Tradition and the Eschaton

Meditations on the End of Time

The nature and meaning of time has always been a subject of endless fascination to me.

Everything about the problem is intriguing—how time began (if such a beginning can even be conceived), the many and perennially thrilling theories of eschatology in all traditions and philosophies, the question of whether or not time’s seemingly ineluctable flow can be eluded or circumvented, and even if the famous science fiction trope of time travel is a possibility or not.

I suppose you could say I’m something of a recovering materialist and evolutionist; that’s not really surprising, since few are they who can escape the pernicious clutches of the pseudo-philosophies and counter-traditions that abound in our age. But the conception of time that is a prerequisite of those dogmas ends up coloring one’s understanding, and that is a difficult thing to cast off.

After all, the linear, evolutionary understanding of time is a misconception that all children of this civilization must labor under. It is part of the air we breathe, so to speak—time had a beginning, presumably it has an end, and there is a straight and inevitable progression from life and matter that is simple and uncomplex to what we must suppose is the very apotheosis of complexity and sophistication at the Eschaton…at the End of Time.

That is one view of things, but it is hardly the only.

The Traditionalist conception of time is endlessly intriguing. It is, of course, nothing original, nor does it claim to be; the presumption of novelty is anathema in Traditionalist circles, and understandably so. For the cyclical theory of time is an old understanding of time, and it eschews the simplistic and rather crude notion of linearity for something that opens up a tremendous array of startling possibilities.

History, in this scheme, unfolds cyclically in a progression of ages, each of which evinces certain unique characteristics; upon “winding down” in the final age, the cycle begins anew. Now, this is not to say that history repeats itself, or even rhymes; rather, it is to say that there is a transcendent law to the unfolding of history, something like the conventions of drama or poetics, which must be obeyed though the stage and the actors change.

The Traditionalists, following the Hindu cosmography, hold that we are in the midst of the Kali-Yuga; this is the terminal age of the current cycle, or Manvantara, wherein we find ourselves. Other traditions also speak of this period of confusion, darkness, and distress; the Greeks and Romans, for instance, called it the “Iron Age,” and were well aware that it was the unfortunate lot of present humanity to live in this time of dissolution and rectification.

As always, it helps to turn to the writings of René Guénon to understand something of the chronology of our current cycle. In the essay “Some Remarks on the Doctrine of Cosmic Cycles,” Guénon explains that a Manvantara consists of five traditional “great years,” the duration of which is computed to be 12,960 years—one half of the period of a single equinoctial precession. Therefore, a single cycle or Manvantara has a duration of 64,800 years, a figure which is confirmed by the traditional astronomical and astrological sciences of the Chaldeans.

Guénon further explicates the precise mathematical division of the four ages in the Manvantara, which can be expressed through the formula 10 = 4 + 3 + 2 + 1, and is itself a reversal of the famous Pythagorean Tetraktys (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10). A little mathematical jugglery leads us to the number of 6,480 years for the duration of the Kali-Yuga, which is the shortest of the four ages. The next question, naturally, is when did our present age begin, and therefore when will it end?

This is where things get a little tricky. René Guénon, in his wisdom, refused to go any further in his calculations…at least not publicly. His stated reasons were well considered, as there is some traditional knowledge that it is not wise for men to make widely available:

“At first glance, such a precaution might seem strange, and yet it is easily explained: if the real duration of the Manvantara were known, and if in addition its starting-point were exactly determined, anyone could without difficult draw therefrom deductions allowing him to foresee certain future events. But no orthodox tradition has ever encouraged inquiries by means of which someone might see more or less into the future, since in practice such a knowledge has more drawbacks than real advantages. This is why the starting-point and the duration of the Manvantara have always been more or less carefully concealed…”¹

As far as what hints Guénon did leave, it was enough for him to suggest that the Kali-Yuga had certainly begun over 6,000 years ago, and thus we were nearing the end of the cycle—a supposition readily confirmed by the manifest decadence and degeneracy of our times:²

“…as concerns the starting-point of our Manvantara and consequently the exact point in its course where we are presently situated, we do not intend to risk an attempt to determine them. By all traditional data we know that we have been in the Kali-Yuga for a long time already; and we can say without fear of error that we are in an advanced phase, a phase whose description in the Purānas corresponds in the most striking fashion to the characteristics of our present epoch. But would it not be imprudent to wish to be more exact, and would this not inevitably end in the kinds of predictions to which traditional doctrine has, not without good reason, posed so many obstacles?”³

So it’s safe to say that it is the learned opinion of the Traditionalists—as well as Tradition itself and many of the subsidiary traditions—that “the end is nigh.” Of course, predictions of the End Times and the impending Apocalypse have never been uncommon; eschatological speculations have always been one of mankind’s favorite pastimes.

But predicting the end of time is a fool’s errand—though I’m certainly in no position to gainsay the prophecies of others, nor begrudge them the right to make them. Robert Bolton, in his book The Order of the Ages: The Hidden Laws of World History, asserts that the end of the cycle must come very soon indeed…likely before the conclusion of this century.⁴ And I have spoken to several members of the College of Seth who are quite adamant that the end of human civilization is imminent, and will coincide with the arrival of some force or entity or condition that they only ever refer to enigmatically as “the Inhabitant.”

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I confess that I don’t really know what to make of these predictions.

All I can say is that I think often of future ages—admittedly, a vice of mine—and the idea that there must someday come a break, a rupture, an unbridgeable temporal gulf or chasm between our own age and a mysterious future cycle of time, with its own native humanity and civilizations yet unborn, is a fascinating one to me.

What of us, if anything, will survive in them? There is, as Guénon makes clear, no reason to believe that the hiatus separating our age from the next must be absolute:

“…in whatever way the change, which may be described as a passage from one world to another, may come about—whether these ‘worlds’ be larger or smaller cycles does not matter—it can never involve absolute discontinuity, since there is always a causal chain linking the cycles together, even though the change may have the appearance of an abrupt breach. If the elite of which we spoke could be formed while there is still time, it could so prepare the change that it would take place in the most favorable conditions possible, and the disturbances that must inevitably accompany it would in this way be reduced to a minimum; but even if this cannot be, it will still have another, and more important, task—that of contributing to the conservation of the elements that must survive from the present world to be used in forming the one to follow.”⁵

Therefore, despite the vastness of the cosmic forces at play, we each have a role to perform.

Even if our age is one of dissolution, of the loosening of the boundaries that sunder us from the inferior subtle forces, and of the widespread decay of human civilization, religious feeling, and spiritual intuition, there are nevertheless certain compensations. The works of the great traditions are translated and made known to all, and the words of the great sages—of whom the likes of Guénon, Evola, Lings, Schuon, Burckhardt and many others are but the merest inkling—are widely published and available to everyone. This is the hallmark of our age, which is unlike any other, and it is not something to be overlooked.

The proliferation of fascinating and deeply informed newsletters on esoteric and other topics on sites like Substack, among others, is evidence enough that the wisdom of mankind is stirring and making itself known in preparation for what is to come. Even the internet attests to this fact—although it is no easy task culling the precious ore from the infinitude of dross. That is, alas, yet another sign of the times.

As Christ said, “For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.”⁶ That must be the motto of our age: truly, we live in the “Apocalypse,” the age of “unveiling” and of “unhiding” (Gk. ἀποκαλύπτειν: “to disclose,” “to reveal”).

So it is a time for learning, a time for collecting wisdom and knowledge—hoarding them as a squirrel hoards for winter—for it is the elements of Tradition, and not the minutiae of modern scientistic thought, that shall be transmitted to whatever future “Golden Age” awaits us (or whatever humanity follows us) at the beginning of the next cycle.⁷

There have been, and will be, many Manvantaras. Six have already elapsed before our own; ours is the seventh, and there are to be seven future Manvantaras. The septenary of the past, and the septenary of the future, for a total of fourteen; that is the number of cycles allotted to our Kalpa, our universe—the “Era of the White Boar” in the Hindu tradition. There is, then, no reason to despair at the bleakness and degeneracy of our age; all will come out in the wash, as they say.

But it is our job to prepare for the future ages, to accumulate what knowledge we can, and preserve whatever of the Tradition remains to us. There are, I believe, more than a few organizations that aspire to becoming that secretive “elite” whereof Guénon spoke. Whether it is the Order of Janus, the Sodales Chaldaici, or even the College of Seth, there are some who take seriously the notion that they are to be the midwives of the future cycle, whose job it is to make the birthing pangs of the coming Manvantara less terrible.

It is not an undertaking made any easier by the nature of our time or our civilization, and there are many distractions, false prophets, and insidious philosophies and “mind viruses” to lead us astray:

“We are entering upon a period when it will be extremely difficult to ‘separate the grain from the chaff’ and carry out effectively what theologians call the ‘discerning of spirits,’ both because of the general confusion manifesting itself in intensified and ever more varied forms, and also because of the want of true knowledge on the part of those whose normal function should be to guide the rest, but who today only too often are no more than ‘blind guides.’ We shall see whether the subtleties of dialectic are of any avail in such circumstances, and whether any philosophy, even were it the best possible, can have the strength to prevent the ‘infernal powers’ from being let loose…for it is too often supposed, in ignorance of what pure intellectuality really is, that a merely philosophical knowledge, which even in the best of cases is a bare shadow of true knowledge, can put everything to rights and turn the contemporary mentality away from its deviation; in the same way there are those who think they can find in modern science itself a means of raising themselves to the higher truths, whereas this science is in fact founded on the negation of those truths. All these illusions are so many influences leading people astray, and by their means many who sincerely desire to react against the modern outlook are reduced to impotence, since, having failed to find the essential principles without which all action is in vain, they have been swept into blind alleys from which there is no escape.”⁸

So let us not be “swept into blind alleys,” nor be led astray by “blind guides.” If the cycle truly is shortly to come to its end, let us not be caught unawares, and may we do our best to assimilate the history, the knowledge, and the traditions of our Manvantara so that we may pass on something of use to the future age.

Whatever the case, this I know for a certainty—the future will not be anything at all like those shiny, antiseptic, dully utopian futures imagined by progressive Hollywood scriptwriters and leftist science fictioneers.

And that alone is reason to be hopeful.

1. René Guénon, Formes Traditionnelles et Cycles Cosmiques (Éditions Gallimard, 1970). [Traditional Forms & Cosmic Cycles (Hillsdale NY: Sophia Perennis, 2001) pg. 6.]

2. Cf. Graham Rooth’s Prophet for a Dark Age: A Companion to the Works of René Guénon (Sussex Academic Press, 2008), pp. 53-4: “[Guénon] was convinced that we are already more than six thousand years into this kali-yuga and well into its final phase, whose beginnings he located in the 6th century BC with the origins of Western civilization. He wrote extensively about a number of aspects of Western society which he considered diagnostic: diminished spirituality and the dominance of material and temporal forces, role confusion in society, the triumph of individualism over more socially harmonious values, and an excessive egalitarianism which reduces civilized values to the lowest common denominator.” A more incisive or succinct evaluation of the age in which we live can hardly be imagined.

3. Traditional Forms & Cosmic Cycles, pg. 8.

4. Sometime in the 2080s, if I remember correctly.

5. René Guénon, La Crise du Monde Moderne (Éditions Gallimard, 1946). [The Crisis of the Modern World (Hillsdale NY: Sophia Perennis, 2001) pg. 109.]

6. Luke 8:1.

7. Cf. “Some Aspects of the Symbolism of the Fish,” in René Guénon, Symboles fondamentaux de la Science sacrée (Éditions Gallimard, 1962) [Symbols of Sacred Science (Hillsdale NY: Sophia Perennis, 2001) pp. 145-50], in which Guénon mentions some traditions and symbolism anent the transmission of knowledge from one cycle to the next.

8. The Crisis of the Modern World, pg. 116.