Dilemma of Traditionalism

Nearly, all those I know who practiced modern spritual bullshit such as the New Age Movement, Theosophy, and the like have ended up destroying themselves at some point. The dangers of these approachs reside in their hidden affirmation of the ego: They believe that man alone has the ability to explore the other dimensions without following the specific teaching of the masters and the prophets and without following a specific path, but instead just using what they find useful for them, from various kinds of mysticism approachs and alchemy and magical practices and so, it is like a technological method in some sense, in that, they are like a kid playing with a gun, it is a sort of false pride.

This entire problem comes from their invalid presuppositions about the religions and traditions, these false presuppositions exist also in some traditionalists: I can understand someone who choose to follow Christianity or Islam or Buddhism or whatever, as long as he understand exactly what the hell he is doing, and he is ready to accept all and ALL the teachings of the tradition he has chosen without messing with any principle whatsoever.

A problem that is going on with many "Traditionalists" is that they are in some sense take the same philosophical principle as the "New Age", namely is that all religions are one truth and so on (primordial tradition) for granted as principle, before even the teachings of the specific tradition they follow, which creates a serious problem, cause they are developing another modern approach in that way, which stands out of all traditions, which is close to the Theosophical approach.

My personal opinion on that is: The problem occurs because of the ignorance of the essence of the spiritual knowledge, a stupid muslim traditionalist might think himself in the same position as Rene Guenon's just because he understood his books, and he would think himself has a deep understanding of the hidden symbolism of the Quran better than most muslims just because he read some books without engaging in real initiatic spiritual practices. In my thoughts, I think most of those don't really accept the teachings of the Abrahamic religions, they may don't like the idea of Heaven and Hell for example or whatever, so they look for another approach of interpretation, which again, will led directly to a modern distorted spirituality.

- Abd Ar-Rahman Alwerfalli

The notion of "traditionalism" today is actually less the result of Rene Guenon's own work and efforts and more that of the manipulations effected by the so-called "Turin group".

Evola makes some remarks on this group in The Concept of Initiation


"Since we have mentioned the contribution to the study of Initiation made by René Guénon and the Paris-based group inspired by him, it is perhaps advisable to mention the special case constituted by a small group which has formed in Turin at the time of this writing, which would like to be ‘Traditional’ and devoutly Guénonian. Although it cannot be relegated to the plane of the numerous neo-spiritualistic conventicles, nevertheless it makes Guénonianism into a veritable scholasticism (in the second-rate sense).

As true aspirants to the ‘top of their class’, its members slavishly follow their teacher, with tedious and stereotyped repetitions, to the point of suffocating the more lively elements of his doctrine instead of developing them, going deeper into them, or achieving any eventual revisions and integrations of those points in Guénon where, despite all his efforts, problems remain which are not by any means about ‘metaphysics’ (in his sense), but about simple philosophy, and where some consequences, often simplistic, of his personal equation can be felt. In the meantime, in a magazine, they presume to be able to start judging Traditionalist ‘orthodoxy’ ex cathedra and calling whoever does not follow their line ‘profane’ and deviationist, avoiding naturally the production of any ennoscriptment which would justify this frivolous pretence of theirs.

As a matter of fact, neither their passive, easy theoretical conformism, nor their being – according to what they claim – on good terms with Freemasonry, can authorise them to regard themselves as ‘non profanes’ : since, in Freemasonry, there is no real, actual and experiential initiation whatever, but only empty, ineffective, debased, ritualistic remains, if not something even worse (compare what we have brought forward on this subject in the last chapter of our ‘Mystery of the Grail’) All this shows a definite lack of sensibility or qualification."

After truly diving into Evola's work, it is my observation that many in our circles - even in these smaller spiritual and intellectual circles - simply do not grasp what Evola says. They do not understand what he wrote or why he did so. The bigger picture which he paints is invisible before their eyes.

Evola's writings are nothing like a holy book or spiritual guide, which if we are being honest is a characterization they get labeled with all to often. If anything his writings show how one might better read holy books, and how one might possibly write guides on spirituality.

Evola's practically mythic reputation as some master of esotericism is so off-the-mark it is insulting to his legacy, which seems increasingly obvious to me to be the single greatest attempt ever made to exotericize spirituality.

It seems to need reiterating that Guénon, Evola, and all the other masters are not spiritual masters at all. They did not teach spirituality, and you will not find good practice in their words. If you attempt so you will be led astray and at best make a damned saint out of yourself, a heretic before all genuine spirituality.

'The vocation sine qua non of man is to be spiritual. Spirituality manifests itself on the planes which constitute man, namely intelligence, will, affectivity, production: human intelligence is capable of transcendence, of the absolute, of objectivity; the human will is capable of liberty, and thus of conformity to what is grasped by the intelligence; human feeling (affectivity), which is joined to each of the preceding faculties, is capable of compassion and generosity, by reason of the objectivity of the human mind, which takes the soul out of its animal egoism. Finally there is the specifically human capacity for production, and it is because of this that man has been called homo faber, and not just homo sapiens only: it is the capacity for producing tools and constructing dwellings and sanctuaries, and if need be for making clothes and creating works of art, and also for spontaneously combining in these creations, symbolism and harmony.' - Frithjof Schuon

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The Will to Power is the ultimate insight into Nietzsche's powerful mind, but most importantly, his vitalist soul. It is with the Will to Power that all of his previous teachings reveal to the student what he had intended from the start, that all true morality comes from the primordial Titanic origin of all things, Nature. Only those resolute and powerful in Will, triumph!
Read his words and feel the messages of conquerors course through your soul and incite you to great and mighty deeds.

“The higher man is distinguished from the lower by his fearlessness and his readiness to challenge misfortune.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power

"When it prevails over contemplation, action thus moves in a definite world, constituted of forms, governed by a law of difference and, therefore, of plurality too: many forces, many consciousnesses, many types, distinct and unmistakable, almost ʻMicrocosms within the Macrocosmʼ, since each of them contains and resolves in its own being the amorphous cosmic possibility. What is thus particularly significant for the Western Tradition is the Aristotelian vision of the world, which is characterised by the fact that, in a being, it considers what is ‘universal’ as less real, more abstract, incomplete (steresis – privation (of being)); the particular, on the contrary, it considers to be what has value, what is desirable, what is more than real, the fulfillment or end (telos) of a being. The Aristotelian doctrine of the sunolon is that, specifically classic, doctrine of the idea or of the ‘engendering force’ which is really real when it actualises itself, individuates itself, asserts itself as power and life of a form, in an indissoluble unity.

Naturally, this should not lead us to attribute to the Western vision of the world a mere pluralism or individualism. There is still a unity, the world is not pure plurality, but rather cosmos, uni-verse, divine order. However, in a warlike tradition, this unity does not have the exclusivist emphasis that the opposite tradition, the ascetic-contemplative one, grants it. Whence, too, the sense of polytheism of the pre-Christian Western world, considerably different from the Oriental one: it is focused, above all, on the concrete and individuated form of the divine powers at work in things, in heroes, in completed types as living works of art, within this clear and harmonious cosmos whose beauty the poets would sing and whose hidden laws and secret analogies the initiates would penetrate.

What is also typical is the importance that, especially in the ancient Roman world, the notion of numen had. The ancient Roman-Occidental man was inclined to conceive any divinity not so much as deus [a god] but rather as numen, that is, as a force, a power, which was defined essentially through its action. Moreover, he would differentiate himself from the Greek spirit by the emphasis he would put on the political and historical element. While, in Greece, the contemplative tendency saw to it that the divine world was conceived of as a sort of atemporal supraworld and, so to speak, as absolute space, Rome strained to grasp this world in its manifestation in time, in history, in the state, in the actions and creations of men, without however diminishing its august character in any manner thereby. The Roman, much more than the Jew, had the sense of a sacred history. The Roman conception of the state, of law, and of the Imperium was based essentially on this historical sense, active and sacred at the same time. The warlike and political caste in Rome typically held a sacred dignity."

- Introduction to Magic

Here the origin of the magnanimity of Rome is described, and how Roman action was the fulfillment of Greek thought. It is often said that Rome hardly conceived of nor built anything new themselves, only borrowing from all they conquered—yet Rome stands on its own merits as the greatest empire ever built. Their development of spiritual thought into a highly organized (and more importantly realized) system of supernatural forces combined with their innate sense of how to apply and act on knowledge learned (wisdom) is a most profound development. And there should be no wonder why they did not sit down to write treatises building on Plato and Aristotle. They achieved their greatness in the synthesis of actual action and contemplation; in the seemless integration of martial discipline and a fundamentally spiritual life. There was no 'lesser war' and 'greater war' nor was there 'church' and 'state.' Rather all life public and private was both a war waged materially, in constant resolute action, and a war of spirit, of carefully understood divine forces.

Rome's crowning achievement is that it achieved in itself a masterpiece of the ars regia: the integration of duality and unity, spirit and matter, god and man. Roman life was therefore heroic in the highest sense. Every Roman from God-Emporer to commoner was both a human individual and an embodiment of spiritual forces, and in living such a true and complete Life, they reflected heaven onto earth.

The philosopher of the future is more like a prophet than a philosopher. Hence, he must learn to think with his heart as well as with his head.
https://www.gornahoor.net/?p=7379

* In a recently published collection of letters between Wolfgang Smith and Fr. Malachi Martin, there is this intriguing comment from Prof. Smith:

If the Greek Fathers could integrate Plato and Neoplatonism into the Christian worldview, and St. Thomas Aquinas could do the same for Aristotle, why should it not be possible, in our day, to correct and somehow “Christianize” Hegel, let us say, or Schelling, or even Nietzsche? Is there not in each of these German “Titans” a certain spark of truth that needs to be brought out, to be “liberated”?

I would highly recommend Michel Henry for his brilliant work at the intersection of spirituality and phenomenology.

I am not endorsing this idea per se, but it is indeed intriguing if one realizes it in fact works both ways; why should it not be possible to correct and somehow "re-traditionalize" Orthodox Christianity, or Catholicism, or even Eckhart and the Templars and the medieval Hermeticists? Is there not in some stands of Christianity a certain spark of truth that needs to be preserved, to be "adapted?"

"Nationalistic Socialism has clearly renounced the ancient, aristocratic tradition of the state. It is nothing more than a semi-collective nationalism that levels everything flat in its centralism, and it has not hesitated to destroy the traditional division of Germany into principalities, lands and cities, which have all enjoyed a relative autonomy." - Julius C. Evola, The Austrian Horizon

"We must close the eyes of the body, to open another vision, which indeed all possess, but very few employ."

Plotinus, Ennead 1.6.8.25–26

"All world-improvers are Socialists. And consequently there are no Classical world-improvers."

- Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West

Demagoguery and utopian ideas are inherently un-aristocratic and anti-traditional. No great man ever asked for approval to conquer. They did not waste time arguing 'their side' and daydreaming about idealized scenarios. Empires are built by the sword. The praxis of great men is violence.

The recent activity in Nationalist circles has shown that they truly are historically and genealogically illiterate, and that therefore they are, among other things, doomed to repeat the trajectory of history. However, like all the fools, they have thrown themselves off the cliffside and will probably never even recognize their mistake, not even when they crash head first into the ground. It is only unfortunate that they seem intent on rousing the whole village to follow them over the edge too.

Once you introduce and allow for the idea of Popular Sovereignty, you are essentially starting on an equation that, like virtually all mathematical problems, has but one final and unavoidable solution.

Although by no means a figure worthy of respect or emulation — and definitively someone who has been "quoted to death" — Eric A. Blair put it unusually well in these words from his essay on the subject "Every nationalist is possessed by the belief that the past can be altered." And we see this very clearly if only in a small way when, in his talk with Davis, Keith is eventually forced to acknowledge that Liberalism and the current order of things does have a connection to nationalism, collectivism, and the idea of Popular Sovereignty.

However, this is only admitted in order to be brushed aside as simply the effect of a "mistake" or "misunderstanding" or "subversion", and not taken for what it actually is; simply the concept being expanded upon and further developed in response to various stimuli. This is a visible trend in history. To take one example, the botched show trial of King Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland, which is the first really prominent example of the idea of Popular Sovereignty being employed legally and politically, clearly indicate how this one notion is held in common by a very diverse but all also, to a greater or lesser extent, subversive ideologies. Every instance of this idea being put into practice has always ended in democracy of one kind or another.

That this concept seems to exist in pre-revolutionary and even ancient texts is irrelevant. Are there refernces to it in traditional literature? very possibly. However, as the Actaeon Journal has pointed out, Rome's founding was mythical. It was founded by the virgin-born son of a God, and even as a king-less republic it took its legitimacy, not from being the mere collective or representation of this or that group of people, but as the elite enforcers and spreaders of the divine peace of heaven on earth. The Medieval monarchies were characterized, not by nationalism or some notion of "ethnic" determinism/collectivism, but by the struggle of an elite to restore Imperium and Sacrum to the world that was about to end.

The Gods are not a symbol for natural phenomena, such as lightening and earthquakes. The natural world is a symbol for the Gods.

Nothing is more real than the Gods, and certainly not the gross material we perceieve.

Modern academia has built its theory of progression on shakey grounds. We are supposed to believe that the ancients, masters of advanced mathematics, builders of monuments we would find impossible today, and philosophers, were childlike in the face of natural phenomena.

It is not ancient superstition that the Gods reflect, but unconditioned cosmic awareness.