See Part One

As little as that against which it reacts, such a spiritualism therefore constitutes a principle: it is not a sign of rebirth, but is instead — like that which already Asianized the Greco-Roman world in the Alexandrian period, and to which it so strangely resembles — a symptom of decline, an expression of rejection and resistance in the universal turmoil.

Evola later dedicated a book to this topic, Mask and Face of Contemporary Spiritualism, which included critiques of Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Psychoanalysis, and several other neo-spiritual movements. Here, he compares them to the various spiritual imports from Persia and India, following Alexander’s conquests. Nevertheless, Evola seems to have later excluded other Asian influences such as Mithraism, early Buddhism, Taoism, Tantra, et al. However, while he never advocated incorporating their cultural artifacts along with their metaphysical teachings. Contrast that with some contemporary neo-Traditionalists.

Hence, sad omens loom over the Western world: since it is not a question of a circumstance of recent times, but rather the logical conclusion of the very principles on which this civilization has developed. In America — which is the most formidable of the newest barbarisms — is there perhaps not found the endpoint of the industrial course initiated by European Civilization?

And in Bolshevism, which in a certain way constitutes a different form of the identical danger — does it not reveal perhaps the law in the materialistic social mask of that mysticism of community that, through the Christian subversion, swept away the individual, hierarchical, and imperial values of the Greco-Roman world?

This is old news by now, especially as Bolshevism as such is no longer a threat to Europe. Perhaps in his day, there seemed a viable Third Way, but is of little significance now. Even the opposition between capitalism and liberalism is a mirage, since they not just co-exist, but are actually in a symbiotic relationship, despite some rumblings from the left fringe and even less consequential clamoring on the various claimants to the real Right. The reference to the Christian subversion is unfortunate here, for several reasons.

1. First of all, he claims to be relying on principles rather than contingent events, a promise he breaks here.
2. Secondly, it is misleading. Many assume that casting off Christianity will suffice to solve the problem. Yet, as Europe becomes more and more de-Christianized, the problem worsens. Rather than unveiling the “inner pagan” in the European soul, is has brought about a spiritual vacuum filled by materialism, hedonism, or neo-spiritualism.
3. It is historically untrue. The Greco part of the world continued its hierarchical and imperial values for another millennium. The Roman part managed to recover it and maintained it in one form or another for a thousand years. Rome was already in decline; a spiritually strong people don’t go looking for novelty. The degeneration of castes had already occurred in the city-states. Rome was forced to make concessions to the mass of Plebes around the city. This suffices for now.

All this tells us how little there is to hope about the efficacy of a reaction.

Still one generation — two at most — and every surviving possibility can be choked off, and nothing will stop this great dark mass that already runs down the slope: unless a sudden upheaval, a crisis that radically jolts the foundations of modern civilization comes to reestablish the equilibrium, whether through something, that through the eyes of most men for most of them will be the same as a catastrophe.

Possessing this conviction, what task remains to the few that still resist?

Not a direct action, but that more disconcerting action which can wield the mute and impassive presence of a stone guest. We must break the bridges, and with absolute adherence to primordial meanings and visions, those who will still act before the causes of the current civilization are established, constitute a pole, which, if it will not prevent this world of deviants from being what it is, will impede them, however, from asserting the nonexistence of every other horizon, to glorify itself, to establish by law itself to religion, to think that which is, should be what it is and that is good that it is.

Hence, a fixed point, and from such a point, new relationships, new distances, new consciousnesses; from such consciousnesses, perhaps — in someone — the beginnings of liberating crises.

Well, we are two generations from the publication of Evola’s essay. Are all possibilities choked off? Yet, don’t we see more interest in Tradition, especially among young men? More translations are available, more commentaries on Eastern metaphysics, and so on. The World Cycle has its own program and is not as impatient as we are.

A catastrophe may occur but is not the only possibility as Guenon pointed out. The task is simple: absolute adherence to primordial meanings and visions. Then act as a stone guest, a sojourner in the land of the lost, act as the unmoved mover, without attachment to results.

It is natural that many points in this regard be made precise and clarified: we will return to that task in our subsequent articles. Up till now we say that it is not a question of returning, because the reference is primarily to certain principles and certain interests, which, being above time, they have (in the words of Guenon) a permanent relevance.

To be a man above time, adhere to principles whose relevancy and applicability are never in doubt.

Having lost the sense of this relevance, having been dissolved in the myth of a pure flowing, of a pure stretching that pushes further and further its very goal of a process increasingly powerless to reach mastery, this is one of the characteristics of the world against which we anti-moderns set ourselves.

Hence, a clean boundary that separates two epochs, not in an historical sense, but rather in an ideal sense: and we might call one the Traditional, the other anti-traditional.

The first point is that relating to the spirit of the beginning, cancels every difference of the common opposition to the other. Then, we would like especially to mention the symbol closest to us Westerners: the symbol of action, restored to its full and traditional significance, of which the equivocal defense of the West of today could have a shapeless premonition.

To be a man against time, act on Traditional principles.

But not before the fixed point is established; that the sense of the distance is precise, so that the modality and nature of the processes appears, which sustain and foment the perversion of the European soul.