Warhammer 40k is an anti-Catholic Evolian masterpiece.

Quite a few people are trying to claim Warhammer 40k. Leftists are trying to push in with the new Amazon show and the Grognards demand that it remains a simple setting about space wars. One of the interesting set of people trying to claim it are the Tradcaths. It’s easy to see why. The setting appropriates gothic and baroque art styles that the catholic church pioneered. It uses priests and nuns on its “good” faction in a way that few other settings do. It’s one of the few settings out there that takes the Tradcath aesthetic and makes it look “cool.” As such a Tradcath could think that the setting is useful to propagate their ideas and culture. Even though the fictional “Imperium of Man” outlawed their own religion.

They could think that. But they would be wrong. Just like they would be wrong to think that the knightly orders and grand gothic cathedrals of medieval Europe support catholic theology. Knightly orders such as the Templars had their own rituals. They didn’t require priestly mediation. They maintained the same traditions of warrior spirituality as their Indo-European ancestors thousands of years before. As Evola writes in Revolt Against the Modern World: “In the older versions of knightly ordination, a knight was ordained by another knight without the intervention of priests, almost as if in the warrior there was a force “similar to a fluid” that was capable of creating new knights by direct transmission; a witness to this practice is found in the Indo-Aryan tradition of ‘warriors ordaining other warriors.’” Christianity was mere window dressing. It is precisely for this reason that the enlightened Knights Templar were later purged.

We see a similar pattern in the case of Charlemagne. The pope prostrated before him after he was coronated. The King is placed above the priest as the direct bridge between god and men. As Evola writes, “In general, the lad that the king’s or chief’s primary and essential function consisted in performing those ritual and sacrificial actions that constituted the center of gravity of life is a recurrent idea in a vast cycle of traditional civilizations, from pre-Columbian Peru to the Far East, and including Greek and Roman cities.” This links well to the person of the Emperor in 40k. He is not a god as most would understand it. He is effectively a human warrior king. He is the link between Humanity and spirituality. And he is not subject to the “Lunarian” priests. They are subject to him.

Now consider Warhammer 40k. The same pattern appears. The martial caste of the Space Marines is in no way subordinated to the priestly caste. They take their initiations directly from their fellow warriors. Who take them in an unbroken chain to the god-emperor himself. Humility plays no role. The “priests” of the setting tried to take power – but they were repudiated. They were defeated. They were forbidden from having any men at arms at all. This is bypassed by the creation of “battle nuns” but the point remains. The highest dignity and spiritual authority that the setting has to offer is given to the warrior. This is exactly what Evola was talking about when he wrote about the Hyperborean spirituality, saying that “…the Northern Light goes hand in hand, through solar and Uranian symbols, with a virile ethos and a warrior spirituality consisting of a harsh will to establish order and to dominate.”

The opposition of 40k’s priests to this spirituality with “battle nuns” at their sides has an uncanny parallel to how Evola describes Amazonian warriors accompanying anti-traditionalist and anti-warrior priests. As he says: “Thus, it is possible to prescind from the real appearance of women warriors in history or prehistory and understand Amazonism as the symbol of the reaction of a “lunar” or priestly spirituality (the feminine dimension of the spirit) that was unable to oppose the material or even temporal power (the masculine dimension of the spirit[…]) in any way other than in a material and temporal fashion,[…] Thus, it is possible to refer to what I previously said concerning the alteration of the normal relationship between royalty and priesthood. In the abovementioned generalization there is Amazonism wherever there are priests who do not yearn to be kings, but rather to dominate kings.” Weak Lunarian priests seeking to dominate virile warrior bands in a subversion of nature through their female warriors. This is the Evolian conception of history. And it fits 40k like a glove.

The ”priests” of Warhammer 40k can barely be compared to their Catholic counterparts. They don’t evangelize. They don’t martyr themselves. They don’t counsel and convert their heathen foes. This is an incredibly important distinction. It cuts to the core of “The good life” and how one becomes “sanctified.” In the Catholic cosmology one does this by overcoming their sinful nature and the fallen world to be christ-like. They do this through love and spreading the good word. They are meant to spread the good word and their love even to their enemies. “I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” This is the case even for those saints who go to war. They are meant to have no desire for war-in-itself. They do it only for the sake of those they protect and love even their enemies.

In Warhammer 40k the sanctifying act is war. One becomes holy and conquers weakness within themselves by going out and engaging in it. War-in-itself is the goal and not the means. The setting contains periods of peace where the warriors get bored and die en masse for lack of anything to do. The prevailing cosmology is laid out in Dawn of War 2 where a space marine says “There is the Emperor, and there is war. Nothing more.”This fits perfectly with Evola’s conception of the greater and lesser holy war. The lesser holy war against the enemy without serves the cause of winning the greater holy war within. As he put it:

The relationship between the “greater” and the “lesser holy war,” however, mirrors the relationship between the soul and the body; in order to understand the heroic asceticism or “path of action,” it is necessary to recognize the situation in which the two paths merge, “the lesser holy war” becoming the means through which “a greater holy war” is carried out, and vice versa: the “little holy war,” or the external one, becomes almost a ritual action that expresses and gives witness to the reality of the first. Originally, orthodox Islam conceived a unitary form of asceticism: that which is connected to the jihad or “holy war.”

The “greater holy war” is man’s struggle against the enemies he carries within. More exactly, it is the struggle of man’s higher principle against everything that is merely human in him, against his inferior nature and against chaotic impulses and all sorts of material attachments. This is expressly outlined in a text of Aryan warrior wisdom: “Know Him therefore who is above reason; and let his peace give thee peace. Be a warrior and kill desire, the powerful enemy of the soul.”

And when one becomes sanctified they avoid the fate of dissolution at the hands of demons that awaits most souls to instead become an active immortal – a saint that can return again and again even though the great masses (even those who were faithful servants) dissolve. This is precisely what Evola was writing about when he wrote about the afterlives awaiting men. As he put it:

According to esoteric teachings, at the death of the body an ordinary person usually loses his or her personality, which was an illusory thing even while that person was alive. The person is then reduced to a shadow that is itself destined to be dissolved after a more or less lengthy period culminating in what was called “the second death.” The essential vital principles of the deceased return to the totem, which is a primordial, perennial, and inexhaustible matter: life will again proceed from this matter and assume other individual forms, all of which are subject to the same destiny. […] The “heroes” or demigods to whom the higher castes and the noble families of traditional antiquity traced their lineage were beings who at death did not emanate a “shadow” or the larva of an ego that was eventually destined to die anyway; instead, they were beings who had achieved the self-subsistent, transcendent, and incorruptible life of a “god.” They were those who “had overcome the second death.” […] In these instances death did not represent an end but a fulfillment.

This fits the setting of 40k far better than the Christian afterlives of heaven and hell subject to the will and power of the one almighty god.

This is a good point to talk about the non-human factions in the setting. As the Imperium of man imitates catholic aesthetics, the primary antagonist faction imitates “demonic” aesthetics from the same tradition. 40k displays these forces and displaying them to be unconditionally corruptive and evil. This is taken as another validation of the Catholic cosmology. There is some overlap in the fact that both 40k “demons” and catholic demons are corruptive and seductive. But the higher and more significant aspects could not be more different. We begin by comparing the respective origins of these “demons” as incarnations of cosmic evil. Within the Catholic tradition these beings exist before humanity. Before matter. Evil exists as a consequence of Lucifer’s rebellion against man. Man does not influence the process. Within 40k the “demons” of the setting are created by the excesses of sentient beings. It is within the sentient beings themselves that the corruption of the higher realm emerges. They actually influence the divine. This is anathema to the catholic faith. We see echoes of Plotinus who writes on evil originating within matter as spirit enters it. As he put it in the Enneads:

But the faculties of the Soul are many, and it has its beginning, its intermediate phases, its final fringe. Matter appears, importunes, raises disorders, seeks to force its way within; but all the ground is holy, nothing there without part in Soul. Matter therefore submits, and takes light: but the source or its illumination it cannot attain to, for the Soul cannot lift up this foreign thing close by, since the evil of it makes it invisible. On the contrary the illumination, the light streaming from the Soul, is dulled, is weakened, as it mixes with Matter which offers Birth to the Soul, providing the means by which it enters into generation, impossible to it if no recipient were at hand.

This is the fall of the Soul, this entry into Matter: thence its weakness: not all the faculties of its being retain free play, for Matter hinders their manifestation; it encroaches upon the Soul's territory and, as it were, crushes the Soul back; and it turns to evil all that it has stolen, until the Soul finds strength to advance again.

Thus the cause, at once, of the weakness of Soul and of all its evil is Matter.

And now consider aliens. Quite a few catholics are happy about how humanity 40k treats aliens. Which is to say, genocidally. This is largely because of their own beliefs that there can be no aliens in real life. The bible only mentions god creating humans on earth. Therefore anything that looks like an alien must be a demon or a government hologram. None of this matters. Within the context of 40k the aliens are clearly meant to be rational ensouled beings. They are shown as each being capable of good and evil. The fact that no effort is made by humanity for their salvation is another strong point against any possible union between the humanity of 40k and Catholic doctrine.

One must also consider the virtue of the various species within the setting. They each have varying capacities for virtue. Some are higher and almost entirely beyond vice. Others are bestial. Humanity is in the middle. The concept that some peoples are more capable of gaining salvation than others is all but anathema to the catholic faith. One sees it very clearly in scripture: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed”. And yet this concept appears strongly in Evola’s writings. He writes often of “…the dark southern races that lack any contact with what is truly supernatural...” This also blends well with the concept of the superior ancient race (In Evola’s case the Hyperboreans) that falls and becomes more degenerate with time. We see many examples of this same concept in 40k – The Old Ones, the Eldar, Ancient Humanity. The parallels are vivid.

Now consider the central moral principle of Christianity. The central ideal at its core. The glorification of the weak. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” Weakness and foolishness isn’t even seen as an obstacle to be overcome or redeemed. Rather it is seen as a positive good in and of itself. It is seen as the virtuous opposition to wicked and boastful strength and wisdom. It is precisely this slave morality which led Nietzsche to write his genealogy of morals. It is precisely this slave morality that drove Julian the Holy to write his polemic against the christians, saying “Yet you are so misguided and foolish that you regard those chronicles of yours as divinely inspired, though by their help no man could ever become wiser or braver or better than he was before; while, on the other hand, writings by whose aid men can acquire courage, wisdom and justice, these you ascribe to Satan and to those who serve Satan!”

It is precisely this slave morality that the imperium of 40k rejects utterly. Those who are “Foolish” and “Weak” don’t last long in the setting. The highest glory bestowed by the imperium lies upon the strong and wise. As does the greatest attention of the setting’s developers and playerbase. But christianity’s love for the weak and acceptance of their lack of strength and intelligence does have an analogue in the 40k universe. It just happens to be a demonic one. The demonic god “Nurgle” of plagues and decay has also the aspect of apathy and acceptance. The “Lay down and rot” mentality. “Grandfather Nurgle loves all his children,” the setting proclaims. Especially the weak and foolish. What is this if not the meek inheriting the earth? What is this if not the notion that the weak and the stupid deserve a stifling and suffocating “love” based only on their “inherent human dignity?” (An inane and absurd concept.)

It couldn’t be said that any of this truly matters. The political power of Catholicism died with Boniface VIII. All that’s left is an aesthetic co-opted by parasites for attention and money. Evidently they truly believe the mother church is their path to fame. Candace Owens and Milo Yiannapolous stand as representantive examples of the authenticity of these converts. Jack Posobiec and Matt Walsh do the same for the high-profile reverts. Their “Catholicism” is as sincere as a whore. These people have chosen it as an ethos almost entirely for aesthetic reasons. A historical opposition to Islam and “Leftism” (a label with a different meaning for everyone that uses it.) An association with “Western civilization” – a concept just as nebulous. Beneath the “based” aesthetic the ethos remains the same. The same ethos of weakness that led to the leftist political catholicism of the 20^th century. The same ethos of weakness that leads to the E. Michael Joneses of today. The same ethos of weakness that distracts people with benedictine options and homesteading and takes time and energy away from institutional infiltration and self-development.

No matter how one tries to dress it up with Latin, crusaders, and Space Marines, this  core will remain. Our forefathers tried to work around this. They called themselves christians while glorifying war and the sacrality of the warrior brotherhood. They launched crusades and sidelined the priests. They maintained the spirituality of the indo-europeans and in so doing inspired everything the “trads” love about 40k. It didn’t last. If we are to fare any better in the 21^st century we can have no time for distractions or illusions. We can have the aesthetics and the true virtue that inspired them without being weighed down by baggage as the medievals were. We can keep the crusaders and the space marines. Just as Evola would – for they illustrate well all that he wrote on. And we can and should do it without bringing along the worm of Christ, as indeed Evola would not.