosopher,” pp. 83-84. The lectures are covered in a typically snarky article in The New Yorker (from September 11, 1943!), “A Thin Blue Flame on the Forehead,” scanned here [134].

[41] [135] Even the frickin’ Chinese emperor in Mulan only drafts her elderly father because he has no military age boys.

[42] [136] See Beau Albrecht’s discussion of Sen. Bilbo’s book Take Your Choice, “Part One: Strange Times Ahead [137]” and “Part Two: Stop the Hate [138]!”

[43] [139] See Kerry Bolton, “Ethiopia Pacific Movement: Black Separatists, Seditionists, & How “White Supremacists” Stymied Back-to-Africa,” Part I [140] and Part II [141].

[44] [142] Horowitz’s speculations on the identity of the mysterious Abdullah are in “A Cosmic Philosopher.”

[45] [143] “The Perfect Law of Liberty [144],” 4/2/71. The Epistle of James reads: “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourself. For he who is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like one who looks into the mirror and sees his natural face; and then he goes away and at once forgets what he looks like. But he who is a doer, he looks into the perfect law, the Law of Liberty, and perseveres. And when he does that, he is blessed in his doing.” (Chapter One).

[46] [145] Mitch Horowitz notes “This passage sounds a note that resonates through various esoteric traditions: One cannot renounce what one has not attained. To move beyond the material world, or its wealth, one must know that wealth. But to Neville — and this became the cornerstone of his philosophy — material attainment was merely a step toward the realization of a much greater and ultimate truth.” See “A Cosmic Philosopher.”

[47] [146] Op. cit.

[48] [147] “A Thin Blue Flame,” p. 64.

[49] [148] “Criswell departed this dimension in 1982” — Ed Wood (Tim Burton, 1992), final credit sequence. Criswell, a very Neville-like figure, also appears in Ed Wood’s last “legit” film, Night of the Ghouls [149] (1957, released 1984), in which a phony psychic (not Criswell!) gets his comeuppance when it turns out he really can raise the dead; again, be careful what you wish for.

[50] [150] “No Other God [151],” 5/10/1968.

[51] [152] Have a Great Day: Daily Affirmations for Positive Living by Norman Vincent Peale (Ballantine, 1985); September 2.

[52] [153] Holy Fable Volume 2: The Gospels and Acts Undistorted by Faith by Robert M. Price (Mindvendor, 2017).

[53] [154]What would Evola Do [155]?”

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[2] [2]: #_ftn2

[3] [3]: #_ftn3

[4] his review: https://www.counter-currents.com/2020/08/julius-evola-the-philosopher-and-magician-in-war-1943-1945/#more-121292

[5] here.: https://counter-currents.com/2014/08/now-available-in-hardcover-paperbackthe-eldritch-evola-others/

[6] this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wreck_of_the_Titan:_Or,_Futility

[7] there is no fiction: http://realneville.com/txt/there_is_no_fiction.htm

[8] And how can this be: https://youtu.be/O1cEjBxjmm0

[9] [4]: #_ftn4

[10] as the phenomenologists would say: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoch%C3%A9#Phenomenology

[11] [5]: #_ftn5

[12] [6]: #_ftn6

[13] [7]: #_ftn7

[14] [8]: #_ftn8

[15] [9]: #_ftn9

[16] [10]: #_ftn10

[17] How Abdullah Taught Neville the Law: https://maxshenkwrites.com/2017/03/24/how-abdullah-taught-neville-the-law-he-turned-his-back-on-me-and-slammed-the-door/

[18] [11]: #_ftn11

[19] Goddard Enterprises: https://www.goddardenterprisesltd.com/history

[20] an offer to buy him the building: https://counter-currents.com/2019/07/artist-autist-crowley-in-the-light-of-neville-part-2/

[21] rewarded with VIP tickets: https://counter-currents.com/2019/05/a-word-from-the-wise-guy-part-ii/

[22] [12]: #_ftn12

[23] [13]: #_ftn13

[24] [14]: #_ftn14

[25] [15]: #_ftn15

[26] [16]: #_ftn16

[27] [17]: #_ftn17

[28] [18]: #_ftn18

[29] Myth of Er: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_Er

[30] [19]: #_ftn19

[31] [20]: #_ftn20

[32] Out of This World: Thinking Fourth-Dimensionally: https://coolwisdombooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/WB8A942.jpg

[33] [21]: #_ftn21

[34] [22]: #_ftn22

[35] [23]: #_ftn23

[36] [24]: #_ftn24

[37] [25]: #_ftn25

[38] [26]: #_ftn26

[39] [27]: #_ftn27

[40] here.: https://counter-currents.com/2015/12/green-nazis-in-space-2/

[41] [28]: #_ftn28

[42] [29]: #_ftn29

[43] [30]: #_ftn30

[44] [31]: #_ftn31

[45] [32]: #_ftn32

[46] [33]: #_ftn33

[47] [34]: #_ftn34

[48] marriage with a daughter: https://coolwisdombooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/S75Wrlm.jpg

[49] [35]: #_ftn35

[50] [36]: #_ftn36

[51] [37]: #_ftn37

[52] [38]: #_ftn38

[53] [39]: #_ftn39

[54] [40]: #_ftn40

[55] [41]: #_ftn41

[56] [42]: #_ftn42

[57] [43]: #_ftn43

[58] [44]: #_ftn44

[59] [45]: #_ftn45

[60] press-gang: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressment

[61] [46]: #_ftn46

[62] recounts: https://www.harvbishop.com/neville-goddard-a-cosmic-philospher/

[63] [47]: #_ftn47

[64] [48]: #_ftn48

[65] [49]: #_ftn49

[66] [50]: #_ftn50

[67] [51]: #_ftn51

[68] [52]: #_ftn52

[69] [53]: #_ftn53

[70] what you can do to keep them standing: https://counter-currents.com/2020/09/the-counter-currents-newsletter-august-2020-year-of-decision/

[71] our Entropy page: https://entropystream.live/countercurrents

[72] sign up: https://counter-currents.com/2020/05/sign-up-for-our-new-newsletter/

[73] [1]: #_ftnref1

[74] [2]: #_ftnref2

[75] Believe It In: http://realneville.com/txt/believe_it_in.htm

[76] [3]: #_ftnref3

[77] [4]: #_ftnref4

[78] Mysticism After Modernism: Crowley, Evola, Neville, Watts, Colin Wilson & Other Populist Gurus: https://manticore.press/product/mysticism-after-modernism/

[79] [5]: #_ftnref5

[80] [6]: #_ftnref6

[81] [7]: #_ftnref7

[82] [8]: #_ftnref8

[83] here: http://www.navigatingtheaether.com/2013/10/03/out-of-this-world-by-neville-goddard/

[84] [9]: #_ftnref9

[85] [10]: #_ftnref10

[86] The Spiritual Cause: https://freeneville.com/the-spiritual-cause-may-3-1968-free-neville-goddard-pdf/

[87] [11]: #_ftnref11

[88] here: https://youtu.be/6t6jGfUp5Ps

[89] [12]: #_ftnref12

[90] If Any Two Agree. . .: http://realneville.com/txt/if_any_two_agree.html

[91] [13]: #_ftnref13

[92] Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_turbulent_priest%3F

[93] [14]: #_ftnref14

[94] Faith: http://realneville.com/txt/faith.htm

[95] [15]: #_ftnref15

[96] [16]: #_ftnref16

[97] [17]: #_ftnref17

[98] completed the system of German Idealism: https://counter-currents.com/2017/03/trump-will-complete-the-system-of-german-idealism/

[99] [18]: #_ftnref18

[100] [19]: #_ftnref19

[101] Introduction to Plato’s Republic: https://www.counter-currents.com/2014/05/introduction-to-platos-republic-part-1/

[102] From Plato to Postmodernism: https://www.counter-currents.com/from-plato-to-postmodernism-order/

[103] [20]: #_ftnref20

[104] used at various times by Wallace D. Wattles: https://www.constructivescience.com/2012/11/a-readers-question-about-original-substance-and-other-terms.html

[105] [21]: #_ftnref21

[106] [22]: #_ftnref22

[107] egodeath.com: https://d.docs.live.net/d97440f64d6c8811/Documents/egodeath.com

[108] [23]: #_ftnref23

[109] here: https://www.counter-currents.com/2016/12/lord-kek-commands-a-look-at-the-origins-of-meme-magic/

[110] [24]: #_ftnref24

[111] Faith: https://coolwisdombooks.com/neville-goddard-feynman-time-creation-is-finished/

[112] [25]: #_ftnref25

[113] [26]: #_ftnref26

[114] a commenter on Trevor Lynch’s review: https://www.unz.com/tlynch/review-tenet/#comments

[115] [27]: #_ftnref27

[116] [28]: #_ftnref28

[117] [29]: #_ftnref29

[118] What Would Evola Do?: https://web.archive.org/web/20191228161320/https:/www.counter-currents.com/2017/05/what-would-evola-do/

[119] [30]: #_ftnref30

[120] Two Orders, Same Man: Evola, Hesse: https://web.archive.org/web/20191228161320/https:/www.counter-currents.com/2017/06/two-orders-same-man-2/

[121] [31]: #_ftnref31

[122] [32]: #_ftnref32

[123] [33]: #_ftnref33

[124] says: https://counter-currents.com/2020/09/blackboxing-q/

[125] [34]: #_ftnref34

[126] [35]: #_ftnref35

[127] [36]: #_ftnref36

[128] a successful professional dancer on Broadway: https://coolwisdombooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screenshot_2020-06-09-Clipping-from-The-Tribune-Newspapers-com-1.png

[129] [37]: #_ftnref37

[130] [38: #_ftnref38

[131] [39]: #_ftnref39

[132] here: https://youtu.be/o3dtnDsy52U

[133] [40]: #_ftnref40

[134] here: https://coolwisdombooks.com/neville/neville-goddard-1943-new-yorker-article-a-blue-flame-on-the-forehead/

[135] [41]: #_ftnref41

[136] [42]: #_ftnref42

[137] Part One: Strange Times Ahead: https://counter-currents.com/2020/08/take-your-choice-part-i-strange-times-ahead/

[138] Part Two: Stop the Hate: https://counter-currents.com/2020/08/take-your-choice-part-ii-stop-the-hate/

[139] [43]: #_ftnref43

[140] Part I: https://counter-currents.com/2020/09/ethiopia-pacific-movement-part-one/

[141] Part II: https://counter-currents.com/2020/09/ethiopia-pacific-movement-part-ii/

[142] [44]: #_ftnref44

[143] [45]: #_ftnref45

[144] The Perfect Law of Liberty: https://nevillegoddardbooks.com/neville-goddard-text-lectures/the-perfect-law-of-liberty/

[145] [46]: #_ftnref46

[146] [47]: #_ftnref47

[147] [48]: #_ftnref48

[148] [49]: #_ftnref49

[149] Night of the Ghouls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Ghouls

[150] [50]: #_ftnref50

[151] No Other God: http://realneville.com/txt/no_other_god.htm

[152] [51]: #_ftnref51

[153] [52]: #_ftnref52

[154] [53]: #_ftnref53

[155] What would Evola Do: https://counter-currents.com/2017/05/what-would-evola-do/

dimanche, 06 septembre 2020

Philippe Baillet: Passeports pour des temps post-bourgeois

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Philippe Baillet: Passeports pour des temps post-bourgeois

par Daniel COLOGNE

La société actuelle, qui considère le bien-être comme une fin en soi, a de plus en plus tendance à se présenter comme un horizon historique indépassable.  Pareille prétention constitue une parodie de l’âge d’or et de l’état édénique évoqués par les mythologies et les religions, une contrefaçon des « îles bienheureuses » entrevues par le Zarathoustra de Nietzsche. Même si c’était « l’ombre de Dionysos » (Michel Maffesoli) qui bercerait le monde post-moderne avec la sérénade du « oui à la vie », il ne faudrait pas oublier que « celle-ci, sous ses formes les plus hautes, est toujours ennoblie par les qualités proprement apolliniennes de discipline, d’ordre, de hiérarchie et de maîtrise » (p. 147. Les citations suivies d’un numéro de page sont extraites du livre recensé).

 

51SFkzQ77FL._SX298_BO1,204,203,200_.jpgVoici l’un des nombreux points culminants du livre de Philippe Baillet, tant par l’élégance de l’écriture que par la pertinence de la pensée. Recueil d’articles parus entre 1988 et 2010 dans Catholica, Le Choc du Mois, La Nef et La Nouvelle Revue d’Histoire, florilège de textes étalés sur deux décennies et complété par un essai inédit fournissant son titre à l’ensemble, cet ouvrage est marqué par une peu commune aptitude à l’organisation du savoir.

 

Prenant parfois pour point de départ la biographie d’un auteur (comme par exemple Ernst Kantorowicz, que je ne connaissais que de nom), la recension embrasse peu à peu d’autres livres, dont Philippe Baillet tire la « substantifique moelle » avec une rare cohérence, sans s’écarter du sujet initial et en déployant cette qualité essentielle du journaliste, dont Maurice Bardèche me fit part en 1975, lorsqu’il m’encouragea à poser ma candidature à Valeurs Actuelles : la capacité de traiter un dossier.

 

Je ne vois rien d’inconvenant à émettre quelques considérations d’ordre autobiographique, puisque Philippe Baillet le fait lui-même dans sa préface et dans son hommage à Bernard Dubant, qui devait avoir à peu près le même âge que moi et dont j’apprends ainsi le décès avec tristesse.

 

Rien d’étonnant à ce que Bernard Dubant se soit intéressé dès 1975 à Donoso Cortés, auquel Philippe Baillet consacre deux chapitres de son recueil, tout en louant le rôle d’éveilleur de son ami disparu : « il fut d’ailleurs le premier à appeler mon attention sur l’importance du penseur espagnol » (p. 158).  Tous deux se sont également rencontrés sur les figures atypiques du théâtre français que sont Antonin Artaud et Alfred Jarry, chapitres terminaux de l’ouvrage, le texte sur l’auteur d’Ubu-Roi étant dû à Lucien Renart alias Bernard Dubant.

 

J’ai personnellement connu Philippe Baillet entre 1977 et 1979 et, s’il n’avait pas pris place à la tribune du colloque évolien dont il parle en page 159, c’était pour nous réserver, lors du débat qui suivit, une intelligente et vigoureuse intervention sur le guerrier vietcong et le Tupamaro d’Uruguay, à ses yeux plus proches de l’héroïsme évolien que les rodomontades pseudo-chevaleresques dont beaucoup de jeunes « nationalistes révolutionnaires » se gargarisaient à l’époque.

 

md30657416862.jpgJe garde de Philippe Baillet le souvenir d’un homme d’allure plutôt discrète, mais qui savait, lorsque les circonstances s’y prêtaient, éblouir par une érudition surprenante chez un jeune homme de 27 ans, comme en ce samedi après-midi de janvier 1978 en compagnie d’Yvonne Caroutch et Arnold Waldstein, ou forcer la sympathie par sa franchise, comme à Lyon en février 1979, lorsqu’après ma conférence au Cercle Péguy, nous nous sommes retrouvés entourés de jeunes filles catholiques qui n’étaient pas forcément pour lui (et pour moi encore moins !) un auditoire conquis d’avance.

 

Je m’en vais clore les paragraphes des souvenirs à la fois en contant une anecdote amusante et en abordant les choses sérieuses, parmi lesquelles le choix du titre. Philippe Baillet écrit : « À l’âge de quinze, vingt ou trente ans, même quand on est viscéralement de droite, quand on déteste sans moyen terme le monde né avec la Révolution française, on succombe presque toujours à la magie des mots et l’on se dit « révolutionnaire », en croyant que l’emploi d’un mot plutôt que d’un autre est parfaitement anodin. J’ai moi-même connu cette ivresse, mais il y a longtemps que je suis dégrisé » (p. 15).

 

Yves Bataille, Georges Gondinet et moi-même étions loin d’être dessoûlés lorsque, réunis autour d’une succulente galette des Rois en janvier 1978, nous nous vantions à tour de rôle d’être des « révolutionnaires professionnels ». Philippe Baillet n’était pas présent ce soir-là. Le quatrième convive était Éric Vatré, qui attendait patiemment son tour de présenter sa carte de visite, et qui déclina in fine son identité en ces termes : « un contre-révolutionnaire professionnel ».

 

« Voilà pour la “ contre-révolution ”. Et “ blanche ” parce que nous sommes confrontés depuis longtemps déjà à des ennemis porteurs d’un projet funeste » (Ibid.). Pour définir ce projet, Philippe Baillet a recours à Jules Monnerot. Ce projet consiste à « modifier la teneur de la population française » et en une « opération grandiose d’invasion acceptée », écrit l’auteur de Racisme et identité nationale dans un numéro spécial de la revue Itinéraires (1990).

 

Philippe Baillet ajoute que « notre seule chance de survie est liée à l’apparition d’un nouveau type humain de race blanche dans les guerres civilisationnelles et ethniques qui s’annoncent » (p. 16).

 

On pourrait s’étonner de voir un homme pétri de pensée évolienne accorder tant d’importance à la nation française, mais l’amplification immédiate du sujet remet l’auteur dans le sillage de Dominique Venner et de son brillant éditorial de La Nouvelle Revue d’Histoire (n° 49) : c’est l’Europe qui est en « dormition » et que doit réveiller un chevalier pareil à celui des contes de Perrault et de Grimm redonnant vie à la « Belle au bois dormant ».

 

41877770._SX318_.jpgPhilippe Baillet va plus loin. Selon lui, la menace pèse sur l’Occident tout entier. L’essai de plus de vingt pages qui donne son intitulé au livre aborde la « radicalisation du conservatisme » et l’« émergence de la Droite  » racialiste ” aux États-Unis » (p. 87). Ce texte inédit est probablement récent, puisque la recension des livres bien connus de Samuel Huntington date de 2005, corrobore le vœu d’une « contre-révolution blanche » et atteste l’état actuel de la pensée de l’auteur.

 

Philippe Baillet se distingue de la doxa droitiste française caractérisée par un « anti-américanisme rabique, systématique, aveugle » (p. 107), « comme si les Américains blancs devaient expier jusqu’à la fin des temps le fait d’être nés dans une culture issue du protestantisme dissident » (p. 108).

 

Reconnaître l’existence d’« esprits libres d’outre-Atlantique » (p. 62) n’est pas incompatible avec la désignation des États-Unis comme ennemi géopolitique principal, ainsi que l’affirme à plusieurs reprises une livraison récente d’Éléments (n° 136). Je remarque d’ailleurs que Philippe Baillet confirme son soutien au Choc du mois, bien que la nouvelle mouture de cet organe de presse soit moins radicale que la précédente. « L’influence indirecte d’Alain de Benoist y est de plus en plus perceptible » (p. 10).

 

Pour Alain de Benoist, la bourgeoisie est au plan social ce que sont les États-Unis au niveau géo-politique : l’ennemi principal.  Mais qu’est-ce que le bourgeois ? L’homme « qui pense bassement » et que fustige Gustave Flaubert ? Le « cochon qui aspire à mourir de vieillesse » tout en s’abêtissant que vilipendent Léon Bloy et Jacques Brel ? Philippe Baillet fait sienne la formule de Donoso Cortés. La bourgeoisie doit être pourfendue en tant que « classe discuteuse » (p. 32).  Il ne s’en cache d’ailleurs pas : « Il s’agit, grâce à certaines armes intellectuelles, de se préparer au combat, non au débat » (p. 13). Il exècre les discussions des plateaux télévisuels, sans règles préalables et sans objectif clairement fixé, dont chacun repart avec les mêmes entraves et préjugés que ceux qu’il apportait en passant au maquillage.

 

Est-on pour autant en présence d’un polémiste « au couteau entre les dents » ? Certes non. Le projet évoqué plus haut est monstrueux, mais ses adeptes ne sont pas forcément des monstres. « Écraser une secte n’est pas imiter ses fureurs, sa rage sanguinaire et l’homicide enthousiasme dont elle enivre ses apôtres » (p. 22). Ainsi parle l’abbé Augustin Barruel, dont Philippe Baillet loue l’indispensable distinction entre la bataille des idées et la destruction des hommes.

 

unnamedEKl.jpgL’article hyper-critique consacré à « Israël et ses extrêmes » (p. 117) fait immédiatement suite à un légitime éloge « des grands érudits juifs modernes » : Kantorowicz déjà cité, Marc Bloch, Raymond Aron, Aby Warburg.  Parmi les « représentants du peuple juif » dignes d’inspirer notre admiration, et au rebours d’un autre a priori encore trop rageusement enraciné chez bon nombre d’entre nous, Philippe Baillet mentionne « tous ceux qui, libraires spécialisés dans l’ancien ou éditeurs d’ouvrages à faible tirage et à vente lente, sont en quelque sorte les artisans de la haute culture, ceux qui, par exemple dans des domaines comme l’orientalisme, en ont assuré la pérennité matérielle, chose de plus en plus difficile aujourd’hui » (p. 116).

 

Je ne cache pas que, de prime abord, une certaine perplexité m’a saisi en voyant Philippe Baillet se rallier « à la cause du peuple blanc » (p. 79), comme l’ex-libéral Samuel Huntington aujourd’hui « au soir de sa vie » (p. 85). Ceux qui n’ont pas notre couleur de peau seraient-ils tous inaptes à devenir, eux aussi, des « artisans de la haute culture » ? René Guénon et Julius Evola ne nous auraient-ils délivré du biologisme que pour nous y faire retomber, par une sorte de régression, sous l’empire de l’une ou l’autre projection statistique assignant à notre race un statut de minorité dans un quart de siècle ?

 

Mais Philippe Baillet précise que « pour Huntington, l’identité nationale américaine repose sur deux piliers, la culture et la religion, non sur la race » (p. 84). Aux Européens de méditer ce message, même si le patrimoine religieux y est plus diversifié qu’aux États-Unis.  Outre-Atlantique, Huntington défend l’importance de la culture anglo-protestante. De ce côté-ci de l’océan, l’unité religieuse ne semble pouvoir se faire qu’au prix d’un « œcuménisme libéral » (Nikos Vardhikas), c’est-à-dire d’une sorte de consensus-ratatouille, où catholiques, orthodoxes et réformés se tairaient sur les sujets qui fâchent et seraient ramenés à leur plus petit commun dénominateur.

 

Dès lors, les Européens doivent plutôt miser sur leur unité culturelle et, s’ils intègrent le concept de « race », ce ne peut en aucun cas se faire dans l’acception « pseudo-biologique » (Christian Vandermotten) d’aujourd’hui, mais au sens évolien de « race de l’esprit », ou dans la perspective d’un vieux fond anthropologique se référant à « une histoire singulièrement lointaine » (André Siegfried).

 

Philippe Baillet évoque « la mise au pas de toute pensée vraiment libre » (p. 115) par le nazisme qui a ainsi contraint à l’exil plusieurs historiens allemands d’origine juive : Mosse, Laqueur, Stern, dont il déplore l’inexistence ou le caractère tardif des traductions en français (p. 66).

 

Le brillantissime article de 2010 « Sur deux approches de l’idéologie nazie » (p. 63) prouve que l’étape la plus récente du Denkweg de Philippe Baillet n’est entachée d’aucun repli crispé sur une position nationaliste et raciste.

 

41UbyzKeMQL.jpgAu détriment de l’« indigeste pavé prétentieux et très décevant » (p. 76) d’un universitaire français, Philippe Baillet privilégie l’analyse de George L. Mosse, autre « esprit libre d’outre-Atlantique ». Ce dernier voit dans le mouvement völkisch une des plus profondes « racines intellectuelles du Troisième Reich ». Il y décèle une « conception essentiellement culturelle […] de l’État-nation », en réaction contre « l’industrialisation à marche forcée » de l’Allemagne et « à cause de la très longue et tortueuse édification de l’unité politique » (p. 69).

 

Philippe Baillet nous fait découvrir cet historien américain d’origine juive allemande, dont l’œuvre vient à peine d’être traduite en français, près d’un demi-siècle après sa publication originale (1964). Il se fait l’écho de l’auteur d’Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich en rappelant comment les nazis s’inscrivirent dans la continuité du mouvement völkisch, mais au prix d’une terrible simplification, d’une catamorphose des Juifs en symboles dégradants (les « rats », les « bacilles ») et d’un détournement de la « révolution allemande » dans le sens d’une « révolution antijuive » (p. 72).

 

Les grandes tragédies humaines, les guerres du XXe siècle, les éventuels conflits ethniques et civilisationnels de demain : tout cela peut générer un « nouveau type humain » (p. 16), mais pas nécessairement apparenté au kshatriya.  Certes, des tranchées de 14-18, ont émergé Drieu, Barbusse, Evola, Jünger, et Hitler lui-même gazé à l’ypérite sur le front de l’Yser. Mais si l’on regarde par exemple les écrivains belges sortis de la « boue des Flandres », on découvre plutôt des figures apparentées au brahmane. L’un d’eux intitule son roman de guerre Mes cloîtres dans la tempête, répondant ainsi aux Orages d’acier. Le poète José Gers part en quête de sagesse vers un Jardin des Hespérides via l’aventure maritime. Ses voyages vers le Sud lui font adopter l’Afrique, tant maghrébine que subsaharienne, comme une seconde patrie. Nulle tentation d’un totalitarisme « de gauche » ou « de droite » chez cet aventurier iréniste, pas plus que chez son ami le peintre René Devos, engagé volontaire en 1915, à l’âge de 18 ans, chantre pictural de la féminité, cette « Floride à jamais inexplorée ».  Rien de « fasciste » ou de « communiste » non plus chez le délicat Constant Burniaux, brancardier bénévole dès 1914 (il a 22 ans), auteur du récit Les Brancardiers, puis de poèmes exaltant les choses simples de la vie, cette enfance perpétuelle pourvoyeuse de nostalgie dont « nul ne guérit » (Jean Ferrat). Il n’est donc pas sûr qu’à l’éventuel « horizon de fumée et de feu » (Milosz) se lèveraient forcément de nouveaux « purs » et durs, forgerons du Nouvel Ordre de demain.

 

De même qu’entre occidentalisation et modernisation dans le sillage de Samuel Huntington, Philippe Baillet démasque la prétendue synonymie des concepts de « progrès » et de « révolution » à la faveur de sa très fine analyse d’Augusto Del Noce (pp. 137 à 147).

 

Dans la pensée de ce philosophe italien, une loi cyclique devrait avoir une résonance toute particulière chez les évoliens et les guénoniens.  Cette loi « veut que les grands courants de pensée […] reproduisent toujours, dans leur phase terminale, leurs traits originels, mais sous une forme accentuée » (p. 141). Philippe Baillet donne ensuite la parole à Del Noce : « L’idéologie spontanée de la bourgeoisie est le matérialisme pur, le positivisme exclusivement attentif aux faits bruts, la négation de toute présence d’un sens qui transcende le phénomène immédiat ».

 

augusto-del-noce.jpgDel Noce décrit ainsi « l’irreligion naturelle » qui caractérise la société actuelle et avec laquelle « on passe même du rejet, qui est encore le signe paradoxal d’un certain intérêt, à l’indifférentisme complet » (p. 138) sur le plan religieux.

 

Si le cycle bourgeois entre dans sa « phase terminale », les temps à venir peuvent donc être qualifiés de « post-bourgeois », d’où l’intitulé de ma recension. Pour le terme « passeports », je me suis inspiré du titre d’un livre de Jean Biès, dont j’ai rendu compte vers 1982 je ne sais plus exactement où, peut-être dans la revue Totalité, dont Philippe Baillet mentionne la fondation en page 160.

 

Il serait intéressant d’approfondir la confrontation du « bourgeoisisme » tel que l’envisage Del Noce avec les cyclologies de René Guénon et de Julius Evola.

 

Le cycle « bourgeois » selon Del Noce serait comparable à la « première phase de l’action antitraditionnelle » selon Guénon.  Toutefois s’y glissent déjà les sous-phases ou les micro-cycles caractérisés, d’une part par le compromis de l’esprit bourgeois avec le christianisme (compromis dont la bourgeoisie n’a plus besoin aujourd’hui), d’autre part par les parodies de spiritualité des totalitarismes (communisme, fascisme, nazisme), qui relèvent déjà de la « seconde phase de l’action antitraditionnelle » (Guénon) et que Del Noce appelle « la période sacrée de la sécularisation » (p. 142), l’irreligion d’aujourd’hui en étant la « période profane » (p.1 43).

 

Quant à Julius Evola, sa loi de « régression des castes dominantes » (version décadentiste des théories de Pareto et de Michels) devrait impliquer dans le futur un réveil du communisme, à moins que, sur les ruines des désastreuses expériences des totalitarismes « rouges », surgisse rapidement le type humain du « cinquième État » qui impose sa domination. Ce serait alors dans un livre comme Explorations. Hommes et problèmes (Éditions Pardès, traduction de Philippe Baillet) qu’il faudrait chercher, du point de vue évolien, les « passeports pour des temps post-bourgeois ».

 

Le problème est loin d’être simple. Relisons à nouveau Del Noce, intelligemment cité par Philippe Baillet. « C’est pourquoi l’on remarque ce paradoxe qui fait que la vitalité, de matière qui doit être vaincue et transfigurée par les valeurs, est elle-même élevée au rang de valeur, et même devient mesure de toute autre valeur » (p. 140).

 

Je souscris entièrement à ces lignes, mais ce culte de la vitalité me paraît renvoyer à la « seconde phase de l’action antitraditionnelle » selon Guénon : « seconde phase » se mêlant alors à la première, ainsi qu’en témoigne par exemple la critique que fait Guénon du vitalisme de son contemporain Bergson. Tout cela se passe bien avant « les années 1960 » (Ibid.), mais le vitalisme connaît effectivement un regain durant cette décennie à travers le mouvement New Age.

 

Le chapitre concerné reste muet sur le point de départ du cycle bourgeois. Puisqu’il a été question du « monde né de la Révolution française », on peut situer ce point de départ dans l’œuvre de Denis Diderot, véritable écrivain-fétiche de certains universitaires bruxellois, dont l’influence commence heureusement à être contrebalancée, comme je le montrerai plus loin, par d’autres références propres à une génération de plus jeunes professeurs.

 

Encore ne faut-il pas oublier que le fils du coutelier de Langres, aussi conseiller de Catherine II de Russie, se dédouble dans Le Neveu de Rameau en un Moi rationaliste et un Lui où le professeur Maurice Lefebvre voit un pré-romantique.

 

Mais cela ne contredit pas la théorie de Del Noce, car on peut considérer que le matérialisme à l’état brut, trait originel du Diderot de la Lettre sur les Aveugles, revient aujourd’hui sous la forme accentuée de la fin de cycle, sans tolérer désormais aucune contre-partie « romantique ».

 

Voici une autre formulation de Del Noce que doivent méditer tous ceux qui sont convaincus d’être dans un « inter-règne », comme le répète inlassablement et avec raison Alain de Benoist.  Décrivant « la situation actuelle », Del Noce écrit : « mort des anciens idéaux, mais dans le même temps aveu que de nouveaux idéaux ne peuvent pas naître » (cité par Philippe Baillet, p. 143).

 

Tel est du moins l’« aveu » que le Système veut nous arracher.  Une évidence n’en demeure pas moins. Précisément parce que nous sommes dans un « inter-règne », il est difficile de cerner les contours des « nouveaux idéaux », de désigner l’ennemi de demain, de braquer le projecteur sur celui qui, demain, nous désignera comme ennemi.

 

Plusieurs rédacteurs d’Éléments (n° 136) évoquent le « capitalisme post-bourgeois » et donc forcément « post-prolétarien ». Mais alors, s’agit-il encore de « capitalisme » ? Ne faut-il pas in fine recourir au meilleur Guénon, celui de la « révolte du kshatriya » ? Le plus grand danger n’est-il pas incarné par le kshatriya émancipé de la supériorité du brahmane, c’est-à-dire par la vitalité dionysiaque refusant de se laisser ennoblir par les valeurs apolliniennes ? La nouvelle classe dominante ne serait-elle pas composée de ce type humain posant « un regard-pirate sur l’Univers » (Frank-Albert Duquesne), recruté parmi les renégats de toutes races et de toutes les traditions, de même que le type humain qu’il faut lui opposer doit émaner de tous les horizons ethniques et culturels ?

 

Malgré l’ampleur de son index et de son apparat critique, Philippe Baillet ne cite Guénon que cinq fois : une fois en bas de page, deux fois dans l’article sur Artaud, deux fois en liaison avec Bernard Dubant et Jean-Claude Cuin, un autre ami trop tôt disparu.

 

L’auteur a choisi d’insister sur le péril qui menace l’homme blanc sans prôner pour autant une quelconque supériorité de celui-ci. Écoutons-le à nouveau répercuter l’avertissement d’Huntington. « L’Occident a vaincu le monde non parce que ses idées, ses valeurs, sa religion étaient supérieures […], mais plutôt par sa supériorité à utiliser la violence organisée. Les Occidentaux l’oublient souvent, mais les non-Occidentaux jamais » (cité p. 81).

 

La présente recension touche à sa fin et j’espère n’avoir oublié de mentionner aucun des chapitres. Chacun correspond à un mérite particulier de l’auteur. Certains s’attaquent à des sujets de moi quasi inconnus. C’est dire si je m’incline avec respect devant l’immense culture de Philippe Baillet, autodidacte qui a su se faire accepter dans certains milieux universitaires, ainsi qu’en témoigne en 2007 sa collaboration à des mélanges dédiés à Jean-Pierre Laurant septuagénaire.

 

Philippe Baillet est le principal artisan de la réception de Julius Evola dans l’espace francophone. Son parfait bilinguisme italo-français lui permet d’aborder dans le texte original et de nous restituer fidèlement la pensée de grands politologues transalpins. Toujours soucieux de faire la part des choses, il peut juger la traduction d’Evola par Pierre Pascal « calamiteuse » tout en rendant hommage à l’auteur de la Chanson de Robert Brasillach (p. 56).

 

Son article sur Boris Souvarine fut publié avant les livres de Jean-Louis Panné et François Furet, à une époque où « il était de bon ton de taire les liens très étroits, après 1945, [de Boris Souvarine] avec d’anciens collabos » (p. 53).

 

Il faut un indéniable courage intellectuel pour affronter le « sujet maudit » des Protocoles des Sages de Sion (p. 43) sous l’angle évolien de l’alternative « authenticité – véracité » (p. 48). La question n’est pas de savoir si ce texte est authentique.  On sait qu’il s’agit d’un faux. En revanche, on est en droit de s’interroger sur la plausibilité de réalisation de son programme, celui-ci pouvant d’ailleurs être concocté en un tout autre milieu que celui d’une loge « judéo-maçonnique ».

 

cms_visual_1360418.jpg_1586176470000_253x450.jpgTitulaire d’une agrégation en philosophie et lettres de l’U.L.B. (Université Libre de Bruxelles, émanation du Grand Orient de Belgique), je suis bien placé pour savoir comment on risque de se désagréger sous l’effet de la quasi permanente « leçon de conformisme » dispensée par « les cliques universitaires et leur structure féodale » (p. 77).

 

La situation me semble toutefois moins désespérée à l’U.L.B., où l’on édite et enseigne depuis peu Roberto Michels et André Siegfried. Même parmi les professeurs soixante-huitards, dont certains furent mes compagnons de promotion (tels que Jacques Lemaire et Alain Goldschläger, dont j’ai recensé le livre sur le « complotisme »), Philippe Baillet aurait trouvé en Jacques Sojcher, dissertant sur « la crise de la vérité » dans la philosophie moderne, un interlocuteur plus valable qu’André Comte-Sponville à propos du « perspectivisme » (p. 128) de Nietzsche, pour qui « les évidences élémentaires sont déjà des masques ou des filtres » (p. 129).

 

Ce fut pour moi un plaisir et un honneur de rendre compte du livre de Philippe Baillet.  Me revient en mémoire un restaurant asiatique où nous étions attablés avec Bernard Dubant. Je me rappelle deux convives sympathiques, prodigieusement intéressants, non dénués d’un humour dont ils saupoudraient de manière bien dosée leur conversation d’érudits. Avec ce recueil d’articles témoignant de près d’un quart de siècle de recherches, Philippe Baillet s’érige en essayiste accompli, de lecture agréable et à la documentation fouillée. Il incite notre famille intellectuelle à se libérer de certains de ses a priori. Il nous indique le chemin d’une authentique pensée libre, tandis que de fallacieux « libres-penseurs », porteurs auto-proclamés de douteuses « lumières », cherchent à nous mener tout droit à l’impasse. Philippe Baillet est de ces éveilleurs dont nous avons un urgent besoin. Grâce lui soit rendue, ainsi qu’à son éditeur, de nous léguer cet excellent florilège.

 

Daniel Cologne

 

• Philippe Baillet, Pour la Contre-Révolution blanche. Portraits fidèles et lectures sans entraves, Éditions Akribeia, 2010, 188 p., 18 € (+ 5 € de port). À commander : Akribeia, 45/3, route de Vourles, F – 69230 Saint-Genis-Laval.

 

samedi, 05 septembre 2020

Carlos X. Blanco: «La vida es un camino muy largo hacia el bosque»

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Carlos X. Blanco: «La vida es un camino muy largo hacia el bosque»

G.L. 

Ex: https://adaraga.com

Afortunadamente, no encontrarás La caballería espiritual en las estanterías de los más vendidos de Casa del Libro o de la FNAC. Y digo afortunadamente porque este libro de Carlos X. Blanco no ha sido escrito para ser deglutido por esa turba de consumidores compulsivos teledirigidos por los dominicales de El Mundo o El País sino para su degustación por paladares y mentes selectas. A caballo, nunca mejor dicho, entre la filosofía y la psicología (un espacio que nunca debió haberse perdido y que Carlos reivindica), esta obra sencilla pero de extraorinaria profundidad nos ayuda a elegir nuestro camino correcto para adentrarnos en la emboscadura.

G.L: La caballería espiritual comienza con una preciosa alusión al cuento infantil de Pulgarcito como estrategia vital y describes que «la vida es un camino muy largo hacia el bosque». ¿Qué nos aguarda en el bosque?

Carlos X. Blanco: El bosque es un lugar originario del que todos procedemos y hacia el que todos podemos volver, implica  una región densa y oscura;  entrar en el bosque significa «perdernos» en él; perderse en todos los sentidos de la palabra. Perderse o ser incapaces de retomar el hilo de nuestra existencia, no recordar quiénes somos, no hallar una salida. El bosque envuelve la libertad de las múltiples sendas, la región que esconde toda posible senda, pero también la ansiedad de no saber qué pasos dar, qué orientación seguir. El bosque libera de una vida trazada, pero también es angustia por la falta de diferenciación personal y por no saber resolver nuestros conflictos. El bosque está lleno de lobos y de ocasiones para perderse.

Otros filósofos, y en concreto me viene a la mente Ernst Junger, también se han referido al bosque. ¿Por qué el bosque es uno de los principales mitos europeos?

El bosque representa la realidad material primigenia, indiferenciada. La palabra griega hyle (materia) lo expresa muy bien. Significa materia y significa también el bosque,  la madera, esto es, la materia prima que sirve de base o que se considera receptora de las formas. Materia y madera son palabras relacionadas. Europa fue una selva que hubo de ser talada parcialmente en pro de la civilización. Sin embargo, esa selva europea perdida y añorada prosigue su existencia en el fondo del alma humana, al menos en la europea, y es el elemento base y el fondo primitivo al cual, no obstante, deseamos reintegrarnos. La cabaña, el templo, la empalizada, el poblado, eran aún de madera ya trabajada por el hombre en unos primeros momentos de la historia. La primera europeidad cultural era una secreción del bosque. El Levante, Egipto, el resto de Asia, en cambio, fueron tierras de grandes ríos, civilizaciones de la piedra o adobe, antes que de madera, fueron universos áridos reconquistados por  la ciudad, fueron regadíos y mercados esclavistas. En el mundo mediterráneo, como en Oriente, hay ya un alejamiento muy temprano de ese hogar boscoso, pues la cuenca de este mar se «civilizó» pronto, esto es, se secó, se taló, se superpobló desde hace miles de años. Desde la polis, desde la urbs, el hombre vio ya con temor y distancia esa primera patria de la que procede.

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En España nos ha sucedido lo mismo…

Sí, tenemos esa dialéctica entre el bosque atlántico-cantábrico, por un lado, y la llanura y costa sureña-levantina, por el otro. Los conceptos de civilidad y ruralidad difieren mucho en las distintas regiones del país. También ocurre algo muy importante en relación con la técnica. La caballería espiritual europea no puede divinizar la técnica: la pone al servicio de metas espirituales más altas.

Algunos conceptos capitales de Carl Gustav Jung son una constante a lo largo de esta obra como, por ejemplo, el inconsciente colectivo. En un mundo deshumanizado y cibernético como el actual, ¿todavía podemos hallarlo?

Si no lo encontramos, el propio inconsciente colectivo saldrá a nuestro encuentro. Lo hace en nuestros sueños, mueve las manos del artista o del escritor, modela creencias del hombre corriente y concentra altas dosis de energía para hacer las cosas de la vida. El inconsciente colectivo es un océano lleno de energía, repleto de vida, corrientes y mareas. Todo él es fuerza, empuje. El hombre domesticado y mecanizado de hoy, si no sabe manejarlo, sucumbirá. El mundo moderno es el mayor pecado contra la naturaleza. Seas o no creyente, has de saber que muchas de las propiedades esenciales que la psicología jungiana atribuye al inconsciente colectivo son co-extensivas con las que las religiones más poderosas espiritualmente hablando (verbigracia, el cristianismo) atribuyen a Dios. Ir contra esta fuerza es ir contra la naturaleza, y es la mayor de las herejías. No puedes enfrentarte a tal océano de energía. Religiosamente eso es pecado. Psicológicamente eso es enfermedad. Metafísicamente es ir contra el ser, significa despojarse de la manera más absoluta.

¿Podemos encontrar a Dios?

Se puede hallar. Amando a tus hijos y a tu pareja. Arraigándote en una patria y a una comunidad. Haciendo de tu familia y de los tuyos un remanso y una fortaleza, construyendo una pequeña patria invencible con ellos. Buscando ratos de soledad y de contacto con la naturaleza, leyendo signos de divinidad en tu interior y en tu derredor.

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«La vida psíquica es compensación». ¿Somos realmente libres o el censor que llevamos dentro nos lo impide?

La homeostasis, la búsqueda del equilibrio, la restauración de valores estables, forma parte de la vida orgánica y en la vida orgánica se verifican las mismas leyes que en la espiritual. En nuestro crecimiento y en nuestro combate contra la enfermedad, el pecado, el conflicto (en el fondo es todo lo mismo) contamos con un aliado, que es el propio proceso auto-curativo. El bien se hace camino, a cada paso se abren sendas para hallarlo. La verdadera espiritualidad (y dentro de ella, la religión) consiste en leer esos signos que hacen que no te pierdas, en aceptar esos dones y en no ser «rebelde» (diabólico) ante ellos. Mi ensayo La Caballería Espiritual es una pequeña brújula para orientarnos en ese crecimiento, para ser caballeros en el sentido medieval de una vida de servicio que acepta los dones pero también los sacrificios que la propia vida nos pide si queremos existir ennoblecidos, si deseamos ser dignos y no volver al lodo. El ser humano es, él mismo, un quicio. Somos, como dicen varios filósofos (Eugenio Trías, Manuel Fernández Lorenzo), seres fronterizos. Eso supone una gran dignidad pero también un gran riesgo, y antes que Jung o los pensadores citados, nos ha sido descrito muy bien por Santo Tomás de Aquino: semejantes a Dios, cercanos a los más ínfimos de los ángeles, pero muy por encima de las bestias. Así somos los hombres. Podemos bestializarnos o podemos deificarnos. De hecho nos deificamos un poco a diario cada vez que amamos, somos responsables o volcamos esfuerzo y espíritu de servicio.

«En mí está Todo». Una reflexión breve pero muy profunda. ¿Está capacitado el hombre del siglo XXI para saber quién es realmente?

Cada vez menos, pues nos vemos inmersos en un proceso brutal y satánico que consiste en la abolición de lo humano. El gran capital ha descubierto que la persona sobra, que le estorba ese animal racional que, incluso de manera inconsciente y confusa, busca deificarse. El gran capital ha descubierto que no solamente los bienes de la naturaleza o el fruto del trabajo pueden ser mercancías, sino que la propia mercancía humana es la más interesante para acumular beneficios, producir plusvalía. Y estamos en la transición horrenda de pasar de la esclavitud «enteriza» del individuo humano (cada cuerpo humano es tratado como una mercancía, ignorando su alma), a una esclavitud mucho más completa e interior, una especie de infección que afecta al compuesto humano mismo, a su alma y a las relaciones de su alma con cada una de las potencias del hombre.

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¿De qué forma estamos siendo esclavizados?

Somos un pequeño cosmos, y la colonización y esclavización de cada parte de ese universo humano que es cada persona, va siendo un proceso imparable. Introducir la tecnología en todas nuestras funciones más vitales, no ya simplemente para aliviar el dolor o la fatiga en el trabajo, paliar el hambre o mejorar la cosecha, sino para poder, simple y llanamente, vivir… es un gran pecado. Debemos armar una fuerza de caballería para rescatar esos santos lugares que son el alma de cada individuo. El mundo va mal porque yo voy mal. Qué simple es el pensamiento jungiano. Le acusan de gnóstico, pero en muchos puntos expresa el Evangelio al modo más católico.

¿Puede el hombre de hoy escapar de alguna manera de este mundo no ya alejado de sino enfrentado abiertamente a Dios?

Sí, sin dudarlo. Hay que crear refugios en la familia. Educar a los niños al margen, y a veces, en contra, de las directrices autoritarias del Estado, de la partitocracia, de la UNESCO, etc. Hay que hacer «asamblea», verdadero sentido de la palabra Iglesia (ecclesía) con aquellos que también buscan a Dios. También hay que formar comunidades equivalentes a los monasterios medievales, refugios de la cultura, de la espiritualidad, del humanismo clásico, en medio de un mundo bárbaro. Europa se está barbarizando a marchas forzadas, y la creación de una red de comunidades de personas que buscan, que anhelan el crecimiento y la sanación, que se resisten al proceso nivelador, que no desean la «muerte» de su radical singularidad, es de todo punto esencial.

Un concepto muy interesante que desarrollas en tu obra es el de «el hombre planta».

Tenemos raíces. Necesitamos suelo nutricio. No somos fácilmente trasplantables. El hombre-nómada no es un modelo para nuestra especie. Muy pocas personas pueden vivir sanas dentro del nomadismo moderno.  Debemos volver al terruño. Como creo que decía Sam Gamyi, el inolvidable personaje de El Señor de los Anillos, debemos cavar en nuestro huerto, cavar hondo. La lealtad a su señor Frodo se prolonga con la lealtad a su huerto, a su granja cargada de hijos, fruto del amor a su esposa. Sam echó raíces, pero ya las tenía desde el principio. Era leal a Frodo.

Ese concepto, el del «hombre planta», imbrica muy bien con el todo, como parte de una totalidad. ¿Qué es ese todo?

Somos un sistema, una totalidad ordenada y, como católico, te diré que formamos parte de un sistema o totalidad perfectamente jerárquica. Si sabemos no cortar raíces, respetarnos, ser leales, estamos contribuyendo al bien en que consiste ese todo. La caballería en la que debemos militar no es rebelde ante otra cosa que ante el mal. Nuestra bandera debe ser el bien. Cuando plantas un roble chiquitito y, al cabo de muchos años ves un árbol que te supera en altura, estás viendo una imagen del bien. Ese roble te dará sombra, te ofrecerá sus bellotas y permitirá que tus niños se encaramen a sus ramas. Debería ser obligatorio plantar árboles: ellos te recuerdan que somos parte del todo, ellos nos lanzan el mensaje de ser colaboradores y amigos tuyos. Si al todo lo llamas, según tus creencias, el bien o Dios, entonces estás siendo un co-laborador de lo más alto. Co-laborador: trabajar con, vives  como aliado, cooperador.

¿Cómo es ese todo?

No es un todo estático en el que te pierdes como la gota de agua en el mar, o la vaca negra en medio de una noche. Es el todo jerárquico donde la persona se halla feliz por ser importante en la escala que le corresponda. A todo niño deberíamos enseñarle a ser humilde por ser importante, único, imprescindible. Nadie sobra. No dejar traer al niño al mundo, impedir el sano desarrollo del feto es un crimen en el terreno metafísico, no sólo civil: esa persona, con todo su proyecto importante, con su puesto en la creación debidamente asignado, ha sido «abortado». El todo se revuelve con cada «interrupción voluntaria» de su dinámica única e intransferible. Es un crimen contra el Todo.

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Volviendo a Jung, a mi juicio, aciertas en señalar sus paralelismos con Hegel y aludes a una dialéctica común.

Ambos son grandes pensadores dialécticos. Hay en el alma, como en la realidad misma, un dinamismo inagotable. El mundo es lucha, oposición, síntesis, pero también la Psique humana es eso mismo. No tengo dudas: los mundos físicos, históricos, culturales, etc. , al igual que la psique humana, que es parte y a la vez espejo de esos otros mundos, son sistemas que buscan una diferenciación cada vez mayor. Y lo buscan por naturaleza, a pesar de esa corriente niveladora que nació con la modernidad. No podemos ser iguales, nunca lo seremos: la jerarquía del mundo implica una tendencia a la perfección. Un guijarro o un grano de arena ya son suficientemente perfectos en la playa donde reposan y se parecen demasiado a sus vecinos. Contienen toda la perfección que el mundo o el creador esperaban para ellos. El esfuerzo nos corresponde a nosotros, los hombres, que no somos guijarros uniformes arrojados en la playa. Siendo siempre imperfectos, debemos seguir las orientaciones y adentrarnos en el bosque, correr peligro y matar dragones. A mayor perfección de entrada, nunca absoluta, mayor esfuerzo de perfección para alcanzar el destino: nobleza obliga. La nobleza de que está investido el hombre, impone obligaciones y responsabilidades.

Perteneció a la escuela de Sigmund Freud pero rompió con su maestro. ¿Qué nos enseña Jung frente a Freud?

Que el ser humano no es una cloaca. Que nosotros somos espíritu. La verdadera psicología no es una para-física, un remedo de las ciencias naturales. Además de sexo, el ser humano es amor y crecimiento. No somos simplemente máquinas homeostáticas, sino líneas dinámicas que se orientan a un todo que, en el mundo mecanicista de hoy, nos lo quieren ocultar. Somos seres con vocación de servicio, somos caballería, orden monástica, asamblea de seres libres y capaces de caridad, y no, en modo alguno, una piara de cerdos.

Te muestras muy crítico con la psicología convencional, particularmente con la clínica, y reivindicas aquella «más amplia en intereses, valentía y profunidad». ¿Es el cientifismo el nuevo enemigo a batir?

Desde luego. Poseo formación en psicología experimental y neurociencias, y conocí demasiado bien a los «ratólogos», esos expertos en torturar roedores de laboratorio sin ton ni son, y conocí a pedantes conductistas, fieles seguidores de Skinner, que explicaban la mística de Santa Teresa, por ejemplo, en términos behavioristas o de drogadicción. Los freudianos reducirían la mística a la frustración sexual, etc. La psicología clínica actual, la de las más diversas sectas y escuelas que quiere ayudar a los pacientes basándose en experimentos con ratas o perros, o en abstracciones y modas americanas (la «inteligencia emocional», etc.) no es la sino terapia mecanicista acorde con un mundo-máquina, es un «servicio» que en realidad no cura nada y se limita a dar nombres raros a problemas existenciales de la persona, para los que no ofrece verdaderas salidas, sólo «modelos» para dar de comer a unos miles de titulados, cuando lo que ofrecen en venta no son, en gran medida, sino humo bien empaquetado, fraudes, cuando no simples placebos.

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Vivimos en una sociedad obsesionada con la medición, la productividad y la eficacia. ¿Todavía queda espacio para aquello que, afortunadamente, no es medible ni es necesario que lo sea?

Sí, pero para ello habría que ir sustituyendo las ciencias «modernas» (economía, psicología, sociología…) por la metafísica. A fin de cuentas, no son ciencias: son metafísica barata, remedos. No hay salvación para el mundo si no volvemos a la metafísica y a la sacra doctrina. Habría que replantearse lo que fue la «Revolución Científica». Se quiso presentar como una ruptura con la sabiduría medieval. Triunfó la perspectiva de la cantidad, que es sólo una de las categorías del ser. Hoy en día todo se quiere medir o cuantificar, pero a veces no tenemos ni la más remota idea de lo que estamos midiendo (véase el ejemplo de la Inteligencia: ¿Qué es la inteligencia?, pues lo que miden los tests de inteligencia). Por encima de todas las ciencias, está la sabiduría. La propia fe no se enfrenta a las ciencias. La verdadera fe es una sabiduría superior al conjunto de las ciencias particulares. No es irracional, como empezó a pensarse después de Occam y tras la reforma de los protestantes. Es, por el contrario, suprarracional. Esto significa que la propia razón y la medida, sin despreciarlas ni mucho menos, deben subordinarse a la meta más alta.

«Gran parte de lo que hoy se llama ciencia no es conocimiento, es basura».

La pandemia del coronavirus lo demuestra. Se nos llenaba la boca con la «ciencia» moderna, en realidad con la tecnología al servicio de trasnacionales depredadoras y poderes militares, pero no podemos con este virus. Un niño posee un móvil con microprocesadores y minicámaras de última generación, pero no llega el agua potable a muchas aldeas y poblados en el mundo. Una «ciencia», así, permíteme, es una porquería. O buscamos un conocimiento cierto fundando en la búsqueda de causas verdaderas, con unas conclusiones necesarias que se derivan de principios de evidencia firme, o no tenemos ciencia. Manipular variables, construir juguetitos o publicar artículos «salami» en «revistas de impacto» no es ciencia… es añadir más porquería del mundo moderno. Un mundo que no hace otra cosa: producir la más espesa y olorosa de las porquerías.

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Carlos X. Blanco: La caballería espiritual. Editorial EAS (Noviembre de 2018)

Imagen: Nadine Doerlé: Armadura de caballero

mercredi, 02 septembre 2020

Kris Roman ontmoet Dr Koenraad Elst over Indië/China

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Время Говорить

Kris Roman ontmoet Dr Koenraad Elst over Indië/China

Nederlandse versie

 
In het praatprogramma Время Говорить ('Tijd om te Spreken') ontvangt Kris Roman speciale gasten die hun bevindingen en kennis over actuele thema's aan het grote publiek verduidelijken. In deze aflevering, opgenomen op 17-08-2020, is Dr. Koenraad Elst te gast. Recent (zomer 2020) vonden er dodelijke schermutselingen plaats tussen Indiaase en Chinese grenswachten plaats. Dr. Koenraad Elst zal ons verduidelijken wat er aan de hand is. De veelheid aan informatie die Dr. Koenraad Elst meegaf verplicht ons het interview in drie delen te publiceren.
 
Dr. Koenraad Elst is Dokter in de Oosterse filologie en geschiednis, Lycentiaat in de wijsbegeerte, Indo-Iranistiek en Sinologie.
 

03:07 Publié dans Actualité, Traditions | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | Tags : actualité, tradition, inde, chine, koenraad elst, histoire | |  del.icio.us | | Digg! Digg |  Facebook

jeudi, 27 août 2020

Hinduism and the Culture Wars

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Hinduism and the Culture Wars

Koenraad Elst

#IndicTalks

 
 
In this introduction of his brilliant new book, Koenraad Elst talks about 'Hinduism and the Culture Wars'. Culture Wars are a common phenomenon in the West, where tradition represented often by the religious orthodoxy and the old establishment resists every new change that is being brought about in the society, even the necessary changes. The Old Guard, guided by religion, in this context, acts as the automatic resistance to anything new. That is the reason that Evolution and Abortion are still raging debates in the West, even in countries like the United States of America. This is because, the Prophetic Monotheism prevalent in the West and most of the world except India and China, resists change and ossifies time.
 
On the other hand is a pagan and polytheistic culture like Hinduism, where culture wars are hardly seen. Hindu society accepts necessary change because its guiding dharmic system of Sanatana Dharma has inbuilt mechanisms of social change. It keeps incorporating progressive ideas and necessary changes along with conserving the core civilizational beliefs. Listen to this brilliant Talk to know how unique India's dharmic way of life is and how it takes the middle path between tradition and change.
 
 
For related Indic Talks and Indic Courses, visit :

lundi, 17 août 2020

Mircea Eliade: Illo Tempore, "Boicot de la historia", y Tradicionalismo campesino

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Mircea Eliade: Illo Tempore, "Boicot de la historia", y Tradicionalismo campesino

Ex: https://www.geopolitica.ru

Traducción de Juan Gabriel Caro Rivera

Para Mircea Eliade, el problema del tiempo es uno de los más importantes, si no es el más importante. La división del tiempo en sagrado y profano, el concepto de "Eterno Retorno" y "el horror de la historia" son quizás los primeros conceptos que se me ocurren al mencionar el nombre del gran historiador de las religiones. Y todos ellos están de alguna manera relacionados con el problema del tiempo.

El terror de la historia

En su famosa obra "El mito del retorno eterno", Eliade observa cómo, en los rituales que imitan los actos ejemplares de un dios o un héroe mítico, en la historia de un mito, un hombre de una sociedad arcaica es arrancado del tiempo profano y mágicamente vuelve a entrar en el Gran Tiempo, Illo Tempore, "el tiempo que es", el tiempo sagrado, el tiempo original, es lo más cercano posible de la eternidad.

La conexión de una persona con este tiempo primordial causa un "horror de la historia": una persona tradicional trata de evitar la secuencia lineal de los eventos (que Eliade ve como vacía y sin contenido) y trata de regresar al tiempo primordial. 

210688331.jpgEl Eterno Retorno no es solo la vida en los ciclos cósmicos. Este es precisamente el deseo del hombre de volver al "tiempo": el tiempo radial del alma, que pasa a través de los anillos del tiempo y se dirige hacia la imagen de la Eternidad.

Podemos decir que la existencia del hombre en el mundo según Eliade siempre fluctúa entre dos polos: la historia y el tiempo original del mito. 

Además, por "historia", Eliade no se refiere al tiempo dirigido hacia un objetivo determinado, por ejemplo, escatológico, sino a la comprensión del tiempo como "una cadena de eventos inevitables, imprevistos y que tienen su propio valor autónomo".

La escatología presupone la abolición de la historia, y el cristianismo contiene la oportunidad de ingresar al illo tempore en este momento a través de la metanoia, "la historia puede actualizarse, por la influencia de cada creyente y por medio de él, incluso antes de la Segunda Venida del Salvador, cuando ésta y toda la creación serán completamente destruidas".

Una "historia" pura como duración pura aparece solo con la abolición de Dios en la estructura de la cosmovisión del hombre de los Nuevos Tiempos.

Para Eliade, el "tiempo lineal de la historia" es lo que priva a una persona de la libertad. Esta vez como una acumulación constante de experiencias, eventos, estructuras históricas, privados de la posibilidad de restablecer, de corregir los errores, a través de un retorno al tiempo sagrado arquetípico, que aplasta y encadena a una persona.

“Por el contrario, cuanto más se vuelve moderno en otras palabras, sin protección contra el horror de la historia, menos posibilidades tiene de crear la historia. Porque esta historia se hace sola (gracias a esos eventos que surgieron de actos hechos en el pasado, hace varios siglos o incluso hace varios milenios: solo mencionaremos las consecuencias del descubrimiento de los cultivos agrícolas o los métodos de procesamiento de los metales, la revolución industrial del siglo XVIII, etc. .), o lo hecho por un número cada vez más limitado de personas que no solo prohíben que sus contemporáneos interfieran directa o indirectamente en la historia creada por ellos (o por él), pero, además, tienen amplias oportunidades para hacer que cada individuo sufra las consecuencias de esta historia, es decir, vivir con un miedo constante y creciente. La libertad de crear la historia de la que el hombre moderno está tan orgulloso es realmente ilusoria para casi toda la raza humana", dice Eliade en El mito del retorno eterno. "El hombre arcaico, aunque comete errores, pero a través de la posibilidad de referirse al tiempo original", conserva la libertad de destruir tales errores, abolir el recuerdo de su "caída en la historia y hacer un nuevo intento de salir finalmente del tiempo".

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Noaptea de Sanziene

La lucha con el tiempo, la nostalgia por el Paraíso y la oposición del Cosmos y la Historia son importantes no solo para el trabajo científico, sino también para el trabajo artístico de Eliade.

En este sentido, se puede destacar la novela "Noaptea de Sânziene". El nombre se refiere a un festival folklórico en honor de una determinada categoría de hadas, Sinzien (en singular). En sus trabajos científicos, Eliade mismo señaló que el nombre de Sinzien, posiblemente proviene de San(cta) Diana y el culto de Diana en Dacia, que puede haber estado entrelazado con el culto local de la diosa Bendis, Ileana Cosânzeana, la heroína de los cuentos rumanos, una hechicera con ciertos rasgos ctónicos, la novia del personaje principal, secuestrada por una serpiente y liberada por el personaje principal, pertenece al mismo círculo de imágenes.

Otra figura folclórica con un nombre similar, Iana Sânziana, el mes femenino, la hermana del sol, quien, sin embargo, escapa del incesto y se casa con esta luminaria celestial. Aquí vemos otra encarnación astral del mismo aspecto de la feminidad.

Noaptea de Sânziene se celebra la noche del 23 al 24 de junio. Según la creencia popular, esa noche "las puertas del cielo se abren" y el otro mundo entra en contacto con este mundo. En este momento, los animales también pueden hablar y se cree que cualquiera que los escuche puede aprender muchos secretos. En general, en otros aspectos (las hogueras, saltar sobre una hoguera), estas fiestas son similares a las de Ivan Kupalo o a Ligo del Báltico y otras fiestas del solsticio similares.

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El protagonista: Stefan Viziru durante toda la acción está obsesionado con el problema del tiempo, más precisamente, el problema de abandonar el tiempo. La vida del héroe estuvo marcada por dos estados paradisíacos: una habitación a la que tuvo acceso cuando era niño y una reunión de la bella Ilena en el bosque en las afueras de Bucarest en Noapte de Zanziene (23-24 de junio).

La reunión en la noche cuando las puertas del cielo están abiertas devuelve a Stefan al conocimiento del "estado inicial", a la profunda experiencia de su propia existencia. Ileana, que no es una coincidencia llamada la novia arquetípica de los cuentos populares, se convierte en el símbolo del Conocimiento y la Vida. El anhelo de Ileana se convierte en el anhelo del paraíso perdido, en el momento de la salida del tiempo profano y la familiarización con lo sagrado.

Por cierto, aunque esto lleva lejos, Stefan en este momento está casado con una mujer llamada Joana. Un momento que solo se puede entender si se tiene conocimiento del contexto popular rumano. 

En busca de una pista sobre la posibilidad de dejar el tiempo, Stefan se encuentra con un personaje llamado Anisius, un hombre que, después de haber tenido un accidente, repensó el tiempo y su posición en él.

"Este hombre reveló un gran secreto", susurró Stefan, inclinándose sobre la mesa. Aprendió a vivir. La vida, como un ser integral (total)". Esta vida se opone a la vida que viven los demás, donde ellos mismos no viven, sino que los tejidos, las glándulas y los reflejos son los que viven automáticamente.

Al describir a Anisius, el héroe y, al mismo tiempo, Eliade mismo, notan la tremenda majestuosidad y grandeza con que este hombre limpió los árboles del jardín de orugas.

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“Estaba limpiando sus árboles de oruga. Lo observé y sentí su presencia en cada gesto. Frente al árbol, no estaba distraído por nada, no pensaba en otra cosa. Pero supuse que el árbol estaba completamente abierto para él. No era un objeto simple, uno de los miles como parece para la mayoría de las personas. El árbol que estaba limpiando le reveló en ese momento todo el universo, lo vio por completo".

La experiencia del trauma y la inmovilidad hizo que Anisius comprendiera el movimiento del tiempo. Y decide salir de la historia y pasar al tiempo cósmico, que es un paso hacia una salida completa del tiempo.

“Solo tiene en cuenta el tiempo cósmico: día y noche, salida de la luna y puesta del sol, las estaciones. Y este tiempo cósmico, me dijo, algún día será cancelado por él. Pero ahora necesita tiempo para encontrarse a sí mismo. Encontrarse, en el sentido metafísico de la palabra: llegar a conocerse como un ser integral. Y luego ya no se distrae de la experiencia de cada momento significativo de este tiempo cósmico".

Para una persona así, “la luna nueva o la luna en su conjunto, el equinoccio y el solsticio, los amaneceres y el crepúsculo no poseen, para nosotros, solo una función de calendario. Cada uno de ellos le abre un nuevo aspecto de todo el Cosmos ".

El principio central de tal existencia es "no aceptar ningún tiempo excepto el espacio-tiempo, no tomar, en primer lugar, el tiempo histórico, el momento en que, por ejemplo, se celebran elecciones, Hitler se arma, y en España hay una guerra civil". Entonces, la naturaleza, el mundo se convierte no solo en un lugar de descanso del espíritu, sino, por el contrario, "la clave de las primeras revelaciones metafísicas: el secreto de la muerte y la resurrección, la transición del no ser al ser".

Al mismo tiempo, este hombre, que regresó a una simple existencia campesina en la novela, también se nos revela como el Emperador que vive en el espacio de un cuento de hadas, el Emperador Anisius, quien está en comunión directa con Dios (por cierto, recuerda la característica del cristianismo cósmico, donde Cristo y los apóstoles vienen a la tierra y viven precisamente entre los campesinos). Sin embargo, Anisius y Stefan expresan dos puntos de vista sobre la posibilidad de salir del tiempo.

Anisius espera que al final del ciclo actual, la humanidad fundamentalmente equivocada sea reemplazada por una nueva que "no vive, como nosotros, en el tiempo histórico", sino solo en el instante, es decir, en la Eternidad ". Stefan cree que "una salida del tiempo es posible incluso en nuestro mundo histórico. La Eternidad siempre está disponible para nosotros. El Reino de Dios siempre es alcanzable ". 

La salida de la historia

El rechazo de la historia por Eliade, la concentración específica en el momento de salir del tiempo en momentos de experiencia o colisión con lo sagrado, se explican de diferentes maneras. Incluso hay un punto de vista de que esto expresa nostalgia por la Patria, como un paraíso perdido, de un autor que ha vivido una parte importante de su vida en el exilio.

De hecho, existe una conexión específica con el contexto étnico, pero de una manera ligeramente diferente. Lo anti-temporal (es decir, la orientación predominantemente anti-histórica de Eliade) puede correlacionarse con la naturaleza anti-histórica fundamental de la cultura campesina rumana.

De hecho, tenemos un caso especial, el pueblo rumano se forma en una síntesis de dacios y colonos romanos, pueblos que viven en la dimensión del Estado y la gran historia. 

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Sin embargo, cuando, después de 271, las legiones y colonos romanos abandonan Dacia, pasan más de mil años hasta que aparecen los primeros Estados rumanos en la antigua Dacia. Durante más de mil años, los descendientes de los dacios y romanos parecen estar fuera de la historia. 

Lucian Blaga señala que durante este período tiene lugar un evento fundamental para la cultura rumana: una desviación de la historia hacia la "existencia mental-orgánica" temporal. Señala algunas palabras rumanas cuya etimología refleja mejor este giro.

La palabra pământ significa tierra. Proviene del latín "pavimentum", un piso de piedra, una calle adoquinada. La palabra "bătrân", un anciano, proviene del latín veteranus. Sobre ambos casos en el idioma rumano, estas palabras perdieron su "importancia histórica", "urbana" y adquirieron un nuevo significado campesino.

El caso de la palabra "oaste" es especialmente indicativo - en el "ejército" rumano. "Oaste" viene del latín "hostis", que significa "enemigo". Esta palabra en sí refleja precisamente el horizonte de la existencia campesina, cuando el ejército y los militares son principalmente enemigos que vienen del exterior.

El campesino tradicionalista

El "boicot a la historia", que Blaga ve como la base de la existencia histórica del mundo campesino rumano, también es un componente importante de la visión del mundo de Eliade. 

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Lucian Blaga

Eliade, especialmente en su atracción hacia las mitologías arcaicas y "primitivas", no puede entenderse sin darse cuenta de su profunda solidaridad interna con la cosmovisión del campesino rumano. Por cierto, el concepto de cristianismo cósmico aparece en Eliade en el análisis de la "Mioritsa", una obra de especial importancia para Lucian Blaga.

Eliade llama al cristianismo cósmico la fe popular del cristianismo europeo, especialmente del campesinado del sudeste de Europa. Esto, en su opinión, no es una reliquia del paganismo, "no es una nueva forma de paganismo, ni un sincretismo del paganismo con el cristianismo. Es una creación religiosa completamente única, donde la escatología y la soteriología van hacia dimensiones cósmicas".

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Como señala Eliade en su Aspectos del mundo: “El cristianismo cósmico en las zonas rurales está lleno de nostalgia por la naturaleza, santificado por la presencia de Jesús, nostalgia por el paraíso, el deseo de transformación de la naturaleza, prístino y primaveral, protegido de constantes agitaciones, conquistas, guerras, ruinas. Este es el "ideal" de los pueblos agrícolas, constantemente arruinado por las hordas guerreras de nómadas y explotado por varios "amos". “También es una forma de protesta pasiva contra la tragedia y la injusticia de la historia, contra el hecho de que el mal no aparece solo como resultado de la voluntad individual y la decisión individual, sino que resulta ser una estructura supra-personal del mundo histórico".

No hace mucho tiempo, en una conferencia en el seminario sobre la metafísica de la tercera casta y el campesinado, Alexander Guélievich planteó la cuestión del tradicionalismo de la tercera casta, señalando que Guénon puede correlacionarse con la primera casta sacerdotal y Evola con la segunda casta guerrera.

Eliade, por supuesto, no es del todo tradicionalista, en el sentido en que Guénon y Evola son tradicionalistas. Sin embargo, de los pensadores más cercanos a los tradicionalistas, es Eliade quien tiene una actitud más cercana a los representantes de la tercera casta.

Guénon se centra en la contemplación de los principios inmutables. Evola a la lucha heroica y la existencia militar intransigente. Eliade: en el espacio, lo opuesto a la historia, a la actualización ritual y al mantenimiento del equilibrio. Si Evola se enfocó estilísticamente en los ejemplos de las destrezas militares, entonces Eliade lo hizo en los rituales campesinos y arcaicos, de ahí la simpatía especial por el "cristianismo cósmico".

Su filosofía es menos trágica, porque Eliade está en todas partes tratando de leer los signos de lo sagrado oculto, no solo para exponer la crisis del mundo moderno, el cierre del huevo del mundo desde arriba, sino para ver la posibilidad de la revelación en las cosas más comunes. La hierofanía puede manifestarse en las cosas más comunes: este es el significado de la mayor parte de su obra literaria. 

Al mismo tiempo, Eliade es sorprendentemente étnico, lo que tampoco puede entenderse sin referencia a su literatura. Eliade es historiador de las religiones y profesor estadounidense que escribe obras teóricas en inglés y francés. Eliade escribe solo en rumano principalmente sobre su patria, razón por la cual las traducciones a veces aparecen antes que los originales.

978968411183.JPGSe presta especial atención a los problemas de la relación de los sexos en la obra literaria, el equilibrio entre el hombre y la mujer, el peculiar simbolismo matrimonial de Eliade, claramente manifestado en su obra literaria, también se refiere al principio característico de la tercera función según Dumézil: la relación entre los sexos y "estar en la boda".

La figura de Anisius de Noapte de Sanziene, un "emperador" campesino que ve el paso del tiempo histórico al tiempo cósmico como un paso en el camino del tiempo a la Eternidad, es un hombre campesino separado del tradicionalismo. Así es como la figura de una persona separada se realiza en un contexto campesino, donde en el trabajo esa persona rompe con el mundo moderno y logra una visión de todo el cosmos en su conjunto.

Por otro lado, el final Noapte de Sanziene es indicativo: Stefan finalmente conoce a Ileana, la heroína con el nombre de una novia de cuentos de hadas rumanos en un bosque en las afueras de París, su reunión es coronada con la muerte en un accidente automovilístico. La muerte y el estar en la boda coinciden. Pero, como termina la novela de Eliade, este "último momento infinito será suficiente".

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dimanche, 09 août 2020

Julius Evola: The Philosopher & Magician in War: 1943-1945

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Julius Evola:
The Philosopher & Magician in War: 1943-1945

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

Gianfranco de Turris
Julius Evola: The Philosopher and Magician in War: 1943–1945
Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2020

julius-evola-9781620558065_hr.jpgThis English translation of Gianfranco de Turris’s Julius Evola: Un filosofo in guerra 1943–1945 has come along at just the right time, for it shows us how a great man coped both with societal collapse and with personal tragedy. As the title implies, the book focuses on Evola’s activities during the last two years of the Second World War. However, de Turris goes considerably beyond that time frame, dealing with much that happened to Evola after the war, up until about 1950.

De Turris’s main objectives in this work are to solve a number of mysteries about Evola’s activities at the end of the war, and in the post-war years, and to respond to the philosopher’s critics. Because, until now, so little has been known about these years in Evola’s life, they have been the object of a great deal of speculation, especially on the part of hostile, Left-wing writers. De Turris has uncovered fascinating new information about Evola’s activities and provided definitive answers to a great many lingering questions.

The book begins with an episode that will doubtless be the focus of most critical reviews: Evola’s journey to Hitler’s headquarters in August–September 1943. As the war dragged on, public opinion in Italy had begun to turn against Mussolini, especially after Rome was bombed by the Allies for the first time on the 19th of July. Several members of the government had turned against Mussolini, and the Duce felt compelled to summon the Fascist Grand Council for the first time since the beginning of the war. This turned out to be a mistake, for it passed a motion of no confidence in Mussolini, effectively giving King Victor Emmanuel the power to dismiss him. Mussolini, however, behaved as if nothing of significance had occurred. He appeared for an audience at the royal palace the next day, prepared to brief the King on recent events. Instead, the King had Mussolini arrested and imprisoned in a hotel atop Gran Sasso mountain, the highest peak in the Apennines.

The story of Mussolini’s daring rescue (on the 12th of September) by German commandos flying gliders, led by the legendary Otto Skorzeny, is one of the most famous episodes of the war. Mussolini was immediately flown to Munich and then to Hitler’s HQ (“Wolf’s Lair”) in East Prussia. When he arrived on the 14th of September, Julius Evola had already been there for several days. The philosopher was part of a delegation chosen by the Germans to help advise them on what course to take in Italy. The delegation also included the Duce’s son, Vittorio.

Their journey from Italy was undertaken at considerable risk. The plane carrying Evola narrowly escaped interception by Allied aircraft. On the ground, Evola and others were disguised for part of their journey in Waffen SS caps and coats. Once the philosopher had arrived at Wolf’s Lair, he and the other members of the delegation were received by Joachim von Ribbentrop who communicated to them Hitler’s wish that “the Fascists who remained faithful to their belief and to the Duce were to immediately initiate an appeal to the Italian people announcing the constitution of a counter-government that confirmed loyalty to the Axis according to the commitment first declared and then not maintained by the King” (quoting Evola’s account, p. 20).

Believe it or not, this is one of the less interesting parts of de Turris’s book. Far more interesting is what happens to Evola later. Those already familiar with the details of Evola’s life will know what is coming: his flight from Rome, his injury in Vienna, and his long recovery in the years immediately following the war. This part of the book is more interesting not just because it fills in many blanks in Evola’s biography, but because it reveals a more “human” side to the philosopher. I apologize if this seems a somewhat maudlin way to speak of a man like Evola, but I can think of no alternative.

Those who have read Evola extensively know that the philosopher can often seem as remote as the peaks he climbed in his youth. In de Turris’s account, however, we find an Evola who is initially depressed and dispirited by the outcome of the war, and by his injury. He struggles to make sense out of why these things have occurred, and he struggles to define what his mission must be in the post-war situation. Eventually, he emerges triumphant, but it is instructive to see not only how he overcomes his struggles, but that he struggles. In facing our current situation, in which the Western world (especially the US) seems to be falling down around our ears, Evola’s example gives us strength. We see that even Evola, even this “differentiated type” (to use his terminology) had to struggle with adversity — but that he overcame.

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On June 4, 1944, the Allies captured Rome. One of the first things their agents did, just hours after entering the city, was to pay Julius Evola a call. Allied intelligence had learned that Evola’s name was on a list of intended agents of a German-led “Post-Occupational Network” for espionage and sabotage (his codename was “Maria”). They showed up at Evola’s apartment, no doubt with the intention of arresting and interrogating him. However, Evola’s elderly mother detained them at the entrance, while the philosopher slipped unnoticed out a side door. The one thing he took with him was a suitcase containing the materials that would eventually become the three-volume Introduction to Magic (Introduzione alla magia).

Evola then embarked on a long and arduous journey. On foot, he made his way out of the city and located the retreating German troops. They gave him shelter, and eventually, he wound up in Vienna, where he lived under an assumed name. Exactly why Evola headed for Vienna has been something of a mystery, and de Turris spends a good deal of time on it. Incredibly, it appears that Evola went to Vienna to undertake research on Freemasonry at the request of the SD (Sicherheitsdienst; the “Security Service” of the SS)! The SD’s “Office VII” had been engaged in Freemasonic studies, and they were not going to interrupt it for a small thing like the apocalypse.

Evola later told an associate that the SD had assigned him the task of “a purification work and ‘return to the origin’ of the Freemasonic rituals found during the war by the German troops in various countries” (p. 158). Evola was not sure exactly why the SD was interested in this. Had they sent him in search of the Ark of the Covenant, it would hardly be more surprising. In case it is not obvious what Freemasonry had to be “purified” of, Evola actually makes this clear in his autobiography The Path of Cinnabar (Il cammino del cinabro): “[Freemasonry] initially had an initiatic character but later, in parallel with its politicization, had moved to obey and subject itself to anti-traditional influences. The final outcome was to act out the part as one of the main secret forces of world subversion, even before the French Revolution, and then in general solidarity with the revolution of the Third State [sic]” (quoted in de Turris, p. 159; The translator means “Third Estate,” which, in the French Ancien Régime, was made up of the peasants and bourgeoisie).

Luftangriffe.jpgOn January 21, 1945, Evola decided to take a walk through the streets of Vienna during an aerial bombardment by the Americans (and not the Soviets, as has been erroneously claimed). While he was in the vicinity of Schwarzenbergplatz, a bomb fell nearby, throwing Evola several feet and knocking him unconscious. He was found and taken to a military hospital. When the philosopher awoke hours later, the first thing he did was to ask what had become of his monocle. Once the doctors had finished looking him over, the news was not good. Evola was found to have a contusion of the spinal cord which left him with complete paralysis from the waist down. As Mircea Eliade notoriously said, the injury was roughly at the level of “the third chakra.” It resulted in Evola being categorized as a “100-percent war invalid,” which afforded him the small pension he received for the rest of his life.

Why did Evola go for a walk during a bombing raid? Eliade erroneously claimed that Evola “went to fight on the barricades against the Soviet Russian advance on Vienna” (p. 128). Evola provides an answer himself, in a hitherto unpublished letter to the wife of the Austrian conservative philosopher Othmar Spann:

. . . I would always challenge destiny, so to speak. And from here originate my acts of folly on the glaciers and mountains: hence the principle of my not caring or having any concern about the aerial bombardments. And the same goes for when I was in Vienna when the situation had exacerbated to the point of severe danger. . . . In the end I was caught by a carpet bombing in Schwarzenberg. [p. 125]

But when Evola went out walking that fateful day, he had expected that his destiny would be either to live or to die. He was not expecting that he might be destined to live out the rest of his days as a cripple. This turn of events seems to have utterly perplexed the philosopher, and he struggled to make sense of why this had happened to him, and at that point in his life. Matters were complicated by Evola’s belief, stated years later in The Path of Cinnabar, that “there is no significant event in existence that was not wanted by us before birth” (quoted in de Turris, p. 169).

In the same letter to Erika Spann, Evola writes: “What is not clear to me is the purpose of the whole thing: I had in fact the idea — the belief if you want to call it, naïve — that one either dies or reawakens. The meaning of what has happened to me is one of confusion: neither one nor the other motive” (p. 170). De Turris refers to the “incomprehension and disillusionment” Evola experienced “at the outcome and aftermath of the war” (p. 54). The philosopher had been struggling to understand the cataclysm that had engulfed Europe and destroyed Fascism and National Socialism, concerning which he had cautiously nurtured certain hopes. Now, additionally, he had to make sense of why fate had chosen to permanently cripple this Western kshatriya, this man of action. It is difficult to imagine the desolation and inner turmoil Evola had to endure in the years immediately following the war. Again quoting the letter to Frau Spann: “In this world today — in this world of ruins — I have nothing to do or look for. Even if tomorrow everything magically returns to its place, I would be here without a goal in life, empty. All the more so in this condition and in this clinic” (pp. 199-200).

AK-OÖ-Bad-Ischl-Kur-Erholungsheim-Salzkammergut.jpgEvola was eventually transferred to a hospital in Bad Ischl, where he received better treatment. De Turris offers a rather harrowing account of the various operations and therapies used to treat Evola, mostly without success. Despite his condition, while at Bad Ischl, Evola actually traveled to Budapest, where he remained for a couple of months before returning to Austria. Little is known about what Evola was doing in Budapest or who helped him get there (though we now know the address at which he was living). De Turris argues persuasively that Evola went there to be treated by the famous Hungarian neurologist, András Pető, who had some success in the treatment of paralysis using unconventional methods. Unfortunately, he was not able to help Evola.

From the beginning, Evola had entertained the possibility that his paralysis was “psychic” in nature. He was encouraged in this belief by René Guénon, with whom he continued to correspond from his hospital bed in Bad Ischl. Guénon wrote to him:

According to what you tell me, it would seem that what really prevents you from recovering is more of a psychic nature than physical; if this is so the only solution without doubt would be to provoke a contrary reaction that comes forth from your own self. . . . Besides, it isn’t at all impossible that something might have taken advantage of the opportunity provided by the lesion to act against you; but it’s not at all clear by whom and why this may have occurred. [p. 148]

In fact, there does seem to be something mysterious about Evola’s condition. In 1952, he was visited in his apartment by several associates, including the anthroposophists Massimo Scaligero and Giovanni Colazza. During this visit, the men saw Evola move his legs – something that, given his paralysis, should have been completely impossible. After leaving Evola’s presence, they were naturally eager to discuss this. It was reported that Colazza said to Scaligero, “Of course he could! But he doesn’t! He does not want to do it” (p. 197).

Setting this mystery aside, Evola appears to have become reconciled to his condition by reminding himself that, after all, the body is but a temporary vehicle for the spirit. In a letter to a friend, he states that “in regard to my situation — even if I had to remain forever like this, which is not excluded — it spiritually does not signify anything more for me than if my car had a flat tire” (p. 168). Another friend, a Catholic priest, naïvely suggested that Evola travel to Lourdes in hopes of a miracle cure at the Sanctuary of our Lady. Evola responded with kindness and patience, saying, “I have already told you how little this thing means to me . . . The basic premise, which is that of an ardent desire for a healing, is first of all lacking. If grace were to be asked for, it would rather be to understand the spiritual meaning as to why this has happened — whether it remains this way or not; even more so, to understand the reason for my continuing to live” (pp. 168-69).

Julius Evola.jpgAnd, in time, Evola does seem to have come to some understanding of why fate had dealt him this hand, though he never made public these very personal reflections. On the eve of the philosopher’s return to Italy in August 1948, his doctor at Bad Ischl reported that “the general state of the patient has improved considerably in these last days, the initial depressions have become lighter, the irascibility and the problems of relationship with the nursing staff and patients have declined markedly” (p. 176). Indeed, one imagines that Evola was not an ideal patient. He wrote to Erika Spann of the “spirit-infested atmosphere of the diseases of these patients” (p. 193; italics in original).

What undoubtedly lifted Evola’s spirits is that he had at last defined what was to be his post-war mission. In The Path of Cinnabar, he writes that

The movement in the post-war period should have taken the form of a party and performed a function analogous to that which the Italian Social Movement [MSI] had conceived for itself, but with a more precise traditional orientation, belonging to the Right, without unilateral references to Fascism and with a precise discrimination between the positive aspects of Fascism and the negative ones. [Quoted in de Turris, p. 54]

Concerning this, de Turris comments that “all of his [post-war] publishing activities and book-writing projects were specifically oriented in this direction” (p. 54). In 1949, Evola began writing again, initially under the penname “Arthos.” He wrote in bed, in pencil, with a lap desk placed before him, or he used a typewriter, seated at his desk in front of the window. His French biographer, Jean-Paul Lippi, referred to him as “an immobile warrior.”

Around this time, Evola learned that he had become an idol of Right-wing youth in Italy. In September 1950, he addressed the National Youth Assembly of the MSI in Bologna. The inclusion of Evola seems to have been last-minute. The organizers heard that the philosopher was staying at a nearby hospital and paid him an impromptu visit. One of the men present offers this moving account of what happened next:

We introduced ourselves and invited him to attend the assembly. He made himself immediately available and expressed great interest. He asked us if he could have the time only to change and shave. I remember that in his haste he had a small cut on his cheek. We carried him in our arms and placed him in the German military truck. Upon entering the assembly hall he was warmly welcomed by our group and since Evola was unknown to me as a thinker, Enzo Erra introduced him as a heroic invalid of the Italian Social Republic. On stage, while I was supporting him, I noticed that he was pleasantly surprised and moved by the welcome of hundreds of young people. He silently fixed his attention and listened intently to the various interventions, and at the end of the proceedings we took him back to the hospital. It was at that moment that we had the idea of asking him to write a booklet that would be a guide, and that was how the Orientamenti was born. The next day we accompanied him to a small mountain hotel in the Apennines. [p. 207]

unnamedcivilta.jpgJulius Evola was back. Indeed, he wrote some of his most important books in the post-war years: Men Among the Ruins, The Metaphysics of Sex, Ride the Tiger, The Path of Cinnabar, Meditations on the Peaks, and others. Arguably, he enjoyed far more influence after the war than he ever did before. Disturbed by his influence on the youth, Italian authorities arrested Evola in May 1951 and put him on trial for “glorifying Fascism.” He was acquitted — something that would be unimaginable in today’s world, given its unironic concern with “social justice.”

This book is required reading for admirers of Evola, and students of traditionalism generally. It should also be read by Leftist critics of Evola — though it will not be, or, if it is, the contents will be distorted and misrepresented. You see, de Turris does almost too thorough a job of demolishing Evola’s detractors. One wishes, in fact, that he had spent a little less time jousting with these people, as they all come off as dishonest lightweights. Still, I suppose it is necessary. And “jousting” is an appropriate term, as de Turris’s defense of his mentor is gallant and virile in the best tradition of the “aristocrats of the soul.” He has learned from a master, and in his voice we sometimes hear an echo of Evola’s own. De Turris is well-qualified to tell Evola’s story: he knew the philosopher personally, and is the executor of his estate.

Among the fine features of this volume are two interesting appendices. The first consists of illustrations, some of which are fascinating. One is a reproduction of the top of a cigar box signed by the men present at Wolf’s Lair, including Evola, Vittorio Mussolini, and others. The second appendix consists of hitherto-unpublished translations of several articles Evola wrote in 1943 for La Stampa, the daily newspaper in Turin. I will close with a quote from one of these, which is not only prescient, given Evola’s fate after 1943, but also particularly relevant to the situation in which we now find ourselves:

From one day to another, and even from one hour to another, an individual can lose his home to a bombardment: that which has been loved the most and to which one was most attached, the very object of one’s most spontaneous feelings. . . . It has become blatantly clear . . . as a living fact accompanied with a feeling of liberation: all that is destructive and tragic can have value to inspire. This is not about sensitivity or badly understood Stoicism. Quite the contrary: it is a question of knowing and nurturing a sense of detachment from oneself, people, and things, which should instill calm, unparalleled security, and even . . . indomitability. . . . A radical breakdown of the “bourgeois” that exists in every person is possible in these devastating times. . . . [To] make once more essential and important what should always be in a normal existence: the relationship between life and more than life . . . During these hours of trials and tribulations the discovery of the path, where these values are positively experienced and translated into pure strength for as many people as possible, is undoubtedly one of the main tasks of the political-spiritual elite of our nation. [pp. 261–62]

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lundi, 03 août 2020

Towards a Right-Wing Critical Theory

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Towards a Right-Wing Critical Theory

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

Amid the social turmoil of the late 1960s, the German Communist student Rudi Dutschke called for a “long march through the institutions” as the preferred strategy of ensuring the victory of global Marxist revolution. The success of this initiative is no more prominent in the West than in today’s academia, where Frankfurt School Critical Theory and its related trend, postmodernism, maintain an iron grip of control over the intellectual atmosphere, viciously rooting out all forms of dissent through outing, outrageous accusations, public shaming, firing, and, all too often, the tragic consequence of permanently destroying one’s future. Should any uppity academic arrogate to oppose the systemic “deconstruction” of the heteronormative, cisnormative, patriarchal, ethnocentric, elitist, religious West, their villainous resistance to tolerance and progress will be justly silenced.

Naturally, such quasi-Stalinist practices (we will remove “quasi” once incarceration, and not the loss of one’s livelihood, becomes the normal penalty for opposition) make a bad impression on those yet unconvinced of the merits of these intellectual traditions. Popular figures such as Jordan Peterson and Pat Buchanan are well known for their criticisms of critical theory, with the unfortunate consequence that their obstinacy in truly engaging with the school has resulted in more than a few jokes and the vehement refusal of most men on the Right to see anything valuable in the enemy’s unwavering criticism and deconstruction of the modern West’s various sacred cows. Peterson is often mocked by Leftist intellectuals and their followers for his tirade against “postmodern neo-Marxism,” quick to see the movement as nothing but a nihilistic and epistemologically skepticist cult with no real conviction for anything but frenetic revolution. Pat Buchanan, in The Death of the West, [1] [1] acknowledges the Frankfurt School’s success in undermining the various institutions of our civilization, but can only pathetically anathematize critical theory as “anything but benign” [2] [2] in the typical fashion of a paranoid and impotent American “conservative” who is chronically unable to realize the inevitable, downward-spiraling consequences of the Enlightenment project and fears for the destruction of his comfortable, consumer lifestyle. Accusing the cultural Marxists of preferring psychological conditioning to philosophical argument, [3] [3] Buchanan fails to see the irony when he continues to merely restate the anti-Western positions of critical theorists in order to generate panic in his readership without producing any real understanding or alternative, openly remarking a few pages later that “traditionalists have yet to discover effective countermeasures.” [4] [4]

But they have. If “traditionalists” have yet to discover effective methods to defend the West’s traditional values, it is only because Buchanan conflates traditionalism — more specifically, Traditionalism — with his own “paleoconservatism” and worship of classical liberal American principles. It is indisputable that Republicans, Right-wing libertarians, and other mainstream conservatives are more concerned with the performance of the stock market and a vague notion of “liberty” than they are with the much more tangible and profound issues of demographic change, the family, spiritual well-being, and other matters factoring into the question of whether or not the proverbial “pursuit of happiness” means anything more than the hollow satisfaction offered by monetary gain; consequently, they are by no means willing to actively engage with self-professed enemies of Western Civilization through anything but the occasional pseudointellectual garbage (of which The Death of the West is a slightly above average example) regurgitated by “thinkers” like Dinesh D’Souza or Ben Shapiro. This is owed in no small part to the time-honored American tradition of anti-intellectualism and the fact that any real action would cost them their own, slightly older, modernist ideals. However, once one is willing to recognize that a true conservatism entails a rejection of all revolutionary tendencies and thus begins to look outside the camp of those satisfied with self-destructive American principles, one sees that the Right itself has access to an entire critical tradition of its own, older than that of the Frankfurt School, which needs only to be revived to fight academic Leftism with its own methods: a radical disillusionment with the bourgeois narrative of progress combined with a systematic effort to establish an intellectual elite of theorists through securing as much influence as possible by openly working to deconstruct all modern myths.

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That is to say, if the Right can look beyond the specific, unappealing conclusions of critical theorists and postmodernists and instead take inspiration from their methods as a whole, this tradition could be recovered. But, once again, what is meant by “Right” is no milquetoast Americanist conservatism, nor even the illiberal ethnonationalism of the “alt-right,” which are both essentially modernist. Rather, what might be termed “Right-wing critical theory” is fully and fundamentally counter-revolutionary, in the intellectual vein of the Traditionalists René Guénon and Julius Evola. To the extent that the “West” is identified with the individualistic, secularist paradigm of European society following the Enlightenment and French Revolution, Right-wing critical theory can even be termed anti-Western. Opposing material and moral progress, the bourgeois invention of the nation-state, the artificial dichotomy of capitalism and communism, the secular rationalism of the Enlightenment and its arrogant dismissal of other cultural traditions, stale Christian moralism, biological racism, the unjust oppression of colonized peoples by mercantile European empires, the primacy of science, and a plethora of other ideas specific to the modern West, Evola and Guénon frequently sound like trendy postmodern academics or other “cultural Marxist” intellectuals. If the Traditional Right is to crush — or “deconstruct” — the ideologies and institutions that led to the genesis of decadent modernity, then they would do well to imitate the critical theorists by looking at our own critical tradition as developed by these seminal thinkers and thus catch the enemy off guard by using his own weapons. In what follows, I will list five excerpts (though I could list many, many more) that demonstrate Guénon and Evola’s uncanny skill in challenging the distorted and puerile Weltanschauung of Western bourgeois civilization.

Let us begin with the central myth of modernity. Regarding the idea of progress, Evola, in Revolt Against the Modern World, states:

No idea is as absurd as the idea of progress, which together with its corollary notion of the superiority of modern civilization, has creative its own “positive” alibis by falsifying history, by insinuating harmful myths in people’s minds, and by proclaiming itself sovereign at the crossroads of the plebeian ideology from which it originated. . . . Our contemporaries must truly have become blind if they really thought they could measure everything by their standards and consider their own civilization as privileged, as the one to which the history of the world was preordained and outside of which there is nothing but barbarism, darkness, and superstition. [5] [6]

Written during the existential crisis of faith experienced by the champions of liberalism in the wake of the Second World War, Guénon appraises the idea of material progress:

However, let us consider things for a moment from the standpoint of those whose ideal is material “welfare,” and who therefore rejoice at all the improvements to life furnished by modern “progress”; are they quite sure they are not being duped? Is it true that, because they dispose of swifter means of communication and other things of the kind, and because of their more agitated and complicated manner of life, men are happier today than they were formerly? The very opposite seems to us to be true: disequilibrium cannot be a condition of real happiness. Moreover, the more needs a man has, the greater the likelihood that he will lack something, and thereby be unhappy; modern civilization aims at creating more and more artificial needs, and as we have already said, it will always create more needs than it can satisfy, for once one has started on this path, it is very hard to stop, and, indeed, there is no reason for stopping at any particular point. [6] [7]

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Next, for those who know all too well the Leftist lecture on how everything is merely a “social construct,” let us take a look at Evola’s views on the modern nation-state, taken from the same work, wherein the “nation” is only a result of the degeneration of the higher ideal of the Imperium, or Empire:

Modern nationalism is not based on a natural unity, but on an artificial and centralizing one . . . Regardless of its myths, the substance of modern nationalism is not an ethnos [emphasis original] but a demos, and its prototype always remains the plebian one produced by the French revolution. . . . It is well known that in Europe during the nineteenth century, nationalism was synonymous with revolution . . . What emerges in nationalism is an opposite aspect, namely, the cumulative and collectivizing element. [7] [8]

What may be most surprising is how similar the Guénonian-Evolian critique of European colonialism sounds to modern liberal-academic critiques of the same; far from praising the conquering spirit of the European people, Guénon and Evola strictly condemn the cruel spread of materialism and “progress” to other parts of the globe, the subsequent economic exploitation, the laughable intimations of Western superiority, and the perceived unbridgeable differences between East and West. Any reader who has taken a college course or two on an Eastern culture will probably have heard of the Gramscian Marxist and postmodernist writer Edward Said, who in 1978 published Orientalism (a holy book in today’s universities), accusing Western civilization, which supposedly sees itself as masculine, active, rationalistic, and progressive, of caricaturizing the East — fundamentally Other — as feminine, passive, superstitious, and regressive, and using this depiction to justify colonialism. Long before Said penned Orientalism, however, Guénon, as early as 1927, had already dismissed the arrogance of modernist Western scholars who had failed to understand the East, blaming the supposed divide between Occident and Orient on the West’s abnormality:

There is no essential opposition between [traditional civilizations] . . . On the other hand, a civilization that recognizes no higher principles, but is in reality based on a negation of principles, is by this very fact ruled out from all mutual understanding with other civilizations . . . There was no reason for opposition between East and West as long as there were traditional civilizations in the West as well as in the East; the opposition has meaning only as far as the modern West is concerned, for it is far more an opposition between two mentalities than between two more or less clearly defined geographical entities. [8] [9]

Often misrepresented as a sadistic, militarist fascist bent on oppressing others for the mere hell of it, Evola, in Recognitions: Studies on Men and Problems from the Perspective of the Right, critiques Western imperialism:

. . . but especially with regard to the Orient the idea of “superiority of civilization” was a mere presumption of the white races, as was the conviction that Christianity made the Occident the bearer of the true faith, authorizing it to a haughty detachment from the rest of humanity, which it considered “pagan” and barbaric. . . . The myth of superiority, which in the end justified every sort of abuse and oppression, rested on the progressivist superstition — that is on the idea that science and technological civilization constitute the last word on the history of the world, and secure the Europeans of the global right to a general “civilizing” work. [9] [10]

It is quite obvious that the similarities with the critical theorists extend only as far as the act of criticism itself, only in recognizing that there is a crucial problem with the world today and the subsequent initiation of intellectual-cultural militancy against it; thus, the critical Right must in truth act as a counter-criticism, combating the pernicious assumptions of the modern world as well as of the Marxist theorists themselves. One clear example is found in Evola’s doctrine of the regression of the castes, viewing bourgeois society as a morphological anomaly of civilizations but even more harshly condemning the Marxist-led proletarian movements which seek to replace it. [10] [12] Nor could the formation of a true Right-wing critical theory flourish without a concomitant spiritual awakening; as today’s subversive academics are fueled by a religious white guilt and bourgeois pity for “oppressed” minorities, the Right ought to draw strength from a source indescribably higher.

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One might object that the formation of an intellectual elite in today’s increasingly dystopian environment is fanciful at best and delusional at worst. After all, Guénon, in The Crisis of the Modern World, explicitly advocated for the formation of an élite intellectuelle to make contact with spiritual representatives of the East in order to direct the West back onto a course of normality, eventually giving up on this possibility late in life. Likewise, Evola’s idea of the Männerbund (though this was less intellectual for him) has hardly come to fruition. Furthermore, open critical dissent — that is, not merely expositions of one’s own ideology, but the direct deconstruction of the dominant paradigms peddled by the Leftist elite — isn’t safe for a family man with a job.

However, as the technocratic surveillance state tends increasingly towards practical omnipotence and omnipresence, and those preferring to stick to the shadows in some remote corner of America become increasingly unable to do so, one must ask oneself what alternatives are left. Nor should anyone mistakenly believe that a Right-wing critical theory would discourage complementary action; as the 60s generation marched in the streets, their allied intellectuals fervently published in their defense.  It is also worth considering that the revolutionaries themselves faced the same dangers of loss of their livelihoods, reputations, or even lives through active dissent. If true men of the Right can ride the tiger by adopting the same methodologies of deconstruction and disillusionment as their subversive opponents, and use their increased popularity to gain ever more prominent positions with society, then as long as the counter-revolution sticks to truly Traditional principles, perhaps the tide can be turned. Counter-Currents already recognizes that the culture war is truly crucial.

If modernity is a prison, then we must survey the movements of our guards to learn how to escape.

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Notes

[1] [15] Patrick J. Buchanan, “Four Who Made a Revolution,” in The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization. New York: St. Martin’s, 2002.

[2] [16] Buchanan, 80.

[3] [17] Buchanan, 83.

[4] [18] Buchanan, 90.

[5] [19] Julius Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions International, 1995. p. xxx.

[6] [20] René Guénon, The Crisis of the Modern World. Hillsdale, NY: Sophia Perennis, 2004. p. 93.

[7] [21] Evola, 339.

[8] [22] Guénon, 21-22.

[9] [23] Julius Evola, Recognitions: Studies on Men and Problems from the Perspective of the Right. London: Arktos Media, 2017. p. 90.

[10] [24] The regression of castes permeates Evola’s work. For an overview, see “The Regression of the Castes” in Revolt. See also “The Historiography of the Right” in Recognitions for an example of the appropriation of Marxist methodologies for Right-wing purposes.

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vendredi, 31 juillet 2020

Brief Thoughts on Tao Te Ching

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Brief Thoughts on Tao Te Ching

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

Author’s note: Cited passages are taken from the 1988 Stephen Mitchell translation, London, Macmillan.

Tao Te Ching, the “Book of the Way,” was ostensibly composed by the pseudonymous Lao Tzu, about whom next to nothing is known, sometime around the time of Confucius (551-479 BC). It’s things like this that add even more irresistible mystique to this slender volume, its lucid prose and valuable insights aside. Tao Te Ching reads like a happy accident of the recorded histories of Earth, its ruminations on being not-being coming across almost ironically due to the fact that they exist on paper. In some ways, one could argue that Tao being extant is one of the greatest ironies known to man.

Aside from its ephemeral diction and the general obscurity of its author, Tao is known for the basic description of the ideals of Taoism — that is, living in accordance with Tao, the “way” or “truth” of the universe. Much of the Western conception of Eastern spiritualism and the thinking of East Asians stems from our exposure to the practices of Confucianism and Taoism, with many things from either school often being inaccurately attributed to the other in our collective conscience. In some ways, the appeal of the East when it comes to Western thought can be partially explained by this same alienness and exoticness, but with the important caveat that these works still remain intelligible to us within our own cultural context. The great Ezra Pound was famously inspired by Eastern poetry and art in his own compositions, cutting his teeth on translations of Confucius and other great Chinese writers both before and during his own time as a writer. Reading through the Cantos alongside Tao will inevitably reveal some parallels to the reader.

East Asian writings are so stimulating to the right kinds of Western minds because they often dwell upon the same topics that Westerners dwelled upon, but with a wholly different set of ethics and metaphysical principles underlying their thought processes. It is not necessarily true that Asian philosophers arrive, invariably, at conclusions or questions remarkably similar to those in the Western tradition, but that our readings of these works with the mind of a Westerner allows us to make connections to concepts that we deal with in our own philosophical musings — in some ways, we’re comparing notes, and in other ways, we’re taking away insights that could only be made possible by our own conceptions of things like honor and being. The Western Taoist and the Eastern Taoist inevitably practice the Way differently, but that may also be the point.

To explain the premises of Taoism now would take days, so I encourage anyone interested in the book or this philosophy to explore it on their own. Rather, I would like to focus on two concepts discussed in Tao that are immediately applicable to the struggles of the West; and more specifically, those fighting to save it.

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One of the most important concepts in Tao is that of the awkwardly-rendered and deliberately ambiguous “being not-being,” — effortless action, wu wei 無爲 — the act of living in accordance with the Way. Action springs forth from the knowledge that the situation at hand is unknowable, but through observation and instinct, can be made known by one’s own hand. One of the more elegant descriptions of this premise comes from zhang 22:

The Master, by residing in the Tao,
sets an example for all beings.
Because he doesn’t display himself,
people can see his light.
Because he has nothing to prove
people can trust his words.
Because he doesn’t know who he is,
people recognize themselves in him.
Because he has no goal in mind,
everything he does succeeds.

It would be easy to dismiss this as nonsensical babble. But the truth of this particular segment lies in how one determines the meanings of the self and what it means to “know” who one is. In the less abstract sense of things, one could argue that the West is in a permanent state of unknowing of our identity, especially in the modern day and age in which such things are nebulous and often impossible to grasp.

But doesn’t the idea of rejecting a concrete definition of one’s identity fall directly in opposition to our struggle, the struggle of asserting our collective identities and personhood in the face of those who claim such things do not exist? Not necessarily. One could also make the argument that knowledge of the self in terms intelligible to another human, or in fact, one’s own self, because we speak to ourselves in the tongue understood by others, is not actual knowledge of one’s identity at all. The idea of not-being or not-knowing in the Tao is the idea of shrugging off the medium through which we parse these concepts — is a description of yourself really useful when the words you need to use to describe such a thing are mired in their own implications and subtexts? We can say that we are white, European, traditionalists, nationalists, or any other number of these things when talking to others. But who are we, really?

The next zhang offers some clues:

Express yourself completely
then keep quiet.
Be like the forces of nature:
when it blows, there is only wind;
when it rains, there is only rain;
when the clouds pass, the sun shines through.

If you open yourself to the Tao,
you are at one with the Tao
and you embody it completely.
If you open yourself to insight,
you are at one with insight
and you can use it completely.
If you open yourself to loss,
you are at one with loss
and you can accept it completely.

Open yourself to the Tao,
then trust your natural responses;
and everything will fall into place.

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Far from the pacifism or woo-ish “let the wind blow” weaves of New Agey nonsense, our Lao Tzu seems to be telling us that there is intense value to be found in the visceral — the visceral tempered by the knowledge gleaned as we spring into action. We as fighters for the West are not-are by engaging in action when we see that our struggle demands it. When we march, we think not of ideas. Even when we write of ideas, we think not of ideas; we make them known to us through the swift motion of our understanding making its way forth by ink onto paper. When we decided to make the plunge into these spheres, knowing that it may well cost us our lives or livelihoods, we thought not of what grand ideology or philosophy made such a thing just, practical, or self-serving. We simply did. We obviously consider these things after the fact, but that is the key — rather than dream up rationale for our actions and then engage in actions, we went forward with gut instincts then sought to understand the causes of our predicament afterward. We made the universe known through doing, not through proving.

But perhaps the most important zhang of Tao is the one that puts the biggest smile on my face. For being not-being in time and space is quite the task, it is easy to get bogged down in seriousness, or even worse, begin to miss the point and start explaining yourself. When our enemies describe us — invariably incorrectly — it is easy enough to laugh, and remember the words of zhang 20 quite simply:

Other people are excited
as though they were at a parade.
I alone don’t care,
I alone am expressionless,
like an infant before it can smile.

Other people have what they need,
I alone possess nothing.
I alone drift about,
like someone without a home.
I am like an idiot, my mind is so empty.

Other people are bright;
I alone am dark.
Other people are sharp;
I alone am dull.
Other people have a purpose;
I alone don’t know.
I drift like a wave on the ocean,
I blow as aimless as the wind.

At this point in time, we ought not to seek to correct our detractors. They fumble about against a tide they fail to understand. The Right has the book thrown at us every day. We simply ride the winds where they take us, and we’ve done a cracking good job of it so far. Above all, we are nothing like those bogged down with the hubris of pretending to know who we or they are — we simply are.

Sur les cultes du sanglier

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Sur les cultes du sanglier

Le sanglier est un animal courant et va englober dans sa symbolique la laie, le cochon et la truie. Dans la Grèce, la mythologie représente le sanglier comme instrument des dieux : il est tueur ou tué selon que le héros a été condamné par les dieux ou testé (Héraclès, Adonis, Attis…).

Le sanglier était attribut de Déméter et d'Atalante.

Dans les cultures germano-nordiques, il est attribut de Freya, et Frey, son frère, a pour monture un sanglier aux poils d'or. C'est peut-être Freya qui est devenue en terres erses et celtiques la déesse Arwina, figurée avec un sanglier, et qui, en France, a donné son nom aux Ardennes et à l'Aude, ainsi que divers prénoms : Aude, Audrey, Aldouin, Ardwin…

En outre, en Irlande et en France, le sanglier représente symboliquement la classe des druides et, plus tard, les prêtres : il figure à ce titre sur un des chapiteaux de la basilique de Saulieu — 21 —.

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Parce que lié à la fécondité, de nombreuses légendes mettent en scène des héros élevés par des suidés ; parce que lié à la force mâle, sa chasse fut longtemps initiatique.

L'Église a tenté d'intervenir, mais sans succès cette fois, pour 4 raisons essentielles :

1) trop répandus, sangliers et porcs sont une ressource alimentaire importante ; la peau, les défenses, les ongles, les os… tout ce qui n'est pas mangeable sert à l'artisanat utilitaire ;
2) il est associé à trop de saints populaires : Antoine, Émile, Colomban… ;
3) mettre l'interdit sur les porcs serait avoir la même attitude que les juifs,
4) en Allemagne, il y eut confusion étymologique entre Eber = sanglier et Ibri, ancêtre mythique des Hébreux et donc du Christ, parfois représenté sous forme de sanglier (à Erfurt not.).

jeudi, 30 juillet 2020

Símbolos polares y solares: las Especies Eucarísticas.

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Símbolos polares y solares: las Especies Eucarísticas.

Ex: https://agnosis2.blogspot.com
 
Quisiéramos poner algunos ejemplos prácticos de esta relación a veces compleja y ambigua entre los simbolismos polar y solar. 
 
Un caso que seguro sorprenderá a muchos lo encontramos en las santas especias eucarísticas de la Santa Misa. Para acercarnos a su simbolismo intrínseco será más fácil si lo hacemos poniendo las dos santas especies -el pan y el vino- en relación con una de las más famosas parejas mitológicas de la tradición griega, la de Apolo y Dionisos (Nietzsche, Campbell, Fontenrose). [1]

Simbolismo solar del trigo. 

En cuanto a su simbolismo astrológico el trigo -y por tanto el pan- se asocia de forma natural y evidente con el sol, es el fruto solar por antonomasia (E. Zola, Fontenrose, Cambpell). Concretamente se asocia con el ascenso del sol pues el trigo madura cuando el sol está más alto en su curso anual, y por tanto representa en la naturaleza la mitad luminosa y ascendente del año, la luz.
 
Por si fuera poco el trigo maduro presenta el color dorado del mismo sol, lo que le convierte en el equivalente del oro entre los alimentos. Simboliza por tanto como aquel la riqueza material -piénsese en la importancia histórica que ha tenido guardar y conservar el trigo-. El cultivo -y domesticación- del trigo ha tenido también un papel fundamental en el desarrollo de la cultura e incluso en un sentido profano -desde el punto de vista de disciplinas como la arqueología o la antropología-  ha contribuido de forma decisiva a la superación del 'estado de barbarie' primitivo. Este papel de vector cultural lo pone inequívocamente en relación con el dios Apolo, que venció a las fuerzas del caos y que trajo la civilización a los hombres así como diferentes artes.   
 
Por último recordemos que el sol es el símbolo del orden del universo, del vigor y la virilidad -Yang-, la fuerza ordenadora del mundo y la sociedad, y con ello de la casta chatria, a la que está encomendado el gobierno de las sociedades humanas.  

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Simbolismo telúrico del vino. 

Pasemos a la uva -y al producto que se obtiene de ella, el vino-. Astrológicamente la uva hay que asociarla con la mitad descendente del año y la caída del sol, que es cuando madura, por tanto con la mitad oscura del año. A ello hay que añadir el nada despreciable hecho de que el vino se obtiene por fermentación del jugo de las uvas, proceso este que se produce en oscuridad/penumbra y tradicionalmente en el interior de la tierra -bodegas y cuevas-.   
 
Por último el dios Dionisos, como es bien conocido y siguiendo una idea que explotara abundantemente Nietzsche en sus primeras obras, es la antítesis de Apolo. Sabemos además que durante los meses oscuros del año Apolo estaba ausente de Delfos, lo cual es una de las pruebas que arguye Fontenrose para demostrar la relación entre Dionisos y el monstruo mítico Pyhton. 
 
De este modo Dionisos -Baco para los romanos- sugiere el caos y el desorden, la naturaleza salvaje -donde se reunían las bacantes- e incluso los estados bestiales, incompatibles con la vida en sociedad y la civilización, tal y como se manifiesta en los mitos en torno al frenesí extático de las bacantes -que en ocasiones acababan en crímenes de hombres o animales- y  en el desorden social -¿calculado?- que se permitía durante las bacanales -un tanto análogo al posterior carnaval-. Por tanto Dionisos es un dios telúrico que representa las fuerzas descontroladas del caos, lo que llamaríamos el polo material de la manifestación, en oposición al polo formal de la misma. 
 
En definitiva las uvas y el vino son, en tanto símbolo, la antítesis del trigo y el pan. Si estos representan la luz, el sol, el calor, en definitiva las fuerzas de la vida -el polo luminoso de la manifestación, Yang-;  el vino y las uvas representan su natural oposición, la oscuridad, lo telúrico, lo oculto y las fuerzas de la muerte -el polo Yin [2] de la manifestación-. 

El Polo como unificación y generación de los opuestos

Tenemos ya entonces ante nosotros los dos símbolos antitéticos: el pan y el vino. Y ambos símbolos se reúnen en la Eucaristía en la persona de Cristo -son su cuerpo y su sangre- quien por tanto los unifica en perfecta armonía y las trasciende, Él integra y equilibra ambos polos, o mejor dicho 'por Él y en Él' existe y se sostiene todo, la manifestación al completo en toda su pluralidad y aparente oposición.
 
[1] Buena parte de las consideraciones que siguen sobre estos dioses griegos nos han sido sugeridas a partir de la obra de J. Fontenrose, Python. Estudio del mito délfico y sus orígenes, ed. Sexto Piso.
 
[2] Recordemos que los términos Yin y Yang designaban en origen 'el lado sombreado, la umbría' y 'el lado soleado' de las montañas, respectivamente. 
 

lundi, 06 juillet 2020

Nous ne sommes pas de ceux qui estiment qu’on peut se désintéresser des atteintes portées à une tradition quelconque...

 
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Nous ne sommes pas de ceux qui estiment qu’on peut se désintéresser des atteintes portées à une tradition quelconque...
 
Nous ne sommes pas de ceux qui estiment qu’on peut se désintéresser des atteintes portées à une tradition quelconque, et qui sont même toujours prêts à se féliciter des attaques qui visent une tradition autre que la leur, comme s’il s’agissait de coups dirigés contre des « concurrents », et comme si ces attaques n’atteignaient pas toujours, en définitive, l’esprit traditionnel lui-même ; et le genre d’« apologétique » dont nous avons parlé ne montre que trop à quel point elles ont réussi à affaiblir cet esprit traditionnel chez ceux-là mêmes qui s’en croient les défenseurs.

Maintenant, il est encore un point qu’il nous faut bien préciser pour éviter tout malentendu : il ne faudrait certes pas penser que celui qui entend se maintenir dans une attitude rigoureusement traditionnelle doit dès lors s’interdire de jamais parler des théories de la science profane ; il peut et doit au contraire, quand il y a lieu, en dénoncer les erreurs et les dangers, et cela surtout lorsqu’il s’y trouve des affirmations allant nettement à l’encontre des données de la tradition ; mais il devra le faire toujours de telle façon que cela ne constitue aucunement une discussion « d’égal à égal », qui n’est possible qu’à la condition de se placer soi-même sur le terrain profane. En effet, ce dont il s’agit réellement en pareil cas, c’est un jugement formulé au nom d’un autorité supérieure, celle de la doctrine traditionnelle, car il est bien entendu que c’est cette doctrine seule qui compte ici et que les individualités qui l’expriment n’ont pas la moindre importance en elles-mêmes ; or on n’a jamais osé prétendre, autant que nous sachions, qu’un jugement pouvait être assimilé à une discussion ou à une « polémique ». Si, par un parti pris dû à l’incompréhension et dont la mauvaise foi n’est malheureusement pas toujours absente, ceux qui méconnaissent l’autorité de la tradition prétendent voir de la « polémique » là où il n’y en a pas l’ombre, il n’y a évidemment aucun moyen de les en empêcher, pas plus qu’on ne peut empêcher un ignorant ou un sot de prendre les doctrines traditionnelles pour de la « philosophie », mais cela ne vaut même pas qu’on y prête la moindre attention ; du moins tous ceux qui comprennent ce qu’est la tradition, et qui sont les seuls dont l’avis importe, sauront-ils parfaitement à quoi s’en tenir ; et, quant à nous, s’il est des profanes qui voudraient nous entraîner à discuter avec eux, nous les avertissons une fois pour toutes que, comme nous ne saurions consentir à descendre à leur niveau ni à nous placer à leur point de vue, leurs efforts tomberont toujours dans le vide.

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lundi, 29 juin 2020

Salut à la victoire !

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Salut à la victoire !

par Thierry DUROLLE

L’œuvre de Julius Evola aura marqué d’une empreinte indélébile la Droite européenne et nord-américaine. Et, bien tenu, Europe Maxima ne fait pas exception. Il reste encore des textes inédits en français, sans parler de plusieurs ouvrages qui ne sont plus réédités. Les prix de l’occasion pour certains de ces livres sont tout simplement exorbitants !

Les éditions Kontre Kulture ont beaucoup œuvré pour la redécouverte des livres rares. Leur réédition du maître-ouvrage Révolte contre le monde moderne fut une initiative sans doute attendue depuis fort longtemps, d’autant plus qu’il est fortement conseillé de commencer par cet ouvrage riche, ouvrage qui pose les fondations de la pensée évolienne.

C’est au tour de l’opuscule La doctrine aryenne du combat et de la victoire d’être réédité. Autrefois disponible en supplément du septième numéro de la revue Totalité, ce discours délivré en allemand le 7 décembre 1940 à Rome était devenu lui aussi difficile à se procurer.

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L’intérêt d’un ouvrage ne faisant pas partie des « classiques » de l’œuvre évolienne doit se trouver dans son format d’une part, et dans son contenu d’autre part. À l’heure où la lecture livresque rebute de plus en plus de monde, surtout parmi la jeunesse, un format court permet de focaliser l’attention et de ne pas effrayer le lecteur. Son contenu, ensuite, à l’instar d’un autre livre d’Evola sur la guerre, met en lumière l’aspect spirituel de la guerre.

En préambule, Julius Evola tient à faire le point sur les concepts a priori antagonistes, ou présenté comme tel par René Guénon par exemple, que sont « Action » et « Contemplation » chez les peuples aryens : « L’opposition entre action et contemplation était, en fait, inconnue des anciens Aryens. Action et contemplation n’étaient pas conçues par eux comme les termes d’une opposition. Elles désignaient seulement deux voies distinctes pour parvenir à la même réalisation spirituelle (p. 10). »

Puis de préciser que « [l]a tradition de l’action est typique des races aryano-occidentales. Mais cette tradition a progressivement subi une déviation (p. 10). » Chez ces peuples, la guerre renvoie à une lutte spirituelle cosmique mais à une échelle microscopique en quelque sorte : « D’une part, il y avait le principe olympien de la lumière, la réalité ouranienne et solaire; d’autre part, il y avait la violence brute, l’élément titanique et tellurique, barbare au sens classique du terme, féminin-démonique. Le thème de cette lutte métaphysique réapparaît de mille façons dans toutes les traditions d’origine aryenne (p. 11). »

 

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Evola, pour appuyer son propos, convoque ensuite plusieurs traditions d’origine aryenne. La première qu’il cite est la tradition spirituelle d’Europe du Nord, plus particulièrement celle que l’on qualifie de nordico-germanique. Impossible de faire l’impasse sur le Valhalla (la halle des morts tombés au combat) et des Einherjar de Wotan, ces guerriers dont le Destin final est de combattre lors du Ragnarök. À noter, qu’Evola passe sous silence le fait que, selon certaines sources, la moitié des morts tombés au combat revient à la déesse Freya, déesse qui revêt certes des aspects guerriers, mais qui de par son essence (elle est une déesse Vane, c’est-à-dire de la Fertilité) n’a rien d’ouranien ni de solaire…

L’islam est ensuite abondamment cité par Evola pour son aspect belliqueux, à la nuance près que le concept de « Guerre sainte (Djihad) » couvre à la fois une conception martiale (le petit Djihad) et une conception spirituelle (le grand Djihad). « La petite guerre sainte est […] la lutte physique, matérielle, la guerre menée dans le monde extérieur. La grande guerre sainte est la lutte de l’homme contre les ennemis qu’il porte en lui-même. Plus précisément, c’est la lutte de l’élément surnaturel en l’homme contre tout ce qui est instinctif, lié à la passion, chaotique, sujet aux forces de la nature (pp. 13-14). »

Enfin, l’auteur de Révolte contre le monde moderne s’attarde aussi sur la Bhagavad-Gita, texte d’une importance capitale pour lui. Effectivement le caractère actif et spirituelle de la Bhagavad-Gita ne fait aucune doute. « Si nous savons apercevoir ici la forme la plus haute de réalisation spirituelle par le combat et l’héroïsme, nous comprenons alors combien est significatif le fait que cet enseignement soit présenté dans la Bhagavad-Gita comme dérivant d’un héritage primordial aryen et solaire. En effet, il fut donné par le “ Soleil ” au premier législateur des Aryens, Manu, avant d’être gardé par une dynastie de rois sacrés. Au cours des siècles, cet enseignement fut perdu, puis de nouveau révélé par la divinité, non à un prêtre, mais à un représentant de la noblesse guerrière, Arjûna (p. 17). »

Evola évoque aussi ces esprits, ces doubles que sont les Daimons, Valkyries et Fravashi perses qui sont en lien avec la mort héroïque et le combat. Encore une fois, c’est l’exemple des Valkyries qui est le plus parlant.

En guise de conclusion, Julius Evola affirme que « bien des choses dépendront de la façon dont l’individu pourra donner une forme à l’expérience du combat : c’est-à-dire s’il sera en mesure d’assumer héroïsme et sacrifice comme une catharsis, comme un moyen de libération et d’éveil intérieur. Cette entreprise de nos combattants – intérieure, invisible, éloignée des gestes et des grands mots – aura un caractère décisif, non seulement pour l’issue définitive et victorieuse des vicissitudes de cette époque particulièrement troublée, mais pour donner une forme et un sens à l’ordre qui naîtra de la victoire. C’est dans la bataille elle-même qu’il faut réveiller et tremper cette force qui, au-delà de la tourmente, du sang et des privations, favorisera,avec une splendeur nouvelle et une paix toute-puissante, une nouvelle création (p. 25) ».

La doctrine aryenne du combat et de la victoire est un vibrant appel à l’action en soi et à l’extérieur de soi via le prisme de la guerre. De nos jours, en ce monde iréniste, le propos de Julius Evola semble dater d’un autre temps. C’est effectivement le cas puisqu’il s’agit d’un temps éternel en quelque sorte, celui d’un Âge d’Or. Pour le retrouver, il faut agir sur soi, mener une guerre intérieure (car les forces ténébreuses de l’Âge du Loup sont aussi en nous, chacun porte en lui un loup Fenrir), lutter contre le dragon, contre son propre dragon.

Thierry Durolle

• Julius Evola, La doctrine aryenne du combat et de la victoire, Kontre Kulture, 2020, 32 p., 9,50 €.

00:44 Publié dans Livre, Livre, Traditions | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | Tags : tradition, traditionalisme, julius evola, livre | |  del.icio.us | | Digg! Digg |  Facebook

samedi, 27 juin 2020

Frithjof Schuon versus René Guénon

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Frithjof Schuon versus René Guénon

 
Extrait d'un exposé intitulé "Guénon au combat, des réseaux en mal d'institutions" par Jean-Pierre Laurant
 
 
 
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vendredi, 26 juin 2020

Religions ethnicisées et recomposition des scènes politiques dans l'espace issu de la disparition de l'Union soviétique

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Religions ethnicisées et recomposition des scènes politiques dans l'espace issu de la disparition de l'Union soviétique (Fédération de Russie (Tatarstan et Altaï) et Asie centrale (Kirghizstan)

Aurélie Biard[1]

Ex: http://www.gis-reseau-asie.org

Ce projet de thèse considère les réarticulations du croire et les redéfinitions identitaires au sein des deux républiques autonomes de la Fédération de Russie que sont le Tatarstan et l'Altaï ainsi qu'au Kirghizstan, en se concentrant sur la participation du fait religieux[2] aux tentatives de réification d'identités « néo-ethniques », au travers d'un cas d'études, celui de la mise en concurrence symbolique[3] de l'islam notamment avec la réhabilitation du néo-paganisme. Ce dernier participe dudit « renouveau identitaire » de ces trois républiques de langue turcique. Au sein de la république centrasiatique indépendante qu'est le Kirghizstan ainsi que dans la république autonome du Tatarstan de la Fédération de Russie, républiques turcophones, toutes deux à majorité musulmane, le néo-paganisme correspond, dans une très large mesure, à l'idéologie nationaliste et revivaliste que semble être le tengrisme. Cette idéologie cherche en effet à promouvoir un « retour » aux anciennes religions nationales mythiques des peuples turciques et rejette l'islam. Le tengrisme ou tengrianstvo (« pratiques liées au ciel ») s'apparente à une mode intellectuelle et religieuse, entretenue par des élites urbaines cultivées, et correspond peu ou prou à ce que l'on pourrait qualifier de « religion de la nation ». On la retrouve à la fois en Asie centrale (Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan) et parmi les peuples turciques de la Fédération de Russie, en particulier au Tatarstan, au Bachkortostan, en Bouriatie, mais également, dans une moindre mesure cependant, en Iakoutie et dans l'Altaï. Elle consiste à réactiver, à l'heure de la mondialisation, la notion politico-religieuse pré-islamique de « Ciel » (Tengri)[4] – le « Ciel » constituait le concept politique unificateur des empires türks des steppes des VIIe et VIIIe siècles[5] – et, dans les régions de tradition musulmane, à présenter l'islam comme une foi étrangère auprès des populations locales. Selon ses partisans, le tengrianstvo constituerait l'un des éléments majeurs du renouveau identitaire des peuples turco-mongols et devrait être officialisé par les nouveaux États en tant que religion nationale. Les tentatives d'institutionnalisation du néo-paganisme dans la république d'Altaï, laquelle est également de langue turcique mais profondément russifiée tant sur le plan linguistique que culturel et religieux et, partant, acculturée au monde russe, s'appuient généralement, de leur côté, sur une revitalisation du mouvement quasi-messianique connu sous le nom de burkhanisme ou Ak Jang (« Foi Blanche »).

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Le phénomène néo-païen peut ainsi être perçu comme une instrumentalisation du religieux à des fins politiques de définition de la nation, sur la base d'une coïncidence forcée entre « religion païenne » et identité nationale. Les enjeux politiques d'une coïncidence entre néo-paganisme et identité nationale ne sont naturellement pas les mêmes selon le statut des républiques au sein desquelles le néo-paganisme est promu. Ainsi, dans le cas du Kirghizstan, république qui a accédé à l'indépendance en 1991, à la chute du régime communiste, le tengrisme  semble correspondre à une tentative de construction (ou de consolidation) d'un État-nation et, partant, d'un pouvoir centralisé par le biais d'une religion nationale. Cette dernière serait d'ailleurs inscrite dans le territoire, les traditions et l'histoire d'un peuple et elle seule, saurait exprimer, dans le cas du Kirghizstan, une supposée « voie kirghize » ou kirghizité. Aussi l'existence d'un Kirghizstan indépendant focalise-t-il sur lui les discours d'exaltation de l'Etat. Pour ce qui est des républiques autonomes du Tatarstan et de l'Altaï toutefois, les discours des différents théoriciens du néo-paganisme se construisent en référence au centre, Moscou et se concentrent sur la valorisation desdites « spécificités nationales et religieuses » des populations éponymes face aux Russes dits « ethniques » [russkij]. Les discours néo-païens peuvent alors servir de support à des revendications sécessionnistes, notamment au sein de la république autonome du Tatarstan ; le néo-paganisme pouvant ainsi s'apparenter à un contre-pouvoir ou à un pouvoir alternatif à celui de Moscou.

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La sensibilité nationaliste des néo-païens peut être poussée à ses extrêmes et la promotion de l'identité nationale se voir doublée par le rejet de toute altérité : refus de toute idée d'emprunt culturel, de tout principe d'hétérogénéité ou d'exogénéité, définition ethniciste, voire racialisée, des nations, antisémitisme virulent[6]. Le phénomène du néo-paganisme peut être appréhendé, nous l'avons vu, comme une instrumentalisation du religieux répondant à une fin politique de définition de la nation, sur la base d'une coïncidence forcée, non seulement entre néo-paganisme et identité nationale, mais aussi entre néo-paganisme et ce qui serait l'etnos[7] spécifique de chaque peuple. Le néo-paganisme, à travers cette ethnicisation du divin aux conséquences politiques ambiguës, tendrait alors à se constituer en un croire ethnique, excluant toute autre forme d'appartenance et, rejetant par là même, le caractère universel et transnational des religions universalistes. Dans le cas de l'idéologie tengriste promue au Kirghizstan, l'islam se voit ainsi condamné en tant que foi étrangère par les théoriciens du mouvement tengriste. L'islam serait alors pour les théoriciens du tengrisme ou tengrichilik (tengrisme en kirghiz) au Kirghizstan, paradoxalement, l'un des vecteurs possibles de la mondialisation. En condamnant l'universalité des grandes religions et en affirmant que l'islam est au service d'intérêts étrangers, le néo-paganisme constitue la version religieuse de nombreux discours nationalistes, notamment kirghiz et tatars. En effet, les partisans d'une religion ethnicisée à laquelle correspondrait le néo-paganisme ne cachent pas leur engagement politique : au Tatarstan en faveur de l'indépendance de la république ; au Kirghizstan, en faveur d'une « purification » du pays de toutes les influences étrangères, qu'elles viennent de Russie, du Moyen-Orient, des Etats-Unis ou de Chine[8]. Les plus fervents partisans du néo-paganisme dans la république autonome d'Altaï affirment également la nécessité selon eux, de « libérer » la république de l'influence russe et ce, afin de tendre vers une consolidation de l' « unité » de la « nation » altaïenne face aux Russes.         

Nous nous pencherons, dans le cadre de ce travail de thèse, sur les raisons qui ont motivé la création du nouvel outil de gestion du changement qu'est le néo-paganisme au sein de la société kirghizstanaise contemporaine ainsi que dans les républiques autonomes du Tatarstan et de l'Altaï de la Fédération de Russie. Quelles sont les fonctions contemporaines du néo-paganisme ? Quelle est son opérationnalité dans un contexte de désenchantement du politique et que révèle-t-il de celle des autres outils existants, en particulier l'islam ? L'engagement politique des différents théoriciens du néo-paganisme visant à l'officialisation du mouvement en tant que « religion nationale », au sein des républiques concernées, qu'elle soit indépendante dans le cas du Kirghizstan ou intégrées à la Fédération de Russie, comme le Tatarstan et l'Altaï, induit naturellement une résistance de la part des représentants des hiérarchies religieuses et, plus généralement, de la part de certains membres de l'intelligentsia, fermement opposés à sa réhabilitation. Ces derniers tentent, dans le cas du Kirghizstan, au même titre que les théoriciens tengristes, de mettre en avant une « religion nationale », inscrite dans le territoire et, partant, de forger une identité kirghize spécifique, une identité ethnico-nationale articulée autour d'une référence à un islam particularisé et territorialisé, apolitique et syncrétique[9]. La prise en considération du contradictoire, du conflictuel révèle ainsi une compétition en matière de définition de l'identité nationale en question, au travers du prisme religieux, au sein de la Fédération de Russie comme dans la république kirghizstanaise.

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Ainsi, la conjonction paradoxale, dans le néo-paganisme, entre un millénarisme religieux qui n'est en rien spécifique à l'espace post-soviétique et un processus d'ethnicisation du divin aux conséquences politiques ambiguës révèle les profondes mutations idéologiques et les processus de recomposition sociale que sont en train de connaître les sociétés post-soviétiques.

Ce ré-emploi du religieux qu'est le néo-paganisme, qui correspond à une forme de « croire ethnique », met en exergue le déficit d'un politique désenchanté, celui du relatif. Ainsi, loin de témoigner d'un « retour du religieux », le néo-paganisme attesterait, pour reprendre les termes de P. Michel, « son effacement, en pointant un vide, un déficit du politique si massif et si cruel que manqueraient même les mots politiques qui permettraient de le dire. D'où le recours au religieux comme registre de discours, comme langage »[10].

Note:

[1] Doctorante en science politique à l'IEP de Paris. Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris, sous la direction de Patrick Michel. Laboratoire de rattachement : CERI. Programme doctoral : « Russie-CEI ». Courriel

[2] Ce religieux est construit, suivant en cela la démarche initiée par Patrick Michel, en tant qu'« indicateur et mode de gestion d'une triple recomposition, qui s'éprouve fréquemment sur le mode de la crise, et qui affecte l'identité, la médiation et la centralité » in P. Michel, « Préface » in Sébastien Peyrouse, Des Chrétiens entre athéisme et islam, Regards sur la question religieuse, en Asie centrale soviétique et post-soviétique, Maisonneuve & Larose/IFÉAC, 2003, p. 19.

[3] Nous nous focaliserons, tout au long de ce travail de thèse, plus largement sur l'interaction entre islam et « religions ethniques », sur leur collaboration, concurrence, interpénétration, etc.

[4] Voir, entre autres, René Grousset, L'empire des steppes, Paris : Payot, 1965. Le terme de tengri, tergir (tÄnri en vieux turc) signifie le Ciel dans les langues turco-mongoles. Le culte du ciel ou de divinités liées à lui est attesté par de nombreuses sources écrites et archéologiques datant de l'époque des royaumes turciques de Sibérie des VIe-VIIIe siècles. Celles-ci confirment également que le tengrisme était l'une des religions pratiquées dans le khaganat turcique avant que les peuples de la région ne passent au bouddhisme, au manichéisme ou à l'islam. Le Ciel constituait donc le concept politique unificateur des empires türks des steppes. Cf. Aurélie Biard et Marlène Laruelle, « Tengrism in Kyrgyzstan, in search of a new religious and political legitimacy », in Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, à paraître.

[5] Précisons toutefois que nous n'identifions pas pour autant le tengrisme moderne et la religion ancienne des Türks; le tengrisme moderne se réclame certes de cet héritage mais n'a probablement que le ciel en commun avec la religion ancienne des Türks.

[6] Voir Aurélie Biard et Marlène Laruelle, « Tengrism in Kyrgyzstan, in search of a new religious and political legitimacy », in Etudes mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, à paraître.

[7] Nous proposons, à l'instar de Marlène Laruelle, cette transcription. Ainsi que l'explique Marlène Laruelle : « le terme russe etnos peut être transcrit de deux manières suivant que l'on cherche à mettre en avant sa racine grecque et donc à le rapprocher, par exemple, du terme français d'ethnie (ethnos), soit, ce qui est le cas ici, la translittérer directement du russe afin d'insister sur le sens spécifique que le terme a acquis dans le langage soviétique », in « Stalinisme et nationalisme. L'introduction du concept d'ethnogenèse dans les historiographies d'Asie centrale (années 1940-1950) », in Marlène Laruelle et Catherine Servant (sous la direction), D'une édification l'autre : socialisme et nation dans l'espace (post)communiste, Coll. « Sociétés et cultures post-soviétiques en mouvement », Editions Pétra, sep. 2007,pp.206.

[8] Rappelons que le Kirghizstan est un pays limitrophe de la Chine.

[9] Les conflits furent ainsi particulièrement virulents sur la scène kirghizstanaise, lorsque Dastan Sarygulov, alors Secrétaire d'État, tenta de promouvoir le tengrisme. Comme l'a montré Foucault, là où il y a pouvoir, il y a résistance. Les relations de domination, ainsi que la résistance qui lui est intrinsèquement liée cachent naturellement des luttes pratiques de pouvoir, tant il est vrai, ainsi que nous le rappelle G. Ballandier, que le « politique se définit d'abord par l'affirmation des intérêts et la compétition » in Anthropologie politique, PUF, coll. « Quadridge », p. 147.

[10] Cf. Patrick Michel, Religion et démocratie, nouveaux enjeux, nouvelles approches, Paris, Albin-Michel, 1997, p. 20.

 

 

jeudi, 25 juin 2020

Les deux solstices et les deux Jean

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Les deux solstices et les deux Jean
Ex: https://www.facebook.com/notes/jean-louis-ragot/
 
L’année constitue un cycle. Ce cycle comprend un point le plus bas (et le plus froid), la nuit la plus longue ; et un point le plus haut (et le plus chaud), le jour le plus long. Ces deux points sont diamétralement opposés et constituent les deux solstices, les deux grands tournants de la course annuelle du soleil. A ces deux solstices correspondent les deux saint Jean du calendrier chrétien : saint Jean Évangéliste, qui est fêté le 27 décembre, et saint Jean Baptiste dont on célèbre la nativité le 24 juin.
 
Le solstice d’été est l’apogée de la course du soleil, c’est le sommet de la saison chaude. Jour le plus long de l’année, il est le point culminant de la course du soleil. Après être monté de plus en plus haut chaque jour, il entame sa course déclinante. Ainsi, alors qu’il est une victoire de la lumière sur l’obscurité, le solstice d’été est aussi le commencement de la descente vers cette même obscurité. Les Nordiques consacraient ce jour au dieu Balder, dieu solaire et printanier. Pour célébrer la victoire du soleil sur les ténèbres, on allumait des feux au sommet des collines ce qui symbolisait l’arrivée de l’astre solaire au sommet de sa course. Ces feux ont survécu à la christianisation, et se perpétuent de nos jours le 23 juin sous le nom de feux de la Saint Jean. Au cours de cette fête, qui est communautaire, à la différence de Noël qui est centrée sur le foyer, le feu est allumé à l’extérieur. Il a une finalité essentiellement purificatrice : Dans nos campagnes, on faisait passer le bétail dans la fumée pour le protéger des maladies, on sautait au dessus du feu pour se purifier, on gardait les tisons jusqu’à Noël, date à laquelle ils servaient à allumer la bûche. La fonction purificatrice et fécondante du feu solsticial était marquée par le fait de lancer des roues enflammées qui dévalaient les pentes des collines pour parcourir les champs. Ces roues de feu devaient purifier les champs, mais symbolisaient aussi le cours du soleil fécondant les sillons porteurs des moissons qu’il ferait mûrir. Cette pratique a existé depuis le monde romain, où elle est déjà attestée, jusqu’au folklore européen. La fête du solstice d’été, au centre de la saison joyeuse est, à l’inverse de Noël, une fête triste : le soleil ayant atteint le point culminant, va commencer son déclin. De plus, la période des récoltes qui commence ne permet pas de festoyer pendant douze jours comme à Noël. Les réjouissances estivales auront lieu plus tard, à l’Assomption, grande fête mariale. En Suède, les feux du solstice d’été sont appelés les feux funéraires de Balder.
 

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Le solstice d’été est donc une fête triste qui se déroule pendant la saison joyeuse, le solstice d’hiver est, à l’inverse, une fête joyeuse située au centre de la saison sombre. Les feux de la saint Jean ont lieu en la fête de la nativité de saint Jean Baptiste. Précédant de six mois celle du Christ, elle place le saint sans un rôle d’un précurseur qui doit s’effacer une fois sa tache accomplie ce qu’il fait en disant : Il faut qu’Il croisse et que je diminue (Jean III, 30).
 
Le solstice d’hiver est la nuit la plus longue de l’année : deux tiers de nuit pour un tiers de jour. Mais le jour va commencer à croître et cet état de choses est marqué dans la fête de Noël. L’hiver est une période de chaos, si la nature est endormie sous le givre, les forces obscures, rodent de par le monde depuis Samain (la Toussaint). Noël, dont le nom vient de l’allemand Neue Helle, “nouvelle lumière”, est c’est l’espérance en des jours meilleurs qui va transcender la détresse hivernale par le biais de rites solsticiaux qui ont laissé des traces dans notre façon de célébrer Noël. Le fait religieux de Noël trouve donc sa source dans une phénoménologie saisonnière et donc cyclique. L’homme, observant la nature, ne cherche pas à expliquer celle-ci par la religion. La religion n’apparaît, au contraire, qu’au moment où l’homme s’est approprié un certain nombre de connaissances relatives à son environnement naturel et aux phénomènes cycliques. C’est ainsi que le calendrier, qui est religieux, se modèle sur les cycles de la nature, à tel point que parler d’“année liturgique”peut paraître un pléonasme.
 
La Révélation vient ensuite. L’avatar ne se manifeste que lorsque les hommes sont préparés à sa venue, d’où l’importance d’un précurseur. Dans le christianisme, c’est Jean Baptiste. A l’inverse, la religion, ce lien entre les hommes et Dieu, disparaît lorsqu’elle a perdu tout son sens, lorsqu’elle ne remplit plus sa mission libératrice qui consiste à conduire les hommes au delà du cercle de leur vie matérielle. Ainsi, on n’a pu faire admettre aux ouvriers que la religion est l’opium du peuple que parce que l’âme celui-ci avait commencé préalablement à se vider de sa spiritualité, alors que coupé de ses racines paysannes et spolié de ses moyens de production (qui ont été souvent le support de sa vie spirituelle1), l’injustice de la loi d’airain l’avait confiné aux inquiétudes de la survie quotidienne.

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Noël peut venir du latin natalis, “jour de naissance” ou “anniversaire”. L'Église catholique a fixé la naissance du Christ le 25 décembre, dans le but de faire face à la concurrence des anciens cultes, tout en intégrant les pratiques populaires de l’ancienne religion. C’est ainsi qu’on relève toute l’année, et plus particulièrement au solstice d’hiver, des faits socio–religieux qui intègrent dans la fête chrétienne des éléments plus anciens qui, malgré la disparition de ses élites religieuses (druides, godis, pontifes...), n’a jamais été complètement abandonnée par les peuples européens depuis l’avènement du christianisme. Ces faits socio–religieux reposent toujours sur un calendrier basé sur la course annuelle du soleil dont le dies natalis était fêté au solstice d’hiver. Ainsi, le Christ ne pouvait naître qu’au cœur de l’hiver, au moment où les hommes sont le plus en détresse : au solstice d’hiver. Il en découle que la crèche où naît l’enfant divin (qui n’est pas forcément Jésus, car Mithra naît aussi dans une grotte au solstice d’hiver), tout en étant la représentation d’un fait unique : la Nativité, est en même temps un symbole s’ajoute à celui des flammes des bougies, des torches et des foyers traditionnels que nous allumons toujours pour illuminer la nuit la plus longue de l’année.
 
Noël est une fête familiale, intime. Les ancêtres sont évoqués mais on célèbre surtout les enfants, car ils représentent l’avenir, l’espérance, le printemps ; comme le soleil, ils vont croître, jusqu’à l’apothéose de leur jeunesse, après laquelle ils fonderont une nouvelle famille, transmettront l’héritage ancestral à leurs petits enfants, avant de devenir eux-mêmes des ancêtres. Cet héritage n’est pas que matériel. A coté de la famille (autrefois élargie au clan) on trouve d’autres unités qui sont la commune, ensemble de familles vivant dans un même lieu et qui se réunissent pour des célébrations collectives, comme les feux de la saint Jean ; et le métier qui se trouvait autrefois sous le patronage d’un saint dont la solennité donnait lieu à un culte religieux et à des réjouissances. Ce ciment communautaire, qui était la base horizontale de la spiritualité populaire, s’est fondu dans la masse de la cité moderne où l’homme, par le fait même d’être coupé de ses racines, a oublié sa religion.

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Le solstice d’hiver marque le début de la phase ascendante du cycle annuel. Au milieu de la nuit hivernale, il est la porte qui mène à la lumière, la porte des dieux. Le 27 décembre est fêté saint Jean Évangéliste. La saint Jean d’hiver, juste au moment où le soleil vient de commencer sa course ascendante, constitue donc la répercussion religieuse d’un phénomène naturel. De plus, le fait qu’au solstice d’hiver soit célébré ce qui ne meurt jamais, associé à l’image de Jean ne peut que faire penser à un étonnant verset de la fin de son Évangile : Le bruit courut parmi les frères que ce disciple ne mourrait point. Cependant Jésus n’avait pas dit à Pierre qu’il ne mourrait point ; mais : Si je veux qu’il demeure jusqu’à ce que je vienne, que t’importe? (Jean XXI, 23). Demeurer jusqu’au retour du Christ, tel est le rôle de Jean Évangéliste dans le mystère chrétien, et nous verrons que les Anciens tenaient déjà pour sacré ce qui, dans la nature, demeurait pendant la saison où le soleil, au plus bas de sa course, allait commencer à remonter. C’est le cas des arbres et arbustes à feuilles persistantes, qui représentaient ce qui ne meurt pas l’hiver. C’est cette végétation qui est encore utilisée dans la décoration des maisons, car la fête de Noël est la continuation, sous un nom chrétien, de cette ancienne fête du soleil renaissant.
 
L’un ayant rempli son rôle et l’autre demeurant dans l’attente du retour du Christ, les deux Jean correspondent à la symbolique du dieu Janus à deux visages, celui d’un homme âgé tourné vers le passé, et celui d’un homme jeune tourné vers l’avenir : « dans le christianisme, les fêtes solsticiales de Janus sont devenues celles des deux saint Jean, et celles-ci sont toujours célébrées aux mêmes époques, c’est à dire aux environs immédiats des deux solstices d’hiver et d’été(2). » Ces deux tournants de l’année sont considérés comme des portes, or « Janus,[...], est proprement le janitor qui ouvre et ferme les portes (januae) du cycle annuel, avec les clefs qui sont un de ses principaux attributs(3). » Ces portes sont les portes solsticiales. Le 21 juin s’ouvre la porte des hommes, et la porte des dieux s’ouvre le 21 décembre. La fête de Janus était célébrée aux deux solstices.
 

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Les fêtes solsticiales sont donc la transposition de l’observation de la course du soleil autour des deux solstices qui sont les pivots d’une division du cycle annuel en deux moitiés, l’une “ascendante”, l’autre “descendante”. L’hiéroglyphe du Cancer suggère cette inversion de la marche du soleil aux deux tournants de l’année que sont les deux solstices. Au milieu de ces deux parcours ascendant et descendant, se trouvent les équinoxes pendant lesquelles la durée du jour est égale à celle de la nuit (voir le signe de la Balance). L’année est donc divisée en quatre phases, les saisons, que notre calendrier fait commencer au moment des solstices et des équinoxes. Ces quatre phases ont leurs correspondances avec celles du mois lunaire : la nouvelle lune et le solstice d’hiver, le croissant et l’équinoxe de printemps, la pleine lune et le solstice d’été, et le décroissant, à l’entrée dans la phase la plus sombre, l’équinoxe d’automne. Dans la mythologie nordique, Odin, le dieu borgne, très présent pendant cette période, est amoureux d’un personnage féminin qui représente cette dernière phase de la lune. Il poursuit son reflet sur les lacs avant qu’elle ne disparaisse. C’est à partir du début de l’automne, lorsque les arbres perdent leurs feuilles et que les oies sauvages s’envolent vers le sud, qu’Odin mène la “chevauchée sauvage” des guerriers morts au combat, et c’est en novembre que se situe, depuis toujours, la fête des Morts.
 
 
Bibliographie :
C. Gaignebet, Le Carnaval, op. cit., pp. 65-86.
R. Guénon, Symboles fondamentaux de la science sacrée

dimanche, 14 juin 2020

Letter from Evola to Carl Schmitt (I)

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Letter from Evola to Carl Schmitt (I)

via Facebook (Antonio Andreas)

Among the 19,000 pieces of correspondence found in Carl Schmitt’s personal library, there were eight letters from Julius Evola over a period of several years. There were none found in the opposite direction. From the letters, it is obvious that Evola was very interested in Schmitt’s book on Donoso Cortes, whom they both regarded quite highly. As a public service, we have made available Donoso’s book, Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism. Since it is hardly likely that Evola was interested in Donoso’s take on Catholicism, we can assume the other essays are more pertinent. At the very least, they are a counter-balance to the absurd meme floated by the Nouvelle Droite regarding the intellectual source of liberalism. More likely, Evola and Schmitt were impressed by Donoso’s defense of authoritarianism.

The letters were written in German, using the polite form of “you”. The translations here derive from an Italian translation of the original. Evola’s first letter to Schmitt follows:

15 December 1951

Dear Professor!

I owe your address to Dr. Mohler; therefore, I am able to take the initiative—which I gave been thinking about for some time—après le déluge. I have often requested news about you: primarily, our common friend, Prince Rohan, has assured me that you have at least physically moved beyond the period of the fall. Subsequently, I learned of your controversial “reappearance” and new works. Regarding this, I thank you very much for the booklet “Recht und Raum”, that I received hear in Rome.

51ReOD99aPL._SX341_BO1,204,203,200_.jpgAs far as my own person, things have not always gone the best for me: a war wound prevents me from walking and I can remain seated only for a few hours a day. I returned to Italy in 1948, but I’ve had to stay in nursing homes, so that I returned to my former home in Rome only last May. Subsequently a strange thing happened: I was … arrested. At the margins of so-called “neofascism” (MSI – Movimento Sociale Italiano) groups were formed that committed some foolish acts (bombings). Since my writings were read in those circles with great frequency and my person was rather highly regarded as a “spiritual father”, they wanted to attribute to me the responsibility of a movement of which I knew almost nothing, and they accused me of the alleged defense of “fascist” ideas (“apologist for Fascism”). The story ended last month with my complete innocence; the only consequences were free publicity in my favour and a bad impression for the imposing, far-sighted state police.

Apart from this, after my return I took up again unchanged my old activity in the teaching and politico-cultural fields (conservative revolutionary, as Dr. Mohler would say). Nevertheless, the situation here is not very easy and not only because of the Christian-social democracy, but also for the heavy legacy of the so-called “second Fascism” (republican and “social”) of the neo-Fascists.

A short time ago Revolt against the Modern World was published in a new and expanded edition. The same for my works of a spiritual and “esoteric” character that had gone out of print and in the meantime other translations were published in English (The Doctrine of Awakening). It is a way of trifling the time.

After having briefly told you about me, I would be happy to know something of you and your projects, since I would give great value to remaining in contact with you. I would also have to ask you one thing: could you possibly procure for me a copy of your new writing on Donoso Cortes? I myself, in fact, am interested in this author and intend to deal with him in an essay—Menschen und Trummer—on which I am currently working.

Well, I offer you my best wishes for the upcoming Holiday.

I remain with old friendship.

P.S. Did something happen to your old house in Dahlem?

I will send you a pamphlet, Orientamenti [Orientations], which constituted the principle corpus delicti [body of the crime, evidence] of my trial.

00:32 Publié dans Traditions | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | Tags : julius evola, carl schmitt, courrier, lettres, allemagne, italie | |  del.icio.us | | Digg! Digg |  Facebook

mercredi, 10 juin 2020

Jean-François Gautier : « Les vieux polythéismes fourmillent de récits merveilleux, d’expériences oubliées de la vie en société »

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Jean-François Gautier : « Les vieux polythéismes fourmillent de récits merveilleux, d’expériences oubliées de la vie en société »

Ex: https://www.breizh-info.com
Notre collaborateur Jean-François Gautier vient de publier un petit livre intitulé À propos des dieux. Il y vante les tours et détours de sagesses antiques, helléniques pour l’essentiel. Ancien disciple de l’historien et philosophe Lucien Jerphagnon, il pratique ces mondes anciens de longue date, par éducation et par passion. Mais en quoi des références aussi surannées sont-elles branchées sur l’actualité ? En quoi permettent-elles de l’éclairer, de mieux la comprendre, d’en analyser le devenir ? C’est ce que nous sommes allés lui demander.

Breizh-info.com : Pourquoi publier, en 2020, un livre sur les religions antiques ? N’est-ce pas de l’érudition gratuite, et donc inutile selon les critères de l’heure ?

Jean-François Gautier : Plus que sur des religions, ce livre porte sur des religiosités anciennes, sur leurs manières de considérer le monde de plusieurs points de vue associés, l’un et le multiple, le proche et le lointain, l’ici et l’ailleurs, etc. Les vieux polythéismes fourmillent à ce propos de récits merveilleux, d’expériences oubliées de la vie en société. Nous pouvons y réapprendre à vivre mieux, ce qui, dans nos périodes et nos sociétés troublées, est un objectif plutôt réjouissant, du moins me semble-t-il.

ulysse.jpgBreizh-info.com : Mais pourquoi opérer aujourd’hui un tel détour par des représentations qui, quoi qu’il en soit, sont terriblement datées ?

Jean-François Gautier : Tout simplement parce que nos sociétés vont y être portées, durablement, plusieurs générations durant, au moins jusqu’à la fin de ce siècle. L’affaire de la covid-19 est un épiphénomène, grave et bouleversant, certes, mais, couplée à la crise des équilibres énergétiques et environnementaux, aux malaises de vieilles nations qui ne savent plus ni qui elles sont, ni où aller, elle met nettement en évidence l’impuissance des modèles en cours dans la compréhension de l’état du monde et des relations interétatiques, ou plus simplement dans l’éclairage du labyrinthe des relations interhumaines. Tout ce qui tourne autour de l’égalité universelle, de l’équivalence des êtres, des lieux, des cultures, des compétences ou des ambitions, tous ces moteurs de représentations en usage depuis plus de deux siècles, voilà qui a irrémédiablement et définitivement fait faillite.

Breizh-info.com : Encore faut-il le prouver…

Jean-François Gautier : Qu’une partie de la planète, sauf l’Asie, l’Afrique, l’islam ou Israël, mette un genou pénitentiel en terre pour symboliser un problème de police regardant les États-Unis seulement, et là-bas la seule ville de Minneapolis, voilà qui illustre la force et les limites des propagandes en cours en faveur de l’universel. De tels matraquages des consciences touchent à leur fin, par épuisement de leurs significations ordinaires, pratiques, quotidiennes. À quoi servent de telles mises en scène ? Sincèrement, à rien. Et ce rien commence à devenir évident, perceptible par chacun, et pour cela haïssable. Tous nos référents habituels vont en être bouleversés, et pour très longtemps. Il faut dès maintenant s’apprendre à nous représenter autrement nos situations collectives. Et l’esprit des anciens polythéismes peut nous y aider.

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Breizh-info.com : En quoi des références à Dionysos ou Apollon peuvent-elles aider qui que ce soit ?

Jean-François Gautier : Ce ne sont pas ces dieux-là en particulier qui sont de bon secours. Ils sont morts de longue date. Les polythéismes relèvent d’autres critères que les personnalités de dieux spécifiques. Ce sont des phénomènes religieux qui, jusque dans des époques pas si lointaines, ont transmis ou transmettent d’autres expériences humaines, vécues autrement. Ils permettent par exemple de baliser l’espace des représentations. Voilà un demi-siècle, les cultes aux Vierges de Lourdes en France, de Częstochowa en Pologne ou de Fátima au Portugal étaient très actifs. De tels cultes réapparaissent. Il est dérisoire de s’en moquer ou d’en caricaturer la naïveté. Ces références aux figures originelles des déesses-mères signifient que les mentalités ordinaires ont à nouveau besoin de se confectionner des intermédiaires entre les difficultés ou les détresses d’aujourd’hui, et l’inconnu de lendemains qui n’attirent guère. L’anxiété moderne, elle se raconte là tout entière, et elle cherche des voies de secours entre la pitié à l’égard de ceux qui souffrent de ne pas comprendre où nous allons collectivement, et la piété à l’égard de l’inconnu des lendemains.

Breizh-info.com : Ce fut ainsi dans toutes les époques troublées, non ?

Jean-François Gautier : Oui et non. Il y eut, après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, des mouvements d’espérance dans des lendemains qui chantaient. Ces mouvements politisés ont fait faillite avec l’URSS en 1991. La croyance moderne en l’universalité de solutions planétaires, disons « américanomorphes », ne passe pas mieux la rampe. Il est aujourd’hui évident que les crissements du devenir pèsent plutôt en faveur d’inquiétudes grandissantes. Et ce sont elles qui vont mener petit à petit nos sociétés vers des reterritorialisations essentielles. Tout un chacun vit mal dans l’universel. Nous allons avoir besoin de nous regrouper sur nos territoires premiers, communes, cantons, villes moyennes. Les représentations polythéistes délivrent à ce propos des monceaux d’expériences utiles et profitables. Il suffit d’apprendre à les lire.

Breizh-info.com : Mais en quoi les anciens dieux peuvent-ils s’opposer, par exemple, aux menées islamiques ?

Jean-François Gautier : Il ne faut pas poser le problème à l’envers. Les mouvements de reterritorialisation que nous allons connaître vont remettre au centre des soucis collectifs ce que les anciens appelaient l’oïkos, le bien commun, terme dont nous tirons en français celui d’économie. Autour d’un bien commun, considéré comme partagé sur un territoire donné, s’opéreront de nouveaux regroupements, d’autres redistributions des urgences. L’islam est une religion de l’universel ; elle sera marginalisée, voire maudite quand le souci du bien commun sur un territoire donné aura repris son caractère premier. Il y aura des transferts dans les représentations, qui ne se feront pas en faveur des universalistes de tout poil, au contraire. Le problème, disons, ethnique, sera dépassé en direction d’autres urgences, dont celles de se reconnaître entre soi autour d’un même bien commun, et sur un même territoire. Les critères d’appréciation des conduites, et donc des collectivités, vont changer du tout au tout.

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Breizh-info.com : Et vous imaginez tout cela sans levées de boucliers de la part des humanistes bien en cour aujourd’hui, ceux qui, précisément, vendent par Internet tout un universel frelaté ?

Jean-François Gautier : Évidemment non. Ce qui signifie que toute société vit de conflits et qu’elle s’apprend à les surmonter. Il y aura probablement de graves affrontements, notamment dans ce qui est nommé « les quartiers », qui sont des zones non pas de « non-droit », comme disent les chaisières, mais plus simplement d’illégalité. La référence partagée au bien commun demandera des comptes à des gens qui profitent de logements pour lesquels ils n’ont rien donné de travail, et auprès desquels l’eau, le gaz et l’électricité gratuits peuvent être coupés à chaque instant, tout comme les voies d’accès. Rien de cela ne se fera sans violences, mais la remise à l’heure de rapports harmonieux entre collectivités est à ce prix. Cela posé, quand les enjeux seront clairs, plutôt que masqués par des subventions idiotes, et donc injustes, les choix tactiques ou stratégiques des uns et des autres seront évidemment mieux orientés, et moins violents.

Breizh-info.com : Pour revenir à la matière de votre livre, que nous disent les vieux polythéismes à ce propos ?

Jean-François Gautier : Ils nous enseignent que nous vivons dans un monde sans signification préalable ni salut assuré. Le devenir, l’histoire à faire, tout cela relève d’inconnues qu’il nous faut explorer et apprivoiser. Voilà qui rend à la fois prudent et audacieux. Nous avons à construire un monde dont nous savons surtout qu’il sera ce que nous sommes capables d’en faire. L’incompétence individuelle ou collective n’est plus de mise, à moins de choisir de disparaître. Mais il y a assez de volontaires dans les jeunes générations pour compenser la lourdeur de l’immense majorité des flemmards attentistes. C’est évidemment par ceux-là, par les plus désintéressés, que l’ardeur deviendra action.

Breizh-info.com : Alors, vive Apollon ?

Jean-François Gautier : Pas lui particulièrement, ni un autre. Les polythéismes ne sont pas des affaires d’identité de dieux particuliers, mais de relations dynamiques entre des pôles d’action différents. C’est ce que le vieux grec nommait la diasthèma, un mot qui signifie à la fois la tension et la polarisation, mais aussi le mouvement et l’écoulement. Le monde des dieux, c’est celui des tensions, c’est-à-dire de la mise en mouvement des êtres et des collectivités. Après le confinement sanitaire, après tant de confinements de toute sorte sous l’orbe d’une paralysie absurde, celle d’un universel faussement protecteur, nous voilà contraints à la mise en mouvement. C’est sans doute ce qui pouvait nous arriver de mieux.

Propos recueillis par YV

Jean-François Gautier, À propos des dieux. L’esprit des polythéismes, La Nouvelle Librairie Éditions, 68 pages, 7 euros (commander ce livre).

Illustration : Poséidon assis, Apollon et Artémis, par Phidias, frise orientale du Parthénon. DR
[cc] Breizh-info.com, 2020, dépêches libres de copie et de diffusion sous réserve de mention et de lien vers la source d’origine – V

jeudi, 04 juin 2020

Titus Burckhardt et l'École Traditionaliste

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Titus Burckhardt et l'École Traditionaliste
 
(via Facebook)
 
Titus Burckhardt, Suisse allemand, est né à Florence en 1908 et décédé à Lausanne en 1984. Il a consacré toute sa vie à l'étude et à l'exposition des différents aspects de la Sagesse et de la Tradition.
 
A l'âge de la science moderne et de la technocratie, Titus Burckhardt fut l'un des plus subtils et puissants interprètes de la vérité universelle, dans le domaine de la métaphysique aussi bien que dans celui de la cosmologie et de l'art traditionnel. Dans un monde où règnent l’existentialisme, la psychanalyse et la sociologie, il fut l'un des plus grands porte-parole de la philosophia perennis, cette “sagesse incréée” qui s'exprime dans le Platonisme, le Vedanta, le Soufisme, le Taoïsme et d'autres authentiques enseignements ésotériques et sapientiels. En termes de littérature et de philosophie, il fut un membre éminent de l’ “école traditionaliste” du vingtième siècle.
 
9782850760198-fr.jpgLe grand précurseur et initiateur de l'école traditionaliste fut René Guénon (1886-1951). Celui-ci fit remonter l'origine de ce qu'il appelait la déviation moderne à la fin du Moyen-Age et au début de la Renaissance, cette grande irruption de la sécularisation qui vit le nominalisme l'emporter sur le réalisme, l'individualisme (ou l'humanisme) remplacer l'universalisme, et l'empirisme bannir la scolastique. Une partie importante de l'œuvre de Guénon fut donc constituée par sa critique du monde moderne d'un point de vue implacablement “platonicien” ou métaphysique. Ceci fut pleinement développé dans ses deux remarquables ouvrages La Crise du monde moderne et Le règne de la quantité et les signes des temps. La face positive de l'œuvre de Guénon fut son exposition des principes immuables de la métaphysique universelle et de l'orthodoxie traditionnelle. Sa source principale fut la doctrine de la “non-dualité” de Shankara (advaïta), et son maître livre à cet égard L'homme et son devenir selon le Vedanta. Cependant, il se tourna aussi volontiers vers d'autres sources traditionnelles puisqu'il considérait toutes les formes traditionnelles comme des expressions diverses de la Vérité une et supra-formelle. Un dernier aspect de l'œuvre de Guénon fut sa brillante exposition du contenu intellectuel des symboles traditionnels, quelque soit leur religion d'origine. Voir à cet égard son livre Symboles fondamentaux de la science sacrée.
 
Érudit de renom profondément influencé par Guénon fut Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947), qui, parallèlement à ses éminentes qualités et à ses talents personnels, eut le mérite de découvrir, relativement tard dans sa vie, le point de vue traditionnel, tel qu'il avait été exposé, si amplement et si précisément, par les livres de Guénon, et de se laisser parfaitement convaincre de son bien-fondé et sa justesse.
 
Il est important de noter que les écrits de Guénon, bien que d'une importance décisive, furent de caractère purement théorique et n'eurent pas la prétention de traiter de la question de la “réalisation”. En d'autres termes, leur objet fut généralement l’ “intellectualité” (ou la doctrine) et non directement la “spiritualité” (ou la méthode).
 
fs.jpgLe soleil se leva pour l'école traditionaliste avec l'apparition de l'œuvre de Frithjof Schuon (né à Bâle en 1907). Il y a trente ans, un thomiste anglais écrivit à son sujet: “Son oeuvre a l'autorité intrinsèque d'une intelligence contemplative.”(1) Plus récemment, un illustre universitaire américain a déclaré: “En profondeur et en ampleur, c'est un parangon de notre temps. Je ne connais pas de penseur vivant qui lui soit de loin comparable.”(2) T. S. Eliot émit une opinion semblable, lorsqu'il écrivit en 1953 au sujet du premier livre de Schuon: “Je n’ai rencontré aucun livre plus impressionnant en fait d'étude comparative des religions d'Orient et d'Occident."
 
L'œuvre de Schuon fit son apparition pendant la deuxième partie de la vie de Guénon. Jusqu'à sa mort, Guénon désigna Schuon (par exemple dans les Études Traditionnelles) comme “notre éminent collaborateur”. Schuon continua d'une façon encore plus saisissante la critique pénétrante et irréfutable du monde moderne, et atteignit des sommets insurpassables dans son exposition de la vérité essentielle - illuminatrice et salvatrice - qui se trouve au cœur de toutes les formes révélées. Schuon a donné à cette vérité supra-formelle le nom de religio perennis. Ce terme, qui n'implique pas le rejet des termes similaires de philosophia perennis et sophia perennis, suggère néanmoins une dimension supplémentaire infailliblement présente dans les écrits de Schuon. C'est que la compréhension intellectuelle entraîne une responsabilité spirituelle, que l'intelligence requiert un complément de sincérité et de foi, et que le "voir" (en hauteur) implique le "croire" (en profondeur). En d'autres termes, plus vaste est notre perception de la vérité essentielle et salvatrice, plus grande est notre obligation d'un effort de "réalisation" intérieure ou spirituelle.
 
L'oeuvre de Schuon débute par une étude d'ensemble, dont le titre même sert à planter la scène: L'Unité transcendante des religions. La liste de ses ouvrages ultérieurs inclue Language of the Self (sur l'Hindouisme), Images de l'Esprit (contenant un précieux exposé sur le Bouddhisme), Comprendre l'Islam, Castes et Races, Logique et Transcendance, et un large "compendium" d'aperçus philosophiques et spirituels intitulé L'Ésotérisme comme Principe et comme Voie.
 
41MHbuFMIiL._SX319_BO1,204,203,200_.jpgNous pouvons à présent revenir à Titus Burckhardt. Bien qu'il ait vu le jour à Florence, Burckhardt était issu d'une famille patricienne de Bâle. Il était le petit-neveu du célèbre historien de l'art Jacob Burckhardt et le fils du sculpteur Carl Burckhardt. Titus Burckhardt était d'un an le cadet de Frithjof Schuon, et ils passèrent ensemble à Bâle leurs premières années d'école à l'époque de la première guerre mondiale. Ce fut le début d'une amitié intime et d'une union intellectuelle et spirituelle profondément harmonieuse qui devait durer toute une vie.
 
Le principal exposé métaphysique de Burckhardt, qui fournit un complément admirable à l'oeuvre de Schuon, est l'Introduction aux doctrines ésotériques de l'Islam. Ce livre analyse d'une façon compréhensive et concise la nature de l'ésotérisme comme tel. Par une série de définitions lucides et sobres, il précise ce qu'est l'ésotérisme et ce qu'il n'est pas, puis examine les fondements doctrinaux de l'ésotérisme islamique ou soufisme, et termine sur une description inspirée de l’ “alchimie spirituelle” ou de la voie contemplative qui mène à la réalisation intérieure. Cet ouvrage établit Burckhardt comme l'interprète par excellence, après Schuon, de la doctrine intellectuelle et de la méthode spirituelle.
 
Burckhardt a consacré une grande partie de ses écrits à la cosmologie traditionnelle qu'il a perçue plutôt comme la “servante (ancilla) de la métaphysique”. Il en a formulé les principes dans un article important: “Nature de la perspective cosmologique” publié dans les Études Traditionnelles en 1948. Bien plus tard, il a traité de façon particulièrement complète tout le champ de la cosmologie — avec des références détaillées aux principales branches de la science moderne — dans un traité exhaustif: “Cosmologie et science moderne” (Études Traditionnelles, 1965; repris dans Science moderne et Sagesse traditionnelle [Archè, Milan ; Dervy, Paris ; 1986).
 
Non sans rapport avec son intérêt pour la cosmologie, Burckhardt avait une affinité particulière avec l'art et l'artisanat traditionnels et il se montra profond interprète de l'architecture, de l'iconographie, et d'autres formes de l'art et de l'artisanat traditionnels. Il souligna en particulier la façon dont ces derniers avaient été — et peuvent être encore — mis en valeur spirituellement: en tant qu'activités (ou métiers) transmettant, en vertu leur symbolisme inhérent, un message doctrinal; et aussi en tant que supports de réalisation spirituelle — bref, en tant que moyens de grâce. Ars sine scientia nihil. Il s'agit ici de scientia sacra et d'ars sacra, deux faces d'une même réalité. C'est le domaine, au sein des différentes civilisations traditionnelles, des initiations artisanales — par exemple, en ce qui concerne le Moyen-Age, le domaine de la maçonnerie opérative et de l'alchimie. L'oeuvre principale de Burckhardt en matière de cosmologie fut son livre magistral Alchimie: sa signification et son image du monde, lumineuse présentation de l'alchimie comme expression d'une psychologie spirituelle et comme support intellectuel et symbolique de la contemplation et de la réalisation.
 
frontImagesLink.jpgDans le domaine de l'art, le principal ouvrage de Burckhardt fut son livre Principes et méthodes de l'art sacré qui contient maints remarquables chapitres sur la métaphysique et l'esthétique de l'Hindouisme, du Bouddhisme, du Taoïsme, du Christianisme et de l'Islam, et se termine par un aperçu concret et pratique sur la situation contemporaine intitulé "Décadence et renouveau de l'art chrétien". Un abrégé d'ensemble des éléments essentiels de ce livre doit paraître pour la première fois dans The Unanimous Tradition, recueil d'articles d'auteurs traditionalistes rédigé par Ranjit Fernando (Institute of Traditional Studies, Colombo, 1991).
 
Pendant les années cinquante et soixante, Burckhardt fut directeur artistique de la maison d'édition Urs Graf à Olten près de Bâle. Pendant ces années, sa principale activité fut la préparation et la publication de toute une série de fac-similés de beaux manuscrits enluminés du Moyen-Age, en particulier les premiers manuscrits celtiques de l'Évangile, tels que le Livre de Kells et le Livre de Durrow (du Trinity College à Dublin) et le Livre de Lindesfarne (de la British Library à Londres). Ce fut un travail de pionnier de la plus haute qualité en même temps qu'un exploit d'édition qui connut immédiatement un accueil favorable de la part des experts comme de la part du grand public.
 
Son édition du magnifique fac-similé du Livre de Kells valut à Burckhardt une rencontre inoubliable avec le Pape Pie XII. Les Editions Urs Graf souhaitaient présenter un exemplaire de l'oeuvre à la sainte et princière personne du Pape, et on décida que nul n'était mieux qualifié pour ce faire que le directeur artistique Burckhardt. Aux yeux du Pape, Burckhardt était apparemment un gentilhomme protestant de Bâle. Le Pape lui accorda une audience privée à sa résidence d'été de Castel Gandolfo. Quand, dans la salle d'audience, la silhouette vêtue de blanc du Pape apparut soudain, ce dernier s'approcha de son visiteur de manière accueillante et lui dit en allemand: Sie sind also Herr Burckhardt? (“Alors vous êtes Monsieur Burckhardt?”) Burckhardt s'inclina, et quand le Pape lui offrit sa main portant l'anneau du pêcheur, il la prit respectueusement dans la sienne. Toutefois, en non-catholique qu'il était, il baisa, non l'anneau (comme il est de coutume chez les catholiques), mais les doigts du Pape. “Ce que le Pape permit en souriant,” ajoute Burckhardt.
 
Durant un moment, les deux hommes s'entretinrent ensemble de l'Age des Ténèbres et des manuscrits insurpassables des Évangiles qui avaient été produits avec tant d'amour et tant d'art à cette époque. Au terme de l'audience, le Pape donna sa bénédiction: "Du fond du coeur, je vous bénis, vous-même, votre famille, vos collègues, et vos amis."
 
9782844545671-475x500-1.jpgC'est pendant les années passées chez les Editions Urs Graf que Burckhardt présida à la publication de la collection "Hauts lieux de l'Esprit" (Stätten des Geistes). Il s'agit d'études historiques et spirituelles ayant pour objet les manifestations du sacré dans les grandes civilisations, dont le Mont Athos, l'Irlande celtique, le Sinaï, Constantinople et autres lieux. Burckhardt y donna sa contribution personnelle avec les livres Sienne, ville de la Vierge, Chartres, genèse de la cathédrale, et Fès, haut lieu de l'Islam. Sienne est une description émouvante de la grandeur, et finalement de la décadence, d'une cité chrétienne qui, du point de vue architectural, demeure encore aujourd'hui une sorte de joyau gothique. La plus intéressante partie de l'ouvrage est toutefois l'histoire de ses saints. Burckhardt consacre bon nombre de pages à Sainte Catherine de Sienne (qui n'hésita jamais à reprendre le Pape de son temps quand elle le jugea nécessaire) et à Saint Bernardin de Sienne (qui fut l'un des catholiques les plus célèbres à pratiquer l'invocation du Saint Nom et à prêcher au peuple la doctrine de son pouvoir salvateur).
 
Chartres est l'histoire de l'"idéalisme" religieux (au meilleur sens du terme) qui soutint la conception et la réalisation pratique des cathédrales du Moyen-Age, témoins ineffaçables d'une époque de foi à travers les siècles humanistes ultérieurs. Dans Chartres, Burckhardt expose le contenu intellectuel et spirituel des différents styles architecturaux, faisant non seulement la distinction à cet égard entre le gothique et le roman, mais aussi entre les différentes expressions du seul roman. C'est un exemple parfait de ce qu'est le discernement intellectuel.
 
41zqYW7VfjL._SX369_BO1,204,203,200_.jpgL'un des chefs d'oeuvre de Burckhardt est sans aucun doute son livre Fès, haut lieu de l'Islam. Alors qu'il était jeune homme, dans les années trente, Burckhardt passa plusieurs années au Maroc, où il noua des liens d'amitié intime avec plusieurs remarquables représentants de l'héritage spirituel maghrébin jusque-là subsistant. Ce fut de toute évidence une période de formation dans la vie de Burckhardt, et une large part de son message et de son style ultérieurs a pour origine ces premières années. Dès cette époque, il mit par écrit une grande partie de son expérience, sans la publier alors, et c'est seulement à la fin des années cinquante que ces écrits et ces expériences vinrent à maturité dans un livre définitif et magistral. Dans Fès, haut lieu de l'Islam Burckhardt raconte l'histoire d'un peuple et de sa religion, histoire qui fut souvent violente, souvent héroïque, et parfois sainte. Tout au long de cette histoire court la trame de la piété et de la civilisation islamiques, que Burckhardt décrit d'une manière sûre et lumineuse, tout en relatant maints enseignements, paraboles et miracles des saints de nombreux siècles, et en exposant non seulement les arts et artisanats de la civilisation islamique, mais aussi ses sciences "aristotéliciennes" et ses méthodes administratives. On trouve beaucoup à apprendre en matière de gouvernement des hommes et des sociétés dans la présentation clairvoyante que donne Burckhardt des principes qui sous-tendent les vicissitudes dynastiques et tribales, avec leurs échecs et leurs succès.
 
Dans un esprit proche de Fès, une autre oeuvre de maturité de Burckhardt est son livre La culture maure en Espagne. Comme toujours, c'est un livre de vérité et de beauté, de science et d'art, de piété et de culture traditionnelle. Ici, comme dans plusieurs de ses livres, il est question du romanesque, du chevaleresque, du poétique et du véridique de la vie pré-moderne.
 
Pendant ses premières années au Maroc, Burckhardt se plongea dans la langue arabe et assimila les classiques du soufisme dans leur texte original. Lors des dernières années de sa vie, il devait partager ces trésors avec un large public par ses traductions d'Ibn `Arabî (3) et de Jîlî (4). L'un de ses plus importants travaux fut à cet égard sa traduction des lettres spirituelles du célèbre Sheikh marocain Moulay al-`Arabî ad-Darqâwî (5). Ces lettres, un précieux recueil de conseils pratiques, constituent un classique de la spiritualité.
 
Le dernier grand ouvrage de Burckhardt fut son importante monographie L’art de l’islam. Les principes intellectuels et la fonction spirituelle de la création artistique — illustrés ici surtout dans ses formes islamiques — nous y sont clairement et richement présentés. Avec ce noble volume, l'incomparable corpus littéraire burckhardtien se clôt.
 
Notes:
 
(1) Bernard Kelly, in Dominican Studies (Londres), Vol. 7, 1954.
(2) Professeur émérite Huston Smith, 1974.
(3) La Sagesse des Prophètes (Fusûs al-Hikam), Albin-Michel, Paris, 1955.
(4) De l'Homme Universel (Al-Insân al-Kâmil), Derain, Lyon, 1953.
(5) Lettres d'un Maître Soufi, Archè, Milan; Dervy, Paris; 1978.
 
Liens:
 
 

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Le Traditionalisme en Turquie

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Tibet DIKMEN:

Le Traditionalisme en Turquie

Il est difficile de dire que le traditionalisme a été suffisamment discuté et diffusé dans la sphère intellectuelle turque. Malgré le fait qu’une majorité des livres traditionalistes importants aient été traduits en turc, la conscience de ce courant philosophique est assez limitée à une «élite» particulière. Bien que la plupart des œuvres de René Guénon, Frithjof Schuon, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Martin Lings, Titus Burckhardt et Julius Evola soient toujours publiées par 'İnsan Yayınları', de nombreux Turcs ignorent à quel point l'école traditionaliste est un mouvement politico-philosophique actif, comment les traditionalistes sont connectés les uns aux autres, jusqu’où s'étendent les grandes et petites veines qui les alimentent, et à quelle distance les vaisseaux qui en résultent se propagent.

Rene Guenon - Modern Dünyanın Bunalımı.jpgRené Guénon est naturellement le premier nom traditionaliste à atteindre la Turquie. Le plus ancien document portant son nom remonte à 1938, dans l'intitulé d'un article de journal affirmant: «René Guénon, le philosophe français perdu depuis sept ans a finalement été retrouvé à la célèbre université Al-Azhar au Caire. Tout le monde à Paris est étonné par l’aventure étrange et curieuse du philosophe. » Cependant, cet article s'avère peu pertinent. Les œuvres intellectuelles de Guénon n'atteindront les intellectuels turcs qu'au début des années 80. Cela a commencé par la publication de petits articles dans un magazine conservateur appelé «Résurrection», appartenant à un parti islamo-conservateur qui a ensuite été fermé pour avoir refusé de participer aux élections trois fois d'affilée. À la suite de cette introduction, la traduction de ses livres a été entamé par Nabi Avcı, chroniqueur aux journaux Yeni Şafak, conseiller principal du Premier ministre Erdogan en 2003, ministre de l'Éducation nationale entre 2013-2016, puis ministre de la Culture et Tourisme jusqu'en 2017. Nous constatons déjà que des universitaires et intellectuels particulièrement bien placés ont tenté d'être les «précurseurs» du Traditionalisme en Turquie.

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Nabi Avci.

Après les traductions d'Avcı, des deuxièmes éditions ont été publiées, toutes chez 'les éditions ‘Insan', sous la direction du Prof. Dr. Mahmut Erol Kılıç, également écrivain à Yeni Şafak et académicien célèbre pour son travail sur Ibn-Arabi et René Guénon, actuellement ambassadeur de Turquie en République d'Indonésie. Jusqu'à très récemment, on pouvait observer que le contenu traditionaliste ne se trouvait que dans les arènes islamo-conservatrices telles que les facultés de théologie. Cependant, le courant anti-moderne vit, à ce jour, son apogée en Turquie. De nombreuses nouvelles traductions s'additionnent et les idées gagnent chaque jour plus d'interlocuteurs.

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Mahmut Erol Kiliç.

Outre que le traditionalisme devient une énorme influence pour les ordres soufis actifs, certains conservateurs ont commencé à essayer d'utiliser le traditionalisme comme une philosophie rigide et forte contre l'opposition laïque.

Un effort accru peut également être remarqué pour introduire l'école de la pensée à la jeune génération. GZT (la section jeunesse du journal Yeni Şafak que nous avions abordé plus tôt, un quotidien conservateur connu pour son soutien intransigeant au président Erdogan, entretenant des relations étroites avec le régime de l'AKP et fréquemment accusé pour discours de haine excessif et antisémitisme) a écrit un article approfondi et bien documenté sur le Traditionalisme destiné à la jeune génération, et a même réalisé une vidéo YouTube de 20 minutes expliquant l'héritage de Guénon. Cette `` gazette de la jeunesse '' qui, avec Yeni Şafak, appartient à Albayrak Holding, un conglomérat d'un milliard de dollars impliqué dans les télécommunications, l'immobilier, la production de moteurs, le textile et le papier, a également organisé une diffusion en direct avec Ibrahim Kalin (l'actuel conseiller en chef du président Erdogan), où il a sévèrement critiqué la modernité et recommandé à la jeune population turque de lire «L'Homme et la Nature» de Seyyed Hossein Nasr. De nouveaux articles sur les écrivains traditionalistes paraissent très fréquemment dans les revues de jeunesse de nombreuses universités allant d'Istanbul à Erzurum. On peut donc constater que, contrairement à l'Europe où il apparaît comme un courant dissident, le traditionalisme en Turquie se retrouve entrelacé dans la classe dirigeante, l'endroit auquel on s'attendrait le moins.

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Compte tenu de tous les différents facteurs, même si elles s’avèrent inconscientes et imprévues, une renaissance se produit dans la branche conservatrice de la Turquie et cela est directement liée au point de vue traditionaliste. Alors que les soufis et les ordres religieux ont tendance à se concentrer sur la tangente ‘pérennialiste’ plus passive, la "Révolte contre le Monde moderne'' de Julius Evola gagne en popularité auprès des militaristes: ceux qui adhèrent fermement à la devise "la Turquie n'est pas un pays avec une armée, l'armée turque est une armée avec un pays".

La croissance de l'influence traditionaliste a atteint une telle ampleur que Abdul-Wahid Yahya Guénon, fils de René Guénon, a été invité à Istanbul en 2015 pour recevoir le prix d'honneur de “Ami spécial” (décerné à ceux qui auraient grandement servi et contribué l'Islam) par une fondation soufie aux racines profondes (Kerim Vakfı). Au cours de son discours, le fils de Guénon a partagé des faits inédits sur son père. Le plus étonnant d’entre eux est le fait qu'un élève d'Albert Einstein aurait écrit une lettre à René Guénon déclarant que «son professeur était fortement influencé par ses travaux sur la métaphysique» et «qu'il les recommandait à ses élèves». Le fils de Guénon a également déclaré que même s'il était heureux que les œuvres de son père soient louées en Turquie, seulement 13 de ses 28 livres ont été traduits à ce jour.

N'oublions pas non plus l'opposition. L’opposition la plus forte à Guénon est venue de Zübeyir Yetik (du Milli Görüş d’Erbakan) qui a consacré tout un livre sur la critique des positions ésotériques et «suprareligieuses» de Guénon, intitulé «La suprématie de l’homme et l’ésotérisme guénonien».

Yetik affirme avec force que «les résultats des efforts visant à faire revivre le« patrimoine commun de l'humanité »sous le nom de« tradition », qui est constamment porté à l'ordre du jour par René Guénon et ses disciples, comme moyen alternatif de salut, est une triche et une escroquerie à ce sujet, portant préjudice à l’individu et à la société ». A côté de ces critiques, on peut également constater que les francs-maçons turcs ne sont pas non plus satisfaits de sa popularité. Selon une recherche effectuée par Thierry Zarcone, bien que la bibliothèque de la Grande Loge d'Istanbul disposait de nombreux livres de Guénon, ils l'ont délibérément ignoré et ont même fait preuve de consternation envers sa philosophie.

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Nous pouvons facilement remarquer l'attention croissante envers le traditionalisme, en particulier avec l'arrivée d'Ernst Jünger sur les étagères turques. Jünger est le plus récent penseur qui est entré dans cette «renaissance intellectuelle» en cours et, curieusement, le premier livre traduit était «Gläserne Bienen» (Abeilles de verre) en 2019, suivi de «In Stahlgewittern» (Orages d’acier) plus tard cette année-là. Ainsi, il a fallu 99 ans à Ernst Jünger pour atteindre un public turc. Nous pouvons donc conclure que le traditionalisme s'installe et crée des changements intellectuels significatifs dans différentes parties du monde, chacun dans des contextes indépendants et que la Turquie n'embrasse que récemment mais complètement cette vision du monde éternelle.

Sources :

https://www.gzt.com/mecra/gelenekselci-ekol-3426042v

http://www.insanyayinlari.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nseIBrYVhY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13K4--Hdup0

https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/kultur-sanat/einstein-babamdan-cok-etkilenmis/496404

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabi_Avc%C4%B1

https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albayrak_Holding

https://www.yenisafak.com/hayat/rene-guenon-ve-krizdeki-dusunce-2532911

https://www.religion.info/2003/01/26/rene-guenon-influence-en-iran-et-en-turquie/

https://books.google.be/books?id=zesfgcT_xtUC&pg=PA131&lpg=PA131&dq=traditionalisme+turquie+gu%C3%A9non&source=...