Magian Piety versus Faustian Hubris
A Spenglerian Analysis
Magian-Judeo-Christian-Islamic Piety as the Number 7 — ٧
vs
the Faustian-Western Hubris as the number 8 — ∞
The cultural critic John David Ebert once described an unusual point concerning Spengler's high-cultures, especially concerning the Magian-Islamic and Faustian cultures. Namely, that the Magian culture is chronologically the seventh high-culture to materialize in world-history, which makes the Faustian West the eighth. What makes this odd, is the fact that the number 7 plays an important role in Magian-Judeo-Christian-Islamic culture, while number 8 plays a crucial role in the Faustian West. The significance of the number 7 in Magian culture is reflected in its symbolic significance for Ancient Hebrews, as seen in the fact that the word for 7 in Hebrew (שבע), is the root for the word "complete", "full", or "satiated" (שׂבע). Linguistically, the word in itself requires seven strokes when written in old Hebrew. In Genesis God created the world in six days, and rested on the seventh, this is also the case in Islamic traditions. In Christian eschatological traditions, seven were the number of seals and vials in the apocalypse of John's Revelation, and like the Old Testament, patterns of seven are common throughout. In Islamic cosmology, there are seven "skies " or heavens, which are also found in Mandaen, Manichaen, and Judaic traditions, as well as gnostic traditions. The first chapter of the Quran, Al Fatiha, consists of seven verses, and during pilgrimage the Kaaba is circulated seven times. Finally, the very high-culture which was a manifestation of these religions was in itself the seventh high-culture in world-history under the Spenglerian model.
The Magian world was in full submission to the sole divine entity which inspires its own respective prime symbol, that is, the world as a cavern protected by the sole creator God of the universe. This prime symbol, based on a full submission to God led to a different form of science, which could be described as a humble form of inquiry when compared to modern science. The Magian sciences had limits to their progress, which I describe as a limit demarcating what God had intended them to explore, manipulate, and study, in the phenomenal world. These scientific limits ensured that the civilization as a whole would develop a science to ensure technical and material growth, but also to ensure that the scientists and culture as a whole does not develop a hubris as a result of these scientific advances. Scientific breakthroughs therefore ensured that one appreciated God, and is in constant awe of God and his creation, rather than the Western sciences which induced modern men to implicitly apotheosize Man and reason. The Magian-Islamic sciences were neither based on a rejection of metaphysics, nor an ontological separation with nature. This subsequently led to practical applications of Islamic scientific paradigms that neither denied nature, nor exploited nature the way modern sciences does. More importantly, it leads to a form of science that accommodates the concept of the metaphysical concept of the Soul, as opposed to Western Modern science that rejects it along with metaphysics. It is not a coincidence then that the Faustian culture is the eighth culture to arrive following the Magian culture, it is also no coincidence that its prime symbol could be described with the idea of infinite space. As John David Ebert said, the Western-Faustian culture rejects the Magian world-view, it despises anything the Magian-Christian-Islamic world stands for, it replaces the Magian 7, with the number 8 and turns it sideways to create infinity ∞ . The Western culture with its Faustian rebellion against God’s order creates a science that rejects metaphysics when reaching its logical limits, ontologically separating man from nature infinitely. The practical application of Western sciences sets no limits to progress, it shatters the biblical firmament, and attempts to pierce through the cosmos, conquering the Moon, terraforming Mars, setting its eyes on Saturn's moon, Titan. The extreme dynamism of this culture’s force combined with its separation from nature has altered the shape of the Earth, burnt its forests, paved its deserts with concrete, conquered its skies with skyscrapers, airplanes, rockets, and satellites. Transformative, yes, but also, rebellious, Promethean, Daemonic, Satanic... Faustian par excellence, and Spengler was clearly aware of that. The notions of truth, completeness, and fulfillment in most cultures contradict or clash, but the polarity between Magian and Faustian truths is perhaps the most extreme. The Faustian man’s yearning for the infinite has made his culture give birth to what we call modernity today, and what I designate as a culture per se, but as “Anti-Culture” in the Guenonian sense of the term, an anti-cultural force, which does not only destroy the organic on earth, the plant and animal worlds, but also sucks the life out of other human cultures with its mechanization of the globe. The Faustian man was destined for space, but even then, due to his Faustian urge, he will not find fulfillment. Yet nevertheless the Faustian culture was destined for space and this destiny was implicitly revealed in their Gothic art and architecture. One cannot shake off the similarity and homology between the Gothic cathedral and the Modern rocket (A perfect example is the Scott Monument in Edinburgh), it is one of those things that once seen almost cannot be unseen, as if the culture in itself was attempting to tell us its ultimate aim. This is not the case with Magian culture, and as much as many implicit believers of progress would reject this point, the Magian man is, or at least was, content with not reaching the stars, but rather to admire the stars, and attain internal gnosis and peace instead through praising God and his creation. The reactionary, or liberal, forms of modernism that appears in the Magian world in the form of accelerationists or futurists, as well as the rest of the world today, is all a result of modernity as an anti-cultural force. Modernity conquest of world cultures is not a pseudomorphosis like the West’s cultural hegemony on Russia, or the Greco-Roman world with the Levant, but more like a cancerous effect, a unique form of influence that is corrosive and deadly in every sense apart from technical development. I would also go as far as arguing that when these Faustian tendencies emerge in a dark manner within the Islamic world it had occurred alongside the rise of the West, and had found expression in the periphery of Islamic sciences, more precisely at the intersection between alchemy and the occult. This resulted in the formation of dark magic in the Magian world, and the emergence of what would become the corpus of Western occultism, necromancy, and demonology. Examples of these are Ghayat Al-Hakim, the Goal of the Wise, what is known in the West today as the “Picatrix”, whom many argue that Al Majriti authored, or Shams Al Ma’arif, The Book of Sun of the Gnosis, a grimoire written by Al Buni, that also played a significant role in shaping many esoteric and occult groups that would emerge in the West.
Spengler denied Hegel's notion of dialectics existent in history, hence his denial of any form of linear progress in history. If any form of dialectic existed it only functioned within the parameters of a specific high-culture, and not beyond. His culture's existed independently, almost like Liebnezian monads, hence why one can observe that the benevolent gods of one culture become the malevolent demons of another. This can be clearly seen with Zoroastrianism and Hinduism, where Asuras who are seen as beneficent entities in Zoroastrianism are seen as demons in Hinduism. Moreover, devas are seen as gods in Hinduism but seen as chaotic and evil supernatural being in Zoroastrians. The same could be said for Levantine-Canaanite, Greco-Roman, and Arab paganism and Judeo-Christian-Islamic faiths. Baal, Astarte (Al-Lat), Dushara (Dionysus), who were part of pre-Magian pantheons, were all eventually seen as lesser entities, demons, by the religious forms to emerge from Magian culture. Logically then, this opposition based on inversion of entities will have to exist between Magian and Faustian cultures. Indeed it has, the Faustian-Daemonic elements apparent in Western culture can hardly go unnoticed at a closer look into the ethos of Western culture. This can be noticed despite the Christian external veneer which could also be argued to be a lesser Magian pseudomorphosis in the case of the West. In fact, if anything, the Christian veneer had allowed the Magian world to translate the Western ethos into an idea that is comprehensible to the Magian mind and world-view. During the brief time-periods when this veneer was tested, or removed, such as the French Revolution, Nazi Germany, and perhaps even the post-Cold War decade, we see a glimpse of what lies lurking under the Christian mould. In France, it came in the form of Robespierre's "Cult of Supreme Being", a form of deism that was enforced as a the state religion of France until Robespierre's own execution at the guillotine. Across 18th and 19th century Westphalian Europe, the spiritual and religious void left by the Church's decline was slowly filled by philosophies and spiritual beliefs that were pantheistic and naturalistic in orientation, clearly reflected in the works of Fichte and Hegel. The enlightenment cult of progress and reason is another expression of this spirit, as Karl Lowith argued, the enlightenment philosophers had ultimately taken the Judeo-Christian idea of eschatological direction, removed its spiritual dimension, inverted it, and created a deformed secular linear idea of progress based solely on man's reason, rather than divine providence. Hence why Voltaire despised the Muslim and ancient Hebrew wars fought in the name of God, but found no problem in wars fought for reason. Caricatures of the prophetic figures in Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions were common in France, with many plays and writings ridiculing them, a tradition that finds continuity in modern France. Beyond exoteric beliefs, the unique nature of Faustian culture had led to their intrinsic spiritual and religious ideas finding expression in esotericism, and this is perhaps due to the effect the Christian veneer had on the religious views of the general public. This came in the form of Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, and during the 20th century in Theosophy, Thelema, the Golden Dawn, Satanism, and other forms of Western occultism. The esoteric beliefs were necessary since the Faustian spiritual forces required expression as the exoteric and explicit anti-Christian ethos was balanced alongside the Christian elements still existent in the West. These two forces balanced each other at times naturally, as seen in Thomas Paine's critique of Christianity in The Age of Reason simultaneously occurring alongside the Second Great Awakening, and Brumidi's Apotheosis of Washington with its clear Masonic influence occurring in parallel with the Third Great Awakening.
In other words, although Christianity was a lesser degree of pseudomorphosis, unlike the Russian and Magian worlds, this pseudomorphosis oddly shaped the Faustian tendency in Western culture. In other words, the Faustian soul cannot be understood when Christianity’s effect on the West is taken out of the context, this is of course different than Russia and the Magian worlds, whose souls could be understood only if we remove the Western and Hellenic pseudomorphic effects. This Faustian spirit is ironically dependent on the Christian veneer as a counter-idea, and they necessitate one another dialectically. This according to Spengler is illustrated clearly in Western history when Mary-myths and the Devil-myth “formed themselves side by side, neither possible without the other. Disbelief in either of them was a sin”. Concerning this Spengler said:
There was a Mary-cult of prayer, and a Devil-cult of spells and exorcisms. Man walked continuously on the thin crust of the bottomless pit. Life in this world is a ceaseless and desperate contest with the Devil.
This polarity, as exhibited in these two legends, had found expression in the arts, mysticism, and scholasticism, even in the symbolism of colors, with the Madonna represented with “white, blue, and gold”, and the Devil “black, sulphur-yellow, and red”. It is almost as if Christianity in the West functioned as a naturally necessary pseudomorphosis, that perhaps many in the West felt, or knew, that Christianity functioned as a force to restrain the devilish and Faustian tendency deep within the collective unconscious of the West. This necessary pseudomorphosis, in the form of Germanic-Catholic Christianity, had to manifest itself in a fundamentalist extremist manner to hold back the Gothic darkness that lies deep within the Western soul. The former as a manifestation of the “world of purity, light, and utter beauty of soul”, and the latter as a reflection of a “world that throughout nature and throughout mankind weaves and breeds ill, pierces, destroys, seduces — namely, the realm of the Devil”. As mentioned above, to Spengler it is only natural that the Western sciences developed the way they did, since it is a representative of this spirit that “penetrates the whole of Creation”. This contrast to Spengler is clearly reflected in the imagery of Christian and Gothic arts and literature, when he said:
Church Triumphant of angels and saints in their glory looks down from on high, and heavenly Grace is the warrior’s shield in the battle. Mary is the protectress to whose bosom he can fly to be comforted, and the high lady who awards the prizes of valor.
This is contrasted with the Gothic:
All around is an army of goblins, night-spirits, witches, werewolves, all in human shape. No man knows whether or not his neighbor has signed himself away to the Evil One. No one can say of an unfolding child that it is not already a devil’s temptress. An appalling fear, such as is perhaps only paralleled in the early spring of Egypt, weighs upon man. Every moment he many stumble in to the abyss. There were black magic, and devil’s masses and witches’ sabbaths, night feasts on mountain tops, magic draughts and charm formulas. The Prince of Hell, with his relatives — mother and grandmother, for as his very existence denies and scorns the sacrament of marriage, he may not have a wife or child — his fallen angels and his uncanny henchmen, is one of the most tremendous creations in all religious history.
These are all images and ideas embedded in the Western psyche, whether knowingly or unknowingly, and these, especially the Gothic-Faustian anti-Christian spirit, is one that the present day West forgets, and to Spengler they deliberately forget. To Spengler, the inquisition was an expression of these two spirits clashing, and was not an accident or coincidence, but was a necessary climax between these two clashing ideas in the West. It is no coincidence to me that the inquisition was specifically adamant on exterminating the Cathars in France, not because of their Magian Manichaen-Gnostic heretical teachings, but because deep beneath the Manichaen-Gnostic veneer lied a deeper Faustian spiritual force that would eventually to shape Western esotericism after they went into hiding following the inquisition. As Spengler said concerning the inquisition, “for the Devil gained possession of human souls and seduced them into heresy, lechery, and black arts. It was war that was against him on earth, and waged with fire and sword upon those who had given themselves up to him”. The inquisition took different shapes internally and externally, it was deployed against the Muslims in Spain for clearly different reasons than the inquisition on Pagans, Cathars, and other groups that belong to the cultural body of the West. But it is precisely these dark episodes of history, centuries after Charlemagne, that shaped by the Gothic spirit, cathedrals, the crusader, the deep and spiritual painting and the mysticism. “In its shadow flowered that profound Gothic blissfulness of which today we cannot even form an idea”. Upon wrestling with these ideas, Spengler’s argument concerning the tragic nature of Western culture becomes clear, the Faustian eponym makes total sense, that the culture as a whole had an urge to sell its soul to the devil, an urge that only the most fundamentalist and militant form of Christianity was able to restrain, a form that was alien even to the Magian Christian world. This explains my earlier point, that all scientific breakthroughs and technological leaps were accompanied by periods where the Faustian forces were victorious over the Catholic Church. This was the case with Giordano Bruno, Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton, and their scientific war with the Papal order, not for the sake of truth, but for the sake of “Faustian” truths. To Spengler this Faustian form of scientific inquiry and its subsequent practical applications differs from the rest of the cultures who despite also attempting to rob nature of its metals, wood, and stones, the Faustian man attemps to “enslave her and harness her very forces”. Centuries before the 20th century Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus had already been dreaming about steam engines, steamships, and air machines — and the Faustian dream of a machine in perpetual machine, as the ultimate practical expression of infinite space. It is therefore only the individual who does not suffer from this Faustian will to conquer nature and harness its powers, who is not possessed by this daemonic force, who views Modern progress and technology as “devilish”, as Spengler argued with Bacon we start seeing the first of the scientists who suffer from this spirit hence why he is located at the intersection between science and the occult.
It is therefore clearly not a coincidence that whenever the external Christian veneer is compromised in the West it is usually accompanied by political and scientific breakthroughs that are Faustian in nature. Whether it is the Protestant reformation and the Gutenberg press, the French Revolution-Napoleonic era and the rise of universal conscription and horsed artillery. The American Civil War and the integration of technologies in transportation and communication into warfare. The First World War and Second World Wars, as European powers began a war of annihilation, total wars, in defiance of both God and Man, we see the development and incorporation of aviation, submarine, and nuclear technologies into the war machine. Spengler viewed technological warfare as having a negative correlation with chivalry, and I would add, were a manifestation of the winter stage tendencies, of Godlessness, since it led to annihilation wars which were non-existent during the era of chivalry. Additionally, when they did occur during the crusades, or chivalrous eras, they were expressed by the forces that could be described as the earliest examples of this dark Late-Faustian tendency, namely, the Templars — whose spirits found continuity in the freemasons, and eventually the City of London Corporation today. Finally, it is also not a coincidence that the age of nihilism and destruction had paved the way for breakthroughs in jet propulsion and aerospace engineering. In Germany the rise of Nazism was an act of shedding the pseudomorphic Christian veneer, even prior to the rise of the Nazis, these primordial Germanic paganistic tendencies were rising with the resurgence Ariosophy and Thule society, eventually German scientists and engineers were successful in developing rocket propulsion technology as seen with the V-2 rocket program. The Allies victory subsequently led to Operation Paperclip where Nazi scientists and engineers were secretly taken to the US to assist in developing NASA, military technologies (Weapon Systems), and other technologies. In the US alone, even before this operation, Jack Parsons, an American engineer and Thelemite occulist, argued that the concept of Magick in Alesteir Crowley's religious movement could be understood as a force through quantum physics. It is also interesting to note that Parson's was close to L. Ron Hubbard the founder of the Chruch of Scientology. Parson's himself when conducting some of the most powerful Thelemite rituals and invocations such as the "Babalon working", said that he was the embodiment of an entity named Belarion Armillus Al Dajjal, the Antichrist "who am come to fulfill the law of the Beast 666 [Aleister Crowley]". As mentioned earlier, civilizations that succeed or precede one another tend to possess inherent spiritual forces that are almost antithetical. This is perhaps clearly illustrated in the stark contrast between the spiritual foundations of the Faustian-West and the Magian world, and extreme dynamism and yearning for the infinite in the West has made that contrast even more extreme. Perhaps Samuel Huntington was right in arguing that in the case of a Clash of Civilizations, the deadliest clash will be between the West and the Islamic world, he was not wrong, and asides from Western foreign policy in the Middle East, the clashing intrinsic spiritual presuppositions are quite clear.
The next questions to be asking concerning the spiritual forms of Spenglerian cultures, is whether the newly emerging cultures, the Russian-Orthodox, Aridoamerican, and South East Asian worlds (Also a possible new culture emerging in the Sahel area in Africa) to name a few, will produce religious forms and spiritual beliefs that are compatible or congruent with the Magian-Islamic world. Whether they will produce spiritual beliefs that find the Faustian Western world as a daemonic one, and whether they will produce scientific forms that clash with modern paradigms, healing the ontological disconnection with nature and metaphysics as a result of modern materialistic reductionist paradigms.
I believe the world trend of modernity (as an "anti-cultural" force) to be irreversible at this point. I also call into question the "need" of a clash between the West and the Islamic World. As you suggest, couldn't it be that the Christian veneer of the Western World works as some kind of "translation device" which renders modernity accessible to the Islamic World? Couldn't it be an example of the latter what we are seeing right now in Syria with the dismantling of the socialist state apparatus?
Btw, what do you mean by "Aridoamerican culture"?
i find all of this just too ornate for my tastes, which is a it rich coming from me, so I keep reading...