In the present age (meta-zeitgeist), many look to a savior to bring a changing of the age. Unfortunately, there is a convoluted enmeshment of two divergent archetypes. To simplify the discussion and make it relevant to the West, let us discuss this revelation as it appears in the narratives of the Christian church. There is a huge difference between Jesus the man and Jesus of the church. I believe this is partially from the form of sacrifice of a Lifegiver avatar being by proxy instead of directly at his own hands or the hands of his people. What this did was fuse aspects of two distinct archetypes, the Caesar or warrior that is focused outwardly and the Lifegiver (King of Kings) that is focused inwardly.
The Caesar in this age seeks authority for its own sake, utilizing the people for the ends of power or fame. The people, in turn, are to be propelled by the belief that faith in the right person atop the throne will set all right. This is not a life-affirming transformation, but a consumptive one. The Lifegiver, in contrast, has an aversion to the trappings of formal leadership, cultivating instead the mentality of first among equals, and extreme empathy towards his people. This correlates to two distinct drives — the height of consuming decadence or the image of man as the apex predator, part of the cycle of life.
The warrior archetype cannot save; it can only transmute within the meta-zeitgeist if martyred. This is covered to some extent in my Lost Heroic Age series and is an example of the competitive impetus being hijacked by the material void or the hero subsumed by the trader. The Lifegiver is the only true destroyer of the age or protection against it. Lycurgus gave a time of reprieve and renewal to the Spartans. Jesus, indeed, offered “rest” to his people, but was rejected by them. Yet the full transformative power of the sacrifice that Jesus represented was denied to his people because his death was carried out by proxy instead of at the direct hands of the opposing party among his people, the merchants/materialists, or by his own hand. This process of polluting the Lifegiver archetype has precipitated a fusing and confounding of Lifegiver and Caesar into one archetype. Christ’s kingdom, meant to be the Dharma of and within the hearts of the people, was transmuted into the static image of a king on a throne and concrete laws.
Modern religious meta-narratives cling to a dominant trope that there will be a savior of our age that somehow emerges from within the system that dominates it. This misguided notion stems from the belief that salvation will occur without effort and that faith alone is sufficient to create the conditions for the Lifegiver. This trope also helps to perpetuate the folding and reinitiation of zeitgeists within the same meta-zeitgeist, i.e., age. This mentality, then, that faith alone will save us, naturally feeds into the perpetual sacrifice of the Caesar as savior.
The dominant essence of our age is characterized by a projection of self via shallow materialism, where the ego is bound to a simulacrum of human existence. This is opposed to the self as realized through foundational integrative bonds within living absolutes. This fundamental difference in the root of human self-concept is what the major political/economic systems get wrong. They further help to escalate this problem in their perceived opposition — none understand that an authentic revelation of self and mind is ultimately rooted in duty grounded in sacrifice and the maintenance of bonds. Even duty can become a simulacrum, losing the original essence that inspired it if its tree of life is not watered with sacrifice in the image of creation.
It is not the loss of morals in theory or economics that causes decay, but a lack of foundational bonds that a focus on material hyper-production creates. This is the same misunderstanding, even of false objectivity, that disconnects the observer from the relational position to absolute processes and causes a fall to relativity. Economists consistently think of personal incentives relative to the prevailing sickness of this age: individual fame or individual survival. Both of these impulses easily transfer genuine effort to decadence and division.
Consider the material hyperfocus of the age as a cancer: a consumptive, spreading disease that kills its host and destroys its substrate. Expansion of a cancer is not fought with more inverse expansive cancer, but with systemic integrative grounding. The sickness must be carved out. The body must be equipped with tools to fight it. The human being has a fundamental need for bonds and it is those bonds that create living and evolving cultures and identities. Even identity can become a simulacrum of dress-up, a stasis of the forms confused for essence.
Spengler’s notion of the second coming of the Caesars or rulership of the warrior is not possible within the current age. When one does rise, it is short-lived because that is the temptation of this age to skip steps to a desired result or conflicting methodology of reason in a stasis of forms instead of in underlying drives. At this late stage, a Lifegiver could not be developed to full potential nor even recognized because it is so far outside of normative perceptual awareness. Not only would we not know him, he would not even know himself as was seen with Jünger. Calamity will come either way; the question before us is what comes after it and how much of a toll the present rot will take first. From what heights will the corpse come crashing down?
Re-rooting takes deep effort and a will to life for future generations that will not yield to notoriety or fame. Yet this sacrifice, one of true heart, is the only chance of seeding a foundation that will produce the Lifegiver needed to break from the current devolving cycle. There is no shortcut to return to human apex, and this state is systemic across humanity at this point. If the rebirth of the Lifegiver is achieved, an integrative stratocracy can grow from his image and the seeding of localities. One that harmonizes the creative and competitive impetus, allowing for the Age of Rulers. This state of being would be unlike our current perceptions of power and even technics as an alien civilization, and if our eyes were able to see it, we would not know what was in front of us. The Lifegiver might appear before us, but we would not recognize him from any other, for the lens has not been cut through which we can see him. We shall not realize the fruits of rebirth and cultivation in this lifetime, but true apexes do not just think of their own lifetime. This is the essence of reclaiming and resolving karma. May the mantle of the destroyer and healer be reclaimed by those worthy of the responsibility.
“Blessed is he who plants trees under whose shade he will never sit.”
