St Seraphim Rose (who reposed in 1982), before he became an Orthodox priest-monk, when he was still simply Eugene Rose, developed an historical outline explaining the rise of the demonic Revolution all over the world. The outline consisted of four stages and was included as a chapter in his little but profound book, Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age. The four stages begin with liberalism and then run through realism, vitalism, and nihilism.
Liberalism is a society’s indifference to Truth, to Christ; realism is the rejection of higher, spiritual truths in favor of those that can be ascertained only through the physical senses, natural science, and the like. Vitalism is a reaction against the sterility of realism, an attempt to imbue human life once again with some level of tradition and spirituality. It is likewise very much focused on energy, power, movement, adventure, the heroic, newness, and on the subjective experience of individuals to determine what is true and right for themselves.
Much of the West has sickened and withered under the unrelenting blasts of liberalism and realism. And now, as St Seraphim foresaw, the hunger for something better has begun to gnaw at the souls of her peoples. It is none other than the leaders of the Big Tech subculture who have become the vanguard in a movement toward vitalism in the West. They do not mention that word specifically in their documents (except once, tangentially, that we saw), but their stated goals align very well with the characteristics of vitalism as described by St Seraphim.
The Tech Bros’ latest project bears this out. They call it Praxis; here is how they describe it on the Praxis web site:
Praxis is the world’s first Digital Nation: a global community developing a culture, institutions, and infrastructure. Praxis is a home for the brave, who strive for virtue and wisdom. Our purpose is to restore Western Civilization and pursue our ultimate destiny of life among the stars.
A Praxian who calls himself Dryden Brown gives more details in one of the essays linked on the homepage:
It's important for you to understand why we are building Praxis.
First, I'm going to share a secret with you.
Every civilization has had the same origin: in a wasteland, a people unite around transcendent purpose, and pursue it heroically.
Today, the West is a wasteland.
. . .
But here's a second secret:
To be born in the wasteland is to be chosen.
You live in a new Age of Heroes. Your fate awaits -- if you have the courage to step forward.
You are not alone.
Across the West -- around bonfires, on mountaintops, in shadow and in light -- 100,000 have united under the banner of Praxis.
Praxis exists to unite the People of the West and resurrect the heroism that drove our ancestors to build empires - so our descendants might possess this flame.
. . . We are not the children of decline. We are the children of empire.
The flame is ours now. Take it.
The founders of Praxis give even more detail of their intentions in a Declaration of Ascent they issued on 6 November 2024, modelled very much on the Declaration of Independence that begot the United States (which should again give us pause as to the beneficence of the latter document and its offspring). Here is some of the more revelatory language from the former:
We ascend toward transcendence, striving to reunite with the eternal principles that shaped our highest civilizations. As the warrior-kings once sought the sacred Grail, so too shall we build an empire where true power flows from heroic courage and alignment with the divine order. Through this sacred pursuit, we will restore the foundations that elevated mankind beyond mere existence into ever greater heights of greatness and glory.
To these ends, we bind our destinies together as citizens of the first network empire. We commit ourselves to:
· The cultivation of nobility, beauty, and excellence in all endeavors
· The creation of new forms of human organization born from our highest ideals
· The establishment of governance that nourishes the human spirit in its ascent
· The development of our own territory, both physical and digital
· The advancement of technology in service of human transcendence
· The preservation and transmission of our highest values through generations
· The extension of human civilization beyond the cradle of Earth
We undertake these commitments not in opposition to existing nations, but in recognition that humanity stands ready to evolve beyond current forms. We invite all who share our vision to join us in this great ascension.
In two particularly prescient passages from Nihilism, St Seraphim warns us against the dangers that are present in vitalist proposals like Praxis:
There is no question, then, of finding in Vitalism a return to Christian--or any other--truths. There is, however, inevitably some pretense among Vitalists to do so. Many critics have noted the "pseudoreligious" character even of Marxism, though that epithet is applicable only to the misplaced fervor of its more enthusiastic devotees, and not to its doctrine, which is too clearly anti-religious in character. In Vitalism the question of "pseudo-religion" becomes much more serious. Here a quite understandable lament over the loss of spiritual values becomes father, on the one hand to subjective fantasies and (sometimes) to actual Satanism, which the undiscriminating take as revelations of the "spiritual" world, and on the other hand to a rootless eclecticism that draws ideas from every civilization and every age and finds a totally arbitrary connection between these misunderstood fragments and its own debased conceptions. Pseudo-spirituality and pseudo-traditionalism, one or both, are integral elements of many Vitalist systems. We must be cautious, then, in examining the claims of those who would restore a "spiritual" meaning to life, and especially of those who fancy themselves allies or adherents of "Christianity." "Spiritualist" errors are far more dangerous than any mere materialism; . . . most of what passes for "spirituality" today is in fact a "new spirituality," a cancer born of Nihilism that attaches itself to healthy organisms to destroy them from within. This tactic is the precise opposite of the bold Realist attack upon truth and the spiritual life; but it is no less a Nihilist tactic, and a more advanced one.
. . . But perhaps most revealing of the infection of humanism by Vitalism is the strange axiom, romantic and skeptical at the same time, that the "love of truth" is never-ending because it can never be fulfilled, that the whole of life is a constant search for something there is no hope of finding, a constant movement that never can--nor should--know a place of rest. The sophisticated humanist can be very eloquent in describing this, the new first principle of scholarly and scientific research, as an acknowledgement of the "provisional" nature of all knowledge, as a reflection of the never-satisfied, ever-curious human mind, or as part of the mysterious process of "evolution" or "progress"; but the significance of the attitude is dear. It is the last attempt of the unbeliever to hide his abandonment of truth behind a cloud of noble rhetoric, and, more positively, it is at the same time the exaltation of petty curiosity to the place once occupied by the genuine love of truth. Now it is quite true to say that curiosity, exactly like its analogue, lust, never ends and is never satisfied; but man was made for something more than this. He was made to rise, above curiosity and lust, to love, and through love to the attainment of truth. This is an elementary truth of human nature, and it requires, perhaps, a certain simplicity to grasp it. The intellectual trifling of contemporary humanism is as far from such simplicity as it is from truth.
And yet, for all the dangers inherent in vitalism, the dreariness of the wasteland created by liberalism and realism is attracting many folks in the States to its banner, particularly younger folks, as one may discern from this report about the National Conservative conference held in January 2025, whose attendees the author likens to New Romantics (Romanticism being a form of vitalism).
But for the Praxians, New Romantics, and others who are seeking a more meaningful life, there is another road open to them aside from vitalism. It is that road of simplicity that St Seraphim mentioned just above. The vitalist thinks there is power in brash, loud assertiveness. The Orthodox saints show that the opposite is true: Divine power rests upon those who live a life of quiet, unassuming simplicity.
A new saint of the Orthodox Church illustrates this with great clarity, Holy Matushka Olga of Kwethluk, Alaska (+1979). Here is her life as given by the OCA:
. . .
The rest is at https://orthodoxreflections.com/praxis-nation-tech-bros-discover-vitalism/.
--
Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
