This is Part 1 of two parts of an article that originally appeared in EreticaMente as La via del pensiero vivente come controparte operativa del pensiero di Julius Evola by Fabio Mazza. It is translated and published with the permission of the author.

Julius Evola was involved with various anthroposophists, not only with the Ur/Krur Groups, but even with their active participation in the political life of Italy at that time. Evola respected Rudolf Steiner for his “operative” teachings, but not for the anthroposophical doctrine in itself. Certainly, he liked the idea of a “spiritual science” although Evola gave it the name “metaphysical positivism”. Evola even included two pictures of Steiner in Sintesi as a representative of the nordic-dinaric race. Curiously, the same pictures were not included in the German translation of Sintesi.

Part II ⇒

Among the vast literature regarding Julius Evola, we can say that not many have explored its ties with what is called “The Way of Living Thought” in its Italian form, represented first by Giovanni Colazza and subsequently by Massimo Scaligero and Pio Filippani Ronconi, the one a disciple of the other in a chain that has a direct link to Rudolf Steiner. The notorious and incontrovertible difficult relationships between Evola and such authors lead back to the perplexities that the was exercised over the Baron not by Steiner himself, but rather by anthroposophy understood as a system, inevitably corrupted by its adherents and disciples even while the “Master” was alive. It is necessary to clarify that anthroposophy arose in a period of positivism in the 19^th century and undoubtedly feels certain effects of the “signs of the times”, or the password. Moreover, it was inevitable that some of the theories present in Theosophy influenced Steiner (but also quite less than it appears at the first reading). That said, we dare to think that the contrast is more apparent than real and, as we will try to show in this article, that Evola’s work is “completed” by Steiner’s and Scaligero’s and vice versa, knowing that it will generate accusations of heresy by Evolians as well as anthroposophy, and by the orthodox defenders of a “truth” that is defended by itself and certainly does not need to be transformed into a religion or mysticism. What we want to demonstrate is how Steiner and Scaligero give, with different nuances, the operative instruments for the realization of “states” (or of propedeutic conditions for their realization) that Evola talks about in the “Introduction to magic as science of the I”.

The Magical Julius Evola: The Ur Group

The fundamental premise to set out is that there would not exist a certain world, a certain “front” without Evola’s work. He set a limit, gave clarity and power never equaled, to the concept of Tradition — previously formulated in these terms only by Rene Guenon — and created its epic and ethic. First of all, he criticized modernity and brought into question, in not suspicious times, the concept of progress, evolution, and spirituality as it was understood in the first decades of the 20^th century. He was a destroyer, as was Nietzsche in another way, but a reconstruction, a normative foundation, a “having to be” was innate to Evola’s “opus destruens”. If one does not know clearly what Tradition is, first at the dialectic-normative level and then also at the sentimental and emotional level, as it was developed in history, if one has not understood that there exists an opposite front of subversion or counter-initiation, and that in the current state it threatens human civilization like never before, if one does not know clearly the ethos, as preliminary human and existential purification, then he can hardly, in our opinion, have attempted the initiatic path. A much less known aspect of his thought is however that of the “magical”, or better said, “operative”, which emerged in the experiences of the Ur and Krur groups, which were collected in three volumes. The Ur Group, the synthesis of men and esoterists from different backgrounds, produced in the 20s and 30s, initially for internal use, a series of articles regarding magic as the knowledge of the Self, and under this name what was necessary was not so much a meditation but rather an intuitive “subtle” effort, almost a “feeling” rather than an “understanding”. The most well-known of the personalities that appeared in those volumes were Arturo Reghini, Arturo Onofri, Ercole Quadrelli, Giovanni Parise, and especially important for our purposes, Giovanni Colazza who influenced Evola in an important way, beyond the individual differences between them.

These texts, the “operative” counterpart to Evolian thought, even if not organically integrated into his bibliography by his commentators, reveal a deep imprint of Calazza’s work, who was Steiner’s closest disciple. He was also Massimo Scaligero’s teacher, who was referred to him by his friend, Evola, after the war. It is however undeniable how Evola, editor of the monographs, bases a good part of the essential framework of Introduction to Magic on Colazza’s ideas and exercises, which were straight from Steiner. It is obvious how, particularly in volume one, and even the third volume, the passages by “Leo”, were central and representative, along with those by “Luce” (Parise) and Abraxa (Quadrelli), of the active part of the work, completed by multiple doctrinal articles and general orientation, no matter how fundamental. The efficacy of the practice of thinking became for Evola so evident that, in the edition of 1971 of the third volume, six of Steiner’s exercises were inserted with the title of “Liberation of the faculties”, while also including a personal comment. Besides, he even cites Colazza and Scaligero in Mask and Face of Contemporary Spirituality in the chapter dedicated to anthroposophy, but without naming them, declaring himself perplexed that such personalities, in whom he recognizes undisputed value, were taken by such an infatuation for Steiner. And this is a point that merits an explanation.

Rudolf Steiner and Julius Evola

In order to understand the relation between Rudolf Steiner and his Italian followers on the one hand, and Evola on the other, Evola’s text, already cited, is fundamental. There he treats at length some spiritual currents of the first decades of the 1900s, up to 1970. The goal is clear: to warn of the risks of an encroachment, of a fall, from the personal to the sub-personal. Be careful, Evola maintains: there exist not only spiritual and superpersonal states beyond waking consciousness, but also demonic and subhuman states, that the imprudent openings of consciousness and aberrational practices can propitiate with devastating effects. In order to do justice to that, it would suffice to consider the Italian esoteric undercurrents and their members, in order to understand how well they had pinpointed the question. Consequently, it is very important to be clear: the greater part of modern spiritual currents, far from propitiating connections with the divine and with transcendent states, instead open wide the door to states of extrasensory powers and passivity (something, among other things, maintained in black and white by Scaligero himself in his works, with reference to the action of the “hinderers”).

Among so many currents cited in the text, there is also Steiner’s anthroposophy, to whom, however, Evola shows he was not particularly hostile, so much so that Guenon, after reading the text, reproached him for being too soft on the Austrian master. He recognized the value of the personality as well as the validity of specific methods that he proposed, which constitute nothing new, but heavily criticized Steiner’s system for the contents referring to “humanity”, “evolution”, “peace”, etc., in fact, if taken literally, certain of Steiner’s discourses can, to anyone who is accustomed to traditional language and ancient texts, appear as humanitarian and anti-traditional discourses, if not contextualized clearly. It seems difficult therefore to accept that Evola did not know that the whole had to be taken with a grain of salt and raises legitimate doubt that he had wanted to discourage more the adherence to anthroposophy as a “sect”, more than to the entire Steinerian discourse, understood as “science of the spirit”, as much to recognize the positivity of a scientific vocation to the supersensible, beyond romantic mysticism and religious devotion.

In fact, It is toward the end of the same passage, that Evola recognizes that the separation is possible and that the operative part of Steiner’s Rosicrucian doctrine is valid and usable. Evola says of Steiner:

In reality Steiner’s activity was remarkable. He did not properly display the characteristics of a medium or a deranged man. Under certain aspects, on the contrary, one can say that one errs in the opposite direction, that is, of a scientific-systematic spirit at any cost. If many of his conceptions are not less fantastic than the theosophical, one can only say, unlike the latter, that in his madness there is much method. In his work we find the same incomprehension in regard to the law of karma, and transmigration reduced to reincarnation, the same evolutionistic superstitions, etc. Therefore, whoever is able to effect a type of purification of that view from historical temporality, could arrive at something valid. Is it possible to separate this minor part of the doctrine from the rest? That is not easy for a great number of the adherents. They swear by his magisterial word and woe to whoever touches even a single detail of the master’s doctrine. On the other hand, it is very natural that at a certain level it becomes more convenient to set down carefully the visions of cosmic evolution and the rest, than to give oneself practically to the methods of individual initiation. But doctrinally the separation can be made, in the sense that one can recognize that Steiner gave some practical teachings and the criteria of discrimination that are valid, and that can be utilized with full independence from the rest: from evolution, from reincarnation, from Christ now working in us, from the ideals of mystical collectivity and the inevitable love and so on. He understands the fundamental point: it is necessary that man fully realizes the power of clear and distinct perception, of logical thinking, of objective vision. The ideal is an exact science of the supersensible.