/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19352821]

I was convinced by pic related to read Evola, where do i start with him

[Anonymous No.19352826]

>>19352821
Stab yourself in the heart.

[Anonymous No.19352833]

>>19352821
>Don't let other opinions stop you, dive into your madness, foster your illusions, follow orders of a trad larper!
/lit/ is not for people who fall for memes. go back to your containment board.

[Anonymous No.19352839]

Start with Guenon.

[Anonymous No.19352853]

>>19352821
By returning to /pol/

[Anonymous No.19352871]

>>19352821
wrong board

[Anonymous No.19353185]

[Anonymous No.19353190]

>>19352821
>just be a retard bro and btfo the libs!
Wrong board? Yeah, wrong board.

[Anonymous No.19353195]

Clean your room, son

[Anonymous No.19353201]

>>19353185
thanks bro

[Anonymous No.19353246]

N-nobody is calling out the racist book writer! I must do so! He-he... Wrong board! There! You won't read him now, right? right?

[Anonymous No.19353248]

>>/fit/64239684
>same filename
Based /fitlit/izen?
Anyway I disagree with >>19353185, Mystery of the Grail is a very esoteric text to start with. If anything, read one of the essay collections (Recognitions, East and West, or Bow and the Club, maybe even Metaphysics of War) to get a feel for him first. Then move on to a more focused study that interests you. Here is a list of those from easy to hard imo:
>Doctrine of Awakening - Buddhism
>Eros - Sex across traditions
>Yoga of Power - Left-Hand Tantra
>Mystery of the Grail - Arthurian Legend
>Hermetic Tradition - Alchemy/Hermetism
Once you read at least one of those, then you could probably dive into his more synthetic, original works (Revolt, Ruins, Tiger).
The Path of Cinnabar is also probably a good read more towards the beginning, NOT after you've read all the main work, since it's sort of a unifying summary of all his work.

[Anonymous No.19353262]

>>19353248
Personally, I wouldn't start with Doctrine of Awakening unless you have some prior knowledge of Buddhism, or you end up trying to understand Evola's take on it at the same time trying to take on board all the Pali terminology.

[Anonymous No.19353298]

>>19352821
Evola is described as "Esoteric" for a reason, he's going to be pretty incomprehensible and although his writing is good you have to think it through yourself in chunks instead of instantly absorbing it. I could only focus on his work in shorter bursts at a time instead of all at once because of how dense it was. Not a bad thing, but different to other writers. you really have to pick up on every line's meaning and can't accidentally skip anything.

[Anonymous No.19353340]

>>19353262
I got through it just fine personally (probably my favorite work of his), but perhaps it could benefit from a glossary like the one Yoga of Power includes.

[Anonymous No.19353372]

>>19352821
From my perspective, it's a tragedy that he was a pagan.

Had he retained his faith, with that attitude, he could have become an Italian version of Josemaría Escrivá. For Escrivá preached such a radicalism, such an extremism, but in the service of Christ.

[Anonymous No.19353425]

>>19353372
I don't see why the paganism is a problem. The main thrust of his works is that one reaches the Absolute by negation of the vulgar, fallen ego. The practices and symbols used to do that are only relevant so long as they accomplish that. So it doesn't matter whether one reaches sainthood by service to Christ or Krishna, by realization of maya or anatta, by a death-and-second-birth initiation, etc., since one is reaching beyond contingent events into transcendent truths (the heavenly stones with "unknown names" from Revelations).

[Anonymous No.19353436]

>>19352821
>Be insane, be inflexible, be stubborn, socially ostracize yourself from society: do things without thinking about them, don't accept the world as it is and struggle uselessly against it, never abandon the principle of being completely impotent

why does anyone take this shit seriously

[Anonymous No.19353441]

>>19353436
YOU WILL NEVER BE A WOMAN

[Anonymous No.19353446]

>>19353372
Yeah if only he were subordinated to my pet beliefs he could have been a literally who from a negligible country run by controlled opp so as to be no help to the Axis

[Anonymous No.19353489]

>>19353436
when you ain’t got nothing you got nothing to lose

[Anonymous No.19353504]

>>19352833
Retards on /lit/ have been jerking off Evola for at least the last decade, this board is definitely meme-tier

[Anonymous No.19353523]

>>19352821
>don't accept what they call 'the reality of life' and act in such a way that you won't be accepted by that kind of 'life'

That's literally the operating principle of trannies.

[Anonymous No.19353592]

>>19353523
noooo trannies are degenerate theyre not like evola noooo

[Anonymous No.19353600]

>>19353436
Because this is called living, which is infinitely preferable to merely existing as a hyllic being so miserable you're just awaiting death and at the same time fear it. I'd rather be a radical retard that a careful, calculating bugman.

Kys btw tranny

[Anonymous No.19353606]

>>19353436
you know what site you're on right, anon?

[Anonymous No.19353620]

>>19353600
based proud retard

[Anonymous No.19353625]

>>19353523
So trannies were actually Evolians all along?

[Anonymous No.19353638]

>>19353600
He says as he writes a shitpost on 4chan /lit/ then goes back to his regular 9-5 life, complaining about libtards doesn't make you a rebel, you're just an impotent loser.

[Anonymous No.19353639]

>>19352821
Surprised that he used "bourgeoisie". What did Evola think of Marxism?

[Anonymous No.19353657]

>>19353639
Evola hated both slave rule (communists) and merchant rule (bourgeoisie).

[Anonymous No.19353663]

>>19353185
Never understood this list.
99.99% of people who read the Hermetic Tradition that early will be entirely filtered by almost everything in it, whether or not they know it.
If you want to start with Evola, read Guenon first, and follow the Guenon chart, as it is accurate and sensical.

[Anonymous No.19353666]

>>19353657
He was just butthurt that his aristocratic class was btfo by the bougies.

[Anonymous No.19353672]

>>19352821
If you're getting into Evola for a Peterson type dad replacement because your Dad was a pussy or something, then read Handbook for the right wing youth (which I believe your quote is from) but probably just steer clear of Evola altogether. If you're an adult who has your life together, willing to engage with Evola not for his politics, but his worldview that his politics are merely informed from, then I'd say start with some Guenon (crisis of the modern world, intro to hindu doctrines, Reign in Quantity) or just jump right into Revolt. You strike me as someone who will get filtered since you're probably in highschool and will have to google a bunch of shit he brings up, which is fine but read slowly and don't try to look for the "based political implications" of what you're reading. Apologies if my strawman of you was inaccurate or patronizing, but I've seen 1,000,000 threads start out with that pic and they're all of a certain "type". Just engage with Evola seriously as one man to another and not as some sort of weird quasifather figure or expect him to have all the answers.
>t. Evola appreciator

[Anonymous No.19353674]

>>19353638
>projecting
I raided your parents house last night while you were sleeping in the basement and fucked your mom

[Anonymous No.19353901]

>>19352821
Watch Academic Agent Evola Week on YT, pls.

[Anonymous No.19354076]

>>19352871
>>19352853
>>19353190

But this is the literature board? I don't understand.

[Anonymous No.19354257]

>>19352821
That quote works much better with Evola's actual photo instead of this. Anyway.
If it is that quote that inspired you to read him, start with Ride The Tiger, Revolt Against the Modern World or Men Among The Ruins. Bow and the Club or Recognitions could also be a good start - those are essay compilations. Metaphysics of War would also be a great read, although it's not a practical one, so it might be best to start with another book. Finally, the essay Orientations was written to, well, orient people, so it's also a natural starting point for those interested.
>>19352833
>>19353436
>>19353523
You are literally shilling for conformism here, unless you are going to be so kind as to outline a third option categorically different to both. Are you willing to do that?
>>19353185
Bad chart.
>>19353262
Doctrine of Awakening was my first book on traditional religion, really - the terminology was a bit hard to get used to, but I found it to be an extremely enlightening book. I cannot understate how important it was for my approach to studying religion.
>>19353639
He thought Marxism is the natural conclusion of the bourgeois liberal experiment - one cannot go without the other. In the end, both reduce humanity to the collective element and extirpate personality.
>>19353666
To Evola, aristocracy is primarily a spiritual principle - the existence and prosperity of a "class" of aristocrats is of secondary importance, entirely relative to their faithful application of the principle.
>>19353672
I really do not understand all of the posters who say "start with Guenon", Guenon is absolutely not necessary to understand and appreciate Evola. I started with Evola and I am very happy I did so.

[Anonymous No.19354285]

>>19354257
I never said Guenon was required reading but Evola literally builds off his ideas and even defers to him saying "check Guenon for further explanation". So it's retarded to think Guenon isn't at least good supplemental material. Also I figure OP is some /pol/tard so I want him to start with a view of Traditionalism divorced completely from politics so he doesn't go interpreting Evola as some overly political thinker. Evola was a Traditionalist, an esotericist, and a responder to Nietzsche (in that order) and very lastly a political thinker. Yet poltards tend to read him in the opposite order.

[Anonymous No.19354371]

>>19354285
It's a great thing to read Guenon, but why "start with Guenon"? It's a completely needless thing and their works are different enough that someone intrigued by Evola may be bored by Guenon, at least at the start.
>Also I figure OP is some /pol/tard so I want him to start with a view of Traditionalism divorced completely from politics so he doesn't go interpreting Evola as some overly political thinker. Evola was a Traditionalist, an esotericist, and a responder to Nietzsche (in that order) and very lastly a political thinker. Yet poltards tend to read him in the opposite order.
Much easier to just let him read Evola and then talk things out with him desu. I was also attracted by Evola's more political mystique at first, but as soon as I picked up my first book of his, my interest immediately shifted to his more existential side, and then afterwards to Traditionalism. Just let people figure it out anon.

[Anonymous No.19354388]

Start with having sex. Particularly with a Satanist or Wiccan Chick.

[Anonymous No.19354409]

>>19354388
Ironically, Evola was involved with one of those lol. Some French-Russian woman, forgot the name.

[Anonymous No.19354418]

>>19354388
Evola literally had sex with a Satanist magician chick though
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_de_Naglowska

[Anonymous No.19354440]

>>19354418
Is that a real photo with a real snake or is it a painting?

[Anonymous No.19354461]

>>19352821
But when I do pic related and refuse to get a job, people call me lazy.

[Anonymous No.19355997]

>>19352821
This kind of thinking makes no sense, especially seeing as it always posits itself as more real, vital, and in touch with some primal truth and authentic way of living than other people.

The way humans are meant to live is they evaluate the human made social context around them at birth and for the most part cooperate and interact holistically within it. That's the standard, intense interdependency and thinking oriented around practical problem solving and cultural conditioning. Most commonly for most of recorded history these practical problems were farming related and a minority of the time war related. But not you get to be the doomslayer war, stupid, muddy, do what your told shit flinging in strictly hierarchical formation.

Any philosophy based around being a free radical, constantly moving, constantly in atomised conflict, constantly trying to force your idiosyncratic vision on the world is whatever, who cares, but what's bullshit is acting like this isn't some elaborate cope you invented in your head that is in fact further seperated from any kind of fundamental biological or spiritual truth than what everyone else is doing. In the context humans actually evolved to live in your tribe would have caved your head in with a rock cause you wouldn't shut the fuck up and help out the way you're told you need to help out.

[Anonymous No.19356036]

>>19354257
>You are literally shilling for conformism

There are only two options of rebellion, actually opposing the government/society, which leads you to being killed or imprisoned, or LARPing, which is gay. If your only options of fighting back are weak or suicidal then you don't have a very effective strategy and should just be a non-participant.

[Operaismo guy No.19356157]

>>19356036
There are other paths but they aren’t advertised but lived. Start by contemplating Mao on war with the terrain as the factory.

[Anonymous No.19356277]

>>19355997
The reason you can't understand the mentality outlined in that quote is because Evola is championing spiritual values, i.e. the source of all independence and freedom, whereas you seem to be championing the cause of every form of conditioning and conformism - social, biological, practical etc. So yes, Evola's view is indeed more "real, vital and authentic" than yours, because you are championing passivity and base instinct in every respect. If you live your life as the passive victim of conditioning, you in fact lack ontological Being - you have no agency, you are just a tool. The point behind that Evola quote is to encourage personality, autonomy and independence, so that people may exist properly, on their own terms - everything else stems from there.
>>19356036
There is no logical connection underlying your words, this is just a bunch of dumb assertions and copes that you are pushing because, well, I don't fucking know why, actually. In any case, you are completely incoherent because your claims exclude the possibility of any revolutionary change by default and we actually have historical examples of such change occurring - take for instance the Jacobins or the Bolsheviks, neither of which can be said to have followed the conduct you outline for the entirety of their existence. Really your point boils down to this:
>just be a non-participant.
In other words, you want people to be passive and without agency. Why you could possibly want that, I do not know. I doubt you are a billionaire or involved with the highest offices of government, so this opinion of yours must stem either from resentment, bitterness or cowardice/shame of some kind.

[Anonymous No.19356352]

>>19356277
There is literally nothing you can do that isn't conforming. It's all conforming to your individual biology in concert with external factors you didn't choose. You're not any less natural or chained if you act unusually. That's just the shape your phenotype threw in response to your environment.

>Evola's view is indeed more "real, vital and authentic" than yours, because you are championing passivity and base instinct in every respect

Sorry how is ginning yourself up on contrived abstracts more authentic than other literal natural behaviours. Authentic to what.

[Anonymous No.19356427]

>>19352821
I can see the appeal of that pose to young men who have the "I can take on the whole world" attitude before life kicks them in the stomach. It seems edgy and dramatic, and presents itself as an alternative to the postmodern condition which corrodes all "substantial belief" in acid. But it can get pretty goofy, too, and ontologically reminds me of anarchism a little bit -- if you've ever met train-hopping anarchists who are invested in "being the radical" and refuse to "be accepted by that kind of 'life.'" I think there are also obvious problems with refusing to "count" or "calculate." Well, your enemies are very calculating.

>>19356277
My feelings is that any kind of "counter-culture" is doomed to be commodified and co-opted. That's kinda how that works today which is why it's so ironically funny to me that conservatives will say "conservatism is the new punk rock" which turned into Hot Topic stores in American malls selling punk rock to people. So it's not a question of whether you sell out or not, it's a question of the price tag. Then it's also ironic and self-aware so the commercial marketing makes fun of itself or winks at the camera which gives the consumer a kind of permission to buy the thing without feeling like an idiot.

So, to be subversive or avant-garde, is to not be "counter-cultural" anymore or to even intend to "be" subversive. I think it's more like stiob art or something where you take the logic of the system itself and overidentify with it. It's a kind of subversive affirmation.

https://youtu.be/VRB0hU7qMZ4

[Anonymous No.19356446]

>>19352833
>containment board
/pol/ IS 4chan
but Gmoot needs his ad money so blueboard faggots such as yourself are unfortunately unavoidable.

[Anonymous No.19356457]

>>19356352
>There is literally nothing you can do that isn't conforming. It's all conforming to your individual biology in concert with external factors you didn't choose. You're not any less natural or chained if you act unusually. That's just the shape your phenotype threw in response to your environment.
It seems that you view humanity as nothing more than completely passive and soulless automatons who act entirely on inertia. While I concede that there are many people who choose to spend their lives in this way - including you, perhaps, which would explain your position - it is in fact possible to take an active stance in life as well. Human beings do not choose their biology or their environment, but we retain full autonomy to react to these things in any way we feel appropriate. This is our freedom. Just because most people do not use it or even realise it exists does not mean that it is not there.
>Sorry how is ginning yourself up on contrived abstracts more authentic than other literal natural behaviours. Authentic to what.
Authentic to spirit. Spirit liberates the will from conditioning and captivity. If you want more information on this topic, you can read Evola's Metaphysics of War, where Evola explains how the experience of something like a Crusade, for example, aids the spirit in overcoming the human condition - risking death (i.e. going against natural insticts) for a selfless transcendent cause breaks all dependence to "natural behaviours". A similar spirit underlines the quote in the OP - by taking up principles which are assigned primary value over everything else, the human being is liberated from the contingencies and conditioning of everyday life.

[Anonymous No.19356498]

>>19356427
>I think there are also obvious problems with refusing to "count" or "calculate." Well, your enemies are very calculating.
Pic related is from Ride the Tiger.
>My feelings is that any kind of "counter-culture" is doomed to be commodified and co-opted. That's kinda how that works today which is why it's so ironically funny to me that conservatives will say "conservatism is the new punk rock" which turned into Hot Topic stores in American malls selling punk rock to people. So it's not a question of whether you sell out or not, it's a question of the price tag. Then it's also ironic and self-aware so the commercial marketing makes fun of itself or winks at the camera which gives the consumer a kind of permission to buy the thing without feeling like an idiot.
You are conflating Evola's views with that of American right wing conservatives, which is even further complicated by the fact that the second comprises anything from hard right to liberal centrists. Evola laid out a pretty clear line of conduct for the type of people interested in making a stand for Traditionalism. Furthermore, I object to your view that Traditionalism can be co-opted by liberalism. Even punk anarchists etc. follow the same fundamental values of liberte, egalite, fraternite - this is the reason why they are so easy to co-opt. It is very difficult to imagine how the liberal system could stomach and digest the doctrine of the castes, anti-materialism, etc. etc.

[Anonymous No.19356618]

>>19356498
>Furthermore, I object to your view that Traditionalism can be co-opted by liberalism.
It's just part of the "society of the spectacle," which is the heart of the unreality of the postmodern condition. We live in a society that specializes in alternative images which can be recuperated as a supplement or decoration. Traditionalism is nothing more than just another pseudo-world that can only be looked at. Or if you look at the U.S. Marine Corps ad:

https://youtu.be/bCjEV75F2tM

It sells the guy on the Marines as an alternative world (presented as the "real world") with its sense of duty, honor, tradition, individual subordination to a hierarchy, etc., as an "escape" from the "fake world" of the cyberpunk city where his own digital reflection is basedfacing back at him while holding up consumer products. But he joins the Marines to fight to defend that same dystopian cyberpunk city, y'know? So being "real" is like being the ultimate dupe. And the Pentagon is doing this while they're also selling people on the Air Force with a pitchwoman who is talking about how it allows her to express herself as a lesbian. Either way, the belief that you can't be co-opted, or weren't co-opted *from birth* is the most delusional attitude to have today.

Now, it all does seem very unreal, but that's why I talked about embodying that unrealness. I always like avant-garde techniques like Laibach where you show up and say "we are the prevailing way of life and are the total justification of the system." That's more interesting to me.

https://youtu.be/i3vxzdkcN8A?t=747

[Anonymous No.19356634]

[Anonymous No.19356640]

>>19356618
if you went beyond the contemporary first world cityscape, you would witness a very different reality. is that a pseudo-world? is my small town here in africa a pseudo-world?

[Anonymous No.19356641]

>>19356640
No, it's the same world.

[Anonymous No.19356700]

>>19356640
Or to put it another way, when Evola talks about going on a crusade or wandering around a city to get in tune with the cosmos while Allied bombs are raining down on it... I have to reply with my friends who have been shot at in war zones or seen people get killed. Do you know what they felt?

Nothing. They were just doing a job. Some insurgents blew some civilians away, so they showed up and what did they see? Some meat on the pavement which used to be people. What deeper insight can you find in that? If you want to try it out for yourself, go to the supermarket, get some pork, and dump it on your sidewalk and stare at it. So the idea that the war is some alternate universe where things are "real" compared to the fake bourgeois society that you're living in is delusional. It's just as real.

Besides, most people who experience war nowadays are civilians who didn't have a choice in the matter. So whatever insight a soldier "has" about war, some 13-year-old girl who had her parents' house blowed up has just as much of it.

[Anonymous No.19356735]

>>19356618
I am sorry to say this, but it shows that you know nothing of the work of the author in question. Traditionalism is far more than a set of beliefs, an intellectual position or an identity. Evola devoted much of his energy critiquing "intellectualism". Traditionalism is something to be lived in an intensely personal way. When we are looking at the collective or social level, Traditionalist conduct is to be characterised by a visible, existential nonconformist intransigence. The example you gave with the army is interesting, because army life is indeed an entirely different reality from that which the average citizen knows of. But Traditionalism differs from your example in that it is entirely opposed to modernity and does not defend it even remotely. The aim is utter independence from the conventions of the system.

[Anonymous No.19356775]

>>19352826
>>19352833
>>19352839
>>19352853
>>19352871
damn, what a based OP, it really riled up the NPCs.

[Anonymous No.19356777]

>>19356700
Not the anon you are responding to, but if you actually read Evola's books, you will discover that he is a far more nuanced writer than you give him credit for. He speaks of the possibilities of war, not of some immutable and universal experience of war. The Crusaders certainly did not understand war as your average American grunt does, not even remotely - to assert otherwise is completely anachronistic. In fact, Evola specifically discusses how the modern world reduces every vocation to "jobs" and "work". The military is not exempt from this. This is the bourgeois or mercenary understanding of war - war as work. Of course approaching war with such a view will not net any spiritual benefits. Evola already discussed similar problems in regards to the first world war and examines the contrast between the experience of people like Henri Barbusse on the one hand and Ernst Junger on the other.
>Besides, most people who experience war nowadays are civilians who didn't have a choice in the matter. So whatever insight a soldier "has" about war, some 13-year-old girl who had her parents' house blowed up has just as much of it.
You actually described not one but two major differences in these two sentences alone. Although this is less so the case today, military life is a vocation suitable to a particular type of man - only this type benefits from it, other types do not. Then there is also the matter of undergoing war actively or passively - only the former leads to spiritual growth. The example of Barbusse earlier is instructive here, because even though he was a soldier, he experienced war passively and was thus defeated and destroyed by the experience. Junger approached it as an adventure, and consequently came out of it with the maxim "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger and what kills me makes me incredibly strong".

[Anonymous No.19356787]

>>19352821
>le blonde stern looking cartoon character
You’re no better than man children watching capeshit

[Anonymous No.19357568]

start by tying a noose and hanging yourself you stupid poltard

[Anonymous No.19357878]

>>19353639
there was some kind of ur-energy that commies and fascists both fed off of in the early 20th C, this quote reads like it could have been from Lenin

[Anonymous No.19358160]

>>19352833
>/lit/ is not for people who fall for memes
Maybe in the past but look around

[Anonymous No.19358168]

>>19352821
forget Revolt and Hermetic Tradition, Ride the Tiger is the /comfy/ and easy start and most rewarding.

[Anonymous No.19358196]

>>19352821
>Be radical, have principles, be absolute ...
What's the exact source of this quote? It's repeated a fair bit online but I can't find it attributed to a specific book at all.

[Anonymous No.19358203]

>>19352821
that sounds very islamist but i'm no one to judge.

[Anonymous No.19358209]

>>19352821
i forgot why i deleted evola from my filter list but thanks for reminding me to add him again so i won't see shit threads like this again

[Anonymous No.19358418]

>>19356787
That's actually a portrait of Saint E Michael Jones