Abstract
This chapter delves into the historical roots and fundamental doctrinal aspects of Traditionalism. The two primary tenets of Traditionalism are the conviction of the crisis in the modern world and the belief in an ageless, primordial, and pristine Tradition as a refuge from this crisis. Guénon (d. 1951) is regarded as the forefather of this movement, attracting intellectuals worldwide. Italian scholars, including Arturo Reghini (d. 1946), Guido De Giorgio (d. 1957), and Julius Evola (d. 1974), engaged with Guénon’s teachings. They paraphrased and commented on his works, with Evola making the most significant contributions. However, Evola, despite being influenced by Guénon, arrived at least three discrepant conclusions concerning the relationship between religions and Tradition, the solution to the modern world’s crisis, and the interpretation of the East-West divide.
For Evola, the crisis extended beyond the West (as proposed by Guénon) to encompass the entire modern world. Before modernity’s crisis, the West and the East exchanged valuable Traditional components, requiring retrieval and rehabilitation for the establishment of a spiritual empire. This envisioned empire would be led by a warrior-king, divided into castes, and governed by Traditional principles. Evola believed the correct response to the crisis was not mere contemplation but active engagement through political activism and militancy. His militant Traditionalism generated sympathy with the fascist regime, but his relationship with it was ambiguous. His elitism and spiritual inclinations were considered utopian and disregarded by the dominant fascism of the time. Moreover, Evola’s aversion to the Church strained his ties with Mussolini, who had reached an agreement with the Church. Consequently, Evola remained isolated, and his utopian vision went unrealized.
After World War II, with the decline of militant fascism, spiritual fascism came to the forefront in Traditionalist circles, leading to a resurgence of Evola’s popularity. His visions of a hierarchical, supranational, and Traditional society inspired the youth and revitalized Italian neo-fascism.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Lit. Unity of Being is an idea that dominates Sufi circles both in the East and the West. Being or existence in this case refers to God. Although Ibn ʿArabi was not the inventor of this idea, he was the first Sufi to construct a comprehensive philosophical doctrine on the basis of this spiritual experience.
- 3.
He was born as Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola in 1898 in Rome, into a family of Sicilian minor aristocracy. From his mid-twentieth year onwards, he adopted the name Julius as a symbol of his spiritual connection to ancient Rome. Initially, he pursued engineering and briefly associated with the futurist movement. During WWI, in 1917, he served as an artillery officer for a brief period. Later, he gained recognition as a prominent Dadaist painter and poet. His disillusionment with conventional life led to experimentation with drugs and even suicidal thoughts. However, he had a transformative experience while reading Buddhist texts, which deterred him from suicide. This experience ignited his interest in spirituality. His fascination with magic stemmed from his belief in the exclusive nature of truth (Furlong, 2011).
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He was born in Rome in a wealthy family. He knew several Oriental languages and spent many years in the predominantly Muslim countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt (Gabrieli, 1993).
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Giuseppe Vincenzo Tucci was born in 1894 in Macerate. He was a scholar of East Asian settings and especially the Tibetan culture. He was a supporter of Fascism and in 1933 with Giovanni Gentile founded the Italian Institute for Middle and Extreme Orient to reinforce Italy’s relations with Asian countries (Garzilli, 2012).
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Women had no active role in the formation of the Italian Traditionalism. Neither in the Schola Italica, nor in Rito Filosofico Italiano or other Traditionalist circles had women significant roles (Giudice, 2016).
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He was born into a noble Florentine family in 1878 and later earned a degree in Mathematics from the University of Pisa. His aristocratic upbringing instilled in him anti-democratic and anti-modern sentiments. A proponent of Pythagoreanism, he became affiliated with esoteric groups and translated some of Guénon’s works. It is highly likely that he joined the Theosophical Society in 1898. Furthermore, in 1912, he gained entry into the Supreme Council of the Philosophical Rite within Italian Freemasonry. However, by the latter half of the 1920s, he began to critique the escalating fascist hostility toward non-Catholic Traditionalists (Giudice, 2016).
- 8.
Guido Lupo Maria De Giorgio was born on October 3, 1890, in San Lupo, in the province of Benevento. At a very young age, he obtained a degree in philosophy in Naples. Afterward, he moved to Tunis, where he taught Italian at a high school and came into contact with Islamic esoteric circles. Shortly after WWI, he relocated to Paris, where he connected with René Guénon and various prominent French esoteric publications of that era. Upon returning to Italy, he collaborated with Julius Evola, contributing to publications such as Ur, Krur, La Torre, and Regime Fascista, often using the pseudonyms Zero and Havismat. Following the death of his son Havis during the Ethiopian War, he chose to live in seclusion among the Piedmontese mountains, where he would pass away on December 27, 1957 (De Turris, 1989).
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Based on Bachofen’s theory about matriarchy, Evola elaborated his ideas about two types of ancient spirituality, i.e. lunar and solar. The Nordic spirituality is solar and active, while the Mediterranean spirituality, typical of gynaecocratic societies, is lunar, passive, static, and telluric. Religions, especially Christianity, represented the lunar spirituality. Evola saw an opposition between solar and lunar spirituality, whereas for Guénon these two types of spirituality were subsequent. Guénon did not attribute the importance that Evola attributed to the ancient Rome or what Evola considered the locus of the solar spirituality.
- 11.
The name of the group derives from U-R existing in the Chaldean and in the Runic. “U” means “fire”, “R” means “bull”. Moreover, the prefix UR in German indicates something ancestral (Del Ponte, 1989).
- 12.
“La guarra sta all’uomo come la maternità alla donna”.
- 13.
The postwar German political system made it impossible for the extreme Right to become a mass movement, as occurred after WWI. But in Italy the memory of Fascism and the sharp class cleavage kept space open for Right wing extremism. Moreover, for half a century Democrazia Cristiana (Christian Democracy) was in power, thus, the regulatory mechanism did not work in Italy and the lack of alteration in power heavily subordinated the administration to the ruling party, rendering parliamentary controls largely ineffective, while patronage, clientelism, and inefficiency were notorious (Ferraresi, 1995).
- 14.
On the Ordine Nuovo see Chap. 5.
- 15.
He was born in 1941 in Padua. He emerged as Evola’s most prominent disciple and was associated with Ordine Nuovo. In 1963, he founded the “Group of Ar” inspired by Evola’s philosophy. Later, when the “Group of Ar” dissolved, he established the “Ar Publishing House”, specializing in books by Guénon and Evola. Starting in 1966, he led a group in Padua that plotted bombings. From 1971, he underwent several trials, particularly for his suspected involvement in the Piazza Fontana Bombing (Sedgwick, 2004).
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Mirshahvalad, M. (2024). An Italian Eulogy to Secrecy. In: Crises and Conversions. Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55877-1_2
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