In 'La mistica della razza in Roma antica', an article published
in 'La Difesa della Razza' in May 1940 and which those who can read
French will be able to read in the weeks to come on
thompkins_cariou.tripod.com, Evola recalls that "the traditions of
which the ancient Roman world was composed are more varied and
complex than it has been assumed until now. Ethnically as well as
spiritually, various influences can be found in Early Rome. Some
refer actually to lower cults - lower either because they belonged to
a non-Aryan ethnic substratum or because they represented involutive
and materialised forms of far more ancient cults, of Aryan and more
particularly Atlantic-Western origin. This is also true of the form
of worship related to the mystical forces of blood, of race and of
family, which, in some cases and at some stages, has 'crepuscular'
features, especially with respect to their 'chthonic' and 'infernal'
aspect, prevailing over that which, instead, is connected with
celestial and superterrestrial symbols. Yet, it cannot be denied
that, in most cases, the higher tradition was present in Rome and
that, in its development, Rome managed to 'rectify' and purify in a
not inconsiderable extent the various traditions of which it turned
out to be composed. Thus, as opposed to the myths which, by ascribing
the origin of the cult of the lares to Acca Larentia, to the plebeian
king Servius Tullius and to the Sabine element, refer to a lower
aspect, there are 'heroic' elements in the cult of the lares and of
the penates, which assumed a greater and greater importance as the
time of the Empire approached". This is also true of the Lupercalia.
As emphasised by Evola himself in a spirit which testifies his
fundamentally traditional turn of mind, the presence of an element in
a whole doesn't mean anything as such ; to make sense, it has to be
considered, not individually, but with respect to the whole in which
it is found as well as with respect to the relations which it has
with the other elements of that whole. This applies to symbols as
well as to teachings. To make ourselves as clear as possible, let's
take a borderline example : a swastika on the wall of a Roman temple
doesn't have the same meaning, the same value, the same function,
doesn't convey the same kind of influences, as a swastika on the T-
shirt of a 'pop-star' or as the kakenkreuz cunningly hidden in the
logo of some notorious contemporary infranational organisations. In
the same way, the presence of a given traditional teaching in two
different doctrines doesn't mean necessarily that there is an organic
connection and a similitude of nature between them, contrary to what
is assumed by most historians of religions and some supporters of the
transcendent unity of religions. In some cases, there can even be an
inversion of symbols, as explained in the thirtieth chapter of 'Le
Règne de la quantité' and in other parts of Guénon's work, within the
context of the guenonian key notion of 'parody'. As much it is
impossible to understand the nature of the modern world if it is not
looked at through the prism of this notion, as much it seems that
Guénon made the mistake of considering that the phenomenon of
parodical inversion was peculiar to the modern world, to modern
profane doctrines and systems, or, at least, of not taking into
consideration the possibility that the weakening which some pre-
Christian Aryan sapiental teachings underwent when they were infused
into Abrahamic religions, especially into their Christian flavour,
prepared the ground for true inversion. Examples of this sentimental
weakening, such as that which affected the concept of 'daimon' or the
justification of the Lupercalia, have already been given on this
forum. Another one is given by Evola, still in 'La mistica della
razza in Roma antica' : "This, this entity [the genius] of the
ancient racial Roman cult gave rise to popular representations,
which, however, do not keep much of its original meaning : we can
recall, for instance, the undeniable relation of the genius with the
popular Christian conception of the 'guardian angels' or of the good
angel and of the bad angel, images which have become merely
mythological and have lost any concrete and essential relation with
blood and the mystical forces of race".
What is unquestionable is that, with the advent of Christianity in
the West, a whole series of symbols and of teachings, experienced
a 'fall in tension', passing from the intellectual and spiritual
plane to the sentimental one, according to the lunar nature and the
peculiar mentality of those who were to give the pitch to its
civilisation from then on. To show fully how far this degeneration
has gone, it may be useful to point out that the figure of the heart
cut by an arrow, which has come to stand for 'love' in the unsettled
shapeless imagination of moderns, was originally a symbolic
representation of the female's buttocks and genitals seen from
behind.
--- In
evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com, "brightimperator"
<brightimperator@...> wrote:
>
> The somewhat licentious and 'Southern' (as Evola would say) nature
of
> this festival is probably attributable to the pre-Indo-European
> Pelasgians--it predates the "ascendancy of Jove" (i.e. the
> Hyperborean-Aryan battle-axe folk). Note the relatively 'lunar',
> primitivist idea of the Golden Age here.
>
>
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/SF/MidWinter.html
>
> "Ovid (267-302) says the Lupercalia is a rite of the Pelasgians (a
> people "older than the Moon"), dating from the Golden Age before
the
> ascendancy of Jove; the naked ritual honors Pan:
>
> The God Himself is wont to scamper high in mountains; He Himself
> takes
> swift to flight; the God Himself is nude, and bids His ministers go
> nude, for clothes suit not a rapid race.
> (Ovid, Fasti II.285-288)
>
> In the glorious Golden Age all people went nude, living in grass
> houses
> and eating herbs, content to live on what they could gather without
> agriculture or husbandry."
>