American "Civilisation"
The recently deceased John Dewey was applauded by the American press as the most representative figure of American civilisation. This is quite right. His theories are entirely representative of the vision of man and life which is the premise of Americanism and its 'democracy'.
The essence of such theories is this: that everyone can become what he wants to, within the limits of the technological means at his disposal. Equally, a person is not what he is from his true nature and there is no real difference between people, only differences in qualifications. According to this theory anyone can be anyone he wants to be if he knows how to train himself.
This is obviously the case with the 'self-made man'; in a society which has lost all sense of tradition the notion of personal aggrandisement will extend into every aspect of human existence, reinforcing the egalitarian doctrine of pure democracy. If the basis of such ideas is accepted, then all natural diversity has to be abandoned. Each person can presume to possess the potential of everyone else and the terms 'superior' and 'inferior' lose their meaning; every notion of distance and respect loses meaning; all life-styles are open to all. To all organic conceptions of life Americans oppose a mechanistic conception. In a society which has 'started from scratch', everything has the characteristic of being fabricated. In American society appearances are masks not faces. At the same time, proponents of the American way of life are hostile to personality.
The Americans' 'open-mindedness', which is sometimes cited in their favour, is the other side of their interior formlessness. The same goes for their 'individualism'. Individualism and personality are not the same: the one belongs to the formless world of quantity, the other to the world of quality and hierarchy. The Americans are the living refutation of the Cartesian axiom, "I think, therefore I am": Americans do not think, yet they are. The American 'mind', puerile and primitive, lacks characteristic form and is therefore open to every kind of standardisation.
In a superior civilisation, as, for example, that of the Indo-Aryans, the being who is without a characteristic form or caste (in the original meaning of the word), not even that of servant or shudra, would emerge as a pariah. In this respect America is a society of pariahs. There is a role for pariahs. It is to be subjected to beings whose form and internal laws are precisely defined. Instead the modern pariahs seek to become dominant themselves and to exercise their dominion over all the world.
There is a popular notion about the United States that it is a 'young nation' with a 'great future before it'. Apparent American defects are then described as the 'faults of youth' or 'growing pains'. It is not difficult to see that the myth of 'progress' plays a large part in this judgement. According to the idea that everything new is good, America has a privileged role to play among civilised nations. In the First World War the United States intervened in the role of 'the civilised world' par excellence. The 'most evolved' nation had not only a right but a duty to interfere in the destinies of other peoples.
The structure of history is, however, cyclical not evolutionary. It is far from being the case that the most recent civilisations are necessarily 'superior'. They may be, in fact, senile and decadent. There is a necessary correspondence between the most advanced stages of a historical cycle and the most primitive. America is the final stage of modern Europe. Guenon called the United States 'the far West', in the novel sense that the United States represents the reductio ad absurdum of the negative and the most senile aspects of Western civilisation. What in Europe exist in diluted form are magnified and concentrated in the United States whereby they are revealed as the symptoms of disintegration and cultural and human regression. The American mentality can only be interpreted as an example of regression, which shows itself in the mental atrophy towards all higher interests and incomprehension of higher sensibility. The American mind has limited horizons, one conscribed to e! veryth ing which is immediate and simplistic, with the inevitable consequence that everything is made banal, basic and levelled down until it is deprived of all spiritual life. Life itself in American terms is entirely mechanistic. The sense of 'I' in America belongs entirely to the physical level of existence. The typical American neither has spiritual dilemmas nor complications: he is a 'natural' joiner and conformist.
The primitive American mind can only superficially be compared to a young mind. The American mind is a feature of the regressive society to which I have already referred.
American Morality
The much-vaunted sex appeal of American women is drawn from films, reviews and pin-ups, and is in large print fictitious. A recent medical survey in the United States showed that 75 per cent of young American women are without strong sexual feeling and instead of satisfying their libido they seek pleasure narcissistically in exhibitionism, vanity and the cult of fitness and health in a sterile sense. American girls have 'no hang-ups about sex'; they are 'easy going' for the man who sees the whole sexual process as something in isolation thereby making it uninteresting and matter-of-fact, which, at such a level, it is meant to be. Thus, after she has been taken to the cinema or a dance, it is something like American good manners for the girl to let herself be kissed - this doesn't mean anything. American women are characteristically frigid and materialistic. The man who 'has his way' with an American girl is under a material obligation to her. The woman has granted a materia! l favour. In cases of divorce American law overwhelmingly favours the woman. American women will divorce readily enough when they see a better bargain. It is frequently the case in America that a woman will be married to one man but already 'engaged' to a future husband, the man she plans to marry after a profitable divorce.
"Our" American Media
Americanisation in Europe is widespread and evident. In Italy it is a phenomenon which is rapidly developing in these post-war years and is considered by most people, if not enthusiastically, at least as something natural. Some time ago I wrote that of the two great dangers confronting Europe - Americanism and Communism - the first is the more insidious. Communism cannot be a danger other than in the brutal and catastrophic form of a direct seizure of power by communists. On the other hand Americanisation gains ground by a process of gradual infiltration, effecting modifications of mentalities and customs which seem inoffensive in themselves but which end in a fundamental perversion and degradation against which it is impossible to fight other than within oneself.
It is precisely with respect to such internal opposition that most Italians seem weak. Forgetting their own cultural inheritance they readily turn to the United States as something akin to the parent guide of the world. Whoever wants to be modern has to measure himself according to the American standard. It is pitiable to witness a European country so debase itself. Veneration for America has nothing to do with a cultured interest in the way other people live. On the contrary, servility towards the United States leads one to think that there is no other way of life worth considering on the same level as the American one.
Our radio service is Americanised. Without any criterion of superior and inferior it just follows the fashionable themes of the moment and markets what is considered 'acceptable' - acceptable, that is, to the most Americanised section of the public, which is to say the most degenerate. The rest of us are dragged along in its wake. Even the style of presentation on radio has become Americanised. "Who, after listening to an American radio programme, can suppress a shudder when he considers that the only way of escaping communism is by becoming Americanised?" Those are not the words of an outsider but of an American sociologist, James Burnham, professor at the University of Princeton. Such a judgement from an American should make Italian radio programmers blush for shame.
The consequence of the 'do your own thing' democracy is the intoxication of the greater part of the population which is not capable of discriminating for itself, which, when not guided by a power and an ideal, all too easily loses sense of its own identity.
The Industrial Order in America
In his classic study of capitalism Werner Sombart summarised the late capitalist phase in the adage Fiat producto, pareat homo. In its extreme form capitalism is a system in which a man's value is estimated solely in terms of the production of merchandise and the invention of the means of production. Socialist doctrines grew out of a reaction to the lack of human consideration in this system.
A new phase has begun in the United States where there has been an upsurge of interest in so-called labor relations. In appearance it would seem to signify an improvement: in reality this is a deleterious phenomenon. The entrepreneurs and employers have come to realise the importance of the 'human factor' in a productive economy, and that it is a mistake to ignore the individual involved in industry: his motives, his feelings, his working day life. Thus, a whole school of study of human relations in industry has grown up, based on behaviourism. Studies like Human Relations in Industry by B. Gardner and G. Moore have supplied a minute analysis of the behaviour of employees and their motivations with the precise aim of defining the best means to obviate all factors that can hinder the maximisation of production. Some studies certainly don't come from the shop floor but from the management, abetted by specialists from various colleges. The sociological investigations go as far! as analysing the employee's social ambience. This kind of study has a practical purpose: the ma intenance of the psychological contentment of the employee is as important as the physical. In cases in which a worker is tied to a monotonous job which doesn't demand a great deal of concentration, the studies will draw attention to the 'danger' that his mind may tend to wander in a way that may eventually reflect badly on his attitude towards the job.
The private lives of employees are not forgotten - hence the increase in so-called personnel counselling. Specialists are called in to dispel anxiety, psychological disturbances and non-adaptation 'complexes', even to the point of giving advice in relation to the most personal matters. A frankly psycho-analytic technique and one much used is to make the subject 'talk freely' and put the results obtainable by this 'catharsis' into relief.
None of this is concerned with the spiritual betterment of human beings or any real human problems, such as a European would understand them in this "age of economics". On the other side of the Iron Curtain man is treated as a beast of burden and his obedience is maintained by terror and famine. In the United States man is also seen as just a factor of labour and consumption, and no aspect of his interior life is neglected and every factor of his existence is drawn to the same end. In the 'Land of the Free', through every medium, man is told he has reached a degree of happiness hitherto undreamed of. He forgets who he is, where he came from, and basks in the present.
American "Democracy" in Industry
There is a significant and growing discrepancy in the United States between the shibboleths of the prevailing political ideology and the effective economic structures of the nation. A large part of studies of the subject is played by the 'morphology of business'. Studies corroborate the impression that American business is a long way from the type of organisation which corresponds to the democratic ideal of U.S. propaganda. American businesses have a 'pyramid' structure. They constitute at the top an articulate hierarchy. The big businesses are run in the same way as government ministries and are organised along similar lines. They have co-ordinating and controlling bodies which separate the business leaders from the mass of employees. Rather than becoming more flexible in a social sense the "managerial elite" (Burnham) is becoming more autocratic than ever - something not unrelated to American foreign policy.
This is the end of yet another American illusion. America: the 'land of opportunity', where every possibility is there for the person who can grasp it, a land where anyone can rise from rags to riches. At first there was the 'open frontier' for all to ride out across. That closed and the new 'open frontier' was the sky, the limitless potential of industry and commerce. As Gardner, Moore and many others have shown, this too is no longer limitless, and the opportunities are thinning out. Given the ever increasing specialisation of labour in the productive process and the increasing emphasis on 'qualifications', what used to seem obvious to Americans - that their children would 'go further' than they would - is for many people no longer obvious at all. Thus it is that in the so-called political democracy of the United States, the force and the power in the land, that is to say the industry and the economy, are becoming ever more self-evidently undemocratic. The problem then is! : should reality be made to fit ideology or vice-versa? Until recently the overwhelming demand has been for the former course of action; the cry goes out for a return to the 'real America' of unfettered enterprise and the individual free of central government control. Nevertheless, there are also those who would prefer to limit democracy in order to adapt political theory to commercial reality. If the mask of American 'democracy' were thereby removed, it would become clear to what extent 'democracy' in America (and elsewhere) is only the instrument of an oligarchy which pursues a method of 'indirect action', assuring the possibility of abuse and deception on a large scale of those many who accept a hierarchical system because they think it is justly such. This dilemma of 'democracy' in the United States may one day give place to some interesting developments.
In 1945 Julius Evola's "Civilta Americana" was published. Evola's critique was an attack on the American way of life. Aside from a few passages in Rivolta contro il mondo moderno it contained all the important aspects of his analysis of American society. For some time out of print, "Civilta" Americana was reprinted in the early eighties by the Julius Evola Foundation (Corso Vittorio Emanuele 197 - Rome) and published with an unsigned preface (included below). It has been edited and abridged.
We can only imagine what Evola would write if he were alive today to see the putrification of modern American society.
This essay on America was written at a time when the United States was seen as the leading nation of the world and the model of civilisation. After the Second World War history seemed to have invested the future of humanity in the doctrines and values of Russia and America. On the one side was the Soviet Union, the pure incarnation of the proletarian ideal; on the other side the United States, offering the most out-and-out bourgeois ideology the world had yet seen. These two ideals were shown to the world as two opposed and irreconcilable models of existence, of two global alternatives in terms of ideology, social organisation and culture; but in an article published in 1929 and in Rivolta contro il mondo moderno (Revolt against the modern world), Evola had already put in relief the analogy between the two systems. Over and above the obvious differences of race, of mentality and temperament, and of historical background, there was a perceptible correspondence betwe! en the two kinds of system: the meaninglessness of life centred on the economic and productive sphere of existence; the tendency towards the mechanisation and depersonalisation of every human activity; the collectivisation of large masses of individuals enervated by the rhythms of a frenetic, restless society; the negation of any notion of transcendence (in the one case by means of a dull, state-imposed atheism; in the other case through reducing the religious perspective to a banal, moralistic facade); the formless and soulless character of the arts; the utilisation of all intellectual resources for the purpose of encouraging a solely external and quantitative growth. Between two supposedly opposed systems Evola maintained that there existed only one essential distinction to be made: this relates exclusively to the nature of political power within the two systems and therefore to their mode of procedure in pursuing what is in fact a programme common to both. The bureaucratic Sovi! et dictatorship imposes a mortifying and grey view of life by means of brash propaganda and the adoption of brutal means of administration which attack every conceivable human right including armed repression of popular dissent. In the 'democratic' and capitalist United States the same ends are obtained by a fatalistic notion of the 'inevitable' development of society which is realised at the moment that man is severed from all links with a deeper spiritual reality and becomes absorbed into an anaemic unidimensional vision of existence. In that sense the American model of existence can be argued to be more insidious than the Marxist one.
Evola charges American society with creating a totally vacuous kind of human being, whose terms of reference are exclusively related to personal enrichment, whether financial or 'psychological'; one incapable of autonomous choice, an abject conformist; someone who has been made crass and incapable by a materially easy life which is without idealist impulse. Far from being the acme of human progress, American society is in fact at the most advanced stage of disintegration of modern civilisation. It is so because in America regression is taking place at every social level and is neither contained by any solid barrier nor challenged by any significant resistance: it is a spontaneous and natural development which is now permeating the whole of the Western world.
Anyone today who considers American society disinterestedly is struck by the impression of a society gone mad, in which the germs of disintegration which Evola pointed to have multiplied and the disease has broken out visibly, defacing a social fabric which was already deteriorating. According to official statistics more than one fifth of the population of the United States has been involved with drugs. Organised delinquent hooliganism is still on the increase and has come to dominate large areas of some cities; every kind of sexual aberration is being advocated along with an unbridled sexual grossness; there is increasing violence and sadism in the cities, particularly among the young; pseudo-religious sects proliferate, dragging their disciples into a psychological slum world. These phenomena are only the most obviously disquieting symptoms of an accelerating decline towards the total disintegration of human personality.
According to traditionalist doctrine as espoused by Evola, American society, in fact, is on an irreversible course to extinction.
Against the Neo-Pagans
Extract from "Grundrisse" (1942) by Julius Evola
The Misunderstandings of the New "Paganism"
It is perhaps appropriate to point out the misunderstandings that are current at the moment in some radical circles, who believe that a solution lies in the direction of a new paganism. This misunderstanding is already visible in the use of terms such as "pagan" and "pagandom". I myself, having used these expressions as slogans in a book that was published in Italy in 1928, and in Germany in 1934, have cause for sincere regrets.
Certainly the word for pagan or heathen, paganus, appears in some ancient Latin writers such as Livy without an especially negative tone. But this does not alter the fact that with the arrival of the new faith, the word paganus became a decidedly disparaging expression, as used in early Christian apologetics. It derives from pagus, meaning a small town or village, so that paganus refers to the peasant way of thinking: an uncultured, primitive, and superstitious way. In order to promote and glorify the new faith, the apologists had the bad habit of elevating themselves through the denigration of other faiths. There was often a conscious and often systematic disparagement and misrepresentation of almost all the earlier traditions, doctrines, and religions, which were grouped under the contemptuous blanket-term of paganism or heathendom. To this end, the apologists obviously made a premeditated effort to highlight those aspects of the pre-Christian religions and traditions that lacked any normal or primordial character, but were clearly forms that had fallen into decay. Such a polemical procedure lead, in particular, to the characterization of whatever had preceded Christendom, and was hence non-Christian, as necessarily anti-Christian.
One should consider, then, that "paganism" is a fundamentally tendentious and artificial concept that scarcely corresponds to the historical reality of what the pre-Christian world always was in its normal manifestations, apart from a few decadent elements and aspects that derived from the degenerate remains of older cultures.
Once we are clear about this, we come today to a paradoxical realization: that this imaginary paganism that never existed, but was invented by Christian apologists, is now serving as the starting-point for certain so-called pagan circles, and is thus threatening for the first time in history to become a reality--no more and no less than that.
What are the main traits of today's pagan outlook, as its own apologists believe and declare them to be? The primary one is the imprisonment in Nature. All transcendence is totally unknown to the pagan view of life: it remains stuck in a mixture of Spirit and Nature, in an ambiguous unity of Body and Soul. There is nothing to its religion but a superstitious deification of natural phenomena, or of tribal energies promoted to the status of minor gods. Out of this there arises first of all a blood- and soil-bound particularism. Next comes a rejection of the values of personality and freedom, and a condition of innocence that is merely that of the natural man, as yet unawakened to any truly supra-natural calling. Beyond this innocence there is only lack of inhibition, "sin," and the pleasure of sinning. In other domains there is nothing but superstition, or a purely profane culture of materialism and fatalism. It is as though only the arrival of Christianity (ignoring certain precursors which are dismissed as insignificant) allowed the world of supra-natural freedom to break through, letting in grace and personality, in contrast to the fatalistic and nature-bound beliefs ascribed to "paganism," bringing with it a catholic ideal (in the etymological sense of universality) and a healthy dualism, which made it possible to subjugate Nature to a higher law, and for the "Spirit" to triumph over the law of flesh, blood, and the false gods.
These are the main traits of the dominant understanding of paganism, i.e., of everything that does not entail a specifically Christian world-view. Anyone who possesses any direct acquaintance with cultural and religious history, however elementary, can see how incorrect and one-sided this attitude is. Besides, in the early Church Fathers there are often signs of a higher understanding of the symbols, doctrines, and religions of preceding cultures. Here we will give only a sampling.
What most distinguished the pre-Christian world, in all its normal forms, was not the superstitious divinization of nature, but a symbolic understanding of it, by virtue of which (as I have often emphasized) every phenomenon and every event appeared as the sensible revelation of a supra-sensible world. The pagan understanding of the world and of man was essentially marked by sacred symbolism.
Moreover, the pagan way of life was absolutely not that of a mindless innocence, nor a natural abandonment to the passions, even if certain forms of it were obviously degenerate. It was already aware of a healthy dualism, which is reflected in its universal religious or metaphysical conceptions. Here we can mention the dualistic warrior-religion of the ancient Iranian Aryans, already discussed and familiar to all; the Hellenistic antithesis between the "two natures," between World and Underworld, or the Nordic one between the race of the Ases and the elementary beings; and lastly the Indo-Aryan contrast between sams'ra, the "stream of forms," and m(o)kthi, "liberation" and "perfection."
On this basis, all the great pre-Christian cultures shared the striving for a supra-natural freedom, i.e., for the metaphysical perfection of the personality, and they all acknowledged Mysteries and initiations. I have already pointed out that the Mysteries often signified the reconquest of the primordial state, the spirituality of the solar, Hyperborean races, on the foundation of a tradition and a knowledge that were concealed through secrecy and exclusivity from the pollutions of an environment already in decay. We have also seen that in the Eastern lands, the Aryan quality was already associated with a "second birth" achieved through initiation. As for natural innocence as the pagan cult of the body, that is a fairy-tale and not even in evidence among savages, for despite the inner lack of differentiation already mentioned in connection with races "close to nature," these people inhibit and constrict their lives though countless taboos in a way that is often stricter than the morality of the so-called "positive religions." And as for that which seems to the superficial view to embody the prototype of such "innocence," namely the classical ideal, that was no cult of the body: it did not belong on that side of the body-spirit duality, but on the other side. As alreay stated, the classic ideal is that of a Spirit that is so dominant that under certain favorable spiritual conditions it molds Body and Soul to its own image, and thereby achieves a perfect harmony between the inner and the outer.
Lastly, there is an aspiration away from particularism to be found everywhere in the "pagan" world, to which was due the imperial summons that marked the ascending phase of the Nordic-derived races. Such a summons was often metaphysically enhanced and refined, and appeared as the natural consequence of the expansion of the ancient sacred state-concept; also as the form in which the victorious presence of the "higher world" and the paternal, Olympian principle sought to manifest itself in the world of becoming. In this respect we might recall the old Iranian concept of Empire and of the "King of kings," with its associated doctrine of the hvarenÙ (the "celestial glory" with which the Aryan rulers were endowed), and the Indo-Aryan tradition of the "World-king" or cakravartÓ, etc., right up to the reappearance of these signifiers in the "Olympian" assumptions of the ancient Roman idea of State and Empire. The Roman Empire, too, had its sacred contents, which were systematically misunderstood or undervalued not only by Christendom, but also by the writers of "positive" history. Even the Emperor-cult had the sense of a hierarchical unity at the top of a pantheon, which was a series of separate territorial and ancestral cults belonging to the non-Roman peoples, which were freely respected so long as they kept within their normal boundaries. Finally, concerning the "pagan" unity of the two powers, spiritual and temporal, this was very far from meaning that they were fused As a "solar" race understood it, it expressed the superior rights that must accrue to the spiritual authority at the center of any normal state; thus it was something quite different from the emancipation and "supremacy" of a merely secular state. If we were to make similar amendments in the spirit of true objectivity, the possibilities would be overwhelming.
Further Misunderstandings Concerning the "Pagan" World-View
This having been said, there remains the real possibility of transcending certain aspects of Christianity. But one must be quite clear: the Latin term "transcendere" means literally leaving something behind as one rises upwards, and not downwards! It is worth repeating that the principal thing is not the rejection of Christianity: it is not a matter of showing the same incomprehension towards it as Christianity itself has shown, and largely continues to show, towards ancient paganism. It would rather be a matter of completing Christianity by means of a higher and an older heritage, eliminating some of its aspects and emphasizing other, more important ones, in which this faith does not necessarily contradict the universal concepts of pre-Christian spirituality.
This, alas, is not the path taken by the radical circles we have mentioned. Many of these neo-pagans seem to have fallen into a trap deliberately set for them, often ending up by advocating and defending ideas that more or less correspond to that invented, nature-bound, particularistic pagandom, lacking light and transcendence, which was the polemical creation of a Christian misunderstanding of the pre-Christian world, and which is based, at most, on a few scattered elements of that world in its decline and devolution. And as if this were not enough, people often resort to an anti-Catholic polemic which, whatever its political justification, often drags out and adapts the old clichÈs of a purely modern, rationalist and enlightenment type that have been well-used by Liberalism, Democracy, and Freemasonry. This was also the case, to a degree, with H. S. Chamberlain, and it appears again in a certain Italian movement that has been trying to connect racial thinking with the "idealistic" doctrine of immanence.
There is a general and unmistakable tendency in neo-paganism to create a new, superstitious mysticism, based on the glorification of immanence, of Life and Nature, which is in the sharpest contrast to that Olympian and heroic ideal of the great Aryan cultures of pre-Christian antiquity. It would indicate much more a turning towards the materialistic, maternal, and telluric side, if it did not exhaust itself in foggy and dilettantish philosophizing. To give an example, we might ask what exactly is meant by this "Nature," on which these groups are so keen? It is little use to point out that it is certainly not the Nature that was experienced and recognized by ancient, traditional man, but a rational construct of the French Encyclopedist period. It was the Encyclopedists who, with definitely subversive and revolutionary motives, made up the myth of Nature as "good," wise, and wholesome, in opposition to the rottenness of every human "Culture." Thus we can see that the optimistic nature-myth of Rousseau and the Encyclopedists marches in the same ranks as "natural right," universalism, liberalism, humanitarianism, and the denial of any positive and structured form of sovereignty. Moreover, the myth in question has absolutely no basis in natural history. Every honest scientist knows that there is no room for "Nature" in the framework of his theories, which have as their object the determination of purely abstract equivalences and mathematical relationships. As far as biological research and genetics are concerned, we can already see the disequilibrium that would occur the moment one held certain laws to be final, when they only apply to a partial aspect of reality. What people call "Nature" today has nothing to do with what nature meant to the traditional, solar man, or to the knowledge of it that was accessible to such a man thanks to his Olympian and regal position. There is no sign of this whatever in the advocates of this new mysticism.
Misunderstandings of more or less the same kind. arise regarding political thought. Paganism is here often used as the synonym for a merely worldly and yet exclusive concept of sovereignty, which turns the relationships upside-down. We have already seen that in the ancient states, the unity of the two powers meant something quite different. It provided the basis for the spiritualization of politics, whereas neo-paganism results in actually politicizing the spiritual, and thereby treading once again the false path of the Gallicans and Jacobins. In contrast, the ancient concept of State and Empire always showed a connection to the Olympian idea.
What shall we think of the attitude that regards Jewry, Rome, the Catholic Church, Freemasonry, and Communism as more or less one and the same thing, just because their presuppositions differ from the plain thinking of the Folk? The Folk's thinking along these lines threatens to lose itself in the dark, where no differentiation is possible any more. It shows that it has lost the genuine feeling for the hierarchy of values, and that it cannot escape the crippling alternative of destructive internationalism and nationalistic particularism, whereas the traditional understanding of the Empire is superior to both these concepts.
To restrict ourselves to a single example: Catholic dogmatism actually fulfils a useful preventive role by stopping worldly mysticism and suchlike eruptions from below from passing a certain frontier; it makes a strong dam that protects the area where transcendent knowledge and the genuinely supra-natural and non-human elements reign--or at least where they should reign. One may well criticize the way in which such transcendence and knowledge have been understood in Christianity, but one cannot cross over to a "profane" criticism that seizes on some polemical weapon or other, fantasizes over the supposed Aryan nature of the immanence-doctrine, of "natural religion," the cult of "life," etc., without really losing one's level: in short, one does not thereby attain the world of primordial beginnings, but that of the Counter-Tradition or the telluric and primitive modes of being. This would in fact be the very best way of re-converting those people with the best "pagan" talents to Catholicism!
One must be wary of falling into the misunderstandings and errors that we have mentioned, which basically serve only to defend the common enemy. One must try to develop the capacity to place oneself at that level where didactic confusion cannot reach, and where all dilettantism and arbitrary intellectual activity are excluded; where one resists energetically every influence from confused, passionate desires and from the aggressive pleasure in polemics; where, finally and fundamentally, nothing counts but the precise, strict, objective knowledge of the spirit of the Primordial Tradition.
United Europe: The Spiritual Prerequisite 
The first political step in forging a united Europe would be the withdrawal of all European governments from the United Nations, a hypocritical organisation if there ever was.
The ground for a European initiative must be carefully prepared; but the problems of concrete political tactics fall outside the scope of this essay. Here we can only point to what we believe must be the form and the spiritual and doctrinal basis of united Europe.
'Federalist' and 'associative' solutions, economic and military co-operation— these are all the manifestation of presuppositions about the organic character of Europe (or the lack of it). The condition of a truly European entity must be the binding force of an idea and tradition with which Europe is irrevocably linked. Some argue that the nation state, being not divinely ordained but the creation of determined groups successfully rising to a historical challenge, is a model for the merging European nation. According to this view the spiritual precondition for a united Europe exists in the myth of a common destiny defended by the 'national revolutionary' groups of Europe. This view is inadequate. The birth of the European nations was largely the work of dynasties representing a tradition of loyalty to a particular crown. In any case, the factors which created the European nations have been the very ones which have maintained European disunity from the Hundred Years War to the present day.
Among those who possess a spiritual and traditional understanding of Europe we can distinguish between those who believe in an Imperium of the kind referred to above, and those who talk of Europe as a nation. The concept of nationhood is in my opinion inappropriate. The notion of European unity is spiritual and supranational. Homeland nation, ethnic group subsist at an essentially naturalistic 'physical' level. Europe (Europa una) should be something more than this. The old nationalisms and resentments are only grafted onto Europe when a particular national domination is imposed by one nation upon the rest of Europe. The European Imperium will belong to a higher order than the parts which compose it, and to be European should be conceived as being something qualitatively different from being Italian, Prussian, Basque, Finnish, Scottish or Hungarian, something which appeals to a different aspect of our character. A European nation implies the levelling and cancelling of all 'rival' nations in or beyond Europe.
So far as 'European culture' is concerned it is these days the stamping-ground of the pragmatic European, the liberal, humanist intellectual. His 'European culture' is an appendage of 'democracy' and the 'Free World'. In this sense 'culture' is the stock-in-trade of the so-called 'aristocrat of thought', in reality the clothing of the parvenu, his badge of success. A genuine aristocracy of the intellect would not in any case be adequate for the task in hand; the re-animation of the European will and the sustaining of a revolutionary elite who could make this a political possibility. What is more, every time that we try to give the notion of 'European culture' concrete significance, we seem to run up against innumerable 'interpretations' which leave us with nothing conclusive at all. Everyone has their own idea about what European culture is and many Europeans feel reticent or even guilty about championing it and so the parvenus can speculate to their hearts' content in the reviews and colour supplements about all the latest developments in this or that field of art in such a way that 'culture' becomes entirely divorced from the 'serious world', from what matters. Ironically, much of what the defenders of culture admire plays a major role in helping to bring about a spiritual crisis and lack of confidence in European culture.
The 'Westernisation' of the world has meant that this decomposition extends across the world—thus Europe, from illuminism to communism has become the breeding ground of the very forces which work to destroy everything which is specifically European.
We must create a 'unity of fighters'. That is a pre-requisite. To set a vision of the world and of Europe aside as 'irrelevant' would be to sink into the morass of political partisan politics, a cynical affair without identity, without spiritual meaning. A united Europe, without a communal spiritual identity and sense of direction would become just one more power bloc. In what way would such a United States of Europe be spiritually distinct from the United States of America or China or be anything nobler than the organisation of African Unity? Europe must not be a stage towards the Westernisation of the world but a move against it, in fact a revolt against the modern world in favour of what is nobler, higher, more truly human.
Fascism as Anti-Europe
Can fascism be the source of an anti-European restoration?
Is fascism powerful enough today to take on such a task?
Fascism arose from below, from confused needs and brutal forces unleashed by the European war. Fascism has thrived on compromises, on rhetoric, on the petty ambitions of petty people. The state organization that it has created is often uncertain, awkward, inexpert, violent, cramped, riddled by ambiguities.
Nevertheless, if we look around us today and note the demise of the only two states - Russia and Germany - that had preserved remnants of hierarchical values (however distorted and materialized) we must draw the conclusion that fascism is the West's best hope.
For better or worse, fascism has developed a body. But this body is still lacking a soul. It is still lacking the superior power (atto) needed to justify it, complete it, make it rise to its feet as a principle opposed to all of Europe. The soul in question can achieve these ends only if fascism manages to resurrect a distinctive system of meta-economics and metapolitical values by means of a radical, profound, absolute upheaval (rivolgimento), a new leap ahead and away from the politics of "normalisation" and bourgeois compromise (imborghesimento) that is beginning to pervade contemporary fascism.
But let's not misunderstand one another.
The breeding ground of fascism were youthful, resolute forces, ready for anything, immune to the evils of "culture". To this day they represent the vital nucleus of fascism, while those who worry about developing a "philosophy of fascism" and a "fascist culture" are themselves symptoms of degeneration, or, at the very least, of a turn away from the path leading to something really new; a true revolution (not one regarding which one can conclude "plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose).
No. Fascism must remain antiphilosophical. Decisevely and crudely so. Tapping into its purest core of force, it must sweep away the filthy film of rhetoric, sentimentalism, moralism, and hypocritical piety with which the West has clouded and humanized everything. There is an irrefutable need for someone to break into the temple - perhaps even a barbarian - to drive out the corrupters of "civilized" Europe, the monopolistic preachers of the "spirit", good and evil, and the divine who actually know only matter and what human words, fear, and superstition have layered over matter.
To all this I reply "That's enough!". My negations is meant to allow a few men to rediscover the long paths, the long danger, the long gaze, and the long silence, to unleash the wind of the open sea - the wind of the MEDITERRANEAN TRADITION - so that it may revive the enslaved men of the West.
Julius Evola, Revolt against the modern world Antiphilosophy, antisentiment, antireligion: these are the premises. No more aestheticisms and idealisms: not a single one! No more thirsting of the soul for a hallucinated God to pray to and adore. No more acceptance of the common ties and mutual interdependencies that bind beggars together on a foundation of lack.
To soar beyond and above with pure faces. Forces that will have to meet a challenge that transcends politics and social concerns, that recoils at the clamorous gesture and superficial resonance, a challenge so great that the material forces vibrating out in the world of people and things can no longer have any effect.
In silence, under conditions of strict discipline, inflexible self-control, seriousness, and simplicity, with the brisk and tenacious effort of individuals, we in Italy must create an elite in whom Wisdom comes to life again. By "wisdom" I mean the power (virtus) that does not allow itself to speak, that rises up out of a hermetic and Pythagorean silence, that comes into being by subduing the senses and the soul, and that manifests itself not by means of arguments and books but through powerful actions.
We must reawaken to a renewed, spiritualized, bitter feeling (sensazione) for the world, not as a philosophical concept but as something that vibrates in the rhythm of our very blood: a feeling for the world as power, as the agile and free rhythmic dance of Shiva, as a sacrificial act (Veda). This feeling will breed strong, hard, active, solar, Mediterranean beings; beings made up of force and eventually only of force; beings infused with a sense of freedom and nobility whose cosmic perspective (respiro cosmico) has been much stammered about but little understood by Europe's "dead". Science today is profane, democratic, and materialistic. Always relative and qualified in its truths, a slave to phenomena and to incomprehensible laws, it remains mute with regard to the profound reality of man. To debunk it we must reawaken in the new elite a sacred science, a science that is inferior and secret and gives rise to initiations, a science of self-fulfillment and self- dignification that taps the occult forces that govern our being and subdues them so as to permit men to be actually (not mythically) reborn as beings superior to the laws of the body and of space and time.
So a race of leaders it will be. Invisible leaders who do not rattle on or parade about but who act irresistibly and are capable of anything. A center will thus exist in decentered Europe.
The problem of hierarchy can only be addressed by creating leaders, a strictly individual and internal problem, resistant to external solutions. Hierarchy can come into being only when there are leaders and not vice versa.
The empire cannot be built on economic, military, industrial, and even "ideal" foundations. The imperium, according to the Iranian and Roman conception, is transcendent. It can only be attained by those who have the power to trascend the petty lives of petty men and their petty appetites, patriostisms, "values", "nonvalues", and gods.
The ancients understood this when they deified their emperors, joining together royal dignity and spiritual dignity. Have the young barbarians who have dared to resurrect the eagle and the fasces learned this lesson? Have they understood that there is no alternative, that this is the only way to transform their "revolution" into the first light that pierces the thick fog of European decadence? Rather than amounting to little more than the small contigency of a small nation, they could plant the seed for a resurgence of Rome throughout the world, the seed for a true restoration.
Julius Evola and Russian Traditionalism
By Alexandre Douguine
1) The Discovery of Evola in Russia
Julius Evola’s works were discovered in the 1960s by the very esoteric group of anti-communist intellectual thinkers known as “the dissidents of the right.” They were a small circle of people who had conscientiously refused to participate in the “cultural life” of the USSR and who had instead chosen an underground existence for themselves. The disparity between the presented Soviet culture and the actual Soviet reality was almost entirely what made them seek out the fundamental principles that could explain the origins of that evil, absolutist idea. It was through their refusal of communism that they discovered certain works by anti-modernist and traditionalist authors: above all, the books by Rene Guenon and by Julius Evola. Two central personalities animated this group – the Islamic philosopher Geidar Djemal and the nonconformist poet Eugene Golovine. Thanks to them, these “dissidents of the right” knew the names and the ideas of the two greatest traditionalists of our century. In the 1970s, one of the first translations of an Evola work (The Hermetic Tradition) appeared and it was distributed within the group according to the methods of Samizdat [note: Samizdat was the system in the former USSR through which officially “impermissible” books made their way around the country; generally these were copies of copies and not well-produced, but they tended to get their point across.]. However, the original translations were particularly bad in quality because they were made by incompetent amateurs far removed from the group of authentic intellectual traditionalists.
In 1981, a translation of Heidnische Imperialismus appeared in a similar manner as the only book of its type available from the Library of Lenin in Moscow. This time around, the distribution through Samizdat had become much larger and the quality of the translation was much better. Little by little, they moved the true current of traditionalism away from anti-communism and towards anti-modernism by extending their complete refusal of Soviet existence to a rejection of the modern world, very much in accordance with the integral traditionalist vision. It should be noted, though, that the ideas of the traditionalists in question at this particular point in time were very far-removed from the other “dissidents of the right” who were generally orthodox Christians, monarchists, and nationalists. Evola, then, was more popular among those who were interested in spiritualism in a broader sense: yoga, theosophy [note: a religious/philosophical school of thought founded by Russian occultist Helena Blavatsky], psychism [note: a theosophic concept relating to all mental phenomena; C.G. Jung discussed it occasionally as well], and so forth.
Throughout Perestroika, all forms of anticommunist dissidence manifested themselves and from the “dissidents of the right” came the current political and cultural ideologies of the Right – nationalist, nostalgic, anti-liberal, and anti-Western. In this context and after the development of strict traditionalist ideas as a result of Glasnost, the names of Guenon and Evola were introduced into Russia’s cultural ensemble. The first works of Evola’s appeared in the 1990s in widely-read parts of the press known to be “patriotic” or “conservative” and the subject of traditionalism became the theme among virulent polemics and was a very big issue in the Russian Right as a whole. Papers like Elementy, Nach Sovremennik, Mily Anguel, Den, etc., began to publish fragments of Evola’s writings or articles inspired by him or ones in which his name and quotes were referenced. Little by little, the “conservative” camp came to have an ideological structure that produced a separation between the old, nostalgic, monarchist Right and the other more open, non-conformist, and less-orthodox Right – sometimes referred to as the “novye pravye” in Russian, one may be inclined to draw parallels to the “nouvelle droite,” but it was a quite separate and altogether different phenomenon from the European ND. One could categorize this second group of “patriots” as being part of the “Third Way” or “national revolutionaries” and so forth. The breaking point came exactly over the acceptance or rejection of Evola’s ideas or perhaps more appropriately over parts of Evola’s ideas that could not be considered “conservative” or “reactionary” in nature, as in the idea of the “Conservative Revolution” and the “Revolt Against the Modern World.”
Recently, the first book – Heidnische Imperialismus – had 50,000 copies published. A television show devoted to Evola has even been made for a popular channel. Thus, one can see that Russia’s discovery of Evola has taken place on a rather broad scale. He who once constituted the hypermarginal intellectual nucleus of Russia before Perestroika has now become a significant political and ideological phenomenon. But it is clear that Evola wrote his books and formulated his ideas in a very different temporal, cultural, historical, and ethnic context. This, therefore, poses a problem: what parts of Evola’s philosophy are relevant to modern Russia and what parts need to be reworked, improved, or even rejected in these circumstances? This requires a brief analysis comparing and contrasting the sacred traditionalism of Evola and the strictly Russian political phenomenon.

2) Against the Modern West
From the very beginning, it is obvious that the rejection of the profane and venal modern world that manifested itself in Western Civilization in the last few centuries is common to both Evola and the entirety of the intellectual tradition of Russian slavophilia. Russian authors like Homyakov, Kirievsky, Aksakov, Leontiev, and Danilevsky among philosophers as well as Dostoevsky, Gogol, and Merejkovsky among novelists criticized the Western world in almost the exact same language as did Evola. One can see that they all had the same hate for the rule of the mob – that is to say, the modern democratic system – and that they regarded it as spiritual degradation and total profanity. Similarly, one can also see the same diagnoses for the sickness of the modern world – profane Freemasonry, deviant Judaism, the advancement of the plebeian, the deification of “reason” – in Evola and the “conservative” Russian culture. Obviously, the reactionary tendency here is shared, and thus Evola’s criticism of the West is totally in-step with and acceptable to the party line of Russian conservatism.
More often than not, one can see that Evola’s criticisms are more closely related to the Russian mentality rather than the broader European one – the same type of generalization, the frequent evocation of mythological and mystical goals, the distinct notion that the internal spirit world is organically separated from the immediate modern realities of perversion and deviance. In general, the Russian conservative tradition of contemporarily explaining historical events in a mythological sense is somewhat obligatory. The appeal of the supernatural/irrational level here is in perfect step with the Russian mindset that renders rational explanation the exception rather than the rule.
One may also note the influence that Russian conservatives exercised on Evola: in his works, he often cites Dostoevsky, Merejkovsky (whom he personally knew) and several other Russian authors. On the other hand, the frequent references he makes to Malynsky and Leon de Poncins partially carry on the counter-revolutionary tradition so typical of being European. One can also cite his references to Serge Nilus, the compiler of the famous Protocols of the Elders Of Zion, which Evola reedited in Italy.
At the same time, it’s clear that Evola knew relatively little about the Russian conservative milieu, and in fact he was not even particularly interested in it owing to his antichristian idiosyncrasy. A propos of the Orthodox tradition, he only made a few insignificant comments. Yet the similarity between his position towards the crisis of the modern world and the anti-modernism of the Russian authors is due largely to the community of organic reactions – Great Men and ‘individuals’ in the case of Evola and heroes in the case of the Russians. But thanks to this spontaneity of anti-modern convergences, the gravity of Evola’s deviation is made all the more interesting and all the more critical.
At any rate, this interpretation of Evola’s ideas fits perfectly within the framework of the modern “novye pravye” ideology to the extent that the latter actually brings more to his vision of the degradation of modernity by sometimes applying his ideas more globally, more radically, and more deeply. In this regard, Evola’s theories are very much accepted in modern Russia, where anti-Westernism is an extremely potent ideological and political factor.
3) Rome and Third Rome
One particular layer of Evola's thoughts is felt by the Russians to be of imminent and extreme importance: his praise for the Imperial Ideal. Rome represents the focal point of Evola's worldview. This sacred living power which had manifested itself all across the Empire was to Evola the very essence of the West's traditional heritage. To Evola, the ruins of Nero's palace and of Roman buildings were like a direct testament to a physical, organic sanctity whose integrity and continuity had been shattered by the Kafkaesque "castle" of the Catholic Vatican Guelph. [NOTE: For those not familiar with Kafka's work, this is a reference to his book entitled "the Castle," which is about a man who takes what should be a relatively simple job in a distant place surveying the land of a local noble, but who is unable to begin -- much less complete -- his job owing to the opposition from the bureaucracy of his own employer (whom he never meets in-person and only through a proxy or a proxy of a proxy) and who is further frustrated by the fact that the Count's huge, oppressive castle is always visible from any part of the town but that he can never actually go there to begin his task. Obviously this is a metaphorical indictment against the overall judeo-christian system and how it relates to seemingly unattainable salvation. Similarly, Guelph refers to a German/Italian coalition of the Middle Ages that supported the royal house of Guelph against the Imperial German Ghibelline dynasty that was hostile to the Pope and to Catholicism.] His Ghibelline train of thought was clear: Imperium against Church, Rome against the Vatican, the immenent and organic sacrality against the devotational and sentimental abstractions of faith, implicitly dualist and Phariseean.
But a similar line of thought is seemingly naturally felt by the Russians, whose historical destiny has always been profoundly tied to that of Imperium. This notion was dogmatically rooted in the Orthodox Concept of staret [NOTE: the starets were spiritual advisers, but not priests: Rasputin could be considered one of these] philosophy - "Moscow: the Third Rome." It should be noted that the "first Rome" in this cyclic orthodox interpretation was not Christian Rome, but rather Imperial Rome, because the second Rome (or the "new Rome") was Constantinople, the capital of the Christian Empire. Thus the same idea of "Rome" held by the Orthodox Russians corresponds to the understanding of sacrality like the importance of that which is Sacred and such as the necessary and inseparable “symphony” between the spiritual authority and the temporal realm. For traditional orthodoxy, the catholic separation between the King and the Pope is simply unimaginable and close to blasphemy, and this very concept is actually called the “Latin heresy.”
Again, one can see the perfect convergence between Evola's dogma and the commonplace mindset of Russian conservative thought. And still again, the clear spiritual exaltation of Imperium in Evola's books is of inestimable value to the Russians in terms of what they view as their true and traditional identity. The "symphonic imperialism" of the Orthodox Russians easily brings to mind Julius Evola's concept of "pagan imperialism," or rather "Ghibelline imperialism."
There is one other important detail that bears mentioning here. It's known that the "author of the Third Reich," Artur Müller van den Bruck, was deeply influenced by the writings of Feodor Dostoevsky, for whom the concept of "the Third Rome" was vitally significant. One can see van den Bruck's same eschatological vision of "the Final Empire," born from a metaphorical convergence between the ideas of the paracletic montanists [NOTE: montanists were the ancient forerunners of the contemporary pentecostal sects, i.e., the ones who believe in personal divine revelation and speaking in tongues] and the prophecies of Joachim de Flora [NOTE: de Flora was the abbot of Corazzo who authored a very prescient essay about the "age of reason" around the year 1200 in which he wrote "in the new day, man would not have to rely on faith, for everything would be founded on knowledge and reason."]. Van den Bruck -- whose ideas were sometimes cited by Evola -- adapted the concept of the Third Rome from the Russian Orthodox tradition and applied it to Germany, where it was subsequently elaborated upon spiritually and socially by the National Socialists. One interesting fact is that Erich Mueller, the protegé of Nikisch [NOTE: Ernst Nikisch, a German nationalist of the same era] -- who was greatly inspired by van den Bruck -- once remarked that if the First Reich had been Catholic [NOTE: ie, the Holy Roman Empire], the Second Reich Protestant [NOTE: ie, Prussia under Friedrich the Great], the Third Reich would have to be exactly Orthodox! But Evola himself participated largely in the intellectual debates of German conservative-revolutionary circles (he was a member of von Gleichen's "Herrenklub," which itself was a continuation of the "Juniklub"founded by van den Bruck) where similary subjects were discussed in a very lively manner. It's now easy to see another way in which the Russian conservative mindset is linked to Evola's theories. Obviously, it's not possible to say their ideas on these particular issues were identical, but at the same time, there are extraordinary connections between the two that help to explain the assimilation of Evola's ideas into Russia's mindset, where its views are far less "extravagant" than those belonging of traditional conservative Europe, which is by and large contemporarily Catholic and Nationalist, and is quite rarely Imperialist.
European Decadence
Present Western "civilization" awaits a substantial upheaval (rivolgimento), without which it is destined, sooner or later, to smash its own head. It has carried out the most complete perversion of the rational order of things. Reign of matter, gold, machines, numbers; in this civilization there is no longer breath or liberty or light. The West has lost its ability to command and to obey. It has lost its feeling for contemplation and action. It has lost its feeling for values, spiritual power, godlike men (uomini-idii). It no longer knows nature. No longer a living body made of symbols, gods, and ritual act, no longer a harmony, a cosmos in which man moves freely like "a kingdom within a kingdom", nature has assumed for the Westerner a dull and fatal exteriority whose mystery the secular sciences seek to bury in trifling laws and hypotheses. It no longer knows Wisdom. It ignores the majestic silence of those who have mastered themselves: the enlightened calm of seers, the exalted reality of those in whom the idea becomes blood, life, and power. Instead it is drowning in the rhetoric of "philosophy" and "culture", the speciality of professors, journalists, and sportsmen who issue plans, programs, and proclamations. Its wisdom has been polluted by a sentimental, religious, humanitarian contagion and by a race of frenzied men who run around noisily celebrating becoming (divenire) and "practice", because silence and contemplation alarm them.
It no longer knows the state, the state as value (stato-valore) crystallized in the Empire. Synthesis of the sort of spirituality and majesty that shone brightly in Chinaa, Egypt, Persia, and Rome, the imperial ideal has been overwhelmed by the bourgeois misery of a monopoly of slaves and traders.
Europe's formidable "activists" no longer know what war is, war desired in and of itself as a virtue higher than winning or losing, as that heroic and sacred path to spiritual fulfilment exalted by the god Krishna in the Baghavad Gita. They know not warriors, only soldiers. And a crummy little war (guerricciola) was enough to terrorize them and drive them to rehashing the rhetoric of humanitarianism, and pathos or, worse still, of windbag nationalism and Dannunzianism.
Julius Evola, Revolt against the modern world Europe has lost its simplicity, its central position, its life. A democratic plague is eating away at its roots, whether in law, science, or speculation. Gone are the leaders, beings who stand out not for their violence, their gold, or for their skills as slave traders but rather for their irreducible qualities of life. Europe is a great irrelevant body, sweating and restless because of an anxiety that no one dares to express. Gold flows in its veins; its flesh is made up of machines, factories, and laborers; its brains are of newsprint. A great irrelevant body tossing and turning, driven by dark and unpredictable forces that mercilessly crush whoever wants to oppose or merely escape the cogwheels.
Such are the achievements of Western "civilization". This is the much ballyhooed result of the superstitious faith in "progress", progress beyond Roman imperiousness, beyond radiant Hellas, beyond the ancient Orient - the great ocean.
And the few who are still capable of great loathing and great rebellion find themselves ever more tightly encircled.
"Our" American Media
Julius Evola, Revolt against the Modern World Americanisation in Europe is widespread and evident. In Italy it is a phenomenon which is rapidly developing in these post-war years and is considered by most people, if not enthusiastically, at least as something natural. Some time ago I wrote that of the two great dangers confronting Europe - Americanism and Communism - the first is the more insidious. Communism cannot be a danger other than in the brutal and catastrophic form of a direct seizure of power by communists. On the other hand Americanisation gains ground by a process of gradual infiltration, effecting modifications of mentalities and customs which seem inoffensive in themselves but which end in a fundamental perversion and degradation against which it is impossible to fight other than within oneself.
It is precisely with respect to such internal opposition that most Italians seem weak. Forgetting their own cultural inheritance they readily turn to the United States as something akin to the parent guide of the world. Whoever wants to be modern has to measure himself according to the American standard. It is pitiable to witness a European country so debase itself. Veneration for America has nothing to do with a cultured interest in the way other people live. On the contrary, servility towards the United States leads one to think that there is no other way of life worth considering on the same level as the American one.
cover Our radio service is Americanised. Without any criterion of superior and inferior it just follows the fashionable themes of the moment and markets what is considered 'acceptable' - acceptable, that is, to the most Americanised section of the public, which is to say the most degenerate. The rest of us are dragged along in its wake. Even the style of presentation on radio has become Americanised. "Who, after listening to an American radio programme, can suppress a shudder when he considers that the only way of escaping communism is by becoming Americanised?" Those are not the words of an outsider but of an American sociologist, James Burnham, professor at the University of Princeton. Such a judgement from an American should make Italian radio programmers blush for shame.
The consequence of the 'do your own thing' democracy is the intoxication of the greater part of the population which is not capable of discriminating for itself, which, when not guided by a power and an ideal, all too easily loses sense of its own identity.
American Morality
Julius Evola, Eros and the Mysteries of Love: The Metaphysics of Sex The much-vaunted sex appeal of American women is drawn from films, reviews and pin-ups, and is in large print fictitious. A recent medical survey in the United States showed that 75 per cent of young American women are without strong sexual feeling and instead of satisfying their libido they seek pleasure narcissistically in exhibitionism, vanity and the cult of fitness and health in a sterile sense.
American girls have 'no hang-ups about sex'; they are 'easy going' for the man who sees the whole sexual process as something in isolation thereby making it uninteresting and matter-of-fact, which, at such a level, it is meant to be. Thus, after she has been taken to the cinema or a dance, it is something like American good manners for the girl to let herself be kissed - this doesn't mean anything. American women are characteristically frigid and materialistic. The man who 'has his way' with an American girl is under a material obligation to her. The woman has granted a material favour. In cases of divorce American law overwhelmingly favours the woman. American women will divorce readily enough when they see a better bargain. It is frequently the case in America that a woman will be married to one man but already 'engaged' to a future husband, the man she plans to marry after a profitable divorce.
On the dark age
from Revolt Against the Modern World by Julius Evola, 1896
In reference to what I previously said concerning what ancient traditions called the Dark Age (Kali Yuga), I will now describe some of the features of this age found in an ancient Hindu text, the Visnu Purana. I will put in brackets what I consider to be the contemporary applications.
Outcastes and barbarians will be masters of the banks of the Indus, Darvika, the Chandrabhaga and Kashmir. These will all be contemporary rulers [of this age] reigning over the earth: kings [rulers] of violent temper.....They will seize upon the property of their subjects; they will be of limited power and will for the most part rapidly rise and fall; their lives will be short, their desires insatiable, and they will display but little piety. The people of various countries intermingling with them will follow their example.....The prevailing caste will be the Shudra.....Vaisyas will abandon agriculture and commerce and gain a livelihood by servitude or the exercise of mechanical arts [proletarization and industrialization].....Kshyatrias instead of protecting will plunder their subjects: and under the pretext of levying customs will rob merchants of their property [crisis of capitalism and of private property; socialization, nationalization, and communism].....Wealth [inner] and piety [following one's dharma] will decrease day by day until the whole world will be wholly depraved. Then property alone will confer rank [the quantity of dollars - economic classes]; wealth [material] will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes; falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation..... Earth will be venerated but for its mineral treasures [unscrupulous exploitation of the soil, demise of the cult of the earth]..... Brahmanical clothes will constitute a Brahman.....weakness will be the cause of dependence [cowardice, death of fides and honor in the modern political forms].....simple ablution [devoid of the power of the true rite] will be purification [can there really be anything more in the alleged salvation procured in the Christian sacraments?]..... In the Kali age men corrupted by unbelievers...will say: "Of what authority are the Vedas? What are gods or Brahmans?....." Observance of caste, order and institutes [traditional] will not prevail in the Kali age. Marriages in this age will not be conformable to the ritual, nor will the rules which connect the preceptor and his disciple be in force.....A regenerated man will be initiated in any way whatever [democracy applied to the spiritual plain] and such acts of penance as may be performed will be unattended by any results [this refers to a "humanistic" and conformist religion].....all orders of life will be common alike to all persons..... He who gives away much money will be the master of men and family descent will no longer be a title of supremacy [the end of traditional nobility, advent of bourgeoisie, plutocracy]..... Men will fix their desires upon riches, even though dishonestly acquired.....Men of all degrees will conceit themselves to be equal with Brahmans [the prevarication and presumption of the intellectuals and modern culture].....The people will be almost always in dread of dearth and apprehensive of scarcity; and will hence ever be watching the appearances of the sky [the meaning of the religious and superstitious residues typical of modern masses]..... The women will pay no attention to the commands of their husbands or parents.....They will be selfish, abject and slatternly; they will be scolds and liars; they will be indecent and immoral in their conduct and will ever attach themselves to dissolute men..... Men having deviated into heresy, iniquity will flourish, and the duration of life will therefore decrease. 
Nevertheless, in the Visnu Parana there are also references to elements of the primordial or "Manu's" race that have been preserved in this Dark Age in order to be the seed of new generations; what appears again is the well-known idea of a new and final epiphany "from above":
When the practices taught by the Vedas and the institutes of law shall nearly have ceased, and the close of the Kali age shall be nigh, a portion of that devine being who exists of his own spiritual nature in the character of Brahma, and who is the beginning and the end, and who comprehends all things, shall descend upon the earth.....He will then reestablish righteousness upon earth; and the minds of those who live at the end of the Kali age shall be awakened, and shall be pellucid as crystal. The men who are thus changed by virtue of that peculiar time shall be the seeds of [new] human beings, and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita age, or age of purity [primordial age]. 
In the same text and chapter it is said that the stock from which this divine principal will be born lives in the village of Shambhala; Shambhala - as I previously suggested - refers to the metaphysics of the "center" and the "pole," to the Hyperborean mystery and the forces of primordial tradition.  
ON JIHAD AND HOLY WAR
Julius Evola (Revolt against the modern world, pages 118-120)
In the Islamic tradition a distinction is made between two holy wars, the "greater holy war" (el-jihadul-akbar) and the "lesser holy war" (el-jihadul-ashgar). This distinction originated from a saying (hadith) of the Prophet, who on the way back from a military expedition said: "You have returned from a lesser holy war to a great holy war." The greater holy war is of an inner and spiritual nature; the other is the material war waged externally against an enemy population with the particular intent of bringing "infidel" populations under the rule of "God's Law" (al-Islam). The relationship between the "greater" and "lesser holy war", however, mirrors the relationship between the soul and the body; in order to understand the heroic asceticism or "path of action", it is necessary to understand the situation in which the two paths merge, the "lesser holy war" becoming the means through which a "greater holy war" is carried out, and vice versa: the "little holy war", or the external one, becomes almost a ritual action that expresses and gives witness to the reality of the first. Originally, orthodox Islam conceived of a unitary form of asceticism: that which is connected to the jihad or "holy war".
The "greater holy war" is man's struggle against the enemies he carries within. More exactly, it is the struggle of man's higher principle against everything that is merely human in him, against his inferior natur and against chaotic impulses and all sorts of material attachments. This is expressly outlined in a text of Aryan warrior wisdom: "Know Him therefore who is above reason; and let his peace give thee peace. Be a warrior and kill desire, the powerful enemy of the soul." (Bhagavadgita 3.43)
The "enemy" who resists us and the "infidel" within ourselves must be subdued and put in chains. This enemy is the animalistic yearning and instinct, the disorganized multiplicity of impulses, the limitations imposed on us by a fictitious self, and thus also fear, wickedness, and uncertainty; this subduing of the enemy within is the only way to achieve inner liberation or the rebirth in a state of deeper inner unity and "peace" in the esoteric and triumphal sense of the word.
In the world of traditional warrior asceticism the "lesser holy war", namely, the external war, is indicated and even prescribed as the means to wage this "greater holy war"; thus in Islam the expressions "holy war" (jihad) and "Allah's way" are often used interchangeably. In this order of ideas action exercises the rigorous function and task of a sacrifical and purifying ritual. The external vicissitudes experienced during a military campaign cause the inner "enemy" to emerge and put up a fierce resistance and agood fight in the form of the animalistic instincts of self-preservation, fear, inertia, compassion, or other passions; those who engage in battles must overcome these feelings by the time they enter the battlefield if they wish to win and to defeat the outer enemy or "infidel".
Obviously the spiritual orientation and the "right intention" (niya), that is, the one toward transcendence (the symbols employed to refer to transcendence are "heaven", "paradise", "Allah's garden" and so on), are supposed as the foundations of jihad, lest war lose its scared character and degenerate into a wild affair in which true heroism is replaced with reckless abandonment and what counts are the unleashed impulses of the animal nature.
It is written in the Koran: "Let those who would exchange the life of this world for the hereafter fight for the cause of Allah; whether they die or conquer, We shall richly reward them." (Koran, 4:76) The presupposition according to which it is prescribed "When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield strike off their heads, and when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly" (Koran 47:4); or, "Do not falter or sue for peace when you have gained the upper hand" (Koran 47:37), is that "the life of this world is but a sport and a past-time" (Koran 47:37) and that "whoever is ungenerous to this cause is ungenerous to himself" (Koran 47:38). These statements should be interpreted along the lines of the evangelical saying: "Whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it: but whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it" (Matthew 16:25). This is confirmed by yet another Koranic passage: "Why is it that when it is said to you: 'March in the cause of Allah.' you linger slothfully in the land? Are you content with this life in preference to the life to come?" (Koran, 9:38) "Say: 'Are you waiting for anything to befall us except victory or martyrdom?'" (Koran, 9:52).
Another passage is relevant as well: "Fighting is obligatory for you, as much as you dislike it. But you may hate a thing although it is good for you, and love a thing although it is bad for you. Allah knows but you do not." (Koran, 2:216). This passage should also be connected with the following one:
"They were content to be with those that stayed behind: a seal was set upon their hearts, leaving them bereft of understanding. But the Apostle and the men who shared his faith fought with their goods and their persons. These shall be rewarded with good things. They shall surely prosper. Allah has prepared them gardens watered by running streams, in which they shall abide forever. That is the supreme triumph." (Koran, 9:88 - 9:89)
This place of "rest" (paradise) symbolizes the superindividual states of being, the realization of which is not confined to the post-mortem alone,as the following passage indicates: "As for those who are slain in the cause of Allah, He will not allow their works to perish. he will vouchsafe them guidance and ennoble their state; He will admit them to the paradise He has made known to them." Koran (47:5-7). In the instance of real death in battle, we find the equivalent of the mors triumphalis found in classical traditions. Those who have experienced the "greater holy war" during the "lesser holy war", have awakened a power that most likely will help them overcome the crisis of death; this power, having already liberated them from the "enemy" and from the "infidel", will help them avoid the fate of Hades. This is why in classical antiquity the hope of the deceased and the piety of his relatives often caused figures of heroes and of victors to be inscribed on the tombstones. It is possible, however, to go through death and conquer, as well as achieve, the superlife and to ascend to the "heavenly realm" while still alive.
ON THE ISLAMIC TRADITION
Julius Evola, Revolt Against The Modern World
Islam, which originated among the Semitic races also consisted of the Law and Tradition, regarded as a formative force, to which the Arab stocks of the origins provided a purer and nobler human material that was shaped by a warrior spirit. The Islamic law (shariah) is a divine law; its foundation, the Koran, is thought of as God's very own word (kalam Allah) as well as a nonhuman work and an "uncreated book" that exists in heaven ab eterno. Although Islam considers itself the "religion of Abraham" it is nevertheless true that (a) it claimed independence from both Judaism and Christianity; (b) the Kaaba, with its symbolism of the center, is a pre-Islamic location and has even older origins that cannot be dated accurately; (c) in the esoteric Islam tradition, the main reference point is al-Khadir, a popular figure conceived as superior to an pre-dating the biblical prophets (Koran 18:59-81). In early Islam the only form of asceticism was action, that is, jihad, or "holy war"; this type of war, at least theoretically, should never be interrupted until the full consolidation of the divine Law has been achieved. Finally, Islam presents a traditional completeness, since the shariah and the sunna, that is, the exoteric law and tradition, have their complement not in vague mysticism, but in full-fledged initiatory organizations (turuq) that are categorized by an esoteric teaching (tawil) and by the metaphysical doctrine of the Supreme Identity (tawhid). In these organizations, and in general in the shia, the recurrent notions of the masum, of the double perogative of the isma (doctrinal infallibility), and of the impossibility of being stained by any sin (which is the perogative of the leaders, the visible and invisible Imams and the mujtahid), lead back to the line of an unbroken race shaped by a tradition at a higher level than both Judaism and the religious beliefs that conquered the West.
Julius Evola
On Islam and Tradition, (Revolt Agains The Modern World, pages 243 - 244)
Even though it began relatively recently, I will briefly refer to another tradition, Islam, which originated among the Semitic races and succeeded in overcoming those negative motifs. As in the case of priestly Judaism, the center in Islam also consisted on the Law and Tradition, regarded as a formative force, to which the Arab stocks of the origins provided a purer and nobler human material that was shaped by a warrior spirit. The Islamic law (shariah) is a divine law; its foundation, the Koran, is thought of as God's very own word (kalam Allah) as well as a nonhuman work and an "uncreated book" that exists in heaven ab eterno. Although Islam considers itself the "religion of Abraham", even to the point of attributing to him the foundation of the Kaaba (in which we find again the theme of the "stone", or the symbol of the "center"), it is nevertheless true that (a) it claimed independence from both Judaism and Christianity; (b) the Kaaba, with its symbolism of the center, is a pre-Islamic location and has even older origins that cannot be dated accurately; (c) in the esoteric Islam tradition, the main reference point is al-Khadir, a popular figure conceived as superior to an pre-dating the biblical prophets (Koran 18:59-81). Islam rejects a theme found in Judaism and that in Christianity became the dogma and the basis fof the mystery of the incantation of the Logos; it retains, sensibly attenuated, the myth of Adam's fall without building upon it the theme of "original sin". In this doctrine Islam saw a "diabolical illusion" (talbis Iblis) or the inverted theme of the fall of Satan (Iblis or Shaitan), which the Koran (18:48) attributed to his refusal, together with all his angels, to bow down before Adam. Islam also not only rejected the idea of a Redeemer or Savior, which is so central in Christianity, but also the mediation of a priestly caste. By conceiving the Divine in terms of an absolute and pure monotheism, without a "Son", a "Father", or a "Mother of God", every person as a Muslim appears to respond directly to God and to be sanctified through the Law, which permeates and organizes life in a radical unitary way in all of its juridicial, religious, and social ramifications. In early Islam the only form of asceticism was action, that is, jihad, or "holy war"; this type of war, at least theoretically, should never be interrupted until the full consolidation of the divine Law has been achieved. it is precisely through the holy war, and not through preaching or missionary endeavor, that Islam came to enjoy a sudden, prodigious expansion, originating the empire of the Caliphs as well as forging a unity typical of a race of the spirit, namely, the umma or "Islamic nation". Finally, Islam presents a traditional completeness, since the shariah and the sunna, that is, the exoteric law and tradition, have their complement not in vague mysticism, but in full-fledged initiatory organizations (turuq) that are categorized by an esoteric teaching (tawil) and by the metaphysical doctrine of the Supreme Identity (tawhid). In these organizations, and in general in the shia, the recurrent notions of the masum, of the double perogative of the isma (doctrinal infallibility), and of the impossibility of being stained by any sin (which is the perogative of the leaders, the visible and invisible Imams and the mujtahid), lead back to the line of an unbroken race shaped by a tradition at a higher level than both Judaism and the religious beliefs that conquered the West.
The Meaning and Context of Zen
by Baron Julius Evola
We know the kind of interest Zen has evoked even outside specialized disciplines, since being popularized in the west by D.T. Suzuki through his books Introduction to Zen Buddhism and Essays in Zen Buddhism. This popular interest is due to the paradoxical encounter between East and West. The ailing West perceives that Zen has something "existential" and surrealistic to offer. Zen's notion of a spiritual realization, free from any faith and any bond, not to mention the mirage of an instantaneous and somehow gratuitous "spiritual breakthrough", has exercised a fascinating attraction on many Westerners. However, this is true, for the most part, only superficially. There is a considerable difference between the spiritual dimension of the "philosophy of crisis", which has become popular in the West as a consequence of its materialistic and nihilist development, and the spiritual dimension of Zen, which has been rooted in the spirituality of the Buddhist tradition. Any true encounter between Zen and the West, presupposes, in a Westerner, either an exceptional predisposition, or the capability to operate a metanoia. By metanoia I mean an inner turnabout, affecting not so much one's intellectual "attitudes", but rather a dimension which in every time and in every place has been conceived as a deeper reality.
Zen has a secret doctrine and not to be found in scriptures. It was passed on by the Buddha to his disciple Mahakassapa. This secret doctrine was introduced in China around the sixth century C.E. by Bodhidharma. The canon was transmitted in China and Japan through a succession on teachers and "patriarchs". In Japan it is a living tradition and has many advocates and numerous Zendos ("Halls of Meditation").
As far as the spirit informing the tradition is concerned, Zen may be considered as a continuation of early Buddhism. Buddhism arose as a vigorous reaction against the theological speculation and the shallow ritualism into which the ancient Hindu priestly caste had degraded after possessing a sacred, lively wisdom since ancient times. Buddha mad tabula rassa of all this: he focused instead on the practical problem of how to overcome what in the popular mind is referred to as "life's suffering". According to esoteric teachings, this suffering was considered as the state of caducity, restlessness, "thirst" and the forgetfulness typical of ordinary people. Having followed the path leading to spiritual awakening and to immortality without external aid, Buddha pointed the way to those who felt an attraction to it. It is well known that Buddha is not a name, but an attribute or a title meaning "the awakened One", "He who has achieved enlightenment", or "the awakening". Buddha was silent about the content of his experience, since he wanted to discourage people from assigning to speculation and philosophizing a primacy over action. Therefore, unlike his predecessors, he did not talk about Brahman (the absolute), or about Atman (the transcendental Self), but only employees the term nirvana, at the risk of being misunderstood. Some, in fact, thought, in their lack of understanding, that nirvana was to be identified with the notion of "nothingness", an ineffable and evanescent transcendence, almost bordering on the limits of the unconscious and of a state of unaware non-being. So, in a further development of Buddhism, what occurred again, mutatis mutandi, was exactly the situation against which Buddha had reacted; Buddhism became a religion, complete with dogmas, rituals, scholasticism and mythology. It eventually became differentiated into two schools: Mahayana and Hinayana. The former was more grandiose in metaphysics an Mahayana eventually grew complacent with its abstruse symbolism. The teachings of the latter school were more strict and to the point, and yet too concerned about the mere moral discipline which became increasingly monastic. Thus the essential and original nucleus, namely the esoteric doctrine of the enlightenment, was almost lost.
At this crucial time Zen appeared, declaring the uselessness of these so-called methods and proclaiming the doctrine of satori. Satori is a fundamental inner event, a sudden existential breakthrough, corresponding in essence to what I have called the "awakening". But this formulation was new and original and it constituted a radical change in approach. Nirvana, which had been variously considered as the alleged Nothingness, as extinction, and as the final end result of an effort aimed at obtaining liberation (which according to some may require more than one lifetime), now came to be considered as the normal human condition. By these lights, every person has the nature of Buddha and every person is already liberated, and therefore, situated above and beyond birth and death. It is only necessary to become aware of it, to realize it, to see within one's nature, according to Zen's main expression. Satori is like a timeless opening up. On the one hand, satori is something sudden and radically different from all the ordinary human states of consciousness; it is like a catastrophic trauma within ordinary consciousness. On the other hand, satori is what leads one back to what, in a higher sense, should be considered as normal and natural; thus, it is the exact opposite of an ecstasis, or trance. It is the rediscovery and the appropriation of one's true nature: it is the enlightenment which draws out of ignorance or out of the subconscious the deep reality of what was and will always be, regardless of one's condition in life. The consequence of satori is a completely new way to look at the world and at life. To those who have experienced it, everything is the same (things, other beings, one's self, "heaven, the rivers and the vast earth"), and yet everything is fundamentally different. It is as if a new dimension was added to reality, transforming the meaning and value. According to the Zen Masters, the essential characteristic of the new experience is the overcoming of very dualism: of the inner and outer; the I and not I; of finitude and infinity; being and not-being; appearance and reality; "empty" and "full"; substance and accidents. Another characteristic is that any value posed by the finite and confused consciousness of the individual, is no longer discernible. And thus, the liberated and the non-liberated, the enlightened and the non-enlightened, are yet one and same thing. Zen effectively perpetuates the paradoxical equation of Mahayana Buddhism, nirvana-samsara, and the Taoist saying "the return is infinitely far". It is as if Zen said: liberation should not be looked for in the next world; the very world is the next world; it is liberation and it does not need to be liberated. This is the point of view of satori, of perfect enlightenment, of "transcendent wisdom" (prajnaparamita)
Basically, this consciousness is a shift of the self's center. In any situation and in any event of ordinary life, including the most trivial ones, the ordinary, dualistic and intellectual sense of one's self is substituted with a being who no longer perceives an "I" opposed to a "non-I", and who transcends and overcomes any antithesis. This being eventually comes to enjoy a perfect freedom an incoercibility. He is like the wind, which blows where it wills, and like a naked being which is everything after "letting go" -abandons everything, embracing poverty.
Zen, or at least mainstream Zen, emphasizes the discontinuous, sudden and unpredictable character of satori disclosure. In regard to this, Suzuki was at fault when he took issue with the techniques used in Hindu schools such as Samkya and Yoga. These techniques were also contemplated in early Buddhist texts. Suzuki employed the simile of water, which in a moment turns into ice. He also used the simile of an alarm, which, as a consequence of some vibration, suddenly goes off. There are no disciplines, techniques or efforts, according to Suzuki, which by themselves may lead one to satori. On the contrary, it is claimed that satori often occurs spontaneously, when one has exhausted all the resources of his being, especially the intellect and logical faculty of understanding. In some cases satori it is said to be facilitated by violent sensations and even by physical pain. Its cause may be the mere perception of an object as well as any event in ordinary life, provided a certain latent predisposition exists in the subject.
Regarding this, some misunderstandings may occur. Suzuki acknowledged that "generally speaking, there are no indications on the inner work preceding satori". However, he talked about the necessity of first going through "a true baptism of fire". After all, the very institution of the so-called "Halls of Meditation" (Zendo), where those who strive to obtain a satori submit themselves to a regimen of life which is partially analogous to that of some Catholic religious orders, bespeaks the necessity of a preliminary preparation. This preparation may last for several years. The essence of Zen seems to consist in a maturation process, identical to the one in which one almost reaches a state of an acute existential instability. At that point, the slightest push is sufficient to produce a change of state, a spiritual breakthrough, the opening which leads to the "intuitive vision of one's nature". The Masters know the moment in which the mind of the disciple is mature and ready to open up; it is ten that they eventually give the final. Decisive push. This push may sometimes consist of a simple gesture, an exclamation, in something apparently irrelevant, or even illogical and absurd. This suffices to induce the collapse of the false notion of individuality. Thus, satori replaces this notion with the "normal state", and one assumes the "original face, which one had before creation". One no longer "chases after echoes" and "shadows". This under some aspects brings to mind the existential theme of "failure", or of "being shipwrecked" (das Scheitern, in Kierkegaard and in Jaspers). In fact, as I have mentioned, the opening often takes place when all the resources of one's being have been exhausted and one has his back against the wall. This can be seen in relation to some practical teachings methods used by Zen. The most frequently employed methods, on an intellectual plane, are the koan and the mondo. The disciple is confronted with a saying or with questions which are paradoxical, absurd and sometimes even grotesque and "surrealistic". He must labor with his mind, if necessary for years, until he has reached the extreme limit of all his normal faculties of comprehension. Then, if he dares proceed further on that road he may find catastrophe, but if he can turn the situation upside down, he may achieve metanoia. This is the point where satori is usually achieved.
Zen's norm is that of absolute autonomy; no gods, no cults, no idols. To literally empty oneself of everything, including God. "If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him", a saying goes. It is necessary to abandon everything, without leaning on anything, and then to proceed forward, with one's essence, until the crisis point is reached. It is very difficult to say more about satori, or to compare it with various forms of initiatory mystical experience whether Eastern or Western. One is supposed to spend only the training period in Zen monasteries. Once the disciple has achieved satori, he return to the world, choosing a way of life that fits his need. One may think of satori as a form of transcendence which is brought to immanence, as a natural state, in every form of life.
The behavior which proceeds from the newly acquired dimension, which is added to reality as a consequence of satori, may well be summarized by Lao Tzu's expression: "To be the whole in the part". In regard to this, it is important to realize the influence which Zen has exercised on the Far-Eastern way of life. Zen has been called "the samurai's philosophy," and it had also been said that "the way of Zen is identical to the way of archery," or to the "way of the sword". This means that any activity in one's life, may be permeated by Zen and thus be elevated to a higher meaning, to a "wholesomeness" and to an "impersonal activity". This kind of activity is based on a sense of the individual's irrelevance, which nevertheless does not paralyze one's actions, but which rather confers cam and detachment. This detachment, in turn, favors an absolute and "pure" undertaking of life, which in some cases reaches extreme and distinct forms of self-sacrifice and heroism, inconceivable to the majority of Westerners (e.g. the kamikaze in WWII).
Thus, what C.G. Jung claims is simply ridiculous, namely that Psychoanalysis, more than any other Western school of thought, is capable of understanding Zen. According to Jung, satori coincides with the state of wholeness, devoid of complexes or inner splitting, which psychoanalytic treatment claims to achieve whenever the intellect's obstructions and its sense of superiority are removed, and whenever the conscious dimension of the soul is reunited with the unconscious and with "Life". Jung did not realize that the methods and presuppositions of Zen, are exactly the opposite of his own. There is no "subconscious", as a distinct entity, to which the conscious has to be reconnected; Zen speaks of a superconscious vision (enlightenment, bodhi or "awakening"), which actualizes the "original and luminous nature" and which, in so doing, destroys the unconscious. It is possible though, to notice similarities between Jung's view's and Zen', since they both talk about the feeling of one's "totality" and freedom which is manifested in every aspect of life. However, it is important to explain the level at which these views appear to coincide.
Once Zen found its way to the West, there was a tendency to "domesticate" and to moralize it, playing down its potential radical and "antinomian" (namely, antithetical to current norms) implications, and by emphasizing the standard ingredients which are held so dear by "spiritual" people, namely love and service to one's neighbor, even though these ingredients have been purified in an impersonal and non-sentimental form. Generally speaking, there are many doubts on the "practicability" o f Zen, considering that the "doctrine of the awakening" has an initiatory character.
Thus, it will only be able to inspire a minority of people, in contrast to later Buddhist views, which took the form of a religion open to everyone, for the most part a code of mere morality. As the re-establishment of the spirit of early Buddhism, Zen should have strictly been an esoteric doctrine. It has been so as we can see by examining the legend concerning its origins. However, Suzuki himself was inclined to give a different account; he emphasized those aspects of Mahayana which "democratize" Buddhism (after all, the term Mahayana has been interpreted to mean "Great Vehicle", even in the sense that it extends to wider audiences, and not just to a few elect). If one was to fully agree with Suzuki, some perplexities on the nature and on the scope of satori may arise. One should ask whether such an experience merely affects the psychological, moral or mental domain, or whether it affects the ontological domain, as is the case in every authentic initiation. In that event, it can only be the privilege a very restricted number of people.
The Plurality and Duality of Civilizations
Recently, in contrast to the notion of progress and the idea that history has been represented as the more or less continuous upward evolution of collective humanity, the idea of a plurality of the forms of civilization and of a relative incommunicability between them has been confirmed.
According to this second and new version of history, civilization breaks down into epochs and disconnected cycles. At a given moment and within a given race a specific conception of the world and of life is affirmed from which follows a specific system of truths, principles, understandings, and realizations. A civilization springs up, gradually reaches a culminating point, and then falls into darkness and, more often than not, disappears.
A cycle has ended. Perhaps another will rise again some day, somewhere else. Perhaps it may even take up the concerns of preceding civilizations, but any connection between them will be strictly analogical. The transition from one cycle of civilization to another - one completely alien to the other - implies a jump, which in mathematics is called a discontinuity. Although this view is a healthy reaction to the superstition of history as progress - which came into fashion more or less at the same time as materialism and Western scientism-nevertheless, we should be cautious, for in addition to a plurality of civilizations we have to recognize a duality, especially when we limit ourselves to those times and essential structures that we can embrace with some measure of certainty.
Modern civilization stands on one side and on the other the entirety of all the civilizations that have preceded it (for the West, we can put the dividing line at the end of the Middle Ages). At this point the rupture is complete. Apart from the multitudinous variety of its forms, pre-modern civilization, which we may as well call "traditional", means something quite different. For there are two worlds, one which has separated itself by cutting off nearly every contact with the past. For the great majority of moderns, that means any possibility of understanding the traditional world has been completely lost.
This premise is indispensable for the examination of our subject [alchemy]. The hermetico-alchemical tradition forms part of the cycle of pre-modern "traditional" civilization and in order to understand its spirit we need to translate it inwardly from one world to the other. Who undertakes this study without having acquired the ability to rise above the modern mind-set or who has not awakened to a new sensitivity that can place itself in contact with the general spiritual stream that gave life to the tradition in the first place, will succeed only in filling his head with words, symbols, and fantastic allegories. Moreover, it is not just a question of intellectual understanding. We have to bear in mind that ancient man not only had a different way of thinking and feeling, but also a different way of perceiving and knowing. The heart of the matter that will concern us is to re-evoke, by means of an actual transformation of the consciousness, this older basis of understanding and action.
Only then will the unexpected light of certain expression dawn on us and certain symbols be empowered to awaken our interior perception. Only then will we be conducted through them to new heights of human realization and to the understanding that will make it possible for designated "rites" to confer "magical" and operant power, and for the creation of a new "science" that bears no resemblance to anything that goes by that name today.