Heroes vs Titans
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

A vision of the heroic path as a struggle to restore primordial spiritual virility over 'lunar' or material influences, with failure resulting in a descent into 'Titanic' corruption.

...warrior caste. Indeed not all the "heroes" become immortal by escaping Hades; this is the fate of only some of them. And if we examine the body of Hellenic myths and the myths of other traditions, upon recognizing the affinity—hidden behind various symbols—of the deeds of the Titans with those of the heroes, we will realize that the hero and the Titans, after all, belong to the same stock; they are the daring ones who undertook the same transcendent adventure, which can either fail or succeed.
The heroes who become immortal are those whose adventure succeeds; in other words, they correspond to those who are really capable of overcoming, thanks to an inner impulse toward transcendence, the deviation proper to the Titanic attempt to restore the primordial spiritual virility and the supremacy over the woman, that is, over the lunar spirit, both Aphrodistic and Amazonian; conversely, the other heroes, those who are not capable of realizing such a possibility conferred upon them by the Olympian principle, or Zeus—the same possibility to which Jesus referred when he said (Matt. 11:2): "The kingdom of heaven has been subject to violence…
As far as these relationships between the way of the Titans and that of the heroes is concerned, there is an interesting myth according to which once Prometheus was freed, he taught Heracles the way to reach the Garden of the Hesperides, where he would find the fruit that renders one immortal. Such a fruit, once obtained by Heracles, is taken back by Athena, who represents in this context the Olympian intellect, and put back "so that it may not be partaken of by anybody"; this probably means t...
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Solar Hero Alone
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

Mithras is presented as a symbol of the Northern-Uranian warrior spirit, characterized by his solitary nature and his identification with light and the Promethean struggle for spiritual transfiguration.

...t was caused by the hegemonic claims of the priestly caste, judging from the attempt of the priest Gaumata, who attempted to usurp the supreme power and establish a theocracy but was expelled by Darius I. This, though, was the first and only attempt of this kind in Persian history. The original theme, almost as if reinvigorated from contact with altered traditional forms of other people, arose again in Mithraism in the form of a new "heroic" cycle endowed with a specific initiatory foundation.
Mithras, the solar hero who overcame the telluric bull, and the ancient god of the luminous ether who was similar to Indra and to the Hindu Mitra, was a figure that stood alone, without those women and goddesses who usually accompany the Syrian gods and the decadent Egyptian gods in an Aphrodistic or Dionysian fashion; thus, he embodied in a characteristic way the Northern-Uranian spirit in its warrior form. Moreover, it is significant that Mithras was identified with Prometheus rather than with the Hyperborean Apollo, the god of the Golden Age; this refers to the luminous transfiguration through which the Titan was confused with a deity…
An antitelluric spirit characterized Mithraism; unlike the views of the followers of Serapis and Isis, Mithraism located the abode of the "liberated ones" in the spheres of the pure Uranian light rather than in the depths of the earth; the blessed would arrive in this "heaven" after the journey through the various planets divested them of all earthly attachments and passions. We should also take notice of the almost universal exclusion of women from the Mithraic cult and initiation; the ethos...
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Earth's Lush Contemplation
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

A vision contrasting the active solar spirit of the North with the passive, chthonic, and contemplative nature-worship characteristic of Southern civilizations.

...f the second race, born from "stone" after the flood; the idea that Mithras was believed to have been born from stone; that stones were believed to point out true kings or that they are found at the beginning of the Via Sacra (see the Roman lapis niger , or black stone); that sacred stones were the material from which fatal swords are made; and finally, that meteorites, or "stones from heaven," or "thunderbolts," were often turned into axes, the weapon and the symbol of prehistoric conquerors.
Conversely, it was only natural that in the South the object of the most immediate experience was not the solar principle , but rather its effects displayed in the luscious fertility of the Earth, and that the center shifted toward Mother Earth portrayed as Magna Mater while the symbolism shifted to chthonic deities or beings, to gods and goddesses of vegetation and of vegetal and animal fertility, while fire, once perceived as a divine, heavenly, and beneficial reality, eventually came to be perceived as something "infernal," ambiguous, and telluric. The favorable climate and the natural plentiness eventually induced most people to seek…
Therefore, even in the order of what can be affected to a certain degree by external factors, while the Northern Light goes hand in hand, through solar and Uranian symbols, with a virile ethos and a warrior spirituality consisting of a harsh will to establish order and to dominate, conversely, in the Southern traditions the predominance of the chthonic theme and of the pathos of death and resurrection corresponds to a certain propensity to promiscuity, escapism, a sense of abandonment, and a na...
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Myth as Integration
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

The author suggests that myths represent superhistorical truths that integrate and elevate historical facts, meaning that history is 'untrue' when it fails to align with the mythic ideal.

...space and time. These considerations concerning the traditional myths and the special relation they have with the sense of nature must naturally be applied to every traditional myth. It must be acknowledged that every traditional mythology arises as a necessary process in the individual consciousness, the origin of which resides in real, though unconscious and obscure, relationships with a higher reality; these relationships are then dramatized in various ways by the power of the imagination.
Therefore, not only naturalistic or "theological" myths but historical ones as well should not be regarded as arbitrary inventions totally devoid of an objective value with regard to facts or people, but rather as integrations that did not occur casually. These integrations eventually revealed the superhistorical content that may be found to varying degrees in those historical individuals and events. Therefore, the eventual lack of correspondence of the historical element with a myth demonstrates the untruth of history rather than that of the myth; this thought occurred to Hegel too, when he spoke about the "impotence [Ohnmacht] of nature."
What has been said so far relates to the presence of some kind of existential situation concerning the basic relationship between the I and the not-I. This relationship has lately been characterized by a set and rigid separation. It so appears that in the origins, the borders between I and not-I were potentially fluid and unstable, and in certain cases they could partially be removed. When that happened, either one of two possibilities could occur: the possibility of incursions of the not-I (...
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The Goddess Civilization
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

A vision of civilizations centered on the 'Great Mother' archetype, where reality is viewed through the lens of generation and all beings are subordinated to a supreme feminine principle.

...of these spiritual poles, with a greater or lesser reference to the ethnic lines that originally either knew the "Northern Light" or fell under the spell of the Mothers and of the Southern ecstasies. The Civilization of the Mother In order to undertake this kind of research successfully, it is necessary to provide a more exact typological characterization of the forms of civilization that followed the primordial one. First of all, I will discuss the notion of the "civilization of the Mother."
The characteristic trait of this civilization is a transposition into the metaphysical of the view of woman as the principle and substance of generation; a goddess expresses the supreme reality, while every being, conceived as a son or daughter, appears next to her as something conditioned, subordinated, lacking life in itself, and ephemeral. This is the type of the great Asiatic-Mediterranean goddesses of life, such as Isis, Asherat, Cybele, Tanit, and especially Demeter (Ceres to the Romans), a central figure in the Pelasgic-Minoan cycle.
The representation of the solar principle as a child resting on the lap of the Great Mother, suggesting that it was generated from her; the Egyptian-Minoan representations of queens or divine women holding the lotus and the key to life; Ishtar, celebrated by one of the most ancient recorded hymns with the words: "There is no true god besides you," and who is often referred to as Ummu ilani, "the Mother of the gods"; the various allusions, often with cosmological transpositions, to an alleged pr...
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