Who is Charles Upton?

Charles Upton's “Who is the Earth” is a book written from a Traditionalist perspective. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly, given the literary habits of Guénon's epigones), it's also extremely tedious. Upton seems to have strung together about a dozen essays, and then appended an extensive exposition on “Atlantis and Hyperborea: An Inquiry into the cyclical mysteries”, which has no (exoteric) connection to the rest of the material.

Upton's main point is that we shouldn't worship Earth nor the nature-spirits (which he does believe are real). The Earth is a symbol and emanation of the Divine (or the Archetypes), but it's also “fallen”. The Kali Yuga (“Iron Age” or Dark Age) will end with the present world being dissolved before a new Golden Age can commence. Only the truly enlightened person, who has emptied himself of the World and the Ego, placing himself at the polar centre of creation, can truly see that Nature is a divine symbol.

Warnings against cavorting with nature-spirits are a recurrent theme in Upton's book. Those who do so will be dissolved and “pixilated”. The same fate will befall poets and aesthetes, with their romantic Nature-worship. Some nature-spirits are “Muslims” (i.e. believe in and worship the true god – Upton is nominally also a Muslim, and so were many leading Traditionalists), but one should avoid even these as far as possible…

I'm not sure how to rate this material, but I think it was less useful than the other Upton books I've read. In the end, I will only give it two stars, although the essay on “Atlantis” perhaps deserves three.