The Taboo and a Formulation of a Conservative Idealism

   

     The Left likes to portray itself as the party of ultimate freedom, of unbridled acceptance and tolerance, of final liberation. And certainly, if one's biggest fear is that you will die one day without every last chemical receptor in your brain and body being stimulated in Pavlovian fashion, it is conceivable that they make a modest point. Call it the "Left", or the "Progressives", or "Liberals", or whatever you like. The term itself is relatively unimportant, deriving from the seating of the radical Jacobins within the French National Assembly. A more accurate word might be Revolutionists. This term would allow us to differentiate between those who are accidentally "Left" (in the sense of being stuck within their milieu) and those who are deliberately and violently situated within the internally coherent and radioactive core of Leftism, for whom "nothing has been done unless we destroy everything" (Alfred Jarry). Those who head up this list are perfectly aware, intellectually, what they are doing (noetically, of course, they are even blinder than everyone else). But on the intellectual plane, they are perfectly and lucidly aware that they are playing fast and loose with the facts. They are fully aware that there is more than just cognitive dissonance in their methods. But an auto-tranquilizer of "it's all for the best" reconciles them to the hypocrisy and hatred and hunger for power that activates this pulsating neutron star of Leftism, which wanders through the void of the abyss. Leftism is the lie in the mouth of the Beast.
     A frequent question one comes across is, to what extent is "Rightism" any different from Leftism? Don't Rightists use the ends to justify means, too? Doesn't the Right rely on coercive methods? Is it not so that the Right is just as ideological, merely from a different spot in the spectrum? This small paper is a brief effort to differentiate between the two positions.
     First, "Rightism" is not the goal of a true conservative. His goal is to be "the opposite of a Revolution". That is, he is not reactionary or reactive in that sense (although reactionary or counter-revolutionary as a label can be more or less useful as a label). To the true conservative, it's not so much that the revolutionists are wrong, as that they do not matter and, in fact, represent a complete nullity. They don't exist. That is, everything that would necessitate so-called Revolution is essentially an illusion. Think of it as the political equivalent of Saint Augustine's dictum that evil does not have existence: evil is just privation of the Good. Thus, Revolution represents an extreme form of complexity, or Chaos. It is an "opportunity": stable societies do not require armies of SJWs and political commissars, bureaucrats and managers. For the Left, more revolution means more job security. By contrast, it is only in the Conservative State that Marx's goal of the state "withering away" has any chance of succeeding, as indeed it did to a huge degree in the libertarian USA, circa 1950. Thus, a Conservative doesn't so much stand for what is Right-Wing, as he attempts to transcend the dichotomy or binary thought which necessitated the invention of Left versus Right in the Jacobin political climate of 1789. His true nexus flows from Above.
     We might expand this to say that Conservatism's most important distinction is Above-Below, rather than "Left-Right". The Left moved the debate to Left-Right because they denied that there was a verticality at all. The danger of Conservatism is precisely in its refined ability to make this distinction, since degenerate Conservatism can sometimes (literally) confuse Below-Above. The first point to make is that the Left is already (by default) in the Below-Above position of confusion: by denying the Vertical, it ensures that it will sink to the lowest plane of existence, with zero transcendence. At that point, it's all sentimental claptrap and passionate self-delusion, combined with reductive materialism, in which it's more important to Seem than to Be. Thus, every minority is aggrieved and sacred, by virtue of merely being born. I call this the "Only Voltaire is Immortal" fallacy, a meta-fallacy the Left has invented. That is, the same arguments which were used against the sacred kings and monarchs, can now be applied to the "individuals" and "communities" and "minorities" which constitute the source of sacredness in government. The air is so thick with irony on this one that it begs an explanation!
     This brings us to the concept of the Taboo. Precisely because the Left claims that "the Right" is the party of the irrational and racist Taboo (of dead white European males), one should look under that rock for the truth (since the Left usually if not always projects onto others). In Conservative thought something is Taboo because it is presupposed that such things represent an upper and perhaps lower limit to individual human ability - that is, if one doesn't understand the reason for a rule, one should study it more and not act upon the rule until full comprehension is reached. Often full comprehension resolves the dilemma. This is expressed in Burke's old dictum: "Never, without the strongest necessity, disturb that which is at rest". Another maxim Conservatives employ is "don't tear down the old house, until the new one is finished". Thus, Conservatives tend to reject Leftism simply for prudential and pragmatic reasons alone. For instance, there is the thought of "not killing the goose that laid the golden egg" - homogeneous societies tend to be stable ones. White Europe gave us the triangle of London-Paris-Berlin, which generated modern Science. Do we want to obliterate the formula through sorcerer-apprentice experimentation? Leftists tend to think that these are dull Polonius-like platitudes. What is not understood sufficiently is that there is an actual Idea and Critical Theory which lies behind these Taboos. We tend to reject Leftist for pragmatic reasons, but when we stop to think about, we have to reject it utterly for purely intellectual reasons.
     This is because one cannot be Taboo-free. The Left has constructed an entire panoply of new Taboos. The old Taboos had the air of a comfortable ghost, and perhaps a mystery about them. This was because it was recognized that a certain amount of Law and Order had to exist in order for the good Life to be rendered possible.

1First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be offered on behalf of all men 2for kings and all those in authority, so that we may lead tranquil and quiet lives in all godliness and dignity. 3This is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior...I Timothy 2:2

From this perspective, Leftism doesn't represent the generation of a new order of Myth, or a mere modality change (in the sense of "everything changes, but stays the same"), but actual Chaos or Entropy - a privation of possibilities, and reduction to a cold energy state. This might seem counter-intuitive - doesn't the Left radiate a lot of Energy? Certainly it does - like a roaring Blaze that will soon burn itself up and out, and to no purpose. It is progressing from the high-energy state of a conservative old Order, to the low energy state of Degeneration, through the radiant convective forces of Revolution.
    Conservatism (then) strives to eventually understand and control its own Taboos. This is stable-energy State. The Taboo moves from it's caricature (in Leftism) towards Mystery, resolving into the higher energy state of what we might call stable equilibrium at a higher level shell of energy. All Conservatives society exhibit this trend. If they do not become trapped and confused and temporarily descend downwards on the Above-Below continuum, they move or oscillate gently along the vertical equilibrium. Thus, the Old South (for instance) had a budding anti-Slave movement, until the South became needlessly rigid and defensive, when under attack by Abolitionism. In an even worse sense, Germany illustrated a large move down the vertical pole.
     This cycle is usually broken by Revolution. In fact, revolutionary forces disturbed steady-state oscillation of both the above examples (in the case of the Old South, it created a new kind of white nationalism out of the local organic counties and states of the South). The creation of new (and arbitrary) Taboos require actual mystification: Is there anyone who can explain why Antifa is destroying the village in order to save it? The Nazis (in this example) essentially placed technology at the service of nationalism, including the Leftist technologies of revolution and agitation. Germany began moving down the vertical pole, becoming a failed conservative state (down is up). Electrified by the radiant energies of Leftism, which to some degree interrupted and confused attempts to hold the equilibrium, the conservative state slid into perhaps the penultimate modern example of political tragedy.
     The Conservative response to all of this is that there are two necessary conditions of good government: first, Verticality has to be acknowledged. Thus, Leftism prima facie disqualifies itself, and deliberately so: their desire to destroy old Taboos is merely a brand new Taboo (old Taboos MUST be destroyed!) masquerading as Reason. This effectively ensures that one cannot pass through the Taboo state into Mystery, progressing into steady-State higher energy shell (which allows accumulation and possible movement to even higher states). One wastes colossal amounts of time and energy thrashing about, dispersing energy, and falling to lower levels. This is what one could expect given the Ideology of 1789.
     One does not try to create Taboos - Taboos represent man's mortality and privation: in a word, they are the marks of the presence of Evil. But they are not Evil themselves, for they perform (and conserve) a function. One overcomes them spiritually. This allows real Progress, in the only possible sense. So the second condition of good government is Purity. That is, one has to maintain enough tension to hold steady-state and avoid a downward slide, mistaking Down for Up, or forgetting one's relative position on the hierarchy. One also has to avoid the temptation of trying to mingle revolutionary methods with conservative goals. The important distinction is Up-Down, not Left and Right - that way lies binary thought, with consequent self-justification. To combat the Left, we have to go beyond Right-Left (itself a new Taboo generated by Revolution).
     Conservatism (then) is unpopular both because it admits that Man is Not God, and also, that he must become One with God. These are both unpopular truths. One presupposes Verticality, the other sets the preconditions for moving up rather than down.
     But there is one more critical and theoretical insight to be posited. Conservatism is on the side of both God and the devil (The Up-Down). This is the final subtle realization, and doesn't the Left scream this at every turn? Whereas Revolution and Leftism almost inherently depend upon the demonization of both Spirituality and Morality (by any means necessary), because they require a morally self-righteous Crusade, Conservative Thought does not attempt to deny that both the Demi-Urge and the Devil have a place within the hierarchical Order, nor that God is its summum bonum. That is, it is not committed to a Gnostic obsession or illusion that man is endlessly plastic, and that Nature as such is evil. Nature is evil when it is denied the benefits of its Taboos, which exist as necessaries to create the possibility of transcendence and individual Good. Thus, the Left's rage against Taboos-as-such is both hypocritical and also an enormous loss of energy which ought to be conserved. This leads to all sorts of practical critiques of the Left, eg., To what extent has the Cost of "Progress" been too high for the "Return on Investment"?, etc., which are perfectly valid in their own sphere, but are not the main issue.
     One can certainly quibble that Equality of Result is simply too big of a goal to be micro-managed by the State, or question whether the costs are inherently too high, etc., etc. But these are lower-plane disagreements, valid within their own sphere only. Conservatism (unlike Leftism) does not deny the place of either the Devil, the Flesh, or the World. In fact, it fully acknowledges them, and insists on putting them "in their place" in the hierarchy: "There is a time for war, and a time for peace...." It is based not on Gnostic desires to obliterate Nature, but rather a belief that the way forward is for those who possess Gnosis (as opposed to ideological pistis or doxa/dogma) ought to rule - the Just should be King.
     That this is an Ideal, rather than a perfect reality, is of course granted ("The perfect is the enemy of the good" - Russian proverb). If it was instantly and totally achievable now, it would not be Ideal, and this would betray the second principle of Purity. Purity must always be maintained, because without it, the tension slackens and a Conservative State can easily go from the Weimar Republic into the hands of a Chancellor who wants to "save" Germany from the Jews. This Purity, however, can only be truly Vertical or Transcendental - that is, it is beyond or sourced beyond, politics. It flows through politics (Liberalism imagines that it should not, for it is a lower order Leftist heresy), but it cannot originate in politics. The only way to maintain purity is to ruthlessly agree with your enemy against you, lest he take you before the judge. That is to say, the South should have freed the slaves first, and then fired on Fort Sumter. One cannot embrace the tactics of Revolution. The patchwork of variegated English and Brittanic ordered liberty in the Old South would have been destroyed by either the success or the failure of the Confederacy: the way to defend the self-governing liberties of the Anglo-Saxon order(s) would have been to grant justice to the slaves, and then secure a variety-in-unity across the South. This is exactly what Europe failed to achieve as well, and the European Union only represents another compromise with Revolution and a slide down the vertical pole, to something worse than nationalism.
     The goal is an Ideal, but not the immediate or immanent grasp of that Ideal. Within that tension of Verticality, Purity, and full Hierarchy (even for Devil and Demi-Urge, so that no Absolute Crusades or Puritanism are allowed), the critical and theoretical perspective of Conservatism is infinitely subtle, much more so than Leftism, as it embraces both the horizontal and the vertical, and allows for a fully textured hierarchical world in which even the existence of that Great Arch-Conservative the Devil finds a place in the ontology of Beings constituting all Reality. This affirms the possibility of Evil which exists, but only as privation as Good. Thus, Revolution by itself can have no positive meaning, except as Entropy State, as denial of the mortal and not-entirely-plastic nature of Man, and also as sheer Hypocrisy and love of violence for the sake of that violence (Nihilism). It can have only relative value, and must be paid for in blood with full awareness of the dynamite inherent in it: the Devil is given his due, but no absolute Idealism is possible from the Leftward axis, because the Vertical doesn't exist, and also because all karmic debt has to be paid in kind, since Evil can only be spiritually transcended and overcome, rather than attacked head on.
     Thus, it is not enough to define what we "want" from the world: we have to be sure first of all that we are in contact with a real world in the first place, and that our wants are proportioned to reality. Then we have to weigh means and ends, etc. And in order to remain open to questioning and probing by the light of Wisdom, we cannot demonically assert dogma/doxa/ideology along the horizontal plane. "Good" cannot be defined as being reactive or non-hatred, non-racism, non-hierarchy, etc. This is true "reactionary" thinking, because it has no view of the Summum Bonum. Liberalism, Progressivism, Leftism, and Revolutionism do not accept or even admit the possibility of there being a transcendental Good.
     To them, this transcendence will always take the guise of being the Moral "Other", and wear the mask of Fascism/Racism. But this is projection, and shows that they fear what they are. True Order is the opposite of Revolution, Hatred, War, etc. For the only defense against what happened to Germany in 1938 is actually to embrace All that we can understand about the nature of reality, rather than opening ourselves to assymetrical compromises with Revolution/Entropy. Over time, this additive picture of Reality can expand to become more subtle, but we are at the early stages of understanding (for instance) Ponerology and how being Left is likely an eternal temptation with many masks. The "Right's" insistence on ritual, repetition is actually a way of keeping a flame burning with a certain tension which allows the radiant buildup and expanse of energy, of opposing the creep of Darkness. As usual, the Darkness doesn't understand at all, and creates new and futile Taboos to destroy perceived Taboos (or at least, Taboos which aren't being "overcome").
     At this point, Conservative Idealism has immensely more explanatory power than Leftism, in that it is capable of accounting for a wider range of fact, both vertical and horizontal, and a richer texture of nuances and subtleties, both from political and religious philosophy. Above all, the account it can give of Leftism is coherent and rich, whereas the opposite is incoherent and paltry. The Left has to scream Fascism at every moment, if they see something on their right hand side, no matter how close. This is preoccupation with the horizontal plane.
     As we have said, this is entirely a waste of time. Without Up-Down, there is no Left-Right (or Center). Up-Down doesn't annihilate the secular, but rather, perfects it. This is the unfinished business of the West, and the sooner we embrace Ordered Liberty (or Conservative Idealism) the sooner individuals can get back to the business of finding what is important in Life, instead of wasting time trying to survive Revolutions. Of course, this will also entail the rejection of much of what passes as "Right wing" today, and this can be the subject of another post.
    
    

Reforming the Reformation with Transcendental Calvinism

TRANSCENDENTAL CALVINISM

“As for Christianity in its less popular forms, it presents an aspect of the tragic doctrine of salvation, which to some extent preserves an echo of the ancient truth: the idea–pushed to extremes by Luther and Calvin—that man on earth stands at the crossroads between Salvation and eternal damnation. This point of view, if lived intensely and coherently, could create the conditions for liberation at the moment of death or in post-mortem states.”
Note 2, page 96, The Hermetic Tradition, Julius Evola



       
     What, if anything, remains of the meaning of Calvinism and Reformation theology, in the modern arena and world, after all these years? Gutted, as it were, by its own practitioners, whether hard-shell Baptists or so called emergent theologians, it has submitted basely to the wisdom, practice, and interpretation of the very world into which it had entered as a sharp and stunning rebuke. I have come across a few faithful Reformed men over the years, who sprang from the old stock, and can honestly say that had they ruled in the dark days of decision, things may have gone differently with the post-Puritanical West. Alas, modern Calvinism appears drawn to the secular world as a moth to the flame, and everywhere it has dominated, it has left behind a spiritual vacuum rapidly filled with atheism or liberalism, if not revolution.I wrote an older article about this, but it's been awhile. 
      Let us explore what may be done with the Reformation, even at this last gasp, the flickering flame of the dying West, before it succumbs to delusions of perfect earthlyutopia embodied in the Progressive Movement (Revolution). The Reformation began, not out of issues (which provided a mere pretext, and were ongoing) but a movement of the northern Germanic peoples. It was Luther's trip to Rome in 1511 which guaranteed that the Teutonic races would vomit up Catholicism and the Baroque.

The city, which he had greeted as holy, was a sink of iniquity; its very priests were openly infidel, and scoffed at the services they performed; the papal courtiers were men of the most shameless lives; he was accustomed to repeat the Italian proverb, “If there is a hell, Rome is built over it.” (T. M. Lindsay, Luther and the German Reformation (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1900), p. 44, cited on http://martinluther.ccws.org/footnotes/index.html#11 6-16-2017

Convinced (as we are) that Luther had some fundamental misunderstandings about Catholic doctrine, it is still true to say that the Roman Catholic Latin Church had doubled down on its particular and exclusive heritage, neglecting to preserve a strong stream of spiritual influence capable of drawing in the lately converted Northern spheres of influence (the Prussians were heathens as late as the 13^th century), not to mention becoming increasingly juridical and “exoteric” in its doctrines and practices, as witnessed by indulgences and the cult of relics. If someone in 1500 had been told that in thirty years, all of Europe would be in flames in a religious civil war, even the most sanguine might have had pause or the most melancholic laughed out loud.
       The story of Europe's nightmare descent is incredibly complex, and we refer the reader to such works as Charles Williams' The Descent of the Dove, for example, in defending the “sins” of the Catholic Church: “Some sins do bear their privilege on earth” (Philip the bastard, in Shakespeare's King John). Or perhaps The Stripping of the Altars, by Eamon Duffy, or anything written concerning the iconoclasm in the Low Countries, or Peter Brown's work on the cult of the saints, in order to gain a rational perspective on indulgences, popular Catholicism, and relics. Whether or not the popes killed the medieval world order, it was certainly in a lot of trouble when Luther came along, and there are no shortage of villains to blame: Francis Bacon, Duns Scotus or William of Ockham, Jean Buridan and Rene Descartes, Rousseau...the list could go on and on. Owen Barfield (and by extension Rudolf Steiner) in fact argue that the Reformation and the modern scientific revolution is a necessary step in the necessary de-sacralizing of the world, which (surprisingly), is destined for re-sacralization at the hands of a conscious spiritual elite (see the works of Boris Mouravieff, in Gnosis).
      This movement to despiritualize the universe and collapse it into a fideistic “Reformation” with an “Islamic” character of civilization was occuring as part of a broad upswelling of humanity's soul in Europe, even outside the Northern European perimeter, and involved general laws of a deep complexity and scope which can be observed (see Oswald Spenger or Toynbee) in other world-civilizations, such as the Magian civilization in Arabia or the ancient Chinese civilization also. To seek to blame one particular man or sect is futile and counter-productive. What we want to do is understand what was at work behind the field of force in history, and discern what to do next.
Although this will be quick and skimming, it is hoped the reader can follow up any rabbit trails deemed important to him or herself. To sum up, Jean Calvin placed all the responsibility and glory upon God alone (thus denying the theomorphic nature and mediatorial aspect of primordial man), while Luther's emphasis on faith tended to obscure the necessity for individual struggle and effort (also on the human side). It was not so much what they taught, as what they did not, and where the tendencies of what they did get right, would lead, at that historical moment. Together, however legitimate in spiritual truth, these two tendencies added up to placing man in a highly negative and disadvantageous position versus the new secular tendencies emerging, which tended to isolate and physicalize man to such a degree that the only kind of God conceivable was a rationalistic watch-maker operating as a first cause, a kind of absentee Deist Omnipotence who left Creation without Love, magic, or any active Providence. If God is restlessly ordering in some kind of abstract and almost dementia-like manner, every fact in the universe, then if everything is important, nothing is, because hierarchy is absent. If hierarchy and mediation (human, divine, or otherwise) is absent, then rationalism quickly fills the vacuum: a world of magic and dark gods is far more likely to be converted than a clockwork world which operates like a machine – men who sacrificed to Odin could believe in Baldur re-born, but men who conceive of the world as empty space and dead matter find no meaning in the Cross. A world with no magic and no centers of conscious in higher tutelary powers (see the epistle of Galatians) is not a world in which the Incarnate Logos can make any sense, except in some kind of diminishing private sense with no public relevance or spiritual power. Look around you to see how that went.
      The medieval world struggled (for instance) with witchcraft, and how to make sense out of it, because it believed in the subtle, non-physical universe. When you look at a flat medieval picture, you are (in a real sense) not looking at a child's drawing, but a spiritual portrait of how they actually experienced (and could not help but experience) the world around them. Those Books of Hours, the Book of Kells, the ancient manuscripts – all testify that medieval man felt at least, and sometimes actually saw, numinous power peering through the world at them. They felt it because they were more perceptive than we are, and had more of their higher emotional centers and even intellectual centers intact, no matter how undeveloped their lower intellectual centers may have been.
Luther himself used to pick up the crumbs of the Eucharist off the floor, because it was Christ's body. Even Jean Calvin touches upon theomorphism in his opening to the Institutes (would that he had remembered it!):

Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.

     Calvin went on to all-too-easily solve this dilemma in favor of a very voluntaristic image of God Almighty, who did not move the stars and hearts through Omnipotent Love, but through sheer restless and arbitrary power. However, his instinct was correct: man is the microcosm of the universe. The universe itself, is man writ large. And if Christianity is even remotely true, the destiny of both are tied together through the first born of them all: Christ Jesus the Pantocrator.

He who is the image of the invisible God,

Firstborn before all creation,

because in Him all things were created —

things in heaven and things on earth,

things visible and invisible,

whether thrones or dominions,

whether principalities or powers —

they have all been created through Him and for Him

      We are living through the re-creation of the Cosmos, in Christ, and it matters how we think, what we think, and why we think. As Owen Barfield noted in his many writings, it makes a difference what images the poet and the artist or thinker conjures before his mind, and what thoughts we allow to root inside our head, since man is not merely the measure of all things in Christ, but has the power to share in re-making a new world after the image of the Logos, discerned in Love, through the power of the Holy Spirit, in this final Age.
      The Reformation, then, is what we make of it (provided we keep an eye on “the iron clad laws of history”). Will we allow a too-strict concern with rules and traditions of men to determine how we interpret Luther and Calvin, damning us to go down the road of secularization and finally nihilism, or will we (like bees) take the pollen from what they have to offer and make a honey to cure the wounds which idolators have caused in the world? John Milton once said “the Reformation must be Reformed”. How might one go about doing this?
      In the first place, there are a great many wonderful Reformational legacies, too numerous to name in detail: the practicing Protestant who is devout can no doubt name many of these. Just as important are the spiritual-theological threads we find among the Reformational faithful, for example in Hermann Dooyeweerd. He is by no means the only one (we could cite several “mystical” Protestant authors by specific passage, including William Law and Jacob Boehme), but interests us as a specifically theological interpreter of the “possibilities”.
      Dooyeweerd touches upon the very topic which interests us: that our imagination is a gateway to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit, and provide clues about our future spiritual destiny, which is rooted in a primordial Being and will return with what we harvested in the prime material plane of our own histories.

Dooyeweerd’s understanding of perception is one of his most astounding ways of overcoming dualism. He rejects the empirical and phenomenological assumptions of a dualism between an independent observing subject and an independent object. Our experience is not of independent things, but of “individuality structures” that depend on man for their full realization and individuality. And the process of perception is a subject-object relation that occurs within the modal aspects of temporal reality, in a nondual act of perception....Dooyeweerd’s ideas on imagination emphasize the importance of seeing and intuitively imaging God, self and cosmos in a different way. In Dooyeweerd’s words, when our heart is opened to the transcendent reality, we see things as they really are. The transcendent light of eternity then shines through, illuminating even the trivial in our lives. Our theory itself becomes an act of worship, where we ascend from sphere to sphere, until we are left in apophatic wonder. But along the way, we help to redeem the sparks of God within his creation. For if temporal reality fell because of humanity, it is only through redeemed humanity that the world will be redeemed. Our imagination is an act that proceeds from out of our supratemporal selfhood. It is expressed within time, both within the temporal functions of our body or mantle of functions, and in the world outside of our body. We are simultaneously supratemporal and temporal beings. There is therefore a need to relate our supratemporal selfhood to our temporal functions. This relation between inner and outer is given by our intuition, both (pre-theoretical and theoretical). Imagination is an inner, intentional act, in which we form images. Our imagination is more than just fantasy, disconnected to reality. Rather , in imagination, we seek the “figure” within temporal reality. This is an anticipation of what reality may become, but which is presently only a potential reality. In finding the figure within reality, and in realizing it, we form history and fulfill the reality of temporal structures.” https://jgfriesen.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/imagination.pdf Accessed 6-15-2017

      If I am reading Van Friesen on Dooyeweerd correctly, our intuition, specifically our imagination, is a potential higher link to higher emotional centers, which whisper to us of what the world-to-come is, and invite our participation. To use Charles William's language, it speaks to us of how we may be privileged to begin to “co-inhere” in the Co-Inherence web that already exists, established through the Love of the Absolute, expressed in the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity.

So that this is the very project which the Inklings (Lewis, Barfield, Williams, Tolkien) had engaged in: making a sub-creation out of the material world, which would be “baptized” and help to lead modern man back to the unutterable and quiet and homely mysteries of “the deeper Law”. It is the “pearl” of great price, spun inside the oyster shell of our short time here.
      Instead of seeing ourselves at odds with Rome and Constantinople, faithful Protestants should joyfully insist on hanging on to what they have gathered in their “fall” from grace, and re-uniting it with the fullness of the glory of God. This, after all, is exactly the boat we are all in since the fall from grace in Adam & Eve anyway.
      I propose a new term for an old movement in the Faith: Transcendental Calvinism.
      To return to the quote that introduced the essay, we will note that Calvinism, rightly understood, clears the ground for a re-valuation of man's being in light of God's free choice and high calling, which is to summon knights and their ladies from the dead bones and stones of the world, in free grace, surely, but also in all possible help and aid, prevenient or ex opere operato or otherwise, to create and restore a Free Will in man that was once there, in the Beginning. Calvinism, if embraced existentially, rather than aesthetically or ontologically, will burn down the weeds in the garden of the heart, and make things ready for the rain. Calvinism is a kind of short hand, which is true as a short hand, and therefore, quite readily, as an existential stance and response to its own temporary nihilism, which holds the believer in a kind of terrible but blessed tension and readiness, awaiting the legitimate return of the Lord, whether in the physical death and post-mortem state of the believer, or in this life, if spiritual sight should return in time. We believe that this is faithful to the intent, if not the letter, of the best of what Jean Calvin wrote. Thus we can define useful and true Calvinism as a kind of deliberately temporary Christian existentialism, designed to let the user function in a desacralized world for a period of time, provided that they are consciously seeking to phase out a fully literal Calvinism by (this is important) fleshing out what is inherently true in Calvinism at a literal level. 
      Dooyeweerd also advocates (in his theological writings, in which he developed Kuyper's idea of sphere sovereignty) a kind of spiritual “multiplicity in unity”. This is consistent with a perichoretic understanding of what the inner meaning of the Trinity's Love is. Although Dooyeweerd applied this to different “spheres” of law (eg., family, church, local community), we can put our point in his language and terms: God's grace and free sovereignty does not destroy man's sphere, but rather perfects it (Dooyeweerd would not, in fairness, acquiesce entirely to this, as he would regard the analogy as misplaced and medieval, but whether he recognizes it or not, it is the same analogy). Even the Westminster Confession confesses that God as first cause establishes, rather than destroying, the secondary cause of man's free will (this, of course, is the same medieval “Grace perfects Nature” analogy which Dooyeweerd rejects or thinks he rejects in a different context, but Dooyeweerd can be forgiven for believing that post WWII Holland would continue to have the sphere-sovereignty of its Christian bones, rather than succumbing to the Enlightenment's monadism of One Secular World). God's sphere of influence at the higher level is mediated through to us in a web of co-inherences, which (frankly) it is possible only to delineate in general outline or possibility, as they are actually experienced, or known theologically through the repository of the Church's doctrine and speculative “imaginings”. This web begins and ends in Christ Jesus, of whom not all the books in the cosmos (as Saint John put it), could hold all that could (and will) be written.
      God and man are polar beings, of a special sort. God is the “Self Beyond the Self” (contra Eastern mysticism). The sovereignty of a God who moves (as Dante said) the stars with Love does not destroy the free will of man's heart, who is eternally allured and tempted into following the calling to join freely with Love in re-creating the fallen Universe. Since man in his fallen state is immeasurably distant from that Love (in a sense), and yet still united with it, he finds himself existentially riven. This Anfechtung is precisely what Luther described psychologically in his legitimate experience of saving faith, and what Calvin is at pains to defend in the concept of “God alone is Great” (as Islamic as this may sound).
       It goes without saying that we can naturally and rightly embrace Luther and Calvin's great gifts to the Church, while throwing far away from us their tendencies and other opinions, such as the denial of the sacredness of the world, the reality of sacred and high magic, their political views (which tend towards Republicanism or democracy), their individualism and stubbornness, or heresies which crop into their polemics. There is still much to be learned from the magisterial Reformers, for we have fallen a long way down since then. God's high transcendent power and will, acting towards the Church in the gift of saving faith, alongside that of the magical and liturgical reality of the natural world, and a host of other ancient teachings from the Middle Ages besides, are all very real and (therefore) necessary to our time and place. What has been revealed, found to be true, bears good fruit, and is beautiful, is so for a reason.
      What does it matter if certain spiritual practices appear irreconciliable within a modern mindset? If they are True, then that is enough, and a way must be found to bring them together in a fruitful spirituality which can overcome the modern spirit of the Times. No one has to learn everything, except charity, which covers everything. Indeed, nothing less than all the gifts of the holy Church will aid us in the fight (eternal it would seem) against the wiles of the Enemy, who is adept (as Luther would say) at pressing upon every side, particularly that one which is most advantageous to our loss. God is free and all the glory is His, but man must make use of what he can, with the mind of Christ, to stretch out that one hand or take that first step. For some, this will involve a very different path than for others, but the center holds: it always holds, and we will find ourselves together again, if we each slay the enemy in front of us, our false self, which holds us back from a world that is yearning to go with us to our immortal and deathless God for redemption.
      Transcendental Calvinism would be temporary – and being so, it would live forever, for it would be one very important chapter in the re-unification of the suffering Church, and that final point, upon the holy mountain, where all those who are capable of standing in these dark days, would stand together, a motley crew, to be sure, by human reckoning, but in God's wisdom, just the band of brothers to overcome the world. A transcendental Calvinist confesses that, just as God's choice is free, so is His choice of means, be they icons, saints, prayers to the dead, high magic, philosophy, meditation, or whatever skillful means (upaya) leads to good fruit (judge a tree by its fruit, ya'll). The very insistence on God's sovereignty, election, and grace would guarantee a clean conscience and clear the air for the employment of what means lie at hand for the reconquest of Paradise. It is precisely in the recognition that Non Nobis, Domine (not unto us) be the glory, that man would gain a clean and unseared conscience to reclaim all the ancient techniques of re-imagining and re-creating the world, which would be judged solely upon their fruit, rather than upon the Protestant Reformers somewhat skewed and polemical “takes” on practices from the Middle Ages which they could not possibly appreciate or understand at the time that they delivered their doxa (opinions).
      This would help lead to a re-unified Church and to gnosis (knowledge), rather than dogmatics. And Gnosis is the only thing that will save the Church which our grandchildren will inherit, in an impoverished but still very dominant secular world which reduces everything to dead matter, empty space, and the rule of ones and zeros through the power of Money. All around us, the ancient practices and teachings of the Church are asphyixiated in the modern air. Faith (pistis) only makes sense in a sacramental universe, and the universe, precisely because man is sacramental, increasingly resembles a gigantic hologram dominated purely by physical causes and effects. Secular thinking creates a more secular world, in the sense of a legitimate illusion (maya), which must be overcome. And nothing but God and His deathless Love can uphold it against the forces which the modern world has unleashed. But with this, we can begin to re-imagine the World, as God first thought it, and even (perhaps) with a little bit of ourselves in the corner of the painting.

La Revolution Devore Ses Infants

Posted on 2014-04-04 by Logres

During the years leading up to 1789, Paris had increasingly become the exclusive city in France, a city-among-cities, with no peer. One of the dynamics behind the destruction of the ancien regime was Paris’ desire to subordinate the legitimate and ancient diversity of the pays (regions) of old France. Paris would become the truly capital city, rather than the body of the king, since in the medieval world, the city or seat of sovereignty, was in the actual person of the king, wherever he happened to be touring. With the Enlightenment justifying its bourgeois aspirations, and Art turning to the bizarre and degenerate, the entire city descended from famine into chaos.

We can see an analogous process at work today. America has decided to be the “Paris” of a global order which encompasses nothing less than the world plantation. All of the world’s goods flow into American territory, just as French produce and goods flowed into the environs of the burgeoning Parisian enclaves. With a philosophy behind it to justify its aspirations (multiculturalism, tribalism, and the continuance of Revolution), the “new American” seems poised to plunge his country into the same chaos that engulfed France in 1789. This is because, as we all know, the Revolution must play on.
With notable differences (Paris had a lot more potential to control the local French countryside than America has to control all of the world, and Paris was more homogeneous than America is today), it is true to say that America and its satellites and imitators comprise a global arrangement increasingly aspiring to universal “values”, which is to say, global sway. This is what the neo-liberal consensus comes to mean. When they say “human rights”, what they mean is the “customary rights of those over whom we hold sway, our serfs”. There are no visible aristocrats, just beautiful people making large incomes living in good style, in cosmopolitan centers of “Westerness” all over the world. Oswald Spengler points out how the megalopoloi come to dominate the countryside in late phases of civilization, reaching their tentacles into the land to suck wealth out of it and legitimize itself by aggrandizement vis a vis the provinces. In the final analysis of this cycle, it is the ostentatious display of arbitrary power and wealth, at the expense of everything else, which marks the final phase. The outer shell of civilization, precisely as it grasps power, wastes away.

In something reminiscient of pyramid schemes and cultic orders, with perhaps a bit of sheer bee-like and herd-like behaviour thrown in, everyone’s greatest concern is to escape the smaller town and go “where something is happening”, which is to say, money, power, and other attractions.
This phase is operates to help America become a “world city”. More and more people are invited; more and more countries are invaded. The entire country, from the Everglades to Gnome, Alaska, becomes a truly diverse cosmopolis. This befits America’s status as “most advanced region” of the planet, future home of the “world-city” that turns all other places into backwaters, from which to draw more staying power and ferment. True, others imitate us (Europe, most of all), yet half-heartedly. Some regions even attempt to un-imitate us: witness Putin’s intransigence over the Ukraine. And wouldn’t the invasion of the Ukraine make Russia more diverse?

What happens when 1789 comes round again, & the countryside (this time) is prepared to resist, not just in the Vendee, but all across the planet, when China and Brazil and Portugal all say “no” to the unbridled spread of the end of history?  Or will they? Will America be forced to fulminate more Revolution at home, in order both to project enough power, and to maintain enough solidarity to convince the other regions to cooperate? What happens when the Revolution begins to devour its own children? My guess is that the stakes have risen, since America is becoming divided, and losing its power to project grandiosity and force. So there is a lot on the table, to lose, at this point, for the Revolution, with Russia thinking about dusting off the crown of Christ and China waffling over whether liberal democracy is really a valid replacement for a civilization that lasted over 4000 years.

What ought to be done to prepare, in an outward sense?

Plinio Correa de Oliveira makes some tantalizing remarks about the Revolution and Counter-Revolution which should help the contemporary “American”.

1. Those who are “of the Reaction” are, by their very nature, exposed to ridicule and a feeling of helplessness, sometimes even in their own eyes, as their ignorance contributes to a lack of realization of who they are: in this sense, the “wholeness” they partially lack is mimicked by competing systems of thought which may confuse their soul, providing a sense that although they can never fit, yet what they cannot fit into possesses some of the qualities they intuitively seek, such as legitimacy (in this case, illusory). It forces them to view themselves in a tragic light. This, of course, is all the better for “the Revolution”, as it consigns their worst enemies to the outer darkness, partially self-imposed. We get to pay the upkeep on our own soul-prison.

2. Many are latent Reactionaries: that is, their upper levels of soul are dominated by the current thought paradigms, but deeper down, they are instinctively “men of the Right”. These people simply need firm guidance, and to be shown strong moral character, coupled with principled action and depth of soul. They will be drawn, just as instinctively, to those of the first category who have stabilized themselves and emerged with the Hyperborean spirit. This second category could be termed “Demeterian“, instinctively drawn to those who can incarnate the power that they seek and lack. This would be a warrior class, maybe even a priest class, and in converting these classes, the natural capos or leaders would achieve a preponderance of force that would allow for an overthrow of the Revolution, and a change in the balance of power. The Revolution succeeds by hiding its aims; the Counter Revolution can only succeed by revealing its aims to this class, but the manifestation has to be multi-dimensional, profound, and utterly authentic. Nothing less would convince the sturdy, hapless enforcers of Revolution who unwittingly serve the very forces they hate at a deeper level.

3. He compares the Revolution to the vine in the Amazon rain forests called the strangler fig. I have often made the mistake of thinking (and so have others, I suppose) that “this couldn’t last”. But in a startling metaphor from the Liber Naturae, (Buch der Natur), our author shows us that the goal of the strangler fig is to kill the host and establish itself as a free standing tree. Of course, the original tree will not be allowed to live after it has served its purpose: this is why the Revolution hid and covered its aims. It wanted “this and that”, or “old and new”, together: tolerance for the lower castes, that’s all. But the true aim is the annihilation of the original tree, which suggests that envy and hatred are, in reality, the real motivating causes of the Revolution after all, rather than compassion. The two organisms are incompatible, and only one has the essence of Life. This dissembling is a weak point in the Left, as they are now the “authentic and legitimate order”, and our author says that firm and unwavering contradiction in a manly spirit, even against overwhelming social disapproval, is the only way of unmasking the lie – as Veuillot says, the emptiness flees contradiction. Any real resistance will be met by deceived men of the number two category, and their involvement in persecution will only serve to enlighten them as to the real aims of the Revolution and the real worth of the “rebel” (who is the opposite of one). The Left has been winning without even trying for so long, that a real dose of suffering of any kind, at whatever level (including the wallet) would quickly make it clear that only the men of the Right have the freedom to overcome circumstances. This is quite clear right now in the crisis over Crimea: Russians are willing to sacrifice to restore the Third Rome, however imperfectly, and Americans are too lazy to even understand the issues involved, let alone drip any blood. Russia wins. America has been purging herself of the men who are of the mettle to make American force stick overseas; it remains to be seen whether she can perfectly finish the Revolution at home, as more and more of the aims come out of the closet in order to ascend the decayed altars like demons haunting the throne.

4. It is imperative to promote the association of men who are truly of the Right. Cologero has gone to great lengths to do just that, & it will be up to us to continue this push. By providing a “home” and the camaraderie that all men need, noble or not, but which we alone tend to lack, given the circumstances, an important element of morale is introduced, as well as the opportunity to learn from one another, and no longer feel “alone”. Many here have voiced how lonely it is out there, and this is true. But the hearth fire burns, despite the cold winter night. There are various ways of seeking this kind of fellowship, but it is fundamental to mental sanity during the apex of Revolution, the height of its power, just before it begins to turn upon itself. We are going to need all of our wits and resources in the years ahead, as Chaos is standing at offstage right, and the raving lunatics of the Left are congregating at stage left. After all, when Satan is on the throne, what can he really say about Revolution?

That’s probably insulting to Satan. What we’ve got on our throne is a collective demon or elemental force, generated by centuries of passions and muddled thought. Satan is a man of Law, and wouldn’t dream of having dinner with revolutionaries. He’d rather joust with a man of the Right.

Western Social Order

Posted on 2014-02-14 by Logres

Cologero points out that quibbling over minor points of philosophy & actualizing states of being are not equivalent for the noble character. That is, philosophical debate is not for the gentleman, beyond a certain point. Surely the West (as such) was built upon such a a fundamental impulse, as the aristocracy of the Franks and Germans were a rough and ready group of fighters, with little taste for Byzantine theology. John Romanides has criticized this substantially, but does not address in any way the fact that the West managed to not merely retain much more than a shadow of Byzantine mysticism, but actually to incorporate and seemingly “add” elements of Tradition with which the East was less familiar. Cologero has discussed this under the title of The Three Orders. Byzantium retained the purity of dogma from Constantine’s day, but the social order was collapsing. They were apparently unable to escape the curse of political factions: in other words, they lacked unity. Procopius even relates a story about Justinian the emperor which is intriguing;

And some of those who have been with Justinian at the palace late at night, men who were pure of spirit, have thought they saw a strange demoniac form taking his place. One man said that the Emperor suddenly rose from his throne and walked about, and indeed he was never wont to remain sitting for long, and immediately Justinian’s head vanished, while the rest of his body seemed to ebb and flow; whereat the beholder stood aghast and fearful, wondering if his eyes were deceiving him. But presently he perceived the vanished head filling out and joining the body again as strangely as it had left it

…perhaps some of the “pure in spirit” who could perceive his disappearing head were Pythagoreans. In any case, political factions dismembered Byzantium long before the Seljuk Turks and the Crusaders delivered the finishing blows. Although I don’t agree with the pejorative, the adjective “Byzantium” today still describes a certain kind of stifling, convoluted atmosphere that is almost impossible to fathom. In fact, Cologero has also pointed out that the East/West schism was primarily exoteric, & should not (in fact) be recognized as decisive or definitive by those who have eyes to see. Just as the Inquisition’s attack on esoteric bodies within the Church should be “ignored”, in the sense of recognizing it as a natural kind of failing in these situations, while retaining both facets for future use, the West vs. East problem is also illusory, if one is trying to deduce eternal principles out of historical dialectic. Instead, move from Unity towards the One, rather than reasoning from the many back to Unity.

The Revolution is derived from such dialectic; although Romanides is not a revolutionary, his theology has made it in some senses more difficult to rapproche with West, in that there is nothing constructive or creative about it, and one has to “supply” what is missing. Indeed, had it not been for Gornahoor, I myself would have found his logic convincing, and would no doubt by now be reading Alexander Dugin and plotting to immigrate to Russia, or at least pining for it. A Revolutionary reasons thusly:
1. The Church has done bad things, or been implicated in the doing of said bad things.
2. Therefore, we are better off today with the Church in chains, culturally, if not annihilated forever.

Therefore, the upshot today is that, “as for my people, women are their oppressors, and children rule over them”. Isaiah 3:12.

As Robert Nisbet has pointed out in Twilight of Authority, the modern liberal state that has resulted from the above reasoning (which is shared by some of the brightest and best young people I have met or been acquainted with) drifts toward either chaos or a monolith that reduces individuals to atoms, with no power or defense against the centralized state, which has been optimized (ostensibly) for the good of all, and particularly the new “individual” neo-bourgeois. Phillip Rieff is a Jew that every man of Tradition ought to read: his book on Teaching & The Second Death closed off, forever for me, the idea that the new “individual” had anything to add – his diagnosis of the spiritual sickness that grips us is profound. It is no use arguing, you have to treat the condition as an illness; in this Romanides and Tomberg are in essential agreement, as are all the Traditional thinkers.

Unfortunately, a lot of the young are ineluctably drawn to the syllogism above, and those of old age, who are hopelessly lazy and self-corrupt, encourage them. What the enthymeme above leaves out is significant. What, for example, happens to other Ideals besides the Church that become tarnished? Are they to be discarded as well? And what happens when Man has tarnished his last Ideal? Should Ideals themselves be given up? What would that look like? Can Ideals be rehabilitated? Why should the abuse of an Ideal disavow the goodness or reality of that Ideal? Are Ideals inevitable, even when denied? Why did the Ideals fail to begin with? Are they inherently evil, inviting abuse? Why should this be? Can Ideals be critiqued by anything else other than Ideals? Were the Ideals ever properly instituted in the first place? Why or why not? What would a false Ideal look like, and how would we recognize it?

Cologero rightly points out that Socratic dialogue can end in aporia. But what if the Socratic dialogue was done, as he suggests, within a framework of actualization, as acts achieving states of being? That is the project of Gornahoor, or at least, the part I am most familiar with and best understand. It may be preaching to the choir, but it’s certainly better than what you’ll get at the average Sunday School, and you’ll know something more than a four-part Gospel harmony, although such things have value.

As an aside of interest, an author that links to the site frequently, Brett Stevens, has written a popular piece which summarizes in popular form some of the cogent criticisms of political European nationalism that Cologero has made in much more in depth and subtle terms. Some of the readers may find the piece useful and convincing, as I did. It points us in the direction of achieving what our director and founder a scale of spiritual order, rather than appealing to the baser parts of human nature, our own and others.
The West, historically, has excelled at achieving difficult balances with periods of crisis, from its inception, which involved multitudes of groups and periods of disorder. It can be hoped that it will do so again.

Labors of Hercules: The Augean Stables

The Labors of Hercules, Part 5

Posted on 2013-09-19 by Logres

The Augean Stables
Hercules does not go immediately into action or battle, following his insult from the gods: Hera’s madness that causes him to murder his own offspring is the “fall” or primordial condition of sinful man who is an enemy to himself and his own kith/kin, let alone everyone else – man as a “wolf to other men”. Finding one’s self in this condition requires “penance”, but is really not the loss of anything, since it is illusory to begin with – the hero doesn’t find penance distressing. The path out of his dilemma is not “out”, but “deeper in and through”. This we have seen – The Man awakes to his sinful or mad condition, & rather than rage against the gods, he shoulders his karmic burden, such as it is, channeling his energies into carefully executing the appointed labors. So the Leftist solution of railing at the universe or shaking one’s fist at the sky is a non-starter – change begins with the Self. But even further, with some change begun, one does not therefore jump up and “clean out the Augean stables”, by reforming the Church, cleansing the State, defeating the forces of modernization and liberalism, etc., etc. It is much easier, when awakened, to immediately but covertly “rage against the machine” by marching off to clean out the Augean stables: let’s reform the Church of Rome! Let’s get rid of our traitors at home! Let us take counsel together, and purge the earth of the presence of all that is impure!

No, Hercules has worked up to this condition, & is being given tasks to perform in a logical and precise sequence. He doesn’t nominate or choose himself for any of them – he is the man for the job, and even the gods recognize this, but the jobs are being chosen proximally by his enemies. He is submitting to government through Providence, and trusting in a higher power than himself. This, of course, means that within the Hercules-cycle, there will finally be no “higher Power” but Hercules, but that is for the final chapter, upon his exaltation as a constellation.

The Augean stables are a problem that everyone knew about, and no one had solved. We could say that this is “the modern world”. What in the world do we do with all the refuse and offal from the “madding crowd” which inhabits the round globe, one and all having fallen prey to madness and imbecility? How will this impurity be cleansed?

Once again, Hercules does not come raging in headlong, like a Conan the Barbarian or Pol Pot, bent intently on ridding the earth of “undesirables”. He uses the forces of Nature itself, altering their course, to bring together the natural remedy for such a large heap of trash and garbage: he seizes a river and changes the course, immediately washing the stables.

He does this, presumably, for gratis, as the labor will be determined a “failure”, since he did not rely on his own two hands to do it. Hercules has been more cunning than those, however, who cunningly disqualify the trick. He has succored fellow man and beast, through the bounty of Nature, and provided a tangible good to all of those who are beneath him. He has stooped and entered the world of “common man”. This is what makes of Hercules more than a hero and an adventurer, and begins to give him the title of benefactor or popular hero. He will enter the mythos as a man like unto King Alfred, who brought permanent peace to England by sponsoring and converting a noble pagan, Guthrum, thus creating the Danelaw and bringing a new era of harmony, although he Alfred was redoubtable in battle nonetheless. The gods and test makers disqualify this test, but one can see that Hercules would have done it anyway. Why? Because it needed doing. Often it happens that those who make the “most progress” esoterically are those who are least concerned about it, because detachment really means detachment. Have you ever heard of the old Puritan preacher who found peace in the thought that he would at least be a monument to God’s justice in Hell?
 
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down….
Tennyson has Ulysses say this, looking out over his realm.
That is the spirit in which to embark upon dread tests, to balance out the focus and energy one brings to them (also requisite). One must play the game because the game matters. In esoteric matters, it really is “how you play the game”. Intention and personal goals, rather than a lust for power, are relevant. Even personal salvation takes a back seat to the “point” of what is happening. A hero who has no time to “stoop” and assist someone is a hero who is worried too much about husbanding their strength. Spend it, and it will be given again. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all might. That is the path of Hercules.

His digression is actually part of the Zodiac pattern, which must in any case have 12, not 10 labors.
An important point Cologero has made over and over is that esoteric studies is not hostile to exotericism. This, in itself, is more than likely a result of the action of God upon the human psyche, as expressed in Christianity. It is now revealed that a man not only can, but ought, to pursue esoteric studies in harmony with the Logos: that is, if you desire enlightenment, you should not neglect the study of what “sane and noble men” of the past thought, how they comported themselves, and what they believed. It is permissible to “prepare for enlightenment” in this way – by finding mentors (in the past if necessary). If done properly (in a healthy way), this does not “add” to psychic accretions or burdens, but functions as a means of restoring normal function in the psyche.

For Hercules, this is accomplished dramatically in his willingness to do an altruistic and noble deed, even though it prolongs his labors, formally. He stoops to conquer, and aids the disharmony of Nature, with sheer physical power and the elements at his disposal. In modern language, this is the much derided “helping a little old lady across the street”. It is the Earps cleaning up Tombstone. It is Oliver Cromwell threatening to send English warships against the Turks. It is the hero standing against a playground bully on behalf of someone quite small. The hero, here, seems to forsake his task and disqualify himself – he is “distracted” by the enormity of evil around him. In reality, he simply does what a real man would do, if he comes across that which he cannot abide. This comes later in the growth of the warrior-saint. It is not an immediate goal, but emerges organically as he progresses. He is, in reality, being swiftly drawn out of his esoteric path, by a deeper current, which is directly connected to the Divine. This current only seems to cost him in the short run. In actuality, it defines the essence of what he will become, although he is not yet purely and entirely ready. It is reflected frequently in popular culture, whose subconscious is aware of much of these truths.

It is analogous to distracting the already distracted psyche by giving it a “bone to chew on”. In esoteric practice, this is Ora et Labora. This is the power that gave rise to the dominance of Christendom’s arms, time and again, against much greater odds, when by all rights, Europe should have crumbled, collapsed, or shattered under the hammer blows of a much more “this-worldly” religion – Islam during its height. The religion of silver, and of the crescent, was better organized, less complex dogmatically, more victorious in arms, and oriented towards secular power and monolithic outer form. Time and again, the waves of its seas lapped at the fragile edges of Christendom, and time and again, Christendom provided men who put a pause to their own progress to take up the sword in behalf of the altar. In secret studies, one one would meditate on images, icons, or sacred “words” or phrases given one by the Spirit, while one is learning to concentrate the power of the nous, first of all towards the body, then, into the psyche, and finally into the nous-itself, prior to re-divinization in the “Self beyond the Self”, as the nous travels back to God. Robin Amis teaches that the double arrow, or the straight line and the circle, symbolizes the power of the nous that is “in the world, but not of the world”. This might also be the double-headed eagle, so commonly seen in European royal symbolism.

Here, Hercules meditates on a relatively simple and mundane problem, but one that no one has been able to solve. He came, he saw, he conquered. It doesn’t matter what the gods decree – Hercules will finish, and the labor will count unofficially, if nothing else, in the popular mythology of the folk, who recognize the good deed for what it is. In any case, Hercules is now beginning to have “power to spare”.
A poem beautifully expressing this is Thomas Moore’s Prince’s Day. The body and psyche, “in chains” and suffering, nevertheless expresses a strong yearning for the will of the Prince. Paradoxically, the suffering and yearning of the body/psyche provide a “distraction from distraction” – the nous is turned farther inward, and the path rather than being deflected, is intensified. The ocean wave withdraws to gather its strength. I include the whole poem – it is part of the Logos, the gift of the true West to men. When the book of Kells was created, something was added to the religion of Christ (I say “added”, but rather revealed as latent). The East isolated images in their essential purity, but if you look at the pages of the book of Kells, you see knot-work, playful animals and creatures, and a kind of background dance and delight in Nature. The Celtic and Frankish saints who converted the West were immersed in the world, and yet, still, not of it.

The Prince’s Day

Though dark are our sorrows, today we’ll forget them,
And smile through our tears, like a sunbeam in showers:
There never were hearts, if our rulers would let them,
More form’d to be grateful and blest than ours.
But just when the chain, Has ceased to pain,
And hope has enwreathed it round with flowers,
There comes a new link, Our spirits to sink –
Oh! the joy that we taste, like the light of the poles,
Is a flash amid darkness, too brilliant to stay;
But, though ’twere the last little spark in our souls,
We must light it up now, on our Prince’s Day.

Contempt on the minion who calls you disloyal!
Though fierce to your foe, to your friends you are true;
And the tribute most high to a head that is royal,
Is love from a heart that loves liberty too.
While cowards, who blight Your fame, your right,
Would shrink from the blaze of the battle array,
The Standard of Green In front would be seen –
Oh, my life on your faith! were you summon’d this minute,
You’d cast every bitter remembrance away,
And show what the arm of old Erin has in it,
When roused by the foe, on her Prince’s Day.He loves the Green Isle, and his love is recorded
In hearts which have suffer’d too much to forget;
And hope shall be crown’d, and attachment rewarded,
And Erin’s gay jubileee shine out yet.
The gem may be broke By many a stroke,
But nothing can cloud its native ray;
Each fragment will cast A light to the last –
And thus, Erin, my country, though broken thou art,
There’s lustre wiithin thee, that ne’er will decay;
A spirit which beams through each suffering part,
And now smiles at all pain on the Prince’s Day.

The Inner Meaning of Revolution

"Carvalho's study of the revolutionary mind has been well regarded in Brazil by people such as Roberto de Oliveira Campos,^[11] Paulo Francis,^[12] and Bruno Tolentino.^[13]

He sees a characteristic of the revolutionary mind in the inversion of the perception of time. He says normal individuals, based on common sense, view the past as something immutable and the future as something that can be changed (it is contingent, as de Carvalho puts it). However, the leftist revolutionary sees the utopian future as a goal that eventually will be reached no matter what and the past as something that can be changed, through reinterpretation, to accommodate it.^[14]

Carvalho also points out that because the revolutionary believes implicitly in a future utopia where there will be no evil, this same leftist revolutionary believes that no holds should be barred in achieving that utopia. Thus, his own criminal activities in achieving that goal are above reproach.^[14]"

Wiki, Carvalho

This is Precisely What the Orthodox are Saying!

Link

It is precisely the novelty of scholastic thought and the "sacred heart" (which undoubtedly has a spiritual place and worth in a proper context) which lead to the abandonment of the existence/essence distinction, along with a misunderstanding of the energies of God, which lead the West down the "sentimental" primrose path of ruin towards Hell. This is why we are powerless to stop the "Revolution", conservatives!

The Parties are Over

Even the conservatives are waking up to what has happened (when liberals "wake up", they either convert to traditional men, or else go into a deeper dream state worse than the first, so I hold no hope of their "grouping", but this is a promising trend, because conservatives still have some good instincts).

As I explained to my boss recently, I disagree vehemently with either liberals or conservatives - but here is a difference. If the Left lived up to its own standards, I would still be obligated to oppose them, come what may (and I'll note here that I might even include the "classical liberal" of old times in this boat of the Left, as much as I love Lord Acton). However, if the conservative party lived up to its own standards, I would be proud to denote myself a factional party man. Except of course, they can't, because factions and parties are doomed by their false foundation, which is collective, rather than built upon individual enlightenment.

In this vein of thought, I think a reworking of classical liberalism is in order - there is much to be harvested out and explained and kept, but the fundamental idea that "man is born free" is totally skewed. In fact, it is a relatively new propaganda item to even claim that this is what "classical liberals" (even men like John Adams) ever taught to begin with. Jefferson and Paine, maybe & yes, but even the Founding Father revolutionaries knew a mob-man when they saw one, or a vulgar couchpotarian.

Classical liberals were generally men of aristocratic leaning (or else they openly sided with revolutionaries like Garibaldi), who believed in the maximum amount of freedom that was possible, feasible, desirable, and useful (in Baron Ledhin's description). In an expanding world of European chivalry with industrial benefits and centuries of Christian education behind it, this may have had a rather artificially large scope. Unless we are willing to go back to the medieval village, our Empire will have to be governed by mandarins. The question is, will we qualify them by forcing them to master virtue and "useless knowledge" (read, metaphysics and a capacity for noetic appreciation of supersensible truths), or will we allow them to be the "bright and shiny calculators and self-made opportunists" which they have evolved of late?

It's quite true to say today that Democracy has become Kakistocracy (as it had to, were we to read the Greeks and Romans). There is no such thing as Large Scale Direct Democracy, except in Hell. Hell is the perfect democracy.

The entire Western process has degraded the spiritual castes (estates or levels of being) and its order into mush, all in the guise of Sweetness and Light. There will be no answer, until the virtuous defeat evil by converting it to good. Then we will have rule by those who are annointed, rather than self-annointed.

Do you want to be ruled by bankers and career opportunists, or a wise man who reluctantly rules "in the path of heaven"?

General Law

Post at Gornahoor. Please note that General Law properly understood (as both Hammer and Doorway) will provide the rationally minded individual with a lifetime of wisdom as they navigate a dangerous Life. In fact, Life will no longer be so dangerous.

Throne & Altar

This is the content, then, of the Old Right: Throne and Altar, as it is often put, were the unifying factors in social life. The Revolution rejected that basis, but, as a purely negative movement, it had nothing to replace the old ideals. Solovyov explains:

The Revolution ultimately rejected the old ideals …but because of its negative character it could not provide new ones; it liberated individual elements, gave them an absolute significance, but deprived their activity of its essential foundation and nourishment. For this reason we see that the excessive development of individualism in the contemporary West leads directly to its opposite — a universal depersonalization and vulgarization.

Source