As you know, most Catholics would be unpersuaded by many of your characterizations of our beliefs here. But I think you’re quite right that there’s a powerful, maybe dominant leftist faction in the Church today that is doing all sorts of evil and abominable things. You didn’t mention one of the worst desecrations: Pope Francis brought an idol into the Vatican. I also agree that many of the errors of these leaders exploit Christian ideas – as Chesterton said, their ideas are ‘Christian virtues gone mad’. But why think that we’re seeing the true face of the Church in these errors, rather than see the errors as a part of a general decline? Many people think we in the West are declining, helped along by many factors including some that you document. When civilizations decline to the point where they get destroyed or have to be renewed, all sorts of things decline: religiosity, fecundity, a sense of purpose. Looking at history reveals a pattern. Lots of people fall away from religion, but a small core usually remains. Eventually, the consequences of decline are horrible, and many people return to faith. The small core that has held onto the faith then informs the wider public. And indeed, we Christians could say that the cycle of decline is a secular way of describing the way sin affects individuals and whole peoples. They sin, they fall away from God, they get punished, and they return to God.
Thanks for the considered response, Hugh. I appreciate the well written examples you are offering about Catholic faith and courage when faced with the trials and tribulations of life with your Manly Saints Project.
I'm familiar with the concept of the Remnant, and you could be right about it. But there is something corrosive about the effects of technology that appears to me to be impacting all but the most insular and luddite Christian communities (such as the Amish). It brings to mind the Junger quote in my last post: "In the hymns of the good era, [there] were still Christians who lived their faith in the full metaphysical sense of the word. That mentality is extremely rare today. People are cut off from transcendence, transcendence is vanishing. But if someone somehow still preserves this relationship to transcendence, he is “ultimately” safe from fear. He can have the feeling of participation, he can tell himself that horrible things are happening, but that behind them a great light is dawning.”
Are you seeing the Remnant to which you are thinking properly resisting the effects of technology and decadence? Or do you see them being affected negatively despite their best efforts? To which eras and regions are you referring to with respect to prior Remnants? The Christian communities of the Middle East, for example, are mostly wiped out...
You also write, "But why think that we’re seeing the true face of the Church in these errors, rather than see the errors as a part of a general decline?" It's not that I see it as one versus the other (I mentioned that every institution in the West is corrupted); it's more of a concern that once nihilism infests and degrades society past a certain point (such as in Hellenist Rome, which was corrupt and decadent before Christianity arrived), it becomes difficult to course correct within the existing paradigm and only something very different may be capable of changing the dynamics. I delved into the meaning crisis in this prior post: https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/the-meaning-crisis-meaning-and-decadence
The way it looks now, based on fertility rates, immigration rates, and the demented will of our overlords the West will be much more non-white and much more Islamic within our lifetimes unless something fundamental changes....
Thanks for these kind words. I also enjoy your work.
I think one might look for a remnant in a couple of places. As you know, the parts of the Church that are growing in the West are the most traditional parts. The Latin Mass and the Ordinariate and more controversially the SSPX are thriving. Of course, the Church doesn’t just exist in the West. It seems to be doing very well in Africa, and I am hopeful about China.
In thinking about this comment and the post you link to, there are a couple of points where we disagree in perhaps interesting ways.
The first point is that you link decadence and technology. I’m not sure that those go together. I admit that industrialization hasn’t been great for us so far, but you might think we’ve been overwhelmed with a lot of technology at once. Maybe this is analogous to suddenly having more land than you know what to do with, as happened during the settlement of North America. You get bandits and shootouts and chaos. Eventually, gunslingers create little pockets of order. Then the land fills up and things settle down. I suspect that the future of technology will follow a similar pattern.
I guess that leads into a second disagreement. In the piece you link, you give an account of a fall into decadence. But it’s a fall that takes place over 2500 years in the West taken broadly. My beef with this is a pretty standard objection: because our accounts stop in our present, we see the present as the end goal, rather than just another historical period. I think that warps our understanding of history. For example, the claim that history is moving toward the bad present leads you to discount the glories of Augustus as a brief period. I would rather say Augustus restored Rome and brought it to a new height; a high point in a cycle that began with him and led to the crisis of the third century. Many peoples only get one cycle before they are wiped out: peoples like the Lombards, the Saxons in England, the Romano-Celts, or the Vandals. It seems to me that your account has no room for these smaller cycles, and so you end up flattening them into one big cycle that leads to the present. Actually this is a very Christian thing to do. Voltaire mocked his contemporaries who wrote triumphal histories of the world in which e.g. the non-Christian Japanese basically played no role. In bad times likewise, Christians often imagine we must be living in the end of days.
The last point of disagreement is one I want to be especially careful in stating. The death of the West is not necessarily the death of the Church. If you could press a button and delete the entire West, the Church would endure. Don’t get me wrong, I do not want my people to be extinct and our civilization forgotten. It’s rather that I think we can prioritize by realizing that these two things do not necessarily go hand in hand.
While there's been a secularization of society underway for some time, it seems likely that some fall away from religion without necessarily losing faith in God. The generalized corruption of all institutions has for some of us I think, resulted in a desire to undertake spiritual pursuits solo rather than "get religion".
It's a more difficult path, going it alone, just as being self-employed is harder than working for someone else. But freeing oneself from dogma and truly exploring a spiritual path with unlimited possibilities and potential is a journey well worth undertaking for many who aren't followers by nature. I foresee this trend growing in the future.
I do notice most people confuse the rejection of religion with atheism and they aren't always connected.
I think you are right that atheism is not the only alternative. The 2000s idea that atheism would prevail turned out to be wrong. Of course, as a religious person, I am committed to saying that falling away from the divinely ordained religion is one way of losing faith in God, because God wants us to relate to Him in this way. Perhaps not all faith is lost, just as a man who leaves his marriage might say he still loves his wife. But I think we religious people need to have the courage of our convictions and say that if religion is important for anybody, it is important for everybody.
I understand your perspective, as it comes from someone who adheres to a particular religion. However, the idea that there's one divinely ordained religion and that God wants us to relate to him in that particular way is what I question. Every religion believes theirs is THE one. And that's okay. We should believe we're being true to ourselves and our beliefs.
From my perspective, religion itself isn't what's important, faith in God is. Religion is a set of prescribed interpretations, beliefs and traditions. I prefer to be free to find my own way to love God and my neighbors because I find religion uncomfortably dogmatic and limiting.
Very interesting article as well as your other one describing how Christianity was possibly developed to subvert the Romans.
Both articles have put into question my own faith. I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic grade school and the belief in Jesus and his message of love, kindness to others and forgiveness still hold strong within me; although I lost faith in organized religion a long time ago.
All this brings me to these questions... Is faith in Jesus and the practicing of his tenants a good thing or is it making me passive and going against my own self interests? Should I become a self centered aggressive person to ensure my own survival?
Also, how does one cope with death if there is no faith in God or a higher purpose of our lives?
Hi Wheel, you ask great questions. I don't pretend to have all the answers, I'm no guru, but I'll try to answer it from my current level development which has much room for further growth.
"Is faith in Jesus and the practicing of his tenants a good thing or is it making me passive and going against my own self interests?" One of the things I feel as I get older is that higher level spirituality comes from a synthesis of opposites; indeed, it requires it. I don't see your question as being one of either-or but of both reflecting different facets of the truth. Christianity caught on at least in part because it gave dignity, respect and hope to the great unwashed masses who before it were mere slaves to physically stronger men. If we all have a spark of the divine in us - and I feel increasingly that we do - then there is an element of egalitarianism in there, even if that element has been grossly distorted and twisted to benefit other energies. And Jesus's focus on intent mattering as much as action was really powerful stuff, I think. Alternatively, as Christianity conquered Europe it opened the door to malevolent forces that would take advantage of its "turn the other cheek" mentality such as via the Rothschild central bank scam. "Should I become a self centered aggressive person to ensure my own survival?" I think it's a balance between competing forces; don't let yourself be taken advantage of, but also try to keep in mind the Golden Rule...
"Also, how does one cope with death if there is no faith in God or a higher purpose of our lives?" I think one can't cope with death without faith in God or a higher purpose. The question is how to find that faith and genuine connection in an era of ubiquitous nihilism where every institution has been turned inside out in a macabre display of demonic inversion. Increasingly I think that a solution must involve a focus on esotericism, on our own experiential connection to the ineffable, and I've started a deep dive on gnosticism that is taking me in many new and strange directions. I'll share more as my journey continues...
Thank you for the explanation. Definitely something to think about and try come to terms in my own way. Often I catch myself thinking in terms of black and white whereas it is probably better to accept the grey
The Catholic Church of today is a man-made creation. It has little to do with faith in God or for that matter spirituality. You can connect to God directly through prayer and good works. Can you handle that?
We are all sinners but God understands what is in our heart and soul . I thank God every day in prayer for the blessings of this world. We are His children.
Acceptance that Jesus died for our sins and then proceeding to live a highly immoral, sinful life does not add up to me, Lisa. That is the "free pass" theory. God deliberately gave us free will to choose our path in life, and there are consequences to the path chosen after death. Being of service to others in a purposeful way to me underlies our faith in God and that His sacrifice for us was not in vain.
What is clear, but individuals/societies fail to grasp - until it is too late - is that opportunists exist and are ever on the search for opportunity. They understand that subversion via infiltration IS their best and most successful strategy to profit and power. They come in the form of clergy, bureaucrats, politicians, plutocrats, oligarchs, dictators, despots, celebrities and radicals. The Church/Vatican is just one example of a legacy institution, that was targeted and captured. The bastardization of the founding and guiding principles, through incremental erosion, all but served up the obedient adherents on a platter.
Almost all radical subversions follow an age old model of external subversion/demoralization, that is quickly replaced by a complimentary and more effective internal model, leading to total capture. Sergey Nechayev, while not having "invented" this doctrine of social anarchist revolution, was one who coherently ordered and documented it's methodology in his "Catechism of a Revolutionary". Your quote below was not only succinct, but relevant across decades and centuries:
"The core of the problem is to avoid galvanizing the forces of Christianity by some careless misstep. It would be an unforgivable carelessness, for example, to close the churches suddenly and prohibit all religious practice. Instead, one should try to split the Church in two."
"A completely submissive Church - one that may on occasion collaborate with the security police - loses authority in the eyes of the pious. Such a Church can be preserved for decades, until the moment when it dies a natural death due to a lack of adherents."
Replace "church" with the label of any institution/body/group that has been subverted/captured and you have a rudimentary, historic road map of how we arrived, where we are today.
So long as the masses are relatively comforted, content and entertained, they will be willfully blind to the shifting sands of total capture, engulfing them and their societies - as was the case for the multitudes that came before us.
Great read, but I believe more can be said about Vatican 2.
Theologically speaking, Vatican 2 was a kind of "re-judaization" of Catholicism, stressing the Jewishness of Christianity and the leadership role of his Chosen people. This was always the big, gaping flaw (or backdoor) in all Nicene Christianity, theologically speaking.
Yes, good point. I had linked to an Haaretz article in a prior post which stated basically as much: "The Second Vatican Council published “Nostra aetate,” a document in which the Catholic Church declared the abandonment of its anti-Jewish heritage and its desire to reconcile with Judaism.
An illuminating and important new book by historian Karma Ben Johanan, “Reconciliation and Its Discontents: Unresolved Tensions in Jewish-Christian Relations,” deals with the reciprocal conceptions of Catholics and Orthodox Jews in the era of reconciliation. Its first part is devoted to the enthusiasm on the Christian side at drawing closer to the Jews, as well as with the internal debates that arose in the Church after the reconciliation. In its second section, the book discusses the chilly responses of Orthodox Judaism, including the suspicions aroused by the Christians’ eagerness to turn a new leaf, and the rabbis’ concern over the possibility of excessive closeness."
Do you think you will write about this in greater depth?
I only know the basic outline of what occurred.
It was a converso in Rome who led the Vatican 2 effort. That should be cause for concern among the Christian Nationalists who believe conversion is the solution to our current problems with our xenocrat overlords.
A deep dive into the politics of Vatican 2 would make for an interesting post. Something I'll keep in mind for the future. With the possibilities of esoteric belief opening up before me recently, there's a tremendous amount to learn and explore...
Christianity was against usury so it could never have re-judaized. The Golden Rule and Turn the Other Cheek are alien concepts to Judaism. Christianity is egalitarian whereas Judaism claims Chosen status
The Bible clearly states in the OT that only God's Chosen should be allowed to own capital, control the money, and lend the money. That is the word of THE LORD. So, when Christians destroyed the pagan world, they made sure to give God's Chosen control of the money supply, like God wanted. Christians are, in contrast, supposed to own nothing and be happy about their accumulated rewards in heaven. Karl Marx's manifesto was commissioned by Christians to describe the ideal Christian economic system. God's Chosen get to be OT-style Capitalists, and the goyim get to be Communists. Win win!
Arguably, Christianity has gone through overlapping phases since Christ himself: The Jewish church; The Greek Church; the Roman church; the Protestant church.
The most harmful transformation was from the Greek to the Roman church, as Christianity was turned into a hierarchy of control by Constantine and by the creation of false doctrines by Augustine. The Catholic church.
Thank you for asking. IMO the churches today that are closest to the gospel are small, independent evangelical churches. I imagine that they are most like the first churches that Paul and the other apostles established. The truest Christianity is based Christ's teachings in the synoptic gospels and especially Mark, the first one. Everything else is context and secondary at most.
How about you? Do you have thoughts on the answers to your questions?
Yes, large organizations tend to become hierarchical and the top levels unaccountable (like today's governments and corporations). A network of personal connections is better for something important. (Thanks for subscribing!)
Excellent article Neo. Reminds one of Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor narrative, in which the Roman is Church imprisons Jesus Christ during the Inquisition. Very sad.
Thanks for writing. Excellent overview and summary. For more detail on the intrigue post WWII, I found "The Smoke of the Synagogue" https://www.modernmonastery.net/p/the-smoke-of-the-synagogue useful. (The article got a much bigger reading on Unz.)
Although I understand your position, I would argue that this perspective is at odds with how Tertullian for example presented this. Not to mention my issue with Nietzsche is the subjective starting point of his discussion on morality. Why not start at the origins, with the Garima Gospels of ancient Ethiopia?
Personally, I credit Nietzsche for giving the green light to The Nazis......
I thank you, you have me thinking about shit I never would have prior reading this.
Do you know what is the difference between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky? There is a saying that Nietzsche is Doestoevsky without something. Do you know what it is? A heart. The Jesus figure if you want. Do you understand? Dostoevsky knew how evil and corrupt we are and still he never lost his faith in human. I truly don't understand the fucked up thinking of the right. I mean I understand why would Evola push for strict aristocratic hierarchy and fascism but why would the plebs push for it? Are the plebs so brainwashed to think they are going to be the top dogs? The aryan nobility?
Hi Vanusha, thanks for the comment. The mark of a higher-level mind is to be able to hold contradictory ideas in one's mind without judging them, to work to synthesize them. I like Dostoevsky and may cover him down the road. In my case, I both believe Nietzsche's thesis about the inversion of values *and* have strongly gnostic beliefs. In my opinion, there should be a balance between egalitarian and inegalitarian energies, not a transvaluation back to full warrior values. But Catholicism regardless is a hollowed out shell and Protestantism is merely Catholicism with the hierarchical guardrails removed, further on the road to perdition...
Thanks for answering. I agree about the Church, I am not religious so I don't mind punching the Church. Generally I don't agree about the jews, nor about the so called "values". In my view, it is just a psyops, both of them. The first is to hide the Roman empire and the roman and the Canaanite elite bloodlines. The second part about the aryan nobility and nazi and so on is pushed by the occult right, which are just an arm of empire. The occult is totally the elites, so this is why they decided to destroy the Church and initiate everybody into their luciferian religion - trannies and so on. They work with the masonic and fascist orders, who control the intel agencies and are preparing us for the age of aquarius. The problem with "values" is that if you think "values" are a function of power, for example "the jews" who pushed "egalitarianism" and made everybody a pussy, the other "values" of the romantic aryan past, of the glorious Roman empire and so on Nietzschean values, I think in both cases we have might is right. So we have the battle of the Romans vs the Jews, master vs slave morality and whoever wins - we have his values. In both cases there is no inner morality, so it is a function of power. And the aryans seem to have lost the battle against women and other subhumans. Hahahaha. It is funny, sorry. I don't know why men would insist that they are ruled by women and jews for thousand of years, it is not flattering, but this is as I said a psyops so it is not meant to make sense at all or to be flattering. But what is interesting is the gnostic perspective. I think this is interesting, their understanding of the world. I am not a gnostic because of purely practical point of view. For example if you think that this world is evil by creation there is no point in fighting evil, there is no way we can do better here. Ok, as I understand this is why you insist everybody should gain gnosis... but ... I don't know, interesting I think.
Yes, if all there is is Nietzschian will-to-power might-makes-right then all there is to see is various small interest groups using propaganda and other cons to fool everyone else into compliance - forever. I think that is a very bleak world to live in, nihilistic to the extreme. The goal of that perspective is to "wake up" one's self-identified group so one's group achieves dominance over others. This is understandable, of course - better to dominate than to be dominated, I think - but still a very bleak vision about the nature of reality. Personally experienced gnosis via listening to and following our intuition, trying to connect to higher realities while balanced against the need to live in this material reality (and avoiding the many pitfalls of a life fully devoted to intuition) is, I think, ultimately a more hopeful and meaning-infused outlook. I'll be covering more of the esoteric tradition in future posts...
Imo, there are two great schools of thought. Might is right which the belief of the elite and might is not right which is this Christ figure and our shared understanding of justice, it comes naturally to us, we somehow know it wihtout any indoctrination into "values". Nietzsche said it is a "slave morality" and there is no intrinsic value to it, it is just a hocus-pocus of the slaves who fake morals because they don't have power and this is their way to stay alive and love their servitude. Worse, in the 19-20 century the peasants were indoctrinated with the thinking of the elites and now they think that might actually makes right, dog eat dog, make money not friends. They think they became so much smarter now, they understand how the world works, they no longer believe in higher truth and justice. I admit these are the smarter among the plebs, the dumber just virtue signal on twitter and pretend to care about polar bears. But the smarter fell into the trap more. This is because in order for might to become right you must lie, cheat, kill and beat the slaves and whoever threatens your giant lie. It requires faking, pretending, lying 24/7, controllng, cheating and doing all kinds of falsehoods. This is the only way for might to become right. So intrinsically it is not in line with truth, it is artificial, fakery. Do you know for example that there are no trans people? Yes, there are absolutely no trans people. No matter how money and power "the jews" have there is still not a signle person who was a woman and became a man or who was a man and became a woman.
The Church has been in a fight with powerful enemies for a long time. One fight started in 1517 with the Protestants, after that with the so-called Enlightenment. The opponents have multiplied ever since. The most recent phase is the war with enemies within, with secularists, modernists, and even Satanists. They scored a coup with the election of the current pope. One misses good old medieval times when such a heretic would be deposed in an instant, but we're not religious fanatics; we're cultured and lukewarm. What does the Bible say about lukewarm?
“After all, he was elected by a majority of the College of Cardinals so his views represent the dominant outlook of most Catholic Cardinals and therefore the Church itself.”
This is because the Church is in apostasy. But there is a remnant. The gates of hell will not prevail. The Catholic Church is the mystical body of Christ. Do you believe this? Why aren’t you Catholic? You do realize all the evil you brilliantly expose is focused on destroying her. Why do you think that is? Bergoglio is a usurper. The Church is going through her passion. Instead of mocking her, join her and save your soul.
Back in the day whoever was Holy Roman Emperor would just poison/imprison/exile a Pope who went off the reservation. We've had a couple of centuries of the papacy and cardinals not being answerable to anyone from Real Life and this is the result. (Also, what does it cost to buy a cardinal's vote to rig a papal election? Do you get change from a couple of choirboys?)
That is not so. Nowhere is it written in the Holy Bible. The Catholic church is a man-made creation full of pedophiles and some Satanists. The Catholic church is not the road of salvation for any human. You must connect with God directly through prayer and good works. Follow the Bible, not the Pope.
As you know, most Catholics would be unpersuaded by many of your characterizations of our beliefs here. But I think you’re quite right that there’s a powerful, maybe dominant leftist faction in the Church today that is doing all sorts of evil and abominable things. You didn’t mention one of the worst desecrations: Pope Francis brought an idol into the Vatican. I also agree that many of the errors of these leaders exploit Christian ideas – as Chesterton said, their ideas are ‘Christian virtues gone mad’. But why think that we’re seeing the true face of the Church in these errors, rather than see the errors as a part of a general decline? Many people think we in the West are declining, helped along by many factors including some that you document. When civilizations decline to the point where they get destroyed or have to be renewed, all sorts of things decline: religiosity, fecundity, a sense of purpose. Looking at history reveals a pattern. Lots of people fall away from religion, but a small core usually remains. Eventually, the consequences of decline are horrible, and many people return to faith. The small core that has held onto the faith then informs the wider public. And indeed, we Christians could say that the cycle of decline is a secular way of describing the way sin affects individuals and whole peoples. They sin, they fall away from God, they get punished, and they return to God.
Thanks for the considered response, Hugh. I appreciate the well written examples you are offering about Catholic faith and courage when faced with the trials and tribulations of life with your Manly Saints Project.
I'm familiar with the concept of the Remnant, and you could be right about it. But there is something corrosive about the effects of technology that appears to me to be impacting all but the most insular and luddite Christian communities (such as the Amish). It brings to mind the Junger quote in my last post: "In the hymns of the good era, [there] were still Christians who lived their faith in the full metaphysical sense of the word. That mentality is extremely rare today. People are cut off from transcendence, transcendence is vanishing. But if someone somehow still preserves this relationship to transcendence, he is “ultimately” safe from fear. He can have the feeling of participation, he can tell himself that horrible things are happening, but that behind them a great light is dawning.”
Are you seeing the Remnant to which you are thinking properly resisting the effects of technology and decadence? Or do you see them being affected negatively despite their best efforts? To which eras and regions are you referring to with respect to prior Remnants? The Christian communities of the Middle East, for example, are mostly wiped out...
You also write, "But why think that we’re seeing the true face of the Church in these errors, rather than see the errors as a part of a general decline?" It's not that I see it as one versus the other (I mentioned that every institution in the West is corrupted); it's more of a concern that once nihilism infests and degrades society past a certain point (such as in Hellenist Rome, which was corrupt and decadent before Christianity arrived), it becomes difficult to course correct within the existing paradigm and only something very different may be capable of changing the dynamics. I delved into the meaning crisis in this prior post: https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/the-meaning-crisis-meaning-and-decadence
The way it looks now, based on fertility rates, immigration rates, and the demented will of our overlords the West will be much more non-white and much more Islamic within our lifetimes unless something fundamental changes....
Thanks for these kind words. I also enjoy your work.
I think one might look for a remnant in a couple of places. As you know, the parts of the Church that are growing in the West are the most traditional parts. The Latin Mass and the Ordinariate and more controversially the SSPX are thriving. Of course, the Church doesn’t just exist in the West. It seems to be doing very well in Africa, and I am hopeful about China.
In thinking about this comment and the post you link to, there are a couple of points where we disagree in perhaps interesting ways.
The first point is that you link decadence and technology. I’m not sure that those go together. I admit that industrialization hasn’t been great for us so far, but you might think we’ve been overwhelmed with a lot of technology at once. Maybe this is analogous to suddenly having more land than you know what to do with, as happened during the settlement of North America. You get bandits and shootouts and chaos. Eventually, gunslingers create little pockets of order. Then the land fills up and things settle down. I suspect that the future of technology will follow a similar pattern.
I guess that leads into a second disagreement. In the piece you link, you give an account of a fall into decadence. But it’s a fall that takes place over 2500 years in the West taken broadly. My beef with this is a pretty standard objection: because our accounts stop in our present, we see the present as the end goal, rather than just another historical period. I think that warps our understanding of history. For example, the claim that history is moving toward the bad present leads you to discount the glories of Augustus as a brief period. I would rather say Augustus restored Rome and brought it to a new height; a high point in a cycle that began with him and led to the crisis of the third century. Many peoples only get one cycle before they are wiped out: peoples like the Lombards, the Saxons in England, the Romano-Celts, or the Vandals. It seems to me that your account has no room for these smaller cycles, and so you end up flattening them into one big cycle that leads to the present. Actually this is a very Christian thing to do. Voltaire mocked his contemporaries who wrote triumphal histories of the world in which e.g. the non-Christian Japanese basically played no role. In bad times likewise, Christians often imagine we must be living in the end of days.
The last point of disagreement is one I want to be especially careful in stating. The death of the West is not necessarily the death of the Church. If you could press a button and delete the entire West, the Church would endure. Don’t get me wrong, I do not want my people to be extinct and our civilization forgotten. It’s rather that I think we can prioritize by realizing that these two things do not necessarily go hand in hand.
While there's been a secularization of society underway for some time, it seems likely that some fall away from religion without necessarily losing faith in God. The generalized corruption of all institutions has for some of us I think, resulted in a desire to undertake spiritual pursuits solo rather than "get religion".
It's a more difficult path, going it alone, just as being self-employed is harder than working for someone else. But freeing oneself from dogma and truly exploring a spiritual path with unlimited possibilities and potential is a journey well worth undertaking for many who aren't followers by nature. I foresee this trend growing in the future.
I do notice most people confuse the rejection of religion with atheism and they aren't always connected.
I think you are right that atheism is not the only alternative. The 2000s idea that atheism would prevail turned out to be wrong. Of course, as a religious person, I am committed to saying that falling away from the divinely ordained religion is one way of losing faith in God, because God wants us to relate to Him in this way. Perhaps not all faith is lost, just as a man who leaves his marriage might say he still loves his wife. But I think we religious people need to have the courage of our convictions and say that if religion is important for anybody, it is important for everybody.
I understand your perspective, as it comes from someone who adheres to a particular religion. However, the idea that there's one divinely ordained religion and that God wants us to relate to him in that particular way is what I question. Every religion believes theirs is THE one. And that's okay. We should believe we're being true to ourselves and our beliefs.
From my perspective, religion itself isn't what's important, faith in God is. Religion is a set of prescribed interpretations, beliefs and traditions. I prefer to be free to find my own way to love God and my neighbors because I find religion uncomfortably dogmatic and limiting.
Very interesting article as well as your other one describing how Christianity was possibly developed to subvert the Romans.
Both articles have put into question my own faith. I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic grade school and the belief in Jesus and his message of love, kindness to others and forgiveness still hold strong within me; although I lost faith in organized religion a long time ago.
All this brings me to these questions... Is faith in Jesus and the practicing of his tenants a good thing or is it making me passive and going against my own self interests? Should I become a self centered aggressive person to ensure my own survival?
Also, how does one cope with death if there is no faith in God or a higher purpose of our lives?
Hi Wheel, you ask great questions. I don't pretend to have all the answers, I'm no guru, but I'll try to answer it from my current level development which has much room for further growth.
"Is faith in Jesus and the practicing of his tenants a good thing or is it making me passive and going against my own self interests?" One of the things I feel as I get older is that higher level spirituality comes from a synthesis of opposites; indeed, it requires it. I don't see your question as being one of either-or but of both reflecting different facets of the truth. Christianity caught on at least in part because it gave dignity, respect and hope to the great unwashed masses who before it were mere slaves to physically stronger men. If we all have a spark of the divine in us - and I feel increasingly that we do - then there is an element of egalitarianism in there, even if that element has been grossly distorted and twisted to benefit other energies. And Jesus's focus on intent mattering as much as action was really powerful stuff, I think. Alternatively, as Christianity conquered Europe it opened the door to malevolent forces that would take advantage of its "turn the other cheek" mentality such as via the Rothschild central bank scam. "Should I become a self centered aggressive person to ensure my own survival?" I think it's a balance between competing forces; don't let yourself be taken advantage of, but also try to keep in mind the Golden Rule...
"Also, how does one cope with death if there is no faith in God or a higher purpose of our lives?" I think one can't cope with death without faith in God or a higher purpose. The question is how to find that faith and genuine connection in an era of ubiquitous nihilism where every institution has been turned inside out in a macabre display of demonic inversion. Increasingly I think that a solution must involve a focus on esotericism, on our own experiential connection to the ineffable, and I've started a deep dive on gnosticism that is taking me in many new and strange directions. I'll share more as my journey continues...
Thank you for the explanation. Definitely something to think about and try come to terms in my own way. Often I catch myself thinking in terms of black and white whereas it is probably better to accept the grey
Come back to the Catholic Church. She is the fullness of truth and goodness outside of which there is no salvation. She is being counterfeited.
Isn't there such a thing as righteous justice and the destruction of evil ? The Church Militant ?
What are your thoughts ? Also isn't there a God given right to self defence ?
"... lost faith in organized religion a long time ago."
It's such a cliche.
Contradiction, too. The organization is implied in the word religion, I mean.
The Catholic Church of today is a man-made creation. It has little to do with faith in God or for that matter spirituality. You can connect to God directly through prayer and good works. Can you handle that?
Yes that's pretty much what I have been doing, praying to God directly and doing my best to obey the commandments
We are all sinners but God understands what is in our heart and soul . I thank God every day in prayer for the blessings of this world. We are His children.
Prayer, scripture and a community (church) are the tenant of Christian practice. Works
IS NOT part of it. Because Jesus sacrificed on the cross, your acceptance of this salvation is sufficient to get to heaven.
Acceptance that Jesus died for our sins and then proceeding to live a highly immoral, sinful life does not add up to me, Lisa. That is the "free pass" theory. God deliberately gave us free will to choose our path in life, and there are consequences to the path chosen after death. Being of service to others in a purposeful way to me underlies our faith in God and that His sacrifice for us was not in vain.
Brilliant post, as was your response to Wheel.
What is clear, but individuals/societies fail to grasp - until it is too late - is that opportunists exist and are ever on the search for opportunity. They understand that subversion via infiltration IS their best and most successful strategy to profit and power. They come in the form of clergy, bureaucrats, politicians, plutocrats, oligarchs, dictators, despots, celebrities and radicals. The Church/Vatican is just one example of a legacy institution, that was targeted and captured. The bastardization of the founding and guiding principles, through incremental erosion, all but served up the obedient adherents on a platter.
Almost all radical subversions follow an age old model of external subversion/demoralization, that is quickly replaced by a complimentary and more effective internal model, leading to total capture. Sergey Nechayev, while not having "invented" this doctrine of social anarchist revolution, was one who coherently ordered and documented it's methodology in his "Catechism of a Revolutionary". Your quote below was not only succinct, but relevant across decades and centuries:
"The core of the problem is to avoid galvanizing the forces of Christianity by some careless misstep. It would be an unforgivable carelessness, for example, to close the churches suddenly and prohibit all religious practice. Instead, one should try to split the Church in two."
"A completely submissive Church - one that may on occasion collaborate with the security police - loses authority in the eyes of the pious. Such a Church can be preserved for decades, until the moment when it dies a natural death due to a lack of adherents."
Replace "church" with the label of any institution/body/group that has been subverted/captured and you have a rudimentary, historic road map of how we arrived, where we are today.
So long as the masses are relatively comforted, content and entertained, they will be willfully blind to the shifting sands of total capture, engulfing them and their societies - as was the case for the multitudes that came before us.
Great read, but I believe more can be said about Vatican 2.
Theologically speaking, Vatican 2 was a kind of "re-judaization" of Catholicism, stressing the Jewishness of Christianity and the leadership role of his Chosen people. This was always the big, gaping flaw (or backdoor) in all Nicene Christianity, theologically speaking.
Yes, good point. I had linked to an Haaretz article in a prior post which stated basically as much: "The Second Vatican Council published “Nostra aetate,” a document in which the Catholic Church declared the abandonment of its anti-Jewish heritage and its desire to reconcile with Judaism.
An illuminating and important new book by historian Karma Ben Johanan, “Reconciliation and Its Discontents: Unresolved Tensions in Jewish-Christian Relations,” deals with the reciprocal conceptions of Catholics and Orthodox Jews in the era of reconciliation. Its first part is devoted to the enthusiasm on the Christian side at drawing closer to the Jews, as well as with the internal debates that arose in the Church after the reconciliation. In its second section, the book discusses the chilly responses of Orthodox Judaism, including the suspicions aroused by the Christians’ eagerness to turn a new leaf, and the rabbis’ concern over the possibility of excessive closeness."
From: https://archive.is/EU70c (I have not read the underlying book)
Do you think you will write about this in greater depth?
I only know the basic outline of what occurred.
It was a converso in Rome who led the Vatican 2 effort. That should be cause for concern among the Christian Nationalists who believe conversion is the solution to our current problems with our xenocrat overlords.
A deep dive into the politics of Vatican 2 would make for an interesting post. Something I'll keep in mind for the future. With the possibilities of esoteric belief opening up before me recently, there's a tremendous amount to learn and explore...
Best short summary I've yet seen: https://modernmonastery.substack.com/p/the-smoke-of-the-synagogue
Christianity was against usury so it could never have re-judaized. The Golden Rule and Turn the Other Cheek are alien concepts to Judaism. Christianity is egalitarian whereas Judaism claims Chosen status
The Bible clearly states in the OT that only God's Chosen should be allowed to own capital, control the money, and lend the money. That is the word of THE LORD. So, when Christians destroyed the pagan world, they made sure to give God's Chosen control of the money supply, like God wanted. Christians are, in contrast, supposed to own nothing and be happy about their accumulated rewards in heaven. Karl Marx's manifesto was commissioned by Christians to describe the ideal Christian economic system. God's Chosen get to be OT-style Capitalists, and the goyim get to be Communists. Win win!
Some good points there for me to consider and one reason the Old Testament and Puritans like Cromwell suck !
Consider marcionism
You're making me think too much ! 👍🏻
i try! i have a section to it dedicated on my blog. might be up your alley
Arguably, Christianity has gone through overlapping phases since Christ himself: The Jewish church; The Greek Church; the Roman church; the Protestant church.
The most harmful transformation was from the Greek to the Roman church, as Christianity was turned into a hierarchy of control by Constantine and by the creation of false doctrines by Augustine. The Catholic church.
Thank you for asking. IMO the churches today that are closest to the gospel are small, independent evangelical churches. I imagine that they are most like the first churches that Paul and the other apostles established. The truest Christianity is based Christ's teachings in the synoptic gospels and especially Mark, the first one. Everything else is context and secondary at most.
How about you? Do you have thoughts on the answers to your questions?
Yes, large organizations tend to become hierarchical and the top levels unaccountable (like today's governments and corporations). A network of personal connections is better for something important. (Thanks for subscribing!)
Excellent article Neo. Reminds one of Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor narrative, in which the Roman is Church imprisons Jesus Christ during the Inquisition. Very sad.
Thanks for writing. Excellent overview and summary. For more detail on the intrigue post WWII, I found "The Smoke of the Synagogue" https://www.modernmonastery.net/p/the-smoke-of-the-synagogue useful. (The article got a much bigger reading on Unz.)
Interesting.....
Although I understand your position, I would argue that this perspective is at odds with how Tertullian for example presented this. Not to mention my issue with Nietzsche is the subjective starting point of his discussion on morality. Why not start at the origins, with the Garima Gospels of ancient Ethiopia?
Personally, I credit Nietzsche for giving the green light to The Nazis......
I thank you, you have me thinking about shit I never would have prior reading this.
Please SHARE
https://www.amazon.com/John-Courtney-Murray-American-Proposition/dp/0929891155
Do you know what is the difference between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky? There is a saying that Nietzsche is Doestoevsky without something. Do you know what it is? A heart. The Jesus figure if you want. Do you understand? Dostoevsky knew how evil and corrupt we are and still he never lost his faith in human. I truly don't understand the fucked up thinking of the right. I mean I understand why would Evola push for strict aristocratic hierarchy and fascism but why would the plebs push for it? Are the plebs so brainwashed to think they are going to be the top dogs? The aryan nobility?
Hi Vanusha, thanks for the comment. The mark of a higher-level mind is to be able to hold contradictory ideas in one's mind without judging them, to work to synthesize them. I like Dostoevsky and may cover him down the road. In my case, I both believe Nietzsche's thesis about the inversion of values *and* have strongly gnostic beliefs. In my opinion, there should be a balance between egalitarian and inegalitarian energies, not a transvaluation back to full warrior values. But Catholicism regardless is a hollowed out shell and Protestantism is merely Catholicism with the hierarchical guardrails removed, further on the road to perdition...
Thanks for answering. I agree about the Church, I am not religious so I don't mind punching the Church. Generally I don't agree about the jews, nor about the so called "values". In my view, it is just a psyops, both of them. The first is to hide the Roman empire and the roman and the Canaanite elite bloodlines. The second part about the aryan nobility and nazi and so on is pushed by the occult right, which are just an arm of empire. The occult is totally the elites, so this is why they decided to destroy the Church and initiate everybody into their luciferian religion - trannies and so on. They work with the masonic and fascist orders, who control the intel agencies and are preparing us for the age of aquarius. The problem with "values" is that if you think "values" are a function of power, for example "the jews" who pushed "egalitarianism" and made everybody a pussy, the other "values" of the romantic aryan past, of the glorious Roman empire and so on Nietzschean values, I think in both cases we have might is right. So we have the battle of the Romans vs the Jews, master vs slave morality and whoever wins - we have his values. In both cases there is no inner morality, so it is a function of power. And the aryans seem to have lost the battle against women and other subhumans. Hahahaha. It is funny, sorry. I don't know why men would insist that they are ruled by women and jews for thousand of years, it is not flattering, but this is as I said a psyops so it is not meant to make sense at all or to be flattering. But what is interesting is the gnostic perspective. I think this is interesting, their understanding of the world. I am not a gnostic because of purely practical point of view. For example if you think that this world is evil by creation there is no point in fighting evil, there is no way we can do better here. Ok, as I understand this is why you insist everybody should gain gnosis... but ... I don't know, interesting I think.
Yes, if all there is is Nietzschian will-to-power might-makes-right then all there is to see is various small interest groups using propaganda and other cons to fool everyone else into compliance - forever. I think that is a very bleak world to live in, nihilistic to the extreme. The goal of that perspective is to "wake up" one's self-identified group so one's group achieves dominance over others. This is understandable, of course - better to dominate than to be dominated, I think - but still a very bleak vision about the nature of reality. Personally experienced gnosis via listening to and following our intuition, trying to connect to higher realities while balanced against the need to live in this material reality (and avoiding the many pitfalls of a life fully devoted to intuition) is, I think, ultimately a more hopeful and meaning-infused outlook. I'll be covering more of the esoteric tradition in future posts...
I understand. It is just that Nietzsche is wrong.
Imo, there are two great schools of thought. Might is right which the belief of the elite and might is not right which is this Christ figure and our shared understanding of justice, it comes naturally to us, we somehow know it wihtout any indoctrination into "values". Nietzsche said it is a "slave morality" and there is no intrinsic value to it, it is just a hocus-pocus of the slaves who fake morals because they don't have power and this is their way to stay alive and love their servitude. Worse, in the 19-20 century the peasants were indoctrinated with the thinking of the elites and now they think that might actually makes right, dog eat dog, make money not friends. They think they became so much smarter now, they understand how the world works, they no longer believe in higher truth and justice. I admit these are the smarter among the plebs, the dumber just virtue signal on twitter and pretend to care about polar bears. But the smarter fell into the trap more. This is because in order for might to become right you must lie, cheat, kill and beat the slaves and whoever threatens your giant lie. It requires faking, pretending, lying 24/7, controllng, cheating and doing all kinds of falsehoods. This is the only way for might to become right. So intrinsically it is not in line with truth, it is artificial, fakery. Do you know for example that there are no trans people? Yes, there are absolutely no trans people. No matter how money and power "the jews" have there is still not a signle person who was a woman and became a man or who was a man and became a woman.
Catholicism is the fullness of truth. It’s being counterfeited by Bergoglio and friends.
The Church has been in a fight with powerful enemies for a long time. One fight started in 1517 with the Protestants, after that with the so-called Enlightenment. The opponents have multiplied ever since. The most recent phase is the war with enemies within, with secularists, modernists, and even Satanists. They scored a coup with the election of the current pope. One misses good old medieval times when such a heretic would be deposed in an instant, but we're not religious fanatics; we're cultured and lukewarm. What does the Bible say about lukewarm?
“After all, he was elected by a majority of the College of Cardinals so his views represent the dominant outlook of most Catholic Cardinals and therefore the Church itself.”
This is because the Church is in apostasy. But there is a remnant. The gates of hell will not prevail. The Catholic Church is the mystical body of Christ. Do you believe this? Why aren’t you Catholic? You do realize all the evil you brilliantly expose is focused on destroying her. Why do you think that is? Bergoglio is a usurper. The Church is going through her passion. Instead of mocking her, join her and save your soul.
Back in the day whoever was Holy Roman Emperor would just poison/imprison/exile a Pope who went off the reservation. We've had a couple of centuries of the papacy and cardinals not being answerable to anyone from Real Life and this is the result. (Also, what does it cost to buy a cardinal's vote to rig a papal election? Do you get change from a couple of choirboys?)
The Vatican is home to Satan. The Vatican, Washington DC and the City of London are the triangle of Satanic Evil.
But the Catholic Church is holy, outside of which there is no salvation. That’s why she is being so attacked from inside and out.
That is not so. Nowhere is it written in the Holy Bible. The Catholic church is a man-made creation full of pedophiles and some Satanists. The Catholic church is not the road of salvation for any human. You must connect with God directly through prayer and good works. Follow the Bible, not the Pope.
Sola Scriptura is not in the Bible. Jesus created a Church to save souls within.
Interesting...
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