{"id":4235,"date":"2012-05-20T16:44:05","date_gmt":"2012-05-20T20:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gornahoor.net\/?p=4235"},"modified":"2020-05-16T07:57:32","modified_gmt":"2020-05-16T11:57:32","slug":"birth-and-essence-of-the-modern-myth-iv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=4235","title":{"rendered":"Birth and Essence of the Modern Myth (IV)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In this segment, Evola speculates on how myths are created and then on the necessary steps to reverse the regression of the castes. The creators of myths must come from an elite, since the masses certainly cannot do so. Yet he points out the the ultimate source of myth must come from beyond the human, all too human, sphere, so these elite are really just the visible agents of these higher powers. Presumably, he includes both the modern myths, originating from demonic powers, as well as myths that lead to a true transcendence. This would seem to preclude the notion of myth as just a noble lie<\/em>, created by visible leaders to keep the masses enthralled.<\/p>\n

The way out, then, is to mentally discard all the myths of the modern world. Freed from these illusions, the path back to the re-emergence of a warrior caste mentality is laid out. This will require a cold resoluteness of spirit, no longer subjected to the lower impulses of instinct and the subconscious. But this is as far as the natural man can go. The final stage of a true spiritual authority, will require an “invisible action from above”. Evola avoids details, as he must, since the spirit blows where it wills. All these higher men can do is prepare and dispose themselves for its reception. However, Evola does believe it will be a revival of the spirit of ancient Rome, the first Romanity. However, since he claims the modern world is the result of the regression from the Medieval spirit, it is difficult to see why the spirit would not appear as the second Romanity of the Middle Ages. We have in Dante, inter alia<\/i>, a complete initiatory path which would serve the purpose of preparation.\n<\/p>\n

Since the final few paragraphs deal exclusively with the question of the “elite”, I decided to make it a separate entry.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

All that that we have now said, nevertheless still leaves the problem of the true genesis of the myth unquestioned. It is certainly necessary that whoever, at a given moment, invented the myths, since we cannot admit that the masses are capable of the spontaneity necessary to shape and propose them and, moreover, in their origins, myths almost always introduce a rationalistic element, an ideological residue. In the second place, when we treat the type of social myths, it is always necessary for someone to directly or indirectly sustain and feed the collective fascination that makes the myth true and active, even if we must admit that, afterward, the myth often ends up assuming kind of its own life. Here, we can elaborate on such a complex and delicate problem since even evoking the image of the tamer, as someone did, leaves us on the exterior side of the process, does not enlighten us on the deepest conditions of its possibility. We will limit ourselves to say that, as we do not believe in a spontaneity of the crowds, so we do not even believe in a true autonomy of creators of myths and collectivistic directors, since these, in their turn, appear to us almost always conditioned by forces apparently directed by them and will seldom demonstrate the qualities of true spiritual leaders. Except for rare exceptions, those who press to the coming of the lowest social strata with their visions and their myths seem the initiators of the truth and of new currents, yet are only centers of crystallization and of diffuse collective states, to be considered, in their turn, less as determinate causes than as the results of more distant and less graspable influences.<\/p>\n

To elaborate on the true genesis of modern myths and their power, it would therefore be necessary to ask oneself the general question of the true causes of modern decadence since its various elements are without doubt in agreement; it would be necessary to create a gaze capable of penetrating into what is hidden behind the apparent events; it would be necessary to have a foreboding of the secret, and not simply human, influences which, without taking them into account, the \u201ccreators\u201d of myths obey and which constitute the true basis of irrational attractive forces of ideologies formulated by them. It is useless to say that an investigation of the type sharply transcends both the possibilities and the methods of any sociology and applied psychoanalysis whatsoever; nor would it be to advise those who in a clear vision of the reality prefer confused hopes and disordered attempts of reaction.<\/p>\n

From the complex view of history we exposed, it turns out, in every way, that the new mythological age corresponds to the last of the four phases of the process of the involution of the castes. The myths accompany and animate essentially the era of the servile caste, i.e., of the masses, even if with some connections with the preceding era of rationalism. So that it can be said without hesitation that even when some myths today present an aristocratic content, their true substance and their dynamic do not cease for this reason to be plebian. We also pointed out that the involutive phenomenon is not manifested only in a leveling, but also in an overturning of polarity<\/em>. With this overturning the inferior, i.e., the irrational, the vital, the collective, absorbs and directs the remaining superior elements of the human and social structure: forces of \u201cmerchants\u201d, forces of \u201cwarriors\u201d, forces of a new pseudo-aristocracy. Reaching the zone of the spirit, these currents from below project and exalt themselves precisely in the myth and so reach their highest potential. It is thus that our time appears to us all too saturated with mysticism, but this mysticism, let us repeat once again, has nothing of the supernatural, it is deprived of a true center, and the relative atmosphere is infinitely more dangerous, destructive, and paralyzing than that of a pure materialism or collectivism.<\/p>\n

For this reason, if we should indicate the possible ways out of the present situation, we will say without hesitating that the first task is a purification of everything that today is called spirit, an absolute surpassing of all the contemporary forms of mythology and mysticism. Spirit today means fog, sensation, evasion, exaltation. Against that, it is necessary to battle for a new era of clarity, coldness, form. With all the means, it is necessary to lead man back to himself, block him from the insane need to believe and abandon himself, to reduce himself to an essential simplicity. It is necessary to reach a world in which there are only men and things and the pure, absolute connections between one and the other, without images, without feverishness, passionate leaps, words, ideologies, gestures. We will want to call this task the destruction of romanticism and idealism in the name of a new Doric and classical epoch, of a new and Roman dignity. As preliminary conditions for a rebirth, we do not see another way. In such a world, the weak will fall, but the strongest find themselves again. They will learn to remain upright without supports and make themselves active in the higher sense. Ceasing to be moved, they move themselves. This atmosphere of clarity will signify death for every myth. Resolute borders and hard discipline will block the paths of human interiority from the violence of the collective. Slowly, in a silent inner ascent, he will thus initiate the reintegration of the personality, and new forces, forces of an ascending new cycle, will then be able to guide knowledge and action. In fact at this point we will find ourselves already beyond the era of the masses and the era of the bourgeoisie, we should have a civilization and a style of life corresponding analogously to the visions and values of the second caste, i.e., of the caste of warriors and as such transcending also the plane of every humanistic and rationalistic scheme.<\/p>\n

But in its turn, this world composed of virility and of form, this severely personalized, Doric, substantial world will become only a starting point. To bring this world back to a transcendent point of reference, to open it to metaphysical contacts in the sense not of an alteration, but of an integration and a transfiguration, is the ultimate task. However, the resolution of such a task remains problematic. In fact, the spirit does not let itself be constructed. There are no disciplines that lead to it and today it is not preset, as there was with the secret sacred content of the first, virile, Romanity. The action of every culture remains limited to a preparation and a disposition. But because the spirit is manifested as the absolutely organizing and animating power what, is needed is a type of invisible action from above.<\/p>\n

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⇐ Part III<\/a>   Part V ⇒<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this segment, Evola speculates on how myths are created and then on the necessary steps to reverse the regression of the castes. The creators of myths must come from an elite, since the masses certainly cannot do so. Yet he points out the the ultimate source of myth must … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[521],"class_list":["post-4235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evola","tag-la-vita-italiana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12132,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4235\/revisions\/12132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}