Traditionalist heresy

[Anonymous No.11479234]

In the wake of some recent threads on Traditionalism, I find passage very interesting:

" "Thus there are two aspects of the past that need to be considered if we would like to stay in a ‘tradition’. First, one should be aware of the complex interpersonal relations of people, present at different crucial moments when a tradition crystallises itself in something ‘new’ or changes direction. Second, one should keep in mind that in those cases a decision implies the will of the participants to take a ‘risk’. In the same way we are conveyed to take a risk when we decide to take our own stay in a tradition and push it in a new direction."

The word ‘risk’ is obviously important for Certeau. It becomes a keyword in the final part of this text and the ground for an apology of ‘heresy’. To be faithful to the past is grasping the aspect of risk that the preceding generations and the founding fathers have taken. We are deceived if we think that our task consists in a further elaboration or deployment of a momentum that starts in a certain point in history and has gone through various stages of elaboration. There is nothing Hegelian in Certeau’s thought. A living tradition does not consist in continuity. Being faithful to a tradition is to become a faithful ‘heretic’. A heretic is not someone who steps out of a tradition, but someone who takes the risk to make of a tradition something new. But in taking this risk, he or she should be aware of the way the past is still living in us. This is the necessary and true heretic dimension of dealing with the past. There exists however another form of heresy that Certeau condemns:

"the heresy of those believing that they can do without the past and do not question their roots." "

Source: Fragmented Christianity and Elusive Mystical Bodies. On Michel de Certeau

https://www.rug.nl/research/portal/files/14432081/PVDM233DeCerteau.pdf


Opinions?

[Anonymous No.11479269]

I'm a pseud so I don't have anything meaningful to contribute, but I find this topic fascinating as well. Part of my internal struggle has been trying to figure out in what way I want to believe in a tradition, whether I want to pragmatically just take on a structure for the sake of living a better ordered / healthier life or whether I want to go moreso down the route of the Traditionalists where I view the tradition as a sort of vessel for esoteric truth.
Realistically the two aren't contradictory if the first is an approach to the exoteric component and the second to the more esoteric but the problem I come back to is whether or not it's heretical or such a wildly different view of religion that I'm essentially not even partaking in the same belief system. Seems like the solution presented here is to just embrace that and try to stay as grounded as you can in the roots of tradition.

[Anonymous No.11479346]

>>11479269
interesting. This need to separate the waters in order to know what you should re-unite might be just the western mind-set of decomposing stuff.

On the other hand, the problematic is very valid, and without trying to take another route, I find that Cioran has an excellent root-cause analysis for this differential:

"God once announced that He was that which is, man, on the other hand, might define himself as that which is not. And it is precisely this lack, this deficit of existence which, wakening his pride by reaction, incites man to defiance or to ferocity. Having abandoned his origins, traded eternity for becoming, mistreated life by projecting his early aberration upon it, he emerges from anonymity by a series of repudiations which make him the great deserter of being Example of anti-nature, man's isolation is equaled only by its precariousness. The inorganic is sufficient unto itself; the organic is dependent, threatened, unstable; the conscious is the quintessence of decrepitude. Once we enjoyed everything, except consciousness; now that we possess consciousness, now that we are tormented by it, now that it figures in our eyes as the converse of primal innocence, we manage neither to assume nor to abjure it. To find elsewhere more reality than in oneself is to confess that we have taken the wrong road and that we deserve our downfall. A dilettante in Paradise, man stopped being one as soon as he was expelled, undertaking the conquest of earth with a seriousness, an application which seemed quite beyond him. Yet he bears within and upon himself something unreal, something unearthly, which is revealed in the pauses of his febrility. (...)

The form of knowledge he has chosen is an offense, a sin if you like, a criminal misdemeanor against the creation, which he has reduced to a mass of objects before which he stands as their self-proclaimed destructor, a dignity he sustains by bravado rather than by bravery, as is proved by his embarrassment as long ago as the business of the apple; at the time he felt lonely in Eden he was to feel more so on earth where, as a consequence of the special curse laid upon him, he would constitute an empire within an empire. Clear-sighted and quite mad, man has no peer: a true outrage to the laws of nature, nothing sug- gested his advent. Was he necessary this being ethically more misshapen than any dinosaur physically? Scrutinizing him objectively it becomes apparent why he is not made the subject of reflection with impunity. One monster pondering another becomes doubly monstrous: forgetting man as well as the idea he incarnates, should form the preamble to any therapeutics. Salvation comes from Being, not from beings, whose diseases, on contact, cure no one."

I'm not sure but this kinda fits into the negative-theology frame traditionalism seems to base itself upon as well. (at least when coming to mystical traditions).

[Anonymous No.11479416]

Never read Cioran but it's on point, yeah the idea of there being some sort of fundamental problem that we can't solve without religion is what led me more towards this stuff rather than the secular political I was originally interested in.
There is the problem of despair at the bottom of it, rooted in that insufficiency mentioned in the quote. Existence itself is insufficient so were left with the choice between waiting to die, sick, empty and alone or seeking a process of edification and renewal.

Negative theology is definitely where come at it from because with or without God or religion the problem still presents itself. tradition seems to be the cure, the question is basically a logistical one for me at this point. I'm unsure how to go about it.

[Anonymous No.11479551]

In light of the last few traditionalist threads, I also have found some interesting passages that I consider to be pertinent. These passages come from the gosepel of Matthew:
> Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. (7:6)
Traditionalist threads are an awful idea.

[Anonymous No.11479594]

>>11479551
I don't see how this relates here. This thread started as a critique of traditionalism, not as a pro-trad thread.

also I find that passage from Matthew very hard to handle as it is very easily exacerbated by elitist throwbacks.

[Anonymous No.11480141]

>>11479234
If you had articulated in your own words how you thought this be applied to/contradicted Traditionalism than it would be easier to respond in more detail. Just by reading into the context though it would seem that you think this does or may poke holes in Traditionalism by saying that one participates in a religious tradition in the most genuine or full sense by commiting a full or partial heresy for the purposes of pushing it in a new direction, with this being seen as acceptable based on the alleged premise that this is what had happened before during previous major doctrinal developments. The author of the paper on this thinker implies that its not actually true that a living religious tradition is a continues momentum from before, and summarizes this view as 'Hegelian'. Rather than refuting the Traditionalist worldview, this instead rather implies a fundamental misunderstanding of it (although it's not clear the peice was addressed towards it or that the author was even familiar with Traditionalism, I scanned the peice and didn't see any of the usual names).

A Traditionalist would respond that the principles on which the highest and most important doctrine of a religion are based themselves exist independent of that religion, that they are immutable, unchanging and eternal; that they existed before and will exist after that religion. From the Traditionalist perspective the only orthodox and correct changes in doctrine are those which change the exterior form and emphasis by which these higher principles are taught.

[Anonymous No.11480147]

>>11480141

It would also be incorrect to frame the Traditionalist worldview as Hegelian because Hegelian thought regards time as a linear development with progress and momentum and a steady heading in one or other directions/developments. The Traditionalist worldview regards time as non-linear and cyclical, that nothing is evolving and progressing towards an ultimate end, but rather that the exterior form of a doctrine understandably changes according to the needs and temperament of a given people/culture at that cycle of history while remaining unchanged in its core. It is indeed very much a living and continuous tradition, which is maintained by the initiation and teaching of those who in their turn do so to the next generation and so on. Really all of the points that the author makes in your quote implies that they misunderstand this.

It's understandable that the author would think this if he is mainly talking about Christianity though (which is what article seems like), many of the traditionalists took the view that the understanding of and connection to these principles in Christianity became lost, that they may (or likely) existed in a limited sense before and during the middle ages, but post-rennaisance have existed only in small, inaccessible and largely inconsequential groups which may not even exist anymore, and they identify this particularly as a major reason for the intellectual and spiritual degeneration of the west. So for a westerner it would be natural for them to come to these conclusions because unless they are intelligent and deeply study eastern doctrines they mostly remain ignorant of these timeless principles.

>From the man (Certeau) who was one of the founding fathers of the ‘École freudienne de Paris

DROPPED

[Anonymous No.11480457]

Traditionalism is mad stupid.

Wowee, our brain makes us feel oneness when we alter it physically through drugs and meditation. No, this doesn't fucking prove the existence of God or an afterlife, you retards.

[Anonymous No.11480484]

>>11480147
>traddies fear the professor doctor freud
So this is your brain on /pol/...

[Anonymous No.11480564]

Good post OP. I am on a phone so not so much eloquence or quotes but I recently read the book Postmodern Platos: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamer, Strauss, Derrida by Catherine Zuckert and she goes interestingly into what might be called Straussian esotericism which is really a sort of Nietzsche unmasking of Platonism as a lie. It is silly to think Nietzsche would have liked Eastern thought if he had more texts, he was quite adamant in his dislike of Neoplatonism and Stoicism which are the two Hellenic schools closest to the Vedic ideas of moksha and nirvana. Anyway, this postmodern unveiling of the failures if phallogocentricism, according to later thinkers, is implicit in Plato himself. Or perhaps even Socrates. Philosophy ended before it began. It was always an experiment, it must always make alliances with politics. There is no arche or ur-source of tradition to point to. Tradition is an enframing that continually evolves toward truth. Although as Socrates, or Plato, suggests, Truth / Knowledge / Philosophical Wisdom is for the Gods alone though they may permit us glimpses. Note that Nietzsche was mystical, just not conventionally. Our future destiny is either to be a heretic like him and search for truth outside religion or be a risk taker within a tradition like an event unfolding toward truth or believe that the ancients got everything right (and keep in mijd vedic religions like buddhism and hinduism have as much superstition and magic if not more than christianity and somehow didn't know science which seems weird if they knew everything...)

[Anonymous No.11480585]

>>11480484
>>11480484
Thinking someone was retarded =\= fearing them. My thoughts on Freud are more like amused disdain.

[Anonymous No.11480610]

I would like traditionalists better if they weren't all just Muslim niggers using it to trick white people into thinking their religion isn't a dystopian cult.

[Anonymous No.11480705]

>>11480610
Sufism is not a dystopian cult and is amazing.

Repressive and shallow forms of Islam are mostly worthless (similar to repressive and shallow forms of Christianity, and so on).

[Anonymous No.11480819]

>>11480705
The only shallow thing here is your orientalist understanding of Islam that seeks to draw an arbitrary line between what you find attractive in Islam(i.e spirituality) and what you don't.

[Anonymous No.11481035]

>>11480819
>Implying Sufis in Islamic countries don't perceive Sufism as a great thing
>it's only western converts who think Sufism is good

[Anonymous No.11481146]

>>11479346
Really intresting. Thank for posting it, friend. I sense an heideggerian vibe.
Source?

[Anonymous No.11481211]

Part of the reason why Traditionalism gets people on /lit/ so butt-flustered is that it's purposefully aristocratic and addresses itself only to a small subset of what may be called the 'intellectual elite', Traditionalist books are written for those who already agree with it. It does not care whatsoever about convincing people of the truth of it but rather the opposite, it explicitly talks about how much of the stuff discussed goes way over the head of most people and that you can't make it easier to understand for a wider audience without dumbing down and corrupting the ideas. It presumes that anyone looking into it seriously does not already hold materialist/athiest views, that they are already widely read in the texts of a large assortment of religions and that they already have some experience with or are familiar with practices like meditation, yoga, fasting, retreats, etc. There an attitude in this modern age where people feel like they deserve to have things explained to them and that if people consider it not worth the time to explain it to them that they are somehow being aggressive or rude. For example the people who make posts like this >>11480457 would be considered by Traditionalists to be hopelessly lost and not even worth the time to respond to, hence why you never see them in their books address basic ideas like arguing for why god exists or why biological reductionism is wrong. Most people on /lit/ are used to philosophers and their fans producing detailed arguments for why their ideas are correct and reposting them endlessly. When they don't consider it worth the time to prove their case and instead see it as self-evident it creates the mostly false impression that people who agree with Traditionalism are smug and condescending when in actuality it often induces a deep sense of pity and empathy for ones fellow human beings because one sees the misery and ennui shared by people living in modernity. This combined with the fact that Traditionalism does not think highly of western philosophy while people on /lit/ are very attached to and its a recipe for a firestorm of trolling, strawmanning, spamming, disingenuous arguments, and so on.

When people are content to talk about Traditionalism in their own threads that's why you see people hysterically trying to spam and shit up the thread. Certain people on /lit/ are enraged at th

[Anonymous No.11481400]

>>11481211
>Traditionalist books are written for those who already agree with it.
That's why they suck and do not qualify as philosophy but instead a form of orientalist new age new thought theosophical society influenced cult.
>It does not care whatsoever about convincing people of the truth
That explains why they run from the truth like roaches in sunlight when exposed to modern enlightened thought.


>>>muh elitism
Ya. Lots of stupid shit are elitist. Some people are elitist about pokemon. Who gives a shit? I can guarantee if you are merely consuming the texts and not writing them yourself then you are hardly in the same elite circles as the author. And why would you want to be a self-deluded psychotic selling lies to the mass? Might as well become a leading academic in Buffy: The Vampire Studies if you want to be a pro at interpreting fiction.


>buttflustered
I am merely too compassionate. If I saw someone making a thread about Scientology propaganda or Mormonism I would try and reason with them as well.

[Anonymous No.11481617]

>>11481400

>That's why they suck and do not qualify as philosophy but instead a form of orientalist new age new thought theosophical society influenced cult.

It is true that Traditionalism has little to so with philosophy and it would reject that label itself. It has nothing to do with either theosophism or the new-age movement, anyone who thinks this has a wikipedia-tier understanding of Traditionalism. It came way before the new-age movement and was like the exact opposite of theosophy. Also

>implying it's an inherently good thing for something to be accessible and easily comprehendable for the masses.

All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare - Spinoza

>That explains why they run from the truth like roaches in sunlight when exposed to modern enlightened thought.

How new to /lit/ are you? I've seen dozens of threads where people take the time to write long detailed posts explaining why they disagree with things like materialism, biological reductionism, athiesm, kant and so on. If you search in Waruso you can find enough material of Traditionalists explaining why they disagree with this to fill an entire book. It never goes anywhere though because the people arguing against it always circle around back to "well that goes againt my starting premise which I refuse to reconsider" It's like arguing with a brick wall so most people don't bother anymore. Nobody has been running away from anything, they have posted many long elaborate argumens but then realized most of the people they were arguing with acted like autists so now its the exception rather than the rule to argue because they have more interesting things to talk about.

>buttflustered
>I am merely too compassionate.

Yeah sure, that's why you are writing angry insult-filled posts about something you clearly know very little about. Also, I'm not just talking about you. Some of the most vitriolic useless shitposts and angry rants were found in the Traditionalist thread, even if you yourself don't perceive yourself as flustered its obvious that it does that to many people here.

[Anonymous No.11481693]

>>11481617
The majority of people are religious. Traditionalism is religionist. Don't act like some persecuted minority. I have not seen a single good argument against the things you mentioned in these threads but it is perhaps best not to argue so I shall leave and stop trying to help.

[Anonymous No.11482223]

>>11479269
>>11479234
>>11479551
>>11480610
>>11481211
Very based thread. The Church is all that can save us from the shallow scourge of manchildren that have chosen secular materialist hedonism over the TRUTH of the cross. Amen. There are hard times ahead brothers.

[Anonymous No.11483474]

>>11482223
If you find the Christ in your path, slay him.

*unsheathes katana and teleports behind you*

Nothing personell kiddo

[Anonymous No.11483657]

>>11481617
Back. Wanted this theead to go on longer. Sad times.

Btw, I have read vast amounts of Eliade, Evola, Guenon, Schuon, Coomaraswamy, Uzdavinys, etc. And remain unconvinced of most their arguments. For one thing, I think it is dishonest to characterize it as a "old" movement when it involves so much reconstruction and mythicization of the past. But I digress.

I also see traditionalism as exclusionary (no true scotsman, what is true religion? Etc.) and impractical to implement. We gonna go back to a caste system and ritual sacrifices? What is tradition? Good luck getting everyone to agree. Especially in America. Especially if you think Christianity is not real "tradition".

[Anonymous No.11483681]

I want to join the counter tradition. What's the best way to do it?

[Anonymous No.11483707]

>>11483681
Aleister Crowley, HP Blavatsky, Israel Regardie, Dion Fortune, Austin Osman Spare, Alice Bailey, Andrew Chumbley, Karl Pike, Manly P Hall, GRS Mead, MacGregor Mathers, Aaron Cheak

[Anonymous No.11484440]

Good morning, has anyone here read Leopold Ziegler? He is the most famous german traditionalist and had a strong influence on the world view of the brothers Jünger. He was a friend of Edgar Julius Jung (who btw was the only reason why Ziegler wasn't killed by the nazis, as he was able to inform him that he should burn all his letters as soon as possible) and one of the most important christian thinkers of the Conservative Revolution.
Yes, he was a christian which is also special and might be interesting to those who see traditionalism somewhat necessarily connected to Islam or Hinduism. Ziegler however thought that even though christianity was already really weak around his time, the tradition is still alive and could lead to a new christian reich, somewhat comparable to the holy roman empire.
As far as I remember from reading Crisis of the Modern World, Guénon wrote that if there is a chance at all for a new traditionalist west it would be christian.
But I've only read that one work of his so far, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Now I haven't read anything by Ziegler yet besides a short essay as his works are hard to get and quite expansive usually and I'm low on money at the moment. Personally I can't stand reading PDFs and I don't know how some of you are able to do that.
Also it seems like there are no english translations of his works. I could try working on a translation (at least maybe some of his essays to get the international community a brief look at his thoughts) of my own but quite obviously it would be pretty hard for me and I'm not sure if my english is well enough to translate someone like Ziegler. If the interest is there I could try it nonetheless and maybe even try to get in touch with the german Ziegler society or someone whose english is better than mine.

>>11481211
Good post

[Anonymous No.11484710]

>>11480819
There's literally no laws anywhere that says religious expression has to be dogmatic

[Anonymous No.11484717]

>>11484440
I'd never heard of Ziegler before, it's too bad he hasn't been translated. I know Arktos has been working on Evola translations so there is at least some interest in translating traditionalist writers. Christian Traditionalists are definitely an underappreciated aspect of it that don't see as much attention. I've heard Schuon's writings on Christianity are not very good but other trads like Borella etc have some good stuff.

>As far as I remember from reading Crisis of the Modern World, Guénon wrote that if there is a chance at all for a new traditionalist west it would be christian.

He talks about this at length in East and West. He says that if the west were to continue in its present course it would lead to a serious catastrophe and that the only two options are for it to be assimilated by another traditional culture (I don't remember if he specified but it was clear from the context that he was talking about the West adopting Islam), or for it learn from the East how to revitalize Christianity and to form a traditional society with that form of Christianity as its basis and guiding principle. He could clearly see that Christianity in the west was not captivating people (even in the 20's and 30's let alone today) and that without a drastic change there would be a growing void that would almost inevitably end up being filled by Islam. He clarifes that he is not talking about syncretism or injecting Chinese/Indian/Islamic concepts into it but says that if an intellectual elite were to closely study eastern doctrines that it would allow them to penetrate into early Christian texts and doctrines in order to discover the univeral/metaphysical principles underlying them which have almost entirely been lost in modern Christianity. Just as a very basic example of this Jesus's gospels are the closet thing to eastern doctrines in all of Christianiy.

[Anonymous No.11485340]

>>11484717
Thanks for the elaboration, it's how I remember it too.

Well, Evola is read by nationalists and the new right and I think that's pretty much the direction of Arktos too. Ziegler strongly disliked regular nationalists and fascists while being a christian reactionary, which didn't bring him a lot of friends in his time while being still widely read and respected. There is a little anecdote about him when he visited the Reichstag to hold a speech to honour Goethe. He was ecpected to say something why Goethe is the greatest writer of all times and appeal to the nationalists' narrow-minded competitive understandig of art but instead he began saying that mankind's three greatest poets were Shakespeare, Dante and Homer which already then led to one third of the politicians leaving the hall. He said that while Goethe was great for his time, he already lived in times which broke with the traditions and that's why his works would lack authenticity in comparison the the former ones.

[Anonymous No.11485565]

Rambly post warning, proceed at your own caution...


The movement from prehistory to history cannot be pinned down. We know our earliest records start with the dawn of civilization and before then we have nothing but mysterious stones and statues and tools and art to speculate upon.

Our civilization is messed up. And it is tempting to attempt to turn back time.

Traditionalists do seem correct that the majority of civilizations are built upon similar blueprints. Was this necessarily because they found right the blueprint? Or is it merely some combination of cultural diffusion from an ancestor group and syncretism in antiquity? We have evidence to support both these latter hypotheses. The PIE people influenced Greek and India and we know there was some exchange of philosophical information in antiquity.

Still, it is a stretch to claim traditional society is completely arbitrary in principles. Traditional principals align nicely with what we know about sexual difference and tribalistic politics. Moreover, mystical and metaphysical speculation seems to be confirmed by empirical evidence obtained through the testimony of countless sages and meditation masters.

The west once had its own sages and meditation masters. I will trace a couple important events that led to their decline as follows.

One of the first blows to the inner west, was the closing of the philosophical schools as Christianity gained popularity. Although some spiritual practices were subsumed by the Church, especially among monastics, this led in many ways to the decline of philosophy as a way of life. Philosophy in some sense had to be neutered in order to coexist with Christianity.

The other blow to the inner west would be persecution of gnostics and hermetics. These guys had good metaphysics and were sadly not appreciated except underground. Gnostics were obviously suppressed for heresy but Hermeticists suffered the skepticism of historical linguistics when it was discovered that the Hermetica postdated Christianity (in writing at least though not necessarily origin). I like to believe this current is still alive.

The final blow to the inner west, would be scholasticism and modern philosophy. Plato is the best Western metaphysics so going with autistic Aristotle and Aquinas obviously meant more techne and less gnosis. Modern philosophy, moreover, distanced itself from both Christianity and Gnosis/Hermeticism and fully severed the connection between philosophy as a way of life and philosophy as a form of armchair theorization.


I think Existentialism and Postmodernism go nicely with an appreciation of philosophy as transformation of the subject as Ancients conceived. But yes there is much work to be done.

[Anonymous No.11487020]

>>11481211
>Part of the reason why Traditionalism gets people on /lit/ so butt-flustered is that it's purposefully aristocratic and addresses itself only to a small subset of what may be called the 'intellectual elite',

The large part of the reason why Traditionalism annoys people is because they read two books on Guenon and turn into a larping faggot who thinks he's part of an "intellectual elite."

It's the bathos of it, not jealousy.

[Anonymous No.11487064]

>>11480585
I've noticed that the greatest mistake modern people have with alternative models (especially historical ones) is their own projected fear.

[Anonymous No.11487214]

>>11485565
The important parts of traditional thinking is not where broad traditionalists agree but where they disagree.

[Anonymous No.11487309]

>>11483657
>I also see traditionalism as exclusionary (no true scotsman, what is true religion? Etc.) and impractical to implement

but that's the point of it isn't it