Lennart Svensson has been around for some years now. He debuted in 2014 with Ernst Jünger – A Portrait, depicting the life and works of Germany’s probably greatest author since Goethe. Svensson continued to publish works in “the perennial, idealist, radical-conservative” vein, like the selfhelp guide Actionism, the metaphysical essay Borderline, and Science Fiction Seen From the Right. Svensson lives in Sweden and also writes in Swedish but he has a keen eye for the English-speaking world. Here John Wisniewski talks with Svensson about various topics, covering his works in English (pre-Rigorism). Mr. Wisniewski is a freelance writer who resides in New York.
1. What subjects did you study in your early years, particularly at University?
In my youth I was into history; how great, how fun... But, alas, it was a mistake studying it at University. History at Uppsala University in 1985 was rather much co-opted by leftism. So instead, I eventually settled for Classic Indology which equals the study of Sanskrit. I wanted to be able to read the Bhagavad-Gîtâ in its original form. And I got to do that. It wasn’t, at first, easy but it payed off... creatively and spiritually. As a 1990s university student, I didn't have to listen to leftist diatribes on how bad everything traditional was. To be sure, neither was it traditionalism that was expounded from the Indology pulpit. That specific ideology I only learned about later. I took a BA in Indology which to 99% meant reading ancient Indian documents and translating them. Sanskrit grammar was the leitmotif, not some religious or philosophical interpretation of it, be it traditional or modern.
2. What interested you about traditionalism?
Traditionalism, the way I see this ideology, functions as a counter-point to the mainstream of current Western thought. I mean, modern thought has the tendency of only starting with things having developed since 1945, things that can be read on the web in a minute or so. Traditionalism wants nothing of this. It forces you to learn ancient languages and delve into old documents. Traditionalism kind of says: “Shut up! Until you know the truth.” Traditionalism implicitly acknowledges eternal values such as faith, duty, honor, courage, fidelity. And this, of course, is dismissed out of hand by modern thought. Ultimately, modern thought is nihilism and sterility; traditionalism is life and light.
3. Did you become interested in the works of Julius Evola?
Indeed, Evola has meant something to me. I first encountered his name in 2010 and then got going buying and reading his essential works. He was great in being this: a traditionally minded conservative who was also (in Ride the Tiger) endowed with a combative spirit. An attitude saying that the past was great, the present is dismal -- but -- Aristocrats of the Soul, having order inside them, can wait out the current development and then take over when it has ran out of steam. Evola stressed the person’s will to persevere; he morally bolstered those of us living today who want to create a new, or old-new, traditional society. My appreciation of Evola can be read in Chapter Twelve of Actionism (2017), my philosophy of life.
4. Indeed Lennart, you have written about actionism. Was this term coined by philosopher Theodore Adorno and how does it apply to Western culture? OK. Actionism. If you google it you might come to a reflection made by Adorno (regarding an aspect of leftism). But that’s not my creed, not at all. My creed is based in perennial thought. It is a moral anchored in being, a positive affirmation of action. The thing is, we all have to act. Even a meditating recluse. He at least has to breathe. And we must sustain our bodies with food and drink. Thus, we all have to act. And Actionism makes action into a state of mind. For instance, I talk about “Rest in Action” and “Action as Being”. To this, I have it based in the existence of the divine, in God as the eternal light, and the individual soul as a spark of this. The previous, historical gurus I invoke, in Actionism and its preceding, metaphysical outing Borderline (2016), are Plotinus, Goethe, Steiner, Evola, Jünger -- and, to some extent, Nietzsche. He, for one, rediscovered will. Will is a centerpiece of Actionism. Will per se is spiritual, it is in accordance with divine will which equals the light. Conversely, desire equals the dark. Western man today often confuses will with desire, he reduces it to desire. With Actionism, I’m striving to rectify this fault.
5. You have written a book about Ernst Jünger. Could you tell us who he was, and why he is important to understanding man's place in the universe?
Ernst Jünger (1895-1998) was Germany’s greatest author since Goethe; you might call him "a definite neglect for the Nobel Prize in literature"... His memoirs of WWI, his WWII-diaries, his essays and novels beggar description. His novels may lack the charm and warmth of a Hesse or a Mann but he beats them in conceptual daring and symbolic vigor. As Bruce Chatwin said, “Jünger writes a hard, lucid prose.” It is like shiny blue steel, it is prose with the beauty of ice. In mere philosophical terms Jünger is part of the perennial tradition from Plotinus, Goethe, and Schopenhauer. Few other 20th century authors come near this "integrating idealistic thought in a readable and relatable way" that is Jünger’s trademark (in for instace the novel Eumeswil and the essay collection The Adventurous Heart). To this he was an avid entomologist and traveler, writing and publishing a diary almost until he died (in German only, entitled Siebzig verweht). — As intimated, Jünger was definite “Nobel Prize material”. His novel On the Marble Cliffs summarizes many subjects he returned to in his works: the conflict between activity and quietism, power and spirit. Jünger is a radical conservative with a sense of spiritual elevation.
6. Lennart, you have also written Science Fiction Seen From the Right. How did you view authors such as George Orwell and Aldous Huxley from that perspective?
Orwell and his 1984 I used as an example of “the ambiguity of a symbol,” being as it is a novel that has morphed with the times, keeping its character of warning example. For, it might be that Orwell wrote his novel as a way to criticize Stalinism of the late 1940s kind. But the vision also applies to current Politically Correct societies of the West, primarily in how the novel pictures the use and misuse of language as a tool of dictatorship. 1984 indeed has staying power...! As is the case with Huxley’s Brave New World. It applies even better to current times and PC’ism, in that it stays away from the more brutal sides of dictatorship (the regimentation, the hands-on torture of dissidents) and focuses on propaganda and conditioning, making the citizen actually love the lack of freedom and the "Gleichschaltung”. Just as in today’s mainstream culture, where it’s hip to follow the cues from above.
7. Lennart, with Borderline – A traditional Outlook for Modern Man, you present a way to unite man with God, action with being, east with west and mind with matter. Could you tell us about writing your book?
The keyword of Borderline is “holism”. To see wholes. A holistic outlook. The counterpart is reductionism, the current paradigm where everything is reduced into parts, fragments, bits easy to study but that ultimately don’t make any sense. The angle I have in Borderline is to fuse everything — science, art, spirituality — on holistic grounds. Plotinus, Caspar David Friedrich, Goethe, T. S. Eliot, Swedish poet Edith Södergran etc. etc. It’s all there. The all-encompassing concept I employ is bold but it pays off, it awards the reader with a fresh outlook. No other writer today takes this kind of look at “the Big Picture”. I mean, a writer like Jordan Peterson might be a somewhat viable guru for today’s lost generation — but — his outlook strikes me as overly down to earth and lacking in esoteric qualities. The metaphysics just isn’t there. Any ethic must be metaphysically founded. We need a metaphysical outlook to counter the bland materialism of the official ideology. We need a discussion about the nature of reality, and this I deliver in Borderline. It is perennial idealism, it is Plotinic forms, it is the invisible-and-eternal foundation of the world that shapes everything. This view, with additional perspectives from Hinduism and esoteric Christianity, is taught in Borderline and this is in sync with the emerging esoteric, spiritual, non-materialist zeitgeist. It forms a basis on how to act; it is about “action as being” which to some extent is explained in Borderline and also in the follow up, Actionism – How to Become a Responsible Man, which focuses more on ethics per se.
8. What inspired you to write your novel Redeeming Lucifer?
A lot of things. Like, being a Swede, I’ve always been annoyed with the acclaim for Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957). True, it is an above-average, serious fiction film; still, I can’t see that "atheistic knights afraid of death" are the model protagonists for a metaphysical drama with historical scenery. I, for one, wanted to stage a historically founded, “cosmic" fantasy with real spirituality, real esoteric depth. Going further in what inspired me I can mention Michael Moorcock’s novels about the Eternal Champion, fantasy adventures with sometimes profound metaphysical visions. Like Bergman Moorcock is an atheist; so, to take “a step farther out," I wanted to deepen the moral argument by anchoring it in ontology, and by putting GOD in there. To this, I wanted to teach the reader about my version of cosmic history, of the creation, of "the war in heaven," of the moral history of Earth with forces of good and evil playing it out with man as battleground. A little bit like Milton’s Paradise Lost (and I quote that work on page 105, depicting the plight of Lucifer, “Which way I fly is Hell, myself am Hell” etc). So in this my Luciferian outing we get this and that, a divinely anchored vision of history, seen through the adventures of a Russian captain of the First World War, one Carl Griffensteen. Whose mission it is to “redeem Lucifer,” that is, forgive him and draw him into the Light.
Related
Rigorism (2022)
Actionism (2017)
Ernst Jünger -- A Portrait
Redeeming Lucifer
Science Fiction Seen From the Right
Borderline (2015)
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