This is J. Evola's assessment of Pythagoreanism, as made in 'Revolt of the
Modern World' and as recalled a few weeks ago here :
"In Greece Pythagoreanism represented in many ways a return of the Pelasgic
spirit. Despite its astral and solar symbols (including a Hyperborean trace),
the Pythagorean doctrine was essentially characterized by the Demetrian and
pantheistic theme. After all, the lunar spirit of the Chaldean or Mayan priestly
science was reflected in its view of the world in terms of numbers and of
harmony ; the dark, pessimistic, and fatalistic motif of tellurism was retained
in the Pythagorean notion of birth on this earth as a punishment and as a
sentence, and also in the teaching concerning reincarnation, which I have
previously described as a symptom of spiritual disease. The soul that repeatedly
reincarnates is the sould subjected to the chthonic law. The doctrine of
reincarnation exemplifies the emphasis Pythagoreanism and Orphism gave to the
principle that is tellurically subjected to rebirth, as well as the truth proper
to the civilization of the Mother. Pythagoras's nostalgia for ideas of a
Demetrian type (after his death his home became a sanctuary for the goddess
Demeter) including the dignity that women enjoyed in Pythagorean sects where
they presided over initiations and where the ritual cremation of the dead was
forbidden, as well as the sect's horror of blood - are features that can easily
be explained on this basis. In this kind of context even the escape from the
"cycle of rebirths" has a dubious character (it is significant that in Orphism
the dwelling of the blessed is not above, as in the Achaean symbol of the
Elysian Fields, but rather under the earth, in the company of infernal gods), in
comparison to the ideal of immortality that was proper of "Zeus's path" ; at the
end of this path there was a heavenly region or a Uranian world dominated by the
"spiritual virility of the light" and inhabited by "those who are," namely,
beings who are detached and inacessible in their perfection and purity."
On this basis, you are not being serious when you write that he was influenced
by "Hellenic Orphic-Pythagoreanism", are you ?
--- In evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com, "R.P." <brightimperator@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> Impossible? I think not...
>
> I am no amateur post-modernist twit, thank you...
>
> I know the intellectual strains of Evolian metaphysics by heart and in
depth--primal aniconic Roman spirituality; Hellenic Orphic-Pythagoreanism and
Hermeticism; Plotinian, theurgic neo-Platonism; certain Indo-Aryan, non-dualist
spiritual forms, and, in my view, Evola's greatest blunder of thinking,
synthesizing in his world-view a barbarized "Left Hand Path" Tantric
antinomianism, akin to terrorist "Kali-Yuga" Thuggery in essence;
Oriental-Chinese Taoism, and Chinese alchemy; Samurai-Zen; feudal classical
imperial Ghibelline political philosophy of Caesaro-Papal "Melchizedek";
maverick Catholic medieval theologians of esoteric bent, e.g. Eckhart, Tauler,
Silesius, etc.; then Germanic and European Transcendentalist neo-Kantian and
post-Kantian Idealism (G. Vico, Fichte, Schlegel, Schelling...Novalis--Novalis
intellectually engaged in "Magical Idealism" decades before Evola--Schopenhauer,
etc., up to Crocean neo-Hegelian Idealism, and so on); Italy-modulated,
Rosicrucian Masonry and Blavatskyian Theosophy, the "root race" concept of
Blavatsky crucial for Evola's own "spiritual racism"--no matter his verbal
denials, if uttered (and Aryosophic bits from von List and von Liebenfels--thus
Haeckelian monist pantheism); varieties of neo-Manichean intellectual
stimulations, and "anti-socialist" neo-Gnosticism; apocalyptic-Judaic mythic
lore of "Enochian Luciferianism," or Titanist/"Faustian" Promethean-type
"Satanism", of stridently anti-fideist, anti-theist tendency and Voluntarist in
mentality--"Satanism" is an ellipsis for lack of better words; Rosicrucian
Guenonianism as central philosophic axis; certain variants of *contemporary*
Christian-Catholic mysticism and esotericism; the Counter-Enlightenment
ideological tradition of de Maistre, D. Cortes, etc.; O. Spengler, and his
anti-Utopian counter-revolutionist pessimism; the neo-Platonist, Kantian sexual
teaching of Otto Weininger; ambivalent, subconscious internalization of
crypto-Stirnerite and Nietzschean thought; Dadaist pseudo-philosophizing;
Bachofen in mythology; Eliadean and neo-Jungian traces in "spiritual"
phenomenology; ETC.!
>
> What I am asking is *how would 'normal' scholars of philosophy and
philosophical history categorize, even conceptualize, Evola, in his core
philosophy?*
>
> Evola is unique, but not a cosmic anomaly...
>
> Is Schelling a bad place to start...?
>
> --- In evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com, Asdfasdsfdas Sfsdf <andreforcordelia@>
wrote:
> >
> > Your question is basically impossible to answer.
> >
> >
> > The closest thing to understanding the intellectual strains of Evola's major
works would be to read "The Path of Cinnabar."
> >
> > Everything else is amateur deconstructionism.
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: R.P. <brightimperator@>
> > To: evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com
> > Sent: Sunday, April 8, 2012 10:43 PM
> > Subject: [evola_as_he_is] Re: Evolian Meta-Philosophy
> >
> >
> >
> > I am not a Heidegger guy--except where Heidegger resonates with medieval
theology. Anyway--"neo-Idealism" is just a term--is "post-Kantian Idealism" less
unsuitable? Words, semantics... But Evola, in spite of his Eastern and medieval
spiritual education , I believe is following the specific Germanic
transcendentalist Idealism somewhere near SCHELLING, and squeezing it strongly
for the last drop of insight...
> >
> > Vico...Schelling..."trans-rationalistic rationalism" of the Eliadian
phenomenologist of Numinous experience...theosophically-filtered,
esoteric-Hyperborean "neo-Theosophia"...? Evola outdid Fichtean subjectivist
solipsism in his "magical Idealism" already, deepening matters...so...where
exactly does he belong, analytically...?
> >
> > Heck, at least I didn't call Evola a "neo-Stirnerian, neo-Sorelian
Nietzschean pathological case" like some academic idiots...
> >
> > I lament Heidegger's failure to uphold transcendent, arch-principial reality
against the ravages of Judaic demoplutocratic intellectual demolition,
neo-Gramscian contagion of sub-humanism, and techno-capitalist, materialist
Nihilism. The de-souled mechanization of life only needed to be answered by
aggressive counter-assertion of qualitative spiritual imagination. Heidegger is
a tangled bog--regressive elements vying with superior elements...Nietzschean
romanticism interwoven with Eckhartian apophatic negativistic theology of the
Middle Ages...
> >
> > --- In evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com, Asdfasdsfdas Sfsdf
<andreforcordelia@> wrote:
> > >
> > > What is "neo-idealism?"
> > >
> > > Do you meantranscendental Idealism like Kant and Fichte?
> > >
> > > Let me guess, you are a Heidegger-guy?
> > >
> > >
> > > That would be the only way this pointed question could be understood in a
way that it could be responded to.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: R.P. <brightimperator@>
> > > To: evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com
> > > Sent: Sunday, April 8, 2012 10:01 AM
> > > Subject: [evola_as_he_is] Evolian Meta-Philosophy
> > >
> > >
> > > Â
> > > Evola derives Tradition from pure integral metaphysical Being itself; yet
humanly, the locus of Evola in mundane philosophic history is best characterized
how...? Evola continues continental neo-Idealism almost to the point of
outpacing it...and then his "static gnosis of platonic being" seems to suggest
his neo-Plotinian main impetus...
> > >
> > > How would the erudite moderator describe the place of Evola in terms of
the philosophy of existence and Western thinking...? Thx for your time.
> > >
> >
>