[annatar1914]

@Godstud , @Tainari88 , @Potemkin

@Verv , and others:

I admittedly look at recent events with a different eye, in which the Modern project and Westernization is the same as the Americanization of the world and the Papacy is the first iteration of Protestantism which was the theological expression of these ideas, where they began. Where barbarism is good and civilization as I define it is bad. And where I absolutely affirm that while coming from different geopolitical camps, the Russian Federation and Israel will wind up being allies before it's all said and done.

With all this in mind I would like to reflect on and riff off of this guy's essay:

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sit ... oil-trends

Next few posts will proceed from this starting point. For a beginning, let me just say that in these sorts of instances words mean little, and intentions possibly even less. And in some circumstances, maybe nothing if at all if there is a hidden understanding.

[annatar1914]

@Godstud , @Tainari88 , @Potemkin

@Verv , and others:

I admittedly look at recent events with a different eye, in which the Modern project and Westernization is the same as the Americanization of the world and the Papacy is the first iteration of Protestantism which was the theological expression of these ideas, where they began. Where barbarism is good and civilization as I define it is bad. And where I absolutely affirm that while coming from different geopolitical camps, the Russian Federation and Israel will wind up being allies before it's all said and done.

With all this in mind I would like to reflect on and riff off of this guy's essay:

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sit ... oil-trends

Next few posts will proceed from this starting point. For a beginning, let me just say that in these sorts of instances words mean little, and intentions possibly even less. And in some circumstances, maybe nothing if at all if there is a hidden understanding.

@Tainari88 , @Verv , @Potemkin , and @Godstud :


Actually, I'd rather after serious reflection, start with causes and end with effects. Since I am an Orthodox Christian and this is the spirituality sub forum, it seems only appropriate. This might take several posts to elaborate.

But for starters there is salvation history and an awareness of existential evil, the paradox of the fallen world that the Evil which attacks the Good illuminates that which is Good and causes it to shine all the brighter for those who think and seek.

Next post I will go into detail, but suffice it enough for today to say that Russia is Israel, and Israel is Russia, in a profoundly ontological sense.

[Verv]

I'll try to read the essay from Simplicus at some point, but one of the reasons I have been so inactive on PoFo is I am in a time crunch that has let up a bit lately but still persists... Lots of overtime work and what have you.

I have also been blessed to make some new friends in my life out in my neighborhood through my wife & daughter. They are taking up more of my time and mental space, which is great...

Let me comment on this, though:

Next post I will go into detail, but suffice it enough for today to say that Russia is Israel, and Israel is Russia, in a profoundly ontological sense.

Israel is the Church. The new Jerusalem, the new Zion, that is the Church community. Now, I admire the project to try to have some kind of prophetic vision of what is happening in the geopolitical questions of Russia & Israel and how it pertains to the world, and I also see how Jerusalem and Moscow are massive spiritual fulcrums in many people's lives...

But, geez, I am not a Saint. I am not hearing a living Saint make predictions on Moscow & Jerusalem... I am skeptical of coming up with giant theories on this that could particularly impact people's political views and cause them to support violence against other humans...

I would also say that there are very compelling theories that the modern Palestinians suffering now are descendants of the ancient Hebrews, and the modern Israelis are actually descendants of general Mediterranean North African peoples who were part of the massive amounts of converts already settled throughotu North Africa in the time of the Second temple coming down, not the authentic, unbroken line of David or anything.

[annatar1914]

Dear @Verv , and @Tainari88 , and @Potemkin , @Godstud :

I promised the beginning of a discussion on why I've been saying some of the things that I've been saying. First, a certain data point, if you will:

https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-si ... n-ukraine/

.. to help understand what is going on with my thinking.

But also on another level for those who can see it, what the collective of the Jews say:

They don't understand everything, and have been ordained by God to not understand for a while longer in fact, but they understand enough just to be able to transmit something of what they do not know. A Mystery.

Out of the North Country.

For " Amalek" is by the sages of the Jews "Edom", and "Ishmael", and the Mixed Multitude, the Erev Rav. This combination is the Serpent, the Viper of the Leprosy. Rome/ the West and the Hagarenes and the Root of the Left side, against the Israel of God the Church AND against the Collective that collectively rejected Him by the assembly of the Sanhedrin but who will also collectively accept Him, by that same assembly:

" Come down from Your Cross, and then we will believe in You".

They absolutely will.

1648 AD was the beginning of Patriarch Nikon's Schismatical innovations AND the persecution of the Jewry in the Roman Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. There's a mystery there, as sure as 1666 AD was the year of the False Messiah Sabbatai Zevi and his turn to Islam, AND the year the so called " Old Belief" of Orthodox Christianity was anathemized.

By an inexorable and eternal law, we will see the enemies of Russia and Serbia, Greece and Israel openly become the same of all . Because they are the very same, and this is the geopolitical external sign of the interior reality.

Edit:

I might add, for the benefit of my friends, that I'm definitely not a living saint, but rather a sinner, dead in my disordered passions.

However, what I do believe that I understand is that contra Tolstoy and pro Ilyin, Evil must be resisted and stamped out by force, if possible. Sure with my Starovery background and all one might think that I'd be hesitant to accept giving the sovereign power such tools as to accomplish that, but you would be wrong.

Absolute power doesn't corrupt, weakness does, because weakness is what IS corruption, on an ontological level. A degradation and degeneration of being.

[Godstud]

Absolute power doesn't corrupt, weakness does, because weakness is what IS corruption, on an ontological level. A degradation and degeneration of being.

True. Some of the most powerful Roman dictators walked away after they did what they set out to do.

Dictator Cincinnatus maintained his authority only long enough to bring Rome through an emergency. He then resigned and returned to his farm.

[annatar1914]

True. Some of the most powerful Roman dictators walked away after they did what they set out to do.

Dictator Cincinnatus maintained his authority only long enough to bring Rome through an emergency. He then resigned and returned to his farm.

@Godstud :

Indeed, back to his plow and the very model of unselfish public service for the common good. And if provision had not been made for someone to take up absolute power then nothing might have been accomplished with perhaps fatal consequences.

All multiple divided nodes of power in a political system do is manage to diminish individual accountability and responsibility while delaying the means of reaching a decision on whatever issue is under discussion, via legislative or bureaucratic machinery.

[Potemkin]

@Godstud :

Indeed, back to his plow and the very model of unselfish public service for the common good. And if provision had not been made for someone to take up absolute power then nothing might have been accomplished with perhaps fatal consequences.

All multiple divided nodes of power in a political system do is manage to diminish individual accountability and responsibility while delaying the means of reaching a decision on whatever issue is under discussion, via legislative or bureaucratic machinery.

But the virtuous dictators of the Republic morphed into the cruel and profligate tyrants of the Empire….

[annatar1914]

But the virtuous dictators of the Republic morphed into the cruel and profligate tyrants of the Empire….

@Potemkin :

In this fallen world my friend, nothing lasts forever and especially not collective civic virtue.

Having failed to make Justice Mighty, we must somehow make Might appear Just, paraphrasing Pascal as to what the world thinks ( since we know he also said that " no doubt equality of goods is just....").

Relating back to my previous comments, of course we know that Justice is the Left Side of the Tree of Life, while Mercy is on the Right.

The Right is indeed quite merciful to the World and it's ways, is it not?

[Godstud]

@Potemkin Serval Roman emperors were not corrupt or cruel and were beloved by the people. Augustus(the first Emperor) led for his life and Rome had 200 years(Pax Romana) of peace(which did not exist during the Republic). You support a false narrative.

[annatar1914]

@Godstud , @Potemkin :

I would assure you both that you are on target, that Potemkin is addressing the issue in a more scientific critique, of how dictatorship necessarily operates when imbedded within and as the support of a immoral and rotten socioeconomic system, while Godstud is highlighting the benefits that a good man who is dictator can have upon any society that has need of him.

This is still pretty much within the parameters of this discussion, because I am now reminded of why I ( while a Communist!) need to approach analysis of the Issue of Israel and Russia from a truly scientific understanding. Nothing would be better, ironically, being in this Spirituality sub forum

I don't think it inappropriate then to discuss this all from a perspective informed by the Marxist Leninist approach.

After all, I still have to address the fact that the Ukrainian regime and the Israelis are totally in the tank for each other, right? If I'm to discuss this whole problem, best to look at it dialectically after all.

[Potemkin]

@Godstud , @Potemkin :

I would assure you both that you are on target, that Potemkin is addressing the issue in a more scientific critique, of how dictatorship necessarily operates when imbedded within and as the support of a immoral and rotten socioeconomic system, while Godstud is highlighting the benefits that a good man who is dictator can have upon any society that has need of him.

Virtuous men can only rise to positions of great power in a virtuous society - that is, a society which is not divided against itself by an unjust or exploitative economic system. In a society which is divided against itself by class conflict - as the late Republic was - then society requires brutal and violent men to rise to power, to perform the surgery (or butchery) required by the objective circumstances. Cicero was a virtuous man who could never reconcile his idealism with the objective reality of Roman society in the late Republic. So he rejected reality and stuck to his ideals, and lost his life for it. Rome needed a Caesar, not a Cicero. And it ended up with Caligula and Nero and Commodus….

This is still pretty much within the parameters of this discussion, because I am now reminded of why I ( while a Communist!) need to approach analysis of the Issue of Israel and Russia from a truly scientific understanding. Nothing would be better, ironically, being in this Spirituality sub forum

Spirituality and science are not opposites. They are (dialectically) two sides of the same coin.

[annatar1914]

Virtuous men can only rise to positions of great power in a virtuous society - that is, a society which is not divided against itself by an unjust or exploitative economic system. In a society which is divided against itself by class conflict - as the late Republic was - then society requires brutal and violent men to rise to power, to perform the surgery (or butchery) required by the objective circumstances. Cicero was a virtuous man who could never reconcile his idealism with the objective reality of Roman society in the late Republic. So he rejected reality and stuck to his ideals, and lost his life for it. Rome needed a Caesar, not a Cicero. And it ended up with Caligula and Nero and Commodus….


Spirituality and science are not opposites. They are (dialectically) two sides of the same coin.

@Potemkin :

Well said my friend. They aren't opposites at all, and only the sort of Gnosticism that is so set on describing reality in terms of a philosophical Idealism might suggest otherwise.

I am a Christian Materialist, of course, so I'm not hobbled by that straightjacket. We tend to dislike such philosophy because it's navel gazing seems so far from real physical concerns and modalities. It's not too flippant or impious for me to want to talk then about power concepts and restraining evils by Force.

Power is as Bruce Lee said it was, the ability to strike an object in motion, and presumably to effect it's motion thereby. Material causation, is causation. Make of that what you will folks.

[Tainari88]

Virtuous men can only rise to positions of great power in a virtuous society - that is, a society which is not divided against itself by an unjust or exploitative economic system. In a society which is divided against itself by class conflict - as the late Republic was - then society requires brutal and violent men to rise to power, to perform the surgery (or butchery) required by the objective circumstances. Cicero was a virtuous man who could never reconcile his idealism with the objective reality of Roman society in the late Republic. So he rejected reality and stuck to his ideals, and lost his life for it. Rome needed a Caesar, not a Cicero. And it ended up with Caligula and Nero and Commodus….


Spirituality and science are not opposites. They are (dialectically) two sides of the same coin.

Yes they are not opposites. The interesting thing is that people want to believe in myth a lot more than what they need to take action in reality to make a better world. In other words, they want to hold on to lies in order to avoid facing reality that forces them to take action and change or perish.

Democrats are getting visibly upset about thinking about losing to Trump. But? They failed to act in time to the demands of the ones who were hoping for a change that was real. They got establishment conformity when real change was needed. There are more people who do not support Trump than the ones who do support him.

But? The failure for the Democrats was to continue to deny reality and not change in time to avoid the catastrophe. I think in terms of having to go through really horrible experiences is the only way the US is going to be able to understand why it did not change in time and not radically enough. You can't have huge income inequality and expect stability. That is the problem with every Latin American, Asian and European and African, etc nation that has been through that song and dance before in history. Not being able to stop the income inequality and resolve it in time. It snowballs into revolution and violence if left unattended for a very long time with a government full of people who refuse to change because they benefit personally from the system remaining the same. They do not understand that in a democracy you either respond truly to the working class, and the majority of middle class or former middle class people or you continue to allow the accumulation of power and wealth of the elites forever.

You create a divide. Those people do not give a shit about democracy. They never did. They want power and dominance over the majority. If that was not the case? The income gap would have been dealt with long ago. It was not because the ones in charge got used to being exclusive and privileged and now will go for the option of destroying their own society rather than give up power. For me that is the base of all fascism and authoritarianism. They won't reach common ground. They are dedicated to destruction over change.

[annatar1914]

Yes they are not opposites. The interesting thing is that people want to believe in myth a lot more than what they need to take action in reality to make a better world. In other words, they want to hold on to lies in order to avoid facing reality that forces them to take action and change or perish.

Democrats are getting visibly upset about thinking about losing to Trump. But? They failed to act in time to the demands of the ones who were hoping for a change that was real. They got establishment conformity when real change was needed. There are more people who do not support Trump than the ones who do support him.

But? The failure for the Democrats was to continue to deny reality and not change in time to avoid the catastrophe. I think in terms of having to go through really horrible experiences is the only way the US is going to be able to understand why it did not change in time and not radically enough. You can't have huge income inequality and expect stability. That is the problem with every Latin American, Asian and European and African, etc nation that has been through that song and dance before in history. Not being able to stop the income inequality and resolve it in time. It snowballs into revolution and violence if left unattended for a very long time with a government full of people who refuse to change because they benefit personally from the system remaining the same. They do not understand that in a democracy you either respond truly to the working class, and the majority of middle class or former middle class people or you continue to allow the accumulation of power and wealth of the elites forever.

You create a divide. Those people do not give a shit about democracy. They never did. They want power and dominance over the majority. If that was not the case? The income gap would have been dealt with long ago. It was not because the ones in charge got used to being exclusive and privileged and now will go for the option of destroying their own society rather than give up power. For me that is the base of all fascism and authoritarianism. They won't reach common ground. They are dedicated to destruction over change.

@Tainari88 , well put my friend.

And this is why I believe in Revolution, but loathe all Rebellion and Rebels, because in fact the two are quite distinct.

Revolution is periodically necessary and happens when under unique circumstances the sovereign political entity of the State commits treason against the nation. Then, such a person or persons who support them become Rebels, and Rebellion is a sin against both man and God.

Almost universally, the treason I mentioned is sparked by the greed of a rapacious Oligarchy which uses the sovereign turned usurper to siphon the wealth of the country into their hands.

King Charles I of England and his Royalist Cavaliers, King Louis when he tried to escape to the enemy armies of the anti French coalition, American Confederates who rebelled against the government of their nation because they didn't like the results of the 1860 Presidential elections. Traitors and Rebels all, and thus outlaws.

[annatar1914]

@Potemkin , @Godstud ,
@Verv :

On one level my comments about Israel have seemed to have aged like milk not having considered or looked too closely at the geopolitical situation in the world, but having more recently considered the actual correlation of forces in motion.

Irony is when you find out on a spiritual level after humble prayer and hopefully discernment that " Israel" of today IS the sign of the previously mentioned coming together of Ishmael and Edom and of the Erev Rav, the Mixed Multitude which followed Israel out of Egypt, which has always outnumbered yet cleaved to the People of Israel, albeit dishonestly. Of Amalek and Haman the Agagite.

Two wars are going on in the world today, not one. By the time they really become one war in fact, the sides will not be aligned as people think they are now.

But before then is catastrophe. The longer view I hold is one that tells me that the West was always going to eventually fall to Islam as a consequence of the treason of the Papacy against the Orthodox Christian Church. That's the fatal trajectory of the West. They're not going to be supportive of the state of Israel as these European countries eventually become Islamic. And the Islamic countries will not support Russia as they embrace the European legacies of Napoleon and Hitler, who might have as well been fighting for militant Islam in their attempts to wreck Europe, consciously or not.

[annatar1914]

@Potemkin , @Godstud ,
@Verv :

On one level my comments about Israel have seemed to have aged like milk not having considered or looked too closely at the geopolitical situation in the world, but having more recently considered the actual correlation of forces in motion.

Irony is when you find out on a spiritual level after humble prayer and hopefully discernment that " Israel" of today IS the sign of the previously mentioned coming together of Ishmael and Edom and of the Erev Rav, the Mixed Multitude which followed Israel out of Egypt, which has always outnumbered yet cleaved to the People of Israel, albeit dishonestly. Of Amalek and Haman the Agagite.

Two wars are going on in the world today, not one. By the time they really become one war in fact, the sides will not be aligned as people think they are now.

But before then is catastrophe. The longer view I hold is one that tells me that the West was always going to eventually fall to Islam as a consequence of the treason of the Papacy against the Orthodox Christian Church. That's the fatal trajectory of the West. They're not going to be supportive of the state of Israel as these European countries eventually become Islamic. And the Islamic countries will not support Russia as they embrace the European legacies of Napoleon and Hitler, who might have as well been fighting for militant Islam in their attempts to wreck Europe, consciously or not.

@Godstud , @Potemkin , @Verv , and others:

What I have been talking about is already openly happening in other theatres of what is shaping up to be one single war:

The West/ the Ukraine and the Islamic world against Russia and ultimately against Israel too.

[annatar1914]

@Tainari88 , @Potemkin , @Godstud , and @Verv :

Because this will come up in discussion at some point soon and is still politically relevant, it is necessary in my mind to define formal words I use like " fascist" and " Fascism" not as the self described fascists define themselves, so much as being the definition delineated by reaction towards the larger historical process of human development.

That is, " Fascism" is pro Oligarchical ideological opposition to the common good of all and can best be understood in frankly Marxist terms. A fascistic party or grouping however need not be in power at the time of their genesis, but a ruling class will use them sooner or later to provide a bulwark to the upkeep of the system that maintains their continued rule. The Oligarchs/Capitalists need not like the fascists and sometimes will take actions against them themselves, but they will always use the fascists as defined to try to prevent revolutionary situations. Better a Napoleon or Trump or Obama or Mussolini or Hitler or Franco, then the possibility of Socialism. This is why there's always some misuse and subversion of nationalist and populist language with these people.

More important though from a spiritual and religious perspective is the essential mark in real Fascism of Anti-christianity, because it's seen as important in the modern era to subjugate the religious folk at all times if they cannot be bribed by worldly favors into becoming a prop of the ruling class.

The ruling class is always and at all times essentially Pagan and Neitzschean in the modern era, and usually has a better understanding of the threat Christianity poses to the ruling system than any Christians themselves, even if Christians aren't truly political, as the effects of Christianity are "corrosive" enough to a society ruled by an Oligarchy.

Neitzsche is the antidote to the culturally Christian heretic Marx, but even more so Christ, in their worldview.

Therefore, on a more important level Fascism (as defined earlier) in practice is even more anti Christian than it is anti communist and anti socialist , even if formal " Christian" institutions were allowed to exist.

This is in contrast to historically antitheistic Communism which ultimately failed to eradicate Christianity at all and left post communist societies more Christian than the anti Communist societies, which kept the formal Christian institutions but really have all but eradicated the actual Christian belief.

[Verv]

@Tainari88 , @Potemkin , @Godstud , and @Verv :

Because this will come up in discussion at some point soon and is still politically relevant, it is necessary in my mind to define formal words I use like " fascist" and " Fascism" not as the self described fascists define themselves, so much as being the definition delineated by reaction towards the larger historical process of human development.

That is, " Fascism" is pro Oligarchical ideological opposition to the common good of all and can best be understood in frankly Marxist terms. A fascistic party or grouping however need not be in power at the time of their genesis, but a ruling class will use them sooner or later to provide a bulwark to the upkeep of the system that maintains their continued rule. The Oligarchs/Capitalists need not like the fascists and sometimes will take actions against them themselves, but they will always use the fascists as defined to try to prevent revolutionary situations. Better a Napoleon or Trump or Obama or Mussolini or Hitler or Franco, then the possibility of Socialism. This is why there's always some misuse and subversion of nationalist and populist language with these people.

More important though from a spiritual and religious perspective is the essential mark in real Fascism of Anti-christianity, because it's seen as important in the modern era to subjugate the religious folk at all times if they cannot be bribed by worldly favors into becoming a prop of the ruling class.

The ruling class is always and at all times essentially Pagan and Neitzschean in the modern era, and usually has a better understanding of the threat Christianity poses to the ruling system than any Christians themselves, even if Christians aren't truly political, as the effects of Christianity are "corrosive" enough to a society ruled by an Oligarchy.

Neitzsche is the antidote to the culturally Christian heretic Marx, but even more so Christ, in their worldview.

Therefore, on a more important level Fascism (as defined earlier) in practice is even more anti Christian than it is anti communist and anti socialist , even if formal " Christian" institutions were allowed to exist.

This is in contrast to historically antitheistic Communism which ultimately failed to eradicate Christianity at all and left post communist societies more Christian than the anti Communist societies, which kept the formal Christian institutions but really have all but eradicated the actual Christian belief.

What you have written here sounds like the basis of a long book that becomes the magnum opus of a philosopher who was never read much or celebrated by anyone in his own years but becomes widely admired by subsequent generations & thinkers.

There is a lot here - very dense and meaningful.

I think people are shy to write about these things because the gorgeous 19th century philosophy comes off as a house of cards to the 21st century man that has a scientific epistemology.

"What, you speak of Christianity's character? I know a liberal Christian, and a conservative one. Therefore, you don't make sense because I've already found an exception to your characterization of Christianity...! I win..!"

So philosophy has been reduced to Anglo-American positivist word gamers and continental philosophers that are allowed to speak in generalities because they are making innovative condemnations of race, gender & capitalism (and people like that! Why criticize that..?!)

What you are doing is very noble, though - trying to rethink Christianity in terms of its place in civilization in terms of politics and government. It's a very important question.

[annatar1914]

What you have written here sounds like the basis of a long book that becomes the magnum opus of a philosopher who was never read much or celebrated by anyone in his own years but becomes widely admired by subsequent generations & thinkers.

There is a lot here - very dense and meaningful.

I think people are shy to write about these things because the gorgeous 19th century philosophy comes off as a house of cards to the 21st century man that has a scientific epistemology.

"What, you speak of Christianity's character? I know a liberal Christian, and a conservative one. Therefore, you don't make sense because I've already found an exception to your characterization of Christianity...! I win..!"

So philosophy has been reduced to Anglo-American positivist word gamers and continental philosophers that are allowed to speak in generalities because they are making innovative condemnations of race, gender & capitalism (and people like that! Why criticize that..?!)

What you are doing is very noble, though - trying to rethink Christianity in terms of its place in civilization in terms of politics and government. It's a very important question.

@Verv :

Thank you friend for your reply, it is indeed an important question and the answer to the matter of how Christianity relates to civilization in terms of politics and government comes down to worldview.

And so we have only two worldviews in that respect because there are only two " Christianities" ( of course there is only one, the true one, but there is a false one also) who supply an answer:

One is from the Papal Church which has a complete political philosophy which is that of " Catholic Integralism", Albeit some representatives of this Church now are more explicit than others in voicing it these days.

However this Integralism is the primary and root political philosophy of the Western world, to which it returns and will return in instinct towards in and near moments of supreme crisis.

The other is Orthodox Christianity which is antithetical to this and the West, as the West is to it.

I tried for years now to relate it in a Spenglerian fashion, of " Faustian" and " Magian", but upon reflection no other worldview is consistent and encompasses a way of life without contradiction than these competing forms in themselves, Papist or Orthodox. No other can be truly Magian or truly Faustian than these Collectivities.

This is also the reason why I really cannot speak much further now about the Muslims and Jews and so forth, because man good or evil craves certainty and abhors contradictions and so will inexorably only gravitate towards one or the other in their social existence. This True Church or it's false Fun house Mirror competitor.

[Verv]

Oddly enough, I was just about to bring up Spengler because I am dealing with him as part of a book club I am in... However, I was going to present these two excerpts from different parts of the Decline of the West - in between the excerpts, in Italics, is the analysis of Neema Parvini:

In opposition to [the old order] stand the intellectual powers of
the now supreme city, economy and science, which in
conjunction with the mass of artisans, functionaries, and
labourers feel themselves as a party, diverse in its constituents,
but invariably solid at the call to battle for freedom—that is, for
urban independence of the great old-time symbols and the
rights that flowed from them. As components of the Third
Estate, which counts by heads and not by rank, they are all, in
all Late periods of all Cultures, ‘liberal’ in one way or another
—namely, free from the inward powers of non-urban life.
Economy is freed to make money, science freed to criticize.
And so in all the great decisions we perceive the intellect with
its books and its meetings having the word (‘Democracy’), and
money obtaining the advantages (‘Plutocracy’)—and it is never
ideas, but always capital, that wins.

(Neema)These twin forces, democracy and plutocracy, or, one might say, an unconstrained rationalism and an unconstrained money-power -- replete with their own new elite classes, intellectuals (including scientists and technical experts) and financiers -- are ultimately what killed the spirit of a culture, transform it into a civilisation, and accelerate its decline and ultimate terminus:

The Third Estate, without proper inward unity, was the nonestate—
the protest, in estate-form, against the existence of
estates; not against this or that estate, but against the symbolic
view of life in general. It rejects all differences not justified by
reason or practically useful. And yet it does mean something
itself, and means it very distinctly—the city-life as estate in
contradistinction to that of the country, freedom as a condition
in contrast to attachment. But, looked at from within its own
field, it is by no means the unclassified residue that it appears
in the eyes of the primary estates. The bourgeoisie has definite
limits; it belongs to the Culture; it embraces, in the best sense,
all who adhere to it, and under the name of people, populus,
demos, rallies nobility and priesthood, money and mind,
craftsman and wage-earner, as constituents of itself. This is the
idea that Civilization finds prevailing when it comes on the
scene, and this is what it destroys by its notion of the Fourth
Estate, the Mass, which rejects the Culture and its matured
forms, lock, stock, and barrel. It is the absolute of formlessness,
persecuting with its hate every sort of form, every distinction of
rank, the orderliness of property, the orderliness of knowledge.
It is the new nomadism of the Cosmopolis, for which slaves
and barbarians in the Classical world, Sudras in the Indian, and
in general anything and everything that is merely human,
provide an undifferentiated floating something that falls apart
the moment it is born, that recognizes no past and possesses no
future. Thus the Fourth Estate becomes the expression of the
passing of a history over into the history less. The mass is the
end, the radical nullity.[56]

This is a more accurate understanding of the forces of history that we get from Marx. Perhaps it is not entirely at odds with it - Marx would just have to reimagine the march towards Marxism within the context of the decaying of the bourgeoisie, but it seems more compelling to have a richer, non-material analysis of the cultures/civilizations that live through this process. For it seems clear that while Capitalism is an accelerant to the decline of the West, the decline is also fundamentally spiritual in nature...

Which has to be part of your analysis of how religion is adversely impacted by Capitalism, and how Fascism (in the rather specialized Nietzshean way that you present it) is the greatest natural enemy of Christianity because it perhaps usurps the spirit of Christian communitarianism and redirects it towards Pagan power worship, blood identities, and the defense of capital.

Now, in terms of the Magian/Faustian analysis of Christianity that Spengler came up with, I just see it as all wrong.

Yes, there is a Magian character (the tension between good & evil), and there is even a Faustian character within Christianity, but these things are both independent of any civilizational forces because Christianity is a religion with a theology from God. It can be criticized quite accurately as being distorted through cultural lenses, sure, but it seems to be the case that the meaning is never completely lost because local Christians find a way to stand outside of the culture...

If they fail to be against the world, they fail to be Christians.

Let me also say that I find that in these circumstances it is best for me to not think of opposing Christian groups, but just to collectively divide Christians into the Nicene Christians who strive to serve God, and those who allow sacred theology & belief to be reinterpreted through the lens of the world. I think the way you are using it is fine and also is necessary, particularly because you are looking for some special geopolitical threads, but I try to think of it in terms of authentic Christians seeking to navigate a world in steep decline...

The steep decline is made more difficult to digest due to the unpredictability of technology and the complex political reality.