The Concept of Counter-Initiation in Traditional Knowledge

Jeff Wells' site Rigorous Intuition has been a daily read for me for more than a year now. He has a remarkable taste and talent for investigative research, and is pioneering an original voice for this in the weblog format. Over time, Rigorous Intuition has begun to weave more primarily between a small handful of threads, occasionally even tying two or three together for a brief time in an ongoing and open-ended tapestry which is always refreshing reading, as it is always informed by a sincere sense of questioning rather than any preconception or agenda.

One of the themes Wells has been circling around lately has to do with certain generalized suspicions that there appears to be a nefarious, even "Satanic" principle operating within and behind various activities and organizational power structures worldwide. One specific example being that Wells has for some months been citing and pondering a large and disparate body of reports linking child prostitution and ritual abuse cases--often possessing a distinctly "darkly magical" initiatory tone--and which would suggest to being strongly wedded within high-level religious and political bodies throughout several Western societies. As Wells himself is always quick to admit, it's a very difficult proposition to swallow, as it is so distinctly alien to our conventional experience, our common sense, and our world-view. And yet, the stories keep coming.

Strangely enough, it is just here that Wells studies become tangential with my own, because in actuality this particular theme that he's found himself pursuing has already been recognized and defined by several reasoned and respected scholars of esoteric knowledge. In fact, such "satanic" forces (more distinctly defined below), manifesting in exactly this type of manner, have been identified as a principle element and indication in respect to the closing of the present human cycle.

I quoted from Julius Evola's Revolt Against the Modern World in the last posting. Let me cite a few more passages which provide a larger sense of the historical background and reference in regard to the present topic. But again a quick caveat: as I mentioned then, it's difficult and not entirely adviseable to isolate any singular aspect from any work which attempts to relate objective esoteric knowledge, since such works generally form a comprehensive body of thought. Nonetheless, I've come to feel that Wells' investigations might plausibly be painting in some of the color and details on a highly strange picture which was sketched out long ago....

"Catholicism itself had already assumed the myth of original sin. Protestantism exasperated this myth by proclaiming the fundamental powerlessness of man to achieve salvation through his own efforts; generally speaking, it regarded the whole of humankind as a damned mass, condemned to automatically commit evil.
[...]
After rejecting the objective notion of spirituality as a reality ranking higher than profane existence, the Protestant doctrine allowed man to feel, in all aspects of life, as a being who was simultaneously spiritual and earthly, justified and sinner....It was in the historical development of Protestantism, especially in Anglo-Saxon Calvinism and Puritanism, that the religious idea became increasingly dissociated from any transcendent interest and thus susceptible to being used to sanctify any temporal achievement to the point of generating a kind of mysticism of social service, work, "progress," and even profit."
[...]
"The individualism intrinsic in the Protestant theory of private interpretation of Scripture was connected with another aspect of modern humanism: rationalism. The single individual who got rid of the dogmatic tradition and the principle of spiritual authority, by claiming to have within himself the capability of right discernment, gradually ended up promoting the cult of that which in him, as a human being, is the basis of all judgments, namely, the faculty of reason....Naturally there were some "germs" of rationalism in ancient Hellas...and in the Middle Ages....Beginning with the Renaissance, however, rationalism became differentiated and assumed, in one of its most important currents, a new character: from speculative in nature it became aggressive and generated the Enlightenment, Encyclopedism, and antireligious and revolutionary criticism. In this regard, it is necessary to acknowledge the effects of further processes of involution and inversion that display an even more sinister character because they negatively affected some surviving organizations of an initiatic type, as in the case of the Illuminati and of modern Masonry....Members of such organizations promoted this inversion until they transformed the groups that they led into active instruments of the diffusion of antitraditional and rationalist thought. One of the most tangible examples of this is the role Masonry played in the American Revolution as well as in the underground ideological preparation of the French Revolution and in the revolutions that occurred in Spain, Turkey, and Italy, among others. This is how the secret front of world subversion and countertradition was formed, not just through general influences alone, but also through specific centers of action."
[...]
[With the further degeneration of the social character over time]..."The acceleration that characterizes all falling bodies causes the phase of individualism and rationalism to be overcome and to be followed by the emergence of irrational and elemental forces characterized by mystical overtones....[as a result of which]...while previous revolutions [those mentioned above] almost always escaped from the control of those who had started them and ended up devouring their "children," [yet] this happened only to a small degree in Russia, where a continuity of power and terror was firmly established....Even though it had no regard for individuals and no scruples about the means to be employed for the [removal of dissenters], still, at the center of the revolution there were never relevant crises or oscillations. This is indeed a characteristic as well as sinister trait; it foreshadows an era in which the forces of darkness will no longer work behind the scenes but come out into the open, having found their most suitable incarnation in beings in whom daemonism teams up with a lucid intellect, a method, and a strong will to power. A phenomenon of this kind is one of the most salient characteristics of the terminal point of every cycle."

Evola goes on to mount a lengthy argument that the advent of communism and the rise of modern American capitalism are nothing more than "two faces of the same coin, or two movements whose destructive paths converge." His central argument is that both systems effectively serve to invalidate any movement toward true aristocracy (authority derived from personal ability and merit) or the dignity and sovereignty of the individual. Thus having become almost completely barren of any connection with forces of a superior nature, both societies are equally open to subversion by infernal ones.

So having established this brief historical framework which speaks about a long "preparatory" period in which these forces of subversion--which operate on many levels but which nonetheless maintain an intentional directive operating through human beings and "through specific centers of action"--let's now turn to renowned esoteric scholar Rene Guenon for a little more distinctive detail. An intellectual predecessor of Evola's, Guenon's masterpiece The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times was first published in French in 1945. In it, Guenon introduced the term "counter-initiation" to describe the hidden forces whose sole purpose was to oppose the superior forces of true spiritual initiation in the world. Like Evola, Guenon also viewed these counter-initiatory (or "Satanic") forces as existing on many levels; in other words, maintaining an immaterial form and intelligence as well as acting through individual human beings--most especially through those who embraced and cultivated an awareness of them.

"Initiation, in whatever form it may appear, is that which really incarnates the "spirit" of a tradition, and is also that which allows of the effective realization of "super-human" states; evidently therefore initiation is the thing that must be opposed by anti-traditional action, which tries by every means to drag men towards the "sub-human". The term "counter-initiation" is therefore the best for describing that to which the human agents through whom the anti-traditional action is accomplished belong, both as a whole and in their various degrees (for, like initiation itself, it must necessarily comprise degrees)."
[...]
"The anti-traditional action necessarily had to aim both at a change in the general mentality and at the destruction of all traditional institutions in the West, since the West is where it began to work first and most directly, while awaiting the proper time for an attempt to extend its operations over the whole world, using the Westerners duly prepared to become its instruments. Moreover, once the mentality had been changed, the institutions could be the more easily destroyed because they would then no longer conform to it; the work that aims at a deviation of mentality therefore appears to be really fundamental, and on that work all else must depend in one way or another....[P]erhaps the most astonishing thing of all is the speed with which it has been possible to induce Westerners to forget everything connected with the existence of a traditional civilization in their countries...it becomes easy to understand that so complete and abrupt a change cannot have come about in a natural and spontaneous way."

At this point Guenon provides and outline of the stages by which this "subversion" was effected, actions working to introduce intentional "deviations" at specific moments in the mentality of the masses, and then allowing those deviations to be taken up by those who have insufficient intelligence for discernment so that they then can run their course more naturally. So all in all this speaks to a direction by subversive forces which must operate outside of a merely human dimension. And yet all of this, he states, is only part of the "first phase" of the counter-initiatory agenda. There is also a second phase, one whose groundwork ran parallel with the work of the first phase, but which was intended to be introduced only after the action of the initial phase had been substantially completed:

"This is the moment at which the second kind of work, which had at first only been carried out in a more or less hidden manner by way of preparation, and in any case on a restricted scale, had to come into the open and in its turn to cover an increasingly wide field....After having enclosed the [mentality of the masses in the] corporeal world as completely as possible, it was necessary, while guarding against the re-establishment of any communication with superior domains, to open it up again from below, so as to allow the dissolving and destructive forces of the inferior subtle domain to penetrate into it. It is the "unleashing" of these forces, so to speak, and the setting of them to work to complete the deviation of our world and effectively to bring it towards final dissolution, which constitutes the second part or second phase referred to."

Strictly speaking, for Guenon the first phase represented a long strategy of slow "deviation" in the "mentality" of the masses. Guenon places the beginning of this phase roughly at the close of the Middle Ages. The second phase, the phase of more active and persistent "subversion", he believes had already begun in his time, indicating the end of the 19th and the first few decades of the 20th century--an interesting period because it marked the solidification of capitalism via corporate hegemony, continual social upheavals, a long "spiritualism" fad, and possibly the appearance of the "modern" UFO phenomenon. However Guenon remarks: "...none but its first effects have as yet become apparent, but they have become sufficiently apparent to allow their sequel to be foreseen, and to make it possible to say with no exaggeration whatever that the second aspect of anti-traditional action moves from now onwards into the first place...".

So how does all this relate in a more practical manner to the disturbing accounts that Jeff Wells has been bringing together at Rigorous Intuition? Neither Evola nor Guenon ever allow the discussion to descend from the "bird-eye" view to the more mundane details of things, but we can begin to place these details within a context if we look more closely at what Guenon has reveals about the nature and "modus operandi" of this counter-initiation.

"The antitraditional activity now being studied in its various aspects has been called "satanic", but it must be clearly understood that the word is used quite independently of any particular idea that anyone may have formed, whether in conformity with some theological outlook or otherwise, of any so-called "Satan"....What has to be taken into account is, on the one hand, the spirit of negation and of subversion into which "Satan" is resolved metaphysically...and, on the other hand, the thing that can properly be held to represent it and so to speak to "incarnate" it in the terrestrial world in which its action is being studied, and this thing is precisely what has been called the "counter-initiation". It should be noted that the expression "counter-initiation" has been used here, and not "pseudo-initiation", for the two are quite different..."pseudo-initiation" as it exists today in numerous organizations, many of them attached to some form of "neo-spiritualism"...is really only one of the products of the state of disorder and confusion brought about in the modern period by the "satanic" activity which has its conscious starting point in the "counter-initiation"."
[...]
"It may be remarked that the "counter-initiation" works with a view to introducing its agents into "pseudo-initiatic" organizations, using the agents to "inspire" the organizations, unperceived by the ordinary members and usually also by the ostensible heads, who are no more aware than the rank-and-file of the purpose they are really serving; but it is as well to add that such agents are in fact introduced in a similar way and wherever possible into all the more exterior "movements" of the contemporary world, political or otherwise, and even, as was mentioned earlier, into authentically initiatic or religious organizations, but only when their traditional spirit is so weakened that they can no longer resist so insidious a penetration."

Guenon further added the following comments in regard to these pseudo-initiatic organizations, which I think bear citing because they could also quite easily be applied to the above-mentioned "other centers of movements" in our present times, namely to corporations, political and economic "agenda setting" organizations and such:

"It is not as if "pseudo-initiatic" organizations for the most part took much trouble to hide their existence, indeed many of them go so far as openly to indulge in a propaganda totally incompatible with their esoteric pretensions. But in spite of this they continue as organizations to be among the least apparent, and to be those that best lend themselves to the exercise of a "discreet" action, so that the "counter-initiation" can get more directly into contact with them than with anything else, without having to fear that its intervention will be unmasked....Moreover the greater part of the general public, while it is more or less aware of the existence of "pseudo-initiatic" organizations, is by no means clear as to what they are...and the very indifference of the public serves the same purpose, albeit unwittingly, as could be attained by strict secrecy."

The following predictions were made about the unfolding course in which these agents of the counter-initiation would participate, as well as what I feel is an enlightening comment about the origins of this counter-initiation...perhaps especially so in light of the numerous references to Egyptian, or at the very least "pseudo-early-historic", elements in many of the supposed "rites" which have been cited at Rigorous Intuition.

"For this purpose, the part to be played by the "counter-initiation" must again be referred to: after having worked always in the shadow to inspire and direct invisibly all modern movements, it will in the end contrive to "exteriorize", if that is the right word, something that will be as it were the counterpart of a true tradition, at least as completely and as exactly as it can be so within the limitations necessarily inherent in all possible counterfeits as such....the "counter-tradition", however far it carries the imitation, will never succeed in being anything but a parody, but it will be the most extreme and the most gigantic of all parodies, and we have only so far seen, despite all the falsification of the modern world, some very partial "trials" and some very pale "prefigurations" of it; something much more formidable is in preparation for a future considered by some to be near, and the growing rapidity of the succession of events today is an indication of its proximity."
[...]
"However that may be, the thing that makes it possible for affairs to reach such a point is that the "counter-initiation" (and this is something that must be said) cannot be regarded as a purely human invention, such as would be in no way distinguishable by its nature from plain "pseudo-initiation"; in fact it is much more than that, and in order that it may really be so, it must in a certain sense, so far as its actual origin is concerned, proceed from the unique source to which all initiation is attached, the very source from which, speaking more generally, everything in our world that manifests a "non-human" element proceeds; but the "counter-initiation" proceeds from that source by a degeneration carried to its extreme limit, and that limit is represented by the "inversion" that constitutes "satanism" properly so-called. A degeneration of this kind is evidently much more profound than is that of a tradition merely deviated to a certain extent, or even truncated and left with only its lower part; something more is involved even than in cases of dead traditions so completely abandoned by the spirit that the "counter-initiation" itself can make use of their "residues" for its own purposes, as explained earlier. This leads logically to the thought that this extreme degeneration must go a very long way back into the past; and however obscure the question of its origins may be, there is some plausibility in the idea that it may be connected with the perversion of one of the ancient civilizations belonging to one or another of the continents that have disappeared in cataclysms occurring in the course of the present Manvantara." [Ed. note- the "cycle of humankind" as described in Hindu traditions.]

And finally, a notable passage regarding these "agents" of the counter-tradition:

"The representatives of the "counter-initiation" are in fact as completely ignorant as ordinary profane people....Since it can neither lead beings towards "super-human" states as can initiation, nor confine itself exclusively to the human domain, the "counter-initiation" inevitably leads them towards the "sub-human", and the power to do so is precisely the only effective power left to it; it is only too easy to see that this is something quite different from the comedy of "pseudo-initiation". In Islamic esoterism it is said that one who presents himself at a certain "gate", without having reached it by a normal and legitimate way, sees it shut in his face and is obliged to turn back, but not as a mere profane person, for he can never be such again, but as a saher (a sorcerer or a magician working in the domain of subtle possibilities of an inferior order). It would be impossible to put the position more clearly..."

There is much more that could be said about this final stage in the human cycle referred to as the "counter-initiation" (or sometimes as the "false return"). But for the time being, these passages help to provide a more objective frame of reference for understanding and "placing" these things within a proper context. So for instance, if we hold to Guenon's assessment we would be cautioned against assuming that every grotesque or deviant action occurs under the direction of "satanic agents". As has been indicated, we need to remember that while certainly every deviation must indeed have its roots in an intentional perversion somewhere in the meta-history of our species, a great many things are simply the result of "residual ripples" extending out in time from those original actions, and propagating naturally (or un-naturally as the case may be) within the masses of people--a people who in general no longer really know "which end is up". Both Guenon and Evola assert that the forces of "counter-initiation" are primarily occupied with cutting human beings off from the knowledge of anything transcendent, and then when this has been effectively completed, offering up a "parody" or "counterfeit" of the authentic initiatory experience "vitalized" by energies from the sub-human realm. Without speculating as to the exact nature of this view, it would appear that any activity in the more "secular" spheres of action would be largely secondary (although certainly necessary in perverting and destroying a natural and healthy mentality in people).

However my primary hope in posting these passages at length is to provide support for the argument which claims that there appears to be a purposeful and orchestrated intention behind certain "deviant" and "subversive" activities, occurrences, organizations and even individuals in our society. So we can now observe that these same conclusions had already been developed many decades ago by individuals of highly discerning and perceptive sensibilities--and developed not "from the ground up" as a mere way of explaining half-felt suspicions and nagging doubts, but from the "top down": that these things might be seen as an objectively necessary element or phase in a much larger process that is the unfolding cycle of humankind. Blinded as we understandably are by our "closeness" to modern life, it is easy to feel that perhaps the world has just always been the way we perceive it now. But it has not. The passage of humankind through the generations has always manifested as a developing process, one subject to very large-scale and yet objectively verifiable laws and conditions. It has an aim and it has a purpose, albeit ones very far outside the perspective of our own individual speck of a life. And yet, it is precisely the recognition of these laws and these purposes--the effort to discover through direct experience "who am I?" and "why am I here?"--that transcendent knowledge can reveal to us. This is the essential principle behind the initiatory experience; and this is what the forces of counter-initiation have worked so long and hard to deny us. Because to know these things gives one real power, and not the sham power that is offered to these "agents" instead. And what Evola and Guenon have labored to show us is that our very ignorance of even the importance of undertaking a search of this type, much less the loss of the knowledge that could inform it, shows us just how successful the forces of subversion have been....

Comments

[albion]

if you like evola then you'll love francis parker yockey. he's another perverse nazi fuckwad. perhaps useful for understanding 'the satanic principle' from the inside, but little else.

http://www.spitfirelist.com/f371.html
http://www.spitfirelist.com/f233.html

[Steven Lagavulin]

I had little doubt that some yahoo to would soon spout this BS out.

Alright, you've obviously never actually read anything by Evola...and yet you've heard one or two pieces of strangely popularized misinformation and so you present these "ready made" opinions as though they are your own.

Evola was not a Nazi, nor a direct supporter of the Nazi party. His ideals WERE taken up by Mussolini (whom he had even met with), and Evola served in the Italian Carbinieri during the war--lets face it, if you had lived in Italy during that period, you also would have served in the fascist effort in some way. In actual fact, however, Evola strongly criticized the misappropriation of his ideology for the political cause. He held his beliefs to be inarguably superior to any "worldly" political or social ideal--they were objective knowledge, in his book. Therefore he never espoused any of the popular movements of the time.

Read his writing. Come to your own opinions. There is too much crap out there as it is which has been designed to leads us to shut ourselves off from "the taste for things that are true."

[albion]

i have no interest in arguing ideology with you. i admit i haven't read much evola. but i have read a little bit about the kind of people evola hung out with and those were putrid fascsit fuckwads like francis parker yockey. i actually agree that evola might be germane to a lot of what jeff wells writes about, and worthy of further consideration. dave emory, whose site i linked to above, makes extensive use of kevin coogan's dreamer of the day: francis parker yockey and the postwar fascist international, and places evola, both the man and his ideas, within (if not precisely at the center of) the postwar pan-fascist underground that would eventualy bring us stuff like paperclip, monarch, mk-ultra, crooked offshore banking, money laundering, narcotics trafficking...pretty much all of it, right down to the cults and the UFO's. although i have disagreed with emory on a number of things, his topics are generally well-researched and well-considered. his theories may be as speculative as jeff wells or any other conspiracy theorist's, but i'm pretty sure they are not "designed to leads us to shut ourselves off" from anything, nor do i think they are necessarily incompatible with what jeff wells writes about. anyway, multicontextual and multiperspectival thinking is what conspiracy theory is all about, right?

so it's in that context that your post raises the intriguing possibility that some of the agents of the conspiracies that we are seeing bubble to the surface may actually be evola-ists (not to mention yockey-ites and spengler-philes), which might perhaps explain the similarity you mention. don't take it personally, okay?

as for ideas of mankind's 'devolution' from mind or spirit beings, i personally find the various eastern traditions much more useful and comprehensive than any of that hyperborean horseshit.

[albion]

according to coogan, henrich himmler said of evola: "his learnedness tends toward the dilettante and pseudoscientific." pretty withering, considering what a putrid fascist fuck himmler was. nevertheless, evola "found his SS connection not with the Wotanists inside Himmler's inner circle but with the pan-Europeanist elements inside both the Waffen SS and the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), Nazi Germany's CIA. (p. 310)

dreamer of the day: francis parker yockey and the postwar fascist international, is the full title, by kevin coogan.

is that the "strangely popularlized misinformation" you mentioned? not very popular, i'd say.

[Steven Lagavulin]

Albion,
I apologize for the over-reaction...your original post read as though you were linking Evola ideologically with the Nazi party and that therefore I myself must also hold similar beliefs.... So I wanted to nip that suspicion in the bud as quick as possible.

I just re-read the brief biography in the introduction to "Revolt Against the Modern World", and it confirmed that Evola did have a strong interest in Italian Fascism for a while (he was a believer in rule by authentic "aristocracy"--a term he defines at length in several places). However he became disenchanted when he realized their interests were far to "earthly" for his tastes.... Then he courted the National Socialist party, which is where the NAZI connection came in, but as you reference above, they didn't want him and he didn't want them for the same reasons as the Fascists. Evola was essentially just looking for a political alignment which would be open to his ideals.

Evola strictly adhered to the belief that the history of humankind reflected symbolically the inner, nature of human beings. And there is a great deal of evidence for this to draw from in traditional and historical accounts. Some of Evola's views are arguable, in my opinion (he called the Feminism movement "stupid"), but overall he is a remarkably authentic and insightful thinker--and one of the very, very small number of writers who can bring you to call into question your world-view on a fundamental level.

His works have only begun to be made available in English in the past decade or so. They are certainly some of the most challenging reading I've every encountered, and not by any means for everybody. But I'm pretty well-read in these areas, and I don't get the sense that he has any kind of "hidden agenda" or motives...I believe he is a remarkable and sincere seeker of objective knowledge.

[Steven Lagavulin]

Oh, I forgot to add:

I haven't read Dreamer of the Day, but the hypothesis from the second link you gave is certainly interesting, and I think the speculation is intelligent.... In fact, it seems much more logical to me that Evola might have become involved in something of a more immanent nature than the "mere politics" he was so disillusioned with, which was driven by what he felt were vulgar and prosaic interests.

[albion]

yeah, i think you're definitely onto something, i'm just not sure exactly what. evola and guenon both figure pretty prominently throughout coogan's book. without re-reading the whole thing, i recall that evola was cozying up to various far-right groups in hopes of forming a secret society, which coogan hypothetically coins "the order" and which emory develops into his concept of a still-existing "underground reich" - which is more specifically internationalist than the idea of an american "secret government," but certainly along those lines. now my knowledge of WWII history is embarassingly slim, but i believe that toward the end of the war the occultists in himmler's circle were ecliped by the realist-industrialist bormann circle. in coogan and emory's conception, evola and guenon represent a linkage between the pan-european (i.e. non-norse) fascist occultists, and the german & italian industrial flight capital circles (which includes BUSH money via thyssen). for allied intelligence it was an expedient deal for postwar reconstruction, for the fascists it was a a matter of consolidation and self-preservation, laying the groundwork for a future fourth reich. and who better to help the defeated fascists after the war, than the death merchants who were making money off all sides during the war?

anyhow, that's roughly the theory. in general i hold to a "multiple conspiracies struggling against each other" line of inquiry, as opposed to a One Big Conspiracy approach. i believe there is a history of actual conspiracies being formed to combat mythic/mystic conspiracies (whether real or imagined) and also a fair bit of cross-fertilization and/or double-crossing between various groups. so i am not wedded to any particular interpretation at this point. as for evola and guenon, well i think there are a number of intellectuals who are sometimes unfairly tarred with the nazi label, for example carl jung and rudolf steiner. but evola and guenon - it looks to me like they were right there in the thick of it, whatever their specific roles.

this quote from coogan, from my 2nd link above, ties it all together pretty well:

“This account of the origins of the Order is obviously speculative, and I advance it as hypothesis, not fact. Yet if I am correct the SD really did have a need for Evola’s unique talents. With his extensive knowledge of matters esoteric and occult; his fascination with secret societies and knightly Orders; his Waffen SS transnationalism; his ties to some of the highest figures in fascism, Nazism, and movements like the Iron guard; and his loyal service to the SD, Baron Evola was a perfect candidate to help theorize a new under ground Order. As the SD’s equivalent of Albert Pike, the former Confederate Army general who designed the rituals for the Scottish Rite Masons in the late 1800’s, Evola’s task was to help create the inner organizational and ritual structure for the Grand Masters of a secret Shamballah whose financial nerve center was carefully hidden away in Swiss bank accounts.”

[Chris Stahnke]

Italian Fascism contained many elements. My grandfather marched with Mussolini on Rome but his concerns involved a re-establishment of virtue in society and building a common purpose among people of all social classes. In many ways he could have been a Communist but specifically objected, as many young Italian intellectuals did, to the desire on the part of Communists and other leftists to destroy structures and bonds between people that create conviviality and, at best, human nobility. He later split with the Fascists when he saw his friends (some of who were or had been leftists of one kind or another) being carted off by thugs for “questioning”. At any rate calling someone a Nazi, Fascist or a Communist because those particular regimes had a history of extreme brutality is fundamentally empty since the leaders of nearly all cultures, when given the opportunity, can be incredibly brutal when given the power. Witness the current leadership’s fascination with violence and torture almost for its own sake.

Let’s drop labels and move on to the problem we collectively face which are urgent and, at the same time, full of promise. While there’s a lot of nasty energy around there’s also a lot of really positive healing energy around and we need to emphasize that. I’ll just end on a little vignette. We have a spiritual healer staying with us who centers his work on service to others and to the Divine. He wanted to go to visit some powerful places in Washington DC (we live nearby) and try to do some healing visualization work. After that we stopped to pick up some little pictures of George Bush that he said we should put on our alter. “Yuck” my 12 year old daughter said. He explained that being angry or hateful towards Bush only feeds the negative energy that sustains the nasty things Bush does; only love or, at least, acceptance can really change anything. I think he is right. The only thing that will pull us out of the very difficult situation we face in a culture that devalues all virtue, all transcendence is to pull out the nuclear option—which is love. I don’t mean passive love, but love that inspires service. If there is anything we lack, from the political perspective, it is a lack of a cohesive community with some basic common values focused on cultivating awareness and that encourage us to give up personal gain and indulgence in the plethora of whims that we seem to flock to in lieu of being really present. Those of us that seek to institute some positive changes need to organize ourselves into practical mutual-aid societies that aren’t just something on the internet but something physical with substance. I sense people are waiting for it. Still, we need the perspective that this excellent web site provides to locate ourselves.

[albion]

i don't think there's anything hysterical or paranoid about calling evola and guenon fascists, because they were. it would be a disservice to them and to ourselves to try and separate their spiritual ideals from their political ideals for our own purposes - their transcendental ideas are necessarily of a continuum with their political ideas & earthly activities and should be considered in respect of each other. i think this can only shed MORE light on what went on during the 40s, and what's going on these days.

you'll have to pardon my irritable manner, its nothing personal against anyone but ww2 never again is a bit of a mantra for me these days.

[Akerbeltz]

" their transcendental ideas are necessarily of a continuum with their political ideas & earthly activities and should be considered in respect of each other."

Nonsense. Blavatsky, Gurdjieff, Crowley, Krishnamurti, Castaneda - all could be unapologetic jerks at times, but all of their writings have spiritual value. Human beings are, well, human, even those who've advanced spiritually. Evola and Guenon ( and Eliade, and Joseph Campbell, and Jung) both had worldviews that didn't fit in well with the mundane realities of the modern world. Evola thought Fascism would bring about a return to higher values. He was mistaken, and I think he became well aware of the fact that he was mistaken.