Julius Evola

The Philosopher and Magician in War: 1943-1945 Gianfranco De Turris, tr Eric Dennis Antonius Galati Inner Traditions 2020 Hb, 280pp, £25, ISBN 9781620558065

The monocle-wearing, fastidious and intemperately politically incorrect Baron Julius Evola was an Italian esoteric scholar of the 20th century with a taste for authoritarian social structures and a profound dislike of the modern world. In his early career Evola wore a number of hats – Futurist, Dadaist, metaphysician. But it wasn’t until the rise of Mussolini’s fascism that he saw an opportunity to pursue what he believed was the only means by which our wretched age could achieve some salvation. This was the establishment of a monarchical society modelled on the ancient notion of a caste system and informed with the guiding principles of Traditionalism: a kind of “fundamentalist esotericism,” bequeathed to Evola – and the rest of us – through the work of the French savant and Islamic convert René Guénon.

Traditionalism holds that at the dawn of time, mankind was given a divine revelation about the cosmos and our place in it. Unfortunately, things swiftly went downhill after this, and although all the major religions of the world retain, in their inner (esoteric) centres, some vestige of this primordial revelation, it has generally been lost. What remains is our by now post-everything world in which all awareness of a spiritual authority, by which human beings should order their lives, has dissipated. Instead we have materialism, consumerism, democracy, socialism, egalitarianism: a generic levelling of human life to the lowest, i.e. the most “common”, denominator.

It’s this sort of thing that Evola doesn’t like, and in Mussolini’s fascism and Hitler’s National Socialism he saw a chance to offer an heroic resistance to the social and political rot overtaking Europe. Although generally repellent, Evola’s criticism of modernity has at times an astringency that can be salutary.

This book covers the years between Mussolini’s downfall and the brief reign of the Salò Republic, and the last days of the 1,000-year Reich. It provides detailed information about Evola’s activities during this time, doing his best to fight the good fight for world fascism.

It is written for the Evola scholar, or I might say anorak, as the type of information made available for the first time – as we are repeatedly told – will not seem revelatory for the average reader. But then, by definition, the average reader is not Evola’s nor his epigone’s target.

We are made privy to the circumstances surrounding Evola’s presence at Hitler’s Rastenburg safe house when Mussolini arrived, courtesy of SS superman Otto Skorzeny’s daring rescue of Il Duce from the Gran Sasso. We are with Evola in hospital when he awakens from the Allied bomb blast that paralysed him from the waist down for life. We are with him as he scours secret files, searching for restricted information about the influence of Freemasonry on WWII.

This last bit is, for the nonpolitical esoteric reader, the most interesting part of the book, although the claim that Evola was “the greatest scholar of Freemasonry” requires some salt. As does belief in the efficacy of the operations Evola is supposed to have carried out in order to restore the “original spiritual significance” of the masonic rituals the Nazis had collected and which had apparently evaporated at the hands of Freemasonry itself.

The book is marred by the author’s apparent need to explain at every opportunity that Evola – hagiographically referred to as “the philosopher” throughout – was not really a fascist. A kind of cottage industry has grown up around Evolaistas about this. If there is so much smoke, one can’t help but suspect a fire. Yes, he never joined the party and he disagreed with Mussolini. But he criticised Il Duce for not being fascist enough, which tells us a lot.

If you are interested in the many hairs split about this and other elements in Evola’s questionable career, or are a student of Italian far-right politics in the mid-20th century, this book is for you.

Gary Lachman

★★★