PLog 34: The End Already Passed Us By

 

I've been reading a lot of 19^th century occult literature, recently.

That's only sort of true. I'm an audio learner – so what is true is that I bought a collection of essays and short(er) writings on the occult which were composed for the most part it seems in the 19^th century. To be sure, I bought this particular collection because it was the only audio recording I could find of any of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa's works. But what I got in addition to that has been a wealth of... I would say information, but that might imply it's new information. And if I outright say it's not new information, I'll sound like I'm bragging – because a lot of the things they're saying in these essays, et al, aren't exactly the kinds of things you just come across in life.

And that's true. I have sought much of these ideas out. But if I'm being honest, they're saying the things I've privately thought – either independent of any serious study or resultant thereof.

It's remarkable to me how different H.P. Blavatsky is from Aleister Crowley – whose religion has survived and is even lauded into the 21^st century; meanwhile one cannot do casual research into Blavatsky's life without finding even casual biographers deriding her name and those of her acquaintances, friends, and peers. It's truly remarkable to me.

Because it's a centuries-old slander job. But why? I think I have enough of an idea to try to explore it in prose. So let's see what my subconscious has been brewing.

We as a species have experienced a Darkening within living memory, and I'm not sure we fully appreciate it yet.

What does that mean?

It means, that for all this is the Information Age and the Internet has made, as its designers hoped, all information available at the touch of a finger to very nearly every single person alive on the planet, we are experiencing a Dark Age. I'm jumping so far ahead of Rob right now, and I'm sorry, Rob, I really am, but this needs to be said. The 19^th century was an apocalypse. It was the End Times we were promised in Revelation. I mean – the Fall of Rome in the West was the End we were promised in Revelation, but these things are cyclical.

And I'm not talking about the collapse of the British Empire. I'm talking in more than a lot of ways about the Rises of the American Empire and of Post-Modernism.

Something happened in the 20^th century. I have to be honest – the 20^th century is my blindspot, historically. Until the writing of this piece, I never much had any interest in the 20^th century. So much of what we think of the 1900s is fantasy – Steampunk, et cetera. But more than that, what we have is a popular literature from a century that preferred those past to its own. And why not?

Just in the United States there were the Spanish-American War, Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, the first Gulf War.... And those are just the world-level tragedies I can readily think of as an American myself. I am very well aware that the rest of the world, namely Communist countries, was on fire.

I think a lot about the South American indigenous societies (civilizations, whatever. I don't feel like quibbling with myself about the definition). In one of Graham Hancock's books (I think it's Magicians of the Gods, but I'm certain that's wrong; I'm also certain I am way too committed to this thought to go look it up right now), he describes the religion of the Mayan people as the inverse of the religion we think we understand: Instead of worshiping the Good god because he was the victor the last time the two came into conflict, the Mayan religion is a Dark Fantasy novel – it reminds me literally of the plot of Grandia 3, actually.

The Evil god won the last time the two came into conflict, and their religion was all about placating that god with human souls.

It reminds me of something that Rob has asked rhetorically of me and of our audience many times: To what end are these gods milling our souls for our suffering?

Anyway, something changed in the 20^th century. I shouldn't publish this before the Letter that Rob is composing; but I also haven't published anything in so long I'm wondering whether I'm ever going to again. And, frankly, I'm the one of the two of us who is still alive and didn't run away from his responsibilities more than 100 years ago. So.

I think know what it was – the Thing that happened. And, no, Rob – this shouldn't step on your toes at all.

Theosophy almost won.

What I mean by that is that as a social and philosophical movement (if you like), it almost overtook Christianity and Post-Modernism. What do I mean by that?

I was watching a biography of H.P. Blavatsky to get an idea of what we know of her today – what we think of her today. Because listening to essays by her contemporaries and friends, when she is mentioned it is only glowingly. So why is she so routinely forgotten today, and when not forgotten, belittled and berated?

Theosophy – that is, the wisdom of the divine – sought out and offered a way alternative of the two rigidly materialistic and mechanistic worldviews of the day. In the video I watched, her philosophy was described as a middle way, somehow marrying Catholic Christianity and Atheistic (or at least Agnostic) Mechanistic Materialism. But... first of all, these are enormous words with huge definitions and I am absolutely using them differently than how anyone but me probably understands them. And that's okay. I'm trying to describe what we think we know about the world. 

Gods, sometimes I really do sound like Rob.

But the thing is, Christianity by the 19^th century was absolutely not the same Christianity it had been a millennium before. They aren't even remotely similar. So for 20^th and 21^st century scholars to attempt to say that the Church's goals were the same – or even that there was anymore a unified Christianity (even in countries where there was a popular Christianity, there was no unified Christianity. Wars were still being fought in the 1800s about which version of Jesus you were allowed to worship) – is a bald-faced lie spoken to cover a gross ignorance.

By the 19^th century, Christianity was passe. Sure, you went to church on Sunday if you were a part of Society; but your interests lay far elsewhere. As far as I can tell, all of the Intelligentsia of the 19^th century were indeed interested in the Occult. Whether you believed or not, the Esoteric worldview and its implications were the debate which ruled Society – exactly as the debates over whether Jesus actually lived as a man or whether he was simply a fiction ruled the conversation in Society during the first five centuries of the Common Era.

That, actually, is a dramatic under-appreciation of how fervently the Arian and various so-called Gnostic so-called heresies were thought about, discussed, and philosophized over.

They legislated Jesus. 

In a lot of ways this is not at all different from the debates we're having today about whether non-white people should be allowed to live in the modern Western state. Or whether non-binary gendered people can even exist. 

The Church of the 19th century time has spent so many centuries debating the proper way to be a Christian and torturing and killing anyone who thought things that might challenge their authority— Which... I hesitate to do this because it's a massive aside – but can we please be very real for a moment?

Some of the men who occupied the Chair of Saint Peter and oversaw the Diocese of Rome – and from there all of Catholic Christianity – were absolute, inarguable geniuses. Some of them were devout men of faith who contributed much to our understanding of the Divine. Some of them. Some very few of them.

By and large, because of the events of the Medieval Dark Age – you'll just have to read what Rob's working on for more on that, sorry, I'm not editing the information twice; too lazy – the office of Pope was political and almost entirely secular. The Vatican is a modern nation state for a reason – the Pope was the leader of a diffuse “nation” of churches and their properties. 

The Medieval world is very confusing.

But Rob talks about this, actually, when he's in... one of the northern Italian cities. But basically “the church” is thought of that way because “the church” was basically an Embassy within any city or country.

Look. The Medieval world did not think about their map in the same way that we do.

We sort of understand that all the area that is included under our flag is “ours” - that is, belongs to all the people who are citizens of That Place On the Map. That's sort of what a Nation is – it was the decision to make a plot of land, an imaginary line through a countryside or along one side of a river, and say this chunk belongs to These People. And that's what a representative government is: it's the illusion, the play-acting, the imagination of what it would be like if ordinary people actually did “own” a “nation”.

This is not how the Medieval world thought of their maps. The chunks of land which divided kingdoms were owned by one person: the king. It's complicated how we came to this, but the idea was that the king, either by conquest or by birthright (the latter was obviously the preferred method) all the lands which would ordinarily belong to noble citizens – that is, Citizens, those who either by conquest or birthright should own land and be able to provide an income not only for themselves and their families but their Serfs (as they were known, basically landslaves) – those people who pre-existed on the land but were content to be exchanged either in conquest or by birthright – would instead belong to The King.

Basically with holdings of land, Nobles can raise armies and conquer one another's land. And for a time in Post-Roman Europe's history, that's exactly all that happened from a political drama standpoint: nobles raised armies and conquered one another's villages in a gridlock that will look very familiar to anyone who's spent any time thinking about the first World War. What's that old British joke, where the soldiers return to their commanding officer who asks how much ground they took from the enemy today and the one soldier hands him an actualy two-by-two foot patch of grass – and that's literally the answer?

Is that real? Or did I make it up?

If the Nobles don't own the land, but the Kind sort of “loans” it out to them to take care of and lets them reap the profits... well, the idea is that the Nobles will act in their best interests – and the interests of their holdings – and make whatever decisions best benefit the Land. This is the same sort of folly we make today when Economists say that all humans are agents who act in their best interests and thus only make sound financial investments after considerable consideration of the pros and cons of every financial transaction.

Obviously this is not what humans do.

I was watching the Castlevania anime with my girlfriend, recently, and I remarked to her that the way they portray people with power as monsters and villains is remarkable. Not least of which because of the disambiguation of our understanding of the word villain. The reason we have more stories about Medieval monsters – basically, that we have more Medieval Horror Stories – than pretty much anything else is because during those centuries any amount of power amounted to infinite spiritual and material corruption.

This is why their religion is pervasive and obsessed with the corrupting agency of temptation - it was everywhere unchecked by anything but barbaric might or the increasingly graphic threats of increasingly imaginative priests until you get Dante ams his Divine Comedy.

As I told her: The reason the nobility of Hungary knew what to do with Elizabeth Bathory once her crimes – which were only crimes when she started killing noble girls, actually – got out of hand is because she was far from the first noble to go mad with the power they had over their serfs.

I was reading a book... A World Lit Only By Fire last year, and had to stop. William Manchester is recreating the Medieval noble's actual power throughout what I made it through by describing the sexual depravity of particularly the Popes and their favorite Bishops. It triggered me pretty badly, all the rape – but more than that the willingness with which so many of the women of their centuries went willingly to be debased - often quite literally fucked to death, even. But, hey, to each their own. Honestly, those nights with those drunken Popes were probably some of the best nights those women got to enjoy.

Not so much with the Eastern prince whose story made me stop. Evidently it was his affliction that he couldn't orgasm until he'd drowned one of his harem in his pool. And naturally he felt he needed to orgasm regularly.

For 1000 years, sending a son or daughter to the Church was the same as sending them to University in a more modern context. Literally, the University system sprang up to educate priests. But institutions survive, whether their purposes remain what they were designed for or not. This is the way of human ingenuity – it isn't a bad thing. It is, however, something we need to understand and appreciate so we can have informed thoughts about it and make thoughtful decisions what to do with it moving forward – whether we choose to do anything with it at all.

I often imagine The Church and the Institutions around me the way post-apocalyptic fiction often depicts skyscrapers or whatever other towering remnants remain of the Once Great civilization. When really I should see them as decrepit mummy liches working unspeakable, not-as-irrelevant-as-you-are-led-to-believe magicks in forgotten towers.

Maybe I should play Shadow of the Colossus.

Anyway, I've wandered pretty far afield in my criticism of modern criticism of the Church.

Because the Church is first and foremost a defender of the status quo, it made yet another deal with the devil to remain relevant in the post-religious world of the 20^th century: Sell out all attempts to reconcile mysticism and magick with materialism and post-modernism in an effort to remain the only avenue to The Soul left in the world. It didn't work, of course. Not on the face of it – there are non-Christian religions and worldviews which are allowed to exist within the popular sphere. Sort of. But the world is at war with Islam and lowkey reviles the Jews. Buddhism and Hinduism are seen as harmless, but that will only remain the case for so long. 

So nothing has really changed from 12^th century Western politics except the names. Not even the families, much of the time.

And as M. Blavatsky put it, the East are largely content to continue their idiosyncratic cultures almost in defiance of the West.

The Church pretty badly lost the War, Science v Religion. But you can't be a politician without nodding to the power of the Christian faith. Not in the West. Not really. That's changing – but is it really? They remain – the Christian faiths – as the only religious alternative which is popularly acceptable to outwardly embrace. I don't know where the others went.

By my reckoning, by the turn of the 19^th century, Kabbalah and Eastern mysticism were winning the argument for what should be the dominant worldview of the world. Esotericism time and time again predicted science. Predicted and better explained.

This remains the case today, by the way.

Many of the experiments which have revolutionized our understanding of reality were made either by an occultist (what the 19^th century authors I've been reading call an occult scientist, in fact; if that doesn't impact you the way it did me, then we need to talk about your definition of science; later, that) who was doing occult things – an alchemist, for instance, doing alchemy in guys like Jack Parsons – or someone versed in the occult literary tradition asking What If the things they were reading there were more true than the things they were reading in their so-called Science texts.

Isaac Newton was more Esotericist than he was Scientist. We act like his work was wasted, today. I've heard it taught, the question: what if he had spent his time on the Physics and not on the Magick? For one, you don't understand how much he accomplished for magick if you believe that – and second, you don't understand that all Newton did was publish in plain language what esoteric scientists had already known for thousands and thousands (I could go on but won't) of years.

Isaac Newton's most popular “discoveries” or “achievements” were translations into common English.

It's not that what he did isn't impressive. It's just exactly what he said – he stood on the shoulders of giants and it allowed him to see a little further.

There is a very real anti-intellectual bent to this world. Whatever that means.

As much as the scholastic world would argue that it isn't true, most of literary science is bullshit. Publish or Perish means that most of what is Published is garbage. And China has a very real problem with published scientists faking their results and no one saying anything. 

So "Scholasticism" as an Ideal Institution is in a very real way dying.

We've watched the CDC show about as much spine as a jellyfish. That's supposed to be THE Scientific Establishment.

There are a lot of reasons for this – and they're not that dissimilar from the Church's reasons for what they've done and become: they're many of the same people from many of the same families warping and twisting scholasticism now to their warped and twisted wills the way they did Christianity for 1000 years.

Scholasticism is an industry, now.

No discovery can be made without insane amounts of money for insanely expensive equipment. This was to be expected. Every industry in the West has gone this direction. This is the curse of Mechanism. The mechanisms necessarily have to get larger and larger and larger – more and more and more complex – until they ultimately either consume every mechanism like them or become in the now-famous terminology too big to fail.

The house of cards which is this civilization is remarkably tenuous. Every industry, every pillar of our society, is growing bloated and unchecked in its own direction. Soon the entire edifice will fall.

I read a lot of prophets talk about how there is a coming change. You see Crypto geeks use this language all the time. The Fiat Currency bubble is going to burst. That's a fact. It has to. All bubbles burst eventually. Crypto dorks act like when we're burning dollar bills for heat in the winter there will still be an internet – so they can replace Fiat Currency. Yeah, okay.

The point is that the edifice is falling. The sky has been falling for 100 years. We act like because the Berlin Wall dropped and the Atmoic Bomb didn't that the apocalypse never came. But... friends... we're in the Matrix. We are in the post-robotic apocalypse.

That movie – all those movies – are about Gnosticism. They're about finding personal enlightenment and therein personal power.

I've been obsessed with the phrase Knowledge is Power – and frankly have made sure that all mentions of it from Rob have been expunged from the record because of my personal obsession and inability to understand fully what it means.

In talking about this, I think I might have unlocked what it means – and in so doing, unlocking why you should be reading this.

Knowledge of the name of a spirit gives you control over it in every magick system. Everyone knows this. We all know too that God commanded Adam in the Garden to name not only each of the animals but all of the plants, too. Knowing something gives you power over it. Knowing the name of a plant gives you the power to learn more about it. Knowing something's secret name, in an esoteric sense, is to know all there is to knkw about it – to know its use and its purpose.

Because ultimately humans are tool-using animals. Everything for us is a tool.

These PLogs are, for you, a tool first to unmake the chains which bind your hands and your feet, and later with which to begin your own Great Work.

Maybe someday I'll write about what a Great Work is – and what mine might be.