According to traditional symbolism, these "cracks" are produced in the "Great Wall" that surrounds our world and protects it against the intrusion of evil influences of the lower subtle realm: in the Islamic tradition through these "cracks" they will penetrate, as they approach of the end of the cycle, the devastating hordes of Gog and Magog, which Hindu tradition mentions as the demons Koka and Vikoka.
di René Guénon
taken from The Kingdom of Quantity and the Signs of the Times (1945)
cover: Karl Pavlovič Brjullov, "The Last Day of Pompeii ", 1830
However far it has been able to go, the "Solidification" of the sensible world it could never be such as to make the latter into a "closed system", as the materialists think; on the other hand, it has limits imposed by the very nature of things, and the closer it approaches these limits, the more unstable the state it represents. In fact, […] the point which corresponds to maximum "solidity" is now over, and the appearances of a "closed system" can only become more and more illusory and inadequate to reality. We have also spoken of "fissures" through which certain destructive forces are already being introduced, and will continue to be introduced to an ever greater extent; according to traditional symbolism, these "Cracks" are produced in the "Great Wall" which surrounds our world and protects it against the intrusion of evil influences from the lower subtle realm [1].
To understand this symbolism thoroughly and in all respects, it is appropriate to observe that a wall constitutes together a protection and a limitation; in a certain sense it could therefore be said that it has advantages and disadvantages; except that, if we keep in mind that it is essentially intended to ensure defense against attacks from below, the advantages have by far the greatest weight, and all in all it is much better, for what is enclosed in the enclosure of which it is it is a matter of being limited by the lower part, than being incessantly exposed to the ravages of the enemy, if not even to a more or less complete destruction. After all, in reality, a wall is never closed from above, and consequently does not prevent communication with the higher fields, even if this corresponds to the normal state of things; it is during the modern age that the dead-end "shell" built by materialism has closed this communication.
Now, according to what we have said, due to the fact that the "descent" has not yet been entirely completed, this "shell" can only remain intact upwards, that is to say towards the part from which precisely the world has not need of protection, and from which on the contrary it cannot but receive beneficial influences; the "fissures" are produced exclusively from below, therefore, in the protective wall proper, and the lower forces that introduce themselves through them will meet all the less resistance since, in the present conditions, no power of a higher nature can intervene to effectively oppose it; the world is therefore abandoned without any defense to all the attacks of its enemies, and all the more for the fact that, due to the current state of mind, it completely ignores the dangers by which it is threatened.
In the Islamic tradition, the "fissures" we are talking about are those through which the devastating hordes of Gog and Magog will penetrate as the end of the cycle approaches [2], which, on the other hand, exert continuous efforts to invade our world; these "entities," which represent the lower influences in question, and which are believed to carry at present an "underground" existence, are described in a double way, both as giants be like nani, which, according to what we have seen previously, identifies them, at least from a certain point of view, ai "Guardians of hidden treasures" and smiths of the "underground fire", which also have, let us remember, an extremely evil aspect; on the other hand, in all these things we are always dealing with the same kind of subtle "infracorporal" influences [3].
To tell the truth, the attempts made by these "entities" to insinuate themselves into the corporeal and human world are far from being new; indeed they date back at least to an epoch to be located towards the beginning of Kali Yuga, that is, well beyond the times of "classical" antiquity, to which the horizon of profane historians is limited. In this regard, the Chinese tradition states, in symbolic terms, that "Niu-kua (sister and wife of Fo-li and who is said to have reigned together with him) he cast stones of five colors [4] to repair a tear made in the sky by a giant"(Apparently, although this is not clearly explained, at a point located above the earth's horizon) [5]; and this episode refers to an epoch which is precisely a few centuries later than the beginning of Kali Yuga.
Only that although the Kali-Yuga is properly one darkening period, which has made this kind of "fissures" possible since its inception, this obscuration is certainly far from having reached in one fell swoop the proportions that can be observed in its final phases, and this is the reason why the "Cracks" could at that time be repaired with relative ease; nevertheless, even then, constant vigilance had to be exercised, and this duty naturally fell within the tasks attributed to the spiritual centers of the various traditions.
There followed an epoch in which, following the excessive "solidification" of the world, the same "cracks" were much less to fear, at least temporarily; this era corresponded to the first part of modern times, that is to say to what can be called the specifically mechanistic and materialistic period, a period in which the "closed system" we were talking about was closer to being implemented, at least as far as it was actually possible. Now, speaking of the period that can be identified in the second part of modern times and which has already begun, conditions have certainly changed compared to those of all previous eras: not only the "fissures" can again occur more and more abundantly, and present characters more serious than ever as a consequence of the descending path traveled in the interval, but moreover the possibilities of reparation are no longer the same as in the past.
In fact, the action of the spiritual centers has gradually shrunk, because the superior influences which they, according to their normal function, transmitted to our world can no longer manifest themselves externally, arrested as they are by that impenetrable "shell" of which we spoke a little while ago; Where, then, can one find, in such a state of the human and cosmic whole, a defense of a certain efficacy against the "hordes of Gog and Magog"?
And that's not all: what we have said only describes what can be called the negative side of the growing difficulties that any opposition to the intrusion of evil influences encounters, and moreover that kind of inertia due to the general ignorance of these things, and at "Survivals" of the materialistic mentality and the attitude that corresponds to it, things that can last all the longer as this attitude has become, so to speak, instinctive in moderns, having almost "incorporated" into their nature. [...]
Note:
[1] In the symbolism of the Hindu tradition, this "Great Wall" is the circular mountain Lokaloka, which separates the "cosmos" (loka) from the "external darkness" (aloka); naturally this can be applied analogically to more or less extended spheres in the whole of the cosmic manifestation, hence the particular application made of it here, as we are saying, in relation to the corporeal world alone.
[2] In the Hindu tradition we speak of demons coca e Vikoka, whose names are evidently similar.
[3] The symbolism of the "underworld" is also twofold, and also has a higher meaning, as is shown in particular by the considerations we set out in The king of the world; here, however, it is obviously only a question of its lower, or even literally infernal, meaning.
[4] The five colors are white, black, blue, red and yellow, which correspond in the Far Eastern tradition to the five elements, or even to the four cardinal points and the center.
[5] It is also claimed that Niu-kua cut off the four legs of the turtle to place on the four ends of the world, in order to stabilize the earth; if we recall what we said previously regarding the respective analogical correspondences of Fo-hi and Niu-kua, we will realize that according to them the function of ensuring the stability and "solidity" of the world belongs to the substantial part of the manifestation , what exactly agrees with what we have stated here in this regard.
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