by Neil Vodavzny

This is written as a slight riposte to humanistic philosophy where, to my mind, the racial element gets over-exposed by a preponderance of humanism. Take a look at these two illustrations. One is by Jeffrey Jones of The Studio, and dates from the late 70s:

The other is an Art Nouveau ad litho for Job by Alphonse Mucha, and dates from1898:

Depictions which partake of some sort of ritualistic significance depart from a human-centred perspective to become more symbolic and embedded in nature. The forms of Art Nouveau are naturalistic and symbolic (both).

I believe you will note the resemblance between the Mucha and the imaging that is typically produced using stained-glass. There are certain venerable objects in liturgical usage which carve-out a symbolic reality in stone, glass ... whatever material. This was drawn to my attention by this piece in DT, which refers to the Ufford font canopy, said to be the most beautiful in the world.

This is getting a bit Oscar Wilde, but my affinity with The Studio (Jeff Jones & Co new romantics) leads me to believe that such artefacts are associated with a ritual reality. The objects and the rituals are real, not literal. They exist in a transcendental sense which is a mixture of literal and symbolic.

This what might be called aesthetic view of the world has much in common with the amoral philosophies of Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Whitman, in particular, is animalistic and pagan in his lust for natural living. Emerson – though influenced in his thinking – is what you might call the anti-Kant. Living in the Christian society of American townsfolk of that time, surrounded by artefacts, rituals and the general vernacular, how does Emerson’s interpretation of transcendence differ from that of Kant?

Kant is a humanistic philosopher and that means his version of transcendence does not include nature. This principle goes further considering the history of Christianity. In a medieval framework, kinship amongst men was superseded by spiritual kinship with Christ. Kinship with Christ is not a cultural kinship; in a sense, you become as an animal with no culture.

In our era of literal materialism that makes not much sense. But to see a kinship with animals is just the other side of a spiritual faith. Rituals, by their very nature, nurture a reality which is not literal and not material, not tangible. The Right are right to be pan-European but, by the same token, a Europe without spirit is not existent in any proper sense. It’s just a political hypothesis.

Both the paganism of Whitman and Emerson’s unorthodox Christianity are profoundly ritualistic in spirit. We should bear this in mind, and particularly in view of its close parallel to Nietzsche’s far-flung poetry of the European soul. As I understand it, the Anti-Christ is an affirmation of heretical texts. These supposed that the symbolism of the cross and other events were the original reality, not the literalism advocated by the orthodox Church.

There are also correspondences between the Persian triad of Mithra (son), Ahura (God) and Anahita (virgin mother), and correspondences between the resurrection and pagan fertility rites. Warlike Rome was overly generous in preserving native deities when their attributes as patrons of traders, seamen, water were one and the same as a traditional Roman one. In our abeyance to demos, we forget that wooded valleys, temple complexes, pools and springs and grottos with nymphs are ritual scenes of inestimable meaning to European civilization:

Sequana, the Gaulish Goddess of the River Seine

A gorgon, associated with the Roman goddess Minerva, Roman Bath Museum, Bath

We can bring in more correspondences. Yew trees are universal symbols of eternity - according to myth cut, from the original tree of life.  Pilgrims brought staffs and planted them on sites around Britain. Why are there these correspondences? The answer is because transcendence is a reality that is not literal or material. It is part of the fabric of nature, animalistic or vegetative.

Just a word on Gnosticism, which branches into the utterly fantastical Euro-centric notions of Jean Parvulesco. Europeans, as a people, have to be open to the transcendent in order to have reality. Symbolism is like Alan Moore’s ideas space – not material. But it’s also true that interpretations are not identical. Many symbols have universal elements.

I would say there is also a nonsense aspect, because symbols are to a degree fantastical or supernatural. A sacred ritual has to have an element of mumbo-jumbo in that it is part of the fabric of romance, poetry, the less-than-complete reason of rhyme.

12th century Novgorod icon, Angel with Golden Locks.

The sacred icon is an image of a face “not made by human hands”. One contemplates the naturalism, not the human representation. Images as icons in nature are extremely prevalent in all cultures: the Buddha’s lotus-blossom … the Victorian obsession with fairies … the Green Man ... What such an image gives is bound up with faith in naturalism, or praxis.

This doesn’t imply lack of reason; it means reason applied to praxis. We are all in nature, and it is either for you or against you. We in the modern world are getting the worst of nature. There is a hint of “the madness of reason” divorced from nature in the textual world of programs (having tried Excel, my sanity was hanging by a thread).

You see similar things in oriental herbalism. Chinese practices have 5 elements – wood, metal, fire, water, earth – and are biased towards harmonic energies. These practitioners have something of shamanism since any cosmic symbol is an interpretation of reality, then the herbalist’s job is to interpret that interpretation more pragmatically. Symbolism is naturalistic and harmonious.

Ancient civilizations clearly did value the life-giving properties of springs, Roman baths, earth and mud. There is quite a lot going on here, and only some of it is symbolic. I’ve previously mentioned the fact that dirt strengthens the immune system because of the presence of micro-organisms. What you have is essentially earth-symbolism allied to fact (it may not have escaped your attention that the biggest threat to global health is an antibiotic pandemic?)

So, I think we underestimate the extent to which spirit affects us. An American pioneer settlement has an aesthetic appeal not by accident, but because it values the transcendence of craft, tradition, artisanwork over materialism. The presence of puritan chapels and unorthodox sects is a transcendent link to naturalism, animal and vegetative spirits.

When viewing a Western which has some degree of authenticity, one is struck by the tranquil spirit as well as the dirt and brutality. It is a fairly racial situation, but alliances amongst such wilderness folk can be forged.  Conagher, with Katherine Ross as Mrs Teale, is a recent, slightly clichéd look at the old West with Indians and outlaws offset by rustic hearth and tumbleweeds.