Excerpt from POLEMOS: THE DAWN OF PAGAN TRADITIONALISM, by Askr Svarte, coming soon from PRAV Publishing:
“The era of Modernity, of the bourgeois geniuses of the Enlightenment and the proletarian masses, unfolds under the enrapturing reign of the titan Prometheus. Whereas hitherto this figure had never drawn so much attention and never became a model or orientation, Modernity becomes the time of Prometheus unbound…
Prometheus is the offspring of the titan Iapetus and the brother of the titan Atlas, who stood on the frontline of the Titanomachia…Hesiod described Prometheus’ creation of people out of clay, subsequently endowed with soul and spirit by Athena and Zeus. In this myth we can see the animation and spiritualization of the purely material creations of the titans and people of a particular nature, that of red clay. In sterile form, the mankind created by Prometheus was spiritless and thoroughly material. Prometheus himself is a special figure who is in some sense higher than the other titans. He is close to the Gods of Olympus and acts on their side during the Titanomachia, and is also close to man. However, at the same time Prometheus is neither God nor man. In fact, he would become the reason for the Gods’ withdrawal from people and, ultimately, the reason for the Gods’ punishment of people and modern decline.
Prometheus’ first deceit of Zeus took place in Mecone, where he replaced the different parts of humans’ first sacrifice of a bull, as a result of which Zeus ended up choosing the worst part of the sacrifice, the bones instead of the meat, and therefore deprived people of fire. The cunning Prometheus stole the fire and returned it to the people. For revenge, Zeus sent Pandora, “beautiful evil”, down to Earth… With the opening of her box, Pandora released into the world all existing misfortunes. Yet the main “exchange” was Prometheus’ “returning” – instead of the Fire of the Spirit burning in the heart of man – an ordinary light, an incandescent lamp, which he claimed to be fire itself. Thus, instead of lighting fire from within themselves and returning to their ever-present divine nature, people are deceived by imaginary material light…
Prometheus is the cult figure of the thinkers of Modernity. He becomes the hero of time. Napoleon, Marx, Freud, Byron, and Wilson were all fascinated by him, whom they thought to be a figure representing radical liberation. Indeed, his rebellion against the Gods is consonant with the scientific “discoveries” of the secular zones of the physical world. Prometheus is the bearer of the light of reason (ratio), of civilization, and represents progress. This trickster titan, according to Oswald Spengler, liberates technology and revokes senses of proportion. Prometheus’ gifts in the Modern era are Ford’s assembly line and Edison’s artificial light. In Modernity, the children of the stolen fire create the ideal humanity of their father: a spiritless, material society. The unbound titan is the unbound man left to himself as an individual. It is telling that the Rockefeller Center in New York is the site of a bronze statue of Prometheus covered with gold gilding. The light of Prometheus, his “divine” gold, and the “golden age” of the progressivists are deceitful fakes.
Prometheus penetrated the pagan world as an element from Greek myths and epics and through the culture of the Enlightenment. He was smuggled in as an element of myth lacking proper reflection. Prometheus is indeed a part of myth, but how he is treated in myth itself (and not only him, but any chthonic figure) must be taken into account. Thus, we arrive at the necessity of attentively – even painfully for modern paganism – examining the constructs of Modernity which have become the “natural” and “objective” given basis of mankind…The constructs of Modernity are the titans’ constructs, and the strategies of Modernity are their strategies… Modern people are void of the fire of Zeus (the Heart), possessing only Prometheus’ light of reason…
Today the most consistent adepts of the “tradition” of the Titans are those typical, everyday inhabitants of the world of matter and consumption, those most ordinary, godless people mired in the flows of signs, semiurgy, consumption, and representations, the Promethean humanity of broken shards of clay. Their “priesthood” is that of idols on TV screens, the “stars” of virtuality, and genius marketers and scientists granting ever newer gadgets, brands, fashion trends, and signs. The semiurgy of Postmodernity is the black magic of the Titans.“
