Edited with an Introduction by Greg Johnson
San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2011
220 pages
French description here
Hardcover limited edition of 100 numbered and signed copies: $35
Paperback edition: $18
Amazon Kindle E-Book: $5.99
Neo-paganism is the attempt to revive the polytheistic religions of old Europe. But how? Can one just invent or reinvent an authentic, living faith? Or are modern neo-pagans just engaged in elaborate role-playing games?
In Summoning the Gods, Collin Cleary argues that the gods have not died or forsaken us so much as we have died to or forsaken them. Modern civilization—including much of modern neo-paganism—springs from a mindset that closes man off to the divine and traps us in a world of our own creations. Drawing upon sources from Taoism to Heidegger, Collin Cleary describes how we can attain an attitude of openness that may allow the gods to return.
In these nine wide-ranging essays, Collin Cleary also explores the Nordic pagan tradition, Tantrism, the writings of Alain de Benoist, Karl Maria Wiligut, and Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Patrick McGoohan’s classic television series The Prisoner. Cleary’s essays are models of how to combine clarity and wit with spiritual depth and intellectual sophistication.
Summoning the Gods establishes Collin Cleary as one of the leading intellectual lights of contemporary neo-paganism.
Advance Praise for Summoning the Gods
“The writings of Collin Cleary are an excellent example of the way in which old European paganism continues to question our contemporaries in a thought-provoking way. Written with elegance, his work abounds in original points of view.”
—Alain de Benoist, author of On Being a Pagan
“Jung compared the absence of the gods to a dry riverbed: their shapes remain, but devoid of the energy and substance that would make them live among us as they used to. What we await is the energy and substance to flow once more into the forms. The words of Collin Cleary, his thoughts and ideas, constitute the kind of fresh and vital energy that is needed to effect the renewal of the gods in our contemporary world.”
— Dr. Stephen E. Flowers, author of The Northern Dawn
“Collin Cleary’s Summoning the Gods is one of the most important books in its field. Unlike those who would speak for the gods, he shows us how to bring the gods into our lives by letting Them speak for themselves. Perhaps most importantly, Cleary has given serious followers of pagan religions the philosophical tools to defend their beliefs against the most erudite critics.”
— Stephen A. McNallen, Asatru Folk Assembly
“Collin Cleary is a rare breed: a scholar of the mystical, and at the same time a mystic whose probing visions are informed by rigorous study. These are more than just eloquent and thought-provoking essays on myth, religion, or art; at their best, they resonate with the august and ancient tradition of the philosophical dialogue. Time and again, Cleary offers insights that powerfully orient the reader toward archaic ways of thinking, knowing, and seeing vividly—as if through newly opened eyes.”
—Michael Moynihan, co-editor, TYR: Myth—Culture—Tradition
“I have admired Collin Cleary’s work in TYR and Rûna for years, and I am delighted that this volume of nine essays has arrived in the world. Cleary possesses the admirable ability to write with a frank ‘openness to the divine’ (to use his own phrase). He does so both clearly and profoundly, on a number of inter-related subjects. The essay ‘Philosophical Notes on the Runes’ ought to be required reading for all serious students of the runic systems. This book belongs in every radical Traditionalist library.”
—Juleigh Howard-Hobson, author of Sommer and Other Poems
“Collin Cleary’s Summoning the Gods is a landmark publication in the intellectual side of the Heathen revival. By applying modes of analysis ranging from Heideggerian phenomenology to Hegelian dialectic, Cleary manages to penetrate deep into the core of polytheistic religiosity. Attracting a thinker of Cleary’s stature is an indicator of the vibrancy and health of modern Heathen thought. This book should be a welcome addition to any thinking Heathen’s book shelf.”
—Christopher Plaisance, editor of The Journal of Contemporary Heathen Thought
Contents
Introduction by Greg Johnson
Neo-Paganism
1. Knowing the Gods
2. Summoning the Gods: The Phenomenology of Divine Presence
3. Paganism without Gods: Alain de Benoist’s On Being a Pagan
Nordic Paganism
4. What God Did Odin Worship?
5. Philosophical Notes on the Runes
6. The Missing Man in Norse Cosmogony
7. Karl Maria Wiligut’s Commandments of Gôt
Among the Ruins
8. Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner
9. The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky
About the Author
Collin Cleary, Ph.D. is an independent scholar living in Sandpoint, Idaho. He is one of the founders of TYR: Myth—Culture—Tradition, the first volume of which he co-edited. A Master in the Rune-Gild, his writings have appeared in TYR and Rûna. This is his first book.
Ordering Information
Hardcover limited edition of 100 numbered and signed copies: $35
Paperback edition: $18
78 Comments
The pagan gods have been forgotten largely for one reason. They don’t exist. If they ever existed, they were Demons and no friends to man. I escapes me what this has to do with protecting the white race. If paganism could be revived, I don’t understand what the point would be. If the preservation of our race depends on the revival of false relgions and worshiping false gods (which, thankfully it doesn’t), then I say our race be damned.
I can’t think of anything more counterproductive for a pro-white movement than to antagonize Christians, considering that it amounts to a rejection of the substantial part of the historical achievement of our race.
Let’s be perfectly clear about something: Collin Cleary’s book is not about White Nationalism. It is not a political book at all.
The pagan gods have not been forgotten, and their worship was suppressed for one reason: Christians gained the political power to persecute pagans.
The connection between neo-paganism and white racial preservation is simple: Christian values are at the root of our racial decline. If Europeans had never adopted a universalistic religion that preaches the values of the Sermon on the Mount, would European peoples be allowing their nations to be overrun by our racial inferiors in the name of love and charity and inherited guilt? If Europeans had not adopted a religion in which the Jews play a privileged place in the salvation history of mankind, would Jews have any more power over us than they have in India or China today?
The reason that so many racialists like William Pierce have reservations about working with Christian believers is that all too many of them think that Christianity is more important than our racial survival, thus when forced to choose between them, they will all say “our race be damned” and turn their coats.
And until that point, a large part of their efforts within our camp will be to proselytize for their church and to work to suppress non- and anti-Christian thoughts and discourse through intimidation tactics, darkly muttering that we cannot afford to “antagonize” Christians.
This is essentially the rear-guard action of a dying religion which has largely given up on inspiring new people to believe and contents itself instead with creating an atmosphere in which non-believers either remain silent or even pretend to believe in Christianity. The reduction ad absurdum of this path are the right-wing meetings in which rooms that contain a vast majority of atheists, pagans, skeptics, and the merely indifferent bow their heads to appease a tiny minority of Christians who are bound and determined to keep the non-Christians from discovering that they are the majority.
Christianity is indeed one of the great historical achievements of our race. But appreciating it as such does not require believing that Christianity is true, any more than does appreciating ancient pagan art and mythology. I believe that Christianity is just a phase our race is going through, much like other religions. Eventually, it will pass away like Mithraism. But we will continue to admire the immense European genius that was mobilized by Christianity throughout its history, just as we wish we could admire all the works of genius from pagan antiquity that the Church did not see fit to save or even actively worked to destroy.
Christianity carried the seeds of its own destruction with the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. During healthy times, primitive Christianity (which includes the oratory and precepts above) was kept in abeyance by a virile and youthful Teutonic civilization. As the West senesced, these feminine thoughts came to the forefront and were promulgated by the do-gooding churches and the Jews, who are still milking it for what it’s worth.
Christianity is a paradox. Its essence and history are intertwined with a people who are inimical and foreign to the West yet it has been a part of the West. It has become Teutonized and was a bulwark against Jewish machinations, its Jewish heritage and anomalies notwithstanding.
Actually, Mithraism was suppressed and persecuted, wasn’t it? It was competing with Christianity in the third and fourth centuries when it was waylaid, correct?
“This is essentially the rear-guard action of a dying religion”
You may be willing to bet on this. I am not.
“Christianity is indeed one of the great historical achievements of our race.”
I think you have this exactly backwards. Ultimately I think this is the great issue and I think it is a shame that some of those who would like to preserve the civilization created by our race have so much animosity toward what many of us regard as the foundation of that civilization. Belloc had it right Europe is the Faith, the Faith is Europe. I understand you don’t think this is true. The fact is that you are basically proposing a radically new self-understanding of our race. The unity of our race has ever only been based on our common faith. I don’t know if it is even possible to have society which regards its religion as an achievement of its race.
The assertion that Europe is the faith and the faith is Europe is truly pathetic. The faith now embraces far more non-whites than whites, and they have not thereby become Europeans. There were, moreover, white people long before Christianity, and white people who live in an increasingly post-Christian Europe are still white people.
Answer my questions: Would Jews enjoy their power over us today if Europe had not adopted the bible? Would whites be throwing away our future to the the blacks and the browns if we had not adopted a universalistic religion that exalts altruism and self-abasement towards our inferiors?
Greg, that’s like saying if your mother had wheels she’d be a bus. The whites became Christian and lots of them/us still are, right or wrong. You have to stop and ask why so many whites voluntarily adopted the new, universalistic religion? It was just another chapter in our evolution (or decay, if you wish). It happened, here we are, and this pro- VS anti-christianity debate is good for nothing.
Why can’t we just call ourselves cultural Christians – or is that expression something our enemies made up?
Most Europeans did not adopt Christianity voluntarily. It was imposed by force and terror whenever the church gained the power to do so. Most people who call themselves Christians today are just “cultural Christians,” meaning that they are conforming to the society around them.
I think that these discussions are worthwhile, because Christianity bears a large part of the blame for our race’s march toward extinction. No, it wasn’t always this way. Maybe it did not have to be this way. But that is the reality of the situation.
Given the peril that we are in, we really cannot afford false and treacherous “friends,” and I think we need to be especially skeptical of Christian WNs who spend more energy trying to stifle civil debate about religion in our circles than they do trying to stop the anti-white hatred coming from their churches.
True enough – about the initial “conversions”. But today, people are still attracted to Christianity. If I had anything to say about it, they’d be careful just how deeply they want to get involved. On the other hand, I see ruined people who have been transformed dramatically by belief in Jesus Christ. There’s something there whether we like it or not. It is as if there’s a stage we all have to go through first, like a perfectly legitimate piece of the brain needing exercise, before we can really become ourselves. You know, like babies stumbling around before they learn to hold themselves stable and walk. Or so it seems, anyway.
I am kind of surprised that there isn’t more acceptance of the idea of cultural Christianity, ie, the good parts of our Christian heritage without the funny beliefs. This is not about “conforming to the society around [us].”
Am I a cultural Christian because I defend Christmas and celebrate it (after a fashion)?
There are 2 billion Christians on the globe, a huge number of which are non-Whites. There are, for example, 76,000,000 Christians in Nigeria, and over 100,000,000 Christians in Mexico.
Yet none of these non-White Christians are marching toward extinction.
What is your take on this?
It suggests to me the problem has to be something other than Christian ideas since the non-White Christians are not participating in the march.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian#Demographics
Non-whites are the global have nots, whites the global haves. Christianity in practice means charity from the haves to the have-nots. Non-white Christians actually benefit racially from Christianity, which may be one reason for conversion: to get free stuff. Of course all the free stuff will stop when whites become have nots, or cease to exist. Then we will see how functional Christianity will be for its Nigerian practitioners. My suspicion is that they will not cut their own throats for somebody under-doggier.
Oh, and by the way, you are right. If I thought for a minute that I would have to choose between Christ and my race, I would choose Christ. Fortunately, I don’t have to make this choice, and I will continue to resist the efforts of those who ludicrously claim that the faith of our fathers has somehow been detrimental to our civilization. Almost every important and characteristic institution in western civilization is, in an important sense, Christian.
What are the important and characteristic institutions of our civilization that are essentially Christian? Name ten.
“The connection between neo-paganism and white racial preservation is simple: Christian values are at the root of our racial decline.”
Let’s for the sake of argument assume that Christian values are at the root of our racial decline. (I have shown below that they are not.) Why does that mean that we should start worshiping pagan Gods? Don’t you understand that that would just make White Nationalism look like a lunatic joke?
And, by the way: Do you believe that Odin, Thor, Zeus, Poseidon, Pluto, Pan, Loki and all the other thousands of pagan Gods that various European people have revered from time to time actually exist? Do you believe in all of them or just some of them? If they do not exist, why on earth should we worship them?
As an atheist, I don’t believe that any gods exist. But people have a strong psychological need and tendency to worship gods. Given that tendency, I would much rather people embrace religions that are consistent with our racial survival. Christianity has proved detrimental.
You are mistaken to think that gods have to exist to be meaningful. Believing pagans can fall anywhere on a spectrum between literal believers and atheists who still embrace myths and rituals as meaningful for a host of reasons including purely political considerations.
I didn’t know you were an atheist. I thought that you were a Traditionalist.
Both, without contradiction. I do not claim to be an initiate, just a student of Tradition. Yet, I believe that as one delves more deeply, the Gods are revealed to be just exoteric symbolism.
Exoteric symbolism of esoteric realities according to Tradition. Atheism denies the esoteric aspect of Tradition.
Not necessarily. Atheism denies the existence of God or gods. It does not commit one to denying the existence of being or to denying the possibility of a mystical experience of oneness with being, which is the doctrine of the Upanishads, the non-dualistic interpretation of which is pretty much the core of Traditionalism as I understand it.
But surely you must realize that it is impossible to revive pagan worship? Attempting to do so can only result in the White Nationalist movement being perceived as a bunch of madmen.
I took a look at your introduction to Summoning the Gods.
“In this essay, Cleary argues that the experience of the gods just is an experience of wonder in the face of the being of things. Thus, openness to the gods presupposes openness to being-as-such. The experience of a god is man’s wonder in the face of some aspect of reality he has not created, which awes him with its beauty, or power, or dreadfulness. We are struck by the sheer facticity of things; we wonder that certain things should be at all, or be the way that they are. It is like the Zen experience of satori, in which one is suddenly struck with awe before the simple fact that the rose bush is, or that the storm is.”
This is new age hippie bullshit. It doesn’t mean a thing and is repulsive to most intelligent men.
If a religion is merely an arbitrary product of the imagination, like a play or a novel, then once it is lost, it can never come back. We will never be able to revive the lost plays of Sophocles, because no copies survive. But if a religion is a product of something that abides — something in man and something in the world — then yes, to that extend, old religions can be revived in new ways.
Having purchased the previous five titles I am anxiously awaiting Cleary’s book.
The titles are high quality and hope that the production of hardcover copies continue.
The extra ten or fifteen dollars is well worth having a glossy dust jacket and stronger binding, as well as being aesthetically pleasing when one views a bookshelf full of hardbacks.
Yes, we will continue to publish all our books in hardcover and paperback.
Mr. Ricardo is right, up to a point.
That point is the willingness of those who self-identify as White Nationalists to go out of their way to mock Christianity.
The only reason must be their unwillingness to bear the burden of responsibile leadership, allowing them the comfortable Child-like impotence of ideological purity, in an era where it gains them nothing at all.
“Gaining nothing at all.”
THAT’s an apt description of their efforts, isn’t it?
What’s In YOUR Future?
Focus Northwest
“That point is the willingness of those who self-identify as White Nationalists to go out of their way to mock Christianity.”
I don’t see any of that going on here, do you?
What I do see is a petulant reaction from a Christian who is outraged by the mere fact that pagans and/or non-Christians actually exist, and that they actually are interested in discussing topics he disapproves of. He wants to dictate to the rest of us what we can think, discuss, and believe – and if we don’t obey, then the white race deserves to perish!
This censorious behavior on the part of some Christians looks more than a bit like the Jewish drive to monitor, censor, and oppress whites and direct their thoughts and actions on to strictly Jew-approved “safe” territory, does it not?
Tolerance is a two way street. Christians who think that pro-whites must subordinate everything to the whims of the most extreme religious Christians, do not extend any tolerance to those who do not share their beliefs. They seem to think that White Nationalism is some kind of sub-wing of whatever sect or schism of ultra-conservative Christianity they happen to espouse. Once they’re done dealing with us pagans and atheists and skeptics, they’ll be at each others throats next, because the very idea of forbearance, tolerance, compromise and mutuality does not enter into their philosophy.
Yes there are idiots who claim to be WN, who run around needlessly antagonizing white Christians, and their actions are, indeed, counter-productive, but they are dwarfed in numbers compared to Christians who routinely insult anyone who does not share their religious beliefs. Yet in spite of the gross imbalance in civility, we are supposed to tolerate these sorts of Christians for the sake of “unity”. The complete lack of reciprocity in this relationship is laughable, and is one of the many reasons why WN is going nowhere; WN is not a wing of the extreme fundamentalist/conservative Christian movement, and the vast majority of potential WN people out there are not Christian fundamentalists, and are turned off by religious extremism (as they should be). If we had simply wanted to waste our time being conservative Christians, we could have stayed in Church and continued voting for the GOP.
One can’t help but notice that a certain type of Christian has latched on to the WN scene simply because his type of Christianity has hopelessly lost the culture wars – over a century ago! This type isn’t interested in saving the white race, it is just interested in finding a corner of the world that it can still dominate, and uses the “unity” ploy to pretend that it speaks for all White Christians, which is demonstrably false. These people don’t speak for whites, they don’t speak for White Christians, so why does anyone pretend that they speak for White Nationalists? WN has room for all types – Christians, pagans, skeptics, atheists, agnostics, seculars, or “indifferents” – anyone who accepts our white history and identity and who has a basic feeling of respect and reciprocity towards fellow whites, a feeling of respect and reciprocity which Richard Ricardo obviously lacks, as he’d rather see the white race destroyed than tolerate pagans. It’s his way or the highway: well, so long Richard, don’t let the door hit you on your way out.
It strikes me as a character question: How can any group of people credibly claim to be working to wrest our destiny from Jewish control if they allow themselves to be censored and henpecked by sulking Christians? A similar issue arises regarding the woman question: How can men who fear their own wives and daughters credibly challenge Jewish power?
No one who criticizes “christianity” – Institutional Christianity – has addressed the sheer masculine certitude offered to early European Christianity by the Pagans who embodied the Northern Mysteries.
Christianity remains the only religion that, even in its crippled, Judeo-Feminized state, arouses the unfeigned enmity of the Jews. What do they know that so many of us choose to ignore?
Christianity Reformed would unite the faith of Martel with (Northern Pagan) Masculine Certainty.
Harnessed to the fulfillment of a Transcendent (Racial) Purpose, our sons would go from feminine tolerance to Masculine Excellence, and Righteous Dominion.
What’s In YOUR Future?
Focus Northwest
The discussion on this thread is very, very good, overall, and ‘meh’s’ comment is outstanding.
Many critics don’t limit themselves to straightforward arguments about the problems with contemporary Christianity. Many instead prefer to insult and mock Christians, and many also peddle dubious historical analysis that resembles Afro-centricism. Martin Bernal argued in Black Athena that the Greeks stole Western civilization from the ancient Egyptians who were actually Negroes. Likewise, many neo-Pagans and anti-Chritians ascribe everything beautiful, noble and good about European Christendom to things like the Aryan Spirit or Germanization — everything but Christian inspiration itself.
As a person who is not conventionally religious and who requires credible evidence before accepting something as true, I find all of these supernatural beliefs equally implausible. The claim that we are living the “Kali Yuga,” for example, has no more credible evidence in its favor than the claim that “on the first day God created heaven and Earth.” Yet many people take this idea seriously, and that’s fine, of course, but how they differ in principle from the people who subscribe to supernatural Biblical explanations for things is not clear.
Another thing that has always struck me as odd about the WNist neo-Pagans is why they choose to resurrect the forms of Paganism that inspired so little cultural achievement. If WNist are going to seek inspiration in long dead myths and religions, hearkening back to Apollo, Dionysus, Athena, Achilles and Odysseus makes a lot more sense (to me).
Well Lew, no “dead Jew on a stick” nonsense is published here.
Kali Yuga just means Dark Age. That we live in a Dark Age measured by the standards of Tradition or just common sense seems pretty clear to me. You may not buy the whole metaphysical package deal that goes along with the Kali Yuga concept. But that is not necessary to believe that we are living in a Dark Age. And it is interesting to see just how many of the characteristics of modern society were predicted by the ancient Hindu sages, who had a solid understanding of human nature.
Lew:
Good comment re: neo-Pagan’s choice of Gods.
The Greek deities seem all too fitting for the Magian Soul. You are merely than an extension of the Group Soul, if you will.
The Northern Gods are from the “You Bring The Battle, The Gods Bring The Victory” school of thought, where you are an independent actor, developing your unique spirit in the fulfillment of your unique Destiny.
They are also very active, and the men are very masculine.
Ever see a Fight Club tattoo of Odysseus? Telemachus? Circe?
Didn’t think so.
What’s In YOUR Future?
Focus Northwest
Your analysis of Christianity is basically right Greg, but I would add that thanks to Christianity the Europeans tried to stop infanticide on white children on a colossal scale, especially by the exposure of females so endemic in pagan times: one of the causes of the decline of classical civilization. As I explain in my chapter already linked in the other recent thread on paganism, something completely lost to the modern mind is that, in a world full of child sacrifices as the Ancient World (especially in Carthage), the innocent child had to die horribly ordered by his father, or exposed to die even in the relatively civilized Greece and Rome. It is completely impossible to understand the “psychoclass” that gave rise to Christianity ignoring a childrearing reality turned into a powerful archetype: Christ as the last case of child sacrifice by the Father.
The Hegelian verb, Aufheben, translated to English means to sublate: the suppression and assimilation of both the previous thesis and antithesis. This is the apparently contradictory implication of preserving and changing an ethos. Hegel used that verb in his philosophy of history and I use it here to explain the dynamics of Paganism and Christianity.
In the future, mature WNs would reject both neo-Paganism and Christianity. But to do it the trick is precisely to assimilate the luminous part of Christianity, not its dark side (Kali Yuga or whatever): the respect for the lives of the white children so obvious in the anti-infanticidal–now antiabortion–movement.
IMO the best Aufhebenized, quasi-Christian WN pagans that history have produced were the Nazis. Hitler going to the Cathedral playing the role of Goebbels’ godfather at the same time of creating the Nuremberg Laws prohibiting abortion among Aryans, but allowing it among non-Aryans, intended to be the suppression and assimilation of both: the previous thesis and antithesis of paganism and Christianity into a new historical synthesis.
Too bad that so many WNs stick to the old “thesis”, the Christian paradigm and the postwar narrative that demonizes the Germans. The movement has obviously to grow up.
Chechar:
A fascinating idea: “the suppression and assimilation of both: the previous thesis and antithesis of paganism and Christianity into a new historical synthesis.”
Given the Christian social order, how might this be done?
A new Order of Priesthood seems fitting, as well.
The fine men at the christianseparatist website might have some useful ideas to contribute.
Certainly, Judeo-Feminist Christianity has a lot to answer for.
We must do much better.
What’s In YOUR Future?
Focus Northwest
@ how might this be done? A new Order of Priesthood seems fitting, as well.
Instead of any sort of New Age paganism, I would much prefer a rehabilitation and adaptation of NS “pagan” principles in other white nations (Covington is so good at this). The problem I see with Pierce’s intention of artificially creating a new (“pagan”) religion is that you cannot, with a rational purpose, create the New Myth that will galvanize the white psyche. Myths are the result of the collective unconscious, which is always irrational even though the results are phenomenal (see e.g., my review on O’Meara’s book at CC).
The problem with rehabilitating NS is the so-called “Holocaust”. Didn’t David Irving after many stages reached the conclusion that Jews were probably genocided massively in contrast to what, say, Pierce, Covington–and others now maintain? I have not researched Holocaustianity. In my life I have only researched four subjects that I now believe are pseudosciences: Turin Shroud studies, parapsychology, Bélmez Faces studies and psychiatry. Like the Holocaust, these sorts of controversies tend to suck tons of time, sometimes several years of research on a single topic (e.g., my research on psychiatry). If “Holocaust” denalialists are wrong, rehabilitating NS would have to come from an Aufheben approach to 20th century history: to sublate both the negative and positive aspects of the greatest Western revival that our civilization has ever seen since “the great thaw”: the sudden reawakening of European civilization in the 12th century that Kenneth Clark so well explained for TV viewers through the first manifestations in the Cluny Abbey to the building of Chartres cathedral.
But again, an Aufheben approach to 20th century history of Germany with an attempt to create the new Chartres is a far cry from what we see today in an immature nationalism: suicidal disdain of the Nazis, and a denial of genocide that even contradicts Irving’s current position.
Once more, WNs need to grow up…
Chechar:
“Pagan principles” are organically derived from Traditionalism; they change their Form as needed. Most of the Forms of the pre-VII Roman Catholic Church, with the raw Masculine dynamism of the Eastern Orthodox, offer ideas.
Chartres was the response of one group, in one place, at one time. A new Chartres, derived organically from the New Traditionalism, would be much more fitting. Think “Crystal Cathedral,” for one example.
No need to “rehabilitate” NS – simply implement it.
My opinion of all things Pierce – WN Kabuki – is a matter of record.
What’s In YOUR Future?
Focus Northwest
“If Europeans had never adopted a universalistic religion that preaches the values of the Sermon on the Mount, would European peoples be allowing their nations to be overrun by our racial inferiors in the name of love and charity and inherited guilt?”
Of course they would. We did and still do. In the Nordic countries (I’m Swedish) immigration started in the 1970′ies. By then, Christianity was long since dead. Maybe 2-3 % of the population still believed in it.
I wish nationalists would quit wasting time on all this pagan nonsense. Advocating the worship of pagan gods that do not exist is an excellent way to make a complete ass of yourself.
Christianity may be all but dead in Scandinavia, but the values it preached are still dominant and at the root of your suicidal ethnomasochism.
That’s simply wrong. The Swedish Church would never have dreamed of advocating mass immigration before it (not unlike the Catholic Church) went down the drain in the 1960s. As for the values it preached, it taught people to be honest, patriotic, hardworking citizens prepared to die defending King and Country.
Why would the church never have dreamed of opening its doors to the needy and wretched of the earth? Have you actually read the New Testament? Churches have accommodated themselves to national values only through tactical compromises or by betraying the teachings of Jesus.
The Swedish Church would never have dreamed of admitting hordes of immigrants for the simple reason that it used to be a staunchly patriotic institution. Traditional Christianity has never interpreted the New Testament to mean that everyone has a right to come and live in Europe.
You need only to look at traditional Catholics today. More or less all of them (in Europe, anyway) oppose immigration. You may call that “betraying the teachings of Jesus” if you like, but your personal opinion regarding the proper interpretation of the New Testament is not important. What is important is the traditional Christian interpretation.
As Nietzsche showed, there is a large difference and disagreement between “primitive” (Jesus/Paul) and “traditional” (Teutonic/Knights Templar/Crusader) Christianity.
The former is effeminate while the latter is masculine. As long as men are men, and order is in place, then a civilization can withstand these glaring inconsistencies and false teachings. When it succumbs to destruction, then the perverted teachings (turn the other check, for ex.) accelerate the chaos and dissolution.
Yes, Jesus’s oratory has a lot to be desired, however, I can’t imagine Christian Armenians or Christian Syrians bringing in darkies; Christian Nordics I can. This is due, I think, to Nordic pity and the feeling of (misplaced) communal responsibility.
“If Europeans had not adopted a religion in which the Jews play a privileged place in the salvation history of mankind, would Jews have any more power over us than they have in India or China today?”
Traditional European Christianity (i.e. Catholicism up until the second Vatican Council) was always strongly anti-Semitic. Jews certainly did not play any privileged part in that religion. They were considered an accursed race and a dangerously subversive element. It was not until influential Jews (inside and outside the Catholic Church) managed to pressurize the Church into abandoning its traditional doctrines that the Church became politically correct and started sucking up to Jews.
Jews most certainly did and do play a privileged role in Christianity. Jesus was a Jew. His disciples were probably all Jews. Saul/Paul was a Jew. The Jewish-Christian relationship has always been a family relationship, even when it turned to enmity, and family quarrels are always the most bitter. But the Church was always open to Jewish converts, which has been one of the main sources of its subversion.
The Church has been hostile to Jews for the same reason that some leftists are hostile to Jews: because Jews are particularists and Christianity and the left are universalistic. A White Nationalist does not object to the Jews on universalist grounds, but on the grounds that Jewish particularism conflicts with white particularism.
The admin of a counter-jihad site once wrote:
Then there is an admin of a counter-jihad site who knows very little about Christianity. The Catholic Church has always condemned liberalism. Take a look at e.g. this book:
http://www.ewtn.com/library/theology/libsin.htm#01
It is called “Liberalism Is a Sin” and was written by a Catholic priest. It reflects the traditional Catholic position which the author summarizes like this:
“Liberalism is the root of heresy, the tree of evil in whose branches all the harpies of infidelity find ample shelter; it is today the evil of all evils.”
It is quotes like these that make me glad for the Enlightenment legacy of religious tolerance and separation of church and state.
If this site is based on Evola’s and Guenon’s asseverations and thoughts, then the Enlightenment would be a bad thing; secularism and whatnot included.
I’m an atheist too, but one who’s having serious thoughts about everything after reading Guenon’s “Reign of Quantity”. I’d like to hear your side as an atheist while promoting, to an extent, Tradition.
The Enlightenment may be filled with silly philosophical notions, but the net result of freeing Europe from the social tyranny of Christianity is a good thing. And its legacy may also help save Europe from the rising tyranny of the other Religion of the Book, Islam.
Traditional polytheistic societies were far removed from modern liberalism, but they were also far removed from the hatred, intolerance, and persecution that is the legacy of the jealous God of the Jews. Modern liberalism recaptures something of the tolerance of old pagan Europe, albeit for totally different reasons.
The biggest difference, of course, is the issue of civil religion. Most modern pagans believe in the separation of church and state, but the religions they profess to revive were almost all CIVIL RELIGIONS, i.e., state-sponsored cults.
These cults could, moreover, persecute people (Socrates for one) for failing to honor them and importing foreign gods. But even in these cases, they were less concerned with controlling people’s thoughts than with upholding common civic practices.
The “freeing of Europe from the social tyranny of Christianity” subjected Europe to the tyranny we still suffer under: the tyranny of the Jews.
Europe used to be ruled by Christian monarchs and noblemen who never sought the destruction of their own people. Europe is now ruled by Jews who hate the people of Europe and try to wipe them out by mass immigration.
You hate Christianity so much that you prefer the current Jewish dictatorship under the guise of democracy, religious freedom and liberalism, over the Christian kings who used to govern us.
That’s simply deranged.
You obviously cannot maintain an intelligent and civil discussion. You’re banned.
GJ,
Don’t ban him. He’s intelligent as well as civil.
I agree with his support of Christian traditionalism to a great degree, btw.
Nils clearly crossed the line when he wrote “You hate Christianity so much that you prefer the current Jewish dictatorship . . . over the Christian kings who used to govern us.” I had expected that he would make an intemperate, insulting, and irrational statement of this kind; I had been thinking of replying to a previous comment of his which indicated that he might do this.
It might be that Nils can generally be intelligent and civil, yet also be a commentator who impedes discussion, one of those Christian White nationalists who, as Greg Johnson remarks, “spend more energy trying to stifle civil debate about religion in our circles than they do trying to stop the anti-white hatred coming from their churches.” Such people are often determined on having the last word, drag out discussion interminably, drag discussion downwards, and don’t contribute to discussion on other subjects. Greg’s time and energy is best devoted to writing, editing, and publishing articles and books rather than moderating comments. He should not be expected to put up with people who post comments in the spirit that I have just described. This applies to commentators of all religious and ideological persuasions.
I can understand that. But without the French revolution, the Enlightenment, religious tolerance and separation of church and state the Jews of Europe would still have been confined to ghettos where they could do comparatively little damage.
Again ditto. And the curious thing is that that admin of the blogsite (Gates of Vienna) fancies himself as a traditional Catholic. I wish you go there and teach him a lesson
Well, yes, of course Jesus and his disciples were Jews. So what? That certainly did not give Jews any power or influence in Europe as long as we stuck with traditional Christianity. The Church was still anti-Semitic. Can you please explain how a powerful, anti-Semitic institution like the traditional Catholic Church could be good for Jews? If it was good for Jews, why did Jews do everything they could to subvert the Church and transform it into something entirely different?
Christianity was susceptible to Jewish subversion, unlike, say Hinduism or Shintoism or any number of other national, particularistic religions that would not admit Jewish converts simply because conversion is not possible. Beyond that, Christianity unlike Hinduism etc. gives the Jews a unique role in the salvation history of mankind, a status that could not be dissolved by two thousand years of sometimes extremely bloody family quarrels. The same is true of the other biblical religion, Islam.
Greg:
Please read the text I have pasted in below. It is an excerpt from the Catholic priest and theologian Denis Fahey’s book The Mystical Body of Christ and The Reorganization of Society. It was published in 1943 and sets out the traditional Catholic position on the Jews. Then answer the following question:
Is this a religion that makes it easier or more difficult for Jews to destroy Europe?
The Jewish ideal of a future Messianic Age is opposed to
God’s Will in a second way. The Jews reject the supernatural Messias and His supranational Kingdom, while they continue to look
for another Messias. This means that they long for a Messiani
c age which must of necessity be purely natural. Whether this
Messias be taken to be an individual or the race, it means that
the Jews, as a nation, must strive to impose their particular national form on other nations. This imposition of the Jewish National form inevitably spells decay for other traditional national
forms. The imposition by any nation of its national form on
other nations leads to the decay of the other nations, and this is
all the more emphatically the case when the attempted imposition
is accompanied by the rejection of the one true order of the world,
which can be achieved only through Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Jewish Messianic ambition, therefore, contains a twofold
source of corruption and decay for other nations. It corrupts the
national life, on the natural level, and by its opposition to the
Supernatural Life coming from Our Lord Jesus Christ, it rejects
that succour, by which alone human life, individual and national,
can be lived in order. Father Joseph Lemann, a Jewish convert
priest, emphasizes the total lack of natural prudence displayed in
the admission of Jews to French citizenship at the French Revolution and contrasts the folly of revolutionaries with the supernatural foresight of the Catholic Church. “The Church is very
far-seeing,” he writes, “. . . . She would not allow a Jew to hold
any key-position in Christian society, in the 18th century any more
than in the 10th century. She would not allow a Jew, for example, to teach Christians, to sit under a crucifix as judge over
Christians, to take part in the drawing up of laws for a Christian
state. The Church’s line of conduct is always the same. The
Church tolerates Jews, treats them kindly, has compassion on
them, but on condition that they remain apart in their own quarters and do not seek to enter into the bosom of Christian
societies. She knows well that, if they once obtain entrance, they
will get control of the heart [of these societies] and upset its
proper functioning.”
So this Christian has no problem with the admission of a Jew to the Catholic priesthood but questions the prudence of the political emancipation of the Jews after the French Revolution. From my point of view, both are imprudent, and the first is the more serious error.
You did not answer my question. Is this a religion that makes it easier or more difficult for Jews to destroy Europe?
Easier, obviously.
You are saying that a religion (Traditional Catholicism) that teaches that Jews are a dangerous, subversive people that should be watched carefully and kept from all positions of influence makes it easier for Jews to destroy Europe.
That’s silly. In fact, the only imaginable rationale for defending such an illogical position is an irrational hatred of Christianity.
A religion that claims that Jews are dangerous until they are sprinkled with holy water, after which point they are able to become priests who mediate between men and god and take charge of the education and moral formation of our people, is hardly a bulwark against Jewish influence.
You’re hyperbolizing, GJ. Catholicism was a great stop-gate against Jews. Jews weren’t converting en masse to become priests and start subversion. It’s only during these decadent times that they are allowed to do such things.
Iranian for Aryans,
You’ve forgotten about the marranos–Jews who pretended to convert to Catholicism, many of whom had the chutzpah to enter the clergy in order to subvert Catholicism. (The marranos are discussed in Leon de Poncins’ Judaism and the Vatican and are undoubtedly also discussed in the work of William Thomas Walsh.) Their activities were one of the reasons why the Spanish Inquisition was formed.
Great point, but you answered the issue yourself. The inquisition took “care” of them. Catholicism didn’t bend over like it does now.
It’s about the spiritual vigor of men.
Yes, that’s true of Islam, even though Islam is “anti-Semitic”. In the Islamic world there is still a strong latent resentment and mistrust of Jews quo Jews. Jews are known as skinflints and malfeasant elements, their special place in religion notwithstanding. However, given Islamic doctrine, Jews are considered a specially holy people, looked up to as the original wellspring of revelation and a relationship with God, though they forsook him numerous times.
Just like Christianity in Europe, Islam in Iran is anomalous, since it is from a hated people (Arabs), and embodies their language, customs, and personages. I believe this is what Spengler calls a pseudomorphic phenomenon.
As great as the elements are in each religion, they both carry the seeds of their dissolution as well as ambivalence – bordering on an identity-crisis – in thoughtful adherents, given their alien origins. For instance, the New Testament, even though it excoriates Jews, is Jew-filled, like the OT. The hell with Jerusalem, Teutons should put their adherence in places like Uppsala.
Honestly, how can a Nordic Europe, the Teutonic creme-de-la-creme of Arya, worship a Jew? Likewise, how can Iranians, given their heritage, venerate an Arab?
To be fair, I will say that the ancient Romans, before the burgeoning of Christianity, became racial inclusivists. What we are witnessing are the natural traits of a people’s senescence. Christianity’s negative elements have thus come to the fore-front. An example: Hinduism collapsed because Aryans collapsed and, Judenrein, they bred with Dravidians. Did Hinduism call for breeding with them? Absolutely not. However, a moribund people do such things.
Here’s some more food for thought: civilizations don’t collapse because of miscegenation, rather, miscegenation is a result of a collapsing civilization.
Nils, since you are a Swede:
Read it all.
Chechar:
Con Swede has managed to write 22,000 words on the “current suicidal Zeitgeist in the West”, without mentioning the Jewish factor once. How convenient to blame Christianity instead. Con Swede is either stupid or willfully blind.
@ Con Swede is either stupid or willfully blind.
Of course he is: as I stated yesterday here.
Thank’s for that link. Age of Treason is an excellent blog, the best I’ve seen in a very long time. Did you write it?
No, I didn’t write it: Tanstaafl did.
This discussion of paganism and Christianity is endless, and I am glad that Covington wrote a novel trying to mediate between neo-pagans and Christians in the recently formed ethno-state.
Now that I am studying the history of New Spain (a very closed society: infinitely better than modern Mexico) from a racialist viewpoint, it is shocking to see that, sans Jews, the New Spaniards managed to spectacularly undermine both their own culture and ethny.
Why, How?
All of what you said above about the severe anti-Semitism of the traditional Church is true. But besides Con Swede’s stupidity that you rightly pointed out above he has a point. In that long thread he says:
Even in the 16th century, right after the Conquest of the Aztec and the Inca Empires, the Dominican Bartolomé de Las Casas overstated his case in defense of the Indians. I don’t object too much to what Las Casas did as a champion of the conquered, but today this Christian altruism has become so secularized and deranged that, with the intention of “helping” the dispossessed, even horrible historical facts about the pre-Columbian Amerindians like the sacrifice of children are being idealized in the academia.
Neo-Christianity has become too effeminate. Too Yin. Secular humanists want to be like secular versions of Jesus and St Francis.
What we need today is a violent swing to the yang side. That’s why I spoke of Hitlerism below, since we won’t have again the Spanish Inquisition in America.
Christianity is foreign to us. The Judiac system of rules for the sake of rules is not ours. Christianity has always required a state to enforce it. Without it being enforced, we retreat back to our earth worshiping selves (modern environmentalism is a dysfunctional form of paganism). I attend Church for my family and feel zero connection with the myths, despite being raised Catholic, attending Catholic schools and a Catholic university. I walk in the forest and feel immediately inspired and motivated. Yeah, that sounds weird, I know. It’s true.
I would say that it all depends on how we define Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.
Very very few people realize today that as to the JQ Christianity revaluated all of its traditional values within the lifespan of some of us.
Jesuit theologian Joaquín Sáenz, a spiritual leader of sedevacantism baptized me. In Wikipedia you can see a photo of Sáenz in the mass when he would give me the First Communion (I edited it so that an uncle and I didn’t appear in the photo).
With his plans for Vatican Council II, John XXIII sent letters to all of the bishops asking advice about the Jews. Overwhelmingly, most bishops rejected that any change of doctrine about them should be made. The Pope was deeply disappointed but he did the reform anyway.
Fr. Sáenz strongly dissented from the Council. He was excommunicated a few years after he gave me the First Communion. I knew nothing about the JQ then. It took me decades to see that New Spain with its caste system and Inquisition, an Inquisition used especially against on the Jews, was an infinitely better nation than modern Mexico (“Mexico” was also the name of the ancient Indian city of Tenochtitlan).
Alas, the change in the Christian psyche is now irreversible. I don’t see how the Church can revert back to its traditional values with regard to the Jews (“the deicide people”, etc). This means that we need a new religion, like Hitlerism.
But I could not say that Hitlerism is the legitimate heir of Christianity because that would be a theological question, and I am definitively not a theist. On the other hand, the spirit of the ages would not infuse sufficient anti-Semitism to either the post Vatican Council II Catholic, the modern protestant Christian or a neo-pagan; and I agree that there’s lots of nonsense in the New Age.
We need something new.
I think Greg and the WNists who align with his position are wrong historically, but what Nils and the people who align with his view don’t appear to appreciate is that at some point history has to become history. Whatever the historical value of Christianity, all that really matters today is that the various church leaders are philo-Semitic and anti-White to the core. The next question becomes what to do about it. Although Christianity is dying out and in steep decline, it’s not likely to die out completely among White people within the lifetime of anyone reading this Web site. A lot White people are Christian, nominally Christian, or have family, friends or colleagues who are Christian. It seems to me that trying to convince these people to return to pre-Vatican II Christianity or the Christianity of Martin Luther even if improbable is still more realistic than trying to convince them to abandon their faith completely.
Yes, Christianity was not always an enemy of the white race. Maybe it did not have to be this way. (But I think that today’s Christianity is truer to its roots and teaching than the Christianity of the past that coexisted with healthy racial consciousness.) But these are academic questions, and the answers one gives do not alter in the least the fact that organized Christianity is overwhelmingly subversive of our racial survival.
Yes, I think that Christianity will not disappear any time soon. So I agree with you that one of the most important things for our racial revival is to encourage a Racial Reformation of the churches. But that is a job for Christians.
My contribution to this reformation will be (1) to redirect Christians from trying to squelch civil debate about their religion in WN circles toward reforming their churches, and (2) to motivate them to speed this reformation along by occasionally raising the specters of paganism, atheism, Traditionalism, Nietzscheanism, and other scary ideas that appeal to WNs because of the racial treason of the churches.
Perhaps Nietzsche, Evola, Crowley, and even Anton Lavey will become the unwilling godfathers of a new Christianity. History is full of such ironies.
Christianity won’t reborn. If you could graph Christendom, it reached its peak in the 13th century. After the Renaissance and especially after the Reformation and Enlightenment the graph only shows decline, decline, decline. According to Con Swede, who’s totally blind on the JQ—and says extremely stupid things about the Nazis but at the same time is a visionary on Christianity:
By the time that some of us pass away, Christianity will be such a degenerate white dying dwarf that, in practical terms, the world will be divided in twain: post-Christians (i.e., PCMC secular liberals) and nationalists.
Lew:
A lot White people are Christian, nominally Christian, or have family, friends or colleagues who are Christian.
Which is why foolish mockery of Christianity only removes our legitimacy, our effectiveness, from the very beginning. This Is Not By Accident.
It seems to me that trying to convince these people to return to pre-Vatican II Christianity or the Christianity of Martin Luther even if improbable is still more realistic than trying to convince them to abandon their faith completely.
The Jews replaced Christianity with the theory and Institutionally reinforced gelding of Judeo-Christianity. This is the False Faith that does not inspire, and leads to attendance being a matter of tolerance, keeping peace in the valley, and not an educational, Enlightening, inspiring event.
We can Do Better.
Christianity’s intellectual and moral foundation is not the Bible; it’s the Gospels, and the Book of Revelation. At core, it’s the Gospel of John. The christianseparatist website has some useful commentary. Christianity – as it SHOULD have been – offers much we can use. Today’s Bible was first formulated centuries after the death of Jesus on the Cross.
We can Do Better.
We can create Christian societies, and churches, that are every bit as Christian as any church extant, with the same Forms, but powered by the substance of Masculine Deeds, with the religion serving as a support system for Civilization, and the spiritual development of Mankind.
I’ve made oblique references to this. My thinking has been firming up as of late, thanks to counter-currents, and the Northwest Republic Analytical Framework offered by Harold Covington.
To go full circle on this, I suspect The Gods would LOVE to be summoned for this Cause.
What’s In YOUR Future?
Focus Northwest