The Decline and Fall of Civilisations

by Kerry Bolton

  Eliade refers to the Hindu fire altar as “equivalent to a repetition of the cosmogony”. The fire altar represents the year with 360 bricks of the enclosure corresponding to the 360 nights of the year, and the 360 yajusmati bricks to the 360 days. Eliade comments:

  “This is as much as to say that, with the building of each fire altar, not only is the world remade but the year is built too; in other words, time is regenerated by being created anew. But then, too, the year is assimilated to Prajaparj, the cosmic god; consequently, with each new altar Prajapati is reanimated - that is, the sanctity of the world is strengthened. It is not a matter of profane time, of mere temporal duration, but of the sanctification of cosmic time. What is sought by the erection of the fire altar is to sanctify the world, hence to place it in a sacred time”.63

  There was a similar cosmological symbolism of the Temple at Jerusalem. Citing the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus64 the twelve loaves of bread on the table signified the twelve months of the year and the candelabrum with seventy branches represented the decans (the zodiacal division of the seven planets into tens). The Temple was a world-image, imago mundi; “being at the Center of the World, at Jerusalem, it sanctified not only the entire cosmos but also cosmic life - that is, time”. 65

  Cosmic time for the religious man is symbolised by the course of the year “imagined in the form of a circular course”. “The year was a closed circle; it had a beginning and an end, but it also had the peculiarity that it could be reborn in the form of a new year”. The New Year, symbolising a new cycle, and was “pure” and “holy”, “because not yet worn”.66 That is the important distinction between the traditional perception of cycles and the profane perception of lineal history. When the Persian priest-king commemorated the New Year, Nawroz, he proclaimed, “Here is a new day of a new month of a new year; what time has worn must be renewed”. Eliade comments:

  “Time had worn the human being, society, the cosmos - and this destructive time was profane time duration strictly speaking; it had to be abolished in order to reintegrate the mythical moment in which the world had come into existence, bathed in a ‘pure’, ‘strong’, and sacred time. The abolition of profane past time was accomplished by rituals that signified a sort of ‘end of the world’”.67

  To “modern” man the ritualised “renewal” of the cyclic life, which was such an important function of the priest-king, is nothing but superstition. He can only see “progress” ahead in a straight line towards an horizon, without comprehending that beyond that horizon might be a cliff edge. Traditional man understood that his culture was subject to decay, but could be renewed by reiterating the ethos on which it was founded. Therefore, religion and myth were far more than the superstition condemned by Marx as an “opiate” and scoffed at by our rationalists: it was the basis for renewal. Eliade states that with each New Year “the fabulous time of Creation” was being “reintegrated”.68

  We might now understand how prophets such as Jeremiah and a few of our own historians such as Oswald Spengler, Julius Evola and Rene Guénon, could warn that their societies were in the process of decay, when tradition was being forgotten. These often ridiculed doom-sayers were the few who had a higher perspective above the masses of the ignorant and the smug. Hence the wide denigration among academia of Oswald Spengler by those who are too immersed in the present Zeitgeist to understand what is happening around them, while most of our esteemed modern historians such as Francis Fukuyama and Arnold Toynbee can only see the continuing “march of progress” towards a universal democratic millennium. The response of academia is epitomised by the dogmatic assertion of Robert Nisbet that,

  “No one has ever seen a civilization die, and it is unimaginable, short of cosmic disaster or thermonuclear holocaust, that anyone ever will. Nor has anyone ever seen a civilization – or culture or institution – in literal process of decay or denegation, though there is a rich profusion of these words and their synonyms in Western thought from Hesiod to Spengler. Nor, finally, has anyone ever seen, as we see these things in plants and animals – growth and development in civilizations and societies and cultures… We see none of these in culture, death, degeneration, development, birth”.69

  While Dr. Nisbet, typical of most modern academics, albeit lauded as a great “conservative” sociologist,70 can only see a jumble of unrelated facts, Spengler discerned a pattern. Dr. Nisbet assures us that this is not possible. One of those who saw what was going on about him, who was ridiculed and vilified for his warnings, retorted: “Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not”.71

  Ebb & Flow of History

  “I see in place of that empty figment of ONE linear history… the drama of a number of mighty cultures, each having its own life; its own death… Each culture has its own new possibilities of self-expression which arise, ripen, decay and never return. I see world history as a picture of endless formations and transformations, of the marvellous waxing and waning of organic forms… The professional historian on the other hand, sees it as a sort of tapeworm industriously adding to itself one epoch after another”. — Oswald Spengler. 72

  While each civilisation has characteristics particular to itself, its own type of art, architecture and mathematics, they have analogous cycles of birth, flourishing, decline and death. Typically, the cycle of decline is marked by religious scepticism, seen as scientific or progressive, materialism, and the rise of the merchant class with its money ethics, over traditional classes based on birth and with obligations to duty. Family and children are seen as a burden rather than as assuring continuity of one’s lineage.

  The Hindu text Visnu Purana, describes the Kali Yuga in terms that could just as well have been written by a contemporary critic of Western society:

  “Wealth (inner) and piety (following one’s dharma) will decrease day by day until the whole world will be entirely depraved. Then property alone will confer rank; material wealth will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond between the sexes; falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation…

  “Earth will be venerated for its mineral treasures…

  “He who gives away much money will be the master of men, and family descent will no longer be a title of supremacy…

  “Men will fix their desires upon riches, even though dishonestly acquired”.73

  Hesiod wrote of ages of culture, and the predominant human type of each age, as a degenerating fall from Divinity to lower levels of being:

  “Or if you will, I will sum you up another tale well and skilfully - and do you lay it up in your heart, - how the gods and mortal men sprang from one source.

  “First of all the deathless gods who dwell on Olympus made a golden race of mortal men who lived in the time of Cronos when he was reigning in heaven. And they lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all evils. When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace upon their lands with many good things, rich in flocks and loved by the blessed gods.

  “But after earth had covered this generation - they are called pure spirits dwelling on the earth, and are kindly, delivering from harm, and guardians of mortal men; for they roam everywhere over the earth, clothed in mist and keep watch on judgements and cruel deeds, givers of wealth; for this royal right also they received; - then they who dwell on Olympus made a second generation which was of silver and less noble by far. It was like the golden race neither in body nor in spirit. A child was brought up at his good mother’s side a hundred years, an utter simpleton, playing childishly in his own home. But when they were full grown and were come to the full measure of their prime, they lived only a little time in sorrow because of their foolishness, for the
y could not keep from sinning and from wronging one another, nor would they serve the immortals, nor sacrifice on the holy altars of the blessed ones as it is right for men to do wherever they dwell. Then Zeus the son of Cronos was angry and put them away, because they would not give honour to the blessed gods who live on Olympus.

  “But when earth had covered this generation also—they are called blessed spirits of the underworld by men, and, though they are of second order, yet honour attends them also—Zeus the Father made a third generation of mortal men, a brazen race, sprung from ash-trees; and it was in no way equal to the silver age, but was terrible and strong. They loved the lamentable works of Ares and deeds of violence; they ate no bread, but were hard of heart like adamant, fearful men. Great was their strength and unconquerable the arms which grew from their shoulders on their strong limbs. Their armour was of bronze, and their houses of bronze, and of bronze were their implements: there was no black iron. These were destroyed by their own hands and passed to the dank house of chill Hades, and left no name: terrible though they were, black Death seized them, and they left the bright light of the sun.

  “But when earth had covered this generation also, Zeus the son of Cronos made yet another, the fourth, upon the fruitful earth, which was nobler and more righteous, a god-like race of hero-men who are called demi-gods, the race before our own, throughout the boundless earth. Grim war and dread battle destroyed a part of them, some in the land of Cadmus at seven-gated Thebe when they fought for the flocks of Oedipus, and some, when it had brought them in ships over the great sea gulf to Troy for rich-haired Helen’s sake: there death’s end enshrouded a part of them. But to the others father Zeus the son of Cronos gave a living and an abode apart from men, and made them dwell at the ends of earth. And they live untouched by sorrow in the islands of the blessed along the shore of deep swirling Ocean, happy heroes for whom the grain-giving earth bears honey-sweet fruit flourishing thrice a year, far from the deathless gods, and Cronos rules over them; for the father of men and gods released him from his bonds. And these last equally have honour and glory.

  “And again far-seeing Zeus made yet another generation, the fifth, of men who are upon the bounteous earth.

  “Thereafter, would that I were not among the men of the fifth generation, but either had died before or been born afterwards. For now truly is a race of iron, and men never rest from labour and sorrow by day, and from perishing by night; and the gods shall lay sore trouble upon them. But, notwithstanding, even these shall have some good mingled with their evils. And Zeus will destroy this race of mortal men also when they come to have grey hair on the temples at their birth. The father will not agree with his children, nor the children with their father, nor guest with his host, nor comrade with comrade; nor will brother be dear to brother as aforetime. Men will dishonour their parents as they grow quickly old, and will carp at them, chiding them with bitter words, hard-hearted they, not knowing the fear of the gods. They will not repay their aged parents the cost their nurture, for might shall be their right: and one man will sack another’s city. There will be no favour for the man who keeps his oath or for the just or for the good; but rather men will praise the evil-doer and his violent dealing. Strength will be right and reverence will cease to be; and the wicked will hurt the worthy man, speaking false words against him, and will swear an oath upon them. Envy, foul-mouthed, delighting in evil, with scowling face, will go along with wretched men one and all. And then Aidos and Nemesis, with their sweet forms wrapped in white robes, will go from the wide-pathed earth and forsake mankind to join the company of the deathless gods: and bitter sorrows will be left for mortal men, and there will be no help against evil”.74

  The Revelation of John has a similar account of the end cycle of a world-encompassing civilisation, descriptive of today’s “modern civilisation”. Using the analogy of a prior fallen civilisation, the figure of the Whore of Babylon is evoked to describe a world system that has amassed great power and wealth, that is devoid of a spiritual nexus and that is in the throes of collapse. “Babylon the great is fallen,” exclaims the prophet. The “habitation of devils and of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.”75 John of Patmos was declaring that the future world civilisation he was visualising, a civilisation based on wealth and power, is spiritually and morally bankrupt. It is the end cycle of a civilisation when outward glamour, wealth, excess, and hedonism predominate. St. John sees this Late civilisation in terms of a world power to which all pay tribute. There have been fanciful interpretations, especially by Pentecostals, in calling this The Vatican, or the European Union. Contemporary political observers might today see this world empire as being manifested in the world outreach of the USA. That this end cycle manifests as a world empire is shown by John’s Revelation: “For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies”.76

  Here John sees this world empire as receiving the homage of most nations (“the kings of the earth”), and as being the basis of a world financial and economic system (“the merchants of the earth…”). The nexus around which this “civilisation” is based is therefore described as being that of money rather than Divinity. In keeping with the traditional outlook, John’s Revelation foresees the crumbling to decay and death of this godless empire, with plagues, death and mourning, “utterly burned”, with the “kings of the earth” who have ingratiated themselves with this empire lamenting its end, along with the merchants.77

  John reminds us that the basis of this neo-Babylonian civilisation in its end cycle is that of commerce. The merchants lament its demise because the commerce will no longer be conducted in gold and silver, precious metals and the symbols of opulence.78 John’s Revelation states that it is the merchants who rule this world empire, just as Spengler said that mercantile values dominate civilisations in their “Winter” cycle. John described the merchants in this civilisation as “the great men of the earth” who rule the earth, “for by their sorceries were all nations deceived”.79 This end-system is plutocracy. The banking system on which it is based has been described as “sorcery”. After the apocalyptic end of this civilisation John foresaw a new thousand year civilisation. One is not compelled to believe in the Christian faith to recognise the efficacy of John’s “prophecy”; any more than one must accept Hinduism or Norse paganism, to see the exactitude of their prophecies on end-cycles. John understood the unfolding of history from a traditional perceptive, as did the sages of other faiths and cultures, and his descriptions accord precisely with the present situation.

  The Chinese dynastic cycle (朝代循環) states that each dynasty, after reaching a political, economic and cultural peak, falls through moral corruption, losing the Mandate of Heaven, and is succeeded by a new dynasty, which goes through the same cycles:

  A new ruler unites China, founds a new dynasty, and gains the Mandate of Heaven.

  China, under the new dynasty, achieves prosperity.

  The population increases.

  Corruption becomes rampant in the imperial court, and the empire begins to enter decline and instability.

  Natural disaster hits the rural population, and famine ensues because of corruption and overpopulation.

  Famine causes rural rebellion and civil war.

  The Emperor loses the Mandate of Heaven.

  The population decreases because of the violence.

  Epoch of warring states.

  One state emerges victorious.

  The victorious state is the focus for a new empire.

  The new empire gains the Mandate of Heaven.

  The cycle is repeated by the succeeding dynasty.

  A Chinese proverb summarises the dynastic cycles: “After a long split, a union will occur; after a long union, a split will occur” (分久必合，合久必分). Sinologist Dr. John K. Fairbanks wrote of this:

 
“China’s two thousand years of cornered politics have produced apparent rhythms and pulsations. … Anyone who seeks historical uniformity, or who makes societies and civilisations his units of study, will find the Chinese chronicles inexhaustible”.80

  Sima Guang, commissioned to write a voluminous history of China, Zizhi tongjian (“Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government”), which taught the lessons of right statecraft, saw the key to returning to the Golden Age and the overcoming of the “dynastic cycles” as being the revival of tradition, including ritual in achieving harmony and equilibrium, in the sense that Eliade describes. The word Li can mean specific rites and ceremonies, the courtesies of social interaction, an aspect of personal cultivation, political and social institutions, and “culture” in a broad sense, indicating that interconnections between all of these aspects of life. As in other civilisations, Sima looked on the Golden Age of the ancestors as the ideal for the present:

  “The Way of the ancients was always wide and never narrow. They always concentrated on the profound and never the superficial. Their words were always high-minded and never low. ... Even if they passed their days in bitter poverty, the customs and achievements they bequeathed still serve as examples after hundreds and thousands of years”.81

  Sima saw human nature and the character of the cosmos as constant. What was valid for the ancestors continues to be so. It is a departure from tradition that causes decay.

  “Are there any differences between the Heaven and Earth of antiquity and those of today? Were the ten thousand things then different from today? Did people then have different natures and emotions than today? Heaven and Earth are unchanged, sun and moon are the same. The ten thousand things are as always, and human nature and emotions have not been altered. Why should the Way alone have changed?”82