The Ash Plume Riseth, The Cup Filleth
But Don't Interrupt Your Enemy While He is Making a Mistake...
At last, the power of Sauron is revealed: he moves against the Good in open hate. It is in haste, sooner than he would wish. The rising Ash Cloud from Mount Doom, the increased bad weather, and (finally) a preternatural pall of darkness out of Mordor, are covering all the Western lands. Sauron believes the Valar no longer care for Arda, and he will not be stopped. He is “half right” (as usual). But not right in the way he thinks…
[Sauron] probably deluded himself with the notion that the Valar (including Melkor) having failed, Eru had simply abandoned Eä, or at any rate Arda, and would not concern himself with it any more. … Sauron was not a “sincere” atheist, but he preached atheism, because it weakened resistance to himself (and he had ceased to fear God’s action in Arda). - JRR Tolkien, Letters
King Aragorn has goaded him into even more premature reckless action:
'And he beheld me. Yes, Master Gimli, he saw me, but in other guise than you see me here. . .To know that I lived and walked the earth was a blow to his heart, I deem; for he knew it not till now. . .but Sauron has not forgotten Isildur and the sword of Elendil. Now in the very hour of his great designs the heir of Isildur and the Sword are revealed; for I showed the blade reforged to him. He is not so mighty yet that he is above fear; nay, doubt ever gnaws him.'
When Sauron blots out the Sun, Aragorn goes under the Earth in the paths of the Dead & Gandalf travels by night. Sam and Frodo crawl. Maintaining a connection to the living Earth is what carries us through the “end of all things”.
You cannot exaggerate the power of Sauron - it is immense. Sauron comes as near to wholly evil, just short, as possible.
The short version is that this 19th Century Methodist minister and educator who did as much as anyone else ever did to help the indigenous people retain their culture and defend their land against intrusion by a tidal wave of European immigration, has officially been declared persona-non-Grata by indigenous hactivists using the kind of half-factual, half-made up history beloved of the Wokesters to justify their righteousness. The university which was named in his honour+ 70 years ago has just renamed itself “Toronto Metropolitan University” after a decade of persistant and increasing violence and anger directed against him, blaming him for the residential school system that was so horrible (and deadly) for so many indigenous people over the past 100 years. He had nothing to do with this system and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report explicitly says so. Nevertheless, it has become almost holy writ amongst all Woke Social Justice Warriors that he was responsible and so, finally, the cowed elites submitted to the browbeating and moral righteousness, with the board of governors embracing the fake history as true. (What this says about them as educators is an whole ‘nother issue.) Ryerson is guilty of being white, male, and in North America and therefore is officially a bad person. What I’m seeing here is, as David Starkey said recently, almost a replay of the Reformation at the beginning of the 16th Century with Twitter filling the role of the movable-type printing press in producing fake-news pamphlets for wide dissemination which side-step facts and rational discussion in favour of a howling self-righteous mob. But I can’t map this kind of self-destructive action onto the collapse of Rome or any other empire or the collapse of a civilization. I see many cases when the elites failed to adapt to change clinging to their ways until the bitter end, but I can’t see where the elite have aided and abetted the wholesale rejection of their own culture, the way our elites are currently disparaging everything European (especially those of European descent), can you? Source
The self-hatred and (ultimately) self-cancellation is just one facet of Sauron putting forth his strength. Food shortages, anyone? Supply chain problems? Wildfires? Pandemics? Civil Unrest? Inflation? Birds making the face of Vladimir Putin in the sky? You pick it, the Omens are pranging.
But is it all just, “out there”? RJ Rushdoony, in his Biblical Philosophy of History, mentions how weather patterns and earth patterns had worsened, during the 20th century. Which comes first, the Chicken or the Egg? The long period of stable, temperate climate and earth movement just happened to coincide with the Victorian period of European expansion and settlement. People were sunny in their hearts, so the weather responded. And Versus Vice. Whatever happened then, it appears it is not happening now.
7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he… - Proverbs 23:7
Principles are true, not for abstraction, but for pervasion of all levels of the Cosmos. For contemplation, and reflection. And reflection takes strange forms.
Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering "like" stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring. Source
This world was the net of the great Sakra (Indra), of mighty size; by means of this net of Indra I envelop all those people with darkness…
You can read the Bones in the smallest events, and the smallest events, dance with the Runes. “On earth, as it is in Heaven,” said the Lord.
He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. - Ecclesiastes 3:11
There are connections up and down, and back and forth. The rise of Sauron’s darkness can be traced back to the darkness in the hearts of men. The Christian Reformed Tradition, on this point, asserts that there is a point beyond which man cannot go.
The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law. - Dueteronomy 29:29
Yet, Christ is the Law and the Word, the Law-Word. So, with the mind of Christ and the guidance of the Spirit, we can begin faithfully thinking God’s thoughts after Him, in every arena of human existence and activity. And this is how we read the bones:
Prof. Slobodan Vladusic has a thesis: “Megalopolis hates Russia because it is not Megalopolis - it has not entered the sphere of anti-humanism and that is why it remains a civilization alternative. Hence, Russophobia.” (H/T P. Escobar)
The West has removed all safeties from the torpedoes, & targeted their own positions: there will be nothing left, and nothing “left over”, when it is finished. We will have to rebuild from the rubble, and Repent, at the same time.
Sauron, then, is an anti-human force. He is not Iluvatar, or even Indra. He is pretender. He is revealed, at the last, not as Anti-God, or Anti-Christ (merely), but Anti-Man (not to mention, Hobbit or Elf or Dwarf, all of which would be real diversity). The convulsions the West is undergoing (self-inflicted) are the hand of Sauron - they are the logical result of endless years of false consciousness, finally ripened. As Dmitri Orlov nails it, Marx had it backwards - Consciousness Determines Being.
As I mentioned, Marx was a great believer in social progress and so he didn’t think far enough ahead to resource depletion and collapse—but I did, and pretty early on I hit on the idea that when it comes to collapse Marx had it exactly backwards: it is das Bewusstsein that determines das Sein…
If we assume that Sauron is a projector, it all makes sense. The hatred is self-hatred, a form of God-hatred. The violence, is self-destructive, primarily. The insanity, self-doubt exacerbated beyond all recall. The hysteria, fear of the shadow of the self. The entire Leftist project of locating problems out there, is based in self-righteous Hubris. The instantiation of such externalizations (along with the immanentizing of the Eschaton) is naturally, of the essence of Leftism. It’s always the non-Progressors (the “Others”), of course, that holds “Us” back. Which is why hate and violence are so acceptable (if regrettable). To save the world from the Nazis, we must become Nazis. What could be simpler?
It’s easy to mock them.
But how do you know, you may well ask, that you aren’t projecting? That this just isn’t another self-instantiation? When we say that they are? Is the entire thesis of Leftist self-hatred and projecting merely a subtle form of doing the same thing? Could it be that we conservatives also project, and at a deeper level, by positing (or even noticing) that Leftists always accuse others of what they, themselves, are doing?
We try to ask ourselves the hard questions, and to put even ourselves, to the Question.
I used to resist this conclusion, but increasingly, I think it has some unique merit. At a subtle, deep or high level, all human consciousness is One. I see Leftism for what it is because I, too, am a recovering Leftist. I have it in me, to be just like them. So I notice. I think it matters, the spirit in which you condemn something. Charity and self-control, are ultimately exercised towards our self. Anger may be fitting toward what they have “made of themselves”, and done to the civil sphere, but never toward the “image” and “such likeness” as they do have (of God). Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto.
Still, to notice projection does not render the observation necessarily self-refuting, otherwise, one could never carry things upwards, into more subtle spheres. It really would be a battle royale between two irremediable, and irreconciliable, Evils, neither of which could comprehend the Other. Indeed of course one could fall into being an anti-Sauronist, and hating Sauron, wishing to use the Ring against him, etc., etc. Tolkien gives us examples of such. Al-Pharazon, for instance, was a pretty proud guy who believed in swinging a big stick.
One can see Sauron for what he is, The Great Projector, and apply the lesson to one’s own soul, swiftly. If we understand, We Have Met the Enemy, & He is Us, then we apply the sovereign remedy in every particular, and “see” our Enemies in Truth.
Only then, can one resist Sauron effectively. It is the last test, which Evil puts against the Good. By which it attempts to turn Good down its own dark Path, the temptation to refrain from all judging in despair (after all, we don’t want to just Project, like them), or to judge by the Enemy’s standard (fighting Fire with Fire). We choose neither, but see, then see again, and finally See. Good>Better>Best. We rise, and reconcile the dilemma. Then we are free to both Criticize, and Fight, with the Enemy, because we have already done so within.
It’s the Gandalf way.
This is not an end, in itself, but a beginning, so we can really overcome them. In the end, it is Good that is not only more Creative, but more Powerful (Praise Be To Little Things), than Evil.