But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. ~ John 1:12-13
In At the Crossroads of Science and Mysticism, Pavel Florensky brings up the topic of discontinuity in nature. Since science depends on the principle of continuity, there can be no “jumps” between states. We can add another argument to his, one that he could not have been aware of: viz., the quantum states of electrons require jumps.
When he applies continuity to evolutionism (in the Darwinian sense), creativity is eliminated. It requires that there is no qualitative difference between animals and man. But evolution does seem to be discontinuous. Hence, as he says, there is indeed a sudden qualitative change in the descent of man from apes. In principle, it is possible that man was created by a momentary addition of particular qualities to the ape.
This notion is not unknown to esoteric teaching and Florensky was certainly familiar with esoteric teachings, and probably even his mentor Serapion Mashkin. Florensky writes:
Serapion Mashkin vividly describes a herd of animals that do not differ much from human beings. One of these animals was transfigured and in his sleep saw the Light of Tabor; when he awoke he saw that he was surrounded by beasts and he felt how alone he was. He had suddenly become a new creature.
He mentions Theophan the Recluse as having a similar view, but I have yet to find a reference. So that begins the Genesis story. Of course, his first task is to find Eve from among the beasts. Genesis implies that there are such biological humans; Cain, for example, had founded a city, perhaps from such beings.
Waking up from Sleep
In esoteric training, every action, facial expression, posture, etc., has meaning. One must be alert to them. Those occur in the waking state. However, the dreaming state and even the state of deep sleep can be observed. You can watch yourself fall asleep. You will notice that thoughts become disentangled and unrelated as you slowly drift off to sleep. The mystery then is exactly “who” wakes up? Sometimes you can even observe it. Here is a recent example from my own experience.
I was dreaming that I was reading a text, not a dream world text, but a wake world text. I was having trouble following it. Another voice told me it is time to wake up. I objected that I wanted to finish reading the text. The voice explained that I could not be sure I was reading the correct one. I saw the point, and we decided to wake up together.
Thus, Serapion Mashkin’s thought experiment seems plausible.
Overcoming Negativity
One of the goals of personal development is to attain the state of ataraxia. I recently received a phone call from my health insurance company telling me I was eligible for a special program to help me deal with “challenges” around health, covid, lockdowns, and all the other negativity. I would get 8 weeks of counseling and 8 weeks of a behaviour coach, whatever that is. So a few days ago, I got an introductory call from the therapist. We spent time going over medications and recent medical challenges. I objected to the word “challenges” and called them conditions that I could deal with.
Then she asked me if I have thoughts of suicide or murder. I denied both and asked, “It sounds like you have an interesting job!” “Yes, sometimes,” she conceded.
More questions like these: do I feel anxiety or depression, do I have trouble concentrating or getting through the day, and so on. “no, no, no, no, no …” were my responses. I interrupted and said, “I think I am disappointing you.”
After about 20 minutes, she kicked me out of the program. She said, it was pointless for me to continue. So no free psychobabble for me. She understood nothing. She focused on what makes me feel bad and never asked about what makes me happy!
The Crisis of Philosophy
Florensky does not deny rational philosophy, but instead points out:
there is a way out that takes us beyond rationality and pure reason; it consists in the fact that philosophy is determined by an act of noumenal will.
Truth is insufficient without an agent to act on it. No once can be compelled to accept a valid argument; try it with someone on Twitter if you don’t believe me.
That is the crisis of philosophy. Tear away the veneer of ratio and see the primacy of faith, intuition, noumenal will. As examples of the latter, he mentions Henri Bergson and William James. Although Rene Guenon makes a great effort to debunk Bergson, he appears too often in others I respect. My first impulse is to scoff at James’s idea that truth is what works, not what can be proven (and very little can be proven). As a practical matter, when you need to make a personal choice, will you go with what you know “works” or will you attempt to follow some complex philosophical theory? Be honest.
Night and Day
Gradually, the secular worldview has taken over domains formerly occupied by the Christian worldview. The understanding of the cosmos, space, and time has been conceded to secularists. The Christian understanding has been eclipsed by morality, which is but a small part of Tradition. Rather, the emphasis needs to be on asceticism and mysticism. Florensky, repeats a theme dear to our own worldview:
The human spirit has two aspects: nighttime and daytime, male and female. The Middle Ages and the Renaissance, sleep and wakefulness (sleep is not an absence of life, but life sui generis; without sleep our soul would not be nourished).
Our age is a time of twilight; one culture is dying, another is birthing. Few notice and pretend that the yesterdays will continue indefinitely into the future. Yet the Owl of Minerva flies at dusk. Then there will be a time of darkness before the next dawn.
Those who are awake to this find themselves among beasts.
Noct, there is an adverse psychological process called “missing the point”. The point is how is this antinomy resolved?
1) The human is just an animal (scientific view)
2) The human is qualitatively different from an animal (traditional view)
Apparently you don’t like — or don’t understand — Florensky’s resolution, so your instinct is to come up with a better argument. That is how the carnal mind operates. But a deeper mind asks the follow up question: Is there another way to resolve the antinomy or are we mired in aporia?
I do not find it convincing to postulate that discontinuity does not imply a form of evolutionism, considering that the same Darwinian theory requires jumps to work, that is, a spontaneous addition of genetic information. This kind of qualitative mutation -from a minus to a plus- maintains that the ape would constitute the material base on which the vertical influence operates, thus experiencing a kind of “creative evolution”. And I have doubts about how this “discontinuity” could be a correct understanding of the world process given the principle of unity, that is, of continuity between all levels of manifestation. I’m not familiar with Florensky, so a somewhat longer exposition might resolve some concerns.
My understanding in this regard is that of the involutionary conception of the species, seeing in the myth of the primordial fall the basic symbol of it (what Ruysbroeck wrote about how the fall affects the world as a whole comes to mind). In any case, I will be attentive to your next publications. A cordial greeting.
With the rise of the Baconian worldview, and with the findings of Galileo, the traditional understanding of the cosmos started to withdraw and was given into the hands of secular scientists to hold, since the pre-copernican worldview – which was rational in a spiritual way – didn’t match up with the scientific understanding and findings. The geocentric understanding of the Middle Ages didn’t make any sense for men in general, and a “new way of seeing man and cosmos” came about. In line of this involution of the spiritual cosmos in the minds of men, there came the gradual diminishing of the understanding of what man is about and what is his role in the cosmos. There came about that “satanic race” foretold by some Christian Fathers in the bosom of the middle ages, together with Macchiawelli, Descartes, Marx, Nietszche, and the like. Together with this we see the Church taking more absolutist roles and mingling more and more with politics and the secular, then withdrawing into its own closet, and that is how we reach the crystallization of the 20th Century and beyond that, the Second Vatican Council and the end of all tradition.
What I try to say this off the reach and very small narrative is that the reason why gradually the understanding of cosmology, time, space etc. has been given over to the secularists: tradition was lost, firstly in its own representatives, and then afterwards in the collective. That is why men were bound to search for the understanding of those things away from “religious” authorities.
It is good that the metaphysics and the cosmology on the ancients is tackled nowadays by the likes of Wolfgang Smith for example, who is qualified to answer to the modern scientific understanding of things from both views of vantage; it is from him that I realized the geocentric point of view, for example, among many other things, for in light of the Einsteinian relativity theory it is altogether the same we whether we see the Sun revolving around the earth or the other way around, since it is a matter of the point of reference. And with this simple way of seeing things in a new light, we again see into the integral cosmos, in which the sun revolves around the earth, the diurnal stars and the heaven above roll with earth as as stationary, closest to hell etc.
You should have stated to the therapist that “I guess you don’t realize what gives me joy.”
Florensky’s point, as mentioned, was the opposite to evolutionism. Due to the discontinuity, one species cannot turn into another. I’ve left out much of his perspective, but I shall remedy that this week.
As we are direct descendants of Adam, I don’t see how there can be any admixture of an Adamic race with anything else. Serapion Mashkin is not clear about that and I cannot find any more details on him. Maskin’d theory has some adherents today, such as the Thomist Edward Feser.
@ Cologero: my sincere apologies then! I kind of thought that your last snarky remark was directed towards me, to advice me from refraining about commenting. By clarification, Balder is me.
On the subject of the birth of consciousness among the beasts, isn’t it falling into a kind of evolutionism? Of course, we can understand this process internally, but I am not sure that the teaching can be transposed to the “physical” ground in terms of the genesis of humanity. My own conception is that contemporary humanity arises from the mixture between the Adamic or human race itself, and that which we can call “anthropoid” or bestial, and it is in this context where the light of consciousness -the I-, darkened by the ontological fall of the soul, it must shine again in man.
Regarding Tradition, what can discouragement be, if we know that the Truth conquers all? The myth of the last emperor and the last pope Peter the Roman comes to mind, who are to arise before the reign of the Antichrist to restore the unity of the Church at a time when most of man will have lost faith. A restoration should not be seen in relation to the state of the masses, but rather in terms of an elite capable of receiving the fire of the Spirit.
There is no time for pessimism and inaction, the modern West may well burn in its iniquity, but for this reason it is imperative to focus on the Spirit and remain in Him.
I have known you a long time, Ismo. I have not directed anything at you.
If Cologero hasn’t already banned me from commenting, I’ll add my own remarks.
Arthur: I agree mostly, yet if I use the term Tradition with a capital letter I use it strictly in the sense Guénon gave it and refer to the primordial tradition first and foremost, and with a small capital when referring to a singular off-shoots.
Cologero: I wasn’t being critical, I was simply thinking aloud the things that have concerned me. Gornahoor references Guénon and Evola all the time, both of which rejected Catholicism on their own terms, and saw no hope. This was where I was coming from. Guénon tried to revitalize Catholicism, Evola tried to persuade Fascists and NS to return to Tradition, and both of them weren’t very well received, in fact hated and rejected in toto, and they draw from it their own conclusions. Do you think you would be any more well received among modern Catholic authorities? My “critical remarks”, if you wish to see them as such, were inspired simply by realism. Perhaps I’ve taken my clues more from Ride the Tiger than from the Nicean Creed (and Evola in general, although I do follow a tradition even if it’s broken), and thus “have no convictions and will-power” as you say it.
I’ll try to leave you in peace after this message, since I seem to be a persona non grata here as anywhere else where I happen to write. Just to highlight my personal hubris, I kind of feel like Jesus when questioned by the pharisees and roman authorities. There is also a scene in the last chapter of Kalevala where Wäinämöinen (the “old man”) is asked what to do with the newly born Christ child, and his answer is that he should be taken to the swamp.
Actually, Konrad, I’ve been inspired recently by Elon Musk, and am hoping he will make a bid to buy the website. Hence, I’m experimenting with open debate and the marketplace of idea. Just to make the world safe for democracy, a lofty goal. Sad to say, so far I am not very impressed with the results.
I suggest, Sir, that you take your comments to places that match your critique … since you have willpower and convictions, none of which are on display. Report back and let us know the results.
@ Ismo
Ok, so since Cologero has either been very tolerant these days, or is on a vacation and this blog is right now being administered by some freelancer from India, I’ll be extra polemical:
There is nothing more vain and pretentious these days than to talk about Tradition with capital T. Actually, the only more vain and pretentious thing is to talk about ‘hidden Tradition’, and in general, to talk eagerly and with a great visionary zeal about hidden things while claiming that they are in fact – hidden. I think adult Harry Potter fandom and Black Metal are less embarrassing than this type of thing.
Passive natures have no values of their own and are always ready to be persuaded into one thing or another. This is also the chief problem with all these aspiring reactionaries. As passive natures, they still fiercely cling to this Enlightenment notion of open debate and of a marketplace of ideas, you need to be swayed and charmed like a cobra into supporting this cause today and another cause tomorrow. How little conviction, the quality of passive natures, matters in the face of willpower. How much better than the intellect can the nose recognize bad taste and a vulgar culture.
A random rant about culture and tradition: My cousin once posted a meme on social media where she questioned those who oppose multiculturalism on the basis that “your car is Japanese and your dish is italian, and you oppose multiculturalism”. So, in the modern world, if I drive a japanese car, sometimes eat italian pizza etc. it makes me the supporter of multiculturalism and globalism? I tried to approach her by saying that maybe it is foremost about the people, religion / spiritual form, the general culture and the goods that it provides more, and got only disguised hatred as an answer. Maybe I as a Finnish should then stick with carrots, roach and potato (the last one brought from the Americas) and drive a strictly Finnish car and o’ so love the culture of Tango combined with alcoholism to truly count as a Traditional Finn who opposes foreign cultural impulses like Islam or the multi-culti in general. For the record, I have no objections to eating simply and not having a car altogether, but to think that to oppose multiculturalism and its influence, globalism etc. you would have to practically withdraw into the forest (and not write this message with a Chinese computer, living in a house made out of Russian wood and smoking an American cigarette) and eat what it provides (don’t touch upon the introduced species, even if starving), is just simply silly in order to reach some sort of pure form of culture with “no foreign influences”. People have always traded and made bargain, it doesn’t denote “multiculturalism” in any way. I, if any people, could survive and thrive with what the local surroundings provide me without the global marketplace with its exotic and state-of-the-art products, without kebab, pizza and thai restaurants, and would love to see Traditional Karelian / Kalevala culture to rise in its right mode, but that is something of the past. If I want to preserve and enhance Finnish, Nordic and European culture and spirituality in its highest modes, in its source, that is Tradition and culture. It is the usual call-out upon “nationalists” or “traditionalists” or the like from the left to say that “the Finns rape too”, or that “multi-culti has enhanced our food culture” and not even touching upon the phenomenon of a general dissolution of our world ripped open wide from every possible corner.
@ a: Customs change, Tradition prevails and preserves. The example you give belongs to the custom, which has had an unfortunate influence upon the understanding of tradition in the common mind. Regarding this, by way of example, my somewhat read peasant (!) friend actually asked me a question “are you a traditionalist or not in a true sense?”, when we talked about whether a local restaurant serving a “traditional Finnish dish” had sour cream on the table or not. I, as a “traditionalist”, asked he whether they had it or not, and he asked me the question almost insulted. I internally amused by his question only said to him that “perhaps I’m not a real man of Tradition then”.
Wasn’t the whole Christian Fascist phenomenon of the 20th Century like a predetermined swansong and a violent, destructive crystallization of the whole of the age of Pisces, or at least thousand of years of European history, after which there is nothing left but dissolution and chaos, the twilight of the Gods and the Death of God? The whole post-modern nihilism and utter disintegration of the foundations of the western civilization is nevertheless only a rebellious reaction to the upheavals of the last Century and the development of which the dividing line can be quite well set into the French Revolution (for which the renaissance and reformation gave the first impulse), and if we believe with Guénon that we are at the end of a whole manvantaric cycle (The Reign of Quantity), doesn’t that also mean the almost complete dissolution of any formal principle whether individual or collective, after which a new cycle commences under a wholly different impulse, and there will be “new heaven and new earth”, a different humanity altogether? The Norse myths speak of the age of Lif and Lifthasir in which a resurrected Balder rules, the age of innocence and purity (see the quote at then end).
Although “apres mei, le deluge” is the sandy foundation in which many modern man largely base themselves, it can however be only a passing phenomenon after which the so called last man disappears and a new man commences. Whether it’ll be by destruction, chaos and catastrophes / cataclysm (as I see almost an inevitability by now), or by collective enlightenment (which I find unlikely given my “cultural pessimism”) that this new cycle commences, that is left for men themselves to decide. The words of Vishnu Purana come to mind also, which usually bring optimism despite everything:
“When the practices taught by the Vedas and the institutes of law shall nearly have ceased, and the close of the Kali age shall be nigh, a portion of that divine being who exists of his own spiritual nature in the character of Brahma, and who is the beginning and the end, and who comprehends all things, shall descend upon the earth… He will then reestablish righteousness upon earth; and the minds of those who live at the end of the Kali age shall be awakened, and shall be pellucid as crystal. The men who are thus changed by virtue of that peculiar time shall be the seeds of new human beings, and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita age, or age of purity (primordial age).”
@Balder
That’s one plane from which to discuss things. The other one is of culture in general. One thing people are blissfully ignorant about is how much in the religious style of the most adhered to faiths is in the first place the consequence of peasant taste, and how far from classical sensibilities. You see, a peasant is in the habit of obeying commands, so he sees a command and an imperative in everything around him. So for instance, out of a *customary* habit of a say, Roman patrician to hand out coins to the beggars and the loiterers after having slain a bull or some other thing like that, following the state of exaltation after a communion with the supernatural – the peasant, having observed this happening throughout the centuries, came to the conclusion that giving alms is somehow a religious duty with moral overtones. So, when peasants get to the task of establishing religious observances, the affair is doomed from the onset. That’s how Islam came about in its entirety for instance. But do you need more than a capacity for discrimination to understand this?
And therein lies the problem. Without such a capacity, everything is ‘tradition’, and everything satisfies. This is also why we, who do discriminate, are in greater pain. For us all hope is lost, and the future of humanity will go to Cairo to prostrate themselves five times a day on a rug, and enjoy the restoration of ‘tradition’.
“Well, if you tactically work under the premise that Catholicism and Tradition can mean everything and nothing at the same time (very useful if winning debates and speaking down to people is important to you), then the answer is yes. If by ‘Tradition’ and ‘Catholicism’ you mean something specific, then the answer is an empathic No.”
Let me clarify what I meant with the question a little more. This stems both from the Cologero’s statement that Gornahoor for example “follows the Church of John, but not in conflict with that of Peter”. But how can the esoteric not be at least in some conflict with the exoteric part, when the latter has drawn almost completely away from its foundations, so much that the Spirit has left the edifice? Is the “bringing together the broken parts of the sword” possible anymore under this form, or will a new synthesis arise which takes as its foundation in the West the Christian revelation (and those preceding it), but will be in spirit something different; Guéno spoke how the Primordial Tradition cannot be shaken in its foundations (the metaphysics), but will find new ways of adaptation according to the requirements of time and place aka. Spirit blows where it wills.
And also, my question was a rhetorical one in the sense that I wondered aloud whether such a revival of Tradition could come about through a traditional form that seems to have lost all its efficient power as the moulder of a specific type of Civilization, namely Traditional Christendom, for at least since the end of the middle ages? Isn’t it very much like some sort of a cultural necromancy to try to revitalize a corpse? Things seem to be going very much into the opposite direction, when to Catholic authorities are forming centres like the Chrislam, in which the new agers most likely will see the beginnings of a glorious formation of a one-world religion under a globalist impulse.
I find the prospect of a revitalization of Catholicism (and Christianity in general) to be among the most unlikely of outcomes. I can’t definitively say that such a thing will not occur, but contemporary circumstances militate against it probably more than anything else, especially if that Catholicism was to be a true return to Tradition. There are some that hope Russia will become a dominant power and will use its influence to spread Orthodoxy. I consider this unlikely as well, given the enormous levels corruption evident in the recent history of all nations.
Even if Russia tried this, would the rest of the world listen? And even if the world listened, what stability could it have given the accelerating instability of cultures? Perhaps that or a new revelation could create some stability for a time, but it’s hard to see that happening in an environment where new fads, slang, and norms are being generated daily by mass communications. The most extreme example of this at the current time is TikTok. If you haven’t seen how this is affecting young people, it’s a disturbing portent of the future. I shudder to imagine what infernal thing succeeds it as the primary social medium for youth.
It is merely my opinion, but I think we’re too close to the end of the current aeon for Tradition to return to any civilization. Only tiny, fringe groups will keep the flame alive and only to the extent they can hide from the Eye of Sauron. Compared with Rome, whom we resemble so much in certain ways, contemporary civilization is in a far worse predicament. The rapid acceleration of everything from the elements and forms gross matter takes to cultural norms is the salient phenomenon. It reminds me of Guenon’s statement about the modern world resembling a falling body gaining speed as it approaches the ground (I can’t find the exact quote right now).
Take a look around the room you’re in right now. Contemplate how many things around you have crystallized into such sharp angles and precise corners in such a short span of time. Consider how quickly all this is happening compared with something more natural like the formation of crystals of minerals or even the works of traditional craftsmen. Humanity finds itself as the apes did in the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey: suddenly confronted by sharp, angular, dark entities which they cannot even begin to comprehend, and they imperceptibly influence the apes to their own ends.
‘Do you believe that the return of the West to Tradition will come by a rebirth of Catholicism?’
Well, if you tactically work under the premise that Catholicism and Tradition can mean everything and nothing at the same time (very useful if winning debates and speaking down to people is important to you), then the answer is yes. If by ‘Tradition’ and ‘Catholicism’ you mean something specific, then the answer is an empathic No. Setting the problem aside of Catholicism being compromise personified, the West is not the kind of society that will get anywhere by its own conscious action, it will be lead to places by forces that possess willpower and a sense of direction (like Jews for instance), not to mention a certain finesse and subtlety. Fancy such a crude specimen of humanity as the modern European having an aspiration that stretches beyond the horizon of his own imbecilic satisfaction!
‘Guenon seems to have lost his faith on that before he died’
That was kind of the problem with Guenon, he operated purely on belief and wishful thinking, which is where he and Evola, who was much more realistic, differed.
Do you believe that the return of the West to Tradition will come by a rebirth of Catholicism? Guenon seems to have lost his faith on that before he died, and that was over 70 years ago after which a lot has happened. (Even Alice Bailey prophesized a glorious future for Catholicism.) I recently read East & West which was written before the greatest upheavals of the 20th century, and despite its merits the book was outdated especially concerning traditional East which is all but vanished within decades and in the West we are practically living in a post-Christian world. So, after the twilight of the West, will Tradition rise again and will it be Christian or not? Personally I have a very Hard time believing that the church will take a new course and return to tradition, and that it would be able to gather enough people within its fold. I guess this is where Guenon’s statement about the necessity of the elite comes into the picture. The traditionalist school seems to rely on Guenon when stating that no new revelations will Come, but who’s to know whether some kind of synthesis would Come about; we are after all relatively in the same situation than 2000 years ago concerning Rome and the rise of Christianity. Not saying that history repeats itself, but there are similarities.
Good to know you got rid of the therapist.