The Weakened Regal
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

The author traces the weakening of the regal idea from 'god-kings' to 'heroes' and finally to merely human leaders as a process of spiritual decline.

...civilization in which the tyranny of the pure demos and the world of the masses is increasingly and frightfully reawakening in the structures of mechanization. Initiation and Consecration Having defined the essence of both the pinnacle and center of a traditional civilization, it is necessary to describe briefly some of its external features that refer to already conditioned existential situations. This will enable me to indicate the origin of the first alteration of the world of Tradition.
The regal idea occurs in an already weakened form when it no longer becomes incarnated in beings who are naturally above human limitations, but rather in beings who must develop this quality within themselves. In the ancient Hellenic tradition, such a distinction corresponded analogically to that between a "god" (Olympian ideal) and a "hero." In terms of the Roman tradition this distinction was formally sanctioned through the titles of deus and divus, the latter always designating a man who had become a god, the former designating a being who had always been a god. According to tradition, in Egypt the regal race of the θέοι was replaced by…
What emerges in this context is a situation in which there is a certain distance between the person and the function being exercised: in order for a person to embody a certain function what is required is a specific action capable of producing in him a new quality; this action may appear either in the form of an initiation or of an investiture (or consecration). In the first case this action has a relatively autonomous and direct character; in the second case it is mediated, or it takes place f...
Continue reading →
2
Absolute Gender Archetypes
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

The author prescribes a return to traditional gender archetypes, arguing that spiritual realization requires the absolute differentiation of the sexes and that women's participation in the sacred is necessarily mediated by men.

...elf and being entirely for another being, whether he is the loved one (the type of the lover—the Aphrodistic woman) or the son (the type of the mother—the Demetrian woman), finding in this dedication the meaning of her own life, her own joy, and her own justification. This is what bhakti or fides, which constitute the normal and natural way of participation of the traditional woman, really mean, both in the order of "form" and even beyond "form" when it is lived in a radical and impersonal way.
To realize oneself in an increasingly resolute way according to these two distinct and unmistakable directions; to reduce in a woman all that is masculine and in a man everything that is feminine; and to strive to implement the archetypes of the "absolute man" and of the "absolute woman"—this was the traditional law concerning the sexes according to their different planes of existence. Therefore, a woman could traditionally participate in the sacred hierarchical order only in a mediated fashion, through her relationship with a man.
In India women did not have their own initiation even when they belonged to a higher caste: before they got married they did not belong to the sacred community of the noble ones ( ārya ) other than through their fathers, and when they were married, through their husbands, who also represented the mystical head of the family. In Doric Hellas, the woman in her entire life did not enjoy any rights; before getting married, her κύριoς was her father. In Rome, in conformity with a similar spiritualit...
2
Pariah vs Ascetic
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

The author distinguishes between the pariah, who has fallen below caste through weakness, and the ascetic, who transcends caste through direct action to reach the principle beyond all forms.

...extrinsic, a functional, "artificial" beauty; this scission reflects the overall inorganic character of modern civilization. Bipartition of the Traditional Spirit; Asceticism Having explained the spirit that animated the caste system, it is now necessary to discuss the path that is above the castes and is directed at implementing the realization of transcendence—in analogous terms to those of high initiation, yet outside the specific and rigorous structures characterizing it. On the one hand,
The pariah is a person without a caste, the one who has "lapsed" or who has eluded the "form" by being powerless before it, thus returning to the infernal world. The ascetic, on the other hand, is a being above the caste, one who becomes free from the form by renouncing the illusory center of human individuality; he turns toward the principle from which every "form" proceeds, not by faithfulness to his own nature and by participation in the hierarchy, but by a direct action. Therefore, as great as was the revulsion harbored by every caste toward the pariah in Aryan India, so, by contrast, was the veneration felt by everybody for a person who was above the castes.
These beings, according to a Buddhist image, should not be expected to follow a human dharma, just as one who is trying to kindle a fire ultimately does not care what kind of wood is being employed, as long as it is capable of producing fire and light. Asceticism occupies an ideal intermediary state between the plane of direct, Olympian, and initiatory regality and the plane of rite and of dharma. Asceticism also presents two features or qualifications that from a broader perspective may be co...
3
Authority from Above
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

A prescription asserting that all authority and law are illegitimate unless derived from a superior, transcendent principle. The author laments the loss of the 'traditional world'—characterized by divine kingship, initiation, and empire—to a modern, anthropocentric civilization.

...tion, the former is the "fall" of the latter, and the latter represents the "liberation" of the former. The traditional world believed spirituality to be something beyond life and death. It held that mere physical existence, or "living," is meaningless unless it approximates the higher world or that which is "more than life," and unless one's highest ambition consists in participating in ὑπερκοσµία and in obtaining an active and final liberation from the bond represented by the human condition.
According to Tradition, every authority is fraudulent, every law is unjust and barbarous, every institution is vain and ephemeral unless they are ordained to the superior principle of Being, and unless they are derived from above and oriented "upward." The traditional world knew divine kingship. It knew the bridge between the two worlds, namely, initiation; it knew the two great ways of approach to the transcendent, namely, heroic action and contemplation; it knew the mediation, namely, rites and faithfulness; it knew the social foundation, namely, the traditional law and the caste system; and it knew the political earthly symbol, namely, the…
Regality Every traditional civilization is characterized by the presence of beings who, by virtue of their innate or acquired superiority over the human condition, embody within the temporal order the living and efficacious presence of a power that comes from above. One of these types of beings is the pontifex , according to the inner meaning of the word and according to the original value of the function that he exercised. Pontifex means "builder of bridges," or of "paths" ( pons , in ancien...
Continue reading →
2
The Natural vs Cultivated Elite
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

A distinction is made between those naturally endowed with transcendent virtue and those who must achieve 'superior man' status through the discipline of initiation and ritual.

...uld affect it. An echo of this notion was preserved in the Catholic view according to which the priestly dignity, which is transmitted sacramentally, cannot be effaced by any moral sin committed by the person endowed with it, since it remains in that person as an indoles indelebilis, an "indelible mark" ("You are a priest forever," Ps. 110:4). Moreover, as in the case of the Mazdean notion of "glory" and of the Chinese notion of "virtue," the priestly dignity corresponded to an objective power.
In ancient China a distinction was made between those who were naturally endowed with "knowledge" and "virtue" (those who are capable of "fulfilling Heaven's law with calm and imperturbability and no help from the outside" are at the pinnacle, and are "perfected" and "transcendent" men) and those who achieved them "by disciplining themselves and by returning to the rites." The discipline (sieu-ki) that is suitable to the latter men and that is the equivalent of initiation was considered only as a means to the real creation of that "superior man" (kiun-tze) who could legitimately assume the function proper to the supreme hierarchical apex by virtue of the mysterious and real power inherent in him.
The distinctive feature of what makes one a king is more evident when a consecration rather than an initiation occurs; for instance, only the characteristic special investiture that turns the already crowned Teutonic prince into the romanorum rex can bestow upon him the authority and the title of leader of the Holy Roman Empire. Plato wrote: "In Egypt no king is allowed to rule without belonging to the priestly class; if by any chance a king of another race rises to power through violence, he e...
3