to be a philosopher means to be a heretic to question the ruling taboos, and the status quo in order to think freely. you must have the courage to go the other way Julius Eva was such a figure to the highest degree. he lived in the 1900s and wrote some of the most radical anti-modern ideas out there. the funny thing is is just like how we used to burn scientist and Heretics at the stake now people are doing witch hunts to burn Ava's books which makes me all the more Curious. was he a fascist villain or was he one of the most prolific thinkers of all time. this video is about the world of tradition with a capital T and how Eva merged philosophy politics spirituality and mysticism within this way of thinking welcome back to wisdom Warriors. I'm Christian let me know your thoughts in the comments below Julius Eva rejected the modern notion of progress that we are progressing towards some better world or the good in fact. he saw the history of modernity as the

history of the decline into decadence. He criticized liberalism, democracy, collectivism, and all the sacred values or sacred cows of the West. No wonder he was so hated. Following in N's footsteps, he criticized many of the philosophers and even Nietzsche himself. And honestly, I find his insights into philosophy, spirituality, and politics some of the most profound I've come across. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you some fascist sympathizer now, talking about Evola? My friends, we love to throw out evil Boogeyman terms on things that we don't understand and on people we don't understand. Yes, Evola was associated with Mussolini during the Italian fascist period, but the thing is, he was critical of all authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. He was very critical of Italian fascism and wanted to see a more traditional model of man and a traditional model of the state. And the thing is, I don't vibe or agree with everything Evola wrote in terms of his sociopolitical leanings, but at the

same time, I don't agree with everything Plato wrote. Either about forced Eugenics and stealing kids from their parents. I think every thinker has their flaws, and especially when they start talking about the ideal state. But at the same time, they have valid ideas. Should we cancel Plato? Should we cancel aola because they had anti-democratic leanings and dangerous ideas? I don't think so. I think it's all the more reason to read them. So that way we can start to see through the eyes of people who lived outside of the modern Zeitgeist. To get better insights and ways of working with the world. Now Iola is notoriously difficult to read for me. Uh, he's very intellectual and draws on so many different Traditions, religions, philosophies. Like if you're not steeped in this kind of lore, it might be hard for you to understand. But luckily I'm here in this video to try to translate his ideas into modern speak. Although he would have hated that term. Eva was a traditionalist. The world of tradition connected his

philosophy across all domains of thought tradition, with a capital t, is not associated with cultural artifacts like Christmas or gender rules. Tradition is woven into the very fabric of existence. It is concerned with the true state of man and society in relationship to God. Traditionalism is rooted in metaphysical principles emphasizing the transcendent reality beyond the material world. AKA traditionalism is concerned with the big questions, the big questions that secular modern society shies away from. Questions like: what is God, who am I, what is the meaning of life, how do I live a good life. In tradition, these questions were placed at the very center of life and at the very center of the state, and because of this, existence had more meaning and structure to it. Normal actions in the realms of family, duty, service, and even war were elevated by tradition into something ritualistic and offered normal people glimpses into the unchanging eternal realm. To define it more clearly, tradition is the totality of the intellectual, religious, artistic, and cultural means that tie a people to a

revelation of spiritual origin. Every culture of the past, and especially every High culture, was rooted in Tradition. China, Japan, ancient India, Greece, Persia, and even the Kelts and Germanic tribes were traditional. Modern Life can feel so meaningless and inverted because we have lost tradition in every sense. We have removed the big questions away from the center of existence and put them on the side, and we did this for good reason. Things like religion, you know, can create a lot of conflict. But the problem is, humans are social animals of faith. Faith and tribe are hardwired into us. We need to feel like our lives are a part of a larger whole and that they have meaning. Beyond this speck of time that we inhabit, modernity offers us none of these things. We have seen the slow and steady decay of all community and existential purpose in life, all organization towards an ideal. And because of this, life has become empty, nihilistic, and hedonistic for most. In a sense, liberalism or modernity is completely anti-traditional, and this was

aa's deep insight and critique. The further you get from tradition inside of yourself and in society, the more absurd and insignificant existence becomes. Tradition represents a concentration, while modernity represents a dispersion of all values. And the rest of this video is going to be dedicated to investigating traditionalism. Now, I'm no expert here. I am a student of religion, spirituality, esoteric teachings, history. I like all this stuff. So, I'm just going to do my best to sincerely communicate aa's ideas and let you be the judge. Metaphysical roots and a brief overview of traditionalism. To quote Evola in Revolt Against the Modern World, According to tradition, every authority is fraudulent, every law is unjust and barbarous, every institution is vain and ephemeral unless they are ordained to the superior principle of being and unless they are derived from above and oriented upward. In this, we see the metaphysical roots traditionalism is based on the relationship between the world of being or the spiritual plane and the world of becoming and the Earthly plane and through metaphysical

spiritual and esoteric practices. One can connect with the greater world of being and channel the energies of what Eva calls the Transcendent. The great problem with modernity, in Eva's mind, is that we have lost our connection to the world of being. With Nietzsche's death of God, we have become a very materialistic and nihilistic population. Science, politics, religions, and even our worldviews are so focused on the material world of becoming, and we have no question and no thought for the soul of man or the spiritual essence and spiritual nature of man and society. And before we get any further, let's define some terms that are important to Eva's work. One is the Transcendent. The Transcendent domain is the realm of absolute reality that permeates everything. It is beyond the physical world and beyond time and space. And during deep meditation and prayer, you can actually feel into and connect to this world. When the Bible says that the Kingdom of Heaven is within you, it is referring to the Transcendent domain.

that we can access through the Superior part of our nature. And this domain is the source of all metaphysical truth and principles. Hence, we come to the Superior part of self or the immortal nature. In The traditionalist Perennial philosophy, man is two-fold in nature. He has his Earthly self, and he has his Divine self, which is outside of space and time. This higher self lives in the Transcendent World, which is right here just deeper down beneath this space and time and material of this physical being. Most people have no inkling or knowledge of their Immortal nature, their Superior self, until they are initiated. And we're going to talk about this later on in this video. In essence, traditionalism is about Divine kingship, about becoming a superior man ruled by the Superior part of on that is rooted in the Transcendent world. This is the goal of all true Traditions, religions, and cultures of the past. Terms such as buddhahood, Enlightenment, salvation, self-realization all reflect the reality of becoming an

avatar for the Transcendent. This seems to be the perennial goal of spiritual life. Existentialism posits that there's no meaning to life, there's no inherent value to life beyond what we create for ourselves. The universe is pure chaos and freedom, and it doesn't really matter which way you go through it. Existentialism is the unconscious philosophy of all of the West. In this, we believe that we get to fabricate our own meaning, our own destiny, and our own ideal version of ourselves and of our states. To quote Avala, Existentialism is a projection of modern man in crisis, rather than modern man beyond crisis. The problem with the existentialist view, in Eva's mind, is that it lacks all connection to the superior world of being. It does not lead to freedom, but actually suffering and confusion. Aola saw existentialism as the natural outcropping after the death of God, but he also saw existentialism as a philosophy that hasn't yet searched deeply enough. The religious God was dead, but man had yet to find the source and

reflection of God within for aa's differentiated men. If they dive deep within themselves, they'll find an Essence, a true nature, and the whole goal of traditionalism is not just to become anything, it is to will forth that which you truly are. As I wrote in my book, on this chapter on duty, I said, We do not just pop out of the womb as untouched clay ready to be molded by the world, but we come into this world as already individuated Souls. Within each of us, there is a personal Legend, a unique potential, and Destiny that runs deeper than our genetic material. Our life's Quest, therefore, is not to become anything we want, but to become who we truly are. We are not meant to do anything, we are meant to do something. This is limiting but also freeing. It encourages us to take our own path and bring forth what is buried within. The primary mission in life, it seems, is the Discovery and expression of one's true will. This goes deep into most esoteric Traditions across the planet and in the

traditionalist view: the further one is from one's true nature or true essence, the more inverted and insignificant life becomes in AA's mind. So much of existentialism is just a small ego overwhelmed by a sense of freedom. Instead of going inward and finding the law that exists at the center of self, they look outward and posit whatever fantasy seems appealing. This existentialism leads to what Eva called an inauthentic existence, and I think we all have a sense for what that looks like. It is a state of internal confusion and despair, just trying to take on identities given to you by the outer world instead of finding your own center and your own substance. This is the exact opposite of most spiritual teachings. To quote AA again, authentic existence is seen and sought when one senses the emptiness underlying that existence. The existentialist confusion out here and is recalled to the problem of one's own deepest being beyond the social eye and its categories. This is very hermetic of him. The ancient hermeticist sought to

find the deep abiding law and truth hidden within the fabric of reality and the fabric of oneself. There was actually a substance there, not complete freedom. The Hindus called this Dharma, the hermeticist called this the Immortal Nature, the Buddhists called this the ground of being. The traditional man does not orient himself to be just anything like the existentialists but lives inward to the outward. He discovers and actualizes that law and purpose that is already at the core of his being. As Jesus said in the Gospel of Thomas, if you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. And you can see why the Gospel of Thomas was a more heretical text because it doesn't just claim belief or faith in Christ as the means of salvation, but bringing forth your essence. And this is the foundation for a lot of traditionalism: to will forth that which you are, to carve out your ego to be a more perfect vehicle for the

soul. The journey to becoming oneself, according to Eva, starts at the recognition of the superior s. This is where traditionalism and spirituality begins. This requires detachment from the ego and the materialistic aspects of life. The superior self, or immortal nature, is beyond every identity that you've known. It is outside space and time. By communing with the superior state through movement, meditation, or medicine, you start to awaken to the transcendent. And you start to awaken to the essence of your being. And once you have a sense for the transcendent, then it's time to unmake and remake yourself. This is where many people will actually find God or transcendence. It's in letting go and then moving forward heroically. Eva may disagree here, but for me, periods of great turmoil and grief have served as modern initiations that have awakened me to a deeper connection with myself and the transcendent world. Periods of loss, pain, or hardship have catalyzed me in a sense and the commitment to will forth your strongest

and truest essence often comes from these initiations, and this leads to the self-overcoming of n. According to evah, this is the transcendent in action and actually the goal of spirituality. The transcendent isn't only this peaceful, immaculate world of being and perfect forms. It actually wants to manifest; it wants to commune with you and commune with the Earth. As the prayer goes in the Bible, Kingdom come, thine will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. To manifest your higher nature means tapping into your true will and overcoming your lower nature. This is where the warrior ethos is so important to Avala and traditionalism in general. The only way to become yourself is to overcome what is not you in order to will forth what you truly are. It requires heroism and courage to overcome the fear, resistances, and past patterns that hold you back. Spiritual life is ultimately about liberation, liberation from lower identities and lower natures. As I wrote in my book, it is only the heroic

Warrior ethos that it can allow for greater inner transformation and Liberation. Yes, even Buddha sitting under the bow tree with absolute resolve or Jesus facing the great Temptations out in the desert all reflect the warrior ethos. Spirituality disconnected from the warrior ethos becomes a pacified pseudo spiritualism that is very prevalent in the modern day, but this is not the traditional path. The Hermetic tradition is one of the clearest outcroppings of The Perennial philosophy, and Julia saola was a huge proponent of hermeticism. The Hermetic tradition posits the two-fold nature of man: there is his Earthly self, the self we all know, and then there is his Immortal nature outside the bounds of space and time. It is a God, so to speak, made in the image and likeness of the Creator. The whole goal was living in a way to awaken to the higher spiritual plane of being through the knowledge of self. Hermeticism emphasizes knowledge of self, not this Earthly self, but the immortal nature. Only by knowing can you

be free and through Awakening to this knowledge, essentially, you become a living son, someone who is awake both on the Earthly terrestrial world and the Transcendent world, and it stands as a portal or as an avatar for God. This is not just a belief, a faith in a god outside of you, but a recognition and an Awakening to the Transcendent domain within you, which is the access to God. You can watch my video on the Lost Art of being unfuckwithable to learn more about the Transcendent. So let's get into to a higher law, which is so Central in Eva's work. Quote: he who cannot command himself must obey, and more than one can command himself but is still far from being able to obey himself. This is an old saying Julius Eva quotes and ride the tiger. The inner self should be organized around the chief and primary aspects of one's being. The traditional man feels a consistent and defined self within your princip of being per se. Beneath this principle, there is the Subterranean

secondary drives, which we're going to get into. To quote AA again, when the traditional man looks within himself, he does not find a changeable and divided substance, but a fundamental Direction, a dominant even though shrouded or limited by secondary impulses. What is more, the essential thing is that such a man is characterized by an existential Dimension not present in the predominant human type of recent times, that is, the dimension of transcendence. Many people today are unrooted in any substance of being. They feel themselves to be a multiplicity of voices and different drives, and they have no order to their internal World. They are easily Changed by environments and situations, and essentially they live outward in instead of inward out. The work of higher types is to know oneself and to Define the archetype of one's life, to get clear on your first principle of being and orbit the rest of your life around that. This becomes your higher law given from yourself onto yourself. To quote Evola in Ride the Tiger, page 64, once one has

discovered through experiment, which of one's manifold tendencies is the central one. One sets about identifying it with one's will, stabilizing it, and organizing all one's secondary or divergent tendencies around it. This is what it means to give oneself a law, one's own law. Regret and remorse to aola have a very specific indicator function within a human being. When we feel regret or remorse after an action or a situation, it is because that came from a secondary part within our nature. Human beings often learn by seeing what not to do, and when a secondary drive overtakes our first principle of being, we're going to feel remorse, guilt, shame, these types of lower emotions, and these are indicators that we're not acting in service to our highest interest in a vess mind. I often have that feeling of remorse in what many younglings call post-nut clarity after the feeling of lust or the lust for a drug or the lust for an experience overtakes you and overtakes your primary principle, and afterwards you're left

feeling feted dispersed, and you're like, what the hell just happened? And basically, you lived in contrary to your own law, and this happens on a more esoteric or metaphysical level all the time. For instance, I am not Alex Heros, but a part of me wants to be some business leader, a part of me wants to be a super high performer. So I try to be like that for a little while, but then I'm left depleted, or I'm left with a little bit of remorse or guilt of some kind, and I'm like, oh, that's not who I am, that's not my law. The same thing goes for like wanting to be like Francis Bacon or Plato or Alexander the Great or Bruce Lee. Like all these role models in my mind have dominated my energy for certain periods of time, but then at some point you wake up and just realize, oh, I am not that. Like that's beautiful, that's inspiring, but that's not who I am. And the more experiments we can run in our

life. The more clear we can get on our first principle: who am I? What is my destiny? What is my story? And, most importantly, what is the substance of my being? Like, what is my archetype? And through many different ceremonies, meditations, initiations, and experiments in life, I've gotten closer to what that source is. And I think this is the path that the traditional man walks, in a sense. Not saying like I'm some aolian higher man, but I'm just saying like in my experience, we learn what not to do. And the more we can learn what not to do and what we aren't like, the more we can get clear on what our first principle is. And the more courageously and disciplined we can act on that, the closer we get to giving a higher law onto ourselves and embodying that superior part. To quote Eva again, The traditional World believes spirituality to be something beyond life and death. It held that mere physical existence, or 'Living' is meaningless unless it approximates the higher world or that

which is more than life. And unless one's highest ambition consists in participating in and obtaining an active and final Liberation from the bond represented by The Human Condition, according to tradition, every Authority is fraudulent, every law is unjust and barbarous, every institution is vain and ephemeral unless they are ordained to the superior principle of being and unless they are derived from above and oriented upward. This is why in Tradition, the individual and the state cannot set the metaphysical element aside because when you set metaphysics, the world of being aside, you set aside the very purpose and substance of life, and all authority and institutions become vain, corrupt, and ephemeral because they do not derive their Authority from the superior world. One of aola huge critiques of modernity is that we have lost our notion of distance, the vast distances between the mediocre man and the exceptional man, the vast distances between this normal Earthly self and the superior Immortal self, and only through creating a new respect and reverence for that which is lofty can we actually

understand the process of spiritual evolution. The traditional path is for man to align and rule from the superior part of himself. This was Plato's conception of justice. Justice is when that which is superior rules over that which is inferior, AKA when the reason rules over our appetites, when the best man, the exceptional philosopher king, rules over the common laborer. As man connects more to the superior part within himself in the transcendent domain, he overcomes the lesser forces, the vices, the subterranean drives that rule most people. And as a result, he begins to stand upright. And this was Evola's concept of men who stand upright amongst the ruins, amongst the ruins of modernity. And this is a very rare breed. And I also want to mention here that traditionalism believes in the Hermetic Axiom of as within, so without, as without, so within. The project of a traditional man striving upward for a state of spiritual perfection, of becoming a living son per se, is a reflection of the traditional state striving upward.

for Spiritual Perfection or Union with the Transcendent, and it is through this that all Higher Culture flows down into Earth. And this gets into Divine kingship, which is part four, I believe, of this video. All I want to say here is divine kingship is the goal in the traditional World. Evola talks about the pontificate, which is basically the priest king. And this is not some like lower priest king that lives for greed or authoritarianism or control, but he is truly a spiritually ordained higher being in revolt against the modern world. Evola talks about the regality of the priest king and how he spreads spiritual wellness and elevation to everyone who touches him, everyone who surrounds him. And this idea of divine kingship is literally at the center of Evola's political philosophy. And this is one reason he is not a fascist. He does not believe in the totalitarian regime or despotism of one man. He believes in the hierarchical structuring of society around a Divine Monarch. And the first principle of such a true State per se is

the development of true men all the policies and political programs and organizations matter nothing if a state isn't first and foremost most focused on producing men who can stand upright. On producing regality in its citizens and of all the political Concepts in aola this is what I most align with. We got to stop focusing on widespread legislation and start focusing on the individual again and how the individual can become a stronger citizen within the whole. Only in this way can you let go of force and here's the thing is a state will need to resort to force to Mass control when the state isn't truly powerful when there's not a true leader surrounded by true men. You don't need to control everything when you're truly powerful and this is an idea n put across is that weakness corrupts and absolute weakness corrupts absolutely. Power does not corrupt it just reveals you know if you are weak and not an upright man inside and you get a hold of power like we see today all a sudden massive corruption will

come into the world. Power does not corrupt, it reveals. So when you are focused on producing philosopher Kings and true men in this hierarchal fashion, all of a sudden power is wielded with the good. It's wielded and sourced from the superior world, and this is where the true State comes from. Now I could go so much deeper here into Ava's political philosophy, but this is not the video for that. Now the beautiful thing is I believe in pluralism, and this is one of my critiques, is that I think there's many different versions of the true state for different geographies, different types of people, different cultures, and it's kind of like there's many different versions of the true man. Like everyone has a different archetype. There are different structures, or colors of the Transcendent, which we get to embody here on Earth. That's the beauty of freedom. But in that, there is still underlying principles that lead to flourishing, and we can't ignore those, and this is where pluralism kind of

blends with that traditional philosophy in my mind. You can think what you want. This is just what I believe. Conclusion and critique of Evola. So I appreciate and love so much about Evola and traditionalism, but also there's a few critiques I have. One, he was overly intellectual, almost to his detriment, and this makes him kind of unreadable for many people. Also, he was completely anti-modern anything. It seems like, and perhaps blind to any new developments that could be used for good, such as cryptocurrency. Another example of this is music. Yeah, I think in general most art has declined, but there are Niche musicians and Niche artists who have used modern tech to push the outer bounds. For instance, in music, Parova, Wardruna, and many others, and Evola would have rejected all but traditional music of Europe, basically. Also, Evola gets such a bad name today for his views on race and racism, and honestly, I think most of these are just misquoted sections of Evola or views that he later on reformed.

from what I can glean from his main books, he was not a racist in the negative modern sense. Nor am I a racist or white supremacist. Just for good measure here, I do believe racists are more genetically distinct than perhaps is politically correct to say, but I also believe in Brotherhood of Kindred Souls across all colors of humanity. You may have a different color of skin than me, but we may be brothers in spirit. And I think Avola would have supported this view. Although Avola did speak about physical race sometimes, most of his teachings seem to emphasize a spiritual race of sorts. The solar race or heroic race, for instance, is a spiritual Elite that are born across all types of people. It is to these higher men and women that he wrote to. And although I think it gets into dangerous territory separating people based on a level of perceived development, I do believe that some Souls inherently have more power, more maturity, more regality than others. And it's apparent if you meet enough people out there, there are noble ones and there are

people you feel more kindred with than others so perhaps a spiritual racism is more on point than a physical racism. For Avola, this spiritual racism or spiritual elitism goes deep into Evola's concept of the traditional State. According to him, the true state is born through the uniting of the noble ones into an order around a Divine Monarch. This would be a Brotherhood of Blood and spirit, men who are committed to the highest attainment. And this is a beautiful notion, but Evola believed the only way back to tradition was the absolute obedience to such an aristocracy. This may have been true of cultures like India thousands of years in the past, but I do not foresee a return to an elite spiritual aristocracy ruling over unquestioning masses anytime soon. Evola's caste system, similar to Plato's caste system, sounds good on paper, but I think it would be disastrous to implement. I do believe hierarchy is important and I love quote true hierarchy is when that which is superior rules and getting to that place of true

rulership opens a whole can of worms, you see. Forcing hierarchy creates issues. For instance, how do you ensure Aristocrats of the soul aren't born into lower casts, and that all people with great capacity have the opportunity to advance where they ought to be? This is a great flaw with Plato and AA in my mind, and a kink that traditionalist state would have to work out. How do people morph and change through casts, and how do you get a Divine Monarch or a philosopher king on the throne? This is the greatest question of all political philosophy, and I don't think we have adventured far enough down this Rabbit Hole. As Plato once said, until philosophers are Kings, or the Kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner Natures are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils. We have such distrust in Authority today, and for good reason. Our authorities have had zero connection to the superior world, and Humanity has

often been ruled by Gremlins inferior souls in every way. I believe tradition, if it ever is to be restored in a state model, will have to be restored naturally and organically as an outpouring from the population rather than by force. This is key. By forcibly conforming modern humans into a traditional order, you will only get military despotism and fascist regimes. The level of understanding and development is lacking in both leaders and the masses. Now, on the other hand, if a band of glorious and integrated men created a breakaway society on an archipelago of islands, perhaps tradition could reign. They would have to harness technology instead of slavery, systematize production of goods, and then turn their attention to right rulership and the expansion of spiritual, intellectual, physical, and creative frontiers. A band of charismatic men like this would naturally become leaders of many others, and perhaps a true hierarchy and a system for the enthronement of a philosopher king could be established. But again, this is kind of a utopian dream, and a lot of these theories have

to be tested. And this is why I believe in decentralization. And this is something that goes against Evola in some ways. You see, Evola glorified the state, and I understand it. The state should be ordained by a higher spiritual plane of being and oriented upwards. I totally agree, but I also don't believe in the absolute supremacy or centralization of the state. As Evola did, Empire is not the goal of a true state in my mind. States, and especially Empires, so easily become corrupt. Anything with a bureaucracy is destined to failure, and perhaps I'm a decadent by modernity, but I believe in new models of governance. And this is why decentralization is so important. If we can decentralize into smaller tribal units and have civilizational projects, we could try new modes of governance, perhaps based on traditional principles, and see what works. No longer will we have to resort to ancient models of Utopias, but we'll get to experiment and see. So in final conclusion, here Evola's traditionalism as a spiritual doctrine gets my full thumbs up as a political

Manifesto, eh? It seems uncertain at best. Principles of great insight are here, no doubt, but I'm not educated or experienced enough to pass a final judgment. That will be up to you. I think we have tremendous amounts to learn from the traditionalist like Eva, as long as we can think for ourselves. So, don't let the boogeyman label stop you from exploring thinkers who might be outside of the modern box. Hey, thanks for watching Wisdom Warriors. I'm Christian, and if you want to talk to me one-on-one and join the new men's group and Men's Academy, there's a link below to learn more. I'm looking for founding members. If that's not for you, you can click here for a playlist on Julius Eva. Thanks for being here, my friends, and don't forget to live dangerously today.

Julius Evola's Traditionalism: how he merged philosophy, spirituality, and politics

Julius Evola's Traditionalism: how he merged philosophy, spirituality, and politics