Tag: hinduism

6,192 words

From Esotericism, Religion, and Nature (Studies in Esotericism), ed. Arthur Versluis, Claire Fanger, Lee Irwin, and Melinda Phillips (Mankato, Minnesota: North American Academic Press, 2010).

Savitri Devi (1905–1982[1]) was born Maximine Julia Portaz in Lyons, France, of English, Italian, and Greek ancestry.[2] She was a highly gifted and eccentric child. Early on, she embraced vegetarianism and animal rights out of a strong aesthetic revulsion to slaughter and other forms of cruelty to animals. (more…)

“Death found an author writing his life. . .” from Edward Hull’s Danse Macabre, 1827.

1,180 words

It always sounds silly to me when people tell the dead to “rest in peace.”

Practically speaking, don’t you have to disturb their rest to tell them that? It makes about as much sense as nudging someone who’s snoring to say, “Hey — HEY! Wake up and go to sleep.” (more…)

Muriel Gantry

7,874 words

Editor’s Note: The following text by Muriel Gantry (1913–2000) is a bit more than half of the “Curriculum Vitae of Muriel Gantry: All You Ever Wanted to Know and a Great Deal You Probably Didn’t,” which she prepared in 1995 for Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, who was writing a biography of her friend Savitri Devi. (more…)

8,304 words

The very idea sounds absurd. Militant supporter of National Socialism, foundational figure of Esoteric Hilterism, the iron maiden known to academia — insofar as she is known at all — as “Hitler’s Priestess”: dissociating Savitri Devi from her fanatical loyalty to Hitler’s Germany seems as futile as denazifying The Führer himself. (more…)

3,735 words

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.

— Matthew 6:24

There must be an immediate and permanent cessation of all immigration into our nation, from this point forward. We do not need immigrants from anywhere, for any occupation, especially given that many have no occupation. (more…)

2,287 words

I’d like to remind or inform my readers of a delightful, forgotten, and yet wholly wholesome and wise movie that was released in England in 1959. Its name: North West Frontier. The movie’s setting is the North West Frontier province in British India in 1905. The film’s McGuffin is a six-year-old heir to a local Hindu Maharaja. The boy is given over for protection to a British Officer named Captain Scott (Kenneth More) because Islamic insurgents are on the warpath and wish to kill the lad — from start to finish, this movie is something of a Western. (more…)

1,297 words

1. Steele Brand, Killing for the Republic: Citizen-Soldiers and the Roman Way of War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019) 

This is an excellent work of military history that examines the tradition of civic militarism in the Roman Republic. Brand combines detailed analyses of battles with insights about Roman culture and society. His analysis of the Battle of Sentinum (295 BC), for instance, includes diagrams of battle formations as well as a discussion of the history of the devotio, (more…)

Niall Ferguson

7,568 words

In 2011 there appeared two major scholarly works that attempted to investigate the sources of Western supremacy in the modern world, especially in view of the recent rise of China as a potential threat to this supremacy. These are the Puerto Rican-Canadian social historian Ricardo Duchesne’s The Uniqueness of Western Civilization[1] and the British economic historian Niall Ferguson’s Civilization: The West and the Rest.[2] (more…)

An illustration of the Mandala-brahmana Upanishad, in which the god Narayana, a form of Vishnu, teaches yoga to Yajnavalkya.

3,744 words

Part I here, Part II here, Part III here

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is quite long, and we can only scratch the surface here. In truth, even the shortest of the Upanishads could justify a long commentary. The texts of Vedanta are a whole, each of the parts of which reflects the whole in miniature. In other words, within each text one may find the whole teaching. This does not mean, of course, that the whole teaching is explicitly stated. Rather, one will find that to truly understand the full significance of any one statement in the Upanishads, we must situate it within the context of the entire teaching.

“Brihadaranyaka” means “of the great forest.” Aranyaka means “of the forest” or “of the wilderness.” The Aranyakas are understood to be a type of ancient Hindu literature, along with the Samhitas, the Brahmanas, and the Upanishads. (more…)

Lord Yama instructs Nachiketa, as related in the Katha Upanishad.

4,644 words

Part I here, Part II here, Part IV here

In the last installment of this series, we saw that the Katha Upanishad tells the story of Nachiketa, a boy who is tutored by Yama, the god of death. The boy makes a request of Yama, which at first the god does not want to grant: “When a person dies, there arises this doubt: ‘he still exists,’ say some, ‘he does not’ say others. I want you to teach me the truth.” But Yama soon realizes that Nachiketa is a worthy student, and begins to teach. (more…)

Yama, the Vedic god of death

4,058 words

Part I here, Part III here, Part IV here

The Katha Upanishad tells the story of a boy named Nachiketa whose father, Vajasravasa, decides to curry the favor of the gods by giving away his possessions. However, it seems that he was rather selective in what he gave up, only parting with things that were now useless to him. Nachiketa, who is quite pious, sees through his father’s insincerity: “What merit is there,” the boy asks, “in giving away cows that are too old to give milk?” This question, from a mere child, wounds Vajasravasa’s pride. Foolishly, Nachiketa persists: “To whom will you offer me?” he asks. Vajasravasa ignores the question at first, but when Nachiketa repeats it his father answers angrily, “To death I give you!”  (more…)

Lord Vishnu as Vishvarupa, illustrating the three realms: heaven (head to belly), earth (groin), and underworld (legs). Painting c. 1800-50, Jaipur.

2,774 words

Part II here, Part III here, Part IV here

In this series of self-contained essays, I will offer an introduction to Vedanta, the philosophy of the Upanishads, through brief commentaries on individual Upanishads. These essays are geared toward individuals drawn to the path of Traditionalism – and especially the Left-Hand Path of Evolian Traditionalism.They place Vedanta in the context of Tradition. Further, they make clear the relevance of this path for those of us who are not just in revolt against the modern world, but who wish to live the ideal of “self-overcoming” –  an ideal for all ages. (more…)