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Italian Fascism went into decline when, during the midst of the war in 1943, Mussolini was deposed and imprisoned. Evola, although not a member of the ], and despite his apparent problems with the Fascist regime, was one of the first people to greet Mussolini when the latter was broken out of prison by ] in 1943. | Italian Fascism went into decline when, during the midst of the war in 1943, Mussolini was deposed and imprisoned. Evola, although not a member of the ], and despite his apparent problems with the Fascist regime, was one of the first people to greet Mussolini when the latter was broken out of prison by ] in 1943. | ||
After ] on 8 September 1943, Evola moved to ], where he spent the remainder of World War II, also working as a researcher on ] for the ] '']'' in ]{{citation needed|date=May 2015}}. The research on Freemasonry resulted in a document titled ''Freimaurerei: Geschichte und Mythos'' (Freemasonry: History and Myth), published by the Ahnenerbe in limited copies with his name as editor-in-chief.{{citation needed|date=April 2015}} | |||
It was Evola's custom to walk around the city during ]s in order to better 'ponder his destiny'. During one such raid, in March or April 1945, a ] fragment damaged his ] and he became ] from the waist down, remaining so for the remainder of his life.<ref>Stucco 1992, xiii</ref> | It was Evola's custom to walk around the city during ]s in order to better 'ponder his destiny'. During one such raid, in March or April 1945, a ] fragment damaged his ] and he became ] from the waist down, remaining so for the remainder of his life.<ref>Stucco 1992, xiii</ref> |
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Julius Evola | |
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Evola circa 1920 | |
Born | Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola (1898-05-19)19 May 1898 Rome, Kingdom of Italy |
Died | 11 June 1974(1974-06-11) (aged 76) Rome, Italian Republic |
Occupation(s) | philosopher, writer, painter |
Movement | Traditional School Rationalism |
Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola (Template:IPA-it; 19 May 1898 – 11 June 1974), better known as Julius Evola (/ˈdʒuljəs ɛˈvoʊlə/), was one of the most influential fascists in the history of Italy. A philosopher and a esotericist, Evola advocated a "spiritual racism" that was personally endorsed by Benito Mussolini.
According to one scholar, "Evola’s thought can be considered one of the most radically and consistently antiegalitarian, antiliberal, antidemocratic, and antipopular systems in the twentieth century." Much of Evola's theories and writings is centered on Evola's own idiosyncratic spiritualism and mysticism. Evola's work was influential on fascists and neofascists.
Biography
Early years
Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola was born in Rome to a Sicilian family of minor aristocracy. He was occasionally attributed with the title "Baron". Little is known about his early upbrining except that he considered it irrelevant. Evola studied engineering in Rome and was involved in the Futurist movement until he broke with a leading figure.. He joined the artillery as an officer in the First World War. Returning to civilian life, Evola was a leading painter and poet in the Dada movement.
Buddhism and Esotericism
A keen mountaineer, Evola found the experience a source of revelatory spiritual experience. Evola describes a spiritual crisis after his return from the war. He had experimented with drugs and more importantly with magic until, around age 23, Evola considered suicide. He says he avoided suicide thanks to a revelation he had while reading an early Buddhist text. The text dealt with shedding all forms of identity other than absolute transcendence. This then led to Evola's fusion of European Idealism and Buddhist principles and practice.
In 1927, along with other Italian esotericists, he founded the Gruppo di Ur (the Ur Group). The group's aim was to provide a "soul" to the burgeoning Fascist movement of the time through the revival of an ancient Roman Paganism.
Evola on Race and Racism
Racism is a fundamental, spiritual idea underlying Evola's writings. There are hundreds of examples of racist language and concepts in Evola, For example, in "The Doctrine of Awakening" Evola writes:
We have to remember that behind the various caprices of modern historical theories, and as a more profound and primordial reality, there stands the unity of blood and spirit of the white races who created the greatest civilizations both of the East and West...
Evola links "awakening" and asceticism to race. In the second chapter of the "The Doctrine of Awakening" entitled "The Aryan-ness of the Doctrine of Awakening," Evola writes:
The aryan-ness of the doctrine of awakening stood essentially for an aristocracy opposed, both in mind and body, not only to obscure, bastard, "demoniacal" races among which must be included the Kosalian and Dravidian strains found by the Hyperboreans in the Asiatic lands they conquered, but also, more generally, to that substratum that corresponds to what we would probably call today the proletarian and plebeian masses born in the normal way to serve...
Evola developed a racist "general objective law: the law of the regression of the castes"
The meaning of history from the most ancient times is this: the gradual decline of power and type of civilization from one to another of the four castes - sacred leaders, warrior nobility, bourgeoisie (economy, "merchants") and slaves - which in the traditional civilizations corresponded to the qualitiative difference in the principle human possibilities.
Evola developed this caste-based perspective in the 1930s and during the war in his extensive writings on racism. For Evola, the core of racial superiority lay in the spiritual qualities of the higher castes, which expressed themselves in the in physical as well as in cultureal features. The law of the regression of castes places racism at the core of Evola's philosophy. He sees an increasing predominance of lower races as directly expressed through modern democracy.
Relationship with Fascism
Julius Evola was one of the most influential fascist racists in the history of Italy. His importance stems both from being a fascist in its heyday and the unifying force his occult ontology has had on post-war fascism and neo-fascism. His version of spiritual Nordicism had a profound impact on the development of Italian fascist racism. Over his long and prolific writing career, Evola developed a complex line of argument, synthesizing and adapting the spiritual orientation of writers such as Rene Guenon with the political concerns of the European Authoritarian Right.
Evola hoped to influence the Mussolini regime toward his own variation on fascist racial theories and his "Tradionalist" philosophy. Early in 1930, Evola launched La Torre (The Tower), a bi-weekly review, to voice his conservative-revolutionary ideas and denounce the demagogic tendencies of official fascism; government censors suppressed the journal and engaged in character assassination against its staff (for a time, Evola retained a bodyguard of like-minded radical fascists) until it died out in June of that year. From 1934 to 1943, he edited the cultural page of Roberto Farinacci's journal Regime Fascista (The Fascist Regime).
Finding Italian Fascism too compromising, Evola began to seek recognition in the Third Reich, where he lectured from 1934 onward.
Mussolini read Evola's Synthesis of the Doctrine of Race (Sintesi di Dottrina della Razza) in August 1941, and met with Evola to offer him his praise. Evola later recounted that Mussolini had found in his work a uniquely Roman form of fascist racism distinct from that found in Nazi Germany. With Mussolini's backing, Evola launched the minor-journal Sangue e Spirito (Blood and Spirit). While not always in agreement with German racial theorists, Evola traveled to Germany in February 1942 and obtained support for German collaboration on Sangue e Spirito from leading Nazi race theorists.
Italian Fascism went into decline when, during the midst of the war in 1943, Mussolini was deposed and imprisoned. Evola, although not a member of the Fascist Party, and despite his apparent problems with the Fascist regime, was one of the first people to greet Mussolini when the latter was broken out of prison by Otto Skorzeny in 1943.
It was Evola's custom to walk around the city during bombing raids in order to better 'ponder his destiny'. During one such raid, in March or April 1945, a shell fragment damaged his spinal cord and he became paralyzed from the waist down, remaining so for the remainder of his life.
Post-World War II
After World War II, Evola continued his work in esotericism. He wrote a number of books and articles on sexual magic and various other esoteric studies, including The Yoga of Power: Tantra, Shakti, and the Secret Way (1949), Eros and the Mysteries of Love: The Metaphysics of Sex (1958), Meditations on the Peaks: Mountain Climbing as Metaphor for the Spiritual Quest (1974), The Path of Enlightenment According to the Mithraic Mysteries (1977). He also wrote his two explicitly political books Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist (1953), Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul (1961), and his autobiography The Path of Cinnabar (1963).
In the post-war years, Evola's writings were held in high esteem by members of the neo-fascist movement in Italy, and because of this, he was put on trial from June through November 1951 on the charge of attempting to revive Fascism in Italy. He was acquitted because he could prove that he was never a member of the Fascist party, and that all accusations were made without evidence to prove that his writings glorified Fascism. Ride the Tiger, Evola's last major work, which saw him examining dissolution and subversion in a world in which God was dead, saw him rejecting the possibility of any political/collective revival of Tradition due to his belief that the modern world had fallen too far into the Kali Yuga for any such thing to be possible. Instead of this and rather than advocating a return to religion as Rene Guenon had, he crafted what he considered an apolitical manual for surviving and ultimately transcending the Kali Yuga. This idea was summed up in the title of the book, the Tantric metaphor of "Riding the Tiger" which in general practice, consisted of turning things that were considered inhibitory to spiritual progress by mainstream Brahmanical society — for example, meat, alcohol, and in very rare circumstances, sex — were all employed by Tantric practitioners into a means of spiritual transcendence. The process that Evola described involved potentially making use of everything from modern music, hallucinogenic drugs, relationships with the opposite sex, and even substituting the atmosphere of an urban existence for the Theophany that Traditionalists had identified in virgin nature.
Death
Evola died unmarried, without children, on 11 June 1974 in Rome. His ashes were deposited in a hole cut in a glacier on Mt. Rosa.
Philosophy
Friedrich Nietzsche heavily affected Evola's thought. However, Evola criticized Nietzsche for lacking the "transcendent element" in his philosophy. Arthur de Gobineau, most remembered for developing the theory of the Aryan master race and helping to legitimize racism, is constantly cited by Evola as fundamental to his thinking on race. A reference point is needed according to Evola, and this this point cannot be reached with senses or logic. Transcendental experiences and spiritual racism supply this reference point, achieved through the heroic element in Man .
Like Guénon, he believed that mankind is living in the Kali Yuga of the Hindu tradition, the Dark Age of unleashed, materialistic appetites. The Kali Yuga is the last of four ages, which form a cycle from the Satya Yuga or Golden Age through the Kali Yuga or the Hesiodic Iron Age. Evola argued that both Italian fascism and National Socialism held hope for a reconstitution of the primordial "celestial race."
Politics
There are contradictory views among scholars as to Evola's political categorization and his possible relationship with fascism and neofascism. He has been described as a "fascist intellectual," a "radical traditionalist," "antiegalitarian, antiliberal, antidemocratic, and antipopular,” and as having been "the leading philosopher of Europe's neofascist movement." Gregor writes that, "Evola opposed literally every feature of Fascism." A key difference between Evola's Traditionalism and Italian Fascism is Evola's rejection of nationalism, which he viewed as a conception of the modern West and not of a Traditional hierarchical social arrangement. Heinrich Himmler's SS kept a dossier on him, and in dossier document AR-126 described him as a "reactionary Roman," with a secret goal of "an insurrection of the old aristocracy against the modern world," and recommended that the SS "stop his effectiveness in Germany" and provide no support to him. When he met with "esoteric Hitlerist" Miguel Serrano, Evola denied that he was a fascist or Hitlerist, but rather saw Metternich as a conservative ideal. Serrano himself was critical of Evola and saw him as an "old-style traditionalist." Evola's first published political work was an anti-fascist piece in 1925, and he wrote a second in 1928. Evola called Italy's fascist movement a "laughable revolution," based on empty sentiment and materialistic concerns. He opposed the futurism that Italian fascism was aligned with, along with the "plebeian" nature of the movement.
Evola attempted to influence Italy's fascist movement in the conservative-revolutionary direction he believed it should go — the direction of radical Traditionalism; i.e. away from the esoteric modern Christian Church, the bourgeoisie, and the masses. His efforts to influence the regime were a failure, and he believed that by not following his advice, Mussolini's party failed to fulfill its function. He would maintain the view that a revolutionary movement, similar to Fascism but in harmony with "esoteric-tradition", was necessary for the return to a higher form of civilization.
Schutzstaffel
In spite of all these negative aspects, there was something in National Socialism that attracted Evola: the concept of a state ruled by an Order, which he felt was embodied by the SS. "We are inclined to the opinion that we can see the nucleus of an Order in the higher sense of tradition in the 'Black Corps," he wrote in Vita Italiana on August 15, 1938. Again in Vita Italiana on August 1941 he wrote: "Beyond the confines of the party and of any political-administrative structure, an elite in the form of a new 'Order'—that is, a kind of ascetic-military organization that is held together by the principles of 'loyalty' and 'honor,' must form the basis of the new state." As mentioned, Evola held the SS, which Himmler strove to design according to the model of the Teutonic Order, to be this elite.
The castles of the SS Order, with their 'initiations,' the emphasis on transcending the purely human element, the prerequisite of physical valour, as well as the ethical requirements – loyalty, discipline, defiance of death, willingness to sacrifice, unselfishness – strengthened Evola in his conviction. He also was of the opinion that the ethics of the SS were borrowed from the Jesuits.
Race
A number of Evola's articles and books deal explicitly with the subject of race. In February 1939, the Race Office in Italy had a nationalist, "Mediterranean" change of personnel. The new President of High Council of Demography and Race, Giacomo Acerbo, replaced a nutrition professor. The political rise of Alberto Luchini, and the institutionalized racists from May 1941, coincided with Evola's school of thought. The convergence of the esoteric and metaphysical theories in Italy marked an effective adoption of more Nordic radicalism in Blood and Spirit.
A.J. Gregor comments: "In the , Evola considered principled anti-Semitism one of the essentials of a salvific 'racial rebirth' in the modern world. Not only did Evola make a point of identifying Karl Marx, one of the architects of the modern world of materialism, inferiority, pretended equality, and cultural decay, as a Jew--but he spoke of a Jewish capitalistic yoke that obstructed every effort at racial regeneration" In Revolt Against the Modern World, he said that he considered himself to be a critic of the "racist worldview" by which he meant the theories of mainstream Nazis and others of his contemporaries. However, he wrote an introduction to an Italian language version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that alleges a Jewish conspiracy to run the world through control of the media and finance, and replace the traditional social order with one based on mass manipulation.
Evola was indifferent as to whether the document was authentic or not. He classified it as a 'myth'. "Myth" here does not have its contemporary connotation of a 'falsehood'. In Fascist parlance, myths were stories that, properly cultivated, were productive of a reality that an elite desired, such as the mobilisation of the masses. In 1937, a year after the publication of Giovanni Preziosi's Italian edition in 1936, when it was claimed to be a fiction, Evola wrote as follows:
Whether or not the controversial Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion are false or authentic does not affect the symptomatic value of the document in question, that is, the fact, that many of the things that have occurred in modern times, having taken place after their publication, effectively agree with the plans assumed in that document, perhaps more than a superficial observer might believe.
In short, he was unconcerned that could be a forgery, because that did not alter what he believed was the essential truth enciphered in the document.
In his introduction to the 1938 Italian edition of the Protocols, Evola wrote that the tract had "the value of a spiritual tonic," that Jews "destroy every surviving trace of true order and superior civilization," and that, "above all, in these decisive hours of western history, cannot be ignored or dismissed without seriously undermining the front of those fighting in the name of the spirit, of tradition, of true civilization."
For Evola this text represented a manipulation by occult powers trying to hide behind the Jewish and Freemasonic historical drive toward a merchant society soon to be replaced by the chaos of "mass society" which could eventually turn against both.
Evola attributed to Jews, as well as to what he termed the "semitic spirit," a corrosive effect on the "Nordic" race (a race that was, in Evola's mythology, analogous to the Nazi's "Aryans"). Evola argued that not only Jews, but even non-Jews "Judaicized in their souls" must be combated by a "coherent, complete, impartial" anti-Semitism given the means to "identify and combat the Jewish mentality." Evola supported the Nazi anti-Semitic view that there was a hidden form of Jewish power and influence in the modern world; he thought this Jewish power was a symptom of the "modern" world's lack of true aristocratic leadership. To some Evola was "to the right of Fascism", although he remained a non-combatant theorist, he was identified with "Mediterranean nationalist" scholars who believed Jewishness and Italians were incompatible. Evola further held that Jewish people denigrated lofty "Aryan" ideals (of faith, loyalty, courage, devotion, and constancy) through a "corrosive irony" that ascribed every human activity to economic or sexual motives (à la Marx and Freud). In a 1938 article Evola accused Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and Cesare Lombroso of being "proponents of Jewish materialistic culture in the nineteenth century; two years later, in an essay entitled "Jews and Mathematics," Evola characterized Judaism as the antithesis of "Aryan civilization," and broadly attacked a range of what he considered examples of Jewish influences, from Pythagoreanism to mathematics. The article was illustrated with pictures of notable Jews interspersed with classic anti-Semitic representations.
In The Metaphysics of Sex (Inner Traditions, 1st US edition 1983, pps. 9-10), Evola discoursed on his philosophy of de-evolutionary spiritual racism: "Our starting point will be not the modern theory of evolution but the traditional doctrine of involution. We do not believe the man is derived from the ape by evolution. We believe that the ape is derived from man by involution. We agree with Joseph De Maistre that savage peoples are not primitive peoples, in the sense of original peoples, but rather the degenerating remains of more ancient races that have disappeared. We concur with the various researchers (Kohlbrugge, Marconi, Dacque, Westenhofer, and Adloff) who have rebelled against the evolutionary dogma, asserting that animal species evince the degeneration of primordial man's potential. These unfulfilled or deviant potentials manifest as by-products of the true evolutionary process that man has led since the beginning."
Just as Evola affirmed the natural hierarchy between different individuals of the same race, so he affirmed a natural rank ordering of the different human races. As the best-preserved remnants of the primordial celestial Hyperboreans, Evola affirmed the white race in its different branches as the creator of the greatest planetary civilizations:
"We have to remember that behind the various caprices of modern historical theories, and as a more profound and primordial reality, there stands the unity of blood and spirit of the white races who created the greatest civilizations both of the East and West, the Iranian and Hindu as well as the ancient Greek and Roman and the Germanic". In fact, Evola publicly celebrated Italian Fascism as a means to ensure and restore in a modern decadent world white supremacy:
"And if Fascist Italy, among the various Western nations is the one which first wished for a reaction against the degeneration of the materialist, democratic and capitalist civilisation, against the League of Nations ideology, there are grounds for thinking, without even any scintilla of chauvinistic infatuation, that Italy will be on the front line among the forces which will guide the future world and will restore the supremacy of the white race". While characterizing race as something hereditary and biological, Evola also claimed that race was not simply and linearly defined by mere skin color and the various other hereditary factors. In other words, in addition to predominantly "Aryan" or, more broadly, "Northern" biology, the initial necessary precondition for further racial differentiation, one must prove oneself spiritually "Aryan". The fact that in India the term Arya was the synonym of dwija, "twice-born" or "regenerated" supports this point. To him higher race implied something akin to supra-human, spiritual caste. Evola wrote, "the supernatural element was the foundation of the idea of a traditional patriciate and of legitimate royalty."
In 'Myth and Violence: The Fascism of Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist,' Thomas Sheehan points out that "Evola prided himself on developing a theory of races that went beyond the merely biological to the spiritual. What constitutes a superior race for Evola is the spiritual orientation of a given stock, the subsumption of the requisite biological material (and that did mean the Aryan races) under a qualitatively elevating form, namely reference to the realm of the spirit. But in fact all that Evola's theory does is to promote biological-ethnic racism a step higher. There are enough references in his works to the 'inferior, non-European races,' to the 'power of inferior strata and races,' to disgusting 'Negro syncopations' in jazz, to 'Jewish psychoanalysis'--and enough adulation of the Aryans—for us to divine that Evola's 'spiritual' racism may have had something other than disinterested Apollonian origins."
In Mussolini's Intellectuals, A. James Gregor discusses Evola's racism as follows: ", Evola argues that it is out of the creativity of an 'ur-Aryan' and 'solar-Nordic' blood that world culture emerges. Conversely, culture decline is a function of the feckless mixture of Aryan, with lesser 'animalistic,' blood ... According to Imperialismo pagano, the 'natural' and endogamous caste system of antiquity that sustained the 'purity' of the culture-creating 'Hyperborean-Nordics' slowly disintegrated over time under the corrosive influence of Semitic religion and the 'Semitic spirit'.
While Evola was clear about the relative insignificance of the physical attributes of race, he did acknowledge that the 'original Hyperboreans,' which he was critically concerned, were probably 'dolichocephalic, tall and slender, blond and blue-eyed'. Evola held that the physical mixture of races, particularly between Aryans and races that were 'alien' (i.e., non-Aryan), was always hazardous — but mixture between 'related' races might produce hybrid vigor. Given his generous notion of what constituted an Aryan race (Evola was convinced of the Hyperborean origins of most Europeans, the indigenous peoples of North and South America, as well as those of the Indian subcontinent), those candidate races Evola considered to be truly 'alien' were never explicitly catalogued—except in terms of Semites and the deeply pigmented peoples of sub-Saharan Africa. What seemed eminently clear, for all the qualifiers, was that all the material races Evola identified as capable of serving as hosts for the extrabiological and supernatural spiritual elements were purportedly biological descendents of the 'Aryan-Nordics' of Hyperborea.
In the golden age, the celestial race was spiritual—only gradually, over time, taking on material properties ... As a necessary consequence of miscegenation, there was a continual and irreversible decline of the celestials in ancient times a tenuous revival under the Romans, and another by the Nordic-Germans during the course of the Holy Roman Empire—but by the time of the Renaissance, with its humanism, rationalism, universalism and its gradual submission to the theses of the equality of all humans, humankind had entered the kali-yuga, the terminal age of 'obscurity,' the end of this current race cycle. Evola identifies the Jews as providing a 'ferment of decomposition, dissolution and corruption' in antiquity; For Evola, given the fateful path traversed by history, there remained only one course for contemporary humanity: an attempt at reconstitution of the primordial celestial race, amid the debris of previous race cycles, employing the racial remnants of the Hyperboreans.
For Evola, spiritual forces shaped races for their own inscrutable purposes. The notion that mutations, governed from 'on high,' might be the source of raciation was a relatively common conviction among German esoterics. Geneticists, Evola argued, failed to provide a compelling account of how mutations occur. He maintained, as a consequence, that 'the cause is to be found elsewhere, in the actions of a superbiological element not reducible to the determinism of the physical transmission of genetic materials.' The true cause of hereditary variation was to be found 'rather by starting from another point of view that affords one an entirely different set of laws' than those of empirical science.
Given this supposition, Evola proceeded to argue that Fascism or National Socialism—with their heroism, their sacrificial and ascetic ethic, their authoritarian and hierarchical order, together with their appeal to myth and ritual—provided an environment compatible with the 'spirit' of the celestials. That might be enough to prompt a cosmic, if gradual, reemergence of the celestial race. In such circumstances, the formative spiritual principle that, in the ultimate analysis, governs the transcendent 'superhistory' of humankind might literally reconstitute the individuals of the primordial creative race of Hyperborea. Evola sought to show that such an outcome would not be essentially determined by biology, but by the cosmic spirit—that its formative influence could transform individuals into persons accommodating a properly corresponding soul and spirit—to render them once again 'pure.'" Evola held racism at the core of his beliefs.
The eminent scholar of Fascism, Renzo De Felice, maintained that while Evola's spiritual, neo-idealist racial theories were wrong, they had a notable intellectual ancestry, and Evola defended them in an honorable way: "Evola for his part completely refused any racial theorizing of a purely biological kind, which went so far as to draw to himself the attacks and sarcasms of a Landra, for example. This does not mean that the 'spiritual' theory of race is acceptable, but it had at least the merit of not totally failing to see certain values, to refuse the German aberrations and the ones modeled after them and to try to keep racism on a plane of cultural problems worthy of the name".
Christophe Boutin, in his major work on Evola, Politique et Tradition: Julius Evola dans le siècle, 1898-1974 (Paris, 1992), discusses Evola's views on racism and Negroes. Boutin mentions that in Evola's 1968 collection of essays, L’Arco e la clava there is a chapter on "America Negrizzata," in which Evola criticizes the "Telluric" Negroid influence on popular American culture, while acknowledging that there has been little actual miscegenation. Evola also argues against American racial integration in this chapter. The unadulterated 1972 Italian edition of Men Among the Ruins ends with an appendix entitled "Appendix on the Myths of our Time," of which number 4 is "Taboos of our Times". In this section Evola argues that modern irrational taboos forbid an honest, frank discussion on the working classes and Negroes. Evola notices that the mere word 'Negro' had connotations of offensiveness in the left-wing atmosphere of the era. Evola opines that a true Rightist movement will not compromise with this sort of moralistic development.
Influence
Evola's writings have continued to have an influence both within occult intellectual circles and in European far-right politics. He is widely translated in French, Spanish and partly in German. Amongst those he has influenced are Miguel Serrano, Savitri Devi, GRECE, the Movimento sociale italiano (MSI), Falange Española, Gaston Armand Amaudruz's Nouvel Ordre Européen, Guillaume Faye, Pino Rauti's Ordine Nuovo, Troy Southgate, Alain de Benoist, Michael Moynihan, Giorgio Freda, the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (Armed Revolutionary Nuclei), Eduard Limonov, Forza Nuova, CasaPound Italia and the Conservative People's Party of Estonia. Famed author Herman Hesse was an admirer of Evola, calling him "A very dazzling and interesting, but also very dangerous author". Giorgio Almirante referred to him as "our Marcuse—only better." According to one leader of the neofascist "black terrorist" Ordine Nuovo, "Our work since 1953 has been to transpose Evola’s teachings into direct political action." The now defunct French fascist group Troisième Voie was also inspired by Evola. Jonathan Bowden, English political activist and chairman of the New Right, spoke highly of Evola and his ideas and gave lectures on his philosophy. German psychotherapist Karlfried Graf Dürckheim based part of his "initiatory therapy" on Evola's work.
Evola's work heavily influences Thomas Steiner, the German intellectual.
Evola's work is available in the United States through publisher Inner Traditions. He has also gained some attention in Russia, where some of his work has been analyzed by Alexander Dugin and others from a nationalistic Russian view, and is also popular among Monarchists with a view of an imperial Moscow as the "Third Rome", but few translations of some of his shorter texts. His work is also available in translation in the U.K., Spain, Poland, Scandinavia, Finland, Romania, Hungary, Mexico, Argentina, and Turkey where his Revolt Against the Modern World was published in 2006. In 2010 Revolt Against the Modern World was published in Brazil by a small traditionalist group, in an edition limited to 100 copies.
In addition to Evola's political influence on right-wing radical-conservatives, "black terrorist" (neofascist) factions and traditionalist groups worldwide, he has also considerably influenced followers of certain occult traditions. Milo Yiannopoulos has cited Evola's works as being part of the alt-right philosophy.
Selected books and articles
- Arte Astratta, posizione teorica (1920)
- La parole obscure du paysage intérieur (1920)
- Saggi sull'idealismo magico (1925)
- L'individuo e il divenire del mondo (1926)
- L'uomo come potenza (1927)
- Teoria dell'individuo assoluto (1927)
- Imperialismo pagano (1928; English translation: Heathen Imperialism, 2007)
- Introduzione alla magia (1927-1929; 1971; English translation: Introduction to Magic: Rituals and Practical Techniques for the Magus, 2001)
- Fenomenologia dell'individuo assoluto (1930)
- La tradizione ermetica (1931; English translation: The Hermetic Tradition: Symbols and Teachings of the Royal Art, 1995)
- Maschera e volto dello spiritualismo contemporaneo: Analisi critica delle principali correnti moderne verso il sovrasensibile (1932)
- Rivolta contro il mondo moderno (1934; second edition: 1951; English translation: Revolt Against the Modern World: Politics, Religion, and Social Order in the Kali Yuga, 1995)
- Tre aspetti del problema ebraico (1936; English translation: Three Aspects of the Jewish Problem, 2003)
- Il Mistero del Graal e la Tradizione Ghibellina dell'Impero (1937; English translation: The Mystery of the Grail: Initiation and Magic in the Quest for the Spirit, 1997)
- Il mito del sangue. Genesi del Razzismo (1937)
- Indirizzi per una educazione razziale (1941; English translation: The Elements of Racial Education 2005)
- Sintesi di dottrina della razza (1941; German translation: Grundrisse der Faschistischen Rassenlehre, 1943)
- Die Arische Lehre von Kampf und Sieg (1941; English translation: The Aryan Doctrine of Battle and Victory, 2007)
- Gli Ebrei hanno voluto questa Guerra (1942)
- La dottrina del risveglio (1943; English translations: The Doctrine of Awakening: A Study on the Buddhist Ascesis, 1951; The Doctrine of Awakening: The Attainment of Self-Mastery According to the Earliest Buddhist Texts, 1995)
- Lo Yoga della potenza (1949; English translation: The Yoga of Power: Tantra, Shakti, and the Secret Way, 1992)
- Orientamenti, undici punti (1950)
- Gli uomini e le rovine (1953; English translation: Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist, 2002)
- Metafisica del sesso (1958; English translations: The Metaphysics of Sex, 1983; Eros and the Mysteries of Love: The Metaphysics of Sex, 1991)
- L'«Operaio» nel pensiero di Ernst Jünger (1960)
- Cavalcare la tigre (1961; English translation: Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul, 2003)
- Il cammino del cinabro (1963; second edition, 1970; English translation: The Path of Cinnabar: An Intellectual Autobiography, 2009)
- Il Fascismo. Saggio di una analisi critica dal punto di vista della destra (1964; second edition, 1970; English translation: Fascism Viewed from the Right, 2013)
- L'arco e la clava (1968)
- Raâga blanda , Composizioni 1916-1922 (1969)
- Il taoismo (1972; English translation: Taoism: The Magic, the Mysticism, 1994)
- Meditazioni delle vette (1974; English translation: Meditations on the Peaks: Mountain Climbing as Metaphor for the Spiritual Quest, 1998)
- Il Fascismo visto dalla destra; Note sul terzo Reich (1974; English translation: Notes on the Third Reich, 2013)
- Ultimi scritti (1977)
- La via della realizzazione di sé secondo i misteri di Mitra (1977; English translation: The Path of Enlightenment According to the Mithraic Mysteries, 1994, ISBN 1-55818-228-4)
- Lo Zen (1981; English translation: Zen: The Religion of the Samurai, 1993)
- Un Maestro dei tempi moderni: René Guénon (1984; English translation: Rene Guenon: A Teacher for Modern Times, 1994)
- Metaphysics of War: Battle, Victory and Death in the World of Tradition (2007)
Footnotes
- Rai DOP
- ^ Aaron Gillette. Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. London: Routledge, 2002.
- Tamir Bar-On (2007): Where Have All the Fascists Gone?
- http://www.counter-currents.com/2015/07/mussolini-and-racism/ "Mussolini and Racism"
- Ferraresi, Franco. "The Radical Right in Postwar Italy," Politics & Society, 1988 16:71-119, Pg. 84
- Stanley G. Payne. A History of Fascism, 1914–1945 Down to the time of his death in 1974, Evola stood as the leading intellectual of neofascism and/ or the radical right in all Europe.
- ^ Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity By Nicholas Goodrick-Clark
- ^ Paul Furlong, "The Social and Political Thought of Julius Evola", London: Routledge, 2011
- Julius Evola, Il Camino del Cinabro, 1963
- Isotta Poggi. "Alternative Spirituality in Italy." In: James R. Lewis, J. Gordon Melton. Perspectives on the New Age. SUNY Press, 1992. Page 276.
- http://www.juliusevola.com/julius_evola/writings "Writings of Julius Evola - The Doctrine of Awakening"
- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NI060EY "Julius Evola, Revolt Against The Modern World, Inner Visions 1995"
- Aaron Gillette 2002.
- Stucco 1992, xiii
- Evola - "Autodifesa/Self-Defence" in appendix to Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist 1953
- Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul. Inner Traditions, 2003.
- Also Sprach Zarathustra (1883-5, Thus Spoke Zarathustra), Nietzsche's major work that denied the existence of God, and repudiated Christian ethics, despising democratic idealism.
- A. James Gregor, Mussolini's Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
- Blamires, Cyprian, and Paul Jackson. World Fascism: a historical encyclopedia, vol 1, Santa Barbara, CA, 2006. p. 208.
- Packer, Jeremy. Secret agents popular icons beyond James Bond. New York, NY: Lang, 2009. p 150.
- ^ Atkins, Stephen E.. Encyclopedia of modern worldwide extremists and extremist groups . Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004. p 89.
- Gregor, A James The Search for Neofascism: The Use and Abuse of Social Science. Cambridge University Press, 2006. p 93.
- H.T. Hansen, "A Short Introduction to Julius Evola" in Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World, p xviii.
- Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity. New York University Press 2002, p.337)
- Gregor, A James The Search for Neofascism: The Use and Abuse of Social Science Cambridge University Press, 2006. p 86.
- The Search for Neofascism: The Use and Abuse of Social Science. Cambridge University Press, 2006. p 86.
- Aaron Gillette, "Racial Theories in Fascist Italy" (London: Routledge, 2003), 233-287. Gillette believes the fascist theorists were on a spectrum so wide they follow idiosyncrasies of individual proponents
- Dr. H. T. Hansen in "Julius Evola's Political Endeavors" introduction to "Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist" (1953)
- On these two projects, see Cassata, "La Difesa della razza." Politica, ideologia e immagine del razzismo fascista, 79–82.
- see: the influence of the Mafia in southern Italy over the Vatican during World War Two, 1939-42
- Mussolini's Intellectuals, 200-201
- A. James Gregor, Italian Fascism and Developmental Dictatorship, 1979, pp.44ff
- J. Evola, Il Mistero del Graal e la tradizione ghibellina dell'Impero, Laterza, Bari 1937 p.182.
- Evola says also that this was precisely Preziosi's own view. It should also be noted that in speaking of a 'Masonic' conspiracy in such texts, 'Masonic' was often a code word for a secret lobby containing prominent secularized Jewish businessmen. The point is underscored by a recent controversy in Italy where a priest used the word 'Masonic-Jewish lobby' and, in reaction to a public outcry, subsequently changed the reference to 'Masonic', which however retains the old ambiguity in Fascist usage.
- 'Don Gelmini, prima attacca poi rettifica,' in La Repubblica05/08/2007
- Evola, Men Among the Ruins, 1953
- A. James Gregor. Mussolini's Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought. Princeton University Press, 2005.
- Quoted in Aaron Gillette, Racial Theories in Fascist Italy, Routledge, 2002.
- Francesco Cassata, "A destra del fascismo: profilo politico di Julius Evola (Bollato Boringhieri, 2003); Gianni Scipione Rossi, "il razzista totalitario": Evola a leggenda dell'antisemittismo spirituale (Rome: Rubettino, 2007)
- Kevin Coogan, Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International, p.309
- ^ Zimmerman, Joshua D. (2005). Jews in Italy Under Fascist and Nazi Rule, 1922-1945. New York: University of Cambridge Press. p. 139. ISBN 0-521-84101-1. OCLC 56876639.
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(help) - . For a complete biography of Julius Evola, see Francesco Cassata, A destra del fascismo. Profilo politico di Julius Evola (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2003).
- The Doctrine of Awakening, 14
- "Il Problema della supremazia della razza bianca" , Lo Stato, 1936
- Sintesi di Dottrina della Razza, 67
- Evola, 'Psicologia criminale ebraica,' Difesa della Razza 2, no. 18, 32–35; Sintesi di Dottrina della Razza, 74, 237
- Evola, Sintesi di Dottrina della Razza, 160; Rivolta contro il mondo moderno, 314
- Pauwels and Bergier, The Morning of the Magicians, 400–5
- Storia degli Ebrei Italiani sotto il Fascismo, or The History of Italian Jews under Fascism (Milan, 1977), 465
- Boutin, 197–200
- Milan, 1968, revised 1971
- Gli uomini e le rovine, Rome, 1953, revised 1967, with the new appendix, 1972
- Boutin, 276
- The Inner Traditions English translation suppressed Evola's appendix, ironically bearing out Evola's thoughts on the "taboos of our times."
- Thomas Sheehan. Italy: Terror on the Right. The New York Review of Books, Volume 27, Number 21 & 22, January 22, 1981
- Quoted in Ferraresi, Franco. "The Radical Right in Postwar Italy." Politics & Society. 1988 16:71-119. (p.84)
- Institute of Race relations. "The far Right in Europe: a guide." Race & Class, 1991, Vol. 32, No. 3:125-146 (p.132).
- Victor Trimondi, "Karlfried Graf Dürckheim"
- Bokharia, Allum (March 29, 2016). "An Establishment Conservative's Guide To The Alt-Right". Breitbart. Retrieved October 20, 2016.
- "Bibliografia di J. Evola". Fondazione Julius Evola. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
References
- Aprile, Mario (1984), "Julius Evola: An Introduction to His Life and Work," The Scorpion No. 6 (Winter/Spring): 20-21.
- Coletti, Guillermo (1996), "Against the Modern World: An Introduction to the Work of Julius Evola," Ohm Clock No. 4 (Spring): 29-31.
- Coogan, Kevin (1998), Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, ISBN 1-57027-039-2).
- De Benoist, Alain. "Julius Evola, réactionnaire radical et métaphysicien engagé. Analyse critique de la pensée politique de Julius Evola," Nouvelle Ecole, No. 53–54 (2003), pp. 147–69.
- Drake, Richard H. (1986), "Julius Evola and the Ideological Origins of the Radical Right in Contemporary Italy," in Peter H. Merkl (ed.), Political Violence and Terror: Motifs and Motivations (University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-05605-1) 61-89.
- Drake, Richard H. (1988), "Julius Evola, Radical Fascism and the Lateran Accords," The Catholic Historical Review 74: 403-419.
- Drake, Richard H. (1989), "The Children of the Sun," in The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ISBN 0-253-35019-0), 114-134.
- Faerraresi, Franco (1987), "Julius Evola: Tradition, Reaction, and the Radical Right," European Journal of Sociology 28: 107-151.
- Furlong, Paul (2011), Introduction to the Social and Political Thought of Julius Evola London: Routledge.
- Godwin, Joscelyn (1996), Arktos: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, and Nazi Survival (Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited Press, ISBN 0-932813-35-6), 57-61.
- Gelli, Frank (2012), Julius Evola: The Sufi of Rome
- Godwin, Joscelyn (2002), "Julius Evola, A Philosopher in the Age of the Titans," TYR: Myth—Culture—Tradition Volume 1 (Atlanta, GA: Ultra Publishing, ISBN 0-9720292-0-6), 127-142.
- Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (2001), Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity (New York: New York University Press, ISBN 0-585-43467-0, ISBN 0-8147-3124-4, ISBN 0-8147-3155-4), 52-71.
- Griffin, Roger (1985), "Revolts against the Modern World: The Blend of Literary and Historical Fantasy in the Italian New Right," Literature and History 11 (Spring): 101-123.
- Griffin, Roger (1995) (ed.), Fascism (Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-289249-5), 317-318.
- Hansen, H. T. (1994), "A Short Introduction to Julius Evola," Theosophical History 5 (January): 11-22; reprinted as introduction to Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World, (Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1995).
- Hansen, H. T. (2002), "Julius Evola's Political Endeavors," introduction to Evola, Men Among the Ruins, (Vermont: Inner Traditions).
- Moynihan, Michael (2003), "Julius Evola's Combat Manuals for a Revolt Against the Modern World," in Richard Metzger (ed.), Book of Lies: The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult (The Disinformation Company, ISBN 0-9713942-7-X) 313-320.
- Rees, Philip (1991), Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890 (New York: Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0-13-089301-3), 118-120.
- Sedgwick, Mark (2004) Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century (Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-515297-2).
- Sheehan, Thomas (1981) "Myth and Violence: The Fascism of Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist," Social Research, 48 (Spring): 45-83.
- Stucco, Guido (1992), "Translator's Introduction," in Evola, The Yoga of Power (Vermont: Inner Traditions), ix-xv.
- Stucco, Guido (1994), "Introduction," in Evola, The Path of Enlightenment According to the Mithraic Mysteries, Zen: The Religion of the Samurai, Rene Guenon: A Teacher for Modern Times, and Taoism: The Magic, the Mysticism (Edmonds, WA: Holmes Publishing Group)
- Stucco, Guido (2002). "The Legacy of a European Traditionalist: Julius Evola in Perspective". The Occidental Quarterly 3 (2), pp. 21–44.
- Wasserstrom, Steven M. (1995), "The Lives of Baron Evola," Alphabet City 4 + 5 (December): 84-89.
- Waterfield, Robin (1990), 'Baron Julius Evola and the Hermetic Tradition', Gnosis 14, (Winter): 12-17.
Julius Evola | |
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Works |
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Concepts | |
Schools |
- 1898 births
- 1974 deaths
- Writers from Rome
- Counter-revolutionaries
- Dada
- Esotericists
- Futurist writers
- Occultists
- Italian Futurist painters
- Italian neo-fascists
- 20th-century Italian philosophers
- Italian occult writers
- Italian monarchists
- Italian military personnel of World War I
- Neo-fascism
- New Right (Europe)
- Historians of fascism
- People of Sicilian descent
- Traditionalist School
- 20th-century Italian politicians
- 20th-century occultists