Journal of Traditional Studies
| Home |
| About |
| Purchase |
| Submissions |
| Excerpts |
| Links |
| Contact |
About The Initiate
|
The Initiate seeks to provide a forum for academic research into fields related to Tradition and Traditionalism. Our scope covers folklore, myth, culture, religion, politics, language, history, esoteric studies, archaeology, anthropology and the relevance of Tradition in the modern world. Our goal is to make the work and philosophy of both well-known and upcoming Traditionalists more widely accessible to the English-speaking world. The Initiate does not take a partisan position on religion, politics or culture. However, our vision is to promote the rebirth of the diverse traditions of the Integral cultures that once graced the face of the Earth, in opposition to the shallow, fragmented culture of modernity. The Initiate stands against the ethos of materialism,
atomized individualism, political correctness and multiculturalism that characterises the modern world.
In our studies, we seek to honour the eternal quest for higher meaning,
which characterises the human condition in the world of Tradition and
Initiation. |
From the Editorial
| "...The analysis and
predictions of twentieth century Traditionalists have to a large
extent been vindicated. The decline of the West has indeed
continued unabated. Traditionalists have become experts at
accurate cultural criticism but have been unable to make any
significant impact in the objective world. Several broad schools
of Traditionalist thought have emerged, as a result of different
intellectual responses to changing social trends and
philosophies. The Evolian/Guénonian School of “Perennialist”
Traditionalism gives a conservative critique of the modern world
whilst looking for evidence of innate or universal forms lying
behind the diverse expressions of different traditional
societies. The Radical Traditionalist movement bases its
approach on a reconstruction of folkish pre-Christian social
ethics and religions as an antidote to the dissolution of the
modern world and the non-European focus provided by
Christianity. The ‘New Right’ identitarian movement seeks the
revolutionary rebirth of European identity and culture from a
post-modern position... "This brings us, at the start of the new Traditionalist project that The Initiate represents, to the vexed question of “Tradition” itself. What is this concept we understand as Tradition? What are its defining features and, more pressingly, why do we feel that it is important to protect, extend, rediscover and/or reinvent it? Can there, in fact, be any definable sense of Traditionalism or Traditionalists, when the term has meant, and continues to mean, so many different things to so many different people? "Is Traditionalism to be understood as a cultural movement, a primarily political concern or an antiquarian interest in social anthropology, linguistics or crafts? Is the exclusive focus of some identitarian and New Right groups on “metapolitics”, or cultural struggle bringing about the brave birth of a new culture from within, a tacit realization of their profound political impotence? What is a Traditionalist stance on the pressing concerns of our age in the West: immigration, the Muslim Question, capitalism, alienation from the land, biotechnology, the welfare state, Europeanism and Nationalism and so on? What do self-styled “(Radical) Traditionalists”, “(Revolutionary) Conservatives”, “National Anarchists”, “Nationalists”, “Third Positionists”, “Odinists”, “New Rightists”, “Identitarians” etc. have in common, if anything, beyond a general opposition to modernity? Are these coherent positions, and to what extent do they overlap, complement or contradict each other? "In the course of its life, The Initiate aims to field these questions, strip them, debate them, and maybe, just maybe, find some resolution. ..." |
Articles in Issue One Include
|
THE
CLAN
|
Insula Sacra Productions, 2008