The fundamental being and expression [of Consciousness or the I] is Joy pulsating as Will-Power and manifesting Itself in an unspeakably sublime cosmic play. It is not a mere abstraction — a wilderness of Pure Being or Pure Nothing as some critics of Vedanta have imagined the abode of Reality to be. ~ John Woodroffe, The World as Power (p 320)
Thomas Aquinas describes the effects of the Fall from the Primordial State as affecting faculties on both the spiritual and the psychic level, as represented in the following chart:
| Effect | Description | Antidote | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit | Ignorance | Intellect not ordered to the Logos | Gnosis |
| Malice | Will impotent to manifest the Logos | Power | |
| Soul | Weakness | Thumos not ordered to arduousness | Trial by suffering |
| Concupiscence | Eros not ordered to the delectable | Trial by love |
Hence, the regeneration of the Primordial State is effected through Knowledge and Power.
Knowledge
What do we know when we know it? From what has been described thus far:
- All our opinions, beliefs, theories are like so much straw
- What we have considered as obstacles are in reality privations, a demonstration of our own lack of power.
Woodroffe describes the concept of privation as understood in Tantra:
Consciousness [the I] seeming to be unconsciousness, Joy seeming to be indifference or pain, free Play seeming to be necessity and determination.
In this seemingness, the I gives up his power to that which “seems to be” and doesn’t recognize his own role in producing what he experiences:
Consciousness, as the root Being-and-Becoming Power becomes real things … Thus, a block of stone is not “matter” only: it is Consciousness as Joy and as Play — though the fact is veiled to ordinary minds. On the other hand, it is not an “idea” or “mental construct” only: it is Consciousness as Power constituting it as much and as active a reality as the experiencing and reacting mind is.
The solution is, according to Woodroffe, increasing knowledge at ever deeper levels to the point of self-realization:
There is need for the education and development of man’s “knowing instruments”, giving him progressively higher and larger visions, through science and philosophy, through intuition and meditation, and finally revelation and realization. … Matter and Life are every whit as real and active as Mind.
This is the crux of the issue. Verbosity, opinions, repetition do not and never will constitute knowledge. To Know — in the highest sense, viz., episteme, gnosis, wisdom — is to be. Hence, we do not know the Idea until it has become Real for us as Life and as Matter. This is the Tantric teaching of the I as Power.
Power
In the Individual and the Becoming of the World, Evola describes the deepening process of making ideas real:
- First, there is the simple and pallid image of the idea
- Make it vivid in the imagination
- Perceive it exteriorly as a subjective hallucination
- Convince other centres of consciousness to perceive it as a collective hallucination
- Develop an ever more intense assertion of power until the same level of real existence is reached.
Then at this point:
in correspondence with a magical act (because a magician could be defined as one who knows how to influence nature itself), [the idea] would cease to be “false” and “subjective” by making itself instead “true” and “objective”. What was error or illusion becomes accordingly truth, through power. That is valid for any empirical, moral, or rational field whatsoever.
Evola here does not spell out the obvious corollary. Whatever happens in any “empirical, moral or rational field whatsoever” is the result of the intention of an agent, someone or group that understands, and uses, this process or, better said, “magicians”. How much of the world is under the spell of some collective hallucination or another? Only the Trial by Fire can break the spell. Evola’s goes on to demonstrate the relationship between ontology and ethics.
Real means perfectly willed. Unreal will mean therefore privation of the Will, imperfect and insufficient Will — and this is evil, just as, on the other hand, it is error. Evil and error are one and the same thing in the sense that the common foundation to both is impotence. Those doctrines are in truth of a fundamental value, currently almost forgotten, that placed evil in matter, meaning by this that residue of necessity that resists the idea — that is, freedom — and limits it. Matter — the Platonic “other” — is effectively the sign of imperfection of the act and, in as much existing, is connected to that fundamental “injustice” about which Anaximander, Parmenides, and Empedocles speak — and it is, essentially, evil. There is no other evil beyond necessity, of which matter, brute existence, is the evidence; and as long as the “I” will not be able avoid the experience of matter — of this “other” against and beyond him — he will be imperfect: evil, impure, irrational.
It is clear that freedom is not about satisfying desires, which is really a lack, a privation. Concupiscence represents a necessity that binds and restricts our will. The purpose of the Trial by Love, by substituting the satisfaction of personal desires with a disinterested love for the genuinely good or pleasurable, is to overcome concupiscence. Thus, commands such as “love your enemy” are to be understood in this light, as means to an end, not a universal moral principle in the Kantian sense. A blind hatred, on the other hand, is the result of an impure and irrational will, and often leads one to make poor or ineffective decisions.
Weakness of the thumos leads a man to eschew suffering. Every form of pain or upset is felt to be an injustice. Instead, the Trial by Suffering will develop a detached attitude. In this respect, we can mention the idea of “intentional suffering”, that is, deliberately choosing the more arduous path in order to develop Power. Once again, commands such as “turn the other cheek” must be understood in this light.
Now Evola summarizes his position on the identity of power and morals:
So the ethical problem and the metaphysical problem coincide: the measure of reality, as of the good, of the certain and of the true, is the perfection of actuality or power. Per virtutem et potentiam idem intelligo. [Spinoza, Ethics, “by virtue and power I mean the same thing.”] The good or virtue is potency, evil is impotence. There is no other evil except insufficiency and weakness, no other good except the will that is unconditionally sufficient in itself, and therefore free to be and do what it wills. The rest is nonsense and can be left to women, mystics, and poets. That today the meaning of the moral as cosmic worth has been lost, that up to now, it has been reduced to nothing more than the corroboration and canonisation of deficiency, weakness, and fear — of the plague of beautiful sentiments, of noble virtues, of holy ideals — that is, of the fundamentally immoral.
Grim its obvious that you are having an anti-evolian bias for some reason or another,but to answer the last question, the dissolution of the corpse or rainbow body in the tibetan tradition seems to go along with a particular state of enlightment where the body is reabsorbed into the unmanifest but its surely not the only sign of adepthood. Remember that the Buddha did leave a corpse behind and was cremated, was he not an adept? Concerning your rather quantitive remark on “how much magic power” did Evola posses. How are we to know? Magic for Evola if i understand him correctly is first and foremost a way of reaching a lucid state of being connected with a way of acting in the world by discovering ones true will. How are we to measure that? And your comment about kremmerz seems strange aswell, obviously the way and method speaks for itself if someone fails to follow it and later rejects it well then it is his concern and no shadow falls on the others trodding the same path. But come on “bizarre” blood and sex rituals”? Do you believe that Crowley was the “wickedest man in the world” aswell?
How much actual magical power did Evola actually possess? The UR group flamed out rapidly (even including mutual lawsuits!?), and had no impact on the Fascist regime (despite the advertised hype that Mussolini “feared” them). Evola’s
political journal was even eventually shut down)
It’s also worth pointing out that a large chunk of the UR teachings derives from Kremmerz, who, reportedly, found the ascetic hermetic path to not lead to the goals hoped for. He became involved with “bizarre” blood and sex rituals”.
Was Evola an actual adept? We know he did not achieve the “dissolution of the corpse”, as his body was cremated.
Dear Kadambari,
Thank you for those links about the Vajayanager empire. They give a context to things that I have seen and heard. These things aren’t simply from India. They are from a particular place in India at a particular time.
And if these things that I have seen and heard are just the last rays of light from a star that no longer exists–well, is there anything unique in that? Here is something I happened to read today:
“All that is mortal lives in this fear of death; every new birth augments the fear by one new reason, for it augments what is mortal. Without ceasing, the womb of the indefatigable earth gives birth to what is new, each bound to die, each awaiting the day of its journey into darkness with fear and trembling.”
And yet we know that this music, this art, this religious devotion, this philosophical insight, will never die.
Yumo,
How does Evola negate ethics in his thought? He stated many times in his writings that he takes virtue into account, but virtue as it was traditionally defined (virtus as “power”, the power to act in the right way in the right situation). Gornahoor has a post on St. Anthony and Evola that can give you a good idea of the ethics in Evola’s thought.
(contd. above)
Ellora was preserved because being in a cave it remained hidden, so could not be razed to the ground like most architecture of the North, very few specimens of which remain….
So a proper understanding of history entails understanding by a people as to what were the historical (and current factors) that turned them into a wretched state…
“I believe that Buddhism was still prevalent in India, though only in northern India, at the time of the Muslim invasion. And, of course, this invasion only penetrated so far.”
The destruction was massive and total in most areas which never recovered. I recall the European who discovered the ellora caves. The people of the area had become so wretched, he could not imagine that the same people had once produced the art in Ellora….
The divine will is not absolutely free in the sense that you imply. It cannot not will the universe, which occurs as a result of its infinitude. Necessity relates to the absolute, and freedom to the infinite, both of which coincide. If the divine is infinite how could it not also include necessity? But necessity does not relate to impossibility or falsehood as Evola would imply.
I know what Evola is trying to say but his accuracy is off, and for reasons which I suspect to be his early influences, to reduce everything to the freedom of the will. So while those he criticized erred in the direction that negated transcendence, he errs in the direction that negates ethical virtue.
He says that matter is a sign of imperfection as if necessity of willing the universe was not necessary, but then the divine would not be infinite nor free. Matter is a sign of the will to matter which enabled the divine to be immanent and therefore is what it is.
The “divine” will is absolutely free and does not act out of necessity. It the divine is infinite, where would the “necessity” come from?
Evola is speaking about trans-human states, not the “individual” man as you seem to mean it.
Evola criticizes Nietzsche’s “morality” because the latter did not understand “asceticism”.
Please read the material carefully prior to commenting.
Evola may be wrong, but not for the reasons you present.
To emphasize once again, we are not out to convert, but rather to elucidate Evola and Guenon, in particular. The only issue at stake is whether or not we have presented Evola’s philosophy clearly and accurately.
@John Bardis
We need geniuses to bring back the music, but proper patronage is also required to sustain the arts. The classical musical heritage of the South has to to with the renaissance of the arts during the Vijayanagar empire, the last Hindu stronghold. The rulers patronized the arts and all Brahmanical traditions such as music.
http://www.planetradiocity.com/musicopedia/music_decade.php?conid=2311
http://www.vasanthvisuals.com/hampi.html
There are ragas not which have disappeared due to lack of use, many we cannot even imagine because they have been destroyed with civilization in certain parts, so what is existing cannot continue wihout proper patronage. Unfortunately, the way the Indian State is today controlled by the socialist Congress ever since after independence with the exception of five years, leading to India’s current misery and ongoing deracination and overpopulation, I am skeptical of preservation of the arts unless some other party comes into power nationally as the native culture is looked down upon and not encouraged by the state…
@John Bardis
Yes the South is quite different from the North, they have their own variety of HInduism and their peculiar languages which sound even peculiar to us and their ways are quite different, but I find in spite of all these differences, the people there are gentler compared to the North; many of them obey rules as compared to the North and are capable of better organization amongst themselves, whereas the North is very unruly and disorderly owing to its bad history. Of course, there are subtleties across regions and your geography will play a part in the peculiar aesthetics of your ethnic group…
Indians unfortunately are not exposed to Western classical music that much, which is a shame because it deprives them of something amazing out there just as they are not exposed to Greco-Roman civilization so cannot properly understand Western civilization and are mostly only exposed to English in terms of language. It is not that there is no interest in these things; they just have not been exposed…There needs to be exposure to these things if Indians can have a proper perspective on civilizations not their own…
As far as Western music is concerned, most are only exposed to pop music; you see the Chinese and Japanese really into Western classical music…I was lucky to have parents who appreciated Western classical music, so was lucky to grow up appreciating both classical Indian and classical Western music…
These days, there is much exposure to books in our region which is a good thing about the internet; today you can find most of the classics on the internet which is good for areas where they are not easily accessible. My husband who is in the sciences recalls when he was in college, the librarian was a Kashmiri Pandit, so in addition to the science books the librarian had a very peculiar section of other books according to his taste such as works by Aurel Stein, the explorer Richard Burton and old British histories of India (which contained history without whitewash) etc., which he says opened him up to understanding Indian history properly, as history is not taught in the schools correctly, as it is all written with a political agenda and dominated by Marxist historians and rewriting of history to serve political ends, the truth is not presented. Most people end up studying technical subjects and the sciences to survive in the modern world and find themselves when they get older woefully ignorant of their own civilization apart from what their parents have taught them and often want a refund on their education…
Yes, I was told that the temples near where I live were for south Indians.
You will have to forgive the fact that my ignorance on these matters far outweighs my very real interest.
I believe that Buddhism was still prevalent in India, though only in northern India, at the time of the Muslim invasion. And, of course, this invasion only penetrated so far. So I suppose it does make sense that the traditions would be more intact in the south.
As for the music, it seems to me quite similar to western classical music in that it could only be created and can only be performed due to the existence of child prodigies. I believe both kinds of music are still being performed at a very high level. But perhaps creation has come to a stand-still. And this seems to be the case in many fields–literature, philosophy, art. Why this is, I don’t know. Perhaps there are times of creation and times of preservation. Or perhaps all the emphasis now is on technology and popular culture.
Evola is more magician or philosopher than metaphysician. Here he tends to pit freedom and will against necessity, yet he forgets that freedom doesn’t exist without necessity. The divine by necessity willed being and cosmos, not the fall. And to be an individual being is not a constraint or weakness since its will is to be an individual whose immanence does not run counter to transcendence. Thus the statement, “There is no other evil beyond necessity, of which matter, brute existence, is the evidence” is absurd. Then in the moral argument Evola tends to be too Nietzschean in wanting to create an amoral morality based on power. But what do I know?
@John Bardis
The kinds of things you talk about are probably organized by South Indians, who as classical civilization was destroyed much later in the south still have some memory of architecture and other cultrual memories and so on, and can be benign people…The North (I am speaking of places like Delhi) has a thuggish culture because it was totally destroyed at several points and hence there is a barbaric legacy which survives there, I really dislike the culture in those parts, however, the mountian/hill areas in the North where people took refuge during turmoil historically that I am familiar with are completely benign and still very pleasant to live…
As for Indian classical music, most of the great names (about ten) have died, there are only two great masters left…I wonder with interest diminishing in these things when we will again hear music composed by such masters again…
I hope the Hindus are also doing something for the community… I can say that I myself know many things about our religion from the great Western scholars; the Buddhism book my brother read in college was written by a Catholic priest and it was a very good introduction I recall. Of course there are certain things that are passed down and you know as being a part of the culture, but we are always amazed by the dedicated Westerners who study it to such depths; the German scholars preserved many things when they were dying out even in our regions; genuine quest for knowledge transcends cultures…
I wish Indians would be exposed to the Greeks for they would really love them and learn so much from them and find them not different at all, but what can you do? With the current government run educational system there, Hindus barely understand even their own culture and history…
In the town where I live, a few miles south of Atlanta, there’s a Hindu temple. Or, actually, there are two of them side by side. They are quite magnificent. The main “god” of the first temple has to be the most amazing statue I’ve ever seen.
But in another part of Atlanta there is a whole temple complex that makes our two temples seem quite small in comparison.
There was a time in my life when I had the good fortunate to attend a good many concerts of classical Indian music.
Obviously Hinduism (or whatever you call it) isn’t going anywhere. It’s definitely here to stay.
@John Bardis
We in our part of the world need to be able to “think” once again like we used to and not only copy, for this a people need to understand what they are as a nation and what comprises their identity, something that is not encouraged in the mainstream education which is government controlled…I remember V.S Naipaul when invited to India to speak about literature, remarked bluntly that there is no “literature” produced these days there! You cannot but admire the man for his honesty!
@John Bardis
Reading this blog, there seems to be a recognition that there is a problem by many. As for Brahmin and what not, you are born as that, you cannot change the circumstances of birth, you try to preserve the memory of what that might have once implied, the civilizational sense that is…soon when there are no castes, it will be even harder for people to remember the truth properly, or at least in our part of the world, understand what made it once a civilization, already that memory is retreating owing to being controlled by foreigners for the last 800 years and continuing today if you see that the current system does not represent our traditional civilization in any way…You try to preserve the memory and values of old India, those things that created culture and thinking once not too long ago. But people today are mutating into a new identity, one just hopes they just do not blindly copy the West as they now do…and come up with something that is suited to their own needs, just as the West will be finding solutions suited to its needs…The fact that residues of civilization remain after 800 years of destruction tells me that there are indeed things worth preserving, as it has been those things that have prevented certain pockets from degenerating into complete barbarism, now we do what we can in our sphere as private individuals…
Are we? How is it, then, that we talk to those without caste?
Well we are Brahmins and retain some memory but today the civilization there is not one that can be properly be called “Hindu”; so I feel that we are helpless residues of a civilization that harldy exists anymore except among some remnants who carry a memory of it, people who are small in numbers; when I read this blog I feel Westerners are also dealing with similar dilemnas in a Western context…Yes I suppose we are also idiots in Benoist’s sense, being unable to relate to or sympathize with the current form of civilization which has taken root there, so rootless in this sense…
I suppose there is not much one can do but our tiny part to keep the memory of these things alive…Imagine if it were not for all these traditionalist writers we would not be concerning ourselves with such questions as a larger group, even if we might do so quietly as individuals! These things have to have impact amongst the public to have a future and cannot just be confined to isolated individuals in academia…A knowledge that there is a problem is the first step…
So, then, if I may ask–What caste are you?
Apologies for typos above…
21.“Likewise, it does not matter to what caste a person pursuing absolute liberation belongs.”
Yes in classical India you had the sanyasin (samana) who was beyond caste and religion (you could not demand of a sanyasin what his caste was traditionally). However, this did not injure the overall traditional structure of society, even the sanyasin is something at the beginning. This is what I find so amazing about this civilization: all these elements could co-exist (the samanas later lead to the rise of Buddhism. Later religions like Buddhism and Jainism co-exist with what precedes it; a civilization self-corrects as long as its essential character is not disturbed in the sense that the essential way of life is destroyed; self-correction comes to a halt when classical civilization is destroyed in the region by outside forces in the middle ages…
The Indic case is a case of pluralism which has none of the aspects we associate with pluralism in the modern sense, it is not a case of multiculturalism because the differences are a facet of a larger civilization which encompasses it all in a harmonious unity….And in this sense, I believe that this civilization was unique…
“Likewise, it does not matter to what caste a person pursuing absolute liberation belongs.”
Yes in classical India you had the sanyasin (samana) who was beyond caste and religion (you could not demand of a sanyasin what his caste traditionally). However, this did not injure the overall political set up, even the sanyasin is something at the beginning. This is what I find so amazing about this civilization: all these elements could co-exist (the samanas later lead to the rise of Buddhism), which in turn co-esists with what precedes it, so a civilization self-corrects as long as its essential character is not disturbed in the sense that the essential way of life is destroyed; all is self-correction comes to a halt when classical civilization is destroyed by outside forces in the middle ages…So this is a case of pluralism which has none of the aspects we associate with pluralism in the modern sense, it is not multicultural because the differences are a facet of a larger civilization which encompasses it all in a unity….
In _The Yoga of Power_ Evola writes:
“According to Indo-Aryan tradition, a caste corresponds to an individual differentiated nature, and to the body of laws (dharma) one should follow. In the Left-Hand Path, however, dharma is seen as a limitation, or as a conditioning to be overcome…Likewise, it does not matter to what caste a person pursuing absolute liberation belongs. Obviously, this is a case of apparent ‘democracy’. The capability of effectively walking on the path produces differentiations among people that are more clear-cut and real than the ones due to caste membership, especially when the latter have lost their original and legitimate foundation.” (page 97)
Perhaps this is what Gurdjieff’s toasts to the idiots (or whatever it was called) was all about. I forget how it works, but there were forty or more different types of idiot, and each person had the task of determining which, exactly, kind of idiot he or she was–resulting in the downing of vast quatities of alcohol.
@Cologero
“Idiot” originally referred to a “person so mentally deficient as to be incapable of ordinary reasoning”.
Alain de benoist gives an interesting definition of Idiot. I find his understanding of antiquity of interest, and do not know much about his politics. He writes:
“The notions of citizenship, liberty, or equality of political rights, as well as of popular sovereignty, were intimately interrelated. The most essential element in the notion of citizenship was someone’s origin and heritage. Pericles was the “son of Xanthippus from the deme of Cholargus.” Beginning in 451 b.c., one had to be born of an Athenian mother and father in order to become a citizen. Defined by his heritage, the citizen (polítes) is opposed to idiótes, the non-citizen—a designation that quickly took on a pejorative meaning (from the notion of the rootless individual one arrived at the notion of “idiot”). Citizenship as function derived thus from the notion of citizenship as status, which was the exclusive prerogative of birth. To be a citizen meant, in the fullest sense of the word, to have a homeland, that is, to have both a homeland and a history. One is born an Athenian—one does not become one (with rare exceptions). Furthermore, the Athenian tradition discouraged mixed marriages. Political equality, established by law, flowed from common origins that sanctioned it as well. Only birth conferred individual politeía.
That is essentially how caste was : people with a certain history and way of life…so being out of caste is to have no history and be a rootless individial…
http://home.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/debenoist/alain14.html
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The five numbered points from Evola’s book are strongly parallel to the methodology of Tantric sadhana, so much so that I wonder whether Evola got it from Woodroffe or some other source, or whether he somehow figured it out on his own. This methodology survives to this day in Tantric Buddhist practices in which yidam deities are visualized and meditated upon and prayed to, until they become as real and more real than ordinary reality.
These visualizations are one of the primary uses of thangka paintings: they provide the image to be formed in the mind. There is some evidence that icons in the Christian tradition may have been used in similar ways, and perhaps still are in certain Orthodox circles. In both cases, the painter must go through certain preparatory and purificatory rituals prior to beginning the work. In both cases, the resultant images (if they are successful) are regarded as holy, and as retaining something of the essence of the deity or saint which they portray.
What this really shows is that the esoteric cannot be severed from the exoteric. Besides, wasn’t all this covered in the gnostic heresy (that the world is not evil)?
Exit,
I guess it comes down to whether or not a person believes those things you listed have a reality in themselves, or that they represent a privation/limit (a relative one). If you take the second view, then they aren’t “evil” in themselves, but show that there is something not right/lacking with the subject/individual.
The truth is Evola’s theory doesn’t deserve serious consideration. But let’s follow his logic to its conclusion and say that everything done by necessity is evil… Eating is necessary, so therefore eating is a sin. So is breathing, sex, and so on. Therefore existence is a sin, which is the same stupid conclusion that the Abrahamic religions had formulated which led to the world-denying mischief they are so known for.
Perhaps one could say that untransfigured matter, or matter rendered untransfigurable, is what is “evil”. Which can be done.
I am beginning to think Platonism is nothing like what we have been told that it was. Necessity, without freedom is evil, just as freedom without necessity is evil. The traditionalists (or Platonists) don’t get to talk about the divine loop where the end meets the beginning, generally because everyone quarrels with their quest. You can’t have “Western” without Platonism. I don’t see where Evola is any more anti-material than Platonism, in fact, far less so.
An idiot is someone who accepts something that is written without question. I gave proof as to why necessity is not evil, but I suppose it takes a sort of common sense to recognize it. Again I am not the only one who has had disagreements with Evola, but some people on this site act as if Evola is some sort of infallible god.
Socrates was able to show the slave boy Meno how to follow a logical argument. Granted I am no Socrates, but is it really so foolhardy to expect commenters to be able to follow a logical argument on their own? “Idiot” originally referred to a “person so mentally deficient as to be incapable of ordinary reasoning”. I will let the definition itself judge the character of some recent commenters.
Let us be clear: we are not interested in debate, nor in “converting” anyone. We are elucidating the concepts of men of tradition and bringout their consequences. This piece on the ethics of power follows two weeks of detailed commentary on magical idealism. It has its own coherence, with roots in Tradition, philosophical idealism, vedantic and tantric teachings. So the question is, at this point, whether or not Evola’s conclusion follows from the perspective has has so carefully and logically developed. If anyone rejects tout court the very premises from which we begin, of course the conclusion makes no sense. In that case, the reader should backtrack the argument and indicate which premise is flawed. E.g., are you a realist who rejects the very idea of privation? That would constitute a discussion.
However, to string together a series of inanities and call it a refutation is just sad.
Matter does not limit one’s freedom to be oneself; this should be clear as it was in the beginning, and because necessity is a divine attribute. Moreover, the avoidance of matter does not make one free. Therefore, Evola is wrong. Matter is neutral.
This is his “proof”: “There is no other evil beyond necessity, of which matter, brute existence, is the evidence”
In the form of a syllogism:
Major premise: There is no other evil beyond necessity
Minor premise: Matter is limitation of freedom, i.e., it represents necessity
Conclusion: Matter is evil
Where is the flaw in the logic?
Keep in mind that matter is a “privation”, that is, it is fundamentally a “lack of power”, thus, not in itself, but a quality or weakness of the Individual. That is what makes it a moral issue. As Woodroffe writes: “free Play seeming to be necessity and determination” This is what is meant by error and evil being the same thing. The error is that we take the “seeming”, or the appearance, to be the reality. In so doing, we give up our power to those appearances.
It is one thing to create a theory that matter “deprives one of the higher perspective” and another to prove it. Saying it does not make it so. Unfortunately, matter does no such thing as other perennialist authors have said. It is rather a problem in the soul not matter or the body. If it were a physical problem then it would require a physical cure. It is not physical disorder, but rather a matter of the soul.
Since the purpose of the sight is not to defend Evola, but to build on him, then some elective affinity would seem to be in order, just to understand his position. However, Cologero may have stumbled on something here, which goes to the root of the misunderstanding of Platonism as somehow anti-matter. From the higher perspective, “matter” would of course be entirely good insofar as it existed at all, but would necessarily be “evil” insofar as it tended to deprive one of that higher perspective. Which is exactly what has happened. Plato never spoke as if we did not have bodies (George Parkin Grant). And one must not overlook the sophistication and symbolism and secret doctrine which operated to imbue statements that were “wrong” if taken ; context, more than terminology, is everything.
What is ridiculous is the notion that necessity, matter, body, etc., equals insufficient, weak, evil. This error of avoiding the experience of matter is similar to the Christian error which led to a spirit-matter dualism as the taboo treatment of a whole host of worldy things. So yes, terminology is everything.
That terminology is everything is a ridiculous assertion. Two authors can have very different terminology but mean virtually the exact same thing. A number of spiritual texts even have confusing terminology on purpose. The scripturalist-traditionalistism approach is dealh with in the comments here: http://www.gornahoor.net/?p=1458
Even your idol Guénon speaks of the ´unavoidable imperfections of expression.´ [“Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines” p. 251]
That is not the same thing. Terminology is everything.
´First Evola says, “There is no other evil beyond necessity, of which matter, brute existence, is the evidence” and then he says, “There is no other evil except insufficiency and weakness.”´
Obviously he’s saying the same thing, that insufficiency and weakness are states of not being able to be superior to necessity, matter or the body. Your criticisms are generally so lame, and you never cite anything. Are you totally aimless? What are you trying to achieve?
First Evola says, “There is no other evil beyond necessity, of which matter, brute existence, is the evidence” and then he says, “There is no other evil except insufficiency and weakness.” Well, which is it? Surely one cannot say that necessity, matter, and the body are evil. Good is not a matter of avoiding the experiences of the body but rather of the spirit directing the soul and body, as the philosophers have mentioned.