Theory of the Absolute Individual — The Origins of Evola’s Philosophical Thought

Julius Evola’s philosophical work “Theory of the Absolute Individual” (Teoria dell’individuo Assoluto was first published in 1927, later rewritten by Evola in 1949, and republished again in 1973. I intend to translate it. We will begin with this essay by Piero di Vona (1928-) from the 1998 edition, which gives an introduction to the origins of Evola’s philosophical thought.

–Novas

By Piero di Vona

The Theory and Phenomenology of the Absolute Individual originally constituted a single work which only for editorial needs ended up being divided into two separate volumes, published a few years apart from each other, the first in 1927 in Turin at the publisher Bocca, and the second in 1930 at the same publisher and in the same place. The Phenomenology ends with these words: “Quota neutra del Cimone 1917 — Roma 1924”. The two dates are very significant. They evoke the affirmation of Croce’s and Gentile’s neo-Hegelianism in Italy; the advent of D’Annunzio’s aestheticizing Nietzscheanism in literature; the First World War and the consequent imposition of fascism in Italian public life.

Between about 1865 and 1930 Hegelianism had established itself in English and American culture, but in Italy it was an older cultural phenomenon because it dated back to the Risorgimento[1]. It is enough to recall the literary criticism of De Sanctis which drew on aesthetic concepts learned from Hegel. It is a very singular fact in our history that the struggle for the unification of Italy and its liberation from the “Germanic”, which was still to find such a lively echo even in the Italian Resistance of 1943–1945, was accompanied by the cultural invasion and dominance in Italy of German philosophy, philology and historicism, and that this still persists today thanks to the phenomenology of Husserl and the philosophy of Heidegger and their followers, and to the timely replacement of Historismus at the end of the century with an idealistic historicism.[2]

At the beginning of the twentieth century Hegelianism had conquered Neapolitan culture, where it manifested in sometimes quite singular thinkers, later called the “Neapolitan Begriffo”.[3]

In the course of our century [20th] this neo-Hegelian and historicist culture ended up establishing itself in Italy with Croce and Gentile. For centuries this had been the land of literati and artists much more than of philosophers. Although having made Italy’s voice heard in the time of Romanticism with Leopardi and Manzoni, now in the face of this invasion by philosophical Germany little resistance was offered, so little that most people got the impression, not completely unfounded, of a renewal. A different philosophical culture had existed in Italy for centuries, and in the twentieth century it was in the process of renewing itself. But it had been confined to religious and monastic environments, and only after the acquired dominance of Italian idealism was it to manifest itself with the neo-scholastic movement. The main representatives of the latter movement always had to grapple with neo-Hegelianism and, even when they weren’t attempting, they still wrote in the climate established by this dominant philosophy.

As conspicuous neo-Hegelianism was in Italy as a cultural phenomenon, it was still merely the Italian offshoot of a world movement which in those days was so widespread in various nations that in some respects it extended its branches even as far as to Japan. In France it had Octave Hamelin as its main representative, who, between the two possible expressions of the Hegelian Absolute Idea — as a method for its own moments, or as Personality — had developed this latter aspect with the not hidden intention of safeguarding Christian sensibilities[4].

Evola’s philosophical work was born in the intellectual climate that we have broadly outlined. It arose as an attempt to overcome and develop Italian Hegelianism, in dispute with Giovanni Gentile much more than with Croce, for whom Evola had a greater human consideration than for the thinker from Castelvetrano.[5] Also Evola’s philosophy was imbued with German philosophy, but drawn from those authors whom neo-Hegelianism, when it did not completely despise them, certainly neglected. Nietzsche above all, but also the mature and later writings of Schelling, Schopenhauer and others such as Stirner and Weininger. Evola also referred to authors of French spiritualism and to Bergson himself and had a particular consideration for certain aspects of the thought of the Swiss Secrétan which justified the death of God, and for the thought of Hamelin. As for Italy, it was the then new and unusual thought of Michelstaedter that attracted him, so much so that he derived from him, as well as a strong inspiration, the very idea of the absolute individual.[6] Thus, a whole world of thought flowed into Evola which, even when it was born on the common ground of contemporary German and European philosophy, had a spirit strongly dissonant with those of neo-Hegelianism. It was characterized by the absolute affirmation of the individual, by entrusting everything to his unlimited will, as circumscribable by nothing and no one, and to his unconditioned choices; radical contingency; the claim that the individual could exceed and transcend any part of his former nature and condition, and possessed the unbound power of yes and no.

But Evola’s philosophy was not only rooted in philosophy. There is a fundamental aspect of his speculation, often overlooked by scholars, and on which we must insist if we want to have a truly complete vision of his philosophical thought. There was in Evola a side that brought him closer to Marx, although he never mentions this author in his Essays on Magical Idealism, or in the Theory and Phenomenology of the Absolute Individual. In his Thesis on Feuerbach Marx wrote: “Philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it”. Evola too was convinced that Gentile’s actualism, in which he recognized the ultimate outcome of Occidental speculation, of modern subjectivism and idealism, had the obligation to move on to actual realization of its theoretical assumptions in practice. One could not limit oneself to maintaining that the world that surrounds us is nothing but the object of my thought and of its thinking act, if one then remained powerless against this object, unable to transform it and resigned to undergoing its determinism in the vicissitudes of one’s personal life. The solution envisaged by Evola, and which he considered the only valid for overcoming idealism, was not, however, the overturning of philosophical theory into political practice. This was for Evola destined to leave man’s servitude to nature and history intact, or in any case, to postpone his liberation from nature and history to a hypothetical, distant and problematic advent of a communist society.

Arriving from distant origins, at the beginning of the twentieth century a whole underground culture had risen which with Éliphas Lévi had given itself the name of “occultism”, and which brought together in a never before coagulated amalgam detritus from different ancient religions, new cults, Oriental cults, new spiritualism, theosophy and spiritism, heterodox versions of Christianity, sectarian experiences, paranormal and preternatural phenomena, alchemy, astrology, and finally magic in the most diverse forms and ways. The strength and extraordinary power of diffusion of this movement in the most varied environments of the Occident were due to a profound impulse that Occidental culture has carried within from its origins and dragged along its multi-millennial history. The Occident has always looked outside itself, has searched elsewhere far in time or space for its true homeland and seat of truth. If we look closely, this profound and inexhaustible impulse played no small part in the very advent of Christianity. For the ancient Greeks, and for the Greek philosophers themselves, Egypt was the seat of truth and all wisdom. Medieval men looked to Jerusalem as their true homeland. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the discovery of the Sanskrit language and the ancient Egyptian language had the effect of prompting many to seek wisdom and self-liberation in the ancient sites of these languages, without paying too much attention to the profound dissonances and great contrasts which separated ancient Egypt from Brahminic and Buddhist India.

In this blooming of sects, cults, and experiences Evola became an expert, and personally followed methods of realization drawn from Buddhism, to which he was indebted for overcoming his youthful temptation to commit suicide. Now, Evola’s philosophy sought the way to actualization precisely in magic. But what was to be understood by magic, and how was it to be conceived to lead to the desired overcoming of speculative philosophy? The impulse which led Evola down this road was not simply the magical idealism of Novalis, even though he was well aware of it. From Novalis Evola was able to draw the idea that “every man who now lives of God and for God must in turn become God”, and also the idea of the will as magical energy; the impulse was certainly not a rigorous ritual, nor even a concrete introduction to the magical practice with which the philosophical exigency was to be actualized. Rather, he drew inspiration from contemporary Italian magical currents, which had in Kremmerz (Ciro Formisano) the most prominent representative. It is certainly not by chance that in Mask and Face of Contemporary Spiritualism Evola places Kremmerz at the peak, and almost at the conclusion, of those experiences which, in his opinion, can open the way to an effective liberation, nor that he refers to writings of the Kremmerz school intended for internal use.

Therefore, for Evola philosophy must become practice, but magical practice, and not mere political practice. If one has to get involved in history and politics, this magical practice has its natural place behind the scenes of the history that is being built, and only occasionally can it, in well-calculated moments of acting, afford to go out on the theatre scene. If philosophy translates into opus magicum, it can only have as its central and dominant figure a unique individual: the absolute individual. Therefore, the speculative figure and the symbol which are best suited for this practice, is to be found in the philosophical position of solipsism. For Evola this latter doctrine is philosophically argued to be the necessary conclusion of his whole theory. Solipsism is for him only the necessary consequence of the critical problem posed by the whole of modern philosophy, but it is magical teaching which posits its real exigency.[7] It is important to note that magic, as it was understood in the Italian circles then close to Evola, was an antithesis to the creed of science which had come to predominate in the Occident. Even though the necessity of its operative laws can be affirmed, magic is not for everyone. Nor is it done in front of everyone, as if it were a universally experientable work, reproducible in a laboratory, so as also to be open to the public and subjected to public verification. The way of magic is completely different. Only a few possess the laws and the means for magical work, transmitted as fire communicates with fire. The magical act always reflects all the strengths and all the weaknesses of the operator, and it is a rigorously personal work. What is valid and possible for me, is not for you unless you are an operator of magic. Hence the rule of giving science only to those who have the strength, and first of all the strength to dominate oneself absolutely; never to give science to those who have no strength, as today’s scientists do with the childish politicians of the spurious West, who nevertheless consider themselves powerful in this world! Therefore, the magical act also assumes the aspect of absolute and unconditional justice. Only those who are absolute masters of themselves can possess the fullness of magical power because magic is the conception of an instant that inexorably transfuses itself into reality. In magic, the slightest movement of the soul inevitably becomes truth, and consequently a concrete and tangible fact. Thus, only the autarch can be a magician in the full sense, and only solipsism can give him a proper philosophical expression.

Evola’s philosophy was born from this vision of magic, and had a declared purely postulating and symbolic value, as it intended to communicate the traditional view of life with speculative instruments, and to facilitate the realization of it to individuals where the possibility and conditions for this were given.[8] But philosophical speculation is certainly not the only, nor the most appropriate tool for introducing this view and this practice, even if Evola chose it at a particular moment in the Italian history of the twentieth century.

Theory and Phenomenology of the Absolute Individual are full of references to esoteric and magical texts, doctrines, and practices, both Oriental and Occidental. The symbolic and instrumental aspect of Evola’s philosophy had not escaped René Guénon. The correspondence that he kept with De Giorgio attests that the French thinker had expressed reservations to Evola about the latter’s interest in philosophy, to which Evola had written to him that he would soon abandon this form of exposition of traditional truths.[9]

The reader, and the cultivator of Evola’s thought not devoted to philosophical studies, should pay close attention to those aspects of his philosophical thought which relate to magic. Furthermore, they should know that it was precisely this unmistakable trait of Evola’s philosophy that attracted him the greatest suspicions, mistrust and embarrassments from academic philosophers and his reviewers. We have written elsewhere that the woodworm of philosophy, once it has infested a mind, never leaves. This was true of Guénon himself, despite his protests that he was not and did not want to call himself a philosopher. Evola too bore the imprint of philosophy throughout his later intellectual life. From this woodworm the morphological vision of history in Revolt Against the Modern World and the rules of life in Ride the Tiger were born. Paths, interests, contents and forms would change; but that imprint remained and followed him until his last years.

[1] The unification of Italy –Trans.

[2] Historismus seems here to refer to the historism of German historians like Leopold von Ranke and Johann Gustav Droysen, while idealistic historicism had its greatest representative in Hegel. –Trans.

[3] “Begriff” is German for “Concept”, and the development of the Concept is central in Hegel’s philosophy, hence “Begriffo” –Trans.

[4] O. Hamelin, Essai sur les Éléments principaux de la Représentation, Presses Univerrsitaires de France, Paris, 1925, pp. 27–28, and the final pages 366–371 on the theistic hypothesis and God as absolute Spirit, free activity and person.

[5] Julius Evola, Il cammino del cinabro [The Path of Cinnabar], cit., pp. 35–36.

[6] See Carlo Michelstaedter, La Persuasione e la Rettorica [Persuasion and Rhetoric], Adelphi, Milano, 1982. Please note the following passages: “While the absolute individual has the reason for its intentions in itself, the illusory individuality intends without persuasion and violates things through the mutual need it calls love” (p. 63); “But their finite consciousness is mere appearance, this is not their person; underneath perdures their absolute person, which affirms itself absolutely in absolute value, which has absolute value. Man firms himself and says: I know” (p. 94); “The first Christians would have recognized that Christ saved himself because he knew how from his mortal life to create the god: the individual” (pp. 103–104); Everyone are alone and cannot hope for help unless from themselves…” (p. 104); “…the persuaded: the god” (p. 123); “… the power of persuasion… the fruit of superior individuality…” (p. 172); While the will of nature always remain infinite it does not reach the crystal; the absolute individual — the god” (p. 177).

[7] Julius Evola, Teoria dell’Individuo assoluto [Theory of the absolute individual], Bocca, Torino, 1927, pp. 343–366. Note on p. 353 the following passage: “On opinions different from his own, the “I”, if he wants, can reaffirm himself both through dialectics and with superior means that he can draw from esoteric disciplines in ways suggested e.g., in cases of ‘grace’, ‘conversions’ and ‘illuminations’ — much deeper inner evidence that overwhelm and uproot those coming from the ephemeral syllogistic and theoretical certainties of men.”

[8] Julius Evola, Teoria, cit. pp. V-VI; Fenomenologia, cit., pp. IX-X.

[9] Guido De Giorgio, L’Instant et l’Éternité, Archè, Milano, 1987, p. 264.