Intellectual-Spiritual Authority:
From Religion to the Cathedral.
The accredited theories of social and political science taught in academia today, working from a misconstrued and misplaced conception of "scientific" materialism, recognize but two foundations of power and authority: wealth and military force, in that order. The very same academics who not only make a handsome living for themselves, but exercise outsized and enormous influence over public affairs wielding specifically intellectual authority, nonetheless vehemently insist that the gifts and accomplishments of the mind are nothing more than so much mere "ideology", that is to say, ad-hoc apologetics or justifications for the oppression and injustice visited as a consequence of inequality or superiority of wealth and physical coercion, as the sole real bases of social and political power. These Marxists are never quite able to explain just how intellectuals could possibly provide this service for the putatively "real" holders of power if they held no power and authority of their own right at all. Whence the credibility of "ideology"? If all power is economic or military, why do the capitalist class and State even need it at all? We are not told.
Marxist sophistry aside, the most cursory common-sense reflection on the nature of Man makes it clear that Man, in order to get by, must know much more than any other animal, but is born knowing much less; with few, if any, genuine hard-coded instincts, his nature dooms him to a perpetual learning curve; and as an intensely social animal, it is the case both that that the most important among the things he must learn concern how to conduct himself among others, and that he learns almost all of that and everything else he knows from others who know more about this or that subject than he does.
And when he needs to learn, Haller points out, he has to place himself under the authority of those superior in wisdom to him, in exactly the same way that he must place himself under the authority of those wealthier than him if he needs to be paid, and under the authority of those who are physically stronger or command armed men if he needs protection. Hence here too need gives rise to relations of authority and dependence between the stronger and the weaker. Here too, the authority of the stronger party is personal, self-sufficient, an emanation of natural superiority of talent and corresponding acquired rights, as opposed to something delegated by subordinates through a democratic procedure (for there is no way that students can delegate something they by definition do not have, and would not need if they did have it).
Not only is intellectual-spiritual superiority thus incontrovertibly a base of power in its own right alongside property and arms: it is, according to Haller, the socially paramount form of power. The person who receives instruction, unlike the person who receives a paycheck or physical protection, uniquely must place an unconditional and absolute credence, faith, in his teacher; he has no choice but to take the teacher wholly at his word, to a much a greater extent than he does the purely worldly patron upon whom he relies for pay or protection. Furthermore, wisdom, relative to other means of satisfying a need, can be extraordinarily difficult to acquire. There are any number of people who manage to become relatively or absolutely self-sufficient in their ability to provide for their own economic needs or their own protection over the life-course. But attaining to intellectual or spiritual self-sufficiency requires not only the rarest of rare gifts, but years and years of dedicated effort; and nobody attains to it in every area.
Most people, then, will passively receive instruction on what they must do, and how they must live, from cradle to grave, and moreover take that instruction on faith. Secondly, intellectual-spiritual authority, uniquely, acts upon and shapes the very will of individuals, while economic and military power are limited to the incentive structure external to the will. Finally, in making manifest the precepts of Divine and natural law (however understood) that end up being taken as articles of faith, and encompass every aspect of life, religion, as the summit of intellectual-spiritual authority, ends up subsuming and regulating all the other forms and relations of authority. For all these reasons, religion emerges as the paramount power; as such, it comes as no surprise that, as Haller shows, for Liberalism destroying Christian and other traditional religious authority has always been the first order of business on the agenda, something that much more strategically important to them than simply seizing temporal power.
The familiar Liberal declamations in favour of "free thought" against authentic religion, like those in favour of "liberty" or "democracy" against traditional monarchies and republics, can never be realized in practice, and moreover were never seriously intended to be. As with the other forms of authority, intellectual-spiritual power, since it supplies basic human needs, cannot be abolished, only usurped. Hence the self-styled "freethinkers" of the fabled Enlightenment- just like their Woke descendants today- demanded the most punctilious conformity and blind acceptance of their own secular doctrines, and were more fanatically intolerant of any skepticism or dissent than anything hitherto, even as they preached "tolerance" and promoted radical disbelief and skepticism towards Christian doctrine. Indeed, Haller documents how what is known as "cancel culture" today was in fact already being practiced almost three centuries ago by the very first generations of Liberals in Europe.
The war against religion, then, succeeded only in creating a secular surrogate for the real thing; one that, just like the temporal administrative State which issued from the war against princes and legitimate republics, turned out to be far more oppressively totalitarian than what it replaced. The false doctrines of Critical Race Theory, Darwinism, blank-slate egalitarianism, "human rights", and so on from which we are not allowed to dissent today, along with the legions of professional activists, journalists, educators, "expert" technocrats, therapists, and other personnel- what Curtis Yarvin collectively terms "the Cathedral"- who administer these doctrines, and dictate to entire peoples what they must think and say, is but the continuity of this inversion and perversion of religion, this abuse of intellectual-spiritual authority, which administers the minds of men down to the most remote recesses of thought while the bureaucratic apparatus of the State likewise administers their bodies and goods in the most punctilious minutiae of detail.
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(Adapted from: Restoration of Political Science, or Theory of the Natural Social State against the Fiction of the Artificial Civil State, Fifth Volume: Of Independent Spiritual Lords, or Pontifical States (Paris: Emile Vaton, 1875); Restoration of Political Science, or Theory of the Natural Social State against the Fiction of the Artificial Civil State, First Volume: Exposition, History, and Critique of False Academic Systems. General Principles of the Natural or Divine Order, against these Systems. (Lyon and Paris: Lusand, 1844). Trans. mine.
In the first four volumes of this work, we have established as fundamental basis that, by the natural order of things, men necessarily find themselves, each towards each other, in social relations; that all types of authority rests on natural power or superiority, and all dependence on need or lack of means, all power and all liberty having the Divine law of justice and charity as the rule of its exercise. From there, we have proven that States are distinguished from ordinary lords or corporations by the independence of their head, and by a higher degree of power and liberty. Then, through explication of these general principles, we showed that there can be only three major types of power or principles of authority, to wit superiority of territorial holdings, superiority of physical force, and superiority of intellect and learning.
It remains for us to indicate the third social relation, which can give a single individual great dominion over other men, raise him to independence and hence found monarchies; I mean to say the relation of a spiritual master or head to his disciples and faithful, abstracting away such territorial holdings as he might otherwise possess. From this relation derives spiritual societies or sacerdotal States, few in number, I am aware, but in the end possible, and of which history offers numerous examples. The power that creates spiritual authority, more than any other, is an immediate gift of Divinity. It consists in a superlative wisdom that reveals the works and commandments of the Master of the universe to everybody.
Conversely, in spiritual societies, obedience and submission rest upon faith, deriving from the need for instruction and guidance in the most important things in life. That this faith or confidence in a superior authority is a necessity for all men, and that it precedes knowledge in all things, is a truth we have already frequently demonstrated and that can be proven to ultimate certainty.
It is an uncontestable and uncontested fact that, in the domain of human knowledge, the majority of men believe, and are obliged to believe, what those who teach them say. It is given only to a very few to fathom the nature of things, reach general principles, and attach a lengthy chain of truths to a primary truth. How could everybody attain to this sort of spiritual independence, drawing the truth from its original wellspring and, so to speak, receiving it from the hands of God Himself? Some lack the rectitude of intent for this, others sufficient faculties, others still circumstances favourable to the development of those faculties. Some might get there in a specialized branch of human knowledge, but nobody could ever ascend, in all of them, to that height which comprises a sort of spiritual sovereignty.
Discovering the physical and moral laws of nature and revealing them to others is no easy thing. It is impossible for all to occupy themselves with it, and nor is it necessary. Obliged to procure the means of subsistence for themselves through constant work, driven by the thirst for power, riches, and pleasures, or alternately tied up with secondary functions as useful to society as could be, not all men can commit themselves to the pursuit of the mysteries of Heaven and Earth. The quest for truth and deep thought requires, aside from natural talents that in any case are very rare, peace, quiet, and leisure; few physical needs, or resources for their satisfaction; and then, a sort of effort and labour more onerous than any other for those Nature hasn't blessed with special gifts. On top of all this, doesn't it also require a great and noble spirit, capable of lengthy efforts and enormous sacrifices, that, trumping private interest, seeks out its reward in the general good and the glory of God?
Thus not every man can discover, through his own inquiries, the truths hidden in the secrets of the sovereign Being and nature. However, certain notions, certain principles are needed by all as a standard of conduct; how can they come into knowledge of them? Through faith or confidence in the authority of sages; such is the order established by Providence.
Ever-benevolent, ever-merciful, Providence has revealed the necessary truths and left the others up to the exercise of reason, to disputation among men. In the same way that she unequally distributes physical forces and the goods of fortune in order for men to be able render mutual services, likewise she distributes intellectual gifts in unequal measure. From the beginning she has established temporal power and spiritual power: the former for the feeding and protection of the body, the latter for the diet and defense of the soul, that is to say, in order to guide the mind towards the truth and the heart towards the good.
Leaving aside ancient and universal traditions, institutions established in order to safeguard and maintain them in their original purity, Providence gives all peoples not only temporal lords and benefactors, but also superior minds or spiritual benefactors. In periods more or less distant she gives rise to sages and prophets of extraordinary genius, great captains of doctrine and, so to speak, envoys of Heaven, appointing them to reveal to men, by way of teaching or authority, the works and laws of God. She also establishes external means in order to strengthen, propagate and transmit these indispensable truths: she establishes spiritual societies, which can raise themselves to temporal independence and form sovereign States.
In keeping with the nature of things, spiritual authority, like temporal authority, forms from the top down. It follows by all necessity that the primordial teacher or master exists prior to those he must instruct. Genius is given him from on high by grace of God. The disciples rally around his person; or rather he rallies his disciples through education and persuasion. He forms his empire and his subjects by himself.
What do we see in the course of ages, at the birth of every Church, every sect, every school? The head existing first, then the members coming later on. None can give what they do not have; the weak thus couldn't have given strength to the mighty, nor the poor the wealth of the rich, nor the mute the words of those who speak; likewise the disciples and faithful cannot delegate to the spiritual head the wisdom or learning they do not have. It is the head who establishes the Church or the body of the faithful; it is the pastor who gathers the flock; but the flock doesn't create the pastor, the faithful don't make the head. He isn't dependent on them, but they are dependent on him, seeing as how they obey and follow him, seeing as how they profess his doctrine and adopt it as the standard of their conduct. They answer to him in the spiritual order; he answers only to God, the author of all truth and all law. However, it could be said, in a moral and more elevated sense, that he is the servant or benefactor of his spiritual children, and by this very fact above them; he protects them, guides them, instructs them, saves them from error and vice, and, without thinking of his interests, watches over them, certainly not according to their orders, but according to the law of God Who sent him, and to Whom alone his power must be accountable.
Religious and moral doctrines alone can give their propagator a durable empire over a great number of men. This is the lesson of reason and experience. Presupposing as it does the highest intellectual superiority, religion is the natural sovereign of other sciences, which are or ought to be its vassals and servants. Let us add that religion alone is necessary for all men.
Nobody can, without dealing a blow mortal to himself and ruinous to society, reject belief in a supreme Being and laws dictated from on high; for it is on this belief that the social order and the well-being of the individual rest. Doctrines and bodies of knowledge that serve no purpose other than curiosity, or even utility, hardly arouse any interest in the greatest number. Over the course of ages, one sees the rise of sects of philosophy, medicine, law, etc.; their heads reign over their disciples with an authority that is, so to speak, absolute; as they tear each other apart, the masses pass by indifferently, without paying any attention to the cries of the combatants, and these little spiritual empires soon disappear into the darkness of the memory-hole. Aristotle ruled for centuries in philosophy; Galen and Hippocrates enjoyed the highest authority in medicine; Justinian was taken as the king of jurisconsults. Alright then! Take away the small number of their disciples, and tell me who knows about these great men, who pores over their doctrines? But it is something necessary, indispensable, indeed extremely urgent, to know what's good and evil, just or unjust; to know what one must do or avoid in order to be happy oneself and make others happy. Here is the doctrine all men want to learn; here is the point on which they want to be instructed, enlightened, and guided; here is the most intimate need of hearts and minds. For, it can't be restated too often, men have the sense that there is a supremely wise being, all-powerful, which conscience proclaims and the universe attests to: this fact cannot be contested. Should a man, endowed with superlative faculties, thus come along to fertilize this seed planted by the hand of the Divine, animating these ideas so profoundly imprinted in the essence of our being; should he make them shine in their true light, and propagate them far and wide through his mighty words and his immortal works; should he formulate them as wise and salutary precepts, regulating the exercise of freedom of action, guiding conduct towards justice and bringing peace, security, and confidence to society: soon enough this man will be seen surrounded by numerous disciples, who will revere him as the interpreter of truth and Divine law.
Spiritual authority, to be sure, reigns only over minds. It doesn't exercise its dominion over external things and in no way commands the body. Faith or the obedience of souls obtains neither through compulsion, nor force of arms. And nonetheless, spiritual authority has immense force, since it acts on the mind and the will, hence on the principle and motive force of all human action. Is truth thus not "the breath of the force of God, and a ray of the majesty of the Most High"? It is not only a vigilant and sure guide for those who follow it, but it ends up leading even those who dare resist it. It overcomes all obstacles, and in a certain way partakes of the omnipotence of its Author. Like the word of God, by which name it is justly called, it is sharper and more terrible than a double-edged sword; it enters and penetrates the very depths of the soul and mind, the very joints and marrow of the bone. It is before the truth that the good man inclines, and it is before it that mighty iniquity pales. It makes the tyrant tremble on the throne, because he recognizes his master in it and fears seeing himself, his partisans, and his fortune brought down by it.
Truth braves exile, prison, death. Violence having for a moment cast it into the tomb, it rolls away the stone, makes the earth tremble, and gloriously resurrects like its Divine Master; then it spreads far and wide, climbs ever-higher, and its apostles dictate laws to the mighty of the Earth before they judge the world from thrones.
One thus sees that spiritual authority has ruled and always will rule over the temporal power, since it surpasses it in rank, as the soul surpasses the body; since it emanates from God and relates to God, having no other aim than strengthening the rule of truth and justice. The two swords necessary to society, spiritual power and temporal power, are in its hand; the former is, to use modern language, the legislative power, the latter the executive power, and it is in this sense alone that one can admit the division of powers. Hence; spiritual authority has both powers: this is seen and will be seen everywhere and always, for without a superior authority, promulgating and applying Divine law, there can be neither order, justice, or security among men. Two principles, two spirits represented by opposing societies, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, contend for dominion over the world. And the world, surrendering so to speak, without cease, to the impetus received, obeys the true God or idols, the spirit of good or the spirit of evil, truth or lies, humble and righteous scholars or arrogant sophists and impostors. The great question that today divides the human race into two camps armed against one another, is all this in its entirety, reduced to its ultimate expression. Which spirit, which spiritual authority shall rule over peoples and even over thrones? Divinity and Christianity or Humanity divinizing itself, whether individually or collectively; the Christian and universal Church, or secret and anti-Christian societies; in short, the spirit of God or the spirit of Hell?
No doubt, and the history of all times proves it only all too well, it's possible to acquire a type of spiritual authority, not just through a true and salutary doctrine, but also false and ruinous doctrines that flatter the passions. That they persuade and are believed suffices for it: the authority exists, albeit usurped through lies and imposture. Once taken as true, error gets results similar to truth. Do we not see, unfortunately, men adore idols as the true God, the spirit of evil as the spirit of good, error and vice as truth and virtue? But something that must be carefully noted, is that error never reigns except under the pretense of truth. Ignorance must don the mask of science, evil borrow the colours of good, in order to bamboozle and subjugate everybody.
The last half of the eighteenth century, so infatuated with its own minds, has shown more than any other epoch just what incredible dominion the most absurd and pernicious doctrines can usurp over men, once they abandon the wellspring of all truth. Unbelief came to France chiefly through the efforts of Voltaire. It was constituted according to the idea that had taken shape in the chimerical project of making all men independent of all higher authority in spiritual matters. Hence the partisans of this impiety were given the sobriquet of strong minds, or in Germany, free spirits (frei geister). Marie-Francois Arouet, later called M. de Voltaire, having been emboldened by reading the works of English unbelievers in the hatred he had developed for religion, under the licentious regency of the Duke of Orleans devised, by the avowal of his own apologists, around the year 1728, the horrible project of destroying all religion, above all Christianity, and throwing off, as d'Alembert, Diderot, and Damilaville put it, the yoke of all external authority in spiritual matters, so that each man shall obey nothing but his own reason.
In fact, this enterprise was, by its very nature, as deranged and as impossible as it would be to seek to bring about a world with neither masters nor servants, where men would have no need of one another for their physical existence, and where they could all be equally free and independent. For believing in nothing at all is an impossible thing; disbelief in what is true or time-honoured, is belief in error or novelty. Thus the foolish endeavour of making men depend on nothing but their reason in spiritual matters cannot be achieved, and would effectuate no other result than putting the reason of Voltaire, and that of his acolytes, in the place of the reason of every scholar and every wise man hitherto, dethroning the doctrine of the latter in order to give the scepter to themselves. In this order of things, masters and disciples, authority and faith, would thus go on as before, with the result that men wouldn't be subject to their own reason alone after all; the old relations would instead be inverted, but the ridiculous idea of the philosophists wouldn't find itself realized for that.
Judging from the facts and the behaviour of these sophists, it is beyond doubt that a monopoly over minds was the goal of their sect, which had absolutely no parallel in history. The very philosophists who declaimed against the authority of the Christian Church wanted to impose that of secret societies on us and insolently demanded absolute submission from princes and peoples. They certainly preached incredulity towards the doctrines received until then- but, ever-inconsistent with themselves, demanded faith in their own principles with more arrogance and fanaticism than any sect ever did. Reason was their battle-cry; but by this word they understood the set of their own personal opinions alone, and nobody was in possession of reason, if they didn't adopt their doctrines with blind trust; nobody was to see, with the aid of this Divine light, anything other than what the sect saw.
"We are the true prophets of the human species, born to instruct and judge other men. The human species is our pupil, our wisdom puts the universe at our feet" (Encycl. dict., art. glory; art. encyclopedia. Essay on prejudices, p. 151. Helevetius, On Mind, p.110). Did not D'Alembert put it in succinct terms: "The party that instructs dictates, to the party that listens, what it must think and say". Listen to Mercier: "The party that governs must defer to the party that instructs (the philosophists) and above all not believe itself to have greater knowledge than the latter" (Clear Notions on Governments, 1787, V. 1, p.1). And Raynal, with more arrogance still: "It belongs only to the sages of the Earth (the philosophists) to make laws, and all peoples must be eager to obey them" (Phil. Hist. of the Indias).
They talked a great deal about tolerance, when they still needed to; but from this time on, they were the most intolerant of all towards those who opposed their opinions. They indignantly demanded general and unlimited freedom of the press, but wanted it only for themselves, in the interest of being able to spread their doctrines more easily and safely; for even when they were still just a militant sect, they already sought, by means of their acolytes and secret intrigues, to prevent the publication of all the works of their opponents, denounce them, and have them banned.
Little by little, thanks to favours from certain ministers already imbued with their principles, they came to exercise such despotism over the French Academy that, in spite of an express provision in its founding statutes, the religious sentiments hitherto a rigorous condition of admission became grounds for exclusion, which culminated in nobody being inducted into this body except for those who were called philosophers- that is to say, as the term was then understood, atheists and avowed enemies of the royal power. Hence all young people just starting out in literary careers, and who aspired to celebrity, saw themselves forced to serve the sect and its doctrines if they wanted to avoid being condemned to obscurity or torn to pieces by slander.
In the newspapers and other periodicals, they put the writings of their partisans on pedestals, while on the other hand decrying and denigrating those of their adversaries as the product of superstition, prejudice and despotism, even though most among the latter were armed with the full force of reason, erudition, and good taste. In this manner, they single-handedly dealt out all praise and shame in accordance with their party line, destroyed distinguished reputations, and created undeserved ones; with the result that every man of letters indifferent neither to recognition nor the favour of a misguided public found himself forced to conform to the principles of the philosophists to at least some extent, and that all sciences had been reduced to mere instruments of terror. And when, in a disastrous and still-recent time, they became triumphant, and even seized a temporal throne, we have seen them not only deify the heads of their school,[1] but employ prison, exile, and the scaffold against writers opposed to their principles with so much violence that that they left every inquisitor and every tyrant in the world far behind them.
One is astonished by the audacity with which the acolytes of this school were already expressing themselves- an audacity that wasn't even surpassed by their revolutionary disciples. Diderot frequently expressed a desire to strangle the last king with the bowels of the last priest. The atrocity of these words jumps at the eyes; allow me to demonstrate its absurdity. If the last king is to be strangled, whoever was able to strangle him with impunity would incontrovertibly be king; for in order to have succeeded, he would have needed assistance and obedience from others. By the same token, if one would slaughter the last priest, it could only be done by establishing a new doctrine able to crush the old one, strip it of credence, and put itself up in its place. But then the heads of the new doctrine, that is to say, Diderot, d'Alembert, et al. would be the true priests. Thus there will always be priests and kings, and the question boils down to discerning just who the best priests are: those of ancient wisdom or those of novel paradoxes; those who preach a law of love and justice, a Divine law engraved in the hearts of men, or those who deny this law and its author; who preface their doctrine by inverting the order of nature; who preach, in the name of reason, the hallucinations of their delirious minds, or the whims of a diseased will, and teach others to strangle and disembowel the original benefactors of Mankind.
[1] The ashes of Voltaire and Rousseau were carried into the Church of St. Genevieve, from then on renamed the Pantheon; blasphemy against philosophy was being discussed, and characterized as a crime worthy of death.