Bronze Age Mindset Read online

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  In Iliad you see the greatest warriors rise up to fight even the gods. When Diomedes is about to go on his great rampage, Athena the white-eyed appears to him and whispers in his ear. She reminds him of his father’s great feats and breathes strength into his chest: she tells him to go fearlessly into the throng of the enemy on his chariot and in this exalted condition she draws back from his eyes the veil that had previously hidden the gods. She tells him that if that harlot Aphrodite appears, he has the power to harm her. And Diomedes does this without any fear! Even the goddess of love is laid low before the aroused might of a warrior on rampage. Achilles too in his great moment chastises the river god and makes him submit. This reflects one great truth, that in this condition of aroused spirit the true man is given the gift of heightened perception and can see things that others can’t. This is what is meant by the fact that the genius sees this same world we do, but sees in it things that we can’t, much like we see things that dog or ant can’t. Indeed time itself entirely changes when the will is raised up to this height: the warrior in some way can be said to rise outside the stream of events in which we are held like prisoners. In this condition he appears magnified, anointed and others who are not privy to the same things begin to orbit around him physically and spiritually: in the Bible too you see in the middle of battle for Jerusalem, “the House of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord” before the many, who subject themselves in awe to this great gift. In same way in their moments of great glory Athena kindles on the neck and head and shoulders of the warriors a great fire that can be seen from far away. She does this for Diomedes and for Achilles as they let loose their strength on a wild rampage, a great bonfire explodes on their body and behind them. This is the irresistible power of charisma and strength that draws all to it like magic: for man this is no less true than it is for migratory birds on mission, for pack of wolves on the hunt, for hives of bees, in all cases the many begin to orbit around the anointed hegemon as if by magic. It’s a biological compulsion, and a great good. And you must understand one thing: the end of Achilles’ mission was the total destruction of the city of Troy, the fire melting the brick of its alleys, its men killed, its women and children sold into slavery. This last was held to be the right of conquerors throughout the history of the Greek world, or at least for its vital period of ascent. Thus this most humane and refined of ancient peoples found it absolutely necessary nevertheless to have this out for the wolfish and predatory instinct in man. War alone brought rejuvenation of their nature. When Alexander drags the body of the rulers of Tyre outside the city walls from his chariot, and circles around the city, he is copying what Achilles did to Hector when the city of Troy was annihilated. Nietzsche sees in this an excess, something unfortunate…but I tell you, he means something else. When city is destroyed its gods are destroyed: you must remember that each city had its tutelary gods and spirits for protection. The Romans, before they conquered a new city, promised the gods of that city that they would honor and respect them tenfold more than the inhabitants. When a city or culture is destroyed, gods are destroyed with it. The destruction of the cities in fire that the greatest warriors of antiquity took upon themselves was a form of divine warfare. And it was only possible because such men knew also how to listen to the voice of the gods, and allowed themselves to be entirely possessed by a divine madness. It imbued them with superhuman strength, and drew others into their designs by instinct. This abandon to nature and instinct—this is the Bronze Age way! And you can learn to cultivate this exalted psychosis inside you also.

  57

  I see no reason why, if there should be epidemics of all kinds of diseases, the same can’t also be true for what we call “mental disease.” And you see repetitions of this throughout history and even now: among primitives in Sudan, when they become possessed of fears that wandering Jews are spreading penis-modifying bananas, or that shaking hands can destroy your genitalia, or such things. This is funny but in all eruptions of this kind of superstition I see a divine significance and great potential. In Europe there used to be the mania called St. Vitus’ Dance, and in ancient Greece the cults of Dionysus spreading the madness of maenads and turning the women into hungry, cannibalistic sluts. I say this in “sex-positive” way! I believe any child born of such excesses is likely to be blessed, because here the genius of the species is allowed to make the choice without any interference. This is not endorsement of anything in our time: there is nothing like this, it’s just LARP’ing. You’ve been abandoned by the gods. Only a global orgy of fire will whet their appetites for return.

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  You make fun of “decadent” Roman Emperors? In the horror stories from Suetonius you have prototype of “monarchy gone wild,” of mad emperors who use position only to satisfy arcane and criminal lusts. I don’t write to defend such things, but the condemnation isn’t moral—how can it be, when my reaction at reading excesses of Caligula or Nero or Tiberius is to feel a great sense of loss, or envy at what they could do that I can’t? Caligula had the genius idea to form a long line of ships on the sea, put platforms on top of them, fill them with earth, so that he could fulfill a prophecy of walking on water between two points. He gathered the army on the seashore facing Britain and ordered them, instead of invading, to collect seashells. He then called this a great booty for the Roman People and the Senate and threw a few pennies at the soldiers saying “Go Happy! Go Rich!” He captured two Gauls but dressed them up in Ice-Nigger-Face to look like Teutons and then enacted an obviously transparent “hunt” to pretend he had captured them in front of the soldiers. Everyone laughed and rolled their eyes, for sure. But he was caught up in the story of his own godhood. At Rome he used to lock down the Colosseum during the hottest hours and withdraw the awnings so that the people would suffer in the heat and pregnant women wouldn’t be able to leave. Sometimes he replaced the regular gladiator shows with pathetic fights between cripples and deformed animals; he would lock down the granaries to let the people go hungry for no reason at all. He was the greatest troll ever. When the Jews of Alexandria came to complain about civil war simmering in that city, he ignored their pleas and asked them why they don’t eat pork. When you look at Elagabalus you see this tendency taken to its logical conclusion: this man was a trap-Emperor, and asked his doctors to give him a sex change operation. It is believed he was a devotee of Cybele, and like the insane priests of that cult…wanted to castrate himself. Instead of this, he became a prostitute inside the palace, and used to publicly give himself airs over how much he was making. Commodus became a gladiator and found great pride in his swordplay, although such things aren’t so strange to imagine in our time: and they are to be welcomed! Nero was a pioneer of gay marriage. The first time he did it as the groom, and the second as the bride: he made the old senators listen as he mimicked the sounds of a young wife getting deflowered behind the doors. Of all his exploits I found most fascinating that he put on the mask of a lion and, having tied up various men and women naked in his mansion on the island, came at them with the rage of a beast and in a frenzy bit at their bodies and genitals. I don’t celebrate any of this, but I think when in our age elites are accused of similar behavior…this isn’t right…I think we flatter ourselves. We want to think they’re a lot more interesting than they are…it’s easier to think we’re ruled by demons than by defectives who would normally be running a smoked-fish stand or running vodka parlors outside Minsk. We don’t want to admit that we’re as lame in vice and deviance as we are in greatness, and for the same reasons. You see these old wet rags of an “elite” getting arrested, and in almost every case it’s for something on the level of a Pee Wee monkey-show, self-exposure in a porn cinema, masturbating themselves in front of some frigid cinema whore with leatherface and bugged out eyes, exposing their weapons of mass destruction to a Dominican maid. It’s hard to understand what even goes into this kind of “decadence,” but it’s of a different kind from the excesses of the worst Roman Emperors, who,
even when they were trannies, seem more manly and brave than our perverts. I wonder if it’s not possible to think of history in entirely different way, I mean: all we think now is from point of view of the people, and the story goes about progress or regress with respect to how they fare; or at best how something like science or hygiene advances, or technology, or moral responsibility, or equality, or inequality, or anything else you want….advances or not. But history would look very different if pursued with eye of connoisseur for superior specimens, judging them as you would prized steers or stallions. In such case you would have to dismiss these kinds of freaks like the emperors I mentioned, and judge them defective…but for entirely different reasons. You would learn to see history from view of life and biology… as great bestiary…and learn what is necessary in our time also to make way for the long-lost tropics and jungle…the abode of the gods….that can return….and return……..

  59

  I always loved the statues of the kouroi. I can safely say that upon viewing such statue by myself for three hours (someone let me in to look alone in museum), I was able to ejaculate without touching myself. But I had no dirty or untoward thoughts the entire time. This experience made me wonder…if it is possible to ejaculate without touching yourself, is it possible also to will yourself to death just the same, without doing anything? The kouroi have long story behind them, you might have heard. At first these statues were copied from Egyptian models, but they became much more realistic in the hands of the craftsman of the Archaic Greeks, also much brawnier and more muscular. The pose is still stylized and the smile they have on their face is very enigmatic, almost like you think they could crush big stone on your head, or run iron blade through your sternum and have that stoney, autistic smile unchanged while looking you in the eye. Two brothers of this type had to carry their mother to a religious feast. It is story of Kleobis and Biton, twins. She couldn’t get there on her own, so they carried her on a kind of palanquin, rushing with great force up the steps to the temple. They presented her in time to the sacred procession, but both died from the great exertion. Herodotus says Solon told this story to Croesus of Lydia, who was one of the first self-made kings we know from history. Croesus took his state by force, with the help of a company of elite warriors. He was the one who made the first coins, to pay his mercs. He ruled outside all limits and pursued the way of power. In this he inspired many to similar actions. But Solon, the wise founding father of Athens you could say, a famous lawgiver, went to visit him. He asked Solon to tell him about people who lived a happy life and Solon told him this story of the brothers. The full story says that after the twins performed this great athletic feat and delivered their mother in time to the sacred feast, she asked the goddess Hera, to which she was dear, for a great reward. And the goddess gave this reward, that the twin sons would lie down in the temple for a deep sleep, and never awake. This is idea of a Greek…. of a happy life. This story confused Croesus the king, and it probably confuses you. It’s strange to see how far the Greeks took aesthetic understanding of life and the world. There is no moral lesson in this story at all. Any moral lesson that you could think of, for example of duty to parents or to tradition, could have been made in different way. What’s unusual here is the ending. There is just biology: it is best for the end and the acme to coincide. A beautiful death at the right time is the only key to understanding a life, its only hidden “meaning.” It is a beautiful death to die after accomplishing a great feat for the glory of one’s city, family and for the gods, but it’s greater still to die in one’s prime, at the height of your powers and at the acme of their discharge. A beautiful death in youth is a great thing, to leave behind a beautiful body, and the best study of this pursuit you find in the novels of Mishima, a real connoisseur.

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  The most glamorous Christian prince for me was always young Conradin, King of the Romans and King of Jerusalem. He was unjustly killed in Italy by usurper Charles of Anjou with the contrivance of a corrupt Pope. He came from an illustrious family. His grandfather was the emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen, called Stupor Mundi and celebrated by Nietzsche. His beauty was said to be resplendent, like that of his half-brother Manfred who was holding much of Italy by force of charisma and arms while Conradin was still a small boy. Upon reaching age at thirteen or fourteen, Conradin embarked with his few but powerful knights southward to reclaim his rightful throne in Rome. He defeated the usurper and then entered the city. Riding at the head of his column of knights in all their full armor, with the imperial banners raised high—this was a glorious day, all the people came to the streets to welcome their beloved liberator and showered the procession with many flowers. The outpouring of love for this boy was like something that hadn’t been seen since the age of the Empire, and this alarmed the Pope and all the sclerotic prelates as much as this boy’s grandfather had, if not more. Conradin was just thirteen or fourteen, but he refused all orders to wait and never listened to the timid counsels of his advisors who tried to hold him back from his acme. He entered Rome as world-conqueror. Thereafter came a series of disasters: his army lost a great battle in the south, despite a successful first charge, and mostly through the inadequacy of some of his auxiliaries. He was captured by treachery and then Charles of Anjou, with the help of corrupt jurists, found a legal pretext to put him on trial and behead him and a friend. You might think this is very bad, and certainly it would have been better to die in the middle of battle, but much can be excused by his youth. And it must be said that he never compromised or begged for his life. His execution was so absurd and unjust that it permanently discredited Charles of Anjou, the usurper. It discredited too this kind of Papal “legalism” that must sound very familiar to you now. Still more so, it permanently discredited the aggressive Papacy that promoted a man the people of Sicily and Italy—as well as most of the German states—viewed as an arrogant, nearly-autistic, and unjust upstart. This Charles was ever driven in his life by the hatred that came from being slighted in his youth by his mother and other relatives. He was a man driven by a sclerotic lust for power and crude ambitions, where Conradin was carried by the native charisma common in his family, by his beauty, his careless courage. He was riding to seat of world-ruler purely through naïve trust in his own glamor. Know that despite all force and treachery and contrivance, all public sanctions and honors, the people will not be fooled: they know the real man of power, and can tell the difference from a deformed usurper. Charles’ execution of Conradin was lamented by all Germany and much of Italy. Now the robots who run our world also want to be loved or feared, and are trembling because the people don’t respect them. They too, the nations of our time, seek the return of youth, of a Conradin. It seemed to the peoples of that time a story of the promise of youth, the beauty and purity of its intentions, extirpated by the old and ugly. So that in the end the memory of the young prince was victorious. Not long after this the peoples of Sicily conspired with the House of Aragon, ruled by relatives of Conradin, and broke the power of Charles in a revolt. This was the end of idea of “universal monarchy” through the Papacy…and this was the beginning of the national consciousness in Europe. The memory of Conradin was prized as the promise of beauty and youth, memorialized in epics and poetry, that rejuvenated the peoples of Europe and awoke them. Though he died without achieving his goal, he died as a martyr for Europe against Asia, and inspired the birth of the new state—the springboard of world conquest that was soon to come in the age of exploration and colonization. Christianity is a versatile faith, capable of many interpretations. I believe Conradin was the most Christian prince but also might as well have been the renewed avatar of Apollo in Europe, recalling very old memories. It was the spirit of fire and youth renewing the peoples through its magnetic power and then through the sacrifice of its blood. In moments of torpor we can always return to this spirit of the ancient Greeks as a tonic.