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Blavatsky and The Secret Doctrine


© Copyright Peter Crawford 2015

DIE GEHEIMLEHRE


'Die Geheimlehre' - ('The Secret Doctrine') is possibly the most influential 'channeled' occult writing.
Blavatsky claimed to be in contact with hidden 'masters', who revealed to her the occult history of the universe.
In actual fact she had contacted 'elementals', who had information which had been derived indirectly, and in many cases inaccurately, from the Æons.
However, some of this information was valid, and encouraged an interest in the possibility of discovering the true teachings of the Æons, which subsequently gave considerable impetus to the occult revival of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Helena Blavatsky

Еле́на Петро́вна Блава́тская
Еле́на Петро́вна Блава́тская (Yelena Petrovna Blavatskaya) was an oculist, medium, and author who founded the Theosophical Society in 1875.
She gained an international following as the leading theoretician of Theosophy.
Born into an aristocratic Russian-German family in Yekaterinoslav, Blavatsky traveled widely around the Russian Empire as a child.
Largely self-educated, she developed an interest in Western occultism during her teenage years.
In 1849 she embarked on a series of world travels, visiting Europe, the Americas, and India.
During this period she states that she encountered a group of spiritual adepts, the "Masters of the Ancient Wisdom", who sent her to Shigatse, Tibet, where they trained her to develop her own psychic powers.

'Isis Unveiled'
In 1877 she published 'Isis Unveiled', a book outlining her Theosophical world-view. 
Associating it closely with the occult doctrines of Hermeticism and Neoplatonism, Blavatsky described Theosophy as "the synthesis of science, religion and philosophy", proclaiming that it was reviving an "Ancient Wisdom" which underlay all the world's religions.
She lived simply and refused to accept monetary payment in return for disseminating her teachings and, in ailing health, in 1885 she published 'Die Geheimlehre' - ('The Secret Doctrine'), as well as two further books, 'The Key to Theosophy' and 'The Voice of the Silence'.
She died of influenza on 8 May 1891.

Blavatsky was the leading theoretician of the Theosophical Society, responsible for establishing its "doctrinal basis".
The ideas expounded in her published texts provide the basis from which the Society and wider Theosophical movement emerged.
Blavatsky's Theosophical ideas were a form of occultism, a current of thought within Western esotericism, which emphasized the idea of an ancient and superior wisdom that had been found in pre-Christian societies, and which was absent from the doctrines of established Christianity.

Plato
Fundamentally, the underlying concept behind Blavatsky's Theosophy was that there was an "ancient wisdom religion" which had once been found across the world, and which was known to various ancient figures, such as the Greek philosophers, including Plato.
Blavatsky connected this ancient wisdom religion to Hermetic philosophy, a world-view in which everything in the universe is identified as an emanation from a Godhead.
Blavatsky believed that all of the world's religions developed from this original global faith.
Blavatsky understood her Theosophy to be the heir to the Neoplatonist philosophers of Late Antiquity, who had also embraced Hermetic philosophy. 
Neoplatonism is a term used to designate a tradition of philosophy that arose in the 3rd century AD, and persisted until shortly after the closing of the Platonic Academy in Athens in AD 529 by Justinian I. Neoplatonists were heavily influenced by Plato, but also by the Platonic tradition that thrived during the six centuries which separated the first of the Neoplatonists from Plato. The work of Neoplatonic philosophy involved describing the derivation of the whole of reality from a single principle, "the ONE". Neoplatonism posits the existence of a 'Demiurge' - responsible for some, or all aspects of material creation.
Hermeticism, or Hermetic philosophy, is a religious and philosophical/esoteric tradition based primarily upon writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus ("Thrice Great"). These writings have greatly influenced the Western esoteric tradition. The tradition claims descent from a prisca theologia, a doctrine that affirms the existence of a single, true theology that is present in all religions and that was given by God to man in antiquity. Its philosophy teaches that there is a transcendent God, or Absolute, in which we and the entire universe participate. It also subscribes to the idea that other beings, such as Aeons, angels and elementals, exist within the universe.
Blavatsky believed that the Theosophical movement's revival of the "ancient wisdom religion" would lead to it spreading across the world, eclipsing the established world religions.
The Theosophical Society disseminated an elaborate philosophical edifice involving a cosmogony, the macrocosm of the universe, spiritual hierarchies, and intermediary beings, the latter having correspondences with a hierarchical conception of the microcosm of man.
Blavatsky's Theosophy has been described as representing a major factor in the modern revival of Western esotericism, and that practically all modern occultism and esotericism can trace its origins back to her influence to some degree.
Contemporaries of Blavatsky contributed to the development of theosophical thought, producing works that at times sought to elucidate the ideas she presented, and at times to expand upon them.

 völkische Bewegung
Since its inception, and through doctrinal assimilation or divergence, Theosophy has also given rise to or influenced the development of other mystical, philosophical, and political movements - including the völkische Bewegung.
Blavatsky's published Theosophical ideas, particularly those regarding the 'Root Races', have been cited as an influence on 'Ariosophy', the esoteric movement established in late 19th and early 20th century Germany and Austria by Guido von List,  and also on the writings and thought Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, described as 'Theozoology'.
Lanz von Liebenfels (19 July 1874 – 22 April 1954), was an Austrian political and racial theorist and occultist, who was the creator of 'Theozoology'. He was a former monk and the founder of the magazine 'Ostara', in which he published racial and völkisch theories. In 1905, he published his book 'Theozoölogie oder die Kunde von den Sodoms-Äfflingen und dem Götter-Elektron' in which he glorified the "Aryan race" as "Gottmenschen" ("god-men"). Other races came from the biological evolution of animals. So Liebenfels explained the "racial fall" as a union of sex with each other. At the root of this fall, the Aryan race was involved in miscegenation, losing its divine powers (the elektron of the gods - including paranormal abilities such as telepathy and clairvoyance). The process of racial mixing made these qualities limited to a few descendants of Aryans. Liebenfels, therefore was concerned to restore the original purity of the Aryan race.
Undoubtedly Blavatsky's Theosophical ideas contributed to National Socialist ideology.
Blavatsky's Theosophical ideas regarding the 'Root Races' have also been cited as an influence on Anthroposophy, the esoteric movement developed by Rudolf Steiner in early 20th century Germany, with Steiner's Anthroposophical Society being termed a historical offshoot of the Theosophical Society.

'Die Geheimlehre'

Helena Blavatsky


'Die Geheimlehre', - the Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy, is a book originally published as two volumes in 1888, and is Helena Blavatsky's magnum opus.
The first volume is named 'Cosmogenesis', the second 'Anthropogenesis'.
It was an influential example of the revival of interest in esoteric and occult ideas in the modern age, in particular because of its claim to reconcile ancient wisdom with modern science.
Blavatsky claimed that its contents had been revealed to her by 'spiritual beings' who had retained knowledge of humanity's spiritual history, knowledge that it was now possible, in part, to reveal


Volume One (Cosmogenesis)

Cosmogenesis
The first part of the book explains the origin and evolution of the universe itself, in terms of the concept of cyclical development.
The world and everything in it is said to alternate between periods of activity, and periods of passivity.
Each period of activity lasts many millions of years, and consists of a number of eons. 
Blavatsky attempted to demonstrate that the discoveries of "materialist" science had been anticipated in the writings of the ancients, and that materialism would be proven wrong.

Cosmic evolution: Items of Cosmogony

In this recapitulation of 'Die Geheimlehre', Blavatsky gave a summary of the central points of her system of cosmogony.
These central points are:
Die Geheimlehre represents the "accumulated Wisdom of the Ages", a system of thought that
"is the uninterrupted record covering thousands of generations of the initiated, whose respective experiences were made to test and to verify the traditions passed orally by one early race to another, of the teachings of higher and exalted beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity."
This section reiterates the first fundamental proposition (see above), calling the one principle "the fundamental law in that system of cosmogony".
Here Blavatsky says of this principle that it is
"the One homogeneous divine Substance-Principle, the one radical cause. … It is called "Substance-Principle," for it becomes "substance" on the plane of the manifested Universe, an illusion, while it remains a "principle" in the beginningless and endless abstract, visible and invisible Space. It is the omnipresent Reality: impersonal, because it contains all and everything. Its impersonality is the fundamental conception of the System. It is latent in every atom in the Universe, and is the Universe itself."
This section reiterates the second fundamental proposition (see above), impressing once again that
"The Universe is the periodical manifestation of this unknown Absolute Essence."
while also touching upon the complex ideas that ultimate being is beyond all conceptualizations.
This concept presents the idea that 'the One', the unconditioned and absolute principle, is covered over by a veil, so that the spiritual essence is forever covered by the material essence.
This section explains  that the entire universe is, in reality, an illusion, because everything in it is temporary, i.e. has a beginning and an end, and is therefore unreal in comparison to the eternal changelessness of the One.
The next section reiterates the third fundamental proposition (see above), stating that everything in the universe is conscious, in its own way, and on its own plane of perception.
Because of this, Occult Philosophy states that there are no unconscious or blind laws of Nature, that all is governed by consciousness and consciousnesses.
The next section gives a core idea of theosophical philosophy, that "as above, so below". 
This is known as the "law of correspondences", its basic premise being that everything in the universe is worked and manifested from within outwards, or from the higher to the lower, and that thus the lower, the microcosm, is the copy of the higher, the macrocosm. 
Just as a human being experiences every action as preceded by an internal impulse of thought, emotion or will, so too the manifested universe is preceded by impulses from divine thought, feeling and will.
These concepts gives rise to the notion of an "almost endless series of hierarchies of sentient beings", which itself becomes a central idea of many theosophists.
The law of correspondences also becomes central to the methodology of many theosophists, as they look for analogous correspondence between various aspects of reality, for instance: the correspondence between the seasons of Earth and the process of a single human life, through birth, growth, adulthood and then decline and death.

Volume Two (Anthropogenesis)

The second half of 'Die Geheimlehre' describes the origins of humanity through an account of "Root Races", said to date back millions of years.
The first root race was "ethereal".

the Fourth Root-Race
Lemurian
The second root had more physical bodies and lived in Hyperborea.

The fifth root race is approximately one million years old, overlapping the fourth root race, and the very first beginnings of the fifth root race were approximately in the middle of the fourth root race.
The third root race, the first to be truly human, is said to have existed on the lost continent of Lemuria, and the fourth root race is said to have developed in Atlantis.
Atlantis
"The real line of evolution differs from the Darwinian, and the two
'systems are irreconcilable, except when the latter is divorced from the dogma of 'Natural Selection'. By 'Man' the divine Monad is meant, and not the thinking Entity, much less his physical body. Occultism rejects the idea that Nature developed man from the ape, or even from an ancestor common to both, but traces, on the contrary, some of the most anthropoid species to the Third Race man. In other words, the 'ancestor' of the present anthropoid animal, the ape, is the direct production of the yet mindless Man, who desecrated his human dignity by putting himself physically on the level of an animal.'
Three Fundamental Propositions

Blavatsky explained the essential component ideas of her cosmogony with three fundamental propositions, of which she said: 
'Before the reader proceeds … it is absolutely necessary that he should be made acquainted with the few fundamental conceptions which underlie and pervade the entire system of thought to which his attention is invited. These basic ideas are few in number, and on their clear apprehension depends the understanding of all that follows…
The first proposition is that there is one underlying, unconditioned, indivisible Truth, variously called "the Absolute", "the Unknown Root", "the ONE".
It is causeless and timeless, and therefore unknowable and non-describable: "It is 'Be-ness' rather than Being".
However, transient states of matter and consciousness are manifested in IT, in an unfolding gradation from the subtlest to the densest, the final of which is physical plane.
According to this view, manifest existence is a "change of condition", and therefore neither the result of creation nor a random event.
Everything in the universe is informed by the potentialities present in the "ONE" and manifest with different degrees of Life (or energy), Consciousness, and Matter.
The second proposition is "the absolute universality of that law of periodicity, of flux and reflux, ebb and flow".


Boundless Plane
Accordingly, manifest existence is an eternally re-occurring event on a "boundless plane": "'the playground of numberless Universes incessantly manifesting and disappearing,'" each one "standing in the relation of an effect as regards its predecessor, and being a cause as regards its successor", doing so over vast but finite periods of time.
Related to the above is the third proposition: "The fundamental identity of all Souls with the ONE... and the obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul - a spark of the former - through the Cycle of Incarnation (or 'Necessity') in accordance with Cyclic law, during the whole term."
The individual souls are seen as units of consciousness (Monads) that are intrinsic parts of the ONE, just as different sparks are parts of a fire.
These Monads undergo a process of evolution where consciousness unfolds and matter develops.
This evolution is not random, but informed by intelligence and with a purpose.
Evolution follows distinct paths in accord with certain immutable laws, aspects of which are perceivable on the physical level.
One such law is the law of periodicity and cyclicity; another is the law of cause and effect.

Theories on Human Evolution and Race

The Aryan Race
In the second volume of Die Geheimlehre, dedicated to anthropogenesis, Blavatsky presents a theory of the gradual evolution of physical humanity over a timespan of millions of years.
The steps in this evolution are called root-races, seven in all.
Earlier root-races exhibited completely different characteristics: physical bodies first appearing in the second root-race, and sexual characteristics in the third.
Some races are clearly less fully human or spiritual than the "Aryans".
For example, 
"Mankind is obviously divided into god-informed men and lower human creatures. The intellectual difference between the Aryan and other civilized nations and such savages as the South Sea Islanders, is inexplicable on any other grounds. No amount of culture, nor generations of training amid civilization, could raise such human specimens as the Bushmen, the Veddhas of Ceylon, and some African Tribes, to the same intellectual level as the Aryans, the Semites, and the Turanians so called. The 'sacred spark' is missing in them and it is they who are the only inferior races on the globe, now happily – owing to the wise adjustment of nature which ever works in that direction – fast dying out. Verily mankind is not of the same essence. We are the hot-house, artificially quickened plants in nature, having in us a spark, which in them is latent"
 (Die Geheimlehre, Vol. 2, p 421).

When discussing "sterility between two human races" as observed by Darwin, Blavatsky notes:
"Of such semi-animal creatures, the sole remnants known to Ethnology were the Tasmanians, a portion of the Australians and a mountain tribe in China, the men and women of which are entirely covered with hair. They were the last descendants in a direct line of the semi-animal latter-day Lemurians referred to. There are, however, considerable numbers of the mixed Lemuro-Atlantean peoples produced by various crossings with such semi-human stocks – e.g., the inhabitants of Borneo, the Veddhas of Ceylon, most of the remaining Australians, Bushmen, Negos, Andaman Islanders, etc"
 (Die Geheimlehre, Vol. 2, pp 195–6)

In the 'Die Geheimlehre' there is also a connection between physical race and spiritual attributes:
"Esoteric history teaches that idols and their worship died out with the Fourth Race, until the survivors of the hybrid races of the latter (Chinese, African negroes, &c.) gradually brought the worship back."
(Die Geheimlehre, Vol. 2, p 723)
According to Die Geheimlehre,
"The MONADS of the lowest specimens of humanity (the "narrow-brained" savage South-Sea Islander, the African, the Australian) had no Karma to work out when first born as men, as their more favoured brethren in intelligence had"
(Die Geheimlehre, Vol. 2, p 168)

Die Geheimlehre also prophesies of the destruction of the racial "failures of nature" as the "higher race" ascends:
"Thus will mankind, race after race, perform its appointed cycle-pilgrimage. Climates will, and have already begun, to change, each tropical year after the other dropping one sub-race, but only to beget another higher race on the ascending cycle; while a series of other less favoured groups – the failures of nature – will, like some individual men, vanish from the human family without even leaving a trace behind"
(Die Geheimlehre, Vol. 2, p 446)

In Die Geheimlehre it is stated: "Verily mankind is not of the same essence." (Vol. 1, p. 255).

Study of Die Geheimlehre

Blavatsky gave the following instructions regarding the study of Die Geheimlehre
'Reading the Die Geheimlehre page by page as one reads any other book will only end us in confusion. The first thing to do, even if it takes years, is to get some grasp of the 'Three Fundamental Principles'. Follow that up by study of the Recapitulation – the numbered items in the Summing Up to Vol. I (Part 1.) Then take the Preliminary Notes (Vol. II) and the Conclusion (Vol. II)'
Writings About "Die Geheimlehre"

Alice Bailey 'rode on the back' of "Die Geheimlehre", and in order to advance her own writings, (which were all based on Blavatsky's work), she was forced to overstate the significance of "Die Geheimlehre".
"But those of us who really studied it and arrived at some understanding of its inner significance have a basic appreciation of the truth that no other book seems to supply. HPB said that the next interpretation of the 'Ageless Wisdom' would be a psychological approach, and 'A Treatise on Cosmic Fire', which I published in 1925, is the psychological key to 'Die Geheimlehre'. None of my books would have been possible had I not at one time made a very close study of 'Die Geheimlehre'."
Of course many were take in by Blavatsky's claims to have received knowledge for 'hidden masters'.
Max Heindel in 'Blavatsky and Die Geheimlehre' (1933) is an example of a Thoesophist who was prepared to make claims regarding Die Geheimlehre that were unjustified.
"Die Geheimlehre is one of the most remarkable books in the world... Behind her [H.P.B.] stood the real teachers, the guardians of the Secret Wisdom of the ages, who taught her all the occult lore which she transmitted in her writings."
  
Еле́на Петро́вна Блава́тская

Conclusion

While not all of the teachings of  'Die Geheimlehre' were accepted by many völkisch theorists and philosophers, it strongly influenced their thinking.
Most influential were the chapters dealing with the development of the 'Root-Races', and their relative positions in the hierarchy of race - and in particular the exaltation of the Nordic Aryan race.
In addition the suggestion that the Aryan race would, at some time in the future, become the dominant race, while the other, lesser races would fall into decline was held to be of importance by the völkisch movement.
Also, the rejection of Christianity, along with other Semitic religions, was very much in keeping with the general mood and feeling in Germany and Austria, and also much of Europe, at the time.
It was unfortunate that Blavatsky felt it necessary to 'dress up' her revelations in pseudo Vedic (or possibly Hindu) costume, as this was inappropriate, and off-putting for cultured and educated Europeans.
This had the effect of severely limiting the appeal of Theosophy, as a distinct doctrine, in Europe, but it did not prevent the more perceptive from sensing that behind the 'Orientalist' facade, and all the talk of 'hidden masters', there were some significant truths, - and so 'Die Geheimlehre' undoubtedly gave considerable impetus to the occult revival of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Theosophy, however, although it claimed to derive its authority from 'hidden masters' and 'unknown supermen', was not a true teaching of the eternal Aeons, but rather an 'ersatz' (German meaning - 'substitute' - something which replaces the original), combination of religion, superstition and garbled philosophy, disseminated by 'elementals' and the archons to once again mislead, and draw sentient beings into error.
The only positive outcome of the spread of 'Theosophy', and its allied movements (see above) was the fact that it drew many literate and educated Europeans away from the Semitic 'monotheisms' of the 'Demiurge' (Judaism and Christianity), while at the same time re-awakening, in some, an awareness of the significance of the Hellenistic and Roman understanding of the 'Aeons', and also the significance of the concept of 'race' in the development of spirituality in sentient beings.

© Copyright Peter Crawford 2014

Book XVII - The Romantic Reaction

© Copyright Peter Crawford 2015

THE ROMANTIC REACTION

'Schopenhauer has depicted for us the tremendous terror which seizes man when he is suddenly dumbfounded by the cognitive form of phenomena because the principle of sufficient reason, in some one of its manifestations, seems to suffer an exception. If we add to this terror the blissful ecstasy that wells from the innermost depths of man, indeed of nature, at this collapse of the principium individuationis, we steal a glimpse into the nature of the Dionysian, which is brought home to us most intimately by the analogy of intoxication.'
Nietzsche 
INTRODUCTION

The exaltation of science and technology, (such as it was), led to the development of industrialization, and industrialization led to the alienation of the masses (not the elite, of course).

Industrialization
Karl Marx
This was not, however, as is often thought, an alienation that the thinker Karl Marx would suggest and identify, (incorrectly, as it happened), but an alienation from the natural world, and the powerful spiritual forces (the Æons and Dæmons) that lay behind it.
These spiritual forces had lain practically dormant during the Christian era (when they had been denounced, and literally demonised as the minions of the 'Devil' [Pan is disguise, of course]) - but had resurfaced during the 'rebirth of Classical learning' - but had then been suppressed once more during the 'Enlightenment'.
For the 'Enlightenment' spiritual forces reeked of ignorance and superstition - and were seen as denizens of the darkness of the the 'primitive' unscientific mind.
And so, paradoxically, the agnostic, deist and atheistic 'enlightened' followed the same course as the credulous, ignorant and superstitious Christians.
This 'alienation' was the intention of the Demiurge, who, seeing the failure of his false religions in the West (Christianity and Judaism), sought the bind the sentient humans in the web of materialism.
Not surprisingly, spurred on subtly by the Æons, this descent into materialism created a reaction - which later came to be called 'Romanticism'.

ROMANTICISM

Romanticism  is an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century, and still maintains on hold on the human imagination at the present.

Initially, it was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, the aristocratic social and political norms of the 'Age of Enlightenment' (see Book XVI), and the scientific rationalization of nature.
It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education, and the natural sciences.
It had a significant and complex effect on politics, its long-term effect being on the growth of nationalism.
The movement emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, terror, and awe -especially that which is experienced in confronting the new aesthetic categories of the sublimity and beauty of nature.
It considered folk art and ancient custom to be noble statuses, but also valued spontaneity, as in the musical impromptu.

Lamia
 John William Waterhouse
In addition, Romanticism revived medievalism, (or in reality created a 'neo-medievalism') which encouraged a belated, sentimental, and eventually ineffective revival of Christian belief.
The name "Romanticism" itself was derived from the medieval genre chivalric romance. This movement contributed to the strong influence of such romances, disproportionate to their actual showing among medieval literature, on the image of Middle Ages, such that a knight, a distressed damsel, and a dragon is used to conjure up the time pictorially.
Initially  the movement was rooted in a German movement described as 'Sturm und Drang', which preferred intuition and emotion to the rationalism of the Enlightenment.
Sturm und Drang (literally "Storm and Drive", "Storm and Urge", though conventionally translated as "Storm and Stress") is a proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music taking place from the late 1760s to the early 1780s, in which individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements. The period is named for Friedrich Maximilian Klinger's play 'Sturm und Drang', which was first performed by Abel Seyler's famed theatrical company in 1777. The philosopher Johann Georg Hamann is considered to be the ideologue of 'Sturm und Drang', with Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, H. L. Wagner and Friedrich Maximilian Klinger also significant figures. The great Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was also a notable proponent of the movement, though he and Friedrich Schiller ended their period of association with it by initiating what would become Weimar Classicism - which, in itself, was a 'romanticized Cassicism'.
Romanticism assigned a high value to the achievements of "heroic" individualists and artists, whose examples, it maintained, would raise the quality of society.
It also promoted the individual imagination as a critical authority, and relaxed many of the classical notions of form in art.
There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a 'Zeitgeist', in the representation of its ideas.
'Zeitgeist' (spirit of the age or spirit of the time) is the intellectual fashion or dominant school of thought that typifies and influences the culture of a particular period in time. The German word 'Zeitgeist' is often attributed to the philosopher Georg Hegel, but he never actually used the word. In his works such as 'Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte', he uses the phrase 'der Geist seiner Zeit' (the spirit of his time) - for example, "no man can surpass his own time, for the spirit of his time is also his own spirit." Other philosophers who were associated with such ideas include Herder and Spencer and Voltaire. 
Defining the nature of Romanticism may be approached from the starting point of the primary importance of the free expression of the feelings of the artist.
William Wordsworth
Caspar David Friedrich
The importance the Romantics placed on emotion is summed up in the remark of the German painter Caspar David Friedrich that "the artist's feeling is his law". To William Wordsworth, poetry should begin as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," which the poet then "recollects in tranquility," evoking a new but corresponding emotion the poet can then mold into art.
In order to express feelings, it was considered that the content of the art needed to come from the imagination of the artist, with as little interference as possible from "artificial" rules dictating what a work should consist of. 
It was believed there were natural laws which the imagination, at least of a good creative artist, would unconsciously follow through artistic inspiration if left alone to do so.
As well as rules, the influence of models from other works was considered to impede the creator's own imagination, so that originality was essential.
The concept of the genius, or artist who was able to produce his own original work through this process of "creation from nothingness", is key to Romanticism, and to be derivative was the worst sin.
This idea was referred to as "romantic originality".
Also found in Romanticism was a strong belief and interest in the importance of nature.
However, this is particularly in the effect of nature upon the artist when he is surrounded by it, preferably alone.
In contrast to the usually very social art of the Enlightenment, Romantics were distrustful of the human world, and tended to believe that a close connection with nature was mentally and morally healthy.
Romantic art addressed its audiences with what was intended to be felt as the personal voice of the artist.
So, in literature, much of romantic poetry invited the reader to identify the protagonists with the poets themselves.
Romanticism embodied a new and restless spirit, seeking violently to burst through old and cramping forms, - a nervous preoccupation with perpetually changing inner states of consciousness, a longing for the unbounded and the indefinable, for perpetual movement and change, an effort to return to the forgotten sources of life, - a search after means of expressing an unappeasable yearning for unattainable goals.
In the realm of ethics, politics, aesthetics it was the authenticity and sincerity of the pursuit of inner goals that mattered; this applied equally to individuals and groups -states, nations, movements.
This is most evident in the aesthetics of romanticism, where there is a passionate belief in spiritual freedom, individual creativity.
The painter, the poet, the composer strive for self-expression of the artist's own unique, inner vision.
It part of a tradition of resistance to 'Enlightenment' rationalism - a "Counter-Enlightenment" -  to be associated most closely with 'German Romanticism'.
Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor exact truth, but in the way of feeling.


ROMANTIC NATIONALISM

One of Romanticism's key ideas, and most enduring legacies is the assertion of nationalism, which became a central theme of Romantic art and political philosophy.
Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs.
This includes, depending on the particular manner of practice, the language, race, culture, religion, and customs of the "nation" in its primal sense of those who were "born" within its culture.
This form of nationalism arose in reaction to dynastic or imperial hegemony, which assessed the legitimacy of the state from the "top down", emanating from a monarch or other authority, which justified its existence.
Among the key themes of Romanticism, and its most enduring legacy, the cultural assertions of romantic nationalism have also been central in post-Enlightenment art and political philosophy.
From its earliest stirrings, with their focus on the development of national languages and folklore, and the spiritual value of local customs and traditions, to the movements that would redraw the map of Europe and lead to calls for "self-determination" of nationalities, nationalism was one of the key issues in Romanticism, determining its roles, expressions and meanings.


Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Romantic nationalism formed a key strand in the philosophy of Hegel (1770-1831), who argued that there was a "spirit (Æon) of the age" (hence the confusion between Æon and eon).

In the German language this was known as the 'zeitgeist' (see above), that inhabited a particular people at a particular time, and that, when that people became the active determiner of history, it was simply because their cultural and political moment had come.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 – November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher. He achieved wide renown in his day and, while primarily influential within the continental tradition of philosophy, has become increasingly influential in the analytic tradition as well. Although he remains a divisive figure, his canonical stature within Western philosophy is universally recognized. Geist is a central concept in Hegel's 'Phänomenologie des Geistes'. According to Hegel, the Weltgeist  is effected in history through the mediation of various Volksgeister ("national spirits").
The Æons, anxious to reassert the primacy of the 'original humanity' (the Aryan or noble race), which they had formed and nurtured in the distant past, encouraged this aspect of European Romantic Nationalism.
Richard Wagner correctly argued that those who were ethnically different could not comprehend the artistic and cultural meaning inherent in a particular national culture.


Götterdämmerung
© Copyright Zac Sawyer 2015
Siegfried
© Copyright Zac Sawyer 2015
For example, identifying 'Judentum' (Jewishness) in musical style, Wagner specifically criticized Jews as being unwilling to assimilate into, or empathize fully with German culture, and thus were unable to truly comprehend the mysteries of its music and language.
In this way, a "national epic" such as Wagner's 'Ring des Nibelungen', which deals with the actions of the incarnated Æons, and their relationships with human sentient beings, have had a galvanizing effect on high culture, as well as society in general, and political develpoments.


THE APOLLONIAN AND DIONYSIAN

Central to the Romantic position is the rediscovery of the 'Dionysian' spirit.
Dionysus (or Bacchus to the Latins) is the form taked by one of the great Æons.
Each Æon, to some extent, encapsulates an essential spiritual element.
In the case of Dionysus this may be epitomized as the liberation of the intuitive and the emotional.
The 'Apollonian and Dionysian' is a philosophical and literary concept, or dichotomy, based on certain features of ancient Greek mythology.
Many philosophers and literary figures have invoked this dichotomy.
In Greek mythology,  Ἀπόλλων (Apollo) and Διόνυσος (Dionysus) are both sons of Zeus.
Apollo is the god of reason and the rational, while Dionysus is the god of the emotional, instinctive and irrational.
Apollo - © Copyright Zac Sawyer 2015
The Aeon Apollo ( Ἀπόλλων - Latin: Apollō) is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The ideal of the kouros (a beardless, athletic youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, poetry, and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis.
Delphi - Apollo is particularly known for his oracle at Delphi - in Greece. Apollo spoke through his oracle: the sibyl or priestess of the oracle who was known as the Pythia; she had to be an older woman of blameless life chosen from among the peasants of the area. She sat on a tripod seat over an opening in the earth (the "chasm"). When Apollo slew Python, its body fell into this fissure, according to legend, and fumes arose from its decomposing body. Intoxicated by the vapors, the sibyl would fall into a trance, allowing Apollo to possess her spirit. In this state she prophesied.
Dionysus - Bacchus - © Copyright Zac Sawyer 2015
The Aeon Dionysus (Διόνυσος - the Roman Bacchus) is the god of the grape harvest, wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre and religious ecstasy in Greek mythology. Alcohol, especially wine, played an important role in Greek culture with Dionysus being an important reason for this life style. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, others as Greek. In some cults, he arrives from the east, as an Asiatic foreigner; in others, from Ethiopia in the South. He is a god of epiphany, "the god that comes", and his "foreignness" as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults. He is a major, popular figure of Greek mythology and religion, and is included in some lists of the twelve Olympians. Dionysus was the last god to be accepted into Mt. Olympus. He was the youngest and the only one to have a mortal mother. His festivals were the driving force behind the development of Greek theatre (see Nietzsche). Also known as Bacchus (Greek - Βάκχος), the name adopted by the Romans and related to the frenzy he induces,- 'bakkheia'.
The Dionysian Mysteries were a ritual of ancient Greece and Rome which used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques (like dance and music) to remove inhibitions and social constraints, liberating the individual to return to a natural state. In their final phase the Mysteries shifted their emphasis from a chthonic, underworld orientation to a transcendental, mystical one, with Dionysus changing his nature accordingly. By its nature as a mystery religion reserved for the initiated, many aspects of the Dionysian cult remain unknown and were lost with the decline of Greco-Roman civilisation; our knowledge is derived from descriptions, imagery and cross-cultural studies.
The Greeks did not consider the two 'Gods' (Aeons) to be opposites or rivals, although often the two deities were interlacing by nature.
The Apollonian is based on reason and logical thinking.
By contrast, the Dionysian is based on appeals to the emotions and instincts.
The content of all great tragedy is based on the tension created by the interplay between these two.
Although the use of the concepts of the Apollonian and Dionysian is famously linked to Nietzsche's 'Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik', the terms were used before him in German culture.
Famously, the poet Hölderlin spoke of the Apollonian and Dionysian along with Winckelmann.
Hölderlin
Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (20 March 1770 – 7 June 1843) was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the development of German Idealism, particularly his early association with and philosophical influence on his seminary roommates and fellow Swabians Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling.  Hölderlin forms a crucial link between true classicism and the most refined aspects of romanticism.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann (9 December 1717 – 8 June 1768) was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art. His would be the decisive influence on the rise of the neoclassical movement during the late 18th century. He subsequently influenced Goethe, Hölderlin, Heine, Nietzsche, George, and Spengler and like Hölderlin forms a crucial link between true classicism and the most refined aspects of romanticism.
Nietzsche
Nietzsche's aesthetic usage of the concepts Apollonian and Dionysian, which was later developed philosophically, first appeared in his book 'Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik', which was published in 1872.
His major premise here was that the fusion of Dionysian and Apollonian "Kunsttriebe" ("artistic impulses") form dramatic arts, or tragedies.
He goes on to argue that this fusion has not been achieved since the ancient Greek tragedians.
The interplay between the Apollonian and Dionysian is apparent, Nietzsche claimed in 'Die Geburt der Tragödie', from their use in Greek tragedy.
For the audience of such a drama, Nietzsche claimed, this tragedy allows us to sense an underlying essence, what he called the "Primordial Unity", which revives our Dionysian nature - which is almost indescribably pleasurable - a sort of metaphysical solace, or connection with the heart of creation.


 Kant
Different from Kant's idea of the 'sublime', the Dionysian is all-inclusive rather than alienating to the viewer as a sublimating experience.
The sublime needs critical distance, while the Dionysian demands a closeness of experience.
According to Nietzsche, the critical distance, which separates man from his closest emotions, originates in Apollonian ideals, which in turn separate him from his essential connection with self.
The Dionysian embraces the emotional nature of such experience as all-important; not just on its own, but as it is intimately connected with the Apollonian.
The Dionysian magnifies man, but only so far as he realizes that he is one and the same with all ordered human experience.
The godlike unity of the Dionysian experience is of utmost importance in viewing the Dionysian as it is related to the Apollonian because it emphasizes the harmony that can be found within one's own experience.

to be continued....

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© Copyright Peter Crawford 2015