Charles Upton, On Unseen Warfare, (excerpt)

Excerpt from: Charles Upton: The System of Antichrist. Truth and Falsehood in Postmodernism and the New Age.

The Traditionalist School, and its surrounding field of influence where an interest in "the perennial philosophy" is steadily growing, are not exempt from the pressure of the forces presently acting to destroy and/or pervert all expressions of true spirituality. Rather, if it is accurate to say that Traditionalism, whether or not we exclusifely identify it with the Traditionalist School as presently constituted, represents the fullness of metaphysical truth, it is to be expected that the forces tending to pervert the doctrine will be more active in the Traditionalist world than anywhere else. The "unseen warfare" the traditional spiritualities are presently engaged in is not only against the passions of the lower soul, but also against objective forces - the Jinn, let us say, or at least those among them who are actively opposed to God - which exploit the passions. This, of course, has always been true. But the concerted, global effort of what Guénon called the "infra-psychic" to pervert all valid religious and spiritual organizations by inverting religious symbolism has had to wait until "the eleventh hour" to appear in its true, undeniable, and terminal form.

St Paul said it best: "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Eph. 6:12). We need to understand that Traditionalism will necessarily be under attack in a world like this, and that a great deal of this attack will occur in the subtle realm. But to admit the reality of this level of things requires a great deal of balance. Paranoia, and the resulting fanaticism, are the result of, placing the perceived "agenda" on the wrong ontological level, and forgetting that all this is a lawful manifestation of the latter days, and that in the last analysis nothing happens that is not God's will. If we attribute to human beings what are really the actions of the kafir Jinn [unfaithful demons], and to the Jinn what are better understood as the actions of God, then we are paranoid. However, if we use the truth that all events are God's will to deny the actions of the Jinn, and the truth that some of the Jinn are at war with religion to deny the actions of actual human groups - Guénon's "agents of the counter-initation" - then we are dangerously complacent. Such complacency may be nothing but a way of denying the fear we feel in the face of the psychic forces abroad in the world in these latter days, forces which will tempt us either to seek the blessing of the "principalities and powers", whether material, social or psychic - since life outside the terms in which they define it will be made to seem hopeless, unproductive or foolish, if not completely impossible - or to defy "the rulers of darkness of this world" in a simplistic, naive and/or prideful manner, thus unwittingly becoming their agents in the very act of opposing them. It is important to remember here that we are called upon to be "wise as serpents" as well as "harmless as doves", and that to oppose diabolic cunning with innocence, nobility and courage alone is to court destruction. In times like these, a critical analysis of social and collective psychological forces, as well as (insofar as possible) the "agendas" emanating from the subtle psychic realm, may simply be another form of examination-of-conscience. Where has the evil of the world, where has the coming regime of the Antichrist, established its foothold in me? The expression of principal Truth is not and never can be a case of propaganda; it is not a social-political act, but a liturgical one. The "cash value" of this work is laid up in another world - mysteriously present in the Center of this one - where moth and rust do not corrupt, nor thieves break in and steal.