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Trans. from the Russian original by M.Conserva
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The force of any state and any empire is based upon the preferential development of one of these
categories. Empires are either "thalassocratic", or "tellurocratics". The former imply the existence of a
mother country and colonies, the latter of a capital and provinces on "common land". In the case of
"thalassocracy" its territory is not unified into one land space - which creates an element of
discontinuity. The sea ? here lies both strength and weakness of " thalassocratic power ".
"Tellurocracy", vice-versa, has the quality of territorial continuity.
But geographical and cosmological logics would at once complicate the seemingly simple scheme of
this division: the pair "land?sea", by reciprocal superimposition of its elements, gives birth to the ideas
of " maritime land " and of "land water". The maritime land is the island, i.e. the basis of maritime
empire, the pole of thalassocracy. Land water or water within land are the rivers, which predetermine
the development of overland empires. Just on the river is located the city, that is the capital, the pole of
tellurocracy. This symmetry is symbolic, economic and geographical at the same time. It is important
to notice that the status of Island and Continent is defined not so much on the basis of their physical
magnitude, than on the basis of the peculiar typical consciousness of the population. So the geopolitics
of the US has an insular character, despite of the size of Northern America, while insular Japan
geopolitically represents an example of continental mentality, etc.
One more detail is relevant: historical thalassocracy is linked to the West and the Atlantic Ocean, while
tellurocracy to the East and the Eurasian continent. (The above mentioned example of Japan is
explained, thus, by the stronger "attractive" effect of Eurasia.)
Thalassocracy and Atlantism became synonyms long before colonial expansion of Great Britain or
Portuguese-Spanish conquests. Already since the beginning of sea migrations waves, the peoples of
West and their cultures began their Eastward movement on from the centres located on the Atlantic.
The Mediterranean also did rise from Gibraltar to the Near East, rather than the other way. And on the
contrary, excavations in Eastern Siberia and Mongolia prove that exactly here were the most ancient
centres of civilization ? that is, the central lands of the continent were the cradle of the Euroasian
mankind.
Symbolism of landscape
Besides these two global categories ? Land and Sea ?geopolitics operates also with more particular
definitions. Among thalassocratic realities, there is a differentiation between sea and oceanic
formations. So, for instance, the sea civilization of the Black Sea or Mediterranean Sea are rather
qualitatively different from the civilization of the oceans, i.e. insular powers and peoples dwelling on
the shores of the open ocean. More particular divisions exist also between river and lake civilizations,
linked to continents.
Tellurocracy too has its particular forms. So it is possible to distinguish a civilization of the Steppe and
a civilization of the Forest, a civilization of the Mountains and a civilization of the Plains, a civilization
of the Desert and a civilization of Ice. The varieties of landscape in sacred geography are understood
as symbolical complexes linked to the specificity of state, religious and ethical ideology of the different
peoples. And even in that case, when we deal with universalistic ecumenical religion, its concrete
embodying in such or such people, race, or state will be identically subject to adaptation according to
the local sacred-geographical context.
Desert and steppes represent the geopolitical microcosm of the nomads. Precisely in deserts and
steppes the tellurocratic tendency reaches its summit, as the"water" factor here is minimally present.
The empires of Desert and Steppe should logically be the geopolitical bridgehead of tellurocracy.
As an example of the empire of Steppe, one might consider the empire of Gengis Kahn, while a typical
example of the empire of Wilderness is the arabian khalifat, arisen under direct influence of the
nomads.
Mountains and the civilizations of mountains more often represent archaic, fragmentary. Mountain
countries not only are not sources of expansion; on the contrary, there are concentrated the victims of
the geopolitical expansion of other tellurocratic forces. No empire has its centre in mountain regions.
Hence the so often repeated motive of sacred geography: "mountains are populated by demons". On
the other hand, the idea of the conservation of the residuals of ancient races and civilizations on the
mountans is shown in the fact that precisely on the mountains the sacred centres of tradition are
placed. It is even possible to say that in tellurocracies a mountain corresponds to some spiritual power.
The logical combination of both concepts ? mountain as a hieratic image and plain asa regal image?
became the symbolism of the hill, i.e. a small or average height. The hill is a symbol of imperial might
raising above the secular level of the steppe, but not reaching the limit of supreme power (as it is in the
case of mountains). A hill is a dwelling place for a king, a count, an emperor, but not for the priest. All
capitals of large tellurocratic empires are placed on a hill or on hills (often on seven hills ? the number
of the planets; or on five ? thye number of elements, including ether; and so on).
The forest in sacred geography is close to the mountains in a definite sense. The symbolism of the tree
is related to the symbolism of the mountain (both the former and the latter designate the world axis).
Therefore in tellurocracies the forest also plays a peripheral function ? it, too, is the "place of the
priests" (druids, magi, hermits), but also at the same time the "place of demons", i.e. archaic residuals
from a vanished past. Neither the forest zone can be the centre of the overland empire.
The tundra represents the northern analogue to the steppe and the desert, although the cold climate
makes it much less significant from a geopolitical point of view. This "periphericity" reaches its apogee
with ices, which, similarly to the mountains, are deeply archaic zones. It is indicative that the eskimo
shamanic tradition implies departing alone among ices, where to the future shaman the world beyond
is opened out. Thus, ices are a hieratic zone, the threshold of a different world.
From these primary and most general characteristics of the geopolitical map, it is possible to define
the various regions of the planet according to their sacred quality. This method can also be applied to
the local features of the landscape at a level of single countries or even of single localities. It is also
possible to trace the likeness of ideologies and traditions of the most (apparently) different peoples, in
the event that the native born landscape is the same.
Firstly, the paleocontinent of North, Hyperborea, since many millennia already does not exist on a
physical level, remaining a spiritual reality, on which is directed the spiritual look of the intiated,
exacting the original Tradition.
Secondly, the ancient nordic race, the race of the "white teachers", coupled with the pole in the
primordial epoch, does not coincide at all with what is commonly agreed to call today the coupled with
white race", based only on physical characters, on the colour of the skin etc. Northern Tradition and
its original population, "nordic autochtones" since a long time do not represent any more a concrete
historical-geographical reality. By common judgement, even the last remains of this primordial culture
have disappeared from physical reality already some millennia ago.
Thus, North in Tradition is a meta-historical and meta-geographical reality. The same can be said also
about the "hyperborean race " ? a "race" not in the biological, but in pure spiritual, metaphysical
sense. (This theme of "metaphysical races" was in detail developed in the works of Julius Evola).
The continent of the South and the whole South of Tradition, too, since a long time ago do not exist any
more in the pure state, no lesser than its most ancient population. Somehow, the "South" from some
moment onwards became practically the whole planet, as the influence of the original polar initiatic
centre and its messengers on the world diminished. The modern races of the South represent a product
of multiple mixtures with the races of North, and the color of the skin for a long time already ceased to
be the distinctive sign of belonging to such or such "metaphysical race".
In other words, the modern geopolitical picture of the world has very little in commun with the
principial vision of the world in its supra-historical, meta-temporal cut. The continents and their
populations in our epoch have gone extremely far from those archetypes, which corresponded to them
in primordial times. Therefore between real continents and real races (the realities of modern
geopolitics), on the one hand, and meta-continents and meta-races (the realities of traditional sacred
geography), on the other hand, today there exist not just a simple discrepancy, but almost an inverse
correspondence.
The illusion of the "rich North"
Modern geopolitics uses the concept of "north" most frequently with the definition "rich" ? "the rich
North ", and also "the advanced North ". This connotates the whole aggregate of the western
civilization, giving its basic attention to the development of the material and economic side of life.
"Rich North " is rich not for being cleverer, or more intellectual, or more spiritual than the "South" but
because it builds its social system on the principle of maximizing the material which can be taken from
the social and natural potential, from the exploitation of human and natural resources. The racial
image of "Rich North " is linked to those peoples having white skin, and this feature lays at the roots of
the various versions, explicit or hidden, of "western racism" (in particular Anglo-Saxon). The success
of "rich North" in the material sphere was raised to a political and even "racial" principle in those
countries which were the avantgarde of industrial, technical and economic development ? i.e. England,
Holland, and later Germany and the US. In this case, material and quantitative welfare was equalled
to a qualitative criterion, and on this base the most ridiculous prejudices about "barbarism",
"primitiveness", "underdevelopment" and "untermenschlichkeit" of southern (i.e. not of belonging to
"rich North") peoples were developed. Such "economic racism " was especially clearly shown in the
Anglo-Saxon colonial conquests, and afterwards its embellished version was introduced in the most
rough and contradictory aspects of the national-socialist ideology. Thus, often Nazi ideologists simply
blended vague guesses about pure "spiritual nordism" and "spiritual arian race" with vulgar,
mercantilistic, biological racism of the English kind. (By the way, precisely this substitution of
categories of sacred geography with categories of material and technical development was also that
most negative side of national-socialism which led it, eventually, to its political, theoretical and even
military collapse). But even after the defeat of the Third Reich, this kind of a racism of the "rich North"
has not disappeared at all from political life. However its bearers became first of all the US and their
atlantic partners in Western Europe. Certainly, in the most recent mondialist doctrines of "rich North"
the question of biological and racial purity is not stressed, but nevertheless, in practice, in its relations
with the undeveloped and less developed countries of the Third world, the "rich North " also today
shows only "racist" haughtiness, typical both of the English colonialists and of the German national-
socialist orthodox followers of Rosenberg.
Actually, "rich North" geopolitically means those countries where forces directly opposite to Tradition
have won - forces of quantity, materialism, atheism, spiritual degradation and emotional degeneration.
" Rich North " means something radically distinct from "spiritual nordism", from "hyperborean spirit".
The substance of North in sacred geography is the primacy of spirit above substance, the definitive and
total victory of Light, Equity and Purity above the darkness of animal life, the arrogance of individual
passions and the mud of base egoism. "Rich North" mondialist geopolitics, on the contrary, means
exclusively material welfare, hedonism, consumer society, the unproblematic and artificial pseudo-
paradise of those whom Nietzsche called "the last men". Material progress of the technical civilization
was accompanied by a monstrous spiritual regress just of sacred culture, and consequently, from the
point of view of Tradition, the "wealth" of modern "advanced" North cannot serve as a criterion of
genuine superiority above material "poverty" and technical backwardness of modern "primitive South
".
Moreover, material "poverty" of the South quite often is conversely linked to the conservation in
southern regions of the genuinely sacred forms of civilization; this means that behind such "poverty" a
spiritual wealth is sometimes disguised. At least two sacred civilizations still exist today in the
Southern space, in spite of all attempts from "rich (and aggressive!) North" to impose on everyone its
own measure and path of development. These are Hinduist India and the Islamist world. As the Far
East tradition is concerned, there are various points of view: some see even under the layer of
"Marxist" and "Maoist" rethorics some traditional principles, which were always undiscussed for the
Chinese sacred civilization. Anyway, even those southern regions inhabited by peoples saving their
devotion to very ancient and almost forgotten sacred traditions, all the same in comparison with
atheized and utterly materialistic "rich North", exhibit "spiritual", "rigorous" and "normal" features -
whereas the "rich North" itself, from a spiritual point of view, is completely "abnormal" and
"pathological".
It could be said that the correlation between North and South in original times is polarly opposite to
their correlation in our epoch, as it is the South that today still preserves some links with the Tradition,
whereas the North has definitively lost them. Nevertheless this statement does not absolutely cover the
whole picture of reality, since the true Tradition cannot admit in relation to itself such humiliating
reference, as the practices of aggressive-atheistic " rich North " with the "Third world". The fact is that
Tradition is preserved in the South only in an inertial, fragmentary, partial way. It holds a passive
position and resists, only defending itself. Therefore the spiritual North does not fully transfer itself to
the South at the end of times - in the South there is only an accumulation and preservation of spiritual
impulses, never coupled with the sacred North. In line of principle, the active traditional initiative
cannot emanate from the South. And on the contrary, the mondialist "rich North" has managed so to
harden its pernicious effect on the planet due to the specificity of northern regions, predisposed to
activity. North was and remains the elective place of force, therefore true efficiency belongs to the
geopolitical initiatives coming from the North.
The "Poor South" possesses today all spiritual priority before the "rich North", but it thus cannot serve
as a serious alternative to the profane aggression of the "rich North", nor can offer the radical
geopolitical project capable to subvert the pathological picture of modern planetary space.
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