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!
