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Vectors of the Counter-Initiation: The Course and Destiny of Inverted Spirituality
VectorsBackCover French philosopher Rene Guenon (1886-1951), who spent many years searching for a true esoteric Way, crossed paths with many false and subversive spiritualities before arriving at the threshold of Islamic Sufism. In his prophetic masterpiece The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times he classed the worst of these spiritualities as examples of the Counter-Initiation. Anti-Tradition-secularism and materialism-opposes religion; Counter-Tradition inverts it; and the esoteric essence of Counter-Tradition is the Counter-Initiation. The author expands on this concept, recognizing the action of the Counter-Initiation in such areas as the politicizing of the interfaith movement, the anti-human tendencies in the environmental movement, the growing interest in magic and sorcery, the involvement of the intelligence communities in the fields of UFO investigation and psychedelic research, the history of Templarism and Freemasonry, and the de-Islamicization of the famous Sufi poet, Jalaluddin Rumi. Vectors of the Counter-Initiation is conceived of as a sequel to The System of Truth and Falsehood in Postmodernism and the New Age [Sophia Perennis, 2001]. The Counter-Initiation has six main syncretism; inverted hierarchy; deviated esoterism; the granting of the temporal transmission of spiritual lore precedence over the vertical descent of Revelation; the reduction of religion to utilitarianism (magic) and esoterism to a purely technical knowledge (Promethean spirituality); and the mis-application of the norms of the individual spiritual Path to the supposed spiritual evolution of the collective. The Counter-Initiation is the ego's idea of spirituality. It appears in the Old Testament as the Serpent in the garden, Cain's murder of Abel, the "sons of God who looked upon the daughters of men and found them fair," the Tower of Babel, the degeneration of Sodom, and the magicians of Pharaoh whom Moses defeated. In the New Testament it is personified by Judas, and in the Qur'an by the figure of as-Samiri, who forged the Golden Calf, and the angels Harut and Marut—testers of man by God's design—who taught magic to the human race in Babylon. For both traditions, it is destined to culminate in Antichrist. This book brings together two schools of the Traditionalists or Perennialists (writers on comparative religion and traditional metaphysics) and the conspiracy theorists who are investigating the origin, nature, and plans of the New World Order. The NWO researchers can throw a penetrating light on the social and political dangers presently threatening the Perennialists, while the Perennialists can provide these researchers with a deeper and wider spiritual context for their vision of human evil. In Guénon's time the Counter-Initiation appeared in terms of this or that secret society operating in the shadowy underworld of European occultism; it has now come up into the open, and moved inexorably toward the centers of global power. In the words of American Eastern Orthodox priest Seraphim Rose, "in our time Satan has walked naked into human history."
346 pages, Paperback
First published June 16, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 11, 2022
Don't listen to Joe Rogan don't take the DMT.
February 10, 2018
Christian writers have been telling us for decades that the New Age was a Trojan Horse for a Luciferian one-world religion, or that UFOs were really the early manifestations of the Antichrist. But, however right they may have been, the lack of nuance or intellectual depth rendered their works pretty unpalatable to non-Christians. Upton may write as a Sufi, but he isn’t writing exclusively for the religious-minded, though admittedly, if you are firmly anti-religious, you may encounter some resistance to these books. Upton makes a compelling case for religious devotion as the only possible response (survival strategy) in the face of a social reality that, when looked at unflinchingly, presents overwhelming evidence of "spiritual wickedness in high places." This is what I mean by context. Upton writes:
“Consequently a necessary step for most of us in the work of renouncing This World is to become aware of it as an engineered control system. Thus the act of investigating the structure and exposing the agendas of the New World Order, for those dedicated to the spiritual path and also called to this work, can be of direct service to the contemplative life. . . . If we can witness the darkness of This World with apatheia, with detachment and equanimity, then we will have accomplished the greater part of the work of ‘shadow-integration�; we will be led, God willing, to the point of supreme nausea where we can vomit the World, along with the Ego, its master and slave, out of our souls forever.� (p. 330)
What makes Upton’s work so valuable is that he is essentially mapping his own journey of realization in a way that is both personal and universal (it certainly matches my own path quite closely). As a former psychedelic user, Beat poet, Castaneda-follower, and even briefly a New Age teacher (he took part in Jose Arguello’s “Harmonic Convergence�), his investigation into the machinery of spiritual deception and the creation of a counterfeit via the supplanting of psychic experiences for true spiritual realization, while rigorously researched and argued, is the opposite of academic: he is describing here, between the lines and sometimes openly, the struggle to rescue his own soul from the spell-binding allure of a diabolic “counter-tradition.�
As such, his testimony is of infinitely greater value than those Christian denunciations we are all familiar with. Nor is Upton presenting that rather sad spectacle of a soul burned by the Promethean fire, taking refuge in blind faith. His faith is anything but blind. It is his unflinching capacity to see, and gaze into, the abyss of our times (the system of Antichrist) that makes his descriptions of divine reality both rounded and grounded. His proximity to darkness gives substance to his faith, allowing it to manifest as works such as this.
A stand-alone book, and absolutely priceless for anyone who is ready to draw back the veil of these “end times," and contemplate the eternal presence behind them.
“Consequently a necessary step for most of us in the work of renouncing This World is to become aware of it as an engineered control system. Thus the act of investigating the structure and exposing the agendas of the New World Order, for those dedicated to the spiritual path and also called to this work, can be of direct service to the contemplative life. . . . If we can witness the darkness of This World with apatheia, with detachment and equanimity, then we will have accomplished the greater part of the work of ‘shadow-integration�; we will be led, God willing, to the point of supreme nausea where we can vomit the World, along with the Ego, its master and slave, out of our souls forever.� (p. 330)
What makes Upton’s work so valuable is that he is essentially mapping his own journey of realization in a way that is both personal and universal (it certainly matches my own path quite closely). As a former psychedelic user, Beat poet, Castaneda-follower, and even briefly a New Age teacher (he took part in Jose Arguello’s “Harmonic Convergence�), his investigation into the machinery of spiritual deception and the creation of a counterfeit via the supplanting of psychic experiences for true spiritual realization, while rigorously researched and argued, is the opposite of academic: he is describing here, between the lines and sometimes openly, the struggle to rescue his own soul from the spell-binding allure of a diabolic “counter-tradition.�
As such, his testimony is of infinitely greater value than those Christian denunciations we are all familiar with. Nor is Upton presenting that rather sad spectacle of a soul burned by the Promethean fire, taking refuge in blind faith. His faith is anything but blind. It is his unflinching capacity to see, and gaze into, the abyss of our times (the system of Antichrist) that makes his descriptions of divine reality both rounded and grounded. His proximity to darkness gives substance to his faith, allowing it to manifest as works such as this.
A stand-alone book, and absolutely priceless for anyone who is ready to draw back the veil of these “end times," and contemplate the eternal presence behind them.
April 30, 2015
This book is a wonderful follow-up to Charles Upton's larger work "The System of Antichrist" again, like his prior book I am reviewing this as a Traditional Catholic, albeit I am reviewing it as one who still considers himself a Catholic who goes to the diocesan Masses, which if one reads this book one may get the sense that it is totally and irredeemably compromised, which I would disagree with such a notion while being mindful of the state of the Church right now.
This book is a good rebuttal to many things that are becoming vogue in our culture even at this historical moment. He seems to give words to what I always intuited, that there is a vast unseen process which extends beyond any group [although certainly reinforced by those groups] culminating in the appearance of Antichrist, more than any other time prior this society is "making straight the way of [Antichrist]."
That he shows all the various aspects of society moving toward not only anti-tradition of the secularists and pseudo-tradition of the popular new age movement but in fact the emergence of the counter-tradition of the more Satanic and Luciferian "order" confirms what I have intuited for a while now, that the world is being prepared for a new religion, and shows all the avenues through which this being affected, culminating in The New World Order, citing articles and influential figures.
Despite the wonderful critique, one thing I still can't seem to perfectly conceive in my mind is how he can possibly say: (1) "God does not will their to be One Religion in the World" then quickly says, (2) "We should totally conform ourselves to a Revealed Tradition" but that means when say Jesus (who he recognizes as a legitimate figure of Revealed Tradition) proclaims in Sacred Scripture that, "There is to be One Sheepfold and One Shepard" [John 10:16], it almost begs the question as to what Mr. Upton would reply:
IF he says, "Jesus is speaking of the Perennial Tradition" then that would almost mean that Christianity does not have to be conformed to despite it being a Revealed Tradition (which would violate Jesus' own command to Spread the Gospel) BUT IF he says, "Jesus is speaking of what He founded, namely The Church" (since to say He did not found a Church, would violate that Tradition) then that means Jesus is God and what Jesus revealed is the Fullness of the Perennial Tradition in His Person, Life, Death, and Resurrection.
I gave the review 3-Stars, because I think Mr. Upton himself is still confused on things, but there were still points of helpful insight and orientation, for those of us who want to recognize the pattern leading both to the Rise of Antichrist as well as Apocalypse and so the great inversion of Truth and Love that is before us in our time.
*** To be sure, Mr. Upton's immersion in Sufism I think may give hope to him coming home back to Christianity since he still gives credit to the other Abrahamic Faiths and more importantly knows of their spiritual core. ***
This book is a good rebuttal to many things that are becoming vogue in our culture even at this historical moment. He seems to give words to what I always intuited, that there is a vast unseen process which extends beyond any group [although certainly reinforced by those groups] culminating in the appearance of Antichrist, more than any other time prior this society is "making straight the way of [Antichrist]."
That he shows all the various aspects of society moving toward not only anti-tradition of the secularists and pseudo-tradition of the popular new age movement but in fact the emergence of the counter-tradition of the more Satanic and Luciferian "order" confirms what I have intuited for a while now, that the world is being prepared for a new religion, and shows all the avenues through which this being affected, culminating in The New World Order, citing articles and influential figures.
Despite the wonderful critique, one thing I still can't seem to perfectly conceive in my mind is how he can possibly say: (1) "God does not will their to be One Religion in the World" then quickly says, (2) "We should totally conform ourselves to a Revealed Tradition" but that means when say Jesus (who he recognizes as a legitimate figure of Revealed Tradition) proclaims in Sacred Scripture that, "There is to be One Sheepfold and One Shepard" [John 10:16], it almost begs the question as to what Mr. Upton would reply:
IF he says, "Jesus is speaking of the Perennial Tradition" then that would almost mean that Christianity does not have to be conformed to despite it being a Revealed Tradition (which would violate Jesus' own command to Spread the Gospel) BUT IF he says, "Jesus is speaking of what He founded, namely The Church" (since to say He did not found a Church, would violate that Tradition) then that means Jesus is God and what Jesus revealed is the Fullness of the Perennial Tradition in His Person, Life, Death, and Resurrection.
I gave the review 3-Stars, because I think Mr. Upton himself is still confused on things, but there were still points of helpful insight and orientation, for those of us who want to recognize the pattern leading both to the Rise of Antichrist as well as Apocalypse and so the great inversion of Truth and Love that is before us in our time.
*** To be sure, Mr. Upton's immersion in Sufism I think may give hope to him coming home back to Christianity since he still gives credit to the other Abrahamic Faiths and more importantly knows of their spiritual core. ***
July 26, 2014
The section on UFO 'sightings' is very interesting.
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