Evola’s rejection of the modern world can be contrasted with its acceptance, promoted by Mircea Eliade (1907-1986), the renowned historian of religion whom Evola met in person several times, and with whom he corresponded until his death in 1974. The two men met for the first time in 1937. By that time, Eliade had compiled an impressive academic record that included a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Bucharest and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indian philosophy from the University of Calcutta. Evola was already an accomplished writer and had published some of his most important works, such as The Hermetic Tradition (1931), Revolt against the Modern World (1934), and The Mystery of the Grail (1937).¹

Eliade had read Evola’s early philosophical works during the 1920s and “admired his intelligence and, even more, the density and clarity of his prose.”² An intellectual friendship developed between the young Romanian scholar and the Italian philosopher, who was nine years Eliade’s senior. Their common interest in yoga led Evola to write L’uomo e la potenza (Man as power) in 1926 (revised in 1949 with the new title The Yoga of Power ³⁾ and Eliade to write the acclaimed scholarly work Yoga: Immortality and Freedom (1933). As Eliade recalls in his autobiographical journals:

I received letters from him when I was in Calcutta (1928-31) in which he instantly begged me not to speak to him of yoga, or of “magical powers” except to report precise facts to which I had personally been a witness. In India I also received several publications from him, but I only remember a few issues of the journal Krur.⁴
    Evola and Eliade’s first meeting was in Romania, in conjunction with a luncheon hosted by the philosopher Nae Ionescu. Evola was traveling through Europe at the time, establishing contacts, and giving lectures “in the attempt to coordinate those elements who could represent, to some degree, the [T]raditional thought on the political-cultural plane.”⁵ Eliade recalled the admiration that Evola expressed for Corneliu Codreanu (1899-1938), the founder of the Romanian nationalist and Christian movement known as the “Iron Guard.” Evola and Codreanu had met the morning of the luncheon. Codreanu told Evola of the effects that incarceration had had on his soul, and of his discovery of contemplation in the solitude and silence of his prison cell. In his autobiography Evola described Codreanu as “one of the worthiest and most spiritually oriented persons I ever met in the nationalist movements of that period.⁶ Eliade wrote that at the luncheon “Evola was still dazzled by him [Codreanu]. I vaguely remember the remarks he made then on the disappearance of contemplative disciplines in the political battle of the West.”⁷ But the two scholars’ focus was different indeed. As Eliade wrote in his journal:

One day I received a rather bitter letter from him, in which he reproached me for never citing him, no more than did Guénon. I answered him as best as I could, and I must one day give reasons and explanations that that response called for. My argument could not have been simpler. The books I write are intended for today’s audience, and not for initiates. Unlike Guénon and his emulators, I believe I have nothing to write that would be intended especially for them.⁸
I must conclude from Eliade’s remarks that he did not like, share, or care for Evola’s esoteric views and leanings. I believe there are three reasons for Eliade’s aversion. First, Evola, like all traditionalists, presumed the existence of a higher, solar, royal, and esoteric primordial tradition, and devoted his life to describing, studying, and celebrating it in its many forms and varieties. He also set this tradition above and against what he dubbed “telluric” modern popular cultures and civilizations (such as Romania’s, to which Eliade belonged). In Revolt against the Modern World one can read many instances of this juxtaposition.

Eliade, for his part, rejected any emphasis on esotericism, because he thought it had a reductive effect on the human spirit. Eliade claimed that to limit the value of European spiritual creations exclusively to their “esoteric meanings” repeated in reverse the reductionism of the materialistic approach adopted by Marx and Freud. Nor did he believe in the existence of a primordial tradition: “I was suspicious of its artificial, ahistorical character,” he wrote.⁹ Second, Eliade rejected the negative or pessimistic view of the world and the human condition that characterized Guénon’s and Evola’s thought. Unlike Evola, who believed in the ongoing “putrefaction” of contemporary Western culture, Eliade claimed:

[T]o the extent that I . . . believe in the creativity of the human spirit, I cannot despair: culture, even in a crepuscular era, is the only means of conveying certain values and of transmitting a certain spiritual message. In a new Noah’s Ark, by means of which the spiritual creation of the West could be saved, it is not enough for René Guénon’s L’esotérisme de Dante to be included; there must be also the poetic, historic, and philosophical understanding of The Divine Comedy.¹⁰
Finally, the socio-cultural milieu that Eliade celebrated was very different from the one favored by Evola. As India regained its independence, Eliade came to believe that Asia was about to re-enter history and world politics and that his own people, the Romanians, “could fulfill a definite role in the coming dialogue between the [] West, Asia and cultures of the archaic folk type.”¹¹ He celebrated the peasant roots of Romanian culture as they promoted universalism and pluralism, rather than nationalism and provincialism. Eliade wrote:

It seemed to me that I was beginning to discern elements of unity in all peasant cultures, from China and South-East Asia to the Mediterranean and Portugal. I was finding everywhere what I later called “cosmic religiosity”: that is, the leading role played by symbols and images, the religious respect for earth and life, the belief that the sacred is manifested directly through the mystery of fecundity and cosmic repetition. . . .¹²
    These conclusions could not have been more diametrically opposed to Evola’s views, especially as he formulated them in Revolt against the Modern World. According to the latter’s doctrine, cosmic religiosity is an inferior and corrupt form of spirituality, or, as he called it, a “lunar spirituality” (the moon, unlike the sun, is not a source of light, and merely reflects the latter’s light, as “lunar spirituality” is contingent upon God, the All, or upon any other metaphysical version of the Absolute) characterized by mystical abandonment.

In his yet untranslated autobiography, Il cammino del cinabro (“The cinnabar’s journey”), Evola describes his spiritual and intellectual journey through alien landscapes: religious (Christianity, theism), philosophical (idealism, nihilism, realism), and political (democracy, Fascism, post-war Italy). For readers who are not familiar with Hermeticism, we may recall that cinnabar is a red metal representing rubedo, or redness, which is the third and final stage of one’s inner transformation. Evola explains at the beginning of his autobiography: “My natural sense of detachment from what is human in regard to many things that, especially in the affective domain, are usually regarded as normal, was manifested in me at a very tender age.”¹³

From: The Legacy of a European Traditionalist - Julius Evola in Perspective bu Guido Stucco

Guido Stucco has an M.A. in Systematic Theology at Seaton Hall and a Ph.D. in Historical Theology at St. Louis University. He has translated five of Evola’s books into English.

     1. All of these works have been translated and published in English by Inner Traditions.

2. Mircea Eliade, , Exile’s Odyssey, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988, p. 152.

3. Julius Evola, The Yoga of Power, trans. by Guido Stucco, Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 1992.

4. Mircea Eliade, Journal III, 1970-78, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989, p. 161.

5. Julius Evola, Il cammino del cinabro, p. 139.

6. Ibid.

7. Eliade, Journal III,1970-78, p. 162.

8. Ibid., pp. 162-63.

9. Mircea Eliade, Exile’s Odyssey, pp. 152. See also Alain de Benoist and quote him at length.

10. Ibid. This criticism was reiterated by S. Nasr in an interview to the periodical Gnosis.

11. Mircea Eliade, Journey East, Journey West, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981-88, p. 204.

12. Eliade, Journey East, Journey West, p. 202.

13. Evola, Il cammino del cinabro, p. 12.