Antaios

* Magazine: Antaios

Review

Michel Bauwens, 2003:

Around that time, I did a reading stint with the neopagan journal Antaios, which I found interesting. I had been interested for a while in what some call the 'Traditionalist' authors, i.e. Rene Guenon, Julius Evola, Fritjof Schuon, Alain Danielou, and others, which claim there is one unifying spiritual tradition with common truths, which you can also find in more progressive forms through anglo-saxon authors like Huxley, with the concept of Philosopia Perennis. The core idea is that while the outward oriented 'exoteric' popular religions may seem to differ, there is a inner 'esoteric' core which you can access, thereby discovering the common unity of their understanding of life and the universe (I disagree, see Beyond Civilization, by Keith Chandler)

Antaios is particular, as the magazine created by Ernst Junger and Mircea Eliade originally, but refounded from 1993 to 2001 by a Belgian scholar of Antiquity, Christophe Gerard. Indeed, the magazine sees polytheism as the necessary antidote to modern materialism and consumerism, and rejects modernity. More controversially, it critiques the christian tradition as a alien import, and it believes the imperial form, which combines relative closed communities but defends all minorities, is a form that can create unity across difference. It pays attention to the current 'neo-pagan' forms that survive, for example the Hindutva movement.

While these are definitely not my politics, I found this magazine of high interest because of its in-depth coverage of pagan traditions then and now, and the symbolic themes associated with it.

More information

• This French page provides ample background and issue by issue access, http://www.archiveseroe.eu/antaios-a48651284