/lit/ - Literature

>>20116706
Seyyed Hossein Nasrcalls Evola a crypto-traditionalist:

“Although Zolla no longer associated with Julius Evola, he nevertheless arranged for me to meet Italy’s most famous crypto-traditionalist writer who was a very controversial figure because of his espousal of the cause of Mussolini during the Second World War. I had already read some of Evola’s works, many of which are now being translated into English and are attracting some attention in philosophical circles. But based on the image I had of him as an expositor of traditional doctrines including Yoga, I was surprised to see him, now crippled as a result of a bomb explosion in 1945, living in the center of Rome in a large old apartment which was severe and fairly dark and without works of traditional art which I had expected to see around him. He had piercing eyes and gazed directly at me as we spoke about knightly initiation, myths and symbols of ancient Persia, traditional alchemy and Hermeticism and similar subjects. While he extolled the ancient Romans and their virtues, he spoke pejoratively about his contemporary Italians. When I asked him what happened to those Roman virtues, he said they traveled north to Germany and we were left with Italian waiters singing o sole mio! He also seemed to have little knowledge or interest in esoteric Christianity and refuse to acknowledge the presence of a sapiental current in Christianity. It was surprising for me to see an Italian sitting a few minutes from the Vatican, with his immense knowledge of various esoteric philosophies from the Greek to the Indian, being so impervious to the inner realities of the tradition so close to his home.” – Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “An Intellectual Autobiography,” The Philosophy of Seyyed Hossein Nasr. p. 68.

Julius Evolawas an Italian Traditionalist influenced by Guénon but from whom he departed on many points, which does not allow him to be assimilated to the Guénonian-Schuonian Traditionalist School.

In the Guénonian-Schuonian Traditionalist sense no, but this school does not have a monopoly on the label - rather Evola is a a radical Traitionalist, the school does not have a monopoly in the sense that no ideas are new ideas, and that the seeds of Traditionalism and the "Primordial tradition" are present in even authors like Thomas Aquinas - who may be deemed in some form a Traditionalist, you are getting caught up in labels in the same way the "History of Philosophy" academics get caught up in their subject from the position of profane historical materialism. But - yeah sit here debating labels - a task truly befitting those of lower intellectual function.

Pseud.