Brazilian Foreign Policy: From Marxism to Occultism
How to Understand the New Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo, His Guenonian Faith and His Misinterpretation about Spiritual Influences on Trump
By Julio Severo
“To
try to understand Trump, you should read the traditionalist master René Guénon,
a major influence on Steve Bannon, former chief strategist of the White House
and still central in the movement that brought Trump to the presidency.”
— Ernesto Araujo, new Brazilian foreign minister.
After years of socialism in the
Brazilian foreign policy, at last a Brazilian diplomat has come to fulfill right-wingers’
expectations of reshaping it. He is Ernesto Henrique Fraga Araujo, 51, who
according to Bloomberg is a “staunch anti-communist and pro-Christian
diplomat.”
 |
| Brazilian Guenonian philosopher Olavo de Carvalho and Ernesto Araújo |
Yet, a closer look reveals that his
appointment was not an answer to prayers, and he is not connected to the
evangelical conservative wave. The fact is that he is connected to an occultist
movement that, by using a traditionalist and anticommunist speech, has been
penetrating and parasitizing the Catholic Church.
If it was not the massive
conservative evangelical wave that brought Araujo to the Brazilian foreign
ministry, who did it?
The important question now is what
are the spiritual influences in the man who will influence and change the
Brazilian foreign policy.
A November 14, 2018 headline in the
Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo says,
“Novo chanceler, Ernesto Araújo foi indicado por Olavo de Carvalho” (New
foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo was recommended by Olavo de Carvalho).
 |
| Eduardo Bolsonaro and Steve Bannon |
Three months ago, Eduardo
Bolsonaro met Steve Bannon in New York,
saying on his Twitter account that Bannon is “an enthusiast of Bolsonaro’s
campaign and we are certainly in touch to join forces,” adding that “we share
the same worldview.”
To
try to understand Trump… you should read… the traditionalist master René Guénon
(a major influence on Steve Bannon, former chief strategist of the White House
and still central in the movement that brought Trump to the presidency).
Guénon, writing in the 1920s, believed that the modern West had completely
distanced itself from “tradition” (the spiritual core of all civilizations and
which manifests itself differently, but consistently in each of them), becoming
a well of materialism and ignorance, whose only principle is the denial of any
spirituality.
A
Frenchman converted to Islam and living in Egypt, Guénon believed that only
Christianity, and specifically Catholicism, could perhaps regain a minimum of
spirituality in the West and save it from complete annihilation in a deep dark
age, because only the Catholic Church, according to him, preserved — although
latent and incomprehensible by itself — the elements of the great tradition.
I
only know Guénon because of the propaganda that Carvalho has been doing for him
for years in Brazil. Without such propaganda, Araujo and I would never have heard
about the unknown Islamic occultist. Even so, I heard no “Guenonian echoes” in
Trump. How could Araujo hear them?
If Liberation Theology Catholics can
hear Marxist echoes even in Jesus Christ and His Gospel, effectively hijacking His
message, how could not other opportunists do the same with Jesus Christ, Trump
and others? It is impossible not to see the same opportunism in Guenonians.
The
first question is: what is a diplomat doing by introducing an Islamic occultist
in a diplomatic magazine published by Itamaraty, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry?
Other
issues also appear. Araujo said that Guénon is “a major influence on Steve
Bannon, former chief strategist of the White House and still central in the
movement that brought Trump to the presidency.”
He is right in saying that Guénon is
a major influence on Bannon — as he is a major influence on Araujo and his
master Carvalho. But he is obviously ill-informed when he says that Bannon is central
in the movement that brought Trump to the U.S. presidency. In fact, Bannon was
fired exactly because he tried to make appear that he was central to Trump’s
victory! In
his public message about Bannon, Trump said,
Steve
Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not
only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me
after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates…
Now
that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make
it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory… Steve doesn’t
represent my base—he’s only in it for himself.
Steve
pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party, yet
he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to
make himself seem far more important than he was. It is the only thing he does
well. Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to
have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he
helped write phony books.
Contrary
to Araujo’s imaginary conclusion, Trump made it very clear that Bannon was not
central to his victory. There was a massive movement that brought Trump to the
U.S. presidency, but it was not occultist. It was evangelical. Evangelicals were Trump’s main base. Evangelicals, not Bannon or Guénon,
were central for Trump’s victory. Araujo left out this important information.
And, by the way, evangelicals were also central to Bolsonaro’s
victory in Brazil, but adherents of Guénon — from
Carvalho to Araujo — deny this reality, and just as Bannon did, they portray
themselves as central to Bolsonaro’s victory.
Araujo sees Guénon guiding Trump and
his ideas, even though Trump is an evangelical and has never praised Guénon.
How not see Guénon guiding Araujo and his ideas, when he very clearly exalts
Guénon as a “master” and talks about traditionalism just as adherents of Guénon
do?
The bibliography of “Trump and the
West” has Guénon and Julius Evola as the main foundation for Araujo’s defense
of “traditionalism” and the West. He mentions ostensibly “The Crisis of the
Modern World” (New York: Sophia Perennis, 2001.), by René Guénon, and
“Metaphysics of War” (London: Arktos, 2001), by Julius Evola.
Joshua Green, author of “Devil’s
Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency”
(Penguin Publishing Group, 2017), said that “The antimodernist tenor of
Guénon’s philosophy drew several notable followers” and “The most notorious of
these was Julius Evola,” who “had struck an alliance with Benito Mussolini, and
his ideas became the basis of Fascist racial theory; later… Evola’s ideas
gained currency in Nazi Germany.”
According to Green:
“The
common themes of the collapse of Western civilization and the loss of the
transcendent in books such as Guénon’s The Crisis of the Modern World (1927)
and Evola’s Revolt Against the Modern World (1934) are what drew Bannon’s
interest to Traditionalism (although he was also very much taken with its
spiritual aspects, citing Guénon’s 1925 book, Man and His Becoming According to
the Vedanta, as ‘a life-changing discovery’). Bannon… brought to Guénon’s
Traditionalism a strong dose of Catholic social thought.”
If Araujo wanted to talk about Trump
and spirituality, he was irresponsible by mentioning what has nothing to do
with Trump — Guénon and his crazy occult ideas — and by not mentioning what has
everything to do with Trump — evangelicalism.
There are excellent books on Trump’s conservatism
(which Araujo treats as “traditionalism”), including “God and Donald Trump,” by
Stephen Strang, and “The Faith of Donald J. Trump: A Spiritual Biography,” by
David Brody. Both books show Trump’s evangelical connections and that Trump’s
alleged “traditionalism” is essentially evangelical — a fact overlooked by
Araujo, who chose to use two fascist occultists as his main bibliographic
sources.
Following Guénon, Araujo believes
that “only Christianity, and specifically Catholicism, could perhaps regain a
minimum of spirituality in the West and save it from complete annihilation.”
Araujo learned it from Guénon through Carvalho, who always mention it.
Occultists praise the Catholic Church
as a “savior” because they know they can parasitize it and use it. Adherents of
Guénon parasitize individuals and institutions. Trump is not an adherent of
Guénon, but adherents of Guénon are using him as a symbol of Guenonian
traditionalism. The Catholic Church is not Guenonian, but his adherents use it
as a cover of their operations.
It seems left-wing tactic. In fact,
in his article titled “Hijack and Pervert” in his personal blog Metapolítica,
Araujo said,
“The
tactic of the Left essentially consists in the following: to hijack legitimate
causes and noble concepts and pervert them to serve their political scheme of
total domination.”
Guenonians hijack everything and
everyone for their occultist revolution. In the U.S., they under Bannon tried
to hijack Trump. “Devil’s Bargain” said, “In the summer of 2016, Bannon described
Trump as a ‘blunt instrument for us.’”
But Trump eventually woke up to
reality. Bannon, who has for Guénon the same sympathy that Araujo has, was
expelled from the White House with all his baggage of occult traditionalism.
In Brazil, guenonians are trying to
hijack the conservative wave, which is predominantly evangelical, by saying
that its creator is Guenonian Olavo de Carvalho.
Araujo said, “Trump’s West is the
deepest symbolic heritage of the nations that make it up. In this picture, God
himself does not cease from being a symbol, the supersymbol.” He mentioned
symbols several times in his article. He is just following his old teacher,
Carvalho, who has written several occult books, including:
*
Questões de Simbolismo Astrológico [Issues of Astrologic Symbolism]. São
Paulo: Speculum. (1983)
*
Astros e Símbolos [Stars and
Symbols]. São Paulo: Nova Stella. (1985)
Araujo said, “He who does not have
symbols does not think and feel.” His immersion in Carvalho’s course gave him a
fixation on symbols.
But
it is not any Trump. He means the Trump that Bannon, Carvalho and he chose as
“symbol” of the Guenonian revolution. Of course, Trump has nothing to do with
Guénon, Carvalho, Araujo and their infatuation with Guénon. Nevertheless, they
have hijacked him to be used as a Guenonian symbol.
Araujo created a Trump according to
Guénon’s image and likeness and now he uses this imaginary Trump as a
traditionalist model, when the real model, in his mind and life, is Guénon and
Carvalho. In fact, Araujo is the author of three fiction novels. By using his
experience with fiction and occultism, what is he going to do with the
Brazilian diplomacy?
Actually, what he sees is not a Trump
shaped by Trump himself. He sees a Trump who was profoundly shaped by Bannon, a
Trump who without Bannon would not be what he is today. He sees Bannon and
Guénon in Trump. How would Trump react to it?
He projects all his Guenonian
idealism on Trump. He has no choice. There is no good example of Guenonian
influences on a president, and the most powerful Guenonian influence in the
past was Julius Evola on Benito Mussolini. But this is fascism with occultism.
Even though right-wingers would be ashamed to associate themselves with
anything fascist, Araujo was not ashamed to present the concept of
traditionalism based on Evola himself.
Araujo did not think helpful to use
directly Mussolini as an example of a national leader influenced by a Guenonian
adviser, but he used Trump, who eventually expelled his own Guenonian adviser.
So the only good example involving Trump and Guenonian traditionalism is that
Trump expelled his Guenonian adviser. This is a good example that Jair
Bolsonaro in Brazil should imitate.
But
Araujo sees Trump as eternally dependent on Bannon’s Guenonian influence. His
“Trump and West” uses Trump as a blunt instrument at the service of the
Guenonian ideology.
Araujo could have used Carvalho
himself as an example of the alleged “success” of Guenonian traditionalism and
anti-Marxism, especially because Carvalho was a major influence on his
thinking. But Carvalho’s troubled and complicated background would not make him
a good example.
Even
so, it is very troubling that he used as his bibliographical base Evola, whose
traditionalist ideas influenced Mussolini and Nazi Germany.
Just as socialists use a speech of
assistance to the poor to advance their occult agenda, Guenonians use a
traditionalist and anti-Marxist speech to advance their occult agenda.
Araujo defends a Catholicism parasitized
by occultists as the predominant force in the Western politics.
There is a difference between Steve
Bannon and Olavo de Carvalho. While Bannon spent years reading Guénon and other
occultists, Carvalho did much more: He spent years reading and practicing
Guénon. For years he gave astrology classes in Brazil. He acquired national
prominence in Brazil by having founded the first organization of astrology and
Escola Júpiter (Jupiter School), the first school of astrologers in Brazil in
the late 1970s.
In his capacity as chief astrologer,
he was interviewed by the Brazilian counterpart of Time, Veja magazine, in 9
April 1980, and by the TV channel Manchete in the early 1980s, to address
astrology issues. Both interviews catapulted him to national fame in Brazil.
In 1981 he translated into Portuguese
“A Metafísica Oriental” [Eastern Metaphysics], by René Guénon, published by his
Escola Júpiter. Carvalho inherited his “anti-Marxism” from Guénon, who was
anti-Marxist.
In 1989, he founded Sociedade
Brasileira de Astrocaracterologia (Brazilian Society of Astrocharacterology) to
advance astrology ideas. You can find more information on Carvalho in this Conservapedia article.
Araujo said, “Americans are the last
traditionalist people in the West.” This is obviously a contradiction in his
hijacking, because if the Guenonian thinking is that the Catholic Church is the
only savior for the West, then an honest conclusion would be that Brazil, the
largest Catholic nation in the world, would be last traditionalist nation in
the West.
If “Americans are the last
traditionalist people in the West,” then an intelligent mind would question:
What is their most important tradition? During the birth of their Republic,
Americans were not Guenonian. They were 98 percent Protestant. They were overwhelmingly
and passionately Protestant.
But Protestant and evangelical are
words not valued in Araujo’s article allegedly praising American traditions. He
just hijacked Trump, America and her Protestant-based traditions to be a
platform for Guenonian ideas, even though the U.S. evangelical tradition has
never valued Guénon. When talking about America and Trump, Araujo mentions many
times more the spiritualist Guénon than Biblical Protestantism. How could he be
in touch with the American spiritual reality?
So Brazil now has a proselytizer of
Guénon or Carvalho serving as foreign affairs minister. In this capacity, he
will teach the world, even though not directly, that the spiritual answer is
not the real Gospel and Jesus Christ, but a Catholic Church parasitized by
Guénon adherents.
Araujo’s speeches may deceive
gullible Christians. GospelPrime, the largest evangelical website in Brazil, said,
“In several articles signed by the new chancellor on his personal website,
Metapolitics, he shows himself to be a practicing Christian.”
Religiously,
this is a contradiction, because in his article “Em 1717, três pescadores” (In
1717, three fishermen) in Metapolítica Araujo praises “Aparecida,” the most
prominent idol worshipped by Catholics in Brazil. Brazilian evangelicals
usually see worshipers of this idol as “practicing idolaters.” But strangely,
GospelPrime identifies him as a “practicing Christian.” If this is true, why
have many Brazilian evangelicals originally left the Catholic Church, Aparecida
and other idols? Did they stop from being “practicing
Christians” when they left their past idols?
Perhaps GospelPrime thought that
because Araujo is a “staunch anti-communist,” it makes him a “practicing
Christian.” So because Guénon and his occult and esoteric adherents are
“staunch anti-communist,” are all them “practicing Christian”?
Has the definition of being a
“practicing Christian” changed from an individual who lives a Biblical faith on
Jesus to an individual who lives a “staunch anti-communist” life? It would
radically change Christianity from a Biblical faith to a spiritualistic
ideological faith. Because of Guenonianism, even Brazilian evangelicals seem to
be suffering a change in their attitudes.
This is not the first time
GospelPrime gives way before adherents of Guénon. GospelPrime has been
promoting Bernardo Kuster, who has produced “staunch anti-communist” videos. He
was an evangelical and worked in an evangelical church, but after he began to
study “philosophy” under Carvalho, he became a Guenonian Catholic, and now,
strangely, GospelPrime has more articles on him than on Luther himself!
So the case of Araujo is similar to
many other cases of Catholics who have fallen under the spell of the Guenonian
traditionalism, and become enthusiastic proselytizers of this political
esoteric faith.
In the diplomatic magazine, Araujo
appeals to Catholicism, saying about the definition of Brazil,
“We
live on the Island of Vera Cruz, in the land of the Holy Cross, but we are not
interested in knowing what that original name means, in knowing the destiny
that this name calls… Why did destiny give Brazilians first that name, island
of the true cross, land of the sacred cross?… Why did Brazil so soon hide it
and change it into the name of a tree?… tree of life of the Hebrew Kabbalah,
which in the Christian Kabbalah also becomes the cross of Christ.”
He appeals at the same time to
Catholicism and the Jewish Kabbalah, which means “tradition,” but which is defined
by The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics as “a highly developed form of
Jewish mysticism… at the level of the superstitious practitioner who dabbles in
the occult, Kabbalah receives the strongest condemnation from the very Torah it
purports to honor: ‘Do not practice divination or sorcery’ (Leviticus 19:26).”
So in Araujo’s mind the Catholic
essence of Brazil is similar to Kabbalah, which is not accepted by the Bible
and the Christian Church, but it is accepted by the adherents of Guénon.
Marxism
politically dominated Brazil, the largest Catholic nation in the world, because
the Catholic Church was already dominated by Liberation Theology. Now a minority
of Guenonian Catholics, who have hijacked the massive conservative evangelical
wave, seek to have the Brazilian government dominated by right-wing occultism.
Araujo said, “the West is not based
on values, it is not based on tolerance nor democracy, it is based on Plato and
Aristotle.”
So he thinks that the West,
especially America, is not based on Jewish-Christian values, but on Plato and
Aristotle. Incidentally or not, Carvalho, who was Araujo’s teacher, said that
with the Bible, Plato and Aristotle were the most fundamental literature in the
early American Republic, even though the U.S. historian Bill Federer has said
that the three most fundamental books in the early America were the Bible, The
Pilgrim’s Progress and Fox’s Book of Martyrs (which exposes the Inquisition,
defended by Carvalho). According to the conservative writer Nancy Pearcey,
adherents of Guénon have a fixation on Plato.
Conclusion:
Araujo’s article “Trump and West” is spiritual, more specifically
spiritualistic. It is a highly religious article for a diplomatic magazine.
Trump is just an expedient for Araujo to address comfortably Guénon and his
traditionalism and occult anti-Marxism. An article actually addressing Trump and
spirituality would have mentioned evangelicalism as many times as Araujo
mentioned Guénon and traditionalism. Unknowingly, Trump was used by a
Guenonian.
This is not the first time Trump is
used by Guenonian Catholics. Last year one of them wrote that just
as Trump is maligned and attacked for his conservative stances, so the
Inquisition and its alleged good role for justice is maligned and attacked.
They totally reject the historic versions portraying the Inquisition as a
machine of torture and death against Jews and Protestants. And Carvalho
is the most prominent Brazilian rejecter.
It is impossible to understand Trump
without recognizing the massive evangelical influence on his victory. In the
same way, it is impossible to understand Araujo without recognizing the massive
influence of Carvalho and Guénon on his life.
As
a Brazilian Guenonian Catholic — Catholic syncretism is very common in Brazil
—, Ernesto Araujo can accept Guénon and his occult traditionalism and reject
Marxism. As usual among Guenonians, he does not recognize the massive role of
the conservative evangelical wave that put Trump in the U.S. presidency and
Bolsonaro in the Brazilian presidency.
Contrary
to Araujo, who said that to understand Trump you should read his traditionalist
master René Guénon, I would recommend that to understand Trump you should read
the books of the evangelical leaders who advise Trump.
The
big problem in the U.S. is neoconservatives and other warmongers hijacking
conservative causes and drawing conservative Christians to support wars. The
big problem in Brazil is Guenonians and other occultists and syncretic
Catholics hijacking conservative causes and drawing conservative Christians to
support their phony conservatism. Neoconservatives, Guenonians and other occultists
are so dangerous as Marxists are.
As a conservative evangelical, I
reject neoconservatism and the Guenonian traditionalist utopia and sophistry. And
as a member of the same conservative evangelical wave that put Trump in the
U.S. presidency and Bolsonaro in the Brazilian presidency, I recognize the
massive role of this wave and I reject both Marxism and occultism. For me, they
are both different sides of the same coin.
Portuguese version of this article: Política
externa brasileira: do marxismo ao ocultismo
Source:
Last Days Watchman
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