Paul Cudenec draws on an impressively wide range of authors to depict a corrupted civilization on the brink of self-destruction and to call for a powerful new philosophy of resistance and renewal offering a future for humanity in which we are all able to “be what we’re meant to be”. He combines the anarchism of the likes of Gustav Landauer, Michael Bakunin and Herbert Read with the philosophy of René Guénon, Herbert Marcuse and Jean Baudrillard; the existentialism of Karl Jaspers and Colin Wilson; the vision of Carl Jung, Oswald Spengler and Idries Shah, and the environmental insight of Derrick Jensen and Paul Shepard in a work of ideological alchemy fuelled by the ancient universal esoteric beliefs found in Sufism, Taoism and hermeticism. With a fusion of scholarly research and inspiring polemic, Cudenec succeeds in forging a coherent and profound 21st century world-view with an appeal that will reach out far beyond those who currently term themselves anarchists. The book sets out by exploring the sense of meaninglessness in modern society, exemplified by our alienating dependency on technology and mental manipulation by commercial interests. It follows Guénon, Marcuse and Baudrillard in diagnosing a regression of intellect and the reign of quality over quantity – a condition that Cudenec describes as the disease of modernity. He argues that the concepts of “progress” and economic “growth” imply the inevitability of one particular future – a continuation of the current system. Although environmental crisis threatens our very existence, change is blocked and democracy is an illusion. The repression of resistance is mirrored by the control of “reality”. The closing-down of language and thought encouraged by the positivist philosophy is, as Marcuse and Jaspers explain, ideal for the capitalist system – denying as it does all possibility of human autonomy. What we need, says Cudenec, is a complete refusal of the system. Anarchism challenges assumptions about the law (Leo Tolstoy), property (William Godwin), employment (Bakunin) and the state (Errico Malatesta). It rejects the narrowness of positivism (Bakunin, Landauer) and imagines individuals’ natural potential fulfilled in a harmonious organic society (Peter Kropotkin).  Our innate human sense of justice is thwarted by capitalism, argues Cudenec, creating a powerful potential for revolt. But where, he asks, will the rebels come from to take on such a titanic struggle? He looks at the way a natural outsider (Wilson) can manage to turn the despair of alienation into acceptance of an existential burden of responsibility (Jean-Paul Sartre). An inner strength is needed to take on the “allotted task” (Jaspers), which presents itself as calling or “daemonic will” (Jung). This originates in the collective unconscious and acts for the benefit of whole – it is thus merely channelled by an individual, who must be open and authentic enough to allow this to happen. The universal esoteric spiritual path involves stripping away the ego’s barrier between the individual and the collective whole (Ibn ‘Arabi). With historic connections to this tradition (Sedgwick, Waterfield), anarchists use the language of alchemy to call for a transformation of society (Bakunin, Emma Goldman, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon). The anarchist love of seeming paradox reflects the depth and fluidity of the philosophy – in contrast to “rigid” Marxism (Landauer). Contradictions are embraced rather than resolved. Playfulness and creativity are also at the heart of anarchism and set it apart from materialist Marxism. The poetic language of revolt can bypass social conditioning and open up new possibilities. In his final chapter, “¡Viva la Revelación!”, Cudenec concludes that a remarkable transformation is needed to save humanity. This will not come from existing religions – we need a spiritual awakening that speaks a “new language” (Jaspers) and is powered by its own values (Frithjof Schuon). This is The Anarchist Revelation.

The Anarchist Revelation: Being What We're Meant To Be

Politics & Social Sciences

Cudenec, Paul

Politics & Government

Winter Oak Press

In this collection of essays, Paul Cudenec calls for a new deeper level of resistance to global capitalism – one which is rooted in the collective soul not just of humankind but of the living planet. He leads us along the intertwining environmental and philosophical strands of Antibodies, through the passion of Anarchangels and The Task and on to a cutting analysis of Gladio, a state-terrorist branch of what he calls the "plutofascist" system. Also included, alongside short pieces on Taoism and Jungian psychology, is an interview with the author, in which he explains key aspects of his approach. “Very readable and profoundly thoughtful… Many new insights on the destructive relationship between the greater part of humanity and the planet which tries to sustain them”. Peter Marshall, author of Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism and Nature's Web: An Exploration of Ecological Thinking.

Antibodies, anarchangels and other essays

Philosophy

"How can the human race embrace freedom if it does not have a clear idea of what freedom is? How can we ever gain a clear idea of freedom if we do not even start looking for it in the right places?" In this important new book, Paul Cudenec, author of The Anarchist Revelation and The Stifled Soul of Humankind, challenges layer upon layer of the assumptions that lie largely unchallenged beneath contemporary industrial capitalist society. He rejects limited definitions of freedom as an absence of specific restraints in favour of a far deeper and more radical analysis which describes individual, collective, planetary and metaphysical levels of freedom. A powerful and tightly-argued work inspired by a profoundly coherent anarchist vision, Forms of Freedom is a potential classic of 21st century revolutionary philosophy.

Forms of Freedom

Perantulo is a wandering sage, spreading his mystic pagan wisdom from Khaluvia to Mesqa-Murro, from the chestnut forests of Sevennola to the rain-lashed archipelago of Prydina.  He is the fictional creation of "il fachiro", an Eastern philosopher who arrived in Renaissance Florence in 1459 and challenged Cosimo di Medici and Marsilio Ficino’s Neoplatonist revival with his own empowering and anarchic metaphysics.  Paul is a writer visiting 21st century Italy who, while laying himself open to inspiration from the energies and art of the Florentine past, comes across an historical account of "il fachiro" and his fables. But he, too, resides inside a book – on one of the three layers of reality within "The Fakir of Florence".

The Fakir of Florence: A novel in three layers

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Nature, Essence and Anarchy

I am The Green One, although I would maybe better be named The Green Many.I am Pachamama, I am Isis, I am Yemoja. I am Jack in the Green, I am Tammuz, I am Khidr.I am regeneration. I am the right way of living. Sometimes I am revolution.I have taken up the mighty sledgehammers of the Luddites. The May Queens are running riot in the streets. Joan of Arc is burning patriarchy at the stake.The pylons are tumbling. The motorways are crumbling. The pipelines are fracturing.The Green One is coming The Green One is coming

The Green One

Religion & Spirituality

New Age & Spirituality

The Withway confronts the civilizational choices with which we are today being collectively presented. It is not a political manifesto or a detailed programme for action. It is, rather, an exploration of ideas which is intended to act as a preliminary signpost, a rough sketch of the way in which many of us know intuitively we ought to be heading.\n"As our awareness grows, it becomes obvious to us that the Withway has not so much disappeared from view as been hidden from view, in the interests of power. At this point, the Withway takes on a meaning that it would not have possessed in a different kind of society.\n"If all was largely well with our world, the Withway would amount to a simple continuation of the direction we were already taking, the maintenance of 'an orderly society in harmony with nature' urged by traditional Confucian philosophy in China.\n"But since this is far from being the case, it necessarily implies a radical breach with the status quo, so that we may rejoin the true path. People who instinctively seek community, cohesion and continuity – a society founded on the natural order of withness – therefore find themselves confronted with the need to become revolutionaries".

The Withway: Calling us home

Paul Cudenec

The Great Racket: The ongoing development of the criminal global system

Business & Money

International

Our Quest for Freedom: and other essays

James, W.D.

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Books by Cudenec, Paul