In ancient Rome, 'religion' was indissociable from race : "This
religion could be propagated only by generation. The father, in
giving life to his son, gave him at the same time his creed, his
worship, the right to continue the sacred fire, to offer the funeral
meal, to pronounce the formula of prayers. Generation established a
mysterious bond between the infant, who was born to life, and all the
gods of the family. Indeed, these gods were his family - theoi
eggeneis ; they were of his blood - theoi sunaimoi" (Fustel de
Coulanges). This "domestic religion was transmitted only from male to
male". No one ever 'converted' to the Roman religion. No one would
have been allowed to do it. W don't think that we are going too far
in saying that it wouldn't even have occurred to anyone to 'convert'
to it, nor would it have occurred to any Roman to let anyone convert
to it. The same thing applied to any other 'religion' in the Nordic-
Aryan world.
Religion started to dissociate from race with the coming of
Christianity, for which, as is well-known, "Here there is no Greek or
Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or
free, but Christ is all, and is in all". From then on, any kind of
conversion became possible. In this respect, Christianity can be
considered both as a consequence and as a cause : as a consequence,
because, as is also well-known, most of those who converted to it in
the beginning were people without racial background, with neither
hearth nor home, namely the dregs of Roman society, for whom belief,
feelings, devotion took the upper hand on rites which they didn't
have and whose meaning and rôle they couldn't understand. As a cause,
because it contributed to the increasing spiritual uprooting of those
who converted to it.
Nowadays, religion is a matter of personal choice to a large extent,
in a sense that, if, at birth, one is assigned de facto the religion
of one's parents, one can change religion, at will, later. In the
modern world, there is even an increase in conversions, not only of
Westerners to Islam, Buddhism, and so on, but also, for instance,
(mass) conversions of Hindus to Buddhism, etc.
Basically, 'conversion' seems to be the key-word of today, both in
the religious field and at the stock-exchange. Not to mention re-
conversion, multi-conversion, and - let's put it this way - pluri-
conversion, of which Guénon showed us an example, by embracing Sufism
as he was still a Catholic, if it is true that, to be initiated to
Sufism, one needs to convert to Islam first ( we have asked various
people who are supposed to be qualified to confirm or to infirm it,
but we only got vague and inconclusive answers).
It doesn't mean that that personal choice is always dictated by
contingent and superficial reasons. After all, it may be that, by
converting, for instance, to Islam, the Westerners who do it only
yield to the call of their race of the soul and/or of their race of
the spirit, which, in their case, is of a Semitic nature.
Another clue is given by Evola in this respect in 'Presentation of
the Jewish problem', when he points out, with respect to the Jew,
that "the persistence of an idea, of an attitude, of a belief through
generations ends up finding expression in an instinct, in something
which penetrates into the blood, lives and acts in the blood, and, in
many cases, completely irrespective of everything that the
individual, as reflexive consciousness, thinks and believes he wants".
--- In
evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com, "kshonan88" <kshonan88@y...>
wrote:
>
> Is religion genetic? or at the least survive as memes? Or is it
> completely a matter of choice?
>
> If from a long line of descendants of one religion, one of them
> suddenly switches to another, can we say he still has the blood of
the
> former religion? In such cases, can religion act as hereditary
markers?
>
> Can religion transform us genetically in any way?
>
> Thank you.
>