Dugin's Lectures

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1. Ontology and anthropology of the theater - intro lecture (part 1)

   

   Alexander Dugin at Moscow Art Theatre Dubbing by Multipolar Paideuma

   Transcript:

   Today we are starting a course called “Ontology and Anthropology of the theater”. This course will be divided into three parts. We’ll talk about these three parts today, about each of them, one third of the time allotted to us, approximately corresponding to an academic double class.

   In the beginning we will talk about the ontology of the theater. Ontology is the study of being. So, in the ontology of the theater, we will consider how the theater relates to such a major philosophical category as being. That is, if Martin Heidegger’s main work is “Sein und Zeit”: Sein – being and Zeit – time, “Being and time”. This is the main philosophical work of the XX century and perhaps one of the most important in the whole history of philosophy. Our course is dedicated to “Sein und Theater”, that is “Being and Theater”. So, theater will be for us the same problematical category as "being" for Heidegger. I would ask you in this regard to be rather concentrated, because the very concept of the course or the theme “Anthropology of the theater” is not so clear, but we will comprehend the dark by something even darker – obscurus per obscurium – this is how any hermeneutics act, because, according to Schleiermacher and Dilthey, we cannot know the whole, therefore we cannot study parts; we cannot know the parts until we know the whole. We have only one thing left: to study the whole and the parts in parallel, going round in circles around the considered problem.

   The same thing with being. We can walk around it and try to discover the ontology, that is, the study of being, and every time we say: “This is being, here it is – the Being, that’s being, this is, and this is not”, we are always talking about something particular, as if we understood what "is" means. If we start conversely: “There is pure being, everything has come out of it” - it also seems to us there, as if we understand what “pure being” is, although we deal only with parts. Accordingly, being is a problem. And in the ontology of the theater we will touch upon this issue.

   In the same way (but here is the most interesting), okay with being – it’s however philosophy, but it seems that we know what theater is. Here is the theater, the Moscow Art Theater. As Heidegger's Dasein, this-being, this-theater – Da-theater, that is, here it is. But, in fact, this is not right. And as Dasein is problematic, so is the theater. Accordingly, what theater is – we, frankly, do not know either. It’s better to agree with me right away that we don’t know, then everything will be more interesting. Who believes that he knows exactly what theater is – well, it certainly will be necessary to dispel a persistent delusion. Therefore, admit, agree, as a hypothesis, that we do not know what theater is. At least me. We will understand this together with you.

   What about anthropology? Anthropology is the study of humans. The anthropology of the theater suggests how theatrical action, theatrical practice, theatrical theory, how the theater as a whole relates to human, what role a human plays in the theater, who is the actor and how he was called in different cultures and what his place is; who is the stage director, who is the screenwriter and who is the spectator. Because if we do not yet fully know what theater is, respectively, we do not know its humanistic, human filling and its parts. This is the second part of our course.

   And the third part of our course is desacralization and resacralization of the theater. This, in essence, is about the history of the theater, which begins with sacredness, that is, with sacred cults. The theater (ancient theater) is fundamentally sacred, it develops from the mysteries (we will also talk about that, what is the mystery). Gradually, it is becoming more and more desacralized. And at the end of the course we will approach the most important problem – is it possible to return to the sacred roots of the theater? That is, is it possible to save the theater from the history of the theater, because the history of the theater moves in the opposite direction from its original meaning. That is, we have a drama, there is a kind of intrigue in this course, there is a certain detective story. Therefore, instead of the banal story about something we all know, I will try to turn this course into the opening of more and more new horizons that we will explore with you.

   Today I will give a brief summary of the entire course, about all these series, so I will be very brief. I won’t be able to explain, argue, give a sufficient number of examples. This is just a presentation of the course.

   Accordingly, the first part is ontology, ontology of the theater. From the very beginning, attention must be paid to etymology. Here we say the word "theater", but since it is not native in our speech, then we immediately, I would say, rob ourselves. Because we use the word of another language, where it has a specific meaning.

   Like all  Russian (Slavic) roots, but they are clear for us. We say [человеколюбие] (subtitle: человеколюбие (Russian) – philanthropy, humanitarianism), for example - it is [человек] (subtitle: человек (Russian) – human, ἄνθρωπος) (we know what it means) and [любие] – love (subtitle: любить (Russian) – to love, φιλέω).

   [Человеколюбие] (subtitle: человеко + любие – phil+anthropy) is all transparent. But, for example, if we transcribe this term to German or Greek, people may use it but its meaning will escape from those who don’t know, for whom these words, these roots are alien.

   So, [театр] "theater" is formed from the Greek word "θεάομαι", that is "to contemplate." Hence the concept of "sight". The most accurate Russian analogue of the concept “theater” is [зрелище] “sight” (from the word [зреть], [зрение], [наблюдение] (subtitle: зреть – to behold, зрение – eyesight, наблюдение – observation, созерцать – contemplate, видение – vision), because “θεάομαι” means precisely [зреть], [созерцать], [со-зерцать], [зрение], [видение]. On the one hand, and, for example, the old forgotten word [позорище] "stigma", "shame" (subtitle: позорище – stigma, shame, disgrace.

   [Позорище] is an exposure to view, for contemplation. This old-Russian, old- Slavonic word [позорище] means that someone subjected to shameful punishment, disgrace, exhibited in the center of the city or village in sleazy appearance, tormented etc. In general, this exhibition of disgrace is closely connected with the theater, with the spectacle, with sight. Another word that is derived from the same Greek root "theaomai" is "theoria" - that is theory. In fact, this is not just harmony, it is a unity of understanding.

   Why - I will explain now. Theory ("theoria" in Greek) - means the same contemplation, the same sight, the same spectacle. Therefore, in fact, “theory” and “theater” are very close things. In both “theater” and “theory” we contemplate so we are implementing the “theaomai” act - we see, we look. “Well, why,” you say, “what does the theater have to do (when the actors portray something on the stage and the others laugh or cry) with a philosopher or a scientist who makes up some abstract, theoretical constructions?” It is very important to pay attention to the hierarchy of sensory organs with which the ancient Greeks dealt, with whom philosophy was born, and almost simultaneously – theater. Namely theater and philosophy are the same age. In ancient Greece, they appear at about the same time. Full-fledged philosophy and theoria, as the main speculation, the main method of philosophy and - theater (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and the others (classical theater). This is approximately the same historical cycle.

   So, "theoria", which is the basis of philosophy, and "contemplation" are associated with the theater. So, it is very interesting, why the highest peak of philosophy as contemplation, speculation is associated with the theater? And this, in its turn, has a very deep idea. Firstly, Aristotle said that the sense organs have a hierarchy. C'est-а-dire, some sensations are more noble than the others.

   Those that are more noble are more relevant to being (and now we are approaching the ontology of the theater). And those that are less noble are further away from being and from substance, and more and more material.

   There are 5 sensory organs (at least the Greeks scaled this way, made such assemblage if we use Deleuze’s term). The supreme sensory organ was sight. Why (from Aristotle's point of view)? Because we see lightning at first, and then we only hear the thunder. That which is seen at the longest distance, that which is seized faster, is closer to the world of the gods, swift and light.

   And what we hear later, what we perceive closer to our body relates to the animal world, to stones, to vegetative and mineral roots of being. Accordingly, being in its pure, divine form is associated with vision. And the hierarchy of feelings goes like this: first comes vision (according to Aristotle), then there is hearing (because we hear thunder secondarily), then comes the sense of smell (the smell of the sacrificial fire), by the way, the smoke of the sacrificial fire is the basis of the Greek concept of “God”, “θεός.” [theos] This has nothing to do with (just a consonance) with “theaomai”, it’s not about eyesight, but it’s about inhaling the aroma of the sacrificial animal, “θεός” [theos] - that is, God is revealed to us on the other side of the fire of fire, smoke comes from him, and God, who tastes this smoke, is there, in open space, on the other side of the smoke, on that side that is directed to him). This is the third feeling. The fourth feeling is the tactile feeling.

   We perceive a tactile touch only when the source of this is in close proximity to us, and we can smell the smell in advance. And last, the basest sense is taste. Look, you can already see how the hierarchy is turned upside down. After all, we basically start with whether it is tasty or not, aftertaste, then tactile feeling, then smells, lotions, perfumes. And we leave for the last turn what we hear and what we see.

   The ancient Greeks had the opposite order. And here a very interesting point arises: how is this hierarchy of the sensory world (and the sensual world is called “aesthetics” in Greek). What is αἴσθησις [         aesthesis]? These are feelings. Actually, aesthetics is a concept about the sensory world, about it organization). And so, aesthetic organization of the sensory world is built on this hierarchical vertical. And here is the most interesting. Which of these feelings, of these sense organs is more connected with being, more connected with what truly exists? Here, the hierarchy of these feelings clearly indicates that above all exists what we see. Secondly, what we hear. Thirdly - what we smell. Fourthly – what touches us. And only fifthly – what we swallow and say, what is inside us. And this means that the taste is less than a touch, the smell is more than a touch (at the next level). Sound is even more (has more being). And the highest being is sight.

   This optic reveals what theoria, speculation, and contemplation actually are. At root, this is the relation to being. That is, through theoria, through contemplation, through emphasizing our ability to see being, we come closer to its essence.

   Aristotle limits his sensory world hierarchy on this; thereby he completes the review of aesthetic structures that are associated not only with aesthetics, but also with philosophy, with ontology, with gnoseology.

   But Plato (the teacher of Aristotle), depicts an even more complete, finally clear picture. His ideas are endowed with maximum being. Ideas are some disembodied material essences, which are examples of all things in our world (aesthetic world), corporeal, sensual world. This is the main ​​Plato’s message – the doctrine of ideas. Ideas exist forever, they are patterns, they are projected into the world of becoming and give rise to all sorts of things that are temporary and which are subject to the law of birth and downfall, death. And ideas exist eternally. But what does theory have to do with it? Here we turn again to ideology. For us, “idea” is a word of foreign language. We never think what it means. Or think, but rarely. But in fact, an idea is a passive participle from the same verb idein - to see, that is, the same meaning as “theaomai”. That is, ideas are what we see. And that’s it. From this it is clear that if what we see exists; what we hear exists less; the fact that we smell is even less; what we feel is even less; and what we feel inside (taste) exists to an even lesser extent - here we understand how the epistemological and ontological hierarchy are built.

   Because ideas (according to Plato) are what is. These are not the thoughts of a person in the head, this is what always exist. Thoughts come and go. Or don’t come. But anyway for Plato, ideas are not human thoughts, but what a thinking person is able to contemplate at the very peak of being. This is not an ordinary vision, but a kind of special vision. In the Eleusinian Mysteries, it is embraced by the concept of “epoptia”, another term associated with vision.

   Optia (epoptia) - when the gaze drifts deep into being, at the being itself, to the divine eternal sphere of light – then a certain discovery of the very essence of what there is arises. Only through this concentrated exclusive intense vision we come into contact with being. Being and vision are inextricably linked. Further we are talking about the hierarchy of vision. And here Plotinus helps us. Because he believes that there is correct vision, and there is incorrect vision. Correct vision is vision with closed eyes, because what to look at in this world? - This world only confuses us.

   Therefore, vision is divided into profanic (false vision, but still more noble than other senses) and true vision that occurs with closed eyes. What does it mean - with closed eyes? It means that our gaze should be immersed in ourselves, in our immortal soul, in our archetype, in the idea of ​​ourselves. And in this contemplation of gaze shift (but of the gaze, and not of another sense) inward, we overcome the boundaries of corporal, aesthetic vision and go on to speculation, to a special form of perception of being, which is associated with speculation, with the vision of the mind, with smart vision (subtitle: умозрение – Rus. speculation, formed from 2 words – ум (mind) + зрение (vision).

   And the moment of epoptia in the mysteries is when the deity is revealed to mysts/ neophytes who undergo this initiation. This is the moment of epoptia, again, of vision, sight, discovery of some kind of not ordinary object, but a certain scene, situation, or phenomenon, which is fundamentally there. In fact, the goal of philosophy is the contemplation of being. But contemplation of being in its pure form is extremely difficult, because in order to see being in its pure form, it is necessary to cross the boundaries of those spaces, those sections of reality, where being is scattered in many objects. This is the aspiration for unity. Such an internal movement to consciousness in order to see the absent, transcendental One - this is the true contemplation and true goal of philosophy.

   How does this relate to the theater? There is a direct connection. Theater is the place where philosophical theory is realized. Namely, “theater”, “theatron” (in Greek) is a place of philosophy, this is a place of contemplation. And we would hardly come to the theater (ok, as for us, we might come), but hardly the ancient Greeks would have come to the theater if they had seen there something ordinary, something banal, something trivial, that is everywhere. They came there for the sight. And the sight, the source of the sight, the meaning of the sight is the contemplation of being. Therefore, the ancient Greeks came to the theater to contemplate being. Hence, theater is something philosophical; it is the field of speculation. And it is in this sense (later, in the Renaissance and at Petronius) that we meet such definitions as “Mundus universus exercet histrioniam” (this is in Latin), i.e. the universal world, everything in the world is a game of actors. So this phrase by Petronius is translated, and then the well-known Shakespearean phrase from "The Merchant of Venice", that "all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players". Why is that so? Where does this metaphor come from? Why was Shakespeare’s theater called the Globe? Just because it’s actually a theater, any theater is a globe or “mundus”. It is the World, it is the "universus". This universus, of course, would never fit into any walls if it were a physical, plural world.

   This is the paradigm of the world; it is his idea of ​​ world that is embedded in the theater. Hence its sacred meaning: we bring the entirety of being into one small stage, into one limited amount of time. It is a contraction of being to its concentrated expression.

   Naturally, this requires a completely unique state. The theater in its origins was a sacrament, the sacrament of discovering the contemplation of idea. And, accordingly, it was the Globe, it was the World, a more real one than the external. It seems to us that theater is a reflection of life. Nothing of the kind, the theater never served as a reflection of life, the world, didn’t show ordinary people, what was happening to them; the theater never was a mirror. The theater was an emanating beam.

   The theater created and made the World. The theater laid the content in life, in history, in politics, in culture. The theater is the place of cosmogony, when the small germ of the World only begins to reveal its fullness at its first stages. In other words, the theater is an absolutely philosophical phenomenon, a sacred phenomenon, where the whole Universe is reduced to this building, albeit a large one (amphitheater). The whole universe is packed into theater, and this is possible if we understand the theater as an idea (as a place of contemplating ideas, as a spectacle). That is, the ontology of the theater is that the theater is the territory of being. Not a narrative of something, but the territory of being in itself, in a condensed, concentrated form. The theater not only helps to close our eyes and look inside ourselves, but the theater makes us look inside ourselves. Because what happens on the stage, the right plays of the right theater, it’s happening inside our minds. This is our path to ourselves, to our origins. This World is pulled together into the theater and the being is gathered into our inner contemplation. Therefore, we didn’t come here to look outside (this can be done without theater). We come to the theater to glance inward. This is a place of insight, a place of introspection, a collective, well-organized, but introspection.

   Well, and accordingly, we can say that the theater reproduces the world also in the simplest, most straightforward sense. The stage on which the action is played is the earth, and the earth is not only a stand for the human, or for houses, or for pets, the earth is such a living thing, it is a deity in Greece, therefore the scene (or podium) is sacred as sacred is the land. The sky, from which the figure of the deity often descends, deus ex machina (in contemporary theater this metaphor is largely used), is actually the place of ideas, the place of the upper layers of being, to which we rise. And the action itself takes place between heaven and earth. They are extremely important in the theater.

   These are not just utility tools. Each history of the stage, decoration, organization of theatrical space behind the stage, around the stage, on stage is of tremendous importance, since it reflects the structure of the world.

   But not only reflects. It reflects, looking not at the world, but looking at the origins of the world. Thus, the theatrical scenery that we see (these columns made of papier-mâché, some pictures of flat houses, with open windows) are stage-properties and we see that this is not real. Now, if we understand what theater is, we will understand that these papier-mâché columns, these artificial stones, these flat decorations are more alive than a real house.

   That, in the end, a real house (with its walls, with its huge number of workers, costs, constantly breaking pipes, with its chaos and baseness, in which there’s nothing to look at, it is created for some of the lowest bodily needs. But the theatrical sketch of the windows, this flat picture gives us a map of being. It's a panhouse, the archetype of the house that is so lightly sketched here on the stage. Why do we need to see these real columns? After all, the task is not to feel them, to nibble these columns. We are not dogs (we will have another course dedicated to pets). There is still no theater for dogs, cats (although, as I know, there are already attempts to stage such performances for animals). But still we are humans, and therefore we don’t come to nibble and to try theatrical scenery for strength and vividness. It is enough for us to see them. And, having seen them, we will understand the existence of the column, we will understand the existence of the window, we will understand the existence of the house, the wall, the car, the bicycle – whatever we notice (even though it will be one gesture, one element) – contemplating it, we see through some fractal analogue (in modern theater) the idea that stands behind it.

   Therefore, this theater props are more real than the objects of our life. This is precisely what follows from the ontology of the theater that we are talking about.

   Another very important point is the moment of epoptia in the Eleusinian mysteries, the moment of the revelation of the highest sacrament, which was practically forbidden to communicate to other Greeks who passed this initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries. It happened in crypts, usually at night and in craters. That is, in order to pass the initiation, it was necessary to go down deep into the earth, because there, away from views of the crowd, from the profanic, from the day, the true ideas of being are sleeping. In fact, this descent into the earth, deep, deep into mystery, is symmetrical to the ascent (as described by Plato in «Phaedrus») of the chariot of the Gods to contemplate eternal existence beyond the bounds of heaven. This is the achievement of two polar points, two solstices, summer and winter – both of these points are the moments of entry into the mystery. And one of the stable elements of theatrical architecture is the organization of the amphitheater on the principle of concentric descending circles. What does this resemble? Well, if we take Dante, then this obviously looks like hell. But don’t be so afraid right away. Just hell is hell. And, accordingly, the theater, the theater hall imitates the dedicatory space of the descent into the territory of the Mysteries, that is, the descent to the center of hell. The scene, the actor, the action – the objects of our contemplation, "theaomai", "theater" – belong to the center of hell. It is to him, to the center of hell, that the fullness of being is gathered together. And, accordingly, if we look at the architecture itself (the Moscow Art Theater or any other ancient theater), we will see these concentric circles, which gradually, gradually come down.

   Therefore, in fact, the stalls are not the best places, the best places are the loge (c’est a dire, still a little higher). Parterre is a certain bottom of hell. Accordingly, the gallery is much more attractive, it was there that the royal loges or Politbureau members loges were organized (as in the Moscow Art Theater there is a remarquable historical place where Brezhnev was sitting, not in the stalls, but in the loge). And the kings and noble people also sat in the box. This is a descent, but still a certain distance from the center of hell remains.

   So, if we talk about the ontology of the theater – what we come to is that in the first part of our course we will successively examine and disassemble this connection between theater and being. Accordingly, we can speak in detail about, let’s say, the ontology of scenery, the ontology of the stage, theatrical architecture, the spectacle itself, in other words, about the status of contemplation. People who go to the theater come for initiation into the mystery. It may not be the mystery itself, but it is some analogue of it, an indirect analogue.

   Perhaps one can imagine that the theater was a preparatory part for the mystery. If you went to Greece (Ancient Greece), you may have noticed the following pattern (even in we consider Delphi): there are sanctuaries, there is a theater and there is a stadium. And they were built, as a rule, together. The sacred temple for sacrifices, the theater and the stadium - were the three elements where Greece was created, where Greek philosophy was created, where all the citizens, real, aristocratic citizens of the Greek Polis, came to be a people.

2. Dugin’s Expertise: The Inverted World on the Threshold of Demonic Reality

   

   Dugin’s Expertise about Reza Negarestani, demons, Dark enlightment and Nick Land

3. Psychology of superstrong personality

   

   Scientific-practical seminar on the topic: "Psychology of super-strong personality"

   The general sense is as follows: the fact is that in the conditions of modern reality there are two fundamental practical problems that are faced people, especially young people. One practical problem is related to the fact that there is a complete erosion of the anthropological archetype.

   Accordingly, the young man who enters into life and who is looking for some determinancy does not find it. As sample paradigm of life he is offered something so fuzzy, counter-intuitive, non-fixed, and doesn’t get any dimension to improve himself. Our society under threat in the near future of total pubertal schizophrenia.

   The following happens: at the moment when a person moves from the child’s state to the adult’s state, there are two different worlds, completely finished and integral, with their own system of coordinates, with their own model. There is some breakpoint between these states, which was replenished in traditional societies with an act of initiation. Moving in the natural state, the child does not become an adult, by itself, without the intervention of special rituals and special operations. If a child does not receive a certain impulse in the age from 13 to 22 years old, if no event takes place with him, he does not become an adult. He continues to be an adult child. This condition is a dead end. Further, he accumulates a certain dissonance between his childish state of the child’s subconsciousness and the criteria of the social environment, which leads to neuroses, consists of a bunch of psychiatric diseases of people.

   Everyone understands this perfectly in the world of tradition, and within the framework of psychological development there is an insurmountable gap between the state of the child and the state of the adult, i.e. pubertal initiation. In order to translate the state of the child into an adult state, it must be subjected to a certain stress. At this point, the child gets the image of the model to which he should strive. From a social point of view, a child is an object of society, but as an adult it must be a subject. The transition from the object to the subject does not occur itself. Otherwise, if the child does not undergo pubertal initiations, he remains an object for life, which is manipulated by external models. He does not acquire the status of a subject.

   If there is a place for initiations, then objectivity is minimized or nullified, and subjectivity is affirmed. As a rule, in this state a person is given a name in society. As a rule, this is accompanied by trauma, for example, one’s tooth is knocked out, an incision is made, a tattoo, ears are pierced, sometimes very cruelly.

   Practically all peoples had male puberal initiations, and many of them had also female ones, which were more archaic [ɑː'keɪɪk], since in patriarchal [peɪtrɪ'ɑːk(ə)l] cultures it was believed that a woman doesn’t have to be a full-fledged subject of society, she can remain an object. Historically, many societies had kept some rudiments of female initiations promoting the woman-child to the state of an adult woman. There are elements of this in different cultures, but the more archaic the society is, the stronger the tradition of puberal initiations remains. This is the general model, which is still actual.

   In the state of initiation, a certain archetypical image is given to a person, that is, what he must be like as a subject. He says goodbye to the object state of a child and gets acquainted with the subject state of an adult. Here he is given the image of the archetype, that requires a change of name, a certain trauma,  the rupture of navel cord that connects him to the Great Mother, with whom he breaks. At this moment, the child leaves the care of mütter Recht, the maternal right, and is put out to open sea. From now on he is alone. This, of course, is a complex multidimensional period. For example, during military service, hazing is one of the elements of this initiation, when a soldier is beaten. In the end, he is told: be patient, in a year you will become a normal person. He is given a positive image of the "grandfather", independent, having the powers of a sergeant. Even such simplified models contain these elements.

   In traditional society, everything is crystal clear: there are states of objectness, of subjectness. What is interesting, anthropologist Margaret Mid says that children of primitive tribes do not know myths, they are full of bastards, they have no imagination, they have no fairy tales, their jokes are rude and their interests are deeply material, they are avid bastards, similar to adults in European society. And when they are initiated, they get acquainted with myths, heroes, other worlds, spirits that descend on them, various mysterious things, and since then children in traditional society become full-fledged dreamers, look at the stars and become romantics. They say goodbye to vulgarity and animal primitiveness that were peculiar to them and become Panarels,  looking for invisible and subtle worlds.

   This is very interesting, because our society has an absolutely opposite model. In the state of tradition everything was clear, and in this pubertal moment a person was assigned a caste and was given an image of what it should be, what qualities to possess, etc.

   In the epoch ['iːpɔk] of modernity, initiation as a full-fledged reality was canceled, but its substitutes remained when the boss for example summoned a person and told it: this is Pavel Korchagin, the perfect archetype of a communist, you must be like him, there is also Joseph Stalin - the Higher-Self.

   Or, for example, the image of a liberal capitalist businessman. When an American child in  modernity was in puberty, his parents made him resettle. By the way, many initiatory rituals have been preserved in schools, right up to the youth Freemasonry ['meɪs(ə)nrɪ] in American schools, in particular, the “Skull and Bones” society, to which all modern US presidents belonged, and they became acquainted with children's puberal youth masonry in college.

   Even an ordinary merchant in the epoch of modernity was given a certain ideal: now you have to trade well, be consistent, firm, so this is the image of man.

   In Premodern there was a clear initiation, in the modern it was more simplified, and in post-modern world it completely disappears. In modernity there is no image of an “adult”, in other words, the image of the social subject is never given. Here arises the idea of ​​“humanism”, the idea of ​​ending unofficial relations in the army, the fashion for youthfulness, when European grandfathers try to resemble teenagers.

   Now a young man has no image of an adult and there is not even a hint of the equivalent of initiation. This is a psychological problem that absolutely everyone faces, so today in our society there are more and more “eternal children”. In human society, nothing happens by itself, there is no such process of growing up as, for example, animals have. A small puppy becomes an adult dog in a natural way. But if you don’t initiate a small human cub into certain rituals, if you do not form a social image of an adult, it will never become an adult, because a human is not an animal, because man is a social being who lives in a social matrix and obeys social laws.

   The absence of pubertal initiation, erasing its last signs in the postmodern paradigm disqualifies, does not allow the young man or girl to become adults. They remain children, doomed to be so in the age of 80, and 70, and 60 and never know what the subject archetype is.

   This is a very concrete thing, and now the psychology of continual education is emerging. In traditional society, education was given once and forever: a person was taught, a tooth was knocked out - and he was ready for life. A more difficult situation was with education in modernity, but now it has become permanent, there is never a feeling of an end, that we know all, and we became adults, because there is no transition to adulthood.

   - Excuse me, is it bad, because education gives rise to personal development?

   - That’s right, to eternal development, but with continual education it is not the personality that develops, but a constant state of preparation for something that is to come is maintained. Continual education means that we are preparing for something that never comes. Then it turns out that education leads us only to one thing - to our own death, and to nothing else.

   The most important thing is that in such a state, a person does not go beyond the edge of an object, he becomes an absolute object for manipulation, since the real objectiveness in the human state is given in childhood - the child can be easily tricked, you can spoon-feed him - it can be manipulated almost as property. It is no coincidence that in Roman law, women and children were regarded as private property of a man, and a man was distinguished in brightly patriarchal Roman society by the presence of initiation, which even the lowest castes had.

   Now there is no such transition, and there is a child and a grown-up child, but an adult does not exist, we throw it away, hence our entertainment culture and many other elements.

   Our most important task is to make the transition from child to adult, accordingly, our structure should be initiatory in psychological, cultural, organizational aspects, we should complement the absent element of taking responsibility that is transforming object in the subject. In fact, this is the main task of psychology.

   Now notice that there are two trends in society: the non-maturing child and the child maturing through initiation process, a child who ceases to be a child. These two types diverge in different interesting trajectories: the first type also develops, it also has its own logic and it becomes the most frequent, and practically, dominant anthropological essence of the postmodern era, or the post-anthropological essence.

   The second type, which follows the path of the restored initiatic break, differentiates itself from the main mass. And here it is necessary to pay attention to this very clearly. Here is the real moment of differentiation: what Julius Evola wrote about - homo differentiato.

   The Eurasian Youth Union sets itself a very specific psychological and social task - to prepare the personalities that we take in the youth state, since it is difficult to work with “older” adolescents and to catch the energy of people who will become in 5-7 years irreversibly infantile adults if we do not attract them.

   - Sorry, maybe it is a wrong question, but isn't this a kind of exploitation of youth energy?

   - That's right, emancipatory exploitation. Youth energy is exploited here by the system. The system exploits through entertainment and manipulation of young people who do not go into an adult state, like plankton and object. The system exploits the absence of initiation so that the energy that was supposed to be concentrated on the transition from one phase state to another does not go anywhere and spreads. This is such an eternal inorganic “neither fish nor flesh”, however, the biological and social movement creates additional energies that “scatter like a fan” by going to concerts, entertainment, and participation in some activities organized by the system. But those who engage in this process don’t have even a remote chance to become a subject, i.e. be a full party in this system. Here there is a division into people-objects and people-subjects.

   The theme of the pubertal initiation as a point of discontinuity is becoming non-mainstream and revolutionary. The most important thing is that now in the postmodern era, the Eurasian Youth Union has the task of becoming adults according to the classical fundamental models. You will not become them on your own. In our conditions, the mainstream of our culture, our being, our social system, our psychological preferences is aimed at ensuring that no one ever becomes an adult. These are the parameters of a particular game that we are in.

   In the postmodern, there are no adults - there are young children, and there are old children. There are "children-retiree" and "children-children". There are no adults in this system. Anyone who, despite the prevailing tendency, becomes an adult, despite the fact that there is no initiation, falls into a completely new position in relation to this system. Here he acquires the status of a subject, and can say about himself “je suis”. This was the name of the newspaper published in Monaco by Guenon’s disciple de Sauvigny, who was engaged in the education of youth. (…)

   It’s clear why we are talking about a super-strong personality. Because today only special people can even feel the lack of pubertal initiation, therefore these are the chosen ones, healthy masses, in the main volume there will be certain minority masses, masses of initiates. (...)

   Of course, there are also intermediate things, because many people who are looking for initiation, moving away from the mainstream "childhood", don’t find it, and are moving towards different traps. For example, drugs, terrorist and extremist organizations, marginalism, pubertal madness, because when approaching the initiation of boys and girls, a person who is no longer a child and not yet an adult, faces a very interesting phenomenon. His consciousness, which has not yet been formed, is no longer an object, but not yet a subject, it is extremely extensible. Anything can fall into it, since the first stage of initiation is a descent into chaos.

   The person is lost, it is no longer satisfied with objectiveness, but he begins to understand his childhood state, his inability to tear the navel cord linked with his object mother as unbearable suffering. He tears it without getting some kind of image, and sometimes he tears it simply, rushing anywhere, just to get rid of a certain demonic pursuer in the form of his own childhood. And, of course, a person can be carried away anywhere, therefore all that is called in the initiation “Eleusinian [ˌel(j)uː'sɪnɪən] marshes”, which are accompanying mental and social phenomena on this path, that are, by and large, subtle deep souls of people who, instinctively opposing this postmodern state, tried to get out, but went astray somewhere. In this “swamp”, as well, it is necessary to catch, save those people who were in it, because if a young man is experiencing a fundamental crisis, if he has signs of madness, radicalism, drug addiction, this is a plus, not a minus. This means that he is looking for certain initiations, he just hasn’t found them yet, or some “dark funnels” have sucked him on the way. In this respect, it is a very delicate and complex process. When a person says “no” to the inertial state — eternal, endless, blissful, idiotic childhood, he, in fact, already takes one step — he gets into work “in black”. But he still does not see the perspective image of the vertical, gold, which should restructure the chaos of his internal energy. This “gram of gold” is the party membership of the Eurasian Youth Union, if you take its metaphysical equivalent.

   Why do we speak about super-strong personality? Because in the period when the general trend is aimed at removing this problem in general, i.e. a weak person is left without initiation, the strongest personalities are lost in drugs, perversions, surfing or any pubertal delusions. And only a super-strong personality, possessing a degree of flexibility, subtlety, understands the attractiveness of non-child metaphysical, but very dangerous perverse spheres associated with decomposition. Here a break of consciousness takes place. A drug addict is a strong personality, because he wants to search for a more saturated being than the one that the world around him gives him. He is looking for it, he finds it, he cannot cope with it. This is a strong personality that is lost on this path of power. (...)

   The next stage after drug addict is the Eurasian Youth Union member, a person who feels the attraction of “insane abysses”, who hears the voice of the worlds behind the passive state of manipulated object, but, nevertheless, knows how to concentrate in order to become the object of new ecstatic states, and begin to master them. Such a person differentiates, separates himself from everybody - both from drug addicts and from non-drug addicts. He stands above everybody. And here it should be noted very precisely - those who are not ready to embark on the path of superpowers, who are not ready to oppose themselves to others, who are not ready to defy the environment, especially in postmodern conditions, say “you are like this I will not be like you, I will be different, I will be better than you, more full, and in general - I will be a subject”. This is the statement of the subject principle through initiation, with the fullness of initiation. (...)

   It is very important that subjectivity is closely connected with power, with a sense of self-esteem and, if you like, of own superiority. It can be said that this is not at all Christian, but the superiority here is a fact, a result of the disassociation of oneself with the general trend of the masses. Yes, this is superiority, because it is the superiority of waking over the sleeping, healthy over sick, standing on the edge of a cliff and flying down the abyss. (...) This quality of superiority is neither pride nor vanity, it is just a clear fixation of one state - subjectness, and the other state – absence of subjectness. (...)

   Thus, from a psychological point of view, young Eurasianism is the way of those who don’t want to remain a child for life. (...)

   A certain individual fate of a person in the postmodern is to turn from a child into an old child. Turning to the social sphere, we can say that the image of the elite is completely absent in our society.

   It is clear that the elite always existed socially in all traditions. It does exist now. But the fact is that at all stages there existed social tools and mechanisms in order to bring up the elite from people. The state of the awakened “self” is not necessarily a social status, it is only a psychological status, a transformation from a subject into an object. If a person is an object, it is applicable outside of political models. You can be the master of your own family, and you can always be the object of your own family. Master can be in the most simple situations. However, there is a serious difference between an adult and a non-adult — an adult subject acts subject-wise due to its competence. This doesn’t mean that the person who received the initiation becomes a genius or some great person, he simply becomes a person, and here are the freaks. Here we are talking about the complete symmetry of the microscopic picture at the level of society.

   In the era of premodern, huge forces in society were spent on the formation of social elite. Caste systems assumed that people who rule society are made up of another substance, hence the principle of ontocracy.

   A little later in meritocracy, it was believed that those whose ancestors or those who had committed tremendous feats are rulers. (...) Great efforts were spent on what constituted the image of elite. The society at various stages extracted the elite from itself with great difficulty, handed it the power and entrusted the organization of social processes. This elite was the subject of society, managed it, was the power, ruled. It formed those that Hegel calls, and before him Macchiaveli - the masters. This is the principle of domination.

   In Orthodoxy there is a section called cyriology (from the Greek. Κύριος - lord) - this is the science of domination.

   The masters or a collective lord is a kind of social function that exists in any society. We can build a society that is the most equal and egalitarian, but still, in reality, someone will necessarily advance to the function of the master.

   Now in our society there is not a single institution, not a single instrument, not a single line on the formation of socio-political elite. (...)

   Hegel’s dialectic states that there is the pair “master - slave”. No matter how much we want to get away from this pair, it exists in any society at all stages, under any regimes. There is always an elite and a lord, and there is always a slave. The communists tried to destroy this fundamental model, but they simply created new masters - the Reds, who were more equal or slavish than others, in fact they were normal masters and recreated themselves through a special metaphysical, eschatological doctrine. The same thing happened on a small scale in protestant Anabaptist groups in England, who were for complete equality against Cromwell and nevertheless created an even more rigid and fundamental hierarchy.

   If we say that we don’t educate lords, if the word “master” terrifies us, it means that for the first time ever we are creating a society consisting of slaves. But a slave - in a sociological and philosophical sense, differs from a master in the same way that a subject differs from an object, or an adult from a child, because there are no societies where children rule adults. (...)

   There is a complete symmetry between the state of affairs in youth psychology and what is happening in our society. We have children and we also have the same children performing in a social sense the function of slaves. Then the question arises: can a society exist without masters? After all, someone takes this place. Can this system consist of only children? Someone probably runs this kindergarten, it must have a director. (...)

   While both systems are implanted in us psychologically and socially from the West through propaganda of liberal democratic ideas, it is there, in the West, in the center of American society, which allegedly is built on restraining the elite, proliferating typical pantheism, that the topic of growing up, and the topic of domination are seriously observed in the circle called "neocons". This is a very interesting direction of the American elite, which is actually dominant today. And if everyone is forbidden to become adults from children, forbidden to raise questions about domination, educate the elite and, in general, to speak about serious elites and their power, then the Americans themselves (not all, of course, because the neocons is only one group, but it is in power, it is the intellectual headquarters of the American empire) deal with these problems, that are in the focus of their attention.

   Many say: we don’t want to be masters, this is something defiant. Then the question is brewing: do you want to be slaves? No, we don’t want any masters or slaves. It means the same thing that I don’t want to be either an adult or a child, on the one hand I pretend to be adult, on the other hand I am a child, and so I am going to live the whole life. (...)

   The Eurasian Youth Union proposes to solve these two tasks at the same time, i.e. to transfer the child to the state of an adult and to transfer the socially disadvantaged slave (...) to the lord.

   Our task is to ensure that adult lords, people who will master themselves and others, who will establish in society a vertical of real subjectness, which will change this society, giving it a completely different direction and a different vector, will come out of EYU. The presence of one subject or one master immediately turns the slaves, considering themselves as simply people, into those who they really are. This is a very painful thing. Nobody will love it, because it is a living reproach and a real fundamental revolution. But without this, our society and our youth will turn into something non-existent, our state and socio-political system will collapse.

   Thus, our task - absolutely specific - is to develop in the shortest possible time a kind of core, which will consist of super-strong personalities who are no longer children and no longer slaves, and who are able to take responsibility for everything that happens around them, with them and with others.

   Our system will never give such a task, and, nevertheless, it cannot exist without its solution. This is where the paradoxical form of which I first spoke arises - a super-strong personality. Not just strong, but super-strong, because in a certain sense it was possible to simply demand a strong personality to the elite, but it becomes a super-strong personality when it is not required to the elite, because there is no elite, it must form the elite. This right is only for superstrong people who respect the force so much that they can’t wait until the demand for force appears. They assert their own will and their own strength even when there is no such order. Thus, they form a historical order.

   The task of our psychological trainings and our activities in the framework of Eurasian Youth Union and organizations cooperating with us is a change in the human condition. (...) Once in the EYU, a person becomes the start of this movement - the path to domination and maturity. This is the first risky and responsible step, the very beginning. (...) In the process of development in the EYU, he must fundamentally change his inner nature, a change of archetype must happen. He has to go out a different person.

   Psychological activity is important here. You need to understand that coming to the EYU, we are on the path of strength. We are looking for strength, attitudes and models of domination, which is given through power in all its manifestations, including intellectual power.

   Thus, the psychology of the EYU is aimed at the formation of the masters’ type.