{"id":7150,"date":"2014-03-01T18:55:04","date_gmt":"2014-03-01T23:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gornahoor.net\/?p=7150"},"modified":"2019-03-01T07:13:50","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T12:13:50","slug":"western-social-order-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=7150","title":{"rendered":"Western Social Order – Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tarot_trump_01\"
\nIn the Philobiblon<\/em><\/a>, Richard de Bury (Bishop of Durham) justifies his love of books in a Christian framework by pointing out that Plato is said to have paid 10000 dinars for a rare scroll of Philolaus. Philolaus<\/a>‘ work was most likely a transmission of the teachings of Pythagoras, who had gone to Tyre and to Egypt in order to learn from the masters there. Plato used this work to compose the Timaeus<\/em>, one of the more “mystical” of his treatises. If you are wondering where the Eastern Church got its teaching on the total dissimilarity between the essence of God (unknowable) and His energies (especially those manifested in Creation), this is where it comes from: it was part of the Tradition embodied in Hellenic wisdom, culled from Egypt:<\/p>\n

\nThis is the state of affairs about nature and harmony. The essence of things is eternal; it is a unique and divine nature, the knowledge of which does not belong to man. Still it would not be possible that any of the things that are, and are known by us, should arrive to our knowledge, if this essence was not the internal foundation of the principles of which the world was founded, that is, of the limiting and unlimited elements. Now since these principles are not mutually similar, neither of similar nature, it would be impossible that the order of the world should have been formed by them, unless the harmony intervened<\/strong>\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. ~ Philolaus, Fragment DK 44B 6a.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Out of Egypt<\/em>, said the Patristic Fathers, have I called my Son<\/em>. Here was an example of the higher, “secret” meaning of Scripture, which they discerned in the literal text, and defended in their apologetics. The Logos<\/em><\/strong> (of course) is the intervening harmony which causes the co-inherence<\/a> of the invisible higher world (which is Divine, and completely dissimilar) and the mortal, material world (which nevertheless is made “in the Image”). Through the Logos, argued Saint Paul, the worlds were brought into Being, and they will be recapitulated or “summed up in Him” again at the end of Time (Colossians). The Christian ought to be “ahead of the Times”, because the Logos has in these latter days revealed Himself as co-substantial with the Father, our older brother, a person Who stooped to conquer Death.<\/p>\n

The modern pagan rejection of Christianity puts the West in an interesting position. It is a sort of Mexican stand off. On the one hand, the pagans of the classical world actually were incorporated into the Medieval Tradition (arguably with historic difficulties or distortions), and converted to the Church in droves, with notable exceptions. So the stream of spirit moved into Christian civilization, presenting two problems: 1) Some pagan thought was lost or misunderstood, but to the extent it was not, it now presents as “Christian” (eg., the doctrine of Purgatory). 2) Tradition now possesses a distinctly Christian cast in the West. It is for these reasons (among others) that Gornahoor has encouraged a revival of Tradition that is a return to the Medieval outlook, both because a rejection of the Logos understood as Christ would be to repeat on a grand scale the historic distortions which did occur when Christianity assimilated Greece & Rome, and because to an enormous and little understood degree, Christianity was actually meant to be the perfecting and crown of those very pagan mysteries. There are other cogent reasons, more practical than that, as well. Cologero’s quote from Tomberg<\/a> about “salvation” is relevant here:<\/p>\n

\nSalvation is the helping hand offered to idealistically minded human beings who, though no longer identifying themselves with natural evolution, still lack sufficient strength of themselves to alter its course.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is perilous, possibly foolhardy, to reject a prophet, vehicle, or messenger, because why would God send another one? Or, put even more precisely (since God’s mercy is infinite), why would we recognize the Divine the second time, if we rejected it the first time around?<\/p>\n

These, however, are merely practical considerations of various orders, which can always be contested empirically or historically in the form of interminable debate. What is more importantly at stake is the very concept of Logos itself, both metaphysically and practically. Every Tradition had a Tao or Logos which represented the work of the best minds and spirits in apprehending what the Spirit was trying to teach men over vast bodies of space and Time, and the infinite abyss of the Fall (even worse). A rejection of Logos might well be accompanied by a turning inward, like the crawfish in Tomberg’s Tarot card, which represents the darkening of the Nous in self-imposed, invincible ignorance.<\/p>\n

Since obeying the Logos, then enlightening the Nous (Law and then Grace) represent only initial steps, the first stages of divinization, what is being lost is the very possibility of even preparing for Enlightenment, and even more opportunities wasted in what is a long, long journey. This, in very fact, is exactly what political, social, and spiritual Revolution represent<\/strong>. Every traditional writer popular with even the New Age crowd (Mouravieff, Tomberg, and Heindel) mention in passing asides the obvious fact that Revolution represents emotional immaturity and darkened Reason, and is an insufferable barrier to progress in the esoteric art. The idea is not that the esoteric man will be “free” in the sense that he will never darken a Church door again in his life, but rather that the more “free” one becomes, the more one serves and is able to properly fulfill even exoteric duties. Mouravieff, I believe, mentions that one must train one’s replacement, before the Universe will allow one to “escape” one’s current status quo<\/em>. Predictably, this was faithfully reflected in Cologero’s meditations, and that portion of Gornahoor’s program was just as predictably disliked by certain quarters.<\/div>\n

Tomberg lays particularly heavy emphasis both on Love as being more<\/em> perfect than the Eastern ideal of returning to the purely embryonic primordial state (he does not however, deny their validity), and the practice of mercy and service as being integrally bound up with the “gift of tears” given to the West. He teaches that the lost sheep of the “personality” was destined for salvation, and pleads with the Lord of mercy to forgive him for retaining the use of the human reason and its chakra in his Meditations: the French Hermetic Christian tradition of Magic was uniquely both human and Christian in this way.<\/em> Like Abraham pleading with God for the life of the city, Tomberg suspected that this was God’s divine intention all along, and that earlier Traditions were only “imperfect” in that they were capable of being preserved, refined, and transformed in a non-Revolutionary way into something even more themselves. That was why he dared to wrestle with the angels. In chapter 2, he even asserts that Love is prior to Being.<\/p>\n

And in fact this was how the Christian claim should have been made, and occasionally, was made in the proper manner by very august characters and intellects. There was actually a small revival of it at Cambridge<\/a> in old England, but these are far from the best expositors. A better example of it would be Bonaventura, or John Scotus Erigena. Yet the “baptism” of what was true, beautiful, and good was certainly how the medieval instinct understood itself to be working, although obviously it was imperfect as it played out in time and space.<\/p>\n

Or is it? Unused to seeing Tradition embodied at all, & undiscerning (in general) of possibilities and limits, the modern world wears its spectacles from a supposed Olympian vantage point in order to condemn the old orders. A Time & Space in particular (400-1500) isn’t a rarefied time and space, but falls in between 700BC-399AD & 1501-2014 AD. Which means that criticism aimed at this period would reflect upon the periods immediately proceeding and following; to truly judge the period, one would have to resort to Transcendence, and this judgement is much more favorable.<\/p>\n

Therefore, Cologero has asserted the distinction between Revolution and “the opposite of Revolution”, or between Becoming and an Order based on Love’s generation of Being. So that we ought to take a different and more charitable view <\/a>of the Middle Ages:<\/p>\n

\nParadox… is not dialectical.\u00a0 Paradox is the simultaneous assertion (not the reconciliation) of opposites.\u00a0 Because of the paradox not just of Christ’s incarnation (God in the human) but also of divine creation (God’s presence in all that is infinitely distant from him), matter was that which both threatened and offered salvation<\/strong>.\u00a0 It threatened salvation because it was that which changed.\u00a0 But it was also the place of salvation, and it manifested this exactly through the capacity for change implanted in it.\u00a0When wood or wafer bled, matter showed itself as transcending, exactly by expressing, its own materiality.\u00a0It manifested enduring life (continuity, existence) in death (discontinuity, rupture, change).\u00a0 Miraculous matter was simultaneously – hence paradoxically – the changeable stuff of not-God and the locus of a God revealed (34-35) In this sense, medieval history can never be properly “understood” as much as experienced<\/a>.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bynum continues:<\/p>\n

Paradox is by definition impossible to explain in discursive language.\u00a0 One cannot simultaneously assert contraries.\u00a0 Rude, other-denying facts such as identity and annihilation, or the haunting presence and yet utter beyondness of ultimate meaning, cannot be spoken together. Yet together they must be lived. Their simultaneity cannot be stated; it can only be evoked – and even this only inadequately.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It can easily be seen that a man of Tradition would have an easier time soaking in thought that is affinitive to him by taking the same non-Revolutionary approach common to the classical & medieval worlds. The Church gets blamed for burning books of pagan knowledge, but it needs to be remembered that a great deal of ancient learning was in fact saved by the Semitic “axial religions”, baptized by the saints (St. Patrick permitted “finger magic” based on the oghams), & passed down in the common culture of a thoroughly medieval and Christian people. And this does not even begin to address the esoteric or scholarly side of it, which was much more aggressive and open to inheriting the pagan tradition, including embodying it in the Eucharist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We distinguish, therefore, between the occasional or even sustained rhetoric of the Christian authors (including that arch-pagan and super-Christian, Tertullian) and the actual action of the Spirit, reflected in their thought, which actions blows where it wills & ignites high intellects, pure characters, & rare hearts in a variety of Traditions. What is the purpose of this variety except to reach those within<\/em> a specific variety, & to convince those who are rising above it with the use of it, with even greater proofs, that their path is blessed? For since our access is not direct, we approach this through a desire of imitating that initial inspiration, but the fact of inheriting very specific traditions from those above us in the Great Chain of Being. And since it stands to strong Reason that if one is “risen” above one’s Western tradition, it would seem to serve but little to the purpose to immerse one’s self again in the elementary and rudimentary elements, we conclude that the medieval heritage remains of great, even inestimable, value, most particularly for those who desire to rise above it.<\/p>\n

Or, as Saint Paul put it,<\/p>\n

\n2<\/span> But<\/span> is<\/span> under<\/span> tutors<\/span><\/strong> and<\/span> governors<\/span><\/strong> until<\/span> the time appointed<\/span> of the father.<\/span> <\/span> 3<\/span> Even<\/span> so<\/span> we,<\/span> when<\/span> we were<\/span> children,<\/span> were<\/span> in bondage<\/span> under<\/span> the elements<\/span><\/a> of the world:<\/span> <\/span> 4<\/span> But<\/span> when<\/span> the fulness<\/span> of the time<\/span> was come<\/span> , God<\/span> sent forth<\/span> his<\/span> Son,<\/span> made<\/span> of<\/span> a woman,<\/span> made<\/span> under<\/span> the law,<\/span> <\/span> 5<\/span> To<\/span> redeem<\/span> them that were under<\/span> the law,<\/span> that<\/span> we might receive<\/span> the adoption of sons.<\/span> <\/span> 6<\/span> And<\/span> because<\/span> ye are<\/span> sons,<\/span> God<\/span> hath sent forth<\/span> the Spirit<\/span> of his<\/span> Son<\/span> into<\/span> your<\/span> hearts,<\/span> crying<\/span> , Abba,<\/span> Father.<\/span> <\/span> 7<\/span> Wherefore<\/span> thou art<\/span> no more<\/span> a servant,<\/span> but<\/span> a son;<\/span> and<\/span> if<\/span> a son,<\/span> then<\/span> an heir<\/span> of God<\/span> through<\/span> Christ.<\/span> <\/span> 8<\/span> Howbeit<\/span> then<\/span> , when ye knew<\/span> not<\/span> God,<\/span> ye did service<\/span> unto them which by nature<\/span> are<\/span> no<\/span> gods.<\/span> <\/span> 9<\/span> But<\/span> now,<\/span> after that ye have known<\/span> God,<\/span> or<\/span> rather<\/span> are known<\/span> of<\/span> God,<\/span> how<\/span> turn ye<\/span> again<\/span><\/a> to<\/span> the weak<\/span> and<\/span> beggarly<\/span> elements,<\/span> whereunto<\/span> ye desire<\/span> again<\/span> to<\/span> be in bondage<\/span> ? <\/span> 10<\/span> Ye observe<\/span> days,<\/span> and<\/span> months,<\/span> and<\/span> times,<\/span> and<\/span> years.<\/span> <\/span> 11<\/span> I am afraid<\/span> of you,<\/span> lest<\/span> I<\/span> have bestowed<\/span> upon<\/span> you<\/span> labour<\/span> in vain.<\/span> <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If Christianity, too, has a tutelary function in the exoteric realm, it still makes seemingly little sense to surpass one tutor, and to graduate to another. After a while, might one not wonder if the problem was in the pupil, rather than the tutor? Be sure that one is truly seeking the Father, rather than merely desiring to escape the General Law of the Tutor, & this requires great, even supernatural honesty with the Self.<\/p>\n

The emphasis on decency and good order, even in spiritual matters, is characteristic of the medieval outlook. We could do well to profit from it. It accords greatly with being men who are affiliated with that which is the “opposite of a Revolution”: men of Logos, men of the West.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Philobiblon, Richard de Bury (Bishop of Durham) justifies his love of books in a Christian framework by pointing out that Plato is said to have paid 10000 dinars for a rare scroll of Philolaus. Philolaus‘ work was most likely a transmission of the teachings of Pythagoras, who had … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114,107,11,13,111,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boris-mouravieff","category-middle-ages","category-religion","category-tradition","category-valentin-tomberg","category-western-civilization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7150\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}