Revolt Against the Modern World By Julius Evola Original Italian Edition 1934 Revised 1951, 1970 Inner Traditions International 1995 (Translation by Guido Stucco) 375 Pages, $29.95 ISBN 0-89281-506-X

Summary & Notes on the Author Traditional Spirituality State, Kingship, Empire Castes and Traditional Economics Traditional Time and Space Historical Decay A Mythological World History Degenerate Religions The Decline of Antiquity Church versus Empire The Post-Medieval Collapse The End of this World A Critique and Anathema

State, Kingship, Empire The principle of the victory of order over chaos runs through the traditional idea of the state. It is most perfectly realized in the occasional peaks of tradition, when the Empire appears. “[T]he state was related to the people just as the Olympic, Uranian principles were related to the chthonic, 'infernal' world, or as idea is related to form, or [nous] is related to 'matter,' 'nature,' or [hyla]; or as the luminous, masculine, differentiating, individualizing, and life-giving principle is related to the to unsteady, promiscuous, nocturnal feminine principle.” The ideal state is a universal empire. The empire is magical. Its law is truth, worthy of unconditional obedience. The law's utility is not a criterion. (Natural rights are a fiction, incidentally, since there is no “nature” that is good in itself; the demos is demonic.) Spiritual and political centralism are the predicate for a great deal of autonomous pluralism. When centralism rests on mere political power, however, there is no real empire; the empire is then not an organism, but a mechanism. A “national empire” is mere violence. The King of the World is an archetype, and also a legend of a real earthly ruler. He sits unmoved at the hub, at the center of the world. The center has many names: Mount Meru, Shambhala, Olympus, Asgard. This seat is often placed in a polar region, as in the Greek legend of Hyperborea. The king's peace is an inner condition, and only incidentally a political one. He subdues opposition by the rumor of his imperturbability. Traditional kings imitate the world ruler. They are not mere political actors, but the link to the transcendent. The king and the aristocracies and the patriarchs rule through rites. Rites renew the god and identify the celebrant with the god. That is their authority. Rites can create a god, as when cities and temples are founded. Evola was wholly credulous of Fustel de Coulanges account of the origins of the Roman state. Echoing Coulanges, he says that the difference between patricians and plebians was that the former had ancestral rites and the latter did not. “In traditional societies the action par excellence consisted in shaping events, relations, victories and defense mechanisms through the rite, that is, in preparing causes in the invisible dimension.” When the regality and sacrality of the state are separate, the descent to chaos has begun. The regal ideal is already weakened when only a divus, a hero, and not a deus, a god, performs the rites. Any sort of mediation with the transcendent is a decline. Kings are “masculine,” priests “feminine. Even the most exalted priest must call God “lord.” The king, in contrast, should be of the company of the gods. When it comes time for a new king, it is best when the priestly class simply seeks out he who is already the rightful king, because he is in contact with the transcendent through initiation; the real role of blood is as a medium through which a transcendent link may be formed over generations. Otherwise, the priests merely consecrate a worthy candidate, a man like themselves. Next

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Copyright © 2002 by John J. Reilly