Occultism and Esotericism
By 1920, Evola's interests led him to spiritual, transcendental, and "suprarational" studies. He began to read several esoteric texts and gradually delved into occultism, alchemy, magic and oriental studies, especially Tibetan tantric yoga. A mountaineering enthusiast, Evola described this experience as a source of revelatory spiritual experiences. After his return from the war, Evola experimented with hallucinogens and magic.
When he was about 23, Evola considered suicide. He claimed that he avoided suicide thanks to a revelation he had while reading an ancient Buddhist text that tried to detach himself from any form of identity other than absolute transcendence. Evola would later publish the text The Doctrine of Awakening, which he considered a payment of his debt to Buddhism for having saved him from suicide.
Evola wrote about Eastern mysticism, tantra, hermeticism, the myth of the Holy Grail, and Western esotericism. The German Egyptologist and scholar of esotericism Florian Ebeling has pointed out that Evola's The Hermetic Tradition is considered an "extremely important work on Hermeticism" in the eyes of esotericists. Evola paid special attention to Cesare della Riviera's text Il Mondo Magico degli Heroi, which he later republished in modern Italian. He argued that Riviera's text was in line with the goals of "high magic," that is, the transformation of the earthly human being into a transcendental "god-man." According to Evola, the supposed "timeless" traditional science was able to reach a lucid expression through this text, despite the "coverings" that were added to it to avoid the accusations of the church. Although Evola rejected Carl Jung's interpretation of alchemy, Jung described Evola's Hermetic Tradition as a "masterful account of Hermetic philosophy." In Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition, the philosopher Glenn Alexander Magee favored Evola's interpretation over Jung's.
In 1988, a magazine dedicated to Hermetic thought published a section of Evola's book and described it as "Luciferian."
Evola later confessed that he was not a Buddhist, and that his text on Buddhism was intended to balance his earlier work on the Hindu tantras. Evola's interest in tantra was stimulated by correspondence with John Woodroffe. Evola was drawn to the active aspect of tantra and its claim to provide a practical means for spiritual experience, as opposed to the more "passive" approaches of other forms of Eastern spirituality. In Tantric Buddhism in East Asia, Richard K. Payne, dean of the Institute of Buddhist Studies, argued that Evola manipulated tantra in the service of right-wing violence, and that the emphasis on "power" in The Yoga of Power made it possible to understand his mentality.
Evola advocated that "differentiated individuals" who followed the Left-Hand Way should use violent and dark sexual powers against the modern world. For Evola, these "virile heroes" are both generous and cruel, possessing the ability to rule, and committing "Dionysian" acts that might be conventionally considered immoral. For Evola, the Way of the Left Hand embraces violence as a means of transgression.
Magical idealism
Thomas Sheehan wrote that "Evola's early philosophical works of the 1920s were devoted to reshaping neo-idealism from a philosophy of Spirit and Absolute Mind to a philosophy of the 'absolute individual' and action." Consequently, Evola developed the doctrine of "magical idealism," which held that "the Ego must understand that everything that appears to have a reality independent of it is nothing more than an illusion, caused by its own deficiency." For Evola, this ever-increasing unity with the "absolute individual" was consistent with unlimited freedom and therefore with unconditional power. In his 1925 work Essays on Magical Idealism, Evola declared that "God does not exist. The Ego must create it by becoming divine."
According to Sheehan, Evola discovered the power of metaphysical mythology while developing his theories. This led him to defend suprarational intellectual intuition against discursive knowledge. In Evola's opinion, discursive knowledge separates man from Being. Author Sheehan claimed that this position is a theme in certain interpretations of Western philosophers such as Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Martin Heidegger that was exaggerated by Evola. Evola would later write:
Evola developed a doctrine of the "two natures": the natural world and the primordial "world of Being". He believed that these "two natures" impose form and quality on lower matter and create a hierarchical "great chain of Being." He understood "spiritual virility" to mean orientation toward this postulated transcendent principle. He argued that the State should reflect this "ordering from above" and the consequent hierarchical differentiation of individuals according to their "organic preformation". By "organic preformation" he meant that which "gathers, preserves and perfects the talents and qualifications of each one for certain functions".
Ur Group
Evola was introduced to esotericism by Arturo Reghini, who was one of the first supporters of fascism. Reghini intended to promote a "cultured magic" opposed to Christianity and introduced Evola to the traditionalist René Guénon. In 1927, Reghini and Evola, along with other Italian esotericists, founded the Gruppo di your ("your Group"). The purpose of this group was to attempt to bring the individual identities of its members into a state of power and consciousness so superhuman that they could exert a magical influence on the world. The group employed techniques from Buddhist, Tantric, and Hermetic texts. Its aim was to provide a "soul" to the burgeoning fascist movement of the time by reviving the ancient Roman religion, and to influence the fascist regime through esotericism.
Opinions on breed
Evola's dissent from standard biological concepts of race was rooted in his aristocratic elitism, as Nazi völkisch ideology did not adequately separate the aristocracy from the "commoners." According to European studies professor Paul Furlong, Evola developed "the law of caste regression" in Revolt Against the Modern World and other writings on racism in the 1930s and the World War II period. In Evola's opinion, "power and civilization have progressed from one to the other of the four castes – sacred leaders, warrior nobility, bourgeoisie (economy, 'merchants') and slaves." Furlong explains: "For Evola, the core of racial superiority lay in the spiritual qualities of the upper castes, which were expressed in both physical and cultural traits, but not determined by them. The law of caste regression places racism at the center of Evola's philosophy, as it sees a growing predominance of inferior races that is directly expressed through modern mass democracies."
In 1941, Evola's book Synthesis of the Doctrine of Race (Italian: Sintesi di Dottrina della Razza) was published by the Hoepli publishing house. It provides an overview of his ideas on race and eugenics, introducing the concepts of "spiritual racism", and "esoteric-traditionalist racism".
Before the end of the war, Evola had frequently used the term "Aryan" to refer to the nobility, which in his view was imbued with traditional spirituality. Wolff notes that Evola seems to have stopped writing about race in 1945, but adds that the intellectual themes of Evola's writings did not otherwise change. Evola went on to write about elitism and his contempt for the weak. His "doctrine of the Aryan-Roman 'superrace' was simply restated as a doctrine of the 'leaders of men'... no longer with reference to the SS, but to the medieval Teutonic Knights of the Knights Templar, already mentioned in Rivolta".
Evola spoke of "inferior non-European races". Peter Merkl wrote that "Evola was never willing to completely dismiss the value of blood." Evola wrote, "a certain balanced consciousness and the dignity of the race can be considered healthy" in an age when "the exaltation of the Negro and everything else, anti-colonialist psychosis, and integrationist fanaticism [are] parallel phenomena in the decay of Europe and the West." Although he was not totally against race mixing, in 1957, Evola wrote an article in which he attributed the perceived acceleration of American decline to the influence of "blacks" and opposition to segregation. Furlong noted that this article is "one of the most extreme in phraseology of any he wrote, and it exhibits a degree of bigotry that leaves no doubt as to his deep prejudice against blacks."
National mystique
For his spiritual interpretation of different racial psychologies, Evola found the work of the German race theorist Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss invaluable. Like Evola, Clauss believed that the physical race and the spiritual race could diverge as a result of miscegenation. Evola's racism included that of the body, the soul, and the spirit, giving primacy to the latter factor, writing that "the races only declined when their spirit failed."
Like René Guénon, Evola believed that humanity is living in the Kali Yuga of the Hindu tradition, the Dark Ages of unleashed materialistic appetites. He argued that both Italian fascism and Nazism represented the hope that the "heavenly" Aryan race would be reconstituted. He drew on mythological accounts of superraces and their decline, particularly the Hyperboreans, and argued that traces of Hyperborean influence could be felt in Indo-European man. He considered that Indo-European men had evolved from these superior mythological races.
Gregor noted that several contemporary critiques of Evola's theory were published: "In one of the most important theoretical journals of fascism, Evola's critic pointed out that many Nordic Aryans, not to mention Mediterranean Aryans, demonstrate no Hyperborean properties. Instead, they make evident their materialism, their sensuality, their disregard for loyalty and sacrifice, along with their consuming greed. How do they differ from the 'inferior' races, and why should anyone wish in any way to favor them?"
Views on Jews
Evola endorsed Otto Weininger's views on the Jews. Although Evola regarded Jews as corrosive and anti-traditional, he described Adolf Hitler's most fanatical anti-Semitism as a paranoid idée fixe that damaged the reputation of the Third Reich. Evola's conception did not emphasize the Nazi racial conception of Jews as "representatives of a biological race"—in Evola's view Jews were "the bearers of a worldview... a spirit [that] corresponded to the 'worst' and 'most decadent' features of modernity: democracy, egalitarianism and materialism."
Evola argued that the invented anti-Semitic text The Protocols of the Elders of Zion – whether or not it was a forgery – accurately reflected the conditions of modernity. He believed that the Protocols "contain the plan of a hidden war, the aim of which is the total destruction, among non-Jewish peoples, of all traditions, classes, aristocracy and hierarchy, and of all moral, religious and spiritual values." He wrote the foreword to the second Italian edition of the Protocols, which was published by the fascist Giovanni Preziosi in 1938.
After the assassination of his friend Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, leader of the fascist Romanian Iron Guard, Evola expressed his prediction of a "Talmudic and Israelite tyranny".
However, Evola believed that the Jews had this "power" only because of the European "decadence" in modernity. He also believed that one could be "Aryan," but have a "Jewish" soul, just as one could be "Jewish," but have an "Aryan" soul. In Evola's view, Otto Weininger and Carlo Michelstaedter were Jews of character "sufficiently heroic, ascetic, and sacral" to fit into the latter category.
Fascism
Evola developed a line of argument, closely related to the spiritual orientation of traditionalist writers such as René Guénon and the political concerns of the European authoritarian right. The first political work published by Evola was an anti-fascist article in 1925. In this work, Evola described the Italian fascist movement as a "laughable revolution", based on empty sentiment and materialistic concerns. He applauded Mussolini's anti-bourgeois orientation and his goal of turning Italian citizens into hardened warriors, but he criticized fascist populism, party politics, and the elements of leftism he saw in the fascist regime. Evola considered Mussolini's Fascist Party to have no cultural or spiritual foundation. He was passionate about infusing it with these elements in order to adapt it to his ideal conception of the Übermensch culture that, in Evola's opinion, characterized the imperial greatness of pre-Christian Europe. He expressed an anti-nationalist sentiment, stating that in order to become "truly human" it was necessary to "overcome fraternal contamination" and "purge" oneself of the feeling of being united to others "by blood, affections, homeland or human destiny." It was also opposed to the Futurism that Italian fascism aligned with, along with the "plebeian" nature of the movement. Consequently, Evola launched the magazine La Torre, to express his concerns and advocate for a more elitist fascism. Evola's ideas were poorly received by the fascist current as it was at the time he wrote.
Mussolini
Scholars disagree on the reasons why Benito Mussolini adopted racist ideology in 1938: some scholars have written that Mussolini was motivated more by political considerations than by ideology when he introduced anti-Semitic legislation in Italy. Other scholars have rejected the argument that the racial ideology of Italian fascism could be attributed solely to Nazi influence.
A more recent interpretation is that Mussolini was frustrated by the slow pace of fascist transformation and, by 1938, had adopted increasingly radical measures that included a racial ideology. Aaron Gillette has written that "racism would become the key driving force in the creation of the new fascist man, the fascist uomo."
Mussolini read Evola's Synthesis of the Doctrine of Race in August 1941, and met with Evola to offer his praise. Evola later recounted that Mussolini had found in his work a uniquely Roman form of fascist racism, distinct from that of Nazi Germany. With Mussolini's support, Evola began preparing the launch of a minor magazine Sangue e Spirito (Blood and Spirit) that never appeared. Although he did not always agree with German racial theorists, Evola traveled to Germany in February 1942 and gained support for German collaboration in Sangue e Spirito from "key figures in the German racial hierarchy." The fascists appreciated the palingetic value of Evola's "proof" "that the true representatives of the state and culture of ancient Rome were people of the Nordic race." Evola eventually became Italy's leading racial philosopher.
Evola mixed Sorelianism with Mussolini's eugenic program. Evola has written that "The theory of the Aryan-Roman race and its corresponding myth could integrate the Roman idea proposed, in general, by fascism, as well as give a foundation to Mussolini's plan to use his state as a means to elevate the average Italian and to enucleate in him a new man."
In May 1951, Evola was arrested and charged with promoting the resurgence of the Fascist Party and glorifying fascism. In defending himself at trial, Evola declared that his work belonged to a long tradition of anti-democratic writers who could certainly be linked to fascism – at least fascism interpreted according to certain Evolian criteria – but who certainly could not be identified with Mussolini's fascist regime. Evola then declared that he was not a fascist, but that he was "superfascisti" (lit. 'super-fascist'). He was acquitted.
Third Reich
Finding Italian fascism too compromised, Evola began to seek recognition from Nazi Germany. Evola spent a lot of time in Germany in 1937 and 1938, and gave a series of lectures to the German-Italian Society in 1938.
Evola confronted Nazi populism and biological materialism. The SS authorities initially rejected Evola's ideas as supranationalist and aristocratic, although he was better received by members of the conservative revolutionary movement. The Nazi Ahnenerbe reported that many regarded his ideas as pure "fantasy" that ignored "historical facts." Evola admired Heinrich Himmler, whom he knew personally, but had reservations about Adolf Hitler due to Hitler's dependence on völkisch nationalism.
Himmler's Schutzstaffel ("SS") maintained a dossier on Evola—document AR-126 described his plans for a "Roman-Germanic Empire" as "utopian" and called him a "reactionary Roman," whose goal was an "insurrection of the old aristocracy against the modern world." The document recommended that the SS "put an end to its effectiveness in Germany" and not lend it any support, especially because of its desire to create a "secret international order."
Despite this opposition, Evola was able to establish political connections with pan-European elements within the Reich Security Central Office.
Evola later rose to the inner circles of Nazism when the influence of the defenders of pan-Europeanism surpassed that of the defenders of völkisch, due to military contingencies.
Evola wrote the article Reich and Imperium as Elements of the New European Order for the Nazi-backed journal European Review. He spent World War II working for the Sicherheitsdienst. The office of the Sicherheitsdienst Amt VII, a research library of the Reich Security Central Office, helped Evola acquire arcane occult and Masonic texts.
Italian fascism went into decline when, in 1943, Mussolini was deposed and imprisoned. At that time, Evola fled to Germany with the help of the Sicherheitsdienst.
Although he was not a member of the National Fascist Partyand despite his apparent problems with the Fascist regime, Evola was one of the first people to greet Mussolini when he was taken out of prison by Otto Skorzeny in September 1943. Evola later helped welcome Mussolini to Adolf Hitler's Wolf Lair.
Evola then became involved in Mussolini's Italian Social Republic. Evola had the habit of walking around the city of Vienna during the bombings to "reflect better on his fate". During one of these bombings, in 1945, a fragment of a shell damaged his spinal cord and he was paralyzed from the waist down, remaining so for the rest of his life.
