Author: J A

Founding Editor-in-Chief of PRAV Publishing and Eurasianist Internet Archive.

Plato’s Cave and the Truth of Secret History

Plato’s Cave and the Truth of Secret History

By Jafe Arnold

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“Secret history.” This term, or rather notion, evokes passionate intuitions and suspicions. For some, “secret history” immediately rings like a provocative slogan, behind which lurks a Pandora’s box of “conspiracy theories” muddying, twisting, or, as is officially, fashionably said nowadays, “disinforming” otherwise “explainable” all-too-human affairs. For others, however, “secret history” speaks precisely to “all-too-human” reality on a deeper level. On the one hand, it is affirmed that humans have agency, and that the agencies of some (or any for the matter) are never fully transparent to others. On the other hand, the agency of humans is historical, i.e., such is hardly if ever purely “individual” or “subjective”, but rather is part of and realized within long-standing states of affairs, grander pictures, and forces which are hardly explainable by the immediate agencies of any given number of humans alone at any given time. 

Between these poles of the “all-too-human” reaction to “secret history”, one often finds themself faced by two most visible extremes: a blind, agency-surrendering faith in some “disclosed history”, which as a matter of course “happens” to be whatever revolves around the “official” one, or dissipation into epistemological chaos, into paranoia before unknowable forces and their actors. In both cases, something truly human and truly historical about “secret history” is lost.

Continue reading “Plato’s Cave and the Truth of Secret History” →

Geydar Dzhemal – “A Word on Dugin”

The seventh day of January is not only Orthodox Christmas according to the Julian calendar, but also the birthday of the Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin. This 7 January marks Dugin’s 60th birthday, on which occasion Continental-Conscious presents for the first time in English translation an editorial by the Russian Islamic thinker and Dugin’s former Yuzhinsky Circle mentor, Geydar Dzhemal (1947-2016), authored for Dugin’s 50th birthday and published in the newspaper Zavtra (“Tomorrow”, formerly Den – “Day”) in 2012.

Continue reading “Geydar Dzhemal – “A Word on Dugin”” →

Eurasian Myth, New Dawn – 3 Translations of Boris Nad

Over the past several months, fruitful collaboration with “the world’s most unusual magazine”, New Dawn, has furthered the endeavor of bringing the works of the Serbian author Boris Nad into the English language. (See “(Re-)Writing Myth: An Interview with Boris Nad”)

To date, three texts by Boris Nad have come to light on the pages of New Dawn:

Continue reading “Eurasian Myth, New Dawn – 3 Translations of Boris Nad” →

(Re-)Writing Myth: An Interview with Boris Nad

Athena Appearing To Odysseus To Reveal The Island Of Ithaca by Giuseppe Bottani  

There is an often-quoted saying about books whose attribution is unknown (perhaps rightfully so): “A book is a magical portal to another dimension.” Of course, this is usually taken to refer to exercises of the sensuous imagination imitated by profane fiction… There are some books, however, belonging to neither of the modern categories of “fiction” or “non-fiction”, that are not merely portals to another dimension, but initiations into whole worlds – worlds which reflect back upon the reader the fragility, relativity, and even illusions or “non-reality” of their apparent present own. Such works embody the genuine “danger” of books that has served as the pretext for censorship for centuries: opening an unknown book, one can have their entire world and worldview shattered and transformed, entire worlds discredited or revealed… And such books, as is well known to those who should know, rarely lie waiting out in the open (if they do, then such is only one aspect of their concealment), and they and their authors’ names pass hands at first only between small circles, often exerting their impact and worlding long before they ever enter the “public bibliography”, the “general market”, or the sights of critics and scholars…

These observations outline at least one of the possible paths leading to the works of Boris Nad. 

Continue reading “(Re-)Writing Myth: An Interview with Boris Nad” →

Travel Thoughts – Visiting Prehistory: Malta’s Neolithic Temples

Travel Thoughts

Visiting Prehistory: Malta’s Neolithic Temples

By Jafe Arnold

Mnajdra Temple, Malta / Photo source: Malta Sotheby’s International Realty

Traveling for the first time since the plague broke out is like a breath of fresh air…

Several days ago I had the opportunity to visit some of the prehistoric temples of Malta, which have been on my bucket-list for some time. I first heard of and became fascinated by the temples thanks to Richard Rudgley’s books Secrets of the Stone Age and Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age. Although our time window was short and so itinerary limited, the experience was nonetheless unforgettable… Continue reading “Travel Thoughts – Visiting Prehistory: Malta’s Neolithic Temples” →

The Aphorisms of Dragoš Kalajić – Part I

“Wolfgang”, from the series “Portraits of European Nations”, 1993, by Dragoš Kalajić [dragoskalajic.com] 

The Aphorisms of Dragoš Kalajić – Part I 

Translated by Jafe Arnold

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Presented below for the first time in English translation are 26 of the 42 posthumously selected “Thoughts” of the great Serbian intellectual Dragoš Kalajić (1943-2005), one of those monumental figures of the “alternative 20th century” whose life and works are impossible to encapsulate with any single generic term. Philosopher, artist of “Hyperborean Realism”, author of multiple genres, TV-speaker, cultural critic, graduate cum laude of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome who reportedly received praise from Julius Evola, geopolitical activist and visionary, Traditionalist (credited with introducing Traditionalism to Yugoslavia), Serbian patriot with a pan-European (and, indeed, Eurasian) agenda, “the man who had his own Center” – all and none of these prevalent descriptives are capable of conveying a sense of the immense engagements, works and legacy of this thinker who, while famous in his native Serbia and to limited extents known in Italy and Russia, remains largely unknown in the English-language world. The revelation of Kalajić’s works remains a task of the future. For now, Continental-Conscious presents in translation a number of Kalajić’s “aphorisms” which the curators of dragoskalajic.com, the only archive and resource dedicated to Kalajić known to us, unveiled as “a small, subjective selection, for starters.” The anonymous, volunteer compilers of these passages remark:

“We shall refrain from big words here. But we cannot help but remark that in the 20th century, in Serbian culture, art, and thought, there is no voice and phenomenon comparable to Kalajić. If he had written in one of the great European languages, hardly anyone today would question his place among the greats…We will not speak of fame, because our notion of fame [glory] is infinitely far from the banality into which such is plunged by the noisy and vain ‘civilization of the spectacle.'” 

*** Continue reading “The Aphorisms of Dragoš Kalajić – Part I” →