Julius Evola

(Revision as of 21:44, 9 Jul 2005)

Julius Evola, born Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola, aka Baron Giulio (May 19, 1898-June 11, [974), was a controversial Italian esotericist, who wrote prolifically on matters political, philosophical, historical, and religious from a Traditionalist point of view.

Table of contents

1 Early years

Early years

Born Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola in Rome to a noble Sicilian family. He fought in World War I as an artillery officer on the Asiago plateau. Attracted to the avant-garde, Evola became a Dadaist painter and poet & was briefly a member of Filippo Marinetti's Futurist movement. Around 1920, his interests led him away from the production of art. He had began reading various esoteric texts and gradually delved deeper into occult and Oriental studies. He also became acquainted with Mussolini's Fascist program at this time. In 1927, along with other Italian intellectuals, he founded the Gruppo di Ur (the UR Group) for the study of esotericism, specifically of a Guénonian stripe.

Politics

Evola's politics remain ambiguous. He was influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, Herman Wirth, Otto Weininger, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Ernst Jünger, Gottfried Benn, René Guénon, Oswald Spengler, and Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Some claim that his exaltation of a warrior caste may have influenced Fascism and/or Nazism in a roundabout way (and later on Neo-Fascism). Others point out that he rejected nationalism philosophically and in general terms. It has also been suggested that Evola took a position that was "against all politics"[1] (http://www.centrostudilaruna.it/jenseitseng.html). He never participated in the voting process and did not join any political party in his lifetime. Evola sought to influence Fascism in the direction of archaic ethnic Traditionalism; away from the Christian Church, the bourgeoisi, and the masses. From 1934 to 1943, he edited the cultural page of Roberto Farinacci's journal Regime Fascista. After the Italian surrender of September 8, 1943, Evola moved to Rastenburg, Germany. He was one of the first people to greet Mussolini after his rescue from prison.

Evola believed in a race of Hyperborean "nordic" people from the North Pole who had a crucial hand in the founding of Atlantis.

He published an Italian language version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in 1937, and wrote the introduction.

Paralysis

Toward the end of World War II|the war, Evola was working for the SS researching the Freemason's archive in Vienna. He became paralyzed from the waist down (and remained so throughout his life) after trying to defend Vienna at the barricades from the encroaching Soviet Army in 1945 (March/April). According to Mircea Eliade he was shot in the "third Chakra".

In 1951 Evola was arrested briefly, but acquitted, on charges of attempting to resurrect fascism. His political views after the war took on a Sorelian flavor. Evola died on June 11, 1974 in Rome; his ashes were deposited in a hole cut in a glacier on Mt. Rosa.

Influence

Evola has come to have a growing influence in both the occult and political realms. In the later, he has specifically influenced GRECE, The Scorpion, the Movimento sociale italiano (MSI), Gaston Armand Amaudruz's [Nouvel Ordre Européen, Pino Rauti's Ordine Nuovo, Alain de Benoist, Michael Moynihan, Giorgio Freda, and the ARN. Giorgio Almirante referred to him as "our Marcuse - only better". In 1998, a Goth/Darkwave compilation CD entitled Cavalcare la Tigre was released to commemorate the 100th anniverary of Evola's birth.

Books

Year	Book	Publisher, ISBN	Notes
1920	Arte Astratta, Posizione Teoretica		A work on abstract art.
1920	Le Parole Oscure du Paysage Interieur		Poems, in French
1925	Saggi sull'idealismo magico [Essays on Magic Idealism]	Atanor
1927	Teoria dell'Individuo Assoluto [Theory of the Absolute Individual]	Bocca	A Nietzschean work borne out of a mental and spiritual breakdown.
1928	Imperialismo Pagano: Il Fascismo Dinanzi al Pericolo Euro-Cristiano, con una Appendice sulle Reazioni di parte Guelfa [Pagan Imperialism]	Atanor	A polemical work urging the Fascist regime to conduct an anti-Christian, pagan revolution.
1929	Introduzione alla Magia quale scienza dell'Io [Introduction to Magic as a Science of the I]; translated as Introduction to Magic: Rituals and Practical Techniques for the Magus	Gruppo di Ur; Edizioni Mediterranee, 1971; English translation by Inner Traditions International, 2001, ISBN 0892816244	Collection of articles by Evola and the UR Group appearing in the journals Ur and Krur, from 1927-29.
1930	Fenomenologia dell'Individuo Assoluto [Phenomenology of the Absolute Individual]	Bocca
1931	La Tradizione Ermetica nei suoi Simboli, Nella sua Dottrina e nella sua "Ars Regia"; translated as The Hermetic Tradition: Symbols and Teachings of the Royal Art	Laterza; English translation by Inner Traditions International, 1994, ISBN 0892814519
1932	Maschera e volto dello Spiritualismo Contemporaneo: Analisi critica delle principali correnti moderne verso il sovrasensibile [Mask and Face of Contemporary Spiritualism]	Bocca
1934	La Rivolta contro il Mondo Moderno; translated as Revolt Against the Modern World: Politics, Religion, and Social Order in the Kali Yuga	Milan: Hoepli; English translation by Inner Traditions International, 1995, ISBN 089281506X.
1936	Tre aspetti del problema ebraico [Three Aspects of the Jewish Question]	Mediterranee
1937	Il Mistero del Graal e la Tradizione Ghibellina dell'Impero [The Mystery of the Grail and the Gibelin Imperial Concept]; translated as The Mystery of the Grail: Initiation and Magic in the Quest for the Spirit	Laterza; English translation by Inner Traditions International, 1997, ISBN 0892815736
1937	Il Mito del Sangue. Genesi del Razzismo [The Myth of the Blood: The Genesis of Racism]	Hoepli
1941	Sintesi di Dottrina della Raza [Synthesis of the Doctrine of Race]	Hoepli
	Indirizzi per una Educazione Razziale	Napels: Conte
	Die Arische Lehre von Kampf und Sieg [The Aryan Doctrine of Battle and Victory]	Vienna: Anton Schroll Verlag	Originally a lecture presented in German on 7 December 1940 at the Palazzo Zuccari in Rome.
1942	Gli Ebrei hanno volute questa Guerra	Rome: La Vita Italiana	In collaboration with A. Luchini, P. Pellicano and G. Preziosi.
1943	La Dottrina del Risveglio: Saggio sull'Ascesi Buddhista; translated as The Doctrine of Awakening: The Attainment of Self-Mastery According to the Earliest Buddhist Texts	Bari: Laterza; English translation by Luzac (London), 1951; Inner Traditions, 1996, ISBN 0892815531
1949	Lo Yoga della Potenza. Saggio sui Tantra: Lo Yoga del Sesso; translated as The Yoga of Power: Tantra, Shakti, and the Secret Way	Milan: Bocca; English translation by Inner Traditions, 1993, ISBN 0892813687
1950	Orientamenti	Rome: Imperium
1953	Gli Uomini e le Rovine; translated as Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist	Rome: Ed. dell'Ascia; English translation by Inner Traditions, 2002, ISBN 0892819057
1958	Metafisica del Sesso; translated as The Metaphysics of Sex; and later as Eros and the Mysteries of Love: The Metaphysics of Sex	Rome: Atanrr; English translation by Inner Traditions International, 1983, ISBN 0892810254; 1991, ISBN 0892813156
1961	Cavalcare la Tigre; translated as Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul	Milan: Vanni Scheiwiller; Inner Traditions, 2003, ISBN 0892811250
1963	Il Cammino del Cinabro	Milan: Vanni Scheiwiller	Autobiography
1964	Il Fascismo. Saggio di una Analisi Critica dal Punto di Vista della Destra [Fascism: Essay of a Critical Analysis from the Point of view of the Right]	Rome: Volpe
1968	L'Arco e la Clava	Milan: Vanni Scheiwiller
1972	Il Taoismo [Taoism]	Rome: Mediterranee
1974	Meditazioni delle Vette; translated as Meditations on the Peaks: Mountain Climbing as Metaphor for the Spiritual Quest	La Spezia: Ed. del Tridente; English translation by Inner Traditions, 1998, ISBN 0892816570	Collection of articles from between 1930 and 1955.
1977	Ultimi Scritti [Last Writings]	Napels: Controcorrente
1977	La Via della Realizzazione di si secondo i Misteri di Mithra; translated as The Path of Enlightenment According to the Mithraic Mysteries	Rome: Fondazione Julius Evola; English translation by Holmes Publishing Group, 1993, ISBN 1558182284
1981	Lo Zen; translated as Zen: The Religion of the Samurai	Rome: Fondazione Julius Evola; English translation by Holmes Publishing Group, 1993, ISBN 1558183299
1984	Un Maestro dei Tempi Moderni: Reni Guinon; translated as Rene Guenon: A Teacher for Modern Times	Rome: Fondazione Julius Evola; English translation by Holmes Publishing Group, 1993, ISBN 1558182292.
1993	Taoism: The Magic, the Mysticism	English translation by Holmes Publishing Group, 1993, ISBN 1558182276.	Introduction to a 1959 Italian translation of the Tao-Te-Ching.

References

"Julius Evola and the Ideological Origins of the Radical Right in Contemporary Italy" by Richard H. Drake, chapter 2 of Political Violence and Terror: Motifs and Motivations edited by Peter H. Merkl (University of California Press, 1986, ISBN 0520056051)
"Julius Evola, Radical Fascism and the Lateran Accords" by Richard H. Drake in The Catholic Historical Review 74 (1988): 403-19
"Myth and Violence: The Fascism of Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist" by Thomas Sheehan in Social Research, 48, Spring 1981: 45-83
Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (Chapter 3), 2001, ISBN 0814731554
Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890 edited by Philip Rees, 1991, ISBN 0130893013
Arktos: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, and Nazi Survival by Joscelyn Godwin, 1996, ISBN 0932813356
Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the postwar fascist international by Kevin Coogan, Autonomedia, Brooklyn, NY 1998 ISBN 1570270392
"Julius Evola--Above the Ruins" in The Nexus, issue 10

External links

Julius Evola text archive: English, French, Italian, Spanish (http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1404/archive.html)
Evola As He Is (http://thompkins_cariou.tripod.com/), many previously unpublished texts in English.
Julius Evola Unofficial WebSite (http://www.juliusevola.it), text in many languages
Selection of Evola's Futurist and Dada works, 1917-20 (http://www.futurism2.fsnet.co.uk/evola/evola_frames.htm)
Evola on American "Civilisation" (http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6824/evola.htm)
JuliusEvola.NET (http://www.juliusevola.net/pages/1/index.htm)
The Website of the Julius Evola Foundation (http://www.fondazione-evola.it/)
Julius Evola: Tradition's Triumphant Caesar (http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id736/pg1/) by Matthew Mitchem on the Disinformation website (with links and forum).
Evola bibliography (in Italian) (http://www.arrakis.es/~fsln/evolabib.htm)
Fascist Occultism and its Close Relationship to Buddhist Tantrism (http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Part-2-12.htm), chapter 12 of The Shadow of the Dalai Lama (http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Contents.htm)
"Europe's Revolt against the Modern World-- United Europe: The Spiritual Prerequisite" (http://www.oswaldmosley.com/people/evola.html)
Julius Evola, A Philosopher in the Age of the Wolf An Appreciation for his 100th Anniversary (http://www.centrostudilaruna.it/jenseitseng.html)

References

Wikipedia. (2005). Julius Evola (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Evola). Retrieved on July 9. 2005.

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