Spengler’s Prophecy of the Second Religiousness

“Materialism is shallow and honest, mock-religion is shallow and dishonest. But the fact that the latter is possible at all foreshadows a new and genuine spirit of seeking that declares itself, first quietly, but soon emphatically and openly, in the civilized waking-consciousness….

…That of the Second Religiousness consists in a deep piety that fills the waking consciousness—the piety that impressed Herodotus in the Late Egyptians and impresses West Europeans in India and Islam—and that of Cesarism consists in its unchained might of colossal facts. But neither in the creations of this piety nor in the form of the Roman Imperium is there anything primary or spontaneous. Nothing is built up, no idea unfolds itself—it is only as if a mist cleared off the land and revealed the old forms, uncertainly at first but presently with increasing distinctiveness.

The material of the Second Religiousness is simply that of the first, genuine, young religiousness—only otherwise experienced and expressed. It starts with Rationalism’s fading out in helplessness, then the forms of the springtime become visible, and finally the whole world of the primitive religion, which had receded before the grand forms of the early faith, returns to the foreground, powerful, in the guise of the popular syncretism that is to be found in every culture at this phase.

But it is not the religious pastimes of educated and literary-soaked cliques, still less is it the intellect, that gives rise to the second religiousness. Its source is the naïve belief that arises, unremarked but spontaneous, among the masses that there is some sort of mystic constitution of actuality (as to which formal proofs are presently regards as tiresome word-jugglery), and an equally naïve heart-need reverently responding to the myth by means of a cult.”

-Oswald Spengler, Decline of the West (1920)

Oswald Spengler, more than any other thinker, was responsible for finally excising my youthful liberalism. Finding Decline of the West during my junior year of college truly changed my life. The shallow linear view of history I had been brought up with melted away and was replaced by Spengler’s cyclical philosophy of history. (here is a good graphic illustration of his idea)

His theory is too complicated to flesh out in one post (everyone should really read his book). But I think his prophecy for the 21^st century—that we will see the rise of Caesarism and a Second Religiousness—is worth commenting on in particular.

Spengler said that in the final years of Democracy—what he called the Reign of Money—there would be a return to more archaic forms of living. He prophesied that Money would destroy ‘Intellect’ as well as the traditional cultural forms and institutions that previously held society together. And the people, in their exhaustion and desperation, would look back to the spiritual traditions of their distant past for guidance. This what he called the Second Religiousness, that occurs in all civilizations after they reach a mature stage of development.

So, what specifically would the Second Religiousness look like? Spengler speculated that some primitive form of Christianity like Anabaptism would take hold. But It is clear today that the ‘primitive Christian’ revival was and is Evangelicalism, broadly defined. That has been the only Christian sect to see growth in the post modern world (but that too is now fading along with the rest the older denominations).

To my mind, the true primitive religious form of our people is none other than our own native Germanic faith. It was our way before the ‘grand form’ of the Catholicism was imposed on us by the Roman Church. However, Spengler’s use of the term ‘syncretism’ implies that our native Germanic (Volkish) faith won’t look exactly like it did 1500 years ago. We will add to or augment that ‘springtime’ style to conform to our present (winter time) needs. Spengler also mentions that it will be ‘popular’. This new spiritual yearning will show itself first in people—the folk—and not the elite. The popularity of ‘paganism’ and the fascination with the Norse Viking culture among everyday people—uncertainly at first but presently with increasing distinctiveness—seems to bear this out. The mist, the dark cloud, of alien Christianity may finally fading after all these centuries. The Sun is finally returning.