What follows is a list of the books that I read in 2021 (this counts books I started in 2020, but does not count books to be finished in 2022), as well as the thoughts I have to offer on them. Some may warrant longer posts in the future, but for now I have written this up as a reflective exercise.
The Sword of Christ – Giles Corey
This was a fairly recently published book. It is a very edgy tradlarper tract on the Jewish Question, abortion, race relations, and other hot topics. To say nothing of the substance, it is poorly formatted (chapter/title font is unreadable, prose font isn't even justified to both margins) and poorly researched—most chapters have a single source, and the first footnote of such chapters includes something to the effect of "all citations in this chapter are for this work unless specified otherwise". The book has little substance or argument, and serves essentially as a collection of shocking historical data on the Jews, the Christian Zionist heresy, and whatever else the author is mad about. The title itself seems insignificant, unless it is to literally signify the edgy parts of modern Christendom.
Kokoro – Natsume Sōseki
This is a century-old novel from Japan concerning the period when that country experienced perhaps the height of the modernist-traditionalist conflict. Its prose is delightfully simple in a way that only Japan seems capable of—main characters go unnamed (or else vaguely named) and seemingly major details/events get glossed over. It is almost like an ukiyo-e print in the way it presents a finished, beautiful piece that is nevertheless quite empty, for the emptiness is evoked rather than merely shown. The main character of the first half is a college student who latches on to an enigmatic, taciturn man only known to us as sensei; his studies and impending job prospects are a source of great stress to him, and through sensei's guidance, he absorbs his country's traditional, somewhat aloof temperament and becomes quite distant from his ironically modern, Westernized parents. I empathized a lot with him, because I read the book under the same circumstances as him—fresh out of college, under pressure from antipathic, bourgeois parents to find a job and make money, all while my seemingly-nobler interests are brushed aside. The second half of the story concerns sensei's youth, particularly regarding a feud he has with his monastic friend over a pretty girl. The drama is quite engaging here, and the way it feeds back into sensei's world-weary older years from the start of the book is quite masterful. I cannot help but empathize with sensei too, a man exhausted of the world's fits and starts, seeking the divine in the simple and good life. I hope to read more of Sōseki's work, since he seems to have the same voluptuous melancholy as Cioran but with a more austere, oriental outlook.
Tears and Saints – E. M. Cioran
This is the first pre-France Cioran work I have read. I was a little disappointed, as he is not quite mature at this point—he is not yet weary and resigned as in his later works. I'm not sure that he even suffered insomnia at this point. I excavated a few good aphorisms, but on the whole I did not feel stirred by this one at all.
The Metaphysics of War – Julius Evola
I have been on an Evola kick ever since last year. This was a collection of articles and essays he wrote in various journals concerning war. I must confess that part of the appeal of Evola, most especially in this sort of work, is that it’s all very "cool", or, as Hermann Hesse described him, "dazzling yet dangerous". The unifying theme is that war is a mode of life by which one might be initiated—that is, the terrible violence involved (just as in other initiatic rituals) can serve as a kind of Wet Path to burn off the animal-ego and awaken the true Self. The most interesting chapter is his assessment of Japanese kamikaze-pilots and Soviet soldiers during World War II. The former are true, traditional warriors in the sense that they give up even their material lives for the Emperor—thus at the moment of death they are said to transcend this plane and attain a higher one. The latter are but cogs in an industrial machine, descending to a subhuman level in the ultima ratio of the armed horde promulgated in the French Revolution—they are like molecules of water in a great wave, each of them indistinct and utterly dispensable to the Soviet cause. I read this work digitally, and I believe I shall purchase a physical copy for further study, as well as reference for other war-related readings.
The Doctrine of Awakening – Julius Evola
This is the second time I've read this book, the work that truly opened up the mysterious workings of Evola’s thought to me. This second time around I took notes, mostly summarizing the book, but occasionally adding my own thoughts. Even if Evola’s view of original Buddhism isn't in line with the concensus (and even if it is, properly speaking, "wrong"), I think his orientation is most valuable in assessing any spiritual literature, in that we must ask ourselves "does this lead to enlightenment?" and discriminate the answers most harshly—and, as a corollary, disregard the modern prefaces and commentaries. Having read this a second time, and having spent some time on his works concerning "wet paths" (Tantra and Hermetism), I am convinced that my character is more proper to the dry path of austere asceticism. Even if I cannot manage the extremes of living in the jungle or a forest monastery, and even though I shall continue an "active" life, the direct, simple metaphysics and techniques are much more congenial to me than ecstatic rituals and obscure symbology—interestingly, it is precisely for men of these attitudes that Evola claims he wrote the book. Even after finishing this reread, I have periodically flipped through chapters of this book to refresh my memory and to compare it against some of the Buddhist (and other religious) literature that I have delved into since.
Islam – Hossein Nasr
This is a fairly broad, almost mainstream introduction to Islam for Western audiences. Nasr, being a student of Guenon, provides some perennialist insights into the faith, but this was not the perennialist view of Islam that I was hoping for. Nonetheless, it was interesting to find some justifications for Islamic practices that Westerners find weird. Most prominently I can remember the justification for polygamy: the Islamic community wants everyone integrated, and to this extent a man may have multiple wives so that no woman goes alone (I have had some amusing reactions by repeating this in polite company). I also learned from this book that the etymology of the Arabic work for religion, dīn, comes from an old word for "debt", which has stirred my thinking as to the categorization of religions. Unfortunately, I am still on the hunt for interesting, meaty books concerning Islam.
An Introduction to Zen Buddhism – D. T. Suzuki
This is a fairly broad, mainstream introduction to the Zen school of Buddhism. Having perceived it from Evola as a sort of Hīnayāna revival within Japanese Mahāyāna, I found that this assessment was mostly correct from Suzuki’s presentation. I would summarize this most precisely as "what you can expect at a zen monastery". Very interesting and worth reading, though the author might have done well to take a page out of Evola or Guenon by including more references to other religions. He does this a little by referencing Eckhart occasionally and rather shallowly, but he tries most of the time to make his point in uniquely Zen terms, which is not very helpful to Western audiences (which I assume was his target here). For example constantly pointing to everyday things—a bonsai tree, a cup of tea, a boy beating a drum, etc—and saying "that is Zen, that is satori" does not facilitate understanding quite so well, I think, as simply stating that satori is understanding (in the spirit, not just the intellect) that saṃsāra and nibbāna are two modes of the same reality. But then, I suppose it is not at all the Zen style to make this kind of discourse. I was also interested in the practice of samu, physical labor, which I think would work very well for me when I live on my own.
The Yoga of Power – Julius Evola
This is Evola’s presentation of Tantra, specifically vāmacāra (left-hand-path), as found in Hinduism (Kashmir Shaivism) and Buddhism (Vajrāyāna). While the use of deity-yoga, orgies, alcohol, chakras, etc. is all very "sexy" and "cool", I honestly came to the conclusion that I would not be served very well by a Wet Path of this sort. I do not possess the character to transform otherwise perverse thoughts and actions into enlightened ones, nor do I see the value in them. Nonetheless, the Tantric attitudes of "turn poison into medicine" and "grappling with the physical condition in Kāli Yuga" seem at least instrumentally valuable to me when formulating my own spiritual practices. The reason for this is that I intend to follow Theravāda Buddhist practice, but I have no intentions of joining a monastery or living in the woods, so a Tantric attitude is necessary in order to persist in ordinary social life.
Julius Evola: The Sufi of Rome – Frank Julian Gelli
This is a documentary book by one of Evola’s followers who spoke with him personally and privately in his final years. This provided fascinating insight into Evola the man, particularly what motivated his studies, his interpretations, etc., as well as his opinions on sundry topics like Palestine and Tibet, and I cannot help but fantasize myself having similar conversations with the Baron. Nevertheless, the topics touched are contingent-historical and rarely metaphysical—thus the book is more of a curiosity than anything else.
The Inequality of the Human Races – Arthur de Gobineau
This is a horrifically dry 19th century work advancing the theory that history is driven exclusively by biological factors, namely purity and impurity of races, and that "decline" comes from race-mixing. He even begins with arguments against any other factor affecting history, which reads as foolishly as it sounds (as does the rest of his argumentation). I should also say that, despite the attractively edgy title, the author is quite the liberal, making all sorts of condemnations against sexism, slavery, etc. in antiquity and in his own time, although perhaps I should not be surprised that a biological materialist is a modernist.
Meditation Techniques of the Buddhist and Taoist Masters – Daniel Odier
This is a very rudimentary catalogue of teachings and techniques of Buddhism and Taoism—duh! There is very little reason to use this book. The introductions to both religions are facile and are better expounded elsewhere. The techniques are not elaborated with much depth, nor are there very many of them, and for that matter, even those sections involving "techniques" waste time on history and more metaphysics—most of the section on Mahāyāna, for example, is on the life of Milarepa, after which only a handful of techniques are detailed fine at best, unsatisfactorily at worst. The title should be reserved for a truly encyclopedic catalogue of techniques—this book should have been called "Buddhism and Taoism for Dummies!" for all the worth it has.
The Buddha of Infinite Light – D. T. Suzuki
This is a series of lectures introducing Pure Land Buddhism, a sect of Amidism in China and Japan. Now, the Evolian side of me found little of value here, as this sect appears to be a merely devotional path, exhorting the bodhisatta Amitābha to assist one to a rebirth in the Pure Land. One sees in this the peasant’s religion of begging higher beings for grace to reach a sensory euphoria as the afterlife. Suzuki, for his part, elaborates the mysical aspects, just as there are for other religions of this type (mostly Christianity). Nevertheless, I did not find any knowledge or technique that would inform someone of my spiritual type, which is certainly higher than a mere peasant.
Ride the Tiger – Julius Evola
This is a book concerning the cultivation of Tradition on the personal level for those not prepared to renounce the world and live in the woods. The thrust of this work is a Zen saying (referenced in the title), meaning the attitude of a Traditional man living today would be that of patience, silence, and diligence. Nonetheless, the work comes off a little disjoint, treating such miscellany as music, family, philosophy (in the popular sense), religious practice, etc. I feel that this is better treated as a series of essays than as a unified work—but this makes sense, since it seems Evola’s goal was to sketch out a handbook for Traditional men of today’s world. Even so, I do not feel that it offered quite as much valuable advice as in his other works on personal spiritual development, and his assessments of modern social conditions, while sometimes poignant or interesting (e.g. parents don’t understand their children because there’s nothing to understand), I recall were much better done in pretty much all of his other works, particularly Revolt Against the Modern World (concerning socio-political matters) and Doctrine of Awakening (concerning private matters).
The Book of Tea – Kakuzo Okakura
This is a collection of essays regarding the cult of tea as it manifested in China and later Japan, in the form of Taoism and later Chan/Zen Buddhism. The topic is primarily aesthetics, a field that I have not spent much time on, but having learned of Eastern aesthetics here, I feel better able to appreciate Japanese works like ukiyo-e prints, literature, and indeed contemporary media like anime (I wrote quite a bit on the Zen-Tao perspective buried in the otherwise steamy Sora no Otoshimono when I rewatched that this year—I may clean that up and post it another time). I am also delighted at the possibility of transcendent reality experienced in everyday life, because as much as I appreciate the dry austerity of Theravāda and original Buddhism, I lack the will to pursue those very ambitiously (i.e. as a proper monk). Thus the Zen/Taoist perspective of finding the enlightened mode of reality without escaping into the bushes is quite a welcome one, though I have my suspicions that I may just be looking for an easy way into Heaven, so to speak. This has also given me pause regarding the Westernization of Japan, for the best aspects of Japanese culture (tea ceremony, quietness, humility, bushidō, etc.) seem to have come out of the Taoist-Buddhist fusion surrounding the tea beverage—Westernization, it seems, has only pushed this out in favor of our more saṃsāric, activist, indeed quite brutal way of life. Just compare the behavior of the old samurai to the generals who invaded Nanjing, and consider that this was the result of pushing their tea out in favor of our coffee.
On the True Doctrine – Celsus
This is the most interesting book I have read this year, and possibly in all my life. This is essentially a Platonic pagan-polytheist critique of Christianity, written when that religion was still illegal in the Roman Empire, a perspective hardly discussed in public-school history classes or even at the university level. While the book is quite disorganized (possibly from being reconstructed rather than truly recovered), I found that many of the criticisms Celsus levels are ones I’ve already sort of realized on my own in studying Aristotle, Plato, Buddha, Evola, Lao Tzu, etc. Celsus’ critiques are as fascinating as they are devastating to Christianity qua philosophy. The most compelling aspect here is that Celsus comes from the same spiritual milieu as the early Christian fathers, so there are no neckbeard arguments here—in fact, Celsus takes it for granted that miracles are possible, gods are real, birds can tell the future, etc. Thus he almost seems to defeat Christianity on its own terms by pointing out, not that Jesus’ miracles are hokey, but that other (better!) prophets have performed similar miracles, preached similar ethics, etc. and that Christians therefore have no business parading their monopoly around as the sole truth. I think an interesting topic for research would be the influence of Egypt he points out on Moses and Jesus, since they both perform sorcery and the latter teaches more Platonic-Traditional ethics instead of Jewish ethics (Schopenhauer opines in a part of his essay On Religion that Christ most likely imported an Indian religion while growing up in Egypt, hence his curiously compassionate style; furthermore, Acts 7:22 describes Moses as a master of Egyptian doctrine and practice, pretty much confirming the Pharaonic influence). I think it would be worthwhile to reorganize Celsus’ arguments into a more coherent form, and replace the Greek polytheism with a broader perennialism; it could be a new sort of Platonist manifesto against modern Abrahamic fundamentalism in addition to atheistic secularism.
De anima – Aristotle
I initially expected a quite different treatise, considering the title is translated "On the Soul" in my compendium of Aristotle’s works. I was quite disappointed to find that by soul (ψυχή) Aristotle means the biological vital principle, not essence. In this sense, it is better to leave it in the Latin title since anima implies "that which animates", a more immediately apprehendible and accurate title for most people of my sort. The original Greek title uses the word psyche, which makes sense insofar as that word just means "nature" (again, in a bio-vitalist sense), but to most readers would be radically misleading since we associate that word-root with the mind, not the body or mind-body complex. I don’t think this was a good use of my time, since there is no transcendent nor ethical content—really it was a very dry work trying to work out what characteristics constitute life or not (locomotion, self-nutrition, etc.).
Fascism Viewed From the Right – Julius Evola
This is exactly what it says on the tin. I think that, in addition to what the title says it is, this serves as a succinct summary of Evola’s political views (or rather, Traditional politics) with the pedagogically valuable case studies from the Mussolini administration. Most interesting was the summary of what an Axis victory would have looked like, and how that would have been (for better or for worse) a positive victory for the Right:
- Fall of USSR and decline of communism
- No communism in China, Korea, or Vietnam under Japanese Imperium
- Retreat of USA from European (and otherwise global) politics
- Limitations on mercantile British Empire, no loss of imperial colonies for any power
I’m aware that he has written a similar book which is a case study of the Third Reich, however I am not very interested in it except perhaps what he has to say on the concentration camps, which he has referenced elsewhere (i.e. he does not deny the holocaust). However I have a hunch that he shares Kuehnelt-Leddihn's reactionary opinion that genocide is a fruit of modernity, and that a Traditional social order would never conceive of it. I would have liked to see a work focusing on the Japanese Empire during this period, since Evola has high praises for it here (and in the Metaphysics of War from earlier in the year) as the most Traditional of the three major Axis powers.
The Perennial Philosophy – Aldous Huxley
To be honest, I was very surprised to find this title under this author while browsing the Religion section of Barnes & Noble this past summer. I doubted it at first, but upon finding Guenon in the bibliography, I figured it would be worth a look. This is sort of an Anglo-American version of Evola's Revolt book, and in that sense I would probably have a better time recommending this to others than Evola. Huxley draws much more on exoteric texts and literature, in contrast to Evola’s focus on esoteric myths and scripture. I found a rich trove of quotable passages, both from Huxley and his sources, so rich that I have nearly reprinted the book in a private collection of quotations. A further contrast to Evola here is that Huxley is much more sympathetic to Christianity, with saints and mystics making up a good chunk of his quotations here, including (to my surprise) Quaker Christians like William Law. That being the case, he still has a healthy perspective on Christianity, because he criticizes Christian institutions insofar as they foresake Perennialism: so the fundamentalists of Catholic Europe, and later the entirety of the Reformation, are raked over the coals for bolstering egoistic, power-hungry philosophies of life that Huxley (correctly) points to as the origin of the ills of the modern West and its former colonies. In this regard, I am surprised to find that the banal dystopia author I recall from high school was, in fact, a well-learned reactionary.
The New Testament
With all the religious literature I have been reading, I figured it would at least be worth my time to finally read some actual scripture, and I figured that I might as well start with the faith I was raised on, and the one that my favorite authors these days (Evola, Schopenhauer, etc.) are rather critical of. I’d split this into three parts: the Historical, the Epistolary, and Revelatory sections.
The Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles detail the history of the early Christian communities, starting with Christ’s birth and ending with the imprisonment of Paul. I must admit, I was not divinely inspired by reading Christ’s life, nor of the Acts of his Apostles (the latter of which I rather glossed over). The only thing he said that truly stuck with me was the parable of the moneylender and the king, the idea that one should not expect mercy from God if he himself shows no mercy (somewhat related to the Law of Karma). Besides this, I found a lot of difficulty with this message that Jesus is the one, the only, be-all-end-all medium between man and God. Living in the Age of Information and being able to find many other records of holy men doing similar miracles and teaching similar (or superior) ethics, it is difficult to take this claimed monopoly very seriously. Christians point to the unique characteristics of Christ and claim that this sets his faith above the others—mainly, that he was martyred as a final physical sacrifice to propitiate God for man's sins. Very well, this is unique—but I think Celsus has dealt with this very handily in point out that the One God is not a sloppy workman. It is absurd to think that he made the world, let it sin, slept on it for a while, then woke up and handed Christ down to fix up the mess he left—Providence does not fade in and out on a whim. The closest we might find is the idea in Dharmic religions that in each new age (Hindu yuga, Buddhist kalpa) a new sage (Hindu Kalki, Buddhist Maitreya, etc.) must arrive to re-establish dharma, or Truth; but the world is eternal and cyclical, so while the Truth is unique and eternal, the personages of the sages are not. If anything, the elements that make Christianity unique point to it being a degenerate faith relative to the superior faiths that preceded it.
Next, the Epistles, which I found to be the most worth my time, though they are still mired in the historical details—these are, after all, letters written by the Apostles to early churchmen. Putting those aside, though, I have a similar judgment of this as with the Gospels, which is to say, there is some good ethics (love each other, do not be controlled by lust, etc.), but there’s just no good defense of Christ's monopoly on salvation. I am furthermore inclined to believe that this monopolistic claim is responsible for the rise and spread of atheism and secularism. The neckbeard non-argument of "I don’t believe you, that's all bull" is easily rebuked with (A) empirical, historical data of many miracles of the same types appearing in disparate places and times, and with (B) the fact that these miracles are non-essential, and that God is a metaphysical matter, not a contingent-historical one. Instead, however, the Christians made it so that only Christ could do these miracles and provide salvation. When Europeans grew up learning that it was his way or no way, rather than the many Greek ways, Persian ways, Egyptian ways, etc., it became very easy for no way to become popular. In my view, Christians either need to rigorously defend this monopoly (a Herculean task that I am confident is impossible) or else abandon it for its pernicious social-political effects, which have nonetheless already taken root in the West. It would be easier to do the latter, for the Epistles already provide a similarly essentialist contra-fundamentalist viewpoint, specifically in regards to the circumcision controversy. Paul argues (correctly) at length pointing out that the Law has been abrogated and that acting according to Christ's doctrine is equivalent to the circumcision inasmuch as it will save the Christian's soul. In other words, the stereotyped rituals and taboos of the Jews are so much accessory, inessential information that one can discard it so long as one remains faithful in Christ. It should be very easy to make a likewise argument that it does not matter whether one venerate a man named Jesus on a cross, a bearded sage named Zoroaster, a black-and-white Yin-Yang symbol, etc. or indeed worship, as the Platonists would, with no symbols nor rites nor myths, the pure Monad—so long as one has the essentially transcendent orientation and, as a consequence (or vice versa), displays the virtues of charity, love, compassion, and equanimity.
Finally, the Revelations to John. This is the smallest part, and yet it is probably the most different from the rest of the book. The wild, phantasmagoric imagery and diverse symbols lead me to believe that this is some foreign religion being injected into the scriptures. Up to this point, the Christians are told to be servants of God, but in this book, they are told "you too can sit on the Throne of God", and the angels several times tell a prostrate John to stand back up because he is their equal. This, along with quite a bit of the imagery, is extremely similar to Hermetism, leading me to believe (1) Jesus did indeed learn magic and religion in Egypt, and leveraged it to form a cult around him, and (2) that even this book is a foreign, accidental addition to the canon, because John is told things that contradict Christ's proclaimed monopoly. That all having been said, I am not confident that it is precisely Egyptian or even Hermetic, or really what influence it has at all, because much of the imagery is still alien to me, quite indecipherable (particularly the plagues and woes and such; really everything past the Seventh Seal's opening).
Overall, while the social-ethical teachings are quite good in the New Testament, I have found no reason to concede its proclaimed monopoly. Nor, moreover, do I think it has any claim to uniqueness nor superiority over other scriptures—others are clearer, more accurate, more intelligent, and better-composed. Its importance to me is primarily historical.
The Bhagavad Gīta
What a far cry from the previous read! I could not help but finish this in a single day (two sittings at morning and night), not just for its brevity, but for its spell-binding clarity. I would almost say that this does a better job of what Evola praises in the Buddhist suttas, precisely because it is so much briefer and less repetitive. It's true that Krishna very often repeats a few key points (the doctrine of the gunas, the supremacy of detachment, the practice of yoga, etc.) but he repeats them in didactic ways, whereas what I've read of the suttas are more for practical purposes, i.e. for memorization by the saṅgha. Most important from having read this is my deepended understanding of the gunas, especially in how they are present in all aspects of life including professions and even food (this has made me much more sympathetic to vegetarianism, from a non-humanitarian perspective). Perhaps it is entirely too early to make this sort of judgment, but were I to throw out all my books and keep only one, I think I should keep this one for its penetrating wisdom and succinct clarity.
The Hermetic Tradition – Julius Evola
Probably the densest book I've read this year. This work is packed with interpretations and explanations of the highly symbolic and enigmatic "Royal Art" sometimes known as Hermetism or alchemy, as well as of related traditions, myths, etc. Having taken notes on the full work as I've done with Evola's other work on original Buddhism, I can conclude that Hermetism, even the dry path, is not my thing, because it is so wrapped up in symbols with differing intentions ("everything can be symbolized by anything"). I much prefer the clearer doctrines of the Orient, so I don't think I'll undertake much further study on this tradition. Nonetheless, I think that this could at the very least prove useful as a sort of reference book regarding the symbols I find in stories both new and old, and thus bring art to life for me, on a greater level than crude enjoyment. And if nothing else, the connections Evola draws with Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, etc. has helped me to orient my thinking on the meaning of the myths and practices of those traditions, particularly concerning the 4 elements and 3 planes (thus the significance of 7 and 12 in so many traditions).
The Eye of the World – Robert Jordan
This is a big deviation from what I normally read. The book is the first of many fantasy novels written by a man whose primary influences seem to be Taoism, Islam, and the Grail Cycle. The most glaring issue with Jordan’s style is that it is extremely "fluffy": I estimate that one could still get the same basic story in about half as many pages. This made it a little excruciating for me, since I already don't care for prose fiction, but I was able to stomach it in the form of an audiobook for the most part. The other major issue I have is that Jordan, despite his exposure to Traditional doctrines, still goes along with modern platitudes about things like war, women, race, etc. (I had a similar gripe when I watched the cartoon Avatar over the summer.)
The book's value is in its esoteric elements. Having clearly studied the religions I mentioned above, the lore Jordan writes concerning the setting’s magic, religion, politics, etc. are fairly accurate. For one thing, he acknowledges the idea of cyclical reality (the series itself is called the Wheel of Time, a pervasive concept within the narrative), and for another he has a fairly metaphysical understanding of gender, even if he does include oddly feminist ethics in his stories. Gender is most prominent in the magical system, where magic is most adeptly wielded by women but drives most men insane, to the extent that they have to be "gentled" if not just killed. This is somewhat in line with the idea of "corrosive waters": transformative magic that can be used by men for transcendent purposes, but with dangerous side-effects (haunting, insanity, death, etc.), as opposed to more stable forms of magic that operate more slowly but have no dangers inherent in them. As the Alchemists, Tantrists, and Taoists point out, this form of magic is inherently feminine, so it makes sense that in the story women can wield this without a problem—the flipside of this, which Jordan makes no mention of, is that women are incapable of the stabler forms of practice, hence the inadmission of women to historical monasteries, priesthoods, and armies. It's also striking to me that magic is spoken of in terms of "touching the One Source", which indicates a decent understanding of metaphysics, in that the world is fallen from a single origin (bindu, dot in Hindu metaphysics) and that magic, far from just being arbitrary powers, is the downstream effect of operating on that higher, originary plane. One more remark on magic: the Zen-Tao influence which appears in the protagonist's clinging to the Void in order to act with strength is remarkably well executed. In the final act, while floating in his successfully manifested Void, he reaches for "the ground of home", and there discovers a Mountain. This recalls the Hermetic formula: Visita Interiora Terrae, Rectificando, Invienies Occultam Lapidem.
However, in that very finale, the Mountain is what permits him to defeat Baalzemon, the devil in this setting (sometimes called Shaitan, the Arabic name for the devil). It seems to me that in this character Jordan is inadvertantly mixing dualist and nondualist views of the world. In Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, etc. the world is stamped with a very clear good-evil dichotomy. In contrast, the Dharmists and Taoists recognize that all differentiation (Pāli papañca) is an obstacle to liberation, and thus that dualisms like subject-object, self-stranger, and indeed good-evil, must be done away with. This sticks out like a sore thumb in a story where reality is otherwise eternal and cyclical (as opposed to finite and linear, like the dualistic religions).
As for the actual narrative, I discern little value. This book begins the adventure of several young lads and lasses, setting out from a backwater village under the aegis of a taciturn knight and an enigmatic sorceress. There is some value in these latter two characters, since they represent the yang and yin ideals for the youngsters, so it is at least interesting when they have the time to train together. That being said, neither of them dispense any terribly striking wisdom over the course of the book. In addition to these two, there are three other minor adult characters: a bard, a wolfman, and a bookworm, none of whom contribute to anything to the higher aspects of the story, at least not that I could discern.
Of the boys, the protagonist is an anxious mess, while the others are a crude butt-monkey and a shy dimwit. Among the girls, there is a sassy love-interest and an even sassier babysitter. None of these five go through any terribly interesting arcs, and it'd be quite something if the grownups did, since they are supposed to represent a kind of τέλος for the youngsters. As mentioned, the protagonist does get a sudden change of character in the climax, but it comes off as a nonsequitur given all of the action up to that point, like one of those Zen stories where a monk achieves satori in a seemingly trivial circumstance (at least those don't take up 600 pages apiece!).
In conclusion, I would say that this book probably had the most value for Jordan as an exercise of his own spiritual learning, whereas for any reader, esoterically inclined or not, it would be merely entertaining at best (which it was for me, at least).
The Haṭha Yoga Pradipika
In contrast to the interior yoga taught by the Gīta, this Tantric manual teaches haṭha yoga (violent union), which is to say that it teaches postures, gestures, and other physical practices with the aim of liberation. If I must be perfectly honest, most of the techniques elaborated here are disgusting to me—this constitutes a warning for the remainder of the paragraph, assuming anyone is foolish enough to read this blog to begin with. There are techniques involving swallowing one’s own tongue, drinking one's own urine, contorting one's body into grotesque postures, etc. Of most interest is the sole technique claimed to give even an ordinary householder (i.e. someone who is not a trained yogī) enlightenment: semen absorption. This is done either during ejaculation, in which one contracts the penile muscles to prevent the semen from leaking, or afterwards, in which one uses a straw to drink the semen back into the urethra. I should emphasize that this is interesting only insofar as it supposedly enables enlightenment for literally any man—I have zero interest in blue balls or in sounding.
The one valuable technique I got from this manual is also the only one that did not make me nauseous. This technique is apparently from its own tradition: nāda yoga. The technique is quite simple, performed simply by assuming a stable, comfortable posture, and then sealing ones earholes with the fingers (careful, of course, not to insert them at the risk of puncturing the drums). One then focuses on the ensuing sound, the same way one focuses on the breath as in pranayama, although this text emphasizes that the sound, nāda, is the goddess Śakti, so it also works as in deva-yoga. I have integrated this into my own practice, and while it isn't as easy to progress with as with breathing and mantra meditations, I am struck by how serene I feel when I uncover my ears.
After Virtue – Alasdair MacIntyre
This is a book about the moral decline apparent in the contemporary West. MacIntyre identifies the source of our troubles—political, social, etc.—as the lack of commensurability between individual moralities. This situation is otherwise characterized as a community of atomized strangers, the product of the (failed) Enlightenment project. Prior to that, communities were definable as narratives, and each citizen was a dramatic persona with a role to play in those narratives—virtue is basically the ability to carry out one’s role, one's τέλος, more or less properly. This is a fine enough argument, though MacIntyre makes it through a history that he presents in a way that manages both to exhaust me and yet leave me wanting. I suspect that this is on account of his more popular writing style, which is to say that of his myriad real-world examples (historical events, philosophical works, romance novels, etc.) he quotes little, explains less, and cites nearly nothing. It gives the uncharitable impression that he would rather be an erudite bigshot than actually educate his readers—an impression diametrically opposed by his style of qualifying every judgment he makes and anticipating every possible rejoinder.
Another consequence of the popular medium here is that, despite ostensibly writing against the liberal-individualist status quo, he retains some baggage from that milieu that I would have expected him to shed. For one example, he uses one thought experiment of a courageous Nazi being an example of a vicious man with one very polished virtue—in other words, taking it for granted that any and all Nazis are unremorseful war criminals. He also takes it for granted that negro slavery, European imperialism, etc. were also indubitably bad, and that Aristotle was wrong for upholding biological essentialism and caste hierarchy (MacIntyre rejects, without even the slightest argument, the idea that some men are just born slaves). It's interesting that he retains all these assumptions, because his own argument in favor of communities with well-defined social roles is better served in the British Empire, Third Reich, aristocratic Athens, and Confederate America—unless he is simply not as willing to go all-in against liberal individualism. I detect this tepid attitude as well in the very bourgeois examples he chooses when discussing the nature of the virtues themselves: chess, horseback riding, gardening, literature, literary history, etc. These point to a decidedly upper-middle class, academic, Western frame around his thinking, something he does not acknowledge about himself—even though he appears to criticize such myopic localism in Aristotle (ancient Athens), Franklin (1700s Philadelphia), Jefferson (1800s Virginia), etc.
There is also a particular implicit bias of his that I would like to address before I close out this post. His account of Western history is rather mainstream—once again, declawing his seemingly antimodern sentiments and revealing a lack of philosophical rigor. His history of morality traces out an arc, beginning with the Age of Heroes, progressing through Antiquity, peaking in Medieval Christendom, and declining into the Enlightenment and now Modernity. He does not seem to even conceive of an alternate historical account, much less acknowledge any, probably because he was busy dealing with peers who conceive of history as being separable from philosophy. For a start, historians like Spengler, Quigley, and Huntington have, for the past century now, shown a quite plausible model in which Western Civilization begins with Christendom, which is simultaneous with the dying gasps of Classical Civilization (the spheres of Greece and Rome), and which inherits not just directly from Greece and Rome, but of course from the other neighboring civilization, which they label Canaanite. For another, we might turn one more time to Evola, who regardless of the continuity between these civilizations, diagnoses no rise, but a continuous fall, drawing on the Greco-Hindu doctrine of the yugas (in contrast to the Spenglerites, who assert separate rise-and-fall arcs for each civilization). With this framework, Evola consistently diagnoses Christianity as a degenerate phenomenon in the history of the world. Of particular concern to MacIntyre should be the very egalitarian, slave-oriented ethos in Christianity, which displaced the aristocratic systems in Greece and Rome (which, again, he criticized in Aristotle with no more than a hand-wave) that, critically, had divinely sanctioned castes, which perfectly satisfy MacIntyre's critique that the contemporary West has no such well-defined idea of societal roles. None of this is so much as hinted at. MacIntyre has virtually no critique of Christian influence in Europe, instead praising it for introducing the idea of sin and of divine law to correct Aristotle’s lack of such ideas—again, with virtually no elaboration on why those are improvements or why Aristotle was incorrect for leaving out such concepts in his thinking.
I believe I'll have more to say about that and a few other points in his book in separate posts. In conclusion, MacIntyre successfully identifies what we're missing for social order, but stumbles quite unrigorously in attempting to begin to sketch out positive answers of what that would look like. In contrast, the works of Evola, Guenon, Huxley, etc. blow that out of the water and do a much better job telling us (1) what that would look like for a full-scale restoration of normal society and (2) what we, the readers, ought to do in the mean time. For my own purposes, I have come to the conclusion that the speculative-dialectical method of MacIntyre's university background is entirely too bumbling, too slow to say anything worthwhile.
