The Gnostic

There comes the time to unclose the truth, to make a spiritual essence of what boots-licking average people define as "political extremism". We have confused them, changing the registers of our political sympathies, the coloring of our heroes, passing from fire to cold, from "rightness" to "leftism" and back again. All this was only intellectual artillery preparation, some kind of an ideological warm-up.

We have frightened and tempted both extremely right and extremely left, and now both have lost their guiding lines, both have been got off the beaten tracks. This is wonderful. As great Evgeniy Golovin loved to reiterate: "The one who goes against the day, should not be afraid of the night". There is nothing more pleasant than a feeling of the ground slipping away under your feet. This is the first flight experience. It will kill the vermin. It will steel the angels.

Today it is possible to answer this question without equivocations and evasive definitions. Though with that end in view it is necessary to make a brief digression into the history of spirit.

The mankind has always had two types of spirituality, two paths — "Right Hand Path" and "Left Hand Path". The first one is characterized by the positive attitude to the surrounding world; the world is seen as harmony, equilibrium, good, peace. All the evil is viewed as a particular case, a deviation from the norm, something inessential, transient, without deep transcendental reasons. Right Hand Path is also called "The Way of Milk". It doesn’t hurt a person, it preserves him from radical experience, withdraws from immersion into suffering, from the nightmare of life. This is a false path. It leads into a dream. The one going by it will reach nowhere...

The second path, the "Left Hand Path", sees all in an inverted perspective. Not dairy tranquility, but black suffering; not silent calm, but torturous, fiery drama of an anguished life. This is "A Path of Wine". It is destructive, terrible, anger and violence reigns there. For the one who is going by this path all reality is perceived as hell, as the ontological exile, as torture, as immersion into the heart of some inconceivable catastrophe originating from the heights of space. If in the first path everything seems as good, in the second — as evil. This path is monstrously difficult, but only this path is true. It is easy to stumble on it, and it is even easier to parish. It guarantees nothing. It tempts nobody. But only this path is the true one. Who follows it — will find glory and immortality. Who will withstand — will conquer, will receive the award, which is higher than life.

The one going by the "Left Hand Path" knows, that one day the imprisonment will be over. The prison of substance will collapse, having transformed into a celestial city. The chain of the initiated passionately prepares a desired moment, the moment of the End, triumph of total liberation.

Dresden 1945

These two paths are not two different religious traditions. Both are possible in all religions, in all confessions, in all churches. There are no external discrepancies between them. They appeal to the most intimate features of a person, his secret essence. Those paths cannot be chosen. It is they that choose a person as a victim, as a servant, as a tool, as an instrument.

The Left Hand Path is called "gnosis", "knowledge". It is as bitter, as knowledge, it generates grief and cold tragedy. Once in antiquity, when the mankind still attached decisive significance to the spiritual aspects, Gnostics developed their theories at a philosophical level, as a doctrine, as cosmological mysteries, as a cult. Gradually people degraded, ceased to pay attention to the realm of thought, sank into physiology, search of privacy, home life. But Gnostics did not disappear. They transferred the dispute to the level of things, understandable to modern average people. One of them proclaimed the slogans of "social justice", developed the class struggle theories, communism. "The Mystery of Sofia" became "class consciousness", "struggle against malicious the Demiurge, creator of the damned world" gained the character of social battles. The threads of ancient knowledge lead to Marx, Nechaev, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Che Guevara....The Wine of socialist revolution, pleasure of revolt against forces of fate, sacred berserk passion to total destruction of all that is black for the sake of finding new, unearthly Light...

Dresden 1945

Others opposed the secret energy of race, the murmur of blood to the commonness. They erected the laws of cleanliness and new sacredness, proclaimed the return to the Golden Age, the Great Return against mixture, degradation. Nietzsche, Heidegger, Evola, Hitler, Mussolini shrouded the Gnostic will into national racial doctrines.

That’s true that communists had no particular interest in workers, and Hitler — in Germans. But by no means due to their cynicism. Both were overwhelmed by a deeper, more ancient, more absolute aspiration — common Gnostic spirit, secret and terrible light of the Left Hand Path. No workers, no "Aryans"... That’s horse of a different color.

Creative personalities also invoked on the Left Hand Path, on a path of gnosis swang to and fro between the "red" and "black", the "white" and "brown", rushed in spiritual searches. Being confused by the political doctrines, going into extremes, being unable to express clearly the metaphysical contours of their possessions, the artists from Shakespeare up to Arteau, from Michelangelo up to Max Eemans, from troubadours up to Breton feed themselves with a secret wine of suffering, imbibing greedily in the society, in passions, in sects and occult brotherhoods the separate fragments of the terrible doctrine depriving you of an opportunity to smile. Knights Templars, Dante, Lautreamont... They never smiled. It’s the sign of special chosen ness, trace of the monstrous experience, which was common to all the "travelers of the Left Hand Path". A Gnostic surveys our world with his heavy look. The same look as his precursors, links of an ancient chain of the chosen, chosen by the Horror had. The repelling pattern appears to him. The West distracted in its consumer psychosis, the East — disgusting in its slow-wittedness and miserable obedience. Drowned world, planet laying at the bottom.

"In underwater woods the impulse is useless and the gesture is ceased..." (Evgeniy Golovin)

But Gnostic will stay adherent to the life-work. Never, neither today, nor tomorrow. On the contrary, there are all reasons to triumph internally. Haven’t we told the naive "Right Hand Path" optimists where their excessive ontological trust will get them to? Haven’t we predicted the degradation of their creative instinct into that grotesque parody which is represented by modern conservatives who have resigned to everything, that horrified their more attractive (but not less hypocritical) precursors a pair of thousands of years ago? They haven’t listened to us... Now let them blame only themselves and read the "New Age" books or marketing manuals.

We have forgiven nobody; we have forgotten nothing.

We have not been deceived by the change of social scenery and political actors.

We have a very good memory, we have very "long arms".

We have a very severe tradition.

Mazes of life, spirals of ideas, vortexes of anger.

The Gnostic is an article from Russian "eurasist" Alexander Dugin - translation by Henry Zalkin.

5 Thesis on the Meaning of Life

It's about time to call things by their own names, without paying attention to stylistical correctness and academic overtones. It becomes clear that, in any case, nobody will understand or receive us. Therefore there's no real reason to give the discourse a higher stylistical overtone. We don't play chess at the end of Kali-Yuga. Everyone should make it clear to his/herself, what we want, and what we want from you personally. The question is about the meaning of life. A typical question. During times of passage we have to face it without any laughter or beating around the bush. Our goal has several levels.

1. First level. One must understand the course of history.

Without this, several things are left unclear: the context we find ourselves in, the language we speak, the surroundings we are dealing with. Who does not understand the course of history and its models is as useless as a crow on the edge of a field. He is liable to outer forces, and his intellectual capabilities are minimal. Every single idiot should have at least some idea of the course of history. Once people didn't dare to appear in public without some certain ideas concerning the course of history. Today the very question might seem a bit too abstract for professional philosophers, historians, and presidents. Grease and television have become the brain protheses of the nation. Someone's talking about something - possibly joking, or telling a story about how he just got out of prison. The spirit of our time is against us standing for the understanding of history. Could this be just a coincidence?

2. Second level. One has to take part in the course of history.

But only after understanding it at least approximately. Otherwise we find ourselves in a situation parallel to having unknown forces drilling our teeth. Once we have obtained some kind of a model of the course of history, taking part in it becomes more qualified. Now the process of existence obtains revolting overtones. The first differentiations take place. The first existential and gnosseological experiences take place. Something and someone will stand against your strivings, something and someone will support you. Life gets a new meaning, vectorial concreteness. Taking part doesn't have to be sizeable. Sometimes little things are enough, everyday activities. For an example, you remember that you are living the end of history. As a result, you drink your coffee or take a walk in the park or beat up someone - but it's not that simple, since you are acting as a being working for the end of history. Your every move, your every condition, your every emotion gains new dimensions. Of course, you will hardly keep it on the everyday level, without trying to socialize your own experience. For this reason you are being carried to the third level, whetether you want it or not.

3. Third level. One has to change the course of history.

This is the logical consequence of the second level. If your part in the course of history does not show in its changes, be it even the smallest minor changes, your part is fictitious. This is clear. By trying to change even the smallest particles within the course of history you are testing the state of your own historical being. It's a dangerous path, and it holds many traps and pits. Here you will have to learn to distinguish between various spirits. First the laughing demon of vanity, your evil twin, comes out. He tries to persuade you to the funnel of dark whirling, and this will seem to you as if you were maturing and leaving traces in a great mass of time, but in fact your ears are circled by your own macaroni axis. Pseudodandism fricasseé. Take your macaroni axis and go impress females in some museum. Actual change in the course of history - even one degree - is an Achievement. This is very, very much. In case you have gone through the first two levels, that is. In the contrary case, all this is but hallucinations of a grey stump.

4. Fourth level. One has to turn the course of history 180 degrees.

An unanticipated move. Sshhhhh, be quiet, here we start to unveil the essence of our secret thoughts. This is the highest level of changing the course of history. If you turn the course of history completely, you are equal with the history itself, you are its doppelgänger - man-time. This means you are inside, not outside. And the cycle of events is circling you. But only heroes and saints are capable of doing this. But who said that two-legged pigs are tolerated by onthology? Whoever carries the human form should either be human or be punished. But there is no reason to lead either oneself or others astray. Our form does not exist outside transgression. Our very essence is that we lack the final definition, the final base ground. We can never say with full responsibility "Human - that's something!" There is always a place for a debator, and for a convincing, clear debator. As for not something... We're losing ground... Someone is destroyed, someone finally learns how to bathe in the fiery regions. Taking the lost seed back into oneself, sticking the uttered word back into one's throat. When you are told that something is IN, something is the talk of the day, and, finally, "something is here and now" - reply with evil laughter, blinking eyes, hissing and dancing in circles. Nothing's like that, nothing is, nothing's contemporary. Prove it, once you have acheived everything, and throw it in the sewer. Topmodels are the onthological victims of metaphysical snipers. In hell, dead Naomi Campbell plays a braindrum made of the bones of Yakubovich. The new National-Bolshevik "Field of Miracles". Vlad, he was alive a minute ago... We shall never forget you... What do you mean, "never forget"? We must make reasonable decisions with this. Time - backward!

5. Fifth level. The last one. One must stop the course of history.

This one is understood (oh, c'mon...). If we are capable of turning the course of history 180 degrees, we find ourselves in a world where everything is not like yesterday, not like today, nor tomorrow. Will there be any history after it has turned its course back? Could we call it Jordan, where Our Saviour stepped, the river that stopped flowing out of sheer terror? Or the parted waters of the Red Sea, where Moses walked, "by the sea"? Could we be called "a party"? A subtle difference remains all the same. Going back or even without a course... Seems like a distant horizon, but it's not an empty discussion. We will have to solve this important problem within this body. The body will, of course, be somewhat different, a bit more sugary, but a body nevertheless. Backwards or nowhere at all? To start again or to stay the same? To be as clear as possible, we'll answer sincerely: We will have to stop it, although some mights of this world may not agree with it. A complex, unbearable drama in a static position, the unmovable dynamic of a colossal problem.

But we will have to stop...

5 Thesis on the Meaning of Life is an article from Russian "eurasist" Alexander Dugin - translation by Henry Zalkin.