Arktos
London 2021
Copyright 2021 by Arktos Media Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means (whether electronic or mechanical), including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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ISBN
978-1-914208-23-2 (Softcover)
978-1-914208-24-9 (Hardback)
978-1-914208-25-6 (Ebook)
Editing
John Bruce Leonard
Cover and Layout
Tor Westman
Darest thou now, O Soul,
Walk out with me toward the Unknown Region.
Where neither ground is for the feet, nor any path to follow
Walt Whitman
Dedicated to Hagia Sophia
She is His manifestation in radiant splendor
But she remains unseen, glimpsed only by a few
Sometimes there are none who know her at all
Thomas Merton
List of Illustrations
1. Septentrionalium Terrarum Descriptio , Description of the Lands of the North, Gerardus Mercator
2. Das Gestade der Vergessenheit , The Shore of Oblivion, Eugen Bracht
3. Priestess of Delphi, John Collier
4. Flower Fairy, Sona Bahadori
5. Swan Song, Sona Bahadori
6. Prades, Owen Merton
7. Paymon, illustration from Collin de Plancys Dictionnaire infernal
8. The Emerald Tablet, illustration from Heinrich Khunraths Amphitheatrum sapientia aeternae
Hyperborea
Septentrionalium Terrarum Descriptio , Description of the Lands of the North, (Gerardus Mercator, 1595updated 1623 with data from the voyage of Willem Barentsz). The central point of Arktos is Rupes Nigra neither by ship nor on foot would you find the marvellous road to the assembly of the Hyperboreans.
Preface
The Falling Man
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
Thomas Stearns Eliot, The Hollow Men
The jury is still out in the case of the final Fall of the West. This Fall involves a gradual process of history rather than a single point in time. The Fall of the Roman Empire was such a gradual process: its starting point may have been the year 212, when Emperor Caracalla granted Roman citizenship to all freemen under his jurisdiction; its point-of-no-return may have been the year 378, when Emperor Valens died in the Battle of Adrianople against the invading Goths; and its endpoint may have been the year 476, when Emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed by Odoacer, who took over as King of Italy. Even so, a Neo-Roman Byzantine (rump-)empire continued to exist in the east and a Holy Roman Empire was resurrected in the west; both endured for a full millennium. In all likelihood, the falling process of the West will be similarly prolonged; it might even trigger Byzantine-Holy Roman-style repeat-and-recycle loops. Already a castling shift-position move of Western civilizations power seat and cultural heart, from ThirdWorld-overrun Western Europe to reverse iron-curtained Eastern Europe, seems to be in the offing. But even if the final expiry date of the West has yet to be settled, the falling process seems to have accelerated in the course of the last few years. In the political domain, this acceleration is marked by Americas first non-white presidency under Barack Obama, which saw the effective eclipse of Western global economic and military hegemony (more precisely: the Financial Crisis of 20072008 and the Russian Intervention in Syria of 20152016). In the European context, this acceleration is reflected in the radically neo-globalist and anti-indigenous regime of the Merkel-Macron duopoly (implemented in the open door ethnic replacement policies of the former and the Elagabalus-style power inversions of the latter). Perhaps the recent acceleration of the falling process is best symbolized by the short timespan that separates two highly symbolic events that took place at the same sacred spot in the same spring season: the self-sacrifice of French historian Dominique Venner in Notre Dame de Paris, in 2013, and the burning of Notre Dame de Paris itself , in 2019.
At the private level, the Fall of the West may be revealed in much less sensational signs and wonders. Synchronically and spectrally significant private moments may reveal the true measure Fall even at the most unlikely moments in time and in the most mundane of places: at the private level, these are the necessary eschatological counterparts to numinous genesis (Pankhurst, 2017). For the author, one such tiny absurdical moment occurred in the silent spring of 2016before the formal breaking points of Brexit and Trump. V & D, the foremost department store chain of the Netherlands, had gone belly up and its inventory was to be sold off in a final fire sale. Its neatly dressed long-serving personnel were unceremoniously put out on the streetan older generation that could never be re-employed in the newly fashionable 1-euro throw-away retail sector. Its formal-but-personalized service model was relegated to the dustbin of cultural historynever to return. Its high-quality product profile was abolishedhenceforth, the choice was to be between Chinese-billionaire/Russian-godfather level shopping experiences and Third World level pulp products. Of course, the government did not lift a hand to save thousands of Dutch breadwinners from unemploymentor dozens of Dutch V & D-centred inner cities from the fate of Johannesburg-style image-implosion. Of course, the baby boomer media did not see fit to raise its voice: its neo-liberal free market thinking was entirely satisfied with the natural selection removal of an outdated commercial formula. And then there was the follow-up: on a spring morning, the closed shops were re-opened for a few hours for the final sale of the remaining inventory. There and then, at 10 AM sharp, under a clear blue spring sky, it happened: the Dutch Sacco di Roma . Enormous hordes of Neo-Third-World-ians had already collected at the doorssomehow they had heard that there was something to be had. In an all-out free for all, they surged into the building to take the spoils of the First World, which were sold off at bottom prices or simply taken without paymentthe wholly overwhelmed security personnel basically surrendered. The floors of the gutted building were littered with expensive fashion items, screaming housewives were fighting over household items and enterprising businessmen were claiming entire lanes of products at a time. There was to be no last standin a few hours time, generations of work and life were undone forever. They say that life goes onbut that is not always true. Then and there, the First World is ended.
In the final analysis, all such symbolically charged and eschatologically significant events, mostly filtered out by politically correct cognitive dissonance, are merely outward signs of the Fall of the West: the actual Fall itself is caused by inner conditionings . In socio-philosophical terms, the conglomerate of existential conditions of civilizational entropypermanently enforced Entfremdung , anomie and liminalitymay be described as a collectively lived Fall into the Future (Sloterdijk, 2014). In artistic terms, they may be interpreted as individually lived Chaos Theory (Larned, 2016). The increasingly de-natured and de-cultured biological residues of Western civilization, i.e. the remnant indigenous peoples of the West, may now be termed effectively post -Western: they are les blancs Zulus of the neo-tribal ex-West. The apocalyptic final destination of post -modern ex -Western last man must now be considered fixed. Undoubtedly, the most iconic reflection of this current mid-air momentwhich only seems longis found in the Richard Drews gruesome photo The Falling Man, which depicts a victim of 9/11 victim in free fall from the North Tower of the World Trade Centre. If the final destination of post-modern ex-Western last man is now established beyond a reasonable doubt, the only question remaining pertains to what lies beyond that last man. It is time for a visit to the Shore of Oblivionto look at the ocean of possibilities lying beyond it.
