/lit/ - Literature

Have you read any other works on metaphysics?

>>10911950
What’s up with black people?

>>10911950
What led you to be interested in him?

>>10911950
knowledge of yours-----------mine

and so forth

a class of people made redundandt by the advances of another, which make increasingly the independence of this class into the dependence of THIS class

>>10911957
Plenty, I've got a working knowledge of both Eastern and Western metaphysical traditions, exoteric and esoteric.

>>10911960
Evola was pretty unambiguous about his dislike of inferior, negroid races. He believed they were of a denser, darker metaphysical stock than the ariyan-type.

However, that said, and the last thing I want to do here is sanitize Evola for the PC reddit crowd, but he knew, at best, this was only a general description of the spiritual condition of negroids. Just like an absolute woman is superior to the mechanical man, so does it all come down to the quality of one's self. Appeals to racial identities or the collective are, ultimately, a fiction. You are alone with your soul and responsible for it.

>>10911965
He has an acute understanding of the human condition that is ontological as opposed to economic, social, political, or "merely" existential and religious. He knows what's up. He knows suffering is a problem of reality and not a problem of contingent social circumstances, though the latter definitely contributes.

He's able to step outside the ring of desire and (un)fulfillment and diagnose the world from a perspective that understands matter as the cyclic, self-propelled (and therefore senseless arbitrary) movement of energy. There is no all-abiding cosmic harmony: the universe is agon, eternal conflict, the boil of unconscious forces.

The ego of the human being is that through/by which these forces legitimate themselves in the human. My ego tells me to fuck, eat, sleep, kill (if I have to), because the system that I am has been engineered by eons of evolution to fuck, eat, sleep, kill, etc.

the planet is warming. dark skin is a warm climate adaptation. dark skinned people are moving north, displacing the cold adapters.


literally BTFO every type of evola idea about race, tradition or ethnic superiority.

climate > western civilisation.

Does Evola have much to say about Taoism?

I don't remember him talking about it, but I haven't read Evola in some time.

>>10912028
>the spiritual condition of negroids

He seem to me to speak almost mythically at times.
This thought came to me while I was reading his Revolt.

>>10912028
>There is no all-abiding cosmic harmony: the universe is agon, eternal conflict, the boil of unconscious forces.

How could you assume there isnt a cosmic harmony ie cosmological idealism when your intellect is premised off the very causality that it comes to understand in nature in and of the understanding itself. How do you indiscriminately form reason/consequent cause and effect without this harmony

>>10912028
>the universe is agon, eternal conflict, the boil of unconscious forces

There is harmony in eternal strife. Evola understood this.

Also, read some Heraclitus.

>>10912038
He admired the Taoist ideal of wu-wei, and the coinciding of immanence and transcendence in its philosophy.

That is, the identification of the self not with its aggregate but with the fertility of the void, that reality is fundamentally change and as such is always-already beyond itself, always-already dissolving the forms it creates. This flux is peace because suffering, unease, restlessness is only ever identification with determinate facticity. Life is this balancing act between the determinate and the unmanifest. An immanent-transcendence: I struggle with the Law of the world in full recognition of its groundlessness, its irreality.

As Lacan puts it, there is no meta-language for being, it just is, analytical thought is only an articulation of the "is" (generally programmatic, in the form of the "ought" of ethics), and as the Tao abides the froth of manifestation, so does the initiate abide the tantrums of the false self, because he (as subject) is fundamentally the void of his identity with himself, A = A (which Evola calls the I-that-is-I).

Let me know if this is a bit over your head. I'm trying not to dumb this down.

How do I get laid?

(I know this sounds toungue in cheek but Evola wrote a lot about sex, curious how he thinks female attraction works)

>>10911950
How does Evola think a state should function? Like how do we collectively move forward as a society. The common trope these days seems to be put more in science and tech and we move on, but we have seen all that does is reward a culture of flashiness and creates vacuous imbeciles with no interest in what’s around them.

How should we then move forward on the bigger questions like morality, labour and course art.

>>10911950
From what I skimmed from Revolt Against the Modern World, Evola seems to be invested in some strain of Platonism, as in the first chapter he states,
"In order to understand both the spirit of Tradition and its anithesis, modern civilization, it is necessary to begin with the fundamental doctrines of the two natures.
According to this there is a physical order of things and a metaphysical one ... a mortal nature and an immortal one ... a superior realm of 'being' and the inferior one
of 'becoming'."

If this is the case, i.e. the division of finite and infinite, how do you defend this from traditional attacks on Platonism, say for example, the problem of how there is causality
between two kinds which are different in a radical sense. Or, do you not agree with Evola on this point, or do you think I am misinformed?
I ask this as I feel the question of how a person deals with being qua being in their greater systems is an important cornerstone.

>>10912099
He explicitly rejected naive, exoteric ideas of harmony (the "stain" of evil contributes to the harmony of the whole, etc.)

No, there is no default harmony, this harmony is only achieved in the self as the integrality of the self. I've already read Heraclitus. Heraclitus and Eckhart and Evola are saying the same thing: all is fluxion, but the fact of change is itself eternal and immutable, and so can serve as the basis for stability-within-flux. This is the peace of the wheel, not a peace beyond the wheel.

>>10912086
Of course at the basic level he assumes a correlation between thought and world, but 1) this distinction breaks down at higher levels of self-realization and 2) of course there is (temporary) equilibrium within flux or else there would be no basis for our thematizing agon /as/ agon. Like Schelling's point: meaning can only exist as meaning in a background of non-meaning. Or Deleuze: sense emerges, is gauranteed, validated, by non-sense.

Your point actually touches on his larger idea of nature as a "purposeless purposiveness", but that's another story

What are his metaphysical beliefs

>>10912158
>This is the peace of the wheel, not a peace beyond the wheel.

Classical metaphysics is a lot more monistic than you seem to realize and, like it or not, Evola is an heir to classical metaphysics.

>>10912119
It's actually funny because a lot of what initiatic literature has to (indirectly) say about this topic is just an occult formulation of shit like "don't be thirsty" and "do not show need".

Well, first, Evola distinguishes between the phallic male (what we're seeing in a society inundated with porn and sexualized imagery that holds up the surface masculinity of sexual conquests as the paragon of manhood) and the male of the ariyan-type. There's also another type of male, the kind /pol/ calls "soyboys", that are fascinated with femininity/the image, but that's another story for another day.

Very simply put: the phallic male covers up his insufficiency and need with a woman, the ariyan requires nothing outside of himself to complete him. To move towards something outside of oneself is to testify to your need for this thing, and hence your lack. He has a very Plotinian idea of desire: I create my lack in the desire, my lack does not pre-exist my desire. Like Orpheus resisting the urge to look back: only when you refuse the narrative of lack can you truly transcend it. Or, in other words, only when you stop checking to see if the Thing is with you (the object of longing, striving, etc.), is it actually with you.

The proper male spirituality involves self-integration, self-consolidation. The becoming of: a center, a monad, a pole star, as the sun exerts its "will" on the planets without it itself becoming involved in the annular movement of matter. Like Nietzsche says through Zarathustra, "wisdom loves a warrior".

Become your own principle, do not look for it in others. But this is just a platitude you're reading on 4chan, which is why Evola says the self has to encounter the void to be violently purified of attachment, there is no other way.

>>10912137
Political solutions are phantoms, strive after your soul. The individual goes into death as the individual, be involved in the world, sure, but be individuated.

There is no way these teachings will resonate with the masses. "We" don't move forward, you do.

>>10912196
did he actually support rape or is that a wikipedia meme?

>>10911950
Tell me Evolas views of the decline of western civilization

How does Buddhism tie in with his philosophy?

>>10912152
He doesn't reify the Forms. He is mum about the metaphysical status of his "ontology of layers": whether or not the initiate "goes" somewhere or simply experiences another dimension of consciousness is, at the end of the day, the difference that makes no difference.

I believe he subscribes to something like Eckhart's univocal causality: the just man does not "participate" in justice, he actualizes justice in his being just. Justice "participates" in him as much as embodies a justice to "participate" in. Or, as Alan Moore puts it, "God is just the idea of God [in the void]". That last bit is mine.

Analogical correspondences are legitimate; different things reflect the same ontological principles, but principles that are immanent to a universe of space-and-time.

There is no going "anywhere", the initiate simply learns to stop experiencing the universe as the correlate of his ego. He describes this as the "signless" void-state, signless because objects no longer appear as they appear in the dimension of "for-me".

>>10912165
Fairly complex, but if I had to sum it up: the spirit must evolve into the Sun of the system that one is. Notions of centrality, polarity, peace, detachment, and superiority abound.

>>10912189
Evola isn't a dualist. More a dual-aspect monism. One primal, undifferentiated force that either descends, or ascends.

>>10912211
No, he didn't support rape, dude. I guarantee you if you post the passage in question I can give you a reasonable explanation.

>>10912232
Quality degenerating into the worship of quantity. Depth and intensity of consciousness being slowly replaced by breadth of worldly power and influence.

He thought modern society's collapse was as unavoidable as a falling object hitting the ground, that the forces that are precipitating its collapse are as objective, contingent, and mechanical as any other. The Western delusion is believing they are not.

>>10912238
He offers one of the best expositions on Buddhist doctrine out there imo.

>>10912211
Not OP, but I believe he alluded the act of rape is a result of degeneration of the self.

>>10912285
>consciousness being slowly replaced by breadth of worldly power and influence.

How do I liberate myself from these vile powers?

>>10912297
Realtalk? Exercise, meditation, eating clean, mindfulness, solitude.

>>10912286
>>10912285

ok I clicked on the link in the wiki article and it just links to some liberal article clearly misrepresenting his beliefs. his wiki has always been an inside joke to me and a couple of friends fro how radical and crazy it makes him seem right out of the gate, altho after having read revolt against the modern world his ideas are very well put and poetic. how much does his metaphysics of history differ from spenglers? im nearly done with decline of the west and I notice a lot of similarities. thanks for your help, anon!

>>10912304
Methods for meditation? There are so many.

I crave liberation beyond all else. It's all it think about.

Where does one start in understanding metaphysics?

>>10912325
Someone posted pic related in regards to Evola's thoughts on rape.

If you look at the same (((wiki))) page from three years ago, he sounds a lot more reasonable, and his flirtation with fascism is portrayed much more fairly.

>>10912325
I believe him and Spengler are in good agreement, this idea of a central, spiritual nucleus gradually dissipating itself into mechanized, bureaucratized collectivity through time (culture -> civilization in Spengler's system).

>>10912332
Simple breathing meditation is a good start. Follow your breath, learn to observe thoughts instead of reacting to them.

>>10912348
Lots of study, suffering, and solitude.

>>10912358
Yeah I don't understand how anyone can read this and assume he's supporting rape. It makes perfect sense.

>>10912367
my last question, not trying to waste ur time but very curious

how hegelian would you call evola?

>>10912358
I forgot to mention, the anon clarified later he was quoting Evola from his perspective why a man would justify rape. Evola actually condemns the act itself.

>>10912391
oh, that makes a lot more sense. surprised no ones deleted it yet.

>>10912245
I just want to say I appreciate your reply. You are the first person I have seen to not only give a substantive response on this
point, but to also to not shy away from using determinate terminology in you explanation versus the usual misdirecting mysticism
and toothless aestheticism.

Though I am uncertain whether I agree with the possibility of the 'signless' void-state, a concept which strikes me as something akin to 'the night in which all cows are black' and losing sight
of the necessary rungs of the ladder of consciousness, I do find the notion of univocal causality plausible, and as it ostensibly 'leads to' the void-state or the completion of the circle of sorts it does at least show
as far as I am concerned there is actual concrete work in place.

I would like to congratulate you for single-handedly reforming Evola's reputation as a serious metaphysician in my mind.

>>10912381
I'm liking this. Go nuts.

A very good question.

If we take the standard historicist reading of Hegel, Evola's is an inverted teleology: the Spirit doesn't evolve from unconsciousness into consciousness as orthodox Hegel would put it, it degenerates from its primal condition of identity with the noumenal (another way of saying, ancient man's immersion/coalescence with the immediacy of being) into the morass of thought.

However, the more Zizekian, unorthodox Hegel is more in line with Evola's views. The universe is contingent, agonic, without ontological gaurantee? Check. Spirit is not some transcendent oversoul but immanent, processual, a phenomenon of reality and reality alone? Check. Necessity is only narrativized contingency ("everything happens for a reason...")? Check. Essence is only appearance qua appearance, ie objects appear only as the appearing of themselves and don't participate in some transcendent platonic Form? Check. The subject is nothing but the infinite power to say "no", which paradoxically doubles as the infinite "yes"? Check.

However, where Evola and Hegel somewhat diverge: for Hegel, the self-mediation of reality is all there is, and is fulfilled by Absolute Knowledge (which is the knowledge that all there is /is/ this eternal arising and passing away of shapes of consciousness, which kinda takes away the sting of negative a bit since we're no longer in denial of this fact), while for Evola the negative /itself/ must be negated. In other words, the circle of the dialectic is only fulfilled by its cutting, while for Hegel the closure of the circle is fulfilled/"soothed" by our recognition that it is a circle, and there's no other reality to go "to". Hegel kinda comes close, but he's not a big mystic.

What would Evola think of Arnold Schwarzenegger's life?

>>10912447
Thank you! one of the best threads ive seen on this board. I’m going to revisit this thread after some sleep over a cup of coffee, it’s very informative

>>10912430
>Though I am uncertain whether I agree with the possibility of the 'signless' void-state, a concept which strikes me as something akin to 'the night in which all cows are black'

You've described the fundamnetal obstacle to the Path: how to let go of a universe that is a correlate of, and thus fascinating for, the ego. How do I conduct myself in a universe divested of the libidinal charge I used to give it?

Evola puts the 'signless' void state another way: everything becomes the extreme case of itself. A return to the "is" or "that-ness" of reality that is not muddied by an "ought", and yet obviously not a pre-reflective, unconscious "that-ness". Instead of all the cows being black, every cow becomes vividly, irreplaceably itself, and yet in such a way that this multiplicity doesn't look like a banquet for the desirous ego.

I've experienced fleeting glimpses of this state. it is as beautiful and profound as all these guys say, but it really is like trying to hold rainwater in your lap.

>>10912449
He would admire his dedication to bodybuilding (and probably have some really great insights as to how weightlifting has become something of an ersatz substitute for transcendence on the battlefield, etc.) but probably not be too stoked about his political career. Not that he's a finger wager, though.

>>10911950

Pro-tip: Read Guenon if you want to understand the traditional metaphysics taught by eastern Traditions. Evola's are heavily influenced by his own opinions and biases and are more a personal philosophy rather than an impersonal exposition of timeless metaphysics like Guenon's.

I'm not saying he isn't worth reading but it's an important distiction to make.

>>10912554
The rest of the perennialists don't resonate with me as deeply as Evola for some reason. Though they are all definitely on the money, no question.

>>10912569
wouldn’t evolas ideas about desire be the opposite of nietzsches?

>>10912479
A lot of these so-called metaphysical questions are close to being solved by physics. Do we live in a universe where tome is circles, spirals, a straight line into infinity, a spiraling line, etc.? These are ultimately speculative physics at this point but they trouble me regardless insofar as they relate to metaphysics. Eliade's eternal return is best explained by astrology, IMO. Nietzsche is an inspiring thought experiment. And yet it seems the ancients imply there is an epistemological validity to certain experiences that do not, despite traditional claims otherwise, line up all the time. I have had such experiences as well, but idk if I believe my immortal soul is preparing for an afterlife journey... maybe there was a common source for the belief, doesn't mean it's true.
>>10912554
Pic related is a good exposition of similarities and differences between ancient metaphysical systems. Does not reduce things to "true tradition" and "false tradition".

Hey I'm starting my spiritual journey for the first time and need general advice for someone who is brand new to these topics. I have "The Hermetic Tradition" book, since a Evola chart recommended reading it first, but have a hard time understanding many of the topics since I'm not well read. Any advice you can give me on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

>>10912599
Their respective philosophies are different but, no, Nietzsche understood the will-to-power as the strife of different "wills"/centers of experience that is uniform across the universe. That consciousness and culture is an epiphenomenon of this unconscious will. The will doesn't create forms for these forms, it creates them only so it can know the joy of overcoming them. Evola admired Carlo Michelstaedter (a brutal, underrated thinker) for saying precisely the same thing: "man is enriched by negation". The No is the true Yes because the No is the No to the inhibiting Yes of the world (the Yes to determinate structures, a determinate self-image, way of being, doing the same shit day after day and being unable to think yourself out of your rut).

Here's, really, the fundamental, fundamental understanding behind all this, and all the Path really involves you learning: the freedom from x is always greater than x itself. Mull that over.

>>10912600
I do not believe physics has anything to say about the dilemmas in the post you quoted, but I get you.

>>10912602
What are you having trouble with? You have to develop a feeling for these truths that really only comes with a lot of self-awareness and study. Are you completely new to this stuff? I'd start with some Zen, really, to snap you out of the circle of thought and the need to conceptualize.

>>10912643
I guess I am confused about how far to take the doctrine of eternal return. We know the sun is gonna burn out and kill everyone on earth... but we're supposed to feel better because the universe recreates itself billions of years from now (which may or may not happen depending on which cosmological theory is confirmed by astrophysics)?

I mean, I get generational cycles and organism life cycles and astrological cycles but idk it kinda bums me out to think I have to live again. Also, this is relevant to the questions of colonizing other worlds and technological immortality, no? I would rather have a more teleological universe where it is not so flat and deterministic but freely choosen and willed and utterly unique.

>>10912643
I'm completely knew to these subjects completely. I've watched a few videos on youtube from "The Modern Hermeticist" but that is far as my knowledge extends. What I have trouble is figuring out what to start reading and places I can discuss these topics with. I honestly don't know anything on philosophy, metaphysics, and everything else brought up in this thread.

>>10912675
This is more a Nietzschean thing. Evola himself doesn't buy it. Objective, "clock time" keeps on ticking after your death, propelling you to the appropriate afterlife state. What if you do live again? What if I'm wrong? Then stand on infinity and know that you do, and that all eternity is affirmed in this moment, repeated eternally.

>>10912680
You're diving in pretty deep if Evola is your absolute first introduction to not only metaphysics but philosophy in general.

I don't want to give you a reading list, but start with some of Crowley's basic stuff:

www.sacred-texts.com/oto/aba/aba1.htm

If you're feeling ballsy, read maybe the first quarter of the Book of Lies. /Don't/ try to understand all of Crowley's references and correspondences, just focus on the text and try to absorb the philosophy

http://www.iapsop.com/ssoc/1913__crowley___liber_cccxxxiii_the_book_of_lies.pdf

Also, Colin Low's introduction to Kabbalah:

https://hermetic.com/caduceus/qabalah/kabbalah

Finally, the Chaldaean Oracles and Corpus Hermeticum (they're beautiful):

https://hermetic.com/texts/Chaldean
www.sacred-texts.com/chr/herm/index.htm

What philosophers are most antithetical to Evola?

Also, what 21st century phenomenons do you think he would consider most destructive or poor for the soul?

>>10912765
Bataille, Land, Zizek all explicitly reject transcendence and are thoroughly pessimistic, and yet Evola is no stranger to any of their premises.

As for your second question: identitarianism, mindless consumption, the mocking of any and all spiritual pursuits, and the watering down of mindfulness into some corny Buzzfeed one weird trick!! when it's foundational to ascesis and spirituality

>>10912765
>Also, what 21st century phenomenons do you think he would consider most destructive or poor for the soul?
Just take a look around you. A better question is, what would Evola not think is destructive to the soul in the 21st century?

>>10912782
Agreed with your second point. I would also add
"This hit me right in the feelz"/melodrama/consumerist tourism/non-spiritual competition(sports)/narcissism.

>>10912795
I should have added the general quality of diet, a sedentary lifestyle, and an over-fascination with the image (people can only talk about pop culture/sports/he-said-she-said).

However that said I personally really try to not think of myself as a True Man of Tradition in these Dark Times Heh *tips fedora*. I just gotta do me

Did he said something on Tarot?
There are concrete rules on the spiritual way or is something strictly personal?

I'm reading all your answers, thanks for the info.

Did he promote Occult Buttsex or any homo crap whatsoever?

>>10911950
Can you explain Evola's critique of Christianity, especially monastic Christianity (probably the closest to his ideal)?

>>10912807
Unfortunately, he didn't. I'd kill for an Evola book on the tarot of Tree of Life, but what're ya gonna do? However, I have no doubt in my mind he'd understand the Major Arcana as the states of consciousness they are meant to represent (the Fool is the unmanifest, the Magus is the first stirring in the Ain, etc.)

There are concrete rules and it is personal. You are the singularity of you, only you can know what is fullness and vacuity in you. But the rules to understand this are universal: mind-fullness, self-consciousness at all times. What fills you with life and love? What raises you up out of the ontological rat race? Go to it.

>>10912036
nice bait

>>10912811
I believe Evola does say homosexuality is a perversion, but also recognizes the classical ideal of a kind of conjugal spirituality between men, that, who knows, could probably lead to the carnal. He's not crazy about this though, there's no mention of homosexuality or sex stuff anywhere outside of the works dedicated to it.

>>10912814
He believes Christianity represents a degeneration of the active, ariyan spiritual element where the initiate identifies himself /as/ his patron deity instead of supplicating himself before it.

Also he considered Christianity a more sentimentalized, devotional, and hence feminine/lunar religion. Especially the emphasis on the suffering-God, Christ as the patron deity of Being's lowly and downtrodden.

However, like all great spiritual traditions, it does hit on its own truths, and I sense a deep respect in Evola for Meister Eckhart's mysticism (which is itself some of the most potent Christian spirituality around; Eckhart knew what was up).

>>10912816
>he didn't
Isn't that strange?
>I have no doubt in my mind he'd understand the Major Arcana as the states of consciousness they are meant to represent
Can you elaborate on this? Or provide me some links (I know I can look it up myself, but maybe you know reliable sources).
>There are concrete rules and it is personal...
Is there an specific text where he talks about this?

>>10912782
>>10912795
I would also add scientism, neo-spirituality (New Age), lustful behavior (sexual or otherwise), homosexuality, modern forms of music, and material attachment.

>>10912856
>neo-spirituality (New Age)
Why tho? I'm not baiting, but New Age is such a large group, do you think is all crap?

Why didn’t he like porn?

>>10912853
>Can you elaborate on this? Or provide me some links (I know I can look it up myself, but maybe you know reliable sources).

Tarot resources are the ones most notoriously filled with new age goop. However, with a background in esotericism, it's pretty clear what the major arcana represent.

https://i.imgur.com/YpeA2KZ.jpg?1

This is Crowley's take on the tarot.

There was another site that I unfortunately can't find right now.

>Is there any specific text where he talks about this?

Introduction to Magic is fantastic. But if you want it quick and easy:

http://www.cakravartin.com/virtual-library

Go there, open "Doctrine of Awakening", read the chapter on Zen, where he goes over the principles that make Zen an authentic tradition, that also doubles as more or less a summary of not only the entire book but probably his whole ouvre on praxis.

>>10912856
No doubt about it.

terrific thread, thanks OP

What were his thoughts on the use of art?seeing as he was involved with dada for a while.

>>10912864
Not philosophically rigorous enough, no grit or edge or any real willingness to face the darkness of experience. Evola's views on death and the self for example are very sobering.

>>10912864
Because they are modern spiritual movements which have no roots in an unbroken chain of tradition. Evola and the Traditionalists as a whole were very critical of New Ageism.

>>10912864
What kinds of music and why?
What’s wrong with the gay sex?

>>10912882
>However, with a background in esotericism, it's pretty clear what the major arcana represent.
So, it's basically a rehashed explanation of the Hero's Journey or path to initiation?

>>10912348
not OP, but imho it's not something that you can easily learn how to do. sorry for "dude acid lmao" but for me at least it did take tripping to be able to abstract enough away from everyday physicalist reality to actually comprehend what metaphysics is about. It was necessary but not sufficient of course, you actually have to study and dedicate yourself afterwards

>>10912879
You're stimulating your sexual organ to the image. To literal non-being. You're offering your essence on the altar of form, of matter put in a pleasing shape. Nothing wrong with sex. Sex is beautiful. Women are beautiful. He understands the sexual need, it is as biological as hunger. But he understands also the need for sexual purity. Masturbation is almost always a reaction against boredom. An extreme expression of desire for the Other, because you yourself are not complete without it.

It is also the submission to a force inside you that is not you. Being horny is only what your dick's biological imperative feels like in consciousness. Learn to disassociate yourself from the complexes of your body, each thirsting for its gratification.

>>10912887
He had a distaste for the insipidity of bourgeoisie art, especially at the turn of the century, where the traumatized modern is sent reeling into the narcissistic free-for-all of modern subjectivity.

He liked art, but he wanted art to represent something objective. Not realism, mind you, but a communication of principial realities, the universe, the truths of self and being, and not this ho-hum puttering around in the minimalist trough. Neither self-fascinated subjectivity or dry objectivity, but a wedding of the two, as spirituality properly is.

OP, you're not the guy studying Nietzsche for his phd in flordia, are you? The way you write is similar

>>10912910
Or Campbell's Hero's Journey is a rehash of initation.

Yes. You got it, though. What is the Path? The bildungsroman of the Absolute.

>>10912920
I'm not. Does he write good stuff?

>>10911950
what would evola say about my life quest of integrating metaphysics with science/technique through study of dynamic systems and their relation to qualia? Also just want to know your opinions since you're a smart guy

>>10912882
>Tarot resources are the ones most notoriously filled with new age goop
That's the problem I've always had.
Nice content there, thanks. Gonna delve in Crowley so, it's all pointing to him (But: what's the relation between Crowley and Evola?).
>Introduction to Magic is fantastic. But if you want it quick and easy
Thanks!

>>10912889
>>10912895
Sounds about right, well stated.

>>10912378
>>10912913
I guess I was asking more specifically for literature. I've been trying to pin down a concrete understanding of exactly what extramundane knowledge might look like but I've only found peices of it from a few different authors.

How do you think we would go about responding to the gender spectrum?

>>10912634
>the freedom from x is always greater than x itself

Isn't this essentially a form of asceticism? I.e. being free of wants is better than reaching your want and continuing the cycle of 'wanting'

>>10912926
Posts on here occasionally, he writes in a style similar to you, also very interested in pedagogy

Do you read on your own or academically trained?

>>10912932
OP here. Not gonna lie to you bro, a lot of this stuff was very accessible for me because I'd smoke blunts to the head while reading Evola.

You really need to get some meditation under your belt, because none of this makes any sense without an experience of what your mind is like beyond thought, even if it's just for a few seconds (like me). Once that clicks the rest falls into place, because the rest of esotericism (literally everything) is an articulation of this awareness, how to achieve it again, its hypostatization, what it says about the self, what it says about reality, etc.

>>10912927
Sounds interesting m8, he only had a problem with science worship, everything else was killer. In fact I find science to be the number one supporter of all this stuff he's talking about. The idea that the self, for example, is nothing but the dynamism of its parts is supported by modern neuroscience, Aquinas, and motherfuckin' Hume (besides Evola and the rest of 'em, of course).

Specialization is for insects. Don't fall for the "you have to think in boxes" meme. Weininger said genius is the microcosm's perfect mirroring of macrocosm.

>>10912479

What is recommended reading for a further look into this phenomenon?

>>10912934
He says we possess both the masculine and the feminine within ourselves in varying ratios, and a transgendersim is a collapse of the dominant sexual trait (masculinity in men and femininity in females).

>>10912934
Here's what I'd think Evola would say: there is a spectrum, there is a continuity of gender, but the poles remain male and female. What's going on with these kids now is they think every gradation femininity and masculinity is its own gender.

Basically, men are born with a transcendental slant of soul (which is being thoroughly repressed and demonized nowadays), and women exist to devote themselves to a noetic, male principle. There is no sexism in this (couldn't care less about feminism, but when it's distasteful it's distasteful), because if the male is up to snuff, the woman would never experience this as a compulsion.

This is why women today scoff at the idea of an unconditional devotion to a man: because they, rightly, don't see a man who merits it.

>>10912937
Essentially, yes. Well put.

>>10912939
I read on my own.

Have you completed the instructions given in Knowledge of the Waters, in Introduction to Magic? Have you accomplished much with the information in that book?

>>10912967
Doctrine of Awakening, near the end, is where he talks about. Outside of Evola, any and all Zen scriptures. It won't be as philosophical but it's on the money.

>>10912902
Music has degenerated to "pure musicality" or a science of harmonies. As a result, music possesses a Dionysian quality. To him, this has become very pronounced in jazz and it's successors, Rock and Rap music, and their offshoots. For your second question, see >>10912849

Evola's Traditional vs. Modern Man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuJC784mzeE

>>10912985
Great question. I drove up into the mountains this past weekend, threw the lights off in my car and just sat there and soaked in the night, telling myself these are the Waters, that I am alone in the world and I have nothing but my soul.

I can't really say what counts as experiencing it or not. I've had realizations of its truth all the time, but what officially counts as experiencing it? You know what I've learned about these spiritual truths? There's grades to them, they repeat themselves at higher and higher potencies the more knowledge and experience you attain.

>>10912990
>2 min. in
>he hasn't said anything

What is this, a guy smoking and driving?

>>10912990
>Only 3 chapters in RAtMW
>Addicted to the tobacco jew
>Makes a video while driving
>Soyface

>>10912987

What about in Hegel? Did you tackle Hegel head on?

>>10912991
>but what officially counts as experiencing it
I suppose if you go through this:

>If this knowledge leads you back to yourself,
and, as you experience a sense of deadly cold, you feel an abyss yawning beneath you: "I exist in this"—then you have achieved the KNOWLEDGE OF THE "WATERS."

The instructions at the end of the chapter seem pretty hardcore, I'd be surprised if any westerner would be able to complete them nowadays. It's one of my favourite essays though. Too bad the second and third part of the book will likely never be published in english.

>>10913090
My Hegel I get from Zizek, who most say is a very astute interpreter of Hegel, and god knows how many are floating out there in the ether

Hegel's sharp as a tack but I wouldn't go to him for esoteric insight. However, there's a good deal to say about a hermetic Hegel, but also just as much to say about an (incipiently) nihilistic Hegel, since for him (as Connor Cunningham describes it) reality is just a "vanishing show". Reality is the event of its own nullity, much like Heidegger.

>>10913098
Same bro, I love Introduction to Magic. I can't tell you how many times I've re-read that essay, it's so fantastic and evocative and fucking so alive, man, so much realer than half the shit out there. I also love the Problem of Immortality near the end, and the essay on the "serpentine wisdom" of the Taoist masters.

>>10913102
god knows how many articles floating out there in the ether*

Thanks for the thread OP.. been reading all of your responses. I haven’t read any of his works yet, so what should I start with? I have a read some Guenon before hand..
Also, could you elaborate on his views on race, did he really think that biological race didn’t play a part in determining an individual’s characteristics? Did he think that race was only a spiritual thing i.e, an Aryan can have a Jewish soul and vice versa?

>>10913133
Just go with what I read. Ride the Tiger -> Doctrine of Awakening -> Hermetic Tradition -> Introduction to Magic -> Yoga of Power -> Mithras essay. Those aren't all his works, either, so go nuts.

And there's definitely an element of biological determinism, no question. But you break the spell of that determinism to the degree you know it. That's what I love about Evola: of course my self is the correlate of my physical system, but I am more than this correlation to the extent I have a concept of it.

Does that mean someone at the bottom of the totem pole can raise themselves up by their bootstraps with this knowledge? Yeah, theoretically, but if they're at the bottom by definition they would not have this knowledge. It works out kinda beautifully, actually: you don't know what you're spiritually missing unless you know it. And if you don't know it, there isn't enough consciousness in you to suffer when that it dissolves upon death. Those who have the intrinsic resources to walk the Path, walk. Those who don't, aren't even "here" enough for it to matter. This is what John Calvin meant by predestination: some men are inherently predisposed to the experience of higher truths, others aren't, and that's that. To deny that would be to deny that the fundamental differences in dispositions between human beings.

Of O understand correctly, he seems to believe that all of life is in a constant state of flux. If this is the case, why sign on with a strong ideological movement like the SS and then become the godfather to Italian neofascists. Working with the Nazis, who were both materialist and possessed of the belief they could revitalize the already dead west, seems rather counter to his written beliefs. Can you elaborate?

>>10913182
*If I

>>10913182
He believed there was a Traditionalist undercurrent in fascism that he could have helped stoke, but that didn't pan out. Even from the beginning he believed fascism was as much a product of its time as communism. It's sad. The guy really wanted Europe to find its light again, and here we are.

>>10913182
>National Socialist
>materialist
You have to pick one I’m afraid.

>>10912718
Thanks for the reply anon, I'll check out all of these book recommendations. So once I've studied these texts and gain a basic understanding of philosophy I should be ready for Evola? Also beside's /lit/ where can I discuss these topics with other people?

>>10913090
Before he wrote anything, he wanted to make a Magical Idealism system influenced very much by Hegel. But by then Hegel was already out of favor in philosophical circles, especially in right-wing ones.

>>10913232
I'd read Evola, slowly, alongside them.

There are virtually no places on the internet to discuss these ideas at a high level without hoping for the rare thread on 4chan that attracts the magi and luminaries.

Only these 3:

knowthyself.forumotion.net/
www.gornahoor.net/
https://lumineboreali.net/

fantastic resources, but any discussion is slow and steady.

I have also studied Evola very deeply. I wish there were a way we could get in touch. As far as that won't happen, here are some themes that still are obscure to me:

What do you make of his phenomenology regarding numina? According to Julius Evola, prior to the 'solidification' of the world, men experienced the world in a kind of 'public imagination.' I haven't been able to find any information about this outside of Evola himself.

Similar in nature to this, Evola appears to be an atheist and, at the cost of anachronism, a chaos magician. That is, Evola believes Brahma (neuter), God, Tao, etc. to be borderline infernal energy that the king, theurgist, warrior and magician know how to wield. He even considered the metaphysics of the Vedanta to be a kind of degeneracy, which shows how far his conception of Tradition is with the Guenonian school. The offshoot of this rectification is making a glorious or solar power out of the infernal, promiscuous and elemental energy. The method as such is obscure, but has something to do with traumatic evocations of infernal energies that are saturated in a substance and then subsequently slayed. Compare this with his chapter in Hermetic Tradition about the fabrication of gold. This acquired 'virtue' then begins with and ends with man, in a sense. He even clarifies that the king isn't an emanation of the Sun in the sense of imago dei but the only emanation is that same virtue that is present in him.

This is also something I can't find any information about outside of Evola, that is, it seems to disagree with the traditions he draws upon, e.g. the Neoplatonist doctrines he draws upon, such as his citations of Julian who based his 'reformation' on Iamblichean metaphysics, a system founded on the traditions of societies Evola would regard as "lunar" and theistic-devotional. It seems to be Evola's work is very important for its historical references to Guenon, but disagrees highly with that school of thought and is plagued too much with a kind of Nietzscheanism than Traditionalism.

What do you make of all this?

>>10912028
>You are alone with your soul and responsible for it.
This is very nicely put. Do you mind if I use it in the future? I'll quote you as "anonymous."

>>10913272
What's happenin' bud, good shit. Let's see.

>What do you make of his phenomenology regarding numina? According to Julius Evola, prior to the 'solidification' of the world, men experienced the world in a kind of 'public imagination.' I haven't been able to find any information about this outside of Evola himself.

I don't specifically remember this phrase, but as far as I can understand it: I believe right when consciousness was on the cusp of its differentiation from its prima materia that man was in the golden age. As in, before the Greeks had a concept of "man", was man most fully himself, since he was in concord with metaphysical powers without any idea of himself as differentiated from these powers. Something like Hegelian immediacy: in coalescence with my environment, I am more attuned to the powers that structure it. But obviously that's not how Hegel understood immediacy. Immediacy exists to be negated, consciousness as such can only negate immediacy, and so estrange itself from it. It's like gravity, it can't help itself.

>Similar in nature to this, Evola appears to be an atheist and, at the cost of anachronism, a chaos magician. That is, Evola believes Brahma (neuter), God, Tao, etc. to be borderline infernal energy that the king, theurgist, warrior and magician know how to wield.

Yes, very true. It seems for Evola there is a monistic substance that is either bent to nature's self-perpetuation or self-transcendence. As for the imago dei: it seems man only actualizes the light as he can actualize it, as such he himself is not its heir in time somehow, but reflects the light only insofar as his consciousness is something that can reflect it. Hm. It's like there's nothing intrinsically "destined" about the initiatic path in any sense, the man chooses to embark on it because the light is the light, is the light. There is no teleology in Evola: there's even hints in Revolt that there's no a guarantee a new cycle will resume at the close of this one. Contingency rules. At times Evola sounds like a more aristocratic, esoteric Zizek.

>but disagrees highly with that school of thought and is plagued too much with a kind of Nietzscheanism than Traditionalism.

Something I've noticed myself. Evola's primacy of the self and will is almost like unconscious concession to the liberal primacy of the self. Radical Orthodoxists had something to say about this: that for the modern, the self coincides only with itself, and does not occupy a transcendental space, and nothing compels it towards some telos outside of itself. Evola accepts there is only the self, but still bends the self towards a more-than-human telos. It's interesting. But at the same time, he flat out admits praxis is only the condition of properly waiting for a transcendental break-through, so any straining towards some spiritual goal nips it in the bud.

Cont.

>>10913272
At the end of Introduction of Magic they warn to not associate the initiatic self with any profane notion of self. I believe Evola and Nietzsche agree on the status of the Self as "unknown lord and sage" but disagree on how far this Self extends into the noumenal.

That said, I haven't read much of Guenon. But I do recognize a curiously modern slant in Evola's thought that belies his support of Tradition. It's interesting. Never said I was a fanboy. For example, I still can't make heads or tails of Evola's conflicting ideas of the soul, whether it pre-exists the body or coincides with it.

>>10912112
is this a new copypasta?

>>10913324
>aristocratic, esoteric Zizek.
You're thinking of Sloterdijk.
>praxis is the only condition
That part too
>waiting on a transcendental breakthrough
This implies the breakthrough comes from a dual motion above and below (as is the case in theurgy, whilst the magician raises himself up so does his daimon lower himself down). At least that makes more sense to me.
>>10913349
>the soul
I do not think these two views are contradictory. Especially in light of his discussion of the branches and the waters.

>>10912643
they don’t do Souls and Unconscious forces in Zen evola anon, there is no metaphysics

>>10913375
>You're thinking of Sloterdijk.

Fuck I really need to read Sloterdijk. Based.

>This implies the breakthrough comes from a dual motion above and below (as is the case in theurgy, whilst the magician raises himself up so does his daimon lower himself down). At least that makes more sense to me.

It does, you know for Crowley (I believe) magick is essentially feminine, as the man makes himself receptive to a divine influence in/through the exercise of his masculinity. Or, in Buddhism, the moral precepts are only tools to cultivate this receptivity in the practitioner.

>I do not think these two views are contradictory. Especially in light of his discussion of the branches and the waters.

I'm torn between the soul as the dynamism of the body and the soul as the eternal character of the self (as Schelling puts it) that, through its intrinsic identity with itself, pre-exists the corporeal envelope. Probably a little bit of both, isn't it? But where does my essence end and the contingency of the body begin? Shouldn't the kernel of my self correspond the body in which it incarnates? If it doesn't, then what? You're telling me it's all arbitrary, and bodies are determinative of what, biological predispositions? But how do I separate a biological predisposition from a transcendental one? Go figure.

>>10913392
Zen is silent on these matters because Zen is nothing but initiatic detachment honed to a knife-edge. Does Zen deny the existence of a biological substratum that is determinative of character? No. It just prefers not to say anything about it. Mu.

>>10913408
Really? What do Zen masters say when people ask them about Brahman and Atman?

>>10913413
That they are words, and hence fabrications, and hence obstacles on the path to attainment. Zen cuts out all the bullshit. Us Westerners just like to gawk at a Tree of Life before we hit Kether.

>>10913417
There is no is no Kether in Zen, no zen master ever spoke about Kether

Huineng says there’s no mirror for any dust to alight upon

Lin-Chi says Buddhas and Atmans are evil obstacles and you’d better not take them seriously

Bodhidharma says there is no mind or Buddha or Dharma

where is there room for Kether and other metaphysical objects or principles?

You think just seeing is Kether?

>>10913398
>feminine receptive influence
Ya. I have been picking up a lot of that in Christian mysticism. I think Jung makes that connection. The man has an anima as its double. Women an animus. It is curious. Always thought of Crowley more as a solar-phallic guy, or a solar-anus tho :p

It's been a long journey backward but I am enjoying the greeks now.
>tfw didn't start with the greeks...

1.What are Evola's view on racial souls? Does he think its possible for a Westerner to have a soul with similar characteristics to a non white soul or vice versa?
2. In regards to communities does Evola recommended that we leave in communities of people who are also interested in these subjects? If that isn't possible, where you live, what are some alternatives?

>>10911950
What's the meaning of the phrase "we will always be the men in ruins", I often see that /pol/ uses it.

>>10913421
There isn't, Westerners just like to reify stages on the Path as Sephira, or whatever. Zen enlightenment would correspond to the Kabbalistic experience of Ain, anyways. Of course, relative to the unmanifest, there is no manifest, but for the sake of expediency we have to talk about the manifest to go beyond it.

>>10913432
it's weird, it's like a solar masculinity that doubles as a lunar receptivity. the hermetic androgyne: the solar self is consummated as a feminine receptivity to the absolute. or, to put it more bluntly, only a receptivity to the absolute can be solar. everything else is lunar, through and through.

>>10913433
1. Yes, if the West were entirely ariyan souls there wouldn't be a decline. It's not so much negroid or jewish souls incarnating as a Westerner as much as it is every soul has a potential vector for degeneration (outside of the purity of golden age souls, but good luck with that one.)

2. No, no communities. Only the individual. The spiritual is apolitical. Get together, study, support each other in your spiritual endeavors, but there is no communal solution to a fundamentally ontological problem.

>>10913455
Zen doesn’t teach enlightenment or attainment, they explicitly castigate people for asking about enlightenment at all and deny having anything to teach, what do you think they were talking about when they asked what the red haired blue eyed barbarian came to China to say?

>>10913438
/pol/ likes to believe their own experience is comparable to the soul wandering the initiatic desert. in a way, it is, but the average /pol/ poster isn't really interested in the unconditioned, so any spiritual gravitas this phrase carries immediately evaporates when it's spoken by some loli-addicted stormfaggot. No, I don't post on /pol/, but I don't fundamentally disagree with them either. But they're as deaf to these truths as the left. And left, in regards to spirituality: *inhales* oh no no no no hahahahahhahah

>>10913458
I know, I studied Zen long before I studied Evola.

>>10911950
where should i get started with reading his work?

>>10913469
So how does Kether and Enlightenment have anything to do with Zen? If you know what they talked about, then why even relate them unless its to insert ideas you fancy into their mouths? Does what you believe not stand on its own?

>>10913455
>only way to be solar is lunar
Posing as the Source is what a real antichrist would have done.

>>10913474
Zen is embarassing for westerners. Qabalah is what your ancestors studied. Not this chink shit.

>>10913475
More like, the only way to be lunar is solar.

>>10913474
It doesn't, like I said, Westerner needs the crutch of linear progress typified by the Tree of Life.

>>10913470
Doctrine of Awakening or Introduction to Magic. Honestly, Ride the Tiger is best as an introduction but there's a lot of preliminary btfo'ing of modern philosophers that might wear on you, but ymmv

>>10913324
>>10913349

Interesting responses. If you have enjoyed Evola you definitely should approach Guenon. Evola is very in-your-face and he indiscriminately draws on resources to paint a picture of a world where the good life is synonymous with the higher life. Contrarily, Guenon is much more careful with his writing and never seems to waste space. You don't need any prerequisites, but he sort of supposes a grasp of Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy. Essential reads are the Introduction, East and West, Crisis and then Symbolism of the Cross.

I do not follow your logic for the rest of your post. I cannot comment. I can say there is a end in initiation, however. I recommend Guenon's Perspectives on Initiation. It really is the most comprehensive dealing with initiation one can find.

>>10913492
>reverse polarity
I want a girl with a strong animus. I like when my esotericism gets all degenerate and psychoanalytic like that....

>>10913486
Your ancestors studied the words of forest Druids and Bibles. Kabbala was limited to a small number of Christian mystics and then the Jewish community. Before that it was found among the Semites as a race and relates to probably proto-numerology from the 3 great civilizations (non-Aryan all of them)
>>10913492
whites can see, anyone can see, they didn’t discriminate, Bodhidharma was indeed a White Iranic Prince or Brahmin. He had fiery hair and light eyes like a Scythian or Indo-Aryan. Zen ostensibly traveled to at least some Rinzai practicing Japanese along with a small number of Tibetans (quite early) and the Koreans. Those aren’t the same race, and the Tibetans have a totally unique culture from the others. What good is a theo-architectonic labryinth like Kabbalah when Zen takes everything all at once and is effortless?

My ancestors used it, what a fucking waste. They’re a degenerated people now. The moment they came into contact with it they lost their souls. You think you can just play around with spirit and nothing happens if you fail or misinterpret dead-end, looping, parasitic signs like whatever Neo-fascist hermetic qaballah it is you’ve learned?

>>10911950
Why do you like wasting your time?

>>10913470
See >>10913152

>>10911950
Did your father abandon you before or after you turned out to be an autistic loser?

>>10913515
>>10913529
I was wondering when the /lit/ hipsters would arrive.

>>10913513
Because the Western likes to take the scenic route up the mountain, so sue us.

>>10913540
confusing insane meandering with freedom is what people who haven’t seen anything talk about

>>10913540
so... why do you like wasting your time?

>>10913513
>zen
>simple shitty life
>meditate barely any cause you always have chores
>hardly read or understand current culture
>master whacks you on back with stick for no reason
>can't have sex cause of vows
>hermetic qabalah
>complex and interesting life
>meditate a lot cause you have a successful business
>read lots and immerse yourself in pop cultre
>the real master (God) will encourage you instead of hitting you
>it's literally a sin not to get your wife preggo
Tough choice... not

>>10913549
LARPing as a Howard-style Ubermensch is the only thing that keeps that sweet yet cold blade from slitting his wrists.

>muh ancestors
Were illiterate barbaric credulous retards that lived in filth and died in their early 40s. I hope OP does too.

>>10913551
>doing what feels right is what is right
>zen is about doing chores and taking beatings
Usually when I see this kind of false dilemma I roll with it because the implication that you're a slothful spiritual hedonist bound to the earth like a lamprey on a salmon amuses me, but its better to cut the knot.

What do you think you'll get when you hear encouragement from your real master?

>>10913563
You're so predictable, right down to the "dying in middle age" stock reddit burn for anyone you think romanticizes the past. You're out of your depth.

>>10913545
Unfortunately we can play this game until I pretty much can accuse you of not being authentically Zen because you don't meditate staring the wall 24 hours a day. You've been bitten by the Zen bug and it won't let go. Breathe.

>>10913579
You know what's best for other people then? Especially spiritually? Do you have students?

>>10913576
>Ascetics LARPers on 4chan
This will never not be funny

>>10913581
I don't actually, I'm just answering questions about Evola. Relax, bud.

>>10913587
you find most things amusing or just things you wouldn't do?

>>10913579
You're a LARPer, the only deep thing about you is your affection for eating inordinate ammounts of food.

>>10913604
>>10913590
just answering questions about a spiritual teaching, then pretending you're not, then talking about Zen and relating it with Jewish-Christian mysticism
>>10913604
(You)

>>10913609
I don't think in boxes.

>>10913587
You just know he's a trap and furry masturbating afficionado

>>10911950
In which country do you live, OP? Here in Australia, there is a tight-knit Traditionalist current that has organised itself in one vicinity, out of the remnants of a university. I've become rather involved with them as of late, and hope to introduce more of Evola's concepts, which some of them are either hesitant to face, or somewhat flirt with.

>>10912232
>Quality degenerating into the worship of quantity
Isn't this the Guénon idea?

Can you elaborate at all on his criticism of music? What would musical composition done properly look like?

>>10914043
Yes, but it's also a core belief of Traditionalism. Yes, Evola used much of Guenon's terminology, but that was because Evola was also a Traditionalist. Hence, any and all accusations by anons saying Evola was unoriginal and "stole" his ideas from Guenon are unfounded since he was just stating common philosophical beliefs held among Traditionalists.People who make this statement don't really have an understanding of what Traditionalism is as a school of thought.

>>10913885
Ausbro here. Any more info on the group mentioned?

>>10914769
It's basically Adorno : more traditionalist version 2.0

>>10912358
>"woman doesn't cherish her innocence nor feminity rape from a metaphysical standpoint is proven reasonable"
Doesn't it mean that just taking a woman's virginity is reasonable, as women doesn't value it anymore. How did rape become reasonable? If that is the case then raping non-virgins was always reasonable.

>>10911950
How does his work relate to Jung and psychoanalysis?

OP, I have zero knowledge about mysticism/metaphysics/esotericism in general, but I do have a curiosity towards those things.

My question does not relates objectively to Evola, but actually to your general knowledge. It is this: I have the opportunity to maybe engage on a practical Tarot course, comprised of 9 classes with 2 hours each. Apparently it's focused on the "Major Arcana", since it's part of the course's name.

The trick is the course is a bit expensive to me, although I do have the money. So, in your opinion, and assuming the course is good (which I have no way of knowing), do you think it's a good opportunity, or should I forget about it completely?

>>10911950
How do you read evola? I read the first few chapters of Revolt and I don't understand how I'm supposed to interpret it. I feel like I'm reading some kind of fantasy at times.

>>10915217
>I feel like I'm reading some kind of fantasy at times
mmmmmmm I wonder why

>>10913885
America. There is no audience for these ideas anywhere, least of all in a university.

>>10914769
I don't remember his precise wording but the idea is that jazz (at the time, and now definitely rap/hip-hop) are just more elemental and chthonic as musical forms compared to the classicism of the West. Basically, a Dyonisian excess of subjectivity vs. an Apollonian celebration of harmony and form.

>>10915199
He believed Jung's work was a psychologization of esoteric principles. For Jung, the alchemic nigredo is the confrontation with the Shadow, for him, it was the self's encounter with the Waters (something like the Elder Scroll's CHIM, the self experiences itself as an epiphenomenon of nature's energetic, unconscious substratum, and hence either "zero-sums" and is returned to non-existence or asserts itself in/through this medium).

Clean solution: Jung's psychological work is just esotericism at a lower potency. Even Evola says his alchemy is only for those who are already healthy. So first, Jungian alchemy to achieve soundness of mind and body, traditional/Evolian alchemy to take that to the next level.

>>10915201
>paying money for esoteric information in the tyool 2018

Nah. Read Meditations on the Tarot.

http://tarothermeneutics.com/tarotliterature/MOTT/Meditations-on-the-Tarot.pdf

There's a Christian slant but it's light years beyond typical New Age bs.

>>10915217
As a modern you're probably unfamiliar with thinking analogically. Meditate and expose yourself to nature, you can't have any concept of these ideas without your roots in deeper ground. I'd think everything sounded like myth too if my instinctive mental picture of the world was traffic and Walmart lots.

>>10915411
>MOTT
I love that book so much. Interesting how his conversion to Catholicism led to much more sober writings (Valentin Tomberg is the anonymous author). His anthrosophical writings are full of new age gobbledygook but his Christian writing is sublime. Seems like a solid piece of evidence toward Christianity being a living initiatic tradition.

>>10915411
>As a modern you're probably unfamiliar with thinking analogically

This is absurd. We are on a literature board, if you read with any regularity "thinking analogically" isn't the problem.

>>10915487
I doubt it if you're having trouble with Evola. People struggle taking his ideas off the page and into the world. It feels too disconnected from their present experience. Do you want to know what a degenerating, lunar spirit looks like? Go watch the sickest porn you can find. Or the vilest shit there is on liveleak. Get these ideas off the page and into reality. Then it stops being "myth" and more in communion with people struggling with the same world that you live in.

OP, Is the initiated person to take his own path? Or is there pre-determined pathways? Or does it come down to hitting a check list, along the way?

Im going to make a few statements OP.

>Ive had an experience completely where I was my own, but I was no who I am
>I had the cosmos inside me, and I it
>For we were communicating as one vessel
>Ive written my name in the book of life
>I have peered at my one soul

Is me
>>10915634

Do I continue my life, my way with the virtues Ive held this far? Or do I try to dissect my life, and pin point what carries me?
Ive came up with my own metaphysics (it is sound, and has relation tied deep in esoteric thought)

>>10915634
There are as many paths up the mountain as there are selves. But every path ascends. So do your own thing, but study and learn from others. Thirst for metaphysical realization and it will come.

>>10911950
How do I awaken the flame of my heart?
How the fuck do I imagine a light in the darkness before m closed eyes?

>>10912028
How is it different from Buddhism? What kind of method does he prescribe to 'step outside the ring of desires'?

>>10915674
Metaphysical system-building can become its own attachment.

Strive for balance.

What the mind that has experienced ego-death does is, it hypostatises this experience and wants to ornament it with conceptuality. It's like the ego's last-ditch attempt to understand and digest, except instead of its usual programming it's trying to label the void of the subject.

The final obstacle to realization is the hunger to communicate it. Let go of this urge.

>>10915686
Visualize, visualize, visualize. Fake it 'til you make it. You don't imagine the flame, you become it.

>>10915688
Objectivity, detachment, self-observation/self-remembrance, meditation. Essentially, mindfulness. You learn to distinguish your "I" from the small "I" of psycho-physical urges. You learn to understand thoughts and feelings as energies you "assent" to, and that have (always) required your consent, but it was a consent you gave so rapidly you didn't even know a consent was given.

One technique is to erect a "wall" of silence between "I" and its exteriority, essentially a space where the Self screens input and determines itself accordingly. You want to force a break between impulse -> identification with impulse. What forces the break? A continuity of self over and above the vicissitudes of the mind, precisely because it can enact a break in these vicissitudes. From there you can determine yourself accordingly: "Only after you have let go of what you want can you truly want"

>>10915708
Yeah Ive actually already stopped systemizing my ideas, as Im never going to teach them, and I'd just be repeating what the past greats have done.
I did go through a period of mania, but that time finished a while ago, and lasted for about 4 months.
Rid of my depression Ive had since childhood, Im just still puzzled.

>>10915754
thx

>>10915771
Then you should do everything in your power to deepen that initial experience of Samadhi.

That said, by all means, if you've hit on a novel way to visualize/systematize these experiences don't feel like you're just parroting others.

I've seen visualizations of my own mind /in/ my mind that communicate these ideas in ways I don't think anyone else has touched. For example, I saw one-pointed mind-fullness as a gleaming, white line of thought, and the more dissipative, "lunar" mind as the gyrification of this line, you know, like a brain. Essentially, mind-full awareness feels like a dry centrality of self, and an unfocused mind feels moist, convoluted, almost maddeningly dense and recursive.

Maybe this is only relevant to my phenomenology but hey. Keep your mind sharp is I guess my real point.

>>10915801
Yeah, thank you.
Ive become more spiritual since then do my best.

I try to practice m/b/s

I know i shouldn't be using this as a self-help tool, but do you believe that there is some way to become a better man through reading guenon evola and other mystics?

I am pretty depressed and wish to lift this veil

>>10915929
Evola intended his works for already healthy individuals. But I discovered him in a bad time so I don't think it really matters.

The best thing I can tell you is if you have this fire in you, Evola will feed it. Do /not/ mistake the initial rush of discovering occult knowledge that deeply resonates with your personal experience of your body and self (if you even get to this stage) with the lifting of depression. I made that mistake. You still need to work, hard. And reading this stuff is a poor substitute for exercise, clean diet, nofap, the works. But a fantastic, indispensable supplement.

Philosophy can give you abundant mental and spiritual resources, and, most importantly, contact with a higher principle in you that'll keep your head when shit hits the fan.

I can tell you in the absolute depths of my own despair this fire didn't even flicker. How can I put it? It's like, you discover an eternal validity to this light that makes even your self irrelevant. Even thinking about suicide you know this light is true, and good, and beautiful. But then why do you want to kill yourself, you may ask? There's the rub. I have to dissolve my pain in this light like salt in ocean water.

>>10915162
they won’t give you a straight answer, the rw supports rape
>>10915220
you’ve samefagged 3-4 times
>>10915411
Evola was an atheist

and that Tarot book is trash, read Crowley and Mathers who are infinitely more knowledgable and knew kabbalah and numerology
>>10915557
lunar isnt bad you dont understand tantra if you think it is
>>10915684
so if someone fucks animals or commits genocide that too is The Path?

>>10915929
Read Neetchan instead

>>10916000
>you’ve samefagged 3-4 times
no anon I just feel a very strong feeling of disgust whenever I see one of these esoteric LARPer threads

>>10911950
Hello, is this /LARPgeneral/?

>>10915929
Evola is Mysticism lite for people who can't read, Guenon is a Catholic who abandoned his faith for Sufism when he realized the Vatican was a lost cause. Both of them made shit up and basically shilled for political views: Gueon was a Theocratic Monarchist and Evola was a Fascist Neo-Feudalist.

Much like Blavatsky, who was a Theocratic Socialist, and Crowley who was a hedonistic anarchist, they knew quite a deal, spent a good amount of time with primary sources and distilled existing ideas into their own understanding.

I'm going to get a response saying that Crowley and Blavatsky were frauds, but abandoning your faith for Islam, and being a Magical Tantric renegade Fascist ostracized by your own tradition is pretty much the same as saying you're giving birth to the Anti-Christ or in contact with magicians from India. If we view all 4 of them for their works alone, ignoring the personal problems and insanity, they were all quite well spoken, did good work, and had a strong grasp on some of the material they talked about. Blavatsky was intimately familiar with Gnosticism, Vedanta, Hermeticism and Tibetan Buddhism (in fact this has been confirmed by 20th century Tibetan Buddhists, she very clearly did meet Dzogchen and Mahayana adepts). Crowley had a good grasp on Taoism, an incredible understanding of Kabbalah/Qabbala, Tarot, Numerology, Alchemy and other mystical currents. Guenon was an excellent metaphysician echoing the Geometric-Mathematical metaphysics of Volume 1 of Blavatsky's secret doctrine, a sign that he did indeed understand the perrenial wisdom, or the Secret Doctrine as she called it. It seems that Evola had a good grasp on Vedanta, though inserting his own views as well, strong grasp on Tantra, and a strong grasp of initiation and its relationship with esotericism. Actually taking anything the four of them said on faith is extremely stupid.

Read what they read, and come to your own conclusions. Modern spirituality is marred by a few things: the existence of Christian culture and theologians; Atheism and rationalism in academia; Anglos translating Eastern ideas improperly; Jews suppressing ideas; Fascists polluting Eastern and Western Esotericism with anachronistic nonsense racial science and racial teleology; Metaphysics as a talent dying off with the 19th century. It is absolutely best to go to the texts themselves while using these people as biased encyclopedias and as foils to your own understanding. I agree with Evola's Kali Yuga, Crowley's Age of Horus, Blavatsky's universal brotherhood and cosmogenesis and Guenon's ideas about the degeneration of spiritual principles. I reject most of the rest of what they say. Doing that has helped me considerably in my studies.

They all had bad things to say about each other too in the end.

>>10915929
Philosophy is about eudaimonia. That is "the good life". This extends beyond a life of feeling good or being likable. This is about making your life meaningful in the only way possible. Forget existentialism. There is a meaning. And it is foond fundamentally in the rites of (symbolic/shamanic) death/rebirth and initiation. But this requires understanding of self. And understanding precisely why you are a piece of shit. Such knowedge leads many to suicide or insanity. But if you are lucky, you may become illuminated...

>>10916029
>>10916056
ok anon, whatever you say anon

>>10916062
Nice post, brother. Nice to meet a fellow non-larper. That said, I think Tomberg is better than those four. Book of thoth is just kitschy and pastiche. Give me a smith-waite deck or something even older. The older stuff harkens to before the protestant darkening of consciousness so it is contiguous with the ancient hermetic catholic tradition.
>I believe in Kali Yuga, Age of Horus, universal brotherhood and cosmogenesis, degeneration of principles
Isn't this all contradictory? Kali yuga is bad. Age of horus is good. Etc. I mean, might as well start reading Kenneth Grant and aeon of ma'at soror nema stuff...

>>10912921
>Or Campbell's Hero's Journey is a rehash of initation.

It actually explicitly is. That is, in Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell states that initiation rituals often were made to represent the Hero's Journey. Obviously this is only his idea on it, but I found it pretty appealing.

>>10915634
See >>10912816

>>10916000
>lunar isnt bad you dont understand tantra if you think it is

Which is why I qualified it as degenerating.

>so if someone fucks animals or commits genocide that too is The Path?

weaksauce postmodern relativism. understanding the Path would automatically preclude these things. but, that said, it is worth asking to what extent evil is intrinsic

>>10916158
Well said, sir. I find your calm demeanor to speak volumes toward the rationality of your thought as compared to this raving lunatic intruder frothing at the mouth with off the cuff remarks...

>>10916103
Yes, contradicions are good. Many are better than Tomberg, Christians slaughtered pagans, burned occult and esoteric works, disbanded secret societies and persecuted the Masons, Templars and Kabbalists. They should not be taken lightly anymore than a Jew writing about Christianity should be taken lightly.

Kenneth Grant appears to me to be quite lucid, Nightside at Eden is a fascinating read.

What im getting at is that all of these people thought they had systematized the gnosis and could sell it to people who were “ready” but Evola did not produce any disciples nor did the others. That’s telling. Plotinus came from Plato, Adi Shankaracharya from Gaudapada, Zhuangzi from Laozi and Lietzu too, Bruno-Fludd-Boehme-Agrippa from Hermes, the entire Kabbalist lineage from the Jews of Babylon, The Lamas from Vasubandu, you notice a pattern? Legitimate teachings produce legitimate disciples. Primary source texts are necessary.

I’ve read multiple long excerpts from Tomberg’s book and he misses obvious symbolism that the most mundane flea market hacks wouldn’t have. Inserts Christianity where it does not belong.

I would avoid like the plague anything written after 1920-1940 and equally so anything written by Christians or New Ageists not named Blavatsky or Hall. The whole movement was subverted and destroyed by fascism and christian lunacy

>>10916158
Seems like you’re trying to get away with saying something without owning up to it. If you understood Tantra you’d know that Lunar nature is favored in this era and is the way we make contact, no one, especially you has access to a Solar gnosis of any kind and saying that you do belies either Evola making shit up, or alternatively both of you not getting what the Agamas are for
>post-modernism
wow you really are some kind of genius adept, tell me anon, do you think that the only works worth reading were written explicitly by the religious or the right wing? Deleuze is literally Hermetics and Focault and Adorno are aligned with understandings you should already have about sexuality, culture industry, Power. If you don’t get what they taught that’s just more evidence you’re a fraud and have no contact with anything at all.

I’ve yet to meet a single person who was involved with esotericism that used post-modernism as a prejorative who wasn’t a hack fraud right wing pseud. Are you illiterate or just a partisan nigger?

>>10916000
>Evola was an atheist

Technically true, his God is the metaphysical God, the en of the philosophers. His God is a state of being, really, and not a personal divinity. Though Evola does reference an "inscrutable" wisdom operative in the Kali Yuga that is necessary for a true, transcendental break-through. The best a prospective initiate can do in these times is align/identify himself with these forces and let nature take its course.

>>10916220
Sounds like he took that from Blavatsky and Buddhism

>>10916200
Tomberg has disciples. Powell and Buck and Martin and so on. Grant is a disciple of Spare and Crowley. Spare learned from a witchmother. Chumbley inherited from Grant. Blavatsky inspired anthrosophy and Steiner who inspired Tomberg. Blavatsky was also involved in propping up one of the Krishnamurtis. Guenon inspired Evola, Eliade, Jung, Coomaraswami, Schuon, Corbin, Uzdavinys. Pretty hard to establish a direct link from Hermes to Hermeticists but I respect you for trying. Pythagoras inspired the hidden teachings of Plato. Or maybe it was Orpheus. Christianity has a bloody past but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. It is a valuable example of the same near-east mysticism that suffuses all modern religion.

All of you ITT are a bunch of weirdos.

>>10916218
First encounter with Deleuze was an article on Austin Osman Spare on fulgur limited. Good times...

Anyone read metaphysics of war?

>>10916200
>Kenneth Grant appears to me to be quite lucid, Nightside at Eden is a fascinating read.


That's funny, I just started Nightside of Eden yesterday. Can you recommend works of similar quality, but concerned about the light? I don't care for New Age mush, I've (mostly) internalized Grant's (and others') insights into the negative, its being the substratum of phenomenal reality, but now I want something that acknowledges this but doesn't succumb to the edge.

>>10916218
Relax, bud. You're trying to "gotcha" me but it ain't working. I already know Dyonisian avenues of initiation are favored in this time, doesn't mean this lunar force isn't also potentially degenerative, in fact it's precisely being able to dominate a degenerative force that makes it initiation.

>wow you really are some kind of genius adept, tell me anon, do you think that the only works worth reading were written explicitly by the religious or the right wing? Deleuze is literally Hermetics and Focault and Adorno are aligned with understandings you should already have about sexuality, culture industry, Power

I'm intimately familiar with postmodern theory. The Lacanian saint is forged in Eckhart's apophatic desert. Derrida's nothing outside the text is the Plotinian en. Two can play at that game. Evola's system is a reaction against the "lunar", postmodern multiplicity of narratives. Notice I said reaction, not rejection: in spite of the non-existence of a metalanguage, the self is still urged towards centrality and a purity of will. The impossibility of a discourse to self-ground is precisely the fuel for the initiatic will which /is/ self-grounding in spite of this understanding. Knowledge is an inter-dependent system of relation: no metanarrative can ground itself independent of that which it grounds. Only by internalizing this truth is single-pointed will of ascesis possible in the first place.

I've read both sides of the aisle and find their views mutually reinforcing.

>>10916278
What do you do for a living? I would become a monk if it didn't require celibacy. I would like a partner again. School is an alternative but expensive as hell and few prospects would be opened by studying such an esoteric subject. I whsh I could live in a community of individuals focused on esoterica and self-sufficiency but without any oppressive regulations or cult-like aspects.

What do you think of Nick Land? I used to love reading Evola but after reading Land Evola seems almost shallow and meaningless.

>>10916323
His lemurian time-wizardry is cool. Everything after his academic career is trash except his kindle novels which are entertaining albeit short.

>>10916323
Land is a high priest of the 0. He's probably the most eloquent spokesperson of the "infernal influences" that Evola talks about you'll find anywhere, except for maybe Bataille. Also, Evola's notion of the universe as the eternal strife between willing centers ties in well with Land's virulent materialism, where the intensive "it" of matter froths into culture and consciousness not because it, teleologically, must, but because it can.

So for Land this de-legitimizes God because God becomes nothing more than a reified projection of consciousness' unity within this flux: consciousness, as that principle of intelligibility, transcendentalizes this intelligibility into a static God raised up out of the muck of becoming. So Land would reject Evola's notion of Being, but at the same time, for Evola, Being is immanent to Becoming (hence, only possible within it), because Being is nothing other than polarity and stability within flux (a Sun around which the libidinal circuit of matter whirls).

I think Land puts it like this: the naive theist surrenders his agency to God, the libidinal materialist surrenders his agency full-stop, the initiate surrenders everything /but/ his agency (surrenders his contingent identity for the nucleus of the I-that-is-I).

Bottom line: Land is a pharmakon, he knows what the deal is, but whether you stick with him or try to cultivate that light in spite of that understanding reduces to the slant of your soul

>>10916318
I'm just a city kid working odd jobs, you wouldn't even know I'm an autist of this caliber if you met me on the street.

>>10911950
Just started reading the Revolt. Can you just give me some helpful tips to maximize understanding? I'm completely new to his kind of stuff. Why does he feel there's no need to justify claims like there the claim that there's a metaphysical real of being and then there's the real of becoming etc

>>10916278
>no metanarrative can ground itself independent of that which it grounds. Only by internalizing this truth is single-pointed will of ascesis possible in the first place.
just bee urself

>>10916404
Because you're taking it as a philosophical proposition and not as a description of states of being. I don't take Evola on faith, I know intuitively what he means because I've got some practice under my belt. Moderns have a tendency to take this kind of material literally, they don't understand he's referring to modalities of consciousness, organized along the gradient of conditioned -> unconditioned. You should have an intuitive sense of how these poles manifest in your own experience.

>>10916433
glaring_metzinger.jpg

>>10916433
In the fullest, ontological sense, yeah, pretty much.

>>10916252
The adults are talking sweetie, time to read your Harry Potter and go to sleep :)

>>10916441
Feels like I won't get much from him then as I don't share any of those intuitions

>>10916479
Well, you understand them better with study and practice. But whatever, it's your life.

>>10916385
>the initiate surrenders everything /but/ his agency (surrenders his contingent identity for the nucleus of the I-that-is-I).
Can you expand on this? This strikes me as somewhat naive in the face of materialism.

Does evola ever present evidence for his claims? Does he ever provide tangible proof that his beliefs aren't mere superstitions?

>>10916500
>But whatever, it's your life
Fuck you

>>10911950
Why did Evola hate Einstein? Was he too much of a brainlet to understand relativity?

>>10916523
I am a center of experience before I am a body. Or, to put it in a more refined way, my experience coincides with my body. As Kant has it: my perception creates the nature which created me. This is why Evola represents Nature as the Ouroboros, this closed One that is nonetheless more than its closure in/through precisely the knowledge of its closure. You get it? The in-itself of matter becomes the for-itself of consciousness, and the initiatic process is reconciling these two poles of manifestation: the solar, knowing consciousness with the lunar, material substrate.

Spirit is metacognition, or as Hegel puts it, self-relating negativity. I am more than just a temporary aggregate of material to the extent I know it. Of course that knowledge happens in the brain, so it would be better to say the substance of nature knows itself as the substance of nature. Any limit the mind can posit can only happen within the mind. Any reduction of thought to x can only be made if x is thinkable, and hence within thought.

>>10916541
Evidence is a crutch moderns use because they can't investigate and understand ontological principles on their own.

>>10916551
What's that about?

>>10916563
>Evidence is a crutch moderns use because they can't investigate and understand ontological principles on their own.
So why should anyone believe Evola instead of just sitting in a dark room and coming up with their own thoughts on metaphysics and ontology?

>>10916581
>believe

You read and correlate information to your own understanding and life experience. Do you want him to shake it for you too?

>>10916586
Pick whatever word you think is best fitting. Why would anyone end up sharing the same convictions as Ebola?

>>10916563
Yes but if a claim is neither true by definition nor empirically verifiable, then what good is it? I know that metaphysicians hate this line of thinking, but how does evola's claims stand in the light of advances in our modern understanding of things such as evolutionary psychology? Does he provide proof that the ancients adherence to tradition was anything but a coping mechanism for dealing with the brutal poverty of pre-modern life, given how dangerous innovation and adventure in such an environment could be?

>>10916586
>Evidence is a crutch
>relying on 'life experience'

cognitive dissonance

>>10916601
This

>>10916596
Because they'd read, understand, and agree with him if they felt the need to. Your questions are so abstract.

>>10916598
Evolutionary psychology, hah. I could just as easily claim evolutionary psychology is a coping mechanism for moderns who can't comprehend the spiritual and need to reduce everything to some reified, biological x instead of the metaphysical x they accuse the other camp of doing.

The Buddha had a better understanding of evolutionary psychology's insights into the epiphenomenal nature of consciousness two and a half thousand years before the fact, and he backed it up with praxis too.

>>10916601
Nope, distinction between empirically falsifiable, reproducible, democratic scientific truths and inward truths of subjectivity.

>>10912036
The displacement is nowhere close to happening and you have no idea how the West will react.

>>10916642
and that distinction is not totally unnecessary and false, why?

>>10916683
It's a distinction Kierkegaard makes, among many others. It would be tantamount to denying the distinction between knowledge and wisdom, now I know you're not dumb enough to do that.

>>10916555
Einstein is Jewish and his understanding of time and space fucks with Occultism, a lot of spiritual types were threatened by it.
>>10916683
why would it be in the first place? the only proofs of it are of its own type. what could i possibly use that for without being a dogmatist? seems like a luciferian loop
>>10916656
its happening, whites won’t go extinct but they will have to hybridize and accomodate dark peoples. Evola was naive as were almost all thinkers before Nick Land 2.0

we’re also going to be welcoming a new intelligence into the universe that’s pure matter and another that’s all psyche

>>10916555
I unfortunately don't remember his criticisms of relativity in Ride the Tiger. perhaps he thought it was a concession to an incipient post-structuralist subjectivism.

>>10916696
>appeal to authority

pack it in lads, thread is over

>>10916728
Moderns can never reply to content, only ctrl + f for fallacies.

>>10916637
Still haven't my answered my question anon. Are any of Evola's statements true by definition, or empirically verifiable? Evolutionary psychologists can draw parallels between the behaviors of animals and humans, and can observe creatures adopt to changes in their environment to increase their chances of breeding. At the very least, that makes their work anchored in tangible, physical reality. Can Evola prove that the pre-modern adherence to tradition wasn't a product of superstitious fears without smugly dismissing the notion of proof as a modern innovation?
Robert Wright recently wrote a book about how Buddhism ties to evolutionary psychology, so I'll give you that. But how does change things exactly? How does arriving upon a piece of wisdom hundreds of years ago make modern insights and discoveries irrelevant?

>>10916766
>Can Evola prove that the pre-modern adherence to tradition wasn't a product of superstitious fears without smugly dismissing the notion of proof as a modern innovation?

Latent in this question is the assumption that any metaphysical system that has something optimistic to say about death must be a coping mechanism, a denial of the truth. So latent in your question is the same tired, old, hackneyed grimdark traumatized modern mindset that believes the light can only ever be a repression of what is dark in the human experience instead of its joyous overcoming.

It's a really facile and tedious argument and tries to imply you have more experience with death and suffering than those who couldn't put the void out of sight and out of mind with modern comforts. If anything, I'd say it is the modern who is terrified of death and can't come face-to-face with it.

> How does arriving upon a piece of wisdom hundreds of years ago make modern insights and discoveries irrelevant?

It doesn't, they supplement each other, we're all inhabitants of the same reality, stop falling for these false dichotomies hook, line, and sinker.

>>10916766
In addition: these systems are far more pessimistic and sobering about the human condition than anything you'll find today. What they say about death is a bitter pill to swallow.

>>10912554
What's the best place to start with Guenon?

>>10911950
why are his kindle books still off the store

>>10916278
Huh, I always thought pomo theory was complete bullshit until I realized they had the phenomenology of Maya mapped, but without recognizing a transcendent principle.

These esoteric ideologies seem like a form of entertainment. Do people really believe them or is this the Ancient Aliens of philosophy?

>>10916848
Yup, you nailed it.

>>10916841
He's a controversial author, I guess. You can grab a pdf of pretty much every one of his works online.

>>10916278
Complete outsider to magical thingking here. So you're saying all initiations can be seen as a way of saying "I am" and asserting yourself withing whatever context as a kind of internal comprass for any project you want to undertake?

>>10916868
>Ancient Aliens of philosophy?
No, that would be Miguel Serrano's ideas on Hitler esoterism.

>>10916875
Yes, an "I am" that is not the voice of a conditioned "I" (you could say "I am" and assert yourself to feel up some passed out girl at a party because you wanna get a nut off, but yeah, you get it, it would just be your dick saying "I am" through you).

It's about finding the identity that survives the groundlessness/contingency of all identities. Which is why meditation is a nice introduction: what do you become, what do you experience when you no longer engage with your thought-narratives?

>>10916795
We're all endowed with reason anon, and we're all capable of contemplating life, regardless of our physical condition or our place in history. By dismissing my arguments as the result of a modern deficient mindset, you resort to ad hominem attacks. Maybe you're right, and i'm a pampered modern who doesn't understand the nature of death or appreciate the joy of transcendence through strife. Fine. That doesn't make my arguments any less valid. Are any of Evola's claims self-evident truths? Do they have an empirically-verifiable basis? Is the claim that my mindset is deformed by the lures and illusions of modern life true by definition? Is it empirically verifiable?

Dismissing ideas you disagree with as the self-serving babblings of minds shaped by the malign influence of a certain reality is polylogism, a proud marxist tradition. And no wonder, marxists and fascists in italy openly flirted with each other at one point in history.

>>10916872
yeah i have some of his shit from bookz but i like some of the features that the store provides, And most of what is out there is shitty PDF convets that look like shit on the kindle

who is the publisher and why have they not fixed this

>>10916895
Interesting. Not to brag but that's exactly the defintion I had come to.

Just one more question, is magic in this context some kind of "alchemy of the spirit" for self transformation and achieving different states or does Evola believe in an actual exteranal force that can be harnessed that is*not* some kind of collective belief or unconscious.

>>10916900
His idea that the personality is only an effect of the psycho-physical aggregate has been confirmed by neuroscience.

For what it's worth you seem pretty sharp which is a shame you're asking such cookie-cutter questions. To be fair to you, I could go into more detail as to the falsifiability of these ideas but it's a lot of work.

>>10916919
He believes at the extremes of self-realization the initiate can manifest powers called siddhis. He really does believe an Awakened One like the Buddha can exert an effect on less developed beings that appears indistinguishable from profane notions of magic but that are also illustrations of principial truths.

For example, the story of a bandit that assailed the Buddha on the road: the bandit found himself running in place and unable to approach the Buddha who was immobile. As an unmoved mover the Buddha exerts a dominating influence on the "moved movers". The bandit running in place also represents the "running in place" of the samsaric wheel, which gives the illusion of movement but is nothing but the reinforcement of the closure of desire's circuit.

>>10916872
>Yup, you nailed it.
Is that really the case, or are you yanking my chain?

>>10917074
I'm not, it's the same understanding I've arrived at after reading everything and anything I can get my hands on.

>>10916698
>a lot of spiritual types were threatened by it.
Einstein didn't like it at all either. He wanted an eternal Universe, he wanted a deterministic Universe. He got a Universe with a beginning, randomness and 'spooky actions at a distance'.

>>10911950
Is there anything I can attain from Evola in spite of my half-negroid race, or is it there something I'm missing?

>>10917106
If it resonates with you, it resonates with you, race is of no consequence. Your soul is your soul, man, cultivate it. You think you're talking to some aryan overman?

>>10917117
Maybe.

did he have anything to say about jung?

>>10917311
See>>10915411

>>10916835

1) Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines
2) Man and His Becoming According to the Vedanta

The rest can be read in any order but he references his previous works alot, it's better to read the earlier ones first. Some are really specific and can be ignored unless you are curious about that one subject (i.e. the one on Theosophy or Dante). You can find 20 of his translated works for free here:

https://archive.org/details/reneguenon

>>10917368
What would qualify as diving into the deep end re: Guenon? I'm interested in the mathematics and geometry. Think it's time I sit down and read this dude.

>>10912196
>Or, in other words, only when you stop checking to see if the Thing is with you (the object of longing, striving, etc.), is it actually with you.

That's stupid as fuck.

>Evola says the self has to encounter the void to be violently purified of attachment, there is no other way.

How is that at all desirable? He wrote an entire book about his aesthetic preferences, so it's clear that he has some attachments. This is just the same thing that Marx or Spengler does where they claim to be disinterested actors describing an inevitable process, all the while lamenting the failure of their ideas.

>>10917428
>That's stupid as fuck.

Actually a sentiment you can find expressed on facebook.

>How is that at all desirable? He wrote an entire book about his aesthetic preferences, so it's clear that he has some attachments. This is just the same thing that Marx or Spengler does where they claim to be disinterested actors describing an inevitable process, all the while lamenting the failure of their ideas.

Actually, no, the desire to negate desire is a difference of kind and not degree when compared to the desire/thirst for sense-pleasures, existence, etc.

>>10917428
Evola wasn't a liberated being. He was just philosophizing with guenons ideas

>>10917383
>What would qualify as diving into the deep end

It's actually a bad idea to do this without any preparation (his earlier works) IMO. The vast majority of 'Intro to hindu doctrines' is him exhaustively explaining and comparing the exact nature of religion, metaphysics, mysticism, esoterism, etc. It's important to know how Guenon defines these terms if you want to understand his later books.

Ones like 'reign of quantity' and 'crisis of the modern world' are more cultural/societal critiques rather than works explaining metaphysics. His two most important metaphysical works e.g. 'the deep end' would be 'Man and his Becoming According to the Vedanta' and 'The Multiple States of the Being'. The later metaphysical works are predicated on the earlier ones though.Trust me when I say it's almost a waste of time to read him without starting first with 'Intro to Hindu Doctinres'.

If you want to understand Guenon's metaphysics (which is him really just laying out and explaining the traditional metaphysics underlying Hinduism, Sufism, Daoism etc) in the shortest amount of time I'd recommend reading in this order:

1) Intro to Hindu Doctrines
2) Man and his becoming According to the Vedanta
3) The Symbolism of the Cross
4) The Multiple States of the Being

The others are either broad cultural critiques or works about the specific metaphysics of one tradition/text. Ones like 'King of the World', 'The Great Triad' and 'Insights into Christian Esoterism' all discuss metaphysics although the listed 4 works above constitute the core of his metaphysical works.

>>10917482
to add, the two works of his that concern math would be 'Metaphysical principles of infinitesimal calculus' and 'Miscellana' and that these are interesting and worth checking out but less important than his major metaphysical works.

>>10917482
>the listed 4 works above constitute the core of his metaphysical works.
Many Traditionalists consider Introduction to the Hindu Doctrines, Man and His Becoming According to the Vedanta, The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, and Symbols of Sacred Science to be the core works of Rene Guenon.

>>10917482
Thanks bud, I'll just swallow my pride and start with Intro to the Hindu Doctrines

>>10913272

>According to Julius Evola, prior to the 'solidification' of the world, men experienced the world in a kind of 'public imagination.' I haven't been able to find any information about this outside of Evola himself.

https://archive.org/stream/newscienceofgiam030174mbp#page/n7/mode/2up

>>10912238
>>10912285
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbOgXfMcLoQ

>>10917482
you can just read the fucking Vedas, Brahma Sutras, Upanishads and itihasa why do you people always trap them in stupid self serving ideological loops?

>>10912332
>I crave liberation beyond all else. It's all it think about.
This is obviously bad. Try do things (particularly this pursuit, but just everything in your life altogether) as though they were your nature, by natural imperative, not out of: delusion, idealism, craving, desperation, accumulation of self-pity, etc.

I find Evola's identification with Maistre and Donoso Cortes to be complete bullshit, because Evola rejected Catholic theology as cancer whereas they used it as the fundamental basis of their thought. Carl Schmitt is a proper discipline of them, because even though he was an atheist he recognized that theology was the basis of their thought. Evola's inability to grasp the importance of Christian theology in reactionary thought, coupled with his reading of Buddhist enlightenment as "noetic," make me believe he has the reading comprehension of a child.

t. Far right hater of immigration, democracy and degeneracy

>>10918854
LARping, self-righteousness, self-importance, pretension, faggotry, being utter loses, etc

>>10917446
>Actually, no, the desire to negate desire is a difference of kind and not degree when compared to the desire/thirst for sense-pleasures, existence,

>the desire to negate desire
>the desire to negate desire
>the desire to negate desire

You're not talking about negating desire, at best you are describing some sort of Cynic asceticism. It doesn't actually work conceptually, but assuming it did, having the desire to negate desire would just resolve in nihilism.

>>10917467
A liberated being to be a being at all would likely be disposed to such desires as eating and drinking. Liberty cannot come from detachment because a precondition for liberty is the ability to exercise one's will.

How does that happen for someone who is disinterested in the world? Undesirous? Why does he not just starve himself like a Jainist, or run his car into a ditch like a proper nihilist? Habit? What a liberty that would be.

You are all QUITE clueless, like a woman five years from her deathbed.

>>10918884
t. pic related

>>10919238
What is the implication being made here?

>>10919244

>>10912086
It's possible that the universe is utterly chaotic, and our minds are only able to make sense out of it by projecting order on to it. This order being established by our cognition by way of evolution.

>>10919249
I don't get this one either. What did he say to warrant a response like that?

>>10919254

>>10919260
I like this one. Post more like that, it will make people happy.

>>10919270
Make me faggot

>>10919274
That one makes me feel sad and scared. Wouldn't you rather use your powers for good, Anon?

>>10919238
I am not alt right, just Old Right

>>10918856
Ya. It is important to stay focused on this life and this reality. Even neoplatonic and christian asceticism is not a rejection of the body but a restoration of it to its unfallen state.
>>10919219
Yes. I also find this to be a loop that fails to resolve. I don't mean to be dismissive but >>10919212 is right about the traditionalists and even just general ancient east/west conceptions of the sages. To a certain degree it all comes down to "I said so and I'm right (because I'm enlightened)". Reminds me of my parents disciplining me as a child. Not that there's inherently anything wrong with it, just a level of hypocrisy in the speaker sows seeds of doubt.
>>10919235
I think we should differentitate between primal or basic desires and socially-determined ones. A lot of psychological work is about untangling the two.
>>10919250
Does that give us an alchemical imperative to transform chaos into order?
>>10918884
I'd like to hear more, anon, if you'd care to share.

If you live in a shithole country without ready access to books or people who are knowledgeable on these subjects what would Evola recommend you do? Like e.g if you lived in the middle of nowhere in Africa and due to a crisis in society you couldn't obtain more books, how could you continue to improve yourself mentally/spiritually?

>>10912038
not OP but he literally wrote a book about it

haven't read it yet though

>>10919397
>>10919250

No. It simply means that we are limited by what we are able to make sense of. I'm not an esotericist.

>>10912895
i don't Evola was that strict about unbroken chains of tradition like Guenon, he believed you could self-initiate, for example using buddhist techniques, without any sort of direct transmission by a master, while for somebody like Guenon anything that's not direct transmission has no value and books can never replace a direct oral tradition

>>10912937
>Isn't this essentially a form of asceticism? I.e. being free of wants is better than reaching your want and continuing the cycle of 'wanting'
the introduction to The Doctrine of Awakening is basically Evola expanding on that question, explaining what is to him the true ascetic path and how buddhism fits his criteria, the chapter is a bit long and a great read, basically an essay on the question of asceticism, i'd recommend it even if you aren't interested in buddhism

>>10913433
>2. In regards to communities does Evola recommended that we leave in communities of people who are also interested in these subjects? If that isn't possible, where you live, what are some alternatives?

It seems at some point Evola was interested in instituting a new traditional Order, pic related is the answer Guenon gave him, the question was:
>In connection to the suggestion of instituting an "Order," Guenon wrote me on July 7, 1950:

not sure if he toyed with this idea any longer or if he was convinced by Guenon, there's a book "René Guénon A Teacher for Modern Times" were Evola talks about Guenon and there's some of their correspondence.

>>10913513
is Rinzai even zen? or just mostly buddhism with a bit of zen on top for flavor?

>>10919397
>I'd like to hear more, anon, if you'd care to share
It's simply this, that there is ACTUAL traditionalism. If you want the politics, I have a thread on it


>>10918437

If you want "traditional spirituality," you have two options as a Westerner: one, traditional Christianity (I'm American Orthodox). Two, Greek heathen spirituality, such as Plato or the Stoics (which Christians felt much kinship with). Evola's fetish of some sort of "transcendent tradition" turns a good thing into idolatry. One is reminded of Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn comparing the pure love of nature, as one finds with the peasant, to the fruitcake love of nature found in Rousseau and Walt Whitman. This is also a good parallel that can be found in love of a woman: there is a healthy, down to earth, real love. Then there is romantic insanity and thinking the woman is a goddess and the spiritual purpose of your whole life. The first love can be just as sacrificial and intense, and ultimately it's more sincere because you are loving something REAL instead of engaging in idolatry with a fantasy you concocted. When it comes to tradition, Evola is the romantic fruitcake, not the down to earth yet devoted husband. You want to stick with the down to earth.

>>10920177
Good post.
>>10920150
Bad post.
>>10920124
>we kant get initiated but we know it must be perfect and would fix all our problems if we knew the "true" initiatory chain cuz christians are yucky and have cooties
Proof of maximum larpage.

>>10920177
For a man who constantly stresses calm, detachment, and clarity of thought, hardly.

>>10919235
>>10919219
The negation of desire is not nihilism. Only beings locked in its cycle believe what is outside it must be void. It only looks like void from your perspective, and for all intents and purposes, it is void until the leap is made. Read Eckhart.

>>10916404
Because he assumes that his audience has read all of Guenon's books like he did.

>>10918854
>you can just read the fucking Vedas, Brahma Sutras, Upanishads and itihasa

Most people raised in the west without any prior experience in this area would be completely lost and not understand anything. Guenon is the best author for westerners to understand Eastern traditions as understood by easterners themselves, without all the biases and misunderstandings of the orientalists and the anthropological approach of modern academic.

>>10920551
>The negation of desire is not nihilism. Only beings locked in its cycle believe what is outside it must be void. It only looks like void from your perspective, and for all intents and purposes, it is void until the leap is made. Read Eckhart.

None of this is an actual explanation of your position beyond "From my point of view the Jedi are evil!" I knew I lost you as soon as you told me to read Eckhart rather than explaining his position yourself.

>>10920826
I've explained my position ITT probably a half dozen times.

>>10911950
Is there anything whatsoever in his works that isn't spooked edgelord bullshit? Everything I know from Evola is either crypto-fascism or unironical mysticism, or both.

>>10920833
>>10920844
The void is the creative nothingness or the formless form of the chora or sunyata. Void is vast and plentiful. Beyond good and evil. Your desires are already void and it is not nihilism. The desires of the void would not be nihilism for you either.

Tl;dr: essence precedes existence, but existential darkness precedes essential enlightenment which is ineffable in nature.

>>10920844
The idea that the ego can only be consummated by kenosis/a transcendental telos, which oversteps Stirner's philosophy by a mile.

>>10920884
>transcendental telos
Sounds fairly spooky to me. No thanks

>>10920880
Yeah, samsara is nirvana. Their is nothing wrong with desire per se, it is its repetitive circularity that is the problem.

>>10920884
>kenosis
How Christian :)

>>10920913
You find the same sentiment expressed in the Chaldaean Oracles.

>>10911950
What should I read before reading Evola? Reading him would probably be like reading my own thoughts and I'd like to get as much out of it as possible. I've never read any other philosophic works.
Right now I think I should start with Plato's The Republic then Nietzsche and then Evola.

>>10920936
Have a decent familiarity with esoteric doctrine. Read the Corpus Hermeticum, Chaldaean Oracles, Gnostic gospels, Tao te Ching, some Buddhist sutras, Bhagavad Gita, and Upanishads.

>>10920955
Don't forget the equally esoteric regular Bible! :^)

>>10920936
I'd suggest brushing up on the Presocratics then going through the Trial and Death of Socrates, Symposium, and Parmenides instead of the Republic. Then for Nietzsche read Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, Beyond Good and Evil, and Thus Spake. Then you should be prepped for Evola.

Have some words from the man himself re: Taoism.

>"The two aspects of the Principle are indicated here, the one transcendent (unnamable, without form – equivalent to non-Being, the Emptiness, the unmoved), the other immanent (nameable, with form – equivalent to: Being, fullness, the movable). Other Taoist designations: The “Former Heaven” (hsien t’ien) and the “Later Heaven” (hou t’ien). The first determination of the Tao (called also “the great Mutation”) is Heaven-and-Earth which are cosmic symbols of the Yang and the Yin. This Dyad produces all the modifications, therefore the myrida particular beings, of their paths and of their destinies (“The Great Flux”, the “current of forms”)."

>"The unmanifested and the manifested, the formless and the formal, the Former Heaven and the Later Heaven, are not distinct temporally (as if at a certain moment something similar to a “creation” intervened), but in logico-metaphysical terms. Transcendence is immanent, the fullness coexists with the emptiness, non-being is the source of being: identity, that constitutes the ultimate mystery of Taoist realization."

>>10921052
New bread (apologies in advance for my tripfaggotry just wanted to distinguish my voice): >>10921074

brainlet here, can you guys team up and write a short PDF-pamphlet thing summing up his thoughts in 100-200 pages? that'd be kickass