A Silver Lining

"Conservatism" in the USA amounts diagnosing "American Society" as a body suffering from a terminal disease and wanting to "cure" it with a "system restore" to a barely earlier stage of the disease.

"Liberalism" in the USA amounts to diagnosing the worst symptoms of the terminal disease as signs of health and cultivating them.

What neither of them realize is that the "body" they want to cure isn't suffering from a disease, it IS the disease.

The silver lining is that both sides are Doomed.

JDS


Related:
The earliest cockroach-like fossils ("blattopterans" or "roachids") are from the Carboniferous period 354–295 million years ago. However, these fossils differ from modern cockroaches in having long external ovipositors and are the ancestors of mantises, as well as modern blattodeans. The first fossils of modern cockroaches with internal ovipositors appeared in the early Cretaceous... contrary to popular opinion, extinct cockroach relatives and 'roachoids' such as the Carboniferous Archimylacris and the Permian Apthoroblattina were not as large as the biggest modern species.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockroach

Slowly Unpacking

In the process of relocating Headquarters, slowly unpacking The Library in the new location; books, art, and various artifacts.

Evola on the Fallacy of "Natural Rights"

"...the very notion of 'natural rights' is a mere fiction, and the antitraditional and subversive use of that is well documented. There is no such thing as a nature that is 'good' in itself and in which the inalienable rights of an individual, which are to be equally enjoyed by every human being, are preformed and rooted. Even when the ethnic substance appears to be somewhat 'well defined,' in other words, when it presents some elementary forms of order, these forms (unless they are residues and traces of previous formative actions) do not have a spiritual value in and of themselves unless by participating in a higher order, such as when they are assumed in the state or an analogous traditional organization, they are first consecrated as being from above. In the end, the demos's substance is always demonic (in the ancient, non-Christian, and amoral sense of the word); it always requires a catharsis or a liberation before it can act as a force and as the material of a traditional political system, and before it can favor the development of a differentiated and hierarchical order of dignity over and beyond a naturalistic substratum." -- Julius Evola.

 ["demos" = "the people" as in "democracy"]

Claw Hammer

From a 5-year-old email I wrote commiserating via email with my 89-year-old friend Heinrich (who wore a German uniform in WWII):

"...any smaller, ethno-culturally homogeneous, highly-functioning society - such as Iceland or Japan for example - could make almost any "system" work - up to and including monarchy. The USA in contrast is so "diverse" as to be a quasi-anarchy barely held together by mindless consumerism, ignorance, sloth, and their manipulative parasitic exploiters who can't afford to let things fall completely apart if they can help it - politics and profit-driven business are identical here. I don't see anything positive coming from the USA in my lifetime - whatever is left is damage-control managed by leeches and scavengers at best."

... one is only serious about politics insofar has he thinks in terms of what can actually be accomplished. The problem is when I measure even the barest shred of any "Ideal" I may have in terms of what can actually be accomplished in the USA, there is literally nothing remaining of the original "Ideal" even if reduced to purely practical materialistic and self-interested terms, beyond retreating into a bunker and completely insulating oneself against the surrounding toxic environment.

Once the realization that literally nothing worth achieving can actually be achieved, the only viable option is to return to the ideals in the purest form as a platform for attacking the "status quo" - albeit as an alienated reclusive critic rather than an "activist" because the only form "activism" could take beyond that point would be closer to "terrorism."

If the "civilization" I was born into was incarnated as an infant in a basinet, I would beat its skull in with a claw hammer.

JDS

Cosmodromium Pageviews by Country

This weeks stats; it always amuses me how many more readers this blog consistently has in Russia than in the USA.

Aleister Crowley Ritual Artifacts

From the collection of Israel Regardie, now in the Buckland Gallery of Witchcraft and Magick.

Aleister Crowley's Scorpion Ceremonial Brazier

Aleister Crowley's Trident Wand

Aleister Crowley's Ceremonial Oil Lamp

Julius Evola on RIDE THE TIGER

I do not deny that the book in question could not but draw the necessary conclusions from the negative balance of forces which is becoming more and more evident these days. Nevertheless, it must be borne in mind that the book addresses a very particular human type and that it essentially deals with the problem of the inner life, of the ethic to follow as individuals in a time of dissolution.

Some people have spoken of the book as a 'manual for the right-wing anarchist', and to a certain extent, this is accurate. My assertion that today there is no political system, no formation, and no party whatsoever worth devoting oneself to, and that everything existing must be denied, has disconcerted many. However, this denial and non-commitment do not derive from a lack of principles, but from the possession of principles, which are precise, solid and not subject to compromise. Nor is this the only respect in which I differ from the nihilism or the anarchism of the 'angry young men', the more or less defeated generation, the beats, hipsters, and such people, whose 'no' is not based on anything positive. In the life of today it can be appropriate, for many, to withdraw in order to settle in a more interior line of trenches, so that that which we cannot do anything about cannot do anything against us. However, the whole book does not encourage people to let themselves go, but precisely the contrary : a strict discipline of life brought to the highest point is what is outlined in it.

On this inner, spiritual plane of the individual, what is required is the opposite of non-involvement. And I would like to draw people's attention to the possibility that, before thinking of outer actions, often dictated by momentary enthusiasms, one should think of the formation of oneself, the action on oneself, against everything which is formless, shifty or bourgeois. In the book I have evoked, it is true, the formula of apoliteia. The word I took from the Stoics. Now, it must be recalled that this precept of detachment from a political world which, at the time of the Stoics, was already beginning to dissolve irresistibly, had a double significance for the Stoics : the fidelity to an ideal State, beyond the contingent one of men and time, and, precisely, a strict individual ethic. This is how Stoicism in Rome came, in the end, to reinvigorate what was still left of the traditional Patriciate.

People must thus pay attention to the particular plane of the problems dealt with in the book, and, moreover, realise that not every individual who comes along can expect to identify himself with the particular type of modern man to whom it is directed. In the first pages I also pointed out that, apart from the type in question, if there are today men willing to fight in spite of all, even on lost positions, I am equally grateful to them. I want only realism, lucidity.

Santa Muerte ATWAR

ATWAR lapel pin on Santa Muerte alter with Kumanthong babies and a vial of dirt from Spahn Ranch.

ATWA = AIR, TREES, WATER, ANIMALS

ATWAR = AT WAR

Vomitorium: Misty-Eyed Patriotism

Once you realize politics, local, national, and international, is nothing but a for-profit business venture for "politicians," you will get over your smarmy misty-eyed histrionic "patriotism" and start celebrating when someone shoots them.

 If you want to get "misty-eyed" about something; mourn the period when the aristocracy became so venal that power fell into the hands of merchants and lawyers. AKA "the founding fathers."

Whining about "getting back to the constitution" is like someone dying of a disease being nostalgic for when they first contracted it.

JDS

Kali Yuga USA: Pessimism = Prophetic

In the USA, ruled by a consortium of sleaze and incompetence motivated solely by personal profit, pessimism has a negative predictive rate approaching 100%. The only upside is; no one wins, everyone loses.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I won a lot of bets on Obama, but I also "called it" on more than a few things regarding Trump.

"In the 'modern world', the best do not rule, it is the worst who rule, or, to put it more accurately, who 'manage', in a chaos that they feed and intensify. " -- Baron Julius Evola.

Google joins Amazon in Thought Policing

Yet another example of private corporations streamlining the thought policing process faster and more thoroughly than the government ever could:

Google tells army of 'quality raters' to flag Holocaust denial.

"In a new update to the rating system, rolled out on Tuesday, Google introduced another flag raters could use: the “upsetting-offensive” mark. Although the company did not cite a specific reason for the update, the move comes three months after the Guardian and Observer began a series of stories showing how the search engine promotes extremist content."

Ayam Cemani: The Black Pullets

New additions to the family.....

Ayam Cemani is an uncommon and relatively modern breed of chicken from Indonesia. They have a dominant gene that causes hyperpigmentation (Fibromelanosis), making the chicken entirely black; including feathers, beak, and internal organs. The breed originated from the island of Java, Indonesia and have probably been used for centuries for religious and mystical purpose. The breed was first described by Dutch colonial settlers^[1] and first imported to Europe in 1998 by Dutch breeder Jan Steverink. Currently, these breed of chicken are kept in the Netherlands, Germany, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. It is thought that Ayam Cemani may have also been brought to Europe by Dutch seamen. Their beak and tongue, black comb and wattles; even their meat, bones and organs appear black. The blood of the Ayam Cemani is normally colored.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayam_Cemani

Amazon removes "Holocaust Denial" books under Jewish pressure

Here's a litmus test for your hypocrisy or commitment to "Freedom of Speech." Also yet another example for Libertardian "Freedom" advocates who demand everything be "Privatized", that private corporations will shut down your options faster than any government as soon as they perceive their "bottom line" might be impacted by "special interests"

Artist and scholar Charles Krafft commented: "In Seattle USA, home of the sprawling new Amazon corporate offices, CEO Jeff Bezoes has just capitulated to the demands of the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Memorial Center in Jerusalem and curtailed the availability of dozens of scholarly books that challenge the received history of the holocaust (uncapitalized). I went through a public shaming here four years ago when a reporter at the local free weekly decided to out me as a holocaust denier. Hey, it's not like I stumbled on some hate literature laying around somewhere and was instantly politicized, or evangelized, into my dastardly disbelief. I read voraciously and traveled to Bucharest twice and to the British National Archives at Kew Gardens in London to do primary research in archives to make sure my conclusions were correct. The world is an unequal and unfair place. I know that, but this news that a shrine to a Jewish cult of death built on top of a Muslim cemetery in shitty Israel is now making it impossible for me to purchase the books I require to continue my research in Seattle USA angers me. My brain is impervious to holocaust bullshit. I worry how YOU will inoculate yours now"

WJC welcomes Amazon move to remove Holocaust-denial books, offers assistance in identifying further material

"Americanism" is anti-traditional subversion.

Thomas Jefferson on the Illuminati: No need for clandestine subversion in the USA, here subversion is overt, the inmates are running the asylum: 

"I believe you will think with me that if Wishaupt had written here, where no secrecy is necessary in our endeavors to render men wise & virtuous, he would not have thought of any secret machinery for that purpose." 

-- Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826. Letters Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library

WWII - The Wrong Side Won

'As is well-known, after the collapse of the forces of the Axis, propaganda organised on a gigantic scale made every effort to make the "totalitarian" regimes of yesterday appear as the quintessence of all abjectness. An initial silence was maintained regarding the Soviet regime, a "totalitarianism" of much vaster dimensions. The passive and traumatised masses, including, unfortunately, vast strata of Germany itself, took, and still take, what they were told at face value. Now, a point must be emphasised : even if what has been put forward regarding the Gestapo, the S.S., the concentration camps, the extermination of Jews, and the so-called "war crimes" (naturally, this meant exclusively those committed by the vanquished, despite Hiroshima and so on) were true - and what truth there is in all these allegations exists only in proportions which are utterly different to those claimed by the propaganda), no price would have been too high to accept if it had led to victory in this war and the following achievements : the breaking of the back of the Soviet Union ; its exclusion from the group of the world's Great Powers ; the freeing and decommunising of an immense territory and its opening to the expansion of Central-Western Europe ; in consequence, the prevention, in all probability, of the communisation of China, which in turn would have prevented it from becoming what it is now, to wit, a new, more and more dangerous, great power, not only for the East ; the humiliation of the 'great democracy', the United States, removing it from the sphere of European interests ; and the survival of a part of the colonial heritage, whose area, in the atmosphere of the new European order, with men faithful to the idea of the different dignity of races and of the hierarchy of races, would not have at all easily become what it is becoming under the effect of the inconceivable stupidity of the exponents of the democratic gospel : the place of a massive revolt of coloured people which is rapidly putting an end to the last remains of the hegemony and prestige of Europe, in the first place to the detriment of the victorious nations themselves.

Even if there were questionable institutions, and men who were not equal to the highest goals and principles, in the regimes of yesterday, all this could have been gradually rectified if there had been such a victory, essentially through the influx into the higher positions within these institutions and regimes of new elements shaped by the experience of war.

Among the most grievous consequences of defeat was the following one : the negative aspects of the regimes of yesterday could be employed to discredit almost irreparably their positive ideas, tendencies, and requirements, to the greater glory of communism, democracy and Judaism. In this regard, the point has been reached where, in Western Germany today, to speak at all of the Reich sounds suspect and 'Nazistic' ; where, in Italy, everything which is Roman in inspiration is stigmatised as empty rhetoric ; where 'racism' is used as the most frightful of scarecrows ; where, owing to the German persecutions, the Jew has acquired a sort of sacrosanct and untouchable character, so that to venture to say one word against him causes a chorus of indignant protestations and even exposes the speaker to legal sanctions.'

---JULIUS EVOLA
From "The Occult War" chapter of Men Among the Ruins.

The most cogent definition of "The Occult War."

"The occult war is the war which the forces of global subversion wage behind the scenes, by means which are almost always invisible to ordinary methods of investigation. The notion of occult war belongs, so to speak, to a three-dimensional vision of history, in which history is not considered superficially, according to two dimensions, those of the apparent causes, events, and leaders, but in depth, according to its third, underground, dimension, which contains decisive forces and influences often irreducible to the simple human element, be it individual or collective" -- Julius Evola.

The Fallen Tower

I think it was T.S. Eliot who said every great civilization (or culture) was founded and built around an altar. Now our civilizations - especially American "civilization" - are founded around a board room table of lawyers and businessmen with paid think tank consultants. From the democratic-republican egalitarian perspective their "authority" is no better than another board room meeting, which will be inevitable.

As far as "constitutional" government goes; without a "traditional" metaphysical/cosmological core, they are essentially building lego-castles out of ideas from the ground up from an over-cerebral "marketplace of ideas." This applies to any "alternative" think tank enterprises as well, whatever quilt-work they manage to cobble together from the history of "ideas" of a purely humanistic order, even from seemingly "traditional" ideas - they are still working artificially from the ground up.

From a "traditional" perspective there must be a revelation which men comprehend (noetically via intellection, then cerebrally through "intellect" ... ratio), then confirm by rites that become institutions to which the broader mass of humanity conforms. When that center no longer holds, things fall apart, and even all the kings horses and all the kings men cannot put it back together again.

JDS

Karl Popper: Dissimulating Ostrich Farmer of the Occult War

Karl Popper writes, "Conspiracies occur, it must be admitted. But the striking fact which, in spite of their occurrence, disproved the conspiracy theory is that few of these conspiracies are ultimately successful. Conspirators rarely consummate their conspiracy."

Assuming a successful conspiracy would by definition go undetected, I wonder how Popper, who is famous for articulating the theory of Falsifiability, would go about proving that (more than a "few") successful conspiracies do not exist.

JDS

An Islamic Model of The Occult War

An interesting passage from a lecture by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf:

Now the Quran is over 6000 verses and it comes in 114 chapters or surah which means enclosure. It is made of ayah which are roughly translated as verses and of over 6000 verses of the Quran there are approximately 500 that directly related to legislative matters. The vast majority of the Quran does not relate to legislation. It actually relates to what we understand about God and then the historical process, history, its purpose, what human beings are here for, a lot of it is calling human beings to reflect on the creation, some of it tells us of the stories of those who went before us, this conflict between the prophetic tradition and the pharonic tradition. The Quran in a sense sets up a dialect in the world between a pharonic impulse to control and a prophetic impulse or prophetic truth to liberate people from control models and to enter into a type of submission in which they are no longer subjugated to these control models that tyrannise them and keep them basically trapped in delusional ways of viewing the world and what the world is here for. So the pharaoh, his symbol is the pyramid. It is a very interesting symbol because the pyramid is moving to a human apax which is the Pharaoh and his inner circle and the rest of that society is supporting that structure. So human beings are really seen as servants of those in power or those in charge and those in charge then have magicians.

They have four components that the pharonic model has. Firoun which is the political component, Haman which is the economic component, it is the economic power base. Then there is the military component which empowers both the political and the economic to do what they want. Allah says that all of them are wrongdoers. So being a soldier for this system is also participating for the crime of the system. There is a fourth component and these are the magicians. These are the ones that keep people in awe, that bewitch people, that put veils over them to make them think something is real when it is not real so that is the Pharonic system. Those are the fourth components of the pharonic system that are mentioned in the Quran.

One of the things about the pharaoh is that he is very sensitive, he sends spies out so he uses a spy network. He wants to know everything that is happening in society. He is very forceful because what he is afraid of, what Allah says in the Quran “Allah is going to show Firoun his economic power, his military power, the very thing that he was fearing” so Pharaoh focuses the Prophetic element in the society because a Prophetic element is exposing the lie of the pharonic culture and so the Pharonic culture has a deep seated fear of the element because it is an element that is telling people you were not created to create pyramids, you were not created to serve pharaoh, you were not created just to make money, you were not created to exploit, you were created to worship Allah.

Now the Pharonic model uses manipulation of nature and that is why when then threw down their sticks they looked like snakes whereas with the Prophetic model, it is truth. It is not illusion. When it shows its hand, it gobbles up the falsehood. That is why they do not like the two to be together. They like to make sure that element is not allowed any type of mass audience because if it is it becomes very dangerous so that is one of the most important elements in the Quran is this model and that is why the Pharoah and Musa is the most important story in the Quran, it is repeated more than any other story. Each time it comes in the Quran it has nuances because ultimately that is the human conflict. It is between a control model which is about getting the creature to submit to higher creatures and the Islamic model is that you do not submit to creatures, you submit to the Creator. So these are in opposition. So that is one element of the Quran.

LINK

Seyyed Hossein Nasr on The Occult War

“We live among ruins in a World in which ‘god is dead’ as Nietzsche stated. The ideals of today are comfort, expediency, surface knowledge, disregard for one’s ancestral heritage and traditions, catering to the lowest standards of taste and intelligence, apotheosis of the pathetic, hoarding of material objects and possessions, disrespect for all that is inherently higher and better — in other words a complete inversion of true values and ideals, the raising of the victory flag of ignorance and the banner of degeneracy. In such a time, social decadence is so widespread that it appears as a natural component of all political institutions. The crises that dominate the daily lives of our societies are part of a secret occult war to remove the support of spiritual and traditional values in order to turn man into a passive instrument of dark powers. The common ground of both Capitalism and Socialism is a materialistic view of life and being. Materialism in its war with the Spirit has taken on many forms; some have promoted its goals with great subtlety, whilst others have done so with an alarming lack of subtlety, but all have added, in greater or lesser measure, to the growing misery of Mankind. The forms which have done the most damage in our time may be enumerated as: Freemasonry, Liberalism, Nihilism, Capitalism, Socialism, Marxism, Imperialism, Anarchism, Modernism and the New Age.”

 ― Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Antonin Artaud on The Occult War

Antonin Artaud, Le Theatre de la Cruaute, 1946

“Aside from the trifling witchcraft of country sorcerers, there are tricks of global hoodoo in which all alerted consciousnesses participate periodically … That is how strange forces are aroused and transported to the astral vault, to the dark dome which is composed above all of … the poisonous aggressiveness of the evil minds of most people … the formidable tentacular oppression of a kind of civic magic which will soon appear undisguised.” 
 -- Antonin Artaud.

Democracy is a Fallacy and a Lie

The "if smart people voted" argument is invalid.

"Democracy" is defined by majority, the same that defines "Mediocrity." Mediocrity and Democracy are intrinsically identical - that is what "Representative" Democracy was trying to over-ride. Representative Democracy means the "average" (mediocre) people select representatives most representative of their mediocrity.

The selections offered are pre-selected by vested interest to insure their vested interests are served first, if not exclusively. Representative Democracy means rigged sleaze. So we have Rigged Sleaze manipulating and corralling Mediocrity.

"Smart People" are grossly outnumbered by mediocre/average people. The "votes" of "smart" people will just be absorbed in the mass of idiocy and the rigged system. So the "Lets turn this thing around" rhetoric is as futile on this point as it is on others. The system you have is exactly what you get with the system you have.

Don't question anyone's intelligence because of who they vote for. Question their intelligence because they vote at all.

JDS

The Left Hand Path

THE LEFT HAND PATH DEFINED
In response to a frequently asked questions about the book Lords of the Left Hand Path, I do not subscribe to Stephen Flowers definition or philosophy of "The Left Hand Path." I consider myself of the LHP, but not this distorted mis-appropriation of the concept that has so much subculture currency. Anything spinning off the feeble pseudo-philosophical "Isolate Intelligence" drivel is completely erroneous, pretentious, ultimately limiting, and without merit. It has no historical or philosophical validity. The only book of Flowers' that I found personally interesting is his doctoral dissertation on Runes. Read Evola instead. Or better yet, don't. I don't want anyone who can't figure it out for themselves on my side.

 "There is a significant difference between the two Tantric paths, that of the right hand and that of the left hand (which both are under Shiva’s aegis). In the former, the adept always experiences ‘someone above him’, even at the highest level of realization. In the latter, ‘he becomes the ultimate Sovereign’ (chakravartin = world ruler). This means that the duality between the integrated person and the dimension of transcendence, or between the human and God, has been overcome. All differentiations and subordinate relationships are rendered obsolete once the Shiva condition is achieved." — Julius Evola, The Yoga of Power (p.55)

JDS

Bannon & Evola: Much ado about nothing

First my Mussolini newsfeed was flooded to the point of uselessness with articles about Trump, now my Evola newsfeed is flooded to the point of uselessness with articles about Bannon.

Much ado about nothing.

As far as I can tell this chimerical mountain was constructed from the mole-hill of Bannon making a comment about Alexander Dugin mentioning Evola as an influence on Dugin. From this follows an unsurprising tsunami of histronic "alt-right" speculation that Bannon has read Evola, or harbors some kind of quasi-Traditionalist views.

Forget the fact that there is no "sort of" Traditionalism, that heterodoxy invariably rails into deviation which itself invariably becomes yet another strain of subversion. Even as a thought experiment, if someone of a coherently "Traditionalist" orientation were in a substantial position of influence on any President of the USA, this would still result in negligible traction or any significant impact on anything that would matter.

In terms of "anti Tradition" the US social-political-economic machine is the belly of the beast, essentially the Anti-Christ, and even a much more substantial force at the highest levels would be absorbed and transmogrified (or more accurately putrefied) into something insignificant at best, or something more insidiously subversive at worst.

Basically from any coherent Traditionalist perspective; there is nothing non-destructive that can emerge from the American order, regardless how shiny the occasional glimmer of a "silver lining" - polished by "alt right" delusions and wishful thinking may be.

Really, is seeing Evola mentioned in the New York Times a good thing? Now we can "look forward" to even more diluted inaccurate "Evolain" drivel from the American "alt right" front on "The Internet" further staining his legacy.

JDS

LINK

Nostalgia, Optimism, Time, and the End of the Cycle.

Throughout recorded history most of the world has believed itself to be living in "The End Times." According to Traditional doctrines the advent of the Kali Yuga corresponds approximately with advent of recorded history, so in this sense they, and we, have been and still are living in "The End Times." The problem is we "moderns" conceive time only on a petty personal or provincial historical scale. Americans, whose history is merely a recent flash in the pan on the scale of recorded history, and not even a blip on the radar of cosmological time scales, are particularly guilty of this.

Traditionalists have been occasionally misunderstood, by those with shallow understanding of Traditional doctrines, as being prone to "nostalgia" in terms of idealizing particularly ancient and medieval history, and prone to "optimism" in terms of expecting the Dark Age to roll over into a new Golden Age.

Regarding "nostalgia": As noted, the Dark Age corresponds approximately to our timeline of recorded history. Our "ancient" and "medieval" periods still exist in the "Dark Age," and are rife with anti-Traditional forces. They are only relatively more "Traditional" in contrast to the aberrations of our "Modern" period, particularly the excesses of the post "Enlightenment" period. The tide of Traditional and anti-Traditional forces occasionally fluctuates, and at a level beyond the imposition of human "will" in the matter. There are traditional doctrines of phases of the Kali Yuga. By one Traditional system, the "Twilight" phase of the Kali Yuga began in 1939. Much could be said about this.

Regarding "optimism": Traditional doctrines are almost unanimous that the transition from one phase of major cosmological cycles to another is cataclysmic in nature. Both Guenon and Evola disparaged their over-eager followers who had romantic ideas about forming "elite" cadres in hopes of being the standard-bearers of "Tradition" into the next era. Aside from the cosmic time scales involved, meaning none of us reading this will likely live to see it, the cataclysmic nature of the transition is such that few would survive the transition even if they lived long enough to see its arrival.

Whatever "nostalgia" or idealization of the knowable past there may be is highly conditional. Whatever "optimism" might be warranted is abstract and impersonal in nature. Misanthropy and "pessimism" is generally warranted. Nihilism might only be inconvenienced by a modicum of abstract, coldly impersonal metaphysics within a transient spatio-temporal threshing machine.

JDS

What "new/alt-right" means to me...

What "new/alt-right" means to me: Unbridled bloviating narcissism, inflated self-importance, bad writing, desperate approval-seeking, cowardly dissimulation and avoidance of actual issues, nattering coffeehouse pseudo-intellectualism, invertebrate gelatinous concessions to pop subculture sensibilities and other degenerative retrograde tendencies, covert normalization of gay counterculture with a fetish for "right wing" rhetoric and posturing.... etc. Just another group-hug for masturbatory typists.

I'm reminded of the Hadith; "A people will come out at the end of times, immature, foolish and corrupt. They will hold the discourse of the best of creation and recite Qur'an, but it will not go past their throats. They will pass through religion the way an arrow passes through its quarry. If you find them, kill them, for verily whoever kills them will have his reward from Allah the Day of Judgment."

JDS

Nikolai Kalmakoff, Rebel Angel, 1924

Every Thing is a Symbol

Skull of a woman with a condition called monocephalus diprosopus. This is a form of conjoined twinning characterized by a single head and two faces or a spectrum of duplication of the craniofacial structures. From the Museum of Anatomy in Montpellier, France.

The Alchemical Rebus from Trump XIV. Art of the Crowley-Harris Tarot Deck.

French Ceremonial Dagger from the mid-19th Century

The original of the dagger from the previous blog entry.
French Ceremonial Dagger from the mid-19th Century Source: Czerny’s International Auction House S.R.L. Website:http://www.czernys.com/

Skeleton Ritual Dagger

Forgot where I originally acquired this, a reproduction of a 19th century French piece. I originally didn't like this (except for the coffin box), mostly because of the gold plating (I would have preferred tarnished brass or bronze) but it has grown on me over time. 

Waxing Gibbous Moon in Cancer, from Mt. Ararat Cemetery, Daytona Beach Fl 12.23.15

Photo by James D. Sass

Democracy: The Most Miserable Building Block of Doom

"Democracy is the most miserable of all known societal systems, the building block of doom. Under such a system of government unmanageable freedom of production and consumption and the passions of the people are not only tolerated, but cherished as the highest values. The most serious environmental disasters occur in democracies. Any kind of dictatorship is superior to democracy, for a system where the individual is always bound one way or another leads to utter destruction more slowly. When individual freedom reigns, humanity is both the killer and the victim." - Pentti Linkola

Primordial Tradition, personal trivia

[This was posted elsewhere some time ago, thought I would archive it here]

I would describe myself as having "converted" to "Tradition" in a very specific sense. The term "convert" comes from Middle English (in the sense ‘turn around, send in a different direction’): from Old French convertir, based on Latin convertere ‘turn around,’ from con- ‘altogether’ + vertere ‘turn.’ Roman military commanders would shout "convert" to marching troops to order them to change direction.

Although Evola's work is central to just about everything I'm working on for the past few years, Evola did not "convert" me. I was dismissive of Evola for a long time mostly due to his popularity among music subcultures (music subcultures are intrinsically a huge turn off) and fruity "movement" types. I became interested in Evola primarily because of his politics and metaphysics of history once I realized he wasn't merely a re-branded Theosophist (like most of the "Nazi Occultism" tripe), only to discover his esoteric material is more interesting and important than its merely "political" dimension. There is no understanding Evola's politics without understanding his "philosophical" and metaphysical foundations in "Tradition" which means there is no understanding Evola without understanding Guenon (and no understanding Guenon without understanding Advaita metaphysics and traditional Vedic/Puranic cosmological doctrines). Evola did not "convert" me, Guenon did.

There is a very short list of books that I read at exactly the right time in my life, but mostly because they helped me understand philosophical problems I was having and mostly confirmed my perspective on things. (Perfect examples being PD Ouspensky's Tertium Organum [re time/space] when I was about 17 years old, and Heidegger's Being & Time [re death/mortality] when I was about 20). But Guenon's books The Crisis of the Modern World and The Reign of Quantity & The Signs of the Times are the only books I can say actually CHANGED my perspective in a radical way, even if by only turning on a clear light and providing assembly schematics for other (traditional) material I'd been working with most of my life. Where Guenon and Evola differ in interpretation, I generally agree with Evola or see ways of reconciliation. "Tradition" is the most authentic and coherent explanatory foundation for just about anything that actually concerns me.

The insipid chatterbox "marketplace of ideas" is demolished and the ground salted.

JDS

http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Perennial_Traditionalism

Otto Skorzeny

Fantastic photo of Otto Skorzeny I'd never seen before. 

Another one:

The Occult War by Emmanuel Malynski and Leon de Poncins

Logik Förlag has published an English translation of Evola's edition of THE OCCULT WAR by Emmanuel Malynski and Leon de Poncins (the source for much of Evola's chapter on this subject in Men Among the Ruins, etc.), this translation includes Evola's introduction, editorial notes, notes regarding Evola's changes to the original text, Evola's "Considerations of the Occult War" as an appendix, a review of the original publication by Rene Guenon, and (not noted in most advertising) the added final chapter of the book written by Evola with Poncins' approval. As far as I can tell the only other English language publication by Logik Förlag is Coreneliu Codreanu's Prison Notebooks, which also includes substantial Evola material relating to Codreanu, the Iron Guard, and the Legionary Movement in Romania.

Of "The Occult War" Evola writes, "One of the great merits of this work is that it emphasizes the metaphysical essence of the revolutionary movement, by showing how that which is being fought nowadays is not so much a political and social war as a religious one... with more than simply human forces at work on both sides. Hence, this is not merely a book of rebuke and anti-Semitic or anti-Masonic polemic: rather it directly or indirectly offers the reader many cues to develop a positive, constructive, or re-constructive orientation focused on the essential rather than the accessory, and devoid of any attenuation."

https://www.logik.se/

Deep Dream: House Burning

Two old photos of myself in front of my neighbor's house burning down after an explosion:

Two Cane Toads (Bufo Marinus) Fucking:

Skull:

Deep Dream: Charles Manson

Deep Dream: XI Lust (Crowley/Harris)

I thought the filter worked particularly well on this image (more Tarot stuff later):

 

 

Original:

 

Deep Dream: Aleister Crowley

I've been having fun exploring Google's "Deep Dream" filter:

 

 The original: