The Way Forward

Bruce Charlton has posted an interesting email from Kristor, about witchcraft, sorcery, prayer, the connectness of all things, and how our belief affects the physical world. Regarding the prospects for the West, he writes:

Ought we, therefore, not to refrain from despair over the prospects of the West, not just because despair is a sin, but because our despair will tend to frustrate the cure that might this very minute be working its way through the dough like yeast?

Bruce responds:

Kristor clarifies the distinction between despair and 'pessimism' which may be simply a realistic appraisal of what is needed.

What I hope to get clearer, for myself and others, is a recognition of what is needed, not a socio-political change but A Great Awakening of some kind.

And I commented:

There's an element of pride in despair. Because we cannot see a way out, we conclude that there is none.

But if the cause is just, does it really matter whether it is doomed or not? Aren't we called to keep on fighting the good fight, and not concern ourselves so much with how it's all going to end?

We should not seek to know the future. Instead, we should seek to know the good.

If there is to be a "Great Awakening", might it not be a turn back toward contemplation of the Good, and away from strategizing and calculating what will "work"?

Coincidentally, Gornahoor also has a post today, describing the "tactics of the occult war:"

Yet, those who can only understand in terms of facts, material causes, and visible leaders still think at the level of brutes. Even worse, many men, wishing to be seen as intelligent, deliberately cultivate this view, thereby blinding themselves to any deeper understanding.

Let no one be deceived into believing that this is a simple matter. Even among those who desire to, or claim to, follow Tradition, there are many who fall victim to the tactics of the occult war, including some whom I have known personally for some time and would have expected a bit more insight.

Evola describes this War, at its most fundamental layer, as the battle between the forces of Order and the forces of Chaos. This necessarily assumes, without question or dispute, that there is a Cosmic Order, which we have been calling Logos and obviously a force behind that Logos, which we have called Providence, in accordance with Guenon and other Traditional and Hermetic authors. Hence, two requirements are imperative for anyone who wishes to consciously engage in this War.

1. He must understand the Cosmic Order
2. He must align his Will with the forces of that Order

The dimension of depth is the province of the Spirit, apart from and beyond any physical or material considerations. Obviously, then, to begin such an engagement, the spiritual warrior must first of all wage that battle in his own consciousness.

I like reading and discussing ideas, but I like doing my yardwork even more. I'm not a very good gardener, but I do enjoy spending an hour or two pulling weeds or clearing brush, my mind empty of every thought but the task at hand. This week it's shoveling snow!

I used to be married to a woman who was always wanting to be somewhere other than where she was at the moment. We weren't a good match, but confronting our differences did help me clarify for myself how I want to live.

May the things you love never become too popular

Tolkien is an example of things I've liked since childhood and that suddenly became dismayingly fashionable.

There's a story about Tolkien that sums it up fairly well: after he became famous, people used to crowd around his house, hoping to catch a glimpse or a word from him. What bothered Tolkien the most about it all was that they were trampling his wife's roses.

The irony is that anyone who had read and truly appreciated his books would never have participated in that kind of vandalism.

What's more, they would have understood and honored his wish to be left alone in peace.

Metaphysics of dueling

For a very different, yet interesting perspective on trial by combat, see this post at gornahoor.net.

Look at the picture of an old man standing in what is probably the one street of a tiny English village.

Are you so young that you have no memory of a place like that?  You never had grandparents who lingered on, in the place where they'd always lived, long after everyone else had moved to the city?

Now take out a book of Japanese woodprints.  Here's one by Hiroshige. The dyers have hung out their colorful cloth to dry in the sun and the breeze. Is this also so unfamiliar?  It doesn't stir up memories of the world the way it used to be?  Weren't you here, too?

Hatsune Riding Grounds

OK, perhaps you were never in Cornwall or Edo.  But can art no longer teach you to see?  To remember?  To recognize?  To cherish?

And those who are beautiful,
oh who can retain them? Appearance ceaselessly rises
in their face, and is gone. Like dew from the morning grass,
what is ours floats into the air, like steam from a dish
of hot food. O smile, where are you going? O upturned glance:
new warm receding wave on the sea of the heart ...
alas, but that is what we are.

-- Rilke, The Second Elegy, Stephen Mitchell translation 

Flowers for Algernon

One of the unsettling events that sometimes occur in a lifetime of reading is sitting down to read a book for what I think is the first time, and then discovering in it a marginal note which proves that I've been there before.

Even more unsettling when the note suggests a more complete understanding of the text than I seem to be managing today!

Apparently there really was a time when I could do differential equations.

(Readers familiar with the story referenced in my title might be amused when I reveal that my given name is Charlie.)