An old nun in hospital had a good deal of trouble in digesting the fact that I wasn’t Christian, no I wasn’t; thank God, I wasn’t a Protestant, but I wasn’t a Catholic either, and I wasn’t a Jew, I believed in a more ancient and classical system with a place for Zeus and Apollo. To which with infinite gentleness, [she said]
“C’è tutta una religione.”
“Oh well, it’s all one religion”
~ Ezra Pound
EXIT, your words do not impress. All they say is “I have a pretend knowledge of religion, so I am going to pretend pontificate on it.” If Jewish elements in Christianity do appear, it is only because people wish to emphasize them. And whither the Jews, anyhow? Even Evola, no lover of the Semites, pointed out them have a esoteric tradition vis a vis Cabbalah. So what gives?Is that the element you think Christianity has or lacks? What about the First Council of Jerusalem where the Apostles specifically repudiated most Jewish practics, including circumcision, ritual cleansing, and kosher practices. Are the Buddhists just Hindus in disguise, since their religion is rooted in it? Can no tradition have a it’s own valid element apart from it’s roots. Do not look to close to the European tradition, lest you find something that “sullies” it in your eyes…
Nothing to do with your comments G. Mark made some blood/racial comments earlier so I was addressing them, not yours. Forgive any confusion!
EXIT, you are fun. What do you practice?
Wow, this discussion has become absurd. “Everything is alien so let us practice our wonderful Jewish religion while in denial of its Jewishness.” Hmm.
Perennial, I appreciate your comments.
But I can’t see why you would say ´blithely offering convuluted â??racialâ?? reasons´. Who has done that and where? It is quite unrelated to what I’ve been saying to refer to “skinhead punks” and other rabble who don’t even have an understanding of race in the 1st degree, what to speak of the other two degrees of race. I’m not even a nationalist.
´This is not a Tradition Guenon, and, I daresay, Evola would scarce give consideration.´ [Perennial]
´To react against one’s own racial awareness, to feel in oneself a revolt against one’s own ideas, means to prove oneself not to be in harmony with one’s race ; to think that there is something ridiculous and ‘scientifically’ untenable about the Aryan and Nordic-Aryan myth means to create an alibi for a non-Aryan and non-Nordic vocation, that cannot but be related to the substratum of a corresponding race of the body, or, at least, race of the soul, in the person in question.´ [Julius Evola]
However I will not express raciality verbally much longer. It would probably be an unceasing work since those who have race are an extremely rare species even among those who read or are somehow attracted to the author-baron of Primordial Nordicity. Beyond the unceasing futility of verbalism, what is veracit is that either one has this most precious of stones or one does not.
“And God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers, and above all else, that there is nothing which they should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity of the race. They should observe what elements mingle in their offspring;…” [Plato’ Politeia: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/plato/p71r/book03.html%5D
“stormy gods (…) rush on like furious bulls and scatter the black
skin” (Rg.V.IX.73)
The Birth of Earl:
“A son had Mothir, | in silk they wrapped him,
With water they sprinkled him, | Jarl he was;
Blond was his hair, | and bright his cheeks,
Grim as a snake’s | were his glowing eyes.
[…]
The Birth of Thrall:
A son bore Edda, | with water they sprinkled him,
With a cloth his hair | so black they covered;
Thræll [slave] they named him, | . . . . .
The skin was wrinkled | and rough on his hands,
Knotted his knuckles, | . . . . .
Thick his fingers, | and ugly his face,
Twisted his back, | and big his heels.”
[Eddukvæði (The Poetic Edda), http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe14.htm%5D
My ancestor, a Christian scribe, to which I can scientifically trace my bloodline, with no person uncounted in that surprisingly short line, wrote this ancient pre-scriptural hymn down in the 12th century.
Evola said to an SS man who apologized to Evola (for publishing some of his work without permission) that SS men do not apologize. But I have no tales of war to tell, so, I apologize if I offend some of you. But also consider that in the next few decades any conceptual trace of this elder eldritch understanding might be banned if not erased from our information-world. As might the writings of Evola be banned (they’ve already been edited by some of the publishers of translations of his work, removing some of this ´evil racism´). Please do not ask me for further personal details here. If anyone would like to exchange information feel free to email me: aaijkwd [at] zoho [dot] com
Racism is almost useless in our ~7 billion peopled brave new world. Peace unto you all.
Here, is another taboo, I present perhaps in my frailty.
´Dying swans[*] twisted wings, beauty not needed here
Lost my love, lost my life, in this garden of fear
I have seen many things, in a lifetime alone
Mother love is no more, bring this savage back home
[…]
Dragon kings, dying queens[**], where is salvation now
Lost my life lost my dreams, rip the bones from my flesh
Silent screams laughing here, dying to tell you the truth
You are planned and you are damned in this brave new world´
[“Brave New World” (2000) by “Iron Maiden”, http://anonym.to/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V77is-GuSsw&hq=1%5D
*: http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/5745/nakedapollo2.jpg
**: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_at3VqM5FeoY/TQ-2BZgto6I/AAAAAAAAA4o/c2fUwUWtL9s/s1600/Modernfamily.jpg
Come what may.
I agree, Gottion, that the European traditions have a certain superior sense that I cannot and will not deny. It is the essence that made Europe the center of our understanding. But merely saying it and blithely offering convuluted “racial” reasons says nothing- and in fact does an injustice to the greatness of the European heritage. This is not a Tradition Guenon, and, I daresay, Evola would scarce give consideration. I have often observed that the “skinhead” punks of racist Europe do no more to glorify the greatness of that civilization than any foreigner can. They may recognize greatness, but the wellsprings that make it are dead in their souls, and they seek no higher path to glory. Thus the loss of Europe.
´I also find an undue emphasis on “indo-european” traditions, as if they have a validity that is self-justified. If Truth really is true, is it not universal?´ [Perennial]
Truth is universal but its manifestations do not equally manifest the universal. That is why two tribes, even if both dominated by sacred orders, are not equal (as no two men are equals). But who is more truthful then? Well, who is more “truthful” the Latins or the Etrurians? In the conditioned world there is no truth but power.
Men, families, clans, tribes, subraces, races and species are all divided and united by the conductivity of their veins.
´Is the singular, unexplainable violence with which ancient Rome destroyed the centres of Etruscan power, almost so far as to obliterate any trace of the civilisation and of the language of that mysterious people, an accidental fact, or does it conceal a profound meaning? Is it a mere war episode, or does it hide the conflict between two antithetical civilisations, the imperative for one of them to destroy, not only spiritually, also materially, the other [ in order to assert itself.]?´ [“Evola as he is”]
But now someone could say then aren’t the Jews or the Chinese superior since they now rule the world? (Sci-fi series such as “Firefly” already have their white characters in the future all curse in Chinese as it were their mother tongue.) Logistically it would seem so. But that’s just the thing, what makes us different is our extralogical and ´extrasensual sensitivity´, our capacity for clearer acausal intensity.
But we have no untainted antediluvian blood flowing anymore. We are more amorphous than ever. So perhaps I need to block my inner regime of racial sense and open my heart to the salvation of God.
God in heaven our Lord grant us strength to manifest our destiny…
…beyond paper-wars of the 20th century and the cyber-wars of the 21st…
Gornahoor likes to give reasons for an opinion and expects the same for other opinions.
Great observations, Cologero & Gottion.
I think we have reached some interesting points here- Spirit of the race versus of Race of the Spirit.
What I find interesting is that those who appear to have an anti-Christian animus have 2 things in common:
A superficial, protestant, even fundamentalist understanding of Christianity, in the true spirit of Americanism. There seems to be a willfull ignorance of Christianity’s esoteric side, which I find interesting. The Catholic or Eastern theologies are either absent or pigeon-holed into pre-conceived conclusions.
I also find an undue emphasis on “indo-european” traditions, as if they have a validity that is self-justified. If Truth really is true, is it not universal? How does one justify a tradition segregated from the Tradition of the world? Certainly, the perennial philosophy would not be recognized in such a view. What gives the Indo-European traditions a greater claim in your view?
Wouldn’t you all be able to ncomprehended that alien ideas have, unfortunately, been mixing with the Nordic-Aryan doctrines even thousands of years before anyone knew any concept of Christianity?
If we were to say Christianity is syncretic, we’d also better see that it sure wasn’t the first syncretic doctrine.
“Hinduism,” as is Germanic “paganism”, is infused (or perhaps rather infected) by non-Ouranic or non-Thulean modes-of-acting/being. Only a believer would think the Vedas, scriptures of scribes, to be completely devoid of non-urnordisch influence. Wouldn’t writing itself, a degeneration from a prescriptual hymnic age, be non-Hyperborean?
Why do you all think Evola didnâ??t regard the Runes or Pythagoreanism highly? http://www.michelangelo.cn â?? it seems the Runes have a non-IE origin.
And have you all ever heard of Etruria? Of Demetrianism? Of Amazonianism? Or the pre-Roman Pelasgic civilisation? These are all pre-Semitic European cultures yet they are not Solar.
And what would some of you do? After two millennia would you for example start banning the names such as Daniel, Gabriel and Michael?
´At the risk of disappointing some people, we must make it clear that the Jews, who are along with the Chinese possibly the most feminine people on earth, are only instruments of the forces of chaos, or infra-human forces, which are behind this process which has led the West to gynaecocracy ; among their most efficient instruments, to be sure, but merely instruments nonetheless.´ [“Evola as he is”]
They are not the first instrument.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/science/25flute.html?_r=4&hp
“It so happens that the Hohle Fels flute was uncovered in sediments a few feet away from the carved figurine of a busty, nude woman, also around 35,000 years old” [“Stone Age Flutes Found In Germany Offer Clues to Early Music”, NYT, 2009]
This struggle is far older than some of you might see.
For the Kingdom of Heaven,
Gottion
Matt, my views on Christianity haven’t changed per say, rather the issue is not one that is black and white.
“Gornahoor is not in the business of evangelizing or convincing anyone to follow any particular form.”
Gornahoor likes to tell one side of the story and denounce all other sides.
Mark,
If this is who I think it is, are you planning on making more videos for your youtube page? The substance of ideas and the way you presented them were a breath of fresh air amid the abyss of what passes off as intellectual contemplation on that site, which is why I found it unfortunate to see that you no longer had the videos up.
Exit,
Your view of Christianity seems to have changed quite a bit since our dialogue on Gornahoor awhile back (unless that was someone else using your name). Interesting.
The nature of the debate in these posts seems to be heading towards the idea of whether Christianity is inherently Traditional or not….a debate that has come up more than once on here and most likely will come up again. Its easy to say that Christianity is inherently not in accordance with Tradition to any really meaningful degree, something that I myself have taken part in believing, but something was brought up on this blog quite awhile back that to some re-thinking on my part. It was to concede that there are anti-Traditional elements inherently present within Christianity, but present only virtually….and only become actualized by subversive forces (marxism, liberalism, etc.) as the dark age takes its full effect. I think that is a good point and requires more contemplation. It certainly puts the adoption of Christianity by the European people into a new light.
Mr Exit,
You persist in confusing description with prescription. Gornahoor is not in the business of evangelizing or convincing anyone to follow any particular form. The facts are that up to the end of the 13th century or so, Western Europe was a traditional civilization and its spiritual basis was the Catholicism of that time, like it or not. That counts as a success in any rational mind. Why then is that so? That is the question you need to answer, and snappy opinions of the type characteristic of a Miss America contestant are just insufficient for that task.
What can you possibly mean? Do you demean your ancestors who built Western civilization? Do you seriously think that your ancestors were so ignorant that they could be deluded by Semites who convinced them to follow some absurd religion? Are your ancestors shameful, sinister, weak, defeated and mongrelized … thus making you a mongrel?
As for another point. Didn’t Guenon claim that Thomas Aquinas and his teacher Albert the Great were members of an Hermetic order? Aren’t they doctors of the Church (i.e., the very opposite of blasphemous)? Haven’t we mentioned several times that theological statements have a corresponding metaphysical interpretation, which is what we really need to be discussing? Hasn’t Evola made the distinction between those who know and those who believe, and that the knowers are marginalized because of cosmic cycles and the degeneration of the castes?
Follow whatever Indo-European tradition you like. In your next comment, give us something positive you have learned from them.
The fusion of pagan and Christian elements was not that successful since it was reduced or limited to the inferior Semitic Christian framework and absurd sentimental theology. Moreover, hermetic rites were always considered blasphemous which is why they had to be kept hidden. Ultimately, adding on pagan elements to Christianity is a form of counterfeiting and not only offends the gods and ancestors but proves those who perpetrate this fraud to be shameful, sinister, weak, defeated, and mongrelized. Why should anyone settle for this syncretist fraud when we can very well have our own Indo-European traditions without any trace of Semitic contaminants?
Cologero, In regards to the third point in your commment:
“Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep to the truth and let God go.” Meister Eckhart
Exit, I think that conceiving the Platonic and other ‘pagan’ or solar aspects of Christianity as “foreign elements” added onto it is perhaps a stumbling block to understanding medieval Christianity. If we have in mind this notion of a pagan-Christian or pagan-Semitic split which is irreconcilable, then of course these elements seem foreign. But perhaps (and I’m still investigating this for myself) medieval Christianity actually was a successful coming together of these two major streams of spirituality. It’s to be expected that any large religion will have both lunar and solar aspects, or exo- and esoteric. It may be that the early Christian church was primarily lunar and that the solar traditions were those of the Platonists and others, but then these two come together under the umbrella of one Western tradition in the Middle Ages, which was Christian in name but which was considerably different from what goes by that name now. It’s a kind of syncretism I guess, but this seems to be the rule in the history of religions.
The bad thing about having a tradition centered around one individual is that that person’s life is considered the one and only starting point for the tradition, and it is assumed that the whole tradition must have been born whole from that person. (Buddha, Jesus) But if we think in terms of a Western tradition and not in terms of Christianity, then we see a dynamic and changing tradition, with both lunar and solar, exo- and esoteric aspects, which in the Middle Ages resided in Christianity.
Consider this, from Christopher Bamford’s introduction to Schwaller de Lubicz’s book Nature Word:
“Deriving principally from Egypt and sharing a certain commonality of origin with Pythagoreanism, Platonism, Neo-Platonism and some manifestations of gnosticism – not to mention Kabbalah and the Mosaic Teachings of the Old Testament – the Hermetic tradition became, during the last two thousand years, the natural complement of the Christian Revelation. Christianity, as theology and history, needed a cosmology or sacred, Hermetic, idea of nature for its complete embodiment, while Hermeticism, for its part, found in the Christ not only the initiatic effusion necessary for its survival but also its supernatural justification and natural consummation. As cosmology, Hermeticism required a ground from which to derive and a goal toward which to aspire, a Mystery; and the Christian Mystery as revealed by the Trinity (and the Incarnation) was providential in providing this, because the revelation of Christ unveiled the Human Mystery while it was the ‘human’ world which was precisely also the Hermetic or cosmological one, mediating and reconciling celestial and terrestrial realms. From this point of view the Christian Mystery was the revelation of the divinity of Humanity and the Cosmos and so vindicated Hermeticism, which was founded upon just this certitude, as an authentic Christian esotericism or Way. Thus, the Hermetic science of alchemy was to teach that, “The Stone is the Christ,” celebrating a sacramental science whose object was the divinization of the cosmos, its revelation as the Anthropos whose Resurrection Body was at once the Body of God and the Body of Man.”
Religions aren’t as solar as metaphysical traditions. One would argue that Christianity isn’t solar because as Marco Pallis has said there is no initiation in Christianity; Christ is the only initiator. If one receives any sort of enlightenment in the Christian path it is by the grace of God, a wholly mystical participation which is prone to much error and confusion. One cannot use the Templar exception or the Platonic applications as found in the likes of Aquinas to prove the solarity of Christianity for these were foreign elements added onto Christianity. If Christianity is truly solar then it must be so in and of itself, and this has never been the case independent of outseide elements.
´the only way to understand Tradition or metaphysics is to make the necessary efforts to raise one’s state of being.´ [Cologero]
Yes, but, more to include it for accuracy, wouldn’t you say that: while the Sacred (Tradition) depends on nothing, the ability to receive and embody the Sacred, and the degree to which you can and do so, depends on having the potential or potency to begin with; having an inner race (a certain being or form): ´the ‘race of the spirit’, which addresses the highest elements of the personality which, in regard to the general vision of the world and the beyond, destiny, life, action, in short, the ‘highest values’, differentiate and make men unequal. The classical ideal, racially interpreted, is the harmony and the unity of these three racial aspects in a higher type. [Evola “The Elements of Racial Education”]
I.e. race not as an abstraction but being another dimension of the ´body-soul-spirit trichomotomy correspond[ing] to the Aristotelian and scholastic conception of the ‘three souls’, the vegetative one, the sensitive one and the intellectual one, to the Hellenic triad of soma-psyché-nous, to the Roman triad of mens-anima-corpus, and to the Indo-Aryan trinity of sthûla-çarîra, linga-çarîra and kârana-çarîra.´
As in men being unequal in their ability manifest the transcendent, so are their gens or dynasties unequal in doing so. Some tribes being more graceful than others (e.g. the grace of the Latins versus all their neighboring or related tribes): the grace of the conquering or victorious bloodline (that establishes the state). This understanding seems to be even in the Bible.
´From the purely metaphysical viewpoint, we do not speak of ‘principles’ to know but of spiritual states to attain, of transcendent contacts to achieve owing to forces that, ultimately, do not cease to belong to the integral being of man.´ [Evola “Spiritual Authority And Temporal Power”]
´Truth is the ultimate metaphysical category, not race, nor solarity, nor anything else.´ [Cologero]
Yes, but truth manifests as Power and Power is manifested in Men who form a dynasty. ´Such a race is, first and foremost, royal: and it is not possible to reduce its particular path to the narrow context of a religious worldview of a universal order in which knowledge is limited to the identification to ‘eternal principles’ contained in the spirit of ‘God’.´ [Evola “Spiritual Authority And Temporal Power”]
´By far more than the sacerdotal title of ‘saint’, it is that of Lord which, of all times, was used by all people to designate ‘God’ – as symbol of the highest metaphysical state in which the human being can integrate. Also Guénon, when he uses the title ‘King of the World’ to designate the supreme centre of spiritual authority, is he not himself referring to a non-sacerdotal dignity? [Evola “Spiritual Authority And Temporal Power”]
But perhaps we live in a too raceless age, in which there are no gens but merely mundane families out of which extremely rarely there are born men of regal potency, what to speak of power. And those men are scattered. Then we need God.
Ramana Maharshi writes of thoughts as worm holds: in the ordinary man, the ego grasps a thought, then the next one that follows, and so on until a tight chain of thoughts is created. This chain imprisons a man in his own mind by blocking out the possibility of any new thought. As I have known a great many ordinary men, I am quite familiar with this phenomenon.
For the non-ordinary, I will make some suggestions to stimulate new thoughts. This is all repetition, but it seems necessary at this time.
Truth is the ultimate metaphysical category, not race, nor solarity, nor anything else.
A spiritual movement must be understood in the perspective of the law of cosmic cycles and the law of castes. Why and how do forms change in relation to the particular cycles? How is a movement experienced by the different castes?
A movement in and of itself is not solar, or lunar, or Indo-European. For example, a low caste pagan would have been lunar. A Christian knight was solar. Spirit creates race, not the other way around.
Both Evola and Guenon regarded Medieval Europe as Traditional. If Christianity was so horrible for Western man, how could that have been possible?
It is a category error to compare theological statements of one system to metaphysical statements of another. Guenon has pointed out that theological statements have metaphysical analogues; please keep this in mind.
It is a category error to compare a belief to a metaphysical doctrine which are known. Gornahoor is concerned with what can be known, not with beliefs, creeds or opinions.
It is a category error to compare an insight from the Golden Age to a degenerate form from the tail end of the Iron Age. If you can think about why and how the degeneration occurred, then your comments may be more interesting.
Ultimately, since to know is to be, the only way to understand Tradition or metaphysics is to make the necessary efforts to raise one’s state of being. This involves spiritual practices to control thoughts and strengthen the will. Sorry, boys and girls, this cannot be hidden from Gornahoor.
Mark,
I am also curious as to why,if you think Christianity lacks any solar character, Evola, Guenon, Maurras & Schuon thought the Middle Ages was the last high point of the West. How could this occur if there was no solar element in the West?
Mark, I do not see you deflating the concept effectively of a Solar Christianity, only dismissing it outright as if you do not need to address it. Not very convincing.
I am not going to argue over the lunar character of Christianity, and attempts to give it a solar character has the obscurium per obscurius fallacy written all over.
Also, no problem on the comment. It is just that I see a large degree of ignorance about the Slavic traditions. That could be a product of what happened during WW2, and the Slavic nations adopting communism at that time could have made Evola think that it was something in the racial character that made them. Though, using this type of reasoning could condemn the Western Europeans for falling to cultural Marxism more so than the Slavs.
I am reading the Chapter North and South from Revolt and the mythic symbols of the North and present in Slavic paganism. To make Slavic paganism into a more Southern character is the work of a dishonest deconstruction or extreme ignorance.
Mark,
Re: comment 23. Yes, the lunar or exoteric soul believes that God is other. Yet Christianity, properly understood, means precisely the opposite, and Christian tradition has seen many ariyas. It seems like what you don’t like about Christianity is that it’s a living religion filled with actual members of the hoi polloi, just as your Slavic paganism once was, the difference being that since there are essentially no pagan Slavs left, you’re free to imagine that once upon a time they were all ariyas.
Re: comment 24. No, that wasn’t a dig about your chromosomes, it was a dig about your understanding. I don’t go in for race-baiting. Nor am I angry; can one have a full-blooded argument, or is that politically incorrect?
“The redeemer is He who dominates and overcomes the base nature. Christ is a numen, a state of being. He has many names for his different aspects. He is both Lamb, and Dominator. You can appreciate a numen when it’s explained to you in a book about dead Slavs, but not when its presented in front of you in livng ritual and doctrine?”
Not sure if that is a dig, but no need for anger, when truth is the best weapon.
Slavs, along with upper caste Hindus have the R1a1 Y chromosome at a very high rate, and it is a very specific form as well.
“R1a1 folks in Russia point at a common ancestor of 4,600 years BP. R1a1 Indians – at 4,100 years BP. Pooled together they both give a striking identical 25-marker common ancestor of 5,000 years BP.
It is interesting that both the Russians (in their major part – 50% to 70% Eastern Slavs) and R1a1 Indians have exactly the same 25-marker base (ancestral) haplotype. It fits pretty well with the Aryans (R1a1) coming to India some 3500-3400 years BP, apparently from South Ural straight down south.”
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GENEALOGY-DNA/2008-06/1213917885
So, even when Evola states that “Certain Slavs” have a “telluric” character in a book based upon the teachings of a Scythian Aryan. I would ask him and members of his Sicilian nobility to compare blood with the “average Slavic peasant”, and see who comes closer to the Scythian Aryan.
Graham, did you read the difference between the “Ariya”, and “lunar” character?
I will paste it again
“A “lunar” spirit, religiously inclined, may in its turn see in the contingency of life an atonement or a test, in face of which it should behave with humility and resignation, having faith in the impenetrable divine will and maintaining the feeling of being a “creature” created by it out of nothing.” Doctrine of Awakening page 77
“This clearly shows the significance of the other renunciation, The Ariya renunciation. This is based on “knowledge” and is accompanied by a gesture of disdain and a feeling of transcendental dignity; it is qualified by the superior man’s will for the unconditioned, by the will, that is, of a man of a quite special “race of spirit.” Such a man does not reject life — life that is interwoven with death — for “mortification,” thereby doing violence to his own being, but because it is too little for him, and when he remembers himself, he feels it to be inadequate to his real nature.” Doctrine of Awakening page 76
G,
Sure, I will send you a message.
Mark:
“Souls created out of nothingness,”
What does this mean, and how is it Semitic?
“tainted by original sin,”
How could a religion be Traditional if it did not have an idea of this order? The sinfulness of the flesh is not an idea foreign to pre-Christian Europe.
“needing a redeemer,”
The redeemer is He who dominates and overcomes the base nature. Christ is a numen, a state of being. He has many names for his different aspects. He is both Lamb, and Dominator. You can appreciate a numen when it’s explained to you in a book about dead Slavs, but not when its presented in front of you in livng ritual and doctrine?
“having faith in this god”
What is faith? Is it not fides? And what is wrong with that? Also, you could have the decency to capitalize God.
“with humility,”
Humility (and charity) are active means of overcoming ego.
“depending on his grace, etc.. ”
Evola says that change in the level of being is free and unconditioned – it happens if it happens. I submit that this is not substantively different from the idea of grace.
In general, I hope that simple prejudice is not the best you can offer against Christianity. Most traditionalist anti-Christians seem unable to recognize or assimilate the Traditional elements of the religion they were born into. These types would actually benefit from a dose of humility, charity, hope, and faith.
Mark, I’m interested to discuss more through email. I’m not particularly interested in proving anything or proving anyone wrong. I’d rather exchange information. Please within the next 24 hours (after that it’ll autodelete) send me your email address to religiousattitudes [at] suremail [dot] info
I’d like if Perennial or anyone else interested would do so too.
my mistake, then go ahead
If you want to try to stick a square peg in a circular hole, trying to force it in, they go ahead. I will not be any part of such a project.
Oh come on Mark, overall we’re saying the same thing! It seems you didn’t read my posts properly or were somehow offended by them.
I compliment you and try to aid you and you accuse me of *wanting* to believing in delusion. I do not want to believe when I can know.
Did you for example miss? ´We could also say the beginning of the end of the West was when the Heathen Nordic-Aryan cult of the original stock of Rome started degenerating.´ or ´”the lordly Nordic and Indo-Germanic man has always been solar; the subjugation of the creature and the pathos of its absolute distance from the Almighty were totally unknown to him.”´?
The detail difference is that I presented you with a method of distinction superior to the crude ´paganism vs. christianity´. Central to Indo-European weltanschauung is order conquering chaos. SLAYING THE DRAGON.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Kill-Dragon-Aspects-Indo-European/dp/0195144139/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295212784&sr=8-1
The Aryan or Imperial myth/idée-force. The transcendental dignity you quote above. Do you really think it didn’t live on in postpagan Europe? http://brianakira.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/archangel-michael-slaying-the-devil-by-rafael-1518.jpg
http://www.christusrex.org/www2/berry/DB-f195r.jpg
http://www.fineartprintsondemand.com/artists/burne-jones/st_george_and_the_dragon-400.jpg
´To quote Saint Hippolytus in conclusion: ‘The Messiah and the Anti-Christ both have the lion for their emblem’, another solar symbol. The same remarks may be applied to the serpent** and to many other symbols. From a Kabbalistic viewpoint, we have here the two opposite faces of Metatron […] ***
** The two opposing aspects are figured in particular by the two serpents of the Caduceus; in Christian iconography they are united in the ‘Amphisbaena’, the two-headed serpent, one of which represents Christ, the other Satan.
*** Let us further point out that the ‘Globe of the World’, insignia of imperial power or of universal monarchy, is frequently placed in the hand of Christ, which shows, moreover, that he is the emblem of spiritual authority as well as of temporal power.´ [Guénon, René 1927 “The Lord of the World” p. 17]
This might be my last post, I’m handing over too many of my ´discoveries´ here. 🙂
Mark,
Just because Mahayana Buddhism is the most popular strain of Buddhism does not make it the most legitimate. Likewise, just because the dominant strain in Christianity is lunar (in addition to the things you mention, one could mention the exultation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the emphasis on devotions and pilgrimages, votivary imagery and candles, etc.)
However, this is not the only way to understand the Christian message. If one thinks of original sin as merely the condition of the Fall, the loss of that exhaulted state once held in the Golden Age, then one can see whereby Initiation (partaking of the Sacraments upon reception through Holy Baptism and Holy Confirmation, whereby one grows in the knowledge of the self through stages and in partking of His Body & Blood) can be a path of overcoming this Fall and, through action come realize the higher self which is Christ. The Lord did not come merely to “redeem” mankind, as Augustinian theology would have it, through vicarious atonement, but rather to show a way of victory, Christus Victor, so that we may “put on Christ” as St. Paul puts it. Christ overcame the lower self (human weakness) by choosing a heroic action (Crucifixion) to achieve transcedence (Resurrection). Christ was never one who lived a passive life of monastic contemplation, but rather lived actively, and in the world. While He observed certain ascetic practices to have mastery of the Self (fasting, meditating) he ate, drank, and lived life well, in accordance with His calling. “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.
The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.” (St. Matthew 11:18-20)
Christ also showed that disdain of the things of this world were prerequisites of overcoming, noting that “my kingdom is not of this world.”
What the Lord Christ showed was true religion (“to bind back”). The One, as Plotinus called Him, is the source of all creation, and the Logos created all out of Himself (“nothing,” no thing, no substance or matter). We are all of Him, and to Him we “bind back.” Some will not transcend (“will not be saved”) and will fall into the oblivion as mere shadows of self, whereas those who rise above, by “taking on Christ” and “living in Him and He in us,” will find Life everlasting and experience theosis, or deification, and find himself to be God in God. This is the Christian message, that “God became man, so man may become a God” as St. Athanasius of Alexandra put it. This is stated in Isaiah 41: “Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together…
I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come: from the rising of the sun shall he call upon my name: and he shall come upon princes as upon morter, and as the potter treadeth clay.
Who hath declared from the beginning, that we may know? and beforetime, that we may say, He is righteous? yea, there is none that sheweth, yea, there is none that declareth, yea, there is none that heareth your words. The first shall say to Zion, Behold, behold them: and I will give to Jerusalem one that bringeth good tidings.” (When stating “there is none, etc.” this is in reference to the pagan priests).
I could go further in this vain, but sufficeth to say I think the solar path is there. To renounce oneself, to follow in Christ’s path in overcoming and “binding back” to the One, I believe the active life can be a Christian one, and then one can find the Eternal was never lost and gone, but rather was ever present, and that those who “have ears to hear, let him hear.” (St. Matthew 11:15)
I think what is meant by “cherry picked quotes” is that they might take things out of context. Let me take this quote
“A “lunar” spirit, religiously inclined, may in its turn see in the contingency of life an atonement or a test, in face of which it should behave with humility and resignation, having faith in the impenetrable divine will and maintaining the feeling of being a “creature” created by it out of nothing.” Doctrine of Awakening page 77
“This clearly shows the significance of the other renunciation, The Ariya renunciation. This is based on “knowledge” and is accompanied by a gesture of disdain and a feeling of transcendental dignity; it is qualified by the superior man’s will for the unconditioned, by the will, that is, of a man of a quite special “race of spirit.” Such a man does not reject life — life that is interwoven with death — for “mortification,” thereby doing violence to his own being, but because it is too little for him, and when he remembers himself, he feels it to be inadequate to his real nature.” Doctrine of Awakening page 76
Thanks, I now see that Christianity is much more of the “Ariya” path that the “lunar” one. Souls created out of nothingness, tainted by original sin, needing a redeemer, having faith in this god with humility, depending on his grace, etc..
If you want to believe this delusion of the solar character of Christianity, then go right ahead, I will be no part of it.
Funny, I’ve seen people say Evola cherry-picks his quotes.
The sweet berries I picked prove nothing. Not to most anyway. But for a few who can taste them, they are orientating descriptions (and in that way seeing-is-understanding), only a certain type of people are capable of appreciating. I think that, for example, Mark, Cologero and Perennial do so. And so do others I won’t mention.
´[…] to think that there is something ridiculous and ‘scientifically’ untenable about the Aryan and Nordic-Aryan myth means to create an alibi for a non-Aryan and non-Nordic vocation, that cannot but be related to the substratum of a corresponding race of the body, or, at least, race of the soul, in the person in question.´ [Julius Evola]
What do all these cherry-picked Evola quotes prove?
Good observations, G. In my humble view the Solar presence is there in Christianity, it has just been muted my devotionalism and religiosity. The same accusation can be made of even Hunduism and Buddhism, where these ideas permeat the lower classes in a decadent and promiscious fashion as Evola would say. The fact that Christianity has become a vehicle of lunar, priestly devotionalism is not a sign of the inherancy of these features, but only rather that this is the vehicle that has been emphasized by the hierarchy. Charles Maurras observed that the Church, purged of its more overt Semetic and lunar elements, would in fact become the key foundation for a true national revival, indeed, the sine qua none of such. Even Guenon and Evola said such would be the case, IF the will and desire existed in Christianity to do so. Whether the Church can make that transition is a seperate question altogether. But I maintain that it can be done, it has been done, and can be done again, if there is an elite committed to illuminating this possibility. An orthodox Catholic can surely understand God as transcendent and imminant, The Be All in All, who is both fully a individual and beyond individuality. Such is the message we hear especially from the Christian East. If there is a specific point you would like me to address, just ask me. I here only outline general principals. As Evola pointed in Revolt Against the Modern World, it is irrelevant whether the history he narrates is as he tells it, because the truth it expresses transcends the need for it to be completely factual (paraphrasing, of course).
I am sorry, Mark, I listed the scholars in assumption you would be familiar with their works by name. Pardon the presumption.
´The world of being and the world of becoming affect things, demons and men.´ [“Revolt Against the Modern World”]
Again, it’s not right to think of heathenry as heathenism/paganism/polytheism, as it were something in unity. In prechristian ages there were uncounted cults for uncounted stocks or orders of people.
´According to a tradition, Numa, by instituting the collegia, intended for „every profession to celebrate its own cult“ (Plutarch, Numa, 17). In India too each profession pursued by the inferior castes often corresponded to a special cult of divine or legendary patrons; this practice is also found in Greece, among the Nordic people and the Aztecs, in Islam, and so on.´ [„Revolt Against the Modern World“ p. 105]
For example Germanic tribes fought against each other in the name of different ideas. As did the original Roman stock crush all the other prechristian peoples in the their area.
´According to some (Piganiol, Les Origines de Rome [Paris, 1899]) the appearence of the Olympian gods next to the feminine deities of the earth was the result of the mixture of the cults of northern origin with the cults of southern origin.´ [“Revolt Against the Modern World” p. 199]
Even if white races have darker races to conquer they never cease to fight against each other for a long time. The myth of the Æsir tells of a that white stock arriving and toppling a previous stock of the Vanir.
The funny things is, with Germanic (and other) neo-pagans, is that they don’t even (correctly) understand their own sayings; in that, most of them don’t recognize that the downfall of the (Traditional) Germano-Heathenry was already predicted by itself: in the myth of Vargöld (Wolf-age). ´Many things are known by the wise. They forsee many things: the decline of the world and the end of Æsir´ [Völuspá, 44]
Last night in cyberspace a university student said he follows ´Orthodox Germanic Heathenism´ meaning that it was strictly based on historical and archeological evidence. That is equally as bad and ridiculuous as ´Orthodox Guénonians´. The orthodoxy is only imagined, what overrides it is power and its effect. All material will transform. Little did he realize that he only projects his postchristian historicism and scientism upon ´heathenism´, and that the heathen world did not know these degenerated modes-of-seeing and modes-of-being (i.e. historicism). These self-described pagans usually have a very linear view on temporality, thus being the opposite of what they would like to be.
´According to the tradition of the Elder Edda, the appearance pf the femenine element (“of the three strong daughters of the giants”) marks both the end of the Golden Age and the beginning of the first struggles between divene races (Aesir and Wanen), and later on between divine races and giants; these struggles, as we shall see later on, reflect the spirit of later epochs.´ [“Revolt Against the Modern World” p. 207]
The original Nordic-Roman cult (described for example in “The Sacred in the Roman Tradition” http://thompkins_cariou.tripod.com/id69.html) had of course degenerated into an inferior, more ´Southernized´ or ´Asianized´ Roman cult, long before the arrival of Christianity. As had the various cults in the North and other directions.
´This goddess of the Southern Hemisphere, who is transfigured and reduced to a pure and almost Demetrian form, as exemplified in the Brassampouy caves inhabited by Aurignacian man, was introduced and became dominant in the new civilization of Western-Atlantic origin. Along the path of Atlantic colonizers, from the Neolithic to the Minoan period and from the Pyrenees to Egypt, we encounter female idols almost elusively, while in the cult there were more priestesses than priests, or quite often, effeminate priests.´ [“Revolt Against the Modern World” p. 207]
And you say that to say ´Heathenism´ had degenerated is coming from a very ´Greco-Roman perspective´? 🙂 Obvious linearism to me. There is the struggle of the masculine warrior forces against the more chaotic and more feminine forces. This takes place in 2011 as it did tens of thousands of years before anything Greco-Roman or even Germanic, what to speak of Christian or Modern.
That verses in hymns have to be written down is a sign of degeneration in itself (so for example, the Vedas, from this perspective, are actually corruptions of elder and purer rites). As is it a sign of degeneration that there needs to arrive a ´movement´ called Traditionalism to aid people in seeing things that before were obvious. That those of a regal spirit are scattered and powerless around the globe having to discuss in cyberspace is another sign of a degeneration.
´[] the most important foundation of the authority and of the right (ius) of kings and chiefs, and the reason why they were obeyed, feared and venerated, was essentially their transcendent and nonhuman quality. This quality was not artificial, but a powerful reality to be feared. The more people acknowledged the ontological rank of what was prior and superior to the visible and temporal dimension, the more such beings were invested with a natural and absolute sovereign power.´ [“Revolt Against the Modern World” p. 7]
These differences exist still, but because of decline now very few men are born with circuits attractive and conducive enough to manifest their spiritual potency. Corruptions are blockages. And cyberspace is quite dense and neutralizing.
´”The dignity a god enjoys on earth is splendid, but hard to achieve for the weak. Only he who sets his soul on this objective, is worthy to become a king.” The ruler appears as a “follower of the discipline that is practiced by those who are gods among men.” [“Revolt Against the Modern World” p. 8]
Anyone who wants to reform an organism, a tribe, best not spend his time discussing the remnants of dead or degenerate forms when the living-ideas and principles are still there as ever. Take what you can to build what you need an move on.
´The dimension of that which is universal may appear in different aspects and different degrees in various civilizations and traditional organizations. The „formative process“ always encounters resistance from matter, which in its determinations caused by time and space acts in a differentiating and particularistic sense in relation to the effective historical application of the one principle that in itself is superior and antecedent to these manifestations.´ [„Revolt Against the Modern World“ p. 25]
Please see that I am not propagating or promoting anything here, christian, nonchristian, antichristian, pagan, neopagan or otherwise. Nor do I think this website is. If I thought everyone here was hopeless or needed convincing all the time I wouldn’t put any thought or time into this.
Are you like me, more interested in remanifesting liberty & hierarchy in all realms of life, than in historical discussion? There is no one history like there is no one race and no one cult(ure). And if Tradition is what works I’ll say there is one Tradition, but if it is what different people believe then I’ll say there are many in conflict and never are they equal. The Imperial idée-force or the Beyond-the-north-wind spirit does not manifest itself equally. Not in prechristian eras, nor in christian eras.
One of the dimensions of myths is that they tell of the subordination of one stock to another. There is a lot of killing and enslavement involved. ´The first way, victory over a contender whom Philip was expected to fight to the death in an enclosed area, reminds us of the Rex Nemorensis and of the mystical testimony inherent in every victory.´ [“Revolt Against the Modern World p. 15]
There is a ´power that can “make the current ascend upward” and of which “victory,” “fortune,” and prosperity of a particular stock are usually the consequences.´ [“Revolt Against the Modern World” p. 170]
That we take so much from the Roman tradition is because it is the strongest manifestation in our era. I.e. it has left us more than any other traditions.
´In 1307 the Teutonic Knights were likewise accused of heresy by the archbishop of Riga; their leader barely managed to save the order, though with great effort. But the main object of the Church’s attack was the Knights Templar. The destruction
of this order coincides with the interruption of the metaphysical tension of the Ghibelline Middle Ages; when it was accomplished, the contacts were interrupted again. This marks the initial breaking point, the beginning of the decline of the West.´ [“The Mystery of the Grail” pp. 128-9]
We could also say the beginning of the end of the West was when the Heathen Nordic-Aryan cult of the original stock of Rome started degenerating, later to be very debased by racial bastardization.
Tradition lives on, however, although only in fain echoes. With the Hohenstaufen dynasty Tradition had a last bright flicker; eventually the empires would be replaced by „imperialisms“ and the state would be understood only as a temporal, national, particularistic, social and plebeian organization. [„Revolt Against the Modern World“ p. 28]
I care not for your individualities or opinions, I care for you all only to the degree that you can remanifest such a society as e.g. described here:
´The Scandinavian counts called their leader “the enemy of gold,” since as a leader he was not allowed to keep any gold for himself, and also “the host of heroes,” because of the pride he took in hosting his faithful warriors, whom he regarded as his companions and equals, in his house. Even among the Franks prior to Charlemagne, participation in a particular mission occurred on a voluntary basis; the king invited people to participate, he appealed to them; at times the princes themselves proposed a course of action – in any event, there was neither “duty” nor impersonal “service,” since everywhere there were free and highly personalized relationships of command and obedience, mutual understanding and faithfulness. Thus, the idea of free personality was the foundation of any unity and hierarchy. this was the “Nordic” seed from which the feudal system arose as the background to the new imperial idea.´[“Revolt Against the Modern World”]
Hierarchy, liberty, lucidity,
Gottion
P.S. EXIT, what are you trying to say?
I would like to say something. To say that Heathenism was degraded long before Christianity is coming from a very Greco-Roman perspective. When Julian had his parades for the gods, and “no one cared”, this was not the case in other areas of Europe. The negative cultural conditions that Christianity grew under was part of Rome.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Equality/comments/cp35h/feminism_of_the_future_relies_on_men_nytimescom/c0u6hw8
”
~1-2 century AD: The family unit is destroyed. Men refuse to marry and the government tries to revive marriage with a “bachelor tax”, to no avail. Children are growing up without fathers, Roman women show little interest in raising their own children and frequently use nannies. The wealth and power of women grows very fast, while men become increasingly demotivated and engage in prostitution and vice. Prostitution and homosexuality become widespread.
~3-4 century AD: A moral and demographic collapse takes place, Roman population declines due to below-replacement birth-rate. Vice and massive corruption are rampant, while the new-born Catholic Religion is gaining power (it becomes the religion of the Empire in 380 AD). There is extreme economic, political and military instability: there are 25 successive emperors in half a century (many end up assassinated), the Empire is ungovernable and on the brink of civil war.”
1. You can’t take the Semitic element out of Christianity.
2. A universalist esoterism devoid of formal aspects like race is anti-traditional and right out of the playbook of the New Age.
3. Stephen Flowers is the last person I’d consult for traditional matters.
4. True Heathenism did not live on through Christianity; rather Christianity adopted the degenerated heathenism which kept all spiritual activity hidden as if it were taboo.
“Ultimately, racial categories need to be replaced with Wisdom or gnosis”
C., what you propose here is an esoterism severed from any sort of exoteric form, which is an impossibility and starkly anti-traditional. Since we are flesh and blood and not mere bodies of light we need a formal aspect upon which the essence is based which takes into consideration the unique qualities of race and the time period. Virtues also play a big part in both esoteric and exoteric aspects, and although virtues are universal some have priority over others according to different races and time periods.
Now, as for the claim that Christianity is not Semitic or based on Judaism, or that there was a different Judaism that wasn’t Jewish, this is all a bunch of nonsense concocted by modern racialists attempting to reconcile their Semitic religion with their prejudiced views and holds no place in any serious forum of discussion. No matter how Europeanized Christianity has become you cannot take the Semitic core attitude out of the religion.
You are sightful Mark to see a distinction. For,
´Two main attitudes toward the supra-mundane reality are possible. One is solar, virile, affirming; the other is lunar, feminine, religious, passive, corresponding to the priestly ideal.´ [J. Evola quoted in the introduction to “Men Among the Ruins”]
Perhaps these discussions could now be put behind us by recognizing an Aryan or Masculine Christianity opposed to a Semitic Feminine Christianity. For indeed ´We have to remember that behind the various caprices of modern historical theories, and as a more profound and primordial reality, there stands the unity of blood and spirit of the white races who created the greatest civilizations both of the East and West, the Iranian and Hindu as well as the ancient Greek and Roman and the Germanic.
To insist here, as in every other field of thought, on the antithesis between East and West is pure dilettantism. The real contrast exists in the first place between concepts of a modern kind and those of a traditional kind, whether the latter are Eastern or Western; and secondly, between the real creations of the Aryan spirit and blood and those which, in East and West alike, have resulted from the admixture of non-Aryan influences. [Evola, “The Doctrine of Awakening” p. 14]
However,
[…] in the original cycle of Aryan civilizations, both Eastern and Western, there is not the smallest trace of divine figures being so concerned with mankind as to come near pursuing them in order to gain their adherence and “save” them. The so-called salvationist religions — the Erlosungsreligionen, in German — make their appearance both in Europe and in Asia at a later date, together with a lessening of the preceding spiritual tension, with a fall from Olympian consciousness and, not least, with influxes of inferior ethnic and social elements. […] man is fundamentally the artificer of his own destiny, even of his development beyond this world […] [Evola, “The Doctrine of Awakening” p. 17]
So there indeed is a degeneration for Europe to know god passively as only a savior, and to divorce the regal and priestly into king under pope. But this degeneration had anyway affected Europe before the spreading of Christianity. But never have all succumbed, Christian or not. (´In the knightly medieval allegories, the parrot symbolizes knighthood and fights against the clergy for the right over the woman.´ [“The Mystery of the Grail” p. 40]
The Imperial Myth lives on.
´After all, many people thought that the Roman world, in its imperial and pagan phase, signified the beginning of a new Golden Age, the king of which, Kronos, was believed to be living in a state of slumber in the Hyperborean region. During Augustus’s reign, the Sibylline prophecies announced the advent of a “solar” king, a rex a coelo or ex sole missus, to which Horace seems to refer when he invokes the advent of Apollo, the Hyperborean god of the Golden Age. Virgil too seems to refer to this rex when he proclaims the imminent advent of a new Golden Age, of Apollo, and of heroes. Thus Augustus conceived his symbolic “filiation” from Apollo; the phoenix, which is found in the figurations of Hadrian and of Antoninus, is in strict relation to this idea of a resurrection of the primordial age through the Roman Empire.
The foreboding of Rome’s connection with the suprahistorical and metaphysical principle of the imperium may, after all, be considered the basis of the very theory of Rome’s persistence and aeternitas, provided one is aware of the previously mentioned process of transposition of that which is proper to this prin-
ciple to one of its specific embodiments in history.
During the Byzantine age, the imperial myth received from Methodius a formulation that revived, in relation to the legend of Alexander the Great, some of the themes already considered. Here again, we find the theme of a king believed to have died, who awakens from his sleep to create a new Rome; after a short reign, the people of Gog and Magog, to whom Alexander had blocked the path, rise up again, and the “last battle” takes place.*
* A New Testament apochryphal text, The Apocalypse of Peter, mentions a “son of the lion” (the lion symbolizing the empire), who will push back and defeat all the kings of the earth, having been
empowered to do so by God himself; he is portrayed as “one who has awakened from slumber.” Even during this period we notice a surfacing of the Hyperborean memory, considering that Lactantius (Institutiones, 6.16.3) claims that the mighty prince who will restore justice after Rome’s fall will come from the “faraway lands of the North”´
This same idea will be revived and amply developed during the Ghibelline Middle Ages. The awaited, hidden emperor, who never died and who withdrew to an invisible or inaccessible center, is here transformed into one of the major representatives of the Holy Roman Empire: Charlemagne, Frederick I, or Frederick II. The complementary theme of a devastated or sterile kingdom awaiting renewal finds its equivalent in the theme of the Dry Tree. The Dry Tree, associated with the seat of the Universal Ruler, will blossom again at the time of a new imperial manifestation and of the victory against the forces of the Dark Age that are represented, in conformity to the new biblical and Christian religion, by the people of Gog and Magog, who will launch their attack at the time of the advent of the Antichrist.
This Christian reading of these ancient symbols, however, does not preclude the image of Frederick II or of Arthur asleep on a mountain, or of the latter’s knights leading a charge from the top of that mountain, from being associated with ancient pagan-Nordic views, namely, with Valhalla, the mountain dwelling of Odin, leader of the “divine heroes;’ or with the host of the souls of slain warriors, handpicked by women (the Valkyrie). This host can be described both as the Wildes Reer and as the mystical army that, led in battle by Odin, will fight the last battle against the “elemental beings”.
This legend appears with countless variations during the golden age of Western chivalry and Ghibellinism.[“The Mystery of the Grail” p. 41]
Thus we can say Heathenry never died but lived on through Christianity. Thus we could say that Heathens are not anti-Christian but only neopagans are.
So as I have said before it is not about history (which is a mundane subject), but about living-myth — the survival of ideas, of modes of being and seeing.
´All too often people forget that spirituality is essentially a way of life and that its measure does not consist of notions, theories, and ideals that have been stored in one’s head. Spirituality is actually what has been successfully actualized and translated into a sense of superiority which is experienced inside by the soul, and a noble demeanor, which is expressed in the body.´
In the end, the only real history, history as what lives on, is the blood and its deeds.
“Man’s most precious possession is blood, when it is well-liking ; the most mischievous thing in man is blood when it is ill-liking” (Meister Eckhart, The Emanation and Return)
“And God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers, and above all else, that there is nothing which they should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity of the race. They should observe what elements mingle in their offspring;…” [Plato’s Politeia]
´The second attitude [passivity] s mostly that of the southern Semitic cultures, whereas the lordly Nordic and Indo-Germanic man has always been solar; the subjugation of the creature and the pathos of its absolute distance from the Almighty were totally unknown to him. He felt the gods to be his equals; like he felt himself to be descended from heaven and to be of the same blood as the gods.´ [J. Evola quoted in the introduction to “Men Among the Ruins”]
´Joseph was then believed to have filled a cup, which, according to
some texts, was the Grail itself, with the blood flowing from the Nazarene’s side.´ [“The Mystery of the Grail” p. 60]
Sangreal: Holy Grail, Royal Blood, and Regal Blood.
God bless.
I hope from this aids you in giving birth to your answers.
It was not my analysis, but more so that of Hans F.K. Gunther in his Religious Attitudes of the Indo-Europeans. Also, you should not just list a group of Christian scholars, and then assert that Christianity had that position. William of Occam is a great example of the radically transcendent deity that relates to creation via his will. One of the developments of his nominalism was that god is utterly distinct from the world, and can create whatever values that he likes. Good and evil are completely dependent on god’s arbitrary will.
Mark,
I must disagree with your analysis of Christianity. You have conveniently boxed Christianity in a small confine which does not reflect the totality of it’s history. Most of Western Christian history did not acquire it’s “monolithic” nature until the protestant revolt, after which at Trent is became more consolidated. But no one can read St. Thomas, Peter Abelard, St. Clement of Alexandria, Duns Scotus, William of Occham, et. al, not too mention the rich theology of the Byzantine East, and come to the conclusions the imminant deity of “Aryan, Germanic” lore was also completely lost in Christian theology. The idea of a God beyond time and space and even definition, yet living and imminant in all creation was always apart of Christian narrative. It was simply more narrowly defined, not the ill-defined and wide parametered religion of Germanic tribes. It is in many senses a creature of Rome, and therefore to compare the two philosophies would be to compare apples and oranges, it would seem to me.
I do realize that Judaism post-temple destruction is much different from Judaism pre-temple destruction. The idea would still be from their perspective that there is a lineage and tradition, and though history has changed outward manifestations, the inner core is still the same. They still have the Torah, though what once was part of external rituals is now expressed through inner meditation on the Torah.
The question is, is this true about Christianity and the Indo-European Tradition. Is the core still the same? Are the metaphysical principles the same? Do they have a Semitic or Aryan outlook on divinity?
The issue is that many will say that the Indo-European is “Transtheistic”, whereas Christianity since it is part of the Semitic outlook is “Monotheistic” (“Metaphysical” as opposed to “Moral” God). The Christian consciousness is a god opposed to you, who transcends you, and relates to you via his will. You are a sinner who must abide by the dictates of his will. The Aryan consciousness is a god that is an ultimate state of being. (pure consciousness, pure bliss, and pure awareness).
From Hans F.K. Gunther’s Religious Attitude of the Indo-Europeans
““The fearless thinkers among the Teutons, above all among the North Teutons, to whom the world of the Gods of the Aesir and Vanir had become a childish idea, must have recognised long before the penetration of Christianity the existence of an inner-worldly
and inner-spiritual deity, a brahman, or a theion, as the Hellenes called it, a daimonion,
such as Socrates felt working within himself. It is a striking fact, to which too little
attention has been paid hitherto, that the word “God” was neuter in gender in the
Teutonic languages (Das Gott, or, in Old Nordic: gud) and that it was only after the false
interpretation by Christian converters that the word acquired male gender. Thus thinking
Indians no longer spoke of Gods even at an early period, but of a deity governing the
world (dewata), which was also called the brahman. This is the deus in nobis of Hellenic
and Roman poets and thinkers.
When Christian missionaries asked the north Teutons who or what they believed in, they
received the reply which centuries previously the south Teutons — who had believed in
Das Gott (neuter) — might also have given, that they believed in their power (matt) or
strength (magin), a power working within them, a deity filling the religious man, an
inner-worldly and inner-spiritual deity. Such an answer must have seemed to the
missionaries, as it would to many present day commentators, a mere boast of power or an
idolatrous presumption, while in fact it must be understood as a factual “The God” (Das
Gott) corresponding to the dominans ille in nobis deus. But it is easy to understand that
the missionaries, who in Christianity had accepted the extra-mundane, transcendent ideas
of a “personal” God, from the Semitic peoples, were at a loss when confronted by faith in
a destiny ruling within men.
The pagan north Germans, who still believed that the divine was present in all “men of
high mind”, were called Godless (gudlauss or gudlausir menn) by their converted
countrymen, who were spiritually more simple, and therefore could not understand inner
spiritual power or strength.
The men with more insight among the Hellenes would have understood the neuter God
— Das Gott — of the Teutons, for it corresponded to their own to theion. Thinking
Hellenes had already long replaced the plurality of the Gods by the single deity and later
by the single figure called The Mighty {to Kreitton). The orator Dion of Prusa, known as
Chrysostom (40-120), and the philosopher Plotinus (204-270), would not have
misunderstood the Icelanders: Might and Power as descriptions of the deity were familiar
to them. Dion of Prusa (XXXI, 11) says of the deeply prudent men of his time: “They
simply combine all Gods together in one might (ischys) and power (dynamis)” and
Plotinus expresses this in the Enneads (I, 6, 8) in the same way as Goethe, who read this
passage in the year 1805:
Lag ‘ nicht in uns des Gottes eigne Kraft,
wie konnt’ uns Gottliches entzUcken?
If the Gods own power did not lie within us,
how could the divine enrapture us?
(Zahme Xenien, HI, 725, 26)
The might or power of which the Indo-Europeans had a presentiment, this unity of the
deity was split up by thinkers in the realm of human experience into the trinity of “The
Good, the True and the Beautiful”, but in such a way that these ideas or words remained
close neighbours in Hellas. Here and there with the later Hellenic-Roman thinkers the
true could easily be understood as the good and the beautiful, aletheia could signify both
intellectual truth as well as moral truth, and in the kalok’ agathia the ideal of sifting and
selection, of eugeneia or human disciplined, choice bodily beauty and moral fitness, and
virtue {arete) became linked with one another. Since Plato’s Banquet, Indo-European
thinkers have recognised truth, beauty and virtue as life values which pointed beyond the
realm of experience to the divine, to the brahman, or the concept of Das Gott (neuter) —
to a deity which through truth rendered the thinking man capable of knowledge.
The reappearance of Indo-European religious attitudes, also explains why Christian
theologians as well as thinkers and poets of the Christianised West again and again
revolted against the concepts of an other-worldly, personal God — of a God who had
created the world from nothing and had populated it with creatures according to his
design. The French mystic and scholar, Amalric of Bena, who died in Paris about 1206, was even cursed after his death by the Church because he rationally rejected the teachings of God as a creator, and because he had asserted that such a God must be responsible for the sorrow of all living creatures and for the vices of man, since he had created them all. Amalric, the Pantheistic mystic, knew as a result of his Indo-European disposition, that the justification (Theodicy) by the all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-merciful God, of the evils of his creation, was impossible.”
I agree with you, Mark, in general, if not in particulars. We are attempting to trace an Indo-European Tradition from its Hyperborean roots, to the East, to the South, and then to the West. Perhaps what you call Northern neo-pagans have not yet absorbed all that. First of all, Christianity, as we have been looking at it, is not a “semitic” religion; I don’t need to repeat what has been written.
I think you are looking at things anachronistically; you can’t make a judgment based on what exists today as Judaism and Christianity. Judaism is not the same as the religion of the ancient Hebrews, as it arose from the Pharisees after the destruction of the temple. Even racially they are probably not the same people as some Jewish writers have claimed. This is not the place to justify those points, but you should be able to look it up.
I have demonstrated repeatedly that the thought and philosophy of the best of the pagans was carried over to the Christians, and there is more material yet to come. It is odd to lump Judaism and Christianity together theologically, since they have been implacable enemies for most of their common history. The fundamental difference is that pagans have been non-Christians, whereas neo-pagans have been anti-Christians, just as the Jews have been. It is really odd since a segment of those neo-pagans are also anti-Semites, though they are on the same side of the wall. For example, neo-pagans love Julian the Apostate, even though he formed an alliance with the Jews against the Christians and helped in the attempt to rebuild the temple. Admittedly, today the situation is much different.
As for Guenon, he made his decision for purely personal reasons — as he has repeatedly pointed out — and nothing more should be inferred from it. Islam can be seen as the final revelation or rather as a Christian heresy. He pointed to the Vedanta as a pure metaphysics, which is plausible since it is a development to the Hyperborean tradition. However, nothing about that should be seen as a recommendation for the India of today.
Ultimately, racial categories need to be replaced with Wisdom or gnosis. What exactly is the metaphysical world view of the neo-pagan, and how does it differ from any ancient Indo-European tradition and Catholicism of the Medieval period? Obviously, this does not mean something formal, or contingent, or emotion-based. We claim the Hermetic tradition is Western. For a pure Nordic view of Hermetism, check out the works of Stephen Flowers and the Rune Guild.
This is where I see the essential difference between “North” and “South”. Either the “Northern pagans” are being authentic and showing fidelity when they create the divide between “Christianity” and “paganism” or the “Southern Christian” is able to integrate the two via some type of Coincidentia oppositorum.
This is something that needs to be focused on. Is it Traditionalism, or “Authentic” Tradition? Let me give an example. Is Guenon’s path valid? Is he a “Traditionalist” or a “Muslim Apostate to the Indo-European Tradition” or both in some sense. This is why I think the whole phrasing of pagan vs Christian just misses the point. The point is authentic Indo-European / Aryan Tradition vs Some other Tradition. I think a “Northern pagan” might say, “ok, you are connected to this “Hermetic-Kabbalistic Tradition” that comes from Cordova Spain that is the integration of the esoteric aspects of all the Semitic religions, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, but this is not Aryan / Indo-European, and some deep calling or longing is directing me to that, and that is what I must be.”
Just as Evola stated that he did not like the name Pagan Imperialism, and should have had it as Roman Tradition. I don’t like the phrasing of pagan, it should be Indo-European Tradition.