The ignorant are humble since they know that they do not know. The intelligent are humble because they understand how difficult it is to know something. But the half-smart are so absolutely certain about everything. ~ cjs
Executive Summary
In the Reign of Quantity, Rene Guenon describes two opponents of Tradition. The anti-Tradition, since it is openly opposed to all traditional ideas, is easily recognized. However, the counter-tradition is a caricature, counterfeit, and deformation of Tradition, so that “it can fool even the elect.”
The purpose, therefore, of this essay is to point out the signposts of Tradition so that its counterfeits can be more easily identified. Julius Evola identified Traditional civilization as a civilization of space. Thus it is considered, but modern standards, to be “stable, static and ultraconservative”. In contrast, modernity is a civilization of time, seeking “progress”, novelty, change. The counter-tradition adopts the values and vision of the modern world while using the language of Tradition.
Ergo, historical studies of a Tradition are ultimately irrelevant. History is Brownian motion, not leading anywhere. The goal is to find the escape: out and up.
Our purpose is certainly not quantity, but rather to identify the one, the two, or the three individuals who are really interested. If you are here, try to remember exactly why you were born and what might be your life’s goal. Certainly it is not to become the best ping pong player at the Olympics.
The counter-tradition will reject a known Tradition, all the while fantasizing about some pseudo-tradition that never has, nor never will, exist. Yet, even if the exterior form of Tradition changes, our task remains the same, although, perhaps the language would differ somewhat. The task is still to be freed from our automatic responses, to truly be free. Few are those who are willing to make serious efforts in that direction. And even among those few, not many are serious.
Category Theory
In order to remove emotional responses, which are a sure indicator of the counter-tradition, I will describe Tradition in terms of the mathematics of Category Theory – knowing the category tells you much about its individual members. As a category is an abstraction, Tradition never manifests as such, only traditions.
Mathematical theorems take this form: If a set of conditions hold, then some conclusion is true. For our purposes, we won’t need to assume that the conditions hold, only that the syllogism holds. To eliminate or modify one or more of the conditions will most likely produce an incoherent or incompatible system. Nevertheless, it is common to pick and choose among the conditions, or else to accept conclusions without accepting the conditions that justify them.
The conditions, or axioms, cannot be proven empirically or logically. Rather they must be “seen”. A life of prayer, meditation, contemplation, and the development of detached self-awareness are necessary. Hence, we don’t try to “prove” them.
A Tradition has two aspects: the esoteric & the exoteric. There is a horizontal isomorphism between the esoteric aspects of two Traditions. This represents the metaphysical teaching. Different traditions will have similar notions of Non-being, Being, the Absolute, the Infinite, Transcendence and the transcendentals such as the One, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. There will be similar teachings on degrees of existence. There is a recognition that man, as he is born, falls far short of his potential and thus is in need of salvation or liberation. There will be a teaching on how to achieve that. Man’s interior life is understood as multilayered, with various sheaths or souls. The macrocosm is reflected in his consciousness.
Thus esoteric practitioners of different traditions will have a common understanding, making dialogue between them possible and even fruitful.
Within a Tradition, there is a vertical mapping between its esoteric and exoteric aspects. This is a mapping between the metaphysical teachings of the esoteric aspect and the religious-theological teachings of the exoteric aspect. Religious language is in the form of imagery in space-time unlike metaphysical teachings. Exoteric teachings recognize this, since they admit that its sacred teachings can be understood on multiple levels, the literal being the lowest. For example, Valentin Tomberg describes the second birth of the Logos in the soul, or the esoteric meaning of the Garden of Eden story.
Fundamental Conditions
The first condition is that Tradition comes from above, from a super-human, transcendent source, as a revelation. Thus, it doesn’t arise “from a people” like some folk dance, but rather it descends into a people, providing its spiritual formation.
Hence, no one “creates” a Tradition, least of all neopagan re-enactors.
The esoteric and exoteric aspects point to the doctrine of the two worlds. In the very first chapter of Revolt, Evola describes this as the “fundamental doctrine”. Moreover, he says, in order to understand both Tradition and the modern world, it is necessary to begin with this doctrine. Apparently many readers of Evola treat the book like a mystery novel so they read the end first to find out “who dun it” while ignoring the clues at the beginning that would make it plausible.
Knowledge of these two worlds has always been present in every Tradition: viz., the World of Being and the World of Becoming. The inability to understand this distinction leads to many misunderstandings. The counter-tradition is seldom aware of this doctrine.
Manifestation
The mapping of Tradition to its exoteric aspect is best understood as vertical causation, i.e., the descent of the Tradition from the World of Being to that of Becoming. Three things will result:
- The pure tradition will fall onto the two horizontal currents of material-physical and historical-psychological-cultural causes. What are called borrowings, mimicry, etc. in outward forms, myths, rites, and so on, are therefore perfectly normal. Pointing them out in an attempt to discredit a tradition makes no sense.
- Manifestation involves privation. That is, the features of the Tradition fail to manifest perfectly, leaving shortcomings in the exoteric forms. Hence, it is beside the point to point out historical or other shortcomings. In a decadent age, there will be many such shortcomings.
- The individual adherents of the Tradition form a statistical distribution, like, for example, a normal distribution or bell curve. Thus it is impossible to judge a Tradition fairly or adequately from its adherents because their own understanding and practices will vary widely. The Tradition is not judged by the individual, rather the Tradition judges the individual.
In other words, when discussing Tradition, it is necessary to be able to distinguish between the Essential and accidental qualities. The essential qualities pertain to the world of being and the accidental, to the world of becoming.
In particular, the Traditional doctrine itself is independent of any organization or of those who claim, within that organization, to be upholders of the Tradition. Hence, the persistent criticisms of certain accidental manifestations are characteristic of the counter-tradition.
Tradition and the Political System
The purpose of the Tradition is salvation (exoteric) or liberation (esoteric), without going into the specifics of those terms right now. Its purpose is definitely not to support some political, racial, or secular goal as many seem to believe these days.
Rather, the first duty of the political system or power is to protect the spiritual tradition, allowing it to function in its roles as a means to salvation and as educator. The political power needs to maintain public order, protect the group against internal and external enemies, and support an economic order that ensures widespread prosperity. To accomplish those ends, the political power has wide latitude, as long as positive law is in conformance with moral and natural law.
The political power is responsible for matters of citizenship or immigration. If someone does not like some policy, for example, the blame goes to the temporal powers, not the spiritual authority.
Theocracy, patriarchy, hierarchy, transcendence, and sexual restraint characterize traditional societies.
- Theocracy. A traditional society is based first of all on spiritual unity. Secondary factors follow that. The attempts today to base a society on race or nation will fail, as long as the members believe any old thing. Spiritual Authority not based on force, which is the prerogative of the political power.
- Patriarchy. Societies used to be based on rule by fathers. A so-called “mannerbund” of unaffiliated men is a mirage.
- Hierarchy. Due to the statistical distribution of individuals in the process of manifesting, there will always be variations in knowledge, skills, etc. The attempt to reject hierarchy in the name of equality is misguided, since hierarchies of one sort of another will always arise. The issue, then, is to determine the best hierarchy.
- Transcendence. A traditional society recognizes the transcendent source of its existence. Attempts to base a society on science or atheism will be ineffective, because they can’t define any rational purpose.
- Sexual Restraint. By contemporary standards, traditional societies are considered “puritanical” or “up tight”. This is a large topic which we’ve addressed several times. What the modern mind cannot discern is the extant that artificially induced sexual excitement serves as a form of political and economic control.
The Revival of Neo-Paganism
The counter-tradition denies the obvious examples of Tradition. In particular, these days, the Middle Ages are denied to be a Traditional civilization, e.g., by an Alain de Benoist who, on the contrary, considers that civilization to be a disaster.
Au contraire, according to Guenon and Evola, it is normative for Europe and the modern world is the disaster. Nevertheless, Benoist’s position has become an idée fixe among otherwise intelligent men. They need an exorcism more than an argument.
The related part of that idea is the anachronistic tendency to criticize contemporary manifestations of the religion of the Middle Ages, as though they applied to that truly Traditional civilization.
Another ignorant criticism is to accuse the Medieval Tradition of some sort of cosmopolitanism. This disregards the pagan Stoics who first came up with the idea of the “Brotherhood of Man”, and especially Alexander who himself promoted a brand of cosmopolitanism.
The idea of a “European” paganism is an anachronism. A universal doctrine or practice never existed. Europe never existed, except as a geographical designation. The pseudo-sophisticates of neo-paganism deny that the gods even exist, believing in that way that they can tame the world. True paganism was much more primitive. If you can find neo-pagans like those of Romans and Spartans at war, let me know.
The Decline of Tradition
This is the hard one to swallow. A civilization declines — and many today believe that the nations of Europe and North America are in decline — not because of a “bad” tradition, but rather because the people themselves are in decline. The Tradition declines because its leaders decline.
Those seeking for some racial unity for Europe fail to realize that race is not a constant. As a part of the “world of becoming”, it is subject to the vagaries of time and lower forces. Evola tried to point this out in his theory of the spiritual races: a Swede of today has a quite different inner spiritual quality from that of a Viking a millennium ago.
Hence, any sort of mass movement will fail to achieve its stated goal. The future belongs to the few, not the many.
The Future of Tradition
Joachim of Fiore, recognized by Dante as being in Heaven, intuited three ages: the Age of the Father, the Age of the Son, and the Age of the Holy Spirit. Without going into all the details right here, we can point out two of his errors which, when corrected, give his vision more cogency. First of all, his attempt to give a precise date to the Third Age was misguided. Such things do not follow quantitative or chronological time, but rather sacred time. One must be attuned to the signs of the time to determine when ages begin and end.
The other misunderstanding is to assume that Joachim was describing some automatic process of human spiritual evolution into higher states. This leaves out his prophecy that there will be a period of tribulation before the Third Age. In other words, the Age of the Son brings the current age to an end, marked by a time of desolation.
Hence, the Age of the Holy Spirit is actually the beginning of a new cycle, not the final stage of some evolutionary process. If the first age was that of the fathers, then of priests, Joachim thought the Third Age would be that of an elite corps of contemplative monks. Actually, it is more likely that that corps will consist of men and women active in the world, while transcending it.
Further Reading
Rene Guenon: The Crisis of the Modern World. An early book that explains Tradition in the West.
Rene Guenon: The Reign of Quantity and the Sign of the Times. One of his last works, summarizing the obstacles to Tradition in the modern world.
Julius Evola: The Revolt against the Modern World. Builds on Guenon’s works, adding more specific details.
Ananda Coomaraswamy: Metaphysics. This is a collection of his essays. Vedanta and Western Tradition provides a reading list for Westerners to master before they will be ready to study the Vedanta. In particular, Dante and Meister Eckhart are held out as the exemplars of what the European mind is capable of.
Of course, the primary source should be the sacred writings, and those of the saints, mystics, and esoterists of your own Tradition.
I crave for your comments upon these writings of mine. How come none have said anything, folks? Well, bless you anyway, I’d just like to converse about hese things intellectually and noetically as possible.
I also forgot to mention this musically and antinomianily controversial song of mine own for transcending the warrior impulse, called in Ewnglish The Initiates of the Ruby Fire, those who have penetrated their own heart and transcended dualism of all kind with this act of High Magic:
A few examples of cathartic and meditational art:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_WCnTw9_PU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0bcRCCg01I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC2qipLRfbk
And I think what still needs to be said is that the militant impulse can be transcended in today’s world best way via art done with according to the primordial principles, which can cause an opening of the martial imuplse by way of kathartic feelings, that fly into the stars as pure emanations and cause no violence, oppression or wrong-doing via their butterfly wings in the planet. The whole purpose and mission of a True Man in the vein of Laotse the Dragon of Wisdom and Phoenix is to breath in the wickedness and cosmic evil of the world and be a sin-eater like Shiva drank the cup of poison, not to mention Sokrates, and then not let the evil come out as wrong actions or feelings or mental lightnings of the thuder gods. It is not goes into man but what comes out of him that regresses him. 😉
Waiting for Lif and Lifthasir…
Thank you dear friend of mine. This also confirmed my intuitive understanding. I could continue about these issues for ages, but maybe I’ll try to make haste with my Tarot and Rune books and the Evola Translation (Ride the Tiger), that is going to come out via a publishing house next fall. There are comments about Evola’s views and mine considerations in many ethical points of view and in which Evola was on top of the old grey luciferian warrior schools and an Atmic magiciand of the Self/Atma – and too ruthless because of his lack of Understanding the essence of the New Covenant’s message, the clearest waters of the Higher Waters, Which are called Väinämöinen’s tears in the Kalevala. I believe that Nomen Est Omen, and it is clear that the A-Love speled backwards is Evol-a. Without Love, the unifiyng force between atma and manas, who are imperfect and dangerous with the Universal SOlvent, The Elixir of Immortality.
I cannot accept’s any longer the militant and fascist aspects of his thoughts, but of course this has not lead me not to pray for the sake of all true warriors in the world; just bought a Kantele and an Orthodox icon of St. Michael and going to pray for all the law and order forces with a loving embrace of higher calling under the supreme Archangel, whom some also refer as Jesus etc. All the ancient Arya’s fought their battle’s like the dance of Lila and maya before Christ and even earlier because of the Prince Gautama’s work, who brought the Cosmic Christ impulse in the form of clear manas, the luciferian left-hand aspect, who in it’s connection with buddhi was perfected in Jesus Christ for the first time, who purified the warrior spirit by sacrificing all for the sake of the Love of God and all who make this same sacrifice of spirit are undre the new cpovenant and may understand the Fourth Initiation better than those old covenant/school Initiates who work it from the First Initiation forwards.
This misunderstanding lead historical Christianity right after Paul/Saul who brought the milintant spirit first under Mars to Christian spirit and thinking. The oppressed transformed as soon as they could to new oprressors and so on, and this is the fact that the planet is still under the King Justice, Saturn, and the Love principle is only forming in the planet when it is going to take the fourth initiation globally in the dreams of the general knowledge and theoria of these things. Don’t get me wrong, I just read an excellent article about the formations of the Templars and they actually held the Johannites in great value and held 7 days vigilia’s for the fallen comrades etc who died in battle to work for the course of God. I can imagin mysef there. 🙂 Their course of warfare was as efficient as it was fast, but the Path of the Warrior closed according to some sources (Guéon etc.) as an active initiatic path for a great majority of mankind.
Today we should practise ahimsa, detachment, sila and all the other great ethical freely, stop animal butchering an dte ruthless and violent ways of the ancient desert traditions that have becom eold like genital mutilation, which is a work of the devil like the paedophile issues and the confusion of tongues that is going in the religiion’s benevolent and emphatic and universal civilised conversation and general two way practise of collaboration instead of fighting like the institutions fight like satan against satan like Jesus said that tos houses cannot last for long. We should be able to make together good with the pristine primordial ageless wisdom and make flowers from guns. Militant complexes could be transformed into beautiful buildings and temples of High Culture and Knowledge, Art, Architecture, Science, Mysteries woth a Universal Temples of the Wise Master’s of Light with a respect for the local culture and all the aspects of integral Cultural thought purified and transformed by global metanoia in the Fires of the Holy Spirit, Traditions, guilds and mesenates and spiritual diplomats under the plaentary love-wisdom that makes one burn with the ardent fires of love so that one transforms like unto water and all hardnessvaporizes and the Body-Soul-Spirit complex, Joukahainen, Ilmarinen and Väinämöinen, the Triad emanated from Iro-Neito. in the wisdom of Laotse and other great masters of the course of Myth; pre-history, Ancestors and all the holy forces f truth and tradition combined with an understanding of dharma of the Upcoming Age of The Aquarius under Venus and Saturnus. May Scince,Astronomy and benevolent force of the atomic fusion bring light and l ife and understanding to our home.
All those schools should be opened unde rthe three aspects of manas, buddhi and atma, The Understanding Swors of Lucifer, Cosmic Christ and Jupiter the Benevolent King. Maybe these are just some dreams of mine as a one humble synthesizer of many underground esoteric veins of the Primordial Tradition. The one-side too masculine and solar flare of the Diamond Citadel the Solar Plexus that they didn’t know how the scend into the Heart Centre, The Temple of Universal Love. Christian suppressed the mysteries of the Goddess, Sophia, Gnosis etc. The ancient norse and finnish pagan’s understood this message of the feminine principle and even Tacitus amazed it in his Germania that how could they ask political or other high advice from the womans…!? Haha. Of course there has to be two archtypes together in balance, and only by under standing the wedding of the Sun and the Moon or The Hermit and the Holy Priestess etc. any other duality of the 22 Arcanas.
All the Heroes of Kaleva are famous for their primordial purity’s gift of tears. If they fail, they cry, and do not act like bad parents but as little childrens. 😉
Many different animals and characers try to solve the riddle of catching the tears of Vainamoinen from the HIgher Primordial Waters, but only after not even the Crow (Manas) cannot solve it, the Sotka (Buddhi) comes like the Holy Spirit from the skies and solves the riddle and the tears of God are saved and peace upon earth be fulfilled in the form of the Apocatastasis out of whic Origen was my favourite theories together with his views about transmigration etc.
Peace!
No, Boreas, in general it is not so far-fetched. Obviously, if there are intelligences guiding different nations and peoples, then these would have been experienced … even if perhaps unclearly or incompletely. Nowadays, there seems to be absolutely no such awareness at all. As to “future” evolution, I am reluctant to go into too much detail, just general trends. Perhaps some seers will have better insight.
As we’ve seen from Michael McClain’s essay, the ancient paganism was never rejected, but rather fulfilled with the new religion.
If I can ask a friendly question from you Cologero, what do you think about the Age of the Holy Spirit being an age of Saturn, s.o. a sort of a new cycle in terms of a “Golden Age” returning? As I’ve studied different occult and esoteric traditions – including those belonging to pseudo-tradition and new age (you here first introduced me to Bailey, for example) – the age of Aquarius is said to be “astrologically” under the tutelage of of Saturn and Venus, and Saturn is exactly Binah s.o. The Holy Spirit. Is there a common ground in which these could be understood in terms of Tradition with a capital T? Honesly, I need guidance in this issue from someone who can set the issue right. I’m on very similar lines about the men of the age of the holy spirit being ones who are active in the world yet not of it; the age of solitary monks huffing incense in their distant monasteries is over; of course for many old souls it can still be a valid path.
I’ve also been studying ancient norse and scandinavian paganism, the mythological and esoteric side of it, and I actually believe in most of things that they taught about natural spirits, genie, genius loci etc. and that the gods of the national mythos of my home country are some sort of guiding cosmic and ontological forces that are very real and CAN be united to a traditional revelation (esoteric Christianity, for example) without being a sort a mumbo jumbo neo-paganism that you rightly critize.
If this sounds too far-fetched, I understand, but intuitively this kind of a synthesis seems to be my personal path and dharma in this life. The more I study these issues the more clear it becomes that the wisdom of Kalevala and Väinämöinen is very similar to to the esoteric core of Tradition and even the teachings of Jesus and Väinämöinen are very much alike. I nowadays see Väinämöinen to be a GFinnish mythological old covenant Christ figure under the banner of Melchisedek; he is even called The Sage Eternal which can be seen as an echo of the “one without a father” etc.
I found this with Google: “Culturalists portray bin Laden as descended from esoteric Wahhabism – but Kepel shows he is a product of diverse intellectual traditions”
Mr. Qutb’s ideas look pretty demented, if Wikipedia is accurate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milestones_(book)#Christians_and_Jews_as_Polytheist
But what if Mr. Baghdadi doesn’t believe in Salafism, and he’s actually a self-conscious Dajjali?
Concerning Iranians being Zoroastrians:
“The corner of the tavern is my altar, where I pray
At dawn, the mantra of the Old Magi, I say.
Fear not if the harp plays not at sun’s morning ascent
My morning cry of repentance is the music I play.”
Hafiz
I reckon many Iranian Muslims are inspired by Zarathustra, but that doesn’t make them Magians. Anyways, in Islam there is a legitimate concept of individuals being associated with a specific past prophet. Just like there are Isawi (you could even say “Christian”) Muslims, like Shaykh al-Alawi and Ibn ‘Arabi, there must also be Zartushti Muslims if he was a legitimate prophet.
A recent effort to create some distance from Qutb (and Saudi Wahhabism):
Grand Imam of Al Azhar: “Salafis are not Sunnis”
The Salafis reject any esoteric interpretations of Islam. That is why the Saudi’s reject Iranian Shi’ism:
‘Iranians are not Muslims’, says Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti
Curiously, the Saudi mufti accuses the Iranians of being Zoroastrians.
Sayyid Qutb seems pretty heretical, but I’d have to investigate his teachings more to make sure.
Maybe Daesh members actually don’t engage with esoterists or pseudo-esoterists at all (besides violence and rhetoric), but rather their Satanic parody of Islam only outwardly symbolizes what is going on with the hidden counter-tradition. Just as Daesh acts as if they based their religion on anti-Islamic polemics, while nevertheless fooling the stupidest of Muslims, perhaps the destroyers of Sufism will act as if they took their religion from anti-Sufi polemics, while nevertheless fooling the elect. This deviation could be mostly inward (inwardly fulfilling accusations that Sufis worship our shaykhs, graves, etc. and do innovations), without any great change in our exoterism. Just some thoughts, I don’t really know much about anything… Allah knows best.
But still, I can’t help but wonder, is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in communications with the Antichrist and a secret league of counter-Sufis that use sorcery to telepathically commune and plot the destruction of Islam in the dark hours of the night?
????? I am not familiar with the spiritual teachings of Daesh. I have assumed that Sayyid Qutb is their spiritual father. Is he heterodox?
God Forbid, Knight of Numenor! Do we need to establish safe spaces for alt-right knights who get offended by a “tone”?
Perhaps you could play devil’s advocate and engage us with ideas rather than focusing on the tone …
The foremost exoteric representative of counter-tradition is probably Daesh. I wonder what the connection between esoteric and exoteric counter-tradition is. Do Daesh commanders secretly commune with counter-sufis?
Instead of criticising the alt right so heavily, why do you not just engage them? I am sure there are smarter alt righters who would be open to our ideas and conversion. I do not like the tone of this article, but then again, this is my own opinion. I believe in “no enemies to the right”.