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Revolt Against the Modern World

Julius Evola/1934 / 20th century

Civilizational DeclineHierarchySacred OrderTradition Vs Modernity

Metaphysics in the Traditionalism tradition, oriented around civilizational decline and hierarchy.

Julius Evola's Revolt Against the Modern World is a controversial Traditionalist critique of egalitarian modernity, first published in interwar Italy. Drawing on myth, religion, and comparative civilization, it contrasts a lost sacred and hierarchical order with what it sees as the spiritual collapse of the modern West.

470 excerpts/42 sections

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Chapters

The structural skeleton of the work

Section 1

The Beginning

8 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Traditionalism5 excerpts Metaphysics4 excerpts Spirituality2 excerpts Asceticism1 excerpt Authority1 excerpt

The Two Natures Doctrine

In order to understand both the spirit of Tradition and its antithesis, modern civilization, it is necessary to begin with the fundamental doctrine of the two natures. According to this doctrine there is a physical order of things and a metaphysical one; there is a mortal nature and an immortal one; there is the superior realm of "being" and the inferior realm of "becoming." Generally speaking, there is a visible and tangible dimension and, prior to and beyond it, an invisible and intangible dimension that is the support, the source, and true life of the former. Anywhere in the world of Tradition, both East and West and in one form or another, this knowledge (not just a mere "theory") has always been present as an unshakable axis around which everything revolved.

Section 2

Regality

15 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Political Philosophy5 excerpts Traditionalism5 excerpts Metaphysics4 excerpts Sacred Kingship4 excerpts Divine Right3 excerpts

Kings' Divine Emergence

God makes kings in the literal sense. He prepares royal races; maturing them under a cloud which conceals their origin. They appear at length crowned with glory and honor; they take their places; and this is the most certain sign of their legitimacy. The truth is that they arise as it were of themselves, without violence on their part, and without marked deliberation on the other: it is a species of magnificent tranquillity, not easy to express.

Section 3

Polar Symbolism; the Lord of Peace and Justice

11 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Symbolism3 excerpts Initiation2 excerpts Inner Peace2 excerpts Kingship2 excerpts Metaphysics Of Power2 excerpts

Philosopher Kings

The philosopher is one who can effectively formulate laws conforming to justice precisely because he has the direct knowledge of that which is supremely real and normative. The conclusion Plato draws is: Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophers, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and these commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils, nor the human race itself.

Section 4

The Law, the State, the Empire

13 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Metaphysics5 excerpts Political Philosophy4 excerpts Traditionalism3 excerpts Hierarchy2 excerpts Order Vs Chaos2 excerpts

Divine Law's Authority

Every law, in order to be regarded as an objective law, had to have a "divine" character. Once the "divine" character of a law was sanctioned and its origin traced back to a nonhuman tradition, then its authority became absolute; this law became then something ineffable, inflexible, immutable and beyond criticism. Thus, every transgression of such law was regarded not so much as a crime against society, but rather and foremost as sacrilege or as an act of impiety (άσέβεια) , or as an act that jeopardized the spiritual destiny of the person who disobeyed it as well as of the people with whom that person was socially related.

Section 5

The Mystery of the Rite

9 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Ritual5 excerpts Metaphysics4 excerpts Order Vs Chaos3 excerpts Tradition3 excerpts Cosmogony2 excerpts

World as Symbol

Olympiodorus wrote that the whole world is one great symbol, since it reflects invisible realities through sensible forms. Plutarch wrote: "Among the things that belong to a higher order there are secret connections and correspondences, just like in the order of natural phenomena: these connections cannot be recognized other than through experience, traditions and universal consensus.'' A characteristic expression of Jewish esotericism is: Through the impulse from below there is a stirring above, and through the impulse from above there is a stirring higher up still.

Section 6

On the Primordial Nature of the Patriciate

13 excerpts

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Aristocracy3 excerpts Traditionalism3 excerpts Ancestry2 excerpts Initiation2 excerpts Paternal Authority2 excerpts

Rite Over Blood

In antiquity what united the members of a family was something more powerful than birth, feelings and physical strength: it was the cult of the hearth and of the ancestors. This cult shaped the family into a united body, both in this world and in the next. The ancient family was more a religious than a natural association. The common ritual constituted the true bond of the family's unity and often even of the gens itself. If an outsider was allowed to participate in the common rite, he thereby became an adoptive son who enjoyed those privileges that could also be taken away from a biological son guilty of neglecting the rite of his family, or from a son who was interdicted from participating in it. This obviously meant that according to the traditional idea, rite rather than blood had the power to unite or to differentiate people.

Section 7

Spiritual Virility

8 excerpts

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Ritual3 excerpts Anthropomorphism2 excerpts Hierarchy2 excerpts Involution2 excerpts Theology2 excerpts

Rite as Divine Technique

With regard to the rite there was nothing "religious" about it and little or no devout pathos in those who performed it. The rite was rather a "divine technique," a determining action upon invisible forces and inner states similar in spirit to what today is obtained through physical forces and states of matter. The priest was simply a person who, by virtue of his qualification and the virtus intrinsic to the rite itself, was capable of producing results through this technique.

Section 8

The Two Paths in the Afterlife

8 excerpts

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Death2 excerpts Eschatology2 excerpts Esotericism2 excerpts Immortality2 excerpts Metaphysics2 excerpts

Two Paths After Death

As far as the destiny of the soul after death is concerned, there are two opposite paths. The first is the "path of the gods," also known as the "solar path" or Zeus's path, which leads to the bright dwelling of the immortals. This dwelling was variously represented as a height, heaven, or an island, from the Nordic Valhalla and Asgard to the Aztec-Inca "House of the Sun" that was reserved for kings, heroes, and nobles. The other path is that trodden by those who do not survive in a real way, and who slowly yet inexorably dissolve back into their original stocks, into the "totems" that unlike single individuals, never die; this is the life of Hades, of the "infernals," of Niflheim, of the chthonic deities.

Section 9

Life and Death of Civilizations

10 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Decadence4 excerpts Hierarchy2 excerpts Metaphysics2 excerpts Spirituality2 excerpts Traditionalism2 excerpts

Morals After Lost Tao

The Far Eastern tradition especially has emphasized the idea that morals and laws in general (in a conformist and social sense) arise where "virtue" and the "Way" are no longer known: When the Tao was lost, its attributes appeared; when its attributes were lost, benevolence appeared; when benevolence was lost, righteousness appeared; and when righteousness was lost, the proprieties appeared. Now propriety is the attenuated form of filial piety and good faith, and is also the commencement of disorder.

Section 10

Initiation and Consecration

8 excerpts

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Initiation3 excerpts Ontology3 excerpts Tradition3 excerpts Esotericism2 excerpts Hierarchy2 excerpts

Initiation's Indelible Mark

According to concordant testimonies, the quality bestowed by initiation is distinct from and unrelated to any human merit: all of the human virtues combined could not produce this quality, just as, to a certain extent, no human "sin" could 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.

Section 11

On the Hierarchical Relationship Between Royalty and Priesthood

5 excerpts

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Spiritual Authority2 excerpts Hierarchy1 excerpt Holy Roman Empire1 excerpt Imperial Function1 excerpt Indo-Aryan Tradition1 excerpt

Consecration's Power Transfer

But in the rite of consecration the king, rather than receiving, assumes a power that the priestly class does not own but rather has in custody; this power is then supposed to rise to a "higher form" that it did not possess before. Also, in consecration the virile and warrior quality of the person to be initiated frees itself and rises to a higher plane; it then acts as an axis or as a pole of the sacred force. This is why the officiating priest must "worship" the king whom he consecrates, although the latter, according to a text, owes to the brāhmaṇa the respect owed to a mother.

Section 12

Universality and Centralism

8 excerpts

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Political Philosophy3 excerpts Traditionalism3 excerpts Secularization2 excerpts Spirituality2 excerpts Authority1 excerpt

The Unmoving Center

The Far Eastern tradition in particular has emphasized the idea that by leaving the peripheral domain, by not intervening in a direct way, and by remaining in the essential spirituality of the center (like the hub of the wheel effecting its movement), it is possible to achieve the "virtue" that characterizes the true empire, as the single individuals maintain the feeling of being free and everything unfolds in an orderly way. This is possible because by virtue of the reciprocal compensation resulting from the invisible direction being followed, the partial disorders or individual wills will eventually contribute to the overall order. This is the basic idea behind any real unity and any authentic authority.

Section 13

The Soul of Chivalry

13 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Chivalry7 excerpts Initiation4 excerpts Symbolism3 excerpts Aristocracy2 excerpts Ethics2 excerpts

Honor's Fatal Decline

The principles of honor and of faithfulness continued to exist even when the noble was nothing but a "king's officer"; but faithfulness is blind when it does not refer, even in a mediated way, to something beyond the human dimension. Thus the qualities that were preserved in the European nobility through heredity eventually underwent a fatal degeneration when they were no longer renewed in their original spirit; the decline of the regal spirituality was unavoidably followed by the decline of nobility itself, and by the advent of the forces found in a lower order.

Section 14

The Doctrine of the Castes

17 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Traditionalism3 excerpts Cosmology2 excerpts Critique Of Modernity2 excerpts Ethics2 excerpts Justice2 excerpts

The Lost Nonhuman Self

The only "self" modern man knows and is willing to acknowledge is the empirical self that begins at birth and is more or less extinguished at death. Everything is reduced by him to the mere human individual since in him all prior recollections have disappeared. Thus we witness the disappearance of both the possibility of establishing contact with those forces of which a given birth is just the effect, and the possibility of rejoining that nonhuman element in man, which being situated before birth, is also beyond death; this element constitutes the "place" for everything that may eventually be realized beyond death itself and is the principle of an incomparable sense of security.

Section 15

Professional Associations and the Arts; Slavery

12 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Symbolism4 excerpts Traditionalism3 excerpts Craftsmanship2 excerpts Modernity2 excerpts Sacred Art2 excerpts

Modern Economic Slavery

If the modern world has disapproved of the "injustice" of the caste system, it has stigmatized much more vibrantly those ancient civilizations thast practiced slavery; recent times boast of having championed the principle of "human dignity." This too is mere rhetoric. Let us set aside the fact that Europeans reintroduced and maintained slavery up to the nineteenth century in their overseas colonies in such heinous forms as to be rarely found in the ancient world; what should be emphasized is that if there ever was a civilization of slaves on a grand scale, the one in which we are living is it. No traditional civilization ever saw such great masses of people condemned to perform shallow, impersonal, automatic jobs; in the contemporary slave system the counterparts of figures such as lords or enlightened rulers are nowhere to be found. This slavery is imposed subtly through the tyranny of the economic factor and through the absurd structures of a more or less collectivized society.

Section 16

Bipartition of the Traditional Spirit; Asceticism

10 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Asceticism2 excerpts Buddhism2 excerpts Epistemology2 excerpts Heroism2 excerpts Liberation2 excerpts

Knowledge as Fire

The fundamental principle of the method is "knowledge": to turn the knowledge of the ultimate nonidentity of the Self with anything "else" (whether it be the monistic All or the world of Brahma, theistically conceived) into a fire that progressively devours any irrational self-identification with anything that is conditioned. In conformity to the path, the final outcome, besides the negative designation ( nirvāṇa = "cessation of restlessness"), is expressed in terms of "knowledge," bodhi , which is knowledge in the eminent sense of superrational enlightenment or liberating knowledge, as in "waking up" from sleep, slumber, or a hallucination. It goes without saying that this is not the equivalent of the cessation of power or of anything resembling a dissolution. To dissolve ties is not to become dissolved but to become free.

Section 17

The Greater and the Lesser Holy War

19 excerpts

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Asceticism4 excerpts Metaphysics Of War4 excerpts Heroism3 excerpts Transcendence3 excerpts Detachment2 excerpts

War Against Inner Enemies

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 reason; and let his peace give thee peace. Be a warrior and kill desire, the powerful enemy of the soul." 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, weakness, and uncertainty; this subduing of the enemy is the only way to achieve inner liberation or the rebirth in a state of a deeper inner unity and "peace" in the esoteric and triumphal sense of the word.

Section 18

Games and Victory

20 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Modernity4 excerpts Ritual4 excerpts Tradition4 excerpts Heroism3 excerpts Metaphysics3 excerpts

Exasperated Sensations as Drug

The fact remains that modern man needs these degraded and desecrated forms of action as if they were some kind of drug; he needs them to elude the sense of his inner emptiness, to be aware of himself, and to find in exasperated sensations the surrogate for the true meaning of life. One of the characteristics of the Western "Dark Age" (Kali Yuga) is a sort of Titanic restlessness that knows no limitations and that induces an existential fever and awakens new sources of elation and of stupefaction.

Section 19

Space, Time, the Earth

14 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Ritual4 excerpts Mythology3 excerpts Sacred Geography3 excerpts Traditionalism3 excerpts Epistemology2 excerpts

Time's Spiritual Transformation

The mistake of epistemology from Kant on is to assume that these fundamental forms of human experience have always remained the same, especially those with which we are most familiar in recent times. On the contrary, even in this aspect it is possible to notice a deep transformation that reflects the general involutive process at work in history. With this said, I will limit myself to discussing the difference in the perception of space and time. As I mentioned in the foreword, my main contention is that time in traditional civilizations was not a linear, "historical" time. Time and becoming are related to what is superior to time; in this way the perception of time undergoes a spiritual transformation.

Section 20

Man and Woman

13 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Heroism3 excerpts Modernity3 excerpts Tradition3 excerpts Traditionalism3 excerpts Differentiation2 excerpts

Tradition's Guiding Riverbeds

It is the task of Tradition to create solid riverbeds, so that the chaotic currents of life may flow in the right direction. Free are those people who, upon undertaking this traditional direction, do not experience it as a burden but rather develop it naturally and recognize themselves in it so as to actualize through an inner élan the highest and most "traditional" possibility of their own nature. The others, those who blindly follow the institutions and obey and live them without understanding them are not what we may call "self-supported" beings: although devoid of light, their obedience virtually leads them beyond their limitations as individuals and orients them in the same direction followed by those who are free.

Section 21

The Decline of Superior Races

5 excerpts

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Ancestry1 excerpt Caste1 excerpt Critique Of Materialism1 excerpt Decadence1 excerpt Metaphysics1 excerpt

Spiritual Virility's Necessity

If all efforts to reawaken the spiritual dimension of sexuality fail, and if the form of virility is not separated from what has become an amorphous and promiscuous spiritual substance, then everything is in vain. The virility that is physical, phallic, muscular, and animal is lifeless and does not contain any creative germ in the superior sense. Phallic man deceives himself by thinking that he dominates; the truth is that he is passive and is always susceptible to the subtler power of women and to the feminine principle. The differentiation of the sexes is authentic and absolute only in the spirit.

Section 22

Introduction

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Theme clustering will appear here as excerpt coverage grows.

Representative excerpt

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Section 23

The Doctrine of the Four Ages

9 excerpts

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Traditionalism4 excerpts Epistemology2 excerpts Modernity2 excerpts Mythology2 excerpts Anthropogenesis1 excerpt

Science's Lost Flame

In the beginning mankind not only possessed a science, but Avery different science, which originated from above and was therefore very dangerous. This explains why in the beginning science was always mysterious and confined to the temples, in which it eventually became extinct when the only thing this "flame" could do was to burn . " Thus, another science was slowly formed as a surrogate, namely, the merely human and empirical science of which our contemporaries are so proud and through which they have thought fit to judge everything that they consider to be civilization. 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.

Section 24

The Golden Age

3 excerpts

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Metaphysics2 excerpts Symbolism2 excerpts Alchemy1 excerpt Etymology1 excerpt Golden Age1 excerpt

The Era of Being

The first era is essentially the era of Being, and hence of truth in a transcendent sense. This is evident not only from the Hindu designation of Satya Yuga ( sat means being, hence satya or "truth") but also from the Latin name "Saturn," who is the king or god of the Golden Age. Saturn, who corresponds to the Hellenic Kronos, is a subtle reference to this idea, since in his name we find the Aryan root sat , "being," together with the attributive ending urnus (as in nocturnus ). As far as the era of Being or of spiritual stability is concerned, we shall see below that in several representations of the primordial site in which this cycle unfolded it is possible to find the symbols of "terra firma" surrounded by waters, or of the "island," the mountain, or the "middle land."

Section 25

The Pole and the Hyperborean Region

10 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Sacred Geography4 excerpts Metahistory3 excerpts Mythology3 excerpts Symbolism3 excerpts Traditionalism3 excerpts

The Polar Origin

In addition to the symbol of the pole, there are some recurrent and very specific traditional data that indicate the North as the site of an island, terra firma, or mountain, the meaning of which is often confused with the location of the first era; in other words, we are confronted by a motif that simultaneously has a spiritual and a real meaning, pointing back to a time when the symbol was reality and the reality a symbol and history and metahistory were not two separated parts but rather two parts reflecting each other. This is precisely the point in which it is possible to enter into the events conditioned by time. Allegedly, according to tradition, in an epoch of remote prehistory that corresponds to the Golden Age or Age of Being, the symbolical island or "polar" land was a real location situated in the Arctic, in the area that today corresponds to the North Pole.

Section 26

The Northern-Atlantic Cycle

7 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Mythology3 excerpts Traditionalism3 excerpts Initiation2 excerpts Metahistory2 excerpts Primordial Tradition2 excerpts

The Occult Center

This is how the testimonies concerning what once was a real location inhabited by nonhuman beings survived and assumed a metahistorical value, providing at the same time symbols of states beyond ordinary life, that can only be reached through initiation. Besides the symbol, we find the idea that the original center still exists in an occult and usually unreachable location (similar to what Catholic theology said about the Garden of Eden): only a change of state or of nature can open its doors to the generations living in the last ages. This is how the second great transposition of metaphysics and history was established. In reality, the symbol of the West, just like that of the "pole," may acquire a universal value beyond all geographical and historical references.

Section 27

North and South

4 excerpts

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Spirituality2 excerpts Chthonic1 excerpt Comparative Mythology1 excerpt Geography1 excerpt Hyperborean Spirituality1 excerpt

The Northern Warrior-Spirit

The experience of the sun, of light, and of fire itself naturally acted in the Northern races as a liberating spirituality, especially during the long glacial winter; Uranian and solar, Olympian, or fiery figures also played a major role in the sacred symbolism of these races. Moreover, the rigorous climate, barren soil, and need for hunting as well as the need to migrate across unknown seas and continents naturally shaped those who innerly retained this spiritual experience of the sun, bright sky, and fire into warriors, conquerors, and navigators, and thus furthered that synthesis of virility and spirituality, the characteristic traces of which were retained in the Indo-European races.

Section 28

The Civilization of the Mother

9 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Matriarchy3 excerpts Metaphysics3 excerpts Egalitarianism2 excerpts Mythology2 excerpts Ritual2 excerpts

Feminine Spirituality as Pantheism

Generally speaking, it is possible to establish a relationship between feminine spirituality and pantheism, according to which ultimate reality is conceived as a great sea into which the nucleus of an individual merges and becomes dissolved like a grain of salt. In pantheism, personality is an illusory and temporary manifestation of the one undifferentiated substance, which is simultaneously spirit and nature as well as the only reality; in this weltanschauung there is no room for any authentically transcendent order. It is necessary to add—and this will be a key factor when assessing the meaning of later cycles—that those forms in which the divine is conceived of as a person represent a mixed and yet similar thing; in these forms we find a connection between the naturalistic relationship of generation and creation of man and the corresponding pathos of utter dependence, humility, passivity, surrender, and renunciation of one's will.

Section 29

The Cycles of Decadence and the Heroic Cycle

9 excerpts

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Mythology4 excerpts Symbolism3 excerpts Transcendence3 excerpts Heroism2 excerpts Spirituality2 excerpts

Eros as Androgynous Quest

Sexual love arises between mortal beings from the deep-seated desire of the fallen male who realizes his inner insufficiency and who seeks, in the fulgurating ecstasis of orgasm, to reascend to the wholeness of the primordial "androgynous" state. In this sense, the erotic experience conceals a variation in the theme of the rebellion of the Titans with the only difference being that, due to its own nature, it takes place under the aegis of the feminine principle.

Section 30

Tradition and Antitradition

10 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Heroism2 excerpts Spirituality2 excerpts Asceticism1 excerpt Astrology1 excerpt Civilizational Cycles1 excerpt

The Sun-Eagle Spirituality

Nevertheless, for the most part, it is possible to subscribe to the view of Frithjof Schuon, who spoke about the singularly complete human type of the American Indian: his dignity, his pride, his moral uprightness and strength, his generosity and his heroism, which are all dimensions of an inner beauty represented both by the sun and by the eagle, command our respect and bespeak a spirituality without which these virtues would appear unintelligible and lacking a sufficient reason.

Section 31

THE HEBREW CYCLE AND THE EASTERN ARYAN CYCLE

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Asceticism3 excerpts Comparative Religion3 excerpts Esotericism3 excerpts Mythology3 excerpts Traditionalism3 excerpts

Heroism Transformed to Sin

The failure of the attempt of the Chaldean hero Gilgamesh corresponds to the fall of Adam in the myth of another civilization within the Semitic cycle, the Hebrew civilization. Here we find a fundamental and characteristic motif: the transformation into sin of what in the Aryan version of the myth was regarded as a heroic, bold deed, often crowned by success, but that in Gilgamesh's myth had a negative outcome only because the hero was caught asleep. In the context of Hebrew Semitism, the one who attempts to take possession of the symbolic Tree is univocally transformed into a victim of woman's seduction and a sinner. The curse he has to suffer and the punishment that has been meted out to him by a jealous, terrible, and omnipotent god, follow him; there is no better hope, in the end, than that for a "redeemer" who will provide a vicarious atonement.

Section 32

The Heroic-Uranian Western Cycle

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Aesthetics2 excerpts Historical Cycles2 excerpts Metaphysics2 excerpts Traditionalism2 excerpts Action Vs Mysticism1 excerpt

Decentralization of Being

Modern man may be unaware of it, but the preeminence of "thought" is only a marginal and recent phenomenon in history—though not as recent as the tendency to look at nature in purely physical terms. The figures of the philosopher and the "physicist" arose as the products of a degeneration that reached an advanced stage in the last age, the Iron Age. That process of decentralization, which by following the previously mentioned phases alienated man from his origins, was destined to end with the transformation of humankind from "beings" into "existences" whose center is "outside of themselves," mere ghosts or "stumps" who nevertheless still nurture the illusion of being able to achieve truth, wholeness, and life through their own efforts.

Section 33

THE ROMAN CYCLE

13 excerpts

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Traditionalism4 excerpts Political Philosophy2 excerpts Sacred Kingship2 excerpts Stoicism2 excerpts Asceticism1 excerpt

Power Over Piety

The early Romans characteristically perceived the supernatural as numen (as sheer power) rather than as deus; this represents the counterpart of a peculiar spiritual attitude. Other characteristics of the Roman world included the absence of pathos, lyricism and mysticism toward the divine, the presence of precise law for the necessary and necessitating rite, and clear and sober views. In their reflection of a virile and "magical" attitude, these themes corresponded to the themes found in the early Vedic, Chinese, and Iranian periods and to the Achaean-Olympian ritual as well. The typical Roman religion had always been diffident toward the abandonment of the soul in God and toward the outbursts of devotion; it restrained, by force if necessary, anything that diminished that serious dignity proper to the relations between a civis Romanus and a god.

Section 34

Syncope of the Western Tradition

9 excerpts

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Traditionalism4 excerpts Catholicism1 excerpt Critique Of Egalitarianism1 excerpt Critique Of Faith1 excerpt Cultural Conflict1 excerpt

Christianity's Desperate Dionysism

From a doctrinal point of view, Christianity appears as a desperate version of Diọnysism. Modeling itself after a broken human type, it appealed to the irrational part of being and instead of the paths of heroic, sapiential, and initiatory spiritual growth posited faith as its fundamental instrument, the élan of a restless and perturbed soul that is attracted to the supernatural in a confused way. Through its suggestions concerning the imminent advent of the Kingdom of God and its vivid portrayals of either eternal salvation or eternal damnation, primitive Christianity exasperated the crisis of such a human type and strengthened the force of faith, thus opening a problematic path of liberation through the symbol of salvation and redemption found in the crucified Christ.

Section 35

The Revival of the Empire and the Ghibelline Middle Ages

22 excerpts

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Traditionalism5 excerpts Mythology3 excerpts Political Philosophy3 excerpts Chivalry2 excerpts Ecclesiastical History2 excerpts

Freedom's Faithful Dedication

The life of the ancient Nordic-Germanic societies was based on the three principles of personality, freedom, and faithfulness. This life never knew the promiscuous sense of the community nor the inability of the individual to make the most of himself other than in the context of a given abstract institution; in these societies to be free was the measure of one's nobility. And yet this freedom was not anarchical and individualistic, but it was capable of a dedication that went beyond the person, and it knew the transfiguring value that characterized the principle of faithfulness toward one who is worthy of obedience and to whom people willingly submit themselves.

Section 36

Decline of the Medieval World and the Birth of Nations

8 excerpts

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Secularization3 excerpts Traditionalism3 excerpts Social Hierarchy2 excerpts Decline Of Empire1 excerpt Heroic Vs. Plebeian1 excerpt

Medieval Renaissance

The truth is that after the collapse of the ancient world, if there ever was a civilization that deserves the name of Renaissance, this was the civilization of the Middle Ages. In its objectivity, its virile spirit, its hierarchical structure, its proud antihumanistic simplicity so often permeated by the sense of the sacred, the Middle Ages represented a return to the origins.

Section 37

Unrealism and Individualism

15 excerpts

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Metaphysics5 excerpts Modernity4 excerpts Individualism3 excerpts Tradition3 excerpts Materialism2 excerpts

The Illusory Self

Individualism should be regarded as the constitution of an illusory center outside the real center; as the prevaricating pretense of a ''self" that is merely a mortal ego endowed with a body; and as by-product of purely natural faculties that, with the aid of arts and profane sciences, create and support various appearances with no consistency outside that false and vain center. These truths and laws are marked by the contingency and caducity proper to what belongs to the world of becoming. Hence, there is a radical unrealism and inorganic character to all modern phenomena. Nothing is endowed any longer with true life and everything will be a byproduct; the extinct Being is replaced in every domain with the "will" and the "self," as a sinister, rationalistic, and mechanical propping up of a cadaver.

Section 38

The Regression of the Castes

14 excerpts

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Hierarchy3 excerpts Modernity3 excerpts Traditionalism3 excerpts Capitalism2 excerpts Ethics2 excerpts

Man's Subhuman Shift

Just as it is only by adhering to free activity that man can truly be free and realize his own self, likewise, by focusing on practical and utilitarian goals, economic achievements, and whatever was once the exclusive domain of the inferior castes man abdicates, disintegrates, loses his center, and opens himself up to infernal forces of which he is destined to become the unwilling and unconscious instrument. Moreover, contemporary society looks like an organism that has shifted from a human to a subhuman type, in which every activity and reaction is determined by the needs and the dictates of purely physical life. Man's dominating principles are those typical of the material part of traditional hierarchies: gold and work. This is how things are today; these two elements, almost without exception, affect every possibility of existence and give shape to the ideologies and myths that clearly testify to the gravity of the modern perversion of all values.

Section 39

Nationalism and Collectivism

11 excerpts

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Modernity3 excerpts Political Philosophy3 excerpts Subversion3 excerpts Counter-Revolution2 excerpts Geopolitics2 excerpts

Nationalism's Artificial Unity

Modern nationalism is not based on a natural unity, but on an artificial and centralizing one. The need for this type of unity was increasingly felt at the same time as the natural and healthy sense of nationality was lost and as individuals approached the state of pure quantity, of being merely the masses, after every authentic tradition and qualitative articulation was destroyed. Nationalism acts upon these masses through myths and suggestions that are likely to galvanize them, awaken elementary instincts in them, flatter them with the perspectives and fancies of supremacy, exclusivism, and power.

Section 40

The End of the Cycle

8 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Collectivism2 excerpts Ideology2 excerpts Materialism2 excerpts Metaphysics2 excerpts Anti-Individualism1 excerpt

The State Machine

Society becomes a machine in which there is only one engine, the communist state. Man is just a lever or cog in this machine for which the value of human life is null and any infamy is allowed, and as soon as man opposes it he is immediately swept away and broken by its gears. Matter and spirit are enrolled in a common effort, and thus the USSR appears as a bloc that does not leave anything outside itself; a bloc that is simultaneously state, trust, and church, as well as a political, ideological, and economical-industrial system. This is the ideal of the superstate as the sinister inversion of the traditional organic ideal.

Section 41

AMERICA

10 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Collectivism3 excerpts Alienation2 excerpts Capitalism2 excerpts Critique Of Modernity2 excerpts Materialism2 excerpts

Work's Mental Enslavement

The comforts available to everyone and the superproduction of consumerist civilization that characterize the USA have been purchased with the enslavement of millions of people to the automatism of work, as if in their work they have been formed by an extreme level of specialization that narrows the mental field of action and dulls every sensibility. Instead of the type of the artisan, for whom every job was an art and whose production carried the imprint of personality (since it presupposed a personal, direct, and qualitative knowledge of that particular trade), we have today a herd of pariah who dumbly witness the work of machines, the secrets of which are known only to the person in charge of repairing them.

Section 42

Conclusion

31 excerpts

Top themes in this chapter

Traditionalism9 excerpts Metaphysics6 excerpts Modernity6 excerpts Civilizational Decline3 excerpts Critique Of Modernity2 excerpts

The Rite's Absent Environment

Unless the right environment is present, there is no resonance. If the inner and outer conditions that allow all human activities to acquire again a meaning are lacking; if the people do not ask everything of life and by elevating it to the dignity of a rite and an offering do not orient it around a nonhuman axis—then every effort is vain, there is no seed that will bear fruit, and the action of an elite remains paralyzed. Today, these conditions do not exist. Man, like never before, has lost every possibility of contact with metaphysical reality and with everything that is before and behind him.