What forms of Second Religiousness would future West have? Can West finally deny Christianity as a product of Magian-Classical pseudomorphosis and build its own, late religion?
I'd wager not, but Paganism seems to be slowly becoming more popular. Christianity is likely going to stay, particularly protestantism as its more flexible for interpreting the bible as it needs to. The key thing to remember here is that these won't be separate religions as we understand them but just the parts that appeal to momentary sentiment. Syncretism in the West could end up assimilating parts of Paganism, Christianity and Islam into a new kind of spirituality given future demographic trends.
But is it possible to throw away also the paganism and create a new Spengler and Goethe-inspired Pantheist religion, which would liberate spiritual life if the West from foreign influences? Did Spengler not destroy Christianity in his own philosophy, when considered all religions as "true" and denied the mere concept of objective reality? In that case, isn't it really better to finally free the Faustian soul from pseudomorphosis and create new naturphilosophy, religion and science?
It's not better or worse. Faustian civilisation isn't under a pseudomorphosis because it practices Christianity. Our Catholicism or Protestantism means something symbolically different from Magian Christianity. Constructing a new religion that isn't adapted from a foreign culture form wouldn't necessarily mean it is closer to the Faustian spirit. It would just be intellectual play to create something that appeals to you, and in doing so you'd be falling into the trap of creating a fashionable religion like in the later stages of materialism.
What you might be referring to is something like esoteric hitlerism, where Himmler tried creating religious myths around nordic supremacy and corresponding cult practises with it. This is actually a very good attempt at dispelling Christianity from Western civilisation, but in practise it is no different from elite cults in Rome, it's sentimental at best and is the product of the mind over the spirit and had all the pitfalls of materialistic cults Spengler highlights above.
So Christianity began in the first century during the spring period of magian culture. Magian culture's prime symbol is the cavern, it focuses heavily on the battle between substantial notions of light and dark, there is a tendency to submit and have faith in the will of God as part of a consensus of believers in him through his word as scripture. the cosmos was seen as a "cavern" in that light from above passes down into the dark and mingles with it, and mankind is trapped between these two substances, which manifests in higher and lower substances in mankind such as the Hebrew Ruach and Nephesh or the Christian Pneuma and Psyche.
In the medieval period, specifically from around 900-1000AD onwards, Christianity in northern europe was the main language used to express the Faustian prime symbol. The battle between light and dark in Magian christianity was replaced by the battle between Mary and the Devil, God was treated as a a will of cosmic proportion. The cosmos was no longer seen as a Cavern, but as an infinite universe of unfathomably large wills which mankind's ego was dwarfed by. Instead of building basilicas, with the dome representing the closed off universe, we built cathedrals, which shot upwards across Europe as a defiance against our insignificance.
This is also seen in the estate structure, in Magian Christianity, there are a range of equal churches across the Empire, coming together to agree on scripture when need be, but the east west split in the 11th century separated catholicism from the byzantine church and established a hierarchy of individuals leading up to the pope as the voice of God's will.
Nevertheless, Western Culture still suffers pseudomorphosis from Antiquity. In particular, Spengler wrote that the West will have to overcome Roman law as alien to its ideas about the world. Can't the same be said about Christianity?
As for imitation cults, like esoteric Hitlerism - you are right, it is all nonsense. However, in "The Years of Decision" Spengler allowed for the possibility of the emergence of new religions within the framework of the Second Religiosity in the West (and not necessarily in the context of Christianity). If we really accept the new version of Christianity as such - then Spengler's teaching will once again be overturned by the apologists of universalism and the linear theory of historical progress (which goes back to the magical-Christian idea of history as the embodiment of the will of the Deity)
Why do we need jewish Yahwe as a fundament for it? Why do we need all that stupid classical-magian theology which only falsificates our own lifestyle and thoughts with southern-arabian sentiments? Why finally do we need any personalistic God (monotheism is just a magian abstraction without any meaning to Faustian man) if our religion is focused on endless unlimited Space?
Secondly, Christian Universalism (considering all the people as "equal" before God) is harmful to Western soul because it erodes our own feeling as a separate Cultural organism. E.g. to a Pope there's no distinction between a catholic chinese and a catholic german but white-western Protestant or atheist is considered as a heretic. It's nonsense for culturally-concious people.
Its a good observation that the Pope doesn't see the difference between peoples so long as they're of the "faith" which can take the form of a thousand contexts. But this universalism is also simply part of Faustian civilization itself. Fundamentally it is the Faustian desire to disembody and be a lone ego in a far larger universe and recognise that the world doesn't revolve around you. This is seen in modern-day progressivism, which for its universalism people mistake as a type of Christianity, but is also seen in our desire to explore the world, discover its functional truths, establish a singular world order, and is fundamentally part of our notions of care in the state and family. If we purged Christianity, universalism would still endure because being an unimportant Will, in tension with other larger and smaller Wills, is our very attitude to reality.
We don't need Christianity to express the Faustian mindset, a new religion may arise and prove its strength indeed. My fear though is that any new and young religion would simply be viewed as arbitrary and cult-ish to our highly intellectual and scrutinizing civilization, preventing new religions from gaining much traction. This leaves a new Faustian religious vacuum to be filled by existing religions with vast populations, resources, and rootedness, and if we ponder what those *replacement* religions might be, then I think we'd agree it doesn't better approximate a faustian ideal in the long run.
Lets not forget also that we are no longer in the culture period. Our society is in a steady process of hardening into fixed forms, so it's unlikely that any new ideas will be significant enough to revolutionise Western civilisation for the better. Any new ideas would probably succeed more on their political merits than because they are a historical fulfilment of a symbolic idea.
I maintain that the most likely trajectory for the religious history of our civilisation now and onwards is towards cynicism and nihilism in the cities (and by extension the internet, so within all of us), followed by a return of Christianity in politics (particularly in America) and with popular intellectual mistrust of Christianity and cowardly fear of Islam, a rise of that too in the West since it will inevitably gain political reach in Europe. That's my wager.
The true "Universalism" of the West is in seeing other Cultures in a way that they themselves were not capable of - our unique empathy. The universalism we see around us is a perversion that leads to decadence.
Is it possible to create some kind of cosmological pantheistic order based on the idea of cultural morphology and the Divinely radiated Cosmos? At the center of such a system would be Culture as the highest, truly Divine organism. Such a religion would well support the political foundations of the future Western Empire in tone
Hmm, personally it seems to me that Universalism is not innate to the West, but rather, again, a derivative of a magical pseudomorphosis - it was the magical Culture that was characterized by the idea of Divine truth, embedded in a certain religion. Spengler's discovery itself contradicts the idea of Universalism, but Spengler's philosophy is entirely Faustian, perhaps even its peak. Based on this, it seems to me that the cultural role of universalism in Western history is very harmful, since it blurs Western culture, turning it into a mess that will gradually lose its own identity, becoming a jelly of all sorts of colored peoples. In my opinion, this cannot be allowed. We must be aware of our uniqueness, and for this, the philosophical and religious foundations of the West should be strengthened in this direction.
It is precisely based on this that I am also an opponent of the World State, since it, even if it were to take place, would inevitably lead to the blurring of Western culture among other peoples. Identity is possible only in opposition, where it does not exist, it dies.
What do you think? Which scenario would you consider most desirable, based on the possibilities that we have?
Rejoice and fret not. The future of the West will not be Christian. To see, you must truly see. What was in front of you went without notice. What should be made of the Founding Fathers' separation of church and state? And then the debate over homosexuality in America, who was against it, and who won? Who wanted to introduce young-earth and creationism into the public curriculum from the 1990s -2000s and was denied? Christians. The old pagans and their followers are growing five times faster in America than the early Christians in Rome. This figure I've taken from Catgirl Kulak on X, and I've not verified it myself. What is to come will surely not be the old paganism, but from its body a child will be born.
Aristotles philosophy shouldn’t be lumped in with modern materialism they are totally different and he defined himself in contradiction with Democritus and the atomist school. Modern materialism only took off with a rejection of hylomorphism
What forms of Second Religiousness would future West have? Can West finally deny Christianity as a product of Magian-Classical pseudomorphosis and build its own, late religion?
I'd wager not, but Paganism seems to be slowly becoming more popular. Christianity is likely going to stay, particularly protestantism as its more flexible for interpreting the bible as it needs to. The key thing to remember here is that these won't be separate religions as we understand them but just the parts that appeal to momentary sentiment. Syncretism in the West could end up assimilating parts of Paganism, Christianity and Islam into a new kind of spirituality given future demographic trends.
But is it possible to throw away also the paganism and create a new Spengler and Goethe-inspired Pantheist religion, which would liberate spiritual life if the West from foreign influences? Did Spengler not destroy Christianity in his own philosophy, when considered all religions as "true" and denied the mere concept of objective reality? In that case, isn't it really better to finally free the Faustian soul from pseudomorphosis and create new naturphilosophy, religion and science?
It's not better or worse. Faustian civilisation isn't under a pseudomorphosis because it practices Christianity. Our Catholicism or Protestantism means something symbolically different from Magian Christianity. Constructing a new religion that isn't adapted from a foreign culture form wouldn't necessarily mean it is closer to the Faustian spirit. It would just be intellectual play to create something that appeals to you, and in doing so you'd be falling into the trap of creating a fashionable religion like in the later stages of materialism.
What you might be referring to is something like esoteric hitlerism, where Himmler tried creating religious myths around nordic supremacy and corresponding cult practises with it. This is actually a very good attempt at dispelling Christianity from Western civilisation, but in practise it is no different from elite cults in Rome, it's sentimental at best and is the product of the mind over the spirit and had all the pitfalls of materialistic cults Spengler highlights above.
When you say that Faustian Christianity is different symbolically from Magian Christianity, what are you referring to?
So Christianity began in the first century during the spring period of magian culture. Magian culture's prime symbol is the cavern, it focuses heavily on the battle between substantial notions of light and dark, there is a tendency to submit and have faith in the will of God as part of a consensus of believers in him through his word as scripture. the cosmos was seen as a "cavern" in that light from above passes down into the dark and mingles with it, and mankind is trapped between these two substances, which manifests in higher and lower substances in mankind such as the Hebrew Ruach and Nephesh or the Christian Pneuma and Psyche.
In the medieval period, specifically from around 900-1000AD onwards, Christianity in northern europe was the main language used to express the Faustian prime symbol. The battle between light and dark in Magian christianity was replaced by the battle between Mary and the Devil, God was treated as a a will of cosmic proportion. The cosmos was no longer seen as a Cavern, but as an infinite universe of unfathomably large wills which mankind's ego was dwarfed by. Instead of building basilicas, with the dome representing the closed off universe, we built cathedrals, which shot upwards across Europe as a defiance against our insignificance.
This is also seen in the estate structure, in Magian Christianity, there are a range of equal churches across the Empire, coming together to agree on scripture when need be, but the east west split in the 11th century separated catholicism from the byzantine church and established a hierarchy of individuals leading up to the pope as the voice of God's will.
Nevertheless, Western Culture still suffers pseudomorphosis from Antiquity. In particular, Spengler wrote that the West will have to overcome Roman law as alien to its ideas about the world. Can't the same be said about Christianity?
As for imitation cults, like esoteric Hitlerism - you are right, it is all nonsense. However, in "The Years of Decision" Spengler allowed for the possibility of the emergence of new religions within the framework of the Second Religiosity in the West (and not necessarily in the context of Christianity). If we really accept the new version of Christianity as such - then Spengler's teaching will once again be overturned by the apologists of universalism and the linear theory of historical progress (which goes back to the magical-Christian idea of history as the embodiment of the will of the Deity)
Why do we need jewish Yahwe as a fundament for it? Why do we need all that stupid classical-magian theology which only falsificates our own lifestyle and thoughts with southern-arabian sentiments? Why finally do we need any personalistic God (monotheism is just a magian abstraction without any meaning to Faustian man) if our religion is focused on endless unlimited Space?
Secondly, Christian Universalism (considering all the people as "equal" before God) is harmful to Western soul because it erodes our own feeling as a separate Cultural organism. E.g. to a Pope there's no distinction between a catholic chinese and a catholic german but white-western Protestant or atheist is considered as a heretic. It's nonsense for culturally-concious people.
How could we overcome this contradiction?
Its a good observation that the Pope doesn't see the difference between peoples so long as they're of the "faith" which can take the form of a thousand contexts. But this universalism is also simply part of Faustian civilization itself. Fundamentally it is the Faustian desire to disembody and be a lone ego in a far larger universe and recognise that the world doesn't revolve around you. This is seen in modern-day progressivism, which for its universalism people mistake as a type of Christianity, but is also seen in our desire to explore the world, discover its functional truths, establish a singular world order, and is fundamentally part of our notions of care in the state and family. If we purged Christianity, universalism would still endure because being an unimportant Will, in tension with other larger and smaller Wills, is our very attitude to reality.
We don't need Christianity to express the Faustian mindset, a new religion may arise and prove its strength indeed. My fear though is that any new and young religion would simply be viewed as arbitrary and cult-ish to our highly intellectual and scrutinizing civilization, preventing new religions from gaining much traction. This leaves a new Faustian religious vacuum to be filled by existing religions with vast populations, resources, and rootedness, and if we ponder what those *replacement* religions might be, then I think we'd agree it doesn't better approximate a faustian ideal in the long run.
Lets not forget also that we are no longer in the culture period. Our society is in a steady process of hardening into fixed forms, so it's unlikely that any new ideas will be significant enough to revolutionise Western civilisation for the better. Any new ideas would probably succeed more on their political merits than because they are a historical fulfilment of a symbolic idea.
I maintain that the most likely trajectory for the religious history of our civilisation now and onwards is towards cynicism and nihilism in the cities (and by extension the internet, so within all of us), followed by a return of Christianity in politics (particularly in America) and with popular intellectual mistrust of Christianity and cowardly fear of Islam, a rise of that too in the West since it will inevitably gain political reach in Europe. That's my wager.
The true "Universalism" of the West is in seeing other Cultures in a way that they themselves were not capable of - our unique empathy. The universalism we see around us is a perversion that leads to decadence.
Is it possible to create some kind of cosmological pantheistic order based on the idea of cultural morphology and the Divinely radiated Cosmos? At the center of such a system would be Culture as the highest, truly Divine organism. Such a religion would well support the political foundations of the future Western Empire in tone
Hmm, personally it seems to me that Universalism is not innate to the West, but rather, again, a derivative of a magical pseudomorphosis - it was the magical Culture that was characterized by the idea of Divine truth, embedded in a certain religion. Spengler's discovery itself contradicts the idea of Universalism, but Spengler's philosophy is entirely Faustian, perhaps even its peak. Based on this, it seems to me that the cultural role of universalism in Western history is very harmful, since it blurs Western culture, turning it into a mess that will gradually lose its own identity, becoming a jelly of all sorts of colored peoples. In my opinion, this cannot be allowed. We must be aware of our uniqueness, and for this, the philosophical and religious foundations of the West should be strengthened in this direction.
It is precisely based on this that I am also an opponent of the World State, since it, even if it were to take place, would inevitably lead to the blurring of Western culture among other peoples. Identity is possible only in opposition, where it does not exist, it dies.
What do you think? Which scenario would you consider most desirable, based on the possibilities that we have?
Dear Chevalier,
Rejoice and fret not. The future of the West will not be Christian. To see, you must truly see. What was in front of you went without notice. What should be made of the Founding Fathers' separation of church and state? And then the debate over homosexuality in America, who was against it, and who won? Who wanted to introduce young-earth and creationism into the public curriculum from the 1990s -2000s and was denied? Christians. The old pagans and their followers are growing five times faster in America than the early Christians in Rome. This figure I've taken from Catgirl Kulak on X, and I've not verified it myself. What is to come will surely not be the old paganism, but from its body a child will be born.
Aristotles philosophy shouldn’t be lumped in with modern materialism they are totally different and he defined himself in contradiction with Democritus and the atomist school. Modern materialism only took off with a rejection of hylomorphism