THE Swiss traditionalist, Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998), once said that when “true myths are done away with, they inevitably come to be replaced by artificial myths.” G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) said much the same thing, when he observed that people who cease to believe in spiritual principles “do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.” Indeed, one only has to look at a modern search engine to see how this process works. Scouring the internet for information about various gods and goddesses, for example, or even historical figures, will inevitably yield results that pertain to a series of Hollywood blockbusters, American comic book characters or misshapen blocks of Lego®.

When this is attempted through Google Images, on the other hand, the problem seems far more acute (try it for yourself) and it soon becomes clear that our spiritual, historical and cultural heritage is being wilfully supplanted by a rising tide of modernist junk. Schuon went on to suggest that

“a mode of thought which is content to rely on its own logic alone while operating in a realm where ordinary logic opens up no vistas, thereby becomes defenceless against the various scientific mythologies of the time, rather in the same way as when religion is done away with; this leads, in fact, not to a rational view of the Universe, but to a counter-religion, with its own ‘faith,’ its dogmas, its taboos, in the name of which it will not be long before rationalism itself is eaten up.”

It is certainly true that our Indo-European legacy is being devoured at a staggering rate, not merely through mass immigration, social dislocation, academic dishonesty, state-censorship and the bastardisation of our languages, but also through what Rene Guénon (1886-1951) described as “the reign of quantity”. If quality itself declines, therefore, and form is converted into matter, the spiritual attributes that once defined us as a people will soon be eradicated by the materialistic transience which characterises the modern world.

We can, however, take solace in the fact that the internet will not be around forever, but whether or not it will still be possible for us to salvage anything of any worth is entirely up to you. Preserve and nurture what you have, impart the wisdom to others and ensure that our most sacred values do not go down with the sinking ship.