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The Controversy (The Review of 'Imperialismo pagano' by A. Reghini)

'Imperialismo pagano'

As voices are raised in various circles from time to time in lament at
the low paganism of contemporary life, it is worth looking at a recent
book whose title, 'Imperialismo pagano', is in itself an exaltation of
the imperial and pagan conception of life. The author is J. Evola, the
editor of the former review 'Krur', devoted to initiatory studies. The
connection between initiatory studies and pagan imperialism may not at
first seem self-evident, but it becomes so if one knows that the
Empire referred to by pagan imperialism is the Sacred Roman Empire ;
that is, not the Christian one, but an Empire leaning on the ancient
Roman initiatory knowledge. In fact, the basic thesis of the book is
that there is an antithesis, an irreversible and fundamental
incompatibility, between the Fascist and imperialist conception of
life, and the Christian one, so that to base the imperialist
conception, policy and program, on Christianity, even on Catholicism,
or to link to them in any indissoluble way, would be a mistake, an
illusion, doomed to fail and to cause damage rather than benefit, both
to those who decide upon it, and to the country where they attempt to
apply it.

Contrarily to this idea, according to Evola, it is necessary that
Fascism return to the pagan, Roman, Western, integral conception of
life, reconnect itself to the pagan initiatory tradition, and assume,
in front of all the peoples, continents, and religions of the world,
that universalistic position which was the characteristic of ancient
Rome, making itself in this way the focus and guide for gigantic
future transformations, not of Italy alone, nor of the Christian or
Catholic civilisation alone, but of the whole of global civilisation,
the unity and interconnectedness of which is already apparent in
numerous ways.

The factual basis for the statements and comments of pagan
imperialists in regard to this prime question cannot be disputed. Even
if we exempt Christianity from sole responsibility for the fall of the
Roman empire, that titanic creation of our ancestors, we cannot deny
that Christianity opposed the Empire, not merely through force of
circumstance or through natural repulsion, but also through conscious
and deliberate choice, and weakened and destroyed civil and patriotic
feelings, focussing rather on the celestial fatherland and the
salvation of each individual's soul.

The dangers of Christian propaganda to the Empire were remarked upon
by disgusted contemporaries, and it is well-known that Celsus called
on patriots to fight the new religion and to exhort citizens not to
desert from the armies or lose interest in their duties as citizens,
foreseeing that otherwise it would be difficult to defend the Empire
against barbarian invasions, and to maintain its greatness,
prosperity, and power. Similarly, one cannot dispute the view of
Machiavelli and others who held the Church responsible for the lack of
unification of Italy ; indeed, the Church refrained from supporting
any Italian political national interest, to say the least, since it
has no reason to be concerned with the condition of Italy, or its
power with respect to other peoples. In addition, recent noteworthy
writings by genuine Christians and Catholics, such as Bruers, have
ably documented the numerous injuries which the Church has caused to
Italy in the past three centuries (1).

Among other arguments, we should note that the conception of hierarchy
held by these imperialists is closely linked with their acknowledgment
of a spiritual hierarchy, which makes it absolutely essential that, at
the centre of the social imperial order, there should be, not a
formalistic and exterior hierarchy, based on community of belief, but
a nucleus of wise men, in the ancient sense of the word, who would
actually represent the flower of terrestrial spirituality, possessing
that wealth of direct knowledge of the mystery of life and man which
was, and is, the privilege of all the sacred, classical initiatory
traditions. Such a government must clearly be aristocratic, in the
etymological sense of the word, and therefore pagan imperialists
naturally oppose Christianity for its democratic nature, or rather,
they see in the liberal, democratic, Masonic, socialistic, Bolshevik,
etc., movements and currents, mere products and manifestations of the
democratic Christian spirit against which Fascism has successfully
risen up, asserting on the sacred Italian soil the return to the great
aristocratic tradition which was the soul of Romanity, even in the
times of the Republic.

Evola acknowledges that Catholicism represents a compromise between
Christianity and paganism, but considers that the exotic, democratic
and Christian element is far from minor, even in today's Catholicism,
and that it is necessary to return and reimpose the supremacy of the
Western spirit over the Eastern element in Christianity, reconnecting
ourselves deliberately and clearly to paganism. Not that he asks
Fascism to become the propagator of a new pagan religion and to ban
Christianity ; he just states that it is in the highest interest of
Fascism, and of Italy, not to adhere to the conception and the
programme of Catholicism, so as not to choke the natural energies of
re-awakening paganism. To sum up, even if we cannot achieve a general
agreement concerning the principal thesis of pagan imperialism - that
there exists an insuperable contradiction between imperialism and
Christianity - we still have to acknowledge that Fascism and
Christianity, or Fascism and Catholicism, can never be synonyms ; nor
can the symbol of the Fasces be subordinate to, or confused with, that
of the Cross ; such an acknowledgement costs us no inconvenience, and
it does not require us to specify Fascism's own religious conceptions
or aspirations ; precisely because Fascist imperialism wishes to
return to the universalist Roman tradition, it is imperative that we
are not bound to a vision of life which is limited to particular
regions and historical periods.

Besides the opposition between Fascist imperialism and Christianity,
we should also consider the opposition between the state and the
Church, which is a by-product of it, but this matter is more
contingent and political in nature, and it is not necessary to dwell
upon it, since it is easy to see how the question will look when
considered from the point of view of imperialism.

As a whole, the book of this young author comes just at the right
time, to turn the attention of Fascism to the deepest problems facing
it, and to present an irresistable program to the Party and the
Italian nation at this crucial moment in the life of humanity.

We have now outlined the thesis of the book, with which many Fascists
may be partly in agreement.

As for its value as a book, and the merits of the author, we have a
different story to tell. We shall not examine its literary value,
because books of this kind are not required to be works of art.
Certainly, it would be desirable that imperialists, nationalists, and
Fascists show a greater love for the Italian language than,
unfortunately, appears in their way of writing (and this criticism is
not directed solely at Evola). What is more serious is that the
philosophical culture of Evola is not irrelevant, and he certainly
does not manage to demonstrate that he possesses the level of culture
necessary to deal with pagan imperialism.

On the rare occasions when he does not draw from unnamed sources or
from memory, he presents quotations which, from the point of view, let
us not say of scholarship, but of mere culture, are all too easy to
criticise and question. For instance, when, in his assault upon
Christianity, he presents the arguments of Celsus and Rougier, he
states things which can be disputed, and which have their importance :
but, when he puts forward his own arguments, he is prone to serious
errors. Thus, on p. 106, he blames Christianity, and Jesus, for having
stated that "those who have will be dispossessed, and those who do not
have will receive." One only has to consult Luke, 19, 24 to see that
Jesus says precisely the opposite : "For I say unto you, that unto
every one which hath shall be given ; and from him that hath not, even
that he hath shall be taken away." (2) One has to wonder whether Evola
has ever opened the gospel which he fights with so much fire.

When Evola speaks of "Gnostic, illuminist, and cabalistic traditions
which have continued even in the post-Christian period" (p.76), are we
to understand that he does not know that Gnosticism, theosophism,
Kabala and Illuminism are all posterior to Christianity? (3) Is it
possible that he pre-dates by twenty centuries the period of
enlightenment?

In his argument against the Mazzinian ideal (p.51), he opposes Dante's
concept of the emperor to Mazzini's concept of 'elected people', and
shows that he has never read 'De Monarchia' (available to him in
Italian also, in the translation by Ficino), in which Dante says
categorically that the Roman people was predestined by its nature to
empire, referring to the famous verses of Virgil, and shows also that
he does not know that Mazzini himself, who knew Dante much better than
many modern imperialists, leaned on this passage by Dante, quoting him
explicitly. (4)

Many other trifles of this kind could be mentioned. For instance,
Evola describes the Hindu tradition of the cakravarti as "Tibetan"
(5), an indication of ignorance of the Sanskrit sources which could be
forgiven to any profane, but not to someone who, in another book
(following in Avalon's footsteps) pontificates on Indianism. And we
would like to have it explained to us how "all that is movement,
activity" can be "proper to the passive principle" (p.87) (6) ; how it
is possible to "set up (sic), in man, a force" (p. 89) ; whether he
thinks that the fact that the world is ruled by "an élite" or by
"élites" (p.53 and passim) (7) amounts to the same thing. We consider
it a real enormity, for someone who plays the leader of a
philosophical school, to ascribe to Aristotle (p.88) a doctrine of
"unmoved movers", in the plural form, as if referring to broken-down
cars. And this is no typographical error, since the same mistake is
made again four pages later. There is a typo, but it is found in
Aristotle's text, "to prwton kinoun akinhtov" (phys., 8, 6, 258 B), as
the autarch could have noticed himself, if he knew Greek.

We wonder how someone who makes such statements as that "the
fatherland and the nation are only superstitions" (p.42) and that
"Rome was the basis of nothing" (8) can speak at all of Romanity and
imperialism. However, we must emphasise that if we wanted to list all
the mistakes, contradictions, and inaccuracies, and to rectify these
quotations, the whole volume should be quoted. The fact that there are
'typos' in ALL the Latin quotations is most revealing!

We cannot help but notice the excessive concern with which Evola
conceals his sources, and the systematic casualness with which he
appropriates ideas, knowledge, and even whole sentences, from others,
carefully not framing his borrowings as quotations, something which
ancient usage would regard as appropriate, whether or not our
autarchic author feels he has surmounted such considerations.

This tendency of Evola towards systematic literary misappropriation
has already been noticed, in some of his writings on scholastic
philosophy, by a Tuscany paper, 'Fede e religione'. But, in
'Imperialismo pagano', he carries it to such extremes that the
aforementioned paper, in order if not to excuse him then at least to
understand him, has claimed that the book had two authors, making
Evola the spokesman of an early Florentine imperialist, one Arturo
Reghini, and launching the usual evangelical attacks against this
purported hidden inspiration.

In fact, Evola's pagan imperialism is indeed the product of the pagan
imperialism of Arturo Reghini, and a few other pagan imperialists. A.
Reghini published an article called, precisely, 'Imperialismo pagano',
before the war, and it was republished in 1924 in 'Atanor', a review
with which Evola collaborated. Three-quarters of Evola's book is drawn
from the writings of Reghini, and those of R. Guénon, Rougier, A.
Armentano, etc. The whole concept of the decay of modern civilisation
is taken literally from Guénon, and, from time to time, from Nietzsche
and Reghini. The 'originality' of Evola lies in fact in the work of
these others. Reghini, who explicitly claimed that he based himself on
the pagan initiatory tradition, who hoped and prayed as early as1924
for a pagan imperialist party in Italy, was really a pioneer, and that
is precisely why he passed unnoticed and unheeded. Evola may pretend
to continue this struggle, in his way, but not only he does not say a
word about Reghini's writings, and when he twice mentions an article
by Reghini, from 'Vita Italiana' (August-September 1924), he is
careful not to give its title : 'L'universalità' romana e quella
catolica', precisely because even to reveal its title would make the
reader aware that there was a source to his concepts, and even to his
fundamental thesis. His concern not to reveal anything which could
cast a shadow over his 'originality' as autarch is all too obvious.

It would take too long to show the extent to which Evola has tapped
into Reghini, Guénon, Rougier, Avalon, etc. We will limit ourselves to
a few excerpts and sentences lifted word-for-word and set, without
reference, in Evola's perspicuous prose. On p.12, the expression
"Hermetic and Pythagorician silence" is identical to the one used by
Pietro Negri in the review 'Ur' (January 1928) ; the sentence on the
transmission of tradition from flame to flame (p.15), to the one used
by A. Reghini in his preface to 'Filosofia occulta di Agrippa' (p.87)
; the last sentence on p. 17 is copied out, and ruined in the process,
from the same preface ; the italicised sentence "it is better to know
that you do not know than to believe" (p.78), plagiarises the
sentences of Amedeo Armentano ('Ignis', December 1925) ; the passage
on p. 132 about the statues of the Four Crowned Saints is taken from
Pietro Negri ; and the one on p. 147, related to the Aurelian column,
is taken from A. Reghini (Atanor). Let us stop here, not to bore the
reader. The evidence of borrowing is indisputable in all these
examples, but the same system is applied by Evola more generally, with
respect to ideas and arguments. The reader will decide which noun or
adjective best suits this system ; I will call it the "autarchic"
system, so that we understand each other ; but, if everything is
allowed to the autarch, we would like to hope that the rest of us poor
wretches will be permitted at least to notice the system, naturally,
without judging, and to wonder whether for Evola there is any
difference between "autarchy" and ... unauthorised grazing.

Having said all this we cannot help wondering what the relations
between Evola and the other imperialists and 'forerunners' of autarchy
may be. He constantly pretends to be a guardian and supporter of pagan
tradition, sometimes stating its existence and sometimes the "need to
reconstitute" it. These statements are completely unwarranted, since
no positive evidence in support of them can be given, while the
mistakes which he makes, and the contradictions into which he gets,
incline us to believe that Evola does not belong to any tradition of
initiatory knowledge of the sort to which he pretends to be nothing
less than the "guardian". Let us note in this context that those who
had been speaking of pagan Imperialism and Roman initiatory tradition
for twenty years or so, before Evola, have never made such claims, and
that is why we are almost tempted to think that the custody of the
pagan and Roman initiatory tradition is in the hands of Evola only
within his imagination and his autarchic mentality. Besides, in the
process, he finds himself in irremediable contradiction with himself,
since, if he was the guardian of a tradition, or indeed if he belonged
to any hierarchy, whether initiatory or not, he should respect his own
hierarchical subordination, and not pose as an 'autarch' unless he has
been in fact the absolute and acknowledged leader of this hierarchy
for twenty years or so. Now, before we recognise him as having this
position, we are waiting for him to be acknowledged by his
'forerunners', by those who, employing this spiritual tradition,
possessed among other attainments clairvoyance, though we doubt that
they recognise him as being the guardian of western knowledge, nor
even the position of 'brother servant'. Once upon a time, in order to
reach even a modest initiatory degree, not to mention 'autarchy', it
was necessary to know the sacred sciences and the seven liberal arts
(the first being grammar) ; must we assume that, today, the experience
of the arts of the trivium is enough by itself to secure 'autarchy'?

We will add, in conclusion, a simple but significant remark : Baron
Evola was lucky enough to be called Giulio Cesare Evola, but the
imperialist feeling, the sense of Romanity, is so rooted and deep in
this autarch that it makes him disown this beautiful Roman and
imperial name to take the barbaric and exotic name Jules (9), thereby
forming with the initials of the name and surname the magical acronym
of the autarch : 'Je'. This acronym reminds of the Parisian Dadaism of
Evola, which synthesises the egoistic program of ruthless ambition and
the autarchic and paranoid vision of one who thinks he can put himself
at the centre of the universe, but who is not in harmony with the
sense of the initiatory 'us,' and about whom there is nothing
imperialist, or Roman. This acronym suffices by itself to show how, in
Evola's mind and program, pagan imperialism is put to the service of
autarchic ambition, as a means of making noise and of threading his
way through ... politically! Nothing else!

'Ignis', January 1929

Notes

(1) Reghini probably has in mind these two essays by Antonio Bruers :
'La questione romana' (IRE, Rome, 1925) and 'Italia e cattolicismo'
(Vallecchi, Florence, 1928).

(2) One only has to consult Luke 1:52-53 to see that it is actually
Reghini who is making an enormous mistake : "He hath put down the
mighty from their seats, and exalted them of a low degree. He hath
filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty
away". The reason why Reghini makes this enormous mistake may be that
Evola is inverting one of the most famous dominical sayings of the
gospels, which can also be found in Matthew 25, 29, and in Matthew,
13, 12., leading Reghini to assume that he is misquoting it. In
'Imperialismo pagano', p. 106, contrarily to what Reghini wishes us to
believe, Evola does not quote the gospels verbatim, to start with. The
statement that "those who have will be dispossessed, and those who do
not have will receive" is not written in quotation marks, and no
reference is made to any particular gospel. Here, Evola is merely
paraphrasing, in a potent expression, the proto-communist tendency,
which is felt everywhere in the scriptures, and consists in exalting
the 'poor' as such and in denigrating the 'rich' as such. As Bruce J.
Malina suggests, "In the eastern Mediterranean in New Testament times,
'rich' or 'wealthy' as a rule meant 'avaricious, greedy,' while 'poor'
referred to persons scarcely able to maintain their honor or dignity"
(Malina 355). Such social attitudes were shaped by three generally
accepted truisms : (1) all goods are limited ; (2) no one goes without
necessities ; and (3) the rich person is inherently evil (Malina 362-363).

(3) The 'post-Christian period' is that period in which Christianity
is no longer the dominant civil religion, in which 'God is dead', and
it is exactly in this sense that this expression is used here by
Evola. Gnostic, illuminist, and cabalistic traditions were all born in
the Christian period, and "Gnostic, illuminist, and cabalistic
traditions (...) have (indeed) continued even in the post-Christian
period". There is only one way of rationally explaining Reghini's
blunder : he read 'post-Christian period' as meaning 'Christian period'.

(4) Even in Ficino's translation, Dante regards the Roman people as
'predestined by its nature to empire', not as 'the elected people',
but it is true that, in some people's minds, the distinction between
the notion of predestination (by gods), in a racially-based religion,
and that of election (by a God) in a proselytic context, is not very
clear - especially when, like Mazzini and Reghini, they are Freemasons.

(5) Actually, not the Hindu but the Buddhist tradition of the
Cakravarti...

(6) Did not R. Guénon, with whom Reghini was in correspondence at the
time, explain to Reghini the Aristotelian concept of the 'unmoved
mover'? or, with due respect, was the activist, and therefore,
restless Reghini just too feminine to understand?

(7) This may be granted, in that to speak of 'elites' in the plural is
a contradiction in terms, as Guénon argues in 'The Reign of Quantity'.

(8) The complete sentence is as follows : "Rome was the basis of
nothing ; Christianity was another world, which did not continue it,
but destructively opposed it, identifying it with the Beast of the
Apocalypse and the Whore of Babylon", and, unless you are utterly
dishonest, the first thing that you realise on reading it is that the
first and second halves do not quite fit together. In addition, in the
previous paragraph, we are told that "Rome was simultaneously a
material and a spiritual reality, a complete, luminous, isolated
ideal, which the rest of the world was permitted either to accept or
not to accept, but which rebelled against any attempt to make it play
the game of an arbitrary 'progressivist' dialectic." Finally, we
should consider the whole work of J. Evola, which asserts, shows, and
testifies that Rome was, on the contrary, the basis of everything.
What the excerpt mocked by Reghini means is simply this : between Rome
and Christianity, there was nothing in common ; Rome was not the basis
of Christianity ; Rome was the basis of none of what Christianity is
all about . The context does not leave room for any other
interpretation, but, due to the extremely elliptical character of the
formulation, it may seem to thick and slow minds to say the contrary
of what it is supposed to mean.

(9) Evola signed a few of his articles in 'Atanor', 'Jules Evola'.




--- In evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com, "evola_as_he_is"
<evola_as_he_is@...> wrote:
>
> A. Iacovella discusses the young Evola, "back from the electrifying
> futuro-dadaist ranks, in the period between 1924 (the year of
> publication of the review 'Atanor') and 1928 (the date of publication
> of his 'Imperialismo pagano'), a period marked by his meeting the
> charismatic A. Reghini : "When I knew him, Reghini was a 33rd degree
> Mason of the Scottish rite, and had written a noteworthy book on the
> sacred words and passwords of the first degrees of that
> sect, for which he showed a uncommon qualification. A mathematician,
> philologist, and critical spirit, he applied a seriousness and an
> objectivity absolutely unknown in the ravings of 'occultists' and of
> theosophists, whom he never tired of lashing with the most incisive
> sarcasm, to the study of the initiatory heritage." As Evola himself
> admitted, the influence of Reghini's thought turned out to be decisive
> on him, acting on the precocious theoretician of 'Magical Idealism' as
> a rectification, rescuing him from his arid lucubrations on the 'I'
> and orienting him towards a conception of traditional character of the
> world and life : "My contacts with Reghini (and immediately after that
> with Guénon, who introduced us) are responsible, first, my definitive
> liberation from certain dross derived from those [theosophical, etc. -
> ed.] circles,and then for my definitive acknowledgment of the absolute
> heterogeneity and transcendence of initiatory knowledge."
>
> Reghini's traditionalism was rooted in the idea of a renewed 'pagan
> Imperialism', which was to oppose the baleful spiritual hegemony of
> triumphant Catholicism, the latter being guilty of having introduced
> into Italy an exotic and plebeian cult which had undermined at the
> root the Olympian spirit of Romanity. Reghini had become the proponent
> of this highly controversial thesis in less suspicious times, on the
> threshold of the First World War, when he published an article called,
> precisely, 'Imperialismo pagano', in 'Salamandra' (...).
>
> The relationship between Reghini and Evola became closer after the
> appearance of two monthly reviews of initiatory studies, in 1924
> 'Atanor' and in 1925 'Ignis.' Evola contributed substantial articles
> and reviews to the latter, worth mentioning among which are a long
> study on 'La potenza come valore metafisico', later inserted first in
> 'L'Uomo come potenza' and then in 'Lo Yoga della potenza'.
>
> (...) Reghini's two newspapers were somewhat unique in the
> contemporary editorial panorama, both because of the doctrinal
> orientations of their authors and because of the originality of the
> subjects addressed, which ranged from Tantrism to Anthroposophy and
> from Alchemy to Kabala (not forgetting some references to political
> current affairs). All these 'themes' arose again later in the 'Ur'
> group, the well-known occult club linked to the review of the same
> name founded in 1927. The editorship of 'Ur' was assumed by Evola,
> assisted by Pietro Negri (one of the pseudonyms with which Reghini
> liked to sign). The promoters of 'Ur' appealed openly to their readers
> to take part in their efforts, which, they wrote, "certainly transcend
> each of our particular persons." The goal of Evola and Reghini lay in
> fact outside the sphere of mere speculation : on the contrary, they
> proposed 'acting without acting', according to the taoist principle,
> which arouses "a superior force to be used as an aid for the
> individual work of each of us," such as to exert "an influence, behind
> the scenes, on even the predominant forces in the general environment."
>
> There is no doubt that these enigmatic expressions were meant to hint
> at the attempt that was being made by the 'Ur' group to influence the
> incipient Fascist regime magically, in the conviction that the latter
> was, so to speak, 'predestined' to restore to favour the gods of the
> Emperor Julian, rather than out of any rhetorical or folkloristic
> distortion of paganism. From this point of view, Mussolini himself
> certainly deserved to be supported and encouraged in his difficult
> enterprise, provided that he freed himself, once and for all, from any
> tendency to compromise with the Catholic tradition. In a study of a
> speech made by Mussolini on Christmas day in Rome in 1924, Reghini had
> - not by chance - implored the leader of the government to refuse to
> "subordinate the sacred hill of the Campidoglio to the claims of a
> sect" [i.e. Christianity - ed.] "born on an Asian promontory."
>
> In another rather unrealistic attempt to influence the course of
> events in a more political direction, Evola decided on his turn to
> come out into the open, in 1928, before the Concordat between the
> state and the Church. This he did by means of a work - his own
> 'Imperialismo pagano' - in which, in inflamed and peremptory tones,
> but using close reasoning, he deduced the extreme consequences of the
> theories which Reghini had been presenting for many years. For his
> part, Evola stressed "how fascism was essentially born out of young,
> resolute forces, ready for anything and alien to all doctrinal
> abstractions. (...) This is the living core of Fascism, and those who
> already worry about the lack of a 'philosophy of Fascism' or a
> 'culture of Fascism' are manifestations of decay within Fascism itself
> or, at the very least, they manifest a deviation from the direction
> along which Fascism should proceed if it is to foreshadow something
> new, a true revolution. (...) Fascism must remain resolutely, starkly,
> anti-philosophical. And, beyond this, reaffirming its purest power, it
> must sweep clean the dirty surface of rhetoric, sentimentalism,
> moralism and hypocritical religiosity, with which the West has
> obscured and humanised everything."
>
> The publication of 'Imperialismo pagano' by Evola, beyond the outcry
> it deliberately provoked in philo-Catholic Fascist circles, put an end
> to the collaboration between the Evola and Reghini, the latter
> considering himself to have been, so to speak, "deprived of a formula
> of which he considered himself to be at least the depositary."
>
> Infuriated, Reghini reacted rapidly and bitterly against Evola, in
> 'Ignis', II, n. 1, January 1929, p.25, claiming to have been the
> victim of a "sistematica depredazione letteraria." Evola's reply, just
> as spiteful, did not take long either. Written in the third person, it
> came out in February 1929, as a loose sheet attached to the second
> issue of 'Krur'. Both articles will be published soon on this list, on
> which, over the past months, Reghini's 'Imperialismo pagano' has been
> published - in the process, we have explained why we translate
> 'paganismo' as 'paganism' in Reghini's work and as 'heathenism' in
> Evola's. Thus, the readers will have all the elements at their
> disposal to make up their own mind about the controversy between
> Reghini and Evola.
>
> "The controversy regarding Evola's supposed plagiarism of Reghini,
> Iacovella continues, ended up in the courtrooms of the civil tribunal,
> and led wearily to a case which did not go beyond the stage of
> pre-trial hearings, as explained by an unpublished statement of
> Aniceto Del Massa, a former member of the 'Ur' group, who was called
> by Reghini to testify against Evola on February 7th, 1930 : "The trial
> did not happen. Evola presented a complete retraction to the court,
> which he agreed to publish at his own expense in 'Roma Fascista'."
> (actually, it was never published - ed.)
>
> Evola distanced himself from Reghini in subsequent years, even on the
> doctrinal plane, declaring implausible the claim of a Pythagorean
> affiliation for the Italic tradition, and the relative permanence of
> an occult centre derived from that school, of which the Florentine
> mathematician [i.e., Reghini - ed.] had always regarded himself as the
> continuator. Over subsequent years, he abandoned the anti-Christian
> titanism of his youth, to acknowledge in 'Revolt against the Modern
> World', albeit partially, the conformity of Catholicism, in its
> medieval variant, to tradition. Historical circumstances and life's
> vicissitudes completed the rift, separating for ever the two men, whom
> a mysterious link had united during the unique period of the 'Ur'
> group. In 1945, while Evola wandered in a "tacit questioning of
> destiny" among the smoking ruins of Vienna, the old Reghini was
> starting to slip away, indifferent to the bombs which fell near his
> home, in Budrio, in the province of Bologna."
>
> Both articles are found in 'Imperialismo pagano nelle edizioni
> italiana e tedesca' (Mediterranee, 2004). Considering the scope of the
> Reghini's criticisms of 'Imperialismo pagano' and Evola, and the
> unfoundedness of some of the most sarcastic ones, an apparatus
> criticus worth of the name, attached to Reghini's article, would not
> have been a luxury. We have remedied in part in footnotes this
> regrettable lack.
>
> Those who have not read either 'Imperialismo pagano' or 'Heathen
> Imperialism' are asked not to bother asking questions or
> clarifications, whether on the list or off-list.
>





Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:36 pm

evola_as_he_is
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A. Iacovella discusses the young Evola, "back from the electrifying futuro-dadaist ranks, in the period between 1924 (the year of publication of the review...
evola_as_he_is Offline Send Email Feb 21, 2008
7:29 pm

'Imperialismo pagano' As voices are raised in various circles from time to time in lament at the low paganism of contemporary life, it is worth looking at a...
evola_as_he_is Offline Send Email Feb 26, 2008
5:37 pm

'Imperialismo pagano' gives the impression of having been â€" and was indeed - written hastily, and so does ‘Warning against 'Ignis'’: no ...
evola_as_he_is Offline Send Email Aug 20, 2008
6:46 pm

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