I was reading online and found out about a book which has been hyped-up in the most amazing way. The book is called Liber Decatriarchia Mystica and is written by Wahid Azal (who in the past has gone by the name of Nima Hazini). My understanding is that he is an ex-Bahai who later became a Babi (a member of the religion which was the Bahai faith's most immediate ancestor) but that now he is on a much more ecclectic and individualistic path which is influenced by Babism, Qabbalah, Islam, shamanism and the teachings of Aleister Crowley.
One review says:
A second review I found adds:
I would probably disagree with Wahid Azal on a large number of points (especially Crowley I think) but I was still struck by the range of influences he invokes in his work. I found the description of the book incredibly provocative (although not tempting enough to justify the price). What resonates the most with me is the idea that in some ways Planet Grenada also brings together wildly disparate topics and influences. (including Guevara, Fanon, Ibn' Arabi, Liberation Theology, something similar to Theosophy, and even some Nietzsche on the side). My hope is that somehow I've managed to be deep without being esoteric, broad and comprehensive while coherent, spiritual while remaining socially relevant. How am I doing?
One review says:
This book introduces the Qabbalah of Bayani Gnostic Universalism via the qabbalistic Tree of Reality of 13 Spheres and 36 Subtle-Ray Pathways. The main portion of the work is the author's inspired re-write of the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation) to reflect this qabbalistic Tree. LIBER DECATRIARCHIA MYSTICA is Hermeticism, the post-Islamic Bayani gnostic path and the High Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi married to shamanism and Qabbalah. The author also challenges prevailing assumptions regarding the legitimacy of Rabbinic Judaism, Paulianist Christianity, Sunni Islam and modern Baha'ism. This book, not for the feint hearted, is sure to generate controversy. The author advocates for a Liberation Theosophy and the establishment of a Theophanocracy by a Universal Global Gnostic Ecclesia. This is a Green leftwing political manifesto and a high esoteric magnum opus all rolled into one!
A second review I found adds:
Azal also re-appropriates the discourse of gnosis and esotericism away from the Right and brings it back to the (Green) Left by arguing for a Liberation Theosophy and Theophanocracy. If Che Guevara and Franz Fanon were to meet Jacob Boehme and the Sufi Ibn ‘Arabi, fuse into one person, we would find Wahid Azal, a radical twenty-first century prophet of gnosis and a Nietzchean “esoteric” Zarathustra for our times.
I would probably disagree with Wahid Azal on a large number of points (especially Crowley I think) but I was still struck by the range of influences he invokes in his work. I found the description of the book incredibly provocative (although not tempting enough to justify the price). What resonates the most with me is the idea that in some ways Planet Grenada also brings together wildly disparate topics and influences. (including Guevara, Fanon, Ibn' Arabi, Liberation Theology, something similar to Theosophy, and even some Nietzsche on the side). My hope is that somehow I've managed to be deep without being esoteric, broad and comprehensive while coherent, spiritual while remaining socially relevant. How am I doing?
14 comments:
Thank you for mentioning my opus on your blog. I am a little curious as to why my book would even elicit any kind of comment by your site, since any potential publicity regarding my book would usually be coming by way my nemeses (the Baha'is).
Now I admit that I owe some debt to Aleister Crowley, but whether I am "influenced" by the Teachings" of Aleister Crowley is a mischaracterization. Aleister Crowley did not really have teachings as such to begin with. My main influences are actually the sources from theosophical Islam, from the esoteric teachings of the 12 Shi'ite Imams all the way to the Essence of the Seven Letters (i.e. the Bab). I am still technically a Bayani, but my Bayani adherence is strictly from the point of view of pure esotericism, ergo why I call myself a Bayani Gnostic Universalist. In other words I am a Batini. But I am a Batini that has a soft spot for Rene Guenon and Julius Evola, not to mention I am an avowed enemy of the New Age and it sundry fluff bunny reps.
That said, if I was to be pigeon-holed as the follower of anyone, I'd rather it be Henry Corbin.
The $38.00 price tag (steep or not) reflects the nature of an opus (38 is also the numerical value/abjad of Azal). I didn't publish this thing to have the book make it in the Book of the Month Club. It was written for Adepts, and Adepts living in our time.
In any case, thanks again.
Wahid
hmm.. even though the bulk of the articles deal with "muslim stuff" (and "latin stuff" and "black stuff") i occasionally branch out into other areas and i've touched on the Bahais before.
In terms of how you are placing yourself theologically and religiously I understand some aspects of what you are saying but I don't think I really "get" how you are putting everything together.
Why be a Bayani instead of a mystical Muslim? Or at the other end, why aren't you a Bahai? I thought that for Guenon (or at least for Schuon) all religions were the same... so what does it mean to be Bayani "from the point of view of pure esotericism"?
Also, what do you like about Evola?
Dear Abdu'l-Halim, Salam wa Nur 'Aleykum
For how I am putting it all together, you need to read the book. You raised a rather good question, though, about "why be a Bayani instead of a mystical Muslim" that would require another tome to answer. In short, I would say consider the trajectory of theosophical esotericism from the Shi'ite Imams to Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsai. Then read the writings of the Essence of the Seven Letters and His True successor, Subh-i-Azal, and we can begin having a pretty informed and involved discussion as to the why.
You brought up Frithjof Schuon. Frankly I am not much impressed with Schuon or his Maryamiyya at all. Guenon is a whole other kettle of fish and I would encourage you to look at his PERSPECTIVES ON INITIATION to understand where I am coming from regarding a purely Bayani esotericism. As for Baron Julius Evola, what is not to like? His 'Men Among the Ruins' and 'Ride the Tiger' should be made required reading by any serious activist in these end-times. Some people have a problem with his Italian Fascist connections and paint him as an outright Fascist. But that is not the case. The Fascists had as much problems with the likes of Evola than any other group that did not tow their specific line. Besides it is the contemporary application of Evola's insights which matter, not his (to us) embarrassing ultra-rightwing political gafs. Eliade was also a card-carrying Romanian Iron Guardsman, and I would put him up against any of these current self-designated historians of religions in the Ivory Tower any day of the week. But all in all, I am more a Corbinite than a Neo-Trad. Henry Corbin would give all the above, including Guenon and Evola, a run for their money. That said, the traditional Neo-Trads would have all kinds of problems with another Muslim antinomian (actually quite a few of them whom I consider part of my spiritual and intellectual silsila, including Ibn Sab'in and Fadlullah Astarabadi, just to name a few), i.e. shaykh'ul-ishraq Shihabuddin Yahya Suhrawardi al-Maqtul (ra). Just remember I am a Batini. I am devoted to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), His daughter Fatima Zahra' (as), the Shi'ite Twelver Imams in a real sense, as well as to most of the Awliya of Islam, but above all to the Bayani founders.
Withal, although Guenon and Evola were both appropriated by the Right - not to mention esotericism in general has been appropriated by rightwing agendas in Europe for quite a long time -, what I am beginning to do is to reappropriate esotericism back to the Left, and specifically the Green Left; this, without descending into the metaphysical flat-land and dead ends which the Latin American Liberation Theologians and similar found themselves in. My political philosophy - which is big part of the opus - is called Theophanocracy, i.e. the marriage of Ibn 'Arabi's doctrine of theophanies (tajjaliyyat), which found an actual horizontal, this-worldy application by the Babis, and theories of Green social democracy.
I take it we are in agreement about the Baha'is, then?
'Aleyka Nur!
Wahid
What's not to like about Evola? The man called *himself* a "racist". As for him and Eliade, I think their Fascist leanings are a problem. Although, it's not necessarily cause to immediately dismiss everything they have to say. It is enough to inspire caution and one should definitely continue to ask the question of to what degree their problematic political views are rooted in their spiritual, metaphysical views.
"The man called *himself* a "racist".
Where?? I've read everything he ever wrote and Evola never characterized himself in such a way at all, not to mention it would go against the grain of everything he wrote in works such as the DOCTRINE OF THE AWAKENING and the YOGA OF POWER.
There is a tendency in the liberal Western Ivory Tower (particularly in North America) to smeer in order to dismiss many of these people as racists or this or that, without actually having to address anything. Mircea Eliade has been called many things as well. For the same reasons one should be weary of the historicist oriented scholarship of much of contemporay "secularized" Islamic studies, one should also be weary of such sweeping indictments of Guenon, Evola or Corbin. The Ivory Tower has its own axe to grind with these people which is always not for the reasons stated.
Wahid
There is a whole section on racism at the Wikipedia entry for Evola.
The wikipedia article is all over the place and blatantly contradicts itself. It first states,
"[Evola]...considered himself to be a critic of the "racist worldview" by which he meant the demagogically-minded, simplistic, antisemitic theories of mainstream Nazis and others of his contemporaries..." Then it goes on to say how he was a self-professed racist. That is a profound (and rather malicious) mischaracterization of what Evola actually did say and stand for. I offer anyone who believes Julius Evola to be a bona fide racist to go and read carefully where he lays this stuff all out in MEN AMONGST THE RUINS and come back and espouse such drivel about him.
As I said, the Ivory Tower critics (nay, enemies) of these people have an axe to grind - Evola chief amongst them. They deliberately take statements and positions made out of context and try to fit into a pre-manufactured, contrived narrative about how evil these people are. The most recent example of such pseudo-intellectual skulldudgery is Steven Wasserstrom's RELIGION AFTER RELIGION, where the author outright lies and fudges the truth for the central thesis of his screed.
Now, Evola was not a racist by any stretch of the imagination. If he is to be accused of anything he was a synarchist. His discussion about the Protocals of the Elders of Zion in MEN AMONGST THE RUINS - while validating its authenticity as a document explicating the agenda of a certain elite - actually absolves Jews and world Jewry from being the initiators of such sinister designs. What he does say is that it is possible that certain powerful elites, with even more powerful occult connections, could actually be using world Jewry to their own sinister ends, with their end game being the complete subjugation of world Jewry as well as everybody else. If anyone is a dispassionate student of history, they cannot help but agree with Evola on this one. And I actually happen to share that view, i.e. that there are forces/Forces in our world today deliberately creating chaos by using world Jewry against the Muslim world and everyone else while they carefully build the building blocs of their System, i.e. what some might call the System of the Antichrist (the dajjal).
This is what Evola is acrtually saying. Not the nonsense being attributed to him. Besides, his brutal critique of modern European civilization and the West - his using some Eastern civilizations as a paragon - would go against the grain of what racists believe regarding the inherent inferiority of non-European, Western peoples. In fact Evola believed modern European and Western civilization to be inferior, along its peoples.
Wahid
i think that in terms of racism, pointing to a couple of positive comments about non-Europeans is just a higher level of the One Black Friend fallacy. Especially if you look at the rest of the article on Evola, he seems to be looking in the world through a North and South lens. Atlantis/Lemuria and admittedly his conception of the noble North is more inclusive than the typical Klansman, but I don't think it gets him completely off the hook.
In terms of the Dajjalic system, who do you think is behind it and what are their goals?
I think you are failing to understand a crucial distinction Evola is hitting at. There is some nuance involved here. Evola cannot be called a racist on any level simply because his notion of "race" does not correspond to any notion of race held by the common riff-raff of conventional racists or 19th century European scientific postivists who held to such ridiculous notions. Evola's concept of race follows this trajectory, however: there is the Hyperboraean Celestial race (which can include members of any physical human race who have successfully made the Ascent) - and whose True origins are beyond this physical world - and there is the human race in its very crudest form that never attempts to make the ascension back to its Hyperborean origin (i.e. the Fallen). You may include a third category, the infernal race, which is neither human nor Hyperborean. There is nothing remotely in this concept that distinguishes the inherent inferiority or superiority of any physical race. It is however a form of elitism, but it is an elitism of an esoteric meritocracy. I think you actually need to read Evola before jumping to any conclusions about his positions. An African or South American shaman would be as much a Hyperboraean in Evola's scheme as any number of bona fide Sufis, Hermeticists, Tibetan Buddhists, Chinese Taoists or Tantric Yogis. Esoteric Adeptships - not physical skin color or biological determination - determines the True Race from its counterfeits.
As to who are the actors of the greater Occult War, here is the chapter on the issue in Evola's MEN AMONGST THE RUINS that alludes to it:
http://occultwar.blogspot.com/
Wahid
I think you have a much more narrow concept of "racism" then I do.
Even if someone doesn't explicitly refer to the pseudo-scientific concept of race, I think it is still possible to think about, talk about and treat certain groups in certain ways, especially if these groups are roughly defined by culture, geography,transmitted loosely by heredity, it can be reasonable to call it racist.
from wikipedia:
Evola believed that a race of "Nordic" people, anciently emanating from Golden Age Arctic Hyperborea, originally semi-immaterial and "soft-boned", had played a crucial founding role in Atlantis and the high cultures both of the East and West. This Nordic-Aryan race had practiced a Solar spirituality ennobled by a warrior ethos. According to Evola, the hierarchy of races is really a hierarchy of embodied spiritualities; the spirit, rather than ethnic substance, determines culture; but at the same time race is the biological memory of a certain spirituality. In order to describe what he called the lower, telluric, Negroid races, he frequently made use of the term "Southern" whereas to him higher races were "Northern." "North" and "South" are indicated as having simultaneously metaphysical, geographical and anthropological meanings. According to Evola, the more recent Northern, White and Indo-European peoples despite racial mixing implicitly preserved more of the primordial Arctic Hyperborean blood-memory and are objectively spiritually superior to the more ancient matter-obsessed degenerate remnants of the races of the South.
[end quote]
Even if an individual African shaman is seen as a highly evolved, I get the feeling that it would be akin to how sometimes Black people are told "I don't think of you as Black" and it is intended as a complement.
I mean, the fact that this classification scheme even has geographical referents at all is kind of part of the problem.
You said:
"Even if someone doesn't explicitly refer to the pseudo-scientific concept of race, I think it is still possible to think about, talk about and treat certain groups in certain ways, especially if these groups are roughly defined by culture, geography,transmitted loosely by heredity, it can be reasonable to call it racist."
Yes, but this does not occur in Evola. The argument is far more nuanced. The wikepedia article - wikipedia as a whole hardly being objective let alone exhaustive - is downright biased and wrong, deliberately painting a sinister picture of Evola that is not grounded in anything Evola remotely ever said.
You said:
"Even if an individual African shaman is seen as a highly evolved, I get the feeling that it would be akin to how sometimes Black people are told "I don't think of you as Black" and it is intended as a complement."
In the context of Evola's writings, this is outright nonsense! Again, unless you have actually read Evola - rather than relying on the pseudo-academic sound bites of a predominantly Zionist controlled internet portal such as wikipedia - you are really not in any position to be making such a determination. Number one, you have not read the entire corpus of Evola's writings. Number two, other than your own, you do not know the contextual assumptions that are animating Evola's nuanced approach to the subject of what is race. Your approach is reductionist and, besides not having sufficient information at hand, suffers from precisely the sort of one-sided reductionist and quasi-sentimentalist biases Evola was pretty good at tearing to pieces.
Now if you have a specific criticism from within Evola's oeuvre and can locate his globalizing racism, as you claim, from within his overall scheme of thinking, let's have it. Wikipedia does not remotely count as any kind of objective arbiter of the trajectory of Julius Evola's thought.
Wahid
I'm not being reductionist. But based on the things available in the article, that is certainly more than enough to be concerned about potential problems with Evola's work in terms of how he treats race. But if you want something more specific from him directly you could check out:
Race as a Builder of Leaders
http://thompkins_cariou.tripod.com/id7.html
The article pretty explicitly defends racism:
Every kind of indiscriminate ethnic adulteration, on the one hand, is the consequence of a degenerated inner sensibility and of the tyranny of materialistic, individualistic and sentimental considerations, and, on the other hand, is the cause of the further degeneration of peoples and civilisations ; this must be borne in mind. Precise considerations of 'racism of first degree' should thus not be neglected in the creation of a new ruling class, and, certainly, as things stand at present, in Italy above all, it is not impossible that physical appearances peculiar to a given race may be accompanied by the psychic traits of a different race. It cannot be disputed, however, that, except in exceptional cases, when the research and the subsequent selection is restricted to a sphere defined by the correspondence to this racial physical type that we consider as higher, namely the Nordic Aryan, we are more likely to find corresponding spiritual qualities than we would through haphazard research, which ignored this physical racial typology and this sign of a heredity and of an origin, maybe buried, but unlikely to be completely extinct, which a relative racial purity in a physical and anthropological sense constitutes. And the advantages of the effects of the action of prestige and of visible exemplars cannot be ignored, whenever heads, leaders, have, physically, a particular virile presence, are in the common sense of the expression, 'well bred' rather than small bespectacled, ill-favoured, mongrelised men.
[end quote]
Vatican and Roman Catholic Church have twisted original Christianity:
http://koti.phnet.fi/petripaavola/DaVinciCode.html
Legends and myths about Mary Magdalene:
http://koti.phnet.fi/petripaavola/marymagdalene.html
Wiccanism and Roman Catholic Church have same origin and roots:
http://koti.phnet.fi/petripaavola/wiccan.html
Roman Catholic Church has twisted history in Canon of the Bible:
http://koti.phnet.fi/petripaavola/NewTestamentCanon.html
Roman Catholic Church has pagan symbolism inside the Church and doctrine:
http://koti.phnet.fi/petripaavola/picsofRCC
I hope that you enjoy reading these writings, which reveals a twisted
history of Roman Catholic Church!
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