As much as people may say otherwise, the phenomena of human society can only be studied in man. Society is a collection of men and therefore we must first analyse the principles that govern the behaviour of human beings and then study how these rules apply to society.
The principal and universal battlefield
The first principle we can state is that of the division of men into three categories:
1) the miles Christi, the soldier of Christ;
2) the miles diaboli, the soldier of the devil;
3) and the amicus Christi et diaboli, the pragmatist.
We find no other men on the face of the earth, at least in the countries of Christian civilization.
The miles Christi, or miles Ecclesiæ – which is the same thing – is a man for whom the main thing in life is to serve the Catholic Church. He understands that all the wonder, all the beauty, all the grace and all the dignity of life come from serving the Roman Catholic Church. And because of this, even for his happiness and his well-being even, but above all to fulfil his duty, he consecrates himself body and soul to the service of that which is the Ark of the Covenant of the New Testament. The miles Ecclesiæ can just as well be a very intelligent man as a very ignorant one. Being a miles Christi is not something that comes from culture, but from one’s faith and love for the Church.
In another category – more difficult for liberals to accept – we have the miles diaboli, the man who loves evil. Someone could argue that in philosophy we learn that evil cannot be loved in and of itself. This is obviously correct. But man has many ways of deluding himself, by which he comes to love evil under some appearance of good.
This is why many men are enthusiastic about evil, just as, on the other hand, we counter-revolutionaries are enthusiastic about good. And it is essential for this type of man to extirpate good from the earth and implant evil, just as it is essential for us to implant good and extirpate evil.
Between these two categories, we have the man who is amicus Christi et diaboli. These are the people who love Jesus Christ a little and the devil a little, but who in reality do not love Jesus Christ but, in a relative way, the devil. Such people above all love themselves. Sometimes they have a certain liking for God, sometimes for the devil, always trying to reconcile light with darkness. They are the pragmatists.
Life appears to us as a universal battle: the army of Christ against the army of the devil, both sides fighting to win over the indifferent souls
Having divided men into three categories, life on this earth appears to us as a universal battle: the army of Christ against the army of the devil, fighting precisely to win over the indifferent, those who are divided between Christ and Satan, men who are relativistic, indecisive and without ideals.
This is undoubtedly the main, but not the only field of battle. We, who are children of light, also seek to draw the children of darkness into the Church, and these, in turn, seek to attract us to the hosts of the Revolution. We know, however, that uprootings such as these are highly improbable, and that is why our action focuses, above all, on those who are in the middle and who thus constitute the principal universal battlefield.
Beginning of the formation of states of spirit
One of the points of Catholic doctrine that is least understood today is that which states that children, as a rule, begin to use their reason at the age of seven and, from that age onwards, are capable of committing mortal sins. There is even a saint who claimed to have seen a five-year-old child in hell, who sinned mortally and was therefore condemned to eternal torment.
It is in childhood that states of spirit emerge in individuals, and that the formation of a revolutionary or a counter-revolutionary begins
It is also around the age of seven that the formation of a revolutionary or a counter-revolutionary begins. The child, naturally, does not have clear knowledge of this. But the problem of Revolution and Counter-Revolution begins to present itself to them in their puerile microcosm in order to form a certain panorama, a certain vision, in which they will already begin to take attitudes, which, in turn, lead to a decision-making process, which in its turn leads to adopting a position in other fields, not as something inevitable, but probable.
In short, it is from a young age that states of spirit begin to be formed. And it is certain that each man has different revolutionary and counter-revolutionary ages.
Primordial light and capital defect
If we analyse the pragmatic man and compare him with the revolutionary, we will see that there is no difference between the two; they form one and the same thing. The pragmatist is an individual who has found his pleasure in leading an upright life and therefore leads it. The revolutionary, on the other hand, has found joy in living a bad life and therefore leads it. But both seek their own pleasure, varying only in the way they accomplish this.
It follows that pragmatists and revolutionaries belong to the same family, and that there are really only two categories of people in the world: those who belong to Our Lady, to order and to the Counter-Revolution; and those who belong to the Serpent, to disorder and to the Revolution.
On the other hand, we know that there are two men inside every man, that is, there is a primordial light1 and a capital defect in each of us. The primordial light inclines us towards Counter-Revolution, and the capital defect leads us towards Revolution. But it is worth considering that every man, no matter how firmly anchored on the side of the Revolution, can be led to the Counter-Revolution, and vice versa. In other words, there is a mutability in man in relation to both paths. There is no fixity – which would be devastating – in either route.
The passage from Counter-Revolution to Revolution
That said, one could ask how a man passes from the path of the Counter-Revolution to that of the Revolution.
As a result of original sin, the capital defect has a frightening vivacity in man, and with any small concession it is nourished and expands enormously. We can take for example a proud man who is a member of any association. If we tell him that we know all the members of this society and that he is the one with the greatest personal value, he will immediately judge us to be a good man and a fine psychologist. He will say that we know him well and have an exact notion of what he really is; that we clearly discern the aspect in which he is superior to everyone, and that we have a good heart, because what others did not see, we perceived.
What we actually did was give him poison. After that, the first time someone reproves him for a small mistake, he will rebel: “How can this be? I, who am the most important of all, am being rebuked by this child! Who is he to do this?” From then on, this man will no longer tolerate anything, because the smallest nourishment given to the capital defect gives it a prodigious capacity for expansion.
Thus, if a strongly counter-revolutionary man nourishes his capital defect, through any concession, since this main vice has an expansion force similar to that of a gas, it will soon invade the entire man and dominate him. It is the process by which someone becomes a revolutionary.
How does conversion to the Counter-Revolution occur?
What is the process by which someone becomes a counter-revolutionary?
Every man, no matter how perverse he has become, carries within his soul a complete image of the ideals of good and truth for which he was created. However, as he declines in virtue, a dulling of conscience occurs to such an extent that this image tends to disappear; it is buried, but not destroyed, as in the Breton legend of the cathédrale engloutie:2 from time to time it breaks through the surface of the sea and so many memories of good, morality, virtue, and faith rise to the surface of the sinner’s soul and suddenly begin to ring its bells.
Thus emerges the possibility of conversion. For this to be plausible, it is necessary to exert great energy and awaken the first principles.
The method of conversion and the tactics of perversion
Let us now say a word about the dulling effect. What do we understand, in common language, by a dull man? He is one whose mind has only a few flashes, a few remnants of clarity, and nothing more.
Every man carries within his soul an image of the ideals of good and truth, even if submerged beneath the waters of a conscience dulled by sin
Deep down in every pragmatist there are traces of dulled Catholic virtues; he is a dull man par excellence. When one speaks of Jesus Christ or His Church, he smiles with a little sympathy, like a deaf man who can hear the last notes of a concert. But if one warns him about his concupiscence, his dullness undergoes a metamorphosis, his torpid energies awaken, and he will either seek to control himself or rush to extremes.
One of the most important consequences of these effects – so important that one could call it the counterrevolutionary’s philosophy of action – can be stated as follows: one is the method of conversion, the other is that of perversion.
The latter proceeds from small concessions. Because of this, the way to lead a person to the Revolution is generally through gradual concessions that lead people, step by step, to extremes.
But to lead someone to the Counter-Revolution we have to use the opposite method. It is a matter of resurrecting, within the person, what we referred to above as the cathédrale engloutie, and this can only be brought about by means of a powerful shock.
The Revolution works through the capital vice, putting the soul to sleep, while the Counter-Revolution works to awaken it from its sleep
This idea becomes clearer if we consider another image. A man uses one tactic to put a person to sleep, and another to wake him up. In the first case, he plays slow, sweet music until the person falls asleep. But to wake him up, using the same method will not produce the slightest result. The tactic, in this circumstance, is to beat the bass drum! Therefore, the capital vice and the Revolution put him to sleep, just as the Counter-Revolution wakes him up.
The phenomenon of “crystallization”
When we analysed the pragmatic individual, we saw that he is a divided man, at the same time an amicus Christi and an amicus diaboli. He is a temple with two altars, or an altar with two images; he has within himself remnants of love for Our Lord and a strong initial root of love for the devil.
We also saw that the devil’s tactic consists of drawing the pragmatist to himself through concessions, which are not so violent as to cause a shock and bring his cathédrale engloutie to the surface.
Thus, for the devil, the clever tactic is to tempt the sinner in stages, in such a way that his conscience becomes numb without ever receiving a jolt, because if this happens, the battle will be lost for him.
We can say, then, that the devil is interested in the person becoming revolutionary and descending into hell gradually, in stages. He is very rarely interested in psychological phenomena in which a person, without any danger of being reconverted, is thrown from the extreme of virtue to the extreme of vice.
This would bring with it the danger of “crystallization”. The physical phenomenon of crystallization is well known. If a crystal is placed in a container containing a highly saturated solution, the entire solution crystallizes. The same thing happens with human conscience. It is saturated with remorse. Suddenly someone does something extremely revolutionary, which results in a phenomenon of “crystallization”, that is, a return to the initial position. And this is what the Revolution tries to prevent from happening. ◊
Taken, with minor adaptations, from:
Dr. Plinio. São Paulo. Year XXIV. No.277
(April, 2021); p.15-22
Notes
1 Primordial light is an expression coined by Dr. Plinio to designate the specific aspect of God that each soul is called to reflect and contemplate. Each soul has a unique primordial light, different from all others. Contrary to the ideal outlined by the primordial light, but in the same region of the soul’s dynamism, lies the capital defect.
2 From the French: submerged cathedral. Dr. Plinio refers to the Breton legend of a cathedral submerged by the waters of the sea, whose melodious pealing of bells was heard by fishermen on calm days. The suggestive figure represents the effect of certain graces on the soul of the sinner.
