Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

I have only a peripheral knowledge of these things but I thought it may interest a few here to read (or skim more likely) this comprehensive indictment of such matters by a former 'initiate', if that's the right word.

Interesting Texts Preserved For Posterity: The Spiritual Fascism of Rene Guenon and His Followers

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

First impression: I'm disappointed that someone graduates from such influences only to recommend Dawkins as a philosopher!! Alarm bells ring immediately.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Thanks Malone for posting this as a matter of interest.

Like Qcrisp, alarm bells went off for me immediately. I was only three or four paragraphs in before my mind was saying, "This guy doesn't know ####!" It went downhill from there.

For those interested (and with the time and patience!) to explore the work and sources of the Traditionalist School, authors like Frithjof Schuon, Rene Guenon, A. Coomaraswamy, Hossein Nasr, Huston Smith and yes, even Julius Evola can still provide much of interest, especially to students of esoteric tradition, cosmology and practices.

Glancing back from these violently divided times, it seems quaint or even dissonant to see that once there were sophisticated scholars representing multiple ethnicities and traditions, agreeing on an essential unity of religion, and devoting time and resources to a common metaphysics.

But times have indeed changed and where once the philosophia perennis was esteemed and respected - even when challenged or debated - now all this has been discarded to "the dustbin of history." To suggest that there were or are esoteric traditions, or that they were based on serious thinking, seems insane to current belief systems.

Still, even in this current inflamed environment, repeatedly labelling someone or their writing as deluded, racist, fascist or "cultist," as the author of this piece does, without citing any sources or examples, is not serious scholarship but simply an opinionated rant.

But if I am to be honest, I'm probably speaking from "the wrong side of history" myself.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Sample quote from the article:

I'll go through this piece by piece.

Was it? I was under the impression that this idea had been around for a long time, in one form or another, elaborated on differently by different people, as ideas tend to be within the human species.

Right, so it wasn't a Guenonian fabrication.

Care to back that up, or is this whole article going to consist of unsubstantiated assertions?

Oh, it is going to consist of unsubstantiated assertions, I see.

To cite two people, off the top of my head, who have been interested in what religions have in common, Aldous Huxley, compiler of the Perennial Philosophy anthology, represents a good counter-example to the picture being drawn here, as he could never be mistaken for having the politics that the author of the article seems to believe inextricably linked with an esoteric tradition, and Thomas Merton, who drew links (among other things) between Catholicism and Taoism, seemed reasonably active in politics quite counter to those under discussion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Merton

In short, I could go through the entire article in this manner if I had time; I submit that its author is an ignoramus in his framing of the issue, however much he might know about Guenon himself. I'm not a partisan for Guenon myself. I've read only excerpts of his work, though, as it happens, I do recognise something in the author's far from objective assessment that:

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

This, in particular, is a fact about the comparative differences of the current age to the age in which some of these scholars were writing, that I think should demand more of our attention. Most (white, at least) proponents of multiculturalism today seem curiously resistant to the idea of actually taking an interest in other cultures.

It's also worth noting some of the interesting cross-pollination taking place in Traditionalist ideas. Coomaraswamy, for instance, was influenced by William Morris. It's not hard to see that in their interest in craft, both Coomaraswamy the traditionalist and Morris the socialist were opposing the alienation of the modern world of mass-production.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Well, as stated in the OP, I have only ever dipped into this entire topic with plenty of scepticism. I have read a couple of Evola's entertaining condemnations of the modern world, but I do think there is a genuine question buried somewhere in the midst of that dense indictment: what are the Traditionalists actually proposing?

I've personally found that any time I've asked any proponents of this line for what it is they actually believe or propose for society they immediately become elusive, vague and retreat into the shadows. This leads me to think either a) they just don't like the modern world, but have no alternatives, which is fine by me, or b) mutter something about 'secret knowledge' etc etc, all very vague and said with a certain superior air.

The other thing is that if you scratch deep enough, many of them possess a strain of virulent anti-semitism, and in fact on several of their sites this is perfectly explicit. There is no point in denying many of them do embrace the idea of a Fascist social model.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

I've definitely felt the same reading about a lot of occult and religious stuff, that I don't have the foggiest about what they really believe. But since I don't know, I'd like to think they're in something a bit more difficult to explain than The Super Cool Secret Club Of Acting Mysterious.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Thanks again Malone, a stimulating topic!

Re. "The other thing is that if you scratch deep enough, many of them possess a strain of virulent anti-semitism, and in fact on several of their sites this is perfectly explicit. There is no point in denying many of them do embrace the idea of a Fascist social model."

I think that is definitely true of the occultists in the Evola mode, but don't know that it applies the same across the board, as many of them were apparently anti-fascists in their own lives, or came from non-western cultural backgrounds where anti-Semitism was not even a primary topic. And many appear to have embraced the idea of a Socialist social model instead of a Fascist one.

This seems to be what is so hard for some politically identified moderns to wrap their heads around re. Traditionalists - what could those with Fascist leanings and those with Socialist leanings find in common to talk about? How could they could be seen to be associated with one another, or even breathe the same air?

My own understanding is that for many in the Perennial Tradition, they did breathe the same air. Their primary identity as a Traditionalist was often not based on their political identity but on their "cosmological" one ("cosmological" in a metaphysical sense). But non-political identities are increasingly hard for many moderns to comprehend.

If anyone cannot embrace or enjoy occult models of history then so be it. But as I understand it, instead of political activism (fascist or otherwise), the majority of Traditionalists were focused on scholarship intended for discussion with other scholars, or on developing an elegiac commentary describing our disintegrating times (the Kali Yuga perhaps).

I've never understood why I should believe that someone who is politically a Fascist should have less understanding of occult tradition, or have less interesting ideas, or be a worse writer, than a Socialist (or vice versa). I am neither myself; both ideologies murdered millions in the 20th Century (with far more killed by the Socialists if you count Stalin and Mao).

For me the Traditionalists (and many others) offer interesting ways of interpreting humanity and its history. Regarding belief systems in general, I appreciate this this statement of John C. Lilly:

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limits... In the province of connected minds, what the network believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the network's mind there are no limits.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

In spite of many years spent listening to neofolk, I've never really "got" what Traditionalism was about.

The article's comments on Sedgwick seem somewhat strange. If it is indeed from 2008, Sedgwick was at Aarhus University in Denmark, where he still is. The rumours about him converting to some sort of Islam have never been corroborated. There was some attacks on him in Danish media some seven or eight years ago which were never substantiated. He denies being a tradionalist himself. Of course that doesn't mean that the rest of the article is wrong. And I probably wouldn't know either.

But an academic interest in a subject is not necessarily the same as being personally invested in it.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

GnosticAngel has said most of what needs to be said so I'll give a brief historical response:

Guénon never presupposes a social model in his work although he expresses great sympathy for the Hindu caste system, albeit altered in cultural contexts to allow movement e.g. in the European context the Catholic Church, the Royal powers, the Guilds and then just about everybody else. As far as I know he gives no suggestion of how and if if it is possible to implement such a system in the modern world. He did, and this is of course to his credit, express grave concern that his philosophy would be associated with the sub-theosophical palingenesis appealed to by the Nazis and to a lesser extent the Italian Fascists.

Unfortunately we then have Evola who took many of Guénon's theories and mixed them with the above mentioned sub-theosophical palingenesis e.g. Hyperborean Root Races, Lost Empires and the like, along with a heavy dash of Nietzscheanism.

Traditionalism probably has little to do with the American Alt.Right which is vehemently anti-Muslim and Anti-Ecumenicism. Unfortunately however it has featured as a core element (along with French Theory, an ironic combination!) in the Far-Right geo-political philosophy known as Eurasianism, the founder of which, Aleksander Dugin, has had a considerable influence on the Neo-Nationalist Russian foreign policy. Somewhere online there is an entertaining debate between him and the Americo-phile sic Neo-Conservative Traditionalist Olvao de Carvalho.

The Exterior/Interior aspect of Traditionalism is quite easy to explain.From Guénon onward the exterior aspect is taken to be the particular forms of social institute and ritual associated with a religion as well as its 'mythological' dogma. The Interior aspect is a form of Non-Dualist mysticism complete with meditative praxis emerging within that tradition e.g. Sufism in the case of Islam, Lurianic Kabbalah in the case of Judaism and the works of Meister Eckhart in the case of Christianity.

For what it's worth I think that's a somewhat simplistic assumption, although he probably correct in saying that in any sophisticated philosophical interpretation of a religion the issue of Non-Dualism arises.

Neo-Folk Traditionalism is more likely to be Evola influenced.

What the original Traditionalists proposed can be crudely put as the following: all religions, in their Interior aspect have Non-Dualistic union with the Absolute as their goal - with this in mind dogmatic claims e.g. conversionary obligations, should be taken as secondary to this aim and to resisting the corrupting effects of modernity. (My response is 'great, well how do we do that last bit, aside from trying to ignore the bits we don't like?')

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

I think that Qcrisp and Evans have nailed some important points regarding "fascist tendencies" and what the Traditionalists are really about.

Evans: Unfortunately we then have Evola who took many of Guénon's theories and mixed them with the above mentioned sub-theosophical palingenesis e.g. Hyperborean Root Races, Lost Empires and the like, along with a heavy dash of Nietzscheanism. ....Neo-Folk Traditionalism is more likely to be Evola influenced.

Qcrisp: It's also worth noting some of the interesting cross-pollination taking place in Traditionalist ideas. Coomaraswamy, for instance, was influenced by William Morris. It's not hard to see that in their interest in craft, both Coomaraswamy the traditionalist and Morris the socialist were opposing the alienation of the modern world of mass-production.

Evans: What the original Traditionalists proposed can be crudely put as the following: all religions, in their Interior aspect have Non-Dualistic union with the Absolute as their goal - with this in mind dogmatic claims e.g. conversionary obligations, should be taken as secondary to this aim and to resisting the corrupting effects of modernity.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

I've just been watching this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...is-bitter-lake

It's Adam Curtis's film about Afghanistan, and the rise of a narrative of 'good and evil' in politics.

I could say a lot about it. I have reservations but am also finding it fascinating. Anyway, I'm posting it here because there's an image in it that, to me, comes close to summing up why many might be very much in sympathy with tradtionalism (which, as has been pointed out, is distinct from Alt Right).

The image comes at about 01.48 in the film, and it is this:

After America invaded Afghanistan, post-9/11, many foreign experts were sent in to educate and rehabilitate the native population. Among them were even teachers of conceptual art. The film shows one such teacher explaining the origins of conceptual art. She has an image of Marcel Duchamp's work projected in front of the class.

"Do you know what this is?" she asks. "The ladies might not know."

Someone says, "A toilet", and she confirms the answer. A headscarfed woman among the students shakes her head in disbelief.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, after your years of being fought over by various vicious military tyrants (would-be or actual), seeing your cities destroyed and your children killed and maimed, we bring you... Western civilisation! We bring you... modernity!

A pissoir.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

I had a mild curiosity about the Alt-Right and a marginal sympathy for their distaste for the modern world until I had an unpleasant online exchange with one of their members last week.

This gentleman, we shall call him X, is involved in publishing Alt-Right material. He is an American.

The conversation turned to Europe and its future. He started talking about the need to reinstate 'traditional European values' etc. I asked him if he was European and he said he was an 'American-European'. I asked what that was and if it meant one of his parents was European. No, they were both American but he considered himself European due to 'race' issues. He said he disliked America.

I asked him what core programmes his movement had for Europe and he became irritatingly evasive and slightly patronising, with plenty of talk about race etc. I decided to play him by his own rules and asked him how he could talk about European values so confidently given he himself was not European.

That set the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons.

He informed me again that he was European by race and when I asked him if he thought French Muslims born and raised in France, with French as their first language and loyal to the French state were not in fact infinitely more European than he was he became very irritated. He told me that, no, they were not European and he was more so than them. When I expressed incredulity at this he claimed I was 'either ignorant or stupid' and did not not know what being European meant. I informed him that I was European, having lived in Europe all my life and so on, but he claimed to know better than I about the 'real' Europe.

Then one of his buddies piped in and said I 'needed a free helicopter ride', a comment endorsed by X. When I asked this gentleman to say something intelligent he then told me there was 'a blazing oven waiting for me'. (I am not Jewish, incidentally.)

The conversation ended shortly afterwards, but in a bizarre coda X privately messaged me to express his disappointment at my belligerence!

Anyway, to wrap up, the free helicopter offer and oven comments only served to confirm my suspicion that this lot are nothing but a bunch of Neo-Nazi racist thugs, who try and keep their vicious anti-semitism under lids as much as they can, but have a hard time doing so. All the bluster about Tradition and Guenon and Evola and blah blah is nothing but a lot of smoke and mirrors in my opinion to disguise a fairly ugly and sadly familiar agenda.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

This trash surfaces every few years under different name. Few years ago it was NeoReaction, Dark Enlightenment, whatever, with loonies like Nick Land as its head ideologues, nowadays it goes by the name of Alt-Right and has a brand new generation of spokesmen (Theo Beale & co, Counter Currents guys...).
It is always that same old bigoted, reactionary trash aimed at bitter young men, if only ever so modified for the newest batch of aforementioned bitter youths. They are only a lot noisier nowadays and have attracted a lot more of mainstream attention since they have mainstream political outlets in the events such are Brexit or the upcoming US elections, as well as growing Islamophobia and anti-Feminist sentiments among the ever easily manipulated uneducated masses...

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Aren't most of the Alt Right just young Trump fans, MRAs and Gamergater types? I don't imagine most of them care about philosophy and thinkers other than to give themselves an appearance of legitimacy and the more extreme figures help them feel edgy.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Phil Sandifer's book on the phenomenon of Internet far-right looks promising (it is also apparently somewhat inspired by Ligotti and CATHR, of which he is a great fan).
alert icon
Sadly, it is still only available to KS backers at this point. Anyone here had a chance to read it?

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

An interesting thread, though I have wondered if some posters were serious about what they wrote.

Malone wrote:

Anyway, to wrap up, the free helicopter offer and oven comments only served to confirm my suspicion that this lot are nothing but a bunch of Neo-Nazi racist thugs, who try and keep their vicious anti-semitism under lids as much as they can, but have a hard time doing so. All the bluster about Tradition and Guenon and Evola and blah blah is nothing but a lot of smoke and mirrors in my opinion to disguise a fairly ugly and sadly familiar agenda.

That sounds like a distressing encounter and those people repugnant. However I left your post unconvinced that these neo-nazis (I will accept your judgement of them) are qualified to speak about Traditionalists or have anything whatsoever to do with them. Were they religious scholars or academics familiar with the world's esoteric traditions or world classical literature? Those are the people qualified to speak about the Perennial Tradition in the sense that has been referred to in these posts.

Apologies if I'm mistaken, but it seems that you've somehow learned to equate Tradition with right wing Euro-centric nationalism and the so-called "Alt-Rght." I have no doubt that there are indeed some right wing nationalists somewhere who have some slight familiarity with Tradition, but to therefor tar the whole with the dirt of the (very) few seems mistaken.

How is that different from dismissing all progressive Black Liberation movements based on the actions of a few rioters at a BLM demonstration? Or justifying anti-Semitism based on the action of some Israeli settlers? Or perhaps with a more specific analogy - dismissing the centuries of Madhyamika and Yogacara philosophy because some ethnic Buddhist nationalists in Sri Lanka have been violent oppressors? I would argue equally against taking these extreme positions for the very same reasons.

Again, perhaps I have misunderstood your argument and you are well familiar with the multi-cultural exponents of Tradition such as Frithjof Schuon, Rene Guenon, A. Coomaraswamy, and Hossein Nasr? Otherwise it seems you are basing your argument about a scholarly matter on live research with a few rude internet trolls, surely not a serious attempt.

For those new to the discussion, the early responses to this thread have already laid out the issues with this line of thinking, and provide some in-depth definitions of what the Perennial Tradition actually is.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

You are equating extremists who are abusing WORTHY movements and philosophies, with their action sometimes being in the direct opposition of philosophies they outwardly claim to support, with those who are acting in accordance with philosophy whose very core is authoritarian and bigoted.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Just to chime in at this point - I have some idea what Tradtionalism is. After some thought, I realise I have no real idea what the Alt-Right is.

This is what Wikipedia says:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right#Beliefs

And here's a quote from someone called Ian Tuttle, also from the Wiki article:

Some years back, I heard the term (which now seems to have vanished) 'South Park Republican', which meant someone who voted Republican, but also smoked joints and was 'down with the kids', etc. I assumed that the 'Alt-Right' was an extension of this kind of idea.

Someone like Gavin McInnes would appear to fit this model:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_McInnes

However, it seems clear that much or most of the Alt-Right is not adequately described in this way, and it's hard to know quite where the 'Alt' comes in much of the time.

Anyway, here Gavin McInnes identifies 14 kinds of right-winger:


He starts with Alt-Right. He distances himself from them a little because, among other things, as he says, they "attack race-mixers like me". (It seems his wife is of Indian ethnicity.)

Anyway, must have lunch.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

I think the label of "South Park Republican" fits many members of America's Libertarian Party better than the Alt-right. A better label for the Alt-right would be "South Park Nazis".

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

This is a strange conversation for a site devoted to horror fiction, weird fiction, and some antinatalism. But to continue my own participation:

Hidden X stated: You are equating extremists who are abusing WORTHY movements and philosophies, with their action sometimes being in the direct opposition of philosophies they outwardly claim to support, with those who are acting in accordance with philosophy whose very core is authoritarian and bigoted.

Actually, no, I suspect that you yourself are making the exact error you describe in your quote. There are indeed extremists abusing worthy movements and philosophies, AND one of those abused worthy philosophies appears to be Tradition.

It's obvious that no one in this thread is defending the Alt-Right or any racist, bigoted or authoritarian philosophies. However some are defending the scholarly Perennial Tradition which posits an ancient and universal spiritual heritage as manifested through a seeming diversity of exoteric and esoteric lineages. I suggest that others on this thread are equating right-wing nationalists and racists with Tradition out of simple ignorance.

But if that is incorrect, please prove this by quoting legitimate Traditionalists such as Huston Smith, Jacob Needleman, Aldous Huxley, Frithjof Schuon, Titus Burkhardt, Rene Guenon, Ramakrishna, A. Coomaraswamy, Henry Corbin and Hossein Nasr. Even contemporary religious scholar Karen Armstrong is considered a voice of Tradition.

Simply saying that the philosophies you happen to like or understand are worthy, and those you don't are not, doesn't carry much weight. And quoting ignorant fascists using a smattering of whatever knowledge to bolster their racist statements, (or even worse, anonymous internet trolls doing so), does not constitute a serious argument against the sources of Tradition.

What is your source for declaring the "very core" of Tradition as unworthy or bigoted?

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Yes, and as already stated, all that's needed is to look at page one of this message thread for details on why this is so.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Gnostic Angel, yes I am familiar with those figures and the person I referred to as X is also very familiar with them, having published their work and written on them. He has also expressed his support for groups like Hezbollah, Hamas etc so we are not talking about some frustrated-teen-in-the basement character.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

An addendum to my last post on this, my last this morning due to schedules.

For those interested, one of the best measures for separating the Alt. Right and their ilk from the students of Tradition is by looking for Islamophobia. Racists, nationalists and apparently followers of the Alt.Right can be virulently Islamophobic.

On the other hand, many scholars of Tradition were and are deeply devoted to the study of the core tenets of Islam as much as any other religion. The philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr is an excellent example.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

One thing that strikes me about many of the followers of 'Traditionalism' is a lack of humility. They love talking about religion and the sacred, but few seem to have the humility and self-abasement to go into a church/mosque/temple or whatever and simply pray. It is as if they want the good things of religion with none of the sacrifices. The ordinary worshiper is not good enough for them apparently; there has to be tiers of rank, with themselves at the top, needless to say.

As the much-missed (from these pages) Mark Samuels puts it in his critique:

"Moreover, truth is to be found only within a spiritual-intellectual gnostic elite, and certainly not available to all humankind as the likes of Jesus Christ, Mohammed, or Moses – scarcely Evolian types – were reported to have asserted.

The faithful peasant women telling their rosary beads at Mass, the humblest servant of Allah on their prayer-mat, the elderly Jewish man keeping holy the Sabbath, all these ‘dupes’ are fulfilling the ‘exoteric’ doctrines of their faith.


All those poor ‘plebs’ reaching to the Absolute will find it doesn’t reach back."

Mark Samuels's Blog - Julius Evola: Boring Gnosticism Revived - August 19, 2016 13:52

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

The alt-right are ultimately as bad as the SJWs they detest when it comes to acceptance of other opinions and a general lack of nuance. They're all for free speech until somebody disagrees with them. Then the doxing and harassment begins just the same with the other side. It's the same movement that sees a billionaire who tries to sue people who joke about him as a free speech activist.

Almost none of them seem to have even the vaguest clue what Marxism or socialism actually mean. It's an anti-identity politics ideology which is almost exclusively about identity politics to the exclusion of economic thought. Sure capitalism is killing the planet, but this feminist vlogger says things we don't agree with so we must elect a capricious maniac and give him the nuclear codes.

Their ideological leaders Donald Trump and Milo Yiannopoulos don't believe anything they themselves say and operate on a platform of making themselves more popular for populism's sake. There are a worrying amount of idiotic men who have fallen for this and believe they are fighting for something.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

I've just found this quote, which I like:

“This is how philosophers should salute each other: ‘Take your time.'”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein

I often feel that the internet encourages quite the opposite of this.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Thanks to OP Malone, as well as Qcrisp, Evans, Prince James Zaleski, Hidden X and others for their thoughtful postings on this topic.

Setting aside for a moment the debate over the supposed Alt-Right identification with scholarly Tradition, I was struck by this statement:

".....but few seem to have the humility and self-abasement to go into a church/mosque/temple or whatever and simply pray. It is as if they want the good things of religion with none of the sacrifices."

Taking this quote out of context, it reminded me of a completely different criticism that I believe is equally valid for traditional Abrahamic religion and for Tradition, (since the Perennial Tradition shares many principles of monotheistic traditions, along with non-dualist philosophies). Why not address the problems with the whole lot?

That is the implication that there is a redemptive quality to suffering and sacrifice, and some religious or spiritual value in self abasement, often in the hope of receiving salvation from an outside power.

Raised in a harsh Catholic school system, I long struggled with this issue and now no longer believe that there is any redemptive value to suffering. The teaching that suffering has a deeper spiritual purpose seems to me a lie that has been used to oppress millions. I've been greatly impressed with the work of neo-gnostic John Lash, whose book "Not In His Image" attacks the salvationist theology of the Judeo-Christian tradition from a Gnostic-Pagan perspective.

Here is a quote from the post-Traditionalist consciousness researcher, Stanislav Grof MD about the book:

"John Lamb Lash's Not in His Image is a rare achievement, combining impeccable scholarship with remarkable visionary insight. In a breathtaking tour de force, the author provides a profound analysis of the history of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and their connections to the patriarchal system. He identifies the deep roots of the intrinsic problems of these three religions-- perpetrator-victim emphasis and salvationist ideology--and points out their relationship to the alienation and agony of modern humanity. This book is a must for everybody who is trying to understand the psychospiritual currents underlying the present global crisis."

I highly recommend this book to anyone following the discussion of this thread. And since Lash addresses the mysterious issue of the demonic "Archons" in Gnostic theory, it may be of interest to Ligotti and Guy de Maupassant fans.


... Also, I want to echo Malone's sentiment that Mark Samuels is missed and would be a welcome addition to this thread!

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Suffering is just suffering and we learn little or nothing from it. As a great philosopher once said, "What doesn't kill you just makes you wish you were dead."
Gurdjieff believed in something called "conscious suffering." That is a very different thing.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Re. "Suffering is just suffering and we learn little or nothing from it. As a great philosopher once said, "What doesn't kill you just makes you wish you were dead."

Gurdjieff believed in something called "conscious suffering." That is a very different thing."

Agreed on both points, Druidic!

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

This little thing is also worth listening to (or trying to, at least) before one decides if one does or doesn't want read man's scholarly work.

https://redice.tv/red-ice-radio/whit...ntic-infection

Just so folks have a bit more complete image of his views.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Hidden X wrote: "This little thing is also worth listening to (or trying to, at least) before one decides if one does or doesn't want read man's scholarly work."

Well, that is quite a bummer! Thanks Hidden X. Very disappointed to see that he went there; at least there is absolutely nothing like this in the work referenced below. Still worth reading if interested in the Gnostic perspective, But....

... (another bubble sadly bursts).....

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
- George Orwell

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

You're a far better person than I am, I'll give you that, just going by how open and fully devoid of mean-spiritedness your comments are.

I guess I never, in my "adult" life, felt any need for religion or a worldview that supersedes rational material one, so I'll probably never be fully able to "get" folks that feel a strong need for such a thing but at the same time have a modern knowledge and understanding of history and negative side to teachings of various traditional religions.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Noble race? This isn't Star Trek.

I love Burzum's music, but Varg is unintentionally hilarious. The Alan Partridge of racialist murderers.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

I don't get it. You ask for people to think of this beyond identity politics, but you define people purely on their aesthetic racial identity. I think there's an argument for eugenics, but racialist science is a load of bollocks, and in a world in which eugenics were practised, smart black people should get breeding priority over dumb white people, etc.

Taking honour or pride in the glory of your ancestors, or shame in their race mixing, is nonsensical. It has nothing to do with you.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Hilarious thing is that not even Evola thought so much about the actual value of biological race, which was a part of reason for his fall in popularity among his fascist contemporaries.
If I'm not mistaken, he even wrote that black or jewish man can have "aryan" soul and vice versa, or something to that extent.


Theo Beale and Nick Land with their ramblings about eugenics and white race really are the very bottom of the barrel. Just don't go there kids.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logoth...vering_meaning

On an unrelated note (unrelated to the quoted comment), I'm surprised to see eugenics making a comeback in recent discourse. The famous line from the Declaration of Independence, a cornerstone of human rights (if we're talking about the good things the West has given the world):

This is consonant with Kant's principle of treating all people always as ends in themselves and never only as means to something else. To support eugenics is to treat individuals as a means to something else (for instance, the Master Race).

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Now it looks like I was arguing with myself.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Eugenics, deletions and Varg, oh my!

I think I need to take a break from here.

Toodle-loo, lads.

Re: Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc
 

Has a moderator been deleting or is it always With Strength I Burn having second thoughts and deleting his own posts?