Synarchism,Synarchism& Synarchism Part 1
Of the many political systems for humankind,
the modern name devised by occultists for a society governed by their own priestly
caste, who would govern according to the dictates of their “gods,” is referred
to as synarchism. Occultists pride themselves in their willingness to dare to
believe in realities denied by the rest of society. But their pride blinds them
to the fact that these phenomena are due to a far more mundane explanations
than the “supernatural” causes which they are deceived into assuming. Worst
still, it is from these entities that the occult secret societies derive their
outlandish mythologies, and often dangerous totalitarian ideologies, which they
were duped into believing emanated from a “divine” source and which, therefore,
supersede the purportedly inferior exoteric religions and beliefs adhered to by
the non-initiated.
Occult tradition has therefore become hateful
of traditional religion, which it rightly regards as the enemy of such experimentation,
and constructed an opinion of it founded on distortions of history. By grossly
exaggerating the Church’s antagonism, Christianity has been described as
contributing to brutal suppression and persecution, particularly against
heretics of occult leanings, with the examples being the various crusades, the
Inquisition and persecution of witches. The Enlightenment also advanced the
supposed dichotomy between reason and religion. This was founded on the
assumption that the Christian Church opposed all scientific discoveries that supposed discredited
accountsin the Bible. In other words, Christianity was the enemy of truth
itself. The most well-known incident was the case of Galileo, also sponsored by
Cosimo de edici, and who was imprisoned in 1663 for upholding Copernicus’
heliocentric model which displaced the earth as the center of the universe. The
story has been repeated ever since as a
primary example of the Church’s enmity towards truth.
More anti-Christian propaganda was created in
the seventeenth century when historians invented what is known as the “Flat
Earth Myth,” which claimed that Medieval
Christian Europe believed the earth was actually flat, a notion that was supposedly contested by Columbus. The myth was
created as part of a campaign by Protestants against Catholic teaching.
Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell claims “With extraordinary few exceptions no
educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century
BC onward believed that the earth was flat,” and he regards that the myth gained
currency in the nineteenth century due to inaccurate histories such as John
William Draper’s History of the
Confl ict Between Religion and
Science(1874) and Andrew Dickson White’s History of the Warfare of
Science with Theolog y in Christendom (1896). 1 Dicksen was a member of the
notorious Skull and Bones at Yale
and co-founder of Cornell University. 2 Draper
and White were the most influential exponents of the Confl ict Thesis,
the proposition that there is an intrinsic intellectual conflict
between religion and
science and that the relationship between
religion and science inevitably leads to public hostility. Draper’s book received
worldwide recognition and was translated into several languages, but was banned
by the Catholic Church.
Likewise, according to Edward Peters, the modern-day notion of a unified and horrible
“Inquisition” is an assemblage of the “body of legends and myths which, between
the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries, established the perceived character
of inquisitorial tribunals and
influenced all ensuing efforts to recover
their historical reality.” 3 Peters explains that it was the relatively limited
persecution of Protestants, mostly by the inquisitions in Spain and
Italy, which provoked the first
image of “The Inquisition” as the most violent
and oppressive actions of the Church against Protestantism. Later,
philosophical critics of religious persecution and the Catholic Church then
continued to promote this unfair image during the Enlightenment.4
But the most devastating assault against Christianity came with Dar win’s Theory of Evolution, suggesting
that science had discovered an account of the creation of the universe and of
humanity that undermined the Bible version.
And if the Bible was wrong, then, we are
led to believe, God must not exist either. And, as Friedrich Nietzsche rightly noted, the ensuing era of
post- Christianity contributed to a crisis of nihilism. Nihilism is the logical consequence of
atheism. Without a belief in God, most continue to operate under popular
assumptions without facing the
ultimate significance of the absence of
God. But without God, there are no consequences to our actions, and therefore
there is no morality and no purpose to our existence. The angst produced by
this realization was portrayed by The Scream, painted by Edvard Munch in 1893,
illustrating the horror felt in facing the bleakness of a possible absence of
meaning in life. According to Munch’s biographer, Sue Prideaux, The Screamis “a
visualization of Nietzsche’s cry, ‘God
is dead, and we have nothing to replace him’.” 5 Nihilism is merely the horror,
the dark conclusion that is the prelude
to evil.
For the most part, twentieth-century fascism and
terrorism would derive their influence
from the existential nihilism ofz Nietzsche and a fascist political movement
known as synarchism which he inspired. Synarchism was a Martinist movement that originated among the
immediate circles of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Synarchism was strongly influenced by the philosophy of Joseph de Maistre (1753 - 1821)
who, according to Isaiah Berlin, was a thinker whose works
contain the roots of fascist thought, as he outlined in “Joseph de Maistre and the Origins of fascism.” De Maistre, a French-speaking philosopher,
defended hierarchical societies and a monarchical state in the period
immediately following the French Revolution.
Despite being recognized as a devout Catholic,
de Maistre was also a Martinist,
having referred to Saint-Martin as “the
most erudite, the most wise, the most elegant of the modern theosophists.”6 As
well, de Maistre was an acquaintance
of Willermoz, and belonged to his Rectified Scottish Rite. It was de Maistre
who deputized Willermoz to read his letter
to the Masonic congress at Wilhelmsbad
in 1782, defending the cause of the
Martinists, and who was also an invitee on behalf of the Rectified
Scottish Rite to the subsequent secret congress of 1785, which decided the fate
of Louis XVI. 7z Despite his close ties with
France, de Maistre was also a
subject of the King of Piedmont-Sardinia, whom he served as member of the Savoy Senate,
spending fifteen years in St. Petersburg as an envoy of the
exiled Savoy court.
Another disturbed cynic, to de Maistre man is a weak, sinful creature,
where human society is continually fraught in a battle for survival and
dominance. Though purportedly a devout Catholic, according to de Maistre:
Unhappily, history proves that war is, in a
certain sense, the habitual state of
mankind, which is to say that
human blood must
flow without interruption somewhere or other on the globe, and that for every
nation, peace is only a respite… If you …examine people in all possible
conditions from the state of barbarism to the most advanced civilization, you always find
war…
…Now the
real fruits of human nature—the arts, sciences, great enterprises, lofty
conceptions, manly virtues—are due especially to the state of war.
Pagan or Christian, God loves human sacrfices! He protect the guilty, not the
innocent!
We are continuously troubled by the wearisome
sight of the innocent who perish with the guilty. But… we can consider [this]
solely In the light of the age-old dogma that the innocent suffer for the benefit of the guilty.
It was from this dogma… that the ancients
derived the custom of sacrifices that was practiced everywhere… 8
De Maistre, as a key a figure of the Counter-
Enlightenment, regarded the
excesses of
the French Revolution as the dire results
of resorting to reason. That which is built with reason can also be torn down by
reason, he thought. If they are to endure, all institutions of authority must
necessarily be irrational, and he cites the longevity of European monarchies as
an example. Only an absolute authority can keep man in check. His unruly nature
must be tamed by the power of punishment, which is ultimately an extension of
God’s authority. But, being a
Martinist, de Maistre would have
meant the Gnostic God. Therefore, “all
greatness, all power, all social order depends upon the executioner; he is the
terror of human society and the tie that holds it together; Take away this
incomprehensible force from the world, and at that very moment order is superseded
by chaos, thrones fall, society disappears.” 9
When the
Martinists were infi ltrated by
Frankists, they seem
to have inherited their regard for Napoleon as a Sabbatean Messiah, a
veneration which continued into synarchism. To
de Maistre, Napoleon was the
model tyrant.
As an ostensible Catholic, the failure of the French Revolution, according to de Maistre, was that it turned against the
word of God and the Catholic Church and was therefore punished by the Reign of
Terror and then Napoleon. However,
despite deploring Napoleon’s atrocities, de Maistre followed the bizarre logic that
all power is to be worshipped, and that all power is admirable. According
to de Maistre, all power is from God,
and Napoleon had power, so he therefore
saw Napoleon as an instrument of God’s
wrath. He appealed to the King of France
to meet with Napoleon, claiming
that Napoleon had requested a meeting
because Napoleon was fascinated by his
works, but the king denied the request on grounds that it smacked of
disloyalty. 10
Synarchism
was first proposed by Alexandre
Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, whose books were widely read by the Martinists, as a purported response to the
ills produced by anarchism and to provide an alternative through the
combination of fascism and occultism.
Synarchy came to mean “rule by secret societies,” serving as priestly class in
direct communication with the “gods,” meaning the Ascended Masters of Agartha.
It was after 1885, when Saint-Yves began
to refer to an Asian origin of synarchy, after he met the mysterious Haji Sharif, who was likely Jamal ud Din al Afghani.
Haji Sharif claimed to be the “Guru Pandit of the Great Agarthian
School,” the residence of the “Master of the Universe” and a far advanced society
where synarchy had been realized long ago. 11
According
the Saint-Yves, it was the
superhero Ram first mentioned by Fabre
d’Olivet who created the first
Synarchist Empire, which extended from Europe
to India. This marked the beginning of
the period of domination of the white races over the black. The transfer of
synarchy to Agartha, according to Saint-Yves, took place at the start of the
Kali-Yuga era around 3,200 BC The Kali Yuga is mentioned in an early Hindu
text, The Vishnu Purana, from the fourth century AD. It speaks about four different
ages of the world system ending with the Kali-Yuga (“age of disputes”), and relates
that the eighth avatar, or incarnation of Vishnu, will be born in Shambhala. Called Kalki, he will destroy an
invading group that are bent on destruction, after which will ensue a new
golden age marking the end of the Kali-Yuga. Godwin summarizes SaintYves’ theory as follows:
We learn that [ Agartha] is a hidden land
somewhere in the East, below the surface of the earth, where a population of
millions is ruled by a “Sovereign Pontiff” of Ethiopian race, styled the
Brahmatma. This almost superhuman figure is assisted by two colleagues, the
“Mahatma” and the “Mahanga” (who had not appeared in Jacolliot). His realm, Saint-Yves explains,
was transferred underground and concealed from the surface-dwellers at the
start of the Kali-Yuga, which he dates around 320 BCE. Agartha has long enjoyed the benefits of a technology advanced far beyond
our own: gas lighting, railways, air travel, and the like. Its government is
the ideal one of “Synarchy” which the surface races have lost since the schism
that broke the Universal Empire in the fourth millennium BCE, and which
Moses, Jesus and Saint-Yves strove to reinstate. Now and
then, Agartha sends emissaries to the
upper world, of which it has perfect knowledge. Not only the latest discoveries
of modern man, but the whole wisdom of the ages is enshrined in its libraries,
engraved on stone in Vattanian characters. Among its secrets are those of the
relationship of soul to body, and of the means to keep departed souls in
communication with incarnate ones. When our world adopts Synarchical
government, the tie will be ripe for
Agartha to reveal itself and
to shower its spiritual and temporal benefits
on us. 12 The creation of a united
Europe, an idea central to synarchism, was part of the vision of Saint-Yves, a
call for which appears on zzzzzzzzthe first page of hisz first book on
synarchy, Keys to the East. The
need for Europe to unite under a single, synarchist state, according to Saint
Yves, is prompted by the rise of Islam as a world power, which threatens a weak,
fragmented, and materialist West. Influenced by ideas borrowed from
Martinism and Plato’s Republic, SaintYves envisioned a Federal Europe with a
corporatist government, composed of
three councils representing economic
power, judicial power, and scientific community, of which the metaphysical chamber
bound the whole structure together. As part of this concept of government, Saint-Yves attributed an important role to
occult secret societies, which are composed of oracles and who safeguard the
government from behind the scenes. He saw the
Rosicrucians as Having fulfilled this
role in medieval Europe, and was
involved with a number of Masonic and other groups who claimed descent
from the Knights Templars .
Synarchism and fascism were closely linked to the
development of terrorism—the use of
violence for political ends—which has its origin in nihilism, or more specifically, existential nihilism.
Based on a cynical outlook
that comes from a pessimism of having abandoned all hope of there being
any meaning or purpose to our existence, it leads to a total disregard for the
sanctity of human life. Essentially,
existentialism is merely the same age-old atheism that has often challenged
men spiritually, but dressed up in the modern jargon of philosophy.
It was Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) who developed the brand
of nihilism in Its first important political expression, as the philosophy anarchism.
According to Jeffrey Steinberg et al., in Dope Inc, the Bakunin’s anarchists, like the Order of Zion,
formed part of an underground network of subversion headed by Lord Palmerston,
as Patriarch of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.
Bakunin was a Grand Orient Freemason, a disciple of Illuminati founder Adam Weishaupt, and an avowed Satanist. 13 He
created the semi-secret Social Democratic Alliance, which had a direct
affiliation to the Illuminati. He conceived of it as a
revolutionary avant-garde within the
First International of Karl Marx, from
which he was expelled in 1872. 14 Bakunin had also played a leading role in the
May Uprising in Dresden in 1849, helping to organize the defense of the barricades
against Prussian troops with Nietzsche’s friend and idol, Richard Wagner, the
composer of the occult-inspired operas, such as Tristan und Isolde, Der Ring des Nibelungenand Parsifal. As a
young man Wagner was influenced by the
occult novels of Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton,
and his
first successful opera Rienzi, was
based on one of Bulwer-Lytton’s novels.
Theodor Reuss, the founder of the OTO, was a professional singer in his youth,
and worked under Wagner, whom he first met, along with Wagner’s patron, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, in
1873. Reuss took part in the first performance
of Wagner’s Parsifal at Bayreuth in
1882. Bakunin’s philosophy of nihilism rejected all religious and political
authority, social traditions, and traditional morality as standing in
opposition to “freedom.” Bakunin argued
that, “The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it
is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the
enslavement of mankind, in theory and practice.” Consequently, Bakunin reversed
Voltaire’s famous aphorism that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to
invent Him, writing instead that “if God really existed, it would be necessary
to abolish Him.” 15 In God and the State, Bakunin expressed the full breadth of his Luciferian Gnostic creed:
Jehovah, who of all the good gods adored by
men was certainly the most jealous, the most vain, the most ferocious, the most
unjust, the most bloodthirsty, the most despotic, and the most hostile to human
dignity and liberty—Jehovah had just created Adam and Eve, to satisfy we know
not what caprice; no doubt to while away his time, which must weigh heavy on
his hands in his eternal egoistic solitude, or that he might have some new
slaves. He generously placed at their disposal the whole earth, with all its
fruits and animals, and set but a single limit to this complete enjoyment. He
expressly forbade them from touching the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He
wished, therefore, that man, destitute of all understanding of himself, should
remain an eternal beast, ever on allfours before the eternal God, his creator
and his master. But here steps In Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker
and the emancipator of worlds. He
makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him,
stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey
and eat of the fruit of knowledge. 16
To
Bakunin, violence was both a creative and purgative force. He believed violence
was necessary to purge the world of the old order to create the new. Every
state thus became the enemy, and the enemy was ferociously attacked using terrorism and assassination. To Bakunin all
morality was relative: “Human nature is so
constituted that the propensity for evil is always intensified by external circumstances,
and the morality of the individual depends much more on the conditions of his
existence and the environment in which he lives than on his own will.” 17 In
his own words, Bakunin sought, “the
unchaining of what is today called the evil passions and the destruction of what
is called public order,” and made the declaration: “Let us put our trust in the
eternal spirit which destroys and annihilates [ Lucifer ] only because it is
the unsearchable and eternally creative source of all life—the passion for
destruction is also a creative passion!” 18
In his Letters to a Frenchman on the Present
Crisis, Bakunin stated that “We must
spread our principles, not with words but with deeds, for this is the most
popular, the most potent, and the most irresistible form of propaganda.” Bakunin’s
prescription came to be known as the “ Propaganda of the deed,” a concept that
advocates the use of violence against symbols or representatives of The defied
order, not for any strategic
objectives, but merely to make
a political statement and to instill terror. One of the first individuals associated
with this concept was the Italian
revolutionary Carlo Pisacane, who wrote in 1857 in his Political Testamentthat “ideas spring from
deeds and not the other way around.” The phrase itself was popularized by the
French anarchist Paul Brousse who, in 1877, cited as examples the 1871 Paris
Commune and a workers’ demonstration In Berne provocatively using the socialist red flag.
By the 1880s, the slogan had Begun to be
used to refer to bombings and
assassinations. Reflecting this new understanding of the term, Italian
anarchist Errico Malatesta in 1895 described “propaganda by the deed”
disapprovingly, as violent insurrections meant to ignite a revolution.
While
terrorism in the twentieth century was most commonly identified with left-wing movements, before the
rise of Islamic terrorism, it had its beginnings
in the development of this fascist terrorism, known as “black terrorism.” Although considered to have first
emerged in France in the 1880s, Thomas
Hobbes, Niccolo Machiavelli,
and Hegel have also been considered as
influential in the development of fascism. The ideological roots of fascism have also been traced to Social Darwinism, Wagnerian aesthetics, Arthur de Gobineau’s
racialist anthropology, Oswald Spengler
and his The Decline of Western Civilization. The main work that gave rise to
decadence theories was the work Degeneration(1892) by Max Nordau, co-founder of
the World Zionist Organization together with Theodor Herzl, and president or
vice president of several Zionist congresses.
According to Nietzsche, inherited democratic
ideals are derived from the false egalitarianism and slave-morality of Christianity. Nietzsche’s revolutionary New
Man of the future, the Ubermenschor “
Superman,” must strip away all values of conventional weak morality, including
equality, justice and humility. We must have an Umwertung aller Werte, the
“revaluation of all values.’’ To Nietzche, the Superman is the one who can
transcend the dark truth of nihilism, by having the courage to form his own
morality. The man of the future must be a beast of prey, an “artist of
violence’’ creating new myths, new states based upon the essence of human
nature, which Nietzsche identifies as Wille zur Macht, the
“Will to Power” being a “a will to war and domination.”
Nietzsche wrote that “the herd” strives for
security by creating morality and rules, whereas the supermen have an internal
vital force that drives them to go beyond the herd. That force necessitates and
drives them to lie to the herd in order to remain independent and free from the
“herd mentality.” 19 All political history is characterized by Nietzsche as a struggle of two wills to power.
Aristocratic and elitist will to power according to Nietzsche is the will to life, which is
contrasted by the will to death, to nothing, of the weak. High culture is
aristocratic, while the dominance of the “crowd” leads to decadence. Ressentiment
(resentment) is an impulse to blame others for their condition, and which has
motivated the weak to seize power from the strong. In Europe, the new
philosophy of the weak (or ressentiment) is called democracy, which developed itself in the
nation-states, transforming every human being, into “a pygmy of equal rights.”
Nietzsche cited Napoleon frequently as an example of the
Superman, being included in his lists of “the more profound and comprehensive
men of this century.” 20 Nietzsche celebrated Napoleon as the ens realissimum
(Latin: the most real being), and was for him the incarnate of the fate of the
European world. In the unification of
Europe, Nietzsche saw the means to overcome the nation-state system and
democracy. The Europe of the nation-states, according to Nietzsche, inherited
democratic ideals from the false egalitarianism and slave-morality of Christianity. “Moraline,” a term which he
uses to mock all traditional morality, must make way for the “dominance of the
winner.” Nietzsche reckoned that the democratic movement in Europe will first lead to the creation of a human type prepared for the new
slavery, and then a “strong man,” the Superman, a “tyrant.” In Nietzsche’s
mind, the closest to his idea of a Superman was Giuseppe Mazzini, whom he
referred to as “the man I venerate most”,
and with whom he shared a dream of European unification. 21
There is actually nothing new about fascism.
Though it has been given a veneer of sophistication by disguising it in
philosophical jargon, fascism is just barbarity, and the absence and denial of
humane qualities. It is found in any culture that celebrate martial prowess the
virtue above all others, like ancient Sparta, or the Vikings. To war is in a man’s
nature. In truth, however, a man’s natural propensity is to defend. Man achieves
an enlightened understanding of his nature only when he recognizes that true courage
is to risk his life for the oppressed, the downtrodden, the weak and the
underprivileged. Fascism, through, confuses valour as war for war’s sake.
As such, in fascism, because of the absence
of absolute moral bounds, the only true value is the pursuit of one’s own gain
over that of others, what Nietzsche called “Triumph of the Will.” All concern
for others is seen as weakness. Rather,
through the influence of Social
Darwinism, the weak are seen as expendable, and as threatening the
evolution of the whole. Thus, the pursuit of mastery over others through war
and violence is perceived as exemplifying courage. Ruthlessness becomes virtue.
Thus, fascism is the most crass form of machismo, equating belligerent military
aggression as the utmost masculine quality, while charity and compassion are
derided as feminine. Ultimately, society’s goal is the creation of the true
nihilist, the Nietzschean Übermensch, the Superman, who is resigned to the
impossibility of otherworldly ideals. And, given the natural inequality that
ensues, democracy and all collectivist principles are considered absurdities.
Only those who have demonstrated their superiority are entitled to rule.
Finally, the ultimate glory is a state of well-disciplined soldiers who show
absolute total obedience to a grand imperial project of “total war” guided by the
elites as their guardians, almost worshipped as gods.
The basis of fascist terrorism, known as
black terrorism, began to be developed by Gaetano Mosca. In his work The Ruling
Class(1896), Gaetano Mosca devised the theory that in all societies an
“organized minority” will dominate and rule over the “disorganized majority.”22
Mosca instead proposed methods of governance by the military as a valid model.
Related to Mosca’s theory was one put
forward by Robert Michels (1876-1936) of
the “iron law” of oligarchy that has become a mainstream political theory. He
stated that the official goal
of contemporary democracy of eliminating elite rule was impossible,
that democracy is a façade legitimizing
the rule of a particular elite, and that elite rule, or oligarchy, is inevitable.
Maurice
Barrès (1862 – 1922) rejected liberal democracy as a fraud, claiming that
true democracy was authoritarian democracy.
Barrès claimed that authoritarian
democracy involved a spiritual connection between a leader of a nation
and the nation’s people, and that true freedom did not arise from individual
rights nor parliamentary restraints, but through “heroic leadership” and
“national power.” 23
Barrès was one of the founding members of
revived Martinist Order along with
Papus. The most high-profile follower of Saint-Yves, Papus worked to put the synarchist ideals
into practice by fusing the various secret societies of his day. In 1886, Saint-Yves had formed the Syndicate of the
Professional and Economic Press (SPEP), to promote synarchy to political and
business leaders. Several members of the French Parliament joined, including
government minister François
Césaire Demahy, later
a founder of the
influential nationalist rightwing
movement Action Française, and Paul Deschanel,
who became President of France in 1920. The movement and the journal Action
Françaisewere founded in 1899, as a nationalist and anti-Semitic reaction
against the intervention of left-wing intellectuals on the behalf of Alfred
Dreyfus. The movement became the best structured and the most vital nationalist
movement in France. Charles Maurras
(1847 – 1922), another
important exponent of
synarchism, was the principal ideologist of
Action Française, and it also attracted
figures such as Maurice Barrès. Through Maurras’ leadership, who was strongly influenced by Joseph de Maistre,
the movement became counter-revolutionary—objecting to the legacy of the French
Revolution—monarchist, anti-democratic and supported integral nationalism and Catholicism. 24
Within a year of joining the Theosophical lodge Isis in Paris, in 1887, Papus became involved in a dispute with a senior
French Theosophist. This led to the personal intervention of Colonel Olcott, to
the dissolution of Isis, and the
formation of a new Theosophical lodge,
Hermès. Papus was appointed its
corresponding secretary, the same leadership role that Blavatsky held in the Theosophical Society
itself. Once open hostilities broke out between Encausse and Blavatsky, a number of Theosophists left Hermès for the Martinist
Order, and the remaining theosopist soon
dissolved Hermès. Encausse expanded his own organizations in France and abroad,
until by 1900 there were hundreds of Martinist lodges and related bodies, from
America to the Russian Empire. 25
Papus organized an “International Masonic Conference” in Paris in 1908 at which he first met Theodor Reuss, and the two
of them apparently exchanged patents.
Reuss elevated Encausse as X° of
the O.T.O as well as giving him license to establish a “Supreme Grand Council General of the Unified Rites of Ancient and Primitive Masonry for the
Grand Orient of France and its Dependencies
at Paris.” Reciprocally, Papus assisted Reuss in the formation of the OTO’s
Gnostic Catholic Church, based on
Crowley’s Book of the Law. When John
Yarker died in 1913, Papus was elected as his successor to the office of Grand Hierophant of the Antient and
Primitive Rites of Memphis and Misraïm.
Papus had a
particular influence on one of the most
influential occultists of the twentieth century, René Guénon (1886 –1951), who associated with Charles Maurras, and who would continue to offer intellectual
inspiration to much of the political right. 26 Guénon was initiated into
Martinism and Antient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraïm in 1907, and was
also entrusted with the insignia and documents of the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix ( OKR+C).
The founder of Traditionalism, Guénon, influenced
by Papus, insisted on the idea, already
formulated before him by Joseph de
Maistre and Fabre d’Olivet, of a
primordial religious Tradition. Papus’ membership
in the Theosophical Society was an
important source of the Martinist Order’s Perennialism, and therefore of Traditionalist Perennialism, which proclaimed
“that truth is One, and that no school, no religion can claim it for itself
alone… In every religion can be found manifestations of the single truth.” 27
Papus believed that the Perennial Philosophy had been transmitted by Hermes from Ancient Egyptian sources, and
they saw in this transmission the source of initiation. Papus also followed Blavatsky in turning to the Hindus, regarding
“the Indian tradition” as “the longest lasting historical example of continuity
of religious exoterism.” 28 Following
Papus, Guénon immersed himself in the study of Hinduism and in the search for an
uninterrupted initiatic tradition.
Guénon’s
Traditionalism was derived from the universalist principles of Sufism,
primarily through the influence of Abdul Qadir al Jazairi. Guénon’s Traditionalism was developed from
the notion, shared with the fascists, of the belief in the decadence of the
modern world. Guénon believed that
Western civilization was an anomaly, having been the only civilization to
progress along purely materialistic lines, and had therefore become completely devoid
of any true spiritual basis. This development, he believed, is falsely characterized
as the pinnacle of progress, where it is seen as necessary to impose the values
of Western civilization, such as
democracy, human rights and
science on the rest of the world.
Guénon therefore developed a philosophy
whereby the modern world was in decline, and needed to be reformed by returning
to Tradition. By tradition, Guénon meant the Perennial Philosophy. This notion
was the same as the Prisca Theologia, or
“ Ancient Wisdom,” of Marisilio Ficino.
In reality it was the Jewish Kabbalah that
Ficino considered to be a pure tradition imparted to the wise men of
antiquity, and the key to establishing a universal religion that could
reconcile Christian belief with ancient philosophy. It was also known to Blavatsky as “ Ancient Wisdom” or
“Wisdom-Religion.” To Guénon, the
Perennial Philosophywas the basis of a single esoteric tradition, which could
be discovered as the secret source of all major exoteric traditions. It was
therefore necessary, Guénon believed, for the mystic to adopt outwardly the
guise of one of these religions, while recognizing that it was merely the
outward manifestation of a single mystical tradition shared by all religions.
Reflecting the
ideas of Saint-Yves, Guénon thought that
the problem with modern society was that it was not ordered according to
natural hierarchy, so that castes were assigned to their improper functions. To
Guénon, democracy was an “inversion” because the lowest class, the Sudras,
dominated over the priestly class, the Brahmins. Guénon believed that the West
could be saved only through the revival of a spiritual elite, a kind of
modern-day Rosicrucian Brotherhood, who understood the need for a return to a
primordial Tradition, and would act as a governing secret society. “The true
elite,” says Guénon in The Crisis in the Modern World, “would not have to
intervene directly in these spheres [social and political], or take part in outward
action; it would direct everything by
an influence of which people were unaware, and which, the less visible
it was, the more powerful it would be.”
Guénon, however, gave up on his earlier idea
of a spiritual resurrection of the West on the basis of Roman Catholicism and
Freemasonry. Having denounced the lure of Theosophy and neo-occultism in the
form of Spiritism, Guénon was initiated in 1912 in the Shadhili
Sufi order. To his many correspondents
he clearly designated Sufism as a
more accessible form of traditional initiation
for Westerners eager to find an initiatory path that does not exist any more in the West. Guénon’s initiation was effected by Swedish convert
to Islam Ivan Aguéli, who took the name of Abdul Hadi. Aguéli was interested in both Sufism and Jewish
Kabbalah. Guénon’s initiation was
performed under the authority of the friend of Abdul Qadir, Sheikh Abder Rahman
Illaysh al Kabir, Freemason and head of
the Maliki Madhhabat Al Azhar University, responsible for the Fatwathat
launched the Urabi revolt.
Also associated with Maurras and his Action
Françaisewas French revolutionary syndicalist. Georges Sorel
(1847 – 1922), one of the key
activists who
greatly influenced fascism.
Heavily influenced by
anarchism, Sorel contributed to the fusion of anarchism and syndicalism, into
anarchosyndicalism. Sorel promoted the
legitimacy of political violence in Reflections on Violence(1908) and other
works in which he advocated radical syndicalist action to achieve the
revolutionary overthrow of capitalism
and the bourgeoisie through a general strike. In essence Sorel regarded all
moral values as relative, and therefore described the Declaration of the Rights
of Man as “only a colorless collection of abstract and confused formulas,
without any practical bearing.” 29 Initially,
Sorel had been a revisionist of
Marxism, but by 1910 he announced his abandonment of socialism and claimed in 1914 that “
socialism is dead” due to the “decomposition of Marxism.” Charles Maurras attempted to merge his nationalist
ideals with Sorel’s syndicalism as a
means of confronting liberal
democracy. Maurras famously
stated “a socialism liberated from the
democratic and cosmopolitan element fits nationalism well as a
well made glove fits a beautiful hand.” 30
The Italian fascists put into practice Sorel’s
belief in the need for a deliberately conceived “myth” to sway crowds into
concerted action. To Sorel, a myth is not judged by its proximity to a “Truth.”
Rather, in Sorel’s view, the validity of a political myth is measured on the
basis of its effectiveness in mobilizing human beings into political action.
The “myth” that the fascists would appeal to was that of the race, nation, or
people, as represented by the state. Radical nationalism in Italy, in support of expansionism and
cultural revolution to create a “New Man” and a “New State,” began to grow in
1912 during the Italian conquest of
Libya, and was supported by Italian Futurists and members of the Italian
Nationalist Association (ANI). The ANI was founded on the ideas of Enrico
Corradini, who created a fusion Mauras’ nationalism and Sorel’s syndicalism. Corradini spoke of the
need for a nationalistsyndicalist movement, led by elitist aristocrats and
anti-democrats who shared a revolutionary syndicalist commitment to direct
action and a willingness to fight. Italian
national syndicalists held a common set
of principles:
The rejection
of bourgeois values, democracy,
liberalism, Marxism, internationalism,
and pacifism, and the
promotion of heroism, vitalism, and violence. The ANI claimed that liberal democracy was no longer compatible with the
modern world, and advocated a strong state and imperialism, claiming that humans
are naturally predatory and that nations were in a constant struggle, in which
only the strongest could survive.
The ANI would be a major influence for
the National Fascist Party formed in 1921
by Benito Mussolini, who was heavily influenced
by Mosca and Sorel. Due to Michels’ viewing fascism’s goal as seeking to destroy
liberal democracy, he would also become
a supporter of fascism upon Mussolini’s rise to power. Mussolini
repeatedly acknowledged Sorel as his master: “What I am, I owe to Sorel.”
And Sorel, in turn, called Mussolini “a man no less extraordinary than Lenin…”
According to Mussolini:
We have created our myth. The myth is a
faith, it is passion. It is not necessary that it shall be a reality. It is a
reality by the fact that it is a good, a hope, a faith, that it is courage. Our
myth is the Nation, our myth is the greatness of the Nation! And to this myth, to
this grandeur, that we wish to translate into a complete reality, we
subordinate all the rest. 31
Archived documents have revealed that in
1917, Mussolini was hired by MI5 for
£100 a week (the equivalent of about £6,000 today), to ensure Italy Continued to
fight at the side
of the allies in World War I,by
publishing propaganda in his paper.
Mussolini’s payments were authorized by Sir Samuel Hoare, an MP and MI5’s representative in Rome. After the war,
through electoral fraud and the violence of his infamous Blackshirts, Mussolini began his rise to power,
establishing his fascist dictatorship by the mid-1920s. Mussolini‘s colonial
ambitions in Africa brought him into contact with Hoare, now the British
foreign secretary, and signed the Hoare-Laval pact in 1935, that gave Italy
control over Abyssinia. The unpopularity of the pact in Britain, however, forced
Hoare to resign. Nevertheless, Mussolini
built on his new colonial power to ally himself with Hitler.32
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