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Julius Evola: Magic and Awakening
by Jay Kinney
Magic (or Magick, as it is sometimes spelled, in order
to distinguish it from stage magic) is a word fraught
with dubious connotations. It summons up images of
robed figures, surrounded by clouds of incense,
standing within magical circles, and conjuring demons
to do their bidding.
Even in the magical system that has achieved widest
renown, that of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,
magic is associated with complex Qabbalistic rituals,
Egyptian god forms, and arcane tools and talismans.
Such things are sure to send the average good citizen
scurrying in the opposite direction, as quickly as
possible. Even for those who are inclined toward the
esoteric and spiritual, magic remains the preserve of
a few self-chosen magi who have a strong attraction to
the arcane.
Still, there are no lack of books presenting magical
systems. Dion Fortune, W.E. Butler, Aleister Crowley,
Israel Regardie, William Grey, Franz Bardon, David
Griffin, and others have authored numerous tomes to
whose teachings one could easily devote a lifetime.
Why, then, should we pay any attention to yet another
book called Introduction to Magic? The answer is that
this new work in hand is unlike any other book on
magic previously published, as difficult as that may
be to believe.
Julius Evola, the principal contributor to
Introduction to Magic, is a figure of some controversy
within esoteric circles. Born in 1898, the vital years
of his twenties and thirties coincided with Fascisms
reign in Italy, and Evolas stance toward Fascism
although critical and adversarial at times was
sufficiently positive to make him persona non grata in
liberal European circles. However, as tempting as it
may be to dismiss past historical figures according to
present value judgments, Evola deserves to be judged
on his own terms, in his own time. With that in mind,
let us take a closer look at the magical system put
forth in Introduction to Magic.
Introduction to Magic is the first of three volumes
collecting articles from the Italian esoteric journal
UR, published between 1927 and 1929. Evola was the
journals foremost author, but he was joined by
prominent figures in the Italian esoteric scene, such
as Arturo Reghini, Giulio Parese and Ercole Quadrelli.
All of URs writers published under pseudonyms, for
the stated reason that their individual selves count
for nothing, because everything valid they can offer
now is not of their own creation or devising, but
instead reflects a collective and objective
teaching.1 This harks back to such seminal works as
the Rosicrucian Manifestoes, or the more recent
Meditations on the Tarot, whose authors chose
anonymity so as not to distract from the message of
their texts.
The message of the UR Group was as follows: there is
a capacity inherent in Man to raise consciousness
above the call of the body and the distractions of the
mind; a capacity that can lead to an immortal
awareness. The means to this awareness is through a
rigorous discipline wherein the transitory ego is
shed, and the individual consciousness is wedded to
the Eternal. In so doing, one passes beyond the
conventional notions of Good and Evil, to a place
where, in Gustav Meyrinks words, only truth and
falsehood exist. To know this is not a matter of
intellectual knowledge, but of spiritual experience,
i.e. of gnosis.
Introduction to Magic doesnt merely describe this
system, but offers meditative techniques that can lead
to the concrete acquisition of the consciousness it
describes. In so doing, accounts are offered of what
one will encounter accounts that have the strong
ring of truth. In other words, the UR Group was
sharing knowledge based on their own experience, not
just generalisations or suppositions. And here we
approach the core of the UR Groups unique approach,
which raises important questions.
Most other magical systems presuppose an other, be
it God or gods and goddesses, to which the magus pays
homage or, at least, subordinates his operations. The
tendency of the ego to usurp the expanding
consciousness, is conventionally kept in check by the
reminder of the egos diminutive stature in relation
to the Divine.
The UR approach de-emphasises such others, focusing
instead on the transcendence of the ego by a greater
impersonal Self which may itself become Divine. This
admittedly dangerous operation requires a resoluteness
of will that cannot be abandoned. As Abraxas
(Quadrelli) notes:
"Once you have begun, you must go all the way, since
an interruption leads to a dreadful reaction, with the
opposite result. You can easily understand why: at
every step you take, an increasingly higher quantity
of swirling energy is arrested and pushed upstream;
having been excited and provoked, it is filled with
tension. As soon as you give up, it will come crashing
down upon you and sweep you away."2
Obviously, this is an approach that will appeal to
very few. And the UR Groups philosophy assumed as
much. Quadrelli described the difference between the
vast majority of mankind and the initiated few who
followed such a path:
"On this side are ignorant people, lacking Knowledge,
pale, passive, intoxicated, whose lives are still
outside and on this side of the Waters. On the other
shore you will find virile men, heroic souls, awakened
to disgust, to revolt, to the Great Awakening; having
left one shore behind, they dare face the current and
the undertow, being led by their ever more firm,
unshakable will. Once there, they are known as
Survivors of the Water, Walkers on the Waters, the
Holy Race of the Free, The Conquerors, The Lords
of Life and Salvation, The Radiant Ones. They are
the Dragon slayers, the Dominators of the Bull,
Consecrated to the Sun, those who have been
transformed through Ammons power and Wisdom."3
In defining such a gap between the many and the few,
the UR Group implied a spiritual hierarchy that Evola
was to elsewhere define explicitly. Taking his lead
from Hinduism, Evola affirmed the value of a
traditional caste system, (typically composed of the
castes of Priest-ruler, aristocratic warrior,
merchant, and worker). Society should be ruled by
those of the highest spiritual attainment, with all
others finding their proper places in the social
hierarchy. Such sentiments stand in stark contrast to
the modern conception of democracy, which assumes the
right of every individual to an equal voice in the
direction of society.
Evola was still working out these ideas at the time
of the UR Group project, and his increasingly
uncompromising defense of Tradition was one factor
in the groups fragmentation after only three or four
years of collaboration.
Western Magic & Hermeticism
The best known exponent of ritual magic, Aleister
Crowley, defined magic as the Science and Art of
causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.4
Dion Fortune revised this definition to that of
causing changes in consciousness at will.5 The
object of all magic, according to Crowley, is the
uniting of the Microcosm with the Macrocosm. Stated
another way, the Great Work is the raising of the
whole man in perfect balance to the power of
Infinity.6 While the UR Group would not disagree
with this objective, their means to achieving it stood
apart from that of Crowley, Fortune, and most other
magicians.
Most Western Magic is based on the coupling of
Hermeticism and the Qaballa. Hermeticism, with its
doctrines of the four elements (earth, wind, water,
and fire), and of correspondences between above and
below (i.e. the Macrocosm and the Microcosm), became
systematised in the art of Alchemy. Qaballa (or
Kabbalah) was the mystical tradition within Judaism,
which contributed the concepts of four Worlds, a
series of Divine emanations arranged in the glyph of
the Tree of Life, and a hierarchy of Divine Names,
Angelic intelligences, and so on, with which the
Qaballist might interact.
The magic of the UR Group, however, is wholly
Hermetic. There would seem to be two reasons for this.
First, the leading UR members, particularly Evola and
Reghini, were proponents of a return to Roman and
Greek tradition. Evola considered
Hermetico-alchemical knowledge to be the most
direct and legitimate link to the unique, primordial
Tradition.7 The preoccupations and values of Judaism
and Christianity run perpendicular to pagan values of
heroism, strength, and honour.
Second, in its stated goal of self-Deification, the
UR teachings had little use for the concept of Deity,
beyond that of a potential within certain favoured
individuals. The UR work gives high value to
Transcendence, but it is the transcendence of the
initiate over the pull of earthly bonds, of the
supra-human over the merely human. Thus the UR
teachings have far more in common with Nietzsche or
with Buddhism, than with the Judaeo-Christian
religions with their subordination before an external
God.
Nevertheless, the UR Group didnt narrow its
cosmology to the sort of psychological reductionism
that sees God or the gods as symbolic figures thrown
up by the Collective Unconscious or as mere
person-ifications of human capacities. Various essays
in Introduction to Magic refer to Beings, entities,
and forces that the Magus may encounter along the
path. But these are conceptualised as manifestations
of two polarising tendencies within the Cosmos:
non-human forces that lead either to a degenerative
Chaos or to a higher Order. The initiate, according to
the UR Group, must distinguish between the two and
align himself only with energies and intelligences
leading toward the higher Self.
While Evola and the UR Group placed themselves on the
side of Order and high spiritual aspirations, their
goal of human Deification led them to see conventional
mystical notions, such as merging with the One or
submission of the Ego to God, as manifestations of a
downward pull leading the individual away from his
ascent to the Divine. In one essay, Evola appropriates
René Guénons concept of the counter-initiation in
characterising Theosophy, Spiritualism, and other
sentimental movements as Satanic impulses.
This is highly ironic in that the UR perspective has
more than a passing resemblance to the so-called
Satanism of the contemporary Temple of Set. According
to Stephen E. Flowers, the ultimate aim of Setian
philosophy is an active, aware and potent state of
relative immortality for the isolate, individual
psyche. This is achieved through a system of magic
8
This is not the time or place to enter into a
discussion of whether the Setian definition of the
individual psyche has more in common with the
accepted notion of the ego or with the UR Groups
divinised Self. Suffice it to say that both systems
aim at the willed immortality of the initiate,
independent of the body, and in contradistinction to
the right-hand path of mainstream religion or
mysticism.
The perspective put forth in Introduction to Magic,
and by Evola in his other writings, raises the
question of whether gnosis, (or awakening or
liberation, as it is usually referred to in the book)
only occurs within the familiar framework of morality.
Most mystical and esoteric paths counsel a fidelity to
the moral values of the religions of which they are
expressions. The saints or mystics who are the
exemplars of such paths are generally praised for
their piety, compassion, and self-sacrifice; the
implication being that spiritual awareness goes hand
in hand with goodness. The Buddhist figure of the
Bodhisatva, who vows to continue to incarnate until
all beings have been liberated, as well as the figure
of Jesus Christ, who Christian dogma tells us died
for our sins, are the accepted models for earnest
spiritual seekers.
Evola and the UR Group fly in the face of such norms.
Their magical system makes almost no mention of how a
would-be magus should comport himself towards others.
There are no exhortations to live for the sake of
others or to help those who are less advantaged. There
are only repeated statements of the need for courage,
steadfastness, clear vision, and singleness of purpose
on the magical path. Time and again, the reader is
reminded of the relativity of Good and Evil from the
vantage point of the accomplished initiate. At best,
the UR system might be characterised as morally
neutral, at least by conventional standards.
Yet it is clear from the authority of the books
instructions, and the first-person accounts that are
included, that the members of the UR Group achieved
heights of consciousness that bear the mark of gnosis.
Here was a group of Italian esotericists whose
loyalties lay with ancient Rome, who were associated
with the extreme Right, and who considered the
majority of the human race to be asleep and worthy
only of being led by an enlightened few. Could it be
that they developed a potent system for the
advancement of spiritual awareness that works? This is
the challenge that Introduction to Magic raises for
its readers and which each reader will have to answer
for himself.
Editor's Note: Introduction to Magic: Rituals and Practical Techniques for the Magus by Julius Evola and the UR Group (Published by Inner Traditions) is
available from New Dawn magazine, www.newdawnmagazine.com
Footnotes:
1. Preface to Introduction to Magic, p. xxv.
2. Abraxas (Quadrelli) in Introduction to Magic, p.20.
3. Abraxas (Quadrelli) in Introduction to Magic, p.19.
4. Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice, p.xii.
5. Dion Fortune, quoted by W.E. Butler in Magic, Its Ritual, Power and Purpose, p. 12.
6. Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice, p.4.
7. Julius Evola, The Hermetic Tradition, p. xvii.
8. Stephen E. Flowers, Lords of the Left-Hand Path, p.241.
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