| Topic: |
Science > Abortion |
| User: |
"Ahn Fyuh Wi Dizayah" |
| Date: |
31 Dec 2003 08:36:46 AM |
| Object: |
Traditionalism: opposition to the last 2,000 years |
Ahn Fyuh Wi Dizayah's Anti-Racist Resources List Presents
TRADITIONALISM: EVOLAN AND SCHOPENHAUERIAN POLITICAL RESPONSES TO MORALISM
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If you like this kind of political material of an informational
nature, you might like Ahn Fyuh Wi Dizayah's Anti-Racist Resources
List, a list of anti-fascist, anti-racism and radical leftist
resource.
http://www.geocities.com/g848138/
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WARNING: Material within is not suitable for young viewers. It is frequently
controversial and upsetting and in the interest of space, we have not added
the often-obvious editorial commentary. Many people, especially Holocaust
survivors and the very sensitive, should avoid the descriptions of extremist
political figures and their ideologies.
That being said, on to...
Traditionalism: Evolan and Schopenhauerian Political Responses to Moralism
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The term Tradition refers to the concept that all authentic religions derive
from a single Primordial Tradition and are therefore equally valid paths to
Salvation. Traditionalism is therefore the school of religious studies that
strives to illuminate the unifying Principles underlying the various
manifest Traditions of the world.
Traditionalism was founded (if one can say such a thing about a perennial
wisdom) by the French scholar Rene Guenon (1886-1951). Other notable
Traditionalists include Julius Evola, Frithjof Schuon, Ananda K.
Coomaraswamy, Lord Northbourne, Titus Burkhardt, Martin Lings, Seyyed
Hossain Nasr, Whitall Perry, Robin Waterfield, Arthur Versluis, R.A.
Schwaller deLubicz, and William Stoddart. Thinkers sympathetic to some
extent or other to the Traditionalist view include Mircea Eliade, Huston
Smith, Jacob Needleman, Alain Danielou, and Joseph Campbell.
http://www.kiva.net/~julianus/tradition.html
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THE CRISIS OF THE MODERN WORLD, GLOABLISM, THE NEW WORLD ORDER AND KALI YUGA
THE REVOLUTION AND THE CRISIS OF THE MODERN WORLD
"Any historical prospect reveals that, just as man civilizations know, after
a dawn and a development, a decline and an end. Some tried to discover the
law which governs such a destiny, the cause of the decline of civilizations.
This cause could never be brought back to purely historical factors and
naturalists." (Julius Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World)
"There are diseases that incubate for a long time and become manifest only
when their hidden work has almost ended. This is the case of man's fall from
the ways of what he once glorified as civilization par excellence. Though
modern men have come to perceive the West's bleak future only recently,
there are causes that have been active for centuries that have contributed
to spiritual and material degeneration. These causes have not only taken
away from most people the possibility of revolt and the return to normalcy
and health, but most of all, they have taken away the ability to understand
what true normalcy and health really mean." (Julius Evola in Revolt Against
The Modern World)
"This present "civilization"... has brought to all strata of society and to
all races the following "gifts": restlessness, dissatisfaction, resentment,
the need to go further and faster, and the inability to possess one's life
in simplicity, independence, and balance. Modern civilization has pushed man
onward; it has generated in him the need for an increasingly greater number
of things; it has made him more and more insufficient to himself and
powerless." (Julius Evola in Revolt Against The Modern World)
We live among ruins in a World in which "god is dead" as Nietzsche stated.
The ideals of today are comfort, expediency, surface knowledge, disregard
for one's ancestral heritage and traditions, catering to the lowest
standards of taste and intelligence, apotheosis of the pathetic, hording of
material objects and possessions, disrespect for all that is inherently
higher and better - in other words a complete inversion of true values and
ideals, the raising of the victory flag of ignorance and the banner of
degeneracy. In such a time, social decadence is so widespread that it
appears as a natural component of all political institutions. The crises
that dominate the daily lives of our societies are part of a secret occult
war to remove the support of spiritual and traditional values in order to
turn man into a passive instrument of dark powers. The common ground of both
Capitalism and Socialism is a materialistic view of life and being.
Materialism in its war with the Spirit has taken on many forms; some have
promoted its goals with great subtlety, whilst others have done so with an
alarming lack of subtlety, but all have added, in greater or lesser measure,
to the growing misery of Mankind. The forms which have done the most damage
in our time may be enumerated as: Freemasonry, Liberalism, Nihilism,
Capitalism, Socialism, Marxism, Imperialism, Anarchism, Modernism and the
New Age. Each of these creeds - materialist at base - is philosophically
wrong and discredited in practice. Our definition of modern and modernism
has nothing to do with what may be 'new or in the shape of the present',
instead, what is here defined as modern, is that which is cut off from the
Divine, the Transcendant, or the 'Supernatural', everything that does not
refer to - and is isolated from - "the immutable principles which govern
everything and which are known to man through revelation." (S. H. Nasr)
The French Revolution of 1789 which was effect of the ideas on which modern
society is based upon was only one markable eruption of this development
towards annihilation. It was the primary event which thrust philosophical
materialism from under surface onto the world stage. In the intervening two
centuries, the power of Organized Naturalism in all its diverse forms - that
is to say, the systematic tendency to deny in theory and practice the
reality of Soul and Spirit - has grown steadily to the point that it now
threatens to engulf the entire world.
"The disappearance of conscious personality and the turning of feelings and
thoughts in a definite direction, which are the primary characteristics of a
crowd about to become organized, do not always involve the simultaneous
presence of a number of individuals on one spot. Thousands of isolated
individuals may acquire at certain moments, and under the influence of
certain violent emotions--such, for example, as a great national event --
the characteristics of a psychological crowd." (Gustave Le Bon)
"The idea that institutions can remedy the defects of societies, that
national progress is the consequence of the improvement of institutions and
governments, and that social changes can be effected by decrees...was the
starting point of the French Revolution, and the social theories of the
present day are based upon it. The most continuous experience has been
unsuccessful in shaking this grave delusion ... institutions are the outcome
of ideas, sentiments, and customs, and...are not to be recast by recasting
legislative codes. A nation does not choose its institutions at will any
more than it chooses the colour of its hair or eyes. Institutions and
governments are the product of the race. They are not the creators of an
epoch, but are created by it." (Gustave Le Bon)
"The civilization of the modern West appears in history a veritable anomaly:
among all those which are known to us more or less completely, this
civilization is the only one which has developed along purely material lines
and this monstrous development, whose beginning coincindes with the
so-called Renaissance, has been accompanied, as indeed it was fated to be,
with a corresponding intellectual regress; we say corresponding and not
equivalent, because here are two orders of things between which there can be
no common measure. This regress has reached such a point that the Westerners
of today no longer know what pure intellect is; in fact they do not even
suspect that anything of the kind can exist; hence their disdain, not only
for eastern civilization, but also for the Middle Ages of Europe, whose
spirit escapes them scarcely less completely. How is the interest of a
purely speculative knowledge to be brought home to people for whom
intelligence is nothing but a means of acting on matter and turning it to
practical ends, and for whom science, in their limited understanding of it,
is above all important in so far as it may be applied to industrial purposes
?" (Rene Guenon, East and West)
KALI YUGA AND THE IRON AGE
The modern world has case broken away from all historical awareness whereas
"traditional" structures, for example the Greco-Roman or the Irano-Indian,
were organized on the basis of their awareness of their own belonging,
belonging that is, to the "eternal" unchanging cycles of human history. The
Ancient World at the time of Plato was aware of everything recurring in
history. The modern world has put an end to every traditional order and has
replaced it with chaos. The individualism of modern societies, which are
without Tradition, accepts neither that people are unequal nor that
Authority and Hierarchy as such defy analysis.
In "Works and Days" Hesiod divided time into five ages:--the Golden age,
ruled by Cronos, when people lived extremely long lives 'without sorrow of
heart'; the Silver age, ruled by Zeus; the Bronze age, an epoch of war; the
Heroic age, the time of the Trojan war; and lastly the Iron age, the corrupt
present. This is similar to Hindu and Buddhist concepts of the Kali Yuga.
The idea of a Golden Age has likewise had a profound impact on western
thought. The characteristic of the modern Age, which can be equated with the
"Age of Iron", the "Kali Yuga", outlines and forseen in nearly all
pre-modern societies, is the loss of identity and the rise of collectivism,
a characteristic of Bolshevist and Western societies alike.
De Maistre explained that savage peoples are not primitive peoples in the
sense of original peoples, but rather the degenerated and/or degenerating
remains of ancient peoples that have disappeared. In contrary to the
evolutionary dogma animal species clearly show the degeneration of
primordial man's potential. Julius Evola wrote: "These unfulfilled or
deviant potentials manifest themselves as by-products of the true
evolutionary process that man has led since the beginning. For this reason,
ontogenesis, the biological history of the individual, does not repeat in
any way the process of phylogenesis, the presumed evolutionary history of
the species, but passes again through some eliminated possibilities. It
stops to roughly outline them and then moves beyond, subordinating these
possibilities to the superior and specifically human principle, which is
defined and fulfilled little by little in the development of the
individual."
If anything characterizes our times, it is a sense of pervading chaos. In
every field of human endeavor, the windstorms of change are fast altering
the ways we live. Contemporary man is no longer anchored in certainties and
thus has lost sight of who he is, where he comes from and where he is going.
We are now living in an age of increasing strife and chaos. Almost every
nation of the West has entered a dangerous age of mediocrity, weakness, and
decline. Europe has fallen and brought its destructing forces to the whole
world. The whole World faces a profound crisis. The so called progress and
the development of mankind have brought us to a point near the end.
That "no more tradition's chains shall bind us" is one of the fundamental
ideas of socialist/progressivist thinking. Man must be freed from tradition.
Reason is to be the guiding light. The devil can cite scripture for his
purposes. Reason can often be used to support any position. If men and women
are freed from tradition, the experiences of history and the family
environment, they can be manipulated and used by ideological and religious
leaders, eccentrics and maniacs. If tradition declines, ideologues can mould
and influence individuals.
THE NEW WORLD ORDER AND GLOBALISATION
The process of building the "new world order", at the centre of which stand
the political-financial oligarchic groups of the West, is called as
globalisation. The victims of this process are the sovereign states, the
national cultures, the religious doctrines, the economic traditions, the
manifestations of social justice, the surrounding environment - every
spiritual, intellectual and material variety on the planet. The term
"globalism" in the customary political lexicon means just "unipolar
globalism", i.e. not the fusion of the different cultures, social-political
and economic systems into something new (as this would be "multi-polar
globalism", "eurasist globalism"), as the imposition of Western stereotypes
upon mankind.
The type of world under construction was implicit in the history of
imperialism and capitalism since the Second World War. The sudden and
apparent collapse of Communism as the dominant and official political
ideology in Eastern Europe was quickly heralded as proof of the technical
superiority of Capitalism and Liberal Parliamentary Democracy, not only over
State Socialism, but over all other political philosophies. From this
background, the moral superiority of the current Western political order was
also assumed, not by a process of rational and informed debate, but by
simply stating it as axiomatic, as something which did not need to be
discussed since it was 'self-evident'. But it has not been enough to dismiss
the great thinkers and leaders of two millennia by whom Europe was
originally formed and moulded as irrelevant to education in the modern
world, except in a purely historical sense. It has also become necessary to
create a sustained campaign against any manifestation of what might be
regarded as 'anti-liberal' or 'anti-modern' thought.
Current political debate has become increasingly focused on matters on minor
importance while issues of greater significance are not given a public
airing.
There has been a steady internationalization of capital leading to the
growth of the multinational corporations and the international banks to a
stage where their power is organized through international institutions- the
World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the General Agreement On
Tariffs And Trade forums and the European Economic Community bureaucracy.
The forces of global capital have created political 'clubs' such as the
Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberger Group. In Australia we have the
Committee For The Economic Development Of Australia. We are witnessing
before our eyes the emergence of a transnational class. This group has no
allegiance to any 'Western' state, to any race or cultural identity. It is
beyond the structures of international politics as have developed over
centuries. The ownership of capital is not the sole entry ticket to
membership of this class. Service in politics, management, the arts,
academia or in certain professions, will win admission.
The "values" of the transnational class are economic. In the free-market of
goods and ideas, a New World Order of plenty and peace will be built. All
countries, all peoples are welcome to "join". All barriers to the movement
of money and people will come down. Philosophies and religions will all
become aspects of a cultural pluralism which can be 'chosen' by people on
the basis of taste. Like a new Roman Empire, all is permissible if loyalty
is rendered unto Caesar.
This New World Order was proclaimed the moment the old Eastern Bloc
disintegrated. It is obvious that there are peoples who are not part of this
Order. The Chinese superpower is not a member of the club; nor is India, and
Russia remains unwelcome. The Islamic world cannot be part of a system that
directly involves Zionism. African countries scarcely count at all. This
does not mean that these lands are not penetrated by international capital,
nor that they don't contain sectors who would dearly welcome globalism. It
does not mean that cheap labour countries are not exploited to provide cheap
products - or immigrants to the factories of the home-bases of the NWO. The
fact that whole areas of the globe are outside this system means that its
claim to political normality is a basic lie. It must thence rely upon the
impact of economic globalisation for its power.
In the struggle against the New World Order it is necessary to appreciate
the presence of peoples and states outside of it, and possibly opposed to
it. Not all these forces are fulsome or even conditional friends. Some are
eying Australia also as an open-land available for possible settlement. Yet,
in the world of realpolitik, facts are facts and it is necessary to
surrender to the facts. It is obligatory that we mobilize our ideological
weapons to win allies where we can, or to disintegrate or damage those
structures imposed upon any people by the new Order. We must weaken this
system.
This means we understand that if we demand national freedom for ourselves,
we cannot repudiate it for others. We must favour national independence
struggles. We must accept the genuine plurality of cultures and peoples, as
opposed to the false pluralism of liberal-internationalism, which seeks to
standardize humanity and culture. We must encourage armed neutrality against
alien blocs and support - even critically - any regime bullied by the new
Order.
http://www.geocities.com/integral_tradition/crisis.html
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The Faith Of Life And Order
Tradition, Racialism and National Socialism
12/28/2003 12:10:26 AM
Discuss this story in the forum
Bill White
Commentary -- The Faith Of Life And Order Tradition, Racialism and National
Socialism
Traditionalism is the occult understanding of the ancient faiths of the
great civilizations. It is an understanding of the nature of the world as
one of conflict between two primordial forces - creation and destruction -
in which, after a long period of disintegration, where death appears to
dominate life, the life force reasserts itself, annihilating its opposition.
While these fundamental propositions are not in accordance with the crude
racialism of American white nationalism, they cannot be understood outside
of their racial implications.
The nature of the Life force - the force of creation - is one of Order. As
the Egyptian Pharoah Akhnaton once prayed, the God of Life and Order both cr
eated the Earth's peoples and divided them by race - then separated them and
placed them in their own distinct portions of the world. A Christian who
believed in God's creation of the Earth would see it similarly - that the
divisions between men are part of God's creation, and thus to deny or
attempt to undo those divisions is a rejection of the divine majesty of
God - it is the sin of pride in the belief that man can arrange the Earth
better than the divinity himself.
The nature of the Death force - the force of destruction and
disintegration - is one of Chaos. As the Jew preaches and has preached, it
is the destruction of the Order of nature, and the disintegration of the
divisions between men, that is the essence of the faith of evil. The
Traditionalist sees the Jew as an occult force of hatred for Life and
Traditional humanity; the Christian sees the Jew as both the child of Satan
and the congregant of Satan's synagogue.
Within each race of man exists the same Order as exists between each race of
man. While the races of men are separated by geography, the Order within
each race is separated by caste - a division more fundamental than the
economic accidents of the Marxist Jewish concept of social class. Some
members of a race are the guardians of Tradition, whether intellectually as
a priest caste, or physically as a warrior caste.
Other members of the race conduct the practical business of material living,
either as merchants or as works. Within each race is also an out-caste - the
defectives of the race whose lives possess no character which give them
value, or whose actions sum to a net drain on society without any potential
of a net contribution.
Further, in the true society of Life and Order, the ultimate government of a
race or a people is entrusted to a living god - a man whose body is
possessed by the God-king of that race. The divine being uses the man's body
as his vehicle for communication with his people, and for providing his
wisdom is guiding the people's development upon the Earth.
The nature of the Death force is to confound and confuse these orders and
these divisions, first so as to cause the God-king to leave his people, and
second so as to cause the people to fall into progressively worse forms of
government. The Death force confounds the castes, and causes individuals
within the castes to see themselves not as men and women dedicated to the
performance of a particular function, but as individuals who have no
function other than that which they themselves determine.
By isolating in-caste individuals from the social whole, the Death force
pushes these individuals into the status of out- castes, though this type of
individual outside of their caste should be confused with those individuals
who are incapable of caste at all. The corrupted individual is capable of
production if they can be rescued from the Death force; the other type of
individual is incapable of ever contributing productively to the
continuation of Life and Order. The people of the Death force are the Jews
and all those who adhere to Jewish doctrines.
Besides the Jews, there are those people who have never possessed Tradition
or the civilization and culture which accompany it. On Earth, these people
are primarily the two people of Africa, Australia and Oceana, and those
peoples of the Americas and Asia which never developed beyond tribal
society. The major peoples of Tradition are the Northern Europeans (Germans,
Nordics and Celts), the Southern Europeans (Greco-Romans), the people of the
Middle East (from Babylon and Assyria to the modern people of Islam), the
Egyptians, the people of East Asia (China and Japan), the people of Southern
Asia (the Indians), and the people of Central America (the Mayans, Aztecs
and Incas).
Those who stand outside of those cultures and their derivatives and who are
not Jews are simply animals that never developed - they are blank slates who
played no role in the battle of Life and Death until those forces discovered
them in their primitive ignorance, and play a role only insofar as the
people of Tradition or Destruction use them for that purpose.
Left to themselves, the native peoples of Africa, Australia and the American
and Asian tribes would never have any meaningful role in the larger conflict
that defines existence. Because the nature of the Jew is to destroy, and
because those who adhere to or embrace Judaism or any of its derivatives are
inherently destructive by nature, those who follow the God of Life and Order
must live in conflict with the Jew until the time of the Jew's final
destruction in the battle of Ragnarok, or Armageddon.
Some outspoken Traditionalists today try to avoid this essential element by
misrepresenting the fundamental teachings of men like Julius Evola; this
practice is itself evidence that the influence of the God of Death extends
even to the minds of the Traditionally-oriented among modern men. While it
is true that there are elements among every race that are worthy of being
despised, either because of their defective nature or because of their
embrace of the culture of the destructive God, the only race of man that
willingly exists in the near universal service of the Death God is the Jew -
and that a man born into Judaism can only be redeemed by a fundamental
rejection of their inner nature - a process whose existence itself is
questionable.
Similarly, the argument that men are of different castes, or that some men
within every race are naturally defective, is used by some to argue that
there is no inherently racialist aspect to Tradition - that one would prefer
the company of an Indian Brahmin to that of a white sudra. While it is true
that the company of the Hindu Brahmin may be more intellectually
stimulating, and such a cultural exchange between people of Tradition should
be encouraged, it is the duty of the white religious caste to provide for,
to lead, and to protect the white worker.
The fact that there are caste divisions among white people, and that there
are people in other branches of Tradition that are natural leaders among
their people, does not invalidate the idea of Order, and its corollaries of
division, specialization and hierarchy, among the races of mankind. While it
may be true that it would be immoral for a white worker to presume to
dominate or fulfill the role of a Hindu Brahmin, that does not imply that
the Hindu Brahmin's role is one of domination of the white worker or make
any implication on the natural relationship between European and Indian
society.
White workers exist within a caste system with white priests, warriors and
merchants, and Hindu workers exist within a caste system with Hindu priests,
warriors and merchants. The two caste systems have a relationship between
them which defines the manner in which the individuals of the societies'
castes interact. National Socialism, as practiced by Adolf Hitler in the
Third Reich, is seen by many as the most recent manifestation of the rule of
the God of Order on Earth. Evola, it is true, had difficulty with the
worker-oriented nature of National Socialism, but those objections, to a
large degree, can be dismissed as a deficiency in Evola's understanding;
Evola, in his writings, is overly focused on his personal superiority to
others of his own race, rather than on his role in a healthy Traditional
society in which others of his own race co- exist in different positions.
Evola saw the hierarchy of the castes as being a pecking order of domination
instead of a cooperative differentiation of function - it is a bit like the
old joke where the organs of the body come together and think themselves
more important than the *****, until one day the ***** decides to stop
working and the body dies. Even the "lowest" of the castes is as vital to
the functioning of the Traditional social body as the highest, and thus the
members of each caste must be respected within the context of their social
role - a worker who performs admirably as a worker is as respectable as a
rich merchant, a decorated warrior, or a wisened priest.
Part of Hitler's genius was his preaching of the integration of society into
a social whole where, while the divisions of warrior, worker and merchant
still existed, they existed in a complimentary, rather than oppositional,
manner. The Third Reich stressed the unity of all the people of the race and
nation, and worked to expel those elements which seeked to disrupt the
natural harmony that occurs when people of all social roles struggle
together for the common end. Hitler's rise and fall is seen as a fulfillment
of prophecy.
One of the God- king's Traditional names is He-Who-Comes-Back. The God of
Order is to return in different manifestations during the Kali Yuga -- the
Age of the Death God - to remind those men and women who adhere to Tradition
that the time of the final battle is coming. In the past, men such as
Genghis Khan have appeared on Earth as the physical manifestations of the
Life God and his pantheon - Genghis Khan's role was the manifestation of the
Life God as a destroyer of wicked men.
Adolf Hitler was an avatar of the God of Order who appeared to rally men to
the old faith in preparation for the God of Order's final coming. The
individual existences of the men and women who live in the way of the God of
Life and Order have meaning only insofar as their personal existences
contribute to the larger construct whose life is eternal; the spirits of
those men and women who struggle for Tradition are eternal and are subject
to perpetual reincarnation as their spirits are needed by the Life God later
in the cycles. The idea of reincarnation, whether once as a warrior from
Valhalla who is brought back at the final battle, or perpetually as part of
the soul's development and enlightenment, is fundamental to the
Traditionalist worldview.
However, reincarnation is not universal - those peoples who exist without
souls, such as the Jews, and those people who do not perform their
obligations to their larger social construct die without resurrection, and
their life-force dissipates and is destroyed. This idea is best captured in
the Norse view of Hel and the Greek view of Hades as places where the souls
of those who did not excel were sent to exist in eternal nothingness. Some
could argue that men who do not perform their proper caste roles, like the
Jews and the servants of Death, never possess souls at all - that while the
number of souls was fixed at a finite number at the beginning of time, the
number of soulless walking corpses have grown substantially.
The God who comes back returns to Earth periodically to give hope to the men
and women of the Traditional faith. Though there is an inherent hostility to
Christianity within much of the current body of Traditionalist thought, I
believe that both Jesus Christ and Mohammed can be brought within this world
view, as can men like the aforementioned Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan and
Akhnaton, and many others whose manifestations on Earth have fundamentally
altered the relationships between Life and Death. I do not believe that the
misguided and decadent followers of Christ in the United States - followers
who embrace the Jew and the God of Death at every opportunity, and who spit
on Life, Order and the love and health of the world - can be held against
the teacher himself.
Further, the fact of conflict between the adherents of a Traditionalist
teacher and other Traditional cultures is not prima facae evidence that the
new teacher is a manifestation of the Death God; Genghis Khan destroyed the
decadent Traditional cultures he encountered simply because they were so
withered by the Death God that they needed to be destroyed so that creation
could again spring up amongst them. Similarly - the fact that the teachings
of Christ were propagated in a decadent and destructive form among the
Romans, who had already been possessed by decadence and destruction, or that
Charlemagne destroyed the healthy paganism of the Germans in the name of
Christ - does not inherently eliminate any Traditionalist understanding of
the Christian teachings.
Some Christian teachings - such as the teaching that there is no God other
than the Jewish God the Christians attempted to inherit - and most of the
Jewish teachings wrapped around Christ's life, must, however, be rejected
out of hand. As adherents of a Life-oriented worldview, the individual
Traditionalist accepts certain ritualistic taboos as evidence of adherence
to the faith. Savitri Devi has proposed abstinence from the consumption of
meat as a taboo to demonstrate that one believes in the destruction only of
unhealthy Life, which is inedible because it is tainted.
Because the Death Force exists to corrupt and destroy healthy life and
healthy existence, one refrains from the destruction of all healthy
creatures. By refraining from eating meat, one is reminded not only of the
duty to protect the innocent, but of the duty to kill and punish the wicked
and the unjust. By integrating the taboo into one's daily life, one is given
a constant reminder of this duty - much as the Muslim habit of
five-times-daily prayer is a constant reminder of his submission to God.
By understanding the world as being the stage where a conflict between good
and evil - Creation and Destruction - is being played out, the
Traditionalist has a higher understanding of the nature of men and natural
forces, and is better equipped to contribute to the world and to claim his
place in the Hall of the Gods, awaiting reincarnation to participate in
future battles for the health of the world. The Traditionalist knows what
the petty materialist intellectuals of modern times do not, and thus can
understand the behavior of the Jew in politics and finance in a way that men
who utilize economic analysis with the assumption that there are no
significant differences in the nature of the races of man cannot.
The Traditionalist can see the wickedness of the followers of the Death God
and knows they pursue that wickedness even if it causes them material
adversity, while the class analyst or the analyst of the petty politics of
conservatism and liberalism remains shocked without proper explanation of
their behavior. The Traditionalist knows that the Death God and his servants
intend to consume the world, while the capitalist, communist, conservative
or liberal believes that the world will continue ever and on, and that the
way the world is in the modern age is the way the world always has been.
The Traditionalist brings tens if not hundreds of thousands of years of
religious teaching with him, while the petty intellectual has only the data
of the past century, if that, to analyze. Traditionalism is the only view of
mankind that adequately explains the events of the current age and the means
by which humanity can be rescued and the world's human relationships can be
made whole. Traditionalism predicts future events while adequately
explaining the past, and does so in the most simple fashion. It is the faith
of Life and Order, and it is the only faith from which an intelligent and
healthy racial and social outlook can be formed - an outlook which gives
each people their proper place and which only opposes those elements of the
races which attempt to corrupt or destroy the position in the natural order
which each race occupies.
http://www.overthrow.com/lsn/news.asp?articleID=6421
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In order to understand Pierce's millenarian worldview, it is necessary
briefly to explore the racially rooted theology upon which his organization
is based. This philosophy, which Pierce calls 'Cosmotheism,' resonates in
his literary work, particularly in Turner, and provides adherents with a
totalistic logic explaining the order of the universe.<12> Blending
Darwinian evolutionary theory with ideas from ancient Teutonic legend,
Cosmotheism synthesizes the scientific with the mystical in its construction
of reality. While the empirical and otherworldly components of this belief
system might initially appear incompatible, in a strange sense each
reinforces the other in an all-encompassing concept for human evolutionary
development.<13>
Pierce perceives the world in terms of separate, biologically differentiated
evolutions of racial groups. Reflecting strong traces of the theories of
scientific racism he read while at Oregon State University,<14> Pierce's
conception of racial progress would seem, at first glance, to be merely an
extension of the early twentieth century's 'racial anthropology' literature.
Here it is important to see that Pierce's system of thought diverges
significantly from the purely scientific structure adopted by early racial
theorists. In the Cosmotheist thoughtworld, evolution takes on a spiritual
meaning as mankind follows predetermined courses of racial destiny. Pierce
has described this process as an 'upward path' with its end point leading to
the goal of 'oneness with the Creator.'<15> This ultimate Cosmotheist
objective, the white race's realization of godhood, is viewed as a
genetically wired certainty. According to Pierce, who has lectured on the
subject to small gatherings of National Alliance members, the race's 'divine
spark' has propelled it to greatness throughout history and separates it
from all other forms of life.<16>
The concept of a unique Aryan path to godhood has parallels with the 'secret
wisdom' beliefs found in ancient Gnosticism. Although lacking the racial
mystique that would come to preoccupy some of its distant offshoots,
Gnosticism established an early foundation for alternative expressions of
salvationism. Embracing a mysterious and syncretic belief system borrowed
from Platonism, oriental religions, Judaism, and Christianity, Gnosticism
flourished in the first few centuries c.e. in the Mediterranean Basin as a
counter religious movement to orthodox Christianity.<17> The importance of
Gnosticism as a forebearer of other elite, alternative theological systems
is found in its dualistic interpretation of reality. Perceiving in
themselves a divine spark that differentiated those within the sect from
outsiders, the early Gnostics held that the realization of spiritual unity
with God could be achieved through secret revelation and initiation into the
group's esoteric tradition.<18> This knowledge, which was deemed unavailable
to group outsiders, permitted the 'release' of one's godly potential, and
thus facilitated the 'insider's' personal path to divinity.
The Gnostic gravitation toward dualism and group secrecy was continued by a
host of esoteric orders in the Western world. In particular, notions of
occult revelations resonated with many of the secret societies which drew
their inspiration from the Gnostic worldview. It is interesting to note that
the uniquely German permutations of Gnostic belief, which in the nineteenth
century combined Volkish nationalism with the mysticism of legendary secret
societies, became the prime expositors of a 'revolutionary gnosis' that
possessed both a racial basis and a political agenda.<19> The best-known of
these relatively obscure ideas was Ariosophy, an Aryan variant of the era's
widely popular Theosophy. Blending German nationalistic sentiments,
occultism, and Teutonic belief, Ariosophy emerged as a 'crisis cult' in
response to its adherents' sense of dislocation within late
nineteenth-century German society and the disunified nature of the German
state.<20>
Pierce has consistently displayed a fascination with various figures who are
commonly associated with the Western esoteric tradition. Throughout his
writing career, Pierce has admired the metaphysical ideas of mystical
philosophers such as Meister Eckhart (1260-1327 c.e.) and Giordano Bruno
(1548-1600 c.e.).<21> Scholars have generally located Eckhart and Bruno in
the lineage of esotericists whose brand of mysticism incorporated Gnostic
and Neoplationist themes.<22> For Pierce, these theological scholars
provided their race with a glimpse of the Divine in man's soul. Inspired by
similar views about the innate urge to achieve union with a higher nature,
Eckhart and Bruno observed cosmologies which, while subtly differentiated,
stressed the possibility of the soul's perfectibility.<23> It was, in fact,
the mystical reference to this divine spark, a point of central important in
Eckhart's philosophy,<24> which Pierce integrated into his own racially
based cosmology. In a 1978 essay entitled 'The Faustian Spirit,' Pierce
employs the Gnostic understanding of the soul's upward path in his racially
deterministic framework of thought:
The race which is the bearer of this spirit must, therefore, be doubly
careful that its genetic basis is preserved'that it does not become a race
solely of lawyers, clerks, laborers, and merchants but remains a race also
of philosophers, explorers, poets, and inventors: of seekers of ultimate
knowledge, of strivers toward the perfection which is Godhood.<25>
Cosmotheism appears to be philosophically related to this ancient esoteric
tradition in some important ways. First, Cosmotheism can be viewed as an
extension of the same type of protest subculture which organized around
groups in the Gnostic constellation. Galvanized by the feeling that society
was flawed and on the wrong course of development, these groups turned
inward, away from the surrounding social system, and sought security in a
group-specific, utopian image of the world. Second, despite the
chronological gap between the emergence of the Gnostic outlook and that of
Cosmotheism, there are similarities in their respective uses of dualism.
Employed by each as a means to divide society into camps comprised of the
'enlightened' and the 'unknowing,' these philosophies provide believers with
a neat, systematized way of differentiating between insider and outsider.
Such an outlook provides the group with a sense of unity and a means to
coalesce around shared ideals which are held to be superior to those of the
outside culture.<26>
DESTRUCTION AND REBIRTH
Cosmotheism is partly differentiated from what some scholars of radical mass
movements have termed the 'reconstructed tradition,' which defines the
outlook of groups seeking to return society to a past golden age.<27>
Finding the dominant culture unsatisfying and threatening, separatist
movements of this type are mobilized around inspirational themes taken from
a putatively untarnished past. Despite sharing this tendency to look
backward through history'particularly to Viking lore and classical
antiquity'for models of an earlier, glorified existence, Cosmotheism
possesses an inherently forward-looking character which extends from its
emphasis on evolutionary development. In this respect, the Cosmotheist
vision for the future is presented as a linear path of racial progress, with
each forward step taking the race closer to the threshold of divinity.
Whereas other factions in the radical right constellation (such as the
Christian Identity fold and the various Klan organizations) perceive in
bygone eras a purity of life to which they long to return,<28> the National
Alliance uses utopian imagery drawn from both the past and the future. It is
the more forward-looking component of Pierce's philosophy which carries
revolutionary implications.
Like all millennial beliefs, Cosmotheism is a salvific philosophy that
anticipates the dissolution of an existing world order and the eventual
realization of a new and perfect society. Its bio-racial underpinnings
reflect a deterministic view of history in which the anticipated age of
ultimate renewal is arrived at through evolutionary means. This process of
'racial advancement,' as Pierce sees it, is preordained, and thus part of a
cosmic plan for universal order.<29> The connotations of logical progress in
Cosmotheism, albeit disturbing, convey optimism about the future, an
attitude which is linked to an underlying faith in racial destiny. But
unlike those 'progressive' millenarians whose beliefs are anchored in a view
of history defined by constant improvement,<30> Pierce and his adherents
envision the secular world in an eroded and decaying condition.
The conviction that the entire social system is headed for destruction is
actually a key source of faith for millenarians whose dreams of renewal are
contingent upon the realization of a sweeping disaster period. This system
of thought, which religion scholar Catherine Wessinger has termed
'catastrophic millennialism,' is predicated upon a group's belief that the
imminent destruction of the existing order must first take place before the
perfect age, the new millennium, is brought about.<31> From the perspective
of the believer, the catastrophe initiates the process whereby the forces of
total worldly
transformation are set in motion. In this vision, hope for the
future is inextricably tied to the catastrophic event which alone has the
power to recast an impure environment in a more hallowed form.
The redemptive quality of the apocalyptic vision for world transformation is
understood in two ways by catastrophic millenarians. At one level, the
disaster completely eradicates the past, giving birth to the new order in
which life starts in a pristine form. The second level at which redemption
occurs takes place within the community, which sees itself as benefiting
from the destruction of the old way of life. As Norman Cohn observed, for
revolutionary chiliasts the meaning of the Heavenly City on earth is
inherently exclusive. Salvation is reserved for the 'chosen people' who will
reap the reward for their faith when history is brought to its
consummation.<32>
Catastrophic millennial theory provides us with a starting point from which
to gauge the connection between disaster and salvation, but it fails to
elaborate on an important aspect of this nexus. What is left undeveloped is
the notion that disaster assumes a role in the renewal process that carries
with it a faith-sustaining power. When considered from this vantage point,
catastrophic events designed to bring down the decayed order of things
perform a critical function in the totalistic mindset of those engaged in
'the final struggle.' This function, as Michael Barkun notes, is illusory
and gives catastrophically inclined millenarians the appearance that the
ultimate dream for change is unfolding.<33> Thus, for the believer, the
disaster may be seen to be as much an act of self-confirmation, or
reassurance, as it is part of the transformative cycle. At this point we
begin to encounter the strong possibility that disaster is itself part of
the millennial dream and not merely a precursor to it or a separate time on
the millennial clock. The result is that whereas disaster and the era of
perfection might, in other situations, be viewed as distinct epochs of
history, here they are joined together in a synthesis of revolutionary
change.
Pierce's conception of total change from the degraded state of present
affairs to a sublime future has as its major obstacle the societal
institutions which are believed to be responsible for the decline of white
America. Presented in National Alliance literature in pathological terms,
the government, courts, media, universities, and all other vestiges of the
modern democratic social system are considered sick and inherently
corrupted.<34> Comprising the core of this societal power structure are the
same groups Pierce portrayed in Turner as 'unassimiliable,' especially Jews
and non-whites.<35> These groups, along with the government and its
supporters, are seen as the promoters of a subversive 'diversity' agenda
which has as its goal the disintegration of white culture. There is,
however, a strong hint of hopefulness to be found in the National Alliance's
appraisal of America's diseased condition. As Pierce points out in a recent
article he wrote outlining the future strategy of his organization, the
nation's advanced state of social decay represents the beginning of the end
for the old Order:
The situation in America is no longer quasi-static, as it was during most of
the 1970s and 1980s. During that earlier period the Jewish media were able
to keep nearly all of the public hypnotized, to provide a false reality for
them in the place of the real world around them. . . . Now the process of
decay and disintegration has accelerated; now the hypnosis is beginning to
wear off as reality becomes too harsh to ignore. This process will continue
to accelerate in the future.<36>
TAPPING INTO THE MILLENNIAL OUTLOOK
The theme of 'rebirth' undergrids all expressions of millennialism; but when
catastrophe is eagerly anticipated as a precondition for earthly bliss,
critical questions should be asked about the implications of the group's
beliefs. Above all, it is necessary to consider whether the group's vision
of disaster promotes action on the part of adherents to 'trigger' the events
leading to the perfect age. It is this specific behavior, the act of forcing
the millennium through human effort, which may place the group on a
collision course with society. The distinction between the passive
expectation and active promotion of catastrophe is important because it
effectively separates disaster-prone millennialism into either nonviolent or
potentially violent types. When we turn our attention to the Cosmotheist
impulse which informs Pierce's literary work, it becomes clear that the
doctrine legitimizes violence as a tool for implementing its program for
change.
The Turner Diaries' fictionalized route to racial Armageddon provides us
with a glimpse of Cosmotheism's track of logic. Presented in the novel in
its most highly distilled form, the philosophy mandates the complete
eradication of enemies who are portrayed as subhuman. Only by purging the
world of their degenerate and impure society can a new system'an Aryan order
of life'be created. The pure vs. impure dynamic in Turner does not lend
itself to strategies of change which are less than total. This interpretive
framework is ultimately reductionistic. Absolute distinctions drawn between
'the righteous' and 'the alien' take the form of a timeless truth and propel
the believer on a course running counter to the interests and values of the
larger society.
With these insights in mind, we can begin to see how Pierce's Cosmotheist
beliefs, if followed to their logical ends, may activate the revolutionary
forces needed to overthrow the opposing power structure. As the designs for
an Aryan society are increasingly thwarted by the despised regime, some
members of the faith may take it upon themselves to 'make history.' Although
Pierce has been quick to dismiss as 'impulsive and overzealous' the
perpetrators of the Oklahoma City bombing,<37> his early writings reveal an
entirely different perspective on the use of terrorism to further
organizational goals. In a 1971 essay, Pierce minces no words about the
resolve necessary to do battle with the 'system':
We do not need to reason with the monster; we need to put a bullet into its
brain and hammer a stake through its heart. If that means blood and chaos
and battling the alien enemy from house to house in burning cities
throughout our land'then, by God, it is better that we get on with it now
than later.<38>
http://www.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/usanazis/cosmotheism.html
-*-
Evola's system of thought is a philosophy of Nietzschean descent, but with a
transcendent element. It both rejects and resembles Existentialism: Evola's
ethics and politics are based on a defense of the essential self that goes
beyond mere self-preservation. Personal action should be absolute, without
looking for punishment or reward. Even the state rests not on force, but on
the power of its idea. This Platonic foundation transcends mere history.
This is what Evola, and his sometime colleague René Guénon, meant by
Tradition.
Evola represents a segment of the Right that is simultaneously
anti-socialist, anti-capitalist, anti-democratic, and anti-Christian. It is
even, to some degree, anti-national. Though sometimes associated with the
German "Conservative Revolution" (an association of which Evola approved),
there is nothing very conservative about this Traditionalism. As Evola
himself acknowledged, little now deserves to be preserved. Tradition is as
revolutionary a doctrine as any that has appeared since the 18th century.
The model for Evola is a New Rome, governed by a sacral, organic hierarchy,
at the pinnacle of which is a sacred monarch. His idea of monarchy is rather
Taoist; the monarch rules by non-action, by the mere magic of his existence.
Evola's Traditionalism is sometimes called "Magical Idealism." Simply
invoking the Transcendent has an effect. The principle of social
organization seems to be that "if we build it, they will come." "They" are
the men suited by training and enlightenment to constitute the hierarchy;
"we" are an esoteric Order, dedicated to Tradition.
In some ways, the Fascist and National Socialist regimes were moving toward
Tradition, though in their decadence they turned toward socialism. In the
end, it was the people, the race, who failed fascism. As for Nazism, the
Führer principle was defective; the Führer acted for the Volk, not for the
Transcendent. For Tradition, in contrast, "common ideas are the fatherland."
The Conservative Revolution does not seek to preserve antique forms, but to
actualize perennial principles. Pretty much the whole of politics and
culture since 1789 should be overthrown. This need not happen, of course.
The future is a myth; it is not determined beforehand. Moreover, the future
promises no real novelty, but simply the struggle to reverse decay. Those
who have dominated history have not been adventurers, but those who sought
to reconnect with essential Tradition. Though the discussion in "Men Among
the Ruins" is too compressed to explain the grounds for these notions, Evola
was probably thinking about the repeated restorations of Confucian orthodoxy
in Chinese history.
http://pages.prodigy.net/aesir/mar2.htm
-*-
Cosmotheism is a religion which positively asserts that there is a internal
purpose in life and in cosmos, and there is an essential unity, or
consciousness that binds all living beings and all of the inorganic cosmos,
as one. What is our true human identity is we are the cosmos made self-aware
and self-conscious by evolution. Our true human purpose is to know and to
complete ourselves as conscious Individuals and also as a self-aware species
and thereby to co-evolve with the cosmos towards total and universal
awareness, and towards the ever higher perfection of consciousness and
being.
http://www.cosmotheism.net/
-*-
"Confusing truth with fact, people often read mythology without realizing
that it speaks about their deepest feelings and situations. They look at art
and think it is mere representation or self-expression. They don't realize
that a good painting is a window onto the land beyond Lethe. They hear the
teachings and stories of religion and take them as history, missing out on
the deeper truth conveyed in the charm of language. By trying to avoid
illusion, we make our truths flat, cold, and soulless."
--Thomas Moore, from Parabola's
Winter 2003 issue on "Truth & Illusion"
http://www.parabola.org/
-*-
We Prometheans are voluntarily coming together to purposefully direct the
creation of a new post-human species. A species with higher intellect,
consciousness and love of ones people. A communion of intellect and beauty,
for the simple reason that it can be done. This creation is what gives us
purpose and meaning. No other justification is required for this program to
advance our Promethean species.
http://www.prometheism.net/
-*-
What does it mean to be a radical traditionalist?
It means to reject the modern, materialist reign of "quantity over quality,"
the absence of any meaningful spiritual values, environmental devastation,
the mechanization and over-specialization of urban life, and the imperialism
of corporate mono-culture, with it's vulgar "values" of progress and
efficiency. It means to yearn for the small, homogeneous tribal societies
that flourished before Christianity -- societies in which every aspect of
life was integrated into a holistic system.
What we represent:
Resacralization of the world versus materialism; folk/traditional culture
versus mass culture; natural social order versus an artificial hierarchy
based on wealth; the tribal community versus the nation-state; stewardship
of the earth versus the "maximization of resources"; a harmonious
relationship between men and women versus the "war between the sexes";
handicrafts and artisanship versus industrial mass-production.
http://tyrjournal.tripod.com/
-*-
Julius Evola: A Radical Traditionalist
Troy Southgate examines late Italian philosopher Julius Evola-s Men Among
the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist. PRAVDA.Ru will
present this summary as a series.
1. REVOLUTION-COUNTER-REVOLUTION - TRADITION
In the opening chapter of his work, Evola can be forgiven for appearing to
sound like a typical Catholic fundamentalist. According to the Baron,
socio-political subversion (eversio) was introduced into Europe for the
first time with the 1789 and 1848 revolutions. Catholic writers like
Chesterton, Belloc and a whole array of popes and cardinals would agree with
him. Indeed, Evola even suggests that the term -reactionary- should be
adopted by those who realise the true extent to which the forces of
liberalism, Marxism and democracy are advancing their secret agenda. We are
informed that if this term had not been so furiously rejected by the
conservative opponents of revolution, our European nations would have been
relatively more salvageable. But now that several decades have passed since
the book was first published, had the author still been alive he may well
have been surprised to learn that his ideas have found significant
expression within the ranks of those who have become known as -conservative
revolutionaries-. For Evola, therefore, perhaps the apparently conflicting
terminology in this phrase would have been a misnomer. On the contrary, it
was used throughout the twentieth century by men such as Arthur Moeller van
den Bruck, Michael Walker, Armin Mohler and Otto Strasser. In fact Evola
tells us himself that -conservative revolution- should not be connected with
the term -reaction- because the former has distinctly positive and energetic
connotations. Revolution in this sense, he admits, simply means restoring
order and thus avoiding entirely its chaotic antithesis. He even defines
revolution (revolutio) - not as a departure from prevailing trends - but as
a return to origins. Thus revolution, in his evaluation of the term,
indicates a replenishment of that which has gone before.
But the word "conservative" can also be very misleading. Evola argues that
"it is necessary to first establish as exactly as possible what needs to be
'preserved'". He is also under no illusion that capitalists have long used
this term with which to advance the interests of their own class, rather
than "committing themselves to a stout defence of a higher right, dignity,
and impersonal legacy of values, ideas and principles." This suggests a kind
of aristocratic benevolence, a chivalric sense of duty and sacrifice. Evola
also believes that the State must not concern itself with economic matters,
rather assuming a transcendent role in opposition to the class-oriented
obsessions of both the bourgeoisie and Marxists alike. Furthermore, he tells
us, "what really counts is to be faithful not to past forms and
institutions, but rather to principles of which such forms and institutions
have been particular expressions." So, therefore, the success of tradition
lies in our ability to create new forms from the etymological drawing-board
which inspired those of the past, a process which works its way down through
the generations as though divinely inspired. In other words it is not the
transitory or - in the case of historical personality cults - even the
idolatrous facets which are of value, but those which are everlasting and
permanent. Indeed, Evola pours scorn upon the very term -historical- because
such matters rise above and beyond the whole notion of history altogether.
Mircea Eliade has discussed this idea at length in The Myth of The Eternal
Return [Princeton, 1991], echoed here by Evola: "These principles are not
compromised by the fact that in various instances an individual, out of
weakness or due to other reasons, was able to actualise them or to even
implement them partially at one point in his life rather than another." The
designers and schemers of the modern age, of course, dismiss these aspects
as having been a consequence of the period in which they were apparently
expressed. So therefore tradition and historicism are totally
irreconcilable. The author-s own homeland also comes in for some criticism,
with Evola firmly believing that Italy has no material or ideological
connection with tradition and that her only hope lies in a spiritual
renewal.
Returning to the dangers of revolution - at least in the purely negative
sense as defined above - we are reminded of the more positive, Hegelian
analysis: "the negation of the negation." In other words, eradicating that
which in itself has been the great eradicator is a worthwhile objective. On
the other hand, Evola is being slightly pedantic when he criticises the
adoption of the "revolutionary spirit," lest it sound too progressive or
wild. His denunciation of the unfulfilling legend of technological
advancement, however, is very accurate indeed: "Those who are not subject to
the predominant materialism of our times, upon recognising the only context
in which it is legitimate to speak of progress, will be on guard against any
orientation in which the modern 'myth of progress' is reflected." Indeed,
there are many such examples, all of which contend either blindly or
knowingly that the past must be eradicated for the good of the present.
This, says Evola, is "history-s demolition squad." It is rather surprising,
therefore, to consider that in his youth Evola offered his support to
Italian Futurism. Not, of course, that Marinetti-s pledge to raze libraries
and museums to the ground was ever designed to be an attempt to destroy the
perennial essence which always transcends the purely anachronistic. The
contentious issue of Fascism is also tackled by Evola and is here regarded
as being valid only when it concords with tradition. To stand vigorously in
favour of Fascism simply for its own sake, is akin to the fulminating
negativity inherent within many of its anti-fascist opponents.
Troy Southgate submitted this work to PRAVDA.Ru
http://english.pravda.ru/columnists/2002/05/11/28502.html
-*-
A major challenge facing contemporary society, one that becomes more acute
from day to day, is the intermingling of diverse religions and cultural
traditions both across international borders between civilizations and
nations and within the boundaries of individual countries, many of which
until now had been dominated by a single homogeneous culture. In a world in
which the acceptance of pluralism and inclusivity is vital to human
survival, mutual tolerance, understanding, and ultimately appreciation among
members of different religions and cultures is therefore critical to
peaceful co-existence both within nations and globally.
The Foundation for Traditional Studies seeks to contribute toward the
achievement of such understanding not through dilution of religious or
cultural traditions until one arrives at a pale common denominator, but
rather through preserving and strengthening the traditions which have been
transmitted through the ages and which have so much to teach contemporary
society.
Through its programs the Foundation seeks to make known the principles and
philosophies at the heart of various traditions and to provide access in a
variety of ways to their religious practices, arts, sciences, and social
structures. It also seeks to create better understanding of traditional in
the context of the modern world view and to provide a forum wherein
traditional and modern modes of thought and perception can engage in
dialogue with each other in a productive, creative manner.
Furthermore, the Foundation strives to preserve and make available in a
contemporary language the extremely rich treasury of traditional wisdom and
thought and to apply these millennial traditional teachings to the
contemporary situation. To this end we are active in the fields of
publishing, the performing arts, and sponsorship and organization of
international conferences.
http://www.traditional-studies.org/
-*-
Any historical prospect reveals that, just as man civilizations know, after
a dawn and a development, a decline and an end. Some tried to discover the
law which governs such a destiny, the cause of the decline of civilizations.
This cause could never be brought back to purely historical factors and
naturalists.
~~ Julius Evola, The Revolt Against the Modern World (1934)
Baron Julius Cesare Andrea Evola is one of history's most enigmatic occult
and parapolitical figures. Little-known outside Europe, Evola is often cited
as the Godfather of contemporary Italian fascism and radical politics. A
close examination of the historical record reveals a more complex figure.
Evola wore many masks: a parapolitical philosopher who ranked with Oswald
Spengler and Arnold Toynbee, a religious historian who coresponded with
Mircea Eliade, and a provocateur who dabbled in Dada.
Born to a Catholic aristocratic family on May 19, 1898, Evola led an
extraordinary life as a mountaineer, philosopher, solider, religious
historian, artist, magician and political theorist.
Fluent in French and German, the young Evola was significantly influenced by
the virtue theory of German philosopher Friedrich Neitzsche. As an ardent
Mountain climber, the young Italian found spiritual invigoration upon the
peaks of the Alps. Coming to age on the dawn of the First World War, Evola
joined the Italian Army serving in the Mountain Artillery.
After the war, Evola indulged briefly in self-experimentation with drugs.
The young aristocrat found brief satisfaction in the artistic avant-garde
flowering as an early Dadaist. He began his readings in the occult during
this period. In the early 1920s, Evola met Arturo Reghini, a neo-Pythagorean
occultist and ardent fascist, who invited the younger Evola to join the
magical association called the UR-group, which exalted a form of
individualist-oriented "magical idealism". Evola invested much time and
energy in UR, the group newsletter, writing articles and occasionally
editing.
Though he never formally joined any party, Evola found in Fascism, perhaps
influenced by Reghini, the manifestation of the heroic ideal of his youth.
This association with the political right was to last thought his life and
well after his death. Evola was protected by Benito Mussolini's
administration (1922-1943), however Evola preferred intellectual
stratification of the elite over Nazism's championing of biological racism.
Evola took up a project in 1927 that was to make him famous in his own day.
In his idealization of virtue and his romantic memory of Imperial Rome,
Evola set out against the Catholic Church. He saw the Church as antithetical
to the rising political regime of Mussolini. The Baron imagined the raising
of a new Paganism, a rebirth of the regal Empire emerging in the wake of the
Christian Dark Age. These writings against the Catholic Church brought Evola
the most notoriety, criticism and ridicule during his life in Italy.
Amongst the Church's many responses to Evola's neo-pagan polemic was the
noteworthy reaction of Giovanni Battista Montini, who latter became Pope
Paul VI. However, the association between the Church and the Fascist party
was solidified in the Laterian Accords between Pope Pious XI and Mussolini.
Evola's sympathy for Mussolini's fascism waned, and in September of 1941 the
he and Mussolini met for the last time.
Evola relocated to Vienna, where he found himself translating Masonic
documents for Heinrich Himmler's SS, a political and military organization
that he had long admired. During an Allied-bombing sweep in 1945, Evola was
injured, leaving him in a wheelchair for his remaining life. The Mountaineer
was never to climb a peak again, however his ashes were deposited atop Mt.
Rosa, upon his death in 1974.
Though the English-speaking West has largely ignored Evola, his writings
have begun to appear in English editions during the last few years. Nearly
all of these writings are of Evola's esoteric pursuits in the Traditional
School of René Guenon. The most important of these editions is a translation
of Rivolta conto il mondo moderno (Revolt Against the Modern World),
originally published in 1934. Arguably the Baron's magnum opus, this text
contains the most complete renditions of the author's historical and
philosophical ideology.
As with many of the Traditionalists, Evola saw the world in a process of
devolution, as opposed to the rationalistic model of progress and evolution.
This worldview was deeply influenced by the Eastern notion of cyclical time,
which has been popularized by religious scholar Mircea Eliade (who Evola
corresponded with and met).
For the Traditionalists, mankind is experiencing ever increasing ages of
strife and chaos, falling ultimately from a divine Golden Age. A historical
reading of many world mythologies largely shapes this worldview. We now live
in the Kali-Yuga of the Hindus, the Iron Age of Hesiod, the Germanic
Ragnarok, according to the Traditionalist School. Politically this age is
characterized by the governing of the materialistic masses (democracy) over
the spiritual rulership of the solar nobility. Evola saw a hope in Fascism
for a return of the dominance of the solar aristocracy over the earthly
masses.
During his long writing career, Evola published works on Eastern philosophy
(Tantra, Tao, and Buddhism) as well as Western Esotericism (Alchemy,
Grail-Mythos). Recently these texts on magic and mysticism that have become
widely available. Recent additions to Evola's canon include Men Among the
Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist (Rochester, VT:
Inner Traditions International, 2002), co-edited by Michael Moynihan and
Introduction to Magic: Rituals and Practical Techniques for the Magus
(Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions International, 2001), a collection of UR
papers.
Today, Evola still has a significant influence on Continental magic
(especially Italian), and has remained an icon for right wing political
groups, such as Italy's "revolutionary cells" and France's National Front
Party. Without a doubt, his influence will be felt deep into the emerging
Millennium.
http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id736/pg1/
Read more Evola here:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1404/archive.html
-*-
Working first in Paris and then in Cairo, the French writer René Guénon
(1886-1951) rejected modernity as a Dark Age, and sought to reconstruct the
'perennial philosophy'- the central religious truths behind all the major
world religions - largely on the basis of his reading of Hindu religious
texts. Guénon's works stressed the urgent need for the West's remaining
spiritual and intellectual elite to find both personal and collective
salvation in the surviving vestiges of ancient religious tradition.
http://www.aucegypt.edu/faculty/sedgwick/trad/
-*-
Romanticism. The immediate result of the metaphysical systems of Fichte and
Schelling was a revival of poetic production and criticism known as
Romanticism, which sprang from the school of Goethe and Schiller. The union
of poetry with the metaphysical or religious view of life became a
recognized principle of art; and it was this combination that secured for
idealism the final triumph over the narrow naturalism and rationalism of the
Enlightenment. Romanticism brought to light the connection of poetry with
Christianity. Just as Schiller had taken Kant's epistemology as a basis for
the explanation of the relation of aesthetics to ethics, so now the Kantian
position was used to explain the relation of religion to aesthetics. Thus,
from Kant's idealism came a new analysis of religion, illuminating with a
new light the problems of culture. Romanticism gave depth to the historical
view and dissolved into thin air those time-worn conceptions of a "law of
nature," "common sense," and innate norms of the reason; this was just as
the Enlightenment had formerly disposed of the idea of a supernatural,
ecclesiastical norm, which rested on these conceptions. The leading spirits
in the romantic movement were the two Schlegels, though Fichte,
Schleiermacher, Hegel, Schelling, Novalis, and many others took a part in
it. Out of Romanticism sprang a new impulse for systematic thinking; and
through the political catastrophes of the time and the moral earnestness of
the intellectual leaders, idealistic speculation was forced to apply its
norms to practical social problems.
Schopenhauer The last great representative of German Idealism in systematic
philosophy was Schopenhauer. While with him the phenomenal world is idea
(that is, existing only as a subject idea) its objective basis is not a
"thing in itself" as Kant taught, but a universal will. This Schopenhauer
interprets as a blind, illogical, aimless impulse, without any original
ethical tendency whatsoever. Through the blind impulse of this world-will
arises human intelligence and the phenomenal world. History loses all
teleological significance and becomes an irrational and endless progression.
Ethics, therefore, as the philosophy of the ultimate purpose of the world
can only proclaim the aimlessness of the cosmic process and seek to put an
end to it by stilling the will. This quietizing of the will is effected by
recognizing the aimlessness of the process and resigning oneself to it
completely. For these teachings, Schopenhauer found a support in Buddhism,
which was then just becoming known in the West. He was bitter in his hatred
of the theism of Judaism, which for him exhibited selfishness and
sensuality, and was the root of all deceptive theism. The pure Christianity
of Christ he regarded as a sort of mystical quietism. Though his
metaphysical work, De Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, appeared as early as
1819, his teachings found no popular reception till after the wane of
Hegel's influence in Germany.
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/g/germidea.htm
-*-
Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Idea
Arthur Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Idea (1818) is divided into four
books. Each book has numbered sections. Book One considers the world as
idea. The idea is defined as an object of experience and science, and is
dependent on the principle of sufficient reason. Book Two considers the
world as the will, showing how the will manifests itself in the world. Book
Three considers the Platonic Idea, which is the idea independent of the
principle of sufficient reason. Book Four considers the ethical implications
of the affirmation and denial of the will to life.
Schopenhauer begins by saying that the world is an idea, in the sense that
it is an object in the mind of the subject, a perception of the perceiver.
The perceiving subject is always the knower, and never the known. The object
and the subject are not a continuum, but have an either-or relationship. The
object begins where the subject ends.
All objects of perception must follow the principle of sufficient reason,
which is manifested in four forms. The four forms of the principle of
sufficient reason are: 1) the physical form (the principle of becoming), 2)
the mathematical form (the principle of being), 3) the logical form (the
principle of knowing), and 4) the moral form (the principle of action).
The principle of sufficent reason is, in essence, a set of rules which
governs objects or events in the phenomenal world. Each of the four forms of
the principle of sufficient reason explains a different aspect of the nature
of necessity.
The principle of sufficient reason of becoming (the law of causality) is
that an effect must follow from a given cause. The principle of sufficient
reason of being is that phenomenal objects must occupy space and time. The
principle of sufficient reason of knowing is that a logical conclusion must
follow from a given premise. The principle of sufficient reason of action is
that an action must follow from a given motive.
Schopenhauer says that reason is the ability to have concepts, which are
abstract ideas. Concepts as a class of ideas are different from ideas of
perception. Concepts can only be thought, and not perceived. Only the
effects of concepts, and not the concepts themselves, can become objects of
experience. The effects of concepts include language, action, and science.
Matter and intellect constitute the world as idea, the one cannot exist
without the other. According to Schopenhauer, idealism as a philosophy does
not deny the empirical reality of the external world. True idealism is
transcendental, rather than empirical. Transcendental idealism affirms that
a transcendental unity of reason and experience is the condition for
knowledge. Transcendental idealism thus leaves the empirical reality of the
world intact.
According to Schopenhauer, the world is the will, in the sense that objects
and ideas are phenomenal appearances of the will. The will is not governed
by the principle of sufficient reason. The will is free, but its
manifestations are governed by the principle of sufficient reason. The will
manifests itself in action, but individual action is caused by the impact of
motive on character.
Action that is without motive, and not directed by idea, may also be a
manifestation of the will. Idea as motive is not a necessary condition for
the activity of the will.
The individual, the person, is a manifestation of the will. The individual
is a phenomenal form of will, and is thus dependent on the principle of
sufficient reason. The individual is not free, but is governed by necessity.
The world is an idea, in the sense that it is an object of perception. But
the world is the will, in the sense that all our perceptions are
manifestations of acts of will. Thus, the will is the inner reality of the
world.
The will is the being-in-itself of everything in the world. The world as an
idea is an objectification of the will. The will cannot be explained, nor
can it be fully accounted for. The will is comprehensible insofar as it
manifests itself in the world, but its inner nature cannot be adequately
explained.
The will is beyond time and space, which together constitute a form of the
principle of sufficient reason. The will is a unity, and not a pluraity. The
plurality of things in time and space represents an objectification of the
will.
The will cannot be viewed as a necessary cause of its manifestations in the
phenomenal world, because it is not governed by the principle of sufficient
reason. The relationship between freedom and necessity is that between the
will and its manifestations in time and space.
The will-in-itself cannot be defined as the will to do something. The will
as a thing-in-itself does not have an object or purpose in its willing. The
principle of motivation is a form of the principle of sufficient reason,
which extends only to manifestations of the will.
The will objectifies itself in the phenomenal world. The will manifests
itself in the world of individual things or objects, and in the world of
ideas. The will can manifest itself as an object or idea, but the
will-in-itself is free from time, space, plurality, causality, reason, or
motive.
According to Schopenhauer, each individual act of will has a motive, without
which the act of will cannot occur, because the individual act of will is
governed by the principle of sufficient reason.
The will-in-itself is not conscious, because consciousness implies a
relation between a subject and an object. The will-in-itself is neither a
knowing subject, nor an object of consciousness.
The Platonic Idea is an idea that is independent of the principle of
sufficient reason. The Platonic Idea is the object of art. The Platonic Idea
is necessarily an object, something known, but it does not have a form that
depends on the principle of sufficient reason.
The full objectification of the will takes place in the Platonic Idea, which
is the most universal form of idea manifested by the will. Only the Platonic
Idea is the adequate objectivity of the will, and in it the subject and
object are not separated.
Schopenhauerian idealism differs from Platonic idealism in its view of the
nature of ultimate reality. According to Plato, a table or a chair expresses
the idea of a table or chair, and the idea is the ultimate reality.
According to Schopenhauer, the idea of a table or chair is the result of an
objectification of the will, and the will is the ultimate reality.
According to Schopenhauer, knowledge is subject to the will. Knowledge is
possible of objects only insofar as they follow the principle of sufficient
reason. Thus, knowledge is possible of particular objects, as they exist at
this time, or in this place, due to this cause, or under these conditions.
But all knowledge is related to objectification of the will.
We can know ourselves as willing, but not as knowing. The knowing subject is
never the known. The will cannot be known in-itself. We can know the will as
it manifests itself in ourselves. The will can be known intuitively, but not
as an object. We can know the will in our self-consciousness as a
consciousness of freedom.
Art is the direct and adequate objectivity of the will. Art is a way of
viewing things independently from the forms of the principle of sufficient
reason. In contrast, science is a way of viewing things that is in
accordance with the forms of the principle of sufficient reason.
According to Schopenhauer, the act of willing arises from need, and
therefore from deprivation or suffering. The fulfillment of a wish ends the
act of willing. But no obtained object of desire can give lasting
satisfaction. Thus, what is necessary for knowledge of the Platonic Idea is
pure contemplation, the absence of desire, the state of total dedication to
perception, the transcendence of the subject-object relationship, and
freedom from being confined by individuality.
Schopenhauer sees the gratification of a wish or desire as negative, in that
it is only a temporary deliverance from deprivation and suffering. Happiness
is negative, in that it does not provide lasting satisfaction. Because
happiness is never lasting or complete, it is only the absence of true
happiness that can become the subject of art.
Schopenhauer also says that freedom of the will is negative, because this
freedom is merely the denial of necessity. The intellect is subservient to
the will, in that it learns the decisions of the will only after the will
has decided on a mode of action. The will is inaccessible to the intellect,
and the intellect can only explore the motives for actions, which are
manifestations of the will. Self-knowledge can reveal the motives for the
act of willing. Knowledge of the self and of the phenomenal world can also
influence the motives for action.
The will wants everything for itself. The will manifests itself in us as a
source of egoism. Egoism concentrates our self-interest in the particular
manifestation of our individuality. On the other hand, altruism reduces our
self-centered interest in the individuality of our own willing.
The affirmation or denial of the will has moral consequences. Schopenhauer
argues that the voluntary renunciation of egoism is achieved by a denial of
the will to life. Ethical conduct is defined by not denying the affirmation
of the will in other individuals. Ethical conduct does not trespass on the
affirmation of the will in another individual, or compel the individual to
serve the will of other individuals. Justice is achieved when the
affirmation of the will in one individual does not deny the will manifest in
another individual.
For Schopenhauer, justice is merely the negation of injustice. Whenever an
action does not trespass on someone else's affirmation of the will to life,
the given action is not wrong.
Conscience is achieved by self-knowledge of how we manifest the will in our
own actions. Virtue proceeds from knowledge, but not from abstract knowledge
or moral dogmas. Abstract knowledge can inform us of our motives, but
motives can only alter the direction of the will, and not the will itself.
Virtue comes from a direct, intuitive knowledge of the will, which cannot be
expressed in words, but is communicated by action.
Denial or suspension of the will can be found in asceticism, which is the
voluntary renunciation of physical comfort and gratification. Self-sacrifice
and self-restraint are also a denial of the will to life, according to
Schopenhauer. Spiritual salvation, or the redemption from suffering, can be
found only in denial of the will.
Suicide is not a denial of the will to life, says Schopenhauer. To the
contrary, suicide is an affirmation of the will, because the essence of
negation lies in rejecting happiness rather than rejecting suffering.
Suicide does not deny the will to life, but only the conditions under which
life is given. Suicide is a surrender of life, but not the will to life. The
individual who commits suicide gives up living, but does not give up
willing. In the act of suicide, the will affirms itself, even though it puts
an end to its individual manifestation.
Only by knowledge of its own manifestation can the will suspend or negate
itself. The denial of the will to life is not a will to absolute
nothingness, because nothingness is only a negation of something.
Nothingness is only an absence of being, and thus any negation is in
relation to being, and is only a relative nothingness. Nothingness is a
negation of the world as idea, an absence of objectification of the will.
A weakness of Schopenhauer's philosophy is its negativity. Ethical conduct
is seen as negative, and as requiring a denial of the will to life. Moral
concern for others is seen as a denial of our basic instinct for
self-concern and self-interest. We must deny who we are in order to redeem
ourselves. This viewpoint leads to a form of self-contradiction, and fails
to adequately recognize that self-interest and self-affirmation can be
compatible with moral concern for others.
Schopenhauer's viewpoint also represents an extreme pessimism. He says that
optimism is absurd. Life means suffering. Every volitional act arises from
deprivation and suffering. The act of willing arises from the wish for
something that has not been obtained or achieved.
Schopenhauer concludes by saying that suffering is caused by unfulfilled or
frustrated volition. The only way to overcome suffering is by denial of the
will. The will resists its own negation, and the acceptance of nothingness.
What remains after the will has been suspended or denied is nothing. But
this nothing can only be in relation to being.
Copywright© 2001 Alex Scott
http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/schopenhauer.html
-*-
Thus ends Ahn Fyuh Wi Dizayah's Anti-Racist Resources List Report
TRADITIONALISM: EVOLAN AND SCHOPENHAUERIAN POLITICAL RESPONSES TO MORALISM
*
Copyright December 31 2003 Ahn Fyuh Wi Dizayah's Anti-Racist List
--
Pro-War religious fanatics in government:
Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Lieberman, Ridge, Cheney and
Bush
http://www.geocities.com/g848138/
.
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