War's Divine Foundation
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

The author argues that for the Romans, military success was fundamentally dependent on mystical victory and the correct performance of religious rites to secure divine favor.

...as expected first to approach that altar in order to burn some incense on it. That force was thus believed to preside invisibly over the deliberations of the Curia: hands were raised toward it when an oath of faithfulness was pronounced upon the advent of a new Caesar, and also on every January third when solemn vows were made for the well-being of the emperor and for the prosperity of the empire. This was the most resilient Roman cult, and the last to fall under the onslaught of Christianity.
No belief was more strongly upheld by the Romans than the belief that the divine powers were responsible for creating Rome's greatness and for supporting its aetemitas and, consequently, that a war, before being won on the battlefields, had to be won or at least actuated in a mystical way. Following the defeat at Lake Trasimene (217 B.C.), Fabius told his soldiers: "Your fault consists in having neglected the sacrifices and in having ignored the declarations of the augurs rather than in having lacked courage or ability." It was also an article of faith that in order to take a city it was necessary first to cause its tutelary god to abandon…
Themistocles said: "The gods and heroes performed these deeds, not us." Again, the real focus of everything was the sacrum. Supernatural actions were invoked to assist human actions and to infuse in them the mystical power of Victory. Since I have mentioned action and heroism as traditional values, it is expedient to underline the difference between them and the forms that, a few exceptions notwithstanding, can be seen in our day and age. The difference consists, once again, in the lack of the...
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The Polarity of Sexes
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

The author critiques modern womanhood for seeking an independent personality that destroys her true nature, arguing instead that spiritual fulfillment for both sexes requires a radical polarization of masculine and feminine traits.

...what they will be able to offer to satisfy her pleasure or her vanity. In the end she will even incur forms of corruption that usually accompany superficiality, namely, a practical and superficial lifestyle of a masculine type that has perverted her nature and thrown her into the same male pit of work, profits, frantic activity, and politics. The same holds true for the results of the Western "emancipation" of women, which is on its way to infecting the rest of the world faster than a plague.
Traditional woman or the absolute woman, in giving herself, in her living for another, in wanting to be only for another being with simplicity and purity fulfilled herself, belonged to herself, displayed her own heroism, and even became superior to ordinary men. Modern woman in wanting to be for herself has destroyed herself. The "personality" she so much yearned for is killing all semblance of female personality in her. It is easy to foresee what will become of the relationship between the sexes, even from a material point of view. Here too, like in magnetism, the higher and stronger the creative spark, the more radical the polarity; the…
What could possibly go on between these mixed beings lacking all contact with the forces of their deepest nature? between these beings for whom sex is reduced to the physiological plane? between these beings who, in the deepest recesses of their souls, are neither men nor women, or who are masculine women or feminine men, and who claim to have reached full sexual emancipation while truly having only regressed? All relationships are destined to have an ambiguous and crumbling character: the comr...
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Inner vs Outer War
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

An explanation of the Islamic concept of 'holy war,' where the external military struggle (lesser jihad) serves as a ritualized expression and means for the internal spiritual struggle (greater jihad).

...ldes Heer eventually became identified, was the army the god needed in order to fight against the ragna-rokkr, the "twilight of the gods" that has been approaching for a very long time. It is written: "There is a very large number of dead heroes in Valhalla, and many more have yet to come, and yet they will seem too few when the wolf comes." What has been said so far concerns the transformation of the war into a "holy war." Now I wish to add some specific references found in other traditions.
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 the greater 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 the "lesser holy…
Originally, orthodox Islam conceived 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 nature 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 r...
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Cult Against Hades
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

The author describes the task of the aristocratic cult as guiding humanity toward heroic immortality and spiritual form, thereby barring the way to the 'inferior nature' of the masses.

..., thus allowing the center of their being to fall deeper and deeper into the collective and into the prepersonal dimensions and to "placate" or to propitiate certain infernal influences, granting them their wish to become incarnated in the souls and in the world of men—this is the essence of an inferior cult that is only an extension of the way of being of those who have no cult and no rite at all. In other words, it is the characteristic of the extreme degeneration of higher traditional forms.
To free human beings from the dominion of the totems; to strengthen them; to address them to the fulfillment of a spiritual form and a limit; and to bring them in an invisible way to the line of influences capable of creating a destiny of heroic and liberating immortality—this was the task of the aristocratic cult. When human beings persevered in this cult, the fate of Hades was averted and the "way of the Mother" was barred. Once the divine rites were neglected, however, this destiny was reconfirmed and the power of the inferior nature became omnipotent again.
In this way, the meaning of the abovementioned Oriental teaching is made manifest, namely, that those who neglect the rites cannot escape "hell," this word meaning both a way of being in this life and a destiny in the next. In its deepest sense, the duty to preserve, nourish, and develop the mystical fire (which was considered to be the body of the god of the families, cities, and empires, as well as, according to a Vedic expression, the "custodian of immortality" ) without any interruption con...
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The Evolutionist Superstition
Julius Evola
Revolt Against the Modern World

A critique of modern evolutionism as a 'democratic' superstition that derives the higher from the lower, suggesting that true understanding requires a shift in attitude rather than new scientific findings.

...ilization. This "science" merely represents the futile attempt to climb back up, through surrogates, from an unnatural and degenerated state (what is most sad is that it is no longer even perceived to be such) that did not characterize the origins at all. In any event one must realize that these and similar indications will play a minimal role for those who are not determined to change their own frame of mind. Every epoch has its own "myth" through which it reflects a given collective climate.
Today the aristocratic idea that mankind has higher origins, namely, a past of light and of spirit, has been replaced by the democratic idea of evolutionism, which derives the higher from the lower, man from animal, civilization from barbarism. This is not so much the "objective" result of a free and conscious scientific inquiry, but rather one of the many reflections that the advent of the modern world, characterized by inferior social and spiritual strata and by man without traditions, has necessarily produced on the intellectual and cultural plane. Thus we should not delude ourselves: some "positive" superstitions will always produce…
Any attempt to validate even from a scientific perspective what the traditional dogmatic point of view upholds will generate results only among those who are already spiritually well disposed to accept this kind of knowledge. The Golden Age Iwill now engage in an ideal and morphological assessment of the cycles corresponding to the four traditional eras; further on I will discuss their geographical and historical trajectories. First of all, the Golden Age: this era corresponds to an original...
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