Julius Evola, born Giulio Cesare Evola, aka Baron Giulio (May 19, 1898-June 11, 1974), was a controversial Italian esotericist, who wrote prolifically on matters political, philosophical, historical, and religious from a Traditionalist point of view.

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. 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]. 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 bourgeoisie, 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 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 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.

See also

• Revolutionary minded Italians of the inter-war period

Books

Early

• Arte Astratta (an work on abstract art)
• Teoria Dell'Individuo Assoluto (a Nietzschean work borne out of a mental and spiritual breakdown)
• Imperialismo pagano (a polemical work urging the Fascist regime to conduct an anti-Christian , pagan revolution, 1928)

Significant

• La Tradizione Ermetica, (1931) (The Hermetic Tradition trans. 1995 ISBN 0892814519)
• Rivolta Contro il Mondo Moderno, (1934) (Revolt Against the Modern World trans. 1995, ISBN 089281506X)
• The Mystery of the Grail , Initiation and Magic in the Quest for the Spirit ISBN 0892815736
• Sintesi di Dottrina Della Razza, (1940)
• Lo Yoga della potenza (The Yoga of Power: Tantra, Shakti, and the Secret Way trans. 1993 ISBN 0892813687)
• La dottrina del risveglio (1942) (The Doctrine of Awakening trans. 1948 ISBN 0892815531)
• Meditations on the Peaks : The Metaphysics of Mountain Climbing ISBN 0892816570
• Gli Uomini e le Rovine (Men Among the Ruins trans. 2002, ISBN 0892819057)
• Orientamenti
• Metafisica del Sesso (Eros and the Mysteries of Love : The Metaphysics of Sex trans. 1991 ISBN 0892813156)
• Cavalcare la Tigre (Ride the Tiger trans. 2003 ISBN 0892811250)
• Path of Enlightenment According to the Mithraic Mysteries ISBN 1558182284
• ISBN 1558182292
• ISBN 1558183299
• ISBN 1558182276

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
• Evola As He Is, many previously unpublished texts in English.
• Selection of Evola's Futurist and Dada works, 1917-20
• Evola on American "Civilisation"
• The Website of the Julius Evola Foundation
• Julius Evola: Tradition's Triumphant Caesar by Matthew Mitchem on the Disinformation website (with links and forum).
• Evola bibliography (in Italian)
• Fascist Occultism and its Close Relationship to Buddhist Tantrism, chapter 12 of The Shadow of the Dalai Lama
• "Europe's Revolt against the Modern World-- United Europe: The Spiritual Prerequisite"
• Julius Evola, A Philosopher in the Age of the Wolf An Appreciation for his 100th Anniversary