The Descent into the Maternal in the Modern Era

The Proto-Indo-European word "mater" is the root for both the English terms matter and Mother. The term implies something both "materialistic" and feminine, as in phrases like "Mother Gaia" or "Mother Earth." Mater then, as the principle of empty, pure bios, acts as the antipode of the Godhead which is, of course, always seen as the Pater, or the Father. Earth here as the feminine "principle" counters the Heavenly principle of the Father.

The modern age, with its empiricism, rationalism, scientism, egalitarianism, humanism, mechanism, materialism, Marxism, Darwinism, and perhaps most demonic of all, its Freudianism, is then indicative of a descent from the originating principle of Pater towards the bestial, dark forces of the chthonic Mater.

As modern man has slowly negated tradition and the intellectual principle over the recent centuries, these bestial forces have become more and more predominant, to the point where they now prevail completely. The intellectual purity of spiritual contemplation which in past ages was given its proper rank and place in society and honored accordingly, is now something condemned as either merely the fantasia of childish and irrational "magic-thinking" or "backwards thinking" that we've long since left behind for the so-called "wonders" of modern science. Scientists like Stephen Hawkings and other false prophets, instead of men like Plato or Buddha, or any number of lesser known sages, are now looked to as a sort of quasi-spiritual authority. In the most extreme cases, the Freudianism prevalent in our modern age is quick to pass off the modern sages (as there still are and always will be even today) as "pathological." Thus, as Schuon aptly noted, modern society stands as the counter-principle that sees "health in what is commonplace and vulgar, and neurosis in what is noble and profound" and that which acts as the inversion of the traditional order.

The chthonic forces thus unleashed, are what Julius Evola refers to as the "Tiger." The tiger represents the vulgar animal forces emanating out of the bottomless pits of the primal maternal world. These forces act to wreak havoc on the soul of modern man and he is more often than not driven by bestial urges that he is unconscious of and which modern society is more than willing to induce in him. Evola's cure then is to "Ride the Tiger", ie by simply going about one's business aloof from modern society, accepting that it is the Kali Yuga emptying out the bestial and impossible to change.

This naturally begs the question if whether there actually is something that can be done about it. That must ultimately depend on whether or not the forces in question in the realm of quantity emptying out now will be replaced by higher forces from the realm of quality soon, or if we are just moving further and further down into the dark. A new age could, at least temporarily, provide a mini-Golden age within the greater cycle of the Kali Yuga, but it appears likely that the satanic forces will again come to predominate and which will eventually come to be in even greater quantity and strength in the future. This is a dismal prospect for man, who by all accounts appears to be dying, having fallen far away from the Father and is now deeply involved with the Mother, and on the exoteric level losing all hold on tradition. The ritual mimesis' once practiced daily are now entirely gone.

There is, however, still hope on the esoteric level, where there is still to this day men of tradition, relaying the same timeless traditional principles, alone somewhere practicing recollection and unity with the Self. That principle, the Truth, is something that has not only survived this dark age of materialism, but has managed to survive throughout all history, a little corner of the eternal in a sage practicing recollection alone in his room somewhere on an isolated nook of the planet. That reality can never be negated completely, not by any Freud or Marx that might be born, and that the Light of wisdom can never die is the one treasure man can take from this bestial time or of any other.

Shine on forever. Shine on benevolent Sun. Peace be upon Me.