The Tools of the Occult War

4,463 words

Translated by Cologero Salvo

The occult war is when the forces of worldwide subversion lead from behind the scenes, adopting means that almost always elude ordinary methods of investigation. The notion of an occult war belongs to a tridimensional vision of history, to a history considered not according to the two dimensional surface of apparent causes, events, and leaders, but otherwise, depending on the third dimension of depth, the subterranean direction, that retrieves the decisive forces and influences which are often not even ascribable to the simple human element, whether individual or collective.

Having used the adjective “subterranean,” it is necessary to make precise it importance, indicating that it is not a question of an obscure and irrational substrate of scientific history, of something that could stand in the known part of it,  but in the same relationship by which, in the individual, the subconscious stands to the consciousness of waking. This analogy is certainly exact, if consider it from the point of view of those who, in this tridimensional view of events, appear not as the subjects, but rather of the objects of history: in their acting and thinking, they do not take into account the true influences which they obey and the true ends that are accomplished through them. They have their true center more in the subconscious and unconscious, than in their waking consciousness, yet, in this respect, we can certainly say that it is in the subconscious that the most decisive movements of the occult war develop.

But from the point of view of the true subjects of history, things are quite different, and we can speak, in this regard, neither of the subconscious, nor the unconscious, but we must think of more than intelligent forces, forces that know perfectly what they want and the most appropriate means to realize what they want. To suppose that this substrate of history is accounted for by the “irrational,” by “life,” by “becoming,” or by whatever else of those confused entities invented by modern historicism in the moment in which they thought they went beyond so-called scientific historiography, is among the most dangerous errors. We believe, on the contrary, that we see in that one of the suggestions prudently spread in certain circles typical of the aims of certain movements of the occult war in modern times.

We will explain ourselves more clearly in what follows. For now, it is enough to establish this point: we must not allow the third dimension of history to vanish in the fog of abstract and philosophical views, but we must consider it inhabited and occupied by quite precise “intelligences,” whose expression and closest mouthpieces were almost always certain secret societies or organizations, but which must not at all exhaust, have their beginning and end, in them.

Examining the various conceptions of history widespread in the West, perhaps it is the Catholic conception, out of all of them, that can claim views of the same type. It is typical of such conceptions, in fact, to see history not as a mechanism of natural, political, economic, or social causes, but as the unfolding of a type of plan (the “providential” plan) opposed by adverse forces and their historical emissaries, forces that assume either the moralistic designations of the “forces of evil” or the religious one of anti-Christian forces or forces of the Antichrist. One such conception can already furnish a foundation when it is transposed from the teleological plan to a practical plan and if it makes its general principle through an interpretation deepened by events; in the second place, when it is generalized, establishing its susceptibility to still be of value in non-Christian civilizations, for which it will be well, in this regard, and with reference to human institutions, to speak generically of forces of tradition and forces of the anti-Tradition, the forces of the spiritual hierarchy and the revolutionary subversions, the forces of the cosmos and of chaos. In this particular case, the anti-Traditional forces will also appear naturally as anti-Catholic forces, insofar as, in the Catholic tradition, they are intended to combat the Traditional spirit in general, to destroy the basis of every hierarchy and to ruin their historical representatives.

We will never be able to insist enough, today, on the necessity of penetrating a view of the type that must not be considered as one among the many possible “speculations” of philosophy, but rather as an indispensable organ for true action. We are pleased to reproduce here a passage of the famous Protocols, to which we had already called attention.

The purely brute mind of the gentiles is incapable of use for analysis and observation, and still more for the foreseeing whither a certain manner of setting a question may tend. In this difference in capacity for thought between the gentiles and ourselves may be clearly discerned the seal of our position as the Chosen People and of our higher quality of humanness, in contradistinction to the brute mind of the gentiles. Their eyes are open, but see nothing before them and do not invent (unless perhaps, material things).

It is a truthfully alarming thing to think in how many cases such a judgment about the gentiles—who would be, this this special reference which makes Israel the principle agent of worldwide subversion, the non-Hebrews, but who can also be considered, in general, as those who we already called the “objects of history”—has still today a profound content of truth. The point of view of the greater part of the so-called “men of action,” compared to those of the hidden adversaries, can certainly be said to be babies: they concentrate all of the strength on what is directly graspable with the hands, and are incapable of establishing the relationships of cause and effect beyond the range of an extremely limited zone and of a nature almost always grossly material. Moreover, there is a fundamental lack of principles, since they almost always believe that the point of view of action cannot be “dogmatically” subordinated to principles, but must be related to the “unavoidable necessities of the moment.”

Unfortunately, this is still the level typical of most counter-revolutionary forces. It is a situation that can be compared to that of someone who finds himself perfectly equipped for the high mountain, with boots, sack, cord, and pick and then finds himself, after happily passing many tests, facing an expanse of water, at a lake or a sea, throws himself into it enthusiastically, believing that his equipment will still help him and lead him forward. Instead, it will only be of use to make him sink more rapidly to the bottom.

The occult war is exercised on that which, with an image drawn from positive science, we will call the “imponderables,” or imponderable quantities. It is adopted fairly often to produce almost insensible changes, from which sizable effects will proceed slowly but fatally. It almost never acts with forces opposed to other forces, but rather through an opportune direction of it, so as to lead to the desired effects. What Wundt called the heterogony of ends, plays a fundamental part in it: it is precisely about acting, while some forces or men believe they are willing and producing a given effect, and it alone, in actuality, they will produce or prepare something else quite different from it, thus uncovering an influence and an intelligence that transcends them. It is for this reason that, on another occasion [in La Vita Italiana], we said that the examination of the “differential” existing between the will and the event, between the principles or programs and the true consequences of it in history, offers the most valuable material for whoever truly wants to account for the true forces which history itself has obeyed.

But in this article we want to move beyond the general, and speak of a few of the most frequently used means, in our time, of the hidden powers of worldwide subversion to cover their action, to prevent that of their adversaries and to continue to exercise their influence.

It is incumbent to point out that the idea here was often given by observations scattered in the various works of René Guénon. Guénon, in our opinion, is, in a similar type of problems, of a competence nearly unique in all contemporary Western literature.

The Positivist Suggestion

It is necessary to get used to thinking that the so-called “positive” mode of doing history and of considering events is somewhat less a spontaneous product and prejudice typical of a very limited mentality, than a suggestion spread methodically in modern culture by anti-traditional forces, with the purpose of “covering” their action. Whoever believes that history is simply made by men and determined exclusively by economic, political, and social factors sees nothing else. And it is exactly such a world that “sees nothing else” that is needed by whoever wants to act subterraneanally. A civilization dominated by the “positivistic” prejudice offers the ideal condition for an action developing along the “third dimension”:  and this is exactly the case of the current civilization.

Above, we mentioned besides “positivistic” interpretations, those having as their basis abstract ideas of becoming”, of “life”, or even of the “Spirit”. In that we can consider a case of the application of a second tool of the occult war, which is:

The Tactic of the Surrogates

It is followed, every time that the danger of an “awakening” is manifested and that the energies seek to turn beyond the plan dominated by ideas, in the operation of which the occult game of the forces of subversion can easily take place. In the case now mentioned, these confused ideas of “becoming,” “life,” “absolute Spirit,” etc., in fact, are only a decoy thrown at those no longer satisfied with positivistic patterns, and those whose gaze does not bring itself where it should. From the fog of such ideas, the field of action remains so well covered, as by the dark night of “positivistic” agnosticism.

The “tactic of the surrogates” develops, however, in a much more characteristic and effective way under the form of:

Tactic of Falsifying Substitution

This is what we are talking about. When the effects of destructive action, appearing even on the material plane and giving rise to clearly visible phenomena, exhibit a degree hot enough to provoke a reaction, this reaction confusedly seeks symbols and myths to serve as the base for an engine of reconstruction, and can also find it legitimate and consistent with its goal. It is almost always about symbols and points of reference that, in their historical aspect, remaining in the traditional past, recalled from atavistic depths through the forces of an organism that feels itself threatened by final destruction. In these cases, the occult war does not take place with a direct action, i.e., not by opposing such symbols, but ensures that they do not circulate and are not worth falsifying or counterfeiting, insomuch as the reaction either remains limited, or diverted, or even overturned in an opposite direction, on which they naturally move on to apply the same influences present in the evil against which they wanted to act and in the decadence, from which they wanted to rise up from and believed in good faith to be rising up from.

This tactic can develop in diverse domains, in the political as well as in the spiritual camp, and seems today to have a totally special efficiency. It is worth indicating an example.

The most typical is constituted by “traditionalism.” The vague aspiration of a return to tradition, i.e., to a hierarchical and qualitative order centered in a transcendent spirituality and in an elite of its qualified and legitimate representatives, is diverted to in the form of “traditionalism,” i.e., of vague assumptions of a dilettantish, or militant, character that confuses Tradition with custom and the routine, that lead into a narrow-minded particularism, that stop at given, handed-down forms, and know nothing of their spirit. In such a way, they present an easy game to their adversaries and provide a good decoy to those who, through the false goal of anti-traditionalism, bring their true blow against tradition and foment new developments of revolutionary subversion. So the reaction remains contained and the maneuver leads successfully to prearranged goals. What, in certain extremist circles, the idea of race threatens to become because of some assumptions in terms of zoological materialism, as so even the Nordic-Aryan idea and even the pagan idea, come back to a conjuncture of the type. It is about ideas that, if they were understood and represented in accordance with their true nature and their ancient spiritual and traditional content, could certainly carry out a creative and healing action within the limits of some peoples of the North. As they appear instead in the circles already indicated, first of all because of a lack of principles, then because of a profound incomprehension and deformation of the ancient “Aryan” world, and finally through the tyranny of immediate interests and irrational impulses, make us suspect the effect of a distorting action of the type indicated. In relation to the new Italy, one should make every effort that something of the type does not occur in certain re-evocations of Romanity. The idea of ancient Rome certainly exists among those who today could have the greatest reconstructive efficacy: it is necessary to see that this efficacy is not paralyzed by means of the reconstituted facsimiles or by mere rhetorical resurrections, or by academic, erudite, archeological and even simply juridical, political assumptions, to which naturally elude completely the central strength and soul of the Roman symbol.

Tactic of Reversal

The secret forces of worldwide subversion knew perfectly that the fundamental premise of order to be destroyed was the supernatural element, spirit conceived not as a philosophical abstraction, but rather as a higher reality and as the means of a process of transcendent integration of the personality. The limited influence that, in such a regard, the Catholic tradition could still have (here we cannot stop to analyze the means to come to that conclusion), the subversive forces had to try in every way to ensure that every new contemporary aspiration toward the supernatural, developing outside of the dominant religion, became distorted and paralyzed. The whole of what it can be called neospiritualism, with allusion to the various theosophical, spiritist, Orientalizing, and “occultistic” sects can be considered the effect of one such maneuver. In all that, again, it is a question almost exclusively of deformation, counterfeits and distortions of spiritual doctrine, due to the least qualified persons, who in this respect, seem often to be subjected to a truly demonic influence.

The consequent outcome is twofold. First of all, it provided an easy way of extending the general discredit into which those counterfeits had to fall, to the doctrines in themselves, with which they were practically put in condition of no longer damaging. We can mention that, in recent times, the maneuver has even employed political factors: and there are some circles that, in good faith, are able to see only “Masonry” (something that was made the synonym of revolutionary, anti-Christianity or international subversion) wherever one speaks of secret associations of esoteric symbols, even when such references lead back to ancient traditions, whose original spirit and aristocratic nature everyone should note.

In the second place, because of poorly understood theories and false practices, they are joined to channel all the forces that, constricted by the suffocating stranglehold of materialism and yearning for something extra-natural, not toward the supernatural, but rather toward the subnatural, i.e., the subconscious, mediumship, and, in general, toward a world that, far from representing an integration of the personality, can only propitiate its collapse and disintegration, as much by making of it the tool of some of the darkest “influences”. So with neospiritualism the danger constituted by true spirituality was contained and reduced to an almost inessential minimum.

Tactic of the Ricochet Attack

It consists in provoking one of the forces to be torn down because of their still traditional character to undertake an action, that initially was aimed against a similar force and apparently of value to strengthen and increase the first force, but that then ricochets against it, dragging it down into the same ruins that it had propitiated against the other. By means of timely infiltrations, the secret forces of worldwide subversion often incite the representatives of a tradition to defend it through the discrediting another: whoever is subject to such a maneuver does not notice that to attack the tradition in the person of another people or civilization, for particularistic reason or contingent and inferior interests, means to be condemned to see itself attacked, sooner or later, in their own home, through a ricochet motion. The forces of worldwide subversion very much count on this tactic, and therefore make every effort to put every higher idea under the subjection of particularistic interests, pride, ambitions, and proletarian tendencies. They know that this is the best means to destroy every unity and true solidarity and to propitiate a state of division, in which their game will be extremely easy.

In this case, on can also allow every Machiavellian utilization of revolutionary forces back in. Some statesmen of scant discernment believed that propitiating or helping the revolution in the nations unfavorable to them was the best means to sustain and defend their true interests. Without realizing it, they prepared the exact opposite result, while they believed they served the revolution like an instrument, they themselves became tools of the revolution, which had to reach them after having passed over the body of their adversaries. We can say that the entire history of modern times, above all starting from the French Revolution, was the theatre of a subversion that tragically worked in such a way. We can never insist enough, in such regard, on the fact that only the absolute, ascetic, unfaltering adherence to an idea can serve to safeguard against the forces of the occult war. Wherever this standard is abandoned and follows contingent factors, the front of the resistance is broken and, with it, the possibility of a true autonomy.

We do not want to fail to mention a final appearance of an similar maneuver: the ideology characteristic of the “principle of nationality”, the “self-determinism of the people”, and imperialism, proclaimed by the Allies to mobilize every force against the Central Powers and then to beat them [World War I], is exactly the best among the ideologies adapted to propitiate a general revolt of the nations of color against the great European powers and to overturn every supremacy from them.

Tactic of the Scapegoat

When the hidden forces of worldwide subversion avoid the danger of being unmasked in some of their aspects, they see to it that all the attention of their adversaries is directed and concentrated on some elements, that only in part, or only subordinately, can be considered as responsible for their evildoing. All the reaction is then unloaded on such elements, becoming the true scapegoats. And the hidden forces remain free to pursue their game, their adversaries believing they have at this point identified the enemy and do not have to look for others. We repeatedly admonish certain anti-Semitic extremists to remain well attentive, so that, in their seeing the Jew everywhere, they do not end up by making themselves victims of a trap of that type. The same admonition could be applied equally to those who instead see everywhere Masonry or Protestantism, and so on, analogous processes being also verified in many other areas. It is necessary to guard against every unilateralism, never forgetting the complex plan of the occult forces which we must combat.

Tactic of Dilution

This is a particular case of the “tactic of substitution.” To understand it, it is necessary to start from the idea, that the process that led us up to our current general crisis, had distant origins and various phases and that in each one of such phases—corresponding to specific forms of Civilization, State, ethics, etc.—the crisis was already present even in a less acute, more dilute, potential form rather than actual. The theory of “progress,” or evolutionism, can be considered as another of the suggestions hurled by the subversive hidden forces into the general environment, in order to distract anyone from looking from the perspective of the origins and always pushing well beyond the process of falling, under the thrust of false mirages, and, above all, of that of the conquests of the technical-mechanical civilization. However, the hard experience of tragic events in recent times saw to it that such a hypnosis was no longer able to conserve its efficacy and was no longer able to prevent many spirits from recognizing that the presumed course toward progress was a course toward the abyss and that a going back was imposed. The hidden front then put into notion every means to prevent any radicalism. One of the preferred methods was, above all, putting a prejudice against “anachronism” into circulation, against “that which is no longer adapted for the times,” and then directing the forces that returned to look toward the origins, toward one or the other of those preceding phases, in which the crisis and evil were found in forms less advanced and, for that very reason, less visible. And even this trap had success. The leaders of worldwide subversion know naturally that, having come to that point, the danger is eliminated, because the whole was reduced to soon retrace the same path and to push, at the end of it, to dissolution even these forces that were awakened and that wanted to react and pull back.

We could also indicate many historical examples of this tactic, both recently and further in the past Above all, the political Leaders of current anti-subversive movements should not lose it from view. Let us say in all frankness—since in such a field a lack of frankness is certainly equivalent to a fault—there are aspects of contemporary nationalism that would merit being tested thoroughly. Anyone can note, in fact, the anti-traditional, anti-hierarchical, revolutionary character that, in the past, compared to the preceding ecumene-imperial and feudal civilization, had the notion of nation. Now, it is the nation that today predominantly challenges to combat the extreme forms of the crisis and subversion, represented by various red internationals [communist parties]. There is therefore the necessity to formulate a concept of the nation different from that which makes of it a stage of the path that had to lead to what today we must combat. Several years ago we provided the necessary points of reference to confront and resolve this problem, and to distinguish two nationalisms [La Vita Italiana, March, 1931]. We must return to our essay.

Tactic of the Substitution of Principle to the Person

It is undeniable that, in many respects, the decadence of traditional institutions occurs through the decadence of their leaders and representatives. But this is not the only cause: in order to come to a true dissolution and involution, it is necessary that the tactic of the substitution of principle to the person be added to it, a new tool of the occult war, which works in the following way. When the representative of a given principle appears unworthy, a process against the principle in itself is set in motion in the person of this representative, or the process is extended from the person to the principle. They do not come to the conclusion that that representative does not measure up to the principle and must therefore be substituted with another person who can really represent it, but instead they go on to say that the principle itself is false or harmful and must be substituted with another principle.

In how many cases does the attack against this or that degenerate, vain, or vicious aristocrat get translated into the attack against the very aristocratic principle in itself and into a tool of demagogy? And perhaps the subversive and heretical action of Luther, having as his excuse the corruption of the representative of the Roman Church, had a different meaning? Again, history is rich with episodes of the type, equivalent to many other moments of the worldwide subversion. Let us remember that the ancient hierarchical system was constituted by a spiritual authority, under which stood the warrior aristocracy, then a bourgeois caste and then the working masses. The fall of this traditional system, in many of its aspects, had as its instrument the tactic here indicated. The warrior aristocracy rose up against the decadent representatives of the pure spiritual authority, not through substituting them with another, more worthy representatives of the same principle, but by drawing from that the pretense to be emancipated or lay claim for itself the supreme authority. In a following phase, i.e., in a following civilization, the Third Estate rises up against the degenerate warrior aristocracy not because it ceded the place to the true aristocrats, but to seize power for itself. In yet another phase, the process against capitalism and the bourgeoisie (i.e., against the Third Estate) in its destructive and negative aspects does not aim for a corresponding reform, but is only the excuse for the revolt of the proletariat and the usurpation of power—descending progressively from step to step—straight through to the party of the proletariat (Bolshevism, communism).

Conclusion

The fact that, for reasons of space, we only indicated some examples and we were concerned above all with the exposition of the principles, not to prevent—we hope—seeing what vast fields of application these principles can have and to that valuable results it could reach those who, adequately equipped, can apply them methodically in any field. Since one can assert without uncertainty that there is not a single area in which the occult battle of the forces of worldwide subversion are not in any developed way; and indeed these areas that would seem more unrelated to events of the type are those that, by principle, should be considered with the greatest wariness.

We repeat one more time that it is not a question of “philosophical positions,” but of things much more real and that there is no leader or combatant at the front of the counter-subversion and the tradition that can be called mature and at the peak of its true tasks, before having developed in itself the faculty of seeing clearly in this subterranean world of cause and of indicating quickly the action of this or that invisible tool which our enemy does not cease to adopt in every epoch that, like the current one, sounding the prelude to the moment of final decision and the final battle of all, a cycle of civilization.

Source: La Vita Italiana, January 1938, http://www.gornahoor.net/?p=4166