This ‘inverted spirituality’ is thus in very truth only a false spirituality, but it is false to the most extreme degree conceivable; false spirituality can be spoken of in every case in which, for example, the psychic is mistaken for the spiritual, without necessarily going as far as total subversion, and that is why the expression ‘inverted spirituality’ is certainly best suited for designating total subversion, provided that the way in which it must be understood is precisely specified. It is in fact identifiable with the ‘spiritual renewal’ the near approach of which is persistently announced by people who are often quite unaware of its real nature; or again, it is the ‘new age’, into which the present humanity is being driven by all available means,[165] and the general state of ‘expectation’ created by the diffusion of the predictions alluded to above may well contribute effectively toward hastening its arrival. The attraction of ‘phenomena’, already taken account of as one of the determining factors in the confusion of the psychic and the spiritual, may also play a very important part, for most men will be caught and deceived by it in the time of the ‘counter-tradition’, since it is said that the ‘false prophets’ who will arise at that time shall ‘show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.’[166]
It is particularly in this connection that the manifestations of ‘metapsychics’ and of the various forms of ‘neo-spiritualism’ may even now be taken as a sort of ‘prefiguration’ of what must happen later, though they only give a very slight idea of it. In principle, the action of the same inferior subtle forces will be involved, but those forces will be set to work with incomparably greater strength; and when one sees how many people are always ready blindly to place complete confidence in all the divagations of a mere ‘medium’, simply because they are supported by ‘phenomena’, it is not surprising that seduction will then be more general. That is why it can never be said often enough that ‘phenomena’ by themselves prove absolutely nothing where the truth of a doctrine or of any sort of teaching is concerned, and that ‘phenomena’ are the special domain of the ‘great illusion’, wherein everything that people so readily take to be signs of ‘spirituality’ can always be simulated and counterfeited by the play of the inferior forces in question. This is perhaps the only field in which the imitation may be really perfect, because the very same ‘phenomena’ (the word being taken in its proper sense of outward appearances), will in fact be produced in both cases, the difference lying only in the nature of the causes engaged in each. The great majority of men are inevitably unable to determine the nature of these causes, so that there is no doubt that the best thing to do is not to attach the slightest importance to anything ‘phenomenal’, or perhaps better still to regard it a priori as an unfavorable sign; but how can this be made comprehensible to the ‘experimental’ mentality of our contemporaries, a mentality first fashioned by the ‘scientistic’ point of view of the ‘anti-tradition’, and finally becoming one of the most potentially effective contributing factors in the success of the ‘counter-tradition’?
’Neo-spiritualism’ and the ‘pseudo-initiation’ proceeding from it are also from another point of view as it were a partial ‘prefiguration’ of the ‘counter-tradition’. Reference has already been made to the utilization of elements authentically traditional in origin, perverted from their true meaning, and then to some extent brought into the service of error; this perversion is only a move in the direction of the complete reversal that must characterize the ‘counter-tradition’ (the case of the intentional reversal of symbols dealt with earlier being a significant example); but at that time there will no longer be only a few fragmentary and scattered elements involved, because it will be necessary to produce the illusion of something comparable, indeed of something intended by its authors to be equivalent, to that which constitutes the integrality of a real tradition, including its outward applications in all domains. It may be observed in this connection that the ‘counter-initiation’, although it invented and propagated for its own purposes all the modern ideas that together represent the merely negative ‘anti-tradition’, is perfectly conscious of the falsity of those ideas, and obviously knows all too well what attitude to adopt with respect to them; but that in itself indicates that the intention in propagating them can only have been the accomplishment of a transitory and preliminary phase, for no such enterprise of conscious falsehood could be in itself the true and only aim in view; it was only intended to prepare for the ultimate coming of something different, something that should appear to constitute a more ‘positive’ accomplishment, namely, the ‘counter-tradition’ itself. This is why one can already see sketched out, in various productions of indubitably ‘counter-initiatic’ origin or inspiration, the idea of an organization that would be like the counterpart, but by the same token also the counterfeit, of a traditional conception such as that of the ‘Holy Empire’, and some such organization must become the expression of the ‘counter-tradition’ in the social order; and for similar reasons the Antichrist must appear like something that could be called, using the language of the Hindu tradition, an inverted Chakravartī.[167]
The reign of the ‘counter-tradition’ is in fact precisely what is known as the ‘reign of Antichrist’, and the Antichrist, independently of all possible preconceptions, is in any case that which will concentrate and synthesize in itself for this final task all the powers of the ‘counter-initiation’, whether it be conceived as an individual or as a collectivity. It could even, in a certain sense, be both at the same time, for there must be a collectivity that will be as it were the ‘exteriorization’ of the ‘counter-initiatic’ organization itself when it finally appears in the light of day, and there must also be a person who will be at the head of the collectivity, and as such be the most complete expression and even the very ‘incarnation’ of what it will represent, if only in the capacity of ‘support’ to all the malefic influences that he will first concentrate in himself and then project onto the world.[168] He will obviously be an ‘imposter’ (this is the meaning of the word dajjāl by which he is usually designated in Arabic) since his reign will be nothing other than the ‘Great Parody’ in its completest form, the ‘satanic’ imitation and caricature of everything that is truly traditional and spiritual; nevertheless he will be made in such a way, so to speak, that it will be entirely impossible for him not to play that part. His time will certainly no longer be the ‘reign of quantity’, which was itself only the end-point of the ‘anti-tradition’; it will on the contrary be marked, under the pretext of a false ‘spiritual restoration’, by a sort of reintroduction of quality in all things, but of quality inverted with respect to its normal and legitimate significance.[169] After the ‘egalitarianism’ of our times there will again be a visibly established hierarchy, but an inverted hierarchy, indeed a real ‘counter-hierarchy’, the summit of which will be occupied by the being who will in reality be situated nearer than any other being to the very bottom of the ‘pit of hell’.
165
The extent to which the expression ‘new age’ has in these days been spread about and repeated in all quarters is almost unbelievable, with a significance that can often appear to be different in different cases, but it always tends positively to the establishment of the same persuasion in the mentality of the public.
167
On the subject of the
168
He can therefore be regarded as the chief of the
169
Money itself, or whatever may take its place, will once more possess a qualitative character of this sort, for it is said that ‘no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name’ (Rev. 13:17), and this implies the actual use in connection with money of the inverted symbols of the ‘counter-tradition’.