Julius Evola

Giulio Cesare Evola, typically Anglicized as Julius Evola, was born in Rome at 10:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 19, 1898. ¹ Evola was a major philosophical theorist and advocate of a return to the values of Antiquity. He saw these in the form of ancient Rome as a divinely-ordained worldly hierarchy linked to the Absolute himself, and subsequently involved himself in ceaseless endeavors to advocate for their reappearance.

Evola saw the world as operating under its lowest spiritual ebb, enchained by the forces of finance capitalism and Marxism as the most vulgar manifestations of brute materialism. As part of this, he used the terminology of 'Kali Yuga' from Vedic beliefs to describe the sullen state that he believed humanity had degenerated into.

As one of the writers who reinterpreted the traditions of Eastern mysticism to a Western audience, he forms a very important figure in regard to Temple of Zeus. In terms of the occult, Evola's writings also constitute a link between the Alchemical tradition of the past and how these could be interpreted in the confines of modernity among the so-called 'New Age', the result of a life-long inquiry into the meanings of symbolism. Consequently, his writings are of interest.

The few details concerning his formative years can be drawn from his autobiography, The Path of Cinnabar, published in 1963 by Scheiwiller.

EARLY LIFE

Evola was part of a Sicilian family of landowners who lived in Rome. He disliked Catholicism intensely and was at odds with his parents over religion.

During his youth, the reading of certain authors (in particular Nietzsche) had profound consequences on him. Above all, it inspired in him a questioning attitude toward conventional religious teachings, especially those dealing with sin, redemption, sacrifice, grace and universal equality. At the same time, he developed a restlessness with the established middle-class world, its moral conventions and social conformity. ²

Determined to free himself from routine and the expectations of daily life, family obligations, professional career and ordinary friendships, he initially enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering. However, he refused to present his thesis, not out of neglect but because of a personal conviction that academic titles and official positions represented an external form of recognition rather than the essence of knowledge. As he later recalled: “The idea of appearing as a ‘doctor’ or ‘professor’ in an official guise for practical purposes seemed intolerable to me, even though I would subsequently be continually attributed titles I never formally held.” ³

Wishing to defend the honor of Italy and to experience combat, he joined a military school for cadets in Turin in 1917, thereafter he fought as a soldier in Italy's army during World War I, eventually becoming an artillery officer. The war created problems for Evola on an existential level that led him to ask what the purpose of existence was.

Evola during his youth wished to be an artist, and after the war was involved prolifically in modern art, including the nascent Dadaist movement in Italy, which he linked with the primacy of representing instincts in mystical abstraction over the rationalist ideas of art prevalent in the Enlightenment. His works were even displayed at exhibitions, one in Berlin in 1921 and the other in Rome. However, he gave up that style of painting in abhorrence at how modern art quickly became a commercialist and academic movement that affirmed the banality of modern ideas, a development that left him deeply revolted.

In contrast with some Personalities who were more obsessed with the past, Evola strongly looked towards contemporary developments. By his admission, he was strongly influenced by various writers, including Oscar Wilde, who influenced his theories of aestheticism and sexuality strongly. In addition to Nietzsche, he became strongly fixated on the teachings of Johann Fichte that were increasingly discussed within Italian philosphical circles and the two Jews named Carlo Michelstaedter and Otto Weininger, whose pessimistic, Kabbalah-tinged writings influenced some of his theories. He associated briefly with Filippo Marinetti's Futurist movement, but did not share the same feverish taste for modern Italian nationalism. Regardless, at the end of his 'artistic period', Evola became near-suicidal. He began to look for occult solutions, for the metaphysic hinted at in Nietzsche's works that provided the structure for artistic impulse.

Between 1924 and 1926 he contributed to journals such as Ultra, Bilychnis, Ignis, Atanor and Il mondo. During this period Evola frequented Rome’s esoteric circles and took part in the capital’s nocturnal life, he also had a stormy romantic relationship with the feminist and communist writer Sibilla Aleramo.

In 1927 the Ur Group was formed with the aim of treating esoteric and initiatory disciplines with seriousness and rigor. As Evola himself explained, the word “Ur” is drawn from the archaic root for “fire” and it also carried an added nuance of “primordial” or “original” similar to the Germanic prefix sense. ³ The study group adopted the principle of anonymity for its contributors, all signing with pseudonyms and under Evola’s direction, began publishing monthly booklets that were later collected as the volumes Introduction to Magic issued between 1927 and 1929. ⁴

Evola defined “magic” not in the popular sense but as “the formulation of initiatic knowledge that presupposes an active, sovereign and masterful attitude toward the spiritual.” ³ In those early Ur writings he explored practical procedures, symbolic systems and imaginal methods intended to cultivate inner transformation and higher states of consciousness.

Evola violently attacks Christianity and urges Fascism to rediscover the ancient greatness of Roman civilization lost with the advent of the new religion. ⁵

Evola argues that in order to create a true fascist empire, it is necessary to oppose the church and not relate to it on the same level, destroying all its influence within the Italian state, which must essentially aspire to an anti-Christian pagan revolution that will put the church on the path to extinction. ⁶To that end, Evola was eventually disappointed with Mussolini's rapproachment policy with the Catholic Church.

THE HERMETIC TRADITION

In his autobiography, the author wrote:

The Path of Cinnabar⁷

To tell the truth, it was Hermetic alchemy that constituted the actual subject of my study. This is the body of literature which, though born from mythical origins, had already found precise expression in the Alexandrian period, in Greek and Syriac texts. […] On the surface, all the writings of this centuries-long current speak of chemical and metallurgical operations, especially the fabrication of gold and the production of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of the sages. […] I therefore undertook a systematic study to bring to light the true inner content of the Hermetic–alchemical tradition. In reality it was an initiatory science presented in chemical–metallurgical disguise. The substances mentioned in the texts were symbols for forces and principles […] the operations concerned the initiatory transformation of the human being.

According to Evola, Ars Regia is one of the Western initiatory paths to achieving a higher spiritual status, together with the so-called path of the Grail. It is a path opposed to the religious one, which took hold in the West after the fall of the Roman Empire and which, according to the author, lost all its esoteric significance, becoming simply a doctrine of salvation.

For the philosopher, the path indicated by Hermeticism is a secret teaching of a sapiential nature, but at the same time practical and operative.

In some ways, for Evola, alchemy, which he identifies with Hermeticism, becomes a complete system capable of summarizing philosophy and magic, in the same way as Indian Tantric teaching. Alchemy “was a royal art [...] that went beyond the boundaries of Christianity, an art that he considered the highest based on his conception of the supremacy of royalty over the priestly caste.” ⁸

Furthermore, Evola insists that the denizens of modernity, ruled by scientific understanding formulated on mathematical understandings and at the mercy of technology, cannot understand that the ancient world was understood by its elites as a holistic system predicated on living adjacently to endless symbols that represented a large mystery, which lies at the core of the Hermetic endeavor and constitutes its esoteric signposting. This theme continues throughout his works.

The Hermetic Tradition ¹⁹

The fundamental issue in our study is the human experience of nature. The average modern man's relationship with nature is not the one that prevailed in the premodern "cycle" to which, along with many other traditions, the hermetico-alchemical tradition belongs. The study of nature today devotes itself exhaustively to a conglomeration of strictly reasoned laws concerning various "phenomena -light electricity, heat, etc -which spread out kaleidoscopically before us utterly devoid of any spiritual meaning, derived solely from mathematical processes In the traditional world, on the contrary, nature was not thought about but lived, as though it were a great, sacred, animated body, "the visible expression of the invisible" Knowledge about nature derived from inspiration, intuition, and visions, and was transmitted "by initiation" as so many living "mysteries," referring to things that today have lost their meaning and seem banal and commonplace-as, for example, the art of building, medicine, cultivation of the soil, and so forth.

Myth was not an arbitrary or fantastic notion: it arose from a necessary process in which the same forces that shape things acted upon the plastic faculty ot the imagination, unfettered by the bodily senses, to dramatize themselves in images and figures that were woven into the tapestry of sensory experience and resulted finally in a "significance" of moment.

REVOLT AGAINST THE MODERN WORLD

Starting in 1934, Evola actively collaborated with the School of Fascist Mysticism, founded by Niccolò Giani in 1930, giving several lectures and serving on the editorial board of the magazine Dottrina fascista. Most of Evola's lectures and writings mainly concerned the theme of race realism, a subject supported by both Giani and Mussolini himself. According to Evola, however, the expression ‘fascist mysticism’ is incongruous, as one can speak, at most, of ‘fascist ethics’. This is because, according to Evola, fascism ‘does not address the problem of higher values, the values of the sacred, in relation to which alone one can speak of mysticism’. ⁹

The book is presented as “a study of the morphology of civilizations and the philosophy of history.” According to Evola himself, the term revolt does not correspond to the content: “because it is not a polemical work, the polemical aspect, the ‘revolt,’ if anything, is implicit, an obvious consequence.” ¹⁰The work is an effective critique of what Evola defines as the modern world, now characterized by US and Soviet hegemony, widespread materialism, understood by Evola as a lack of consideration for the magical and supernatural world outside the professions of faith of religion and democracy.

Evola contrasts this modern world with the ‘traditional’ world, characterized by the man of tradition, a being innately superior to other human beings because of his virtues and his ability to act as an intermediary with the invisible world. Evola himself explains that ‘tradition’ should not be understood as simple conservatism forming part of the complex of memories, news and testimonies passed down from one generation to another, but that the term should be interpreted in a spiritual-esoteric key, forming part not of a reality of the past, but of an ideal ahistorical or, rather, super-historical era.

The work is divided into two parts: the first is entitled The World of Tradition, the second Genesis and the Face of the Modern World.

The first part is entirely devoted to a comparative exposition of the doctrines and symbols of those ancient civilizations defined by the author as “traditional,” in which the fundamental principles are indicated according to which, according to Evola, the royalty of the “traditional” man would manifest itself: the doctrine of the two natures, the existence of a physical and a metaphysical order, and the re-evaluation of the need for a society organized through a caste system.

This is followed by an indication of how traditional man conceives of law, justice, war, property, relations between the sexes, immortality and race.

The second part contains a traditional interpretation of history: it starts with the origins of man and arrives at the modern concept of evolution in the Darwinian sense which, according to tradition, is considered a regression, an involution.

The author paints a picture of history according to the traditional cyclical pattern of the four ages: gold, silver, bronze and iron in Western tradition (Hesiod), corresponding to satya, treta, dvapara and kali yuga in Eastern tradition (Hinduism).

In his conclusions, Evola describes a possible solution to this era of decline, in which only one force could save the West: not Catholicism, but a “return to the traditional spirit in a new European ecumenical consciousness.” [11] represented for Evola in essence by National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy: “only the future will tell us to what extent these realities also contain the seeds of renewal in a higher and transcendent sense, of radical intolerance, of a definitive revolt against the modern world.” ¹²

MYSTERY OF THE GRAIL

The book presents research that aims to demonstrate how, during the European Middle Ages, a vein of spirituality emerged that harked back to primordial tradition in its regal aspect, a theory already partly expounded by the author in Revolt Against the Modern World. ¹³ This spirituality emerges above all through the symbolism of chivalric literature and through the sagas of the so-called “imperial cycle.

The working method used by Evola is what he himself calls the “traditional method.” ¹⁴ namely, to make integrative comparisons between the various traditions in order to identify a basic meaning.

According to the author, the interpretation of the Grail as a Christian mystery is erroneous, as the elements that are strictly “Christian” can be considered accessory and secondary. Starting from certain themes specific to the Celtic tradition and linked to the Nordic tradition (the Arthurian cycle), Evola comes to the conclusion that the Grail is a symbol of warrior initiation. It is significant that all the guardians of the Grail are knights or warriors (not priests) and that the place where the Grail is generally located is a castle or palace (not a temple or church).

Taking the de-christianization of the symbol to its extreme consequences, the Grail is considered here as a Pagan, imperial and Ghibelline legacy: the Grail is therefore an “initiatory symbol of Hyperborean origin, which in the Middle Ages became the expression of the Ghibelline desire to reorganize society by freeing it from the pernicious influence of the Church.” ¹⁵

MAGICAL REALISM

Evola was highly influenced by the writer Novalis, who was a major figure in German Romanticism. The latter, in philosophical discourse, came up with the idea of magical realism, where he posited that that imagination can break the barrier between the unfulfilled, language itself and the material world, shaping the material conditions of reality through will. Naturally, Evola took this a step further, being influenced by his studies in Hermeticism and on the nature of Logos..

In essence, as far as his own theory of magical realism is concerned ²⁰, Evola posits that nothing is impossible for a select valorous few if true knowledge is obtained, as then it inevitably turns into magic and must express itself in the material realm. From this, the enlightened individual must 'elevate' to being 'the universal Lord' able to enact their whims on reality. For him, this is the only true essence of individuality, where the individual becomes the 'true center' and is on the pathway to being the 'I', a state which is not accessible to the majority of people due to their low development.

The higher up the ascent, the more the perfected man, the 'Absolute Individual', even begins to shape the natural world, the character of events, the essence of knowledge itself, and everything else, remodelling the cosmos in his own image, reaching a state of apotheosis, which Tradition is metaphysically based on.

Evola, unlike most of the eastern currents he studied, also understood that this ascent of the soul was only possible through a combination of the soul interacting with both the spiritual and the physical worlds. To this end, Evola encouraged the use of Tantra, which is detailed partially in the Yoga of Power from 1949.²¹

Perhaps most dramatically, he also hints that this is the only true path to immortality, and it is not something that is simply bestowed by the universe for nothing. Those who fail to achieve the 'I' end up dissolving into nothingness or potentially becoming victims to anything. Although this was partially his own interpretation of eastern spirituality, Evola's premonition of the views of Temple of Zeus on what the true situation is concerning the work of the soul is crystal clear.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWPOINT

Evola makes frequent reference to both Plato and Plotinus. His ideal of an immanent and perfect Absolute is representative of their theories, however, from Nietzsche, Evola was inclined to believe that the basis of moving towards this perfection is formed by initiating will of the ascetic-warrior who births God inside himself, rather than a system of worship.

In the Revolt Against the Modern World, Evola subjects representations of the Gods to a significant line of questioning, positing that the abstract 'numen' and division of Gods into separate symbols was interlinked with the prompting of the Gods towards apotheosis for the Absolute Individual, rather than being meant to be a system of obsessive devotion and fear towards a God as shown in Christianity, at least for the nobility.²²

Although Evola flirted with atheistic sentiments, these ideas of his were intended to interpret Nietzsche's own allusions to 'the God inside oneself' in a civilizational sense, and to demonstrate that, as High Priest Hooded Cobra has elaborated, that Christianity is a decayed system of idol worship.

SEXUAL METAPHYSICS

In 1945, Evola found himself in Vienna on January 21, with the intention “not to avoid danger, but rather to seek it out, in the sense of tacitly questioning fate.” ¹⁶ he ventured out for a walk during the Soviet bombing of the Austrian capital. Thrown by a blast wave, he suffered a spinal cord injury that left him permanently paralyzed from the waist down. He continued to write books. The following is the most important after this event.

After an introduction on sex in the modern world (Sex in the Modern World), Evola divides the text into several chapters: the first (Eros and Sexual Love) is pragmatic and concrete in nature, the second (Metaphysics of Sex) addresses the theme of sex according to classical tradition (the myth of androgyny, Eros, Aphrodite, etc.), the third (Phenomena of Transcendence in Profane Love) deals with sexual intercourse from a higher point of view, seeking to discern those transcendent phenomena (sometimes simple legacies) that are recorded in the sexual act, in the fourth (Gods and Goddesses, Men and Women), the author analyzes the differences between the two sexes, in the fifth (Sacralizations and Evocations), Evola provides a historical examination of the subject: the world of tradition, Christianity, medieval chivalry, the Fedeli d'Amore), the last chapter, the sixth (Sex in the realm of initiations and magic), deals with the more strictly magical and esoteric aspects: Taoism, yoga, tantrism and Hermeticism.

The term “metaphysics” is used by the author with a double meaning: on the one hand, metaphysics understood as a search for the ultimate meaning of eros and sexual experience beyond physiology and the instinct to reproduce; on the other hand, a study aimed at identifying a transcendental experience even in the most common forms of love. Evola himself testifies to this:

Sexual Metaphysics¹⁷

“In this work, the term metaphysics is used in two senses. The first sense is the current one in philosophy, where metaphysics generally means the search for ultimate meanings. The second sense is the literal one, which can refer to what goes beyond the physical, in this case, sex and sexual experiences.”

In Metaphysics, Evola collects historical, traditional and scientific-biological evidence to demonstrate this thesis and that sexual relations between two human beings of different sexes are all the more powerful when the two elements (man and woman) are ontologically themselves, determined, distinct and differentiated. Referring to classical and pre-classical tradition, man is the unitary element (spirit, heaven) while woman is the dyadic element (matter, earth): the form (man) that shapes matter (woman).

CONCLUSION

He died in his Roman home on Corso Vittorio Emanuele on June 11, 1974, in the apartment that had been offered to him free of charge by Countess Amalia Baccelli-Rinaldi. According to the provisions of his will of 1970, entrusted to the countess and Procesi, Evola stated that “any form of funeral procession, display in a church, or Catholic religious ceremony is to be excluded.” Friends who were members of the neo-pagan group known as “dei Dioscuri” took care of the body and its transport, dressed in white with a red flower in their buttonholes. Every religious symbol, such as the crucifix placed on the coffin by the funeral home, was removed. ¹⁸