Gornahoor

[Gornahoor]

Evola announces his plan for the second part of "The Individual and the Becoming of the World":

[Gornahoor]

Although Rene Guenon regards Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as "traditional forms which can be described as specifically religious" (Creation & Manifestation), Evola focuses on Christianity,

[Gornahoor]

In the context of "The Individual and the Becoming of the World", it would be interesting to focus on the characteristics of the religious attitude that Evola attributes to Christianity in particular -- and constitutes, therefore, the entirety of his objections thereto -- and how it differs from the attitude of the initiate into the mysteries (forthcoming). That the Christianity of the Middle Ages, in its Catholic form, was "aryanized" to some extent is well documented and conceded even by such anti-Christians such as Evola himself and Miguel Serranos. After all, Evola considers the Catholic-dominated Middle Ages as one of the major Aryan civilisations, though he never seems to have explained it satifactorily (even at one point calling it a miracle! see A Justified Pessimism ).

The religious attitude can be restated:

1. As Genesis says, "God saw the world and it was good." Therefore, all that is obviously wrong about the world is the consequence of sin, the "Fall", considered in a moralistic sense. Don't forget that earlier in this book, Evola mentioned the Fall, while giving a different spin on it, a spin that made it more compatible with the development of the first part of the work.
   
2. Since the world is clearly not quite right, the first cause (or principle) of the world necessarily transcends it so as not to be implicated in its evil. Since that principle is totally other, I can only postulate it and have faith that it exists. But the goal of the initiate is gnosis, that is, to know directly, intuitively, and positively. Of course, even Christianity preaches the idea of "gnosis", though it does not seem to have had a major influence on its doctrine.
   
3. The source of every reality is in that principle, so that "I" no longer exists. From the Tantric type path Evola espouses, which results not the annihilation of the I but rather in its absolute self-assertion, this is unacceptable. Nevertheless, there is a tradition of Christian theosis, though, again, it is always re-interpreted to fit into the procrustean bed of dogma.
   

So if we take these elements -- the "Fall" in an intellectual rather than moralistic sense, gnosis, and theosis -- we would have something closer to an initiatic teaching, though it would resemble no actually existing Christian sect. So the question as to whether this would represent the "true" Christianity or rather indicate the residue of alien initiatic elements hiding in its bosom is moot.

But by focusing on the clearly defined attitudes, we can reach a definite understanding.

[Gornahoor]

As an alternative to the postulate of a transcendent God, Evola offers these alternatives:

Therefore one avoids the necessity of inventing God:

1. Either by whoever sees that the optimistic premise is not justified by reality and yet continues to conceive it as “that which should be” (nihilistic pessimism).
   
2. Or whoever, in the name of the reality of this “having to be” calls “that which is” unreal (metaphysical illusionism).
   
3. Or whoever, recognizing in a rational and ordered world a moral right to existence and recognizing at the same time its disagreement with the actual existent world, nevertheless thinks that his power will be able to realise it (titanic pessimism).
   
4. Finally, whoever denies both by right and in fact, both in “having to be” and in “being” the optimistic conception and is able to find in chaos and in the irrational the principle of a higher life; he who does not flee, does not want the world different from what it is, but wills it absolutely, infinitely, as it is. Such is, let us say it at this point, the life of Dionysus. (See F. Nietzsche: Wille zur Macht, 1.I, passim)
   

[Gornahoor]

Opposed to the religious attitude, Evola contrasts the widoms of the mysteries: Buddha, Dionysus, Mithras, Hermes. These are the three characteristics he lists:

1. He faces up to reality, without veils, in its tragic, irrational, unprovidential nature;
   
2. He rejects the belief in the present existence of an optimistic order, and the necessity of postulating the transcendental, the God to guarantee it and to explain how it can coexist with the order of existing things that contradict it;
   
3. Thus the gulf remains between titanic pessimism and Dionysianism, bridged by recognizing or not recognizing the moral right to existence of a regulated, just, and rational world. In the case of the affirmative, he asserts the concept of the individual as a sufficient power in himself, capable of saving not only himself but also everything that he is connected to and that, at bottom, is the reflexion of what he concretely is .
   

He summarizes: