Charles Upton’s first books of poetry were published in 1968 and 1969 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Light Books in San Francisco. He was then considered the youngest member of the “beat generation” as he was still in high school. He has subsequently written many books associated with the traditionalist school of spirituality including The Science of the Greater Jihad, System of the Antichrist, Vectors of the Counter-Initiation, Folk Metaphysics, and Alien Disclosure Deception: The Metaphysics of Social Engineering. His website is https://charles-upton.com/.
Here he notes that René Guénon wrote about several types of initiation that deviate from authenticity: anti-initiation (i.e., materialism), pseudo-initiation (i.e., fantasy), and counter-initiation (i.e., potentially, if not actually, evil). He proposes that counter-initiation is the ultimate conspiracy theory – the conspiracy behind all other harmful conspiracies. He provide a number of examples, including Satanism, UFO cults, and Aztec ritual sacrifice. He argues that Sufism, when removed from its essential Islamic context – as well as other efforts to form universal religions – may be approaching counter-initiation.
(Recorded on April 30, 2022)
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Published on May 18, 2022