At current in the West there is definitely "an unfortunate trend to
associate Crowley as the 'beginning and end' of all things esoteric" -
whether to the educated or to the uneducated, and, considering the
kind of teaching which is given currently in schools, even in the
most renowned and most expensive institutions, there is no longer
much difference between so-called educated people and so-called
uneducated people from a spiritual standpoint, so much so that it is
a misuse of language to speak of 'education' with respect to the
teaching which is not so much given as rented or sold there, and
which, instead of forming the spirit, the character of a given
person, is only designed to provide him with new knowledge, or rather
new pieces of information, according to the egalitarian nature of its
premises, whose damaging effects were brought to light and duly
denounced by Evola and Guénon.
To go back over Crowley, whose lady-friends sounded like 'educated'
persons, one only needs to read the chapter which Evola devoted to
his work and to de Naglowska's in 'Metaphysics of Sex' to realise
that he was perfectly aware of the falsifications and of the
deviations which the former's contains.
The sentimentalist tone of the correspondence of Crowley and his lady-
friends doesn't exactly contribute to make it more interesting than,
for instance, a Master's thesis on Laclos' 'Les liaisons
dangereuses'. Before they accepted to be, for instance, flogged
within an initiatory context, or rather within what appeared to them
as being an initiatory context, it sounds like Crowley's lady-friends
had to be soft-soaped. In ancient Rome, it was not the case of the
Matrones who ordered their slaves to whip them ritually before having
sex, it being understood that, after having been whipped by their
slaves for their own sake, it was not with them that they had sex.
From a footnote to 'Metaphysics of Sex' in which Evola tells us that
G.B. Gardner showed him a manuscript which contained an ancient
ritual related to flagellation practices within the context of sexual
initiation, it can be gathered that the founder of the Wicca movement
was deeply interested in that aspect of a certain feminine
initiation. Futher research has shown that, contrary to what Evola
tended to assume, the scenes of flagellation of young girls and women
on Ancient Roman frescos were not only "essentially symbolical".
--- In
evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com, Savitar Devi
<savitar_devi@y...> wrote:
>
> Very interesting. It seems to me that at current in the West there
is an unfortunate trend to associate Crowley as the 'beginning and
end' of all things esoteric - to the uneducated perhaps. There are
however a number of falsifictaions in Crowley's 'work' which cannot
be excused. The OTO 'sex' magick is rather ficitious thing, which
seems largely to be fabricated from a very rudimentary understanding
of Tantra with a few Masonic/Yiddish and Egyptian motifs thrown in.
Given that Evola seems to have had a superior undstanding of Tantrik
technique (judging from the Yoga of Power) he should have been able
to spot the hidden teachings (such as they are) of the OTO with
relative ease - and furthermore identified them as erroneous.On that
alone it seems highly likely that Evola would not have been too
greatly concerned with Thelema; I am sure the liberal contingent
found therein also would not have been terribly appeasing. On a
related note: 'The Order of the Iron Wreath' as found on your
> website, was that ever put into practice or did it exist purely in
the theoretical stages?
>
> It is a great irony to many 'Wiccans' that the founder of modern
Wicca was a man (due to the hefty feminist regime the movement is
composed of) - didn't Crowley also write some of the rituals for
Gardner (which would explain the similarities I suppose)?
>
> evola_as_he_is <evola_as_he_is@y...> wrote:
>
> A few scholars have accused Evola of having had relations and
> compromised himself with esotericists like Crowley and de
Naglowska.
> We tried to determine where they got their information from, in
vain
> for some time, until we got to hear of a booklet called 'Les
liaisons
> dangereuses de Julius Evola : Alesteir Crowley, Gerald Brousseau
> Gardner et Maria de Naglowska' (Ars Magna, Nantes, 2003). Its title
> suggest strongly that nothing good can come out of it, and the
number
> of pages only confirms it. It consists of four short texts -
'Julius
> Evola et les thélémites' ; 'Julius Evola fut-il membre de l'OTO' -
> 'Quand Evola collaborait à la revue "sataniste" La Flèche' -
'Julius
> Evola et la société théosophique indépendante de Rome'.
>
> In the four-page 'Julius Evola et les thélémites', the few readers
of
> Evola who still haven't heard that he once collaborated with
Reghini
> learn it and, as for those who have never heard of Gerald Gardner,
> they learn that he's the one who launched the Wicca movement, and
> that he joined the OTO. Among anecdotes about Gardner and the OTO,
a
> few lines are devoted to Evola : "Evola may have been initiated
into
> the Ordo Templi Orientis. At least, that's what a report of
> the 'Divisione Polizia Politica' of the 7th of April 1930 (...),
> discovered by Dana Lloyd Thomas and published in the fourth issue
> (1997) of the paper 'Politica romana', seems to indicate : "Julius
> Evola is known in Parisian occultist circles to be affiliated to
the
> Ordo Templi Orientis". That - Kremmerzian/Reghinian - paper goes so
> far as to give us the reference of the file : "ACS MI DGPS agr Cat.
> A& f. Evola Julio (sic)". Leaving aside that, as opposed to the
> Gestapo, the 'Divisione Polizia Politica' has made more than a few
> Italians laugh, it is interesting to note that a man filed
as 'Evola
> Julio' by the Fascist secret police is called 'Julius Evola' in the
> file built on him, and, besides, that 'Julio' is the Spanish form
of
> the Italian first name 'Giulio' : was the Italian official in
charge
> of Evola's file at the 'Divisione Polizia Politica' Spanish or of
> Spanish origin then? However this may be, some of Evola's writings
> were signed 'Jules', but none 'Julio'.
>
> There is 'more' : Gardner is mentioned in a footnote
to 'Metaphysics
> of sex'. Doesn't this prove that Evola 'had close relations" with
> Gardner? To Ars Magna, needless to say that it does : Evola was in
> touch with Reghini, Reghini, not content with being a member of the
> OTO, corresponded with Crowley, Gardner was closely acquainted to
> Crowley : therefore, Evola was likely to be a Thelemist. Reality,
> however, is far more simple : Fifteen years or so after the
> publication of 'Metaphysics of Sex', Evola said in 'La congrega
delle
> streghe' (in 'Roma', 1971) : "I once had a strange visit. An
> Englishman, tall, skinny, with a crown of white hair and with
bulging
> blue eyes whose iris was so clear that it looked aquamarine. He
came
> to inform me of the state of magic and of witches in Italy (...).
> It's only a few years later that I got to know that that weird guy
> was, in his way, an important character, that he was in touch
> with 'witches' circles". As for Reghini, he was so close to Evola
> that the latter felt like stating, in the second issue of Krur,
> February 1929 : " The fact that Reghini is a Free-Mason is the
reason
> why, if we had to quote someone, he would be the last person we
would
> quote. In 'Ur', we sometimes had to censor passages from Reghini,
> which were meant to establish, tendentiously and artificially, a
> continuity between our tradition, in its hermetic forms, and Free-
> Masonry". This clarification cannot be found in the successive
> editions of the writings of 'Ur and Krur', neither in the Italian
> ones, nor in 'Introduction to Magic'.
>
> 'Julius Evola fut-il membre de l'OTO' is a translation of a three-
> page article published in 'Politica Romana' in 1997. Once again,
Dana
> Lloyd Thomas is quoted, but more extensively, on the same matter.
> Faced with such an empty file, 'Politica Romana' concludes, more
> prudently, but just as ingratiatingly : "It cannot be ruled out
that
> Evola may have had relations with Crowley or with some members of
his
> group, especially since he admitted he tried in vain to obtain the
> manuscript called 'Agape Liber C : the Book of the Sangraal, which
> contains "some of the most secret rituals of sexual magic of the
OTO"
> (cf. 'Metaphysics of Sex'). Evola's failure to obtain it could be
due
> to his being a mere neophyte to whom access to the innermost
> doctrines and practices of the Ordo Templi Orientis was not
granted".
>
> To cap it all off, we are then told that "further proofs to those
> suppositions are still lacking". "Further proofs"? Before thinking
of
> gathering "further proofs", can they come up with a single proof.
> Basically, the file is empty : the explanation given by the author
of
> the article of the "failure" of Evola to get a copy of Crowley's
> manuscript is a mere "supposition", based on a passage
> of 'Metaphysics of Sex' in which Evola doesn't actually "admit"
> anything, but makes a mere statement, and, besides, on a
superficial
> reading of the chapter from which it is taken : the criticism made
by
> Evola to certain problematic aspects of Crowley's teachings are
> hidden to the reader by the author.
>
> The gratuitous fanciful assumptions made in the third article are
> based on the fact that an "article (sic) by de Naglowska, 'Le
message
> de l'étoile polaire', was published in the paper Ur", and that
Evola
> wrote an article for her own paper, 'La Flèche, organe d'action
> magique', of which eighteen issues were published from October 1930
> to December 1933 in Paris, where she was staying at that time. This
> article, called 'Occidentalisme' and published in the issue of the
> 15th of February 1932, deals with the 'spiritualist peril' which,
> besides the materialist peril, the West started to face at that
time.
> It is closely akin to the considerations developed in 'Maschera e
> volto dello spiritualismo contemporaneo' the same year. The use
> of 'magic in the process of renewal of Western civilisation wished
> and actively backed up by Evola is the only thing in common between
> that article and the conceptions of de Naglowska.
>
> "The article ('Occidentalism') is followed by a short note : "the
> authors of the above articles are not disciples of 'La Flèche'.
These
> are precious friends and collaborators which keep all their
> independence and their originality with respect to our doctrine".
>
> "Since Evola's text comes before this note, we therefore conclude
> that it doesn't apply to him...Was he considered by Maria de
> Naglowska as one of her disciples in 1932 then? There are strong
> grounds for thinking that it was so when we read, in 'La Sophiale'
by
> Marc Pluquet, that the latter - who considered himself as the
> spiritual son of de Naglowska - thought, following her death, of
> visiting Evola in Rome". "Now, if the far-right ideas of the baron
> are well-known, Ars Magna adds, Pluquet, as for him, was a far-
> leftist! We may therefore wonder what united them...". Indeed, we
> may, or we may not, if we don't want to waste time, and, since we
> don't intend to waste time, we'll point out that Pluquet was so
> enthusiastic about meeting Evola in Rome that he waited 32 years
> before thinking about it : de Naglowska died in 1936 and Pluquet
> thought of visiting Evola in 1978, as stated in 'La Sophiale' (
>
http://www.morgane.org/Gouttelettes/sophiale.htm ). At that time,
he
> felt like re-publishing de Naglowska's writings, and it is
apparently
> with that project in mind that he thought of visiting Evola in
Rome.
> Interestingly enough, one of his friends, whom he asked what he
> thought of his idea of visiting Evola, told him that it was the
last
> thing to do. In this respect, there is another important detail
that
> the reader of 'La Sophiale' should note and point out : in his
short
> biography of de Naglowska, the name of Julius Evola is never
> mentioned, not once, whereas the names of those who influenced her
or
> of those whom she was influenced by recur very often.
>
> The publisher hopes that an "author (...) takes the risk to tackle
> the relations between Julius Evola and the occultism of his time",
> forgetting to specify for whom such a study would be risky : for
the
> author or for Evola's posterity? Unquestionably, it is for the
author
> that it would be risky, insofar as s/he could be bored to death, if
> s/he decided to stick to the so-called "liaisons dangereuses"
between
> Evola and occultists of his time, empty as the file is. On the
other
> hand, the fourth article, based on a study of Marco Rossi
> about 'Julius Evola and the Independent Theosophical Association of
> Rome' has the merit of throwing a new light on the first years of
> Julius Evola in Italian spiritualist circles. We'll go back over
it.
>
>
> P.s. : 'Le message de l'étoile polaire' can be read at
>
http://66.102.9.104/search?
> q=cache:KsrmPHiW4fQJ:resist.gothic.ru/files/019.pdf++%
22message+de+l%
> 27%C3%A9toile+polaire%22&hl=fr&ie=UTF-8
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Three heavens there are; two Savitar's, adjacent:
> In Yama's world is one, home of heroes.
> As on a linch-pin, firm, rest things immortal:
> He who hath known it, let him here declare it.
>
> - Rig Veda I.35 (Griffith)
>
>
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