The Soul of Chivalry: A Review

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The Soul of Chivalry, produced by Cat Weiss (aka Philosophicat) is what I hope is the first of many videos introducing the world of Tradition to new audiences. It is primarily based on the chapter in Baron Julius Evola’s Revolt Against the Modern World by the same name while drawing heavily on other works by Evola, such as Eros and the Mysteries of Love, The Yoga of Power, and The Hermetic Tradition.

The Mystery of the Grail is generally considered the best book to begin exploring Evola’s work, as knighthood is the splinter of primordial Tradition closest in time and space to our own. Whether in books or videos, chivalry is a logical launch point.

People naturally feel drawn to knights and castles, but do they truly know why? Before explaining what chivalry is, The Soul of Chivalry begins by explaining what it is not, such as generic courtesy. And as the video progresses, it becomes obvious that feudalism, and especially knighthood, was not a “materialist social construct” based on oppressing peasants either. Game of Thrones and other pop culture phenomenon about or inspired by the Middle Ages tend to agree with and amplify modern academia’s materialist analysis of knighthood, even when they throw in magic and dragons.

No, the essence of knighthood is overcoming one’s lower nature through heroic action, confrontation, the taming of primordial forces, and indifference towards death. Thus the inner essence of chivalry is incongruent with the escapist essence of Christianity, which led to conflict.

The video does a great job using comparative mythology to place chivalry within the context of a broader Hyperborean tradition. Common symbols include horses, weapons, numerology, and alchemy. For example, a knight who was knocked off his horse was considered disgraced because horsemanship was a signature of having tamed vital forces on the spiritual plane.

The most important symbol in chivalry is that of the woman, who was less of a symbol and more of an operational force. Modern male approaches to women generally fall under “becoming a woman” by throwing oneself into hedonism and desire, brutish domination of women as seen in various third-world cultures, becoming utterly dominated by women as in “the longhouse,” or retreating from women altogether. Medieval chivalry, in which a platonic yearning for a woman would provide the tension needed to launch and succeed upon a spiritual quest, shows that there are healthy alternatives.

Tradition treats comparative mythology in a scholarly and rigorous manner. In contrast, Wicca and other modern deviations throw themselves headlong into comparative mythology without any discernment whatsoever between the higher and the lower. They will correctly identify common symbols, but then offer only a superficial analysis. Their favorite symbol is the woman, but due to a lack of discernment, they will jumble all instances of the woman in myth into an eclectic mix. This is extremely subversive because the woman can be a path to wisdom, but also peril. It is my hope that a renewed interest in Tradition will redirect people from wasting their time on Wicca and other follies that are at best silly and oftentimes dangerous.

Chivalry’s martial code of honor and relation towards women doesn’t sound very Christian because it isn’t. Their belief that dying for a woman is as spiritually efficacious as dying while on crusade for the Church smells like heresy. Many grail myths even contain a mass in which the grail is the reference point. The history of Europe’s haphazard conversion to Christianity and how many medieval people were nominal Christians is a topic which could span several articles.

But what is for me the greatest contrast between chivalry and Christianity is that in the grail myth, the knight is supposed to “ask the question.” Asking questions shows an active attitude which is the precise opposite of blind adherence to doctrine or sinking into a passive state by being overcome by religious awe. What the question is exactly is obscure, probably on purpose, but it is supposed to be something along the lines of what the grail could be used for, its significance, what is transpiring, how to heal the wounded king, etc. Evola describes asking the question to be “fundamentally a question of Empire” and for the aspiring hero to ask the question is to state the problem which others would be content to ignore. The modern world is a room with not one, but an entire herd of awkward elephants which merit questioning. Parsifal/Percival is in fact berated for not asking the question.

For centuries, chivalric orders existed in tension with but nonetheless alongside the Church. This was not to last. Tensions boiled over with the Investiture Controversy (roughly 1075-1122) which was closely related to a broader rivalry between the pro-papacy Guelphs and pro-Kaiser Ghibellines, which in its inner essence was a dispute between which Traditionalist caste, the warriors or priests, should be dominant.

Then in 1307, the Church, in an alliance with the nascent French state under Philip the Fair, destroyed the Knights Templar on the infamous day of Friday the 13th. Some of the charges were that the Templars blasphemed the cross by stepping over, spitting on, or and insulting it, and that they had dealings with the Muslims they were supposed to fight. That no specific act of betraying Christendom to side with Muslims was ever found, and that the Templars had a spotless record on the battlefield, points to how as Evola describes, they were, like their Muslim adversaries, focused on the “inner jihad” which is the greater jihad. But the fact that the Church was not the focus of their true devotion did not sit well with the papacy.

It is interesting that some Templars stepped over the cross instead of rejecting the cross directly, and I would presume while walking towards a higher reference point. In those cases, the cross wasn’t really profaned so much as relegated to second place. I can’t help but see parallels with the late Jonathan Bowden’s advice to “step over it” in regard to the chief holy idol of our time. This overcomes a philosophical problem: how to reject something without becoming conditioned by it. Leo Strauss is a somewhat overrated thinker, but he was right in observing that the modern thinkers who tried to directly reject nihilism became conditioned by it. The same goes for Christianity, modernism, post-modernism, etc. Reaction invariably elevates the thing reacted against to subject rather than object. In internet language, it is “living rent free in your head.”

By having a higher reference point, one can effortlessly walk towards it and step over the thing one would otherwise react against. Perhaps the gravest insult is not an insult, but to not even notice at all. There are many profane idols we are expected to worship in the modern liberal order that need stepping over, yet higher reference points are in short supply.

It was shortly after Friday the 13th that the grail stories took on a pessimistic tone and then ended. Parsifal was the last knight to achieve the grail through his own heroism, the next will be chosen by God alone. This leads into an important warning: don’t try this at home. The Kali Yuga, or age of dissolution, has only intensified. To be a knight errant in the current year is a quixotic quest doomed to failure. Rather, we should use the grail myths as a higher reference point to guide us. The mountain peaks are still inspiring and beautiful even if they have become inaccessible. This advice goes for much in Traditional studies, such as Hermetical Alchemy.

Another warning: subversion tends to destroy itself. I do not think it a coincidence that France would become the epicenter of the Enlightenment and that the French Revolution it spawned would sweep away the Throne and Altar which had destroyed the Knights Templar—the very thing which had protected them. Perhaps the exiled Templars transformed into or merged with the Freemasons and then exacted revenge centuries later. But I think this was mostly the natural consequence of furthering what René Guénon calls “the reign of quantity.”

I know that some people will not be pleased with how about 30% of the video was produced with Artificial Intelligence (AI). I can sympathize because I have a strong sense of the uncanny valley and am a stickler for historical detail. But AI filmmaking will probably improve with more time and more money, and I doubt many viewers will notice or be bothered by its use in The Soul of Chivalry. Some of the film would not have been possible without AI, at least not in a good form. If you want more art and culture, we must support those who step up to the challenge.

Furthermore, The Soul of Chivalry is a bold first move in what might become a broader AI war. There’s no getting around how most people react better to 3D images on screens than to books, even audio books. Thus far, the anti-Traditional establishment has had a nearly total monopoly on making quality movies due to the ruinous expense involved. AI removing or at least mitigating this bar to entry will force Hollywood to compete on substance alone, and what little substance they had is gone. With almost every movie being a remake, sequel, or prequel, it’s obvious that Tinsel Town is running on fumes, even if we put aside their degeneracy. Much like the Church and State in France, Hollywood might be destroyed by the very forces it helped to unleash. (Readers may be interested in an X space discussion between Catt Weiss and George Burdi on AI art here).

And the music video at the end, Überfolk’s “The Flower Immortelle” was not AI, but a very touching human performance.

Finally, I like how The Soul of Chivalry rebuts the claim that “white people have no culture.” We often don’t realize what a rich culture the West has because it is close at hand and pervasive. We don’t need to travel to exotic lands to find knightly orders dedicated to the pursuit of esoteric mysteries.

Just as the grail was supposed to prompt knights to ask the question, I hope that The Soul of Chivalry will prompt curious viewers to do further research into the world of Tradition.