Here we see Julius Evola repeat familiar themes, even verbatim, but in today’s climate, it is well to do so. But besides the outer events of the degeneration of castes, Evola points out how it corresponds to states of consciousness. Not only are the religious, political, and economic structures overturned, but new forms of consciousness arise. No longer aware of the supernatural, the third dimension of history, men become dominated by the subconscious: merely vital, pre-intellectual, and instinctive impulses.

Note, too, how Evola defends reason in an essay devoted to myth. As Rene Guenon points out Mythos and Logos, properly understood, cannot be in conflict. But reason without the guidance of transcendent first principles is a boat without an anchor,

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This essay, Nascita ed essenza del “mito” moderno by Julius Evola, originally appeared in the March 1936 issue of La Vita Italiana, and will be published in three or four parts. There are a few points to think about in this segment.

Once again, Evola, following Rene Guenon, brings up caste as the most fundamental division of human types. Hence, caste is more fundamental than religion or race.
The degeneration of caste is the first step to understand the movements of history. The attempts to interpret history in terms of race (e.g., Aryan vs Jew) or religion (e.g., pagan vs Christian) are all for naught unless the roles of the various castes are first taken into consideration.
The different castes have differing

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Man can be truly free and himself only when he maintains the centre of his being on a metaphysical plane. When he detaches himself from such a plane and focuses on practical goals, on temporal achievements, and, in general, on whatever was the domain only of lower castes taken in themselves, he abdicates, disintegrates, opens himself up to subterranean forces, whose tool he is soon destined to become, unless he takes account of them.
~ Julius Evola, Nascita ed Essenza del Mito Moderno

This is intended as an interlude between the Tools of the Occult War, which delineates the mental constructs leading to the modern world, and the soon to be translated Birth and Essence of the Modern Myth, which …

To the Queen of Heaven & inspired by Eliot’s Sunday Morning…

“Young Mary of the sky-blue cloak,
The lily hands, the dusty feet-
Indefectible awoke,
From her soul’s noetic heat.
She held an angel in her eye,
She spoke the flame with Seraphim-
Interchanging earth and sky,
Shock the changeless Cherubim.
Sublunar Eve in Lim cried out
To see her motherhood respire.
Mary’s prayer upon her brow
Burns with a kenotic fire.
The remonstrance ungilded stood
Before the angel of the Host-
Across the shadowed twisty-wood
Moved a many-colored Ghost.

Paley rose in petals torn
Sprang up within a heart unbound-
Beyond old suns, a rose-gold morn
Moves with us, our God around.
I fell asleep last night and feared
Destroying winds in sphered wheels.
The Lady pure in prayer appeared
Before the angel’s eyes of steel.
God’s heralder …

The final segment of Julius Evola’s essay. The final tactic, the Tactic of the Substitution of Principle to the Person, is very important, as it describes the creation of the modern world from the Medieval period. As a corollary, it defines what can be meant by the Right in the relative sense: it is whatever resists the dissolution of a stage, and the authentic Right, in its only true meaning, is whatever works toward the stage prior to the successive degeneration of the castes.

Evola concludes with the necessity of recognizing and indicating the tools used in the occult war. Only then can a man be called a counter-revolutionary.

Tactic of Dilution
This is a particular case of the “tactic of substitution”. …

Tools 5 and 6 of the Occult War. In the Ricochet, Evola warns against causing divisions for particularistic reasons, particularly against another Tradition. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon today. He warns against scapegoating a group or organization for all problems. The focus must always remain on the plan of the subversive powers; focusing on the alleged agents will distract from the fundamental task.

Tactic of the Ricochet Attack
It consists in provoking one of the forces to be torn down because of their still traditional character to undertake an action, that initially was aimed against a similar force and apparently of value to strengthen and increase the first force, but that then ricochets against it, dragging it down into the same …

These are the first four of the eight tools of the occult war identified by Julius Evola. For readers unfamiliar with the philosophical currents of Evola’s time, “positive” is usually called “scientific” today, at least in English. He also criticizes the philosophies of life (e.g., certain Germans, perhaps even Nietzsche as “life-affirming”), becoming (Bergson, Whitehead), and absolute spirit (Hegel, Gentile).

As other manifestations of subversive forces, he goes on to mention a dilettantish “traditionalism” (which is rampant today) and even zoological racism (the “hipster racism” or “race realism” of today). Then there are all the New Age movements, which have only multiplied in the past 75 years. They hide the true Tradition and can be identified by their preoccupation with strange

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In this article from the January 1938 issue of La Vita Italiana, Julius Evola describes his understanding of the occult war and its tactics. This should clear up two widely spread misconceptions.

The first misconception is that the occult war has something to do with so-called occult or magical practices. To the contrary, it is not a question of men employing higher, or transhuman, forces to achieve their aim, but rather of those forces using men, with or against their will, whether they are conscious of it or not, to achieve aims apart from the desires of men.

The second misconception is that Evola is an adherent of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories restrict themselves to a two dimensional understanding of history,

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In Guido de Giorgio, we often find the best from Rene Guenon and Julius Evola. Yet, the “personal equation” is qualitatively different.  Guenon is cold and logical, the path of the jnani whose goal is the Truth. Evola sometimes writes with a deep passion, but is often wordy; his is the path of action, with the Good as its goal. De Giorgio, on the other hand, seems to speak as a man of conviction, arising from an inner knowing, while avoiding the sentimental and the merely personal. He is a poet and mystic, following the highest path, that of Absolute Beauty.

Guenon and Evola, for all their virtues, are ultimately escapists, Guenon to the “traditional” East and Evola to the …

Although we have not forgotten our task to deal with certain specific issues, including the comparison of the ideas and perspectives of Charles Maurras and Julius Evola, we are finding value in translating some of Evola’s political writings.

Most people know Evola mainly from his post-war works such as Ride the Tiger and Men among the Ruins. Those are remarkable titles from a marketing perspective, but they are only part of the story. I have heard some “romantic” notions of riding the tiger, when they mean no more than “blowing in the wind”. Similarly, once the ruins have been seen once, there is hardly a point to continue to describe them. Now is the time to think about rebuilding.

We are also

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