Mystical Intuition and the Non-Historical Worldview – excerpt from Foundations of Eurasianism Vol. I

Excerpt from FOUNDATIONS OF EURASIANISM – VOLUME I, forthcoming from PRAV Publishing:

Genuine creativity and authentic novelty are always ‘inexplicable.’ Mutational outbursts and the turns of hereditary pathways always remain beyond the limits of rational consciousness. But does this mean that they are ‘causeless’, that they do not hail from the ‘past’?

The world is ‘cosmic’, not chaotic, and not for one mind alone. ‘Improvisations’ have their own immanent necessity. Creativity, like the adaptability of everyday life, has its own traditions. But these cultural ties are not comprehended by reason, nor by discursive analysis, but by a sense of feeling which condenses ages into a single moment. Mystical intuition grasps all at once, ‘all that is, was, and will come in ages’ in their subterranean, mysterious connection…The religiously-enlightened eye sees under the constructive continuity of everyday images the tragic mystery of historical life… This eye grasps both its own cultural-psychological continuity and that of its enemies, and it feels itself to be in a certain line and direction. The ‘past’ is invisible, and it does not oppress the present and the future with the blind irresistibility of Fate. The free servants of ideals perform their sacred roles in this mystery, in graceful communion with one another.

The ideals and premonition of the future which reveal themselves in intimate contemplation are the true stimuli of cultural creativity and life – not in the form of an exhaustive program of action or an infallible regula vitae, but as an inspiring faith assisted by love. The center of gravity moves into the depths of the personality. The future becomes the cause of the present, as Zarathustra prophetically spoke: ‘Whoever discovered the land ‘human being’, also discovered the land ‘human future.’’ However many or few generations have lived before me, whether I stand in a ‘pure’ or ‘hybrid’ line – this makes no difference. The inner, ‘supra-historical’ voice, not genealogical calculations, tells whither to go.

Here lies the deep or, one might say, intuitive-mystical focal point of the ‘non-historical’ perception of the world. It is not the vis a tergo of ‘vital impulse’, nor the innumerable hosts of previous generations, nor irresistible skills which drive ‘culture’ and creativity ahead, but the freely chosen ideal that invitingly draws one out to the horizon. ‘This voice still sounds in silence without reproach: the end is near, the desired will come true soon.’

– Georges Florovsky, “On Non-Historical Peoples: The Fatherland and Children’s Land”

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Georges Florovsky (1893-1979)