Moreover, the American Right is defenseless from a relentless process of its own negrofication. It not only has no intelligent or creative leaders or members (intelligence and creativity being “gay”), but its acceptance of Family Values Machismo implicitly commits it to valorizing The Negro as the syncretic combination of all that is non-gay (the white man is always a doubtful entity, suspected of being “secretly gay” due to his intelligence, beauty, etc., as in the expression “Not gay, just British”).
Thus, the American Right was completely helpless to resist the influx of the neocon (step one, lack of an elite due to anti-homo stance) and the resulting canonization of MLK (step two, positively pro-Negro), now a litmus test for “decency.” The end result: the complete demoralization before the meme that “even Republicans must vote for Obama,” since only a racist would oppose this “historic opportunity,” and the subsequent (typically futile) response of anointing a Negro party head: “See! We like Negroes too!”
CONCLUSION
As Julius Evola and René Guénon knew, nothing was more useless, or positively dangerous, than “conservatives” that merely seek to preserve some old institutions, without asking what principles they were grounded in—the principles themselves being the only thing there was any point in “preserving,” and thus the necessity not of stupidly preserving “what was” but rather of finding the right principles in the first place.
If the “Right” had any intelligence, they would be resolutely stripping themselves of any traces of Judeo-Christian inspired negritude, and encouraging masculinist forces whatever their possible homoerotic content, asking themselves: “Who is smearing this cultural element as ‘gay’? Our Negro, Judaic, and Christian enemies, that’s who!”
HOMOSEXUALITY,
“TRADITIONALISM,” &
REALLY-EXISTING TRADITION
It’s a rare experience to find one’s self battling bourgeois “Traditionalism” at the side of Baron Julius Evola, and I gotta say, I like it!
Shortly after the war, Baron Evola found himself the target of some aspersions from self-styled “Traditionalists” which led him to these valuable reflections on:
. . . the danger of a Guénonian “scholasticism” (in the negative sense of the term), which can reduce everything to something which is both inoperative and abstract, despite the claims (without a proof) advanced by many followers of Guénon, of having attained a knowledge which should be “realizing” as well. The proof that such a danger is real, is given by the orientation taken by some Guénonian cliques of “strict observance.” An example is also found in Italy, by the periodical Review of Traditional Studies, which was started last year in Turin, and which imitates the French Guénonian periodical Études traditionnelles even in its editorial contents. The translations made in it of old articles written by Guénon, along with some texts or theoretical orientations, may be helpful. However the tone of this review is a pedantic one. One can frequently notice in it an academic inclination, namely the style of speaking ex cathedra and ex tripode in a final and pedagogical tone, and with an authority which no member of the editorial staff possesses, either because of spiritual stature or because of valid works being published.
What Guénon had to say in an unfortunate essay concerning “The Need for a Traditional Exotericism,” must also be rejected, since it offers dangerous incentives and alibis to a reactionary and petty-bourgeois conformism. The pedantic representatives of Guénonian scholasticism should rather strive to reach a deeper understanding of the true meaning of the Way of the Left Hand, which is not any less traditional than the Way of Right Hand, and which has the advantage of emphasizing the transcendent dimension proper of every truly initiatory realization and aspiration. An abstract and intellectualizing Guénonian scholasticism, typical of “research institutes,” may well ignore the real meaning of the Way of the Left Hand.56
The Timeless Relevance of Traditional Wisdom purports to “rediscover the sacred worldview of Tradition, governed by truth, virtue, and beauty, as [it] addresses some of the most pressing issues today, including fundamentalism, gender and sexuality, religious diversity and pluralism, faith and science, and the problem of evil.”57 And while there is much good here (and well worth the $3.00 it’s going for on Amazon.com, such is the modern world’s disinterest), I find it discouraging, though predictable, to find this quote from the august Whitall Perry: “The homosexual error is, among other things, that of isolating one pole of a binary cognate and treating it as an absolute, which does violence to the imperatives of the cosmic order” (p. 76).
Well!
This sort of flummery posing as profundity (what is a “pole of a binary cognate,” and how does a limp-wristed queen “do violence” to imperatives of no less than a “cosmic order”?) happens too often when Traditionalists attempt to pontificate (“ex cathedra” indeed) on subjects without, as Guénon would say, the proper data. The data, in this case, being knowledge of traditional societies, and knowledge of homosexuality. How then can they apply Traditional principles to either, or especially to their supposed interaction?
A conclusion is reached, supposedly by long and profound meditation of “principles” but really based on caricatures and stereotypes (“dangerous incentives and alibis to a reactionary and petty-bourgeois conformism”), and then merely dressed up, post hoc, in “deduction from principles.” Reading such comments, I am reminded of Peter Damian, the “inventor” of the concept of “sodomy,” which has had a peculiar quality through centuries of discussion: it cannot be described, because though “unnatural” it is so delectable that a description would increase its occurrence—especially among the clergy themselves! By the 19th century, this theological scruple would produce “the Love that dare not speak its name.”58
This is all the more unfortunate, and unacceptable, since a man with the requisite knowledge of Tradition, and experience living in a traditional society, and experience of homosexuality, is available within the Traditionalist fold, indeed, among the very First Generation, a friend and correspondent of Guénon himself, and published alongside Evola by Inner Traditions: Alain Daniélou.
Daniélou, unlike any other Traditionalist, actually lived, “full time,” in a traditional society, the rural India of the 1930s, where he became fluent in Sanskrit and Hindi, was initiated into several local cults, attended the lectures of authentic traditional teachers, and, in short, acquired a knowledge, unavailable to Westerners or from “anglicized” Brahmins, of Indian art and philosophy that, unlike the “cult” status of Guénon’s work, was recognized by the scholarly world as unsurpassed.
He did all this while traveling the back roads of India in a Gulfstream trailer with his “long time companion,” as we would say, Raymond Burnier. While this lifestyle would have had him arrested in England, and even today in parts of the USA, he found that in India it was a non-issue: his French birth made him an outcaste, and since marriage was out of the question, his private life was ignored.59
Eventually, Daniélou learned that even theoretically (or “principially” as Traditionalists might say) there was no “objection” to homosexuality; quite the contrary:
Homosexuality is recognized (in the Hindu tradition) as a biological fact, given the necessity for all the intermediate degrees between masculine and feminine, and has never been persecuted. Its various practices are described in the classical treatises on the art of love, which every young scholar must study in just the same way as the other traditional sciences. Even today, boy prostitutes have their niche in society and certain privileges, in particular, that of playing female roles—dressed as women—at major religious performances, organized by the temples in each town or village, and representing episodes in the epics that recount the lives of the divine heroes Rama and Krishna.60
Such passages occur throughout his writing, but this one is interesting for containing both points I want to draw attention to. Traditionalists, by and large, are born and raised in modernized Western societies, and acqu
ire their knowledge of Tradition largely through books. Daniélou is unique in having, admittedly at a later age, undergone the education of a traditional young man, and lived in a traditional society. He is thus fully aware of both the actual role played by homosexuals in such societies, as well as the objective, technical knowledge of it possessed by every educated man. (He is also the author of the standard modern English translation of the Kama Sutra.)
Even on a “principial” level, Daniélou has no patience with such simple-minded shuffling of “archetypes,” pointing out that if there are two basic principles, light and dark, male and female, etc., then there must be many “resultant intermediate states.” Shiva, for example, is not merely paired with Shakti, but manifests in many forms, some bisexual or hermaphroditic, which are the subject of numerous homosexual cults.61
All this is in contrast to say, Guénon, who learned his “Eastern Metaphysics” in Paris, from some traveling Hindus. The dangers of this were immediately apparent in his condemnation of Buddhism as a heresy in his early works (unlike Evola, whose Doctrine of Awakening promoted Pali Buddhism as a true Aryan path).
Just as Guénon learned his anti-Buddhism prejudice from bigoted Hindus, and then “derived it from the Principles of Tradition,” so Perry and company read their Western, Semitic prejudices into their discussion of homosexuality.
Daniélou reveals that when Guénon eventually felt the need for some “hands on” experience, and wanted to settle in India, the British refused him a visa. Thus his “seeking refuge in traditional Egypt” was actually his second choice. Daniélou regrets that Guénon was unable to avail himself of living Hindu traditions, which might have lent more nuance to his overly intellectual and abstract works.62 Indeed, how different the overly-Islamized world of “Traditionalism” would be had he been able to join Daniélou in India; and how uncomfortable the “Traditionalists” must be today, stuck with their “last valid revelation” in post-9/11 America.
But perhaps they have only their petty-bourgeois conformism to blame. For what kind of world would Guénon have actually found in Cairo? Fortunately, we have the more recent work of John R. Bradley63 to set the record straight on homosexuality and traditional Islamic societies. His journalistic account of really existing traditional Arab societies (where boys proudly seek wealthy patrons, and gay-bashing is as unknown as “Gay Pride” parades) parallels Daniélou’s account of how reasonable and homo-friendly Tradition was64 until challenged by imported notions of “vice,” first Victorian, then “modernist” (and now, perhaps, “Traditionalist”).
For a more “academic” perspective, Ziauddin Sadar surveys the Qur’an and hadith and concludes:
Given the Qur’an’s emphasis on diversity, it seems strange to me that the sacred text would not recognise sexual diversity. When we are asked, in 17:84, to “Say, ‘Everyone does things in their own way, but your Lord is fully aware of who follows the best-guided path,’” should we not include homosexuals in “everyone”?
It seems that the Prophet Muhammad did. One reason the Qur’an mentions “men who are not attracted to women” is that such men existed in Medina during the time of the prophet. They lived outside the dominant patriarchal economy but moved freely amongst the women. The prophet accepted these men as citizens of the diverse society that was Medina with the usual stipulation that they should not break the ethical and moral codes of society.65
Apart from ritual abjuring of any approval of “negative treatment” of homosexuals (viz., murdering them on sight) there is still much of substance that we agree with in the rest of the essay by Ali Lakhani, from which the Perry quote was extracted, such as the absurdity of “gay marriage” and the evils of the consumerism that “the gay lifestyle” seems to bring with it. However, this all is covered by our distinction (first adumbrated by the late Alisdair Clarke on his blog, Aryan Futurism), between the Leftist-concocted “gay” identity and real homosexuality as it has existed throughout history. The later, much to the chagrin of the Leftist, has been largely on the side of the Right, from the ancient Männerbund (to which Evola traced the origins of Aryan culture) to the pre-war “Masculinist Movement” of Germany to William Burroughs’ Wild Boys and pirate utopias. His comments on modesty and consumerism recall Sardar as well as Bradley:
Reading the Qur’an in terms of contemporary circumstances, is it not right to question whether the commodification of sexuality, the constant bombardment with sexualised images in advertising, for example, as well as the insistence on explicit display of sexual behaviour on tv and in the movies, has taken things to absurd limits and got the balance totally wrong? The pressure such commodification puts on people, especially young girls, to conform to the current fashion in body form, behaviour and acquisition of male company, far from being a “liberation,” can be a nightmare. It is the kind of waking nightmare that far from encouraging personal fulfilment of the whole of our being emphasises one aspect of our nature to the detriment of all others. So, it seems to me modesty and privacy would have a large role to play in countering the excesses of consumer culture while they present no impediment to fulfilling our sexual nature in the privacy of our own homes.66
You would think that after the revelations about Schuon’s later activities, and even Evola’s remarks on whipping and deflowering virgins, the Traditionalists would steer clear of offering advice on sexuality.67
Still, we find much wisdom in an argument Schuon used in a different context, and with suitable though slight modifications, it can serve as our warning to Traditionalists68 who would enter these topics:
[H]ow is it possible to brush aside entirely the intellectual and moral qualities of the ancient sages [who treated homosexuality as unimportant or even as particularly sacred] and to put oneself blithely on the other side of the balance? If a maximum of intelligence and virtue and a maximum of error could coincide in one and the same consciousness, as [Perry and company] take for granted, then man would be nothing, and the emergence of [these traditional sages and societies]—supposing them to be such—would by the same token be impossible. . . . [T]his conjecture bespeaks a monstrous lack of imagination and sensitivity and is belied at every turn—we repeat—by the intellectual and moral eminence of the men at whom it is aimed. One almost feels the need to apologize for drawing attention to something so obvious.69
A BAND APART:
WULF GRIMSSON’S LOKI’S WAY
Wulf Grimsson
Loki’s Way: The Path of the Sorcerer in the Age of Iron
Second Edition
Lulu.com, 2011
A few weeks ago I was privileged to receive this unsolicited review copy, “the result of over 30 years of research, study and practice,” by Wulf Grimsson. I’ve been trying to read, and then review, the contents ever since, but found it difficult. Not because of the writing—Wulf is admirably clear and free of both “scholarly” stodginess and “occult” rigmarole—but precisely because of its dense content of interesting and important ideas. Almost every page gives one something to think about, a source to look up and perhaps reconsider, an inspiration to a new connection made for one’s self.
Why I should have been selected for this privilege is plain from the contents. Loki’s Way covers the whole range of topics I’ve explored on my blog, outside of the more pedestrian political and economic ones, from the Männerbund to mystery traditions to runes, from Nietzsche to Evola to Colin Wilson. I am above all grateful for Wulf’s freeing me from the mild guilt I have felt about all the topics I haven’t done to adequate length, as well as my regret that the late Alisdair Clarke did not live to produce a similar treatise from his path-breaking blog, Aryan Futurism. My Constant Readers will find Loki’s Way to be essential reading.
But first let Wulf define his subject: “Loki’s Way is an adaptation of the Left Hand Path or sorcery for the Kali Yuga. This tradition has taken many forms throughout the centuries, in the modern age it must be updated to deal with new discoveries in science and psychology” (p. 62).
In particular, I think that Wulf’s claim that “the esoteric is the physiological,” i.e., the “discovery” that what esoteric Tradition has been talking about in guarded language can “now be revealed” (as the New Age publishers would shout) as being techniques for manipulating the endocrine and other bodily systems, is really just a misreading of what Evola among others has described as the starting point that remains when all dogmas and theories have been tested and abandoned, in the alchemical abyss:
But then the individual finds himself confronting his body, which is the fundamental nexus of all the conditions of his state. The consideration of the connection between the ego principle in its double form of thought and deed and corporeality . . . and the transformation of said connection by means of well-defined, practical, and necessary acts, even though they are essentially interior, constitutes the essential core of the Royal Art of the hermetic masters.
The Homo and the Negro Page 3
