Europe: The Flame that Burns

In his Epistles, the Roman poet Horace exhorts us to “admire nothing, lest you grow still, and numb” – it is from within the lines of this succinct aphorism, and its condemnation of inaction, that the myriad of woes which plague Western civilization originates. Many within our movement not only passively “admire” the past, but, like Narcissus gazing upon his own reflection, romanticize it to the point of fetishization. To “admire” in such a manner is tantamount to being transfixed on a long dead, motionless, and inert past, and is antithetical to the European mode of Being. Motion, movement, and momentum are the hallmarks of the spirit of Europe and its people. It is important to respect one’s historical and ancestral past, but one must not be held enthralled by it. The present time is the culmination of all past historical events. As such, the past should be “admired” only so much as this admiration engenders movement towards a more prosperous future. The Greek philosopher Aristotle conceptualized time as being sempiternal, which is everlasting. While the great Pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus believed life is like a flame, “everything flows, and nothing stays,” suggesting that life is constantly in flux and thus engaged in perpetual movement. Concerning these meanings, the primordial flame that animates the European sense of Being, that brilliant light of Faustian Europe, is eternally alive and has been burning bright in the souls of all Europeans since time immemorial.

Along these lines, the idealization, and outright fetishization, of long deceased peoples, ideas, and aesthetic imagery is anathema to the cause of Europe and in and of itself serves no higher purpose beyond its ability to distract. The Faustian soul of Europe, that living fire which invigorates and propels forward, is the continuation of the same spirit that animated our ancestral peoples and resides deep within each of us. This burning flame infuses and ennobles all the peoples of Europe, urging us forwards towards the shattering of boundaries and the forging of new conquests. We Europeans honor those who came before us, not by being insentient beings lost in a foggy haze of antiquated historical minutia but by striving to emulate the spirit which drove our ancient forefathers to strive for bigger and better things. We “admire” and pay homage to the past through our actions here in the present.

The term “Faustian” is often used to describe the soul of Europe and its peoples, but where does the term come from and what does it mean? The legend of Faust stretches back millennia into the depths of our Indo-European and later Indo-Germanic heritage and mythologies. Christopher Marlowe and later Johann Wolfgang von Goethe brought the legend of Faust into modern usage via the art of literature, specifically The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus and Faust, respectively. In the literary versions of the Faust mythos proffered by both Marlowe and Goethe, Faust was a scholar and alchemist who made a deal with the devil in exchange for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasure. In a historical and civilizational sense, the term was again reinvigorated and reimagined by Oswald Spengler in his magnum opus The Decline of the West. According to Spengler, Western civilization was best characterized as being Faustian in nature regarding its civilizational orientation. More specifically for Spengler, Faustian Western civilization was characterized by a dynamic, restless, and adventurous spirit that is constantly striving for new horizons, progress, and technological innovation.

For us contemporary Europeans, the legend of Faust is much more than the story of a man who sold his soul to the Devil. He embodies the living fire native to our very ontological Being. Faust was a man who sacrificed life, limb, and his very soul for the pursuit of all worldly knowledge, much in the same manner that the Norse sagas speak of Odin sacrificing his eye while hanging from the great World Tree Yggdrasil. The extraordinary history, culture, and civilization of Europe are the consequence of this very same fiery spirit which resides within the soul of all European peoples. It is the primordial spirit, that great living Heraclitean fire which resides deep in the soul of European man that compels his passions and drive to overcome all that delimits in a quest for immortality as made manifest by action and deed. Beneath the veneer of the solipsistic rot which currently entombs it, Faustian Europe will survive if we, the keepers of its sacred flame, are willing and able to keep the fire burning. According to Nietzsche, the man of the future is he who can endure. As the living embodiment of Faustian Europe, it is up to us to outlast and endure the harsh realities of this postmodern age of dissolutive fragmentation.

In the Old Norse Hávamál, Odin reminds us that “[c]attle die, and kinsmen die, and we will die ourselves; but fair fame never dies, for those who can achieve it.” This old Norse saying is particularly relevant in this age of decay and democracy. Moreover, Odin extolls us to live on eternally through our actions and deeds, both heroic and mundane. If we can endure the unbearable present and act heroically in action and deed, we will remain true to ourselves, our folk, and our ancestors. From the Pleistocene Ice Age to the Eurasian steppes to the Punic Wars to the conquests of the New World, European man has faced a cornucopia of struggles. And yet, we have always met adversity with triumphant honor, facing it with heads held high. Today’s challenges are more subtle, nuanced, and complex than those of the past, but it is within this complexity of turmoil that we are gifted with the opportunity to excel through action and deed.

In the Epistles of Seneca, the Roman Stoic writes, “While there is life, there is hope,” Yet today, in our decadent age, life has been distorted and twisted beyond recognition by the superficial and self-absorbed. But let us not forget that Seneca penned this line in the negative as a warning to the Greek tyrant Telesphorus, who, in his desperate clinging to life at all costs, lost his honor and sold his soul. For what good is life if it is preserved through deceit and dishonor? Such a life is nothing more than a walking death, devoid of the vitality and honor that defines the living fire that is the soul of Europe. We must not allow ourselves to fetishize the past, for to do so is to pervert it and rob it of its meaning. Rather, we must understand that the meaning of the past is made manifest in the present through our actions, in the choices we make and the deeds we undertake. As heirs to the legacy of Seneca, the ancient Romans, the Greeks, and the Germanic founders of modern Europe, we are one and the same. Our true destiny is to rekindle the flame of the Faustian spirit that courses through our veins and to resurrect the healthy and robust Europe that lives within us. As Hilaire Belloc reminds us, the faith is Europe, and we Europeans are the faith.

Along parallel lines, the Faustian fire of Europe is one of overcoming and transcending all limitations, a spirit embodied by Nietzsche’s active nihilism, a monumentally vital force whose destruction paves the way for new life. Our goal is not simply to overcome for its own sake but to shape the world according to our will. The world in which we find ourselves is broken, and in its overcoming we must not be consumed by its degeneracy, but, like Nietzsche, we must be the hammer that shatters it. Returning to the wise words of Seneca, we inhabit a world of death, of the libido moriendi (Latin: “lust for death”), a world that runs contrary to the boundless vitality of the Faustian flame of Europe. As the keepers of this flame, we are not bound and controlled by any tangential abstraction, nor mired in the muck of either pessimism or optimism, but rather guided by the unquenchable impulse to overcome all that constrains our folk and our civilization. As Julius Evola mused, our destiny is one of pure action, to overcome the limitations of the world and to bring about a rebirth of the Faustian spirit.

Excessive happiness and sorrow are both afflictions that weaken and corrupt men, marking the onset of an age fixated on death. Our current era is characterized by a fixation on death as evidenced by the actions of its people and the Weltanschauung that permeates its being. Is it the suicidal altruism that guides the immigration policies of Western civilization, or is it something more sinister? Are men becoming women and women becoming men as the result of some organic process or phenomenon? I think not. A perverse influence, a spirit antithetical to the soul of Europe, has exploited and manipulated the strictures of our evolutionary programming. Our collective failure as individuals, as smaller pieces to a larger civilizational whole, is the result of our digression from the Faustian precepts which guided our ancestral past. Moreover, it is from this digression, this deviation from our true natures, that the enemy strikes!

If we, the keepers of the flame, remain true to our ancestral selves and the purity of action which undergirded it, civilizational regeneration is not far off. Although we find ourselves in a state of decline, in an age of degeneracy and death, we can overcome it. By remaining true to ourselves and our people, we can transcend the degeneracy of this age and the petite mort (French: “little death”) that surrounds us. As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized via the written word, “There is no death! What seems so is transition; this life of mortal breath is but a suburb of the life Elysian, whose portal we call death.” The path of the higher type, of the Nietzschean Overman, demands that we embrace the spirit of overcoming, of transcending the limitations of ourselves and the world before us.

Evidence of civilizational decline abounds, from mass demographic replacement to the most recent absurdity of transgenderism, and recognizing this degeneracy, in all its forms, is the first step necessary to overcome it. Our present society celebrates the mundane and the mediocre, and it is through our own indifference and adherence to anti-Faustian ideals that we have killed, and through inaction let be killed, the high culture that once flourished in the West. Western civilization may be moribund, but the peoples of Europe, and the spirit of the flame we all carry within ourselves, are not. But how do we change the downward trajectory of Western civilization? What actions do we take to stem and reverse its decline? The answer is simple: we must first take action at the level of the individual. Moreover, it is through the individual pursuit of excellence, beauty, and glory that we may transcend the perversity of the present time.

The postmodern world and Western civilization are held captive by the death cult of liberalism, hellbent on the destruction of all true values and identities. The morbid culture of death that surrounds us arose from our own internal weakness, exploited by an alien other, and, as such, it can be broken by a display of strength. In this context, strength means the ability to endure, to move forward in the face of opposition, and to strive for excellence in all things. We pay homage to our ancestors, not by imitating them lifelessly but by embracing the qualities that make Europeans great. We must embrace fluid movement, action, and the improvement of ourselves to elevate Western civilization to its once glorious heights. The Faustian fire of Europe resides in the hearts of all European peoples, no matter the current dire circumstances, and as long as we live and remain true to our ancestral selves, Europe lives. As Dominique Venner wrote, “Nature as the foundation, excellence as the goal, and beauty as the horizon.” If we can remain steadfast in our commitment to these ideals and endure the depravities of the current age, the future of Europe and its civilization will burn brilliant and bright!

Works Cited

Horace, translator David West, The Complete Odes and Epodes (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008).

Robin Artisson, The Words of Odin: A New Rendering of Hávamál for the Present Age (Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2016).

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, editor J. D. McClatchy, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Poems & Other Writings (New York, NY: Library of America, 2000).