THE PRIMACY OF SPIRIT, HIERARCHY, TRADITIONALISM AND METAPOLITICS
THE PRIMACY OF SPIRIT
AND INITIATION
A fundamental part of the answer to the crisis of the
modern world is restoration of contact with tradition and the transcendent.
Since the main reason for the fall is the materialistic view of life, human
nature and history a renewal can only be found by a spiritual view. This means
to fight against the consumerism empty of spirituality to restore the
traditional view and way of being. The problems are deeply rooted, and have
even affected all parts of human life. The transcendent order known through
tradition must be regained. A first step is to acknowledge that reality goes
far beyond the sensual. Thus, opposition to all forms of Materialism is
central. It is an integral part of both cultural and political European
tradition that Man is, self-evidently, a complex of Spirit and Matter, and that
the primacy lies with the Spirit. "... the
'spirit' in the traditional conception has always meant something supernatural
and super-individual; it has therefore nothing to do with the common intellect
and even less with the pale world of the 'thinkers' and the 'men of letters.' It
is rather the element which becomes the focus of any virile ascent, and heroic
elevation, any effort to achieve in life that which is 'more than life' itself."
(Julius Evola) "The Initiate is a being who has
learned how to take control of the totality of the cravings and deficiencies
which urge him internally. He has learned how to resist them, and has the power
to say NO, and how to break their law and how to develop a new life without
them." (Julius Evola)
“In both individual and collective life the economic factor is the most
important, real, and decisive one . . . An economic era is already by
definition a fundamentally anarchical and anti-hierarchical era; it represents
a subversion of the normal order . . . This subversive character is found
in both Marxism and in its apparent nemesis, modern capitalism. Thus, it
is absurd and deplorable for those who pretend to represent the political
‘Right’ to fail to leave the dark and small circle that is determined by the
demonic power of the economy – a circle including capitalism, Marxism, and all
the intermediate economic degrees. This should be firmly upheld by those today
who are taking a stand against the forces of the Left. Nothing is more evident
than that modern capitalism is just as subversive as Marxism. The materialistic
view of life on which both systems are based is identical.” (Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins:
Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist,
“The Idea, only the Idea must be
our true homeland. It is not being born in the same country, speaking the same
language or belonging to the same racial stock that matters; rather, sharing
the same Idea must be the factor that unites us and differentiates us from
everybody else.” (Julius Evola, Gli
uomini e le rovine, Rome: Edizioni Settimo Sigillo, 1990, p. 41)
TRADITION
There are many varieties of traditionalism in the
West, but only one that really deserves a capital 'T', and only one that
modified the understanding of both Islam in the West and modernity in the
Islamic world. This is 'Guénonian' Traditionalism,
the fruit of the marriage of 19th-century oriental scholarship with the Western
esoteric tradition, a movement established by the work of the French religious
philosopher René Guénon (1886-1951). Born in the
provincial French city of
The term Tradition has its root in the latin
word traditio. It implies something that is
transferred and transmitted from one generation to another, and sometimes
shared between many different classes in one distinct culture. In modern use
Tradition also implies those currents of thought, science, interpretative
exegesis, jurisdiction and so forth which has received
enough recognition and precedence to be carried further, from one original
source or hermeneutical milieu to another. A Tradition emerges as a consequence
of one or another contest about authority over meaning
and implied "truths". A traditional approach is one that recognizes
and respects the integrity of the existing framework and context for an
activity, a project of society, a developement.
Inasmuch as a Tradition serves as an amplification of a specific framework, one
tradition should not be confused with another. They can be compared, and
impressions from contesting traditions can be shared. If this sharing of
impressions overshadows the concerns of the integrity for instance of a
religion or a dicipline in science, there is great
probability, some would say danger, that a new
Tradition emerges out of this exchange. Traditions, like the Gnoses have the characteristic that their presence and
influence are hardly noticed, before they appear to disappear - it is more a
way things are ordered and given a context within a structure than a thing in
itself.
Evola distinguishes two aspects of the concept of
tradition. Firstly, it refers to "a primordial tradition of which all
particular, historical, pre-modern traditions have been emanations."
Secondly, and more importantly, Tradition has nothing to do with conformity or
routine; it is the fundamental structure of a kind of civilisation
that is organic, differentiated and hierarchic in which all its domains and
human activities have an orientation from above and towards what is above. Such
civilisations of the past had as their natural centre
an elite or a leader who embodied "an authority
as unconditional as it was legitimate and impersonal." "Traditionalism
really is a vision of the future based on restoration and creative renewal of
the wisdom of the past. It is a vision of justice, order, and freedom based on
a transcendent source of values." (René Guénon)
The term "Tradition" refers to the concept that all authentic
religions derive from a single Primordial Tradition and are therefore equally
valid paths to Salvation. "Traditionalism" is therefore the school of
religious studies that strives to illuminate the unifying Principles underlying
the various manifest Traditions of the world. "... The 'spirit' in the
traditional conception has always meant something supernatural and
super-individual; it has therefore nothing to do with the common intellect and
even less with the pale world of the 'thinkers' and the 'men of letters.' It is
rather the element which becomes the focus of any virile ascent, and heroic
elevation, any effort to achieve in life that which is 'more than life'
itself." (Julius Evola)
Traditionalism is at its heart a view which reverses the usual connotations of
the terms 'traditional' and 'progressive,' so that 'traditional' is good and
'progressive' bad or rather, an illusion. There is indeed a progression in
human affairs, but the direction is invariably one of decline, and
'progressive' thus becomes a synonym for 'corrupt'. The impact of
Traditionalism derives from this essence; once the modern world is understood
in terms of decline rather than progress, almost everything else changes. For a
Traditionalist, truth is to be found not in the future or in the trivial
discoveries of natural science, but in the past. That this is so little
recognized today is a natural consequence of the final Dark Age in which we
live an age identified with the Hindu final age, the kali yuga
where (in many senses) quantity reigns and quality is eclipsed. To the extent
that it is possible, salvation lies in salvaging what remains of the past from
the general collapse of the present. For the individual, this means following
an orthodox master in a valid 'initiatic' tradition. Guénon believed that the last chance of the West as a whole
lay in the influence of a spiritual and intellectual elite composed of such
individuals. (Against Modernity, Mark Sedgwick)
The concept of tradition from its etymological root has nothing to do with
peoples' usages or customs from old, but is understood as truths and principles
of divine order revealed or unveiled to mankind. Without an all-pervading
spiritual revolution - a method of purification and improvement carried on by
the individual for a life time even the best men will not differ in any
essential sense from the degenerates who have given rise to the horrors of the
modern world, and who have acted upon a purely materialist conception of Life
and History. As each individual develops his spiritual qualities,
This original state can be equated with the concept of a primordial centre of
which, in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the Earthly
Paradise is one of the symbols; with the proviso that we always recall that
this state, this tradition, and this centre only constitute three expressions
of the one reality. Thanks to this tradition, which antedates history,
knowledge of principal truth has been, from the beginning, the common property
of all humanity, and has subsequently been revealed in the highest and most
perfect theological systems of the historic age. But a natural degeneration has
given rise to specialization and obscuration which have resulted in an
ever-increasing gap between the message, those who transmit it, and those who
receive it. Some explanation became more and more necessary since a
polarization occurred between the external literal aspect expressed in ritual
and the original meaning, which became more and more hidden within and
obscured, and so, hard to unde! rstand. In the West this exterior aspect was
generally expressed in religious terms. Intended for the general mass of the
faithful, the doctrine split into three elements, dogma for the reason, morals
for the mind, and rites and ceremonies for the body. During the time in which
this split was taking place in the West, the deeper meaning became esoteric and
was gradually reduced to greater and greater obscurity, so that now we are
compelled to refer to parallel examples from Eastern spirituality to understand
the coherence and validity of our own tradition.
The progressive lack of real understanding of the idea of tradition has for a
long time past prevented us from grasping the true nature of ancient
civilizations, both eastern and western, and at the same time has made it
impossible for us to return to that inclusive point of view which they had. Only
as we return to basic principles can we gain a comprehensive understanding
without suppressing anything. This will enable us to make a breakthrough to a
new use of language, restore our power to remember and facilitate our inventive
faculties, and so establish links between the most seemingly diverse branches
of knowledge. All this is only possible as we acknowledge the privileged centre
as possessing an inexhaustibly rich store of possibilities which are mediated
to us by means of symbols. The
There are a few basic assumptions on which all advocates of the "Integral
Tradition" agree, and without whose acceptance one cannot be an advocate
of the Tradition. The fundamental tenets are well-known, and without pretence
to completeness, they include these: the acknowledgment of a world of spirit
transcending that of nature; the basic division of man into body, soul, and
spirit; a cyclical, devolutionary theory of time in the world; the division
into castes, though neither sociological nor biological or racist; the
rejection of the doctrines of progress and evolution; the rejection of the psychologizing (C. G. Jung) and socializing (Eliade) of traditional myths; the existence of a
primordial, hence universal Tradition.
The present situation requires a total reorganisation
of state and nation according to a traditional order. The question of bourgeois
morality arises here, which Evola rightly rejects
totally, but at the same time tends to undervalue the significance of traditional
morality. The goal of the ascent of man to the Absolute,
"initiation," is achieved through the elimination of the ego and its
desires. Evola emphasizes this in his analysis of
asceticism. But there is another path, which first uses the desires as the means
to free oneself from them and from the ego in an act of ecstatic liberation.
This left-hand path is dangerous, but does not differ in any essential way from
the goal of asceticism; the difference has nothing to do with universal
morality-it only violates bourgeois morality! The
left-hand path that is followed here is not at all the same as general immoral
behavior. Traditional morality embraces a few social regulations, as banal as
the law of driving on the left or right, mainly for controlling the ego in
everyday life; but it also embraces altruism, as an aid to liberating the true
Self. Sin is anything that stands between the Self and the Absolute. Penance is
anything that helps to heal the hurts done to the Self by falsification of it,
and that frees the integral (sacred) Self with an unbroken connection to the
absolute source of being and life. Bourgeois morality is just the opposite: it
serves to sustain and strengthen the ego so that it can function in capitalist
society, and especially pay no attention to anything that transcends the
material plane. The battle against bourgeois morality and the battle for a
traditional morality thus compliment and demand each other.
The rules of politics today are determined by the politicians of today, who
have made it a sordid practice of mob manipulation and ankle-biting. You can't
really play the game without at least recognizing, understanding, even using
their rules and tactics. The Man of tradition will avoid to
get involved in present politics. There is hardly any sense in political
action today. No organization is favorable or worth working with. This leads to
resigning to metapolitics.
HIERARCHY
"Every traditional civilization is characterized
by the presence of beings who, by virtue of their
innate or acquired superiority over the human condition, embody within the
temporal order the living and efficacious presence of a power that comes from
above." (Julius Evola)
Hierarchy can be unterstood as politics based upon
the principles of Tradition as a means to create a new fearless individual, a
higher human and a political method of embodying esoteric wisdom. Esoteric
knowledge demands that one not only deal with esoteric truth intellectually,
but as a living practice. The restructuring of
In his revealing work, The Aryan Doctrine of Fight and Victory, Julius Evola wrote the following about the ancient Roman Victory
celebrations: "The Victor, by wearing the insignia of the chief and
Supreme God, at the moment of victory, united himself with Him, and went to
place in the hands of this God the victory laurel, as homage to the real
victor... The Imperator, originally, was the military commander who took the
salute on the field of the battle at the moment of victory: but at this time,
he also appeared to be transfigured by a force from on high, terrifying, yet marvellous." The point that Evola
sought to make was that the Warrior was not merely of this world, that he was
not merely a being exercising purely material force; he was a man who united
his temporal power with the supernatural and divine, and thereby became
transformed in the struggle against those who were merely soldiers, men who
fought on a lower and inferior plane. Evola
demonstrated his thesis by reference not only to ancient
The lesson to be drawn from the Evolan thesis is that
we, as Political Soldiers, must unite our efforts with those Higher Powers,
with the Logos, for in so doing we will guarantee that our victory will be
secured. This unification of forces is not going to be an easy affair, for we
live in a world of ruins, but it is the task that must be undertaken as a
sacred duty." "In the list of knightly virtues given by Redi, first came wisdom followed by faithfulness,
liberality, and strength... Hugh of Tabaria, in his Ordene de Chevalrie
portrayed the knight as an "armed priest," who by virtue of his two
dignities (military and priestly), has the right to enter a church and to keep
the order in it with the sword. In the Indo-Aryan tradition we see members of
the warrior aristocracy competing victoriously in wisdom with the brahmana ... becoming brahmana,
or, just like other brahmana, being
"those who tend the sacred flame." This confirms the inner character
of chivarly and, in a wider sense, the warrior caste
in the world of Tradition." [Julius Evola, Revolt
Against the Modern World (Inner Traditions, 1995), 84-85]
The traditional world knew
divine kingship. It knew the bridge between the two worlds, namely
initiation. It knew the two great ways of approach to the transcendent,
namely heroic action and contemplation. It knew the mediation, namely
rites and faithfulness. It knew the social foundation, namely the
traditional law and the caste system. And it knew the political earthly symbol,
namely the empire. It held that mere physical existence, or “living,” is
meaningless unless it approximates the higher world or that which is “more than
life,” and unless one’s highest ambition consists in participating in hyperkosmia and in obtaining an active and final liberation
from the bond represented by the human condition. (Julius Evola, Revolt against
the Modern World, Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 1995, p. 6. )