As we enter a new Wolf Age, we do not know where it will end up, how far it will descend before bouncing in rubble off the bottom, or exactly what texture it all will have as things get “kinetic” (this is like bad “optics”, except with violence). America, so far, has avoided military adventurism: George Washington refused the kingship and retired after two terms, like Cincinnatus of old. General Smedley Butler handed over all of the conspirators who approached him about turning America into Nazi Germany Lite. The Secretary of Defense is traditionally a civilian, most emphatically not a military man with “connections”. So far, the arrangement and organization of the military by the “Cathedral” has been studiously conducted so as to obviate any even remote possibility of South American politics. But that may change, and soon, since the Democratic Party has embraced the practical outcome of Banana Republic politics – warriors in America may decide that if you do the time, you may as well do the crime. Why do you think that neo-liberal State Departments love foreign wars and adventures? It gives the military stuff to do, and makes sure they have their hands full…Over There.
We have not seen the last of the repercussions of thousands upon thousands of young military men returning from over seas, after watching their buddies blown to smithereens next to them by pipe bombs, and seeing what has happened in the last ten years or so of “Progress”, here at home in their absence. It doesn’t help when their wife files for divorce as their ship is docking.
Because the path of the Warrior has been so suppressed, here in the Republic of USA, both by the Church in her application of Christianity to American conditions, and by the government in its zealousness to make sure no one gets left out of the American dream, for any reason (including bad choices of their own), we can be sure to see the return of the Warrior, and with vengeance, as the bad choices and consequences of mistreating and suppressing their legitimate functions and interests make themselves felt more and more, in the near future.
What can a man called to this path expect in the future? Are there any angles he can take that will help him more successfully and creatively negotiate the inevitable dangers of the resurgence of the power of “men with guns”? How can this be channeled in a constructive direction? For the warrior longs for peace – it is why he picked up the sword. We, the non-warriors, do them a disservice to imagine that they enjoy killing for its own sake, and have no other end or function. Every since Don Quixote laughed chivalry out of existence, the soldier, and no other, has been the most misunderstood individual in the modern West. Not the outsider, the alien, the minority – but the Soldier. It is for him that this essay is written. I have included a bare outline of esoteric doctrine, with the sources, as a starting point or primer for those willing to do a little searching. Although warriors are not priests or intellectuals, the times and seasons demand that everyone know a little about the times and seasons. Hopefully, the following makes that more clear.
Chances are, the warrior does not spend a lot of time intellectualizing about his calling. That is not his way, manner, or even purpose. He knows what he knows – as one old man on my hill put it, “Son, a lot of very good men are going to have to do a lot of very bad things” (if the worst comes to pass). Let us, if we can, give him more of a voice. Rather than speak for him, let us let him speak through us, and in so doing, find a better way of making peace with him, for the near immediate future will belong to such as him. We are not speaking “Truth to Power”, but rather, letting Power speak its Truth.
“Force and Right rule the world – Force until Right is ready”.
Like Cardinal Newman’s teacher, we take as our touchstone Bishop Joubert’s maxim. What is the Truth contained in this saying? The purpose of the Sword and of War is Peace. Leo Tolstoy, the great Pacifist Himself, knew this, and so made it the title of his magisterial novel. At the end of the fighting, the Russian general pleads generously to his troops to be chivalrous to the defeated French. But then he grins, and tells them, at the end, “But after all, who asked them to come here, anyway?” The men loved it. That is the voice of the warrior. Just as importantly, it reassured them that the General was, after all, on their side. He was asking of them to be generous, not demanding of them to be tolerant.
Don Quixote is the locus classicus of the decline of Chivalry. Although Cervantes laughed Chivalry out of existence, he was also a knight by personal calling, and lost a hand at Lepanto. His laughter is both good natured, and, at times, hollow and ironic. It is obvious that all his sympathies lie with Don Quixote, who “read too many fantasy novels”, as they say. I suspect that Cervantes deliberately removed the Knight from history’s stage, in order the better to husband the energies and preserve it from what was coming, while also immortalizing it in such a way that even the stereotype will, in the end, prevail over the Windmill. Read Curtis Yarvin’s Gray Mirror of the Nihilist Prince for a modern warning about how not to be a rebel, given certain conditions. Like Cervantes, he seems to anticipate the coming of a new era of the sword. As they say, Wait For It. The American western (as Cologero has often pointed out), brought back the age of the knight, in certain conditions, for a limited time. The type of the Knight is not capable of being permanently laughed away. And Cervantes knew this. It was his last laugh, which was the best. Don’t take Don Quixote at just face value. If you do, follow the dots to the bitter end.
The man of war is a Number Two Man in the language of Tradition. See also the Bhagavad-Gita. He is a man of the heart. He has the soul of a knight. At his best, he aspires to great deeds done through conquering the fear and pain and shrinking of the old man in his interior, and channeling this spiritual conquest into physical reality. He stands with the Archangel Michael, who, every Autumn, casts down the spirit of Ahriman who assaults the port of the moon, and guarantees the descent of the heavenly energies into the soil of earth, there to linger and die and be reborn each spring with Easter. He is the man who draws his weapon, knowing full well it likely means his own death, but who stands, deathless, on the other side of Death, in doing so, simultaneously losing his head in regards to his own Life, and keeping his head in regards to what is entrusted to his care. He sings, when he sings, that “Justice is the one thing you should always find”. It is not that the warrior cannot go “bad” – he knows this is part of the risk, & in wiser ways than others. But he has the emotional intelligence and courage to run the risk intelligently. And not only does he often win the gamble, without him, the Cathedral and the Peasant Farmer would be defenseless against the pseudo-warriors of the lower forces, which are always numerous and present. A true warrior knows that they are always a threat, probably better than anyone else.
The Man Number Two is an indispensable part of the Chain of Being. History vindicates him with an entire historical period, which we call the Dark Ages, but which will always shine with the Sun which is not physical, and the stars that are more than physical. The man of the heart has his own caste, because the heart is a fundamental truth of all things which is indelible, deathless, and immortal. Do not imagine, for a single second, that the Sun of that heart will not rise again, one day. Indeed, in a sense, it has never set. It looms larger, the darker our age becomes.
What can we learn from surveying History concerning the Times and Seasons? If the Antique Ancient World was the Golden Age of Philosophy (and we hereby assert that it was, for Descartes will be Plato’s lackey in Paradise), and the Modern Age is the Age of Science (and this, also, is true, for who can not doubt that Archimedes and Aristotle were lacking in comrades in this endeavor?), we can situate an order of history as follows:
Man #1 ‐ center of gravity in the instincts ‐ Ancient Philosophy begins and no other age could handle the analysis of natural man in the same way. It was so well perfected, in the earlier time, that the Classical World by itself came close to developing the 1-3 perfection, and moving to 4. Hence, the height of even its philosophy is greater than our day.
Man #2 ‐ center of gravity in the heart ‐ Northern Europe chooses the warrior King, and believes as none (in a sense) ever did or will do. This, likewise, is reflected in its theology, which is still misunderstood even today.
Man #3 ‐ center of gravity in the head ‐ Modernity imposes the alpha and beta layers of rational discursive analysis upon the prime perceptions of man. This intensifies the potential, both for good and evil. Man being what he is, we see more of the potential for evil developed, than good. Modernity has squandered its resources like the prodigal son, although there are enormous bright spots. It takes discernment to pick out the signal from all the noise.
The only next possible progression, by the laws of spiritual growth, which is both possible and creative and constructive, will be the balancing of all three prior ages in :
Man #4 ‐ center of gravity is a new magnetic center that coordinates and gives place to the rightful yearnings of each center ‐ the Age of Art. Carl Jung will be one of the seminal figures of esoteric teaching, for Jung resurrects the Archetypes of Sage, Hero, and Priest. Plotinus sums up the wisdom of Man #1, Buddha the wisdom of Man #2 (Christ was no mere man), and Steiner gives us spiritual Science for Man #3. H/T Cologero of Gornahoor for this brilliant footnote.
One can see, that, according as one takes the progression, moving from Man 1 to Man 3 can either be a progression, or a regression.
So in the advent of the Age of Art, if we can succeed in moving the mass of men into this next period, the path of the Warrior will find its purity, perfection and resting place (alongside the others). As the most maligned of types in our period (and at the same time, arguably the most abused), the Warrior should look upon the Age of Art as a deliverance from his long slavery. Yet, still, if the mass of men cannot be moved into this period of Divine Art quickly enough to overcome the cycles of decay, it will be the task of the Warrior to ensure that efforts do not flag, and to “hold the line” against the forces of Chaos that will prey upon the crumbling echelons of humanity. It may very well be, in fact, that in case the effort of Men in this prime direction fails (for now, but permanently, as far as human spans go), that we will see the Warriors defend a holding position in an age of the resurgent Heart. We are looking at another potentially “Dark Age” in which the Warrior will assume immense importance. Either way, the Warrior is most certainly not going away. Closest, as he is, to the fountain of effort (when the age of Science is dying by refusing to lead the way but rather blocking the path), it will fall, once more to him, to pick up the sword as a cross. With him, in large measure, as always, more than just Civilization stands or falls.
Of all of the three types, Man #2 is the most fortunate and promising type for spiritual growth in our milieu. Constantly frustrated by the intellectualizing of the presumed higher Man #3 (who in reality is on the same level naturally), struggling against the laziness of the Man #1 who does not comprehend the warrior’s code or even apes it with senseless violence, he of all the types most acutely feels in the most necessary center of the being the need to move through the impasse, and the powerlessness of contemporary modes of doing so. This makes him unique in our time, and potentially, the strongest of men in the pursuit of Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and More. If he succeeds in not destroying himself spiritually in response to this agony, he builds with himself the energy necessary to accomplish the movement into a new era.
Additionally, in the modern Era, few men are in their natural caste. We have warriors in the Academy, academicians and bureaucrats running the armed forces, and (often) men of almost animal instinct ruling over States or even the globe. True potential sages or heroes are sometimes found working janitor jobs. The confusion of Modern Times, as the project of Science unwinds in reductive materialism, has left every man struggling for survival individually, without the support of his proper caste and calling. Additionally, miscegenation and class warfare and the raw forces of disintegration like genocide and war has seen to it that bloodlines are mingled in such a way that all of us are of “mixed type”: each person, at times, functions in such an impure way as to contain, within themselves, the seeds of all the castes. This is a potential advantage, and disadvantage. On the one hand, it denies them the fruit of pursuing to perfection one path, and contributes to the general confusion. On the other, it ensures that every man, at some level, has to work on balancing all three types in preparation for the Age of Divine Art.
Here, again, the warrior is at an advantage. From the standpoint of the heart, he sees, better than the others, naturally, the need for both the instincts of hearth and home, and the greater need for a transcendence that does not end merely in the head, the brain, or even the Mind. The fire of the heart chakra, if kept pure, answers admirably to the necessary balance required to enter the Age of Art. This is not to denigrate the other two types, of whom much good could be said – it is to underline that Providentially, again, the warrior will be needed now, more than ever.
I favor an explanation, not my own, of the different groups of men. We can call it the Parks and Rec theory of men. While not exactly duplicating the revealed three types of men, it does track them reasonably well, in a memorable way. If you have a nice camping spot, with good scenery, reasonable facilities, and the requisite quiet, you will find four types of humans who frequent it:
- The Volunteers who sacrificed to help build it and continue to maintain it. This corresponds to Man #4 who uses divine art and understands the circle of Life has to either rise or fall. This is the post of the Emperor (see Tomberg’s Meditations on the Tarot).
- Those who appreciate the place and use it a lot, but maintain it by being respectful and appreciative of the builders. This corresponds to a healthy, but incomplete Man #3, who knows better than to ruin their own nest. Our Founding Fathers in America could be compared, somewhat, to this group.
- Those who resent the first two groups and want to steal the place for themselves and monopolize it. This corresponds most colorfully to a degenerating Man #2, an Assyrian and titanic force (Julius Evola) who wages war on the gods. Coincidentally, this comes about after a Matriarchy has unseated Authority. These people are entitled, and want others like them to be more so. This is almost all of modern politics. Most of the so-called “elite” (Men #3) also have sunk to this stage, and are the most culpable.
- Those who just want to destroy all of it because they hate constructive Creation. This is the outcast Type. Think of a fully degenerate Man #1 who is coming apart at the seams. This is the future, if we cannot move into an Age of Art, or Man #2 cannot hold the line and bring about a new Age of Faith, to try again to ascend.
This is not to say that Man #1 is necessarily degenerate, and so forth, it is merely to take stereotypical types according to ease of presentation: remember that all of us have inside of us a little of Man 1-3. And an intellectual man gone bad is not a pretty sight. We might equally as well, in our day, use Man #3 to illustrate the Outcast or Outlaw Type, to which they can sink. It just makes it easier to see the pattern if you follow the stereotype, without being deceived by it. A Man #1 may, in a very unusual situation or dark condition, come to prominence and even progress to the post of Emperor.
To use our analogy creatively, we can say that all, all, of Mankind’s progress hinges upon Man #2 staying pure and siding with Man #4. As the heart goes, so will mankind. The warrior is the tip of the spear. Each of the other castes must also contribute, but because of the choices that have been made (the Enlightenment, so called, among other ones, by the Cathedral caste of intellectuals), it has come down to the “shield pushing”: res ad triarios venit.
Chivalry is resurrecting itself, one way or the other, whether as a new Zeitgeist in the failure of Mankind to properly develop towards his destiny and as a regrouping effort, or as the shield-maiden of the struggling-to-be-born Imperial Age of Divine Art, which will perfect the secular and the intellectual into the spiritual art of Alchemy. In this Age of Divine Art, all of the arts of men will find their place and balance, man’s potential for good and evil will increase, esoteric studies will become much more widely diffused, & the path of courtly Love will be revived in the Age of the Holy Spirit (Boris Mouravieff).
For that time, come what may, it is most blessed, happy, and fortunate to be born a warrior or to become one. And we all will benefit by learning to think like one. May you find your inner Templar, who can lead you to the Temple.
