The first Italian translation of Milarepa's 'The Demon of the Snow -
The Song of Joy - the Song of the Essence of Things', based on B.
Laufer's ('Milarepa', 1922), is found in 'Introduzione alla magia' -
it was published again later in 'Meditation on the Peaks' as 'A
Mystic of the Tibetan Mountains'. In that passage of his work,
Milarepa tells his disciples the story of his long stay in the
mountains, how he resisted the fury of the elements, the wind and the
frost, defeating the demons hidden under the mask of snow.
'By the tempest and the frost, Evola notes in his commentary, a demon
tried to defeat the ascete. "The world is full of demons", the Greeks
said, and, here, it could also be said : "There is an infinite number
of demons of perception" [the term 'demon' is to be undesrtood in its
original meaning here, as explained in message 32]. Spirits fight
spirits, even when, knowing ourselves only as a body, we think we
fight bodies, and among bodies, in material vicissitudes".
Those terrors are thus most likely to be the manifestations of the
reactions to various borderline experiences along any initiatory
path. In the writings of Ur and Krur, according to the various
commentaries and to the various essays, the reader is repeatedly
warned in a precise manner against the dangers involved in most of
the spiritual exercises proposed and described by the various members
of that group. One essay deals more particularly with
them : 'L'etnologia e i "pericoli dell'anima"'.
--- In
evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com, "fitzknob" <fitzknob@...>
wrote:
>
> As Godwin wrote in his foreword to "Men among the ruins" :
>
> "...Soon after this, Evola plunged into a particularly esoteric
form
> of occultism, again not of the literary or armchair type, but one
that
> entailed trials, asceticisms, and a mastery of terrors that most of
us
> can barely imagine. As a consequence, his character and ideals were
> fully formed before he was out of his twenties, and he remained
true
> to them for the rest of his life."
>
> "..and a mastery of terrors that most of us can barely imagine."
>
> Anyone care to elaborate what these "terrors" may have been? Clues
may
> be found the "Doctrine of awakening" and "Ride the tiger" but
perhaps
> some of the more erudite members could hopefully what specific
> initiations Evola encountered/mastered?
>