A Short Introduction into Traditionalism

Part I. The Crisis of the Modern World

Many people do not doubt in the world’s crisis already (if we understand ‘crisis’ in its everyday meaning). In this connection a belief in infinite progress, which was an indisputable dogma until recently, ceases to be absolute and universal. Crisis of the modern world means that this world has come to a critical stage of its development, and its total transformation is inevitable. This transformation in its part involves a radical change in of all the development’s course in foreseeable time. Moreover, the word ‘crisis’ has a series of other meanings, and that’s why we must find out which results of the crisis are positve and which are negative, and what further development must look like.

The forthcoming end of the historic cycle must correspond to the end of the cosmic cycle in some way. That’s why the future transformation will be a total one, and the laws governing it can be applied to different levels. What in the modern world looks like disorder and chaos, is an inevitable consequence of the mentioned laws. Yet natural character of the crisis by no means implies a demand for being passive; if one were to admit not only this crisis' inevitability, but also one's inability to influence its course, then it would be best to keep one's silence. However, our real task is to prepare a way out of this crisis.

The basic concept of traditionalism is Tradition. It can be defined as a knowldege of superior kind, i.e. metaphysical knowledge of universal principles upon which the world is built.

The basic principle of metaphysics is unity of the Truth – original, primordal Tradition. This super-human knowledge mediates the world of principles and the world of their manifestation, transmitted from one generation to the next by the efforts of the Initiated castes. Appearing to people in fragmentary and in a seemingly continuous way, as an intermediate form, particular and sometimes contradictory truth, the unified Truth can be "reconstructed" in its source, if its lineage its traced to its very beginning. The modern world divides the Truth into a myriad parts, thus creating an opposition to its original form and content. So the world of lies is being formed, ‘a reign of quantity’. This sorry state is further veiled by the substitution of the traditional doctrine of the world's involution with the ideas of evolution, universal progress and the "humanitarian" ideal.

Fundamental principles of traditionalist understanding of history lie in the idea of cyclic time. Pure spiritual generative Principle creates original state, from which development follows downward – from the Golden Age to Silver, Bronze, and Iron Age. Today we find ourselves right in the Iron Age (Kali Yuga) and have been residing in it for thousands of years. As a result, thruth which was comprehensible for all the mankind becomes more and more unattainable, and a number of people posessing it decreases sharply. Nevertheless, in the end of the cycle hidden things will again be manifest, even if downward development moves away from the spiritual generating Principle more and more noticeably, turning into a ‘progressive materialization’.

From the time of the Renaissance, there exist only ‘profane’ philosophy and ‘profane’ science, not connected with the Principle. Term ‘humanism’ appeared in this period as well. The term means the first form of pure secular worldview that strives to reduce everything to the human level, especially to its lower elements; that orients itself towards the satisfaction of gross material needs and further creation of new, artificial needs of the same kind. Meaning of ‘humanism’ is to reduce everything to a human scale, to break with all the higher principles and, so to say, to turn away from heaven for invading the earth. This invasion doesn’t have any other aims except producing things that are as analogous to each other, as are the people producing them. People limited their thoughts by invention and building of machines to such degree, that in the end they turned into machines themselves.

Yet our ‘dark age’, however tragic it could be, has a legitimate place in the general course of human development, as the transition from one cycle to another must take place in total darkness. Therefore this partial disorder as an indispensable element of universal order must exist nevertheless. Thus, modern civilization has a cause for its existence, though it is a perversion; in traditional civilizations the essential thing is a metaphysical doctrine, and all the other things proceed from it. “We call traditional a civilization based on principles in the direct meaning of the word, i.e. in such a civilization spiritual order rules all the others, and everything depends on it directly or inderectly, and both science and social institutes are just transient and secondary things which don’t have self-dependent meaning and are application of pure spiritual ideas” (Rene Guenon).

In other words, a hierarchy principle is determinant, and it presets principles of sacral science. Modern science is an opposition to sacral science, a profane science. Profance science is separated from any superior principle, what leads to dissolution of research in details and fruitless analytics. Besides, profane science is oriented not for knowledge, but for opportunity of practical use of the results of cognitive activity. Thus modern science is a perversion and degeneration of true, sacral science.

Statement of the fact that this science does not admit no superior Principle higher than human individuality’s level, is the basis for critisism of individualism. Individualism is a result of reducing of all the civilization’s components to pure human elements, i.e., to “humanism”. In the modern world none takes his place in accordance with his inner nature, and principle of ‘equality’ reigns. There is no true elite – it is destroyed by the law of plurality, involved into sphere of illusion and lies of modern material civilization. There is nothing beyond visible or perceptible world for modern man, and there is no science which would not deal with measurable things. That’s why economical factors and ideals of material welfare are of so great importance in the modern world.

Pure modern knowledge, closely linked with individualism, is rationalism. That is why it is not able to grasp fundamentally important qualities of super-individual level, in contrast to traditional intellectual intuition.

But realization of what the modern world really is, does not result in the cessation of its being. The most essential feature of the modern world is denying of traditional and superhuman truth. If the understanding of this truth becomes universal, then the final transformation of this world could be without any catastrophe. But for solving of thistask we need to create a new intellectual elite.

True power can be granted only from above and is legal only in case when it is approved by something that stands above society and its institutions – namely, spiritial hierarchy – the elite which not taking part in the outside events, rules everything by means which are not inconceivable for ordinary men, and the more effective these means are, the less they are evident.

Thus, it is necessary to lay the foundation for coming into being and formation of a rue radical elite, which would be able to change mass mentality. Only after that it is possible to begin to go out of the global crisis of the modernity by restoration of traditional order, based on knowledge and adherence to principles of the primordial, original Tradition.