The Four Warrior Practices for Achieving: Anytime, Anywhere

The Four Warrior Practices for Achieving: Anytime, Anywhere

Angel Millar

Ex: http://peopleofshambhala.com

We’re all human. So why can some face down even the most terrifying situations, overcoming overwhelming odds, and achieving what so many others others might believe impossible?

Reading the classical commentaries on the martial arts, listening to contemporary masters, and hearing how contemporary elite military units tackle situations, tells us that there are less than a handful of truly essential elements of accomplishment. And they are available to everyone, to be applied in everyday situations, even where there is no conflict as such. Here they are:

1. Set Realistically High Goals:

“A good martial artist,” said Bruce Lee, “puts his mind on one thing at a time.” The famed martial artist was reminding his student, Joe Hyams, of an important principle. “The secret of kime [tightening the mind], is to exclude all extraneous thoughts,” Lee told Hyams (as the latter describes it in his book Zen In the Martial Arts), “thoughts that are not concerned with achieving your immediate goal.”

In Insanely Simple: The One Obsession that Drives Apple’s Success, Ken Segall notes that Apple — the company that gave us the Mac, iMac, iPod, iPad, and other history-making devices — focussed, excluding all kinds of good ideas, to concentrate on one. The point was to see the idea through, and to create something truly great out of it. Apple didn’t try to do everything at once. But by pushing the boundaries of one idea at a time, Apple created new, and — just as importantly — extremely simple to use devices.

By aiming high (but realistically so), Apple created things that have changed how we interact and think about technology.

Visualizing the arrow hitting the target: master archer Awa Kenzo (left); samurai Miyamoto (center) and sumi-e circle by Yamada Mumon Roshi.

It’s a principle that Apple could have learned from martial arts training (whether of an ancient military elite, contemporary practitioners of Tai Chi, or something else). Faced with some grueling, repetitive exercise — e.g., more push-ups than you think you can do — then the set can be broken up. Instead of aiming for, say, 100, which you think you cannot do, aim for the realistically high number of 10, and then keep doing that until you  can reach a hundred.

Aiming realistically high creates focus. It also encourages the individual — or group or company for that matter — to realize that they can do more than they thought. Indeed, it means doing something better than expected. With successes stacking up, you can aim realistically higher still.

2. Visualization:

When we’re facing a challenging situation, visualization may be one of the ways we begin to get to grips with it. In some situations. Mostly, people live in dread, fear, or inflate their egos to cope with stress and set backs. It’s unhealthy.

Visualization isn’t imagination per se. It’s focussed thinking; a bit like meditation. Artists and designers, given a specific project, will visualize — even if they don’t think of it in such terms. They have a strong idea of where they’re going, and how they’re going to get there, before they start.

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it,” remarked Michaelangelo. What did he mean. In effect, Michaelangelo was saying that he visualized the statue in the stone. Not, however, as something imposed on it, but as something that was integral to it. The sculptor had to work with the natural fabric — the strengths and weaknesses — of each block.

Visualization has been part of humanity since the beginning. One theory suggests that tool making and speech emerged at the same time, not because the tools were difficult to make and required discussion, but because these activities use the same part of the brain. In both cases, we need to know what we want, either to make or to say. The primitive tool maker had to know what his tool was going to look like. Less complex, for sure, like Michaelangelo with his sculpture, the tool maker had to discover the axe head in the intact flint stone. And to get it out he had to work with the material.

Yes, in art and design, things change along the way. New insights and better ideas come up, often as a result of an “accident” occurring in the process. (Most discoveries were made by accident.) But then the designer will visualize to comprehend what exactly they want to do with that.

Facing a more stressful situation, visualization helps us to understand the situation we’re walking into, so that we don’t panic once we’re in it. If it’s a verbal or physical confrontation (such as in contact sports), then we’re going to be better equipped to deal with it in an efficient and responsible manner. We’ve thought about how we might respond to certain possibilities. That makes the whole thing a little less scary.

To sum up, visualization helps us know what we want, and to work with what we have, whether that is the tools for design or our own skill (or limitations) and the the behavior of an opponent in martial arts.

3. Breathing:

You’ve heard someone say it: “take a deep breath and relax.” In the West, where we don’t focus very much on our breathing (unless we have problem with our lungs), it sounds almost like folk wisdom. What’s taking a deep breath going to do? Well, it turns out, probably quite a bit.

Tai Chi, Kung-fu, Karate, and many other martial arts systems place significant emphasis on breathing. Breathing with the movements (such as strikes with the hands or feet), injects them with maximum force, yet helps to prevent the martial artist hyperventilating, losing concentration, and becoming fatigued.

Within Systema, a Russian martial arts system, breathing is perhaps the major component. Systema is a modern martial arts, and, as such, it was designed for those of us around today. So things haven’t changed very much.

Yet, Systema uses the breath not only for fighting, or self-defense, but also — like some older martial arts — for de-stressing and healing the body. For example, the practitioner might, on waking and still laying in bed, breathe, imagining the breath traveling through his body, as he tenses and relaxes is it as a kind of wave going down the body.

In more traditional martial arts, such as Kung-fu and Karate, the practitioner will often meditate on the breath entering into the belly (more specifically the tan tien, just below the navel), to store and build up energy (chi) there.

The use of breath and movement is not limited to the martial arts.

In traditional ink painting (sumi-e), the painter moves the brush while breathing out. At a minimum, it helps the artist control his hand.

Martial artists, such as the famed samurai and ronin Miyamoto Musashi, also practiced painting, as well as other arts. Not surprisingly, since the brush and sword were considered one, and the principles of each art applicable to the other arts.

An exercise for painters, who are also adherents of Zen Buddhism, is to paint a circle in ink with one motion and in one breath. It’s harder than it looks. Most of time, looking at these circles, one sees a kind of wobble in the circle, and, frequently, they are misshapen. Something happened to the consciousness at such a point. Concentration was lost. The breath wasn’t consistent.

In summing up, deep breathing steadies the nerves and helps us retain control and composure in challenging and even frightening situations. It keeps us level headed.

4. Self-talk:

Self-talk is the motivational talk that we can use when things are tough — really tough.

Hopefully we’re in a situation where we’ve aimed realistically high, have visualized the goal, and are breathing deep, clearly, and consistent with our actions. But self-talk is the talk that propels us along when we could easily — and are more than tempted to — give up. It’s telling yourself that you can make it to the end of the race (even though feel like hell). Or that you can do those push-ups. Or that you can make whatever project not only work but really stand out.

Because of the stress of the situation in which we use this kind of talk, we tend to use short, pithy phrases. Nike’s memorable tag line — “Just Do It” — is really the kind of thing that athletes tell themselves when they’re pushing themselves hard.

Self-talk isn’t delusion or egocentrism. It’s not about saying: I’m the greatest. It’s about reaching deep into yourself for that one extra push when you most need it. It’s about giving your all.

We all face challenging situations. But think about these four principles — aiming realistically high, visualization, deep breathing, and self-talk — and, as they come up, you’ll be able to cope with, and come out on top of, those situations a lot more easily.

Angel Millar is an author, blogger, and the editor of People of Shambhala.

From Romanticism to Traditionalism

From Romanticism to Traditionalism

Thomas F. Bertonneau

Ex: http://peopleofshambhala.com

The movement called Romanticism belongs chronologically to the last two decades of the Eighteenth and the first five decades of the Nineteenth Centuries although it has antecedents going back to the late-medieval period and sequels that bring it, or its influence, right down to the present day.  Historically, and in simple, Romanticism is the view-of-things that succeeds and corrects its precursor among the serial views-of-things that have shaped the general outlook of the Western European mentality – what historians of ideas call Classicism, and which they identify as the worldview of the Enlightenment.  A good definition of Classicism is: The devotion to prescriptive orderliness for its own sake in all departments of life; the submission of all things to measure, decorum, and, using the word metaphorically, the geometric ideal.  Classicism implies the conviction that reason, narrowly delimited, is the highest faculty, and indeed almost the sole faculty worth developing.  The Classicist believes that life can be perfected by rationalization.  Certainly this is how the Romantics saw Classicism, but it is also in broad terms how the Classicists saw themselves.  According to its own dichotomy, Romanticism would be a view of existence consisting of tenets diametrically opposed to those of Classicism.

Detail of “The Course of Empire: Desolation,” 1836, oil on canvas, by Thomas Cole (1801-1848), founder of the Hudson River School.

And so largely it was or is, as Romanticism is by no means a dead issue.  As the Romantic sees it, imposed or conventional order tends to distort or obliterate the natural order; and by “natural order” the Romantics would have understood not only the order of nature, considered as Creation, but the order present in social adaptation to the natural order, as when agriculturalists follow the cycle of the seasons and attune their lives with the life of the soil or when builders of monuments and temples go to great effort to align them astronomically.  In addition, the Romantic believes that a bit of disorder might stimulate and enliven life, preventing it from becoming stiff and ossified; that the quirky and unexpected can exert a benevolent influence.  The Romantic also values emotion and intuition as much as he values reason, which he by no means disdains although he defines it more broadly than the Classicist.  The Romantics explicitly rejected the utilitarian arguments of the Classicists.  Romanticism prefigures and is the likely source of what in the second half of the Twentieth Century came to be known as Traditionalism.

I. Characteristics of Romanticism.  Where the geometrically patterned gardens of the French kings, like those designed by Claude Millet in 1632 for Louis XIV at Versailles, might stand for the Classical Spirit, the “English Garden,” with its meandering paths, sprawling bushes, and indifference to the weeds might stand for the Romantic Spirit.  Where Classicism took as its model Greece or Rome, Romanticism looked to the Middle-Ages.  Where Classicism venerated the purest, most elevated Attic style of speech, Romanticism cultivated the Gothic, the Celtic, and the regional dialect; it was not averse to rude or rustic idiom.  Classical playwrights like Pierre Corneille (1606 – 1684) and Jean Racine (1639 – 1699) imitated Euripides and Seneca; Romantic playwrights like Friedrich Schiller (1788 – 1805) and Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885) imitated Shakespeare, whom Voltaire had dismissed as a barbarian and his work as a formless affront to the unities.  Classicism concerns itself with form, which prescribes content, Romanticism with content, which then suggests the form.

What have the scholars written about Romanticism?  None exceeds the scholarly stature of Jacques Barzun (1907 – 2012), whose study From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life (2000) devotes three chapters to Romanticism.  Remarking that Romanticism had, in the broadest sense, something of the quality of a religious or spiritual awakening, and that, unlike Classicism, it extended its horizon of curiosity very far indeed – as for example into myth and folklore considered as other than mere superstition – Barzun writes:

With their searching imagination in literature and art, it could be expected that the Romanticists’ intellectual tastes would be anything but exclusive.  They found the Middle Ages a civilization worthy of respect; they relished folk art, music, and literature; they studied Oriental philosophy; they welcomed the diversity of national customs and character, even those outside the [Eighteenth Century] cosmopolitan circuit; they surveyed dialects and languages with enthusiasm.  This was a genuine multiculturalism, the wholehearted acceptance of the remote, the exotic, the folkish, [and] the forgotten.

Barzun adds that, “in Romanticism, thought and feeling are fused; [Romanticism’s] bent is toward exploration and discovery at whatever risk of error or failure; the religious emotion is innate and demands expression… the divine may be reached through nature or art.”  Under Barzun’s description, Romanticism would be humanly more whole than Classicism, with the latter excluding rather than incorporating the emotional impulse while granting to intuition a key role in the exploration of existence.

The Norwegian scholar, F. J. Billeskov Jansen (1907 – 2002), writing in the compendium Romantikken: 1800 – 1830 (Verdens Litteratur Historie, V. III, 1972), asserts that:

Opplysningstidens mennesker hade fryktet lidenskapene, som kunne true den sunne fornuft.  Alt hos Klopstock ble likevel den religiøse lidenskap frigjort, og hos Rousseau elskovspasjonen og natursvermeriet.  I romantikkens tidsalder blir diktere drømmere, Sjelen utvides I lengsel mot uendligheten, gjennom innføling forener poeten med nature, hans fantasi fører ham langt bort på eventyrets vinger eller langt tilbake i historien; hans håp får form av religiøse visjoner.

[The men of the Enlightenment had feared the passions, which could threaten right reason.  Simultaneously in [the work of Friedrich Gottlieb] Klopstock religious enthusiasm gained liberation, (just) as in the work of (Jean-Jacques) Rousseau did amorous passion and ecstasy in nature.  In the age of romanticism, poets became dreamers.  The soul expands in longing for infinity, the poet attaining oneness with nature through his inward feeling, while his imagination leads him far afield on the wings of adventure or far back into history; his hope takes the form religious visions.]

Elsewhere in the same volume, another scholar characterizes Romanticism as a return of Platonic theology.  Certainly Plato’s myths of the “Ladder of Philosophy,” “The Winged Horses and their Charioteer,” and “The Cave” find their later reflection in the imagery of the Romantic poets.  For Plato, importantly, the phenomena of this world point to a purely spiritual world – the realm of God and the Ideas.  We find a similar attitude in the poetry William Blake (1757 – 1827) and in that of William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850).  The main point to be stressed, however, is Jansen’s description of Romanticism as the labor of the soul to break free from the trammels of degraded matter and to rejoin a vital spirit that suffuses the universe and renders it intelligible.  The Romantics concluded that the assumptions of rationalism were parochial and constricting; that they did not give a true account of humanity or the universe.

In his study of Poetic Diction (1928), philologist and literary critic Owen Barfield (1898 – 1997) attempts to identify and prescind the fundamental Romantic ideas, one of which has to do with the role of “the rational principle”:

Now although, without the rational principle, neither truth nor knowledge could have been, but only life itself, yet that principle cannot add one iota to knowledge.  It can clear up obscurities, it can measure and enumerate with greater and ever greater precision, [and] it can preserve us in the dignity and responsibility of our individual existences.  But in no sense can it be said… to expand consciousness.  Only the poetic can do this: only poesy, pouring into language its creative intuitions, can preserve its living meaning and prevent it from crystallizing into a kind of algebra.  “If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character,” wrote William Blake, “the philosophic and experimental would soon be at the ratio of things, and stand still, unable to do other than repeat the same dull round.”

For Barfield, Romanticism qualifies not only as a revolt against the strictures of the Enlightenment; it is not only the accession of a new type of taste or sensibility that supersedes an earlier one: It is a change – and, for Barfield, a positive development – in human consciousness.  Understood in the way that Barfield, Jansen, and Barzun see it, Romanticism resembles – or, rather it anticipates –Traditionalism.  In The Crisis of the Modern World (1927), for example, René Guénon (1886 – 1951) describes the modern person as averse to referring “beyond the terrestrial horizon” and as crediting “no knowledge beyond what proceeds from the sense.”  For Guénon, the modern world “is anti-Christian because it is essentially anti-religious; and it is anti-religious because, in a still wider sense, it is anti-traditional.”  Writing in Harry Oldmeadow’s anthology The Betrayal of Tradition (2005) and invoking the spirit of T. S. Eliot, Brian Keeble asserts that fullness of humanity requires contact with “the transcendent dimension”; and, calling on Blake, he invokes the “sacred reality of the spirit.”

II. The Romantic Subject.  Romanticism saw a great flowering of lyric poetry, and this was no coincidence.  Lyric poetry is personal, even egocentric, poetry; or it is poetry personal in character even in the case where the putative “I” who speaks in the poem is purely fictional and is not to be identified with the author.  The name lyric suggests the solo singer accompanying himself on the lyre, bursting out in song, as the spirit takes him.  Lyric poetry is expressive: It represents in externalized imagery the internal state, intellectual or emotional, of the poet.  Of course, inner states usually correlate themselves with external circumstances and conditions.  Anyone who comments on the soul also necessarily comments on the world.  The Romantics seized on the lyric as their primary mode of poetizing because the conventions of lyric so perfectly suited that part of the Romantic program that concerned the exploration of the subject’s inner life.  Of course, the Romantic poet interests himself in much more than in pouring out the contents of his overflowing heart.  That would be a sophomoric misapprehension.  On the contrary, for the talented poet, well-schooled, mentally acute, moved by inveterate curiosity about the world, even a brief lyric poem can be the vehicle of a subtle critique or argument.  If the Romantic poet were a prophet then he would also be a philosopher.

What does it mean to be a subject, an ego, an “I”?  Subjectivity is self-consciousness, an abiding awareness that one is this person, with this biography (always thus far), and with these relations to and with and in the world – and not some other person with other relations.  But every subject, every self-conscious person, is aware that the world is full of other self-conscious persons whose subjectivity, as he infers, is generically like his own right down to the detail that each has (or ought to have) a similar sense of his own particularity and difference from the others.  Beyond persons, places, and things, the subject senses – although he can never empirically grasp – a totality of things, a cosmos, and an authorial or organizing principle, for which the common name is God.  Wisdom consists in knowing that there was a world indefinitely before his own subjectivity began and there will be a world indefinitely after his own subjectivity ceases; he is a part of something larger than himself, which lies beyond the limits of his will.

Mood conditions subjectivity.  The typical self-consciousness addressed in the previous paragraph should be qualified as the healthy self-consciousness.  Because, however, no one can keep the world absolutely at bay, he must suffer the impingements of the world, whether happily or sadly.  Forces beyond a subject’s control can alienate him from himself and through ignorance or perversity he can exacerbate his alienation.  The Romantics believed that the worldview of Classicism, or the Enlightenment, described life and the world falsely, and that those who embraced its falsehoods must in some way become alienated.  The Romantics regarded with acute skepticism the modern claims concerning material progress.  “The world is too much with us, late and soon, / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers,” wrote Wordsworth.  In the labyrinth of the new metropolis, the soul might once again lose its way and suffer, as men once did in the Cities of the Plain, and experience pure indifference with respect to its own sickness.  What kind of civic environment would arise from the presence together in large urban agglomerations of millions of such afflicted people?  The psychic problem must inevitably become a social and a cultural problem.

It is worth quoting Wordsworth’s sonnet in full:
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

The Romantics understood that consciousness rises to acuity in events and crises, like that experienced by Wordsworth’s monologist in the stale abjection of his despair.  The growth of consciousness proceeds punctually rather than gradually, and it entails the tribulations of a solemn pilgrimage.  Lyric poetry, being the poetry of the subject’s self-consciousness, therefore also tends to be the poetry of sudden events – discrete moments in which the subject suddenly discovers something about himself, the world, or himself in relation to the world, that hitherto he did not know and knowledge of which alters him.  It might be, as in the case of “The world is too much with us,” the discovery of one’s own spiritual poverty; it might be an access of grace.  Such moments sometimes bear the name of epiphany; they are in any case always revelatory – and they cannot be solicited.  They impose themselves, as if by external guidance, as gifts, upon the percipient.

The epiphanic or revelatory quality of lyric poetry has to do with its effort to appear spontaneous.  Every work of art requires arduous labor, even a fourteen-line sonnet, but Wordsworth, for example, insisted that he drew inspiration from abrupt visionary experiences and that articulating the vision although onerous entailed given textual form to a unitary idea.  Discussing the origin of his major poems – The Prelude, The Excursion, and the unfinished Recluse – in letters to his friends, Wordsworth situated himself as the channel for impulses that had befallen him, as revelation befalls the prophet, whether he seeks his election or not.

The Romantic subject resembles – or, rather, it anticipates – the Traditionalist subject, as Guénon, Nicolas Berdyaev (1874 – 1948), and others have defined it.  Guénon himself in The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times (1945) characterizes modern man as having “lost the use of the faculties which in normal times allowed him to pass beyond the bounds of the sensible world.”  This loss leaves modern man alienated from “the cosmic manifestation of which he a part”; in Guénon’s analysis modern man assumes “the passive role of a mere spectator” and consumer, which is exactly how Wordsworth saw it.  Of course, Guénon does not write of loss as an accident, but as the logical consequence of choices and schemes traceable to the Enlightenment.  As Wordsworth put it, “We have given our hearts away – a sordid boon.”

According to Berdyaev, writing in The Destiny of Man (1931), “Man is not a fragmentary part of the world but contains the whole riddle of the universe and the solution of it.”  Berdyaev asserts that, contrary to modernity, “man is neither the epistemological subject [of Kant], nor the ‘soul’ of psychology, nor a spirit, nor an ideal value of ethics, logics, or aesthetics”; but, abolishing and overstepping all those reductions, “all spheres of being intersect in man.”  Berdyaev argues that, “Man is a being created by God, fallen away from God and receiving grace from God.”  The prevailing modern view, that of naturalism, “regards man as a product of evolution in the animal world,” but “man’s dynamism springs from freedom and not from necessity”; it follows therefore that “evolution” cannot explain the mystery and centrality of man’s freedom.  When Berdyaev brings “grace” into his discussion, he echoes the original Romantics, whose version of grace was the epiphanic vision, the event answering to a crisis that brings about the conversion of the fallen subject and sets him on the road to true personhood.

III. Romantic Nature.  The Romantic redefinition of nature, which the Romantics invariably capitalize as Nature, runs in parallel with the Romantic redefinition of selfhood.  Where the Enlightenment had reduced nature to material processes – geological, chemical, physiological, mechanical, and optical – with no reference to anything outside themselves, Romanticism in reaction posited Nature not only as vital throughout but also as meaningful, and natural phenomena as pointing beyond themselves to things supernatural.  This redefinition of nature was perhaps less a total innovation than it was the re-appropriation of an old idea going back to late-medieval thinkers like Jakob Boehme (1575 – 1624), Paracelsus (1493 – 1541), and even Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630), who saw in nature a decipherable living message that implies a message-maker whose motivation must be that he wishes to establish contact with human beings.  Behind those figures lies Christian Platonism.  Under this late-medieval idea, the sensitive soul can not only come into communication through nature with what lies beyond nature; but he can also, through nature, come into communion with what is beyond nature.  In Christian, rather than pagan, terms, the Romantic rediscovers Nature as “The Book of Nature,” a kind of supplement to the two Testaments, whose author is God, as normally or eccentrically conceived by the individual writer-thinker.

A longstanding and not altogether inaccurate thumbnail categorization of Romantic poetry is that it is nature poetry.  The Romantic penchant for verbal picturesque redoubles the plausibility of the claim.  Here, for example, is Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834) conjuring forth the abyss that lies beneath “The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan” in the fragmentary poem (1798) of that name.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

In Coleridge’s poem, which he subtitles “a vision in a dream,” Nature is all depth, but better to say that for Coleridge in “Kubla Khan” Nature is vital depth; Nature is a wellspring of robust and creative urgencies that is almost everywhere and almost at every moment alive.  The exception would be the “lifeless ocean,” a symbol perhaps of what we now call entropy, but in a world of perpetual emergence even a “lifeless ocean” might be redeemed and revivified.  Indeed, Coleridge in the quoted verses seems to be rescuing the etymon of the word nature, which is the same etymon that gave rise to the French verb naître, “to be born” or “to give birth.”  The “chasm” gives birth to “a mighty fountain,” which in turn transforms itself into “a sacred river.”  Coleridge’s endowment on the scenario of the term “sacred” reminds us that his Nature is not only vital, but hallowed or divine.  The creative processes in nature point to a divine creative power beyond nature that reveals itself in phenomena and solicits from the sensitive soul the idea of something that requires a formal acknowledgment of its generative awesomeness.

Coleridge’s “caverns measureless to man” stand for the unplumbed depths not only of Nature but of the soul.  To explore the hidden depths of Nature means also to explore the soul and vice versa.  Coleridge draws on ancient conceptions that the Enlightenment claimed to have debunked, such as the conception of the psyche or soul, as articulated by the archaic philosopher-seer Heraclitus of Ephesus in one of his surviving aphorisms (No. 45): “You will not find out the limits of the soul when you go, travelling on every road, so deep a logos does it have.”  Where the Enlightenment assumed that everything might be measured – that is to say, brought within the horizon of finite knowledge – Coleridge insists that the world possesses a “measureless” dimension that resists logical summary or reduction to purely quantitative or propositional terms. The only way to discuss such things is in symbol, imagery, and figure-of-speech.

Thomas Cole (1801-1848) The Catskills and Lake George, Catskill Creek, N.Y., 1845, oil on canvas.

A similar view of Nature as the source of vital energy necessary to the soul informs the final scene of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust Part II (1831), where the errant sinner, Doctor Johann Faust, at last finds redemption from his graceless and degraded state.  Goethe (1749 – 1832) sets his scene in primeval nature:

Waldung, sie schwankt heran,
Felsen, sie lasten dran,
Wurzeln, sie klammern an,
Stamm dicht an Stamm hinan,
Woge nach Woge spritzt,
Höhle, die tiefste, schützt.
Löwen, sie schleichen stumm-–
freundlich/ um uns herum,
Ehren geweihten Ort,
Heiligen Liebeshort.

[Forests, they wave around,
Over them, cliffs bear down,
Roots cling to rocky ground,
Trunk upon trunk is bound,
Wave after wave sprays up,
Deep caves protecting us.
Lions prowl silently,
Round us, still friendly,
Honouring sacred space,
Love’s holy hiding place.]

A few verses later, the character called Pater Profundis, who will play a mediating role in Faust’s redemption, utters these lines:

Wie Felsenabgrund mir zu Füßen
Auf tiefem Abgrund lastend ruht,
Wie tausend Bäche strahlend fließen
Zum grausen Sturz des Schaums der Flut,
Wie strack mit eignem kräftigen Triebe
Der Stamm sich in die Lüfte trägt:
So ist es die allmächtige Liebe,
Die alles bildet, alles hegt.
Ist um mich her ein wildes Brausen,
Als wogte Wald und Felsengrund,
Und doch stürzt, liebevoll im Sausen,
Die Wasserfülle sich zum Schlund,
Berufen, gleich das Tal zu wässern;
Der Blitz, der flammend niederschlug,
Die Atmosphäre zu verbessern,
Die Gift und Dunst im Busen trug –
Sind Liebesboten, sie verkünden,
Was ewig schaffend uns umwallt.
Mein Innres mög‘ es auch entzünden,
Wo sich der Geist, verworren, kalt,
Verquält in stumpfer Sinne Schranken,
Scharfangeschloßnem Kettenschmerz.
O Gott! beschwichtige die Gedanken,
Erleuchte mein bedürftig Herz!

[As this rocky abyss at my feet,
Rests on a deeper abyss,
As a thousand glittering streams meet
In the foaming flood’s downward hiss,
As with its own strong impulse, above,
The tree lifts skywards in the air:
Even so all-powerful love,
Creates all things, in its care.
Around me there’s a savage roar,
As if the rocks and forests sway,
Yet full of love the waters pour,
Rushing bountifully away,
Sent to irrigate the valley here:
The lightning that flashed down,
Must purify the atmosphere,
With poisonous vapours bound –
They are love’s messengers, they tell
Of what creates eternally around us.
May it inflame me inwardly, as well,
Since my spirit, cold and confounded,
Torments itself, bound in the dull senses,
As sharp-toothed fetters’ agonising art.
Oh, God! Calm my thoughts, pacify us,
And bring light to my needy heart!]

For Goethe as for Coleridge, Nature is the bourn of life, to which the afflicted soul might return to be nursed back to health.  We recall that in Wordsworth’s sonnet “The world is too much with us,” the lyric subject feels exiled from nature and, in his attempt to rejoin with nature, catastrophically rebuffed.  The world seems to him lifeless and still, and he also with it; he wants revivification.  Faust seeks the same.  Goethe’s “forests” answer him not in stillness, but make constantly a motion as they “wave around.”  Just so, the “cliffs” actively “bear down” and “roots cling.”  The dimension of depth goes not missing, for in Goethe’s scene “deep caves protect us” in a landscape thickly tangled (“trunk upon trunk”) that is “sacred” and, like some lonely place where a ritual purification might occur, hidden (“Love’s holy hiding place”) from profane eyes.  When Pater Profundis (“The Father of the Depth”) begins to speak, he credits the landscape with “its own strong impulse.”  The tree, straining its branches skyward, responds to the attractive principle of “Love” that serves Goethe for the equivalent of the non-anthropomorphic energy suffusing the caverns beneath Coleridge’s “stately pleasure dome” in “Kubla Khan.”

A poignant recurrence of this Coleridgean-Goethean constellation of ideas about Nature may be found in the work of the late John Michell (1933 – 2009), who referred to himself as a “Radical Traditionalist.”  Readers know Michell best for his persistent work on the megalithic monuments of the European Neolithic Period, especially in Britain, which he demonstrated to have constituted a continental, and perhaps even a global, network whose builders intended them to help in keeping the dominion of man in contact with the dominion of the stars and of the deities that the stars betokened.  Like Coleridge and Goethe, Michell posited a vital energy inherent in the earth, which the old stone circles and the long straight lines connecting them channeled and tapped.  Michell possessed that conviction of a deep past antecedent to himself that distinguishes both Romanticism and Traditionalism from the modern default-state of “historylessness” and dogmatic materialism.

In The View over Atlantis (1969; revised as The New View over Atlantis, 1985), Michell writes how “of the various human and superhuman races that have occupied the earth in the past we have only the dreamlike accounts of the earliest myths, which tell of the magical powers of the ancients.”  In his bold assertion, Michell echoes the prophecies of Blake, who revived the Old Plato’s “true myth” from the Timaeus in his epic poem America (1793).  As in the Genesis-story of the Deluge or in Plato’s “Atlantis” story, Michell pieces together a narrative about “an overwhelming disaster of human or natural origin which destroyed a system whose maintenance depended upon its control of natural forces across the entire earth.”  In one sense, Michell has simply reiterated that the Enlightenment happened, cutting across the lines of Tradition and depriving humanity of its proper heritage.  For Michell, as for Blake or Wordsworth or Goethe, history is not the “account… of a recent ascent from bestiality and barbarism to the triumphs of modern civilization, but of a gradual, barely interrupted decline from the universal high culture of [Neolithic] antiquity to the present state of fragmentation and impending dissolution.”

IV. Romantic Nature Continued.  Often for the Romantic poet, nature gives cover to secret activities that betoken an older world that in modern civic domains has given way to the despiritualizing forces of measure and logic – in the sociological process that some historians refer to as de-mystification.  Nature is mysterious; she is the “magic forest” of the fairy-tales and legends, to enter which is perforce to run the risk of impish enthrallment or initiatory imperilment.  In the pathways of the forest, man, in his ancient role as hunter, pursues wild game and, taking the prey, becomes one with it.  The opening stanzas of “le Cor” (1826) by the French poet Alfred de Vigny (1797 – 1863) instantiate this variant of the Romantic Nature:

J’aime le son du Cor, le soir, au fond des bois,
Soit qu’il chante les pleurs de la biche aux abois,
Ou l’adieu du chasseur que l’écho faible accueille,
Et que le vent du nord porte de feuille en feuille.

Que de fois, seul, dans l’ombre à minuit demeuré, 
J’ai souri de l’entendre, et plus souvent pleuré!
Car je croyais ouïr de ces bruits prophétiques
Qui précédaient la mort des Paladins antiques.

[I love the sounding horn, of an eve, deep within the woods,
Whether it sings the plaints of the threatened doe
Or the hunter’s retreat but faintly echoed
That the north wind carries from leaf to leaf.

[How often alone, in midnight shadows concealed,
I have smiled to hear it, even shedding a tear!
I thought to hear sounding prophetic plaints,
Declaring the death-knell for knights of old.]

As in Coleridge and Goethe, Nature in Vigny’s poetry offers herself as depth; she furnishes the paradoxically unapprehended scene of a ritual performance, which, however, the lyric subject can reconstitute in his imagination, provoked to the activity by the very sound.  The horn-call reaches the lyric subject of Vigny’s poem from far away in the concealment of the woods, a place of half-light and shadows.  The horn-call incites the lyric subject, as he says, to love: “I love the sounding of the horn, of an eve, deep within the woods.”  But what is this “love”?  It is precisely the awakened desire for the transcendent and unseen, for depth and distance; and it is a response to the sacred, mirrored in the desire of man for woman, and of the soul for beauty.

Note how in the first stanza of Vigny’s poem the sound of the horn mingles with the rustling of the north wind, as though the two timbres had become one and therefore indistinguishable.  In the second stanza, the horn-call comes to resemble “prophetic plaints, / declaring the death-knell for knights of old.”  Not only the reunion of culture and nature, which have become alienated from one another, but also whole extinct worlds of medieval pageantry and hieratic drama, lie concealed in oaken and beechy precincts.  Let it be noted finally, in passing, how Vigny’s “Cor” with its “prophetic plaints” makes a parallelism with Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” where “ancestral voices” are “prophesying war.”

“Goethe in the Roman Campagna,” 1786, by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, oil on canvas.

What do the scholars say about the Romantic view of landscape and nature?  François-René Chateaubriand (1768 – 1848), a second-generation French Romantic who was also one of the early scholars of Romanticism, writes in his great study of The Genius of Christianity (1802) concerning the distinction between ancient and modern poetry that “mythology… circumscribed the limits of nature and banished truth from her domain.”  In modern poetry, by which Chateaubriand means Christian poetry: “The deserts have assumed a character more pensive, more vague, and more sublime; the forests have attained a loftier pitch; the rivers have broken their pretty urns, that in future they may only pour the waters of the abyss from the summit of the mountains; and the true God, in returning to his works, has imparted his immensity to nature.”  Chateaubriand associates paganism with naturalism – that is to say, with the taxonomic or classifying study of natural phenomena, as exemplified in the work of Pliny the Younger.  Chateaubriand thus opposes the Romantic or Christian view of Nature against the Classical or Pagan view of nature, which had been taken up again by the Enlightenment, favoring the former over the latter.

If, as Chateaubriand writes, “the prospect of the universe [excited not] in the bosoms of the Greeks and Romans those emotions which it produces in our souls,” then it follows that the Enlightenment mentality, surveying the same “prospect,” would come away from the encounter as affectively blank as did the Epicurean precursor whose view Eighteenth-Century Classicism has reinvented.  The modern poet in confronting the universe, according to Chateaubriand, enjoys the differentiating privilege to “taste the fullness of joy in the presence of its Author.”  It is true that there is no Pagan equivalent of the Fall-from-Grace.  Because consciousness is equivalent to recollection, and because paganism never experienced Nature as lost, the Christian sense of Nature must exceed the Pagan sense in both quality and intensity.  Christianity is a return to nature or a recovery of it, a homecoming, as it were, with all the poignancy thereof.

In Natural Supernaturalism (1973), one of the great studies of the Romantic Movement, and with specific reference to Wordsworth, M. H. Abrams (born 1912 – still living) writes that for the Grasmere poet “Scriptural Apocalypse is assimilated to an apocalypse of nature [whose] written characters are natural objects, which [the poet reads] as types and symbols of permanence in change.”  Abrams shows in his study how Wordsworth in particular and the Romantics in general inherited from Edmund Burke and German idealism the aesthetic dichotomy of The Beautiful and the Sublime.  The Beautiful is whatever is picturesque, pleasing, and amiable in Nature.  The Sublime is whatever is awesome, threatening, and grandiose in Nature.  In communing with Nature, the sensitive soul finds in Beauty the stepping-stone to the Sublime, and it is in the Sublime that he reads – or has read to him – the real lesson of Nature.  Abrams writes that the “antithetic qualities of sublimity and beauty are seen [by the poet] as simultaneous expressions on the face of heaven and earth, declaring an unrealized truth which the chiaroscuro of the scene articulates for the [properly] prepared mind – a truth about the darkness and the light, the terror and the peace, the ineluctable contraries that make up our human existence.”

In American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States, 1820 – 1880 (2002), Andrew Wilton and Tim Barringer comment on the centrality of the Sublime in the Romantic conception of landscape.  “The Sublime,” they write, “incorporated a further dimension [namely that] the imagination has an important part to play in our perception of what is immense, nebulous, beyond exact description.”  When the percipient discovers “spiritual significance in nature,” he is not making a passive observation; on the contrary, he is participating in the constitution of such significance.  Writing of Frederic Church’s panorama in oils of Niagara (1857), Wilton and Barringer remark that, “it is not a meditation on light, but on the power of nature manifested in the grandest geographical phenomena.”  They go on to remark that “Church conceived [Niagara] as a show-piece, a masterpiece in the original sense: a specimen of his own powers at their most impressive – a match, perhaps, in a consciously humble way, to God’s own.”  Church’s canvass also communicates with the “abyss” of Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” a metaphor of the soul and of the psychic component of the universe as “measureless to man.”

V. Traditionalism as the New Phase of Romanticism.  Abrams’ attribution to Wordsworth of a sense of Nature as “apocalyptic” applies equally well to Church (1826 – 1900), for whom the great cataract, directly on the brink of which his painting positions the viewer, is also “apocalyptic” – God revealing His greatness through the sublimity of the falling waters, the magnificent roar, and the rearing luminous mists.  Church painted a number of scenes that would have pleased Michell, such as his “Aegean Sea” (1877), with its ancient ruins, including the half-hidden entrance to a cave-shrine, against a brilliantly light island-harbor with mists and rainbows.  Church’s “Cross in the Wilderness” (1857), with its rugged mountains and faraway, luminous horizon, implies a Chateaubriand-like grasp of the religious struggle, with its concluding vision, as the essentially human struggle.  It probably implies Michell’s ley-lines and megalithic power-foci.  The Hudson River School of painting, to which Church belonged, was a thoroughly Romantic phenomenon, motivated by an awareness of the disappearing wilderness, which it sought to record, and dedicated to the ideal that civilization must never violate the natural order; that humbleness before the sublimity of the natural world is the proper attitude for civilized people to assume.

The Lake Poets in England and the Hudson River painters in North America feared the tendencies of their era – the spread of callous industrialism, the aggrandizement of cities, the blighting of the countryside, and the coarsening of the soul.  They warned against these trends even as it became evident that the trends would overwhelm any critique.  The Lake Poets eventually came to grasp that their philosophical and aesthetic convictions implied a politics.  Wordsworth and Coleridge became Tories, or as Americans would say, conservatives.  Vigny and Chateaubriand were also on the right, the former describing himself as the sole male survivor of a parental generation that the Revolution had eaten alive.  These men would better be described, however, as reactionaries – against the encroachments of the Reign of Quantity and the pseudo-ethos of “getting and spending” – and as Traditionalists: Defenders and conservators of the local against the metropolitan, of dialect against rhetoric, and of the spirit against a prescriptively and intolerantly materialist view of life and the world.  Their opposite numbers were the propagandists for the insidious synergy of the laborites and socialists with the bankers and industrialists.

In The Communist Manifesto (1848), Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) and Frederick Engels (1820 – 1895) condemn the bourgeoisie, whom they propose to abolish, but they extol the “subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground” that “Capitalism,” the project of the bourgeoisie, had created.  Marx, as much as the industrialists, looked forward to the “extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan” and to the “establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.”  Scots poet Robert Burns (1759 – 1796) had already indicted the right riposte in his “Impromptu on the Carron iron Works” (1787):

We cam na here to view your warks, 
In hopes to be mair wise, 
But only, lest we gang to hell, 
It may be nae surprise: 
But when we tirl’d at your door 
Your porter dought na hear us; 
Sae may, shou’d we to Hell’s yetts come, 
Your billy Satan sair us!

In the prevailing situation in the second decade of the Twenty-First Century, the literature professors prefer denouncing the Romantic poets to understanding them, and the art-history professors regard the Hudson River painters as “illustrators” who could not possibly have believed in the Transcendentalist or spiritualist doctrines that they expounded.  Prophets of modern thought like Theodore Wiesengrund Adorno (1903 – 1969) and Jacques Derrida (1930 – 2004) have, of course, conclusively demonstrated that all Lake Poets and all Hudson River painters, even the ones who were Unitarians hence half-way to being modern liberals, were and remain servitors of false consciousness and an oppressive “logocentrism,” from which everyone should be compulsorily liberated.  In the colleges and universities, the Cultural-Marxist hatred for anything not Cultural-Marxist grows red-hot, white-hot, and ultraviolet-hot by swift stages.  That is a metonymy of exactly what the early twentieth-Century Traditionalists predicted.

In The End of Our Time (1933), Berdyaev argues that, “The Renaissance began with the affirmation of man’s creative individuality; it has ended with its denial.”  Creativity, which Michelangelo and J. S, Bach ascribed to God, produces unequal results that inspire “envy,” which in turn solicits a demand for “equality.”  For Berdyaev, the principle of modernity is “envy of the being of another and bitterness at the inability to affirm one’s own.”  Thus, according to Berdyaev’s analysis, “Our age is like to that which saw the passing of the ancient world” although “that was the passing of a culture incomparably finer than the culture of today.”  It is possible, writes Berdyaev, to “trace the ruin of the Renaissance in modernist art, in Futurism, in philosophy, in Critical Gnoseology… and finally in socialism and anarchism,” all of which begin with a rejection of Romantic, and therefore of religious, values.

In The Meaning of the Creative Act (1916), Berdyaev, contrasting “Canonic” or “pagan” art with “Christian art, or, better, the art of the Christian epoch,” arrives at the dichotomy that “pagan art is classic and immanent” where “Christian art is romantic… and transcendent.”  The parallelism between Berdyaev and Chateaubriand will be abundantly self-evident.  As Berdyaev sees it, “In [the] classically beautiful perfection of form [in] the pagan world there is no upsurge towards another world… no abyss… above or below”; that is, no “caverns measureless to man.”  The Romantic, knowing that he can never achieve perfection in this world, shies from utopian projects that inevitably become coercive and universal.  Thus “a romantic incompleteness… characterizes Christian art,” which takes as a premise, among others, the conviction “that final, perfect, eternal beauty is possible only in another world.”  That the Romantic often succumbs to the frustration inherent in eternal longing, Berdyaev notes; but the Romantics themselves knew their vulnerability in this regard well and were wont candidly to diagnose it, as Wordsworth does in “The world is too much with us,” candidly.  Berdyaev saw in Nineteenth-Century Romanticism the last pause in the steady descent of the Western world into materialism, utilitarianism, and nihilism, the equivalent of Guénon’s Kali Yuga or Dark Age.

Contemporary Traditionalism picks up where Berdyaev, Guénon, and the mid-Twentieth Century anti-modernists, and again where the Romantics, in their century, left off.  Traditionalists recognize that the critical situation of their time is deeper, more degraded, more irremediably catastrophic than the of one hundred or one hundred-and-fifty years ago, but they also see that it is the same crisis and that if the Endarkenment of their day were more acute by a magnitude at least than it was in 1820 or 1920 it would also be closer to its irrevocable finale.  The problem for Traditionalists is how severe that finale will be.  Will it conform itself to the Foundering of Atlantis or the Fall of Rome?  The former constituted a choke-point after which civilized life had to begin again from the degree zero.  The latter sacrificed the Imperial infrastructure, both physical and bureaucratic, for the reorientation of Western European humanity from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.  The Greeks and Romans feared to sail beyond the Pillars of Hercules.  Significantly, the conquest of the Atlantic and the opening up of North America fell to those Northwestern Goths, the Vikings, at the very moment when Iceland was embracing Christianity.  Leif Erikson was an early convert, as was Thorfinn Karlsefni.

Modernity is a Polyphemus, an angry unison-chorus, shouting like thunder that man is the measure and that there is nothing, not measurable by man.  Traditionalism is the quiet voice, seeking parlay with other hushed voices, so that together they might enter conversation with the Forest Murmurs and even the distant Music of the Spheres and come to know better what they already suspect, that man must begin by measuring himself against the measureless.

[This essay is dedicated to Professors Cocks and Presley and to “The Two Scholars.”]

Thomas F. Bertonneau earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Califonia at Los Angeles in 1990. He has taught at a variety of institutions, and has been a member of the English Faculty at SUNY Oswego since 2001. He is the author of three books and numerous articles on literature, art, music, religion, anthropology, film, and politics. He is a frequent contributor to Anthropoetics, the ISI quarterlies, and others.

Mithra e l'iniziazione ermetico-solare

Mithra e l'iniziazione ermetico-solare

Luca Valentini

Ex: http://www.ereticamente.net

Storia di un Culto

Le prime notizie circa il Dio Mithra pervengono dall’arcaica tradizione dei Veda indù e precisamente dal più antico, il Rig-veda, risalente ad un epoca di diverse migliaia di anni fa più remota dalla nascita dell’età volgare, che inquadrano la divinità in questione come reggente di un mondo perfetto delle origini ormai dimenticato, protettore dell’Ordine Universale insieme al dio Varuna.

Ritroviamo Mithra, poi, in un’altra tradizione di origine indoeuropea, precisamente in quella iranica, ove, oltre che nell’antico Iran, anche in zone come la Cappadocia, Commagene, del Ponto e le terra dei Mitanni-hurriti, assume la valenza del Numen tutelare del Patto, del Giuramento: tale caratteristica, non solo valse l’acquisizione di un crisma prettamente guerriero, ma anche, nell’antica Persia, permise che il suo culto diventasse la base del sistema feudale dell’impero. Il contatto con il mondo occidentale e quindi con la Romanità avvenne, con l’espandersi della stessa, ad opera dei legionari, anche se Plutarco nella “Vita di Pompeo” narra di “strani riti” celebrati dai pirati della Licia; il culto entrerà ufficialmente a Roma, poi, solo nel 66 d.C., portatovi da Tiridate, re dell’Armenia, in visita a Nerone.

 

Il contatto con il mondo greco-romano, con le sue istituzioni misteriche (molte sono le similitudini con i Misteri di Eleusi) e con la filosofia neoplatonica – come dimostrano varie opere di Porfirio -, forgiarono una vera e propria via iniziatica ermetica, riservata a pochi eletti, sempre al riparo nei suoi mitrei, nelle sue grotte sotterranee riservate al culto, che simbolicamente possiamo associare al mito platonico della caverna: Mithra nasce alchemicamente dalla pietra, come la vera Luce cova e si manifesta nell’oscurità della notte. Solo una tarda volgarizzazione potè assimilargli il ruolo di Soter, Salvatore, spesso confuso erroneamente col Cristo, e una statalizzazione , voluta da Diocleziano, Galerio e Licino lo proclamò “Deo Soli Invicto Mithrae fautori imperii sui”, assimilando il culto a quello ufficiale ed imperiale di Helios, introdotto a Roma, da Emesa, da Aureliano.

 

Una breve introduzione storica si è rilevata necessaria per inquadrare le radici del Culto, che pian piano è andato completandosi, arricchendosi, sicuramente per meglio manifestare tutta la propria potenzialità spirituale, che è di natura ermetica, quindi di origine primordiale, regale ed iniziatica. Il mito e la tradizione fanno ricordare Mithra per due momenti salienti del suo decorso esoterico, cioè per la sua nascita dalla roccia e per l’uccisione del toro sacrificale, che non assume il solo valore rinnovatore del cosmo, ma possiede una ben più alta e precisa valenza spirituale. Tutto si inquadra in una visione del mondo prettamente solare, concepita tradizionalmente, militando, l’iniziato o il neofita, per lo schieramento avversario irriducibile delle Tenebre, di Arimanne, di Tifone-Seth, di Vediovis, ma anche di tutta la spiritualità lunare delle madri come Iside, Demetra e Astarte, quindi per lo schieramento di Eracle, del Marte romano, di Horus…naturalmente di Mithra. Poco o nulla si potrà comprendere di tale culto misterico se non si farà propria tale prospettiva polare, tale atteggiamento guerriero, di superamento magico, quindi di superamento attivo.

 

Le corrispondenze astrali e metalliche

 

Il termine ermetico adoperato in tale contesto va inteso nel più profondo del proprio significato, non solo nella più considerata e generale accezione alchemica, ma quale simbolo unitario (dal verbo greco sùmballo), sintesi di domini diversi ma correlati, che attraverso i diversi gradi di iniziazione al Numen della Luce, del Patto e del Fuoco, ci permetteranno di cum-prendere l’essenza più alta che la Tradizione abbia mai espresso: in merito ci riferiamo a quanto evidenziato da Giandomenico Casalino nel suo Il Nome Segreto di Roma (p. 75, Edizioni Mediterranee), , nel quale  si precisa come “…la corrispondenza magica Astro-Dio-Metallo, realtà alla quale ci si deve accostare…cogliendone la dimensione simbolica per effetto dell’assimilazione del principio anagogico della Trascendenza Immanente (il Metallo) e/o della Immanenza Trascendente (l’Astro), dove quella è una manifestazione spirituale della materia corporea e questa è una manifestazione corporea dello spirito”. 

 

Seguendo tale traccia, ritroviamo le indicazioni di Celso (Origene, Contra Celsum, VI, 22), secondo il quale nel culto mithriaco, e ne danno evidenza anche le testimonianze parietali nei diversi mitrei ritrovati come quelli di Capua, di Ostia, vi fosse una strettissima connessione tra una gerarchia di pianeti e di metalli, oltre al settenario musicale. Ad ogni grado di iniziazione che sarà successivamente esaminato, sarà possibile associare un Astro-Nume di riferimento ed un metallo, che ne caratterizzano, ancor più esotericamente, la funzione anagogica. Tutto ci ricondurrà alle sette operazione dell’Arte, le sette porte di Mithra, che sono le sette purificazione del Mercurio Filosofale:”Bisogna purificare il Mercurio almeno sette volte. Allora il bagno per il Re è pronto”(Filalete, Epistola di Ripley, cap. LI) ).

 

I sette gradi di trasmutazione

 

La testimonianza archeologica che più può essere d’aiuto per comprendere il complesso sistema iniziatico del culto di Mithra è sicuramente il mosaico pavimentale presente nel mitreo di Felicissimo ad Ostia, denominato Scala delle Sette Porte. Sia Celso sia Porfirio ci parlano di un’iniziazone con sette diversi e gerarchici gradi di conoscenza e, come rappresentato nelle sette porte di Ostia, ognuno rappresentato dall’animale simbolico e dall’Astro/Nume di riferimento. Il primo grado è rappresentato dal Corax (Corvo), egli è la base del culto mithriaco, il neofita che affronta le prime prove di umiltà, di controllo dell’ego, di mantenimento del segreto. Simboleggiato appunto da un corvo, è il messaggero degli Dei che risvegliano Mithra, avendo in Hermes-Mercurio la propria divinità tutelare. Il risveglio è l’inizio della rettificazione del myste, il risveglio della propria essenza solare: ogni rettificazione la si può riconnettere ai centri di luce, chakra nella tradizione indù o sephira in quella cabalistica, lungo il canale verticale che corre lungo la colonna vertebrale, espressione proprio di un Caduceo Ermetico che ritroviamo tra i simboli di Hermes e del Corax, ove si intrecciano le energie lunari e solari, mercuriali e sulfuree, lungo quello che viene denominato il “canale di Brahma”.

 

Al primo grado è possibile connettere il chakra Muladhara, in corrispondenza dell’osso sacro, sede di Kundalini dormiente o il decimo sephira Malkut, il livello più basso e oscuro dell’Albero Sephiretico. Non si dimentichi, inoltre, come al nero corvo ed alla prima purificazione del Mercurio sia legata la prima operazione alchemica, quella della calcinazione:”con la calcinazione tutte le cose corporee divengono carbone e cenere”(Paracelso, De natura rerum libri novem, Edizioni Phoenix). Il secondo grado è rappresentato dal Nymphus (Crisalide), concernente la presa di consapevolezza dell’iniziato, del processo ascensionale che lo attende, come attesta la rappresentazione di Eros e Psyche nel mitreo di Capua, una nuova luce che sorge e viene condotta dall’Amore verso il cielo delle stelle fisse: non casualmente, infatti, la divinità tutelare del Nymphus è Venere.

 

Nel microcosmo, nei centri di vita sottile il secondo grado si identifica con il secondo chakra Swadhistana, localizzabile nella zone del pube, o con il  nono sephira Yesod, entrambi espressi da simboli che si rifanno al mondo delle acque, della luna, come espressione dell’inconscio e della dimensione astrale. Giustamente, infatti, Stefano Arcella nel suo studio (I Misteri del Sole, Edizioni Controcorrente, p. 117) sottolinea come “le ninfe sono le forze mistiche, le intelligenze spirituali che esercitano il loro dominio sulle acque”. Alchemicamente si passa alla seconda operazione, denominata putrefazione:”tutto ciò che è vivo in essa muore, tutto ciò che è morto in essa acquista la vita”(Paracelso).

 

Il terzo grado è quello del Miles (Soldato), simboleggiato dallo scorpione, rappresenta, tramite la consacrazione a Mithra ed il rifiuto dell’incoronazione umana (“Mithra è la mia corona!”), l’ingresso dell’iniziato nella Milizia Celeste, coloro che combattono per il Fuoco e la Luce, avendo in Marte il proprio nume tutelare. E’ il chakra Manipura  dove ha sede il fuoco, in corrispondenza con il plesso solare, o l’ottavo sephira Hod, la sapienza e la collettività, quindi Mithra che esce armato dalla grotta platonica per combattere, con la lancia di Marte, per affrontare un cammino oscuro che non conosce, è l’elemento ferreo che si attiva, l’irrazionale che cerca di purificarsi, la forza guerriera cieca, istintiva, che intraprende la via per la propria purificazione: alchemicamente si arriva alla terza operazione, quella della soluzione, ove si produce l’unione progressiva e non violenta del fisso col volatile…il Fuoco deve essere ancor tenuto basso!

 

Il quarto grado è rappresentato dal Leone ed ha come divinità planetaria protettrice Giove: è la visione dell’essenza solare e cardiaca, di Apollo, tramite il quale continua la purificazione del fuoco interiore, ora manifesto in senso eminentemente filosofico e vittorioso, che si accinge al viaggio iniziatico: non è casuale la funzione che i Leones avevamo all’interno della comunità mithriaca, come custodi, appunto, del fuoco e dell’ara sacrificale. Alchemicamente si è passati all’operazione della distillazione, ove numerose purificazioni dei “residui” tendono a far volatilizzare gli spiriti: siamo al quarto chakra Anahata o al settimo sephira, in corrispondenza della zona cardiaca, ove inizia la spirale ermetica  di J.G. Gichtel, sede della Vittoria, della Sapienza e del Divino interiore, concludendosi la Nigredo per “la manifestazione del bianco”.

 

Il quinto grado è quello del Perses (Persiano), il guerriero indoeuropeo che entra nella porta degli Inferi, simboleggiata da Cautopates, il dadoforo con la torcia rivolta verso il basso, non a caso assimilato a Hesperus, la stella della sera, e sotto la tutela astrale e numinosa della Luna. Inizia il processo di ricapitolarizzazione del proprio microcosmo, degli stati sublunari e psichici: qui il guerriero attraverso la notte dell’anima, con la valenza già di uno svegliato, di colui che ha già superato la prova eleusina del sonno iniziatico, quindi presente a se stesso, ricettivo verso gli insegnamenti della Grande Madre, della Luna, del Femminile che percorre simultaneamente la Natura e la sua interiorità. Stefano Arcella ed il Merkelbach fanno notare opportunamente come a tale grado fosse associato il simbolo della chiave, di un permesso per varcare il mondo lunare: metallicamente questa chiave non può che essere di argento! Il quinto chakra è quello denominato Vishudda, localizzato all’altezza della gola, o il quinto sephira (l’ordine sephiretico risulta solo apparentemente anomalo, essendo sulla scala del dieci e non del sette) Geburah, appunto il guerriero, la separazione da ciò che è materiale, propriamente umano: la sublimazione, la quinta operazione alchemica, separa, mediante il fuoco, lo spirituale dal corporale (Alberto Samonà, La Tradizione del Sé, Edizioni Atanor).  

 

La notte non può essere eterna ed Hesperus si trasforma in Lucifero, la stella del mattino, come Cautes sostituisce Cautopetes, la fiaccola si innalza al Cielo, essendo giunto l’iniziato al sesto grado, quello di Heliodromos (Corriere del Sole), la Porta dei Cieli, ove, sotto la tutela astrale e divina del Sole, si riunisce ciò che si è precedentemente purificato: qui vi è Ianus della tradizione romana, qui la chiave d’argento del Perses diviene chiave d’oro, è la composizione del Rebis, del maschile e del femminile, del solare e del lunare, è la realizzazione dell’Albedo, l’accesso agli stadi sovraindividuali, è l’Argento filosofale che si manifesta e che inizia la sua trasmutazione in Oro. Non a caso ciò si riconnette al sesto chakra, Ajna, sede del Terzo Occhio di Shiva, tra le sopracciglie, ove il dio interiore incontra, come già notato, la sua controparte femminile, la Shakti; cabalisticamente ci si può riferire al secondo sephira, Chokma, sede della Sapienza.

 

La Tauromachia

L’esame del settimo grado dell’iniziazione mithriaca, quello del Pater, comporta necessariamente un approfondimento del mito centrale e fondante del culto in questione, cioè il sacrificio cosmogonico ed esoterico del toro: tale mito, insieme alla tutela mithriaca dei patti e dei giuramenti, è sicuramente presente sin dall’origini indoiraniche della divinità e ne rappresenta simbolicamente la più alta valenza metafisica. Mithra nato dalla roccia il giorno del Solstizio d’Inverno e uscito dalla caverna nel grado di Miles, sa di dover immolare il toro, per ordine degli Dei su mandato del loro messaggero, il corvo Hermes-Mercurio.

 

Egli salta sul dorso del toro, ma non lo uccide subito, resiste attendendo che il toro si stanchi e lo immola, dolorosamente, solo quando questo sarà entrato nella grotta. Il significato macrocosmico del rito è di rinnovamento del cosmo, della sua manifestazione: il sangue che sgorga dalla ferita dell’animale è la linfa che fa rinascere la vita: Porfirio lo definisce padre del mondo e del Tutto. Ma vi è un significato più profondo del rito, che va oltre la dimensione mitica, per ascendere alla più pura spiritualità indoeuropea, alla più cristallina ascesi interiore. L’immolazione del toro viene compiuta dal Pater, il capo sacerdotale della comunità mithriaca, colui che sovrintende la trasmissione della Sapienza Arcana, colui che possiede lo scettro del Mago, come Saturno, suo Nume tutelare. Se in Heliodromos si è avuto la congiunzione del Re e della Regina, del maschile e del femminile, del solare e del lunare, il Pater deve attuare l’ultima operazione, l’ultima fissazione, l’ultima purificazione dagli elementi terrestri e lunari. Stefano Arcella (op.cit., p. 85-6) ha reso perfettamente tale senso esoterico:”il sacrificio del toro è il superamento, da parte dell’adepto ai Misteri, della sua componente tellurico-lunare, se è vero che il toro, nella sua possanza, allude alla incoercibilità delle forze istintive e passionali, al tumulto delle spinte della natura inferiore dell’uomo, simboleggiate dalla Terra”.  

 

Nel sistema dei chakra ciò corrisponde al settimo, Sahasrara, o al primo sephira cabalistico, Keter, situato sulla testa, luogo di congiunzione della Sushumna con il Divino, realizzazione degli stadi sovraindividuali e completo risveglio della Kundalini. Nel settimo grado del Pater, Saturno si illumina e ritorna reggitore del mondo e del tempo, dio della Tradizione Primordiale, Piombo che si purifica e si trasmuta in Oro. In quest’ottica si può maggiormente comprende la corrispondenza dell’iniziazione mithriaca con lo sviluppo dell’Arte Metallica. Abbiamo già accennato alla spirale ermetica  di J.G. Gichtel: in essa il principio è rappresentato da Sole-Oro nella zona cardiaca, il quale, tramite un movimento centripeto dissolve gli elementi superiori in quelli inferiori tramite la cottura col Fuoco e poi, con un movimento centrifugo, li riconduce alla loro reale essenza. Ci si trova, quindi, innanzi ad un simbolo in cui il plumbeo Saturno della regione coronale si dissolve nella Luna-Argento della regione sacrale per ridiventare, come detto, aureo, Giove-Stagno della regione frontale si dissolve in Mercurio della regione ombelicale, Marte-Ferro della regione laringea si dissolve in Venere-Rame della regione lombare:”Di là dalla settima sfera, l’eccesso: ciò in cui non vi è più né un qui, né un non-qui, che è calma ed illuminazione e solitudine come in un oceano infinito. E’ il grado di Padre di là da quello dell’Aquila, il vertice, il substrato del mondo voraginoso, scatenato, fiammeggiante delle potenze”(Julius Evola, La via della realizzazione di sé secondo i misteri di Mithra, Fondazione Evola, p. 14)).

 

La realizzazione dell’Uno

 

Molti sono stati gli scritti, gli articoli, i testi che profondamente hanno indagato la simbolica e l’essenza tradizionale e spirituale dell’iniziazione mithriaca, ma, purtroppo, pochi hanno ben evidenziato come il settimo grado di tale culto misterico, quello del Pater, non rappresentasse l’ultima tappa dell’ascensione al Divino. Se profanamente si provasse a schematizzare il processo iniziatico di cui si è scritto, sarebbe possibile confrontarlo, riducendo il settenario in forma quaternaria, alle varie fasi dell’Opera Alchemica ed alla suddivisione microcosmica operata dal Kremmerz e dalla sua Schola. Infatti, le prime quattro figure che partono dal Corax ed arrivano al Leone è possibile paragonarle alle quattro operazioni dell’Opera al Nero, la Nigredo (calcinazione, putrefazione, soluzione, distillazione ), mentre la figura del Pherses, sotto l’egida astrale della Luna, e quella di Heliodromos, portatore del Sole ma non il Sole, configurano la dimensione numinosa della nuda Diana, dell’immortalità virtuale, quindi della realizzazione dell’Opera al Bianco, Albedo.

 

Lo stato di Pater, pertanto, non costituisce, come molti potranno azzardare, la fissazione aurea della Rubedo, ma solo la sua parte iniziale, il Solve, che necessita di un ulteriore sviluppo, di un Coagula: anche simbolicamente, molto spesso, la figura di Mithra vincitore è stata accostata all’Aquila, unico animale a fissare da vicino il Sole…ma non ancora identificatosi con esso. Tali accostamenti potranno risultare più puntuali se ci si rifà, come anticipato, alla dottrina interna di Giuliano Kremmerz e di tutta la Tradizione Occidentale. In essa vi sono quattro corpi che caratterizzano l’uomo: il corpo saturnio (nel senso oscuro e duale che ha tale riferimento numinoso), quindi materiale e transuente; il corpo lunare, quindi la sfera acquatica, della passioni, dei sentimenti, goccia di Anima Mundi; il corpo mercuriale, quindi la sfera dell’Intelletto, del Demiurgo, dell’Essere, simboleggiato non casualmente dall’Aquila; infine, il corpo solare, cioè la sfera dell’Infinito, che in matematica si esprime come un otto posto orizzontalmente (∞), cioè coincidenza di due mondi (Cielo e Terra, Essere e Divenire,…) che prima con l’otto posto verticalmente (8) mediava e gerarchizzava la manifestazione, dell’Identità Suprema, ove non vi è differenza tra Essere e non-Essere, ove l’essenza solare è in sé, quindi non manifesta, quindi “essenza polare”.  Come riporta il Merkelbach nel suo studio (Mitra, il Signore delle Grotte, Edizioni ECIG, p. 87), sempre nel citato mitreo di Felicissimo a Ostia nel mosaico pavimentale, vi è un ottavo riquadro con l’iscrizione del committente, ma avente anche un diverso e supremo significato: come ci riporta sempre il Merkelbach “quest’ultimo riquadro simboleggia le regioni oltre il cielo delle stelle fisse, alle quali, dopo la morte, ascenderà l’anima dell’iniziato”.

 

Se Saturno/Zervan è il Signore del Tempo, se è la compiutezza di ciò che nella dottrina ermetico-alchemica viene denominata Opera al Giallo, cioè l’ultimo Solve, Egli è, secondo quanto riporta Porfirio, nella sua opera Sulla filosofia degli oracoli, Aiòn, l’Eternità, il Bene Supremo di Platone (non erroneamente alcuni studiosi ed autori, come Platone nel Timeo, hanno identificato Saturno e Aiòn, essendo le due facce della medesima operazione), l’Essenza Originaria, da cui si sono emanate le varie divinità della tradizione greco-romana: qui si attua la Realizzazione Ultima, al di là delle statue dell’Anima e del Nous, come si “procedeva” ad Eleusi, la compiutezza dell’ultimo Coagula, della Rubedo. Se il Pater è la trasmutazione del corpo in spirito e dello spirito in corpo sulla terra, Aiòn è il volo e l’identificazione verso le stelle,  è l’uomo divino, è Mithra che abbandona definitivamente l’umano ed il terrestre per divenire egli stesso l’essenza arcana di Helios:”Egli entra in intimo rapporto col Divino…egli si vede diventato il Divino stesso…vita degli Dei e degli uomini divini e perfettamente felici: lungi dagli altri che sono quaggiù, superiore ai piacieri di questo mondo, fuga dell’Uno verso l’Uno”(Plotino, Enneadi, VI, 9, 11).

 

Luca Valentini

 

(saggio pubblicato sul n. 5, Ottobre 2011, della rivista Betile, Cagliari)

Contra el Islam en defensa de nuestra “identidad”: sí, pero ¿cuál?

Contra el Islam en defensa de nuestra “identidad”: sí, pero ¿cuál?

por Stefano Di Ludovico

Ex: http://paginatransversal.wordpress.com

Entre las ideas fuerza que Matteo Salvini presenta como esenciales para el nuevo curso de la Liga Norte continúa estando el “no a las mezquitas”, o el rechazo a la construcción de lugares de culto islámicos en nuestras ciudades. Decimos “continúa” porque si en otras áreas Salvini parece haber dado un giro importante e innovador a la política de su partido (véase, por ejemplo, a nivel interno, la atención a la dimensión nacional o, a nivel internacional, el apoyo a la Rusia de Putin), sobre tal punto no hubo novedades sustanciales respecto a las tradicionales posiciones anti islámicas propias del movimiento liguista, en el que el “tema de la inmigración” y la “cuestión islámica” siempre se han visto como las dos caras de la misma moneda. Y a partir de esta identificación parece surgir una serie de problemas cuyo enfoque creemos será útil para aclarar los límites y las contradicciones en las que incluso la nueva Liga de Salvini continúa moviéndose, y con ella los diferentes partidos y movimientos europeos considerados “identitarios” -etiquetados como “populistas” o de “extrema derecha” – con los cuales la Liga está hoy más estrechamente aliada, límites y contradicciones que van a invertir la naturaleza, los valores de referencia y la misma visión del mundo que son la base de toda esa área política.

Como se sabe, el “no a las mezquitas” es parte de una batalla política general encaminada a obstruir y detener la propagación en Italia de las prácticas, usos y costumbres islámicas, consideradas incompatibles, si no hostiles, a las de nuestro propio país y las a de Occidente en general. El “no a las mezquitas” va de la mano con el no al velo para las mujeres, el no al kebab, el no a la comida islámica en los comedores escolares y así sucesivamente. La cuestión decisiva es por consiguiente la de la llamada “amenaza islámica”, y por lo tanto ligada a la de la “invasión extracomunitaria” que pondría en riesgo, más allá de los costos materiales y sociales que implica inevitablemente la inmigración sin reglas, la identidad y, por lo tanto, la propia supervivencia de nuestra civilización. Si no fuera por esto, sería difícil de entender cómo se podría justificar la negativa a reconocer el derecho fundamental de los fieles musulmanes a rezar en los lugares adecuados (¿o los quieren dejar quizá en sótanos y garajes?), derecho que no nos parece que los liguistas, como los partidos afines a ella antes mencionados, quieran negar a los representantes de otros cultos no cristianos. No nos consta, de hecho, que estos se movilicen cada vez que temen la construcción de un templo judío, budista o de la nueva era, sin tener en cuenta el hecho de que entre los musulmanes también se cuentan en la actualidad decenas de miles de ciudadanos italianos convertidos (por lo tanto, no ciertamente “extracomunitarios”): en este caso encontrar alguna razón que pueda justificar la denegación del derecho de culto reconocido a los italianos cristianos, judíos o budistas sería aún más difícil y un tanto paradójico. Así que, más que una cuestión de elementales cuanto descontados derechos subjetivos, el problema parece ser aquello mucho más importante de la defensa de nuestra “civilización”, dado que ésta, al decir de estas fuerzas políticas, se pondría en riesgo principalmente por el Islam, no constituyendo en este sentido otras religiones ningún peligro, tanto por el número limitado de sus miembros, como porque principalmente estos, más allá del Dios particular en el que creen o del culto específico que le reservan, aparecen para el resto perfectamente integrados en la sociedad occidental, reconociéndose plenamente en sus costumbres y en sus valores subyacentes.

Uno se pregunta, entonces, cuál sería esta  “civilización” occidental, cuáles sus costumbres y valores, en nombre de los cuales la Liga y otras fuerzas identitarias europeas llevan a cabo su lucha anti islámica. Que se sepa, la única “civilización” que caracteriza a Occidente hoy es la llamada civilización “moderna”, o civilización laica materialista y consumista, que nació precisamente en Occidente hace unos dos siglos, se ha ido gradualmente ampliando gracias al predominio de éste al resto del mundo, mundo casi por completo “occidentalizado”: como tal civilización fue construida aquí, con nosotros haciendo tabla rasa de todas las civilizaciones y culturas “otras”, civilizaciones y culturas de tipo esencialmente “tradicional” que caracterizaron en origen al Occidente mismo, y del mismo modo se va imponiendo a nivel global, barriendo la civilizaciones locales tradicionales, algunas de las cuales no han sido totalmente erradicadas, en algunas zonas todavía están tratando de resistir en nombre de la defensa de su propia identidad. El Islam, aunque también profundamente distorsionado por la modernidad, es una de ellas, más allá de las diferentes articulaciones y corrientes, a menudo en una amarga lucha entre ellas, lo que inevitablemente caracteriza cualquier gran tradición (si hay una cosa que une a los sunitas del Isis o de la Hermandad Musulmana, y los chiítas de Irán o de la libanesa Hezbolá es la ‘hostilidad hacia las costumbres y estilo de vida occidentales). Cuando la Liga y los partidos “identitarios” dicen que luchan por la “identidad” occidental contra la amenaza islámica, entonces es de esta identidad de la que esencialmente están hablando, dado que en Occidente, desde hace varias décadas, no se ve otra. Hablar incluso de defensa de la “identidad cristiana”, como estos movimientos hacen, como si el Occidente todavía se identificara con esta su última, en un sentido temporal, tradición, parece más un mero pleonasmo, visto que los cristianos de Occidente y sus respectivas iglesias están desde hace mucho tiempo completamente homologados a la cultura “moderna” que, en contra de su propia “tradición”, fue construida. Ni en este sentido puede hacer escuela la exigua y por lo tanto completamente irrelevante minoría de “tradicionalistas” que aún permanece dentro de las Iglesias cristianas: si los partidos identitarios fueran la expresión de tales instancias minoritarias, sin duda no serían esos partidos de masas que son hoy o que, al menos, aspiran a ser.

El Islam, en cambio, incluso en nuestras sociedades, a menudo trae elementos y valores realmente incompatibles con la modernidad y, por lo tanto, difícilmente “integrables”. Y es eso lo que las fuerzas identitarias le reprochan, viendo a sus miembros como sujetos extraños y alógenos respecto a nuestro mundo, a diferencia, como se ha dicho, de los seguidores de otras religiones que, al igual que los cristianos, más allá de las formas externas que aún permanezcan en las prácticas del culto, por lo demás están totalmente homologados a las costumbres y al estilo de vida materialista y consumista propio de nuestra civilización. Así, una mujer musulmana que viste su ropa tradicional, como por ejemplo el velo, genera protestas y casi un sentimiento de repulsión que está en conformidad con nuestra “tradición”, los atuendos con los cuales se engalanan nuestras chicas respetando la última moda lanzada por la etiqueta del momento. Del mismo modo, la apertura de un kebab o de una carnicería musulmana irían a desfigurar, para los lugareños “identitarios”, la decoración urbana de nuestras calles, mientras que un McDonalds o un local de moda y tendencias no. Los ejemplos podrían multiplicarse: hace años, en Suiza, los partidos identitarios organizaron un referéndum contra la construcción de minaretes porque éstos implicarían la ruptura de la arquitectura típica de las ciudades suizas: no consta que tales partidos, en Suiza como en otros lugares, se hayan levantado alguna vez, al menos con el mismo ardor, en contra de la excéntrica arquitectura moderna que desfigura habitualmente nuestros centros históricos, como en general nuestros barrios, por no hablar de los eco-monstruos de nuestros suburbios, donde ahora todo el sentido de la proporción, la armonía, y por lo tanto de lo “bello” está completamente perdido, y no ciertamente por culpa de los minaretes o de quién sabe qué otro exótico edificio.

El hecho es que ahora también los representantes de los movimientos y partidos que intentan, a menudo de buena fe, denunciar la crisis y la decadencia de nuestra civilización, y presentarse como los defensores del “localismo” y del “pluralismo” en contra de la homologación y la globalización provocada por la modernidad, son hasta tal punto adictos y están tan comprometidos con su estilo de vida y sus valores, que terminan por sentir como una amenaza y un peligro cada realidad que se presenta como efectivamente “otra” y diferente. Si cavamos a fondo, detrás del “no a las mezquitas” se esconde justamente la desconfianza, si no la verdadera y propia “fobia” del hombre moderno hacia una civilización, como el Islam, todavía atada, como toda civilización digna de ese nombre, a los fundamentos religiosos, “sagrados”, por lo que la presencia de personas que acuden a un lugar de culto genera malestar a la mera visión y estaría perturbando la vida del barrio, mientras que no se tendría nada que decir si esas mismas multitudes fueran a invadir, en día de fiesta, un centro comercial o un centro deportivo. Hace años en Milán se montó un escándalo, justo por parte de la Liga y otros partidos de la derecha, debido a que un grupo de musulmanes, durante una manifestación, se detuvo a orar en la plaza de la catedral: se habló hasta de una “profanación” del principal lugar sagrado de los milaneses. No nos consta que aquellos mismos partidos hayan montado nunca un escándalo frente a la profanación permanente a la que aquel lugar es sometido a causa de las más variadas y extravagantes iniciativas mundanas y consumistas que tienen lugar allí, a menudo promovidas y financiadas por aquellos que, como ellos, han administrado la ciudad de Milán. ¿Pero qué debería ofender principalmente a un espíritu religioso: gente, a pesar de ser de otra fe, orando, o la campaña publicitaria para lanzar el último producto de consumo, tal y como se hace cada día en la Plaza del Duomo? Volviendo a los ejemplos del velo o de los locales musulmanes, el problema es que en Occidente no se puede dar razón de personas tan tenazmente vinculadas a los dictados religiosos incluso en la ropa y en la alimentación (cosa que es perfectamente normal en todas las civilizaciones tradicionales, donde todos los aspectos de la vida son una expresión de lo “sagrado”), mientras que ser determinado por la lógica consumista incluso en los ámbitos más intelectuales y espirituales, como ocurre en Occidente, se considera “normal” y por lo tanto es tolerado. E incluso las campañas que los partidos identitarios emprenden a menudo a favor de los símbolos y costumbres propios de nuestra tradición religiosa (véase la defensa del crucifijo o del presepe [Nacimiento, Belén. N.t.] en lugares públicos) cuando estos son prohibidos por celosos representantes institucionales en respeto a la “laicidad” del Estado, son hechas sobre todo en el nombre de una tradición entendida como mero folklore (folklore que del consumismo es sólo una variante) y por políticos que en general han perdido completamente el verdadero espíritu religioso y tradicional, y que no siguen ya ciertas costumbres siquiera al nivel de una sola adhesión formal.

Queriendo negar a los musulmanes la oportunidad de seguir sus propias costumbres y valores, a los cuales deberían renunciar para aceptar los nuestros, los partidos identitarios se ponen así, sustancialmente y más allá de las diferencias aparentes, en el mismo plano que los partidos de izquierda que, en nombre de la “integración” y de la “sociedad multiétnica” que van pregonando como alternativas a aquellas del “rechazo” y de la “intolerancia” que reprochan a la derecha, persiguen en realidad el mismo fin de “asimilación” de los musulmanes, como de cualquier otra diversidad, al único modelo de civilización considerado legítimo, el occidental moderno. Y la equívoca mezcla entre la “cuestión de la inmigración” y la “cuestión islámica”, que lleva erróneamente a los partidos identitarios a acusar a la izquierda de “filoislamismo” como consecuencia de su “immigracionismo”, cuando en realidad la izquierda puede ser todo excepto “filoislámica”, ya que los valores y costumbres propios de la tradición islámica, como los de cualquier “tradición”, son incompatibles con los valores y las costumbres de la modernidad, de la que la izquierda es la representante por excelencia. ¿O los liguistas creen que las mujeres progresistas italianas desean la adopción en nuestro país de la sharia en lo que respecta a, por ejemplo, las relaciones hombre-mujer? En realidad, ellas quieren lo que básicamente quieren también ellos: que los musulmanes renuncien a tales “bárbaras” y “atrasadas” tradiciones y se conviertan a la magníficas y progresivas suertes de la modernidad, al ritmo del tan cacareado multiculturalismo que para la izquierda no se reduce más que, también desde su punto de vista, a la preservación de las aspectos “folklóricos” de las otras tradiciones dentro del único modelo de civilización tolerado y reconocido.

 

La Liga y los partidos identitarios europeos se encuentran así frente a una encrucijada: o bien definen claramente cuál sería la ‘identidad’, o el modelo de civilización al cual se adhieren y que quieren salvaguardar contra la presunta “amenaza islámica”, o se arriesgan a servir ellos también, en última instancia, de simples “perros guardianes” del sistema, alternativos sólo en apariencia, en los detalles de los métodos y de las estrategias políticas, a las fuerzas del centro o de la izquierda que tal sistema gobiernan y en el que se reconocen plenamente. Además, algunos de estos partidos -especialmente aquellos del área protestante o nórdica – no ocultan en erigirse en los paladines más intransigentes y rígidos justo del modelo de desarrollo occidental, contra un Islam no asimilable en él: el LPF holandés por ejemplo, del difunto Pim Fortuyn, siempre ha rechazado claramente la etiqueta de partido “reaccionario”, de “extrema derecha”, declarando varias veces querer defender contra el tradicionalismo musulmán los valores laicos y seculares propios del Occidente moderno, como la igualdad entre hombres y mujeres y los derechos gays (Fortuyn fue efectivamente homosexual declarado), y posiciones similares adoptaron partidos “populistas” de países como Dinamarca, Suecia o Noruega, que ven en su propio modelo de desarrollo “escandinavo” la punta de lanza de la modernidad, en su opinión cuestionada por la cada vez mayor presencia de inmigrantes musulmanes. En la práctica la ideología en la que tales partidos se basan es aquella que, con un término en boga hoy en día, se llama “fallacismo”, la violenta polémica anti-islámica de la conocida periodista italiana, debido precisamente a su plena participación de los valores occidentales modernos que el Islam se obstina en no reconocer; “fallacismo” que, como es bien conocido, continúa asomando la cabeza también en la Liga salviniana. La persistencia de parecidos horizontes ideológicos encuentra su confirmación también en ciertas posiciones de política exterior que tales partidos expresan, y que van a chirriar con las al tiempo interesantes innovaciones – tales como la proximidad a la Rusia de Putin en clave antiatlantista y antieuropeísta -, antes mencionadas: véase, por ejemplo, el filosionismo, el estado de Israel visto como el “baluarte de Occidente” en el mar islámico de Medio Oriente, o el apoyo a los regímenes y movimientos árabes considerados “laicos” o “moderados”, terminando con hacer propias las categorías interpretativas occidentalistas totalmente fantasiosas y espurias, tendentes únicamente a reiterar que el único Islam que Occidente tolera es un Islam hecho a su imagen y semejanza, un Islam que ya no es tal y que acepta ser “asimilado” en todo y para todo al estilo de vida occidental (por cierto, el filosionismo parece realmente paradójico en fuerzas declaradamente antinmigracionistas, ya que el propio Israel es un estado fundado sobre la inmigración “ilegal” y la expulsión y guetización de los nativos).

Si en lugar de un modelo de sociedad diferente, de un modelo diferente de civilización, la Liga y los partidos de la destra identitaria desean hacerse portavoces contra la decadencia y la anonimia del mundo moderno y globalizado al que incluso dicen oponerse, entonces su invectiva y sus flechas deberían ser dirigidas a otro lugar, contra un “enemigo” que no es, como el Islam, externo y exótico, sino interno y endógeno, en cuanto que lo que ha destruido e impide el florecimiento de una civilización “otra”, y que realmente pueda considerarse tal, se encuentra en la historia y en las decisiones tomadas por Occidente a lo largo de su historia reciente, y en la actualidad tiene sus bastiones en las instituciones y en los centros de poder de nuestros propios países. Así, en lugar de despotricar contra la presunta cuanto misteriosa “invasión islámica”, es contra la invasión “americana”, sea por sus bases militares como especialmente por sus costumbres de vida – el estilo de vida americano -, contra lo que cualquiera que se presente como defensor de la identidad y de la civilización europea debería despotricar; en vez de protestar contra la construcción de mezquitas o por el uso del velo islámico, es contra la construcción de hipermercados, de sedes de multinacionales, de todos los centros y los símbolos de la industria del consumo contra lo que deberíamos revolvernos, porque son éstos los que perturban, humillan y degradan cotidianamente y a sabiendas nuestras ciudades y nuestras propias vidas. La historia enseña que ninguna gran civilización, si se ha mantenido firme y fuerte en sus tradiciones, ha sido borrada por el contacto y la colisión con una civilización extranjera, la decadencia y la crisis siempre han sido principalmente debido a factores internos. Del mismo modo sería completamente ilusorio pensar en salvaguardar nuestras tradiciones obligando a los demás a abandonar las propias; de hecho, la obstinación con la que los musulmanes siguen teniendo fe en sus costumbres frente a un mundo que va hacia otro lugar, debería ser para nosotros una fuente de admiración y de ejemplo. Siempre que se sepa salir de la equivocación de intercambiar nuestra tradición por aquello que en su lugar la ha destruido, y se comprenda de una vez por todas cuál es ahora la verdadera batalla, el verdadero reto para todos aquellos que realmente tienen en el corazón el destino de cada identidad y de cada civilización: como escribió Guénon, “desde diferentes partes se habla mucho hoy de “defensa de Occidente”; pero por desgracia, no parece entenderse que es, sobre todo, contra sí mismo que Occidente necesita ser defendido”.

(Traducción Página Transversal)

Fuente: Krisis

Miyamoto Musashi: un esprit sans entraves

Miyamoto Musashi

Un esprit sans entraves

Rémy Valat
Ex: http://metamag.fr

Si il existe une personnalité japonaise à la renommée mondiale, c'est bien Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645), ce rônin, maître-escrimeur hors-pair, artiste et philosophe, auteur des Écrits sur les Cinq Éléments, couramment et improprement appelé Traité des Cinq Roues.  Sa postérité est telle que ce que nous connaissons réellement de sa vie fraye avec le romanesque et le légendaire, et bien sûr ce personnage atypique a ses adulateurs et détracteurs chez les amoureux de la culture japonaise et des arts martiaux. Ce qui est certain, à la lecture des Écrits sur les Cinq Éléments, c'est que Musashi était un esprit libre en phase avec la vie. Ces cinq rouleaux rédigés à l'extrême fin de sa vie étaient destinés à transmettre l'essence de son art à ses élèves.

Toutefois, cet enseignement dépasse le simple cadre des techniques du combat au sabre et de la stratégie, ceux-ci ne sont que des voies parmi tant d'autres menant à l'accomplissement de soi. Mais, les Écrits sur les Cinq Éléments, sont teintés d'amertume : Musashi règle ses comptes. Il aspirait  à devenir l'instructeur d'un puissant seigneur voire du shôgun, mais comme bon nombre de japonais du XVIIe siècle, ses perspectives réelles d'ascension sociales se sont éteintes sur le champ de bataille de Sekigahara (20-21 octobre 1600). Il était du mauvais côté, celui des perdants : les Toyotomi et leurs alliés seront tenus éloignés des postes honorifiques ou les plus importants. Musashi s’est battu sous la bannière du seigneur Ukita, suzerain du seigneur Shinmen Sôkan. Ce clivage pèsera lourd ; les haines se raviveront au moment des guerres civiles qui précèdent et succèdent l’instauration de l'ère Meiji en 1868. 

 

Il sera l’invité du clan Ogasawara (1616-1617), puis du Hosokawa, famille apparentée au Tokugawa, mais n’aura ni le titre ni les émoluments d’un maître-d’armes de son niveau. Le clan Hosakawa l’a recruté en 1611 pour régler un différend polititique : il tue Sasaki Kojiro en combat singulier sur l’île de Funajima (avril 1612). Il sera un satellite du clan jusqu’à sa mort. Musashi participe comme soldat ou comme conseiller militaire aux guerres conduites par le shôgun contre les derniers partisans des Toyotomi (sièges d’Osaka, 1614-1615) et les Chrétiens de l’île de Shimabara conduits par Shirō Amakusa (1637-1638). Surtout, il mène à partir de 1618 (ou 1620) une politique d’adoption, certainement mêlé à un sincère désir de paternité, lui servant à placer des soutiens politiques. 

 

Miyamoto Mikinosuke deviendra un vassal de la seigneurie de Himeji (1622), mais le jeune homme suivra son seigneur dans la mort en pratiquant le suicide rituel (1626). Miyamoto Iori, qui serait peut-être un sien neveu, entrera au service du seigneur Ogasawara (1626). Surtout, en 1624, il séjourne à Edo, la capitale, et noue d’étroites relations avec Hayashi Razan, un célèbre savant confucéen, ce dernier proche du Shôgun l’aurait proposé comme maître de sabre, mais le Shôgun disposant déjà de deux maîtres d’armes de renom, Yagyû Munenori (école shinkage ryû) et Ono Jiroemon (Ono-ha Ittō-ryū),  déclinera l’offre. 

Nous savons peu de choses authentiques sur les duels de Miyamoto Musashi, le premier se serait déroulé au village de Hirafuku-mura en 1596, contre un élève de l’école Shînto-ryû. Musashi n’avait que 12 ans. En 1604, il gagne une série de duels contre le clan Yoshioka dans la banlieue de Kyôtô. Il aurait ensuite formé Tada Hanzaburô, un moine du temple d’Enkôji, qu’il autorisa à enseigner à la fin de son apprentissage. En 1607, il gagne un duel contre Shishido Baiken, un expert en kusari-gama (une faucille liée à une chaîne se terminant par un poids en acier). De passage dans la capitale, il vainc deux adeptes de la shinkage-ryu, mais surtout échange avec Musô Gonnosuke, un expert du combat au bâton, celui-ci fera évoluer son art au contact de Musashi et créé une école (Shintô-Muso-ryû).

Que pouvons-nous avancer sur cet homme ? 

Son art est tout d’abord un héritage familial. Son père biologique (ou adoptif, selon d’autres hypothèses), Miyamoto Munisai, était un maître d’arme pratiquant le sabre et le jitte. 

Le jitte est une arme de neutralisation, sa lame est non-tranchante et effilée avec une griffe latérale au niveau de la garde. Le jitte était une arme d’appoint complétant le sabre. Toutefois, selon d’autres sources le jitte manipulé par Musashi aurait été un modèle à dix griffes. Le jitte et le sabre court (wakizashi) servaient à immobiliser ou à parer la lame de l’adversaire offrant une ouverture pour une frappe au sabre long (katana). Toutefois, pour Musashi, l’emploi des deux sabres est circonstancielle comme l’affirme les Écrits sur les Cinq Éléments, mais cette technique fait l’originalité de son école. C’était peut-être, outre les aspects techniques, un moyen de se différencier et de « séduire » un seigneur en quête d’instructeur. L’école de Musashi, la Hyōhō Niten Ichi ryū (“l’École de la stratégie des deux Ciels comme une Terre”) existe encore de nos jours, mais l’usage des deux sabres n’était guère prisé pendant l’époque d’Edo. La manipulation de deux armes nécessite un entraînement particulier et le dégainé n’est pas aisé, surtout en espace clos (De même, le retour des deux lames dans leurs fourreaux nécessite que l’on se dessaisisse de l’une d’entre-elle). Les samouraïs préféreront de loin, l’usage du katana ou du wakizashi et rarement les deux en même temps.

  

Ce qui reste de Musashi : l’empreinte spirituelle d’un homme, qui n’était probablement pas le meilleur artiste martial du Japon (la vie se réduit-elle aux arts martiaux ? Musashi était par ailleurs artiste et philosophe), mais d’un homme libre (ou pour le moins qui a pu se construire une marge d’autonomie plus importante que la moyenne au regard de sa situation sociale) qui se contentait d’être pleinement, de transmettre et de construire. Ayant atteint la maturité spirituelle et technique, Miyamoto Musashi vainquait sans tuer.  Les Écrits sur les Cinq Éléments respirent la vie, c’est un modèle de pensée aux antipodes du caractère morbide et étriqué du hagakure de Yamamoto Tsunetomo. Le livre de Musashi est important car, il révèle les techniques gardées généralement secrètes par les autres écoles, à savoir les techniques corporelles (respiration, distance, postures, etc.). Pour une lecture approfondie, il est vivement recommandé de lire la traduction des Écrits sur les Cinq Éléments et la biographie de Miyamoto Musashi par Kenji Tokitsu (Miyamoto Musashi. Maître de sabre japonais du XVIIe siècle, Points Sagesse, 1998). Le texte est analysé en profondeur et les cinq formules techniques (utilisant les deux sabres) sont complétées par une présentation des katas tels qu’ils sont encore pratiqués de nos jours (Imai Masayuki, 10e successeur de la branche principale de l’école de Musashi). 

Ces techniques sont visibles sur le site de la branche française de l’école. 

Evola? Né eccentrico, né "guru"

Evola? Né eccentrico, né "guru": de Turris racconta gli incontri col filosofo

Ex: http://www.secoloditalia.it

«Julius Evola aveva una personalità multiforme, o almeno un carattere variabile, umorale, o era addirittura lunatico come anche è stato detto? E’ quel che si potrebbe pensare ascoltando le testimonianze di quanti hanno avuto la possibilità di conoscerlo e frequentarlo, dato che ne offrono rappresentazioni diverse, spesso assai diverse e quasi contrastanti fra loro al punto di sembrare o invenzioni o descrizioni di persone differenti. E’ quel che mi è venuto di pensare – scrive Gianfranco de Turris sul Barbadillo.it – ascoltando amici o estranei che mi hanno raccontato i loro incontri con il filosofo e chiedendomi sempre quale fosse invece la mia personale impressione: pur facendo la tara sul tempo trascorso, erano immagini troppo distanti per non cercare una spiegazione. Come ripeto a tutti coloro che mi interpellano a questo proposito, soprattutto chi per l’età non ha potuto conoscere di persona Evola, io l’ho sempre trovato una persona “normale”, senza eccentricità, bizzarrie, a parte il vezzo di prendere dal cassetto della scrivania il monocolo e inforcarlo alla presenza di signore e signorine; nessun atteggiamento di superiorità o da “maestro”, nessuna saccenteria, e questo sin da quando andai a trovarlo per la prima volta accompagnato da Adriano Romualdi, come avveniva per chi era giovane tra la fine degli anni Sessanta e l’inizio degli anni Settanta del Novecento. Di  certo avvenne dopo il 1968 quando avevo parlato di lui sul mensile L’Italiano fondato e diretto da Pino Romualdi e sul quale Adriano mi aveva invitato a collaborare (ed ero anche retribuito!). Con lui si parlava pacatamente di tutto, purtroppo non di alcune questioni cruciali di cui soltanto dopo, approfondendone vita e pensiero, avrei voluto parlare col senno di poi. Questioni un po’ più “profonde” si affrontarono solo verso la fine della sua vita, a dicembre 1973, quando andai a trovarlo con Sebastiano Fusco ed avemmo una lunga conversazione registrata che pubblicai però postuma, dodici anni dopo, in appendice alla seconda edizione di Testimonianze su Evola (Mediterranee, 1985)».

La “scandalosa” intervista concessa a Playmen

«Evidentemente si fece di me una opinione positiva – continua de Turris – anche se non mi disse mai nulla in proposito, ma sta di fatto che acconsentì a rispondere alle mie domande per una serie di interviste (almeno quattro) su vari giornali e riviste, preso ormai dalla mia mania “giornalistica” di divulgarne le opinioni rimaste sempre in ambiti ristretti,  più di quante sino a quel momento gli erano state fatte da altri, e ora raccolte in Omaggio a Julius Evola (Volpe, 1973) pubblicato per i suoi 75 anni. E, sempre per quella mia mania, ne propiziai diverse tra cui quella, clamorosa, che apparve su Playmen (con grande scandalo dei bacchettoni di destra e di sinistra) effettuata nel 1970 da Enrico de Boccard che soltanto molto dopo appresi essere stato uno dei “giovani” vicini a lui negli anni Cinquanta. Opinione positiva sua e di Adriano che ho conosciuto soltanto abbastanza di recente quando furono pubblicati una parte del suo epistolario italiano (Lettere di Julius Evola, a cura di Renato Del Ponte, Arktos, 2005) e le lettere di Adriano al comune e sfortunato amico Emilio Carbone (Lettere ad un amico, a cura di Renato Del Ponte, Arya, 2013), tanto che il filosofo mi propose come collaboratore della rivista che voleva pubblicare il compianto Gaspare Cannizzo nonostante lui lo avesse sconsigliato e che uscì nel 1971 come Vie della Tradizione, e al Cahier de l’Herne dedicato a Gustav Meyrink uscito dopo la sua morte».

 

Appassionato di Tex

 

 

 

«Una persona che parlava di tutto e di tutti, sino al limite del pettegolezzo e raccontando barzellette, come un vecchio amico, senza prosopopea e saccenteria o atteggiamenti da ”guru”. Almeno con me non aveva alcuna cadenza o inflessione “alla romana”, pur essendo nato e cresciuto  nella capitale con qualche viaggio da ragazzino a Cinisi, il paese di origine dei suoi dove ancora esiste la casa avita. Al massimo arrotava “alla siciliana”  la “r” iniziale delle parole essendo vissuto in una famiglia di quelle origini. Insomma, tutt’altro che  il personaggio che emerge da altri ricordi. Ad esempio, un amico, che “evoliano” non è, mi ha raccontato che andando a trovarlo insieme ad un devoto del suo pensiero, questi, entrato nella sua stanza, si prosternò al suolo e quindi assorbì in silenzio i precetti un po’ assurdi e fuori del tempo che Evola gli dettava! Non posso pensare che questo amico si sia inventato tutto. Viceversa, una volta ad altri che erano recati da lui con spirito troppo superficiale, alla fine li congedò, come ha ricordato Renato Del Ponte, regalando oro una copia di Tex, il fumetto western allora (e oggi) il più longevo e diffuso, come dire, secondo me: siete più adatti a questo genere di  letture. A buon intenditor…».

La “Metafisica del sesso”

«Tutto ciò però  si collega a quanto lo stesso Adriano Romualdi mi raccontava allora. Ad esempio, che di fronte a certi che gli si erano presentati dicendo: “Maestro, noi il lunedì ci riuniamo per leggere Cavalcare la tigre, martedì Gli uomini e le rovine, mercoledì Rivolta contro il mondo moderno….”, Evola li interruppe e chiese: “E quando vi decidete a leggere Metafisica del sesso?”. Ad altri infervorati consigliò, per far soldi, di darsi al traffico di armi o, meglio, alla “tratta delle bianche”, come allora si diceva. In una delle sue ultime interviste, mi sembra a Panorama o in quella pubblicata postuma da Il Messaggero, disse che “il popolo bisogna trattarlo con la frusta”…. Cosa vogliano dire queste singolari affermazioni rispetto alla personalità “normale” che io ho conosciuto, ed hanno conosciuto anche altri? Dopo tanto tempo ho tratto alcune conclusioni».

Incontrava tutti, amici e nemici

«Il filosofo accettava di vedere, di parlare con tutti, senza preclusioni pur non conoscendo i suoi interlocutori, magari giovani e meno giovani di altre città che venivano appositamente a Roma per conoscerlo dopo aver letto i suoi libri. Prendevano un appuntamento e si recavano da lui, e quando non era in casa la domestica/governante altoatesina con cui parlava in tedesco, questa andandosene lasciava la chiave dell’ingresso sotto lo stuoino e chi arrivava, preavvertito, la prendeva e apriva la porta (e in teoria avrebbe potuto farlo anche qualche malintenzionato). Nel suo studio Evola accoglieva i visitatori o a letto o seduto alla sua sedia di fronte alla macchina da scrivere. Qui, io penso, si faceva una idea dei nuovi venuti grazie al suo acume psicologico ma soprattutto al suo intuito “sottile”, e si comportava di conseguenza, e quindi usava atteggiamenti, argomenti e soprattutto parole adatte alla bisogna. Oppure non ne usava affatto: come racconta Gaspare Cannizzo in un articolo,  certi suoi incontri consistevano in lunghi silenzi. Ecco il motivo per cui appariva “diverso” o singolare a chi lo andava a trovare, magari soltanto per una volta. Si comportava come un maestro zen o sufi,  un po’ come faceva anche Pio Filippani-Ronconi: diceva cose assurde, usava espressioni paradossali, provocatorie, estreme, quasi, così provocando, voler sondare le reazioni di chi aveva davanti, come a a volerlo saggiare, sondare, osservare le reazioni esteriori, ma anche interiori. I devoti, gli “evolomani” come lui stesso li aveva definiti, prendevano magari alla lettera quanto diceva e se ne facevano una impressione sbagliata. Lo stesso vale per chi andava da lui con atteggiamento troppo superficiale, o per i  facinorosi, che pensavano di essere “uomini di azione” e avevano dopo l’incontro impressioni pessime definendolo addirittura un “frocio”, come si può leggere nel libro-intervista ad un ergastolano “fascista” (Io, l’uomo nero, Marsilio, 2008). Il guaio, se così si può dire, è che il filosofo faceva lo stesso anche con chi non lo conosceva affatto oppure era già prevenuto nei suoi confronti, ad esempio con giornalisti per  nulla amichevoli i quali, anch’essi prendendo le sue parole ed espressioni alla lettera le riportavano pari pari e ne tratteggiavano un profilo oscuro e “maledetto”, quello del “barone nero” appunto, a conferma dei loro teoremi mentali (ricordiamoci che si era in piena “contestazione” e violenza, anche se il vero terrorismo non era ancora nato). Non era, dunque, una personalità multiforme, un carattere variabile, ma il suo essere così aveva un senso perché faceva da riscontro alla personalità e all’animo dei suoi interlocutori, seri o meno seri, preparati o meno preparati, colti o meno colti, ingenui o meno, amici o nemici. Il suo atteggiamento e linguaggio – conclude de Turris – servivano per capire chi fossero quei tanti che volevano vederlo, incontrarlo, parlargli, magari anche per prenderli sottilmente in giro per le loro esagerazioni, pur se non se rendevano conto. Da qui, ma a lui ovviamente non importava, la nascita di alcune leggende metropolitane nei suoi confronti che non sempre gli hanno giovato».

The Magical World of the Heroes

The Magical World of the Heroes

 

Ex: http://www.lumineboreali.net

 

I discovered this fascinating little article by Alexander Dugin. I found it particularly interesting because this intriguing and mystical Hermetic work from Renaissance Italy, Il mondo magico de gli heroi – or The Magical World of the Heroes , authored by Cesare della Riviera – is referred to extensively in a couple of books I have had the pleasure to read recently, one for entertainment, the other for serious study: the esoteric author Joscelyn Godwin's curious little novel The Forbidden Book (certainly recommended, despite the portrayal of the radical traditionalist right as villains), and Julius Evola's The Hermetic Tradition. I assume that the latter work would be known to anyone on here claiming an interest in Evola's esotericism.

Let this thread be dedicated to Cesare della Riviera and Il mondo magico de gli heroi. Do not hesitate to share material concerning this, or overlapping topics, such as Evola's The Hermetic Tradition.

Now keep in mind that the article below is worded quite obscurely in symbolic language. As I have not come far in my study of the Hermetic Tradition yet, I cannot comment with great certainty upon the precision or correctness of the following commentary. But it is interesting and brief reading that might inspire the public to investigate this subject further.

There are even some questionable political statements of Dugin in there that are not very central to the subject that is della Riviera's esoteric lineage.

1. An Open Entrance to the Occult text of Cesare della Riviera

"The Magical World of the Heroes" (Il mondo magico de gli heroi), the book by Cesare della Riviera, was published in 1605. Later, in the 20th century, Julius Evola republished it with his comments, asserting that in this hermetic treatise can be found the most open and clear statement of the principles of spiritual alchemy and hermetic art. Rene Guenon notes in his review, however, that the work of della Riviera is far from being as transparent as asserted in Evola's commentary.
And indeed, "The Magical World of the Heroes" is enigmatic to the limit - first, by its literary form, and second, because the concepts with which the author deals are something extremely mysterious in themselves, not clear, and having no equivalent in concrete reality.
But, maybe the difficulties in understanding the given theme arise because the very "heroic principle", the figure of the Hero, is far from the sphere of what is surrounding us today? Perhaps this difficult text is crystal clear for the true heroes and does not require any further decoding?
It is crystal clear and transparent as ice...

2. Cosmogony of Ice

In Evola's books, devoted to the differing problems of tradition and politics, there is always an appeal to the principle of Cold. The theme of Cold emerges here and there, irrespective of if the matter concerns tantra or the existential position of the "solitary man", Zen-Buddhism or knightly mysteries of medieval Europe, modern art or autobiographical notes. "Cold" and "distance" are the two words which, perhaps, are found most often in the "Black Baron's" lexicon.
The hero, by very definition, should be cold. If he will not separate himself from those around him, if he will not freeze the warm energy of daily humanness within himself, he will not be at a level of performing the Impossible, i.e. at the level that marks a hero from the merely human. The hero should leave the people and travel beyond the limit of social cosiness, where penetrating winds of an objective reality, severe and nonhuman, roar. The soil and stones rise against the animal and vegetal worlds. The aggressive vegetation corrodes minerals, and wild animals ruthlessly trample down the obstinate herbs. The elements outside the society show no mercy. The world in itself is a triumphal banquet of substance, whose bottom level merges with the lumps of cosmic ice. The hero is cold, because he is objective, because he accepts the relay race of spontaneous force, furious and unkind, from the world.
The character of all heroes - from Hercules through to Hitler - are identical: they are deeply natural, elemental, abysmally cold and distanced from social compromise. They are the carriers of the abyss of objectivity.
In his strange, hermetic manner Cesare della Riviera thus interprets the word "Angelo" ("angel"):
ANGELO = ANtico GELO, i.e. the "Angel = Ancient Ice".
This is connected with the next phase of the heroic deed, not a voyage toward reality, but an escape from its limits - escape from the ice bonds.
The Alchemy and Cabbala know much about the secret of the "ice stronghold". It is a border separating the "lower waters" of life from the "upper waters" of Spirit. The phrase of della Riviera has a strict theological sense: leaving the sphere of emotional life, the hero becomes a small crystal of ice, a luminous angel, in the glassy sea of Spirit, on which a heavenly throne of Kings is founded. The Snow Queen from Andersen's fairytale has forced the boy Kai to shape pieces of ice into a mysterious angelical word - 'Ewigkeit', but the warm forces of Earth ("Gerda" means 'Earth' in old German) have returned the unfortunate hero to a poor and hopeless life. Instead of an angel, he subsequently becomes a red-faced Scandinavian burger with beer and sausages. Cold is an attribute of a corpse and the initiated one. The bodies of yogi freeze in the process of awakening the sacred snake energy - the higher the Kundalini rises, the more lifeless the corresponding body parts become, until the initiated one turns into a statue of ice, an axis of spiritual constancy.
Each hero necessarily travels to the Pole, into the heart of midnight. There he learns to love that dark and obscure substance, which is called "our Earth" by the alchemists or the "philosophers' magnesia". The urn holding the ashes of Baron Evola is buried in the thickness of an Alpine glacier, on Monte Rosa peak. The mountain was probably named so in honor of the sacral beloved of Friedrich II Hohenstauffen, the one who has not died. La Rosa di Soria. The polar rose.

3. The Voyage of the Polar Nymph

Cyliani, a mysterious 19th century alchemist whose pseudonym was determined only with the help of Pierre Dujols (Magaphon), friend of Fulcanelli and... a secret Valois, wrote that his heroic travel into the "magical world of the heroes" began with a strange visit from the "nymph of the polar star"...
Where do her footsteps lead?
They lead inside. Inside the earth, where a fantastic matter named "sulfuric acid of the
philosophers" is hiding. Visitabis interiora terrae rectificando invenies occultum lapidem. The stone is completely black, as a soul, shrouded in "antimimon pneuma" of the Gnostics. There, from the blackness of personal uncertainty, from undifferentiated "I", slipping away from any name, the magic feat begins. If the hero will not question that which constitutes his apparent essence, he is doomed. Even the divine parents do not give the answer to a problem of an origin of "I".

4. The Secret of the Heavenly Dragon

The search for the nymph is connected to an original problem of the definition of the pole star. The heavenly pole spins around, like "Atalanta fugiens". Once a slender creature was hiding in Ursa Major's fur near Arcturus. She calls herself "Shemol". In 12 thousand years she will say of herself - "I am Vega". But what is this Axis, that the dance of millenia goes round?
Black dot in the northern sky. Dragon coils around it, tempting the steadfast observer, offering doubtful fruits of knowledge. The polar nymph has given to Cyliani the key to victory over this Dragon. Hermeticists consider it a question of the primal matter. Heavenly Dragon, the true north of the ecliptic. He is guarding the boreal heart of black expanses, as a spiral outlining the absent centre.

5. The Second of Betelgeuse

Orion is the most mysterious of all constellations. Time is hiding on his right shoulder. He is the main hero of the subterranean (and not only subterranean!) world. "Betelgeuse" means "hero's shoulder" in Arabic. It is on that very shoulder that is kept the secret of a book which Fulcanelli at first gave to Canseliet, and later withdrew, forbiding its publishing. The matter concerns the "Finis Gloria Mundi", third book by the adept. When Virgo's milk touches the brawny shoulder of the "black god", and he thus loses his hands under ruthless executors' knives, a world fire is coming, the sphere is overturning. The sky falls. It is made of stone, as everybody knows. The heroes are secretly preparing terrible shocks to society. A society which consoles itself with the fact it has banished them from history, but where is the precise border between literary and nuclear range, between a dark corner for meditations and carpet bombardments?
To our information, the agents of Betelgeuse, inhabitants of the "magical world of the heroes", disguised as state officials, have made their way to the engine-room of authority. There is only the certainty of heavenly sequence and processional cycles in their minds. A nuclear fire of the Northern Hemisphere is a way to Olympus, the fire of Hercules for them.
Besides the external Evola had a secret mission...

6. The Forest of Rambouillet

"The forest of Rambouillet is a forest of blood" - Jean Parvulesco hypnotically repeats in his novel. A white deer with its throat cut is found there, then a corpse of a naked woman with identical wounds. The magic wood in which Dante has lost his way. "Philosophers' Forest". On a certain engraving, illustrating the "Tabula Smaragdina" of Hermes Trismegistus, the man with an elk's head is giving the Moon to Eve. Later, if we'll believe Parvulesco, they will meet again in a garden of Rambouillet.
A joyless rendezvous.
"One day Apollo will return, and this time for ever", - says the last prophecy of a Delphian pythoness in IV century A.D.

/Alexander Dugin
Translation: Andrey Bogdanov​

 

"One day Apollo will return, and this time for ever",
- says the last prophecy of a Delphian pythoness in IV century A.D.
Apollo is a Hyperborean god, which associates him with the memory of a Golden Age.

La crisis de la civilización occidental según Julius Evola

La crisis de la civilización occidental según Julius Evola

Lydia Morales

Ex: http://www.kosmos-polis.com

En un ensayo sobre el tantrismo la escritora Marguerite Yourcenar[i] reseñaba una de las obras monumentales de Julius Evola titulada Lo Yoga della Potenza. La académica francesa catalogaba al filósofo y orientalista italiano, profesor de las universidades de Florencia y de Milán, como "un erudito genial" ateniéndose a sus obras más ponderadas. Pero aunque el barón Evola fue un erudito genial, ciertamente no fue un erudito inmaculado. Evola tuvo un pasado fascista y fue "uno de esos italianos germanizados con no sé sabe qué clase de obsesiones gibelinas", un hombre "mucho más fascinado por el poder que por el conocimiento o el amor" que estaba poseído por un "titanismo prometeico más o menos espiritualizado"[ii]. Su Rivolta contro il mondo moderno (el título de otro de sus libros), por muy justificada que esa rebelión en parte esté, "acabó arrastrándolo a unos parajes aún más peligrosos que aquellos que creía abandonar". En sus libros asoman un puñado de vicios intelectuales, esperables en alguien con semejante orientación, que enturbian una y otra vez incluso sus trabajos más brillantes. La propia Yourcenar señaló casi todos esos vicios: "el concepto de raza elegida que en la práctica conduce al nazismo"; "una avidez enfermiza por los poderes supranormales, que lo lleva a aceptar sin control los aspectos más materiales de la aventura espiritual"; "el paso lamentable de la noción de poderes intelectuales y místicos a la de poder puro y simple"; "un sueño de dominación aristocrática y sacerdotal que no sabemos si correspondió a una edad de oro del pasado, pero del que en nuestro tiempo hemos visto caricaturas grotescas y atroces"; a lo que habría que añadir un desprecio sumario hacia lo femenino que lo lleva a proclamar la deficiencia interior de la mujer y la incapacidad femenina para la vida humana superior. No obstante, y a pesar de todo esto -que no debe olvidarse nunca cuando uno se acerca a la obra de Evola– también es cierto que sus mejores libros, tomados con las debidas cautelas, aportan abundante materia para la reflexión. Huellas de ellos pueden encontrarse en las obras de no pocos autores contemporáneos que, sin embargo, omiten cuidadosamente la fuente por considerarla innombrable y maldita. Adolfo Morganti, en el ámbito del orientalismo, y Alain de Benoist, en el de la filosofía, fueron los primeros que se atrevieron a remitir a las obras de Evola abiertamente. Como señaló Morganti, "después de años de que el pensamiento evoliano hubiera sido o demonizado grotescamente o ensalzado como un improbable evangelio, había que romper son el muro de las ideologías y proceder al debate de las ideas y a un análisis crítico digno de ese nombre"[iii].

En este sentido Cavalgar el tigre ha sido una de sus obras más interesantes e influyentes[iv]. Su punto de partida es la ciclología de las tradiciones culturales indoeuropeas, que observa un descenso progresivo de la civilización desde una 'edad de oro' primordial hasta una 'edad de hierro' donde se liberan todos los mecanismos disolutorios para dar paso a la liquidación del ciclo. Para esa concepción del tiempo –propia de nuestra cultura clásica y presente todavía hoy en el pensamiento hindú- nuestra época, lejos de ser la culminación de un tiempo lineal de progreso continuo, es el momento final de una era de disolución. En tal contexto temporal Evola señala que hay un cierto tipo humano "que, aun estando comprometido con el mundo actual, no pertenece interiormente a él, no contempla la posibilidad de ceder ante él y se siente, por su esencia, de una clase diferente a la mayor parte de sus contemporáneos". El lugar natural de este tipo humano sería "el mundo de la Tradición", entendiendo por tal cosa las civilizaciones y sociedades regidas por principios transcendentes. Puesto que lo que ha terminado por prevalecer en el mundo actual es la exacta antítesis de eso, Evola observa que los Hombres diferenciados a los que se refiere se hallan "de pie en medio de las ruinas". Para ellos hace una radiografía del mundo actual tan detallada como demoledora.

Evola empieza analizando la disolución del orden moral. El primer capítulo –titulado "En un mundo donde Dios ha muerto"- hace referencia al nihilismo hoy reinante en Occidente y ya anunciado por Nietzsche. "La muerte de Dios", dice Evola, "es una imagen que sirve para caracterizar todo un proceso histórico. Expresa el descreimiento hecho realidad cotidiana", la ruptura con la Tradición que en el Occidente actual tiene el carácter de un hecho consumado y tal vez irreversible. Evola observa que en este proceso de desacralización el hecho primario es una ruptura ontológica: las referencias reales a la Transcendencia han desaparecido de la vida humana. Todos los desarrollos del nihilismo están virtualmente contenidos en este hecho. Primero fue la aparición de la llamada 'moral autónoma', fundada sobre la mera autoridad de la razón independiente de todo criterio transcendente. Al haber perdido sus raíces –el lazo efectivo y original del Hombre con una dimensión supramaterial- esta moral ya no tiene una base invulnerable y la crítica puede destruirla fácilmente. Tras ella aparece, en un segundo momento, la ética utilitaria o social. "Al haber renunciado a todo fundamento absoluto e intrínseco del bien y del mal, se pretende justificar lo que queda de norma moral por lo que recomiendan al individuo su interés y la búsqueda de su tranquilidad material en la vida social". Esta ética ya no tiene carácter interiormente normativo o imperativo y todo se reduce a amoldarse a los códigos de la sociedad, que reemplazan a la ley transcendente derribada. Es un conformismo fundado "sobre el interés, la cobardía, la hipocresía y la inercia". Además, como ya no existe ningún lazo interior, "cualquier acto o comportamiento se vuelven lícitos cuando puede evitarse la sanción exterior, jurídico-social, o cuando uno es indiferente a ella". Hay, por tanto, dos fases. La primera es una rebelión metafísica que tiene consecuencias morales. En la segunda fase "hasta los motivos que habían justificado y alentado la rebelión desaparecen, volviéndose ilusorios para un nuevo tipo de Hombre. Aquí estamos ya en la fase específicamente nihilista, cuyo tema dominante es el sentido de lo absurdo y de la irracionalidad de la condición humana". Es lo que Nietzsche llamó "la miseria del Hombre sin Dios": la existencia parece perder todo significado y toda meta.

Todos los imperativos, todos los valores morales, todos los lazos y los apoyos se desmoronan. "La existencia es abandonada a sí misma en su realidad desnuda sin ningún punto de referencia fuera de ella que pueda darle sentido a los ojos del Hombre".

Evola hace notar que existe una corriente de pensamiento y una historiografía cuya característica es presentar el proceso anterior, al menos en sus primeras fases, como una conquista positiva. "Desde el siglo de las luces y cierto liberalismo", dice, "hasta el historicismo inmanentista, primero idealista, luego materialista y marxista, estas fases de disolución han sido interpretadas y exaltadas como una emancipación del Hombre, un progreso y un verdadero humanismo". En los tiempos en que nosotros vivimos, señala Evola, la ruptura metafísica y moral ha pasado ya al plano existencial. Hoy "una buena parte de la humanidad occidental encuentra normal que la existencia esté desprovista de todo verdadero significado y que no deba ser ligada a ningún principio superior, aunque se las ha arreglado para vivirla de la forma más soportable y menos desagradable posible. Sin embargo, esto tiene como contrapartida inevitable una vida interior cada vez más reducida, inestable y huidiza, así como la desaparición de toda rectitud y fuerza moral". Un sistema de anestésicos y compensaciones (el sexo banalizado, el alcohol, las drogas, las diversiones, el consumismo, los medios de masas) trata de suplir y tapar la falta de significado y de valor de una vida abandonada a sí misma. Sin embargo, cuando dicho entramado se tambalea por alguna razón aparece "la náusea, el asco, el vacío y el absurdo de toda esta nueva civilización materialista impuesta por toda la Tierra". En aquellos cuya sensibilidad es más aguda se constatan diversas formas de traumatismo interior y se ven aparecer estados de degradación y alineación existenciales. Especialmente significativa por lo que tiene de signo de los tiempos es la situación de la juventud 'perdida' o 'quemada' de hoy.

Señala Evola que una de las principales coberturas evasivas, uno de los anestésicos más eficaces del nihilismo occidental es el mito económico-social en sus dos vertientes: el bienestar consumista y el funcionarismo marxista. Capitalismo y marxismo participan del mismo espejismo: "creer en serio que la miseria existencial se reduce a sufrir indigencia material y que, en consecuencia, la primera debe desaparecer automáticamente si se elevan las condiciones materiales de la existencia". Evola considera que la verdad es más bien la opuesta: miseria espiritual y pobreza material carecen de relación y la felicidad y la plenitud humana tienen poco que ver con la abundancia material. Es un hecho que las vidas más profundas son a menudo, si no pobres, sí desde luego austeras (incluso en medio de la riqueza), porque un clima de facilidad debilita la virtud más alta e impide que el Hombre se pruebe y se discipline a sí mismo. "El verdadero significado del mito económico-social, sea cual fuere su variedad", dice Evola, "es el de un medio de anestesia interior tendente no sólo a eludir el problema de una existencia privada de todo sentido, sino a consolidar todas las formas de esta fundamental ausencia de sentido en la vida del Hombre moderno". Para Evola el marxismo y sus derivados 'progresistas' son "el estupefaciente más mortífero de todos los administrados hasta ahora a una humanidad desarraigada", estupefaciente que va acompañado de "una lobotomía psíquica tendente a neutralizar metódicamente, desde la infancia, toda forma de sensibilidad y de intereses superiores y cualquier modo de pensar que no se exprese en términos económico-sociales". En cuanto al sistema consumista, Evola dice que "destruye todo valor superior de la vida y de la personalidad", porque el individuo consumista acaba por considerar absurda cualquier renuncia al bienestar en nombre de valores más altos y se pliega gustoso a los condicionamientos anestesiantes del sistema. Puesto que en Occidente la 'clase obrera' ha entrado con gran fruición en el sistema consumista y en el modo de vida burgués, los derivados marxistas abandonan la revolución anticapitalista y llaman ahora a una suerte de "contestación global", irracional, anarquizante y privada de referentes superiores, en nombre del Tercer Mundo o de toda clase de minorías marginales.

Tanto el sistema como sus antagonistas tienen un carácter nihilista que no hace sino confirmar el nihilismo general de nuestra época.

Dos son los tipos humanos que ha producido el nihilismo contemporáneo. Evola los llama "el Hombre objeto" y el "nihilista activo". El primero -el tipo más frecuente- se pliega a los procesos de disolución en marcha de modo pasivo. O bien se adapta a una vida desprovista de sentido con anestésicos y sucedáneos, agarrándose a las formas supervivientes de convención y seguridad burguesas, o bien se entrega a formas de vida desordenadas y de revuelta anarcoide. El nihilista activo de corte nietzscheano, tipo mucho más restringido, está convencido, sin embargo, de que la actual rebelión contra la Transcendencia es el camino correcto, hace apología de ella y considera que el desastre actual es sólo el resultado de no haber sabido estar a la altura de las nuevas circunstancias sin Dios. Evola analiza entonces el tema de 'la muerte de Dios': para él no es la Divinidad metafísica, es el Dios teísta, lo que ha muerto, el Dios que es una proyección de los valores sociales dominantes o un apoyo para las debilidades humanas. Es el conjunto de conceptos que el cristianismo oficial ha considerado como esenciales e indispensables de toda religión 'verdadera' lo que ha muerto: "el Dios personal del teísmo, cierta ley moral con paraísos e infiernos, la concepción restringida de un orden providencial y de un finalismo moral del mundo y la fe que reposa sobre una base principalmente emotiva, dogmática y anti-intelectual. No es más que el Dios concebido como centro de gravedad de todo este sistema quien ha sido golpeado, un Dios que había terminado por servir de opio o contrapartida a la pequeña moral con que el mundo burgués sustituyó a la gran moral antigua. Pero el núcleo esencial, representado por las doctrinas metafísicas, permanece intacto para quien sepa comprenderlas y vivirlas, inaccesible a todos los procesos nihilistas, a toda disolución". Evola considera que el cristianismo ha facilitado la acción de las fuerzas de disolución en Occidente por haber liquidado todos los intentos metafísicos que dentro de él se han hecho. La irracionalidad de sus dogmas y la falta de un corpus sapiencial superior capaz de contener el derrumbamiento han hecho al cristianismo particularmente vulnerable a los embates de la crítica racional y del libre pensamiento.

Cuando la disolución se ha asentado en el orden moral, la enfermedad sigue con la infección de la persona. Evola distingue entre 'persona' e 'individuo'. La persona es "lo que el Hombre representa concreta y sensiblemente en el mundo y en su circunstancia, pero siempre como una forma de expresión y manifestación de un principio superior que debe ser reconocido como el verdadero centro del ser y sobre el que se sitúa el yo. El Hombre en tanto que persona tiene forma, es él mismo y se pertenece a sí mismo, y en esto se diferencia del individuo". En esto y en que la persona "no está cerrada hacia lo Alto". "La noción de individuo", por contra, "es la de una unidad abstracta, informe, numérica, sin cualidades propias y nada que lo diferencie verdaderamente". El individuo pertenece al reino de la cantidad y es un ego disociado de todo principio transcendente.

Evola vaticina que la crisis de los valores del individuo en el mundo moderno está destinada a ser general e irreversible. El materialismo, el mundo de las masas, las megaurbes modernas, la técnica, la mecanización, las fuerzas elementales despertadas y controladas por procesos objetivos, los efectos existenciales de catástrofes colectivas (las guerras totales o el megaterrorismo con sus frías destrucciones, por ejemplo), todo esto golpea mortalmente al individuo y reduce cada vez más la validez de los valores burgueses. Del individuo se desemboca así en algo todavía más bajo, el tipo de Hombre vacío, repetido en serie, producto multiplicable e insignificante, que corresponde a la vida uniformada actual. Con este tipo de Hombre vacío y serial llega "una nueva barbarie" y un "ideal animal" de vida. Un ideal basado en "el bienestar biológico, la comodidad y la euforia optimista que enfatiza lo que no es más que lozanía, juventud, fuerza física, seguridad y éxito materiales, satisfacción primitiva de los apetitos del vientre y del sexo, vida deportiva... y cuya contrapartida es una atrofia de todas las formas superiores de sensibilidad y de interés intelectual". En esta nueva barbarie y en este ideal animal se incluyen también todos los contestatarios primitivistas que reclaman una 'vuelta a la naturaleza', a la 'Madre Tierra'. Esta supuesta contestación no es sino una forma de regresión. Evola defiende que el Hombre ni es un animal ni ha tenido nunca un estado natural. El Hombre, desde el principio, "ha sido situado en un estado por encima de la naturaleza del que a continuación ha caído", de modo que cuando pretende volverse 'natural' (esto es, animal) en realidad se desnaturaliza.

Disuelta la moral y disuelto el individuo, también se disuelve el conocimiento. Evola se ocupa por extenso de la ciencia positiva y matemático-experimental propia de la modernidad. Esta ciencia no tiene para él valor de conocimiento en el sentido verdadero de ese término, pues se reduce a "una voluntad de poder aplicada a las cosas y a la naturaleza". Para Evola "la ciencia moderna, por una parte conduce a una prodigiosa extensión cuantitativa de los datos relativos a dominios antes inexplorados u olvidados, pero por otra parte no hace penetrar al Hombre en el fondo de la realidad, sino que incluso lo aleja de ella, lo vuelve aún más ajeno a ella". La naturaleza, en su profundidad, permanece cerrada al Hombre y es aún más misteriosa que antes: sus misterios simplemente han sido recubiertos y la mirada humana se ha distraído con las realizaciones espectaculares de los dominios técnicos industriales, dominios "donde no se trata de conocer el mundo, sino de transformarlo conforme al interés de una humanidad convertida exclusivamente en terrestre, como quería Marx". Simultáneamente el conocimiento directo y viviente, la penetración de la intuición intelectual o de la visión mística, "el único conocimiento que importaba a la humanidad no bastardeada", se rechaza hoy por 'no científico'.

Para Evola la concepción del mundo que tiene la ciencia moderna es esencialmente profanadora y ese mundo desacralizado por el saber científico se ha convertido en un elemento existencial constitutivo del Hombre moderno. A través de la instrucción obligatoria se le ha llenado la cabeza de nociones científicas positivistas "no pudiendo adquirir para todo lo que le rodea más que una mirada sin alma que se convierte desde entonces en destructora". El trasfondo efectivo del progreso científico-técnico actual, convertido en la nueva religión de la modernidad, es para el autor el estancamiento y la barbarie interiores. Evola señala que ese progreso "no le reporta nada al Hombre como tal": no le otorga ni conocimiento transcendente, ni potencia interior, ni una norma de acción de más altura moral. En el plano de la acción la ciencia moderna "pone a disposición del Hombre un conjunto prodigioso de medios sin resolver en absoluto el problema de los fines". Además, la ciencia se ha convertido en un proceso autónomo y fragmentado en cada vez más estrechas especializaciones al que "ninguna instancia superior es capaz de imponer un límite y de imprimir dirección, control o freno". Por ello "a menudo se tiene la impresión de que el desarrollo técnico-científico desborda al Hombre y le impone frecuentemente situaciones inesperadas, difíciles y llenas de incógnitas". Las formas de potencia exterior y mecánica de sus bombas, sus cohetes o su revolución tecnológica dejan, en cualquier caso, invariable al Hombre en sí, que sigue tan preso o más que antes de sus debilidades, sus bajas pasiones, su confusión y sus miedos. El Hombre actual no eleva su estatura moral, intelectual o espiritual por ser capaz de ir en cohete hasta la Luna, de producir seres humanos en laboratorio o de matar a miles de criaturas en cinco minutos gracias a la técnica.

La misma degradación que afecta al conocimiento se encuentra hoy, según Evola, en la cultura. La cultura occidental está neutralizada en su influjo, dividida en dominios particulares sin unidad orgánica y se halla privada de todo carácter objetivo, participando de esta forma en los procesos disolutorios de la época. Evola considera que la antítesis decretada entre cultura y política es "una de las manifestaciones más típicas de esa neutralización de la cultura". El contrario normal y fecundo de esta situación no es, para Evola, una cultura al servicio del poder y de la ideología en el sentido degradado de hoy, sino la existencia de una idea axial, de un símbolo elemental y central de una civilización dada, "que manifiesta su fuerza y ejerce una acción paralela y a menudo invisible tanto sobre el plano político (con todos los valores, no sólo materiales, que deberían referirse a un verdadero Estado), como sobre el plano del pensamiento, de la cultura y de las artes". Para Evola esa vieja idea axial hoy perdida es en el caso de la civilización occidental el "ideal del Imperio", ideal que se forjó en el mundo antiguo y medieval y que países como España contribuyeron a mantener en los Siglos de Oro. Evola entiende por tal cosa una gran organización política más allá de particularismos etnicistas y territoriales, organizada con criterios de excelencia y vertebrada por los valores transcendentes característicos de nuestra civilización.

Al analizar la situación del arte moderno, Evola subraya sus tendencias morbosas e intimistas, que dan la espalda al plano sobre el que actúan las grandes fuerzas históricas y políticas y se retiran al mundo de la subjetividad privada del artista no dando valor más que a lo psicológico y a lo formalmente 'interesante'. Joyce, Proust o Gide son, en la literatura, ejemplos acabados de esta tendencia. En ocasiones a esta orientación se asocia la idea del 'arte puro', esto es, del mero formalismo rodeando a un contenido más o menos insignificante. Las innumerables vanguardias e ismos no tienen mucho más valor, afirmación que resulta significativa en la pluma de alguien como Evola, que fue una de las figuras señeras del dadaísmo pictórico italiano. El significado de estas vanguardias "se reduce a una revuelta estéril, reflejo del proceso general de disolución. Reflejan el estado de crisis, pero no aportan nada constructivo, estable o duradero". Su recorrido, además, es corto. Pronto acaban convertidas en un nuevo 'academicismo', una nueva convención, y entran como un producto de consumo más en los circuitos comerciales. En el fondo el arte de hoy, separado de todo contexto orgánico y necesario, se ve reducido al absurdo, convertido en un artículo de lujo para parásitos ociosos. "Si se consideran objetivamente los procesos en curso", observa Evola, "se siente nítidamente que el arte ya no tiene porvenir, que su posición es cada vez más marginal con respecto a la existencia y que su valor se reduce al de un artículo de gran lujo". Al asomarse a la literatura, el panorama no es mejor. "Su fondo constante es el fetichismo de las relaciones humanas, de los problemas sentimentales, sexuales o sociales de individuos sin importancia". Se ha impuesto un realismo inferior, corrosivo y derrotista, denuncia Evola, en el que "directa o indirectamente se mina todo ideal, se hace mofa de todo principio y se reducen los valores estéticos, lo justo, lo verdaderamente noble y digno a simples palabras; y todo ello sin obedecer siquiera a una tendencia declarada". Frente a este realismo inferior Evola postula un realismo positivo que afirma la existencia de valores "que para el tipo humano diferenciado no se reducen a ficciones ni fantasías, sino que tienen el valor de realidades absolutas. Entre éstas figuran el coraje espiritual, el honor, la rectitud, la veracidad o la fidelidad. Una existencia humana que ignora esto no es plenamente real, es infrarreal. Para el Hombre diferenciado, a pesar de la disolución presente, estos valores siguen siendo intocables".

La música tampoco escapa al clima imperante. En el terreno de la música culta la disolución ha seguido dos vías: la tecnicidad fría y cerebral del dodecafonismo y la música serial y una inmersión en lo físico que toma a las cosas y los impulsos elementales como temas inspiradores (iniciada con el impresionismo francés y la música nacionalista). Últimamente se ha llegado ya a una especie de "música glaciar" con composiciones "cuya extrema abstracción formal es análoga a las puras entidades algebraicas de la física más reciente o, en otro terreno, a cierto surrealismo. Son fuerzas sonoras liberadas de las estructuras tradicionales que empujan hacia un meandro tecnicista que sólo el álgebra pura de la composición preserva de una completa disolución en lo amorfo, por ejemplo en la intensidad de los timbres descarnados y atómicamente disociados". Fuera de la música culta, que por otra parte tiene un alcance cada vez más minoritario, la música folclórica ha desaparecido y lo que domina la esfera cotidiana son las diferentes variantes del pop, músicas elementales de diversión o distracción, a menudo vehículos idóneos para la transmisión de toda clase de influencias psíquicas negativas.

Disuelta la moral y el individuo, disueltos el conocimiento, la cultura y las artes, el dominio socio-político estalla igualmente. Entre todos los dominios de la vida moderna es el socio-político "aquel en el cual, por efecto de los procesos generales de disolución, aparece de una manera más manifiesta la ausencia de una estructura que posea el carisma de una verdadera legitimidad para ligarse a significados superiores". Señala Evola que en la época actual "no existe un Estado que pueda, por su propia naturaleza, reivindicar un principio de autoridad verdadera e inalienable" ni que pueda considerarse ajustado a una concepción transcendente de la política. Hoy sólo existen aparatos representativos y administrativos, no Estados que sean la encarnación de un ideal superior. No hay tampoco verdaderos estadistas, la clase dirigente actual no tiene ningún carisma, ninguna virtud superior. "Del mismo modo que ya no existe un verdadero Estado, tampoco existe un partido o un movimiento que se presente como defensor de ideales superiores por los que valga la pena luchar". "A pesar de la variedad de etiquetas", observa Evola, "el mundo actual de los partidos se reduce a un régimen de politicastros que juegan a menudo el papel de hombres de paja al servicio de intereses financieros, industriales o sindicales. Por lo demás la situación general es tal que incluso si existieran partidos o movimientos de otro tipo ya no tendrían ninguna audiencia en las masas desarraigadas, dado que estas masas sólo reaccionan positivamente a favor de quienes le prometen ventajas materiales y 'conquistas sociales'. Hoy en día en política sólo puede actuarse en el plano de las fuerzas pasionales y subintelectuales, fuerzas que por su misma naturaleza carecen de toda estabilidad. Sobre estas fuerzas se apoyan los demagogos, los dirigentes de masas, los fabricantes de mitos y los manipuladores de la opinión pública". Es por esto por lo que aunque hoy aparecieran líderes dignos de ese nombre –personas que apelasen "a fuerzas e intereses de otro tipo, que no prometieran ventajas materiales, que no consintieran en prostituirse o degradarse para asegurarse un poder efímero, precario e informe"-, estos líderes muy probablemente no tendrían ninguna influencia en la situación actual.

Pasando del dominio político al propiamente social, Evola observa que todas las unidades orgánicas de la sociedad se han disuelto o están en vías de hacerlo y lo que existe es esencialmente una masa inestable de individuos aislados contenidos por estructuras exteriores o movida por corrientes colectivas amorfas. Las 'jerarquías' existentes son meramente dinerarias y la excelencia no tiene ya ningún valor en el ordenamiento social. La institución familiar también está en manifiesta crisis, zarandeada entre los intentos de sabotaje por un lado y las reacciones moralizantes vacías y el conformismo burgués, por otro. Desde el punto de vista de Evola todo esto no es de extrañar: "la familia ha cesado desde hace tiempo de tener un significado superior y de estar cimentada por valores vivos de orden transcendente". El carácter orgánico y en cierto sentido heroico que ofrecía su unidad en otros tiempos se ha perdido, al igual que se ha desvanecido el último barniz residual de sacralidad. La familia moderna es para Evola una institución pequeño-burguesa, determinada por valores naturalistas, utilitarios, rutinarios, vulgares y en el mejor de los casos, sentimentales. La función fundamental de la familia, la procreación, se reduce hoy sencilla y groseramente a una continuidad de la sangre, no a la continuidad más esencial de un depósito espiritual e histórico y de una herencia de valores e ideales. "Por otra parte", se pregunta Evola, "¿cómo podría ser de otra forma si su jefe natural, el padre, es hoy en día casi un extraño, incluso físicamente, al estar preso del engranaje de la vida material de esta sociedad absurda? ¿Qué autoridad moral o espiritual puede revestir el padre si hoy es sólo una máquina de fabricar dinero?". Para colmo ahora esto mismo se puede decir también de la madre, convertida en otra máquina de fabricar dinero o en un individuo de vida frívola y mundana, incapaz en ambos casos de mejorar el clima interior de la familia y de ejercer sobre ella una influencia positiva. A la pérdida del prestigio paterno le sigue el distanciamiento o la rebeldía de los hijos y la ruptura, "cada día más nítida y brutal", entre las generaciones mayores y las jóvenes. Este corte de la continuidad espiritual entre las generaciones se ve agravado, además, por un ritmo de vida cada vez más rápido y desordenado.

La misma situación de derrumbamiento que se ve en la institución familiar afecta a la unión de hombre y mujer. Hoy se han hecho frecuentes en Occidente la sucesión frívola y atropellada de emparejamientos y de rupturas hasta el punto de que parece "una especie de prostitución o ayuntamiento libre legalizado". El matrimonio burgués –que tomaba sus bases de la concepción católica y puritana protestante del matrimonio– se ha venido abajo. Desde hace unas décadas esta convención burguesa "se ha estrellado contra la práctica corriente y contestataria del sexo libre" que reivindica la promiscuidad y "la superación de las inhibiciones y los tabúes represivos". Dentro de un marco igualmente naturalista y profano (el Occidente cristiano carece de modelos de matrimonio genuinamente sagrado) el péndulo se ha ido de un extremo a otro: de una visión del sexo pacata y atormentada a otra promiscua y burdelesca. El resultado es una de las características más llamativas de nuestro tiempo: el poder obsesivo y desequilibrado de los asuntos venéreos hasta el punto de que el sexo y cierto de tipo falsificado de mujer son los dos motivos dominantes de la sociedad actual. Como dice Evola, existe una especie de "intoxicación sexual crónica manifestada de mil maneras en la vida pública y las costumbres a través de un erotismo abstracto que lo impregna todo". En este clima se comercializan "espejismos de la sexualidad de masas" en forma de ídolos femeninos que son alimentados por la televisión, el cine, la prensa, las revistas ilustradas y el mundo del espectáculo y la moda. "La mayoría de estas mujeres 'fatales' de rasgos supuestamente fascinantes", señala Evola, "en realidad como personas tienen cualidades sexuales muy mediocres y decadentes, siendo su fondo existencial el de mujeres vulgares y neuróticas".

La pretendida 'liberación' sexual de nuestra época es, para el autor, una vulgar inversión. Señala Evola que habría verdadera liberación si se tomara conciencia de los aspectos auténticamente importantes del sexo, si se reaccionara contra las vulgaridades que obturan sus posibilidades más elevadas y si se tomara posición contra la fetichización de las relaciones interpersonales. Pero eso, evidentemente, no ocurre. Las verdaderas implicaciones de la presente 'liberación sexual' son para el autor muy otras: la entronización del "sexo disociado" que conduce "a una banalización y a un naturalismo de las relaciones entre hombre y mujer, a un materialismo y un inmoralismo expeditivo y fácil en un régimen donde faltan las condiciones más elementales para realizar experiencias sexuales de verdadero valor e intensidad". El sexo se convierte así en un sucedáneo más de los muchos que produce la vida moderna, usado como las drogas "para conseguir sensaciones exasperadas que ayuden a llenar el vacío de la existencia". Y esta conversión del sexo en sucedáneo dentro de una atmósfera de venerización abstracta y colectiva provoca una aguda despolarización de los sexos que convierte a la virilidad y la feminidad en sucedáneos también, descargándolas de la fuerza transcendente de la que cada una de ellas es portadora.

Como es lógico, en este clima general de disolución, la situación de las religiones es considerada igualmente lamentable. Para Evola un fenómeno típico de las fases terminales de una civilización es que "las religiones pierden su dimensión superior, se adormecen, se secularizan y dejan de cumplir su función original". Refiriéndose a la rama católica del cristianismo Evola señalaba en Gli uomini e le rovine, otro de sus libros, la lamentable falta de nivel de la que hoy se puede ser testigo: "el peso de las preocupaciones de carácter social y moralista es mucho mayor que el concedido a la vía sapiencial, la contemplación y la ascesis, puntos clave de toda forma superior de religiosidad. De hecho hoy las principales preocupaciones del catolicismo son un moralismo sexual pequeño-burgués y un paternalismo asistencial". Es entonces, con esta situación decadente de la religión regular, cuando aparece "un neo-espiritualismo evasivo, alienante, de compensación difusa, desarrollado fuera de las tradiciones regulares (incluso contra ellas) y sin la menor repercusión seria sobre la realidad". El uso bastardo que este neo-espiritualismo hace de ciertas doctrinas tradicionales de carácter interno lleva al descrédito de las mismas por la manera "deformada e ilegítima" en que por él son presentadas y propagadas.

Ante este clima general, todo esfuerzo de oposición frontal a las tendencias de la época es considerado inútil. Evola rechaza resueltamente la opción que consistiría en "apoyarse sobre lo que sobrevive del mundo burgués y defenderlo y tomarlo como base frente a las corrientes actuales de disolución y subversión más violentas, tras haber intentado reanimar esos restos con la ayuda de algunos valores más altos". Los valores burgueses, en realidad, son productos decadentes que para Evola no tienen mayor valor. La actitud existencial que preconiza será esa que el viejo adagio oriental denomina cabalgar el tigre. "Cuando un ciclo de civilización toca a su fin", escribe Evola, "es difícil obtener un resultado positivo oponiéndose directamente a las fuerzas en movimiento. La corriente es demasiado fuerte y uno sería arrastrado por ella. Lo esencial es no dejarse impresionar por la aparente omnipotencia de las fuerzas disolutorias de la época. Privadas de lazo con todo principio superior, estas fuerzas tienen, en realidad, un campo de acción limitado. Es preciso, pues, no dejarse hipnotizar por el presente ni por lo que nos rodea y contemplar las condiciones susceptibles de aparecer más tarde. La regla a seguir consistirá en dejar libre curso a las fuerzas de la época, permaneciendo firmes y dispuestos a actuar cuando el tigre, que no puede abalanzarse sobre quien lo cabalga, esté fatigado de correr". Se abandona, por tanto, la acción directa y se retira uno hacia posiciones más interiores.

Frente a la situación actual, sin embargo, no caben para Evola ni la desesperación ni el derrotismo. El Hombre diferenciado sabe que "cuando un ciclo termina, otro comienza, y el punto culminante del proceso disolutorio es también aquel en el cual se origina el enderezamiento en la dirección opuesta". Para un Hombre amante de la Transcendencia, dice Evola, el mundo actual resulta amargo y problemático, pero él sabe que no está aquí ni por un azar despiadado al que ha de resignarse con fe o con fatalismo, ni para librar una carrera de resistencia a fondo perdido. A ese tipo humano le corresponde la misión de velar en medio de la noche, en medio de las ruinas, y conservar la memoria de toda una herencia civilizatoria para que la continuidad con el pasado no se rompa. La vida es para él, en consecuencia, una aventura de importancia capital, cargada de sentido.

Evola señala, en fin, la esterilidad del 'mito de Oriente' en nuestras presentes circunstancias. "Entre quienes han reconocido la crisis del mundo moderno y han renunciado también a considerar a la civilización moderna como la civilización por excelencia, como el apogeo y la medida de cualquier otra, hay quienes han vuelto su mirada a Oriente, ya que allí ven subsistir una orientación tradicional y espiritual que desde hace tiempo ha dejado de ser en Occidente la base de organización efectiva de los diversos dominios de la existencia. Se han preguntado incluso si no podrían encontrar en Oriente puntos de referencia útiles para la reintegración de Occidente". Evola considera que si la mirada occidental al Oriente persigue contactos intelectuales y doctrinales esa búsqueda es legítima, aunque "al menos en parte podríamos encontrar ejemplos y referencias claras en nuestro propio pasado sin necesidad de recurrir a una civilización no occidental". Pero si lo que se persigue es la adopción de un marco existencial oriental "uno no puede hacerse ilusiones: Oriente sigue ahora la senda de degradación que nosotros hemos tardado varios siglos en recorrer. El 'mito de Oriente', fuera de los círculos minoritarios y aislados de quienes cultivan las disciplinas metafísicas, es por tanto falaz. El desierto crece y no hay ninguna otra civilización que pueda servirnos de apoyo. Debemos afrontar solos nuestros problemas".

En realidad, el autor insiste en una posibilidad que justifica el esfuerzo de mantener una perspectiva netamente occidental. Es el hecho de que si la fase final de la edad oscura ha arrancado antes entre nosotros, también podemos ser nosotros los primeros en superarla. Las demás civilizaciones han entrado en esta corriente más tardíamente y podrían hallarse en lo más agudo del proceso disolutorio cuando Occidente rebase el límite negativo y empiece a remontar. Nuestra civilización estaría, en ese caso, "cualificada para una nueva función de guía, muy diferente de la que ha realizado en el pasado con la civilización tecno-industrial y materialista, entonces ya periclitada, y cuyo único resultado ha sido la decadencia espiritual generalizada".

NOTAS
[i] Marguerite Yourcenar: El Tiempo, gran escultor, Madrid, Alfaguara, 1989.
[ii] César Martínez: "Metafísica del sexo de Julius Evola", Axis Mundi II, nº5, 1998.
[iii] Adolfo Morganti: "Julius Evola y el mundo budista italiano", en Julius Evola: La doctrina del despertar. El budismo y su finalidad práctica, Grijalbo, México DF, 1998.
[iv] Julius Evola: Cabalgar el tigre, Barcelona, Nuevo Arte Thor, 1987.

Métaphysique du sexe

Métaphysique du sexe

Ex: http://lagrandetouriste.blogspot.com

 

Né en 1898, mort en 1974, le baron Julius Evola était un penseur traditionnaliste. Qu'est-ce que la Tradition? Dans le monde indo-européen, c'est, entre autres héritages, une organisation sociale selon trois fonctions  ̶  religieuse, guerrière et économique. Mise en évidence par le philologue Georges Dumézil, ce sont, par exemple, les tripartitions Brahmanes/Kshatriyas/Vaisyas en Inde, Clergé/Noblesse/Tiers-État dans la France pré-révolutionnaire. De par sa naissance et sa conformation intérieure, Julius Evola se rattachait à l'ordre des guerriers. En ces temps troublés qui sont les nôtres, ses ouvrages sont donc à ranger dans toute bibliothèque dissidente qui se respecte.

Celui qui nous intéresse aujourd'hui s'intitule "Métaphysique du Sexe". Qu'est-ce que la métaphysique? Evola donne deux acceptions. La première est la définition philosophique courante: on appelle métaphysique la « recherche des principes et des significations ultimes ». La deuxième est étymologique: du grec μετά ("après", "au-delà de"), c'est la « science de ce qui est au-delà du physique ». Au sujet des sexes et des relations entre les sexes, Evola affirme que seule la métaphysique a quelque chose de valable à dire: « Que dans toute expérience intense de l'eros un rythme différent s'établisse, qu'un courant différent investisse et transporte, ou bien suspende, les facultés ordinaires de l'individu humain, que se produisent des ouvertures sur un monde autre   ̶  c'est ce qu'on a su ou pressenti depuis toujours. »

 

« Lorsque nous indiquerons les significations les plus profondes qui se cachent dans l'amour en général et même dans l'acte brutal qui l'exprime et l'accomplit  ̶  cet acte où « se forme un être multiple et monstrueux », où l'on dirait qu'homme et femme « cherchent à humilier, à sacrifier tout ce qu'il y a de beau en eux » (Barbusse), la plupart des lecteurs, peut-être, ne se reconnaîtra pas dans tout cela et pensera qu'il ne s'agit là que d'interprétations toutes personnelles, imaginaires et arbitraires, abstruses et "hermétiques". »

De même que la manipulation des formes géométriques pures permet l'édification d'architectures solides, il ne peut y avoir de science de l'homme sans idée de l'homme: une sexologie fondée sur le darwinisme est donc nulle et non avenue. « A une époque où il parait approprié (…) d'écrire Sélection Naturelle avec la majuscule, comme on le faisait pour le nom de Dieu », Evola affirme au contraire que le supérieur ne peut naître de l'inférieur. L'homme ne dérive pas du singe par évolution; c'est le singe qui dérive de l'homme, par involution. Evola tient pour exact ce qui fut pressenti par certains scientifiques non-alignés (Kohlbrugge, Marconi, Dacqué, etc.), à savoir que les espèces animales seraient des « spécialisations dégénératives de possibilités comprises dans l'homme ». L'ontogénèse ne répète pas la phylogénèse: l'embryon humain passe outre là où plantes et animaux s'arrêtent, parce qu'il est appelé à un développement supérieur. Par conséquent, rien ne saurait être dit sur la sexualité de l'homme qui ne tienne compte de sa destinée particulière: « Nous n'envisagerons pas la sexualité humaine comme un prolongement de la sexualité animale ; nous envisagerons au contraire  ̶  et nous dirons pourquoi  ̶  la sexualité animale  ̶  en elle-même, chez les bêtes et telle qu'elle se présente aussi, éventuellement, chez l'homme  ̶  comme la chute et la régression d'une impulsion qui n'appartient pas à la sphère biologique. »

De sorte que la reproduction, si elle est une conséquence de la sexualité couramment observée, n'en constitue pas pour autant le but. A la suite du poète russe Vladimir Soloviev, Evola remarque que de nombreux organismes se multiplient de manière asexuelle, et que le fait sexuel n'intervient que dans la reproduction des organismes complexes. En outre, « plus nous montons haut dans l'échelle des organismes, plus la puissance de multiplication s'amoindrit, tandis qu'au contraire augmente la force de l'inclination sexuelle… Enfin, chez l'être humain, la multiplication se fait beaucoup moins que dans tout le règne animal, alors que l'amour sexuel atteint l'importance et l'intensité les plus grandes. » (Soloviev) Evola mentionne aussi le baiser, que l'espèce n'exige en rien pour se multiplier, et qui est pourtant érotiquement nécessaire. (Les amants des peuples qui ne connaissent pas le baiser ont d'autres pratiques, comme le fait de se toucher les fronts, qui permettent pareillement le "mélange des souffles".)

Le "principe de plaisir" énoncé par Sigmund Freud, père de la psychanalyse, ne convient pas mieux à une métaphysique du sexe. Misérablement compensé par le "principe de réalité", il est pour Evola symptomatique d'une époque où la sexualité est ravalée au rang d'opium des masses, et où ses potentialités subtiles sont presque systématiquement avortées, faute d'avoir conservé les connaissances traditionnelles qui s'y rapportaient. De quel plaisir est-il question, quand le simple contact mutuel des mains suffit à électriser les amants? "Dans la "normalité" de l'eros, il n'y a pas l'"idée" du plaisir en tant que motivation déterminante ", écrit Evola. "Il y a la pulsion qui, éveillée dans certaines circonstances par la polarité sexuelle en tant que telle, provoque à elle seule un état d'ivresse jusqu'à la crise du "plaisir" ».

Le terme de "polarité sexuelle" est central: il signifie que le masculin et le féminin sont à l'eros ce que le Nord et le Sud sont au champ magnétique terrestre. Selon la philosophie chinoise, il suffit même que deux individus de sexe opposé soit placés l'un à côté de l'autre, sans contact corporel, pour que s'éveille cette énergie spéciale appelée "tsing", dont l'intensité varie en fonction des degrés de "yin" et de "yang" présents en chacun d'eux. En Islam, la très stricte séparation des sexes est réputée porter cette tension à son maximum. De manière générale, pour l'ensemble des tenants de la Tradition, la différence des sexes n'est pas un constat mais un axiome. Une anthropologie fondée sur l'observation est sans valeur, puisque rien d'absolu n'est observable. A celle-ci, Evola oppose non pas la "déconstruction de genre" chère aux progressistes, mais un savoir primordial, fondé sur les principes.

 

Le caractère "fluidique", "magique" de l'attraction des sexes est comme la lettre volée d'Edgar Poe: invisible parce qu'évident. Les écrivains en témoignent mieux que les psychiatres. Evola reprend l'image de la "cristallisation" formulée par Stendhal: comme les branches des arbres se couvrent de cristaux dans les régions salines de Salzbourg, le désir de l'amant cristallise autour de l'aimée comme un halo d'extraordinaireté, propre à induire cet état de fascination qui est le pré-requis du « traumatisme de l'étreinte ». C'est ainsi qu'en toute inconscience, les amants mettent en œuvre des techniques spirituelles. Dans son Liber de arte amandi, daté du XIIème siècle, le clerc André Le Châpelain a défini l'amour comme une « agonie due à une méditation extrême sur une personne de sexe opposé ».

Pour Evola, comme pour Aristophane dans Le Banquet de Platon, l'eros est une vocation divine inscrite à même le corps, qui n'est d'abord sensible que comme dépossession de soi. De cette vocation, le sexe anatomique constitue le signe. A ce titre, l'Androgyne figure à la fois le but et l'obstacle: coïncidence miraculeuse des opposés, point de jonction des parallèles à l'horizon, il est la solution de l'énigme des tristesses post-coïtales. Abaissé au rang d'idéal consumériste, l'Androgyne perd sa signification, mais non pas son pouvoir. Ce n'est certes pas un hasard s'il figurait en bonne place dans la symbolique alchimiste, et sur le sceau du théologien Pierre Abélard, dont la liaison passionnée avec l'abbesse Héloïse d'Argenteuil, au XII siècle également, compte parmi les grandes amours de l'Histoire.

"Métaphysique du sexe" est un ouvrage extrêmement dense, qui éclaire quantité de mythes, de hiérogamies, et de rituels archaïques tels que la prostitution sacrée, les orgies saisonnières, le mariage hétérosexuel. Julius Evola y fait l'exégèse des plus rebattus des lieux communs de l'amour ("Je t'ai dans la peau", etc.) et de ses métaphores les plus persistantes: le cœur, la foudre, la mort. En passant, il évoque une tradition issue de la chevalerie médiévale nommée Amour Courtois, dont la branche ésotérique, qui n'est pas sans lien avec les Templiers, a fourni à la littérature européenne quelques-uns de ses plus magistraux chefs-d'œuvre. Plus près de nous, il n'est pas anodin que l'artiste catholique Jean-Louis Costes, qui se qualifie lui-même de « Christophe Colomb du cul », ait été rattaché à cette tradition par certains commentateurs.

Il y aurait encore beaucoup à dire sur ce livre, et sur ses limites. Nous nous en tiendrons à cette brève introduction, et souhaitons qu'elle contribue à l'effort de guerre...

De la culture grecque aux appels à moderniser le Coran

LETTRE A MES AMIS MUSULMANS

 

De la culture grecque aux appels à moderniser le Coran

Michel Lhomme*

Ex: http://metamag.fr

Le Coran européen ? Pour discuter avec l'Islam, il faut d'abord reconnaître la nature sacrée de son texte. Nous le reconnaissons. Pour discuter maintenant de manière critique le Coran, faudrait-il reconnaître que le texte coranique a été simplement inspiré au Prophète (PSL-la Paix sur Lui, comme la Tradition l'impose) et que ce n’est pas Dieu qui a donné le texte mais que ce sont les hommes qui ont donné le texte. Nous ne le croyons pas nécessaire. Néanmoins, si le Coran est d’essence divine, en revanche, sa formulation, son interprétation est l’œuvre d’humains marqués par toutes sortes d'influences mais surtout et avant tout par l’influence de la culture grecque. Le Coran à ce titre est aussi européen.

Le Coran est-il divin ?

On connaît la flèche empoisonnée qui, vous est souvent adressé, ô mes amis ! Le Prophète n'était qu'un illettré, il ne pouvait pas rédiger un texte d’une telle facture. Ne vous sentez pas obligés de batailler sur le même terrain et de reconnaître que le Prophète n’était pas un illettré, argumentant qu’en outre, il était entouré d’hommes de science et d’historiens qui auraient contribué à la composition du texte. Nous posons ici indirectement la question du problème de la traduction théologique commune de « nabiyumummiyum » par « prophète illettré » au lieu de « prophète de la communauté », de la  « Oumma » comme le sens pourtant y invite.

Au cœur de la question de la modernisation du Coran

La question est celle de savoir si le Coran a été révélé au Prophète (PSL) dans sa formulation actuelle sans que ce dernier n’ait eu à ajouter ou à retrancher  le moindre mot ou si le Coran est plutôt le récit humain d’un message divin. Autrement dit, si le Coran est la Révélation ou un texte inspiré de Dieu mais composé par des hommes. Avant de nous prononcer sur cette question en soi difficile, il nous semble nécessaire de nous pencher sur quelques problèmes et justement celui des similitudes entre le Coran et la culture grecque.

Les similitudes de ce que dit Mahomet (PSL) avec un certain platonisme nous ont toujours frappés. Elles pourraient signifier que le texte sacré a été rédigé par des hommes et la communauté exilée et authentifiée des platoniciens de Médine. Or, il nous faut partir du principe que le Coran est la parole de Dieu, révélée dans son sens comme dans son libellé exact par l’intermédiaire de l’ange Gabriel. Dès lors, comment son intégrité a-t-elle pu être préservée jusqu’à nos jours ? Retournons à la lettre du texte coranique puisqu'il nous prescrit que «Si vous divergez sur quelque chose entre vous, revenez à Allah et à Son Messager, si vous croyez en Allah et au Jour Dernier. Cela est meilleur et plus convenable comme résolution finale" (Sourate 4, verset 59). Depuis l’aube des temps, on peut admettre que Dieu  s’est  toujours adressé aux peuples  à travers leur  langue. Dans la sourate 41 (versets 2 et 3), il dit ceci à propos du Coran : « C’est une révélation descendue de la part du Tout Miséricordieux, du Très Miséricordieux  (...)  Un livre dont les versets sont détaillés et clairement exposés, un Coran arabe pour des gens qui savent ». La langue est un moyen de communication autant qu’un support culturel, il est tout à fait compréhensible que, du message transmis, transparaissent des traits culturels du peuple qui l’a reçu en premier lieu. Certes, le message coranique est destiné à l’univers tout entier, mais Dieu a choisi de s’adresser directement au peuple arabe du 7ème siècle  en utilisant sa langue et  donc quelques aspects de ses fondements socio-culturels. C’était pour lui le meilleur moyen de faire comprendre le message à un peuple qui devait ensuite s’acquitter de la délicate mission de le diffuser à travers le monde. Les similitudes entre le Coran et la culture grecque ne signifient donc pas que le texte coranique porte l’empreinte de l’homme. C’est d’ailleurs pour donner des gages de l’origine divine des versets du Coran que  Dieu a délibérément choisi, pour porter son message, un homme qui, jusque-là, ne savait ni lire, ni écrire. Ainsi, à notre question première de savoir si le message coranique puisse être porté par un illettré, le Coran nous apprend que c’était précisément le meilleur moyen d’écarter les doutes sur l’identité de l’auteur des versets. A la sourate 29 (verset 48), il est dit en effet que « Avant cela, tu ne lisais pas de livre, ni n’écrivais de ta main droite, car autrement, ceux qui nient la vérité auraient émis des doutes ». 

Dans le rapport critique que certains ont à l'égard de l'Islam, ils ne prennent jamais en compte l’exacte mesure de la dimension divine dans le processus de la révélation. En s’interrogeant sur la pertinence du choix porté sur un illettré pour accomplir une mission prophétique, les critiques modernes de l'Islam brandissent un argument qui ressemble étrangement à celui que les notables mecquois opposaient au Prophète (PSL) lorsqu’ils lui disaient : « Pourquoi n’a-t-on pas fait descendre le Coran sur une haute personnalité de l’une des deux villes [La Mecque et Taîf]? » (Sourate 43 verset 31). En vérité, l’aptitude à recevoir  un message de cette nature, à l’assimiler et à mener à bien la mission prophétique ne tient absolument pas au statut d’intellectuel ou à celui de supposé « inculte ». Celui qui, du néant, a créé les Cieux et la Terre, qui « fait sortir le vivant du mort et le mort du vivant » (Sourate 3 verset 27) n’est-il pas en mesure de faire d’un illettré, le dirigeant, le meneur d’hommes à la dimension exceptionnelle que fut le prophète Muhammad (PSL) ? Comme nous le rappelle le Coran, il  est important de garder à l’esprit qu’en définitive, Dieu « sait mieux que quiconque où placer son message » (sourate 6 verset 124) et  quand IL décide de porter  son choix sur quelqu’un, IL  le dote des qualités et vertus  requises  pour être à la hauteur de la mission. En témoigne le verset suivant par lequel Allah apaise les  inquiétudes du Prophète (PSL) sur sa capacité à retenir le message. « Nous te ferons réciter le Coran de sorte que tu n’oublieras pas – sauf ce qu’Allah aura voulu » (Sourate 87 versets 6et 7). 

Il est donc clair que, pas plus que l’un quelconque de ses compagnons, le Prophète (PSL) ne pouvait composer le texte coranique. D’ailleurs, il faut relever que, dès le début de la Révélation, certains n’avaient pas manqué d’attribuer à des savants tapis dans l’ombre, le mérite d’avoir composé le texte coranique au profit du Prophète (PSL). La réponse  était alors venue d'Allah lui-même : « Si vous avez des doutes sur ce que nous avons révélé à notre serviteur, tâchez donc de produire une sourate semblable et appelez vos témoins que vous adorez en dehors d’Allah, si vous êtes véridiques. Si vous n’y parvenez pas, et à coup sûr, vous n’y parviendrez jamais, prenez garde au feu qu’alimenteront les hommes et les pierres, lequel est réservé aux infidèles ». (Sourate 2 verset 23). Au regard de ces considérations, il ne fait aucun doute que le Coran est, dans son essence comme dans sa formulation, une œuvre exclusivement divine. Mais s’il en est ainsi, comment un texte aussi long (plus de 6 000 versets) a-t-il pu être préservé jusqu’à nos jours ? 

Comment l’intégrité du texte coranique a-t-elle pu être préservée ? 

Pour préserver l’intégrité du texte que lui dictait l’ange Gabriel, le Prophète (PSL) devait le mémoriser avant de le  faire transcrire par ses scribes. C’est précisément pour s’acquitter convenablement de cette noble tâche qu’il  se montrait particulièrement pressé de retenir les passages qui lui étaient révélés. Dieu a  tenu à le rassurer  en lui disant ceci : « Ne remue pas ta langue dans ton impatience de réciter le Coran. C’est à Nous, en vérité, qu’incombent son assemblage et sa récitation. Quand Nous lirons, suis-en la lecture. A Nous, ensuite de l’exposer  clairement » (Sourate 75 versets 16 à 19). C’est cet exercice de mémorisation, auquel le Prophète (PSL) avait également astreint  bon nombre de ses compagnons, qui a permis de sauvegarder, aux premières  heures de la révélation, le texte coranique. Par ailleurs, il est  important de préciser que la révélation s’est poursuivie  sur une durée de 23 ans. Or, le Coran étant composé de 6600 versets environ, un simple calcul arithmétique permet de se rendre compte que,  grâce à ce caractère graduel de la révélation, le Prophète (PSL) et ses compagnons n’ont eu à mémoriser, en moyenne, qu’un verset par jour. En dotant le Prophète (PSL) d’une grande capacité de mémorisation et en procédant à  une révélation graduelle du Coran, Dieu avait ainsi réuni les conditions objectives de la préservation du texte sacré, comme il s’y est, du reste, engagé dans le verset 9 de la sourate 15 : « En vérité, c’est Nous qui avons fait descendre le Coran et c’est Nous qui en sommes le gardien ». C’est, incontestablement,  une marque de la Sagesse et de l’Omnipotence de Dieu que d’avoir ainsi permis de rendre  relativement facile une tâche qui pouvait paraître, à priori, insurmontable.

La valeur de l’islam 

Dans le monde d’aujourd’hui, l’islam est la religion mondiale qui résiste le plus activement à la force du mondialisme. Pour nous, l'Islam n'a donc pas du tout à s'illuminer, à s'éclairer, à se moderniser autrement dit à se séculariser, à s'individualiser. L'Islam est le front vivant, le cœur actif du traditionalisme. Dans son adresse à Marcel Gauchet, Coralie Delaume évoque l'islamo-fascisme, le ''fascisme vert''. Il importe de rappeler que cette réduction de l'Islam, reductio ad hitlerum classique contre toute pensée dissidente - et l'Islam est une pensée dissidente de la modernité -  a d'abord été professée par l’idéologue de la « Fin de l’Histoire » Francis Fukuyama. C'est lui qui, avec Huntington a tenté d’introduire ce terme d’ « islamo-fascisme » pour mieux discréditer la foi et la civilisation musulmane. Si l'Islam est maintenant au banc des accusés, c'est qu'il est avec l'orthodoxie le dernier champ de bataille de la modernité, de cette postmodernité que nous exécrons jusqu'aux tripes. Cela suffit pour déterminer pour nous la valeur et l’importance de l’Islam.

La question qu'on ne manquera pas de nous poser à nous, philosophes occidentaux est celle de savoir si l'on peut aborder le contenu du livre saint de la religion musulmane avec l'esprit critique dont on use depuis la Réforme dans le cadre  biblique ? Nous disons oui mais attention, il ne s'agit en aucune façon de moderniser l'Islam, de le séculariser. C'est le Coran à la lettre que nous exigeons car justement, c'est ce Coran à la lettre qui peut récuser le Coran des Purs (celui des salafistes, des wahabites, des tafkirites), ce Coran intégriste et fondamentaliste qui souhaiterait prendre la place de l'Islam traditionnel comme les évangélistes, les mouvements pentecôtistes ont dans l'Eglise catholique réussi à dénaturer le message évangélique communautariste pour n'en faire qu'un discours individualiste et moralisateur, libéral et économique.

Deux dangers vous menacent 

Le premier, c'est de vouloir céder à l'inclination « politiquement correcte » d'une époque tellement hantée par le choc des civilisations que certains islamologues et imams en viennent à vouloir étouffer la réalité traditionnelle du texte coranique pour masquer les divergences fondamentales non pas de l'Islam mais des Islams. Partant, même si la discussion des dogmes s'apparente à une démarche offensante, vous ne devez céder en rien. Ainsi, j'ai entendu un musulman qui, étant attaqué sur la question stupide de savoir si Mahomet (PSL) respectait vraiment les femmes, répondre « Oui, puisqu'il en a eu de nombreuses ! ». Ne commettez pas cette erreur. C'est le piège de l'empathie. Vous y perdrez votre Coran sacré.

Le deuxième danger, c'est l'islamophobie présente : dépeindre l'Islam sous des traits négatifs et politiques. La connaissance critique en vient alors à succomber sous une avalanche de discours nauséeux qui dénoncent à brûle pourpoint les effets sociaux pervers de la religion de Mahomet (PSL) (voir les positions du philosophe Rémy Brague ). Elle se nourrit des exactions politiques ou comme disait Baudrillard de l'exorcisme politique. C'est le prisme de la diatribe philosophique dite éclairée qui depuis 1789 n'a cherché qu'à dissoudre les liens communautaires pour établir le règne illimité du capital et du matérialisme. 

Certes, il serait évidemment grand temps de revenir à la Raison, à l'étude, à la réflexion au-dessus de l'opinion et de la passion anti cléricale et anti religieuse. Mais pour cela, il nous faudrait ensemble et philosophiquement dans l'exégèse restituer les concepts de consonance arabe à leur naissance, dans leur généalogie et leurs évolutions, ces concepts que quotidiennement on voit pourtant malmener, vilipender à la radio et même dans les derniers titres commerciaux de médiocre écrivain nihiliste. J'ai peu de place. Mais prenons par exemple le mot « sharia », terme si couramment évoqué et que nous traduisons par « loi religieuse ». La « sharia » occupe dans les sociétés arabo-musulmanes une place inversement proportionnelle à celle qu'elle tient dans le Coran. Vous savez comme moi que le livre sacré contient 500 versets normatifs sur un total de 6300. Ensuite, si on se penche d'un peu plus près sur ces versets normatifs, on découvre que ces normes représentent un ensemble hétéroclite, une voie pratique faite d'actes obligatoires, recommandés, permis, blâmables ou interdits. On est bien loin du code de châtiments ou de mutilations qui  ravageraient les Purs ou ses ennemis. La sharia n'intègre pas la totalité des actes humains.

Pour répondre par avance aux critiques

Ill est vrai qu'il y a dans le texte coranique une stratification de l'humanité au regard de la sharia. Au sommet de l'espèce humaine figurent les messagers et les prophètes, puis les « adamiens », entendez les hommes mâles et non femelles musulmans de condition libre, enfin les « adamiens » sans foi ni loi, c'est-à-dire, moi, le chrétien  et le païen. De droit, tuer un païen n'entraîne aucune poursuite judiciaire; réduire une païenne en esclavage n'est pas réprouvé. L'esclavagisme sans ces textes n'aurait en effet jamais pu connaître une telle fortune dans les sociétés musulmanes d'hier comme parfois d'aujourd'hui. C'est tout le Coran, alternance de paroles de tolérance et de propos d'une dureté inouïe. Mais reconnaissons que la Bible ne vaut pas mieux. On y massacre et mutile à tour de bras.

De plus, il n'y a pas un Islam mais des Islams. Il y a le chiisme, le sunnisme, le At-tassavuf et entre tout cela, une question qui me préoccupe personnellement le culte des saints, la question ésotérique, la pensée traditionnelle, l'eschatologie, le sens théologique de l'Histoire, la venue du Mahdi. Ne faites donc pas de l'Islam une grande parodie, un « Self Islam », un Islam de Self-Service, un Islam  anglicisé et indianisé. un Islam de l'autonomie du Sujet ou du Soi, l'Islam  d'Abdennour Bidar, membre de l'Observatoire de la laïcité. L'Islam ne peut se délier du Coran et de la commaunauté, de l'oumma.  Ne vous abaissez pas aux modernes mais au contraire soulignez les valeurs radicales de la Tradition, valeurs qui demeurent incompatibles avec la modernité et la postmodernité, avec la Gay Pride, les jupes courtes, avec l'athéisme d'Etat, l'immoralité et l'obscénité de leur matérialisme marchand. Si nous avions commencé au début par souligner dans le domaine intellectuel, les similarités de l'Islam avec un certain néo-platonisme, c'est que cela devrait nous conduire à approfondir ensemble la critique de la modernité car il va de soi et j'insiste que si vous êtes la Tradition, vous ne représentez pas la Tradition à vous tout seul. Vous savez comme moi qu'Allah lorsqu'il est en colère contre les mécréants, ne trouve rien de mieux que de leur lancer : « Soyez des singes abjects ! ». J'ai toujours savouré dans l'Islam cette hauteur comme la définition du Soleil qui est de genre féminin en arabe et qui forme couple avec la Lune, de genre masculin, deux astres fascinants que Mahomet (PSL) voyait « au service des Humains » mais interdisait de vénérer. C'est vrai nous n'avons pas les mêmes cultes mais nous avons les mêmes combats : redresser le champ de ruines spirituel et moral que nous a légué la modernité. Et pour le faire, il faut aussi vous dire - et la manipulation de masse Charlie en est une saisissante et terrifiante illustration - que cette modernisation que l'on vous enjoint d'adhérer a fini en réalité par tuer l’individu réellement libre, de l’Ancien Monde, du  monde des Grecs. En voulant émanciper l’individu, regardez comme ils l'ont asservi en le déracinant par l'anomie et la névrose sociale, le développement du marché et la dépendance à la consommation. Regardez vos quartiers difficiles ? Non seulement on vous a arraché à votre terre pour nous appauvrir mais on a voulu vous arracher ensuite par la laïcité à votre culture, à votre langue. Vous avez été les cobayes du grand remplacement et l'on ose aujourd'hui vous désigner comme les brebis expiatoires de leurs échecs. Sors tes papiers et sois Charlie !... Il est d’ailleurs amusant de constater que le plus grand grief que l'on vous fait, plus grave encore que les attentats que vous projetez ou commettez, c’est « le rejet du mode de vie occidental ». Horreur ! En effet, peut-on imaginer plus atroce blasphème ?

* Notre collaborateur, Michel Lhomme est enseignant, philosophe, ancien professeur de Théologie à la faculté de Théologie de Lima, diplômé d'arabe littéraire (Paris 3 - Censier). Il a vécu de nombreuses années en terres musulmanes. 

 

Odin, Buddha, Pan & Darwin

Peter Bickenbach: Odin, Buddha, Pan & Darwin – eine Rezension

Ellen Kositza

Ex: http://www.sezession.de

(Rezension aus Sezession 63 / Dezember 2014)

Peter Bickenbach setzt sich aus christlicher Perspektive mit dem sogenannten Neuheidentum auseinander. Per aspera ad astra: Darum das Bedauerliche an diesem Buch zuerst. Aus christlicher Sicht ist der Neo-Paganismus (der in seinen modischsten Erscheinungsformen sich gern schwarzgewandet präsentiert) ein Obskurantentum, eine düster-magische Geschichte, auch wenn »Lichtgottheiten« dort als Rollenträger (unter anderen) fungieren. Nun kommt das Buch selbst reichlich verschleiert daher:

Der verrätselte Titel an sich (in Lila) verrät wenig, er verschwindet auch optisch im Braun des Untergrunds. Wir finden auch keinen Hinweis zum Autoren – ist er Sozialwissenschaftler, Theologe oder »interessierter Zeitgenosse«? Wir erfahren es nicht; und wenn eine Fußnote besonders interessant erscheint, finden wir über Strecken »Ebenda« und müssen blättern. Da ein Literaturverzeichnis fehlt, bleibt uns, gewissermaßen abgedunkelt zu lesen. Das macht dann nicht viel, wenn man erkennt: Es ist keine Publikation für eine breite Leserschaft, sondern für eine enger gefaßte »Szene«. Wir dürfen diese als jungkonservatives Milieu begreifen. In diesem Rahmen hat Bickenbachs Buch seine Meriten.

Bickenbach wendet sich implizit an ein »anti-modernes« Publikum, an Leser, die mit dem Fortschrittsglauben hadern, die sich auf einem Weg jenseits materialistischer Vorstellungen sehen, die ein Heil jenseits der sichtbaren Welt erahnen. »Anlaß dieses Buches waren Begegnungen und Gespräche mit Menschen, die kein lebendiges Christentum erfuhren und die Kirchengeschichte nur aus zeitgenössischen Darstellungen kennen«, schreibt Bickenbach. Nach seiner Einschätzung orientierten sich »auf der politisch rechten Seite« die meisten Anhänger an einem »Germanentum«, wobei sich esoterische und radikal-biologische Standpunkte unterscheiden ließen. In drei untergliederten Großkapiteln (»Geschichte und Selbstverständnis der Neuheiden«, »Die Deutung von Brauchtum und Überlieferung« und »Postmoderne Religiosität«) sortiert der Autor sein Arsenal gegen jene, die gegen die »orientalische Wüstenreligion«, die »seelische Verknechtung« und den »Identitätsraub« und den vorgeblichen »Völkermord« durch das Christentum polemisieren.

Erst die zeitgenössische verunklarende Verkündigungspraxis, die statt der eigentlichen Offenbarung die angeblichen Ansprüche »moderner Scheinwerte« in den Vordergrund gestellt habe, »konnte die Vorstellung nähren, das Christentum sei eine Religion der Schwachen, Zukurzgekommenen und Lebensuntüchtigen.« Bickenbach entlarvt – und er tut dies auch mit Hilfe »neo-paganer« Nenngrößen wie Julius Evola – das »lyrisch-subjektive Pathos«, das von Naturerscheinungen hervorgerufen werden kann; er hat auch seinen Nietzsche gründlich gelesen, wie er überhaupt neben gebotener Polarisierung eine Synthese anstrebt.

Das Christentum, das er meint, ist streitbar, tüchtig, kulturstiftend und heroisch. Nach Bickenbach verdankt die neuheidnische Kritik am Christentum dem liberalen Protestantismus ihre Beweggründe. Sie argumentiert selbst auf dem Boden einer relativistischen, individualistischen und eigentlich antitraditionellen Religionserfindung – es gibt keine »heidnische Überlieferung«. Der Autor zitiert aus umgedichtetem Liedgut: »O du fröhliche, o du ahnende / lichtverkündende Wintersonnwendzeit«, er verweist auf Parallelen linker und rechter Religionskritik. Die Neuheiden bekämpfen zugleich einen Pappkameraden, nämlich ein von langer Hand umgewertetes, verbogenes, »geupdatetes« Christentum.

Bickenbach begleitet beispielhaft den Glaubensweg des irrlichternden Gorch Fock, der als Sohn frommer Eltern erst Gott gegen Nietzsche verteidigte, dann zum »Germanengläubigen« wurde (»Mein Zion ist Walhall!«) und im Verlauf des Jahres 1915 bei seinen Einsätzen in Rußland, Serbien und Verdun Monate vor seinem Tod ringend zum Glauben seiner Väter zurückfand: »Den größten Segen des Krieges haben die erfahren, die sich von ihm zu Gott führen ließen.«

Peter Bickenbach: Odin, Buddha, Pan & Darwin, Neustadt a.d. Orla: Arnshaugk 2013. 274 S., 18 € – hier bestellen

Les courants de la Tradition païenne romaine en Italie

Renato del Ponte:

Ex : http://www.archiveseroe.eu/romanitas-a114141076

Les courants de la Tradition païenne romaine en Italie

 

Tout au long du XXe siècle, et, avant l’actuelle renaissance, avec le renouveau des premiers temps du Fascisme jusqu’aux Accords du Latran (11 février 1929), l’Italie a vu se manifester ce que le professeur Piero Di Vona a appelé, pour clarifier les choses, « le Traditionalisme romain ». Cet ensemble jusqu’il y a peu hétérogène, regroupant diverses personnalités, revues et tendances, n’est nullement monolithique ; il constitue plutôt une mouvance qui réussit à assumer différentes facettes d’un héritage ancien.

 

Cette mouvance, malgré son hétérogénéité sur les plans méthodologique et idéologique, se caractérise par la volonté de réactualiser le modèle spirituel, religieux et rituel du Paganisme romain, dont nous avons proposé ailleurs une définition plus précise : « la Voie romaine vers les Dieux ». Le courant traditionaliste considère cette voie comme une alternative permettant à l’État italien de se soustraire aux ingérences, aux abus politiques et moraux de l’Église catholique.

 

Nous ne parlerons pas ici de la préhistoire de ces courants pas plus que nous n’aborderons la question de leur éventuelle transmission directe depuis les lois liberticides des empereurs chrétiens Gratien et Théodose, entre 382 et 394, qui interrompirent jusqu’à nos jours la Pax Deorum. Nous renvoyons pour cela le lecteur à notre étude intitulée Le Mouvement traditionaliste romain au XXe siècle (1). Ce concept de Pax Deorum est essentiel, pourvu qu’il s’agisse du “pacte” ou du “contrat” établi aux origines entre les Dieux primordiaux (et tout particulièrement Jupiter Optimus Maximus, le Père du Ciel, ainsi que Janus, Mars et Vesta) et le peuple de Rome. Cette Pax, voulue par l’Augure-Roi Romulus et développée par Numa Pompilius, a fondé l’union indissoluble de la religion et de l’État romain, depuis le temps des Rois jusqu’à la chute de l’Empire.

 

Actuellement, les courants de la Tradition païenne romaine peuvent, en privé, pratiquer le Cultus Deorum, mais point le culte public, qui présupposerait la restauration de la Pax Deorum, coïncidant par ailleurs avec la restauration de l’État romain traditionnel. Ceci explique qu’une série de représentants ont tenté, tout au long de ce siècle, d’exercer une influence sur les plus hautes autorités de l’État italien, mais avec des résultats insuffisants.

 

Comme prédécesseur célèbre du courant traditionaliste romain, et d’un type culturel et idéaliste, on peut citer un courant de pensée de la fin de l’époque napoléonienne représenté par Vincenzo Cuoco, auteur d’un roman archéologique, Platon en Italie, et par Ugo Foscolo. Refus tant du cosmopolitisme des Lumières que des idées réactionnaires de la sainte Alliance, revendication d’une tradition spirituelle et civique autochtone remontant à l’Italie pré-romaine et se prolongeant jusqu’à la Renaissance (cf. le De antiquissima Italorum Sapientia de Gian Battista Vico) caractérisent ce courant qui réapparaît tout au long du Risorgimento (les pages de Gabriele Rossetti dans Le Mystère de l’amour platonique au Moyen Âge [1840] en constituent un autre sommet).

 

Au XXe siècle, certaines figures les plus éminentes de ce courant s’inspirent largement des tendances anticléricales et maçonniques du Risorgimento, tandis que d’autres s’en éloignent pour suivre des voies propres et originales. Cette diversification s’est conservée jusqu’à nos jours.

 

La référence au Risorgimento n’est pas fortuite parce que, selon les actuels représentants du courant, l’unité italienne est la condition indispensable pour la restauration de la Pax Deorum. Ceci pour « des raisons métahistoriques et métapolitiques, à savoir sacrées, fondée ab origine sur le rapport entre le sol et les épiphanies divines relatives aux religions des anciens habitants de l’Italie, c’est-à-dire sur le lus sacrum de Rome ». (2) Par-delà l’influence sur des poètes comme Giovanni Pascoli, la Voie romaine vers les Dieux aurait été préservée dans quelques familles nobles du Latium, les Colonna et les Caetani. Ce serait même un Caetani, selon une thèse controversée, «Ekatlos», qui aurait célébré un rite durant la Première Guerre mondiale, « mois après mois, nuit après nuit, sans arrêt ». Le rituel appelait les forces de la Guerre et de la Victoire, antiques et augustes figures de la race romaine, par le truchement d’un sceptre royal découvert dans une tombe de la Via Appia Antica…

 

Un archéologue célèbre tel que Giacomo Boni, qui découvrit en 1899 le Lapis niger sur le Forum romain et qui, en 1923, conçut le faisceau du licteur pour Mussolini, fut loin d’être insensible à la Voie romaine. Ainsi que le Ministre de l’Instruction publique de la fin du XIXe siècle, Guido Baccelli, qui disait : « l’idéal de notre siècle est le citoyen soldat, notre modèle, la Rome ancienne ». C’est toutefois avec Arturo Reghini (1878-1946) que la Voie romaine tend à devenir plus explicite, même s’il appartient au courant “orphico-pythagoricien”, marginal par rapport à la Tradition romaine proprement dite. Ce fut précisément autour des revues de Reghini, Atanor (1924), puis Ignis (1925), et enfin, après les ordonnances de Bodrero et les lois sur les sociétés secrètes, Ur (1927-1928) officiellement dirigée par Julius Evola, que se rassembleront tous ceux qui cherchaient à donner au régime un caractère néo-païen et romain. Mussolini éprouva quelque intérêt pour ce courant puisqu’il reçut, le 23 mai 1923, des représentants de la Voie romaine qui lui offrirent une hache étrusque archaïque liée comme un faisceau selon les prescriptions rituelles. Cet acte propitiatoire d’inspiration sacrée avait pour objectif manifeste de favoriser une restauration païenne, un retour à la Pax Deorum.

 

De même, le célèbre pamphlet de Julius Evola, Impérialisme païen (3), fut le dernier appel, tragique et sans équivoque, des représentants du courant romain avant le Concordat (1929), dans l’espoir que le Fascisme « assume la Romanité de façon intégrale en imprégnant toute la conscience nationale ». Il s’agissait pour la classe politique de « réaliser le point de vue sacré, spirituel, initiatique de la Tradition ». Il semble que cette prise de position critique (et farouchement antichrétienne, NDT) n’ait pas trop déplu à Mussolini, qui confia, en privé, à Yvonne de Begnac (Taccuini Mussoliniani, a cura di F. Perfetti, Bologna 1990, p. 647) : « Contrairement à ce que l’on pense généralement, je ne fus pas du tout fâché de la prise de position du Dr. Julius Evola quelques mois avant la Conciliation à l’encontre d’une paix, quelle qu’elle soit, entre le Saint-Siège et l’Italie ».

 

En effet, le 11 février 1929, le gouvernement fasciste signa au nom du Roi d’Italie le Concordat avec l’Église catholique. C’est alors que prit naissance ce monstrum juridique que constitue la Cité du Vatican. C’était la fin de tous les espoirs d’action au sein du régime pour Evola, Reghini et les autres représentants influents de la Voie païenne restés dans l’ombre. Restait le programme minimal indiqué par Evola dans Impérialisme païen : « promouvoir les études de critique historique, non point partisane, mais froide, chirurgicale, sur l’essence du Christianisme (…), promouvoir les études, la recherche et vulgariser l’aspect spirituel du Paganisme, sur la vraie vision du monde ». Conformément à ce programme minimal, Evola cherchera plus tard à publier les travaux de quelques-uns de ses collaborateurs, dans Diorama Filosofico, de manière irrégulière entre 1934 et 1943 dans la page culturelle du quotidien de Crémone, Il Regime Fascista de Roberto Farinacci.

 

Mythes et symboles de la tradition romaine seront étudiés sur le plan spirituel par Evola en personne, Giovanni Costa (auteur en 1923 d’une Apologie du Paganisme), Massimo Scaligero, du jeune Angelo Brelich (qui occupera après la guerre la chaire d’Histoire des Religions du Monde classique à l’Université de Rome), Guido De Giorgio, ainsi que par des collaborateurs étrangers comme Franz Altheim et Edmund Dodsworth. Mais ici, le discours est devenu purement culturel, ou, tout au plus, anthropologique : l’aspect religieux et spirituel manque et l’intérêt pour le rituel est inexistant.

 

Guido de Giorgio (1890-1957) avait tenté une difficile conciliation entre Voie romaine et Christianisme autour d’une notion “métaphysique” de Rome. On ne peut l’insérer dans le courant dont il est ici question. Mais il avait bien vu, dans sa Tradition romaine (conçue entre 1939 et 1942, mais publiée après sa mort, en 1973), que la guerre serait fatale pour l’esprit et le nom de Rome. En effet, la Voie romaine est restée longtemps occultée, jusqu’à la fin des années 60. Elle semble renaître, mais aux marges de certains courants de la droite radicale, d’abord au sein du Centre des Études d’Ordine Nuovo, puis, s’étant détachée de cette organisation, au sein du Groupe des Dioscures (1970), dont le siège principal était à Rome, mais avec des sections à Naples et Messine. On ignore à quel point ce groupe avait repris les pratiques opératives, magiques, déjà en usage dans le groupe “Ur” (1927-1929). Evola, qui disparut en 1974, était au courant de son activité. Le groupe publia quatre fascicules doctrinaux entre 1969 et 1973 : les Brochures des Dioscures.

 

L’une d’elles, L’assaut de la vraie culture, attribuée à un célèbre ésotériste, a été traduite en français par Philippe Baillet et publiée dans la revue Totalité en 1979 sous le sous-titre « Présent et avenir du traditionalisme intégral ». L’intérêt de ce groupe, dissout vers 1975, a été ce rattachement conscient aux précédentes expériences sapientielles. Il a indiqué à divers membres de ce que l’on appelait alors “droite radicale” (mais ce terme a aujourd’hui perdu une grande partie de son sens) des pistes possibles pour une Tradition païenne romaine en Italie.

 

Si le Groupe des Dioscures a disparu, en raison de la voie opérative choisie et surtout à cause du manque de qualifications de nombre de ses membres, quelques cénacles périphériques ont poursuivi leurs activités, de façon différente et novatrice. Ainsi faut-il citer le groupe de Messine, qui date de la fin des années 70 et, dans la même ville, le groupe “Arx”, par la suite éditeur de la revue trimestrielle La Cittadella (à partir de mars 1984) et des cahiers du même nom (4).

 

Au début des années 80, le courant romain renaît de manière consciente et explicite. La première manifestation publique a lieu en un endroit et à un moment très significatifs. En 1981, à Cortona, d’où, selon la tradition mythique, Dardanus, souche de la dynastie troyenne serait parti vers l’Asie Mineure, et le premier mars, jour qui marque le début de l’année sacrée romaine, eut liai un important congrès consacré à la Tradition italique et romaine. Malgré les prises de position diverses, cette rencontre eut le mérite de proposer l’Aurea Catena Saturni de la Tradition autochtone italique (5).

 

Un deuxième congrès a eu lieu peu après à Messine, en décembre 1981, sur le thème « Le Sacré chez Virgile » (textes publiés dans la revue Arthos de R. Del Ponte, NDT). À partir de ce moment, avec la publication de livres et de collections comprenant auteurs classiques et modernes ainsi que des ouvrages d’érudition, une nouvelle élaboration doctrinale et une redéfinition des concepts fondamentaux témoignent d’un approfondissement intérieur. De prudentes activités “extérieures” permettent au mouvement de s’étendre à travers toute l’Italie.

 

Ainsi, entre 1985 et 1988, trois rencontres ont pu être organisées : les Conventum Italicum I, II et III, qui ont rassemblé les trois principales branches de la Voie romaine. Les débats ont surtout porté sur les rituels, les concepts de monothéisme et de polythéisme, la préférence à apporter à la plus ancienne Tradition (Prisa Traditio) ou à la Tradition de la Rome tardive, mystérique et néoplatonicienne.

 

Enfin, une ligne d’action commune a été décidée afin de diffuser les idées du Mouvement Traditionaliste Romain (MTR), qui se définit lui-même non comme un mouvement politique, mais « comme l’expression sur le plan culturel de la Nation, Centre spirituel témoignant, en cette fin de deuxième millénaire de l’ère vulgaire, de la continuité, et de la présence vivante de l’antique Tradition romaine et italique ».

 

À la fin de 1988, une petite brochure anonyme a été publiée par le MTR : Sur le problème de la Tradition romaine de notre temps (6). Sous la forme d’un entretien, il est répondu aux principales questions et objections doctrinales et culturelles adressées au MTR. Diverses orientations sont fournies à qui veut participer à la vie du milieu traditionaliste romain en voie de constitution. Le mieux est d’en donner le sommaire :

• 1) Les composantes du MTR
• 2) Les équivoques du néo-paganisme
• 3) Esprit romain et monde chrétien
• 4) Sur la “légitimité” de la Tradition romaine
• 5) La Pietas romaine actuelle
• 6) Le rôle de la Femme
• 7) Les nouvelles communautés de destin (7)
• 8) Objectifs immédiats
• 9) Sur la tolérance religieuse
• 10) La Tradition romaine et la politique.

Enfin, lors du IVe et dernier Conventum Italicum, tenu au solstice d’été 1992 à Forli au siège de l’association Romania Quirites (puissante organisation fédérée au MTR, structurée de manière communautaire avec des zones agricoles et des activités artisanales en Romagne et qui publie la revue Saturnia Régna), il a été décidé que, à côté du MTR (fédération d’associations de fait et de droit), naîtrait la Curia Romana Patrum. Celle-ci a pour rôle de veiller au Mos et à la Pietas : le rite et le culte aujourd’hui privés, en quelque sorte. Il y a à présent cinq Gentes, groupant chacune plusieurs Familiae : deux en Sicile (Aurélia et Castoria), une dans le centre (Iulia Primigenia), et deux au nord (Pico-Martia et Apollinaris). En 1992, un kalendarium précis a été établi pour préciser les dates essentielles des célébrations cultuelles de la communauté.

 

Sur ces bases, deux mariages ont pu être célébré selon l’antique rite traditionnel de la Confarreatio (communion de l’épeautre). Cette cérémonie est absolument facultative et n’est nullement exigée des membres des Gentes ; elle a été célébrée “rite” par le Magister Gentium, élu ou confirmé chaque année par la Curia Patrum sur la base de son experientia religieuse.

 

Pour terminer, signalons la récente parution en 1993 d’un intéressant Manifeste en 15 points (déjà cité) indiquant clairement la volonté du MTR de prendre des positions publiques. À ce propos, la revue Politica Romana écrit : « Cette volonté d’avoir une incidence dans le domaine public, avec une attention particulière pour le thème de la Patrie, de la Nation, de l’État et de la Religion démontre un réveil de l’intérêt pour le domaine qui fut l’objet principal des soins du Koku-rei, le cérémonial nippon qui du reste n’existe plus aujourd’hui comme fonction institutionnelle de l’État » (8). Au point 5 du Manifeste (article Religion), on peut lire : « Ne se considérant lui-même que comme une expression d’une réalité (…) il (le MTR) fait sienne l’idée bien romaine de la pluralité des formes du sacré ». Et « Considérant comme “État traditionnel minimal” un état similaire au Japon shintoïste, mais où le Shintoïsme serait remplacé par un culte public des Dieux de Rome, le MTR a jusqu’à présent assuré que, dans l’éventualité de l’avènement d’un État de ce genre, le pluralisme religieux serait maintenu ». Toutefois, « il reste souhaitable à nos yeux que la Cité du Vatican, siège de l’État du Pape, soit transférée hors d’Italie. De nombreux Catholiques du monde entier désirent d’ailleurs ce transfert ».

 

On le voit, l’héritage de Julius Evola et de son livre Impérialisme païen est demeuré très vivace.

 

► Renato Del Ponte, Antaïos n°10, 1996.

 

Texte remanié d’une conférence prononcée à Paris le 3 février 1996 au colloque sur le Paganisme contemporain organisé à Paris par les éditions L’Originel.

 

◊ Notes :

 

(1) R. Del Ponte, Il Movimento tradizionalista romano nel Novecento, SeaR, Scandiamo 1987. Du même éditeur, on lira aussi : Sul problema di una Tradizione romana nel tempo attuale, Scandiano 1988.
(2) Movimento Tradizionalista Romano, Manifesto : Orientamenti per i tempi a venire, Messina, 1993, p.II-lII.
(3) J. Evola, Impérialisme païen, Pardès, 1993.
(4) La Cittadella (Arx), Messina.
(5) Y participaient les continuateurs de l’œuvre de Reghini, éditeurs de la revue Il Ghibellino (1979-1983) et fondateurs en Calabre de l’Association pythagoricienne, avec la revue Hygieia (cinq fascicules entre 1984 et 1985). À la mort de l’un des principaux organisateurs, Salvatore Recupero, certains animateurs ont fondé Ignis (six numéros entre 1990 et 1992). Actuellement, les groupes pythagoriciens ne prennent qu’une part marginale aux initiatives du Mouvement Traditionaliste Romain. Il faut aussi citer les cahiers Alètheia publiés à Marsala.
(6) Cf. supra.
(7) Il est précisé à cet égard que ces communautés devaient reprendre le nom ancien des Gentes, sans reposer sur des bases nobiliaires et parentales, mais bien sur une commune vision du monde et sur le culte commun rendu aux mêmes figures divines.
(8) P Fenili, « Religion d’État et religion de salut en Italie et au Japon », in : Politica Romana, I, 1994, p.26. Cette publication n'adhère pas formellement au MTR et peut être considéré comme l’expression d’un courant “kremmerzien”. Au contraire, Mos Maiorum (Rome, depuis 1994) semble s’inspirer de certaines études du Groupe des Dioscures, les aspects rituels en moins.

 

***

Evoliana

 

Renato Del Ponte, que le poète Pierre Pascal appelait le « cœur des cœurs », fut in illo tempore le collaborateur et l’ami de Julius Evola. C’est lui qui, le 26 août 1974, déposa son urne cinéraire dans une crevasse en haute montagne (Lyskamm oriental). Funérailles à l’image du personnage énigmatique que fut le baron Julius Evola. On pense ici à d’autres funérailles, tout aussi clandestines : celles de Montherlant, dont les cendres furent répandues sur le Forum romain et dans le Tibre par Gabriel Matzneff. Renato Del Ponte s’est imposé comme l’un des meilleurs connaisseurs de l’œuvre d’Evola, dont il a édité plus d’un titre. Responsable du Centra Studi Evoliani, il a fondé la revue Arthos (1972-1990), organe du traditionalisme païen romain. La section belge du CSE était alors dirigée par le surréaliste Marc. Eemans. M. Del Ponte compte relancer la revue Arthos, ce qui serait hautement souhaitable, vu l’excellente tenue de cette publication. Il est aussi directeur de multiples collections et traducteur, on lui doit une traduction commentée de la relation sur l’Autel de la Victoire de Symmaque, l’âme de la résistance païenne au sein de la noblesse romaine (ed. Basilisco, Genova). Chez le même éditeur, on trouve des textes de l’empereur Julien, des livres sur Mithra, Pythagore, etc. Cet infatigable chercheur vient de publier, aux éditions SeaR, Evola e il magico Gruppo di Ur (1994), luxueux ouvrage (portant un Mithra tauroctone en couverture) sur l’aventure magique et opérative du jeune Evola (1927-1929). Le livre présente des documents inédits sur Ur, des témoignages et des extraits de la correspondance de Guénon.

 

Toujours sur Evola, SeaR publie, du philosophe Sandro Consolato, Julius Evola e il Buddhismo (1995), un beau livre — il faut souligner le goût parfait de cet éditeur — sur les rapports complexes du penseur traditionaliste avec le Bouddhisme et la doctrine de l’Éveil. On y lira d’intéressantes réflexions solidement argumentées (impressionnant appareil de notes) sur le thème de l’ascèse chez Evola et Guénon, l’initiation, le caractère indo-aryen (Evola a développé ailleurs le concept fondamental de « race de l’esprit » en réaction contre certain biologisme réducteur) de cette doctrine. Enfin, Renato Del Ponte étudie l’important travail effectué par Evola dans les pages du Diorama filosofico (1934-1943) dans un recueil, également somptueux, intitulé Delle rovine ed oltre : Saggi su J. Evola (Pellicani, Roma, 1995). Ce recueil comprend des études sur Evola et la Maçonnerie, Evola et Eliade, ses rapports avec l’avant-garde, le dadaïsme, etc. R. Del Ponte y analyse finement l’aventure intellectuelle du Diorama où le « filosofo proibito » accueillit la fine fleur de la Révolution conservatrice européenne, du Prince de Rohan à Brelich. Il y relate aussi le succès du Corpus Evolianum en Pologne, Hongrie, Roumanie et Russie… D’autres spécialistes étudient qui le dadaïsme du jeune Evola et son «futurisme», qui son «antifascisme antidémocratique» (M. Rossi) sous l’influence de Stirner et de Nietzsche. L’importance du penseur, que Marguerite Yourcenar considérait comme essentiel, est soulignée ainsi que le malentendu né d’approches fragmentaires. Un long poème aux réminiscences jüngeriennes et nietzschéennes achève de conquérir le lecteur attentif et fait de ce livre une référence aussi incontournable que la somme de Christophe Boutin (Politique et Tradition, Kimé, 1992).

(Christopher Gérard)

 

 

La renaissance orientale

LA RENAISSANCE ORIENTALE

 

Son apport à la philosophie et la spiritualité occidentale

Rémy Valat
Ex: http://metamag.fr

Les éditions Payot viennent de rééditer La Renaissance Orientale de Raymond Schwab, le livre de référence sur les débuts et l’impact des études indiennes et orientales sur les sociétés européennes aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles. Raymond  Schawb (1884-1956) était un authentique humaniste aux multiples facettes : il était traducteur (il pratiquait l'hébreu, le hongrois et l'anglais), romancier et poète. L’Orientalisme a été précédé par un mouvement précurseur, dit pré-indianiste, mouvement animé par des missionnaires ou des fonctionnaires portugais, italiens ou français (en particulier, Anquetil-Duperron, 1731-1805) puis par le pouvoir colonial britannique établi dans la péninsule indienne. Pour ce dernier, l’intérêt linguistique était considéré comme une arme politique pour asseoir sa domination sur le pays.

La société de Calcutta, créée par William Jones en 1784 rassemblait des hauts-fonctionnaires du pouvoir colonial, souvent des juristes, épris de culture indigènes. On leur doit les premières traductions des textes sacrés indiens, en particulier la Bhagavad-Gîtâ par Charles Wilkins (1784), mais aussi les premières parutions scientifiques sur la culture indienne et les premiers pas de l’archéologie, de la numismatique et de l’épigraphie dans le sous-continent. Guidés par des intérêts politiques, l’Angleterre se désintéresse rapidement des études orientales, l’Orientalisme sera essentiellement un mouvement français et allemand (en particulier le mouvement indo-germanique). 

En France, le Directoire fonde l’École des Langues Orientales Vivantes (actuel Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales – INALCO) en 1795 ; cette création précéde de peu l’expédition de Bonaparte en Égypte qui donnera une impulsion significative aux études orientales et en particulier l’égyptologie. L’Orientalisme est en quelque sorte un avatar des guerres napoléoniennes puisque Alexandre Hamilton (1762-1824), officier de la Royal Navy et ancien membre de la Société Asiatique de Calcutta, s’est trouvé assigné à résidence à Paris au moment de la rupture de la paix d’Amiens. Cet officier, qui étudiait des textes indiens conservés au département des manuscrits bénéficia de la bienveillance et de la solidarité scientifique d’érudits de la Bibliothèque Nationale. Reconnaissant, Hamilton leur enseigna la langue sanskrite.

Parmi ces passionnés et privilégiés se trouvait le philosophe et écrivain allemand Friedrisch Schlegel, qui sera l’un des animateurs du « Cercle d'Iéna » et du romantisme allemand. La première chaire de sanskrit sera créée quelques années plus tard au Collège de France en 1814 : Eugène Burnouf, qui a fondé la Société asiatique en 1822, y professera à partir de 1832. Eugène Burnouf a contribué au développement des études bouddhiques en Occident, il a notamment traduit l’un des plus beau texte du bouddhisme : le Sutra du Lotus (1852). Des bancs des universités, l’orientalisme se répand dans les mouvements littéraires et philosophiques, les plus grands auteurs français y ont été sensibles (Alphonse de Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, Edmond Michelet, Saint-Simon, Gérard de Nerval, Gustave Flaubert, les Parnassiens, les symbolistes....).

La Renaissance Orientale : un ouvrage capital pour saisir les représentations et les interprétations des cultures asiatiques par les Européens et leur apport à la philosophie et la spiritualité occidentale.
La Renaissance Orientale , de Raymond Schwab, Editions Payot ( réedition) , 688 pages, 32€.

René Guénon, Roma, Convegno

Virgilio ed Enea: l’etica dell’origine che è destino

Virgilio ed Enea: l’etica dell’origine che è destino

 

Valerio Benedetti

 

Ex: http://www.ilprimatonazionale.it

 

Roma, 15 ott – Il 15 ottobre del 70 a.C., esattamente 2083 anni fa, nasceva ad Andes, presso Mantova, Publio Virgilio Marone, più noto semplicemente come Virgilio. Per riassumere al meglio la sua attività letteraria, così recita l’epitaffio inciso sul suo sepolcro napoletano che, secondo alcune testimonianze, fu lo stesso grande poeta a dettare: «cantai pascoli, campi ed eroi». Il riferimento è alle sue opere più famose, cioè le Bucoliche, le Georgiche e l’Eneide. A ben rifletterci, Virgilio ci sta in realtà dicendo che, con i suoi versi, altro non ha cantato se non la civiltà romana nel suo complesso. L’uomo romano infatti, secondo la tradizione, è pastore, agricoltore e guerriero. È milizia e lavoro. È l’aratro che traccia il solco, ma è la spada che lo difende.

Roma, Italia, Impero

Il momento storico in cui Virgilio vive ed opera è poi molto particolare. Nel cenacolo culturale del ricco e potente Mecenate, stretto consigliere dell’imperatore e generoso patrono di letterati per antonomasia, Virgilio si imbeve e contribuisce ad alimentare il grande entusiasmo per il ritorno a una nuova età dell’oro, inaugurata dalla celebrata figura di Augusto, il quale aveva posto fine alle terribili guerre civili. E il cosiddetto saeculum augustum coincide altresì con un fatto storico di portata epocale: l’identificazione giuridica e morale di Roma con l’Italia. A seguito della «guerra sociale» (91-88 a.C.) e del conferimento da parte di Cesare della cittadinanza anche agli abitanti della Gallia transpadana (49 a.C.), i popoli italici sono a tutti gli effetti cittadini romani. Si trattò in buona parte di un riconoscimento doveroso: fu infatti l’esercito romano-italico a conquistare nell’arco di due secoli l’impero mediterraneo di Roma. Cittadini romani e alleati italici (socii) avevano combattuto, erano morti e avevano trionfato insieme, ponendo le basi del dominio incontrastato dell’Urbe nel mondo allora conosciuto.

Di qui la formazione di una base sociale che Cesare e Ottaviano (poi Augusto) seppero mobilitare per la propria causa, offrendo alle aristocrazie municipali e ai soldati italici la possibilità di partecipare da protagonisti alla gestione del potere. Non è quindi un caso se i letterati cosiddetti «augustei» che cantarono la gloria di Roma siano tutti Italici che col destino dell’Urbe oramai si identificavano: dall’etrusco Mecenate al Virgilio mantovano, dal lucano Orazio al Tito Livio patavino (cioè padovano). L’Italia romana è dunque una realtà morale, prima ancora che territoriale e giuridica, che si è forgiata nel sacro fuoco di amore e guerra.

La potenza dell’epica che si fa mito

Se non si coglie questo dato, non è possibile comprendere a fondo la genesi e il significato dell’Eneide, l’indiscusso capolavoro virgiliano a cui il vate della romanità lavorò per ben 10 anni. La prospettiva filologica, storiografica, artistica, antropologica, archeologica, in effetti, è legittima e utile, ma al tempo stesso limitante. Si può certamente discutere del decisivo influsso omerico, dei topoi del genere epico, del carattere ideologico e filo-augusteo dell’opera. Così come si possono distinguere nell’Eneide le stratificazioni e le sovrapposizioni di diversi materiali mitologici: l’arrivo dei conquistatori indoeuropei nella penisola italica oppure la fusione della leggenda greca sulle origini di Roma (approdo di Enea nel Lazio) con quella indigena (fondazione romulea dell’Urbe). Si può addirittura vedere nello scontro tra Troiani e popoli autoctoni una metafora letteraria della guerra sociale o delle recenti e sanguinose guerre civili. Tutto ciò – si diceva – è legittimo e anzi utilissimo. Così facendo, tuttavia, resterebbe inaccessibile il cuore pulsante dell’operazione virgiliana.

Proprio perché, al di là di tutte le letture e le interpretazioni, bisogna ricordarsi che, assemblando materiali disparatissimi, Virgilio ha coscientemente voluto non replicare, ma fondare un mito. Un mito che non è affatto mera «favola» – come potrebbe suggerire un approccio aridamente e stancamente storicistico – ma piuttosto immagine originale (e originaria) di sé stessi. L’Eneide, infatti, è l’immagine, sublimata in esametri e canto, che il popolo romano aveva delle proprie origini e quindi del proprio avvenire. E Virgilio, con la sua impresa metapolitica e mitopoietica, ne è stato il sommo vate, ossia colui che, con impareggiabile maestria, ha saputo dar voce e immortalità all’orgoglio della Roma imperiale.

Origine, avvenire, rivoluzione

Un dato, in particolare, va evidenziato. L’epica greca arcaica aveva presto sviluppato un tipico genere letterario, quello dei nóstoi, che narrava dei «ritorni» degli eroi achei nelle loro patrie d’origine al termine della guerra di Troia. Il nóstos più famoso resta, ovviamente, l’Odissea, in cui Odìsseo/Ulisse, dopo un lungo e tribolato peregrinare, approda finalmente a Itaca, suo regno avito e dominio primigenio. Qui il re dovrà sfidare e sconfiggere i «proci», cioè i pretendenti alla mano della regina Penelope e, di conseguenza, al trono. Grazie alla vittoria Ulisse ristabilisce la sua sovranità regale, ripristina la condizione iniziale e legittima. Il suo ritorno è, a tutti gli effetti, restaurazione. Per Enea e i Teucri, invece, la situazione è ben diversa. L’origine, infatti, non sta dietro, ma innanzi a loro. Dalle fiamme distruttrici e dalle ceneri di Troia, dove tutto è morte che sembra annunciare la fine della gloriosa stirpe di Dardano, si dischiude all’improvviso la possibilità di un nuovo inizio, di una nuova origine. Un’origine che è destino, che è fondazione, che è rivoluzione.

In questo vuoto abissale di riferimenti, tutte le coordinate vengono meno. Tutto diviene incerto e indefinito, gli unici indizi si celano dietro agli enigmatici responsi dell’Apollo di Delo. Le sole certezze di Enea sono quindi il padre Anchise e il figlioletto Iulo/Ascanio, che egli è riuscito disperatamente a sottrarre alla morte in quella terribile notte che ha cambiato tutto. Anchise infatti, nell’olocausto di Troia, ha messo in salvo le sacre immagini dei Penati, ossia gli dèi protettori della patria annientata, e rappresenta il legame non del tutto reciso con la tradizione dei padri, i quali non a caso sveleranno in sogno ad Enea la giusta destinazione del suo viaggio, ossia l’Italia, antica patria di Dardano, «gran madre di messi, terra sacra a Saturno, gran genitrice d’eroi» (Georgiche, II 173-174). Il piccolo Iulo, invece, è la fondamentale garanzia della continuazione della stirpe, quella «progenie di eletta virtù che tutto intero dovrà con le armi dominare l’universo» (Eneide, VII 257-258). Memoria delle origini e volontà d’avvenire, dunque, sono le uniche cose che Enea ha voluto portare con sé prima di salpare verso il regno dell’ignoto. Eppure il sommo Giove – pregato da Venere, madre divina dell’eroe, e nonostante l’«ira tenace della crudele Giunone» – va oramai preparando il destino di Enea e della futura grandezza di Roma.

Il destino come decisione

Sul concetto-chiave di «fato» va fatta chiarezza. La critica moderna ha infatti spesso sopravvalutato eccessivamente il suo carattere vincolante, dipingendo talvolta Enea come un mero strumento passivo di una volontà che lo trascende e tirannicamente lo condiziona. Se è vero che il fato si traduce spesso in iussa, ovverosia in comandamenti e mandati degli dèi (i quali, non va dimenticato, allo stesso fato sono soggetti), esso tuttavia non rappresenta affatto una sorte inevitabile. L’eroe, al contrario, può sempre decidere di accettare o rifiutare i piani che Giove ha concepito. Enea, infatti, avrebbe ben potuto rimanere in Africa con Didone, la regina dei Cartaginesi che, con le nozze, gli aveva offerto regno e potenza. Esercitando la sua libertà storica, Enea avrebbe potuto cioè rinunciare al suo mandatum, alla sua missione, alla sua natura eroica. Eppure, esortato da Mercurio, Enea sceglie infine di tener fede all’originaria promessa d’avvenire, ossia alla speranza dell’erede Iulo «a cui spettano il regno d’Italia e la terra romana» (IV 275-276).

 

In altre parole, l’eroe rimane fedele al suo destino di lotta e vittoria. Esattamente in questo senso Enea è pius. Perché ha consapevolmente deciso di farsi carico dei fata, dei disegni degli dèi che gli promettono potenza e gloria imperitura. Questo fato, quindi, altro non è che «sacro vincolo destino», ossia destino liberamente accettato, bramato, voluto: «Ma il mio proprio valore, i santi oracoli degli dèi e gli avi consanguinei […] hanno conformato la mia volontà al destino» (VIII 131-133). In questo sta la natura tragica, e dunque sublime, della decisione di Enea, e cioè nella tensione costante e inesausta di necessità e libertà, di dovere e volontà. Una tensione che la modernità liberal-capitalistica non riesce più a tollerare, disconoscendo l’essenza intrinsecamente tragica dell’uomo e cadendo, pertanto, nella farsa. Enea invece, proprio perché è pius, decide infine, carico di destino, di riappropriarsi di sé stesso e, dunque, del suo glorioso avvenire. Un avvenire che, come gli svelerà la Sibilla cumana, egli dovrà conquistarsi con la sola forza delle armi e del proprio coraggio: «Guerre, orrende guerre e il Tebro distinguo schiumante di molto sangue. […] Tu non cedere ai mali, ma affrontali con audacia ben oltre i limiti della tua sorte» (VI 86-87; 95-96). Come sempre è l’eroe, armato di coraggio e volontà, che deve far forza alla Fortuna per affermare sé stesso, per divenir veramente sé stesso, per forgiare il suo destino.

La «pietà» di Enea

Anche sul concetto centrale di pietas è necessario soffermarsi brevemente. Essa, innanzitutto, non ha nulla a che vedere con la «pietà» cristiana che ha impregnato il nostro linguaggio, ossia la devozione e l’obbedienza del credente a Jahvè e, più comunemente, la misericordia verso il prossimo. La pietas romana, invece, è fedeltà e devozione alla propria cultura e al proprio sistema di valori, in particolare nel rapporto con la famiglia, la patria e gli dèi. I Romani sono il popolo più forte proprio perché hanno istituito la pax deorum, ossia più degli altri hanno tenuto fede alla tradizione dei loro padri e al volere delle loro divinità. Ed Enea, con la sua scelta decisiva di assolvere i fata degli dèi, è indicato da Virgilio come il fondatore di questa alleanza con le forze celesti, le quali, in cambio, donano a Roma potenza e dominio sulle genti.

Non a caso il «pio» Enea è anche e soprattutto il pater Enea, ossia il padre comune del suo popolo e, insieme, la massima autorità religiosa e sacerdotale. Perché la pietas si esprime anche nella corretta celebrazione dei riti, nei doverosi omaggi agli dèi in cui l’eroe vede rispecchiata la sua grandezza. Nessuna misericordia, dunque, ma giustizia inflessibile, volontà di potenza e fedeltà assoluta alla propria stirpe: questa è la pietas di cui i Romani andavano fieri. Per tale motivo alcuni gesti estremi di Enea come le brutali uccisioni di Turno, Lauso e Tarquito, che appaiono «spietati» alla sensibilità dell’Occidente egualitarista, non sono affatto «empi» per la cultura romana, e anzi esprimono la più radicale e coerente aderenza del pius Enea alla tradizione dei suoi padri, alla volontà dei suoi dèi, alla sua etica guerriera.

Il tempo del mito e degli eroi

Nel viaggio periglioso verso l’Italia e nella terribile guerra contro gli Ausoni si compie dunque il destino di Enea, dei Troiani superstiti e di quella Roma ancora da fondare. La successione lineare del tempo si sfalda: passato, presente e futuro si sincronizzano, in particolare nella discesa di Enea nel regno di Dite, dove il defunto padre Anchise gli mostra sia gli eroi della nobile stirpe di Teucro, sia coloro che, non ancora nati, renderanno grande Roma nei secoli avvenire. Anchise consegna quindi ad Enea, sul quale tutto il tempo cosmico converge, la missione universale della Roma che verrà: «Altri plasmeranno con maggiore eleganza spirante bronzo (ben lo concedo), trarranno dal marmo vivi volti, patrocineranno meglio le cause, seguiranno con il compasso i percorsi del cielo e prediranno il corso degli astri. Ma tu ricorda, o Romano, col tuo imperio di dominar le genti. Queste saranno le tue arti: imporre un ordine alla pace, risparmiare i sottomessi e sterminare i superbi» (VI 847-853).

Il fato dell’antica Troia e della nuova Roma è tutto nelle mani di Enea. Anzi, è nel suo scudo, forgiato in oro nella fucina di Vulcano. Su di esso si staglia e rifulge il glorioso futuro della progenie di Venere e Marte, ossia dei figli di amore e guerra: «Qui il Signore del fuoco, non ignaro dei vaticini e non inconsapevole del tempo avvenire, aveva effigiato le gesta italiche e i trionfi dei Romani, qui tutta la discendenza futura, dal sangue di Ascanio, e in ordine le guerre combattute. […] Qui Cesare Augusto che guida in battaglia gli Italici, coi padri e il popolo, i Penati e i grandi dèi. […] Simili spettacoli nello scudo di Vulcano, dono della madre, ammira Enea, e pur ignaro degli eventi si diletta della loro immagine, portando sul braccio la gloria e i destini della stirpe» (VIII 626-629; 678-679; 729-731). Una stirpe di fuoco e dello stesso sangue degli dèi.

Lotta, vittoria, rigenerazione

La guerra che oppone i Troiani e i loro alleati alla coalizione italica, capeggiata da Turno re dei Rutuli, è quanto mai brutale. I due popoli, dalla cui unione sorgerà la progenie della città eterna, devono prima combattersi per poi riconoscersi fratelli. Nessun patetico «contratto sociale», quindi, ma solo il suggello del sangue e delle armi può dar vita alla stirpe che dominerà il mondo. È il sangue dei caduti che feconda la patria e rigenera la storia: «Andate – soggiunse Enea – e onorate con i più alti tributi le anime generose che con il loro sangue ci hanno generato questa patria» (XI 24-25). L’apparente fine è in realtà un nuovo inizio: tutto deve crollare per poi risorgere più forte. I Troiani vittoriosi, infatti, rinunciano al loro nome e si fondono con i popoli d’Ausonia. Il seme della nuova stirpe e della futura gloria dell’Urbe è gettato, come la stessa Giunone dovrà annunciare: «Sia possente la discendenza romana per l’italico valore» (XII 827). Solo dal connubio di Roma e Italia – come si diceva all’inizio – può nascere quel popolo che «per pietas supererà le genti, supererà gli dèi» (XII 839). Solo dalla fusione di Roma e Italia può nascere l’Impero.

Per tale motivo risulta ancor più incredibile che gli italiani abbiano rimosso queste loro nobili origini, che rappresentano invece la più esaltante avventura storica dell’uomo europeo. Oggi, anzi, si guarda con grande sospetto e diffidenza verso ogni mito informatore e ogni volontà storificante del popolo italiano, continuamente umiliato da 70 anni di martellante propaganda antinazionale. Anche nel migliore dei casi, inoltre, si ricorre spesso a complessi fenomeni di transfert: si ricerca il proprio mito fondativo, cioè, nelle oscure caverne dei Nibelunghi, nei pionieri americani che colonizzano il «selvaggio ovest» oppure negli aridi deserti della Palestina. Non sembra esserci posto, quindi, per Enea e le meravigliose terre d’Italia, benedette da Saturno e baciate dal sole, le quali rendono tanto familiare lo sfondo quanto mai suggestivo della narrazione dell’Eneide.

Eppure, in accordo con la visione sferica del tempo (il tempo storico specificamente umano), solo il popolo con la memoria più lunga potrà avere il più grande futuro. Gli italiani, che piaccia o meno, avranno sempre la facoltà di attingere al loro glorioso passato per proiettarsi in un grandioso avvenire. Anche nelle epoche dell’oblio e della rimozione forzata può riemergere, in qualsiasi momento, la sua memoria latente e, insieme, la possibilità di una nuova origine, di un nuovo inizio. E Virgilio, con la sua epica sublime, ci ha lasciato la più alta espressione di questa formidabile volontà di destino.

Gli italiani, dunque, potranno sempre riappropriarsi della loro memoria più remota e quindi del loro più fulgido avvenire, ossia di quella «Terza Roma» che fu già profetizzata da Giuseppe Mazzini e da Alfredo Oriani. Sembra anzi come inscritta nel nostro sangue questa peculiarità di rigenerare continuamente noi stessi come popolo. Così infatti D’Annunzio salutava l’Italia: «o Semprerinascente, o fiore di tutte le stirpi, aroma di tutta la terra Italia! Italia, sacra alla nuova Aurora con l’aratro e la prora». Gli italiani, dopotutto, non hanno conosciuto altro che «rinascimenti», «rinascenze», «risorgimenti». Piaccia o meno ai profeti del nulla e della «fine della storia», dunque, il mito virgiliano di Enea, scardinando la meccanica temporale, continuerà a vivere in noi come un’eco remota che, risuonando nei millenni, ci ingiunge, ancora una volta, di rivendicarne la grandezza. Nella storia del popolo italiano sarà sempre possibile l’irruzione dell’origine come destino. Come marmo che vince la palude.

Valerio Benedetti

 

 

"Le temps qualifié ou la réorientation du monde"

par Laurent JAMES

Conférence de Laurent JAMES au séminaire de la COBEMA du 28 mars 2010. Il y traite du "Temps qualifié, ou la ré-orientation du monde". Très intéressant moment de tradition primordiale partagée par l'Humanité entière depuis toujours.

Jean Parvulesco, visionnaire d'Empire

Jean Parvulesco, visionnaire d'Empire

JAPON : LA LÉGITIME DÉSOBÉISSANCE DES 47 RÔNINS

JAPON : LA LÉGITIME DÉSOBÉISSANCE DES 47 RÔNINS

 

«Ce qu’ils ont fait de leur vivant résonne pour l'éternité....»

Rémy Valat
Ex: http://metamag.fr

 

L’histoire des 47 rônins dépasse le cadre d’une simple affaire de droit féodal : ce serait l’engagement de vassaux, fidèles à leur maître jusqu’au sacrifice de leurs vies. Le drame se déroule au début du XVIIIe siècle, période durant laquelle le Japon est réunifié et pacifié sous l’égide du Shôgun. Le port et l’usage des armes sont contrôlés ; il est l’apanage quasi-exclusif des samouraïs. Les samouraïs sont ceux qui « servent » (étymologie du nom vient du verbe « servir », saburaû) leurs maîtres, le Shôgun et le pays. Ils sont pour cela présentés comme des « modèles » pour la société : à la fois guerriers et administrateurs, leur éducation et l’étiquette qui régit leur vie sont rigides.

En 1701, deux Daimyos (seigneurs en charge d’une province et en relation directe avec le Shôgun) sont chargés d’organiser une cérémonie en l’honneur de l’Empereur. Asano Naganori du fief d'Akō (province de Harima) commet l’impair de blesser le maître des cérémonies, Kira Kōzuke-no-Suke-Yoshinaka (14 mars). Ce dernier est dépeint comme un être corrompu jusqu’à la mœlle et se serait, selon la tradition populaire, montré arrogant et méprisant envers ces deux seigneurs, insuffisamment généreux à son goût à rémunérer son talent et ses services. Perte du contrôle de soi, agression à main armée sur un haut fonctionnaire de l’ État : Asano doit, sur l’ordre du Shôgun Tokugawa Tsuyanoshi (1646-1709), procéder le jour même au suicide rituel (seppuku). Ōishi Kuranosuke Yoshio, principal conseiller de la famille d'Asano prend aussitôt en main la sécurité des membres et des biens du clan menacés de confiscation et mûrit un plan de vengeance. Les différents récits et le florès d’interprétations théâtrales ou cinématographiques sur les conditions des préparatifs clandestins et de l’assaut final ont, certes été enjolivés et idéalisés, mais quel souffle à la lecture de ce récit ! La mise en scène la plus connue, popularisée par le théâtre kabuki, est l’ œuvre principale de Takeda Izumo (1748). Il existe une traduction française de l’épopée des 47 rônins, traduite par George Soulié de Morant en 1927, et rééditée régulièrement. Nous y puisons cet extrait, révélateur de l’esprit idéal du guerrier japonais.

 

Ōishi vient de rassembler le clan, 300 guerriers stupéfaits par l’annonce de la mort de leur seigneur et dans l’attente d’instructions : « Venger notre seigneur, voilà notre devoir. Ce que je propose, le voici. Nous allons jurer de ne reculer devant aucun danger pour tuer Kira et sa famille. Si nous n’avons pas réussi dans un an, c’est que l’entreprise est impossible. Nous nous réunirons alors devant la porte de la forteresse, ceux du moins qui auront survécu aux combats et nous nous donnerons la mort, montrant à tous notre fidélité. [...] Je vais préparer un serment écrit avec notre sang. Revenez tous ici demain, à l’heure du Tigre, pour le signer. Pour aujourd’hui, nous allons nous partager le trésor du clan : il ne faut pas qu’il tombe aux mains de nos ennemis.»
 

[La séance terminée chaque samouraï reçoit 20 lingots d’or et l’assemblée se disperse. Le lendemain, seuls 63 rônins répondirent à l’appel et Ōishi de déclarer :]  « Les épreuves que nous allons subir sont telles qu’une âme ordinaire ne saurait les supporter sans défaillir. En reconnaissant eux-mêmes leur faiblesse, ils m’ont évité le plus difficile des choix : c’est bien. Pour vanner le blé, il suffit de le laisser tomber au souffle de la brise. Le bon grain s’entasse d’un côté, la balle et les fétus de l’autre. [Puis, les loyaux samouraïs signèrent de leur sang le serment scellant leur sort pour l’éternité]. » 

Ce geste symbolique et sacré revêt surtout une dimension politique : c’est aussi un acte de désobéissance. Cet engagement solennel n’est pas sans rappeler les contrats d’ikki : les ikki sont ces révoltes populaires conduites pour réparer une injustice commise par les autorités ou un seigneur, insurrections parfois organisées par des guerriers pour se faire justice eux-mêmes ; ces derniers étant trop fiers pour laisser le règlement de leurs différends entre les mains des pouvoirs publics, fussent-ils le gouvernement du Shôgun (lire sur ce sujet : Katsumata Shizuo, Ikki. Coalitions, ligues et révoltes dans le Japon d’autrefois, traduction parue aux éditions du CNRS en 2011).
 

La maison de Kira est prise d’assaut le matin du 14 décembre 1702 : le maître et les hommes des des lieux seront passés au fil de l’épée. Les rônins emportèrent la tête de Kira sur la tombe de leur seigneur au temple de Sengaku-ji. Les survivants offrirent leur reddition au Shôgun et mettent celui-ci dans l’embarras. Car si la vendetta été légitime sur le fond et respectueuse des règles et de la coutume du Bushidō, elle ne l’était plus sur la forme : les Sainte Vehme étaient prohibées par le shôgunat, le pouvoir rappelle que le droit de faire justice est une prérogative régalienne dans un pays récemment unifié. Le shôgun les fît condamner à mort tout en leur offrant une fin honorable. Le 4 février 1703, 46 rônins (le 47e , le plus jeune, aurait fait l’objet de la clémence des juges selon la tradition populaire) se donnent la mort par éventration, et selon leurs vœux, leurs corps reposent auprès de celui de leur maître au cimetière du temple de Sengaku-ji.

Les témoignages historiques dépeignent différemment les motivations de ces samouraïs : le seigneur Asano n’était guère apprécié par ses serviteurs, et ce serait 58 guerriers (sur les 308 du clan) qui auraient prêté serment, non pas par simple esprit de vengeance, mais par réprobation du traitement injuste réservé à Asano par le Shôgun. Ce dernier aurait dû sanctionner les deux parties, d’autant qu’il y eut un précédent survenu en 1684. Un guerrier, selon l’historien Nakayama Mikio, en aurait blessé un autre en ce même lieu. Le premier aurait été tué sur le champ par un maître-officier du gouvernement et le second exilé. Enfin, seuls les criminels étaient exécutés ou contraints de se suicider à l’extérieur de leur maison. Les conditions du suicide d’Asano ont été considérées comme un acte infamant. C’est pour ces motifs que les rônins ont souhaité laver l’affront fait à leur maître et à leur maison.
 

Cette froide et habile, vengeance a été vivement critiquée par Yamamoto Tsunetomo (l’auteur du Hagakure) qui estimait plus conforme au code de l’honneur un règlement rapide du contentieux. Yamamoto Tsunetomo, fidèle serviteur du Shôgun, mît peut-être en avant ce point de la coutume pour discréditer Ōishi et ses hommes qui n’auraient techniquement pas pu mettre au point leur riposte en de si brefs délais, au moment où Kira se trouvait sur ses gardes et bien protégé par ses hommes (rappelons que c’est par respect envers la réglementation shogunale que Yamamoto Tsunetomo ne put accompagner son seigneur dans la mort : le suicide par accompagnement lui a été formellement interdit). Le Shôgun a commis une maladresse, en ce sens qu’au Japon, les suicides rituels avaient pour but de limiter les vendettas : l’honneur des familles lavé, les désirs de vengeance devaient être étouffés et dans le cas de leur mise à exécution, celle-ci était sévèrement sanctionnée. C’est le contraire qui, dans cet affaire, s’est produit.

Cette histoire eut un retentissement immédiat. Si les Japonais du début du deuxième siècle du Shôgunat y ont trouvé un exutoire à la rigidité du régime (surtout en matière de mœurs), le succès intemporel de ce drame tient à son authenticité. Les Japonais sont peu-être plus sensibles que d’autres peuples à l’engagement et au don de soi. Les paroles n’ont de valeur à leurs yeux que si elles sont suivis par un acte sincère. Quelque puisse être les motivations de ces rônins, c’est bien un sentiment positif, l’esprit de justice, qui les animait. Leur désobéissance était légitime et ils ont agi en pleine connaissance du sort qui leur était réservé. Ils ont préféré mourir dans l’honneur que de vivre dans la honte dans une société, et c’est encore le cas aujourd’hui au Japon, où pèse lourdement le regard des autres. Un geste tragique de refus et de liberté qui résonne pour l’éternité, comme l’atteste les témoignages de respect et de dévotion encore porté par les Japonais sur les tombes des 46 rônins....

Illustration en tête d'article : Ancien château d’Edo (actuellement le parc attenant au palais impérial) : emplacement du bâtiment à l’intérieur duquel, Kira Kōzuke-no-Suke-Yoshinaka sera blessé par Asano Naganori le14 mars 1701.©R.Valat

Alain Daniélou’s Virtue, Success, Pleasure, & Liberation

Alain Daniélou’s Virtue, Success, Pleasure, & Liberation

By Collin Cleary 

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

Alain Daniélou
Virtue, Success, Pleasure, and Liberation: The Four Aims of Life in the Tradition of Ancient India ^[2]
Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1993.

One hears a great deal today about “multiculturalism,” and the multicultural society. We (i.e., we Americans) are told that ours is a multicultural society. But, curiously, multiculturalism is also spoken of as a goal. What this reveals is that multiculturalism is not simply the recognition and affirmation of the fact that the U.S.A. is made up of different people from different cultural backgrounds. Instead, multiculturalism is an ideology which is predicated on cultural relativism. Its proponents want to convince people that (a) all cultures are equally good, rich, interesting, and wholesome, and that (b) a multicultural society can exist in which no one culture is dominant. The first idea is absurd, the second is impossible.

The apostles of multiculturalism are moved less by a genuine desire to “celebrate diversity” than by a hatred for Northern European culture, which is the semi-official, dominant culture of America. Indeed, multiculturalists generally nurture the most naive and simplistic ideas of what a culture is. Their conception of “culture” is fixated at the perceptual level: culture is costume,music, dance, decoration, food. What is essential to culture, however, is a certain Weltanschauung: a view of the world, and of human nature. It is in their response to these world views that multiculturalists reveal their true colors, for they tolerate and permit only those elements of a culture’s world view that do not conflict with liberal ideology.

Out of one side of their mouths, the multiculturalists tell us that one cannot judge a culture, that morality is culturally relative, that cultures are not better or worse, just “different,” and that we must revel in these differences. Thus, the English do not drive on the “wrong” side of the road, merely the left side. But when it’s not a matter of traffic laws, but a matter of severed clitorises, then the other, louder side of the multiculturalists’ mouths open, and they tell us that this sort of thing isn’t just different, it’s evil. In addition to this, one also sees that multiculturalism involves a relentless trivialization of important cultural differences. Thus, college students are encouraged to see religion almost as a matter of “local color.” Isn’t it wonderful that the Indians cook such spicy food, and worship such colorful gods! Isn’t it all terribly charming? They are further encouraged to view religion as a thoroughly irrational affair. Rather than encouraging an appreciation for different faiths, what this produces is a condescending attitude, and resistance to taking the claims of religion seriously when they conflict with the “rational” agenda of modern liberalism.

Indeed, multiculturalism is so anti-cultural that one is tempted to see behind it an even deeper, more sinister agenda. Perhaps the whole idea is to deliberately gut the world’s cultures, reducing their differences to matters of dress and cuisine, and to replace those earthborn guts with a plastic, Naugahyde culture of secularism, scientism, and egalitarianism. Why? Because real, significant cultural differences make it very hard for our corporations to do business overseas and to sell their wares. Solution: homogenization masquerading as “celebration of diversity.” The multiculturalists are right when they declare that de facto, the United States is a multicultural society. But there has never been a multicultural society in the history of the world in which there was not one dominant culture which provided a framework allowing the others to co-exist. To the multiculturalist, the unacknowledged framework is modern liberalism. I will assume that I do not have to rehearse for my readers the many arguments for why modern liberalism is untenable as a long-term societal framework.Where should we look, then, for a framework for a multicultural society? Why not look to the Indian caste system? It was the caste system that allowed Aryan and non-Aryan to co-exist peacefully in India for centuries.

The liberals will immediately object that the caste system is oppressive and unjust. In Virtue, Success, Pleasure and Liberation, however, Alain Daniélou argues that the caste system is actually a supremely just and peaceful arrangement. It is just because it is built on a recognition of real human difference; a “celebration of diversity,” if you will. Aristotle held that justice is treating equals equally, and unequals unequally. If people are not the same, then it is a mistake to treat them as if they are. The caste system is built on the idea that some human beings are born to work, others to fight and lead, and others to pray. The caste system gives to each human being a place, a community, a code of ethics, and a sense of identity and pride. Daniélou points out that although the system involves hierarchy, each level of the hierarchy is regarded as intrinsically valuable and as essential. Each plays a role that is regarded as important and indispensable. Thus, it is the caste system which truly affirms that different groups are merely different, not better or worse.

Is Daniélou whitewashing the caste system? Consider the words he quotes from the Mahabharata: “There is no superior caste. The Universe is the work of the Immense Being. The beings created by him were only divided into castes according to their aptitude.” But what of individuals born to the wrong caste? For example, what of a child born to the merchant class who shows aptitude to be a priest or scholar? Such things happen. Daniélou tells us that exceptional individuals are allowed to live “outside” the caste system, and are accepted as valuable members of the society as a whole. Modern society is structured on the premise that everyone is exceptional and can make up his mind what he wants to do. Given that sort of freedom, most people get lost — as witness the modern phenomenon of the “slacker,” or the flotsam and jetsam going in and out of psychiatrists’ offices every day.

Despite what I have said, this book is not a treatise on the caste system, but on the four things that all human lives must possess or achieve in order to be complete. In discussing virtue, success, pleasure, and liberation, Daniélou quotes extensively from ancient Indian texts, offering us an abundance of excellent advice about how to understand life and to live well. Indeed, this is really a book about how to lead a truly human life. Daniélou places the four aims in a cosmic context, showing how the same fourfold division is present in all levels of reality. It is present, of course, in the four castes (worker/artisan, producer/merchant, warrior/aristocrat, priest/scholar), and in the four stages of biological development (childhood, youth, maturity, old age), the four seasons, the four elements, the four races of humanity (black, yellow, red, white), the cycle of ages (yugas), the four bodily functions (digestion, assimilation, circulation, excretion), and the four points of the compass (in this order, significantly: south, east, west, north).

This is an excellent companion volume to Daniélou’s The Myths and Gods of India ^[3].

Source: Tyr, vol.. 1 (Atlanta: Ultra, 2002).

 

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Alain Daniélou’s The Myths & Gods of India

Alain Daniélou’s The Myths & Gods of India

By Collin Cleary

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

Alain Daniélou
The Myths and Gods of India ^[2]
Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1991.
(Originally published as Hindu Polytheism by Bollingen Foundation, New York, 1964.)

Typically, those who profess an interest in what might be called “Indo-European spirituality” gravitate toward either the Celtic or Germanic traditions. The Indian tradition tends to be ignored. In part, this is because present-day Indians seem so different from us. We think of their culture and philosophy as “Eastern,” as alien. Physically, the Indians look very different from those of European descent (though higher caste Indians tend to look very European, right down to lighter skin and hair, and sometimes blue eyes). But if we wish to rediscover the religion and traditions of our ancestors, what better place is there to begin than with India? The oldest Indo-European texts are the Vedas, after all. To be sure, it is hard to separate what comes from the ancient Aryans in Indian religion, myth, and mysticism, and what was contributed by the indigenous peoples conquered by the Aryans. But the same problem exists with respect to the Celtic and Germanic traditions. In addition, we know far more about the culture and religion of the ancient Aryans who invaded India, than we do about the culture and religion of the Celts and the Vikings. For one thing, more ancient texts survive in India. Therefore, anyone wishing to re-construct the “old ways” must become deeply immersed in all things Indian.

It is a cliche to state this in a review, but I write the following with total sincerity: if you read only one book on Hinduism, it must be Daniélou’s Myths and Gods of India. Indeed, it is hard to imagine why one would need to read any other. Danielou’s account of Hinduism is exhaustive, profound, and detailed. The book contains, first of all, cogent arguments on behalf of polytheism.

It details the Indian cosmogony and cosmology; the nature of Space, Time, and Thought; the nature of Brahman and Maya. Daniélou gives a complete description of every major Hindu divinity in terms of his or her function, myths, and symbolism. He details the minor gods and genii. He discusses the theory behind Mantras and Yantras. There is even extensive coverage of ritual, and the manner in which the gods must be worshiped. Alain Daniélou was born in 1907 in Paris. He was a true Renaissance man, trained in music, painting, and dance. He gave recitals and exhibited his paintings. Daniélou was also an avid sportsman: a canoeing champion, and an expert race-car driver.

He was also homosexual. Daniélou and his gay lover ventured to India, traveling around in a deluxe, Silverstream camper imported from southern California, photographing erotic sculpture. They later settled down in a Maharajah’s estate on the banks of the Ganges and devoted themselves to Sanskrit, Hinduism, music, and entertaining. Daniélou gradually “went native” and stayed in India many years. In time, he became known throughout the world as an authority on Indian music and culture. He published works dealing with Hindu religion, society, music, sculpture, architecture, and other topics. It was Daniélou, more than anyone else, who was responsible for popularizing Indian music in the West (among other things, he was the “discoverer” of Ravi Shankar). Daniélou died in 1994.

The Myths and Gods of India is a delight to read, but it can also be treated as a reference work for those needing a clear and accurate account of various gods or Hindu religious concepts. For the student of Inda-European culture, the book is a treasure trove. Indeed, those who are familiar with the Inda-European comparativist school of Georges Dumézil, Jaan Puhvel, and others, will get the most out of this book. I will offer a few brief examples here.

Daniélou writes on page 27 that “Human beings, according to their nature and stage of development, are inclined toward . . . different aspects of the Cosmic Being. Those in whom consciousness is predominant worship the gods (deva); those in whom action or existence predominates worship genii (yaksha) and antigods (asura); and those in whom enjoyment or sensation predominates worship ghosts and spirits (bhuta and preta).” This suggests, of course, the Inda-European tripartition identified by Dumézil. On page 66 we learn that Soma was “brought to earth by a large hawk,” just as Odin, in the form of an eagle, brought mead to the JEsir. On page 87 we are told that “The earth is also represented as a goddess, or as a cow that feeds everyone with her milk. She is the mother of life, the substance of all things.” What can this remind us of, except the Norse Audumla?

There also seem to be parallels between Agni (the god of fire) and Loki. Like Loki, Agni is an outcast among the gods. Daniélou tells us further that, “The fire of destruction, Agni’s most fearful form, was born of the primeval waters and remains hidden under the sea, ever ready to destroy the world” (p. 89). This is reminiscent of the Midgard Serpent, the progeny of Loki. Page 151:
“When Vishnu sleeps, the universe dissolves into its formless state, represented as the causal ocean. The remnants of manifestation are represented as the serpent Remainder (Sesa) coiled upon itself and floating upon the abysmal waters.”

Daniélou tells us (p. 92) that “the sun . . . is envisaged [by the Hindus] under two aspects. As one of the spheres, one of the Vasus, the physical sun is the celestial form of fire, of agni. As the source of light, of warmth, of life, of knowledge, the solar energy is the source of all life, represented in the twelve sons-of-the-Primordial-Vastness (Adityas), the twelve sovereign principles.” In Futhark (pp. 51-52), Edred Thorsson tells us that “The sun was known by two special names in the North . . . Sol represents the phenomenon, while sunna is the noumenon, the spiritual power residing in the concept.” Also, the “twelve sons-of-the-Primordial-Vastness” immanent within the solar energy must remind us of the twelve sig-runes that make up the Wewelsburg “sun-wheel” of Karl Maria Wiligut.

Page 99: “When the gods were receiving the ambrosia of immortality, the Moon [Soma; equivalent to Mead] detected the anti-god Rahu disguised as a god. Because of the Moon Rahu had to die, but although his head was severed from his body, he could not truly die, for he had tasted the ambrosia. His head remained alive.” Mimir?

Page 103: “Rudra, the lord of tears, is said to have sprung from the forehead of the Immense-Being (Brahma) and, at the command of that god, to have divided himself into a male form and a female form . . . “Athena?

Page 103: “The Maruts (immortals) are a restless, warlike troupe of flashy young men, transposition in space of the hordes of young warriors called the marya (mortals). . . . They are the embodiment of moral and heroic deeds and of the exuberance of youth.” Maruts = Einherjar; Marya = Indo-European Männerbünde. Page 104: “The Maruts are the friends of Indra, the wielder of the thunderbolt . . .” Thor? Page 110: Indra’s thunderbolt is “shaped like a mace … ”

Page 111: “Indra had been the deity worshiped among the pastoral people of Vraja.” Again, just as Thor was.

Page 118: Varuna “is the ruler of the ‘other side,’ of the invisible world.” He is “said to be an antigod, a magician.” Odin? Page 119: “He catches the evildoers and binds them with his noose.” Criminals sacrificed to Odin were hung. Varuna also “knows the track of birds in the sky,” just as Odin knows the track of Huginn and Muninn.

Page 132: The god of death is named Yama, which means “Twin” (Ymir). “Yama’s brother is the lawgiver, Manu, who shares with him the title of progenitor of mankind.” Yama “owns two four-eyed dogs with wide nostrils . . . They watch the path of the dead.” What can this remind us of except the Greek hellhound, Cerberus?

Page 138: “In contrast to the gods, the antigods [asura] are the inclinations of the senses which, by their nature, belong to the obscuring tendency, and which delight in life, that is, in the activities of the life energies in all the fields of sensation.” This is an accurate description of the Norse Vanir. Asura is cognate with Aesir, so, oddly enough, the term shifts meaning either in the Norse or the Indian tradition.

Page 159: The four ages (yugas) are represented as white (the golden age), red, yellow, and black (the dark age). The stages of the alchemical process (as represented in the West) are black, white, yellow, and red.

Pages 243-45 detail the Upanishadic account of creation out of the primal man Purusha: “He desired a second. He became as large as a woman and man in close embrace. He divided himself into two. From him arose a husband and a wife. Hence it is that everyone is but half a being. The vacant space is filled by a wife.” This is extraordinarily similar to the account of the creation of
men and woman given by Aristophanes in Plato’s Symposium. The world is then created out of Purusha’s body-just as the world is created out of Ymir’s body in Norse myth. “The virile member was separated; from this virile member came forth semen and from semen the earthly waters.” This is identical to the account of the creation of the ocean in the Greek myth of the sacrifice of Ouranos by Kronos.

The account of the hero Kumara/Skana (pp. 297-300) is strikingly like the saga of Sigurd, and also similar in some respects to the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach. The “essences” (apsaras; pp. 304-305) are “water nymphs, eternally young women who are the courtesans and dancers of heaven.” Rhine Maidens? “They are depicted as uncommonly beautiful, with lotus eyes, slender waists, and large hips. By their languid postures and sweet words they rob those who see them of their wisdom and their intellect.” Sirens? “One can master them by stealing their clothes while they bathe. They choose lovers among the dead fallen on the battlefield.” Valkyries?

The above merely scratches the surface of this immensely rich text, which demands careful study and multiple readings.

 

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Paganism & Christianity, Nietzsche & Evola

Paganism & Christianity, Nietzsche & Evola

By Jonathan Bowden 

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

Editor’s Note:

This text continues the transcript by V. S. of Jonathan Bowden’s interview at the Union Jack Club in London on Saturday, November 21, 2009, after his lecture/performance on Punch and Judy ^[2]. The title is editorial. 

Q: When did you decide to convert to paganism and why?

B: Well, I never really converted to paganism. I mean, there are some orthodox pagans, if you can have such a thing, who probably think I am not one. But I’m a Nietzschean and that’s a different system. Somebody made this for me. [Points to odal rune pendant.] And I like Odinic paganism sort of as an objectification of my sort of sensibility. Does one believe the gods objectively exist in another realm? Well, you see, religion is a philosophy about life which is sacristic and has rituals in which you partly act out, therefore it’s more important because it’s made slightly more concrete than ideas or it’s really just based upon ideas. There are relatively simple but powerful ideas at the crux of all the big religious systems. Most people are born in a system and just accept that and go along with it as long as it’s not too onerous or they feel like they live their life through it properly.

I just agree with the ethics of that type of Nordic paganism, which is really how the Vikings lived and how they behaved. I’m less concerned with small groups, which I respect. I like the Odinic Rite, but I personally believe that those sorts of things will only ever activate post-modern minorities and very small ones at that.

I think people should identify with what they think they are and the values that they hold. This symbol really means strength or courage or masculinity or the first man or the first principle of war or the metaphysics of conflict. So, I just think it’s a positive system of value.

I never really was a Christian. Culturally, I have great admiration for elements of Christian art. More so than most people who are pagan who have violently reacted against it. I don’t really share that emotionalism. But I don’t agree with Christian ethics. Deep down, they’ve ruined the West, and we’re in the state that we are because of them.

Q: Just added on to that: How do we create more Nietzscheans? How do we spread Nietzscheanism as a religion, as an idea?

B: You’ve got to get people quite young. I think you’ve got to introduce alternative value systems to them. This is a society that says weakness is good, weakness should be pitied, the ill are weak, the disabled are weak, people who’ve got various things wrong with them (too fat, too thin, bits dropping off) they need help. They may need help. But the value system that lies behind that desire to help worships the fact of weakness and the fact that people are broken. If you worship the idea of strength and tell the weak to become stronger, which is a reverse idea for helping them essentially. You help them in order to get stronger. You totally reverse the energy pattern and you’ve reversed the system of morals that exists in this culture now. You’ve reversed the sort of things that Rowan Williams or his predecessor or his likely successor always says, basically. I think that’s what you have to do.

I personally think it’s a moral revolution, not anything political, that will save the West, because all the technology is here, all the systems of power are here. You only have to change what’s in people’s minds. It’s very difficult though.

Q: So, to a young person watching this video, never heard of you before, where would he go to find out about Nietzscheanism?

B: Just go to the Wikipedia page, surprisingly, although it’s a bit trivial, is actually quite accurate in a tendentious way. Although some of the philosophical debates about him and the genealogy of his works might confuse people because it views it in an academic way. And you don’t need to put his name to it. There’s a cluster of power-moral, individualistic, elitist, partly antinomian, partly gnostic, partly not, partly pagan, vitalist and other ideas which go with that sort of area.

Strength is morality. Weakness is sin. Weakness requires punishment. If you’re weak, if you’re obese, if you’re a drug addict, become less so. Become stronger. Move towards the sun. Become more coherent. Become more articulate. Cast more of a shadow. It’s almost a type of positive behaviorism in some ways. But it’s not somebody wagging their finger and so on, because you’re doing it for yourself. It comes from inside.

Q2: Do you not think though that Nietzscheanism doesn’t have a transcendental element to it?

B: That’s why I’m wearing this [rune pendant], you see, because I probably think there ought to be such a thing. Many people need to go beyond that. If his thinking before he went mad, probably because he had tertiary syphilis, it’s up to sort of 1880, so we’re talking about thinking that’s 130 years old.

I think in some ways he’s an anatomist of Christianity’s decline, because Christianity been declining mentally and in some ways extending out into the Third World where it’s real catchment area now is. I mean, there will be a non-White pope soon. Christianity will begin to wear the face of the south very soon. It’s the ideal religion for the south. It’s pity for those who fail, for those who are weak, for those who are hungry, for those who are broken. Have pity on your children, O Lord. It’s an ideal religion. Don’t take it through violence or fear or aggression. Submit and be thankful for what He will give you in His wisdom.

But it’s ruining us. For centuries we were strong even despite that faith, but of course we made use of it. The part that fits us is the extreme transcendence of Christian doctrine. That’s what Indo-Europeans like about that faith. The enormous vaulting cathedrals, the Gothic idea that you can go up and up and up. It’s that element in it that we like, and we made into ourselves. But we forgot the ethical substratum. We forgot the sort of troll-like ethical element that there is no other value but sympathy, there is no other value than compassion, that love is the basis of all life. And ultimately that is a feminine view of civilization which will lead to its collapse in masculine terms.

Q2: How would you view the works of Julius Evola?

B: Yes, they’re the counter-balance to Nietzsche. There is a lot of religious elements in there of a perennialist sort that a lot of modern minds can’t accept. You see, Nietzsche is a switchblade, and nearly all people in this society are modern even if they think they’re not. Nietzsche is a modern thinker. Nietzsche is a modernist. Nietzsche can reach the modern mind. Nietzsche’s the most Right-wing formulation within the modern mind that people can accept.

My view is that people who accept Evola straight out aren’t living in the modern world. That’s not a criticism. It’s a description of where they are. I think for people to become illiberal they have to become illiberal first within the modern world. Some people would say you have to go outside of it. You know, the culture of the ruins and the revolt against the modern world, per se. But I personally think that we’re in modernity.

But there will be people who go to Nietzsche and Thus Spake Zarathustra, which is really a semi- or pseudo-religious text, is not enough and they’ll want to go beyond that and they’ll want a degree and a tier of religiosity. The dilemma always in the West is what to choose. Back to Christianity or on to paganism? Which system do you choose?

Evola said he was a Catholic pagan, didn’t he? One knows what he means. But I see paganism peeping out of everything. I see paganism peeping out of Protestantism, the most Jewish form of Christianity, through its power-individualism and its extremist individuality (Kierkegaard, Carlyle, Nietzsche). I see paganism saturating Catholicism and peeping out of it at every turn, aesthetically, artistically, the art of the Renaissance, the return of the Greco-Roman sensibility, the humanism of the ancient world. Some of the greatest classicists were Medieval Popes and so on. I see it just looming out. The whole structure of the Catholic Church is a Roman imperial structure, Christianized. So, I see it peeping out.

Our law is Roman. All of our leaders were educated and steeped in the classical world to provide a dialectical corollary to Christianity without them being told that’s what is happening. The decline of the classics is partly because people don’t want to go back there, basically. So, you don’t teach it to anyone apart from tiny little public school elites, which are .2% of the population who read a few authors who no one else even knows exist. You know, big deal.

The difficulty with Evola is that it’s a very great leap for the modern mind. Although in his sensibility, I agree with his sensibility, really. I agree with him going out amidst the bombings, not caring. I agree with that sort of attitude towards life, which is an aristocratic attitude towards life. But we’re living in a junk food, liberal, low middle class society. You’ve got to start where you are. I think Nietzsche is strong enough meat for most people and is far, far, far too strong for 80% now.

Today, the mentally disabled have been allowed into the Paralympics. So, you will have the 100 yard cerebral palsy dash at the next Olympics in London in 2012. This is the world we’re living in. Nietzsche would say that’s ridiculous and so on. And that is a shocking and transgressive and morally ugly attitude from the contemporary news that we see. So, it’s almost as if Nietzsche’s tough enough for this moment.

But I’m interesting in that he said, “God is dead in the minds of men.” That doesn’t necessarily mean, of course, although he was a militant atheist, he’s living open the idea that . . . [God objectively exists—Ed.]. You see, the Christian idea of God was dying around him, mentally, and it has died. I mean, hardly anyone really, deep down, believes that now. Even the people who say that they do don’t in the way that they did 100 years ago or their predecessors did.

So, it has died, but I think there are metaphysically objectivist standards outside life. Whether our civilization can revive without a return to them is very open. It’s very questionable. Where that discourse is to come from is . . . The tragedy would be if Christianity sort of facilitated our greatness, but ended up ruining us, which of course might be the true thesis.

Now we’re getting into deep waters.

Q: What is your view of Abrahamic religions?

B: I think religion is a good thing. The Right always supports the right of religion to exist. Religion does cross ethnic and racial boundaries. Afghanistan was Buddhist once. I prefer people to have some sort of religious viewpoint, even the most tepid sort of thing, but none at all, because at least there is a structure that is in some sense prior.

But, personally, I prefer tribally based religions. I prefer religions that are about blood and genetics and honor and identity and are nominalist and that are specific. But I think people will adopt different systems because they’re physiologically different even within their group. You can see that about certain people. Certain people, Christianity suits them very well and they can be quite patriotic and quite decent people and so on in that system and there we are. But for me? No.

I’m a barbarian in some ways. People can worship what gods they want within the Western tradition, and that’s all right.

 

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URLs in this post:

[1] Image: http://www.counter-currents.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/NietzscheSeated.jpg

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Kemi Seba/Laurent James : "Le pérénialisme global ou l'union ésotérique des dissidences"

Kemi Seba/Laurent James :

"Le pérénialisme global ou l'union ésotérique des dissidences"

Jean Parvulesco, les aventuriers de l'Esprit

Jean Parvulesco, les aventuriers de l'Esprit

Julius Evola: The World’s Most Right-Wing Thinker

Julius Evola:
The World’s Most Right-Wing Thinker

By Jonathan Bowden 

Editor’s Note:

This text is the transcript by V. S. of Jonathan Bowden’s lecture on Evola delivered to the 27th meeting of the New Right in London on June 5, 2010. As usual, I have deleted a few false starts and introduced punctuation and paragraph breaks for maximum clarity. You can listen to it at YouTube here ^[2]. Three passages are marked unintelligible. If you can make out the words, please post a comment below or contact me at [e-mail] ^[3]. 

This is the 27th meeting of the New Right, and we’ve waited quite a long time to discuss one of the most important thinkers of the radical Right and of a Traditional perspective upon mankind and reality, and that is Baron Julius Evola.

Now, Evola is in some respects to the Right of everybody that we’ve ever considered in nearly any of these talks and not in a sort of unprofound or sententious manner. Julius Evola was somebody who rejected purposefully and metaphysically the modern world. Now, what does that mean? It basically means that at the beginning of the last century, Baron Evola, who is a Sicilian baron, decided that there are about four alternatives in relation to modern life for those of heroic spirit.

One was suicide and to make off with one’s self by opening one’s veins in the warm bath like Sicilian Mafiosi and Italian cardinals and Sicilian brigands and ancient Romans.

Another was to become a Nietzschean, which for many people in tradition is a modern version of some, but by no means all, of their ideas, and it’s a way of riding the tiger of modernity and dealing with that which exists around us now. Later, people like Evola and other perennial Traditionalists as we may well call them became increasingly critical of Nietzsche and regard him as a sort of decadent modern and an active nihilist with a bit of spirit and vigor but doesn’t really have the real position.

I make things quite clear. I would be regarded by most people as a Nietzschean, and philosophically that’s the motivation I’ve always had since my beginning. That’s why parties don’t really mean that much to me, because ideas are eternal and ideas and values come back, but movements and the ways and forms that they take and expressions that they have come and go.

Now, moving from the Nietzschean perspective, which of course relates to the great German thinker at the end of the 19th century and his active and quasi-existential and volitional view of man, is the idea of foundational religiosity or primary religious and spiritual purpose. In high philosophy, there are views which dominate everyone around us and modern media and everyone who goes to a tertiary educational college, such as a university, in the Western world. These are modern ideas, which are materialistic and anti-spiritual and aspiritual and anti-religious or antagonistic to prior religious belief so much so that it’s taken as a given that those are the views that one holds. All of the views that convulsed the Western intelligentsia since the Second European Civil War which ended in 1945, ideas like existentialism and behaviorism and structuralism and so on, are all atheistic and material views. They’ve been discussed in other meetings. As one goes back slightly, one has various currents of opinion such as Marxism and Freudianism and behaviorism beginning in the late 19th century and convulsing much of the 20th century.

But these are views that an advanced Evolian type of perspective rejects. These views are anti-metaphysical and often counter the idea that metaphysics doesn’t exist, that it’s the school returning of the late Medieval period, what was called the Medieval schoolmen. In some of his books, Evola talks about Heidegger, Martin Heidegger, of course, who got in trouble in the 1930s for his alleged academic positioning in relation to the most controversial regime of modernity. Heidegger, in my opinion, and I’ve talked about Heidegger before, was a quasi-essentialist to an essentialist thinker. Evola believes he’s an existentialist, but that’s largely by the by.

These anti-metaphysical views are that which surrounds us. All liberalism, all feminism, all quasi-Marxism, all bourgeois Marxism, all cultural Marxism, the extreme Left moderated a bit into the Center, high capitalist economics and the return of old liberalism against the Keynesianism which was the soft Marxism that replaced it earlier in the 20th century . . . All of these ideas are materialistic and atheistic and aspiritual and anti-metaphysical.

You could argue that the heroic Nietzschean dilemma in relation to what is called modernity is a quasi-metaphysical and metaphysically subjectivist view that there are values outside man and outside history that human beings commune with by virtue of the intensity with which they live their own lives. But there is a question mark over (1) the supernatural and (2) whether there is anything beyond, outside man within which those values could be anchored.

So, the idea of permanence, the idea of a metaphysical realm which most prior civilizations are based on—indeed Evola and the Traditionalists would say all prior civilizations are based on—is questioned by the Nietzschean compact. It is ultimately, maybe, the beginnings of a very Right-wing modern view, but it is a modernist view. Take it or leave it.

The sort of viewpoint that Evola moved towards, and there was a progression in his early life and spiritual career and intellectual and writing career, is what we might call metaphysical objectivism. This is called in present day language foundationalism or fundamentalism in relation to religiosity. Fundamentalism, like the far Right, are the two areas of culture that can’t be assimilated in what exists out there in [unintelligible] Street. They’re the two things that are outside and that’s why they can never entirely be drawn in.

Now, metaphysical objectivism is the absolute belief in the supernatural, the absolute belief in other states of reality, the absolute belief in gods and goddesses, the absolute belief in one supreme power (monotheism as against polytheism, for example), the absolute belief that certain iterizations, certain forms of language and spiritual  culture exist outside man: truth, justice, the meaning of law, purposive or teleological information about how a life should be lived. Most people in Western societies now are so dumbed down and so degraded by almost every aspect of life that nearly any philosophical speculation about life is indeterminate and almost completely meaningless. It’s a channel which they never turn on.

 

Now, the type of metaphysical objectivism that Evola postulates as being an anchor for meaning in modern life can take many different forms. One of the great problems many Right-wing or re-foundational or primal movements or tribal movements or nationalistic movements of whatever character have is if there is a religion somewhere behind it–as there often is for many but not all of the key people involved in such movements and struggles–what form should that be? Everyone knows that culturally, and this is true of a formulation like GRECE or the New Right in France, as soon as you begin to get people of like-mind together they will split on whether they’re atheist or not, secularist or not, but they are also, on a deeper cultural level, split on whether they’re pagan influenced or Christian. Such divisions always bedevil Right-wing cultural and metapolitical groups.

The way that the Evolian Tradition looks at this is to engage in what is called perennialism. This is the inherent intellectual and ideological and theological idea that there are certain key truths in all of the major faiths. All of those faiths that have survived, that are recorded, that have come down to us, even their pale antecedents, even those dissident, deviant and would-be heretical elements of them that have been removed, in all of them can be seen a shard of the perspectival truth that these particular traditions could be said to manifest. Beneath this, of course, is the ethnic and racial idea that people in different groups within mankind as a body perceive reality differently, experience it differently, have different intellectual and linguistic responses to it, and form different cults, different myths, different religions because they are physically constituted in a manner that leads to such differentiation.

This can lead among certain perennialists to a sort of universalism at times, almost a neo-liberalism occasionally, where all cultures are of value, where all are “interesting,” where all are slightly interchangeable. But given that danger, the advantage for a deeply religious mind of the perennial tradition is to avoid the sectarianism and negative Puritanism which is inevitably part and parcel of building up large religious structures.

As always, a thinker like Evola proceeds from the individual and goes to the individual. This can give thinking of this sort a slightly unreal aspect for many people. Where are the masses? Where is the democratic majority? Where is the BBC vote that decides? The truth is Evola is not concerned with the BBC vote. He’s not concerned with the masses. He regards the masses, and the sort of theorists who go along with him regard the masses, as sacks of potatoes to be moved about. His thinking is completely anti-democratic, Machiavellian to a degree, and even manipulative of the masses as long as it’s down within an order of Tradition within which all have a part.

Evola dates the decline of modernity from, in a sense, the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance. But many thinkers of a similar sort date the slide at other times. Evola’s a Catholic and once asked about his religious particularism he said, “I’m a Catholic pagan,” which is a deeply truthful remark, dialectically. I am not a Christian, but if you look at it from the outside the core or ur part of Christianity is obviously Roman Catholicism, even though I was technically brought up in the Protestant sort of forcing house of Anglicanism. A wet sheet religion if ever there was one. But Anglicanism, of course, is a syncretic religion. It’s a politically created religion. A bit Catholic, a bit Protestant, but not too much, and with a liberal clerisy at the top that’s partly Protestant-oriented within it and exists to manage the thing.

One of the truthful, although this is en passant, asides that can be made about Anglicanism and the reason why it’s been supported even today through state establishmentarianism when virtually no one attends these churches at all except the odd old lady and immigrants from the Third World, is that it’s a way of damming up some of the extremism that does lurk in religion. Religion is a very dangerous formulation as the modern world is beginning to understand.

I remember Robin Cook, who was a minister who opposed the Iraq War and so on and died on a Scottish mountain, all that obsessive walking when one’s thin and redheaded can lead to undue coronaries, but Cook once said, and he’s a son of the manse like most of these Scottish politicians are, in other words, he comes from a Calvinist background to a degree, he said that in his early life he thought with the general Marxist and Freudian conundrum that religion was over. And now towards the end of his life, this is just before he died, he said, “the dark, clammy, icy hand of religiosity,” in all sorts of systems, “is rising again, and secular Leftists like us,” he’s speaking of himself and those who believe in his viewpoint, “are feeling the winds of this force coming from the side and from behind.” It’s a force that they don’t like.

I personally believe, as with Evola, that people are hardwired for faith. Maybe 1 in 10 have no need for it at all. But for most people it’s a requirement. The depth of the belief, the knowledge that goes into the belief, the system they come out of, is slightly incidental. But man needs emotional truths. George Bernard Shaw once said, “The one man with belief is worth 50 men who don’t have any” and it’s quite true that all of the leaders of great movements and those that imposed their will upon [unintelligible] inside and outside of particular countries have considerable and transcendent beliefs, philosophical, quasi-philosophical, religious, semi-religious, philosophical melded into religious and vice versa. Without the belief that there’s something above you and before you and beyond you and behind you that leads to that which is above you, we seem as a species content to slough down into the lowest common denominator, the lowest possible level.

Evola and those who think like him believe that this is the lowest age that mankind has ever experienced, despite its technological abundance, despite its extraordinary array of technological devices that even in an upper pub room in central west London you can see around you. It is also true, and this is one of the complications with these sorts of beliefs, that some of the methodologies that have led to this plasma screen behind me would actually be denied by elements of some of the religiosity that people like him would put forward, but that’s one of the conundrums about epistemology, about what you mean by meaning, which lurks in these types of theories.

The interesting thing about these beliefs is that they are primal. Turn on the television, turn on the radio, the World Cup is just about to begin. Everywhere there is trivia. Everywhere there is celebration of the majority. Everywhere there is celebration of the desire for us all to embrace and become one world, one world together. As someone recently said, “I don’t want to be English. I don’t want to be British. England’s a puddle,” he said. “I want to step out. I want to be a citizen of the world! I don’t want to have a race. I don’t want to have a kind. I don’t want to have a group . . . even a class! I don’t want to come from anywhere. I want to be on this planet! This planet is my home!” Well, my view is that sort of fake universality . . .  Maybe you should get him one of these dinky rockets and fire himself off into some other firmament, because this is the home that we have and know. And the only reason that we can define it as such is by virtue of the diversity of what exists upon it. But the number of people who wish to maintain that level of diversity and the pregnant meanings within it seem to get smaller and smaller with each generation.

The politicians that we have now are managers of a social system. It’s quite clear that we do not have three ruling parties, but one party with three wings, the nature of which are interchangeable in relation to gender, where you come from in the country, class, background, how you were educated, and whether you arrived in the country as a newcomer in the last 40 to 50 years or not.

Now, Evola’s step back from what has made the modern world leads to certain radical conclusions about it which are spiritually and politically aristocratic. Most people are only aware of the Left-Right split as it relates to a pre-immigration, slightly organic society where social class was the basis for political alignment. Bourgeois center Right: conservatism of some sort. Center Left: Labour, social-democratic, trade unionist, and so on. Now we have a racial intermingling which complicates even that division. The distinction between the aristocratic and upper class attitude and the bourgeois attitude, which is as pronounced as any Left-Right split between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, is that which Evola advocates.

Evola believes, in some respects, in masters and slaves, or certainly serfs. He believes that the merchant and those who deal purely with economics have to be subordinated to politics, to higher politics, to metapolitics, to military struggle. He believes that the warrior and the religious leader and the farmer and the intellectual/scholar/craftsman/artist are uniquely superior to those that make money, and nearly all of Evola’s views are in some way a form of aristocraticism.

If you look at all of the sports that he favors–fencing, mountaineering–they all involve lone individuals who prepare themselves for a task which is usually dangerous and which can usually result–mountaineering for example and his book Meditations on the Peaks–in annihilation, if you go wrong, but creates an extraordinary and ecstatic sense of self-overbecoming if you conquer K2, the Peruvian mountains, the Eiger, Mount Everest and so on. Even in the more populist forms of mountaineering, the sort of beard and upper middle class Chris Bonington cheery mountaineering as you might call it, there is a streak of aristocratic, devil may care and Byronic license. The bourgeois view is, “Why do that!? It’s dangerous. It’s pitiless. You could be hurt and injured! There’s no profit. It serves no higher reason than itself.” For Evola, the reason and the purpose is the reason to do it. It is the stages that you go through and the mental states you get into as you prepare and you execute a task which is dangerous and the same analogy can be extended to martial combat, the same analogy can be extended to sports like ancient wrestling.

Modern wrestling is a circus, of course, where the outcome is largely decided by the middlemen who negotiate the bouts between clowns, who can still damage each other very severely. But ancient wrestling was a bout that ended very quickly and was essentially religious, which is why the area that they wrestled in was purified with salt in most of the major traditions.

Fencing: Take away the protective gloves and gear and you have gladiatorial combat between people who are virtually on the brink of life and death. It’s only one step removed from Olympic fencing. Notice that in the contemporary Olympics, a movement that was founded in modernity on the Grecian ideal, nearly always founded by aristocrats, all of the early victors in shooting and fencing and all these early sports are aristocrats. Of course, the early Olympics have their funny side. Many of the female athletes that won the early Olympics were transsexuals. Of course, medical checks were instituted to prevent hermaphrodites and people of diverse genders and that sort of thing from competing in these competitions. But the individualistic sports in a mass age have been disprivileged and are largely regarded as strange wonderland sports that the masses only flip channels over in relation to the Olympics.

For a man like Evola and for the sensibility which he represents, things like sport are not a diversion. They are targets for initiation in relation to processes of understanding about self, the other, and life that transcend the moment. So, one bout leads to another, leads to another moment of skill. It is as if these moments, which most people always try to avoid rather than engage upon, are in slow motion. The whole point of Evola’s attitude toward these and other matters is to go beyond that which exists in a manner which is upwards and transcendent in its portending direction.

This is a society which always looks downwards. “What will other people think? What will one’s neighbors think? What will people out there think? What will all this BBC audience think? What do the masses, Left, Right, Center, pressing their buttons on panels and consoles think?” The sort of Evolian response is what they think is of no importance and they ought to think what the aristocrats of the world, in accordance with the traditions, which are largely religious, out of which their social order comes, think. You can understand that this is an attitude which is not endeared, this type of thinking, to contemporary pundits and to the world as it now is.

It’s also inevitable that when Evola’s books were published they would enter the English-speaking world via the occult, via mysticism, via various types of initiated and individualistic religiosity. The whole point about the Western occult, whether one believes in the literal formulation that these people spout or whether one believes in it metaphorically and quasi-subjectively, is that it’s an individualistic form of religiosity. In simple terms, mass religion involves a small clerisy or priesthood in the old Catholic sense up there and the laity are down there and it’s in Medieval Latin, it’s slightly mysterious, you partly understand it if you’re grammar school educated, otherwise you don’t, it’s mysterious and semi-initiated, but you don’t really know, the mystery is part of the wonder of the thing, you look up at them and they’ve got their backs to you, and they’re looking up further beyond them towards the divine as they perceive it. Now, that’s a traditional form of mass religiosity, if you like.

But the type of religiosity with which he was concerned was individualistic and voltaic. It was essentially the idea that everyone in a small group is a priest. Sometimes there’s a priest and a warrior combined. One of the many scandals that we have in modernity is crimes that are committed by members of various religious groups and organizations. Many Traditionalist minded people believe that the reporting of these crimes in the mass media is deliberately exaggerated in order to demonize any retrospectively traditional elements of a prior and metaphysically conservative type in the society.

But if one looks at it another way–and one of the things about Evola is the creativeness of the aristocratic mind that looks at essentially Centrist and bourgeois problems in a completely different perspective–he would say about those sorts of scandals, which I won’t belabor people with because everyone knows about them, that it’s the absence of the dialectic between the priest, somebody who believes in something, somebody who believes in a philosophy that isn’t just theirs and therefore relates to a society and relates to a continuing generic tradition out of which they come . . . Most contemporary philosophers are “just my view.” “Just my view as a tiny little atom.” Rather than my view as something that’s concentric and links me to something larger and that therefore can be socially efficacious. But from an Evolian perspective, the absence of the warrior or the martial and soldierly traditions and its interconnection with belief and the individual who believes is the reason for decadence or deconstruction or devilment or decay in these religious organizations. In his way of looking at things, there’s a seamlessness between the poet-artist, the warrior, and the religious believer. They are different formulations of the same sort of thing, because they are always looking upwards and, in a way, are deeply individualistic and egotistical but transcend that, because the concentration on one’s self or one’s own thinking, one’s own feeling, one’s own concerns, one’s own attitude towards this mountain, this woman, this fight, this text is conditioned by that which you come out of and move towards.

Evola doesn’t believe in progress nor does the Tradition that he comes out of. They don’t believe in scientific progress. They don’t believe in evolution. But his anti-evolutionism is strange and interesting. It’s got nothing to do with creationism and, if you like, the Evangelical politics of certain parts of what you might call the Puritan American Right, for example. His attitude is a reverse attitude, which in a strange way is an involuntary and inegalitarian way of looking at the same issue. His view is that the apes are descended from us as we go upwards rather than we are descended from them as we leave them in their simian animalism. So, in a way, it’s actually a reformulation of the same idea but looking upwards and always seeing, if you like, the snobbish, the aristocratic, the prevailing, the over-arching view rather than viewing the thing from a mass, generic, and middling perspective which includes people.

Tony Blair says the worst vice anyone can have is to be intolerant. It’s to be exclusive. It’s to exclude people. “The nature of Britishness is inclusion,” when, of course, the nature of any group identity is exclusion, and who is on the boundary and who can be allowed in and the subtleties and grains of difference that exist between one excluded group and another, where one tendency of man ends and another begins. Evola believes, in a very controversial way, that decline is morphic and spiritual combined. In other words, races of man have a spiritual dimension, have a higher emotional dimension, have a psychological dimension, but never forget that Evola is not a Nietzschean. He is not somebody who believes that it’s all at this level. He believes that the gods speak to man directly and indirectly and the civilizations that we come out of are based essentially on religious premises.

Moderns who sneer at these sorts of attitudes, of course, forget that virtually every civilization that mankind has ever had until relatively recently, and in every civilization there are documents and artifacts which are included in the storehouse of the British Museum just over there in central London, was religiously and theologically based. It’s only really in a post-Enlightenment, Scottish Enlightenment, English Enlightenment, French Enlightenment, 18th century plus sort of a way that the secularization of Western Europe rivals the rest of the planet. Further east in Europe, less of it. Further south in Europe, a bit less of it. Religiosity on most of the other continents of the Earth is still a primary force, but Evola would despise the sort of religiosity that prevails there because he would see in it broken down thinking, syncretism, the people who would say he would be in favor of contemporary Saudi Arabia, for example, would probably be sorely disappointed. He would see under the religious police, under the strict observance of this or that rule, American satellite dishes and modern devices and that which is external, in relation to modernity, and which is being internally accepted. So, Evola was always the critic, if you like, and always on the outside.

Now, his career is quite complicated because when he was a very young man he fought in the First World War on the Italian side. They, of course, fought on the “Western” or Allied side in that war as is often forgotten. There are some extraordinary photos of him on the internet in these goggles and these helmets looking like extraordinarily fascistic, and that movement hadn’t even really been created then. He looks like that in a D’Annunzian-type way, stylistically, even before the gesture itself.

Evola, of course, partly disapproved of Fascism and National Socialism even though he became very heavily implicated and/or involved in both of them, because in his view they weren’t Right-wing enough! They weren’t traditional enough. They weren’t organic enough. They weren’t extreme enough. Evola is probably the only thinker in the 20th century whose written a slim volume criticizing National Socialism from the Right not from any point to the Left. He only aligned with these movements because they forced modernity to question itself and because they were anti-democratic and because they were ferocious and desired morally and semi-theologically–because few, including liberal critics, would deny that there was a semi-theological insistence to most of the radical European movements, even of the Left but certainly of the Right, in the first half of the last century. Evola saw in these movements a chance but no more, which is why he flirted with them, why he wrote a fascist magazine in Italy, why he went to colleges run by Himmler’s SS in Germany, why he was disapproved of by them, why he had sympathizers in the Ernst Jünger-like in the party who protected him, why he was allowed to write with a degree of freedom whilst giving a degree of loyalist obeisance to these structures and yet, at the same time, to remain outside them. The question has to be raised whether Evola’s philosophy is consonant with the creation of a society or whether it will become, if you like, a spirited individualism.

Evola was also involved in the beginning of his career in one of the most radical modernist movements of the 20th century: Dadaism in Italy. He produced Dadaist paintings. Now, this, superficially, looks quite extraordinary. But of course there was a strong interconnection between certain early modernisms and fascistic ideologies. The reason that he became involved in Dadaism is quite interesting, and, of all things, there is a talk on YouTube that lasts four-and-a-half minutes in which Evola is an old man explicating why he was involved. He says the reason we got involved in these movements was to attack the bourgeoisie, was to attack the middle class, and was to attack middle class sensibility and sentimentality. The extraordinary radical anti-system nature of many radical Right ideas, which is hidden in more moderate and populist variants, comes out staring at you full in the face in people like Evola. Many fascistic and radical movements of the Right, of course, were peopled by adventurers and outsiders and quasi-artists and demi-criminals and religious mystics and madmen and people who were outside of the grain of mainstream life, particularly people who were socialized by the Great War, which many of them experienced as a revolution.

Wyndham Lewis who was strongly drawn aesthetically to modernism and politically to various forms of fascism and was a personal friend of Sir Oswald Moseley once said that for us, the First War was a revolution, wasn’t a war. We saw killing on a truly industrial scale. We saw the industrialization of slaughter.

One of the interesting ironies of the Evolian, and in some ways Ernst Jünger’s, position about war is that, although thinkers like them are regarded by pacifists and liberal humanists and feminists, as warmongers, there is a distaste for mass war in Jünger and Evola and the others, because it’s the war of the ants, the war of the masses in blood and dung and soil and gore. There is nothing chivalric about a man being torn to pieces by a helicopter gunship when he doesn’t even have a chance to get his Armalite into the air.

Evola would prefer the doctrine of the champion. You know, when two Medieval armies meet, and one enormous, hulking man comes out of one army, in full regalia trained in martial splendor and arts as a previous speaker discussed in relation to the Norse tradition, and another champion emerges and they fight for a limited objective that leaves civilization intact on either side. But the one that is defeated will obviously pay dues to the other.

Now, this shows the extremely Byronic, individualistic, and aristocratic spirit that lurks in Evola’s formulations. The way that his works have come down to us, of course, is the way that he lived his life and the books that he wrote. It’s interesting that the Anglo-Saxon world has received his literature through translations by mystic and occultistic publishers in the United States: about tantra, about Buddhism, about Japanese warrior castes and traditions, about the Holy Grail, about Greco-Roman, High Christian, pagan, and post-pagan Europeanist and other traditions.

Another radicalism about Evola is his total unstuffiness and absence of prudery in dealings with sex. Evola wrote a book called Metaphysics of Sex. He regards sexuality as a primal biological instantiation through which the races of man are renewed and replaced. But at the same time he regarded it as one of the primary human acts of great energy and force that has to be channeled, has to be made use of, has to be transcended in and of itself. You have this odd commitment to tantra, which is a sort of erotic extremism of occultic sex, and a total opposition to pornography. Why? Because the one involves commercialization of sex, the one involves money interrelated with sexuality. From this purely primal perspective, unless a marriage is arranged between dynastic states or groups for particular statal purposes, which is fine, money has almost nothing to do with these areas of life.

 

The disprivileging of money as the basis of everything and the belief that the society that we have now is the result of the fact that every politician in all of the parties represented in the major assemblies, including radical Right parties essentially of a populist hue actually, believe in Homo economicus. They believe that man is an economic integer and nothing else matters. Immigration? It’s good for the economy, don’t you know? Mass movements of capital around the world at the flick of a button on a screen in exchanges all around the globe, particularly in the Far East now but also ubiquitously? It’s good for the economy! Everything is based upon the freeing of people from prior forms of alleged servitude due to economic enhancement. The sort of doctrines Evola holds are not neo-Medieval, nor are they a desire for a return to the ancient world with certain modern technologies. In some ways, they are a return to the verities that existed before the modern world was created.

One of the most substantial critiques of this type of thinking is the belief that the modern world is inevitable, that all cultures and races will modernize and are doing so at a great rate of knots, that skyscrapers and enormous megalopolic cities are being thrust up in the Andes and the Far East and even client Chinese-built ones will emerge in Africa and elsewhere and that it would be onwards and upwards forever in relation to what we have now. There are grotesque problems with that, of course, because to give every human on this planet irrespective of race, kinship, clime, and culture a middle American lifestyle you will need 3 planets, 8 planets, 10 planets, or you may need them, in order to give them that middle American feeling. The three satellite dishes, the condominium, the three Chelsea tractors outside in the driveway, the multiple channel TV, and so on. To give every African that we will need many, many planets and many, many times the economic wherewithal that we have even at the moment.

The interesting thing about Evola is that many issues that convulse people today–famine in the Third World, war in the Congo, HIV/AIDS–he would say they’re interesting, of course, because they’re things that are going on, and everything has a meaning even beyond itself. But ultimately they’re unimportant. The number of humans on the Earth doesn’t matter to his type of thinking. Pain and suffering do not matter in accordance with his type of thinking. Indeed, he welcomes them as part of the plenitude of life, because life begins in pain and ends in pain and most people live their entire lives in denial of the fact that life is circular as his philosophical tradition believes the world is and meaning is. There is progression around the circle, but there is decline, and decline and death are part of an endless process of will and becoming.

It is essentially and in a very cardinal way a religious view of life, but also a metaphysically pessimistic and conservative view of life in a profound way that the conservatism of contemporary liberal Tories like Cameron would not even begin to understand. To a man like him, theories of Evola’s sort are lunacy, quite literally, the return to the Dark Ages, the return to the Middle Ages, quasi-justifications of slavery, quasi-justifications of the Waffen SS. This is what Cameron or his colleagues on the front bench and his even more liberal colleagues on the same front bench would say about these sorts of ideas.

But the irony is that 300 to 400 years ago, most civilized structures on Earth were based on these ideas. Even the modern ones that replaced them are based upon the contravention of these sorts of ideas, which means that they realized they were real enough to rebel against in the first instance. It’s also true that even in the high point of modernity, post-modernity, hypermodern reality, all the phrases that are used, when a war occurs, when the planes go into the towers in New York, when the helicopter gunships stream over Arabian sands, you suddenly see a slippage in the liberal verities and in the materialism and in some of the ideas which are used to justify these sorts of things. Not much of a slippage, but you suddenly see a slippage, what occultists and mystics call a “rending of the veil,” a ripping of the veil of illusion between life and death.

What is life really about? Is life really about shopping? Is life really about making more and more money? Is life really about bourgeois status when one already has enough to live on? Is life really about eating yourself to death? These are the sorts of things that Evola’s viewpoint pushes before people, which is why the majority will always push it away.

His political texts are essentially Revolt Against the Modern World, Men Among the Ruins, and Ride the Tiger, which explore the nature of a man who is born now when most of the prior traditions of his culture and his civilization have collapsed.  The decivilization of man, the fact that Western cities have turned into Third World zones, the fact that semi-criminality is endemic, the fact that when you go into a street graffiti is there, rap music blares from a passing car, 20%, 40% of the street has no relationship to you aesthetically or ethnically or racially or culturally. Evola would see this as part of the inevitable climate of decline and spiraling downwards towards matter, which is intentional and volitional.

The most controversial area of Evola is when he begins to unpick and reformulate many classic propositionalisms of what might be called the “Old Right” to determine what has occurred and why. Evola is essentially, although he began in a more subjectivist and changeable mood, a deeply religious and aristocratic man. This means there is always a reason. Liberals believe that everything is a confusion and everything is contingent upon itself and everything is an accident waiting to happen. But like Christ in the New Testament, who believes that when two birds fall to the ground the father is aware, Evola believes that there is always a purpose and a reason. Evola believes that civilizations are collapsing in on themselves and tearing themselves apart internally for reasons that are pushed by elites and by forces which are manifest within them that will that desire. The endless atoms and causal moments in the chains may not know of that which is coming, that which is non-volitional, that which is partly pre-programmed. He believes that these tendencies of mass servitude, mass death, mass proletarianization spiritually, mass plebeianism, mass social welfare, mass social democracy are willed, that the destructivity of prior cultural orders is willed and definite, and certain racial groups are used to facilitate that destruction, and that other groups use them in order to achieve it.

He believes in an aristocracy of man, because he believes everything is hierarchical. There was an interesting moment in a by-election in East London or eastern London just recently when the chairman of the party that I used to be in a while ago was asked by a woman of Afro-Caribbean ancestry, “Are we equal with you?” The media’s there, you know. Twenty cameras are upon this individual, and, therefore, given the logic and the paradigm that he is in he said, “Yes.” He would probably want to say, “Yes, but . . . ,” but the media has gone on because it’s got the required answer. Indeed, lots of media investigation now is asking a politician to affirm their correctness before a prior methodological statement, and woe betide any of them if they show the slightest backsliding on any issue about which they should be progressive.

Who can put words in the mouth of somebody who died a while back, but Evola’s answer, the answer of his type of thinking, would be that that woman is unequal in relation to a black writer like Wole Soyinka, who is a Nigerian from the Yoruba tribe and won the Nobel Prize. Is he worthy of winning the Nobel Prize? Was he given the prize in the 1990s because it was fashionable to do? Rabindranath Tagore, the great Indian writer and Brahmin and higher caste type, won it in 1913. Probably wasn’t too much political correctness then, but there was probably a bit even then. The Evolian answer is that she is not equal in relation Soyinka, and Soyinka is not equal in relation to Chaucer or Defoe or Shakespeare or Voltaire or Dante or Tolstoy or Dostoevsky or Wagner, that everything is unequal and that everything is hierarchical and that there is a hierarchy within an individual and between individuals and between groups of individuals, because everything is looking upwards and everything has a different purpose in life.

This means that those who are at the middle and the bottom of an ethnicity, of a social order, of a gender, of a prior historical dispensation should not be lonely, in his way of looking at things, or afraid or rebellious or full of alienation and fear. Because everyone has a role within a hierarchy and people can move to a degree although his viewpoint is essentially aristocratic and not meritocratic. A man like Nietzsche, who Bertrand Russell once condemned as advocating an aristocracy when he was not born in it or anywhere near it, would be accepted, but never completely accepted by an aristocratic caste. Things that are regarded as hopelessly naïve and snobbish now, Evola regards as just due form.

What is the worst thing in the world at the present time according to Sky News? Probably discrimination. Discrimination of one sort or another. Evola would believe that discrimination is the taxonomy of an aristocratic sensibility. One reaches for a piece of cake, one discriminates. One has an arranged marriage with another member of the Sicilian nobility, one discriminates. One reaches for a sword to do down a bounder that one wishes to beat with the flat of the blade, one discriminates between the weapon and the object of the rage, which is itself indifferent because it sees something beyond even itself. These are views, of course, that the majority of people will find cold, chilling, brutal, [unintelligible] beyond their conception. Almost forms of insanity in actual fact in relation to what is today regarded as normal or moral or even human. They are partly inhuman ideas, in some ways, but they are ideas that most aristocracies and most warrior castes have had for most forms of human history.

Evola’s books are now widely available to those who wish to read them. The great conundrum of his work is, does it portend to an asceticism? In other words, if the era of destruction, which is the Kali Yuga on the ideology which he puts forward, which is the Hindu age of destruction where everything is broken and everything is melded together prior to decomposition which will feed a universal rebirth at a future time, because mankind is seasonal in relation to Spengler’s view of the world where his view of history is compared to plants and botany to give it some sort of methodology, some sort of structure.

Don’t forget, these are 19th century and early 20th century ideas. No history don, or hardly any history don, today believes history has a meaning. Carlyle believed that the sort of deistic nature of history impinged upon the decadence of the French royalist elite and it led to the revolution because they didn’t superintend France properly. He sort of believed in his Protestant, thundering way from the pulpit of his study in the mid-19th century that the French Revolution was an outcome that was partly deserved by a failing aristocracy. In other words, history had a meaning.

It had a purpose. Nobody believes history has a meaning or a purpose. Certain anti-fascists would say Stalingrad had a purpose, but they forget that the Red Army shot 16-18,000 of their own men, and the Commissars stood 18 feet behind the lines. They shot an army of their own men in order to win that battle, just as secret police in the Third World cut off the ears and cut out the tongues of any who retreat in battle before they send them back to their villages.

Would Evola approve of that? He would probably say that if it was done individualistically or as a matter of revenge or of rage it’s dependent upon the circumstances, but to do it in a mass-oriented way–mass camps, mass sirens, the totalitarian response particularly of communism, the reduction of everything to the lowest common denominator so all can be free in a sort of pig-like uniformity–he would consider that really to be death and to be fought against.

Evola is extraordinarily controversial because there is an area in his thinking, particularly in relation to the Islamic world, that leads almost to the justification, as certain liberal critics say, of forms of religious terrorism. He never quite advocates that, but it’s quite clear that his loathing of the modern world is so much and his nuanced appreciation of the Islamic concept of Jihad–where you fight within yourself against doubt and fight externally in a quasi-pagan and masculine way against the enemy that is without you–has a resonance that chimes with certain extremist religious people who basically want to blow the modern world up.

So, Evola is, as I say in my title, one of the world’s most Right-wing, certainly most elitist, thinkers. The interesting thing about him is that everything always looks upwards, even his doctrine of race.

You find in many racialistic movements a sort of socialism. That if you are of my ethnicity you are “all right,” as if possession of a certain melanin skin content or absence of same is all that the thing was about. When Norman Tebbit says that the British National Party is old Labour plus allied racialism, there is always a streak of truth to such viewpoints. Evola doesn’t believe in that.

Evola believes that race is spiritual as well as physical. If a man comes to you and says, “Oh, I’m White! You should be looking after me, mate!” he would say what is your intellect, what is your quality, what is your moral sense, what do you know about your civilization, how far are you prepared to fight for it, what pain can you endure, have you had understanding of death in your family and in life, are you a mature and profound human being or are you part of the limitless universality although you were born in a particular group which I respect and come from myself.? That’s the sort of principle that he would have.

Now, that is an attitude of revolutionary snobbery in a way, but it’s snobbery based upon ideas of character. And in the end as we know, politically, character is a fundamentally important thing. And the absence of it, particularly in quasi-authoritarian movements is poisonous because people once in place cannot be removed except by the most radical of means. So, there is a degree to which leadership is all important.

Look at an army. An army is not a gang of thugs. But it can easily become one. An army can easily become a rabble, but armies are controlled by hierarchies of force, the nature of which is partly impalpable. Each squad has a natural leader. Each squad has its non-commissioned officer. Each squad has an officer above them. In real armies, German, British armies of the past, if one officer goes down somebody replaces them from lower down, assumes immediately the responsibility that goes with that role. Even if all the officers are gone and all non-commissioned officers, the natural leader, one of the 5%–most behavioral anthropologists believe that 1 in 20 of all people have leadership critera–can step forward in a moment of crisis and are looked to by the others, because they provide meaning and order and hierarchy in a moment of stress.

Have you ever noticed that when people undergo disaster or when they’re in difficulties they look for help, but they also look for people to lead them out of it? Leaders are never liked, because it’s sort of lonely at the top, but leadership is probably like the desire to believe in something beyond yourself. It’s inborn. And while the principle of leadership remains, where in even democratic societies leaders are required in order to energize the democratic masses . . .

Don’t forget, most of the Caesarisms of modernity are Red forms of Caesarism, forms of extreme authoritarianism and even pitilessness all in the name of the people. All raised in the name of the masses and their glory and their freedom, their liberty and their equality. When Forbes magazine says that the Castro family’s wealth in communist Cuba is $70 million US dollars, when it calls them communist princes . . . Don’t forget, an ordinary man in Cuba could be in prison for owning his own plumbing business. When you realize that these people are princelings of reversal, you sense that some of the hierarchies, although they wear different names and different forms, are occurring in an entropic phase or in a culture of decay do relate to many of Evola’s ideas even in reversal. He would say this is because these ideas are eternal and are perennial and will out in the end.

The traditional political Right-wing criticism of these sorts of ideas is that they are purely philosophical, they relate to individuals and their lives, they tend to Hermeticism and the ascetic view that a learned spiritual man, a man of some substance, can go off and live by himself and the rest can rot down to nothing and who cares. They say that they feed a sort of post-aristocratic misanthropy.

Look at our own aristocracy. They probably lost power in about 1912. They were never shot like in the Soviet Union, they were never beheaded like in revolutionary France of 200 years before. But they have lost everything in a way because their function has been taken from them, hasn’t it? The reason for those schools, the reason they were bred in the first place, the reason for all their privileges and so on has been taken away. The fascination with the Lord Lucan case in the ’70s, the sort of decline of that class. He listens to Hitler’s speeches at Oxford, beats the nanny to death, not even get the right woman in the basement. This sort of thing. Can’t even get that right! Couldn’t even get the crime right! It’s the decline of a class, isn’t it? Going down, and knowing they’ve gone down as well. It’s sort of Oswald Moseley’s son enjoys being dressed up as a woman and spanked and his son has just died of a heroin overdose. And yet Oswald Moseley is in that family chain. You don’t really need to think that there is a sort of efflorescence there. It’s a bit unfair on that family and so on.

But don’t forget, this was a class that was born to pitilessness and rule. This was a class that identified with eagles. That’s why they put them on their shields and on their ties and on their schools. And now look at them.

 

But, of course, they have in a sense joined the rest, haven’t they? They’ve joined the mass. And what they once were no longer matters. Cameron sums it up in a strange sort of way. Traditionally, since the 1960s, the Tories have always elected pushy middle class people with which the mass of their electoral support can identify.

It was always said Douglas-Home would be the last of the old breed. He was premier when I was born. He would be the last of the old breed that would survive and thrive. When asked about unemployment in 1961, Douglas-Home said, “There’s room for a second gamekeeper on my estate.” And people said he was out of touch. Out of touch! And he was out of touch! Let’s face it. But he thought that was a quite commodious and moral answer, you see.

Cameron is strange because all of the ease–the ease before the camera, the ease before people, no notes, look at me, not a trembling lip–all of that ease is part of the genetics of what he partly comes out of. And yet all of his values are bourgeois. All of his values are middling and mercantile. All of his values are this society’s as it now is.

Would Douglas-Home have joined or even given money to United Against Fascism, who he would have regarded as smelly little people on the margins of society who were a Left-wing rabble who probably needed to be beating the grass somewhere? Or in my regiment. You see what I mean? The idea that he would identify with these people because the real enemy represents the seeds of the aristocracy from which one has fled, that wouldn’t occur to him. He was too much what he was, basically, as a form to really consider these lies and this legerdemain and this flight of fancy.

One comes to the most controversial area of Evola’s entire prognosis, and this is the belief that Jewishness is responsible for decline and that they are a distant and another race that pushes upon things and causes things to fall and be destroyed. These are the views, of course, the belief that there is a morphic element in the nature of the decline, that has made him so untouchable and controversial. The interesting thing is that when he was approached about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is believed by all liberal humanist scholars to be a forgery of the Okhrana secret police based upon an alleged French novel, I think in the 19th century, Evola said, I’m not concerned whether it’s a forgery or not, which is a very interesting response.

Because in Evola’s occultistic and Hermetic view of the world you can indicate something through its reversal, you can indicate something through metaphorization, something can be emotionally true and not completely factually true, a text can be used to exemplify truths deeper than its own surface. This is a religious view of the text, of course, that the text does not end with itself. It’s a Medieval view and is based upon a science of linguistic study called hermeneutics where you would look at every word, you would look at every paragraph, you would look at every piece of syntax to deconstruct for essence rather than deconstruct to find the absence of essence.

In the Western world, if you go to university now and you do any humanities, any arts, any liberal arts, or any social science course you will come across an ideology called deconstruction. Even vaguely, the semi-educated have heard of it. This is a viewpoint that says that any essentialisms (race, class isn’t an essentialism, but it begins to become one in the minds of man, belief in God, gender and so on) lead to the gates of Auschwitz. This is what deconstruction is based on as a theory. Therefore you look at every text, you look at every film, because they’re obsessed with mass culture, you see, looking at what the masses look at and what they’re fed by the capitalist cultural machine. They look at this and say, oh look, dangerous essentialism there. Did you see in that John Wayne film? Did you see the way he spoke to the Red Indian? Sorry, Native American. You see that sort of thing. You look at these things and you break them down and you break them down again and you break down the element of sort of “David Duke” logic that could be said to lie in that particular phrasing and so on.

But the sort of analysis that Evola maintains is what you might call constructionism rather than deconstructionism. And that’s building upon the essences of things and bringing out their discriminatory differences. So, to him the fact that that text may have been put into circulation by the Okhrana, the czarist secret police, as a profound Hermetic, metaphoricization for courses of history which may or may not be occurring, is worthy of study. He again returns to the idea that everything has meaning.

If you want war with the Islamic world, the towers will fall. If you a pacifist and isolationist America to enter the Great War, a particular boat with civilians onboard but weapons underneath, will be torpedoed by the Germans. If you want to get the isolationist boobs of middle America into a global struggle in the early 1940s you allow the prospect of an attack that you know is going to happen to it there and you make sure your aircraft carriers are not there and you blame the middling officers who were there for their incompetence retrospectively because it is the moment to kick start democratic engagement with heroic and Spartan activities.

Who can doubt that there is a streak of the Spartan? When an American Marine goes up a beach on Iwo Jima or when he fights in Fallujah? Some of the modern world has certainly fallen away for that man as he faces oblivion in warriorship against the other, even within the modern. People like Evola and Jünger would realize that. There’s even at times, in the extremity of modern warfare, a return to the individual. What about these American pilots and these other pilots, these Russian pilots, who fly in these planes, and the warrior is part of the plane. You know, they have a computer in their visor and they have all sorts of statistics coming up before them. It’s like a man who is an army fighting on his own, isn’t it? He’s got an amount of force under his wings which is equivalent to an army of centuries ago. So, you have a return to elite individuals trained only for killing and warriorship at the top tier of present Western advanced military metaphysics.

The interesting thing about Evola’s way of thinking is it’s creative. Most Right-wing people are pessimistic introverts who don’t like the world they were born into, but Evola seems to be to me in some ways an extravagant, optimistic aristocrat who always sees, not the best side of everything, but the most heroic side of everything that goes beyond even itself. Even if the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, in accordance with his diction, was a lie and can be proved to be such, the fact that millions were motivated to believe in it, millions to reject its causation, that people fought out the consequences and the consequences of the consequences in relation to even some of those ideas, means that it is of great specificity and import.

 

Nietzsche has the idea that a man stands on the edge of a pond, and he skims a pebble into the pond, and it skips across the water. You know when you get it skimming right and it goes and it goes and it goes and wave upon wave moves upon the surface, and you can’t predict the formulation of the wave and the current that it leads into. And that History has unknown consequences.

The Maoist general who was asked by an American sympathizer after the Maoist Long March, itself partly mythological, “What’s your view of the French Revolution?” And he memorably replied, “It’s too early to tell.” Because it’s only two 200 years back. That is the sort of perspective that Evola has.

Although there will be crushing defeats, and men of his sort, aristocrats, for whom the modern world has no time, play polo, waste your money, go to brothels, gamble all the time. There’s no role for you. The world is ruled by machines and money and committees and Barack Obama.

You know, American Rightists call Obama “Obamination” instead of abomination. Is he the signification for everything that is declining in America and isn’t all of these middle class tax revolt type movements which are 100% grassroots American really within the allowed channels of opposition? “He’s a socialist!” “It’s all about tax. It’s not about anything else.” “It’s all within the remit of health care budgetary constraints and views on same.” Etc, etc. “What about the deficit?” Aren’t all of these movements and the rage that they contain elements and spectrums of what he would call anti-modernity or semi-anti-modernity within modernity?

None of us know what the future will hold, but it is quite clear that unless people of advanced type in our group believe in some of the traditions that they come out of again, they will disappear. And in Evola’s view they will have deserved to disappear. So, my view is that whatever one’s view, whatever one’s system of faith . . . and don’t forget that in the Greek world you could disbelieve in the gods and think they were metaphors, you could kneel before a statue of them or you could have a philosophical belief in between the two and all were part of the same culture, all were part of the same city-state, and if called upon as a free citizens to defend it, even Socrates would stand in line with his shield and his spear.

All of Evola’s books are now available on the internet. The most controversial passages about morphology and ethnicity are all available on the internet. Read Julius Evola. Read an aristocrat for the past and the future, and look back to the perennial Traditions that are part and parcel of Western civilization and can fuel the imagination and fire even in those who don’t entirely believe in them.

Thank you very much!

 

 

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URL to article: http://www.counter-currents.com/2014/10/julius-evolathe-worlds-most-right-wing-thinker/

 

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Julius Evola e la donna crudele

Julius Evola e la donna crudele

Ex: http://romeocastiglione.wordpress.com

Si annida il mistero tra le impalcature dell’imponente opera evoliana Metafisica del sesso. Nei capitoli ammalianti è celato un particolare erotismo evocativo; le tematiche affrontate nel volume brillano di un’immortale e remota luce. L’archetipo femminile è denso di sacralità e spiritualità arcana. La donna è inquadrata in un’ottica tradizionale, ancestrale: è sospesa nella perenne immutabilità ed è legata in modo preponderante alla terra, alla luna, ai ritmi ciclici del mondo. È un libro spiazzante, intrigante, coinvolgente. Le righe si sovrappongono nell’immaginario. Julius Evola esalta l’aspetto segreto della femmina, il lato nero, demoniaco. Secondo l’autore la donna riesce a far coesistere dentro di sé la disposizione alla pietà e quella alla crudeltà. In virtù di ciò egli rielabora alcune convinzioni di Lombroso e Ferreno. Particolarmente pone all’attenzione un prototipo di femmina violenta e spietata; tale modello si esalta nelle rivoluzioni e nei linciaggi. L’autore argomenta le supposizioni e riporta i passaggi più improntati del volume lombrosiano La donna delinquente. Credo che sia di ausilio il lungometraggio Malena: le donne del paese si accaniscono con perfida violenza sulla bellissima protagonista del film. La sfigurano pubblicamente. È un atto di giustizia sommaria. Malena abbatte i tabù. Di conseguenza provoca un’invidia assurda. È l’altra faccia della medaglia; rappresenta l’evasione. E deve essere distrutta.

Le donne crudeli di Tornatore sono simili alla perfida Emma Smael del lungometraggio Johnny Guitar di Nicholas Ray. Come il fuoco Emma Smael avvampa la nuda pelle. Ella sprigiona nell’atmosfera un aroma tragico intriso di dolore; ha un carisma esasperato, uno charme lugubre e impersonale. Porta i segni della rabbia oscura e antisolare. È vestita di nero, non cura il suo corpo. All’apparenza è un essere insignificante e indesiderabile. Ma sotto la scorza alberga un’anima inquieta, crudele, mesta. Luccica di cattiva luce quest’antieroina lunare. Emma fomenta il popolo, aizza le masse. Combatte la crociato contro i diversi, i forestieri, i fuorilegge. È puritana: disprezza le tentazioni dei sensi. Nello stesso tempo desidera ardentemente il bandito Ballerino Kid. Nel suo corpo si affrontano gli istinti contrastanti. Questa donna vorrebbe addirittura uccidere la sua segreta passione per far allontanare i bollenti spiriti. «Desideri Kid, ti vergogni e vorresti vederlo impiccato». Ribecca così Vienna, la nemica acerrima, la rivale assoluta.

Evola tenta di mettere insieme come un puzzle i richiami evocativi. In modo particolare è dedicato alla crudeltà della donna un intero capitolo. Così denocciola una carrellata di aneddoti storici: si sovrappongono le saghe della Tradizione. I persiani intravidero nell’universo femminile una particolare dualità. Fuoco e neve, durezze e dolcezza formano la donna. Ebbene sorge un collegamento tra crudeltà e sessualità: il tipo della baccante e della mènade è un esempio lampante. Nelle pieghe affiora un prototipo femminile afroditico ambiguo. La Dolores di Swinburne, la cosiddetta Nostra signora dello Spasimo è il vessillo del peccato, del piacere, della perdizione, della crudeltà latente. E il filosofo coglie alcune sottili sfumature. Ridisegna l’eroina Mimi della Boheme di Murger in un modo diverso; in sostanza inquadra la ragazza in una dimensione perfino “brutale e selvaggia”.

Ebbene il fascino muliebre è associato alla magia e alla stregoneria. Circe, Calipso e Brunhilde rappresentano l’esasperazione, l’estremizzazione, l’attrazione malefica. Tale tipologia di donna attrae l’uomo come una calamita famelica; la fascinazione è gravida di richiami alla negromanzia, all’occultismo. È la lagnanza della terra, lo spirito del peccato, la rottura. Perfino Ulisse è incantato dalle sirene: ascolta l’eco d’estasi legato a un palo. È una lotta tra il bene e il male. Anche il valoroso Gerardo Satriano nel romanzo L’eredità della priora è sedotto dalle fattucchiere lucane. Smarrisce la concezione del tempo e annulla la sua individualità. Così come perde la cognizione del tempo il giudice salentino protagonista del film Galantuomini di Winspeare. L’uomo prova una strana attrazione nei confronti di una donna legata al mondo della malavita. Per tale ragione perde tutte le certezze e confonde il bene e il male.

La letteratura, la poesia e il cinema hanno esaltato diverse volte le donne crudeli, in altre parole quelle dotate di un fascino antisolare, demoniaco. Per alcune strane similitudini elogio Giulia Venere, la domestica del libro Cristo si è fermato a Eboli di Carlo Levi. Leggo, annoto i passi del racconto. Ed elaboro il pensiero. Penso che sia un accostamento intrigante; tramite poche righe il lettore è catapultato in un anfratto antimoderno. «Giulia era una donna alta e formosa – scrive Levi – doveva aver avuto, nella gioventù una specie di barbara e solenne bellezza. Il viso era ormai rugoso per gli anni e giallo per la malaria, ma restavano i segni dell’antica venusità nella sua struttura severa, come nei muri di un tempio classico, che ha perso i marmi che l’adornavano, ma conserva intatta la forma e le proporzioni. […] Questo viso aveva un fortissimo carattere arcaico, non nel senso del classico greco, né nel romano, ma di una antichità misteriosa e crudele, cresciuta sempre sulla stessa terra senza rapporti e mistioni con gli uomini, ma legata alla zolla e alle eterne divinità animali. Vi si vedevano una fredda sensualità, una oscura ironia, una crudeltà naturale, una protervia impenetrabile e una passività piena di potenza che si legavano in un’espressione insieme severa, intelligente, malvagia». Con molta probabilità anche Levi ha subìto il fascino distruttivo della maga lucana. Emerge un ritratto sensuale, erotico, spietato.

Tale donna è un archetipo, un modello evoliano. Il filosofo della tradizione nella sua Metafisica del sesso rimarca gli oscuri aspetti. E appare con prepotenza la “dimensione fredda” evocata perfino da uno scrittore progressista come Carlo Levi. «È questa la dimensione fredda della donna – scrive Evola – quale incarnazione terrestre della Vergine, di Durgâ e in quanto essere yin. […] Che la donna sia connessa più dell’uomo alla terra, all’elemento cosmico – naturale è cosa dimostrata. […] Ma nell’antichità questa connessione si riferiva piuttosto all’aspetto yin della natura, dal dominio sovrasensibile notturno e inconscio, irrazionale e abissale, delle forze vitali. Di qui, nella donna certe disposizioni veggenti e magiche in senso stretto».

Nella rappresentazione cinematografica del libro Irene Papas veste i panni di Giulia. Avvertiamo nelle pieghe delle scene un velato erotismo colmo di allusioni estatiche. La donna nasconde il suo copro con le vesti. Soltanto i piedi sono scoperti: pertanto codesta forma di pudore primordiale si differenzia da quello delle donne orientali. Le cinesi considerano i piedi l’elemento primitivo da nascondere; le arabe, invece, coprono la bocca. E Giulia cammina scalza fra le macerie derelitte. In uno spezzone lascia intravedere una gamba nuda; la copre subito con un’aria sensuale. Magnetizza così l’uomo. Quest’ultimo è attratto dal gesto insolito della megera, dai movimenti furtivi, dal sensualismo impersonale. Proprio Evola dedica al pudore taluni passaggi coinvolgenti. «Si sa fin troppo bene quanto spesso la donna usa le vesti per produrre un maggior effetto eccitante allusivo alle promesse della sua nudità. Montaigne ebbe a scrivere che ci sono cose che si nascondono per meglio mostrarle».  Giulia Venere si è cristallizzata nelle sembianze di Irene Papas ed è difficile scindere le due figure. Il gesto insolito dell’attrice greca è un frammento penetrante e ipnotico. Con pochissime e calde movenze è riuscita a descrivere i sentieri tracciati nel libro evoliano.