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{{Short description|Italian radical-right philosopher and esotericist (1898–1974)}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2025}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2025}}{{Infobox philosopher
| honorific_prefix = 
| name             = Julius Evola
| image            = Evola.jpg
| image_size       = 
| caption          = Evola in the early 1940s
| birth_name       = Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola
| birth_date       = {{birth date|df=y|1898|5|19}}
| birth_place      = [[Rome]], [[Kingdom of Italy]]
| death_date       = {{death date and age|df=y|1974|6|11|1898|5|19}}
| death_place      = Rome, [[Republic of Italy]]
|era  = [[20th-century philosophy]]
|region = {{plainlist}}
* [[Western philosophy]]
* [[Western esotericism]]
{{endplainlist}}
| school_tradition = [[Perennialism]]<br />[[Traditionalist School|Traditionalism]] <br /> [[Conservative Revolution]]
| main_interests   = {{plainlist}}
* [[Comparative religion]]
* [[Western esotericism|Esotericism]]
* [[Hermeticism]]
* [[Metaphysics]]
* [[History]]
* [[Political philosophy]]
* [[Symbol]]ogy
* [[Mythology]]
{{endplainlist}}
| notable_ideas    = {{cslist |[[Transcendental realism (Evola)|Transcendental realism]] |[[Julius Evola#Magical idealism|Magical idealism]]}}
 |module       = 
  {{Infobox military person
   |embed        = yes
   |embed_title  = Military service
   |allegiance   = {{flag|Kingdom of Italy}}
   |branch       = {{flagicon image|Coat of arms of the Esercito Italiano.svg}} [[Italian Army]]
   |serviceyears = 1917–1918
   |rank         = Artillery officer
   |battles      = [[World War I]]
  }}
}}
'''Giulio Cesare Andrea''' "'''Julius'''" '''Evola''' ({{IPA|it|ˈɛːvola|lang}};<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |article=Evola cogn. |publisher=[[Rai Libri]]|language=it |encyclopedia=Dizionario d'Ortografia e di Pronunzia (DOP) |url=http://www.dizionario.rai.it/poplemma.aspx?lid=61429&r=90351 |access-date=23 October 2018|title=Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714131056/http://www.dizionario.rai.it/poplemma.aspx?lid=61429&r=90351|archivedate=14 July 2014}}</ref> 19 May 1898 – 11 June 1974) was an Italian [[far-right]] philosopher and writer. Evola regarded his values as [[Traditionalist conservatism|traditionalist]], [[Aristocracy|aristocratic]], [[War|martial]] and [[Empire|imperialist]]. An eccentric thinker in [[Fascist Italy (1922–1943)|Fascist Italy]],{{Sfnm|Ferraresi|1987|1p=84|Payne|1996|2p=113|Goodrick-Clarke|2001|3p=53}} he also had ties to [[Nazi Germany]];{{Sfn|Drake|2004|p=223–224}} in the [[Aftermath of World War II|post-war era]], he was an ideological mentor of the Italian [[neo-fascism|neo-fascist]] and militant right.{{Sfn|Ferraresi|2012|p=44}}

Evola was born in [[Rome]] and served as an artillery officer in the [[First World War]].{{sfn|Sedgwick|2023|p=15}} He became an artist within the [[Dada]] movement, but gave up painting in his twenties; he said he considered suicide until he had a revelation while reading a [[Buddhist texts|Buddhist text]].{{sfn|Waterfield|1990|p=13}} In the 1920s he delved into the [[occult]]; he wrote on [[Western esotericism]] and [[Eastern mysticism]], developing his doctrine of "[[magical idealism]]". His writings blend various ideas of [[German idealism]], [[Eastern philosophy|Eastern doctrines]], [[Traditionalist School (perennialism)|traditionalism]] and the [[Conservative Revolution]] of the [[interwar period]].{{Sfn|Ferraresi|2012|pp=44–45}} Evola believed that mankind is living in the ''[[Kali Yuga]]'', a [[Dark Age]] of unleashed materialistic appetites. To counter this and call in a [[Palingenesis|primordial rebirth]], Evola presented a "world of Tradition". Tradition for Evola was not Christian—he did not believe in God—but rather an eternal supernatural knowledge with values of [[authority]], [[hierarchy]], order, [[discipline]] and [[obedience]].{{Sfn|Rose|2021|p=44-51}}{{Sfn|Furlong|2011|pp=8–9}}

Evola advocated for the [[Italian racial laws]],{{Sfn|Staudenmaier|2022}} and became the leading Italian "racial philosopher".{{sfn|Payne|1996|p=113}} Autobiographical remarks allude to his having worked for the ''[[Sicherheitsdienst]]'' (SD), the [[intelligence agency]] of the ''[[Schutzstaffel]]'' (SS) and the [[Nazi Party]].{{sfn|Coogan|1999|page=315f}}<ref>[[H. T. Hansen]], 'Preface to the American Edition', in Julius Evola, [https://books.google.com/books?id=7DRcDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT20 ''Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist,''] [[Simon and Schuster]], {{isbn|978-1-620-55858-4}} 2018 pp-1-104, p.5. This is deduced by remarks by Evola suggesting he was an active agent for the Sicherheitsdienst, remarks that [[Philippe Baillet]], his French translator, believes refer to the fact that the Sicherheitsdienst had been set up within the SS and had a remit to cover cultural matters, before it actually assumed a later role in Nazi counterespionage.</ref> He fled to Nazi Germany in 1943 when the Italian Fascist regime fell, but returned to Rome under the [[Italian Social Republic]], a German [[puppet state]], to organise a radical-right group.{{sfn|Coogan|1999}}{{Sfn|Wolff|2016|pp=478–494}}{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=67}}{{Sfn|Gillette|2002|pp=177–178}} In 1945 in [[Vienna]] a Soviet shell fragment permanently paralysed him from the waist down.<ref name="Guido" /> On trial for glorifying fascism in 1951, Evola denied being a fascist, instead declaring himself "{{lang|it|superfascista}}" ({{literal translation|superfascist}}). The historian Elisabetta Cassina Wolff wrote that "It is unclear whether this meant that Evola was placing himself above or beyond Fascism".{{sfn|Wolff|2016|p=491}} Evola was acquitted.

Evola has been called the "chief ideologue" of the Italian [[Far-right politics|radical right]] after the [[Second World War]],{{sfn|Payne|1996}} and his philosophy has been characterised as one of the most consistently "[[antiegalitarian]], [[Criticism of liberalism|antiliberal]], [[Criticism of democracy|antidemocratic]], and [[Elitism|antipopular]] systems in the twentieth century".{{sfn|Atkins|2004|page=89}} His writings contain [[misogyny]],{{Sfn|Coogan|1999|p=359}} [[racism]],{{Sfn|Gillette|2002}} [[antisemitism]]{{Sfn|Staudenmaier|2022}} and attacks on [[Criticism of Christianity|Christianity]] and the [[Criticism of the Catholic Church|Catholic Church]].{{sfnm|Furlong|2011|1pp=5, 42|Drake|1988|2p=406}} He continues to influence contemporary traditionalist and [[Neo-fascism|neo-fascist]] movements.{{sfn|Coogan|1999|page=330}}<ref name="auto1">{{cite book |last=Goodrick-Clarke |first=Nicholas |title=Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity |publisher=[[New York University Press]] |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-8147-3155-0 |pages=52–71 |author-link=Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Romm|first1=Jake|title=Meet the Philosopher Who's a Favorite of Steve Bannon and Mussolini|url=http://forward.com/culture/362872/meet-the-philosopher-whos-a-favorite-of-steve-bannon-and-mussolini/|access-date=23 August 2017|work=The Forward}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Horowitz |first=Jason |title=Thinker loved by fascists like Mussolini is on Stephen Bannon's reading list |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/02/11/thinker-loved-fascists-like-mussolini-stephen-bannon-reading-list/N9apaC5W69YdyjwnhRHGWL/story.html |access-date=23 August 2017 |work=BostonGlobe.com |agency=New York Times |date=11 February 2017}}</ref>

== Early life ==
Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola was born in [[Rome]] to [[Sicilians|Sicilian]] parents on 19 May 1898.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Julius Evola |url=https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12998 |access-date=2025-04-30 |website=www.litencyc.com |language=en}}</ref> His family were members of the [[Sicilian nobility|Sicilian aristocracy]] and devout [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholics]]; he is sometimes described as a [[baron]].{{Sfn|Rose|2021|p=41}}{{sfn|Skorupski|2005|p=11}}{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=2}} Evola considered details about his early life irrelevant, and is noted for hiding some details of his personal life.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Rose |first=Matthew |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1255236096 |title=A World after Liberalism: Philosophers of the Radical Right |date=2021 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-26308-4 |location=New Haven |pages=41–42 |oclc=1255236096}}</ref>{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=2}} He adopted the name Julius in homage to [[Ancient Rome]].<ref name=":4" />{{When|date=October 2022}}

Evola rebelled against his Catholic upbringing.<ref name="auto1" /> He studied engineering at the Istituto Tecnico Leonardo da Vinci in Rome, but did not complete his course, later claiming this was because he did not want to be associated with "[[bourgeois]] academic recognition" and titles such as "doctor and engineer".{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=3}}{{sfn|Evola|1974|p=13}} In his teenage years he immersed himself in painting—which he considered one of his natural talents—and literature, including [[Oscar Wilde]] and [[Gabriele d'Annunzio]]. He was introduced to philosophers such as [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] and [[Otto Weininger]].{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=4}} Other early philosophical influences included the Italian [[man of letters]] [[Carlo Michelstaedter]] and the German [[post-Hegelian]] thinker [[Max Stirner]].{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=32}}

{{Multiple image
| total_width = 320
| align = left
| image1 = Evola 1910s.jpg
| image2 = Evola royal uniform.jpg
| caption1 = Evola serving as an artillery officer on [[Monte Cimone di Tonezza]], 1917
| caption2 = Evola before leaving the army in 1918<ref>{{Cite web |last=Alberto |title=«Frainteso da amici e nemici, lottò da solo contro il Mondo Moderno». Julius Evola: per riscoprire la Tradizione e la Spiritualità e progettare un futuro. Di Carlo Lago. – 'Storia Verità' |url=https://www.storiaverita.org/2024/07/09/frainteso-da-amici-e-nemici-lotto-da-solo-contro-il-mondo-moderno-julius-evola-per-riscoprire-la-tradizione-e-la-spiritualita-e-progettare-un-futuro-di-carlo-lago/ |access-date=2024-08-02 |language=it-IT}}</ref>
}}

He was attracted to the [[avant-garde]], and briefly associated with the Italian poet [[Filippo Tommaso Marinetti]]'s [[Futurism|Futurist]] movement during his time at university. He broke with Marinetti in 1916 as Evola disagreed with his extreme nationalism and advocacy of industry.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=2}}{{sfn|Gregor|2006}} In the [[First World War]], Evola served as an [[artillery]] officer in the [[Italian Army]] on the [[Asiago]] plateau.{{sfn|Sedgwick|2023|p=15}} Despite reservations that Italy was fighting on the wrong side (against [[Germany in World War I|Germany]], which Evola admired for its discipline and hierarchy),{{Sfn|Wolff|2014|pp=258–273}} Evola volunteered in 1917 and briefly saw frontline service the following year.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|pp=3-4}}{{sfn|Evola|1974|p=10}} Evola returned to civilian life after the war and became a painter in the Italian [[Dada]]ist movement; he described his paintings as "inner landscapes".{{sfn|Furlong|2011|pp=3-4}}<ref name=":4" /> He wrote his poetry in French and recited it in [[Cabaret|cabarets]] accompanied by [[classical music]].<ref name=":4" /> Through his painting and poetry, and his work on the short-lived journal ''Revue Bleue'', he became a prominent representative of Dadaism in Italy. (In his autobiography he described his Dadaism as an attack on [[rationalism|rationalist]] cultural values.){{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=63}} In 1922, after concluding that avant-garde art was becoming commercialised and stiffened by academic conventions, he gave up painting and renounced poetry.{{sfnm|Furlong|2011|1p=3|Evola|1974|2p=11|Drake|1986|3p=63}} Evola was a keen [[mountaineer]], describing it as a source of revelatory spiritual experience.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=3}}

[[File:Five o'clock tea.jpg|thumb|''Five o'clock tea'', by Evola, 1917]]

Evola reportedly went through a "spiritual crisis" through the intolerance of civilian life and his need to "transcend the emptiness" of normal human activity. He experimented with [[hallucinogenic]]s and magic, which, he wrote, almost brought him to madness.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=3}} In 1922, at 23 years old, he considered suicide, he wrote in ''The Cinnabar Path''. He said he avoided suicide thanks to a revelation he had while reading an early [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] text that dealt with shedding all forms of identity other than absolute transcendence.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|pp=3–4}}{{sfn|Waterfield|1990|p=13}}<ref name=":4" />

Evola would later publish the text ''The Doctrine of Awakening'', which he regarded as a repayment of his debt to Buddhism.{{sfn|Skorupski|2005|p=13}} By this time his interests led him into [[spirituality|spiritual]], [[transcendence (religion)|transcendental]], and "supra-rational" studies. He began reading various esoteric texts and gradually delved deeper into the occult, [[alchemy]], [[magic (paranormal)|magic]], and [[Oriental studies]], particularly [[Vajrayana|Tibetan Tantric]] [[yoga]].{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=15}} The historian Richard H. Drake wrote that Evola's alienation from contemporary values resembled that of other [[Lost Generation]] intellectuals who came of age in the First World War, but took an uncompromising, eccentric and reactionary form.{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=64}}

== Philosophy ==
{{Conservatism sidebar|philosophers}}

Evola's writings blended ideas from [[German idealism]], [[Eastern philosophy|Eastern doctrines]], [[traditionalist conservatism]], and especially the interwar [[Conservative Revolution]], "with which Evola had a deep personal involvement".{{Sfn|Ferraresi|2012|pp=44–45}} He viewed himself as part of an aristocratic [[caste]] that had been dominant in an ancient Golden Age, as opposed to the contemporary Dark Age (the ''[[Kali Yuga]]''). In his writing, Evola addressed others in that caste whom he called ''l'uomo differenziato''—"the man who has become different"—who through heredity and initiation were able to transcend the ages.{{Sfn|Furlong|2011|pp=9–11}} Evola considered [[human history]] to be, in general, [[Decadence|decadent]];{{Sfn|Ferraresi|2012|pp=44–45}} he viewed modernity as the temporary success of the forces of disorder over tradition.{{Sfn|Furlong|2011|pp=8–9}} Tradition, in Evola's definition, was an eternal supernatural knowledge, with absolute values of authority, hierarchy, order, discipline and obedience.{{Sfn|Furlong|2011|pp=8–9}} Matthew Rose wrote that "Evola claimed to show how basic human activities—from eating and sex, commerce and games, to war and social intercourse—were elevated by Tradition into something ritualistic, becoming activities whose very repetitiveness offered a glimpse of an unchanging eternal realm".{{Sfn|Rose|2021|pp=47–48}} Ensuring Tradition's triumph of order over chaos, in Evola's view, required an obedience to aristocracy.{{Sfn|Rose|2021|pp=47–48}} Rose wrote that Evola "aspired to be the most right-wing thinker possible in the modern world".{{Sfn|Rose|2021|p=41}}

Evola's philosophical work started in the 1920s with ''The Theory of the Absolute Individual'' and ''Phenomenology of the Absolute Individual. Teoria dell'individuo assoluto'' (''Theory of The Absolute Individual'') and ''Fenomenologia dell'individuo assoluto'' (''Phenomenology of the Absolute Individual)'' originally constituted a single work which only for editorial reasons ended up being divided into two separate volumes, published a few years apart from each other, one in 1927 and the other in 1930, published in Turin at the publisher called ''Bocca.''{{sfn|Ferraresi|1987}} This work was different and even attack on the dominant Hegelian thought in Italy, prevailed by the works of [[Benedetto Croce]]. He helped Evola to find a publisher for his ''Theory and Phenomenology of Absolute Individual,'' a work which started in 1924 but was only published in its final form in 1927 and 1930, though it is not certain to which extent Croce helped Evola.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-11-23 |title=Beyond the Cosmic Ladder |url=https://www.paulbrunton.org/about-paul-brunton/beyond-the-cosmic-ladder/ |access-date=2024-10-09 |website=Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation |language=en-US}}</ref> 

Evola wrote prodigiously on [[mysticism]], [[Tantra]], [[Hermeticism]], the myth of the [[Holy Grail]] and [[Western esotericism]].{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=13}} German Egyptologist and scholar of esotericism Florian Ebeling noted that Evola's ''The Hermetic Tradition'' is viewed as an "extremely important work" on Hermeticism for esotericists.{{sfn|Ebeling|2007|p=138}} Evola gave particular focus to Cesare della Riviera's text ''Il Mondo Magico degli Heroi'', which he later republished in modern Italian. He held that Riviera's text was consonant with the goals of "high magic"{{snd}}the reshaping of the earthly human into a transcendental 'god man'. According to Evola, the alleged "timeless" Traditional science was able to come to lucid expression through this text, in spite of the "coverings" added to it to prevent accusations from the church.{{sfn|Forshaw|2016|p=351}} Though Evola rejected [[Carl Jung]]'s interpretation of alchemy, Jung described Evola's ''The Hermetic Tradition'' as a "magisterial account of Hermetic philosophy".{{sfn|Forshaw|2016|p=354}} In ''Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition'', the philosopher Glenn Alexander Magee favoured Evola's interpretation over that of Jung's.{{sfn|Magee|2008|p=200}} In 1988 a journal devoted to Hermetic thought published a section of Evola's book and described it as "Luciferian."{{sfn|Coogan|1999|pages=296–297}}

Evola later confessed that he was not a Buddhist, and that his text on Buddhism was meant to balance out his earlier work on the Hindu ''tantras''.<ref name="forum"/> Evola's interest in [[tantra]] was spurred on by correspondence with [[John Woodroffe]].{{sfn|Lachman|2012|p=215}} Evola was attracted to the active aspect of tantra, and its claim to provide a practical means to spiritual experience, over the more "passive" approaches in other forms of Eastern spirituality.{{sfn|Taylor|2012|p=135}} In ''Tantric Buddhism in East Asia'', Richard K. Payne, Dean of the Institute of Buddhist Studies, argued that Evola manipulated Tantra in the service of right-wing violence, and that the emphasis on "power" in ''The Yoga of Power'' gave insight into his mentality.<ref>Richard K. Payne. ''Tantric Buddhism in East Asia''. Simon and Schuster, 2006. p. 229</ref> Evola often relied on European sources about Asian creeds while evoking them for racist ends, Peter Staudenmaier wrote.{{Sfn|Staudenmaier|2022}} Rose described Evola as an "unreliable scholar of Eastern religions."{{Sfn|Rose|2021|p=41}}

Evola advocated that "differentiated individuals" following the [[left-hand path]] use dark violent sexual powers against the modern world. For Evola, these "virile heroes" are both generous and cruel, possess the ability to rule, and commit "Dionysian" acts that might be seen as conventionally immoral. For Evola, the left-hand path embraces violence as a means of transgression.<ref name=occult/>{{rp|217}}

According to [[A. James Gregor]], Evola's definition of spirituality can be found in ''Meditations on the Peaks'': "what has been successfully actualized and translated into a sense of superiority which is experienced inside by the soul, and a noble demeanor, which is expressed in the body."{{sfn|Gregor|2006|pp=101–102}} Evola attempted to construct, Ferraresi wrote, "a model of man striving to reach the 'absolute' within his inner self".{{Sfn|Ferraresi|2012|pp=44–45}} For Evola, Furlong wrote, transcendence "rested on the freeing of one's spiritual self through the purity of physical and mental discipline."{{Sfn|Furlong|2011|p=6}} Evola wrote that the tension between a detached "impulse toward transcendence" and an engaged "warrior spirit" defined his life and work.{{Sfn|Furlong|2011|p=7}}

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke wrote that Evola's "rigorous [[New Age]] spirituality speaks directly to those who reject absolutely the leveling world of democracy, capitalism, multi-racialism and technology at the outset of the twenty-first century. Their acute sense of cultural chaos can find powerful relief in his ideal of total renewal."{{sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2001|p=71}} [[Stephen Atkins]] summarised Evola's philosophy as "a complete rejection of modern society and its mores".{{Sfn|Atkins|2004|p=89}} Evola loathed [[liberalism]], because, as Rose wrote, "Everything he revered—social castes, natural inequalities, and sacred privileges—was targeted by liberalism for reform or abolition."{{Sfn|Rose|2021|p=51}} Goodrick-Clarke wrote that Evola invoked Indo-European tradition to advance "a radical doctrine of anti-egalitarianism, anti-democracy, anti-liberalism and anti-Semitism".{{sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2001|p=53}} Rose described Evola as "one of the strangest intellectual figures of his century".{{Sfn|Rose|2021|p=41}}
=== Magical idealism ===
{{Esotericism}}
[[Thomas Sheehan (academic)|Thomas Sheehan]] wrote that "Evola's first philosophical works from the 'twenties were dedicated to reshaping neo-idealism from a philosophy of Absolute Spirit and Mind into a philosophy of the "absolute individual" and action."{{sfn|Sheehan|1981|pp=45–73}} Accordingly, Evola developed his doctrine of "[[magical idealism]]", which held that "the Ego must understand that everything that seems to have a reality independent of it is nothing but an illusion, caused by its own deficiency."{{sfn|Sheehan|1981|pp=45–73}}{{Sfn|Gillette|2002|p=155}} For Evola, this ever-increasing unity with the "absolute individual" was consistent with unconstrained liberty, and therefore unconditional power.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=31}} In his 1925 work ''Essays on Magical Idealism'', Evola declared that "God does not exist. The Ego must create him by making itself divine."{{sfn|Sheehan|1981|pp=45–73}}

According to Sheehan, Evola discovered the power of metaphysical mythology while developing his theories. This led to his advocacy of supra-rational intellectual intuition over discursive knowledge. In Evola's view, discursive knowledge separates man from Being.{{sfn|Sheehan|1981|pp=45–73}} Sheehan stated that this position is a theme in certain interpretations of Western philosophers such as [[Plato]], [[Thomas Aquinas]], and [[Martin Heidegger]] that was exaggerated by Evola.{{sfn|Sheehan|1981|pp=45–73}} Evola would later write: "The truths that allow us to understand the world of Tradition are not those that can be "learned" or "discussed." They either are or are not. We can only ''remember'' them, and that happens when we are freed from the obstacles represented by various human constructions (chief among these are the results and methods of the authorized "researchers") and have awakened the capacity to ''see'' from the nonhuman viewpoint, which is the same as the Traditional viewpoint ... Traditional truths have always been held to be essentially ''non-human''."{{sfn|Sheehan|1981|pp=45–73}}

Evola developed a doctrine of the "two natures": the natural world and the primordial "world of 'Being'". He believed that these "two natures" impose form and quality on lower matter and create a hierarchical "great chain of Being."{{sfn|Sheehan|1981|pp=45–73}} He understood "spiritual virility" as signifying orientation towards this postulated transcendent principle.{{sfn|Sheehan|1981|pp=45–73}} He held that the State should reflect this "ordering from above" and the consequent hierarchical differentiation of individuals according to their "organic preformation". By "organic preformation" he meant that which "gathers, preserves, and refines one's talents and qualifications for determinate functions."{{sfn|Sheehan|1981|pp=45–73}}

===Ur Group===
Among Evola's chief contacts was [[Arturo Reghini]], a critic of Christianity and democracy and advocate for the [[social class in ancient Rome |ancient Roman aristocracy]]. Reghini welcomed the rise of [[Fascist Italy (1922–1943)|Fascist Italy]] and sought to return to pre-Christian spirituality through the promotion of a "cultured magic".{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=5}}{{Sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2001|pp=55–56}} Through Reghini, Evola was introduced to [[René Guénon]], a French [[Orientalism|Orientalist]] and a leading figure of traditionalism at the time who shared an interest in the occult.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=5}}{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=64}}<ref name=":4" /> Guénon's 1927 text ''Crisis of the Modern World'' inspired Evola to organise his thoughts around the critique of modernity,{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=64}} and Guénon, whom Evola called his "master",{{Sfn|Rose|2021|p=45}} would be one of the few writers Evola found worthy to debate with.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|pp=5-6}} In 1927 Reghini and Evola, along with other Italian esotericists, founded the ''[[Gruppo di Ur]]'' ("Ur Group").{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=87}} The purpose of this group was to attempt to bring the members' individual identities into such a superhuman state of power and awareness that they would be able to exert a magical influence on the world. The group employed techniques from Buddhist, Tantric, and rare Hermetic texts.{{sfn|Drury|2004|p=96}} They aimed to provide a "soul" to the burgeoning fascist movement of the time through the revival of [[religion in ancient Rome|ancient Roman religion]], and to influence the fascist regime through esotericism.{{sfn|LewisMelton|1992|p=276}}{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=77}}

Articles on occultism from the Ur Group were later published in ''Introduction to Magic''.{{sfn|Gregor|2006|p=89}}{{sfn|Lachman|2012|p=215}} Reghini's support of [[Freemasonry]] would however prove contentious for Evola; accordingly, Reghini broke himself from Evola and left the Ur Group in 1928.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=5}} Reghini accused him of plagiarising his thoughts in the book ''Pagan Imperialism'';{{sfn|Coogan|1999}} Evola, in turn, blamed him for its premature publication.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=88}} Evola's later work owed a considerable debt to Guénon's ''Crisis of the Modern World'',{{sfn|Versluis|2007|pp=144–145}} though he diverged from Guénon by valuing action over contemplation,{{Sfn|Rose|2021|p=49}}{{Sfn|Sedgwick|2009|pp=100–101}} and the empire over the church.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=43}}

===Sex and gender roles===
Evola held that "just relations between the sexes" involved women acknowledging their "inequality" with men.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=121}} He quoted [[Joseph de Maistre]]'s statement that "Woman cannot be superior except as woman, but from the moment in which she desires to emulate man she is nothing but a monkey."{{Sfn|Drake|2021}} Coogan wrote, "It goes almost without saying that Evola's views on women were saturated with misogyny."{{Sfn|Coogan|1999|p=359}} Evola believed that the alleged higher qualities expected of a man of a particular race were not those expected of a woman of the same race.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=121}}{{Clarify|date=October 2022}} Evola believed that [[Women's liberation movement|women's liberation]] was "the renunciation by woman of her right to be a woman".<ref>Franco Ferraresi. ''Threats to Democracy: The Radical Right in Italy after the War''. Princeton University Press, 2012. p. 220.</ref> "A woman", Evola wrote, "could traditionally participate in the sacred hierarchical order only in a mediated fashion through her relationship with a man."{{sfn|Coogan|1999|page=359}} He held, as a feature of his idealised gender relations, the archaic Hindu [[Sati (practice)|''sati'']] (suicide), which for him was a form of sacrifice indicating women's respect for patriarchal traditions.<ref>R. Ben-Ghiat, M. Fuller. ''Italian Colonialism''. Springer, 2016. p. 149</ref><ref name="Merelli" /> For the "pure, feminine" woman, "man is not perceived by her as a mere husband or lover, but as her lord."<ref name="Merelli">{{Cite web |last=Merelli |first=Annalisa |date=2017-02-22 |title=Steve Bannon's interest in a thinker who inspired fascism exposes the misogyny of the alt-right |url=https://qz.com/909323/bannons-interest-for-julius-evola-unveils-the-sexism-at-the-core-of-trump/ |access-date=2022-10-17 |website=Quartz |language=en}}</ref> Women would find their true identity in total subjugation to men.{{sfn|Coogan|1999}}{{page needed|date=August 2019}}

Evola regarded matriarchy and goddess religions as a symptom of decadence, and preferred a [[Hypermasculinity|hypermasculine]] warrior [[ethos]].{{sfn|MeltonBaumann|2010|p=1085}} He was influenced by [[Hans Blüher]], a proponent of the ''[[Männerbund]]'' ('alliance of men') concept as a model for his "warrior-band" or "warrior-society".{{sfn|Coogan|1999}}{{page needed|date=August 2019}} Goodrick-Clarke noted the fundamental influence of [[Otto Weininger]]'s book ''[[Sex and Character]]'' on Evola's dualism of male-female spirituality. According to Goodrick-Clarke, "Evola's celebration of virile spirituality was rooted in Weininger's work, which was widely translated by the end of the First World War."{{sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2001|p=60}} Evola denounced [[homosexuality]] as "useless" for his purposes.{{Citation needed|reason=This claim needs a reliable source.|date=November 2022}} He did not neglect [[sadomasochism]], so long as sadism and masochism "are magnifications of an element potentially present in the deepest essence of [[eros]]."{{sfn|Coogan|1999|page=358}} Then, it would be possible to "extend, in a transcendental and perhaps [[ecstasy (emotion)|ecstatic]] way, the possibilities of sex."{{sfn|Coogan|1999|page=358}}

Evola held that women "played" with men, threatened their masculinity, and lured them into a "constrictive" grasp with their sexuality.<ref name=":0">{{cite book|author=Franco Ferraresi|title=Threats to Democracy: The Radical Right in Italy after the War|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]|year=2012|isbn=978-1-4008-2211-9|page=44}}</ref> He wrote that "It should not be expected of women that they return to what they really are ... when men themselves retain only the semblance of true virility",<ref name=Merelli/> and lamented that "men instead of being in control of sex are controlled by it and wander about like drunkards".<ref name=occult/>{{page needed|date=August 2019}} He believed that in [[Tantra]] and [[sex magic]], in which he saw a strategy for aggression, he found the means to counter the "emasculated" West.<ref name=occult>{{cite book|editor1-last=Lycourinos|editor1-first=Damon Zacharias|title=Occult traditions|date=2012|publisher=Numen Books|isbn=9780987158130}}</ref>{{page needed|date=August 2019}} Evola also said that the "ritual violation of virgins",{{sfn|Coogan|1999|page=358}} and "whipping women" were a means of "consciousness raising",{{sfn|Coogan|1999|page=359}} so long as these practices were done to the intensity required to produce the proper "liminal psychic climate".{{sfn|Coogan|1999|page=359}}

Evola translated Weininger's ''Sex and Character'' into Italian. Dissatisfied with simply translating Weininger's work, he wrote the text ''Eros and the Mysteries of Love: The Metaphysics of Sex'' (1958), where his views on sexuality were dealt with at length.{{sfnm|Coogan|1999|1p=343|Furlong|2011|2p=123}} [[Arthur Versluis]] described this text as Evola's "most interesting" work aside from ''[[Revolt Against the Modern World]]'' (1934).{{sfn|Versluis|2007|pp=144–145}} This book remains popular among many 'New Age' adherents.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Conner |first1=Randy P. |last2=Sparks |first2=David Hatfield |last3=Sparks |first3=Mariya |date=1997 |title=Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol, and Spirit: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Lore |publisher=Cassell |page=136}}</ref>

===Race===
Evola's views on [[Race (human categorization)|race]] had roots in his aristocratic elitism. According to the European studies professor Paul Furlong, Evola developed what he called "the law of the regression of castes" in ''[[Revolt Against the Modern World]]'' and other writings on racism from the 1930s and the Second World War. In Evola's view "power and civilization have progressed from one to another of the four castes—sacred leaders, warrior nobility, bourgeoisie (economy, 'merchants') and slaves".{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=40}} Furlong explains: "for Evola, the core of racial superiority lay in the spiritual qualities of the higher castes, which expressed themselves in physical as well as in cultural features, but were not determined by them. The law of the regression of castes places racism at the core of Evola's philosophy, since he sees an increasing predominance of lower races as directly expressed through modern mass democracies."{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=40}} Evola used "a man of race" to mean "a man of breeding".<ref name="auto1" />{{Sfn|Ferraresi|2012|p=46}} "Only of an elite may one say that 'it is of a race': the people are only people, mass," Evola wrote in 1969.{{Sfn|Ferraresi|2012|p=46}}

In ''Synthesis of the Doctrine of Race'' (1941) (Italian: ''Sintesi di Dottrina della Razza''), Evola provides an overview of his ideas concerning race and [[eugenics]], introducing the concept of "spiritual racism",<ref name="Rota2008">{{cite book|author=Rota|title=Intellettuali, dittatura, razzismo di stato|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IGwiln0yQC4C&pg=PA57|year=2008|publisher=FrancoAngeli|isbn=978-88-568-2094-2|pages=57–}}</ref> and "esoteric-traditionalist racism".<ref name=cassata>{{cite book|last=Cassata|first=Francisco|title=Building the New Man: Eugenics, Racial Science and Genetics in Twentieth-century Italy|translator=Erin O’Loughlin|publisher=Central European University Press|year=2011|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2rZKPeD6CyAC&q=%22Sintesi+di+Dottrina+della+Razza%22&pg=PA264|isbn=9789639776838}}</ref>{{page needed|date=June 2023}} The book was endorsed by [[Benito Mussolini]].{{Sfn|Sheehan|1981|p=50}}{{sfn|De Turris|2020|p=41}}

Prior to the end of the Second World War, Evola frequently used the term "Aryan" to refer to the nobility, who in his view were imbued with traditional spirituality.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=21}} Feinstein writes that this interpretation made the term "Aryan" more plausible in an Italian context and thereby furthered antisemitism in Fascist Italy.{{Sfn|Feinstein|2003|p=286}} Evola's interpretation was adopted by Mussolini, who declared in 1938 that "Italy's civilization is Aryan".{{Sfn|Feinstein|2003|p=301–302}} Wolff notes that Evola seems to have stopped writing about race in 1945, but adds that the intellectual themes of Evola's writings were otherwise unchanged. Evola continued to write about elitism and his contempt for the weak. His "doctrine of the Aryan-Roman super-race was simply restated as a doctrine of the 'leaders of men' ... no longer with reference to the SS, but to the mediaeval Teutonic knights or the Knights Templar, already mentioned in [his book] Rivolta."{{sfn|Wolff|2016|p=480}}{{sfn|Coogan|1999}}

Evola wrote of "inferior, non-European races".{{Sfn|Coogan|1999|p=314}} He believed that military aggressions such as [[Second Italo-Ethiopian War|Fascist Italy's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia]] were justified by Italy's dominance, outweighing concerns he had about the possibility of [[miscegenation|race-mixing]].{{Sfn|Drake|1986|pp=70-71}} Richard H. Drake wrote, "Evola was never prepared to discount the value of blood altogether". Evola wrote:{{When|date=September 2022}} "a certain balanced consciousness and dignity of race can be considered healthy" in a time where "the exaltation of the negro and all the rest, anticolonialist psychosis and integrationist fanaticism [are] all parallel phenomena in the decline of Europe and the West."<ref name=":1">Peter H. Merkl. ''Political Violence and Terror: Motifs and Motivations''. University of California Press, 1986. p. 67, 85</ref> Furlong wrote that a 1957 article by Evola about America "leaves no doubt as to his deep prejudice against black people".{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=}}

=== "Spiritual racism" ===
{{main|Aryanism}}
Evola's [[racism]] included racism of the body, soul, and spirit, giving primacy to the latter factor, writing that "races only declined when their spirit failed."<ref name="auto1" /> For his spiritual interpretation of different racial psychologies, Evola was influenced by the German race theorist Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gillette |first=Aaron |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52996792 |title=Racial Theories in Fascist Italy |date=2002 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-203-16489-X |location=London |oclc=52996792}}</ref>{{page needed|date=June 2023}} Like Evola, Clauss believed that physical race and spiritual race could diverge as a consequence of [[miscegenation]].<ref name=":0"/>{{Verification needed|date=October 2022}} Peter Staudenmaier notes that many other racists of the time found Evola's "spiritual racism" perplexing.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Staudenmaier |first=Peter |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1266843104 |title=Religion, ethnonationalism, and antisemitism in the era of the two world wars |date=2022 |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |others=Kevin P. Spicer, Rebecca Carter-Chand |isbn=978-0-2280-1020-3 |location=Montreal |chapter=Julius Evola and the "Jewish Problem" in Axis Europe: Race, Religion, and Antisemitism |oclc=1266843104}}</ref> 

Like [[René Guénon]], Evola believed that mankind is living in the [[Kali Yuga|''Kali Yuga'']] of [[Hinduism]]—the Dark Age of unleashed materialistic appetites. He argued that both Italian fascism and [[Nazism]] represented hope that the "celestial" [[Aryan race]] would be reconstituted.{{sfn|Gregor|2005}}{{page needed|date=August 2019}} He drew on mythological accounts of super-races and their decline, particularly the [[Hyperborea]]ns, and maintained that traces of Hyperborean influence could be felt in Aryan men. He felt that Aryan men had devolved from these higher mythological races.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=150}} Gregor noted that several contemporary criticisms of Evola's theory were published: "In one of Fascism's most important theoretical journals, Evola's critic pointed out that many Nordic-Aryans, not to speak of Mediterranean Aryans, fail to demonstrate any Hyperborean properties. Instead, they make obvious their materialism, their sensuality, their indifference to loyalty and sacrifice, together with their consuming greed. How do they differ from 'inferior' races, and why should anyone wish, in any way, to favor them?"{{sfn|Gregor|2006|p=106}}

Concerning the relationship between "spiritual racism" and biological racism, Evola put forth the following viewpoint, which Furlong described as pseudo-scientific: "The factor of 'blood' or 'race' has its importance, because it is not psychologically—in the brain or the opinions of the individual—but in the very deepest forces of life that traditions live and act as typical formative energies. Blood registers the effects of this action, and indeed offers through heredity, a matter that is already refined and pre-formed ..."{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=119}}

=== Antisemitism ===
Writings by Evola in the late 1930s contributed arguments for Fascist Italy's repression of its Jews.{{sfn|Feinstein|2003|pp=286–287}} Evola encouraged and applauded Mussolini's antisemitic [[Italian racial laws|racial laws]] in 1938, and called for a "supreme Aryan elite" to oppose the Jews.{{Sfn|Staudenmaier|2022}} In some writings, Evola called Jews a virus. He said Fascism and Nazism's final victory over Jews would end "the spiritual decadence of the West" and thereby "re-establish genuine contact between man and a transcendent, supersensible reality".{{Sfn|Staudenmaier|2022}}  

Evola wrote the foreword and an essay in the second Italian edition of the infamous [[Antisemitic canard|antisemitic fabrication]] ''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'' published in 1938 by the Catholic fascist [[Giovanni Preziosi]].{{sfn|Junginger|2008|p=136}} In it, Evola argued that the ''Protocols''—whether or not a forgery—"contain the plan for an occult war, whose objective is the utter destruction, in the non-Jewish peoples, of all tradition, class, aristocracy, and hierarchy, and of all moral, religious, and spiritual values."{{sfn|Junginger|2008|p=136}} He was an admirer of [[Corneliu Zelea Codreanu]], the antisemitic leader of the fascist Romanian [[Iron Guard]].{{Sfn|Weitzman|2021}} After Codreanu was assassinated in 1938 on orders from [[King Carol II]],{{Sfn|Weitzman|2021}} Evola railed against "the Judaic horde" that he accused of planning "Talmudic, Israelite tyranny."<ref>Julius Evola, "''La tragedia della 'Guardia di Ferro"'' in La vita italiana 309 (December 1938), quoted in {{harvp|Ferraresi|1987|pp=129–30)}}</ref><ref name="auto1" />    

Evola's antisemitism did not emphasise the Nazi conception of Jews as "representatives of a biological race", but rather as "the carriers of a world view, a way of being and thinking—simply put, a spirit—that corresponded to the 'worst' and 'most decadent' features of modernity: democracy, egalitarianism and materialism", Wolff writes.{{sfn|Wolff|2016|p=483}}<ref name="auto1" />{{Sfn|Drake|1986|pp=69–71}} According to Wolff, "Evola's 'totalitarian' or 'spiritual' racism was no milder than Nazi biological racism", and Evola was trying to promote an "Italian version of racism and antisemitism, one that could be integrated into the Fascist project to create a New Man".{{sfn|Wolff|2016|p=483–484}} Evola dismissed the biological racism of chief Nazi theorist [[Alfred Rosenberg]] and others as reductionist and materialistic.<ref name="auto1" /> He also argued that one could be "Aryan" but have a "Jewish" soul, and could be "Jewish" but have an "Aryan" soul.{{sfn|Lachman|2012|p=217}} In Evola's view, [[Otto Weininger]] and [[Carlo Michelstaedter]] were Jews of "sufficiently heroic, ascetic, and sacral" character to fit the latter category.{{sfn|Gregor|2006|p=105}} In 1970, Evola described [[Adolf Hitler]]'s antisemitism as a paranoid [[Idée fixe (psychology)|idée fixe]] that damaged the reputation of the [[Third Reich]].<ref name="auto1" /> But Evola never clearly acknowledged the [[The Holocaust|Holocaust]] committed by the regimes he associated with, perpetrated in the name of racism—Furlong called this a "fatal lapse that by itself ought to be enough to destroy his authority".{{Sfn|Furlong|2011|p=115}}

== Written works ==
Evola wrote more than 36 books and 1,100 articles.{{Sfn|Furlong|2011|p=20}} In some of his 1930s writings, and in works about magic, Evola used pseudonyms, including Ea ([[Éa (Babylonian god)|after a Babylonian god]]), Carlo d'Altavilla, and Arthos (from [[King Arthur|Arthurian]] legend).{{Sfn|Furlong|2011|pp=1–2}}

=== Christianity ===
In 1928, Evola wrote an attack on Christianity titled ''Pagan Imperialism'', which proposed transforming fascism into a system consistent with ancient Roman values and [[Western esotericism]]. Evola proposed that fascism should be a vehicle for reinstating the caste system and aristocracy of antiquity. Although he invoked the term "fascism" in this text, his diatribe against the Catholic Church was criticised by both [[Benito Mussolini]]'s fascist regime and the Vatican itself.{{source needed|date=May 2023}} [[A. James Gregor]] argued that the text was an attack on fascism as it stood at the time of writing, but noted that Mussolini made use of it to threaten the Vatican with the possibility of an "anti-clerical fascism".{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=42}}{{sfn|Gregor|2006|pp=89–91}} Richard Drake wrote that Evola "rarely missed an opportunity to attack the Catholic Church".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Drake |first=Richard |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1221015144 |title=The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy |date=2021 |isbn=978-0-253-05714-3 |edition=Second |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington, Indiana |oclc=1221015144}}</ref> On account of Evola's anti-Christian proposals, in April 1928 the Vatican-backed right wing Catholic journal ''Revue Internationale des Sociétés Secrètes'' published an article entitled "Un Sataniste Italien: Julius Evola", accusing him of [[satanism]].{{sfn|Coogan|1999|page=293}}{{sfn|Waterfield|1990|p=14}}{{sfn|Tarannes|1928|pp=124–129}}

In his ''The Mystery of the Grail'' (1937), Evola discarded Christian interpretations of the [[Holy Grail]] and wrote that it "symbolizes the principle of an immortalizing and transcendent force connected to the primordial state ... The mystery of the Grail is a mystery of a warrior initiation."{{sfn|Sedgwick|2009|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=kbARDAAAQBAJ&dq=immortalizing+and+transcendent+force+connected+to+the+primordial+state&pg=PA105 105–106]}} He held that the [[Ghibellines]], who had fought the [[Guelphs|Guelph]] for control of Northern and Central Italy in the thirteenth century, had within them the residual influences of pre-Christian Celtic and Nordic traditions that represented his conception of the Grail myth. He also held that the [[Guelphs and Ghibellines|Guelph victory against the Ghibellines]] represented a regression of the castes, since the merchant caste took over from the warrior caste.{{sfn|Sedgwick|2009|p=105}} In the epilogue to the book, Evola argued that the fictitious ''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'', regardless of whether it was authentic or not, was a cogent representation of modernity.{{sfn|Barber|2004|pp=305-306}}<ref>{{cite book|author-last=Evola |author-first=Julius |title=Mystery of the Grail |date=November 1996 |publisher=Inner Traditions |translator-first=H. T. |translator-last=Hansen |pages=172–173 |isbn=0892815736}}</ref> The historian [[Richard Barber]] said, "Evola mixes rhetoric, prejudice, scholarship, and politics into a strange version of the present and future, but in the process he brings together for the first time interest in the esoteric and in conspiracy theory which characterize much of the later Grail literature."{{sfn|Barber|2004|p=306}}

Goodrick-Clarke wrote that Evola "regarded the advent of Christianity as an era of unprecedented decline", because Christianity's egalitarianism and accessibility undermined the Roman ideals of "duty, honor and command" that Evola believed in.{{sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2001|p=61}}

=== Buddhism ===
In his ''[[The Doctrine of Awakening]]'' (1943), Evola argued that the [[Pāli Canon]] could be held to represent true [[Buddhism]].{{sfn|Skorupski|2005|p=9}} His interpretation of Buddhism is intended to be anti-democratic. He believed that Buddhism revealed the essence of an "Aryan" tradition that had become corrupted and lost in the West. He believed it could be interpreted to reveal the superiority of a warrior caste.<ref name="forum">T. Skorupski. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=6VWAAAAAQBAJ The Buddhist Forum, Volume 4]''. Routledge, 2005, pp. 11–20</ref> [[Harry Oldmeadow]] described Evola's work on Buddhism as exhibiting a Nietzschean influence,<ref>Harry Oldmeadow. ''Journeys East: 20th Century Western Encounters with Eastern Religious Traditions''. World Wisdom, Inc, 2004. p. 369.</ref> but Evola criticised Nietzsche's purported anti-ascetic prejudice. Evola claimed that the book "received the official approbation of the Pāli [Text] Society", and was published by a reputable Orientalist publisher.<ref name="forum"/> Evola's interpretation of Buddhism, as put forth in his article "Spiritual Virility in Buddhism", is in conflict with the post-World War II scholarship of the Orientalist [[Giuseppe Tucci]], who argues that the viewpoint that Buddhism advocates universal benevolence is legitimate.{{sfn|Lopez|1995|p=177}} [[Arthur Versluis]] stated that Evola's writing on Buddhism was a vehicle for his own theories, but was a far from accurate rendition of the subject, and he held that much the same could be said of Evola's writings on Hermeticism.{{sfn|Versluis|2007|pp=144–145}} [[Nanavira Thera|Ñāṇavīra Thera]] was inspired to become a [[bhikkhu]] from reading Evola's text ''The Doctrine of Awakening'' in 1945 while hospitalised in [[Sorrento]].<ref name="forum"/>

=== Modernity ===
Evola's ''[[Revolt Against the Modern World]]'' (1934) promotes the mythology of an ancient [[Golden Age]] which gradually declined into modern decadence. In this work, Evola described the features of his idealised traditional society in which religious and temporal power were created and united not by priests, but by warriors expressing spiritual power. In mythology, he saw evidence of the West's superiority over the East.{{source needed|date=May 2022}} Moreover, he claimed that the traditional elite had the ability to access power and knowledge through a hierarchical magic which differed from the lower "superstitious and fraudulent" forms of magic.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=42}} He asserted that history's intellectuals starting as early as ancient Greece had undermined traditional values through their questioning.{{Sfn|Drake|1986|pp=64–65}} He insisted that only "nonmodern forms, institutions, and knowledge" could produce a "real renewal ... in those who are still capable of receiving it."{{sfn|Versluis|2007|pp=144–145}} The text was "immediately recognized by [[Mircea Eliade]] and other intellectuals who allegedly advanced ideas associated with Tradition."{{sfn|Wolff|2016|p=480}} Eliade was one of the most influential twentieth-century historians of religion, a fascist sympathiser associated with the Romanian Christian right wing movement [[Iron Guard]].{{sfn|Coogan|1999}}<ref>{{cite journal|last=Weitzman |first=Mark |date=2020 |title="One Knows the Tree by the Fruit That It Bears:" Mircea Eliade's Influence on Current Far-Right Ideology |journal=Religions |language=en |volume=11 |issue=5 |pages=250 |doi=10.3390/rel11050250 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Evola was aware of the importance of myth from his readings of [[Georges Sorel]], one of the key intellectual influences on fascism.{{sfn|Coogan|1999}}{{page needed|date=August 2019}} [[Hermann Hesse]] described ''Revolt Against the Modern World'' as "really dangerous."{{sfn|Sedgwick|2009|p=105}} Richard Drake wrote that the book was not widely influential in the 1930s but eventually received a cult following on the extreme right and is now considered Evola's most important work.{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=64}}

''Ride the Tiger'' (1961), Evola's last major work, saw him examining dissolution and subversion in a world in which God was dead, and rejected the possibility of any political or collective revival of Tradition due to his belief that the modern world had fallen too far into the [[Kali Yuga|''Kali Yuga'']] for any such thing to be possible. Instead of this and rather than advocating a return to religion as Rene Guénon had, he conceptualised what he considered an apolitical manual for surviving and ultimately transcending the Kali Yuga. This idea was summarised in the title of the book, the Tantric metaphor of "Riding the Tiger" which in general practice, consisted of turning things that were considered inhibitory to spiritual progress by mainstream [[Brahmanical]] society (for example, meat, alcohol and in very rare circumstances, sex, were all employed by Tantric practitioners) into a means of spiritual transcendence. The process that Evola described involved potentially making use of everything from modern music, hallucinogenic drugs, relationships with the opposite sex and even substituting the atmosphere of an urban existence for the Theophany that Traditionalists had identified in virgin nature.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|pp=96, 103}}

During the 1960s Evola thought [[Right-wing politics|right-wing]] entities could no longer reverse the corruption of modern civilisation.{{sfn|Ferraresi|1987|p=131}} E. C. Wolff noted that this is why Evola wrote ''Ride the Tiger,'' choosing to distance himself completely from active political engagement, without excluding the possibility of action in the future. He argued that one should stay firm and ready to intervene when the tiger of modernity "is tired of running."{{sfn|Wolff|2016|p=490}} Goodrick-Clarke notes that, "Evola sets up the ideal of the 'active nihilist' who is prepared to act with violence against modern decadence."{{sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2001|p=47}}

=== Other writings ===
Evola contributed to [[Giuseppe Bottai]]'s magazine ''[[Critica fascista|Critica Fascista]]'' for a time''.''{{Sfn|Wolff|2014|pp=259-260}} From 1934 to 1943 Evola was responsible for 'Diorama Filosofico', the cultural page of ''Il Regime Fascista'', an influential radical fascist daily newspaper owned by [[Roberto Farinacci]], the pro-Nazi mayor of [[Cremona]].<ref name=":3">{{cite journal |last=Wolff |first=Elisabetta Cassina |date=2014 |title=Apolitìa and Tradition in Julius Evola as Reaction to Nihilism |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271934502 |journal=European Review |language=en |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=258–273 |doi=10.1017/S106279871400009X |issn=1062-7987 |s2cid=144821530}}</ref>{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=66–67}}{{Sfn|Ferraresi|2012|p=44}} Evola used the page to publish international right-wing thinkers.{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=66–67}} Evola's writings on the page argued for [[imperialism]]; leading up to Mussolini's [[Second Italo-Ethiopian War|invasion of Ethiopia]], Evola praised "the sacred valor of war".{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=66}} During the same period he contributed to the antisemite [[Giovanni Preziosi]]'s magazine ''La vita italiana.''<ref>{{cite book |last=Evola |first=Julius |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VGgQAQAAIAAJ |title=I testi de La vita italiana: 1939-1943 |date=2006 |publisher=Edizioni di Ar |isbn=9788889515136 |language=it |trans-title=The texts of La vita italiana: 1939-1943}}</ref>{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=66}} 

[[Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke]] has written that Evola's 1945 essay "American 'Civilization'" described the United States as "the final stage of European decline into the 'interior formlessness' of vacuous individualism, conformity and vulgarity under the universal [[aegis]] of money-making." According to Goodrick-Clarke, Evola argued that the U.S. "mechanistic and rational philosophy of progress combined with a mundane horizon of prosperity to transform the world into an enormous suburban shopping mall."<ref name="auto1" />{{page needed|date=October 2022}}

In the posthumously published collection of writings, ''Metaphysics of War'', Evola, in line with the conservative revolutionary [[Ernst Jünger]], explored the viewpoint that war could be a spiritually fulfilling experience. He proposed the necessity of a transcendental orientation in a warrior.<ref>Lennart Svensson. ''Ernst Jünger{{snd}}A Portrait''. Manticore Books, 2016. p. 202.</ref>

Evola translated some works of [[Oswald Spengler]] and [[José Ortega y Gasset|Ortega y Gasset]] to Italian.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Path of Cinnabar: An Intellectual Autobiography |last=Evola |first= Julius |publisher=Arktos |year=2009 |isbn=978-1907166020 |page=177 |oclc=985108552}}</ref>

== Politics ==
[[File:Evola-40.jpg|alt=A black and white photo of Julius Evola, looking left. He wears a monocle|thumb|Evola in 1940]]
In Evola's view, a state ruled by a spiritual elite must reign with unquestionable supremacy over its populace.{{Sfn|Ferraresi|1988|p=85}} He cited two models of such an elite as the [[Schutzstaffel]] and the [[Iron Guard|Romanian Iron Guard]], known for their violence.{{Sfn|Atkins|2004|p=89}} Evola's philosophy, over his long career, adapted the spiritual orientation of Traditionalist writers such as [[René Guénon]] and the political concerns of the European [[Authoritarianism|authoritarian]] right, Furlong wrote.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=14}} Sheehan described Evola as "perhaps the most original and creative — and, intellectually, the most nonconformist, of the Italian Fascist philosophers".{{Sfn|Sheehan|1981|p=50}} 

Evola had access to [[Benito Mussolini]] in the last years of the Fascist regime, and advised him on racial policies,{{sfn|Sedgwick|2023|p=7}} but "without much effect", Ferraresi wrote;{{Sfn|Ferraresi|2012|p=44}} Evola "was kept (or stayed) on the sidelines of officialty, as some sort of eccentric".{{Sfn|Ferraresi|1987|p=84}} Evola was in charge of the cultural page of the influential fascist newspaper ''Il Regime Fascista'' for the regime's last decade.''<ref name=":3" />{{Sfn|Ferraresi|2012|p=44}}{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=66}}'' Evola declined to join Italy's [[National Fascist Party]] or any other party of the time;{{Sfn|Atkins|2004|p=89}}{{Sfn|Ferraresi|2012|p=44}} Ferraresi wrote that Evola's "lofty nonconformism" and "imperial paganism" did not fit well in a party that would make the Catholic Church a regime pillar.{{Sfn|Ferraresi|2012|p=44}} Evola's lack of party membership was later emphasised by admirers to distance him from the regime.{{Sfn|Ferraresi|2012|p=44}}  

Autobiographical remarks by Evola allude to his having worked for the ''[[Sicherheitsdienst]]'', the intelligence agency of the SS and the [[Nazi Party]].{{sfn|Coogan|1999|page=315f}}<ref>H. T. Hansen, 'Preface to the American Edition', in Julius Evola, [https://books.google.com/books?id=7DRcDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT20 ''Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist,''] [[Simon and Schuster]], {{isbn|978-1-620-55858-4}} 2018 pp-1-104, p.5. This is deduced by remarks by Evola suggesting he was an active agent for the Sicherheitsdienst, remarks that [[Philippe Baillet]], his French translator, believes refer to the fact that the Sicherheitsdienst had been set up within the SS and had a remit to cover cultural matters, before it actually assumed a later role in Nazi counterespionage.</ref> With its help, he fled to [[Berlin]] in Nazi Germany when the Italian Fascist regime fell in 1943.{{sfn|Coogan|1999}}{{Sfn|Wolff|2016|pp=478–494}} In May 1951 Evola was arrested in Italy and charged with promoting the revival of the Fascist Party, and of glorifying fascism. Evola declared that he was not a Fascist but was instead "{{lang|it|superfascista}}" ({{literal translation|superfascist}}). He was acquitted of all charges.{{sfn|Wolff|2016}}{{sfn|Sedgwick|2009|p=5}}

===Fascist Italy===
{{Fascism sidebar|intellectuals}}
Evola experienced Mussolini's [[March on Rome]] in 1922 and was intrigued by fascism.{{Sfn|Atkins|2004|p=89}} He would praise fascism for "its attempt to refashion the Italian people into a severe, military mold", in Ferraresi's words, but would criticise any concessions to "democratic" pressures.{{Sfn|Ferraresi|2012|p=46}} Atkins wrote that "Evola was critical of the Fascist regime because it was not fascist enough."{{Sfn|Atkins|2004|p=89}} 

Evola applauded Mussolini's anti-bourgeois orientation and his goal of making Italian citizens into hardened warriors, but criticised Fascist populism, party politics, and elements of leftism that he saw in the fascist regime.<ref name="occult" />{{page needed|date=August 2019}}  Evola saw Mussolini's Fascist Party as possessing no cultural or spiritual foundation. He was passionate about infusing it with these elements in order to make it suitable for his ideal conception of ''Übermensch'' culture which, in Evola's view, characterised the imperial grandeur of pre-Christian Europe.<ref name="occult" />{{page needed|date=August 2019}}

Evola applauded the fascist motto "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State".{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=68}} Sheehan described Evola as "an ardent supporter of Mussolini".{{Sfn|Sheehan|1981|p=50}} But his Traditionalist ethos rejected [[nationalism]], which he viewed as a conception of the modern West and not of a Traditional hierarchical social arrangement.<ref>[[H. T. Hansen|H.T. Hansen]], "A Short Introduction to Julius Evola" in Evola, ''Revolt Against the Modern World'', p xviii.</ref> He stated that to become "truly human", one would have to "overcome brotherly contamination" and "purge oneself" of the feeling that one is united with others "because of blood, affections, country or human destiny".{{sfn|Gregor|2006}}{{Context inline|date=September 2022}}

Evola argued that the regime should dictate to the Catholic Church, not negotiate with it, and warned in ''Critica fascista'' in 1927 that allowing the church independent power would make fascism a "laughable revolution".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Drake |first=Richard |date=1988 |title=Julius Evola, Radical Fascism, and the Lateran Accords |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25022841 |journal=The Catholic Historical Review |volume=74 |issue=3 |pages=403–419 |issn=0008-8080 |jstor=25022841}}</ref> In 1928, he wrote that fascists had made "the most absurd of all errors" through entente with Christianity and the church.{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=69}} He also opposed the [[futurism]] that Italian society was aligned with, along with the "plebeian" nature of the movement.{{sfn|Gregor|2006|p=86}} He opined that Mussolini should have disbanded his party after 1922 and become a loyal advisor to [[Victor Emmanuel III of Italy|King Victor Emmanuel III]] instead.{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=68}} Accordingly, Evola launched the journal ''La Torre'' (The Tower) in 1930, to advocate for a more elitist social order. He wrote in ''La Torre'', "We would like a fascism more radical, more intrepid, a truly absolute fascism, made of pure force, inaccessible to any compromise."<ref name=":1" /> Evola's ideas were poorly received by the contemporary fascist mainstream.{{sfn|Sedgwick|2009|p=105}} Evola wrote that Mussolini's censors had repressed ''La Torre'', which lasted five months and ten issues; in Drake's words, Italian fascism "had as little tolerance for opposition on the right as on the left".{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=66}} Regardless, a few years later in 1934, Evola was put in charge of the cultural page of the influential radical fascist newspaper ''Il Regime Fascista'', a position he held until 1943.''<ref name=":3" />''{{Sfn|Ferraresi|2012|p=44}}{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=66}}

Scholars disagree about why [[Benito Mussolini]] embraced racist ideology in 1938—some have written that Mussolini was more motivated by political considerations than ideology when he introduced antisemitic legislation in Italy.<ref>''See'' Renzo de Felice, ''Storia degli ebrei''; [[A. James Gregor]]; Meir Michaelis, ''Mussolini and the Jews''; ''contra'' Aaron Gillette, ''Racial Theories in Fascist Italy'', Ch. 4.</ref>{{pages needed|date=January 2023}} Other scholars have rejected the argument that the racial ideology of Italian fascism could be attributed solely to Nazi influence.<ref>''See'' Luigi Preti (1968) for discussion of [[miscegenation]]; Gene Bernardini (1977) for discussion of German influence</ref> A more recent interpretation is that Mussolini was frustrated by the slow pace of fascist transformation and, by 1938, had adopted increasingly radical measures including a racial ideology. Aaron Gillette has written that "Racism would become the key driving force behind the creation of the new fascist man, the ''uomo fascista''."{{sfn|Gillette|2014|pp=51–53}} With the passage of the [[Italian racial laws]] in 1938 and Italy's campaign against Jews, Evola demanded measures to counter "the Jewish menace", through "discrimination and selection".<ref name="spicer"/> Echoing Evola's writings, Mussolini declared in 1938 that "The population of Italy today is of Aryan origin and Italy's civilization is Aryan."{{Sfn|Feinstein|2003|p=301–302}}

Mussolini read Evola's ''Synthesis of the Doctrine of Race'' in August 1941, and met with Evola to offer him his praise. Evola later recounted that Mussolini had found in his work a uniquely Roman form of Fascist [[racism]] distinct from that found in [[Nazi Germany]]. With Mussolini's backing, Evola started preparing the launch of a minor journal ''Sangue e Spirito'' (Blood and Spirit) which never appeared. While not always in agreement with German racial theorists, Evola travelled to Germany in February 1942 and obtained support for German collaboration on ''Sangue e Spirito'' from "key figures in the German racial hierarchy."<ref name=":0"/> Fascists appreciated the [[Palingenetic ultranationalism|palingenetic]] value of Evola's "proof" "that the true representatives of the state and the culture of ancient Rome were people of the Nordic race."<ref name=":0"/> Evola eventually became Italy's leading racial philosopher.{{sfn|Payne|1996}} [[Benito Mussolini|Mussolini]] directed the [[Ministry of Popular Culture]] to be guided by "Evola's racist thought".{{Sfn|Staudenmaier|2022}}

Evola blended [[Sorelianism]] with Mussolini's [[eugenics]] agenda. Evola has written that "The theory of the Aryo-Roman race and its corresponding myth could integrate the Roman idea proposed, in general, by fascism, as well as give a foundation to Mussolini's plan to use his state as a means to elevate the average Italian and to enucleate in him a new man."{{sfn|Gillette|2014|p=54}}

===Third Reich===
[[File:Julius-Evola Heidnischer-Imperialismus.jpg|thumb|Title page of ''Heidnischer Imperialismus'' (1933), the German authorised translation of Julius Evola's book ''Imperialismo pagano'' (1928)]]
Finding Italian fascism "too compromising" (in Goodrick-Clarke's words), Evola sought more recognition in [[Nazi Germany]]. He began lecturing there in 1934.<ref name="auto1" /> He described Berlin's Herrenklub, associated with the [[Conservative Revolution]] aristocracy, as his "natural habitat".{{sfn|Ferraresi|1987}} His considerable amount of time in Germany in 1937 and 1938 included a series of lectures to the German–Italian Society in 1938.<ref name=":0"/><ref name="auto1" /> Evola appreciated what he called Nazism's "attempt to create a kind of new political-military Order with precise qualifictions of race", and believed that the Nazis' brand of fascism had taken its traditionalist thinkers seriously.{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=67}} Evola thought far more highly of [[Adolf Hitler]] than Mussolini,{{Sfnm|Drake|1986|1p=67|Atkins|2004|2p=89}} although he had reservations about Hitler's ''völkisch'' nationalism.{{sfn|Coogan|1999|p=315}} Evola wanted a spiritual unity between Italy and Germany and an Axis victory in Europe.{{Sfn|Atkins|2004|p=89}} ([[Martin A. Lee]] calls Evola an "Italian Nazi philosopher" in ''[[The Beast Reawakens]]''.)<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lee |first=Martin A. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/858861623 |title=The beast reawakens |date=2013 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-135-28124-3 |edition=Revised |location=New York |pages=211, 320 |oclc=858861623}}</ref> 

Evola admired [[Heinrich Himmler]], whom he knew personally.<ref name=":0" /> Evola took issue with Nazi populism and biological materialism. SS authorities initially rejected Evola's ideas as supranational and aristocratic, though he was better received by members of the conservative revolutionary movement.<ref name="auto1" /> The Nazi [[Ahnenerbe]] reported that many considered his ideas to be pure "fantasy" which ignored "historical facts".<ref name=":0" /> Himmler's [[Schutzstaffel]] (SS) kept a dossier on Evola—dossier document AR-126 described his plans for a "Roman-Germanic Imperium" as "utopian" and described him as a "reactionary Roman," whose goal was an "insurrection of the old aristocracy against the modern world." The document recommended that the SS "stop his effectiveness in Germany" and provide him with no support, particularly because of his desire to create a "secret international order".{{sfn|Coogan|1999|page=320}}<ref>[[H. T. Hansen|H.T. Hansen]], "A Short Introduction to Julius Evola" in Evola, ''Revolt Against the Modern World'', p. xviii.</ref><ref name="Umland">[[A. James Gregor]] and [[Andreas Umland]]. ''Erwägen Wissen Ethik'', 15: 3 & 4 (2004), pp. 424–429, 591–595; vol. 16: 4 (2005), pp. 566–572 ''[https://www.academia.edu/174269/Dugin_Not_a_Fascist_A_Debate_with_A._James_Gregor_6_texts_ Dugin Not a Fascist?]''.</ref>

Despite this opposition, Evola was able to establish political connections with pan-Europeanist elements inside the [[Reich Security Main Office]].{{sfn|Coogan|1999}} He subsequently ascended to the inner circles of Nazism as the influence of pan-European advocates overtook that of Völkisch proponents, due to military contingencies.{{sfn|Coogan|1999}} Evola wrote the article ''Reich and Imperium as Elements in the New European Order'' for the Nazi-backed journal ''European Review''.{{sfn|Coogan|1999}} He spent World War II working for the [[Sicherheitsdienst]].{{sfn|Coogan|1999}} The Sicherheitsdienst bureau Amt VII, a Reich Security Main Office research library, supplied Evola with arcane occult and Masonic texts.<ref name="forum"/>{{sfn|Coogan|1999}}

Mussolini was [[Military history of Italy during World War II#Allied invasion of Sicily, Fall of Mussolini and Armistice|deposed and imprisoned]] in 1943, and Italy surrendered to [[Allies of World War II|the Allies]].{{Sfn|Ferraresi|1988|pp=74–75}}{{Sfn|Sheehan|1981|p=50}} At this point, Evola fled to [[Berlin]] in Nazi Germany with the help of the ''Sicherheitsdienst''.{{sfn|Coogan|1999}}{{Sfn|Wolff|2016|pp=478–494}} Evola was one of the first people to greet Mussolini when Mussolini was broken out of prison by [[Otto Skorzeny]] in September 1943.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Drake |first=Richard |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52547630 |title=Fascism: Critical Concepts in Political Science |date=2004 |publisher=Routledge |others=Roger Griffin, Matthew Feldman |isbn=0-415-29015-5 |location=London |pages=223 |chapter=The Children of the Sun |oclc=52547630}}</ref> According to Sheehan, [[Adolf Hitler]] also met Evola and other fascist intellectuals.{{Sfn|Sheehan|1981|p=51}} After the meeting with Mussolini, at Hitler's [[Wolf's Lair]], Evola involved himself in Mussolini's [[Italian Social Republic]] (the Republic of Salò, a Nazi puppet regime).{{sfn|Coogan|1999}}<ref name="auto1" />{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=67}}{{Sfn|Sheehan|1981|pp=50–51}}{{Sfn|Gillette|2002|pp=177–178}}  Evola returned to Rome in 1943 to organise a radical-right group called the ''Movimento per la Rinascita dell'Italia''.{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=67}} He fled to [[Vienna]] in 1944, barely avoiding capture by the Americans when the Allies took Rome.{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=67}}{{Sfn|Sheehan|1981|p=51}} 

In Vienna, Evola studied Masonic and Jewish documents confiscated by the Nazis, and worked with the SS and fascist leaders on recruiting an army to resist the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]]' advances.{{Sfn|Wolff|2016|pp=478–494}}<ref name="auto1" /> It was Evola's custom to walk around the city during [[Bombing of Vienna in World War II|bombing raid]]s in order to better "ponder his destiny". During one such aerial bombardment in 1945, a [[shell (projectile)|shell]] fragment damaged his [[spinal cord]]. He was left [[paralysis|paralysed]] below the waist for the rest of his life.<ref name="Guido">Guido Stucco, "Translator's Introduction," in Evola, ''The Yoga of Power'', pp. ix–xv.</ref>{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=67}}

About the alliance during [[World War II]] between [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] and the [[Soviet Union]], Evola wrote: "The democratic powers repeated the error of those who think they can use the forces of subversion for their own ends without cost. They do not know that, by a fatal logic, when exponents of two different grades of subversion meet or cross paths, the one representing the more developed grade will take over in the end."{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=50|ps=; Translation from the Italian by Paul Furlong.}}

=== Postwar and later years ===
Evola, partially paralysed after the Soviet bombing raid in [[Vienna]] in 1945, returned to postwar Italy in 1948, after being treated for his injuries in Austria.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=1}}{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=67}}{{Sfn|Atkins|2004|p=89}}{{Sfn|Ferraresi|1988|p=84}} 

Ferraresi wrote that Evola was "''the'' guru" for generations of radical right Italian militants, through his writings and youth groups.{{Sfn|Ferraresi|2012|p=44}} "The political model Evola selected after 1945 was neither Mussolini nor Hitler," Wolff writes; instead, in post-World War II conversations with neo-fascists, Evola would reference the [[German SS|Nazi SS]], the [[Spanish Falange]], [[Corneliu Zelea Codreanu|Codreanu]]'s [[Iron Guard|Legionary Movement]], [[Knut Hamsun]], [[Vidkun Quisling]], [[Léon Degrelle]], [[Pierre Drieu La Rochelle|Drieu La Rochelle]], [[Robert Brasillach]], [[Maurice Bardèche]], [[Charles Maurras]], [[Plato]] (particularly ''[[Republic (Plato)|The Republic]]''), [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]] (particularly ''[[De Monarchia]]''), [[Joseph de Maistre]], [[Juan Donoso Cortés|Donoso Cortés]], [[Otto von Bismarck]], [[Klemens von Metternich]], [[Gaetano Mosca]], [[Vilfredo Pareto]], and [[Robert Michels]].<ref>Julius Evola, 'La legge contro le idee', Meridiano d'Italia, 23 September 1951, in Evola, I testi del Meridiano d'Italia, 103–4; and Julius Evola, 'Il coraggio di dirsi antidemocratici non equivale necessariamente a dichiararsi fascisti', La rivolta ideale, 17 January 1952, in Evola, I testi de La rivolta ideale, 56–8.</ref>{{Sfn|Wolff|2016|pp=478–494}} He wrote for publications of the neo-fascist [[Italian Social Movement]] (MSI) but never joined the party.{{Sfn|Drake|1986|pp=70-72}} Adkins wrote that the MSI "claimed him as their philosopher-king, but he barely tolerated their attention".{{Sfn|Atkins|2004|p=89}} Wolff described him as a "freelance political commentator".{{Sfn|Wolff|2014|p=258}}  

Evola continued his work in the domain of esotericism, writing a number of books and articles on [[sex magic]] and various other esoteric studies, including ''The Yoga of Power: Tantra, Shakti, and the Secret Way'' (1949), ''Eros and the Mysteries of Love: The Metaphysics of Sex'' (1958), and ''Meditations on the Peaks: Mountain Climbing as Metaphor for the Spiritual Quest'' (1974). He also wrote his two explicitly political books ''Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist'' (1953), ''Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul'' (1961), and his autobiography,{{sfn|Coogan|1999}} ''The Path of Cinnabar'' (1963). He also expanded upon critiques of American civilisation and materialism, as well as increasing American influence in Europe, collected in the posthumous anthology ''Civiltà Americana''.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Civiltà americana. Scritti sugli Stati Uniti (1930–1968)|last=Evola|first=Julius|publisher=Controcorrente|year=2010|location=Napoli}}</ref> 

Evola was arrested along with thirty-six others in April 1951 by the Political Office of the Rome Police Headquarters and charged on suspicion that he was an ideologist of the [[Urban guerrilla warfare|militant]] [[neofascist]] organisation [[Fasci di Azione Rivoluzionaria]] (FAR), after attempted bombings in 1949–50 were linked to Evola's circle.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=92}}{{sfn|Wolff|2016|pp=490-491}} Evola's charges were glorifying fascism and promoting the revival of the Fascist Party.{{sfn|Wolff|2016|p=491}} His lawyer was [[Francesco Carnelutti]].{{Citation needed|date=September 2022}} He was carried into the courtroom on a stretcher.{{Sfn|Furlong|2011|pp=1–3}} Defending himself at trial, Evola said that his work belonged to a long tradition of anti-democratic writers who could be linked to fascism—at least fascism interpreted according to certain Evolian criteria—but who could not be identified with the Fascist regime under Mussolini. Evola then denied being a fascist and instead referred to himself as "{{lang|it|superfascista}}" ({{literal translation|superfascist}}). Concerning this statement, the historian Elisabetta Cassina Wolff wrote that it is unclear whether this meant he was placing himself "above or beyond Fascism".{{sfn|Wolff|2016|p=491}} The judges, who themselves had served during the fascist era, ruled that Evola could not be held responsible for the crimes. Evola was acquitted of all charges on 20 November 1951. Of the 36 other defendants, 13 received prison sentences.{{sfn|Wolff|2016|p=491}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rigenerazionevola.it/evola-al-processo-ai-f-a-r-premessa/ |title=Evola al processo ai F.A.R.: premessa |language=it |trans-title=Evola at the F.A.R. trial: premise |date=27 September 2016 |website=RigenerAzione Evola}}</ref>

While trying to distance himself from [[Nazism]], Evola wrote in 1955 that the [[Nuremberg trials]] were a farce.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Evola {{!}}|first=Autore: Julius|date=1 January 2000|title=Il significato delle SS. Ordini ed élites politiche|url=https://www.centrostudilaruna.it/evolass.html|access-date=6 July 2020|website=Centro Studi La Runa|language=it-IT}}</ref> Evola also made an effort to differentiate his caste based aristocratic state from totalitarianism, preferring the concept of the "organic" state, which he put forth in his text ''Men Among the Ruins,'' as well as in his ''autodifesa''.{{sfn|Furlong|2011|p=154}} Evola sought to develop a strategy for the implementation of a "conservative revolution" in post-World War II Europe. He rejected nationalism, advocating instead for a European ''Imperium'', which could take various forms according to local conditions, but should be "organic, hierarchical, anti-democratic, and anti-individual".{{sfn|Furlong|2011|pp=63, 65}} Evola endorsed [[Francis Parker Yockey]]'s neo-fascist manifesto ''Imperium'', but said Yockey had a "superficial" understanding of what was immediately possible.{{sfn|Coogan|1999}} Evola believed that his conception of neo-fascist Europe could best be implemented by an elite of "superior" men who operated outside normal politics.{{sfn|Coogan|1999}} He dreamt that such a "New Order" of aristocracy might seize power from above during a democratic crisis.{{Sfn|Rose|2021|pp=54–56}}

Evola's occult ontology exerted influence over post-war [[neo-fascism]].<ref name=":0"/> After 1945, Evola was considered the most important Italian theoretician of the conservative revolutionary movement{{sfn|Wolff|2016}} and the "chief ideologue" of Italy's post-war radical right.{{sfn|Payne|1996}} Ferraresi wrote that "Evola's thought was the 'essential mortar' that held together generations of militants".{{Sfn|Ferraresi|1987|p=105}} According to Jacob Christiansen Senholt, Evola's most significant post-war political texts are ''Orientamenti'' and ''Men Among the Ruins''.{{sfn|Senholt|2013|p=245}} In the opening phrase in the first edition of ''Men Among the Ruins'', Evola said: "Our adversaries would undoubtedly want us, in a Christian spirit, under the banner of progress or reform, having been struck on one cheek to turn the other. Our principle is different: "Do to others what they would like to do to you: but do it to them first."{{sfn|Evola|1953|p=16}} 

In ''Men Among the Ruins'', Evola defines the Fourth Estate as being the last stage in the cyclical development of the social elite, the first beginning with a spiritual elite of divine right. Expanding the concept in an essay in 1950, the Fourth State according to Evola would be characterised by "the collectivist civilization... the communist society of the faceless-massman".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ferraresi |first=Franco |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r0DG3uk9o8oC&pg=PA45 |title=Threats to Democracy: The Radical Right in Italy after the War |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-4008-2211-9 |pages=45 |language=en}}</ref>{{sfn|Evola|2015|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=LRCiCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA2 2]}}

''Orientamenti'' was a text against "national fascism"—instead, it advocated for a European Community modelled on the principles of the [[Waffen-SS]], which had mustered international forces.{{sfn|Coogan|1999}}{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=76}} The Italian neo-fascist group [[Ordine Nuovo]] adopted ''Orientamenti'' as a guide for action in postwar Italy.{{sfn|Laruelle|2015|p=102}} Evola praised Ordine Nouvo as the only Italian group that had "doctrinally had held firm without descending to compromise".{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=72}} The [[European Liberation Front]] of [[Francis Parker Yockey]] called Evola "Italy's greatest living authoritarian philosopher" in the April 1951 issue of its publication ''Frontfighter''.{{sfn|Coogan|1999}} Giuliano Salierni, who was an activist in the neo-Fascist [[Italian Social Movement]] during the early 1950s, later recalled Evola's calls to violence, along with Evola's reminiscences about Nazis such as [[Joseph Goebbels]].<ref name="auto1" />{{Sfn|Drake|1986|pp=77–78}}

==Personal life==
Evola was childless and never married,{{Sfn|Drake|1986}} but as a young man he had a relationship with the writer [[Sibilla Aleramo]].<ref>{{cite book |last= Sedgwick |first= Mark |date= 2004 |title= Against the Modern World |publisher= Oxford University Press |page= 99 |isbn=978-0195396010}}</ref> He spent his postwar years in his apartment in Rome.<ref name="auto1" /> He died on 11 June 1974 in Rome of congestive heart failure.<ref name="treccani">{{cite encyclopedia |year=1993 |title=EVOLA, Giulio Cesare Andrea |encyclopedia=Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani |publisher=Treccani |url=http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giulio-cesare-andrea-evola_(Dizionario-Biografico) |access-date=23 October 2018 |volume=43 |language=it |trans-title=Biographical Dictionary of Italians |quote=Morì a Roma l'11 giugno 1974 e le ceneri, per sua volontà, furono sepolte sul Monte Rosa. |author=Luca Lo Bianco |trans-quote=He died in Rome on 11 June 1974 and the ashes, by his will, were buried on Monte Rosa.}}</ref> His ashes, per his will, were deposited in a hole cut in a glacier on [[Monte Rosa]] in the [[Pennine Alps]].<ref>{{cite news |author=[[United Press International]] |date=14 June 1974 |title=Julius Evola |language=it |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1974/06/14/archives/julius-evola.html |access-date=5 July 2020 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

== Influence on the far-right ==
At one time Italian Fascist leader [[Benito Mussolini]], the Nazi Grail-seeker [[Otto Rahn]], and the Romanian fascist sympathiser and religious historian [[Mircea Eliade]] admired Evola.<ref name="HorowitzMussolini">{{cite news|last=Horowitz |first=Jason |date=11 February 2017 |title=Thinker loved by fascists like Mussolini is on Stephen Bannon's reading list |work=[[The Boston Globe]] |agency=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/02/11/thinker-loved-fascists-like-mussolini-stephen-bannon-reading-list/N9apaC5W69YdyjwnhRHGWL/story.html |access-date=23 August 2017}}</ref>{{sfn|Wolff|2016|p=484}}{{sfn|Coogan|1999}} After World War II, Evola's writings continued to influence many European far-right political, racist and neo-fascist movements. He is widely translated in French, Spanish, partly in German, and mostly in Hungarian (the largest number of his translated works).<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.tradicio.org/bibliographia.pdf|title= Metaphysicum et Politicum|access-date= 2018-05-24|archive-date= 2016-03-04|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160304222457/http://www.tradicio.org/bibliographia.pdf|url-status= dead}} pp.&nbsp;130–154.</ref> Franco Ferraresi described Evola in 1987 as "possibly the most important intellectual figure for the Radical Right in contemporary Europe" but "virtually unknown outside the Right".{{sfn|Ferraresi|1987}} He is described by Stanley Payne (in 1996) and Stephen Atkins (2004) as the leading neo-fascist intellectual in Europe until his death in 1974.{{Sfn|Payne|1996|p=502}}{{Sfn|Atkins|2004|p=89}} [[Giorgio Almirante]] referred to him as "our [[Herbert Marcuse|Marcuse]]&mdash;only better."<ref name="sheehanterror">Thomas Sheehan. [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/7178 Italy: Terror on the Right]. ''The New York Review of Books'', Volume 27, Number 21 & 22, 22 January 1981</ref> But outside Italy, France and Germany, Evola was not well known until around 1990 when he received wider English-language publication, according to Furlong.{{Sfn|Furlong|2011|p=1}}

Richard Drake wrote that Evola advocated [[terrorism]].{{Sfn|Drake|1986|p=79}} Peter Merkl noted that Evola's advocacy of force was part of his appeal to the radical right.<ref>{{cite book |last=Merkel |first=Peter |chapter=Prologue |title=Political Violence and Terror |date=2021 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3q_oDwAAQBAJ |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-32803-7 |page=3}}</ref> Wolff wrote: "The debate around his 'moral and political' responsibility for terrorist actions perpetrated by right-wing extremist groups in Italy between 1969 and 1980 began as soon as Evola died in 1974 and have not yet come to an end."{{Sfn|Wolff|2016|pp=478–494}}

According to one leader of the neofascist organization [[Ordine Nuovo]], "Our work since 1953 has been to transpose Evola's teachings into direct political action."<ref>Quoted in {{cite journal|last=Ferraresi |first=Franco |title=The Radical Right in Postwar Italy |journal=Politics & Society |date=1988 |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=71–119 |doi=10.1177/003232928801600103|s2cid=153805679 }}(p.84)</ref> The neofascist terrorists [[Franco Freda]] and Mario Tuti reprinted Evola's most militant texts.{{Sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2001|p=68}} Radicals of the [[Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari]] (NAR) helped spread Evola's philosophy in far-right circles abroad after fleeing Italy in the wake of the [[Bologna massacre|terrorist bombing of the Bologna railway station]] in 1980; some influenced Britain's [[National Front (UK)|National Front]].{{Sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2001|p=52}} [[Roberto Fiore]] and his colleagues in the early 1980s helped the National Front{{'}}s "Political Soldiers" forge a militant elitist philosophy based on Evola's "most militant tract", ''The Aryan Doctrine of Battle and Victory''. ''The Aryan Doctrine'' called for a "Great Holy War" that would be fought for spiritual renewal and fought in parallel to the physical "Little Holy War" against perceived enemies.<ref name="auto1" />

[[Umberto Eco]] mocked Evola;{{Sfn|Rose|2021|p=41}} his 1995 essay "''[[Ur-Fascism]]''" referred to Evola as the "most influential theoretical source of the theories of the new Italian right", and as "one of the most respected fascist gurus".<ref name="Eco">Eco, Umberto. "[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/ Ur-Fascism]". ''The New York Review of Books'', Vol. 42, No. 11 (1995), accessed 12 February 2017.</ref>

The far-right English orator [[Jonathan Bowden]] gave lectures on Evola's philosophy.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://jonathanbowden.org/speeches/julius-evola/|title= Julius Evola: The Worlds most Right Wing thinker|access-date= 2023-11-07}} pp.&nbsp;130–154.</ref> The French far-right figure [[Alain de Benoist]] has cited Evola as an influence.{{Sfn|Weitzman|2021}}

Goodrick-Clarke noted Evola's pessimistic invocation of the ''Kali Yuga'' as an influence on [[esoteric Nazism]] and Aryan cults.{{Sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2003|p=304}} 

Evola's ''Heidnischer Imperialismus'' (1933) was translated by the Russian radical-right Eurasianist [[Aleksander Dugin|Aleksandr Dugin]] in 1981.<ref name="laurelle">Laruelle, Marlene [https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/publication/OP294_aleksandr_drugin_laruelle_2006.pdf ''Aleksandr Dugin: A Russian Version of the European Radical Right?''] The Keenan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Occasional Paper #294.</ref> Dugin has said that in his youth he was "deeply inspired" by Guénon's and Evola's Traditionalism.{{Sfn|Weitzman|2021|p=104}}

The Greek neo-Nazi party [[Golden Dawn (political party)|Golden Dawn]] includes his works on its suggested reading list, and the leader of the [[Hungarian nationalism|Hungarian nationalist]] party [[Jobbik]] admires Evola and wrote an introduction to his works.<ref name="HorowitzMussolini" />

References to Evola are widespread in the 21st-century [[alt-right]] movement.{{Sfn|Weitzman|2021}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=Momigliano |first=Anna |date=2017-02-21 |title=The Alt-Right's Intellectual Darling Hated Christianity |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/02/julius-evola-alt-right/517326/ |access-date=2022-09-03 |website=The Atlantic |language=en}}</ref> [[Steve Bannon]] has called him an influence.{{Sfn|Rose|2021|p=41}}

== Works ==
;Books
*''L'individuo e il divenire del mondo'' (1926; ''The Individual and the Becoming of the World'').
*''L'uomo come potenza'' (1925; ''Man as Potency'').
*''Teoria dell'individuo assoluto'' (1927; ''The Theory of the Absolute Individual'').
*''Imperialismo pagano'' (1928; second edition 1978){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=2024 |title=Pagan Imperialism |publisher=Arktos |isbn=9781915755773}}
*''Fenomenologia dell'individuo assoluto'' (1930; ''The Phenomenology of the Absolute Individual'').
*''La tradizione ermetica'' (1931; third edition 1971){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=1995 |title=The Hermetic Tradition: Symbols and Teachings of the Royal Art |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8l2KNAAACAAJ |publisher=Inner Traditions |isbn=9780892814510}}
*''Maschera e volto dello spiritualismo contemporaneo: Analisi critica delle principali correnti moderne verso il sovrasensibile'' (1932){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=2018 |title=The Mask and Face of Contemporary Spiritualism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EIRNvwEACAAJ |publisher=[[Arktos Media|Arktos]] |isbn=9781912079346}} And: {{cite book |date=2021 |title=The Fall of Spirituality: The Corruption of Tradition in the Modern World |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NCgBEAAAQBAJ |publisher=Inner Traditions/Bear |isbn=9781620559789}}
*''Heidnischer Imperialismus'' (1933){{snd}}English translations: {{cite book |date=2007 |title=Heathen Imperialism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bOVcEAAAQBAJ |publisher=Cariou Publishing |isbn=9782493842008}} And: {{cite book |date=2017 |title=Pagan Imperialism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S_3jtAEACAAJ |publisher=Gornahoor Press |isbn=9780999086001}}
*''[[Revolt Against the Modern World|Rivolta contro il mondo moderno]]'' (1934; second edition 1951; third edition 1970){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=1995 |title=Revolt Against the Modern World: Politics, Religion, and Social Order in the Kali Yuga |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Aq1lQgAACAAJ |publisher=Inner Traditions/Bear |isbn=9780892815067}}
*''Il Mistero del Graal e la Tradizione Ghibellina dell'Impero'' (1937){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=1996 |title= The Mystery of the Grail: Initiation and Magic in the Quest for the Spirit |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QAqRHAAACAAJ |publisher=Inner Traditions/Bear |isbn=9780892815739}}
*''Il mito del sangue. Genesi del Razzismo'' (1937; second edition 1942){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=2018 |title=The Myth of the Blood: The Genesis of Racialism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YiB5twEACAAJ|publisher=Arktos |isbn=9781912079421}}
*''Sintesi di dottrina della razza'' (1941){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=2020 |title=Synthesis of the Doctrine of Race |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rcSbEAAAQBAJ |publisher=Cariou Publishing |isbn=9782954741642}}
*''Indirizzi per una educazione razziale'' (1941){{snd}}English translations: {{cite book |date=2022 |title=The Elements of Racial Education |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9N9eEAAAQBAJ |publisher=Cariou Publishing |isbn=9782954741635}}
*''La dottrina del risveglio'' (1943){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=1996 |title=The Doctrine of Awakening: The Attainment of Self-Mastery According to the Earliest Buddhist Texts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kza7tTkiytUC |publisher=Inner Traditions/Bear |isbn=9780892815531}}
*''Lo Yoga della potenza'' (1949; second edition 1968){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=1993 |title=The Yoga of Power: Tantra, Shakti, and the Secret Way |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=21mMGwAACAAJ |publisher=Inner Traditions/Bear |isbn=9780892813681}}
*''Gli uomini e le rovine'' (1953; second edition 1972){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=2002 |title=Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y9jEPAAACAAJ |publisher= Inner Traditions/Bear|isbn=9780892819058}}
*''[[:it:Metafisica del sesso|Metafisica del sesso]]'' (1958; second edition 1969){{snd}}English translations: 1983–1991: {{cite book |date=1991 |title=Eros and the Mysteries of Love: The Metaphysics of Sex |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zlAX8pSUHSkC |publisher=Inner Traditions/Bear |isbn=9780892813155}}
*''L'operaio nel pensiero di Ernst Jünger'' (1960; ''The Worker in the Thought of Ernst Jünger''). [https://web.archive.org/web/20141108100109/http://thompkins_cariou.tripod.com/id116.html Excerpts in English]
*''Cavalcare la tigre'' (1961){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=2003 |title=Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7uTyNAAACAAJ |publisher= Inner Traditions/Bear|isbn=9780892811250}}
*''Il cammino del cinabro'' (1963; second edition 1972){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=2009 |title=The Path of Cinnabar |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D7W0ufxS5pEC|publisher=Arktos |isbn=9781907166020}}
*''Il Fascismo. Saggio di una analisi critica dal punto di vista della Destra'' (1964; second edition 1970){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=2013 |title=Fascism Viewed from the Right |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6KUAMK9JdgYC |publisher=Arktos |isbn=9781907166853}} And: {{cite book |date=2013 |title=Notes on the Third Reich |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0B4osNsj9Fo |publisher=Arktos |isbn=9781907166860 }}{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
;Collections
*''Saggi sull'idealismo magico'' (1925; ''Essays on Magical Idealism'').
*''Introduzione alla magia'' (1927–1929; 1971){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=2001 |title=Introduction to Magic: Rituals and Practical Techniques for the Magus|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F1EtGwAACAAJ |publisher=Inner Traditions/Bear |isbn=9780892816248}} And: {{cite book |date=2019 |title=Introduction to Magic, Volume II: The Path of Initiatic Wisdom |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=scVWDwAAQBAJ |publisher=Inner Traditions/Bear |isbn=9781620557181}} And: {{cite book |date=2021 |title=Introduction to Magic, Volume III: Realizations of the Absolute Individual |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CAHZzQEACAAJ |publisher=Inner Traditions/Bear |isbn=9781620557198}}
*''L'arco e la clava'' (1968){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=2018 |title=The Bow and the Club |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Upa1tAEACAAJ|publisher=Arktos |isbn=9781912079087}}
*''Ricognizioni. Uomini e problemi'' (1974){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=2017 |title=Recognitions: Studies on Men and Problems from the Perspective of the Right |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KANjswEACAAJ|publisher=Arktos |isbn=9781912079179}}
*''Meditazioni delle vette'' (1974){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=1998 |title=Meditations on the Peaks: Mountain Climbing as Metaphor for the Spiritual Quest |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vV4oDwAAQBAJ |publisher=Inner Traditions/Bear |isbn=9781620550380}}
*''Metafisica della Guerra'' (1996){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=2011 |title=Metaphysics of War: Battle, Victory and Death in the World of Tradition |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0laH5kSoe5MC|publisher=Arktos |isbn=9781907166365}}
*''Jobboldali fiatalok kézikönyve'' (2012, collection of Hungarian translations of periodicals by Evola, published by Kvintesszencia Kiadó){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=2017 |title=A Handbook for Right-Wing Youth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=odSOAQAACAAJ|publisher=Arktos |isbn=9781620559789}}
*{{cite book |date=2015 |title=A Traditionalist Confronts Fascism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LRCiCgAAQBAJ|publisher=Arktos |isbn=9781910524022}}
*{{cite book |date=2018 |title=East & West: Comparative Studies in Pursuit of Tradition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=epcPnwEACAAJ|publisher=Counter-Currents |isbn=9781935965664}}
*{{cite book |date=2021 |title=Metaphysics of Power |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JM00zgEACAAJ|publisher=Arktos |isbn=9781914208096}}

;Articles and pamphlets
* ''L'Homme et son devenir selon le Vedânta.'' (1925'';'' Review of [[:fr:L'Homme_et_son_devenir_selon_le_Vêdânta|Guenon's work]] published in 1925 in ''L'Idealismo Realistico'').
* ''Il superamento dello spiritismo'' (1928) [https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/432792 Il Lavoro d’Italia],11 April.
*''Tre aspetti del problema ebraico'' (1936){{snd}}Originally published by ''Edizioni Mediterranee'' in 1936, this was also published in Italian by ''Edizioni di Ar'', in 1978. English translation: {{cite book |date=2014 |title=Three Aspects of the Jewish Problem |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WI_WEAAAQBAJ |publisher=Cariou Publishing |isbn=9782493842022}}
* ''[https://www.rigenerazionevola.it/la-tragedia-della-guardia-di-ferro-romena-codreanu-i-parte/ La tragedia della 'Guardia di Ferro] -'' (1938) English translation'': [[iarchive:TheTragedyOfTheIronGuardCodreanu|The Tragedy of the Iron Guard]].'' Originally published in ''La vita italiana 309,'' Dec 1938.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070422205317/http://pages.zoom.co.uk/thuban/html/evola.html ''On the Secret of Decay''] (1938){{snd}}Originally written in German<ref>{{Cite book|last=O'Meara|first=Michael|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q6Di0jzSLpEC&q=Uber+das+geheimnis+des+verfalls+1938&pg=PA173|title=New Culture, New Right: Anti-Liberalism in Postmodern Europe|date=2013|publisher=Arktos|isbn=978-1-907166-89-1|pages=173|language=en}}</ref> and published by the [[Wilhelm Stapel|''Deutsches Volkstum'']] magazine n. 14''.''
* ''Una vittima d'Israele'' (1939). Published in January 1939 in ''La vita Italiana.''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Evola |first=Julius |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wurWAAAAMAAJ |title=I testi de La vita italiana |date=2005 |publisher=Edizioni di Ar |isbn=978-88-89515-13-6 |language=it}}</ref><ref name="spicer">{{Cite book |last1=Spicer |first1=Kevin P. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QvcrEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA84 |title=Religion, Ethnonationalism, and Antisemitism in the Era of the Two World Wars |last2=Carter-Chand |first2=Rebecca |date=15 January 2022 |publisher=McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP |isbn=978-0-2280-1020-3 |pages=84 |language=en}}</ref>
*''Orientamenti, undici punti'' (1950){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=2015 |title="Orientations: Eleven Points", in A Traditionalist Confronts Fascism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LRCiCgAAQBAJ|publisher=Arktos |isbn=9781910524022}}
*''L’emancipazione dell’islam è una strada verso il comunismo'' (1957) - English translation: ''The emancipation of Islam is a path towards communism.'' Published on ''Meridiano d’Italia'' newspaper''.''<ref>{{Citation |last=Mirshahvalad |first=Minoo |title=Evola and the Dilemma of Islam |date=2024 |work=Crises and Conversions: The Unlikely Avenues of "Italian Shiism" |series=Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities |pages=39–54 |editor-last=Mirshahvalad |editor-first=Minoo |url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-55877-1_3 |access-date=2024-10-21 |place=Cham |publisher=Springer Nature Switzerland |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-031-55877-1_3 |isbn=978-3-031-55877-1|url-access=subscription }}</ref> It appears this article was reprinted in the journal ''[[:it:Roma_(quotidiano)|Roma]]'' in 1958.
*''Il vampirismo ed i vampiri'' (1973){{snd}}English: ''[https://www.gornahoor.net/?p=5593 Vampirism and Vampires].'' Written for journal ''[[:it:Roma_(quotidiano)|Roma]] in'' September 1973.
;Works edited and/or translated by Evola
*''Tao Tê Ching: Il libro della via e della virtù'' (1923; ''The Book of the Way and Virtue''). Second edition: ''Il libro del principio e della sua azione'' (1959; ''The Book of the Primary Principle and of Its Action'').
*''La guerra occulta: armi e fasi dell'attacco ebraico-massonico alla tradizione europea'' by Emmanuel Malynski and Léon de Poncins (1939){{snd}}English translation: {{cite book |date=2015 |title=The Occult War: The Judeo-Masonic Plot to Conquer the World |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aZhJjgEACAAJ|publisher=Logik Förlag |isbn=9789187339356}}

== See also ==
*[[Mysticism]]
*[[Traditionalist School (perennialism)|Traditionalist School]]
*[[Western esotericism]]
*[[Western philosophy]]

== References ==
'''Notes'''
{{Reflist}}

'''Works cited'''
{{div col|colwidth=35em}}
{{refbegin}}
* Aprile, Mario (1984), "Julius Evola: An Introduction to His Life and Work," ''The Scorpion'' No. 6 (Winter/Spring): 20–21.
*{{cite book |last=Atkins |first=Stephen E. |author-link=Stephen E. Atkins |date=2004 |title=Encyclopedia of Modern Worldwide Extremists and Extremist Groups |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group}}
*{{cite book|author-last=Barber |author-first=Richard |title=The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief |date=2004 |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |isbn=978-0674018150}}
* Coletti, Guillermo (1996), "Against the Modern World: An Introduction to the Work of Julius Evola," ''Ohm Clock'' No. 4 (Spring): 29–31.
* {{cite book|last1=Coogan|first1=Kevin|title=Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International|date=1999|publisher=Autonomedia|location=Brooklyn, New York|isbn=9781570270390}}
* De Benoist, Alain. "Julius Evola, réactionnaire radical et métaphysicien engagé. Analyse critique de la pensée politique de Julius Evola," ''Nouvelle Ecole'', No. 53–54 (2003), pp.&nbsp;147–69.
*{{cite book
	| last = De Turris
	| first = Gianfranco
    | translator = Eric Dennis Antonius Galati
	| date = 2020
	| title = Julius Evola: The Philosopher and Magician in War: 1943-1945
	| url = 
	| location = 
	| publisher = Inner Traditions
	| page = 
	| isbn = 9781620558065
}}
* {{cite book |last=Drake |first=Richard H. |date=1986 |chapter=Julius Evola and the Ideological Origins of the Radical Right in Contemporary Italy |editor=Peter H. Merkl |title=Political Violence and Terror: Motifs and Motivations |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=0-520-05605-1 |pages=61–89}}
* Drake, Richard H. (1988), "Julius Evola, Radical Fascism and the Lateran Accords," ''[[The Catholic Historical Review]]'' 74: 403–419.
* Drake, Richard H. (1989), "The Children of the Sun," in ''The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy'' (Bloomington: [[Indiana University Press]], {{ISBN|0-253-35019-0}}), 114–134.
*{{cite book |last1=Drury |first1=Nevill |title=The Dictionary of the Esoteric: 3000 Entries on the Mystical and Occult Traditions |date=2004 |publisher=[[Motilal Banarsidass]] |location=[[Delhi]] |isbn=978-81-208-1989-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k-tVr09oq3IC |access-date=11 August 2022 |language=en }}
*{{cite book |last1=Ebeling |first1=Florian |title=The Secret History of Hermes Trismegistus: Hermeticism from ancient to modern times |date=2007 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt1ffjptt |access-date=7 August 2022 |publisher=[[Cornell University Press]] |location=[[Ithaca, New York|Ithaca]] |jstor=10.7591/j.ctt1ffjptt |isbn=9780801445460 }}
*{{cite book
	| last = Evola 
	| first = Julius
	| date = 1953
	| title = Gli uomini e le rovine
	| location = Rome
	| publisher = Edizioni dell'Ascia
}}
*{{cite book |last1=Evola |first1=Julius |title=Il cammino del cinabro |date=1974 |publisher=Vanni Scheiwiller |location=Milan |isbn=9788827223444 |url=https://archive.org/details/il-cammino-del-cinabro |access-date=17 July 2022 |language=it }}
*{{Cite book |last=Evola |first=Julius |title=A Traditionalist Confronts Fascism |date=17 September 2015 |publisher=[[Arktos Media]] |isbn=9781910524022 |language=en}}
*{{Cite book |last=Feinstein |first=Wiley |title=The Civilization of the Holocaust in Italy: Poets, Artists, Saints, Anti-Semites |date=2003 |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |isbn=0-8386-3988-7 |location=Madison [N.J.] |oclc=51985017}}
*{{cite book |last1=Furlong |first1=Paul |title=Social and Political Thought of Julius Evola |date=21 April 2011 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |location=[[Abingdon-on-Thames]] |isbn=978-1-136-72549-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fVGkhzpXxLkC |access-date=17 July 2022 |language=en }}
* {{Cite journal |last=Ferraresi |first=Franco |date=1987 |title=Julius Evola : tradition, reaction, and the Radical Right |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-sociology-archives-europeennes-de-sociologie/article/abs/julius-evola-tradition-reaction-and-the-radical-right/40B8C534101D56E3F62B006D82074B5C |journal=European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie |language=en |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=107–151 |doi=10.1017/S0003975600005415 |issn=1474-0583|url-access=subscription }}
*{{cite book |editor-last1=Forshaw |editor-first1=Peter |title=Lux in Tenebris: The Visual and the Symbolic in Western Esotericism |date=28 November 2016 |publisher=Koninklijke Brill |location=[[Leiden]] |isbn=978-90-04-33495-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rNOYDQAAQBAJ |access-date=10 August 2022 |language=en }}
*{{cite book
 |last= Gillette
 |first= Aaron
 |date= 2014
 |title= Racial Theories in Fascist Italy
 |publisher= Routledge
}}
*{{cite book
 |last= Goodrick-Clarke
 |first= Nicholas
 |date= 2001
 |title=[[Black Sun (Goodrick-Clarke book)|Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity]]
 |publisher= [[New York University Press]]
}}
*{{cite book|last1=Gregor |first1=A. James |title=The Search for Neofascism: The Use and Abuse of Social Science |date=2006 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-0521676397 |location=Cambridge |author-link1=A. James Gregor}}
*{{cite book|last1=Gregor |first1=A. James |title=Mussolini's Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought |date=2005 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]}}
* [[Roger Griffin|Griffin, Roger]] (1985), "Revolts against the Modern World: The Blend of Literary and Historical Fantasy in the Italian New Right," ''Literature and History'' 11 (Spring): 101–123.
* Griffin, Roger (1995) (ed.), ''[[Fascism (book)|Fascism]]'' ([[Oxford University Press]], {{ISBN|0-19-289249-5}}), 317–318.
* [[Hans Thomas Hakl]], "La questione dei rapporti fra Julius Evola e [[Aleister Crowley]]", in: ''Arthos'' 13, Pontremoli, Centro Studi Evoliani, 2006, pp.&nbsp;269–289.
* [[Hans Thomas Hakl|Hansen, H. T.]] (1994), "A Short Introduction to Julius Evola," ''Theosophical History'' 5 (January): 11–22; reprinted as introduction to Evola, ''[[Revolt Against the Modern World]]'', (Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1995).
* Hansen, H. T. (2002), "Julius Evola's Political Endeavors," introduction to Evola, ''Men Among the Ruins'', (Vermont: Inner Traditions).
*{{cite book
 |last= Junginger
 |first= Horst
 |date= 2008
 |title= The Study of Religion Under the Impact of Fascism
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 |pages= 105–177
 |chapter= From Buddha To Adolf Hitler: Walther Wüst And The Aryan Tradition
}}
*{{cite book
|title= Politics and the Occult: The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen
|last= Lachman
|first= Gary
|date= 2012
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}}
*{{cite book
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*{{cite book |last1=Lewis |first1=James R. |last2=Melton |first2=J. Gordon |title=Perspectives on the New Age |date=1 January 1992 |publisher=SUNY Press |location=New York City |isbn=978-0-7914-1213-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U1werz4a1BIC |access-date=19 July 2022 |language=en }}
*{{cite book
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*{{cite book |last1=Melton |first1=J. Gordon |last2=Baumann |first2=Martin |title=Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices, 2nd Edition [6 volumes] |date=21 September 2010 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |location=[[Santa Barbara, California|Santa Barbara]] |isbn=978-1-59884-204-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v2yiyLLOj88C |access-date=21 July 2022 |language=en }}
*{{cite book|last=Payne|first=Stanley G.|author-link=Stanley G. Payne|title=A History of Fascism, 1914–1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x_MeR06xqXAC|year=1996|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|isbn=978-0-299-14873-7}}
* [[Philip Rees|Rees, Philip]] (1991), ''[[Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890]]'' (New York: Simon & Schuster, {{ISBN|0-13-089301-3}}), 118–120.
*{{cite book |last1=Magee |first1=Glenn Alexander |title=Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition |date=2008 |publisher=[[Cornell University Press]] |location=[[Ithaca, New York|Ithaca]] |isbn=978-0-8014-7450-7 |language=en }}
*{{cite book
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 |date= 2009
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}}
*{{cite book
	| last = Sedgwick
	| first = Mark
	| author-link = Mark Sedgwick
	| date = 2023
	| title = Traditionalism: The Radical Project for Restoring Sacred Order
	| url = 
	| location = 
	| publisher = Pelican Books
	| page = <!-- or pages: -->
	| isbn = 9780241487921
}}
*{{cite book
 |last=Senholt
 |first=Jacob Christiansen
 |date= 2013
 |title= Contemporary Esotericism
 |publisher= Equinox Publishing
 |editor-last1= Asprem
 |editor-first1= Egil
 |editor-first2= Kennet
 |editor-last2= Granholm
 |chapter= Radical Politics and Political Esotericism: The Adaptation of Esoteric Discourse within the Radical Right  
 |pages= 244–264
}}
* {{cite journal |last1= Sheehan |first1= Thomas |date= 1981|title= Myth and Violence: The Fascism of Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist |journal= Social Research|volume= 48|issue= 1|pages= 45–73}}
*{{cite book |last1=Skorupski |first1=Tadeusz |title=The Buddhist Forum |date=9 August 2005 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |location=[[Abingdon-on-Thames]] |isbn=978-1-135-75182-1 |edition=4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6VWAAAAAQBAJ |access-date=19 July 2022 |language=en }}
* Stucco, Guido (1992), "Translator's Introduction," in Evola, ''The Yoga of Power'' (Vermont: Inner Traditions), ix–xv.
* Stucco, Guido (1994), "Introduction," in Evola, ''The Path of Enlightenment According to the Mithraic Mysteries'', ''Zen: The Religion of the Samurai'', ''Rene Guenon: A Teacher for Modern Times'', and ''Taoism: The Magic, the Mysticism'' ([[Edmonds, WA]]: Holmes Publishing Group).
*{{cite journal
| last1      = Tarannes
| first1     = A.
| date       = 1 April 1928
| title      = Un sataniste italien
| journal    = Revue Internationale des Sociètès Secrètes
| volume     = 17
| issue      = 4
| pages      = 124–129
}}
*{{cite book
 |last= Taylor
 |first= Kathleen
 |date= 2012
 |title= Sir John Woodroffe, Tantra and Bengal: 'An Indian Soul in a European Body?
 |publisher= Routledge
 |isbn= 9780415749367
}}
*{{cite book
|title= Magic and Mysticism: An Introduction to Western Esoteric Traditions
|last= Versluis
|first= Arthur
|date= 2007
|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
}}
* Wasserstrom, Steven M. (1995), "The Lives of Baron Evola," ''Alphabet City'' 4 + 5 (December): 84–89.
* {{cite book |last=Weitzman |first=Mark |chapter=Traditionalism or the Perennial Philosophy |date=2021 |title=Contending with Antisemitism in a Rapidly Changing Political Climate |publisher=Indiana University Press |pages=96–112}}
*{{cite journal |last1=Wolff |first1=Elisabetta Cassina |title=Evola's interpretation of fascism and moral responsibility |journal=Patterns of Prejudice |date=19 October 2016 |volume=50 |issue=4–5 |pages=478–494 |doi=10.1080/0031322X.2016.1243662 |s2cid=152240495 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0031322X.2016.1243662 |access-date=21 July 2022 |issn=0031-322X |url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite magazine
| last        = Waterfield
| first       = Robin
| date        = 1990
| title       = Baron Julius Evola and the Hermetic Tradition
| issue       = 14
| magazine    = [[Gnosis (magazine)|Gnosis]]
| pages       = 12–17
}}
* {{cite web |title=Bibliografia di J. Evola |url=http://www.fondazionejuliusevola.it/Biblio.htm |website=Fondazione Julius Evola |access-date=25 April 2015 |archive-date=29 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150429220929/http://www.fondazionejuliusevola.it/Biblio.htm |url-status=dead }}
{{refend}}
{{div col end}}
==Further reading==
:<small>''({{Helveticat}}:)''</small>
{{refbegin}}
*{{cite book
 |last                 = Giudice
 |first                = Christian
 |year                 = 2022
 |title                = [[Occult Imperium|Occult Imperium: Arturo Reghini, Roman Traditionalism and the Anti-Modern Reaction in Fascist Italy]]
 |series               = Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism
 |location             = Oxford
 |publisher            = Oxford University Press
 |doi                  = 10.1093/oso/9780197610244.001.0001
|isbn = 978-0-19-761024-4
 }}
* {{cite journal
 |last1   = Staudenmaier
 |first1  = Peter
 |date    = 2019
 |title   = Racial Ideology between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: Julius Evola and the Aryan Myth, 1933–43
 |url     = https://epublications.marquette.edu/hist_fac/290
 |journal = Journal of Contemporary History
 |volume  = 55
 |issue   = 3
 |pages   = 473–491
 |doi     = 10.1177/0022009419855428
 |s2cid   = 211306550
|url-access= subscription
 }}
{{refend}}

== External links ==
*{{Commonscat-inline|Julius Evola}}
*{{Wikiquote-inline}}

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